Branded!...

If you were a boy back there in the when, or maybe even a tomboy (I'm never getting married, I hate girls and kissing) you may remember Branded. Yes, apparently all but one man died there at Bitter Creek and they say he ran away. Branded, scorned as the one who ran. What do you do when you're branded, and you know you're a man?

I remember that opening sequence so well. It's imprinted in my mind and I can play it over and over. The desert, that fort, the gates, the drumming snares, the fluttering American flag, the line of cavalrymen, and that sneaky shorty moustachioed officer with the look of a rat. Poor Chuck (Captain Jason McCord) Connors. First his black calvary hat was flung, then his epaulettes and buttons ripped off of his rather nicely cut jacket, and finally (oh holy of holies) his sword was snapped in half and slung outside of the gate.

Thing is, he was innocent, not a charge was true, but the world will never know ... So he stoically left the fort, picked up his broken sword and stiffly walked off into the desert (good looking bugger that he was). To be honest I don't remember too much about the actual stories although I watched it every week enraptured by the action. In my head, it was a series of Indian squaws, fighting baddies, unwrapping broken swords and longingly wanting to prove his innocence (what do you do when you're branded?). Such, silent stoic acceptance of the unfair nature of things. Yep, wherever you go for the rest of your life, you must prove you're a man.

I carried that thought around in my head for all of my life I think. Consequently, honour, duty, doing the right thing, and a horrible unsettling honesty became a big part who I was. What a waste really, others didn't play the game that way and wives, colleagues, family, so-called friends, all seemed to snap my sword in half and rip off my buttons as I walked through a desert of my own making (sob, sob). Of course, I was innocent, not a charge was true. But sometimes you lose for no good reason other than you have been misjudged (sob, sob, sob).

So, I wandered the world trying to prove to myself that I was a man, my metaphorical broken sword always ready, and for a long time I actually got away with it and managed to convince myself that I was okay - and then my redundancy happened. It's so hard to understand the effect that had on me. Of course, once I'd actually managed to get out of bed and try to live again, things slowly got better. I tried to get a new job, any job, I had interviews, workshops, but my age (50 plus) was against me and my status and salary in my previous roles didn't help, and of course, none of my 'skills'(ha, ha) were really that transferable (sob, sob, sob, sob). B and Q didn't reply and the big national companies didn't want to put me into a less senior role and I couldn't but help them looking uncomfortable when I asked questions that the teenage HR person interviewing me couldn't answer (cocky twat me). I think if I'd wanted to join the cavalry as a private, let alone a captain, I'd have been turned down. Poor, sobby, sobby me. Yes, for a while there I felt branded and could hear the shares drumming as I walked the line. Eventually, I did other things, self-driven things, all good fun but really not what I was looking for (as Bono might sing). Sometimes I felt that I was aimlessly wandering in the desert - poor, poor, sobby, sobby me.

So, slowly my broken sword became this blog and thanks to it I managed to find a new identity of sorts and decided that I'd had enough of corporate bollocks. These days I don't need to prove I'm a man. Branded? My arse (oooh, ouch, sizzle). So to sum up... What do you do when you're branded? Well, wait for the scars to heal and fade and enjoy the life you have. Give yourself a chance, then you may find out.

Right, I'm off to stoically, stiffly wander the desert clutching my broken sword. Adios amigos!