Gazza: My Story Read online

  They got married in 1966 and that room in the council house was all they could find. It was in a part of Gateshead called Teams, down near the River Tyne, which is said to be a tough area, not far from the Dunston Staithes, where the coal barges used to be loaded. They already had one baby, my sister Anna Maria, when they moved in. My nan chose her name, after she’d been to see The Sound of Music.

  When I came along a year later, my mam picked my name. She was a mad keen Beatles fan. All the way to the register office she was thinking, should it be John Paul, or Paul John? When she opened the office door, she was still going John Paul, Paul John – but then she stopped at Paul John and that was how I was registered. So I am named after Paul McCartney. I was born quickly, in an hour, so my mam says, at Pitt Street, whereas Anna took four hours, and was delivered in Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead. I arrived with long, black hair, which soon turned blond. My first memory is of being in my pram and being pushed along Pitt Street eating a fishcake. Exciting memory, eh. About a year after me came my brother, Carl, and then, about seven years later, our baby sister, Lindsay. All of us as kids had very blond hair.

  My dad was a Roman Catholic, but he never went to church. My mam is Church of England, but her mam was Catholic. We were sent to Sunday school, so I suppose you could say I was brought up Church of England, but religion didn’t play much of a part in our lives.

  We moved houses quite a few times when I was young, trying to get more space. When we found a two-bedroomed flat I slept with Anna in one bedroom, and used to amuse myself by pulling the plaster off the walls and throwing it at her. We were eventually given a whole council house in Edison Gardens in Dunston, nearer the middle of Gateshead, beside Saltwell Park. It was a brilliant park, with a lake, tennis courts and a bowling green. We lived in Edison Gardens for about eight years, so that’s the house I remember most from my childhood. For the first time we had a front and back garden and Carl and I had our own bedroom. We had bunk beds and used to fight all the time about who slept on top.

  Anna was the talented one, great at singing and dancing, and we used to put on little shows for the neighbours, entrance 2p. She would sing and dance and I would rush in and do a striptease, which infuriated her because she took it all very seriously.

  My mam remembers a gypsy coming to the door one day. She never turned gypsies away, but she had no money as my dad was out of work at the time. The gypsy asked if she had any toast. My mam went and made two slices of toast, and the gypsy said she would read her palm. Mam held out her hand and the gypsy said: ‘It’s full of feet. I can’t see your palm for feet coming out of it.’ Me mam asked what this all meant and the gypsy told her that one of her children would be famous for their feet. Naturally, Mam thought it would be Anna. It wasn’t till I was about six or seven that she thought it might be me.

  When my dad did have a job we felt quite well off. We never went on holiday – a day trip to Whitley Bay was the nearest we came to that – but he got himself a little car and there would be good presents for us at Christmas. I got my first football when I was about seven, and Carl and I were given a Tomahawk bike each when I was eight. Carl proved himself better than I was at doing wheelies. When money was tight there would be trouble paying the clothes club. At Christmas I did a lot of carol-singing to get money to buy sweets or cigarettes for my mam and dad. They both smoked, but I never did, not even as a teenager.

  My mam was the one who mainly tried to discipline us. She’d use a slipper on us when we’d done something really bad. Fighting with Carl once, my dad tried to stop us, but I was sent flying over the TV and smashed it. I ran out of the house, knowing I’d get a real bollocking this time. Eventually I came home and apologised.

  Both the TV and our electricity supply ran on meters. You had to put 50p in the slot to get them working, and a man used to come from time to time to unlock the meters and take the money away. Carl and I watched him carefully to see how it was done, but we couldn’t figure out how to get the meters open so in the end we just forced the lock on one of them. We got the slipper for that.

  I remember my mam bringing home a goldfish each for me, Anna and Carl, which she’d won at the Town Moor fair. We decided to race them. We took them out of their bowl, put them on the edge of the table and each banged our own goldfish on its tail to make it move, trying to be the first to get our fish across the table. None of them made it, because of course they all died. When Mam came in and discovered what we were up to, out came the slipper again. She used to hold it in her hand like John Wayne held his pistol.

  My dad never hit me, though I did see him and Mam have violent rows. I think it was just frustration. I’m not trying to excuse him, but I can understand it. It was hard for him being out of work. He wanted to work; he was trying to be a winner.

  In the summertime, Mam would send Carl and me to bed when it was still daylight. Sometimes we would climb out of the window and go off to play in the park. The first time she discovered we were missing from our bedroom she was frantic, thinking we’d been abducted or something. We’d throw the mattress out of the window and jump down on to it. Often we hurt ourselves as we fell. Every summer either Carl or I had a broken arm or leg. Usually it was me. My sisters didn’t seem so injury-prone, but I was from an early age.

  My first visit to the hospital was when I was about three, but I don’t remember it. My mam says I was hit on the head with a brick. It wasn’t my fault. She saw this kid holding a brick and told him to put it down, but he threw it at me. I had to have stitches.

  Then, when I was around six, there was some sort of open day at Anna’s school, with a demonstration in the school gym. After they’d done their bit, I decided to have a go as well. I ran across and climbed on to this piece of equipment before anyone could stop me – and fell off and broke my arm. That was the first trip to Casualty at the Queen Elizabeth, but certainly not the last. I ended up with a season ticket. Oh not you again, the nurses would say.

  I don’t think it was simply clumsiness – well, not always. It was more to do with the daredevil in me. I was always doing daft things. I was playing on some pipes one day – big concrete ones on a building site, which had been piled up against a wall – and I was sliding down the biggest one, legs open. I hadn’t realised there was a big nail sticking out. That time I had to have fifty-six stitches. Butterfly stitches, they were called.

  Then, in Saltwell Park, when I was seven, I fell off a tree and broke my arm. I was trying to swing from tree to tree but missed the one I was aiming for. My arm was in plaster for six weeks, but that didn’t stop me going swimming in the lake in the park. I swam with my arm in the air, or tried to, but the plaster would get all soggy and I’d have to have it redone.

  My first school was Brighton Junior Mixed. I got into quite a few fights there because the other kids called me names. I can’t remember them all, but one of them was ‘Tramp’. Because of my clothes, perhaps, or the family I came from, I don’t know. So I had to defend my honour, didn’t I? Not in school, or in the playground: I waited till the name-callers came out of school, and then I got them.

  At home, I often fought with Anna as well as Carl. I knocked out one of her teeth once. The fighting Gascoignes. We’d fight over anything, even crisps. My mam would empty several packets out into a bowl, and then we’d all fight each other for our favourite flavour. But when we weren’t scrapping, we were singing and dancing and loving each other. I’d say I had a very happy childhood, at least up to the age of twelve or so. If my mam and dad had an argument, I would rush across and hug both of them. I’d cry if they started rowing, or if my dad left us. I loved them both so much.

  When my dad was out of work, he’d go out at night and dig in the field for coal. This didn’t involve any actual digging. There was a coal depot near us at Dunston, and when the coal wagons were being shunted, a lot of coal would fall off into the field, so people would go out and pick it up in the dark. Me dad would put his salvaged coal on the fire and we’d toast
bread and have beans on toast. It was my favourite meal. Some of my earliest memories are of going with my mam to bingo. One night – I must have been very young then because I was sitting on her knee – she won a tin of beans. That was brilliant. Even today I prefer beans on toast to caviar or a fillet steak.

  My mam and dad fell out several times and he moved out, sometimes to a room over a pub, on his own. When I was about ten he moved to Germany, to look for work on the building sites, like the blokes in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. He was away about a year and we kids fought even more in his absence. I don’t think he always sent money home. My mother had three jobs at one time: she went out cleaning in the mornings, did two hours in a factory in the afternoon before coming home to give us our tea, then more cleaning in the evening. She also worked for a while in a chip shop.

  We didn’t starve but we didn’t have much. All four of us kids would get into the bath together, then we’d put our clothes in the bath and wash them. We only had one decent set of clothes each, so me mam would have to take them to the all-night launderette to dry them, then stay up half the night ironing them for us to wear in the morning.

  When I was seven, I had a weird experience. I’d been playing football in the park all afternoon and all evening. I had my new football and I kept on playing, even though it had got dark and all the other kids had gone home.

  As I was walking home on my own, I looked up at the stars and thought, how long do stars go on for? Then I wondered, how long is life? How long will I live? How long will I be dead? Will it be OK when I’m dead or will I feel different? Suddenly I was scared, and I ran all the way home, screaming and crying.

  I got into bed with me mam and dad, squeezed in beside them, cuddled close. I didn’t tell them why I’d been screaming. I just sort of hid it in my head. In fact it didn’t come out again till recently, in a conversation with a counsellor at a clinic. It was a massive relief to talk about that. Looking back, it was the first time in my life I was aware of death. I’d never actually seen anyone die. I’ve always been afraid of dying, for many reasons, since then, but until that counselling session, I’d never realised when it all began.

  “Paul did make us laugh. I used to look forward to him coming home from school and telling us the latest joke he’d heard, or something funny that had happened.”

  Carol Gascoigne, Paul’s mother

  2

  STEVEN

  According to me mam, I was playing football when I was nine months old. I walked at nine months, and talked at nine months, so I might have managed to push a ball around as well. From about four or five I was playing all the time, in the street and in the park, just like most of the other boys in our neighbourhood.

  My dad had played when he was younger, just for a local team, a railway team, and on Sunday afternoons he used to have a knockaround in the park, after he’d been to the pub, just with his mates, other grown-ups, most of them probably half-drunk. I used to play with them, even though I was only little. He would encourage me to do tricks and I could tell he was proud of my skill.

  I suppose I knew from about the age of seven, when I was given that first football, that I had a talent for the game. I was aware that I could play it better than other boys. My dad would give me tests, getting me to dribble down the pavement with my ball to the shops and back, timing me, and then making me do it again, only quicker. When I did a paper round, I used to kick a ball with me all the way, in and out of the houses.

  I first got into the school football team when I was eight, even though I was younger and smaller than everyone else. At ten I won my first little trophy, and from then on, I wanted to be a professional player, though if you’d asked me at the time what I wanted to be when I grew up I would probably have said a millionaire. I remember announcing just that on the bus one day when the other lads were talking about their own ambitions.

  I was awarded my cup in a penalty competition for all Gateshead primary schools, scoring 12 out of 12. I took my trophy home and kept it under the bed in case any burglars found it. I then got a place on a weekend coaching course at a country camp, where I met Keith Spraggon. He lived not far away from me but went to a different school. He was very good at football, and we became close friends.

  What I wanted was to get into the local Redheugh Boys’ Club. They had a brilliant football team, and their big rivals were Wallsend Boys, who have produced many well-known Newcastle players over the years. I was too young to join the club, but I’d climb over the wall and watch them training. I pestered everyone to take me along until finally I persuaded my dad to get me in. He had to swear that I was a couple of years older than I was. At first I just acted as ballboy or helped put up the nets, but eventually I got into the team, and so did Keith Spraggon.

  My first hero was Johan Cruyff. I watched him on telly over and over again, and copied his turn. I also loved Pele, like every other football fan. I was a Newcastle supporter, of course, from an early age. When we lived at Edison Gardens, we could hear the roar from the Gallowgate End at St James’ Park. The player I liked best in the team was Malcolm Macdonald. He was my first local hero, I suppose.

  At eleven, I left Brighton Junior Mixed for Breckenbeds Junior High. I was good at all sports, usually the best in the school. I won cups for basketball, tennis and badminton and of course played football for the school. I liked maths and was quite good at it, and I learned to play chess. I pestered my mother to buy me a set, and when she did I taught her how to play as well. I’d also play cards with her for money. I usually won, but she’d keep going till either she won her money back or I fell asleep.

  Whenever I had any money, I’d spend it on sweets. Keith and I and some other boys used to go into one particular shop where we’d take the mickey out of the woman who ran it, winding her up and causing trouble. We’d try to nick the sweets and she’d chase us out. One day, when I was ten, I took Keith’s little brother Steven with us, telling his mam I’d look after him. I was mucking around in the shop when Steven ran out into Derwentwater Road in front of a parked ice-cream van. He didn’t see there was an oncoming car and it went right into him.

  I ran out and and stood over his crumpled little body, screaming, ‘Please move, please move!’ His lips did seem to be moving slightly, but soon he was completely still. I was on my own with him for what seemed like ages, while someone went for his mother. I just had to sit there, watching him die, waiting for his mam and the ambulance to arrive. I can still see his mother, Maureen, running down the road. She’d rushed out of her house with no shoes or stockings on, screaming and screaming.

  It was the first dead body I’d ever seen – and I felt Steven’s death was my fault. I had said I would look after him and I didn’t. I couldn’t understand why he had died when he was so young and hadn’t harmed anybody. It didn’t make sense. Why had God let him die? For weeks and weeks I’d wake in the night, reliving the scene. I suppose I should have had grief counselling, if they had such a thing in those days. I’ve talked to psychiatrists about it since, and I still go over the accident in my mind. Just speaking of it can make me cry.

  Something else awful happened about that time. My dad had returned from Germany, but he wasn’t well. From the age of sixteen, he’d suffered with a lot of headaches, terrible migraines which could last for fourteen days. Then he started having seizures, which the doctors decided in the end was some form of epilepsy. He was on medication, but he still got these sort of fits, during which he would be out of it for about twenty minutes, unable to talk. He wouldn’t know who he was or the names of his own children.

  This happened to him once when I was alone at home with him in the room. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, and I thought he was dying. I tried to pull his tongue out of his throat because he was swallowing it. I was afraid he’d choke and die in front of me and it would be my fault for not rescuing him. Anyway, my mam appeared and said I should keep my finger in his mouth while she rang for the ambulance. He was biting my finger so hard it wa
s killing me, so I put a spoon in his mouth instead. I kept it there till the ambulance came. He recovered that time, but not long afterwards, when he was alone in the house and just getting out of his bath, he had a brain haemorrhage and collapsed. He was rushed to hospital, where he had countless operations. They thought he was a goner, that that was it: he’d either die or, if he lived, never fully recover.

  I think he was in hospital for about eight months. Before he was finally allowed to come home, they gave him lots of tests to see if his brain was working properly. They showed him photographs of people on bikes, cars in the street, and he had to tell them what he could see. When they showed him some pictures of animals, and asked him what they were, he said: ‘That’s an elephant fucking another elephant.’ They knew then he was back to normal. ‘OK, then, Mr Gascoigne, you can go home now.’

  But he couldn’t go back to work. From the time I was twelve, he was never able to work again. So my mam had to do even more jobs to try to make ends meet. My dad would make us our tea while she went out to work. I don’t know how she managed to bring up the four of us on so little money.

  It was around this time that I started displaying peculiar twitches and began making lots of noises. Just silly sounds, sort of swallowing all the time, gulping, or just shouting. I got thrown out of school for a week for making so much noise that no one else could concentrate. I liked school and hated not being able to go. I was never late and always went, even when I was ill. I even got a star once for good attendance.

  Along with the twitches I developed various obsessions. I became obsessed by the number five, and had to touch certain objects five times, put the light on and off five times, or open and close a door five times. I had to have everything lined up at a certain angle, whether it was plates on a table or my clothes. I insisted on keeping the light on at night and still do. Even today I can’t sleep unless there is a light on. My mother now says she thinks this was her fault. She was like that herself as a girl, and she inherited the habit from her own mam who, as a child, used to see the ghosts of nuns sitting in her bedroom unless the light was kept on. So my mam did the same with us, leaving a nightlight on so that we wouldn’t be scared and she could keep an eye on the four of us and see that we were all right. Anna, Carl and Lindsay stopped all that once they had left home, but I never did.