Mindful of the unpredictable nature of fortune, Gerry’s new-found income as a musician did not distract him from other avenues of earning potential. A visit to a friend and former supermarket colleague who now ran the number-plate shop at a local motor factors proved very profitable when, after making the tea, placating an irate customer and locating a missing item he was adjudged to be sufficiently useful to deserve a Saturday job which he accepted with the proviso that he be allowed to leave early in order to travel to his latest gig.
A new and further unexpected development arose when tiring of the quiet tyranny of his horticultural master, Burt Mee, he became aware of a part-time position at a petrol station in Toddington, the village where he would visit Dietmar. The local car-sales lot had two rather ancient petrol pumps and the job was to serve the passing motorists and local account holders with their fuel and oil needs and, as he was to discover, meet the endless demands for coffee from the junior partner Mr. Burdon. The interview consisted of calculating the price of four gallons of four-star petrol - then thirty-seven-and-a-half new pence per gallon - which the hitherto mathematically challenged Gerry answered quickly and correctly as one-pound fifty. He was instantly installed into a position which he then understood was not much sought after as he learned the sullen and despotic ways of his employer. Lengthy periods of inactivity on the infrequently visited forecourt would be interrupted by pointless tasks - such as the washing, polishing and valeting of the rusting and worn-out but over-priced hulks that stood forlornly on the carefully swept car lot - designed only to confer his employer’s authority and status. Gerry would complete the days roster of tasks whilst dealing with the regular and passing customers in between coffee making duties which would elicit not even a glance of recognition from his taciturn boss as he pored over the records of sales and shuffled log books behind his tatty desk from whence he would spring into action like an ageing praying mantis at the first sign of what he uniformly referred to as ‘punters’.
The long ride up the steepest hill in the area didn’t deter Gerry nearly as much as the boredom and poor wage he received for the Sunday morning shift and the daily cash-up he had to perform in a long-winded and entirely questionable accounting procedure before handing-over to another local boy and nearly caused Gerry to quit prematurely before he made his remarkable discovery. The petrol pumps themselves - one four star and the other three star petrol - were not of the latest design though mercifully they were electrically powered. In order to operate them, which all customers of the time expected, Gerry had to manhandle the pump out of its aluminised holster, and turn a separate handle - which was about fifteen centimetres in length - a half turn which engaged the motor. As the handle turned it brought up shutters which concealed the reels of digits on the pump which displayed both the volume of petrol delivered (in gallons and quarts) and the amount the customer would then be required to pay (according to the currently prevailing price). The nozzle of the pump could then be placed into the filler opening of the car’s tank and as the reels began to turn invisibly beneath the shutters the shutters themselves would drop and reveal the rotating numbers. For some reason best known to its manufacturers the shutters would only reveal the quantities and price of the delivered fuel-load part-way into the process. Gerry could never understand why this concealment and later reveal of the pump's contents had been deemed appropriate by its designer but he soon learned an accidental benefit to this odd facility. The pump was not easy to operate and Gerry’s slight build and puny arms would struggle to reholster the nozzle as he was required to return the handle to its original starting position. The result was that when he next flipped the handle into the on position it failed to ‘zero’ the counter, leaving the previous delivery of a gallon on the now hidden reels. His next delivery of three gallons was therefore only two gallons and when the unquestioning customer paid without protest Gerry was left with a small surplus of cash to account for during the dreaded cashing-up procedure.
In between fending off Mr. Burton’s latest demand for a caffeine infusion he ran out of time to explain or account for this genuine mistake and, in an attempt to solve the problem, pocketed the spare cash, knowing that the readings for the pumps, at least in terms of fuel delivered, would be correct in the days cash-book. On his way home Gerry mused at his profit from the day and quickly calculated that he had in fact discovered his own oil-well, full with possibilities and perhaps even more potentially lucrative than the cigarette-machine scam. Slowly and with carefully measured scrutiny of the customers responses, Gerry introduced his new scheme, confident that were anyone ever to notice he could easily blame the pump for its eccentric behaviour, but no-one ever complained or even noticed. He took care to leave only the small deliveries un-zeroed on the pump and only to add his ‘tax’ to the owners of expensive cars who required a minimum of four gallons but more often much larger deliveries into their waiting tanks. He figured that if they were to check their actual consumption, a less than likely occurrence in pre-Opec days, they would see it as an aberration in the car’s performance, and so he was therefore careful not to repeat the ruse on the same customer, at least initially.
The scam worked like a dream and Gerry began to look forward to his Sunday stints when he would emerge loaded with cash, once almost forgetting to collect his wages such was his new found surplus. He was careful not to discuss this with anyone and his regular gigs paid so well that no-one questioned the source of such wealth which, when combined with his Saturday job and musicians pay exceeded many working men’s weekly wages. When the Saturday shift became available Gerry informed Dietmar who, having expressed a desire for some quick cash agreed that a hundred metre walk was within his range, and Gerry quickly inducted his friend, to whom he was grateful for the generosity with the amplifier, into the job and scam all at once. He was certain that Diet would not be tempted to poison the well of their now mutual good fortune, with any excessive plundering of the pumps or customers and together they began to enjoy the benefits of their now shared oil-well, undetected by employer or customers alike. They were the modern day Clampit’s and the refined black gold that emerged from their doctored pump seemed like a direct portal into the mother vein of fossil fuels into which they were now comfortably and firmly tapped.
Gerry had noticed from his previous experiences how trust can make and mar a relationship. He noted how all relationships improved as trust was built up but how that self-same trust also become a burden to those thus indebted. He and Dietmar were friends at school and shared a quixotic view of the world they now so confidently inhabited. Dietmar’s short sojourn - he quit when he had made his target for cash to buy a brand new colour television, the object of his desire for money in the first place - after only two months, having carefully calculated the extent and volume of his fraudulent fillings, entirely satisfied with the transaction between the two friends. However, it was what he did next that drove a wedge between their burgeoning friendship.
Gerry arrived early that Sunday, aware that he was required to train the ‘new boy’ in his duties. He was more than a little shocked to learn that the boy proposed by Dietmar - to the employers who had greatly liked the unusual boy - was none other than Ralph Ireland-West. Gerry had maintained some relations with Ralph since his move to Toddington but their friendship had cooled considerably since the looting of the cigarette machine. He greeted him in a friendly enough manner and set to showing Ralph the duties and processes required to perform the job. No word or hint of the pump scam passed his lips and Gerry suspended all swindling activities for the day, certain that Ralph could not be trusted with the secret of the scam, and equally certain that should he learn of it the single ‘well’ of Gerry’s genius would become so over-exploited within a day that Ralph would become a weekend millionaire but put paid to the scam forever. Ralph’s sneering grin should have alerted Gerry to what lay ahead.
Within days Ralph had taken to adding substances so noxious to Mr. Burdon’s coffee that were the victim of these evil concoctions ever to have learned of it - Castrol GTX, RedeX additive and animal faeces were amongst the dreadful ingredients - the Police would have immediately been involved. Uneasy though this made Gerry it was the chance discovery that he had made and which for all he knew Ralph was about to that haunted Gerry’s waking moments. The tension and uncertainty combined with his other sources of relative affluence proved too great and fearing mass apprehension of the culprits, himself particularly, Gerry decided to quit whilst the going was good. It proved to be a prescient moment. Ralph had pried the secret from Dietmar and the train was rolling inexorably toward the buffers as customers limped off the petrol station forecourt with virtually empty tanks having paid to be ‘filled-up’. A few short weeks after Gerry reluctantly left the filling station it closed its doors forever in the wake of a weights-and-measures investigation, brought about by incensed motorists who had run out of gas within miles of leaving the forecourt having paid for a full tank. Ralph had ran the well dry yet again, but at least Gerry was beyond the scrutiny of the government’s investigators as they set about ransacking the offices for clues to Ralph’s wanton plundering. No-one was implicated in the end when it transpired that Mr. Burdon’s accounting procedures had violated Custom’s and Excise regulations to such an extent that even Ralph’s greedy and insatiable appetites were considered mild by comparison. Gerry had got out in the nick of time, and he knew it. Dietmar apologised for the indiscretion, which Gerry readily accepted, knowing full well the dangers of such an association were not easy to anticipate, even with a mind like Diet’s, who learned much from the encounter with the mad copper’s son.
Gerry’s luck, not having run out entirely, then presented another unexpected opportunity. A petrol filling station in Wykeham was currently seeking a pump jockey and when Gerry applied he - and his unsuspecting employers - were overjoyed with the boys immediate knowledge and familiarity with their rather outdated petrol pumps. They were exactly the same model as those Gerry had so recently bade a sad farewell to in Toddington! His new boss, a South African émigrée who spoke Swahili when angry, was great. Although possessed of a slightly irascible nature with an explosive temper, Humphrey Butler had an energy that Gerry liked, and he liked Gerry. Whilst Humphrey would tinker around in his mechanics shop, emerging black and flecked with underseal for a very occasional cup of tea, he would simply leave Gerry to serve the customers, count the cash and fill in the accounts sheets at the end of each day. Gerry quickly built excellent relationships with all of the regular customers and would spend his hours between serving at the busy petrol station learning to play the latest drum rhythms from his favourite songs on the Formica topped counter in the office. Chastened by his previous near-miss Gerry felt such a regard for his employer that he never once exploited the petrol pumps potential for easy money and in any case his three jobs were now proving so lucrative he no longer felt the need to resort to nefarious activities which inevitably seemed to attract the attention of Ralph Ireland-West whom he now regarded as a parasite of the worst sort. At school they barely spoke and on a school coach trip Ralph had actually tried to intimidate him with physical threats which Gerry had laughed off but not forgotten. Somewhat estranged by Ralph’s excessive appetites, Gerry moved in very different circles now and too much water had passed under their respective bridges, much of it tainted by Ralph’s extremity and rapaciousness.
Gerry wasn’t entirely satisfied with his musical direction, playing working men’s clubs and pubs on the cover band circuit, and although the money was regular and well-paid he sought new musical challenges as 1971 revealed to him the talents of David Bowie in the form of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. He and Glenn would listen repetitively to what quickly became their latest obsession and then try to deconstruct the tunes, rhythms and melodies of their latest idol. The boys formed their own band with another friend Tom Andrews who owned a rather less than magnificent drum kit. His father however, a local businessman who touted the products of an ‘art-studio’ had an art studio in which they could rehearse. It wasn’t a great meeting of musical minds and led to quite a few fallings out between the two brothers due to musical differences and sibling rivalry. Glenn, who considered himself the most experienced of the three, refused on principal to defer to Gerry in spite of them both understanding that Gerry was the more seasoned musician with many live performances now under his belt. Gerry was never to know how irksome it must have been for his older and equally accomplished brother to have to watch idly from the audience as cheering crowds turned out to watch the child prodigy climb onstage with his outsized instrument and sing and play with apparent ease the popular songs of the sixties and seventies. Gerry’s diminutive stature alone seemed to arouse excitement in the crowd and his ability to perform without nerves in front of any audience left Glenn shifting uncomfortably with simmering resentment as his own talents went unlauded. The chance to redress this as leader of the new band turned Gerry’s older brother into an unsympathetic figure and with his new red-headed girlfriend adding her futile and derisive comments from her seat in the rehearsal room, arguments and disputes smouldered uneasily preventing the progress that Gerry had become used to in his business-like dealings with other musicians. A fierce dispute over repertoire was hurriedly concluded one evening with Glenn stomping toward the exit, guitar slung over his shoulder and amplifier in hand. Sadly Glenn had failed to unplug the power cord from the socket and as he reached the full extent of his dramatic exit he was arrested by the cord, much to his younger brother’s hilarity who he then thumped in the head. It was the end not only of The One-Eyed Gods but their joint musical adventures which thereafter occurred in increasing isolation from one another. Gerry benefited more from this division and his older brother would never again feel comfortable on stage in what he had come to feel as an uneven competition. Gerry, who continued to respect his brother’s immense knowledge of musical theory, tried, unsuccessfully, on many occasions to mend the rift but the glass was broken and their respective musical ambitions took entirely different courses, not without resentment and rivalry. For Gerry, as ever, one door closed and several more opened.
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