Soul Objective E-Book

Steve Johnson

• Herausgeber: Grosvenor House Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 379

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

1975 was shaping up to be Joe Holland's year. Everything was clicking into place. In the first few months he'd passed his driving test, completed his electrical apprenticeship and was approaching his twenty first birthday, when he'd gain access to his deceased grandfather's inheritance money. Apart from his toxic relationship with his stepfather, life was good. But in May, a family skeleton came rattling out of the cupboard where it had been hidden for decades. Joe was to learn that every tree, including a family tree, was only as strong (or weak) as it's roots. And his was about to come toppling down. Once over the initial shock, his search for answers, and resolution, would take him from the leafy suburbs of Hertfordshire to the mean streets of New York City, and a date with destiny.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Chapter One: Unfinished Business

Chapter Two: Move On Up

Chapter Three: Respect Yourself

Chapter Four: Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday

Chapter Five: Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy

Chapter Six: Sweet Soul Music

Chapter Seven: It’s All in the Game

Chapter Eight: A Change is Gonna Come

Chapter Nine: You can’t Hide from Yourself

Chapter Ten: Love Child

Chapter Eleven: Help Me Make It Through the Night

Chapter Twelve: Shop Around

Chapter Thirteen: Soul Sister, Brown Sugar

Chapter Fourteen: Behind a Painted Smile

Chapter Fifteen: Let the Good Times Roll

Chapter Sixteen: If It Feels Good, Do It

Chapter Seventeen: Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Chapter Eighteen: Love is Here and now You’re Gone

Chapter Nineteen: I’m in a Different World

Chapter Twenty: Love the One You’re With

Chapter Twenty One: Money (That’s What I Want)

Chapter Twenty Two: The in Crowd

Chapter Twenty Three: Family Affair

Chapter Twenty Four: Tell It Like It Is

Chapter Twenty Five: Ball of Confusion

Chapter Twenty Six: Pick Up the Pieces

Chapter Twenty Seven: Ready or Not Here I Come

Chapter Twenty Eight: Stand by Me

Chapter Twenty Nine: Get Ready

Chapter Thirty: Keep on Pushing

Chapter Thirty One: New York City Life

Chapter Thirty Two: Trouble Man

Chapter Thirty Three: I Shall be Released

Chapter Thirty Four: Time is Tight

Chapter Thirty Five: Walk in the Night

Chapter Thirty Six: Nowhere to Run

Chapter Thirty Seven: Reflections

Chapter Discography

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

“Thanks to my son Robert, for the technical help and the supply of Bounty bars!

To Jasmine at GHP for her patience and guidance.

To everyone who shared their memories of that golden time.

And special thanks to Aretha, Marvin, Diana, Stevie, Martha, Otis and all the other artists whose music fed my teenage soul.”

Steve Johnson xx

CHAPTER ONE

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Wednesday, June 18th. For the third time, Joe stirred the coffee that he was too nervous to drink. He could feel a bead of perspiration form on his top lip and his heart was racing. In all his twenty-one years he’d never felt so tense. But then, in all his twenty-one years, he’d never mentally prepared himself to kill someone. That the person in question was his father undoubtedly added to his heightened state of anxiety. His left hand wiped his mouth whilst his right hand reached into his jacket pocket and reassuringly caressed the grip of the small firearm nestling inside.

A female voice startled him, ‘Just can’t stay away, eh?’

It was Donna, the waitress who had served him on his two previous visits. Damn. She had seemed really nice, so he’d been hoping that she wouldn’t be here working a shift when he returned.

‘So, what’s your verdict on our city?’ she continued, automatically brushing some stray tabletop crumbs into her hand.

‘Different,’ was his economical reply, not wanting to get distracted by small talk.

‘It’s certainly that. Are you eating tonight?’

‘Not tonight, no.’

‘No problem. If you change your mind or want a refill, just holler.’

‘I will.’

As Donna took another customer’s order, Joe’s focus returned to watching the steady stream of human traffic on the other side of the plate glass window. Would he instinctively recognise James Northbridge? Did he share any of his facial features? Maybe he looked just like him. Or maybe he looked nothing like him at all. Soon, he would find out. He glanced up to check the wall clock was showing the same time as his wristwatch. It was: 6.30 pm. Half an hour to go. Presuming Northbridge was a punctual man, Joe figured it would all be over by 7.15 at the latest. And by 7.30, one of two scenarios would have played out: he’d either be handcuffed in the back of a police car, or he too would be dead, shot by some trigger-happy cop. He could see the headline on the evening news: TWO ENGLISHMEN KILLED IN SHOOTOUT AT DINER.

It was the name of the diner that had inspired Joe to pick this establishment for his rendezvous with the man who had torn his world apart. He’d spotted it in the guidebook on New York he’d picked up in England and thought it was the most American sounding thing he’d ever heard. ‘Big Dino’s Diner, West 56th St and 7th Ave.’ The red neon almost flashed at you off the page. It sounded like something out of the 1950’s, and it turned out to look like it too, it’s exterior constructed in silver steel to outwardly resemble a railway carriage with the wheels removed. Inside, it was a rock n’ roll shrine built of chrome, red leatherette and Formica, with the brightly lit Wurlitzer jukebox acting as the altar. Right on cue, the voice of one of the genre’s high priests, Chuck Berry, emanated from the record machine, asking Maybelline why she couldn’t be true.

Joe stirred his coffee for the fourth time and checked his watch: 6.33. His t-shirt felt clammy on his lower back as his eyes scanned the moderately busy eatery. It housed the same type of patrons who were there yesterday; an early evening mix of colleagues out for a quick bite after work, the regulars (he recognised three of them) sitting at the counter, and a few loners, desperate for some human contact - any human contact.

Thankfully, there were no children present. He’d have hated being responsible for the scarring of any young, developing minds. His attention returned to trying to read the face of every man who entered the diner, or even walked past, and once again he wondered if he’d be able to pinpoint the piece of garbage who had violated an innocent girl of just seventeen. It was the repulsive crime that had resulted in Joe, nine months later. A sardonic grin found its way to the surface as he considered the absolute purity of what was shortly to unfold. The man who had given him life through an act of violence was going to forfeit his own life through an act of violence. It was karma at its finest. Perfect poetic justice.

The British judiciary system had failed Joe’s mother, but he wouldn’t. This oxygen thief, this rapist scumbag, was going to pay the ultimate price for the damage he’d done. The clock now read 6.38. Twenty-two minutes to go until father and son set eyes on each other for the first (and last) time. It would be close to midnight back home. Only he wasn’t back home, was he? And he never would be again. He got to thinking how the year that had started so positively had, at its mid-point, turned on him so savagely and placed him here – in a ‘50’s time capsule’, three and a half thousand miles from everything and everyone he held dear, with a gun in his pocket and murder in his heart.

CHAPTER TWO

MOVE ON UP

Early indications were that 1975 was shaping up to be Joe Holland’s year. In February he’d passed his driving test, at the second attempt. His previous effort had seen him fail on a couple of minor faults, which his instructor suggested the examiner might have overlooked had he been in a better mood. This time, though, when a supermarket trolley rolled in front of the car and he executed a textbook emergency stop, he knew he was going to pass. And so it proved. He was a driver now, with all the opportunities that went with it. For example, it was a well-known fact that girls found lads more attractive if they came with four tyres and a steering wheel. Having his own transport would also be useful for ferrying tools and materials from job to job.

One of the first things Joe planned to do when he could access his late grandfather’s inheritance was to treat himself to a decent second-hand motor. That day would be May 17th, on his much-anticipated twenty-first birthday. His party, in the function room of the local leisure centre, had been booked for almost six months. The invites were out, and eighty guests had already confirmed. As had DJ ‘The Soul Trader’, whose real name was Dougie Pratt, a warehouseman from West Watford. Dougie’s knowledge of American soul music was almost as extensive as Joe’s, and he knew which tracks would fill the dancefloor. He always started proceedings with Sly Stone’s “Dance to the Music”, and it built from there.

April saw the second major event of the year for Joe Holland. On the 29th he went to bed as an electrical apprentice and the following morning he woke up as a fully qualified electrician, with a City & Guilds certificate to prove it. Overnight, his wages leapt from twenty to sixty pounds per week. It seemed like a fortune, even after giving his mum a third for his keep. Joe guessed it was how a caterpillar must feel when it becomes a butterfly. And there was more to be earned if he wanted to do a few private jobs at the weekends.

Way back in 1970, when he was two weeks away from his sixteenth birthday and as green as the Incredible Hulk’s balls, his mentor, Lenny Coleman, had told him that if he stuck with the apprenticeship and got his ticket, he’d be laughing. That the modern world couldn’t function without electricity and demand was only going to increase. Wise man was Lenny.

As April reached its end, Joe’s lucky streak continued when word reached him that Linda Palmer, junior wages clerk at Edwards & Sons Electrical, had made it known that she would be receptive to meeting up with him outside of work, should he ask her. Now, this was a major feather in the Holland boy’s cap. Linda was the unattainable dream girl for every young (and not so young) bloke who gazed upon her. And she knew it. Long blonde hair. Curvy. She was sex on legs. Very long, very shapely legs. Every Friday afternoon, all the sparks and their apprentices would gather at the firm’s head office to receive their pay packets. At 4pm the idle chatter would stop as all eyes turned to the door at the top of the stairs. At 4.01, said door would open and Linda would appear carrying a wire tray full of the small manilla envelopes that contained the employees hard-earned cash.

During the warmer months, she’d wear miniskirts and, when she descended the eighteen steps of that cast iron staircase, for many present it was akin to a religious experience. In fact, one of Joe’s fellow apprentices had once confided to him that, if reincarnation was real, he wanted to come back as Linda’s office chair. Clearly, he hadn’t grasped the concept. It was certainly a strange coincidence that Miss Palmer’s newfound interest in Joe coincided with word getting out that his bank account would be ten grand fatter on his upcoming twenty-first. Stranger still (at least to the men of Edwards & Sons) was that Joe chose not to ask Linda out. To them, this could only mean one of three things. He must either be blind, gay, or insane.

The smart money was on gay, but in fact he was none of the above. There was no denying Linda’s attractiveness but to Joe she came across as a bit of an airhead. Vacuous even. Plus, and this was the deal breaker, during one of their early conversations, they got onto the subject of music, and she’d revealed that her favourite group was The Bay City Rollers. Trying to disguise his horror, he hoped she might redeem herself and asked her what she thought of Aretha Franklin. Her puzzled look told Joe all he needed to know. She’d never heard of the queen of soul. His heart sank like a torpedoed boat as he realised at that moment that they could never be together. Of course, that was his opinion whilst sober; at his party he most definitely would not be sober so, as the drinks start to go down and his brain is relegated to being his second most important organ, there was a real possibility that his stance might change. Meantime, he revelled in the jealousy her flirtatious smiles towards him caused.

What neither the lovely Linda, nor many others knew was that Joe already had plans for his windfall. He’d spend up to a thousand on a car and most of the rest was earmarked as a down payment on a flat, or perhaps even a modest house. It was his chance to get his foot on the property ladder. On his skilled man’s wages, he could afford the mortgage repayments and Paolo, his best friend, had shown an interest in becoming his lodger.

CHAPTER THREE

RESPECT YOURSELF

Joe Holland and Paolo Massetti had been best friends for almost ten years, ever since they met on their first day at Francis Combe secondary modern school, on September 7th, 1965. At that time, only twenty years had elapsed since the end of WW2 and a deep mistrust of any country who’d backed the wrong horse still pulsed through British society. Being half Italian made Paolo a prime target. In the playground on that warm, late summer day, Tony Henderson, the biggest, and meanest boy in their class cornered the much slighter Paolo and sneered, ‘Hey, Massetti, what did your dad do in the war?’ His group of hangers on dutifully sniggered.

Paolo shrugged his shoulders and calmly replied, ‘I don’t know. Your mum probably.’

A large circle of students formed, as it became clear that a fight was now imminent. Joe believed it would be a fight in name only and hoped a teacher would notice what was happening and come out to stop it before Paolo got seriously hurt. But no such luck.

‘I’m going to enjoy this, you mouthy little wop,’ smirked Henderson, drawing back his large right fist. To everyone’s amazement, Paolo hit him three times in lightening quick succession before he could strike. Left-right-left. As his eye blackened, his lip fattened and a trickle of blood vacated his nose, Henderson blinked in disbelief. Then the tears came. No-one present could believe it. Certainly not Henderson. Definitely not Joe. Only the unruffled Paolo seemed unsurprised. When two of the weeping bully’s cohorts moved threateningly towards the victor, Joe stepped into the circle to indicate that he would even up the odds if need be. The would-be assailants backed off, and from that moment on a bond formed between Paolo and Joe. Unspoken, unarticulated, but rock solid.

Word spread like wildfire that the new Italian kid was a bit tasty with his fists. Over that first term it soon became apparent that Paolo Massetti was the antithesis of the ‘cowardly Italian’ stereotype that the Brits loved to make jokes about. If some boy wanted a scrap with him, he was always happy to oblige, regardless of his opponent’s size or age. A recurring theme through their school years were various lads wanting to test themselves against him. And Paolo never backed down. Most times he came out on top, occasionally honours were even, but Joe never saw him beaten. Cut and bruised, yes, but never defeated. The boxing club he’d attended twice a week since his father’s death had obviously had a big impact on him. As had the words of his trainer.

‘Respect yourself. Respect others. But don’t take any shit off them.’

Paolo had no ambition to become a serious boxer, but he enjoyed the discipline and strength building of the ‘noble art’. Getting to know each other over the ensuing weeks, the boys discovered that they shared a lot of similar interests. Football (Joe – Liverpool, Paolo – Arsenal) and the madcap, surreal humour of Spike Milligan being just two. Also, the fact that both their dads were deceased was another common denominator that cemented their friendship. Each as a result of a road accident too. Paolo’s father was knocked down on a zebra crossing and died two days later. Young Paolo had been holding his hand at the time but escaped with just minor bruising, though the nightmares would continue long after the abrasions had healed. Regarding his own dad, all Joe had been told was that his mum had been pregnant with him when his father’s motorcycle skidded and hit a lamppost, killing him instantly. Whenever he asked about his dad, his mother would get upset and agitated, so he kept off the subject. She’d remarried when he was four, but Joe and his stepdad didn’t get on.

Clearly though, it was the Massetti family who had endured the toughest time. Giovanni had been a POW in a camp near Comrie in Perthshire. There were around four thousand prisoners, Germans and Italians. And they absolutely despised each other.

Ellen Robertson had lived in Comrie all her life and met Gio at the village dance just a week after the war ended. He was twenty four and she was nineteen. Much to her parents’ dismay, she started dating the handsome Italian and soon they were engaged. Her folks’ main objection to their daughter’s choice wasn’t that he was a foreigner (Although that was bad enough). Nor that he was a former prisoner of war (At a push, that could be tolerated). It was that Giovanni was raised a catholic and the Robertsons were a protestant family. There was no getting around that obstacle, and they refused to give the union their blessing. So, Ellen was forced to choose between her family and the man she loved. The marriage ceremony consisted of bride, groom, two witnesses and the registrar. Given the family animosity they faced, the decision to move south of the border was an easy one, and they eventually settled in Watford, after short stays in Carlisle and Northampton.

Giovanni was a skilled baker and soon secured a job in a local bakery. Though desperate to start a family, they’d just about given up hope when Ellen fell pregnant in 1953, and Paolo made his bow in February ‘54. Three years later, the Massettis’ happiness was complete with the arrival of Lilah. For Gio, it was love at first sight. He dubbed her Lilah the smiler, as she was such a contented baby. But, as everyone learns sooner or later, happiness is a fragile gift and theirs was shattered in the bleak winter of 1963, when a van driver tried to beat the traffic lights and robbed a family of a loving husband and father. His untimely death made his nine-year-old son even more sensitive to any slurs or insults regarding his roots. As Tony Henderson would one day learn.

But at school, it wasn’t just a few fellow students who took exception to Paolo Massetti’s ethnicity. His history teacher in his third year had lost a brother fighting the Italians in Egypt and made no secret of his disdain at having to educate the offspring of one of ‘the enemy’. It was with undisguised spite that he set the class an assignment to write an account of what they imagined life in WW2 to be like. They were given carte blanche to place themselves in any scenario.

Predictably, most of the boys envisaged themselves as Spitfire pilots, battleship captains or tank commanders. To be fair, Henderson showed a little more imagination and wrote of himself as the soldier who recognised and arrested SS chief Heinrich Himmler and ‘gave him a swift kick in the goolies for all the aggro he’d caused’.

Paolo didn’t shirk the task and bravely wrote his tale through his father’s eyes. He used Gio’s own words, taken from a diary his wife had found whilst going through his possessions after he’d died. It was written in Italian, but she had it translated and read it aloud to her heartbroken children, to give them an insight into the kind of man their father was.

My name is Giovanni Eduardo Massetti, and I was born and raised in Positano, on the south-west coast of Italy. Childhood was not a happy time for me. My father was a cruel man, especially when the drink was in him and often beat my dear mother, as well as me and my older sisters, Rosa and Maria. They both married young to escape and I moved into lodgings as soon as I started earning. When Italy entered the war, I was learning to be a master baker. Baking was my passion, and I had no desire to do anything else. My calling was to feed people, not to kill them.

My friends and me never cared for Mussolini, with his arrogant posturing, but when we were conscripted, we had to go. To refuse meant jail or, in some cases, execution. So, like many others, I reluctantly put on the uniform and took the rifle I was handed. My dream of owning my own baker’s shop, selling fancy cakes of my own design would have to wait. After three months at a training camp my unit was sent to fight the British in Libya. To my relief I was captured before even firing a shot and eventually shipped off to a POW camp in Scotland. This was to be my home for the next four years. I never dreamed that summers could be so cold, and the winters were torture for those of us brought up in warm climates. But at least I was allowed to bake again. Only basic stuff like bread and rolls but, at Christmas, mince pies made from blackberries picked in the summer and preserved. Also, the guards would give me extra cigarettes for making birthday cakes for their families. In May 1945, the war finally ended. At a dance I met a beautiful Scottish girl who captured my heart, and my life truly began. With Italy in chaos, we decided to make our lives in England.

His English tutor chided Paolo for how brief his story was, but its contents must have hit home because after that he was a lot less abrasive towards him, and eventually, they struck up a decent teacher/pupil relationship. Proof that it wasn’t just the physical fights that Paolo had the determination to win. Since his father’s untimely death, he’d taken up the mantle of ‘man of the house’, seeing it as his duty to look out for his widowed mother and younger sister, Lilah. Ah yes, Lilah, Lilah, Lilah.

CHAPTER FOUR

YESTER-ME, YESTER-YOU, YESTERDAY

The first time Joe had set eyes on Paolo’s sister she had been eight years old. One Saturday morning he’d turned up at the Massetti house for a pre-arranged kick about at the nearby recreation ground. Although only a fifteen-minute bus ride away, it was plain to Joe that his friend’s neighbourhood was a notch down the social scale from his. The houses were mostly terraced, whereas in his area they were semi-detached, with large front gardens, not small, concreted spaces. The cars parked around there were fewer in number and older, and there were no trees planted at intervals along the pavements. A group of teens milling outside the parade of shops eyed him warily as he got off the bus. He thought for a second that they might follow him, but they didn’t. Even so, he was pleased that Paolo’s house was in the next street.

The door was opened by a strange little creature. It wore an eyepatch, a red bandana on its head and had an Errol Flynn moustache drawn in felt pen under its nose. After leading the visitor up to Paolo’s bedroom, it offered a quick, ‘Your friend’s here,’ and was gone. Joe’s bemused expression brought forth the explanation, ‘That’s Lilah, my little sister. She has to wear the patch in the mornings because of a lazy eye and I thought the bandana and the tash would make good accessories. I don’t suppose you have a stuffed parrot on you, do you?’

‘Damn, I knew I’d forgotten something.’

Paolo pulled on his trainers, grabbed a plastic football from under the stairs and the duo set off for the rec. As they chatted and casually passed the ball to each other, Joe became aware of the four-foot-tall pirate following them at a distance. Inside the parkland were half a dozen of the lads who’d given Joe the once over at the bus stop and a couple of other boys, who were shouting lewd suggestions to some girls walking a dog. They were soon silenced when one of the girls replied, ‘Shut your trap, Daniel Morton, or I’ll tell your mum. Anyway, your brother told me your winky is like a tadpole.’

‘A baby tadpole,’ corrected one of the other girls and they all giggled.

Daniel’s protestations were drowned out by the all-round laughter as he sulkily followed his friend to join the main group. Once the locals knew Joe was Paolo’s mate he was accepted immediately, and they picked teams. When Lilah pleaded to join in, they decided on a five versus five, with her in goal. This caused a lot of amusement as, with her good eye covered, she had to rely on her lazy eye, which basically resulted in her throwing herself where she guessed the ball might be but rarely was. When one of the players started to make fun of her, Paolo warned him to stop. It was okay for him to tease her, but he wouldn’t tolerate it from others. It was plain to Joe that she hero-worshipped her big brother, and she was never happier than when her idol allowed her to hang out with him and his friends.

Joe soon became a frequent visitor and was always made to feel welcome. Mrs Massetti had a dry, Scottish humour and he liked her a lot. And Lilah was… well, Lilah. The archetypal tomboy. Thick, raven hair always tied back in a ponytail. Permanently grazed elbows and knees where she’d climbed (and occasionally fallen from) trees. She lived in T-shirts and denim dungarees or jeans. Except on schooldays when her mother would bully or bribe her into wearing a skirt.

It was two years later that Joe first realised that Lilah had begun staring at him. A lot. She had developed a deep crush, which Paolo found amusing but the object of her affection found awkward. After all, he was a grown man of thirteen, and she was just a ten-year-old kid. One time, they were all playing football at the rec and it was Joe’s turn in goal. An opponent missed the ball and kicked Joe in the head. It was a pure accident but, before the boy could apologise, Lilah was on him, running up and punching him on the nose. Her brother had to physically pick her up and pull her away, her little fists still flailing. Joe wasn’t sure which hurt most, the kick or the embarrassment.

CHAPTER FIVE

BE YOUNG, BE FOOLISH, BE HAPPY

In the winter of 1969, Joe and Paolo entered A1 barbers in an alley off Watford High St. When they left, ten minutes later, it was without three quarters of their hair. The two fifteen-year-olds couldn’t help but laugh when they looked at each other. All that remained on their craniums was a quarter inch of hair, all over. They’d done it. They were skinheads. In at junior level of the latest working-class youth culture to sweep Britain. Had they been born five years earlier they’d have been mods. But they weren’t. This was their time, and this was their thing. As usual, regarding the younger generation, the tabloid press got it all wrong. Even the term ‘skinhead’ was a misnomer, designed to scare elderly ladies and outrage retired colonels. The hair was cut very short but not shaved off entirely. Why would anyone do that? It’s not a good look.

The media decreed that the whole movement was based on racism and violence. Maybe, for a few, it was. But those individuals would have held those views whatever the current fashion. In truth, like most youth movements, for the vast majority it was all about the look and the music. Belonging to something bigger than you were. A new phenomenon was taking off and you were in, or you were out. Simple as that. The press was only interested in scaremongering – highlighting ‘skins’ from different towns and cities fighting each other at football grounds. Which, in that most tribal of games, would have happened if they’d had hair down to their knees and wore beads and sandals. And would a white supremist movement’s music of choice really be Jamaican reggae and ska? It was lazy journalism. But mud sticks.

In most households, though, ex-military fathers approved of the look. Smarter than that hippie lot. Mothers, on the other hand, were puzzled why their sons chose to resemble Victorian convicts. Joe’s mum was perceptive enough to realise that it was just a fad and would pass, just like the teddy boys and the mods and rockers before it. Her only comment was, ‘Your hair, your choice.’

Truth be known, it didn’t matter what parents, or indeed, any of the older generation thought. At fifteen, the only thing you have in common with adults is that you breathe the same air. They live in their world, and you live in yours. Theirs is black and white, and yours is technicolour.

His stepdad showed his usual lack of interest in anything Joe related and said nothing, which suited Joe fine. He’d now given up all hope of any meaningful relationship between them. Ever since he could remember, he’d tried everything to please Nigel Holland. But nothing he did was ever right. Nigel didn’t treat him with contempt, just indifference, which, to a small child, is just as bad. Aged ten, he’d even joined a colts rugby union team as he knew that was his stepdad’s favourite sport. Nigel did come to watch once, but all Joe got from him was criticism over his ball handling and running style, when all he wanted was a few words of encouragement. He longed for just a crumb of approval, but his plate remained empty, so he quit halfway through the season, despite his mum insisting that he was doing great.

All Nigel’s focus was on his biological son, Joe’s half-brother, David. Granted, he was Nigel’s blood, so he’d naturally favour him, but was it necessary to completely freeze his adopted son out? Even so, Joe got on well with David, though he couldn’t help feeling some resentment. Now, in his mid-teens, the older Holland brother had resigned himself to the situation. He and his stepfather tolerated each other but that was all. It didn’t make for a happy home, despite his mum’s best efforts. Poor mum, it couldn’t have been easy, stuck in the middle. It was only to please her that her first born referred to her husband as ‘Dad’ when he was younger, but that had long since stopped. Since Joe started secondary school he called him Nigel, on the rare occasions that they spoke.

 Consequently, Joe found himself spending more and more time at the Massetti house. It was a welcome escape from the constant underlying tension of his own abode. It had become his bolthole. His sanctuary. The place where he was first introduced to spaghetti. It may have looked like a tangle of earthworms, but it tasted delicious. Paolo’s mum’s take on the boys’ new look wasn’t as diplomatic as Mary Holland’s. Joe was there for his tea the day after their haircuts, and Ellen still hadn’t come to terms with it. As she buttered the bread, she tutted and declared in her no-nonsense Scottish burr, ‘The pair of you look like you’ve escaped from Devil’s Island.’

Lilah’s opinion? Her brother looked ‘alright’, but Joe looked ‘really handsome’.

‘Now there’s a surprise,’ mocked Paolo, stealing a Jaffa cake from her plate, and earning himself a playful clip around the ear from his mother.

Every army has it’s uniform and, in the Watford area, the quartermaster was ‘Charlie, down the market’.

Charlie was a shortish, sad-eyed feller who could sell a fridge to an Eskimo. His stall was always stacked with the latest streetwear. You want Levi jeans or Sta-Prest? A Ben Sherman or Brutus button-collared shirt? A Harrington jacket? Red braces? A Crombie overcoat? Charlie was your man. He was never short of customers because the clothes were of good quality and cheaper than the shops were charging. If he saw you so much as glance at his wares, he’d be on you like a hawk on a sparrow.

‘Look at that stitching. That’s quality mate. You won’t find better. Not at these prices.’

There was only one thing that Charlie couldn’t tolerate – seeing a potential sale get away. If a browser walked off empty handed, he took it as a personal insult. Joe soon learned that if say, a Ben Sherman shirt was priced at thirty shillings, and you explained that you only had twenty-eight shillings, the trader’s response would go along these lines. ‘I can’t sell it for that. What am I, a schmuck? I’ll make nothing. You’re taking the bread from my kids’ mouths.’

If you looked disappointed, held your nerve and turned to walk off, you’d inevitably hear, ‘Alright, just this once. But don’t tell anybody!’

Naturally, Joe told everybody, and soon all the kids were employing the same tactic, with the same result. For your Doc Marten air cushion soled boots, though, you’d need a trip to a shoe shop. As for the girls, they’d buy some gear from Charlie, but acquire their miniskirts, patterned tights, short jumpers and accessories from Chelsea Girl – or Martin Fords, if they were on a tight budget.

For the youngest Massetti child, this was a period of deep frustration. She was desperate to get in on this new trend but, at barely twelve years old, even the smallest sizes were too big for her. And when she begged her mum to let her wear her hair in the new short, feather cut style, her request was met by a flat refusal. Even a bout of forced crying didn’t work. So, Lilah took the only course of action left open to her. Literally taking matters into her own hands, in the shape of her mum’s dressmaking scissors, she cut her own hair. Hacked is probably a better word. When she’d finished, her fringe was an inch higher at one end than the other, the sides were of unequal length and density, and the back looked like she’d been attacked from behind by Jack the Ripper.

Ellen arrived home from work just as the last, uneven clump of hair was hitting the bathroom lino. After surveying the tonsorial carnage she wailed, ‘Your lovely hair! What have you done?’

Wedging a woolly hat on her daughter’s head she marched her off to the hairdressers. With a look of horror, the stylist said, ‘I’ll do what I can, but I only have scissors, not a wand.’

In fact, what she did was remarkable. Lilah walked out of the salon with a very cute pixie crop. Mission accomplished. She had to go the long way round but got there in the end.

Paolo’s sister was nothing if not persistent, and as the last year of the 60’s progressed, her mum finally gave in and let her attend the local youth club – with the proviso that Paolo was there to keep an eye on her. This didn’t sit well with her brother, afraid that having a younger sibling tagging along would cramp his style; his presumption being that he had any in the first place. But, after much pleading, he relented. So, on Friday evenings, Lilah would clip her red braces onto her denim jeans and accompany Paolo and Joe to the North Watford 7th group scout hut, where, between 7 and 9pm, dozens of young teens would congregate to pose, drink warm Pepsi and dance.

In a corner of the hut, a table was bedecked with blinking yellow fairy lights borrowed from the scouts’ box of Christmas decorations. Behind the lights sat a very impressive stereo with twin turntables and large speakers either side. On the decks, and looking even more impressive than the sound system, stood nineteen-year-old Alan Curtis, or Acey as he was universally known.

Physically, Acey was everything the younger boys aspired to be. Tall, slim, stylish, with something that Joe & co could only dream of; sideburns, trimmed to the same length as his cropped hair. His threads hung perfectly on him. Black and white gingham check Ben Sherman – tucked into his turned up white Sta-Prest trousers – which were held up by the obligatory red braces. On his feet, high cut, cherry red (not black, which were for mere mortals) Doc Martens.

During the cooler months he donned his black Crombie coat, with the red silk in the breast pocket. He looked the business. The boys wanted to be Acey, and the girls wanted to be with Acey. Many of them danced without once taking their eyes off him, hoping to attract his attention. No-one really cared that he rarely smiled. Or questioned why he never introduced his selected tracks or talked in between them. He just played the music, and that was good enough. The first time Joe heard him utter a word was when he spotted one of the boys had smuggled a bottle of beer in and was showing off by swigging from it as he danced. Acey beckoned the miscreant over, and Joe was in earshot of the conversation.

Acey (sternly): ‘Underage drinking will mean the end of Friday nights in here. Do you want that?’

The shame-faced boy shook his head, ‘No.’

Acey: ‘Right then. Get rid of it. Now.’

Boy: ‘Where?’

Acey: ‘Think.’

The lad racked what passed as his brain but had to admit defeat. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

Acey leaned in menacingly and repeated, ‘Think.’

The frightened kid stood frozen, not knowing what to do or say and looking like he was going to burst into tears, until the exasperated DJ pointed toward the hut’s tiny kitchenette. ‘Think! Pour it down the fucking think.’

So that’s why Acey rarely spoke. Not to enhance his ‘mean, moody and magnificent’ image. He had a lisp. Unfortunate for anyone, but especially for someone with aspirations to be a disc jockey. Shamefully, Joe couldn’t help finding a guilty pleasure in Acey’s speech impediment, reasoning that it wouldn’t have been fair if God had given him everything. Joe and Paolo truly admired Alan Curtis though. He owned a car, worked for his dad’s scaffolding firm; hell, he probably even had his own bank account. Acey was firmly ensconced in the adult world. But they hadn’t got him. He was 100% a ‘skin’. Still one of their own. And they appreciated the fact that he gave up his time for them and introduced them to floor-fillers like Elizabethan Reggae; Liquidator; Red, Red Wine; Wonderful World, Beautiful People; and The Israelites. The last song always made the pair laugh, as when Desmond Dekker sang the title, it sounded like he was saying, ‘Me ears are alight.’

Members of the youth club were white, black, mixed race and at least six of Italian extraction. And when Acey spun the anthemic Skinhead Moonstomp, that wooden hut seemed to jump to the beat, as rows of kids obeyed the West Indian singer’s instructions.

Front and centre in the throng was Lilah, her arms swinging and her feet stamping for all she was worth, basking in the joy of this glimpse into the realm that the older kids inhabited. From her first visit, she loved her Friday nights, as did her brother and his best mate.

Little did any of them know that the Christmas ‘69 disco would be the last they’d enjoy at the scout hut. On New Years Day 1970, persons unknown decided to burn it down. Lilah, Paolo and Joe were just three of the many kids who mourned it’s passing. As Lilah observed through misty eyes, ‘Why would anyone do that? Why are they even born?’

CHAPTER SIX

SWEET SOUL MUSIC

With just a couple of months to go until he was old enough to walk out of the school gates for the very last time, Joe still didn’t know what he wanted to do for a job. Then, as it so often did, providence stepped in. One of the organisers at Paolo’s boxing club, an electrician by trade, mentioned that his company were taking on apprentices in late April. He could put in a good word if Paolo fancied it. The offer was declined because the car crazy teenager had already bagged himself a start as a trainee mechanic at the Vauxhall dealership, within walking distance of his house. He did however mention that his best friend might be interested.

With nothing else on the horizon, Joe leapt at the opportunity, as he would have done had it involved plumbing, bricklaying or carpentry. The important thing was that it was an apprenticeship. If you weren’t going on to further education, getting yourself a trade was the way to go. Yes, a factory or warehouse job would pay better in the short term, but in the long term, if you were a skilled man, you’d be quids in. And fate had decreed that Joe Holland’s skill would be electrics.

Of course, you couldn’t just say ‘Yes please’ and be handed a five-year apprenticeship. The company was investing in you, and there were requirements to be met. Joe would need O level passes in English and Maths. He’d have to sit an aptitude test. And provide written confirmation from a doctor that he wasn’t colour blind. When he explained to his head of house what was on offer, he kindly arranged for Joe to take his exams early. Academics didn’t come naturally to him, but through dedication and lots of revision he gained passes in not only the two subjects required, but also Geography. The aptitude test consisted of one hundred questions. Most answers were basic common sense, and Joe scored an impressive ninety-six. And he cleared the last hurdle when his GP quickly ascertained that he had no trouble distinguishing red from green and blue from yellow. By the time the Easter eggs hit the shops, he was good to go.

Which is how, on Monday 27th April, a nervous, fifteen year old turned up at the head office of Edwards & Sons Electrical for his first day as a working man. There, he was introduced to the electrician who would mentor him for the next five years – Lenny Coleman.

Lenny was a real character. A big man with a big heart. He was forty-eight years old, a staunch trade unionist, married, with two grown daughters. Joe soon discovered that, as well as being a great teacher, he also enjoyed a joke, and a few beers on a Saturday night at the British Legion. Lenny walked with a slight limp, and sometimes his apprentice would hear him wince if the job entailed him kneeling for too long. Joe was too polite to mention it, but a few weeks in, they were doing a first fix on a house in Hemel Hempstead when Lenny said, ‘I suppose you’re curious about the limp. Would you like to know how I got it?’

‘Only if you want to tell me, Len.’

Lenny went on to reveal how he’d been a corporal in the 3rd Infantry division, the first British troops to land on Sword beach on D-Day. During the intense fighting he’d taken a German bullet to the leg. He asked the surgeon who removed the bullet it if he could have it as a souvenir. Ever since that day he’d worn it on a chain around his neck to remind himself how lucky he was. Reaching inside his shirt collar, he showed the awe-struck teenager the evidence.

Two weeks later, Lenny was off with a stomach bug, so Joe was temporarily placed with another sparks. When the youngster mentioned Lenny’s heroic tale, the older man laughed, leaving Joe baffled, then went on to explain. ‘Len was one of the first soldiers to land on D-Day. And he was under heavy fire. But he came through unscathed.’

‘But what about his limp?’ queried Joe.

‘He had a barney with his Mrs one night, got pissed and fell over a dustbin on his way home from the pub. Broke his tibia in two places.’

Feeling a little foolish, Joe still appreciated it was a good wind-up, even if it was at his expense. When Lenny returned to work, the apprentice bided his time before revealing he was on to him. As they ate their sandwiches he confided, ‘Len, I can totally understand why you wear that bullet on your neck chain.’

‘Can you really son?’ came the doubtful reply. ‘I mean, can you?’

‘Absolutely. Cos wearing a dustbin on it would give you a hunched back.’