VT Coughtrey - Headrow Clothes (3)

NOTES	Well, 1965 is out of the way at last ! In fact it wasn't until I came to write about that year that I realized how many chapters it would consume. However, before leaving it behind altogether, I will just mention that I've always remembered Christmas 1965 as the 'Jam Sandwich Christmas', because I spent Christmas Day and Boxing Day in my tiny spartan bedsit with nothing to eat but bread and jam. This was not for lack of money. It was simply that I had not bothered to get anything in. It was my first Christmas away from home, all my new friends from the factory had disappeared to their own homes and families and it was no doubt one of those rare occasions when I became sharply aware that my mother and grandmother had no idea at all what had become of me. I couldn't, however, force myself to contact them.
	In the new year, once Joss had been dispatched in the manner described in the previous chapter, I was supreme master of the clips and wastepaper cellar. It certainly turned out to be true that I was able to do both jobs, and with time to spare. In fact, Rowling decided to exploit this as much as possible. When the head cleaner left, Rowling put me in charge of the cleaners. This time there was no suggestion of a rise for this extra responsibility, nor did I bother to ask for one as I eagerly accepted the additional role. The amount of overtime I did was soon left entirely to me, so I began to take over much of the cleaning work myself. This gave me an excuse to work late in the evenings and to go in on Saturday mornings, when I would clean all the lavatories on every floor. This included the women's, where I also bagged up all the used sanitary towels and burned them in the incinerator instead of leaving them lying around for the rats, as had been done before.
	Sometimes I stayed all day on Saturdays and was eventually given a set of keys to the factory, as no-one else, not even the genial Timekeeper, was prepared to put in the same number of hours. This arrangement suited everybody. The cleaners were happy because they were left with very little to do. Rowling was happy (even though he must have known that I was doing an awful lot of skiving when left all alone in the factory) because he was more than able to make up for my overtime pay by not replacing cleaners when they left. The original team of about eight had dwindled to three after a year. I was certainly happy with the £13 or £14 that I was now collecting every Friday - it was a pretty good screw for 1966, or so it seemed to me. But I was even happier with the enormous power and independence I had suddenly acquired. I was the mighty unchallenged king of rags, rats, waste paper, garbage, lavatories, sanitary towels, spud-bashing - oh, and fire prevention too (after timid hints by Rowling). In connection with the last-mentioned duty it became left entirely to me to keep all the fire buckets in the factory topped up with clean water. I even took on several other duties unknown to Rowling, such as hosing down the loading bay every Saturday. It was while doing this on one occasion that I was nearly arrested for indecent exposure - a woman looking out of the window of another factory had reported that I was publicly urinating (still frowned upon in those days). She must have thought I had a mighty bladder
	I devised an heraldic crest for the Clips Department and painted it on the side of every bogie. The Clips Department was no longer just the cellar. It applied to all parts of the factory where my power was absolute, such as the lavatories. Notices appeared in all such areas, prohibiting this and that, signed by 'V.Stevens, Manager, Clips Department.' It's quite possible, in retrospect, that I was a figure of fun behind my back, but it seemed to me at the time that I commanded considerable respect throughout the factory. I even fancied that the foremen and forewomen slightly feared me because my taking over of so many routine tasks meant that my co-operation was essential if they were to get anything done. My friendship with Arthur the irrascible hoistman was certainly invaluable to them, because he was always ready to take me from floor to floor, and this afforded other workers the chance of getting goods on the hoist at the same time.
These days I eat rather more responsibly but as a result, my weight has slipped a bit to the point where a silly doctor has urged me to "eat masses of white bread and pasta.".	Outside of working hours I embarked on a thorough exploration of the city's pubs, consuming many pints of mild almost very night. I also latched onto the idea of staggering into Indian restaurants at the end of the evening. Soon, I was satisfied only by the fiercest curries. I would order a vindaloo and sprinkle cayenne pepper over it, to the alarm of the waiters. Sometimes, having had a large meal in one restaurant, I would go into the next one and have another large meal there. I would already have had snacks in each of three or four pubs. My belly seemed to know no bounds, but my weight remained at nine and a half stone (130lbs), as it has done to this day. Quite often, I would finish the evening by jogging (it wasn't called that then) round Hyde Park a few times in the tiny satin shorts that were fashionable for sports. I genuinely believed that this daily combination of much ale, fiery curry in abundance and an hour's jogging was the way to keep very fit. Well, it seemed to work!
	I could afford this routine for a combination of reasons. In the North mild ale was around 1/4d (7p) a pint, a big curry with all the trimmings could be had for about four bob (20p), my rent was £2 a week and bus travel around the city was almost free. In addition, I had quickly reverted to my old lack of interest in clothes after an initial burst of enthusiasm. In fact I was no doubt beginning to look like a dosser again after a few months. After a while the Packhorse and the Eldon, both in Woodhouse Lane (do they still exist in some form?) became my favourite pubs. They conformed exactly to the traditional style of Northern pub as described in the previous chapter, but they had one great additional attraction - students! They were in the university area and were the most popular student pubs. Much as I was still in love with Leeds folk, especially the fascinating characters one could often have drunken conversations with in pubs, students (mostly not from the region at all) were a great new discovery.
Apparently, The Packhorse and The Eldon are still popular student pubs but the Packhorse advertises itself as a 'live music venue' and the Eldon claims to be ideal as an 'introduction to English culture' for foreign students. This turns out to consist of karaoke, Sky Sports and a juke box. God, how students have changed! It's very sad.	For the first time, I was in the company of people whose outlook and political theories seemed very close to the ones that had obsessed me, before the business of how to survive on the road had damped them down. The students of 1966, although mostly a few years younger than I, rekindled all the old political passions with a vengeance. In the past, of course, I had planned the Revolution in total isolation. I had explained and justified it solely to the air. Not a single person besides myself had read my copious writings, nor were they destined to. Even in the days when it had been very real to me that one day hundreds of thousands would follow me to the barricades, I had simultaneously believed that no-one at all in Britain could possibly harbour a political desire or idea resembling any of mine. I'd never spotted any contradiction between these two beliefs. Surprised though I was to find suddenly that there were many others with similar views, I was even more surprised to discover that they really seemed to mean business - it wasn't just talk. In addition, I was fired up a great deal by the discovery that I could easily hold my own in (necessarily drunken) debates over the finer details of the Revolution with students of politics and economics. I not only knew my Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Bakunin and Kropotkin - I knew a few other writers that the students had barely heard of.
	So by the Spring of '66 a revived political fervour was being woven into the continuing round of pubs and curry houses, and the daytime life of rags, rats and randy girls. But other ingredients were on the way, and the most important links to these were the leaflets and newsletters handed out by the Packhorse and Eldon revolutionaries. They were all about direct action, demonstrations and various rebellious activities, but most of all they gave access to groups with exciting views that even I had never dreamed up. Suddenly, the options for rebellion and dissent were opening up before me like bright flowers.