Busy Busy

For two long years I was totally unemployed, and unemployable. I spent most of my time at home alone pondering existence, wondering why life seemed to be passing me by so quickly, ignoring any action or interest to be found outside of my four small walls. I was probably depressed. I hardly exercised. I smoked too much. I had hit a rut.

      Then came the invite to start driving my friends band on tour. I'd always wanted to tour, and had gotten a couple of short trips under my belt before accepting their offer. I had always thought that my life would come to life once I got on the road and started chewing up some miles, meeting some people, staying out late and seeing some places I'd never seen before. It was like my whole life was on pause, ready and waiting to go out on the road. I adapted quickly to the sporadic touring the band was doing, retiring home every few days or weeks to rest up and contemplate my experience. I had that time to let it sink in, and to deal with this new everything in my own way; by writing it down and by thinking it over.

      That band now seems to be doing more and more successfully. We just got back from a six-day trip round Germany where every gig was sold out and every audience member there to hear them. We're just wrapping up a two-week UK tour which has been pretty much the same. It seems there is no bounds to their meteoric rise to being a successful indie band. I think back fondly to those first few shows, where we'd arrive early and visit a couple of sights in the city before calmly heading over to the gig. Trying to sleep in a freezing cold van was hell at the time, but seems romantic and part of our initial hardship now. Driving all through the night, a coffee cup perched firmly on the dashboard was taxing then, but sounds like bliss now.

      Now things seem to be moving so fast I can't get a moment to reflect and to understand what is happening. By the time I get back to my room proper we'll have been away for three and a half months solid, with only two days off and five travelling days. It's a crazy schedule we are keeping, but, as I keep telling people it makes up for doing nothing for those two years before that. I just wish I had some time to reflect and soak it up along the way. It's all I can do to keep an up-to-date journal.

Billy Bragg Live at Greyfriars Bus Station

As I took the escalator into our beloved bus station today I imagined Billy Bragg playing a gig in there one day. I let myself run with the fantasy; quickly deciding where the stage would be, what the crowd would look like and even the songs he would play. I could already hear his familiar reverberated Essex vocal delivery and the aggressive down-stroke guitar playing, and it sounded like heaven. Greyfriars is probably the only place in town where you ever hear people sing, and they’re never singing Billy Bragg songs; they’re singing generic pop with lyrics that would fail to engage even the most culturally-stunted among us. I guess that says something about the town. Billy Bragg could come and help us out.

                Greyfriars has a long history of smelling like urine and resembling the “jaws of hell,” as one architect put it. Its past has been blighted by stalactites dripping from the ceiling, of the car park alongside being too dangerous to use and as a building that is utterly useless to anyone with a wheelchair. "It is an ugly, malevolent building brimming with inner hostility and low aspiration," an ex-Northamptonite so perfectly put it. It certainly does feel hostile, perhaps because the roof covers and engulfs the building in a constant shade of darkness. And the low aspiration? That's just Northampton for you, the go-nowhere town all go-nowhere towns look towards. These are all truths, but Greyfriars is our bus station and I'll be sad to see it go when the new North Gate bus station opens later in the year.

                What will go in its empty space has not yet been decided, but we can trust our Borough Council to fuck up again so brilliantly that the next building will cut just as many corners and be just as much of behemoth as Greyfriars currently is. That said, the place needs to go; it only serves to damn the town now. People have a bad opinion of it. You rarely see anyone smile in there.

                So why Billy Bragg? Since day one he has supported and celebrated British-ness and so has become an icon and symbol of this country – he is a jewel. All through his thirty-plus years of service he has encouraged people to think, to engage and to share information. No doubt he’s been through Greyfriars at one point or other when he ran round East Northamptonshire getting Riff-Raff together. The people passing through Greyfriars on any given afternoon could do with something to engage with and something to think about; something way above and beyond whether the number 7 will be late or whether 50p Lil will corner them into given her a cigarette and dribbling on their shoes.

                In an age of bands playing sessions in any and all manner of strange venues Billy Bragg has been doing just that for many years; standing on plastic chairs to sing at miner’s benefits and at punk garden parties. Greyfriars would be perfect. How about it Bill? Make a decision and come down to play the closing party. Please, I beg of you, save us from ourselves for a few moments and help us to celebrate yet another fuck-up by the borough council.

Beerwolf Books, Falmouth - "We sell books and beer"

A quiet moment. Taken from their website.

Beerwolf Books in Falmouth is a bit hidden away. If you keep your eyes peeled you may see notice it tucked up a side alley off Market Street, but you'd be more likely to miss it. I wandered past, caught sight of the signage and had to stop to do a double take. I came back later; passing the smokers at the front door, ascending the staircase, noting the book shop, ordering half a Flensburger and sitting down to people watch in quiet.

     It's a cavernous space - which is made all the more strange because it is on the top floor. All the exposed beams, the ancient, rickety chairs and the bare-naked floorboards perhaps help this feeling of space along? One bench was so ancient and so rickety that the seat aimed down and I kept slipping forward. Oh, the charm of the place! Between the creaks and the hushed mid-afternoon chatting I was already in love with the place. And I hadn't yet checked out the books. I'd already spent too much so only had a quick browse so as to not be too tempted, though the prices were more than acceptable. A good selection; though maybe too predictable? The framed posters of Bukowski, Ginsberg and Crumb around the bar looked great - were great - but are safe now; they are accepted as an 'alternative canon.' I'd have preferred framed shots of Gorky, Selvon and Stevie Smith; the real alternative. The girl on the table opposite looked so happy to be in a bookshop with a drink that she pulled out her notebook and scribbled three whole pages straight off. Brilliant.

     I came back on the Saturday night to find the place packed, with people practically queuing for table space to play cards. We sat down to play too, but found our pack had only 47 cards, each one of which showed the signs of many hours manhandling. The room was warm and cosy, whilst outside it rained heavily. The vibe was friendly and bashful, all waves and smiles and eyes. I sat against the wall to look around - evidently the evening clientele were almost exclusively twenty-somethings.

     "Have you noticed the action figures? asked Joe, pointing up at the rafters and above the bar. I hadn't, but once I looked I could see more and more. A nice touch. The atmosphere stayed cosy, even without an open fire, and as I sat back it dawned on me that I may be in one of the greatest pubs ever. Beer and books - a good combination, in moderation. A traditional pub with a modern and forward-thinking glint in its eye.

Morning in Disturbia

Every morning upon waking when I’m lying there, alone, again, finding the guts to get out of bed I’m gripped by two thoughts. They are so opposite and so conflicting that the bafflement they propose leaves me stunted, with my face down and scrunched against the pillow, bare arm flesh wrapped above my head. Being hungover - understandably - only makes it worse; it only serves to amplify these thoughts.

                My first thought is the worrying one. It’s negative, down-beat, heart wrenching; but it is always first. It’s the fact that I’m shocked that I’ve woken up to another day. It’s almost as if I expected to die during the night without consciously thinking about it. Isn’t that depressing? – to find yourself so surprised that you’ve made it through to start another day. “I’m alive,” I will generally mumble to myself.

                The second I don’t find so troubling. In fact, it’s probably testament to my positive get-up-and-go attitude. As I shuffle into a slouched-but-seated position I’ll think ‘another day to get on with,’ as I pull something from the bedside stack to read. Whether or not I waste the day is another question; not one for you or for me to answer, as much as we may want to.

                I’m probably not the best person to have around for the benefit of my sanity. I feel there is a constant duel deep inside somewhere; the desire to live, but an acceptance of death simultaneously; a voice that screams to be sober and well, but another that wants to get so stoned I’ll become part of the sofa; someone that wants to travel, but to be home also; someone that wants to talk until I get a headrush, but also to take my silence and never to talk again, ever.

                This, dear reader, is morning in disturbia. A person in constant conflict with their own life.

There's an Island on a River...

There’s an island on a river, accessible only by a few rickety old steps, on which I first met my tribe. A solitary patch of muddy grass. One tree leaning exhausted over the running water. A small weather beaten town sloped up, and away from the shore, with castle ruins illuminated at the highest point. An unlikely and unique location to get wasted at the weekend, protected fiercely by those in the know, but still on display and open, easy to find.
                      Home was far away but my cousin was making me feel welcome, introducing me to the locals; Angus, the journalist; Suzanne, the baker; and Simon, a lost ex-marine, about to leave on his own travels. A rag-tag bunch of country minstrels thrown together because there was nowhere and no-one else. In small towns you have to do that; you have to befriend everyone, there is no space to be selective and picky. It’s truly all for one and one for all. To find a group of people so alike in their space and time is rare, and in the same small town even rarer. Here were close friends, whom I’d never met before, but who treated me with a welcoming hospitality befit more than family.
                       "Angus never smiles - look," my cousin said, pointing at him. Angus was smiling.
                      "It's a good night for it," he said. "Can't you feel it?" he asked, wrapping his arms round himself and shaking to show he was freezing. The air was white-grey.
                      "I'm feeling it," Suzanne piped in, jogging on the spot. She was looking up at the night sky. Simon joined her, bouncing from one foot to the other like a wrestler.
                      We all danced a little tribal kinda thing on the island, laughing from the ridiculousness of it all; a crew of midnight people writhing and exercising some demons. "Shake off. Shake off," Suzanne was saying, and we all followed, spazzing out. Angus slipped on the mud and fell down into it. He laughed. We helped him up, handing him the bottle as he got on his feet. "Ah!" he gulped. Things continued in much the same vein; moving around to stay warm.
                      What didn’t we talk about, that would be the question to ask. I felt not only as if I had known them, but they had known me for years. We were one and the same, I realised; lost, out in the world, looking for something to do, waiting around fretting and thinking about the future, driving ourselves mad in the process. Spending a lot of time alone, and a lot of time surrounded by people – an upsetting balance which seems to confuse one beyond even sociability. A tribe of worriers, we were, battling each trouble as it appeared, unaided, twisted on drugs and books.
                      At that point in life I could have not met anyone so in tune with my own resonance. Another droning sitar to play with my own. Imagine meeting a whole bunch of people with the same troubled temperament, the same negative outlook and who also had ten rough, bitten-down-to-the-nub fingernails. All self-effacing, self-contained, self-sacrificing. It was like meeting oneself in every respect, apart from looks. I thought the timing was particularly strange, almost other-worldly; as if we were meant to meet that once, share our similar souls and never meet again. It was cathartic, that’s for sure.
                      We drank and talked, smoked and drank, talked and smoked, with the river sloshing past, calmly running away with the worries we set adrift that evening. For me, it was a lack of direction, of purpose; always spending more time dreaming and thinking than actually doing. “You’ll figure it out,” they used to say, but I still haven’t managed. It’s not enough for me to simply live. I have always felt there was something bigger and better out there waiting for me. I’ll never find what I’m trying to look for – mostly likely it doesn’t exist, it’s just a vicious circle that I’ve been chasing. Simon understood. “I’ve come to the conclusion now that the void is only filled by having a partner, that’s the one thing I’ve always missed out on, being in the force for so many years.”
                      “Same, but the harder you search the more impossible that seems.”
                      “Tell me about it!”
                      “Contentment only comes momentarily. Happiness is so far off its unachievable. If you have a brain and use it you’ll never be happy again.”
                      But what about those people who were around whilst I wondered what I was missing out on? What about my friends who were uninterested by travel and experience – those who were content to get on with things; to live undaunted and un-haunted by these troubles? What effect must it have had on them if their friend was being constantly dragged down by his lofty dreams and ambitious hopes? This startling thought racked me. People live differently. People live their own lives. I may strive for something more but they were happy already. How could I be more like them? How could I shake this off?
                      That question is still unanswered. Things are easier now. You learn to live with your troubles, as impossible as that had once seemed. I’ll never forget the revelations of that evening, and I hope the tribe won’t either. Maybe it was a commonplace and regular occurrence for them to actually talk about the things that were bugging them? It wasn’t for me; I was a professional bottler, stashing onto these things and sitting on the lid until I could feel it being forced to pop open. No longer. Now, if engaged properly, I can admit the worst things and talk you to death. You’ll want to get far, far away. Now, you know the small Island and the running water you can blame for that.
                      We never stayed in touch. We didn't even exchange contact details. They'll be out there now - getting on with things. I'm only a faint, fading memory they may recall from time to time. It's impossible and best not to even try and re-live our only meeting, it'll only disappoint. Better to hark back and think of it fondly on occasion. Better still to look forward - life is too fleeting to backtrack and sigh about it all. We may or may not meet again - we may or may not have already passed on the street and not recognised each other.


There’s an island on a river, accessible only by a few rickety old steps, on which I met Lea. “Lost?” her voice asked out of nowhere. I spun around. Then through a shaky bush she appeared; brushing twigs, leaves and petals from her hair. Bits of plant life.
                      “Kind of,” I told her, starting off a friendship that flourished and finished within three short hours. We'll never meet again, I'm sure of it. She’d just landed from Mars, or the Land of Oz, or a planet further out than either of those. Somewhere exotic and other-worldly, that's for sure. Somewhere I'd never been and would never go, it seemed. Somewhere intriguing.
                      "Well then, what are you doing here on my island? I'm the only Robinson Crusoe on this baby," she said, by way of an introduction.
                      "Or Selkirk?" I said.
                      "Who?" She screwed up her face, but quickly morphed back to a careless grin.
                      "It doesn't matter."
                      "I've been coming here for years," she revealed, "and I've never seen another person down here. How did you find it?"
                      "I saw the alley and walked down there, noticed the gate and ended up here. Kind of an accident, really."
                      "A happy accident!" she smiled. "It's a bit tucked away for anyone to find. And you just happened upon it?" The tone of her voice said she didn't believe me, but it was the truth.
                      "Yep."
                      "Yeah right."
                      "Honestly. Seriously. I'm not even from here - how would I have known about it? I'm telling you I stumbled upon it. And what a find! I think I'll bring people to show next time."
                      She slapped me playfully on my forearm. "No you won't."
                      We sat down whilst I rolled a cigarette. I folded the packet away. She took it and rolled one for herself. She must have had somewhere else to be, but like me, happened to find herself in limbo. This was her city, I slowly sussed out. Better not to ruin the moment with personal facts or passions. Better to have a simple verbal trade. We both steered away from talking personal, as if it were an unwritten rule, choosing instead to exchange knowledge and show off our interests. If I’m away from home, anywhere, and I meet a local its questions straight away. They have the key to the local knowledge – their local knowledge. Their keen sense of humour, their anecdotes, their perspective on the areas exports, imports, problems, triumphs, or lingo, where the parks are – always very important, and whether the library is well stocked.
                      Lea knew it all. Bit by bit she answered my questions about this city I hardly knew. She loved it. "Why go anywhere else? What do you fucking want? We've got laser quest here, and three Smith's," she laughed. She gestured, waving her hand flat out in front of her as she rolled through her animated ramblings. She was gutsy, and loud, brash, daring, unable to keep track of time - all the things I never could be. That, I must have recognised in her then. Lea and I, like Huck Finn and Jim, hid out on the island, talking away.
                      After a while it dawned on me that not only was this girl’s whole aura alien, but she was like an encyclopaedia when it came to this particular place. Her local history was impeccable, her geography flawless and her interest totally unwavering. "See that place over there," she pointed across the river. "Pottery," she added simply. "That one - look at the windows. Completely symmetrical." It was - it was clearly an expensive build intended to display affluence and wealth. Those who benefitted from the industrial revolution were so predictable. "A cotton house. Storage. There is one identical to that in Manchester, I'm told. Though I've never seen it."
                      Lea and I were different. Whereas I thought I would understand the world better by experience, by travel, she was satisfied and more-than-happy to stay in one place, seeming to gain her world-view safely from there-out. I tried to search out-to-in, always returning home from my travels to question why I’d returned. I always wanted more, I could never satisfy myself. I tried to channel “that feeling.” I thought it could be likened to a pressure valve; that you could let off that steam by playing drums, writing, reading, riding my bike, talking. I had all these outlets for that steam that seemed to be constantly building up and up. Yet it changed nothing. The steam valve was broken; it could blow and shatter at any moment, but it never did.
                      Three hours passed and we were still sat on this lost island, an inner city river moved gently by - cleaner now than it had ever been, but still thick and dark. She stood up first, brushing the crusty twigs from the seat of her jeans. I gazed down her legs slowly for a moment before waking myself up with a shake and standing up next to her. She'd gone quiet all of a sudden. What had happened? "Alright?" I asked, giving her a gentle nudge with my elbow.
                      "Oh yeah. Fine," she said, also waking up to the world beside the island and the two of us.
                      She was one of those people who rubbed off on you. Her enthusiasm was hard to ignore.
                      "You saved me from today," she said.
                     "Likewise."


There’s an island on a river, accessible only by a few rickety old steps, where music brought us together. I'll never make it back there, but that night sticks vividly in my memory forever. Between a rock and a hard place it is lodged firmly, and I want it to stay there. I enjoyed many nights of roughly the same union through live music but that one night was particularly special. Hospitality made it so.
                      The venue for our meeting and coming together was a disused rowing club, taken over for one night only. I don't recall doing much socialising until the band had finished, but we were there together in a beautiful unison, socialising without using our own words. Their lyrics were the only words we uttered, and they broke the ice well. If we all believed in their words so unwaveringly then we must have at least that in common, which seemed good enough for all of us. We were all thoroughly preoccupied by the music, which seemed to pull us all into a tight, unspoken bond.
                      Had the electrics have been out it wouldn't have mattered - any member of the band could have sang any one of their opening lines and we would have all taken it up and finished the song off acapella. Probably making instrument noises with our mouths anyway. Our eyes closed, our faces turned towards the ceiling, fists clenched, pounded against our hearts, or upwards in the air, arms thrown over strangers shoulders. A good sing-along is a really cheap thrill, but an undeniable one. It gives a sense of unity, of something that can transcend.
                      I was in such a good mood, so excited and revved-up, running between people and shaking hands with everyone. I must have introduced myself to every person at the gig in turn. Very out-of-character and rare. From time-to-time all the elements are just right, all the stars align and shine through an overly, outwardly-friendly glow for me. People asked how we had ended up there. Others offered floor space for the night or shared their beer, before even introducing themselves. With each person I learnt something new about civilisation, and in turn about myself. Meeting people was easy, and you suddenly realise there is a world beyond oneself; that the world is much bigger than your own bubble. It was the first time I’d come across that thought, and I remember being floored by the revelation. It clicked. The un-learned became learnt.
                      We all shared a passion for the same band, which was obvious to us all. But above and beyond that it seemed to be the same lyrics and bands that turned us on, allowing us a collective agreement on music, politics, travel, what we felt we were missing and our outlook on life, whatever that may have been at the time. Our tastes had driven us into becoming similar minded people. It seems cheesy to have the lesson that hospitality is important appear at a punk rock gig, but it’s true. Cometbus couldn’t have written it better. “Have you got a place to stay?” people asked, until something had been arranged in some hippie bus with a French couple. I slept on a bench by the river in the end, which is another story.
                      For the next couple of days we followed the band through rural countryside, singing with them and crashing wherever we fell. Vague or non-existent plans seemed to magic themselves together, proof that humans can adapt, that I can adapt, and that people are more welcoming and friendly than you'd ever believe. You should never under-estimate the help and support offered to you once you are far away from home, and out on a limb with no plans and no clue. Things can work themselves out.
                      Why then is the modern world against that hospitality? Could it be that it is not the norm – that it is not safe and comfortable? It’s unstable and wavy. Best really to find a job and stay home in the evenings. Best not to think but to simply live, or not live? Back then, instability seemed oh-so appealing. It was somehow honourable.
                      I’ve put people up on various sofas over the years, but people have put me up plenty more. After your mid-twenties you don’t tend to want to crash in an endless succession of uncomfortable, makeshift beds. As I approach a whole winter of self-imposed homelessness I wonder how tired of it I'll be by the time spring comes round. It's likely I'll want to settle a little and get a steady job in a nice cafe somewhere. To try and adhere to a more common way of existence; earning money to live more comfortably and learning to be more content, rather than wanting, wanting all the damn time. The majority of people go on holiday, proper, with their other half once or twice a year. They relax. It'll be Spain or any old English beach to start with. The Caribbean or the Mediterranean for the honeymoon. Florida or Butlins once the kids arrive. The discomfort of traipsing around town all day, dragging your bag behind you and waiting for your host to finish work is not too appealing, I can see that, but it’s second nature now; benefitting from someone’s else’s welcoming hospitality, a second nature I ought never to have desired and lived through, but gently allowed.

 

 

* Taken from issue #22 - 'Life Lessons to Ignore'

Lost With Laurie in The British Library

Alex advises: "Pack a bag and do it; go out on a walkabout. You are the only person I know who can do it. And you must! For my sake, for our sakes. What else have you got right now? Do it - go on that big adventure, whatever the fuck it is, if not for you then for the rest of us." I'm still planning - stalling, and putting off - that epic adventure. The one where I’ll go and never return. Shedding all of my skin in the process and starting fresh and anew. It was influenced by a hundred books I'd adopted and tried to use as life guides. I was researching one at the time we spoke.

Laurie teaches and preaches of a certain beauty in the human experience. Though his writing is personal it is also ambiguous enough for almost anyone to relate to, especially those in their formative years, which is probably why he was studied at O-level for so many years. It is that beauty and lust for life and experience I found to be a true and pure catalyst and inspiration to even start writing myself, and in much the same vein. Our heroes must spur us on.

Everything was planned out; I’d pass the plastics factory and catch the 30 bus in the morning, ride it to the end of its twisted route, get off and sit in the library. I had research to do, and three days in which to do it. I’d treat it like a temporary nine-to-five. Along with all the commuters I’d sit and slope off into a routine. Maybe there one could find contentment unavailable by sitting idle in my room, dreaming the days away? "There's a certain sharpness that comes from absolute devotion to one single pursuit," Laurie himself wrote, like a monk.

The library was as grey as could be from the front; looming buildings, Orwellian in feel, stared back uninvitingly. Or worse: intimidatingly. The only time I’d been before I got paranoid about the bag search and didn’t go in, sitting on the courtyard steps feeling dejected and stupid instead, before leaving in self-defeat. It was raining. Not this time though; I was on a mission, and nothing was going to stop me browsing one of my favourite author’s papers. First, I had to register and get my hands on a reading pass, a much longer process than I had originally anticipated.

The reader’s registration room felt more like a border interrogation booth. Shaky, paranoid applicants turned to watch me enter from a square of chairs in the centre. All eyes prodded and poked. This was all a necessary evil, I told myself. The wheat must be sorted from the chaff. You can’t have any fool running around the airy open spaces tossing books around like confetti. This archive was indispensable, priceless and a true treasure – it deserves to be protected, by red tape if nothing else.

In every volume and every file filed away neatly lay the world itself. A library is simply a place that looks after information on your behalf. It ought to be preserved, right? Not under glass though, like a museum. Books aren’t museum pieces – they are to be kept safe and to be read. They are available to seek out, should you wish by the time my number was called out I had my whole speech ready to go.

“Purpose of research?” she asked, like a robot.

“Personal?”

“Face the camera.” And with that I was left to stew for an awkward minute or two before she returned with my pass card. She recited the rules one must adhere to in the library. “No pens. No cameras. All papers in a clear bag.” It was beginning to sound like prison, but I was rolling with it. “Clean hands, free from dirt. The locker room is down the hall - and is a pound.”

With the ordeal over the vaults really were open for me to roam, but I knew what I was looking for. At least, I thought I knew what I was looking for. Up in the manuscript room the computer archive was just so endless; folder upon folder inside other folders, all tucked further and further in, requiring more and more unpacking. It was a barrage of materials, all equally worth checking out, but I was after something specific; drafts from the very first chapter of the second book in that great trilogy. That chapter contained, for me, the most powerful evocation of leaving home that I’ve ever read. It was a transcendental take on one of life’s certainties, but sadly few cared to enjoy it; it sold the least of the three books. Maybe he was ahead of his time? I often thought that being as he was the same age as my grandparents his outlook and vision of life couldn’t have been more different. My Grandma was born the same year, and only twenty-five miles away. Perhaps I didn’t know my grandparents all that well after all? Perhaps they did share a collective outlook with the rest of their pre-war generation? A vision of the entire world in which to wander and all the time to spend. "Few have been left with anything to discover," an un-used passage of his read.

I had been bordering on obsessed with his books since I had read the first. At college I mentioned to an older mentor that I'd just finished a book by a certain beat, and had been inspired, captured, engrossed, whatever, by the rolling vagabond idea; the vagrant American hobo. "Forget that book," he advised, "you should read..." He gave the long title, stumbling as even I do over it still. "It's similar. But British. And on foot!" I borrowed a first edition from the college library and finished it between the bus ride and going to bed that evening. He was right - that book was much cooler; much more daring, written better with a clearer train of thought, containing numerous passages with stunning poetic descriptions of unknown lands, unfamiliar friends-to-be and the sheer excitement of being young and alive, before anything clouds that golden age in one’s life. Being armed with the strength of innocence. Something that seems to dwindle as the mind turns and works faster, pumping doubts and door-stops into your blood.

You had to choose which papers you wanted to view, put them on order, and wait an hour for them all to be brought down to you. Only three items at a time. I spent the hour sat on one of an endless line of neatly arranged tables in the foyer, writing away the time. I was the only one of all the tables using a pen instead of a laptop. Like Laurie I still used my hands - though he wrote by pencil and I write by pen. It may seem trivial, but anyone writing knows that these are the things that matter. I imagined him sat a few tables over, but forty years previously, scribbling away as I approached and told him: "I'm afraid I may have to trouble you in a moment."

Back upstairs the papers were ready. Over the counter I was handed a velvet-lined tray containing three numbered folders. Carefully I carried it to the nearest empty table, pulled up a chair and sat down. Excitement built as I gently unravelled the string tie holding the first folder together. A deep breath was essential. And there they were – Laurie’s own pages. Hundreds of them, thousands even, of scrawled (but legible) notes in pencil, which started off sharp and got more and more blunt as I read on. Here was my holy grail.

I devoured page after page, stacking each neatly on the last, looking over the words crossed out, trying to work backwards through his drafts in total opposite to what he had done. I got lost and found, slowly making more sense of it all as each draft revealed something different and told another story. In an early draft he gave away the whole plot in the first two paragraphs. He laid it all out before doubling back and starting from the top.

It's awkward trying to convey the impact of the few days browsing these folders. I'd spent a considerable amount of time reading and re-reading his select few books. And I loved every word, every turn-of-phrase, and every paragraph. Not only had his writing influenced me but we both wrote, and wrote about writing - we had that as a connection too. He wrote better, by far, but differently. I always thought he was a better editor than I am, and here was the proof of that, tucked away at the library. A million loose leaves in pencil – plenty of lines crossed out and re-worked in the margins.

I’d even been to Slad once to visit his home, find his grave and pay my own respects. I found him buried halfway between the church and the local pub, right where he had wanted to be laid down. ‘He lies here in the valley he loved’ read the inscription on his headstone. It was heart-warming. I sat in the Woolpack, nursing half a cider, wishing he was there also so we could get drunk together and talk about pretty country girls. Amazingly, his local pub had sold more of his books than any other bookshop in the country.

“Excuse me sir,” people used to ask him, “Do you know where Laurie Lee is buried?”

“Yes I do. He’s usually got his nose buried in a pint of ale,” he would answer, ever-witty. 'We die, of course, many times in our lives,' was a stand-out line of his, and ever buoyant but resilient in its sentiment. I'm sure he meant it in a negative way, but that was not my reading and understanding of it. 

One of the very few places you could be safe and warm if you were a hobo was the public library. It is there you can create your own education. Here I was, practically hoboing my way through each day, tucked away in the library of libraries. Though I didn't look like a hobo, but I'd read enough books to start thinking like one. I'd spent some considerable time shuffling papers at corner library desks, educating myself slowly but surely, making use of free information and mining it for all its worth. Fiddling around in my bag for another pen, leaving a trail of paper scraps with scribbled quotes. But this library was special - truly memorable and essential. Now I thought I knew more about Laurie than even he did!

In true British fashion it was raining when it came time to leave the library for the last time that week. Water sloshed up into the bus stop, causing people to jump with a start and splash out of the way. I had to smile. What would Laurie write? How would he see this scene? Even beyond this world he plagues me (in a good way) with a critical writerly thought process. It's been a blessing and a curse, and will continue to straddle bot.

The Anatomy of a Sunrise

Over the past two years I’ve seen more sunrises than in all the years before that. It seems I’ve been rushing around during each one; to catch ferries, planes, to make it to work for the breakfast shift, or waiting for sobriety to envelop me and help me cope with sleep. A mixed handful of reasons have forced me up that early, or to still be awake that late, each leagues apart, both essential. The sunrise is a long, slow process, especially when you are waiting for it, and I’m in a perpetual state of wait. For what? you may ask, but that question I still can't answer.

I find it strange that such emphasis is always put on catching the sunset. It’s so depressing – the slow, bitter end of another day, watching everything you’d wished for fading to black, literally. It strikes me as an ending. A sunrise contains so much more promise, hope and excitement. Things seem ahead of you, instead of behind you, and that is exciting. What will the new day bring? How can we make sure it doesn’t pass us by like the last? Where will we end up?

A burly old biker once told me about his days lambing up north; that sheep generally give birth at sunrise. He spoke of those days so beautifully, so tenderly, with such poetry in his words that I'll never be able to reproduce it here. The hour before sunrise, still in darkness, they sit relaxed in their field, breathing deeply, calmly, naturally, knowing what is incoming. "I used to sit there, smoking a little, breathing deeply, and waiting to work. That hour, when the sun pushes up, is the best hour to be alive," he told me, wisely. "People have been doing just the same for centuries, forever, how can it not make you feel your existence worthy, in a way? Experiencing something so pure, so natural? So engrained!" His eyes were closed, holding back a nostalgic tear, allowing me to look at his serious face and listen. To really listen. Being deep in melancholia at the time I twisted his words round and thought: 'I'd like to die at sunrise.'

The trusty market traders see the sunrise every morning, and they don’t seem to even notice its imminence. Apart from us, the whole town is asleep. It is quiet and it is eerie; a ghost town in the truest sense of the term. Instead of tumbleweeds rolling through the dusty streets, a ripped sheet of cardboard dances a pirouette on the pavement. There is something very sobering about a new day breaking over you, like a cold shower; when the cool air stings your nostrils and cigarettes never tasted quite so good. When all is peaceful and calm.

I woke early a while ago - before sunrise - because I couldn’t get to sleep. Having failed at nodding back off I just decided to go for a walk; the best way to kill some time, and the activity I’d least be likely to engage in at sunrise. A field and a hill at the edge of town were my destination, and there I planned to sit down and scratch some notes as the sun rose. Like a journalist I’d cover the assignment, and gain both an impression and an understanding through the job. I’d come out with something, damn it, if only half a dozen illegible scribbles.

Stepping out from home the atmosphere felt un-pressured, the wind non-existent, the birds were only just starting to sing their dawn chorus of turf war. As positive as I may have painted a sunrise there was still a sadness over the land, a certain melancholy on my own part. Not only was I running out of smokes, which I’d need for this morning, but a mountain of regrets built up as I walked and thought about things. Why hadn’t I caught more sunrises? When was the last time I watched the sunrise? With a girl? Why had I never made love by birdsong?

Racing across town I saw one or two people, camouflaged by the dark. Everyone else was asleep in safety and dark at home. As the light grew and the sun rose ever so slightly the lines on my face seemed to get deeper. I felt like I was aging on the spot, like a reverse Britten. Here was the first appearance of the thing from which all life springs, and it felt like it! Nathan was coming the other way, out of nowhere. We stopped. I explained the situation. “I get that sometimes,” he admitted.

“What?” I asked.

“The insomnia,” he said, and that gave me another thing to worry about and mull over. One sleepless night does not an insomniac make, I reminded myself.

I soon reached my vantage point and settled in, ready to watch the sunrise and analyse it. I mean to really watch the sunrise. The colours painting the sky were vibrant enough; mostly a murky yellow, with some peachy patches. With nothing else on my mind I considered the world for a long moment; life, death, sunrise, sunset, love or lack thereof, and waded through both the positives and negatives in my own existence. I wished I could be as regular as the sun. I longed for a routine and a purpose as important as that.

All my time had been dedicated to the pursuit of idle time and recreation, trying to prolong youth for as long as possible, and as much as I had wanted that at one point I didn’t want it anymore. I was tired of following the creative maxim ‘do what thou wilt,’ and living like a self-imposed pariah, shunning responsibilities, trying to stay like Peter Pan. I still felt like a lost little boy - nothing had changed in me. All through my early-twenties I had suffered and all through my teens I had endured and it had been for what? For fucking what? To pursue what I liked doing and avoid any discomfort? There had been some major emotional setbacks to pass through and I'd missed out on some critical rites of passage between youth and adulthood. Something had to change if I were to progress with my own life; something big, something worthwhile and something enjoyable. I'd been arrested by myself - trapped, with no way out. Life seemed like an endless sunset, and it should have felt like a sunrise.

A lyric came to mind and repeated itself over, just like the song. “I took the wrong step years ago," I sang, "I took the wrong step years ago." Whoever had led me to believe doing what I wanted with my life would be the best option? They hadn't mentioned it would be such a challenge. That should have been told sooner, I seemed to be too far down the line now, living life like a monastic vagabond. A paradox in itself. Without chasing this constant first day of spring I'd have never ended up here, on Juniper Hill, watching colours appear and swirl in the sky. I'd also have been left with little time after work to think with.

There comes a point in the sunrise when you think you've seen it all. Thinking that the sun is the only thing involved, you forget about the sky. There comes a point when you don't think you could ever change, that this is the person you are, and the person you always will be. But humans are constantly in a state of change; mental, physical, spiritual change. You shouldn't wait for that to come to you. Like sunrise it's already coming, like the sky it's already moving along - it's something you have to look towards and to accept.

When you reveal one of these truths to yourself a weight is cast off. How had it been possible not to understand like that before? All the pieces of the puzzle were there, counted out and present, but you couldn't find the edges. You wait for the simple revelation over the course or weeks, months, or years. When the sun rises a new day roars along the road in second, pushes into third, fourth, takes the roundabout at speed and flies off on its journey; just like the early morning drivers rushing to work in their suits or overalls.