Live Reggae post + update

There are two musics which sweep me sideways no matter what I’m doing. Blues – the proper down and real blues – and reggae. Right now I’m watching Toots and the Maytals on BBC4 Friday night and my bum is jiggling and doing a sideways shuffle on the seat. 

It’s totally involuntary. How can I NOT respond to such joy and energy???!!  

I did my courting to reggae.

We danced. The trick was to move your hips sideways, but not back again until another beat had passed.  Two wiggles, then back, two wiggles again, on the offbeat. We were ‘allowed’ to attend a purely black club, Reno’s in Moss Side, Manchester, early 1970s. You arrived there about  9 pm on a Friday or Saturday (if you worked M–F like we did) and presented yourself at the tiny barred jail–type window in the heavy door. Facial recognition only. We whites were recognised for our loyalty, and we were the regular 'honorary blacks' for the night. It also gave them a chance to check we weren’t the drug squad. (Oh that’s another post, one day! A lot of history’s gone under my bridge and why I don’t have a criminal record is beyond me ...) 

We danced and drank a little, danced and drank a little more, always very well–behaved or we’d have been thrown out, and I know the odd spliff went round, and when they shut their doors around 2 am, we went back up to the street and into the chicken bar next door – a fried chicken chippy. Instead of salt and vinegar there was a paprika shaker on the counter top. That just made it. Refreshed and full of paprika zest, we moved on to a shabeen, which consisted of a terraced house with no furniture, crammed to bursting with people shoulder to shoulder, and two ceiling–high speakers in every room, but not much drink. A few bottles on a table in the corner. You were there for the music, the dance, the feel, the purity. You weren’t there to get off your face. 

Around 8 in the morning, we’d leave, and walk 4 miles south back to Didsbury. Beautiful summer mornings, alive and still kicking. Big breakfast, and bed till lunchtime. And then have the energy to extract as much as most normal people out of a weekend day.

One Friday night, I was in Reno’s as usual, and my friend Penny said one of our friends, Chris, needed help. I went up to him. He was one of the regulars. He was leaning back against a wall, his car keys held dangling before him. He needed some sensible person to take his car home somewhere, as he was beyond driving and didn’t want to leave it in Moss Side all night. Quite right. There were always a few bad-asses around. And they reckoned if you were dumb enough to leave your car there, you deserved what you got. I was above the limit so I said OK. At this point he was sliding down the wall. He gave me his phone number, to arrange getting the car back. I didn’t really know him, only by sight. And reputation. A bit of a firebrand. Give him a situation to deal with, he’d be in there head first, fists flying. 

So on Saturday morning I phoned. His mum answered. He was out cold. Could I call later?

I called later. He was still out. I went to do some errands you can only do with a car. It was precious to have one for a day or so. 

I called on Sunday afternoon. His mum said “Hold on. I’m going to get him up. He’s been asleep since Friday.”

I knew he was coming down off a week on speed. He was known for it. I kept my mouth shut.

He came to the phone, and we arranged a car return. He offered to repay me somehow. I really wanted to go to the sea, to see if I could get a job there. I felt like a fish out of water in Manchester. So I asked him to take me to Wales for the day and he agreed. 

The following Saturday morning I’d been staying overnight at Penny’s, and Chris turned up at 1000 as arranged. Her doorbell rang. But where was the little blue Volkswagen with the little yellow wheels ? Why was there a silver Jaguar E–type parked up? I didn’t ask. I got in and Chris gunned it down the road. Be cool, I thought. Don’t ask stupid questions. (He'd blagged it from his boss, to impress me, I found out later.)

(TV is now showing Bob Marley and the highlights of his life. I saw him at a concert in a ten pin bowling place in the early 70’s. Loved him so much I wouldn't have missed that gig for the world.)

We drove to Wales. I swear there wasn’t a car he didn’t overtake. Talk about hormones. He was completely unfazed when I casually took off my jumper and replaced it with a teeshirt cos I was too hot and hadn't been sure what to wear. It was a warm day. And he reached for the cassette player. Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto, the musical meat behind Brief Encounter, the ‘most romantic’ of concertos. Chris? Speed freak? Don’t ask, just enjoy. 

We talked and talked and arrived at Conway Castle, and took a break. Walked down to the water, down a wooden boardwalk slipway. He kissed me. I kissed back.

We motored on, and had lunch in a pub, where he proposed, and I accepted.

A week later, sitting in our local pub in Didsbury, you’d have thought that two superpowers had merged, from the reaction we got. The girl who doesn’t stoop with the man who doesn’t bend.

We lived together in a rented Cheshire farmhouse, and married 4 months later in May 1974. 

But that, truly, is another story.

I leave you with one thought – my wedding is usually mentioned in the same breath as Sam Peckinpah. I kid you not. Another day………..

(Bob Marley is singing Exodus. Perfect.)

The update - thought I'd mention I was 19 when this happened. What did I know about men? Not a lot.
And I left everybody else to get on with the spliff stuff when I left my teens behind. Didn't suit me.
Thank you for listening.