Pete: My Story

Pete Bennett

With Andrew Crofts

Being able to do this book is a brilliant opportunity, because I really want to try to explain to people what it feels like to be me. People have always made snap judgements about me. They might only have seen me walking down a crowded street, sitting in a school classroom or a pub, but that would be enough for them to decide that I was weird, or gay, or soft, or mad or very annoying, and I am excited to have an opportunity to paint a bit more of a detailed picture of how I got to be like I am.

I’m not the only person in the world with a few problems. Some people have far worse ones, and some have far milder ones. But we all start out from the same place, until things start happening to us. For some people the problems begin the first day they pop out into the world; for others, like me, they ambush us later on. When you see some guy walking down the street, talking to himself or shouting abuse at the gods, it’s easiest to just cross the road and walk on by, but the chances are he didn’t start out life like that. When he was born his mum and dad probably had very different plans for him, but stuff happened in his life, and probably in his head, that made him turn out different. It’s not often someone like me really gets a chance to tell their story to a wide audience, rather than to just a few doctors, psychiatrists and so-called experts.

Maybe some kids will read this book, and then they might understand better why some of the other kids in the playground act a bit different to them. Maybe they’ll feel it would be worth getting to know them better, rather than just shouting names and insults at them and knocking them down into the mud.

My mum’s had a fair bit of superficial judgement landed on her over the years too; you know the sort of thing – a single busking mother with two sons by two different fathers, plus some pretty funky style decisions. She’s got a bit of a mouth on her has Mum, and that hasn’t always endeared her to everyone, particularly people in official positions who didn’t quite get the whole Pete thing, but she still has the most gigantic circle of devoted friends, with me right at the front of the queue.

I hope there will be a few laughs along the way too, because we’ve laughed a lot over the years, when we weren’t crying or shouting with frustration.

Anyway, this is it, for better or worse, my story.

Title PageIntroductionChapter One: A Bit Of A Bad StartChapter Two: Rock And Roll BabyChapter Three: Baby MindersChapter Four: A Visit From An AngelChapter Five: Animals And GraveyardsChapter Six: DaveChapter Seven: Warning SignsChapter Eight: A Family UnitChapter Nine: The ExplosionChapter Ten: The Padded CellChapter Eleven: Bollocks!Chapter Twelve: Thoughts Of SuicideChapter Thirteen: Special PlacesChapter Fourteen: ObsessionChapter Fifteen: Dressing UpChapter Sixteen: Falling In LoveChapter Seventeen: BrightonChapter Eighteen: Perfect PeteChapter Nineteen: Through The K-HoleChapter Twenty: JoolzChapter Twenty-One: Fetish PartiesChapter Twenty-Two: The Night Of The 23RdChapter Twenty-Three: Heaven And HellChapter Twenty-Four: Cracking The CodeChapter Twenty-Five: Big BrotherEpilogueCopyrightAbout the Publisher