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Tom O'Bedlam - History

Steven Taylor was a troubled kid who grew into a troublesome teenager. He hated rules, hated authority, loved vandalism and getting drunk and stoned with his mates. His graffiti daubed much of the area when he lived and his friends would challenge him to try more and more daring stunts to leave his mark in increasingly inaccessible places. Steven didn't care. He was doing it for the rush and had no thought of any consequences. When he wasn't painting, he was stealing cars and joyriding and, when he and his friends got bored, they moved on to the best bit - blowing the cars up.

Then, one day, when challenged to spray paint a spot underneath the railway bridge, Steven fell and badly injured his spine. His friends deserted him, leaving the police to come and pick him up out of the dirt. He was charged and sentenced and, when all was said and done, his parents were forced to act. They sent Steven away to boarding school in the hope that that might instil some discipline in him. It had the opposite effect and, after less than a month of faceless warders dressed in black and the sharp sting of wood against his flesh, Steven ran away.

He tried living on the streets of London. He had hoped to get a job, but no one wanted a teenager with no education, particularly not one with his lip. So he lurked in shop doorways with a styrofoam cup and begged for coppers. Then he met Tom. Tom was an old man who was also homeless, only his circumstances hadn't turned him cynical like everyone else. He always had a smile and a joke, even if half of them made no sense to Steven, and he happily took the boy under his wing. For a fortnight they begged together and, while it was hardly rich-pickings, those were the best two weeks Steven had spent in London so far. At the end of that time, Tom took Steven down into a disused section of the London underground. There was a blue fungus growing down there and Tom showed Steven how to harvest it and smoke it. And, while high on blue, Tom explained the secrets of the universe.

The next day was to be Tom's last with Steven. His work, he said, was done. But, before he went, he wanted to show Steven the best view in the city. He took the boy to docklands and together, they climbed to the top of Canary Wharf tower. Steven was surprised that no one tried to stop them, but Tom merely smiled enigmatically. And, when they reached the top of the tower, and before Steven could protest, they jumped off.

Time seemed to slow and then Steven was someplace else. A world of colour and sound, like a drug trip only much more intense. Steven's mind couldn't make sense of all the sensory input he was assailed with, but somewhere, deep inside, part of him did comprehend and did respond to it.

His eyes snapped open. He was lying in bed on the first floor of the converted windmill he now called home. The windmill belonged to Tom, but that was okay because he was Tom now, Tom O' Bedlam. The other Tom was an unidentified body they had scraped off the pavement in front of Canary Wharf three years ago. And Steven - Tom - had stepped into the old man's life just as he had wanted him to. His eyes had been opened. Tom - both of them - knew that reality didn't have to be this way, not if you looked at things askew, but the old man's time was over and now younger blood had to step up and continuing rewriting the universe the way it should be.

They wanted to oppress the masses, strangle them with rules and order. Let them watch out. Tom O' Bedlam was back.

Tom is an agent of chaos. But he's not the man he once was. Steven didn't really care what other people thought or who he might hurt. However, in taking on Tom's identity, he has, unwittingly or otherwise, taken on some of the old Tom's personality traits, like the pacifism. Like vegetarianism. Tom left him a Sainsbury's bag of stuff, which is how he got access to the windmill and his money.

Tom's is a very simple credo: do what thou will, but bring harm to none. He has no time for rules, but has even less time for people that hurt others. His holier-than-thou attitude can be a bit grating at times, though. He is also a keen environmentalist and animal rights activist. He has a pet ginger cat call Freyja.

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