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Steam: rocking'n'railing
Southend-on-Sea, steam engines and rock bands: a humorous rock and rail tale about a guy who was situation prone.
It’s the start of the sixties, and the steam engine is being consigned to the scrapheap of history, along with Victorian attitudes to sex and young peoples’ place in society. The teenager has just been invented and from London to Liverpool kids are starting up their own bands. Pop music is big money, and money attracts scavengers: predatory managers who are long on promises but sort on cash. They hang around motorway service stations at night, ready to pounce on any passing band.
Into these shark infested waters plunges Ricky, fresh from the village and determined to make it as a guitarman. He heads for Southend-on-Sea in search of fame fortune and an electrical connection. Overnight fame being a bit impractical, he obtains employment shovelling coal on a steam engine. Firing up a steam engine is easy once you get the hang of it, and he has never had a problem firing up a guitar, but what he just can’t get the hang of is that sixties phenomenon: the newly liberated woman…
It was the year a bunch of kids playing together in a skiffle band decided they were never gonna to make it with a name like the Quarrymen: so they started calling themselves the Beatles. It was also the year they built the last steam locomotive, legalised erotic literature and abolished compulsory military service.
And 1960 happens to be the first time Ricky is caught in a compromising situation. He is innocent, of course – the policeman had jumped to the wrong conclusion – but you know what villages are like for gossip. He soon gets fed up with the snide remarks, grabs his guitar and hits the road in search of fame and fortune. Overnight fame being a bit impractical, he obtains employment shovelling coal on a steam engine. Firing up a steam engine is easy once you get the hang of it, and he has never had a problem firing up a guitar, but what he just can’t get the hang of is that sixties phenomenon: the newly liberated woman…
It’s the start of the sixties, and the steam engine is being consigned to the scrapheap of history, along with Victorian attitudes to sex and young peoples’ place in society. The teenager has just been invented and from London to Liverpool kids are starting up their own bands. Pop music is big money, and money attracts scavengers: predatory managers who are long on promises but sort on cash. They hang around motorway service stations at night, ready to pounce on any passing band.
Into these shark infested waters plunges Ricky, fresh from the village and determined to make it as a guitarman. He heads for Southend-on-Sea in search of fame fortune and an electrical connection. Overnight fame being a bit impractical, he obtains employment shovelling coal on a steam engine. Firing up a steam engine is easy once you get the hang of it, and he has never had a problem firing up a guitar, but what he just can’t get the hang of is that sixties phenomenon: the newly liberated woman…
It was the year a bunch of kids playing together in a skiffle band decided they were never gonna to make it with a name like the Quarrymen: so they started calling themselves the Beatles. It was also the year they built the last steam locomotive, legalised erotic literature and abolished compulsory military service.
And 1960 happens to be the first time Ricky is caught in a compromising situation. He is innocent, of course – the policeman had jumped to the wrong conclusion – but you know what villages are like for gossip. He soon gets fed up with the snide remarks, grabs his guitar and hits the road in search of fame and fortune. Overnight fame being a bit impractical, he obtains employment shovelling coal on a steam engine. Firing up a steam engine is easy once you get the hang of it, and he has never had a problem firing up a guitar, but what he just can’t get the hang of is that sixties phenomenon: the newly liberated woman…
295 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 13, 2013
3 people want to read
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