It was the spring, or perhaps the summer of 1966. I was thirty-one years old, my career was belatedly getting into gear and Goodyear Tyres had scheduled me on a course in London, the accommodation and course venue being in the University of London Commonwealth Halls in Russell Square. I had the whole day off to travel (trains were slower forty years ago) and the course didn't start until the evening. I passed through London and Euston during my army service in 1953, but had seen nothing of the metropolis. This was my chance - I could take the night sleeper from Glasgow Central, arrive in London in the early morning, and have the whole day to wander its streets. I headed for Central Station carrying only a light overnight bag, feeling a bit like a mature Dick Whittington - I briefly considered carrying the bag on a stick over my shoulder.
American companies were notoriously parsimonious when it came to travel expenses, so I had a second-class ticket, which meant I had to share the sleeper berth with an unknown other. It is hard for a young professional today to realise how limited and parochial the horizons of a thirty-something could be in the 1960s. The swinging decade had touched the teens and the early twenties, but the values of someone ten and more years older were essentially bounded by the expectancies of our parents - the wartime generation. We were, in the main, cautious and unadventurous, at least in the grim North. Provincial cities and provincial manners were peculiar to their region, although my horizons had been somewhat broadened by National Service in the Army in England.
I boarded the train and was shown to my compartment by the sleeping car attendant, who explained that my reservation was for the bottom berth. I could hardly believe that two people were expected to wash and sleep in this tiny space, but I was relieved that I was on the ground floor, so to speak. I can't remember now exactly what time it was - probably nine or ten o'clock in the evening. It was too early to go to bed, but there was nothing else to do, and I was rather anxious to be in my pyjamas, washed in my lower berth before the top bunk man arrived. It did cross my mind that it might be a woman, not a man, but I dismissed this ludicrous idea swiftly - British Rail had not embraced the values of the flower children. While I was brushing my teeth, the attendant returned, in an ingratiating mode, and asked if I required any refreshments, holding in his hands several miniature whiskies. My miniscule expenses allowance did not run to such profligacy, and I tentatively inquired after a coffee, a request that clearly disappointed the attendant, and which was greeted with faint contempt. He returned after a time with a cup of coffee, named the price, and I over-tipped him in my embarrassment at having fallen at the first hurdle.
I was sitting on the edge of my bunk drinking it when there was something of a commotion in the corridor outside, raised voices, then the door opened and a red-faced man of indeterminate age, reeking of alcohol, thrust himself into the tiny space, shoving a large bag in front of him. I stood up, banged my head on the bunk above, spilt my coffee on my pyjamas and muttered an incoherent greeting. He ignored me completely, turned to the attendant behind him in the corridor and demanded 'three wee Bell's', which, to a native of Glasgow was not a request for a carillon but for three whisky miniatures. Prudence and the lack of communication prompted me to lay my coffee cup on the floor and slide back into my bunk. My travelling companion climbed up the ladder to the top bunk without undressing, farting spectacularly on the way up. A fart in a sleeper compartment has much the same effect as a fart in a spacesuit, to paraphrase Billy Connolly's remark to Michael Parkinson, which so convulsed Angie Dickinson with mirth.
After a time, the attendant returned, and, entering the compartment, reached up to the upper berth with the three miniatures. The price was named, money changed hands, the attendant left, and there were more farts and grunts of satisfaction from above as the man aloft consumed his whisky. I thought about saying goodnight but decided against it. I lay back then discovered to my horror that I needed a pee. Unaware of the protocols of sleeper travel, which permitted wandering along the corridor in one’s pyjamas, and recognised the inevitability of travellers peeing in the tiny sink - even, horror of horrors, while the train was standing in the station - I lay in misery until necessity forced me to get up after the train had moved off, partially dress again and venture along the corridor to the toilet. I returned and entered the compartment to find my companion peeing in the sink, and the smell of alcohol-permeated urine was added to earlier aromas. At that point, I had an epiphany, and vowed that I would never travel second class on a sleeper again, only first class. I went back to bed again and watched the trousered legs of my travelling companion ascend to his lair above me, taking some comfort in the fact that he was fully dressed.
I then fell asleep, only to waken in terror, facing the back wall of the berth in total darkness, and experienced an Edgar Allan Poe moment until I turned and saw a glimmer of light through the window blind and heard the rhythmic rattle of the train on the rails. I was awake when we pulled into Euston, got dressed hastily and left, inhaling the relatively clean air of the great rail terminus. I was in London and the day beckoned. I had a London street map, and had decided to locate the course venue before I explored London. The danger for the Glasgow man of those days abroad in another city was to assume that all the streets ran either north and south or east and west. Glasgow city centre is laid out in a grid system, like many American cities, and all the main arterial roads conformed to this directional pattern.
I headed more or less south, looking for Bloomsbury and Montague Street, with vague thoughts of the Bloomsbury Set and Virginia Woolf in mind. I turned into Montague Street and found myself faced with the British Museum. The old Sinatra classic, A Foggy Day in London Town immediately came to mind. It was before eight in the morning, and visitors already seemed to be streaming into the museum, most of them carrying briefcases – probably popping in before going to work, I thought. My overnight bag was essentially a large briefcase, and I was wearing my best three-piece suit, so I joined the visitors as they entered. To my delight, the little old uniformed attendants greeted me with a polite “Good morning, Sir.”
Once inside, the other visitors mysteriously disappeared, and I was left to explore alone. I found myself in antiquities section, but to my disappointment, the huge sculptures were covered by dustsheets. Looking around and finding no one to help, I began pulling them off, but was suddenly seized from behind and my arms expertly pinioned at my sides. My captors were two little elderly uniformed men, one of whom politely asked me if I was a member of staff. When I said no, he told me that the museum didn’t open until nine o’clock. In a moment of acute embarrassment, I realised that the other ‘visitors’ were all members of staff. I was escorted firmly to the door as I blurted out my apologies, feeling like a yokel from the country in the big city for the first time. All I needed was a straw sticking out of my ear to complete the picture. Back in the street, I could hear Sinatra declaiming that “The British Museum – had lost its charm ---“
I got my fix on the venue in Russell Square then headed down Southampton Row, taking me in to Holborn. I found a café, and had something to eat, with some language confusion when I requested beans on toast, and was asked “One round or two, dearie?” - a formulation I was unfamiliar with. I wandered about Holborn for another hour or so, fascinated at how different London was from Glasgow. I came upon Gamages, the huge department store, and spent some time in it. The street names were so evocative – Aldwych, the Strand, Fleet Street, Chancery Lane – stirring confused memories of the Monopoly board, of old detective stories, and of the terrible quota-quickies - the British-made black and white B-feature films that cinemas were obliged to show as the condition of screening the American main features.
I decided to head west, to the infinite imagined glamour of Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly and Oxford Street. At no point did I consider travelling other than on foot: I couldn’t afford taxis and I was scared of the Tube, which I imagined as a giant and intimidating version of the tiny, friendly Glasgow subway, a perception that was confirmed the following evening. Anyway, the pleasure lay in the perambulation – this is always the way to see a city, if you have the stamina for it.
London was no disappointment to me – it fulfilled every expectation of glamour and more. The Swinging London concept had been sweeping the media for sometime now – my new American boss back in Glasgow, Don Wolfe, was kitted out with a Beatles-type suit, to everyone’s amazement – and here I was at the heart of it. The mini-skirt, still being tentatively embraced back home in Scotland, was everywhere, and it was that delightful interregnum when stockings and suspenders had not entirely been abandoned for tights. I was also struck by the sheer affluence of everything around me, here, in what had in my lifetime, been the heart of one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. Now, even the residual pale shadow of that empire, the Commonwealth, seemed to be fading fast, albeit giving its name to my course venue of that evening. But London was now the hub of a new world, the world of fashion and popular music, and there was a dawning recognition of this not entirely welcome fact by New York and Paris, a recognition that would be crystallised by a film I would see that very day.
In the course of the morning, I found Buckingham Palace, walked up into Mayfair (another Monopoly board reminder) then into Soho. The discovery made by a London hairdresser, one Mr. Raymond, that a private members’ club was exempt from the prohibition on moving nudes, had brought an end to the static tableaux of the Windmill Theatre, and strip clubs abounded, many of them also clip joints. They would derive no revenue from me, however, since the era of the credit card had not reached my class of society, I dealt on a cash-only basis, and was effectively unclippable. In fact, I had only had a current account for a couple of years, forced on me when my company moved to credit transfer for the payment of salaries and wages. I knew I had to conserve what little cash I had for an evening out with the course participants, and I planned to spend part of the afternoon in a cinema after I had lunch. The film I wanted to see was one that had caused quite a stir in the newspapers – Antonioni’s Blow-Up, currently on at the Odeon, Leicester Square.
I found my way to Leicester Square, and there it was, billed in giant letters – Blow-Up. Another greasy spoon meal, and I was ready to relax in a darkened cinema. I left the sunny streets of swinging London, paid my money at the box office, and entered the auditorium, which was fully lit. The other big event in London that year, was the Noh Drama, the classical Japanese theatre, and I seemed to be surrounded by knowledgeable art and theatre buffs all discussing the Noh in very learned terms. I felt that somehow this rubbed off on me, and although not part of their conversation, nodded gravely in silent agreement at their assessments, and felt very cosmopolitan.
The main feature started, on a large screen, projected in superb sharp focus, and suddenly in front of me was the London I just left a moment ago, as a young and beautiful David Hemmings returned from his undercover shoot as a down-and-out to his mews flat to develop his film. The plot of the film, a fundamental dislocation of perception and reality, mirrored my own feelings, an effect compounded by fatigue after my night on the sleeper and all my walking in the streets of London. My reality had shifted, and I experienced some of the disorientation of the photographer hero. At the scene in the club, where the Yardbirds perform and smash their equipment, I felt a strange anomie stealing over me. When I left the cinema, the sun was still brilliant, London still swung, and somehow I felt I was locked in a new and disturbing reality. I walked for the rest of the afternoon, then made my way back to Russell Square, exhausted, feet hurting quite badly.
I checked in to the course, had a meal in the cafeteria, then handed in a pre-prepared written assignment I had brought with me for the workshop. I was assigned to a syndicate, and told to meet with them at 7.30 p.m. The syndicated leader, a tall, attractive brunette from Mars (the confectionery bars, not the planet!) introduced herself as May Stavert, handed us back our assignments, and began the process of each participant reading out their contribution for evaluation by the group. The other members were all Londoners – I was the only provincial. When my turn came, I read out my piece and commentary with what I thought was great clarity.
There was a stunned silence, then one man said “What’s ‘e saying?” The lovely Miss Stavert shook her head and said “Search me!” Another man smiled sympathetically at me, and turned back to the group. “I think he’s a Jock – or maybe a Paddy?” he said by way of explanation.
Swinging London collapsed about my ears, and I said simple, unprintable things forcefully to my new colleagues that they understood only too clearly, remarks that took several rounds of drinks to repair later that evening. I became the hero of the course (which was about effective communication) for the next two days, lionised for my brutal Celtic frankness. All in all, it had been a worthwhile trip.
© Copyright Peter Curran 2010
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