‘Because if you were a monk, you could hardly be guilty of a crime, could you? Whoever heard of a bad monk?’
‘There was Rasputin,’ I said.
‘Precisely.’
‘Eh?’
‘Well, anyway. If you were a monk, you’d get off scot-free.’
‘Is that Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811 to 1878), the English architect so prominent in the Gothic revival, who restored many churches and cathedrals and designed the Albert Memorial?’
‘No,’ said Brother Michael. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, no reason.’ I sighed deeply. ‘I wish I was a monk,’ I said.
Brother Michael made a thoughtfull face. ‘There is a way,’ he said. ‘But, no.’
‘No what? What do you mean?’
‘Well, I could make you a monk and then you would walk free of all the charges and not have to go to prison.’
‘Then do it,’ I said. ‘Do it.’
‘It’s not strictly orthodox. It should really be done in a vestry.’
‘Do it,’ I begged. ‘Do it now. Do it here.’
‘Oh all right. You’ve talked me into it. The actual initiation won’t take too long, but you might find it a bit uncomfortable. You’d better drink this.’ He produced a bottle of colourless liquid. ‘Drink it down and find yourself something to bite on.
And it was that close.
If the cell door hadn’t opened at that very minute and a policeman come in to tell me that I could go straight home, because no-one was pressing any charges, what with me still being a minor and everything and nobody being badly hurt.
It was that close.
I almost became a monk.
My parents were waiting outside with a change of clothes for me. I went meekly, accepting that I was in big big trouble.
But the trouble never came. Instead my mother hugged and kissed me and my father told me that I was very brave.
It turned out that the Doveston had spoken with them and explained everything.
He had told them how he and I had been at my house giving the place a good spring clean to surprise my parents when they got back from the show. And how the evil big boys had broken into the house and wreaked terrible havoc.
And how they had blown up my Biscuit.
When pressed for descriptions, the Doveston could only say that they all wore disguise, but ‘had much of the gypsy about them’.
10
Don’t Bogart that joint, my friend.
Personally, I had a great deal of time for the 1960s. I know that a lot of old bunkum has been talked about them. All that ‘if you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t there’ rubbish. But there was a lot more to those years than simply sex and drugs and rock’n’roll (as if this mighty trio was not in itself sufficient).
Yes, there was free love, for the Secret Government of the World had yet to invent AIDS. Yes, there were drugs, and many a young mind was blown and expanded. And yes, indeed to goodness yes, there was good old rock’n’roll. Or rather good new rock’n’roll.
But there was more, so much more.
For one thing, there were yo-yos.
You might remember yo-yos, they enjoyed a brief renaissance back in the late 1990s, and possibly you have one, gathering radioactive dust in a corner of your fallout shelter. But I bet you can’t remember how to work it, and I’ll also bet that you don’t know that the yo-yo was invented in Brentford.
Oh yes it was.
Norman Hartnell[5] invented the yo-yo. It was his very first invention. It is true to say that he did not invent it with the intention of it becoming a toy. He invented the yo-yo as a means to power his Vespa motor scooter.
Norman had this thing about alternative sources of power and it remained with him throughout his life. His search was for the free energy motor. That holy grail of science, perpetual motion. How the idea originally came into his head seems uncertain. But my money would be on the Doveston puffing it there.
By 1967, the year of which I now write, the Doveston had firmly established himself as Norman’s mentor.
Norman now ran the family business, his father having met a tragic early death in a freak accident involving handcuffs, concrete and canal water. The exact circumstances remain a mystery to this day and although the police questioned the Sicilians who ran the off licence next door, no arrests were made. Why the police should have suspected foul play in the first place is quite beyond me. And if they were thinking of fitting up the Sicilians, their evil schemes were soon thwarted.
For the Sicilians were all wiped out, a week after the death of Norman’s dad, in another freak accident. This one involving their letter box and a stick of dynamite.
They were the last Sicilians in Brentford and, in the words of Flann, I do not think that their likes will ever be seen here again.
Now, 1967 is remembered with great fondness for being the Summer of Love. Nineteen sixty-seven was the Summer of Love. There were other seasons, of course, and these too had their names. There was the Winter of Downheartedness, the Spring of Utter Misery and the Autumn of Such Dire Gloom that it made you want to open your wrists with a razor. But for some unknown reason, people only remember the summer.
I remember that summer well. For it was the summer of yo-yos and Brentstock.
Ah, Brentstock. The now legendary three-day festival of Love and Peace and Music. I was there, you know, I saw it all. Allow me to tell you about it.
For me it began one spring morning. I was feeling utterly miserable, although I have no idea why. I’d left school the previous July and gone from one job to another. They had all been menial and underpaid and I had been sacked from each of them. This, of course, presented no problem. There was full employment in the Sixties and no sooner were you sacked from one place than you could begin work at another. Sure, they were all crap jobs, but hey, it was better than being unemployed.
But in that spring I had a new job and one with prospects. I was employed by the Doveston. My job description was Overseer of the Plantation and I got to wear a special uniform with boots and carry a riding crop. It was a doddle. All I had to do was stride about, clouting migrant workers with my crop and telling them to get a move on.
It was the kind of job you only dream about.
So I’m still not sure why I was so miserable.
The Doveston used to have a catchphrase, which was; ‘Tomorrow belongs to those who can see it coming’. He was certainly one of the those. I remember him telling me that one day there would be no Mexican quarter in Brentford and I remember how I scorned the idea at the time. But he’d been quite right; by 1967 all the Pachucos had blown each other away and all the remaining Mexicans, mostly old women and little girls, lived in the shanty town of huts and sheds on the edge of the plantation and worked for the Doveston.
I should perhaps say something now about where the plantation was located. After all, it was the site of Brentstock.
It was located upon Brentford’s St Mary’s allotments.
Up until the middle Sixties there had been many allotment holders, each with their own little plot of land, rented from the council and yielding up its yearly crop of fruit and veg. But one by one the old boys who dug the soil died off and one by one their plots became available.
And one by one the Doveston acquired them.
And now he had them all but one. That one belonged to his ‘uncle’, Old Pete, and that remained untouched. As for all the rest, they were ploughed over and the great square of land, sloping gently to the River Thames, became a tobacco plantation.