Demons to Champions - How I fell in love with my neurodivergent maverick mind - Chapter 9

Phil

If you want to read the Introduction and Chapter 1 go here -

If you want to read Chapter 8 go here -

Phil

When I look into the mirror of my memories, people and events which meant little at the time become seminal foundations. For much of my life Mr Hypervigilant drove me to distrust people. He searched for and found threat, even when there was none. Always on guard. Looking out for trouble; trying to avoid it.

When I first met Phil, thoughts of survival were uppermost in my mind. Our second coming together couldn’t have been more different. Many years later I appreciate how important this lesson was.

I was sitting in the Acropolis Snack Bar on Derby’s Market Square, situated on the ground floor of a stunning Georgian townhouse next to the old Guildhall. Inside it was all 1970’s Greek-inspired “Old Country” decor with beige walls bedecked with pictures of the Acropolis and the Corinth Canal. It was 5.00 pm on a cold wet November day.

I’d turned sixteen in October. Had my first beer the year before. Feeling like I was on my way to adulthood. Sitting across from me was a girl I’d met a couple of weeks before through Venture Scouts. She was lovely, tall and blond, with a cheeky smile. But boy, did she have a foul mouth. For a well-brought-up grammar schoolboy like me, I found her both sexy and intimidating. Four of us sat at the table. Me, ‘My Girl’, her friend and a schoolmate of mine, Chris. We sat boys on one side and girls on the other, out for a first coffee and an informal chat. Getting to know each other, and if all went well, we’d move around the corner for drinks at Jimmy’s Bar on St. James’s Street.

Moments later a tall man in his early twenties strode through the front door of the café and stopped dead in the doorway. He stared at us with a look of shocked disbelief. He was carved from granite. Shaven headed. Tight Levi jeans tucked into 24 lace-hole Doc Martin boots, blue and white check button-down collared Ben Sherman shirt and a litany of tattoos wherever skin was exposed. The standard-issue uniform of a skinhead.