A Londra nei mitici anni settanta

 

Se mi avessero chiesto perché mi trovassi a Londra, in quell’estate del 1977, io non avrei saputo cosa rispondere.

A quel tempo già non credevo più nella rivoluzione del cambiamento, quella che avrebbe dovuto migliorare  l’Italia, prigioniera del potere democristiano, dell’imperialismo americano e dei servizi segreti deviati, trasformandola in un Paese normale.

Invece ci toccava soltanto  subire, rassegnati e  impotenti.

Pagavamo ancora il pegno per la sconfitta della seconda guerra mondiale e io avevo lasciato l’Italia, frastornato dalle bombe di Stato, dalle chiacchiere sui compagni che sbagliavano, dagli attentati sanguinari di gruppi terroristici dalle sigle equivoche e fantasiose; e sospinto dalla mia inguaribile solitudine.

Non che io avessi mai creduto nella rivoluzione; cioè, ci avevo creduto, poco più che sedicenne, ma così come credevo nella pace, nella fratellanza dei popoli e in quelle menate in cui si crede ancora prima dei vent’anni.

Invece, in quegli anni, in Italia,  c’era in giro gente che metteva bombe per davvero; e che sparava; nella migliore delle ipotesi alle gambe, ma sparava sul serio.

E io, coi miei miti, l’indiano  Gandhi, il nero Martin Luther King e Gesù Cristo, il figlio del falegname Giuseppe e di Maria,  dove potevo andare a parare?

È pur vero che mi piacevano anche il Che, Fidel Castro e Mao Tse Tung, ma soltanto a un  livello, per così dire, iconico; e m’infiammavo a leggere il Manifesto del partito comunista, quello scritto a quattro mani nel 1848 da Engels e da Marx; ma la mia fede rivoluzionaria finiva lì e mi sentivo come un pugile che voglia salire sul ring con la faccia d’un altro, per incassare meglio i colpi dell’avversario; o come un pollo spennato che voglia sentirsi un pavone con le penne altrui, o, se preferite, come uno che voglia fare il culattone con il deretano  degli altri.

Mio padre odiava gli americani; e quella era l’unica cosa che ci univa politicamente; per il resto lui sognava l’uomo forte che mettesse le cose a posto, una volta per tutte.

Il mio vecchio avrebbe voluto che io diventassi un bravo contabile, ma alla scuola per ragionieri avevo amato tutte le discipline, fuorché le due materie di indirizzo: la ragioneria e la computisteria.

Qualcosa di meglio l’avevo combinata all’università, se è vero come è vero che dopo tre anni avevo sostenuto tutti gli esami, assolvendo perfino all’obbligo della leva: tredici mesi di servizio militare, con sei mesi di scuola di fanteria inclusi.

Ma infine qualcosa mi aveva spinto sino a Londra. Ed ero là, come un cane bastonato, un sasso di fiume o una piuma nel vento.

Io credo che ogni generazione subisca le influenze del suo tempo e dell’ambiente in cui cresce e matura le sue esperienze. Queste influenze, a metà con i caratteri biologici iscritti nel nostro codice genetico, determinano gli eventi della nostra vita; o ciò che noi chiamiamo destino.

https://www.hoepli.it/libro/la-terza-via-un-uomo-un-viaggio-tre-strade/9788833812366.html

Memoirs of London - 17

17.

Another distinguished member of  the group was "Old Jerry", one who boasted of having left a leg in what battle I did not know well and proudly displayed numerous decorations of the British Imperial Wars of which he had taken part. He always greeted me happily and was the only one who always drank but good brand of whiskey.

One day, after I had not seen him around for a while, he told me that he had escaped from the "shelter", where some of his relatives had him locked up. He told they  had stolen all his  money and did not even leave him a small amount for a drop of wiskey and hence, as long as he lived, he wanted to live free to do what he wanted, after so many had seen and survived from; and significantly touching the prosthesis, limping but cheerful, he reached his companions who already called him from the benches in front, foretasting  in the throat a sip of good branded whiskey.

More mysterious was instead "Colby", a Welsh still distinguished guy, despite his  vagabond life was going on  for several years. It was said of him that he was in the service of the "Metropolitan Police". One morning a band of the "Salvation Army" passed through the square, with great sounds of trumpets, drums and songs praising the Queen, the national heroes, God Almighty and Divine Mercy, with the chiefs leading the march in high uniform, strutting as general, and in the queue the women volunteers,  with an angelic and inspired face, with the hair gathered in a cap, like so many nuns and the chest of drawers hanging on the neck with the inscription "thank you".

Colby had noticed the arrival of the Salvation Army just as he made his way to his favorite benches in the center of the square. It must have seemed risky to expose him to the square, because, like a hunted prey he took  refuge inside the room, hiding  behind the ice cream machine. Not seen, from there, he made gestures to the  joyous and glorious  parade, moving the index and the middle fingers of the right hand from the bottom upwards and then crossing them by way of an oath and pronouncing outrageous and unrepeatable phrases in their  regards.

 - "The last time they put their hands on me" - he told me as soon as he saw the danger escaped - "they even tried  to convince me that milk is better than my slop; but I told them, you know, I'm tired of being imposed and I do not want to be redeemed by them! Furthermore those kind of generals in the front are a bunch of sexual maniacs and the women on the rear do not even serve to suck my cock! "

17. to be continued...

Memoirs of London - 16

16.

There were, all around Leicester Square so many public places, each one with its own peculiarities. For example the "Cafe Paris" behind his seeming normality, kept a secret known only to a small circle. It was frequented by old and rich women in search of gigolò or any handsome young man in order to forget for a few hours, their loneliness and their time, perhaps ran  too quickly; or "The worm", a meeting place for gays and lesbians; the "Cokney Pride", where was played  the  traditional London’s music. 

Just in front of my pitch used to gather  a group of tramps.  They sat very often in a circle on the benches, right in the middle of the square.   The benches were set all around  a circular flowerbed in  care to Mary, a girl with no age, brown skin and black hair, stained teeth partially broken on the front. As  a young woman she had been a maid at Buckingham Palace and had been sacked for his drinking  or stealing; or perhaps because of an unwanted pregnancy; her friends called her "Queen Mary" or simply "Queen". With her I had more frequent contact, for  she was fond of ice cream.  I presented one cone to her, from time to time. Afterwards I knew many of them. Each one with his own story.

Miss Rambling, an elderly paralyzed lady who juggled with her wheelchair in London traffic, better than a gymkhana champion, was the only to be  strictly abstemious.

 The others guys and girls, including Mary, were all heavy drinkers. They drank alcohol in place and more than any other liquid drink, including water and milk. However, not everyone had reached the terminal stage of alcoholism.

Max, for example, was sloping slowly but inexorably on the verge of addiction. It was increasingly difficult for him to "hook" in  the Cafè Paris, from which he portrayed his only source of income.

As a young man, as shown by some of his youthful photos he proudly showed, he resembled Clark Gable and of his original beauty only remained in his face a distant halo, distinguished by black mustache, still well-groomed and thin, on a  vaguely sensual lip. But when he was in  group with the tramps, with a bristly beard on his reddish cheeks and crumpled clothes, he looked more like the shadow of himself than that of the American celluloid myth he had looked like in his youth.

 Max had played at the races, one by one, all the properties inherited from his family. He often talked to me about horse racing and sometimes, in the transportation of his story, he said with rage that he would succeed on  redeeming at least one country house in Wales, where he would finally retire for a quiet and sweet old age.

The others, for the most part, were however much more battered and unkempt. Hair without care, black face, of that black that only the road can give; always dirty and torn clothes; beltless trousers  and laceless shoes, signs of their frequent go to and  from places of forced hospitalization, if not from the Royal English Prisons.

They always had the inevitable bottle of liquor or wine in their hands or pockets, or, in the lean periods, a concoction they called "sloppy drink", or more simply "slop" of which I could never understand exactly which ingredients it was made of.

"A Stuff" - Joe,  an ex-boxer,  once told me,  - "that when you drink it, it kills you kindly".

16. to be continued...

Memoirs of London - 1

1.

The first time I went to London it was in 1977. A long time ago. I still remember the day I landed at Heathrow airport. It was the day Elvis Presley died. I remember from my bus, in the endless one which was to lead me to Victoria Station (according to my ticket bus), the supporter’s march in honor of the great song singer from Memphis. They held in their hands signs of their idol: “Elvis will never die” or “Elvis forever”, “You still live in our hearts” and things like that.

I was a young man full of hope and sorrow, at that time. I was going to London to forget an unrequited  love; or maybe I was just searching for something I had not found yet.

I had at present left my university’s studies, with no money, no job, no love at all. Lonely as a stone can be.

I had not been really very fond of Elvis; surely much more of Jimy Hendrix; Elvis was a too controversial myth at my eyes; a great singer of course, I wouldn’t say he was not; but sometimes I felt like he had been exploited by the American industry of success; that kind of business able to create (and also destroy, if they wanted) any kind of myth, any kind of star; ‘you know? That sort of star’s system victim like Marylin Monroe or James Dean. I was quite a critic of capitalism at that time.

But indeed I had already too many problems by my own to be a critic of anything.

I only had an address on my pocket, of a friend of mines who had previous gone to London and I was in contact with. Through this friend I was introduced in an Italian Grocery, in King’s Cross Road. I’ve recently there. Where the shop was there’s now only an insignia, covered by dust, left. I found good help in there. A friend of the owner, a good marchigian guy who sold Italian hams, cheese and other special Italian food, found me a job in a pizza’s factory, somewhere in Farringdon Rd. And George himself, I mean the marchigian shopper, found me a place to sleep in: a room in Keystone Crescent, just around the corner his shop, where I was charged with 5 pound fee per week while in the factory my first wage was a good 40 weekly wage’s pounds .

Not too bad for a beginner.

1.     To be continued…