A Tale Of Two Rings
When I was younger, a lot younger, about 8 maybe, I joined a little youth drama group. My first role was as a sheep in Treasure Island. From there I went on to play Fizzy in Bugsy Malone and later, The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, Danny Zuko in Grease and The Narrator in Blood Brothers among many other roles. I stayed with this group, now known as Exit Stage Left, for years. The Director, Alison, had Irish descent and her parents owned a local Snooker Hall called 'The Bearberry'. The Bearberry was notorious for hosting our after-show parties and had its select regulars who made up the majority of its custom. If anyone ever watched The League of Gentlemen, this club was something straight out of Royston Vasey. A local bar for local people, if you will. But it was our local bar and I've got so many memories of that place. It held stage for most of my late teens and early twenties and was host to many a drunken story. Most of these stories involve a close group of friends, Whiting, Lance, Mark, James, Pip and Andrew. One person from this band of miscreants however turns up in 99% of the tales from the 'Bearberry Years'. From supergluing all of the ashtrays to the tables, to stealing an entire jar of pickled eggs off the bar, to emptying an entire box of glow sticks around the snooker hall so when the lights went off it was like a scene from a Tribe of Frog gig. Whiting was always by my side whenever mischief called. Don't get me wrong, this bar was more like our social club than anything and mischief was encouraged. We would rock up at midday to help with things for upcoming shows or just to socialise and end up staying until 5am, stumbling the two mile trek back home to mine and picking our cars up the next day.
We used to see what we could get away with taking at the end of the night, sort of like a trophy. Small things like ashtrays or pool balls would frequently make their way into our jackets and we would chuckle with glee at the fact nobody had noticed. We'd even sometimes sneak more than three at a time to see just how blatant we could be and still make it out the door without a clip round the ear from the landlord, Sid. One night, I decided to see if I could get out the door with a fire extinguisher. I had a big ski jacket which I hung over my arm and held the extinguisher underneath. Just as we said our goodbyes, Sid rounded the bar and asked us to sit. We exchanged a look of slight panic. Had he noticed? We're about to receive a bollocking that was well overdue by now? No, he just wanted a chat, to catch up and have one last drink before closing down for the night. We obliged and he sat between us at the bar. As he told a story, I can't recall what it was about, I was very aware that I had the extinguisher still under my coat which was now resting on the floor between my knees. I was absentmindedly fondling the handle of the extinguisher while trying to make Whiting laugh as he listened intently to what Sid had to say when all of a sudden there was a loud 'SSHHHH' sound. Whiting burst out laughing, I looked at him like a rabbit in headlights, wide eyed and mouth open, Sid just turned to look at me perplexed as to what part of me had made that sound. He studied my face as a cloud of white slowly encroached from under my coat, like a morning fog rolling across a field. Shit. This was it. I'd been caught, there was no backtracking this. I went to speak but as I did, he just turned back to Whiting and carried on from where he'd left off. I couldn't believe it!
We walked out after half an hour, extinguisher successfully under my arm, grins on our faces. Once at a safe distance we roared with laughter and retold the story in disbelief to ourselves the entire walk home.
For those concerned with health and safety, I did return the extinguisher the next day.
One night, myself, Whiting and Lance were having a pretty solid drinking session. Lance with his Jack & Coke, Whiting with his signature Malibu & Pineapple and me with whatever was my drink of choice at the time, possibly pints...
The Bearberry years were also coupled with Fat Matt. Yes, that's right I was fat. Yes that is genuinely me on the right, (Lance on the left and Whiting in the middle), below at The Bearberry on St Patrick's Day back in 2007 compared to me now, ten years later.
Undiagnosed Diabetes can cause heavy weight gain and once it had been diagnosed, (thanks to Lance), and I was put on insulin to control it, the weight just fell off.
So, this night had been proceeding as usual, drinks, laughs and banter. It must have been nearing 3am when we were up and around the pool table in the bar area being generally loud. Whiting used to wear thumb rings back then and this particular night was no exception. He was wearing a steel thumb ring that featured a central spinning part separate from the main band. He took his ring off and threw it at me. I caught it and popped it in my mouth, don't ask why because I couldn't tell you. He chuckled and exclaimed "Don't swallow that because I'm not taking you to hospital!", Lance piped up with "It's alright, I'm a nurse", he is but still, at that point in the night I don't think he could've been too much help had anything happened. I laughed at the idea of swallowing this huge chunky ring but as I did so, I swallowed the ring. My face went white. It was painful, I won't lie. "What." Whiting asked bluntly. I just pointed to my throat where I could feel the ring slowly trying to make its way down my oesophagus and winced, "It's here...", in a croaky, pained manner. "You've gotta be kidding me" Lance chuckled. I finally managed to ingest the ring and we agreed that tomorrow if it was causing any issues we would go to the doctor. The next day, I got up and got ready for work. I felt ok but my stomach hurt slightly and I was a little concerned. I told my boss and he told me to head to A&E after ridiculing me for the stupidity of the event, which he wasn't wrong about to be fair.
I got there and explained to a nurse what had happened. She order me an X-Ray to find out what was going on. As I got into the X-Ray room, I was asked to remove my shirt. I did so but as I did, the doctor gave me a very strange look. I looked down at my torso to discover a drawing. One which I had completely forgotten about. You see, after I had swallowed the foreign body, Lance decided it would be a good idea to trace the journey of the ring through my body. In permanent marker. I joked to the doctor about it to which she replied "He's pretty accurate to be fair". He'd even included the surrounding organs like a crude version of a page from Grey's Anatomy.
The X-Ray results came through and it was immediately obvious. The ring was facing forward and was very clearly visible in my lower intestine. I managed to take a photo of it but this was many moons ago before iPhones and the cloud so that photo is lost somewhere on an old Sony Ericsson. I was told to just wait and have it pass through as there was no internal damage visible. This news didn't sound good though as I could remember the size of the ring and the pain it caused going in. The outbound journey wasn't going to be a pleasant one...
I did try to save the ring by doing my business into a bag but I never actually found it. I've had X-Rays since for other things and it's never presented itself as some grafted metalwork like a poor-man's Wolverine so I can only assume it got lost to the maw of a U-bend.
Not sure Whiting would've wanted it back to be fair...
Thanks for reading,
Matt.
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