THE WAY BRIAN, the inner chimp, flared up at Chernobyl, how I reacted and thought about it later, made me realise that one of my problems is I’ve got honesty Tourette’s. If I think something needs saying, I’ll often say it honestly and bluntly, not try to sugarcoat it.
I was talking to a mate about the whole shooting the dog thing and that I thought some people I’ve been dealing with are only polite when they want something. He asked if I thought I was being rude to the TV lot when I ran out of patience in Ukraine, but I explained that I didn’t think I was, because I was telling the truth. They were all doing their jobs, but I felt I wasn’t doing anything constructive. I don’t mean in the time between filming. I include filming, too. My mate pointed out that someone can be truthful and rude at the same time, and that’s when I realised it’s one of my problems.
The TV stuff has been great in many ways. It’s opened up a lot of doors, made me a lot of money, but it could all stop tomorrow and it wouldn’t bother me. I don’t have a rock-star life, and I don’t need it. I’ve never needed it. People say to me, ‘Oh yeah, but you wouldn’t have this or you wouldn’t have that.’ What they don’t understand is I don’t need those things, I just bought them because I had money coming in and I could. I wasn’t going to get all the money in a pile and start swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck. I’m not like that. If the money’s there I’ll spend it, don’t you worry, but if it isn’t I’ll live within my means.
If the TV lot want to do a five-year deal and build me a dyno room, they can, that’s spot on, thanks, get cracking. If they don’t, that’s all right, I’ve got a mate in Grimsby with a dyno and I’ll get by. I don’t need it, and the thing is I don’t crave any of these things, either. I’ve never wanted to be famous or wealthy.
I’ve got a nice house, but I was quite happy in the house before that, and I was happy renting my mate’s little house next to the chippy in Caistor, before that. Yes, I have got a lot of stuff, I’m not denying it. I’ve got some stuff that I’m hoping is going to earn me a quid or two over the years, like the tractor and the pub.
When I put a full week and overtime in I’m earning £1,000 from the haulage firm. Sharon calls me a greedy bastard. Another mate told me it was my equivalent of the hair shirt. The hair shirt is what religious fundamentalists would wear to make sure their life was miserable, to remind themselves that Jesus died for their sins. It was popular for a while, but didn’t catch on. Now, a hair shirt is used to describe self-sacrifice, making things unnecessarily hard for yourself for some personal belief. I don’t need to work long hours on filthy truck engines, but I want to.
A big part of it is the sustainability. If everything stopped tomorrow, I mean the TV and all that stuff, I could carry on working on trucks and survive. That’s why I’ve kept a 1999 VW Polo that my mate Mad Adrian gave me after he blew the engine up. When it all goes to shit, I’ve got that to fall back on and to get around in.
But that’s not all of it. I keep saying it, but I’m not sure if anyone really listens: the trucks are still the only thing that give me job satisfaction. Building bikes gives me satisfaction, but that’s my hobby, not my job. I’m having to pay to do that stuff.
For a long time I’ve thought that the TV lot would find me out, realise I am no good at it and it’ll all stop, but I’ve been doing it for nearly ten years now and they’ve signed me up for another five, so I must be doing summat right, so why change what I’m doing? I could be doing more in my shed, but so what if it takes me a year longer to finish the pickup than if I wasn’t working on the trucks?
The TV company has never said to me, ‘Look what you’ve got because of us,’ and they never would. They know, I hope, that I can’t be held to ransom. It’s not about the money, it’s about the opportunity and I’m grateful, even though I don’t always show it.
I’ve written in an earlier book that I went to see a psychologist (or maybe a psychiatrist, but I think a psychologist) in Ireland, because my girlfriend at the time felt she was pissing in the wind. All the whinging that she was doing to try and change me and I didn’t give a fuck. She told me it wasn’t human to react the way I did, so there must be a reason I was reacting like that. It was more for her benefit that I went and was diagnosed with something.
My lack of empathy was doing her head in. If she could put that down to something wrong with the way I was wired up, then she could deal with that, because it was me, not something she was doing. So I was diagnosed, with Asperger syndrome, and it made not one atom of difference to how I went about things.
It gave it a name, and that’s the way things have got to be nowadays. If you’re a bit different or you deal with things differently; if you deal with situations in a way that’s not seen as normal, whatever the normal way is, then you have to be labelled. You’ve got Asperger’s or some other form of autism. I think it’s a load of shite.
I came away thinking, I appreciate everything you’re saying and that’s great, but what a lot of bullshit.
I don’t give a fuck. It’s not like I’m strutting around, saying ‘I don’t give a fuck.’ I just don’t give a fuck. It sounds right dismissive, and I’m not like that, but I don’t give a fuck.
If there’s one person who has honesty Tourette’s worse than me, it’s Sharon. She says some things and I think, You’re not seeing the whole picture there because you don’t have the full facts to hand. But she’s saying it as she sees it. I realise I’ll be in the same position, saying stuff that other people don’t agree with, because we’re seeing it from different perspectives. I wish everyone had honesty Tourette’s.
The disagreement in Ukraine won’t change how the TV lot and I work with each other. No one’s going to plan a trip that long again, but for everything else we’ll just get on with it. I put my Tour Divide head on. Just deal with it.
Ten years ago I was a mechanic who raced motorbikes and loved working in my shed. I still am.