CHAPTER THREE
Although I had left the family circle, I was staying only sixty yards up the road. I wasn't speaking to my father, but sometimes I'd sneak back at night to get bits of food my mother had left out for me.
A great storm warning appeared on the news one evening. I was staying overnight with Alistair, with whom I often smoked dope and listened to music.
"Let's wait up for it," I suggested to him. "I'd love to watch a storm. We can go out on Arthur's Seat."
As the storm approached, the voltage in the power lines began to go down; the record player would hardly revolve. Outside, the street lights were flickering: tension was building up, but no storm had appeared.
At 3:00 a.m. we went outside to see what was happening; it was eerie and still, like a vacuum. As we walked up the rocky hill of Arthur's Seat, it seemed to me that two fluffy white clouds, one shaped like an eagle, the other like a buffalo, were following us along the street and up into the park.
We climbed half-way up the slope, to a point overlooking Salisbury Crags and Hunter's Bog, facing west over Edinburgh. The sheep that graze there were apprehensive, moving about and coughing. Above was a clear sky full of bright stars, save for a few wisps, but all around us was a ring of dark rolling clouds, blotting out the street lights in the outlying parts of the city. We were in a vortex.
To our right, and below us, in Hunter's Bog, there was a sudden brilliant flash, as if a dark glass had been jerked aside, revealing a huge bonfire complete with flames; then abruptly, it vanished.
Towards Corstorphine, where the clouds were most dense, a great fan-shaped pattern of electricity shot out from a point, like fronds of a huge . palm tree, containing complex lines, circles and balls of fire. As this happened, the banks of flickering street lights winked out altogether. Again, and again, this terrifying shape flared out from the point, a fainter, leaf-shaped version on the other side. My eyeballs were imprinted with its fearful whorls, so that for hours, whenever I shut my eyes, I could still see it.
But Alistair was never again the same; he went silent for days and seemed to age suddenly, refusing to speak about what he had seen, he no longer wished to know me; he cut his hair, got a job, and from that night onwards smoked dope no more.
My artistic ambitions were far from extinct, despite the antagonism I had attracted, and 1 pretended to he a student at Edinburgh College of Art, using the facilities there with great enthusiasm. I had no one to show me what to do, but my first etching was bought by the Arts Council and included in an exhibition of print-making.
In the Studios, I soon became obvious because I was the only person using the equipment in earnest; most of the actual students seemed to be elsewhere, probably drinking, or smoking the dope I had sold them. The lecturer checked up, found I was not enrolled, and threw me out; but he said if I joined a night class, that would enable me to use the equipment.
I joined, but then he took me aside and said the Head of
Department had ruled that I wasn't to use the facilities, and it was as much
as his job was worth to let me.
I was despondent about the future. I wanted out of selling dope, and I didn't want to work in an ordinary job. I was the despair of my parents.
I had only £5 left.
How could I make some money legitimately? I was puzzling over this problem when, passing a shop window, I saw a mould for garden gnomes, costing only £2.
'I'll make garden gnomes and sell them,’ I thought.
I bought the mould, spent another £2 on plaster of paris, and half a quid for paints, and I was ready. I made several gnomes and painted them. Immediately, someone bought a gnome and put it on his window ledge in St. Stephen Street, which was becoming infested with arty, hippie types.
Next morning, there was a photograph of it on the front page of 'The Scotsman'. Enquiries began to come in.
Hey! I was in business.
There was an Ideal Home Exhibition on in Edinburgh. I thought 'I'll have an ideal gnome exhibition,'
I rushed home.
"Mum! I've got a great idea. I'm going to hold an exhibition."
She seemed to perk up at once. "What a marvellous idea! What are you going to exhibit?"
"Gnomes'."
The garden gnome was the abyss of bad taste to my mother; she detested them. "Oh dear...oh, that's very good," she replied weakly, "Where are you going to hold your exhibition?"
"In your front garden, Mum."
I frantically made four gnomes a day for two weeks, until I. had around fifty, all painted by hand. Also 1 bought some frog moulds and cast about two hundred frogs. I made several big, fibreglass toadstools and, the crowning glory, a nine-foot high Gnome-poleon, with his hand tucked into his waistcoat.
I published a card saying "You are cordially invited to the Ideal Gnome Exhib- ition, lovingly presented in...
" I filled the garden with gnomes, frogs, and toadstools, set up speakers for music and erected signs in the neighbourhood, I organized a double-page spread in one newspaper, and I even went about Edinburgh for several days on a motorbike, dressed as a gnome.
On the first day I sold out half of my work. Mum had set up a coffee stall and took in £16 for Christian Aid, The newspapers all reported the exhibition with light-hearted animation. In one was the headline “If everybody had their fantasies, there would be gnome more wars.” The next day, rain fell in sheets, and it rained solidly for a week. I was washed out.
I had a few gnomes left. I sent one to the BBC, and they put me on a
television interview about the gnomes, with Magnus Magnusson. I sent another to 'The Observer’ in London, but omitted to say whom it was from, on the package. I phoned the next day and asked, "Did you get a gnome?"
"Oh, it was you who sent it? We thought it was a bomb and evacuated the whole building.
“I'm terribly sorry," I began contritely, "I would never have sent it if I had thought…"
"Oh, don't worry, we loved it. The sun was shining, everybody, enjoyed themselves, Can we send a team up to do a full colour report on your gnomes?"
"I'm afraid hot," I said regretfully, "there's none left."
But there was one.
Edinburgh Town Council at that time had just spent £100,000, tarting up The closes in the High Street, in readiness for a royal walkabout by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, They had done nothing for the people who lived there, and I was disgusted by this extravagance.
"I'll give Her a gnome," I said, half in jest, to some friends at a party,
"That's brilliant!” Yvonne jumped excitedly at the idea.
We wrote a note to one of the newspapers saying that a gnome would be presented to Queen Juliana, and signed it - Mr. Cairo Egypt.
The next morning, the day of the Royal visit, Yvonne came to my flat at nine a.m. and woke me, "Right, Will, are you ready to meet the Queen?"
'Oh, shit,' I thought as I rolled myself out of bed, still groggy from last night; 'What have I let myself in for now? I suppose I've got to go through with this…'
I wrapped the gnome in brown paper, along with a cushion, put on my long tartan coat, and we went up to Chessel's Court. I saw a little girl standing there.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Susie."
"How old are you, Susie?"
"Seven."
"Well, Susie, you have been chosen by all the people in Edinburgh to present Queen Juliana with a gnome," She was very pleased, her blue eyes flashing with delight.
"I want you to ask your parents and if they say yes, come back here,"
She returned eagerly in a little while, beautifully turned out in a Scottish Highland Dancing costume covered with medals she had won. Her parents were thrilled to bits, she said.
People were lining the street waiting for the procession which began at Holyrood Palace, down at the foot of the High Street. As we mingled with the crowd, I felt extremely noticeable in my long frock coat of green and blue tartan, hugging my large paper package unde
r one arm, and clutching the kilted little girl by the hand. There were cops everywhere, and one, I noticed, was already watching me suspiciously, I began to worry about being stopped by them, and tried to behave inconspicuously, like any normal tourist.
Backed into a doorway, we watched the procession of dignitaries move up the steep, narrow street. I explained to Susie that she should hold the cushion like a tray, with the grinning gnome balanced on it, walk up to the Queen, curtsey, and present it to her.
"That's the woman," I pointed, "on you go, now," guiding her through the standing spectators. But, nervously glancing over her shoulder at me, she went towards the Lord Provost's wife, and I hastily dragged her back; nobody seemed to notice, fortunately,
I saw now that we would have to get ahead of the procession and try again. I still felt like the centre of attention in my elegant coat of Hunting Stewart tartan - a fitting garment to greet a visiting monarch, I thought - and I tried to conceal the bulky parcel under my coat, still clutching the little girl by the hand and pushing through the craning, staring throng.
The plainclothes policemen mingling with the crowd were looking for me, I realized with a shock, because of the letter to the papers. A couple of them had sighted me now and were trying to push through the thousands of people standing five deep on both sides of the road; I dodged into a close and lost them, but they knew now what I looked like.
By this time, Susie was a little confused, so I explained again to her how to hold the cushion with the gnome on it, walk up to the Queen and present it to her with a curtsey.
The Royal party neared where I was hovering at the edge of the crowd; they were about six feet away,
“How the hell am I going to do this?' I wondered indecisively. It seemed the only way would be to push ahead of the procession once more, then walk right across the road when Queen Juliana was nearly opposite. So we wormed our way further up to a point beside 'The Blue Blanket' pub.
But now one of the cops I had shaken off earlier had spotted me and began shoving his way towards me; another cop from the other direction was only a dozen feet away.
It was now or never.
I pulled Susie with me as I pushed to the front of the crowd, the medals on her brown waistcoat wagging from side to side, and walked across the street propelling her in front of me. It. was a very dramatic moment, and everyone in the procession stopped in their tracks to stare uncomprehendingly at the unexpected apparition.
Susie curtsied beautifully and held out the gnome, balanced on a blue velvet cushion,
"Your Royal Highness," I intoned gravely in a loud voice, "on behalf of the Scottish Nation, we present you with this gnome."
Automatically, the Queen took it. Probably a conditioned reflex from a lifetime of ceremonies, but nevertheless, her wide-open eyes registered panic as she looked into mine. A message came to me through her eyes: Is this a bomb?
Her hands began to shake and the gnome trembled precariously on its cushion.
With an enigmatic smile I sent back the message: I'm not telling.
Queen Juliana then turned and tried to hand the gnome to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh. He raised his hands in horror and backed away; so did everyone else. In that moment of truth, she must have realized she was on her own, no one else would help her when the chips were down.
I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder; instinctively, I rammed my elbow back, feeling it strike something hard and metallic, and set off at a run down the High Street, then dodged into a close and made my escape.
The police took my gnome to Holyrood House where they blew it up. A pity; it was so nicely painted, too, with letters saying, "To Her Royal Highness Queen Juliana of the Netherlands".
A dapper, polite plainclothes policeman wearing an old school tie, appeared at the flat of friends of mine, and enquired in a frightfully well-spoken voice: "Police. Is Mr. Cairo Egypt in?"
Geraldine, who is extremely highly strung, reacted hysterically; "Oh my God! Why do people ask these questions? I can't handle it!" and darted from room to room like a nervous bird.
Chillum George, a long-haired freak, ambled in, noted the visitor, and asked Geraldine, "Who is that?"
"Oh, it's the police about the wretched gnome."
"Come abaht the gnome, 'ave you?" said George affably, "‘As it blown up yet?"
I knew I should turn myself in, so I went to the police HQ, in the High Street and asked at Reception, "Special Branch, please." The Receptionist was thrown into confusion by this request. "Oh, um, just wait here a minute."
Then a guy came in, from off the street, up to me.
"I'm Sangster, also known as Mr. Cairo Egypt," I announced with a smirk.
"Ah," he said, "We're not actually supposed to have an office here. Come with me." We went out and around to the basement, into a warren of rooms, and entered a chamber with a deep carpet and a silver tea service on a table.
'I've got to think fast,' I told myself as he led me in. 'It’s probably safest to appear as a right-wing nutcase.'
"I must tell you before we begin that I've got a drug conviction," I informed him. But he waved his hand dismissively: "That's irrelevant."
"Well, I'm forming the world's first practical joke agency. This was my first joke. I intend to do more, as publicity. I'm quite old-fashioned, really. I believe in free enterprise. Let people do whatever they want," I waffled on about laissez-faire capitalism in the style of a nineteenth century Tory.
He asked if I had any connection with the Dutch Kabouters, a radical underground movement of hippies.
"Oh no, no, absolutely not."
I realised with a smile he was thinking in terms of an international conspiracy involving gnomes.
"What are you interested in, Mr. Sangster?"
"Actually, pyramids." I had just read a book filled with esoteric nonsense about pyramidology. I quoted some of its weirder speculations about the measurements of the pyramids predicting the rise of Napoleon, the Second World War, and so on.
His ears pricked up. He followed me very closely and began asking searching questions which showed he was quite well versed in pyramid lore himself. I could feel him testing my understanding of the subject and feared that he was about to see through my ruse.
"Do you know," he began significantly.
"What?" Apprehension welled up in me.
"Are you aware," he reiterated with even more intensity.
"Tell me, please," I was on tenterhooks.
"Do you realise that if the great pyramid were dismantled, the stone would build a wall around Paris ten feet high?”
Here I was, being interrogated by the Special Branch in their secret headquarters for blowing a major hole in the security arrangements, and this guy was completely sidetracked into occult balderdash which he took quite seriously. Where was his head at, I wondered? Was he a Freemason?
"Well, Mr. Sangster, please give us a warning before you do something like this again. Heads are already rolling because of you. And if it had not been for the little girl, the security guards would have shot you. They were afraid of hitting her."