The police knew me well and often picked me up and took me home, or to the cells for the night.
Sometimes, if I wasn't out of my mind with drink, they would take me quite a distance from Ferguslie Park so that I would sober up on the long walk home. I ran away often, sometimes intentionally, but mostly I went when I was blind drunk and didn't know what I was doing. In the morning I would wake up in London or Folkestone or even Ireland and not have the first clue how I got there. I hated myself when I was sober, and hated myself even worse after I'd been on another bender.
Some drunks are quite entertaining, some whinge and some are violent. Sadly, I was often a violent drunk. Many a time the police picked me up fighting and took me home again to my mother. 'Here's your daughter . . . drunk and fighting again', they would say, as they hauled me in the door. That poor wee woman took me in and washed the dirt off me before half-carrying me to my bed. Mum bailed me out of more trouble than she ever deserved to go through in her lifetime.
