music memories
     
   
 

And so, at the tender age of 15, I left home. I hitch-hiked down to London with a steel string guitar I'd managed to buy, a sleeping bag, and about five quid in my pocket. I became a busker at Marble Arch. I was completely alone for the first four days, sleeping on Clapham Common. But then I made some friends who introduced me to squatting (living in a house or apartment owned by the local government, but paying no rent). It was quite common at the time for Freaks. That, I discovered, was what we called ourselves. I moved into a squat and fell in with the Freak community.

Alan Joyce and his French wife Nicole were in their thirties so I was just a kid to them. Alan sold hand made jewelry at Marble Arch where I was busking. He very kindly sent me to buy sandwiches and buy one for myself for the trouble. So I didn't need much money and only busked a couple of hours a day.

I had a crazy plan to go to Exmore at the start of autumn, build a small shelter and live off the land for a few months. Alan and his wife were great travelers, so he suggested I forget the Exmore thing and go to the south of France, pick grapes, then travel.

I agreed. But truth be told, I was an ignorant Yorkshire lad and to me grapes were an exotic fruit, so I wasn't entirely convinced they could grow in a country so close to England.

So, mid August and just 16, I forged my mother's signature to get my passport.

I took the ferry to France.

My first night in France, I camped on a hillside overlooking the English channel. I was sitting on my sleeping bag on a plastic sheet. I had a bottle of cheap wine sold in a plastic bottle, some bread and some paté or something with maybe a tomato. Darkness was coming. I took a drink of the wine. It was so quite. So lonely and so quite. And so magical. On that hillside France was in the very air I breathed. But the silence was so lonely.

The next morning, not only was I wondering if grapes actually grew in France, I was also wondering if it was even possible to hitch-hike there. Of course it was. And then, on the second day, i saw my first vineyard!

After working picking grapes I continued down through Spain. On my map I saw those four islands close to Valencia. An island. The very idea seemed so romantic. I imagined myself as Robinson Crusoe finding my Girl Friday.

At that time, Ibiza was a kind of a Freaks' haven. It was very laid back. I found myself a nice cafe where I went every day. And everyday they played Steve Miller's "Fly Like and Eagle."

 

Next I went to the smaller island of Formentara. At that time it was completely undeveloped. I walked along the long deserted beach. In the sand dunes there was a small villa. It turned out to be four separate apartments, all abandoned and messed up by idiot Freaks. But there was one upstairs apartment and the door was locked. I noticed a tiny window with a few bricks piled up on the floor underneath. I climbed up. The window was not locked. I jumped up and squeezed inside. The place was empty but very clean. Some nice Freak like myself (!) had been there and put dried wild flowers around for decoration. A concrete platform missing its mattress was covered in dry grass. I opened a door. I had my own roof-top patio with a view of the entire island.

I stayed there for a week. At that time I was very gregarious, and being alone wasn't easy for me. But staying in that apartment showed me that this was the first time that I'd ever really been alone.

Each morning I went to the small village and drank a coffee. There were no tourists or Freaks. Only locals. They had no interest in me. So I spoke to no one. After my coffee I went to a small shop and bought my bread and Spanish sausage. My food for the day. For the rest of the day I'd walked around, swim, lounge about, steal a couple of tomatoes from a lonely field. I spoke to no one.

These days, many many many years later, I'm quite content in my own company. In fact, I basically don't like myself so being alone seems a good way of not bothering the world. But I learned how to be alone the hard way and it took many hard lessons like my time on Formentara.

Next: Italy and Rome, where I slept on the flat roof of an abandoned restaurant in a park. I was fed buy some teenage girls who brought me food from home.

Then I returned to London in December. I got my first day job. To this day I haven't had many. This one was in a fabric warehouse. For a month or so I lived with Alan and Nicole, sleeping in there living room. There house was the hang out for most of their Freak friends. So every evening six or seven of us would sit around a wood or coal fire. They smoked dope. At that time I usually declined. One record that played quite often was Thick as a Brick, by Jethro Tull.

 

Thick as a Brick

A room became available in the house three doors down, so I moved in. 18 Milford Street, Clapham. Long since demolished. Funny how remember that address but no other, including my present one.

Any way, every morning I'd wake up and turn on the radio while I got ready for work. Those winter mornings were grim, but there was one song that always played that lightened things up. Gerry Rafferty:

City to City

 
 

During the time I lived in London The sensational Alex Harvey Band broke up and Alex Harvey—The New Band released their one and only album and played at the London Palladium. It was 1979 and I was 18. I bought the album and I went to the show. It was the last time I saw him. Alex Harvey died in 1982.

The Mafia Stole My Guitar

The Mafia Stole My Guitar

 
 

The following summer I traveled in Europe again and met Manon, from French Canada. The first time we made love we were in a field in northern Spain. We were sleeping (tentless) beside a river. Finally my life had the kind of romance I'd always dreamed of.

We had a song. I think we heard it playing at in a cafe of some small village somewhere. Chicago:

If You Leave Me Now