Seven Years with Banksy (10 page)

‘A mile or so.’

With that, we downed our glasses and stepped out into the dark, damp night stoked up with a sense of fun and adventure. I scanned the streets but there was no sign of my little mugger. Long
gone, I thought. Nasty bastards don’t usually have many friends and besides, he was probably tucked up in bed at home by now.

We walked at pace through Paddington and approached the park from its south side near Marylebone Road. The entire park was ringed with elegant, viciously spiked Victorian iron fencing that came
almost up to my neck. All the gates were locked, of course, but we hadn’t thought of that due to the spur-of-the-moment nature of the decision.

‘Shit’ we all seemed to say and our breath was visible in the damp cold night.
We looked around, over our shoulders, and decided to hoist each other over the
fence. Needless to say, Robin was exceptionally nimble and was over in a flash. Jesse and I had a few problems but over we went and immediately started to tramp the distance to the zoo at the north
end of the park.

While I was taking a piss against a giant chestnut tree a police patrol vehicle passed by some way off. We looked at each other and continued on and eventually the zoo perimeter became visible.
It was a weeknight so things were quiet all around. We knew we were breaking some trespass law – as described in great detail on a Victorian plaque on the imposing iron fence – so we
were stealthy and silent. Finally we arrived at the zoo’s perimeter and could see some of the cages and enclosures with their beasts stirring inside. Some of them made nocturnal whooping
calls and noises from time to time but otherwise the place looked pretty sleepy.

‘What are we going to do?’ I enquired. We decided that it was best for Robin to go in on his own considering he was a master at this kind of thing, and he soon
found a good spot from which to hop over the wall. Jesse and I hung out behind a tree, relishing the darkness in the middle of the city and the silly caper we had embarked upon, warmed by ale. We
waited maybe twenty minutes before Robin reappeared through the gloom and rejoined us.

We were full of whispers: ‘Did you find it – I mean them, the penguins?’

‘Yeah, and the bears.’

‘Did you see anybody?’

‘No, but it’s a big place.’

We didn’t have time to get into conversation and made our way back over to the outer circle of the park. We were a hundred yards or so from the fence when we spied a vehicle slowly
circumnavigating the park. That put a spring into our step, and we charged up to the spiked fencing.
Robin was over in a snap; we leapt for the rails and as Jesse was going
over one of the spikes caught the seat of his trousers and did their worst. ‘Fuck!’ he shouted as he sprawled on the pavement to the sound of ripping cloth.

The city traffic rushed before us. There was no blood spilt at any rate. ‘Fuck, I only bought these trousers last week!’ Jesse said, inspecting the irreparable damage of a
twelve-inch tear. We sympathized. ‘I don’t care, that’s the most fun I’ve had in ages!’ he said.

We hung there for a few breathless minutes. Finally Robin spoke: ‘Which way is south?’ It was the opposite direction to where Jesse and I were heading, so we parted company. We
walked north to Camden and recovered with cups of tea back at Jesse’s place.

It was just a few months later that year that the
Evening Standard
carried the improbable tale of an intruder painting
cryptic sentences in several enclosures at
London Zoo including ‘We Are Bored Of Fish’ on the penguin compound. Whether he got into the bears’ quarters remains uncertain, but it reminds me that he always had an ongoing
concern for animals.

We were in 2002 now, and when I saw Robin again I knew he had been busy. I was beginning to see him mentioned more and more in the press. The mainstream
papers were picking up on his street popularity. All of this was just the beginning: it was attention that was only set to grow and grow. He never mentioned any of this. His ego hardly seemed to
exist. I would hear stuff about him from folks that had never met him. He was becoming a subject of common conversation in the pubs, on the terraces, in the streets. People felt they had some kind
of claim on him just because they liked his stuff and its messages.

When I saw him again there was no hint whatsoever of any of this hubris around him. He just started to ramble on about his latest ideas, one of which was painting animals. Farm animals.

‘I’ve got a mate, down in Somerset, a farmer, and he’s all right with me using his animals,’ he said.

‘What for?’ I asked, genuinely baffled.

‘To paint on. I’ve found this completely harmless paint in all colours.’ I just looked at him. ‘Well, it’s like rural graffiti. If you live in the city you paint
the side of a bus or a train and you see your tag all across town, don’t you? So if you’re from the countryside your options are limited. So you can paint the animals. Then you see your
tags all over the fields.’

I thought this was improbable craziness. ‘Are you sure about this? What about the animal rights people?’ I ventured.

‘The animals aren’t going to know any different when they’re painted. It’s not like I’m killing them to eat,’ he replied.

I listened on. It was nuts and only something he would think of and then carry out. I knew by now that his ideas were never hyperbole. I also wondered who was going to understand it.

It was a short while later that pictures began to appear of cows with ‘Wild Style’
classic tags on them. The cows seemed fairly nonchalant about their new coat
of colours as they meandered across clover meadows in deepest Somerset. The pigs had some work done on them and the sheep sported some incongruous efforts on their sides too. It was an odd
juxtaposition that must have been best appreciated if you were on a country outing and got taken by surprise at the sight of a painted beast.

Predictably, animal rights people were outraged but, by all accounts, the local country folk loved it. Urban culture meets rural culture at long last!

Well, truth on the side of one is still the majority and that’s the template that Robin had set for himself. Taking the basic premise that free expression and free speech are the
cornerstones of any democracy he had become a brilliant exemplar of that. Along the way he was becoming a people’s champion too. An everyman’s champion to the degree that some elements
who had
previously thought they owned him began to chastise him for becoming too popular. It was all grist to the mill and he could clearly see through it all and continue with
his journey, which won’t stop. He’s too swift to get caught on details and mental trips. Never complain, never explain; do it clean. No allegiance, no betrayal. And on.

His friendship and his story were like a thread running through the web of my life. I was moving in my own direction. I was engaged to be married to Johanna and that would entail upping sticks
and moving to Stockholm to settle down. It was a good place to have a couple of kids. Johanna and I could’ve stayed in Bristol but I decided otherwise.

Subsequently I started to wind things up. I was increasingly out of touch with Robin. I heard about him from friends and acquaintances.

I heard how he was going over to Chiapas, the southern state of Mexico where
the Zapatistas had, and continue to have, a sustained people’s revolution. I heard that
from some Easton boys I occasionally played football with, who themselves used to go over there and play with the locals and get educated on how to turn the streets of Easton into an Autonomous
Zone.

The news that he was going to Chiapas delighted me as obviously his political sensibility was sharpening. I was jealous of him, I suppose. In the past I had trodden similar paths. But I was
older than him and ultimately I relished his youth, his freedom. I was excited for him as well because I knew he had a singular path to tread. That is what makes life a truly unique experience.
Each to his own.

Jesse had invited me up to London to see him for a while before I tied the knot. It was 2003. All the preparations for the wedding in Stockholm were set; I just had to get over there for the big
day. I hadn’t been in touch with Robin recently; he
was off my radar it seemed. I’d been busy studying and taking exams too.

It was early evening as I mooched up to Kentish Town, a warm spring evening. Birds were in full evensong, especially the blackbirds, perched on rooftops, serenading me as I approached
Jesse´s door. I knocked and he answered but he didn’t let me in straight away.

‘Hey, aren’t you early?’ he said.

‘No, I don’t think so.’ We hadn’t really arranged a time.

‘Ah, I forgot to get some brews. Do you mind just going down the street and picking some up?’ he said, and he put some money in my hand.

‘Yeah, yeah, sure – no problem.’ As I reversed my tracks I thought he was being more finicky than usual about the time I’d arrived but I set off on the errand
nonetheless.

When I returned he was much more welcoming and beckoned me inside. I walked
his long hallway to the living room, and as I rounded the corner I was taken aback. There were
two geezers standing there, one short, one tall, with pillowcases on their heads. ‘What?!’ I said.

‘Ta Daah!’ The two figures ripped the pillowcases off and it was Jack and Kes, the firefighter. I was quick to embrace them as they welcomed me and out of the corner of my eye I
noticed some movement through the French doors out on the patio. Someone was coming in from the garden. It was Robin and he entered the room with a rolled-up print in his hand.

‘Hey, what’s up? How are you?!’ I exclaimed and I was genuinely surprised to see him. Jesse must have got in touch with him. How nice. How cool. How good to see him, and of
course the others too. It hadn’t crossed my mind why Jesse wouldn’t let me in straight off when I arrived. Now I realized the surprise he had planned for me.

Beers were cracked, the boys were
boisterous, stories related, friends berated and a few others showed up to join the party. An impromptu surprise stag party for little old
me. It was an honour and a privilege to be amongst these friends.

Robin took me aside and gave me the rolled-up poster. ‘Wedding present,’ he said.

‘Aw, thanks,’ I replied as I took it. All the boys looked on as I unrolled it. It was a red background with the stencil of Queen Victoria, full of pomp, mace in hand, sitting astride
the face of a nubile young lady dressed in stockings and suspenders. The boys in unison were full of cries of, ‘Woah!’, ‘Yeah!’, ‘Nice one’.

‘Ah, fuck, that’s great, man,’ I said to Robin who was standing by. ‘It’s one of my favourites! I see this one all the time up by the Kingsdown steps,’ I
continued. I could see he knew exactly where I meant even though this image must have gone up a hundred times and more in many different locations. He could see I genuinely liked it.

I was so pleased to see him and flattered to be given one of his pieces. My heart was in my throat. We looked at each other for maybe a moment too long. I said, ‘What
should I do with it?’

‘Stick it up in your toilet, or something.’ he said, and we fell back to the beers and the boys. It was getting ever more raucous.

The drink, even though there had been plenty of it, was running out so we had to do a beer run. It was late by now so one of us had to rush to the off-licence. I elected to go myself and stepped
out onto the dark streets and moved off in the direction of the main drag up ahead. I had a chance to take in the occasion and its significance and to absorb the surprise. My steps were light as I
tripped along under the trees, full of a beer-glow. It made me feel good that this collection of blokes were happy to wing me onwards to the woman of my choice. I went back quite far with them and
it counted for something, and the fact that Robin was there made it all
the better. He seemed to be getting on pretty well with them all.

When I got back, laden down with ale, I was met with cheers. The place seemed to be in uproar. I stood in the living room while Jesse took the beers for the fridge. Robin was in the centre of a
little ring of animated lads saying he would take on the hardest man there in an arm-wrestling competition. Most of the boys looked on, dumbfounded. He was West Country, deliberately stirring it.
Kes, who was the hardest – and looked it – was getting riled and took him up on the provocative offer.

Robin was winding up the whole party just for the fun of it. The ring tightened and battle commenced to roars of support and good humour. They locked fists at the table and the game was under
way. Robin put all he had into it and so did Kes and the game went on for some time before Kes finally got Robin’s arm down flat. ‘Fuck,’ Robin uttered while the spectators
rejoiced. Game over.
This silliness set the scene for even more revelry, as the ice was now well and truly broken.

I was being grabbed and lectured, and given some righteous ‘matey’ wisdom from all present bar Robin, who wouldn’t presume to have any such wisdom to impart. More ale was
cracked open and supped into the small hours.

Jesse, who was by now DJ Shadow’s manager, interrupted the conversation to show Shadow’s latest video. It was a fast-paced trip to the track ‘Mashin’ On The
Motorway’. We all agreed it was good, apart from Robin. At this point Jesse took his moment to ask Robin if he would consider doing some art for Shadow. Shadow was good, we all knew that, and
he was at the top of his game. The question hung in the air for a while. All eyes were on Robin. After some consideration he said, ‘I’d rather cut off my right arm than be involved with
that.’

It suddenly went very, very quiet.

‘What the fuck is it with you?’ I said under my breath. He didn’t retract the remark, he didn’t say anything, but suddenly, somehow, everybody
started to laugh. It was such an extreme thing to come out with under the circumstances it could only be his humour. The boys looked around at each other and nodded, all thinking the same thing:
‘This kid is a fucking maverick.’