Putting together a new crew is a very difficult thing to do. A tremendous sense of loss like an ache in the stomach. In this job, a period of ten weeks with mainly the same group of people can give a sense of permanence ... Scott is persuading Eric to leave England and go to Florence and Rome to visit all the art galleries. To visit France and go see all of the places where Henri Matisse lived and worked. To travel on to Spain and seek out the art galleries in Madrid and Barcelona …
“But how will I survive?” Eric had pleaded. Scott doesn't want him to leave. Of all the different Children of the Empire who’ve passed through his crew, Eric is probably his favourite. Certainly, the only real artist.
“Make drawings of tourists. Frederico Fellini survived at the end of the Second World War drawing American GIs as they sat having their hair cut in Rome. Eventually Roberto Rossellini came into the barbershop and saved him, dragged him off to work on the film Rome Open City ... What you have to do, Eric, is make drawings of likely looking tourists on the Spanish Steps in Rome. Let’s face it, Eric, anybody can have a photograph taken these days. We live in the age of the instant image. But a coloured crayon drawing executed on the spot is special. You are a talented artist, Eric. If you approached tourists methodically, choose Americans say, you could get twenty-five hundred lira for a drawing.”
“That much!” exclaims an astonished Eric.
“Hang on to your easel, boy, twenty-five hundred lira's less than a fiver at the present rate of exchange.” …
Eric took Scott’s advice and left for Europe. Scott gave him twenty-five pounds to help him on his way. As an aspiring artist from the land of the long white cloud he may never, ever get this opportunity again. The artistic wonders of France, Spain and especially Italy are not to be missed. It might well be a once in a lifetime chance for Eric …
And sad to see Tom go. He had to leave to prepare for agricultural college in Colchester. He’s made his money and starts back in early September. Tom maintained his reserve and concentration. Though the crew finally drew him out and he started laughing a lot. His face changed. It became rounder and more open, less pinched and gaunt. He’s so single-minded for a nineteen-year-old. He’ll probably end up owning farms or a tractor company, perhaps a firm specializing in ultra-modern farming machinery and equipment. Very sad to lose such a hotshot salesman. A real one-off. He always kept his distance from the rest of the crowd passing through. Scott respects that. Just loosening up a bit to join in the crew chorus. Occasionally at first, but by the end the leader. Sometimes showing a rare hint of excitement if he’d sold three large paintings on velvet in one night. But otherwise, completely self-contained under that thatch of straw-like red hair. Scott can only say thank you, babe …
Many people pass through the crew very quickly. But occasionally someone sticks and really blossoms in the sales environment. Carole Bishop is a case in point. You can find yourself living and travelling with a crew for ten hours a day, six days a week. And in Carole Bishop’s case she did this for almost seven weeks. Selling paintings on velvet can have surprising benefits. When she first appeared from the ‘Bread for Heads’ advert, you would not have guessed she was thirty-six years old. She looked careworn, heavy-eyed, slightly unkempt and broken down. All the appearance of a woman of around fifty who’s down on her luck when she first rocked up. Her husband, Colin, was dead and gone. Her Commer camper van, that home on wheels, sold for a knockdown price, Carole was desperate for the money. Even having to give up her trusty dog, Mandy. An eye-catching, long-haired, Alsatian bitch ...
After a few days out on the road with the crew, Carole gradually started to loosen up. The tension in her face began to drain away. Living and sleeping with gorgeous Earth Mother, Martha, at the Soul Kitchen had a lot to do with it. Carole Bishop started to laugh and cry and talk again. She quickly became a rock-solid member of the crew. She hasn’t sold a huge number of paintings, but she’ll get by. Managing to share a room with Martha at Elgin Avenue. A little bit of love and affection with frizzy-haired Martha goes a long way. It’s Carole’s first sexual relationship with a woman. But heh, one has to take love from wherever you can find it in this shaky world.
Carole Bishop now looks like her real age. She's changed the colour of her hair from mousy brown to auburn red. The careworn look has almost gone and her wrinkles now seem more like laughter lines. She’s even started back dabbling in a little drug dealing. Some help from Ricky at Elgin Avenue. Knowing a main dealer and supplier can have its advantages. Carole Bishop’s confidence is back ...After about six weeks she moved out of Earth Mother Martha’s and has been living and sleeping with a French girl named Madeleine. She hails from Orleans, which to Scott’s way of thinking, gives a whole new meaning to the word maid. Carole was always careful to wait for Scott outside the front door of Madeleine’s every morning when he showed up at Elgin Avenue to collect her ... As Scott likes to say, sometimes travelling in a crew can be a healing experience. Carole Bishop is a living testament to that ... She takes Scott aside one day when they have stopped for their evening meal. In the garden of the Turk’s Head in early evening sunshine. Carole explains to Scott that she has decided to make a new start. She is leaving to go and stay with her sister's family in Orpington in Kent. Carole Bishop, now that she’s better, has very good communication skills, is capable of empathy and wants to train to be a social worker. Good for her. Carole casually invites Scott to drive down to Orpington some Sunday and go and visit her. She promises to take him out and show him Chislehurst Caves. They’re not that far from Orpington according to Carole ... Scott wishing her well. He’s pleased for her ... It just happens at a stroke in this type of operation. Everybody’s leaving at once. The magic crew disbanding. That special time together evaporating. Selah ...
This isn't the first time in his life that Scott has been invited by a woman to go and view Chislehurst Caves ... A flashback to Jeanne and her black, tied-back hair. Walking along with him as he carries his acoustic guitar, weekly lessons with a guitar teacher at Oxford Circus. Scott never did learn to play properly ... It all seems such a long time ago. Jeanne talking enthusiastically about her hometown of Orpington. Walking down the underground steps at the Monument station. Hating his job. It’s only Jeanne that makes it bearable with her laughter and friendly ways. Scott detests working in an office in the city. Feels like a daily toil of death. Children of the Empire marching like their Fathers towards a forty-year treadmill ... They have to separate. Different underground trains. Jeanne takes Scott’s free right arm and invites him to come down to her home in Orpington one Sunday and she will take him out to see the Chislehurst Caves ... He didn’t make it then and he doubts that he'll get there this time either …
Putting a new crew together after a ten-week golden period with the old, but largely successfull one, can be a trial. But heh, much to Scott’s utter amazement the next crew appeared virtually all together like magic. As if it was ordained.
Bill Hannah is quite a good salesman. He’s never going to be Tom. But then the straw-thatched, red-haired boy from Colchester was a one-off. Bill Hannah is twenty years old with very long, fair hair, way down past his shoulders, of medium height and build. He has an open and fresh face with a ready-to-please smile. He immediately takes to Scott and they become friends. Without being asked, Bill Hannah starts acting as Scott’s second lieutenant. He is careful never to say where he is from or why he is here. His voice could be from anywhere in Southern England. No particular accent and not even shaded by class origins. Never even alludes to anything personal, no talk of brothers, sisters, memories, schools, sporting prowess ... If someone avoids saying anything about themselves then it has to be a conscious act. Everybody carries around a mass of details about themselves and something usually pops out every day. Particularly when you are part of a crew travelling in a car all day. People talk. A lot of ‘Bread for Heads’ responders would tell their entire life stories if the crew let them, a complete void when Bill Hannah is concerned, makes Scott wonder. But he doesn’t pry. It’s none of his business and he’s just thankful that Bill Hannah turned up when he did. Bill’s just friendly and underneath his youth, quite smart …
Chris Clark appeared at the same day. It was a good ‘Bread for Heads’ day. Chris Clark is the younger brother of the drummer of a famous band from London's East End. This being a Children of the Empire production means we cannot name him. There are so many people being thinly disguised in Scott’s book that it's frightening. He could be sued for the rest of his days, ten times over, so you'll just have to bear the disappointment. Chris Clark’s older brother originally drummed for a band considered by many, including Scott, to have been the real London Mod band. Songs and looks for the real Mod aficionados, dedicated followers of the fashions of that time. Chris Clark is twenty-one years old with long, wavy, brown hair, a goatee beard, sharp featured with piercing blue eyes and an off-hand manner as if viewing everybody from behind a Perspex partition. Straightaway he can sell. Glory be! Why the hell he’s here at Advanced Art and his famous older brother can’t fix him up with a cushy number with the band is beyond Scott. Help carry the equipment. Learn how to do sound checks. Make the tea. Maybe he wants to stand on his own two feet. Be independent. Scott finds out soon enough. He is the first young person that Scott has ever encountered who has a plastic bag attached between his legs and has to pee into it. With the arrival of Chris, Scott finds himself always on the alert, scanning the streets for public toilets for him.. Chris is sanguine about it which is a good way to be. The new crew, who take to him, are careful not to discuss it and ask for explicit details. It’s the sort of thing you know amongst a group of people yet you don’t talk about. Upsetting, rude, embarrassing, impolite, don’t want to shame someone, whatever. It might be something like cystitis, maybe part of an organ removal. Scott doesn’t want to know anymore. It doesn't pay to dwell on illness and disease …
Poor boy! But Chris makes light of it. In a quiet crew moment, he will abruptly launch into telling funny stories. After a while, as he gains confidence in his new environment and the crew, he will go into detail concerning his older brother the drummer. Chris Clark catching the crew’s attention with how he played football with a famous rockstar last Sunday and his supporting band who Chris Clark’s brother drums for. It was just a kickabout in the rockstar’s garden. A coats down at each goal mouth that turns serious with the intensity of this rockstar to prove that he is also a good footballer. Though the game they like to play is with the BBC Radio One disc jockey John Peel. The rockstar takes special pleasure in inviting John Peel round to his luxury house for Sunday lunch ... The crew are all ears by now and the streets of Roehampton flash by in the telling ... After the traditional roast beef with horseradish sauce, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, peas and sprouts, followed by apple crumble and custard. They drink beer, digest the food then it’s all out into the garden the size of a football pitch to have an impromptu game ...
Note: This rockstar is so miserly he makes the band and the supporting cast that includes Chris Clark pay for their Sunday lunch. Chris’s brother covers for him. Once out in the garden on a sunny day in July, the real game is to take the piss out of John Peel something awful. The disc jockey is a Scouser and proud fan of Liverpool Football Club, a Red, football is in his blood. All the usual tricks. The complete fun of the fair after a few Sunday lunch beers and some dope. Elbowing off the ball. Shouting obscenities when he makes a mistake. Nutmegging him repeatedly. Putting him in goal and smashing the ball at him. A young egotistical rockstar and his gang with a Sunday scapegoat for fun ... The amazing part of the story is that John Peel takes it all with good humour. Never once complains. He knows full well why he’s there, that he’s the butt of their jokes. Yet he doesn't seem to care. Just enjoying the kickabout with his heroes. He is older than all of them and not a natural athlete. But heh, it’s the sort of opportunity, no matter how famous the disc jockey, not to be missed. He even joins in mocking himself with that soft Scouse twang of his. The famous rockstar is a sharp wit and very arrogant and loves to have a constant target to attack as he pretends he’s Dennis Law the footballer. It keeps the peace if the group of them let him win ... This could well get Scott sued. But heh, what the hell. No names, no pack drill ... The truly astounding part of the story for Scott is how Chris Clark manages to join in and play football with that plastic bag attached. It must be very awkward. Conscious all the time of it. Drinking too much beer. Sudden pain. Constant medication. It doesn’t bear thinking about …
Young Angie showed up one day around the same time. A room full of ‘Bread for Heads’ hopefuls turned and stared at her. She looks just like a young Diana Dors. She must know it but pays it no mind ... On the very first day young Angie went out with the crew it was very hot. Sweltering July. The radio news was full of the abrupt collapse of the Upper Clyde shipbuilding industry. The dismantling of a way of life for so long. The announcer tried to cheer the listeners up at the end with the news that cricketer, Geoffrey Boycott, had scored 121 'not out' against Pakistan in the test match at Lords …
Scott taking the crew into the Queen of Bohemia pub in Waltham Abbey. The new crew are gathered round a small pub table as Scott goes up to the bar to order food and drinks. A television is playing high up across and behind the bar. Replayed sequences of a Michael Parkinson interview with John Lennon from the previous Saturday evening. The former Beatle is talking about how we have to change as people. Stop making war on ourselves. Come together as the human race. His theme seems to be 'make love, not war.' Good for him. The customers clustered around the bar of the Queen of Bohemia are not impressed. Scott can hear words like ‘crank’, ‘eccentric’, phrases like ‘long-haired fool’, ‘in tow to that Japanese bitch’, ‘it’s alright for him with all his money’ ...
Scott smiles. It must be so easy to fall out of favour when you’re in the public eye ... he's still waiting to be served ...The English public haven’t forgiven Lennon for getting together with an older Japanese woman. Not that it’s anybody else’s business, but John Lennon’s ... you could die of thirst waiting to get served in the Queen of Bohemia ... Scott remembering seeing John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band performing their hit single ‘Instant Karma’ on television. Yoko Ono just sat on a stool and knitted throughout the performance. Very clever. Performance art. Making you think. Forcing you to consider other aspects of what you are witnessing ... the barman looked like he was coming Scott’s way then veered off again to serve another regular ...
At last! Better get the drinks in first. Having to reconfirm the order with the crew, it's been so long …
‘I’m not serving her!’ The red-faced barman points directly to young Angie stood at the back of the group. No explanations. It is the prerogative of the management who they deign to serve. Ordering the food and the crew go through to the garden at the rear of the Queen of Bohemia ... Scott simply ordered an extra drink for himself. He doesn't drink alcohol so he got young Angie a pint of Australian lager ... The legal age for drinking alcohol in a public house in England is seventeen. Young Angie looks seventeen to Scott’s eyes. With her wedge-heeled, red espadrilles she must be about five-foot-five tall. She is a very sexy-looking girl. Curvaceous doesn't even begin to describe her. And on a very hot day she's wearing very few clothes ... Young Angie drinks her Australian lager and eats the Queen of Bohemia daily special, cottage pie. Nothing else is said in the pub. The crew are left on their own to eat and drink in the lovely garden in the sunshine.
Young Angie confided to Scott that she is really only fifteen and that she'd lied to him earlier in the day about her age. She didn’t want to lose the chance of a job. Will he forgive her? She smiles and touches his arm. It’s enough to make a saint cave in. Later, Scott discovers through Bill Hannah, that young Angie admitted to him that she is really only fourteen. She’s run away from her home in Crawley in Surrey. She was unhappy. Her stepfather kept hitting on her ... Just what is going on in this country!? First it was washed-out Linda, now young Angie. To Scott’s way of thinking the mothers are the guilty parties for they are turning a blind eye to what’s happening. Don’t want to believe it. Another time young Angie told Scott that her stepfather was sexually abusing her young brother as well. Is this a burden the Children of the Empire are going to have to carry, sexually targeted as youngsters, with the Second World War and its mentally-damaging after-effects trotted out as a lame excuse.
The first night that young Angie was with the crew she begged Scott to take her back to Milner Square with him. Bill Hannah and the other new crew member, Michaela, offered to put her up with them in Wandsworth. She declined. Said she only wanted to be with Scott and the new crew all laughed … Fortunately, Patricia is so bedazzled by American Al she is unlikely to come blundering in through Scott’s door at one o’clock in the morning and see young Angie laying in a sleeping bag on the floor. Scott had to press her firmly into using it. She was very reluctant and kept stroking the corner of the futon like a needy young child. Finally, Scott promised young Angie he will take her over to Elgin Avenue tomorrow morning and fix her up with Earth Mother Martha of the Soul Kitchen ...
Scott awoke abruptly in the morning in a feverish state of excitement. The duvet cover was thrown right back and young Angie was astride, coming down on him, giving amazing head. She was mouthing and licking his cock as if she was very slowly licking and enjoying a succulent Italian ice cream. Young Angie is possessed of magic fingers. Scott tries to pull her up, but she resists. She refuses to stop and just laughs in a most licentious manner. Scott can only succumb. Terrible thoughts of Guy Radcliffe-Fleming and Robin Gabriel being sent to prison for sex with a fourteen-year-old girl. Praying Patricia doesn't burst into the room to borrow some money for a taxicab fare. Shocking thought. If Scott forced young Angie to stop she might become very capricious and wilful and bite his cock very hard. Christ! If she lost her temper altogether she could bite it off!...
Driving young Angie over to Elgin Avenue. She seems very pleased with herself. Scott on edge. Expecting at any moment to be pulled over by the police. Just can’t get the thought of the Right Honourable Guy Radcliffe-Fleming out of his head. If Scott recounted exactly what had taken place with young Angie, nobody would ever believe him. Young Angie would go and put her sexy foot right in it, the way that fourteen-year-olds have a habit of doing and probably declare that she is madly in love with Scott and will wait for him until he gets out of prison!
Going to Ricky’s first at Elgin Avenue. Needing to score some coke for Dom Patel. Stock up on hashish. Young Angie sits herself right down in a wicker chair. Eagerly surveys the scene. Tokes on a joint. Within a day she is Ricky’s girlfriend. Scott reasons that if you are supplying over fifty people with acid, cannabis, grass, coke and speed on a regular basis why would you bother about sleeping with a fourteen-year-old girl every night. And anyway, she could so easily be sixteen with her looks and voluptuous figure ... Scott is relieved. And what is even better, young Angie sells well. Men take one look at her on the doorstep and invite her in. Their wives, girlfriends, hardly get a look in. In the end the women take control from the goggle-eyed men and buy some paintings on velvet just to get young Angie and her heavenly body out of their houses. Within a week young Angie has sold sixteen paintings and is on the crest of a wave …
Michaela O’Rourke is from Tulla, near Ennis in County Clare in the Republic of Ireland. Not that far, as the Irish crow flies from Shannon Airport. Though she came down to London recently from her home in Leeds. Her family had moved to Yorkshire from Ireland when she was fifteen. She's twenty-one now. She doesn’t say very much. Very dark in appearance. Short black hair in a pageboy cut. Large, expansive, dark eyes with extremely long eyelashes. Scott thought at first they might be false eyelashes, but no, they are real. Thick, fleshy lips which she bites and chews a lot when she’s nervous which seems to be a fair amount of the time. She’s not really attractive, but there is something about her you just can’t ignore ... Michaela and Bill Hannah become very close from the first morning that Michaela showed up at Hollywood Road. As if they had known each other before somewhere. Probably drowned together when the mythical city of Atlantis disappeared forever under the waves. They seem to be able to communicate with each other effortlessly without the need for words. They have the habit of finishing each other's sentences when they do talk, always with a surprised laugh, as if it was unexpected to them …
Michaela O’Rourke is a thief by instinct and nature. She so desperately wants to impress the crew leader. She stole two large gold candlestick holders, three leather-bound prayer books and a purple altar cloth from the High Church in Maidstone in Kent when the crew paid a visit there. She presents all of these stolen articles to Scott as a gift complete with candles she’d purloined as well. Scott knew better than to refuse this offering. Bill Hannah seems very impressed by her ingenuity ... What to do with these unwanted presents? Hide them away at Milner Square. Scott’s on edge all the time now. The chilling thought of the police turning up at the basement office in Hollywood Road. The High Church in Maidstone have reported them to the local police. Some smart local brethren took down the Cortina’s registration number and passed it onto the Maidstone police. Said the occupants all looked very suspicious. Thoughts like these can chill you to the bone. The new crew are good, but contain more troublesome characters than the old bunch …
Another day Michaela shoplifted an expensive, bottle-green corduroy jacket from the South Sea Bubble Company boutique in the Portobello Road. She presents it to Scott as a token of her esteem. Scott finds himself blushing as he accepts the gift. The crazy thing is, he really likes the corduroy jacket and takes to wearing it though he feels guilty as hell at first. But you know what. Those kinds of feelings can wear off quickly.
Michaela O'Rourke and Bill Hannah live in a large, empty house in Wandsworth. They insist on some nights that Scott goes back with them to the house. The things you have to do for the crew ... Scott freebases coke with them. It helps break the ice. Some sort of tension in the air of this large empty room he can’t quite put his finger on. An amazing house to squat. Just left empty, almost abandoned … Michaela sits silently across this large, empty room lit by candlelight, and just stares intently at Scott. Michaela doesn’t sell very much, but she's integral to the crew. Bill Hannah would be lonely without her ... They listen to the music of The Doors on a portable record player. They play the album Strange Days over and over again. Jim Morrison died last week in Paris. The Lizard King is dead. Bill Hannah is going on and on about Jim’s girlfriend, Pamela. How distraught she must be feeling. The cocaine has really opened him up. Jim Morrison's death in Paris has overnight turned The Doors into a cult band. They were brilliant anyway. But now they are forever held in time. Shredded across Los Angeles and The Strip. The music of a sexual and political revolution. Envisaged by the New Age Dreamers. Time cannot shred or waste them. Jim Morrison can never, ever, lose that voice ...sat in a triangle on the bare floorboards, Bill, Scott and Michaela talking and smoking joints. This room feels like a deserted warehouse …
Scott leaves them in Wandsworth as the sun is coming up. Driving across a deserted London to Islington. Thinking of Michaela O’Rourke’s dark eyes staring at him all the time. Very unsettling. A Doors song keeps playing around and around inside his head … You’re Lost, Little Girl ...