When they had tired of beating me up, I suppose they felt a bit guilty. What with all the blood and the broken bits of me and stuff. And so they let me go on with my talk of George Formby.
‘After Johnson sold his soul to the Devil,’ I said, in as steady a voice as I could muster, ‘it was said that he always played guitar with his back to the audience. But those who managed a glance over his shoulder swore that he played so good because he now had an extra finger on his left hand.’
Heads went nod. That was such a good story, it just had to be true.
‘Well, it was almost the same with Formby, according to those who have seen him play live. And he doesn’t play live in the movies, he mimes to pre-recorded studio tracks.’ (I knew so much stuff back then. Still do, really. More, probably. Mind you, back then Neil told me most of it.)
‘Well, those who looked over Formby’s shoulder while he was recording swear that he had an extra string on his little ukulele. And the name George Formby is an anagram of the words “orgy of Begrem”, which was something that went on near Sodom and Gomorrah, in the Old Testament.’ (I knew this without Neil’s help because I went to Sunday School a lot when I was younger.)
And then they beat me up again.
But I did talk them into making the most of the available ukuleles in the school-band safe. Because without them we would never be able to play on stage at the school dance and be cool in front of the girls. And so The Sumerian Kynges became vocal and instrumental.
Although at that time unplugged.
Nowadays, when I hear the word unplugged I reach for my pistol. But back then there was Bob Dylan and he was still acoustic.
And so we all took up the ukulele.
And we played on stage in the school hall at the school dance. And we were cool and we became famous. Eventually.
And the school dance is probably as good a place as any other to truly begin this tale (after a brief but necessary digression regarding the origins of our oh-so-cool band name).
This tale that tick-tock-ticks away with the tick-tock-ticking of the clock.
It was, in its way, the beginning of the end.
And if I am honest, and I truly try to be, I do believe that the very end of which I speak was partially my fault.
3
We were called The Sumerian Kynges not because it was cool, although indeed it was, but because it was a meaningful name. I was sixteen in nineteen sixty-three, and I knew the meaning of meaningful.
I was studying, you see, studying all kinds of stuff. Extracurricular stuff. Stuff you were not taught at school.
It was all down to my mother, really. My mother was a fundamentalist Christian, a name in itself that I found at that time most amusing for I had, through my readings of the Bible, encountered the word ‘fundament’ and looked up its meaning.
My mother attended Northfields Pentecostal Church, a church whose minister was the later-to-become-a-major-influence-in-my-life Captain Lynch. I liked Captain Lynch a lot because he was one of those adults who took everything very seriously. He would listen very carefully to any question that you asked him, and then he would give you a very serious answer.
‘Why are witches an abomination unto the Lord?’ I asked Captain Lynch one Saturday afternoon, when I found myself unexpectedly home, suffering from the mumps, and he had come around to offer consolation to my mother and to solicit funds for a ministry that he hoped to establish in the Orinoco Basin. I would ask him many questions regarding the nakedness of the savages in the Orinoco Basin, because I had seen photographs of them in a copy of National Geographic at the dentist’s. And Captain Lynch would grow most verbose regarding these naked savages.
‘Witches?’ said the good captain, removing his Church Army cap and laying it upon his lap. ‘Witches, is it, eh?’
‘Do you think they should still be burned?’ I asked him.
‘Yes,’ said the captain, in a voice of much graveness. ‘I do believe they should.’
‘You don’t think that’s somewhat cruel?’ I occupied the Persian pouffe beside the fire. And as it was winter and the fire was lit, I took the opportunity to spit into the flames. ‘Those flames would hurt,’ I observed.
‘The fires of Hell burn hotter,’ said the captain - intoned, indeed, in his deepest Sunday-pulpit voice - ‘for those who take the name of the Lord in vain. For those who raise divers demons. For those who spit upon the cross as you have spat into the fire. For those who enter into unholy congress with incubi. And for those who engage in the Obscene Kiss.’
‘The Obscene Kiss?’ I enquired. In all of my innocence.
The captain took an increasingly firm hold upon his cap. ‘They kiss the Devil’s Fundament,’ he said.
‘What’s a fun—’ But my mother now entered the front room, bearing a tray. Which in its turn bore tea in a teapot and biscuits on a plate. And cups, and sugar in a bowl and milk in a jug, and napkins and sundry other necessary prerequisites for a successful afternoon tea. Amusing and erudite conversation was not included.
‘The captain was telling me all about witches,’ I told my mother as she lowered the tray onto the occasional table. Which no doubt rejoiced in its own special way that its occasion had finally arrived.
My mother gave me a bitter look - it was her ‘you wait till your father gets home’ look, and believe you me, back in those days, those words carried considerable clout - and so I hastily changed the subject.
‘You mentioned the Sumerian Kings a while ago,’ I said, as I offered Captain Lynch the run of the biscuits.
‘Kynges,’ corrected the captain. ‘There’s a tale to be told there and no mistake.’
‘Is it an Old Testament tale?’ I enquired. ‘Involving the twin cities of the plain?’ I had recently come across the word ‘sodomite’ and had been looking for an opportunity to introduce it into a conversation.
‘Not as such,’ the captain said. ‘This is more to do with Legend and Myth, although I suspect there is more to it than that. And I intend to prove same, as soon as I have mustered up sufficient funds.’
‘I thought you were raising funds for your mission to the Orinoco Basin.’
‘The Orinoco Basin is merely the tip of the iceberg,’ said the captain, which I found somewhat confusing.
‘Sumeria is where it all began.’ And the captain was doing his pulpit voice once more.
‘The Cradle of Civilisation?’ I said. ‘I’ve read about that. Would that be where the Garden of Eden was located?’
‘Correct, young man, correct.’ Captain Lynch did laughings and then did munchings on the biscuit of his choice.
‘Is the Garden still there, then?’ I asked. ‘Could an explorer rediscover it?’ I, like all boys of my age born into the time that was mine, had certain loves. For steam trains and fag cards, Meccano and yo-yos, footballers, pirates and highwaymen.
And explorers.
Very much for explorers.
There was a great deal of exploring still left to do back in those days. Much of the world had yet to be mapped. There were certainly still dragons out there somewhere. And an English explorer could find them.
There were French explorers, too, I believe. I know that certain foreigners were always racing each other towards the North Pole. But there wasn’t really much point in them doing so, for an English explorer named Hugo Rune had got there first. Back in Victorian times. He’d flown there in a steam-driven ornithopter.
‘Are you an explorer?’ I asked Captain Lynch. I did not know exactly, and still do not, how one gains a rank in the Church Army.
‘Not yet,’ the captain said. And he munched on his garibaldi, which had been the biscuit of his choice. ‘But I intend to be. And when I am, then I will find the fabled Lost City of Begrem and I will recover the riches. To distribute amongst the poor. Of course.’
‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘Riches?’ I queried.
‘The Sumerian Kynges, boy - their treasure. Would you like to hear all about it?’
And I agreed that I would.
‘The Cradle of Civilisation,’ said the captain, settling back in the visitors’ chair and making an all-inclusive gesture with his biccy. ‘From the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve never walked far. They never had to because all was in abundance back then. When the World was young and Man was younger still, the tribes increased and learning increased and great were the cities that were built. Thus it is written of Babel’s tower and of those twin evil cities on the plain. But also it is written that a great city called Begrem4 existed. And this city was under the dominion of one of the Sumerian Kynges - Georgius, his name was.’
I chewed upon a custard crème. And I nodded as I chewed.
‘In those early times,’ Captain Lynch continued, ‘those first times, before there were clocks to tick the world away, Man knew God as he knew his fellow Man. For God walked upon the face of the Earth and did come unto Man and speak unto him thusly:
‘ “Hello, Man, there,” ’ saith God.
‘ “And hello, God, sir,” ’ saith Man, in return.
‘But strange as it is, and I do find this exceedingly strange, even though Man knew God as he knew his fellow Man, there were those Men who fell from the Grace of God, who moved away from His presence. Who even plotted against Him.’
‘Why?’ I asked, though I probably should not have.
‘I’ll tell you why,’ said the captain. ‘The power of Evil. The power of the Devil. The Fallen One. Old Clootie. He That Doth Backwards Walk. The Hornéd. The King of the Shadow World. Man will never know the true nature of the Evil One, just as Man can never truly know the true nature of God. But he exists as God exists and he led the Kynge of Begrem astray.
‘He appealed, so they say, to the vanity of the Kynge and to his longing for power, more power. He offered the Kynge of Begrem the wealth of all the ages if he would perform a task for him.’
As I had finished the biscuit of my choice, I helped myself to another one.
‘He besought the Kynge to create a Homunculus,’ said Captain Lynch. And I had no choice but to ask what one of those was. And I did spit some crumbs onto the captain as I asked.
The captain dusted these lightly from his sleeve. ‘The Devil’s children, born of Man.’
‘Conceived by witches?’ I said, quite glad to be back on a subject I really liked. Although still eager for more talk of explorers.
‘Allow me to explain,’ said Captain Lynch. ‘The Devil can tempt. The Devil can lie and cheat. But the Devil cannot have congress with a woman, be she witch or otherwise, that will lead to the birth of the Devil’s child. This cannot be done. God decreed that this shall not be done and cannot be done. And it cannot.’
‘Hence the Homunculus?’ said I.
‘Precisely,’ said the captain.
And I felt quite pleased with myself.
‘It is now understood by clerics and physicians alike,’ the captain continued, ‘that the soul of a new human being does not enter the body of the foetus until the third month of gestation. Before that, the unborn baby is by all accounts soulless. This is the real reason why it is acceptable to abort a child during this period. The child has no soul.’
I said nothing in response to this remark. Although it made me feel somewhat uncomfortable.
‘And it is during this period that the unborn child is in the greatest danger.’
‘From abortionists?’ I asked.
‘From alchemists,’ said Captain Lynch. ‘From the Devil’s alchemists. At the behest of their master they attempt to inflict upon the unborn child an alternative soul, to invest it with a soul of an ungodly alchemist’s creation. One that he has conjured with the Devil’s magic.’
‘To what purpose?’ I enquired.
‘To be a vessel of Satan. To be as near to the Devil’s child as the Devil can make him (or her) without transgressing God’s law concerning that kind of behaviour. It is a great feat of magic to perform this operation. One of the greatest, in fact. So great, indeed, that it can only be performed once every hundred years.’
I just nodded to all of this. I felt that we had lost the plot somewhere along the line. Because the plot had originally been to do with the Sumerian Kynges, riches and explorers. I wasn’t altogether certain where all this talk of Homunculi was leading. (You will note that I used the plural correctly. This would be because I had encountered the word a week earlier in a copy of Alchemist Today, at the dentist’s.)
‘About the Sumerian Kynges and the riches and the exploring—’ I said.
‘The Sumerian Kynge Georgius, Kynge of Begrem, performed the conjuration and the Homunculus was created. And God was very angry as to this, as He was in those early days. He was roused to anger sometimes even through the slightest things back then. But the creation of the Homunculus really got His holy dander up.’
Captain Lynch made a facial expression that I knew not the meaning of.
‘And so,’ said he, ‘there was mighty trouble. The Devil was delighted by the evil progeny that was created. And upon this one occasion - the first, and the last - he honoured his side of the bargain and rewarded Georgius with massive wealth. Tons of gold and jewels and precious stones. A Kynge’s ransom, if you will.’
‘And all this wealth appeared in Begrem?’ I asked.
‘All. In fact, the Devil turned the entire city into gold.’
‘The Golden City of Begrem,’ I said. With wonder in my voice.
‘Only for a moment. And then God’s wrath fell upon it. And it was swallowed into the sand.’
I paused here. Just for a moment. Because I had one of those feelings that you sometimes have. One of those feelings that something is coming. Something pertinent. Something important.
‘You wouldn’t . . .’ I said. Hesitatingly. ‘Have a map of where Begrem once was. I suppose.’
And Captain Lynch nodded.
‘I would,’ said he. ‘I would.’
4
Captain Lynch didn’t show me his map. But I have no doubt whatsoever that he did possess it. In fact, I know absolutely that he did. Because, as it is now in my possession, I can speak of this particular matter with some degree of authority.
Upon that particular day, our conversation continued just a little longer. The captain had a few final remarks to make upon the subject of the Homunculus.
‘Since the creation of the first, each century a powerful magician, aided in his dark magic by the Evil One himself, attempts the conjuration. And throughout history, one has been born each century, the product of pure, unadulterated Evil.’
And he continued. And he finished with, ‘The Victorian era bore one who came of age in the twentieth century - Adolf Hitler was his name. And the twentieth century has yielded up his successor.’
‘And his name?’ I asked.
‘Elvis Presley,’ said the captain.
5
I recall that, at the time, I found the captain’s remark rather unimaginative. He could have said anyone. He could have said George Formby. But he didn’t. He said Elvis Presley.
And I also recall that, at the time, I wasn’t convinced.
But I did like the idea of a city of gold, buried probably in a desert somewhere, Sumeria, most likely. And the exploring, and the digging up of the city, and the availing oneself of all the wealth.
None of which, if I am altogether honest - and I might as well be, as this, I suppose, is ultimately my story - none of which wealth would I be handing over to the poor.
‘Let them steal their own treasure maps,’ was my comment on the matter.
But I did like the story and I did like the sound of the Sumerian Kynges. I thought it sounded like a jolly meaningful name for a rock band. Although rock hadn’t really been invented then, so I suppose I meant a pop band.
And the other guys who comprised the embryonic entity that was The Sumerian Kynges Phase 1 liked the sound of it, too.
There were two other members back then that I haven’t mentioned - Michael and Keithy. They were Sumerian
Kynges too at the time. But only for about five minutes. Because they had their own ideas of a name for the band. And when the rest of us didn’t agree with their suggestion, they got all huffy and left. I understand that they did get their own band together and give it the name they wanted. But whatever happened to the foolishly named ‘Rolling Stones’, I have no idea.5
Which brings me to the night of the school dance.
And the launch of The Sumerian Kynges.
We had been doing a lot of practice. And I do mean a lot. Well, you could, you see, in those days. It must have been something to do with it being the nineteen-sixties. If you took up a musical instrument at school, you could take time off regular lessons to have tuition. And that, as I soon discovered, meant time off all lessons. I agree now that perhaps I cannot string words together as well as others of my age and literary persuasion, the Johnny Quinns and Mavis Cheeses who win all the book prizes and inspire the young. But, man, can I play the ukulele!
We’d start our musical tuition at nine-thirty on Monday morning after assembly and prayers and conclude it at three p.m. on Friday. With breaks for lunch, and going home at tea time, of course.
My fingers got a bit sore, I can tell you.
But it got the job jobbed and by the time the school dance came around, we were masters of the finger-pick, the cross-strum and the scale-run. Not to mention the chromatic.
Which I never did. Because I did not believe it to be necessary.
Now, there is a lot to performance. A good performance, that is.
A lot!
‘A great performance is better than life itself,’ Iggy Pop once said. But that was many years later. But it is not just down to playing well. You have to emote and you have to look good.
You have to have an image. And a cool image at that.
I would love to take all the credit for the original image portrayed by the original line-up of The Sumerian Kynges, but as I am trying to be honest here, I cannot and will not.
Rob is to blame.
Now, I use the word ‘blame’ here not in a derogatory way. Because I personally believe that it was a good look. A cool look.