I didn’t leave these shores until I was in my twenties. Working-class lads from Salford couldn’t afford to go abroad. Even the Isle of Man seemed glamorous. I remember seeing an advert for Butlin’s in a place called Bognor Regis, and thought they’d opened one in the south of France.
In 1973, I had a motorbike accident, and the other bloke was keen to settle out of court, so I found myself with a couple of grand in my pocket. A mate of mine had just come back from Barcelona and said, “You can live like a king for next to nowt.” That holiday lasted a year. I lived in a pension just off La Rambla, with an exotic dance troupe and a handsome Brazilian gigolo. It was the full-on bohemian existence, wandering in and out of bars and perusing the many knife shops, deciding which flick knife to buy. Or even a sword. You didn’t get many sword shops in Manchester.
You’d think a trip like that would have given me a taste for adventure, but it was five years before I journeyed into the unknown again and went to New York. It was the last days of the old New York: there was a garbage strike and several murders. The Guardian Angels patrolled the Subway. I was enthralled by the rock’n’roll mythology of the city — the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls, CBGB — and stayed at the Chelsea hotel. Every street corner was full of characters. Just ordering a cup of coffee made you feel like you were on a film set.
Later on, I did the West Coast, with the help of a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. I can’t drive, but my mate was happy to get behind the wheel, accompanied by the sound of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.
My wife does most of the driving these days. I prefer to sink into the luxury seating and contemplate the ever-changing scenery.
Advertisement
“The people I met in Moscow seemed far more interested in talking about punk rock than the fall of communism
At the other end of the political spectrum, I was lucky enough to go to Moscow 10 years ago. It wasn’t as crazy as I’d been led to believe. The people I met seemed quite laid-back and far more interested in talking about punk rock than the fall of communism. And they really go to town on their civil engineering projects in Russia. Revolution Square metro station is a living, breathing, heaving work of art.
I’m not a natural explorer. For the past few years, my main holiday has been visiting my wife’s family in Saint-Nazaire, France. I find inspiration in the architecture of that Atlantic coast and always come home with three or four new poems.
You don’t hear the word very much in this modern age, but I love telling people that I’ve been to the “seaside”. When I was a kid, I spent a lot of my childhood by the seaside in Rhyl, north Wales. I contracted tuberculosis and was sent there to recuperate. I used to hang around with all the fairground fellas. I became their errand boy, fetching chips and bottles of beer. I used to love watching the changing of the seasons, the empty streets and grey skies of the off-peak months followed by the first visitors of the summer.
Apparently, I was very ill, but as I sat there, resting my feet on the golden sand, I never felt that I was going to die. I just felt this wonderful sense of freedom. Freedom and idleness — ideal for any budding poet.
The punk poet John Cooper Clarke, 67, was born in Salford and made his name supporting bands such as the Sex Pistols and Joy Division. His CD/DVD/booklet compilation, Anthologia, is out now, and he’s touring the UK until July 1. He lives near Chelmsford, Essex, with his wife, Evie
