Barney
Let me get this straight - I was never into witchcraft at the beginning. I was born in that most rational of places - Cambridge - where nothing seems more normal than a student giving a five-minute-long grace in Latin before tucking into his pie and chips, and solitary old men in funny hats think it's cool to be allowed to walk on the lawn. Apart from the occasional smoke-filled sÈance, the houseguests who spoke in tongues and the odd concoctions bubbling away in a cauldron, nothing about my parents seemed out-of-the-ordinary either.
There were only two remarkable things about my primary school Newnham Croft, whose headmistress was, entirely unamusingly, called Miss Pratt. The first was how in the hell one of our teachers could have kept her job after making the whole PE group stand around a boy who'd just wet his pants in order to laugh and point at him. The second is that they tore the school down a matter of minutes after I'd left. I never did find out whyÖ
My secondary school, Netherhall, was a much more bizarre place where the teachers, oddly, seemed to enjoy what they did. It was nevertheless a good place to notch up some GCSEs and A-Levels. It was here that I met a cricket-loving young bookworm whose inherent charm and charisma, as well as his full head of lush thick hair and lithe, athletic body made him a hit with all the ladies. I can't name him here for legal reasons, suffice to say that his first name rhymes with 'Hal' and his surname with 'Gayman'. To this day, he is renowned for his generosity and lack of prejudice - he is after all the only person on record to have laughed at my feeble jokes. I am also willing to bet money that he is the only person with enough patience to read this drivel through to the end.
Returning to the fascinating history of my life, things hotted up a bit when I moved to Bristol university. Finally, I was left alone to pursue my lifelong ambition of sitting in a darkened pub making jokes about bottoms. Before I knew it 2 years had passed and as part of a nominal Modern Languages degree I was sent to deepest darkest Hessen in Germany, where I was forced to sit in a darkened 'Kneipe' and make jokes about 'Arsche' with friendly locals. One of the friendly locals then ruined it all by suggesting I join them at a nearby sauna: 'We go naked. It's fun, ja?'. Nein Danke, pal.
This was followed by a stint in Galicia in Spain, where the jokes about 'culos' started to run a bit thin. I decided it was time to pack my bags when I finally worked out that the daily greeting of the local barman - ('Oye, puto gilipollas de ingles, cuando te vas a largar de aqui de una jodida vez?'), which I had assumed to be words of encouragement, actually turned out to mean 'Oi - you English piece of shit - when are you gonna fuck off and leave us alone then?'.
On my return to Bristol, I did what all students do: panicked, did a token bit of work, was given a funny hat, thought I was cool because I could finally walk on the lawn, and was awarded a degree.
Skipping forward 2 years, via a month of interrailing around the best bits of Eastern Europe, a fascinating two-week stint in Cuba, (oh, and a bizarre way of spending one's free time known only as a 'job'), things started to turn a bit strange. Following a chance meeting with renowned West-country mystic and seductress 'Gypsy Legg' at a small North London ecology publisher, I was drawn into the heady and hypnotic subset of witchcraft known as the 'Worth of the Wands' which was based in a little known suburb of London near Putney. Having entered Gypsy Legg's abode I was strangely unable to leave. I should have spotted the signs really, although they were cleverly disguised: instead of a black cat, I found a white Dog; instead of a broomstick, a snooker cue; and strangest of all, instead of a recipe for magic spells, I came across a complex list of acronyms with a list of far-off places I thought only sailors and sheep-shaggers knew about: 'FOB Tytherleigh', 'CIF Ljubljana', 'PLCJ EAJ PBF DDU Vilnius.' Truly I had discevered the dark side. The white Dog was a most curious creature, living in a smoke-filled pit in the bowels of the house with only his faithful square-headed companion for, well, company. He was also the official keeper of the fibre-glass wand and the unusually small, strangely opaque series of coloured crystal balls. A brilliant, but quite mad mathematician and musicologationalist, he can often be heard tapping away at a strange machine, which he affectionately and frequently refers to as his 'little runt'.
Anyway, I digest. Suffice to say that over time, my spiralling descent into lunacy has been curbed only by the conviction that, somewhere in the world, I would find a saner, more rational and less superstitious place, much like the one where I was born. After years of dedicated research India emerged as the obvious choice. However, as soon as the Indian government learnt of our imminent arrival, they embarked on an elaborate ploy in collaboration with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and STA Travel, and through this led us to believe India was unsafe to travel to. So, the next obvious choice was Bangkok. If you want to know what happened next then you'll just have to check out our diary. We'll be there from 1st July 2002.
Claire
I was born in a sleepy little town in Dorset called Sherborne, (although some of you will persist that this is in fact Wales - you know who you are)! Barely out of the womb, my family upped-sticks (quite literally) and moved me to an even more sleepy village called Nether Compton, famously known as home of the moths, responsible for spinning the silk and creating that hideous monstrosity that was Lady Diana's wedding dress.
I remember cold winter days huddled inside a cold, dark lounge with no electricity. Cooking was beans on a camp stove for a while, and when the snow melted away from the windows and the light shone through again, I remember we'd developed a mysterious form of 'the pox'. I blame the chickens!
The up-side of living in what seemed like 1920 during the winter months of my childhood, was that my summers were filled with hay-making, swimming, making camps in the countryside, (girls against boys all out war obviously), and giving the wrong directions to tourists trying to find the aforementioned Butterfly Farm. We stayed out late every night playing 40/40 and drinking coke and scrumpy cider on the pub step.
My schooling was equally as rewarding, starting with primary school in the next village, where I only remember making robots, windmills and ornamental plate gardens by stealing flowers and moss from the big houses' gardens late at night. Secondary school was inexplicably just as much of a breeze.
College was my next educational adventure where I spent three years basically laughing with my sheepy friend Jason at my stroppy art lecturer's odd socks, stinky car, mad professor hair and that unfortunate time she said 'orgasm' rather than 'organism' during a still life class. And I don't know to this day how much cheese you pay for when you order half chips 'n' cheese? But that's education for you... they never teach you the important stuff!
Let's say I made a few mistakes being left to my own devices after education ceased to play a part in my life. Not going to Uni and falling into the Publishing industry being the most significant two. I've traversed several Publishing houses to date, some brilliant, some just plain useless, but I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for the publishing party trips to Londinium, which finally convinced me to leave sleepy Dorset (so, thanks Element). So after nine years of book production on some crazy titles such as Crystal Healing for Hedgehogs and Tracks through the Psychic Wilderness, meeting the Bozman (at that North London ecology publisher he mentioned - thanks Gaia), and some recent skimping and saving for this great adventure (thanks Cico), I finally have what I’ve wanted for quite some time: A YEAR OFF - WAHEY! And someone to 'survive' it with. So over to the diary, cos it's nearly time to go...