'Any Fuel with that Mate or just the Ten Benson and the Star?'

Ten years ago today I started my first shift at the petrol station in the Old Shoreham Road. I took the job because I was desperate for money and was afraid my six months of unemployment might stretch into six years. I had worked in a petrol station before of course, back when I was at university in Worcester. I hated every minute of it. This short term solution to a problem soon became a long term appointment, though I wasn't to know that at the time. The hours were dreadful (though could have been worse) and the pay put me under the poverty line until I left. I liked the people I worked with though, and during the evening shifts (2:30pm - 10:30pm) I could play my own music on the tiny stereo behind the counter. More importantly, I could draw as well. Before I started work at the petrol station I would draw of course, but before it was a kind of... hobby. A passing interest. An occasional fad like my periods of playing the guitar are now. I started to take a sketchbook in to pass the time, and with the Rotring art pen my sister had bought for Christmas that year, set about filling sketchbooks. The petrol station became a kind of public studio. When it was quiet I could happily spend hours working on a single piece, and I must have done hundreds of pieces over my half a decade there. People would comment on my drawings, sometimes offer me commissions (I would ignore their calls if they rang though - I'm not sure why). Within twelve months of working there, this hobby had become something quite, quite different. More, I suppose, a second nature than anything else. If that makes sense. I do know that if it wasn't for the petrol station I certainly would never have produced so much work. Would probably have remained that occasional diversion. I wasn't to know this ten years ago though. I remember that first shift well, working with Mike, discussing the first Lord of the Rings film ('Its just too long!' he complained), having to type in credit card details for a customer who hadn't paid for his petrol but had for other items, and I also had my first encounter with the sinister Ginger Gang. They were low-rent criminals, a few years out of school, and had somehow acquired a car. This battered vehicle would appear suddenly, disgorge its inhabitants who would then cause chaos, steal things and threaten us. One time one of them said that he was going to 'cut... (my) face to pieces'... before throwing a sponge at me and running away. It was probably about ten years ago exactly as I write - mid-evening - that they first came in, trying to steal hot-dogs and try free samples of coffee from the machine. 'It's not serve yourself' said Mike as he threw them out. Attempted to throw them out. I wondered what I had let myself in for. 'How long have you been here?' I asked Mike. 'Six months' he said 'since last summer.' Six months I thought! That seemed like an eternity. Surely I would be gone by spring I thought. I would be there for the next five and a half years... .