Day 15: Will ye no come back again?

We leave Edinburgh, bound for our Newcastle Travelodge. Dave ‘Big Dave’ Wassell’s van-driver’s instinct - honed over years of driving the cream of Birmingham’s musical elite (such as The Wanking Tossers, Shit-Vomit Salad, and Arsewipe) around the country - tells him to avoid the major roads in favour of the old smuggler’s highway: the A1. This little-known alternative route south hugs the coast of England all the way down to Newcastle itself, and Big Dave is keen to breathe the cool North Sea air as we travel. “It’ll chill us all out after the gig, man. I knew this bloke, right...”

Unfortunately, before Big Dave can entertain us for hours about his friend, we are plunged into thick celtic sea mist and find ourselves travelling at less than ten miles per hour. Big Dave makes the strategic decision to concentrate on driving safely rather than talk, so music will have to fill the silence. But as he reaches for yet another Northern Soul collection, co-driver Apperley gently stays Big Dave’s hand. “Let’s have some rockabilly for a change, Dave. I think the guys would like it.”

Minutes later, we’re listening to Horatio ‘Hornblower’ Hampton and his Hopped-Up Hep-Cats pounding their way through their one and only hit record, the 1956 classic “Ants? Pants? Man, Let’s Dance!” (Spitball Records, Cat. No. 00001. Produced by Barney ‘Rocks’ Rubble. Engineered by Fred ‘Wilma!’ Flintstone. Carter’s Quality Cornmeal Rockin’ Good Radio Station LX39 Chart Position 17 for twenty-five weeks.) It’s going to be a long journey back to Newcastle.

We arrive at our Newcastle Travelodge so exhausted after our fraught fog-bound journey that tour manager Mark ‘Ace’ Jones can barely muster the strength for his traditional argument with the duty assistant before we each depart for our individual rooms. No sooner has my head hit the pillow than I’m roused from my sleep by the murmur of a voice below my first floor window. I look out, and see the band’s elite cadre of smokers – Jones, Lloyd, Kitson, Schmid, Chippington – gathered outside the hotel’s entrance for the ritual Last Cigarette of the Night. “So anyway, there was this bloke, right...” The voice, of course, is Big Dave’s.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Tonight, the Nightingales will play a benefit gig for Bradford Women’s Aid at the 1 in 12 Club. En route to the venue, Robert ‘The Chief’ Lloyd fills me in on the background to this gig. Bradford, he tells me, was one of the great cities of the British Industrial Revolution, famous for its woollen industries. Women, it seems, comprised the bulk of the factory workers at that time because the vast majority of men, when they weren’t watching the fledgling Bradford City football club, would spent most of their day in Bradford’s many pubs, brothels or opium dens, only coming home at night to drunkenly beat their wives before eating a hearty meal of lamb curry. Bradford Women’s Aid was set up in 1923 by a group of Bradford-based Manchester Guardian readers, keen to interfere in any way they could in the daily lives of ordinary working class folk.

Wearing their trademark woollen blousons, this group would venture forth into the pubs, brothels and opium dens of Bradford in order to educate the male population in the art of treating their women as ‘Ladies’ rather than punchbags. And as lovers of wool, they also pioneered the protection of sheep by simultaneously promoting strict vegan dieting principles. These noble principles underpin the ongoing work of the refuge, even today, Lloyd assures me. “Like these pioneers of tolerance,” concludes Lloyd, “I too love the ladies, and I’m proud that this band can make some small contribution to the organisation’s continuing good work.” And what about the sheep, I enquire? Lloyd’s response is swift and unequivocal: “I can’t begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to sinking my teeth into one of the club’s famous vegan burgers.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

We arrive at the venue early and so decamp to a nearby pub while Dave ‘Big Dave’ Wassell finds somewhere to park the van. We order a round of local brew Patel’s Desi Porter (ABV 3.8%) and – to get us in the mood for tonight’s vegan cuisine – we order a plateful of vegan cheese and onion crusty cobs, which turn out to contain only onion. “It’s an old Bradford tradition,” landlord Desmond ‘Desi’ Patel assures us. As we eat our cobs, tears streaming down our cheeks, Big Dave rushes into the pub in a state of agitation. “Some cunt’s broken into the van!”

It seems that, having parked the van in a side-street, Big Dave decided to go for a walk around the city centre. While he was gone – no more than twenty minutes – someone smashed the side window of the van. Fearing the worst, the band desert their pints and the remainder of their cobs and head around the corner to where the van is parked. Luckily, it seems to have been an amateurish smash-and-grab raid, with only a few visible items snatched from the driver’s cab. None of the band’s equipment has been touched so the gig is not in jeopardy.

“The fucking cunts!” Dave is apoplectic with rage – I’ve never seen him so angry. “The CDs. They’ve all gone. They’ve had me entire Northern Soul collection! The fuckers!”