As always my blogs usually start with spark in the dark and if I'm honest I have no intention of telling the full tale here today I want something happy, this tales ends as sad as any tale could, so I want to remember my friend as he was, a right pain in the ass but standing tall in a sea of mediocrity!
I met Steve Ridley when I was at Newcastle City Hall watching Girl and UFO on the No Place To Run tour me and my friend had two seats him and his friends had the rest of the row, my friend decided to try his luck and go get a pint, he didn't as it was usually me who got him his beer in pubs even though he was older than me. While he was away Steve (who introduced himself) asked if I was ok, I was and we nattered for about ten minutes he looked about the same age as my brother (he was actually a year older) a kind gesture by a stranger, something he didn't have to do, the band came on my friend reappeared, at the end of the gig he said goodbye and that was it another person that you sort of bump into over the course of life never to meet again.
A few weeks later myself and another friend decided to go to Randy Mandy's (calm down it was a rock disco in Durham) who did I bump into at the bar (literally) but Steve remembered me and we had a chat (again) just general chit chat, easy going and we both had a similar outlook on life (warped) said our goodbyes and went our separate ways, now this happened several times over the coming weeks, all the while he introduced me to several characters that would shape my coming years, my screwed up life after the army, I was saved mainly by them.
Later on in the summer I was invited to a birthday party in Pity Me where they all seem to come from, friendships and I would like to say there were many sprung from these meetings and hardly ever a cross word, I drifted towards them while still keeping my friends in Gimpsville but they didn't mix, it was a different level of maturity (yeah right) a little bit like oil and water, the friendship blossomed and the drunken hi jinx ensued, many a time I would get myself into something and Steve would get me out of it, he got me my publishing deal, he worked out all the benefits (from said publisher) he was the manager I never had and also one of the people I wrote the majority of my songs with, we got each other, we could finish each other's sentences, he knew if I was down, he knew when to stop me from being a dick (quite a lot then) we shared any number of flats and he was like a surrogate big brother one I didn't argue with.
Where does the title come from well I'm a big fan of Fish, and his lyrics have stuck with me over the years, many parallels or Fellini moments so to speak, when we hit the town (usually in London) we were always the last two home usually I was the wounded wing man that was in no fit state to be left on my own (go figure) first out the door last ones back in. the only reason I stayed in London was because of Steve, if I headed down a deep dark track he was the boy to come and drag me back kicking and screaming sometimes but I never stood a chance standing 6" 7" in his bare feet, lets just say even if I hit him with a truck I would have struggled to win.
This is the man that tracked down the little party of individuals who kicked me all over Madison's for my 21st, I recognised one of them a few months later and happened to mention it to Steve, he then knocked seven bells out of said individual and got the names of the others and then dealt with them, something I never asked him to do, mind you I never asked him to stop either!
I have never seen anybody drink as much Dog Bite in my life a gentle soul in reality, but cross him and he wouldn't back down, I saw that side plenty of times to attest to that, my problems all came to a head when Steve and some other dear friends decided to move to America, they naturally wanted me to go with them, me the soft shite that I was, missed the boat and decided not to go, I would be fine here in good old blighty.......erm not! no sooner had they gone then my tales of woe started, my tales plenty of which I have bitched about here and in other blogs/books and that's not what its all about.
I only ever saw him once again after he moved to the states and we had a cracking weekend in London, the old stomping grounds with plenty of friends and plenty of drink my, last sight of him was him literally putting me in my chair on a train back to Newcastle and tussling my hair as he said "just like old times" I never saw him again after that. we spoke quite often and we wrote every week (damn this is sounding like a bromance) in the days before the internet, then the world stopped for just a little while, the sky stayed black for the longest time and the wild west was reinvented, I lost a lot of friendships that day.
My only wish was that the wife never got to meet him, damn that would have been dangerous, too much alike mind you the meeting with the Kraken probably would have ended the relationship pretty much stone dead in its tracks, why a blog like this, well as you know my boat is a little leaky and I needed something to help shore up the tired boards, I don't even have a picture of one my dearest and best friends now that does make me sad, but I have all the good memories, the laughs, being abandoned nearly naked in Hexham covered in cow shit (don't ask) the times unsuspecting dinner plates being thrust before you (you really did have to inspect all the food) more drink, more sound advice, being saved from students being saved from the police, that and the fact my mother thought the world of him and she wasn't a bad judge of character.
I do miss the dawn patrol I miss the adventures I miss the camaraderie, I have some awesome friends in my life, its the ones that were taken way too soon that are the ones I miss the most, until the next time ..........Toodles.
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