Say Hello To A Good Knight With Steve Andrews
My story starts on a late-December night at a memorable event at Cardiff's Clwb Ifor Bach aka "the Welsh Club".
King Arthur had arrived in town, accompanied by Caroline and Peggy. Caroline is the King's robe-maker. Peggy is his current chauffeur, a fitting role because what went on later could easily feature in some surreal road movie and she was to be our driver.
Peggy had taken us all into town but, not surprisingly, had a few problems in our crazy one-way system. Eventually we managed to reach our destination and parked our motor. Before the gig we went to the nearest pub, something that usually happens if you're a punter of a performer.
Tim Brett, who had organised the event, was somewhat concerned that advance ticket sales were not as good as he'd hoped for so we all took a bundle of flyers to help things along.
Arthur was fully resplendent in all his robes and I was sporting my brand new 'Bard of Ely/ Alien Head' T-shirt. the ladies were dressed in mystical hippy or Pagan style. My T-shirt, by the way, was designed and expertly hand painted by a friend called Angie.
I had better tell you more about her, and it, now because the shirt features in a strange way later on. Many years ago Angie was my landlady. There are many tales to tell from those days and probably some day I'll tell them. Nowadays Angie sells unique garments lovingly painted by her talented hands.
Her designer T-shirts feature Celtic knots and emblems, assorted deities, mystic symbols and esoteric enigmas, that sort of thing. She normally sells and takes orders at tattoo conventions and psychic fairs. She'd kindly offered to paint a shirt for me if I supplied the article of clothing.
This was four years ago. Two years back she confessed she was stuck. "Why not try some alien script?" I'd advised. But this had only caused another delay. I'd forgotten that most Earth people don't know this form of writing.
Anyway I had run into Angie in Rajah's club one night and ended up back at her place. To simplify the problem we'd already discussed and decided that 'Bard of Ely' in Celtic style writing would look great and would proclaim one of my titles. However, when I saw the alien head design back at her flat I knew right away that this too had to be on the shirt. After all C.J.Stone, in his next book -The Last of The Hippies - will be revealing that in his opinion I am an extra-terrestrial in origin.
He's known me some good 30 years and ought to know me by now. Well, enough about all that, let's go back to the gig. I said that this was like some sort of road movie but it hasn't got very far yet, has it?
So far we've made it to town and a local pub. By the time we got back to the Welsh Club was filling fast. All the poets, DJs and bands were enthusiastically received and Arthur knighted over 20 more people into the Loyal Arthurian Warband, including three girls who were excited to be dubbed 'Truth, Honour and Justice' respectively.
Big Issue Cymru's Chris Baker was there. So were many more people, in fact it was a sell-out and a very good time was had by all. There are plans to hold more events like this so we can all expect further cosmic gatherings.
This will be a year of increased weirdness and wacky festivities and naturally we'll be keeping you up dated in our pages. One of the only people missing who'd wanted to come was Fortean TV Presenter, Cardiff's own Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe. He'd written to King Arthur saying he wanted to be knighted but, unfortunately, on the evening in question he was out of town so was unable to attend.
The following night, however, was a different matter so I'd arranged for him to call at my house. We had all recovered from the night before and had moved my living room table out of the way to make room for Lionel's ceremony.
We had also put up the official Loyal Arthurian Warband banners designed and embroidered by Caroline. One of them lists all the protest camps and sites of Arthur's recent battles and space has been left to fill in details of future victories.
The banners gave it that certain something and added a suitable touch to the proceedings.
photo by Tim Brett
Quest Knight LAW
Tim Brett had come along too to capture it all on camera but neither he nor Lionel were expecting another certain something we had in store. Caroline has a baby dragon's skull. " A what?" I hear you say.
I was as surprised as you are but it definitely looks like a dragon's skull and it's certainly made of bone. It has a long snout like a dragon would have, nostrils for the fire and smoke and even two ear-like projections at the back like dragons always have.
photo by Brock
It had been taken to the British Museum for identification by the experts but they had no idea what it was so a dragon's skull it shall be until someone can prove otherwise. It had been found on Chesil Beach on the South coast by Caroline's son.
Lionel had brought his new book, co-authored with his wife Patricia. It's called The World's Most Mysterious People and I am proud to be included. Arthur will be in the next one: The World's Most Mysterious Places at an Arthurian Place.
I suppose my home is such a place now. As Tim took pictures of the skull Lionel was inspired with the title of the one aster that: The World's Most Mysterious Objects. On the following morning we were off to mysterious Avebury and the journey will resume in my next story. To be continued............