Here's one of those stories, set before the events of the
'Court of Silent Justice' weekend at Sudely Castle, which is one of (if not
the) best weekends I ever had in the Lion Rampant and there were a lot of those! Photos of the Event Courtesy of Trevor Pilling.
Sudely Castle was our second ever castle venue if memory serves – and for the longest time it was actually pretty crap by modern standards. We weren't allowed to perform in the castle grounds and had to do our thing in front of a kiddies wooden fort which was attached to the edge of the castle. Being Wild Eyed Nutters in Dodgy Kit (tm), we didn't really care about that so much because what Sudely did have was ok-ish acoustics, and (most importantly) a decent, responsive, interested audience. For those of you who've done shows like Chartridge School fête and more recently that one up in one of the junior schools in Flackwell Heath – let alone the REALLY crap ones it was still a great big step up. It was no Wingfield but it was the best we had otherwise.
Well, we were setting off for Sudely in sort of convoy – Ken Bennett and I were in 'G-Force' his bright metallic green Austin Princess and the OWWP and her mercenary crew in her yellow Renault thing which looked like a rancid banana. We were in good company!
In the spirit of this article, another story about Ken Bennett which you should hear was one from that year'’s Tewkesbury (the Arthur one) when he went after a guy who was laying into us when we were already fighting and counting on reverse invulnerability to save him – this complete a**hole wore nothing except woad, swords, a pair of leather trousers and sported the kind of legendary bad hair which gets you inducted into the Mullet Hall of Fame. He hurt Ken (quite badly actually) so Ken went after him and kneed him in the balls (quite gently according to the story I got from him later – just enough to say 'OI that's not on matey' but I'll let you be the judge of the veracity of that statement!)
When this trousered twerp's society seized the opportunity to go after Ken he took them all on and beat them. Yes he was really that good and to be fair they were really that bad. I didn't get that part from Ken by the way, I heard it in the guys loo later on that day from a member of the society concerned, who said 'and then we all went for him and he got really mad!'
Back to the convoy – Ken's G-Force had this legendary brutal acceleration, the kind that pins you into your seat, risks constant blacking out and sees you go from 0-60 miles per hour in about 3.5 hours (on a good day). Added to this it had one of the only tow bars in the society, so for that weekend we were responsible for a trailer full of the society kit – the pavs (which are the kitchen pavs today) peoples weapons and armour – that sort of thing - so the epic acceleration was made even worse if that were at all possible. Add to that the kind of rain which only a suicidally depressed England can give you and you have a recipe for something – I'm not sure what but it was definitely something!
We were, at this stage enjoying the unrelenting grey of the rain-lashed English countryside somewhere on the M40 past that part where you drive though that gorge like cleft. In G-force terms this would normally be about 40 mph, but with a following wind and a longish downhill stretch, plus the crucial addition of Ken and I screaming 'G-FORCE!' at the top of our lungs we were at the heady heights of around 55 mph.
It was sometime around then my attention was inexplicably drawn to a large spinning object in the sky. Was
a bird, was it a plane, was it a mysterious, scantily-clad superheroine come to rescue me? Sadly, no. It was a Rover, spinning lazily along its long axis as it flew over the central reservation of the motorway, as it finished it's all too brief attempt to be the first Rover V8 to land on the moon and plunged towards the ground; straight at us!
You'll have heard people say that their whole life flashes before their eyes in these sorts of situations. Well mine didn't; or perhaps I just needed a life, but the time slowed to a veritable crawl as I thought 'this is it' whilst trying to come up with something desperately profound and failing miserably. Having sought and failed to find some world shattering insight, the only coherent thought I could muster was 'OHHHHH SHIIIITTTTT!!!!'.
Fortunately G-Forces powers of braking were greater than it's acceleration, and as Ken slammed on the brakes, our tyres screamed, and the trailer did it's absolute best to force us to jack-knife, while the moon-bound rover landed in front of us (by some fortunate fluke on its wheels) bounced over car and trailer – it really was one of those Matrix Moments which no-one should have to experience – landed again, this time on its roof and rolled over onto its now broken suspension looking rather worse than the car in the picture below.
We did a number of things very quickly from there. We, phoned the police and ambulance services, stole some cones from the roadworks which were just down the motorway, coned off the Rover (which probably prevented yet another accident from what seemed to be a huge number of cars travelling far too fast) and tried manfully to get into the wreck of a once nice car.
With its roof crushed we couldn't do much, so we also asked for the fire brigade. We could see the driver, and he wasn't moving. We could smell him too – the reek of alcohol was quite incredible! We could also see the ignition, which was switched on, but thanks to the crushed roof we couldn't get to it.
Fortunately by this time the police had turned up, so having done pretty much everything we could we gratefully let them take over. We were of course were wetter than a haddock's swimsuit and were clearly going to be here for a while, so we sent the OWWP Bananamobile onwards, but not before we got a steaming hot cup of coffee/tea and food. Boy did we need it!
While we gave our statements, such as they were, the fire brigade and ambulance turned up. They got the roof off with some electric saw thing and extracted the driver from the crushed ruin of his car. During the procedure he woke up, but he wasn't doing much for some strange reason. Well at least he wasn't dead!
The had to do some procedural bit of course. While the driver was tended by the paramedics, they had to go through the formality of breathalysing him (I swear the chemical stuff changed colour before he even breathed into it) and they tried quite hard to get a coherent statement out of him and I think pretty much failed; surprise surprise!
As for his injuries, they were extensive, amounting to a bruise on his arm. Yes that's right, a single tiny bruise on his arm. I felt slightly deflated after all that – one the one hand glad that it wasn't more serious – on the other hand that sort of stupendous idiocy deserved a far worse punishment in my uncharitable view at that time. I later found out that he lost his license, but no more because no-one was hurt. We weren't needed any more so having taken our statement and given us a crime number they let us go.
And that was the beginning of our journey. Just the beginning.
I'd love to be able to tell you that was the only thing that happened on the trip. Of course it wasn't, how could it be! While G-force slowly wound itself up to the heady heights of 50 mph (we had no chance at the mythical 60 without the downhill stretch and we were far too tired to yell G-FORCE! in the proper way) and we discussed what had just happened; that discussion being something on the lines of ; 'WOW! That was lucky – we’re going to need a lot more booze tonight!!' We were young, what can I say?
However, somewhere on they way, post M40, we got lost. Totally, completely, utterly lost. We were deep in Cotswolds’ Country, which is a bit like Deliverance country, only worse, lacking banjos and having way more madmen. We were very conscious that we were late, that we had a number of people's tents and a great deal of kit. Oh and it was really, really, REALLY wet!
It was a combination of all those things, plus the steep hill and very narrow road, which caused the trailer to come off the road and pull the car with it.
'Jolly bad show!' we said.
Well, you get the idea, right? It quickly became obvious that even the strongest of curse words and even the G-Force mantra weren't going to get the car and trailer back on the road. So we unhitched the trailer and chopped some bits of bush for the wheels with a convenient hatchet (don't ask me why we had one – it was for the campfire -honest!) and with me pushing and shoving (and cursing) we somehow got the car back on the road.
However, the trailer wasn't coming up that hill no matter how hard we tried. In the end we had to take everything out, cart it up the hill and into the mighty G-force, then drag the thrice-damned trailer up and re-hitch it. I still take pride in the fact that we did this without getting peoples gear wet (but on mature reflection I think the Wrath of Ken (the other one) might have had a little something to do with our ingenuity).
I was not in a good state at this point. Soaking wet, mud spattered, tired, pissed off, really really really pissed off and most put out! If we had met some deranged axe-wielding woodsmen playing banjos at that moment, I'm pretty sure they would have been running away screaming from me, not the other way round! Muahahaha! Heeeeeres’ss Tony!
It was perhaps unfortunate that the DJ of the radio station we were listening to decided at that time to play a Smith's medley. I imagine that one at least of my two readers is going to be saying 'Who the hell are the Smith's?' so a brief explanation is perhaps in order. I'll quote here; 'The Smiths were the definitive British indie rock band of the '80s, marking the end of synth-driven new wave, breaking from rock tradition by singing in a keening, self-absorbed croon, embracing the forlorn, romantic poetry of Oscar Wild.' What a load of bollox! They defined the word ‘emo’ and not in a good way. Most of the so-called songs we heard were variations on the theme 'Won't somebody pleeeaseee cheer me uppp!' exactly the thing you need to hear when, you're soaking wet, mud spattered, tired, pissed off, and in fact most put put. That medley had the pair of us itching to slash our wrists; the only thing stopping being some tired remnant of self-respect. We weren’t going out to the Smiths! No way!
The follow up, however, really hit the spot. It was a song called 'You'll never take me alive' by a group called Spear of Destiny. Look it up on Youtube if that intrigues you -I have it bookmarked and am listening to it as I write. Oh the memories; oh the pain! It didn't embrace the forlorn, romantic poetry of Oscar Wild, but it did cause the ultimate horror, as the two worst voices in the known universe joined spontaneously in the chorus. Our despair was complete! No-one was ever going to take us alive (or indeed come anywhere near us at that moment).
Perhaps fate had decided it had had enough fun with us at that time, or perhaps whichever greater force created the universe had had enough of the singing. However, at the bottom of the next hill we saw a sign. SUDELY! And the sun chose that moment to show its face! Awesome!
So, in a few minutes time we were roaring down Sudely village High Street. And I do mean roaring – I was leaning out of the car waving my hand-and-a-half sword, screaming the inevitable 'You'll never take me Alive! While Ken had his arm out the driver side window with the hatchet adding his voice to the awful cacophony.
It was a moment of insanity which would get you an armed response team and a bullet between the eyes today, fortunately missing my brain by some feet, but back then all it got was a few curious glances from the Sudley Villagers. We didn’t even get the Crimes Against Music Division coming after us though we richly deserved whatever punishment they could have meted out!
I imagine the villagers’ conversations (if there were any) went something like this;-
Wild-Eyed Nutters in Dodgy Kit (tm) 'YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!' *waves sword*
Sudely Villager #1 (FRED) 'oo’s that? Adn't we better do something George?'
Sudely Vallager #2 (George) 'It's they re-enanctors. They be 'armless Fred'
Fred 'Arrrr. That they be'
George 'Arrr.. well mostly 'arrmless anyways'
So, having somehow negotiated the dangers of Sudely high Street, which it seems was mysteriously transported into the West Country, we made it to the castle without further incident. We had just enough time to get the tents up and ready before dark.
The rest of the weekend was pretty bloody awesome. As I've said it was one of the absolute best in my memory. The weather was glorious, and in the genetic memory, it became the court of Silent Justice Weekend. Clarendon got us into the castle grounds for the first time , and Ken came home with the then Catherine Swynford (so I know he had fun) but those are tales for another time.
The Smiths of course were mysteriously murdered by Wild Eyed Nutters with dodgy Banjos (tm) some years later whilst they were lost in the Cotswolds. As for Spear Of Destiny – I'm not sure they ever got fame and fortune, but they did sell at least two records. I found their album with ‘You’ll Never Take Me Alive on it’ and gave it to Ken for Christmas, while he in turn gave me a 12” remix of the same track which still has a place in my music collection. Years later I found a CD called ‘The Best of Spear of Destiny’ which had never been taken alive and still gets the odd outing on my highly sophisticated music system. Good times.
