Which was unfair. I was outnumbered. In a fair fight I could have taken any of them. Still can. I keep myself fit. And, as I mentioned, I’m well hard, me. Tough as old boots. And torn trousers. And naked knees on broken glass. And spacemen fighting for a drink at the bar. And so on and so forth and suchlike.
When they had tired of beating me up, I suppose they felt a bit guilty. What with all the blood and the broken bits of me and stuff. And so they let me go on with my talk of George Formby.
‘After Johnson sold his soul to the Devil,’ I said, in as steady a voice as I could muster, ‘it was said that he always played guitar with his back to the audience. But those who managed a glance over his shoulder swore that he played so good because he now had an extra finger on his left hand.’
Heads went nod. That was such a good story, it just had to be true.
‘Well, it was almost the same with Formby, according to those who have seen him play live. And he doesn’t play live in the movies, he mimes to pre-recorded studio tracks.’ (I knew so much stuff back then. Still do, really. More, probably. Mind you, back then Neil told me most of it.)
‘Well, those who looked over Formby’s shoulder while he was recording swear that he had an extra string on his little ukulele. And the name George Formby is an anagram of the words “orgy of Begrem”, which was something that went on near Sodom and Gomorrah, in the Old Testament.’ (I knew this without Neil’s help because I went to Sunday School a lot when I was younger.)
And then they beat me up again.
But I did talk them into making the most of the available ukuleles in the school-band safe. Because without them we would never be able to play on stage at the school dance and be cool in front of the girls. And so The Sumerian Kynges became vocal and instrumental.
Although at that time unplugged.
Nowadays, when I hear the word unplugged I reach for my pistol. But back then there was Bob Dylan and he was still acoustic.
And so we all took up the ukulele.
And we played on stage in the school hall at the school dance. And we were cool and we became famous. Eventually.
And the school dance is probably as good a place as any other to truly begin this tale (after a brief but necessary digression regarding the origins of our oh-so-cool band name).
This tale that tick-tock-ticks away with the tick-tock-ticking of the clock.
It was, in its way, the beginning of the end.
And if I am honest, and I truly try to be, I do believe that the very end of which I speak was partially my fault.
3
We were called The Sumerian Kynges not because it was cool, although indeed it was, but because it was a meaningful name. I was sixteen in nineteen sixty-three, and I knew the meaning of meaningful.
I was studying, you see, studying all kinds of stuff. Extracurricular stuff. Stuff you were not taught at school.
It was all down to my mother, really. My mother was a fundamentalist Christian, a name in itself that I found at that time most amusing for I had, through my readings of the Bible, encountered the word ‘fundament’ and looked up its meaning.
My mother attended Northfields Pentecostal Church, a church whose minister was the later-to-become-a- major-influence-in-my-life Captain Lynch. I liked Captain Lynch a lot because he was one of those adults who took everything very seriously. He would listen very carefully to any question that you asked him, and then he would give you a very serious answer.
‘Why are witches an abomination unto the Lord?’ I asked Captain Lynch one Saturday afternoon, when I found myself unexpectedly home, suffering from the mumps, and he had come around to offer consolation to my mother and to solicit funds for a ministry that he hoped to establish in the Orinoco Basin. I would ask him many questions regarding the nakedness of the savages in the Orinoco Basin, because I had seen photographs of them in a copy of National Geographic at the dentist’s. And Captain Lynch would grow most verbose regarding these naked savages.
‘Witches?’ said the good captain, removing his Church Army cap and laying it upon his lap. ‘Witches, is it, eh?’
‘Do you think they should still be burned?’ I asked him.
‘Yes,’ said the captain, in a voice of much graveness. ‘I do believe they should.’
‘You don’t think that’s somewhat cruel?’ I occupied the Persian pouffe beside the fire. And as it was winter and the fire was lit, I took the opportunity to spit into the flames. ‘Those flames would hurt,’ I observed.
‘The fires of Hell burn hotter,’ said the captain – intoned, indeed, in his deepest Sunday-pulpit voice – ‘for those who take the name of the Lord in vain. For those who raise divers demons. For those who spit upon the cross as you have spat into the fire. For those who enter into unholy congress with incubi. And for those who engage in the Obscene Kiss.’
‘The Obscene Kiss?’ I enquired. In all of my innocence.
The captain took an increasingly firm hold upon his cap. ‘They kiss the Devil’s Fundament,’ he said.
‘What’s a fun-’ But my mother now entered the front room, bearing a tray. Which in its turn bore tea in a teapot and biscuits on a plate. And cups, and sugar in a bowl and milk in a jug, and napkins and sundry other necessary prerequisites for a successful afternoon tea. Amusing and erudite conversation was not included.
‘The captain was telling me all about witches,’ I told my mother as she lowered the tray onto the occasional table. Which no doubt rejoiced in its own special way that its occasion had finally arrived.
My mother gave me a bitter look – it was her ‘you wait till your father gets home’ look, and believe you me, back in those days, those words carried considerable clout – and so I hastily changed the subject.
‘You mentioned the Sumerian Kings a while ago,’ I said, as I offered Captain Lynch the run of the biscuits.
‘Kynges,’ corrected the captain. ‘There’s a tale to be told there and no mistake.’
‘Is it an Old Testament tale?’ I enquired. ‘Involving the twin cities of the plain?’ I had recently come across the word ‘sodomite’ and had been looking for an opportunity to introduce it into a conversation.
‘Not as such,’ the captain said. ‘This is more to do with Legend and Myth, although I suspect there is more to it than that. And I intend to prove same, as soon as I have mustered up sufficient funds.’
‘I thought you were raising funds for your mission to the Orinoco Basin.’
‘The Orinoco Basin is merely the tip of the iceberg,’ said the captain, which I found somewhat confusing.
‘Sumeria is where it all began.’ And the captain was doing his pulpit voice once more.
‘The Cradle of Civilisation?’ I said. ‘I’ve read about that. Would that be where the Garden of Eden was located?’
‘Correct, young man, correct.’ Captain Lynch did laughings and then did munchings on the biscuit of his choice.
‘Is the Garden still there, then?’ I asked. ‘Could an explorer rediscover it?’ I, like all boys of my age born into the time that was mine, had certain loves. For steam trains and fag cards, Meccano and yo-yos, footballers, pirates and highwaymen.
And explorers.
Very much for explorers.
There was a great deal of exploring still left to do back in those days. Much of the world had yet to be mapped. There were certainly still dragons out there somewhere. And an English explorer could find them.
There were French explorers, too, I believe. I know that certain foreigners were always racing each other towards the North Pole. But there wasn’t really much point in them doing so, for an English explorer named Hugo Rune had got there first. Back in Victorian times. He’d flown there in a steam-driven ornithopter.
‘Are you an explorer?’ I asked Captain Lynch. I did not know exactly, and still do not, how one gains a rank in the Church Army.
‘Not yet,’ the captain said. And he munched on his garibaldi, which had been the biscuit of his choice. ‘But I
