The Big Issue • 6 June 2016 A VERY BRITISH ODYSSEY by Peter Ross

This is is a love story from B-road Britain; Man Half Biscuit songs. That really helped from unsung towns and unsung lives. Roger me.” Green, a 53 year old accountant, lives near He was the youngest man on the whole Pontefract. Karen Carter is a fortysomething stroke ward. A nurse called Joanne, perhaps civil servant from Nottinghamshire. They taking pity, would sit with him for hours on have been together for the last couple of end as he worked his way through the back years, having met during a Half Man Half catalogue. One song, Look Dad No Tunes, B i s c u i t c o n c e r t a t t h e H o l m f i r t h proved a particular challenge; once he had Picturedrome. This bright cold Spring day, cracked that, he knew he had his voice back. is a sort of anniversary; the group having His hobby now is making scale models of returned to the pretty West Yorkshire long-demolished football stadia, and by way village for one of the handful of shows they of thank you, built one of Tranmere Rovers play each year. Bogart and Bergman in for Nigel Blackwell, Half Man Half Biscuit’s Casablanca would always have Paris; Roger enigmatic singer-songwriter. Blackwell and Karen will always have Holmfirth. “Half declared himself “gobsmacked”. Man Half Biscuit,” she says, brooking no argument, “are just the best band in the Mick has a vivid memory of the first time he world.” heard the group. It was not the Road to Damascus, it was the A604 near Kettering, This is a minority view to say the least, but but it might as well have been. This would those who espouse it do so with remarkable have been the mid-1980s, when HMHB fervour. Half Man Half Biscuit, though became, for a few glorious months, the ignored by most of Britain for most of their biggest indie band in Britain, outselling 30-odd year “career”, have developed a even The Smiths. Anyway, there’s Mick hardcore band of travelling supporters who pootling along in his Ford Escort van. “I was buy every record, know all the words, dress coming home from a race meeting at up as characters from the songs, and attend Snetterton, and Annie Nightingale come on every show. These Biscuiteers make even the radio and played Dukla Prague Away the most obsessive Dylan fans, the Bobcats Kit,” he recalls. “I about crashed when I of legend, look like mere dilettantes. Their heard it. I pulled over because I had a real devotion is more akin to that displayed by crap radio and got the best reception I could fans of lower league football clubs, by putting my hand outside and touching struggling along ungritted roads to away the aerial. I thought, ‘God almighty!’ and games in dismal grounds, breath clouding in took the details down by scribbling in the the Bovril air. There’s something very dust on the dashboard.” British about it, something mundanely magical or magically mundane. Man, they’ve All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague got stories to tell. Away Kit is one of the band’s totemic songs. See also: Joy Division Oven Gloves and The Take Mick Bates. He’s 55 and lives in Trumpton Riots. The titles give the Leicester. Mick is in a wheelchair, following unfortunate impression that Half Man Half a stroke and brain haemorrhage he suffered Biscuit are a comedy group. They are funny, twelve years ago. The music of Half Man no question, but they are lots of other things Half Biscuit has been vital to his recovery. “I too – lovelorn, full of scorn, bookish, had lost the power to speak,” he explains. hookish, cock-a-snookish. The songwriting, “That lasted about a month really seriously according to the folk musician Eliza Carthy, then it came back gradually. I was in the is “bitter and very funny, which is very hospital six bloody month. To keep me going English: pathos disguised by wit and and train my voice again, I was reciting Half emotional detachment. It’s like a camera “That is the essential question,” says Nick, flying over the country, zooming in and out; “and essentially we don’t have an answer.” like watching a film of England”. “But,” says Steve, “we’re committed to it Occasionally a critic, swimming against the now. It feels like a very Biscuity thing to do, tide, sticks up a hand and proclaims Nigel doesn’t it?” Blackwell the greatest lyricist working Nick nods. “There’s a real English today. This is not news to fans. The online eccentricity about it. It sometimes feels like Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project (“192 we are characters from one of Nigel’s Pop Songs Picked Over By Pedants”) offers songs.” an ongoing crowdsourced analysis of the references within the 13 albums and four Nigel Blackwell is a whippet-thin, whip- EPs. Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not, for smart man in his early fifties. He lives in instance, quotes from Thomas Hardy, Birkenhead. I meet him, briefly, after the Richard Wagner and the Child folk ballads. soundcheck. A diffident, shaven-headed Irk The Purists, meanwhile, borrows figure in a cardigan, he winced at the melodies from the hymn Give Me Oil In My volume as the band ran through a few songs. Lamp and Black Lace’s Agadoo. He has never given many interviews, and is less inclined to give them as the years go by, This music breeds obsessiveness in those so this is more in the way of a chat. He is who take it to their hearts. Consider Steve puzzled, he explains, that so many people Harman and Nick Dawes. Pals from spend so much of their lives following his London, they have spent the last three and a band from gig to gig. “Don’t they get bored? half years cycling around Britain in an Maybe it’s because it’s a good day out for attempt to visit everywhere mentioned in them, and we’re the not so good bit at the Blackwell’s songs. This project is called Half end.” Still, such loyalty has its advantages. Man Half Bike Kit. They have, so far, Blackwell feels physically sick before going managed 102 out of a total 234 destinations, performing, but when he walks out and sees and hope to have bagged the lot by 2020. familiar faces down the front, it calms him They worry, though, that Blackwell may down. have got wind of what they are doing and started adding in far-flung places just to “I don’t like playing live,” he explains. “I get thwart them. The most recent album nervous and I don’t think we’re that good, mentioned – among other locales – Plockton, and only put up with having to do it so I can Skye, Ullapool and Kirkcudbright, all lovely buy food and pay bills. Scottish spots, none of which are easily “I much prefer to simply write songs and put gettable-to from London. “As well as going them out, but there’s not enough money in to some beautiful mountainous places, we just doing that for me these days so I have to have to go to some absolute shitholes,” says psyche myself up and walk onto a stage to Nick. “We went to Tredegar in South Wales perform. It is not a good state of affairs for and it was terrifying. Everyone stared at us me to be honest but I’m stuck with it as I until we left town. On another occasion, we don’t have the skills to do anything else. I’m got told off for taking photographs outside a not qualified in anything and I am shite kebab house in Swaffham.” around the house. I do not possess any tools I meet Nick and Steve in a country pub just whatsoever and sandpaper sets my teeth on outside Holmfirth. They have spent the day edge. I buy one scratchcard a week and fill crossing the moors. They are both 41 and out a fixed-odds coupon at William Hill’s cheerfully self-aware. “I’m in PR, he works every Saturday morning in the vain hope of for a luxury yacht magazine,” says Steve. landing the big one so that I can be in a “We are exactly the kind of people who situation where I don’t have to arrange would be satirised in a Half Man Half Biscuit concerts. song, and it would be well deserved.” “I am not a gig-goer myself, particularly, and The essential question, I suppose, is why are the terminology and clichés surrounding they doing this? that world fair makes me wince … I always just want to get it all over with and go home as soon as possible. I do, however, endeavour to do the best I can whilst on Retirement beckons. But Blackwell has said stage because people have paid hard earned that if Geoff retires, he, too, will probably money for a ticket and I wholly appreciate pack it in, saying, “I couldn’t do it without that.” you.” So Geoff worries that if he stops, they’ll stop, and as he doesn’t want to This sounds rather more like Eeyore-ish deprive the world of Half Man Half Biscuit, dysfunction than a mulish refusal to he carries on. One senses that Geoff finds conform; can’t not shan’t. Half Man Half some pleasure in his duty. “The feeling in Biscuit are often portrayed as the ultimate the room when the band walk in is just refuseniks; a famous story from their early great. I’m so pleased to be a part of it. I will days has them refusing to appear on The miss it.” Tube because it would have meant missing Tranmere Rovers at home to Scunthorpe There is a tremendous sense of community, United. Blackwell does not like to fly or sail, family even, around Half Man Half Biscuit. so they never play outside Britain, and he The fans are a nomadic tribe. At the likes to get home to Birkenhead after each soundcheck, I meet Jay Coppock, who has show (“Own bog, own bed”) which means travelled up from Maidstone and is leaping that two gigs on the trot are a rarity and about and playing air guitar to Bad Losers touring out of the question. On Yahoo Chess. It’s his 50th birthday this year, he explains, between leaps, and so his Despite this self-sabotage, the band is, wife isn’t giving him hassle about travelling reportedly, more popular than ever. It’s just to so many shows. “It’s payback,” he grins, that their popularity is invisible. Their most “for me going to Strictly Come Dancing recent album, Urge For Offal, topped The Live.” Guardian’s readers poll of 2014, despite h a v i n g n o t b e e n r e v i e w e d i n t h a t Some come from even further afield. Gregg newspaper. Zocchi, a 48 year old wine merchant from New Jersey, flew to Britain, via Barcelona, Nevertheless, HMHB have not been as four years ago; in the morning, he scattered successful as they might have been, a some of the ashes of his brother, Glenn, a frustration that Geoff Davies, who runs the big Beatles fan, in Abbey Road, and then Liverpool record label Probe Plus, has took a train to Oxford to see Half Man Half grown used to since he signed the band in Biscuit. It was, he recalls, “a strange 1985. Well, “signed” isn’t quite right as he’s pilgrimage” – the most rewarding thing he’s never had a contract with them. The ever done in his life beyond getting married relationship appears to be tender, and becoming a parent. avuncular, enabling. Thorsten Köppe, a 47 year old software Geoff is tall, slender and dandyish in a flat developer, thinks he may be Germany’s only cap, red shirt, green trousers and yellow Half Man Half Biscuit fan. The band, jacket, a DIY BFG. He has a strong Scouse remember, never go abroad, so Thorsten has accent. I’d been looking forward to meeting journeyed from Hamburg to Holmfirth for him. When we spoke on the phone a couple his third ever show. “They are special,” he of months previously, I asked whether he says, when asked what makes this band would be with the band in Holmfirth. “Yes,” worth the time and money. “I don’t get a he replied, “if I’m still alive.” This was only quarter of the things they address in their half a joke. He is coming up on 73 and has lyrics, but I can still get the gist. I like their not been well. In May last year, his son, way of extreme understating. They’ve been Stephen, died of motor neurone disease; at flying under the radar for 30 years.” the next HMHB show, in Wakefield, Blackwell dedicated National Shite Day to Thorsten is an anglophile, but his his memory. Geoff, in 2015, missed the only anglophilia is of a particular sort. Not for two Biscuit shows he has missed since the him the red, white and blue of Carnaby 1990s. “I’ve been in this business 50 years,” Street and the Last Night Of The Proms. he says, unpacking merchandise at the back The England he loves is the England of grey of the venue, “and I worry about it more s k i e s a n d b l e a k m o o r s a n d s o c i a l than ever.” awkwardness. He watches Happy Valley, drives an old white Triumph, and is married to a woman who is half-English, which gives He has an important role, Tony, at these gigs h i m a m p l e r e a s o n t o h o l i d a y i n – to stand to the right of Roger Green and Northampton. Thorsten doesn’t believe that protect his note-taking arm from being German culture has the proper balance of barged by moshers. Roger is remarkable for humour and angst to ever produce an his fidelity. The has missed only a handful of equivalent of Half Man Half Biscuit. So no HMHB shows since the turn of the century, Halb Mensch Halb Plätzchen then? and has a 100 per cent attendance record going back to 2008. He plans his holidays “Nee, leider nicht,” he laughs. “Or thank around them and says he would miss a close goodness.” friend’s funeral or wedding in order to Showtime approaches. The Picturedrome, attend, as “mates would understand”. More, an old cinema, has a capacity of around 650 he writes online reviews of all the shows, for and is sold out. All day, Holmfirth, a quaint which he is not paid, and has, to date, town in a steep valley where they filmed penned precisely 101 of these epics. It is Last Of The Summer Wine, has been some years now since he swore his oath of buzzing with Biscuiteers, and now here they fealty. “I could see other mates were getting are, pouring through the doors, like a swift married and having kids, and here I was just half down a parched throat. in this solo world,” he says. “So I made a The regulars take their cherished spots deal with meself not to miss any Biscuit down the front. There’s John, there’s Liz, gigs.” there’s Tony. John Burscough is a retired In fact, he has found love among the GP, known in these circles as The King Of Biscuiteers. He and Karen Carter met at the Hi-Vis after the HMHB song of that name. Holmfirth show in 2014. She had adored He is wearing a searingly yellow tabard over them since she was a teenager, in the a black satin tour jacket with detachable mid-1980s, and heard them on John Peel, sleeves (the title of another song) over a T- but never saw them live until after her shirt bearing a photo of Midge Ure and the divorce. “I was in a relationship with accusatory legend “Milk Thief” (a reference someone who didn’t like them, and didn’t to the refrain of yet another track). John is like me putting them on, and would never here with his “ladyfriend” Elizabeth have come to a gig,” she says. “So when I Stockdale, a retired nurse, whose role is to found myself single, I thought, ‘Stuff it, I’ll wait until the band play Joy Division Oven do what I want now. Not what someone else Gloves and then produce from her bag a pair wants me to do.’” And she took herself off, of said gloves printed with a moody on her own, to a show in Leamington Spa. photograph of that band, the effect ruined Unable to see the Biscuits during her only slightly by the stains from Sunday marriage, she had enjoyed them by proxy lunch. These she puts on and waves around through Roger’s reviews. “I read them and with giddy abandon. thought, ‘God, it sounds brilliant.’ So part of “Ah, it’s great to be in a gang at the age of the reason why I started coming was 58,” says John. because of Roger, never thinking I would “He comes from a family of dresser-uppers,” meet him, never mind thinking I would end Elizabeth smiles, as if that explains up going out with him.” everything, which possibly it does. “Or staying in with him,” says Tony with a Tony Roberts, meanwhile, well what can one waggle of his eyebrows. say? He is 67. He looks like a wizard, or a A lovely story, but sadly there’s not a member of Wizzard, and he hails from moment to hear more. The house lights are Birmingham way. HMHB are the best live fading, Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue is band he’s ever seen. The Beatles ran them striking up, and the band are coming on. close, as did Cliff And The Shadows, and Time for a last word from Roger Green. He Springsteen might have done, “but he went cannot explain his obsession; all he knows is on a bit”. Tony goes to all the shows. “My that this is how he wants to live his life. “If life,” he declares, “is football, morris there’s a better night out to be had,” he dancing and Half Man Half Biscuit.” laughs, “tell me about it and I’ll do that instead.”