Coventry in 1977 was a peculiar place to visit: we made our way to the city on a Triumph 750 Bonneville. ‘Strapper’ (a British biker), white-lined it along the A47, all the way from King’s Lynn to the midlands – a single carriageway road most of the time.
On the Peterborough by-pass we got a break, racing a Ford ‘Cosworth’ of some sort. Whilst doing 120mph I moved my arm, upsetting the slip-stream, causing the back of the bike to judder around. But we beat them!
We were in Coventry in 1977 to celebrate the birthday of co-inventor of the the ‘DedWhit Mk III, patent relief aid for men‘.
Clive lived with a group of engineering students from Lanchester Poly, who kept motorcycle parts all about the terraced house they were sharing. It was perfectly normal to find a BSA crank-case and various other engine components taking an oil bath under the bed.
At another terraced house of motorcycling heritage, smoking was de rigueur, But cleaning wasn’t. They’d given up ash-trays; using the entire living room floor instead. At no point was the carpet visible beneath about four inches of detritus.
Alexander Fleming would have considered unwashed crockery in the kitchen a gold-mine. Enough mould and bacteria to put an end to all human ailments and supply Erin Patterson with ingredients for several Beef Wellingtons.
One reads about ‘the terrible state of student accommodation these days’ but basically, young people have become soft. Effete to the point of being useless.
Be-bop Deluxe were playing at the Coventry Empire. A curious melange of musical heritage, they were contemporary with the Sex Pistols but more Neo-Romantic.
At the gig, the best supporting act was John Cooper-Clarke, billed as a Punk poet. With his Dylanesque deportment, frazzled hair and Mancunian delivery, ‘The Bard of Salford’ sent up anything and everything that strayed across his sights. Including a lothario and his car.
A rhyming couplet resonates: ‘His tyres were knackered, and his knackers were tired’. Americans would have difficulty with that one (spelling). Perhaps not as slick as Bob Dylan, John Cooper-Clarke still does a great job. A bit like Coronation Street after licking a few toads at 120mph.
Where has the spirit of those times gone? John Lydon and company suggested there might be ‘anarchy in the UK’. But as Punk dissipated into New Wave, Margaret Thatcher and her government were heralded by the likes of Limahl, The Pet Shop Boys, Shalamar etc and now it’s ‘girl power’ all the way to the bank ….. whatever happened to Pat Benatar, Janis Joplin and Lena Zavaroni?
The psycho-geography of the occasion was sudden. I’d ended up back in Coventry – almost half a century later. This time there was no white lining it on a Bonneville. Instead we approached from 1200 ft in a helicopter, passing over the very obvious wealth of the Cotswolds and HS2 in the making. Coventry in 1977 seemed a different place.
Journalist Simon Jenkins notes how Rachel Reeves and the current Labour government have kept quiet about spending as much as a fifth to a quarter of their entire investment budget (£113bn for this term) on HS2. He suggests funds could be better used.
‘Kitchen parliaments’ often set the World to rights; a county councillor from Wessex mooted HS2 is the brain-child of European defence strategy. For the rapid deployment of troops from Southern Europe to the North, to ‘counter the Russian threat’. Putting a completely different spin on all the money grubbing and tax mularky.
Funny how Russia is now ‘a threat’ whereas two decades ago, Brits welcomed Russian oligarchs (and their money) with open arms as if anal speliology was going out of fashion.
Everyone forgets ‘Mother Russia’ sacrificed twenty million of her citizens in helping defeat German fascism (though initially the USSR did allow Hitler’s forces to manufacture arms on their territory). Meanwhile our ‘friends across the pond’ sat on the fence; leaving it to Britannia to stand firm. Probably no longer taught in schools. Not inclusive enough!
We visited the Midlands Air Museum – redolent with a more hands on approach to engineering than digitised doings. Coventry in 1977 bore vestiges of this attitude.
The Museum documents an era when people were prepared to get dirt under their finger nails, had the strength to use a spanner and fight for a supposedly just cause.
As we soared away from Coventry in full Apocalypse Now style, you can’t help but wonder if Francis Ford Coppola might live long enough to make a sequel to his epic, though set in a different theatre.
Photos by Alan Dedman
Pic of John Cooper Clarke – Wikicommons
Pic of Bonneville, courtesy PC Boekee
‘Bantam Maintenance’ Etching and aquatint by N. Ward
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