The journey seemingly, as far as I can indeed recall, began on P----- Main Station, a place where I have never consciously been in my life. All the bustle and jumble of any major railway terminus went on around me as I boarded the train, a lightweight racing bicycle (presumably a Claude Duval model) draped over my shoulder. I made my way along the deep wooden and long corridors of the train seemingly looking for a place to deposit the bicycle, passing masses of humanity sitting in the admittedly quite spacious gangways. All appeared quite gay as indeed it did at all stages of my journey.

I carried along the apparently endless corridors, till at last I reached what must have been in finer times the guard's wagon. There amongst the post-office boxes and general misplaced carpentry of any small town haberdashery I was able to place down my burden and sit and talk to the girl who appeared beside me. There's little I can say of the girl save that her skin was like silk and her future gleamed like a pearl. Blonde hair, of course, but her features remain dim in my memory though with glimpses of the past they become stronger again and I can see her total beauty shining out. The kind of beauty that you would cross four or even five countries for. A girl of dreams. The girl of my many dreams.

We sat and talked and chatted away the miles quite gaily until the train drew into B--- Main Terminus where the railway tracks stopped in this great and majestic steel and glass creation. Totally unlike the railway station in B--- at all but it was so in my dream.

Top-hatted porters shuffled elegantly by and horse-drawn carriages awaited the richer of the travellers. The Terminus building seemed decked out in the great Victorian style. Hanging baskets hung gracefully at intervals along the walls. Cafe's lined the platform edges filled with a graceful clientele. And so it was into such a scene I eagerly stepped, the bicycle once more slung over my shoulder.

Slowly I made my way outside to find myself on the street of a smallish English market town-and as I looked around the station building itself seemed to have shrunk to the size of a smallish market town station. Red brick in it's construction, dusty glass battened windows. You all know the kind of place yourself as well as I do. The other passengers, unfortunately not including the blonde girl, were entering a coach or more so a charabanc that was parked outside the station building on the corner of the street. Not knowing what else to do I followed them onto the bus and depositing the bicycle in a very grand left-luggage space on the bus' deck I took my seat alongside my fellow travellers.

The driver turned around with a gypsyesque smile on his lips, a bedraggled bandanna around his head and an old brown leather coat-jacket across his shoulders. His name, though he never announced it was something like Dave Angel; more because he would certainly have been born within sight of the Angel tube station in London than for any other reason. But this is just a feeling I had and could easily be totally misplaced.

The bus took off through low-hedged lanes filled with late-afternoon sunlight and we went merrily on our way. I remember wondering just how I'd be able to pay the fare for the journey as just before getting off the train I'd noticed that my ticket had been somehow misplaced amidst the ruins of my jacket. Doubtless I had little if any cash about my person, an not unusual occurrence probably due to reckless spending when I had the cash in my hands a few days earlier. In such things time never makes me any wiser.

My fellow passengers seemed to be a jolly bunch and even though I can remember little of them apart from their presence on the charabanc what I do recall of them sits well in my head.

Eventually as the sun was setting up in the sky we arrived at a beautiful hillside village, all winding stone-walled streets and quaint old buildings. Everything a village should be. Like something out of the Famous Five. I remember thinking to myself why hadn't our agent ever sent me to places this beautiful and unspoilt. Maybe this was the land of dreams no less…

And as we crawled up a winding hillside roadway our bus encountered a small car waiting to exit from a side street that we obviously intended to turn into. We bade our time and allowed it come out of the streetway, disappearing off further up the hill. Then as we sought to enter the street ourselves another car came out right in our path. A white car of presumably English construction-early 1960's I'd guess-with a frazzled looking character at the steering wheel. We had to brake to avoid a collision and then reverse slightly down the hill to let him out. He drove off with no sign of thanks at all.
We just about managed the turning into the narrow streetway and came to rest outside a beautiful old gabled house with a luscious wooden porch at the front. We disembarked and upon doing so were informed that at the village hall just down the street there was to be a party at which we were all invited to perform to pay for our fare. "Ah," I thought, "So this is how the bus operation runs." The driver, Angel, or whatever his name was, invited us either to stay at the house or to come down the road for the concert evening. I for some reason or another decided to give the concert a miss.

At this point in the adventure who should appear but Dave Kusworth, my colleague in The Jacobites. He announced that he was going to play at the concert and then disappeared up the road to the wooden slatted village hall with that loping gait of his in full effect.

I sat at first on a wooden bench-seat on the porchway to the house revelling in the bonfire tinged evening that appeared all around me. Deep wood smoke filled the evening air-drifting by in small cloud forms and scenting up the air.

The next second my relaxation and composure was to be rudely awakened by the horsy-like lady of the house appearing in front of me and most indignantly stating that this was her house and that furthermore she was totally fed up with charabanc parties arriving every Monday evening for the charity concert in the village hall. Now though I cannot recall the actual words I spoke I remember very well telling her that she should be really indignant if such was her wont and indeed giving her a few pointers on the subject.

We talked in a like manner for some minutes and the next thing I knew I was inside the house relaxing on a deep white covered bed. The covering was some kind of thick muslin / cotton material remembered by me as being similar in feel though of a different colour-the original being green-to a coverlet that used to cover the bed I had at my parent's house.

Gradually I started to explore the room. Moving from dressing table to cabinet and from cabinet back again to the dressing table. In one of the drawers of the table I discovered an assorted collection of English and American rock and roll magazines dating back to the heyday of the 1970's. The lady of the house returned and told me that I could have the magazines for which I thanked her gratefully and went back outside the house to rejoin the bus which was revving up it's little engine in preparation for departure.

At this point Dave Kusworth reappeared with his band, two of the bus-party. He announced how much he'd enjoyed playing solo and that he should consider doing so again in the near future. At this we rejoined the charabanc party and set off down the road which once again led through moonlit streets and roads as we headed off into the close darkness of a summer's night. Eventually we hit another township.

The streets we drove down were dark grey and green and upon them lay a smattering of glisten. A glisten of tiny effervescent sparkles that reflected the moonlight down upon the way. And the town our charabanc now entered glistened even ,ore than ever before in my dreams. It was like the sparkle you get in the middle of an LSD trip when all seems to shine out on your way. And the streets of this small town were embedded deep along the tram tracks by the shards of empty champagne bottles.

Some bottles lay smashed deep in the tram lines, others remained more or less as they had been blown. Our coach, or charabanc, as it had become had to swerve on it's way down these streets to avoid puncturing a tyre or more. I found myself turning to the woman driving the coach, a not unattractive piece and asking why on the streets of this long forgotten town there should lie the remnants of more bottles of champagne than one could ever drink in one lifetime.

"The people of this town have more money than they know what to do with," she replied. "Indeed they are accustomed hereabouts to drink champagne in the manner others turn to water. Not a particularly wise people it must be said, but a profitable market-place for the owners of the champagne vineyards in deepest France."

To this statement I nodded in gentle agreement. The strange thing was that the streets of the town were empty of life. No-one appeared to mask the tranquillity through which our vehicle careered, swerving on occasion to make room for another remnant of broken bottle glass.

The buildings of the town appeared in the glistening air to be slightly grey and post-war in construction. From that ugly time of building which allowed no grace but merely angularity taking the place of any remote traces of creativity. And more strange still was the fact that were no signs announcing night-clubs or indeed any trace of a drinking tavern or what have you. The streets lay deserted at our feet as the wheels of the coach led us quickly out of the township and up further hills. For this place had become a valley or so it appeared to my meandering eyes.

Of the woman driver I never caught her name, nor any others in my dream save for my friends. However as memory recalls she wore a home-counties style of head-scarf and probably a hacking jacket with slacks or even jodhpurs upon her legs. Her hair, the little I could glimpse was brunette with a touch of auburn in the colouring. Nice lips, very kissable though I didn't so much as try; Ah well, another lost opportunity. She'd have been about 32 or 33 in age. Not a bad age to be.

(Here the text breaks off as though no more else could be remembered or indeed recalled.)

Nikki Sudden
Written in Brno, Czech Republic, February, 1996