The western world is full of tattooed bodies. We cannot wait to drill designs into the skin we were born in, to decorate it, prettify it, make it interesting to the eye. It’s nice to think that this might be because we retain some folk memory of our clannish ancestors, our woad-traced forefathers, but rather I think, in Britain at least, it’s more to do with slavishness, a herd mentality, a fear of personal expression unless it’s been sanctioned by the crowd first. Skin ink began like that, I guess, as an indelible badge of tribal belonging, but it became something very different, namely a record of an individual trajectory, utterly unique to the wearer. Yet cast an eye across any British beach on any summer’s day and you’ll see the same few patterns, endlessly repeated; pointy tiger stripes on the arms, faux-Celtic or faux-Maori designs on the deltoids, Sanskrit lettering on the inside forearms. Women sport a squiggle on the meaty outside of the palm because that’s what Cheryl Cole has; men have a swirly crucifix on the shoulder or back because Rooney or Beckham or any of a million sheep-like others has that too. It’s baffling; they must see a tattoo and think to themselves ‘that looks individual and cool so I’ll get it too’, and completely missing the irony. Reproduction makes mundanity. A tattoo will be on you until a few weeks after death (unless you’re cremated); that in itself is reason enough to seek uniqueness. But we’ve lost the ability to think for ourselves. If you wear a tattoo that you’ve ever seen on anyone else, unless you can be absolutely certain that you were the first to get it, then go and buy a wire brush or an electric sander, and use it. I’m not kidding. Abrade the bloody thing away. You’re stupid and you deserve the pain.

Anyway. I first tattooed myself in my early teens, at school, with a compass and a bottle of Indian ink, as a way of shocking my (lovely, but I didn’t know it then) parents and (unlovely, and I did know it) teachers. It worked, but I never really thought the marks would stay. They have, of course, and they’re unsightly, but they’re part of who I am, these blue-black blobs in my skin; the reckless boy I was still in the man I am. Then, at 18, I saved up and went, alone, to Pete’s Ink in Birkenhead, chose two designs from his board and had them needled in, one on each bicep. Why? I don’t know; I was eighteen, and the reasons for doing things at that age are pretty much incomprehensible at 45. To stand out; to look tough; because, at that time, the only people who had tattoos were sailors or criminals. I really don’t know. That’s part of the point of being 18, that you do things that will forever remain mysterious to the you that isn’t 18 anymore. Again, these designs have faded, and look like something from a bygone era now, but that’s why I like them; they’re permanent reminders of when I was wildly alive on the earth, a danger to myself and others. And I could be proud of the fact that I got them at a time before tattoos were trendy, before they were acceptable, when they were a signal to avoid, not attract, like the bright colours of a poisonous insect. Aposematic colouration, it’s called, and it says - do not come near me; I can hurt you. That was the message of tattoos, then (even if I wouldn’t’ve hurt anything). Now, they’re everywhere; the bus driver has them. The under-manager at the bank who smilingly refuses you a loan has them snaking out from under the buttoned cuffs of his stiff and sober shirt. I got mine when it was daring to do so; when just having them was reason enough, under the SUS laws, for the police to question you.

And now I have another one, so new that, at the time of writing, it’s still scabby. It wasn’t planned, or thought about, at least not consciously. What happened was this; I was snoozing on the sofa one rainy afternoon with all of my purring cats, quite blissed out, and I had a dream in which a gentle and blank-faced angel which I somehow knew was a woman appeared and asked me if I was happy. I said I was, and she told me to never neglect my stormcloud and drew one on my forearm with a finger. I woke up and, in a kind of trance, drew it on paper, took it to the tattooist’s and told him to drill it into my skin. Sat in the chair, in a kind of trance. The buzzing gun. It hurt more than I remember.

So now there’s a stormcloud on my arm, big and black, with lightning bolts and raindrops coming out of it, and it’ll be there until I die and start to decay. Whenever I feel unaccountably happy I look at it and feel happier because it tells me to enjoy the moment; the storm is coming, it says, but for now the sun shines. Purring cats, angels in dreams, messages in middle-age; I cannot think of a better reason to get permanently marked. And I’ve never seen a design like it, and if I ever do, then that person had better beware the wire brush in my hand. Mid-life crisis? It doesn’t feel like one. It feels in fact as if the crisis is over.

©Niall Griffiths 2011

Niall Griffiths gets himself a totally unique tattoo

Skin Deep