Sitting there that evening in the Doveston’s flat, none of us could possibly ever have predicted what would happen.
I’m not saying that it was all the Doveston’s fault. Some of it undoubtedly was. I will say that none of it was my fault. I am innocent of all charges.
I told the magistrate, ‘It wasn’t me.’
But did he listen?
Did he bugger!
He said that in all his long years at the bench, he had never heard of such appalling stuff and that he was having to undergo counselling to help him get over the nightmares.
Which is probably why he handed down such a heavy sentence.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Nineteen sixty-seven, the Summer of Love and Brentstock.
Ah Brentstock.
I was there, you know.
It all began on the Friday night.
12
A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fumes thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.
Brentstock, Brentstock. Get your Brentstock cigarettes, they’re luverly.
They came in their thousands. Gentle people, with flowers in their hair. They wore beads and they wore bells and they wore sandals. They also wore flares, but as these were the 1960s, they could be forgiven.
They were colourful and beautiful and the plain folk of Brentford looked on. Mothers stood upon their doorsteps, cradling their infants. Fogeys leaned on walking-sticks and sucked upon their briars. Shopkeepers came out to gawp and pussycats on window sills raised their furry heads and gazed and purred.
Old Pete lounged in the doorway of his allotment hut. ‘Pack of pansies,’ he said as he observed the arrivals. ‘They could all do with a dose of National Service.’
‘Peace and love not really your thing?’ I said.
‘Don’t get me wrong, boy. I’m all for free love.’
‘You are?’
‘Damn right. I’m fed up with having to pay for it.’
I smiled politely. ‘Well, I have to be off,’ I said. ‘I have to make sure that the stage is all set up and everything.’
‘Huh,’ sniffed Old Pete. ‘Oh, and when you see the Doveston, tell him I want those drums of chemicals moving from out of my hut. The fumes make my knees go wobbly.’
‘Drums of chemicals?’ I asked.
‘Fungicide. The stuff we used on the crop. Some American rubbish that’s all the rage in Vietnam. Can’t be having with it myself. I told the Doveston, but did he listen?’
‘Did he bugger!’
Old Pete spat into the water butt. ‘Precisely,’ he said, ‘so bugger off.’
I buggered off. I had a great deal to do. I had to make sure that the stage was OK and the lighting and the PA system. Oh yes, we’d got all that. The whole shebang. Hired it from a local prop house called Fudgepacker’s Emporium that supplied stuff to the film and TV industries. There’s not much you can’t get in Brentford, if you know where to look.
I’d had to pay for it all with my Post Office savings, but the Doveston had promised that I would be reimbursed.
I climbed up onto the stage and stared out over the hairy heads of the growing multitude. And then I did something that I’ve always wanted to do. I took hold of the nearest microphone and went ‘One two, one two’ into it.
It was something of a disappointment, really.
I turned to one of Fudgepacker’s men, who was carrying cable about. ‘This microphone isn’t switched on,’ I said.
‘Nothing’s switched on, mate. We can’t find anywhere to plug the power cables in.
It was one of those very special moments. You know the ones. The ones that separate the men from the boys, the heroes from the woosies, the captains of industry from the shovellers of— ‘Shit,’ I said, going weak at the bladder. ‘Nowhere to plug the power in.’
‘What time are you expecting the generator van?’
I smiled in a manner which I felt might inspire confidence. ‘What is a generator van?’ I enquired.
The Fudgepacker man nudged a companion. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked.
His companion smirked. ‘Perhaps he just wants us to plug it into someone’s house.’
I used the voice of quiet authority that always gains respect from common types. ‘That is exactly what I want you to do, my good man,’ I told him. ‘I can’t be having with generator trucks. My own house backs on to the allotments, we can run the cable through the kitchen window and plug it into the socket we use for the electric kettle.’
By the way that their jaws dropped open, it was clear I had gained not only their respect, but also their admiration.
‘Electric kettle socket,’ said one of them, softly.
‘That’s right,’ I nodded. ‘We do have an electric kettle. These are the 1960s, you know.’
‘Right,’ they both went. ‘Yeah, right.’
It took a lot of cable, but we finally reached my back wall. I shinned over, climbed through the kitchen window, pulled out the kettle lead and plugged in Brentstock.
I was rather pleased with myself and as I walked back to the stage (you will note that I walked and did not shuffle) I ignored the foolish titters and behind-the-hand remarks. These fellows knew they were dealing with a natural superior and I’m sure that it must have irked them greatly.
Peasants!
On my return to the stage, I was glad to find the first band already setting up. This was Astro Lazer and the Flying Starfish from Uranus. Chico had recommended them to me. They were a mariachi band.
They looked very smart in their national costume: sleeveless denim jackets, headbands and tattoos. I watched them as they tuned their trumpets, flugelhorns, ophicleides, comets and euphoniums. I wondered whether it would be a good idea for me to go out in front and do a couple of one twos into the mic. just to get things started. And then it occurred to me that someone should really be introducing this festival.
And that someone should be the Doveston.
I found him around by the mixing desk and I must say that he looked the business. He wore a long flowing white robe that reached to his ankles and, what with his lengthy hair that was parted down the middle and his wavy little beard, he put me in mind of— ‘Christ!’ went the Doveston. ‘What do you want?’
‘Karl Marx,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘You put me in mind of Karl Marx, 1818 to 1883, the German founder of modem communism in England from.., oh...’
My running gag was cruelly cut short as I spied out the floral-haired hippy chick who was kneeling down before the Doveston and giving him a— ‘Blow!’ went the Doveston. ‘Scram! Clear off!’ ‘But I thought you’d want to go on stage and officially open the festival. It is your festival, after all.’
‘Hm. A very sound idea.’ He waved away the hippy chick. ‘You can finish adjusting my yo—yo later.’
I viewed the Doveston’s yo-yo. ‘You’d better put that away before you go on stage,’ was my advice.
‘What?’
‘Well, you don’t want to trip over the string.’
Imust say that the Doveston’s opening speech was a blinder. The style of his oration owed a lot to that of another famous
German. The one who had given all those stirring pep talks to the Aryan nation at Nuremberg before the last war. There was much cupping of the hands over the groin area, stepping back to let a point sink in, beating the heart with a fist and so on and so forth and suchlike.