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For one reason or another, and very much like most of the people alive today, I don’t remember the sixties at all! But ...but just occasionally a memory will surface to bask in the light of consciousness for a while, or maybe they are all merely flashbacks.
One of these flashed back into my ken the other morning while I was out running and found myself easily out-running a police car. A police car, that was, that had already stopped some poor unfortunate in an actual vehicle; and all in a flash I remembered ‘The Famous Trip to Brighton’---Brighton in England, that was; and that was in the summer of ’69, or perhaps that honourary member of the sixties 1970, and I was living in Putney, and possibly in Sin too (remember this was the sixties) down by the river; with an Australian Girlfriend we all called Die-eeyan , in vague and probably insulting approximation of the way she said it; and, intermittently, a few others of varying sex (well remember this WAS the sixties). And very early one morning (or extremely late the previous night) we suddenly decided that we should all go down to the seaside at Brighton in the newly acquired old, battered and rusty van that someone had just, um, acquired--and then decorated in the most florally psychedelic of fashions (remember this was the sixties). I was designated Driver (on the wholly unreasonable grounds that I was the one with the driving licence1) and an indeterminate number of passengers crowded on board as we started our trip on the quite desolate and very early morning (or extremely late night) streets of south London.
The first time we were stopped by the police we had been travelling for a mere half-an-hour ...-ish and had hardly left the built-up bits of London.
The fuzz, plural, got out of their fuzzmobile (remember this was the sixties) and subjected us and our van to a rather thorough and torch-enhanced2 examination, tallying up infractions at great and detailed length. These were, no doubt, the sort of infractions that cause acute myocardial infarction in bureaucrats in the Ministry of Transport but are of absolutely no consequence anywhere else except, of course, for the pounds, shillings and pence3 symbols that were clicking up in the eyes of the fuzz and the minds of us their victims---when suddenly the fuzzmobile’s radio crackled and one of them went to it and quickly returned to his colleague to drag him away leaving us with the admonishment that we were lucky they had some real work to do---which rather put us into our perspective-challenged place, and confirmed my suspicions that they were acting less out of concern for public safety than out of boredom.
The second time we were stopped, just as the Sun was ari-ising (as they put it in all the better Folk songs), was much more business-like and we even got a ticket for having less than optimal tyres4 (and felt lucky to get no more than that).
Then, just as we were a-enteri-i-ing Brighton (as even the worst Folk songs don’t put it) we made our hat-trick! Stopped three times in a fiftyish mile journey!! This time, though we had what amounted to a passport, and waving our ticket at the nice fuzz, we got off without adding to its number.
Strange as it may seem I don’t remember anything at all of our day at the beach, but as we were leaving Brighton for the journey home we picked up a couple of hitch-hikers, as one did (remember this was the sixties) and, as we were regaling them with our tales of the fuzz-thronged roads, I (still lumbered with the driving, poor me) spotted a police car on the other side of the dual carriageway5 (which is what we in our elegant English way call a divided highway6). Jokingly I said “Hey! there’s number four.”---jokingly, and as it turned out prophetically, because the fuzz went to all the trouble of driving down to the next roundabout to turn round and come after us. By the time they had caught up with us and stopped us we were all laughing hysterically, helplessly, as luck would have it pathetically.
“Well?” he said as I wound down my window.
“I’m really sorry officer, but this is the fourth time we’ve been stopped.”
He stepped back, giving a scathing perusal to our poor van---rusty, battered but (at least in intention) brightly psychedelic; and our pathetic but still laughing selves, ... and paused.
“Well what the f____7 do you expect!”
And walked back to his car
Cheerio for now
from
Richard Howland-Bolton
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Notes:
The title is from the well-known children’s song 'wanna go riding in my Car, Car'.
The words (as I learned them) include:
Horn goes ‘Beep! Beep!’
Horn go-oes ‘Beep! Beep!’
The horn goes ‘Beep! Beep!’
Riding in my car. ...
Breaks go-o ‘Screech! Screech!’ ( X 3 )...
Pedestrian goes ‘Squelch! Squelch!’ ( X 3 )
Run over by my car...
Policeman goes ‘’ello, ’ello, ’ello!’ ...
Magistrate goes ‘Tut! Tut!’... etc.
It can be extended or interpolated ad libitum
Glossary:
1 licence: that’s ‘license’ to you Mercans
2 torch-enhanced: that’s ‘flashlight-enhanced’ to you Mercans
3 pounds, shillings and pence: that’s ‘dollars and cents’ to you Mercans
4 tyres: that’s ‘tires’ to you Mercans
5 dual carriageway: that’s ‘divided highway’ to you Mercans
6 divided highway: that’s ... Oh! Never mind. 7 f___: Taboo usage presents a difficult dilemma to the more sensitive broadcaster; after all I’m reporting speech, and doing so accurately as far as I remember (see the opening para of the essay), and further I think the fabled F-word works artistically in context: but, chicken as the broadcasting industry is, I felt i just HAD to de-uck this for the on-air version ’cause, of course, we need the eggs. You can hear the whole thing in all its fucking glory on-line. [Let your mouse dwell for a moment or two on Rowie's ear, above next to the title.]
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