Crazy shit would happen all the time at that house. The fact that I was usually pissed up and fucking around with my shot-guns didn’t help. That’s a great combination, that is – booze and shotguns. Very fucking safe. One time I tried to jump over a fence in the back garden while holding one of my guns. I’d forgotten to put the safety on and my finger was resting on the trigger, so as soon as I hit the ground, it went BAM! BAM! BAM! and almost blew my leg off.
It’s a miracle I ain’t an amputee.
I’d shoot anything that moved in those days. I remember when we got rid of Thelma’s Triumph Herald and replaced it with a brand-new Mercedes – after yet another call to Patrick Meehan’s office. The car was always covered in scratches, and we couldn’t work out why. I’d get it resprayed, park it in the garage overnight, but the next morning the paintwork would be covered in all these nicks and gouges again. It was costing me an arm and a leg. Then I realised what was happening: we had a family of stray cats living in the garage, and when it was cold they’d climb up on the Merc’s bonnet, because it was nice and warm. So, one day, I came back from a long session at the Hand & Cleaver, got my shotgun, and just fucking obliterated the place. I got two or three of them that first time. Then I kept going back every day, picking them off, one by one.
But y’know, that’s one of my regrets – the cruelty to animals. I could have found another way to get rid of those cats, but like I said, I was out of control. It got so bad, people started to call my house Atrocity Cottage, not Bulrush Cottage. It was me who came up with the name – I just blurted it out one night when I was pissed – but from then on it stuck.
People would come to stay with us and they’d never be the same again. Take my old mate Jimmy Phillips, the bloke who’d played bottleneck guitar in Polka Tulk. He got so fucked up on booze and Afghan hash over at Bulrush Cottage one night that he ended up taking a shit in the kitchen sink. Then there was the time when one of my old schoolfriends from Birmingham brought his new wife over for a visit. The day after they arrived, I woke up in the morning with a terrible headache and a big hairy arm around my shoulder. I thought my mate must have been having a go at Thelma while I was asleep, so I jumped out of bed, ready to chin the bastard. But then I realised what had happened: I’d got up in the middle of the night to take a piss and had gone back to the wrong room. Talk about an awkward fucking situation. I was stark naked, too – so I just grabbed my trousers from the floor and dived back into the bed, put them on under the sheets, and then staggered back to my own room, with no one saying a word.
I’ve never seen them again to this day.
And, as time went on, things got even crazier. At one point – don’t ask me why – I started to wear medical uniforms all the time. My assistant, David Tangye, bought them for me. You’d see us staggering up and down these country lanes between the pubs, out of our minds on booze, dope, acid – you name it – wearing these green American-style scrubs, with stethoscopes around our necks.
Every once in a while, the lads from Led Zeppelin would also come over to Bulrush Cottage. Robert Plant didn’t live too far away, actually, and I’d go over to his place, too. I remember one night at Plant’s house – not long after we’d got back from Bel Air – I taught him how to play seven-card stud. That was a big fucking mistake. As I explained the rules, he said he wanted to place bets – ‘just to see how it works, y’know?’ – and then he kept raising the stakes. I was just beginning to think what a fucking idiot he must be when he pulled out a royal flush, and I had to give him fifty quid.
He fleeced me, the cheeky bastard.
After a few nights out with Zeppelin, I worked out that their drummer, John Bonham, was as fucking nuts as I was, so we’d spend most of the time trying to out-crazy each other. That was always the way with me, y’know? I’d try to win people over with my craziness, like I had in the playground at Birchfield Road. But, of course, behind the mask there was a sad old clown most of the time. Bonham was the same, I think.
He would just drink himself to fucking bits. One time, we got his assistant, a guy called Matthew, to drive us to a club in Birmingham in my car. But when it was time to go home, Bonham was so pissed, he thought it was his car, so he locked all the doors from inside and wouldn’t let me in. I ended up standing in the car park shouting, ‘John, this is my car. Open the door!’
‘Fuck off,’ he said, through the window, as Matthew revved the engine.
‘John, for crying out—’
‘I said fuck off.’
‘BUT THIS IS MY CAR!’
Then something finally clicked inside his head. ‘Well, you should fucking get in then, shouldn’t you?’ he said.
Even though I was pissed all the time in the seventies, the one thing I really wanted to do more than just about anything was get my driving licence. And fucking hell, man, I tried. I took my test more times than I can remember while I lived at Bulrush Cottage – and I failed every time. I’d just get intimidated, y’know? After my first couple of attempts, I started to go down to the Hand & Cleaver beforehand to sort out my nerves, but more often than not I’d end up being shitfaced by the time I got in the car with the examiner, and then I’d drive like a cunt. Then I thought the problem might be the car, so I called Patrick Meehan’s office and asked for a Range Rover to replace the Merc. When that didn’t work, I asked for a Jag. But it was a V12, so every time I put my foot down, I woke up in a hedge.
Eventually I took the test in a Roller.
That didn’t work, either.
Finally I went to the doctor and asked for some pills to calm me down, so he wrote me a prescription for a sedative. On the box, it said, ‘DO NOT MIX WITH ALCOHOL’, which was like showing a red rag to a bull as far as I was concerned. Still, I managed to limit myself to only three or four pints that day. Unfortunately, that just meant I smoked twice as much Afghan hash. The good news was that when I got into the car with the examiner, I didn’t feel intimated at all. The bad news was that when I stopped for the first traffic light, I nodded off.
I gave up on the tests after that, but I kept driving anyway. Whenever I gave anyone a ride, they’d ask, ‘Do you have a licence yet?’ and I’d answer, ‘Oh yeah, of course.’
Which was sort of true.
I had a TV licence.
But I didn’t want to push my luck too far, so I started trying to come up with other ways of getting around.
Which is why I ended up getting a horse.
Now, I’m generally not cool with horses – they don’t have brakes and they’ve got their own brains. But I was bored of going down to the Hand & Cleaver on my lawnmower, so I went to see a dealer and said, ‘Look, can you get me a horse that’s a bit on the lazy side?’
A few days later, this chick turned up at the cottage with this pure white gelding – a male with its nuts chopped off – called Turpin. ‘He’s very laid back,’ she told me. ‘He won’t give you any trouble at all. The only things he doesn’t like are very loud hissing noises – like the air brakes on a truck. But you won’t get anything like that around here.’
‘Oh no,’ I said, laughing. ‘It’s very quiet out here in Ranton.’
So I called Patrick Meehan’s office to get him to send the breeder some dough, and that was that: I was the proud owner of one lazy horse. I kept him at the farm up the road, because they had a little paddock and someone who could feed him and clean out his stable.
Of course, the second I got Turpin I thought I was John Wayne. I started riding him up and down Butt Lane, wearing a cowboy hat and this leather shirt that I’d bought in LA, singing the theme to Rawhide. After a few days of that I started to feel pretty comfortable in the saddle, so one lunchtime I decided to take him past the Hand & Cleaver to show the locals, and maybe stop off for a cheeky one at the same time. Off we went down Butt Lane, clippety-clop, clippety-clop. Now, that summer, the Hand & Cleaver had put these picnic tables outside, so I knew I’d have an audience. And I couldn’t wait to see everyone’s jaws drop when I turned
up.
On I went, clippety-clop, clippety-clop.
Two minutes later, I’d arrived.
Sure enough, all these people were sitting outside with their pints and their bags of pork scratchings, and they started oohing and ahhing when they saw this beautiful white horse. Then I pulled on the reins to get Turpin to stop, and started to dismount. But just as I was about to swing my leg over the saddle, a milk delivery truck came around the bend. At first, I ignored it – that truck used to drive up Butt Lane every week – but then a thought popped into my head: I hope that thing doesn’t have air bra—
TTSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH went the truck.
The second those air brakes went off, Turpin’s ears went back and he took off like a fucking Grand National winner. First he bolted in the direction of the truck, with me hanging on to the saddle for dear life, one foot out of the stirrups, my cowboy hat dangling from my neck by the strap. Then he realised he was going in the wrong direction, so he turned around and started galloping back towards the farm. He charged past the Hand & Cleaver at such a fucking speed, the faces of the people outside were just a blur. Meanwhile, I was screaming at the top of my lungs, ‘Staaarghp! You fucker! Staaarghp!’ Which is exactly what he did, as soon as he got back to his paddock – he stopped dead, sending me flying over his head and a fence.
I landed in a cowpat.
Turpin got a new owner after that.
Then, a few days later, I killed the vicar. Or at least I thought I did.
It was an accident.
You see, in those days, out in the countryside, vicars would make house calls. They didn’t need a reason to come and see you. You’d just hear a knock on your door and there would be a bloke in his frock and his dog collar, wanting to talk about the weather.
So one day, while I was down the pub, the vicar came round to Bulrush Cottage for one of his visits, and Thelma invited him in for a cup of tea. The trouble was, Bulrush Cottage wasn’t set up for entertaining vicars – there were beer cans and shotguns and bongs all over the place – and Thelma didn’t have a clue what to feed him, either. So she rummaged around in the kitchen until she found this nasty-looking cake in an old tin. With no better option, she gave him a slice, even though it looked and tasted like shit.
What Thelma had forgotten was that the week before, my local dope dealer had given me some dodgy hash. It was stale or something, so it was crap to smoke, but it was still as potent as ever. And rather than letting it go to waste, I’d grated it into a bowl with some cake mix and baked it. The trouble was, the lump of dope was enormous, and I only had half a tin of cake mix in the cupboard, so the cake ended up being about 80 per cent dope and 20 per cent mix. I almost barfed when I tasted it.
‘See this tin?’ I remember saying to Thelma. ‘Don’t let anyone touch it.’
She mustn’t have been listening.
All she knew was that there was a tin with a skull and cross-bones marked on it, with some cake inside, and that she had a vicar to feed. So she gave him a slice.
He’d just swallowed his last mouthful when I got back from the pub. The second I saw him sitting there on the sofa with the little plate in front of him and crumbs everywhere, I knew it was bad news.
‘That really was a delicious slice of cake. Thank you very much, Mrs Osbourne,’ the vicar was saying. ‘Would you mind if I had another?’
‘Oh, not at all!’ said Thelma.
‘Thelma,’ I said, ‘I don’t think we have any more cake.’
‘Yes, we do, John, it’s in the kitch—’
‘WE. DON’T. HAVE. MORE. CAKE.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to be any trouble,’ said the vicar, standing up. Then he started to dab his brow with a handkerchief. Then he turned a funny colour.
I knew exactly what was coming next. You see, eating dope is very different to smoking it – it affects your whole body, not just your head. And it takes only the tiniest bit to send you over the edge.
‘Oh my,’ he said. ‘I think I’m feeling a little—’
BOOM!
‘Fuck! Vicar down!’ I shouted, rushing over to see if he was still breathing. Then I turned to look at Thelma. ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ I said. ‘He’s gonna die! I told you not to touch that cake. He’s just eaten enough Afghan hash to knock out a bleedin’ elephant!’
‘How was I supposed to know the cake was dodgy?’
‘Because I told you!’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘It’s in a tin with a skull and crossbones on the top!’
‘So what are we going to do?’ said Thelma, turning white.
‘We’re going to have to move the body, that’s what we’re going to have to do,’ I said. ‘Here, take his legs.’
‘Where are we taking him?’
‘Back to wherever he lives.’
So we carried the vicar to his car, put him on the back seat, found his address in the glove compartment, and I drove him home. He was out cold. Part of me honestly thought he was a goner, although I’d been drinking most of the day, so I can’t say I was thinking completely straight. All I knew is that for a man of the cloth – or anyone else – that much of my hash in one go could be lethal. But I kept telling myself that he’d just wake up with a really bad hangover, and we’d be OK.
When I got to his house I dragged him out of his car and propped him up on the steps to the front door. If I’d have been cleverer, I would have wiped my fingerprints off the car, but I just felt so terrible about what had happened, and I so badly wanted to believe that he’d be fine, I can honestly say it never even entered my head.
Still, I spent the entire night lying awake, waiting for the sirens. Clearly, I’d be the first person to get a knock on the door in the middle of the night if they did any tests on the vicar’s body. Who else in his parish would have given him a lethal slice of hash cake? But there were no sirens that night. And none the next day, either.
Then more days passed. Still nothing.
I was out of my fucking mind with guilt. So was Thelma.
But I didn’t want to go anywhere near the vicarage – it might look a bit suspicious – so every time I went to the Hand & Cleaver I’d make subtle enquiries. ‘Anyone bumped into the vicar lately?’ I’d say, all casual. ‘He’s a nice bloke, that vicar, isn’t he? I wonder what his sermon will be about on Sunday.’ Eventually someone mentioned that he must be off sick, ’cos he’d missed church and no one had seen him for a while.
That’s it, I thought. I killed him. I wondered if I should turn myself in. ‘It was an accident, Your Honour,’ I imagined myself saying to the judge. ‘A terrible, terrible accident.’ This went on for at least a week.
Then, one day, I walked into the pub and there he was, at the bar, in his frock, sipping a cranberry juice.
I almost hugged the bloke and gave him a kiss.
‘Oh, er, hello there, Vicar,’ I said, going light in the head with relief.
‘Ah, Mr Osbourne,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘You know the funniest thing? I can’t remember how I got home from your house the other day. And the next morning I had this terrible, terrible flu.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Vicar.’
‘Yes, yes, a very nasty business, that flu.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I’ve never had flu like it.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re feeling bett—’
‘I was having hallucinations for three days, you know? The most curious experience. I convinced myself that Martians had landed on the Vicarage lawn and were trying to organise a tombola.’
‘That’s terrible, Vicar. I hope you’re feeling better now.’
‘Oh, much better, thank you. Although I must have put on 40 pounds this week, I’ve been so incredibly hungry.’
‘Listen, Vicar,’ I said. ‘If there’s anything I can do for the church, anything at all, just let me know, OK?’
‘Oh, how kind of you. Do you play the organ, by any chance?’
‘Er, no.??
?
‘But you are in some kind of pop group, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Tell me, what do you call yourselves?’
‘Black Sabbath.’
‘Oh.’ The vicar frowned for a while. Then he looked at me and said, ‘That’s a rather peculiar name, isn’t it?’
6
The End is Nigh
We recorded the next Black Sabbath album in a haunted house, out in the middle of absolutely fucking nowhere. I don’t know whose brilliant idea that was, but it wasn’t mine, that’s for sure. The name of the place was Clearwell Castle. It was in the Forest of Dean, on the Welsh border, and it scared the crap out of us from day one. It had a moat, a portcullis, four-poster beds in the rooms, big fireplaces everywhere, animal heads on the walls, and a big old dark musty dungeon, which we used as our rehearsal room. It had been built in 1728 on the site of an old Tudor manor house, and the locals told us that a headless figure would roam the corridors at night, moaning and wailing. We just laughed it off, but as soon as we’d unpacked our bags, we all started to get the willies, big time. At least that took the pressure off us, as far as the next album was concerned. We were more worried about sleeping alone in these spooky old rooms with swords and armour on the walls than coming up with another million-selling LP. We weren’t so much the Lords of Darkness as the Lords of Chickenshit when it came to that kind of thing. I remember when we went to see The Exorcist that Christmas in Philadelphia: we were so freaked out, we had to go and watch The Sting afterwards to take our minds off it. Even then, we all ended up sleeping in the same hotel room, because we were scared out of our minds. It’s funny, because years later Linda Blair – who played the satanic kid in that movie – ended up dating my mate Glenn Hughes from Deep Purple. She definitely liked musicians, it turned out. She even went out with Ted Nugent once. But she wouldn’t go near me.