The Ned Wood Archive

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you’re going to fall

Tell them a hookah smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call

Jefferson Airplane

As I was saying, it was exams week.  And for those of us mad enough to be mad scientists it was one of many mad exam weeks.  It was the last week of lectures, which meant practical exams.

Arts students just had books to read.  Pseudo scientists like Economists or Politicians just had arguments to argue.  We had exams.  I told Mark as much after dinner one evening, but instead of getting the standard ‘my course is better than your course’ response, I got a lecture on how I was the lucky one on account of having well off parents.  I don’t know what I expected him to say.  I mean, if a chicken goes up to a fox and says ‘Atlee was the only real Socialist ever to lead the Labour party’, the fox is still going to jump on the dumb bird and eat it rather than argue politics.  All I’d done was reminded Mark of my privileged existence.  

But, you know, we were all lucky.  We were sat on the grass outside Chamberlain relaxing in the last of the day’s many hours of sunshine.  We all had this cosy life, at least for the next year or two.  All we had to do was take an exam every so often.  That’s nothing compared to sweating to earn your own bread or struggling to bring up a family or any of the other stuff folk do in the real world outside University.  

I knew I should be working that evening, learning a few more ways to talk intelligently about rocks and fossils, but I was enjoying indulging in Annie’s company.  She’d snuck over from Glen to grab a bite to eat with us, cos she was self-catering.  You had to be careful if you did that.  Every once in a while, you could take someone’s place at dinner and as long as you didn’t attract attention to yourself, no-one would complain.  Annie was good at attracting attention to herself, so we had to keep trying to get her to quieten down.  Anyway, we got away with it and now we were sat on the grass outside as the sun went down.  I looked at the folk around me.  Like they say, youth is wasted on the young.  Most people don’t know how to enjoy themselves.  Like the nerds on our course whose idea of fun is to drive down to the Juniper Berry and snigger at what the locals are wearing.  The majority of folk at the university were boring, straight, and stupid.  A few were cynical, Marxists bastards, but only me, Annie, and a handful of our mates were sane, hip, and happy. 

You know what they say about the bitter coming out better on a stolen guitar.  Well, a minute with Annie stolen from an hour I should have been revising was so deliciously sweet that I decided to spend the whole evening with her.  When the sun went down I invited her upstairs to look at my fossils, but all we did was spin old Bowie albums and listen to Tom Verlaine.  I knew all that palaeontology stuff anyway.

That summer was too good to waste on books and lessons.  Even before term had started, I had lined up all of these gigs… Lou Reed and Peter Gabriel in London, Split Enz in Reading, and then, straight after the lab exams, the Ramones and the Jam back home.  Like I said, me and Annie had separate lives to live, so that made it all the more important that we spent as much time as possible with each other when we were both in Southampton.  I was so looking forward to the two gigs back home, I only wished she was coming up with me.  On the Tuesday would be the Ramones supported by the Talking Heads at Barbarella’s – my first chance to worship at the feet of the bodhisattva brothers themselves, but before that the Jam were playing Wolverhampton Civic Hall with the Clash, the Buzzcocks – who’d just done that brilliant Boredom song, the Slits, who were getting a lot of press, and a band called the Subway Sect.  I’d looked out my old navy blue suit in preparation for the Jam gig.  I’d convinced myself that it looked like the suits they were wearing on the album cover.

But I’d be away five days.  Annie was worried, but Chris made her feel better by telling her I had to get away and meditate.  He said that the Ramones gig was the excuse, but the trip there and back and the times I’d have to myself were going to be invaluable.  I don’t know if Annie believed him, but it started her thinking.  When I got back, I found out she’d organised and been on her own trip with Viv.

Apparently they’d decided to leg it off on some search for some guru Viv had heard about.  Well that’s what I’ve managed to work out from the fragments of explanations I’ve heard.  When I got back, I’d keep asking them what they did and just get cryptic comments.  They told me tales of trips to Avalon to see King Arthur and stuff.  What I reckon is they went to see Viv’s brother in Glastonbury, stayed a couple of nights and did some sight seeing.  You know abbeys and stuff.  The thing is I can imagine the two of them walking around the tor, both of them in absolute hysterics about a joke no-one else could possibly understand.  That’s how it was with Annie.  You’d be with her and suddenly the mundane would seem hilarious.  One word from her would puncture the most solemn occasion or turn your preconceived ideas back to front.  Being with her for an hour filled your entire day with brilliant colours and wonderful sounds.  You could even enjoy Basingstoke if she was with you.  

So, I’ve no doubt Viv and Annie had a glorious weekend while I went back home to find myself.