When Barry Met Johnny

I've never done a school reunion in my life. It's not my thing. What happened in the 70s says in the 70s; or words to that effect. However - there's always a however - when two school friends find themselves following each other on Twitter and one of them says 'You fancy meeting up sometime?' then that's different. Of course it is. Barry and I go way back. As way back as 1972 if both of our (fading) memories are anything to go by. But we hadn't seen each other since Christmas Eve 1982. And save for a solitary phone call in 1991 when one of us heard the other on national radio, that's pretty much been it communication wise. Until, as I said, Twitter Reunited. 

Our first stab at this back in August didn't end well: I'd been on the Birmingham train a mere 15 minutes when a frantic text alerted me to the fact that Barry (or Baz as I - and nobody else - call him) would not be meeting me at New Street after all - he was in Emergency Ward 10 (well, A&E) attending to a real life emergency.

When I got home I posted Baz the gift I'd been planning on giving to him in person. A copy of Stevie Wonder's He's Misstra Know it All c/w with an inscription we both knew by heart; an in-joke that had stood the test of time and, like any in-joke, meaningless to anyone outside our circle. Oh, and I put it in this bag.

A couple of days later I received a beautiful reply. (It began 'Dear Johnny...' - he's the only person I know still calls me Johnny - if it'd been a letter I'd have pressed it and kept it in a secret drawer. That's bromance for ya. 

So yesterday the planets aligned and as you can see from the photo at the top (taken yesterday morning), we met up in Nottingham and had a brilliant breakfast and catch-up at the Warsaw Diner - the best breakfast in Nottingham. Don't just take my word - Baz is something of a  hospitality guru and he gave it a double thumbs up. High praise indeed.

So how did we compress 40 years into three hours? Quite easily, actually. What did we talk about? Everything. Did we laugh? Of course. Did we promise to do it again in another 40 years? Definitely. (But ahead of what would be, let's face it, a miraculous 2062 event, we're already lining up a couple of gigs for a future hook up a wee bit bit before that. Cheers, Baz!

...

Baz told me about John 'Hair on Fire' Wilson who sadly passed recently (the first of our Class of '77 to go). Rest easy, John.

Getting the band back together

The Reunion

It's Friday evening in a sleepy Lincolnshire market town. Pop Medd is playing host to his two sons - they're jetting in from nearby Nottinghamshire and Rutland - and making up the quartet is his grandson - training it all the way from Greater Manchester. It'll be the first time all four of them have been in the same room since January 2016 - that's  five and a half years in anyone's language. Added to which it's the first time young James has had a beer in Grantham on a Friday night; his last visit being his grandma's funeral back in July '15.

So what brought about this multigenerational gathering of 'lads' - age range 31 to 85 - all bearing the same four letter surname? As has been touched upon round these parts previously, apart from me and James (my son, Pop's grandson) we Medds are not what you'd call tight knit; not by a long chalk. However, I think, deep down, we all wish we probably were; it's just that nobody wants to admit it. 

And was the night an unqualified success? No, not really. But it was good fun nonetheless. There was plenty of laughter - mainly at Pop's expense - he was (quite literally at one point) the fall guy. Did the two brothers bicker; yes, of course they did. But, and here's the thing, they both regretted it deeply afterwards. Always the way. Bloody drink. But James was the glue that kept the whole thing together; if he reads this he'll probably say "was I?", but his presence probably kept the evening on the rails. 

Best gag of the night? Well, that would be mine - obviously: in one of the many hostelries we frequented the subject of where we'd be dining later was discussed: it was decreed that we'd go to a Nepalese restaurant called Everest - "So that would make this place Base Camp," I said. These are the jokes, as Ronnie Scott used to say.

My duck curry was perfect. The taxi back to Pop's was eventful. And the Mario Lanza and Jimmy Young on the sterogram fitted the mood at the end of the night perfectly. We'll skip over the last bit when the brothers tried to turn everything serious over too many tumblers of whisky and fast forward instead to 9am...

After a Full English, and hugs all round, we parted company, still bleary eyed, with flimsy promises about "doing it again" and "not leaving it so long next time." Maybe, let's wait and see shall we?

(Old) School

Whenever I take a selfie of me & dad we both go into 'wary' mode

Something I read on Amy Rigby's intoxicating blog the other day really resonated with me. Long story short she said that even though blogging may well be seen by many as outdated, tired or not on trend "I'm just gonna keep chugging along like an old man's dinghy in a stream of slick, shiny yachts." In other words, and I've said this here many, many times - I'm writing this stuff for me, essentially. If others a. find it and b. heaven forbid, like it, that's nice but not why I do it.

...

I went to see Dad on Monday. Since restrictions began to ease I've gone over to Grantham a couple of times now for lunch. We generally walk to the park and have a coffee and a sandwich. And a side order of chips; food tastes better sitting on a park bench I tend to find.

Wyndham Park is a very well kempt park and also near to the grammar school I used to attend when I was not long out of short trousers. I asked dad if he wouldn't mind indulging me while I had a nosey through the railings. It's nearly 50 years since I started my first term at King's. A time when masters still wore gowns and mortar boards and thought nothing of a bit of light corporal punishment to while away the time. Luckily in 1972 there'd been a new intake of staff (teachers, not masters) who wore civvies and were actually decent human beings. Mr Roper, our Geography teacher and form teacher, being one of them. Along with a couple of other good eggs he was probably not long out of teacher training college when he came to the school and, looking back, was probably only ten years or so older than us.

Not a playground; it's a quad

My nosey through the railings turned into a bit more when realising the school was closed for Easter I asked the caretaker in the security hut if I could have a look round the old quad. Fill yer boots she said. So many memories came flooding back (mostly good, but not all) as I was transported to a time when Edward Heath was PM and every single one of my exercise books was covered in pictures of the Sweet. I took a few photos and even snuck in one of my old classrooms. Finding it quite emotional I went back outside where my dad seemed to be taking just as many photos as me. 

St. Wulfram's Church

On the way back we went through the neighbouring churchyard of St Wulfram's. Our old music teacher, Mr. Lank, was the choir master and organist there. I remember he let me and my mate Phil Noon talk about Slade for ten minutes in one of his classes; the things you remember. Walking back to dad's he told me that Mr Roper's 'not so good at the moment.' When dad says someone's not so good it's usually followed by an obituary in the local paper (Dad's seen a lot of friends and colleagues in there over the years.) Anyway, that's what I did on Monday.

I couldn't find my blue plaque anywhere

Schooled

I was invited to a school reunion a couple of years back; I think I had some drying paint that needed watching that night, so I politely declined. Actually, I didn't: my email had not an ounce of politeness contained within its hastily typed two lines. Sorry Andy.

So why*, therefore, have I just ordered a new novel which, judging by the PR blurb I've been reading, is nothing more than a lid lifting exercise on my old school? (A school, can I just say, run by a sadistic, right wing, child-hating man of the cloth - ably assisted by his mortarboard & gown clad henchmen). Only the names have been changed, apparently.

*I'll tell you why. It's written by someone I haven't clapped eyes on in thirty odd years who was in the year above me at said educational establishment. Nick Barrett, sorry, Nicholas Barrett, to give the author his full title, was a good lad. I think he was on the minibus that took us to Charlton in 1976 to see the Who. To say Nick was a Who fan is like saying the Pope is a bit religious. In fact, Nick's Who connection forms one of only three things I can really remember about him. These three things being:

1. He always wore a full length fur coat. Keith Moon gave it to him. I know, you can't make it up can you?

2. Nick played drums in a quasi metal/punk band called Pagan. I remember Bill Peake was on bass and they would open their set with Neat Neat Neat.

3. He drank in the Beehive. We all did.

Anyway, Michaelmas Term (Or - Why is that Boy Naked?) is winging its way to Medd Towers as we speak. I may have to write a follow up piece.

The Damned - Neat Neat Neat (Unsurprisingly, no footage of Pagan exists)

Sleaford Mods

Sleaford Mods are a Nottingham minimalist duo who rap/rant/cuss in a distinct East Midlands dialect; imagine Alan Sillitoe with tourettes writing a modern day Saturday Night and Sunday Morning with a mobile phone in one hand, an E-Cig in the other whilst ordering a bottle of lager in a crowded pub.

I like them because:

1. Their lead singer Jason Williamson is, by his own admission, gobby: a must for any front man.
2. They're not embarrassed to put a 'z' in Notts.
3. They namecheck Doctor Feelgood and The Sex Pistols
4. They film music videos on the top deck of Nottingham buses.
5. They swear. An awful lot.

Her's a little film Quietus TV made about them and below is the splendid Tied up in Nottz:

Confessional

A Brush 4 and a Deltic, if I'm not mistaken

I was in London for a meeting yesterday. I went down on the train. Looking out of the window as we approached the various stations along the way, stopping at some and flying through others, I was reminded of a time in my life that I still look back on fondly.

I used to be a trainspotter. There, I've said it.

Let me explain. Between 1971 and 1973 I was a young (very young) version of those sad and lonely individuals you see standing at the end of deserted platforms armed with nothing more than a note pad and pen. But I was neither sad nor lonely. There was a group of us who, no matter the weather, would meet up at Grantham station, pay the princely sum of 2p for a platform ticket and loiter around the premises all day. Long before digital arrival and departure boards we knew the times of every arrival and departure, every express, every freight train and every milk train stopping at or passing through the station - day or night. And if it got too cold outside we would seek sanctuary in the waiting room complete with a real open fire and the company of fellow spotters. I was still a pre-teen but there was always older lads around who ensured I didn't get up to mischief or stand too close to the platform edge; when the Deltics rattled through the station at speeds touching 100 mph the danger of being sucked under was very real.

But I haven't told you the best bit yet. When I cycled home, often late and often without lights, the transferring of the raw data from my notepad to the Bible would begin: Ian Allen's Book of Diesel locomotives was a pocket sized tome which had the numbers of every diesel train in the land and the only way to do the copying over was with a pen that didn't smudge, invariably my dad's Parker, and a ruler. The numbers we'd seen that day would then be underlined and a permanent record of all the trains we'd spotted would emerge. Some I'd see every day, others remained permanently elusive. This is where, I guess, for some people it turns hardcore and they just keep doing it. Trying to fill the gaps. I stopped probably six months shy of my thirteenth birthday. At about the same time I discovered rock and roll. And girls.

Judging by those I saw standing on deserted platforms yesterday they'd not had that fork in the road moment which lead them to wine, women and song. I think I got out just in time.