I smoked that on top of the speed.
All I can say is that having driven overnight, straight from a concert and having been plied with enough speed and weed to sink a battleship, I wasn’t in the best shape when I arrived in Leeds at about 6.00am the next day. Not only that but as it had been a snap decision to go I hadn’t told Gazza I was coming so he wasn’t expecting me, and above all, when I got to Leeds I realised that I didn’t know where he lived. Apart from that, all good!
I drove to the University and as it was very early on a Sunday morning I was lucky to find a caretaker/security guard in a kiosk and explained the situation. He was clearly used to students and didn’t appear that surprised by my predicament. I told him that my friend Gazza lived in a Hall of Residence, but I had no idea which one!
My heart sank when he explained that there were about 10 Halls, so that just knowing he was in a hall didn’t help too much. Had I any idea of which one he was in? I knew that he had mentioned the name of the hall he was in previously, and suggested that if he could tell me the names of the various halls, maybe I‘d recognise Gazza’s. He obliged, and when he said Henry Price it immediately rang a bell, and I remembered that was indeed the name of his hall of residence. Thank God!
The caretaker gave me directions and I drove round to the hall and parked on the main road outside. However, I still had no idea of which room, or indeed which flat, or even which floor Gazza lived on, in what turned out to be a massive block. Not only that but it was 6.30am on a Sunday morning, and there was no-one around to ask and no way of finding out by other means (no mobile phones etc. of course).
Stalker!
I tried the main doors, but they were locked and there was no sign of a concierge or anyone else around to help me get in. I stood there for a while, with my head completely fuzzy from the drive, the lack of sleep and the drugs, not knowing what on earth to do next, when I saw someone go into the building through a small door on the side.
I lumbered forward, in a bit of a haze, and tried the door - it was open! Once inside I found myself in a stairwell, but with no idea of where to go. I started to climb the stairs and saw a cleaner, and so I mumbled ‘Hello’. I think she nearly had a heart attack as she hadn’t heard me come up behind her, and when she did see me, I know I must have looked quite a sight!
She asked me what I was doing there and I replied that I was looking for my friend, Gazza, and had she seen him? She said she didn’t know anyone by the name of ‘Gazza’ and couldn’t help me, and shot off down the corridor. I wasn’t sure what to do and stood there for a while, peering through locked doors that led into carpeted corridors off the stairwell.
Not long after this the cleaner reappeared with another woman, who asked me in a rather abrupt manner what I was doing there and how had I got in. I did my usual mumbled reply saying that I was looking for Gazza, but I wasn’t sure what flat he was in, and that I’d entered through an unlocked door. She replied officiously that she didn’t know anyone called Gazza, but that they certainly weren’t in this block, as this was the girls’ block, and that I should get out – now! Oops!
I did as I was bade, and she followed me back down the stairs, shutting and locking the exterior door behind me. A warm welcome indeed! I wandered off towards the adjoining block, which I assumed must house the male students, and loitered around for a while, looking to find a way in, but couldn’t. Eventually, however, some students began to emerge and I asked them if any of them knew my friend Gazza. By pure good fortune, I eventually spoke to someone who did know Gazza, and was able to give me entrance to the building and direct me to his flat.
The blocks were all sub-divided into small flats, housing about 6 or 8 students, each with its own kitchen/dining area, and Gazza’s was up on the third floor. Luckily someone in the flat was up and I was able to gain access and find Gazza’s room. After knocking for a while, I was greeted at the door by a very sleepy friend who did a double take when they found it was me at the door, before giving me a great and excited welcome and bidding me enter.
Although I was obviously a bit burned out (to say the least) he then took me for breakfast in a café and then proudly showed me round the Leeds Uni. campus. I have to say that this didn’t really serve to lift my general mood, as it was so vastly superior to what we had down in Portsmouth - a proper university! In some ways seeing Gazza was making me feel worse, not better.
After that, we went back to his flat, and were sitting in the kitchen/dining area, when the cleaners entered. They were welcomed as part of the family and were obviously well known to all the students, including Gazza, and were very chatty, and they were eager to give us all the latest gossip. The really big news of the day was that a potential rapist had recently been apprehended trying to break into one of the girls’ flats next door! He was apparently some kind of low-life, who looked dirty and desperate and had tried to trick his way in. Luckily, however, he had been scared off by the courageous cleaning staff, despite being aggressive and possibly carrying a knife! Security had been called, but the suspect had vanished before they arrived. A general alarm had been sounded in the block and there was apparently great consternation amongst the girls who lived there
Now, I know that I was a bit naïve and innocent, but it was only towards the end of this story that the awful truth dawned on me – I was of course the person they were talking about! By the time the cleaners told it, it had been embellished about 100 times and bits added on etc. and that’s why it had taken so long for me to cotton on. I was stunned: I was the person that they were now talking about? - an evil looking knife-carrying intruder and possible rapist, with lank hair and incoherent speech, who was almost certainly also a serial killer!?
I blurted out that it was possibly me that they were talking about, and that my actions and intentions had been completely innocent. At first they refused to believe it, such was the description they had been given of the perpetrator, but I went on to explain what had really happened, and that it was all just a genuine mistake. The two cleaners were a bit deflated as this had been the hottest story to gossip about in months, and they had clearly been looking forward to telling it to all the various students in the flats they cleaned, probably adding a little more relish each time it was told. However, after a while they perked up a bit as I think that they realised that would now be able to go round to all their fellow cleaners and tell them the truth of what had actually happened – a truth that they had been able to glean as a result of meeting the dangerous stalker himself, face-to-face! Theirs would be the definitive story and that would give them some Kudos.
A load of Ballads!
I stayed overnight at Gazza’s, sleeping on the floor of his small bedroom and showering (at last!) in a little ‘Jack and Jill’ shower cubicle that he shared with the room next door. This meant that I was missing my lectures in Portsmouth, and so accompanied Gazza to one of his English lectures instead. I had envisaged a large lecture theatre, but when we finally arrived, through a maze of corridors in a grand building, it was actually quite an intimate space, with about 15 other students sitting at modern desks. During the course of the lecture, the lecturer herself kept looking at me with a slightly quizzical expression, as she clearly couldn’t quite place me. Luckily, however, she apparently thought I was a new member of her group that she hadn’t noticed yet.
Gazza himself had applied to Leeds to read Theology, although he had no intention of actually reading Theology, and he only did it to get himself a place at Leeds, and as soon as he arrived he applied to change courses to English Lit, which is what he’d wanted to do all along.
In those days, applying for a less popular course with lower entrance requirements, and then switching courses was a relatively common ploy. After a bit of argy-bargy the university had granted his request, so he was himself a relatively
