Travel: Van Morrison's Belfast

Snug in my pocket, already well thumbed and consigned to memory, it glows with the promise of riches to be delivered on foot and at leisure the following day. But first, the bus being bang on time at 2pm, I grab a front seat. Our guide, Paul Kane, resembles an eagle, pecking the microphone with his thumb. “Good afternoon, folks. I’m a musician, a guitarist. I also write songs.” The bus is all ears.

Paul talks in a slipstream of pithy facts: “See if the walls in there could talk,” he says with a nod towards the Ulster Hall, “you’d hear them sing.” And then he reels off a list of musicians who have performed there. “In 1971, Led Zeppelin tried out Stairway to Heaven here. It had never been heard before.” It even drowned out a gun battle (a skirmish involving troops and IRA snipers).

Paul’s tour is aimed at devotees of all kinds of everything, from the musings of Van the Man to the sheer pizzazz of Stiff Little Fingers, the rapture of Ash or the plaintive melodies of Snow Patrol. His inclusions praise Belfast crooner Ruby Murray (who has passed into immortality as a slice of rhyming slang as popular in the East End of London as in Scotland), plus the man with the Golden Flute, Jimmy Galway (cue strains of Annie’s Song wafting forth from the bus’s speakers) once we reach Galway’s patch near the docks and cross the meandering River Lagan from west to east.

When the looming cranes of Harland and Wolff pan into view, Kevin, our driver, twists up the volume whilst simultaneously revving the engine to accidentally drown out the husky sore-throat nostalgia of Van himself reciting his sub-poetic On Hyndford Street from the album Hymns to the Silence (1991): "On Hyndford Street where you could feel the silence/ At half past 11 on long summer nights/ As the wireless played Radio Luxembourg/And the voices whispered across Beechie River/And in the quietness we sank into restful slumber in the silence…"

Van’s litany continues: he’s "picking apples" from the railway tracks at the back of Cyprus Avenue, recalling illicit meetings "down by the pylons", or stopping "at Fusco’s for ice-cream", name-checking Orangefield (a courting place), Abetta Parade, the Castlereagh Hills and St Donard’s church with its "six-bells chime".

Belfast’s urban 1960s and 1970s redevelopment, which decimated the working-class redoubts of Shankill and Falls and bulldozed swathes of the north of the city, left the east in decently recognisable shape. As the bus enters Hyndford Street from busy Beersbridge Road, the extended phalanx of terraced houses, give or take a lick of paint, seems mostly unscathed by decades of ageing. We pause at the door of number 125 where a gleaming plaque proclaims its history: "Singer-songwriter Van Morrison lived here from 1945 to 1961." The plaque, unveiled by blues guitarist Buddy Guy (though Van was in town just two days later), left Morrison tetchy, or so it is thought, at such invasion of his privacy.

Paul ignores this unseemly footnote. Instead, Kevin drives us to Cyprus Avenue (made famous on the 1968 album Astral Weeks), barely a hop but also a world away, where the pavements are edged with sycamores and lime trees and the homes are islands of grandeur, caught among shrubs and leafy lawns, guarded by walls and wrought-iron gates. “It was a very mystical place,” Van has said, “a whole avenue lined with trees and I found it a place where I could think.”

Paul’s tour concludes 20 minutes later amid the growl and grit of rush hour, in the heat of the downtown city among green cupolas and spires and modest high rise. There, a street choir of screeching seagulls competes with traffic noise as I pass the City Hall, outside which Morrison performed as Bill Clinton’s warm-up man in 1995, proclaiming the dawn of permanent peace.

It is then that the dream I had some years ago comes back to me, perversely: Van and I are climbing ladders, cleaning windows. “Smell the bakery across the street,” Van says. I sniff. “The place is history,” he says. “The joint’s on fire.” And then his eyeballs melt and run like waxy tears along the contours of his cheeks. Pure lines of sorrow.

Was this a dream of conflagration in the city of Van’s birth? Among the targets of frequent destruction none was more hit than the Europa. Known then as "the most bombed hotel in Europe" and now magnificently refurbished, it is my stay for the night. Here the Clintons chose to sleep during their 1990s visits. Morrison too has been known to bed down here.

From my window I stare across at the City Hall’s domes and shipyard cranes, then gaze below to where the Crown Liquor Saloon is attracting a stream of tourists in search of its famous Victoriana and its Guinness.

That night I eat at the Mourne Seafood Bar in Bank Street – the Mourne Mountains and the southern County Down fishing ports of Ardglass and Annalong being among the teenage Morrison’s most inspirational places. Nearby is High Street where, at number 69, in the 1960s, Atlantic Records became a magnet for the young Van to browse at weekends. Today on its plot stands a bargain superstore. And not far from the Europa is the location of the Maritime Hotel in College Square North (a plaque marks the spot), where Van performed with his group Them. Half a mile away, in a room above a bike shop at 77 Great Victoria Street, the group staged early rehearsals. Alas, the bike shop too is long gone.

On my second day, the Europa’s delicious banquet of a breakfast sets me up for a morning of footslog. Buoyed by the sunshine, I wear my signature Van the Man shades, narrow brimmed hat and Belfast hunch as I cross the short distance to Donegall Square, boarding the number 19 bus opposite Danske Bank, for the journey back to the Vanlands, disembarking at Bloomfield Road.

South lies Hyndford Street and, next to it, Greenville Road, site of Stewart’s bakery (torched in my dream and featured in Morrison’s Cleaning Windows). To the north, a hop and a skip away, lies bosky Cyprus Avenue.

I pause first at Van’s house on Hyndford Street, admiring its bijou window box, then head straight to Beersbridge Road. There I turn left towards Elmgrove Primary School whose pupils appear on the video of The Healing Game. The playground affords a glimpse of the Connswater stream (Van’s "Beechie River"), immortalised as a track on Inarticulate Speech of the Heart (1983). A more recent development, a nature route known as the Greenway, chases the stream and harbours "the Hollow" known to fans of Van’s mega seller, Brown Eyed Girl ("Hey, where did we go, days when the rains came ...").

For over an hour I stroll through these backstreets of red-brick, two-up two-down, houses, built to accommodate the skilled workforce who manned the factories, rope works and shipyard through the 19th and 20th centuries. Back on the Greenway, I pitch my jacket on the grass of Orangefield Park: "On a gold autumn day/ You came my way in Orangefield" (one of Van’s finest opening hooks). Here, on this sunlit summer’s morning, groups of mothers are wheeling children. I lie on my back, stare at the sky through my darkened glasses and pat my paunch. Might someone mistake me for The Man? Not if I sing!

Feeling peckish from all that reclining, I head directly to Beersbridge Road. During Van’s boyhood the road was peppered with grocers and butchers shops, sweet shops, fruiterers, a milk bar and a supper saloon (Davey’s Chipper). I lick my lips. A pastie supper would go down a storm. But Davey’s is now a Chinese takeaway. I pass.

So dragging my hunger towards Cyprus Avenue, I think only of the music. To my right is St Donard’s Church where Morrison’s parents wed. And on the corner of Cyprus Avenue a young couple are taking a selfie beside the street sign. Yvette and Guy from Charleville-Mezieres describe themselves as "total" in their devotion. They know nothing about the Mystic of the East Trail. I pass them my copy of the booklet and show them Van, hands deep in his pockets, eyes hidden by shades, Mr Inscrutable, Mr Cool, the trees of the avenue diminishing behind him.

I explain to them how, on August 31, Cyprus Avenue will be sealed. Van will play two special concerts to mark his birthday. “Fans will throng. Some may even climb trees,” I say. “Aah, yes … His big seven-O,” whispers Guy and smiles.

“They are a sell out,” I say. Yvette frowns. “Van never do that! He not sell out.”

The misunderstanding hangs in the air. Guy cottons on. “There will be an album,” he says. “We will buy it.” He gives her a squeeze of consolation and quickly asks if I’ll take their picture. I point the lens. Yvette is smiling again. I click.

TRAVEL NOTES

Getting there 
Easyjet (easyjet.com) has daily return flights to Belfast from Glasgow (from £47) and Edinburgh (from £53).
Where to stay
The Europa Hotel (hastingshotels.com/europa-belfast, 028 9027 1066) has classic doubles from £90 a night.
Where to eat
Mourne Seafood Bar (mourneseafood.com/belfast, 028 9024 8544) has mains from £8.25.
What to do
Take the Belfast Music Tour (belfastmusic.org/music-tour.aspx, 028 9024 6609). Tickets can also be purchased at the Visit Belfast Centre in Donegall Square North. Adults £8, concessions £6 (students and seniors). The next tour takes place on August 29.
Visit the Oh Yeah Music Centre (ohyeahbelfast.com, 028 9031 0845) in Gordon Street to see the Van Morrison exhibit. 
Download the Van Morrison Trail booklet (free) at connswatergreenway.co.uk/vanmorrisontrail. 
Further information
Go to Visit Belfast (see address above) at visit-belfast.com, 028 9024 6609.