In that period of my life, I was entirely entranced by Billie Holiday, and my favourite song was Solitude. My girlfriend always asked me to sing it to her. I sang it over and over.

Eventually, we broke up, and she moved out and went her own way, but a few months later, she called me out of the blue and said she was afraid and asked if she could come stay with me for a few days.

She was having headaches and problems with her memory. We took her to the doctor, who sent her to the hospital, where they told us she had a brain tumour. It was inoperable, but they might be able to treat it with radiotherapy.

The treatment didn’t work out, and her memory and her headaches got worse, and eventually she slipped into unconsciousness.

Her parents flew over from Malta and came to stay with me in my little apartment, and one by one, her friends and relatives from all over the world came to join us sitting by Rita’s bedside.

We sat by her bed for days and weeks and months, and every now and again, she would drift back into our lives and say a few words before drifting back into the twilight. One day, she slept and didn’t wake up again.

I used to sing to her while she slept her deep sleep – especially when we were alone, just Rita and I. One day, one last time, she spoke to me.

“What’s that song? I know that song.”

“It’s Solitude by Billie Holiday.”

“It’s a beautiful song. My boyfriend used to sing it to me.”

Then she went back to sleep. She didn’t wake up any more.

I promised that I’d never forget you, Rita. I kept my promise.

— 1980 —

As usual, I did no classwork or homework in her class. None at all. But I was the only one to get a decent grade in the final exam. I got 70%, John got 57%. The class average was 34%.

Ms McDonnell accused me of cheating and reported me to Mr Gooden, my form teacher. Mr Gooden checked my books and asked me some physics questions to check that I knew what I was supposed to know. I had done precisely zero homework for the entire year, but I hadn’t cheated. I knew all the answers.

When Mr Gooden found that I hadn’t done any work, he made me do a whole year of physics in the last two weeks of school.

After the end-of-year exams, we always had two or three weeks with no work to do. We just hung out in the sunshine and had fun, but this year I sat at the back of Mr Gooden’s chemistry class to catch up on the work I had skipped.

Mr Gooden was teaching an older class to prepare them for university. They barely knew anything, so when they didn’t know the answer, he asked me.

Gooden: “What’s the by-product of fermentation?

Silence. No one knows.

Gooden: Kevin?

Me: Carbon Dioxide, sir.

Gooden: Well done, Kevin.



Gooden: What is that carbon dioxide used for?

Silence.

Gooden: Kevin?

Me: To pressurise the kegs, sir.

Gooden: That’s good, Kevin.

This went on for several days. I knew all the answers, and they knew nothing.

My Dad had bought me an American college textbook on organic chemistry for Christmas that year. I could’ve easily done A-level chemistry when I was 14, but that wasn’t an option — and for the next two years of school, I did practically zero work and never even took a book home.

Someone sent me Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens to read.

A woman is sitting in her garden. She’s having coffee and oranges. There’s fruit on the trees, and a cockatoo. Lovely, I thought. It all sounds very nice. But so what?

I struggled through the poem until…

Death is what?

I have experienced plenty of beauty in my life. It was all very nice, but what does death have to do with it? Does death create beauty? Would we still have beauty if we did not have death? Why can’t we have mystic beauty forever?

I had to start over to find the answers.

Our lady is sitting in her garden on a Sunday morning, when she is supposed to be in church. She is enjoying the beauty and her dreams, until the dark dreams start to creep in.

What is that old catastrophe? It’s death, isn’t it? Death is coming.

At first, she is afraid and mourns the things that will be lost when she leaves this life behind. Her delightful garden. Her cockatoo.

Christians tell us life is just a brief preamble while we wait for everlasting life in heaven. But how do we know heaven is coming? We have no evidence for it. People talk about it, and we can dream about it. But how do we know?

The narrator reminds us there is plenty of beauty to cherish here on Earth, without thoughts of heaven. Plenty of natural beauty. Plenty of ripe fruit.

Would we want life to be all delightful, all the time? Heaven is supposed to be always joyful, but I expect it would get boring without the ups and downs that we experience down here on Earth. We need some bad to highlight the good.

Would we even recognise the good without the bad to contrast with it? Do they even have bad in heaven? Or is it just good that goes on forever and ever?

Just imagine. You wake up on a Sunday morning, and there’s coffee and oranges, and then the same thing the next day. And the day after that. And this will go on forever because you are immortal now.

We need to experience the ups and downs to really appreciate the ups. It will soon get boring if every day is filled with sunshine.

Lao Tzu had something to say about this.

A first reading of Lao Tzu says that perhaps if we get rid of beauty, it will save us from the negative emotions that come with ugliness. But do we really want to get rid of beauty?

This takes us back to the lines that helped me understand what Sunday Morning is all about.

We can’t appreciate the good without some bad to contrast with it, and death is the worst bad of all. The promise of death encourages us to cherish life with all its beauty. Without death to focus our desires, the beauty will lose its charm.

The Art of Manliness (AofM) had a piece about how the lives of men in the early 20th century were different from those of young men who came of age in the 21st century. Young men of old got some living done before they found their calling while young men of today go straight from school to university to a job. Journalists and novelists too.

How do they know what to write about?

The Art of Manliness article begins with vignettes of some famous men whose early lives were different from yours.

Before Steve McQueen’s 18th birthday, he had worked on a farm, joined a circus, sold pens at a traveling carnival, hitchhiked and rode the rails across the country, worked as a lumberjack in Canada, labored on a chain gang in the Deep South (punishment for the crime of vagrancy), served a short (and illegal — he was underage) stint in the Merchant Marine, and joined the Marine Corps for a three-year enlistment. After getting out of the service, the newly-minted veteran moved to New York City, where, as reported in Steve McQueen: In His Own Words, “He handcrafted sandals, lugged radiators out of condemned buildings, loaded bags in a post office, ran errands for a local bookie, recapped tires in a garage, sold encyclopedias door-to-door, made artificial flowers in a musty basement, sold pottery in a large department store, and repaired television sets.” Before he finally found success as an actor, McQueen would also drive and repair taxi cabs, sling drinks as a bartender, and try his hand at laying tile.

The Art of Manliness

Steve McQueen finally settled down to become one of the greatest actors of the 20th century.

Sean Connery has a similar backstory…

Royal Navy at 16, milkman, lifeguard, truck driver, labourer, and artist’s model.

Jack London too…

Worked in a cannery, electrical plant & laundry; taught himself to sail; was an oyster pirate; was arrested for vagrancy; sailed the Pacific on a seal-hunting schooner, and went to the Klondike in search of gold.

…and Paul Newman and Earnest Hemingway and Ralph Elison. They all have stories to tell about the lives they lived before they became famous.

Like Sean Connery, I joined the Royal Navy at 16. I sailed to the Falklands at 18. I patrolled the ocean on a Polaris submarine at 21 and left the Navy as a Midshipman at 22. My next job was fixing radios on planes and repairing satellite navigation on oil tankers all around Europe. By the time I was 24, I had backpacked around the world and started my second career as a software engineer. I’ve lived in four countries, four states, thirteen cities and fifteen towns. I’ve worked on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and the City of London. I am a restless soul and I hope I have not reached the end of my journey yet.

The gist of the Art of Manliness article is that, up until about 30 years ago, smart people had options at the end of high school that didn’t involve spending 4 years at college followed by 30 years climbing the greasy pole. Millennials feel they no longer have those options and adventures are discouraged. What changed? How did this happen?

My daughter told me that, for someone of her generation, university is compulsory or your life is screwed. At the end of school, while Corrine, Alison, Karl and Roger went to Oxbridge, I joined the Navy to do an apprenticeship. Leslie joined the Coldstream Guards, Ruth became a nurse, while John and Sean went to work in the financial district in London. Financial traders in London back then would hire you at 16 or 18 if you were smart enough, but none of this can happen these days because no one will hire you without a degree.

Did the jobs all get harder, or did employers get lazy about finding smart eighteen-year-olds?

The second big difference is that parents are so protective now. Back then, kids used to slip out after breakfast and had to “come home before the lights come on”. These days, kids are not allowed to leave their front gardens — not that they would want to when there are video games to be played.

The laws don’t help.

It is child neglect to leave a minor under 14 years of age “without supervision for an unreasonable period of time without regard for the mental or physical health, safety, or welfare of that minor.”

Illinois Legal Aid Online

Almost everyone who went to school in the 1970s came home to an empty house. I forgot my key once when I was seven and shinned up the drainpipe to climb in the bathroom window. Your parents would be arrested now if you did this in Chicago.

I got a Red Bus Rover ticket and toured London with Matt, my next door neighbour. I was ten, he was eight. Mum said we couldn’t take Maeve, because she was only six. One time, my mum made fun of me when I was ten, because I wouldn’t go to the doctor on my own. She called me a big baby.

I was in The Three Tuns recently chatting with two blokes who were working on a building site. The older one was about my age, and we took turns to tell little stories of our youthful adventures around the world. The other bloke was in his twenties, and he just stood open-mouthed the whole time. He said adventures like these weren’t possible anymore.

I think it’s a great shame. I think adventures like ours allowed us to live life in a way that younger generations have missed out on. I wonder if those freedoms will ever come back.

If you are not tired of hearing my adventures, there are more stories here:

My first job after I left the navy was fixing aircraft radios at Heathrow with occasional trips over to France to repair satellite systems on ships. I hated the job, and quit after just 3 months. My next big idea was to learn software engineering, and I signed up for an adult education class in Whitechapel, London.

The class next door was a Women into Technology class, and our two classes hung out together at The Lord Rodney pub on the Mile End Road. I got on well with a Maltese girl named Rita, and we decided to get a flat together in Stepney. By the time we moved in, we decided we only needed one bedroom.

Fast-forward a year and we both got jobs in the City of London, but Rita was a restless soul. She moved on, and I found a new flatmate.

A few months later, Rita knocked on my front door.

I’m not feeling so good. I’m getting headaches and I keep forgetting things. Do you mind if I stay with you for a few days?

The next day, Rita went to the doctor to get checked out, and the doctor sent her to the Royal London Hospital where she had a scan. Rita had a brain tumour — a glioma. Rita’s best friend from school, Rosa, came to visit and Rosa called Rita’s parents, to tell them the bad news. A few days later, Edward and Maryanne arrived from Malta and they stayed with me in my tiny flat, too.

Rita was unable to form new memories which made for some heartbreaking moments.

Can you explain to me why I am in hospital?
Why are my parents here from Malta?
It must be serious, right?

I explained, over and over, that she had a tumour pressing on the part of her brain where memories get made, and they couldn’t remove the tumour because the operation was too dangerous. Each time I explained her situation, her heart broke a little more, but she was determined to recover. She began radiation treatment soon after. When they told her that her hair would fall out, Rita asked “Can you do my legs next?”

Over the next few weeks, it seemed like all of Rita’s relatives from New York came to visit. I’d never seen so many aunts and uncles. We all kept vigil around Rita’s bed in the hospital with occasional sanity breaks at The Lord Rodney. I introduced Edward to proper English beer, and we even watched a few live bands together. The Burns Brothers were a favourite. The Lord Rodney was a rowdy pub, and we danced on the tables while the sax player marched along the bar, kicking glasses out of the way while playing One Step Beyond.

Rosa, too, spent many long hours and days with us at the hospital. One day, Rita’s sister Georgina came to visit from Malta, and Rosa and I went to pick her up from the airport. I gave up my bed for Georgina and her boyfriend, and I slept on my flatmate’s floor for a week.

Georgina idolized her big sister. She got to see Rita while she was still relatively well but after Georgina went home, Rita began to decline quite quickly, and soon drifted off to sleep. She didn’t wake up again. After some terrifying days in intensive care, Rita was transferred to hospice, and died a few weeks later.

The bureaucracy after someone dies is oppressive, and multiplied by ten when the funeral is in another country. But we all made it to Malta eventually. Rita’s funeral was unbearably beautiful and the church in Marsa was overflowing.

A few of Rita’s friends from London came with us to Malta, and Georgina was our guide, taking us on a tour of Valletta and to the beach at Sliema. One time we were waiting on the bus from Floriana.

Georgina: Does anyone want a newspaper?
Us: No, thanks.
Georgina: Really? Nobody wants one?
Us: No, we are good thanks.
Georgina: Well, I do!

We got off the bus to buy The Times for Georgina to read on the beach.

This became a theme in our lives where Maltese people don’t like to ask for what they want and make you guess from obscure hints that you have no chance of interpreting correctly. It never ended as well as that first time.

Since we were honoured guests, Maryanne cooked us a special dinner and sent Edward to bang on neighbours’ doors to ask if they had any rabbits. He came back with a paper bag full of rabbits and put them on the floor in the kitchen. We had a fun time catching the rabbits after they rabbits escaped. But… a few swift whacks on the back of the neck, and we soon had a delicious rabbit stew. “I think I am eating Flopsy” said Mike. The rest of us wiggled our noses the way Flopsy might have done if she wasn’t in the stew.

On the days when the sadness became too much, I went out on the tarazzin to play my harmonica. Georgia on my Mind was a favourite and I played the Billie Holiday version.

Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still, in peaceful dreams, I see
The road leads back to you

As I played, Georgina poked her head out of the bathroom window.

You are playing my song.

We kissed later that night.

Georgina was pretty beaten up at losing her sister and we decided a trip to England would do her good. Her mum was not happy.

I already lost one daughter who went to England. I am not losing another.

We were determined, though, and Georgina came to stay with me in my flat in Stepney. We went to shows in the West End. We went shopping in Petticoat Lane. We went to stay in a B&B in Alfriston, and enjoyed the best blues singer ever to sing at a zoo.

We soon became lovers.

Eventually, Georgina went back to Malta, and we spent the next year travelling back and forth on Air Malta: three or four trips to Malta; three or four trips to London and a letter every week in between. After a year or so, we wondered where all this was headed and agreed to give it a serious try. Georgina came to London for six weeks to see if we could make it work.

Within a couple of weeks, we hated each other.

One time, we were on our way to meet my workmates at The Three Johns in Islington. Georgina didn’t want to go so I showed her where to get off the tube for Stepney and continued on my own. When I got home my flatmate, Jacko, was mad at me for abandoning her and called me a dick. Georgina threatened to set fire to our Alfriston photos with a lighter in her hand and flames in her eyes.

We agreed that Georgina should go back to Malta on the next flight and we’d never see each other ever again. No writing. No phone calls. Nothing. We would just get on with our lives.

I went back to music and fun times at The Lord Rodney. Life was different, but it was OK.

A few months later — a couple of days after Christmas — I went to The Lord Rodney, with Tony, Griz & Luke, to see The Burns Brothers. It was a busy night and everyone danced on the tables, holding on to the low ceiling for support. On the table opposite was a beautiful girl in a black dress making eyes at me as we clapped along to Jackie Wilson Said.

Tony leaned over and whispered, “I think you are going to get lucky tonight”.

“I can’t do it.” I said. “I still love Georgina.”

The morning after, I went to the travel agent.

“I want to get married in paradise. Somewhere beautiful.”
“How about Jamaica?”
“Sounds good. Reserve it for me and I’ll confirm in a couple of days.”

The next day was New Year’s Eve and I called Georgina in the evening. She was all sad and all alone as the rest of the family was out on the town. It was the first time we had talked since September.

“We are getting married on the beach in Jamaica. Are you in?”
“Yes!”
“Brilliant! We are getting married in March.”

I quit my job, gave up my lease and we met at my mother’s house in Kent a couple of days before we were due to fly out to Jamaica. Georgina’s mum called to wish us the best and, a couple of minutes into the call, Georgina said:

“My mum is crying because she can’t come to our wedding. Can she come?”.
“Sure!”

Then my mum started crying too.

“How come she gets to come but I don’t?” (sob).
“You can come too, mum.”

We flew to Jamaica the next day, narrowly dodging the hurricane, and our parents joined us a few days later. We stayed at Sandals in Montego Bay.

The first order of business was to arrange the wedding. Julia organised it for us.

Flowers? Tropical or Pastel?
Tropical.

Video? Photographer?
Sure. Both.

Music? Calypso? Reggae? Ska?
Calypso.

Are you sure? Calypso is all boom, shacka shacka! Bing! Bing! Whoo!
OK, ska.

Cake?
Yes, please!

Does the nineteenth of March work for you?
Sure! That’s my birthday!

The big day came and Georgina was NERVOUS. Georgina doesn’t drink, but our barman thought a tropical cocktail with lashings of rum — a Monkey Fiddle — might calm her down. A few sips and Georgina had to be carried to bed. She recovered just in time for “‘ere come de bride” and her father walked her down the aisle.

Wedding dresses were rare at Sandals — most brides get married in white bikinis with matching veils — but Georgina and her mum had made one. Most couples don’t have their parents there either. We so impressed the Reverend Whatsisname, that he gave us the full Anglican service. Most couples get a quick “I do” and “Kiss the bride”, but we got the whole Book of Common Prayer.

With this ring I thee wed; with my body I thee honour; and all my worldly goods with thee I share.

For as much as Kevin and Georgina have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth, each to the other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving a Ring, and by joining hands; I pronounce that they are Man and Wife.

The band was special too. Three Jamaican dudes with a combined age of 270. One sat on an orange box, playing drums. Another played a homemade bass with two strings.

Last night I went to de doctor.
To find out what de matter.
De doc, he told me, “Son!
I think you need a wife.”

Newly married couples at Sandals get whisked off to a special wedding dinner at one of their fancy restaurants.

Welcome, Mr & Mrs Lawrence!
Congratulations, Mr & Mrs Lawrence!
What would Mr & Mrs Lawrence want for dinner?
Can I get Mr & Mrs Lawrence some champagne?

Our Wedding in Paradise was delightful, and we promised to come back for our 25th anniversary.

Dedicated to Dylan and Jazz.

Back in the last century, I was at home in San Jose. I was enjoying a little romance and when I lifted my head to gaze into my true love’s eyes, I felt a shock of lightning and the world started spinning. I felt very ill but I didn’t tell anyone and got back to my romance.

A few years later, I was fixing the garbage disposal. I was lying under the sink and when I lifted my head to see the pipe, I felt that same shock of lightning. Like an axe handle to the side of my head. The room span. It felt like I’d had one bottle of vodka too many. Like when you get off the spinning Waltzer fairground ride you should never have ridden in the first place.

I discovered that I could stop and start the spinning just by moving my head a few inches to the left and I managed to finish fixing the garbage disposal without passing out.

This time though, I went to see Dr Griffith.

“Oh, it’s just vertigo. If you like, I can put you in this chair and spin you around until you puke. You’ll feel much better.”
“Er. No thanks, Doc.”
“Oh, OK. Probably nothing anyway. Let me know if you ever want me to spin you around in that chair!”

Twenty years later, I still get this vertigo when I try to fix a curtain rail or hang a picture but when it happens, I know how to stop it now. Is it a symptom? Who knows?

Another year went by and I started getting this itchy feeling in my legs. I say itchy but… Imagine a swarm of African Fire Ants crawling up and down your legs all night. The only way to stop the itch is to march frantically up and down the bedroom while rubbing your legs. If I stop the marching, the ants come back.

I went to see Dr Griffith again.

“It’s probably an allergy. Try some camomile lotion.”
“Could it be Restless Leg Syndrome?”, I asked.
“It could be malingering. I’d stay off The Google if I were you.”

The itching stopped after a week or so anyway.

The next incident was about halfway along our 150-mile drive to Fresno to collect our lovely new puppy. My Little Clown and I stopped on the way to get a sandwich and as we walked to our table, I said “Ooh. I feel a bit dizzy. I need to sit down.” Jazz told me that I passed out and then went into a kind of spasm with my head in my sandwich for about 30 seconds while she cried. The staff and customers in the crowded Subway restaurant walked past my 13-year-old daughter and watched her cry while her dad had a grand mal seizure on the table.

We were nearly in Fresno though so we continued to Rusty the Cockapoo Breeder’s house to collect the Best Puppy in the World and drove home without incident. When we got home, I went to see Dr Griffith again.

Dr Griffith said, “Oh. Grand Mal seizure. That could be serious.” He shone a bright light in my eyes and asked me a few questions. “It’s probably nothing. Let me know if it happens again”, he said.

Fast forward a few years to a life in another country and I started to smell phantom smells.

“Is anyone making toast?”
“No, dear.”
“Do we have new flowers?”
“No new flowers.”
“Are you making my favourite soup?”
“I’m not.”

We thought about going to see the doctor but about that time, the government said we had to stay indoors because of COVID and we definitely shouldn’t go to the doctor’s unless it was super-urgent. Eventually, I got COVID and all my smells went away, phantom or otherwise. I forgot all about it for a year or so.

I’ve been a Sir Ernest Shackleton fan since I visited his grave in Grytviken, South Georgia in 1984 and I have long been an admirer of his jumpers (AKA sweaters) so I got myself one. It smelled of lanolin and dead sheep.

If you are an old-time explorer on a voyage to the South Pole, it’s probably fine if your jumper smells of lanolin and dead sheep but my wife didn’t like it and she made me leave my jumper outside. A few days later though, the smell came back.

“Did you bring my jumper in?”
“No, it’s still outside.”
“I think I should call the doctor.”

Smelling flowers and delicious soup is one thing but smelling dead sheep all day long is much less pleasant and I suspected something might be up. I called the doctor to make an appointment, and she said “Oh. That sounds serious. We can book you in for tomorrow morning.”

Morning comes and I go to see my new doctor.

“Phantom smells etc…”, I say.
“Hmm. Never heard of that”, the doc says.
“The Internet says it’s either diabetes or a brain tumour”
“Well, let’s do a blood test for diabetes then and hope it’s not the other thing.”
“Let’s hope!”, I agreed.

I was on my way home when she called me to say “I asked my colleague and he said you should have an MRI. I’ve booked you in for Monday.”

Monday comes. The dude operating the MRI was brilliant (they always are). Lots of jokes and he explained how it all worked. “Are you allowed to look at the results?” I asked. “I am allowed”, he laughed. “But I’m not allowed to tell you!”

As I was walking home, the radiology department called me. “Can you come back tomorrow? They need to do another scan with contrast.”

“Uh! Oh!” I said.

After tomorrow’s scan, we met our neighbours at the Grain Barge for a beer on the way home from the hospital, and my doc called me while I was there.

“Are you somewhere you can talk, Mr Clown?”
“I’m at the pub. I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”
“Are you with someone?”
(uh! oh!) “I’m with my wife.”
“I’m sorry, Mr Clown, but you have a brain tumour. I don’t know any more than that but someone will call you soon to make an appointment with the neurosurgeon. kthxbai.”

Mrs Clown made that noise that Iranian women make when a national hero dies.

Do you have any idea how slowly two weeks pass when you are waiting to hear surprises about your brain tumour? Anyway. The neurosurgeon says…

“It’s a glioma. Three lobes. Size of two golf balls. I can remove it if you like. You’ll have the surgery while you are awake so I can prod your brain to see which bits are safe to chop out.”
“Will you remove all of the tumour?”
“No, just a little bit.”
“No thanks then.”

The Internet says that if your tumour is in three or more lobes, it’s called a gliomatosis cerebri which is a 1 in 10,000,000 diagnosis. It’s just me and Kristina who have one, as far as I know.

Fast-forwarding through the next couple of years:
I refused all treatment. My three lobes grew to six lobes, two hemispheres and a corpus callosum. My sense of taste broke too but then it got better.

Here I am two years later and I had my first official seizure at Christmas. Then another. Then another three on subsequent days. I was awake for all of these seizures. Each time, I drifted in and out of consciousness while my Little Clowns tried to talk to me.

Mrs Clown gave me one of those quizzes you give to people with dodgy brains. I got zero points for prime ministers and the name of our street but I almost got my birthday right and I remembered some of my family’s names. I got my favourite singer-songwriter though!

We do a similar quiz after every seizure. Sometimes I have no language at all, but it always takes a while for my speech and memory to come back. I can understand everything that is going on around me — I just can’t talk about it.

A quick aside for the philosophers among you. Philosophers argue over whether language is required for thinking. When I come out of a seizure, I can think very clearly even though I have no language. I understand everything that is going on but when I try to talk about it, it all comes out garbled. The thoughts I have in my seem like words until I try to speak them. I even tried writing them down last time but although my handwriting was lovely, I didn’t manage to write any actual words — just a long stream of random letters. Inside my head, it feels like I am thinking in words but when I try to share them with other folks, they just come out as nonsense.

My next seizure was a bit more dramatic. I didn’t know anything about it until I woke up and everyone was sitting on my bed at two o’clock in the morning.

Me: “Why is everyone sitting on my bed? Is it because you love me very much?”
Little Clown: “No, it’s because you had a seizure. You were out for 25 minutes. We thought you were dead. The ambulance will be here in a minute.”

The ambulance folk were very nice and they did all their tests but we decided we’d rather go back to sleep than go to the hospital. We walked down to the hospital the next morning and they gave me a CT scan and blood tests, then kept me overnight for observation.

We had an appointment with the Lovely Oncologist soon after that and I surprised her (and Mrs Clown) by asking to have chemo. I started it a few months ago. It’s just a pill and probably a bit milder than the chemo you are familiar with.

After the first round of chemo, I had another seizure. This time, the ambulance folk were already there when I woke up and they were even nicer than the previous lot. After some tests, I gave them a tour of our house (we have a lovely view of the harbour), and then I had my first-ever ambulance ride. I didn’t stay the night this time but they did their tests and we came home. Back to the chemo.

So that’s where we are now. My tumour symptoms are creeping up a bit and my memory is starting to wane. I read somewhere that you can plot on a chart the number of words that Agatha Christie used in each of her books to track her decline. That’s about where I am. I have another year to go with my philosophy degree so let’s hope I don’t have to remember too much or use a lot of words.

Round three of the chemo was a bit more unpleasant than the previous rounds but it is all tolerable as long as I remember my bran flakes. I just had an MRI to see if the chemo is doing any good but apparently the NHS only has one radiologist in the whole country so I will have to wait a month to get the results.

Let’s hope they are happy results!

— 1989 —

Civilised Singapore was a bit of a shock after the wilds of Indonesia.

I got the train into the centre of Singapore, and a man at the station gathered up the poor travellers like me and gave us a floor to sleep on. I shared the floor with five or six other travellers. I didn’t get around much, except for a bit of shopping, and I had my first shower in months. I visited the Raffles Hotel for my birthday, but it was closed for renovations, so after a few days in Singapore, I got the bus to Malacca.

Malaysia was lovely too, and also very civilised. I enjoyed Kuala Lumpur and all the little villages. The Cameron Highlands were delightful: like having afternoon tea in the British Empire in 1907. On my train ride to Penang, the train was full, so I sat on the coupling between two carriages with a bunch of Malaysians. We sang through the night with guitars and lots of wine, and with our legs dangling down.

Malaysia was charming from start to finish, but not much to write a blog post about, so I had a mussaman curry in Penang, then got the bus to Thailand.

Hat Yai was a bit of a shock because Thailand was the first country where I didn’t speak the language, and no one spoke mine. I had never been to a Thai restaurant, and had no idea what Thai people ate. I finally managed some Pad Thai, then got a bus to Krabi and a ferry to Ko Phi Phi.

Ko Phi Phi is lovely beyond words. I met an Australian and a Californian on the ferry, and we agreed to share a chalet, then walked along the beach to find one. The first few were posh chalets for rich people, but as you got further along the beach, they became more like huts made of bamboo for poor people. But there was no room at the inn until the very last one: a shed with a single bed, so my new traveller friends and I put our backpacks in the shed, and we slept on the beach.

We had a wonderful time on Ko Phi Phi. My new friend from Sacramento had been in a circus back home, and he taught us to juggle and to loose rope walk (like tight rope walking, but looser). We swam lots in the Andaman Sea, and we drank lots of Mekhong Whiskey. I can still juggle and do all the tricks, and I still love Mekhong Whiskey.

The bus to the other side of Thailand was full, so I had to stand on the step on the outside of the bus, and hang on with one hand. There were four of us on the step, but no guitars this time.

Koh Samui was the first place I visited that was designed for fun times. There were only a few resorts and no airports, so hardly any proper tourists made it there. Just us backpackers. The beaches were gorgeous, the restaurants were delicious, and the nightclub was exciting.

I was at the nightclub one night with an American friend, Mark, and, after the ladyboy show, it was time to dance. Mark asked me to be his wingman when he made a move on one of the beautiful Thai women at the next table. Mark didn’t get very far with his romantic endeavours, but I became very good friends with a Cambodian woman named Noi. Noi kind of adopted me, and took me to places that tourists didn’t usually go. Noi lived in a house with those Thai women, and I spent many evenings with them. They cooked me dinner, and I helped them write letters to older European ‘boyfriends’, encouraging them to send lots and lots of money.

I enjoyed my time with Noi, but it was eventually time to move on, and I headed for Bangkok. The bus to Bangkok was full, though, so I had to stand on the step on the outside of the bus and hang on with one hand. There were four of us on the step, but no guitars this time.

Backpackers in Bangkok always stay on the Khao San Road, and a dozen backpackers shared the linoleum floor in the 40°C heat. Bangkok is an extraordinary city. The tuk-tuks, the massage parlours and the women doing tricks with ping pong balls are services you don’t find in other cities. There was one lady on the Pat Pong Road who stuck a marker pen in her lady parts, then wiggled her hips around over a sheet of card. When she was done, she held up the card, and it said “Welcome to Bangkok.”

Bangkok is a great base for seeing the rest of the country, and my first trip was to Kanchanaburi. The train looked like it was made in 1920, with wooden benches and no glass in the windows, and at each station, the carriage filled up with twenty women selling bowls of chicken, pad thai, and cups of green tea.

We chugged along for a couple of hours, but all the signs were in Thai, so I had to look for a town with a long name written in squiggles, and — hey presto! — I was in Kanchanaburi.

Kanchanaburi was wonderful. I walked down the hill to the River Kwai, where a collection of cabins floated on the river. Every morning, I woke up and dived straight into the river, then swam back for breakfast. I made friends with a gang of Thai students, and they invited me on a bus ride out to Three Pagoda Pass, on the border with Burma. It was a couple of hundred miles away, but we stopped every now and again at Buddhist temples, where they treated us as special guests.

Three Pagoda Pass has been the main route into Burma from Siam for hundreds of years and has been the scene of many a battle. It was the scene of a battle the day before we got there, too, and there were machine gun holes in the walls. We got lucky, I guess. After we snuck across the border into Burma, we were in the poorest village you can imagine. The children were barely clothed and looked like they had not eaten for days. It was all very sad.

Back to Kanchaniburi, then back to Bangkok, then off to Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai was just another city, but Chiang Rai was only a little further, and there were goats and cattle walking down the streets.

I was in a café in Chiang Rai one morning, hanging out with a Kiwi and a pair of Danish girls, when a Shan tribesman came and asked if anyone wanted to go for a trek into the Shan Hills, in the forest between Burma and Thailand.

‘Sure!’, we said.

This was one of the highlights of my adventure.

We got off the bus in a tiny market on the border with Burma. Our guide bought some rice and some vegetables, then we set off into the forests and the hills.

The Burmese hills are populated by a diversity of tribes — Shan, Karen, Hmong and Akha — and we spent each night with a different tribe, with our first night in a Shan village. The Shan were a slash-and-burn tribe who stayed in a village for a few months, then wandered off and burned down a new area of forest to make their next village. The huts were sparse — just bamboo walls with a ceiling and a floor. There was no electricity (of course), and no light after 6 pm. We slept on the bare wooden floor.

Our guide recruited a Shan tribesman to carry our stuff for us. We didn’t have a lot of stuff since we’d left our backpacks back in Chiang Rai. We just had a pot to cook our lunch, and each village gave us something to eat. Every time we stopped for a drink of water or lunch, our guide had a cigarette, and our porter bubbled up his opium pipe. He offered us a hit every time, but we’d decided ahead of time that we weren’t going to do drugs, and we declined.

I think we were the only backpackers in every café in all of Thailand who weren’t doing drugs. Opium, hash, and heroin. Cocaine and LSD. I don’t know why I decided not to do drugs, but I am very glad I did. Someone in that forest, in the group behind us, overdosed on opium and had to be rushed down to Chiang Rai, which was a day’s trek away.

On one pleasant afternoon, we spotted a beehive up in a tree, and our guide tried to dislodge it so we could have some delicious honey for our lunch. The bees, though, objected to our assault on their hive. We still got our delicious honey, but we also got covered in a lot of bee stings.

For my previous several months in Southeast Asia, I had worn espadrilles in the cities and walked barefoot out in the countryside. After a couple of days of trekking through the forest, we were walking down a hill covered in sharp rocks, so I thought it best to put on my espadrilles. But…! ‘Oops!’ I had lost an espadrille! I made myself some shoes out of banana leaves, but they didn’t do a lot of good, and I trekked the next couple of dozen miles barefoot.

The grand finale of our trek was a stroll down to a nearby river where they made us a bamboo raft. We floated down the river for several hours before climbing up onto a couple of elephants for the rest of the journey to the last Karen village. This village was a bit more developed than the others we’d stayed in, but it was still made from bamboo. There was still no electricity, but they had a clever little water channel that carried water down into the village.

We hadn’t washed for days, so our lovely two Danish girls thought it would be an awesome idea to take all their clothes off and wash themselves under the water channel. The Kiwi and I were horrified! What if the villagers got angry that we had just wasted all their clean water? What if they were offended by our nudity and executed us??

Danish women have different rules.

We managed to get the girls’ clothes back on, and our guide led us down to a delightful little pool with a waterfall — just like Gollum’s Pool in The Lord of the Rings — where we could all get naked without being murdered.

After our most memorable hike, we walked back to Chiang Rai, then I caught the bus back to Bangkok. In Bangkok, I had the glimmering of a wish to fly to India and explore some more, but after a year of travelling, I was a little homesick, and I decided to head for home. I still had a week before my flight, though, so I headed back down to Koh Samui to say goodbye to Noi, and I read The Grapes of Wrath, and I drank lots of Singha beer.

I was very sad to end the greatest adventure of my life, but I was looking forward to seeing my family back in England, and even the explosive intestines that I acquired in Karachi didn’t trouble me too much.

A train ride from Heathrow took me back to my sister’s house in Sidcup, and I waited patiently for her to come home from work. Of course, she didn’t recognise me with my long blond hair in a ponytail and my dark brown skin, so it took a bit of friendly banter to persuade her that I was her brother.

Anyway. After a year of travelling, I was home.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I did know that I wanted it to be in zone two.”

I grew up in suburbia but I got my first Red Bus Rover at age 10, and, with my 8-year-old neighbour, toured all the famous places. Trafalgar square. Buckingham Palace. Hamleys!

It was 12¾ miles by train to Charing Cross station and I must’ve made that journey a thousand times in my teenage years. St James Park. The Natural History Museum. Oxford Street. Ice skating at Queensway.

I finally got to live in Zone 2 after I left the Navy. Whitechapel had the BEST pubs for music. The George on Commercial Street had an amateur hour on Fridays where any one of those pensioners could’ve been a star in their day. Maybe they were?

I swore I’d never live in suburbia again. Plymouth Hoe was our next stop but we soon traded our view of Plymouth Sound for the shadows of the World Trade Centre in Manhattan.

Two years of that and we headed for San Francisco but we missed it by sixty miles.

We ended up surrounded by the dreary strip malls of Almaden Valley for the next 23 years. It was a four-mile drive to the nearest pub, the Britannia Arms. Thank God they put a bar inside Whole Foods.

My vow was dormant but not forgotten and now here we are in the thick of it again. Home at last.

There must be 100 pubs and restaurants within a mile of our house in Bristol. Three of my favourites are just minutes away. The Grain Barge, The Broken Dock and The Three Tuns are as much home as my actual home.

We get asked all the time why anyone would trade California for Bristol but this is the view from my building and I awake every Sunday to cathedral bells.

Contrary to their reputation, cities are much friendlier than the suburbs and I strike up a conversation with a stranger every single time I go to the pub. That happened maybe four times in twenty years in Silicon Valley. It helps to have a cute dog.

When we came home to England we chose Bristol at random like a Womble choosing his name on Uncle Bulgaria’s map of the world.

It was home all along but we never knew it until now.

I’m writing down some memories.
Start at Chapter One if you like, or just keep reading.

— 1988 —

I was waiting at passport control in Fa’a’a airport when I got talking to Michelle. She was returning to Tahiti to see her boyfriend after a couple of years back in England. As usual, I had no plans, so Michelle invited me to go with her to Moorea.

Riding the bus into Papeete, the fragrance of the gardenias was overwhelming, and the scent of coconut oil filled the air. The sides of the road were decorated with flowers, market stalls, and beautiful, beautiful women. Everything you have dreamed about Polynesia is true.

When we reached the harbour, the ferry was not due for a while, so Michelle took me to a bar. I was going to bring my backpack, but Michelle said to leave it by the ferry landing. ‘They don’t have theft in Tahiti,’ she said.

We left our backpacks and crossed the road for a bottle of Hinano.

When we came out of the bar, the ferry was there, but our backpacks were gone.

‘Oh, shit!’ I cried out. ‘My passport and travellers’ checks were in there.’

‘That was a bad idea,’ said Michelle. ‘You should have kept those on you.’

‘Thanks!’ I said.

While I was regretting my folly, a ferryman told us he had put our backpacks onto the ferry for us.

‘Phew!’ I said.

And off we sailed for Moorea.

When we landed on Moorea, we hiked down to our holiday digs, which used to be barracks for French soldiers. We were allocated our barracks, Michelle and her boyfriend rekindled their love with a big kiss, and we wandered into the bar for some wine.

‘Un verre de vin rouge, s’il vous plaît!’

It was my first attempt at speaking French since my O-level six years before, et mon français n’était pas très bon. I think no one in Tahiti — except for Michelle, Jürgen and two Amys from Long Island — spoke English. But I got by and the wine helped. The waiter gave me some lessons, too.

Over the next few days, I hung out at the beach with the two Amys, hiked around the island with Jürgen, and we drank plenty of vin rouge at the bar. As the days drifted by, I fell in love with Polynesia, and I fell a little in love with one of the Amys.

After a week or two of paradise, my Amy got sick and she had to leave. She told me I could track her down in Sydney in a month or so, but she insisted that I stay and enjoy these lovely islands.

Some enchanted evening, when you find your true love.

A few days later, Jürgen and I were out walking when a car stopped to offer us a ride. The driver was the Most Beautiful Girl in Tahiti (according to me), and she invited us back to her house for some tea. After our tea, as we walked back to her car, Ida said, ‘Hey! I am going to a funeral this afternoon. Would you like to come?’ I’d never been invited to a funeral by a stranger before, but I answered immediately. ‘Of course! I’d love to!’

Ida told us we’d have to dress respectfully — all in white, with long trousers. I had some white linen trousers, but Jürgen didn’t, so it was just me and the Most Beautiful Girl, and we headed off to the funeral together.

The funeral was as moving as you might imagine. There were hundreds of Polynesians dressed in white and an ocean of singing. I was so deeply moved, it carried me away.

After the funeral, the Most Beautiful Girl took me to a party on the beach, where we danced and danced. When Tahitian couples dance to European music, they hold each other close like ballroom dancers, but when the Polynesian music begins with a thundering clash, the band drums out an intro, the ukuleles join in, and the dancing erupts into Polynesian style. You have never seen hips move so fast.

After the frenzied hip-shaking, the band played something slow while everyone caught their breath. While we danced, the Most Beautiful Girl in Tahiti looked into my eyes. ‘You have beautiful eyes,’ she said. ‘But I have to leave you now because my boyfriend is waiting for me.’

Over the next few days, I was joined in the barracks by an American man and two Danish girls, Anette and Helle, and we set off together for more distant islands. They were all headed for Raiatea, but I jumped off at Huahine and said I would catch them up.

Huahine had nothing for tourists, and I just sat on a step in the market square. I leaned against a wall, feeling the moment.

My moment lasted an hour, then two hours, until an enormous cruise liner stopped outside the harbour and dozens of little motor boats brought in tourists by the thousand. The market sprang into life with stalls selling tourist crap, and the tourists hustled and they bustled until, suddenly, they all rushed back to their motor boats and they were gone. My moment returned.

I’d been there for several hours by now, and I still had not thought about where I could pitch my tent, but just then, an American stopped by and asked if I needed help. I told him I had no plans, but he said that if I walked a couple of miles south, I’d find a marina. I could pitch my tent there.

It was late afternoon by now, and I set off to the south to find the marina.

When I woke the next morning, I crawled out of my tent, and three Tahitian girls came to see what I was up to. They took me down to the rocks for a swim. We had fun for a while, splashing and diving down into the clear blue lagoon. When it came time to climb out, we swam to the rocks, and I felt the most exquisite pain it is possible to imagine. I looked down at my foot and saw that I had stepped on a sea urchin.

Sea urchins have a venom that causes immediate, severe pain and can lead to symptoms like nausea, muscle aches, weakness, and, in extreme cases, respiratory distress, cardiovascular collapse, and even death.

‘C’est un oursin! Tu dois faire le pipi!!’

I wasn’t quite sure what le pipi meant, but I could guess, and I didn’t want to faire le pipi in front of my lovely new Polynesian friends. The pain grew and grew and I hobbled back to my tent where I found a bunch of gendarmes smashing my tent with their batons. My trouble with the police took my mind off the burning pain in my foot, and once everyone had calmed down, my gendarme friends escorted me to the mayor’s office to explain myself.

The mayor of Huahine had the finest office — all oak panels and leather chairs — and I felt quite out of place in my flip-flops and a t-shirt that had not seen a washing machine for months. The mayor invited me to sit down, and I explained my situation in broken French. After I apologised for camping where I shouldn’t, the mayor told me of a friend who had a field where I could spend tonight, but I’d have to leave on tomorrow’s ferry.

I arrived on Raiatea in the pitch black tropical night in a rainstorm. It was too dark and too late to find anywhere to stay, so I slept on a park bench under the bandstand in the town square. When I woke up in the morning, the rain had stopped, and there was a guest house about twenty yards away. I banged on the door, and all my friends were there having breakfast. They were ready to leave, though, so the next day, we got the ferry to Bora Bora.

Bora Bora’s reputation says it is the most beautiful island in the world, and it’s not wrong. The island is surrounded by a coral reef, about 200 yards out, and the clear blue water inside the reef contrasts starkly with the deep, inky blue outside. There weren’t too many resorts on Bora Bora back then, and the only people who could make it there were squillionaires with their own yachts and poor people like us who could tolerate the ferry that doubled as a cargo ship. As we got off the ferry, a young Polynesian man told us we could sleep on the beach outside his house, which was a damn sight cheaper than those hotels the squillionaires stayed in.

There was nothing to do but swim every day in the beautiful lagoon, and I swam every day with Anette and Helle. Anette and I were swimming together late one evening when she told me she had a boyfriend back home. ‘I wish I didn’t!’ she whispered.

We couldn’t afford to eat anything but packets of ramen, which we cooked on a small gas stove on the beach, and every evening we traded stories of our adventures and wished they would never end.

But come to an end they did. I got the next ferry back to Tahiti, which happened to be the first one after a four-day holiday, so it was cram full. I spent the next 10 hours perched on top of an oil drum, chatting with the French couple on the next two drums. They were headed for home in Paris with a new baby after several years on Bora Bora.

I had just enough Polynesian Francs to get me back to Tahiti, but not enough to buy food or a place to stay when I got there. For my last three days in Tahiti, I slept under the trees and ate mangos and coconuts that I picked myself. When those last days were over, I jumped on the plane to Sydney for the next stage of my adventure.

When the Renaissance painters rediscovered perspective, did fans experience it the way we experience 3D movies? Was the depth of emotion in Baroque anything like Technicolor was for us? Or THX?

When I ran into Sassoferrato’s Virgin at Prayer at the National Gallery in London, it was like running into a time machine, and I didn’t know if I was going forward or backwards. I knew immediately that I would have to finger-paint it on my iPad as soon I got back to my own time period.

It took me a couple of months longer than I expected, and I missed my self-imposed deadline — I wanted to be done in time to send it as a Christmas gift — but I got there in the end.

Epilogue: I finished the painting about 3 months ago but, sadly, haven’t painted anything since. I have a half-finished Edward Hopper rip-off in the works but my muse has left me and who knows when she’ll be back. Time for a new hobby?