sample from FADE INTO FOCUS, FOCUS INTO FADE SKEWARD IMAGES A NATION IN FLAMES By Nick Armbrister Early Books

This is a true story of some of the events in my life over recent years until the present day. It is not an epic story but simply tells of some events as I remember them. I don’t want it to cause a dogfight, and is not meant as a form of vengeance – it is merely mean to tell the truth in the form of this story. My mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be but I’ll be as accurate as I can with the dates and events as they happened.

The main person in the story is an ex-friend whom I fell out with at the end of 1984. No nostalgia here, for it clouds the mind and brings a false sense of security in its wake. I ended the friendship after his compulsive lying, deception, manipulation and deviousness became something I could no longer tolerate. Who would but a fool? From being a trusted best mate who stood by me through thick and thin, he turned into a real swine and a traitor whose treachery is unforgivable, using me for all he could get out of me. He attempted to sleep with many of my female friends and had varying degrees of success doing it.

To me the way he did it was slimy and not normal and no amount of lies could hide his actions when the truth became known, seeping out like acid to ruin everything, lie built upon lie. So where to start? A short journey to the beginning, I think. I like to imagine my old mate as the character Steptoe in the TV programme of the same name. Looking older than his years with rotten teeth, bad breath and a chain smoker that rarely washed, he is a person who has nothing, and even if he had little, that would soon be gone. I can see now that my friend was a real loser in all ways; we all make errors of judgement and mine was to have him as a friend for so long, for all those years, eleven and a half in total.

I met him in a pub, in town, back in June 1983. I was the Goth lad who was always moody; he was the reggae head who was the quiet one. We had a few beers and talked about music and women. He was into UB40 and I was into All About Eve and The Cult. He had just come out of a bad relationship with a girl called Dawn and I had been from girl to girl looking for happiness, without result. Was Dawn leaving him, a sign of his disharmony and uncertainty about the future? She moved to Neptune taking their only child with her. I never picked up on his devious lying ways, then, but in later years I saw this many times and could plot a course of his behaviour quite accurately to the end of the friendship. At the end of 1984 they briefly got back together and got married on the Moon. I was to be the best man, but I ended the friendship then due to the negative ways He was acting, always depressed and moaning about how she was going to kick him out or leave him – and yet they got married. Did they both not see the signs, were both blind to what was happening? I didn’t want to be his best man and I only met her a couple of times. She never really liked me and called me a bad influence. This was due to him meeting a girl called in the Bloodclot club in Manchester in 1983/4 when Dawn was on Neptune. I was blamed for him meeting her and why did I not stop him from doing it? I replied he was his own boss and was single at the time. I got back in touch with him when he had a different partner and I was about to get married in 1985 (after a welcome break to clear the air between him and me).