SCUNTHORPE

URBAN LEGEND SAYS that an illicit union between a prostitute from Hull and a circus troop from Grimsby produced Scunthorpe’s first citizens first recorded in 1354. In modern day the town center can often resemble a cross between Michael jackons Thriller video and Trainspotting. Immigrants arriving from war torn countries such as Syria and Bosnia often ask, “What the hell happened here?”

“Keep off the grass” signs adorn most green areas. Not however to protect the grass but to prevent you slipping in dog shit and falling onto discarded drug syringes.

Scunthorpe Backpacker blogger Salvador (Bugsy) Malone says this about his home town on his return in 2014:

The place now resembled Zagreb or worse. I saw one of my former school friends standing on a corner selling herself to buy drugs and the boy who used to deliver our newspaper was sat begging outside a kebab shop whilst continually scratching his scabby arms. “Hey Sally mate” he shouted “Can you lend us a tenner for old times sake?”

* * * *

So, with the Apocalypse well and truly over, my sorry little tale had to end somewhere, and here I am in hell back in my hometown of Scunthorpe, with no wheels, no job, and no life. As the rain comes down, I dive into the electrical store and spot McCallum on every single television screen in the place. “Bloody hell.” I can’t believe it. I can’t get away from him. Seeing him again only makes me more depressed and angry as he plays some kind of mad scientist on an American police drama.

The Great Escape will never be the same again. Thanks a lot, McCallum, you moron.”

“Can I help you with anything, sir?” asks the spotty clerk.

“Yes, do you sell time machines?”

“Erm . . .” He even thinks about it for a moment as I turn to leave.

Back out in the streets my puzzled thoughts debate the concepts of life and religion and how the good citizens of Scunthorpe fit into that equation. If God really did create us in his own image, then I would strongly advise him to lay off the cheap booze, turn off the chip pan, and quit staring into those crazy fairground mirrors. I’d always wanted to get my name in the papers someday, but drunken three-wheeled stunt driving is perhaps not the best way to let off steam. Neither is urinating your name and skillfully managing to dot the i of Eddie in the middle of the road outside Scunthorpe’s infamous Blarney stone nightclub, while being cheered on by the queue. Neither was threatening doormen with a stolen antique pistol and whistling the theme tune to Laurel and Hardy while being pinned up against a wall by three angry policemen. A good night in the cells is just what you need to bring you back to earth, and a week later on page three of Scunthorpe’s Evening Telegraph, the quality headline:

“Man Runs into Chip Shop to Avoid Police”

Followed by nearly half a page chronicling my recent ill behaviors. And my subsequent appearance before the magistrate.

However, the best way I find of dealing with complex issues of the law is to pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile all the way to the nearest point of departure. But to where?

My friend Steve has said I can go and work for him in the USA, renovating houses in San Francisco. So I suppose it’s an option.

Or maybe I could visit Johnny R in Seattle?

Failing that, I can always go back to Holland and work as a carpenter again. But either way I gotta get out of this situation somehow!

In bed that night I dream about my old hippie friend Suzie dressed as a leather-clad vixen, flexing a riding crop and telling me I’ve been a very bad boy again and how she’s going to correct me! With the crack of the whip, her skimpy leather panties hit the floor . . . but what the hell . . . ? My mobile phone is ringing as total darkness descends and I’m awake back in my own bedroom with Suzie long gone.

“And who the fuck is that ruining my fucking dream?”

Missed call: Waz.

* * * *

With Suzie still fresh in my mind, I head directly for Scunthorpe library.

“Aye up, have you got any books on that walk in Spain?” I ask the dour librarian.

“Which one?” she grunts.

“The Cameo San Diego, I think it’s called?”

She spends an age gawping into the computer, and I wonder why I seem to have a knack for rubbing these fuzzy-felt-loving bookworms up the wrong way. Silently she directs me over to the travel section and then disappears in a cloud of dust.

One book is about a pilgrimage, but I’d always thought pilgrims were those God-bothering folk who set sail to America in the sixteenth century. The Pilgrim Fathers, or Christian Brothers, or whatever they were called, dressed in black and white with those silly hats with buckles and square shoes and all that shit. But at last I find a Spanish travel guide with a map of Spain and the Camino de Santiago.

Now, according to this guidebook, I start at a place called Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the French Pyrenees, then head down into the city of Pamplona and walk five hundred miles across Spain to a place called Santiago de Compostela and have all my sins forgiven by putting my hands in the special sin elimination handy hand-hole in the cathedral.

I flick back to the Pamplona section, with photographs of the San Fermín festival and numerous pictures of the running of the bulls down the narrow streets. A few of the pictures are quite disturbing. One man has a bull’s horn stuck through his cheek and another has a horn stuck through his leg.

The running of the bulls often results in the death and serious injury for many participants.

“Think I’ll give that a miss then!”

On my way out I pick up a well-worn copy of Bravo Two Zero by SAS action man Andy McNab and a copy of As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee, for 50pence each. “Bargain!”

Back out in the streets the aroma of chip-pan impregnated fabrics and cheap tobacco fills the Scunthorpe air, and an unemployed scumbag wearing a dirty tracksuit adds to the ambiance by loudly announcing to his equally scummy friends, “I’m just off to McDonald’s for a shit!”

The Basques have got it right, I reckon. Running savage bulls with sharp horns down your local high street is a brilliant idea, especially on benefits day in Scunthorpe without warning. I would love to be the man in charge of opening the barn doors. I notice more groups of track-suited douchebags prowling outside the benefit office and pound shops—swearing, spitting, and shouting while viewing the world with utter contempt through their wicked little reptile eyes set deep in rodent-like faces with miniature spitting clones of themselves gathered at their feet, screaming for Evo-Stik or heroin or whatever they were weaned on. Why they tuck their tracksuits into their socks is a mystery to me. They look like unhealthy spotty gray-faced baseball players, only in this case the ball will have been replaced by a cat or hedgehog wrapped in gaffer tape, a dog with fireworks nailed to its tail, or in most cases a human head.

* * * *

Rows of badly parked Motability scooters clutter the pavement outside the cheap bars, and at ten past ten on this cold morning some good citizens are settling in to their second pint of Nelson Mandela premium-strength Belgium lager. One of them I recognize as Big Jase, an old school friend. He sees me passing and shouts me in for a few beers.

We discuss numerous topical Scunthorpe subjects, such as money or the lack of, recent violence, who’s beaten up who, who’s fucked who, alcohol abuse, and exchange ideas for getting out of this grim town. We chuckle away the morning while enjoying several pints of quality Export Lager, observing the interesting diversity of North Lincolnshire, so interesting in fact that a couple of old ladies we know actually come to Scunthorpe just to take the piss out of its unfortunate citizens, often stalking their victims up and down the high street while giggling along behind them like drunken schoolgirls.

“Dog the Bounty Hunter, look!” Jase points, laughing his head off.

Through the dirty window we see a strange person struggling to light a Superking cigarette in the fierce wind. It’s hard to tell if it’s a man or a woman, but either way it’s the same face and hairstyle as Dog the Bounty Hunter.

“Great doppelganger,” I tell him.

Jase looks at his watch and scoops the last of his pint and then he’s off to God knows where, so I finish my drink and leave.

* * * *

At the zebra crossing on the high street a learner driver screeches to a halt, almost flattening a group of asylum seekers, and now the hooter is beeping loudly with Big Jase leaning out the window, shouting abuse and waving a big tattooed arm at the frightened foreigners as his comb-over-hairstyled driving instructor sits beside him in a state of terror.

A lot of famous people came from Scunthorpe they say.

Tony Jacklin, the golfer, for instance. Bond villain Donald Pleasence; Ian Botham, the cricketer; Graham Taylor, the useless England football manager; and even a member of the Royle family, Nana Royle. Played by actress Liz Smith.

The fact that none of these people ever chose to stay in Scunthorpe is irrelevant.

My mobile is ringing. . . .

“AMSTERDAM,” says the excited voice.