Journal

In January, Columba Powell and I went to the USA and stayed for three months, travelling around the country.

We arrived in New York. Staying in a loft with a friend, off Times Square. I felt the need to get something and went downstairs, past the Gay Cinema Club to the corner store. There was a shifty-looking guy I noticed. He was rifling through a stack of produce. The vibe was sticky. The man at the cash desk was eyeing him. ‘You need to buy something or get out,’ he shouted to the shifty guy, who ignored him and pocketed some stuff. ‘You pay for that, or I’m calling the law.’ The shifty guy pulled out a badge. ‘I am the fucking law,’ he announced as he left without paying.

A famous actress had told her younger sister, whom I knew, that she slept with everybody because: ‘it would be so impolite not to’. Kind of how things were, and, despite having been shy when younger, I took that advice to heart mostly. Anyway, the friend, let’s call her Wendy, and I got it on. We all decided we wanted to drive across country to LA, but car hire was too expensive. However, there was a firm in Hartford, Connecticut, that took on repossessed cars to deliver wherever. You could sign on and get a car for free. Wendy and I both had licenses. We took a bus to sign up.

The car was OK a Chevrolet Vega. Having driven back to New York to pick up our stuff we set off and, once out of town, were pulled over. I was driving and had exceeded the speed limit. I modelled the half-wit English tourist: ‘I’m so sorry Officer. I’m not used to these powerful American cars…’ The cop was mollified: ‘ya be careful now. This was New Mexico you’d be thrown in jail’. ‘Yes officer. Thank you officer’ etc… Curiously a week or two later the same thing did happen in New Mexico. We’d crossed the border and smoked a spliff or three. The cop was cool: ‘You be safe now…’ You never can tell.

Wendy was older than us. She had connections and knew her metaphorical way around better than me. I’ve always had women take the lead. In Hollywood, we were at the house of someone she knew. There was a coven of women around the table. The men seemed excluded or excluded themselves. The talk turned to sex. One of the women was particularly outspoken: ‘You know these new vibrators, you can cum in like two minutes.’ I felt embarrassed. Here I was, twenty years old, a month away from twenty one and completely out of my depth. Columba didn’t want to take advantage of his father’s connections. There was an actor he knew, who was quite unassuming, though. We went to stay with his family. Wendy didn’t join us.

We decided to travel up the coast to San Francisco. We began by hitching. A car pulled up. The driver wanted to know if we had a license. OK so I’d have to share the driving. We got in the back. There was a woman there. She seemed friendly enough. There was another guy in the front, next to the driver. He had his feet up on the dashboard. ‘We ain’t no hippy punks, he declared. Maybe he was referring to our long hair. ‘We ain’t no hippy punks’ he insisted. This became a refrain as he drew out a knife and stabbed the dashboard again and again. Columba and I exchanged looks. We really didn’t need this. The vibe was skewed. Maybe the car was stolen. ‘We need gas. You got any cash?’ asked the driver. We pulled into a station and gave him some. ‘Thanks for the lift’ as we scarpered.

We took a bus up the coast to Santa Cruz. I met Jane. We did the deed. I wanted to visit Big Sur. She offered to drive. We camped overnight and the next day, set off walking into the hills. After a couple of hours, following a winding trail, we arrived at a beautiful spot with a small lake. We dropped some mescaline. I dozed off. When I woke, Jane had disappeared. There were naked men Whooping and diving off the rocks. What the fuck! I looked around. Below were two guys playing chess. They looked like an altogether better proposition. I scrambled down the slope and said hi. They were welcoming and friendly. The next day they gave me a lift back up north. I never saw Jane again.

We stayed at Berkeley. Somebody knew somebody. It was time to fly home but we needed to get to the east coast. We found a notice in the union, asking for people to share the drive. Jim had a camper van and wanted to get back to Harvard. There five in all, including Columba whose job was to roll joints. We drove in shifts, taking turns to sleep on the bed. We got to Boston in 56 hours, stopping at truck stops only for food and fuel.

A few days later Hot Tuna were playing in town. We loved Jefferson Airplane but Columba was unwell so I went on my own. It was late when the concert finished. I was wired and decided to walk the few miles back. The streets were quiet. A car pulled over. There was a lone driver, who asked if I wanted a lift. I sensed a non-threatening vibe and told him I was staying at Harvard. He said OK. I got in the passenger seat. ‘I really dig your body image man’ he told me enthusiastically. We discussed pornography. He had quite a collection apparently, which he was keen to show me. I told him I wasn’t into it. He dropped me off as requested.

I was born in Birmingham in 1951 and grew up at Stripes Hill outside the village of Knowle, south of the city.

My father was born in 1886, and my mother in 1908. She was his third wife.

I was an only child with one half-brother, forty years older, who ran the family business with Dad. The business was an industrial manufactory in Birmingham, started by my grandfather in the mid-nineteenth century.

The family was wealthy, and we lived in a large house. I was loved.

My first sexual encounter was at a birthday party, aged four. A girl and I were under the piano, draped with a sheet, to conceal the legs, perhaps. It was a game of hide and seek. ‘You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine,’ she proposed.

She pulled up her skirt and pulled down her pants. The next was with our au pair, Heidi. She was giving me my bath. Rather than get her clothes wet, she undressed and climbed into the tub with me. Her pubic hair was magnetic. I asked her what it was. ‘That’s a bush,’ she said. ‘We all have those. You’ll have one when you grow up.’ It seemed quite unlikely, but I wanted hers.

It was a Saturday evening May 3rd 2025, I was gasping for breath.

I was on WhatsApp with my dear friend Mary. I asked her to stay online while I rang 111. In 10 minutes, a first responder team was at my door. They gave me oxygen. In another 10 minutes, an ambulance arrived. Within 40 minutes, I was in the Cardiac Emergency unit at Southampton University Hospital. I don’t remember much of the following week as I was kept alive, while tests were carried out, before I was given a heart bypass and aortic valve replacement on the 9th.

6 months later, I am almost completely recovered, taking an hour of Tai Chi classes twice a week and going to the swimming pool. This is all thanks to the NHS and the amazing skill of the Cardiac team who cared for me. The heart is also a metaphor, of course, conjuring love and compassion out of suffering. I also have to thank the pig whose aortic valve sustains me now.

I was at the Bickershaw Festival with the greatest line-up I can remember. Look it up if you don’t believe me.

I travelled up north from London, with a bunch of mates. At some point a guy had wandered off, as you do. Everyone was stoned. His friend started calling out for him: ‘Wally, Wally, Wally…’

Then the cry was taken up by others in the vicinity: ‘Wally, Wally, Wally…’ Not too long before the Whole crowd, maybe 20,000 to 30,000 people relatively (they were small festivals in those days) were shouting: ‘Wally, Wally, Wally…’ I had never heard the expression ‘Wally’ as slang for ‘idiot’ before.

In a few years it became ubiquitous.

In a dream, I dreamt that I woke up in a hospital bed and the concerned medics were explaining that I was awake, but they did not know that I was dreaming them.
I was concerned too, that they could not see.