Driving Jarvis Ham

Driving Jarvis Ham
Jim Bob

A brilliantly witty story of unconventional, unwavering, and regularly exasperating friendship.Meet Jarvis Ham: tea-room assistant, diarist, lift-cadger, Princess Di fan, secret alcoholic, and relentless seeker of fame. Jarvis may be an all-round irritant, but he’s harmless, and deep down, you know, he’s got a heart of gold. Hasn’t he?As his oldest (and only) friend reflects on his life with Jarvis Ham – infatuations, questionable hairstyles, home-made charity singles, reality TV auditions, paedophile alerts at the local swimming baths – he wonders what it would have been like if they had never met. But what are you going to do? He’s a mate. DRIVING JARVIS HAM is a novel for anyone who has ever found themselves looking across at a childhood friend, and wondering why they still know them.

JIM BOB

Driving Jarvis Ham

To Neil, for all the driving

If you’re reading this it probably means I’m not dead.

Table of Contents

Title Page (#u2cb16101-9b2d-557a-af5f-fc55d970d3b7)

Dedication (#u1a29e73e-77c4-584c-8bad-df7f4bb8e469)

Part One (#u0fa957ab-79cb-5fcb-8d0e-18ef94ab04e1)

Jarvis Goes to Drama Club (#u089f048c-ed46-5c7f-bec6-09a41bbf198c)

Jarvis Gets a Girlfriend (#uab4022d7-60a5-5b74-9edd-e1bb0569641f)

Just This One Last Lift and That'll be It (#litres_trial_promo)

Jarvis Goes to London (#litres_trial_promo)

Jarvis Learns to Swim (#litres_trial_promo)

August 31st 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

Simon Aveton (#litres_trial_promo)

Jarvis Reinvents Himself (#litres_trial_promo)

Dean Bantham and Shane Prior (#litres_trial_promo)

Jarvis Gives Something Back (#litres_trial_promo)

Mark Halwell (#litres_trial_promo)

Jarvis Buries a Millennium Time Capsule (#litres_trial_promo)

Lloyd Morleigh (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Ham Alone (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise for Driving Jarvis Ham (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

‘Would you drink a pint of your own piss?’

‘Yes I would.’

‘Eat some shit?’

‘No problem.’

‘How about someone else’s piss or shit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you toss a man off?’

‘Of course I would.’

‘An old man?’

‘Yes.’

‘That old man who used to sit outside our school drinking white spirit?’

‘Yes.’

‘While your grandmother was watching?’

‘Yep.’

‘Would you punch a child?’

‘Uh huh.’

A car game.

To pass the hours between service station stops and hard shoulder/weak bladder toilet breaks. To lessen the boredom that is the drive up from Devon to London with Jarvis Ham as a passenger.

The Million Pound Game is a hypothetical question game, like what would you do if you won the lottery or if you had three minutes to live or you were invisible.