Fuck knows why I chose joinery. I had lived for two years in Cornwall, where I had run to to live with some freinds who had rented a cottage there. We lived as a commune and isolation eventually overcame what was the most beautiful place I had ever lived. I'll tell that story another time. Then adventures in Leeds had become overwelming, another story again but I had retreated again, this time to the Yorkshire Dales, up in the hills above Hawes. I was left a little money and the interest I was allowed to spend until I was 21 but only on my 'betterment'. I wanted to get a hifi system as music was massively important to me then. Never trust trustees. It was '86 and I was about to discover acid house, if I'd got the decks I may have become a superstar DJ. A hifi was deemed trivial and so I got a full set of joinery hand tools. I didn't know how to use them. I took driving lessons, bought a van, failed my test but I thought I'd done well enough so I drove anyway. I was sick of wholefoods and snow and isolation so packed up our stuff, 3 cats, Pavlov, my dog, and drove back to Leeds. We rented a house in Chapeltown, Leeds west indian dominated area, the place was just off Spencer Place where Peter Sutcliffe once used to roam, dope was available and reggae boomed from blues clubs that stayed open all night. Once your white face was known, prostitutes would realise you were not a punter and, after a while I got to know a few who would caj cigs or lights as they hugged themselves and stamped their feet to keep walm. Our house became a popular hang out with three big bedrooms, a basement and two living rooms. Sibyl, who I had been with finally left for The Orkneys and I started selling hash as that many people were coming round asking me to score. Not for financial gain but just to keep the scene going. I met Andy whilst having a piss, across the urinals of The Forde Greene he asked if I had a cat, or so I thought. I had misheard, he had said 'a car'. We qickly hit it off and set up business selling tat at Leeds flee market. This was before the days of car boot sales so we were ahead of the game. We'd meet on a friday, scan the Evening Post, finding out where all the jumble sales were in North Leeds and check the times so we could be first in the queue at each, We'd get maybe five in on a saturday, those first ten minutes were a battle with the gannies who would elbow you out of the way. The best stuff was always gone in the first ten minutes so we'd scim the cream then race to the next coming back with a hawl often rescimmed by friends on our return. On the thursday, we would rise early, load the van and get to the market in the city centre hoping for a good pitch. Regulars had permanent stalls but beginners would queue, hoping for a good spot. After setting up stall we'd get the stereo turntable set up and our opening song was usually 'Sweet Little Sixteen' by Chuck Berry or, occasionally 'So Far, So Good' by Slade from the Slade in Flame album. Elliot would rifle through our records early, picking out the best for his neighbouring stall. He is still in the business and runs a shop in Huddersfield, Wall of Sound I think it's called. We'd skin up, right opposite Millgarth Police Station and sell our wears. I recall selling Martins homebrew, a behind the counter secret known only to trusted alcoholics that did good business. Sewing machines were abundant, times had changed and, like my mother, most fifties and sixties women in Leeds with any nouse would make their own dresses to patterns that fitted to perfection. Now, all the old Singers, Jones and lesser known names like Tarzan were easily bought for a fiver at a jumble sale. I had a thing going with some dutch guys who would swap these for pouches of Duma and Drum tobacco which I would resell.
One monday, we were stoned and getting a bit bored of all this so decided to have a sale. Me, Martin and Andy decided to go to Portugal. We sold off a load of things cheap then headed for the bucket shop and found the cheapest return tickets we could, 72 nights for abot £30.
I'd never been abroad, our family weren't in that level of wealth, our holidays were to Whitby or Robin Hoods Bay, sometimes to Torquay and once to Falmouth, the furthest I'd been was Cornwall.
To this day I hate flying but this first time we hadn't slept, staying up packing and racing to finish off the hash, we were smoking right up till take off.
The first time I flew was up there with acid; looking down on forests that looked like broccoli, there scale changed by height. Though terrified it was beautiful to see the earth as a planet, to finally grasp geography. We landed in the Algarve and walked the coast to Spain, free camping each night, lighting fires to cook and drinking cheap wine. Back packing has pros and cons to later travelling I would do in vans, you spend a lot of time in stations and towns carrying a huge, awkward weight. These days hiking were a wonderful new experience to me. I got an interest in wildlife from my dad who, as boys had taken me and my brother fishing, collecting birds eggs, buterflies, though these days no one would condone such acts, it did give me a grounding in the wonders of wildlife and with this gift no where is boring. I saw hoopoes, white falcons and countless other birds I had never seen. We would also stop at bars to drink beer, someimes eat, sardines caught fresh and real coffee were all delicacies new to me.
I recall our first nights well, playing pool with African builders who risked life and limb each day building breeze block structures on wooden scaffolding.
When we hit Villa Real de St Antonia, which is as far as you can go we met a christian backpacker who we had shaken off in the airport, he was to reappear several times, like a bad penny. He latched on to us at a Penchion we stayed in. Walking down some back street we again managed to give him the slip, he'd walked ahead so we swifly fled.
It's not a great place; unruly gangs of Spanish lads would come over on the ferry across the estuary and, uncharacteristically, act like British boys often do in Europe.
We took a bus to Evora, stayed a day or two, then a slow train to Portalegra, a great little town where we got cleaned up in a hosel.
Martin was to come join us so we returned to Faro to meet him off the plane, camping on a strange piece of land that stretched off the coast. It pissed it down and rivers flowed through the tent. Portugal in the winter can get cold. With Martin, we, on my sugestion, took a journey up to the mountans in the North, high up in the Sierra de Astrella where it was too cold to get out of bed. After a few days of this, the other two, pissed off with my idea suggested we head for the capital.
Here we stayed in a youth hostel with triple bunks, crammed in with loads of smelly ausies. We walked up the old town at the top, now burnt down, dropping into candle lit bars off the narrow network of unlit streets. We took a wrong turn somewhere back in the centre and dark men melted out of the shadows with blades, we ran like fuck. I didn't like it, nice place if you had a decent place to stay. Martin agreed so we picked a spot on the map, down the coast and arranged to meet up with Andy in a few days time who wanted to stay to fake a mugging and get a paper from the police to scam his travel insurance.
I can't recall the name of the place but when me and Martin got to the small village I don't think I have ever been so happy. We got drunk and walked out on to the rocks at night where huge waves crashed in off the Atlantic ocean. It was dangerous but I finally got to understand Martin. He hated Leeds having grown up till I met him aged 8 in the Bahamas. Leeds must have seemed grim. He was amongst the few who have scaled Moortown water tower with me. He was fearless, fearless because he didn't like living too much. I said to him, we better get back a bit, we could die here. Delirious with happiness he looked at me and said, 'so?'. There and then I agreed with him. It would have been a good death. Better than the one he had, years later, overdosing on heroin in Richards kitchen. He was a close freind, we had come a long way, growing up together, he even followed me in to furniture, as did Andy come to think of it. He deserves his own story so i shall not dwell here.
Andy arrived a few days later as arranged in the nearest bar to the beach we had chosen on the map. We scored some awesome morrocan flat press off a german smuggler.
A couple in a Mercedes van, a scottish guy and a german girl who spoke scottish and their young child befreinded us and we travelled down the coast with them for a few days, pitching our tents near where they would park. I realised here the limits of back packing and the beauty of travelling in vans as we coudn't find a good place to stop. They were tired, dogs were barking, they could stop anywhere, we couldn't. I don't recall how or where we slept that night but we were back on our own.
We got to Sagres where Martin went off on his own.
Our last night had one final story worth telling. We found a penchion, our escudos were running low so we went out to spend the last of our foriegn money. We found a little Portugese restaurant and hit the beers and bagaseera, a rough but potent local spirit. Ordered our meal through hand gestures and ate. We asked the waiter to bring us a plate of chips, pointing to the chips on another table. The waiter, misunderstanding us brought the entire same meal as the portugese family whose chips we had pointed at. We thought, fuck it, and ate that too. We'd drunk loads but were sobered by the realisation that we may well not have enough to pay. Andy suggested a plan should we be short, a trick he's pulled on me since saying he'd go to the loo, slip out, then I would follow. It never came to it that night, we came in at 2000 escudos, exactly what we had, bar the frowns for not leaving a tip we escaped.
Back in Leeds, for those unemployed for more than six weeks were 'Topps' courses in trades from brick laying to plumbing. They were just 6 months long and though they gave you a grouding in the basics, they made a mockery of the City and Guilds certificate you received at the end. I did well and got a commendation.
Having finished, I took a job in a shop fitting factory,evo sticking formica to MDF. I would arrive at the window free unit in the dark and leave in the dark. It payed ok and if you did a ghoster you could double your wage. A ghoster meant arriving thursday morning at 8am, you got standard rate till 4pm then double time, working through the night till 8am where the hourly rate went to time and a half, if you made it till 4pm friday, you got a £20 bonus. I stook it ut for a few weeks till one morning teabreak, I stood outside, smoking a roll up and saw the sun. I thought, fuck this and got in my van and drove home.
I asked Pig if he was up for an adventure. He was so we got some speed and cannabis and set off for Kent. I was wired off my head as I raced down the motorway. Speed in those days was far stronger, I believe their is some chemical that is no longer easily available that was used in its' manufacture. I can't imagine doing the stuff now but I was young and wreckless then. I had prepared several hits and hidden the works behind my sun screen. Stopping at service stations to bang it up. We picked up some hitch hiker and dropped him at South Mimms services on the M25. As we pulled off, I got in to the outside lane of the entry road when we lost all power and a violent banging noise came from beneath the van. We were fotunate in as much as I managed to make it to the hard shoulder. The prop shaft had split right in two. Having no AA cover I had to call a local garage who took us back to their yard which was close to the services.
Here we lived in the Escort van for two days till the garage could get a new prop shaft and fix us up.
We got to Kent and found a farm to work on. It was notoriously bad. Most on the site we stayed on which was an overgrown orchard were gypsies though fortunately their were enough new age travellers for us to link up with. The Gypsies would stal brand new cars and dismantle them to sell the parts. The young daughers were flirtatious yet dangerous. Most violence took place between the gypsies themselves. Shaun, a ginger haired did was a loony. He had thrown a hammer through the wall of one couples caravan and run them off sight, setting their trailer ablaze. Two alcoholics lived in a car with no windscreen and daily fought each other. I burnt all my works and we started picking strawberries.
We were fortunate to have a few leads so checked out Broadfield which mainly employed travellers from the Convoy who would come to Kent to work after Stonehenge and other festivals, it was a bit busy and I recall that, despite us not being scruffy like the convoy lot that they 'didn't emlpoy north country people here'.
Roughway became our home. We had the black caravan which backed on to a beautiful orchard of bramley trees. Life was good that season. Pig earned enough to buy an escort. Andy came down for a bit and we took some acid and drove up to London to see the Butthole Surfers at Brixton Academy. They were weird. A naked woman danced at the front of the stage in front of a backdrop that had film projections of a sex change opperation. This twisted combination caused Pig to faint, I caught him and his pint as he fell to the floor. The night didn't end well. Driving back Pig turned to me with the gear stick in his hand. It had just come free.
The three of us tried to sleep in the car but didn't get a wink as the acid wore off. Somehow, by pushing the gear stick, though still unattached in to its' socket we made it back though were not welcomed as we were late for work. By now we were hop picking. These days most of the hop gardens of Kent have gone but then the job was a team effort. The first few Poles who had managed to get abroad after the changes brought about by the Solidarity movement worked the stripping machine indoors whilst our English gang worked outside. One drove the tractor, by far the best job, two stood either side of a steel pole in the back of the trailer to wrap the hop vines round, me and Pig suall, the worst job, another walked ahead, ajob I moved on to, slashing the hop vine a foot or so above the ground with a sickle and finally, as the tractor drove and the vinea trailed a last man in the crows nest would cut the vines at the top.
The vines have tiny pikes on, enough so that one scratch was merely irritating whilst after a thousand tiny tears your wrists would be red raw. Like fighting, you don't notice the pain at the time but once in the shower it burnt like hell.
I stayed as long as I could. Pig and Andy had returned to Leeds but I went to work on the potatoes. Being the best of a bad bunch I was superviser. Along with the gypsy Shaun. I was obliged to tick down larger scores for the Beeny family, a famous Gypsie group. I recall Shaun one time, in the evening when we were sat round the fire come shooting out of the hedge and just appearing. The police had tracked him down to Broadfield but his knowledge of the lay of the land was greater than theirs. I would drive him home from work, even on hot days he would weara snorkle parker to hide his face. I felt sure suh ludicrous attire would attract more attention than bravi it out. But then I don't know whathe had done. I wouldn't put anything past him.
Leeds was always awash with drugs which is why I have mostly avoided it since leaving home at sixteen. I am weak willed and am from the wrong class to not come across them in one form or amother. Since moving to Cornwall after leaving school at 16 my horizons have always felt further afield. From Kent I drove to Leeds where I picked up some squidgy black and speed for the journey then drove up to Thurso at the top of Scotland. Here, I left my van and took the 4 hour ferry to Orkney mainland. I stayed a night in Ma Browns hostel . You have to cross the island, landing in Scrabster and bussing it to Stromness. The following morning I got the bus sized ferry to Shapinsay.
The Orkneys are flat and largely treeless though have few rats. The sole place in the British Isles where the kestral nests on the ground. On my first journey there, Pig and Andy came though, as the weather was poor, Andy left after the first week. He was wrong to do so as the next three weeks were sunsplashed yet consanly windy. He had worked in Norway so I wrote asking if I could do the same next strawberry season.
My ex Sibyl was now living in a butt and ben, a single story cottage of three rooms in a line. Simon, her new fella and two freinds had bought it for £3000 in a derelict state though he had gradually bought them out as it takes some stamina to live up there. I spent three seperate months up there over the next year feeling the force of all seasons. Sibyl had custody of Pavlov, my , well our dog. Being reaquainted with him was wonderful. I would take him and Bullet, Simons dog up on the clough, seldom returning without three or four rabbits which fed us and the cat. I would comb the beach for wood which was of a premium, the island having few trees. I found washed up porpoises, saw large groups of seals sun bathing and swimming, catching fish. Sea otters were bold and wrestled amongst the rocks, unafraid of your presence. Many varieties of seabird nested on the cliffs and braver men than I would absail down to collect their eggs for eating. Whilst there I made some windows from driftwood, planing the odd and misshapen pieces of driftwood in to shape, doing the whole job by hand. I was slow though, still green to woodwork. We made a generator from an old aircraft propeler though I never got to see it work as finding an altinater to convert all that power was difficult.
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