Category Archives: Autobiographical

Forget Me Not

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Warning: Contains mild bad language. May not be suitable for miners (notably Drift and Open Cast) or those of a nervous disposition.

Long, long ago, when Biddy Baxter was still producer of Blue Peter on BBC children’s  TV, a friend came visit from Valencia in Spain. Like many of his generation who lived through the final two decades of Franco’s dictatorship, he, as well as the formal Castillian, learned and spoke the regional language of  Valencia – very similar to Catalan in fact. During his visit he came to be walking in the local high street, on which there is a greetings card and gift shop with ideas above its station, called ‘Forget Me Not’.

Our visitor caught the shop sign out of the corner of his eye. Initial shock gave way to helpless laughter as he explained he had read the shop sign as ‘Jorge Me Fot’ which translates into Valencian as ‘George, screw me’

Which is quite appropriate in its own way, as that’s what they do to you every time you buy something there.

A Fist Full Of Pencils

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Now then. Long long ago when Professor Green was still  in the infants, a friend of mine teaches in a secondary comprehensive school in West London. He is an alright kind of teacher: not brillliant, but not hopeless either. In fact, he keeps his classes in pretty good order, which is the type of thing Headteachers and senior teachers generally approve of, because it means less work for them. Moreover, he gets on pretty good with the kids and their parents too, and is thought of as a safe pair of hands when it comes to the teaching dodge, which is just as well as he is at it for well over a decade by now. Besides, he teaches Art so nobody gives a cuss anyway as long as no-one is throwing paint around or walking about the school looking like Coco the clown.

For six years my friend is a Sixth Form tutor. This means the kids it is his responsibilty to register and look after in what is known as ‘Pastoral Care’ are of the older variety and studying for important exams such as A level, AS level, GNVQ, NVQ and FA. On the whole these kids are much more mature than the younger ones and it is usually thought of as an easier ride than having to cope with hundreds of ankle-snappers. Although what with sorting out love-affairs, hungover students, what radio station to have on in the mornings and the ‘ghost writing’ of endless UCAS applications for university and colleges the kids have no intention of going to, I’m not so sure.

Well it seems that someone is looking a bit too closely at the allocation of teachers to form classes and they spot that our hero is generally having a fine time; whereas they could put any old dipstick in to look after a six form group it is so easy; and use him far more profitably ‘up the sharp end’ let’s say, as a form tutor to a band new crop of eager-faced, enthusiastic Year 7 students. (My friend says there is nothing to make his blood run cold such as eager-faced, enthusiastic year 7 students.)

In considering this state of affairs, it is evident that his relationship with these eager-faced, enthusiastic year 7 students could last as long as 5 years: until they reach year 11 and their GCSE examinations. He ponders a while about the year 11s he teaches and the year 11 forms he knows and how he will be blowed if he has such a shower of shi – apologies I was about to use an educational term there which not everone would have been familiar with; he will be blowed if he has such a group of disaffected and disobedient pupils in his form in 5 years time.

So he figures on training up his new class of eager-faced, enthusiastic crumb-chasers so that they know things like what is right, what is wrong, where to hang  their coats and bags, to always carry their homework diary (signed) and probably most of all: to stick together in the face of adversity. And how does he manage the latter in prticular? Well on their first day in their big school, they get to go around and have fun taster lessons in subjects like science and technology. You know the ones which use all the cool equipment and apparatus that you never ever see again all the time you are at school. After that they have something called ‘lunch’ then go to their form rooms with their new teachers for ‘a de-brief.’

It is at this point the pencils come out. Right. Who’s feeling strong? (says my friend). Some hands go up (This is a good start. No 30 voices all yelling out together) OK. One is chosen and thrown a pencil. See if you can break it. Well, snap naturally, snap it is no big deal, snap. Anyone else? Hands go up. Snap, snap, snap and so on. After about 4 tries my friend chooses the biggest, strongest in the class and chucks them thirty pencils, tied together with 2 elastic bands. Now, have a go with that. Well, this guy ends up going purple in the face trying: he can’t do it. Eager hands go up again, and the next one has a try and so on and so on until they get to bashing them on the table and just as someone has the bright idea to drop them out of the window, my friend takes the pencils back.

You know what these are? He asks them. He sees 30 eager-faced, enthusiastic children staring back at him (in fact, he tells me to this day he still sees those same 11 year old faces and admits that if he was an old softy it would choke him up more than somewhat, but that thankfully he isn’t)

You know what these are? He asks again. These are like our class. We all stick together and look out for each other, for if we don’t, look what happens; at which he takes a couple of pencils from the bundle, and breaks them snap, snap like so. If we don’t stick together, people will be able to break us easily or wear us down. In this class we take care of each other.

Well, it seems to work pretty good, for although to begin with my friend plays the ‘Old Mr. Grumpy’ once he feels his class has got it together he begins to kick back a bit, and what do you know, by year 11, they are not a shower of shi – apologies, I have slipped back into complex educational jargon again. They are not a class of disaffected youth with a resentful, isolated teacher but best of friends who spend their morning registration time enjoying each other’s company (as well as sorting out love-affairs, hungover students and what radio station to have on)

In fact my friend tells me he keeps in contact with nearly all of that old class by something called Facebook, which seems to be a bit like the old town crier (You know with the bell and ‘Oye! Oye!’) but works with electricity and is much quicker and quieter. They are all grown up now, some are married, many have crumb-chasers of their own but they always remember the fist full of pencils.

Affectionally dedicated to AD and thanks to Chawkey for the idea.

© Andy Daly 2012

Rake’s Progress Pt.2

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Essex.

Somewhere I have generally avoided if the truth be known, save for a couple of forays into deepest darkest Colchester. And the inevitable journeys into the hearts of darkness that are London Underground termini in the early hours of the morning, such as Upminster, Dagenham, Barking etc; which, though pleasant enough they may be during the daylight, are distinctly unwelcoming to the traveller, slowly-sobering as they (me) try to figure out how they have managed to slumber through so many stations and how the fuck am I going to get home.

Having said that, it does occur to me that actually I spent a good proportion of my time learning drive on the roads in the county of Essex.

Learning to drive

But my first driving lessons, however were courtesy of my Dad on the beautiful country lanes (deathtraps) around our home, Seascale in the Lake District.  One day, after sitting in the car for a few minutes, looking out of the windshield at clear blue skies, listening to a grinding, whirring sound as it slowed and faded; the sound of front wheels that no longer have contact with a road surface, but which are running free and gradually losing momentum. (They were able to do this as the fuschia Hillman Avenger* that we were sitting in had come to rest, yours truly behind the controls, at an angle of 45 degrees after taking on a dry stone wall and fence.) My Dad turned to me, stiffly – It may have been the whiplash – and said “Let’s swap places”  reversed it back onto the road and never mentioned it again.

(*It was the ‘70s)

So it was at the age of 26 while living in Bromley by Bow in the East End of London that I eventually learned to drive when the streets of Whitechapel, Mile End, Old Ford, Stepney, East Ham, Ilford and Barking were my training ground. I must confess, I had my doubts about my instructor: not because she was a woman, but because one memorable lesson she told me to drive up the off-slip of the A12, Blackwall Tunnel road just to the north of East India Dock road. All my instincts said ‘Noooo’ and I voiced my concern but she wouldn’t have it until we got to the apex of the tight loop that the road makes to find two lanes of traffic bearing down on us. I think it probably prompted the quickest three point turn I’ve ever done. Funnily enough, she never mentioned it again.

Don’t Dwell

My first car was a 1971 1.8 Marina coupe: GLD 967J. What a car. I remember the day I bought it, which also happened to be the day I moved from Bromley by Bow to Sudbury Town, Wembley. A  Momentous day. It began an icy December morning. I had to get the tube at what seemed like the crack of dawn, from Bow to Ickenham where the car was garaged, collect it, then drive (my first solo drive) down the A40 into and through central London back to Bow to load up my gear. Then a drive in the gathering gloom to Wembley to take possession of a three bed house I was to share for a year with mates Chawkey and Wiz. Not content with that, later the same evening I went to a party I’d been invited to near Rayner’s Lane. In itself, unremarkable except for the fact that it was there I met and fell in love with the woman I was later to marry. But that’s getting ahead a bit.

   Look at that! Marina 1.8 Coupe. Poetry in motion. Sorry that should read Pottery in motion.

On the subject  of the Marina, for those of you who know the stretch of road (A501) that runs from Grays Inn, past Euston, Baker Street and finally onto the Marylebone flyover. Well I’d not been driving long when one night, coming back from watching speedway at Hackney’s Waterdon Road stadium, now, of course virtually the epicentre of the 2012 Olympic Park. I managed to get from King’s Cross to the A40, without a single red light! Couldn’t do it now of course. Too many new sets of lights. And speed cameras.

One of the things about Parkinson’s – what my then consultant, Richard Crawford described as this ‘insidious disease’ is that eventually you lose your driving licence as, quite rightly, you are deemed too disabled to safely control a vehicle. Not a good day when that happens. I don’t dwell on it, but I did love driving, and if you’ll forgive the conceit, think I was a pretty good driver at that.

A real blast

One of the things I used to get a real blast from was driving the school minibuses. The first one I drove was an old Transit ‘crewbus’ with the wooden bench seating in the back, down each side – wouldn’t be allowed of course these days – interior coverered with a generous layer of fine dried mud, kicked off hundreds of pairs of football boots. Naturally you had to undergo rigorous training before you were allowed to take it out. As I recall, my minibus training consisted of driving it in a circle in the school car park and then stopping it.

I remember some good times in it though. Taking it to France with a group of kids and staying in a beautful old French farmhouse south of Boulogne. In Slough for ice skating, getting it stuck under the car park height restriction because of the bloody roof rack. Again at Slough (different school and more modern buses) the one I had elected to drive, unbeknown to me had a slipping clutch. Apart from having to nurse this bloody bus there and back, the nearest I got to the ice was  Wexham Park Hospital where I spent the entire evening with one of the girls who had taken a tumble and hurt her wrist. Needless to say when we needed any ‘wheels’ for jobs at home – clearing out the garage for instance, going  to IKEA  or if the car broke down, there was always the minibus and it became quite a familiar sight outside the house in Sudbury Town.

Ray loading minbus. Ealing Town Hall

The minibus also came in handy when we needed to move the band’s equipment around. At the last school I worked at there were always concerts and talent shows, so for a laugh a few of us got together and decided to do a couple of numbers. We had great fun and soon a couple of numbers became a couple more and a couple more, until we had over an hour’s worth of fairly eclectic covers of songs as diverse as (Iggy Pop) ‘Passenger’ (Radiohead) ‘High and Dry’ (U2) ‘With or Without You’ (Green Day) ‘Pulling Teeth’ to (Van Morrison) ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ (The Beatles) ‘Back in the USSR’ and (Abba) ‘Mama Mia’. At the time, our main rivals were the 6th Form band. Two of whom subsequently stuck at the music caper and now make up 66.6% of chart band ‘Scouting for Girls’, and therein lies a bit of a story.

I was a big fan of the ‘second wave’ punk band The Ruts right from the outset and remember their first airing on John Peel’s show. I had seen them live, twice in Newcastle and liked their energy, intelligent songwriting and their ablity to bring in other musical influences (specifically Reggae and Dub) without it sounding blue-eyed and artificial . I played  their first album “The Crack” again and again in the slug-infested flat I shared in Stoke Newington with my best mate Aky and the former members of Sade’s band. I can’t think of a single person I played it to over the years who didn’t like it. Key to it all was the distinctive guitar sound and innovative playing of Paul Fox.

The Ruts
(Paul Fox far left)

Now, it was coming up to the Christmas concert and the Sixth Form band had a little ace up their sleeves in the shape of a promising drummer, one Lawrence (Lorry) Fox. Despite being four years or so younger than his fellow bandmates he got the gig because he was so talented and had his own pretty cool Gretsch drumkit. It wasn’t until the night of the concert as we stood on the hall stage admiring this professional-looking drumkit, that I was introduced to proud dad Paul, who was there to see his son’s debut. And then the penny dropped. It was Foxy, the legendary Ruts’ guitarist; and the drumkit, of course was the band’s original kit, given to Lawrence, by drummer Dave Ruffy. Anyway our band dutifully did our slot which closed the first half just before the interval, during which, Paul sought me out. “It was crap wasn’t it?” I said. He looked at me, thought for a while, grinned and said “Well, put it this way Andy…I wouldn’t give up the day job!” And so began beautiful freindship only sadly cut short by his untimely death in 2007.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

To be able to out-perform the Sixth Form band when it came to school concerts was one of the things that prompted us to get ourselves organised and get out and about to play ‘real’ gigs: weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, you know the sort of thing. And so it was that our first live appearance as The Crabs (not my idea) with yours truly on bass and vocals was at Eastcote Hockey club in Middlesex, A ramshackle clubhouse with function room and bar and which sported a mass of corridors and a labyrinthine collection of passages and was prone to flooding.

Russ our, guitarist, discovered these passageways and was soon able to navigate most of the hockey club – in the dark.  In fact, most of the exits opened out into the changing rooms which were our green Rooms – Lovely! a pungent mix of mud, Deep Heat, sweat, lager and stale farts.

Well, to cut a long story short… On the night, Russ decided to go ‘walkabout’ during one of his guitar solos in Oasis’ “Some Might Say” using his ‘wireless radio’ guitar lead. He’d planned his route: Main Bar, Gent’s toilets, playing all the time, from there he was to go through the juniors’ changing room and up on to the back of the stage – except that unbeknown to him, one of the doors had been locked so he had to go back and of course, got lost. Meanwhile, as we continued to play on stage, no idea where he was, his guitar lead began to pick up the local cab service signal, the Police waveband, Heathrow Air Traffic Control and a Turkish Radio programme. He finally made it back after we had played 47 choruses, got all the Turkish league football scores and ordered everyone’s taxis home for the night.

We must have played twenty-odd gigs during our time which (honestly) included four weddings and a funeral. (Strictly speaking a memorial service. But close enough.) One of the weddings we were booked for, I couldn’t make as I was in Spain, so the Bass player from the band Ride took my place. Apparently when he saw my amp he was delighted ‘A Carlsbro Stingray! I’ve always wanted to use one of those.’ Then midway into the second song he blew the bloody speaker.

A to B In the Yellow Beastie

Getting our gear from A to B had also begun to get a lot easier and a lot more fun, courtesy of ‘The Yellow Beastie’. The school had bought an old banana yellow Land Rover Defender for use in preparing the school grounds for the frequent car boot sales and fairs it used to run. Whenever we had a gig and there was no fair or boot sale, in exchange for a donation to school funds, it was ours. And by far and away the most fun vehicle I have ever driven, even though it handled worse than a Lancaster bomber, and had a wider turning circle. It was a pig to control in narrow suburban streets, but when you cranked it up and travelled in a straight line, it was like shit off a shovel. The only problem was you had to plan your braking about fifteen minutes in advance if you wanted it to stop.

Yellow Beastie

One booking involved travelling over to Stow on the Wold. Another wedding, it was a beautiful summer’s day. A  Saturday. We had packed the ‘yellow beastie’ the night before and I had parked it outside our house overnight. I set off about midday with Russ and Nic (drums). Trevor (guitar) was already over there as he was one of the wedding guests. Ray (Our sound and lights man) was playing cricket and would join us later, which meant that we would have to set up all the gear without Ray’s watchful presence. Well, the journey was great, the ‘Beastie’ was in fine form and we pulled in at Stow in plenty of time. We bought two bottles of chilled white wine. Then on Nic’s direction we made a beeline for the most amazing house belonging to friends of his, and for which he had a key. Its owners were on holiday – so we had the run of the place: tennis courts, sun loungers and a beautiful outdoor swimming pool. Wine opened, we were in heaven.

We were also late for our rendezvous with Trev who was beginning to get his knickers in a twist more than somewhat, sitting in a village hall looking at a bare stage. Especially since we had neglected to phone or text him.

Rehearsals for Stow gig.

 

Preparing stage for Stow gig

 
 

When we finally showed he was almost apoplectic.

But there was no real harm done, once Ray had arrived and sorted out all our ‘stage spaghetti’  thus reducing our chances of electrocution by 100%.  In fact it was great. A lovely warm summer’s evening. We played pretty well. One of our best I reckon. I remember part way through one song, looking across at Russ I was beaming a huge smile, he caught my eye, he was doing the same thing. I knew he was thinking the same as me, that this was just fucking great. I could do this every night for the rest of my life.

Pictures and audio:  “Do Anything You Wanna Do”

Unfortunately, I had to get back to London that night, so once the ‘beastie’ was packed, I left the lads to carry on drinking in the village square and made my way home. The Land Rover was brilliant. I drove fast, but felt completely safe. I got back about 2am, but paused a bit before going in and making for bed, just to savour that summery quiet of the wee small hours.

All things considered

Moving band equipment about wasn’t always as straightforward. I’ve been in and out of a number of bands over the years, but the one I have most affection for looking back was called The Pressure Drop in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Now believe it or not on one occasion we took all our gear:  bass amp, guitar amp and drum kit to the venue we were booked to play at (Havelock Hall, one of the Leazes university halls of residence) on the number 41 bus! I’ve no idea how we managed it, especially since there was a fair walk from the stop at the Spittal pub to the venue.

Poster. I used Cecil Beaton’s war photographs on all the band graphics

The band was Self: guitar and vox, Keith: bass, Stalker (AKA Simon Stalk/ Stalker Suave) drums and later, Jill: frilly dresses and vox. and of course our ‘honourary’ member roadie and sometime driver, Naughty Nige. We set out with a true punk ‘Do it yourself’ ethic.  I could play guitar, but neither Keith nor Stalker had instruments let alone the ability to play them. We all worked during the summer 1980, and by the september had the basic gear and a sufficient level of musicianship to get us off the ground. The Jam was our loose template. I wrote most of the songs, which were mainly comments on what I saw or heard around me, or personal relationships. For instance there was one song we played which (although he never realised it) was a commentary on my deteriorating relationship with the drummer. I’ve got to say, all things considered we did develop into a tight little unit, and although only a threesome, with nothing much to fill out the sound: no keyboards, effects or suchlike, we made a pretty good noise, largely the result of Keith’s intelligent and solid bass playing which allowed Stalker the framework around which to build his machine gun fills and thumping bass kick.

Live at Balmbras. Note Ruts T shirt

We played our fist gig to a packed house. Literally; it was a house party in Benwell and it was packed full. We were in the upstairs front room. There could only have been space for 15 to 20 people in there. The recording we made of the evening’s performance features the arrival of the local constabulary, investigating complaints about the noise, and shortly after, a deep ‘boom’ followed by muffled shouts and the appearance of people covered in what seemed to be white circus make up. In fact, it was plaster dust. The ceiling below had collapsed. As we packed our gear up and made our way home, the streets were covered in sets of white footprints all of which emmanated from the house in question.

Balmbras
The Londsdale

We then went on to perform at a variety of venues over the two years or so we were together;  The New Darnell (off Barrack Road) The Londsale in Jesmond, Newcastle University, Balmbras  – The famous music hall in the Bigg Market (reputedly where ‘The Blaydon Races’ was given its first public airing.) We gradually became more competent as we got more organised. We had a rehearsal space over in Felling. It was an unused room above a builders workshop/storeroom that we had access to, pretty much when we wanted. We never got bothered by anyone – however loud we played AND there was a pub pretty much next door. Brilliant! The only problem was its distance from home. For about eighteen months, the band was our lives, and we spent whole days – whole weekends rehearsing.

Other bands who were on the scene, so to speak as us were Punilux (Punishment of Luxury), Arthur Two Stroke and The Chart Commandoes,  Insecure, Eaten By Missionaries and The Rythmn Methodists, who were sort of our mentors. They had recorded and released an independent single “Don’t Rely On Me”. They took us under their wing, but often we found ourselves in a ‘catch 22’ situation where we wanted to play live, but venues – such as there were, were reluctant to book you if you weren’t self-sufficient (eg with your own PA, transport etc all of which cost money: the one thing we never had.

Cooperage interior.

The Sabrejets above, sadly not us. Our ace cameraman booked for the night we headlined was due (to technical reasons) unable to provide us with suitable images. He forgot to put a fucking film in the camera.

Probably the best venue in the city at the time was The Cooperage, a really atmospheric old dingy quayside pub, with a function room which featured a low, beamed ceiling … and no stage. So the performers were at the same level and touching distance from the audience. Much to our surprise and glee we came home on afternoon to find a note pushed through our door, from The Rythmn Methodists, who had been booked to play the Cooperage the following night. They needed a support: would we do it? Too right. It was a mint gig and off the back of that we got our own headline slot.

The gig we took all the gear to on the 41 bus!

Top of the bill at the Cooperage, along a brief tour of the North West (one night in St. Helens: long story) were probably the most satisfying gigs we played. By this time was had expanded the line up to include the drummer’s girlfriend. She ticked all the boxes – that is with the exception of the one marked ‘Ability To Sing’. She was always flat. I think people thought is was just part of our quirky sound. To tell you the truth I needed someone else to help me front it. Neither Keith nor Stalker sang. I was pretty confident with my voice, and playing the guitar  belting out into a mic was no problem. In fact, it has always felt/feels the most natural thing in the world. I could cut all the Weller/Strummer shapes quite convincingly I think (this was why with the exception of the songs I took in the Crabs – ‘Anything You Wanna Do’, ‘High and Dry’ and harmonies here and there; I always felt like a spare part playing the bass. I was a bit lost without a mic in front of me) No, I was crap at all the ‘in-between’ songs bit. The talking to the audience, introducing the songs. All that. I guess I was too shy. I’d written most of the lyrics and music, arranged it, sang and played it, but just couldn’t do the ‘frontman’ bit. Be different now, of course, after a working life spent at the front of a classroom.

Tea with the Mayor (and getting drunk with Nick Brown)

Anyway, the ‘Newcastle scene’ proved too small to sustain even the small number of bands around and in 1982 the inevitable happened and we split…. Just as a more interesting Newcastle scene began to emerge. I became a founder member of a musicians’ collective which emerged from council-run workshops in conjunction with Special Projects ( a kind of drop in centre for musicians and those interested in stage sound and lighting and funded through the Recreation Department of the City Council) Originally called Band Aid – this is well before Geldof and Ure – we joined forces with another group of like-minded individuals around at the time who called themselves Metropolis, and re-named the group Lula Music in September 1982 Leading lights at this early stage were Julie Cranston, Rob Meek, Nev Punilux and Keith Jeffrey. It was basically set up to bid for Inner City Partnership money via the council to set up rehearsal and recording facilities which would be accessible for local bands, and a music venue; along the lines of Sheffield’s Leadmill. We used to meet at the city library. An EP was recorded and released to raise awareness of the project, featuring four bands Darkness & Jive, who Jeffrey managed – so no conflict of interest there then –  Kant Kino, Prayer Before Birth and frankly, the only decent thing on there, the mesmerising “See the Light” by Illegal Sane. It sold 400 copies, one of which I am the proud owner of. Anyway, around this time the project was causing some interest and representatives of the group we invited to take with the mayor up at the Civic Centre. (this is true!) It was so funny, because we weren’t the only ones there: it was a sort of weekly ‘meet and greet’ session. So there was this ‘Blue Rinse’ set a sprinkling of golf club types and then this rabble of red  and green- haired herberts in leather jackets, lurid mohair tops, bleached jeans or tartan bondage trousers, Doc martins or monkey boots! But it was great. There was no spitting or fighting and we all sat round sipping tea from dainty cups and nibbling cucumber sandwiches and cakes.

A few of  us stayed on, and made a bee-line for the bar when it opened. We were treated to free drinks all night by the local councillors and MP Nick Brown, later a member of Blair’s cabinet. Needless to say my recollections of the evening from 7:30 onwards are somewhat  hazy. What I do remember is I was starting to get cheesed off with the petty politics of it all. I had also met by this time, through an advert in Windows (The city’s main music shop) a great bass player, Mark Jackman and was starting to rehearse with him and a drummer. He was a terrific musician and we had one of those relationships where, when we jammed each seemed to know what the other was going to do next. Incidentally, his girlfriend, Liz had the most spectacularly soulful voice.

So with a cracking rythmn section behind me, a burgeoning scene (Lula, eventually did get its venue: The Riverside) The Kane Gang and Prefab Sprout about to put the North East on the musical map again, what did I do? Yes that’s right, turned my back on it to go and work in an off licence down in ‘The Smoke’.

Bring on Hangovers.

The Baron Biddulph of Barking Bares All

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Warning. Contains nudity. May not be suitable for minors or those of a nervous disposition

My mate the Baron was, and I hope still is a smashing bloke. He lived with me and the rest of the gang in the old LCC tenement blocks hard-to-let flats, alongside the Bow Bridge flyover. He worked in the Crown Suppliers dodge uptown and like all of us, he enjoyed a drink or seven. He was quite partial to having a few scoops of the old falling down water on a Friday night. If not saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday come to that. In fact, all the years I know the Baron, he never refuses a drink.

Well what happens one friday night is typical of the kind of thing the Baron gets up to when he has been squeezing the hops since early doors. He is drinking since lunchtime with his work pals and has unfortunately forgotten to eat anything, so as you can imagine all that grog on an empty stomach naturally leaves him feeling a little tired and emotional.

Now being the sensible sort, the Baron figures the best thing to do is to go home and sleep it off; it being only five o’ clock in the afternoon. So this he does.

It seems he has a pretty good snooze, because before he knows it he is awake and it is already ten to nine. Late for work! The Baron hot foots it out of the door, down the stairs, across the courtyard and out of the estate onto the Mile End Road. He is headed in the direction of Bow Road Underground station, when he becomes aware that cars driving past him are tooting their horns and flashing their lights. The Baron also becomes aware how dusky the sky is looking for such an early hour.

Slowly it dawns on him that it is not nine a of m, but nine p of m. Nightime in other words. And not only that, but he has sleepwalked the whole way, and moreover has done so wearing only his Y-fronts.

Sheepishly the Baron retraces his steps, gingerly now on bare feet across the courtyard, enduring the cat calls of the kids who hang around there and for whom he has provided much merriment minutes earlier, up the stairwell to the flat door. Now here’s a problem. Of course the flat door is locked now, it having closed on the yale lock earlier when he “leaves for work”. This is where the story gets interesting on two counts. One: unbeknown to the Baron while he was in bed reading the insides of his eyelids, flatmate Peadar had arrived home in a similar state, as our hero , having forgotten to eat his lunch too. Two: the Baron decides in his wisdom to knock on the flat next door and borrow some kind of implement which will allow him to gain access. (His preferred route being through the toilet window – see “Look on the brightside, its Norman Whiteside“) Now, just put youself in the position of the neighbour for a minute. There you are, minding your own buisness on a friday night in your flat on a grubby East End estate. There is a knock at the door which you go and answer to be greeted by the sight of a deranged skinny white nobleman dressed only in Y fronts and apparently talking in tongues. “Hammer!” He pleads – and they give him one!

But the lunacy doesn’t end there. Oh no. As the Baron makes a bit too good job of demolishing the toilet window, he wakes up Peadar, still sleeping up to that point inside. Peadar thinks he is being burgled and begins to shout, taking a variety of voices in an attempt to trick his would-be assaillant that there is more than one person inside.

Finally, the two realise who each other are and as the Baron returns the hammer, Peadar opens the door.

“Jesus what a shock” says Peadar “I need a drink” says the Baron “Fancy a pint?”

And the moral of this little tale? Well if neither of them had forgotten their lunch, none of this would have happened.

Bow Bridge Estate

© Andy Daly 2012

Steve, in the unlikely event you should ever read this, I know you’re not from Barking, but Basildon didn’t scan as well.

In loco parentis

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I wonder what the founding fathers of Cheadle Hulme School,  Manchester, England, would have made of this. They adopted in loco parentis as the school’s motto in 1855. Latin for “in the place of a parent”, it refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. Originally derived from English common law, it allows institutions such as colleges and schools to act in the best interests of the students as they see fit.

I don’t wish to to labour the point, and I promise not to reinforce it with yet another clip from the film ‘Kes’ but here is another example of the kind of every day lunacy which was typical of my secondary schooldays.

First day at our new secondary school, St. Wilfrid’s. New stiff uniforms, new classes with lots of new faces. Eagerness, trepidation. All our eyes are fixed on our new form teacher Mr. Bradley as he takes the register for the first time.

“William …. William Walsh?”

“I like to be called Billy, Sir.”

Bradley stares at him and begins to froth at the mouth.

“Do you now? Well, I’d like to be called George Best and have all the money and birds he has, but I can’t can I, lad?”

As the Spanish say “Loco comó una moto” which roughly translates as “Mad as a box of frogs”

© Andy Daly 2012

Thanks to Mark for reminding me of this

Rake’s Progress

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What time is it?

“What time is it?” asks one of the patients of his next door neighbour.

“Quarter to three”  He announces  firmly, without looking either his wristwatch, or the clock on the wall.

(It is in fact 11:30 am)

“So,” continues Patient  One, “What’s your name then?”

“Derek”

“Frank?”

That’s right, I’m back in hospital again.

Back in the parallel universe, whose space/time contiuum is so warped, that days can last as long as weeks just as surely as hours may fly by in seconds.Where the most improbable things are commonplace, and are treated as nothing out of the ordinary, Like in Flann O’ Brien’s absurd and perplexing “The Third Policeman”, you reach a point, eventually where nothing is a surprise, such that one begins to wonder whether ‘The Real World’ actually exists out there at all. Or whether ‘the ward’ consistutes its own reality and all that goes on outside its confines is actually nothing but a figment of your own imagination.

Weird shit

And of course, on a Neuro ward you get more than your fair share of weird shit happening.

Take Malcolm. A bit of a music fan, one of the many symptoms of his condition is short term memory loss. So he uses a Dictaphone to record the names of CDs or tracks by artists he wants to download or buy …. and his lottery numbers, so he doesn’t forget. Every night, after his sleeping tablets have taken effect, but before he has turned the damned thing off, the rest of the ward is treated to a seemingly endless loop of the day’s messages to himself:

“‘Theme from S Express’… Hot Chip… David Bowie… ‘Kinky Afro’ by Happy Mondays… Seventeen!”

Also suffering memory loss and poor eyesight, there’s Ned. So called because his alarming resemblance to Simpsons’ Ned Flanders (inc. yellow skin)

He constantly pesters the nurses in the most nauseating way,

“So where do you live then?”

“And is that a house or flat?”

“And what do you prefer? Indian or Italian food?”

Minutes later, the long-suffering nurse is bombarded with exactly same barrage of questions.

I overheard him one morning. He was being attended to by two nurses, one male, one female. She was doing all the talking. At one point, without warning, she went off to get a blanket, leaving the male nurse to continue with the bed. I don’t think Ned realised, firstly there had been two nurses by his side, and that now he was left with only one – the male nurse.

Off he went:

“So where do you live then?”

“Edgeware” (My goodness! She has a sexy, throaty voice)

“Edgeware? I know Edgeware. Whereabouts?”

“Richardson Road”

“Richardson Road? Eh?…. Er, have I just asked you that?”

“Yeah about ten  minutes ago”

“Richardson Road, Edgeware. I’ll make sure I don’t forget that in future”

The nurse looked up momentarily and, meeting my eyes, ever so slightly raised his to heaven and muttered:

“I wouldn’t fucking bother mate, you’re still going ask me again in ten minutes”

Andy the Autonomic and his snoring! Bloody Hell! I mean I’ve known people whose snoring has annoyed or irritated me (no names) but never frightened me! After a night on the ward with him, the nurses would have to spend 20 minutes the following morning moving all the furniture back into place and retrieving small objects from his nostrils. The noise, and more than anything, the sheer power of his massive inhalations of air scared the shit out of me.

And then of course there is Yours Truly, who on the night after my op was convinced my bed was a 750cc Honda Fireblade, I just couldn’t work out how to get the blanket over the petrol tank. I tried numerous configurations – some at high speed – until exhausted by my efforts I went back to sleep.

Mount Vernon

In fact, I am in Mount Vernon Hospital which from its vantage point on the Middlesex/Hertfordshire border looks out across North West London. The hospital and its surrounding land was the gift of Charles Dunnell Rudd at the turn of the last century. Rudd was a partner of Cecil Rhodes in the De Beers Mining Company. During the First World War, as well as its British patients, it played host to French and Belgian soldiers suffering from tuberculosis. The patients were expected to work or exercise for an hour and a half in the morning and two hours in the afternoon to prevent them becoming ‘self-centred and lazy’. Those who could work outside did gardening, maintaining the grounds and pathways. Just what you’d want I suspect after two years digging trenches at the front. It even treated German prisoners of war between 1939 – 45.

The old chapel

It consists of a whole range of buildings in a bewildering collection of styles from the bizarre York Sandstone and flint gloomy Art Nouveau chapel, which was never consecrated and is now The Cancer Research Campaign’s Gray’s Library, to timber-clad Swiss-style chalets to utlitarian ‘boxy’ system-built things (like this one) to constructions which appear to have come straight out of a De Stijl book of architectural templates from the ’20s.

My room, third big red window on right, top floor. Four Star

And then there’s the ‘Main Building’ A cruciform shape which houses the cafe with its high-beamed ceiling, a dark building replete with green tiles (like the Paris Metro, it says here) and ornately carved staircases. Here hang the plaques in memory of Rudd and Benjamin Abbott Lyon, the hospital’s chairman 1884 -1909: a bygone age of practical philanthropy. The foundation stone was laid by the Princess Christian in 1902: she must have been a strapping lass as it is set into the wall about four feet up. It must have taken a bit of lifting! I guess they had stronger backs in those days. From the outside  you follow the path round to the front (it is only at this point you realise that till now you have only been looking at the back and the side of the main building) and are rewarded  by the sight of a beautiful south-facing two storey curved  facade behind which are light and airy wards. A balcony with white balustrade stretches its whole length, and in the centre, a clock tower with bright green copper roof and flashing. All of which look out over a lawn which ever so gently falls away to the shrubs and trees at the bottom. Back in the day these would have been pruned to allow uninterrupted views as far as Windsor and beyond. I close my eyes. I half expect that when I open them again, the lawn to be peopled with nurses in starched white uniforms and caps, wheeling young men, smoking pipes, tartan blankets covering their legs whose brilliantined hair glints as they enjoy the late evening sunshine.

Facade and clock tower from lawn

Oddly enough not more than a few yards away from this grand but delapidated nod to an era so far back it may as well be ancient Egypt, is the consulting room in which I was given my diagnosis. Twelve years ago. My wife was with me.

Well, it seems your GP was correct

“Well, it seems your GP was correct, you have Parkinson’s Disease” I remember distinctly the tall beech trees that I could see behind Consultant Neurologist Richard Crawford, through his window. I was transfixed by them as they swayed in the stiff breeze. His words seemed to echo around the room, while briefly, still captivated by the trees I left my body and looked down on the scene in the room from somewhere above the window but which still allowed me a view of the trees as well. The gentle squeeze of my left hand brought be back down to earth, and back to the body, destined to be a battleground for the rest of my life. Crawford leaned back in his chair and began to chew on his spectacles. He had taken off his jacket earlier when he got me to do the gait tests (to my humiliation, out in the corridor in front of a packed clinic waiting room) and sat there in blue striped shirt and tie with red braces. He began to speak. His eyelids closed and fluttered as he did so. There was the tiniest hint of a stammer in his voice. God knows why, but I imagined him as a schoolboy. Public school of course: taunted, teased and bullied because of his blessed stammer and, I suspected, a complete lack of co-ordination and interest when it came to sport. I found myself feeling sorry for him. Strange, really in the light of the news he had just given me. I first saw him a little under a year ago, with the same symptoms. Stress and Writer’s Cramp he concluded. I think he knew then, his diagnosis possibly intended to ‘buy’ me a few more worry-free months, maybe more. In the event, it did the exact opposite: the intervening year being one blighted by increasing concerns as to whether there was something wrong with me or whether it was all in my head. By rights, I should be on his desk now slamming his head in the drawer.

“I think it would be wise to start with medication straight away. How do you feel about that?” “Mr. Daly? … How do you feel about that?” Another gentle squeeze of my left hand, and I was back in the room again. “Yeah. OK I suppose”

Parkinson’s Disease? What was it? I had no real idea. I knew that it was incurable and that it manifested itself as a tremor or shaking; none of which I had. Was it killer? How long had I got? How was I going to tell my Mum and Dad … the Kids? That’s all I could think of.

As we left the clinic I wondered how many other recipients of bad news there were still sitting unawares in the waiting area.

My senses sharpened and heightened, I remember the rest of the afternoon clearly. After walking down past the plaques, green tiles and staircases to the pharmacy to collect the medication, I drove us home. And you know what? In what is probably the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me, and something I’ll never forget, my Wife popped a tape cassette into the machine in the kitchen and pressed Play.

It was an interview with Saxophonist Barbara Thompson, who I was a big fan of, during which she talked about her own diagnosis with Parkinson ‘s and how it shouldn’t be thought of as a death sentence. My Wife had heard it on ‘Womens’ Hour’ and recognised that she was describing exactly the same symptoms as mine.

She aleady knew what was coming earlier that day in Crawford’s office.

She had collected a variety of information: leaflets and advice from the Parkinson’s Disease Society.

And I began to read.

I’ve really fallen on my feet this time! I am in the Northwood and Pinner Community Unit housed at Mount Vernon. Basically a rehab unit for elderly patients which aims to stabilise them prior to their discharge back into the community. And lucky old me has blagged himself a single side room with a spotless en suite bathroom, bigger than that at home. I wonder whether my threats to kill the ‘all night talker’ who kept me awake during my first night on the ward had something to do with it.

I am waiting for a transfer to The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. Some six months ago I had the surgical placement of the hardware necessary to enable Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) Namely bilateral implatantation of titanium leads, both of which carry four contacts, in the Subthalamic Nucleus of the brain and a constant-voltage Implanted Pulse Generator   under my collarbone during a seven hour operation.

A Beginner’s Guide To Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery: A Practical Approach

You will need: one coconut, one cauliflower, 4 kebab skewers, copper wiring,  AM Radio,  power drill and a new potato.

For those of you struggling to visualise the brain anatomy here: take your  cauliflower, it’s kind of that bit just above the stalk. We can replicate it by using a small new potato. Use some cocktail sticks to secure it. Your coconut is the skull. You’ll have to split it (Carefully retain cranial fluid and place in suitable receptacle. Add vodka and sugar later for home made Malibu) and then shave it first of course. Drill two holes (a 20mm bit should do it) with a Black and Decker or similar about 5 cm apart. It is through these that the skewers (leads containing electrodes) will access the cauliflower. (brain) Carefully stick two kebab skewers through the holes we have made into the top of the cauliflower, push them down at  angles until they enter the new potato, almost meeting at this point And there you have it. Wire the skewers up to an AM radio. If you can pick up Radio Luxembourg, you’re in business.

Actually, I don’t for a minute want you to think I am belittling the work of the surgical team who frankly leave me in awe with the kind of exqisitely accurate micro surgery they perform on a daily  basis) Programming the DBS system to optimise its therapeutic efficacy in my case has proved melon-twistingly difficult. The last configuration of contacts has caused increasing dystonia (turning in of my feet) result of which I had three falls (unlike me) I was deemed ‘at risk’ and so was admitted here to the unit at Mount Vernon as a temporary measure, while the Functional Neurosurgery team at Queen Square decide what to do next.

Caution. Walter Mitty

I am idly considering this when I am reminded of another meeting some six months after that pivotal twenty minutes in Crawford’s office. A meeting I have called to inform my employer, the Chair of Governors, Kingsmead School, via its Headteacher Neville O’ Laughlin about my illness.

I remember O’Laughlin’s first day. I was singularly unimpressed with the way he ambled to the tatty stage to take his first assembly in his Marks and Spencer suit one size too big, the backs of the trousers hanging down over his shoes in a big ‘V’ and dragging on the floor.

From Essex.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against Essex or the good people who live therein. But as I think we all accept, there are a small number of its citizens who frankly let the side down on a regular basis. Such as O’ Laughlin. I had him sussed out from day one. His loathesome ‘Estuary English’ and his ‘Wide Boy’ demeanour were a giveway. What took me a little longer to figure out was whether his machinations, lies and duplicity were all part of a master plan or whether they were the knee-jerk reactions of a Walter Mitty, living in a fantasy world in which he had forgotten what lies he had told to whom in ‘off the record’ conversations in toilets and corridors.

It was the latter.

Confirmed as he became an increasingly reclusive figure surrounding himself with a phalanx of ‘Assistant Headteachers’, so desparate to hang on to their positions, and so afraid that they were prepared to do his bidding even if it meant rubbishing or harrassing colleagues and former friends.

The meeting comprised myself, O’Laughlin and Dan Morton, my union representative. Ostensibly there in the capacity of friend: to make sure I didn’t forget anything. Of course Dan’s role was much more significant than that. He was there to make accurate minutes of the meeting should it be necessary at any time to refer back to them. In a cruel irony, Dan himself was to exhibit Parkinsonian symptoms a few years later. We sat round the table. I had an agenda, which I’d given to O’ Laughlin in advance. He was flustered. I wonder whether he thought I was going to spring something on him. Evidence for instance that money from Special Needs budgets had been diverted elsewhere – allegedly.

So, it was with an expression of relief that he took my news.

“It’s Parkinson’s Disease” I said.

He fidgeted in his chair

“Well, all I can say, Andy is I’m glad it’s you and not me.”

I almost burst out laughing. Proof, if more were needed, that Neville O’Laughlin was a grade A, top of the range, gold-plated knob.

The rest of the meeting was taken up with conjecture over ‘how long I would last’, puncutated by entreaties to let him know if there was anything I needed – to ask and it would be done. I did. It wasn’t. He would even try to sort out ‘a little deal’ for me when the time came to give up. The governors (in other words He) had it within their gift to enhance final salary under certain circumstances (eg. retirement through ill health) but in my case, although having taught there for over fifteen years, it was not deemed appropriate. (I was never told why) Although this was still to come, I got a sinking feeling as the meeting went on that told me I was on my own. Negotiating the tricky path toward early retirement was to be my journey alone. They took over six months to respond to recommendations made by the borough’s Occupational Health adviser for example. But again, I’m getting ahead of  myself.

I left his office pausing only to comment to his secretary about the tiny balls of white polystyrene which lay all over her office: packing from some delivery.

“Chrys, you’ve really got to do something about your dandruff”

Me and Dan had a de-brief in the pub after work.

“What did you think of that then, Matey?”

I shrugged.

“Par for the course I suppose”

Dan took a good slug of his pint and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’ve just fucking seen him now”

“What? …. What do you mean?”

“O’Laughlin. I’ve just seen him now. I was on gate duty, he came over to me. He says “Dan, how do you think I handled the meeting with Andy?” So I said “Okay, considering you were on the  backfoot: you didn’t know what was coming” “Yeah, he says …. But don’t they shake?””

This time I did start laughing … fit to burst. Dan began to chuckle as well.

“What a wanker! ….”

It was six years later that I called it day, most of my best freinds on the staff had moved on  by then, although that was not a factor in my decision. By then I was purely and simply knackered. If the truth be told I worked on probably two years longer than I should have done. A secondary comprehensive school is not the sort of place to work if you are not 100% fit – especially one in which the concept of a caring environment was as alien as a genuine crop circle.

Kingsmead School. Excellence through teaching (it says here) I would have though that was a basic aim of every school, but then what would I know

The truth is, my relationship with the school had always been a bit ambivalent. I recall the day of my interview. I simply couldn’t make up my mind about the place. I was already Head of Department in a successful school in Berkshire. I had just taken 105 students through their GCSE Art and Design, my prospective Lower Sixth A Level group for the new academic year numbered 15, all of whom showed great promise. Why would I give all that up to come and work in a school which had more bins than students, didn’t run A Level Art and apparently held an all-week jumble sale in its foyer? In the end I decided to leave it up to Mick Godden, Greg Hill (the then Head and first Deputy) and fate to make up my mind for me. I resolved to give the most assertive interview I could muster. If they wanted me after that then fine! I remember saying some controvertsial things about the National Curriculum and Assessment, what I felt about the way the school presented itself, and finished off with a series of demands which included (among others) my wish to be a Sixth Form tutor and for the management team to match any funding that the department raised which would enable us to work with practising artists on projects in school.

“We don’t normally de-brief successful candidates, but there are one or two points we think we should make about your interview technique” Greg Hill said as he called me back to the Head’s office. I had been offered the job and my requests granted!

An unhealthy interest in hospital architecture and decor.

And so here we are, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, having transferred from Mount Vernon. As I stand in the ornate black and white marble atrium, waiting for a porter to take me up to the ward, I am reading the big stone plaques which record the story of the origin of the hospital and its benefactors. Here she is again: Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. She certainly got around her London hospitals. Mind you, I’m not doing so bad myself. In fact, I realise I am starting to develop a rather unhealthy interest in hospital architecture and decor.

The National. Notice the decorative lintels and the exquisite brickwork ….

Up we go and after a brief wait while the bed is prepared, I am taken in and introduced to it as well as my fellow wardmates with whom I am destined to be as close if not closer than their partners and immediate families over the next few days.

They consist of the charming Winston, unfortunately plastered, collared and braced seemingly over every inch of his body. Looking comically like some cartoon image victim, before he is reconstituted to pick up his chase again of Roadrunner or somesuch.

Michael, who is in a lot of pain and discomfort, but seems an interesting bloke, someone I would like to chat to more.

Raymond, a parole officer, whose only complaint seems to be verbal diarrhoea,

and Colin.

I don’t know Colin’s story. I don’t want to know Colin’s story. I know his hands are bandaged like boxing gloves to prevent him pulling out his own tubes and hitting the nurses.

No, Colin makes himself my mortal enemy by calling out day and night the name of his brother Neville (with an irony that is not lost on me as you will remember if you were paying attention, for that was the name of my former employer) Then, when Neville (who I never see because on visits he is always hidden by the curtain, but whose voice is the exact double of writer and presenter Danny Baker) is here, all Colin does is slag him off. I know that brain injuries are capable of changing a person’s personality in wierd and wonderful ways, but that said, I think even before his surgery Colin had ‘shit’ written through him like a stick of rock.

Matters came to a head one morning after laying in bed, listening to him abusing the nurses who were trying to clean him up after he had ripped open his colostomy bag and … well I’ll leave it at that. After the nurses had finished with him, I walked up to his bed and in my best ‘Angry Teacher’ wagged my finger at him and shouted that he ought to be ashamed of himself and how he didn’t deserve the care being bestowed on him. (Feel free to incorporate your own suitable expletives here – I did!) Then I stormed off to the bathroom to the sound of faint applause from the other end of the ward.

Colin.

From  Essex.

TBC

© Andy Daly 2012

Time for a break

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Now then, while visited by two old schoolmates recently we got to chewing the fat more than somewhat about the good old days, after which we came to the conclusion that save for some minor mental scarring our schooldays amounted to a hilarious, surreal experience – a sort of ‘Kes’ in real time. On pondering this I got a flashback the other day from my time at middle school which proves my point. I walked into the boys toilets just at the end of break to find 3 lads (for the life of me I can’t recall who they were), but of the two main protagonists One had his leg fully outstretched, shoe sole against the wall, while the other was taking short run ups and kicking the leg at a point midway between knee and ankle. The owner of the leg hadn’t done his Maths homework and wanted someone to break his leg, so he could get out of the lesson!

Into the Valley by The Skids: Singalong

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I am delighted to see that Halfords are using the Skids’ ‘Into the Valley’ on their new TV advertisements. A truly great record – their only, it has to be said. I remember buying it along with Squeeze’s ‘Cool for Cats’ on pink vinyl!

‘Into the Valley

preeson ann divine

The cases on virtue the hurrcum divide, the sujjers ga marshing those masses you lion.

Thurs disease has casking ma vittorea to stawn.

Valley valley!

Lezzee a star

Valley valley!

Farming a shoulder

Valley valley!

Deceive and they bonker

Valley valley!

Long may they do it.’

I still don’t have a fucking clue what he was singing about.

© Andy Daly 2012

Clip courtesy of jenssalumae2

Hangovers: The SAS Captain

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It has always been a source of puzzlement to me how the elite British Army regiment the SAS (Special Air Service) manages the heroic feats that it does. Because every member or ex-member of the SAS I have met over the years – and there have been a considerable few – have been without exception, as half-witted and physically unco-ordinated as they are socially inept. I am beginning to suspect that this legion of long distance lorry drivers, supply teachers and mini cab drivers were not all telling the truth. Let me give you an example.

One day during the long hot summer of 1984 (even hotter at Hangovers because the heating in the cellar space below was going full blast and no-one could figure out how to turn it off) Me and My Best Mate Aky were interrupted from our game of baseball when a nondescript bloke walks into the shop. I know what you’re thinking. ‘Baseball: In a shop?’ You see in order to allieviate some of the lazy afternoon boredom we had taken to playing a ‘scaled down’version of the tarted-up game of rounders that passes for Sport in some parts of the world. We would fashion a bat and ball out of rolled up, and scrunched up newspaper and sellotape. Then once we’d flipped a coin to decide who was going to be the New York Yankees, we took up positions. We pitched from one end of the counter (no mound) while the batsman took up position in the doorway which led through to the other part of the shop unit, and stairs. This was to allow the batsman more elbow room, as well as presenting him the possibility of hitting the ball clean out of the shop and into the street (Home Run). We didn’t actually run – the shop was far too small for that. Instead the interior was split into ‘zones’ which corresponded with bases, so you had three pitches in which to reach a sufficient number of bases to constitute a run or, indeed, go for the big hit.

The customer looked mildly surprised as a ragged mess of torn newspaper and tape hit him square on the shoulder, but if he was offended, he didn’t show it. He merely looked at the spot it had struck and with only mild irritation, performed a theatrical ‘sweeping’ motion with his hand, before commencing to browse.

After a few minutes Aky asks ‘Can I help you? Are you looking for anything in particular?’

‘You got any Bollinger (Champagne)?’ Asked the stranger.

‘Vintage?’ tried Aky, hopefully.

‘Nah’

‘It’s just above your head right in the middle there.’

‘Fine, I’ll take a case’

Ahhhhh! Now, this was starting to look interesting. Trying not to draw attention to ourselves Aky first slipped off the newspaper baseball cap he was wearing, while I did my best to hide my battered newsprint catcher’s mitt beneath the counter.

The mysterious customer was now closely inspecting the Red wines.

‘I’ll have a case of Nuit St. George and one of Mouton Cadet … Do you deliver?’

‘Yeah, as long as it’s in London’

‘Chelsea’

‘Fine’

‘Better get some white. I don’t want anything too dry though. Anything you recommend?’

‘As it happens that Piesporter’s not bad’

‘Okay, case of that, and mmmm …’

‘This is for when?’ asked Aky, mindful, like me, of the fact that what we had was on the shelves – none of this was in stock.

‘Oh, Friday. We’re having a bit of a ‘do’. Hmmmm, now where did I get to? Yeah, 6 bottles of Johnny Walker and what’s that draught Ruddles like?’

‘It’s good. Have a try’

For a couple of weeks we’d been trialling selling draught beer, specifically Ruddles County. There was a tap on the counter and a keg in the cellar. Hoping he wouldn’t notice the barflies as I waved them away, I poured him a plastic cup full for him to taste.

‘Mmmm … Nice. So how does that come?’

‘We usually do it in 16 pint polypins’

‘Okay, I’ll have six of those as well and that should do it’

‘I’ll just tot that up for you then … £409.22* and where is it for?’

’22 SAS Chelsea Barracks and its Capt O’ Leary.’

Unseen to Capt O’ Leary, I noticed that after raising his eyes to the heavens, Aky had already screwed the order form up in his hand and tossed it into the nearest bin.

‘See you Friday then lads’ and with that he disappeared.

We of course took the precaution of phoning Chelsea Barracks, just in case, but as expected the officer at the guardhouse explained that they could neither confirm or deny whether a ‘Capt O’Leary’ was currently stationed there and assured us that even if there was, he would have been in breach of protocol in requesting the delivery of such items to a military base because of the security risk.

Barking Mad.

*This is worth £409.22 in today’s money.

Hangovers. The Cast

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Let me introduce you to the three key players to start with.

First and foremost is My Best Mate Aky, long-time resident of these pages and the person responsible for securing me gainful employment: first at Victoria Wine 104, Marylebone High Street and eventually at Hangovers.

Arthur. The Boss. The ‘Great White Chief.’ Forget  ‘Only Fools and Horses’, ‘Minder’ and all that old bollocks, Arthur was the real deal: a genuine Cockney wide boy who always fell on his feet. Out of Gillespie Road, Arsenal via Highbury Grove School, where Headteacher  Dr. Rhodes Boyson played a latter-day Gradgrind to Arthur’s Artful Dodger; he had a disarming grin as broad as the northern entrance to the Blackwall tunnel  (which endearingly revealed his missing molars) and an infectious cackle of a laugh. Good-humoured (I never once saw him angry; well, not so you would notice) and generous to a fault, he was impossible not to like. Arthur  always wore a branded T or polo shirt, jeans and white trainers with a light casual leather jacket in the winter time. His only accessory was a rolled up bundle of genuine high-spec folding money stuffed into his front jeans pocket. Because we worked long hours (The shop was open 8am – 8pm) it could often be quite boring with little in the way of ‘creature comforts’ (unless you include draught Ruddles piped up to the counter) so the unwritten rule was that friends could visit at any time, chew the fat and help themselves to whatever they fancied (within reason) as long as they were prepared to pitch in and help out should, say a delivery arrive and a van need unloading or we have a minor panic about something.

Kenneth Whitehead. Ken. Arthur’s mentor. Originally from Sunderland he came down to London in the ’60s to make his fortune. He loved everything about the ’60s: the music and fashion. As with all genuine sixties people he didn’t seem to remember much about it and was noticeably vague and evasive when quizzed about what he actually did during this pivotal decade. When I met him, Ken ran Victoria Wine’s  Berwick Street Soho shop. A shop, incidentally, that Those In The Know, gave less than a month, judging its location as a massively naive mistake on the part of Victoria Wine; the general consensus being that it would succumb either to a single large-scale heist or organised, concentrated and relentless petty thieving. Berwick Street  market, right outside its front door, aside from the fact that at the time it had a number of ambitious … let’s call them ‘Local Entrepreneurs’ working on it, conveniently provided an impenetrable space: ideal should someone or something need to be hidden in a hurry.

Berwick St. Market Soho.  Immediately outside Ken’s front door

In fact, Ken proved Those In The Know completely wrong for within a week, he and the ‘Local Entrepreneurs’ had come to a series of agreements concerning a variety of merchandise, its handling and storage, which was to be beneficial to one and all; some of which may or may not have included some, all or none of the following: (Firearms, Drugs, Clothes esp. cashmere jumpers, cassette tapes and CDs, cash money, Concert Tickets, Gold Bullion, etc.)  Thus the shop enjoyed protected status and went on to do good business, which would have been even better were it not for extremely efficient practice of its charismatic manager. Bookwork and paperwork out of the way before the rest of the staff arrived in the morning to open up, he would take his first drink of the day (Lanson Black label champagne or a brandy, depending on how the mood took him) just before opening time at 9:am. On the face of it a genial, good-natured bear of a guy with his Dire Straits, casual button down collar, jumper, neat jeans and (like his protegé) white trainers, You underestimated him at your peril, for running through him was a streak of pure steel. It was not considered wise to mess with Ken.

By 11:00, after supervising a tidy of the shop and the ‘bottling up’ of any depleted shelves, the serious drinking would begin. Ken would appoint his ‘Second in Command’ then disappear for the afternoon, popping in from time to time to check things were OK, and if he felt inclined, take us for lunch. If he  ever needed to be found in a hurry (Remember, this is in the days before mobile phones) there were three triangulation points that were key in locating his whereabouts. ‘Moira’s Massage Parlour’ in Queen Anne’s Court,  The Blue Posts, which stands on the corner of Berwick Street market, and ‘The Club’ on D’Arblay Street (This still being the era of much tighter licensing laws) ‘The Club’ was a shabby illegal all-day drinking hole. A ‘Speakeasy’ if you will.

If Ken wasn’t to be found within the ‘Soho Triangle’ which, to be fair was not often, chances were he could be anywhere or more likely in Topo Gigio’s.