Jesus, Kurds and Hashish.

January - June 1990.

After a couple of very happy, if cash-free, months in the book shop I was chucked out. (You were only supposed to stay for a week.) As it was the middle of December, I was very happy to be given the chance to stay in a church in Versailles, about a half hour from Paris. I'm not religious myself, but this didn't bother the English vicar and his family, who took me in as one of their own. I worked as a handyman in exchange for food and a bed. Every Sunday we went to church, and although I've never liked getting up on a Sunday morning, the services were genuinely interesting and uplifting. And the lunch that followed !!

As march approached, the time came for me to leave the church (Although I was to return later). I went in to Paris to stay with 3 Danes and a Yank. This was when I bought my first pet rat, "Elke". Trouble was I had to leave the flat on Ave Réné Coty after three weeks, so by mid April I was homeless again. This time though, I had a job !

I was working in Burger King (For the record, I look back on that job with very fond memories.) I had a locker in the basement at work, and this was where Elke lived. Come to think of it, she had it better than me! Unfortunately, within a week of Elke moving on to my locker (Much to the manager's amusement.) she dropped half a dozen babies. Doh! I didn't feel too chuffed when I went to my locker at 4a.m. after work, and heard the little squeals of the new-borns. The boss didn't exactly jump for joy either, and so they all went back to the pet shop to be sold.

After a few more weeks sleeping rough, I was put in touch with a geezer from the PKK, the Kurdish Communist Party, who had a number of squats in Paris. At five in the morning I was escorted to one near Place de la Republique, and introduced to the six other residents. One spoke bad French, one spoke German at me and four spoke only Turkish. I learnt the Turkish for "Tea", "Cow", "Pig" and "F. Off", and had to visit the PKK head office-cum-tea room every Thursday, and look at the pictures of martyrs that lined the walls. (The others read the paper, but there's not much call for my Turkish vocabulary in the news.) The smell of 7 people living in one tiny room became too overpowering by June, so I quit my job, and went to Amsterdam.

Although I spent a couple of weeks in Amsterdam, I have very few clear memories of the city. You can draw your own conclusion as to why. Suffice to say that the Dutch are among my top three favourite nationalities to perform for- even though parting them from their cash is like getting the truth from a politician. For the one and only time in my life, I was reduced to begging in order to get the money to leave Amsterdam by bus. After 2 hours with my hand out at Central Station I had enough to go back to Paris. I made half of it in the last 2 minutes. You see, a geezer looked at my hand written notice describing my predicament, came up to me and said

"Sure!", I replied, "Provided you give me 20 Guilders." We discussed the fact that I was to keep the money no matter what I replied, and that I had no obligation to fulfil his mystery request in order to keep his money. "Can I buy your passport?", he asked. I hope you can feel the same relief I did. I mean, I'm gorgeous, and the possibility that this could be his motive crossed my mind too! I told him that he could've bought it if I was going back to England, but I needed it to get into France. He smiled and left. I smiled and ran to the station before I spent my money on any ill-needed souvenirs !