miles.’
Inside , beside the racks of engines and rows of wheels there were black T-shirts emblazoned with skulls and the slogan ‘Live to ride, ride to live’. Gut was a complete mountain of a man, sat behind the counter of his shop, and when he sold you something the top half of his body rotated to the till next to him, while his enormous beer gut remained still, resting slumped on the counter.
P utting on a bike show seemed a natural way to party together and so that August the first Roof of England Bike show, our joint event at some rough ground on the moor just behind Edgeside, was born.
It was a bakingly hot summer’s day of brilliant strong sunshine and blue skies where the beer in the August heat doesn’t seem to have the usual effect. But then a sudden thunderstorm broke at about half past four, sending everyone screaming to the beer tent as the heavens opened and for an hour the tent roof drummed as a torrent fell; before the skies cleared again and the ground began to steam in the renewed sunshine.
Sharon didn’t always come on club runs. Sometimes she preferred to stay at home and paint. But she was here for this one, a vision in a long floating hippy cotton dress that she had matched with a set of jeans underneath for the ride up.
By six or seven I was already very drunk. I didn’t know where Gyppo had got to. Out of it somewhere I guessed.
Then I spotted Sharon. She was on her own, sat on a groundsheet to keep dry. She looked pensive, curled over, her knees clutched in her arms and drawn up to her chest, her head resting on her knees as her dress tented around her as she watched the crowd circulating around the gleaming chrome and glinting paintwork of the bikes on display.
She smiled as, ever the clown, I collapsed onto the ground next to her, beer bottle in hand. And then she made the mistake of asking me how I was.
I don ’t know why I did it. Even now, I don’t know why after all that time I actually said something.
Was it just the drink talking? Or was it just that I was drunk enough for it to be able to sound like a joke if needs be? I don’t know.
I told her I loved her.
She told me that of course she knew that.
‘ You’re very sweet.’ She smiled at me, shaking her head. ‘You know I like you a lot. But you know I have to look after Gyppo.’
A nd so she stood up, turned and walked away across the field to find Gyppo, imprinting another image of her in my mind, as she delicately stepped across the sodden ground, her skirt lifted slightly to keep it clear of the glutinous mud, her hair outlined in flaming gold by the long rays of the setting sun.
I c rashed out dead drunk and stoned in the field that night where I fell beside the bonfire. I’d pitched a tent somewhere but was too wrecked to find it. I have a vague memory of someone spreading a blanket over me in the dark. I assumed it was Sharon. It seemed the sort of thing she would do.
*
I never mentioned it again.
And neither did she.
Looking back, the next five years were a whirl of drugs, drink and dealing.
We worked for Dazza. He was our wholesaler, the senior partner, and we, our little team of me and Billy, led by Gyppo, dealt into the town and the valley as the juniors.
The amount of stuff we were supplying grew. There was more whizz now, acid started to become more popular with the rave kids and we were into E as well that came across from Holland on the ferry.
But we were also suffering the drug dealers curse. With so much stuff around that ’s available to use, there’s so much that you just can get used to using. Billy, Gyppo and I had increasingly large personal habits, alternating whizz to get up and downers and blow to get down again. And as time went by our using got increasingly wild.
Sharon smoked, but she never did whizz. I think she tried it once and scared herself.
But increasingly as the years went by and the money rolled in, Gyppo was using everything he could get hold of that didn’t mean
Inside , beside the racks of engines and rows of wheels there were black T-shirts emblazoned with skulls and the slogan ‘Live to ride, ride to live’. Gut was a complete mountain of a man, sat behind the counter of his shop, and when he sold you something the top half of his body rotated to the till next to him, while his enormous beer gut remained still, resting slumped on the counter.
P utting on a bike show seemed a natural way to party together and so that August the first Roof of England Bike show, our joint event at some rough ground on the moor just behind Edgeside, was born.
It was a bakingly hot summer’s day of brilliant strong sunshine and blue skies where the beer in the August heat doesn’t seem to have the usual effect. But then a sudden thunderstorm broke at about half past four, sending everyone screaming to the beer tent as the heavens opened and for an hour the tent roof drummed as a torrent fell; before the skies cleared again and the ground began to steam in the renewed sunshine.
Sharon didn’t always come on club runs. Sometimes she preferred to stay at home and paint. But she was here for this one, a vision in a long floating hippy cotton dress that she had matched with a set of jeans underneath for the ride up.
By six or seven I was already very drunk. I didn’t know where Gyppo had got to. Out of it somewhere I guessed.
Then I spotted Sharon. She was on her own, sat on a groundsheet to keep dry. She looked pensive, curled over, her knees clutched in her arms and drawn up to her chest, her head resting on her knees as her dress tented around her as she watched the crowd circulating around the gleaming chrome and glinting paintwork of the bikes on display.
She smiled as, ever the clown, I collapsed onto the ground next to her, beer bottle in hand. And then she made the mistake of asking me how I was.
I don ’t know why I did it. Even now, I don’t know why after all that time I actually said something.
Was it just the drink talking? Or was it just that I was drunk enough for it to be able to sound like a joke if needs be? I don’t know.
I told her I loved her.
She told me that of course she knew that.
‘ You’re very sweet.’ She smiled at me, shaking her head. ‘You know I like you a lot. But you know I have to look after Gyppo.’
A nd so she stood up, turned and walked away across the field to find Gyppo, imprinting another image of her in my mind, as she delicately stepped across the sodden ground, her skirt lifted slightly to keep it clear of the glutinous mud, her hair outlined in flaming gold by the long rays of the setting sun.
I c rashed out dead drunk and stoned in the field that night where I fell beside the bonfire. I’d pitched a tent somewhere but was too wrecked to find it. I have a vague memory of someone spreading a blanket over me in the dark. I assumed it was Sharon. It seemed the sort of thing she would do.
*
I never mentioned it again.
And neither did she.
Looking back, the next five years were a whirl of drugs, drink and dealing.
We worked for Dazza. He was our wholesaler, the senior partner, and we, our little team of me and Billy, led by Gyppo, dealt into the town and the valley as the juniors.
The amount of stuff we were supplying grew. There was more whizz now, acid started to become more popular with the rave kids and we were into E as well that came across from Holland on the ferry.
But we were also suffering the drug dealers curse. With so much stuff around that ’s available to use, there’s so much that you just can get used to using. Billy, Gyppo and I had increasingly large personal habits, alternating whizz to get up and downers and blow to get down again. And as time went by our using got increasingly wild.
Sharon smoked, but she never did whizz. I think she tried it once and scared herself.
But increasingly as the years went by and the money rolled in, Gyppo was using everything he could get hold of that didn’t mean
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