David J Rodger ¦ Secret Window
| 1996 - Las Iguanas / Bristol - Frenchy Marie, Matthias P, Djr New Years Eve: this was an utterly blinding night. And this was the night I discovered Las Iguanas, which at that point in time was a tiny cave below ground at the back of St Nicholas Market. I was here with the whole gang. |
| 1996 - Las Iguanas / Bristol - New Years Eve This image has always been iconic for me, representing the spirit, vigour and sheer amazing shout of joy that came in with 1996. |
| 1996 - Bristol - Fran P & Lena P Two of three sisters, and two brothers. I first met Lena through random chats with her when she worked a silver jewellry stall in Bristol city centre, late 1994. Lena was just an easy and excellent person to know. Memories of late summer '95, sitting in my front room of the Happy Flat with warm breeze drifting through window... playing Ballistic Brothers and enjoying the whole london vibe. Fran was more hardcore. A tough character who "knew people". Fran through an amazing party at her flat just off Park Street...she'd even paid for the neighbours to stay somewhere else...there was a wall of pro-speakers brought in, and good old Mickey Finns made a surprise visit and set up a one-night franchise in the back garden: no sign of Simon Dly. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Djr Now that I had finally had a PC, I was able to load-up the files containing my novel God Seed, the version I had so painstakingly typed out from a hardcopy (printed out from the old Amstrad Word Processsor)... back in early 1995. It was a great story but in my mind, badly written...I still hadn't perfected my style. I also knew I needed to build up a "writing fund" so that I could leave my job at the Bureau and concentrate on a period of intensive writing. So I began to save my money towards that goal. Meanwhile there was much Call of Cthulhu taking place in the Happy Flat, with Simon P, Mick T and Nice Guy Tony. It was around now that I spent a period of time hanging-out at Las Iguanas in the evenings, after catching the bus from the work (Bureau) into town... I'd head there and hang out with Phil McV and all the mad guys who worked behind the bar... you couldn't buy pints, only jugs of beer, so Phil McV would bring over a couple and leave me to it, dropping into a seat opposite between serving people. It led to me coming home a number of times so drunk I'd stagger into Matthias' pad and collapse on the floor. There were several times Matthias had to physically push me up the stairs to get me into my bed. I was still going to Lakota but only every two or three weeks; every time I went I kept my eyes peeled for the woman I'd seen on the dancefloor near the end of December, the "Girl On The Bus". In fact, every time I went to Lakota she was on my mind, a waking dream... I wanted so badly to see her again. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Paige L The air-raid sirens in Bristol went off, people ran for cover and a howling wind tore through the city as Paige L's train arrived from Newcastle. She stayed for a fantastic long weekend. This is the visit that Matthias & I discovered what an amazing cook Paige was. Salted-chops and Gypsy Blood Sauce, and Paige-L rice... recipies that Matthias and I kept alive for several years. She met and got on with the gang, which was great, although I think Steve Stalker was terrorised by her... they had a biting contest and I remember Steve showing me the teeth-shaped bruises all over his chest the next day.... OMG!!! |
| 1996 - Newcastle (photo from) - My sister turns 16 My sister wanted to do a Murder Mystery, so I used my new PC to rewrite the old Murder Mystery I wrote back in summer of 1990...played by Adam A, Grassy, Richy etc. |
| 1996 - Bells Diner / Bristol - Simon P, Frenchy Marie, Djr January: Simon was now living in Montpellier...Bells Diner was a great little place round the corner, amazing food, and it came as no surprise to learn that the chef was young Sky. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Demi B Febuary: I was still working at the Bureau, and had struck up a long-distance friendship with a girl called Demi. She worked at another aspect of the Bureau in Coventry. We talked every week on the telephone and wrote letters every couple of weeks. She had this amaaaazing energetic personality and a deep creative spirit. Finally, after months of correspondance, she paid me a visit in Bristol. It was a perfect night. We cooked dinner in the flat, then headed over to see Simon P... all three of us breezed through several bars around Stokes Croft and bumped into a couple of students near Lakota who were selling three tickets for a gig that was just about to start. "Who's playing?", I asked. "Underworld," they replied. No waaaay! We bought the tickets and bundled ourselves into Lakota for an awesome gig. Demi stayed late into the next day but eventually she had to leave. I remember playing an album by Beloved over and over after she'd gone, feeling really dazed... I felt like I could be falling in love. But, another part of me was determined to focus on working on God Seed. I told myself I couldn't afford to get emotionally involved. I had a game plan in place, I reckoned I would have enough money to afford being able to leave the Bureau around April. It was good timing, as the Bureau suddenly announced it was going through a major restructuring, closing the Bristol office and losing all temporary contracts. |
| 1996 - Cabot Tower / Bristol - Djr, Steve Stalker, Simon P March: it was around this time that Steve Stalker had to move out of Balmoral Mansions... and was in need of a place to stay until he could sort out proper accommodation. So he came to live in the Happy Flat, in the back room, with my computer, Dark Man, on a single matress on the floor. In return for the favour, Steve bought me an album that became an inspirational soundtrack to a whole era, the album was Insides, by Orbital. |
| 1996 - Arnos Vale / Bristol - Matthias P Matthias was just looking and becoming more cool as he got older. I'd been living in Brislington, in the Happy Flat for about 9 or 10 months now. I think it was only around now that I discovered Arnos Vale cemetary... it was literally only a five minute walk away from where I was living, this incredible, rambling, ancient landscape of jutting crumbling headstones and marble crypts. I totally fell in love with the place; this was when I wrote the short stort "Arnos Vale", about the private detective who ends up staking-out a graveyard and discovers he's not the only one watching through the darkness... |
| 1996 - Bristol - Simon P, Vicky Not long after I met Simon (Nov 1994), he started dating a girl called Vicky. So just over a year later, they were still an item. Here they are together, sporting my glasses, the same style I'd been buying for a few years now, ever since getting into King Swamp back in my final months living in Newcastle. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Steve Stalker, Matthias P April: Oh dear. *grins* Steve was living in the Happy Flat and quickly discovered what an utter bastard for practical jokes I was. Matthias, well, he was just getting used to it by now... his pad downstairs didn't have a bath, just a tiny shower, so every now and again he'd come upstairs to use the bath. What's really funny is that Steve's parents came round one day, having travelled down from up North to visit their son... they met me, slightly wired on coffee and ethusiastic to meet them... Steve's dad was a very senior police officer... there was a stack of photos in my flat and Steve's dad started flicking through them... and found both these images in the same pack. I think he was worried. Very worried. |
| 1996 - Pyne Manor - the Gang April: reworking the murder mystery for my sister back in January made me want to run it again for my friends in Bristol. So with much preparation we finally ran it at Simon's parents mansion on the outskirts of Bristol. Starting from the girl in the foreground and working left...
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| 1996 - Pyne Manor - Frenchy Marie, Djr I decided to run away with the cook. |
| 1996 - Bristol Cathedral - Djr April: I loved that jacket, and I loved that bag. Bristol Cathedral... ever since the shit started hitting the fan with Maria back in 1994, I've been coming here when feeling low, or even when feeling great... there's just a lovely atmosphere about the building. |
| 1996 - Bristol - Paige L, Simon P April: Paige had been coming down to Bristol every few weeks from Newcastle. There was a risk of things getting serious... I liked her, but I wasn't in the mood for being serious. Or so I thought. So I knocked things on the head... I hated doing it, because she got upset... but I wanted to be free to enjoy myself, and it was getting close to the day when I'd be leaving the Bureau and I wanted to be able to focus on writing. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Matthias P April: Steve Stalker moved out, having found a great little place on Frogmore Street, right in the city centre... and probably urged by his worried parents. Meanwhile Matthias had discovered cyberpunk, and Marilyn Manson. He bought these incredible "bug-eyes" and used to walk around Brislington with them on, just freaking out the local chav-kids who couldn't understand what kind of person they were being confronted by... and certainly intimidated by Mathias' immense and sardonic confidence. |
| 1996 - Bristol - Djr April: the day arrived. It was time to leave the Bureau. I had a pot of money and a book to write. Or re-write *smiles* I began a regime of catching the #1 bus into town in the morning, going into Jo Cubas cafe, who at that time made the best sandwhiches in the world... it was owned by Sajid, but being managed by Gordaz... a man who exemplified the term "good service". Every day I drank mugs of weak coffee, munched cream-cheese and ham in a cheesy-bap, and ploughed through sheets of paper writing out God Seed, by hand. Two French guys worked there, Philippe Tounadre and David Mazuel... they wondered what the hell I was doing, coming in day after day, building up a stack of hand written sheets of paper... Every afternoon I'd come home and spend hours typing it all up. Something had changed during all those months of not writing, all the books, all the film-scripts, had soaked into me and embedded themselves into my subconscious... for the first time in my life I was writing with real confidence. I had Orbital - particularly the God Seed soundtrack "The Box" I had DREAM INJECTION, which was an incredible compilation of tracks by groups like "Grid Sector Red" and "Haujobb" I had LTJ Bukem, Logical Progression... containing an all time favourite sample: "sometimes life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it." God Seed, in its true form, began to take shape. |
| 1996 - Newcastle - Saira May: I did the 9 hour National Express coach ride back to Newcastle, via Digbeth in Birmingham, and via the Tunnels and Starships role-playing game store... ... Dad met me and drove me home. I was there for a week or so... enjoying the freedom of not having to stay in Bristol because of work. I went into the Tyneside Coffee rooms a lot, mugs of coffee and ham & cheese toasties, a sort of continuity with Jo Cubas cafe I suppose. One day in the Tyneside I walked in, found an empty table, sat down and started pulling out my notes. I looked up and clocked an asian girl with platinum blonde hair and luxuriant eye make-up smiling at me; I smiled back. She picked up her coffee, eased herself out of her chair and came over to my table. Enter Saira into my life. She told me she was waiting to meet a friend. When her friend arrived I was taken aback to find myself shaking hands with a transvestite. Not a problem, I'd seen more than a few in SPANK and other parties... I was introduced to "Kandy". We talked for hours and eventually we all left together, grabbed a ride back to Saira's house. The afternoon was turning into evening and it was one of those delicious moments when you realise the person you find very attractive, is flashing the same signals back at you. However, it appeared Kandy had a similar idea... he might have been a she but he was still into women, and it transpired, he was very much into Saira. The fact Saira had met me that day, by pure random chance, seem to be really fking him/her off. So a kind of surreal Mexican stand-off began... a waiting game, I was waiting for him to leave; he was waiting for me to leave. It got so late he eventually nodded off on the sofa. So, Saira and I were sitting there, on the floor by a fire, chatting and getting closer. We'd barely kissed when we both heard this hiss... a truly hateful sound... we leapt back as if we'd been caught doing something wrong and found Kandy fully awake and glaring at us balefully... Betrayal. That was the emotion being conveyed. There was a brief flurry of activity with Kandy storming out, Saira following, some shouting outside and a slamming front door... then Saira coming upstairs looking really freaked out and let down. This event later became the inspiration for a short story called Killing Kandy. Meanwhile, Saira became a cool girl to party with for the week. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Saira May: back in Bristol, I went clubbing to Lakota... another fantastic Saturday night. And, as usual when heading to Lakota I kept my eyes peeled for the Girl On The Bus. It had been nearly 6 months since I'd seen her in Lakota, dancing on her own at the end of the night, and since I'd bumped into her on the bus a couple days later... There was no sign of her. I was upstairs, in the smaller dance floor, enjoying the tunes there... by myself as usual... a girl comes over a starts chatting. Her name is Saira... I tell her she's the second Saira I've met this month... she tells me she's from Oxford and has nowhere to stay tonight, can she and her friend stay at mine? I look over and see a blonde girl waving at me. Sure! So we drift apart and I have a fab night dancing... and at the end of the night Saira and her mate are waiting for me in the cloakroom. We grab a taxi back to the Happy Flat. We sit up until dawn, drinking mugs of tea and talking about loads of things. I make up the bed in the back room for them, and wish them goodnight (or good morning). Luckily it was raining outside so there was no sunshine to stop me from getting sleep... ...I hear the front door go but I'm too deep into the sleep pattern to get up and investigate. After a while I'm come round aware that there is somebody in my room, in fact, there's somebody right over me. I look up and see Saira, smiling wonderfully, soaked through to the skin... a drop of rainwater runs off her hair, onto her nose and slides off onto my face. Turns out she loves the rain and had gone outside to stand in it...wearing nothing but a skimpy silver satin slip... ...I was kind of delighted because it reminded me of how much I love the rain, and of the times I used to get excited by rainstorms in Jesmond... ... Saira and her friend left the next day, we swapped numbers and Saira came back on her own a few days later. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Michelle Gor. May: I head back to Lakota the following weekend. I'd not been there long, I was walking along the upper balcony that overlooks the main floor... and I see her. The Girl On the Bus. After 6 months of looking and hoping... I hesitate. Jesus...she won't even remember me. I've grown my hair since then and no longer have the goatee beard. I nearly walk away but I can't... I'm looking at her, surrounded by a gaggle of men, and it's like time stops still. I walk over. A guy gets in my face. I just seem to move through him. Everything is in slow motion. I say hello. She turns round, looks at me, and then her face lights up, her eyes go wide, her mouth makes a great big '0' before stretching into a smile and she shouts "Oh my god it's you...where have you been...I've been looking for you for months!" Ohhh my God, I could have floated off the balcony... we didn't talk, she grabbed my hand and we hit the dancefloor. Everyone down there is facing one way, facing the DJ, and we join that crowd... blending into the music ... throwing each other smiles every now and again. And that's how the night was. She'd wander off and come back again. I'd stay on the dancefloor, which was my passion... loving the music and the energy of the people all around me... halfway through the night she comes over and I lean over to her and say "I want to see you again". She grins at me and says with that confidence that was her hallmark, "I know," she reaches over and puts a bunch of keys in my pocket. "Those are my flat keys," she says, "So make sure you don't leave without me." What an amazing feeling. The end of the night came, and I climbed into a taxi with her and her mate Lisa, who was giving me this W-T-F look. Lisa tells me her spa doesn't pick guys up from clubs, and she certainly didn't bring them back home! Home, was awesome, a massive flat in a 1920's apartment building, just off the top of Park Street... the kind of place I could imagine Hercule Poirot. With a cool grey daylight flooding in, we brewed mugs of tea and settled into the front room... Michelle and I sharing a sofa, facing each other with feet meeting in the middle. Lisa was sitting in an armchair giving me even more of this W-T-F look. The first kiss sealed my fate for the forseable future. I fell instantly and madly in love. |
| 1996 - Burnham on Sea - Michelle Gor God Seed was rolling. I spent my days in Jo Cubas, and my evenings typing it all up on the PC, and every few days I'd spent time with Michelle... at first both of us were playing it cool, nothing serious, you know, we're just having fun... but within a few weeks it became a full on relationship and I was probably the happiest guy on Earth. |
| 1996 - Bristol - Michelle Gor Guess where Michelle used to work back in 1994. A nightclub on Park Street. Guess who she used to work with...and detested with a passion. Maria. Small bloody world, Bristol. It transpires Maria was screwing the boss of the nightclub, so would simply stand at one end of the bar all night, whilst the rest of the girls worked their asses off, acting like a Queen Bitch. |
| 1996 - The Happy flat - Michelle Gor I had never been so in love before. Michelle consumed me without actually interfering in me being me... not sure if that make sense, but I was able to be 100% myself and live the life I wanted to live. There were no arguments. No mind games. Just lots of fun. Michelle started reading God Seed at the end of every night, and I've got great memories of those days. |
| 1996 - The Happy flat - Michelle Gor |
| 1996 - Bristol - Matthias P, Kate This is a picture that should be filled with happiness. This is the woman that Matthias should have been with, but instead she was with some bizarre guy called Ed, and life and events meant that they were never ever able to get it together, which is a shame. |
| 1996 - Bristol - Michelle Gor |
| 1996 - Bristol - Djr September 13th: I finished God Seed. It was around August that my writing fund ran out, and I was distraut because I was in a zone I wanted to stay within until I'd finished the book...going out and finding work would ruin all that. Nice Guy Tony stepped in. How much do you need to live? He asked, and when I answered he said, "You finish your book, and I'll pay for you to live." WOW. So I finished it, and a couple days later I found myself facing William Gibson in Waterstones... he was reading from his new novel, Idoru, I think... Michelle was with me, and in my hand I was clutching a funky envelope with the first few chapters of God Seed. After William Gibson finished reading, a long line of people formed, all clutching hardback copies of Idoru for him to sign... my turn came... I stepped in front of the table... he looked at me and I could see him wondering, "where the hell is the book?" I said, "I'm sorry but I can't afford to buy a copy of your book, but, can I be cheeky enough to hand you a sample of mine?" I saw his agent and publicist fluttering feathers and stepping forward. Needless to say, I never heard from him. |
| 1996 - The Ying Yang House - Katie, Matthias P September: after a string of some pretty unstable females, Matthias finally met a really sound, lovely girl called Katie. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Michelle G0r Christmas. I decided to stay in Bristol and spend Christmas with Michelle in the Happy Flat. This is the kitchen, which is as big as this picture. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Simon P, Vicky, Nice Guy Tony Christmas. We were cooking dinner. Simon & Vicky were still and item, and Nice Guy Tony was still a teenager! |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Djr Christmas. It had been three months since I finished God Seed. I had picked up a long-term temping gig working for a national body of social workers... it was a great little job, based in Clifton. I was writing a lot of short stories, and researching ideas for a new story... something with a working title "Living In Flames". I had started the gym (the first time since being 20 and living in Jesmond) and was spending a lot of time at the Arnolfini cafe. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Simon P, Vicky, Djr Christmas. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Michelle G0r, Djr Christmas. This is the front room; I'd bought in a Christmas Tree and Michelle took great delight in decorating it. I was soooooo in love. |
| 1996 - The Happy Flat - Michelle G0r, Djr Christmas. What an amazing year. |