NOTES
There are no notes for this chapter yet. Some of the notes on other pages are based on info YOU send me. |
My next stop was Birmingham. I remember nothing of the journey there, so I assume I must have got lifts fairly readily. It was Birmingham simply because some driver happened to be going there. No doubt there were the usual soakings, difficult encounters with the police and the jokers who stop a long way ahead to make you run, then drive away just as you reach them (I'm afraid I threw stones at them sometimes, but fortunately always missed). |
| In Birmingham, I performed the usual day-long ritual, well documented in previous chapters, in order to get a job for two weeks, a bed in the Sally Ann and a bit of cash (and, of course, yet another National Insurance Card alias to avoid prosecution for vagrancy and/or fraud by the NAB). The job this time was as a general labourer in a light engineering works. It wasn't particularly heavy work and I was quite sorry to do my usual disappearing act after a couple of weeks. I must say, however, that I discovered that Brummies (at least the factory variety) were a peculiarly lugubrious, humourless, pessimistic lot. The Birmingham Sally Ann was the worst I ever encountered, filthy and violent. Cutlery was banned for security reasons, so you had to put your disgusting greasy slops in your mouth with your fingers. |
| Once I had left the job and the SA I decided to try the Reception Centre. Although I certainly had no wish to hang around for much longer in Birmingham, which was in the middle of having its centre torn out for sixties-style redevelopment (which is now itself being torn down, I believe), The Book of Taps told me that the Birmingham spike was of the hospital casual ward type, and I had not yet experienced this sort. (See Chapter 27 for a brief explanation of the spike system). However, it was full, so I was given a railway warrant to go to the one in Wolverhampton. Apart from the extreme rudeness of the railway staff, who seemed to know why I had the warrant, it was quite a treat to be riding in a train for the first time in a very long time. |
| The Wolverhampton spike turned out to be a casual ward as well. Here, I discovered that the casual wards were gloomy forgotten corners of hospitals, typically collections of small rooms unchanged since workhouse days. Admission formalities were usually kept to a minimum, or non-existent. There was no hint of the lice inspection or compulsory bath of the NAB spikes (surprisingly for hospitals, perhaps). Although all the domestic chores had to be done by the inmates, there was very little work to go round because the places were so small. There was no land to cultivate and standards of cleanliness were not high enough for there to be much cleaning work to do. The food tended to be very basic - soup, dry bread and cheese, mostly, but there was as much of it as you cared to eat (and I cared to eat a lot). The big drawback of this kind of spike was that the spikemasters usually allowed each dosser only three or four nights a year. In some places, including Wolverhampton, this allowance could be used up all in one go - three consecutive nights - if you liked. In others your nights had to be a month or more apart. I found that I preferred this casual ward variety of spike - there was no pressure and I could hang around for most of the day in little Dickensian rooms picking up yet more information for the ever-expanding Book of Taps or, indeed, imparting information from it to relative newcomers. However, there remained that big gulf betwen myself and the others - they were bitter and confused would-be conformists, mostly over 50 and I was a 22 year-old rebel. They hated the system for letting them down and excluding them, I hated it for its nature and for trying to rope me in. However, the day-to-day problems involved in being a professional dosser precluded much in the way of political theorizing during that period. |
| When my three or four days at the wolverhampton spike were up I tried the usual routine to get a job, vouchers and money, but came up against a 'hard' NAB office this time. ;After waiting for hours on a hard bench in an apallingly dirty room full of broken-down people and their screaming children, I had two shillings (10p) almost thrown at me together with some words of abuse by a vile dragon. So I headed on out of Wolverhampton. Possibly with the Church Army hostel and the 'soft' local NAB office in mind, or perhaps because The Book of Taps told me there were three spikes in a row between Leicester and Sheffield, I decided on my second visit to Leicester. This time I found the NAB there even more generous than before (I was using a different name of course). An earnest young man put me down for £6 (a large handout for that time) and vouchers for a week, not in the Church Army hostel on this occasion, but with a woman who took in lodgers with NAB vouchers (she was already in The Book of Taps). I went round to her house, but there were a couple of dossers fighting in the basement area, so I walked on. In fact I just kept walking. I decided not to bother with the job I had had to accept in order to score from the NAB. |
| I located the first of the three spikes (all of the rehab type) somewhere to the north of Leicester and booked in. It was unique in that the spikemaster was in fact a woman. My old-fashioned streak, which I still faintly retained despite everything, caused me to be mildly shocked and uncomfortable at the thought of a woman - and a very young one at that - being in almost sole charge of perhaps fifty men with all sorts of personality problems between them. As a matter of fact, I didn't last for more than a couple of days there. This young lady summoned me to her office and demanded to know what a healthy and intelligent young man was doing in a place like that. I don't know what reply I mumbled but she then said "Why on earth don't you settle down, get a good job, get married and raise a family?" I was breathlessly angry to hear this sort of language from someone not much older than myself so I ogled her legs as pointedly as I could and asked in what I imagined to be a lustful tone, "Was that a proposal?" She stood up and hissed "It's my professional opinion that you are not suitable material for rehabilitation. I want you off the premises within the hour." |
| On to the next spike, which was near Alvaston in Derbyshire. All I remember of that one is that I managed to hang on for about three weeks and worked harder than was required, harvesting potatoes on the centre's own smallholding. When I left there I headed for the last of the three in a row, which was at Woodhouse, just south of Sheffield. For some reason, I chose a rather roundabout route from Alvaston to Woodhouse, involving minor roads through the Peak District (the M1 had not yet been extended that far north, but even so there was a more direct route with more traffic on it than the one I took). Possibly The Book of Taps told me of a generous convent or other tap, in that direction. It rained incessantly, increasing the authenticity of my tramp look, which had already been developing well once again since the last haircut and partial change of clothes, probably way back in Birmingham. This may have contributed to the near impossibility of getting lifts in that region. I walked for very many miles with water pouring from my clothes, and dossed down in the same saturated clothes at night. |
| However, I have a couple of nice memories of the inhabitants of the Peak district. On one occasion I scambled over a wall into the grounds of a mansion, entered the large greenhouse and began stuffing my pockets with tomatoes. I was in the middle of eating one of them when the door opened and a burly servant, possibly the gardener, came in. At the same moment the voice of an elderly woman called out "Who is it?". The servant replied "Only some old tramp, madam, sheltering from the rain. I'll soon see him off". He picked a cucumber and handed it to me, saying "I reckon this'll go well with all those tomatoes in your pockets". I thanked him and climbed back over the wall into the lane. |
| A bit further on, a very rough character came out of a battered old caravan in a little garden. He shouted raucously "Hey, you!" as I passed. I stopped in some trepidation, as he looked quite fearsome. "Tha looks 'ungry". I assured him I was. He disappeared into the caravan for a few minutes, then came out and threw a package to me. It contained a substantial amount of sandwiches. |
| These incidents partially made up for the terrible conditions, but I arrived at Woodhouse spike with a nasty cold, a rarity for me. I can remember even less of Woodhouse than of Alvaston. I know that for once I felt like moving on even before the spikemaster decided to turn me out as rehabilitated or impossible to rehabilitate, so I applied to the him for release. He asked me what I had got out of my stay and was annoyed when I replied that it had enabled me to shake off my cold. "You've just been using this as a convalescence home, then?" he said, before throwing me out in the rain. |