Lowlife No 8 - Goodbye the Yellow Brick Road

Goodbye the Yellow Brick Road

By Dominic Horton

I did not know quite what to expect.  On the one hand he was a wonderfully talented writer, but on the other he was not that well known.  But in the end the turnout to Jonathan Rendall’s funeral was about what one would have expected.  The chapel was full, but no one had to stand.

On the night before the funeral I met the inimitable Colly Coren, who is always good value for money, in the Flagon. Coren is a teacher and it was half term, so you can work the rest out for yourself.  As a consequence the plans I had for the morning of the funeral went out of the window, especially as my train to Oxford was due to leave Birmingham New Street at 1034, so I couldn’t drag my heels anyway.  

Jonathan Rendall

If I had to I would have gone to the funeral alone but I was very glad that my good friend Bartholomew Hook accompanied me, meeting me in Oxford from London.  Hook’s train was late so having an hour to spare I hot trotted into the town to visit some of the pubs I had researched in The Good Beer Guide.  Me included, there were only three punters in the Royal Blenheim (the White Horse brewery tap), the other two both being elderly gentlemen.  The first kept himself to himself, reading The Sporting Life and strangely eating chips out of a pint mug. The other made it his immediate and pressing business to stare me out, which I thought was especially off of him considering I was dressed in standard funeral attire (Hook made the perceptive comment later that the more posh the funeral the worse dressed the mourners are.)  I  stared back determined not to break his soulless gaze but broke off in the end reminding myself that getting into bother on the day of a funeral would not be the best idea. I wouldn’t mind but the bloke was only eight stone wet through and though I am by no means a fighter I could have had him with my right hand while not spilling the pint in my left.  Even my long time associate Dustin Scoffman would have given him a run for his money. 

I departed for the next pub, not on account of the starer in the Royal Blenheim but due the melancholic piped music which was lowering my already lugubrious mood to unacceptable levels. To my mind Jookies and live music are perfectly acceptable in a pub, but there is no place for piped music, especially when it is of the soul sapping variety of the Carpenters, or even worse Coldplay.

Collis P Huntington

In the Chequers a fella bearing an uncanny resemblance to the late wrestler and actor Pat Roach befriended me and we talked about beer, us both drinking the highly quaffable porter.  I liked him immediately.  He was ruddy faced and didn’t finish his sentences.  He was proper Oxford, that is not a student or pseudo Oxford or an Antipodean barmaid.  Things were going swimmingly until Roach asked me if I had got home safely last night after I left him.  I explained that I am from Halesowen and had never met him before in my life.  He was undeterred by this and insisted on buying me a 7.4% real cider and I had to use powers of persuasion that Collis P Huntington would have been proud of to stop him buying me the drink. 

Back at the station I hooked up with Hook.  As we were crossing the road in busy Oxford a stranger appeared out of the blue and asked Hook and I if we were going to Jonathan Rendall’s funeral.  Neither of us was unnerved by this strange incident and after introductory pleasantries (fella named Mark, friend and sometime colleague of Rendall’s) we realised that we had to work quickly if we were to have a drink before going to the crem.  There was an instant connection between Mark and Hooky and I of the type that can only be borne out of a shared deep affection for something or someone.   After going into a hotel that reprehensively had no bar we hurriedly found a pub whose name I forget, which is fitting as the place was utterly forgettable.  Given the time constraints we decided on a short and I did the decent thing and offered to pay while secretly thinking I was about to be stung with us being in Oxford and all.  Luckily it was double up for a quid and the bill came in at only just a shade over a tenner.

Arriving at the funeral Hook and I went into a waiting room where I spotted the former world featherweight champion Colin McMillan, who looked in good fettle.  The atmosphere in the room was far too intimate and claustrophobic and feeling a little out of place we went outside and I saw a bald man with glasses and I instantly knew that he was Rendall’s brother Andrew.  I just knew, even though there is no facial resemblance as they were both adopted.  Observer journalists Will Buckley and Kevin Mitchell walked past and the odd thing is that I always imagined Mitchell to be tall and Buckley to be short.  The odd thing is that in both cases the opposite is true, which threw me a bit.  I wanted to say hello to them both and say how much I admired their writing (and Buckley’s appearances on the riotous BBC Radio 5 show Fighting Talk) but it didn’t seem right given the occasion.

Colin McMillan

As we entered the chapel Robert Wyatt’s Shipbuilding was playing, and although it is one of my favourite songs I never play it as even in everyday life it is just too sad, so to hear it in the circumstances I did well not to cry.  Scanning around the mourners I speculated that Barty Hook and I appeared to be the only people there who did not have a personal connection to Rendall, who are simply admirers of his writing, though there was a young, attractive girl in her 20’s in front of us, who appeared to be French, who was alone so she might have been in the same boat as us.  She played with her mobile quite a bit during the ceremony but I think it was more through nervousness than anything else so I didn’t see it as disrespectful. 

The non-religious ceremony was the most tasteful I have ever attended.  Rendall’s grief stricken brother Andrew read a very touching tribute as did his friend Marek Walisiewicz, who took the photograph of Rendall that was on the front of the programme of the service.  In the photograph, which is from the dust jacket of his first book This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own, Rendall looks youthful and bright, radiant almost.  It is a wonderful photographic portrait that perfectly captures a person in an immortal moment in time.

After the service we decided not to join the family and friends at The Victoria Arms in Old Marston as it somehow seemed wrong.  I regretted it later. 

Back at the Chequers in Oxford I had a real ale victory, which is something that gives me a great deal of pleasure.  Barty asked for a Guinness and being a good member of the Campaign for Real Ale I dutifully pointed out there was a nice porter to be had, which would be a far superior drink to the Guinness.  I could tell that Hook was fearful of the porter through ignorance so I played a trick that I have had success with before.  I said to Hook that as a compromise I would but him half a pint of the porter and half of Guinness, so if he didn’t like the porter he still had the Guinness to fall back on and he duly agreed to this.  When the barman asked me what I wanted I sneakily bought him a full pint of the porter anyway and on tasting it he was happy with my decision and he told me so.   In the next breathe Hook disappointingly told me he had taken up wine tasting.  You win some you lose some.

After a couple more pubs and a good few more pints we returned to the station at 1930 hours to catch our respective trains.  As soon as Hook departed I felt overwhelmed with sadness and to divert my mind to a pleasanter place I started to talk to a good looking woman, who I guessed was about my age, on the platform.  I told her I might be slightly incoherent due to being drunk, but she didn’t seem to mind.  She said she was travelling to Manchester.  On boarding the train we sat next to each other and continued the conversation.  In a lull in the chatter I must have nodded off and when I awoke I found that the woman had gone, she must have simply moved seats (and carriages for that matter) as we were nowhere near Manchester.

On return to the Midlands I was feeling dreadfully mournful and didn’t want to go home so I repaired to the Flagon and on arrival the Abdul was standing outside smoking a roll up.  I have never been so pleased to see a friendly face, even though it was the leathery features of the Abdul.  In a temporary lapse into derangement I told Liam Redwood that he could have my Aston Villa mod badge that he has converted for some while.  But I don’t regret it.

Much to the surprise of Charl, the consummate professional barman, I ordered an Hornitos tequila, which the peerless Alexander Sutcliffe had introduced me to a few days earlier.  I sipped it as I don’t believe in slammers and the like preferring to savour the spirit.  I sat with Keith the Black Country ex-roadie and before I knew it I had a pint of mild, his favoured tipple, to compliment the Hornitos.  I then mused that it is highly unlikely that anyone has ever previously drank an Hornitos with a Dirty Rat Mild chaser and in many ways it felt like a fitting end to the day.

© Dominic Horton, 25^th February, 2013.