In the afternoon Lee and I hitched across the Pennines.
Dad gave both of us a lift up to the top of Debdenshaw Road to the beginning of the A64. We made sure we were standing in front of the motorway sign and stuck our thumbs out. A car stopped almost immediately, the driver a thin faced balding man, puffing on a cigarette. I thought him a little stupid for stopping right in the slow lane of the slip-road and not pulling over, but climbed in happy to have a lift so quickly.
No sooner had we set off again than there was a police car, ordering us to pull over. I recognised the driver immediately as Mr. Harding, our next-door neighbour at Wintersett Crescent ten years ago. He didn’t seem to recognise me at first. The car driver was taken and given a long talking to in the police Range Rover before he was released, sullen and obviously annoyed, to tell us that it was our turn for the slapped wrist treatment. Mr. Harding told us that there could have been a fatal accident: he’d seen five cars come round the corner in the time it had taken us to climb in, and two of these had had to swerve to avoid a collision. He’d done the driver of the car on several counts—driving without due care and attention, stopping on a dual carriageway etc. I felt sorry that we’d caused this innocent bloke so much trouble.
When I gave Mr. Harding my name, slowly the realisation dawned in his face that he knew me and he turned around with an “Ohhh Paul!” He said I’d made him feel bad, and although he toyed with the idea of letting us off with a caution he decided he couldn’t take the risk and so reported us. We might get away with it, but if we do get done then Lee, as a second-time offender, could be fined £50.
Lee was quite pissed off by his bad luck and the possibility of such a large fine. Harding gave us a lift in the Range Rover to the next service station. I was quite blasé about the whole thing, apart from concern over Mum’s inevitable over-reaction and the ensuing worry she’ll suffer.
We got a lift into Debdenshaw after about ten minutes cold wait and were dropped about two miles outside the city centre and walked the rest of the way, through a predominantly Jewish area part of the way. Lee and I both felt quite despondent as we trailed around the busy streets.
Barry finally turned up in his Dad’s yellow Capri. Doug was with him. Barry’s parents are in Venice for a Christmas holiday and when we got back to the Duckworth household only his 17-year old sister Claudia was in. They live in an enormous house full of cherubs—incorporated into the lamp fittings, cherubs holding up glass coffee tables, cherubs swinging from the ceiling lights, masses of white sheepskin everywhere (rugs, chair covers . . .), acres of the stuff in every room, red and pink décor and Romanesque divans . . . The entire effect was one of kitsch decadence, a small-time recreation of Baroque splendour which didn’t quite hit-it-off.
Guy rang at around six and Barry picked him up in the Capri. Guy too had hitched up & had come primarily for the Hacienda in Manchester and a meeting with a few friends of his. I didn’t say much to him and he seemed to be very remote in a thorny, cynical kind of way. Barry’s RCP friend Patrick and a few other people rolled up.
Free tickets for the Hacienda were produced and so that’s where we went for the evening.
The Hacienda was quite impressive, a large converted warehouse decked out in austere industrial grey with diagonal black and yellow stripes. We sat and watched the videos playing on the large screens at either end of the club, smoked the ready rolled joints Barry had brought along or played video games . . . nothing special.
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