 
THE DRUMMER'S TALE

A novel

By Chris Whitfield

Published by Sedbergh Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Chris Whitfield

Thank you for downloading this free eBook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Dedicated to Oliver, Hannah, and Charlie.

****

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE DRUMMER'S TALE

1. The Liverpool Stadium - Part 1

2. Talent Aplenty

3. Blind Dates

4. Sofia

5. The Ship

6. The Song

7. Nothing but the Plain Truth

8. Rehearsals

9. Girls and Chocolate

10. Ladies and Gentlemen

11. Villanova

12. Deputy Dick

13. The Kiss

14. The Grapes of Wrath

15. Love Hurts

16. ABC

17. Singing and the Rain

18. Christmas Day

19. The Liverpool Stadium - Part 2

*

1. The Liverpool Stadium - Part 1

This is the best night of my life. It is February 13th 1972, and the band is playing its final encore at the Liverpool Stadium. The aroma of smoking joss sticks and the noise from the assembled fans blend into a heady mix as I pound the drums, sweat trickling down both sides of my face. Ged is thrashing his Fender Strat as though exacting some form of retribution, and Julian's left hand is journeying back and forth along the fret board of his bass at the speed of a bullet. I can see rows of battered wooden seats, bolted together in the shape of a horseshoe, full of guys with shoulder length hair seesawing from side to side and chicks waving their loose-limbed arms in a stoned attempt to conduct _The_ _Last Night of the Proms_.

It is the final few seconds of the performance, and from the tubular lighting rig above our heads, a strobe illuminates the stage with an intensity to match the physical effort and passion on display. We stretch the decibel count to the limit, extracting the last drop of amplified noise from our equipment. I pummel the snare drum, tom toms and cymbals; Ged's right hand is a blur as it moves up and down against the guitar strings; and Julian hits one high octave note on the bass with an alternating forefinger and middle finger. The aggregate sound is gargantuan and builds to a crescendo, climaxing with one final atomic explosion of noise. The people roar their approval, and we move to the front of the stage to line up arm-in-arm and bask in the adulation. This stadium has seen many outstanding occasions with its history of boxing stretching back to the 1930s, but this is arguably its zenith.

Ged takes hold of the microphone to acknowledge the fact.

' _Liverpool! You've been fucking brilliant. Peace, love and goodnight!'_

Then my dad opens the door.

*

'Good God, can you keep that bloody racket down?'

He scratches his crotch as though plucking a chicken and surveys the scene before him with the incredulity of a man who has just found his wife in bed with the milkman and the postman. I am holding two wooden rulers at one end of the settee; Ged is playing a table tennis bat like George Formby with his ukulele; and Julian has a yard brush protruding from between his legs. There is no Liverpool Stadium, no audience adulation, and no musical instruments. There are just the vivid fantasies of three young guys living out their dream as rock and roll stars. The imaginary gig has just taken place in the front room of my parent's terraced house with its dog turd coloured vinyl three-piece suite, orange tweed cushions, and ceiling of polystyrene tiles, painted a gaudy shade of tangerine emulsion.

'How goes it Ted lad?' says Ged, over confident as ever.

My dad shakes his head and brushes back his Elvis quiff with his right hand, clearly irritated by the question. He turns to me and says, 'What the hell are you playing at son?'

I adopt a defiant tone. 'We're forming a band.'

'You're forming a band?'

'A group.'

'What? A beat group... like The Searchers?' The retort confirms his pop vocabulary to be about ten years out of date.

'They're called rock bands now Dad, Wishbone Ash, Mott The Hoople, Deep Purple... that sort of thing.'

'Listen son, I don't care if you think you're the next bloody Freddie & The Dreamers, just keep the noise down.'

Julian holds up a hand. 'Please accept our profound apologies Mr. Kellaway. I'm afraid it's another example of the over-exuberance of youth.'

My dad's tone changes in an instant. He picks his nose and nervously tucks his string vest into the y-fronts visible above his slacks. 'Fair enough Julian, I think I've, you know, made my point.'

With that, he slouches away, almost apologetically, leaving me to marvel again at the natural authority that our man with the broom exudes. Even my irascible father is putty in his hands. I have been a friend of Julian's since I was a young boy, when he and his family lived in the same street, and he has always been able to get the better of his elders. Most people are amazed to learn that his roots are as modest as my own, because to hear him speak, you would think he was ascended from the landed gentry.

We lay down our improvised instruments to plan a way forward. Ever since the Skiffle craze of the 1950s, it has been an established rite of passage for teenage lads to form some kind of musical ensemble. In common with many before us, it is a somewhat unrealistic goal, given none of us play an instrument and our singing is as untried as the latest inventions displayed each week by Raymond Baxter on _Tomorrow's World_. However, we are at an age where ideals and dreams go hand in hand.

Today's sofa arm will be tomorrow's Ludwig drum kit; today's table tennis bat will be tomorrow's Gibson Les Paul; and today's yard brush will be tomorrow's Fender Precision Bass. As every idealist knows, today's dream is tomorrow's reality.

*

A month or so later, we are performing in the front room again, this time with a sprinkling of real equipment. The backdrop is a gigantic Fablon mural of a Scandinavian fjord that dominates the full width of the chimney breast. This scene looks out on to the faded portrait of 'The Crying Boy' that hangs on the opposite wall in the cheapest, plastic picture frame known to mankind. It may be my over-eager imagination, but I am sure that little lad with tears in his eyes is looking a bit more distressed than normal today. I have to confess that he is matching my own disposition, because I am about to air the frustration of playing the settee. It is all right for Ged, having found himself a battered old Watkins guitar and a nice little Vox AC30 amp advertised in the local newsagent's window. And lucky old Julian has bought a Framus Bass and a Sound City mini stack. I have not moved on from our first night, other than exchanging my two rulers for a pair of proper drumsticks.

'Hold it, hold it, this is no good.'

The other guys stop playing.

'Beg to differ old man,' says Julian. 'This is sounding better every day.'

'Come on Jules, what's so clever about me bashing the edge of a couch? I can just imagine our first gig with me sitting on a chair at the back of the stage.'

'OK then Tom Kellaway, let's talk fucking cash.' Ged characteristically gets straight to the point, as he flattens his thick straw-coloured hair either side of an uneven centre part.

There follows a brief discussion on the finances at my disposal, and things look as bleak as the Yorkshire Moors in February, until I remember my old Post Office Savings Account. My spirits soar like Concorde as I go in search of the passbook; only for them to plummet to earth like pigeon shit when I discover a balance of only five pounds. This will barely cover the cost of another set of drumsticks. Dejected and resigned to a career as the world's foremost settee instrumentalist, I return to my band mates with the bad news.

'There's only £5 in the bloody account.' I throw the passbook on to the sideboard in frustration.

'You can't get drums for a fucking fiver,' says Ged.

'Don't you think I know that?'

'Relax Tom,' says Julian, forefinger resting on the edge of his nose. 'It will buy a fabulous armchair from Kent's auctioneers.'

'Very funny Jules.'

I am about to go into a minor sulk, when providence intervenes from an unexpected source. There is a commotion in the hall, where my mum has just been on the phone. She is gently sobbing, so I ask the others to stay quiet and listen at the Formica covered door. It appears that Great Aunt Edith has passed away at the age of ninety-seven.

I silently jump up and punch the air. 'That's bloody brilliant!' I exclaim in a whisper.

I am not proud of my reaction, but I am being pragmatic, justifying the callousness on the grounds of Edith's reputation as both a dragon and a tight-arse. The going rate for her occasional gift of pocket money was a derisory tuppence. My mother was apparently getting the same when she was a girl.

'What's fucking brilliant?' says Ged.

'Old Aunt Edith has popped her clogs.'

'And that's good?'

'Too right it's good'

'Because soft lad?'

'Because Ged, as you would say...' I pause for dramatic effect. 'She is fucking loaded!'

'You're joking.'

'As Buddha is my witness.'

The green plastic Buddha next to the tiger seashells on the mantelpiece maintains its usual neutral expression, always something of a surprise when you consider the garish orange and lime patterned wallpaper on view. I explain that my mum will inherit her aunt's estate, which although not of aristocratic proportions, is still sizeable enough to make a difference. More to the point, I will now get the £200 share I overheard my parents discussing recently.

'I do believe chaps,' says Julian, putting his bass guitar back into its case, 'that it's time for a trip to Strathconas.'

*

Strathconas is the local store in the main shopping centre of Liscard for all things music, and I am elated that for the first time in my life, I am to be more than a window shopper. It may be just another day in Wallasey, the residential town on the Mersey forever in the shadow of its historic Liverpool neighbour, but not for me. It takes all my efforts to avoid skipping; such is the feeling of jubilation. After a visit to the post office to withdraw the fabled fiver from my savings account, we trek through the local park at a brisk pace.

I walk past the duck pond and the small boys fishing with their cane rods and green mesh nets, catching tiddlers to put in their jam jars; past the rose gardens with the old age pensioners sitting on park benches reflecting on times gone by; and past the Art College with its students carrying their latest canvas creations. Then it is up Liscard Road with the red bricks of Victoria Hospital on the left and the 1960s' concrete of the Co-op on the right, until we get to Liscard Roundabout with its paving perimeter, fenced in grassy inclines, and early spring daffodils. At this point, Strathconas comes into sight, the largest occupant in a parade of shops sitting beneath Coronation Buildings, a white sandstone structure seemingly inspired by the Croydon pre-war airport terminal.

We enter the shop, and Julian heads straight to the record department to groove to some Gentle Giant, while I follow Ged past the line of Gibson, Rickenbacker and Fender guitars towards the gleam of the percussion. Roddy the sales assistant knows us well. Thin as a rake, he is an easy-going, Scottish guy who tends to nod and shrug patiently as we dabble on instruments that we could not afford in a month of Sundays. However, even he senses a more purposeful air about us today.

In a second, I am in love. My eyes lock on to an Olympic by Premier kit with its sparkling red snare, bass drum, tom-tom, cymbal, hi-hat and, most importantly, affordable £195 price tag. It even has a cowbell. Roddy lets me have a go, though needless to say, I am not exactly Buddy Rich. If this were the furniture section at the local Co-operative Department Store, I would now be displaying a complete mastery of the armchair. No matter, my mind is made up.

'I want to leave a £5 deposit,' I say.

Roddy raises an eyebrow, an extreme reaction by his standards. 'And may I ask how you're going to pay the £190 balance?'

It is a reasonable question to put to a seventeen year old who is still in the sixth form at school and whose only regular income is £1 a week during the football season from cleaning the mud-drenched kits of a local team at the launderette... a weekly routine in which I am wordlessly castigated by the middle-aged women who look on in disgust at my washing machine with its agitated water, the colour of boiled diarrhoea.

'I've inherited some cash.'

I inwardly praise the Lord for Great Aunt Edith. Roddy is dubious. However, the mild mannered salesman is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, and the transaction is completed. Very soon, I will be a proper drummer. I head towards Julian to give him the good news, leaving Ged to admire a nice Telecaster.

The shop also sells domestic electrical equipment, and as I walk past the stereograms, twin tubs, and refrigerators, I have to do my utmost to avoid an over eager salesman who is trying to flog me the latest vacuum cleaner. It might float on its own cushion of air, but I do not find it difficult to resist.

The record section has a particular smell, a combination of polished wood and body odour. The gleaming oak cabinets housing the album sleeves are varnished to produce a shine that rivals the elbow patch of a geography teacher's tweed jacket. The BO is courtesy of Harold who serves behind the counter. The fusion of his particular man-fragrance with the varnish is pungent to say the least. The only place of sanctity is within one of the three arched, soundproof listening booths positioned against the far wall of the department.

I approach the first. 'Hey Jules, great news.'

Only it is not Julian in booth number one. A dainty, pretty girl is swaying to what sounds like Argent. She has a full head of chestnut-coloured hair held at the crown by a gold clip, from which strands of lighter hair have escaped to form a loose fringe, framing beautiful hazel eyes and long eyelashes. She looks Italian, not the norm in this town of pale faces and spotty complexions. She smiles and tilts her head towards me in an attempt to hear what I am saying. Unfortunately, my confidence with the opposite sex is a fragile beast, and my interpretation of her non-verbal line of questioning is on the lines of, 'What the fuck are you looking at dickhead?'

Haplessly, I apologise. 'Sorry, I, erm... thought you were my friend Julian, he's erm... six foot, dark hair, erm... with a beard thing...'

'I see,' she smiles. 'I must have forgotten to shave this morning.'

I flush and can only muster, 'Yes, I suppose so.' It is a pathetic response.

I move on to the next booth and am relieved to see my friend. I raise my thumbs to communicate the good news about the drum kit, but Julian politely indicates that he is in a Gentle Giant induced zone from which there has to be a gradual withdrawal. I move away to peruse the albums.

I remember that my mum asked me to look out for a Frank Sinatra LP for Dad's birthday, and I scan the 'STU' alphabetical section where I select _Sinatra Sings Cole Porter_. I am waiting for Julian to appear so that I can borrow some cash, when I see the Italian girl emerge from booth one. She frowns at the record in my hand. I react as if holding red-hot molten lava from Mount Etna. The sleeve falls to the ground, and I randomly grasp another album cover, _Shirley Bassey Live at The Talk of the Town_! I curse my misfortune. Why could it not be Stephen Stills or Santana? Surely, the Tiger Bay songstress should be under B for Bassey, not S for Shirley. I curse the foul smelling Harold for his administrative ineptitude. My musical credibility shattered, I watch the pretty girl exit the store. I am left reeling from another blow to my delicate self-esteem with girls, but I can take solace from the new drum kit. Girls love a rock and roller, so perhaps things are going to change. It occurs to me, the sooner the better.

2. Talent Aplenty

A few weeks on, and I am scanning the kitchen cupboards in the habitually fruitless search for something decent to eat for breakfast. The best I can muster is a Morning Coffee biscuit, an easy winner over the other alternatives, a box of dried peas or a jar of my dad's homemade pickled onions that look like spare parts from Dr Frankenstein's stock room. However, I soon forget about this disappointment. There are mumblings coming from the back room. Through the serving hatch with its row of sporting golliwogs sitting on the edge, I see my dad slumped over the table, head in hands. My mum is holding a letter at arm's length, trying to read it without the help of her glasses. She is as blind as a bat but refuses to wear her spectacles because she thinks they make her look like Billie Jean King. It transpires that Great Aunt Edith is at the heart of things again, and this time it is my dad's turn to be distressed.

'A bloody cat's home for Christ's sake. She didn't even bloody like cats.'

'Come on Ted, it's only money.' My mum is certainly taking the news better than the old man.

'Only money, only money! Jesus! It should have been our money Edna, not that refuge for stray bloody moggies in Cross Lane!'

My mind is racing at this news, so much so that even the sight of a half-opened Heinz Toast Topper on the drainer has no impact. The dream is over. No inheritance means no drums. I realise in an instant that I will have to leave the band. Ged and Julian will understandably lose patience with a drummer who does not have a kit. It is like being the one member of _The Magnificent Seven_ armed with a pan scourer instead of a gun.

I tiptoe into the hall to call Julian. Our household may have finally embraced the Alexander Graham Bell age by having a telephone fitted, but my dad is still paranoid about anyone using the damned thing. If he had his way, each call would last about ten seconds, just long enough to say hello, how are you, and goodbye. My voice is therefore church mouse quiet when I get through and inform my friend of this latest, unfortunate twist of fate.

'Jules, Tom here... bad news about the drums I'm afraid.'

'What's that old man?'

'Great Aunt Edith has left her estate to a cat's home, so there'll be no £200 for me.'

'I see.'

'I'm sorry pal, but you'll just have to find yourself another drummer.'

Julian has been listening patiently and says, 'If we do Tom, there'll still be a place for you in the band.'

'What playing, the spoons?' I find it hard to hide my disappointment.

Julian does not answer. There is a brief pause, during which time I can hear his light breathing. He is thinking, plotting; his resourceful mind at work.

'I have a bit of an idea,' he says. 'How do you fancy a pint with Paul McCartney this evening?'

*

I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window of the Seacombe Ferry Hotel, a somewhat run down public house that overlooks the River Mersey in sight of the ferry boats and the ever-dwindling shipping traffic of the once great port. I look about twelve, in keeping with my schoolyard tag of 'Shirley Temple'. My fair hair is shoulder length and frames a less than masculine face. I have had more than one person cross my path and ask if I was a boy or a girl, which is hardly the greatest confidence booster in the context of attracting the opposite sex. I am wearing a navy blue duffel coat with wooden toggles, not that different from the one I wore to primary school ten years ago. The only things missing are the plastic sandals from Woolworths and the ever present snotty nose. None of this helps to make me feel old enough to drink in here.

I hide behind the slightly taller Julian as we enter; keeping my eyes glued to the baseball boots just visible beyond the sway of my loons. We slice our way through the blanket of cigarette smoke and move across the threadbare Axminster carpet towards the bar, where we are served by a stereotypical, brassy Northern barmaid, her ample bosom bursting out of her white blouse, clearly a couple of sizes too small for her. She could easily be taken for the elder sister of the girl in the photograph of the salted peanuts advert behind the bar... albeit an elder sister who has smoked a packet of Capstan Full Strength a day since the age of five and has survived on three hours sleep per night followed by a breakfast of Tequila and grits.

'And what can I get you gentlemen?' Before Julian can answer, she looks at me and says, 'Mind you, I can see what he wants.' She wobbles her chest and says, 'Catch me later love, and I'll see what I can do.'

I blush as she laughs like Sid James, my eyes once again taking refuge in the scrutiny of my flares and footwear.

'A pint of your best bitter and a Cinzano with lemon,' says Julian, radiating self-confidence.

He hands me the beer, and I am relieved that we choose to sit in a quiet corner, safe from prying eyes and busty sexual predators. Once seated, Julian pulls a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket.

'Now this my dear chap is your passport to a brand new drum kit,' he says.

'What do you mean?' I am bemused.

'I ventured to Rushforths in Liverpool this afternoon for this.' He unfolds the paper.

'What is it?'

'A Hire Purchase Agreement.'

I start to protest that this is neither use nor ornament to someone who earns a pound a week, but my friend holds up a calming hand.

'Just watch this Tom.'

He moves across to the busiest part of the pub, where I am flabbergasted to see Paul and Linda McCartney sitting around a table, drinking and smoking with various friends and family. It seems Julian had been serious about a drink with the ex-Beatle. When he had said that Paul was in town and likely to come here for a pint, I took it with a large pinch of salt. Yet there he is, as clear as day. I should have known better. Julian proving once again that he is truly well connected.

I watch as my fearless pal taps Paul on the shoulder and hands him the HP document. The great man duly signs it, then turns to me with a trademark thumbs up. I wave back, a little gingerly, as Julian back slaps him, kisses Linda on both cheeks, before returning to our table.

'Tops,' says Julian, 'absolute tops.'

'What the hell was that all that about?'

'I told him you were too shy to ask for his autograph. What he doesn't realise is that he has just signed to be guarantor on a brand spanking new set of Olympic by Premier drums.'

'What do you mean?'

Julian explains that he posed as me in Rushforths and told the salesman that he was Paul McCartney's cousin, and that he wanted to buy a drum kit on HP. The pretence worked a treat, and he arranged to return tomorrow with the countersigned hire purchase agreement. Julian is triumphant, but I am not too comfortable about the whole thing.

'Surely if you were... or rather I was Paul McCartney's cousin, he'd just buy the drums for me. Let's face it; he's not short of a few bob.'

'My dear chap, Macca is a man of renowned parsimony. See that older chap on his table in the donkey jacket?'

'Yeah.'

'He's just bought the round of drinks.'

'Has he?'

'Listen my man, if your Great Aunt Edith was the Queen of Thrift, Paul is certainly the Crown Prince.'

As if to prove Julian's point, the ex-Beatles knocks over a glass of wine belonging to one of the party. He half-heartedly rummages through his pockets in search of some change but is beaten to buying a replacement drink by the donkey jacketed man.

'But how am I going to afford the instalments?'

'Relax Tom. As soon as we start to earn some cash from gigging, we can pay off the debt. Stop worrying. It's all fine.'

I look at my enterprising friend with a mixture of disquiet and admiration. Julian Lord is probably the only living nineteen year old with the capacity to hatch such a plan and the audacity to carry it off. Perhaps in this particular instance, his resemblance to Paul has helped. He has the same good looks, dark hair and brown eyes, and he is currently sporting the same amount of facial hair. However, more significantly, he has such deep-grained self-assurance that whatever he chooses to do, he is never questioned, aided by the rich dulcet tones of his BBC voice, which permeates a natural authority people do not dispute. It would simply not have occurred to the man in Rushforths that this young guy was anyone other than Paul McCartney's cousin, even though common sense might suggest otherwise. And so with Julian's reassurance winning the day, I allow myself the dream of playing something other than a Parker-Knoll substitute.

I continue to sip the bitter in our corner but can see the pub manager eyeing me up and down as he collects the empty glasses. He has a menacing look with narrow eyes, a greased-back hairstyle, and a red face he appears to have painted on with Dulux. Dressed in a greying bri-nylon shirt and black shiny trousers, he approaches our table.

'Eh lad, we don't serve kids in this pub, so piss off out of here.' His face darkens to a shade of crimson.

I am about to make a dash for the door when Julian intervenes. 'Don't worry Keith, everything is fine and dandy. This is Tom, and he is my guest.'

'Oh, right, sorry Julian, I didn't realise it was you there.' The manager oozes remorse, and I stare in disbelief as he retreats to the bar, returning quickly with two more drinks on a silver tray. 'Here you are gentlemen, a couple of bevies for you... on the house of course.' There has been a complete transformation in the manager's demeanour, and he withdraws meekly to carry on with the evening's chores. Julian strikes again.

We down our drinks and plot the next stage of the musical master plan. When it is time to go, the manager does everything he can to make our short journey to the pub's exit a comfortable one, everything other than rolling out a red carpet and providing a trumpet fanfare. Before we exchange the cosy warmth of the pub for the crisp spring night air, I glance over my shoulder at the McCartney table. I am surprised to get another 'thumbs up' from Paul and somewhat astonished that he follows this with his mimic of a drum roll. Or is this my imagination playing tricks?

*

Seven days later and a Rushforths delivery van is parked outside our house. Julian's plan has worked a treat. On the pavement, there are a number of black cases, each a different size to accommodate the varying dimensions of the tom toms, snare, and bass drums. There is also a flat case for the cymbals, and a mini treasure chest for the hit-hat, pedals, and other stands. This is so exciting. Jules is here to deal with the shop man in the brown coat, and he signs the requisite piece of paper before helping me with the cases upstairs to the box bedroom.

This is empty other than for an old rocking horse that goes back a few generations and gives off an extremely lifelike odour. Nobody has the heart to throw it out, but there is probably more livestock in its rotting, wooden carcass than at a weekly beef market in a Herefordshire rural town. Once everything is inside, I undo the strap on the snare case, open the lid, and carefully extract the drum. It is a beautiful specimen, and I inspect the underneath. There is the snare assembly and a see-through skin that reveals a three-ply birch shell and a muffler. The outer casing is all bright red sparkle and chrome with a sober looking 'Olympic' badge riveted to the wood. The skin on the top is pristine, and it almost seems a shame that I will soon be battering it to high heaven with sticks.

We remove all the other items, and it is pleasing to see that many of the cases stack within one another like a Russian doll. It means there is just about enough room to set up the kit in this spare bedroom and to put the cases in one corner.

'Ginger Baker would be green with envy,' says Julian, as we both stand back to admire the aesthetics of my new pride and joy.

'Well, shall I have a go?'

'Why not old man.'

When I sit down behind the set, Julian starts to laugh. 'Here comes Jimmy Clitheroe on the drums.'

The seat is far too low, and I adjust it until I am sitting at the correct height. 'Here goes.'

I make a tentative start. One beat to two beats on the bass drum in normal time, with a driving beat from my right hand on the hi-hat and the main beat from my left stick on the snare. At the end of the first couple of bars, I strike a cymbal, and after a couple of minutes playing, I finish with a roll on the snare, moving down the toms tom to the floor tom and finishing with another crash of the cymbal.

The decrepit rocking horse seems impressed. It is swaying gently and is either thinking Ringo Starr has moved in or there has been an earthquake.

Julian applauds. 'Good man. I think you are going to be just fine. All that training on the settee has set you up beautifully.'

'Perhaps I could be the Bert Weedon of Drums? Chapter 1 of my _Play in a Day_ book would be called The Settee.'

'There might be something in that old man.'

We hear a heavy knocking at the front door. I know we are the only ones in the house, and so I make my way downstairs. Alan the next-door neighbour is standing there. He is built like the proverbial shithouse and has shoulders so wide; he would probably get stuck in the doorframe if he tried to come in the house. His face is not exactly that of a benevolent uncle. He has his front and bottom teeth clenched together like the thighs of a nun in the company of a frisky monk; and if his eyebrows were any lower in his face, his eyes would be in his chin. He is clearly not a happy chap.

He opens his mouth, and the muscles in his face relax. His tone is that of a broken man. 'Four hours... four bloody hours!' He shakes his head.

'Sorry Alan?'

'She's a light sleeper you know. The slightest noise and she wakes... screams the place down.'

'Who? Janice?'

Janice is Alan's wife.

'No, not bloody Janice. She sleeps like a bloody baby. It's the baby... she's the one that doesn't sleep like a bloody baby. I finally had her with her eyes shut, and I was creeping slowly out the bedroom when from up there, there was BANG, BANG, BANG, CRASH BANG! And then she starts bloody crying again.'

'Oh dear.'

'What the bloody hell's going on in there?' He stares at me pleadingly. 'It sounded like bloody drums.'

Alan is a big lad, and I sense that his despair may quickly oscillate into something a touch more threatening, so I avoid the confession that I am this road's answer to John Bonham.

'Drums? Ha! As if.'

'Then what was the noise?'

'The noise?'

'Yes?'

'It's my friend's Hi-Fi, which is really high quality and very loud. He's got this album 'Sounds of Africa' that he can't stop playing, though it's not my cup of tea really. I'll go and tell him to turn it down.'

Alan is a spent force, and his face is now pink and blotchy as he returns to his nightmare. It is becoming obvious that the chances of practising the drums at home are likely to be as frequent as a pools win. I am going to have to continue with the settee a bit longer and find a venue where I can have a good belt. Understandably, I am starting to have doubts as to whether I will be able to progress at the same level as the other lads.

I hear Julian having a go on the drums followed by a baby's piercing cry. I rush up the stairs to stop him before Big Alan resorts to jumping out of his bedroom window.

*

Within a week of becoming a proper drummer, we have the prospect of our first gig. The chap who lives in the flat above Ged is a singer with the Leasowe Minstrels who have a show at Wallasey Town Hall this coming Saturday. The basic structure of the _Talent Aplenty_ concert revolves around the troupe miming and dancing to Al Jolson ditties with local artists sandwiched in between performing in a talent contest. The venue has a capacity of a few hundred people, and such is the popularity of the local Minstrels, the show is a sell out. However, when I contemplate the prospect of our debut, things look decidedly bleak.

We have no songs, having spent all our time together either jamming or trying to think of a band name. And I have my own particular worry. Ged may be getting better by the day on guitar, and Julian might be looking the epitome of cool on bass, but what about the bloke on the drums? Dire... there is no other word for it. Well to be fair, there are a few more. How about crap? Or bollocks? I cannot drum in the house because of Alan and the baby next door, and my dad's reaction has been predictable.

'Why you had to choose the bloody drums, Christ only knows. What's wrong with the mouth organ or the bloody Jew's harp?'

I am at least thankful that he has swallowed the story about the Olympic kit belonging to Julian's cousin.

The three of us are back in my front room where the serenity of the Nordic mural is being undermined by the smell of kippers frying in the kitchen. Ged is making farting noises sitting on the edge of the PVC armchair and is thumbing his way through a crumbling book of sheet music called _The Real Book of the Blues_. He comes across an old blues number called 'Junkie's Fudge' and immediately proposes this as a name for the group. Having turned down dubious suggestions such as Piss, Hairy Fairy and Pythagoras Meat Pie, we are quick to agree. Junkie's Fudge is born.

We turn our attention to songs, revealing a pragmatic streak that panders to the Town Hall audience. Ged knows the chords to 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep', a massive 'novelty' hit last year for Middle of the Road, and we decide this is the number to launch our performing careers. I am unsure how to work out the drums, so I opt to play the tambourine instead. To any sane mind, it begs the question, 'Are you on drugs?'

We need another song and start to jam. The guitars are unamplified, and I am back in my comfort zone playing the settee. Ged improvises a riff, Julian plays a blues bass line, and I mumble something about my baby across the sea. Three minutes later, and we have written our first ever song. We think it is a number one. In reality, it is probably a number two... in the colloquial sense.

'Eat your fucking heart out Paul McCartney,' proclaims Ged.

'Leave him alone,' I say. 'He's my guarantor.'

*

It is the evening of the _Talent Aplenty_ show, and we are on our way to the Town Hall, courtesy of Ged who is driving his brother's bright orange transit van with the words 'Edward Nuttall Contractor' plastered all over the bodywork. I gaze out of the window and catch a glimpse of a liver bird, green wingspan clearly visible, looking poised to crap over the passengers at the Pier Head. The Liverpool waterfront is famous the world over, and though partly due to the port's unique maritime history, its current fame has more do with John, Paul, George and Ringo. Songs like 'How Much Is That Doggie' and 'Seven Little Girls (Sitting in the Back Seat)' left their mark on me at an early age. Yet it was only when The Fab Four came along with 'She Loves You', 'Twist & Shout', and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' that the young Tom Kellaway, along with millions of others, became aware of this fantastic thing called pop music. I muse that not so long ago, The Beatles would have been experiencing the same kind of nervous anticipation that I feel now.

'Do you think when John Lennon and Paul McCartney were on the way to their first gig, they felt like this?' I ask the others.

'Like what, soft lad?' says Ged.

'I don't know... a kind of tingle inside.'

'Eh, no fucking wanking in the back of my brother's van,' he shouts to laughter from Julian. 'I don't want your sponk all over those seats.'

The banter continues to be lively as we make our way through the streets of Wallasey, fuelled especially by Ged. He notices the cords I am wearing.

'What the fuck are those?'

'Split-knee corduroy loons.'

I make the statement with the attempted confidence of Mary Quant, but it is not that easy. The offending trousers are coloured brown above the knee and cream from the knee downwards.

'And here he comes, Geoff Boycott, opening batsman for England,' says Ged, takings his hands off the wheel to mime an off drive to more laughter, including my own. I have to admit, they do look like a pair of immaculate cricket pads.

In all our preparations, we have given little thought to our appearance. Ged is wearing a purple jacket with white spots and has a felt top hat on the front passenger seat, begging the question as to how he has the nerve to act as a fashion critic. Our very own bass playing Noel Coward is sitting there adjusting his bow tie and smoothing out the material of his smoking jacket. In truth, our outfits are as coordinated as Douglas Bader on acid trying to do the Twist, but I guess we are happy with the final image. We know that matching clothes are the remit of cabaret artists from Yorkshire or soul groups from Detroit. We are a rock band and proud of it, cricket pads or otherwise.

This pride is feeding a real air of self-importance as we drive past the library, the cinema and Kardouni's Joke Shop towards the venue. We feel like genuine rock and roll stars when the Town Hall comes into sight with a number of people outside the venue. It is dusk, and the interior lights of the impressive civic building are lending further atmosphere to proceedings. We turn left, driving past the well-maintained gardens to park at the side, unloading the van to carry the gear through to the stage door.

The inside of the hall looks the same as the Wedgwood pottery that my granny loves. The curved ceiling has a pattern of rectangular china blue inserts framed by cream ornate carvings, all matched by the design of high arched sash windows running down each side of the room. The uniform rows of grey chairs evoke the image of an East European military parade, and though the seats are starting to fill up, it appears that admission to the hall is conditional upon your level of incontinence. The ticket holders look either over ninety or under three. This does not look like a crowd that will appreciate the musicality of Junkie's Fudge.

*

A little later, my chief emotion remains one of anxiety. I peer through a gap in the curtains at the side of the stage and take in the first few rows of the audience. It now resembles a shampoo and set convention. Kevin Pratt, heartthrob star of the Leasowe Minstrels, is on his knees waxing about his 'Mammy'. Meanwhile, a number of the old dears in the front stalls are wiping away tears from their eyes. This might be the emotional intensity of Kevin's performance or his renowned bad breath.

I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder. I turn around to see a pockmarked Teddy boy glaring at me. Leather-clad, fair skinned, and unshaven, he has one of his front teeth missing and looks the type who works for a travelling fair, spinning the cars on the waltzer. I cannot help but notice that his black leather trousers are ridiculously tight, his genitals packed like sardines in a tin. It is a sort of horrific, twentieth century version of Michelangelo's David.

'What you going to be singing lad?' he growls.

'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep,' I reply in a pitch higher than normal.

'Fuck me, what a sack of shit!'

The fact that he makes King Kong look under nourished softens the edge to my riposte. 'What about you?'

'Rock and roll lad, rock and roll.'

He explains he is a survivor from the Merseybeat era, claiming his group, Jimmy Jet and the Rockets topped the bill at a local ballroom in 1960 when The Beatles were the opening act. They had toured the county's cinemas with the likes of Gerry & The Pacemakers, played regularly at the Cavern, and released one single, the gut wrenching ballad 'My Heart Stopped Beating the Day She Died'. He still cannot believe the record did not chart, adding bitterly that his musical career never recovered from a combination of this setback and the subsequent, personal incapacity caused by a virulent strain of infected haemorrhoids.

Against my better judgement, I mutter, 'This must be a bit of a comedown then.'

For a moment, I think I am going to be head-butted, but the rocker regains his composure. 'Tonight lad is the start of Jimmy Jet's comeback. Stand by for lift-off!'

His backing group appears. There are only two of them, a drummer, and a bass player, and neither speaks a word of English.

'Here's some advice lad,' says Jimmy conspiratorially. He checks that nobody is listening. 'Keep it a trio, so there's less to share the stash. And if you're really lucky like me, you'll hire a couple of East European refugees. These soft gets think that £30 divided by three makes a quid. Sometimes I buy them a pair of Wranglers or even Sea Dogs, which to them is like getting a bloody Rolls Royce. And one last thing lad about agents and managers... do you know what they are?'

I shake my head.

'I'll tell you what they are.' Jimmy seems to be recalling some damaging past experiences. 'They're the fucking scum of the earth. What are they?' he shouts with an intimidating look across his face.

My voice rises an octave to confirm, 'Scum of the earth?'

'That's right lad, that's right.'

The exchange seems to have taken its toll on Jimmy who has to sit down to recover his poise, wincing as he does. His trousers are valiantly taking the strain.

'Fucking piles,' he bellows.

Enthusiastic applause from the crowd acknowledging the end of 'Mammy' interrupts this rather private exclamation. The Master of Ceremonies, whose demeanour is as smooth as his brylcreemed hair and worn out dinner suit, takes to the stage.

' _That's fabulous ladies & gentlemen; let's hear it once again for the Leasowe Minstrels starring our very own Kevin Pratt.'_

Further applause rings out. When it fades, the MC resumes his patter.

' _Now ladies & gentlemen, it's time for more local talent. Making his comeback after a series of unfortunate ailments, including a twisted bowel, shingles, and hepatitis, it's the one, the only... erm... the unforgettable erm...'_

The man is plainly struggling to find the name on his list. I glance at Jimmy who tries to save face.

'The bastard's building up the tension.'

After a further uncomfortable moment or two, he finally locates the name.

' _Ah yes, the one and only, Jimmy Jet and the Rockets.'_

Jimmy moves on to the stage as though he has shit himself, his waddle a passable impersonation of an inebriated duck, and he is carrying his guitar as though made of nuclear material. There is tangible trepidation in the lukewarm applause from the crowd, justified when it gives way to a cacophony of noise from the band. To me, they sound good, but they are loud, so loud that the audience members either cover their ears or disconnect their hearing aids.

I move backstage where there are no dressing rooms, and it is utter chaos with countless minstrels, a sprinkling of aspiring musicians, a fire-eater, magicians, and a small brown dog walking on its back legs. I spot Julian in a dark corner, partially obscured by a black curtain. As I approach my friend, I see that he is in a passionate embrace with one of the chorus girls, so I make myself scarce and return to watch Jimmy Jet from the wings.

At the end of his two-song set, the singer swivels his guitar so that it is resting on his back, and in keeping with 1960s' beat group tradition, bows to the audience with his fellow band members. As he straightens up, there is a blood-curdling scream from the audience. It seems that the courageous battle fought by Jimmy's leather trousers to remain intact during his performance is well and truly over. A flap has appeared around his crotch, just large enough to allow his manhood to become visible to all and sundry. Unsurprisingly, there was no room for underpants between the ageing trousers and Jimmy's raw flesh. As the cries continue, he is oblivious to the fact his meat and two veg are now on display and wrongly interprets the shrieking as a latter day version of Beatlemania. He proceeds to run back and forth across the stage acknowledging the hysteria, all the while his genitalia flopping around like a rag doll. After an eternity, he finally heads off stage, clearly elated.

'Fuck me lad,' he says as he passes, 'that was the dog's bollocks.'

'No Jimmy,' I reply, pointing at his groin, 'they are the dog's bollocks!'

He looks down. 'Oh fuck.'

Normality is quickly resumed via the Leasowe Minstrels and their 'Swanee River', after which it is the turn of Junkie's Fudge. We gather just off stage and give each other last minute words of comfort and encouragement. The final few moments of calm preparation are then undermined by Ged who suddenly announces in a blind panic that he cannot remember any of the chords to the songs. We desperately attempt to revive his memory as we hear the MC preparing to announce our entrance.

' _Wasn't that wonderful, ladies and gentlemen? Follow that as they say, although someone has to! And so for your further delectation and rapturous enjoyment...'_

The MC is growing into his role; in fact, he is growing into Leonard Sachs of _The Good Old Days_.

' _Three young lads from Wallasey, let's give a warm Talent Aplenty welcome to...'_

He searches his list and screws up his eyes trying to read the words.

' _Junkie's Fuck!'_

The show is turning into an unexpected x-rated ordeal for the shampoo and sets in the audience, and a stunned silence accompanies our first ever stage entrance. It is not a great start, but it gets worse. Ged might have remembered his chords, but now he cannot get his amplifier to work. He fiddles frantically with his jack plug, turning every knob and flicking every switch on his guitar and amp, but all to no avail. Consequently, the musical backing to 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' is a wonky tambourine and a simple bass riff. It is a clear débâcle. Above the tinny rattle of my handheld percussion, I can hear sniggers and giggles from the audience. As the song progresses, I notice most have lost concentration and are talking to one another. At least Jimmy held their attention, even if it did involve waggling his unmentionables in front of them. The song ends after what seems like three hours, and I cast my eyes over the grainy wooden boards of the stage floor, searching in vain for a trap door from which to make an escape.

' _Evenin' Wallasey!'_

Ged's shout to the crowd at the end of the song leaves them a little bemused. At least he is still living out the rock and roll dream, buoyed by the fact his amp is now working again.

' _Our next song is one written by our drummer, Tom Kellaway.'_

I stand up from behind the drums trying to disown myself from this unwarranted solo credit, but it is too late. Ged's riff kicks in, and we are away. Compared to 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep', this is Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue', and for a couple of minutes, the Liverpool Stadium fantasy becomes a bit more real. Yet I am soon appreciating how much hard graft is required to be a drummer. I feel so hot.

From nowhere, a stagehand appears with a fire extinguisher and starts squirting me with white foam. We all stop playing in an instant, and as I protest to the DIY fireman, he yells something about the fire-eater leaving a trail of petrol from the back of the stage. I glance down and am horrified to see flames licking up the sides of my cricket pad cords. I act quickly and decisively, removing them with the speed of a nymphomaniac that has Steve McQueen chained to the bed, although quite why the stagehand continues to aim the nozzle of the extinguisher at my groin is a complete mystery. It is a moment of unutterable, personal indignity, something difficult to accept at my vulnerable age, compounded when we leave the stage to howls of laughter and thunderous applause.

Ged immediately heads towards a group of minstrel girls, Julian resumes his liaison with the lass from the chorus behind the big curtain, while I am left standing there trouser-less, wearing what looks like a pair of pants sculptured from crazy foam. Some kind soul eventually finds me a pair of trousers to wear, conjured up from somewhere, perhaps by the conjurer whose tricks went so badly earlier. I put them on and am six years old again... that kid who turns up at school wearing a clean pair of grey cotton shorts, pisses himself during sums, and goes home wearing a pair of polyester dungarees. Rock and roll, you can stick it up your arse. I decide to retire from showbiz with immediate effect.

It is not long before the MC is congratulating the Minstrels for a fantastic show.

' _So once again ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for the Leasowe Minstrels.'_

The audience responds with enthusiastic applause as Ged whispers, 'Can you guys smell shit?'

I tilt my head up slightly, crinkle my nose, and breathe in through my nostrils. The unmistakeable odour of dog muck is in the air.

' _And I'm sure you'll agree that the local talent we have seen tonight has been of the highest order. We've had singers, plate spinners and my particular favourite, The Dancing Dachshund.'_

I look to my left and see the jiving dog, still walking on its back legs, and it seems to give me a guilty look. I lift the right leg of my replacement trousers and there, smeared across the full width of my baseball boots, is a dollop of dachshund poo, the colour of a Caramac bar. My evening is complete.

' _But there can only be one victor, and so the winner of the 1972 Wallasey Town Hall Talent Aplenty competition is... that hilarious comedy trio, Junkie's Fart.'_

'Comedy? Fucking hell,' says Ged. 'They think we're the fucking Barron Nights.'

3. Blind Dates

'I've got you a date Tom,' says Julian, cradling his bass like a protective bitch with her newborn pups.

'You've got me a date?'

'Yes. You know the delectable Amanda?'

'The hairdresser?'

'That's the one.'

My hopes rise like the perfect soufflé.

'You've got me a date with Amanda?'

'Not quite my man, she's mine to be fair. But we do have a double date, and you'll be with her sister.'

'Oh no, not again.'

The soufflé deflates. I fear the worst about my friend's matchmaking, and I have good reason.

'What do you mean?' says Julian, his eyes widening with genuine surprise.

'This time last year... remember.'

He gives me a bewildered look as though discovering the moon is made of blancmange. I remind him of the blind date with the younger sister of a certain Pamela. The penny drops, and Julian's gaze drops likewise to the floor. I hear Ged stir, just managing to hold on to the glass of pop he is drinking.

'What's that you're talking about?' he says.

'Last year, Jules had a date with a girl called Pam.'

'Big Tits Pam?'

'Yeah, Big Tits Pam.'

'You lucky bastard Jules,' says Ged.

Julian returns a knowing look.

I continue. 'But Pam insisted her younger sister came as well, so Jules, being the thoughtful kind, invited me along to make another couple.'

'Sounds fucking ideal to me soft lad.'

'She was ten years old!'

'Fucking hell!'

'She did look older than ten,' says Julian, guilt visible in the creases of his frown.

'She was sucking a lollipop and carrying a Sindy doll!'

Predictably, Ged finds this hilarious, and his laughter only ceases when he lets out an involuntary burp. Julian reassures me that this date will be different because my partner is the elder sister, and as Amanda is near genetic perfection, her sibling must rank high in the tasty stakes.

'Fantastic.' I can almost hear my groin moaning in anticipation. 'What's her name?'

'Brenda.'

'Fuck me,' says Ged, nearly choking on his Dandelion & Burdock. 'It sounds more like her mother!'

I reassure myself that her name is not important. The Italian looking girl in Strathconas comes to mind. If she were a Brenda, a Gladys, or an Olive, would she be less attractive? Clearly not.

I have been messing about on Ged's guitar and place it back carefully into its battered case. It is now a month since our memorable - for all the wrong reasons - debut, but it did not take long for the guys to persuade me to rejoin the band, though it was on the basis that I keep my trousers on for the duration of any future performance. We are back in the front room dominated by the snow capped mountains, china blue sky, and calm waters of the Fablon fjord, and there is clear evidence that things are getting more serious. We have found ourselves a roadie, and he is due to arrive in his van at any moment. He is an acquaintance of Julian's called Brian who claims to have been part of a travelling circus, which is a bit of odd given that he now works as a clerical officer in the local Department of Employment... from travelling nomad to man in grey.

My mind returns to the blind date.

'Where are we meeting them Jules?'

'At the 99 Club on Saturday.'

The choice of venue is a relief. The doormen are tolerant about age, an important factor when you look barely old enough to dress yourself. However, I do have mixed feelings about the arrangement. I might be nearly eighteen, but I have never had a proper girlfriend, and my confidence with the opposite sex is as brittle as an overcooked meringue. Nonetheless, I experience a rush of adrenaline pump through my guts at the prospects for the evening.

The sound of something like a British Army Tank then drowns everything out. I pull back the curtains to reveal the source of the din. Manoeuvring its way into a parking space outside the house is a Bedford Caravanette, sky blue with a cream roof and broken exhaust. Around the wheel arches and along the sills, I can see smudges of corroded metal, the colour of dog shit. I get the distinct feeling that loading my bass drum alone will be the final straw for the chassis of this rust bucket. After the relative luxury of the Ford Transit at _Talent Aplenty_ , it is certainly back down to earth with this jalopy. Behind the wheel, there is a weird looking guy wearing small, round sunglasses despite the early evening dusk. This must be Brian. We trail out of the house to meet him.

Brian evidently thinks it is still the Summer of Love. He gets out of the van, holds up an inverted two-finger salute, and greets us. 'Peace cats'.

He is quite a sight with ridiculously flyaway hair, seemingly crocheted from discarded Brillo pads, and clothes that are pure San Franciscan flower power. He is wearing an oversized, multi-coloured tee shirt with a spiralling pattern that ends at the centre of his ample front. His trousers are sky blue with a black stripe, and he has yellow clogs, second only to stilts as the worst possible footwear for driving. Mind you, it is a shame that the Bedford is not from the same era as his clothes. A 1967 model would do fine. It looks like we will have to make do with a 1957. Surprisingly, the others do not appear to share my disquiet.

'Fucking groovy Brian,' says Ged, adding a little empathetic, hippy vernacular.

'Tops,' says Julian.

Brian informs us that, 'She drives like a bitch man.'

Quite how a bitch drives, I am not too sure, other than this is one loud bitch. On the positive side, there is plenty of room in the back for our equipment, though Brian does complain about his troublesome slipped disc and is therefore unable to help with the lifting. And this is our roadie? Nevertheless, the kit is soon all on board, and the suspension and ball joints appear to be holding firm. We pile in to the vehicle and hit the road, heading for the girls' changing room at Alderhouse School. I keep all available fingers crossed that the chassis holds up as we bounce down the road like dried peas in a biscuit tin.

I have been a pupil at Alderhouse for nearly seven years, during which time I have witnessed a transformation of its modus operandi from the iron discipline of a nineteenth century Eton to the laissez-faire of a hippy commune. A bowl of brown rice and a joint have replaced the cane and the stick. Some traditionalist teachers resent and reject this change as a bad idea gone wrong; a bit like the advice of Hitler's art teacher to drop the landscape painting and take up national politics. One such Luddite is the history master Mr. Earnshaw, known to the pupils as Dracula because of his resemblance to Bella Lugosi. This is the guy who runs the School Youth Club, though quite why this miserable, child-despising man further tortures himself through this extra-curricular activity is a mystery on par with why so many in the population love _On The Buses_ with the unswerving adoration of Billy Bunter gazing at a plate of iced ring doughnuts.

When we arrive at the school and drive through the entrance, we spot Dracula getting out of his Ford Anglia in the makeshift car park of the boys' yard.

Above the racket of the Bedford, Ged shouts, 'Dracula.'

The master looks around in vain to spot the culprit. We park next to his car, grab some of our gear, and follow him towards the sports hall, the scene every Tuesday for the Youth Club. It is a largely dreary affair for all concerned but arguably better than roaming the streets of Wallasey in search of a bag of chips, a pinball machine, and an optional smack in the gob from the residue of skinheads still in the area. On offer are drinks of Jusoda, Blue Riband biscuits, a game of table tennis, and pop music playing on the stereo. Julian has been able to wangle things so that we can use the adjacent changing rooms for rehearsals. We have naturally chosen the girls' side.

We lug our equipment through an exterior fire door, past the steel lockers and showers into a rectangular shaped room, the perimeter of which has a continuous wooden bench and a series of clothing hooks. On one of these, I see a navy blue pump bag with the embroidered initials FU, presumably not an aggressive message but the property of head girl, Fiona Urquhart. I have to tell myself to concentrate on why we are here... to play music.

About fifteen minutes later, we are ready to start. I sit on my wobbly stool with an unobstructed view of the surrounding walls, a sea of concrete blocks as grey as a summer sky in Grimsby. The changing room is so austere; it makes a Soviet nuclear bunker look like the Palace of Versailles. Things start with Brian as a one-man audience, puffing on a rolled-up cigarette as he meditates to our performance. The first few notes confirm our worst fears. The acoustics are atrocious, with the prison-like walls and floor doing nothing to sanitise our raw sound. We blast out the new numbers we have learnt in the last week from the likes of Free, Led Zeppelin, and Peter Greene's Fleetwood Mac, but we are not happy.

Yet things take a turn for the better, when at the sound of the opening chords to 'Down the Dustpipe' by Status Quo, three girls appear at the door from the Sports Hall side of the room. Two of them are wearing identical white cotton dresses emblazoned with Disney characters and have the same shoulder length, blonde hair. They are giggling in the slightly hysterical way that teenage girls do when over excited. The third, dark haired girl, clothed in a short skirt and low cut top, has the facial expression of a corpse. Her look is doubly off-putting, because she is staring straight at me. I turn my head to avoid eye contact and see Ged responding to the presence of a few chicks by strutting around and waving his guitar neck from side to side as though trying to get rid of a nasty smell. Julian carries on plucking his bass, impervious to our newest fans. The one in the short skirt then heads in my direction and takes residence next to the bass drum. She stands there glaring at me until the end of the song.

The two blondes clap a little, but my 'admirer' continues to be an extra from _Night of the Living Dead_. She leans across and tries to take my drumsticks. In my struggle to keep hold of them, she slips and falls to the ground at the very moment that Dracula appears. He gives me an accusing look, as if I have pushed her to the floor.

'Come on girls, back to the youth club please,' he says, all the time still eyeballing me. The girls acquiesce. He allows his gaze to take in the whole scene before him, and his sense of disapproval is plain to see. 'What the hell do you think you are doing in here?' he snarls.

'We have permission sir.' I default to the old grammar school deference of pupil to teacher.

'Permission?'

'Yes,' says Julian, 'from Mrs. Moretti the Home Economics teacher who happens to be a neighbour of mine.'

A flicker of recognition is discernible in his reaction. His bottom lip and nose twitch upward like a bulldog. It momentarily takes the wind out of his sails, but he recovers quickly. For once, Julian's charismatic way with his elders is impotent. Perhaps holding a bass guitar neutralises his super power.

'I could have you arrested you know.'

'What the hell for?' says Ged, his heckles rising.

'For perversion.'

'For what?'

'You have no right to be in here, where young girls of this school change and shower.' He lingers far too long on the last word.

'Sorry?' says Ged, who seems to be mentally rolling up the sleeves of his Ben Sherman shirt in readiness for a fight. Two years ago, Ged was a bit of a skinhead, resplendent in white drill parallels and Doc Marten boots. The shirt is the one lasting legacy from this era, though a chocolate and lime coloured tank top is now the accompaniment. 'And precisely which law have you deemed us to have broken?' Ged has turned into Perry Mason.

He hesitates before countering with, 'The same one as those anarchists from that _Oz_ magazine.'

'So, let's get this straight.' Ged puts down his guitar. 'Playing Status Quo songs in here is a breach of the Obscene Publications Act 1968?'

Ged usually enforces his point of view with brawn rather than brains, so this challenge is particularly impressive. Dracula is defeated, but Julian takes on his usual role of diplomat.

'Listen my man,' he puts his hand on the teacher's right shoulder, and the vampire look-a-like reacts as if our bass player has smeared something unmentionable on his cable knit sweater. 'We've just about finished our rehearsals, so we can clear our equipment away, and perhaps next week we will choose the boys' changing rooms instead.'

Julian's charm has asserted itself and won the day. Mr. Earnshaw saunters out, though not before shooting a withering look in my direction.

Brian has been sitting on a bench all this time in a kind of trance. He comes round. 'Your playing was a gas man, a real gas, way out, but you need another guitarist, a rhythm guitarist. I know this cat that plays a bit. I could ask him if you want.'

He has a point. Our sound does need to be a bit more expansive. When Ged goes into one of his guitar solos, Julian and I do not have the necessary to keep it anything other than a tuneless noise in the background.

'What do you think chaps?' says Julian.

I recall the advice of Jimmy Jet at the Town Hall, "Keep it a trio, so there's less to share the stash." I discard the thought immediately. We are not in this for the money. I agree to Brian's suggestion, though Ged just shrugs, perhaps seeing another guitarist as a threat to his standing in the band. We ultimately agree that it cannot do any harm to audition this 'cat'. I am just hoping he is house-trained and does not smell of piss.

We pack away the gear into the van, the chassis barely able to carry the weight. Brian once again looks on, rubbing his back with an exaggerated wince. However, there is no quick getaway for us. When our roadie turns the key in the ignition, the engine refuses to start. We return to the youth club for a drink, leaving Brian to have a fiddle under the bonnet.

On re-entering the sports hall, Ged disguises a shout of 'Dracula', prompting Earnshaw to look up with suspicion. We evade a flying table tennis ball on our march towards the tuck shop, where we discover the revelation that Wagon Wheels are on sale. Then I see her again. There are two girls about my age staffing the tuck stall, and although Julian is soon in deep conversation with one of them, I concentrate on the Italian looking beauty with the chestnut hair and hazel eyes from the listening booth in Strathconas.

Ged whispers to me. 'Bloody hell, she's gorgeous.'

I am nowhere near as confident as the other lads are when it comes to the chicks, but I can usually join in with the innocent 'boy fancies girl' chitchat, though not today. I catch her gaze, and she smiles warmly at me. I immediately turn away dripping in self-consciousness and take pitiable refuge in the purchase of a Wagon Wheel. The only snippet of information I gleam during the transaction is her name, when I overhear her friend call her Sofia. Snacks purchased, we retreat to the 'discotheque', mainly to avoid the violent shots from the table tennis game in progress.

We walk past newspaper cuttings on the wall of Kevin Keegan and Joe Royle, adjacent to the posters of Slade and Rod Stewart. T Rex starts playing through the speakers. This is a popular choice, and soon there are many congregating on the dance floor. I am to one side of those grooving, feeling low after my inability to engage with this Sofia. I cast surreptitious glances in the direction of the tuck shop and feel a twinge of dismay that she is showing no reciprocal interest in me. Indeed, there are a few blokes flirting with her, and she seems to be enjoying the attention. Any pang of envy, however, is short lived. The solemn looking girl in the mini-skirt from the changing room is suddenly leading me towards the dance floor. Despite the winks of encouragement from Ged, I am distracted, at least until I hear the Moog synthesiser opening to 'Son of My Father' by Chicory Tip. From nowhere, I have an unexpected outpouring of nerve.

'Fuck it! Fuck the pretty looking girl on the tuck stall! Who gives a shit?' These internalised thoughts lead to an uncharacteristic lack of self-awareness. 'If she's not interested in me, then I'm not interested in her. I'm going to dance with this girl and have some fun!'

It is an unfortunate feature of my dancing technique that I lack control over my arms, which have a tendency to flail wildly with a will of their own. Tonight I have to face the consequence of this handicap, when at the start of the second chorus I floor my mini-skirted partner with a vicious Sonny Liston upper cut. She hits the lino with a thud. The music has to stop, and it is with some relief that I watch her slowly get to her feet. Dracula Earnshaw then races in to investigate.

'Daddy,' she cries.

Daddy? What does she mean Daddy? I am confused.

'He hit me Daddy, he hit me!'

I know immediately that I would have a fairer hearing if charged for treason at a Ugandan court presided over by Idi Amin. Dracula looks at me with disdain trickling from every pore. I offer no resistance. When he demands, I leave the premises. As he escorts me out of the sports hall, I see a critical Sofia staring at me intently. I open my mouth to utter a defence but nothing comes out.

It is a small crumb of comfort to find that Brian has fixed the van. Suffice to say, despite my innocence, the atmosphere on the way home is a bit strained. I stare out of the porthole window at the rear of the vehicle and see the stars in the night sky, musing that my hapless dancing has lost us our practising venue and earned the disapproval of the lovely Sofia at the same time. This is some way from a night to remember.

*

It is the following Saturday evening, and I am walking through the streets of Wallasey with Julian on our way to the blind date at the 99 club. I am nervous, but at least I am dressed for the occasion. I have bought new loons after the burning of my split-knee cricket pads at the Town Hall fiasco, and this time I have gone for sober navy blue, a colour complemented by the air force shade of my RAF jacket, newly arrived from the mail order section of the _Melody Maker_. I am feeling smart, and that is at least something as I head into the unknown.

The 99 club is a converted cottage hospital with large windows and a front door the size of the entrance to Wormwood Scrubs. Outside, two shaven-headed doormen appear to have done time themselves. My confidence drains in a second, but Julian's maintains his cool.

'Good evening gentlemen,' he says. The bouncers look in my direction and are about to turn me away when my friend interjects. 'This is Tom, my guest.'

His uncanny power over authority figures shows no signs of letting up, further evidenced by the submissive behaviour of these heavies who almost fawn as they shepherd us into the building. The venue itself is a dive, as decrepit on the inside as the outside. I can hear 'Brown Sugar' by The Rolling Stones playing as we walk down the worn, carpeted stairs and through a doorway into what appears to be a ballroom. It is dimly lit with a small bar to the left, chairs and tables around the outside, and a disco on a small stage to the right. There is a clear divide of the sexes in the room with the girls on one side and the boys on the other.

I grab Julian by the arm. 'Can you see them?' I am failing to suppress my anxiety.

'Calm down Tom, this is going to be a good night, trust me.'

We approach the bar, and he orders the drinks as I scan the room. I soon spot the platinum blonde Amanda, dressed in a particularly tight black dress. She looks stunning. Next to her is a girl who is not quite in the same league, though is nonetheless very pretty. This must be Brenda. I try to control my stirrings.

'Julian, Julian.' I shake him by the upper arm. 'Amanda's over there, trying to get your attention.'

He turns around and hands me a glass of lager and lime. 'So she is my man, so she is.'

'Yes, yes!' I scream silently with joy.

Amanda breaks away from the female tribe and heads towards us. Unfortunately, the girl next to her walks away in the opposite direction. I am just about to muster the courage to get her attention with a wave, when I become disconcerted. Amanda is not alone. A big girl has joined Julian's date on the short walk across the floor. She is carrying a full pint of bitter and is dressed in black leather. She has legs the size of telegraph poles and enormous tits strapped in by a lattice arrangement that makes them look like vicious guard dogs locked in a cage. The closer she gets, the more I chide myself for yielding to the uncertainties of a blind date... again.

They are a few feet away, when I whisper frantically. 'Bloody hell Jules, surely that isn't Brenda.'

'I'm so sorry Tom, I just thought....' his words trail away. It says much for the appearance of Brenda that the normally indefatigable Julian Lord is lost for words.

'Hi Julian,' says Amanda. She smells gorgeous as well.

'Amanda, you look magnificent,' says Julian, effortlessly turning on the charm.

'This must be your friend Tim.' She turns her enormous blue eyes to me.

'Tom,' I correct, a little too abruptly.

'Hi Tom.' She looks to her side. 'And this is my stepsister Brenda.'

Her bloody stepsister, I might have known it. I stand there dumbfounded. All the while, Brenda has been weighing me up and licking her lips. I feel like a leg of lamb at the feet of a hungry lioness.

'Nice to meet you Brenda,' says Julian.

'And nice to meet you too,' she replies in a pitch low enough to sing 'Walk Tall' by Val Doonican. Turning to me, she takes my puny drink and places it on a ledge next to her pint. 'So you're Tim.'

I do not correct her. 'Mmm.' I sound so timid.

The next thing I am being bear hugged. 'God you're so cute! Isn't he cute Amanda? He looks about three!'

She kisses me on the lips, bombarding my senses as her tongue probes its way into my mouth like the mole from _Thunderbirds_. She pushes her enormous chest into mine, and although I attempt to extricate myself from the hold, I am trapped. When she surfaces for air, I find her scrabbling around in a frantic search for her glasses that have fallen off her face during the clinch. She finds them just as Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' explodes from the speakers.

'Come on Timmy, it's time for a dance.'

This is an instruction, and traumatised by the youth club dancing fiasco only a few days earlier, I am in no position to put up any resistance. The fact that I can see Julian and Amanda doing their thing and getting on famously proves that Brenda and I are not alone on the floor. We are, however, the only couple dancing a 'slow dance'. I gyrate, not in time to the bounce or rhythm of the song, but in a vain effort to remove Brenda's two-handed grip on my buttocks. Ozzie Osborne bellows as she grabs at my flies, an action that finally provides enough adrenaline for me to disengage from this imprisonment. However, my race to the safety of the bar falters. Brenda effortlessly takes hold of the lower right leg of my navy loons. They tear at the knee, so that one leg is a loon and the other, a culotte. Then I fall flat on my face.

I lie prostrate on the dance floor before raising my head slowly to observe a sea of faceless bodies laughing and pointing. Yet one face has a crystal-clear expression. Wearing the same shy, slightly perplexed look, and sipping a Babycham or something, it is Sofia. I cannot believe my misfortune. Propelled by deep shame and embarrassment, the speed of my exit out of the 99 Club is so fast that I have probably just qualified for the one hundred metres at the forthcoming Munich Olympics.

There are to be no more blind dates.

4. Sofia

I am with my sister Caroline. She is three years older than I am and moved out last year when she married Peter, a man of so few words that Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name has verbal diarrhoea by comparison. She is the archetypal elder sibling who is far too domineering for her own good, but I value her opinion beyond anyone else in the family, which is why I have decided to tell her my news first.

We are in the back room of my mum and dad's house, a room dominated by a selection of Eduardo nudes hanging on the walls, and they are not a pretty sight. My dad's birth certificate might state Edward Sidney Kellaway, but for his artist's persona, he has applied a little continental licence to his name. His current phase is particularly distressing. Eduardo's early work involved harmless oil paintings of trees, stately homes and the Liverpool Waterfront, but he has now turned his hand to the female form. The naked specimen I am looking at now has the face of Ted Heath, two different sized breasts, and legs like a Rugby League prop. This may be helping his personal mid-life crisis, but it is doing nothing for my own journey towards sexual maturity.

I fidget in the chair, and there is a loud farting noise from my jeans as they rub against the shiny plastic of the upholstery. Caroline is brushing her Rapunzel-like, brunette hair in the fake gold, ornate mirror.

'So what's this big news then?' she says.

I struggle to avert my eyes from Eduardo's big-bosomed African woman with Delamere Forest sprouting from her groin. I bite the bullet and answer the question.

'I've left school. I'm not going back after the holidays.'

Caroline turns away from the mirror and looks at me. 'What?'

'My mock A-level results were crap. It's all a waste of time.'

'It's not a waste of time! You'll need A-levels to get a decent job.'

'What? Like a shorthand typist?'

'Shut up Tom. This is not about me.'

'Listen, I'm fed up of going to lessons, listening to some stupid old, eccentric, chain-smoking pensioner droning on about Albert Camus or Regan and Cordelia. It's just a load of shit.'

'It's not a load of shit, and even if it is, it doesn't matter. Exams are a means to an end.' Caroline pauses, straightens out the final split ends with a combination of the hairbrush and her fingers, and then adds, 'It irks me to say this, but you're too bright to throw away your education on a whim.'

'It's not a whim. I've thought about this long and hard.'

'But you've only got a few months to go. Get cramming now. I'm sure you can get some decent grades.'

Her argument is drenched typically in common sense, but she will not persuade me to change my mind. If this chat had taken place twelve months ago, the outcome might have been different, but I know in my heart of hearts that it is too late to turn things around. I do not want to leave school in three months time branded as an official failure. This option at least puts me more in control.

After a brief time staring at the tits of the Prime Minister and then the floor, I lift my head to speak. 'Sorry Caroline, I appreciate what you're saying, but I'm not going back.'

She puts down the hairbrush, turning on me with an accusing index finger. 'Right, so when you're doing some crappy job like working on the bins in five years time don't come back to me and say I didn't warn you.'

'I won't be doing some crappy job in five years' time.' I am defiant but remain calm.

'No? So what job will you have? Astronaut? Brain Surgeon? Nuclear Physicist?'

'Don't be soft.'

'More like dishwasher at the Wimpy Bar or bingo caller at the old Gaumont.'

'If you really want to know what I'll be doing in five years' time Caroline, Junkie's Fudge will be playing The Liverpool Stadium.'

'Oh come on Tom, that's a pipe dream. You have to be realistic. For every group of lads that make it big, there's a Liverpool Stadium full of losers who don't. Can't you see?'

My calm is broken. 'Thanks for the support Caroline, I thought you might understand.'

I jump up from the chair, which emits another rasping fart, and storm out of the house, though not before my sister has the last word.

'And don't expect me to tell Mum and Dad.'

To be fair, I am certain they will not be too bothered. Their idea of a significant qualification is a cycling proficiency certificate. I take a left turn and meander down the back entry, past the bins, dog turds, and discarded Mivvi wrappers. I emerge into a street where all front doors are painted dark maroon and all the parked Ford Prefects are black, a depressing journey that emphasises the need for a way to escape. My plan, regardless of what Caroline thinks, is all about Junkie's Fudge.

The band is getting better with a tighter sound and a repertoire of about half a dozen songs. We have managed to get a decent Carlsbro PA system with a couple of microphones and stands. Ged is proving to have real talent as a guitarist, Julian is already an accomplished bass player, and although I remain the weak link, this is something I should be able to address now that I have more time on my hands.

I turn into Central Park and see my twelve-year-old brother Stephen playing football with his mates. I join in for a brief kick around... kick being the operative word as I limp away and head for Strathconas. I intend to seek out Roddy for a closer look at the latest musical instruments on display. However, when I arrive at the store, a small typed postcard stuck to the window grabs my attention.

SHOP ASSISTANT REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY

\- APPLY WITHIN -

Roddy finds the manager for me. He is a tall, sour-faced elderly chap with a grey complexion and bloodshot eyes, a piercing shade of light blue. He may be clean shaven, but there are tufts of grey hair under his chin that disappear behind his off-white shirt and old school tie to presumably join up with a hairy chest. He looks me up and down disapprovingly.

'Come this way young man.'

He leads me through to his office and instructs me to sit down on a short-legged chair whose stuffing is bursting out of one side. There is a 1968 calendar on the wall behind the desk, four years past its useful life, and I can see a faded notice detailing the rules and regulations of the Factory and Shops Act 1952. He is dressed in what appears to be an ill-fitting, double-breasted demob suit, a drab light brown with a sprinkling of dandruff applied to the shoulder pads... either that or the woman at the chip shop pours the vinegar on his chips and the salt on his jacket. Then I see the stain around his crotch in the shape of the South American continent and start to think she must shake the vinegar on his trousers. I check myself. Staring at the manager's crotch is not going to help me get the job. I take a deep breath for my inaugural interview and ponder what question he will ask first. He doesn't.

'You start on Monday.' His face is expressionless.

After a few seconds of taking in the news, I respond with a reasonable question. 'Can I ask about the wages?'

He reacts as though I have accused him of bestiality before pulling himself together to say, 'How much do you earn at the moment son?'

'£1 a week.'

'Congratulations, you've just had a pay increase.'

*

I am delighted to be on the record department for my first day of proper work, filling the vacancy left by the departed Harold, and the fact that I do not carry the odour of my grandfather's soiled underpants gives me a definite advantage over the previous incumbent. The geriatric - as the manager is not so fondly known - has insisted on formal dress, which is why I am wearing my Burton's made-to-measure brown pinstripe suit and pink flowered, matching penny round shirt and tie, remnants from my sister's wedding last year, a time when I was five foot five. Today, I am nearly six foot. My bright blue socks are vividly on display for anyone caring to glance down and view the chasm between the hem on my trousers and my shoes.

As I expected, there has been little fallout from Mum and Dad about me packing in school. In fact, the old man seems genuinely pleased at the idea of another wage coming in to the household, though when he heard how shit my wages are, we nearly had another Great Aunt Edith moment. Mind you, I have to admit to understating my real earnings. I need to save some money to pay the HP on the drum kit.

I spend most of the day selling 'Metal Guru', the latest T-Rex single, and being ribbed by customers about my 'half-mast' trousers, there for all to see thanks to the generous space behind the counter. However, I forget the teasing in an instant when Sofia walks in the shop and heads toward this section. I experience a mixture of elation and dread in equal measure. She is wearing a self-patterned, white cotton smock top over black jeans, and looks so lovely, I just gawp. However, when my mind races back to the humiliation of the Alderhouse Sports Hall ejection and the fiasco with Brenda at the 99 club, staring at my own feet seems the preferable option.

'Hello,' she says, as if greeting an old friend.

I anticipated either animosity or ambivalence and am so surprised at her welcoming tone that I croak my response like a sick frog. 'Hello there.'

'I didn't know you worked here.'

I glance up to see a slight frown. She is staring at my shoes. I yearn for my trousers to grow an extra few inches.

'I don't. I mean I didn't, but I do now.'

'Well, that's nice. Can I listen to 'Honky Chateau' by Elton John please?'

I stand there motionless. 'I'm sorry?'

'Elton John's 'Honky Chateau'?'

For a few brief seconds, I forget everything the geriatric taught me in the ten minutes of intensive training he gave me earlier. 'Elton...?'

'This is a record shop, isn't it?' she smiles.

She is pretty when she is not smiling, but when she is, oh God... I pull myself together and manage to mumble, 'Yes, of course it is. Elton John's latest. I'm sure we've got it, just hold on. Ah yes, here it is on the DJM label.' Christ, I am turning into Tony Blackburn. I place the disc on the turntable and mutter, 'Booth number two.'

I cannot believe how uncommunicative I have been, given how much my every instinct wants her approval. I continue to serve other customers, all the time trying to steal a glance at her as she listens in the booth. When the counter goes quiet, I am at last able to admire her exquisite lines and contours. Unfortunately, the pleasure is short-lived. To the left of the booth, a mirror hangs on the wall, and I catch my reflection. It is not Robert Redford staring back at me; it is his inbred cousin who has spent too much time camped outside a nuclear reactor. A sinking feeling comes over me, because I do not stand a chance with this girl. She truly belongs in an entirely different league.

I am lost in introspection for a few moments, so much so that my next customer has to raise his voice to get my attention. I regain my sensibilities but am dismayed to find that a long thread of slobber is now hanging from the left side of my gaping mouth. I try to preserve as much dignity as possible but fail miserably when I discover that the saliva has a will of its own, and I resort to massaging it into my hair.

The man standing in front of me is tall and muscular. Dressed in a white suit, a bit like John Lennon from a year or two back, he has handsome chiselled looks and bright blue eyes. The man is evidently not too pleased with my welcome and speaks with the hint of an Irish accent and the intimidation of a Chicago gangster from the era of prohibition.

'Keep your eyes off the merchandise you can't afford.'

'Pardon?'

I am genuinely puzzled. Does he mean the guitars on the opposite side of the sales floor? I experience a flash of fear that this is a heavy sent by Rushforths in pursuit of some cash for the HP.

'She's my property, so leave well alone,' he barks.

He nods his head in the general direction of the listening booth, and it clicks. He is with Sofia. He has entered the shop to find me ogling his girlfriend and slobbering in the process. My misery is complete. He walks across, taps her on the shoulder, and indicates that it is time to go. There is no hiding place from this dejection, but just as she is about to leave, she turns to me, smiles and says, 'Thanks very much for your help Tom. I'll come back another time and listen to the rest.'

The strange feeling of melancholy that is swilling around the pit of my stomach disappears in a flash. How does she know my name? I offer a lifeless wave in return, as her unsmiling chaperone guides her away by the arm.

'Bloody hell pal, those pants have shrunk in the wash.'

It is my next customer.

'Metal Guru?'

5. The Ship

It is audition time in Julian's garage, the band's latest practising venue. Our bass player lives with his parents in Seabourne Road, an area that includes an exclusive development of individually designed properties. They cost a packet, somewhere in the region of £20,000 each, and the garage is no ordinary box of bricks attached to a pebble-dashed semi. There is enough space to house a couple of cars, and we are not talking Hillman Imps or Morris Minis. There is a large, sleek Jaguar parked at one end next to the deep freeze, yet there is still plenty of room at the other end for my drums, the amps, and the PA.

We are waiting for Brian's guitarist pal to turn up, but he is already nearly an hour late. It is not a good sign.

I air my unease. 'I don't want to be the prophet of doom guys, but why would anyone decent want to play with a bunch of beginners?'

'Have faith Tom.' Julian is unperturbed. 'I'm sure he'll be here soon, and he'll be just fine.'

'If he's got a new Strat, he can fuck off,' says Ged, eyeing up his Watkins with a degree of disdain.

'Come on Ged,' says Julian, 'the criterion has to be musical excellence and nothing else.'

'Hey Jules,' I ask, 'what's this guy's name?'

'Arthur.'

'Fuck me,' says Ged, 'who is he, the Home Secretary?'

We hear footsteps and then somebody knocking. It seems Arthur has turned up after all. Julian manoeuvres past the lawn mower and garden spades to press the green button enclosed in a small metal box on the wall. The garage door opens automatically. I should be getting used to this technology by now, but it still seems like something from _Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons_.

'It's only Brian,' shouts Julian.

Our roadie enters, wearing the same clothes as before.

He utters another hippy cliché, 'Peace man.'

There is a mumbled response from us.

'Hey guys, I'm sensing negative vibrations.'

Julian explains Arthur's non-appearance. He shakes his head in sympathy. There is a moment's hesitation, before we watch bewildered as Brian walks out of the garage, returning a minute or so later carrying a guitar case. He trundles across sheepishly, dithering before he speaks directly to Julian.

'I've a confession man.'

Julian places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. 'Brian, that incident with you at the donkey sanctuary is all in the past.'

'No, it's not that Jules.' He turns around to address us all. 'You see cats; my real name is Arthur, even though everyone calls me Brian.'

We look at one another in surprise.

I speak first. 'So you're the Arthur who can play guitar?'

'That's right man. You see, I had an ulterior motive when I offered to be your roadie.' He pauses, itching his right armpit as though infested.

'What motive was that Arthur?' says Julian, already dropping the pseudonym.

'Brian please, if you don't mind. I want to join the band. I think it would be a gas.'

'What? Like fucking methane?' says Ged, flicking a crumpled piece of paper across the garage. He is clearly unimpressed with this turn of events.

Brian gabbles nervously, 'I can play any chord man. I learnt to play in the circus. I think it was Claude Balls the Lion Tamer who taught me, or it might have been one of the clowns.' He frowns in his attempts to remember.

'No chance, you can fuck off,' says Ged.

I jump to the defence of Brian. 'Come off it grumpy arse, we've got to give him a chance.'

I feel sorry for our hippy, now displaying deep regret for his proposal. He finds some personal solace in a concentrated piece of nose picking.

'Look at him,' Ged argues, 'he'll never make a rock and roll star in a month of Sundays.'

'Bloody hell Ged, and who do you think you are? Marc Bolan?'

'Listen soft lad, you're the one always banging on about The Beatles? Imagine if they had recruited one ugly bastard...' Ged goes quiet, as the cul-de-sac of his argument dawns on him. Ringo was hardly Elvis.

'Leave Brian alone. He's not an ugly bastard.'

If my words lack conviction, it is because this rhythm guitarist is far from Hollywood leading man material, unless the film is about an overweight hippy with the face of someone who has had their head in the gas oven for the last few days. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to defend him in front of Ged's insensitivity. Anyway, we are forming a band not making a film.

'Look guys,' says Brian as he picks up his guitar. 'I'm causing a bad gas, and I never wanted to do that. I'll just take my gear and go. I'm sorry to have messed you about. Peace...'

With these words, he adopts the persona of Eeyore from _Winnie the Pooh_ , an impression reinforced when he ambles away dejectedly. We all look at one another.

Julian speaks up. 'Hey Brian, what guitar do you have?'

He stops and stands still, turning his head to the side so that he can see the three of us. 'It's a Gibson SG copy man.' His reply is coy.

'Are you alright with that Ged?' says Julian.

Ged nods his acceptance, and so Brian is invited back to audition, much to his delight. Eeyore becomes Piglet, and I find his gratitude heart-warming. He asks if we can play Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love' with him singing, and we shrug our shoulders in a 'what have we got to lose' kind of way. It is fair to say that our expectations are minimal. However, we are in for a real shock.

It is not his solid, yet unexceptional guitar playing that takes us by complete surprise. It is his singing voice, which is powerful and melodious, a complete contrast to the dull monotone delivery of his spoken words. We are truly mesmerised. When we finish the song, we all stare at one another, smiling. Brian gazes at the floor, modestly fiddling with the volume and tone controls on his guitar. Ged finally says something.

'Fucking hell guys, you were so right to over-rule me. It looks like we've got a fucking singer!'

Moreover, we have a fucking singer who sounds like Robert Plant.

*

Ten days on, we are ready to perform our first ever gig... we have collectively assigned the _Talent Aplenty_ fiasco to the bin of forgotten history. The journey to the Liverpool Stadium starts from here and starts tonight at The Ship Inn, a public house in an area frequented by greasers and prostitutes, at least according to Brian who lives in the flat opposite. The pub is on the dilapidated Victoria Road in New Brighton, a tired and unfashionable resort on the River Mersey. The glory days of the Wirral Riviera belong to Edwardian summers past, when this place was full to the brim with eager excited families on a day trip to the seaside from the working class communities of Liverpool, Wallasey, and Birkenhead. New Brighton lost out long ago to the likes of Rhyl and Blackpool, and although not quite dead, it has probably had the last rites.

However, we do not care about venue or location. A gig is a gig. We have managed to get the booking at the Ship through Brian who knows the publican, and we have agreed to perform a kind of residency for the next two weeks, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. Our overall fee of £20 works out at £5 each, a meagre return, but we are not in this for the money.

By introducing live music to his establishment, the publican is hoping to attract a younger clientèle, though as I examine the lounge of the Ship Inn with its wizened customers, it is clear he has undertaken a challenge on par with asking the Ku Klux Klan to champion black human rights. The red and gold carpet is as worn as Harold Steptoe's long johns, and the floral patterned upholstery is as fresh as the free school milk I had to endure in the red-hot summer of 1966. As for drinks, the only beverages on the tables are pints of mild and glasses of yellow Snowball. This is not a place for the Martini or Cinzano set, most customers scattered around the dreary lounge playing dominoes, their grey bearded dogs asleep under the tables, and their grey bearded wives at home watching repeats of _The Forsyte Saga_.

Despite all this, we set up the equipment with an air of vanity and prepare for the opening number. It is one of our own songs, a reasonably slow paced, melodic effort called 'Across the Water'. We get the nod from the boss and head towards our instruments. As at the _Talent Aplenty_ gig, there is virtual silence, though Ged is once again ready to live out the Liverpool Stadium dream.

' _Evening New Brighton! We're Junkie's Fudge! You might want to shake, rattle, and roll your dominoes to this one.'_

Unsurprisingly, there are no shouts or catcalls returned, though I do catch sight of one woman dressed in a leopard spotted coat. She seems to be the only person out there paying us any attention. We are effectively playing to an audience of one.

I am primed for something to go wrong as we launch into the first song, perhaps a bailiff from Rushforths storming in to repossess my drums but am relieved to see things go without a hitch. 'Across the Water' proves to be as gentle as mild green Fairy Liquid, so we rock things up with a few obscure tracks from Deep Purple, Traffic, and Free. The audience response is as motionless as a stuffed guinea pig, and even the old woman in the fur coat is losing interest. However, we finally elicit some reaction from the crowd when we play 'Johnny B Goode'. A few of the pensioners with the dominoes gently tap their feet and soon leopard fur woman is up jiving to the song with an imaginary partner. On closer inspection, I can see the old girl has drawn heavy red lipstick in the general vicinity of her mouth. Such is the unsteadiness of her hand, the result is more Coco the Clown than Coco Chanel, but we are in no position to be choosy. At this moment in time, we will take any fans.

Yet one minute later, as Ged plays a neat guitar solo, I am changing my mind. Exhausted by her jive, our geriatric fan slumps in her chair and adopts the pose made famous by Christine Keeler, though understandably lacking the iconic sexuality, her sex appeal on par with that of an Eduardo nude. Struggling to her feet and wobbling from side to side, she begins to undo the buttons on her blouse. I immediately avert my gaze, before some devil inside me drags my eyes back to the striptease. She is not wearing a brassiere and her exposed chest resembles the ears of an ageing Bassett Hound after a torture session on a medieval stretching machine. She is only a few feet away from Julian and blows him a kiss that turns into a raking cough. Jules glances at me and grimaces. The realities of rock and roll at this level are dawning upon us. In this context, beggars have to be choosers. We are relieved to see the publican come across and get the old girl to put her blouse back on.

The rest of the gig passes off uneventfully. It has not been a storming success, but neither has it been a dismal failure. In football terms, we have started with a goalless draw... despite that exhibitionist invading the pitch.

*

It is the last Friday in June and our final gig in the group of six at the Ship Inn. It has been a brilliant learning experience for us as a band. We have already dropped the self-indulgence of some of the little known tracks and replaced them with a few more rock and roll classics. Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard have fast become our new heroes. The reaction when we play them is unfailingly good.

Since the first night, when Vera the OAP stripper was our only fan, word has got around, and the pub is much busier. We are not sure if it is a good thing or not, but our appeal is proving to be surprisingly broad. The domino players and Vera are still here, but there is now a good mix of young and old occupying the previously empty tables and chairs. Tonight, the place looks full. John the publican is delighted, and he has offered us a few more weeks' work at twice the money. He is also introducing that rare thing in a public house, food. He is convinced that a cheese and onion sandwich on white processed bread, each slice guaranteed to have a nice stale crust curling up at the edges, will get even more people through the door. We are sticking to the Smith's crisps.

At tonight's gig, we are starting with the song 'No Matter What' by Badfinger. I am about to count us in when the doors to the pub open and in walk five imposing guys, all dressed head to toe in full black leather. It is a gang of greasers, this country's own brand of Hell's Angels. I am not alone in hoping they are here for a quick one before moving on to their hallowed Biker's Club across the road. The scene is not unlike one of those Westerns where some outlaw and his cronies enter a bar, and the whole place goes silent and still.

Regrettably, it seems they are not interested in a drink. The greasers adopt the formation of an arrow, stroll menacingly past the bar, and head straight towards us, until the leader of the gang is standing less than a yard away from my drum kit. I get a very good view of him.

He is holding a crash helmet in his right hand, and given the state of his long, unwashed hair, the headgear has enough grease to cook egg and chips for all those discouraged by the publican's cheese and onion concoction. The stench of unwashed pig is almost overpowering, his leather jacket and trousers as much a stranger to dry cleaning as a priest is to rampant sex. There is a trademark skull embroidered on to his right lapel, and crossbones on the left. He turns around briefly, and I see the names Colin and Julie painted in a 'U' shape connecting each shoulder blade of his leather garment. Julie clearly used to be Julia, as the remnants of the old spelling are visible. Here is a man who is either a bad speller or an opportunist when it comes to a girlfriend's name. He holds his hand up to the rest of the pub in a gesture inviting them to be quiet, even though I can only hear the odd whisper and murmur anyway.

He faces us again, grits his yellowing teeth and then gobs, just missing my right ear. 'Play some rock and roll,' he growls in a voice deeper than Brenda at the 99 Club.

This is not a request a la Ed Stewpot's _Junior Choice_. This is 'play some rock and roll or get your balls chewed off'. We launch straight into 'Johnny B Goode', but as the vocal kicks in, Colin motions for us to stop.

'Faster, play faster,' he demands.

We consent and play a near 78-rpm version with Brian doing a respectable _Pinky and Perky_ impersonation. The song should last about four minutes, but ends in about two, culminating with the sound of heavily distorted guitars and pounding drums, followed by the crash of cymbals. The audience applaud rather nervously as the men in leather just stare. The clapping fades to leave a few seconds of eerie silence, before Colin passes judgement.

'Not good enough guys, just not good enough.' He turns to his fellow clan members. 'You know what you have to do boys.'

The greaser with a moustache like Jimmy Edwards approaches me; the fat one with a Space Hopper of a belly stands in front of Jules; the love child of Jaws from _James Bond_ and Lurch from _The Addams Family_ sidles up to Ged; and the limping Charlie Drake drags his torso towards Brian. Only an idiot would not be intimidated, a point reinforced when I notice Brian is the only one of us who looks calm.

'Right you lot,' says Colin, once again addressing us. 'It's time to sit down and let these boys show you how to make a real racket.'

Julian steps forward to protest. 'Listen old chap, let's be fair, this is our gig, we are being paid, and these people have come here to listen to us.'

If anything, the silence intensifies, until Colin suddenly pulls a knife.

'I said sit down, all of you, and let the boys through.'

He brandishes the long, sharp blade and threatens us by dabbing it in our direction as though holding a paintbrush. We are in no position to put up any resistance and so allow the greasers to take up their positions as replacement band members. As we sit there waiting for this unscheduled performance, another one or two fellow greasers, armed with sundry offensive weapons, join the crowd. I look at the others and notice that Brian is also crapping it now. Even so, what happens next shocks us.

I stare helplessly as Jimmy Edwards extracts a wheel brace from his clothing and begins using it as a drumstick, breaking through the skins on my snare and tom toms. He kicks over the drums, cymbals, stands and uses them as a trampoline. The noise is deafening as he breaks through wood and effortlessly bends and distorts the metal of the cymbals. Somewhere in my head, I am aware that the guitars and amplifiers of Tom, Ged and Brian are being similarly damaged and destroyed, but I am unable to look away from what is happening to my Olympic kit, the same set I have not paid a penny towards. It occurs to me, that despite the injustice of what is happening before my eyes, the bailiffs will ensure I do time for this non-payment. Outwardly, I wear a shocked, pale expression, but inside I am blubbering like a baby.

The domino players have awoken from the relative slumber of the last two weeks. They watch as a flying microphone displaces the Wallasey District Domino Champions Trophy from its position on the shelf next to the bar. However, these old hands with a combined age of six hundred are not ready to take on the might of a gang of heavyweight, knife-yielding bikers. The rest of the audience bury their heads and drink as if nothing is happening.

Job done, the greasers exit the pub with smug, self-satisfied expressions on their faces, leaving us too shocked to say anything to one another. There is an unspoken realisation that this must mean the end of the band, even before it had really started. I feel the onset of tears and create a diversion by starting to tidy up. Julian and Brian follow suit. Ged just leans back against the wall, staring at the ceiling.

I fetch my cases from the far corner of the lounge to the sound of random drumming. I turn around to see somebody sat on the stool, drumsticks flapping at the battered tom toms and misshapen cymbals. The sight marginally disperses the anger and frustration that has been building within.

'I'm George,' says the new drummer.

'Hi George, my name's Tom.'

We shake hands, George displaying a big grin.

'Hot.' He removes his shirt to reveal a string vest.

George is Down syndrome, and he has been a keen member of the crowd for the last few performances, dancing in his own way to our sound. He has a very young persona, though I can see from the tell tale lines and creases in his perpetually smiling face, that he is probably in his thirties. As I tidy up the mess, he carries on hitting the drums until all that remains is the hi-hat. When I indicate that I need it, he stops, hands me the sticks, and gives me a bear hug like Brenda at the 99 Club. This guy is strong.

'I love you,' says the perspiring George as he tucks his vest in his trousers.

In the worst of circumstances, I have made a new friend.

Suddenly there is a commotion. Ged has awakened from his trance and is releasing all his frustrations on a middle-aged man in an anorak who has appeared to take photographs of the carnage. He lunges at him, fists flying, and it takes three of us to restrain him and break things up. The photographer dusts himself down, straightens his glasses, and threatens a front-page _Liverpool Echo_ exposure of the assault as he leaves.

'Sorry guys, I don't know what came over me.' Ged's remorse kicks in very quickly. 'He was such an easy target, armed with a fucking Nikon rather than a carving knife.'

'These things happen old man, he'll be alright.' says Julian. 'It goes with the territory.'

'I suppose so.' Ged stares at the ground, reliving the past half hour or so, shaking his head.

'Why did they do it man? It was so unprovoked.' Brian is equally bewildered.

John the publican is in earshot and says, 'I think I may have an idea, lads.' He is wiping his big hands on a bar towel. 'That Colin is the caretaker at The Biker's Club, and the bastards that run the joint will have paid him and his thugs to do a hatchet job. You're the reason this place has taken so much business off them in the last couple of weeks. Apparently, it was like a morgue in there the other day. I suppose it's a compliment of sorts.' He is remorseful and sympathetic, but no more.

It occurs to me we should contact the police over the incident. 'Hey, what about the bizzies?'

'Forget it,' says John, 'they won't go near those greasers with a bargepole.'

He pays our fee and says he will put in an insurance claim, though reckons a settlement is unlikely. We all think the same; this is the end of the road. The oldies in the lounge bid us an apathetic farewell. Vera is upset, dabbing an eye with her lipstick-smudged, cotton handkerchief, though Julian's unreciprocated love may be the bigger factor here rather than the demise of Junkie's Fudge. The dream is over, for both the band and Vera. We leave and head back home to normality in the low budget Caravanette.

*

The next evening, I am in the kitchen sitting on the uncomfortable, homemade stool in front of the homemade table that is dangling precariously from the wall. My dad makes propellers for a living, and he has used some of the discarded industrial metal to make this DIY breakfast bar, hardly a surprise to me because it feels like a U-Boat is stuck up my arse. At least the discomfort is providing some distraction from my desperate efforts to digest the food in front of me, a gourmet dish of Cadbury's Smash smothered in HP Sauce. It was the best I could muster from our food stocks, and as I thumb through the _Liverpool Echo_ , I push the plastic potato treat distractedly around my plate with a fork, reading about whether Virginia Wade can triumph at Wimbledon. This reminds me of the good news that the old man has decided to rent a brand new Colour TV. We have only had grainy pictures in grey up to now, and rubbish reception to boot. I reckon John Logie Baird was getting a better signal in the 1920s, so the prospect of watching the tennis in colour is rather wonderful.

I turn the page of the newspaper and am taken aback to see next to the adverts for Owen Owen's an article about Junkie's Fudge. The photographer has been nearly as good as his word, though the editor has understandably deemed a stabbing in Walton more worthy of the front page than our incident at the Ship Inn. Fortunately, there is no reporting of Ged's physical attack on the man with the Nikon, and the piece is very sympathetic about 'the plight of five aspiring musicians who suffered the indignity of an assault by local bikers in which all their equipment was destroyed'.

Five? The photograph shows George sitting behind the isolated hi-hat, with the caption, 'The Drummer is Distraught.' Talk about a lack of recognition. This potato feels even harder to swallow now.

6. The Song

The schools have just broken up for the summer holidays, and I am off to Wales for a family break, which will be the last of its kind for me. In a few weeks' time, it will be my eighteenth birthday, after which I will be free of any obligation to attend such jaunts. In truth, I could get out of it now but am going for the sake of Stephen. He is at that age where he plays football or cricket every second of his day. My mum cannot play sports for toffee, and my dad's endurance is measured in seconds. Half a minute of kick about action for the old man, and we have to search for oxygen equipment and trained medical assistance. To be honest, holidays have been few and far between in my upbringing with the usual treat a day trip to Parkgate, unlike the globetrotting Julian, whose family have recently visited the South of France, Italy and even Spain. There have been no such cosmopolitan destinations for the Kellaways.

I am in the car outside our house with Mum and Stephen waiting for my dad to make an appearance. The vehicle is a 1958 Ford Consul in gleaming beige with shiny chrome bumpers, headlight trims, and hubcaps. It looks great and is the second coolest car we have ever owned; the main honour going to the Ford Pilot with its gigantic front wheel arches and long running boards on which we would play _The Untouchables_. My mum is in the front passenger seat, dressed in a summery, yellow skinny rib top and skirt. She is sporting an immaculate, raven-haired version of the Dusty Springfield beehive. I can almost taste the hairspray.

'What's he doing in there?' she says, looking anxiously at her watch.' Thomas, can you go and see what he's up to?'

I trudge back into the house.

'Dad!' I shout.

'Eh.' The muted response comes from upstairs.

'Are you ready to go?'

'I can't.' His voice seems to be coming from the bathroom.

'Why not?'
'I'm stuck in the toilet. The door's jammed.'

I walk up the stairs, preparing to speak and hold my breath at the same time.

'Bloody hell Dad, how did you manage this?'

'Never mind that son, just give the bloody door a shove.'

The last word trails away, replaced by a grunt and the sound of someone squeezing the last bit of ketchup out of the plastic tomato condiment at the local Wimpy Bar. Reluctantly, I try to budge the door with my shoulder. It fails to move at first, but when I step back about a foot and barge forward, it opens. I immediately wish it hadn't. The old man is on the lavatory, grey slacks crumpled around his ankles, pale-skinned, hairy legs on show, and there is the stench of a Victorian sewer. He is reading the horse racing pages from _The Sun_ , an established ritual.

'Christ Dad... I'll be in the car. Mum says to hurry up.'

I am about to rush back downstairs, when I see the acoustic guitar leaning against the wall of the back bedroom just below the gallery of Typhoo Tea football team photographs collected by me about five years ago. On a whim, I take it with me to the Consul, grateful for the vehicle's roomy bench seats. The band may be no more following the calamitous gig at the Ship Inn, but I have managed to maintain some interest in making music thanks to this Eros six string, loaned to me by Roddy at Strathconas. I picked up a few chords from Ged when the band was practising, and whilst I am no Django Reinhardt, I can get by. The guitar is soon taking pride of place on the back seat of the Consul between me and Stephen.

Five minutes later, we spot the old man's silhouette through the frosted glass of the front door. He is finally leaving the house. Dressed like the poor man's Alan Whicker, he has applied liberal handfuls of Brylcreem on his hair and has a brushed back quiff with a wave bigger than Bondi Beach. He is effectively the illegitimate offspring of Elvis Presley's dad and Mrs. Mills after a fight with a block of Echo margarine. He settles into the driver's seat and lets out a long rippling noise from his backside that sounds like two wet otters rubbing against one another, before retrieving a Rizla and a battered tin of Golden Virginia from his inside blazer pocket.

'Come on Ted, will you get a move on for God's sake,' says Mum.

I really think she ought to have the hang of this ceremony by now.

'Won't be a minute love.'

With nicotine-stained fingers, he carefully rolls a cigarette, bereft of tobacco, his tongue caressing the edge of the paper with a tenderness reserved solely for this procedure. He lights it and burns his lips as the Rizla catches fire.

'Have you packed the tent?' says Mum. She adjusts her make-up in the small mirror attached to the pull down sun-visor of the car.

'Of course I've packed the bloody tent! Good God Edna, what do you think I am, a bloody idiot?'

'Did you get it from the Army & Navy in Liscard, like I said?'

'No, I borrowed it from Billy in work.'

My mum shows her exasperation with a deep exhalation of breath. 'Oh Ted, I told you to get a new one. I hope it's decent.'

'Of course it's bloody decent. Good God woman, it's only a tent!'

A few more squabbles and we are at last on our way to Gronant. Stephen is faking a wanking hand movement behind Dad with two marbles for eyes, and I am encouraged by this healthy disrespect. When I move on and leave him as the last sibling at home, he will be fine.

The journey should take about an hour. Unfortunately, the Ford Consul breaks down more than Judy Garland in a bad year. The exhaust falls off near Queensferry; we stop at the Halfway House near Flint so that Dad can refuel with a pint of mild or two; and we eventually arrive at the campsite five hours late. Suffice to say, tensions are running high, and they are about to get worse.

We park by our pitch, and I scan the surrounding scene. The holidaymakers are in a vast field nestling in the shadow of green pastured hills, which climb steeply either side to a point beyond the tree line. I can see a scattering of sheep higher up the inclines, showing no interest in proceedings at the foot of their feeding ground where there are hundreds of tents, green and blue, orange and blue, all with awnings, windows, and a portable toilet. The standard of kit would grace any base camp to an Everest expedition. I cradle my guitar as Dad rummages around the boot to remove a decrepit, oil-stained canvas sheet that he drapes over the ground. It takes a few minutes to realise that this is our tent.

'Surely that's not it Ted?' says Mum, shaking her beehive in disbelief.

'There's nothing up with it.' His reply is completely free from irony.

My mother's face is a picture and certainly no Mona Lisa. There is nothing enigmatic about her expression as her eyes fix themselves on the material laid out before us, seemingly sewn together from the khaki shorts of an incontinent army troop. I am almost tempted to piss all over it, on the grounds that it could not look any worse.

About half an hour later, and we have erected this small wedge tent that is a social embarrassment on par with a man turning up for work with no trousers or a woman leaving the loo with her dress tucked in her knickers. Apart from the old man, shameless as ever, we feel the eyes of a thousand bewildered tourists boring down upon the real life _Beverly Hillbillies_. I cling to the guitar with all my might. It feels like the one thing saving me from abject humiliation. A guitar looks cool, even if you are one of the Clampetts.

It is time for a diversion, and so I let go of my musical crutch and join Stephen for a game of headers, in which we try to keep a red Frido ball from touching the ground by heading it to one another. We find a quiet corner in the field, no mean feat here at the peak of the holiday season, and start to play. Our previous best score is fifty-six. We manage about twelve before the game comes to a premature end. In my attempt to retrieve the ball from an adjacent field, I tread in a giant cowpat. My corduroy slip-on shoes are instantly ruined, and as I have not packed any other footwear, it seems I will be walking around for the next week with the lower part of my right leg stinking of shit.

We return to the tent. It looks like a tramp in the company of royalty, and we find Dad cursing and swearing. In my head, I am a visiting social worker. It is my way of coping.

'This flaming thing is bloody useless,' he moans.

He is trying to light the oldest, weediest Calor Gas stove I have ever seen in my life. It appears to be straight from a nineteenth century laboratory.

'What are you cooking?' I brace myself for the answer.

'I've opened a tin of curried beans and sultanas, but I can't get any heat out of this bloody thing.'

Perhaps the stove is acting out of compassion, or some kind of stubborn 'if you think you're cooking that crap in me, you've got another thing coming'. Regardless, I will not be too disappointed to miss out on the beans. To add salt to the wounds, if not the beans, in the next pitch with its aircraft hangar-dimensioned tent, the holidaymakers are cooking steaks the size of paving slabs. It is a bit like _Upstairs Downstairs_ in a field.

'Ted, did you get that stove off Billy as well?' says Mum, her apparent decapitated head appearing between the flaps at the entrance to the tent.

'Bloody thing!'

He finally cracks and in frustration hurls the gas contraption to his right. The stove immediately decides to get its own back by setting light to a checked tablecloth that my dad has laid out and secured with rocks in each of the four corners. I quickly join the old man in dancing like a Red Indian on hot coals to snuff out the fire. We attract a small crowd of puzzled onlookers who waft away the smoke that the gathering wind is gusting in their faces and crinkle their noses in unison as an overpowering smell begins to circulate. There is the stench of roast pork basted in horse manure and glancing down at my smouldering feet, I discover the cause. My beige corduroy slip-ons, recently desecrated by the cowpat, have been charcoaled within a thread of their existence, giving off the noxious odour in return. At least the spectators disperse quickly.

Shoeless, I stay behind while the others go for chips from an ice cream van contraption at the other end of the campsite. I have taken refuge from public view by sitting in the tent and gently strumming the guitar. I cannot explain why, but whenever I do this, I have an impulse to write a song. Everyone else I have seen in this situation wants to sing someone else's material, and maybe I should do the same, because all attempts to date have been on a scale somewhere between grim and dismal.

I gaze around the inside of the tent for inspiration, but songs about sleeping bags, cake boards and clothes in a Co-op carrier bag do not carry much resonance. Then I see that a headline in today's newspaper is about Sophia Loren, inducing a pang of melancholy at the thought of 'my' Sofia. Unexpectedly, I start mumbling some words and playing an improvised chord progression. I am rather startled. Even taking into account the beginner's tendency to overestimate the worth of something, I know instinctively that this is alright. At the very least, it is my best effort to date by some distance. I further construct the melody line using nonsense words, but the song has clearly been inspired by the angst I feel in relation to Sofia, which at some level is pitiable.

I know so little about her yet spend much of the day in Strathconas waiting for her to visit the shop again. I do not know where she lives, whether she is at school, university, or working. There is that good-looking guy who is her boyfriend, and she has displayed little interest in me, other than the odd passing comment. Yet I cannot get her out of my mind. Strangely though, writing this song is helping, and I am beginning to understand why so many songs are about love and not sleeping bags.

I want her to be here, even in this shitty tent, and so I close my eyes and let my imagination take over. The moment inspires me, and the lyric starts to write itself in a stream of consciousness. I look for a pen and paper, but all I can find is a betting slip with the words _Wee Willie Winkie 7/1 Wolverhampton 5.30_ written in pencil, seemingly a horse selected by the old man earlier today in his toilet prison. I find a tiny pen next to _The Sun_ , turn the scrap paper over, and start writing in very small print. The song is called Sofia, and I write a verse, a bridge, and a chorus:

Is love the songbird whose sweet sound I once heard

When walking one beautiful day

Is love the flower that grows by the hour

That's destined to wither away

Is this called romantic, some fool who is frantically

Searching for you everyday

If you know the answers, Sofia tell me please

For I am inexperienced, I have no expertise

In matters of the heart, where I am always ill at ease

Sofia, let me know if I must let you go.

I need to write another verse but that will do for now. I want to find a phone box to let Julian know I have a decent song, but I check myself. It is unsuitable for a band, and more to the point, Junkie's Fudge are no more. Thoughts of the group always lead to the same place... my unpaid drum kit. I have yet to hear from Rushforths, but it cannot be long before they send a bailiff to our house. I have yet to pay a penny, though I have saved a fair amount of money from my wages and do plan to pluck up the courage to visit them to come clean.

The sound of voices and the smell of salt and vinegar shake me from my reverie. I put the lyric sheet in my back pocket and place the guitar against the side of the tent. The hunters are back with four bags of chips, and I am pleased to see that Mum and Dad are once again on good terms.

'Goodness me, that wind's getting up,' says Mum, struggling to find her own space within the tight confines of our canvas home.

'There you go son.' Dad hands me a bag. 'Get them down you.'

'Cheers.'

The four sleeping bags are laid out next to each other, and the tent is so small that mine and Stephen's overlap. As we sit there eating, we do not say anything, my own thoughts pre-occupied with the pending difficulties in getting a decent night's kip. My dad leans over and switches on his transistor radio, turning the dial and getting a high-pitched whistle as he tunes in to the sports service and the racing results. The announcer gets to the 5.30 at Wolverhampton.

' _First no 7, Wee Willie Winkie, 10/1...'_

I do not hear the rest of the race card due to my old man's exclamation of joy, punching the air with a John Conteh uppercut. He has put a £2 win on the horse, which means he will pick up £22. I suppose his jubilation is a little disproportionate. You would have thought he had won the jackpot on Vernon's Pools, a night out with Raquel Welch, and free beer for a year. He calms down and starts searching his pockets. His breathing is like an asthmatic.

'Now where did I put that bloody betting slip,' he says, unable to hide an edge of nervousness in his voice.

I am torn, not wanting to scupper his euphoria, but my lyric is personal, and I do not want to share it, least of all with the old man. I say nothing, yet watching him toil in anguish; I know I am going to have to come clean, or at least reasonably clean.

'Here it is, under the paper.'

'Thank God for that.' He celebrates with a belch. 'There she is my little beauty.' He kisses the slip before reading it, his voice moving up an octave as he speaks. 'Sofia?'

'Turn it over Dad.'

'What the hell's that meant to be?'

'A poem from my 'A' level.' I mutter the words like a distracted professor. 'I was just doodling when you were getting the chips.'

'You're wrong there son,' he says, turning the betting slip over, 'that's not poetry.'

'It's not?'

'No.' He holds up the slip in the air. 'This is what you call poetry, Wee Willie Winkie, 10/1!'

We finish our chips and wash them down with a drink of cream soda before the hazardous journey from the tent to the washrooms for a pee. The weather is now terrible, and heavy driving rain has joined the high winds. It has been a long day and even my dad, reluctantly abstaining from his nightly dose of Whitbread Mild, agrees to an early night. There is another dash back to the relative shelter of the old tent to get into our sleeping bags for an attempt at a good night's rest.

*

I expected it to be uncomfortable, but this is far more unpleasant than I thought possible. I am sleeping right up against one edge of the canvas. It is billowing in and out because of the strong winds and smacking the side of my face at regular intervals. Sleeping next to Stephen is adding to my discomfort, because he is still prone to bed wetting, even at the age of twelve. The fact we share a bedroom at home has conditioned me to the stench of juvenile piss, but that is from the safety of the other corner of the room. I cannot shake off the vulnerability of being adjacent to him with the worn material of my sleeping bag the only protection from my brother's antisocial version of Niagara Falls.

I tilt my arm to read the luminous hands of my diver's watch and despair when I see it is only 2.00am. Stephen angles his body menacingly towards me, while my mum sleeps silently on her back next to him. On the other side of the tent, I can hear the heavy breathing of my dad, together with the odd grunt and fart. The rain is now bucketing down. We appear to be at the centre of a tropical storm. I hear the sound of a thousand raindrops pummelling the fragile canvas over our heads, and it feels that I am personally taking the strain of the guy ropes and tent pegs as they attempt to survive the battering. This, unfortunately, is not to be.

Something approaching a 90mph gust of wind suddenly strikes, and the tent launches itself towards the storm clouds of the night sky with all the propulsion of a Saturn Rocket powering another Apollo trip to the moon. There is instant panic and pandemonium. Dad is dressed in just his y-fronts and instinctively chases the flying tent as it dips and soars its way across the campsite. The rest of us try to gather up what we can to take to the sanctity of the car, but Hurricane Barry is having none of it.

It is not long before the occupants of other tents, guy ropes securely fastened in all cases, are peering out of their clear plastic windows to view the commotion. Our immediate next-door neighbours in the aircraft hangar take pity on Mum and Stephen and offer them refuge in their tent. I store what I can in the boot of our car and climb into the back seat. Dad, who has given up any attempt to rescue the soaring canvas, soon joins me, his soaking wet underpants now obscenely see-through. And so it is that I spend the first and only night of this ill-fated holiday asleep on the back seat of an old Ford Consul, with my dad virtually naked in the front, snoring like a foghorn, and farting like a man who has had a late night supper of sprouts, baked beans and prune delight. I somehow manage to get two or three hour's fitful slumber.

*

I wake at seven with my young bones aching like an eighty year old who has just ran a marathon with Ron Hill. I sit up straight and wind down the car window to see that all outside is peaceful. Grateful that I am still wearing the jeans and tee shirt from last night, I get out and stretch my legs, walking towards our pitch ravaged by the storm. The area looks like it has housed a mini-Woodstock festival; such is the residue of litter and debris. I see a snatch of material snagged on one of the guy ropes and notice a small piece of paper hanging out of one end. It is the winning betting slip rescued from what is left of my dad's trousers. He will be a happy man when he realises that his idea of poetry is still intact, but I am also experiencing a modicum of relief. I have a few early morning minutes to read and memorise my first meaningful lyric.

My expectation that this holiday would end after the first night proves correct. By 9.00am, we have packed the Ford ready for our journey home, though not before Mum and Stephen have shared a breakfast of bacon, egg, sausage, beans, black pudding, tomatoes, and fried bread with our hospitable neighbours. I have had the remnants of the Smith's crisps from yesterday's stop at the Halfway House. We drive out past the entrance to the holiday park that promises 'Sun, Fun, & Tranquillity.' We have had 'Rain, Pain & Hurricanes', so I might write to the proprietors to suggest a change to their slogan for the 1973 season. I am hoping beyond hope that the car behaves itself on the way home, because the old man is still only wearing y-fronts, all his other clothes lost in the melee of Barry. This most disastrous of holidays may be over but at least some good has come of it.

I have a song.

7. Nothing but the Plain Truth

As the summer months prepare to fade into autumn, I am on the upper deck of the Seacombe Ferry heading across the River Mersey towards the Pier Head. It is a beautiful day. A criss-cross of aeroplane vapour trails daub the clear blue sky, and the bright afternoon sunshine is accompanied by a light breeze that is blowing in my face as I fidget on the polished wooden slats of the boat's bench seat. When the vessel is close to the Liverpool waterfront, I move to the lower deck. It triggers the memory of the last time I took this journey, a recent trip to see Mott The Hoople in concert, which leads on to the thought of the lost Liverpool Stadium dream.

Caroline has been proved right. The whole band thing was a pipe dream, and I am now living in 'Dead End Street', having given up on my education. Strathconas may be fine for the time being, but I do not want to make a career out of the place. The one positive is that I am earning cash. This has enabled me to save fifty quid over the last few months, and I am now on my way to Rushforths to come clean about the whole Paul McCartney guarantor thing. I want to avoid a criminal record at my tender age.

The ferry docks at the Pier Head, and I leave the boat to head up the landing stage, past the Liverpool Echo vendor with his flat cap and flaccid cigarette, emerging to a view of the soot-blackened stone of the Liver Building and the green liveried buses at the terminus. I am uneasy about today and adopt a leisurely pace on my journey, strolling past James Street Station towards the main shopping area. I delay things a little further by visiting the Wimpy, where I treat myself to the Special Grill of Burger, Bender, Egg, and Chips, finishing it off with a Peach Melba and Banana Milk Shake. When I leave, I then take a necessary detour to Boot's. I need some Rennies.

I am soon outside Rushforths, the grill now burning a hole in my stomach with the impact of an asteroid crashing into the plains of the Nevada desert. I remain apprehensive and so my insides are having a tough time at the moment. I follow a sign to the basement where the guitars and drums are on sale. The instruments here put Strathconas to shame. There are rows and rows of electric and acoustic guitars, and I stop to admire an especially stunning sky blue Telecaster hanging on the wall to my right. At the far end of the shop floor, just beyond a beautifully laid out silver Ludwig kit, I see a middle aged sales assistant. He is wearing a white shirt and bright orange tie, his unkempt greyish hair and slightly puzzled expression giving him the appearance of Stan Laurel. I walk up to the walnut counter he is standing behind and take a deep breath.

'Excuse me.'

'Yes?' He scratches his head and pulls up his hair.

I am expecting Oliver Hardy to appear and say something about another nice mess.

'I'm Paul McCartney's cousin... well not actually his cousin... in fact I don't know if he's got one.' I am gabbling. 'He might have... but even if he does, it's not me.'

'I'm sorry, but is there something you want to buy?'

'No, I'm here to come clean.'

He screws up his face. 'You want a wash?'

'No, no, I want to pay you £50.'

'I beg your pardon.'

He is fiddling with his tie. This man is both Laurel and Hardy rolled into one.

'I want to pay £50 towards the balance owed on the Olympic drum kit that was bought a few months ago. Paul acted as guarantor on the HP agreement, and I'm here to apologise. I always planned to...'

'What on earth are you talking about?' Stan is a picture of confusion.

I explain everything from the Seacombe Ferry Hotel rendezvous with the ex-Beatle to the Ship Inn and the greasers.

'I remember reading about that in the _Liverpool Echo._ '

'Yes, I was the drummer.'

He stares at me with a disbelieving air. 'But... but...'

'But what?'

'You've been cured...'

I recall the photo of George the Down syndrome playing the drums. 'Yes, that's right. I've been cured.' I do not have the inclination to correct him.

I have a head for dates, so I tell him to check his sales records for Thursday 6th April. He bends down and groans. I hear his muffled voice.

'Bloody shrapnel up the backside... kills me every time I crouch.'

He gets back up, grimaces, and puts a brown leather ledger with fraying edges on to the counter. He reveals bitten fingernails thumbing back through the yellowing pages until he finds something.

'Ah yes, here it is. An Olympic by Premier kit sold to a Mr. Julian Lord on the 6th.'

'I think you'll find there's a HP document in the name of Tom Kellaway.'

Stan shakes his head. 'There's no reference to HP here.'

'There must be... with Paul McCartney as guarantor.'

'Look...' Stan has turned into Ollie and is showing signs of irritation, twiddling with his tie furiously. 'There is no HP on these drums and certainly no Mr. McCartney involved.

'I don't understand.'

'You don't understand? Mr. Lord bought the drums and paid £200 cash. For the last time young man, there is no hire purchase.'

'He paid cash?'

'Yes.'

It finally dawns on me that the McCartney guarantor scheme was a cover for Julian's generosity. He had used £200 of his own money to buy me a drum kit. I cannot quite believe it.

Stan has recovered from his war wound whimper and his scepticism about the Beatles connection. He is ready to move seamlessly into salesman mode.

'Now if you have £50, I think I can help you out with a replacement kit. We don't sell second hand equipment here, but I have a friend who does.'

I assume his 'friend' is Stan himself.

I am still somewhat distracted but murmur, 'The group have disbanded. I'm not playing anymore.'

'You're not playing?'

'No.'

'Hang on a minute; you can't give up on your dreams. You'll regret it later in life. And I should know. I was the 1939 Childwall Parish Banjo Association player of the year, and I let the Second World War get in the way of fulfilling my potential.'

I feel it would be churlish to argue that the fight against Nazi tyranny might have been more important than playing a banjo in the local church hall.

'Maybe, but I owe my friend this money, so I'll have to say no thanks. Sorry for the mix up.'

I say goodbye and am about to leave when Stan shouts after me. His right hand is pulling the hair on his crown towards the ceiling, but his left hand is holding a pair of drumsticks.

'Here you are, take these... just to keep your hand in.'

He passes me the sticks. I do not put up for a fight, even though I have no plans to drum again. Then again, who knows, I might sit by the edge of the settee tonight for a bit of a bash.

*

It is later that same day, and I have decided to call upon Julian. I want to pay him the £50. I walk up the long drive with its rather striking J-Reg Polar White Mini 1000 and press the doorbell on the gleaming mahogany door. A rich fruity tone is heard, a stark contrast to the chimes at my house that sound more like a chorus of farting cats.

'Hello old chap,' says Julian, greeting me warmly, 'come on in.'

He has not long left his teenage years behind, but Julian's demeanour remains that of a mature, chivalrous gentleman. He is also dressed like one, smart trousers, waistcoat and gold pocket watch with chain, although he does look a little dishevelled this evening. I wipe my feet on the doormat and hang my jacket on the coat stand in the corner, submerging under the luxury of the shag pile in the vast hallway. Wading my way through this jungle of sumptuousness, I see an array of expensive looking ornaments and artefacts in expensive looking, glass fronted cabinets and can hear James Taylor's 'Sweet Baby James' playing in the distance. Julian guides me to the lounge where I discover the gorgeous Amanda, James Taylor fan and Brenda's stepsister, sitting on the settee. Her appearance immediately distracts me. She is sporting a short skirt and low-necked, frilly blouse, the buttons of which are partly undone. I quickly surmise that the unbuttoning is the work of the charmer himself and conclude that my timing is as appalling as my Auntie Joan telling a joke. I am ready to make my apologies and leave when Julian and Amanda both show their magnanimity.

'Hi Tom, how lovely to see you again. Please come and sit down.'

'That's right old chap, take a seat, and I'll make coffee.'

'I'm not sure Jules...'

'I insist.'

He heads off to the kitchen to make real filter coffee, unlike that chicory rubbish, the only option back home. I slide on to the polished leather of the armchair, and there is a brief, uncomfortable moment as we sit there in silence. I gaze at the oil paintings on the walls, good old English landscapes as opposed to grotesque females with deformed breasts. When I do find something to say, Amanda starts speaking at the same time, and in keeping with British custom, I apologise with the vehemence of having mistakenly hit her over the head with a golf club. Amanda wraps one side of her blond hair behind an ear and eventually is able to speak first.

'I think I should apologise for what happened at the 99 club. Brenda had far too much to drink that night.'

It is about four months since my blind date with her stepsister, but the memories remain vivid. I resolve to switch the attention to Amanda.

'No need to apologise. How's the hairdressing going?'

Her eyes intensify to a bluer shade of blue, and she appears pleased and impressed that I have remembered her profession.

'Fine thank you, in fact I've just opened my own salon on Hoylake Road.'

'Your own salon! Wow, you're very young to have your own shop.'

'It was a present off daddy for my twenty-first.'

I muse that I would be lucky to get a hairbrush, never mind a hair salon, for mine.

She continues. 'It's unisex, so why don't you come and have your hair done some time. I'll make sure you get a good discount!' She leans across from the edge of the settee to assess the texture of my hair, and I feel her chest press lightly against my shoulder and then my back. 'You could definitely have a feather-cut,' she says.

I am ready to embrace the dawn of unisex hairdressing with the enthusiasm of a dog chasing the butcher's best sausages. To date, haircuts for me have been the stuff of nightmares. My earliest recollections involve my dad using the bluntest pair of clippers in the world to give me a short back and sides, a consistently painful experience that always felt like he was chopping away at the back of my head with a knife and fork. At the age of seven, I graduated to Ron the local barber who knew one style, the 'Tony Curtis', rather dated even in the 1960s. On my last visit to Ron, I asked him to leave my sideboards alone, having carefully cultivated longer strands of hair in front of my ears in lieu of real sideburns that would have to wait until puberty had run its course.

'How old are you son?'

'Fourteen.'

'Then you're too young to have sideboards.' He cut them off and left me looking like a USA army recruit from _Bilko_.

Since then I have let my hair grow, now shoulder length though not styled. I acknowledge and accept Amanda's offer in the same breath. I am not sure what Julian thinks when he comes back in with the coffee and biscuits on the hostess trolley to find Amanda draped over me and stroking my hair, but unflappable as ever, he merely enquires about milk and sugar. It strikes me that serving refreshments is unbecoming of my friend. He really ought to have a butler or some kind of maid.

As Amanda unfurls herself from the chair, my eyes involuntarily follow her. Her skirt is slightly hitched up and revealing more than it should. I sip my coffee, only for the burning hot beverage to miss my mouth and pour down the front of my Rock and Roll Circus tee shirt, scalding my chest.

'Shit... shit,' I jump up and exclaim.

'Upstairs, first on your right,' says Julian, quick as a flash, not realising my accident.

'No, I've spilt flaming coffee down my front.'

Before I know it, Amanda has raced towards me and is drying me with a tea towel from Julian's trolley.

'How did you do that you silly thing?' She is rubbing my chest a little too vigorously.

'He was distracted staring at your heavenly bottom,' suggests Julian, with unwitting razor sharp precision.

My laugh has an edge of hysteria to it, as though the suggestion is as ridiculous as a proclamation that Joe Gormley and Anthony Barber are secret lovers.

'Here... you should take your shirt off to dry.'

Amanda attempts to pull my garment up from the bottom edges. I immediately restrain her hands.

'No.'

The vehemence of my reply is from having the body of an undernourished pigeon, something I want to keep covered up in front of someone as physically perfect as Amanda. We reach a compromise. I agree to wear one of Julian shirts, minus the cravat and am soon comfortable and dry in my seat again. The conversation switches to jobs and careers.

It is clear I am in the least enviable position when it comes to the world of work and future employment prospects. Amanda has her salon, and Julian is about to start the third year of his English degree at Liverpool University, with plans to become a journalist. Even when we talk about the other band members, there is no respite. Ged is now training to be a Quantity Surveyor, and Brian has a steady job as a civil servant.

'Are you working Tom?' asks Amanda.

'Yes, I work on the record department at Strathconas.'

My words are as shallow as the amount of hot bath water our immersion heater at home will allow at the time of a power cut. Somewhat feebly, I try to make the job sound better than it is by overstating my involvement with the musical instruments section. I am relieved when Amanda goes into the hall to make a phone call, ending this uncomfortable subject and giving me the chance to speak to Julian on his own.

'Jules.' My voice is a whisper.

'Yes old man?' He reciprocates in a soft tone.

'I went to Rushforths today.'

'Oh yes.'

'To pay some money off the HP.'

'I see.' Julian's eyebrows arch upwards. He knows I know. He needlessly checks the time on his pocket watch.

'You should never have the bought those drums out of your own money.'

'Perhaps not Tom, but that's all in the past now.'

'Not quite Jules, you lost £200, which I owe you.'

'No you don't.'

'Yes I do, which is why I want you to take this £50 as part payment.'

I stretch out my hand with ten five pound notes. I feel like Michael Miles on _Take Your Pick_. Julian waves them away.

'My dad's insurance paid up. You don't own me a thing.'

'They paid up?'

'Yes.'

'The whole £200?'

'A bit more, if I remember right. I made money on the deal... so forget about it.'

'Are you sure?'

'I'm positive.'

'Well I definitely owe you a big thank you.'

'Don't mention it.'

Amanda returns and looks quizzically at us. 'What are you two boys whispering about?' she says, smiling.

'Old times, Amanda, old times about the band,' says Julian, not quite grasping that it was only just less than three months ago when the band split... hardly old times.

She encourages further reminiscence about Junkie's Fudge, and we fondly recall our front room incarnation and run of gigs up to the fateful night at the Ship Inn. We again carefully whitewash any memories of the _Talent Aplenty_ shambles.

'I know we had a few troublesome experiences, but they were good times, weren't they Jules?'

'They certainly were old man, they certainly were.'

We stare into space, lost in our thoughts, a portrait of missed opportunity.

'Look at the pair of you,' says Amanda. 'You'd think you were OAPs, the way you are talking. If it was so much fun, why don't you get back together again? Why let one setback stop you?'

It was quite a setback, having our equipment smashed to smithereens, but she has a point. With my £50 savings, I could take up the offer of drums from the man in Rushforths. Access to funds never seems to be an issue for Jules, while Ged and Brian are in well-paid jobs. Julian agrees, and we do not waste any time. After a few telephone calls, we are all to meet next Monday evening at the Seacombe Ferry Hotel. Even at this early stage, I feel that I am in a band again, and when I explain to Julian and Amanda about the free drumsticks given to me by Stan Laurel, we all agree it may be an omen. Energised by the speed at which things are happening, I remember I have the sticks on me and quickly retrieve them from my jacket in the vestibule. I am soon deeply regretting the act.

I had brought them tonight to play Julian's settee for a laugh but had aborted the idea when I saw his girlfriend was here. Just as well really... this furniture is from the upmarket George Henry Lee's and not MFI. Amanda asks to hold the sticks, so I pass them to her. She starts drumming the air and finishes her drum roll with a mighty crash of an imaginary cymbal. I only wish my testicles were imaginary. She has clobbered my bollocks with the might of a sadistic headmaster administering corporal punishment to a pupil who, during morning assembly, has dared to question the modern day relevance of the gospel according to John.

She is almost apoplectic with remorse as I roll about in agony. The old cliché is true. Such a blow really does bring tears to your eyes, and they are certainly not tears of joy. In between gasps, I am doing my best to pretend nothing has happened, calling upon an instinctive British stiff upper lip that clearly runs deep within my psyche, confirming that all those black and white British films starring John Mills have left an indelible mark. It takes a few minutes for me to recover some composure. In my efforts to reassure Amanda that there is no lasting damage, I overcompensate and effectively thank her for battering my manhood to a pulp, inviting her to do it again at any future date of her choosing.

With tears in my eyes and a throbbing scrotum, I leave my pal's house, successfully negotiating the opulence of the carpet. Notwithstanding Amanda's ill-fated drumming efforts, I have been buoyed by the visit, and not just because I have spent some time in the company of Julian and his lovely girlfriend; my forgiving nature is already surfacing. I limp away but am rejoicing. The Liverpool Stadium dream may have just risen from the ashes.

*

After I finish work on Saturday, Julian calls me. He has a couple of tickets for the Mott The Hoople gig at the Stadium tonight.

'Do you want to go?'

'Is the Archbishop of Canterbury religious?'

We rendezvous at Grove Road Station and within the hour have reached Liverpool via the underground.

Mott is one of the great bands, a fantastic live act with real stage presence and great songs. They are enjoying a new lease of life thanks to David Bowie's 'All The Young Dudes', which has just been a big hit for them in the singles chart, so tonight should be a memorable occasion.

As we approach the Stadium, the crowds build. By his own sartorial standards, Jules is dressed casually for the concert in denim shirt and jeans with white plimsolls. This is similar to my own gear, and from the neck down, we look like twins.

'Looking forward to the gig Tom?'

'Bloody right... I'm not too sure why I didn't get tickets myself. Their Rock and Roll Circus here was fantastic.'

'I thought it might help rekindle that whole wanting to be in a band again.'

'Wise words Jules; I think you may be right.'

Across the road, outside the off-licence in St Paul's Square, we see a young lad grab another by the scruff of the neck and start pushing him against the shop window. They both look about fourteen or fifteen, and the perpetrator's face is etched in aggression. His hair is short, his image inspired by the skinhead, clothes sharp and pressed. If he keeps this up, the glass will smash and cause serious injury. Julian acts on impulse.

He shouts, 'Hey you! Leave him alone.'

The assailant lets go of his victim and turns to face us. I am starting to think that my friend's intervention has not been the smartest move. We may well be the next target.

'I only want one of 'is fuckin' fruit gums.'

As I muse that the violence is a little disproportionate to the issue, Julian finds himself cast as Henry Kissinger, negotiating with both parties.

He tries to reason with the lad who has the sweets. 'Why not give him a fruit gum?'

'Fuck off.'

'Come 'ed, giz one,' says the attacker.

'No fuckin' chance... well...'

Jules spot an opening. 'Yes?'

'E can have a green 'un.'

'I don't want a fuckin' green 'un.'

'Any other colours?' Kissinger probes.

'Maybe...' The fruit gum lad is weakening.

'Which?'

'E can have a red 'un.'

Jules mediates. 'Is that a deal?'

'Yeah ok, it's a fuckin' deal.'

The peace accord has been reached. Julian looks at me and shrugs.

We carry on towards the Stadium. I reflect that the Rowntree's Fruit Gum plot I have just witnessed is unlikely to form the basis of a sequel to the _French Connection_.

It is great to be back at this venue and to stroll past the brick pillars under the corrugated canopy and enter the foyer. The smell is so evocative, and my lungs fill with an almost sickly air of burning joss sticks and Embassy Filter cigarette smoke. We show our 70p tickets and head for a seat in the centre section about twenty rows back.

Within a quarter of an hour, the support band Home are on stage, and they perform a decent set, but everyone is here for the main act. In the interval, I head for a pee in the gents near the foyer. On the way back, I am amazed to see the members of Mott walk past on their way from the dressing room, all glam rock outfits, shades, guitars, and attitude. I even shake hands with Ian Hunter and pat Mick Ralphs on the back. I do not need to see or hear any more. This is enough to convince me. I want this. I want to be a rock and roll star, and I want to play this venue.

I return to my seat and am telling Julian about the encounter with the rock dudes when the house lights go down. The crowd sends a roar up to the rafters as the sound of Gustav Holst's Jupiter from the Planets Suite plays over the PA, and the band, as cool as shit in the fridge, make their entrance. They strut on to the stage and undertake a last second sound check. Buffin hits each drum and cymbal in sequence. Overend Watts plays a bottom E note on his bass, shaking the auditorium like a mini earthquake. Verden Allen gets his Hammond organ to wheeze a few asthmatic chords, while Mick Ralphs presses a floor pedal with his foot before unleashing a bar chord that has more fuzz than the average Eduardo nude. Finally, Ian Hunter approaches the microphone.

' _Evenin' Liverpool,'_ he shouts.

This is our fantasy playing out before our eyes. The front man bawls '1-2-3-4', and Mott launch into their opening number, 'Jerkin' Crocus.' The combined sound of their instruments is nothing short of immense, and the audience is putty in their hands from the very first note. They mix the heavy stuff with quieter moments, in a way no other group can manage. Hunter's song writing is going from strength to strength and is a real inspiration.

When they play 'Rock and Roll Queen', a couple of big guys in the row in front decide to get a better view by standing on their seats, which is not the best idea. The seating is not exactly the Royal Box at the London Palladium. They are the flip-up type with a wooden backrest, which inevitably give way when the lads climb up to use them as a trampoline. This seems to inspire the people around us to go wild and soon everyone is jumping up and down. The Royal Albert Hall banned Mott last year after their fans ripped up parts of the auditorium, and for a moment, I think the same may be about to happen at my beloved venue, but fate intervenes because the next song is 'Sea Diver', a slow number that allows the nutters to calm down.

The gig is brilliant, a band playing at the top of their game, in synch with their dedicated fans who call Mott back for three encores. At the end of the concert, nobody, including the band, wants to go home. There is a strange mixture of resentment and euphoria as the people pick up their jackets, handbags, and belongings to stream towards the aisles and the exits. The house lights are now illuminating the way, destroying the magic of the venue on the spot. The Liverpool Stadium is nothing short of a dump. Yet it is a wonderful, magnificent dump... provided nobody turns the lights on.

We begin the ten-minute walk to James Street, Julian and I sharing our favourite moments of the gig. We both agree that 'All The Young Dudes' is a classic that will stand the test of time. The closer we get to the station, the sparser the number of people in the vicinity. I glance and notice there is a crowd of about a dozen young lads now following us, two of whom are the fruit gum pair. Their aggression has not dissipated. They start hurling insults in our direction and the only positive I can gleam from this situation is they do not appear to be carrying any lethal weapons like a blade. It seems that long haired Mott The Hoople fans are their antithesis, and that Julian's Henry Kissinger intervention over the fruit gums was far from appreciated.

'Are 'yous a pair of fuckin' girls or wot?'

'De one on the left looks like a fuckin' pansy.'

'Der dressed de same.'

'Let's fuck 'em over.'

I steal a look at Jules. My own body may be busy preparing the adrenaline to enable me to run like buggery from this confrontation, but Julian remains remarkably composed. He suddenly spins around and crouches like a Japanese warrior, his two hands extended in a Karate pose. His action stops the gang behind us in their tracks. Their faces are a picture of confusion as he invites a challenge.

'Right,' he barks, 'anyone one of you... come on... I'll take any one of you on... just one. Come on, which one of you is man enough?'

The lads look at one another, unsure how to respond. This is clearly something that does not normally happen. With none of them willing to take on this apparent martial arts expert, they walk away in the opposite direction, defeated and not a little dejected. My admiration for Julian reaches a new high, courage now added to the list of his many attributes.

'Bloody hell Jules, that was fantastic. I was shitting myself.'

'So was I... in fact...'

'You've shit yourself?'

'Not quite, but I hope there's a Gents at James Street.'

We both manage to laugh. It helps relieve some of the tension. We reach the sanctity of the underground station, glad to be intact and in one piece. The evening may have ended on a bit of a sour note, but we have come out of it unscathed, and in a piece of supreme irony, a guy with his girlfriend in the station lift offers me and Jules a fruit gum. I have a green 'un' and Julian a red 'un. They leave a rather unpleasant aftertaste.

More significantly, things are much clearer now in my head. Thanks to Mott The Hoople, I definitely want to play the Liverpool Stadium again.

*

It is Monday evening, and I am with Ged and Brian at the Seacombe Ferry hotel. In keeping with his customary deference towards Julian, the pub manager has given us a private room upstairs; one dominated by a faded portrait of the ever-cheerful Queen Victoria and a supporting cast of framed maritime charts. The roof beams, wall panels, and tables are all dark walnut, while the floor covering and studded leather seats are a deep shade of maroon. It is not a place to recommend to the suicidal. The room is large enough to house a championship-size snooker table, brightly lit up in what is otherwise a gloomy spot, and it is free to use all evening. Ged is holding a cue and is ready to challenge all comers.

'Right, which of you clowns wants to get their arse whipped?'

'That's a bit rich.' I say.

'What is?'

'You calling anyone a clown, wearing those pants.'

Ged has a pair of green and black harlequin trousers straight from Billy Smart's Circus.

'Fuck off soft lad. The chicks won't be able to resist me in these beauties.' He rubs the crotch of his pants, as if trying to make a genie appear.

'You've more chance copping off with that snooker table.' This comment of mine comes true, sooner than I think.

Brian accepts the offer to have his arse whipped, though I am unsure at first if he has interpreted the question on a literal basis. The snooker gets under way, and Ged is as good as Brian is bad, and he quickly races into a lead. He adopts a shagging position on top of the table and attempts to pot a difficult black. He has one leg of his ludicrous trousers draped across one end just as Julian enters the room carrying a tray with three pints of bitter and a Cinzano. Jules looks ready for business with a smart shirt and tie, framed by a well-groomed brown leather jacket and Amanda-styled hair. He looks more like the manager of the band rather than its bass player.

'Fuck me, I'm stuck,' cries Ged.

We initially think he is joking and ignore him.

'No, I'm really stuck to the table. These fucking pants have snagged against the side pocket. I can't move.'

We fall about laughing, and I nearly spill my pint.

'And that's a great shot,' I jest. 'He's only gone and potted the pink.' I know it is an obvious line, but it still earns a few laughs from the other lads.

'Listen man, let me help,' offers the big-hearted Brian who stretches his own substantial frame over Ged's body in an attempt to free the trousers. Unfortunately, Brian suffers a back spasm and has to lie there motionless, Ged aking all of his considerable weight.

'Fuck me Brian, what the hell are you doing?' he howls.

'It's my back man, it's gone.'

'Well go and find the fucking thing, you're killing me.'

Brian groans, 'I'll wiggle my body; it might free the nerve man.'

Julian and I are then witnesses to the simulation of a Roman orgy as Brian writhes away on top of Ged's prone body, the pair of them making obscene noises at the same time. With impeccable timing, the barmaid from downstairs enters to gather some empty glasses, at the very moment that the two emit a collective moan as though signalling the end of a particularly brutal sex act. This is not the big-bosomed woman from behind the bar, who would probably remove her blouse and join in the action. This is her colleague, a miserable, thin-lipped woman with a grey ponytail who looks on in disgust.

'Good God,' she cries, 'so this is Rock and Roll?'

Although Julian steps in to try to explain things, what she has witnessed has unsettled her and she cannot wait to leave the room with a tray of empties and a disturbed look on her face. It takes all the strength that Jules and I can muster to eventually get Brian back to his feet and disentangle the clown's pants from the snooker table to free Ged. We lay there for a minute or two getting our breath back. Ged feels himself to see which internal organs the experience has pulped.

I am the first to recover enough to get the real agenda under way. 'Listen guys, we went to see Mott The Hoople at the Stadium on Saturday and it was fantastic. We both came away thinking the same...' I look at Jules.

'That we don't like fruit gums?' says Julian, winking at me.

Ged and Brian swap a puzzled stare.

'Yes, but more significantly we want play in a band again. Anyway, I've been a doing a bit of thinking and reckon that we don't need a dollop of cash to get the group back on the road. We can do it on the cheap.'

'In what way?' says Ged.

'Well for a kick-off, not all the gear was damaged at the Ship and even the stuff that was, I bet a lot could be repaired.'

'Come on soft lad, the neck on my Watkins was snapped off.' Ged counts his rib cage for the second time.

'OK, maybe not the Watkins, but we're all earning a few bob now, and I've got £50. We should be able to get the cash together to buy the equipment we need. Six months ago, we'd have loved to be in this position.'

The guys look interested.

Julian speaks first. 'I think we have to do it.'

'Why not?' says Ged, coming to terms with the realisation that he is going to live after all.

Brian nods. 'Far out man.'

We take that as a yes.

It seems that the road to rock and roll stardom is a shaky one. We have experienced more lows than highs so far, but in this optimistic frame of mind, I consider this a good thing. Given these matters average out over a period, it suggests there are good times ahead.

I pick up a snooker cue and say, 'Anyone fancy a game?'

Julian takes up the offer, and I proceed to win the frame. Things are looking up already.

*

In the next few days, we spend every spare hour working on the practicalities of getting the band fully equipped again, albeit on a shoestring. The first task is to assess the state of our existing gear, dumped in Julian's garage last June.

Starting with Ged's guitar, we have to concede that the Watkins is a total write-off. It also seems that his Vox AC30 is kaput, though there is better news about Julian's stuff. On close inspection, both his bass and amp have only superficial damage. With a machine head here, and a volume knob there, he will soon be ready and able to gig. The neck of Brian's SG copy has been separated from the body of the guitar, but it looks repairable, because they are carved from different pieces of wood. The state of his amp is somewhere between the extremes of the Vox and the Sound City, so we will have to see if it can be made gig-worthy again. However, we will need to start from scratch with the PA. Despite a couple of surviving microphone stands, it is a write-off.

Finally to my baby, the Olympic by Premier drum kit. The floor tom and snare have survived reasonably intact. The hi-hat, small tom-tom, cymbals, and stands are all so badly misshapen or dented that they are probably beyond repair. The bass drum is nowhere to be seen. I do recall it coming off worst of all in the mêlée. The hunt for new and repaired equipment begins here. Julian suggests an egalitarian approach to funding, all agreeing to put £50 in for starters. This is typically selfless on the part of our bass player, as he is likely to have the smallest outlay.

It transpires that our aggregate £200 covers the cost of all repairs and second hand purchases with the exception of the PA. As it turns out, I have no need to get the second hand kit from the man in Rushforths, because I manage to get an odd tom-tom and cymbal from Strathconas for a tenner and Brian's mate has a dilapidated old kit, the best parts of which are the bass drum and the hi-hat. I then solve the problem of having multi-coloured drums by covering them in Fablon, using a matt black print to homogenise the appearance. A couple of improvised necessities, including a taped cloth at the corner of the snare to dampen the excessive echo and a few house bricks in the bass drum to stop it shooting forward every time my foot hits the pedal, and I have the finished article. It may be a crossbreed in terms of origin, but my emotional attachment to this set is certainly much greater than the original Olympic kit. I guess that is a lesson for life.

Amanda, of all people, has found us a place above a garage where we can practice. Apparently, there are no residential houses in the vicinity, so I should be able to pound away on my skins while the boys turn up the volume on their amps a notch or two. We now just have the PA system to sort. Ged points out that any decent venue will already have a PA system, and if it doesn't, we don't play the 'fucking' gig. This will save us money as well as providing a safeguard against concerts in crap places. Consequently, we only have to stump up a little bit more cash to buy a couple of cheap microphones that can be plugged into Brian's amp for practising purposes.

It has taken less than two weeks, but the revival is complete. We come up with a new name to reflect this new dawn. Again, the origins are vague, but we decide upon Plain Truth as our new identity. I can already hear the announcer at the Liverpool Stadium.

' _Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for the Truth, the Plain Truth, and nothing but the Plain Truth.'_

8. Rehearsals

It is Saturday, early October, and I am working on the record department, looking forward to our first fully amplified practice session tomorrow. The geriatric has just told me to get a haircut, and so I have decided to take up Amanda's offer of a feather-cut, which is a pleasing prospect to say the least. A slight feeling of guilt crosses my mind. She is Julian's girlfriend, so I ought not to be so jubilant at the thought.

Then just as this deliberation is trailing away, there is an answer to my prayers of the last few months. Sofia walks into the shop and heads straight towards me. I have not seen her since my first day at Strathconas. She is second in the queue, so the poor guy at the front gets short shrift as I quickly pack him off with 'Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'. She looks taller than I remember, and with more precision than a Kodak Brownie, my eyes capture the image before me; canary clogs beneath purple velvet flares with small yellow stars, and a matching, flared-sleeve tee shirt. Her hair seems to have grown a little longer, and her eyes are even more striking, perhaps because of her suntan. She looks fantastic.

Smiling, she says, 'Hi Tom, have you 'All the Young Dudes' LP by Mott The Hoople please?'

'You like Mott The Hoople?'

She looks a little defensive, puckering her lips and frowning slightly. She mouths a dubious 'yes', before I realise she has misinterpreted the timbre of my question.

'No, no, I mean, that's brilliant.' I am jabbering. 'They're my favourite band. Have you seen them live?'

'Yes, in Liverpool a few months ago.'

'The Rock and Roll Circus Tour?'

'I think so.'

'I was there too! Don't you think Ian Hunter's a brilliant front man?' By any objective standard, I am overdoing the enthusiasm, but it is natural and instinctive.

'Definitely,' she agrees, and I celebrate within. She continues, 'But I thought the crowd was very mean to that man with the funny legs in black tights.'

'Max Wall?'

'Yes, that's him.'

The old music hall comic had been somewhat miscast as part of the support act for Mott's UK tour. He went down like a pork roast at a Bar Mitzvah.

'I saw them again a couple of weeks ago at the Stadium.'

'Did you?' She smiles again. She is always smiling.

'Yes, and they were even better.'

We talk about our favourite Mott album. This is the first time I have been myself in her company, but just as the mutual love of a rock band is giving me the confidence to engage with her in a meaningful way, things go sour.

The familiar sight of Sofia's rugged and handsome male companion at the shop entrance interrupts our conversation. He is wearing a blue lumberjack shirt, sleeves rolled up to his armpits, revealing biceps the size of footballs, though his posture is close to the starting point for a rendition of 'I'm a Little Teapot', lending him a strange, incongruous mix of camp and brawn.

He shouts, 'Sofia, I'll be in the car, so don't be long.' His tone is far from polite.

I have been lost in these moments with her, but the intervention of the shamrock Don Juan has left me reeling. "I'll be in the car!" He's got a bloody car! And what do I have? Well there is a shopper bike rusting in the shed at home. I suppose I could give her a 'seater' to the destination of her choice, perhaps Lennon's supermarket or Sayer's the bakers. Let's face it, only posers have a car at our age. Real guys with sensitivity have a shopper bike with a large bag on the back seat to carry useful things like a loaf or margarine, or even both... I still don't know why I chose such a bicycle at the age of fourteen in preference to the five-speed racer all my contemporaries selected.

Even taking into account the understandable antipathy I feel towards Sofia's boyfriend, I really do think he looks a bit of a shit. He is everything I abhor in a man; yet paradoxically, he is everything I want to be, self-assured, confident, good looking. I just cannot square the circle.

Sofia notices my sudden change of mood, and her eyes penetrate mine. 'Are you OK?'

I just mumble, 'Fine thanks.'

'You don't like Danny, do you?'

Her comment jolts me. I am too inexperienced to deal with this sort of confrontation. The mind deals with the words and provides a more than adequate answer, but my mouth simply blurts out an automatic procession of denial. 'Erm... no, no, you've erm got me wrong. I'm sure, erm... Danny is a nice guy.'

She places her hand over mine, the warm, delicate skin an instant cure-all for my anxieties. 'Not as nice as you.'

Oh Christ.

I look anxiously towards the shop entrance, fearful that her boyfriend has returned to observe this act of affection, but he hasn't, thank God. I am so emotionally constipated; I simply cannot react in the way I want to react. Nothing materialises until I say 'Cheers.' It is nothing short of wretched.

A bloke in NHS horn rimmed glasses is now standing behind Sofia, making it clear he wants to be served. I feel like telling him to piss off but can't. So I am forced to finalise the Mott the Hoople transaction with her and exchange goodbyes.

'Thanks very much Tom, see you soon,' she says, her smile widening as she speaks.

She gives me a mini wave, and I do one in return as limp as a piece of wet cabbage. I still do not understand how she knows my name, but her use of it again makes me feel rather wonderful. I watch longingly as she weaves past the record cabinets towards the store exit, before a cough awakens me from my trance. It is the bespectacled man. I deal mechanically with his purchase in a conflicting state of confusion and ecstasy.

*

The following day we are in the van on our way to the room above the garage for rehearsals. I know I should be excited about playing together for the first time with our new gear, but I am a little fearful. Julian has just informed us that the garage is attached to a Funeral Home, and we may have to make our way through the Chapel of Repose. I have never seen a dead body before - unless you count Brian the morning after overstaying his welcome at the Hashish Pipe Travelling Fair - and I do not want to see one today. If necessary, I will simply close my eyes.

I check the top of my head and am relieved to find no bumps, remarkable given how many times it has collided with the roof of the Bedford. The van's dodgy suspension is shocking and is like being in the ejector seat of a James Bond car. The funeral home is in central Birkenhead and comes into view on our right, a well-appointed glass fronted building set back from the main road, contrasting with the other soulless redbrick and concrete premises in the vicinity. Brian steers the vehicle through the front entrance and into a small car park.

'How many stiffs do you think are inside?' I am trying to mask my fear with a forced casual tone.

'I tell you what, there'll be one more if shit-face here doesn't stop puffing on that crap,' says Ged, waving his arms to clear the smoke permeating across the front bench seat of the van. 'That's fucking awful Brian. You'd think my granddad had just crapped himself.'

'Sorry man, this latest batch of shit is third rate,' he responds, inhaling a colossal drag regardless.

'Third rate or turd rate?' says Ged, having the last word as ever.

Peace descends as the van comes to a halt, and the four of us get out and walk across the newly laid tarmac towards the door marked 'Reception'. Unfortunately, it is Sunday and closed.

'Hang on a minute chaps,' says Julian. 'I've just remembered that Amanda told me to use the rear entrance.'

'You lucky bastard!' chimes Ged.

Laughing, we trudge around to the back, where Ged knocks forcefully on a door. 'Hello, anybody there?'

There is no answer, so he turns the handle. The door opens, and we follow him inside. Sitting behind a small desk is a security guard in full uniform, fast asleep. He is an old man, presumably earning a bit of extra cash for a pint or two.

'Alright pal,' shouts Ged, 'we're the lads from the band. We've come to practice.'

The security guard does not respond. He is out for the count.

'He's not exactly on red alert, is he?' I shake him gently by the shoulder, whereby he collapses to the floor with a thud. 'Bloody hell, I think he's dead.'

'Well he's in the right bloody place if he is,' says Ged with a titter.

Perhaps I am a more sensitive soul, because I am unable to join in with the laughter of the other lads. This is likely to be somebody's dad and somebody's grandfather. We look at one another wondering what to do next, until we hear the sound of a muffled snigger, which then bursts into an all-out guffaw. We turn around to see the perpetrator, a second security guard hiding behind a scuffed filing cabinet. He is so pleased with himself that he appears to stop breathing, at least until he inhales a massive gulp of oxygen to the accompaniment of a rasping grunt. We are seemingly the victims of a rather tasteless practical joke, whereby some poor old stiff has been dressed and propped up in a chair to act as the on duty guard. The execution of the prank has evidently exceeded all his expectations.

He finally recovers enough to say, 'You soft gets!' before mirth takes over and he is off again, laughing uncontrollably.

I sense an indignant upsurge within and hear myself playing the part of the stiff shirt. 'Do you really think this is funny, dressing up some poor old sod who's just passed away? What would his family think?'

'They wouldn't give a shit.' The corpse has spoken.

I jump out of my skin shouting 'fuck me' amongst other expletives. The dead man is more alive than a pair of tramp's underpants and is an accomplice to the joke with his fellow security guard. As the sorry scenario unfolds, I have to come to terms with the fact that I am the only one in the band who has reacted with any level of extremity to the practical jape. The two guards are tittering and wheezing, while Ged, Julian, and even Brian are smirking. I recover and have to see the funny side, though not before I pass my verdict.

'You're all a bunch of twats.'

There is more piss-taking as we head back to the van and wheel our new equipment to the room above the garage, the route via the chapel of repose having turned out to be a red herring. Unsurprisingly, there is no lift to the first floor, and we have to lug the kit up a stone staircase. A sign on the door at the top reads 'Office', and one push open from Ged's right foot reveals a large space, empty other than in one corner, where there is a solitary desk, chair, and two-drawer filing cabinet. Three adjacent panelled windows at the far end of the room give it a bright and cheery perspective, despite the drab flooring beneath our feet.

It takes us about twenty minutes to set everything up, Brian once again incapacitated because of his back problem. We are so ready when the time comes to start. We have been practising acoustically for a few days, so we really know the songs but are desperate to play with a bit of volume. Julian pulls out a file that contains the typewritten lyrics to all our songs. The track listing is:

'All the Young Dudes' - Mott the Hoople

'No Matter What' - Badfinger

'Black Magic Woman' - Fleetwood Mac

'Revelation' - Plain Truth

'Venus' - Shocking Blue

'Smoking in the Boys Room' - Brownsville Station

'Brontosaurus' \- The Move

'Across the Water' - Plain Truth

'All Right Now' \- Free

'Whole Lotta Love' - Led Zeppelin

'Johnny B Goode' - Chuck Berry

'Chantilly Lace' - Jerry Lee Lewis

'Rock Around the Clock' - Bill Haley & the Comets

Our songs are a mixed bag. In fact, our repertoire is such a broad church, I ponder whether I should mention my own song 'Sofia', but I lose faith at the last second. We start with 'All the Young Dudes', a song that Julian and I managed to convince the other lads to play, confident that it would go down a storm. We are lucky that Brian has such a good vocal range, because not many are able to hit the top A in the chorus. It sounds great. Despite the dubious quality of our equipment, the collective sound is a significant improvement on what has gone before. I suppose being closer as a foursome than a few months ago might be the reason. We have bonded over the course of our misadventures, and our sound is all the better for it. Certainly, for the first time since the ping-pong bat / yard brush / wooden rulers trio played nine months ago, this genuinely feels like a real group. We move on to play 'No Matter What', and there is no let up in the quality. By the time we are on our third of fourth number, we have an audience.

The delectable Amanda and the not so delectable Brenda make an appearance. My stomach churns on seeing the blind date I would rather forget, though she does look a lot better than she did at the 99 club. She is certainly slimmer. Both girls are dressed casually in jeans and tee shirts, greeting us enthusiastically, and we are pleased with their reaction at the end of each song, the sisters clapping and cheering excitedly. After 'Brontosaurus', Julian suggests a break, and Amanda takes us down a corridor. This leads to a canteen that houses a dozen or so square Formica tables, each surrounded by four metal tubular chairs with canvas seats and backs. On the wall to the left are two serving hatches and an adjacent door to the kitchen through which Brenda strides to make a brew. Despite her less than feminine body shape, I am reminded that her tits are like the Himalayas. Ged is a breast man and already in his element, joining her by the pots and pans to flirt in his own special way.

'Love your fucking bazookas Brenda.'

'Fuck off, you cheeky get.' Despite the admonishment, I can tell that Brenda is not displeased.

Julian and Amanda are next to one another, holding hands and exchanging the occasional peck on the lips. I can now see they are co-ordinated. Jules has been wearing a top emblazoned with the word 'His', while his girlfriend's reads 'Hers'. I am carrying out these observations at the same time as listening politely to Brian telling me about his mate Pothead who has had a series of letters read out on Granada TV by Bob Greaves, condemning the recreational use of marijuana. His pal had used the name Mr. H. Ash, aka 'hash'. I have never seen Brian chuckle so much in the time I have known him. I am expecting a watery stain to appear near his crotch at any moment.

Brenda serves up the tea. 'Here you are lads; get this down your gobs.'

She is such a delicate flower. Her voice is a lower pitch than normal for a girl, but it does sounds less like Lee Marvin today. I have been so lost in all the excitement of Plain Truth's first amplified performance; it has only just occurred to me that I don't know why Brenda and Amanda are so familiar with the place. I ask them.

'This is Daddy's business,' Amanda replies. 'He runs a group of Funeral Homes, and this one is the original.'

I look through the canteen window and see a number of signs stating 'Thurston's Funeral Services'. We return to the practice room and rattle through the rest of our songs with ease. There are a few loose ends to correct, but overall, it is looking and sounding good. We know that we will continue to practice over the coming days and weeks to sharpen the act, but we all agree that the time has come to find a few gigs. We are soon packing up the gear, always the worst part of the rock and roller's routine, and carrying it to the Bedford. We pass the area where the security guards played their practical joke earlier, and I see that the older of the two men is still at it, lying prone in his seat, but I am not going to fall for it a second time.

'Sod off granddad! It wasn't funny the first time.'

He ignores me. So I ignore him.

The girls join us on the journey home, Amanda sitting alongside Julian on the front seat with Brian driving, and me with Ged and Brenda in the rear. I am soon lamenting the suspension of the Caravanette, as I cling desperately to the edge of the upholstery in an attempt to avoid body contact with my fellow back seat passengers. Their fledgling relationship is gathering momentum, and they are soon French kissing one another with the velocity of a food mixer on high speed, Ged simultaneously kneading Brenda's tits as if baking the world's largest loaf. Which fool said romance was dead?

9. Girls and Chocolate

It is the following Wednesday evening, and I am having a late night chat with Dad, my mum having just gone to bed after making a pot of tea and a few crisp sandwiches. The old man is not long back from his nightly visit to the Red Lion and is half-watching _Wrestling from Pontefract Town Hall_ with Mick McManus and Big Daddy in the ring. There are cups of PG Tips sat on a kidney-shaped coffee table, a piece of furniture crafted by the old man from an old walnut headboard. Underneath the table, there is a homemade rug, pieced together from different carpet samples. Brown, sky blue, vivid purple, slate grey, cherry red and mustard vie for attention from staring eyes.

'Your mother's got a job,' he says, his beery breath pronouncement a revelation.

In Pontefract, Big Daddy attempts a Boston Crab on Mick, and a granny with a hat and winter coat in the front row stands up to wave her umbrella at the giant wrestler.

'Mum's got a job?' I am surprised because she has not worked for over twenty years. 'Where at?'

'Cadbury's.'

'Wow, mum working at a chocolate factory.'

'The cake department, but they sell the chocolate in the staff shop.'

Mick has been on the verge of collapse but suddenly jumps up to take Big Daddy by surprise with a dropkick. The old woman punches the air with joy.

'When does she start?' I sip my tea and put the cracked china cup back on the coffee table. It slides down a couple of inches due to the gradient of the surface.

'Next week, working afternoons.' He picks something from his nose, rolls it between his thumb and forefinger, and then flicks it across the room like a Subbuteo champion.

Mick goes for the kill with a Full Nelson. The referee counts to three and Kent Walton proclaims McManus the victor. Big Daddy is indignant with rage, and the woman in the front row is ready to take him on. Fortunately for the defeated wrestler, the ad-break intervenes.

This Cadbury's job is fantastic news. It almost makes the patchwork rug bearable to view. There will be another wage coming into the household and the genuine prospect of food cupboards full to busting with cakes, biscuits, and sweets. I could not be more wrong.

*

The rot sets in the day Mum starts work. The old man is now in charge of cooking our meals, which is like asking Private Godfrey from _Dad's Army_ to represent Great Britain in the shot put. What makes the situation even worse is that he is also now the food shopping supremo. Standards of cuisine are plummeting to depths close to the earth's core.

It is the second week of this new routine, and I am experiencing the discomfort of severe indigestion after eating my dad's baked bean pie speciality. Mum arrives home to a piece of steak, and I am ready to protest about the inequities of our differing meals but decide to rise above it and call Julian. He was hopeful last night that Ged might have secured a venue for Plain Truth's inaugural gig.

I walk a little gingerly through to the hall with a fair amount of the pie still resident in my gullet. The green phone is on top of a small metal table painted white with a frosted glass top. I pick up the hand piece and go to dial the number but notice there is a locking device in one of the finger holes. Exasperated, I go the kitchen to berate my dad.

'What's the point in having a telephone if we can't make a call?'

My challenge elicits a forthright response.

'Listen, if I want to put a bloody lock on the phone, I'll put a bloody lock on the phone. As long as I'm the one paying the bloody bill, the bloody lock stays!'

That was about four bloodies.

'Oh Ted, just give him the key. He's not ringing Australia.' Mum is her usual voice of reason.

He relents, though not before a lecture on the cost of everything from the telephone to the immersion heater and from potatoes to sausages. I notice there is no mention about the price of Golden Virginia or Whitbread Mild.

I ring my friend. 'Hi Jules, it's Tom here. Any news about the gig?'

'Good news my friend. Ged has managed to get us a booking a week on Saturday at the St John's Social Club in Liscard.'

'Brilliant.'

'They're paying us £20, and of course they have their own PA, so no problems there.'

'Well it's hardly the Liverpool Stadium, but it will certainly do for now.'

'Hey, that was an unfortunate business with the security guard at the Funeral Home, wasn't it?

'I know... to be fair, the joke was not in the best taste.'

'I'm not talking about the joke. The old security guard really did breathe his last on the day we first practised there. He was found dead in the same chair he played the practical joke on us.'

My mind goes back to our exit from the premises that day, when I had assumed the old guy was messing about again, and I told him to sod off. I feel some culpability surfacing and have to remind myself that his last entertainment in life had been a game of the boy who cried wolf. It helps assuage the guilt.

I am conscious that if I stay on the line much longer, my dad's blood pressure will start increasing in the manner of a thermometer stuck up the arse of a cow with foot and mouth. However, before I hang up, Julian passes the phone to Amanda who wants a quick word.

She reminds me of that haircut, and I arrange to go tomorrow lunchtime. As Wednesday is half-day closing in Liscard, I will head straight to her salon at about one o'clock. When she informs me that she is staying open especially for me, I ask her to have the red carpet ready for the visit. She laughs. Looking forward to a haircut is a new experience in my life, but I like it.

*

It is closing time at Strathconas the next day, and I am shepherding the final customer of the morning out of the shop, some old dear babbling on about the Goblin Teasmade she has just bought. Thanks to the wonders of technology, she will wake up to an early morning brew ready in an instant. I want to add 'tasting of piss.' Then in my haste to dispatch the old girl, I inadvertently grab her right tit. I really did not expect it to be hanging down at waist height, but you live and learn I suppose. Fortunately, she is besotted with the Teasmade and does not notice a thing.

Amanda's hairdressing salon is at the Moreton end of Hoylake Road and is a good fifteen to twenty minute bus ride away. I stroll to Seaview Road and the bus stop outside the Gas Showroom. I have a short wait until the number seven arrives, its headlights, Wallasey Corporation crest, and registration plate forming a friendly face to welcome me. The Atlantean's door slides open, and I am greeted by a less friendly face, an acerbic-looking driver with a grey caterpillar moustache who begrudgingly gives me a ticket. I sit downstairs towards the back rather than in my favoured front seat on the top deck, part of an attempt to prove that I am maturing.

I sit near some odd-looking guy in a boiler suit who is listening to Radio 1 on a portable transistor radio. Johnnie Walker introduces with contempt the current chart topper 'Mouldy Old Dough' by Lieutenant Pigeon. At this point, boiler suit man turns up the volume to demonstrate both a disregard for his fellow passengers and a questionable taste in music. He hums along in the wrong key, continuously rubbing his groin with a hand down his pants via a strategic split in his boiler suit. There are two middle-aged women sitting diagonally opposite him, both with headscarves and lipstick-stained mouths turned downwards. They look around in disgust but say nothing.

With one stop to go, and to the relief of the passengers, the bloke with the radio and hands on groin action gets off. I watch him alight and head towards the Jockey & Horse pub, just along from the bus shelter. As he disappears inside, I see two familiar faces coming out and my stomach churns. It is Sofia and her boyfriend Danny. She is walking just ahead of him, and as he tries to grab her by the arm, she pushes him away. This is clearly some kind of altercation between the two of them. The bus driver is doing what bus drivers do when they are slightly ahead of timetable, waiting a few moments as the engine idles. It allows time for me watch the couple turn into the adjacent car park and walk up to a bottle green MG sports car; I might have known he would have a bloody MG and not an old Morris Minor.

The quarrel seems to be getting worse, and I watch Danny walk with menace from one side of the car towards Sofia. Some involuntary instinct propels me from my seat, and I find I am shouting at the driver to let me out with the urgency of someone whose pants are on fire, arguably based on real life events. He presses the button. The door opens and I jump off, providing the women in headscarves with further cause to vilify the youth of today.

I run from the bus towards the car park. 'Hey, is everything alright?' I shout.

My interference brings a temporary halt to the couple's feuding. They both turn towards me with puzzled faces, the foolishness of my actions quickly dawning upon me. The mood turns from bewilderment to anger. I ready myself for Danny's reaction, yet Sofia speaks first.

'What on earth are you doing?' she says. Her flushed cheeks are pink.

'I was on the bus and I, erm... thought, erm...' My reply trails away to a whisper.

'You thought what?' she continues. 'You thought you'd come and poke your nose, uninvited, into someone else's business.'

'No, not really, I erm...'

She, like me, struggles to find the right words. Finally, she says, 'Just go, will you.'

'I'm sorry, I only...'

'You heard her mate, on your bike.' It is Danny, unable to hide his delight at the exchange between Sofia and me.

I offer a further muted apology and turn away in the direction of Amanda's salon. A tidal wave of misery washes over me. I walk around the perimeter of Moreton Cross, rebuking myself for the recklessness of getting involved in such a private argument. I pass a row of estate agents and insurance brokers, absorbing the consolation that I had meant well. However, given her angry reaction, I know I have burnt all bridges between Sofia and me, however flimsy their construction.

Encouragement then comes to me from an unexpected source; a pile of steaming dog muck. Such is my detachment as I saunter along that I walk by a newly laid mound - more likely from the arse of a Great Dane than a Chihuahua - and avoid contact by about half an inch. The near miss acts as an unlikely catalyst for transforming my outlook to one of renewed optimism. I conclude that now is the time to leave Sofia behind, to stop brooding at work in the vain hope that she will come and visit the shop. It is a destructive and unsettling state to inhabit and a complete one-way street rendered all the more hopeless by her relationship with Danny. It is time to move on and what better way to kick things off than having your hair re-styled by the beautiful Amanda.

*

Even a blindfolded Mr. Magoo in dark glasses would have no difficulty in finding 'Amanda's Unisex Hair Salon' with its exterior of fluorescent pink and light blue. Sandwiched between the dreary run-down décor of 'Jack Cavendish the Cobbler' and 'Bob Pitt's Second Hand Emporium', it stands out like _Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat_ at a funeral. Either side of the entrance there are window displays with poster-sized photographs of models in black and white. On the left side, the women look like Lynsey De Paul, and the men on the right like David Cassidy. The sign on the door says 'Open', but when I try to push it, I find it locked. There is no sign of anyone in the shop, and I am starting to feel a bit of a fool, when I see Amanda appear through a vinyl strip door and acknowledge my arrival. She welcomes me like a long lost brother returning from a few years away with the French Foreign Legion before shutting the blinds and flipping the sign to 'Closed'.

'So... is it a feather cut for you sir?' she asks.

'Yes please madam.' My reply is in the style of a nineteenth century gentleman.

Christ, this is what I call an antidote to the miseries of the Sofia incident. As ever, Amanda looks completely alluring, today in a white lace top that leaves little to the imagination underneath, though as this is my best friend's girl, I put the brakes on the stirrings my physiology is generating. She ushers me across to a washbasin at the rear of the salon and gives me a shiny black smock top to wear. Like a dick, I put it on like a shirt.

'No, you silly thing,' she giggles, 'you've got it on back to front.'

'Have I?' I am already thinking that haircuts at Ron the Barbers were simpler than this.

She starts by washing my hair, and with my head leaning back against the hard enamel, I have the perfect sight of her cleavage as she applies the shower spray. I close my eyes and start thinking of Miss Hopwood, our old French teacher from school, as captivating as a Yorkshire pig farmer smeared in manure.

My concentration is at its peak when Amanda speaks again. 'Are you looking forward to your gig at the weekend?'

'Yes Miss Hopwood.'

'Pardon?'

'Sorry, yes, erm very much... so yeah, it should be great'

I opt for the conditioner, and with the rear of my neck numb from the porcelain and my mind numb from images of an old schoolteacher in compromising positions, it is with some relief that I am led to what looks like a dentist's chair for the cutting to begin. However, things do not get any easier. I discover that my new hairdresser has a very tactile approach to her trade. I do not remember Ron rubbing his body against his customers, but Amanda leans across to trim a little piece of hair dangling by my ear and is draped over me like a contortionist. Extreme measures are required, and so I call Miss Hopwood into action again, this time joined by the school nurse, a vitriolic, sexless woman with the body of a weightlifter and the facial hair of a Neanderthal. What started as a liberating and welcome diversion from the disastrous episode with Sofia has now turned into an arduous ordeal of its own.

By the time she has finished blow-drying my hair, I am pleased to see that the new cut looks great, though even if it looked like Ken Dodd, I would say it was perfect just to get away. I am about to get up, when Amanda motions for me to stay put while she retrieves some form of dressing. She applies a very small amount to her hands and massages it gently into my hair, taking her time and not speaking. Her actions are creating, very gradually, an almost trance-like condition in me, and I feel my eyes closing as her hands move from the scalp to my neck and shoulders. The next thing I feel her unbuttoning my shirt and the warmth of her hands on my chest. I have just enough consciousness to wake from this reverie and jump out of the chair.

'No Amanda, that's not right.' I say my words with feeling, as I re-button my shirt.

She backs off immediately, and there appears to be instant remorse. 'I'm so sorry Tom, I shouldn't have done that.'

'I know you shouldn't. Julian is my best friend. You just can't treat my best friend like that.'

'Oh please don't tell him,' she says. 'It was a spur of the moment thing. I know it was wrong.'

I cannot answer her. Her regret seems genuine, and her frown makes her seem even more attractive, but her appeal has diminished. Miss Hopwood and the moustachioed nurse are now off duty. I pay the full price for my cut and leave the salon, a dispirited young man. It may be daytime, Colin and his baby next door might be asleep, but at this particular moment, I could not give a monkey's toss. I am going home for a bit of a spank... on my drums, of course.

10. 'Ladies and Gentlemen'

'Sometimes I get a bit constipated, but the wife's as regular as clockwork. She does the business every morning at half past six... trouble is, she doesn't wake till seven!'

Local comedian and club host, Harry Carlton, is going down a storm at the St John's Social Club. I am enjoying the pre-gig entertainment with Julian, Ged, and Brian, sitting to the right of the stage and drinking Coca Cola. The place reeks of stale beer and is a sea of half-occupied tables and chairs with more Formica on display than in a shop of Hygena kitchens. The scene is the embodiment of the working class cliché. Only the whippets are missing.

Harry is wearing an old dinner suit, about three sizes too small for him, complete with vivid green bow tie and cummerbund. In between sweating buckets and constantly reinstating his comb-over with an upturned palm, he is smoking a Woodbine and drinking a pint of bitter. We have decided to shun alcohol on this occasion. We want to keep our wits about us. Even Brian has promised to lay off the hash, an encouraging sign. In about half an hour, it will be our turn to perform.

' _She wanted a holiday where it was really warm... so I booked her a week at the local blast furnace.'_

I survey the small stage, just about big enough to house a four piece like Plain Truth. My drums are in the middle, the rather unsightly house bricks a bit too visible for my liking. Either side of my kit are the guitar amps with two microphone stands further forward, facing three racks of coloured lights at the front. There are caricatures of Tom the resident organist and Dick the resident drummer hanging on the wall at the rear of the stage. Each portrait has an accompanying sign coloured in bright orange with their name in large black letters. I am slightly crestfallen to see that I will be drumming later with the word 'DICK' displayed prominently next to my head.

'She told me she was fed up and wanted to see more of the sun... so I bought her a telescope.'

My own laughter dies away when Amanda and Brenda arrive at the club to join us at the table.

' _Eh up lads, the groupies are here.'_

Brenda gives Harry a V sign.

' _£2?' You only charged me a £1 last time love!'_

Amanda embraces Julian and offers me a nervous, contrite smile. I find a chair for her and return a non-committal half-smile. It is a few days since my haircut, and I have said nothing to Julian about the incident. I am still unsure what to do. I feel inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, that it was a spur of the moment thing, so maybe the less said the better. She looks as gorgeous as ever tonight in thigh length, tan suede boots, but for the first time, I do not fancy her. She may be an example of near physical perfection, but I have seen a flaw beneath the surface, and it has affected my thinking.

'You haven't said anything to Julian have you?' she whispers in my ear.

'No.' My reply is curt.

'Thank you.'

Her thanks jar somewhat, but tonight is about the band and nothing else. So I put these thoughts out of my mind, at least for now, and disregard any opinion I may have on the sincerity or otherwise of her welcome for Julian.

The greeting between Ged and Brenda may lack the subtlety of their more reserved counterparts, but the passion seems genuine. Even though Ged is the type of guy who would have to be on his deathbed before talking openly about his feelings, he is evidently wearing his heart on his sleeve with Amanda's sister. The two of them appear well matched.

' _She said she wanted a weekend away, to have a complete break from the washing and the ironing... so I locked her in the shed for a couple of days.'_

Harry finishes his act with a few songs including 'Spanish Eyes' by Al Martino, Tom and Dick providing the musical backing. When Jules points out that a real life Tom, Dick and Harry are on stage; our cheaply earned laughter is an indication that the adrenaline is pumping in readiness for our re-launch. The applause rings out at the end of the last song, and Harry gives us the nod that we are on in five minutes.

Just before we get up to perform, Brenda addresses me in her characteristic way. 'Hey gobshite, what's this I hear about you wanking on the bus?'

'Eh?'

'One of the women from the canteen at the funeral home saw you on the bus fiddling with yourself.'

The lads start pissing themselves.

'It's not true!'

'She said you were singing along to the radio while having a wank.'

I recall the bus journey to Amanda's hair salon with the oddball in the boiler suit. It is a case of mistaken identity. 'That wasn't me. That was some other bloke.'

'Come on lad, it's not such a big thing,' says Ged, 'at least that's what the woman from the canteen said.'

Cue belly laughs from the others.

'Hey, and another thing baby face,' says Brenda. 'I was also told you grabbed some old woman's tit outside your shop.'

'What?'

The lads are enjoying this a bit too much. Only Amanda is not joining in, perhaps for obvious reasons.

'You dirty get,' laughs Ged.

I remember the old dear who bought the Teasmade. 'Oh that!'

'So it's true soft lad?'

'Yes it's true but...'

'No buts... bloody hell.'

The continuing mirth reaffirms that nobody really thinks I am a pervert, so I just wave away the accusations.

It is time to join the others to make our way to the back of the stage in readiness for our entrance. We have been through the set-list and made one or two compromises for the social club members, no more so than our opening number, the Vanity Fare song 'Hitchin a Ride'. Ged had called it shite but accepted the importance of getting the middle-of-the-road audience on our side in order to throw in a few obscure numbers from our repertoire.

' _Let's give a big St John's Club welcome to Plain Truth.'_

Harry has given us our correct name. It is a heartening start. We manoeuvre the way to our positions and it is Ged, our most natural front man, who engages the people. Fortunately, he has toned down his normal over the top greetings, replacing it with a more sober and appropriate line for a social club.

' _Evening all! This is a hit from a couple of years ago, 'Hitchin' a Ride'.'_

Ged counts in and we're off. The sound is tight, and things are going well until the vocal kicks in and a drumstick slips out of my right hand. The others carry on gamely as I lean across to retrieve it. Unfortunately, I trip over my floor tom and fall towards the front of the stage. I am saved from rolling off on to the polished wood dance floor by the quick reactions of Julian and Ged, but in doing so; they collide with Brian who ends up flat on his arse. The audience is laughing heartily, and as I remember the _Talent Aplenty_ fire extinguisher incident, it really does appear that lightning can strike twice in the same place. Harry Carlton rescues the situation for us. The social club host comes on stage.

' _Let's have a big round of applause for these jokers. I bet them a quid they wouldn't have the nerve to start the act like this, and bugger me, I've just lost £1!'_

Bless him.

As we get ready to start again, he turns and winks. Harry has just gone top of my Christmas card list.

Julian calls Brian and Ged to gather by my drums for a rallying call. 'Listen chaps; I interpret that mishap as a sign. I suggest we drop the cabaret numbers.'

'See, I told you they were fucking crap.' Ged feels vindicated.

We all agree, and it proves to be an inspired move. There is a fair sprinkling of younger people in the audience and their reaction to our new opening number of 'All the Young Dudes' sets the tone. They love it, and we play the song better than we have before. The rest of the crowd seems quite happy. By the time we play 'Johnny B Goode' and 'Chantilly Lace', the dance floor is full to busting with people all having a great time. The performance is a triumph. We leave to an ovation, the members cheering until we return for an encore of 'Rock Around the Clock'. I take my seat again behind the drums and have a sip on my coke only to let the glass slip through my fingers and fall to the floor. Fortunately, the gods are on my side again because it does not smash and we are able to maintain the momentum of our performance. I take this as a good sign.

The performance over, we take our final bow in front of the crowd. After a dodgy start, the gig has gone without a hitch, though before we leave, I have to endure one almost customary indignity. I am not aware that the spilt drink has produced a wet patch the size of a football around my crotch. I wave to acknowledge the cheers and applause of the audience looking like some imbecile who has pissed himself at the excitement of it all.

The manager of the club is delighted and offers us a regular Friday night residency for a fee of £25. It does not take us long to agree. We all see it as a chance to fine-tune our act for the future. As they say, practice makes perfect.

About an hour later, we have packed all the gear into the van and are ready to head home, when Julian says he is going in Amanda's Mini with Ged and Brenda. There is a minor sense of anti-climax, sharing a somewhat lonely journey back with the less than talkative, pot-smoking Brian as the driver. However, nothing can undo my good mood this evening. After one or two false starts, this really does feel like the beginning, and the beginning of something special. I am sure the others agree with me on that one, Julian on two counts. I think he is falling in love. I just hope he knows what he is doing.

*

I am currently enjoying a real busman's holiday. Roddy is off for a fortnight, and the geriatric has asked me to look after the musical instruments section in his absence. To spend the working day surrounded by guitars, keyboards, and drums is fantastic, though I am not having any real success with sales. So far this week, I have shifted a mouth organ, two sets of guitar strings and a few recorders. The geriatric expects improved results in the next few days; not that I feel under any pressure. I am still buzzing from last weekend's St John's club gig and looking forward to this coming Friday's turn.

'Are you there Tom?'

I am tidying under the counter and immediately recognise the soft tones of Sofia's voice. The question shocks me so much that I whack my head on the mahogany frame as I straighten up. If this were _Tom & Jerry_, I would now be seeing stars.

'Are you OK?' she says.

I feel for a lump on my head that is not there yet.

'Yes.' My response is as brief as the drum roll and cymbal theme tune to the consumer affairs programme on Granada, _This Is Your Right_.

We stand there, waiting for one of us to say something. I suppose the onus is on me to break the silence. I am the salesman and should be enquiring as to how I may help. My question, when it arrives, is rather brusque.

'How do you know my name is Tom?'

'To be honest, your badge is a bit of a help.'

'Oh God.'

I had completely forgotten about the 'Tom Kellaway - Sales Assistant' attached to my kipper tie. It really should say 'Tom Kellaway - Dickhead'. I gaze at her beautiful, sympathetic face and realise straight away that I am right back where I started. Following the heated exchange in the car park of the Jockey & Horse, I have enjoyed a few days respite from my debilitating fixation with her. Until this moment, I genuinely thought I had moved on, but not so. I am as smitten as ever, my heart sinking fast.

'Actually,' she looks over her shoulder, checking to see if anyone is listening, 'I've come here to say sorry for my outburst last week.' She maintains eye contact with me as she speaks.

'Sofia, I think I'm the one who should be...'

She grips my arm, and electricity jolts me. 'Tom, I know you meant well.'

I hear a deliberate cough and see the geriatric in the distance standing next to the televisions. He sends me a less than subtle signal to sell.

'Why don't you just fuck off,' I say under my breath.

'Oh....' Sofia removes her hand from my arm.

'God not you... the manager. Christ, here he comes.'

The store's chief is heading in my direction, and the look on that face with more wrinkles than an elephant's scrotum is far from pleased.

'Excuse me Mr. Kellaway.'

'Yes?'

'Did I hear you mouth an offensive expletive in front of one of our customers?' His tone is dripping in righteous indignation.

Sofia rescues me from my hesitancy. 'I'm sorry, but I think you must have misheard. Your assistant here has been extremely courteous and polite in his dealings with me.'

'Has he?' The geriatric is both sceptical and disappointed with this alibi. He really is a miserable old get.

'Yes, I am interested in buying a guitar.'

'Oh I see.' His demeanour is transformed to that of Uriah Heap. 'Please accept my sincere apologies for the misunderstanding madam. I will leave you in the capable hands of Mr. Kellaway.'

He wrings his hands and makes his way back to the main shop floor, though not before he shoots a glance in my direction that has one clear message. 'Sell'.

I lift down a Fender 'F' Series Dreadnought.

'Can you play?' she asks.

'A little.'

She interprets my reply as false modesty. In reality, it is the truth.

'Go on then.'

'What?'

'Play me a song.'

'I can't... not in the shop.'

'Tom, I'm not asking you to play Alice Cooper.'

I am acutely aware that I do not have any songs to perform. I cannot for a number of reasons countenance the idea of playing the song Sofia, though just holding the guitar is giving me a confidence that has previously been absent. Perhaps having a six-string slung permanently over my shoulder is the answer. My thoughts jump to the fantasy of a desert island getaway with a love triangle of me, Sofia and a Gibson Hummingbird. I gently strum without a plectrum. It is nothing fancy, but in the reflection from the scratch plate of the guitar, I can see a smile on her face. Then we start talking.

Sofia tells me that she has just turned nineteen, that she left school in the summer after getting three 'A' levels, and that she is currently working part-time for her father while she decides what to do with her life. One option is to go and live with her grandmother for a while in Tuscany. Her father is an Italian immigrant who went from selling ice creams to owning a chain of jewellery shops in the North West. Her mother is a local but makes wonderful homemade spaghetti. They all live in a house that backs on to the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in between Hoylake and West Kirby. She does, however, spend a fair amount of time staying at her cousin's in Wallasey, which is why she shops occasionally in Liscard, and why she sometimes attends a local event such as the 99 club disco. I really want to ask her about Danny, but there is no mention of him. Her words provide no clue, but I lack the courage to probe further.

It is now my turn to talk, and after Sofia's references to an impressive home near West Kirby, Italy, jewellery shops and academic success, my back story of a terraced house, a fitter, a cake factory worker and a dead-end job at Strathconas is as empty as a vagrant's bottle of methylated spirits. As for our culinary cross-references, her mother's authentic Italian spaghetti versus my dad's baked bean pie is a mismatch on par with Mohammed Ali fighting Charles Hawtrey. Nevertheless, she listens politely, and I do not pick up any signs of disapproval. She may be from a well-to-do background, but she is clearly no snob.

'Will all customers make their way to the exits? The store is about to close. Hurry up now.'

The monotone Wirral accent of the geriatric's wife comes over the tannoy, her words spoken at the pace of a snail with heatstroke. The approach adopted to empty the store at the end of the day is modelled on closing time at the local pub, where a bit of rudeness is necessary because the customers are pissed. It always strikes me as inappropriate for this shop to embrace the same method. Today, just as I am getting to know more about Sofia, it is particularly galling.

'I repeat; will all customers make their way to the exits. The store is about to close. Come on, we all have homes to go to you know.'

Just before she leaves, Sofia buys a recorder for her nephew. I tell her about our Friday night residency at the St John's Social Club, and she says she will try to make it. I am not too sure if that will happen; a social club does not seem her bag, but I hold on to the hope.

When we have said our goodbyes, the geriatric comes up to me to discuss sales. He gives me a contemptuous glare of condemnation, when I tell him I have sold a recorder. However, I am on such a high from my time with Sofia that I really could not give a shit.

'You'd do better lad to concentrate more on your job and less on the ladies.'

Well, he should know I suppose.

'The store is now closed. Right Gerald, time to go home. I've got pans to scrub.'

11. Villanova

I am walking up Seabourne Road with a spring in my step, enjoying the week off work. I have arranged to meet the boys at Julian's to watch England's qualifying game against Wales for the 1974 World Cup. This is a rare night off from the band. We have practised regularly during the last few weeks and played the Social Club gig for the last three Fridays. It is gratifying to see that we are getting better with every performance, and we are now looking out for bigger venues to play. The only downside for me has been the absence of Sofia from any of our dates. Even though I never really expected her to turn up, it has not stopped me glancing periodically across to the club entrance in the vain hope that she makes an appearance.

The far end of Seabourne Road is like something from the _Ideal Homes Exhibition_. The normal convention within house building is identikit standardisation, as evidenced by the terraced properties in my mum and dad's street that are almost militaristic in their uniformity. The dwellings here have as many different shapes and sizes as a row of twelve year-old boys lining up for a cross-country run. Each architect has gone out of his way to produce something more daring and avant-garde than his competitor. I walk past a split-level house with shuttered windows, balcony, and wide apex roof. Adjacent to a couple of flourishing palm trees in the front garden, there is an American style post box, attached to which is a wood-grained plate displaying the name 'Villanova'. An immaculate bottle green MG sports car is taking pride of place on the coloured stone driveway, which slopes away at a steep gradient to an underground double garage. Hang on... a bottle green MG sports car?

My mind races back to the car park in the Jockey & Horse. I look at the registration plate, CCW 736K, and I know it is the same car. I might forget a name or a face, but I never forget a car reg. It appears that my nemesis, Danny the Irish charmer, lives in the same road as Julian. I have walked past this house countless times, and yet strangely, I have never seen him. A clandestine glimpse through the large front window of the split-level property provides no insight, and I am soon further down the road approaching Julian's.

It is the first question I ask my friend when he answers the door. 'Jules, do you know that house over there called Villanova?'

'The split level?'

'Yeah... does a guy called Danny live there? Big lad, good looking bastard, about nine feet tall'

Julian looks perplexed. 'No... it's Mrs. Moretti, the teacher from Alderhouse.'

Perhaps the MG is a different car, but I am not convinced. Then just as Jules is about to guide me inside, I see Sofia come out of Villanova to retrieve something from the vehicle. Something clicks in my mind. I hesitate.

'Jules, remember the two girls on the tuck shop at the youth club that night when Dracula threw me out?'

'I think so.'

'Well, was one of them Mrs. Moretti's daughter?'

'Let me see.' He scratches his head before he remembers. 'Yes, yes, I do believe you're right old chap.'

Wearing an imaginary deerstalker and puffing on an imaginary pipe, I deduce that Mrs. Moretti's daughter is the cousin with whom Sofia stays when she visits the area. My heart sinks again. Danny is still in Sofia's life. Why else would his car be there?
Julian senses the sudden change in my mood. 'What's up Tom? Why all the questions?'

'Do you have a few moments?' I feel that now is Father Confessor time. I lower my voice. 'It's about the other girl on the tuck stall that night.'

In a whisper, Julian speaks conspiratorially. 'Certainly old man, come through here.'

He leads me along the hall, past the drawing room and through to the conservatory. In contrast to our house, the rooms here mirror those in _Cluedo_... I do not recall anyone asking if it was Professor Plum with the stale pickled onion in the front room. I hear the ever-boisterous Ged with Brian in the lounge but ignore the background noise.

I tell Julian about my encounters with Sofia. There was the first meeting in the listening booth and her knack for being on hand to witness my humiliations at the Youth Club and on the blind date with Brenda. Then I speak of her visits to Strathconas on my first morning of work and a few months later when we discovered a mutual admiration for Mott the Hoople. There was the argument in the Jockey & Horse car park, and then the discussion in the music department with me playing guitar, when we finally discovered a few things about one another. I also tell him about Danny, concluding with the misery of seeing the MG parked outside his neighbour's house.

Julian strokes his chin with an arched forefinger, absorbing the information. After a short pause, he delivers his verdict. He does not look like a wizened sage, but he certainly acts like one. 'First things first my man, Sofia clearly likes you; that's quite apparent from the things she has said. But it may well be that you're just the light relief, an uncomplicated, no attachments sort of liaison. You make her feel better about herself because of the unconditional attention you subconsciously or otherwise lavish upon her. I have to say my friend that her real passion is probably this Danny because he's dangerous and rougher at the edges, which she finds exciting and exhilarating, despite the arguments and the emotional ups and downs. It's very likely their disputes are about Danny's infidelity or flirtations with the opposite sex. Yet Sofia is young and will think he will change with her guidance.' Julian discerns a jaded and dejected air about me as I listen to this damning prognosis. He puts a hand on my shoulder. 'I'm sorry Tom. Of course, I might be wrong but...'

''No, no, I'm sure you're right.'

My friend's insight is astonishing. He has analysed everything with remarkable clarity. He really ought to have his own agony column in _Woman's Own_ , though there is the paradox. The besotted Julian remains blind to his own situation with Amanda. Perhaps her wandering hands have scarred me, but it is hard for me to believe she warrants his devotion.

I am hardly the most tactile person and so offer my right hand for Julian to shake. 'Cheers pal, let's go and watch some football.'

'Good idea... that's the spirit.'

I walk through to the lounge with Jules and remember the last time I was here when Amanda was draped beguilingly across the cream leather of the settee. Tonight's view is rather different. Brian is slumped back on a chair with his legs so wide apart; he appears to be in the early stages of a breech delivery. The fact he is dressed like a Red Indian further confuses my sensibilities. Ged has a pint of bitter in his hand and is morphing by the second into a football partisan.

'Come on soft lads. Here comes Sir Alf's army.'

'Hey man, who's Sir Alf?'

'Fuck off.'

*

At half time, the England boys are winning 1-0 courtesy of a Colin Bell goal.

'I tell you what lads... carrot tops are fucking brilliant.' Ged pats his head like one of the Harlem Globetrotters with a basketball.

'I think you're more straw than carrot,' I suggest.

'Man, I like all of the carrot, not just the top.' Brian thinks the conversation is about vegetables.

'Not the fucking veg Bri. Alan Ball! Red Hair! Come on lad, get with it...' He pushes our hippy's shoulder as he taunts.

'Which cat is Ball?' Brian's football knowledge is as meagre as the portions of meat on a plated roast dinner cooked by my dad.

'The ginger haired one, you dick,' says Ged.

I need some fresh air. 'Do you want anything from the off licence? I'm going for some extra strong mints.'

Julian and Brian decline with a shake of the head, but Ged puts in an order. 'Tell you what soft lad; get me a Watneys Party Four? No, fuck it, make it a Party Seven!'

'Bloody hell Ged, I might struggle carrying that... my bullworker's out of action you know.'

'Come on Charles Atlas. If you're going to build up drumming arms, you need that kind of exercise.'

'Hey man, I think I have a shopping bag on wheels in the back of the van,' says Brian.

I am young enough for my ego to win the argument. 'No, I'll be fine. Right, won't be long.'

I have enjoyed the distractions of the football, and notwithstanding Julian's counsel, my mind is still pre-occupied with Sofia and the co-incidence that her aunt lives in this road. It sounds desperate, but I figure that walking past the house a couple of times may provide one or two further clues. On the way to the shop, all I see is a house in virtual darkness, but on the way back, an external light is illuminating the driveway. I quicken my pace towards Villanova. To my surprise, what had seemed an impulsive, foolish thing to do, pays off after all. Sofia is on the driveway, opening the driver's door to get into the MG. She is wearing a dark, three-quarter length woollen coat and a white beret. She spots me, looks away, and then turns to me again, a startled expression enveloping her features.

'Is that you Tom?'

'Hi Sofia.'

'You're obviously thirsty.' She notices the Party Seven under my arm.

'Oh, that's for Ged and the other lads from the band. We're watching the football at Julian's over there. He's our bass player.'

'He lives in this road?'

'Sure does... the big house at the end.'

'Gosh, what a small world.'

'Your boyfriend has a great car.' I immediately regret my words. I do not want to talk about Danny, but I am in a corner.

'Sorry?'

'The MG.'

'He doesn't drive.'

'Then...'

'It's my car.'

'Oh I see.'

It is her bloody car! This changes everything. My insides are all over the place like the Kop after a Kevin Keegan goal. Then, just as I am about to soar as high as a Jumbo Jet, I plummet down to earth with a crash.

'I'm just about to drive to Danny's flat,' she says distractedly. 'I've got a few things to drop off.'

This news is so deflating, if I was a balloon, I would now be flying around the air at great speed and in random directions, making a loud farting noise. It is a killer blow for me. Julian's problem page diagnosis has renewed resonance, and I know I must let go of this obsession, not least for my own sanity. Unfortunately, I let go of something else first... the Watneys Party Seven. In my preoccupied state, the large red and gold container of beer slips from my grasp and the tin, with its heavyweight contents of seven-pints of bitter, falls to the ground via the big toe on my right foot.

'Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!' I cry out, eyes watering with pain.

'Are you OK?' Sofia's voice is distant.

I am clearly not all right, yet things are about to get worse. As I hop around in agony, bemoaning this latest piece of bad luck, my good left foot comes crunching down on to the prone Watneys Seven tin. The impact trips me up and pierces the can so that the beer starts pouring out. As I fall to the ground, I attempt to rescue the bitter only to roll down a beer-drenched driveway and crash into the aluminium garage door. The collision sounds like something from the worst tropical storm and understandably draws the attention of the neighbours. The Morettis come out of Villanova to investigate, and lying there in agony, I hear the lads from the band approaching.

A male Italian voice, evidently Mr. Moretti, is agitated. 'What 'as 'appened to my bella driveway? What is all 'dis beer? Oh my poor bella mosaics!'

I hear the unmistakable tones of Ged. 'What about my bella Watneys?'

I just want to say, 'what about my bella right toe?'

*

About twenty minutes later, Sofia is helping me out of the MG at the entrance to the accident department of Victoria Hospital. In any other circumstances, the journey would have been something to treasure, but the pain from my toe is such that I have found it difficult to concentrate on anything other than my injury.

'Are you sure you're going to be OK now?'

'Yes, I'll be fine. Thanks very much for the lift.'

'You're more than welcome, any time in fact.'

'What about tomorrow night?' I gasp as the pain shoots from my toe to my knee.

'Fine, but make it the left foot next time.'

'I'll do my best.'

It occurs to me that our conversations are starting to flow more naturally, in stark contrast to our early verbal exchanges when I was as talkative as a gagged Harpo Marx with laryngitis.

'I love you.'

I do not believe for one second that Sofia has said this, but in my pain disorientated state; there is a sub-conscious association between the words and her standing there. Before I have time to rationalize anything, there are two arms squeezing the life out of me. I am a prisoner, and though it is hardly a life-threatening situation, breathing is not as straightforward as it ought to be.

'George, let go. Let go of him George. I'm so sorry; he's sometimes a bit too affectionate.'

My fan releases his vice-like grip, and I take a few gulps of air before turning around to see that the apology is coming from a harassed woman with bedraggled, grey hair, probably in her sixties, who is mildly reprimanding a slightly disconsolate looking Down syndrome young man. I immediately recognize him as George 'the drummer' from the Ship Inn fiasco.

'It's alright, we've met before, haven't we George?'

'Yeah. I played the drums. I love him.' George pretends he has two drumsticks in his hands and strikes the air.

'Oh yes, I remember,' says the woman, 'his uncle told me about that.'

'Uncle died,' says George, his smile replaced by a puckered lip frown.

'I know son.' Joan turns to us and whispers, 'His Uncle John worked as a security guard at Thurston's Funeral Home and passed away recently... died from a bang to the head when he fell to the floor. He's really missing him.'

'I see.' It seems the corpse practical joke backfired spectacularly. I want the conversation to move on quickly.

'I'm Joan, George's mum, by the way.'

'Hello Joan.' The 'Joan' moves up an octave as I feel a stab of pain in my toe. George has embraced me again and stood on my damaged foot.

'Are you alright?' she says.

'Yes, I'm fine.' I gasp. 'It's just this foot.'

'He dropped something heavy on it before,' says Sofia.' He's here for an x-ray.'

'Oh dear... well watch out for the matron. She's not the friendliest.'

'Banged my head,' says George.

His mum extricates him from his hold on me. 'George has epilepsy and he had a fit earlier.' She ruffles his hair. 'And you knocked your head didn't you? But he's fine.'

'Banged my head.'

'I know. You banged your head,' I say.

George sees my acknowledgement as the cue for another hug, though this time; I make sure my right foot is placed behind me. Sofia seems faintly amused by the sight of George and me.

'Come on sunny Jim, let's go home,' says Joan.

'Banged my head... I love you.'

'What's he like.' Joan links him by the arm, ready to guide him away.

'Take care,' says Sofia.

'Banged my head.'

Joan stops and looks at Sofia and then me. 'Can I just say you make a lovely couple? See you again. Come on love.'

I share a few silent seconds with Sofia, as we both watch George and his mum meander their way along the pavement towards the parked cars. Then we look at one another, and I sense some kind of sadness in her eyes.

'I need to go Tom.'

'Yes, of course.'

'See you next time.'

'Right...'

I watch her drive off in the MG on her way to Danny's, and it re-ignites the blue touch paper of misery. The chill of this November evening, warmed by my time with Sofia, is taking hold again.

I limp into the heat of the white walled hospital where a nurse in uniform treats me with customary rudeness and discourtesy. This must be the Matron, and I am evidently something to wipe off her sensible leather brogues. I move to a room that has 'X-Ray Department' on its door but seems to have more in common with the torture chamber at Madame Tussaud's, and I am expecting Doctor Crippen to make an appearance at any moment. When I have had my X-ray, I am sent back to the waiting room.

It is empty with only a few metal chairs, the buzz and flicker of a faulty fluorescent tube, and an agitated bluebottle for company. There is a small, wobbly table to my left with some old copies of _National Geographic_ and last night's _Liverpool Echo_. Not being in the mood to read about some bloke following his father's example in the forestry trade, I opt for the newspaper. The second story on the front page has a photograph with a familiar face. I cannot believe it. It is Danny, arrested for attacking a police officer at a drugs protest march. Is this person really suitable for Sofia?

I have a go at the crossword and study, for no apparent reason, tomorrow's National Hunt race cards. The Matron reappears, clicking her fingers to indicate the results of my X-ray are ready. She has all the charm and appeal of Myra Hindley. I am told that nothing is broken, although there is very bad bruising. I will need to take soluble aspirin as a painkiller for a few days, after which the injury should start to improve. She then tells me to fuck off, admittedly without using the actual words.

I hobble out of the hospital and find my dad by his Ford Consul. After the expected, 'What the bloody hell have you been playing at son?' he tells me that the football ended 1-0. A sudden shooting pain in my toe makes me realise for the first time since I dropped the can that I will not be able to play drums for a while, so presumably this Friday's date at the Social Club will be off. However, I am soon to find out that the old show business maxim still holds firm... 'The Show Must Go On.'

'Hey son, another thing, what's this story about you messing about with yourself on the bus and feeling an old woman's tit?'

I issue another denial. It is a second maxim that holds firm; 'Shit sticks!'

12. Deputy Dick

I have just come off the phone to Julian and am rather taken aback that tomorrow tonight's social club date is going ahead after all. Dick the resident drummer is to take my place for the evening. There is a part of me - in truth a large part of me - that is very unsettled by this news. Some of the disquiet is fuelled by the boys deciding to compromise the 'all for one and one for all' musketeer approach to the band, one that I suppose I have taken for granted. However, if I am honest, the main reason for the unease is my expectation that Dick will prove to be the better drummer. I still think I am the weak link in the group, and I am nervous that the man old enough to have played drums in the original 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' will show me up.

'Your teas are ready.' The shout from my dad is misleading. It is more of a four-minute warning.

Julian says I should come along on Friday to watch, but I am not too sure. I am mobile, though I did take the day off work, which made the geriatric about as happy as haemorrhoid patient with a bee stuck up his arse.

'Thomas! Stephen! Your teas are on the table.' It is my dad's next call, about two minutes now before he serves the food.

Perhaps I could go to the gig and play tambourine. The disturbing memories of _Talent Aplenty_ and 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' make this a complete non-starter. In fact, the experience may have induced an irrational fear of the Salvation Army. If the enemy should capture me and initiate ritualistic torture, I would probably survive the beatings and the dripping tap, only to capitulate in screaming agony when they brought out the tambourine to accompany a spirited rendition of 'Cumbaya My Lord'.

'Your teas are going cold here!'

Our food is finally ready.

Stephen and I make our way to the kitchen. In the month since Mum started work, our meals have gone from bad to worse. In hindsight, the baked bean pie was a dish that warranted a mention in _Egon Ronay's Food Guide_. On Monday, we sat down to bangers and mash, which should have been called 'spot the sausage'; such was the dearth of meat. Once again, we had to find our required nutrients and nourishment from a few rounds of toast, thanks to the only ever-presents in our kitchen stores, the large sliced loaf and block of margarine. We thought standards could not get any lower, yet we reached a new nadir on Tuesday. The evening meal was a single boiled onion, naked as a _Playboy_ centrefold. Now I am no Fanny Craddock, but even I am aware that an onion in gastronomy is used as flavouring. I have never seen it presented as a main dish, and I doubt anyone else has... unless there is someone out there who enjoys nothing more than a solitary, bloated sheep's testicle on a plate.

As I contemplate the food before me, it is apparent that yesterday's uneventful egg and chips is the odd one out in a week of appalling nosh. I try to stay polite, but incredulity makes it difficult. 'What the hell are these?'

'Burgers.' My dad's reply is soaked in defiance.

'But they're green!'

'I ran out of mince, so I used some marrowfat peas instead. Get them down you, they'll do you good.'

'Pea burgers?'

'Yes.'

Stephen starts laughing as he pushes the large green mounds around his dish with a fork, 'Pea burgers, that's funny,' he says.

'Have the government introduced food rationing again? Bloody hell Dad, why can't we have fish fingers or something normal?'

'Listen son, my mother cooked these for me when I was a lad, and they didn't do me any harm.'

This is a very debatable point.

'What? A couple of wars ago? Why not throw in a bit of powdered egg or tripe as a bit of a treat?'

'Don't be such a cheeky sod.'

I slice through the creation with my knife, and I am tempted to do a Norman Bates shower scene job on it. It is telling that my dad is not eating with us at the table. He is going to his mum's for tea. And there's the rub. His two sons are eating like Biafrans while he dines like the Queen Mother. I know that my nan will not be crushing marrowfat peas into a poo-shaped rissole. She will be cooking beefsteak or lamb chops, probably with roast potatoes, mixed vegetables and gravy, all followed by jam roly poly and custard. I was not in the best of moods before the serving of this emerald blob, but unfairness has compounded my anger. I get up from the table.

'Where do you think you're going?'

'I'm going to the chippy. I'm not eating this crap.'

*

I decide to try the new 'Fryer Tuck' chip shop near the Red Lion. From the outside, it looks no different to the 'Chung Wah', and inside there is the same chequered floor tiles, highly polished chrome fryer range, and copies of the _Daily Mirror_ on the counter. It is more spacious though, with enough room for a pinball machine in one corner. A big guy comes out from the back carrying a galvanised steel bucket of peeled potatoes to feed into the chipping machine. His face is familiar, but for the moment, I cannot place it.

I give my order. 'Cod and chips please.'

'Do you want peas lad?'

'No, no peas, Christ no peas!'

He lowers his eyebrows and upturns his lower lip, clearly bemused why his suggestion has produced such a strong reaction.

I wait for the fish to fry and have a go on the 'Space Mission' pinball. A couple of years ago, I would spend every evening going to the chip shop to play pinball and eat some fried mush. Practice makes perfect and thanks to my arcade game addiction, I became particularly proficient with the flippers. Unfortunately, I have lost the knack. The ball gets stuck between Neptune and Uranus, and my attempts to dislodge it results in a tilt. I return to the counter and look at the reflection of my distorted face in the mirrored chrome. As I gawp at the pies, fish cakes, fritters and battered sausages through the glass-fronted hot plate, the owner starts to sing.

'My heart stopped beating the day she died

My time was over when I lost my bride...'

That's it! I knew his face was familiar, though his missing tooth is now filled with a gold denture. It is Jimmy from Jimmy Jet and the Rockets, the old rock and rollers at _Talent Aplenty_. He is singing his 45 that did not chart. Oh dear, running a chip shop is about as far removed from rock and roll as stamp collecting.

'She came into my life on a Saturday night

But she left me a wreck like a building site.'

It is becoming quite clear why Jimmy's breakthrough single never broke through. It's crap.

'Hey lad, don't I know you?' Jimmy has recognised me. Before I can answer, he says, 'I know. You're that twat who sang 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' with the tambourine aren't you?'

I nod, a little feebly.

Jimmy sniggers. 'Fuck me that was piss, real piss. Then your fucking pants caught fire! Bloody hell.'

I find the courage for a riposte thanks to the width of the counter separating me from my critic. 'Well what about you waving your todger and your bollocks in front a group of old women and children?'

My words are spoken just a woman with a tight perm and even tighter lips enters the shop. She walks out immediately in disgust, tutting.

'Come on lad, you're losing me customers here.'

The shop door opens again.

'Hi John.'

I recognise the next customer's voice immediately. I turn around to see Brenda. She proceeds to slap my arse and then walk towards the hinged part of the counter, which she lifts to access the serving area. For a moment, I am expecting her to don a white overall and start wrapping chips, but she just embraces Jimmy and disappears into the back.

Jimmy looks at me with a twinkle in his eye. 'I tell you what lad, that's one great girl.' He empties his chipped potatoes into the fryer, and his gold tooth glistens as the fat boils with a hiss.

'Does she work here?'

'Does she fuck. She's me business partner.'

'Your business partner?'

'Owns half of it.'

Probably another twenty-first present.

'Are you still playing with the Rockets?'

'No lad, it's over. I've hung that microphone up for good. Sold me gear and bought this place with me sister.'

'Brenda's your sister?'

'You know her?'

'Yeah... we've, erm, met on a few occasions.' The 99 Club ordeal looms large in my thinking as I speak.

Brenda re-emerges from the back, carrying a folding table and a couple of folding chairs. She is unquestionably a girl who likes to wear her clothes tight. Her jeans appear designed for Twiggy, and her yellow cowl neck jumper may just as well have a sign attached saying 'Look at the size of my tits!'

'Take hold of these gobshite,' she says, passing the furniture over to me. The instruction is not up for discussion.

I grab the table and chairs, awaiting my next command. I stand there like a lemon.

She points at the corner where I had been playing pinball a few minutes earlier. 'We'll put them there.'

I stare in disbelief as she single-handedly picks up the pinball machine and moves it a few feet to the right. I am glad to see that my task of unfolding and arranging the furniture requires a little less strength. Jimmy indicates that my fish and chips and Brenda's scallops are ready. Like it or not, I am being conscripted to dine in this improvised café.

We both initially concentrate on eating, until she says, 'So what do you think about your Lord Snooty and our Amanda as a couple?'

I would have preferred an easier question like 'What's the capital of France?' or 'Name a twentieth century dictator, first name Adolf?' I do have genuine doubts about Amanda, but I know I cannot give an honest answer. My response is inane. 'I think they look fine together.'

'Bollocks,' she replies, in the unmistakable manner of a woman who has never sat on the fence in her life. She really is the female version of Ged. 'Amanda's got a good heart, but she'll eat that poor fucker for breakfast. She needs a real out and out bastard like you.'

'Like me?' My indignation is almost physical.

Amanda laughs like a rugby player. 'Only joking, you soft bugger! You're a fucking marshmallow.'

She pushes me with the palm of her hand. Predictably, I fall off the chair and squeal like a castrated pig when I inadvertently put the weight on my bad foot. I explain the happenings of last night to a lack of sympathy but a chorus of sniggers.

'You stupid twat!' she concludes with characteristic bluntness. It confirms that her blossoming relationship with Ged could well turn out to be a match made in heaven.

I manoeuvre the conversation away from me. 'You and Ged seem to be getting on well.'

'Fuck off.'

'That's exactly what he'd say.'

Brenda stretches for a ketchup bottle from the edge of the counter and squeezes a bit of sauce on to her food. She evidently does not want to talk about herself.

I return to the subject of her sister. 'Why do you say Amanda needs a bastard?'

'Because birdbrain, she has to have a challenge when it comes to guys. If you're talking about the perfect gentleman like your mate, she'll lap up the initial attention but get bored shitless before the day's out.' She pauses to put a giant scallop in her mouth and adjust a bra strap.' Isn't that right John?'

'What's that love?'

'Our Amanda... a bit of a man killer.'

'Bloody hell, I'd say... takes after Brigitte, her mother. The old fella couldn't resist her.'

'My heart stopped beating the day she died

My time was up, I was paralysed.'

It appears that Jimmy, Brenda, and Amanda share the same father; a father who fell for the other woman, Amanda's mum. It is now a fair bet that Brenda and Jimmy's mother looks like a docker while Amanda's is more French film siren.

Brenda snaps the end from my cod and shoves it down her gob. She is a girl who readily embraces the act of talking and eating at the same time. 'She knows she's a fucking stunner and that all the guys want to shag the arse off her, so the best kind of bloke for her is one that plays it cool; one that shows a bit of indifference... better still, one that flirts with other girls. It's the old treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen thing. It makes her try harder and keeps her interested.'

'She doesn't strike me as the kind of girl who'd tolerate that kind of behaviour.'

'That's the point bog breath, she doesn't. So what does she do? She does the same, flirting with other guys so that the bastard gets hungry for what he can't have and comes back round sniffing for more.'

'Sounds all a bit too complicated for me.'

'That's because you're a thick sod!'

'Thanks very much.'

'I mean that in a nice way.'

'So thick sod is a compliment?'

'Believe me, in my world, that's a compliment.'

I believe her as she grabs my last chip. I fold away the table and chairs, watching in awe as she lifts the pinball machine back to its original spot as though made of candyfloss. A combination of the fish and chips, my unexpected dinner date with the demanding Brenda, and the singing of Jimmy's old chart failure is weighing heavy on my stomach. Perhaps the pea burger meal was the better option after all.

*

It is the next evening, and I am at the Social Club gig. On reflection, I thought I would show solidarity. I know if I was in the lads' shoes, I would still want to play. However, I am not sure that the boys have made the right choice. The performance I am watching is an embarrassment. My deputy Dick more or less knows the songs, but he is playing them in a tempo more pedestrian than an old age pensioner with a walking stick. Tonight's version of 'Good Golly Miss Molly' sounds like a Perry Como single played at 33 rpm. Normally at this time of the evening, there would be a gang of people dancing away in front of the band. Tonight the only ones up are an elderly couple waltzing to 'Paper Plane' by Status Quo. It is quite a relief when the boys finish their set, and everyone gets ready for Harry Carlton to have a field day at Dick's expense. He does not disappoint.

'Bloody hell Harry, the last time I saw hands move that slowly was when I came home to find the wife in bed with her Italian lover!'

'That was fucking shit,' says a disconsolate Ged, slumping into his seat and taking a long sip on a pint of bitter.

'Man, there were bad vibes going on there, bad vibes.' Brian's looks like he is suffering from the bends and leans back to recover.

'Hey Tom,' says Jules.

'Yes.'

'I think I speak on behalf of the other guys when I say it was mistake to do that gig without you.'

'No, as the saying goes, the show must go on.' I say the words, but I know Julian is right. However, Dick's loss is my gain. There is a new found appreciation for my drumming, a true novelty, and I find this a tremendous boost to my flimsy self-confidence as a musician. I know I am not the next Carl Palmer or Buffin, but neither will I let the boys down. I can almost feel my toe getting better, and I am now itching to get behind the drums again.

'Just hurry up and get that fucking toe fixed, soft lad.'

Harry winds up his act, and I jump up. 'Let's play a few songs.'

'What's that?' says Julian.

'Let's cheer ourselves up and get back on the stage.'

'What about your toe?'

'Fuck the toe!' I shout, just as everything goes quiet.

I wave an apologetic hand at the more sensitive club members and see Julian whispering in Harry's ear. We get the thumbs up and the four of us head back to play the gig of our lives. I have adrenaline rushing around my body. There is no pain coming from my foot as it pounds the bass drum repeatedly. We are performing with an energy that we have never had before, and I know it is down to me. I am the drummer in the band, the engine. We have already seen what happens when you put the mechanics of a lawnmower in a Rolls Royce, no offence Dick, but you know what I mean. The club members and visitors, previously sitting like senile octogenarians with their mild and Martinis, are now bopping and hopping like nobody's business on the dance floor. Thanks to my damaged toe, Dick's uninspiring performance, and my temporarily out of control ego, Plain Truth are on fire.

We then discover it is Harry's birthday. Ged has the idea to dedicate a few songs to our favourite compère, and so we perform 'Black Magic Harry', 'Whole Lotta Harry', 'Harry B Goode', and 'Harry in the Boy's Room'. Playing in a band has never been such fun. I know that I will suffer later when the adrenaline subsides and the pain returns, but the price is worth it.

At the end of our spontaneous performance, I return to sit down and drink a well-earned glass of Coca-Cola, a feeling of euphoria sweeping over me like an ocean wave. I then feel the predictable throb from my toe, though right now, I could not give a hoot.

13. The Kiss

Julian has already broken up from university for the Christmas break, so we are off for a lunchtime game of table tennis to help relieve the tedium of my working day in Strathconas. My toe is fine now after a few weeks' rest and the first port of call is Sayers to buy a sausage roll, ring doughnut and carton of orange squash. Then it's across the road past Marks and Spencer towards the Co-op Department Store. The offices of the Birkenhead & District Co-operative Society are on the first floor, above which there is a large hall used for various purposes such as amateur dramatics, ballroom dancing, and orchestral practice. Having paid £1 to become a member, I am entitled to use all facilities including the full size table tennis table.

I do enjoy a game of ping-pong and usually compete against Phil from the warehouse, playing the best of three for a 25p bet. My game is based on a defensive strategy, whereby the simple aim is to get the ball back on to my opponent's side of the net, forcing him to make a mistake and lose the point. Phil is an exhibitionist who loves nothing more than a pile-driving glory shot, which looks brilliant when it comes off. Unfortunately, like Des O'Connor's music career, there are more misses than hits for Phil. I have started to feel guilty about taking so much money off him and have suggested we play for fun, but he will not contemplate it. His exhibitionist tendencies are matched only by his eternal optimism. All in all, I am happy when Julian agrees to play a match without any cash being at stake.

Before we start, there is the ritual of getting the bats and equipment from Roger the caretaker. This man has the persona of a drag queen, though without the ball gown, tiara, and lipstick. He wears thick horn-rimmed spectacles and is a picture of bri-nylon, brushed cotton and stale perspiration. On the face of it, he is a nice guy with a pleasant manner. Unfortunately, the wearying thing is that his every sentence is soaked in suggestiveness. Roger is Mr. Innuendo personified; a true one man _Carry On_ film.

'Hi boys, have you come to play with my balls?' This is Roger's habitual opening line.

'Good afternoon.' I am always careful how I engage with him. The slightest slip and he will pounce with a saucy line or two. Give him an inch and he will give you six inches in return.

He eyes my friend up and down. Jules has recently shaved off his beard and cut his hair a little shorter, accentuating his dark good looks. 'Hello, I see you've brought someone new to share your grunting and thrusting upstairs.' Roger likes what he sees, his eyes focussing on the Levi jeans that are hugging Julian's thighs like a frightened child with its mother.

'Yeah, have you got the bats Roger?' I say, with slight exasperation.

'I don't believe he's handled my equipment before has he?'

'Come on Roger, my sausage roll's going cold here.' Regrettably, my embarrassment in front of Julian at these pantomime exchanges has paved the way for a classic own goal against the Co-op man.

'Ooh, you don't want your sausage going cold do you? Particularly at this time of the year with Christmas just around the corner!'

It is a relief when we are finally walking up the stairs to play. I am beginning to think that the £1 lifetime membership fee was not such a bargain after all.

In the hall itself with its huge, incomprehensible mural depicting agricultural labourers, the table tennis table is resting on its side next to a raised stage that houses a battered upright piano. We sit on a couple of isolated chairs and eat our lunch to talk about the fantastic news that we have managed to get a gig at the world famous Cavern Club in Liverpool next Sunday 17th December. It is a special 'Battle of the Bands' night and we have the half hour slot from 8.30pm. One of the organisers heard about our residency at the St John's Social Club and came along to see us play, after which he invited us to perform at the Cavern show.

Objectively speaking, the old Beatles venue no longer has the prestige it had in the 1960s when it was the place 'where it's at'. The 'it' has long moved on, but there are still a lot of decent rock groups who play there. Ged and Brian went to see Budgie a few months back, so it definitely feels for us like one-step closer towards the Liverpool Stadium. The talk is that the show will attract talent scouts from record companies on the search for the next Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple, so we are taking no chances. We have been practising every hour we can spare at the Funeral Home.

The sausage roll and doughnut combination is now sitting uncomfortably in my stomach, indicating that it is time to get the equipment and set everything up for an energetic game of table tennis and an accompanying bout of indigestion. We carry the table to the middle of the floor, leaving plenty of room for the playing style of a Phil the pile-driver. Julian, however, is from more reserved stock, and his approach reflects his personality, laid back and composed. Our tactics cancel one another out, so a series of endless rallies take place. This, however, enables our conversations to continue as we play, and once we have exhausted talking about the Cavern gig, Julian drops a bit of a bombshell.

'Tom, I thought you should be one of the first to know.'

'What's that Jules?' I return his backhand lob with a backhand lob.

'I've bought an engagement ring for Amanda.'

Julian wins the point. I do not even play a shot.

'You seem a bit shocked old man?'

I over compensate, 'Shocked? No!' I laugh nervously. 'No, that's great news, congratulations.'

It sounds like a disastrous idea to me and not just because of the salon incident. I am thinking of Brenda's counsel at the chip shop, adamant that her sister needed a bad boy, and she should know. Julian is a gentleman, someone she will tire of very quickly. My serve goes straight into the net for the second time in succession.

'I've not asked her yet, but I'm very confident the answer will be yes.' Julian sends a gentle forehand return that I miss completely.

'Can I say something Jules?'

'Go ahead my good man.'

We stop playing. 'Don't you think it's a bit young to get engaged? I mean, she's a real catch, but why not wait until you've done your degree. If she's the one, I'm sure it can wait.'

Julian looks pensive and puts the bat up to his mouth to silence himself. He eventually says, 'Your serve Tom.'

It seems that talk about his engagement is over for now. I try a forehand topspin serve that hits a very small divot on Julian's side of the playing surface, and the ball spins off at an acute angle to the right. It is totally unplayable. I apologise to my friend, but he simply congratulates me on 'the shot of the match', ever the gent. We only have time for the one game, which I win comfortably in the end 21-17. We tidy away the equipment and finish our orange squash.

'On reflection old man, I think you're right about the engagement.'

Julian's sudden declaration has caught me slightly off guard.

'Listen Jules, if you want to get engaged, you get engaged. What the hell do I know about such things?'

'No Tom, I really appreciate your honesty. I'll put the idea on the back burner for now. Anyhow, we've the Cavern in a few days, and I shouldn't have any distractions.'

I open the door and gesture Tom through. 'I can't argue with that point.'

We are walking down the stairs when Julian says, 'Have you seen anything of Sofia in the last few weeks?'

This innocent question sets off a few butterflies in my stomach. 'No, we haven't spoken since I injured my toe.' Despite repeatedly telling myself to forget her, my unwavering feelings towards her feel like a life sentence.

'That's a shame.'

We return the bat, balls and net to Roger downstairs before we leave. I keep my fingers crossed that he is busy elsewhere, but there is no such luck. He is on hand to deliver a few more gems of smutty insinuation.

'My word boys, your balls feel really warm in my hands.'

'Thanks Roger.' I am trying to respond with a bat as straight as the one John Edrich employs when facing the first delivery of a test innings against the West Indies at Lords.

'And which one of you sporty boys won the game?'

Julian edges one to the slips. 'I'm afraid he beat me. I had no answer to his delicate touch.'

'He 'beat you' and he had a 'delicate touch'. My word, that's what I call the best of both worlds.' Roger sounds more like Dick Emery by the second. 'Are you going to 'come' again tomorrow?'

The £1 lifetime membership has turned out to be daylight robbery.

*

I have said my goodbyes to Julian and am heading back to Strathconas for the afternoon shift. Beneath my feet, I see an empty Park Drive cigarette packet and start to kick it as I walk along Liscard Road. In my head, I am Brian Hall passing the ball out wide to Steve Heighway who shimmies past the defender and sends a wonderful ball across into the penalty box where John Toshack is running in to blast the ball into the back of the net.

'Pick that up lad.'

I glance up to see a police officer with a big helmet and stern expression. I do as I am told and walk sheepishly away to place it in a bin by the zebra crossing. As I discard the make-do football, I see the back of a green MG sports car driving away from the town centre. Sofia? I curse. Has she just been to the shop? Roddy has been covering for me during the lunch hour, and so I quicken my step, anxious to discover the answer to my question.

Inside the store there are no customers in the record department, only Roddy tidying some of the album sleeve racks. He sees me approaching.

'Hey Tom, someone has just been in here asking for you... very pretty girl.' He has volunteered the information in his softly spoken tones before I even ask.

My pace drops but my heartbeat increases and spirits lift. 'Did she leave a message?'

'No... she bought that 'Crocodile Rock' single and ordered the album due out next month.'

'What exactly did she say?' I am doing my best to hide any hint of hysteria in my voice.

'You seem pretty keen on this girl.'

'Well, erm, I...'

'I don't blame you for a minute. She's a very attractive young woman.' Roddy delivers his verdict like a maiden aunt to her favourite nephew. 'Anyway, I was just serving her and she asked where you were... that's all.'

'Oh.'

Roddy senses a little anti-climax on my part. 'But she was very disappointed that you were out.'

'Was she?'

'Very much so.'

This buoys me up, and I join him behind the counter. 'Where's the order?' I am breathless as I talk.

The quiet Scot raises both eyebrows and smirks as he passes the buff coloured book to me. I quickly thumb through its pink pages, until I get to the latest entry. It reads:

TITLE: Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player

ARTIST: Elton John

LABEL: DJM Records

RELEASE DATE: 26th January 1973

CUSTOMER NAME: Sofia Moretti

CUSTOMER ADDRESS n/a

PHONE NO: West Kirby 6841

I have her contact number but not her address. There is a telephone directory under the counter, which I grab. I search frantically for the surname Moretti. There are two entries. The first is 22 Seabourne Road, Wallasey, and the other, 12 Leas Hay, West Kirby. There is no excuse now. The ball is in my court.

A few seconds later, there is an explosion... not exactly Hiroshima but an explosion nonetheless. The fire alarm immediately starts ringing, and we exit the building along with the rest of the staff and the few customers in the store. Jack from Home Electricals appears wearing a devastated expression, the type you see on the face of locals in a news bulletin when an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale has just wreaked devastation in their area. Jack's trauma is less newsworthy. He explains that his favourite product, the vacuum cleaner that floats on a cushion of air, has spontaneously combusted. He is bereft, with the air of a man whose belief systems have collapsed around him. I want to tell him that it is only a vacuum cleaner, but I do not think he will be listening.

The Fire Brigade soon arrives to contain the small fire that has ensued. The geriatric looks a relieved man at the outcome. He is heard thanking God that very little stock is affected. It does not go unnoticed that he has given no thought as to the staff's welfare. I see an image in my head of him punching the air with joy that a Sony Trinitron TV is undamaged, while Betty from the Cash Office burns to a crisp.

The good news for me is that the shop is to remain closed for the rest of the day. I now have a free afternoon, and I quickly decide what to do.

I race to the number 10 stop just in time to catch the bus to Birkenhead Park Station. After a five minute wait on the platform, I am on the train to West Kirby, a trip of about twenty-five minutes. I try to put thoughts of Sofia out of my mind. I want this afternoon to remain spontaneous. I therefore spend the journey gazing out of the window at the houses, the trees and the fields, listening to the metronomic rhythm of the wheels on the railway tracks... I wish my drumming was as efficient.

I emerge from West Kirby Station into the frostiness of this December day, biting even with its bright sunshine and clear blue sky. I stroll past a tearoom and almost expect to see Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson enjoying a _Brief Encounter_. I buy a street map from a local newsagent who oddly resembles Adolf Hitler without the moustache and search for Leas Hay. It is located at the Hoylake end of Meols Drive, and I realise that I should have alighted at the station before West Kirby. I now have a long walk. The adrenaline that has driven me here is beginning to subside, feeding doubts as to the wisdom of my actions. Nonetheless, I press on.

I pass my first landmark on the right, St Andrew's Church, and I glance across to see the increasingly grand properties on the opposite side of the road. Built from red brick, terracotta and timber framing, they are set well back from the main road, their fronts hidden by shrubs and trees flourishing in the spacious front gardens. It is more than evident that Sofia lives in a locale somewhat more prosperous than my own. If the analogy was a car, this is Jaguar territory, and mine is a homemade go-kart with the wheels hanging off and the rope steering mechanism frayed to within an inch of snapping.

I eventually turn into Leas Hay, a small lane off Meols Drive, and I tentatively approach number 12. There is a long, crescent-shaped gravel driveway that splits in two, in one direction towards the front of the house and in the other towards a large garage, outside of which is parked Sofia's MG in front of a maroon coloured Jaguar Mk II. I was right about the car analogy. I have butterflies in my stomach when I walk past the gate and hear the crunch of my desert boots on the red stones. What am I doing here? What am I going to say? What if Danny is in the house? There are countless doubts now flashing through my mind, and I am very close to running back to the station. However, a little voice tells me to go on, and for once, I hear and obey its command.

The Jaguar Mk II is my favourite motor car of all time, mainly because I used to pass one every morning on my way to primary school, after dodging the dog poo and streams of wee in the entry. I would be awestruck, gazing at the dials and markings of the speedometer. Speeds of 130 or 140 mph were the stuff of dreams as a child. If my dad's car ever reached 35 mph, it was enough for me to imagine I was an astronaut re-entering the earth's atmosphere. I find myself taking a quick detour to stop and stare at the walnut fascia and the sumptuous leather upholstery of the luxury vehicle. It takes a familiar voice to shock me into the here and now.

'Hello, can I help you?'

'Sofia.'

She is next to me with a cardboard box on the floor by her side.

'Hello Tom.'

'I'm erm...'

'Trying to steal my dad's car?'

'No...'

She laughs and affectionately touches my upper arm with her gloved hand. I relax. She is happy to see me.

'I'm off to set up a stall for a Craft Fair tonight. Would you like to join me?'

Sofia looks fantastic in a red smock coat with white fur edging, not a million miles away from Father Christmas but three billion times more captivating. A chorus the size of Westminster Choir screams for me to accept the invitation.

'Brilliant. I'd love to.' At the age of eighteen, I never expected to feel such elation at the prospect of involvement in the world of lace doilies, knitted toilet roll covers, and hedgehogs dressed in candy-striped dungarees.

'Shouldn't you be in work?' she asks.

'Well thanks to an exploding Hoover, I've got the afternoon off.' I explain about the minor 999 emergency from earlier.

'And so you thought you'd come here to double-check that order for Elton John's new album?'

'Sort of...'

'I must remember to be more careful with my contact details in the future.'

'Right...'

She sees a slight flicker of alarm in my reaction. 'I'm joking stupid. I'm glad you came.' She again touches my arm and the world feels good. 'Come on, we best get going.' She unlocks the boot of the MG and lifts the box inside. 'How's your toe by the way?'

'Much better thank you.'

Elton John is playing on the car's cassette player. We talk about the meaning of 'Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters' for the duration of the journey, to some a waste of five minutes, but today it seems a very natural and the right thing to do. Sofia parks the car on Hoylake Promenade in sight of the vast expanse of sand dunes that stretch out some distance towards Liverpool Bay on the horizon. We cross the road to the community hall with me carrying the box. The premises appear to be a converted school. It has a corridor that threads its way through the building with a number of glass-fronted rooms on either side. I am seven again and can almost smell the chalk, the stale milk, and Miss Goldfield's perfume. Sofia guides us into the last room on the left. Inside there are three trestle tables set out in a U-shape. Two have assorted craft goods on display while the third is empty, and so I place the box on this one.

'Gee whizz, it's cold in here,' says Sofia.

'I know.' I blow into my cupped hands to generate some warmth. 'Here, let me turn this on.'

The three-bar electrical fire with its artificial glowing coals looks incongruous against the background of the green-varnished bricks climbing up the lower reaches of the wall behind. I try the switch, but it fails to heat up. Sofia has a word with someone who promises to get help. In the meantime, we load the tabletop with a variety of hand-painted woodland creature figurines, from foxes to badgers, red squirrels to owls, and rabbits to deer, all dressed to the nines.

'Where are these little fellas from?' I ask.

'My aunt makes the figures and I do the clothes.'

'You must have a small sewing machine.'

'Hand sewn, if you don't mind.'

The adjacent table has goods on display that appear to be paying homage to Ancient Greece. There are painted plates with images of Greek soldiers, a few mini Acropolis models, and a selection of gargoyles.

'Bloody hell.'

'What's up?' says Sofia.

'Look at the gargoyles.'

'Oh my God!'

I have notice that each of these grotesque monsters has an erect penis the size of a cooling tower at Battersea Power Station. 'Who the hell's going to buy one of them?'

'God knows,' she replies, 'and what on earth will the vicar's wife say?'

'I'll have one of those please. I'll use it as a seat.'

She squeals a high pitch squeal. 'Oh Tom!'

Our laughter is interrupted by an electrician who comes in to check the fire.

'Christ, you haven't wasted any time have you?' he says.

I simply cannot believe it. Sofia's ex Danny is addressing me directly with a Mafiosi-style expression, full of false bonhomie and menace. 'Sniffing 'round my girl.' He turns to Sofia. 'What's it been? About a week?'

'He's just a friend,' she replies.

My mood lifts and sinks simultaneously. The incident has confirmed that Danny and Sofia are no longer a couple but 'just a friend'? I am not expecting her to say 'he's the love of my life' but I would have preferred her to demonstrate a little less conviction in downplaying my presence.

'I bet.' Danny shakes his head and proceeds to change the fuse on the appliance.

It is clear that her former partner is an electrician who happens to be working in this building, driving a train through the first meeting with Sofia that I have initiated. This is more than bad luck. There is silence as we finish the stall, and he fixes the fire.

'Right, that's working. It was the fuse.' He gathers up his tool bag and goes to leave but then stops to face Sofia. He is hesitant and seems to be struggling to find the right words. 'It's not too late you know Sofe.' There is a plaintive edge to his voice.

'Please go Danny,' she replies, busying herself with the placement of the figurines on the table.

'Right, see you soon then.'

The bravado and aggression has gone, replaced by melancholy and undertones of yearning. I do not feel sorry for him, but at least he is showing a softer side. He whispers something in her ear before leaving without making any further eye contact.

The room might be getting warmer but the atmosphere has chilled in the last few minutes. I know Sofia is not angry with me, but the exchanges with Danny have upset her, and she is not saying anything.

'Do you want a lift to the station?' she finally asks.

'Yes, that would be great.' I do not mean a word it.

We are soon back in the MG. Elton is still playing, but this time there is no discourse on the meaning of the song. I quietly sing along to myself, gently patting my legs to the beat until the car swings into the railway car park, which I observe is shaped like a comma written with a flourish. Sofia stops outside the ticket office and keeps the engine running. She is gazing out of the front windscreen. Half an hour ago, I had visions of inviting her out for a drink, but my confidence has all but drained away.

'The band is playing at the Cavern on Sunday?' It is the best I can manage.

'That's nice.'

'We're only on for half an hour, but it should be fun.'

'Yes, it should be.'

She is distracted, though I pluck up the courage to ask, 'Sofia? Would you like to come to the gig?'

She turns around and looks at me. Her eyes are a little moist. We are now staring at one another. This feels very different from when we first met. I would be so tongue-tied that I would be rude and abrupt, yet not today. We both instinctively lean towards one another and kiss. It is the gentlest of kisses, our lips barely touching and lasting just a few seconds. Our senses revive on hearing a dog bark, and we sit back upright in our car seats. Then I hear a sob. Sofia is gently crying. I move my right arm around her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. Her upper body slightly shakes, though a few seconds later; she is composing herself again.

'Are you OK?'

'Yes, I'll be fine. I'm just being silly.' She reaches for a tissue from her handbag and dabs around her eyes.

I realise that my train is due.

'If you can make it next Sunday, we'll be in the Grapes on Mathew Street at 7 o'clock. Perhaps your cousin could come with you.'

'Thanks for the visit today Tom. I've enjoyed it.'

'My pleasure. And good luck at the Craft Fair.'

'Thank you.'

I get out of the car, close the door, and wave to her as she drives off. Maybe this has been our own _Brief Encounter_ moment. My emotions are a compound of love, joy, and sorrow. Outside Hoylake Station, I glance up above and see the beginnings of dusk and the stars that will soon be shining brightly in the clear sky. Ironic really, that it's cloudless. I am now walking on cloud nine from kissing Sofia, while paradoxically a dark cloud is beginning to gather in my head.

14. The Grapes of Wrath

Tonight's Cavern gig is the first big chance for Plain Truth. The 'Battle of the Bands' is a cheap way of promoters filling a venue. None of us are being paid a penny, but the exposure is great and a million miles from the amateurism of _Talent Aplenty_. It may be only two months since our re-launch, yet we have had tons of practice and a fair number of live gigs under our belt at St John's. As soon as we got the slot, we knew the correct set list was vital, immediately discarding anything pop. The Cavern may have been home to Merseybeat, thereby shaping the whole genre of pop music, but it is now a venue for rock, and heavy rock at that. We also recognise the importance of our own material, so the band has written two of our five numbers. The song list is:

'Walkin' with a Mountain'

'Revelation'

'Across the Water'

'Whole Lotta Love'

'Johnny B Goode' / 'Great Balls of Fire' / 'Lucille'

We do not think any other band will play 1950s rock and roll, precisely the type of material The Beatles performed in the historic cellar a decade earlier. The hope is that our closing tribute to Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard will resonate with the crowd and impress any visiting would be manager or record label man.

One of the best things about the gig is the use of the equipment provided by the organisers. I am delighted to be playing on a Ludwig drum kit. The place itself is a bit of a seedy hole and reeks of decline, but nothing can diminish the excitement we are all feeling this evening... well all except Brian, who is as laid back as ever.

We are in the Grapes pub, and I am reflecting on my invite to Sofia. It was always likely that she would not come, but a small part of me is still hanging on to a hope that she will walk in through the door. There is quite a crowd in tonight, and our small round wooden table is surrounded by chairs and a strong smell of Higson's beer. Behind us there are dark wood panels, above which a framed photograph of The Beatles hangs on faded wallpaper with a thistle and heather pattern. As well as the band, Amanda, Brenda, and Brian's mate Pothead are here enjoying a pre-gig drink. For probably the first time in my life, I am in a pub not caring about looking under age. I may now be eighteen and carrying a copy of my birth certificate wherever I go, but I still tend to feel self-conscious in such situations, though not tonight.

It is my turn to go to the bar and get the drinks, alcoholic for the girls and Pothead, but Coca-Cola for the boys. I struggle to get served, seemingly restricted by my innate English politeness and an unwillingness to push myself forward to the front of the queue. It seems 'after you' has no place in a Liverpool pub in 1972. Eventually a barmaid takes pity on me and holding up my birth certificate, I give her my order. By the time I am manoeuvring a full tray of glasses back to our table, the place has become even busier. I notice that our group seems to have lost Brian and Pothead.

'Where the fuck's Brian?' says Ged.

'He was with that Pothead chap a few minutes ago.' Julian takes the drinks off me.

'Well he can't be that far.' I strain my neck to try to locate him in the busy lounge. 'We should be able to find Pothead in this crowd.'

Brian's mate is about six foot six and about eight stone. He is the original long, tall streak of piss.

'Well he better make himself known in the next few minutes, 'cos we've got a fucking gig and a half to play.'

*

Ten minutes later and there is still no sign of him.

'Listen chaps,' says Julian, 'what say we go and check out the competition.'

'What about Brian?' I ask.

'I'll find the gobshite for you,' says Brenda. 'You lot sod off to the gig, and we'll catch up with you later.'

Julian, Ged, and I acquiesce and leave the Grapes to go and watch the first band, allowing the last vestiges of hope that Sofia might grace me with her presence to evaporate into the cold winter night air.

The entrance to the Cavern is small enough for a smartly dressed bouncer with a bald head polished like a chrome bumper to block the way in to the venue. He acknowledges Julian and lets us through to walk down the stone steps, at the base of which there is a right turn opening out into three tunnels. In a previous life, this underground area acted as a warehouse to store products that had arrived via the Liverpool docks, and the premises seem to have inherited a mixture of odours from long ago to accompany the dominant smells of disinfectant and sweat. We take our coats and journey through clouds of cigarette smoke to the cloakroom in the first tunnel and then move towards the middle one with its small wooden stage at the end of a long arch of red bricks.

The audience is building all the time, and though it is still quite early, people have to squeeze past one another to get a decent view. I notice one man, at least ten years older than the rest of the crowd, standing towards the back, surreptitiously making a few jottings in a small notebook. His hair is styled in a ponytail, and he is wearing Wranglers and a pinstriped suit jacket. We decide he is a record label man. It ratchets our excitement up another notch.

The opening act is a four piece called Maelstrom, and though there is a clinical proficiency about them, their performance is lacking any kind of inspiration. There is not much of a tune heard in what is an ordinary rock sound. We exchange smug glances, recognising that we have the beating of these boys. They play their final song and leave the small stage to generous, though hardly thunderous applause. The record man is not too animated.

The second band is a three-piece called The Sam Wilson Encounter whose front man, presumably Sam himself, has based his whole image and stage persona on the late great Jimi Hendrix. Unfortunately, he is a third rate Hendrix, not least because he has hair like a ginger biscuit and a face the colour of a virgin bride's wedding dress. Their first song, a piece of plagiarism more thinly veiled than a Soho stripper, is called 'Voodoo Bile' and lasts fifteen minutes, including a ten minute meandering guitar solo from Sam himself on a predictably white Fender Stratocaster. The song finally ends with Sam telling the audience to 'fuck off' for no apparent reason. The reaction has moved up a level, but it is nowhere near ecstatic. The record man still does not look too engaged. I check my watch and see that we are on in fifteen minutes.

'Still no Brian?' My words carry more than a hint of anxiety.

'Where the fuck is he?' says Ged, 'I thought Brenda was getting him for us?'

'Come on gents, let's find him,' says Julian.

We force our way through the audience towards the exit. I am now thankful that Sofia is not here. The atmosphere is more sweaty and uncomfortable than a Greek Wrestler's jock strap. It is a relief when we hit the cool air of Mathew Street, but this respite is short-lived. Outside the Grapes, we see Brenda effortlessly propping up Brian in some vain attempt to get him to cross the road. I can't see Amanda.

Brenda spots us. 'He's fucking stoned,' she shouts. 'We found him outside the gents with that lanky get puffing on some contraption'.

Brian's speech is slurred, but we can just about hear the words, 'Bad shit.'

'I'll give you fucking bad shit you dick,' says Ged, launching himself at our near comatose band mate.

Julian and I react quickly and do our best to restrain him but frustration-fuelled adrenaline is surging through Ged's physiology and he is so strong, it is not until Brenda grabs him by the collar and launches him into the road, that we finally gain control.

'You stupid shit face! What good is that going to do, you dozy bucket of kangaroo kak!' she bawls, showing more of a way with words than her accused.

Ged submits immediately and apologises for his outburst. It proves conclusively that he has more than met his match with Brenda.

Pothead makes an appearance, and although he tries to stagger towards us, he finds it too difficult and falls back on to the pavement in front of the pub. It is 8.20pm. We are due to go on stage for the biggest gig of our lives in ten minutes, and our lead singer is stoned off his head with his mate lying unconscious on the pavement. It all looks utterly hopeless, yet inconceivably, our prospects then take a turn for the worse. Two police officers turn into Mathew Street, and there is every chance the coppers will assume that Ged has just battered these two hippies and then arrest him for GBH.

Brenda reacts decisively. 'You three get in there and do your thing. We'll take care of the fuzz,' she says.

'We haven't got a singer,' I protest.

'You'll have no fucking lead guitarist in a minute if you don't shift your arses! Now get in there and do your stuff.'

She means business, and we are soon inside the Cavern again. Both Julian and Ged appear to have lost heart, and there is an air of despondency about them, yet I suddenly feel energised. It is a little bit of a déjà vu, being reminiscent of how I felt at the Social Club after the calamitous gig with Dick. I decide to mobilise the troops.

'Listen guys, we mustn't back out now.'

'Come on Tom lad, what's the point without Brian?' says Ged.

'There's every point! We're the heart and soul of this band. Remember, we were a trio when we had the original dream of playing the Liverpool Stadium back in my front room. That was less than a year ago, and look at us now! There's a man in there, probably from one of the record labels in London, looking for fresh talent. We can't throw away this chance, Brian or no Brian. Let's go in there and do it as a three-piece.'

My words seem to revive the others and within seconds, we are discussing the practicalities of the set list. We drop the Led Zeppelin number because none of us can reach those top Robert Plant notes, and replace it with the less vocally ambitious 'Black Magic Woman'. Aside from that, we reckon we are OK. We rush to the third tunnel and the dressing room at its far end. The organiser is blowing his top, but Julian uses his charm to calm things down and five minutes late at 8.35pm, an announcement comes over the PA:

' _Let's hear it for Plain Truth.'_

There is a decent sized cheer as we take to the stage, but I have an immediate moment of panic, because I have forgotten my drumsticks. Fortunately, there is a spare pair on the floor underneath the stool, so when the other guys are plugged in and have turned up the volume on their amps, we are ready to go.

' _Evening Liverpool!'_

Ged's war cry shows he is ready for action. The crowd roars back, and it is looking good. I take the lead vocal on our opening number, 'Walkin' with a Mountain'. We do a boisterous version, and it goes down really well, probably the best reaction of the evening so far. I strain my head in an attempt to see the response of the record man, but it is so smoky and crowded that I cannot locate him.

The next two songs are our own compositions, and after the storming opener, they are both fairly pedestrian. We do not disgrace ourselves, but there is a feeling that we are losing momentum. Things do not improve when we perform the substitute 'Black Magic Woman', which is competent but not over-inspiring. However, not all is lost, for we have the rock and roll medley to revive our fortunes.

Ged counts us in, and we start 'Johnny B Goode' at a faster tempo than normal. The crowd loves it. There must be fifty or sixty people close to the stage, all jumping up and down to Chuck Berry's classic. The golden days of rock and roll may be nigh on fifteen years ago, but the magic still lives on. Ged and Jules are more animated than usual in their playing tonight, and with me stuck at the rear of the small stage, I am only getting fleeting glances of the audience. However, when I see the pony-tailed record man clapping his hands to us, the joy is enough to compel me to drum an extra snare to tom tom roll and cymbal crash. We are a fledgling band, yet our big break may be imminent. Unfortunately, the fickle hand of fate is about to stick two fingers up to Plain Truth.

The guitars suddenly go silent, leaving only my drums and a mixture of cheering and screaming. The place is in complete darkness, except for a few cigarettes ends glowing like fireflies in a tropical night sky. There has been a power cut. I stop drumming. The diminutive flame from the flicker of a lighter reveals disappointment etched across our faces. We can only curse this misfortune.

Under the light a lit match, the organiser, evidently the twin brother of the bouncer on the door, addresses the crowd and explains that power has been lost. He invites everybody to leave the building in a calm manner until things are back to normal. The request is met with a chorus of resigned jeering and a sprinkling of 'fuck offs', more than one from Ged.

It is a slow journey through the dark and the dank, up the stone steps and back to civilisation and street light. By the time I emerge, wearing only a tee shirt, into what is now light snow falling in Mathew Street; I have become separated from Ged and Julian. The cold is very welcome, and there is an obvious relief at being able to gulp fresh air. Milling around the entrance, I bump into Brenda.

'How goes it soft lad,' she says. It could be Ged talking. 'Power cut then?'

'I know, just as we were getting going. Where's Brian?'

'Well, at this moment, Brian and what's his name...'

'Pothead.'

'Dickhead more like... anyway, they're preparing to spend a night locked up in the cells. Like me on my first date with that animal of yours on lead guitar, they've been grabbed by the fuzz.'

'Crikey... what did you say?'

'Be careful down there, you're not plucking a bloody chicken.'

'Not to Ged, to the police.'

'We just disowned them... said we'd never met them before.'

'And where's Amanda?'

'Over there somewhere.' She points to the Grapes.

Through the crowds, I can see her on the pavement talking to and giggling with a familiar face. It is Danny, Sofia's ex-boyfriend. There is a fair amount of mutual touching going on. His fingers thread through her blond hair, and he strokes her cheek. She reciprocates with her hands tucked into the chest pockets of his leather jacket. I swivel my head to locate Julian, and I spot him by the entrance to the Cavern in conversation with Ged and a couple of members from the Maelstrom band. He has not seen Amanda's shameless flirting, though I rather wish he had. She does not deserve him.

Danny notices me, and we nervously acknowledge one another like a pair of gunslingers about to duel. To my surprise, he whispers something to Amanda and then heads towards me. I feel my body stiffen and my heart beat increase. I suddenly start to feel the cold.

'Alright mate,' he says. For once, there is no indication that he wants to chin me.

'Hi.'

'You've got a good band there.'

'Cheers, yeah, it's just a pity the power went when it did.'

A shaft of light appears from the Cavern entrance and everyone cheers. The power is back on. Fate has determined that my conversation with Danny is going to be as brief as a conversation with Peter, my brother-in-law. We nod our heads before I traipse back into the venue, primed to restart the rock and roll medley. Unfortunately, the organiser, rubbing his bald head with a masturbating right hand, has other ideas.

'Sorry boys, your slot's over now. We're moving on to the next act.'

'But hang on a minute,' I protest, 'we were in the middle of our final song.'

'You were five minutes late starting, if you remember, so tough shit.' He displays the charm of a vindictive traffic warden.

We continue to object, but the man in charge ignores our protestations. Even Julian is impotent. We are left to rue the fact that fate has taken away the chance of a standing ovation in front of the record label man. Life can be cruel. We hang around for the next couple of acts, and they are both better than us. It appears that the promoter has been careful about the running order of the bands, intent on leaving the best until last. There is a growing sense of anti-climax about the evening, and not long after ten o'clock, we decide to go home.

Sitting on the train, I wonder if the Cavern date has been Plain Truth's swansong. We started the evening as a four-piece full of hope, and ended as a threesome full of disappointment and dejection.

Julian, with Amanda leaning onto his shoulder, notices my sombre mood. 'Everything OK old man?'

'Yeah, not too bad,' I reply, rather unconvincingly.

'Oh, I have some good news chaps.'

'What's that Jules?' Ged has his arm around Brenda's shoulder, and it does not look long enough for the task.

'Clever Amanda here has managed to organise another gig for the band on Saturday at a private 21st birthday party.' Jules squeezes his girlfriend towards him as he speaks.

'Where's the venue lad?'

'Above the ABC Cinema in Liscard.'

'Good girl. How much fucking spondees are we getting?'

'£100.'

'£100!' I am incredulous. I would have to put in more than a few shifts at Strathconas to earn that kind of money.

'Fuck me, that's over £33 each.' Ged shows a previously hidden skill for mental arithmetic.

'What about Brian?' I ask.

'Fuck Brian,' says Ged, 'he let us down tonight, and he'll let us down again.'

'Listen chaps,' says Jules, 'we don't have to decide Brian's fate here and now. Let's give it a few days.'

We all agree.

I suppose the 21st birthday party gig is a timely reminder that tonight is not going to be the end. In many ways, it is the beginning. We are a young band that has only been performing in earnest for a few months. We will get better and better as time moves on. Maybe then, we will get the call from a man in jacket and jeans with a ponytail. Patience and persistence will be important.

We pull into the next station, and I see a map of the local railway displayed against a brick pillar on the platform. My eyes follow the route from Birkenhead to Hoylake and West Kirby, and I think of Sofia. Although relieved that she stayed at home this evening, what of the next step? In a rare moment of decisiveness, I vow to give her a call. The time seems right for resolution.

At Grove Road Station, Amanda, Julian, Ged and Brenda get into a Ford Cortina taxi and head for their respective homes. I walk to the bus stop and wait for the number 2a. From the famous Liverpool Cavern to the 2a bus... hardly Rock and Roll.

15. Love Hurts

I am at home reading the latest edition of the _Melody Maker._ It is the evening after the Cavern gig, and I am biding my time as I build up the courage to call Sofia. I read that The Who are taking their 'Tommy' show to the USA; Bob Dylan is to star in a new film; and I can win a mobile disco on page 14. A Christmas decoration in the form of a multi-coloured paper chain becomes detached from the picture rail and strikes me on the head. The house at this time of year is a splash of garish colours. Red, green, silver, and gold strips of tinsel, as threadbare as Bobby Charlton's crown, weave their way from one wall to the other, although on the positive side, the seasonal décor does a sterling job covering up the Eduardo nudes.

After giving up on the prospects of owning my own mobile disco, I take a deep breath and pull from my pocket a small piece of crumpled paper. Written in spidery long hand is Sofia's phone number. I place the music weekly on the kidney shaped coffee table and walk slowly into the hall. My stomach churns, when I dial the number. I hear the first ring and start counting them. On the tenth, the line clicks and she answers.

'Hello?'

'Is that Sofia?'

'Yes.'

'It's Tom here... Tom Kellaway from Strathconas.' Christ, you would think I was Jack from Electricals selling a spin drier.

'Oh hi.'

Her reaction is flat. That is it. I know straight away that she is not interested. Yet I retain the persistence of Jack with an apathetic customer.

'I was wondering if we could meet up one night, perhaps for a drink.'

There is silence. She does not want to.

Still I persevere. 'Just for a quick chat.'

'Erm...'

'Are you off Wednesday afternoon?'

'Yes.'

'So am I. It's half day closing. I could be at yours for about two.'

'Meet me at the station.'

'Hoylake?'

'West Kirby.'

She is so matter of fact. There are no questions about the Cavern gig and no questions about me. It is all a bit dispiriting. However, when I replace the receiver, a feeling of relief matches the dejection. In two days time, the misery will be over.

*

Wednesday is another cold but sunny December day, and I arrive early at the station in West Kirby. I pass the _Brief Encounter_ tearoom and meander down Meols Drive, planning to waste fifteen minutes or so. When I get to St Andrew's Church, I take a detour and walk through its churchyard. The sun is getting lower in the sky, and I shadow my eyes to view the sandstone structure with its slate roof and spire. My walk follows a path that curves to the left, and it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust from the glare of the sun to focus on the young woman before me. She is sombrely dressed in a light grey woollen coat and black leather boots. It is Sofia, and she has a small brown dog with her, busily sniffing anything and everything it encounters. I have no idea what kind of strange homing instinct has led me here, but here I am. And here she is.

'Hello.' Her serious tone is far removed from the natural friendliness of our previous encounters.

'How are you?'

'Yes, OK.'

Her good-natured little dog, tail wagging furiously, jumps up to greet me. She tells me it is a border terrier, a bitch called Queenie.

'Hello Queenie, aren't you lovely.' I cradle the dog's head as it tries to lick my face like an ice cream.

'I'm walking this way, if that's alright.' Sofia nods her head towards the main road.

'Yeah, that's fine.'

This is a different Sofia. Everything about this scene ought to be ideal... perhaps with the exception of the gravestones and the buried corpses. It is a pleasant, crisp winter's day, and I am walking alongside this beautiful girl and her friendly dog. However, the reality is very different, and it is about to hit even harder. We leave the church grounds, and she delivers the information with the emotion of somebody buying a loaf from the Co-op.

'I'm back with Danny, and we're getting engaged.'

'Good.'

Good? It is a curious thing to say, ostensibly at odds with how I feel. Not only is she back with him, but they are going to marry. Yet at one level, my reaction is spot on. I do not need to comprehend the 'whys' or consider the 'what might have beens'. It is over. My mind is at least clear. I can now move on.

We make the long walk down Meols Drive. There is intermittent talk, though nothing of great significance. It is the conversation of two relative strangers, sourcing just enough common ground to stop things grinding to a halt. When we get to the junction of Leas Hay, I feel Queenie snuggling up against my leg.

Sofia says, 'I have to go now.' There is a slight softening discernible in her voice.

'Fair enough,' I sigh.

I hold out my right hand. It seems I am still acting like Les from Electricals ready to clinch the deal. We shake.

'Goodbye Tom.'

'Goodbye Sofia and good luck.'

I watch her disappear down the road with the ever-enthusiastic Queenie. I turn to head home, sad, disconsolate but crucially, the confusion has left me.

*

The next evening we are in my front room for a meeting of the band at the request of Brian. It transpires that after spending the night in custody, the police released him and Pothead the next morning with just a caution. He now wants to explain things. Julian arrived five minutes ago, but we are still waiting for Ged and for Brian.

There is a knock at the front door. I answer it to find Ged standing there. He looks like an imbecile.

'Bloody hell, what's with the Dave Hill?'

Ged has a new haircut, seemingly inspired by the porridge bowl style of Slade's lead guitarist.

'Fuck off soft lad.'

Even the contained Julian cannot contain himself. 'My word old man, that's erm... quite a look.'

'You can fuck off too Jules.' Ged has not quite adjusted to his new, minimalistic fringe and force of habit sees him straightening an imaginary centre part.

'I assume you've done that yourself.'

'Like fuck Tom, had it done at the hairdressers.'

'At the hairdressers?' Julian and I respond harmoniously with the same words and the same level of incredulity.

'I was with Brenda at her sister's salon, so she cut it for me.'

I cannot believe it. 'Amanda cut it?'

'No, Brenda did.'

That explains it. Brenda evidently does not have the hairdressing gene, but I already know to my own cost that she has a highly developed sense of humour. Ged appears hurt by our reaction, because he is looking worryingly at his reflection in the mirror.

I put 'Muswell Hillbillies' by The Kinks on the Ferguson stereogram. A few minutes into '20th Century Man', the raspberry boom of Brian's van shakes the house, its exhaust evidently playing up again. Out of the window, I see the hippy emerge from the vehicle, smoking what looks like the Mersey Tunnel ventilation shaft. I have never seen such a big contraption.

He greets me with his trademark 'Peace man,' but the two-fingered salute is the wrong way round.

When I point this out, he lowers his index finger to leave the slightly more offensive one-digit version. I inwardly sigh. He hands me his Afghan coat, beneath which he is wearing a long-sleeved tee shirt emblazoned with 'Asimov for President'. I escort him through to the front room.

His first words are to Ged. 'Hey man, love the hair.'

'Oh shit!' exclaims our lead guitarist. The endorsement from Brian has confirmed his worst suspicions. 'Hey Tom lad, have you got a hat?'

I fetch him a woollen one with a bobble, and he sits down at one end of the settee, tucking the longer hair from the sides of his face into his new headgear like a Rastafarian. He is unusually quiet.

When everyone is sitting down, Julian asks Brian to explain the events of last Sunday.

'Thanks guys. I really appreciate this.' Brian picks up his giant pipe and puffs on it.

We exchange a few glances. He seems to have forgotten where he is.

Julian offers some encouragement, bringing him back to the moment. 'So Brian, what happened to you and Pothead?'

'Well man, we met this dude who was selling some shit at a phantasmagorical price. Pothead had a hookah in his haversack, so we bought some and found a quiet corner for a smoke. But man, it was seriously bad shit, one strong son-of-a-bitch compound. Too heavy man, far too heavy. Next thing, we're both on this bad trip.' He takes another puff on his monster appliance.

'Brian, don't you think it's time to lay off the... you know...' says Julian, taking on the role of counsellor.

'Don't worry man, my drug taking days are over. I've given up.'

He has another big inhale, and we stare at one another in disbelief.

'Then why the fuck are you sucking on a bloody chimney from Windscale?' Our man in the bobble hat is regaining his normal self.

'This is no shit man; this is an herbal mixture'

We shrug our shoulders. Brian finally sees the irony of him apologising while smoking a giant herbal concoction. He puts it down on the grate.

'OK Guys, that's it... no shit, no herbs. I want to say sorry for the other night. I let you down.'

Ged stands up to speak. Jules and I brace ourselves.

'Look Brian lad, I'm the one that should be saying sorry. The way I laid into you was totally wrong.'

I am thinking the bobble hat has a power over him, in a positive way, a bit like Bobby's Boots from the _Scorcher_ comic.

'No man, I deserved it.'

'No you didn't you daft get. I shared a bit of that bad shit myself with Brenda, and it made me angry.'

'You took some as well?' I cannot hide a slight sanctimonious tone.

'OK Mary Whitehouse, keep your hair on.'

'That's what you should have done when Brenda had the clippers in her hand.' It is a rare shaft of quick wit from Julian.

'Fuck off.'

We are laughing again and ready to talk about the band. We accept Brian's remorseful pleas and start looking ahead to the weekend's gig. Plain Truth will perform at Saturday night's 21st birthday party as a four piece. With Brian on board, that makes it £25 each rather than £33. Jimmy Jet would not approve.

'Hey guys, I've got a surprise,' says Brian.

Brian is not the most spontaneous of people, so saying he has a surprise is a surprise in itself. He exits the house to return to the van. We congregate in the vestibule and watch in amazement as a stern looking woman gets out of the back wearing a brown fur coat and matching Russian Cossack hat. Her unsmiling face cannot hide impressive cheekbones that support striking looks. She briefly nods, and we respond with a variety of waves and hellos, before she breezes past in the manner of Elizabeth Taylor at the Oscars, automatically turning left and disappearing into the front room.

'Who's that?' I whisper like Bob Harris from _The Old Grey Whistle Test_.

'Ludmilla,' says Brian, unable to hide a smug expression, 'my new chick.'

A perplexed Ged pulls down his bobble hat a touch. 'Fuck me Timothy Leary; you're punching above your weight, aren't you?' If this was meant on a literal basis, that would be some weight.

She appears old enough to be Brian's mother but is undeniably an attractive woman. Christ knows what she sees in the pot-bellied Science Fiction fan with a thatch of half-ironed pubic hair on his head.

'Guess where I met her guys?'

'In the Police Cells?' I suggest.

'Yeah, that's right.'

My joke has discovered the truth. This is becoming a bit surreal. We return to the front room and join Ludmilla. She has already sat down with her hat on her lap and is glancing around the room in obvious distaste. Given the clash of the gaudy Christmas decorations with the shit coloured chairs and settee, this is entirely understandable. Her eyes rest on a small Eduardo nude in the left recess of the chimneybreast. She squints, adopting an expression of seeing something for the first time. The feminine beauty within this hanging masterpiece has a Mark Spitz moustache, tits like a clown's hat, and the back of Tito Jackson's afro nestled in her groin.

I feel impelled to explain to Ludmilla. 'It's my dad.'

'Zat iz your dad!'

'No, no... He's the painter.' Perhaps I should say artist, but painter seems more apt. 'I don't know who she... or it is.'

Ged has picked up my acoustic and is finger-picking in one corner of the room, while Jules and I look on uncomfortably at Brian staring in adoration at his Soviet beauty.

I decide to be the courteous host. 'Ludmilla, there was no need to wait in the van.'

'I not Yoko Ono. I don't want to zpleet ze band'

'Would you like a drink? A cup of tea perhaps?'

'Wodka.'

'Wod..?'

'Wodka!'

'Sorry, we haven't got any wodka.'

She dismisses the talk of a drink with a regal wave of her right hand.

Ged plays 'Greensleeves' and things remain awkward until Julian says, 'May I ask what you do for a living?'

'You may.' She eyes Jules up and down. 'I am proztitute.'

Julian instinctively covers his crotch; Ged breaks a string on the acoustic, ironically the 'G' string, while Brian maintains an expression of unwavering enchantment with his lady of the night. If love is blind, Brian is Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder rolled into one. I do not have to glance at the faces of the other guys to know that they think the same.

Then Ludmilla's severe façade is broken. She starts to giggle, pointing at my trousers. If dressed in my two-tone corduroy split knee loons, I could understand it, but I am wearing a pair of black trousers more sober than a nineteenth-century Presbyterian. She continues to laugh and point, and as I look down, I see why. My flies are open.

'He iz like de Benny Hill. He iz very funny.'

Brian joins in with the laughter, though Ged and Jules remain justifiably impassive, as I pull up my zip.

All of a sudden, Ludmilla sits bolt upright. 'Zat's it,' she says. 'I zought I knew you.'

'Eh?'

' _Talent Aplenty_... trouzers on fire... funny guy.'

Bloody hell... was anyone not at the Town Hall that night?

16. ABC

There is no date tonight at St John's. It is the Social Club's Christmas Party, the time of year when the committee hires a second rate Joe Dolan or Tony Christie for the evening's entertainment. The resident bread and butter artist enjoys the privilege of an unpaid night off. I guess that is show business for you. We have, however, managed to organise an additional practice session at the room above the ABC cinema, the venue for tomorrow night's gig. Following the anti-climax of the Cavern event, we all want Saturday to go well, reinvigorating our hunger for success. A full-blown rehearsal can only help.

It is 7.30pm, and we are outside the cinema, which tonight is showing a film called _The Poseidon Adventure._ We access a door at the side of the cinema's foyer and are soon lugging our gear up a flight of stairs to the function room. I am behind Ged who has found himself another hat, a green Chairman Mao field cap with the blue shield insignia of the Chinese People's Liberation Army on its front. It is very much in keeping with the austerity of the concrete beneath our feet and the metal hand rail on either side. This stairway seems more like a fire escape.

However, when I push open the door to the venue with my right foot, I am surprised at the lushness of the place. The red carpet is sumptuous and the seats a rich, brown leather. It is not quite Liscard's answer to the Garrett Club, but relatively speaking, this is posh. The room is smaller than I expected, oval shaped with tables around the perimeter, a small dance floor in the centre, and a stage raised about one foot from the floor, half way down on the right hand side. There is barely enough space for the amps and the drums, so there is every chance that we are going to look more like commuters on a busy London tube than a performing band.

I roughly count the number of chairs. The place will only cater for about forty or fifty guests, which begs the question as to why the gig's fee is the princely sum of £100? Even with Brian back on board, dividing the spoils for the night gives me the equivalent of two weeks' wages with overtime from Strathconas. This is the first gig where I have thought of earnings from the band and compared them directly with the day job, which makes it some kind of watershed. This is either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.

Ged has soon set up his guitar and is playing a few scales with heavy distortion from his fuzz box. His colourful tank top and cords seem a shade inappropriate next to the Chinese hat, but I guess this is infinitely preferable to putting the haircut from hell on show.

'Nice tone tonight Ged,' I say.

'Yeah, I thought so myself.' He glances down at his clothes and nods to himself.

'Not your outfit, the guitar.'

'Oh yeah, I thought erm...'

I am starting to believe that like Samson shorn of his hair, the cutting of Ged's fringe has taken away his chutzpah.

'Hey Jules, who's the stupid fucker paying us a hundred smacks to play in a place the size of cat's fart?' The chutzpah is back.

'It was just some dude at the Cavern. He liked our sound,' says Julian.

'Probably some fucking rich kid with money to burn and a Ford Capri in the garage.'

Our bass player polishes his bass with a J-cloth. 'I suppose if he is willing to pay £100, we shouldn't bite the hand that feeds us.'

When everything is ready, we go back downstairs to the foyer to buy a few drinks and sweets, not that we are particularly hungry or thirsty. This has as much to do with reliving our childhoods as anything else. The _ABC Minor's Club_ occupied every Saturday morning when we were young. The building evokes a wave of nostalgia and a compulsion for an Everlasting Strip and drink of Tizer. Although she does not remember me, I recognise the woman serving behind the sweet counter with her steel grey hair and face of white powder. It is Joan, the mother of George the Down Syndrome guy, and she is preoccupied reading the climax of her Mills & Boon novel, 'Love The Physician'. She is probably just reading the bit where Nurse Humble is drawn into the strong muscular arms of Doctor Savage and surrenders to his overpowering, masculine charms.

Joan tells us that she does not like serving when the main feature is on, but we ignore her gripe and order some goodies. Reluctantly putting down her book, her face cracks like a meringue on Gas Mark 4, and she gets up to deal with the demands of a group of young men who have regressed to the age of about seven.

Then just as she is handing out the confectionary, we hear the sound of jeering and catcalls coming from the auditorium, followed by the heavy thud of footsteps. A man dressed in shirtsleeves and a peaked cap appears at the foot of the staircase, followed by a guy in a dark suit and matching bow tie who emerges from a side door to our left. It seems that tonight's projectionist and the cinema's manager are about to come to blows.

'What the hell's happening up there?' The manager fumes.

'It's some kind electrical problem,' says the projectionist. He is in a bit of a flap. 'I've no supply to the equipment.'

'Can't you just change the bloody fuse?'

'It's not as simple as that. It could take over an hour to get things sorted.'

'Bloody hell. What are we going to do? I've got a few hundred customers who've paid good money to see tonight's film and they're going to want their cash back!' The manager is fiddling with his bow tie while doing a passable Corporal Jones from _Dad's Army_.

Julian addresses the manager and comes to the rescue.

'Excuse me my good man, may I have a brief word.'

The two instantly stop bickering and give my friend a sceptical stare. Joan has resumed the reading of her book, undoubtedly now absorbing like a sponge the marriage proposal from Doctor Savage and the weeping acceptance from the fragile Nurse Humble.

'I have an idea to help you out of this unfortunate predicament.' Julian's dialect free accent immediately gets the manager's attention.

Everyone, including Ged, Brian, and me are in the dark as to what this idea might be.

We hear more jeering, and the manager presses Julian. 'What idea? Come on, tell me, what idea?'

'Do you think your cinema goers would like to hear a bit of live rock and roll, while you try and fix your electrics?'

'What do you mean live rock and roll?'

'We're a band.' Jules points to the rest of us sucking on toffee bars and drinking pop.

'You don't look exactly like The Beatles.'

'Don't worry, we're good.'

'And pray tell me, where's your musical equipment?'

'Upstairs,' I answer, buoyed by the thought of a performance at one of the landmarks of my youth. I have seen everything from _Bugs Bunny_ to _The Sound of Music_ here. 'It'll only take us about a quarter of an hour to set up the gear.'

'What's the name of the band?' The manager's demeanour is changing.

'Plain Truth.'

'Wait there a minute there boys.'

The manager disappears back into the main auditorium. We go and listen at the exit door and hear him talking to the audience.

' _I'm sorry to inform you, ladies and gentlemen; that the projection equipment has developed a fault, and whilst we are doing everything we can to correct it, this may take some time.'_

The jeering increases in volume, until he is able to get the message across to the disgruntled punters that anyone that wants a refund is entitled to their money back. However, for those who stay, he has an unscheduled musical treat.

' _In a short while, the greatest rock and roll band in the North West of England, Plain Truth, will perform a special concert just for you. I urge everyone to stay seated in readiness for this show of a lifetime.'_

He is overselling the whole thing, but it helps turn the booing into cheers, and most people stay put. The manager returns to the foyer.

'Come on lads; let's get your equipment on to the stage.'

Joan, now dealing with a growing queue of customers for refreshments, does not seem too happy. It appears she will have to wait to read about Doctor Savage shagging Nurse Humble senseless in the Hospital Laundry Room.

*

A frantic fifteen minutes later, and we are waiting in the wings of the cinema's stage with its safety curtain down, ready to perform before an audience of a few hundred people. We hear the squeal of metal on metal followed by the cheers of the audience as the curtain is raised. The manager walks on to a round of applause. A sort of Dunkirk spirit has overtaken the crowd, which augurs well for our performance. The hope is that they will be eager to please and easily pleased at the same time. When the noise has died down, the manager speaks.

' _Ladies & Gentlemen, it's time to put your hands together for the greatest rock and roll band in the world, Plain Truth!'_

In a very short space of time, we have gone from the best in the region to the best on the planet. However, we are not considering such overstatement. We simply run onto the stage to the acclaim, preparing to perform. The days of groups playing cinemas have long since gone, but such concerts by music acts were commonplace in the early to mid sixties. In many ways, we are emulating The Beatles tonight; the Cavern Club followed by the ABC Cinema.

Ged grabs the microphone.

' _Right, this f...'_

He remembers just in time to tailor his language.

' _...flaming Poseidon ship may have sunk without trace, but the Good Ship Plain Truth is about to set sail for the High Seas and you're invited along for the trip.'_

There is an almost American reaction to Ged's invitation; the normal British reserve giving way to whistles and hoots. When we start with a brief, improvised rendition of the 'ABC Minor's Song', the audience is putty in our hands.

We launch straight into 'Rock Around The Clock', and as I watch the crowd swaying along to the music, the view from my drums is reminiscent of one of those old corny Cliff Richard films. Next up is 'Chantilly Lace', and I notice a familiar face at the end of the second row in the audience. It is Joan's son George, the Down Syndrome.

Before 'Good Golly Miss Molly', I shout to the lads, 'hang on a minute.'

I jump up from my drums and rush down to help George on to the stage, giving him a tambourine to play along with the band. For one night only, Plain Truth is a five piece, and its newest member has a smile wider than Zippy's from _Rainbow_.

The goodwill of the event is infectious, so much so, that by the time we are playing 'Tutti Frutti', there is dancing in the aisles. We have to drop plans to play Fleetwood Mac, Free or any of our own songs. Tonight is about good time rock and roll, and we go down a storm. After forty minutes of playing and dancing, the manager indicates that the projector is working again. The next song is to be our last. George is a bit exhausted so returns to his seat to thunderous applause. It is a real heart warming moment. We decide to finish with 'Keep a Knockin', but for the second time in a week, our last song is about to be cut short, though this time it has nothing to do with a power cut.

About two bars in, and out of the corner of my eye, I see George slump forward in his seat. His body appears to be rigid. It strikes me immediately that he may be having another fit. I cannot see his mother and there is no one else alert to what is happening. I stop drumming and hurdle across the stage, jumping down in front of the first row. The others then stop playing as I run to the aisle, where I shout for people to make space for George. Although his body is now making jerking motions, I manage to pull him from his seat and lie him down on the carpeted gangway. I have never had first aid instruction in my life, yet I know to place him on his side and to grab his winter coat to use as a cushion to protect his head from any damage caused by the violent spasms he is experiencing.

A crowd of concerned onlookers has now gathered around. George seems to be on his own, so Ged goes to fetch his mum from the sweet counter. She is soon on the scene. After two or three more minutes, his body movements become less severe, before the fitting ceases, and he comes round, obviously very confused and exhausted. I feel so sorry for him. He is bighearted guy with a lovely sunny nature, and it seems almost obscenely unjust that he has to suffer the indignities that go hand in hand with this ailment. His mum escorts him away to recuperate. I return to the stage with the band for our final bow. Inevitably, things are somewhat more subdued than they were, though the audience is still able to show their appreciation for our unexpected stint on stage.

The safety curtain comes down, and we have the ball ache of a job to move our equipment off stage back upstairs. It is the last thing we feel like doing, but we are not The Rolling Stones and do not have an army of roadies lugging for us.

Back in the function room, the events of the preceding hour are already starting to seem surreal. There was my _Dr Kildare_ stint with George, and as for the music, it is as though we have just been on a trip in the Tardis back to the early 1960s, and therein lays a problem. At both the Cavern and the ABC Cinema, the audience reacted brilliantly to us playing old rock and roll standards. Now this is timeless stuff and remains a credible genre to perform, but I am starting to wonder if this is the only music for which we will ever get the recognition and response we crave. The songs that mean the most to us, the ones we have written ourselves, are largely ignored... nobody has yet to hear my own compositions, most notably Sofia written on holiday in that oil stained leaking tent. It appears that once again, I am experiencing the lows after the highs, though the others seem a little less unsettled.

We decide that we have had enough playing for the night and leave to have a curry at the Taj Mahal. On the way out, we bump into Joan.

'Excuse me; are you the young man who came to the aid of my son this evening?'

'Yes, that's right,' I say, trying to play it down.

'Don't I know you?' she says.

I remind her of our meeting outside the hospital.

'Of course... Well, I want to take this opportunity to thank you with all my heart for your help this evening?'

'That's OK, but it was nothing really, I was just able to see what was happening from my position on stage.'

'On the contrary young man, there are so many people who are cruel to people like George, calling them 'mongs' and generally abusing them. I want to thank you, not just for what you did tonight, but for the kindness and consideration, you and your friends here have showed my son on more than one occasion now. It means an awful lot to me that you treat him like any other human being.'

'That's very kind of you, but it was me that dragged him on to the stage in the first place and that might have caused him to, you know...'

'Nonsense, the two things are totally unrelated. I can't tell you how much he loved being up there with you boys. So thank you again.'

I am not expecting this level of appreciation, and her testimony is gratifying though also a little embarrassing.

She turns to leave but then looks back as if remembering something. 'Just one thing... I'm sure it's not right, but a woman in there told me that you're the same boy who exposed himself on the bus going to Moreton.' She is bracing herself to knock me off the pedestal.

I hear Ged sniggering in the background as I respond. 'No, I can assure you that was somebody else.

'That's good, that's good.'

It seems I am still a potential Dr Savage.

We head off for our curry. It has been quite a night.

17. Singing and the Rain

As soon as the key opens the front door, the sound of my dad's voice and the smell of roast lamb accost me.

'Your tea's going cold son,' he shouts. He is obviously about to dish it out. 'I've got a nice piece of shank.'

Caroline is going to her in-laws for dinner on Christmas Day, so she has come round for an early festive meal with her husband Pete, the man of fewer words than the screenplay of _One Hundred Million Years BC_ and harder work than building a _Bridge over the River Kwai_. I am just back from my Saturday shift at Strathconas. Being the final shopping day before Christmas, it has been hectic. Predictably, at about four o'clock, the store was full of men buying last minute presents for their partners... romantic purchases such as a steam iron or a vacuum that floats on a cushion of air and spontaneously combusts.

'Here's the worker, bringing home the bacon,' says Mum, displaying the pride of someone whose son is back from fighting on the Western Front.

'Bringing home the pittance more like.'

I hang up my coat and walk into the back room. Caroline is sitting at the dining room table between Pete and Stephen with an Eduardo nude hidden behind her by red and blue tinsel. Dad is carving the meat at the head of the table, while Mum is passing around plates with potatoes, carrots, and cabbage, boiled within an inch of their lives. Pete is picking up the remnants of the recently opened Christmas crackers.

'How's the job going then?' says Caroline.

'It's a bit crap really,' I say. 'The manager's a real whinger.'

'Don't you think now you should have stayed on at school?'

'Give it a rest Caroline.'

I take my seat at the opposite end to the old man and offer my cracker to Stephen. He pulls it and true to form wins the sewing thimble. I get the paper hat, two sizes too small for me, which rips in two as soon as I place it over my head. I also get the joke.

Q. 'What is the name of Father Christmas' dog?

A. Santa Paws

I think I would have preferred the thimble.

We pass our plates one by one to the old man for a portion of the lamb. Compared with the recent standard of cuisine in this house, this dinner is worthy of the _Galloping Gourmet_ himself.

'How's the band getting on?' says Pete.

Everyone looks at one another, shocked that Caroline's husband has engaged in conversation. Moreover, he has initiated it.

'Fine thanks Pete. In fact we've got a gig tonight in Liscard.'

'Are you still playing for nothing?' says Caroline.

'I'll have you know we're earning £100 tonight.'

'£100!' Dad wakes up to the conversation and almost chokes on a piece of gristle.

'Yes, £100.' My response is a little indignant.

'Bloody hell, who wants to pay you lot £100?'

'Leave off Ted; I'm sure they're worth every penny.' My mum proves that mothers always show unswerving loyalty to their children.

'If they're worth £100....'

'Ted!' Mum puts an uncharacteristic foot down.

The rest of the meal passes by without too much chatter, and I decide to give the pudding a miss. Brian is calling round soon in the van, and I want to freshen up for tonight's performance.

*

About half an hour later, I am ready and dressed for the part, wearing a white shirt with a silver emblem that sparkles in the light. David Bowie would be proud of me. My mum is just putting the phone down and has a slight look of shock on her face. Surely, it is not Great Aunt Edith again.

'What's this about you saving someone's life last night?' she says.

'Who's told you that?'

'Val's sister works on the sweet counter at the ABC and... well you know how it is.'

'I didn't save his life.'

'According to Val you did.'

'He was an epileptic having a fit. I just made him comfortable. He was never going to die.'

'Well that's as maybe, the point is I'm very proud of you Tom. Well done.'

The sound of Concorde landing in our road tells me that Brian has arrived in the Bedford.

'I'm off now Mum. I'll catch you later.'

'OK love, bye.'

'Tom!' It is my dad shouting.

'Yeah?'

He comes into the hall, his posture crouched like a pensioner with arthritis, and he grimaces as though moving certain muscles for the first time. 'Listen son. Good luck with your beat group tonight. You're not a bad lad, you know.'

'Cheers dad.'

It is his way of apologising for having a go earlier. He may be feeling remorseful because it is the season of goodwill. On the other hand, it may have something to do with our £100 fee. However, I choose to believe he has said it because he means it.

I shout through to the back room. ''Bye everyone! And Happy Christmas!'

'Happy Christmas mate.'

Unbelievably, Pete has spoken again.

*

I leave the house to find Amanda's mini in the road behind the Caravanette. Julian and his girlfriend greet me from the front while Ged and Brenda do likewise from the back. I climb into the van next to Brian and am glad to see that for once he is not smoking anything. The convoy moves off. It is only a short drive to the cinema, and I am just fiddling with the heater controls when I hear a voice from behind me.

'Trouzers on fire! Funny guy!'

I turn around to see Ludmilla sitting in the back. I acknowledge her. This is one 'working girl' that will evidently not be working this Saturday night. She continues to laugh and point at me. Perhaps I should get some paraffin and a box of Swan Vestas to recreate the _Talent Aplenty_ fiasco. It will certainly keep this lady smiling.

It seems I am the only one not bringing a female companion to the gig tonight, a thought that induces a stab of regret at losing any hope of being with Sofia, though I remind myself that it is going to take more than two days to get her out of my system.

It starts raining, and my hippy chauffeur struggles to see the road ahead, the dog-eared windscreen wipers of the van patently near the end of their useful life. The inside is now steaming up like a Turkish baths, and I try to help by wiping the glass with a cuff.

'Art'ur?'

It is Ludmilla behind us, talking Russian by the sound of things.

'Yes my sweet,' says Brian.

'Tell him our newz Art'ur.'

It dawns on me that she is calling Brian by his real name, Arthur.

'No, erm... not yet dear.' Brian is a trifle tongue-tied and embarrassed.

'Zen I vill tell him.'

'No, no dear, I'll do it.'

'What news?' I ask.

'It's a bit difficult man.' Brian clunks the gears as he speaks.

There is a gap of a few moments where the only sound is the noise of the Caravanette's engine, during which time I muse for some reason that they might be getting married. They met less than a week ago. She is a prostitute. Other than that, it is perfect. And I am proved right.

Ludmilla says, 'Vell in zat case, I vill zpeak. Ve are leawing toget'er tomorrow to get married and join ze circuz.'

'The Circus?'

'Yez.'

Brian looks sheepish but nods his head to confirm.

'Would you mind not telling the other lads yet?' He pleads.

I agree to keep his news secret; though it is not me he should be worried about. Ludmilla seems keen to tell all and sundry. I have only known Brian about six months, but I have become very fond of him. He is one of life's nice people. Yes, he has his foibles, but he is incredibly good-natured without an ounce of aggression. For these reasons, and given the abruptness of his bride-to-be, I am worried he is making a massive mistake. I may try to find the time later to speak to him, but now is not that time, especially with Ludmilla glowering in the back of the van. I think I need to set my pants alight to get her smiling again.

It is interesting that my initial reaction does not consider the implications for the band. Brian is our lead singer, and although we proved at the Cavern we can get by without him, something would definitely be missing. I wonder what the other lads will think.

When we arrive at the cinema, it seems far more than twenty-four hours ago that we were climbing out of the Bedford to get the equipment ready for what turned out to be a memorable live concert. We pass Joan who is on the sweet counter again, reading another Mills & Boon and climb the concrete stairs to the function room.

There are already a few people on the floor dancing to 'Crazy Horses' by The Osmonds and the place is almost full. The tables are occupied except for one at the side of the stage, which we head towards. The birthday decorations appear low-key in comparison with the multi-coloured Christmas tat back home, but there are a few balloons and one 'Happy 21st Daniel' banner.

While Julian and Amanda set off in search of the birthday boy to collect our fee, I go to the bar with Ged and give him the money to buy the first round... something I am more than happy to do, particularly at 12p a pint. We are all drinking beer tonight except Amanda and Julian who are on the Martinis, and Ludmilla who is having vodka. I am not the world's most prolific drinker, so back at the table, I am careful to take small sips from my bitter, though not so Brenda. She almost downs her pint in one. Ged looks on in sheer admiration and awe. On seeing this, she pulls his face towards hers to enjoy a tongue-probing kiss.

Julian returns with some bad news, 'Excuse me chaps, it seems we have a bit of a problem. We are only getting £30 for the evening.'

'Hang on a minute, I thought you'd agreed a hundred,' says Ged.

'I did, but he is reneging on the agreement.'

'Surely he can't do that?' I ask.

'I am afraid he's denying all knowledge of the £100. He maintains it was always thirty.'

'What does Amanda say?'

Julian's girlfriend is nowhere to be seen.

'She's a bit vague about the whole thing,' he replies.

Ged thinks we should go home now, but both Julian and I contend that the gig is still easy work for £30. Brian does not have an opinion. He only has eyes for Ludmilla. Ged ultimately concedes, and we decide to play for the reduced fee and put it down to experience.

'Where is the twat?' says Ged, his malevolent streak surfacing.

Julian points to the other side of the room. 'He's over there, that tall chap with the leather trousers.'

In an instant, I am transfixed. The tall chap with the leather trousers is none other than Danny, Sofia's husband to be. It is his 21st birthday party. My stomach lurches at the thought that Sofia must be coming tonight. Already, some ridiculous conspiracy theory is taking shape in my mind. He has lured us here with an offer of £100 despite never intending to pay it. His plan is to belittle me this evening. Ever since our first meeting, he has always displayed an antipathy towards me. I check myself.

The notion of some act of vengeance on his part is fanciful to the extreme. You can almost count on one hand the number of times I have spoken with Sofia, and the kiss in Hoylake apart, the liaison has been as innocent as a playground crush. It is probably all a co-incidence. He went to the Cavern, heard our band, liked us, and thought we would be a great addition to his party night. The £100 offer would have been a bit of naivety on his part, which he subsequently regretted but decided to play the ignorance card instead of cancelling. It all makes sense.

I am vaguely aware of Julian calming down Ged, when the door opens and in walks Sofia. She looks around the room, sees me, and immediately averts her gaze, walking away in the opposite direction towards Danny's table to take a seat with her back to the stage. He ignores her, and I notice that he is engaged in some spirited conversation with Amanda. I vow to concentrate on just playing the gig.

The rest of us are all sitting around the table. Brian introduces Ludmilla to Brenda.

'Tell zem our newz, Art'ur.'

I glance at Brian. He winces.

'What news Bri?' says Ged.

I try a diversion.

'I've got some news myself.' I dredge my mind to think of something.

'What's that soft lad?'

'I won £50 on the horses today, Wee Willie Winkie at Wolverhampton.'

'Fucking hell, I didn't know you liked a bet.'

'Oh yeah, love it. In fact, the drinks are on me tonight.'

I am no Scrooge, but neither am I rich and philanthropic. I am already regretting my intervention and white lie. However, it has worked, because the conversation has steered itself somewhere else and, for now, Brian's secret is safe.

About five minutes later, we are behind our instruments on stage. The DJ makes it known that Plain Truth are ready to play, though there is nothing show business about the announcement. All the signs are that this is going to be a meat and vegetables kind of performance, and this proves to be as accurate as an Alan Ball pass. We play a workaday set that the party guests enjoy a lot more than we do. I sit behind my drums in full view of Sofia's back.

It is the first time she has seen the band live, and I really wish she was not here, ironic when I think of all those occasions at the Social Club and then at the Cavern where I yearned for her to turn up. She remains in her seat facing away from the stage for the whole performance. It's as though she does not want to look at me. What makes matters worse is that nobody is talking to her. She just seems to be staring into her drink. Danny is treating her very shabbily, not least because he has spent nearly all the evening so far in very close contact with Amanda. God knows what Julian is thinking. They are now dancing, close to one another, a matter of yards away from him. Danny sees me and smirks. Perhaps my conspiracy theory does have some merit after all, though his plan may be more about humiliating Sofia rather than me. If the latter, I have to say that he is making a damn good fist of it.

A few songs from the end of our set, I watch as the shameless birthday boy leads Amanda out of the room by the hand. They return ten minutes later during our last number, adjusting their clothes in a completely brazen way, as they move across the dance floor. I glance across at Julian who is seemingly oblivious to it all. Danny takes his new conquest to the bar. Sofia is still sat there in her own world. This is dreadful.

We finish the set to generous applause and leave the stage. There is no encore. It has been easy money yet strangely dissatisfying. As if polarised by this deflation, my emotions take over from the rational part of my mind. When I have felt at my most miserable over Sofia, I have picked up the guitar and written songs. It has been my way of dealing with things. I have composed a few, but the best to date is the original 'Sofia', now finished but unheard. I decide that tonight is the night to change that.

'Listen guys, I want to sing a solo song.'

'A song?' says Ged, incredulous.

'I've written a song that I want to perform.'

Julian asks, 'What about accompaniment?'

'If I could use Ged's acoustic, I won't need any backing.'

'Sure lad, go for it.' The prospect of my performance intrigues Ged.

I can see the boys are not too sure what to expect. They have seen me mess about with the guitar when practising, but they have never seen me sing and play. In fact, nobody has, and maybe that is a good thing. Yet I am finding that my confidence - usually so incapacitating - is unpredictably sky high. I suppose the guys are feeding off this and therefore are having a natural confidence in me.

My heart is now thudding as the adrenaline pumps around my body, and when the DJ gives me the nod, I feel a butterfly farm of butterflies in my stomach. I climb on to the small stage and walk to its centre. The first thing I notice is how few people are taking any interest in me. Even around our table, Brian and Ludmilla are more concerned with one another, and Brenda is trying to elicit another French kiss from the tiring Ged. Amanda is still with Danny, but at least good old Julian gives me a McCartney thumbs up gesture. At the table furthest away from the stage, Sofia remains steadfastly with her back to me.

I take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and then announce. 'Good evening everyone. This is a song, which for one night only is called 'Maria'.' I might be riding high on emotion, but I am clear headed enough to realise that I have to change the song's title for this performance.

A few more heads turn towards the stage, but for the most part, the audience continue to chat amongst themselves. I strum the guitar. Its amplification is on the quiet side, but Julian gets the message and increases the volume on the amp. I then close my eyes and start singing, careful to replace the word Sofia with the improvised Maria. The song is about three minutes long, and I am completely lost during this time. I just sing my heart out. If I ever perform this song again, I know I could do an improved technical version, but it will never be bettered. I will not be able to replicate the feelings that underpin tonight's effort.

Is love the songbird whose sweet sound I once heard

When walking one beautiful day

Is love the flower that grows by the hour

That's destined to wither away

Is this called romantic, some fool who is frantically

Searching for you everyday

If you know the answers Maria tell me please

For I am inexperienced, I have no expertise

In matters of the heart where I am always ill at ease

Maria, let me know if I must let you go.

Is love this feeling I find so appealing

That's stronger because it's all new

Is love this heartache, the soon to be heartbreak

Which time paints the colour of blue

Will love be elusive, remain unobtrusive

In spite of these feelings for you

If you know the answers Maria tell me please

For I am inexperienced, I have no expertise

In matters of the heart where I am always ill at ease

Maria, let me know if I must let you go.

Sofia, Sofia, Sofia, Sofia.

The song ends with a strum of a chord and the deadening of the strings. I finish to total silence, aside from the minor buzz of the P.A. system. I stand there, aware that I sang Sofia instead of Maria in the final section and am therefore reluctant to open my eyes to view the consequences. When I do open them, I realise there are tears, hardly pouring down in a torrent, but I have to blink a couple of times to clear my vision. In stark contrast to the beginning of the performance, I now have the attention of the audience, all except Sofia who is still facing away from the stage. I am relieved to see that Danny has been too occupied with Amanda to respond in any way to my mistake. Then the applause starts, followed by some cheers. I glance to my left where our table is situated and the boys in the band and the girlfriends are all standing and clapping their hands with their arms up in the air above their heads. I experience a range of emotions, full of euphoria yet full of despondency.

Sofia suddenly gets up from her seat, grabs her handbag, and heads towards the exit. She appears on the verge of tears, but nobody else takes any notice. I want to chase after her, but I stop myself. The applause dies down and I leave the stage, returning to the lads who are effusive in their acclaim.

'Where the fucking hell did that come from soft lad? I thought it was going to be a load of bollocks, and it turns out to be the fucking dog's bollocks.' Ged is impressed enough to take his hat off for a moment, though is quick to put it back on.

'Congratulations old chap, remarkable stuff. You have a real talent.'

'Mellow man, that was real mellow.'

Even Brenda lavishes praise upon me. 'That was almost as good as a portion of chips from my chippy.'

'You are more than juzt funny guy wit' trouzers on fire.'

Despite the praise, there is no chance that my ego is about to spiral out of control. My mind is on other things. The DJ resumes playing his records and soon there are people dancing to 'Suspicious Minds' by Elvis. I feel a tap on my shoulder. It is Julian.

He whispers in my ear. 'Tom, I remember your reservations about Amanda, the time we played table tennis. You've been proven right my dear chap. Thank you for the advice.'

My friend has seen everything, and in truth, I am rather thankful that his relationship with the troublesome hairdresser is coming to an end. At least I can now forget about the seduction at her salon.

Brenda sees a forsaken look on Julian's face and joins us to say, 'Listen Lord Snooty; you're better off without her. I said to your mate here a month or so back, that girl needs a bastard.' She glances across towards Danny, 'and it looks like she's found one.'

'Hey man! That's the cat who sold me the bad shit at the Cavern,' says Brian, Ludmilla draped on his arm.

He is a bloody drug dealer as well. Sofia cannot marry a person like this.

I make my excuses. 'I'm just going for a bit of fresh air.'

'Hey soft lad, what about the fucking drinks?'

My imaginary winning bet is costing me. 'Take them out of my share of tonight's fee.'

I cross the floor to where Sofia has been sitting and collect the coat hanging on the back of her chair. I pass Danny and Amanda as they dance. They seem unaware of anything or anyone around them. At least this has cleared up the mystery of him booking the band. He obviously wanted Amanda, and at £30, he has got her cheap.

I walk out of the function room just as Sofia did a few minutes ago. I head down the stairs to the cinema foyer and pass a man that I recognise. He has a ponytail and is dressed in jacket and jeans. It is the A&R man from the Cavern, and he has a colleague in tow. They go up the stairs to the party. Brian or no Brian, we may have had our big break after all; but there is no elation or euphoria at the thought. I just want to find Sofia. I cannot see her anywhere, and so I walk out into the cold, wet night, hoping in vain to find her hailing a taxi or something. There is still no sign of her. I return to the foyer where Joan is on the sweet counter. She is tidying up, tonight's cinema performance seemingly over.

She greets me warmly. 'Hello love,'

'Hi, sorry to bother you, but have you seen a girl about this tall, brown hair, wearing a blue dress?'

'I haven't love. Is she your girlfriend?'

'No.'

'You'd have thought so, the look on your face.'

'I'm afraid not.'

'Is it that girl with you at Victoria Hospital the other week?'

'Yes.'

'Ah...'

I think Joan may have been reading too many Doctor Savage and Nurse Humble love stories, yet she is not far from the truth. I want to be with Sofia. I know I am only eighteen and most guys of my age have the emotional depth of a guinea pig in a coma, but I am not 'most guys'. I may lack confidence with girls that the majority of my peers seem to have in abundance, but maybe there is a sensitivity pay-off. Who knows? Anyway, I think this is love, at least on my part. Whether she thinks the same, well that is a different question.

'Never mind...' My words trail away.

Deflated, I decide to return to the party, but as I take the first step back up the concrete stairs, I hear a sob just discernible above the noise of the splattering rain. There is a fire door to my left, which I carefully open, revealing a passageway running the length of the picture house. Sofia is outside, sitting on a step that has a small, overhanging canopy giving her minimal protection from the elements. In the freezing air and in a thin dress, she is holding on to herself, gently sobbing, and shivering with the cold. She looks up at me. Her mascara is smudged, and the moisture on her cheeks, glistening with the reflection of a single halogen lamp above the exit door, appears to be a mixture of rain and tears. Her anguish and her natural beauty compete for my attention.

'Are you alright?'

'Please leave me alone.'

'I've brought your coat.'

She takes it from me, wordlessly.

'Don't you think you should come in from the rain?'

'What?' she snaps, her tone changing in an instant.

'I said, don't you think you should come inside? It's so cold out here.'

'I heard what you said the first time. I mean, what the hell do you think you're doing?'

'I just thought...'

She stands up. 'You just thought what? You'd come and wallow in my misery? You'd come out here and tell me what you think's right for me? Or have you come here to sing that fucking song again?'

I am riled. 'Listen Sofia, all I know is that for some reason you persist on sticking with that arrogant shit in there, and he is not bloody worth it.'

'Isn't he?'

'No, you can do so much better than that.'

'I can, can I Mr. Matchmaker? Like who? Like you?'

'I'm not talking about me.'

'Of course you are; that's why you're here. You don't give a shit about what's going on in my head. It's what's going on in your head that matters.'

'That's not fair.'

'Not fair? I'll tell you what's not fair.' She stabs me in the chest with a pointed finger. 'You, you dickhead, standing up in front of the people in there and humiliating me with your guitar and singing your fucking song.'

'I humiliated you! What about Danny with his hands all over that bloody girl?'

'And don't you think I know that. Are you telling me something that I don't know? Is this a fucking Road to Damascus moment for me?'

'Then why don't you just tell him to piss off?'

'Why?'

'Yes, why?'

'You really want to know?'

'Yeah, I really want to know!'

'Right! Because I'm pregnant and he's the father!'

There is silence, other than the pitter-patter of the rain and the distant noise of a car driving past the cinema. She sits down again. I am not sure how much time passes before she speaks.

'That's taken the wind out of your sails hasn't it?'

'I suppose so.' I join her on the step.

Our anger has dissipated. I am lost for words, unsure what to say, think or do. I hear the sound of 'Hi Ho Silver Lining' at the party upstairs, and its upbeat mood has never appeared so out of place. The rain is now light, but the wind is getting up.

'When did you find out?' I ask.

'A couple of weeks ago, just after the Craft Fair.' She is staring at the reflection of a street lamp in a puddle of water. 'I remember Danny saying something about morning sickness and I thought Oh God. I knew I was late, and I had been before. But I had a test the following day and...' Her mind drifts off.

I recall the Church Hall when Danny had whispered in Sofia's ear before he left the room. In hindsight, I can now see how everything changed at this moment.

'I don't mind you know, about the erm...' I am struggling to express myself, but I mean what I say.

'I wish it was as simple as that, but it's not.'

I know she is right. The wind blows a discarded fish and chip wrapper past our feet. My eyes follow it, but Sofia is in a trance, her thoughts lost in some deep, impenetrable place. I take the coat she has been holding and drape it over her shoulders. Then she starts to cry again, and so I take her in my arms, holding on to her tightly.

She tilts her head so that it rests on my chest, and as she sobs, she repeats 'what am I going to do Tom, what am I going to do?'

'I think you need to go home.'

A few further moments pass, after which I help her up from the step and lead her through the fire door back to the foyer. I look to see if Joan is still around though can't find her. Sofia is distracted and not taking anything in, but I am astonished to see the A&R man emerge from the party upstairs with his colleague guiding Danny out in handcuffs. It seems that the pony-tailed one has nothing to do with the music industry. He is a copper, and it does not take Hercule Poirot's little grey cells to deduce that he has arrested Danny for drug offences. The thought that the band is back where it started means nothing.

I am relieved to see Joan appear. The Mills & Boon fan is wearing a coat, ready to go home, but when she spots Sofia, she takes us into a room at the back of the sweet stall and settles her into a comfortable seat. Joan asks me to go into the adjacent kitchen to put the kettle on and make a cup of tea, that very English remedy and treatment. I return to ask if I can use the phone to call for a taxi.

'Better make it 999 love... she's bleeding.'

18. Christmas Day

It is Christmas morning. Stephen has closed the curtains in the front room so that he can enjoy a floodlit game of Subbuteo between Liverpool and Everton. He is controlling both teams and tells me that the Reds are winning 16-0. My mum is in the kitchen peeling vegetables, while my dad is full of seasonal goodwill, wishing me a 'Merry Christmas son' with a half-Mediterranean, stubbly kiss on the cheek. He hands me a small box wrapped in his own inimitable style. I thank him and sit down to unwrap it. His presents are legendary, and so I lower my expectations to the requisite potholing level. Just as well, really... it is a triangle.

'You'll never guess,' he says, 'but I bought it from your shop.'

I am lost for words... and not with emotion.

'I thought it might come in handy with you and your beat group.'

I don't tell him that the band has split. I choose to leave intact his vision of me playing a Led Zeppelin number with a triangle. To be honest, even in the days of Brian Poole & The Tremeloes and Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas, I do not recall anyone in the group playing a small triangular instrument. On the gift front, the others fare no better. Stephen gets a book on fresh water fishing - he doesn't fish - and Mum gets a knitting basket - she doesn't knit. Overall, it is another classic year, and with a ting ting from my new Christmas present, I announce that I am off to the pub to see the lads.

*

The demise of the band happened very quickly. The catalyst was Brian leaving, but the happenings of the 21st party gig compounded things. Julian's split from Amanda and the fallout from what happened to Sofia both had their impact, as well as the realisation for me that I don't want to be a drummer. Singing with the guitar felt right in a way playing the skins never has. Maybe I will take up performing on my own. It is strange, I suppose, that only days ago we were full of energy, hope and ambition for Plain Truth, but it crumbled away in a near instant.

There is a definite synchronicity about meeting up at the Ship Inn. It is the venue that witnessed the end of the band the first time round and is about to do the same again. Daft as it sounds; Brian really has left to join the circus with Ludmilla. Julian now wants to concentrate on his dissertation in the New Year; with a view to doing a Ph.D. Being in a band like Plain Truth is just not compatible with these goals. As for Ged, he wants to look for another group so he can carry on playing, and that seems right to me. He is the one band member who is a natural musician and has a personality suited to the rigours and routines of life on the road and on stage.

Entering the Ship, the publican has made a token effort to represent Christmas with a sprig of holly adorned over the blocked up fireplace on the left hand wall and a snatch of mistletoe at the bar. I just hope that Vera the OAP stripper is not hiding behind the corner ready to pounce. There are a few of the old boys supping on pints of mild with dogs at their feet, but in a concession to this special day, they have left their dominoes at home. I spot Ged and Julian sat at the far end of the pub beneath a painting of the New Brighton waterfront, a genuine Constable apparently... though not the classic English landscape artist. This Constable turned out to be PC Bletchley from the local force, a man who turns his hand to the brush and easel after a hard day's work telling people the time and saying 'Hello, hello, hello'. Ged has already bought the drinks, so I join the boys at their table.

'Merry Christmas guys.' I pick up my bitter shandy as a toast.

'Cheers Tom.' Julian looks immaculate in a smart waistcoat and trousers combo.

'Up yours soft lad,' says Ged, still hiding his x-rated fringe.

I take a few sips and wipe my mouth with the back of a hand. 'So what do you think about Brian?'

Ged gives his verdict. 'He's a nutter.'

'I must admit, it's hard to believe he's given everything up to join a circus... and with a prostitute he only met a week ago. It's unbelievable really.'

'That's where you're wrong old man,' says Julian. 'They go back a long way. He's known her for years.'

'Eh?'

'When Brian was a teenager, he was in Billy Fossett's Circus. He was a human cannonball known as The Big Shot. Every night he was fired out of a canon.'

'Must have been some fucking cannon,' says Ged.

'And Ludmilla?' I ask.

'She was the Ringmaster and used to fire the canon'. Julian drinks from his Cinzano glass.

I am confused. 'But I thought she was a prozzy?'

'I'm not sure about prozzy.' Julian pronounces the word with a modicum of distaste. 'She was more like a high class escort, with a bit of copulation thrown in. Her clients were all wealthy businessmen visiting Liverpool.'

Ged adjusts his Father Christmas hat. 'Fucking hell Jules, you seem to know a bit too much about this, if you ask me.'

Julian smiles enigmatically but tells us nothing. 'Brian said she'd had enough and wanted to get back to the Big Top.'

'Talking of big tops Ged, how's Brenda?'

The boys laugh.

'I tell you one thing,' he says, 'thanks to Brenda; yours truly might soon be a member of Jimmy Jet & The Rockets.'

'Really?'

'Should be.'

'But I thought Jimmy had swapped his leather trousers for a chip shop apron.'

'Ah, you know what it's like. Some people just have to get up on that stage and give the people what they want.'

'I'm not sure he gave those spinsters what they wanted. Remember, when his pants split.'

'That's a point... well, I hope it comes off, keep my hand in and all that...'

'Are you talking about Brenda's big top again?'

'Fuck off soft lad. Christ you're a bit sharp today.'

Julian is sitting back in his chair. He has an alertness about him not seen for a while. His eyes are shining, and he is looking his old self. I ask him about the situation with Amanda, and he confirms that it is over. She wants them to get back together, especially now that Danny the drug dealer is tainted goods, but I am glad to see that my friend is adamant there will not be a second chance. It is reassuring to find the old Julian re-emerging, the strong, self-assured, charismatic young man. Something had drained away from his core during his time with the hairdresser, and she was certainly not right for him. It is good to see him as cool as ever.

Lo and behold, I notice that Vera has turned up after all. She heads straight to the bar and to the mistletoe. The publican indulges her, and for his sins gets a red lipstick smudge to the side of his face. When she chooses a table at the other end of the pub, I am sure Julian is a relieved man.

'I'm dreadfully sorry old boy, I should have asked,' he says, 'how's Sofia?'

I flush a little on hearing her name. I last saw her getting in the ambulance at the ABC, though I did manage to ring around yesterday to discover that she was in Ward 10 of the Highfield Maternity Hospital in Liscard. Pretending to be her brother, I was told she had lost the baby and a lot of blood but was recovering well and should be home on Boxing Day. Poor Sofia would be spending Christmas Day in hospital, bad enough in itself, but when there is also a chance that Ken Dodd or Jimmy Tarbuck might arrive to turn a shit day into an even shittier one, I knew I had to do my bit.

'Yes, I think she's doing fine. I'm going to Highfield from here. I'm erm... hoping to see her.'

'Get in their lad, you lucky get,' says Ged.

I decide not to berate him for his insensitivity.

We spend the remaining time together reminiscing about the last year, which induces a slight melancholic air to proceedings. We recall the naïve Liverpool Stadium fantasy with the settee, table tennis bat and yard brush, remembering it with fondness and amusement. Ged and Julian laugh about _Talent Aplenty_ , and although I am not quite ready to join in with them yet, I can now see that one day I will. Then there were the nights in this very pub where we played our first proper dates, culminating in the terrible evening with the greasers and our smashed equipment. We recall our rebirth and the momentum of the dates playing at St John's, the mixed fortunes of the Cavern, and the joys and otherwise of our impromptu performance at the ABC cinema for _The Poseidon Adventure_ audience. We do not talk about Danny's party two nights ago, when the dream finally unravelled.

We exchange glances. There is something unsatisfactory about things fizzling out in this way, and the other guys may well be thinking the same. I see that Ged has a guitar case behind him. He sees me staring at it.

'It's a Gibson Hummingbird, a fucking beauty.'

'Why don't we?' I say.

'What's that soft lad?'

'Have one last hurrah.'

'What, here?'

'Yeah... one song for the road, so to speak.'

'What do you think Jules lad?'

'Why not... I am sure the manager won't mind. My only reservation is Vera.' Julian's face betrays any anxiety he may be feeling.

'Come on Jules,' says Ged. 'You're a bloody single man now. As they say, plenty more fish in the sea'

'I was thinking more about fresh salmon than geriatric trout.'

As our laughter dies down, Julian moves to the bar and has a quick word with the publican who is evidently happy with the idea. Vera might be a pensioner, but quick as a whippet, she appears from nowhere to grab the mistletoe and offer her wrinkled, puckered lips to our man. He cringes as though sucking a lemon and offers a cheek to her. She finds his mouth. He heads back to us trying to pull something out of it, in the way you might if you had just feasted on the cuttings from the barber's floor.

A minute or so later, we are standing near the bar in front of the regulars, of which there is probably only about seven or eight. We gather around one another like Peter, Paul, and Mary. I think I am Mary. Ged kicks things off.

'Happy Christmas Liverpool Stadium!'

Some of the drinkers are confused, and a couple of the seriously older boys think they have gone to the wrong pub. Ged starts strumming twelve bar rock and roll, and we launch into an improvised medley, running the gamut of Jerry Lee, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and The Big Bopper. In one way, this is a step down for me from the original rulers and settee arrangement, in that I do not even have a piece of furniture. Here I am drumming the air. Nonetheless, it is great fun. Ged apart, we are not really imagining the big time again. This is playing for the love of playing and we finish to gentle, yet warm applause.

I have an idea. 'Hey lads, why don't we lay the ghost of _Talent Aplenty_ as a finale?'

'Are you going to set your fucking pants on fire again?'

'No... let's play 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep'... just for a laugh.'

'Alright,' says Ged.

Julian shrugs his shoulders and off we go. Our final number in public is the same as the first. It is a better version, and not just because the accompaniment is more than a bass riff and a tambourine. We are doing it for fun. There is no rock or pop star pretence. This is Tom, Ged, and Jules. It may be a crap song, but the symmetry in ending this chapter makes it feel right. And with a final strum of his Gibson, the song comes to a close. We symbolically shake one another's hand. It is now official. The Liverpool Stadium dream is over. Caroline had been right all along.

'Right guys, I'm off to Highfield.' I down the last of my shandy and put on my duffel coat.

'Happy Christmas soft lad.'

'Give my regards to Sofia, old man.'

'Cheers guys, catch you soon.'

I am walking away when I hear Ged shout.

'Hey bollocks, you've forgotten your cash.'

'What cash?'

'Your share of the appearance money from the gig the other night.'

'Great.'

I go back and Ged hands me a £1 note and a 50p coin.

'£1.50?'

'Come on soft lad, you paid for all the drinks the other night, don't forget.'

That phantom winning bet is proving quite costly.

'Oh yeah...'

'And you paid for these.' Ged holds up his glass.

'Bloody hell.'

I walk out into the fresh Christmas air and turn left up Victoria Road. The roads are quiet with no cars or buses to be seen, the only occupant on the carriageway a teenage girl on a horse, not the normal sight on the streets of New Brighton. I speculate that the animal is a Christmas present from her dad. She gets a stallion. I get a triangle.

The horse has the largest pair of bollocks I have ever seen in my life, including my own when I had the mumps and needed a wheelbarrow to get from A to B. I watch as Trigger and its rider head off towards a sun-less sunset, though not before the horse deposits on the tarmac a mound of manure the size of an anthill. My first reaction is one of mild disquiet that the girl has not cleaned it up. However, my second thought is born out of one of life's most destructive emotions, revenge. My plan comes together surprisingly quickly.

Across the road at the side of an advertising hoarding, there is waste ground with some discarded rubbish including an old shovel and a small metal bin. I retrieve the objects and use them to clean up about half the muck, adding a couple of dollops of dog shit for good measure. I throw the shovel back to the trash and walk up the road carrying the bin, careful to keep it away from my clothes. I do not want to see Sofia stinking like an Algerian camel.

I pass a teenager who shoots a glance at the bin, probably thinking that I am about to give someone the worst Christmas present ever. In a way, he is right. I manoeuvre my way in between a parked Ford Anglia and Austin 1100, across the road and turn right. The first building I come to is 'The Biker's Club'. I am delighted to see a generous sized letterbox and equally delighted to see that all is quiet and that the premises are not over looked. Furthermore, there is a notice on the window promoting a Christmas Day special that is to take place later. Everything is set up for my plan to work very nicely indeed.

I push open the letterbox and tilt the contents of the bin so that the manure and the shit slides very nicely to hit the floor inside. I visualise Colin the head greaser opening up shortly in his role as caretaker to discover that Santa Claus may have left no presents, but Rudolf the reindeer has deposited a nice bucketful of crap instead. Revenge is a dish best served cold, as the saying goes. Yet I have confounded this viewpoint. My particular dish is warm, steaming and stinks like a toilet, a highly satisfactory retribution for the Ship Inn demolition. My mission accomplished, I leave the bin outside the door and go in search of a taxi to take me to the hospital.

*

When I arrive at Highfield, I discover that visiting time has been extended from the normal forty five minutes to two hours, and so I am hopeful that I will get the opportunity to see Sofia and have a bit of a chat. Her family will be visiting first, so I have my fingers crossed that they will not be here for the full duration. I follow the signs, until I reach Ward 10, where I cannot believe my misfortune. The same Matron who treated me like a war criminal at Victoria when I damaged my toe is here to confront me. She is wearing her usual navy blue uniform with what looks like a sanitary towel on her head behind grey, backcombed hair. She has dark rings under her eyes and two hairs on the right side of her upper lip. I do not think laughter is a big part of her life.

'Yes?' She snaps like a rabid dog.

I am clearly some form of pond life. No wonder I thought of her as Myra Hindley.

'I'm here to visit Sofia Moretti. I believe she's on this ward.'

'No, you can't see her. Miss Moretti is only seeing her immediate family today. No boyfriends or any of that nonsense!'

'But I am her brother.'

She is devastated that I have breached her defences so quickly, but she is not yet defeated. She points to an uncomfortable, wooden seat. 'You will have to wait there until her other visitors have left. There are too many people in there at the moment.'

And a Merry Christmas to you as well!

*

Half an hour passes, and my frustrations bubble over like a witch's cauldron. The resident hag has just waved away my latest pleas, and so I have no choice. It is time to take matters into my own hands.

Myra is guarding the ward like an Alsatian bitch with her newborn pups, so I create a diversion. I pick up a metal clipboard lying on a desk, and throw it to the other end of the corridor. When she rushes off to investigate, I make my move and disappear into Ward 10, which has the same number of beds as its name, five down the left and five down the right, all but one occupied. The beige, highly polished floor has a bucket at its far end catching a slow drip of water from the ceiling. The plastic container is adjacent to the bed where I see Sofia lying down, propped up by a couple of pillows. To compound my frustration, she has no visitors. I have been waiting outside for no good reason.

'Hello Tom.'

My annoyance instantly evaporates. Her warm and friendly smile tells me that she is pleased to see me.

'Hi Sofia, how are you?'

'I'm fine thanks, should be out tomorrow.'

'That's great.'

I have not been able to buy any flowers, but I have a second best, an Eduardo sketch of a bunch of red roses... he really should drop the naked women and stick to plant life. Sofia is delighted, a first for the world's least successful artist.

I give an awkward glance over my shoulder on the lookout for Myra.

The patient lowers her eyebrows and frowns. 'What's with the furtive look?'

'It's the sister or matron or whatever she is.'

'I think I know who you mean.'

'She wouldn't let me in, even when I said I was your brother. She reckoned you had too many visitors, yet nobody's here.'

'Close the curtain.'

'Sorry?'

'Close the curtain round the bed. That'll make a great hiding place.'

I wince at the sound of scratching metal as the curtain rings scrape along the U-shaped rail, but once closed, the mustard cotton twill of the curtain does indeed provide great cover. Sofia pats the front edge of the bed and invites me to sit down. Her chestnut hair is drawn back from her face; she is not wearing a trace of make-up; and she is pale and jaded from the ordeal of the last couple of days. Yet she is undeniably beautiful. I tell her.

'You look lovely.'

She laughs. 'Come off it, I look terrible.' She puts a hand on my wrist, her delicate, soft touch a delight.

We agree to disagree.

I place my own hand over hers and hesitate for a moment before saying, 'I'm sorry about... you know.'

She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. 'It's not something to feel good about... but it does make things a little less complicated.'

'I guess so...' I apply a gentle reassuring pressure to her hand.

'Could you pass me that water please?'

I lean across to the small table next to the bed with its Lucozade, grapes, and _Woman_ magazine. I hand the glass to her. She takes a sip, and a slight pained expression comes to her face.

'Tom.'

'Yes?'

'Erm...' She seems to be struggling to find the right words.

I think I know why. She is reliving the ABC cinema and the argument in the pouring rain. 'It's alright Sofia...'

'No it's not alright...'

'Sofia, listen to me. Nothing matters now except you getting better.'

'Then get off my arm.'

'Eh?'

'You're sitting on my arm.'

'Oh God.' I shift to the left and apologise.

She giggles at the mix up and takes a drink from the glass.

'I think you discovered the other night that I really am half-Italian.' She smiles and hands the glass back to me.

I return it to the table. 'Only half?'

'Well a big half.'

'That's fair enough.'

She takes my hand. 'Please don't say anything, because I really do want to say something.'

'Sofia...'

'No Tom... I am really sorry for having a go at you the other night.'

'A go at me and the song.'

'Yes... and the song... which I thought was lovely by the way.'

I am beginning to understand that girls can say one thing and mean another. 'Well you can love it as much as you like, but that song belongs to my beloved Maria.'

'Ah, of course, how stupid of me.' Her large, hazel eyes widen as she smiles.

'Sofia?'

'Yes?'

'Will you be my girlfriend please?'

The approach lacks subtlety, but it works.

'Only if you'll be my boyfriend.'

'It's a deal.'

We are already holding hands but it turns into a kind of handshake. This girl came into my life over nine months ago, since when a torrent of water has flowed under the bridge. I have been witness to my own transformation from emotionally stunted teenager to young adult. For me, I think it was a genuine case of love at first sight. From the moment I set eyes on her, I wanted her to be part of my life. She had stayed in my head even when I made the conscious decision to forget about her and despite the ever-present spectre of Danny looming over me.

'Can I just ask one thing?'

'Go on,' she says.

'More than anything, I just don't know what you ever saw in Danny, well apart from the fact that he makes Omar Sharif look like Hilda Baker.'

She smiles, 'He could be very charming, certainly when we first met. He was very good at paying compliments, flattery, and romantic gestures... I suppose I know better now... although...'

'Although what?' I am a little anxious all of a sudden.

'At least he's never ran naked along the lower deck of a bus in front of a group of middle aged women, grabbing their boobs.'

'Now listen...' I am about to protest, when I see her failing to suppress a laugh.

'I'm sorry Tom; I heard the story and thought it was so funny.

'But it's not true!'

'Of course it's not true, but it's still funny.'

'I suppose so,' I reply, too scarred by this enduring allegation to be totally convinced.

She tilts her head and studies my features. She then cradles the back of my head, stares intently into my eyes, and pulls my face towards hers. We kiss... this time more than two people whose lips barely touch. I move to lie down on the bed next to her, trying to be as gentle as I can. The repressed feelings and unrequited love release themselves like a champagne cork, and I close my eyes to lose myself in the moment. I want this to last forever, but it can't, and it doesn't.

The curtain is being pulled back, and I can hear Myra's voice.

I am not sure if she has seen me, but I take no chances and turn into James Bond. I roll expertly from the arms of Sofia and under the curtain to take refuge beneath the bed of the next occupant. Unfortunately, that is where the 007 comparisons end. I spear my groin with my new triangle's metal beater that is inexplicably in my trouser pocket and crash into a chamber pot of kinds, which I knock over with a clatter, soaking me with its putrid, amber coloured contents. There is no dignified exit from this predicament. I emerge cradling aching bollocks with my coat dripping wet and smelling like an alley cat, glad to see that the person in the next bed is nowhere to be seen. I have to make myself known to the waiting Myra.

'You disgust me,' she snarls. 'I know your sort, up before the Magistrate on a regular basis. I don't mind you knowing that I think people like you are repugnant and should be locked away.'

'For the last time, I did not fondle myself and I did not grab anyone's tit on the bus that day!'

'What are you talking about? What bus?' Myra spits her response.

'Erm...'

'I'm talking about brother and sister lying on the bed doing... you know.'

She thinks we were practising incest.

'I'm not her brother; I'm her boyfriend.'

My words are a symphony to my own ears. Our faces are deadpan, but I exchange a smile with Sofia through our eyes.

My confession stops the Matron in her tracks. She changes the point of attack. 'How dare you employ deceit to enter this hospital.'

'My apologies Myra!'

'I beg your pardon.'

I leave ward 10a, waving to Sofia. I want to kiss her, but I would only cover her in piss... hardly the best start to a relationship, unless you are a particularly liberal type. I skip out on to the street, now oblivious to the unpleasant smell coming from my coat and the stabbing pain from one of my testicles. It is a pleasant day and the world feels a great place to be. 1972 has been quite a year.

I joined a band. I started playing the drums, which arguably should have come first. I left school. I got my first job. I fell in love. I wrote a song. I became an adult. I played the drums some more. I found that the drums were not for me. I discovered that love is sometimes unrequited... but true love never is.

I have a spring in my step as I walk past the lake in Central Park. I sing to myself a familiar chorus:

If you know the answers Sofia tell me please

For I am inexperienced, I have no expertise

In matters of the heart where I am always ill at ease

Sofia, let me know if I must let you go.

I now have the answer.

19. The Liverpool Stadium \- Part 2

It is 7.15pm, and we are sitting close to the stage at the Liverpool Echo Arena. The venue is less than a quarter full, the majority only interested in talking amongst themselves or drinking; a cross that every support act has to bear in 2012. My eyes take in the extensive stage, standing area, lower and upper tier seating blocks, and it is hard to be anything other than impressed. It was not until 2008, as part of the city's European Capital of Culture accolade, that Liverpool had a venue befitting of its place within the pantheon of musical history. In the old days, we had the Liverpool Stadium. It was a dive, but a glorious dive, and because of it, all the big rock artists of the day would have a date by the Mersey on their tour itinerary. Last weekend I read that it was exactly twenty-five years since the old Stadium was demolished as part of the early regeneration of the city, leaving behind a huge void until filled by this wonderful arena. The article had taken me back to when I was a teenager, and we had the whole Stadium fantasy thing going on. It never came close to happening, and in hindsight, we were incredibly naïve. Yet given the chance, I would relive every minute.

' _You've been fucking brilliant Liverpool. Peace, love and goodnight!'_

Ged's words from the past echo around my head. I reflect on how much has changed in the forty years since those innocent times. The technology and facilities available to present day acts are infinitely better than they were, but the raw energy and excitement generated on those old Liverpool Stadium nights was really something to behold. No doubt, there is a front room in every town and every city, where this very evening, friends are making music and dreaming of playing a venue like this Arena. It suggests that nothing has changed, but this new breed of budding artist will be using _Pro Tools_ software on a laptop. The days of improvising with a table tennis bat, a yard brush and a settee are as long gone as pea burgers, holidays in a leaking, oiled-stained tent, and TV programmes with a drum roll for a signature tune.

'How are you feeling?' Sofia asks the question and shows her agitation by anxiously playing with her left earring.

'Nervous... how about you?'

'The same, though I bet Matt's OK.'

'Definitely.'

Due to the complications arising out of Sofia's miscarriage that Christmas in 1972, we had long given up on having a child of our own. Then at the age of thirty-seven, Sofia became pregnant. Twenty-two years later, and our son Matt, a fearless individual fresh out of university, is giving it a go as a singer-songwriter. Success is very hard to come by these days, not least because the Internet has rendered obsolete the old music industry model. The money has gone, and so today's dreamers and fantasists see talent shows as their passport to fame and fortune. However, Matt has a nice balanced attitude. His goal is not to sell a million albums but to build up a good-sized fan base. Support dates like tonight are ideal for adding to his growing number of supporters.

He picked up a guitar for the first time when he was about fourteen, yet within a matter of weeks, he was already better than me. It did not take long before he was writing his own songs, and it was evident he had talent. It certainly helps that he has a distinctive singing voice and his mother's good looks, and his mix of self-confidence and diffidence is a winning combination with people. Yes, he is my son and I am biased, but with a share of that most random blessing of all, luck, he has a good chance of making a career out of his gifts.

A voice from within the PA makes some inaudible announcement about a future event. Sofia has to lean across for me to hear her speak. 'Do you ever have regrets about your own musical career?' she says.

'You mean the lack of it?'

She shrugs her shoulders.

After the band split, I played for a while as a kind of James Taylor type, though I only got as far as playing local gigs. My timing was bad. The music scene was changing, with Glam rock making the introspective singer-songwriter appear old hat. I eventually lost heart, lost interest, and gave up.

'I don't really have regrets from a career point of view, because I was never quite good enough. But if I had my time again, I'd have probably carried on playing, just for the fun of it.'

'And what about the band? Do you think you split up too soon?'

'I don't think so. Let's face it, I was a crap drummer.'

Sofia brushes away the hair from her face and looks into the distance, 'I wonder whatever happened to the other guys.'

'God knows.'

I glance up to the lighting rigs, as though Ged or Julian might fly down on trapeze wires to join us at any moment. I have long lost touch with the lads, and the older I get, the more of a regret it has become. The last I heard of Julian, he was living in Ireland, presumably the Earl of Wexford or something. I know Ged married Brenda, and that they had a daughter, but they moved out of the area many years ago, out of sight and out of mind. As for Brian, he was eighteen months or so ahead of Lord Lucan in doing a Lord Lucan, disappearing off the face of the Earth. The only logical conclusion we could reach was that his and Ludmilla's circus was one performed behind a curtain... the Iron Curtain.

'Excuse me old man.'

That voice... I know of only one person with that inflexion. I look up and am truly astonished.

'Bloody hell, Jules! What the hell are you doing here?'

I shake his hand in the manner of an over confident salesman, squeezing hard enough to affect its circulation, but only because I am so delighted to see my old friend again. He has lost most of his hair, and the face is craggier, but the sense of effortless style and class are still there. He is dressed in a grey linen suit, a small-collared white shirt, and skinny black tie. If I wore the outfit, I would look a dick. Julian looks the business.

'I received a special invitation.' he says.

'Who from?'

'Your good wife.' His upturned palm is pointing at Sofia to my right.

She tries to cover her smiling mouth, my own open like a goldfish.

'Is this right?' I ask.

I know the answer. Jules was always straight as a die.

'Yes.' says Sofia. 'And I am delighted you have made it Mr. Lord.'

'Likewise, Madame Kellaway.'

She holds out an outstretched arm for Julian to bow and kiss her hand, which he achieves with the grace of an Italian courtier.

'May I just say Tom; you have a very attractive daughter.'

Sofia squeals. From anyone else, it would sound shocking, but Julian's charm carries the day.

This is quite a moment. I ask, 'How did you find one another?'

Sofia answers. 'Twitter, Facebook... you know that social networking thing that's passed you by.'

'Wow, that's fantastic. You look great Jules.'

'You're wearing pretty well yourself old man. Still got that full head of hair I see.' He ruffles the top of my head. 'And where are the grey bits?'

'There's a lot of luck involved.'

We sit down, and he explains that fifteen years ago on the top of Kinder Scout in the Peaks, he met his second wife Katherine. They now have ten-year-old twin girls and live on the Chatsworth House Estate where he is employed in an advisory capacity. It is so fitting that this man of such modest beginnings eventually discovered his niche, living with the aristocracy, or as close as you can get to the aristocracy these days. He informs me that Ged now has six children, apparently to five different mothers, and that he earns his living playing in a band.

I turn to my wife. 'Don't tell me Ged's about to join us as well.'

'I'm afraid not. We've only the three seats booked.'

'Sofia tells me you're an accountant these days Tom.'

'Yes, about as far removed from rock star as you can get.'

'Beg to differ old man. Every artist needs a finance man.'

'Not to play the drums though.'

'I suppose not.'

The house lights dim. There is some minor expectant noise, though mostly from the three of us on the balcony.

'Ladies & Gentlemen, please welcome Matt Kellaway.'

There is a ripple of applause, and a bit of whooping and hollering from us as Matt walks out on stage. It is just him and a twelve string guitar. The sound system and the acoustics are good, and his first song goes down well. He then speaks to the audience, his voice betraying no nerves.

'Good evening Liverpool, it's great to be here.'

More cheering...

'That was called 'Brandon Hein', and this next one is 'Learning to Love'. Feel free to clap along.'

The jaunty rhythm of the song induces the required response from the audience, and as it progresses, more and more people are taking notice, and there is soon a crowd milling around the front of the stage. When this song comes to an end, he again speaks to the audience, which is not an easy thing for many performers, but he takes it in his stride.

'Now for this next number, I am going to be joined by someone who is a local. He won't mind me saying that he goes back a long way. But he's a great guitarist, so give it up for Jimmy Jet!'

More applause...

This is becoming a surreal evening for me. First Julian and now Jimmy Jet. My first thought is amazement that he is still alive. There again, my old mum and dad are still going, so why not? To be fair though, he was a creaking gate back in the old days, and I think he sold his chippy due to ill health. The second thought is the leather trousers and floppy bits dance from _Talent Aplenty_ , which I pray he is not about to reprise. Fortunately, he shuffles on stage in loose fit jeans, a sparkly waistcoat, and granddad shirt. He has ethnic jewellery on his arms and around his neck, and his silver hair is typical of a musician from the 1960s or 1970s, long at the back, long at the sides, though unfortunately the top and the crown have refused to co-operate. He is not as tall as I remember. I know people shrink with age, but this bloke looks like somebody's delicates after a boil wash. I watch as he marches confidently up to the microphone.

'Evening Echo Arena! This ain't no fucking Liverpool Stadium, but it's a good fucking second best!'

The language is unmistakeable. The voice is unmistakeable. This is not Jimmy Jet. This is bloody Ged, Gerard Rawbottom himself... though he would sever my genitalia if he heard me air that surname. This is unbelievable. I know he joined Jimmy's band, but he must have eventually taken on the stage persona of its leader. 'Jimmy Jet and The Rockets' has become a brand, though perhaps not quite up there with Nike or Coca Cola. Ged has a white Gibson Flying V, and he starts playing a familiar twelve bar rock and roll intro. Soon, Matt has launched into a Rock and Roll Medley, reminiscent of the Plain Truth version, including some of the old standards from Little Richard and Chuck Berry.

I tap Sofia on the arm and shout. 'Is this your doing again?'

'Me and Twitter.' She shouts back.

'God... this is amazing.'

She smiles. It is the same smile as from that first meeting at Strathconas, the only difference the appearance of one or two laughter lines. True to her Italian roots, she has aged graciously and remains as attractive as ever. After Christmas Day 1972, being together was such a natural thing. A few days after my twenty-first birthday, we married, and thirty-seven years later, well here we are. I am so glad that ours was a love that was to endure.

The rock and roll medley ends in a flourish to great acclaim. I reflect that it's still the best music for getting a crowd on their feet.

'You are too kind Liverpool. I can't tell you how special this is for me.'

Matt acknowledges the cheers from the crowd.

'And let's hear it for the great Jimmy Jet.'

Ged gets a generous response as he leaves the stage.

'OK guys, I have one more song to do. It is my new single, which is available to download from tomorrow.'

I again turn to Sofia. 'I didn't know about any single.'

She waves away my comment.

'The song has had something of a long gestation. It was written forty years ago on a stormy night in North Wales with only an acoustic guitar, a betting slip, and a pen as props.'

I am dumbfounded. I feel Sofia's hand embrace mine.

'It is a love song and a special love song, because it is about my mum, and it was written by my dad. Ladies and Gentlemen, I dedicate this song to Tom and Sofia Kellaway, my mum and dad, over there in the lower tier. The song is called 'Sofia.'

Matt starts playing and his performance is beautiful, full of tenderness and restrained emotion. I am not an overly sentimental person, but I can feel a lump in my throat, and my eyes are watery. It was only a few weeks ago that I recorded a version of the song in Tom's home studio. He had liked it, but I never expected this. To my right I see that Sofia is dabbing away a tear, and I hold her hand a little tighter. To my left, Julian gives me the old Paul McCartney thumbs-up and a pat on the shoulder. This is an unreal moment for me, to hear this song in such a wonderful context and played so brilliantly in front of thousands of people. The melody line is transporting me back to the emotions of that summer evening when the unobtainable Sofia had inspired me to write the song that was my first proper composition and was destined to be my best.

Matt's performance elicits an ovation from the crowd worthy of his efforts. He acknowledges the response, looks up to our seats, and points a clenched fist in our direction. I feel so proud. Matt has played a wonderful set, and finishing with the _Sofia_ song has hit the perfect note for me. We are all standing and clapping, Sofia and Julian waving in return at Matt. However, my own distractions are kicking in.

I feel a single tear travelling down my right cheek, as a dream-like state slowly absorbs my conscious being. I can still hear the applause. I can still hear the cheering. I can still hear the foot stomps. Yet I now see the crowd out in front of me. The year is 1972, and I am standing on the stage of the Liverpool Stadium, taking a bow. I acknowledge those to the left. I acknowledge those in the centre, and I acknowledge those to the right. I turn to leave the stage with the roars and cries of the crowd crackling within my head from ear to ear. I now have my back to the audience and stand still. I hold both hands up in the air at a forty-five degree angle, fingers outstretched. I then tilt my head downwards. There is one last blast of adulation from the people before I leave the stage.

Who would have thought it? Caroline was wrong. After all these years, the Liverpool Stadium dream has finally come true.

****

If you want to hear a demo of the song Sofia, please visit

<http://www.chimpsindung.co.uk/the-drummers-tale.html>

****

About the author:

Chris Whitfield is an accountant with a sense of humour, which most people consider a contradiction. He lives on the Wirral with his wife and two bitches. That's a Border Terrier and a Cockapoo, in case you're thinking he's living the life of an African tribe leader who believes he's a gangsta rapper. Chris has three grown up children but has never quite managed to grow up himself.

At the age of eighteen, Chris was often mistaken for pop idol, Donny Osmond. Nearly four decades on and ravaged by time, the best he can now do in the look-a-like stakes is Richard Osman from BBC TV's _Pointless_. Osmond to Osman, how the mighty fall.

Chris has published three books, _Chimpanzees in Dungarees_ , _Balls!_ and his first novel, _The Drummer's Tale_. Many are asking for how much longer can this go on?

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Other free e-books by Chris Whitfield:

CHIMPANZEES IN DUNGAREES

When did you last see a Chimpanzee in Dungarees? Laughing at a Sexist, Racist and Homophobic Comedian? Holding a Baby Called Keith? Sitting next to a Newly Wed Virgin? Eating a Meat Paste sandwich and drinking a pint of Mild? And how long is it since you went to a Tupperware Party? Attended by a member of the Deferential Working Class, a Football Maverick, Bus Conductor and Streetwise Dog? And have you recently seen anyone in a Woollen Balaclava? Wearing a Shellsuit? In a Reliant Robin? With a Pools Coupon Collector and Spinster wearing an 18 Hour Girdle in the back?

Fashions come and go, technology advances, social acceptabilities change and gender roles shift. There are so many reasons why something can be everywhere one day and on the slippery slope to oblivion the next. _Chimpanzees in Dungarees_ has more than ninety such disappearing things in the categories of advancement, children, class struggles, commerce, fashion, female emancipation, food and drink, football, natural causes, social acceptability, the state, vehicles and the future. Part satire, part nostalgia, part autobiography, part social commentary, this book has been written with one sole objective. To take the proverbial and have a laugh... or is that two objectives?

For more information, please visit <http://www.chimpsindung.co.uk/chimpanzees-in-dungarees.html>

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BALLS! The Best European Football Nations

_BALLS!_ is an irreverent and informative look at the history of the sixteen teams that played at the 2012 UEFA European Football Championships in Poland and Ukraine. Discover why England fans are always disappointed. Why you can never write off the Germans. How a ginger pube makes you Irish. Why the Italians tolerate match-fixing. How a Civil War made Spain great. Why Russia turned up two weeks late for their early internationals. How the goals of a striker called Ruth took Portugal to their first World Cup. Why being a Pisces is bad news in France. How the Netherlands went from Total Pants to Total Football in less than ten years. Why UEFA regretted asking Ukraine to host Euro 2012. How a clown helped Poland to the top of the World in the 70s. What Croatia has in common with early 90s pop culture. Why the future for Greece is the kebab. How Hitler helped the Swedes at the 1938 World Cup. What happened when the Danes started to pay their footballers. How the Czechs won a tournament that lasted seven years. And how FIFA and UEFA constantly fiddle with the formats of their tournaments. It is a journey of more than one hundred years across Europe and the World that takes in the sights of glory, humiliation, success, failure, politics, war, nationalism, internationalism, visionaries, parochialism, corruption, gamesmanship, racism, multiculturalism, the gifted, the not so gifted, and pies. If you like football, you will love this book. It is complete and utter _Balls!_

For more information, please visit <http://www.chimpsindung.co.uk/balls.html>
