Becoming a Film Addict: Part 1

For many people, a love of film and cinema was developed from a very young age with weekly (or even more frequent) trips to the local picture house with parents or other relatives. Others may have picked up that habit from friends and relatives at home with VHS or Betamax. I managed to get to the age of 14 without owning a single videotape apart from a blank VHS on which my parents had recorded Monty Python and the Holy Grail which I watched frequently and took to a mate's house every so often when he had a sleep over.
 
This all changed when I had an accident which saw me spent 19 months in four different hospitals, with TV and video comprising most of my entertainment. Age didn't seem to matter much and I remember watching Highlander, Robocop and The Terminator upon my return to Britain. (I had the accident in France.)
 
The next hospital had a Sky box which fed the TVs which were next to each bed and there was a cupboard full of videos that could go into the communal VCR and be available for anyone to watch. Sharing the ward with people older than me also allowed me to watch the low budget and generally rubbish skin flicks that Sky put on late at night - sleep is a rare commodity in hospital. They also knew more films than I did and requested to watch a variety of movies and I was all too happy to join them.
 
After five months of working my way through the videos at Hexham, I moved to the other side of the country for an assessment which would turn into a stay of just over a year. This was where the habit well and truly kicked in. With hours of nothing to do and plenty of time by myself, the supply of films from the OT department, other patients and even doctors and nurses gave me much to help pass the time.

A weekly ritual also developed where Friday nights involved my dad coming over, a take away, usually a calzone, and a rental video. Titles I remember include Twelve Monkeys, Fargo, Se7en and Trainspotting. Of course, that wasn't all and, when a doctor lent me Pulp Fiction which I thought was great, I then borrowed Reservoir Dogs from another patient.
 
Eventually I came home just in time to catch the DVD wave and, with a lot of free time and disposable income, I was well on my way to becoming a DVD addict when James Ferman's tenure at the BBFC ended and the shops filled with previously banned films.

I haven't looked back since.