Sadly, the dream of life on the open road is not for me

ICANNOT pretend that I haven’t given van life some thought. You say: “A man in your position? Living in a van? Preposterous!” But, actually, I remember people suggesting many years ago that this was something for which I’d be eminently suited.

I just can’t settle down. Don’t fit in anywhere. Free spirit, ken? Irresponsible, useless, childish: I think these were also mentioned.

My wittering thus is occasioned by a BBC Alba documentary, Beatha sa Bhan (Van Life), available on all good iPlayers. It chronicles the trend for folk to do up vans, installing toilets, showers, kitchens and beds, then setting off on the road.

Not all are living long-term in them – most seem just holiday camper van types – but some do, even if they’re mainly young and will settle down in a proper hoose eventually.

However, ultimately, this isn’t for me. I like the idea of being rootless, of fetching up in different places every week, never tying oneself down to them because they – leafy suburb, idyllic-seeming village, little house on the prairie – always turn out to be rubbish and full of problems. With a van, you just take off before any of that can happen.

But I’ve too much stuff to live in a van. I’m chained to my possessions. It’s reprehensible, but there it is. Funny how we can know something is wrong but lack the gumption to change it.

I’ve a two-bedroomed bungalow that’s too small for me: thousands of books, hundreds of DVDs, 13 guitars and associated tomfoolery. Several of the guitars are busted, but I don’t know how to fix them – or anything much at all about guitars, actually – and so can’t sell them.

Lots of people have lots of guitars now where, in the past, they’d make do with one. But the instruments are so much cheaper and playable these days. I bought two brandnew for a total of £170 recently, and prefer them to the

£1,000 one purchased two decades ago that sits dormant with its electronics all nutty. DVDs? I do need the old and obscure ones unavailable on streaming sites, even if I tend to deploy the latter increasingly now.

Books? When I did throw loads of these out, they were mostly thrillers like Michael Crichton and Lee Child. Since then, I’ve discovered they’re the only things, apart from Tolkien, that I re-read. I’ve had to buy them again on Kindle. As for re-reading literary “classics”, crivvens, once was enough.

The vans that folk are talking about aren’t swanky campers, but ordinary, cheap efforts that they’ve converted. But I’d have to get a man in to do that.

Also, unlike most of the women – and van life, as chronicled frequently on YouTube, seems particularly popular with independentminded females – I don’t

think I’d have the skills and confidence to manoeuvre a van. I’ve enough trouble with a small saloon car.

My car reversing five yards is like a drunk trying to walk a straight line.

To park a van I’d need a space the size of a small aerodrome.

In the past, moving house, I’ve hired vans (to take some of the books; removals men hate them), but only the smallest ones available. I’d make two trips of hundreds of miles rather than one in a bigger van.

I wish I weren’t so hopeless sometimes. But I just am. My gravestone will be marked “Fail”. I detest cordially the idea of reincarnation and shall protest it vigorously.

But, forced back hither to this hell, I hope next time it’s as a man with big hairy hands, innate DIY and driving skills, a modicum of courage, and some small semblance of a sense of adventure.

Failing that, I’d settle for being a fop who is heir to a large country house, a cellar of fine wines, and a chauffeur.

Free time

I’VE been listening to the classic album Free Live again. Never thought I’d still be doing this so many decades later. It was either the first album, or one of the first, that I bought.

It’s widely regarded as the best live album ever, rivalled only by Deep Purple’s Made in Japan.

A key component of Free’s sound was Paul Kossof’s guitar playing. His soaring and falling bends can make a grown man greet.

Like Jimi Hendrix and Rory Gallagher, he achieved this by having strong fingers and using heavy strings, which he wobbled aboot with aplomb.

The reason I mention this album concerns the serendipity of songs. Thinking of moving house again, by chance – seemingly; Tolkien believed such things were cosmic design – I find myself listening to songs on that LP called I’m a Mover and Get Where I Belong.

Once, faced with another huge decision about moving, it was the Clash song, Should I Stay or Should I Go?

It’s arguable that many messages of classic rock, and even common pop, have subliminal power.

The writers themselves knew not what they were saying but were mere conduits for some greater force directing our lives.

I’m getting a message in my earpiece. I’m talking tripe again?

Fair enough. But you can’t stop me thinking it.