Free It Shouldn't Happen to a Midwife! by Jane Yeadon Page B

’n’ chips was on offer along busy streets where music spilt out from crowded bars.
    â€˜Do you not have singing pubs then?’ asked Seonaid, fingers sliding over a pokeful of grease. We were standing in a queue of depressingly pretty girls all apparently heading for Seonaid’s promised evening of local culture.
    â€˜No. Drinking in Scotland is considered a serious affair demanding single-minded attention, and if folk want to hear music they go home and listen to their trannies or records.’
    â€˜They don’t sound like party people. Even if I haven’t a player at least I have a record. Herb Alpert. He’s great for parties.’ Seonaid emptied the bag into her mouth, tidying its corner with a delicate finger. ‘Anytime I get invited anywhere, I take my record with me so I get to hear it.’
    â€˜Maybe you could get another, or be radical – go for a complete change and buy one from them, start a collection.’ I nodded at a Bedford bus parked nearby with the Showband’s name palsy-hand painted on its side and from which the band was now descending.
    â€˜Sure, the one I’ve got’s plenty and it’s boring carrying too much stuff.’ She folded the bag tidily then popped it in my pocket. ‘Look, we’re moving.’
    The queue streamed into a barn of a place where a Daisy lookalike exchanged our coats for a ticket before adding them to the pile on her desk.
    â€˜And there’ll be no smoking,’ she adjured, which was surprising considering that once into the hall proper it was so smoke-filled we could just make out the band on a platform at the far end.
    â€˜They’ll be the warm-ups, come on!’
    I followed Seonaid as she pushed her way to the front to see a group in such bright gear they looked like a row of Wurlitzers. Despite the lead singer, cough mixture bottle in hand, pouring his heart into a song of betrayal in Belfast, the audience was unimpressed and felt particularly free to say so.
    â€˜Can ye not think of another tune, we’re sick of hearing that oulde yoke,’ someone shouted whilst a penny landed on the stage.
    Without missing a beat the guitarist picked it up and flung it back. ‘It’s a bad penny!’ he shouted, which was just enough to trigger a steady metal downpour and give a whole new meaning to the term ‘warming up’.
    â€˜So come all you jolly young fellows,’ continued the singer, now unaccompanied on account of his team fully occupied returning fire, ‘a warning take by me.’
    â€˜You’ve missed out a verse,’ shouted someone who must have thought it safe to shout from the back.
    An argument broke out, followed by a scuffle, and soon the place was heaving with people firing pennies and shoving to get to the front. Valiantly the singer continued, determined to finish his set before his Friar’s Balsam ran out.
    The band started to pocket the money and make way for the Showband, whilst running out of steam and ammunition, the audience started to settle down and chat as if this was an evening of genteel social interaction. Close by I glimpsed, deep in conversation with a leggy brunette, one of our medical students. In the conservative gear of a bank manager he looked like he was promoting the joy of saving to a spendthrift customer.
    â€˜I see your man’s here.’ Seonaid had spotted his friend, sartorially clad in a flowery pink shirt and purple hipsters. His white patent leather belt looked like a bandage restraining a Guinness gut.
    â€˜He’s not my man,’ I said. ‘And by the look of things the other one’s not hers either.’ The brunette had stomped off, presumably taking her overdraft with her whilst the bank manager wandered off, loosening his tie, as if suddenly unemployed.
    The Showband took the stage with the confidence of men who knew a thing or two about music and, in their spiv padded-shouldered suits, self