Two stories in the middle of all that need telling.
I had been seeing a girl called Mandy and after giving her a freezing winter taste of van traveller lfe in the Dales and Cumbria I tried to make my way back over the Pennines By Alston the roads were getting snowbound. At he foot of the hill up to Nenthead was a sign saying road closed. I turned back, looking for anyone with local knowledge, found no one so drove back to where the sign had been, it had gone so I thought I'd give it a go. Slipping and sliding m van made it up further; a lorry had turned over on its' side covered in snow. I continued up as the weather worsened. I came across a second lorry, more freshly turned on its' side and the good samaritan in me came out, leaving the van running I climbed up to the side door of the cab; after all, a man could be dieing for want of my help. The cab was empty. Shortly after continueing my drive my van began to overheat, I had to stop. I let it cool, pissed out what I could in to a bottle, poured this in to the radiator I had stupidly decapped letting all the pressurised boiling water ejaculate from. It was not enough. I could see a stream far below but with a good foot of snow on the field and more coming down, I knew that was a death decision. I filled my empty water bottle with snow and stuffed it up my jumper in an attempt to trade my body heat for water. As my body temp dropped my mind went hazy. Cramming the radiator with snow and more piss I could finally find I got somewhere near the water I needed. Resparking the engine, I resumed the climb. I made it but ewas close to death that night. I could see the reaper, I could feel his presence. You always know when its' close.
I almost forgot too the strange men I met in Kent who had run a circus till they were closed down for animal cruelty. Gypsie types; one bore the marks from his act where he placed his head inside an alligators mouth. Mostly he had got away with it but one night he must have pushed the beast too far, crunch. The scars were deep. They had still their truck and big top so had become meat salesmen at car boot sales and such like.
They asked our help for a job. We were to errect their marquee, £50 to put it up and the same to take it down. This was '87, '88 time and no one had heard the phrase Acid House. Rich kids, barely in their 20s organised the mayhem. They would come see the site we had set up in, often knock it back and tell us to find somewhre more discreet. Sometimes the big top would move 3 times before they were happy but the cash added up. I had never taken ecstasy before and won't bore you with what you all should know. These rich kids in cars had car phones, new devices to communicate ha frquently didn't work. They sold tickets, somehow in London. The first few were strange to us. We sat in the back of vans, seeing all thes kids go mental to music we didn't care for. Our acid days were long behind us and had been tight knit affairs of small elite bands. Freedom for all seemed odd, somehow.
You can't watch kids that happy without getting curious. One night I walked in to the mellay, I don't think I had danced before unless you include headbanging or pogoing. I got given my first pill bu they cost about £15, way expensive for acidheads used to trips for £2.50. I can't say that I became liberated instantly but two hours in I was hugging Eton schoolboys, caught up in the mood.
It would be another decade before I got a real taste for it but I'm proud to have seen the dawning.
The Marchiness disaster had many on board from that group and the same night we were smashed up. We had picked a spot too close to many wealthy country retreats. As we heard the news an army of coppers that reminded me of the last Stonehenge I went to came ovr the brow of the hill looking like a roman army. Tons of city kids had parked up in lanes and lost cars buzzed the area. Too much too soon. We abandoned our employers, they were well known crooks and managed for once, to look too scruffy for acid kids and escaped back to our fruit picking.
It wouldn't be till Castle Morton that I would see such scenes. By then I was a student at Shrewsbury, three or four years from now.
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