Just Another Friday Night In Memphis - Part 5

Still in Marbella....

Towards the end of the second week we were beginning to run out of
money and decided to have the odd early night to conserve what we had.
John and I were in bed about ten o'clock one evening when we were
disturbed by a raucous party going on in the street below our window.
Looking over the balcony I saw the German family seated at an
overflowing table outside a seafood restaurant across the tree-lined
street. They were laughing and hollering and being generally noisy as
they consumed this massive banquet of lobster, crab and every other
kind of seafood you could imagine. The sight of all this was more than
I could stand and enraged, I got John up and told him I needed his
help. Opening my suitcase I emptied all my dirty washing from the large
polythene bag I used, to separate it from the clean stuff, and going
into the bathroom we filled it with water in the bath. The bag must
have held about 7ltrs, we tied the top and with all four hands
underneath it for support we gingerly carried it out onto the
balcony.

'Right John', I said 'after three'

We gently swung the bag and then let it go, it flew off into the night
in a graceful arc and from six floors up it hit the tree next to their
table with considerable speed. The bag burst and the water hit their
table and cleared it instantly, washing everything into their laps and
soaking them. John nearly fell over the balcony he laughed so much and
as they screamed we sank to the floor and shook hands. There was all
hell breaking loose in the street with the waiters running around like
headless chickens and the Germans soaked and ranting like madmen
looking up to the roofs on their side of the street not realising the
water had come from the other side. The next morning in the hotel
dining room as the Germans walked in with stony faces we looked at them
and grinned.

In the mid-sixties I developed an interest in English folk music and
began going to local folk clubs, firstly at Benfleet in Essex and
subsequently in Chelmsford. There was a real sense of excitement in the
air in clubs back in those days and I loved it, quickly becoming part
of the regular folk crowd wherever I went. I made lots of friends,
particularly in the Chelmsford and Brentwood clubs, which were run by a
highly respected local folksinger, Nic Jones and his wife Julia. I
became good friends with Nic and Julia spending time at their flat in
Boreham, and through them made friends with numerous other professional
folksingers and musicians, many of whom I still see from time to time
to this day. I often accompanied Nic to his gigs and I suppose over a
period of several years saw him perform more than almost anybody apart
from Julia, he was an amazingly good guitarist and fiddle player and
respected and admired by his peers everywhere he went.

In the early part of 1969 I started work as a welder at an engineering
factory in Billericay making safes and strong-rooms for banks. It was a
'closed shop' company meaning you had to be a union member to work
there, something I resented, and to this day I disagree with the logic
behind this. I needed the job at the time so I compromised my
principals and grudgingly joined the AEU. For a while I worked in what
was known as the 'door bay' fitting doors and internal shelving and
although the other guys were OK it was boring. Eventually I was moved
next door to the 'safe bay' where the safe bodies were fabricated and
the doors assembled, this was a whole lot more fun! Not because the
work was much better but because the other men were always looking for
a laugh, and I gave them some! It wasn't long before the charge hand,
Freddie Peters and I become partners in crime causing mayhem at every
opportunity, sometimes at each other's expense. The senior foreman,
Bill Byard was a complete bastard, hated by everyone including several
members of his own family that also worked there, in fact they had
christened him 'Monkey Bollocks', a name everybody picked up on. A
short stocky man, he took delight in being as nasty as possible to
everyone, prowling around with his stinking Falcon pipe clenched
between his teeth. Like all bullies he would save his nastiest
treatment for the most vulnerable and I would do anything to provoke
him, always managing to stay just out of reach of his venomous
tentacles.

I eventually worked on my own in a small area at the end of the
factory, gas welding light steel covers, the only worker in the firm
engaged in this activity. One morning in early November, Bill came into
my bay with a charge hand, they were having a heated discussion about
some new covers and Bill put his pipe on my bench. After a few minutes
they both left hurriedly and seeing Bill had forgotten his pipe I
waited a few minutes to see if he was coming back then hid the pipe
under my bench. A quarter of an hour later Bill swept into my bay and
said,

'Have you seen my pipe?'

'Yeah', I said, 'it's that stinking thing you stick in your
mouth!'

'Well did I leave it in here?' he snarled.

'No', I lied, and he left muttering to himself.

The day before New Years Eve I said to Fred,

'Do you have any Christmas wrapping paper left at home?'

'Yes why?' Fred answered.

'Bring it in tomorrow, and get here early' I grinned.

'What for?' Fred's face split into an expectant smile as he
spoke.

'We're going to give Monkey Bollocks a New Year present' I said,
beginning to laugh in anticipation.

By this time I had Fred on the hook, 'What is it?' he said as excited
as a child.

'Can't tell you' I replied, 'just make sure you're here and have the
paper!'

When I arrived for work on New Years Eve Fred was already there
wrapping paper under his arm. He followed me to my toolbox and I
unlocked it and took out a brown paper bag, which I placed on the small
anvil I used for dressing the covers.

'What's in the bag George?' Fred asked.

I smiled at Fred and reaching into the bag I produced Bill's
pipe!

Fred couldn't contain himself, 'You had it all the time!' he
laughed.

'Yeah, and now we're going to give it back to him', I said.

Turning to my toolbox I selected the biggest hammer I owned and as Fred
looked on in disbelief I smashed Bill's pipe into a hundred bits.

'Jesus Christ George, he'll go mental when he sees that, are you sure
about this?', Fred now sounded worried.

'Just give me the bloody paper Fred' I retorted, sweeping the bits back
into the bag and folding it carefully.

Having wrapped it in Fred's paper I produced a tag I had written at
home the night before and attached it to the package with sticky
tape.

Fred turned it over to see what was written on it and there in my best
printing were the words 'HAPPY NEW YEAR BILL, FROM ALL YOUR
FRIENDS'

'Right Fred here's what you do, take it up to the foreman's office and
put in Bill's coat pocket, then come back here and we will watch
through the window for Bill to arrive!'

The foreman's office had windows that looked out over the shop floor
and all the foremen hung their white coats on a rack visible from the
floor. Just before 8.00am they began to arrive, Bill being the last. He
took his tobacco pouch from his jacket pocket, hung it on the rack and
took his white coat. He put the coat on and picked up his tobacco and
put it in his pocket finding the package Fred had put there 10mins
before. Bill read the tag and his face split into a big grin as the
other foremen gathered round to watch Bill unwrap his present.

As the smashed pipe fell out on the desk Bill let out an almighty
scream, 'The bastards, the fucking bastards'.

The other foremen started to laugh but by then Fred and I had sunk to
the floor out of sight, laughing ourselves into a stupor. It was the
best New Year I'd had in a long, long time!

One of my friends from my home area had a two-man canoe he didn't want
and Nic bought it from him. He and I would go canoeing on the river
Chelmer that ran within a mile of Nic's flat. On one occasion two other
singers, Tony Rose and Mike Harding, had stopped by between gigs to
visit Nic and Julia and came canoeing with us. Nic and I had learned
from experience that whoever sat in the rear seat could control the
direction of the canoe forcing the front person to do most of the work.
If two or three strong strokes on the paddle were applied to one side
of the canoe the front end would swing round and the other person would
have to apply several strokes to the opposite side to counteract the
effect and bring it back on a straight course. By the time this was
achieved the canoe had moved forwards a good way so whoever was in the
rear only had to do a couple of strokes to the others eight or ten!
Mike decided he wanted to go with me and I immediately claimed the aft
seat, Mike thought I was just being generous offering him the 'upfront'
seat, Nic just smiled.

Mike and I set off downstream keeping to the north side of the river
bordered by a high mud bank thick with stinging nettles, the south bank
had a public footpath running along it and every so often a fisherman
trying his luck. The anglers always resented any boating on the river
as it disturbed the fish and they would scowl at us. Eventually we
reached a weir and turned around to come back upstream, this was harder
work and where the advantage of the rear position came into play. I
think I overworked poor Mike and he struggled a couple of times to
correct the course before we collided with the bank, on the last
occasion he only just straightened us out and we skimmed the bank. He
found himself closing on a huge clump of stinging nettles hanging over
the bank almost to the water and having no time or room for evasive
action he scooped them over his head with his paddle, right into my
face! I instinctively leaned to the left to avoid them and the canoe
overturned just as Nic, Julia and Tony came round the bend into view.
Mike and I fell out of the upturned canoe and as I scrabbled to clear
myself I felt Mike grab my ankle, I promptly kicked him away with my
free foot and dragged myself up the bank and out of the river. I was
concerned about the effect of the water on my watch and as I examined
it I suddenly realised Mike was calling for help, looking down I saw
him hanging onto a clump of grass with water dripping off his
glasses.

Across the river the others were killing themselves with laughter
whilst an angler never took his eyes off his float! Mike is only about
5'3" and needed a hand to get himself up the bank. I managed to pull
the canoe out of the river and emptied it out, having re-floated it and
got aboard I instructed Mike to make sure he stepped on the centre-line
only but being vertically challenged he could only reach the side.
Every time he stepped on the canoe it tipped up again and I shouted at
him, eventually I got fed up with this and pushed off leaving him
surrounded by nettles, some of which were as tall as himself. I had
only gone a few feet when I heard an almighty splash, looking over my
shoulder I saw Mike had jumped back in the river in desperation and was
hanging onto the sternpost. Mike didn't have a change of clothes and he
had a gig that evening so Nic and I took him up to the local
launderette and held a towel round him as he undressed, we put his
clothes in the washing machine and sat either side of him as the
machine started. After a while two or three women came in, put their
laundry in a machine and eyed Mike curiously. Nic gave me a sly grin
and we both got up and walked out leaving Mike in nothing but a towel
with all his clothes in the wash. I've been laughing about this now for
over thirty years and every time I see Mike he mentions it too, he now
sees the funny side of it!

tbc.