The Outside Of Everything

Chapter 40
The Bird Watchers

I’ve always had an eye for the birds. Ahem. Sorry. But the old ones are the best. Sometimes. And said with a suitably Leslie Phillips type leer or a Sid James style dirty chuckle, it’s still a good line. Could earn you a good clout round the ear, or a winning smile. Nevertheless. It works because it’s true. I can’t speak for the others, but to this day I am a card carrying member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I think. At least they take a few pounds each year from my bank account. For which I get sent a card. A membership card I can whip out when I dare to say I’ve always had a bit of an eye for the birds.

Thinking back I suspect our interest in birds, the feathered variety, was hatched back when we read that our hero Vic Godard, then singer with Subway Sect, liked to do a spot of bird watching in Kensington Gardens. We weren’t the only ones to pick up on that. Some of our heroes, the pop group Orange Juice, who were on the Scottish label Postcard which was like a religion to us at the start of the ‘80s, they went around saying they were keen ornithologists too. More than a coincidence I’m sure as they loved Vic Godard, one of the great English eccentrics, as much as we did. So we adopted a bit of a pose as keen bird watchers. In London’s parks, of course.

Even now there is very little to beat the beauty of central London’s royal parks. The walk up from St James’ Park through Green Park to Hyde Park on into Kensington Gardens and even on a very energetic day onto Holland Gardens. It has got to be a very grim day for that walk not to stir the soul. And it’s free. So for flâneurs it’s the perfect place to wander and waste time. Hence adopting an interest in the fauna and flora is as good an excuse as any to while away a happy hour here and there. Sometimes we got serious about it, and once even joined up with an organised bird walk. But we soon got exasperated when after almost an hour we had got just a little way along the Serpentine, having had several species of geese pointed out to us. It was driving us dotty, so we cut our losses and escaped into Kensington Gardens. And there, lo and behold, we stumbled across Birds Nest Roy, one of our friend Ron Todd’s cronies.

Perhaps it’s worth explaining that our friend Ron Todd wasn’t really called Ron Todd. We just gave him that name in honour of the character in Absolute Beginners. Partly out of affection, and partly because we knew it wound him up something rotten. We were like that. And, anyway, what else were you going to call a chap who bore an uncanny resemblance to the mordantly Marxist and bearded blues and ballads bloke in the book? Our Ron ran a long standing folk club down our way which we would occasionally frequent. We went rather more in the hope of hearing our Ron’s wisdom than to hear another version of Matty Groves. He was a good man. Outwardly respectable, but as mad as a hatter. And his consorts, confreres and comrades were as bad. You’ve never met such a group of old rogues. Comics, commies, conservationists, conversationalists, civil servants, conscientious objectors, painters, poets, teachers and taxi drivers. Folk fans and old hippies one and all. Of whom the civil servants were by far the strangest and most dangerous, but you only learn things like that with the passing of the years.

Anyway Birds Nest Roy was one of our Ron Todd’s squad of oddballs. He fell into the painter and conservationist categories. He made a living of sorts from paintings of birds, and there are no Carry On double entendres there, trust me. He really did the most exquisite pen and ink or watercolour pics of our feathered friends, which had quite a dedicated cult following. To this day I have a charming pair of tits he gave me for services rendered. Anyway his name wasn’t Roy at all. We just called him that in tribute to a rather fine record we had by a New Zealand pop group which has long since disappeared. Rather like Birds Nest Roy himself I guess.

So there he was that day in Kensington Gardens, perched on a canvas stool, with a canvas gillet on, and a canvas hat on his head, completely engrossed in an exquisite miniature of a goldfinch. We stood for a while respectfully, admiring a master at work, before announcing our presence. He seemed delighted to see us, saying we’d saved his day, and he could now pop off to the gents without worrying about his where-with-alls. And thus we found our vocation. Birds Nest would do his pictures in one of his parks, often attracting the attention of tourists and romantics, taken with the idea of this folk art, and willing to make a purchase. That’s how he made ends meet. And our role was to lend moral and practical support. That was, look after things while Birds Nest went off to wet his whistle or relieve himself one way or another. There were worse ways to spend a summer’s day.

One time I was left on my ownsome when Birds Nest sauntered off in search of sustenance. So I made myself at home. Perched myself in front of a rather fine water colour of a Dartford Warbler. The good captain Birds Nest didn’t worry overly about the ins and outs of whether what he was capturing could actually be seen in Kensington Gardens or the other royal parks. That, as far as he was concerned, was splitting hairs, and art was art anyway. And I sat there, playing the part. I did the old thing with the paint brush, holding it up and out in front of me, to test the perspective or something. I peered soulfully into my palette. I gazed into the trees. Quite the method actor. Then I became aware of a presence over my right shoulder. A sweet breath tickled my ear. And I felt suddenly nervous. I feared exposure. Then a sweet voice spoke. So I looked up. A fatal mistake. For I realised I knew who she was. And I knew she knew that I knew. My senses flew off over the trees, and I take no responsibility for what happened next.

The vision appropriately was a real actress. An English rose. In disguise. Baseball cap. But, thankfully, not dark glasses to hide her eyes. Which was the giveaway. I was a big fan of those eyes. I’d know them anywhere. Hi, she said. I’m sorry, she said, I didn’t want to disturb you. When I recovered powers of speech and my tongue started doing what it should I replied with some suave Oscar Wilde-style riposte. Like, erm that’s alright. She smiled. She shouldn’t have. But she did. Then she said she was just admiring my painting. It’s really lovely, she said. I smiled, sort of, and the Oscar Wilde style aphorisms continued to trip off my tongue. Erm, thank you, I said. Do you know, I’d really love to have a picture like that, she went on. Ah, I thought. Ah, I said, I’m sorry but this one’s spoken for. Oh, she said, looking hurt. I could have kicked myself. Why didn’t I just give her the picture, and a whole lot more? That’s what happens in the movies.

But this was real life. And my brain had seized up. Sort of. Erm, I could let you have one like it, I said, trying to recover lost ground. Oh, she said, that would be lovely. Look, here’s my details, I said. I’ll scribble down my ‘phone number. And I did. She smiled, and waved au revoir. Needless to say she never rang, and I will never know why I didn’t try to take her particulars down rather than foisting mine upon her. Oh, well, that’s life. I would have made a very good house husband to an eccentric and beautiful millionairess. Where there’s life there’s hope though. So I continue to haunt the royal parks, and I keep a rather beautiful watercolour of a Dartford Warbler. Just in case.