Koh Samui Part 2

The second half of my stay in MaeNam was punctuated most notably by the Special Omelette episode.  A memory that has quite literally stayed with me for ever!  Not that it was bad - quite the opposite.

A 'normal' evening in Rasta Baby commenced.  The rather over-hasty announcement that we were having the 'special' resulted in a swift change of tone and a trip, we suspected, on the part of the staff into the jungle to dig up the goods.  Or maybe that's something I've made up since.

The omelette was served with due ceremony and we slathered it in tomato ketchup in the expectation that it was going to taste appalling.  Not that you'd know.  Thanks to the ketchup.  And nothing happened.  We paid the bill and went for a walk.

And then.  The most extraordinary evening/night ensued.  A star-filled dome of sky became the most fantastical thing.  A cat came and joined us on the beach and then came and sat on my table whilst we chatted and hooted.  There were parts of the beach that were eerily desolate and other parts where you could run your fingers through the sand for hours on end - it seemed.  No hippy-speak nonsense about the meaning of the world - just fireworks and fun.

We finally settled back on the balcony - MamaSan was stalking back and forth with a typical scowl on her face.  Something about the generator.  We failed to roll up successfully and thought seriously about getting the kiwis up to do so for us.  I had a shower and upset Jacquie by spraying her with mossy spray.  I slept, at two in the morning, the best sleep I'd had for a long time.

And of course the morning was similarly blissful.  Continued but enhanced relaxation ensued with a vague thought or two that I'd need to leave some time.

And leave I did - after two weeks, the naive exchange of addresses and the clumsy hug or two. It was day 70 and I needed to be in Jakata on day 83.  Not too much of a stretch but a considerable distance by land.   At 5.30am in the morning, I was off, not to return to Koh Samui for another three years or so, under entirely different personal circumstances.

Koh Samui Part 1

The return to BKK was pretty uneventful by the sounds of things.  My disdain at other travellers appears to have increased in magnitude - notably around their somewhat clean and well-kept appearances.  So - it was off to Koh Samui - with big ideas about meditation and thai chi in my mind.

My departure was of an afternoon/evening and was punctuated by a 'drive past' by the royal family - something that required all present at the bus stop to be upstanding.  The bus itself was, we subsequently found out, an 'upgrade' and actually allowed a little bit of sleep.  Lots of couples on board and lots of clubbers heading for the delights of Chaweng Beach.

The longest part of the journey, as I remember it, was the boat across to the island.  Maybe I was a touch seasick but I remember thinking 'is that it' and 'maybe that's it'.

The arrival brought me into contact with some 'greasy Italians' and Jacquie.  On the back of a pickup heading for the North of the island.  'Boguns' she called them.  And off we got at MaeNam Villas.  A complex of buildings that surprised and delighted me.  A little balcony, a chair and table and a double bed.  And a bat.  My other memory - which doesn't seem to be noted in my diary is of a shower without a head and a loo without a seat.

Jacquie and I hit it off particularly quickly.  Our first bonding was over a 'green tea' down at Rasta Baby - something that resulted in me passing out in my seat on her balcony.  Rasta Baby was to become a particularly regular haunt.  A Danish girl and her thai boyfriend who would put the grass on your bill and subtly encourage you in the direction of the Special Omelette.  Many an evening was spent there - racking up a huge bill and watching the crazies dance.

Some kiwis next door also became friendly - a couple with a toddler called Joe - on their way back to NZ from Tottenham.  He (the father, not Joe) became our guiena pig for the special omelette - but he was considerably larger than me - not that that held me back - more on that anon.

Motorbikes were another delight.  The first fifteen minutes were notable for ending up in a ditch on my side (memories of that fete and my parents having to administer St John's finest).  But we soon got the hang of it - until a small selection of bikes were impounded by the police for parking offences - an episode that resulted in a new phase of bartering...

Muesli seems to feature large at this time - as do late breakfasts and late lunches.  The occasional bout of homesickness and paranoia and interesting hints about 'out of control daydreaming' that I enjoyed just as much as I was disturbed by.....

And my birthday.  A birthday in Koh Samui punctuated by a phonecall home and the news that Mum was in hospital.  'It's my birthday', I said to my rather distracted father.  'Is that the only reason you called' said he.

A bridge from Kanchanaburi

The journey to Kanchanaburi was particularly marked by an Israeli girl arguing for a 'no aircon journey' which seemed to irritate me particularly.

But on arriving all irritation slipped away with the realisation that I was going to be staying in an idyllic bamboo hut right by the river.  The nights were cool, the accompanying restaurant was populated by charming staff and interesting people - as well as taxi soup, pancakes and newspapers - and I decided to take it particularly slow.

The walk into town and the bridge itself was short and untaxing.  There were a number of museums commemorating the war and the bridge itself - one, notably, had a temporary exhibition on Miss Thailand for some reason.  I was particularly struck by the war graves and the fact that many of those who fell were little older than me - cue lots of meaningful poetry writing.  

The second day saw me somewhat unpreparedly join a trip to some waterfalls.  I, of course, thought that this would be a somewhat sedate affair - sitting at the bottom reading the odd book or two.  It was, in fact, a full-scale climb up the waterfall itself - in flipflops.  Danes, Irish and Israelis abounded and we arrived back at the guesthouse exhausted but happy.

It seems I was reading DH Lawrence followed by 'Love in the Time of Cholera' at the time - I have no memory of the former and little of the latter.  'Disco Boats' went past my bamboo hut whilst I wrote diary entries and poems about 'falling in love with who you fall in love with' (!) and my neighbour (who had been keeping me awake at night by merely rolling over in bed) decided to go back to BKK because it was too cold here.

The restaurant staff did, it seems, think I was particularly lazy with my 1030 breakfasts and not going out exploring until 1.  But it sounds like I was finally on holiday!  My final night included a drunk old american guy who wanted me to believe that he was CIA and a descendent of Roosevelt - he'd been infiltrating the Burmese border for years and sending intelligence back.  You do wonder how these people ended up here and if/how they ever got 'home'.

Headed back to BKK - to the Merry V.  Laundry and a shave a preparations for Koh Samui.  I'd already decided that I was 'above' the party-seekers and that a quiet spot was just waiting for me.

BKK KSR

So - onwards.  The departure from Bombay was, of course, fraught with negotiations with over-enthusiastic Sikh taxi drivers and their brothers and the airport wait was supplemented with my remains 50 Rps.  But that was it - India done.

There was something of a relapse from the very first flight of the trip with paranoia about crashing and paranoia about everyone else on the plane being more friendly to each other than they were to me.

But the change once touching down in BKK could not have been more marked.   Got a taxi from the airport to town with a couple and a chap called Michael.  The couple had come from Thailand to India and back again - had only lasted a couple of weeks before the dirt got the better of them.  And Michael - a lone traveller who was gradually trying to get his motorbike home.  

And The Khao San Road - that famous backpackers Mecca of banana pancakes, street food and drinks over a pirate copy of Back to the Future II.  We naturally chose a spot off of the road, at the far end - just to prove our 'distance' from 'them'.  But I couldn't have been happier - a comfortable bed that was the location of my first siestas of the trip and a sense that this place was going to be considerably easier than the last five weeks.

Temple hunting is, of course, a must in BKK but these, as you'll know, redefine the word 'breath-taking'.  My natural propensity for not having prepared myself properly resulted in my being taken entirely by surprise as to the beauty and the meditative glory of these places.  The sitting, reclining or standing buddhas - every single one was a source of delight and wonder.

Even the 'last day of the gem sale' hawkers were worth a chat.  Even the 'getting lost looking for a meditation centre' was stress free.  Michael and I hung out (occasionally with others, mostly alone), celebrated his birthday (33), went to the weekend market, went to see 'True Lies' and lay in the guesthouse room, reading (where he had the rather unedifying habit of playing with himself whilst doing so).

It seems I was rather preoccupied with looking out for those girls from Hampi whilst tucking into my latest banana pancake with condensed milk and chocolate.  But to no avail.  I was overwhelmed with wonder at the ease of arranging my next 'leg' and that was it - onto the River Kwai!

Back in f***in' Bombay Boys!

So.  Yes.  The famous 52 hour train ride.  My 'window bearth' was too short for me and I have this abiding memory of having to get up every hour or so to stretch my legs - day and night.  The memory that remains is that I did so in the corridor, looking out the window, smoking those awful 'Gold Spot' cigarattes.  Or was 'Gold Spot' their version of Tango?  Anyway.

And, for some reason, no food.  My cullinary discovery for this journey seemed to be orange cream biscuits and that's it.  The 'train food' had to be ordered in advance - something that I'd failed to do, resulting in only having two small, paper-wrapped meals in the whole 2.5 days.  Being put with other Westerners (a trend) was a pain (unwelcome company) and a mercy (he gave me a banana).

A combination of literary discovery (The Madness of a Seduced Woman) and reflection kept the journey occupied.  Lots of thinking about the last five weeks.  Thinking about becoming swiftly comfortable, by necessity, with travelling on one's own, but also through discovering the sort of traveller one was and the sort of traveller one wanted to spend time with.  I was dilligent to remind myself that I wanted to remain friends with J, but it was clear that were weren't compatible travellers - his incessant smoking and keenness to out do all and sundries' backpacking stories.  That was then, not now (as we know).


And back to Bombay - which I swiftly realised I hated.  I was stationed in a guesthouse out of town a little - something that involved, unlike last time, a train into the city centre.  If I cast my mind back, my first journey in with some other Brits was so packed that I lost both them and the contents of my pockets which were emptied blatantly by someone pushed up against me.  Busy, corrupt and expensive.  I seem to have spent the majority of those final four days writing letters, thinking about the play I was writing and reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  Such limited activity seems to have resulted in me spending a great deal of time in my hotel room rather than exploring Bombay on my last opportunity to do so.  There was a little bit of administration - confirming flights, changing money, going to the GPO, visiting the posh bookshop in the Taj Hotel - but that's about it.  No regrets - I seem quite content. 

And so to the airport.  A touch of apprehension about what this next furlong brings.  The majority of said apprehension seems to be based around the flight(s) being somewhat uneven.  But the vibes were good.  A Korean chap bought me a beer, a couple of Australians told me how they were returning to Thailand after only a short trip to India because Thailand was so much nicer.  And a shared taxi into town to share a room with a beardy English chap in the 'New Merry V'.

Goodbye India - it's late October 1994.  Over twenty years ago.  I'd return to India, but it wouldn't  be until 2007 at the age of 35.

Keralan Moodswings

 

It's interesting that after questioning, many years later, whether I was happy and enjoying myself at this point, that's exactly the question I asked myself, then, on turning the page.

Arriving in Kerala, Ernakulam, I spent the usual day orientating myself and arranging the next departure - something that, as ever, takes an entire day.  The usual spate on ripoff rickshaws to trainstations where no-one gives you a straight answer.  The incredibly cheap room (hutch) that I've selected is clearly getting me down too - the walls don't meet the ceiling and the bed's too short for my 6'1''.  I've also made a particularly distraught note about my radio chewing up a Tracy Chapman tape - oh the woes.
 
My mood changes significantly on a number of counts.

Firstly I have a haircut and shave - always a treat in India and transformative in every respect.

Secondly - although I don't talk about it at the time, my health is clearly improving.  I'm eating a lot and talking about 'taste sensations'.  Everything from omlette, to toast, to 'dosa stops' to egg birianis get a mention.  Ice Cream gets a particular shout-out.  Twice.  All good signs.

I've also taken a particular interest in sightseeing.  Vasco de Gamma's last resting place.  The famous Chinese Fishing Nets.  Walks along the harbour and to Cochin Island for the fort and palace.  And Kathlkali dancing is a particular find.  I maintain that I saw this form of Indian dance long before it 'toured' to places like the Edinburgh Festival and the Queens Elizabeth Hall.  I particularly remember the eye-rolling, the preshow makeup, the watering pattering on the roof and the 'master of ceremonies' telling us about the significance of the dance and the relgious connotations throughout.  I got a rickshaw back to the homestay after dropping off a chap at a rather fancy hotel.

In a matter of six days I would be well on my way to Bangkok - something that filled me with a certain degree of trepidation.  I spent many an evening thinking about the journey, smoking the rest of my stash, reading Arthur Miller (All My Sons) and fantasising wildly.  There was a small matter of a 52 hour journey back to Bombay to content with first - and with a seat rather than a sleeper bearth.  That was all to come.

 

i predict a riot

So - Madurai is famous for its fantastically painted temples. Little was said of it's 50/50 racial mix - Hindu/Muslim and what happens if one side suffers an assasination the day that I arrive in town.

I'd arrived early in the morning and watched the sun rise over a station concourse that was littered with people, all wrapped up in grey cloths and blankets.

 

The temples are, indeed, spectacular. There's a great deal of prostrating oneself and walking around pillars numerous times.   I have one particular memory of a algae-infested water tank in one.  I might be wrong.

The Temple Market is also tremendously famous, lined, as it is, by tailors and other cloth-sellers.


I'm still profoundly deaf and think little of it when I find myself walking at the centre of a rather determined crowd, flying black flags and banners.  I quickly catch on when a police van flies through the centre of the crown and dispenses a large number of baton-wielding policemen.  Everyone runs in the opposite direction, including myself. 

 

Madurai goes into a degree of shutdown.  You can find yourself sitting in a bar/cafe, happily eating an onion dosa when the shutters rattle down to fend off a marrauding crowd of 'the other side'.

I'm also profoundly constipated, by the way.

What to do but checkout and head to Kerala.  A bus seems like a good idea.  If your idea of a good bus journey is a broken seat in front of you, a leaking roof and an endless array of indians wanting to sit next to you and make friends as you make your way over the Keralan mountains with the skies darkening and the temperature dropping.  Kumily (the famous hill station) passes in the torrential night and I arrive to a boxroom in Ernakulam, battered.

Am I enjoying myself?  From reading all of this, I'm really not quite sure.

MahabaliMamalapuram

Two things - the way I say the word Mahabalipuram always makes U laugh.  And this is, I think, the episode I tell people about the most.  Because it was the most horrific.

After J was gone there was a powercut. The perfect opportunity for me to contemplate the next 5-6 weeks entirely alone. 

My first step, in the morning, was to plan and execute my trip to Mahabalipuram, via Madras.  The famous shore temples were supposed to be the 'must see' sight of Tamil Nadu.  My account of getting there is full of heat, frustration and bangle-sellers.  My rhetoric is all about being 'confusedly hassled'.  First impressions of the town appear to be good but am immediately conned into staying at a homestay under false pretences.  Mr Neelankandan will remain, however, close to my heart for reeasons that will become apparent.

The most stereotypical array of travellers proceeded to career into view.  There was the yogic American called Brad.  There were the gaggle of Australian girls who particularly caught Brad's eye - "The ocean is my guru".  And there was Jim.  More on Jim no doubt later.

There seems to be an increasing impatience with Indian tourists and a need to find peace and quiet.  It's clearly very hot indeed and my cough is getting worse and worse.  The food, it seems, is good - apart from a head attached to a grilled fish. 

The 'tipping point' day was filled with unease, pain and inability to settle.  I go for a walk to clear my head and am picked up by "Mr Glastonbury" and put on the back of his bike and taken to the doctors.  50 Rps of drugs are dispensed, taken home and thrown up again.  An Australian Hippy administers a face massage.  And it gets worse.

Before I know it I'm in hospital being injected, blood tested and dripped.  My reflections are not of being at all alarmed - just deliriously going with the flow.  I had my own room with a lock and constant visitors and attention - notably from the Australian Girls, Jim and Mr N.  There's been a bubonic plague outbreak.  Incoming visitors to the country are being fumigated, outgoing tourists are being blood tested and television sets are being exchanged for 1,000 dead rats apiece. 

And there's a little boy called Hari Krishna who's Uncle is in the next room after a motorbike accident who brings me Tamil comics to read.

And I'm going profoundly deaf.

It seems my stoicism is being read in backpacker circles as great bravery.  It is, of course, nothing of the sort.  But the whole experience is nothing short of miserable.  I get out after five days - after x-rays and ear gouging and a 3,000 Rp bill.  Jim and Mr N walk me slowly home, stopping along the way to chat to people and look at stone carvings - mainly chillums for Jim.

A community art project is being undertaken in Jim's room - a mandala begun by Brad and radically improved by Jim who spends hours working on it wearing nothing but a small pair of blue shorts.

And I prepare to leave.  Mr N firmly believes that I should, in the least, send him a walkman when I return home.  Mrs N just thinks money will do.  And so, with sore tonsils and ongoing grumpiness at the people who continually hinder my (deaf) path with diversions to money-changers and dope dealers, I leave for Madurai.

Picking up a newspaper somewhere along the way I discover that there is now a moratorium on killing rats and that the best way to deal with delays on the railways is to set the train on fire.

Memories.  Dreams of having to return to India and finding myself back there already.  Mr N, appearing at my bedroom door each evening, bare chested with his face painted, giving puja.  Jim's shorts.

Hampi or bust

 

Hampi remains, many years later, one of the best experiences of my life. 

We stayed one night in Hospet - not the most inspiring of towns - mainly a stopping-off point for Hampi - as demonstrated by a couple who were daytripping to Hampi every day.

My diary refers to it, over and over, as 'Indiana Jones-like'.  The enormous boulders, strewn across the landscape.  The thirteenth century temples, Elephant Stables, Queen's Bath and singing stones.  The 'main drag' of a few shops and stalls with an enormous temple and town 'water tank' at the far end.  And Gopis - our hangout of choice.  And the cheapest room I've stayed in in my life - RajSingh's (or something).  A small cafe and a few bare rooms.  20 rps a night.  Monkeys everywhere.  But at least the place had hot water which you threw over yourself with a bucket.

J amused himself somewhat with some British Girls  that we'd met.  One, he maintained, was the spitting image of Patsy Kensit.  Lots of 'caram' in the cafe and bikerides out into the desert.

We both had 'daytrips' into Hospet for trouser-making, ticket booking and money-changing.  Mine was dominated by a chap called Vittl who insisted on escorting me everywhere, pissing in the street, ordering double for lunch and insisting that I came to his house for dinner.  J displayed his usual supportive charms by saying that he'd have happily let me go alone whilst he feigned illness.

 

I'd imagine that Hampi is a bit more touristified these days.  Then it was the last stop saloon.  Fights in the street between hammered indians and stoned hippy travellers.  Waves of dog barking in the streets, heralding the approach or departure of a visitor.  Monkeys coming into your room to steal things.  An ever-increasing entourage of visitors, every morning, from Shankar the massage and chillum guy through to the bread/pie/cake guy.  And every day marked with breakfast at RS's, chillin' in the room, climbing up to the temple and dinner at Gopis.



We'd spend hours, sitting on the side of a mountain, talking nonsense, writing postcards and poems, smoking and drinking 'bang lassis'. 

My diary shows signs of irritation on both sides.  J's womanising, 'go it alone' attitude and miserliness might have, in fact, caused problems further down the line - but it didn't because we were only together for 18 days. 

But all in all - a remarkable week - fondly remembered.

And indeed - after a quick trip to Mysore and the now-famous Bangalore, he was gone.  I was on my own.

PostScript.  I've just discovered, in looking for pictures online, that Hampi Bazaar is gone - bulldozed in 2011 as part of a government order to 'protect' the historic site.  The pictures online are truly sad and shocking.  All gone.  Never to return.

Back Packed

I kept closely-scribed diaries for the totality of my backpacking.  I never intended to transcribe them and I won't start now.  They remain intensely embarrassing reading but an interesting insight into Me Then.

I arrived in Bombay airport around, I think, seven hours early.  This was before the days of email and text messaging and my arrangement with J to meet was therefore seven hours out of date.


So there I was, mulling over a tricky and painful goodbye with U, an extraordinary Summer, a flight filled with paranoid dreams of spending the next five months on my own whilst everyone else paired off and had the most wonderful of times and doggedly refusing to drink any water - in Bombay airport.  Each fly that landed on me filled me with malarial dread and I moved from plastic seat to plastic seat, ploughing my way through Erica Jong's "How to Save your Own Life".

And then J turned up three hours early, announcing that he'd been here all night.....

And so the adventure began.  J had already been in the country for a few weeks and, seeing that this was his second visit, he was the expert.  Expert in haggling with an Indian accent, smoking weed and planning the next leg of the trip, three days in advance, at knock-down pricing.

Bombay was utterly ghastly.  The slums, the con-artists, the crowds, the drunks and dope-fiends.  Very little to see or do (apart from an art gallery dedicated, rather, to Rajiv Ghandi and a Dhobi Ghat not worth the hour's drive) and very little opportunity for escape as our first bus tickets out of town were double-booked. 

The eventual bus journey to Goa was doubly ghastly.  It took, my diary reminds me, three hours to get out of Bombay ('If making money is a sin, welcome to hell').  The roads were so bad that your head would hit the ceiling when you went over a bump.  I was starting to seriously regret my decision to come to India and to chose J as my travelling companion.

 

Things picked up a little in Goa.  J, it transpired, was something of a backpacker lethario.  And Goa was full of similar types and overly tanned women.  Excessive drinking and smoking was done at a place on the beach called 'Pasta Hut' and the recovery was one in a concrete hut on a street upon which fish dried in the sun.  The mosquito net would glower down on you during the night and the travellers tales were recounted, for good and bad, into the night.  The famous 'ear cleaners' prowled the beaches and I reminded myself that I didn't want to come back from my travels hating my travelling companion, like my brother did.  I started to relax a little and accept J's ways and India's many many ways.

Eight days in.

Interlude 2

I guess I have fewer regrets about the period since the last Interlude.  The mistakes I made resulted in learnings that I grew from.  I still had many discoveries to make but I had fewer regrets.  There are things that I would have done differently.  But knowing that made me stronger.

The smallest regret was my educational achivement.  I had excelled at school and achieved outstanding results.  At university I excelled in other ways.  I made friends where I expected to find none.  I stretched myself in trying new things and many gave me experience that I draw upon today.  I continued to develop my particular brand of loyalty and friendship and my own brand of me.

No regrets.

The final blow-out

So - that's it?  Over?  Well - not quite.

The final hurrah of University life was a trip to Edinburgh for the festival.  Those final few terms were spent in the company of budding theatricals, as we know.  This was the greatest of opportunities to not say goodbye.  We cajoled the Union into giving us some underwriting and a minibus and I cajoled a foundation into giving us some money and rehearsals commenced for 'Cuckoo'.



Casting was controversial.  Previous favourites were overlooked and newbies ended up in leading roles as Indians and Nurses (work it out).

I moved digs, continued a relentless programme of garlic cooking, smoking, drinking and rehearsing and we were off.  I was the first driver....

The extent of C's resistance to roadtravel was not fully apparent to me.  She had been in a serious car crash on her gap year and has remained a nervous traveller since.  She sat in the seat behind the driver's steadily drinking.  And singing.  I, in the meantime, couldn't find the fullbeam of the headlights and the night was closing in.

It's extraordinary to me that a bunch of students can work out how to book venues, marketing and accomodation in another city, let alone pack a roofrack on a minibus.  But we made it in one piece, driving through the night, and arriving for a tech rehearsal at a converted leisure centre, early in the morning.

The show itself was a triumph - uncharacteristically sold out for a student show in Edinburgh.  As memorable as all that was, the trip was memorable for so many other reasons.

Scampi and Chips after every show, with a lot of drinking.  Starting at about 230pm.

Everyone coming up to see the show from home.   Sleeping in the corridor, in cupboards and, of course, in other people's beds.

Nurse Ratched's endless shagging of her boyfriend.  Endless.

The teriffic reviews that decided to single out our Billy for sole criticism - resulting in a meltdown (and a pickup) that last through until 5 minutes before the next performance.

My brother and his girlfriend even came.  Cue a very nice dinner (and the discovery of warm brie salad) and a very raucous evening at the Fringe Club (lots of shouting down free mike standups - to the extent that we got told off by another patron).

Lots and lots of inhaling.

A trip to Roslyn Chapel long before Da Vinci Code.

Stubbing a cigarette out in C's eye.  A trip to hospital and a lifetime of recrimination ensued.

Getting slagged off by the show that was after us - for our pretentious warmups and our postshow rounds of self-congratulation.  Their criticism was justified.

The stars in the Gilded Balloon Bar.  Bill went one step too far and got lambasted by Mark Lamarr.

The ceiling falling in on our digs.

The constant harranging of the cast to 'do some flyering'.  They must have done because we sold out!

The discovery of Fecund Theatre, Ertha Kitt doing James Joyce and, more important than anything, "The Night that Larry Kramer Kissed Me".

And the long drive home.  Dropping people off as we went.  Overshooting my own home for a final night or two in my now ex University Town.  A final drink or two at the pub where I'd developed the most shocking of habits (pints, cockles and drunkenly telling the barmaid all my problems).  A round of words-lite goodbyes.  A taxi arrival.  And gone.

Over already?

It's strange to be writing about the 'final furlong' of University so quickly.  For what was, undoubtedly, a transformative time in my time, to not have laden the pages to which it pertains with more significance and drama seems wrong.  But, as you know, you don't know that these are times of significance and change at the time.   You just live it.

The final furlong, prior to a trip to Edinburgh, was significant for a number of reasons.  Firstly, was my forays into theatre.  Secondly, was the fact that I stayed, for the majority of the time, in my house in Southampton, under the guise of studying for finals.



I, in fact, spent the majority of the time watching movies (I was particularly keen on mid afternoon sessions with "Stand by Me", a bottle of red and a packet of fags, on the sofa), jerking off, and hosting three-day long parties.

The parties were mainly lunches that turned into so much more.  Only once were particularly strong substances used to aid staying power.  You could do three dayers in those days with little assistance.  For some reason the smell of garlic always reminds me of this time.  All the cooking that I did, in that period, involved garlic - a new discovery for me, after years of suburban, 70s, overcooked, unseasoned teatimes.

 

My studies, of course, suffered.  One particular essay was turned out in under a day and the read-through and checking process involved pressing 'spellcheck', printing and submitting.  On reflection, a 'pass' for that particular essay was generous.  It makes me cringe now though.  A prior engagement in the pub with Ch seemed more pressing at the time.

The final night with U was one of particular carnage.  Vodka shots at the top of the evening.  Sitting in the bath, crying and saying 'what will I do now?' ended it.  That's not before I summonded up the energy, however, to shimmy along the neighbours wall, in search of a nearby party, only to end up in the pond.  I was meeting my parents the next morning - something I somehow managed to do after waking up on U's floor, fully clothed.

 

My substandard degree was, of course, a disappointment and my closing interview with my tutor was a non-event, softened by the pint(s) I'd had prior.  It was further softened by the fact that all my friends, whose essays I'd diligently proof-read for them, got 2.1s, but that my brother got a 2.2 too.  I'm sure he didn't have half as much fun as I did. 

It wasn't over yet.  Four weeks of rehearsing for and performing in Edinburgh awaited.  And, after that India.  The three years were kind of over but they provided a trajectory into the next five years without much of a pause for breath.....

Glee?

I knew, even when joining the University Orchestra (which involved lots of sitting at the back, falling asleep), the Film Club (which involved a bizarre ritual of throwing balled-up newspaper across the auditorium before 'curtain up'), Parachuting Club (multiple trips to goodness-knows-where, to get shouted at by an ex-military type, only to not jump out of a plan) and Light Opera Society (one evening of Gondoliers choruses, an excrutiating night at the bar and never again), I knew that what I really wanted to do was the Theatre Group. 

I'd unsuccessfully auditioned in the First Year (for some Ionesco-esque studenty nonsense) only to get knocked back, never to return.  The Theatre Group were inevitably, from thereon, a group of snooty, tie-dyed, purple hair-streaked morons, who's productions were not going to have their doors darkened by me.  My own theatre-going had already advanced from the early days of Starlight Express to Lettuce and Lovage in a relatively short amount of time.  My poor father remains scarred, to this day, by the memory of a trip to London, with me, to go and look at the fronts of West End Theatres, one-by-one.

But it was the part of Howard in 'Death of a Saleman' that was my breakthrough moment.  The PostGrad Willy Loman's views on interpretation often wildly diverted from that of the clueless Director (who's Happy was cast on his jock-like looks, only to be replaced a short distance down to the line) and the asethetic and technical vision was non-existent.  My only scene involved my playing recordings of my children to the soon to be fired Loman, the 'tape' being inconsistently shouted from the wings by an occasionally-present friend of the Directors.

But it was what I needed to break the clique. 

I'd already told a disgusted flatmate that my ambition was to direct 'Bent'.  He declared that 'he didn't agree with plays like that' and said that he was deeply unlikely to attend as a result.

I was single-minded in my focus.  Although casting was something of a catastrophe (all three of my leads had to be recast thanks to the competing production of 'Troilus and Cressida' that was being delivered, by the aforementioned Willy Loman, in the Main House) I managed to pull together a group who were as passionate about the piece, in the end, as I was.

I had a view on everything.  The poster, the set, the stripes in the concentration camp uniforms, the programme, the lighting, the music, the sound, the party.  I dived into some misery-making research and had numerous sleepless nights thanks to the oft-absence of my leading man (Ch... - still grieving from the death of his mother and flaky beyond belief - at one point falling asleep in the loo between scenes).  It was the third year of my degree but this was the important undertaking in my life.

It was 1993.  Gay plays were, indeed, being produced at the National Theatre these days.  Ian McKellen was long 'out' but not everyone was.  The pink-starred posters, around campus, caused something of a rumpus in some areas.  And ticket sales in the first instance were slow.

And on the first night, in the first scene, the three-quarters full audience laughed.  Granted there were jokes in the first scene.  I can't say I realised - it took me quite by surprise.  Some girls in the front row sighed at R's death as Wolf.  And at the end, with Ch's death.  There was silence.  Then applause.  Then total crazines.  People loved it.  I was utterly shell-shocked and shrugged off the plaudits in the Union Bar.  The second night saw one of the original Theatre Clique in tears.  And the third and last night was packed.  To the rafters.  I'd held the curtain so my family could come and I could only find a place to sit on the steps.

My brother shoved a massive bottle of Southern Comfort in my hand at the end. My mother said something awkward about it being OK as long as the boys weren't doing it for real.  And my flatmate was saying that it was the best thing that he'd seen in his life.  He was collecting autographs from the cast.  And from me.