SEASIDE SIGN-ON
Paddy was the one with the plan. He was the driver.
'Dover… Calais… Then right down through France and Spain to Gib.'
It was a good plan. Except that only Paddy and Mark had any money – and even then only a couple of hundred pounds between them. It'd hardly cover the cost of the ferry over the Channel and petrol. Shug and I were skint.
Our optimism about the projected drive down to Gib began to die as we drove down towards Brighton. Grey clouds loomed overhead and it started to rain, pissing down on our happy parade.
As we drove through the back lanes towards Hastings – the car was untaxed and the driver uninsured, though Paddy did possess a (fairly) clean driving licence – more and more doubts began to climb into our brains.
We drove through a rainy late afternoon, blasting out U2's Joshua Tree on the cassette player Paddy had brought along, shouting out the lyrics to 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' to the early spring hedgerows, looking for a place to pitch tents for the night.
Somewhere east of Hythe we found an orchard, jumped over a fence and set up camp. The sun came out and made the wet grass glisten. We got stuck into a two-litre bottle of cider we'd bought for the trip, smoked some of the Norfolk weed we'd procured before our departure and stuck some Bob Dylan into the tape recorder.
We debated the odds of us all making it down to Gib in the car. Mark told us about a man he'd met in a pub in Coatbridge who'd said it was a cinch to sign on in Torquay. 'They have to give you an emergency payment the same day. Also, there's lots of Swedish language students there, the man said.'
By noon the next day we were back on the road, heading west. We reached Torquay before nightfall, camped beside a car park on the outskirts of town, and descended on the dole office the next morning.
Paddy and Mark were refused any money outright. They'd cashed their last giros only a few days before. Shug and I were due cheques. We were told there'd be a little time to wait for the machinations of bureaucracy to re-route our giros to Torquay. We were encouraged, but inclined to push officialdom to try that little bit harder on our behalves.
'But I'm of no fixed abode. I'm homeless and have no money. I need an emergency payment,' I pleaded amateurishly. The clerk behind the screen remained impassive and unimpressed.
I was given a promissory letter to hand to a sympathetic landlord of a B&B of my choosing. As was Shug.
We found a B&B where the lonely landlady accepted Shug's brilliantly crafted lies and agreed to take us in while we awaited our money. Paddy and Mark decided to head to Bristol, dump the car, then get on a one-way flight to Gib from the airport there.
It was the better plan. Shug and I'd catch them up in a few days, once our cheques came through.
Shug and I, relative strangers, our mutual friends having departed the scene, were left to our own devices in the B&B. I went out and trawled some second hand bookshops in town; came back to the room with Catch-22 and On The Road and lobbed the latter to Shug, who was dozing on his bed. I lay on my bed and tried to find the humour in Catch-22.
The next day, in the rain, we tried again to coax some money out of the social services. The clerks listened to us, went away behind the scenes for a time, returned, told us it'd be a few days yet.
'But I have no money at all. The landlord of the B&B is demanding money. What about an emergency payment?'
'There are certain special rules regarding the claiming of unemployment benefit on the South Coast, and indeed in any Seaside Resort,' I was informed.
Shug, perhaps more desperate to escape the mess his friends had landed him in, and a far more accomplished liar, pleaded his case better that I. Within three days his money came through. To celebrate, we spent the day on the beach. The sun had returned and with it gaggles of lithe Scandinavian girls promenading on their way to and from the language schools in skimpy tops and shorts. Shug and I lay on the beach quaffing our supermarket beers and took in the sights and the sun.
We lay too long. Shug, unused to such unfettered sunlight, got badly sunburnt. That evening he went out to find a phone booth to call his girlfriend back in Glasgow. On his return to the B&B he asked me where his jacket was.
'You took it with you when you went to phone.' Shug ran straight back down the stairs and out the door.
We left the B&B about 3am the next morning. Very quietly. I walked with Shug under the loom of the streetlamps to a spot where the passing density of traffic would give him a fair chance of getting a lift part of the long way back up to Glasgow. He winced when, after shaking his hand, I gave him an encouraging pat on the back. He had more than four hundred miles of walletless uncertainty ahead of him. He'd never hitchhiked before; never been further away from Glasgow than a school trip to Edinburgh. I thought of lending him my spare sweater to keep the cold out, but then thought better of it.
He'd not got far with On The Road, said it was shit. I told him what Truman Capote had said about it, but he didn't seem to care much.
Four weeks later, after a short stint working on the pig farm of a friend of my family's, I was sitting in a window seat on a plane out of Manchester on a one-way ticket to Malaga. From Malaga I took a bus to La Linea, looking forward to crossing the runway, rejoining my old buddies and getting back into the docks for however long it took to save up a big bung to take me further. To take me right round this time.
I never saw Shug again, though Paddy tells me he's still in Coatbridge, married to his childhood sweetheart; mortgage, kids, a steady job driving a taxi.
'Dover… Calais… Then right down through France and Spain to Gib.'
It was a good plan. Except that only Paddy and Mark had any money – and even then only a couple of hundred pounds between them. It'd hardly cover the cost of the ferry over the Channel and petrol. Shug and I were skint.
Our optimism about the projected drive down to Gib began to die as we drove down towards Brighton. Grey clouds loomed overhead and it started to rain, pissing down on our happy parade.
As we drove through the back lanes towards Hastings – the car was untaxed and the driver uninsured, though Paddy did possess a (fairly) clean driving licence – more and more doubts began to climb into our brains.
We drove through a rainy late afternoon, blasting out U2's Joshua Tree on the cassette player Paddy had brought along, shouting out the lyrics to 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' to the early spring hedgerows, looking for a place to pitch tents for the night.
Somewhere east of Hythe we found an orchard, jumped over a fence and set up camp. The sun came out and made the wet grass glisten. We got stuck into a two-litre bottle of cider we'd bought for the trip, smoked some of the Norfolk weed we'd procured before our departure and stuck some Bob Dylan into the tape recorder.
We debated the odds of us all making it down to Gib in the car. Mark told us about a man he'd met in a pub in Coatbridge who'd said it was a cinch to sign on in Torquay. 'They have to give you an emergency payment the same day. Also, there's lots of Swedish language students there, the man said.'
By noon the next day we were back on the road, heading west. We reached Torquay before nightfall, camped beside a car park on the outskirts of town, and descended on the dole office the next morning.
Paddy and Mark were refused any money outright. They'd cashed their last giros only a few days before. Shug and I were due cheques. We were told there'd be a little time to wait for the machinations of bureaucracy to re-route our giros to Torquay. We were encouraged, but inclined to push officialdom to try that little bit harder on our behalves.
'But I'm of no fixed abode. I'm homeless and have no money. I need an emergency payment,' I pleaded amateurishly. The clerk behind the screen remained impassive and unimpressed.
I was given a promissory letter to hand to a sympathetic landlord of a B&B of my choosing. As was Shug.
We found a B&B where the lonely landlady accepted Shug's brilliantly crafted lies and agreed to take us in while we awaited our money. Paddy and Mark decided to head to Bristol, dump the car, then get on a one-way flight to Gib from the airport there.
It was the better plan. Shug and I'd catch them up in a few days, once our cheques came through.
Shug and I, relative strangers, our mutual friends having departed the scene, were left to our own devices in the B&B. I went out and trawled some second hand bookshops in town; came back to the room with Catch-22 and On The Road and lobbed the latter to Shug, who was dozing on his bed. I lay on my bed and tried to find the humour in Catch-22.
The next day, in the rain, we tried again to coax some money out of the social services. The clerks listened to us, went away behind the scenes for a time, returned, told us it'd be a few days yet.
'But I have no money at all. The landlord of the B&B is demanding money. What about an emergency payment?'
'There are certain special rules regarding the claiming of unemployment benefit on the South Coast, and indeed in any Seaside Resort,' I was informed.
Shug, perhaps more desperate to escape the mess his friends had landed him in, and a far more accomplished liar, pleaded his case better that I. Within three days his money came through. To celebrate, we spent the day on the beach. The sun had returned and with it gaggles of lithe Scandinavian girls promenading on their way to and from the language schools in skimpy tops and shorts. Shug and I lay on the beach quaffing our supermarket beers and took in the sights and the sun.
We lay too long. Shug, unused to such unfettered sunlight, got badly sunburnt. That evening he went out to find a phone booth to call his girlfriend back in Glasgow. On his return to the B&B he asked me where his jacket was.
'You took it with you when you went to phone.' Shug ran straight back down the stairs and out the door.
We left the B&B about 3am the next morning. Very quietly. I walked with Shug under the loom of the streetlamps to a spot where the passing density of traffic would give him a fair chance of getting a lift part of the long way back up to Glasgow. He winced when, after shaking his hand, I gave him an encouraging pat on the back. He had more than four hundred miles of walletless uncertainty ahead of him. He'd never hitchhiked before; never been further away from Glasgow than a school trip to Edinburgh. I thought of lending him my spare sweater to keep the cold out, but then thought better of it.
He'd not got far with On The Road, said it was shit. I told him what Truman Capote had said about it, but he didn't seem to care much.
Four weeks later, after a short stint working on the pig farm of a friend of my family's, I was sitting in a window seat on a plane out of Manchester on a one-way ticket to Malaga. From Malaga I took a bus to La Linea, looking forward to crossing the runway, rejoining my old buddies and getting back into the docks for however long it took to save up a big bung to take me further. To take me right round this time.
I never saw Shug again, though Paddy tells me he's still in Coatbridge, married to his childhood sweetheart; mortgage, kids, a steady job driving a taxi.