Screwtop Thompson

11. A Public Performance

By the autumn of 1970 I was coming under intense pressure to buy a coat. A military greatcoat to be precise. Everyone I knew had one (everyone in the sixth form, that is) although they were officially banned from school. To avoid being left behind I had to get one as well. There were lots to choose from. Barry, for example, had an ex-Army coat of olive green, while Mike’s was blue-grey (RAF). Robert, meanwhile, favoured a huge brown overcoat that had been passed down through the Italian side of his family. It had a collar which could be turned up against the wind, and gave him the look of Giacomo Puccini in the famous photograph from 1910. The exception to the group was Phil, who always wore a US Army combat jacket. This was the other option open to me: I could either get a combat jacket or a greatcoat. The weather was turning chilly, so I decided on a coat. In that way I could both look cool and feel warm at the same time.

One quiet afternoon during half-term I caught a bus into Bristol and headed for a shop I’d noticed at the foot of Colston Hill. Looking back I suppose the army surplus store in Gloucester Road would have been a more suitable destination. They had recently extended their range of stock to cater for the increasing demand, and no doubt could have readily supplied a garment to fit my requirements. The trouble was, I knew that everybody else had bought their coats there. I didn’t want to wear the same ‘uniform’ as the rest of them, so I made my way to Colston Hill.

The shop I had in mind was called Visual History. It specialised in military artefacts, and its window was crammed with all sorts of muskets, blunderbusses and swords. Also, displayed on a mannequin, a very impressive coat. It was tailored from a fine grey cloth, and had two rows of gold buttons up the front. There were epaulettes of burnished gold on the shoulders, and gold flashes on the cuffs. I knew the moment I saw it that this was the coat for me. It clearly originated with the Russian Imperial Army, and I guessed it had once belonged to a Cossack. This was evident because the lower part of the coat was widely flared, an obvious prerequisite for riding a horse. Without a second thought I entered the shop.

There were no other customers, but the shopkeeper ignored me when I came in, and continued reading the newspaper that was spread out across his counter.

“Afternoon,” I said.

He peered up over the rim of his glasses.

“Could I have a look at that coat in the window, please?”

An expression of curiosity now crossed the shopkeeper’s face. He glanced at me, then at the coat. Then back at me again.

“You’re not wasting my time, are you?” he asked.

“No, no,” I replied. “I’m thinking of buying it.”

The curious expression disappeared and was replaced with a sort of surprised half-smile, as if the shopkeeper was remembering some good news he’d heard earlier in the day. I watched as he climbed over a panel into the window display, returning a moment later with the coat. He quickly folded away his newspaper and laid the coat before me. It was very large and heavy.

“Pre-Revolutionary Russian,” I announced, examining the epaulettes in a knowing manner.

“Oh,” said the shopkeeper. “Is it?”

“I think so, yes.”

After a long pause he nodded gravely. “You know, I think you’re probably right.”

“Can I try it on?”

“Of course you can. There’s a changing cubicle over there.”

I entered a narrow booth and took off the raincoat I’d been going round in for the past two years. It was off-white in colour, and closely resembled the one worn by Steve McQueen in Bullitt. But I’d had enough of it. I hung it from the hook and proceeded to put on my greatcoat for the first time.

“Odd,” I said, talking through the walls of the cubicle. “There don’t appear to be any buttonholes.”

“No, there aren’t,” came the shopkeeper’s muffled voice. “The buttons are only for show.”

“How do I fasten it up then?”

“There should be some little hooks inside the front of the coat,” he said. “And some little eyes. You have to match them up.”

With some difficulty I did up the hooks. Then, to my delight, in one of the pockets I discovered a broad belt with a big silver buckle. This left no doubt that the coat must once have belonged to a Cossack. Moreover, it seemed to fit me perfectly. I adjusted the collar and emerged from the cubicle. The shopkeeper took one look at me and laughed out loud.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“No, no!” he cried. “It’s fantastic.”

“Have you got a mirror?”

“Afraid not,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Sorry.”

The price was two pounds and ten shillings. At that time I earned one pound ten at my Saturday job, so the coat was by no means cheap. I decided, however, that it would be a good investment for my forthcoming winters as a student at some faraway university (or, as it turned out, polytechnic).

“I’ll take it,” I said, producing a hard-earned five pound note.

The shopkeeper can’t have had any other customers that day because his till was completely empty. Informing me that he would have to go and get some change, he left me inside the shop, still wearing the coat, and locked the door as he went out. Half a minute later he returned, accompanied by another man who I assumed came from a neighbouring shop. The two of them stood peering in at me for some moments before quickly turning away and moving out of sight again. When he returned for a second time the shopkeeper was smiling broadly.

“Here we are,” he said, letting himself in. He gave me my change and then asked if I’d like the coat wrapped.

“No, I think I’ll wear it now,” I replied. “Looks quite cold out there.”

“Suit yourself.”

He wrapped up my raincoat instead, and when I departed he insisted on shaking my hand.

“You’ve made my day,” he explained.

On the journey home a strange sense of solitude came over me. I sat on the bus in my newly acquired coat feeling quite aloof from my fellow passengers. Actually I felt sorry for them as they undertook their humdrum workaday journeys, while I enjoyed the unhurried timelessness of half-term. When we came to my stop I turned my collar to the wind and disembarked.

Of course, I was not at all surprised by my brother’s response on seeing the coat. He was an immature fourteen-year-old and I took no notice when he asked me where I’d hired my tent. The reaction of my mother, on the other hand, was most disappointing. As I entered the house she gave out a sort of gasp and instantly pushed a folded handkerchief to her mouth. I asked her what she thought of my coat but she was unable to answer.

“Want a cup of tea?” I enquired, reaching for the kettle. Without replying she rushed into the next room.

I was just stirring the pot when she returned. By now I’d taken the coat off and hung it up. After taking a deep breath, my mother asked me to put it on again, then she walked round and round me, looking me up and down. Finally, she undid the hooks and examined the label inside. It said:

MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN

XL

DRY CLEAN ONLY

OTHELLO THEATRICAL SUPPLIES LTD

Kindly, my mother offered to remove the label.

♦

The following Tuesday evening I went to see Pink Floyd at the Colston Hall in Bristol. They were touring with their latest offering, a semi-orchestral composition entitled ‘Atom Heart Mother’. I had actually attended the first ever public performance of the piece earlier that summer during the Festival of Blues and Progressive Music at the Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet. Along with a quarter of a million others I’d endured two days of searing heat and dust. By the time Led Zeppelin played late on the Sunday afternoon there was virtually no drinking water available, and unscrupulous vendors were charging as much as five shillings for a can of Coca-Cola. As a callow youth I had believed this drink could quench my thirst and actually paid the fee not once, but twice. Ultimately, the event would be washed out by heavy rain, but not before Pink Floyd had made their long-awaited appearance late on the Saturday night.

‘Atom Heart Mother’ was an ambitious instrumental piece in which the band were augmented by a full brass section from a proper orchestra, along with a ten-member choir. There was also a massive TV screen showing close-ups of all the on-stage action, plus an extended light show and a firework display during the closing notes of the finale. Yet somehow I’d managed to sleep through the whole thing, having lain down on my groundsheet while I waited for it to begin. When I awoke it was the early hours of the morning, the showground was enveloped in mist, and all was quiet. Now, several months later, I had a chance to make up the deficit. Pink Floyd were on tour again! With my ticket in my pocket I set off for the Colston Hall. The first person I saw when I entered the crowded foyer was a girl from school called Alison who I was quite friendly with. (In fact I quite fancied her and had asked her out a couple of times. She had declined the offer in a gentle, sympathetic sort of way, and we were now officially ‘friends’.) She was standing with some people who’d left school the previous year, none of whom I knew very well. As I approached, wearing my belted Russian Imperial Army greatcoat, one of them looked at me, then said something to Alison and she glanced in my direction. Instantly, she put her hand over her face, closed her eyes and half-turned away. Sensing I was intruding on some private moment, I went and stood somewhere else. The first part of Pink Floyd’s show included another new offering, an avant-garde composition entitled ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’. This non-musical piece of work was to be found on their latest album, and the band had admitted in the music press that it was only a ‘filler track’ because they didn’t have enough viable material. Nevertheless, a paying audience sat and watched as one of their roadies prepared his breakfast live on stage, accompanied by a ‘sound-melange’ of snap, crackle and pop, sizzling bacon, and, surreally, the voice of Jimmy Young. At the interval we filed out of the auditorium and into the bar for a drink. There was someone behind me giving the performance the benefit of his opinion, which was apparently at odds with that of his peers, who had roundly applauded it a few moments earlier. As a matter of fact I thought he was quite courageous, announcing as he did that he thought the whole spectacle was quite absurd, ridiculous even, and a prime example of the folly of youth. To my surprise, none of his companions seemed to disagree. They smiled at me, one by one, as they passed me by. Turning up my collar, I went and stood by the doorway.

EOF