Links
Our banners
Latest News
Newsletter archive
Interviews
Sileakhunt
Book Store

Imagine you're a young backpacker and this is your first time in Bangkok. You have bravely left the familiar comfort of your guesthouse on Khao Sarn Road and gone across the city to Sukhumvit. You aren't sure why. A girl in the guesthouse advised against going there. It 's a bad area she said. So next afternoon you went.

You found the Skytrain OK, got off at Nana, surrendered your plastic ticket at the exit and walked down the steps to the street. The first thing you noticed was the vendors everywhere, blocking the pavement, selling the same crass materialistic garbage you saw on Khao Sarn Road. T-shirts, CDs, sunglasses, knives.

Now you're walking past a sort of bar with loud music. The bar is full of Thai girls and middle-aged foreign men. Suddenly it dawns on you! Sex tourists!

They're everywhere! Men with girls walking hand in hand. Negotiating on street corners. Getting in and out of taxis. It's disgusting. Look at that skinny old geyser over there waiting to cross the road, white hair, stooped shoulders, little Thai girl on his arm. No way is she his daughter. He must be one of those old perverts you've heard so much about. Where's he off to? Where does he come from? Who is he? What's going on in his head you wonder. Is he thinking about his next short time or is there more to this old fart than meets the eye?

The old fart's name is Arthur. He's English and his mind is a seething mass of great ideas and unrealized dreams. Strange as it may seem Arthur had been young once. Hard to believe isn't it? But it's true. When Arthur was in his last year of Grammar school he'd played washboard in a skiffle group. That's why he didn't do well in his A levels.

What was a skiffle group? It was a primitive sort of folk music group you could say. Popular in England in the late 50's with a few early musical pioneers. Arthur's friend Simon started a skiffle group at the Grammar school they both attended. Simon knew a few guitar chords, Arthur played washboard and a fellow called Dave played tea-chest bass until he got dragged off to do his National Service after which a bloke called Pete took over till he got nicked for car theft and the group broke up.

Simon used to write things in a notebook. What kind of things? Nobody was sure. Poems perhaps but he didn't show them to anyone.

Arthur met a girl at a bus stop. Not totally by accident. Her name was Lorraine and she lived on a council estate. She changed her hairstyle almost every day. Sometimes she was a Bo (Bohemian) with a fringe and a Brigitte Bardot ponytail. Then she'd cut it short in a sort of pixie look. Then she'd let it grow again. She even tried different colours, pink, blue. Lorraine was what would later be called a punk. She was ahead of her time. There was nothing bourgeois about Lorraine.

Arthur and Lorraine used to go to the pictures and snog. One time, when they were watching James Dean in 'Rebel Without A Cause', Lorraine let him play with her tits. And that was just the beginning. She came round to Arthur's house the next Sunday afternoon, when his parents were out, and let him have a look at them. They even did a bit of clumsy groping on the living-room sofa.

Simon lent Arthur a book called 'On The Road'.
"See what you think." Said Simon, "It's definitely an improvement on his first effort."
"What first effort?" asked Arthur.
"Kerouac's first book. It was called 'The Town and the City'. About two brothers. Good to see he got away from that Thomas Wolfe style." said Simon.
Arthur wasn't sure what to make of it. When he finished it he lent it to Lorraine who said, "Nothing bourgeois about that."

TV was in its early black and white days. Most people got their information from the radio or newspapers. The headlines blared things like 'ALLIED TROOPS TAKE SUEZ!! PROFUMO ADMITS GUILT!! KRAY TWINS JAILED!!!' Nuclear testing was hardly ever mentioned. World leaders in their wisdom had decided atom bombs were vital for the security of the world. Who was Arthur to argue? None of it seemed very important to him. He preferred the Goon Show and wanking. He spent a lot of time wondering how he was going to get Lorraine's knickers off.

So how did he hear about Aldermaston? From Lorraine of course. She told him about some kind of peace march. Everyone was going to walk from Aldermaston to Trafalgar Square, she said, to get rid of nuclear weapons. There would be music and refreshments. All Arthur would to bring need was his duffle coat and a sleeping bag. Simon agreed to come along so the three of them hitchhiked to Aldermaston and spent the night in a damp field. Next morning a few hundred people gathered outside a government research facility for a pep talk. Someone handed out hot chocolate in paper cups. Simon scribbled a few lines in a notebook. Then the march began.

There were several thousand people by the time they got to Slough. Quite a mixture of people they were too. Middle aged Bohemians, young mothers pushing prams, communists (old & young), veterans of Spanish wars, art students and assorted ravers and beatniks. Normal people weren't much worried about Armageddon.

Arthur, Simon and Lorraine attached themselves to a like-minded group their own age. They were on the road. It felt like the beginning of something. The general feeling was that ordinary people were too caught up in eating, sleeping and working to care much about important things. If society was ever going to change then that cycle would have to be broken. The tide of materialism would have to be turned back. The times they were a changing.

March organizers showed them to a church hall where they were to spend the night. They arranged their sleeping bags on the floor and shared what food they had. Simon introduced Arthur and Lorraine to a young fellow in a nicely tailored reefer jacket, cords and a tartan scarf. His hair was backcombed in a sort of neo-Regency style.
"This is Rod." said Simon. Arthur said hello to Rod.
"Don't let the Stewart tartan fool you," said Simon, "he's from Islington."
"Highgate." said Rod. "Got any beer?"

There was no beer allowed in the church hall. There were no Marshall amps and no groupies either and nobody knew where to get drugs. But there was singing. A few people had guitars and soon the church hall was ringing to the sound of songs like 'Midnight Special' and 'If I Had A Hammer'.

"We're still innocent." Simon muttered cryptically, "This is just the beginning. It will turn into something else."
Later Arthur noticed Rod arranging some sleeping bags in a corner and crawling under them with a couple of girls. That was the night Lorraine let him go all the way.

The next morning Arthur, Lorraine and Simon shared a plate of egg and chips in a transport caff. Simon had his exercise book out.
"What are you up to?" Arthur asked.
"Oh, I don't know, nothing much." said Simon, "Just scribbling a few notes. One day, people might want to read about all this."

The march ended in Trafalgar Square where Bertrand Russell and other people delivered speeches. They didn't actually get any bombs banned but it was a start. And they'd had a good time trying. Arthur and his friends drifted away. They took the tube to Hampstead and saw a film at the Everyman Theater. The film was called 'Jules et Jim'. Arthur found it a bit slow. Simon liked the way Truffault mixed historical film clips into the narrative. Lorraine had a headache.



© C. Woww. All rights reserved by the author.

--------------------------------

If you enjoyed this short story of C. Woww's his book 'Losing the Plot' can easily be purchased here at DCO Books online:
http://www.dcothai.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=106

It can also be found in many local bookshops in Thailand, especially, we have seen, in the many Bookazine Bookshops in Bangkok and Pattaya.