Nameless voices crying for kindness

I signed on in Farnshaw at twelve and phoned Grant to ask him if he wanted to go for a drink.

While waiting in the dole office I noticed my old English teacher Mr. Giles sitting there—Jeremy told me later that he’s been made redundant after taking secondment for a year. I didn’t get a chance to speak to him.

I met Grant by St. Anne’s and we went for a drink at the Albert Hotel down Moxthorpe Road and had four pints there listening to “Pyjamara,” “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Suffer Little Children” repeatedly on the jukebox—this last song has been banned by some shops because of its Moors Murders subject matter. We went on to the Builder’s Arms (PIL, Hendrix) before walking home to listen to more music - Beefheart and The Fugs second album this time. The latter is an excellent record.

Grant mentioned as an aside that John Peel played a track by the (now defunct) Eat People on his show last night. Grant and the band recorded the track for inclusion on a compilation LP of bands from Phases back in February—he came up from Gloucester to a studio in Whincliffe especially. The LP is out now and John Peel played Eat People’s sole contribution at 11.30 p.m. last night, much to Grant’s surprise, who was listening in bed at the time.

He said it was an odd and slightly embarrassing experience hearing himself singing on national radio; he now thinks the band’s stuff is fairly undistinguished and he agreed with me when I said it sounded very much like the Birthday Party. He even conceded that such was his admiration at one stage he’d made a conscious attempt to sound like Nick Cave. . . .
He left about five. Mum and Dad came back and Dad later told me of his amusement at the way Grant had asked him for a light, with exaggerated politeness and awkward words. Nanna P. was brought across in the evening, and although she was quieter than usual, she was OK. Andrew rang later too. He’s back in the UK after his Denmark trip and is talking about America now.

The end

I spent most of the day with Lindsey. I met her in the coffee shop in the library basement, went for a baked potato in the Cellar and ended up round at Gareth and Stu’s.

They live next door to the pub up Treadwell Road, near the cemetery. They both dislike living where they do. Their landlady overpowers them with endless talk, and when we arrived they were sitting watching TV in her tasteless living room. She was out, but her ugly Pekinese Ming slobbered all over us and even tried mating with my arm.

We had a drink at the Wickbourne Road Inn, and Lindsey came back with me to Jervis Terrace. Barry and Pete had rented a colour TV and threw bangers at us as we stood at the door. Ade gave Lindsey a lift home. We got on well I thought, but I’m wiser this time, and I won’t make the same mistake again.

PiL loomed in the evening, but I came to the conclusion that I didn’t really care whether I saw Public Image Ltd. or not, and on reflection I think it was a positive thing that I didn’t want to go. It turned out they only played seven numbers anyway.

What with Lydon’s unashamed exploitation of his audiences (same songs duplicated on each LP) and his recent feeble renditions of “Anarchy in the UK” (quote: “If I ever play a Sex Pistols song again it will be the end”) then I don’t believe I missed out. My recent comments as to his ‘historical importance’ were all just crap. Forget him. He’s lived too long and is an example of what happens to all true punks in the end; they either die or cop out, and it’s Lydon’s misfortune that he didn’t do the former.

So Barry, who’d come to the same decision as me, partly motivated by prospects for female company at the pub, went down in Ade’s car with Pete and Mo’s tickets as well, and got £5 each for them.

Dome 2 side 1

My tutorial went OK, but I’ve got to hand in an essay by the end of the week. Tomorrow I’m helping Lee make a video in Crookgreave Cemetery for his course, and going to see Public Image Ltd and hopefully, Psychic TV on Friday.

Barry and Pete are out at Roxy’s tonight, and will no doubt roll back pissed very soon (it’s 2.40 a.m. Tuesday as I write). Mo has just gone to bed, and I’ve just played Dome 2 Side 1 for about the tenth time today.

A scheme has gradually taken shape for squatting the empty and boarded up Barrel Inn at the bottom of Meadspike Road, and although Lee pursues it with enthusiasm we all hang back and I’m not sure I’d enjoy getting the place all straight and cleaned out only to be evicted within a few days.

Lee, Pete, Mo, Barry and I broke in again through a boarded window at the back of the pub’ and explored the dark and dusty bars downstairs and the six or seven carpeted room upstairs. There are two kitchens (one on each floor) and half-a-dozen toilets. Lee is anxious to get things moving and Pete’s been to the Welfare Office on campus to get a booklet on Squatting.

It all looks doubtful. Lee’s been round here quite a lot during the last week and he’s got on well with everyone.

How long ago that speed trip seems.

Devil's advocate

A foul wet day. I got a lift into Watermouth and bought tickets for myself and four others to see P.i.L. on Nov 1st. I don’t like their latest single, but J. Lydon is one of those people who’ll go down in the standard histories as “important,” so I suppose I want to see them purely for the historical spectacle.

I trudged around the streets in the rain, fulfilling all my mundane objectives. The glimpses I caught of the sea made me want to go and look at the grey angry waves, but the drizzle deterred me.

Mo still hasn’t found anywhere to live; she keeps going to see places but is always put off either by their poor condition or the price. John hasn’t, so far as we know, even rung anywhere up yet. He spent most of the day asleep in Barry’s room, and I think Barry is getting a bit pissed off with him.

In the afternoon I had a tutorial and as usual I hadn’t done any work for it but conned my way through. I got back at teatime to find Lindsey, Susie and Barry watching the TV. It was an uneventful evening; we went out for a drink at the Jervis Arms.

Derek, Kevin and John stayed up all night in heated conversation and I think things got a little ‘heavy’ and politically pointed at times. John claims that at this era in its history, the RCP is all about party-building, and so it needs the Carl Cottons of this world. Apparently last night Kevin criticised John’s lack of RCP involvement; John attacked Kevin in turn, which left the latter “shattered” according to J. “I acted as the Devil’s Advocate, putting doubts into his mind to see how he’d respond.”

I think my decision over the summer not to go to the RCP meetings was a decision motivated primarily by fear. Looking back it was such a feeble, negative response, and a transparently obvious one I’m sure. Instead of this feeling of helpless confusion, what I needed and still need is some sort of cogent response or concrete argument in support of my position. Stu has a good answer: Given the RCP’s demand for total commitment, if you’re not prepared to give that whole heartedly then it’s pointless giving any. Despite my hasty judgements, Barry’s friends do doubt the Party and are critical of its attitudes and the “Genghis Khan” elements within it such as Pat Roberts.

I still can’t make my mind up about changing courses. I’m sick of waiting for a Way to emerge from the tangle of confused options that clog my mind. What do I want to do? Only I can decide that, but even this act of self-will escapes me.

Brains of the living

The thermometer on the landing is down below 70°F for probably the first time in ages. I got up at twelve to grey clouds and wet, windy weather: the rain streamed down from a flat colourless sky, a dull roar as it beat steadily against the roof. But gradually it slowed and stopped, the clouds broke, and the sun shone down on a glistening garden.

Minutes after I’d got downstairs, Mum and Dad got back from a walk up in Burndale: they told me that Robert has bought two bronze Buddhas for £50. I got up to find a postcard from Pete and a dole cheque waiting. . . .

Nanna B. is back in hospital for a sprained tendon, but Mum, Dad, the doctors and everyone else seem to think she shouldn’t be there. She lies red-faced and robust in a ward full of grey geriatrics at death’s door. Mum silently suffers her fears for the future, seeing only a vision of she and Dad burdened with the care of their crippled mothers: “It’s going to be hell,” says she with a long face.

Andrew rang at teatime to say he’s got an interview for a job next Thursday at twelve and he’s “nervously optimistic.” He sounded fairly content and I get the impression he’s having a good time in London. Tonight he’s going to see saxophonist Elton Dean at The Empress of Russia pub.

Whenever we watch the evening news a tense, pregnant silence settles on the room; Dad’s face is set in a mask of bitterness and anger, Mum’s in one of lined resignation. Tonight, the outrage and inquests over the downing of the South Korean 747 continue, the Russians admitting that “warning” shots were fired but they are preventing Japanese search parties from entering the crash area. It’s sad that the West’s anger can’t be expressed too strongly for fear of causing undue aggro with the USSR, and anyway the Americans will be after political mileage from this incident, for they’re not far behind the Russians in the murder stakes, after all. . . .

In Israel, Menachem Begin has gone and Shamir looks set to follow as leader. In Beirut, the fighting has died down, while in Chad it has just erupted again after a three-week lull. Just a typical day. . . .

After midnight I watched Archie Shepp backed by the Paul Hart Quintet on Channel 4’s Jazz programme. He did a version of “Yardbird Suite” which was too laid back and middle-of-the-road for my liking. He’s now more mellow and less frantic than in his angry days of old – I know which version I prefer. I haven’t listened to much jazz at all recently as I’ve been living on a staple diet of The Fall, Public Image and The Pop Group.

Red hands

Andrew and I went for a curry at the Bahawal and then took the train to go see the new Imax theatre in Whincliffe; we watched To Fly! on the giant 45 x 60 ft screen.

The first scenes of a balloon ascent were deceptively filmed on a standard sized cinema frame and Andrew and I both looked at each other, as if to say ‘pathetic,’ but at that moment the balloon soared up and the entire screen exploded into colour and sharp, vivid detail. The clarity and the immensity took my breath away. It really was as if we were perched there on the lip of an enormous window.

I went to HMV, took my Joy Division album back and bought Paris au Printemps by P.I.L. and Dread Beat an’ Blood by Linton Kwesi Johnson.

The hanging debate was in full swing on Radio 4 when I got home and everyone was rooted to the radio until well into the evening. Dad occasionally erupted bitterly, condemning the IRA as “evil psychopaths” and fixing me with an intense glare when ever I dared to counter him. But he’s wrong, and history will prove him so.

The IRA are not psychopaths. They're just soldiers who consider the ‘troubles’ a war; four UDR men were blown up yesterday in a land mine explosion. “Murder!” screamed Dad. “Those bastards should hang!” His eyes gleamed with murderous fire.

I felt like reminding him of Bloody Sunday, reminding him that the Loyalists in Northern Ireland go out with the sole intention of killing Catholic civilians, that the sectarian violence often comes from the side that stands proud beneath the Union Jack and the red-hand of Ulster. But I kept my mouth shut and allowed him to carry the day, but I felt a knot of anger at the hypocrisy Mum, Dad and Andrew were all coming out with.

I wonder if my exposure to the RCP makes me feel this way? But I bridle at RCP politics. Their Preparing for Power conference begins on Saturday and I honestly can’t afford to go, even though I have a ticket. But in a way I’d like to, especially to attend the Irish talks.

The vote on five amendments and then the vote on the general motion of hanging for murderers itself finally came at ten o’clock. I heard the first two amendments convincingly defeated. In one sort of perverse way I half-wanted to see hanging for ‘terrorism’ come back, because it would be the biggest mistake the British State could make in Ireland, and it would be the easiest way for the IRA to win support among the mass of Irish people under the hand of the British. But this was a perverse twist to my general abhorrence at the barbarity of hanging, and the barbarity of shooting and killing in general.

Dad doesn’t ‘approve’ of my association with Lee and feels he’s “skating on thin ice” with his plundering of old buildings. He sees him as a bad influence on me, which rankles. A great tide of dissatisfaction with my lot wells up within me as a reaction against the stagnation of home and family.

Opportunities slip by.

Peasants with free milk

I had to sign on at nine. Dad drove me down to the Admiral St. dole office, the sun already glaring at us from a clear sky. Away across Knowlesbeck, the Cluder valley slumbered under a washed out haze.

We pulled up in Admiral Street to find a large queue of people young and old outside the doors. At desk 13 I signed paper work and was told “Thank you.” Money should come next week. We drove back to Farnshaw as Dad had to sign on too, and then up to Bentsworth to a pet shop to buy daphnia for Dad’s amphibians. The broad stone-walled fields towards Bethany basked green and still in the sun. We got back at about ten-thirty.

I spent a lazy afternoon writing a letter to Shelley and just wasting time. I felt like going down to Phases later so I rang Grant—his brother answered; he was out, didn’t know where he’d gone or when he’d be back—so I asked him to tell Grant to give me a ring back but he never did. I couldn’t decide whether to go out or not and eventually decided not to bother.

My musical tastes are almost schizophrenic. I like jazz but also P.I.L, the Fall, The Pop Group, etc. Andrew has brought back all his records and they’re almost exclusively jazz—I couldn’t concentrate exclusively like that. The two types of music appeal to two different sides of my character, although I can’t reconcile the two.

It’s still smotheringly warm (76°F) even at this late hour, the sky a uniform light grey, a hint of hot rain drops in the steamy air, just a breath of warm breeze in the branches. Dad methodically waters his precious garden. Mum watches a programme about India on TV.

Nothing breaks this grip of Northern domestic stagnation.

Gang of one

I got up early-ish and set off to Grant’s, getting there at eleven; he was out so I went into Easterby and signed on along with skinheads and others. I have to go back on Wednesday at 9 a.m.

I bought The Fall’s new single “The Man Whose Head Expanded/Ludd Gang” which was new in the shop today, but it’s disappointing. Marc Riley’s been kicked out and Mark E. said in the Melody Maker recently that he wants to cut the melody out completely and get back to a simpler more noisy format, but this single shows no sign of this, just a restatement (and not as good a restatement at that) of old themes.

Maybe I’ll grow to like it.

I went back to Grant’s house and we passed the afternoon in the dark back room playing records while Grant criticised his brother, forcing him into humbled half-apologies. He was pretty fed up again I think and dislikes his family, describing them as “good liberal middle-class Guardian readers.” He seems to be constantly on edge and in a prickly mood with them which his Mum counters with blind cheerfulness and chuckles.

His sister has grown up a lot since I last saw her and has developed into a typical Egley Grammar Schoolite. His brother flogged me some singles  by New Order, Sex Pistols and Public Image hw wants rid of. At his age I was listening to Santana and jazz-rock, but then I didn’t have Grant for an older brother. But he’s still into Doctor Who, so he’s an odd mix.

At seven we went round to Nik’s house and set off through the woods to the Albion. Grant and Nik seemed quiet and subdued. Tim the guitarist was there and a few others I remembered soon turned up.

I went to cash a cheque at the off-licence nearby, came back and bought Grant and Nik a drink, half-intending on getting pissed but my money soon dwindled. We went to the Brass Cat and then the Hare and Hounds where we met Jackie, but I had to leave to catch the last bus.

Youth opportunities

Mum and Dad left before I woke up to go down to Andrew’s degree show in Badon.

When I did finally rise at one to answer the phone the house was empty and silent. It was Grant, who just wanted to talk, so I stood there totally naked for quarter of an hour. I’d said I’d meet Lee at 1 p.m. outside Smiths but as usual I was late and I ended up going into Easterby at three.

I’d missed the dole office so I went to the Job Centre, but ended up buying P.I.L.’s first album, and all-in-all spent a fair bit of money.

Watched TV and went to bed.