Despite its name, this was a quaint rather than hellish café, located on a pedestrian street not two blocks from Tom’s home.
When Tom visited Santa Cruz in August 2009, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday in October. Touchingly, he asked for a beer with his dad in Paris, where he lives.
Well it took a while, but we finally had that beer on July 12. He moved from Santa Cruz to Paris in January 2008, and this was my first visit there since his move. Tusk, tusk! Bad dad.
Apart from his social life, which clearly takes substantial time, most of what Tom does in Paris is centered around his music. He attends music school, where he works on voice and guitar. He plays guitar and sings in bars whenever he can, and seems to carry his heavy leather guitar case pretty much everywhere with him.
During the summer, he reduced the hours that he spent earning money the traditional way, in his case looking after little kids at a “centre aeré” (a government-funded child care center, where working parents send their children to be looked after), in order to spend more time playing his music.
He figured out that busking is a way for him to play and earn money, as much money or more as taking care of children, without getting booked into a concert hall.
Tom arrived pulling his amplifier on a luggage carrier, unpacked it and hooked it up to the guitar, put his hat upside down on the ground in front of him, a discrete request for support, and started playing.
Beaubourg, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, is the Paris Museum of Modern Art, and is an architectural landmark. It featured a show called “Dreamlands” when we were there, looking at places like Disneyland and Vegas.
When the weather was good enough to busk, Tom invited me to Beaubourg to watch him work, watch him play. It was a lot of fun. I took these photos as far as possible from a distance, so as not to distract him or his audience walking by.
Spare change arrived regularly in his upturned hat, and on he went from song to song. He’s getting very good: I barely recognized his voice at times it had changed so much. His repertoire was diverse, and each song was carefully executed.
While Lucian Freud looked benignly down on him, Tom was obliged to stop playing by the police.
He had told me before setting up that he wanted to play for several hours, not only for the money but also so that he could play for longer and learn more about playing music. The key part was playing for longer.
Unfortunately, and sadly, the public authorities in their wisdom did not want this to happen. He had only played for about 45 minutes before he was stopped. Tom complained bitterly about not feeling that he had played enough, about needing to play more music. Explaining that a local resident had called to complain about the noise, the police added that no-one has the right to play music on the streets of Paris. Isn’t that a very sad state of affairs?
The upside was that one of the French customers in a nearby café who had been listening to Tom and enjoying his music came up after the police had moved on and thanked Tom effusively with a 20 Euro note. He earned about 50 Euros in less than an hour!
Karim with his daughters relaxing within the walls of their quaint back garden.
* * *
Karim and Nathalie Medjad were kind enough to put me up for the two nights I stayed around Paris. Karim and I used to work together on translations into French of verbose anglo-saxon contracts, and we watched at least two Superbowls together.
He is an “activist” law professor, the best kind, recently promoted to a prestigious chair with life tenure in Paris. That’s his second position with life tenure! Nathalie also works for a University, and they work together at times.
Tom sang several songs by himself, and a couple with Morgane. She’s an aspiring actress who sounds as if her voice has been trained too. My favorite, which Tom played for his dad, was “Hey you’ve got to hide your love away,” from the immortal John Lennon.
* * *
The next stage in the trip involved complicated travel arrangements. On the Wednesday evening, Tom took the TGV to St Malo in Brittany and met up at a hotel there with Charlie and Alex, whose mother had driven them from their grandfather’s cottage near Malestroit. Early Thursday morning, he took his two brothers on the Brittany Ferries for Portsmouth. I was to pick them up there at 6.30 pm Thursday.
Charlie has been an Arsenal fan since Thierry Henry, then his favourite player, graced the ground at Highbury. Sitting in the new Arsenal stadium was a real treat for him. Less for Alex, perhaps, but he would have his turn next week! The only problem with the timing of this holiday was that the Premier League too was on holiday.
Arriving in London from Paris on the Eurostar at about 8 pm on Wednesday, I went straight to Euston and took the Caledonian Sleeper for Aberdeen. There was no way that I could find a B&B in London at the last minute for less than the 38 pounds cost of the sleeping berth. After 30 minutes in Aberdeen on Thursday morning, I took the train back to London, then the tube across London to Paddington and finally a train to Heathrow. Heathrow? I rented a car there, and drove down to Portsmouth. As the boys walked off the ferry, I walked into the terminal! For a train freak, this was heaven: over 1000 miles in less than 20 hours, with the only delay a breakdown on the tube! Go ScotRail!!
* * *
We spent the weekend in and around Marlow, my little town in England. I was bored silly growing up there, and yet just love to go back.
The Times covered the town earlier in the summer. It’s wealthier and trendier than it was growing up, and remarkably similar in overall appearance. The bridge over the Thames is still being repaired!
To thank them for putting us up, I invited David and Janice out to dinner, and they had the foresight to select a pub with a beer festival in progress! It was raining of course (what would an English summer be without rain!), but there was live music and good company. Not to forget the beer!
By coincidence, there was a reunion of the boarders that weekend from Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School. David Milsom and I met in this august establishment on my first day there, January 4, 1967. He boarded, and I did not, having fled to Marlow from Solihull School, the boarding school I had attended the previous year. But he was kind enough to invite me to the reunion anyway, and it was genuinely fascinating.
It was fascinating first for the opportunity to catch up with people I had not seen in 40 years, some of whom I barely remembered. Many had traveled extensively (two are based in Southern California, not so far away from us), done a variety of interesting jobs all over the world (many too seemed unconcerned with status, just doing what they wanted, which is admirable and rarer than it should be), and generally lived colorful lives (the retired rock roadie had the best stories).
David Milsom and Rupert Scrivener, two boarders who left school in 1970 or ’71, after about seven years each incarcerated. David has his own successful accounting business, and has sailed across the Atlantic on a yacht occupied by five people including himself. He credited boarding with helping prepare him for that. Rupert is a motion picture sound engineer. Among his credits: the music in Star Wars!
Equally fascinating, perhaps for different reasons, was the adult entertainer in attendance! Her name is Jan Burton, she is married to a former boarder who is a glamour photographer, and here she is, complete with artificially enhanced attributes: http://www.janburton.net/. And what was she doing there, when no other spouse or other half attended? Her photographer husband was taking pictures of the assembled boarders, and she was assisting him.
But it went further.
Home movies were organized, one being a camera tour of the boarding house in 1985, just before it closed and reverted to private ownership. That must had tugged at a few heartstrings in the audience.
Then there were seven minutes of Ms. Burton finding girls from a nearby school in a classroom and punishing them. I’m not sure what that was tugging at! It was an edited movie, and we were all invited to purchase the unedited version for the benefit of Philipino children. I may have become a little confused here, it was way into an evening of dinner, drinks and more drinks, but am pretty sure that I heard that correctly.
And, if any of us wanted to volunteer to be photographed caning Ms. Burton, they would give him the photograph free on the cover of the unexpurgated DVD. I passed: one can have too much of a good thing!
Boarding evokes strong reactions, as does the single sex education we had in Borlase’s. David and I are still dealing with ours as, I suspect, is that glamour photographer!
* * *
A day out at the seaside! First Bournemouth Pier. Next, a couple of hours on the beach. It was one of our few sunny days. Only thing missing: waves!
Next stop, Bournemouth, where my cousins Louise and Ron Warrington had invited us to visit them and Aunty Vi and Leon and Tammy. Ron had pointed out that they all lived in a seaside resort, and so the four of us spent a good old-fashioned day at the English seaside!
Ron took us to Splashdown in the morning (http://www.splashdownpoole.co.uk/), a water park full of slides and some serious splashdowns. The boys all had a blast, and I was obliged by fear of ridicule to slide and splash for a mercifully brief period!
With Bournemouth Pier in the background, Charlie and Alex splash about. Their only regret: “where are the waves?!”
Then to the pier and beach, where again the boys enjoyed themselves. As Alex and Charlie splashed and Tom strummed away, I tried to remember the times Sue and I had spent days at the seaside there with mum and dad almost 50 years ago. No use: all gone.
Finally dinner at the Harvester, a pub near Aunty Vi’s flat. She is almost 90, and has the good fortune to live near one of her sons and his wife (Ron and Louise) as well as one of her grandsons and his wife (Leon and Tammy) and young children.
That’s a family that cares.
It’s been a long time since Tom has spent time with his father’s family, and he had a great time here. He even played guitar for his great Aunt.
* * *
Ron and Louise were the perfect hosts. One day we hope that we will be able to return the favor in California. Until then, a convivial dinner or two will have to suffice.
On the road again, as in railroad, to the industrial north of England. This was the holiday’s last leg.
Ron took us to Bournemouth station, and we hopped on a train direct to Manchester. Bournemouth to Manchester in less than five hours.
Why Manchester? A couple of reasons. First, a football team named Manchester United makes its home there (http://www.manutd.com/), and Alex and I are both Man United fans. We are not alone, as fans of rival clubs enjoy noting. Forbes recently estimated that Man United is the most valuable sports team in the entire world, ahead of such luminaries in the US as the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees and in Europe as Real Madrid and Arsenal.
According to Forbes, Man United claim to have over 139 million fans worldwide.
Charlie asleep with his iPod headphones on the train from Bournemouth to Manchester
Tom’s turn to take a nap to the rocking of the carriage.
Second, Manchester is only an hour by train from Liverpool, and we were all booked in to the Hard Day’s Night Hotel in Liverpool for our last night together this holiday.
We only stayed in Manchester long enough to take a tour of Old Trafford, where Man United play (of course, when we were there the team itself was in the middle of a North American tour. Who planned this UK trip anyway!?). A few mementos from the Man United “Megastore” and we were on our way.
The stadium tour covered its innards, the places that fans rarely allowed to enter. This was taken in the home team dressing room. Wayne Rooney!!
On the train for Liverpool the boys learned a valuable lesson in what soccer means in England. Remembering the extent of the rivalry between Liverpool and Man United, I had emptied the Man United shopping bag that we had been given at the MegaStore and packed the clothes from it in our luggage. I didn’t want to be walking through Liverpool to the hotel carrying a provocative bag!
Sounds ridiculous, right? Or paranoid even. Not exactly.
Just before we arrived in Liverpool, the well-spoken, middle-aged man sitting opposite Alex pointed to the Man United badge that Alex was wearing around his neck. It was his ticket for the Old Trafford tour, and he had not bothered to take it off.
“You don’t want to be seen wearing that in Liverpool,” the man admonished Alex, “it doesn’t matter how old you are, or where you’re from. They’ll kill you for wearing that in Liverpool!” Alex, who is 12 and has an American accent, dutifully took the badge off. It was raining hard as we arrived at Lime Street station, and we took a cab to the hotel.
Above the bed, a portrait of the Beatles. Up the staircase, photographs of the Beatles. In the bar and restaurant, portraits and photographs of the Beatles. The rebuilt Cavern Club, just around the corner.
I have to admit that the choice of hotel was mine. The Beatles meant a lot to me growing up, and I was excited about visiting their home town for the first time. Here is a summary of what they were to me way back when.
But it’s such a sad feeling, going back to such a wonderful time that has forever gone. It was like the song “Free as a Bird,” which the surviving Beatles put together in 1995 for their Anthology project, using a contribution recorded by John before he was murdered. Their collective sadness was palpable: it simply was not the Beatles any more. It was the survivors seeking a moment of togetherness reborn, regretting so much what had gone.
How could it have felt otherwise?
The John Lennon Suite in the Hard Day’s Night Hotel is a little above our budget, but the hotel allowed us to take a tour. Large photos of John surround a white grand piano of the kind that “Imagine” was recorded on. This was the voice of the best parts of my generation, and we were a generation who genuinely tried. Who knows if the boys understand that?
The only problem with a journey through the past is that you can’t ever go back, not really, not to what it was when you were there. But you can still have a most enjoyable holiday looking.