My Arse Has Cost Me My Dreams
Tollerton’s heartbreak after anus repeatedly scuppers career
ASK ANY schoolboy what he wants to be when he grows up and chances are he’ll say a footballer, a racing driver, film star or an astronaut. For the vast majority of us, such exciting jobs remain mere pipe dreams, and we end up settling for more mundane careers with a sanguine shrug of the shoulders.
But one Leeds man feels the disappointment of his lost opportunities more keenly than most, because during the past forty years he has come tantalisingly close to making his childhood dreams a reality. But frustratingly, each time a thrilling job offer has come within the grasp of 58-year-old Tollerton Ponds, it has been cruelly snatched away at the last moment due to bottom trouble.
“My dodgy backside has been my Achilles heel time after time,” Tollerton says ruefully. “Whenever I’ve been on the point of landing a job that the average Joe in the street would kill for, my anus has always blown it for me one way or another.”
Ponds’s troubles began when he left school and joined the employment market. “I was an Easter leaver,” hetold usfromhis bedsitabove a Crossgates fishmongers. “All the teachers told me I would pass my exams with flying colours, so there was really no point sitting them as I would simply be wasting mine and everyone else’s time.”
estate
“I’d been left school for a couple of months and me and some of the other Easter leavers were having a kick around on some waste ground on the estate. We were having a good game; it was three against three with rush keepers and I had scored about 25 times, when I noticed somebody watching us from a flashy car that was parked nearby.” “Eventually, the driver got out and wandered over. I was amazed to see that it was none other than Don Revie, the former Leeds United manager who was now in charge of the England team. He took me to one side.”
sports
“He told me he’d been watching me play and he’d been impressed by what he’d seen. So impressed, in fact, that he wanted to sign me up there and then to be the new Captain of the national side for the following year’s World Cup campaign. I simply couldn’t believe it; I’d always wanted to be a professional footballer - what schoolboy hadn’t - and this was the opportunity of lifetime. I thought he must be a wind-up merchant pulling my cock. But then he pulled a £10,000-a-week professional player’s contract out of his sheepskin jacket and handed it to me to sign.”
clown
“It was like a dream come true for a young lad just out of school. I couldn’t wait to scribble my name on the dotted line and begin my new life as a sports star.” “That morning I had eaten two packets of Smints on my way to sign on and another couple on the way home, and I’ve since learned that it says on the packet that excessive consumption may cause laxative effects. Unfortunately, those laxative effects suddenly made themselves known at that exact moment. It felt like there was about a hundredweight of thin gravy about to burst out of my browneye.”
bowling
“I told Mr Revie that I had to dash off for a minute, but to wait there and I would be straight back. I dashed behind the nearest bush, unbuttoning my Oxford bags as I ran. I got them down just in time, a split second before my freckle erupted like a dirty geyser. It went on and on and on like a rooster tail; every time I thought it had stopped, it would start up again, even worse than before.”
“Eventually, after what seemed like an age, my bowels finally ran out of fuel. Thankfully, I found a crisp bag and used it to clean myself up as best I could, and pulled up my kegs. I emerged from behind the bush to sign my contract and my heart sank as I saw Mr Revie’s car driving off. He’d clearly got fed up of waiting for me while I was having my Smintpowered clearout.”
village
“A year later, as I watched Kevin Keegan proudly leading the England team out onto the field in Argentina to start their 1978 World Cup campaign, I choked back tears of regret at what could have been. At that moment, I vowed never again to let my bottom come between me and my dreams.”
Although countless young lads dream of chasing glory behind the wheel of a Formula One racing car, very few actually make the grade. So when Tollerton got an unexpected chance to prove his mettle on the race track, he was determined not to let his golden opportunity slip through his fingers.
“I’d always had a very specific idea of the sort of career path I wanted to pursue; I wasn’t prepared to take just any old job that was offered to me. As a result, I’d been signing on for about four years when I suddenly got a letter off the nash to say that they were going to stop my benefits if I didn’t start actively looking for work.”
arthur
“The next afternoon, as I half-heartedly browsed the Situations Vacant boards in Gipton JobCentre, my eye was drawn to a dog-eared postcard tucked away in the corner of one of the racks. ‘Grand Prix racing team seeks driver,’ read the ad. ‘Apply in person at the Lotus garage, Silverstone Circuit, Northants’. ”
“I’d always wanted to be a Formula One racing driver - what schoolboy hadn’t - my ambition had always been to join the ranks of my heroes James Hunt, Niki Lauda and Emerson Fittipaldi on the glamorous, high octane, international motor racing circuit. This wasmybig chance, what all those years on the rock & roll had been leading
up to; a chance to take my most outlandish dream and turn it into a one thousand horsepower reality.”
“I bought a ticket on the next National Express to Northamptonshire. It was a terrible journey down from Leeds, with the bus stopping everywhere. I had been suffering from really bad piles for the past few weeks, and the eight hour coach trip down the A1 really brought the buggers down something rotten. As I hobbled up the Silverstone pit lane towards the Lotus garage, I was in agony.”
paper
“Team boss Colin Chapman answered the door. He explained to me that he wasn’t interested in paper qualifications, only raw talent behind the wheel. Basically, if I could drive the car around the circuit in less than seventy seconds, the job would be mine. I knew I could do it. At that time, I used to spend half my dole money at an arcade in Garforth, driving for hours on a racing game called Jackie Stewart’s Grand Prix Champ, so I knew every twist and turn of the Silverstone circuit like the back of my hand.”
“The job was as good as mine. I couldn’t wait to slip into that racing car and show the boss what I could do.”
chip
“But it was not to be, as my bottom once again conspired to thwart my ambitions. As I slipped into the cockpit and lowered myself behind the wheel, I screamed in pain. The hard bucket seat was putting so much pressure on my farmers that it felt like I had a broken bottle sticking up my jacksie. Each movement of my feet on the pedals was a fresh wave of torture to my poor chocolate starfish.”
“As two mechanics hoisted me out of the car, I spotted the next interviewee standing in the corner of the garage, a fresh-faced youngster named Nigel Mansell. He slipped into the cockpit, gunned the engine and tore off round the track in a cloud of burning rubber, eventually taking the flag in an impressive 69.6 seconds. I knew I could easily of beat his time if I had only of been free from the misery of galloping bumgrapes, but sadly that was not to be.”
“My chances of getting the job of my dreams evaporated before my eyes, and with it my hopes of a jetsetting lifestyle, seven-figure salary and a supermodel on my arm with big tits. It was back to signing on in Crossgates for me.”
Back in Leeds, another four years of unemployment passed. Tollerton had almost given up hope of securing an exciting, glamorous career, when he read something in the paper that gave him new hope.
“Iwasflicking through Titbits in the barbers, and there was a story about how Roger Moore was retiring as James Bond. I’d always wanted to be a film star - what schoolboy hadn’t - and now the role that every actor dreams of was suddenly up for grabs. I knew the casting call for a new 007 would be going out soon, so I decided to steal a march on my rivals and set off for Pinewood studios, where I hoped to secure an audition in front of Cubby Broccoli.”
“The legendary producer saw me straight away. He asked me if I could lift one eyebrow up, which I did, and he told me I’d got the job. He explained t h a t shooting on the next movie, A View to a Kill, would start the very next day, and my fee would be a million pounds plus 50% of the gross box office. To say I was over the Moon would be an understatement.”
sex
“My first scene would require me to ski off the Alps wearing a Union Jack parachute, so I would have to be at the studios first thing in order to learn how to ski and parachute. I booked myself into a nearby boarding house, aiming to get a good night’s sleep before my big day. However, things didn’t go to plan.”
“For the previous three weeks or so, I’d been living mainly off a diet of eggs and black puddings, so I was really having to push when I went to the toilet. On the morning of the first day’s shooting, I went for my number two and suddenlyfeltasharppainshoot straight up my back passage. When I looked in the bowl, I had passed a motion that was the size of a thermos flask, and I’m not exaggerating. That big bugger had split my ringpiece wide open.”
book
“Now we all get a little anal fissure now and again, but this one was so bad I had no alternative but to go to the nearest hospital to get it seen to. There was a big queue in the A&E department and I didn’t get seen until dinner time, when they put three stitches in it and told me to eat soup and fruit for the next week.”
“I got the next bus back to Pinewood, all ready to apologise to Mr Broccoli for my late showing and assure him it wouldn’t happen again. But when I got there, the crew had got fed up of waiting and the director had given the role of James Bond to Timothy Dalton instead.”
fish
“As I gingerly duckwalked off the studio lot, wincing with every step, I reflected ruefully that once again, I had had my dream job in the palm of my hands, only to see it snatched away by my errant bottom.”
Still refusing to settle for anything less than his ideal career, Tollerton spent the next eight years on the dole.
He told us: “I would pop into the local JobCentre every few weeks to see if there were any vacancies for professional jetskiers, lion tamers, or Red Arrows pilots, but such job opportunities were few and far between, particularly in the Crossgates area.”
kid
“I’d always wanted to become an astronaut - what schoolboy hadn’t - so on a whim, I decided to send my CV to NASA. I’d got grade 4 in the mock CSE science test I’d done just before leaving school at Easter, so I thought I was in with a shout of a ride to space on the next Shuttle. And NASA clearly thought I had the right stuff too, because I got a letter back by return of post, saying I’d got the job and asking me to report for astronaut training at Cape Carnival, Florida in a week’s time.” “The offer was subject to a clean bill of health, so I booked an appointment with my GP for a medical the next morning. Then I went out to celebrate my good news with a few jars in Leeds. I must have had a few too many, because when I came out of the pub in the early hours, I took a wrong turning and fell into the canal.” “I managed to scramble out onto the towpath, but not before I’d swallowed half a gallon of the putrid canal water. It must have reacted with the ten pints of Scotch Bitter that was already in there, because in the morning my guts were absolutely rotten. They were making a noise like a cappuccino machine and I was doing some of the tripiest, most lethal farts I’ve ever had the misfortune of smelling.”
cat
“Things hadn’t improved by the time I got to the doctors; if anything they’d got worse. After I dropped a couple in the waiting room, the receptionist told me to stand in the car park and she would shout me in when it was time for my check-up.”
“The doctor gave me the once over. She said she was a bit worried about my excessive flatulence, but I explained it was simply due to a combination of canal water and, to a lesser extent, Youngers bitter. However, she must have mentioned her concerns in her medical report, because the next day I got a letter from NASA withdrawing their previous astronaut job offer.”
fire
“Apparently, the mission director thought that the enclosed, highly pressurised environment of aSpaceShuttle was no place for someone who was dropping their guts every few seconds.”
“I could have been the first man from my estate to fly into space. It would have been one small step for man, one giant leap for a man from Crossgates. But alas, once again my dream lay in tatters at the hands of my pestilential anus.”
Next week: A septic anal fistula that erupts the night before his first stadium gig as Queen’s new lead singer puts paid to Tollerton’s dreams of rock stardom.