The Angels Hit Wales
Tone had been dropped off by Tod in his shiny black Lexus, a stark contrast to our old Volvo estate, an S reg., cream with a blue door, our seventies caravan which now in the nineties was looking somewhat worse for wear. We sat bundled together among all the instruments and luggage; we hadn't dared to put too much inside the caravan, as it was sagging behind the single middle axle. The weather was fair, and we had a good stereo and a massive collection of cassettes with us. As we pulled out at the top of our track onto the open road, Felix put on a tape of Don Williams' country music.
Our caravan was bright yellow with panels of red, and a split door in sky blue and grass green. It had the band logo, the fire serpent, painted along the side, and details of our forthcoming tour and concert in Holyhead in the back window. We had ripped it apart at the seams (quite literally) when we first had it, repaired all the rotten wood in the walls, and stuffed it with lots of yellow fiberglass. Metia had made curtains, purple, blue, green, yellow, and a silver one that we hung in the back window. Internally Felix had put in cupboards and so on, which we decorated with grapevines and flowers. It was however far from perfect, and water sometimes got in through the seams, which we hadn't managed to reseal perfectly the day we first had it all lying open like a big aluminum flower on the lawn!
We reached Leek, went through to Macclesfield, and then out on the road to Chester. It was afternoon by the time we actually made Chester, and like Frodo and Sam in the Lord of the Rings, it was quite an experience to us when we hit the open road beyond the town, driving on roads through countryside we had never seen before. Someone voiced this common thought, and we stopped in a lay-by just to make sure the caravan was OK. There were no problems, and we just made Wales as dusk began to fall. We tried several caravan sites near the coast, but were told that as we were not a 'family' we could not stay the night! Felix and Metia and I all shied away from the idea of any two of us pretending to be Fergus and Max's parents, so we had to go on down the coast. At Towyn Bay we were lucky.
"What's your name?" asked the man behind the barrier.
"Bethell, a good old Welsh name," I said hastily, and we were let through with a cheerful smile and an acknowledgement that it was indeed.
We parked the caravan up and locked it. The smell of salt water was calling us from behind the promenade just over the road. Dodging across, we ran down a short side street, skipped through the colored lights of a small funfair and climbing the high concrete breakwater, found ourselves on a short beach of harsh stone, with that ever amazing and thoroughly satisfying sight before us; the sea.
We sat there for ages looking out over the sunset water, with the sounds of the little fair behind us, and the waves rolling in to break on the stones not 50 yards away.
Next morning we explored the town. It was quite interesting to us wandering through the streets past the stalls of beach toys and condyfloss. We stopped outside an auction. We always think auctioneers a great laugh, but I don't think he appreciated our mirth! Rattling on in a monotone, he was flogging repossessed TV's and radios to a crowd of flip-flop wearing caravanners. We stood there creasing ourselves for a bit, and then left him in peace to explore the rest of the town. This didn't take long and we soon hit the road again.
The next stop was Rhos on Sea, but we had a bit of a problem getting there as Felix got onto a dual carriageway and it was sometime before we could convince him that we desperately needed to turn round. At every junction Metia and I cried at him to turn off, but he kept doggedly driving. And Tone was a bit of a nuisance too, because he was whining that his stick insect needed real privet or it would die. When we reached Rhos on Sea we were very hot and bothered. We stopped outside someone's gate and tone nipped out of the car with a penknife for his leaves. Then we went into a big caravan site on a farm.
There were a lot of touring vans here, loads of families, and hundreds of kids. Felix began to fettle the Volvo up and settle the caravan down and the kids surrounded him in delight.
"Why is your caravan all colours?" "Why does your car have a blue door?" and so on. Metia and I grinned and put the kettle on in the caravan.
For the next few days everything was a whirl of action for us and the band. We played on the seafront at Rhos on Sea, and stayed another night before playing in Llandudno the next day. On the seafront here there were hundreds of pensioners in deckchairs, so we anticipated a good audience and unpacked our instruments on the promenade in front of them. We had hardly had time to tune up, however, when a grizzled little man in a navy jumper, who's face was all twisted with dislike and disapproval, came running over to us and ordered us to cease. We hadn't got public liability insurance. What if an OAP tripped on the guitar case? No, it was all out of the question, we had to pack our gear and go away. The OAP's booed; they were smiling encouragingly as we settled down nearby, and now they had been cheated out of a performance by England's premier, and only all English South American Band!
So we hitched up our yellow caravan and went to Conway, where we saw the great castle, and in exploring the town, successfully navigated our 20 foot caravan through its narrowest door. We decided to stop here for the night. The entrance into the caravan site is just outside the town, and runs up a treacherously steep incline, before dropping down an equally daunting valley into the trees. The Volvo never complained, but when we reached our designated pitch and unhitched, we noticed that the caravan next door to us had a huge patch of black dirt on the wall just above the tow hitch. Some cars had obviously struggled to haul their burdens up the hill. We wondered who had decided on the location for the site!
Tone was becoming very annoying. He had been shooting off a B.B. pistol at Max and Fergus inside the caravan in Rhos on Sea, and now he was getting quite insufferable with his tall tales and incessant demands. We understood that an only child might have some problems mixing into a large family group, but his constant attention seeking was driving us up the wall. In the Kwik Save at Conway he slipped a large curry into the shopping basket, which we subsequently discovered had to be cooked for 40 minutes in a conventional oven. We were disgusted. Why couldn't he share our food? Why was he always so loud and troublesome? We knew that his mother had given him a lot of money to help buy food with, but it had stayed firmly in his pocket!
That night there was Welsh dancing in the lodge at the caravan site. We had all intended to go, but instead dusk fell and found us all chasing Tone through the trees.
There had been a discussion earlier in the afternoon in which he contradicted Max and Fergus' opinions as to whether the Romans invented cement or not. When his Dad, whom he had called on the mobile he had lent him, supported the boys theory, he flew into a rage and disappeared among the trees, announcing his intention to run away. He had taken the mobile phone for security, of course. As we were due to play our biggest venue on the following day, a concert for which we had been booked by the Ucheldre Centre at Holyhead, we felt we could not risk serious disruption of our plans. But Tone climbed a tree and sat tight. After a lot of running and searching and calling, Metia hit on the idea of getting an older boy from one of the neighboring caravans to pretend to be a park attendant, and eventually Tone came out of hiding and was sent to bed. As for us, the dancing had finished and we were worn out and very annoyed.
Tone's parents were meeting us on the morrow in Holyhead for the concert, and I was determined that when they left for Staffordshire that night, he would be traveling with them. A tearful conversation with our parents telling them that I couldn't cope, and Ma decided to take the train to Holyhead and join us in his stead for the return journey. Things were getting rather strained!
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