LITTLE MAN, BIG HEART

It’s only a record, I said to myself:
and indeed it was
only a record.
Anarchy in the UK
on EMI
in the black sleeve.
One of two copies I’d queued up to buy
on the day it came out
in 1976
from the indie record store
in Canterbury High Street -
the other given to my then girlfriend
at Kent University
who was into Boston.
I had more than a feeling
she didn’t like it
because she threw it in the bin.
(She wasn’t my girlfriend for long,
but not because of that.)
I showed it to you one day
and you said
‘Wow! That’s really rare!
I’m going to this punk disco on Saturday!
Can I borrow it?’
I knew I’d never see it again
and I didn’t care.

****

So much of who we are
is where and who we come from.
You weren’t born with a silver spoon.
You didn’t even get Daltrey’s plastic one.
You grew up in Barnardo’s.
Your home not so much broken
as atomized
before it had even existed.
A book of regulations for a mum and dad,
hand-me-down clothes,
hand-me-down life.
But you had spirit.
Some lovely people befriended you
and although nobody
could ever really cure that ache
where your family should have been
they gave you hope
and the strength to try.
When I met you
you were really trying.
Really, really trying.

 

And yes, you could be really trying!
For those who didn’t know
about the hole
in the centre of your life
your antics
in that constant search for human acceptance
for friendship
- for love -
could seem over-the-top, desperate.
But I think I understood.
I took you with me to a gig:
the local punks couldn’t fathom out
the little, shouty, needy, hyperactive bloke
who looked like a greaser
and wanted to hang out with them
and some offered only rejection -
after what you had been through
the hardest thing of all.
That’s why I gave you that Sex Pistols single.
I hoped.
I imagined you swaggering into the disco
waving it
in your brave, false-confident way.
‘Bloody hell mate! Where did you get that?’
I imagined the inevitable story you’d make up.
I knew I’d never see that record again:
I knew it would get nicked,
or scratched, or broken, or covered in beer, or lost
but I hoped it would give you a tiny foothold
in the latest of the many little worlds
you were trying to be a part of.
And to be honest
I never liked the Pistols anyway
and I wish they had called the bloody thing
‘Disciplined, Clear-Minded Socialist Organisation In The UK
(With Clean Underpants)’
because it would have saved me loads of time-consuming, irritating arguments
down the years
and Crass would never have existed.
But that’s another matter entirely.

 

I don’t know what happened
to you, or the single, that night
but I do know that my mate Steve tried to help:
I know that you liked and trusted me.
When I went to Belgium
in 1979
to play music and organise
you followed me
- despite all your problems
resourceful was your middle name -
and we put you back on the train to England
just before the riot.
Although you’d have absolutely loved it
a riot was the last thing you needed:
your whole life had been one
and not in the way Billy Bragg meant.
There were some more stories
some more scrapes
and then poetry, music and the world took over.
I lost touch with you
and the lovely people who were helping you
but I never forgot you, or them -
and when I heard ‘Anarchy in the UK’
I’d often think of that single in the black sleeve
of your cheeky smile
the leather jacket
the friendly elbow in the ribs
and I’d wonder how brave little Sisyphus from Essex
was coping with the boulder
that life had made
his constant companion.

 

Then a few weeks ago
at yet another punk rock funeral
I met up with your friend and protectress
after more than twenty years.
She told me that you were very ill:
that your life had been more of the same really -
the smiles, the scrapes,
the resourcefulness against all odds,
the determination to make the best of things,
that old boulder going up and down the hill.
I’m sorry I never got to see you again.

 

Farewell, mate.
The boulder is still now.
But when it rolled down to the bottom
you never stopped trying
to push it back up again –
more often than not
with a great big smile on your face.
Little man.
Big heart.

28/7/2015