My Memoires

A Memory of Llwynypia.

Dear readers,
My name's Steve Hopkins and I was born in Llwynypia hospital in late 1957. My mother's a Liverpudlian evacuated during wartime to Malpas in Cheshire and my father’s from Rhydfelin near Pontypridd. I was readmitted to the hospital when I had tonsillitis at the tender age of three. I remember my parents bringing me a big green helicopter, eating loads of ice cream and my uncle Vernon popping in to say hello along with the tall, dark and handsome young Tom Jones and Keith the guitarist with the band. My uncle was the bass player and then leader of the Senators. They were exiting times with Tom hitting the big time and we were receiving postcards from all over the world, blah blah blah.

I grew up in Ferndale till the age of 7 and my best friend was another famous Ferndalian the alias Mike Curtis, author of CQB (Close Quarter Battle). He joined the Para regiment and later the SAS, serving for 18 years in the Falklands, Iraq and being the personal Body Guard of the PM (John Major) in Bosnia. He's a pretty good writer too, selling over 350,000 copies of his book. Of course, I know his real name, we shared many adventures together as very young kids, but I'm not at liberty to reveal his true identity due to his connections with SAS and the like.

Then I moved to Gelli when my father, a police officer got promotion to plain clothes detective and lived or should I say died next door to a nasty bully called Roger who reminded me of a Japanese prison of war commander with his crew cut and ugly bulldog face. He was one hell of an intimidating ogre. Anyway I got my own back on him in due course of time when I got bigger, hee hee hee. I also fell in love at the grand old age of nine with what seemed at the time to be the most beautiful girl in the world and entered a dream world where I was the hero and she was a fair damsel in distress. You know the story right?

After my old man got another promotion to DS we moved to a village called Baglan, the birth place of Rob Brydon from The Keith Barret Show which was 2 miles from Port Talbot. This is where I grew up, learned the piano and guitar, formed a few bands and finally left home to become......... well, er, uh a Hare Krishna monk, believe it or not?!?! Well we all got to do something with our lives and that's what happened to me. It's just that I had all these questions buzzing around my brain and no-one but no-one could come anywhere near to answer one of them in a concise, logical and common sense way. But ol' Hari answered them all and more.... lots more. In fact I learned about questions I'd never thought to ask in a million years or more and got the answers. So that satisfied my search for ' T H E T R U T H'. Only thing was that after finding the truth or should I say A B S O L U T E T R U T H, I realised that I've got to actually do something about it and that's where all the trouble began. Boy oh boy, did I dig up a can of worms!!!

If you want a peaceful life.... D O N' T A S K A N Y Q U E S T I O N S otherwise you'll be duty bound to do as I did, i.e. shave your head and dance around Oxford St in London like a loony for years. The problem is, I'm still doing it... what a Wally!!! And even worse, I'm just loving it! In fact, I'm addicted to Hare Krishna/Hare Rama and chanting, dancing and feasting. What can I do, I'm a fool for punishment.

I don't have a shaved head anymore as I work for an IT company and sell ART in my spare time. But I do like an old shin dig and sing song about Krishna and Co whenever possible. George Harrison loved Krishna and why not? He's so lovable and adorable! I suppose if I were God, I'd also stay young for ever (around 15 to 16 years old), surround myself with the most beautiful girls in the universe and do the most incredible far out things both imaginable and unimaginable. Jim Carey got a taste of the right idea when he was Bruce Almighty, what do you think?

Well, it's been nice talking and I suppose that's the gist of my story and thanks so much for listening to this old fart ranting on about nothing of great importance, although nothing is a very interesting topic of discussion, when you really think about it. On second thoughts, don't think about it! You may get into trouble and go too deep into your head, ending up dancing around Oxford St like me. Oh what a beautiful morning, HO HUM.....

Lotsa luv and best wishes to all from Steve aka Sakhyarasa Prema Dasa or Sakhya for short.

NB
Sakhya means friendship in the ancient sanskrit language. Rasa means mellow or taste, Prema means the highest expression of pure unalloyed love and Dasa means the servant... okay.

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