Skinny to Fat... the Story of Neil and Edgar Burdock

The year was 1982. The place – Dublin, Ireland. An obese woman covered in reptilian like scales screams and contorts in a bed barely big enough to house her gargantuan tail. 21 hours of labour and 6 litres of amniotic fluid later, a small (not for long, as we shall see later) baby is born. His eyes are as blue as blue bottles, his waist still able to fit into a 32 jean pant, his entire life before him to make his parents proud.

By age 2 he was whisked off to sunny South Africa. His dad was given a job and so the family was relocated. Not because he was well educated (what degree?) but because he was white. Remember, back then things were different… right somehow. The boy continued to grow…. And grow.

Primary school came easily to this little lad. The taunts about his pale skin and emaciated physique bounced off him like bowling balls off his soon to be friends mom, known, at this early stage of her career, only as ‘the brothel owner’- Later she would become – Queen Lorraine Bredin, Whore of Whores.

Little Neil turned 12, and the overwhelming nerd he was during primary school came to its maturity when he was made prefect and head of. His reptilian mother was so proud. Things were good for the Burdock family… but things change, as they so often do.

High school is the point where this skinny boys life turns to misery. Standard six begins with his first cigarette, closely followed (4 min 30 seconds later) by his first marijuana joint. Six months later his first LSD cap is taken, closely followed (1 week later) by his first ecstasy tablet. Throw in alcohol and benzene and I think what we had was a fire hazard so extreme it makes the twin towers disaster look like something out of The Jungle Book.

And so it went, for 3 years this boy becoming man flew through drink and drugs like there was no tomorrow, slowly gaining weight, on his way to becoming the sif we know today. Then the mammoth weight gain was stopped dead in its tracks. Neil suffered a broken jaw in an incident to this day his parents still think was a ‘fall’. This resulted in a jaw wiring, which saw his pasty body wither away again, back to the unsightly mess it was 10 years before. However, as this story has foretold, nothing lasts forever. The wires were cut and the boy was allowed to drink again.

2 more years of chaos and 4 written off cars later, his parents pride of the past had been long replaced by disgust for their wretched son, their Damien. For months during his final year they toiled over what they should do to change their sons ways, to make him a man. They knew the best thing would be to send him away from Johannesburg, with all its influences. But where, where could he go where he wouldn’t drink so much, where he would study hard and become everything they wanted him to be? Only one place came to mind – Rhodes University.

Another turning point in our protagonists story. He arrived at Rhodes a modest 76kg. For a person of 6 ft that wasn’t so bad. Not exactly manly, but not the monsters (yes, plural) he was to become. Fuelled by friends in a ghastly hovel known as Adamson, the drinking spiralled out of control as did Neil’s weight. With the continuous drinking, res food and lack of exercise, his body expanded at a record pace. Within a year the once thin, pasty fuck became large, too large, beyond control and repair. His body was like Einstein’s universe, always expanding, much to his friend’s delight. The jokes began, slowly at first, but gaining in complexity and spite as quickly as his waistline gained in girth. But, as they had in the past, the taunts meant little to Neil and nothing could curb this mans enthusiasm for the good life… until his mother, now in her fifties and shedding her skin up to twice a day, called him fat infront of all his peers. This was the final straw.

Neil decided to get his life together. He started jogging and cycling. Or should I say, he jogged, once, and cycled, once. It seemed this mans lazyness was overpowering. There was no escape.

By the time the boy left Rhodes, he was content with his weight, no longer waking up in cold sweats on a nightly basis wondering how he’d wasted his life, and he was only 22. He decided to move to London and make it as computer programmer (fat, pale and programming, life doesn’t get better than this). With his past behind him (where else could it be), he thought the future looked bright. But he forgot one thing – Guinness flows from the taps in this City.

He consumed mass amounts of this ale. Never holding back, never saying no. The Ireland he left so many years ago was still in his blood, well it was back in his blood now. And so the belly known only as Ed awoke, hungry and in need of some major life changes. He grew, and grew and grew, becoming the not so little brother Neil had never wanted, and within one month Neil had amassed another 10kg to his already tragic form. 98kg. When would it stop….

This is a tale that has no end. It will be told for generations to all as a bogey man story. ‘Eat your vegetables or you’ll turn out like Neil and Ed’. Neil/Ed – separate entities, one gigantic body – each one struggling for control in a harsh world.

Good night all. Sleep tight, don’t let the humiliation bite.