To the vehicles speeding towards London on the M1 the bridge that carries the road from Stanmore to Elstree and Radlett is just another concrete structure, barely noticed and never commented upon. The curious would be far more likely to notice the National Orthopaedic Hospital which, like many other buildings that face motorways, somehow looks uncomfortable being viewed from a vista never intended by its architect.
'Wouldn't mind living there.' Smeggy Observed like a quality Sunday paper.
'Yeah it would suit you, it's a bloody hospital.' Jed Thruster AKA Lump replied, hiding his vitriol under a glossy sheen of malice.

They were returning from Burnley, Smeggy's home town where he had arranged a gig hoping to impress his old friends. The gig was OK, but then OK was the best their gigs ever got since Ana and Feedback had gone. A change of name had been suggested ostensibly to engender the attitude of a new start. Buddy and Lump though, both secretly wanted a new name in order to distance their current sluggish performance from the glory days of their past.

Lump remembered the Melody Maker contest heat they once entered at Hendon College, and though they failed to win through to the next round, Chris Welch, the MM judge and writer had raved about them.
'They look good and mean what they play.' He enthused in print referring to their matching outfits: T-shirts with lamé ties bought from Beaufort Market in Kings Road and white boots from R Soles of Kensington. They had strutted and posed for their allotted twelve minutes, then Lump, Buddy, the roadies and their first bass player left whilst Wernit went to the pub with Chris Welch.

Lump wanted to change the name of the new band to "The Wailing Pumas", a name originally suggested by The Frog before he was called up. They had already played under this name at gigs where they had to play two sets. The first set would be a collection of their favourite Rock 'n' Roll and Rhythm 'n' Blues Numbers: "Teenage Kicks" by the Undertones, "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" by The Ramones, "Midnight Hour", "Johnny B Goode", and others. Often these "Support" sets as The Wailing Pumas went down better than the Chevrons' set.

Buddy believed the name should change to "Buddy Jet and the Prisoners of Rock 'n' Roll". Lump was not as opposed to this as one would suspect and it was this lack of concern that was concerning him and making him so irascible. That and the fact that they had spent a large part of the previous night at Burnley Hospital. Far from being impressed, the Burnley locals had branded Smeggy a traitor for consorting with a bunch of 'Cockneys' and had taken him out the back to teach him a lesson.

Within sight of Scratchwood Services they found themselves caught in yet another traffic jam. This had been going on all afternoon and was jeopardising their chances of playing The Windsor Castle on the Harrow Road that night.
'How long do you reckon this will take?' Sleazy whined like a windscreen wiper on a dry screen.
'How do snakes fuck?' Lump grunted. They had spent a large part of the previous five hours trapped on the M6 and M1 discussing the procreational activities of reptiles and they still did not know the answer.
'Let's find out!' Wernit leapt up clutching his can of Tennants Lager, squeezed down the side of the passenger seat, opened the door and walked onto the M1.
'Get back in here!' Lump was close to boiling point.
'Excuse me, I was wondering if you knew how snakes fuck?' Wernit was asking a respectable motorist in the next car. The wife looked the other way and the kids giggled in the back. He went up the line banging on closed windows and getting no reply though almost certainly providing his victims with the most memorable moment of their day.

They pulled off at Edgware though no one thought the traffic would be better. Lump felt an affinity with Edgeware.

Lump realised he was no longer having fun being in a band and the realisation appalled him. The real Chevrons thought they had a chance, they played to win and fought to succeed though often that meant fighting each other. This band was just doing it as a hobby and he had no time for hobbies. Buddy Jet just liked to sing and get drunk. Sleazy liked to look like Debbie Harry and tease the boys. Smeggy was having the time of his life and Wernit appeared to be filling in time before the care order was issued. Lump was not getting laid; being the driver he was not getting drunk; he was going nowhere and he hated it.
'Next week we've got a PA hire and a gig on the same day.' Buddy announced.
'Don't we ever turn anything down?' Lump moaned.
'Not if it pays. Anyway they are almost next to each other, should be a piece of piss.'
'What like the Nationalities Bill march?'

Buddy had arranged for Lump and Smeggy to set up the PA for a reggae band called "The Mighty Strypes" on a moving open-back wagon. The booking had been made by Rock against Racism who had omitted to mention that they would be heading a march of tens of thousands of chanting militants along Oxford Street and down Regent Street to a mass rally at Trafalgar Square. To Lump this was almost a privilege, but to Smeggy, a confirmed racist and member of Her Majesty's Armed Forces, it was not such fun.
'Tha nearly got me sacked, we were on't bloody TV news. We're not allowed to do owt political.'
'What do you mean, you're a bloody Tory?' Lump shouted.
'You've got to be a Tory in't Forces cos only 't Tories gi' us money.'

Smeggy was a storeman in the RAF at Northolt. He maintained his position in the band by allowing them to practice in his storeroom, though since the start of the Falklands War, getting on to the camp had been a bit awkward.
'So they can blow up a ship load of retreating Argentinians.' Buddy interjected.
'Ya bloody unpatriotic bastard!'
'Well you're a fuckin' fascist, look at that comic you're reading, Thatcher's fanzine.'
'All 't airmen read 't Sun.'
'"GOTCHA" . That has to be the worst headline ever, and those Argy Bargy jokes all about fucking sheep...'
'But it has got page three, but then pinko liberals like you bloody cockneys probably don't like that either.'
'No.' Lump and Buddy agreed.
'That's coz thee Southerners are all woolly woofters.'
'No. I just hate the way they use tits to sell a CUNT.' Buddy as usual had the final word. The M1 had disappeared at Brent Cross and the van took to the Hendon way up to Child's Hill and down Finchley Road.

West Hampstead