Celtic Illumination, part 356, Marvin Gaye goes all thrash metal

One of the more interesting things about me, apart from being extremely good looking and having the most loveliest legs in all of Ireland, is that I have this weird memory.  Perhaps it is just normal, but I seem to be able to remember the minutest details about certain stuff, yet still couldn’t tell you what the dates for my children’s birthdays are.  Irene often remarks that we had been going out with each other for a couple of months before I knew her name.  These are just some of the drawbacks you must get used to when you are a genius.  This time I had remembered that Anne, that Anne of Anne and Davie, my old girlfriend’s sister, had once said to me that she had always wanted a doll’s house.

My friends in Ireland had often embarrassed me, just by being friends.  Anytime I needed picking up from a train station or ferry terminal they would be there, they never let me down, and of course Anne and Davie had said that I could stay with them during my first failed attempt to return home to Ireland for good.  So I felt that I was now in a position to return all of the favours.  It’s strange that I actually remembered what Anne had said as our get togethers usually involved an awful lot of whiskey, which I would have bought in the duty free shop and you know yourself, that once you open a bottle of whiskey you have to drink it in double quick time or else it evaporates and goes sour and poisons the fairies and the little people.

Only problem was where would we stay.  I hadn’t spoken to mother number one ever since she got her big brother, the pervert priest, to throw me out of what was supposed to be my own home.  I always hoped that I was a basic and down to earth guy but Irene was always much more grounded than me, so told me to call her.  We telephoned mother number one and said we would like to come visit for the weekend; I was long past the stage of calling the place home.  I agreed with the Marvin Gaye song, ‘Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home.’  Although to tell you the truth I never wore a hat, not since the forces, and would you, if you were blessed with looks as good as mine?

Jimmy and myself made a really special house for Anne, we loaded it into the rear of the car and Irene and myself set off for the Holy Land.  For me it was an extra special journey.  I just loved the drive along the North Wales coast and then onto Anglesey Island past all my old haunts and on to the ferry at Holyhead.  I hope one day that the Squadron Leader, the guy with the one arm and the one eye, reads this and begins to understand how much I love North Wales, so that he can see that his ‘punishment posting’ like most other clever things in the air force, really, really, worked.  It’s always tempting when driving from Dublin up to Newry to enjoy the duel carriageways and perhaps exceed the speed limit a little.  It can be a frustrating drive as in some stretches, say a duel carriageway the speed limit, in good ol boy speak, is unlimited and next thing is that you will be weaving your way through bollards restricted to fifteen miles per hour.

I suppose I didn’t mind it at all for you would see old houses and cottages that you would have passed by all your life and in a way they were mental landmarks, welcoming you home.  It would even be nice to get stuck behind a tractor and trailer for wouldn’t it remind you that it was time to slow your life down and adopt what is considered to be the Spanish approach of, ‘Manjana,’ although to tell you the truth they stole it from us, we were just too drunk to do anything about it.  I decided to call in to Mount Oliver, the big convent between Dundalk and the border, where Aunty Billie was billeted.  Rather than stay on the main Newry road and enter the convent ground by the back lane I drove around the front so that I could show Irene just how grand the place was, like Charles Ryder approaching Brideshead Castle in Brideshead Revisisted.

I loved watching that programme but hated it at the same time for they used Castle Howard as the location for Brideshead, which as you all know is the family home of the Howards and I was in business with Phillip Howard, a nasty little aristocratic pain in the rear if there ever was one.  So every time I saw this sumptuous house I could only imagine that little toe-rag, lording it over the staff.  And if you don’t believe me just Google his name and you will see that he is currently taking his father to court for selling one of the family castles as they couldn’t afford to fix the roof.  Excuse me for a moment while I compose myself as news like that can be so upsetting.  Although on the other hand it can make you smile and want to become French and chop their fecking heads off.

I have to admit that I felt a little out of place driving up the main drive to Mount Oliver.  I was family, I should have breezed in through the back door shouting, “Hello’ I’m home, will someone get the kettle on.”  Normally I am not a great one for the prayers but I was praying that day that I didn’t run in to my friend the nun, the one who mentally undressed me as I did exactly the same to her.  I didn’t fancy explaining that one to Irene and if she ever finds out I’ll be in trouble I can tell you.  Once again every nun in the place seemed to know me and each one we met gave me a very warm welcome and was exceptionally pleased to meet Irene.  So many of them had formed my close protection bodyguard when I was placed with them in Belfast.  These girls as they say, were soldiers, soldiers in the army of the Lord.

Mother Superior came along and escorted us to one of the private sitting rooms.  I was determined to get a spear this time when she took me around to the display cabinets, she could sod off with her carved giraffes and Zulu warriors.  She warned me that Aunty Billie, well what else are you going to call a Catholic nun born on the twelfth of July, she warned me that Billie might not know me.  Nuns are renowned for scolding people, especially little boys who they had cared for, so I took this as a reference to my visits which had been few and far between.  “I’m living on the mainland,“ I said, hoping that the fact that I was living in England would excuse my tardiness. “No,” she said, taking my hand, like a mother might, well; I think that is what a mother might do and I should know, I’ve got two.

Mother Superior went on to explain that Billie had Alzheimer’s and might not recognise me.  I think it was the first time I had come across the disease, I didn’t really know what to expect.  Billie was brought in and two postulates served us tea and biscuits.  Billie seemed normal, well; she looked her normal self, smiling and happy, I expected we were waiting to be alone before beginning our conversation.  I think this was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, sitting talking to someone who I had known all my life but who now didn’t know who I was.  Perhaps if I had been warned what to expect it might not have hit me so hard.  I tried everything to find some sort of memory that she could use to come back to me and say hello, but it was impossible.  Mother Superior came back in and suggested that Billie might need a rest.  As we left, Billie still sat there smiling and nodding but it was obvious that she hadn’t a clue what had happened or what was happening.

There’s only one way a good ol boy can handle personal stuff like that and that is with excessive speed, which I employed as we approached the border.  I don’t think we had any music on in the car as country and western might have made the situation worse, if such a thing could happen.  What was needed was some thrash metal or for six paratroopers to drag me from the car and allow me to express my rage.  As usual we discovered that everyone in the family knew about Billie, but once again they had forgotten to tell me.  I couldn’t wait to get away from mother number one and meet up with Anne and Davie.  There were three bottles of whiskey on the kitchen table and I explained the rules of the old air force game we used to play, where all three bottles would be consumed.  One of us would leave the table and the other three had to guess who had left.  Anne loved her doll’s house, but there was only one little problem.  Pat, the old girlfriend, popped in when she heard I was about.  She didn’t say how nice she thought the doll’s house was, or how well it had been made, all she said was, “Where’s mine?”

Celtic Illumination, part 355, And all those who sail in her

It was nice to have every day back to myself again, distraction free.  Writing is like any other job and given the chance to get away and do something interesting would always be a problem.  You have to have your routine and stick to it.  I have already covered the multitude of excuses that writers use not to work, from not being inspired to having writers block.  There is great debate about who said the following line but someone, probably William Faulkner, said ‘I only write when inspiration strikes, fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o clock.’  There are hundreds of people, mostly teachers, who considered writing a book, or are going to write a book, but only the determined few actually sit down and do it, day, after day, after day.

You would find that by lunchtime you were free, you weren’t really as your mind was still racing away, but in effect the remainder of the day would be yours and with no ‘normal’ job to take up my time I looked about for something to do. One of my neighbours, one of the nice ones, would pop up now and again and we would enjoy an hour or two chatting.  Jimmy was a retired plumber and an ardent Liverpool fan, red to the core.  In fact his wife told me that he refused to speak to her on their wedding day as she had turned up in a blue suit.  One of the other neighbours, borderline nice, had invited us to his daughter’s birthday party.  We began to discuss what sort of a present we should get for the child when one of us suggested that rather than buy something shiny and plastic we should build her a dolls house.

So Jimmy and I set about building a dolls house.  Our research showed us that, like most other products around, dolls houses could be expensive.  One major company sent us brochures which offered everything from assembled, decorated and furnished dolls houses to door knockers.  We could see that there was quite a business surrounding the whole issue.  We bought certain items like the windows and doors but everything else we made ourselves, out in my shed.  Having built one house, which was very well received, we began to wonder if it would be possible to make and sell dolls houses ourselves. Between Skelmersdale and Wigan we found a little shop called ‘Sleepy Bears.’  I think her main interest was china dolls but she did stock a range of dolls houses.

I got the feeling that most dolls houses, especially the ones from the catalogues, were basically decorated boxes so when we decided to try to make and sell some, I knew we would have to be different.  Neither Jimmy nor myself had any formal carpentry training, but why let something like that hold us back?  We worked well together and if I was still involved with my writing Jimmy would busy himself in the shed.  There were three main areas where we decided to be different from all others.  Firstly I would make an external chimney and attach it to one side of the doll’s house.  On the other side we would build a balcony and the final area would be where I hand cut the roof.  I would cut a tile pattern into the roof, which was time consuming, but truthfully I found it to be more a form of meditation.

Then Jimmy had the idea of painting flowering ivy all over the front and sides of the house.  It would certainly make each one different and neither of us could remember ever seeing one like it before.  One of the photographs with this blog, shows Jimmy and myself with our first ever dolls house, which was the birthday present for the little girl across the road, so no chimney, balcony or custom paint job. The more observant among you will notice to the right, in that photograph, a set of wind chimes that I made from the sign posts I liberated while out and about in my Lugga Bus.  We had already spoken to the proprietor of Sleepy Bears and she had agreed to display our dolls house and try to sell it for us.  You may think it strange that an ex armed forces rugby playing roughie toughie like myself would be excited by building pink doll’s house, but I was.

We went over one morning having checked, double checked and then checked the house again for imperfections.  Jimmy and I knew how much we had spent building the house but we had no idea what to ask for it.  As carefully as we could we brought our dolls house into the shop and set it on the floor.  We began to look about at the existing display, comparing our house to the others and wondering where best to put it when a customer came in.  I felt that the other dolls houses were too clinical, too many clean straight lines, no character to them.  The man who came in stood looking at our dolls house; he looked inside and then drew his hand across the roof.  “I’ll buy this one,” he said at which point Jimmy and I tried to make ourselves scarce.  “Five hundred and fifty pounds,” said the proprietor of Sleepy Bears and the customer produced his wallet.

He paid for the house and left saying that he would send his two sons around that afternoon to collect the doll’s house.  Unlike writing where most people take ten per cent this girl wanted twenty five per cent, which was no great shakes and it had only cost fifty quid to make.  Normally with a fist full of cash and such a success Jimmy and I would have headed for the nearest pub for a celebratory beer but we didn’t.  We headed for the nearest builders merchant for it would appear that we were now in the doll’s house business.  We made big ones and little ones, each one different from another.  In one way I was so pleased that every house we placed in the shop seemed to leave within a day or two, while all the other dolls houses just sat there, I felt bad for the guys who had made them.

To diversify I began making aeroplanes, bi planes to be precise.  I worked on the same basic principal that I had used with my ship in that they would have to be big.  The largest sheet of material I could get home was four feet square so guess what; the bi planes had a wing span of four feet and were also four feet in length.  Well; when you’re a young child, the bigger is always the better.   Once again these were left in the Sleepy Bear shop and she flogged them on for some ridiculous price leaving Jimmy and myself wondering if we could really call ourselves ‘toy makers.’  I did begin to look at our efforts with a serious eye, we were quite successful and I knew that both Wigan and Liverpool had Dolls house shops where they had heard of our efforts and were prepared to stock our houses and planes along the same lines as Sleepy Bears had.

A quick time and motion study showed me why the majority of dolls houses were clinical.  The drying time for glue and paint stretched the manufacturing process right out and didn’t contribute much to the profitability of the venture.  I’m sure that if I had upped production then organised and streamlined the process I could have structured our venture into a profitable business, but it was more of a pastime for me.  Rather than turn myself into a city slicker of the doll’s house world I decided to adopt the good ol boys approach and plod along.  We were doing well enough through word of mouth and even had someone come down from Scotland, in a van, to collect a doll’s house he had ordered.  Companies were asking me to produce a bi plane for them with their company logo on, things were getting stupid.

In order to keep myself busy and interested I decided to build a remote controlled motor boat, as you do.  You’ll never guess how long the boat was.  That’s right, four feet.  I knew that in one of my children’s toy boxes lay a broken remote control car.  It was very basic, only moving forward and backward, but that was enough for me.  I fitted the engine to my boat and wired up the electronics.  I left the rudder free; thinking that if the boat moved forward in the water the rudder would trail behind.  If I selected reverse then the rudder would flick either one way or the other but the boat would turn.  My children were so excited when we took it to the canal in Burscough.  The first problem was that it floated far too well and we had to scramble about gathering rocks to weigh the thing down in the water.  But it worked, even the turning which took a bit of practise.  Jimmy was determined that we should step up our production but I wasn’t convinced, even though Jimmy had made a sign for our little company.  Morris and Jones, shit builders.

Celtic Illumination, part 354, As I was going up the stairs…

Now and again you would be lucky enough to get someone really interesting on your bus.  One day I picked up a fellow who looked somewhat strange with his long hair in platted pigtails, a huge cowboy hat and a frilled leather jacket.  Turns out that he was a real Red Indian and we were chatting so hard I missed the turn for Southport and ended up remaining on the motorway heading into Wales.  I couldn’t apologise enough to him for delaying his journey but he didn’t mind one little bit.  I loved meeting and chatting away with interesting people.  Normally most people just wanted to tell you how much better than you they were, unless they were drunk.  I picked up two ladies, separate parties, one elderly and one middle aged.  The middle aged woman was obviously off her face.

I don’t think that the elderly lady realised that strong drink had been taken; she was being your standard average old lady, very pleasant and very polite.  The first two thirds of our journey would have been along motorways with no motorway services.  Twenty minutes into our journey the middle aged lady now begins to ask for a toilet stop.  Judging from the way she was shifting about on her seat I realised that I might have a time limit on this but was aware that the closest type of service area was a truckers stop just off the motorway near Warrington.  I knew that they sold hamburgers and diesel there but I didn’t know if there were any toilets not to mention female toilets.  I found the service kiosk and pulled up outside.  The middle aged lady ran inside and I presumed that there was a toilet in there; either that or she was relieving herself behind a large display of potato crisps.

She came out in a much more relaxed manner than she had gone in and I assumed that we had achieved our objective.  The kiosk had a table or two outside displaying various garden bits and bobs, no doubt trying to make a few extra shillings.  Just my luck that the middle aged drunk, rather than return to the vehicle, now decides to go shopping and begins to gather potted plants and garden gnomes in her arms.  However I soon discovered that she wasn’t shopping, she was shop lifting, for she skipped away from the tables and into the van slamming the door shut and suggesting that we get going.  Again, I never had any customer relation training but even so thought it might be a bit off to turn around to a customer and tell them to get out that they were a thief.

I decided to adopt the monkey approach as in seeing no evil, so set off back on to the motorway.  The elderly lady was being her usual pleasant self and remarked on how nice the plants and gnomes were.  The drunk was now in generous mode and gave the old lady half of her booty.  I meanwhile was sticking to the speed limit, for once, and watching in my rear view mirror for the blue flashing lights.  I managed to get to my first drop in Ormskirk where the drunken middle aged lady lived, pleased that I hadn’t been pulled over by the traffic police, with the important word being, ‘yet’.  The drunk poured herself out of the van and, as she couldn’t, I carried her case to her front door where after a good fumble about she found her key and let herself in.

We only had to travel on through to Southport but I was still worried that I was going to be pulled over by the police.  I could imagine the roadblock with covering helicopters waiting for me on the outskirts of Southport.   The old lady began to say how nice the other passenger had been in giving her the plants and the gnomes.  I explained the situation that the woman was drunk and had stolen the items, I felt that I had to, in case we were pulled over and I wouldn’t have time to explain.  When I dropped the old lady off she asked me to hold on to the items and return them next time I passed the truck stop, I said I would and as I checked the bus I discovered that the drunk had left her gnomes and plants in the bus too.  So tell me what would you do?  That’s correct.  You would never go near the truck stop again.

Passengers were not the only sort of drunk you would come across as Arthur seemed to be permanently on the verge of sobriety.  He sat in the back office, organising things, surrounded by boxes that contained home brew kits for white wine.  He claimed that selling this stuff was a side line of his but I was never aware of him selling any, however, he always had a half pint of home brewed white wine sitting in front of him.  He claimed that he liked to have some samples ready in case an interested party would like to taste some before buying.  It was sad to see a life wasted in such a way.  I don’t think I ever got together with any of the other drivers on a social basis, not that I had a social life outside the family and I’m not complaining.

It just wasn’t the punters that could make life miserable for you, the other controller, for the day shift, was a fellow called Ray.  A simple man with a very simple life and I found it very strange that for someone who ran a timetable based service he didn’t seem to be able to tell the time.  The night shift ran from seven in the evening until nine the following morning.  I didn’t mind, in fact I loved it as I had so much to do.  First of all there was the writing and reading and researching.  Then I could spend a couple of hours working on my sailing ship and as the office had a fax machine I used to send fax messages to Paul O Grady and his boyfriend manager Brendan Murphy.   These would range from cartoons to copies of letters I would tell them I was sending to the press asking if they would like to comment.  With the night shift almost over I would have packed everything into whatever vehicle I was using and be ready for the off.

Ray was supposed to be in for nine o clock but would normally wander in at a quarter past or twenty past.  If that’s not bad enough when he came in he wouldn’t apologise, or even acknowledge that he was late.  He would pass straight through the office to the kitchen area where he would make himself a coffee so that he could start the day properly.  I found his whole attitude seriously annoying.  One Friday morning, I remember that it was a Friday morning as Irene and I had planned to go away for the weekend.  I had hired a little sporty car for the weekend and picked it up the previous evening.  Ray came in late as usual, along with Arthur who owned the company, and I just let the pair of them have both barrels, informing them that the next time this happened I would be leaving the office at nine o clock and they could sod off.  He was never late again but it still didn’t end well.

I’m not an angry or aggressive person; in fact I hope most people that know me would say that I was quite laid back.  I think I was angry with myself for shouting at the pair of them and was now funnelling my frustration through the accelerator pedal. As I came through the final main roundabout, leaving Southport, I saw the road stretch out before me and it was perfect.  It was a beautiful; sunny morning, the road looked as if it had just been resurfaced, and it was traffic free, well; on my side of the road at least, so I floored the car.  It was brilliant and I gritted my teeth as the speed dial crept up, yee har.  By the time I reached the crematorium I was hitting one hundred and twenty miles per hour in a forty mile per hour zone.  I was surrounded by graveyards, and dead people, so couldn’t see who would be affected by excessive speed when I noticed the oncoming traffic flashing their headlights at me.  I immediately took my foot off the accelerator and began to stand on the foot brake.

I managed to get the car down to around sixty five by the time the police caught me on their fecking speed camera.  The only thing worse than having a copper fine you for speeding is having someone who looks like an eighteen year old copper fine you for speeding.  It’s only one of the drawbacks of being a good ol boy.  Overall it was a great time at Lugga Bus.  The vehicle was fantastic as a family vehicle, the job was ridiculously simple and I got masses of writing completed, also having access to the fax machines and an unlimited supply of office equipment, was welcome, as we were still pre internet and I was hoping to land my first client, as we say in the trade, Stateside.  Perhaps the best thing about Lugga Bus was the people, the passengers, they all wanted to get to the airport on time, or get home in double quick time, so they would show me short cuts.  It ended up with me knowing every back road in Lancashire, which of course allowed me and the family to explore the more out of the way places and events.

I never thought about it coming to an end or leaving the job.  I suppose once I was an established writer I would have left not just Lugga Bus but England, so that was my goal.  Sometimes these things are done for us so I arrived one Friday night for my night shift.  I pulled up as normal outside the office and didn’t think it strange that the office door was locked. I had my own set of keys and expected that Ray was out on a job somewhere.  I can remember standing at the door thinking it strange that someone had attached a heavy duty hasp and staple door lock to the front door of the office along with a huge fecking padlock.  Idiot that I am I still opened the normal locks on the door then began to read the letter, enclosed in the plastic wallet, that was attached to the front door.  The tax man had taken over Lugga Bus and the company was now in receivership.  It really did take a couple of minutes for the facts to sink in but as I walked away from the front door I didn’t really think about why no one had bothered to tell me, because it sounded as if all the telephones inside were ringing, all I could think of was who was going to tell all the poor stranded passengers at the airport.

Celtic Illumination, part 353, Just say no.

I suppose it would be safe to say that it was around this time that everything started to come together.  As had happened before, the double top secret cabal, preparing me to take back the throne of Ireland, were going to make me work for it.  Perhaps it was a final test, or series of tests, so that they could be sure I was ready to lead my people.  I would say that the underlying theme they wanted me to completely understand was the fact that all men are equal, and the second principal is that most of them are eejits.  Even myself, who had proved himself in so many ways, at various points on the spectrum of humanity, could be a right fecking eejit now and again.

It was the middle of the night, and I mean middle, somewhere around two or three in the morning.  It was a great time to be out and about, driving, as there were no other drivers on the road, you could really fly along.   I had dropped some passengers off in Southport and was about to go home, another half an hour’s drive away.  Lugga Bus had employed a night controller to run things from the office.  We had had a bit of fun over the airwaves throughout the evening and when I checked in to say I was clear, my passengers were home, the controller asked me to pop around to the office for a coffee and an introductory chat.  I was tired and I wanted to go home but I knew that it made good sense to try and stay in favour with the controllers as when work was scarce you always wanted to be at the top of the proverbial pile.

I got round to the office and called in.  I can’t remember the fellows name but a cup of coffee was waiting for me and it was welcome.  He was an English fellow but said that he loved the Irish as he had spent so much time in prison over there.  The guy was a petty criminal and so happy that someone had actually given him a job.  It was interesting listening to him as he had no shame about his past, being a serial offender to him was the same as having ginger hair.  There was nothing he could do about it.  To celebrate and cement our friendship he decided that we should share a joint.  I refused, explaining that I still had half an hour’s drive in front of me but I didn’t mind if he sparked up and enjoyed the spliff himself.  I assured him I wouldn’t tell anyone but secretly wondered how long he would last.

The one thing about marijuana that always gets me is the smell, it always takes me back to London, and Finbar, and Jimmy the Link and smoking a spliff on the Queen of England’s front lawn at Windsor Castle.  I gave in and shared the spliff with him, threw down the remainder of my coffee, shook his hand and got back into  my bus to head for home.  I set off again driving along the empty roads and I do remember that I started to smile and wondered what on earth was happening as such a strange feeling was coming over me.  The remainder of the journey was a bit of a blur but I do have one crystal clear memory of driving along at about two miles per hour, thinking that I was going far too fast.  It amused me to think how daft I had been but it also scared me.  I had a feeling that what we had smoked was not just marijuana, there may have been something else  in it but I never got the chance to find out as the fellow never came back to work, I think it had been his first and last evening with the company.

Arthur then asked me if I would like to be the night controller, on the busy nights I would control all the drivers from the office in Southport and on the quieter nights I would control everything while on the road.  I didn’t mind at all  as it meant that for the nights I was in the control room in Southport I could have my typewriter and produce a full days writing and editing while still controlling the drivers and coordinating the passengers.  It was a couple of extra quid for much less work so I would have been daft not to accept, plus, now I had everyone wanting to be my friend.  One driver asked me if I would like a load of Brazilian mahogany.  Someone he knew worked at a window manufacturer and had given him a stack of offcuts.  I accepted his kind offer and watched as they brought the wood into the control room.

It would be unfair to say that they were planks as they were only the thickness of a lollipop stick, but were about eight feet long and eight inches wide.  For some strange reason I thought I could cut each large plank into small lollipop size pieces, from which I would build a sailing ship.  All small boys love sailing ships and I was no different.  I actually managed to find a hobbies magazine that sold plans for building your own sailing ships so ordered some plans.  Which ship of type of ship to make was an easy decision, I would make the biggest.  When the plans arrived I was not that impressed as the finished model was to be twenty one inches long.  Luckily for me Lugga Bus had a photocopier in the office which had an enlarger function so many nights when not writing or reading I would be cutting huge strips of Brazilian mahogany into tiny little strips and photocopying plans for my ship.  Of course now and again I would answer the telephone and deal with irate passengers who wanted to know where their driver was.

One of the drivers noticed my ship plans, which wasn’t hard to do as I used to spread out all over the office every night.  He told me that his uncle owned the model shop in Southport and that he was seriously in to making sailing ships, a meeting would be arranged.  One morning after my controller shift had finished I was invited over to the Southport model shop and taken through the shop into the owners living quarters.  We sat down in his dining room and I was so jealous as he must have had at least fifteen different models of sailing ships all around the room.  They really were fantastic and the sort of stuff that makes you want to become a burglar.  He took me through the various ships and sizes and then took me to his work shop where he showed me the selection of miniature tools he used to cut wood.  I did think that it was all a bit over the top, a bit close to trainspotting, and with each model there was always a price.

When the tour was over he asked which model I was thinking of building and I don’t think he was impressed when I told him, ‘A fecking big one.’  I explained that I didn't want to buy anything from him but that I had been given some Brazilian mahogany from which I wanted to make a sailing ship.  ‘Oh no,’ he announced, ‘You’ll never be able to do that.  Your best bet is to buy a pre cut model and assemble it.’  Sort of defeated the object of the affair in my mind but he had said those magic words to me, he had told me that it couldn’t be done, that was all I needed to get me going.  To all the blokes out there, if you have always wanted an aeroplane, or a sailing ship, and have been put off by the crazy prices some companies charge for their kits please do not be put off.  Go and buy the plans and start from scratch, don’t even buy bits and pieces from model shops, make your own.  It is so satisfying not to mention exciting when you see the whole thing come together.

I made everything for the ship myself, for the ropes, or rigging if you are in the loop, I stained some standard parcel cord with tea and coffee, the pulleys were all cut from one long piece of dowel and the metal fittings were all made from copper earth wire.  It was so exciting to see the sails actually working when you pulled on the appropriate rope.  It may not be as glittery as a shop bought model, but it was a hugely satisfying project.   A lot of these model ships are placed in a glass case and admired or envied, mine, when children come around, is placed on a coffee table and they are given paint brushes and asked to dust it before they start playing with it.  So what has all this got to do with Nancy Reagan, I hear you ask, well; you just did didn’t you?  During the 1980’s Nancy Reagan championed the anti-drug campaign that tried to discourage children from engaging in illegal recreational drug use.  The strap line they used was ‘Just say no’ and in a way that sums me up exactly.  On some occasions I was going to have to learn just to say no, but for other occasions if you really wanted me to do something then all you had to do was ‘Just say no.’

Celtic Illumination, part 352, Insainia

My association with the air cadets was almost over, the Lugga Bus was fulfilling all of my needs as a family vehicle and we were making the most of it.  They had found a new fellow to take over as Warrant Officer so I went off on a short expedition with him and a small group of cadets, just to show him the ropes.  I was actually paid for doing this; I think it was about forty pounds a day, so I didn’t mind the odd day here and there.  Nothing spectacular happened on our expedition, it was all quite sober and straightforward, the bus didn’t break down and the cadets behaved themselves.  We had gone to Rhydtalog so no getting thrown off camp sites or banned from using car parks.  But the senior management of the air cadets were up to their usual standard on our return.  I submitted the paperwork so that I would get paid for talking the expedition out to be told that as headquarters had lost the paperwork giving me permission to lead the expedition, I wouldn’t be paid.

Had I been one of the funny handshake brigade I am sure I would have been paid, no matter what, but as with any and every cock-up that the senior managers were responsible for, they just didn’t care so with two fingers in the air I walked.  It was their loss but they were too stupid to realise it.  I had been planning a trip to Canada, for the squadron, which of course now would fail as there was no one capable enough to complete the project.  We had a regular event which we called ‘The horses’.  A local group of horse enthusiasts held a get together at a local park once a month where they put a selection of horses through a course of obstacles.  It was a bit of a fun day out so outdoor vendors and entertainers would attend and hope to attract a crowd.  Most of the animals were your standard type horse, but one fellow brought large Shire type horses.  I’m not sure exactly what flavour they were but the bigger Shire horse types had always intrigued me.

It was at one of these events that I had the idea of taking the squadron to Canada to visit our sister squadron over there.  I wanted all the cadets to go and didn’t want anyone left out because they couldn’t afford it, so I wanted to raise all the money to facilitate this rather than have individuals pay for themselves.  I had spoken to Andy about it and he agreed that it would be a grand idea if I could get it off the ground.  I was enjoying planning it and was searching about for a local company, or companies, who might sponsor us.  Of course now it wouldn’t happen as thanks to the inadequacies of the senior managers I was out of the game altogether. I do remember that at that time any submission to a publisher has to be on a certain grade of paper and while standing in a field, watching magnificent Shire horses leap small fences, a parent of one of the cadets came up to me and gave me three boxes of that specific paper.

I even had an offer from one of the people who organised the horse event.  He was a solicitor type fellow how spent most of his time chasing debtors.  He had heard about my problems trying to get money out of Paul O Grady and offered to buy the debt from me for seventy five per cent of its total worth.  I quite liked the idea of some thuggish debt collectors getting their hands around O Grady’s throat but I still wanted the books printed, as we had originally agreed.  I didn’t even want him to pay me the money he owed me; I really did believe in the books and wanted them to stand on their own, so I declined his offer.  Jeffrey and I were still trying to get something positive from the USA, there were lots of people making lots of noise but nothing happening.   Despite the fact that I had no respect for the person Katie Price, also known as Jordan, I found myself being drawn to her.

She had recently started an affair with the pop singer Peter Andre and I wondered if, as she knew the potential of using a ghost writer, they would be interested in me producing some books for Peter.  Jeffery, as normal, wanted nothing to do with the Jordan camp but had to agree that my idea was a sound business proposal.  I saw Peter Andre as a very weak person, he was male and made the most of flashing his muscle bound body but he wasn’t a real man, if you know what I mean.  The only positive thing I could see about him was that he loved his children so I began to think along those lines.  Where I had Frank Bruno, the world heavyweight champion boxer and his fantastic sense of humour the telling ghost stories seemed to fit in quite naturally. I didn’t even think that Peter Andre had any musical ability or talent, but what he did have was a huge fan base and Jordan, who was one hell of a business woman and would, I hope, cajole him into making the most of the project so I proposed to write a number of fairy tales for him.

Once again Jeffery went into a hissy fit wanting to know if I could actually write fairy tales, I wasn’t going through the same rigmarole as I had with the ghost stories I wrote for Frank Bruno so I assured him that the stories would be produced and would be quality, well; what else would you expect me to produce.  I hated the way that Jeffrey wanted to keep me in one genre writing fiction with a humorous edge.  To me it was as stupid as telling aspiring writers to only write about what they know.  When I hear that I often wonder how many times Jules Verne had been to the centre of the earth or twenty thousand leagues under the sea or how many times he had gone around the world in eighty days.  When you look at some of the recent greats like Roald Dahl he didn’t stick to one genre along with a whole host of writers.  I think it is a very lazy approach by publishers.

Strangely enough it didn’t take Jeffrey long to find a publisher who was willing to take on the project.  I remember speaking to the publisher on the telephone who had asked me for my ideas.  I said that the first thing I wanted to do was provide value for money.  I would produce good old fashioned type fairy tales, of a decent length, that were primarily meant for reading to children at bedtime.  But, and here was the sparkle to my plan, I wanted Peter Andre to record the stories so that hard pressed parents could use some form of device to play the story to the child as they lay down in bed.  Really all I was talking about was a celebrity talking book but the publisher liked the idea I had proposed.  We had already contacted Peter Andre’s management team and were waiting for their nod of approval.

I was now, as you can imagine, spending every waking moment reading and researching fairy tales.  I have to admit that it was a daunting prospect but I was terribly excited about it all.  I hoped Jordan would not be embarrassed with the book I was about to produce for Peter Andre because I had discovered that she had a range of children’s books out.  I had to have a look at what she had produced, or was selling and promoting under her name, and I was quite disgusted with what I found.  There was no substance to the children’s books she was flogging, I really felt as if the public were being ripped off.  But who was I to complain, if I had been a proper business man I should have produced the same drivel for Peter Andre, but I wasn’t, I suppose I had pride in my work and really did want to produce quality stories.  I think that is what carried it with the publisher, that yes, although we were going to use the celebrity status of Peter Andre, and Jordan, to promote the book, we were actually going to back it up with some substance.

It was exciting watching Peter Andre on television talking about his upcoming literary project, for children.  He couldn’t say anymore at that time because it was still a secret.  It wasn’t so much a secret as it was me banging my head against a keyboard trying to produce twelve fairy tales.  It was lovely to see Peter Andre be so positively active with the project and I felt that Jordan would have been in the background chivvying him along.  In fact I think Jordan must have been in the side lines guiding him, for one day, on some daytime chat show type rubbish, Peter Andre appeared to announce his exciting literary project.  I wondered if he would say that he had any help in producing the stories or if he would claim to have written them all himself.  Surprisingly enough he came on and claimed to have written the stories himself, however he was holding the first book.  He was producing a series of books and here was the first one, the exact same rip off as Jordan, two hundred words with a couple of pictures for eight quid.  Seems like his manager had forget to tell us the deal was off.

Celtic Illumination, part 351, Where there’s muck there’s brass.

One of the main reasons people would use the Lugga Bus service is because of the parking problems around airports.  And the parking problems affected us too.  Directly outside the main terminal was a circular parking area for airport transfer companies as long as they paid an annual fee.  When I drove Arthur’s bus I was able to park here, now that I was driving the investors bus I had no access to this area.  I promise you that there was nowhere within a two mile radius of Manchester airport where you could park, for free that is.  Plenty of spaces, if you wanted to pay through the nose, and an army of traffic wardens, who were only doing their job.  I managed to find a garage within the airport perimeter where I could park as long as I was a customer, so coffee it was then.

Actually it wasn’t bad because I finally got some peace and quiet and could park up, buy my coffee and work away on a manuscript for an hour or two.  I can’t say that the garage was very busy, apart from the hire cars I noticed continually coming in and out.  First of all they would zoom in, park next to the bins, where things from the vehicle were dumped, then over to the pumps for some fuel and then off.  Every car followed the same pattern and this intrigued me, so the next time that I pulled in to the garage I stopped by the rubbish bins and went and had a look.  I was pretending that I was emptying something from my van in case the attendant was watching me.  I couldn’t believe that the bin was three quarters full of road maps and car mats.

Like a lot of men I loved maps so took one out and had a look.  There was nothing wrong with it, I mean it didn’t even seem to have been used and the rubber car mats were in a similar perfect state.  I hate seeing waste so began to empty the bin into my van.  I know that I can be strange at the best of times so four rubber mats would be enough for me, but it seemed daft that almost one dozen mats had been thrown in the bin when there was nothing wrong with them.  I stowed the maps and mats under my seats in the van and parked up watching each hire car as they came in and without fail, the mats and maps were slung from each car whether it would appear they needed to or not.  Some companies must be making one hell of a profit if they can afford to be so wasteful in other areas.

It was like being back in the air force where I collected old uniforms from the station dump and put them through the clothing stores system again.  Now I would offer other drivers some nice new rubber mats and a couple of maps for their vehicles and accept a coffee and sandwich as payment.  It must have been the good ol boy in me, never wasting an opportunity.  You may think me strange, collecting rubber mats and road maps from waste bins, but if I tell you something else I collected you will probably think me complete crazy and ready for the men in white coats.  My two favourite mornings to go out driving were Saturday and Sunday morning, just as dawn was breaking.  There was nothing aesthetic in my motives; I looked forward to discovering the mayhem that the drunk drivers from the previous evening had created for me.

I collected the aluminium posts that held up the road signs that the drunk drivers seemed determined to eradicate from the face of the earth.  I didn’t carry any tools with me so could only collect single posts that had become unattached from the road name.  Sometimes there might be a lump of concrete on the end of the post which I could normally remove with a firm smash against the ground.  Normally, and because of the crash, these posts would often have a bend in them so when I got them home I would cut the post, giving me the longest possible straight piece, but I would always cut at an angle, so that the remaining post would look like an organ pipe.  Then I would clean the pipe and spray paint it some vivid metallic colour.  I think I was the only person in Skelmersdale with a set of wind chimes that would wake the dead.  They certainly annoyed my neighbours.

I remember one morning driving to a village called Formby where three of us were picking up a large group of people, somewhere around eighteen passengers.  Due to some set back we had to change who was picking different parties up and I now ended up with a full bus load which wasn’t in my plan as I had a six foot aluminium post rolling about in the back of the van and still with a huge ball of concrete stuck to the base.  I can’t remember why I hadn’t removed the concrete but it was a problem as the post wasn’t exactly going to go unnoticed.  I pulled up in front of this quite plush house, with a very neat drive and garden, and as the people began to come out I asked them to drop their cases by the side of the van where I would collect them and place them in the vehicle.  They were very pleased with this level of service which I only employed as I didn’t want them to see the mess, on their drive behind the van, where I had managed to remove the concrete off my latest wind chime acquisition.

As we reversed away I asked for some assistance to make sure there was no oncoming traffic which meant that no one noticed the rubble all over their drive.  The post I had slid down the side of the seats and it stayed well out of sight until I got it home and into my shed.  Like most men I needed my shed, or my man cave, where I could retreat from life and the wife and children.  My first ever shed had been in Belfast where I would sit on my own and listen to the rain, just me and the spiders, so relaxing I should market it and charge people money.  Driving all over Lancashire, especially at ungodly hours, allowed me to take note of various things that might have been dumped or unguarded, so I managed to collect enough wooden pallets to build a nice large garden shed with.  I did cheat as one, well two, of the walls were part of my garden fence but I covered the inside of the fence with rubber car mats as a form of weather protection.

I envied writers like Roald Dahl who had sheds where they could retreat and write all day long.  I suppose the closest I came to that would have been the Lugga Bus as it was quite pleasant sitting there with the rain pelting the roof of the van while you read or edited some work.  I could never write in the van but I could research and make notes.  The speed of the snail mail between the UK and America was still driving me mad and with my constant outpouring of ideas the outflow and inflow most certainly did not match.  Our first problem with American clients was trying to find out who to talk to.  Publicists, agents, managers, sometimes I don’t even think they knew who I should talk to.  Everyone in America, even the postmen, seemed to want their ten per cent cut.  I had found a new reality show that I felt might have legs, as long as the ‘stars’ were willing to participate in the project.

The programme was called American Chopper and featured the Teutul family, well; three male members of the Teutul family.  A father and two sons, the father, an interesting ex drug addicted motorcycle builder, seemed to be the main stay of the show.  The eldest son Paul was the creative force behind most of the motorcycle designs and the third son Mikey was mainly I think for comic effect.  So I felt that I could use all three Teutul men in a story but have Mikey pretend to be the writer and also have him promote the books or books.  Jeffrey wasn’t convinced and if you remember that he thought The Gladiators were too down market for me you can probably imagine what he thought, or didn’t think, about the Teutul family.  I gave it a go anyway and waited to see what they would say.

I wonder how many people passed, or drove in to, the garage near terminal two at Manchester Airport and saw me sitting in my van thinking, look at that poor fellow having to wait for his passengers, when in fact I was creating stories for some of the most popular up and coming reality shows in America.  I didn’t tell many of the passengers that I was a writer as I don’t think they would have been able to comprehend the situation.  To them I was the driver, the foreigner, who ferried them to and from the airport and I was very happy for the relationship to remain at such a level.  I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone, as far as they were concerned I was doing a job and if I did it well enough I might get a tip at the end of the journey. 

My best tip ever would have been the twenty five English pounds sterling I was given by the lovely bunch of Scousers from Aintree.  However the tip, or one of the tips, I shall never forget was from an elderly woman in Aughton, a village outside or on the outskirts of Ormskirk, where everyone liked to think they were really posh.  The lady asked if I would help get her case to the front door which I did with a skip and a smile.  At the door she rummaged in her purse for her front door key and as she opened the door she asked,  ”Driver do you mind if I give you a tip?”  “Of course not,” I said, wondering, as she was so posh, if it would be fifty pence or one pound, but I was wrong, again.   For she turned to me, in all seriousness, and said.  “I think you should lose some weight.”  

Celtic Illumination, part 350, Newton’s first law of Pretendability

I was thinking about what to write today when I realised that what I might write could put me in the same ‘shooting in foot’ category as my pretendable passengers.  Yes it is a real word, I’ve just made it up, so there.  Pretendable, because my passengers would pretend to be all posh because they bought their toilet rolls in a different shop to me.  If I let you know my views on my little Lugga Bus you lot might believe that I wasn’t always windswept and interesting, that I might not be regal material.  Of course if my passengers were any way posh at all they would have their staff buy their toilet roll for them.  I know I’ve always said that when it comes to motorcars I’m a Jaguar man.  I like power, I hate the fact that the most popular colour is ‘British’ racing green, and generally they are pretty well made, but so are most motor cars these days.

My little Lugga Bus was a Ford Transit van, capable of carrying eight passengers and I have to admit one of the best family vehicles I have ever experienced.  In fact I fantasised that if I ever came in to possession of enough money I would buy myself a brand new, long wheeled base, Ford Transit and then have it customised. I wanted a muscle van but I wanted a soft top version with a stereo where the volume knob went all the way up to eleven.  So there you all are now thinking good ol boy, rather than Master Candle Maker, High Chief of the Clan O Neil and the true king of Ireland.  The first ‘boys’ trip I can remember was at Christmas time.  The two oldest boys ripped open their Christmas presents and looked strangely at all the fishing equipment they had received.  There were no rivers, or lakes, or even canals close by.  The only known use for fishing rods in Skelmersdale was to hoik them through letter boxes to steal car keys.  Next day I loaded the oldest two boys into the van announcing that we were off to Holyhead in North Welsh Wales for some fishing.

The children were excited, as was I, who always loved getting back over to North Welsh Wales.  I had been planning this trip for some time.  The weather had been rotten and I had kept my eyes on all the forecasts.  It was Boxing Day and the weather forecast said that the weather would be fine.  It was which was great, as it had been snowing heavily for the previous two weeks.  Being such a genius I hadn’t thought about the snow that had already fallen and endured a two hour drive, across rough, rutted, compacted snow all the way across the North Welsh coast, wondering if the fillings in my teeth would remain there.  We had a grand day fishing and caught absolutely nothing.  We didn’t spend all day fishing; we spent some at the local Bangor hospital.  This wasn’t for old time sake but because my line had become snagged.  I stood applying tension to the line hoping my hook and weight would break free, and it eventually did.

I stood there watching the weight, initially a tiny little dot, zoom across the ocean, then smack me in the head.  So apart from a bonding exercise and a bit of craic fishing, I was able to introduce the boys to practical first aid.  I didn’t have a mirror with me so that I could check the wound, but from the amount of red stuff on my hand, when I took it away from the place that hurt on my head, I was able to deduce that I might need some help patching this up.  The resulting discomfort and headache didn’t help with my concentration as we rumbled our way back across North Welsh Wales and home.  Irene couldn’t stop laughing as she declared I was the only fellow who could go fishing and end up beating myself up.  Don’t you just love a supportive spouse?

And yes I did support Irene, in fact the duty of taking the mother in law out for Sunday lunch fell to us.  One of our favourite haunts was at a place called Rivington.  Rivington was a small Lancashire village which was surrounded by reservoirs.  We discovered that each of these reservoirs had a footpath around them and it allowed the adults to enjoy a very pleasant stroll around the water while the children went berserk in and around the trees.  One reservoir, Anglezarke I think was the name, had various lumps of forest sculpture dotted around and made the experience much more magical.  Initially we did the usual Sunday taking mother in law out thing and found a restaurant or pub for lunch but realised that this restricted us.  We couldn’t really visit any establishment after our walk for most of us would have been covered from head to toe in mud, so we ended up as the sandwich and soup brigade.

It didn’t matter what the season was we were out and about and having a laugh.  One day I decided to tale the children up into North Wales, to Ogwen Cottage.  Up behind Ogwen cottage is Llyn Idwal and I knew a spot there where you could find natural crystals.  Of course to the children these would be diamonds but that would just add to the magic.  Again it was a winters day, thankfully we had a clear drive to and from Ogwen.  We took it easy with the mother in law as the trek up can be a little arduous.  The wind was like a scalpel slicing across any area of exposed skin, however when you are hunting for diamonds a little discomfort doesn’t matter.  We got to Llyn Idwal which was frozen over.  The children, as children do, had to lob stones and rocks out on to the ice to try and smash though it.

I was just glancing about when I heard a little shriek and saw Irene slid across the ice in front of me.  It was quite funny as a gust of wind had caught her and was skittering her across the surface.  The mother in law was very quiet, not a bit of wonder as we were within sight of the Devils Kitchen where the witches lived.  Then there was this blood curdling scream as eldest boy Gerard is now being blown across the ice, like his mother.  Number two son, James, is still lobbing rocks out onto the lake surface and as Newton’s laws of motion state; an object either remains at rest or moves at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force especially when lobbing rocks in windy and icy conditions.  I’ll kill that Newton fellow if I ever get a hold of him.  James was concentrating on throwing stones out as far as he could and Gerard’s head got in the way, more red stuff.  What I can take away from that day is the fact that one day Gerard and James will hopefully turn to their children and ask if they want to go find some diamonds.

You probably have the impression that Skelmersdale is a bit of a dump, and if I’ve have written about it correctly you would be right.  But the one thing you cannot take away from Skelmersdale is its location.  For short days out you had Rivington, and all the reservoirs, forty minutes away.  For fishing and getting in to the mountains, Snowdon and Holyhead were two hours and a bit away, while the waterfalls and Kendal mint cake factory, in the Lake District, were only two hours up the road.  By the way, if the weather is good then stay away from the Lake District because every BMW driving sales rep, in the country, takes his mother, or mother in law, to the Lake District for a let’s pretend we are posh Sunday lunch.

I of course cannot be posh, I am working class Irish scum, someone who started at the bottom and liked it, which is why our first hotel Sunday lunch in the Lake District was our last.  The hotel had good reviews but I would question the reliability of the reviewer’s taste buds, it was overpriced muck that could have been served more professionally by a blind man with a limp.  For us the Lake District became another soup and sandwiches destination, cheese sandwiches and tomato soup if you must know.  And if you feel that you need to visit the Lake District make sure that you have a Ford Transit van under your feet because the back roads are very narrow.  It is a great problem for BMW drivers, especially when they meet, coming the other way, a good ol boy throwing a Ford Transit van along these lanes, at speed, for what other way can a good old boy drive?

There’s the Beatrix Potter museum, a pencil museum in Keswick even Wordsworth’s house in Grasmere but the most popular destination would be Lake Windermere.  It’s surrounded by loads of attractions and shops and activity centres.  Our focus for the day had been the Aira Force waterfall where I had been pleasantly surprised.  We pulled in to the car park, found a spot and parked.  The National Trust were looking after the place so it was well managed.  I climbed out of the van and a fellow approached me.  “Here,” he said, handing me a parking ticket.  “There’s still an hour and a half left on this, you may as well use it.”  That really made my day; I should have asked him how Irish he was.  We thoroughly enjoyed the waterfall and the getting wet, for children it is brilliant, even big kids.  Heading back I decided to catch the ferry across Lake Windermere.

It’s only a small ferry that would carry perhaps between nine and twelve vehicles, open sided, sort of drive on and sit in your vehicle while we cross, affair.  It was quite pleasant going for a sail in my little Lugga Bus and I really was quite unaware of all the other drivers and passengers surrounding us.  Irene knew that I was up to something as she could see an evil smile begin to stretch across my face.  As we neared the centre of Lake Windermere I did the only thing any decent fellow could do, well; that is any decent fellow with his mother in law with him.  I leapt out of the van and ran to the front of the vehicle where I began to jump up and down shouting,  “Sink you bastard, sinkl!”  The only response I was interested in was that of the mother in law, who didn’t disappoint, as she grabbed a hold of the seat in front of her and wondered what to do.  I’ll never forget the look of shock on her face.  It was only afterwards that I noticed everyone else on the ferry was looking at me as well and some of them didn’t seem to be too pleased as many of them were holding on to the seat in front of them too.

Celtic Illumination, part 349, Ignorance is strength

I have to admit that Arthur, the boss and owner of Lugga Bus, was like most other small business men in England and hadn’t a clue what he was doing.  The company survived, but only just, there was no such thing as long term planning just the blind hope that the company had managed to continue for so long and that it would continue to do so.  He had no employees, everyone was self-employed, and so he had no real responsibility.  If work was in short supply then that was tough.  Many of the guys had secondary occupations, like myself.  One fellow was a taxi driver in Southport and also fitted under floor safes.  So the company was always on the lookout for new business as I suppose we all were.

Arthur had managed to convince a local business man to invest in Lugga Bus.  The fellow provided a mini bus, road legal with private hire licence, he established an account with a garage where the vehicle would be serviced if needed and opened a petrol account where I could just call in and fill up. Now I had my own bus, well; sort of, I was the only driver for it and it was kept at my house.  There were no advertising signs on the vehicle, the only give away or tell-tale sign was the taxi licence pate attached to the rear of the vehicle, a small six inch square of plastic.  It was one Friday night, just past midnight and I had dropped some people off in Southport.  Lord Street is the main, central, road in Southport and contains a number of blocks of flats occupied by a majority of retired people.  I had pulled over to the side of the road and was checking my paperwork.

There were still lots of people about and they moved between clubs and pubs and restaurants. I was quite surprised to hear the side door of my van slide open.  I thought it may have been one of the other drivers, working on the taxis, who had noticed me and stopped for a chat.  But it wasn’t, instead half a dozen revellers piled in and were telling me that they wanted to go to the Paradox nightclub in Liverpool.  My first problem was to check and see if there were any Hackney taxi drivers around.  If any of them had seen a group of people climbing into my vehicle they would report me.  I could only carry passengers who had pre booked and would be included on the lists I carried with me.

“Can I have your name?” I asked, which once given I wrote on my sheets and drove off.  I wasn’t stupid and had listened to the other drivers, as long as there was a name, a pick up and drop off point on my sheets I was covered.   I couldn’t really work out who would stop and check me as I doubt if the police would want to get involved in such a serious license violation.  As I began to think about the situation I realised how stupid the whole thing was for the work sheets I referred to would be thrown in the bin at the end of the day and there was no master copy held at the office.  These jobs were known as ‘foreigners,’ and I know a lot of the guys depended on them to survive, whereas I only took them if they presented themselves at an opportune moment.  I didn’t go out of my way to look for extra work and I did calculate how much fuel I would have used for the foreigner and would replace it in the vehicle, for if I hadn’t done that then I would have been guilty of theft.  

Theft is one of my pet hates along with thieves and unfortunately Arthur came across a routine job that had me transporting a van load of thieves to and from work each day.  I was initially told that I would be working with a publishing company between Manchester and Ormskirk.   As you may imagine I was quite excited, you never know what sort of contacts you can make or what information you can pick up.  I would have eight passengers which would be picked up from their home addresses in and around Manchester each weekday morning and dropped at one location, in Ormskirk.  I would then pick them up at five in the evening and take them all home.  The other drivers all turned their noses up at this sort of work, mainly because as regular passengers there was never any tips given, and the fellows who had Lugga Bus as their main full time occupation depended on the tips.

I have never been sad enough to have done any form of course on hospitality or customer service standards, so I’m not daft enough to think that it is acceptable behaviour to tell a customer to, “Watch your fecking mouth!”  However for my first pick up with this new group of publishers I found myself in Ormskirk.  They came out; one was in a wheel chair and asked to sit in the front seat.  One of the group seemed to be his friend and lifted him from his wheel chair into the van. I took the wheelchair to the rear of the van and stored it away.  The remainder of the passengers climbed in to the rear of the bus and I settled myself into the drivers eat.  “Know where you’re going Paddy?” said the fellow in the front seat, the one with the working legs.  I hope you will agree with me that it was completely acceptable to tell him to watch his fecking mouth.  I waited for his reply and was quite happy to turf the lot of them out of the van had he not apologised immediately and asked what they should call me.

We drove off introducing each other and getting to know one another, well; as best as you would want to.  The two fellows in the front seat were ex Royal Marine, don’t they just get everywhere.  The one in the wheel chair had been trying out a very powerful motorcycle without wearing a crash helmet and was now well and truly buggered for the remainder of his life.  I was disappointed as I had hoped people associated with publishing would have been more demure, or considered, I had hoped for long drawn out conversations about books and authors but this lot gave me the impression that they were not that interested in the literary world.  They had to listen to Radio One, the youth radio of the day, absolute rubbish, unless you are ten years old.  And all they could talk about was football and soap operas.

I know that I often complained that at boarding school in Ireland we were only allowed to watch one television programme a week and we would always vote for Top of The Pops, the only other television show we ever saw was the moon landing.  And soccer too, we were not allowed to watch or play soccer which I am so thankful for these days for I see people whose whole life is taken up with either daft football or soap operas.  It was also around the time that reality television was starting to grow.  I shouldn’t really complain about the amount of cretins who glue themselves to the latest so called celebrity fad as I was actually negotiating with the members of one reality show for a series of books.  Every time I encounter something like that I wish that I had been able to meet George Orwell who was co correct with his predictions.  But there lays the problems, he wrote books, how many people these days actually read books?

I listened and talked to this group and discovered that they were not really publishers, they produced single sheet calendars.  You know the sort, one year planner in the centre, surrounded by adverts.  Publishers my arse, they were telephone sales canvassers.  They pretended that they worked for a police magazine helping charities and in some cases pretended they were police officers. To make this situation much more disgusting they actually bragged that only one percent of the money they raised went to a charity, the remainder was split between them and the boss of the company.  The boss was well known locally as the fellow who had famously been caught snorting cocaine off the bonnet of his Mercedes sports car.  To not have control of your brain and watch the X Factor or Dancing On Ice or some other form of mindless drivel can be explained away with social manipulation, but to be proud of stealing money under false pretences I found was really upsetting, especially where they crowed that the most generous people were the Irish.

I was so incensed that I actually contacted the Irish radio show that broadcast my sketches and gave them the story, and the contacts to check it out, but nothing every came of it.  I hated the thought that some decent hard working business person was sitting in Ireland actually thinking that they were helping some form of charity or another when in fact they were just getting ripped off.  But are we not back to the same old situation where this is business and I just don’t understand?  Such a shame that those with the, ‘Get up and go’ required for business so often find themselves filling buckets with money rather than contributing to society.  But then, hey, what do I know, I was just a bloody foreigner doing foreigners.  By the way, just to back up my words, here’s a link, http://www.qlocal.co.uk/Ormskirk/news_list/%27Scambusters%27_raid_Ormskirk_offices_in_fraud_enquiry-52261594.htm  

Celtic Illumination, part 348, In it to win it.

With all the hanging around at airports the drivers would get together and swop stories. I can remember talking to one driver, he was an ex Royal Marine, and we were discussing how people used their holiday destination as a sort of social put down.    There was a sort of pecking order; working class people went to Spain, middle class went to Tenerife while the more better off went to Cyprus.  So every time someone would say to me, “Oh we’re off to Cyprus,” I would always say how much I loved the island.  They were shocked that their driver, the bloody foreigner, had actually been to Cyprus.  Suddenly their special destination wasn’t so exotic after all.  The ex-marine told me that no matter where they said they were going, he always claimed to have been there himself.  He loved pissing the passengers off, only if they needed it of course.

One fellow I picked up one night didn’t know where he was going.  He said he had been watching a teletext service which was selling last minute holiday deals seriously cheap.  Twenty minutes later he was in a Lugga Bus and heading for the airport.  He wasn’t sure what part of the world he was off to but he had managed to find two weeks full board for fifty quid and as booze was thrown in, he was off to enjoy himself.  I think that would have been my type of holiday.  And we just didn’t move holiday makers; we had our regular business people.  Civil servants who worked in Brussels and who came home Friday evening, returning to Brussels on Sunday evening.  One regular passenger was a British Airways captain.  This fellow was the captain of one of the regular London to Hong Kong flights.

He was an interesting chap and over time I learned that he had an apartment in Hong Kong, a house in Cyprus and a house in Southport.  I remember him saying that his one true love was his Harley Davidson motorcycle in Hong Kong which he loved cruising around on.  We got on well and were always chatting away.  I mentioned to him that my career options had once been either airline pilot or dentist.  I was surprised to hear him say that the last job I would have wanted would be as an airline pilot.  You would think that with his different homes and playthings he would be happy but he said that as Captain he supervised the take-off in London, the computer and crew then took over while he slept.  He would be woken up in time to supervise the landing in Hong Kong.  He told me that for most of the time he was bored out of his skull.

It certainly makes you think, can you imagine spending all your life doing a job that you hated?  I had no interest in driving the Lugga Bus, I was more interested in meeting the conveyor belt of weird and interesting people that was coming through my little bus.  One evening I had been booked for a private party of three.  They were flying in from Monte Carlo, I think it was the only time I ever saw passengers and thought, “Oh shit, I hope they are not mine.”  The party of three consisted of a young man and woman, about thirty years of age, and an elderly woman, who was in a wheel chair with a heavily bandaged ankle.  Nothing strange about that but they were all dressed as if they were in an Agatha Christie novel.  The fellow wore a boater straw hat, cravat, cricket blazer and the women looked like flappers.

I collected my passengers and brought them out to the bus.  The elderly woman insisted that she needed to stretch her leg out so therefore would sit in the front of the vehicle.  I opened the rear door and showed her that if she sat in the rear of the vehicle she would have even more room to stretch out, but she insisted on sitting up front with me.  We headed off and she began to tell me how exciting the casino in Monte Carlo was, I wondered if she had read Jeffrey’s book?  There are certain areas of Southport where I would drive around just to look at the houses, they were so grand, it was a pleasure just to look at them.  In fact during the winter months I would drive around looking at the light coming through the stained glass windows in all the various houses.

I was happy when we got to the first of the two houses I was going to.  It was a huge house with marble pillars.  The lady in the front asked if I would be a dear and help carry the cases in.  I couldn’t wait, for here was my chance to get inside one of these fantastic houses and have a gander.  The other couple got out and helped the elderly woman up the steps as I lugged the cases up.  She opened the front door and went in.  I followed in to the main hallway and began to look about.  It was a large open space with a curved staircase in front of me, very classy.  To my right was a sitting room where everything seemed to be white.  To my left was another sitting type room where everything seemed to be floral.  It looked as if it was something from a magazine, everything was perfect and in its place.

So despite the opulence it was a furnished house and not a home, it was a showpiece, it needed children and scuff marks on the skirting boards.  The lady very generously gave me one pound and thanked me for my help.  I suppose that’s why rich people have so much money, because they never give any of it away.  We got back out to the van and loaded up.  I set off for my second address and said that if their house was anything like the house we had just been in I wasn’t going to speak to them.  They sighed and then laughed explaining that they were the staff and so relieved to get away from their boss.  It was the boss who had made them dress up as they were.  They complained that on the first evening the boss had twisted her ankle dancing and for the remainder of the holiday had demanded that at least one of them was on hand to provide support should she need it.  In fact the fellow was swearing when he told me that at meal times the boss would be seated in whatever restaurant she had chosen for that evening, eating her meal, while one member of staff sat by the restaurant door in case she needed anything that could not be supplied by the normal serving staff.

But it didn’t matter what clothes people wore or what airs and graces they put on, they would always expose their social roots with the one question most of them would ask.  Now I’m not talking about the standard issue question of, ‘How long have you been in our country driver?’ I am talking about after they had returned from their holiday, after we would have loaded them up and were heading off for their homes.  If there was more than one party in the van they would have sorted themselves out, socially of course, where have you been, oh we’ve been to such and such, that makes us better than you.  Then someone would lean forward, usually the woman, asking, ‘I don’t suppose you know what the winning lottery numbers are driver?’  It really did always make me smile, here they were playing their daft little British class game of I’m better than you are, yet they still had the standard common denominator of the fur coat and no knickers brigade.

I even had people complain that they had to go to a council estate in Liverpool before moving on up to Southport.  They should have been honoured just to have me drive them, and I can remember one couple who were.  I had to pick up a party from Liverpool and run them up to a holiday camp outside Southport.  They had flown in from Belfast.  I was looking forward to meeting some fellow Irish people.  It was a mother and father with their twenty five year old son, who was blind, and his guide dog.  I loaded them up, tweaked the accent a little so that they knew they were among their own and set off.  We were chatting away but when we moved through some traffic lights I noticed the old blue flashing lights behind me.  I pulled over and slowed down to allow the police car to overtake me and continue his pursuit of dangerous criminals, either that or he was late for his tea.

Seems that I wrong on both counts as he wanted to pull me over.  I got the usual, ‘I’m not putting myself in danger standing here talking to you get out of your vehicle and come on to the pavement where I will deal with you.’  I apologised to my passengers and went around to speak to the copper.  I was unsure why he had stopped me until he asked, “What does an amber traffic signal mean?’  ‘It means prepare to stop,’ I said.  ‘No it doesn’t,’ he said.  ‘It means stop.’  I didn’t reply, despite the fact that I was sure red meant stop.  In his opinion I had continued driving through the traffic lights when they were amber, instead of stopping.  It was when he said that as a professional driver I should have known better I explained that as a professional driver I had realised that if I had attempted to stop for the amber light, my passengers guide dog would have slid off the rear seat and I didn’t want to upset the animal or its owner for that matter. 

The copper went over and checked out my story.  He saw the guide dog, on the rear seat, gave me a telling off and then issued me with a FTC ticket, a Failure To Comply, a technical offence.  I was then warned that if I was caught committing a similar offence within a certain period of time, the proverbial book would be thrown at me.  I was released and allowed to continue on my way.  The lovely couple asked me what I had been stopped for.  I held up the ticket with the Letters FTC bold as brass on the top of the form.  He had followed us for some time I explained and thought that my driving was so good that he had to stop me and award me a certificate for Fantastic Technical Control.  They were so pleased to have such a good driver, and fellow Irish person, drive them to their holiday destination.  I’m sure they told everyone they met about it.