Hunter S Thompson, Richard Nixon and ghosts in the sunshine of Toy Town (part 3)
Another Day in Paradise
“Good Ron, good! Only losers forget…And you know what Coach Lombardi said about that”. Nixon seizes his Press Secretary by both elbows and comes up close to his face: His breath is foul, his eyeballs are bloodshot, his pupils are dangerously dilated, his words come in short, high pitched barks like a rabid hyena: “You show me a good loser Ron — and I’ll show you a loser”
Hunter S Thompson (from “The Great Shark Hunt”)
Hunter S Thompson, Richard Nixon & ghosts in the sun of Toy Town (part 1)
“Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning”
Hunter S Thompson, Richard Nixon and ghosts in the sun of Toy Town (part 2)
“Jesus Christ! Why are we going to work on a day like this? We must be Goddamn crazy. This is the kind of day when you want to be belly-to-belly with a good woman, in a warm bed under a tin roof with the rain beating down and a bottle of good whisky right next to the bed”
It was around 2.45pm when I turned on the top step of the Rowing Club and smiled towards the faraway father and son on the paddle boards and the older father but younger son simply sitting on the riverside watching a beautiful life roll on by. This is real life I mused, and I’m not far wrong.
Walking through the park barefooted, my toes among the grass of mother nature is real life too, as is my envy of the twenty something’s canoodling in the shade beneath the huge trees that pockmark the public park leading from the Rowing Club to my final destination and newly christened “Hunter’s Bench”. It seemed appropriate and as it’s one of the very few benches in my spiritual home not to have been previously named well, “Hunter” it was and “Hunter’s Bench” it shall now forever be. I thanked Anne, Gloria, Ray, Elsie and Denis Lloyd for their hospitality, their view of “real life” was a beautiful choice, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.
There were two games of football and I DESPERATELY wanted an errant ball to fly in my direction but alas, all I could do was watch from “Hunter’s Bench” but again, this would be skipping far too ahead in our afternoon tale. First, an unbelievably playful black poodle came marauding into view before dropping his ball and leaping into the air in anticipation of it being hurled for him to chase. Let’s call the dog a him. It could only be a boy! The short walkway to my left was sporadically busy and always full of smiles across the human age spectrum and soon the ginormous tree to my right, splitting the adjacent patch of public park into two distinct areas beautifully marked and boundary edged by rose flower beds, was populated by a gaggle of youthful mothers on one side and a mother playing football with her two young sons on the other. A third occasion was marked on the scorecard of life for me wishing a stray football would tumble my way.
I read a lot of Hunter’s book which, in a round about way brings us up to date, but let’s twist this little narrative a tiny bit further towards the finishing line here before we go. For I could embellish this thing with tales of tiptoeing around an antique shop and expecting something, anything, to come crashing to earth and life’s spotlight immediately tracking me down as the culprit, or the sheer joy it was to sneak onto a patch of the riverbank that for 9 months of the year is underwater and out of bounds, only for a dog to come racing down the hill and leaping for joy into the river! I guess I whip together a witty couple of paragraphs on how envious I was seeing other people (other people!) fussing over Fred and Mary and feeding some hungry ducks, the late arrivals crashing safely into the river a forever pleasing sight. I imagine the thought pattern of a duck being something akin to “fuck it! I’ve flown enough! River, here I come!” but I have no empirical data to back this up and nor do I contemplate the thought patterns of ducks or at least, not on a weekday. This may also be the opportune time in our tale whereby I can, if pushed, disappear into a reverie for a real life grand old lady and whose presence I miss so dearly, or how I talk to that other “Grand Old Lady” who lives in a toy town, in a picture postcard world, and a real life that seems so, well, unreal. And I can certainly bring this 3 part series to a conclusion by stating, correctly, that I returned to the church grounds of St Luke’s at just after 3.30pm and read some further wisdom from the Good Doctor until exactly 4 hourly bells chimed, and I returned to the car with a spring in my summer step. I could write that narrative, quite easily, for I am, after all, a professional.
The nut of this 3 part series which I desperately wanted to hang together but fear it’s hanging on by its broken fingernails is this: being in Ironbridge is akin to being inside a bubble. From the top of the high street, past where I used to live, the “old fashioned sweet shop” the chip shop, “Stephen’s Bench” and the iron bridge herself is all within earshot of the beautiful bells from St Luke’s Church. Here, you have one bubble. Along the river, past three public houses and a smattering of cottages you’ll find Fred, Mary and some hungry ducks (and “Beth’s Bench”), one of the numerous beautiful time honoured museum buildings before a hop, skip and a boundless jump into a public park full of flowers and roses and the vibrancy of human life (and now “Hunter’s Bench”) through to the Rowing Club and in essence a further bubble that envelops this mile long stretch of river in central England, and a picture postcard world only Wes Anderson could invent or twist through his surreal cinematic lens. It’s my spiritual home, my old home and there are umpteen lines you can read between here if you wish. It’s a place in time which is also out of time and out of the reach of The Matrix and crucially, only available if you invite the vampire in. It’s real life, however fleeting as a tourist or visitor or permanent as a lucky, lucky resident. It’s an unreal life in an unreal world of a church high atop a hill looking down upon the oldest iron bridge in the world. The naming of swans just for the fucks and giggles of it, dogs leaping into the river on a hot summer’s day, the owl song in the trees on a moonlit night when, if you’re as lucky as I was, you’ll have the entirety of toy town all to yourself.
I have no idea if owls sing and I certainly don’t consider the thought patterns of ducks, but maybe I should. Who knows?
It’s just after 1am on the final day of July in the year of our Lord, 2024. In about 8 or possibly 9 hours time, depending upon whether I find a good game of baseball to watch, I shall be returning to my spiritual home with the Good Doctor for company. I feel the need to name another bench. I’m going to say hello to my friend Jeremy, pay my regards to a grand old lady and I might even treat myself to some fish and chips.
I’m going to give praise to the Great Fire God of the Sky and see what real life I can find.
I’ll say hello to Fred and Mary for you.
Thanks for reading. There’s over 40 such images (combined) throughout this mini-series, and should you be seeking parts 1 and 2, please refer back to the top of this article. But whilst you here, please take a peek at my most recently self-published book below and if you follow the link to the book you’ll see I have 8 further books available on Amazon covering travel, the madness of the internet and sport. Treat yourself!
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
