Picture a film's opening credits, the panoramic birds-eye aerial sweep of a blisteringly hot late autumn day, with the sun beating out in the sky and not a cloud to be seen. Watch as the camera swings lower and you pick up a trail of dust blown back across country lanes as the cause of this disturbance comes into view. A red-faced man cycling furiously cross country desperate for a drink.
This is The Fool.
The Fool woke up that Saturday morning after a deep sleep feeling fifteen years younger and resolved to do something about it, having the day, the house and his time to himself. He decided to prove to himself that 'he still had it'. Four words that men of a certain age rarely utter out loud but fret about with the passage of the years.
Before his current incarnation as a species of clerk, back when he regarded himself as having a 'proper job', one that involved the barking of orders, making things happen and generally 'getting stuff done', he would as the mood took him, take his bike into work and cycle home after a shift, said ride if conducted directly would take just over an hour. If stopping to replenish vital bodily fluids, well, your guess is as good as mine.
Bike checked, tyres, etc, big bottle of water, cycle to station. One way ticket please, collect sausage bun and coffee, board train.
Arrive, fiddle about, not enough hands, put big bottle of water on bollard; sunglasses, move stuff to front pockets and we're off. Nice easy start, thirty minutes time for a glug of water.
Where's the big bottle? The little one's on the bike frame. The Fool realises that his planning may have let him down and the water abandoned back on the bollard. Never mind, keep going, there's The Gate in Ifield, beer and a huge standpipe, which he arrives at a lot longer and more thirsty than he would have done in the past to find the pub is no longer there. It's a big posh house. He pulls up in the layby opposite and drains the last of his water as a very well manicured woman storms out and demands to know what he's doing staring at her house. The Fool tries to explain his motivation, and even more importantly his thirst.
Could he possibly use the standpipe to fill his water bottle. No, he bloody well could not and in a cut-glass accent was invited to 'Fack Orf'. So off The Fool cycled away muttering darkly about class warfare and what would actually happen the day the revolution dawned. Never mind, there's the Lamb at Lamb's Green. No there wasn't. Closed. This is about two-thirds of the way and no water. This is an area colonised by the friends of the friendly lady, so they're all out doing glittering things, no one to cadge a drink from.
Down Wimlands Lane kicking up clouds of dust, past the Frog and Nightgown. Closed. By this stage The Fool is convinced he will die and that some passing traveller will find his desiccated husk by the side of the road. Over the A264 taking his life in his hands with high speed traffic and not looking east toward The Place We Do Not Mention a thought strikes him.
One of the reasons he settled in Sussex was the quality if its beer and the number of its brewers, one of which Weltons, was five minutes away. He cycled in there looking like a stock character from a Western, out on the range, to find there was an open day. Covered in dust and swaggering like John Wayne (it was a while since he'd done a long cycle like that) walked up to the bar and croaked 'Beer'.
Now The Fool likes his beer, you see. Old Ale in the winter with that little red crescent peeping out in the firelight. He's been known to go a long way for a weissebier (Berlin in fact), but his particular passion is IPA. single, double, APA, EPA, 3% ABV and upwards, and the kindly character behind the bar, who the by now, the blubbering Fool had ascertained was The Brewer, finding out the level of his foolishness, offered him a weak one to 'lay the trail dust', which didn't even touch the sides.Slightly less frantic now and more expansive, The Fool joined the conversation about what prompts men to carry on doing things long after its more sensible to stop, in the case of the gentlemen around the bar, it being rugby, given the Autumn Internationals were upon us.
Who had played for whom and in what position, the inevitable disdain of forwards towards the effete backs becoming more apparent with each sip, and The Fool airily mentioned he had played for London Welsh, quickly adding as an Occasional. A brief conversation about the clubs current woes and hopes for the future. The Other Brewer, a cheery fellow, The Fool notes, with a friendly twinkle to his eye, slides another pint in front of him.
The Fool then asked those assembled had any of them heard of Byron Rogers as he had a tale to tell.
The Brewers said make it a good tale and there's a beer in it for you you.
So The Fool tried. He said he had read and collected his work where he could, his articles in the seventies had been wacky, the eighties were wry, and the nineties were wistful, he had bought his books and had been lucky to have spoken to him a couple of times and was one of the best and most under-rated social historians of the 20th-century because he could get into the heads if the subjects he wrote about, and the one character who epitomised what we had all been talking about that afternoon was the Welsh Achilles, Ira Jones, who missed his war and his glory and could not cope with the long littleness of just living. The Fool had first heard of him at London Welsh, where although diminished, he maintained an air of glamour.
But it was Byron who fleshed out his story. Born in questionable circumstances, because of his slight size was selected for the Royal Flying Corps in the killing skies above the Western Front. He was so good at his job, he was regularly reprimanded for machine-gunning parachuting German pilots who'd baled out (the British command refusing to allow their pilots parachutes to encourage moral fibre) but couldn't understand the English squeamishness so went on killing, becoming more savage as his friends got theirs in flame or pieces, as they burned or crashed.
Home in Wales on leave, he was arrested by the police who wouldn't believe the medals were his, especially those pinned on a skinny short man by a King whose stutter was as bad as his.
Another time, drunk and having missed his train, he broke into Cardiff stockyards and stole a train. Think about that again. He stole a train, but ended up going the wrong way and only stopped when the train ran out of fuel.
The First World War over he had his adventures until inevitably The Second started. Deemed too old for combat, he suffered a training role until one night, drunk, during a German bombing raid on the docks, took his unarmed trainer up and drove off the attackers with a Very Pistol. Again, a war ended, before it could end him and glory became existence until as an old man, a fall and a knock on the head took him off to Valhalla, where the brave live forever.
The Fool noticed the silence and the open mouths and thought he'd over-done it, but it would seem that they liked it. For The Brewers were as good as their word, The Fool gave them a copy of the article and The Fool got his beer that afternoon.
The Fool, then wobbled home on his bicycle to sleep under his apple tree, waking only to realise he'd left his glass of water by the sink.
March 2017
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