A Car Full Of Characters

by Paul Tristram

It was a Friday night
back in 1984.
There were 5 of us,
barely teenagers
listening to Punk bands
like Blitz,
Infa-Riot,
Peter & The Test Tube Babies
and The Exploited
on a large 2 speaker,
twin cassette, 6 battery, arm aching
‘Anti-Everything’
sound system (Class!)
Walking around the backstreets
and lanes of Longford
and Penshannel in Skewen
looking for mods to fight
and girls for kicks.
We were having absolutely no luck
with either!
so we decided to walk
down to Neath Abbey,
along the canal
and back into Neath Town Centre.
When a car came screeching
around the corner
and slammed to a halt opposite us,
the driver leapt out,
leaving the door flapping open
and ran up the lawn of a garden
and started banging
on the house door loudly,
yelling emotionally
“Moira, open the door,
I love you,
she meant nothing to me,
I was drunk, I swear!”
She opened and screamed back from
an upstairs window, immediately
“I’m calling the Heddlu,
if you don’t clear away from my house,
you cheating, lying swine!”
We burst out laughing
and ran across the road.
I opened the passenger door
and dove right on in there
to the sound of the backdoors
opening and closing behind me.
Then I noticed that the drivers seat
next to me was empty
with the door still open?
I turned to the backseat
and my 4 man ‘Wrecking Crew’
all sitting there smiling
with a quizzical look
upon my ‘Angelic Upstart’ features.
To which one of them replied
“We can’t drive mush, we’re 13 like!”
“Quite so, me also!” I stated smirking
as we all burst out of the stolen
yet unmoved parked car.
The man was now halfway down
the garden and started shouting
“Get away from my car,
Jesus Christ, my Treacle’s dumped me
and my car’s almost nicked
by a gang of Fagin’s street urchins,
my life’s turned in a Dickens’ novel!”
We ran away laughing merrily
halfway through a back lane
where we stopped to have a swig
each of the Strongbow cider flagon.
Then we carried on our journey
back into Neath Town Centre
pressing play upon the tape recorder
whilst one and all jumping
and punching the air
as the song T.D.A. by the Punk band
T.D.A. came alive through the speakers.