[BRIGGS] I was standing on a street corner.
A car drew up.
It was him.
He asked me the way to Bolsover street.
I told him, Bolsover street, was in the middle
of an intricate one-way system.
It was a one-way system easy enough to get into.
The only trouble was that, once in, you couldn’t get out.
I told him his best bet if he really wanted to get to Bolsover Street
was to take the first left, the first right, second right,
third on the left,
keep his eye open for a hardware shop,
go right round the square, keeping to the inside lane,
take the second Mews on the right and then stop.
He'll find himself facing a very tall office block,
with a crescent courtyard.
He can take advantage of this tower block,
he can go round the crescent to come out the other way,
follow the arrows, go past two sets of traffic lights
and take the next left indicated by the first green filter he comes across.
He’s got the Post Office Tower in his vision the whole time.
All he’s got to do is to reverse into the underground car park,
change gear, go straight on, and he’ll find himself in Bolsover street:
with no trouble at all.
I did warn him, though,
that he will still be faced with the problem,
having found Bolsover street, of losing it.
I mean I told him I knew one or two people
who’d been wandering up and down Bolsover street for years.
They wasted their bloody youth there.
The people who live there
their faces are grey,
they’re in a state of despair,
but nobody pays any attention, you see:
all people are worried about are their ill-gotten gains.
I wrote to The Times about it.
Life At A Dead End, l called it.
It went for nothing.
Anyway, I told him that probably the best thing he could do
was to forget the whole idea of getting to Bolsover Street.
I remember saying to him, this trip you've got in mind,
drop it, it could prove fatal.
But he said he had to deliver a parcel!.
Anyway, I went to all this trouble with him
because he had a nice open face.
He looked like aman who would do good to others himself.
Normally, I wouldn't give a fuck.