I spent a couple of years in Germany thirty years ago at the start of the Nineties. In Dortmund, a city I really liked even though at the time and still possibly it didn't have the best reputation among Germans. Possibly because of its industrial past. But I liked it. Memories of my couple of years there can still warm me up and carry me off.
I worked as a language teacher in a slightly variable language school run by a dubious Italian middle aged businessman. He fancied himself as a ladies man even though he wasn't remotely attractive but he would kick in to action whever a pretty woman entered the school and it was a sight to behold. Fawlty Towers with a dubous language learning aproach tacked on as an afterthought.
It had an S Bahn. A U bahn. Excellent and affordable transport system. It was clise to Bochum, Essen, Wuppertal, Dortmund, Essen and Cologne. All excellent cities with different ambiences and qualities. A very relaxed place to live. I'd love to go back..
Dortmund also had an excellent football club Borussia who I went to see on a number of occasions. Whever I could. The atmosphere was rousing and exciting and Borussia generally won, sending us all home happy. In lurid yellow.The city had bars, restaurants and cafes. Parks. Also culture. An Opera House. Though of course I never went there. We had an opera singer, Michael an American who got variable work there and moonlighted with us. He wouldn't sing for us. Despite entreaties. .
It also was affordable. I was a freelancer and we were paid late sometimes so it could be a bit variable money wise but I was young and in great company. I saw any number of wonderful bands during my time there. Soundgarden in Dortmund. Smashing Pumpkins and The Verve in Cologne. Buffalo Tom. P.J. Harvey. The atmosphere at gigs was civil and reaoinably calm in contrast to the boisterousness I knew from England. It was a great place to live. I liked the Germans and liked Germany. I was coming through a bad time and beomg there helped. .
But the best thing of all was the people I worked with and socialised with. My colleagues and their broader circle. Vivid, lively and sociable people. From Germany , England, Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Australia, America and elsewhere. We were young and acted like it. We drank and smoked all the time. Between lessons during the week and all through the weekends.It was the best of times.
On one of the first Saturdays after I arrived I was taken by my colleagues Sinead, Rachael, Kathryn and Helen to Marche after our lessons. There was a young man waiting outside smoking a cigarette. He was handsome. projected instant character and I liked him immediately. He was talking almost as much to himself as to anyone else. About Tim Buckley. His name was Matt..
We went inside and met Pam, Matt's girlfiend. A pretty, confident woman with remarkable straight red hair. We sat and chattered. Gradually I found myself brought into the group. Everybody was friendly, hospitable and kind. Open. It was a tough knit group of people and I made some important friendships. With Rachael who remains my best female friend over thirty years later. And importantly with Matt.
After a few weeks it became obvious that we had stuff in common. It's always nice when this happens with men. We had similar music taste.Most importantly music. We had similar and generally complementary taste in cuture in general. He had a taste for 'sick' horror which I never really shared.
After a few weeks Matt started inviting me round to his Friday afternoon dos.He'd roll fat joints and we'd pass them round and discuss the world, our colleagues,MTV, the world and life in general. Sometimes in the company of others. Sometumes just the two of us.
He had the best flat. Full of great finds from Saturday Antiques markets. Poufs. Odd babies heads. A dartboard. Plantpots. Ashtrays. It reminded me of the Seventies ITV sitcom Robin's Nest. Richard O'Sullivan was not unlike Matt in many respects.
He had a fantastic sense of humour which the dope only sharpened. One Friday afternoon he raised a yellow gummi bear to the light and brandished it at me. 'Imagine smoking that!'. It's great when you can recall a moment vividly 31 years later. I made him laugh too. It was an important friendhip we realised with time. The kind of friendship that only comes along a few times in a lifetume. Rare. It wasn't just Matt. I look back at the assotyment of people and my heart warms. It's the best way to spend a youth. Those who voted BREXIT should be ashamed. .
The music we listened to varied. We both liked The Beatles, Led Zep and R.E.M. Matt didn't have an enormous amount of black music in hus collection. I can't ever really remember listening to Jazz. But we were young. I got into the Brit Pop bands when they emerged. He was less impressed.
.He occasionally put a Derek & Clive record on and we laughed. Sometumes easily, sometimes slightly uneasily. He and Pam introduced me to Alan Partridge and his radio shows which we listened to on repeat. .
Grunge was the music of the times. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and the associated scrum. One afternoon I went round and there was a news story on MTV unfolding. Something had happened in Kurt Cobain relatively modest place in Seattle.There was all kunds of speculation but it took a couple of hours for things to be clarified. The narratuve to unravel.
The joints we passed between us didn't help. It was one of the most genuinely upsetting afternoons I can remember. Actually in my whole life. A body was eventually spotted and zoomed in on on the TV screen. It was confirmed it was Cobain and that he was dead. It was a very, very unpleasant coupleoif hours and it affected a few of us for quite a while. He was clearly an irreplaceable figure. A one off. .
Other weeks Matt would play singer songwriters a specualuty of his. The cornerstone of his collection. Van Morrison, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley and Cat Stevens. Also more obscure curiosities, Al Stewart and particularly Kevin Coyne. An oddball maverick figure who appealed to Matt;s own idiosyncratic tendency. Apparently when Jim Morrison died Coyne was tentaively muted as his replacement. It's a strange image a mishappen Midland nutter struggling into Lizard King leathers.
Matt died about ten years back.Cancer ate him up.over a couple if years in Leiden, Holland where he'd settled with the eventual love of his life. He and Pam had gone their separate ways and a guy like Matt was never going to be changed as she wanted. Straighten up for career purposes. He was handsome and was seldom alone durung the tume I knew him, if ever thinking back. Always in a relatuinship. Wuth a succession of beautufuk women. Over the years he went on to sail through a number of apparently happy relationships which all went rocky sooner or later until he found his plateau wuth a Dutch woman with a young daughter from a previous marriage.
I'm still upset about it really. Do you ever stop being upset about important people who die. . I had a picture of him on my office desk but eventually decided to park it in a drawer becuase it would make me cry after a couple of beers. It's not a good idea to make yourself cry. Probably a better idea to put on a Kevin Coyne record in this case.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment