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which anything could happen. We’d lost sight of that you see, in those the first years of Thatcher, living in a city, Cardiff, that was closing down around us.
    But back to the point. There were three places to busk in Paris that spring, and the big open space in front of the Beaubourg, always full of tourists and locals marvelling at this new wonder, was by far the best of them. The others were the Métro and the rue St André des Arts, but each of those had its problems, as we discovered.
    Who were we? We were seven, no eight, refugees from the punk-rock experience, boys and girls hoping to shift our lives from black and white into technicolor. We’d pooled our dole money and student grants and wages from the anarchist print shop and crammed into the back of my old Transit van and headed to Paris to busk. Our act, such as it was, consisted of playing hits of the day – David Bowie, Adam and the Ants, Robert Wyatt, whatever – in ragged vocal-harmony style backed only by percussion and kazoos. At the time, and mostly because we were young, and in some cases even cute, it went over OK. I won’t bother you with all our names, since you’ll only forget them and anyway there was only one that really mattered. If any of the others play a part along the way I’ll name them then.
    The one that mattered, matters even, was called Beth and the week before we left she had her hair restyled in a Louise Brooks bob. Actually I thought she looked more like Anna Karina in
Vivre Sa Vie
impersonating Louise Brooks than Brooks herself, if you see what I mean. Either way it’s obvious I was smitten. As for the rest of how she looked, well, I’m sorry, but I don’t feel inclined to go past her hair. Let memory fall lightly on what follows.
    We’d been there, I suppose, for a week, long enough at least to have found some kind of routine. A lot depended on the weather. If it was fine we did well, two hour-long sessions in front of the Beaubourg and we were made for the day; we could eat and drink and some of us could even stay at the gypsy’s hotel. If it rained things were harder. No one wants to stand and watch buskers in the rain, not even in front of the finest new building in the western world, so the only option was to go down into the Métro.
    There were good things about that, the sound you get singing in the tunnels is beautiful, it’s a cathedral for drifters, for losers, for
loubards
, for my people, and we sounded like angels down there. The bad side was the cops. Those French cops back then were bastards. Thank our lucky stars we were all white, or almost all, and Yaz was a girl so she was OK, but anytime they’d run out of black kids to persecute they were on our case, moving us on, checking our IDs, threatening us with all kinds of shit. One time, the first time, Don talked back to them. We didn’t make that mistake twice. They threw him up against the wall and practically ripped his arm off his shoulder as they searched him for drugs. They had no luck there, of course, as even on a good day our budget didn’t stretch any further than plastic bottles of
vin rouge.
    Rainy days we stayed in the
forêt
, out in St Germainen-Laye, right on the western fringe of the city. It was my idea. I’d been there the year before, when I’d stayed with an anarchist called Ifor. This time, though, Ifor’s house had been shuttered and locked. The neighbours said he’d gone to Mexico. But it was right by the
forêt
, so we’d parked the van and some of us slept inside and the rest took tents and camped. And in the morning we’d jump the barrier into the RER, just like the local kids, and go to work.
    As I say the weather made all the difference and this day, the point where we’ll start, was fine. More than fine, it was unequivocally the best day of my life so far. Scratch that, let’s make it ever. It’s not as if I’m going to be revisiting that happy innocence again.
    Anyway, right from the start everything was running