How did I get here? part 3

After returning from Ireland, I moved back to Harehills in Leeds for no other reason that I can remember bar Richard was moving back in to the same den Andy, Pig, Martin, Mick and me had all run at different times. In fact, I think it was about to fall due to lack of numbers so me and Richard decided together to save it. It was a double end terrace having two addresses, very handy for legal reasons. Amphetamines and pot were our fuel. We used to sign on or the famous enterprise allowance scheme which allowed you roughly the same as the dole to set up in business. Of course, trying this in a deprived area was ridiculous. It was basically a way for the government to fiddle the unemployed figures and for us to not have to go sign on every fortnight, everyone was happy. We would also, and this required abstinence from cannabis for 6 weeks and all other drugs for a week, get payed for being human guinea pigs at Hazelton Medical Research unit. You had to stay there but got, depending on what they were testing on you, £100 a day, big money to us. It was the year Van Basten and Ruud Hullet played in a triumphant Dutch team in the European Cup that I did a two week stint testing a drug called hydromorphone steroid, an opiate several times stronger than morphine. Blood tests would be crudelly taken from the same vein at 20 minute intervals. I have often wondered whether I could sue the unscrupulous bastards. I had never used needles before I went in there but once I'd come out, i was that used to the javelins they withdrew from that using a 1 mil barrel insulin syringe seemed both more hygenic and simple. My memories from these months are few and fractured but I recall that I felt sufficiently worn out to try Kent again.
I had only been working there a fortnight when I thought I'd try out a pub I'd heard Wid and Martin, both sadly deceased, mention, The Haymakers Arms. About three pints in I heard the girl behind the bar shout, 'is there a Skree from Leeds in here'. Being one of the few Skrees in the world I guessed it must be for me. It was Martin; how he guessed or felt I'd be there god only knows. He said, 'I havn't got much change but can you be in Norway by sunday night?'. It was wednesday; I said 'yes'. I drove up to Leeds and rang Simon, Sibyls fellas' dad. I said 'whats the score?', he replied that Simon had commandeered the return from a letter I had written to a Norwegian farmer, from the Orkneys. Basically, he had opened my mail. His dad said that there were three places and Simon, his sister and Sibyl were going and had bought tickets. I told him no! This was my connection, my endeavour and Simon had no business opening my mail anyway, even if it had gone to his house, I was fuming at his duplicity. I told his father that they could of course fly but one place was mine and I would be there before them. The richer, the bigger the thief. They were a family that could holiday in Norway never mind work. I knew I had to work quickly, no sleep, I gave Andy my van as he'd broken his leg, to et about, he dropped me a Leeds coach station, I travelled to Newcasle then waited to see if I could board the ferry. After all the normals were on, me and a couple from a motorcycle gang in Norway got on. It was a 22 hour crossing all of which I spent wired, moving from place to place, managing, in the end, to get locked in the bar underneath a bench. As the ship pulled in to Bergen I bought a bottle of duty free brandy as I'd heard alcohol was expensive there and hence tradable.
I jumped the train to Oslo with ease where I changed the last of my money. Unbeknownst to me, trains are cheaper than coaches over there but I doubt a trainline went where I was going anyway. I bought a coach ticket for Trondheim, about 300 miles from the Arctic circle. I looked at the times, it looked about as far as Leeds to London on my map and it said it set off at 2 and arrived at 6, sounds about right. Oh no, theres that many fjords to cross it was a 16 hour journey, beautiful mind but I hadn't slept since kent. By 6am the following morning I'd been awake 4 days.
It was late summer but still quite warm so I fell asleep at the docks. You don't get tramps in Norway and I awoke to be surrounded by a circle of people looking down at me. I brushed myself off and bid them good morning and wandered off
The coach ticket had taken the last of my money. I still needed to get another ferry across the last fjord. I looked but it was clearly unjumpable. At the time I had a badger skinhead, bleached close cropped hair with two black stripes down either side and no hat for blending. I bit the bullett and went in to town to try find some alcis or tramps who might buy my brandy. This took ages; blonde bronzed gods and goddesses were all I saw till I finally found a couple who looked rough. They were well pleased but had to go borrow to buy.
Back to the docks and on to the ferry.
Once across my problems weren't over; I still had no money and hadn't eaten for days. The 7 mile walk up the valley seemed unending in my sorry state. After many stops I saw a farmer and people on their knees picking strawberries. I tried to introduce myself repeating the only words I knew Odd John Tondel. 'I've come from England to work', 'non', he replied. I sat down and wondered what to do. 300 Miles from the Arctic Circle, no money, no work. He came back to me and nodded up the hill. Turns out, people up there take there surname from the valley they live in. Everyone up that track was called Tondel.
Once in the right place, the farmers wife wanted me to drop my bag and go work immediately.
I was bunked up with a Yank and an Englishman, Sibyl and Simon were next door, his sister had done the honourable thing and not come. The rest were all Polish who were of that first wave to get out. They were used to earning £2 a week, we were getting about £150 equivalent in Krona, a childs wage for a Norewegian yet we got food and few chances to spend.
I spent most nights with the Poles. It is always better travelling alone as you have to make freinds, after Simons deceit, he was no freind anyway. In a strange twist of fate, a few years later, Mick, who had recovered from his schizophrenia pretty nuch and is, essentially a really nice bloke, went up to the Orkneys where Sibyl was trapped with the gloom of Simon and took her back with him. As far as I know they are still happily together.
They could make a party out of the free cheap instant coffee and a radio by turning the lights down. It was no less exciting than we could create with access to booze, drugs, decks. They were that used to nowt that owt seemed ace.
At the weekends the locals would all go to the Fest, a kind of disco with a covers band in a school hall. No alcohol was sold but they had taken distillation to a fine art. I had come across a couple of old Poles who were Nazi collaboraters during the war on Shapinsay. Those outer Orcadian islands are hide aways. The police came to Shapinsay once a fortnight on a wednesday when all cars stood still, otherwise it policed itself. The world gets on better without the law, mostly. Murderers will murder law or none. The rest of us are usually sensible enough to police ourselves. Even the riots were a police product.
These ex Nazis had a still and were chronic alcoholics. I mlkied their goat and spent a night drinking hooch from their still. They made homebrew beer and distilled it through a cranky mess of a contraption Heath Robinson would have been proud of drawing. The fluid grew cloudy and was nothing on what the Norwegians did.
Making alcohol so expensive and prohibitted had triggered all farms I went to into cottage industries of laboritory standards. They would boast of their percentages, '97%', heh, heh, you are crazy guy, I am crazy guy, you try?'.
At the fest, all boys had their secreted spirit to mix with the coffee and coke on sale. I defy anyone to say they can trump the Norwegians for alcohol strength. If sipped pure, the heat of your mouth would evapourate the stuff and fumes went up your nose, burnt, it left no residue.
I would sit with my best mate, jashou, on a week night, teaching him better English. He had been insome serious political riots and saw Thatcher as a goddess till I put him right. He knew all our punk bands and was a true brother.
Sadly, my time there ended on a sad note. A polish girl had £200 nicked; this spoilt the international spirit and some took sides really quick. The Yank said it must be a Pole, such a sum was pittance to a Westerner, Poles said it must be an Englander, they wouldn't steal from their own. I never found out who took it, though I have my suspicions. Only one person had the opportunity.
It was spoilt for me and I left soon after; making my way slowly down country; sleeping rough.
When I got back to Leeds, I asked Andy where my van was, he said Pig had it down in Kent.
There was one last time I spent in kent. It was a winter and short of options thought I'd go down, see if I could find work. There was nowt doing. I froze my tits off in the Hopper huts which were marginally less cold than the black caravan. I had no food bar a jar of flour I found fom which I made chipatis. Only purple sprouting and wild garlic were available so I ate that till I could ea no more.
I waited till my Enterprise Allowance finally came and after eating a breakfast drove up North. I had driven so long without a license I had forgotten it was illegal. Around Doncaster a police car tailed me. At the next junction I tried to lose them but of course, they have better cars and are better drivers. I had a name to give but knew t would only hold till I couldn't produce documents.
After they let me go, I headed for Weardale.