Rave On Rob...
Was sent to Dillon's bookshop as a fresh faced 15 year old in the summer of 1989...and immediately packed off to the stock room upstairs to put 30% off stickers on a room full of books. A couple of dreary hours passed, wondering if I'd be condemned to 2 weeks of this turgid existence. About midday, the door opens and in saunters Rob. Most large stores have backroom staff...they're usually lacking in the hygiene/interpersonal relationship/any fucking clue whatsoever departments. Rob was a bit different, though.
We spent the next two weeks in a ganja fuelled haze, occasionally pausing from our stoned reveries to stick some more Stone Roses/Happy Mondays/A Guy Called Gerald on the tape player and hang out of the window with another spliff. Lunchtimes were spent in a shady boozer getting merry on cider with Rob's crew of borderline psychotic pillheads.
On my last day, the store manager gave me a proof copy of the latest Laurie Lee. Rob gave me an E, a sixteenth of squidgy black and a tape of what he described as "fucking on one tracks, kidda".
It was truly a worthwhile insight into the world of waged employment.
( cowfoot pulls up to the bumper, Thu 10 May 2007, 11:30, closed)