Wild Tales

by Graham Nash

  My parents did everything in their power to make our lives bearable. My dad, William, was a big lad—he must have weighed 260, 270 pounds—and he was tall, taller than I am now. But he was a gentle giant, a dedicated workingman, with twinkly eyes and an incredible sense of humor. Like most men in the north of England, he went to great lengths not to stick out. He didn’t have a booming voice, he wasn’t flashy in any respect. He wasn’t opinionated or political. I found my father to be dignified in his simple way, but tough when the situation required it. In any case, you didn’t want to fuck with my dad. Once, when he came to see me perform at a local pub, and Allan and I were wearing makeup for the show, some jackass made a remark about us being poofters, and my dad picked the guy up as if he were tissue and threw him right through the door. It was the first and only time I ever saw that side of him.

  But much as I loved my dad, we never really got into any deep conversations. Truth be told, we rarely talked, at least not about stuff that mattered. Nothing weird about it, it’s just the way things were in our house. And probably in a lot of houses around us. Not a lot of emotional shit. You pretty much kept that stuff to yourself. That’s how it was in the north. Besides, my dad left for work at seven in the morning and didn’t come home until well after six at night. He’d be exhausted, have his tea, maybe hit the King’s Arms, the local pub, and get some sleep before cycling back into the routine the next morning. So I don’t know a lot of personal stuff about him.

  My mom, Mary Gallagher, grew up around Moss Side, which is a neighborhood right by the old Manchester City football ground. Like my dad, she worked beastly hard all her life, originally at a dairy in the accounts department and later for a betting shop, which is legal in England. She had dreams and ambitions of her own, great fantasies of a more glamorous life, that I didn’t learn about until later, when I was an adult, but our circumstances made those dreams impossible to pursue. It was after the war, she got married, had a family to raise, other dreams got sidetracked. My parents struggled all their lives—and they just about scraped by. My dad was an engineer at David Brown Jackson’s—David Brown, of course, being DB, who designed the Aston Martins. His firm was an awesome place to a six-year-old kid—a fortress manned by enormous doors, beyond which lay a huge urn of molten iron. My dad would tip that urn and a stream of sizzling volcano lava would make its way down a trough into a mold that later solidified. You’d think that’d be worth something—that he could have made a decent living considering the effort he put in—but he never earned more than twenty quid or so a week.

  Were my parents happy? Hard to say. It was difficult for people in the north of England to actually be happy. There was a lot of laughing in our house, but much of it was a device to mask the underlying hardship, a smoke screen to overcome destitution. England had been attacked twice in eighty years, lots of family and friends had been lost in the havoc, so everyone was more or less content to just be alive. The way I saw it, northerners were tolerant, thankful, hoping to get through the next day. Happiness was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

  Money was extremely tight in our family. We didn’t have much, but nobody else did either, so it wasn’t a big deal. Luxuries were few and far between. I don’t ever remember going without eating, but I remember being hungry a lot. I was a skinny little kid, not too much padding on the chassis, pretty much the way I was throughout my life, with wandering eyes and lots of thick hair, even then. I was hungry all the time, thanks in no small part to one of my father’s favorite dishes: a cow’s heart. He’d buy one of those fucking things from the butcher and boil it up. Man, it was awful! The food in general wasn’t anything to get excited about. And wartime rationing was still in effect. Long after the war was over, it was still difficult to get butter, sugar, or milk in the north. Staying warm was also up there on my priority list. One of my earliest chores was taking all the stuff out of my sister’s pram, pushing it to the local coal yard, and filling it up so we’d have heat in our house.

  When you’re poor, like we were, and living in a grim place like Salford, dreams were often the only way out. The first time I ever hallucinated—this was years before I discovered acid—it was sunset after a storm. I was staring out my parents’ bedroom window. I can still smell the dust, see the window half open. And I thought I saw a golden city in the clouds. Now, obviously it was deviant sun rays on a cloud formation, but to me, a six-year-old kid with a ripe imagination, it was a golden city on an endless horizon. I heard a sound: the sound of a small town operating. There were few cars in those days, just the horses and carts, rag-and-bone men, a mother shouting for her kids—just life. But to me it was music. And it was the first time my mind opened up to the possibilities of what lay in store.

  Growing up in Salford, you had to be pretty creative. There wasn’t much for kids to do, except play soccer and explore the skeletons of bombed-out houses, our favorite playgrounds. My mates and I always went around looking in those places, scavenging for any old shit that was left over in the wreckage: pots and pans, chamber pots, broken fireplaces, you name it. A particular treasure was finding bonfire wood for Guy Fawkes Night. Fawkes was one of the leaders of a Catholic rebellion that attempted to overthrow the Protestant monarch. We all wanted to believe the rumor that those rebels had built a tunnel underneath the houses of Parliament so Fawkes could blow them sky-high. In hindsight, our exploits were pretty dangerous; nothing was shored up in those rickety houses, so they could have collapsed at any time. You can be sure I’d have gotten good and spanked if my parents found out I was rooting around there.

  When we got bored combing through those houses, we’d take on scaling the coal-slag heap, being careful not to get buried under the mountain of black coal, or we’d climb over the fence at St. Ignatius Church and have a look around the basement. It was pretty harmless, just kids being kids. But if we got caught—and we inevitably got caught—the priest would offer us a choice: either go to the police or take your pants down so he could spank you. There was an obvious outcome that pleased all parties concerned. No way we wanted to go to the police. We were kids, we weren’t stealing anything, and going to the police was fucking scary, not an option. And, anyway, the priest was angling for a glimpse of our bare bums. Take my word for it, there was no abuse going on, but he was getting his jollies in that basement, no doubt about that.

  Other than that, I enjoyed going to church. I went three times on Sundays, any chance I got. Not that I was religious, nor was anyone in my family. But I was happy to get out of the house and I loved singing in the choir, with that organ swelling like a heavenly score. It was the first time I ever got to sing with people, hearing voices lift, combining in harmony. Man, what a thrill. I had this bell-like voice—and high, I could sing high. Even at that age I learned how to put my voice above the melody, something that would serve me well for the rest of my life.

  I guess music was my religion, although we had little of either in the house. There wasn’t much singing and certainly no records to speak of—we couldn’t afford ’em. My cousin Ray had a record player with a big horn on the front, and we would crank up the overture to Samson and Delilah. Otherwise there was only the radio in our house, one of those brown plastic jobs with one knob for on-off volume and three push buttons for the BBC stations: one for Light Programme (popular music), one for the Home Service (comedy and feature stories), and the third for the cleverly named Third Programme (cultural, highbrow stuff). Light Programme played lots of northern dance orchestras, plus crooners like Frankie Laine and Rosemary Clooney. Later on there was Johnnie Ray. I don’t know how we eventually got Radio Luxembourg on that big old box. It was the third button, and when the weather permitted, its signal came in like magic. But Radio Lux fired up all of my dreams. When I was a teenager, everything they played made an impression on me: the Platters, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Elvis, the whole pantheon of early rock gods. Otherwise, the only music in the family came when I went for a walk with my dad. He would
whistle and I’d whistle back in harmony. Or when we went to the Borough, the cinema on the other side of Ordsall Park where I first saw The Girl Can’t Help It, a movie that changed my life in so many ways. It went from a grainy black-and-white opening with Tom Ewell explaining the scenario to full-blown Technicolor. Mind-blowing! All of my favorite rock ’n’ rollers were in the movie. And the scene where Jayne Mansfield first appears was unbelievable to a fifteen-year-old kid. She looked like an angel—and more. My dad would sing as we cut through the park, and I’d chime in—“Shrimp Boats Are a-Coming,” “This Old House,” “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” silly stuff like that.

  My musical life changed forever one day in school. On another mundane morning, while I was daydreaming in Mr. Burke’s class at Ordsall Board Primary School, there was a knock on the door and an old lady wrapped in a long dark shawl brought a boy my age, who was clearly nervous, into the room. After a private discussion, Mr. Burke quieted the class. “All right, everybody,” he said, “this is Harold Clarke, who just moved from Broughton, and he’s going to join us. So, let’s see—where is he going to sit?” We all looked around the room and there was only one space, next to me.

  “He can sit right here,” I piped up.

  One of the best moves I ever made. Harold Clarke, who later called himself Allan, became my instant best friend. Right away I recognized that he was me, the same. I’d start to say something and he’d know what it was before I got halfway through the sentence. We liked the same football teams, the same girls. We’d grease our hair the same way, with Brylcreem, so we looked like Tony Curtis. And music—that really joined us at the hip.

  In the mornings, before school started, Clarkie and I were part of a group that sang the Lord’s Prayer at assembly. The other kids droned on with the familiar melody, but Clarkie and I broke off and hit two fabulous harmonies, totally naturally. We just fell into it and played off each other. Allan had a great set of pipes and a tone in his voice that was undeniable; even then it was rich and powerful, with great control and an arcing falsetto.

  Singing harmony became a passion of ours. I have no idea where we picked it up. No one ever taught us how to do it or put it into words. It was just a gift we had, and it gave us so much pleasure. We sang everywhere—in school and in each other’s houses, but especially in front of mirrors, where we would pantomime being our favorite artists. I imagined how Elvis would do it. So I made myself a guitar out of an old piece of plywood, painted it red, and shook my bony ass in that mirror, pretending to be the King. Later, when the Everly Brothers came along, we tried to be them, as well. And the Louvin Brothers, Ira and Charlie. We were soaking it all up and churning it out our way.

  On Saturdays, we’d walk up to Trafford Road and stare into the window of the local music store. There’d be maracas and harmonicas and ocarinas, as well as an array of classical guitars. Eventually, an electric cutaway appeared in their midst, with a spotlight on it, which would hypnotize me for hours. I’d just stand there, staring, hoping one day, by some miracle, I could afford one of those babies. But I knew that day was a long way off.

  Guitars intrigued me much more than school. It seems odd, when I think about it now, because as an adult I consume all the information I can get my hands on. And my friends are some of the most brilliant minds of the day. Nothing stimulates me more than a discussion with a scholar, or a book that lays out some illuminating aspect of life. But when I was in school, nothing seemed to spark my interest. I was an indifferent student at best—never studied, never read. Who knows why? Maybe I can lay some blame on apathetic teachers or my circumstances at home. But really I was off in a world of my own.

  Even from a very young age, I’ve always been a bit of a loner. People are great, they fascinate me no end, but sometimes all that chatter is difficult to bear. I’ve always looked for places where I could shut out the world and just groove on the solitude that fueled my dreams. At the Ordsall Board school, my options were few. There was no cafeteria there, so we had to use a building in the adjoining park to get lunch. My friend Fred Moore and I would take off running to get there first, ahead of the crowd. But after lunch, instead of socializing, I always ducked out of that scene. I used to sit in the branches of a small tree in the park. It was safe there, no one to bother me. I can still feel the movement of the swaying branches. Just me and a tree. Away from it all. Perfect.

  Back at home, I kept busy with another solitary passion, photography. My dad was something of an amateur photographer, and from the time I was little he would set up his darkroom in my bedroom. He’d whip the blanket off my bed, tack it up against the window to block out the light, and lay out trays of chemicals to develop and print pictures. So from the beginning, I was hooked on the magic of photography. Imagine the fascination for a kid my age watching, bug-eyed, as a blank sheet of paper was run through those baths and an image slowly materialized on the page. Fabulous! My dad turned me on to the whole process. And it wasn’t long before he put a camera in my hands, where it remains to this day. I was shocked that he could afford it. It seemed an impossibility. But the thrill of owning and using it pushed any questions right out of my head.

  From the time I was ten, I’ve been obsessed with taking pictures, and not just any old snapshots but pictures that captured something significant, something insightful about the subject. Much of it stemmed from my curiosity about people. And a lot of it had to do with not wanting to stick out, trying to remain invisible, like when I was up in that tree, so that the subject would appear natural, not aware that I was there. In the majority of cases, you come up empty-handed, but every once in a while you land a gem. My favorite image from those days is a picture I took of my mother. I remember realizing, Wow! That’s not your normal snapshot. We had gone on family holiday to the Middleton Towers Holiday Camp, a getaway for working-class people about thirty miles north of Manchester. A young woman who had jumped into the swimming pool must have hit her head because she was floating kind of funny, obviously in distress. Instinctively, my dad dove in and rescued her, and in the process her top came off. Man, it was the first pair of tits I ever saw! I was eleven years old. Are you kidding! This was fantastic! But my mother was sitting in a deck chair at the other end of the pool. It was a broken cloudy day, and she had a plaid coat draped around her shoulders, sunglasses on, a cigarette in her hand. For some reason, I turned away from the woman to watch my mother. She didn’t know that I was looking at her, seeing her not only as a mother but wondering, Who really is this person? I caught her in a very quiet, almost distracted moment. And that’s when I realized I saw things differently.

  Photography really captivated me full-time. I saved every penny I could to buy film for my camera. Luckily, I had a job that brought me a couple shillings. My Uncle Ben was a union rep, and every Saturday morning he sent me out on rounds to collect union subscriptions. I’d go knock on doors—bam! bam! bam!—“Union subs!” Sometimes people would peek through a curtain and not answer the door, but mostly they’d pay up. I had a book with names and the amount they owed and a column where I would tick off their name if they made a payment. In any case, I contributed most of what I earned to the family coffers; whatever was left over would go for film. My friend Fred Moore and I set up a makeshift darkroom in his backyard where we developed roll after roll of the images we’d taken.

  The camera gave me a new perspective on my young life. But all of that changed by the end of 1953. One evening, after kicking a ball around outside with some friends, I came home to find my mother in an unusual state. “Your dad’s in trouble,” she said, unable to conceal her anguish.

  While I’d been out, the police had come to the door. “Is William Nash in?” they’d demanded.

  My mother told them he was having his tea, but they wouldn’t be put off. They wanted to know about a certain camera in his possession. Mine, the one he had given me.

  “I didn’t steal it,” he insisted. “I bought it from a friend at work.” It was a cheap camera, he said, w
hich cost him about ten pounds.

  They wanted a name, which my father refused to provide, because as everyone knows, you don’t grass on friends. Unfortunately, the cops weren’t buying his story, and they arrested him for possession of stolen goods.

  This was really earth-shattering to me. My dad was a good man, an honest man, law-abiding, and proud. He’d never been in trouble. The police never had reason to darken our door before—it was unheard of. Now everything was changed and our privacy was shattered. All of the neighbors knew. When the police come to your door, everybody knows. The jungle drums beat along the Salford grapevine all night long. It was a crushing blow to a man who’d kept to himself all these years.

  In the long run, we didn’t think it was serious. My dad wasn’t any kind of thief, and even if they thought he was, you don’t go to jail for stealing a lousy Agfa camera.

  One night, soon afterward, I’d been fast asleep for hours when I heard my dad creep into my pitch-dark bedroom. I could tell something was up right away.

  “Son, I need to talk to you,” he said, and from his tone I knew things had gotten serious. He laid the whole thing out for me, assured me he was innocent, but how none of that mattered in the tangled legal process. “I’m going up on trial, and there is a chance I’ll have to go away for a while. If that happens, I’m counting on you to be the man of the family.”