Why not?

This is a book in progress. The story is partly true and partly fiction. Please put your comments and suggestions at the bottom of the page

Chapter 4
Through a glass sparkly

I’m coming into Bournemouth around 4pm. The hotel is fairly easy to find. It’s on a grand crescent near the Bath Road and the East Cliff. It’s got a health spa and swimming pool but I’m not interested. I want to drop my bag and head for Harry Ramsdens Fish shop at the seafront. I’ve seen it on Google maps on one of my stops. Harry Ramsdens and my family go back a long way. Harry Ramsden had his famous fish shop and restaurant next to the White Cross roundabout at Guiseley from I think the 1920’. That’s near Yeadon, where I come from. The place became a bit iconic and a local landmark. It was ultimately bought out by a Far East company and is now a fast food franchise
My mum went to primary school with Harry’s son. In her teens, she was friendly with a man who become very famous later on, Harry Corbett, of Sooty and Sweep fame. This friendship was just around the end of the war. Harry played the piano in Ramsden’s restaurant and later toured in a concert party with my dad who was a Punch and Judy man and magician. Mum used to boast that Harry C. started her smoking. And I could go on and on but essentially I sort of think of Harry Ramsdens as my fish shop. I know I’m going to be disappointed visiting one of the franchise establishments. The business at Guiseley was grand. Beautiful restaurant, chandeliers, white tablecloths, long chrome mirrors on the wall, pianist in the corner, smart waitresses in white tops, black skirt and white frilly ‘pinny’ and a view out over Highroyds mental hospital (formerly West Riding Country Pauper Asylum). Yorkshire class.
Yes, I’m going to be disappointed but I continue to visit these franchise places like it’s a mild compulsion. I feel compelled to tell the young assistant that my mum new Harry Ramsden, and went to school with his son and every time they look confused and don’t know what to say. So that’s what I’m left with. If I know there is a Harry Ramsden franchise en-route to where I’m travelling I have to go there. It might be a bit shabby looking but it’s like touching home a little. Original home. This one at Bournemouth is smarter than most. Not as good as Guiseley but somewhere on the same track. Prices are too much for me, so disappointed I head down the cliff path, and then notice they have got a takeaway and mini café tucked away on the next level down. It’s the kind of place you might swill out with a hose pipe and a mop and bucket, and both Harry’s will be spinning but I’m hungry and get myself a battered sausage and chips, and perch on a stool beside a little circular plastic-topped table. And despite the squalid surroundings the foods okay. I’m counting it as my little treat before I have to live on Pot Noodles and spam, and such like when I’m on the road. I really am skint. I don’t know what’s going to happen on this trip. I should have five times the money that I’ve got. All I can do now is go on. Backing down would mean a loss of face.
I’m not comfortable yet. My skin is dry and sore. My clothes cheap and ill-fitting. The top button has popped off rugby jogger trousers, and the elastic waistband forces the zip down. The shirt doesn’t meet the trousers anymore so I repetitively pull down on my jersey to cover the gap but that’s the same. My body feels like it doesn’t belong. Sort of semi alien. I want the twenty-five-year-old one back again. Oh to be light on my feet and be gifted with limitless energy. This one I’ve got now aches and it’s like I’m getting flu, That’s Rheumatoid arthritis. Everything is an effort. I might as well be carrying a sack of coal on my back. And my mojo is as dead as the parrot. I’m jaded and tired. No grin and no bounce. I feel like some loner weirdo who hangs about where there are lots of people enjoying themselves. Everybody with some other body. I’m ‘Billy No Mates. A sixty-one-year-old fat and arthritic old man balanced on a rotating high stool, I hope I feel my bounce soon.
A thought of Rod Stewarts intrudes. “I’ve got to move while I’m in the mood”. And then my words. “This is slow death”.
The foods okay though. I take out my phone and make a start on preparing the message for Joan. If we can get the Cheyanne story out of the way, then I can get her onto what she thinks she is doing hanging about and waiting to be murdered. I can’t remember how much she knew about Cheyanne so I write probably more than I need to. It’s 5.pm.
At 5.30 I walk back the way I came, but this time catch one of those cliff lifts that raise you up by cogs and cables to the top of the cliff and give you the thrill of impending doom until you reach the top. A hundred yards ahead there’s a sports bar. I buy an expensive beer (that two days budget blown already) and continue typing on my phone. I’m there at a mall table near the toilets. There an hour sipping one pint of Amstel.

“Hiya Joan I can remember what you know so here is a fairly detailed pen picture of Cheyanne. Forgive the telegram language. I’m on my tiny little Smart Phone (that’s what we call them) and my big hands struggle with the tiny keyboard, and so want to keep the note concise. She was from Mauritius. Born 1955 in Port Louie. The big city Father a taxi driver. Muslim, but none practising. She came to Wales to become a State Enrolled Nurse. Then in 76 came to Meanwood Park Hospital in Leeds to train as a Registered Nurse. That’s where we met. We were in the same group and trained together. She failed the course and dare not go back home. Tells family she was successful and is nursing.in the UK and doing well. Sends money home each month which she/ we can’t really afford. This goes on for years and years.
Her father was a crazy monster fan of Cowboy films but he took the part of the Indians. Named his daughter after his favourite Indian Nation. Cheyanne. Dad also a big fan of rock and roll music and in time ditto Cheyanne. And that’s how we were are well but always with Chuck Berry songs.’ If something happened we would say it was like this or that Chuck Berry song. We were an odd couple so that was ‘C ‘Est la vie…its life… you never can tell’, Cheyanne had a shimmer when she moved so that was Nadine (…” she move around like a wave of summer breeze”) Promised Land (“Sure as your born bought me a silk suit, put luggage in my hand“. That one was about travelling in style when we had no money) Johnny B. Goode. “Never learned to read and write so well but he could play a guitar like a ringing a bell” When something was so perfect)‘ and best of all ‘My Ding a Ling’. That speaks for itself but it was our Alma Mater…or I thought it was. Great pictures in my mind. Crazy Mauritian India woman with Red Indian name jiving around with me to Roll-over Beethoven. That’s how we were in early 1978 and for many years after.
I’m writing about her by through thinking about the songs. We later get into Bob Marley. Our song then was ‘No Woman No Cry’. That become prophetic. Bloody hell it was. She couldn’t take her booze and one night I remember her vomiting into a waste paper basket for hours whilst I  held her we listened to that song. And it sort of stuck after that. The song.

No Woman No Cry

Bob Marley and the Wailers

Cheyanne had previously had a relationship with a really unstable guy with Diabetes called Donald Tipper who looked like someone out of the Hitler Youth. He was also a student in our group and a couple of years older than her. He wouldn’t (and it was deliberate) control his diabetes and kept going into Hypoglycaemia. That’s where your blood sugar goes really low and it’s really dangerous. People look like they’re drunk but they not, it’s just their brain is not getting another sugar to work. Well, Cheyanne gets wise really fast and dumps him in a matter of days.
Tipper goes a bit crazy. Stamps his foot in broken glass to try and get her back and generally gets so obsessed and messed up that he can’t function on the course. The hospital puts him on medical leave and we don’t see him again, but it was that twat who killed her decades later. I will tell you about it in a minute. You can never know what’s going on in people’s heads.
Cheyanne and I got married on the 25th November 1978. She twenty-three and me twenty-one. That’s when we moved in next door to you at Lincoln Avenue. Then do you remember in December 1979 I had to move to Kent (Orpington) to do some more training? Cheyanne stayed in Leeds for a year. She could have worked as an enrolled nurse but the money was better in bar work. She did three different jobs all at the same time (and she was supposed to be a Muslim. What would dad have said). The day job was bar cellar ‘man’ at the White Stag on North Street, a barmaid at swanky Bank Wine bar in town in the evening and then same again at the Heaven and Hell Nightclub across town, eleven till three am.

 

 

She was taking speed all that year to keep going. Crazy times. Most Fridays I’d jump fences at the stations and get up to London and then across the city to Hendon. Then Hitch up the M1 to Leeds. Then walk as fast as I can’t anymore to the wine bar and push my way through the Tory Boys and Girls to the bar in my donkey jacket, give her a come on movement with my hand and then walk her home if she had got the night off from job 3 at Heaven and Hell. Otherwise, it was just a quick snog and I saw her back at home at four in the mourning. On Sunday afternoon I would do the trip all again backwards. That went on for a year and then she moved to Orpington when I got a hospital flat.

 

 

We settled in Diss, Norfolk, that’s a lovely market town near the Suffolk border and twenty odd miles south from Norwich. I worked at the same hospital all these years. We had two daughters. I thought we were doing well. Good house. Kids growing up nicely. I got to the medium top in my job and they paid me a lot, but I worked down hard and all the hours. Then one evening Cheyanne comes home with a large bottle of Bacardi. That’s always a sign. She wants to share it. We sit and drink. She starts off by saying she is forty-five and wants to change. She is going back to Mauritius. Her dad has had a stroke and does not know what century it is. Mum knows the truth about her doing bar work and never nursing. Doesn’t give a fig and wants her home. She will open up a nursing agency back there. There has been a time I didn’t know about spent researching it (that feels like a little betrayal). The big city, Port Louis doesn’t have one. She figures she will make a fortune arranging private duty nurses for rich old people. And she is going to do this without me. It’s her solo venture.
Then she goes into the kitchen to get her handbag and comes back through and sits opposite me again. She pulls out a photo of a woman who looks very much like her and turns it around on the table. They could be twins. “This is my lover Goose (that’s what she calls me. Long story). And guess why I chose her. Her name is Janice and she is Britain’s only female Jerry Lee Lewis impersonator and tribute act. Hot as hell and she is Mauritian. Look at that lovely skin. She is made for me. You’re a nice man Goose but I every time we had a shag I had to get drunk first or I couldn’t do it. I still get pissed with Janice but the sex is better. Perfect”. Cheyanne and I have sex one last time and that’s it she buggers off to Mauritius. My daughters go over to visit and then spend lots of time there. They like it and there’s a whole family side of themselves to discover.
The Nursing agency does really well. Cheyanne calls it ‘The Honky-Tonk Angels Nursing Corp’. I knew where the name came from and I say “do you know what that implies”. (There is a 1952 Hank Thompson country music song, ‘Wild Side of Life’. It tells the story of a young woman who tries to settle for a normal life but then goes back to what she really is, a Honky-Tonk Angel…just what that that might be is left to the imagination except it’s somewhere on the Wild Side of Life. Cheyanne just said “yes”, and then added, “Mauritians wouldn’t get the misbehaving woman allusion but would like the country music ref”. Apparently, I had no idea how big Country music was there.
Then when the internet takes off she gets into the Gay Dating scene business. Makes an Ap (that like a button on your phone that puts you in touch with everyooooone else who is signed up and wants to party). She makes a good cultural fit out of this. Being homosexual is not against the law in Mauritius but it makes just about everyone hate you. The Ap is like a secret thing. When it goes ping it tells people where there is a party going on, just before it starts. It might be in a cave one week and little island the next. The party and the venue exist for eight hours then it’s gone. Always somewhere different. Thousands of people, Mauritians and tourists use it (it’s featured in all the travel guides), but it’s discreet and the subscription is fairly cheap and it comes up as whatever you chose it to be on your bank statement. This makes her millions. She and Janice stay together. Janice does live Gigs at the parties (Great Balls of Fire). Everything is great. I know some of these things don’t make sense if you’re from 1980 but just stay with me and believe what I’m saying. That all takes ten years. The agency and the Ap. We all thought it was great. Cheyanne was back to shimmering. And all was good. And I was with an Irish woman who could channel Janice Joplin at a Karaoke bar. We met in one. I was doing Little Richard. (Okay that’s where you impersonate a singer …okay just stick with me)
So life is good for Cheyanne but then Donald Tipper turns up and kills her with a crossbow in 2010. Right through the heart and out the back. The sad tale came out in court. He had spent his whole life obsessed with and obsessing about Cheyanne. The problem with this internet thing we have (the smartphones and things) is that anyone can find you anywhere in the world just by typing in your name and details into a thing called a search engine. Well, Tipper did that one day and Cheyanne’s details were all over his screen. Tipper gets an air ticket for Mauritius and spends a few weeks following Cheyanne around then kills her with the frigging crossbow like some modern day gone to the bad side, William Tell. She was walking down the street. Her usual route. He walked towards her with his holdall. Pulls out the crossbow and shoots her. Doesn’t sound possible to me. Why didn’t she run away? It must take ages to set up a crossbow and to fire it. Anyway, the arrow or the bolt or whatever you call it went right through her. He shouted something about Chilli Mixed Nuts as he did it. Then he stood with his arms spread out like Christ until the police came. That took half an hour.
A psychiatrist got the full story out of him. When Cheyanne and he were seeing each other for that short time in the 70’s they had gone to a bar in Headingley and she had taken a bag of mixed nuts covered in chilli powder, I remember them. She used to get them off an Indian guy on the marker. She also used to have little bottles of Coconut milk but they didn’t fit in the handbag. Anyway, they had drunk chilled lager and eaten the nuts. The next day they broke up after Cheyanne had overheard him in a call box in the nurse’s home talking to a friend on the phone. Saying he had found the perfect woman and they were going to get married in a few weeks. At that point, they had only been out together a couple of times. It wasn’t even a proper relationship.
Getting dumped sent him crazy. It seems that Tipper got this thought in his mind that Cheyanne had somehow bewitched him with the chilli nuts. They were a kind of magic enticement powder that wormed its way through his brain and made him a slave to thoughts of her. So Tipper was both sexually obsessed about her but also felt she was a witch and had hooked him with the chilli stuff. When the hospital put him on medical leave he ended up in a psychiatric hospital and was there for about a year. His psychiatrist and some of the nurses were Mauritian so his delusions just got compounded. Thirty-odd years go by and he finds her on the internet and kills her to destroy the spell …or something like that. Crazy as shit but that’s what happened.
Tipper is still locked up in a place called the Brown Sequard Psychiatric Hospital a few miles outside Port Louis, on the island. He has been there since 2010 and has lost both legs to amputation. That’s because they don’t give him the proper diabetes treatment (that happens).
So that’s the story of Cheyanne in brief (sort of). I’m glad I knew her. I’m glad she got to do what she really wanted. I’m still angry about how she died but there is no one really left to be angry with (Tipper didn’t really know what he was doing and is now just a sad mess). Cheyanne was incredibly unlucky. One little decision to go out for a drink with a man who turned out to be on the tipping point for madness.
Does it remind you of anybody? Time to speak clearly. What are you going to do about Barry and what is coming around the corner soon? In fact, not wanting to scare you but the guy who could be watching your house now. I don’t know how fate works. Any thoughts”.
It’s 6.15pm
7pm comes and goes. I’m worrying. Imagining things. Looking at my phone all of the time. Every minute more tells me something bad has happened. Maybe there are alternative pasts and futures. Maybe in this one, Barry comes to the house and kills her and then waits for Scott or god knows what. I’m thinking and churning up. I feel sick.
8pm I get a message with a link. Joan has discovered YouTube. That explains the Eddie Grant song. That has to mean something but it hurts my brain at the moment whilst I’m worrying about everything else to do with her.

The title “Boogie on Reggae Woman”
And some lyrics.

“I like to see you Boogie
Right across the floor
I like to do it to you
Till you holla for more

I like to Reggae
But you dance too fast for me
I like to make love to you
So you can make me scream”

 

Boogie on Regae woman. Stevie Wonder

 

 

Then some words from her-
Living the song!!!!!
Scott came early (but often!!!!!!!). We are having a break but I’m guessing to be at it for hours. Will message you tomorrow if I’m able to move. Scott says hi”.
I sit and eat a family size pack of slightly salted Corn chips and work my way through the little bottles of wine in the fridge where they charge you a fortune. I go to bed and wake an hour later with heartburn. Take a Zantac and think about Joan. I start to doze as the medicine works then the thought drops into my mind. Scott knows! She has told him about 2018. Are there any system rule/conditions of use form on this time link up? I didn’t get anything to sign so it’s all a football pitch sized white page. Are you allowed to tell others about the time link (where could that end), as she told him about what happens on the 25th October 1980? If not this is the worst thing of all.

17th September. Pool, Dorset, the UK to Cherbourg, Normandy, France and onwards
I don’t sleep much the rest of the night. Just hover in that zone between sleep and wakefulness where you are thinking but the reality walls swim about.
I’m up at 4.40 and in my car by 6am. The ferry doesn’t leave till 8.30 but you have to be there an hour so early and I’ve got to find the terminal. Only seven miles but I like to be ahead of events. I do take a few wrong turns…lots of roundabouts. Am pleased to find check-in is already open. Then you line up in lanes ready to drive on. I like the thrill as you drive up the ramp into the body of the thing. I do glance at my phone but don’t expect to see anything from Joan. I expect they will be just going to sleep now. A thought. Who takes care of Pateley during these sex Olympics of hers.

 

 

A few hours later we pull into Cherbourg and fifteen minutes later I’m negotiating the city roads out of the town. Heading for the D650 which takes you down the far coast, the western side of Normandy and in the direction of Mont St Michel. I’m not going all that way today. My plan is to stop by 5pm and find somewhere for the night. I’ve only travelled 100 miles from Poole but already my surroundings are very different. I like the sleepy towns and villages here in Normandy. The fading adverts for brandy and cigarettes on the gable ends. The ancient churches and the look of the 1940s. You could imagine retreating Nazi armies creeping down these roads. I stop at a grocery but some fresh food and which I eat it off a tray on my car. Walking out of the tiny shop my trousers without the top button slide down to my mid buttocks and I can’t pull them up because my arms are filled with sliced spiced ham, bread, crisps, onions and tomatoes. A father and his young son laugh openly at me as I try and get through the door. I don’t like the French for the rest of the day.

 

Late afternoon I call in at a tourist information place in the town of Les Pieux and ask about 1- motor home campsites and 2- swimming pools. I haven’t got a motor home of course but I’m not going to say that. Perfect there is a beach nearby and the swimming pool is at the edge of town. This is all too easy. After my clean up at the swimming pool, I find the parking place at the beach. It is wonderful. Could not be better. The beach and is in a small bay with cliffs at either side. Everyone else is in state of the art RVs aka motorhomes. I’m just in the back of my car. I sit in the gathering dark and write this post on Facebook. I’m doing a sort of blog for my 182 FB friends. I plan to keep it up every day as well as post a travelling song of the day from YouTube.

 

 

 

 

Diss to Jerusalem
Day 2
17th September 2018
Distance so far 330 miles plus a 4-hour ferry crossing
Tonight I’m sleeping at a plage (or beach) near Les Pieux in Normandy.
When you expect to be travelling for so many weeks you have to adopt frugal routines. The trick is to think of each day as being about how to solve the same problems….but in differing circumstances.
1- How to eat? I’ve brought two large boxes of tinned food such as meatballs and vegetable soup, which you just heat up with a dashboard plugin food warmer. They are the fallback option. Most of the time though I just buy the makings of a salad, some cooked meat and fresh fruit and that will last all day. Muesli for breakfast (long life milk which tastes a lot better than it used to do) and lots of coffee.
2- How to stay clean. The default is a washing-up bowel and a face cloth. Where I can I use municipal swimming pools or showers at the beach. I have clothes that can be washed and dried in 30-60 minutes on a warm day.
3- Sleeping is my mum’s 1970 sofa cushion in the back of the car. I’ve taken the seats out and that gives me 5’x3′ space to sleep in. Most small towns have free parking spaces for camper vans. I just pretend to be one of them. It helps if you park in the middle where passers-by and police can’t see you.
4- Travelling. I set off driving around 9am and do the bulk of it before 3pm. Then I find somewhere to explore and then read and maybe snooze. A full tank of diesel is less than £60 and that can take me 500-600 miles. The total journey is 6000 miles but how far I can go and the speed at which I will be consequent upon the flow of money into my bank account: money I’ve earn’t etc. being paid when it’s due. I’ve got my best CD’s with me (Status quo, Leonard Cohen, The Best of Glam Rock amongst then) and a couple of books. Wine is €1.50 a bottle if you buy the local stuff, and I really only need about £3-£5 a day for food
5- Housekeeping very important in my little travelling home. Everything has its place i.e. plastic box. If I don’t put things back right away they are lost forever. I have a hand brush and pan and some wet wipes. I do a quick overall tidy and wipe down every day plus a detailed clean of one part also most days. Ps onions smell bad and it doesn’t go away. Even cling film don’t help”.
It gets dark earlier here and by 7pm people are leaving the beach. I’m in the perfect spot to watch the sun turn into a great ‘firey’ ball and then drop into the ocean. I’m waiting to till the people in the motorhomes around me roll down their blinds and settle for the night before crawling into the back of the car and settling myself for the night. This first night of sleeping out in the car feels a bit uneasy. I haven’t done anything like it for a few years. You’re reading the words of someone who as a teenager camped out in Hyde Park London for the night. At age sixty-one I’m not as brave.
Around 9pm I decide that the site and the houses nearby have settled for the night. I have the last wee of the day (I know there will be more in the night) and I open the sliding door in the back of my Berlingo and climb in. Amazingly/ stupidly this is the first time I’ve ever done it (why didn’t I have practice trials?). I’ve no idea what it’s going to be like sleeping in such a small space surrounded by bags of clothing and boxes of canned and dried food. I get restless leg syndrome. I’m 6’6 tall and I’ve got Rheumatoid arthritis and a big, fat belly.
The sofa cushion I’m going to rest on was my part of my poor mum’s pride and joy when she bought it from her first professional job, big pay packet in 1970. In five years she had gone from being a cleaner with no qualifications to being the graduate of a teacher training college at age 44. She now had a sofa just like the one in a Sunday Times lifestyle magazine. I’ve forgotten the brand name now but it was the quality one for the discerning middle classes in its day. Here is her son crawling about and preparing to rest his body down on the same quality fabric covered long cushion in a car park in France. I’m fully clothed and I’ve kept my sandals on. That cause I will have to get up at least once in the night for a wee alongside the vehicle.
I rest my body down and pull over an old opened out sleeping bag with a broken zip which serves as my blanket. Anyone walking by can see in the window but only my face is showing, and anyway it’s absolutely dark in here. I place my mobile phone on the narrow ledge that runs parallel to the sliding door. I know that the pepper spray is only an arm’s length away in one of a number of secret little cupboards I never knew the car had. I feel a bit vulnerable but I know it’s nothing like I’m going to feel travelling through Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey. “Get used to it Kidman. This is the first of maybe forty nights. And probably the easiest and safest”.
The darkness is deep outside apart from the weak light of a restaurant four hundred metres away. The stars are coming out. I fall asleep looking at them from the angle of my sofa mattress.
PING! The phone sounds and rattles on the metal. I’ve got a message. I look at the phone. Only an hour as gone by (of course England is an hour behind even in 1980). It’s Joan. It reads-
You asked for my thoughts of FATE. I bet you would never expect this from a prossy like me.

“Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods there may be
For my unconquerable soul”.

And then- “I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul”.

I got a book of poems as a school prize when I was fourteen. Just before I stopped going. This poem, ‘Invictus’ was in the book, and I’ve kept the page corner turned over at the words ever since. I’m not saying that I look at all the time but it’s in me. I bet that confuses you. That I would do such a thing. I’ve got it now. The Oxford Book of English Verse. And Pateley is going to get it when he grows up, and I’m going to be there and I will be the person who has brought him up. He might be a headmaster, or he might become the fucking prime minister. But it will be me and not some nice people from an agency that help him do it.
So I’m the master of my fate and so you can stop worrying. No invisible force that sets the rules and what’s going to happen. The person in charge of me and what happens is Joan Arcroyd. Okay, I have told Scott about the newspaper article. At first, he thought the Etch a Sketch was some kind of imaginary friend and he had ended up with one crazy bitch (trust his luck) but we have done some Google searching (yes I’m a fast learner). We have done the football score and crowd trick and we now are working our way through YouTube. I will never have to buy a record or a cinema ticket again.
I don’t know yet how I will stop getting killed. These things normally occur to me when I’m making breakfast. I will trust in that.
And I’m sure he is across the street in the old couple’s house and I hope it’s got rats and it’s cold and lets in rain. And he is freezing his shrunken little nads off, and seeing the light on upstairs all night his ripping his fucking head apart. If he comes over before he is supposed to I will have a plan. Haven’t got one yet but we will have a plan ready for him. I’m not letting him take over again in whatever messed up mental way including this one. It’s me who is in control. MOMF. Master of my Fate.
So end of story. You can stop asking questions. I will tell you if there is something I need to tell you for a good reason, but for now, don’t mention it. Every minute I’ve got to spend thinking about Barry fucking Bridger is one less minute that belongs to me, and I’m not going to have it.
I will put up with listening about this trip of yours each day if (and only if) you lay off the tragedy and the dramatics re the end of October.
This is a chance for me. I’m going to get life sorted out for me and Pateley.
Right change of subject.
1- There must be ways of making money out of this being able to see into the future.
2- Juice Newton, Queen of Hearts. Released June 8th 1981. Brilliant.

What you been up to today.
Joan wobbly legs a la moan
(My name today)”.
I lay there for two minutes and have a think. What can I write back?
In the end, I just settle for “okay”.
And cut and paste in my Facebook Blog with annotations.
And sign off
“Big Bopper Kidman aka NAMOW (that’s what the teachers used to call me at school. Bet you can’t work it out). Okay, its woman backwards. That’s what my Neanderthal Yorkshire teachers thought was the ultimate insult. Calling someone a backward woman”.

Too late, I realise that I’ve just introduced her to the thing called ‘Facebook’. Genie Bottle Out.

18th September Day 3
This is my Facebook blog post for the day. Getting mountains of likes including lots of hearts. God, I’m a sad bastard. I have crossed a little line though. This is not normal FB pap. I’m letting a little of myself out. No painful introversion. Nothing too personal. Just my thoughts as I roll along. It would be pretentious to call it ‘Reportage’ “The Factual Journalistic presentation of an account”. And anyway it’s not wholly that. It’s me playing about. Stimulating my thinking and recording what happens (slightly sanitised). I will imagine myself doing a Jack Kerouac, on the road thing. Except I’m solitary-
“Les Pieux to Mont Saint Michel, and then in the general direction of Angers and Dijon over the next couple of days.
My plan is to meander a bit. Avoiding toll roads and big towns or cities. Instead aiming for places as big as the Hilly Town of Diss or The Famous Town of Yeadon.
The first two photos. The first one shows the near ritual of making coffee in the morning. The second shows the final bit of daylight on the beach last night before it all went black and the stars came out.
Despite my sleeping space being tiny, I slept well. Getting off the bed and out the door is tricky. I do a kind of roll over backwards summersault and then drop out of the car onto my feet. I have to get started with a push against the ceiling with my feet. Ps, no back pain today. First time in weeks.
Have just caused delays in the Super-U buying my fresh food for the day. You have to bag and price all your own fruit and veg before getting to the checkout. The checkout lady had to send someone off to do it for me. Everyone in the line smiled but I could tell they hated me.
12.30 stopped for lunch at Brehal. It’s obvious…everyone in France looks miserable.
4pm reached my destination for the night (Vitre) Turned out to be heritage tourism hell and traffic Gridlock. Have instead chosen a village at random a few miles out. Will park up in the village square later.
Can’t find this villages name…too tired but am beyond Vitre and in the direction of Laval”

 

 

I got a message back that day from a Scots chap who recognised the scene in front of the village church from a photo his father had taken in the same place when his regiment was advancing through France in 1944. I place them side by side in my mind. My photo and his. I think he is right. The church has a distinctive spire, but most of all there is a depiction of the crucifixion on the village cross and I’ve set it against the church in the background. The pictures are almost taken from exactly the same spot and are precisely the same except one is black and white and the other colour. Hasked me the name of the village, but I still can’t work it out and so can’t give him a definitive answer but list some possibilities. It was a tiny place. The only facility was a bar come café come grocery store which was only open part-time.

 

I slept out that night in a little car park at the side of the church but waited until very late. The church bells sounded every quarter till 10pm, then stopped.
I’ve sort of been waiting for what happened next. I get a Facebook Friend request from Joan. She has been using the Messenger Ap that looks like a cracked nipple all along (don’t know how don’t even ask me anymore) but now she has got the whole set up. I accept the request of course. If I don’t I will have no idea what she is doing on there. She for now only has one other Facebook friend. That’s Scott. I groan…there are two people with a portal into 2018 from 1980, although presumably using the same device.
I message back. “Please don’t tell anybody else about 2018. We need to get a better idea of what’s going on and how things work. Self-Discipline required!”
I know straight away I should not have said that. Red rag to a bull talking to Joan about self-discipline. Next thing I know her Facebook friend number has increased to four. Okay, the two new ones are Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. Both fan pages. This is Joan’s way of telling me she can do what she wants.
She sends a link.
Marvin Gaye. Sexual Healing.
And a note. “Watch it Kidman
PS this way I can read you boring stuff right on the page, you pretentious tosser. Sleep well”.
I don’t consider messaging back. It would be unwise.

Sexual Healing. Marvin Gaye

 

Wednesday 19th September
My FB blog
Day 4.

Distance so far 420 miles.
It’s best to stay overnight in small villages. Last night no bar or grocery store though and almost nil network. Felt frazzled by the end of the day. Being tailgated by speeding trucks. Trying to use minor roads where I can. Stop whenever something gets my attention.
Everywhere small villages with enormous churches.
Language. I can’t speak any French but you get by. The older people either don’t speak English or pretend they can’t as they feel the English are arrogant…expecting everyone else to speak English. All the younger people speak English and seem happy to do so. I wave my arms around a lot e.g. tomorrow is an up and over wavy arm movement. If I get really stuck I speak Spanish but with French accent and gestures.
Have been following route D306 all day in the direction of Tours. Then it will be 976 toward Amboise. I was there last year. Then tomorrow Dijon where the old Crusade route starts.
3pm. don’t mention the McDonalds drive through. That’s the kind thing to do.
4pm. Decided on a (paid for) campsite tonight. Classy tourism area. I won’t get away with sleeping over in the car. A chance to get a clean-up and do my laundry.
The young man in reception bemused that I got so excited at the sight of an old French colonial era map of Africa. I can say Mercy Bucket for thank you very much.
4.15pm. Young lad still grinning to himself, presumably about the map and mercy bucket.

 

 

He just walked by and grinned and gave me the two thumbs sign.
Contemplating if I should grow a beard. Fake beard available for Santa job I’ve got at a garden centre in November/ December but more authentic and childproof if I have a real one. Hate having a beard though. Have decided against it. May cause problems at borders later on.
Special note. Why am I doing this? It’s not to enjoy myself or at least that’s not the aim. If it happens incidentally that’s fine. It’s not a holiday like a seaside stay or historical site seeing. It’s a project. Something which puts me in a different set of circumstances and tests me. Too much is made of the idea of having fun and/or happiness. I feel these days ‘Fun-happys’ are not a given or an entitlement. At best you get glimpses of them at unexpected moments. I can be driving or walking and find tears rolling down my face. Just a flash of happiness at what is around me and the knowledge that I’ve brought myself there. I’m glad it happens often but the worst trick is try and find it. That buggers it up. I think life is about experiences and living to the best of your ability. Coping with what comes at you big and small with resilience, good humour and discrete dignity. That’s the indirect route around to happiness. Just wanted to make that clear, or my account might seem odd. I’m here deliberately. I’m choosing diversions through space and time to unfamiliar places. To experience and to record that experience with my mind. That’s how I think about this trip. Taking myself through the world. And at sixty one it would be very easy to shrink from the world into routine and comfort. That’s the room next door to death and this poor sod don’t want that. I won’t go on about this anymore but you won’t be seeing me partying much in this blog. Most of what you will hear about is slog. Just an explanation.

That’s probably too much to write on a Facebook page, but I want to set up expectations in the right way for those who are reading my travel blog (I’ve made the page an open profile so that people who are donating can read the story as well). So just that… a little emotional splurge and then back to writing about what I see. Last point. The thoughts came in part from an old Woody Guthrie song blocked from publication with the best of intentions at the time (late 1950’s) by his close family because of its mild sexual content. Jeff Tweedy and Billy Bragg were given access to Guthrie’s notes a few years back and polished up a dozen or so into completed songs. This one, Remember the Mountain Bed amongst them. Guthrie had Huntington’s chorea, a kind of awful early onset dementia. He wrote the song whilst resident in a state mental hospital looking back on his life. Few people now have heard of Guthrie but it’s enough to know that Bob Dylan saw him as his mentor and hero.
Here is the verse which was on my mind when planning the trip, and just now making these notes.

“I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears
I crossed city and valley, desert and stream to bring my body here
My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again”.
Woody Guthrie with Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy.

I get my washing done. Then sit on a shaky fold out chair out in the dark with a bottle of wine and listen to tunes on my phone. Eating polony and crisps. The campsite has a few motor homes but its drawing to the end of the season and there are many vacant plots. A Dutch couple draw and park in the adjacent space when they had the choice of twelve others. Never mind, they will have to listen to Bobby Dylan then.
Just before I crawl into the tent I look at the FB post. There is a like from Scott (nice chap obviously) and a laughing thing from Joan. She has also commented.
“Taking yourself too seriously Kidman. Have got some news. Will message you in the morning”. Then one of those little dancing cartoon characters doing something disgusting.
Day 5
Being sixty one makes it difficult sleeping a whole night without getting up for a pee at least once. The pattern forming is that I lay there on the sofa cushion at about midnight and try and suppress the urge to pee (“don’t think about it, sleep don’t think about it, sleep oh bugger I thought about it”) Then give up and roll out of the car, trying not to pee myself as I contort myself in various directions. Stagger five yards or so in a disorderly way. Do the deed then stagger back to bed. For whatever reason my balance is not as good as it would be at home for those ten steps or so. Occasionally I come close to falling.
Around 4.30am I’m wide awake. That’s the same as at home. I’m an habitually early riser but out here I’m feeling rough as hell. The day ahead feels overwhelming but I tell myself, “Just think about the next step”. Breakfast, coffee and getting warm. No further ahead than that. If I lose control of my thoughts and take in the whole journey to Jerusalem and all its uncertainties, I’m poleaxed by worry. All the effort needed and all that can go wrong. I hang onto the side of the car, reset the position of the driver seat then climb in. It’s dark all around. I feel in the right door compartment for the torch, then with my left hand feel about in the box next to the hand break for a spoon. A shallow plastic box 2’ by 3’ rests on the passenger seat. In there is a smaller Tupperware box with my muesli in. Scoop some up in a bowl, add the long life milk, and take two or three mouth-full of cereal. This begins the shift to wakefulness. Still feeling nauseous and dizzy but it’s getting better. Coffee next. Reach across to the well of the passenger seat for bottled water and pour it blind into the kettle. Plug it into the dashboard. This means I’ve got to start the motor, and let it run. I turn the heater on as well. The kettle is slow to boil. I’ve finished my cereal by then. I use one of those glass beaker things with a plunger to make the coffee. The temptation is to short cut and pour the kettle before the water boils. I check my phone while I wait. Then I’ve got my coffee and take my medication (reach over into the back for the special bag). Some for a stomach problem, some more for the Rheumatoid arthritis and then some prophylactic aspirin (I like saying that. Its self-prescribed and my shield against heart attacks, stroke and vascular dementia (which my mum had). Finally…dietary supplements… just multivitamins, Calcium (strong bones) and Vit. B (that’s for my brain. Got to take care of that).
The coffee is a life giver. Two thirds of my way down the first cup, its warmth and it caffeine are bringing me alive. Most days this is the best minutes of the day. Coffee one and two. The optimism and interest rise up in me and I want to get on my phone and write about something. The thoughts are flowing.
“20th September
Near Amboise, France
5.40am
540 miles so far.

Its pleasant meandering but I need to get a move on. I need to cover about 150 miles a day. That’s easy on the awful toll highways but takes twice or three times as long on the regional main roads, which of course have more interest.
Today I need to get to Dijon (245 miles) which was one of the starting points for the First Crusade to Jerusalem in the 11th century. It’s also the route where you find the medieval left overs which is what I enjoy. So today is route D976 to Nevers and then D978 and local roads into Dijon.

The sketch map below is from the book by an American who walked from Dijon to Jerusalem a few years ago. I’m not sticking to it 100% but sort of leap frogging between the best bits.

 

The chap in the camp site reception last night asked where I was heading to. I kept it simple and said Dijon. If I’d said the other place, Jerusalem it would have got weird.
Most of my regular aches and pains have gone away. Hard floors are better than beds for that maybe.
People have been saying I must eat better. They saw the photo of all the tinned and dried food. That’s for Serbia where I don’t trust the grocers after an experience last year. I am eating well…living on salads, cold meat, fruit Juice and hotdogs (on a Friday).
I will update as the day goes on…as usual. Network comes and goes with the wind direction I think…so sometime video and pics don’t upload right away.
The in car entertainment is Jerry Lee Lewis country-blues and honky-tonk duets.
Onwards and upwards.
6pm. Arrived in hilltop town of Sombernon, just twenty miles or so before Dijon. It’s so high up its scary, not for any normal person but just for people like me who get vertigo at the top of the stairs in a duplex. Almost hit another car when joining a junction as I was distracted by the (fenced off and objectively unthreatening) drop. Screaming angry car horns blaring at me.
Probably overdone it today. (Only 240 miles but on district and regional roads). Drove through wonderful country and would have liked to have stopped to explore many times…but had to keep going and use this day to catch up. Left me so weary I was not safe to drive by the end of it.
Tomorrow’s destination is Hegenheim on the Swiss-German-French border. Another two hundred miles on. I’m crossing over into Germany the day after. I’ve made a decision these first few days can’t be for sightseeing. I have to get some miles behind me first. And there are other issues. David Livingstone, I’m not.
This will sound pathetic but I’m going to use the toll roads for the next two days. I’m terrified of heights and a tiny taste of cliff edge roads today had me in the state where I want to hug the ground and not let go. Hopefully the toll roads have tunnels under the nasty big mountains”.
That night after a lot of chopping and changing I parked up in a carpark next to the town library. I parked up facing a butcher (bouchers) and bakers (boulangers) on the square. This is how I practically learns a language. One shop or label at a time.
Doing these journeys you get little views into lives. People were working late in both premises. Young women in the bakers and you men (Proud owners of motorbikes) in the butchers. The doors were locked but they were finishing up the tasks of one day and setting up for the next morning. All illuminated by a back light that set them as on a stage.
I miss not having a drink in the evening. I can’t obviously. The car is not moving but technically I would be under the influence whilst in control of a vehicle if I was to have a beer. This had not been foremost in my mind during the planning, but I’m abstinent now apart from that one night at the campsite. So I’m sat there watching the butchers and the bakers. Wondering if they will ever go home. I feel I can’t settle for the night until they do as their vehicles will be parked around and because the light from the shops is so intense.
Ping! I look at the cracked nipple icon. A little red number one pops up next to it. It’s Joan.
“Hi Kidman. Thought I’d better get in touch. Knowing what a big woman you are. Worrying and such like. All is fine here. Me and Scott are getting on great. Pateley likes him and we are having a lot of fun, which is all I’m after for now. Sorry if I sound tired but you can guess why. I need to start buying in energy drinks Red Bull, sounds perfect. (Yes I can see your adverts)
I’m not ignoring the 30th October but neither am I letting it get inside my head. I’m not fretting about 1980’s Mark 1, 2 or 3 and can you change fate. It’s easy for me. I’ve got no choice but to crack on and beat the bastard. I’m going to be the one who brings up Pateley and he is going to do every bit as well as he did with the nice couple in 1980 Mark 1 but with me. I’m not even thinking about Scott’s involvement beyond making sure he doesn’t get killed. Aint it just perfect that you meet a good man at last just when you’re about to get killed (maybe).
Good news! We are going to Camber Sands (Pontin’s). That’s at the bottom of England near Hastings. Scott had been there for the Snooker in May. The holiday camp do a snooker knock out competition and Alex Higgins won it. Alex Higgins, big hero of Scott’s. He had just come runner up in the World Snooker Championship and his wife was having a baby. That’s a big deal apparently (what do I care). The snooker I mean. Anyway it’s going to be nice. I’ve never had a holiday above a day trip or one night away. It’s going to be fantastic. And we won’t be having to watch the money all the time (Scott’s loaded but I’d still like him even if he was only half as much loaded). I did wonder if people would give him a hard time there. Him being black and all, but he says he is a coconut, brown on the outside and white on the inside. He sometimes gets problems at first but then people start thinking he is white except when they look at him if you know what I mean. He makes me laugh. We are going for a fortnight but in the middle of it there is something called a ‘Soul Weekender’, it’s where all these clapped out stars and fake acts perform over a weekend, and it attracts the fans in. Pontins do it to get custom out of season. Suites me and it sounds like fun. And there will be a long bar with lots of lovely things to drink.
And this has nothing at all to do with Barry Fucking Bridger. If it was up to me I would have gone across there to where he is living in filth and called him out, and asked what the fuck he thought he was doing. Scott’s a bit scared of me but got very anti this idea. Said lets go away for a couple of weeks. Have some fun and forget about the twat. Let him freeze his balls off in that broken down place whilst we get a bit of sun.
Your posts on Facebook at a bit boring. All you’re doing is driving and making coffee in the early hours of the morning Spice it up a bit. Couldn’t you get anyone to go with you?
Joan

 

Okay guess what song I’m going to pick today? It’s perfect
Squeeze
Pulling muscles from a shell. 1980.

“They do it down at Camber Sands
They do it at Waikiki
Lazing about the beach all day
At night the crickets creepy”.

Then-
“But behind the chalet
My holidays complete
And I feel like William Tell
Maid Marian on her tiptoed feet
Pulling Muscles from a shell”.

It could have been written for me.

Bye
J

I write back.
“Hi Joan. Sounds brilliant and that song was always a favourite. Keep me updated. I want to hear all about it. If anyone deserves it you do.
I get you don’t want to think about the 30/10.
BUT I am going to start writing a list of ideas about how to avoid getting killed on the 30th. Just brainstorming. I will send them in a few days and maybe you and Scott can put aside an hour from your busy schedule and give them a look over. It won’t contaminate the rest of your holiday if you don’t let it.
Goose Kidman
Song of the day. ‘Staying alive’. Bee Gees. 1977”.

Joan comes back
1- Don’t patronise or make me into a pathetic victim. I’m not
2- You can write your list, and I can chose to ignore it.
3- Crap song choice. Bee Gees make me puke.
4- Learn to write less and say more in fewer words. I lose the will half way through.

J.
“Friday 21st September
Day six
Diss to Jerusalem
Miles. 770
Weather- Rain showers. Later thunderstorms. Temp down to 18c from 29c.
Route today. Sombernon to Hegenheim in Alsace on the French-German-Swiss border. Miles 150 or so.
Today’s anxiety. Heights….and big drops
Minor challenge. I slept over outside an artisan baker which smelt of freshly baked bread all night…now craving the same
The map below is of the overall route to Jerusalem. It’s a sketch map created by a chap who recently walked all three thousand miles beginning where I am now near Dijon. This is one of the places from which the First Crusade set off to Jerusalem in 1096. They travelled on foot or horseback, using in part the remnants of Roman roads especially in the Balkans. Today I’m using the toll road because I’m scared of heights. (It has tunnels so I don’t have to look out from cliff roads) but in my mind I’m still following the route.
Its Friday so I’m allowed hotdogs but heated up in a dash board plug in device used by taxi and truck drivers for heating up their meals. There’s even a YouTube video on how to use them.
Onwards and upwards. I will post as the day goes on.
1.30pm. have arrived in Hergenheim in Alsace. Still in France but less than a mile from both Germany and Switzerland. I know that this district has got a dark recent history. Hitler annexed it from France before the Second World War. Hergenheim is now again the last village in France. It looks a little like Toy Town…and they have life size cartoon character statues apparently walking the pavements. I stopped for Pinocchio at a zebra crossing. I think I’ve missed the email or something here. The place is odd, but not in a pleasant way. Maybe I’m letting the history sour my view.
Locals keep blowing their horns at me. Must be the GB badge they like, or it could be the unfathomable mini roundabout in the centre of the town
5.30pm Turned left when I came out of Lidl and walked into Switzerland. A man with a gun snarled at me so did a 180 and came out again”.
After conversations with my support team I’m starting a new feature. Diss to Jerusalem Song of the Day. Common theme all travelling songs. Today-
First up ‘Anchored in You’
Shawn Mullins. It’s a little about being in motion.”

That was my FB blog on the public setting.
I continue with another one for my own future use but also for Joan to see as well. So audience of one plus possibly one if Scott gets to see it over her shoulder. You can do that with the FB settings, Decide exactly, by name who will be allowed to so ones post. Very clever really.
“Joan, only me and you can see this bit. I’m ignoring your advice about wordiness. You can skim read if you want-
I’m sure that sleeping in Lidl car parks is more common than you might imagine but for me it was made a bit special by looking across a field into Switzerland, and by the driving rain which washed my car. Great lightening display. Dramatic skies in the dark. The fields across to Switzerland all lit up like a room when the light switch is flicked on and off.
You want to make a mark at the end of your life. Say you have done something special. That was a sudden jump from thunderstorms to existential meaning I know.
If anything that’s what gets me to do these trips. Doing something special. I’m saying look, I’ve made all these trips so I really did exist. And I’ve achieved something. Argentina (including Patagonia) Uruguay (for a day), Cuba (twice, road trips and walked out on a wedding. Not mine a friends) , America (three road trips, 10,000 miles) , Ireland (thrice), India (by train) , Albania (walking the Via Egnatia like St Paul), all across Europe on a train, all around France in a car, South Africa, Bermuda, Spain (the Camino walks), Poland (Auschwitz and Otto Schindler’s factory, I’ve looked at the list and the typewriter that created it).Joan google it. Lots, lots more.
I had a busy working life. Did lots of things. Got a good name for myself. Influenced a few small events. Wrote articles that got into journals, but the minute you retire what felt like a great air craft hanger full of experiences and achievement shrinks down to a dot. Remarkable really. All that seemed so important now feels like one of those notes with an asterix or number at the bottom of the page. Family looms larger these days. Much larger but you are not at the centre of that anymore. Rightly so. That has new stars, and again rightly so.
I’ve given up on women (diminishing returns) so I travel and I write. And I study.
Driving to Jerusalem is not anything really special in itself but its how you do it and the frame of mind one adopts. That’s what can make it special. I’m not sure I’m going to complete the trip but if I get as far as Istanbul I will be satisfied.
I’m in that desired frame of mind now. The one I’ve been talking about since Day 1. It’s taken a full week, but I’m adjusted. The road is starting to feel like my home. My home is a now a moving place and I am centred in it. Not back in Diss or where I’m heading, but here and now in my Berlingo.
That phrase, ‘the road is my home’ comes from a Shawn Mullins song. (I’m thinking in songs, that’s another change that happens when I raise anchor and leave). I will make it my song of the day. That can be a new feature on my FB blog. Everyday a song of the day.
‘Anchored in you’.
“…but I’ve always known since I was a child, the road is my home…”
Self-dramatizing crap as always but we all need a narrative to justify our lives and choices.
Any thoughts on that Joan? I can imagine what you’re going to say, but surprise me”.
Joan comes back on the messenger.
“So why have you given up on women. I don’t get the diminishing returns thing. Explain”.
I write this to Joan-
“Joan there is a long and a short answer. I can only be bothered to do the short one. What do you do when you have experienced the best something can be, but then lose it? You can say it’s the last time for that because I don’t want to spoil the memory and the feeling or you can try and replicate it and then find every attempt is a disappointment. I did a mixture of both. Tried the second for a few years. Wasn’t any good so made a decision to seal the package, and not open it again if that makes sense? The other thing is I’m okay on my own. I get to be selfish and do what I want to do”.
Five minutes pass and Joan comes back. This time on the personal messenger-
“I’ve shagged or been shagged by hundreds of men, and a few women or at least gone through the motions and made a pretence. Remember I used to go on about the Donald Duck movies that I used to make in the flats over on the grass at the end of our street. So all of that as well. There have been no peaks like you talk about, just a lot of trudging about in the mud. If I’m honest sex has always been a tool to get what I want. Day to day and big things. Men are easy to control when they think they might get it.
I like Scott. We have a lots of fun. I don’t get none of that warm giddy ‘luvved-up’ stuff what people talk about. I think that bit of me is stone dead. I don’t remember having it anyway. I don’t know what I think. I will just see what comes next. The sex is great but then so is Bacardi and Coke and fish and chips. On the good side Scott is kind and I like what he is. I’ve got a feeling that there is not a bad bone in him but I will be watching. I shan’t be letting myself get giddy.
Today we have had a nice Sunday. No lay-in. Pateley would not allow that (and he is still figuring out Scott and why he sleeps in mums bed), but bacon sandwiches, nice coffee, smoking in bed. Drove to Roundhay Park (Jag Rover SD1. 1980 model. Yep). Played football (yes all of us). Then we were pirates on a rowing boat. Fish and chip supper in the car (Scott not worried about the upholstery or smell. A good sign). He is not trying to be Pateley’s dad but is being friendly and spending time with him (God knows the lad needs some attention). I’m officially calling it a good day.
Enjoy your thunderstorm.
Goodnight.
J.

I don’t write back, but I could do.
Instead I do this
“Today’s task.
Ways to nullify the malice of Barry Bridger and save the lives of Joan Archroyd and Scott before or possibly after the 30th October 2018 (timescales uncertain and this needs to be born in mind, as we are not certain if 1980 has a number of versions or just the one we know about. THIS IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER
And I work on that all of the rest of the next day in my mind as I’m driving and the world rolls away under my wheels. That’s another song. Bob Seger, ‘Roll Me Away’. They just come in a stream all day long. The songs and the ideas for nullifying Barry.
At the end of the day I write down all my ideas like this.
The way I see it there are three broad approaches that can be taken
A-Removing Barry before the 30th October
B-Removing yourself, Scott and Pateley, asap (which you have partially/ temporally done). That gives us a breathing space.
C-Deal with him when he attacks you on the 30th or whenever it happens in whatever version of 1980 you are in
The primary goal is harm prevention. To prevent death or injury to you, Scott or Pateley
I’m good at this kind of thinking because it was something I used to do in my job. Its risk reduction or risk management…stuff I did every day. So I know what I’m talking about. I will score potential actions under the following three headings-
Will it work?
Is it achievable?
What’s the cost to us?
The scoring will be on a scale of 0-5 where 5 is the maximum possible. The third designation will be the cost to us (by which I mean the potential harm to us). This will be coded as either A for acceptable or U for unacceptable.
So for example killing Barry would be a 55U
I’ve added a one sentence comment for each potential action we might take.

Category A-
Removing Barry before the 30th October-
1-Tell the police (score 24A). They will say they can’t do anything as he has not committed a crime yet.
2-Tell the landlord (24A). They will secure the place e.g. with metal shutters but Barry will just find another way of stalking and ultimately harming you.
3-Get his friends involved. Get them to sort him out. (41A). It would probably work in the short term, but how would you find them and would they want to get involved (I very much doubt it).
4-Get him sectioned under the Mental Health Act (1957). (11A). Probably not ‘sectionable’ until he has done something and even then he would likely only be detained for a few weeks (long term detention only happens in 1980 when such people have actually acted and hurt somebody. This will partially change with the Mental Health Act of 2007, which amends the 1983 Act but that’s not helpful now in your world).
5-Entice him away (see Category C)
6-Scare him away e.g. beating him up (23A). That would not stop him, and likely make him more determined.
7-Killing him e.g. block up the exits and set fire to the house. Or pump in a lethal gas. (55U, less so for the gas option but still unacceptable). that would certainly work but even in 1980 fire investigation officers would spot what had been done. Lethal gas wouldn’t work. Too many holes for the stuff to leak out, and anyway where would you get it from. There is the risk of the gas spreading to adjacent properties and innocent people being harmed.
Category B- Removing yourselves
1-Moving house to a different part of Leeds or even another city. (35A). probably would work, but risk that Barry would identify Scott as the owner of the carpet shop and follow him home one day. Moving to another city means that Scott would have to move his business. This option, with more work has possibilities though. It would be my recommendation.
2-Change your name (linked to the above)
3-Turn your house into a fortress and employ personal protection where ever you go (I wasn’t sure where to put this one, settled on here as it is sort of about removing you all as an object for Barry’s violence and I was short of B’s). (11A). totally silly. Just put it in as you’re supposed to write all your ideas down, even the daft ones. They teach you that on courses. It stimulates thinking/
Category C- Deal with him when he attacks you on the 30th October
1-Defend yourselves and cause him harm. This action has three sub-components i-Make him weaker ii-Make yourselves stronger iii-justifying actions to the authorities. Success is what? Need to be clear about this. Do you kill Barry, or just maim him for life. If you only hurt him he will get better and come after you again. I’m just being logical (24A). You would have to maim him for life or kill him for it to work, and then you will have the problem of justifying your actions to the authorities. Three words then become important. You would have to show that your actions were in Proportion to the risk, and it was Necessary to do these things to safeguard your lives (there was not alternative) and most ordinary people would consider your actions Reasonable. That’s true legal stuff. You have not a cat in hells chance.
2-Abduct him, hold him prisoner and make him agree to never attack you (11U). One of those silly fillers/ brain stimulators again.
3-Buy him off with lots of money, paid quarterly but only if he leaves you alone (24A).Knowing that he will probably drink and drug himself to death on the money. It has possibilities but Barry’s brain is messed up from the crash and I’m not sure he would be able to stick to any agreed plan, as his brain damage makes his thoughts (and decisions) jump all over the place. But let’s put it in the car park (the one for ideas that have potential).
4-Buy him off with sex. Maybe set Gaynor on him (not as daft as it sounds on first hearing) (42U). I actually think this would work (sex with someone else would soften his obsession about you and divert his attention onto something else i.e. Gaynor). Downside… it’s risking Gaynor getting hurt. He would in time get violent toward her. I do believe though that Gaynor has magic sexual powers and could make anyone turn 180 degrees from what they were like before she cast her spells. She could have made Hitler into a loving Pacifist. At least for a few weeks. (Park the idea in the same place as above)
I will hold off on sending my list until tomorrow. If I sleep on it something might turn up I hadn’t thought of before. I am pretty happy with what I’ve done”.

11.55pm Lincoln Avenue, Leeds
A man emerges out of the derelict house opposite number 6. Hard to be sure about his age. Hair and beard long and unkempt. A woollen balaclava hat sits atop his head and extends down to the nape of his neck and flaps cover his ears. A long parka coat covers his body from neck to knees. In the daylight it would look stained and greasy but in the dark only grimy. He pulls the fir rimmed hood over the hat, but the peak of the balaclava pokes out incongruously. The chin strap hangs unfastened. He is walking in oil stained fell boots the toes shiny and scuffed with wear. Lincoln Avenue now only has one working street light. The others at the opposite end have been disconnected as streets they stood across from were demolished. The moves in and out of the blackness.
A woman in a man’s green worsted overcoat walks up the hill past, and across the dissecting street end. She is heading in the direction of St James Hospital. A quarter of a mile further on. Her calves show bare below the seam of the coat. She is wearing socks and sandals. Menstrual blood is running down the inside of her left leg toward the ankle. . She is making no attempt to wipe it away. She senses the dark figure crossing the short street to her left. She slows for a moment and turns her head to look in that direction. Children, even at this time of night sometimes come after her. Throw stones and call her filthy names. Instead she sees the man with the Parka coat looking in through the front, passenger window of a large, expensive looking white car. Wiping the water droplets away and placing his eyes against the glass.
He sees an open Readers Digest AA Book of the Road passenger seat. It’s open at a page showing Sussex. There is a cross against a sticky out bit on the coast just above Hastings but the print is too small and anyway it’s covered by the ink mark. He wishes he could see better. He tries the door just in case but it’s locked. He glances up at the bedroom window.
The woman knows better than to be seen. She turns forward and hurries on.