Essex Boy: My Story (14 page)

Meanwhile, Stacie had given birth to their second kid, a girl named Hollie, and Dad was getting access to both her and Mason.
He moved her into a proper lovely new place, and at the same time
got me to move to the small house on the farm to keep an eye on the last bit of the work being done there.
It was a gorgeous house, and so big just for me on my own.
I fell in love with it straight
away.
It is where I still live today, and is the house I described at the beginning of this book.
But I felt guilty as well.
I’m not lying when I say my games room is bigger than my
mum’s flat.
Even Dad’s dog kennel is nearly as big, because those dogs are spoilt – they have a proper heated house!

Then Dad started really getting into going out, especially to this one club in Brentwood High Street called Sugar Hut.
It was a pretty ordinary club that was one of the places to go at the time.
He would head there with his mate Andy Walker, who had got me the job in Lakeside, and some other men.
Some evenings he’d call me up and say, ‘Kirk, come and get ready with the
boys,’ and we would all go round to Dad’s house before we went out, and make a real boys’ night of it.
Although I was the youngest, I didn’t feel like I shouldn’t have
been there.
I have always been mature for my age, and I was able to get on with them easily and fit in.

Sometimes Daniel was there and he would come too, but he had moved to Malia, in Crete, to teach diving, and he was travelling as well, so he wasn’t around as much.

I also enjoyed trying to get Dad to change his appearance.
At this time he was very overweight – about nineteen stone – wore glasses, was so pale it looked like he had never seen
sunshine in his life, and he was a skinhead.
His clothes were a bit ropey too – he just wasn’t a looker.
So I said to him, ‘Dad, you’re single now – get some new
clothes, keep your hair short on the sides and let it grow longer on the top, start using a bit of gel and take a bit of pride in how you look.
It’s time to start making yourself look
good!’

We went shopping to Lakeside and got him a whole new wardrobe of good designer clothes.
I even convinced him it was time to try a sunbed.
I had only started going on them myself the odd time,
but realized how much better I looked afterwards.
It wasn’t something I would have done growing up in Grays!
But in the new world I was starting to move in, it was a lot more common.
Never a
spray tan, mind you – that is more something for girls – but a sunbed was good for me.
Dad wasn’t happy about it at first, but then he really got into it.
I loved helping him with
his image and soon he was a different man!

And wow, did he love Sugar Hut, and did they love him in there .
.
.
He was their biggest spender – I’m sure he was splashing out £5,000 to £10,000 a night, and he would
be in there three nights a week.
We’d go in, and Dad would get the guy behind the bar and hand over £5,000, and tell him, ‘Let me know when that’s run out.’
And
everyone on our table would be drinking champagne and vodka, and whatever else, all on Dad.

At first, I loved it.
Sugar Hut was really nice – much more glamorous than the places I was used to going to.
But mostly it was about Dad.
He was so popular, it was untrue.
All these young
birds would be coming over to hang out with us, and I couldn’t believe they were there to chat my dad up.
I wanted him to meet a new girl – of course I did.
I hadn’t liked Stacie
because I blamed her for splitting my family up, whereas now Dad could start from scratch with someone totally different who could make him happy.
I wanted him to settle down again, but I hoped it
wouldn’t be with one of the Sugar Hut lot, as they weren’t around him for the right reasons – they liked his money, and were looking for a sugar daddy type of boyfriend.
Dad has
quite a tough image as well, and that always attracts the girls.
So while I was happy to see him have fun – and I knew it was great for his ego to get the attention – I didn’t
want him getting serious with any of them.

I loved hanging out with him because his kudos rubbed off on me – people who wouldn’t have noticed me before started paying me attention.
And my dad was proud of me.
If he was
chatting to a girl he would always be sure to wave me over, saying, ‘Here, let me introduce you to my son.’

Until that time, part of me had always thought he gave me attention because he had to, because we were related by blood.
But for the first time, I realized he was seeing me not because he had
to, but because he wanted to.
And that while I mightn’t have given him that many reasons to be proud of me in life, he didn’t hate me, and he wanted everyone to see we were hanging out
together – in fact, he was bragging about it!

Dad never once apologized for leaving Daniel and me, or for the crap we went through as kids because of him.
But in a way, it felt like he was going out of his way now to make up for it.
He had
become my biggest idol, my David Beckham.
Kids look up to David; I looked up to my dad.
No longer just for his business mind – the bit that had fascinated me as a kid – but for
everything he did.
He had become an all-round hero for me.

But the problem was, I was starting to get spoilt.
For the first few months I had been shocked by the way he threw money around, and there were times I would look at him paying one night’s
bar tab, and think, ‘Wow, Mum could pretty much live off that for a year!’
It wasn’t a good feeling, and resentment that he wasn’t helping her would once again well up in
me.
When I could, I’d pass some cash on to her.
If he gave me money to shop for myself, for example, I’d try to get her something new as well, or I’d go round and give her a whole
bundle of notes, to do with whatever she wanted.

But without me realizing it, the money and other things that Dad gave me were starting to become normal.
I was getting through the cash without really appreciating it, and just expected more of
it to keep coming.
People have accused me of living off my dad, which is simply not true.
However, the reality was that between the ages of eighteen and nineteen, I did.
Then again, I was hardly
going to say no to all these offers, was I?

Once I turned nineteen, things changed.
Suddenly he started to refuse me money.
I remember saying, ‘Dad, can I have a new watch for my birthday?’
And I pointed out the new Cartier
one.

And he laughed, and said, ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?
You ain’t me, stop trying to be so flash!’

The same happened when I asked him to pay for a holiday.
‘Dad, can I have some money for a holiday?’

‘Pay for your own holiday,’ was all he said.

‘What?’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘No, you’ve had your year now, mate,’ he told me.
‘You gotta look after yourself.
You gotta stand on your own two feet.’

And while I understood what he meant on one level, I was mad on another.
Until the big fight had turned things sour, I had been quite happy in my poor life in Grays, because I had never known
anything different.
Now he had brought me into a new lifestyle, full of money, cars and expensive designer goods, then moaned when I wanted help to stay in it.
It made me wonder if I might have
done better staying in my old life in a way, as that had been normal to me when I was in it.
But to go back to it now would have been really difficult.

Then Dad got a girlfriend who wasn’t much older than I was.
She worked in a strip club, and he asked her to leave her job and be his girlfriend.
Suddenly it seemed as if he was starting to
pull away from me.
I’d ring and ask, ‘Dad, do you wanna go to the cinema tonight?’

‘Nah, mate, I’m not in the mood tonight.’

Then I’d find out later that he had gone to see a film with his girlfriend instead.
And little things like that kept happening.
I know it sounds daft to be jealous, but I felt myself
starting to panic, like I was losing him to a woman all over again.
All the feelings I’d had when he was with Stacie kept coming back, and I could see our closeness slipping away.
I felt
scared and upset, and angry all at the same time.

To be honest, deep down I think I am an insecure person – when it comes to my dad, especially, I’m pretty emotionally vulnerable.
Now I felt like I was falling down his priority
list, and I didn’t like it one little bit.

Sugar Hut

Then one day, out of the blue, Dad told me he was buying half of Sugar Hut.
It was mad.
One week we were customers, then the next, he owned half the place.
I guess he must have
liked what he saw, because not long after, he bought the whole thing.

I was at a bit of a loose end, job-wise.
We had finished most of the work on his house, and I was looking around for other labouring to do.
But instead Dad asked me to go and work at Sugar Hut
for him, which I thought sounded good.
I started going down all the time and helping out.
But I’ll be honest, I have very mixed up feelings about him buying Sugar Hut.
Sometimes I think it
was the worst career and lifestyle move he has ever made, while other times I love that place and everything that comes with it.

What I didn’t like, though, was the difference I was seeing in Dad.
I felt like he really changed as a person.
All the smaller things I had noticed before became bigger.
We’re
similar, in that we both get really sucked into whatever we are doing, and he got really sucked into that club, and the lifestyle.
Everyone was hanging around him, kissing his arse, while milking
him at the same time.
They would be telling him, ‘Mick, you’re the man,’ and he’d think they were genuine, and I hated it.
Before I’d thought it was cool to have all
these young girls hanging around him, but now it just seemed like they wanted to use him, and I didn’t like it.

When he first bought it, Sugar Hut wasn’t doing particularly well.
It needed a lot of work to turn it around, and so Dad sold his businesses and a lot of his properties to finance that.
At
first it was a real drain on his money, and it worried me.

But on the other hand, I did love it.
I loved the social thing, and that so many people in Brentwood knew who I was.
I had gone from being this little scally kid from the wrong side of Essex to
someone people wanted to be associated with.
And, more importantly, two great things came out of those early months in Sugar Hut for me – Dappy, and Amy Childs.

Even though N-Dubz were only just starting to slip into the public’s awareness in 2007, I had been following their career for a long time and was a massive fan.
I loved what they were
doing, and thought all three of them, Dappy, Fazer and Tulisa, were really talented.
So I was proper chuffed for them when they won Best Newcomer at the MOBO Awards in September that year.
We were
hosting the after-party at Sugar Hut, and I wasn’t supposed to be working that night, but I told my mates, ‘If N-Dubz come to the party, text me, ’cos I will be there fast as
anything!’

And of course I got a text: ‘All three of them are here, get your arse down!’

So I raced to the club, and then as soon as I got there I thought, ‘Shit, what do I do now?’
I was like a proper fan, and didn’t know how to start talking to them, even though
I was desperate to.
In the end I just got a bottle of our best champagne and went over to their table.
I was shaking and everything!

‘Congratulations on the award, guys,’ I said.
‘My dad owns this place, and we wanted to send this over on the house to say well done, and we’re really happy to have you
in here.’

‘Nice one, bruv,’ said Dappy.
‘But we’re only drinking it if you sit with us and help us out.’

So I did, and that was the start of our friendship.
All three of them are sound, but it was Dappy who I really clicked with.
We are from similar backgrounds and had both been thrown into money,
and were learning to enjoy the lifestyle that comes with cash, without losing touch with our roots.
We are also like each other in that we say what we think – sometimes too much!

After that night we kept in touch.
We don’t meet up that often – music is Dappy’s priority in life, and he is away all around the world a lot of the time – but we catch
up when we can.
I go round to his and he’ll be there playing with his kids.
Despite what people think, he is really good with them, and is a great dad.

I think Dappy has been massively misunderstood over the years.
He has a good heart and always does what he thinks is right.
Sometimes he just needs a bit of guidance, because his dad passed away
just as he was getting famous, and I think he hasn’t got that person around any more who could give him a nudge when he is starting to do something a bit wrong without realizing.
He always
supports me, and I try and do the same for him – even earlier this year when he had to go to court accused of assault and affray over a fight in a petrol station, I went down to the trial to
show him I was there for him.

But the absolute best thing to come out of that first year in Sugar Hut, for me, was Amy Childs.
I still remember the day I met Amy, when she was introduced to me in the Sugar Hut Restaurant by
a mutual friend.
She was my ideal type then, and still is now in some ways, and I fell for her on the spot.

She was two years younger than me, so was sixteen, almost seventeen, and had just left school and started at college, studying beauty.
She was working at the same time as well, in a salon linked
to a Virgin gym.
Already she looked like a glamour model, and that is the look I love.
I hold my hands up, the faker a girl looks, the more I find her attractive – boob job, pumped-up lips,
hair extensions .
.
.

But it wasn’t just her looks that I went for, it was her personality as well.
I had such a connection with her – I really felt like she was my soul mate.
I didn’t connect with
many girls at that point, as I still felt awkward around them, but Amy was different; it was like she was the female version of me.
I was instantly relaxed with her, as though we were brother and
sister, but there was this huge chemistry there as well.
She was just brilliant and so perfect.
It was like we were made for each other, and from that first day, we were proper close.

We’d spend loads of time together – she became a regular in the club, and we were always round each other’s houses.
And we’d just sit and talk for hours.
People always
think Amy is really dippy, and it’s true – she is as dippy as anything!
But when she wants to be clever about something, she can really put her mind to it.
There is a sharpness there
that not everyone sees, but believe me, it is there.

And it helped that I loved her family to bits – they became like my second family.
I’d go round and her mum would say, ‘Oh, sorry, Kirk, Amy isn’t in.’

‘That’s fine, I’ll come in and see you!’

And Amy’s mum and I would catch up over a cuppa.

Since Aisha I’d had my fair share of flings, but I hadn’t had a proper girlfriend.
And now what I felt for Amy made me realize that Aisha had been more like a schoolboy crush.
But my
feelings are hard to explain.
While a bit of me knew it was love, a bit of me was fighting it as well.
Dad now owned the most popular club in Essex, I was getting loads of attention from stunning
girls and I didn’t really want to get tied down!
It was like I had met her at the worst time.

And Amy felt a similar way.
Both of us were huge flirts, but also hugely jealous of each other, so we’d kick off if we saw the other one getting close to someone else in the bar.
It was
like there was a constant power struggle between us.
One person would be fighting for the other, and more in love, and then it would switch.
So we were on and off a lot, but there was a connection
that kept pulling me back to her.

As for my actual role in Sugar Hut, well, it wasn’t very defined at first.
I was running around doing a bit of nothing and everything, just helping anyone who needed it.
I enjoyed being there, but I didn’t feel like I had really got my position in the club sorted, and I was still looking round for something to focus on, so I could make my mark.
Daniel had
come to work at Sugar Hut as well, because obviously with Dad selling the welding businesses, he had to have a rethink when he got back from abroad, and Dad had asked him to come and work there
instead.

Then I was in the club one Thursday night, and Dad was about to close the place early as it was pretty empty.
Although Thursdays seemed to work really well in central London, out in Essex they
were dead.
No one ever went out on a Thursday.
So I stood there thinking .
.
.
could I be the one to change that?
This could be the kind of challenge I needed, something for me to take on and prove
myself.

‘Dad .
.
.’
I went over to see him, already sure he would knock me down, but determined to try.
‘I know I’m not a promoter, and I’ve never done it before in my
life, but how would you feel about me taking over Thursday nights and seeing if there is anything I can do with them?’

‘Not a fucking chance, mate,’ he told me straight off.
‘You ain’t got a clue about running a night.
Forget it!’

But I wasn’t willing to give up.
‘You have nothing to lose, Dad!’
I told him.
‘We’re closing tonight ’cos it’s so dead, and I’m the same age as
the people you’re trying to pull in, so maybe I’ll have a chance.
Just give me a go, just a couple of months, and see if I can turn it around.
It won’t cost ya, I just wanna try.
Come on!’

In the end, he probably just thought he would get an easier ride if he let me get stuck in.
And that is exactly what I did.
I grafted my arse off on that night.
I thought of a name for it,
booked in a DJ who played the type of music everyone in the area liked (not MC’ing, by the way – I had sacked that off by then!), had nice flyers printed up, then handed them out
myself, visiting every shop in the area.

Then on the night I made sure it was perfectly run inside, and would go round myself seeing that everyone was having a good time, and if not, what I could do to change it.
I made it my dream
club night, and because I was a typical Essex teen, it was perfect for the crowd we were trying to pull in.

In the end, I put Thursdays on the map in Essex.
It became the biggest night at Sugar Hut, much bigger than Fridays or Saturdays – but, more importantly, I had found my niche in life.
I
had discovered something I was really good at – promotion and marketing.
Finally, after all the dropped college courses, and hours spent telling people I didn’t know what I wanted to
do, I had a direction.

I even had a bongo player going along with the DJ, which I loved, and I started to get good on the bongos myself.
Whenever Dad was in the club he would make me get up and join in – he
liked that, and it was another of those times when I could see the pride in his eyes.

Even though Dad would obviously never allow Mum into the club, I would still go round to see her all the time.
I was – and still am – as much of a mummy’s boy as ever, and it
was important to me to tell her about my life.
I wanted to make sure she was still proud of me.
She has always told me she is, even when I was being the worst little shit in the world, but it was
still good to hear it.

I’d talk to her about everything else in my life, too, like friends, and girls, and get her advice on things.
She has always kept me grounded, and not let the lifestyle go to my head.
Mum
is a reminder of my roots, and who I am.
The only thing I tried not to talk to her about much was anything that seemed like I was showing off my money.
I was even embarrassed driving up to her flat
in my latest car – Dad got us to keep changing them every six months or so, as he has a car dealer mate, so I always have something that is really new.
But when I was there I would always try
and pass on some of the money that I had kept back for her.

I was loving my life at that time: club, money, girls and success – it all seemed to be going the right way.
Then one evening I booked Brian Belo for a PA on my night.
He
had won
Big Brother
2007, and as he is from Essex, I was sure he would be a great pull for a Thursday night crowd – everyone in our area is always proud of a local boy done good.

So Brian came down and was a massive success, but not only that, I found a new friend.
We got on really well.
He was a lot like me, too, as he’d gone from having no money to having a load
– him through a TV show, me through my dad – and he was struggling to deal with it, while still sticking to his roots and remaining the guy he knew he was.
We started hanging out and I
would go round to his house – he had a great mum who was totally focused on him and his family, and who reminded me of my own mum.