Part two of a biography of my friend John. Dead and gone, but not forgotten.

John II - Tam

John lived in what his landlord might have described as a basement flat. Located just outside the town centre, the row of buildings where he lived were mainly shabby ground floor shops and shabbier upstairs flats. John’s basement apartment consisted of two rooms. The first room you entered through an untidy back yard. It was always dark, with only a small window to illuminate the room. Small, it contained two easy chairs, a three ring electric cooker, a sink with cold tap and small boiler above, a fridge, a small dining table and book cases galore – all full. The table was covered in piles of books and there were smaller piles lurking in dark corners. The other room was his bedroom. Because the land where his house was built fell sharply from front to back, this room was basically a cellar. No window, pretty damp, very shabby. There was an outside toilet and no bathing or shower facilities. John used the local ‘slipper’ baths twice a week.

After I’d known John for a year or so, he moved into a ground floor flat in a council high rise. This model of modern design had a hallway, bedroom, lounge, kitchen and bathroom. He filled this place with books from his original home. I must have underestimated how many books were stored at the ‘hovel,’ as he more than filled his much bigger new home. Bookcases lined both lounge and bedroom. There was a row of boxes all full of books in the hallway. The kitchen housed reference titles; these stacked on a small table. The only book free room was the bathroom. What really impressed me was how he could think of a book and find it straight away amongst the thousands of disorganised volumes he’d lined his walls with. He may not have read them all, but I’m sure he’d at least dipped into almost everyone.

At about the time I met John, I’d experienced the one and only really good teacher I ever had. Mr Jarrett taught me A’level English Literature. He had us reading all sorts of things, and even though it wasn’t required for the course, encouraged us to write one creative piece a week. He’d suggested that I read ‘Waiting for Godot,’ and it was this that initially whetted my appetite. It was John though that honed it and made it insatiable.

Our early relationship was based on alcohol and talk. In fact, in the twelve years I knew him, alcohol was always a factor when we met; pints of bitter in the pub followed by cheap supermarket whiskey in his flat. I’d normally wobble the two and a half miles home at about three in the morning, almost always clutching a book he’d leant me. I still have quite a few as I never got to return them. Looking back at our friendship, I realise I took much more from him than I ever gave. Not in books or other material things, but in terms of allowing another’s opinion and personality space. He allowed youth’s exuberance free reign.

At eighteen I went to college. I guess I saw John about four or five times a year. During the Christmas break of my second year, John and I had gone out on what was a fairly typical bender. We met on a Thursday afternoon in a market place pub, the Castle I think, shared a few pints and caught up with news. I went back home to my parent’s house for tea (sucking many mints on the way to protect their sensibilities) and then met John later at the Ukranian club. There we drank more pints and a few whiskeys and then walked back to his flat. Neither of us were very sober and John already had a limp so this wasn’t quite as simple as it sounds.

Back at the flat John put a book in my lap and went off to put the kettle on.

‘Have a read of that, Phil. Tell me what you think.’

Well I’d heard of Burns, but to my shame, even though I have more Scottish blood than any other, I’d never read a word.

John returned with tea, whiskey, digestive biscuits, butter and mature cheddar. (If you’ve never tried it, digestives, butter, cheese and whiskey are a winner.)

‘What do you think?’

I can’t remember my reply, but I do remember being far from impressed. I‘d found it hard to follow the Scots Vernacular, and that which I could didn’t do much for me.

‘Here,’ he said and took the book off me.

He turned to a particular page and handed it back.

‘Follow.’

And then he started to recite from memory. As I write this it still sends shivers down my spine and brings tears to my eyes. Not only did it open my eyes to poetry: that it’s a medium to be performed aloud; but it will forever be linked in my mind with John. I can not think of one without the other. In his broad Scot’s accent he began:

‘When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market days are wearing late,
An’ folk begin to tk the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy….’

For me, John will always be Tam, and Tam John. Tam long gone, John too; but both immortalised (in this simple mind) in the same verse.