Lloyd Evans

Shouts in the street caught my attention. As I rounded a corner, I saw the aftermath of a botched supermarket raid. A skinny druggie stood on the roadway, yelling at a security guard who had chased him out of the store and grabbed his wire basket full of loot. Across the roadway lay boxes of luxury chocolates, packets of cereal and cartons of strawberry milk. The thief dared the guard to fight him. ‘Come on then!’ A blonde cashier ran out of the store. ‘You’re banned,’ she yelled at the thief who snarled back. ‘Yeah? Let’s have it!’ His shirt was open and he slapped his chest angrily. The guard stepped forward, vaguely shaping for a punch-up, but the thief ignored him and started collecting the fallen goods and placing them in his wire basket.

Fresh eyes can see a solution the experts may miss. At school I discovered the cure for cancer aged 13. I was in a science lesson and I was only half-listening because I found the nerdy, white-coated teacher faintly absurd. And yet the branches of science intrigued me. I loved physics (rockets), I quite liked chemistry (explosions) and I had a passing interest in biology (tadpoles); it was a biology lesson that prompted my brainwave. The boffin was describing the division of cells and he mentioned that tumours evade detection because they grow at the same rate as healthy tissue. Human macrophages are primed to attack bacteria that multiply faster than normal cells. Hey presto. A bulb went ping in my head.

The far right are on the march so I decided to take a look. I travelled to a market town in deepest England and joined a rally organised by Britain First. The police had been alerted and there were white vans parked outside the train station with clusters of burly officers ready to waddle into action. The town square was occupied by two demonstrations separated by flimsy steel barriers and a fluttering line of blue and white police ribbon. The Britain First supporters, with their Union Flags hoisted high, had assembled in a churchyard beneath an Anglo-Saxon tower. Beyond the barrier, a crowd of 100 left-wingers taunted them through a loud hailer: ‘Nazi scum, off our streets.’ The atmosphere was hostile but not violent.

Everyone knows the rules. London invented trains that run underground as well as the protocol that makes the system bearable. A London Tube passenger enjoys the same prerogatives as an evil tyrant in a fairy tale. Do not stare. Do not approach. Do not distract him in any way. Respect the cocoon of solitude that protects him from the surrounding hubbub. But this simple covenant is not universally observed. Since I moved to London in 1973, I have twice been bothered by chatterboxes on the Tube. Twice, yes. It may sound like a minor annoyance to an outsider but residents of London will recognise the agony I have suffered. The first intrusion occurred in 1991 as I sat on the District line at Earl’s Court. A fat drunkard elbowed my arm and asked me where the train was heading.

What is it for? Jogging means being in a hurry to get nowhere in particular as fast as possible. And it qualifies as certifiable behaviour. The madman can see the purpose of his actions but the sane man can’t. City-dwellers are more prone to this mental abnormality than rural folk, who prefer not to go loping through fields of wheat or scampering over the muddied divots of an open moor. In cities, the lunatics are -everywhere, which makes it tricky for the authorities to detain them under the Mental Health Act. Some joggers know that chasing around their neighbourhood like a hamster on a wheel is a little crazy. Hence ‘jogger’s face’, the anguished expression worn by many of the semi-athletes as they galumph along the streets. ‘Why am I doing this?’ they cry inwardly.

A neighbour betrayed me to her 16-year-old son. ‘Lloyd knows about politics,’ she told the youngster. ‘He can help you with your essay.’ I was introduced to a spotty teenager who appraised me suspiciously through a pair of smudged NHS glasses. ‘What’s the essay about?’ I asked. ‘Politics,’ he said. That seemed to leave the field wide open. ‘Contact a few members of the House of Lords and ask them to name their greatest achievement.’ He nodded. ‘Sounds good, thanks,’ he said with an air of finality, like a chef asking a new minion to sweep the floor. I accepted defeat. My plan had been to give him a sagacious ruling from on high. ‘Listen, m’lad. Always do your homework or you’ll end up doing someone else’s.’ But he understood that better than me.

‘Do you like animals?’ asked the woman at the door, collecting for a zoo. ‘No, I hate them, they keep trying to kill me,’ I said. That got rid of her. I feel a little ashamed of my hostility to animals, which I inherited from my mother. She was raised in rural Ireland and she loathed the countryside and all its non-speaking inhabitants. To her, animals were either predators or ingredients, and she particularly despised geese, rats, mice, squirrels and dogs. ‘Vermin,’ was one of her favourite nouns. And she regarded the word ‘pet’ as a self-deluding fantasy. Which seems reasonable. Animals cannot be tamed but their owners can be deceived. Any beast will turn murderous when cornered. Dog-hate entered my soul. It festers there still.