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Articles
No Home, No Job, No Worries |
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I'm not a New Age Traveller. For a
start, I don't have dreadlocks. I don't have nose rings or a
baggy jumper. I don't even have a dog on a piece of string. But
I do live in a van.
I can't say that I made the decision consciously or
deliberately. It wasn't a political statement. I lost my flat at
the same time that my car needed its MOT, at the same time that
I discovered that I needed a new engine. It would have cost me
the best part of a thousand pounds to get it back on the road. I
needed a vehicle and somewhere to live. Then I saw the advert:
"Converted Ambulance for sale, £1600." It was just around the
corner from my Mom and Dad's house. I fell in love with it
immediately. I bargained him down to £1300, and two days later I
was the proud owner of a 2 Litre Ford Transit Disability
Transport Vehicle converted into a camper van. |
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| The Biker Dads |
Driving used to be a pleasure
Right now I'm inching forward in first gear, watching the tail
lights of the car in front flicker on and off, tasting the
traffic fumes like bitter porridge, steaming in this damp, heavy
heat, seeing yet another red light up ahead, yet another set of
road works, waiting, waiting - moving - waiting. Where's the
pleasure now? And then the motorbikes are skimming by...... |
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| Labour of Love |
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Beauty is everywhere, if you look for it. So I was sitting
down the Labour Club one evening, with a pint of bitter in front
of me, and Billy began to sing. I don't know him all that well.
He's only been coming here for a month or two. He's retired, in
his late sixties, and he clearly loves his wife. She always get
crisps for my dog and feeds them to her one by one. She drinks
Martini and lemonade, and Billy is old-fashioned: he always goes
to the bar to buy them their drinks.
He sang: "You load sixteen tons and wha'd'ya get? Another day
older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't ya call me, cos I
can't go: I owe my soul to the company store..." And - honestly
- his voice was the richest, deepest, clearest baritone I have
ever heard, like an angel of the deep.
He was in the Black and White Minstrels, he told me. Most of you
won't remember the Black and White Minstrels. |
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| Sitting Target |
I DON'T know much about art, but I know what makes me laugh.
So Picasso painted a picture of a woman with a fish perched on
her head, and he called it Woman With A Fish Hat. And that made
me laugh.
Mark was in Safeway when I caught up with him. He was buying
breakfast cereal. I turned the corner of the aisle, and there he
was. The other shoppers were pointedly ignoring him. When they
looked, it was surreptitiously, out of the corners of their
eyes. I laughed when I saw him, and made some passing comment,
but he ignored me. He was in a sort of psychic bubble compounded
of concentration, embarrassment and extreme physical discomfort.
He was shopping.
He was also dressed in a rubber suit. |
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| Off The Grails |
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IT'S my quest to find the Holy Grail. I was in Amesbury in
Wiltshire for the Spring Equinox, on my way to Stonehenge to
meet King Arthur. I had an hour to go to the appointment, so I
stopped off at a pub. The pub was called the King's Head. There
was a gaggle of men at the bar, drinking lager. They looked
ordinary enough to me. I usually drink bitter. So I looked over
the line of pumps ranged along the bar and there was one local
ale on offer. It was called Sign Of Spring. It had a picture of
two lambs gambolling beneath a bright red heart radiating like
the Sun. Well, why not? It was the Spring Equinox after all. I
ordered a pint of the local brew. |
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