My Story – Derrick Deanos

The one and only –

DERRICK DEANOS

Deanos hasn’t been with us for too long, but maybe that’s a good thing for I don’t know how much we can take.

He was reared on pies and cream cakes and is proud to be your typical fat b*stard. But beneath the blubber beats a heart of gold, or so it appears to those of us who have managed to get a glimpse of the real Deanos.

Deanos – relaxing

Nobody knows what he fishes for, and I don’t think anybody cares, as long as he keeps giving us a great laugh on the forum with his potty insults and hilarious posts – Granville, editor FM.

My Story – Derrick Deanos

MY STORY BEGAN behind the gas works in Castleford mid way through 1959. At least that’s when me mam thinks she was “walked home” from the local workingmen’s club by the bingo caller Eric Clapper.

After fifteen pints of pale ale, me mam says the night was just a blur to her and my auntie Kathleen did point out to me mam the day after that her knickers were actually flying from the top of the gas works like a flag of victory for all to see. So I think that in fact Eric Clapper may indeed be my dad; thank god me mam decided that one of my many ‘uncles’ would provide me with a surname. Derrick Clapper, now that would have been a hard cross to bear through life.

Poor Eric did actually end up losing his job at the club, he broke his teeth, and was unable to say ffforthy fwee or number fouwr, (43-and 4), these days he would have kept his job despite this inability to fulfil his role as a professional bingo caller!

Deanos, aged 2, with his mam

My earliest childhood recollection was of Sunday mornings at the local whippet racing course. If we were good, the bloke in charge would strap us kids to the ‘hare’ which was pulled along at great speed by a fella at the end of the field by cranking the back wheel of an upturned old bike. That all ended when me granddad turned up at the field one morning and demanded the return of his bike which had been nicked from outside of the local bookies two years earlier!

I was a great embarrassment to me mam. From the age of four I decided that I was in the ‘The Lone Ranger’ and refused to take off me mask, cowboy hat or little red wellies whilst at the shops, school, or in the bath! This ended at eight as I finally realised that there was a certain lack of Apache Indians living in the Castleford area, and taking pot shots at my auntie Kathleen’s big fat arse with a spud gun was also getting boring anyway!

Weekends always meant trips! I grew up thinking how nice it was that all my relatives all lived together in one big house. I later found out that this was in fact Hull Prison!

Like most young chaps I was dragged off to join the local scout group. I can still remember the fat scout master’s red face as the local bobbies manhandled him into the back of the ford Anglia panda car after making us do a PT session without our pants on for the third time. He protested that “it was bloody good enough for the Hitler Youth and that he would make “bloody men out of boys!” Then the local bobby hit him on the head with his truncheon. After that he just shouted, “that bloody hurt,” and passed out.

Deanos, off to school for a half day

After this incident I decided that being chased naked around a field by Benny “the bender” Hill was not for me, and went shop lifting in the evenings with me mam and auntie Kathleen instead.

School was wonderful, until I moved up to BIG SCHOOL that is!

Before that I won many awards such as ‘School Custard Drinking Champion’,also ‘South Yorkshire Truant of The Year’ for FIVE years running!

My last school report was marvellous:

Derrick is a very well behaved young man, the four half days he has attended school over the past five years we believe will equip him for a career collecting the baskets at a supermarket or even (with a little determination) emptying dustbins or mucking out farm animals!

So I headed out into a new wonderful world of chip shops, pie and chip shops, even fish and chip shops that sold pies. AND jumbo sausages!

I discover angling, fat birds, and more stories of Yorkshire folk involving pies!

I did actually start to fish when I was about nine, but it wasn’t until I was in my teens that my dad finally told me one of the greatest angling secrets of all, to actually put BAIT on the hook!

Whenever we fished together he was always Kevin Ashurst or Ivan Marks, I always had to be Ray Mumford, (“bit of a queer bloke that Ray Mumford,” me dad used to say. “He uses a great long rod without a bloody reel!” Silly bugger, that won’t catch on.”)

It’s not that I have anything against bleak you understand, its just that I wanted to catch nets full of bream like Ivan and have a fag hanging out of me gob whilst having my picture on the front of Angling Times! Or even the Grewelthorpe Herald.

I had the fishing bug big time, my enthusiasm was as boundless as my ability to eat pies! Then disaster struck, my imminent (at least in my own mind) call up to the England angling squad was curtailed. I discovered WOMEN!

I remember the look of love my first girlfriend gave me as I carved both our initials inside a heart on a tree, she ran three miles to call for an ambulance as I unfortunately sliced half my index finger off in the process and fainted with the shock.

She would wait for me as I finished my Saturday job at the local butchers, then we would waddle to the park and drink the warm jelly out of each other’s pies.

With the rough comes the smooth, she fell for the charms of a dashing prefect called Laurence Privet; his family were rich, and blinded by the good things in life (also I believe that Laurence was allegedly hung like a donkey) she kicked me into touch. Then I fell into a downward spiral of drink and pies, I shall never thank that girl enough for this as I found my true vocation in life.

Self respect flowed back to me as I got a job on the local dustbins. It was a crack team of bin men I can tell you, ‘Black Jack Chupchick’, ‘Alvin Hood’, ‘Pan Arse’, and Britain’s first female bin woman (and captain of the Castleford women’s tug of war team) ‘Bertha Bullock’.

I moved up the social ladder, finding employment in boiling up huge vats of bubbling pig swill, me mam was so proud, and said it reminded her of her mother, who was a school dinner lady for thirty years!

Fishing has given me many adventures. I remember one hot summer’s day finding a poor sheep trapped between some logs after it had fallen down the steep banks of the river swale. Try as I might I couldn’t pull the bleating sheep from out of its predicament. The sweat rolled down my manly bulk. Right then, I thought, let’s get me shirt off in the simmering mid day heat. I gave an almighty pull, wood splintered, and as the sheep made its bid for freedom, I grabbed its minging fleece to steady myself. Unfortunately just at that exact moment, the farmer appeared at the top of the bank and saw me holding on to the panicking sheep, now belting along a dry sand bank at a fair rate of knot’s with me semi naked and with a very suspect pair of ripped shorts on.

He was livid and ran after both myself and the sheep, screaming things about bloody perverts and why don’t I get myself a proper girlfriend. And also some things which I can’t repeat!

For many years now I have been a ‘Pie Consultant’, an expert in my field, a Samurai of the pastry world. I have penned many articles which have appeared in such well known publications as ‘Gay Ferret Breeders Monthly’, ‘The Cleethorpes Landladies Haemorrhoid Support Group Fact Sheet’, and ‘Offal for Healthy Bowels’ parts one to thirty two!

I have some failed projects which have spurred me on to my present day endeavours.

‘Stick Float Fishing-with Dave Harry Harrell and Freddie Mercury’ was eventually cancelled, unfortunately, every time Freddie caught a decent roach, he would strut up and down the bank holding his landing net handle like a microphone and sing Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of his voice. Dave hated this, believe me, his mam was a big, big Perry Como fan, and he was really mad that we had to get Freddie instead.

So there we go, a little insight into the World of FMs fat boy Derrick Deanos.

I leave you with this thought….

Just think how many pies you could eat, and how much beer you could drink if you sold your wife to the Turks who own the local Kebab shop!