The Ned Wood Archive

I had too much to dream last night

I had too much to dream

The Electric Prunes

I’m back at home to see us play Cardiff.  We lose 1-0.  I spend the next hour or so working out what that means.  There are four games left, two at home, two away.  We are fourth, but only a point behind County and have a game in hand.  However, Bolton are fifth, level on points and with a game in hand over us.

One of the joys of being a football supporter, and it is a joy, is the long drawn out climax to the season when you’re involved in promotion or getting into Europe or even winning the league championship itself.  Not that we’d been anywhere near the championship or Europe since the summer of love.  Even battling relegation can be a climax for that matter.  An intense nagging climax.

When you win, you can look at the league table every five minutes and gloat to yourself about how much closer you are to the goal.  But when you lose, you have to live through a thousand ‘if only’s.  If only we’d beaten Cardiff, we’d be third.  And if you miss out by a point or two, you have to live with the ‘if only’s all summer.  Or longer. 

If only we’d beaten Spurs in 67.  If only we’d beaten Spurs in 91.  If only we’d beaten Palace in 71.  If only we’d beaten Anderlecht in 84.  If only it hadn’t been fixed.  If only we hadn’t played Liverpool at Hillsborough in 89.

That night I went to see the Small Faces at Birmingham Odeon.  They were poor.  I’m sorry, Stevie, wherever you are.  You didn’t play your old stuff, which I admire you for.  The trouble was you’d got nothing else.  I never liked Humble Pie.  I didn’t like the new stuff either, so I walked out and went up the road to see John Cale at Barbarella’s instead, which was a much wiser choice.  The guy was immense.  Completely wild, totally wired up, but, believe it or not, totally in control at the same time.  And just to prove it, he’d calm things down every so often and play us a beautiful ballad.  There were times I didn’t recognise songs I had on me albums because he changed them around.  I left thinking I’ve got to get that song that goes ‘You know more than I do’ and then realised it was on Fear which I already had.  Really great concerts do that – show you new ways of looking at old songs.  The gig had everything.  I was higher than the moon from the energy and thrill of it all afterwards.  That great successful feeling that warms you continuously on the journey home and for the next few days.

It was after twelve when I drove back to me old dears’ place after the gig.  Along the London Road near home, I saw two angels dinking about in the deserted street so I slowed down so as not to hit them and it turned out to be Elsa and Dusty.  Elsa you know about – she was like Lauren Bacall in the Big Sleep.  Dusty, was the same and different.  Built like Lana Turner, but just as ribald as Els, just as much a connoisseur of fun.  The two of them always hung out together and both used to have these enormous Farrah Fawcett hair styles, in fact, the fact that Dusty used to beehive her hair up was why we called her Dusty.  Only now they had both cut their hair about two inches short and mixed Vaseline in it to give it a spiky look.  So I stopped to offer a ride because they were obviously legless, but they persuaded me to get out of the car and walk around with them, because, they said, the night was young and free. Just like us.

Elsa was in a good mood; I found out that this was because she’d just met a guy who looked like Jim Morrison.  In fact she’d only just left him cos he had to get up early the next morning to play football which I could identify with.  Dusty was wearing her school blazer which I fell in love with as I would later fall in love with Dusty herself.  It was bright red, as were all the blazers from the girls’ school, but she’d painted a Picassoesque interpretation of the Haywain on the back.  A large multicoloured hugely textured work of art across the back of her school blazer, all dark organic greens and earthy browns with a dash of white, red, and black representing the Haywain itself.  Once you knew the source, you could pick up all the features – it was as if someone had taken the original and heated it up over a stove like a soup, mixing the original elements into a glorious new whole.

“I hate Constable,” she said, so I agreed with her and said Turner was much better.

Dusty was a true artist.  I wanted that jacket.

So I hung out with the two of them as they slowly came down.  I enjoyed myself that night.  All the frostiness between me and Elsa had gone and we could talk naturally again.  They talked about school which had just started up again for what would be their last term.  They grilled me about going to college and what they could expect and I was alive with the excitement of meeting folk and living free and still high on John Cale’s gig, so I sold it to them, not that I needed to.  Elsa was going to Manchester as a scientist, like me, but Dusty was going to art school.  Hopping up onto a garden wall she lectured me and Els as if she were her own headmistress ‘Girls, girls, girls, and I’m talking to you in particular Miss Preston (i.e. Dusty).  You must be realistic in your choice of career: you should get yourself qualifications.  Choose a useful degree.  And never, never, never, go to Art School.’  All this like Alistair Sim in St Trinians.  Then we talked about the new religion.  I loved their spiky hair.  I pulled at my passé moptop which I’d worn without a second thought since I’d left school.  I felt a sudden urge to have it all cut off.  We talked about the Clash and the Ramones, Dusty in particular raving about da brudders.  And we talked about politics and Elsa called me a socialist which really shocked me because I still thought of myself as pretty neutral.  I must have been saying stuff like they should do this and they shouldn’t do that and she’d picked up on it.  Have I come so far since Christmas?  Els picked up on the doubt and asked me what I was then.

‘What am I?’  I thought to myself.  I didn’t think of myself as a student, and certainly wouldn’t have said ‘I’m a geologist’.  It’s like if any one asks me what I do now, I say ‘I read books, play football, and listen to albums.’  So what did I think then:  I’m a Tricky: A Forest supporter.  Once a Tricky always a Tricky.  I’m a music lover.  A Ramones, Patti Smith, Clash, and Pistols fan.  I used to be into Tamla and Bowie and Roxy, but now I’m a punk.  And politically.  I’m a radical.  Show me a cause and I’ll support it.  Show me the oppressed and I’ll show you my solidarity.  Now, I’m not a true socialist yet.  Maybe I never will be.  Maybe I’ll always believe in a mixed economy.  Nor am I a revolutionary.  I’m not a Marxist; I’m not into that revolutionary class struggle stuff.  How could I be with my blood?  But I’m a radical, true and bold.

One time me and Bernie and this other guy (Lew I think) were walking through Southampton.  It must have been later that summer cos I was wearing my baseball boots, jeans, white shirt, thin tie, and jacket.  That was my half punk half mod look.  These locals came up to us and laughed, pointing at me and saying, “What’s that?  Is it a mod or a ted?”  And Bernie had said, “It’s a new fashion, he’s a Neddy Boy.”

So Elsa asked me what I was and I said: “I’m a Buddhist.  I believe that through right deeds, right thought, and right effort we can all reach true enlightenment and end suffering” which at the time was just me bullshitting and repeating what Bernie would say, but it really impressed the both of them.  Neat chat-up line, I thought, I’ll have to remember it.

And then they talked about boys.  I had to listen to a load of guff about this Jim Morrison character who it turned out supported Villa and had big hair and had grown a beard like the cover of LA Woman, but was one of these dudes that didn’t go to college, but had stayed at home with a real job since he’d left school.  And then Elsa started to panic about going to Manchester and leaving him, even though it was six months away.  And all the while Dusty was winding me up and flirting and saying that she was waiting for the right bloke to come along and at the same time casually showing off her wonderfully perfect body.  And asking me whether I was in love or what.  So I told her I was in love with Sharon which was a joke of ours.  Cos everyone was in love with Sharon. 

Did I tell you about Sharon?  Sharon’s this girl Dusty knows.  If I didn’t know different I’d swear they were twins. Both very attractive. The boys at school used to go on and on about Sharon. They’d be saying stuff like: “Hey Woody [cos they hadn’t come up with any decent nicknames by then] … Hey Woody, bet you fancy her don’tcha?” At least all of the loudmouths would. All of the rugby team. Like Lil and his mates. It was quite tyrannical because you had to like certain girls and not others. It didn’t bother me so much, I was pretty bloody-minded. But it must have been awful for anyone who wasn’t interested or who was gay.

Yes, I really like Sharon.  But as Dusty and I both know full well, I’m not in love.  At least, not then I wasn’t.

So we talked, me and Dusty, and Elsa.  And then the sun came up.  We were sitting by the pool – on the far side toward the cathedral.  There’s a bench there that has a tendency to draw us folk like a magnet.  I’ve got loads of quiet, serene memories of sitting on it in the early hours after a wonderful night, just watching the sun rise over the top of the other church across the water.  

“Life is sweet,” said Elsa as the day woke up.

“Yes,” I said.  “Life is sweet”