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Straightforward Publishing - Roger Sproston

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111 pages

English

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Fighting For Light, The Travels of a Tin Pot Warrior is a book about one of the thousands of people, given the chance, who upped and left backgrounds offering very little in the way of hope. These are the chronicles of the life and epic travels of one such person, the author, from hazy and humble beginnings in the 1950's and 1960's, to an ill-fated and short-lived period in the armed forces, followed by years of high adventure and restless travels around large parts of the globe, through invasions and revolutions, one after another.

Sujets

Lettres et linguistique

Travel writing

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Publié par	Straightforward Publishing
Date de parution	25 juillet 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781847164957
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

FIGHTING FOR LIGHT
THE TRAVELS OF A TIN POT WARRIOR
ROGER SPROSTON
www.emeraldpublishing.co.uk
Roger Sproston 2014
The right of Roger Sproston to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
ISBN 978-1-84716-4 94-0 (paperback)
978-184716-495-7 (ebook)
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with the written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
Cover Design by Alan Cooper
Printed by Grosvenor Group London
Published by Emerald Publishing
To My Mother and Father, Grace and Joe-I will always love you.
Dead donkey s and boxing kangaroos a rope round your neck, very bad news
A kilo of bananas, a gun to the head now it s time to go, a little voice said
I m looking for Nirvana, did it go that way? Anyone seen it, stand up and say
Chasing rainbows, looking for the light Tin Pot Warrior, always up for the fight
The way it went
ACT 1-CURTAIN RISING
1. March 14 th 1978-Leaving Amsterdam
2. Where it all began
3. Entering the gates of hell!
4. Wrestling in the depths of Malta and other pastimes
5. Back in the USA!
6. One big car crash-beginning of the end!
ACT 2-TIME TO GO
7. Walking the gangplank-in the Nick Parts 1 and 2!
8. Freedom at last!
9. Stolen cars and all That Jazz!
10. Taken for a Ride
11. Iran 1978-revolution in the air!
12. Up the Khyber
13. The Golden Temple
14. Delhi Belly-Around India and up to Nepal
15. Back in India!
16. Afghanistan and Iran - Invasions and revolution in the air!
17. Back in Blighty! Good old Blighty!
ACT 3-AMERICA AGAIN
18. Back in the USA!
19. On the road
20. From Vegas to California-stuck in Death Valley
21. Cruising in Frisco!
22. Rock and roll with the Innuits
23. Back to Frisco-Fighting for my Life
24. Ice Cream Wars in L.A
25. San Diego-working with the Mexicans!
ACT 4-THE FINAL CURTAIN
26 London calling
27. Education, education, education!
28. Flying higher
29. The architects wet dream-everyone s nightmare
30. To Russia with love
31. Nose to the grindstone!
32. Indonesia and beyond
33. End of the journey (for now)
Postscript
***************
Prologue
An acquaintance stopped me in the street a few years ago, after a (very) minor incident with the police.
Bloody tin pot soldiers, give them a uniform and they think they re God. They push their weight around and leave people shell-shocked!
This exchange prompted the writing of this book and led to a train of thought that, two years later, has resulted in what you are about to read. I have substituted the word soldier with warrior . This term can be applied to many a brave warrior involved in the absurdity of life. The term fighting for light refers to the move from darkness to light.
The title of this book refers specifically to one of the many people who marched out of the drudgery of working class existence in the 1960 s, a long march towards a rosier future, taking advantage of new opportunities. Out of early childhood and on into adulthood emerged a brave little warrior, determined to avoid the prospect of a very bleak future and find adventure and freedom. This was the 1960 s, Kerouac had hit the road and come back again, the Beatles were doing their thing and the door was opened for thousands to break the mould and to move on to the other side.
I was one of the fortunate ones in that I went through this door of opportunity, and made the break. In my case, I did what many a Tin Pot warrior did at the time, the only way to make a break in the circumstances, In the summer of love, 1967, I joined the Royal Navy at the age of fifteen, signing on for rather a long time, which was the only real way out of what passed for the future.
This period in the navy lasted until I had seen enough, derived a lot of enjoyment and then kicked it into touch, jumping ship in dramatic style, sick of military life and everything that came with it. From then on, following a short period of military imprisonment, I hit the road, quite often travelling alone, although meeting many friends along the way and got caught up in revolutions and invasions around the world, having incredible adventures which form the basis of a large part this book
Later I had the good fortune to enter university to build on that experience, another door of opportunity for Tin Pot warriors, education for the masses. I also started a publishing company which has now grown to be quite successful, after a hard slog.
The book is a romp through the decades ending up with a reflection on where we are now. It is set ten years after the summer of love, rather appropriately, then works backwards to the beginning before wending its way forwards once more.
Enjoy the ride!
Roger Sproston 2014
ACT 1
CURTAIN RISING
1
March 14 th 1978-Leaving Amsterdam.
All I can say now is thank god I kept a journal. I don t know why I did, as I am not generally a keeper of diaries. One thing is for certain, I wouldn t have remembered a thing without it-not after a wild summer in Amsterdam. I was very lucky to have one brain cell left, considering the amount of mind-altering substances that went down my throat. Plus the many weird and wonderful people encountered along the way. Very much a unique Amsterdam experience, one for the archives.
I was standing on the edge of the motorway out of Amsterdam, south bound for Munich, on my way to India. I was also reflecting on the summer of 77, my own summer of love, a summer of very varied experiences, and it was now time to get away, time to change the scene. Enough was enough, I was emotionally and physically burnt to a cinder.
I had arrived in Amsterdam on a freezing March day in 1977, drawn over by a friend s tales of life there, by tales of sex, drugs and rock and roll. To be honest, my life since leaving the navy in 1973 had been one long party anyway, so Amsterdam was simply an extension of this.
The thing about Amsterdam that is most apparent when one arrives there is that, from the vantage point of the Central Station, on the left is the church, St Nikolaaskerk, with its red cross apologising for the sins of the inhabitants and on the right is the more sedate and sophisticated area, which, to be honest, is just as sleazy in places.
My very first act on arriving in Amsterdam was to sort out free accommodation. I had heard, through the grapevine, of a squat near Vondel Park, a Krakhuuis , inhabited by a few young Dutch jazz musicians. I had been advised to avoid certain squats in the city, run as they were by smack heads, dope fiends and the like. Not that I really minded dope fiends, being that way myself. Anything that I could get my hands on at the time, given my state of mind. It was just advisable to live in a place that was together and well run. I had the address on me so I made my way there, via the number 7 tram. The street in which the house was situated was a fairly normal looking suburban street with nothing to suggest the existence of a squat. I knocked the door of number 34 and a bright looking lad answered. A good sign, my first impressions were those of a creative household. After a few questions and introductions to the other members of the household, I was given a room on the top floor of the house, which was magic. The guys in the house were cool, not into drugs, save the occasional spliff, and took to me almost immediately.
After a few days of settling in and mooching around, mostly going to coffee shops and bars, I decided to get a job, with the aim of funding the second part of my trip out of Europe and over to India and beyond. England at the time was grim, the 3-day week, massive dole queues and general hard times. Punk was on the rise. I had missed that boat and the call of the East was infinitely more attractive to me as I had other fish to fry.
Those were the days in Amsterdam when you could walk into a uitzenbureau (work agency) and pick up a job without a problem, the end result being that I spent the next few months sticking labels on bottles at the Heineken Brewery near Vondel Park. I did this until I went out of my mind with boredom. There are only so many ways of counting bottles and trying to be creative. One memory is that of the night dope dealer coming round the factory selling grass to the workers. Quite why this was allowed I don t know except for the fact that it kept us docile. After this little episode, I then worked as a general dogsbody at a small hotel, the Hotel Kabul on Warmoestraat, at the edge of the red light district, making beds and preparing and dishing out food. From this vantage point I could see the whores and pimps, plus the drug pushers ply their trade. Great fun for a while, meeting all sorts of different people until the seed of the red light began to get under my skin and it was time to go. My exit was hastened by me giving out food to all the waifs and strays that passed for friends from the kitchens of the Kabul. I was duly rumbled one night and fired.
During my summer of love, I had met up with a few people who became firm friends and we all tended to congregate in the Old Bakery , on Warmoestraat, a music bar and flop house for travellers. There was Andy, an Australian doing his world tour and Nigel, an eccentric bi-sexual Englishmen who would regale us with his tales of working in a sex bar, where his job was to stand behind a glass automat, the kind that dispensed food. Only instead of food, Nigel dispensed his cock, for all to see, for the price of two guilders. That s how he made his living. You could see but not touch. Unless Nigel wanted to further the contact, wh