The smuggling problem

Neither Alun nor I ever had a proper holiday when we were young. Mum couldn’t travel far because of her condition, and Alun’s dad’s blacklist of countries he refused to travel to had extended to everywhere in the world, plus 17 countries that didn’t actually exist, because he didn’t like the names he’d made up for them.

 

Which is why Alun and I used to spend every summer holidaying on Adventure Island, the most exciting place on our archipelago, while my mother and Alun’s father got on with ‘important things’.

 

We stayed in the abandoned monastery with the island’s only inhabitants, two elderly eccentrics called Jed and Alun. They were always friendly and left us to amuse ourselves, and there was always plenty to do on Adventure Island: We could have rides around the island on the back of Timmy the goat, there were plenty of secret caves to hide away in and then there were the picnics, with masses of food, a wide range of cakes (the elderly Alun was a secret baker) and lashings of homemade ginger beer.

 

One summer Alun and I were exploring yet another secret cave, when Alun made a surprising discovery.

 

“Come and look, Jed,” he said, “there’s something hidden at the back of the cave.”

 

“What is it?” I asked cautiously. Alun’s previous discoveries that summer had included a hidden snake, which has bitten me, a hidden giant spider, which had bitten me, and a hidden wildcat, which had scratched my arm in a hundred different places.

 

“It’s some kind of package, Jed. It’s covered in black plastic. Someone’s trying to protect it from the damp of the cave.”

 

There was, it has to be said, a very moist atmosphere within the cave, due to the close proximity of the sea.  

 

I helped Alun removed the covering, which was tightly secured to the precious goods. Eventually the black plastic was removed.

 

“It’s a load of albums,” Alun said.

 

“Perhaps this is a DJ’s secret stash,” I suggested. I had heard that several mainland radio DJs had secret hideaways ‘just in case’, though I never did find out just in case of what.

 

“It’s not a DJ’s collection, Jed, it’s all the same album.” He did a brief mental calculation based on the number of piles of albums we’d uncovered and the number of albums in a pile. “One, two, thee …” he said.

 

I interrupted, my maths being somewhat superior. “There are over 2,000 albums here,” I said.

 

“2,000 copies of the new Wire LP,” Alun said. “That’s more than they could ever hope of selling, their last single barely made four figures.

 

“Who’d hide 2,000 Wire LPs? A rival band? A critic?”

 

“Just a minute Jed,” Alun said, “you’re getting carried away. Anybody reading about this in thirty years time won’t have any idea who Wire were. They probably won’t even know what an LP is.”

 

“That’s true, thanks for pointing that out,” I said. “I can be quite a silly child, sometimes I completely forget people could be reading about my every move.”

 

“Let me explain, Jed, I can summarise these things much quicker than you can, you get distracted by the silliest little things.”

 

“Look!” I said, “A bat!”

 

“You get distracted by the silliest things, Jed. Like bats. Wire were a late 70s/early 80s punk band with a cult following amongst listeners to the John Peel show, frequently topping the independent charts. However, this cult following didn’t translate in significant sales and mainstream success alluded them to the extent that they are long since forgotten by all bar a minority of music aficionados.”

 

“That’s a big word,” I said. “A fish what?”

 

“Aficionados, Jed. Our readers will understand, even if we don’t.”

 

“What about an LP. Tell the readers what an LP is.”

 

“An LP is a plastic disc which we use to listen to music. A big, black, ugly forerunner to the CD. Whatever a CD is.”

 

“Phew, I’m glad that’s over Alun. I always hate the bits in books where the author patronises the reader by explaining things rather than letting the reader work it out for themselves. After all, there’s nothing to stop people googling ‘Wire’ if they’re really interested.”

 

“Careful Jed, google won’t be invented for another twenty years, you don’t want to confuse the chronology of the story.”

 

I certainly didn’t. I wasn’t sure what a chronology was, but if it was anything like the other animals I’d discovered that summer the chances were that it would bite me.

 

We covered the Wire albums up with the black plastic sheeting, to prevent them getting damp, as vinyl records were really susceptible to warping in moist conditions, causing the needle to jump when the record was played.

 

“We should stay overnight in the cave and see who’s hidden the records,” Alun said. “I bet it’s smugglers.”

 

“Smugglers? Who would want to smuggle Wire albums? Smugglers smuggle things people actually want to buy, like whisky, cigarettes, Wham albums.”

 

“We should still try and solve the mystery, Jed. Why I’m ten years’ old and I’ve never once caught a gang of smugglers.”

 

“No Alun, we should alert the council. They’ll know what to do with illicit Wire albums. If we try to solve the mystery ourselves it will all end in tears.”

 

“The council!” Alun spluttered. Even at that tender young age Alun had a violent dislike of officialdom.

 

“Well we could tell Jed and Alun at least,” I said. “We’ll need their permission anyway if we’re going to spend the night here.”

 

Alun’s voice dropped to a horrified whisper. “Perhaps they’re in on it Jed. After all they’re the only people living on the island. I always did wonder what they got up to when we weren’t here.”

 

We returned to Jed and Alun’s house much as normal at the end of playtime. Alun was just putting his and Jed’s toys away.

 

“What did you get up to today?” Jed asked us.  I was about to tell him about the secret cave and the mysterious stash of Wire albums when Alun kicked me under to shut me up. “We rode round the island on the goat, had lots of picnics and played hide and seek,” he said. It was a very convincing lie and Jed ceased grilling us. 

 

After supper we all went to bed at bedtime, not a minute earlier, not a minute later, so as not to arouse suspicion. However, we weren’t really going to bed, oh no, as that’s not how adventure stories happen. Alun crept to my room after the lights were out and, with a secret code, signalled that I was to join him outside.

 

Alun had brought a torch and supplies for a midnight feast, and we made our way down to the beach where the secret cave was secluded away.

 

“We might have to wait all night,” Alun warned, “or they might not show at all. The albums could be left here for years if the band’s sales don’t reach the required levels. Here, have an eccles cake.”

 

We munched eccles cakes as silently as we could manage, though they have a hard external coating and if there were any smugglers listening intently they would have easily identified the fact that there were two children munching cakes within the cave.

 

There were no smugglers, however. Once we had finished the cakes the cave returned to total silence. It was eerie. Alun had switched off his torch to save batteries, so it was pitch black and bar the drip, drip, drip of random moisture and the occasional flutter of bats’ wings there was nothing but still and quiet.

 

I could see Alun’s eyes flickering back and forth for signs of smugglage, but after a while even the light of excitement in his eyes had begun to dim. “Have another cake, Jed,” he said, passing me a slice of Battenburg.

 

Several hours passed and an unfeasible amount of cake was consumed. It was the most fattening anti-smuggling operation in history, not even the Suffolk police would have eaten that much on an all-night-stakeout, and theirs is the only police force in the world to be sponsored by the local bakery.

 

We were about to leave, so that we were safely back in our beds before dawn came to wake us, when we heard a noise outside. The sound of feet on pebbles.

 

It was, I should point out, a pebbly beach. I’m not one of those people who mistakenly remember every childhood beach as a sandy ideal. Also, for the purposes of the story, a sandy beach wouldn’t have made a noise and the whole story would have consequently been considerably less exciting.

 

“It’s the smugglers, Jed,” Alun whispered, “they’ve come at last.”

 

See – I told you the pebbles made it more exciting. Forewarned of their coming we could be alert and tense at their approach.

 

We watched as a thin stream of torchlight entered the cave, hovering around the black plastic. Slowly four men crept into the cave and started removing the Wire albums from the hidden recess.

 

“Now Jed.”

 

We leapt out and confronted the smugglers, Alun shining his torch in the eyes of the leading man.

 

“Caught you,” he said, “you’re smugglers. We’re going to go to the council about you, or possibly just to the two old men we’re staying with, we haven’t decided. We might not do anything.”

 

“Oh no, Colin, we’ve been found out.”

 

“Shush, and don’t use our real names Rupert Gotosleep.”

 

“It’s not Rupert Gotosleep, it’s me, Robert Gotobed.”

 

“I said don’t use our real names.”

 

“Oh, right, I see.”

 

“Wait a minute,” I said, “I recognise you from the album sleeve. You’re Wire.”

 

“Okay, you’ve got us bang to rights, we’re Wire,” said the man, who I recognised as the lead singer. “What are you going to do about it?”

 

“Hang on Jed,” said Alun, “before we go any further, we need to clarify for any future readers of this incident that Wire really do have a drummer called Robert Gotobed. Otherwise they’ll get really confused and think we were talking nonsense, or suggesting that they go to bed.”

 

“You’re right again,” I said, “and they need to know that the lead singer of a punk band really was called Colin.”

 

“You couldn’t make it up Jed.”

 

“I certainly couldn’t.”

 

The band were getting impatient. “Can we just confess why we’re smuggling our own albums,” said Colin, “I hate standing here in a damp, dark cave while you slowly and carefully tell me who I am. This is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had, and I’ve talked philosophy with Sid Vicious.”

 

“Okay then, tell us the whole story.”

 

“Er, we’re secretly smuggling our albums onto the mainland to avoid the PRS tax.” Colin shrugged. “It’s not much of a plot really. It only took a couple of minutes to come up with it, it’s about as sophisticated as one of our songs.”

 

“But the PRS isn’t a tax bands pay,” Alun explained, “it’s a fee paid by music venues and broadcasters for playing music, which is then paid to the songwriters.”

 

“So you mean we’ve hidden our albums in this cave for nothing?”

 

“I told you we should have got a manager Colin,” said the drummer, who really was called Robert Gotobed. “Managers know not to hide their band’s LPs in a cave. It’s why the album’s not selling.”

 

“Never mind,” said Alun, “while you’re here will you sing us a song? It’s how any good children’s adventure should end, with the guest band entertaining the story’s stars with an impromptu ditty.”

 

Even in the dark of the cavelight I could see Colin’s features curve into a smirk.

 

“Well, we’ve hardly come to a smugglers cave for illicit nightly dealings carrying our instruments little boy. What do you think we are, idiots?”

 

“Erm, actually I’ve got my guitar with me,” the guitarist said.

 

“So have I”, said the bass player. “I couldn’t remember if we were playing a gig tonight or smuggling LPs. I didn’t like to ask.”

 

“And I’ve been lugging my drum-kit over all these rocks,” said Robert Gotobed, “frankly I’m relieved I’m going to get a chance to play them.”

 

Which is why my summer holiday was spent in a secret cave listening to the most secret gig ever. Unplugged, Wire lacked the raw urgency of punk tinged with feedback and amplified menace, but as the acoustics bellowed around the cave there was no doubting that Wire were, simply, the best band ever to have played a gig in this most secret of caves.