Bonus Tape: One Night in Essex

I'm from a really small village in England, like smaller than most small villages are. There's not a lot of people there at all. And I grew up there from when I was born to when I left, when I turned 18. And I didn't really have a great childhood there. I didn't enjoy it very much. I wasn't really one of the popular kids. I didn't have many friends. My whole childhood was kind of marked by being bullied a lot. And I was bullied by a few different people. But the main bully I had was this kid called Brett. He lived a few doors down from me. He was a few years older than me. And he was like the opposite of me. He was really cool. He was really handsome. He was really good at sport. He was like a constant reminder that I wasn't one of the cool kids and I wasn't popular. When I was younger, he would bully me on the bus and he'd wait outside my house for me to go to school and pick on me there. And he would like throw things at me because I was fat. He thought it was funny to throw doughnuts at me. A lot of people were aware of it, but no one really ever did anything. Brett was kind of good. He was good at everything I was bad at. Brett was great at sports and I never really did well at sports. Brett was pretty popular with girls and I didn't talk to girls ever. I was the complete opposite of him. He was a tall, handsome, thin guy. I was a short, dyslexic, unsportsmanlike person. I had dyslexia, ADHD and dyspraxia, so I couldn't focus on stuff. And when I did, I was bad at it. And he's the main reason. I wanted to kind of get away. The village is a really quiet town. We don't have a train station or a bus station. There's not any buses that go through the town. It's the kind of place that you're born in, you grow up in and you die in. People there are really nice, but not a lot happens. So when I turned 18, I leave the village I'm from and I moved to London. And I become a comedian and a writer for some TV stuff. And my life completely changes. I started doing comedy and it went alright. I got to go all over the world doing gigs and I never went back to the village. I just didn't want to be the person I was when I lived there. And the easiest way for me to do that was avoid it. In 2015, I just finished doing shows in Australia. I did the Melbourne Comedy Festival and the Adelaide Comedy Festival and they were great. I came back and I remember sitting in my apartment in London, my suitcases were stuck. They were still by the front door and I was sitting on the sofa, getting ready to unpack all my stuff. I checked my email and I've got an email from an email address I don't recognize. It's from one of the local councillors in my village. And they invited me to come back and to headline a comedy show. I'd been in a few newspaper-y bits and I'd done a few things that people had seen. I'd been on TV once or twice and they wanted me to come and headline a show to raise money for something they had going on. I can't remember what it was. I think it was like a church roof or something like that. And I thought about it for ages and in the end I agreed. I thought it would be good for me to go back as this new version of myself and like kind of have one of those moments where the hero goes back to his old neighborhood and he's changed and it's like a homecoming story. So on the day of the gig, I was really nervous and I got there really early and I just sat in my car like I didn't get out and walk around at all. I was just driving around this village and it takes about 10 minutes to walk around the whole village. So I was just doing laps and laps in this village for hours. I was so nervous to like see people and go back to my childhood. Essentially, I was worried that if I saw people, I'd be transported back to the kid I used to be. I'd be some nerdy, weird kid with no friends. At about eight o'clock, I go into the gig in this little village hall and the room is completely full. It's like full of all my old school teachers and and people I used to know from the cricket club and, you know, faces from my past and I was so ready for it to turn ugly like I had this nightmare vision that the whole village were going to hate me and boo me and then Brett was going to stand up at the back of the stage and I don't know, like give me a wedgie or throw a doughnut at me or do something stupid. But when I got there, there was no Brett to be seen and everyone was really nice and the gig went really, really well. It was probably one of the best gigs I've ever had. And it was really kind of healing, I guess, to talk to all these people and tell stories about when I was a kid and make fun of the things that used to cause me a lot of trauma. Like, I really enjoyed it. And I was so happy after the gig, I decided that I was going to walk home that night. So it's like ten o'clock at night, so I leave the gig and I walk home. It takes me about 20 minutes to walk home. And it was really nice walking through the empty streets. And everyone from the village was still at the show. So they were all still drinking and having fun. So the streets were like empty, really. And it was a really nice night. I got home sometime between 10:00 and 11:00. I think it was about quarter to 11:00 at night. And because my village is such a quiet place, no one ever really locks their doors. There's not really any crime in the village to be scared of. Like, we've got feral geese. But you don't need to lock the doors. And I was surprised when I walked up to the front door. I pulled the handle down and it was locked. My parents had locked the front door before they went to bed that night. But it was fine because I know my parents always leave the back door unlocked. So I walked down my house and down a side gate to the left of my house into my garden. And then I let myself in the back door. It's weird. My back door at my parents' house is a bit different. My dad put it on himself, and he's not very good at DIY, so he put it on upside down. So when you pull the handle down, it's like it's locked, but then you pull it up and you go in that way. So I pulled the handle up and I went in the back door. I walked upstairs. I got in bed in my childhood bedroom, which was really weird. Everything was exactly the way it was the day I left when I was 18. Like, nothing had been moved. My mum had gone in and, like, dusted. But she'd never moved anything. And I get in bed, and I close my eyes. And I fall asleep. I'm not sure when I became aware that someone was at the end of my bed. But I did. I open my eyes, and there was a figure standing at the end of my bed. And I'd just woken up. I was kind of still a little bit sleepy. I couldn't really focus in, but as my head came around, the moonlight was hitting the person. And I saw that it was my mum. My mum was standing at the end of my bed. And she didn't say anything to me, which was weird. I hadn't seen her yet. She'd gone to bed before I got home. And this was the first time I was seeing her. It was the first time I was being back in my childhood home in years. Before I could ask my mum what was wrong, without looking at me, she said, "Edward, whatever you do, don't make a sound. Don't turn on any lights." And that was really scary. Because my mum's not that kind of person. My mum's like a little, tiny version of me. She's like the happiest woman in the world. And she's very unserious. And so I get out of my bed, and I walk past my mum. When I get out of bed and walk past my mum, she doesn't move at all. She just keeps staring out the window in my bedroom, looking out onto a green near my house. I walk onto the hallway, and that's where I start to hear the noise. I wasn't aware of it until this morning. But someone's outside my house, banging on the door. Like, properly slamming. It's not a knock. It's somewhere between a knock and a punch. It's really loud. And it's the middle of the night in this tiny little village. So the sound is, like, deafening. It's so noisy. I notice that my dad is awake as well. He's standing at another window in the house, at the front of the house, staring onto the front garden. And I put two and two together. My dad's standing, staring at whoever's at the front door. So my parents are aware that someone's at the front door trying to get our attention or get in. And they're not doing anything, which I thought was really weird. I think about it, though, and I think, well, I've just done this gig. It's probably one of the local people from the village who's drunk and has come to tell me how much they enjoyed the show. And it's just a little bit confused. So I thought, I'll go downstairs, and I'll answer the door and just tell them to be on their way. I tried to walk down the stairs, but before I could get onto the stairs, my dad's hand swings around the banister and, like, picks me up and slams me against the wall. He leans into my ear, and he says, "Whatever the fuck you do, do not go down those stairs." And this is when I start to panic. Like, I'm starting to get the sense that something isn't right. tonight. This night's a little bit different than I thought it was. My parents are aware of something that I'm not. And my dad's holding me against the wall, like properly pinning me so tight I can hear the plasterboard behind me start to creak. And my mom comes onto the hallway and she says, John, let him go. My dad takes his hand off my chest and I kind of slide down the wall and slump onto the floor. And all three of us just kind of stand there for a second, not saying anything, but all just trying to make as little noise as we can. And the banging's still coming from the front door, like it's starting to reverberate up the banister. It feels like it's moving the bones of the house. My parents don't say anything to me, so I stand up and think, I'll do the obvious thing. I go back into my room, I shut the door behind me, and I call the police. When I call the police, it rings for a little while. I get through and I say, hi, my name's Ed. I'm calling because there's someone at our front door. I'm banging quite loudly. I live at number 40, Benfield Gardens. I'm not sure what's going on, but my parents seem really scared. And I think it would be good if you could send someone over just to find out what's going on. The police officer on the other end of the phone says, sorry, can you repeat your name? And I said, my name's Ed Hedges. And they said, can you repeat your address? And I said, oh, it's 40 Benfield Gardens. And the police officer on the other end of the phone said, we're very aware of the situation, Mr. Hedges. Barricade yourself inside the house, and please do not leave under any circumstances. And then they hang up. And I think, well, that was rude. And I walk back out onto the hallway, and I say, guys, I think this is a bit serious. I've just called the police, and my mom puts her fingers to her lips. And I stop talking, and I listen, and the banging sound outside is gone. It's been replaced by the normal silence. Except this time, it's a creepy silence. And then I hear the footsteps of whoever's outside of our house walking down the pathway to the left of my house, down the alleyway, into my garden, to the back door that we never lock. And I hear them put their hand on the handle, pull it down, and it doesn't unlock. And then they just disappear into the night. And my mom turns to my dad and says, I think they've gone. That's when we hear a really loud bang at the door, like a louder bang than we've heard so far. And we all panic. We think whoever's outside is trying to break in now. So my mom pushes me and my dad into the bathroom. It's the only room in our house that has a lock on it. And she locks the door, and the bangers carry on for probably like 10 seconds longer. And that's when we hear the helicopter outside. And we see flashing lights, and we hear sirens. And the night goes back to silent. We all let ourselves out of the bathroom. My parents go downstairs, and I'm not sure why, but I just go back to bed. I'm a comedian. I had a gig a really long way away the next day. I had to get a train into London and then travel back to London. And I had to get a train into London and then travel back to London. And I had to get a train into London. And I had to go back to London. And then he came to my house. Or contact us via the form on our website, radiorentalusa.com. 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