"And Life Goes On. And Life Goes On. And Life Goes On and On and On and On and On..........................& life goes on.

Introducing Narky Pantaloons, Caper Berry and the Whizz.

Narky was a man hard to pin down. He could turn left in life at any moment, without so much as a by your leave. Leaving friends and loved ones in his wake. There was never a dull moment with this man who was so thin that his ribs showed through his skin. His was a metabolism that fat women would kill for. Nark, on the other hand, found it inconvenient. He had only to be a couple of hours after lunch without eating and already he had to pull his belt in another notch. He wasn't going to last long if life got lean, which, the bible assured us, was going to happen, and going to happen soon. He knew that, and had taken it on the chin. He didn't like to feel too full after a meal, and that was the philosophy that he lived by. As a young man, he realised that he could eat without affecting his body shape, and so he would eat to impress.
"Look at him eat", the middle aged women would say proudly, as he slowly ate his way through the buffet tables of the 60's, with Beef Bourguignonne and little delicious egg tartlets. He would eat until his belly was as stretched as Cool Hand Luke's after the boiled egg contest, which Luke had won. Luke had lain on the contest table after everyone had left, with a grin on his face and a belly like a hard boiled egg. He was as uncomfortable as all hell, as was Nark. Nark's position of waiting was on a sofa, belly down, groaning, his legs and neck over the sofa's arms, to give his belly room to be stretched. He did this for many of his teenage years.
Women and motor bikes followed fast, not in that order. His bikes were given pride of place in rented Melbourne lounge rooms and the women, whilst not a huge number, were nevertheless completely enamoured with him. More often than not, it was their rented Melbourne lounge rooms. He spent money on personalised leathers so that he could race with aplomb. He was fearless, looking pain and injury full in the face. Death, on the other hand, he wasn't so keen on experiencing at these tender years, and so, when lying on the hard ground of the race track, as his fellow riders raced past, he would pray.
"I won't do it again," he would promise, as he asked to be got out of that particular predicament, be it an ankle bone crushed by the bike pedal, or completely skinned elbows, knees and chin from shooting along the ground at the same speed as the bike, but without the bike. He had explained the technique to Julian. Apparently, you shot along the ground on your back, but you would move slightly to the left and slightly to the right, and slightly to the left again, and so on and so forth, until you started to slow. To impress, you would gauge the speed so that you would be able to come to a standing stop. This was tricky, but was the aim.
Nark had to give it up due to the pain, injuries, his mother and women.
He moved to the Australian bush and started a new life. He left behind a father and a mother and a brother, women and a jewellery business in Melbourne.
New beginnings.