Having carefully selected my host mother from a short list of two hundred and fifty suitable females, I descend on planet Earth on the 8th December, 1954. Not wanting to be born in a what is called a ‘hospital’, with all the bright lights, sharp instruments and smell of disinfectant (see Earth manual, page 3989), I quickly pop into the World at 1:30am, with no time to contact what Earth people call ‘paramedics’. And before you can say ‘Queen Elizabeth the Second’, I arrive at 59, Aberdale Road, Leicester, England on a cold December morning – glad to find that host mother has plenty of warm milk on tap.

The next three years are a bit of a blur whilst I grapple with mind and body coordination. Does the right leg follow the left leg or the right arm? Do my eyes follow my head, or my head follow my eyes? Having got the rudiments right, it’s time to move onto the understanding of the various substances located in my vicinity. And one of the first things my Earth eyes discern is a sink plunger, located in what I later learn is called ‘The Scullery.’ My face beams with joy as I discover how this seemingly innocuous tool – a rubber cap on the end of a wooden stick – can pull off plaster in abundance from the walls of my abode. (First lesson in suction and air pressure). But pleasure at my experiments quickly turns to pain as Earth father first shouts at me, then pulls my trousers down and repeatedly hits my bottom with his hand. I discover that applying pressure to one surface (the wall), results in equal and opposite pressure being applied to another surface (my bottom) – and both are worse off for it. A first–hand experience of one of the basic laws of Cosmological Karma, as applied to planet Earth.

I abandon the plunger in favour of the ‘ballpoint pen’. At first, I have no idea who invented this device, but the Earthling was obviously a genius. I later discover his name is ‘Biro’. Thank you, Mr Biro, for this brilliant tool – one that can mark many surfaces, including wallpaper. Particularly wallpaper. But whilst I’m preparing to make marks on the wall, Earth father is preparing to make more marks on my bottom. Then I hear host mother call out. An argument between host mother and Earth father ensues regarding the amount of pressure that should be applied to my rear end. Then Earth father goes out. Has he left us for good, I wonder?

But no. He returns with an armful of plain wallpaper – and lots of pens. He stretches the paper over a low table and begins to draw. When he’s finished, he pulls the roll at one end, and there’s another clean piece of paper ready to draw on. Hey, this is great! Earth father has applied some intelligence to the situation – pretty impressive for an Earthling. His pictures are rather good too. I grab his pen and begin scribbling to my heart’s content. I could stay here forever – but there are other places I need to explore.

Once the climate has improved, I venture out into the Earth’s atmosphere. The liquids I have consumed now require expulsion, and I know just the place for them. My host parents attempt to persuade me to use the large white bowl with the hard, cold black seat for passing my fluids. But this bowl is located in an outside shed, and I don’t like it one bit. Who would? And why should I use this when it’s so much easier to water the plants in the garden with my in–built hose. (I later learn that the Earth name for my hose is my ‘willy’ – no explanation offered). The plants really do need watering, so I continue to nourish them – and even co–opt friends to assist me in this task. But my Earth parents don’t seem too happy about this, and father repeatedly puts me on the ‘toilet seat’. I nearly fall in.

Then one day I’m taken in our large, black transporter with the slippery brown–coloured seats. They have a strange smell, which I later learn is ‘cow skin’. How is the cow going to live without its skin, I wonder? We travel to the place I’d managed to avoid when I first landed on this planet: the hospital. It’s a brightly–lit building that smells of the stuff host mother cleans the toilet with, and I find myself in a room full of crying babies. I don’t like the sound of this one bit: no–one cries unless something bad has either happened or is about to happen. The next thing I know, I’m being taken home by Earth father. I feel very groggy, and very sore in the hose vicinity. Later on, I discover I’ve been ‘Circumscribed,’ or something like that. I have a large white plaster over my hose and there’s no way I’m going to stand outside and water the roses with that on. Perhaps that’s why they did it? I don’t know how the plants are going to survive without me.

* * *

1959. Time passes quickly whilst I familiarise myself with my environment. It’s two years since my trip to the hospital, but I’m still very wary of being taken to any brightly–lit buildings with strange smells. Imagine my anxiety, therefore, when host mother takes me to a brightly–let building not far from our abode. I feel my hose shrink to half its normal size.

But, according to host mother, it’s not a hospital this time – it’s a ‘school’ (see Earth manual page 1666). I sigh with relief when I discover that no–one is going to attack me with a knife or pump me full of drugs. However, I later learn they’re going to do something far worse with my mind during the next thirteen years.

In this ‘school’ I meet lots of other little people and feel a kinship with those I know are fellow aliens. Don’t ask me how I know… I just do – I sense it. One or two begin to cry and I anxiously look around for men in white coats. I’m relieved to see there are none: the crying is because their Earth parents have gone home, leaving us all in the hands of surrogate parents called ‘teachers’. This is excellent news: we are going to be guided by several Earth people in our understanding of this planet. I hope they take us to China – I really want to learn about that country.

I get strange looks when I refer to my ‘host mother’ and ‘Earth father’, so I decide to adopt the name tags the others use: mummy and daddy. I hope host parents respond to these names.

A nice lady with a kind smile talks to us about what we’re going to do at ‘school.’ It doesn’t sound too bad, and by the end of the day I decide that I might go back another time. But probably not tomorrow because I’ve got other research projects to work on. I don’t realise that I’ve got no bloody choice! (‘Bloody’ is a word I heard Earth father utter one day when he hit his thumb with something he called a ‘hammer’. It seems a good word to use when you want to say something strongly… I think I’ll use it again some time).

After several days at bloody school, it doesn’t seem too bad. I’ve made friends with Andrew Radford, Carl Palmer (who lives in my street), and Michael Grocock. I’ve also met two Earth females – Hilary Wood and another girl who has dark skin, but I can’t pronounce her name. There is no–one from China. The girls act like our host mothers and tie our shoelaces and ties whenever they become loose.

Andrew, Carl, Michael and me play in a sandpit one day, and with a water–tank the next. The lady with the kind smile gives us some boats to use in the water. Carl tries to use them in the sandpit, but is guided gently by a teacher’s hand – if you know what I mean. Another time, we play with the girls in a ‘shop.’ It’s not a real shop though and doesn’t sell anything you can take home, so I really can’t see any bloody point in it.

I might come back to school again next week – if it’s not raining.

One day at school, I discover a substance called ‘love’. This arrives in the form of Margaret Coleman – a female Earthling with blond curly hair and a moon–shaped face. I get a funny feeling whenever I see her – and even when I just think about her. I want to understand all about this emotion, and I decide to wallow in it for a while – for experimental purposes only, of course. (This experiment, I find, continues for the next forty–two years… but that’s another story). Margaret instantly becomes my first Earth girlfriend, even though she has no idea about this arrangement. I make a mental note to break the news to her one day – when I have the courage. In the meantime, this love thing makes me turn hot and blush whenever I see her. And something happens in the hose vicinity, which I have yet to understand.

* * *  

1960. I’ve been going to Overdale Infant School for a year now, and it hasn’t been too bad. Then, commentator’s curse: the nice lady with kind smile has left us – or we’ve left her – and a new lady has taken over the classroom. She doesn’t have a kind smile at all, and very few kind words. I’m not sure I want to stay at school, and I consider handing in my notice. But before I can do that, my life experiment begins to spiral out of control one day in the playground.

As we arrive at school one morning, Andrew Radford and I discover black marks on one of the whitewashed school walls. We decide to play what Earth people call ‘detectives’, and look around for whatever had caused the marks. Finding a few soft stones in the vicinity, we try them out on the wall – making very small lines in an effort to find the offending piece. Then one of the older boys comes out – the one who’d made the original marks on the wall – and he tells one of the teachers about our handiwork. But instead of being thanked for attempting to solve this heinous crime, we find ourselves dragged into the Head Teacher’s office – occupied by a reasonably–built woman called Mrs Pullen. Her demeanour is strangely reminiscent of daddy’s face when he’s not pleased with my experiments with substance. I hang on to my trousers just in case.

Mrs Pullen glares at us, saying some non–understandable angry words, then pulls down our socks and slaps us hard on our legs. It hurts physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. She orders us to tell our fathers about this – but I know I bloody won’t. I am now quickly learning about several human emotions – in particular: humiliation, deception, fear and injustice. I fight off the tears that well in my eyes whilst Andrew just cries openly – which makes my eyes water more.

The next day, I see Mrs Pullen and she asks if I told my father about my ‘misdemeanour’. I understand Earth father’s thought pattern well enough to know the consequences of informing him that I was punished at school. He hits harder than Mrs Pullen – and below the belt – and he might even use the ‘bloody’ word. So, I tell her my first big lie: ‘Yes, I told my father’. Others lies will surely follow later. This is not a nice planet, I conclude; but until my mission is complete, I must endure its nastiness.  



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