The Lone Ranger.

I used to go to all those Saturday morning flicks where the audience of young kids would be baying at the screen as the good guys, all dressed in white all rode out to trounce the bad guys all dressed in black. If only real life was half as easy. Whenever there was a spot of bother you could always count on a masked rider in a big white Stetson and face-mask to appear with his great white stallion and faithful Native American side-kick, to come along and sort it out. Either that or Rin Tin Tin. I’ve always wondered why anyone would call a dog Rin Tin Tin? What does that mean?

However, The Lone Ranger was not always the most welcome of people.

Back in Manor House in 1972 I was living up on the top floor with Liz. Down on the bottom floor there was a guy who was greatly into his vinyl. He was called John.

Going round to John’s was like a religious ceremony. There was a ritual to his playing of music. The selected album would be carefully removed from its sleeve and taken out of its dust-jacket gently and taking care not to get a finger-print on the surface. Both sides would be wiped with an anti-static cloth. The album would be placed on the turntable and the stylus gently lowered. All parties were then expected to reverentially listen without a sound until the side had completed.

John was one of those music buffs for whom the quality of the system mattered. He desired the full gamut of breadth and texture of the aural experience with the complete separation of each instrument.

Music was serious business to John. It was not to be taken lightly. Nobody was allowed near his vinyl. He never lent his albums out and his stereo was the absolute top of the range.

I appreciate music in any form – through crappy car speakers, or a clapped out radio – it matters little. I’ve heard it played through the top quality speakers in professional studios and have to admit that it sounds a lot better, but even so it is the music that ultimately counts, not the sound system. John’s system was as near to perfection as you could get. His albums did not have a single click. It added to the quality but I’m not sure I could be bothered. But to John it was crucial.

Our landlord was 84 years old and was a little confused from time to time. Thus it was that when John went on holiday for four weeks it was a recipe for disaster.

John paid up his rent and went off.

Mr Rose for some reason got it into his head that John had left for

good. He did not like rooms being vacant – which I don’t think it was anything to do with the money – in his opinion a vacant room encouraged vermin.

So Mr Rose went round and emptied the entire contents of John’s flat into the corridor. Most people going into a flat full of possessions would have thought that there was something wrong. Why would anyone leave all their belongings and disappear having paid up the rent? But that did not occur to Mr Rose. The flat was empty and needed someone in it before the mice and rats appeared.

John came back, after a relaxing two weeks, to find his huge collection of over a thousand pristine albums piled up in heaps in an alcove in the corridor, along with his treasured stereo and all the rest of his possessions. Fortunately none of it had gone missing or been tampered with. But that wasn’t the point. This was sacrilege of the first order. His beloved vinyl collection had been treated with utmost disdain. It was sacrilege and he went completely mental.

After stamping and screaming at the bemused Mr Rose he moved his stuff out and took a flat elsewhere.

John then held a farewell party in his old flat. He bought gallons of black gloss paint, rice and paint brushes (along with wine, beer and various other comestibles).

A few days later a totally befuddled Mr Rose asked me to come and help. He could not fathom out what was going on.

He took me down to John’s flat. It was broad daylight but the rooms were inky black. With the light coming in through the doorway we made our way inside over a strange sticky, crunchy floor. None of the lights seems to work and no light was coming in through the windows.

I checked out the bulb in the central light fitting. It was all bobbly. It had been painted with black gloss paint and rice.

We adjourned to get replacement lightbulbs. When we had new lights in the place we looked around in awe. All the walls, ceiling, floors, furniture, sinks, windows, curtains, bed and fittings had been coated with knobbly black gloss paint.

On one wall, in great big white brushstrokes, was painted the words – ‘DON’T FUCK WITH THE LONE RANGER!’

‘Why would anyone want to do a thing like that?’ Mr Rose asked incredulously.

But then he wasn’t a Rock music fanatic was he?