A 48-year-old Bolton man who admits he didn't have a drug-fuelled adolescence, says he now regrets his past abstinence and still has hallucinations about it.
'I suppose it's something all young people go through,' said bus driver Percy Diamond. 'At the time you don't realise how daft you are in not indulging in hard drugs, sex and rock n' roll. You don't think of the effect abstinence is having on your body and mind until it's too late. Now, I just have to live with the consequences of not having had a colourful past or ever having been busted by the police and of being stuck with being dead ordinary and very boring.'
Mr Diamond, who lives with his elderly mother, said that he still has hallucinations that he has just taken LSD or snorted cocaine. 'I still wake up in a sweat thinking I've just started tripping, only to realise I'm just hallucinating it and that everything is just normal and that the only trip I'll ever be on is route 67 between the bus station and Morrisons. I guess I'll have to live with the consequences of my abstinence for the rest of my life.'
Mr Diamond said that one of his mates has written a song to play at his funeral called, 'Shine on, you unremarkable Percy Diamond.'
Percy's mother Sheila (89) said that she had repeatedly warned her son about the dangers of not getting stoned as an adolescent.
'Time and again I warned Percy about him staying in playing dominoes or watching Coronation Street instead of getting out and blowing his mind on this and that,' she said. 'He just wouldn't listen when I told him that he'd finish up as a boring old fart and, well, just take a look where just listening to Cliff Richard records gets you.'
Mr Diamond said he had decided to speak out to save today's young people from a life ruined by abstinence. He said:
'If I knew then what I know now, my life would be that much richer. Not only did I ignore the dangers of not trying heroin, I didn't even get around to listening to loud music.'
