Johnson Soul Objective

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83615-254-5
Verlag: Grosvenor House Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 287 Seiten

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.

Steve Johnson lives in South West Hertfordshire with his son, Robert, and saluki/lurcher rescue, Purdy. His wife, Maggie, who encouraged him to write, passed away suddenly in 2023. His debut novel, The Hidden Road Home, was completed but not published before her death and is dedicated to her memory. In 2025, his second book, Soul Objective, a 1970's family drama, was released.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Johnson, Steve

Leseproben

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,...