Manchester

• 

Guy Garvey enjoys a not-so-quiet pint

So I'm sat in the Ape & Apple with Geoff (you know Geoff), and he tells me this story from a few years ago, when there was a C&A on Oldham Street and he used to go shopping there with his mam. Rather than wait by the changing rooms while his old dear struggled with her corsets, he‘d park himself in a doorway opposite the fruit and veg barrows and have a cig.

One busy Saturday afternoon, Geoff’s in his usual spot watching the world go by, without a thought in his head, when the sales squawk of a ruddy-faced barrow boy comes to his attention.

FAAAHHKIN’ BIG PLUMS!’ Geoff’s unsure what he’s just heard. He listens closer. ‘FAAAHHKIN’ BIG PLUMS!’ ‘Nah,’ thinks Geoff. ‘Can’t be.’ But he wanders over anyway. The barrow boy clocks the look on his face and grins. And then, just for Geoff’s benefit, he ups the volume.
‘FAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHKIN’ BIG PLUMS!’
None of the shoppers bustling by bat an eyelid.

‘Am I hearing you right?’ says Geoff. ‘Yeah,’ he replies. ‘I've been shouting it for months and you’re the first person to ask.’ Geoff and this bloke have a laugh, but he doesn’t buy any plums. Turns out they weren’t really that big after all.

I muse that it must be funny to shout for a living. Geoff points out that, being a singer, I kind of do. I wonder if he’s gently taking the piss. But according to Geoff, in Northumberland, ‘shouting coal’ is slang for singing. The phrase apparently originates from the cries that miners made when they discovered a fresh seam, and is now most often heard in pubs after hours if you want to invite someone to do a turn (‘Can you shout coal, lad?’).

I point out that singing isn’t really shouting. I sing for pleasure and happen to get paid for it (except when I don’t). This isn’t the same as just belting it out, although I do concede that there are people who shout purely for pleasure. Geoff looks perplexed.

The ‘C’mon Tim!’ lot at Wimbledon, I explain, tend to be solo artists. But the singing of football crowds are worthy of a whole anthropological study. For a start, there’s the choirmaster that starts them off: is he self-appointed or is he chosen by the other fans? Why do you never see learners, either reading off lyric sheets or making mistakes with the actions? And if you’re part of a crowd, it’s essential to be indistinct… except on Merseyside, where you can hear every word the crowd are singing once you’ve got your ear tuned in to the accent. Are they aiming for clarity, or is it just a happy accident?

Geoff bemoans the dwindling number of louder-the-better shouting professions: drill sergeants, stock exchangers, pre-focus-group MPs, cattle auctioneers, foremen. When Geoff’s granddad worked on Salford docks, the foreman’s nickname was ‘the Lenient Judge’ on account of him regularly having to shout ‘Let that buoy go!’

Newspaper vendors are mentioned, and I tell Geoff about my favourite, a little old man who sells the Evening News in Victoria station. Wearing a flat cap and bottle-bottom specs, he’s always chewing gum. His well-practised, loud-but-not-jarring holler sounds like ‘YENK HAY-HELL!’ but is, of course, ‘Pink Final’.

Last November, I sprained my ankle quite badly, and I was hobbling (late for something, no doubt) at speed and on a stick through the station. Like most men, I’m shit at being injured or ill: I was full of self-pity, cursing my drunken acrobatics under my breath and wincing theatrically with every limp. As I passed a paper stand, this chap breaks from his call for a second and, in a broad Manc accent and an encouraging tone, says, ‘How are yer, kid? Yer winnin’?’ Inflated by the Blitz spirit, I cheerfully reply. ‘Getting there, pops.’

As simple and short an exchange as it is, I felt my mood lift. Such public-spirited comments and considerations seem a lot more common in older people. They’re the kindnesses that tack a community together and can alter the course of your day. My hero was peddling horror-story headlines while simultaneously dispensing love-in pleasantries, winks and whistles. If only there were more were like him…‘Er,’ says Geoff, cutting me off in mid-sentence. ‘Before you start shouting the odds, shout ’em in. I’ll have a pint of mild.’


Guy Garvey is the lead singer of Elbow, a DJ on Xfm and the Duke of A&R at Skinny Dog Records.

• Did you find this useful? Yes No
• 

---