NOTES
There are no notes for this chapter yet. Some of the notes on other pages are based on info YOU send me. |
Del's assurance that I would not be turned away by Arnrid and her fellow students turned out to be correct. There were four of them, all 18 or 19 year-old girls, sharing a flat at 9 Regency Square. Apart from Arnrid, the cuddly former Simon helper with a burning desire to help dossers, there was the demure and beautiful Helen, jovial down-to-earth Anne, and Anya, a Polish girl with an extraordinary fixation on an uninterested boy. Her stalking, letters and public scenes made his life a misery. I think he went to the police about it a couple of times, but it went on and on. She was very good-looking and I just couldn't understand him at all. He seemed actually to fear her. These upper-middle-class girls had no hesitation in allowing Del and me to doss on the floor of their living-room and, indeed, share their food. They were all highly intelligent and very good company, although Anya's frequent bouts of crying were a little troubling. |
| Soon, the Cheddar caves were completely forgotten. For I while I was more-or-less the cook and prepared alarming messes for the frequent dinner-parties they put on for fellow students and lecturers. The worst such concoction I can remember was a sort of curry sauce, which I prepared by boiling a large cabbage and a couple of onions, then mashing these for a very long time with vinegar and copious amounts of every herb and spice in the cupboard. When Arnrid came back from university and saw the resulting slurp, she politely suggested that I should quickly cook some rice to go with it. The cause of her concern on this particular occasion was that a certain Geoff van Orden was expected. He, though an undergraduate like them, seemed to be considered a VIP and held almost in awe, though they mocked his pomposity behind his back. By the time he arrived I'd already been at the wine and I introduced him, in the manner of a footman, as "Mr Geoff van Ordinaire". Although there were shocked gasps and a whispered ticking-off, the gentleman himself found it rather funny, and even seemed to enjoy my curry. He's now a Conservative MEP. |
| The mention of wine reminds me that I had more-or-less been on the wagon for several months, following the alcohol-soaked days of Leeds. This had been due to lack of money, then the general prohibition in force at Simonwell Farm. In any student town (as Brighton was, outside of the holiday season), you didn't need money to get your fill of wine and beer, as I was gradually to discover. |
| A frequent visitor to 9 Regency Square was Robin Sidgwick, generally known as 'Sidge'. He was an energetic 18 year-old biochemistry student, of shining character, always open, cheerful and impeccably honest. Like Arnrid, he had a burning desire to help people. We soon became firm friends, although, as with the girls, there was always an element of upstairs and downstairs in our friendship. I was, after all, just a rather more-than-averagely intelligent dosser of working-class origin, whereas they were of the upper bourgeoisie and had (they assumed) high-flying careers ahead of them. A high proportion of Sussex University students fitted that description at the time. |
| After a few weeks, and round about the time of my 25th birthday, Helen, the right-winger of the household (father an arms salesman), began to suggest that perhaps Del and I should in some way contribute to household expenses and rent. Arnrid came up with an idea. She pleaded successfully with the manageress of the student refectory at the university to give both Del and me jobs. She furthermore found a flat for us to share and gave Del the first month's rent to give to the landlady. We were to move in at the end of our first day's work. The job consisted of refilling the containers of food, from which the students were served, and general kitchen duties between mealtimes. On the first day, Del failed to turn up. After work I went round to the new flat as planned, but Del hadn't shown up with the rent, so the landlady told me to forget it. She would let the flat to someone else. |
| Back at the girls' flat it became obvious that Del had disappeared with the money. Arnrid seemed almost to admire him for it. This attitude was fairly typical of what was now the spirit of the time among students and certain other sections of society. The masochistic liberalism and aggressive tolerance that I've already mentioned in previous chapters as beginning to appear, were now becoming something of an epidemic. I both despised and exploited these sentiments. In fact, my contempt for them and harnessing of them were to grow at the same pace. Another incident serving to illustrate the prevailing correctness was the case of the voyeur. One of the girls reported that a man's face had appeared at the window while she was in the bath (the window was of plain glass, as there was no possibility of looking through it unless you somehow climbed onto the flat roof of the building). It was agreed that, should this happen again, the man should be invited in to discuss his problems over a cup of tea. It happened again, this time to a different girl, and she duly invited him to go down to the front door and wait for her let him in. "Please leave me alone!", he replied, and ran off across the roof. She begged him not to go, but it was no use. |
| When the Christmas vacation came, I was thrown out on the street because of a strange system with student accommodation. The flats were let to students only in term time and this particular landlord, like many others, wanted the use of the flat for his own family over the Christmas break. Arnrid and Sidge, because of their joint concern for the dossers of the town, knew about a project of some sort for the homeless on the seafront, known as the Archways Venture and run by a lecturer and couple of mature students from the University. Many more strange acquaintances were about to be made. |