I have been into getting messy for a very long time. Ive been lurking here ever since UMD first appeared on the scene. I've got to a point in my life (over 50 - how did that happen?!!!) where i'm finally asking myself why I have spent so many years repressing myself and not doing what I want to do. One of the first stages of casting off this repression is to confess! Well, I don't mean confess, but to put down in words how my journey has evolved and for others to read and react to it. I've never been a 'hey, look at me!' person, so I think, if you'll indulge me, this could be very cathartic.
When I was a small boy, one of my first memories was going to visit my Grandfather's pattern making workshop (a noble profession which no longer exists today). I am told I said 'oh! What a mess!' I was a fastidious boy - obsessively clean. It wasn't until I was beginning puberty very early (my voice broke when I was 9) that I had the first stirrings seeing mess on the TV. TV in the UK in the '70s and '80s must have been run by wammers! It was time for me to start rebelling, but my rebellion was very private and very discreet. I could hardly let myself rebel and I've pretty much spent my life doing that. What I was rebelling against, in my own way, was that clean little boy.

I remember my first messy experience. It was very lame, not even particularly messy. I put a piece of chewed gum in one of my socks and stood up, squashing it onto the bottom of my foot. It wasn't much, but it immediately gave me an erection. I was off!! I was very nervous of this discovery. Of course, at the time, I thought that I was the only freak to be turned on by doing something naughty. I was wracked by thoughts of guilt, revulsion and shame - but I knew I had to get properly messy. How was I going to be able to do it??

I think it must have been a year or so before I was able to. Exam study time - I was in the house by myself during the day, so had time to be messy and clean up, before anybody knew about it. At this time I played with some custard, made some porridge (which blew my mind, and being engulfed in it still does!) and I think I also used some jam. A particularly shameful (at the time) episode was pinching my sister's cycling shorts (she had got a pair as they were a current fashion). I found I was turned on by this shiny new fabric. I poured porridge over myself while wearing the shorts and filled them (more mindblowing new experiences!!). My parents had recently made a new bathroom on the top floor of the house where my bedroom was, so this was my mess chamber. It had a cupboard in the eaves of the house from this bathroom and I hid the shorts in there until I coud do something abaout them later. Nobody ever went into the cupboard. I went back in a day or two...the shorts were gone! I must have turned the colour of a beetroot. I was hot with shame - discovered!! I cleaned up thoroughly each time I used the bath, but I'm sure my mum found the shorts and of course she would notice the residue of the mess created in the bath. To her credit, she has never mentioned anything about any of it.

My next period of new found freedom was going off to university. Of course, as a student, you are never private, always living in shared houses and I was so repressed, I didn't take any advantage of my situation - I should have had girlfriends, gone to parties and clubs - broken down my repressions. But I didn't. I really enjoyed my student years, but I do regret not grasping the sexual and messy opportunites that I'm sure were there. In my first year, I lived in a halls of residence with a large dining hall where everyone would congregate to eat. One evening, a mixed group started a small food fight between themselves. A girl in the group, who I thought was particularly attractive, ended up with everyone's yoghurts poured over her head. The group then carried her out and dropped her in a muddy pond outside. I was astounded, embarrassed, a bit amused and incredibly excited. Why couldn't I be part of that kind of thing.
At this time, the early '90s, fellow students were talking about going to use something called the internet at the university's computer lab. I, and probably most of us had no idea of the significance of this and how it would change our lives in the future. I went off to study for a master's degree at a different university. Our department had its own computer and we could use this out of hours for writing our theses. On the first occasion I used the machine, I was alone. After I completed my day's work, I used the internet. It was after 7pm. I searched using the word 'messy'....of the results that came up, messyfun caught my eye. OH MY GOD. Thanks to Rob Blaine, I knew I was not alone. Within a month(!!!) I had received my first VHS video from Rob. He was such a nice man. The other website which I found and loved was Shokolada's Mess (which I'm delighted to say is still on the go!). The department computer had a dot matrix printer and I printed out reams and reams of messy stories for my own personal gratification. I remember one about a candy store on a boardwalk at a beach and two sexy female friends ended up in a huge tub of chocolate fudge together. Mmmmm!

I think this was before the time when institutions monitored internet use. When I think of the websites I visited, it's a wonder I wasnt sent down!!
The city where I was studying has hilly countryside very nearby and I was renting on this side of the city. There are river valleys from the hills and I would walk miles at the weekends. One of these valleys had very smooth clay deposits in the river bed. It was here that I had my first outdoor mud experience. I was so close to being discovered - another discovery, that excitement of nearly being caught doing something very naughty. I spent a year back home then, looking for a job in my chosen field. A WAM hiatus.

I found a job in a new part of the country for me. Freedom again - a few messy sessions, just me in my rented flat. I bought my own flat and, shortly after, my own computer. My own space and privacy and an internet connection (albeit a dialup one!) and my messy collection blossomed. I think UMD had started by this point and I had some online buddies I was communicating with - lost touch with them all now. I had problems with my original UMD account. It was at this time I chose my name for the messy realm - Gloopy. I bought Splosh magazines at this time too. I still remember the cover with the manageress of Dixons in Hove or wherever with her head totally covered in black treacle.

One of the male buddies I was in contact with (I think he was a stage scenery designer) suggested that a lad he was in contact with who lived very close to me should arrange to come to mine for a platonic messy session (both the lad and myself being heterosexual). We did meet up for pies, porridge and treacle over and in a paddling pool in my kitchen. We both got very messy. He was very young and very nervous. It was the first time either of us had been messy in the presence of someone else and had been made messy by someone else. An enjoyable, if non-sexual encounter. I yearned to have such an experience with a female partner. By the way, if you think you were that lad, it would be great to hear from you!

My messyest experience while living here was a muddy one. Across the road from my flat was an estuary with an old dock. It's a fancy marina, hotel and flats now. Then it was very silted up. Deep, smelly black mud. Total submersion! Fantastic. I cut my foot in the mud and I was concerned for a few days it might go septic, but I survived and it was so worth it. Two weeks later, I was talking to friends who lived up the hill - a couple. The previous weekend, they were visited by a university friend who, on seeing the dock, at once said, 'ooo, I'd love to dive in and have a good wallow!'. I REALLY wish I had been able to tell them my story. She had a definite glint in her eye when she was relating this tale!
My next move was to Scotland. Its quite cold for WAM in Scotland! Still, I love it here. I stayed with a friend for a few months before buying a house in the woods on the edge of a lovely town. I didn't do much physical wamming in this period, just enjoyed the material I'd collected. I also dated a few women and met the woman who is my wife now and has been for nearly 20 years. It nearly didn't happen though. I made a real mess of how she discovered my messy likes.....she found some pictures of a couple of beautiful girls pouring thick, drippy, dreamy chocolate pudding over each other in an outside paddling pool. She absolutely FLIPPED. I was horrified with this outcome, but we got past the shock. This is when I should have told all. I would now. I destroyed all those great stories, the Splosh magazines, some shiny clothing I liked to get messy in and sold a splendid pair of latex shorts.

We very much liked each other, got on really well and we still satisfy each other sexually even after all these years. My wife knows about the wamming in my life, but we have never properly discussed the subject or actually played with mess together. She did seem up for some custard nipple play a few years ago, but it never happened. I have had a few solo messy sessions since - wallowing in some fantastic black clay out the back of a house we were building, buckets of custard in the bath....But a big part of my casting off of repression is to have a long and honest conversation with my wife about my fetish. I have a feeling that things are going to be OK.