But It's All over Now: A Teenage Urban Idyll

By William Franks

But It's All Over Now is an evocation of the mid 1960s as seen from the point of view of a working class North London teenager and his friends, and even some girls. In 1963 Bill Franks was a 16 year old virgin and was still a virgin 2 1/2 years later, but they were the best years of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524680732

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© 2017 William Franks. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/10/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8074-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8073-2 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Blind Date

Chapter 2 Park Life

Chapter 3 Percy Filth

Chapter 4 The Stoke Newington Connection

Chapter 5 Chez Don and The Mish

Chapter 6 The Hoxton Incident

Chapter 7 Studio 51

Chapter 8 Time Bombs Are Little But…

Chapter 9 The Bloody End

Glossary Of Terms

ILLUSTRATIONS

‘Bill Franks, proud owner of a Lambretta LI150’

‘The demise of Bill Franks, Lambretta LI150’

The Arcade, Islington Green

Bill Franks bedroom, Cumberland Buildings

‘Charlie Franks, pub pianist’

CHAPTER 1

BLIND DATE

1963

B illy Franks was sixteen in February. He had never had a girlfriend, but seven days after his birthday he went out with a girl for the first time. It was a blind date organised by his friend Brian Evans, the best bird-puller he knew. Brian was going out with a girl called Kim who lived near The Angel and apparently she had two friends who fancied meeting a couple of his eligible mates. Billy had spent most of the evening of his birthday with Jim Singer and Brian in the amusement Arcade at Islington Green, and on the way home Brian mentioned that a blind date was in the offing. The three of them lived in the ‘Buildings’, the run-down, four storey blocks of flats just off Islington’s Essex Road. They turned down their street and quickly reached the first of the three gateways. These were wide two-storey entrances that were pierced through the continuous four-Storey block of flats which faced the street like a formidable rampart. The openings gave unhindered access to the big courtyards and to the open balconies of the three groups of flats. The first gateway served ‘Rosebery Buildings’ where Brian lived. The boys stood under the high archway and lit up the last of the Senior Service cigarettes they had won on the flipper machines in the Arcade.

Come off it Apse, (this was Brian’s nick name thought to have arisen from his childhood addiction to apples), You must have seen ’em. Do you reckon ’em? Are they a couple of sorts or what? Jim asked not for the first time. Jim was concerned about the state of these beauties from City Road who were friends of Kim, Brian’s girlfriend. Billy, however, was happy enough that they were apparently bona-fide specimens of the opposite sex. Indeed he was exhilarated, but also a little worried by the prospect of going to the pictures with a girl he had never met before. But Jim, unlike Billy, had some experience of girls and was nothing like as desperate.

Nah, honest I ain’t met ’em Jim. Kim says they ain’t old slags or nothing. Are you gonna come or what, ’cause I’m going home, some of us have to work for a living?

Brian Evans had gone to Billy’s school, Canonbury Mathematical Grammar, but despite the headmaster’s protests he had left on his fifteenth birthday, much to his mum’s delight, and had been working for nearly a year in the new self service grocer’s shop in Chapel Market and paying for his keep. He had managed to get Jim a Saturday job there as well and they self serviced something from the shop every week. Billy and Jim however were still at school, Billy at Canonbury and Jim at Holloway Boys, and they were going to take their GCE ‘O’ level examinations in June. They were on their half term holidays and so they weren’t worried about getting up the next day.

I bet they’re right scrubbers, said Jim.

Billy thought he could probably just about handle scrubbers, but during his early years of teenage frustration he had developed romantic fantasies about girls and he did not want to spoil the illusion at the first encounter. The prospect of scrubbers was exciting but it was also a bit scary. Billy was looking for romance.

So Kim reckons they’re alright then Bri.

How many more times Bill! Yeah! They ain’t vile or nothing. What do you want, a bleedin’ photo or something?

Billy knew he would regret it if he did not go.

I don’t go a bundle on blind dates, said Jim, You don’t know what sort of state you’re gonna end up with.

Well I reckon we should give it a go Jim, Billy heard himself saying as an unpleasant sensation crept through his lower intestine, Come on Jim, it’ll be the greatest giggles, we can always go down the ‘cade if we don’t like the look of ’em.

I ain’t that hard up Bill, not like some I could mention…

Don’t give me all that Jim, you’ve got nuffin to lose. It’s not as if you’ve got some sort on the go, is it? Come on, troof now.

Some of us are getting a bit desperate, Brian chimed in with a grin and poked Billy in the ribs. Billy went red but the lamp in the gateway was too dim to shed light on his embarrassment.

All right Bill, just for you. I’ll go along with it, but you get the dragon, OK? Jim smiled.

Neither of ’em are dragons, I keep telling you, Said Brian, And I don’t want no-one chickening out at the last minute to go up the Arcade either. Cos I ain’t going to the flicks with Kim and two bleedin’ gooseberries.

What, don’t you reckon you could handle ’em then Bri? Billy poked back at Brian.

Not with Kim around I can’t. Brian leered, So, It’s all arranged then, seven o’clock Tuesday night outside the Angel flicks, not the Blue ‘all, the effing Angel, right?

Good gooses Mrs! We’ve got it Bri. Don’t worry, we’ll be there, won’t we Jim?

’Course. Said Jim,

Coming home then Billy boy? Poor old Apse needs his beauty sleep.

Tell you what, said Brian, Why don’t you pair of ponces call for me on Tuesday and we can go up the Angel together.

He’s really worried in case we don’t turn up ain’t he? You under the thumb or what? Said Jim.

Piss off Jim.

Alright Apsey, I’ll drag him up here on Tuesday, it’ll be a right laugh. Billy said.

Brian rolled his lighted cigarette end between his thumb and forefinger and flicked it over the cars parked outside the gateway and on to the opposite pavement outside the old council flats, which were almost as dire as the Buildings.

See ya then, He said and ran up one of the staircases that came down into the gateway. His flat was on the third floor and he was soon out of sight. Jimmy and Billy walked down the street to the next gateway, the one leading into their flats, Cumberland Buildings. Billy crossed the square, as the courtyard was known, to the staircase on the far side of the block where he lived with his mum and dad in a two bedroom flat on the top floor. Jim went to the corner of the square and into the dark alley that linked Cumberland Buildings to the square of Salisbury Buildings by way of a dank airey. Since his grandmother had died Jim lived with his mum and his half brother and sister in one of the modernised flats on the ground floor. His stepfather no longer lived there, which was fine by Jim.

On Tuesday evening Billy and Jim knocked Brian up and they sat on his bed in the room that he shared with his older brother Les and they listened to Buddy Holly records. Brian’s flat was on that corner of Rosebery Buildings that had been rebuilt after the Luftwaffe had flattened it. It was on the top floor, where their street and Dagmar Walk met. Brian’s window looked over the back of the Queens Head pub and the smelly wool dying works. The flat was big with a proper bathroom and kitchen, unlike Billy’s old flat that only had a scullery, as his mum called it, and no bathroom. There were four bedrooms, one for Brian’s eldest brother, another for his big sister, one for Mr and Mrs Evans and one that Brian shared with Les. Fortunately Les was out.

Nah Jim, I don’t get on with our Les. He’s a right pig. You know, he don’t even put water on his toothpaste when he cleans his teeth. Brian was putting the final touches to his toilet. Here, Bill, can you look after me fags and matches for me?

What for, ain’t you got no pockets?

I’ve still got ’em sewed up ain’t I, so I can’t put me hands in ’em.

What the hell for?

So’s I don’t put me trousers out of shape.

Bloody hell Bri, we all wanna look smart but I ask ya.

I told the bloke at Dave Wax to leave ’em sewn up, he thought I was barmy.

I’ll get a suit made at Dave Wax one day. Yeah, a Tonic mohair. Said Jim.

Roll on! Said Billy.

Roll on. Roll on and tell me. Tell me I ought to be lonely. Tell me she loves me only. Roll on to me. They all sang along to Buddy Holly with grins on their faces.

Hey Bri, you’ve only got five years now. Said Billy.

Five years for what?

Till you die Bri. Die Bri, I say chaps, did you like that.

Piss off Bill.

Yeah that’s right Bri. You said you weren’t gonna live any longer than Buddy Holly did. Said Jim.

Yeah. I know. But I’ve changed my mind ain’t I, and I ain’t going in no aeroplane in no bleedin’ snowstorm either. Anyway I reckon things are looking up. Sure, Buddy Holly’s the greatest but what about all this stuff that’s coming out now, all these new bands. I thought it had all died a death with Buddy Holly. Just look at all the crap there was in the top ten last year. But now, I tell ya straight, I reckon things are getting better.

The musical mainstay of Islington youth had been The Everly Brothers, Eddie Cochrane, Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly of course. It was great Rock and Roll but two or three of these stalwarts were now dead or half way there and the others had sold out to schmaltz. There was revolution in the air. A British band called the Beatles had brought out two great records in the previous six months, ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘Please Please Me’ and Islington youth was impressed, if unconvinced by the Scouse accents.

Even that ‘How Do You Do It’ by that bloody Gerry and The Pacemakers is a better record than all of last year’s bollocks. Said Billy.

Apart from ‘The Locomotion’ Said Brian.

And ‘The Peppermint Twist’ Said Jim.

And don’t Cliff Richard sound like a right berk these days. Brian was unimpressed by Cliff’s last two dreary efforts; ‘I’m Looking Out The Window’ and ‘The Next Time’. This ain’t the same Rock and Roller who made ‘Move It’, more like ‘past it’ I reckon.

Hey Apse, do you know Mike’s mate Andy Johnson? Said Billy, In the year below us at school. Yeah? Well, he borrowed Mike’s Buddy Holly EP and he was playing it in the dark the other night when he fell asleep and he woke up suddenly with Buddy calling to him from the grave, you know ‘Listen, listen, listen to me’

What, that bit where he whispers the words?

Yeah, it put the wind up him he said. It’s put him right off Buddy Holly.

They came out of the Rosebery gateway and walked down the street to the Queens Head and along Essex Road heading towards The Angel cinema.

Let’s go up the ‘cade and get a few games in, we’ve got enough time. Suggested Billy.

You’re not gonna blow this out now are you Bill, not getting the shits are you? Said Brian.

Come on, I’ve only got a couple of fags and I feel lucky.

So at Islington Green they turned up past the boarded front of the burnt-out Collins Music Hall and crossed Upper Street to the Arcade. The single storey building stuck out from the general street line, as did Dave Wax, the tailors next door and The Rex fleapit cinema next to that. The Arcade was crowned with a dome on which stood a Vestal Virgin in a diaphanous nightie but there were no maidens inside, indeed very few females at all apart from a few old dears on the penny fruit machines. The rest of the clientele was the usual mix of Teds, Rockers and youths like Billy and his mates, who aspired to the Italian look; all engrossed in the esoteric pleasures of the pinball machines and the one arm bandits. The front of the Arcade was wide open to the pavement with its multiple glass doors folded right back. The arcaded inside walls of the building were lined with a couple of dozen machines running between the arched bays and in front of the Doric pilasters, and at the far end behind a door, glazed with a two way mirror, was Eddie’s office. However Eddie spent most of his time among the machines. He was part mechanic, part moneychanger, part prize giver and part bouncer. Eddie was grey haired and in his fifties and wore a full-length white dustcoat so that the punters could easily spot him. He was mild mannered, perhaps a bit world-weary and treated everybody the same, even Islington youth. Everybody respected Eddie and there was never any trouble inside or outside the Arcade, at least Billy and his mates never came across any.

Four bits please Eddie. Said Billy as he handed over a shilling coin. Eddie got out the threepenny bits from the leather satchel he had slung across his chest and gave them to Billy who headed straight for the Hi Diver. This was Billy’s favourite flipper machine even though it was a Gottlieb and not one of the Williams machines, which Billy generally preferred. The majority of the machines in the Arcade were pinball machines, the rest consisted of one-arm bandits and a couple of rifle target machines but these did not interest the boys from the Buildings.

Billy dropped a coin in the slot of the ‘Hi Diver’ and five big shiny steel balls were released. They came to rest in a line under the sloping glass top at the bottom right hand corner of the pintable. He pushed in the lower knob to lift one of the balls into the race. He pulled out the spring loaded firing knob, just three quarters of its full length (Billy reckoned that this distance gave the right amount of impetus to the ball so that after bouncing twice it would curve beautifully into a high scoring hole at the top of the table). He released the knob to shoot the ball up the race and got the desired result. The ball then bounced from bumper to bumper, in and out of holes, up and down the races and all the time adding chinging scores to the total which was lit up on the upright part of the machine at the top end of the table. Billy knew this machine intimately. He kept his forefingers a fraction of an inch from the flipper buttons on each side of the lower cabinet ready to flick the ball back into play if it came too close to the losing hole. He would wait, heart thumping as a ball rolled slowly down one of the angled rubber bumpers leading to a flipper. It would roll across the face of the flipper and at the right moment he would flick the ball very quickly into a curving trajectory back towards the high scoring bumpers. Sometimes he could time his reaction perfectly to shoot the ball into a race that led to the very top of the table again and out of danger for a few high scoring seconds.

One flipper technique, usually used to impress a spectator, was to trap the ball at the fulcrum between the flipper and the adjacent bumper. The flipper would stay in the up position until the button was released. Meanwhile the cocksure pinball maestro would light up a cigarette with his other hand and nonchalanly take several drags while the game was held in limbo for as long as he wished. Release of the flipper would allow the ball to begin rolling towards its tip but before it could fall into oblivion the flipper button was pressed sharply and the ball would shoot back into play while the maestro lost his cool as the smoke from the cigarette hanging from his lips got in his eyes.

Flipper technique was crucial. A hard whack using the muscles of the hand rather than those of the finger seemed to give the flipper more power, and pressing the finger hard against the case and letting it click sharply into the shallow recess containing the button had the same effect. Billy sometimes wondered if all this skill was just an illusion as the flippers were electrically operated. What certainly was skilful however was to influence the reactions of the ball by gingerly moving the table with the palms of the hands where these gripped the corners of the table. As the ball was about to hit a bumper, a nudge on the table varying from a very gentle push to a harder downward knock, would give the rebound more impetus. It was all about getting the ball to shoot around the table at high speed but under total control for as long as possible because this was the only way to build up a high score. It was possible to become one with the machine, to anticipate and get in tune with the sudden movements of the ball, setting up a kind of rocking resonance to the whole thing. However the danger with continually nudging and knocking the table was that the spirit-level mechanism in the machine would register a ‘tilt’ if the movement was too big, and the game would be lost immediately.

Shit! Said Billy as the flippers went dead, the lights went off and the ball slowly rolled down the full length of the table and into the hole at the bottom with a clunk. He looked up and saw the word ‘tilt’ grinning down at him.

What’s up Bill? You ain’t tilted it have you? You have, ain’t you; you’ve pissed it. Bit of a let down there Bill. Said Jim from the other side of the Arcade.

You’re not still shitting a brick about this date Bill, what’re we gonna do with you? Brian laughed. He was beating up the Williams Ace High, two machines down from Billy.

Bollocks. Said Billy and he put another bit into the machine. He punched the knob hard with the palm of his hand to load a ball into the race, pulled back the firing knob as far as it would go, placed the fingers of his left hand on the edge of the table above the knob and stretched the