Yes, and what thanks do I get? I’ll tell you. They chuck me out. Twenty-nine years’ service and they turn round and chuck me out. Medical grounds, it says on the chit. Discharged on medical grounds. And there’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing. I’m forty-seven and fit as a butcher’s dog.

Medical grounds is just an excuse, of course. I know why they really chucked me out. They chucked me out because their mission in life is exactly the opposite of mine. They think I don’t know that, but I do. They’re all part of the plot, see? There’s a plot – it’s been hatching a long time now – to undermine the country by clogging it up with dossers and junkies and drunks. Some of the top politicians are in it, and civil servants and social workers and even the church. They want to flood the country with winos and crims and down-and-outs and drag it down till it’s no better than some of the filthy holes I’ve served in all these years. They’re powerful, and they’ll stop at nothing. What’s the career of one Sergeant-Major to them? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing.

They’re not going to stop me, though. Oh, no. They abolished National Service, and they’ve put me where I can’t turn garbage into men anymore, but I can clean up the garbage, can’t I? They can’t stop me doing that, and I will. By golly I will.

Now – where did we get to? Oh, yes – I remember. Time to move on.

I’d applied for loads of jobs in the months since I’d left school. Office work. Supermarkets. Catering. Filling stations – you name it. Most employers wanted experience, and some ads actually said unemployed persons need not apply, which is criminal, in my opinion. I’d started applying in August and I’d had a couple of interviews, but as I said before, sleeping in your clothes makes you look scruffy, and by Christmas I looked like a tramp. I knew nobody was going to take me on looking like that, and I started getting really depressed.

Christmas didn’t help. I spent it at Carole’s, which was kind of her and Chris, but it was still the worst Christmas I’d ever had. For a start, there was my present. Carole and Mum had put their money together and got me this sleeping-bag. A really posh job. Quilted, waterproof, the lot. It must have cost a bomb and I knew they only meant to be kind, but it said something to me. It said they thought of me as a dosser – as someone who might always be a dosser, so he might as well be as comfy as possible. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t let them see. And I’ve got to admit it’s come in handy ever since.