Blame Andy Burnham

Keegan's Képi Blanc

 KEEGAN'S

Képi Blanc

remembrances

a work of faction

by

Daf Williams

It was 1976 and we were 10. Punk was dawning and the swamp of teenage-hood was before us. Me and my best mate Mickey lived in Cilcain, in the same village as Kevin Keegan who played for Liverpool. 

Kevin Keegan's Voice 

'Jean and I had decided to buy a house in Wales when we discovered how much more you could get for your money there. Our lovely house with two acres of land cost no more than the three bedroomed semis on smart estates in Liverpool that the other players usually favoured. The fantastic views and the peace and quiet of the countryside were well worth the time it took to commute to Anfield. We used to ride our horses for miles and miles in Parc Arthur and rarely saw another soul, although on one occasion we were out on horseback, scarecly identifiable in our riding gear and hats when a guy popped up apparently from nowhere and asked me for my autograph which was pretty weird.'

Extract from his autobiography.

Our Fathers were self made men, my dad had a printing business in Denbigh called Gwasg Ni and Mickey's Dad had a Jewellery business in Ruthin called Kinsellas. They were born Welsh and Classless. Class was an English Invention. Pops had come across it first when he had started work in Fleet Street in the 1950's. He was London Welsh and went to Jewin on a Sunday and Highbury on a Saturday. He'd had me late in life and looking back I had everything apart from cuddles.  Cilcain stands nestled under Moel Famau where on a Sunny Day you can see the Liver Building.  Mickey's Dad had been born in Liverpool, but his grandparents were from St Asaph. Mickey and I had gone to the Village School, Ysgol y Foel and that's where we came across Kevin Keegan for the first time. He was giving out prizes at the Sports Day.

Our fathers were deciding where to send us. It was our last year in primary. We wanted to go together obviously but our Dads had different ideas. Even though I spoke Welsh, Mickey didn't. Mickey's Dad was very pro the language and Welsh Culture even though he'd lost it in Liverpool. My Dad having lived in London just wanted me to have a good education, a head start. His business was doing well and he said that he could afford to send me private. I didn't know about such things in those days. Me and Mickey obviously wanted to be together. 

Other things were on our minds in the Spring of 1976. Through his Jewellery Business Mickey's Dad Gwilym or Bill as he was called had got tickets for the second leg of Liverpool V Barcelona at Anfield. Tickets were like Godldust. Toshack had scored in the first leg at the Nou Camp and the Spanish Fans had thrown their cushions down in disgust on the pitch at the end of the game. 55,104 tickets had gone on sale, a club record for Liverpool. It was the semi-final of the Uefa Cup.

One thing was sure, you couldn't see the Denbigh Mental from the top of Moel Famau. It was hidden as Mental Illness was hidden. It was taboo, verboeten.

Square Pegs in round holes, that's what me and Mickey were. We stayed friends until Margaret Thatcher came in to power and then we saw less and less of eachother. I had withdrawn into my shell not to emerge until my breakdown at 21. Admitted to the North Wales Medical Centre for two weeks under Dr Dafydd Alun Jones. I was told that I was very sensitive.

The First Punk Record to be launched in the UK was still seven months away. The Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK so we still had to put up with the likes of Chicago's 'If you leave me now' or David Soul's 'Don't give up on us baby'. Pants wot? We were ten and so alive. Telly Savalas was all the rage in 1976 and we just couldn't stop saying "Who loves you baby"? We must have said it a hundred times a day. We didn't think of him dying of cancer when we were just starting out on the fags and reading action magazine.

The Heather on Moel Famau was like a warm bed of curly hair that enveloped you when you fell. You pick the right spot and you could move across like Sid Vicious or Johnny Rotten on a sea of arms after they had thrown themselves into the crowd. Summers were hot and reliable in the seventies and the summer of 76 was to be the hottest of the lot. There was only a little wind and we made the most of it with our Peter Powell Stunt kites. One day Mickey's Gran from Liverpool came with us. She must have been about 80 then and she had the broadest Scouse accent I've ever heard. Mickey had a Red Kite naturally and I had a White one (Liverpool's home and away strip) She punched Mickey in the shoulder when he wouldn't hand it over.  Me and Mickey were big cyclists. We'd love nothing better than to descend into the villages below Llangynhafal, Hendrerwydd, Gellifor, spin through the red Rocks. Find the Village Shop and try it on with the fags. We had the money we just needed the fags. Our fathers smoked cigars and my dad preferred a pipe. We were enveloped in the smoke of Grandee and Three Nuns as we watched Liverpool in their all white strip playing Johan Cruyff's Barcelona. It was 1-1 and Liverpool went through on a Big Phil Thompson goal. I was blonde and Mickey had Black hair. We were always over eachother's houses playing. Our Mam's would make us great teas of Jammy Dodgers and Golden Wonder Crisps with Cherryade Corona.

Oh yes, we'd passed the physical allright. We both had older sisters who thought we were pests and nuisances. Her and me Ma would be swooning over Sacha Distel and me Da would be puffing on his pipe in his brown and cream stripey cardigan and detachable Prince Charles Beard. Looking back it seems like he had a beard one day and then he wouldn't the next. Even though Mickey's dad and my Dad were businessmen they supported the Labour Party.

Me and Mickey were planning to find a car like Starsky and Hutches in Mold and steal it.

Mickey grew up to be a kind of Travis Bickle Character. We're all loners really. I don't know why the media make such a big thing of it. We live as we dream, alone.

The Big Treat would be going off somewhere sometimes Rhyl, sometimes Wrexham. Me and Mickey had viewfinders and we always needed to top up with new views because we'd got bored. We were also suckers for these Transfer Books you could get in WH Smiths. From War to Dinosaurs. Really 76/77 was to be our last year together. He would go to Ysgol Glan Clwyd in St Asaph and I was sent to Ruthin School, the Redcaps. Two of the worst decisions our fathers could have made. They loved us I know but they fucked us up like in Phillip Larkin's poem when they did that to us. We actually ended up discussing whether our Dad's had swopped us when we were babies. He spoke English at home and went to a Welsh Medium School and I spoke Welsh at home and ended up going to an English Public school. Still ours wasn't to reason why, ours was just to do or die. And that's what me and Mickey did during our teenage years, we died. He wasn't a particularly naughty lad in primary but by all accounts he went haywire in Glan Clwyd. I went the opposite in Ruthin. I went into my shell. We did Latin there and I even remember doing extra Latin. Latin when the Hen Iaith fy Nhadau was dying. I really don't know what happens to you and your body and your mind when you turn thirteen but kids should be warned. It's mental.            

Mickey went off and joined the French Foreign Legion

1284 and all that!

https://www.denbighshirefreepress.co.uk/news/26246361.700-year-old-ruthin-school-enter-administration/

 Mae'r felltith di codi

mae'r ysgol di cau

ydy o'n deg dwed, wrthyt ti dal ffeindio bai?

Allbost trefedigaethol, staen ar Gymreictod yr ardal

Kraut, Knuckles, Smiley, Chizel, Biffo a Plug

llysenwau heb ei ail mewn ysgol ble oedd y Gymraeg yn olaf

Smiley yn dechrau cangen o'r Urdd a Knuckles yn arwr yn y rhyfel

Sgrifennodd llyfr 'Pum cynnig i Gymro' "What does it say?"

"Mi fydd rhaid i chi ddysgu geirfa", ei hanesion yn saff gyda fi

Lladin yn lle'r Gymraeg, Scripture oedd geiriau'r Beibl

Rygbi mewn ardal peldroed, allanolwr yn cerdded adref yn ei gap bach coch

Freintiedig roedd rhai yn ei galw ni ond ar goll ac yn golledig buodd yn hanes i  

Mae'r felltith di codi

Mae'r ysgol di cau

Ydy o'n deg dwed, wrthyt ti dal ffeindio bai?

Further Reading

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-lifting-of-curse.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/05/schola-ruthinensis.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2014/11/arithmetical-equation.html

 

I’ll end up marrying a bird like Björk 

 

If these heatwaves carry on 

I’m going to have to move to Iceland 

and I’ll end up marrying a bird like Björk 

We’ve had two already and it’s only just July 

We’d heard that the polar ice caps were melting 

but we thought that was April Fool 

Some people get such a kick out of denying climate change 

that even though they know it’s happening they still carry on 

cos they don’t want to be stopped 

from their capitalistic conveniences 

on this earth 

“I take advantage of you short time” 

The arrogance of man is breathtaking 

Especially right wing libertarian men who think that 

by shouting loudest they’ll end up shouting last. 

They may be correct 

I went to have a look for a fan in B&M but they’d run out 

no air conditioning for me 

My filltir scwar, my square mile is going to look like the Serengeti 

a desert during periods of severe drought. 

I think we’re starting to see the start of civilizational collapse in the West 

It won’t be long before the Capitalists and Tech Billionaires say 

“Stuff this for a game of working class soldiers” 

As they climb into their rockets for Mars. 

If these heatwaves carry on 

I’m going to have to move to Iceland   

and I’ll end up marrying a bird like Björk    

but knowing my luck I’ll only get as far 

as the JORVIK Viking Centre in York.    

 WHAT IS WORTH DEFENDING?

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor or his brother Charles?

I'm not sending my son to die for Nigel Farage or Rupert Lowe

Some old rear admiral, a walrus of a man wants yer tax

spent on warfare not welfare on killing not kindness 

He says the Russians especially the Chechens are going to come 

down yer street and rape and kill ya!

Do you believe him?

Nature abhors a vacuum

and the Tories and the Military are banging the drums and rattling the sabers.

What is worth defending?

The people who scream at hotels in our name?

Those who terrify refugees and asylum seekers?

We need to defend the rights of racists and patriots and Islamophobes

to march down Whitehall for a bit of a piss about and a tear up

Our Tommies shall die so that Luton Tommy can sniff his gack and spout his bile

This time

if we go to war against the Russians then we will be the Fascists.

Hitler had his turn

Our loyalist, Protestant Orangemen will turn it from Volgograd to Vulgargrad

We've always deferred to the Toffs of Public Schools and Sandhurst

They will find the money to send the children of the poor to war

NEETS NO MORE!

The Fleamarket Game

It's about time I wrote another bloody blog post.

 

I'm not squeamish but I didn't watch either 'scene' from Southampton or Belfast. I've written many times about the insanity to come, on here, and it appears that we are in the middle of it now.

The hard right are worried about the fall of Western Civilization. Let it fall I say! There seems to be an inevitability about it.

Rome wasn't built in a day and it didn't fall in a day either. I'm boycotting the World Cup 2026 this time as I boycotted Eurovision 2026. Not difficult for somebody who has put a table cloth over the television. See picture above if you happen to work for TV Licensing.

Despite blatant BBC propaganda during the Israeli Genocide of Palestine I was holding on and holding on to watch the football highlights on a Saturday night to catch 10 seconds worth of a Wrexham FC game and then turning it over to watch MOTD just to fall asleep. The removal of Gary Lineker for speaking his truth was the final straw for I have always been a Bread & Circus man! I could no longer justify the £180.00

£180.00 a year to be traumatized by global news. Instead of being sued by Trump, the BBC should be funding him for the daily drama he provides "We've got a deal with Iran, we don't know who we're dealing with because we killed the head guys, we're very close to a deal, we're going to bomb them back to the Stone age" ad infinitum

That little or probably huge flatscreen television in the corner of your living room has been playing with your subconscious since the 2nd June 1953 when good queen Liz was crowned at Westminster Abbey and filmed in colour.

The amount of horror and tragedy that has been beamed in to our collective lives to keep us fearful and obedient. Do you remember being severely affected by a particular global news story? Did your father or mother ever say "Turn it off, turn it off"

The light entertainment programmes of the 1970s, Morecambe & Wise, Dad's Army repeated on various channels remind us wistfully of more innocent times but were they more innocent times in reality. While the middle classes were trying to work out what would be on the conveyor belt in Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game. What do points make? The National Front and the BNP.

The scenes from Belfast watched on this computer were enough to put you back into New Cross in 1981  

I would contest that Britain has always been a racist collective of countries. If the white man had not introduced slavery to Capitalism then the Windrush Generation might not have arrived as economic migrants in 1948.

Many of those care workers and health workers burned out of their homes in Belfast had arrived there from countries ravaged by war. Colonialist Britain & France will be reaping a whirlwind of Karma despite the worst efforts of ReformUK Ltd and Restore Britain.

If and when all this blows over, the kindling will still be burning, the gorse and the heather will still crackle with the burning resentment of loyalist, protestant, poverty fueled, and austerity driven working class white Britain with pompous public schoolboys ready to lead from behind.