Helena Petrovna Blavatsky has a lot to answer for

The first issue of Militant and the first serious paper I read and identified with.

The Last issue of Militant. By this time I was in a more cynical place

It was in Mabel Fletcher Technical College I first met Ken Pimlett, severe of face and hair cut in a neat but spiky brush. He in turn introduced me to the Young Socialists, and in particular Garston Y.S., which met in the offices of the Boilermakers Union. I owe them a debt, which I acknowledge to this day, but more about that later.

Two things stand out: Ken Pimlett’s bedroom, which was covered from ceiling to wall with photos, clippings and posters. I thought it the coolest thing. Our bedroom was pale yellow emulsion with a single crucifix as its main decorative feature. The other was the spartan meeting room of the Boilermakers union in which it was easy to imagine ourselves as Russian revolutionaries.

Music and revolution seemed to go hand in hand, and it was at Kens I was first introduced to Rhythm and blues - John Mayall, Chickenshack with Christine Perfect. Sometimes we played along on air-guitar; sometimes I got criticized for my appalling rhythm on an empty four-pint beer tin. And once we all sat round and listened to a Paul Butterfield Blues Band album - Ken’s finger rising gravely when the bassist fluffed the note we were listening out for.

We met in Garston once a week and discussed Marxism. Sometimes we had speakers, one in particular, a Methodist minister who had been cynically invited to bond us in our vehement mockery of God. Within thirty minutes a smiling man had been reduced to banging his fist on the table, telling us we were all damned.

We were harmless and of good intent, but possessed of certainty.

I wasn’t. Not then. But that was about to be taken in hand

We were always short of speakers, most of the meetings based on one of us taking the floor and talking about an aspect of Marxism. That was easy for the likes of Geoff Fimister and Dave Martin, both doing their A levels and enroute to University, easy too, for Dave Galashan who lived and breathed Marxism, along with Clint Eastwood movies and small black cheroots. But what could I talk about. I didn’t know diddly squat - apart from making sausage rolls.

Talk about anything, they said.

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

My talk was on the lost continent of Mu. It was the first time I’d ever stood up and talked in public. Within ten minutes I had a roomful of Marxists in hysterics.
The talk began promisingly as I assembled the geological evidence (there was none) and the concurrence of myths that suggested the existence of a sunken continent in the Pacific. Mu, or Lemuria both are essentially the same, I asserted confidently to rows of disbelieving heads. They just stared.

The rot set in when I began talking about the Third Root Race

“How many Root Races were there then? “Somebody asked.

“Seven” I said. A serious question, a serious answer. “There were seven root races.”

I went on to describe the Third Root Race - seven-foot tall, egg-laying bipeds. I heard the first titter. The tittering spread as I went on to describe in detail a previously unknown race of bandy-legged reptilians who hopped rather than walked,and of how the Lemurians' mindless cross-breeding with mammals had angered the gods.

The laughter was becoming hysterical and I realized much of it was coming from me.
But still I continued, describing with passion Lemuria’s cataclysmic demise. Bodies doubled over. John Ward nearly fell off from his chair. This was deviating slightly from an analysis of Das Kapitol.

I was wheezing, infected by ribaldry, choking out the words in between giggles. What was I doing here? What was I saying? Where was the door?

But they had to know. They had to know that the survivors of Lemuria now lived in a network of tunnels beneath Mount Shasta in Northern California . . .white robed figures gliding over scree.

There were few questions. Somebody asked me about sources and I made the mistake of telling them about Madame Blavatsky and of how Tibetan wise men had revealed to her The Book of Dyzan, a pre Atlantean book. Confidence returning I told them of Alice Bailey with her stanzas of Dyzan, dictated to her telepathically by a Tibetan mage called Diwal Kul.

They never asked me back for a follow-on lecture on Atlantis. I don’t recollect them asking me to speak again.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky has a lot to answer for

Astral projection and conjuring up demons

I believed in Lost Continents, too. Much preferred Lemuria or Mu to Atlantis. A better class of people lived there. Reptilian by all accounts. This book I pored over, marshalling the 'facts' pondering as to what might lie beneath the Mersey.
Another classic of its kind. Von Daniken's Chariot of the Gods was thin milk after such heady stuff as this!

I’d fasted for two days, drinking only water. I was ready. My parents had gone out, my mother reluctantly, suspecting bulimia or perhaps anorexic tendencies but reassured when I told her these two syndromes wouldn’t be invented until the 1980’s. Even so, she knew something was up.

When the front door clicked shut, I lay on a blue cotton eiderdown in the back bedroom and closed my eyes. No naked ladies crossed my mind. I had a different task in hand: my very first try at ‘astral projection’

I’d read all the books…so much rubbish in so short a time, especially the pen and ink diagrams of comatose men, their spirits floating above them attached by an ‘astral cord’. I’d spurned the Charles Atlas adverts with their promise of a perfect body and gone for something even more silly. I’d bought the promises that one day I’d be able to direct my spirit to any corner of the world, along with the warning that, initially, I might only manage the ceiling, or perhaps the top of the wardrobe in the far corner of the room.

I remembered just in time another warning. Malign forces were out there waiting to break the astral cord and possess a consequent vacant body. I opened my eyes and scanned each corner of the room. “Should body or spirit be in danger the astral cord will drag your spiritual self back faster than you can imagine. Your whole body will tremble and shake as the two merge once more as one." Or something like that. The words reassured me and I closed my eyes once more.

I don’t know how long I remained there in some kind of psychic doze but all of a sudden the telephone rang and I bounced on the bed shaking and vibrating from head to toe. Had I projected say an inch or two before the malign forces of British Telecom dragged me back, or had I been mildly startled?

My psychic adventures continued: The Ouija board, which really did create a very bad atmosphere in the house. Never done that one since, at least not in any house I actually live in. And once, accompanying Keith Davies visiting his girl friend in Ilkly, North Yorkshire, I came across my first ‘witch’. Well, he said he was. He said many things.

We were talking over a few pints close to a blazing fire. A Yorkshire pub on a winter’s night. The Yorkshire moors then, and maybe still, were a popular place for covens. He told us of how they had tried to conjure up Ashtoreth. We listened, spell-bound as one would, listening to a witch. He describe in minute detail the ceremony and several of the incantations and of how a mist began to appear in the centre of the ring.

“What happened then?” I asked, my drink forgotten, so powerful was the spell.
He looked at me and paused. “We all buggered off,” he said, “Shit scared.”

A Magical World

I grew up in a magical world, surrounded by mystery, a sense that things were not as they seemed.



Alleyways might lead to somewhere different next time I tried them

If I just went down here…

Angels might open their eyes,


Ghosts touch me on the neck

Grave diggers vanish in mist

I dreamt of going to sea.


I never wanted the magic to end


The worm wriggled between my fingers, which were green, stained with grass and privet leaves. Before me was a small pot filled with dead insects and neatly cut foliage, a minestrone of hope, a witches brew, a necromancers draught of death. Once I hoped that newspapers, cut in a certain way would serve as a magic carpet and usher me into hidden realms. Page after page of the Liverpool Echo were folded and snipped into ever more abstruse patterns, but I remained earthbound, hidden beneath the kitchen table, until called out for tea.

The witches’ brew was a later manifestation of the same desperate hope, which ended temporarily when my mum refused to let me have one of her pans to heat what might have been the medicinal discovery of the century. Cutting up paper was one thing. Cooking worms another.

Catering never had the same magic. Bouillabaisse, fricassee, goulash, Bogbash or Bigos, none held the promise of the witches’ brew I was forced to pour down the drain. I bided my time.

Thwarted but not cowed. I retained the belief that the apparent was a skin behind which lurked countless realms and dimensions. How to break through was the problem.
With adolescence, the feeling became more intense. There had to be more to life. As reality settled and walls closed in, both world and future appeared more and more bleak. But I was too old now for paper clipping and concocting foul brews. It was time for something more bold. Astral projection!
But that’s another story.

How do you eat peanuts?

How do you eat peanuts? I’d never really thought about it before I waited upon Harold Wilson * (British Labour Prime Minister) at his Huyton Constituency. Maybe it’s just me, a careful eater, tedious, and needing to be in control of every, individual peanut; but I scoop out a handful with my right hand, deposit them in my left, then pick at them - sometimes five at a time, more often three. As you can see, I’ve thought about this.

The day I waited upon Harold Wilson, I observed how he ate his, and realised for the first time that even peanuts are political. First, he scooped his hand in the bowl in the Keyton prescribed manner, then he looked round at the working-class party workers of his Constituency and made an instant decision. He would eat as he assumed the working class ate their peanuts. He rammed the whole lot into his mouth in a single sweep of his arm.

Later I learned that the very first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsey Macdonald in the 1920’s and early 30’s had a very similar attitude when it came to cigarettes. Nothing escapes politicisation, and spin predates the wheel. He had two kinds of cigarettes: one a packet of cheap Woodbines in a cardboard packet when he was amongst working men, the other in a silver cigarette case for when he was amongst his favourite constituents - admiring duchesses. As long as he remembered which pocket they were in, he was all right.

This small revelation was followed by a military banquet. I remember silver, red coats, flushed faces, baldheads, and very loud voices. I remember scurrying around in a cheap white waiter’s jacket and realised there had to be more to life than this. It is hard to describe how desperate I was.

My first attempt at escape was a tad pathetic. The strategy was spot on, but courage was wanting. I’d get an education, a real one. Wasn’t too sure what a real education was, but it involved O levels at GCE. Wouldn’t go mad, try for English perhaps; see how it went.

Night School

I walked down a long corridor in Warbreck Moor School. It was 7.20. Pm and enrolment had begun for evening classes, night school as it was called then. I had at last determined to improve myself - beginning with an English GCSE - a fairly basic qualification. The corridor ended in a T junction, and it was approaching fast. Memories of past failures crowded in on me:

…aged eleven, walking down Hall lane and being attacked by Tony Holland, my dad on the other side of the road shouting encouragement, urging me to fight back, failing miserably, my dad’s shame - real or imagined.

At the end of the corridor I had to turn right. I hesitated, watching others walk into the English classroom. They looked earnest, a grim, unfriendly lot. A clatter of feet came up from behind - a bunch of merry, middle-aged women. One of them slapped me on the back. “Make your mind up, lad!”

“Are you doing English?” I asked.

She laughed and turned left. I followed and ended up doing a six-week course in basketwork.

Every so often my mum would ask me how the English was going…and I couldn’t find the words, until one day I brought home my first wicker basket.

Lesson learnt. If you want something, try again. Two years later I was at University.

* (Strictly speaking I wasn't actually waiting on Harold Wilson - just in the same dining room amongst a bunch of waiters)

A Discontented Cook

Meanwhile I moved on from Mabel Fletcher to the more prestigious Colquitt St. College of Crafts and Catering, still unsure about everything, but determined to give it a go. It didn’t help that I was taught pastry making by a Polish Chef called Mr. Polaki. His voice resounded around the kitchen - ‘Develop the gluten’ - and he had a metal leg with which he would kick me at every opportunity. I vaguely remember a bruise on my calf because my sausage rolls were a centimetre too short. Only later did I discover that the Russians were responsible for the loss of his leg and once he discovered I was a socialist, the kickings increased - despite now perfect sausage rolls. Money was short and I took every part time job, most often contract waiting where I learnt mischief alleviated boredom. “Water Madam?” And I’d pour the water so that it formed a convex sphere above the rim of the glass. It was done too quickly to appear deliberate and accompanied with a smile as one pleased to be of service. The fun, such as it was, lay in watching the woman trying to raise the glass without spilling it, or lowering her head to suck at it first. Petty, but amusing for a time. 

 There are many reasons behind industrial sabotage, boredom is one of them, a sense of grievance another. My favourite story is that of the disgruntled worker in a sweet factory making Blackpool Rock. (This consisted of a foot long cylinder of candy, pink on the outside, white in the middle, and with a message like ‘Welcome to Blackpool’ in red throughout the length of its interior) He changed the lettering and they’d made about ten miles of the stuff - packaged and distributed before they discovered his alternative message: ‘ Fuck Off.’ Catering was highly exploitive. Profit margins weren’t high, wages were low, hours long. 

I learnt French service, distributing slices of meat from red-hot salvers. You needed four layers of napkins separating the metal from an already sleeved arm and even then, the heat would seep through within minutes. You had to get rid of that meat fast or either you or the customer suffered. There was a Masonic banquet in a hall so small that the tables were squeezed in densely packed rows. When everyone was seated only narrow aisles remained. We were forced to weave our way through these long six-inch wide aisles with these burning salvers on our arms, whispering with increasing desperation: “Excuse me Madam, Excuse me Sir.” Our pleas were in vain. They were there to eat and get drunk. We became more ruthless and terse. The side of a red-hot salver makes for an effective cattle prod if sliced across a fleshy back, or in the case of men, against the neck. Black suits and gowns wilted as we passed, the aisle widening miraculously, like the parting of the Red sea. 

 Chefs could be equally bloody-minded. Myself and Mike Adams worked for a time in the Grand Hotel in Llandudno. It was a beautiful building ,which loomed out over the sea. Later it was badly burnt, insurance scam or an aggrieved cook is my guess. We slept in a garret and were up by 5.30 preparing the tables for early breakfast. When breakfast was finished, we had about an hour’s break before relaying the tables for early lunches. After that, another hour break before laying for dinner - which dragged on for most of the night. Then bed, and up again at 5.30. It didn’t make for happy puppies; the cooks though were surly Rottweilers. Dirty Rottweilers. Bacon and eggs were cooked on the up-turned lids of large stock pots because you could fry a much greater amount in one go. Eggs, bacon, sausages, sometimes black-puddings, drifted in grease - and worse. The cooks also used these pans as ashtrays and eggs sizzled amidst discarded cigarettes and deep-fried tobacco. We developed tough stomachs, but ate elsewhere. 

 After the Grand Hotel, working in the kitchens of Broad Green Hospital was like working in heaven. Old and middle-aged ladies clucked round us, offering tea at the slightest provocation. For weeks on end I was responsible for turning out the jam-buns - hundreds of them - for the entire hospital. Surgeons and consultants, even patients, all got to eat one of my jam-buns. In between times I drank tea and listened to heated discussions as to whether Kathy Kirby was a better singer than Cilla Black. I brooded as I contemplated years and years of this, and became increasingly desperate. The only other image I retain from Broad Green Hospital is an incident, which took place in my very first week. The corridors were long and confusing. The Operating Theatre was dangerously close to the kitchens, and I was late. Dressed in blue checked trousers and Chef’s hat, my knives resting on a folded apron and prominent, I burst through the swinging doors and was confronted by a posse of shocked doctors and an even more shocked patient awaiting surgery. I think he saw the funny side.

Bribing girls to see the Beatles

There were lesser Gods, in Liverpool: The Big Three, Rory Storm, The Searchers, Billy J Kramer, The Swinging Blue Jeans (My daughter invariably squirms with my rendition of Hippy Hippy Shake) and even smaller Gods, some as small as the ‘Hideaways’ who once performed at Mable Fletcher Technical College. They had their own logo, but that was all.

Mabel Fletcher attracted all kinds. Roger McGough, the Liverpool poet taught there for a time. He was a gifted teacher, and his poetry’s ok, too.

It also attracted a strange pregnant woman. She sat in the Common Room, at the far end, and people drifted by her, some touching her stomach. A few candles and a touch of incense it could have been Lourdes. The bell went, and I drifted off to make some sausage rolls.

Later rumors spread like rats in a Take-Away. She was carrying a Beatle baby; it was John Lennon’s, Paul’s, others swore blind Ringo or George was the father. All of us who had not touched the holy stomach felt vaguely cheated, though many years later I comfort myself it was probably the window cleaners.

Some now like to demystify the Beatles, refer to them laughingly as the first Boy Band. They were more than that, but were they ‘manufactured’?

It was my last day at the college and I was wandering around the Common Room - strangely empty without the pregnant woman. There was a waste bin there though, and in it was a large poster advertising the Beatles.
Printed in large red letters on a white background, it was advertising a Beatles Concert at the Locarno Ballroom in Liverpool. It went something like this.

LAST CHANCE TO SEE

YOUR VALENTINE BEATLES.

LOCARNO BALLROOM

Tickets 3/6d,
Free Gifts for the first 300 girls

Note the free gifts for the first 300 girls (boys always lose out) A clear case of priming the pump - bribing girls to see the Beatles!

I’d missed the holy stomach but what was in the bin made for a nice souvenir. And that was all it was. You need to remember the Beatles were only big in Liverpool then. No one else in Britain had heard of them. Two months later they had taken over the world and over the years I held on to that poster in my various moves from Liverpool to Swansea, Aberystwyth, and then Newport. And over the years it became steadily more battered and creased.

At the back of my mind I thought it would make a nice heirloom for Thomas and Frances. (…yeah, well, like my Dad trying to sell me Bing Crosby) But the paper was creased and yellowing, there were little tears, each growing bigger as every year passed.

Then my guardian angel intervened.

In the paper I saw an advert offering best prices for Beatles memorabilia. There was also a phone number and a man from Chorley answered. I described my poster and he nearly bit my hand off. Send me a photo. And I did.

Two days later, he phoned back and in a soft Chorley accent he traced every little crease and fold, from top to bottom, then said he'd be there the following day, having to purchase some Beatle contracts from a hall in Bristol first.

Sure enough, the following evening there was a knock on the door and in he walked, pockets bulging with money. The poster was laid bare on the table. It looked wrinkled and sad beneath the glare of a light bulb, like a raddled old woman.

He rubbed its corners and nodded. 'The real thing' he said. 'There's lots of fakes about'. Then he pulled out wads of money and gave me £2000.

When it was done and dusted I asked him how much he'd sell it for - 'possibly £3000 maybe a bit less - he stared pointedly at the tears and creases.

Anyway we lost our bit of history, but to be honest it was decaying fast and we didn't have the wherewithall to preserve it. I’d been cheated out of a Bob Dylan ticket at Mabel Fletchers but learnt a lesson. Life is what you make - or salvage from dust bins.

The Cavern Club

It’s hard to describe the Cavern, the original Cavern, without saying what’s already been said. You descended into blackness, the air hot and solid with sound, difficult to breathe.

Halfway down the stairs your body would vibrate, your heart and lungs tremble. You didn’t so much hear the music as disintegrate into it. And then, framed by arches of sweating brick, you saw the stage, how tiny it was. You sweated in the Cavern. You were in heaven. And the Beatles were its Gods.

Liverpool then was the centre of the universe - according to Alan Ginsberg, and who am I to argue? The Liverpool Echo was swamped with requests from all over the world for Liverpool pen friends.

There was a fetching pen and ink drawing of an ecstatic American teenager, concocted, I imagine over a pint or two by the Echo’s resident artist, but she did for me. Her name was Debbie Baird, and she came from Texas, and letters ensued.

She was also rich, her father owned bakeries - and she was coming to Liverpool. I panicked when I got the letter. We’ll have to get some coffee, I said. Americans like coffee. I was fifteen with the sophistication of a newt.

Debbie was big and blonde with a peaches and cream complexion, and a raw Texan twang I’d only previously heard in Westerns.

I took her to the Cavern, warning her that most of the big bands had gone, but there was a ‘name’ group on that night - The Chants. I didn’t think to tell her they were black.

I still have shivers at the memory of that night. We walked down the steps into the cellar. It was hot and sweaty. The music was loud. Then a raw Texan voice cut across the darkness. 'Christ, they're black!"

No arguing with that.

This was my first brush with pre Civil Rights America. The British of course were more civilised. We thought we were superior to everyone. It was a comfortable feeling.