THE WAY WE WERE

A downsizing tsunami is sweeping through our household at the moment and the local charity shops are bravely coping with the flood of books, office paraphernalia, unloved, clothes and other detritus. They've all had a slice of the action. It was in this spirit that I came across an ancient, petite little suitcase, given to me by kindly American relatives in 1968 when I was visiting them and had no suitcase of my own!
Since then, it put a roof over their heads with a bewildering array of 60s and 70s memorabilia. It's only seen the light of day, about once every 10 years. It takes a few seconds to prise it out, of the loft and openness, but an hour to close it again. The diary of a road trip to Greece in 67, St Edward's Preparatory School photo 1956 (including Miss Wilson, my first love), the Anfield Review for 21st November 1970, (a derby match, I will never forget), my Indonesian driving licence bracket. Not pretty!), Divers scouting badges, a Greyhound bus baggage check from Fort Worth, Texas.
IN the dark recesses of the case, long forgotten, I found three old diaries, hiding. The Lett's Boy Scout diary 1963 (13 years old), the Catholic Diary 1966 (16 years old) and my Liverpool University diary the 1967 to 1968. I was sucked in by the image of "me" 50 years ago. A range of emotions, really. Fascination, sympathy (not always for me!), Amusement, sadness, distaste, love, disappointment. It was all there -lots and lots of judgements. A minute later, two hours had sauntered off, never to return.
The Letts Scout Diary.
It was 1963 and the Beatles were exploding all around us but we were too young still for clubbing. We were in that awkward period where you can’t go in pubs, don’t have your own space and anything vaguely resembling a ‘party’ is usually ‘monitored’. So we just ‘hung out’ (an expression which, curiously, first appears in Pickwick Papers) in our garden shed, on the streets or the Mersey waterfront promenade on long ‘patrols’ looking for action. We were impatiently waiting for it all to start happening.
The beginning of the diary is full of lots of useful information, including the scout promise, the scale more, details about the Chief Scout, the Queen Scout medal, various knots, and simple whipping (no comment). It gives the days for hoisting flags on government buildings, first aid, arm slings, axemanship, fire lighting, cooking, lashings, ropes, orienteering, first class journey, camp kids, Gadgets-diagrams of how to construct a patrol dining place, shoe rack, utensils holder for the kitchen, fire crane towels or clothes. After that, there's the history of Scout movement, prayers, the Scout Promise and the sea areas used in weather forecasts.
Included under "personal memoranda" I had to put my height, 7ft. 4 inches and my weight, 24 stone! I then had to give various obscure other measurements such as, for example, "span of thumb and forefinger." Why? , I must have asked myself – and still do - did anyone want to know that?
I've made an initial note-"the reminders at the bottom of each page are completely childish and, although logical, completely impracticable. No evidence of any thought! Mr Letts is a money grabbing sod-(oh, I'm so terribly unscoutly.)” This whiff of rebellion becomes a regular feature of the diary ahead.
That New Year at midnight we went down to the waterfront and listened to all the ships on the river sounding their horns and later in January I was in front of the footlights at the Scouts Play. Me and one other scout, Dave Phillips were brilliant in a sketch about a B&B landlady and her guest. First and last time I dressed up as a woman.
We must have been able to lay our hands on alcohol and I was still leading a double life as an altar boy. Hence the entry “boozed up. Served mass.”
I loved the family being together and when my sister, her husband and their first child left after Xmas, I wrote “Gerry, Laine and Mark are going today and I feel sad. I will miss the baby, especially.” I seem to have conveniently forgotten banging the baby’s head on the frame of the swing seat in veranda – accidentally!
My New Year resolutions were sound – “save money, help mummy and daddy and work hard in school.” Not sure if I lived up to any of them.
I studiously followed my other sister’s love life, hoping to pick up tips - “Ro came in at 5:30 am. She gave Ian the push.”
Between me and my friends we seem to have had a small arsenal of airguns. “Went to Doddy's. Byrny shot me twice. Shot at birds with airgun but didn't hit any.” And as my siblings departed for college once again after Xmas and normal service resumed, it didn’t pass unnoticed. “Rosaleen goes back. John goes back - hitching. All my friends go back to school.”
Amid the Avengers, the Longest Day, smoking cigars at my cousin’s wedding, railing against teachers “Lunt is a bloody bastard”, working up my career as an arms dealer “Went round to Byrny to talk about the gun. Gave me some slugs. Mike wants to buy a gun but he’s a stupid git. I won’t sell it to him. Needs spring and slugs”, cruising Cressington park for a sight of a girl I was infatuated with (she gets lots of mentions in despatches), getting my fire-fighter badge, being traumatised by a series of weekly dentist visits, there is my faultless performance as an altar boy at St. Austin’s.
Though the Beatles weren’t following my rite of passage to adulthood, I was following their’s - “Beatles in America this week.”
I sometimes don’t recognise myself. “Hit copper with beer can.” appears in mid May. Did I really do that? I find it difficult to swallow.
Even sarcasm begins to show up. “Got 200 valentines.”
My recollection of our local catholic church is one of order and respect so I was shocked to see this entry in August - “Fight at back of church”.
I then remembered that the ‘ushers’ who took the collection plate round sometimes had to double as seating organisers/bouncers, especially at midnight mass.
As the autumn term began, I still had my issues with school.
“Went back to Bloody school.”
On September 1^st, I seem to have packed a lot in - “Fight with fellow at top of Mersey Avenue. Black eye. Served at 9 AM mass, watched wrestling with Doddy and Fizzy-Jackie Paolo. Mummy sent a letter to Judith Chalmers-very rude.” (What was that all about?)
And through it all, my first unrequited love is often in my thoughts, “I'll die if I don't see GL soon” and “I’ve got to say something to GL. She's Beautiful.” This is despite the efforts of friends to distract me “Terry is trying to get me off with some Scotch bird.” 35 years later, I did so. I remember weaving so many pure and wholesome fantasies around GL. We eventually met at a party and she quickly despatched me. She was as immature as I was. No longer the goddess, just an ordinary human being, like me.
The helpful printed messages at the foot of each diary page are often brutally rejected.
"Are You a Proficient Cyclist?" “Yes, so Get Stuffed!!”
"Is your personal camp kit ready-you've grown since last year?" “No, so bugger off”.
“Dentist Appointment. Wants me to Have four out and have a small plate due to front-abscess. No! So Get Knotted.” He got his way, eventually. At 16 you don’t have much clout!
We had so much freedom and that year we spent several weekends away hitchhiking and camping or at parents’ cottages. “At Fizzy’s cottage with Doddy, Fizzy and Byrny. Went to Llanfillin for beer and cigarettes. Oswestry market day. Had fish and chips. Went in with Mr Mills and Mr Adams. Went into Llanfillin again with Byrny cider and ciggys.”
I have great memories of that iconic weekend at the cottage, sneaking into pubs in sleepy little welsh villages, tickling trout and gathering raspberries for our supper. Looking moody and bohemian, with pipes in our mouths, in photos. At that age, it just didn’t get any better, but we didn't know it of course. When we headed for home, we walked across the fields and hillsides and woods in bright sunshine, single file in our combat jackets, rolled up umbrellas, cradled like assault rifles. We then split up to hitch back to Liverpool.
Masters of the Universe.
Even Scout camp at Skipton in August got a mention. Why half us weren’t killed I’ll never know. This was pre health and safety - “Aerial runway across the stream. Wide game. Mr Turner’s son ran over a cliff in the wide game at about midnight and and ambulance took him to hospital”. My first-class hike. Duty patrol, the seniors are being made scapegoats. Cleaned up camp for parents visit.” I remember how proud I was when my sister, Rosaleen, brother John and my Dad visited.
That was it. A 13/14 year old’s 1963. In the next 2 years we hitchhiked around Ireland and had more sorties to North Wales and up to Keswick and the Lakes. Once there we didn’t do much except revel in being ‘not at home’.
I expect those self-absorbed and unpolished diary entries are unremarkable and when boiled down to their essential elements were about a young adolescent’s search for his part in the new 60’s zeitgeist that was exploding, trying desperately not to be left behind! We had a pretty good idea we knew it all, or soon would – like every generation perhaps.
I still wonder if GL thought anything of me. I think I like it best as a question.
And GL, wherever you are, don't get in touch!
Nuff said.

TRAVELLERS' TALES

                                          Sunset over the Mekong near Vientiane, Laos

Recently, a friend emailed me about a recent trip to Laos, a country he'd visited as a traveller over 40 years before.  From the comfort of leafy Headingley, it was fascinating to here about his travels and some long-forgotten memories of my own rose to the surface.
I spent about 10 days in Vientiane, the Laotian capital, in 1975, while travelling overland from England to Australia.
Although I had a permit to go on to Luang Prabang in the North of the country (I think I still have it somewhere, along with my Indonesian driving licence!) , I never used it as I was freaked out by an incident at an international trade exhibition towards the end of my stay.
At the time there was an uneasy truce between the Laotian government and the Pathet Lao, the insurgency, and troops from both sides were much in evidence on the streets. I'd had such a lovely time in the first 6 or 7 days, staying in a decrepit but beautiful old French hotel with long balconies, invaded by creepers and undergrowth, allowing access to the rooms. The balconies were bordered with beautiful, but neglected wrought iron railings.
 Daytime was spent in cafes run by French old timers who had just never left. I had the most beautiful banana flambant everyday for next to nothing in an old French restaurant that had seen better days.  The owner was a french national, clearly a relic from the era of french indochina.
I also witnessed an act of incredible cruelty when the drunken or drugged owner got upset with a little kitten that had peed on the floor.  He lifted it up above his head and threw it as hard as he could down onto the ground. Amazingly, it survived, but the incident was straight out of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I was a bit too 'inebriated' to do anything about it. I wandered the streets of Vientiane, streets full of rickshaws, opium dens and with a 'Saigon just before the fall' atmosphere.
If Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken had appeared around a corner it really wouldn't have surprised me.
Among other signals to me that the vibes were not perfect was the number of travellers banged up at the local police station, several of whom I'd spoken to briefly when I got my Luang Prabang pass. (Their cells were alongside the main footpath) 2 Aussies and an American.  They looked pretty chastened.
 One afternoon I decided to take in the International Trade Exhibition, everything seemed very normal, lots of suits, no doubt attached to trade missions, wandering round, locals and a few freaks. I felt very relaxed, normal, not a traveller but a regular tourist.  My instincts had gone awol for a while. 
I was in the centre of a big tent, looking from a distance at the exhibits around the walls when I spotted a young Pathet Lao soldier. His livery was Vietcong circa 1968, and he couldn't have been more than 14. Starry-eyed, he was making his way round the walls. He looked quite sweet and innocent. I had nephews his age. I saw this clash of ideologies, the exhibition, East versus West. I had to have that image. Significantly, he was packing an AK47. It was almost as big as him! What a photo opportunity, I thought. I also thought I was quite a clever, seasoned traveller and I would point the camera directly at a section of wall and when the little soldier crossed the line of the camera I'd take the shot. What could go wrong? - you're thinking. I'm sure you aren't but I was!
He arrived, I took the shot that was going to get me the Pulitzer Prize and then all hell broke loose. The flash went off and he came running over pointing the gun at me and jabbing at my stomach, without making contact. Immediately an interested crowd materialised, more soldiers, on both sides, and someone translated what he was saying. "The light went through me". As you might imagine I was back-pedalling furiously, feigning innocence and looking desperate. He got more an more agitated and angry, emboldened by the support he was getting from some of his mates. The gun was still pointed at my stomach. "Was the safety on or off? He may panic, make a big mistake and loose off 30 rounds. I'll be dead and he'll, hopefully be sorry, but that regret will eventually fade and he'll get on with his life. Meanwhile, I'll still be dead. Why did I just do that?" Just a selection of my thoughts over a couple over the the following seconds that seemed like days. Did my cringing and snivelling help? No chance.

I was marched off to a P/Lao military hub where someone a bit further up the chain of command left me wetting myself for 2 hours and then gave me a right bollocking and exposed the whole camera film in an unnecessarily theatrical fashion, I thought (I didn't tell him that). It had been the last shot on a roll of 36. Instantly, Darjeeling, Thailand and Burma went up the spout, Including shots at sunrise from Tiger Hill. The photos may not have been much anyway but I was gutted. So I said to him, "I'm a British citizen and we were running 50 or more countries like this with one arm tied behind our back, before you were a twinkle in your Dad's eye, skylark and why shouldn't I just squeeze your head like a pimple - and come to think of it, where's the little git with the AK shot off to?" . Would I be writing this blog if I had said that ? I don't think so.  I got what I asked for. 

Thanking them profusely for their extraordinary compassion and generosity, I was then released but not heaved into the Mekong, as I was expecting. I was so shaken that I took the first motorised canoe out the next day.  All in all it was a useful learning experience.  Unfortunately the same experience rarely pops up twice.  A lesson I continued to learn long after I left Laos - and still am!