Here We Go Gathering Cups In May. Nicky Allt
pints: ‘The bar’s shut. Everyone’s filling their boots.’
I stood on a chair and saw about six Reds behind the bar passing pints over into a forest of waving arms. Any other time and I’d have been right over there, but lack of kip, ale, cheese sarnies and ciggies had set fire to me gullet, so I popped a Rennie and got me head down.
It was about half eight when Wardy woke me up at Ostend … grinning, with a can in his hand. Jimmy was sprawled over a chair as if he’d been shivved. There was a huge queue to get washed, so we decided we’d wait till we boarded the Belgian train, thinking it’d be a modern, state-of-the-art job. At Ostend no one checked our passports or tickets again. I couldn’t help thinking how easy it would’ve been for Vinnie or anyone else bunking. We waited on a chilly platform at Ostend station for half an hour, then this minty old train rolled up. The buzz simmered down. The looks of concern said it all. ‘This bastard better not be ours,’ Jimmy said. It was what we were all thinking. A steward confirmed the worst. Wardy put it in a nutshell: ‘It looks like the fuckin’ thing they used in The Railway Children.’
The interior was similar to an English footy special: sliding-door compartments that held eight, with roped luggage racks above the seats and a sliding window. Further down … the carriages changed to just seats with no tables. A steward told us it was because the carriages were half-Belgian and half-French. We sat in the French half (just seats). The entire train smelt musty and felt crusty, but because we were still in adventure mode we just got on with it. All that mattered was that we were well on our way.
The first couple of hours were weird. People in the Belgian half of the train kept coming into our half saying ‘It’s fuckin’ freezing down there’. The crazy scenario was that the heaters only worked in the French half. Then, as morning warmed up and the sun got going, we kept going down the Belgian end saying ‘It’s fuckin’ roasting up there’. A steward eventually turned the heating off, though it was still stifling. The air conditioning was just a simple case of opening the windows.
The tannoy system was on a par with the train. Before any announcement you’d hear a few seconds of crackling, like an old wartime radio broadcast. A few mimicked Lord Haw-Haw: ‘Germany Calling’. Most messages were in broken English, the clearest being a warning not to drink the water on board because of contamination. That isn’t something you wanna hear when your throat feels like you’ve been gargling sand. I had nothing at all to drink, and Wardy and Jimmy only had ale. The situation led to an announcement that the buffet car was giving away free cans of soft drinks. When I got there, they’d all been snaffled. My salvation came when a few lads walked through our carriage carrying bags filled with drinks. They’d had a can whip-around on the train and were handing them to people who were thirsty, which I thought was a great Scouse touch.
It was boiling hot that afternoon. The open windows played havoc with any card games. It was as if there was a poltergeist in the carriage – cards flying all over the place. Plenty of yawning was going on. The initial hit of travelling on foreign soil had well worn off. The countryside seemed endless, flat and boring. Jimmy put his own geographical slant on it: ‘It looks like them fuckin’ cornfields at the back of Kirkby.’ I must admit I still laugh at that.
I wolfed me last three butties, then gave Vinnie’s sarnies to Wardy. His face was an absolute picture when he took them out the bag. The tomatoes on them had blown. They were like dripping porridge in his fingers. It was the only time I saw his grin disappear. His kite resembled someone holding his breath underwater as he lashed the lot out the window.
I don’t think anyone noticed that we’d crossed over into Germany.
It looked exactly the same, apart from the occasional six-foot-five, blond tit-head you’d see on a platform. Slowing and passing through stations were the best parts of the day. All the red and white colours would come out the windows, and the singing would start. You could tell that the Belgians and Krauts had never witnessed anything like it. Most of them stood gaping at the train with constipated expressions. In one station we all started throwing English coins and sweets to people on the platform. They were holding their hands out and pushing each other out the way to get at the booty. Any neutral observer would’ve seen it as a gesture of good will from one culture being warmly embraced by another. Jimmy’s piss-holed eyes saw it differently from the train window. ‘Yer fuckin’ tramps,’ he shouted.
As we got further into Germany, the countryside got more lush and picturesque, while the scene on the train became uglier. The Lord Haw-Haw voice announced that the buffet car was out of stock and that the handbasins and toilet flushes had run out of water. Now I’m no prude … but there was no way I was going anywhere near shithouse pans that were chock-a-block with King Eddies. They were gruesome. Don’t ask me what the poor women on board did, but most lads ended up having a burst in the hand-basins. When we got to Strasbourg, scores bailed off the train unofficially and stampeded to the bogs. Others swarmed the cafeteria, where there were more problems. Staff wouldn’t accept Italian lire or sterling. Back on the train they announced that there’d be a fresh water supply at Basle. It was a blag. When we got there, Swiss rail staff refused to fill the water tanks.
By the time we reached Zurich station early on Tuesday evening, the state of play wasn’t good. Swiss bizzies lined the platform and wouldn’t let us off, because one of the starving trains ahead had cleaned out the cafe, and for some reason the Swiss rail authorities still wouldn’t refill the water tanks. There were some thirsty, hungry, irritated Scousers on board. People were desperate. Everyone’s sarnies had been eaten or had fallen apart, and any dregs of juice that were left over were warm. The water shortage was so bad that a few lads from Wallasey near us used a big bottle of warm Kia-Ora orange to get washed with. Stewards partly restocked the buffet car, and we took off again, but you couldn’t get within two carriages of it. After half an hour it was all gone again. I had to make do with a drink of warm, flat bitter off Wardy, who passed me it … grinning, with a can in his hand.
The stewards got serious earache about the water and sanitary situation. The bogs were starting to smell like Widnes. We’d have been well within our rights to start a mutiny. Then, as if by magic, the moody atmosphere mellowed when the Swiss Alps came into view. It was mid-evening, and the sunshine bounced off the snow peaks, lighting up the mountains in a stunning amber-white. Everyone was hanging out the windows, blown away. To put it blunt, it was fuckin’ awesome. Jimmy’s ale-blurred vision even saw the beauty. ‘Imagine sliding down one of them on a piece of cardboard,’ he said.
At one of the highest points, we stopped at a scenic little station; the views were spectacular. Then, from the Belgian end of the train, someone yodelled out the window in a high-pitched voice: ‘Yodel-a-e-dee.’ The echo it made was amazing. Next thing a deeper yodel came from the French end: ‘Yodel-a-e-dee.’ Everyone got onto it. After a few minutes the sound of hundreds of yodelling Scousers echoed round the Alps. It was hilarious to listen to. Just before we left, Wardy handed me a few coins and said, ‘Do us a favour. Go and get us an Echo.’
The water tanks were finally refilled at a place called Chiasso, which is on the border with Italy. It was a big relief in more ways than one, especially for the women. There was a bird in our carriage called Jackie. She was a bit heavy on the make-up but was as fit as a butcher’s dog – white blouse, skimpy red shorts and little white socks. Every time she walked past, at least twenty heads would lean over and follow her arse down the aisle. I had fantasies about her dragging me into one of the bogs … then I pictured the bogs, and the fantasy was fucked.
We didn’t see anything of Milan or Parma – it was dark when we passed through them. I went for a walk to stretch me legs. The train was shitted up good style. There were no rubbish bins, just English plastic carrier bags all over the place, over-spilling with shite. A couple of carriages looked like a grenade had gone off in them. Cans and empty bottles rolled round floors full of playing cards, crisp bags, ripped magazines and Monday’s newspapers. In one of the bogs there was a small, smashed up chocolate vending machine, which must’ve been dragged on at Strasbourg. Its moneybox wasn’t touched, just the chocolate gone. I bummed a couple of squashed ciggies off a lad in the Belgian half. Every compartment I passed had bodies crashed out in the criss-cross-roped luggage racks.