After midnight all the traffic flows out of the West End of London. Pubs closing. Movies and shows over. People going home. Most nights the buzz of cars faded around three am. There’s a kind of exhausted calm which you can almost touch then the revs and noise lifts and the race is on again. Night shift in this BP petrol station is ten pm to seven am and it’s close to Hammersmith on the M4 heading to Richmond, Windsor, Heath Row and Bristol.
It’s the third busiest in the UK and it is never closed. Four men are rostered on every night of the week. Most nights we all try to get a few hours sleep (or kip as the Brits call it) but sometimes that is difficult to do. Lie on the tea room floor and crash. I’ve been the night shift foreman since I arrived here in 1971. I just love all the action of the city. And the night people. Weird and wonderful and lonely. Just last week a bloke paid me for his few gallons. He looked like a truck driver with his big arm out the window clutching the pound notes. White lace gloves and sparkling bracelets. Also wearing a pretty floral dress. He had a lovely smile and I smiled back as I took his money. Probably on his way home to his wife.
It’s the regulars I look forward to serving most of all. So many of them. Mostly lonely. Is everyone in London lonely? Rod Stewart in his chauffeured black stretch Mercedes seems to be here filling his tank once a week. He is usually alone in the rear seat and every visit he throws a plastic cup of beer out the window at me and then giggles like a teenage girl. He is always pissed and he always misses.
Gentle Marc Bolan lead singer of “T. Rex” is a favourite. “Hello Marc” Hello John, fill’er up.” Totally spaced every time I saw him. Stars
popping in and out of his eyes. He was soon to die in his Rolls on his way home but he wasn’t to know.
David Hemmings was the lead actor in the film “Blow up” which was acclaimed at the time. A huge star for twelve months then out of work
for five years. Always wants to talk and he sometimes waits for the traffic to ease at the pumps so we can have a catch up chat. Lonely. Shy. He occasionally had a cuppa with us. Drives a crumpled green Morris Minor. I miss him.
Terence Stamp. Oh so very cool. Or cold. I called him Terry each time he came in, just to get up his nose. Always gave me his very best icy blue-eyed stare. Thought he would use a knife on me after each look.
My favourite regular by a bleeding mile was an aristocratic lady who visited spasmodically during the years I was there. She never once bought petrol because she pushed her shopping cart or carried her
bags. Lots of bags carrying her world. Out of the fog or smog she would appear with her angelic smile.
“Is it alright if I use your facilities again, John?”
“Of course Marion, I’ll make you a cuppa when you’re ready.”
Marc Bolan
David Hemmings
Terence Stamp
Marion Richardson. She was very upper class and never let you forget it. I never actually learned what she did in our restroom but two hours in there wasn’t unusual. She sometimes washed her hair but she always changed her clothes and washed other items. She also added some lipstick and re-arranged her bags. At two or three am she usually had the room to herself and she never came in before midnight, probably for that reason.
So when she was ready it was time to clean our staff room. She would tidy the office, wash all the cups and totally re-organise the place. Then, and only then, would she allow me to make her a cuppa and serve it in her china cup and saucer. Her castle was the only thing missing. Yes, people tried to avoid her and called her a nutter or fruit loop or whatever but she was a complete, classy paranoiac with wonderful delusions by the dozen. All I had to do was listen. She talked. According to Marion, the police, tax people and social security were all after her. Dearest Marion, you really were as classy as the Queen. Even sounded like her. She would never take money or food from us and month after month she was part of our nocturnal world.
Occasionally I would glimpse her walking the streets of London or sitting in a park during the daytime. More often it was catching a quick sight of her as she drifted along with her head down, steady as she goes with her bags, and minding her own business. Then the
visits stopped. I feared she had died or been killed and after six months I had given up hope. Seven months later, two am and here she is again in our driveway. I tried to have a little celebratory dance with her but she was “too proper”. But I still made a big fuss of her and she acted like a little lost girl who had found home.
“They tried to take me away but I was too clever.”
“They’ll never keep track of me!”
She was so proud of her independence and then it was back to her cleaning and washing and having a cuppa. Marion was at least sixty years old, perhaps even seventy, but her skin glowed and her eyes sparkled. She had been to Croydon, Maidstone and even Brighton. Really? How could she move all over South East England. She said she had been locked up but wouldn’t say where. She mischievously avoided answering too many questions.
I left London soon after this but never forgot her smile and her spirit. Regretfully, I never had a chance to say goodbye. Ralph McTell wrote his classic song “The Streets of London” around this time. It has grown in popularity ever since. Marion, you are now a star! You always did like the spotlight!
Have you seen the old girl who walks the streets of London
Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags
She’s no time for talking she just keeps on walking
Carrying her home in two carrier bags
In our winter city the rain cries a little pity etc
Chorus
So how can you tell me you’re lonely
And say for you that the sun don’t shine.
But let me take you by the hand
And lead you through the streets of London
I’ll show you something to make you change your mind.
And Ralph, you didn’t get it exactly right. She wasn’t dirty and her clothes weren’t rags.
John A Wilson, Gold Coast 2013
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