They don’t have Passing Cloud cigarettes any more. Few folk remember them now. Wills made them. In a flip-top pink packet, in two rows of ten. Oval, untipped cigarettes, with Big Chief Passing Cloud on the front, smoking a clay pipe. I never understood about that. But we had some really classy fags back in those days. Balkan Sobranie, Spanish Shawl, a perfumed cigarette, Three Castles, Capstan Full Strength.

Those were the days.

And, frankly, I miss ’em.

Presently Dave emerged from the launderette with a pale, young face and a bit of a sweat on.

“That was nice,” he said. “I missed that in the nick.”

“Didn’t they have a launderette in there?” I asked.

“No,” said Dave. “You had to wash out your undies in the slop bucket.”

“Were you ‘the Daddy’ in there?” I asked. “Did you have ‘bitches’?”

“I think you’re in the wrong decade,” said Dave, shaking his shaven head. “We had snout and screws and vicars with long hair who taught us how to turn dolly pegs on a lathe.”

“Will you be going back, do you think? Or, having paid your debt to society, will you henceforth be a model citizen?”

“I liked the food,” said Dave. “I think I will become a repeat offender.”

“Each to his own,” said I. “What shall we do tonight?”

“We could break into the sweet shop and steal humbugs.”

“Not keen,” I said. “There’s a dance on at the Blue Triangle Club. Pat Lyons and the Second Thoughts are playing.”

“Is it booga-booga music?”

“It’s Blue Beat, I think.”

“Let’s go, then. I’ll nick some parkas from the cloakroom.”

We went to the Blue Triangle Club.

Every other day of the week, the Blue Triangle Club was a YMCA sports and social hall. But Thursdays were different. On Thursdays there were bands – real bands with guitars and amplifiers. Most of the bands had Jeff Beck in them. You couldn’t really have a band back then if Jeff Beck wasn’t in it. He was “paying his dues”, which was what you did in those days if you wanted to become famous as a musician. You didn’t go along to auditions that were being shown as a TV series, you learned your craft. You paid your dues. And you ultimately became Jeff Beck.

Jeff Beck played lead guitar with Pat Lyons and the Second Thoughts on Thursdays. I don’t know what ever happened to Pat Lyons. Obviously he never paid enough dues. Because he never became Jeff Beck. I heard that he became a butcher, as did Reg Presley from the Troggs, before he gained a temporary reprieve when some nineties band took one of his songs to the top of the charts again and he got some royalties in. Spent it researching crop circles, I understand.

But Jeff Beck did become Jeff Beck and he played some blinding guitar that Thursday night at the Blue Triangle Club.

Somewhere, amongst my personal effects, exists my Blue Triangle Club member’s card. It’s blue and it’s got my name on and it’s triangular in shape. My membership number was 666, which meant a lot to me at the time.

“Got any pills?” asked the bouncer, barring our way into the club. “I’ll have to search you.” The bouncers were so very big in those days. And they were bouncers then, not door supervisors. Harry was huge.

“Turn it in, Harry,” I said. “We don’t have any pills.”

“Would you like to buy some, then?” asked Harry.

“Now you’re talking,” said Dave. “Got any purple hearts?”

“Shilling each,” said Harry.

“I’ll take a quid’s worth,” said Dave.

I sighed a little for my bestest friend. “You’re on probation,” I said. “You’ll be in trouble if you’re caught popping purple hearts.”

“Are you going to grass me up?”

“Of course not,” I said.

“Then, a quid’s worth for my friend too.”

“Nice,” I said, trying to look like I meant it.

In truth I’d never taken any drugs. When people offered them to me, I accepted gratefully and pretended to pop them into my mouth. But really I pocketed them, took them home, sorted them out, packaged them up and generously handed them around when the time was right. So my friends thought I was pretty “right on”. But in truth I was afraid of drugs.

I’ve never cared for being out of control – which is to say, not being in control of myself. I like what thinking I do to be of my own volition. I like to be the master of my own self. I took the quid’s worth of purple hearts and appeared to toss them down my throat.

Dave made short work of his.

We paid our entrance fees, had our hands stamped with ultraviolet paint for our pass-outs and entered the Blue Triangle.

The joint was not exactly a-jumping. A few embarrassed-looking girls in droopy dresses half-heartedly slopped about the dance floor, circumnavigating their handbags. A few young blokes in full mod rigout lounged at the bar, too young to get served, too cool to admit that they couldn’t.

Dave made for the bar, ordered drinks, was turned away and returned without them.

“In prison,” he said, “we drank piss and got right out of our faces.”

“What?” said I. “You drank your own piss?”

“Certainly not,” said Dave. “Do I look like a pervert?”

I shook my head, for in truth Dave didn’t.

“We drank the piss of Goldstein the shaman.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Goldstein the shaman grew Peyote cactus in his cell. If you eat Peyote buttons the drug comes out in your piss stronger than when it went in. It’s something to do with the acids in the human digestive system.”

“That can’t be true,” I said.

“It is,” said Dave.[9] “I wonder if it works with lager.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“No,” said Dave. “You’re probably right. So, shall we chat up some girls? What do you think?”

I cast an eye over the womenfolk. There was a particularly pretty blonde girl chatting with a big fat friend.

“There’s a couple over there,” I said. “But I don’t like the look of your one much.”

“They all look the same in the dark,” said Dave, wise as ever for his years. “I think these purple hearts are kicking in. How do my pupils look?”

I stared into his eyes. “Well,” I said, “that’s interesting.”

“Have they dilated?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “But it would appear that both of your pupils are now located in your right eye.”

“No?” Dave covered his left eye with his hand. “Damn me,” he said, “you’re right.”

“This might affect your chances of chatting up that big fat girl.”

“No probs,” said Dave, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a pair of sunglasses. “I was going to put these on anyway. They make me look like Roy Orbison.”

“Who’s Roy Orbison?”

“He’s the lead singer with a band in Acton. Jeff Beck plays bass for them on Tuesdays.” Dave put on his sunglasses. “How do I look?” he asked.

“A bit of a nelly. Those are women’s sunglasses. Does Roy Orbison wear women’s sunglasses?”

“I don’t know,” said Dave. “I’ve never seen him.”

Drinkless, feckless, young, dumb and full of commercial enterprise, Dave and I set out to pull.

Dave, the uncrowned king of the chat-up line, marched straight over to the fat girl and introduced himself. “Black’s the name,” said Dave. “Count Otto Black, swordsman and adventurer, and you, I believe, I have seen in the movies.”

“Me?” said the fat girl. “Me in the movies?”

“Come on,” said Dave. “Don’t be shy. I’ve seen you in a film, haven’t I?”

“No,” said the fat girl. “You haven’t.”

“Oh,” said Dave. “I could have sworn you were Robert Mitchum.”[10]

The fat girl tittered foolishly, which meant that Dave was “in there”. The blonde girl, however, maintained a stony silence.

“Don’t mind him,” I said to her. “He’s stoned out of his face. We both are. We’re wild ones. Live fast, die young, that’s us.”

“Then don’t let me keep you,” said the blonde girl. “Feel free to die whenever you want.”