Random Acts of Senseless Kindness Never Go Unpunished

RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS KINDNESS NEVER GO UNPUNISHED

AL STOKES

RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS KINDNESS NEVER GO UNPUNISHED a stroll through the random memories of a man who spent 20-years working in the motion picture and journalism trade Copyright Š Al Stokes 2013 Al Stokes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be indentified as the author of this work.

This book is available subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be downloaded and be hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AL STOKES was born into an era of steam trains, when there was a King on the throne & rationing, brought up in Greenford, Middlesex (UK).

He escaped a poverty stricken background and in that wonderful psychedelic year of 1967 appeared in Anne Jellicoe’s stage play The Rising Generation at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

In 1968 Al joined the BBC Film Department as a trainee at Ealing Studio.

After five years at the Beeb, learning the craft, Al left to go freelance as an editor and eventually, after a series of strange misadventures which included a spell as war correspondent, he became a film director.

In the 1990’s Al went back to acting and appeared in a number of Hollywood films, TV dramas and MTV promos.

Claim to dubious fame: Al was the screaming creature in Chris Cunningham’s 1997 Aphex Twin, Come To Daddy promo.

In 2002 art school beckoned for a late degree to upgrade his analogue film making skills to digital. He got a 2:1, whatever that is?

Currently he lives in leafy Norwich in his band The Trolley Men. “People keep telling me I’ve had an interesting life. I’ve always taken that to mean I’m an unemployable hippie. Anyone calls me a hippie, I’ll nut ‘em.”

Al Stokes 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: IN THE ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME

page 1

with thoughts of: looking back, childhood, theatre of the absurd, the last long summer holiday, at the bbc, january 2012, those wonderful W12 8QT days, plant a tree in ’73 and 2013, sad regrets

CHAPTER 2: WAR CORRESPONDENCE

page 35

CHAPTER 3: LEARNING THE CRAFT

page 80

for’in parts, the war of 1973, the light on the road from damascus, dera’a and the lost suit, city of my wildest dreams, and the world fell away, back in the world and the lump

a right pen and ink, cutting a film in a suit, the big white house, studio hamburg 1975 back to dear old blighty, comedy of terrors, don’t mention the war and the regions in spring

CHAPTER 4: BIG BOYS GAMESv

page 109

soho days, united motion pictures, thames television and legalise it

CHAPTER 5: TROUBLE AND STRIFE

page 145

getting animated, moving on and a place of safety

CHAPTER 6: BACK TO WORK

page 162

honda in the eighties, a harrowing experience, one day in ulster, back in the snake pit, stonehenge peoples’ free festival 1981 and george pavlou

CHAPTER 7: ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT

page 189

eeeee by ‘eck as like, the big three-oh, ilkla moor baht ‘at, of sport and ballet just because you’re paranoid, rhyme and the reason, escaping up t’north, greenham common festival, ugly hippie scenes, calendar country and rhyme and reason – reprise

CHAPTER 8: YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS I’YEW WUN

page 237

full of eastern promise, back to greenham common, hail the conquering hero of buns and a new abode, on the road again stonehenge 1983, a lot o’ squit and the came, they saw, they did not conquer

CHAPTER 9: ENCOUNTER

page 281

loose ends, la dolci vita, stonehenge 1984 festival, hent sin yew round these parts afore, itchen to go and spooky encounters of the traveller kind

CHAPTER 10: STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE

page 342

there & then, the norwich malaise, tutti frutti, you’re flipping nicked me ol’ son and all at sea

CHAPTER 11: MAKING ENDS MEET this isn’t the end, this isn’t even the beginning of the end the end of the beginning and the bitter end

page 388

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO Paddy Stratton, Jon Crampton and Jeremy Dunn for their endless encouragement and support in the writing of this book.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT THEN, WHEN YOU GET RIGHT DOWN TO IT What it isn’t about is my life story.

Some mention is made about the family but only where essential to explain what was going on during some periods of my life. They are entitled to their privacy.

What is intended here is a twenty year dip into my professional career in the British film & TV industry, from starting out as a runner at Granada TV in 1968 through the ups & downs of working the way through to directing and as a photojournalist by 1988.

It can be taken as advice to newcomers to the media industries just so long as they’ve got a sense of humor.

People have asked how I remember it all.

I can’t but I never threw my diaries away, which helped.

PEOPLE AND PLACES Some names have been changed to protect them from an unwarranted invasion of their privacy. If anyone recognises themselves, it is probably a trick of the light.

All times and places are correct, however.

PHOTOGRAPHIC COPYRIGHT All photographs in this eBook are the copyright of the author and must not me nicked.

All other contributors are credited.

THANKS TO all the film industry workers, magazine & newspaper editors, film crews, producers & directors, festival organisors, bands and humans who kept me constantly amused and without whom I’d have nothing to write about.

Blessings be upon all here

1

ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME

i. LOOKING FORWARD TO LOOKING BACK When people ask how to become a screenwriter, this advice I give: sit in a comfortable chair with a big block of paper and several pens1, start at the beginning, work your way through to the middle and when you get to the end, stop. You have now written the first draft. Plough through it again and chuck out all the self indulgent rubbish. This is sometimes referred to as ‘murdering your babies.’ You have now written the second draft. Of course, once the producers get their grubby mits on the script you can be sure they will change it in unsubtle ways until nothing is left of the original concept. But they pay us money to do this. I started my profession at the top of the trade and have slowly been working my way down ever since. I fell from my high station and the train ran over my face. I’ve run out of axioms or, possibly, similes so if you’re sitting comfortably2 … then read on.

ii. CHILDHOOD I was born in the year of the first NBC transcontinental TV broadcast when President Truman addressed the US nation. Here, in the UK, there was a King on the throne, steam trains, smog, rationing, the Festival of Britain and Ealing Films released The Lavender Hill Mob. I always knew I’d have a career in the entertainments industry, an actor for preference, instinctively born to it even if I was too young to understand what it was with no memory of when or why that feeling started ticking away in me brain box. Although it took a long time for that knowledge to become a reality beyond boyhood wishful thinking. Maybe it was because my Father worked at Ealing Studios. My godfather was Harry Lauder who might have been a film producer, not sure about that as I only met him the once.

There are memories of Mum packing a ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 2

picnic, sister Elaine and I taken off to Walpole Park on the bus to feed the ducks and wait for the back gates of Ealing Studios to open where Dad would make an appearance, to be picked up and paraded through the Studios amongst the stars of Ealing comedies, Megs Jenkins, Donald Sindon and Jack Hawkins making a tremendous fuss of us on the set of The Cruel Sea. By the age of thirteen I was clicking away with stop-frame animation on my Father’s Super-8 camera, using anything from toys to household ornaments to people my fantasy mindscapes. I remember spending months painting the animation back scenes for a school art club project only to discover the school art club did not, in fact, possess a film camera.

Life Lesson number: 1 never believe anyone who promises much and, verily, gives nothing in return. Or, conversely, do not have expectations of anyone for lo! verily, thou shalt not be disappointed.

Life Lesson number: 2 if you see someone coming towards you intent on doing nothing but good, sow up your pockets and run for the hills.

The first faltering steps up my shaky ladder to success started with school plays but my ambition didn’t take a serious turn until the 1967 summer of love when, aged-15, I managed to finagle a place onto a schools drama workshop run by Jane Howell at The Royal Court Theatre in London. The play, The Rising Generation written by Ann Jellicoe, kick started my thesping career which has lasted over forty-years and is still puttering along.

The

plot

of

Rising

Generation,

originally commissioned but later refused by the Girl Guides’ Association, had it’s roots firmly set in 1960’s revolutionary zeal where women take over the world; the rise of Mother as the supreme leader, the banishment of men who are sold into slavery, The Rising Generation being the youth of the planet who overthrow Mother ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 3

and escape in a space ship to find a brave new world in a spirit of love and peace. The cast consisted of three named parts, played by professional actors, with Charladies, Old ladies, Boys and Girls played by children from London schools. The play was part of a youth theatre double bill with Dance of the Teletape written by 14-year-old Charles Hayward.

What can I say? It was 1967. We were young and didn’t know any better. It was not staid old Shakespeare that’s for darn sure. I loved the physicality of rehearsing, herded by proper actors who knew their craft and were happy to share it, rehearsing in the Theatre Upstairs which was a burned-out shell after a fire earlier in the year. Ever after the smell of charred timber always conjured up, for me, the heady memory of my first taste of professional theatre. Jane Howell was a very hands on director who had my hands bound with rope and threw my adolescent body around the room whilst women bayed for my blood as I was auctioned off.

‘Who will buy this man!’

I loved it. My parents didn’t love it. I think the only reason my mother signed the consent form was to get this theatre bug out of my system. My father refused to even discuss it. He was what was called, back in the day, a man’s man. He’d been in the RAF during WW2, an amateur footballer in his youth and definitely a product of the tough generation who had survived the 1930s Depression. For a man who worked in the film industry he sure held some strange views. One of the reasons he wouldn’t encourage my thespian ambition was because he saw actors as social deviants and was not backward in coming forward to tell me so.

‘No son of mine is going to ponce about with queers and tarts!’

My mother, with her awkward working class ideals of decency, packed me off every morning to the theatre wearing my smart school uniform. No amount of reasoned explanation could get her to understand I would be laughed at by the other kids. I don’t think she ever twigged I nipped round to a school friend every morning, to charge out of the hated uniform and into something ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 4

somewhat more casual for theatre life, then change back into school uniform every night on my way home. Rehearsals for The Rising Generation started a month after Joe Orton’s The Ruffian on the Stair finished its run at the Royal Court. During rehearsals I bumped into him on the stairs as I thundered down from the dressing room and, as he was coming up, we collided en-route. Bump! Well I remember the sage words of advice the great playwright Orton gave me that fateful day.

‘Oi! Don’t run on the f-ing stairs! You could have f-ing killed me!’

My father would have had heart failure if he’d known I was cavorting with a notorious queer on the theatre stairs who, a couple of weeks later, would be viciously murdered by his gay lover. The play was staged for one night only on Sunday, July 23rd 1967.

My parents were the only family of the cast of school kids who didn’t turn up for the performance. There was an after show party, at an actors pad where the glitterati of the trendy Kings Road set were planning to debauch the night away but I was under strict instructions not to indulge myself with the queers, tarts and others of loose morals. My father did turn up, when it was all over, to give me a lift home. To show his utter disdain for actors, he timed his arrival so that he didn’t have to meet any. A bit sad really, I was the last person left sitting on the theatre steps when his blue over white Hillman Minx drew up and we drove the twelve miles home in an atmosphere of icy parental silence.

My school buddies treated me as a working class hero who had escaped the noisome expectations of drudgery on a council estate. Dream on. There was no way my parents were going to allow me to apply for drama school so a year later I started work as a 30-quid a week film assistant at the BBC’s Ealing Studios Film Department. My father’s low expectations of me went on unabated and when, in 1979, I directed my first BBC documentary he phoned to give his considered opinion of my endeavours: ‘What a load of old rubbish.

iii. THEATRE OF THE ABSURD Apart from semi-pro theatre as a student at The Questors Theatre, between 1967-69, it would be twenty-four years before I rekindled my stage career. The Theatre taught the Constantin Stanislavshi method of spiritual realism which was to become the core of my later acting skills in film and television.

I was cast, aged seventeen3 from Rena Rice’s Junior Workshop Group4, as an ‘Attendant ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 5

and Musician’ in Alfred Emmet’s 1968 version of Romeo & Juliet which, although staged in modern-day ‘hippie’ costume, stuck faithfully to The Bard’s words. If Alfred Emmet didn’t think we were moving fast enough in rehearsal he would utter an impatient cry of, ‘come along, pacey-pacey,’ and was thereafter affectionately referred to by us as Pacey-Pacey. But never to his face. There were wonderful moments of back stage hilarity.

With the theatre’s thrust stage it was possible to arrange seating in a variety of configurations with a passage running under the semi-circular rake to allow actors to get from the wings to downstage without being seen. We torch bearer attendants were wearing flip-flops and after one performance were admonished by the draconian stage manager John Webb because the audience had heard strange flip-floppy sounds emanating from under their seats. We had to quickly learn the fine art of running silently down a dim underground passage so as not to irritate the paying punters. The stage designer had gone mad with flats and hidden ramps to get us from floor level onto the stage but had omitted unsightly lighting5 so effectively we were running down a high, blacked-out curving ramp with 90-degree walls which came out through an archway, stage left of the balcony. There were hidden voids. On the opening night, with us lot running on to cheer the first sword fight6, Rob Nicholls stepped into a void and vanished. I leaned down to help him up but the stave he was carrying pushed my nose up. I was causing a bottleneck in the gloom.

‘I can manage, get out of the way,’ hissed Rob. I made it onto the stage but the student actors coming along the ramp behind found the void too just as Rob had almost pulled himself up. They fell on him and each other.

Sword fight, accompanied by muffled off-stage cursing. By the second night, after a careful ramp re-design, the voids had gone. At the cue “come musicians, play” we mimed ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 6

with Recorders to a music playback track.

None of us were musicians and decided to let our fingers do the walking in the hope no one in the audience would notice we were playing the wrong notes7. Friends in the audience would ask after the show why I was playing out of time to the others. In fact, none of were playing in time.

‘It is called acting, dear boy.’

One of the Recorders had broken at some point in its life and was held together by wedged paper. We all avoided it like the plague because it had a tendency to come apart on stage. It happened to me one night and was the devil to hold together while fingering notes. We got into the habit of picking up the instruments early from props leaving some other poor sod to deal with the thing. John Webb could be a terror. I once hadn’t fully covered my neck in make-up8 and got a public drubbing for my negligence and again when I hadn’t checked the wick of my attendant’s lamp and the candle went out as I ran on-stage. He launched into the kids too for eating all the sweetmeats, ‘going at it likes gannets,’ during the ball scene. Of course, in later life I knew he’d been right. Don’t let the actors get away with sloppy behaviour.

Our workshop course, run by former singer Rena Rice, was a wonderful experience for us young ones. We were taught how to breathe using our diaphragms, voice projection and the finer points of stage fighting, a skill which was invaluable in my later film work.

How to throw a punch and react to it. Just before the punch connects, flatten out the hand so the punchee receives a slight back-handed tap on the tummy. Punches to the face never connect as the fist follows through about a foot away. Audiences usually watch the punchee’s reaction than what the puncher’s fist is doing. One lad could never get his timing right and quite often connected. In fight pairing he was the last one to be picked. We never knew what his fist was going to do next. Rena introduced ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 7

us to the works of Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett, plus improvised workshops and occasional public shows one of which was an evening of Irish farce. This involved two Irish tinkers, myself and Rob Nicholls, trying to finagle a free coffin out of the local canny general store keeper, Mr. MacGary9, our dead uncle and a confusion of coffins.

The props department had gone to town dressing the general store set and all Rob and I had to do was master the Irish accent which was fairly easy because we were both at the same school. We spoke cod-Irish to each other constantly. Well, not in front of the Irish maths teacher obviously as a clip round the lug’ole tended to sting. It was important to keep the accent up because, in moments of lost concentration, I slipped into Welsh and Rob sounded faintly Indian as happened during a performance when I accidentally knocked over10 a milk bottle when we were backing out of the shop with a coffin on our shoulders. At school some teachers encouraged us while others thought we were wasting our time. Our beloved Headmaster at Stanhope Secondary School, Greenford, had died and the disciplinarian deputy head English Literature teacher took over. He’d been in the Navy during the War and a former master at a tough borstal who didn’t hold with slack arty types. He used all his service connections to get the Royal Navy to come and give a recruiting lecture at the school, unheard of at a Secondary Modern. None of us went. We were all faintly hippie, anti-war and not about to sail the oceans wide firing guns at people. Outrage followed. All of the fifth and sixth formers were lined up in the playground, standing to attention11, while the new Head marched up and down the ranks shouting in pupil’s faces.

‘What are you going to do when you leave school?’

Rob and I both said ‘actor’ which seemed to bring on rather more wrath than was entirely required and a stern lecture ensued about our moral rectitude or lack thereof.

Of course, with hindsight, we realised he’d been embarrassed in front of his old Navy mates when only a handful of first years turned up. Tough buns. Both Rob and I became actors.

Rena’s course was not all about acting. We had to learn back-stage techniques too.

Under careful tutelage we were taught the finer points of striking the set and de-rigging the lights, the latter of which involved a vertical ladder12 without safety hoops and a cat walk over the stage. Don’t look down! I’d never been up a vertical ladder before and we were shown the safe way to achieve this feat without falling off. Don’t look down! Some ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 8

students were faster than others. I was thoughtfully slow. Hand over hand, foot over foot, one rung at a time giving pause to see how well the ladder was screwed to the wall. Or not. The trick was to climb higher than the catwalk then step off the ladder onto it. Don’t look down! I didn’t look down but my brain had its own spatial awareness and decided at that moment to remind me we were thirty feet up with nothing but thin air under us until the long drop to the stage below. Fight that fear! Get a grip! I gripped the hand rail of the catwalk like my life depended on it. It did. It was rather like the person who, for a dare, climbs up to the top diving board at a swimming pool and realises they can’t turn around and go back down without losing face. The only way forward is to brazen it out and take the high dive. This was exorcising our student minds; ‘Well we got up here, the only way down is to brazen it out without taking the high dive off the catwalk.’ The lamps were bolted to the grid above and connected to the catwalk rail by a tied-off rope. The trick was for the students to take the strain on the rope so when the electrician undid the bolt we had the weight of the lamp which we could lower away gently. In theory.

‘Take the strain,’ called the electrician.

‘Yes, got it.’ we grunted, like one half of a tug-of-war team who hadn’t yet realised the full implications of what ‘taking the strain’ truly meant.

There was a moment of quiet spanner and nut tinkering then came the call.

‘Slip the knot.’

Someone did and that’s when we discovered we hadn’t taken enough strain as gravity took over and the lamp started its downward plunge. Caught off guard, we all involuntarily shuffled forward whilst trying to stop the bloody great thing hitting the stage. Or someone’s head. There was a lot of shouting.

‘Below! Take the strain! Take the strain! Hold it! Get a hold of yourselves!’

We finally managed to get the better of the dead weight and hauled back on the rope until the lamp was gently swinging ten feet off the stage. It wasn’t over yet. We still had to master the refined art of unified rope lowering. It took a long time but we got the beast down onto the stage without further incident.

‘Okay, come down and take a breather. Don’t worry, you didn’t kill anyone, you’ll get the hang of it,’ came a voice from below.

Don’t look down! We sheepishly climbed stage-wards, all student bravado gone, ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 9

trying not to dwell on words like hang or down, mindful there was a whole grid full of lamps yet to be de-rigged. On the plus side, no one had had a brown trouser moment.

I doubt if anyone who attended Rena’s courses at The Questors Theatre will ever forget the experience they gained there be it learning to stage fight, performing Irish farce or merely being with those people at that time and the long term friendships we gained, AL STOKES ROB NICHOLLS over forty-years ago.

Romeo & Juliet photographs reproduced here by kind permission of the QUESTORS THEATRE archive

ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 10

iv. THE LAST LONG SUMMER HOLIDAY In the late summer of 1968 enroute on the night couchette train to visit my sister in the Italian border town of Ventimiglia, across

the

Riviera

di

Ponente

from

Menton13, I had to change trains in Paris.

Normally this journey was Port of Calais to Gare du Nord, a madcap Parisienne taxi ride via the Place de la Republique, Place de la Bastille into Avenue Daumesnil and the Gare Du Lyon to pick up the Cote D’Azur Express to Ventimiglia. If the time between trains allowed I would go via the Rue De La Fayette, the Opera House, Place de la Concord, past Jardin des Tuileries, the Louvre and pick up the route at Place de la Bastille. If you have time to loiter in Paris, bask in it.

In the riotous summer of ‘68 the taxi went the super scenic route, past the Arc de Triomphe, across the south bank of the Seine, as far as the Eiffel Tower and the Boulevard St Germaine which was when I noticed there may be trouble ahead.

The taxi driver, I realised, was trying to avoid the worst of the rebellious student fervour which had broken out in May but he’d somehow driven us straight into the throbbing revolutionary heart with the Sorbonne at its centre. There were street battles with the police in the Latin Quarter, talk of a general strike and rumours ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 11

President De Gaulle had fled to Germany. My taxi driver had fought the hated Boch ahead of the Allied advance in 1944 and was not about to let a few communist students get in his way.

We arrived at the Gare Du Lyon just as the Cote D’Azur Express was pulling out, sprinting down the platform after it and throwing myself at an open doorway to be pulled aboard by a bemused train guard as the taxi driver threw my bags on after. We waved each other away as the train gathered speed which was when I realised I hadn’t paid the taxi fare. The taxi driver was still waving with a triumphant smile, shouting.

‘Vive le France! Vive Du Gaulle!’

So I guess his reward was to get his passenger to the train on time, defying the communist hordes. I was on my way to my last long sunny summer holiday with my sister before work beckoned in the last of the summer August days to come.

v. AT THE BBC On August 6th 1968, aged sixteen, I started work as a runner at Granada TV in Golden Square, London. This comprised of delivering mail around the offices without any prospects at all of getting near anything resembling hands-on film making. So in November I jumped ship for a proper film job at BBC Ealing Studios.

A words about nepotism; crap. Nepotism is a convenient invention by people who never got where they wanted to go in the jobs market and blamed those of us who did get where we wanted to go for their lack of success, because we happened to be related to someone who worked in the trade.

Put another way if you see a high street butchers shop with a sign above the door, Drool & Sons, do you dash inside and tear the place up screaming about nepotism?

‘I always wanted to be a butcher but because of nepotism I had to become an apprentice cooper’s bottom knocker instead.’ I would guess not.

It is your divine right to have ambition so ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 12

long as it is understood it is also the employer’s divine right not to employ you. If you are any good at what you say you can do you will get there. If you’re not you won’t14. I know I didn’t get into BBC Ealing Film Studios by nepotism of my Father having worked there over ten years before because I didn’t tell him I had applied for the job. Although, later, some BBC film technicians who had stayed on at the studios after Ealing Films had moved out did wander up and ask if I was Charlie’s son, but that was mainly because I was the dead spit of him and word got around.

After a year at the Studios my father wanted to know why I was still a film assistant when in his day a bright young lad started out as a clapper boy and, showing initiative, was in the production office by year’s end. Those probably were the days but not by 1968 and certainly not at the BBC where promotion was by dead men’s shoes.

Or Oxbridge university degrees. Just before I arrived on staff, there had been mass promotions and I was told I would have to wait at least five years to escape the tedium of shifting films cans about the building. Five years! I was seventeen years old and had an urgent career to get on with.

‘Wait ‘til I’m twenty-two? You’re ‘aving a laugh!’

One thing the old codgers who were in charge of everything, the self-appointed moral guardians who thought they were in charge of everything, didn’t like were young upstarts. Oiks from the other ranks. A time for everyone and everyone in their time.

On the London Underground it was known as Buggin’s Turn. Promotion not by ability to do the job but by seniority. If it took our managers five years to start out on their careers then it was darn well going to take everyone else five years or more otherwise what was the point of being the boss? We all thought the point of bosses was to strut around the studios in their 1945 shiny-assed demob suits, slapping each other of the back at a job well done, living in a half imagined past and telling us young people we’d never had it so good. Well I remember the words of my, what would now be called, line manager in 1969.

‘I have more talent in my little finger than you’ve got in your whole skinny body and I tell you now only one in ten make it into the cutting rooms and you won’t be one of them.’

Oh, don’t sugar coat the pill on my account. It was like the managers had been born aged-60 and didn’t know or had completely forgotten what it was like to be young.

ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 13

They had reached their late middle years, has beens15, who were put out to grass in safe management positions as a long service reward until they retired. Age, or lack of it, should not be a barrier to a career in the motion picture industry. If people are any good and have the sheer gutsy drive they will make it and the ‘in my day’ brigade can’t change that. One of them natural laws, innit? The BBC liked to think of itself as a caring cradle to the grave company with a nice old Auntie BBC image, where no one ever got the sack no matter how heinous the infraction. All is always forgiven. Not even attempted murder would result in dismissal, it seemed; a producer was having carnal knowledge of a director’s wife, there were fisticuffs and the producer was stabbed in the melee. In a studio control box, to be precise. Blood everywhere with a survivable flesh wound. The director got his job back once he’d finished his gaol sentence. That attitude was not shared across the board, however. Personnel files of suspected subversives were marked with a Christmas tree. Those in the know claimed the staff was riddled with Special Branch and MI5 informers. Although if that were true, they certainly dropped the ball when they employed an Angry Brigade anarchist who, in 1970, planted a bomb in his own Outside Broadcast truck during the Miss World Contest.

There were rumours of deep nuclear fall-out bunkers built under post-war BBC premises and one of the film assistants, Rod Thomas, claimed he knew of one under Villiers House, Ealing Broadway. After ten years as a fashion photographer’s assistant Rod joined the BBC, like us all at the bottom of the pile. His introduction to the Corporation was in House Services who, a cut above the Commissionaires who were professional door openers, maintained the buildings. They knew where everything was located. Including, according to Rod, the deep bunkers where management would sit out a nuclear war to control public broadcasting, showing old BBC programmes to the irradiated masses. Re-runs of Dixon of Dock Green or, in the 21st century, Strictly Come Dancing, until the power ran out. One night, after an evening quaffing weak ale in the BBC Club, we decided to raid the Ealing prop store where the Dr Who Daleks were kept, hoist one onto a van, drive it to Villiers House, crowbar open the blast door and push the Dalek into the bunker. What an amusing jest. Imagine the fear and horror when a House Manager had to call everyone in the emergency handbook at midnight to report seeing Daleks down in a bunker. Why didn’t you read about this cunning stunt in the papers?

Was it hushed up? No. We couldn’t figure out how to get the Dalek up on the van. Not ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 14

as easy as one would think. Grunting and heaving we were caught in a torch beam and knew at once the jig was up as a large yet surprisingly stealthy Commissionaire happened upon us.

‘Having trouble lads?’

‘Yeah, we’re, erm …’

‘Going to leave it somewhere amusing, are we gents?

‘Ah, well …’

‘That

old

chestnut,’

said

the

Commissionaire, a wry smile on his face, as he wandered off to continue his rounds.

He never reported us for ale fueled silliness but a shock like that can sober a man quite quickly we found.

Old geezers at the end of their careers get annoyed when they see young ‘uns getting ahead of them in the jobs market and they will hold youth back out of spite. I mean, I won’t get like that when I’m an old geezer. If I remember. But, it was a fact, if a boss saw us apparently not looking busy, they would make work by telling us to polish the film cans. One guy at Ealing, Roy Garston, a salesman for BBC Enterprises with no technical experience whatever, saw us loitering with youthful intent.

‘You there, what are you chaps doing?’

‘We’re waiting for a delivery.’

‘Stop standing around like a lot of soppy girls and clean this place up. These editing machines … look a this grease, they’re filthy!’

‘Um, we can’t clean them.’

‘Who says you can’t?’

‘Maintenance. They go up the wall if they catch us.’

‘You have carbon tet’ don’t you? This place is an utter disgrace. And put your backs into it. And don’t slouch, that man.’

Cleaning editing machines was not a good idea because if film assistants tinkered with ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 15

anything technical which they shouldn’t, which was practically everything, we would upset the maintenance department. Carbon tetrachloride was pretty lethal stuff and could do interesting and expensive things to ball bearings. The upshot was the machine seized the very next time we tried to use it. In their Army days the Roy Garstons of this world would have been bumbling Captains, amiable yet harmless buffoons, who made the squaddies at Catterrick Garrison whitewash the coal for loitering about like a lot of soppy girls. The BBC must have seen harmless buffoonery as a transferable skill. So much for living in the enlightened times of the white hot heat of technology.

The maintenance department duly went up the wall as per their job description when we had to call them out to repair the de-greased machines.

‘Someone’s been using carbon tet’ on this.’

‘Yes. Roy Garston told us to do it,’ we happily grassed on him in a moment of joyous dumb insolence.

Technicians and janitors of the lower orders were colour coded or, more rightly, monochrome coded. Men wearing brown work coats, aka brown jobs, were deemed the unskilled bottom of the labour pile. Men in white work coats were maintenance and electricians, skilled workers.

Not all Ealing Studios bosses were small-minded evil twerps; one film department print checker spent his war service driving an ambulance on an RAF bomber airfield.

When an aircraft went down, it was chaps like my old boss who went clanging around the country lanes to retrieve the bits. Well I remember his regaling us with merry medical stories, usually during lunch.

‘Finding a completely intact glove in a hedge which turned out to be someone’s hand, blown off when the aircraft blew up on impact.’

Wonderful stuff for growing lads like us. Boots with a foot still in them and how the medics were trained to extract the flesh. Washing demolished tail gunners out of their turrets with a high pressure water hose. Watching a Waco glider split in two just after take off and picking up body parts of the soldiers who never made it to Arnham.

Naturally this man was not given to moments of introspection and therefore had a wonderful sense of gallows humour. Best piece of advice I was given, by an aged editor whom I only remember as Ron, in the nature of learning the craft of film editing was to keep our eyes and ears open, mouth firmly closed, watch & learn. Best training in the ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 16

world. Ron had worked at the BBC in the inter-war years, went off to fight in 1939 and came back to his old job in 1945. He had been a sergeant major in Africa, Normandy and on the road to Berlin and was the terror of us young long-hairs16 as he shouted down the corridor, all in one breath; ‘Am I ‘urting yew sonny I bleedin’ well oughta be I’m standin’ on yewr ‘air get it cut you ‘orrible little man!’ Said all in one breath.

If you can’t take the banter you shouldn’t have joined. The BBC was a good place to be in the late sixties, especially at Ealing. The bee hives where still in the garden and Sir Michael Balcon’s wood paneled office was by then the home of the Film Operations Managers. We all knew original 35mm film was nitrate based and reputed to be highly combustible unlike the 16mm ‘non-flam safety film’ we were using. How highly combustible we knew not wot of. Ron knew. Actually, as it turned out, Ron knew quite a lot about explosives. He used to dispose of wasps nests with the trimmings of acetate from the transcription services archive discs and told us that when a fire alarm went off in the bad old days of nitrate film they were expected to evacuate the building in less than ninety-seconds. We all laughed. Hohoho, most amusing. So Ron cut off a frame of nitrate film and took us to the back lot, placed frame in old film tin, lit taper and touched the nitrate frame at arms length. It went, fffsss-WHOOMPH! We didn’t know whether to applaud or wet ourselves. So that was nitrate film stock, was it? Like a flipping incendiary. No wonder it was banned.

Ealing was the only BBC facility which looked like a proper film studio. The rest of the premises were soulless concrete and glass office blocks. Television Centre, aka The Wood Lane Doughnut17, was build on the site of the 1914 Anglo-America Exhibition at White City, so called because the pavilions were faced in white marble. It took years to sink piles into the former lake bed before construction could start on the new BBC building. In the middle of TV Centre is a fountain and the first time they turned it on18, according to Ron, it flooded the basement like something out of cheesy Hollywood submarine disaster movie as technicians ran for the stairs when the water cascaded in. They never turned the fountain on again. It took two years to break out of my drudgery of hoisting film cans about the studios. One particularly nasty location were the film vaults on the roof of Stage-1 at Ealing; this involved clambering up a flight of precariously steep shin-barking metal stairs, out onto the exposed roof, along a catANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 17

walk hauling 35mm film cans of feature films, Star Trek and The High Chaparral down for despatch to TV Centre. I weighed 8-stone. The film cans weighed a lot more than that. Going up on the roof in high winds or rain was like something out of a WW2 movie set on a Naval destroyer. Today’s health & safety would have had a blue fit. In 2007 I went back to Ealing with a documentary film unit to recount my merry tales of dicing with death on the studio roof but the Stage had been demolished and, along with the back lot, was replaced by a digital media centre.

Big drama film inserts were still being shot at Ealing when I were a lad and it was possible to slope off to see Dr. Who19 and Colditz being shot, the whole courtyard of which took up a huge sound stage. I remember being embarrassed stupid when, during a quiet afternoon tea break, Patrick Throughton from whatever Dr Who was being shot at the time came and sat next to me with a full supporting cast of actors dripping with make-upFX radiation sores. It put me right off my bourbons that’s for darn sure.

Eyes open, mouth firmly closed. Learn. Or play with the abundance of gash20 film laying about the place. Making what we probably thought of as art movies but which could never be shown outside the building without dire ructions from the management.

We were busy little wannabe film makers but not so busy we wanted to get the sack for copyright theft. Bide your time. At least once a week someone would raid the film vaults and drag out old classics for lunch time screenings. Top of The Pops clips were an all time favourite and we must have run Arthur Brown’s Fire until we knew it frame perfect, to be discussed at great length later in the Red Lion pub across the road. We were learning our craft at the unofficial university of Ealing. Although the BBC did run a film training school at Ealing, under the tutelage of Ron Watley, we were not nearly brainy enough to be selected. That was reserved for the graduates BBC management ear-marked as top directors. Big boys games, big boys rules. I suppose we all got where we were intending go in the end but some of us went by a different route. And some of us out-lived the golden boys. Funny old world.

vi. FAST FORWARD TO JANUARY 2012 I finally acquired the entire collected works of Pink Floyd on my iPod, since my cuddlesome dready son nicked all my Floyd vinyl back in his uni’ days. An amazing flash back last night when listening to Careful With That Axe Eugene. The mass screaming threw me ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 18

right back into a 1970’s BBC cutting room on Old Grey Whistle Test.

vii. THOSE WONDERFUL W12 8QT DAYS In 1970 I moved from Ealing Studios to the Wood Lane TV Centre. On my first day, for a bit of a laugh, my colleagues showed me the building’s anomaly; walk round the circle, turn left through a set of double doors and behold a corridor which ends with nothing but a window. Turn to your left to see the flight of stairs which don’t go anywhere. It was so unnerving I had to have a bit of a sit down and a cup of tea.

Old Grey Whistle Test, Late Night Line Up, Up Sunday, One Man’s Week and Film Night were all run out of the BBC Presentation department, Studio Pres-B, under producer Rowan Ayres. The programmes were haphazard and deliriously satirical. One Sunday night the production put singer Kevin, son of Rowan, on as a filler. Daddy Ayres was watching the show at home and blew a gasket21, phoned Beeb master control and told them to shut Ayres junior off at once, immediately pronto if not sooner. One of those ‘sorry for the technical breakdown’ captions went up on screen while Kevin was hustled out of the building. The power those guys had was beyond the wildest dreams of Hollywood moguls. The people who worked on Line Up and such were the biggest bunch of hippies, arty types and full-on comedians you could cram into one small office.

Essence of patchouli oil, hash, long hair and a plethora of afghan coats. I got taken into Whistle Test by director Steve Roberts22 who knew a keen lad23 when he saw one.

I’d been playing with bits of film and laid Grateful Dead’s track Casey Jones (Driving That Train High On Cocaine) to the film of London to Brighton in Four Minutes, plus some added far out and amazing visuals which involved scratching 16mm colour film emulsion edited in every time the train went into a tunnel. No computer malarkey then, this was hands on with a length of 16mm film stock and a blunt razor blade. Blunt was better than sharp because we got freakier images. The sequence ended with a train wreck clip from Phil Jenkinson’s silent movie collection. Ooh wow ma’an. Under Steve’s wing, I was pretty much left alone to do my own thing with music and the biggest film library in the world. Looking back it must have been a very privileged position, which I didn’t realise at the time, and had stupendous fun doing. It defined my later career in music films, inspired largely by events like the June 1970 Bath Festival at Shepton Mallet24 when I drove down to the west country with my partner, Jude. It was our first ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 19

major weekend outing as an item in my 1954, split-screen, pram roof Morris Minor 850 rust heap. With the roof down our long blonde hair flowed in the slip-stream as, careful not to go over 30mph in case a door flew open on a bend, we headed for a major music festival of love and peace. And it only cost about 5-quid to get in to see awesome bands: Canned Heat, John Mayall, Steppenwolf, Pink Floyd, Jonny Winter, It’s A Beautiful Day, Fairport Convention, Colosseum, Keef Hartley Band and, headlining that night, The Maynard Ferguson Big Band. Our son-the-first, who was conceived that night, claims he remembers it all. Next day, June 28th, we were treated to Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, Frank Zappa and the Mothers, Moody Blues, The Byrds, Flock, Santana finishing with Dr. John The Night Tripper. How can I remember all that?

I can’t. Years later our issue of the night borrowed my old Bath Festival poster, had it framed and hung on his wall when he went off to university. He would enthrall his student friends.

‘I was conceived at the Bath Festival.’

With the typical response; ‘oh wow man.’

Eventually I got the poster back. Of all the films I made that seriously blew Steve’s mind was my use of Pink Floyd’s Careful With That Axe Eugene with library film of Vietnam, flame throwers and B52 bombing missions in slo-mo. When I ran it to Steve he staggered out of the preview theatre like he’d just returned from a hellish combat mission behind enemy lines. It worked. Years later a college student swore I’d nicked the Pink Floyd idea from Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point but since both films were made in the same year that’s hardly likely. Sometimes film makers have similar ideas, from the same general cultural influences at the same time except one is more famous than the other and therefore remembered. I can’t remember if my weirdness aired on Whistle Test or used as a background to a blue25 screen. That didn’t bother me, how it was used, as at the time26 we were all in thrall of Pink Floyd’s animation French Windows by Ian Emes. Outstanding! Meanwhile I was having fun making film inserts. And hobnobbing with the glitterati of the day; Joan Bakewell, the thinking mans’ crumpet; Kenny Everett on Up Sunday; Philip Jenkinson and his awesome collection of old movies; Bob Edwards, the wild man of Late Night Line Up, who made unauthorised films on a regular basis including The Cotswold Rooster which is still sitting in the BBC Restricted Vault, never to be transmitted, unless it ended up in the wheelie bin of ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 20

history. My all time favourite was One Man’s Week – John Wells who spoofed himself in a documentary about a week in his life, riddled with deliberate bad continuity and TV ingags, meeting friends in chaotic situations.

John Wells – my hero.

I was allowed out for good behaviour, filming the Plumpton Jazz and Blues Festival27 with Chicken Shack, Savoy Brown, T-Rex and Ginger Baker’s Airforce to get location experience as a camera operator. It was a warm and sunny May Bank Holiday in the Sussex countryside. The sense of awe, to be a callow eighteen year old long-haired freak in that place with Ginger Baker, Graham Bond28, Stevie Winwood, Harold McNair29, Denny Lane30 and the cherubic Marc Bolan was magnificent. Lugging an Arriflex camera one-handed up a lighting tower was quite a mission31 but worth the effort. It was possible from up there to film faces in the crowd without getting in anyone’s way. I made a long, slow pan across the site which ended on a back-stage field full of transit vans. They looked like cows and I wondered if, left to their own devices, they would breed. The press area front of stage was huge and, as Stan Webb32 said later, he was the only one to reach out to the audience by the simple expedient of plugging his microphone into a fifty-foot extension lead and, jumping off the stage, singing right up against the press fence.

Airforce were headlining and, unused to long periods of hand holding an Arriflex, I managed to keep the camera steady33 but suffered a bruised shoulder as a result34.

Ginger Baker’s final drum solo was so long the management turned off the PA and lights as an unsubtle hint for him to stop but when they sent security on stage to physically remove him from his drum kit, there was a near riot and stage invasion. What stopped me being crushed under the melee of feet was sound recordist Rod Longhurst making an heroic grab for my arm and pulling hard as the crowd surged. Fortunately the near riot subsided when other band members joined Ginger on stage. Filming continued backstage after the show when director Tony Heaver finagled an NME reporter to interview the bands. It had been a long days filming into night and reinforced the notion ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 21

that, although filming out on the road was creative fun, we skinny people were better off sitting in air conditioned editing rooms.

There was staff anarchy in the air if not on it. The nice old Auntie BBC image was wearing thin as the management flexed its muscles during wage and redundancy negotiations.

The house magazine Ariel was parodied in two staff produced magazines, Burial and Urinal which had columns devoted to those being retired (made redundant), obituaries (staff sackings) and a leaked internal report of proposed cost cutting measures. One illicit magazine carried a lengthy questionnaire which purported to advise staff of their suitability for a career in the Corporation, including the question, ’how do enter the building in the morning?’

1. On your knees 2. With a joyous spring in your step 3. As if you own the place 4. Only doing your job According to points scored you could either be the next Director General or, if you ever decided to leave the BBC, highly qualified to seek a position in the British Army or the clergy. Seen as a thumping good joke, the questionnaire was amazingly accurate in the ways of the Corporation.

The BBC didn’t hold job interviews, one was invited to a Board. We used to hold mock Boards in the pub, The Bored, with questions of the “and what colour socks are you wearing?” variety. The real Boards were hilarious and frightening by turns.

Upon entering the Board Room one encountered a long wooden table. Sitting at one end of the table were the interview Panel, all with their backs to the window so you couldn’t quite make out their faces against the light. The interviewee was seated at the other end of the table on a slightly lower chair, putting the person at a psychological disadvantage. The interview Panel spoke softly so not only were they hard to see, they were also barely audible. The questions were generally obscure.

‘Where do you see yourself in five years time35?’

And the killer technical question, ‘How do you make a CRI36?’

This was asked at every film editor interview and people were rumoured to wake screaming in the night at the thought of, how do you make a negative from a colour positive print? People often got into a tangle of answers. I know I did. So did David ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 22

Wyatt, a projectionist going for an assistant film editor’s job, who was so nervous he started fiddling with a film bobbin in his pocket. Before he realised what he’d done, the bobbin was out on the table, rolling it back and forth until he’d everyone’s undivided attention, mesmerised by the bobbin. Back and forth, back and forth. It went very quiet. Realising he’d completely distracted the Panel, David broke the spell when he pocketed the bobbin. He didn’t get the job. Another of our comrades went through the entire interview calm, cool and confident right up until the end when he was told ‘thank you, you may go.’ He got up, went through a door and into a completely dark room.

Not just dark, black, no light at all. The room had a musty smell. He turned round to find the door handle but there wasn’t one. A nightmare. He was on the point of a panic attack when the door opened. Apparently the interviewee had walked, by mistake, into a stationary cupboard with no inside handle. The Panel members were waiting for him to emerge until they realised the Yale lock was on the outside and he couldn’t get out.

He didn’t get the job. What we never realised until years later was the whole caboodle was a mind trick from the moment we entered the room, to see if we could keep our heads in complex and confusing situations.37 If you can’t hear, move closer. If you are uncomfortable, find another chair. Don’t just sit there and be intimidated. How do you make a CRI? You don’t. You send it to a film lab and they make it. Lateral thinking and all that cheap-jack trick cyclist rollocks thinking. It could make a person wonder how many talented people with a budding film career ahead of them threw in the towel because of a failed personnel department38 experiment, messing with candidates’ minds.

There was low grade anarchy in the air. Not the Angry Brigade certainly but maybe a Slightly Miffed Platoon. The old ways of doing things had to change even though as one film department wit spelled it out.

‘We’ve always used flint knives, I don’t care if stainless steel is better but we’ve always used flint knives and we’re going to carry on using flint knives.’

Or, from programme planning, ‘If it wasn’t for all these film makers cluttering up the place our job would be a lot easier.’

We had a feeling they weren’t joking. The BBC had let left-wing graduates into the system and now the management jobsworths were running around the building looking worried. Underground public schoolboy silliness was breaking through to the other ranks, there for everyone to see. Bob Edwards and his motley crew were given a verbal ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 23

warning for spiking their office manager’s birthday cake. The office manager was an elderly, pearls and twin-set refined lady who was very touched when those rough boys from Late Night Line-up thoughtfully gave her a birthday cake. A few hours later the elderly, pearls and twin-set refined lady was as stoned as a brick.

Not even dependable, staid old Blue Peter and Jackonory were immune. At a combined production party, somewhere in the pits of Ladbroke Grove, the neighbours complained to the police of loud music. Duly informed of the disturbance, the coppers sent a squad car around to ask the revelers to turn the volume down. Upon gaining access to the property, the coppers realised they were in the hallway of a famous kids TV personality who assured them the music volume would indeed be reduced. But, fascinated and drawn towards the famous faces, the coppers kept edging in towards the party. Fortunately they were content with a couple of autographs ‘for their kiddies’ and went on their way. One more step and they would have surely smelled essence of hash cakes baking in the oven.

Some management quietly joined in the BBC Revolution or were good sports.

Projectionist, Derek ‘F-ing39’ Lavey, was in reception at Lime Grove Studios one morning, finger on the lift call button, getting angrier and angrier as the lift remained stopped on the top floor. Derek’s anger burst forth and he shouted up the lift shaft.

‘What f-ing c-word’s holding up this lift?’

Almost immediately we all heard the lift doors close and the machinery hum as the lift wobbled down to the ground floor. The doors opened to reveal the sole passenger, Head of BBC2, David Attenborough who with charming good grace informed Derek, ‘I’m the f-ing c-word who was holding up the lift.’

That lift was rumoured to be lethal, that it would drop like a stone against all expectations. I only used it when I was carrying a heavy load of film cans which, of itself, was not a good idea. The story went that what put the ‘F-ing’ in Derek Lavey’s nickname, he was in the lift the day it plunged from the top floor and broke both his legs on impact. We could see how something like that could make a person pathologically angry and why management were so afraid of him. They had an angry Derek for life, until he retired.

I was amongst a hack of editors40 in the BBC Canteen and, as we were about to get up and leave, David Attenborough sat down at our table with his lunch tray.

ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 24

‘Yes, I do find I have that effect on people.’

What’s not to respect about a man with a sense of humour. Urinal and Burial were quietly delivered hither and yon around BBC studios and, at dead of night, pushed under management doors. Word went round that anyone caught in possession of these illicit scandal sheets would be seen off the premises without the option. This was Auntie with her sleeves rolled up, cruising for a bruising.

Matters came to a head when the management run ABS staff union failed to take action when the BBC threatened to suspend anyone who worked to rule if pay negotiations broke down. This, in effect, meant refusing to do voluntary overtime could get people sacked. The much stronger ITV based union ACTT got involved in the dispute and acted decisively after a video engineer quite lawfully went home at the end of his shift after refusing to do overtime as instructed. It appeared Auntie had been relying on voluntary overtime for years, to keep the broadcast system operating on the cheap41 and didn’t like it when staff decided they wanted to be paid reasonable rates for working unreasonable, antisocial compulsory hours. Auntie, still living with it’s head firmly up it’s 1930’s labour relations fundament, couldn’t believe its startled eyes as thousands of staff across the network downed tools and walked out on strike. It was as if someone had finally stood up to the school yard bully and punched him really hard. It shocked the management to their very core, wondering how we could be so ungrateful to them.

Sacrilege! It was forty years ago and I can still remember the unity we felt on that warm sunny day, the feeling that change was in the air, the over throw of the old guard, as we walked out of Television Centre in Wood Lane and marched in a long straggly column down to Hammersmith Odeon42 where ACTT general secretary Alan Sapper gave us a rousing speech of support and unanimity. Matters were resolved quickly once management were forced to run the system on their own without trained support. The technology, they realised, had come on a bit since their day and were forced to discover how much dedicated hard work had been given to them by a loyal staff which they failed to appreciate. The labourer is worthy of his hire. The myth of nice old Auntie BBC had been broken forever, revealed as the slavering wolf which lurked under Auntie’s chaste petticoats. That was the year I joined ACTT (membership no:35507) which later became BECTU. Occasionally the BBC would lurch back to it’s bad old ways, difficult to kick the habits ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 25

of a lifetime, and blundered into sacking film editor Les Harris when he highlighted the lack of security of Television Centre. Security was a joke. What security there was, uniformed Commissionaires43, consisted of a bunch of old men who appeared to have no authority whatever except to stand guard at the main gate to stop vehicles which they very rarely did. We all had ID cards, sans photos, which were never checked.

There were no vehicle searches and, at a time of increased IRA activity, the whole place was wide open. What Les had managed to do was film a package on its journey into the building and up to the transmission area, passing a cupboard containing all the main analogue cables to Eurovision, ITV and the World. Blow that lot and TV screens would have gone dark everywhere. Les was being highly professional, kept the contents of the film secret and sent a copy to all the top BBC bosses. What did they do? They shoved him in a room for a day with the head of MI5, MI6 and the Met Police and was later ‘retired’ for misappropriating BBC equipment to make the film. Security was not beefed up and the management carried on in their customary Dickensian way. There was talk of another mass walk out to get Les reinstated but the Union felt it would distract from the success of the overtime issue.

In December 1971 a bunch of us of the lower orders got together to make a film called Pip, a spooky story written and directed by Erik Olson and crewed by everyone who was not deemed bright enough to do the job for real. I was the camera operator. The location was weirdness personified, a gloomy Victorian villa in a long terrace on the Cromwell Road. The houses on one side were being pulled down for road widening which meant we had a heinous deadline to complete the film before the bulldozers caught up. We took it in turns to mind the house each night, alone, because it was too much hassle to de-rig everything and bring it ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 26

back next morning. I was so scared of being murdered in my bed I wheeled a 10K lamp to the doorway and went to sleep with a camera pan bar in one hand and the switch for the 10K in the other. Anyone tried to get in, they would be blinded by the light before being thwacked over the head by the pan bar. It was a good learning experience in some tight corners and in very dodgy circumstances. The December cold being one of them.

My camera assistant, whose name I no longer remember45, got into the habit of taking the film out of the camera gate every night in case it contracted with the cold and ripped up as soon as we ran the camera next morning. I now realise that was a sensible precaution but at the time the camera assistant had failed to mention what he’d done. Also, because of the time factor, I wasn’t checking the gate46 after every shot as per normal. So round about midday after steadily filming all morning I decided I really had to check the gate and came across a curious occurrence. When I took the lens off the camera I could see, via the viewfinder mirror on the shutter, the sound recordist sitting on the stairs behind which meant either the film had run out and I hadn’t heard47 it or I was somehow running on an empty magazine. It didn’t make any sense. I opened the light box and got the shock of my life. The film was in there all right but not going through the gate.

Steps forward the camera assistant to say he’d taken the film out of the gate overnight and had assumed48 I had replaced it next morning which I would have if he’d told me he’d taken it out. No real harm done, the film inside the magazine was still unexposed but it was just the matter of someone telling the director, whose twitch in the corner of his eye was getting steadily worse we noticed.

‘You know all those scenes we shot today?’

‘Yes.’ ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 27

‘Well, actually we didn’t.’ I leaned away, recoiling from the expected wrath but he’d obviously passed through wrath and was on the other side in the calm clear waters of seething madness.

‘Here’s twenty quid and take everyone to lunch,’ said Erik. ‘Except the camera assistant.’

As we walked up the road we could hear Erik give the camera assistant the lash of his tongue as his internal mental gears jumped a cog. We all knew the problem.

Long hours working to a ludicrous deadline in the cold with not enough hot food. People start making mistakes at that point and the camera assistant had made a dilly. By early evening we were almost back on schedule when the Suits turned up. Erik insisted we turn all the lights off but they were the only lights we had. Turned off we’d be plunged into total darkness in a hostile environment. Not even we were that reckless. But there was something Erik had failed to mention. He was tapping the lights from the mains electricity. Bloody ‘ell! One wrong move there and we would all have been blasted into orbit. The Suits were from the local council doing a spot visit, to make sure we weren’t doing anything we shouldn’t and, as it turned out, we were doing everything we shouldn’t. We somehow got the film finished in the wee small hours and Erik called it a wrap. I have no memory of seeing the finished product.

Somewhere around late 1972 or perhaps early 1973, I was introduced to a fluffy person, name of Phil Russell, totally harmless, a much travelled freak50 who had come from a decent Home Counties background. He had radical ideas about running free festivals and turning people on at Stonehenge. Sounded a tad far fetched to me. He struck me as an old school Merry Prankster and I wasn’t sure if I was about to become the butt of some colossal joke. There was always a lot of loose talk51 around folk who styled themselves hippies52 and I knew to tread carefully. I’d been to a fair few free festivals which were barely organised ramshackle events which consisted of a muddy ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 28

field of botulism with a few stoners who might, on a good day, remember their names.

About as artistically edifying as watching paint dry. I checked Phil out as best I could, one of my flat mates thought he was a superficial ego tripper53, and I finagled Bob into setting up a filmed interview with Phil if we could later film the festival too. If it ever came off. Phil was quite a hard man to talk to because with every question he would wander off into some treatise or other about the meaning of questions. I hadn’t read Jung. I wished I had. Getting lucid answers out of Phil was like trying to nail jelly to the wall. Just when we thought we’d it cracked, he would wander off down some other idiosyncratic hippie meandering. We did wonder if the acid had fried his brain. The was a definite not thereness about the man. A suitable case for treatment.

Although the festival went ahead in 1974 and, by then I had left the BBC, the following year Phil died from a drug overdose so nothing came of our involvement. The sleeve notes of Christ! The Album by Crass have the story of Phil Russell and thankfully neither Bob Edwards or myself get a mention. Phil Russell, in death, has achieved cult-like status which he never had in life. When I tried to screenplay a TV drama documentary about Phil Russell’s life and controversial death, ten years ago, people who were close to him said I should forget it and let his memory rest in peace. One woman cried down the phone at me, that the memory of Phil had been hijacked by people who were not even alive when he and others organised the first Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival.

The confusion of years, the dimming of memories and political intrigues suggest we shall never know who really started the first Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival back in that wonderful year of 1974. I know I won’t because all my research was fried in a rather spooky hard drive incident back in 2004. If that was you Phil, point taken. An officer and an upper crusty to the last.

viii. PLANT A TREE IN ‘73 Despite my shenanigans with Steve and Whistle Test I was still a film assistant and not properly working in the cutting rooms. Editing was where I wanted to be and so, for the nth or so time, I applied to become an assistant film editor and for the nth or so time Miss Winch, Head of BBC Film Department Personnel, turned me down. It struck me that Miss Winch didn’t see me as a BBC type, whatever that was, and me staying at the Beeb persevering was not going to make me any more of a BBC type than I already ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 29

was. Or, in that case, wasn’t.

May 19th, Saturday: morning - moved into a new shared house evening – Pink Floyd Dark Side of The Moon concert Back in the day when we bought tickets for a gig at Earls Court, we were never entirely sure precisely sure where in the auditorium we would be sitting. At Dark Side of The Moon we were about nine rows back from the stage. I had gone there with an old school mate, Alan Hendley, who had come down from Nottingham54 with his girlfriend and one of my new house buddies, Stan McFarlane. Due to a ticketing mix up Stan was shuffled off to sit up in the gods where he would get the full benefit of 360-degree surround sound. We noticed a large number of St Johns First Aid people milling about.

‘I hope its not as bad as last night,’ one First Aider said.

Oh heck, what have we gotten ourselves into here, what is going to happen? Mass riot? What? Then Alan noticed the overhead wires which ran from the back of the auditorium, down to the stage. The Floyd were great showmen, something was afoot.

Stan and I had taken a little something beforehand to enhance our viewing pleasure.

We didn’t need it. When the space ship came flying down those wires and crashed into the back of the stage, my brain exploded, suffused in a psychedelic haze. Stunning stuff. I can see it in my head, right now, like I’m back there. Good God, forty years ago.

Stan had a little moment during the ‘I’m not frightened of dying’ part of the show. He had not appreciated the full implications of 360-degree surround sound and became somewhat fractious when, apparently, the person sitting behind him started talking about dying and was really starting to freak him out. Stan turned round in his seat and shouted at him full in the face.

‘For phuck sake, shut the phuck up!’

Ah, acid heads. Ain’t they a caution. I bought the album a week later which became my all time favourite Floyd. Still is as a matter of fact.

May 30th, Wednesday: I put my papers in. Miss Winch sent me a charming little note to say how sorry she was that I had decided to leave the BBC.56 My contemporaries asked what I was going to do as if, outside the comforting arms of the BBC, there was a black void full of nothingness. There was quite a lot more than that. For one thing there were places to see, things to do and the whole world didn’t stop at the studio gates.

June 29th 1973: my last day at the British Broadcorping Casteration. Free! Free at last!

ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 30

Cue maniacal laughter and the ringing of church bells.

ix. SAD REGRETS The BBC shut down the Wood Lane Television Centre on March 31st 2013 and moved their staff out around the regions. TV Centre, the largest purpose built broadcasting complex in Europe, was the university of my career; a unique place of eccentric creativity, dedication, magic, delight, youthful energy, drama, fun, family, home and a wonderland of happiness. It made me what I became.

Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights.

CHAPTER 1 - FOOTNOTES 1

Computers have been invented since I first started throwing this advice about but the

theory is sound, adjust your mind accordingly 2

with the addition of a bottle of wine and a generous supply of hobnobs

3

in my final O-Level year of school

4

age range from 15 to 19

5

which would have been caught in sight of the audience

6

“A curse of both your houses”

7

or the right notes in the wrong order

8

I still have the tin of Leichner’s ‘blending powder no:116 95-grams brownish 5s 4d

(about 25p today) from that performance and kept it case I needed it again but the lid is rusted shut 9

played by Steve Martinez – where is he now?

10

It didn’t smash but, like skittles, the clinking sound went on for ages

11

or an approximation thereof

12

with no safety rings

13

France

14

Except for the ones who get good jobs because the bosses like them. They usually turn

out to be promoted beyond their level of incompetence and, once in the job, bully their co-workers and/or blame them for their own incompetence. The management spend the next five years coming up with inventive ways to get rid of them. All organisations ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 31

do this at some time or other and never learn from the experience. I have done this myself and lived to regret it.

15

Anagram of banshees

16

tongue firmly in cheek we later realised

17

Because it was a big round building and had a hole in the middle

18

1960 when the Queen opened the building

19

with Patrick Throughton

20

jargon for unwanted film due for the bin. Although not the rubbish bin as black &

white film was sent off to for a process which extracted the silver salt.

21

father & son did not get on at all according to later accounts

22

later sacked by taking a bung off a record company for The Equals in the studio to

sing Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys 23

me

24

Somerset, where the zider comes from

25

Back in the day the BBC used blue screen, ITV used yellow screen and now everyone

uses green screen for superimposison – it had to be prime colour.

26

1972

27

also with Richie Havens, Julie Driscoll, Hard Meat, King Crimson, Christine Perfect,

Judas Jump, Keith Tippet Group, Fairfield Parlour, May Blitz, Black Widow, Black Sabbath, Gracious, Audience, Jan Dukes De Grey, Maple Oak, Poppa Ben Hook, Roy Harper and Warm Dust 28

on sax and keyboard

29

flutist

30

on guitar

31

All right so long as you don’t look straight down

32

Lead singer with Chicken Shack

33

to avoid ‘wobbly vision’ keep the back straight and bend the knees slightly to cushion

the camera weight 34

Note to self; pad out the shoulder next time

35

Don’t be flippant, don’t say ‘doing your job,’ no matter what the provocation

36

Colour Reversal Intermediate

37

If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, then you just don’t ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 32

understand the magnitude of the fecking problem – a poster seen in a TV news cutting room 38

Now called human resources

39

Because the f-word and c-wards were sprinkled liberally in his conversations. Although

probably not a good idea to call him by that name to is face. Derek had a reputation as a low grade gangster although based on what no one had any idea. And no one was going to ask.

40

The collective noun for us was ‘an idle of assistants’

41

cheaper than employing more people

42

I’m prepared to stand corrected on that as others say it was the Television Theatre,

Shepherd’s Bush Green 43

We all remember Vic, the one armed Commissionaire who pointed out directions with

his stump.

44

A very large studio light and it wasn’t called a brute out of anthrophormoric affection

45

fortunately for him probably in case he’s now head of something in a major corporation

46

for dirt and hairs

47

it makes a distinctive flap-flap sound as the end runs round unattached on the

sprockets inside the camera 48

there’s that word again, assume, which makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’

50

Ibiza was mentioned

51

And not much action

52

A political movement, Help Induce Personal Perception Into Existence, of about 300

members in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love. Said to have lasted less than a year until they held a funeral in October for ‘the Death of Hippie.’ Anyone calling themselves a ‘hippie’ after 1967 was ‘not hip to the scene (man) and definitely off the bus.’

53

Which I thought may have been an oxymoron

54

Trent Poly

55

LSD

56

‘leave quickly, do not come back, oik.’

* ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 33

CHAPTER 1 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Front Cover - Al under fire filming on the Golan Heights, Syria, October 1973 Page 2 - Al with parents, Blackpool 1958 Page 3 - Royal Court Theatre, Sloan Square London, 1967 Page 4 - Playwrite Joe Orton, 1967 Page 6 - Alfred Emmet, Questors Theatre London, 1968 Page 7 - Rena Rice, Questors Theatre, 1968 Page 10 - Romeo & Juliet, Questors Theatre London, 1968 Page 11 - Al enroute to Italy, 1968 Ventimiglia old town, 1968 Al & sister Joan, Ventimiglia 1968 Page 12 - Al, London 1968 Page 15 - Al & friend, Ealing Film Studios 1968 Page 21 - Plumpton Jazz Festival, 1970 Page 26 - Al camera operator on the film Pip, 1971 Page 27 - ibid Page 28 - ibid.

* ANCIENT MISTS OF TIME - PAGE 34

2

WAR CORRESPONDENCE

i. FOR’IN PARTS I hooked up with a buddy who had just returned from Vietnam working as a press photographer; he had exotic tales of ethnicity, meeting people with diverse folkways in Laos & Cambodia, saffron robed monks, herbal essences. The War. A place to make my name, he said. In the only war we’d got.

With a throbbing armful of jabs; Typhoid, Hepatitis-A, Hepatitis-B, Diphtheria, TB, Rabies, Meningitis, Cholera, Yellow Fever, Japanese Hepatitis-B and tick-borne encephalitis, a plethora of visas, an out-of-date French colonial map, meagre work contacts and a bag full of awesome camera equipment, I arrived in Saigon, into a society and culture so alien to my own I may as well have beamed down onto the Planet Zelbo. They all spoke an incomprehensible version of American-English, with fifty different State accents, all peppered with unfathomable military jargon and always starting every conversation with, ‘You’re a correspondent? You mean you do not have to be here? You are freaking nuts man.’

Saigon was an unforgiving place where one muck-up meant certain death and not necessarily your own. The place was fairly heaving with spooks and every single one of them was out to recruit a tame foreign correspondent.

‘Say buddy, hear you’ve just came in from Binh Dinh, pretty heavy action up there.

You look bushed. Let me buy you a beer, fella. Tell me all about it.’

Careless talk costs lives and before you know it a flight of F4 Phantoms were unloading instant death on a dirt-poor farmer so The Mission could chalk up another triumph in the war against Victor Charlie1. Newcomers learned fast to keep their mouths shut around middle-aged smiling American civilians.

‘Buddy, you’re not expecting to go up-country dressed like that, are you?’

The sudden realisation that long hair, faded Levis and a Grateful Dead T-shirt were not cool in a world of green forest canopy. If you’re lucky a GI would take pity and get you kitted out in surplus combat gear. If you were unlucky they’d kit you out in US Marine Corp combats and every US Marine you met thought you were deliberately disrespecting their unhonoured dead.

‘Goddamn no-class pinko Limey commie hippie. Don’t you know anything?’

No. I didn’t know a thing. Vietnam was heaving with foreign press; a plethora of mad-cap adventurers having a whale of a time roaring around the countryside in the WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 36

sure and certain knowledge they were responsible to no one; 1956, Robert Capa, father of photojournalism, veteran of the Spanish Civil War and D-Day, died when he stepped on a landmine; May 1970, Sean Flynn, son of Hollywood movie star Errol, and UPI photographer went missing in Cambodia and was supposedly killed by the Khmer Rouge in June 1971.

I didn’t know anyone, had no intention of dying for the cause of journalist and managed to survive on the charity of military personnel who took pity on a lone waif Englishman. I was twenty-one years old and got by on dumb-luck. Or the young local Vietnamese who befriended me, in all likelihood Viet Cong sympathisers, without whom I could not have functioned. Passed from hand to hand down dubious escape lines out of harms way, a foreign correspondent. Like all wars everywhere – according to RAF veterans who strafed the hell out of retreating German 15th Panzer Grenadiers in the Falaise gap – the action comprised of short bursts of frantic activity punctuated by long moments of mindless boredom. My Vietnam was no different. My Vietnam? The war wasn’t mine. It wasn’t anybodies. It belonged to the US of A, protecting the free world from the ever present threat of goddamn pinko commie hippies and the domino effect.

Agent Orange; a piece of fruit wrapped in a cloak with a dagger in its belt.

‘The only way we’re going to resolve this goddamn war is to tow South Vietnam out into the South China Sea and bomb it to shit until it sinks.’

This US Marine suggested we Brits might try it on the IRA in Northern Ireland. My new found friend hailed from Nebraska. I wondered if we should tow his home state, along with mom’s apple pie, the American flag and Bob Hope, out into the North Atlantic and, assembling the worlds’ navies, give it a 21-gun salute. Broadside. Instead, I kept my mouth shut.

‘You can’t write about the war stuck in Saigon’, they said. ‘Get out there and roll around in it.’

My first sourjorn into the hinterland involved hitching a ride in a dreaded Huey. The work horse of the war. Our parents’ generation had the Dakota DC3, we had the Huey. I had, still have, a thing about helicopters. No wings. They don’t so much fly as plummet.

Yes, I know. In time of trouble they auto-rotate to the ground. Butterfly flutters by. After you with the sick bag. Hueys were designed to take seven passengers but frequently took a lot more. The trick was to sit as far from the door gunner as possible and, in WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 37

case of returning ground fire, remember to sit on a tin lid as no one fancied one up the fundament. In the air the whole contrivance bucked & weaved, wallowed & shook, often at tree-top height, powered by what sounded very much like a moped engine.

The landing zone drop-off point was exactly what it said on the tin; the Huey rarely made touch down and everyone jumped out whilst the helicopter hovered. If you were not expecting it, it came as a brutal surprise. Anyone who hesitated in the doorway got pushed out into brief free-fall, followed by a sudden and lasting world of pain. God forbid it happened under fire.

Once, a huge Black GI landed on top of me, dragged me off the LZ2 by the collar and didn’t stop until we were under cover of the tree line. He handed me a Colt 45 automatic and, in mime, pulled back the slide, popped one up the spout, cocked the hammer and pointed at the safety.

‘I don’t carry a weapon,’ I protested.

‘You do now motherfreaker!’

‘I’m a British correspondent.’

‘You be one dead motherfreaking correspondent if’n you don’t shoot back!’

I shoved the gun in my belt like John Wayne in The Sands of Iwo Jima until the guy who saw me do it thoughtfully explained about the importance of the safety catch. He attested that persons like myself were sure to shoot their own gentleman’s bits off and vouched-safe that my mother had had intimate relations with a march hare and I was surely vexing my father in some indeterminate way. And, being a highly educated American man, he expressed this in somewhat florid and rather colourful language.

We found the village deserted and, for the sake of the cameras, the Captain set up a perimeter, sent the ferrets down suspected NVA bunkers and, after calling in the choppers for evac, blew the place to bits lest Victor Charlie should return and use it for his own unspeakable ends. I returned to my Saigon apartment trying to look like a battle-hardened war hero who had just returned from a tiresome combat mission behind enemy lines and not the terrified foreign correspondent who almost widdled himself at his first sight of blood – my own, after losing my footing whilst climbing aboard a jeep. R&R followed.

I celebrated my twenty-second birthday surrounded by saffron robed monks in Laos.

Peace, tranquillity and quiet contemplation. By late September I was ready to go home.

WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 38

Spike Milligan, Royal Artillery veteran of WW2, had a theory that the shells which miss you bring you one step closer to the shell which gets you. Don’t hang around and push your luck was his message. Friends in Beirut offered to put me up en-route back to dear old Blighty. A place to chill and acclimatise back into European culture, lest the folks back home thought I had gone native. In 1973 Beirut was the westernised jewel in the crown of Arabia. The Cannes of the Eastern Mediterranean. But I never got chance to find out because they closed their border with Syria at noon.

ii. THE GLORIOUS OCTOBER WAR Cruising at five hundred miles per hour, thirty-five thousand feet over the Indian Ocean, heading west, chasing the afternoon sun. This had been known since the days of Imperial Airways as The Flight of The Double Afternoon when the west bound aircraft chased the setting sun.

We landed in Ankara on Friday, Oct. 5th 1973 where Moosa, a driver sent by my Lebanese friends, picked me up to be whisked away in his 1964 Ford Cortina which the unkind local conditions had sand blasted into a dull, buff colour. Ideal for travelling in line of sight of forward gunnery positions we later discovered, the car took on the nickname of The Custard Torpedo by the press on both sides. It was Moosa’s pride and joy. He’d driven it over from England, right across Europe, the year before having first removed all Ford emblems from the vehicle because of the Arab trade embargo with America. Delicate official conversations often ensued: ‘What make of car is this?’

‘It is a Cortina.’

‘A Ford Cortina?’

‘No, just a Cortina. Look it says so on the bonnet.’

‘It should say Ford Cortina.’

‘No. Its just a Cortina.’

A small gift towards the official’s children would smooth things along.

‘Ah! The Italian Cortina! Apologies for the confusion, sir.’

Moosa had good English which was just as well because my French / Arabic was, for all practical purposes, useless. He had studied aero engineering at City College in London and, being of a similar age, we had shared experiences of the music scene.

WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 39

He was a big fan of Stevie Wonder’s You are The Sunshine of My Life and Dr Hook & The Medicine Show’s Sylvia’s Mother. I was more a Pink Floyd man; Atom Heart Mother, Careful With That Axe Eugene.

Breathe.

We set off for Beirut at 6am on Saturday, 6th October heading south and encountered my first desert region. We were crossing the Anatolian Plateau in all its awesome beauty coupled with vague thoughts of whether we had enough gas in the tank, water in our bottles to get all the way across to the Taurus Mountains and survive. It sure was lonely out there without another vehicle ahead or behind, not a human to be seen. We were heading for Ulukisla, intending to hit the southern coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea at Tarsus then on to Adana and follow the coast round to the Syrian border south of Ordu. Even at a steady speed we were slowly reeling in the miles but the mountain range on the horizon never seemed to get any closer. The Anatolian Plateau was starting to lose it’s appeal on the seemingly endless road until we hit Konya, thinking we were out of the desert but it turned out we weren’t. There was another 150-miles to go before Ulukisla.

We gassed at Konya and, on Moosa’s advice, stocked up with juicy apples.

WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 40

Emergency rations in case the water ran out.

On the road from Konya we had a bizarre encounter with a bus, out on the flat lands to Ulukisla. It was the only vehicle we had encountered for some time and, being friendly like, it hoved up and sat on our back bumper for several miles. After a while the bus passed us but instead of speeding on it’s merry way it slowed down to crawling speed. Moosa and I gave each other an uneasy glance. We’d both heard about lone motorists encountering highway robbery in remote areas so Moosa put the hammer down and overtook the great packed, dusty vehicle. Not long after the bus came up and sat on our back bumper again. Perhaps it was lonely. It overtook us, we over took it and, Moosa bored with the exertion, indicated to the side of the road and stopped.

The bus pulled in and stopped behind us, the driver exiting in an excited mood waving the biggest spanner I’d ever seen. Moosa waited until the spanner waving maniac was about level with the trunk before flooring the gas and we sped off in a cloud of dust. I looked back and saw several irate passengers scuffling with the driver, attempting to relieve him of the big spanner.

‘Wow, what was all that about?’ I asked, as if I didn’t know.

‘What do you think?’ answered Moosa.

‘What if he catches up with us again?’

‘A big vehicle like that, we’ll be in the next country by the time he gets up to speed.’

We drove on.

We hit the Syrian border three hours after the Yom Kippur War/Glorious October War broke out but the border guards failed to appraise us of this as they were too busy haggling over our Frisbee which, one of them decided, would make a fine birthday present for his daughter. It could have been worse. I might have been my cameras.

Moosa didn’t find out about the war until we stopped in the port town of Latakia to change our money, stock up on food and gas the car. The price of petrol in Syria back then was 14-pence a gallon. Moosa broke the war news gently as we drove on towards Safita and the Lebanese border beyond, about 60-miles away.

‘I’ve got to tell you something and I don’t want you to freak out,’ he said.

‘Sure. What could be worse than being heavily menaced by a bus?’ I joked.

‘We’re at war with Israel.’

Stony silence roared my lips as my brain to catch up with current events. Oh no not WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 41

again I’ve just come from a war, it thought.

‘But the Arab states are always skirmishing with Israel,’ I said, trying to down play his sudden news.

‘No, it is the real thing this time. The south eastern corner of the Mediterranean coastal area, from the Turkish / Syrian border in the north to the Egyptian / Libyan frontier in the south west, has become a War Zone. Anything over-flying the Zone is liable to be shot down without warning by either side.’

We didn’t say much on the road to Safita. For reasons I can’t explain I was scanning the skies for enemy aircraft. It gave me something do rather than dwell on the inevitable, to stop myself screaming. It was dusk when we reached Safita and the locals had bad news. The border between Lebanon and Syria was shut. We couldn’t make the final 50-miles to Beirut and safety. Moosa decided we should drive to the capital, Damascus, to await the outcome of events. We drove through the blacked-out City streets to where Moosa’s aged Aunt Saursa had offered, at short notice, to accommodate the young stranded Englishman in her apartment which was situated close to the Barada River.

Until other travel arrangements could be made.

Aunt Saursa claimed she could remember when T.E. Lawrence led Prince Faysal’s forces of the Arab Revolt into the City of Jasmin, firing on the retreating Turks as they came. Aunt Saursa, I soon realised, had had an interesting life. In 1926 she nursed civilian casualties when the French fired on the City during the Druze Revolt and, on midsummer’s day 1941, recalled the Allied capture of the City from the Vichy French.

She cheered Syrian independence in 1946 but could never forgive the West who stood by and did nothing while European Jews, fleeing post-war confusion, wrested control of Palestinian territory from the indigenous population. Can’t say I blame her.

It was Ramadan and, although the sun had set, the evening meal did not start until Moosa and I had settled into our make-shift quarters. He would be staying with me until suitable arrangements could be made to get us to Beirut.

The 1967 Six Day War had ended on an unsatisfactory note; Israel’s lightening strike against Egypt, Syria and Jordan had resulted in massive territorial gains. UN Resolution 242 demanded Israel withdraw to it’s pre-1967 borders so peace negotiations could begin. Israel ignored the UN and no one else - America - made them comply. Any form of attack on Israel was seen as plucky little Zion standing up to their dirty A-rab WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 42

bullying neighbours. According to Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who survived Auschwitz, ‘Nazi Germany used the Jews as scapegoats for their political ills. The Jew’s Jews are the Palestinians.’

The front line Arab states had had six years of UN excuses, with American led stonewalling, to resolve the Israeli land-grab issue and now the neighbours were fighting mad. Word was, the Syrian Army were about to bombard Israel’s occupied territory on the Golan Heights. With shock and awe.

As I fell into bed I realised I had been travelling since yesterday. Or maybe it was the day before. A confusion of international date lines. Clean sheets beckoned but not for long. I was woken by a knock in the night, the sound of muffled voices, the bedroom door opening, the light switch snapped on. The Security Police had arrived. They stood there in their creased uniforms looking down at a rumpled Englishman.

‘A European was seen entering the apartment block, a concerned neighbour made a report, we are looking for Israeli saboteurs, your papers please, all foreigners are requested to report to the Security Police upon arrival. I see you have recently visited Vietnam.’

A long conversation then ensued between Moosa and the Security Police. Moosa did not translate. Serious looking men cast lingering suspicious glances in my direction.

I wondered, in the privacy of my own head, what the British Consul was doing round about now and whether the Security Police would bother to wake him in the dead of night when I was marched off to their deepest darkest dungeon. Frowns thawed when a policeman searching my luggage turned up a copy of the Qur’an, acquired when my then Saigon landlord offered to run me up to the Ho Chi Minh Trail to see what all the fuss was about. Instead we got lost and spent a pleasurable few days as guests of the Muslim Cham in the Mekong Delta. Their parting gift was a copy of the Holy Book. Later, back in the city, I was told by American colleagues I was lucky it hadn’t been a parting shot from an AK-47.

Back in Aunt Saursa’s apartment, a tray of tea was produced and a laughing Policemen stamped my passport with a visa. By dumb luck of having come from another war zone, in a partly Islamic country, the Sunni Muslim policeman took pity. I was not about to be taken outside and shot. Not yet. Later I asked Moosa why he hadn’t translated their conversation.

WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 43

‘They wanted to arrest you and put you in prison as an Israeli spy. They are rounding up all Westerners. I knew if I translated you would have protested your innocence which would have surely got us both shot.’

Spook logic. Military Intelligence; an oxymoron as ever there was. At least they gave me a visa. I was legal. On closer examination Moosa realised I had been given an exit visa with twenty-four hours to leave the country. Aunt Saursa was beside herself with apologies, that a guest of her’s was being deported for the crime of being English. In the wrong time. In the wrong place.

‘Amman. I’ll drive you to Amman,’ said Moosa. ‘The Security Police said the Jordanian border is open and we can make the crossing. I haven’t been back to see my family for a long time.’

Aunt Saursa packed provisions for our journey. She made me promise, when the war was over, to would return so she could show me the delights of Damascus, the Jasmin City. With hugs and kisses we bundled into the car and drove off into the inky night. To war!

iii. THE LIGHT ON THE ROAD FROM DAMASCUS ‘Hey, what happened to the lights? Why is it so dark?’

The city was in black-out and serious military men were wandering the streets with tins of blue paint, covering headlights in case Israeli fighter-bombers spotted tell-tail glints in the gloom and let go a big one. There was talk of F4 Phantoms dropping napalm. No one wanted to be fried alive. The streets were full of soldiers, recently called up to fight on the Golan Heights, but in the rush to war there wasn’t enough transport to go round. Ugly scenes ensued as squads of soldiers commandeered civilian vehicles, dragging the bewildered out onto the road, none too gently.

‘Lock the doors.’

‘What?’

‘Make sure all the car doors are locked.’

Soon we were surrounded by desperate soldiers looking a for a ride. I found myself looking down their rifle barrels. A momentary stand-off in the street as soldiers contemplated their fate if one of them were to shoot an unaccustomed blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in a foreign car. The spell was broken when a Syrian Army Major, AK47 WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 44

draped nonchalantly over his shoulder, clawed his way to the front of the melee to see what was holding up the works. After a brief, terse conversation with Moosa through a crack of open window, the Major and his AK47 were soon on the back seat of the car and we were off. Not by the trunk road route direct to Amman but the scenic route. Via the Golan Heights. An Englishman, a Jordanian and a Syrian were going to war. And we were loaded for bear.

The Major spoke perfect English and, on the Damascus / Sa’sa’ road, gave me a political education I’ll never forget after I asked: ‘How does Syria expect to win an all-out war against US-backed Israel.’

And this he told me: ‘We will not win. We cannot win. The odds are stacked against us. All we can hope to do is engage the Israelis in such a way as to focus world attention on Resolution 242. To force Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders.’

Some hope, I thought. The world’s nations were too scared of breaking the plucky little Israel myth for fear of being accused of fascism themselves. The European guilt trip of allowing the Nazis to get away with genocide, 1932 to 1945. Oh how we are a’cursed that we stood by and did nothing. Even though the Arabs had no part in that particular debacle they were offended they had been rather put-upon by European culpability to mass murder.

‘What if the world ignores you? What if Israel wins this war too?’

‘We have a secret weapon. One which the West will not like. Oil.’ Cutting off oil supplies was the nearest the Arabs had to the A-Bomb. This time the West had to listen.

There were immediate issues to concentrate upon as we motored down the Sa’sa’ Road at 40mph sans lights at the insistence of The Major, which made the night a whole lot darker although ethereally somewhat lighter. It took a while to understand why. In southern climes there are more visible stars in the night sky.

‘Turn off your main beams,’ said the Major, ‘because you can be seen by the Israelis but keep your side lights on so other vehicles on the road can see you. If you see something big and dark on the road ahead, put dipped lights on for a moment to see what it is then turn them off to overtake.’

It became a hellish journey of huge army trucks, running head on at full tilt in the dark, giving us full beam. The light on the road from Damascus as we avoided WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 45

each other by inches, all night vision blown to hell. Somewhere to the west, between Jaba and Khan Amebah, lay the former garrison town of Kenitra. Translation: the little bridge, population 37,000. The Major had detoured us into the middle of nowhere. Not a soul to be seen, not a tree, a desolation without land marks. I discovered later that we were not far from the Israeli town of Godot. Waiting for Godot. We parked the car in a sandy dell beside a command bunker; the discreet thrum of diesel engines ticking over, obscured by the night. Stalin tanks, leashed in like hounds, straining upon the start.

Inside the command bunker, the sweet smell of coffee on the boil, Mutabbaq, sweat, stale farts and fear. Anyone who says they’re not afraid in a battle zone is either mad or lying or both. Moosa and The Major poured over a map.

‘Go south from Jaba, whatever you do don’t go further west than Umm Batinah. Head for Qasim, Shaykh Miskin and make the crossing at Dera’a.’

Dera’a? That name rang a bell. Then I remembered, from The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, it was where in 1917 Lawrence of Arabia had been captured, thrashed within an inch of his life and buggered by the Turks. And we were heading straight to it. We left The Major with fond farewells, handshakes and a bottle of Pinyin, an exotic wine produced by infusing wholes snakes in rice wine, which I had picked in Vietnam. I guessed our Major, who had probably saved our lives that night by dint of being in the car with us when we drove through army road blocks, deserved it more than us. He accepted the gift with a smile.

Back on the road, a two lane black top, I drove and, somewhere beyond Jaba, I saw a dark shape ahead and flashed the lights to see what it was.

‘Holy Christ!’

‘Boy, have you got the wrong religion,’ mused Moosa. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a bloody great tank.’

‘Overtake it.’

‘I can’t see, its too big to see around. What’s coming the other way?’

‘Hang on I’ll just-.’

‘Oh crap!’

‘Now what?’

‘It’s okay. I forgot to turn the headlights off.’

I did wonder what all that road side shouting had been about. Moosa wound his WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 46

window down, stuck his head into the slipstream and guided me into a position where he could see past the tank.

‘Go! Go! Go now!’

‘What?’

Considering the top speed of a Mk3 Stalin Tank was just over twenty-five miles an hour, it was amazing how much noise they made. The clatter of the tracks on the road, the clanking of the wheels and bogies, that thundering great diesel engine. I couldn’t hear a word Moosa was saying.

‘What. Did. You. Say?’ ‘I SAID I CAN’T HEAR YOU.’ ‘YOU WILL HAVE TO SPEAK UP I CAN’T HEAR YOU.’ Moosa gave up and gesticulated wildly at the road ahead.

‘Oh. Why didn’t you say?’ But he couldn’t hear me.

We passed one tank, we passed three tanks, looking up at the youthful faces of the tankers looking down at us from their turrets going off to war, we passed nine tanks and by the time we passed a dozen tanks a number of things dawned on me. One was what would happen if we met something bid and heavy coming the other way? They wouldn’t even feel the bump as it ran over us. Another thing was how long is this tank column?

At this rate we’ll reach the front line before they do which means we might have missed a turning back along the road. And the most impressive thought of all was why are all these people shouting at us and pointing at the front of the car? Whatever can the matter be? Moosa must have been having similar thoughts because he gesticulated to the right hand side of the road.

‘We’d better get off the road.’

At which point life took a rather interesting turn. Way back on the road, when I remembered to turn the headlights off, I had forgotten in my panic to turn off the side lights. Hence, all these people shouting at us and pointing at the front of the car. The lights were still on. As if we weren’t in enough trouble. I slipped in between two tanks and thoughtfully signalled my intentions to get off the road by indicating to the right.

The tank behind me, who probably thought we were a jeep, followed the right hand signal off the road. At some point he must have realised his error and attempted to get back on to the road. Meanwhile the tank behind him, wondering why his comrade in WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 47

front was driving off the road, engine trouble perhaps3, had decided to overtake which necessitated swinging out to the left, into the middle of the road to get round the first tank which, as aforementioned had realised the error of its ways, was coming back onto the road. There then followed a very crowded few minutes.

Moosa and I were dragged out of the Cortina and thrown across the bonnet. The international language of a gun to the back of the head meant, don’t move or you’re dead. Moosa was speaking very fast and I didn’t need a translation to figure out what was going on. We were deep in the brown and smelly. And the midden was about to hit the windmill. Random thoughts? None. Blank, shear animal terror. This was it, I was going to die. I wondered if it hurt. On my peripheral vision: a line of tanks in a confusion of getting off the road, getting back on the road, shouts, curses and fender benders on an industrial scale.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm subsided. We were bundled back into the car, told to wait until the tank column had passed to give them a head start.

Moosa in the drivers’ seat, me beside him staring blankly ahead, the tanks rumbling past, fresh-faced tankers with wide grins flashing V-signs. For peace. The last tank in the column rumbled dangerously close. A warning to mad foreign motorists not to tangle with the big guys. The rumble and the clatter died away. Into the silence of the night.

Rumblies in our tumblies. We unpacked Aunt Saursa’s picnic. A roadside feast of tinned tuna with fresh lemon, pan bread, apples so succulent we were soon awash in juice, finished off with a Pinyin so persuasive it almost took the top of my head off. Squaring the food away we gave a tithe of vitals to the Military Police who had the unenviable task of guarding the road, left alone in the dark. A thank you for not shooting us for disturbing the peace of their tanks.

‘We must have been worth ten divisions to the Israelis tonight,’ I mused. as we drove away.

‘Don’t even joke about it.’ Subject closed. We were never going to mention, ever again, how I almost got us both killed that night.

There was more than dumb luck involved in us still being alive and I had to ask. ‘How come they let us go? I thought we’d bought the farm for sure.’

‘Oh that. I am a Palestinian Jordanian. Palestine. It is what all the fighting is about.

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My parents are true blood Palestinians from Jaffa. Father was a doctor, mother a teacher when the Israelis kicked us out in 1948. I am Palestinian by birth and we became Palestinian Jordanians when we settled there as refugees. My father works at the hospital in Amman now. In case you are wondering, that is why we did not get shot. I am a Palestinian.’

Roaring along in a dark of the night we got to the point where we thought we ought to have caught up with the tank column. They were nowhere to be seen.

A few minutes later night became day in a strobe of muzzle flashes. Every artillery piece hidden up in the hills to our left and every tank, some buried up to their turrets as stationary pill boxes in the desolation without land marks on our right, opened fire. A solid wall of thunder, the gasp of high explosive shells en-route to give some poor bugger a rude awakening. Pity the unfortunate sods under that lot. We drove through it. Under it. God’s own firework display. We drove away from it. Not long after we could see far off, beyond the hills to our right, ‘It looks like a massive electrical storm.’

But when Moosa failed to respond I soon realised they were colossal denotations followed

seconds

later

by

concussion

blasts. They reminded me of gigantic golf WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 49

balls for some reason. A line of explosions, albeit many miles away, were pacing us.

The question was, were they pacing us and getting nearer? Moosa answered the unasked question.

‘We should take a comfort break. See where this thing is going. Study it’s ways.

See if it will breed.’

Standing in a dry ditch, in the predawn light emptying ourselves, we had a grandstand view of the far away life and death struggle being played out on the Golan’s. I thought about those freshfaced tankers with their wide grins flashing V-signs. I wondered what they thought of fighting for peace now. As we picnicked a truck, stacked with drain pipes, approached and stopped a little way off. The driver clambered down from his vehicle and slid into the ditch, presumably to do what we’d just done. Mission accomplished, ablutions completed, the driver trudged along the ditch to where we were taking tiffin and, given the circumstances, we shared our meagre fare with him. Convivial conversation, the joys of Aunt Saursa’s gastronomic

expertise,

a

meeting

of

strangers upon the road. We passed like shits in the night. The driver looked at his watch and bobbed down. After a moment’s quiet contemplation, staring at the truck and its implications, Moosa bobbed down WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 50

too. A moment later someone grabbed my belt and there we all were, bobbed together in the ditch. Perplexed, I had to ask.

‘What the f-?’

The multiple rocket launchers gifted their cargo into the innocence of the night, each one an eye-watering megawatt flash bulb. It was over in seconds, leaving after images.

The truck driver, knowing his business, scrambled out of the ditch, clambered aboard his truck and roared off down the road in a cloud of roiling dust. I looked at Moosa.

Looking at me. Over on the other side of the lines a fresh-faced Israeli radar operator was at that precise moment using his complicated slide rule and compotator to work out where in the world those rockets had come from. Right where we were standing.

Idiot like, leaning on the burned out remains of a tank, we stood there waiting to see what was going to happen next and caught a packet of shrapnel for our trouble. The hulk of the tank shielded us from the worst of the blast but we reckoned without the thermal dynamics of explosive forces. Or, put another way, stuff flies everywhere.

With wild screams and white knuckles clenching the steering wheel, I drove The Custard Torpedo faster than the designers at the Ford Motor Company had envisaged, not even in their wildest dreams. There in the rear view mirror were a line of explosions marching up the road behind us. Peddle to the metal, the only thing which stopped us being a smear of smouldering flesh and twisted steel on the highway was the fact that I was driving slightly faster than the Israeli bombardiers could train their guns. Speed, and a sudden left hand hairpin bend, meant we were abruptly out of their line of sight.

We watched the explosions march up the road and on past, into the valley beyond.

‘How come people always want to shoot us when you’re driving?’

‘I dunno. It must be a knack.’

After a brief halt for supplementary tiffin and temporary bandaging4 Moosa took over the driving. No one wanted to be stationary on the open road. Israeli pilots had a reputation for ground strafing lone vehicles. But before we got to Dera’a we managed to pull off one more cunning stunt on the road. As we neared the border we picked up the main trunk road heading south. There were a lot of private cars on that road, Syrian civilians fleeing the war and we seemed quite by chance to be leading the convoy.

Unbeknown to us the Syrians were in the middle of upgrading the trunk road into a dual carriageway but with no road warning signs and no lights we’d managed to run WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 51

blindly onto the hardcore on the road to nowhere. We didn’t realise our mistake until we ran out of road. As we performed a quick U-turn we realised the fleeing Syrians had followed us into the construction site and were rather annoyed with us as they also had to turn round to find their way back to the road. Since we were obviously to blame for leading them astray we had to wait until all the vehicles had formed up behind us so we could proceed, heading to Dera’a. To be captured, thrashed within an inch of our worthless lives although, hopefully, not interfered with. Sexually.

iv. DERA’A AND THE LOST SUIT The ancient city of Dera’a dates back to the Canaanites, is mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphs at the time of Pharaoh Thutmose III, known in those days as the city of Atharra, mentioned in the Old Testament as Edrei and boasts a Roman amphitheatre and the Oumari Mosque. We had no time for sight-seeing, however, and located the Syrian frontier where the border guards decided we were the most hilarious pair they had encountered in the whole of their war so far.

All I needed was a stamp in my passport to say I was leaving Syria in the time stipulated by my exit visa. What we actually got was several hours of official run-around as the guards contemplated whether to send me back to Damascus under armed escort.

Everyone was nervous of everyone else. We could all hear the distant sound of artillery creeping ever closer. It was suggested that matters could be expedited by making a small contribution towards the guards’ meagre Army pay. This we did but it obviously wasn’t enough because I spent an isolated exasperation of hours in the cells while a call was put through to the Security Police in Damascus to please would they come and take this foreign infidel away. Eventually, with no response from a higher authority, I was released into Moosa’s tender care providing we crossed into Jordan, pronto. Unlike European border posts, crossing the frontier into Jordan involved the opening of a huge chain link gate and a 7km drive through no-mans-land to the Jordanian frontier post.

Once inside the neutral Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan we were told how lucky we were King Hussein hadn’t declared war on Israel yet. Our luck ran out when it was discovered the Syrian border guards had failed to stamp my exit visa. Officially I hadn’t left Syria so we were required to drive the 7km back to get my exit visa stamped. We had 7kms in which to contemplate what was going to happen to us when we got there.

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Great hilarity ensued when the Syrians welcomed us into their midst like long lost, but rather unwanted, relations who had out-stayed their welcome. We then played a game of hunt the exit visa stamp.

Eventually the offending article was found in a long forgotten desk drawer, minus the ink pad which was improvised from the contents of two ball point pens. Duly inked, the stamp, momentarily poised over my passport for dramatic effect, thudded down amid joyous applause and laughter from the guards. Handshakes all round, due deference given, we were escorted back to the car and waved away on our 7km journey back to Jordan. As the huge chain link gate was slammed shut and locked behind us Israeli jets barrelled in from all directions and bombed the border post. There was nothing we could do. On the wrong side of the gate, surrounded by a mine field. We drove on.

The Jordanian frontier guards congratulated us on our narrow escape and brought forth a sticky liqueur, possibly Arrack, to help recover from the shock of encountering our first air raid. The sticky liqueur also helped as an aesthetic during running repairs on our shrapnel wounds.

‘You’ve been walking around like this?’ enquired an astonished friendly medic.

‘Yes. Why? What’s wrong?’ I asked, alarmed.

‘Oh nothing,’ he said, staring with horror filled eyes at my legs, ‘nothing at all. I’d see a doctor as soon as you get to Amman if I were you.’

It being Ramadan, the glasses of sticky liqueur were concealed in a cooking pot covered with a cloth. Moosa refrained.

‘Because its Ramadan?’ I asked.

‘No, because I know what that sticky liqueur is and what it does to the brain.’

‘Worse than Pinyin?’

‘Much worse.’

Although I vouched-safe it inhospitable, as a foreign infidel, if I did not indulge my shock until I felt suitably relaxed. Eventually I was so relaxed I could barely stand and had to be oozed gently back into the car by many caring hands. At which point I discovered some thieving A-rab had been through the luggage and stolen my suit!

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v. CITY OF MY WILDEST DREAMS We rolled to a stop in the bright, leafy suburb of Zahran on the outskirts of the capital like two reckless children who had stayed up way past their bedtime. Which is how we were discovered by Dr. Hamadea, Moosa’s father, spark out in the car outside the family home. As we were led into the house, family and neighbours poured in behind to hail the conquering hero’s return, having driven through the opening stage of what was later to become known as The Glorious October War. I will never forget that shower. Saigon to Amman non-stop had accrued days of road grime which sloshed off my fetid body like a small mud slide. Rosy pink and steamed, looking like a stewed prune, Dr. Hamadea insisted on checking and rebandaging my leg wounds5 and gave me some something to ease the stinging pain. I floated between the cool bedsheets in the guest bedroom and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

The Hamadea bungalow was situated on the western edge of the city. The back yard afforded an uninterrupted vista of desert steppe to the horizon. In front, the whole city of Amman gleamed stark white in the sun. Next door, the British Embassy leisure compound, where pale Englishmen played tennis in starched whites and sat around the club house terrace, sipping gin & tonic in frosted glasses, like some bygone relic of the colonial service. Retired colonels, retelling gallant battles of their youth, and their wives reminded me of the film Carry On Up The Khyber. Stiff upper lips all round old boy. Their close proximity to the Hamadea residence was probably what prompted a personal visit from the British Embassy information officer.

‘Heard you’d just driven in from Damascus, must have been frightful for you, do pop by the Embassy once you’ve settled in, just in case anything should happen and, oh by the way just so you know, Amman airport is closed for the duration so it looks very much like you will need to register with us as a resident in the city, we’ll go through the protocols with you. Cheerio.’

Protocols. It didn’t take a genius to work out what that meant. Don’t get caught doing something stupid. Like trying to leave the country by the back roads or photographing something sensitive. Jordanian army units were guarding all major buildings as Landrovers, armed with 50-calbre guns mounted in back, patrolled the streets. Jordan remained nervously neutral.

On the BBC World Service: the Israelis were counter attacking in Sinai and the Golan WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 54

Heights.

Amman was tense but strangely exciting as Moosa and I sipped iced screw drivers, looking out across the desert steppe, not unmindful of the fact that a mere 40km away brave men were fighting and dying. Our thoughts turned to Aunt Saursa when the local news announced Damascus had been bombed, secretly thankful we had not stayed.

On the late BBC World Service: Egyptian forces had advanced 15km inside Sinai and destroyed one hundred Israeli tanks.

The Chinese Ambassador’s wife called on Mrs. Hamadea. For tiffin. Even in the enlightened times of the 1970’s it was still something of a rarity to see women driving in Amman. Moosa told me that, as a kid, he was so embarrassed about being driven to school by his mother he insisted he be dropped round the corner lest his friends should see her at the wheel. The Chinese Ambassador’s wife did not have the gift of parallel parking and had somehow gotten herself into such a pickle trying to reverse to the curb that Moosa and I were despatched to rectify her embarrassment. The Chinese Ambassador’s wife had parked at 90-degrees to the pavement. With her motor vehicle ignoramo pramborbility resolved, the Chinese Ambassador’s wife was eager for stories of our exciting adventures on the Golan Heights under fire. Truth was we survived because we were too dumb to realise what we were doing was dangerous. But I knew not to say that because I was pretty sure the Chinese Ambassador’s wife had total recall and anything I said was likely to be remembered and used against my nationality in the Chinese press. Hard-pressed to recount the most distressing moments of our journey, I alighted upon the humorous discovery that my suit had been stolen and was admonished by Mrs Hamadea.

‘Your suit? We Palestinians have lost our country.’

Moosa and I drove into town for bread and chicken, the live variety where the butcher chops the head off the chosen fowl right in front of you. An experience never to forgotten by any European city boy who had not made the connection between the cooked thing on the plate and a sharp axe. Outside, the Cortina had drawn quite a crowd and a small girl asked a question which my faltering Arabic could not quite manage. According to Moosa she had asked why we drove our car upside down. She meant, ‘why is your car righthand drive.’ The local youths were enthralled by the car and insisted on seeing under the bonnet. One of them took me aside and, in English, explained it was not seemly WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 55

to drive around in a vehicle covered with ground-in road dirt. Buckets of suds were produced as if by magic and, after due diligence, the thing gleamed like it had just rolled off the Dagenham production line.

De-Custarded. Social bonding complete, we were invited to join them for a night out at the cinema as much to practice their language skills as, I gathered, they saw few English visitors in Amman and, as the King’s wife was English, it did them no harm to keep company with a Brit. That short afternoon outside the chicken shop did more to cement east/west relations than a planeful of trade delegations.

That evening, sitting out in the yard sipping iced drinks and watching the sun dip towards the horizon, I called Moosa’s attention to a flight of geese.

‘There, d’you not see them, a flight of geese flying across the setting sun.’

‘Geese? Wrong time of year for geese.’

We watched as the flight slowly peeled off one-by-one to the sound of distant antiaircraft fire and that’s when we realised they were not wild fowl at all, as every gun in the city opened up. Moosa sensibly dived into the sand bagged air raid shelter under the house. I dived for my camera and focused on a low flying incoming Phantom jetfighter, saw the pilot nonchalantly wave as he over flew over the house at no more that fifty feet. I pressed the camera shutter simultaneous with the pilot who opened up with his 20mm cannon, both consummate professionals in our respective tasks of button pushing. There were explosions to the north of the city. They were going for the airport.

The air was full of flying red-hot shrapnel. The noise of the guns. The screech of the jets. The dawning realization that I had run out of film and left my Kodakrome in the kitchen fridge. The reality of the situation hit me, remarkably sobering. Somehow in my adrenalin-rush for air raid battle pictures I had gotten on top of a six-foot high wall for WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 56

a better view. The problem I faced was how to get down without breaking every bone in my body. Half slithering, half falling I hit the ground running and, through the ping and zip of flying shrapnel, managed to plant my foot firmly and squarely on a carelessly disguarded pinyin bottle. And went down like a brick. I distinctly heard the clonk as my head hit the patio slabs.

From Moosa’s point of view, sitting in the doorway of the shelter: ‘I thought he had taken it in the face. Blood everywhere. Half his face must have been shot off.’

Groggily coming round all thoughts turned to my glasses and camera in case the lenses were broken. Hard to replace in foreign parts I imagined. There seemed to be something wrong with my ears, trying to listen to the world through twenty layers of burlap. I could smell marzipan. Bewildering thoughts of Stollen cake arose unbidden in my mind. So was this it? Death with eternal Stollen cake. That wallpaper will have to go. A concept which brought on a fit of the giggles. Next thing, I was sliding along the ground without assistance from arms and legs and passed out to thoughts of Pooh Bear being dragged down the stairs by Christopher Robin.

‘I crawled out of the shelter,’ recalled Moosa, ‘grabbed a foot and pulled.’

I came round, cradled in Moosa’s arms, having my face dabbed with a damp, soiled handkerchief revealing the war wound as nothing worse than a split lip?

Which had gone a gusher.

‘I thought half your face had been blown off.’

‘Don’t sound too disappointed. You can pick the scabs on my legs if you want.’

Examined later by Moosa’s parents, who had taken cover in the hospital shelter during the raid, revealed no lasting damage. To this day, the smell of marzipan puts me right back in that air raid. In response to the raid, Jordan declared war on Israel.

News from the BBC World Service: Israel was refusing to allow BBC correspondents access to the front line; in an air raid on Damascus Israel had bombed the Russian, US and Norwegian Embassies, sank a Greek ship off the Syrian coast and their top tank Commander in Sinai was captured by the Egyptians. Jordanian TV showed the first pictures of the Egyptians crossing the Suez Canal in strength. No one got their feet wet.

Newly arrived foreign correspondents, having been dismissed as infidels from Damascus, were full of stories of major air battles with Israeli Phantoms being shot down in droves whilst Israel claimed to have destroyed twice as many fighters than WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 57

the Syrian Air Force possessed. The fog of war. Israel were said to be marching on Damascus while the front line states were talking openly about cutting off oil supplies to the West. We pondered whether playing the oil card might encourage US Phantoms into the skies over us. Thoughts of the middle east escalating into another Vietnam as the United States of America’s mighty military machine blundered in to take charge.

We took time out from the war to visit the ancient Roman ruins at Jerash, marred only by a dog-fight in the skies above. On the way back to Amman we stopped off at the nearby Palestinian refugee camp which was, we felt, the real reason Dr. Hamadea suggested the trip. Europeans will never understood the plight of the dispossessed of 1948 and subsequent wars until they’ve seen the state of utter degradation in which the Palestinians have had to exist. I know I wasn’t prepared for that grim reality. An object lesson in reason’s for the war, a once proud people forced to live in those God-awful refugee camps.

Aunt Sadie6, who had lived in pre-war Berlin and escaped the cattle wagons to the gas chambers by the simple expedient of running away, once told me the reason Auschwitz must never be demolished is so it remains a perpetual reminder of what WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 58

one fanatical socio-political sect had done to another in the name of racial purity. If more people visited Auschwitz, as a museum, they would learn from the mistakes of history. Unfortunately the lesson of the camps seemed to have been lost on, of all people, the Israelis. Aunt Sadie had lived a bohemian lifestyle in pre-war Berlin and managed, in a series of wild adventures, to avoid the Jewish round-ups until 1944 when she was shipped off to the gas chambers. En-route, Aunt Sadie managed to escape and wound up fighting with the Italian partisans in the mountains of Bolzano.

Harassing retreating Germans with blown railway lines, roadside ambushes and the kiss of the assassins’ knife. By War’s end Aunt Sadie joined the anthill of Europe, millions of displaced people trying to find lost relatives, trying to find their way home in the new Europe. She found her place in North London. A flat in a mansion block in Harlesden, appointed in the style of her pre-war Berlin bohemian lifestyle. All that was missing were her Aryan lovers. Gone to graveyards everyone. Now she shared the block with West Indian immigrant bus drivers who thought she was completely cracked yet treated her with due deference. They called her The Duchess. And meant it.

Moosa and I met up with the Chicken Shop Posse and went for a pre-cinema stroll around town where I was educated in the correct ways of coffee.

‘Milk? You put milk in it?’ was their horrified response.

We discussed Arabic polite society, Islam and, when Moosa revealed I had escaped prison in Damascus when the Security Police found my copy of the Qur’an, they invited me to Mosque to meet their spiritual leaders but sadly that never came to pass. I was surprised to find the cinema in what appeared to be in the middle of a bomb-site, from a short internal conflict when King Hussein evicted the PLO7 from the country and, as we queued for tickets, was informed of the local air raid precautions. If the film stops and the house lights go up, proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest exit. It put me in mind of a story my Mother told me about seeing Gone With The Wind with my Father during the war and how they marvelled at the sound effects during the battle of Atlanta only to discover later than what they’d actually been listening to was the LuftWaffe unloading their bombs outside.

The film we saw in Amman that night was a curious piece called Popsie Pop, which I have never been able to find on the Internet Movie Data Base. It appeared to have been shot in Africa with alternate English, Spanish and Arabic subtitles on different reels. I WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 59

got the distinct impression the film was being shown out of sequence. The projectionist had gotten himself into such a muddle he decided to stop the film until he had sorted himself out. In order not to leave the audience in the dark he put the house lights up, the signal for an air raid alert. There was an audible gasp from the audience but since everyone was well versed in the procedure, they began to file out which was the exact moment the projectionist, isolated up in his booth and unaware of what he had set in motion down below, re-started the film and put the house lights down. The audience almost raised the roof with an outburst of spontaneous relieved hilarity. We left the cinema and were, like all men everywhere who have just had a momentary brush with their own mortality, hugging and back-slapping friends and total strangers alike. We had gone to the cinema as proud warriors and we had survived.

After ten days in Jordan my feet were itching to leave. I had no business there and money was running short. I knew I could not, in all good conscience, leach off the Hamadea’s any longer. A travel agent friend of the family booked me on a long distance taxi, one of the fabled Mercedes, to Beirut. All I needed was a transit visa for Syria.

Dera’a again. The whole Hamadea family and their influential friends turned out with me to the Syrian Embassy to lend their considerable weight to my visa application.

Which I actually got. The only marring moment came, when leaving the Embassy, was bumping into BBC Panorama producer David Harrison. We vaguely recognised each other from the Lime Grove Studios and, like all Brits abroad in adversity, stopped for a chat and a catch-up of the ‘what are you doing here’ variety. I was trying to keep it short yet polite because I could see a Syrian security guy across the road watching us.

I had just spent an hour convincing those guys I was not a media whore and there I was having a convivial conversation in the middle of the street with the despotic enemy.

Good manners required I introduce David to my Jordanian friends and to my horror he started to interview them about the political situation. How gauche.

‘Oops, sorry, have to dash, bags to pack and so forth.’

We got in our respective cars and drove off. At a cross roads we parted company with a friendly wave and went about our lawful occasions. Moosa was not happy about this, that we had been watched, yet realised there was very little I could have done short of grabbing an Embassy guard’s rifle and bayoneting the hated BBC infidel to show my political allegiance. That accidental brush with the BBC crew put everyone on edge and WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 60

I got the distinct impression the Hamadeas where eager to see the back of me. And who could fault them.

The following day at 08.30, as I waited outside the travel agent for the taxi, Moosa gave me some sage words of advice.

‘Just let things happen, do not plan too far ahead and enjoy the ride.’

We promised to meet up back in London but the fact of the matter is I never saw him again. A surprise visitor to my departure was one of the retired colonel types from the British Embassy compound with a bag of mail to be posted from Beirut. The mail had stopped with the closing of Amman Airport. He asked me if I was scared.

‘Petrified,’ I told him.

‘Good thing too. Scared means you are alive. Keep a stiff upper lip old boy.’

And he meant it.

The Chicken Shop Posse arrived too to say their good-byes, bearing gifts of food and hugs.

‘We’ll see you in London one day,’ they said.

As we drove off I wondered if they ever made it to England, would they get as much out of their visit as I had out of mine to Amman. A sudden moment of terrible loss at parting from friends I knew I would probably never see again. Once out of the city I settled back into the drive, seeing the daylight Jordan I had not seen during the night time dash on the way in. A beautiful country and one to which I was intent to return.

And never did.

Sharing the back seat with me in the taxi was Samia Bushnaq, who worked for the United Nations in Beirut, wanted to hear all my adventures in Amman and I did not disappoint. It had been a true learning experience for me, a lone and largely ignorant Brit who was sad to leave new friends, yet coming away with a better cultural understanding. I never forgot the people I met there and I never will. As we neared the frontier the driver warned that if the Syrians wouldn’t let me in, there was nothing he could do and he would have to leave me there. I knew. And, as if talking up bad news, the Syrian frontier guards refused to accept my transit visa and had no intention of allowing me into the country. I swapped details with Samia who said once she got to Beirut she would write to my family, let them know she had seen me, that I was alive and okay. We waved to each other as the taxi went on its merry way and I sat WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 61

forlornly at the border post where the officer, who with hindsight looked suspiciously like Saddam, had dragged out an armchair to valiantly guard the border. Or what was left of it. He looked at me as if I was a foreign imbecile – can’t fault him on that – and sadly shook his heard before wandering back inside. He came out moments later with a battered old hat and plomped it on my head with an expression which had ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ written all over it. A moment of random kindness. They was no conversation between us but I got the impression the Syrians really, deep in the bone, hated the British. And there I was, sitting there, to be deeply hated. Fortunately a truck load of melons turned up, heading south, and I was bundled into the cab to be returned to Jordan, waved away by the border guard with grim satisfaction.

It was on that journey, in faltering English, the melon farmer explained why we Brits are so hated. It started with the First World War and Britain’s seizure of part of the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate of Palestine, covered the Treaty of Versailles and the 1917 Balfour Declaration8, promising a state of Israel for the Jews and ended about where we were. And where we were at that point was a tiny hamlet and the end of my ride. I was grabbed out of the melon truck by an irate policeman who dragged me off to who knew where and kicked in the fundament along the way by a group of little scamps. Instead of a the dire custodial grief I was expecting he threw me into the back of a taxi, driven back to Amman and unceremoniously dumped outside the British Embassy. It could have been worse. At least I was still breathing.

My new best friend, the information officer at the Embassy, ushered me into an office for de-brief but unless he was interested in the strategic movement of melons I wasn’t of much use. I enquired about the best way to leave the country. He advised to go to Jidda in Saudi Arabia, where the airport was open, but which would have necessitated travelling through Mecca which was barred to non-Muslims9. It was suggested I might lie about my antecedents until I reminded him what had happened to Lawrence when he had tried the same ruse at Dera’a. Besides, Jidda was eight hundred miles in the wrong direction. The Embassy staff were as keen to see the back of me as I was to leave. I posed them a conundrum; I had travelled through the militarily sensitive Golan Heights the night the war broke out and, in Amman, rumour capital of the Middle East, that made me interesting to the Israelis. It would be somewhat embarrassing, the Embassy felt, if I vanished into the inky night and woke up in some Israeli interrogation camp.

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Sneaking across the Israeli lines was put up as a serious proposition until someone remembered Lod airport was shut. No escape there, then.

Leaving the disconsolate consulate I immediately bumped into Mike Jones, a buddy from Saigon, who had just rolled in from Saudi Arabia having taken the long way round to the front. Everybody wound up in Amman sooner or later when they discovered the Syrians were miffed with us Westerners. No one was sneaking in from anywhere. Mike had somehow managed to obtain a Syrian transit visa.

‘Transit to where?’ I asked.

‘Lebanon.’

‘But that’s where I tried to get to this morning but they wouldn’t let me in even with a transit visa. Really, don’t try it. They are not happy people.’

I didn’t fancy foisting meself on the Hamadeas so Mike offered to install me in the Intercontinental Hotel on his agency’s tab which was fine my me because I had a strong desire for a bath. That evening, loitering around the Hotel bar, amongst the worlds’ refugee newsmen who were also unable to get near the Syrian action, I bumped into David Harrison.

‘That was quick,’ he said, smiling.

‘Don’t even joke about it.’

David told me I should phone J’assar Durra at Jordanian TV as he was looking for film editors to handle all the extra material they had coming in from the foreign press. But Mike had other ideas. He had found a way into Syria.

‘Keep it to yourself. We don’t want our contemporaries stealing a march on us and spiking our scoop.’

When Mike spoke in journalese, I knew he had an awesome scheme.

vi. AND THE WORLD FELL AWAY 08.30, Wednesday October 17th 1973: in the early photographers’ light Mike and I drove north, heading for Dera’a. Again. Once we lost our tail, Syrian or Jordanian security we knew not wot of, on the road to Mafraq we turned north west to Saham. Still in Jordan, a few miles shy of the border, we hooked up with Rashid our PLO guide. What we were attempting to do was so dangerous and foolhardy that, if we would had any imagination at all of what could happen to us if we were caught, we would surely have WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 63

run screaming for our mothers. Mike was an American masquerading as a Canadian and I was British masquerading as a fearless person. The whole enterprise was so ludicrous as to be laughable. In trying to obtain exclusive TV news footage from the front line we were over-stepping the bounds of common sense. And somewhere, deep in my soul, I knew it.

Rashid, our guide, led us over the back ways across the border towards Ash Shajarah via the old and hopefully abandoned railway tracks. I didn’t like that journey one bit as reality started to leak through the walls of delusion. If we met a train coming the other way … best not to think about it … although there were no railways tracks to be seen.

We were journalists and we were on a mission to get that hot story from the front lines no matter what the Israelis or the Syrians had to say about it. The sound of gunfire wasn’t far away. An ever present background hum which orchestrated our obsession for a story. Sean Flynn, I thought, I wonder if this is how it began with him. One minute missing in Cambodia, the next killed by the Khmer Rouge, pushing his luck a little too far for a news story.

At Ash Shajarah we appeared out of a cloud of desert dust like one of Montgomery’s long range desert patrol group hot-foot from a mission. I half expected to see Omar Sharif on a camel appear through the heat haze. Mike bribed a Syrian official to stamp our passports before picking up the road north to Kenitra. And the wrath of the Israeli tanks waiting for us up there. We stopped for tiffin in the middle of nowhere. I had a nasty feeling we might have crossed the lines and strayed into the Israeli sphere of influence and knew this would be hard to explain later if we crossed back. What there was, so far, was no action to photograph. It was a around here somewhere. We could hear it. We just weren’t seeing it. Mike offered me a gun, a Colt 45, just in case. He wouldn’t say in case of what. I told him about me and guns in Vietnam. I don’t carry a gun. He insisted. Told him I had never shot a gun in my life. Mike showed me how.

‘Stand with your legs slightly apart, bend your knees, hold the grip in both hands, don’t grip it so hard, relax, that’s cool, now slide the action back, safety off, take a deep breath and gently squeeze the trigger as you-.’

And the world fell away as I emptied the clip. I was staring into a vista of blue. Sky. Flat on my back. From the recoil, I supposed. Still holding the gun in both hands, pointing upwards. Mike and Rashid doubled over with laughter. They’d never seen WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 64

anyone fall over backwards from firing a 45 before. I was a novelty. We examined my targets. All the rocks I had aimed at were untouched but a lizard looked like I had given it a nasty fright and gave me a do not ever do that to me again expression on a naturally expressionless countenance. I kept the gun. I had found a creature on God’s earth who was scared of me.

By the time we reached the edge of Kenitra the Israeli army had rolled through and flattened the place. They were still engaged in flattening the place. But there didn’t seem to be any Syrian resistance, this was merely big boys playing with explosives because that is what invading armies do. I got the camera rolling on rubble and ruins, making a mental note of how symmetrically Israeli tank fire had brought buildings down. The walls blown out with the roof neatly capping the whole thing off. It struck me, as I panned the camera, that this was not a normal course of events in which rubble tends to fall in the heat of battle. It sort of goes everywhere. There was something altogether far too neat and tidy about this rubble. I twigged what it was when my camera pan came to rest on a group of Israeli soldiers laying charges prior to flattening another house. This was not the fog of war. This was the systematic demolition of Arab homes. And another thing. Those guys were none too happy about being filmed doing it. They called out to me in what I assumed to be Hebrew remembering how my Aunt Sadie would curse, in extremis, in German-Yiddish. I never learned it. Faced with an incomprehensible language in hard to explain circumstances I resorted to the international language of idiocy; nod, smile, ignore, hope the soldiers lose interest. But they didn’t. In their world view of events I was the one thing in it which didn’t fit. A European filming them methodically blowing up Arab homes, a man who did not seem to understand their language. Slowly, without apparent undue haste, I packed the camera equipment away.

Mike was nowhere in sight and neither was Rashid. A horrible thought arose. Mike had left me there to be arrested while he and Rashid were off doing god only knew what all. Just as the Israeli sappers started to move in my direction Rashid roared up at the wheel shouting.

‘Get in, quickly, get in.’

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I threw myself across the back seat of the car, in a jumble of aluminium flight cases, as he drove off. Fast. I crawled up the back seat of the car, fighting the inertia, and saw an Israeli armoured car come flying out of a side turning, fish tailing as it came in pursuit.

‘Shoot them. Shoot them.’

‘Where’s Mike?’

‘Shoot them. They’ll back off if you shoot at them.’

Well that didn’t make any sense.

‘Where’s Mike?’ I asked emphatically.

‘Up ahead. He’s got us a way out of this.’

Beam me up Scotty, I thought. We were leaving the armoured car behind but I had a feeling we would have some serious explaining to do with the Syrians later. Out of the frying pan, as it were.

‘Did you get the film of the Israelis blowing up houses?’

‘What? Oh. Yes. Why were they doing that?’

‘Why do you think. To make the town uninhabitable, so we’ve got nothing to take back when we counter attack. Scorched earth. They learned that from the Germans in Russia.’

There was nothing I could say. One man’s war crime is another man’s carving paradise out of the desert. In the promised land. We came to a makeshift one runway dirt strip with an Antonov transport plane sitting at the far end of the runway, engines idling.

Mike stood on the back ramp waving at us to hurry up, for God’s sake hurry up. Rashid and I loaded the aluminium equipment cases onto the back ramp of the transport and barely had time to strap ourselves in when the Antonov went to full throttle, lumbering into the air like a pregnant brick, to a sound rather like someone throwing pebbles onto a tin sheet. I sat there in a quivering heap while Rashid and Mike, in fluent Arabic, congratulated themselves on a job well done right up until the point when the flight engineer came back to tell us to get into crash positions. The sound rather like someone throwing pebbles onto a tin sheet turned out to be Israeli ground fire which had hit the hydraulic system. The pilot needed hydraulics to lower the landing gear which meant we were going in, wheels up.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘that just about takes the biscuit. I shall be sending a letter of WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 66

complaint to the Israelis if I ever get out of this alive.’ We floated in with the wheels up, butterfly flutters by, landed with barely a jolt and slithered down the runway in an unholy grinding of rending metal. There was no fire. We came to a stop, an hiatus of silence followed by a crowded few minutes as someone popped the escape hatch and, grabbing the camera, I ran like a bastard across the runway in case the great thing decided to take us all by surprise and blow up. Unbeknown to us, the airfield had been hit by an Israeli air raid moments before we arrived and was littered with bomb craters, into one of which I ran full tilt and vanished from sight. What Mike, Rashid and the flight crew saw was first one hand and then the other appear on the lip of the crater and for this dishevelled Englishman to appear a moment later. It giggled and slid back down. I had arrived. In Syria as it turned out, bundled into a waiting car and driven to the Lebanese border. The film I had shot in Kenitra was whisked away and I never saw it again. So much for my scoop hot story. I went into the war with a mental age of twenty-two and came out with a mental age of ninety. Welcome to the real world.

I did get my R&R in Beirut prior to returning to Europe. But I was too dazed and confused to remember much about it before taking a flight to Istanbul, to get clear of the war zone. The old joke amongst my press colleagues, wherever I went a war was sure to follow, was wearing thin.

* WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 67

vii. BACK IN THE WORLD Istanbul was one of the most beautiful cities west of the Bosporus while at the same time a squalid slum of teeming tourists. Thousands of European backpackers headed east seeking spiritual enlightenment as thousands of Australians and New Zealanders headed west in a plethora of VW camper vans with a bewilderment of foreign number plates. Hippie hotels were laughably cheap, a transit camp for lost souls and mystic seekers who averred they had had gone beyond acid, living on lentils and jaded hopes.

And every one of them had a story of woe and degradation.

Jamie, a twenty-one year old Irishman, was marooned in Istanbul after hitching a lift from Greece with a German car dealer. The German had two Mercedes saloon cars, traditionally used as long range taxis in the region, to deliver in Damascus but the guy who was driving the other car had split in Salonika, deciding to hitch down to Athens.

Jamie was looking for a ride towards Afghanistan and heard about the stranded German who needed another driver to deliver his cars to Syria. The thought of travelling in style appealed to Jamie so he signed for the second car, to get it across the borders, and they drove off in convoy. By the time they got to Istanbul Jamie had had enough of high speed driving for a mad German car salesman. This was not Jamie’s idea of the hippie trail so he split in Istanbul which, he decided, was not his idea of fun either and decided to return to Greece. However, there was a problem. He’d signed for a Mercedes on the way in and Turkish Customs officials wanted to know where it was. Had he sold it? Had he paid the sales tax? No amount of studied explanation of the it was not my car variety would satisfy them until he produced either the car or a sales receipt thereof.

The upshot was Jamie had to return to Istanbul where he was marooned with no help from the Irish Embassy. Jamie said he had an escape plan, to hide in the boot of a hippie vehicle in a desperate attempt to cross the border without papers. I wished him luck. For all I know he’s still in Istanbul. This was one bind amongst many of which I didn’t want to become a victim. I had the feeling it would be quite easy for a lone waif to become marooned so I kept my head down until a mysterious friend of Mike’s turned up at my bijou hotel and immediately put me on a flight to Athens.

‘You cannot stay here it is too dangerous. Istanbul is no place for you. Follow me.

Follow me,’ in an accent so rich with eastern promise he sounded like an ambitious Hollywood supporting artist who been studying accents too long.

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The taxi ride from Athens airport was fraught with so much peculiarity I wondered if I had strayed into the realms of a John La Carrie novel by mistake, The Spy Who Came In With A Cold. I had no idea of the exchange rate so, sitting in the back of the cab watching the meter whirl round, I decided I needed to change more money.

This was not easy. Apparently the banks were closed so the driver decided to take me back to the airport bureau de change.

Mission accomplished, we set off once again with only a vague idea of where my hotel was situated. Enroute the driver decided to stop off at an isolated rural house to ‘collect something.’ He was gone a long time and the meter was still running. I had an eerie feeling this was where, according to my paranoid imaginings, the later police report would state I had gone missing. The vibes were not good. Finally he drove me to my hotel which turned out to be a youth hostel. Any old port, as far as I was concerned.

I herded with some Brits, George & Kevin from Clacton-On-Sea, who were headed down to the Aegean Islands. That night I was invited to a party where I hooked up with Carol, a Canadian nurse, who introduced me to the delights of something called Ouzo.

Everyone knew, except me, it was supposed to be taken with water so when Kevin told me to take a good slug straight from the bottle I believed him. Not a patch on pinyin but it did the trick; the top of my head came off, much to the hilarity of everyone in the room. It was like I had passed some kind of test. Busy, busy, busy. The party people were planning to hit the ferry from Piraeus next day and it didn’t take much persuasion from my new friend Carol for me to join them. I felt like I had finally been released back into the World. We took a huge ferry down to Crete, playing deck bowls with my green Jordanian oranges, and slept under the stars on a flat calm sea, a bonding of young soul-mates and that is how come I ended up living on a beach near Ay Nikolaos, in a rude hut made from driftwood and sheets of clear polythene Carol and I had managed to scavenge.

As the sun dipped behind the mountains, our travelling companions showed up with WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 69

food and wine, a fire was lit and we achieved a true freakdom by becoming beach bums.

A beautiful night under twinkling stars, a balmy breeze off the sea and an American chick who came along and broke the spell of our fantasy. I had heard about dumb right wing American backpackers but never really believed they existed right up until that night down on the beach. With all the zeal of a political version of a Jehovah’s Witness we were regaled with the polemics of a lonesome New Yorker on the American Way, how the capitalist system is all and every one us was trying to smash good ol’ I love John Wayne America. She had an amazingly simplistic view of the Middle East situation, that the war was contrived by those damn Ruskies to hit Nixon while he was down over Watergate. I begged to differ, which was a big mistake because I was forced to explain how a pinko commie Limey1 like myself knew anything about world politics.

I should have kept my fat mouth shut.

‘I’ve just come from there. I was on the Golan Heights the night the war broke out.

The Palestinians have more to worry about than your President’s career, believe me.

As for the Russians, the Arabs buy arms off them just like the Israelis buy tanks from America.’

It was like I had sprayed poo across the beach. No matter the rights or wrongs, no one wanted to hear that stuff. Culture shock. What a bummer.

‘Do you know who I am?’ asked the lonesome New Yorker.

‘Why. Don’t you?’ I asked stupidly and flounced off into the inky night so the lonesome New Yorker could preach righteous propaganda to those there present. Then I remembered that was where I had left all my stuff. Bummer squared. Carol found me with my toes in the water, staring out to sea, wondering how I was going back to camp without causing a major international incident. G-Men behind every rock, poised to rub out a pinko commie.

‘Was it bad?’ she asked, meaning the war.

‘Yes. I think it probably was.’

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‘You should come back. The hippies are trying to be nice to her with reasoned argument and they’re not winning.’

But that was when the tears came and, thankfully, Carol was there with a hug. With the grief cried-out I pulled myself together2 and tried to stand but the cold air had given me cramp. Carol tried to soothe it with sea water but it got under the scabs which made me cry out. Kicking my jeans off so I could dry my legs, passing through grief, pain and hysterical laughter along the way, Carol saw the leg wounds for the first time.

‘My god. What happened to you?’

I must have gotten used to the sight of my legs and, with the pain killers, it no longer seemed such a big deal.

‘Oh that? Just shrapnel,’ I said with a forced off-hand casualness. ‘It looks worse than it is.’

This wasn’t me being a brave little soldier. Although my legs looked like a train wreck, they just itched a bit until the scabs healed3. We made it back to camp by dawn, handin-hand, slightly embarrassed smiles all round that I had made a pratt of myself and knew it. Of the New Yorker there was no sign. We spent our pleasurable days together never out of each other’s company until the weather turned sour. Woke up one morning, scared witless as a Greek F4 fighter plane flew slowly along the beach, me scaring the freaks as I rolled into a ball of gibbering fear. There was no escape, obviously, so I quit beach life which meant quitting Carol. She wanted to stay and I wanted to go. One of the other beach bums, Chris, wanted to split too so we hiked into town in search of breakfast. There we met a young German guy, I never knew his name, who insisted on buying us a meal.

We must have looked bad. We decided to head back to Iraklion and the German guy offered us a lift. Maybe we smelly, dirty beach freaks were bad for business and he’d drawn the short straw to run us out of town. We got into Ay Nikolaos about noon and saw the ferry moored at the quay. We looked at each other and wordlessly decided, there and then, to catch the boat back to the mainland. It was due to leave at 8pm but stayed in port overnight due to storms in the Aegean. We stayed up on the top deck as conditions below were noisesome; the stench of diesel oil from the engines and body odour were too much for even us. Sea conditions had improved by midday and we chugged out to meet the waves. Choppy we were told. Force-5, Chris reckoned and WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 71

explained how to avoid puking.

‘Stand out on deck and watch the horizon.’

It worked. I have never puked on a ship since. There were a couple of times when the ship rolled, holding our breath waiting for it to come up, wondering if it would.

‘You ever see The Poseidon Adventure?’ I asked casually.

‘Don’t talk like that. God might hear and you’ll give him ideas.’

It was an education in the potential for disaster at sea. We wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in that water if the ship hadn’t rolled back upright, before nosing down into another deep trough. A seaman told us to go below before we got swept off the deck, hard going as the steps we were expecting to put our foot on weren’t there as the ship took another rolling dive beneath us. We had ten hours of essence of fear and diesel oil, decks awash with piss, poo and puke, the thundering slam as the ship took another murderous wave before we reached the safety of Piraeus. That night we slept on warm, comfortable, stable mattresses and gave a silent pray to the god of the sea for not drowning us all. Next day I checked my bank balance and Mike had sent the money over for my Kenitra pictures. Ka-ching! Thank you very much. That kept me going for a while and meant I could replace the stills cameras I had had to sell in order to afford to eat. Chris and I went our separate ways and for reasons I can barely guess at I decided not to take a direct flight to London but went the scenic route, on a hippie bus via Amsterdam. Cheap hippie buses were all the rage back in the day. Some were good, others were death traps. Guess which one I took?

The 1950’s British bus was run by two Americans who looked like they had had an interesting life. The bus left Athens two hours late due to unexplained technical problems. But I was determined to soak up the vibes, trying to forget my weird war experiences4. My fellow passengers on the bus were mainly Americans and Canadians going home via the old country. The Septics5 were still in thrall of the mother country in a sort of quaint ye olde merry England rustic way. The bus was a wreck, hauling up hills at walking pace and it wasn’t until sunset we realised the lights didn’t work. A whole horde of passengers insisted we stop for the night after a close encounter with a tunnel wall inside a mountain. It took two days to reach the Yugoslav border, a mere two hundred miles from Athens. We stopped for the night in the car park of a posh hotel on the Greek side of the frontier before making the crossing. The bus people found a WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 72

bar and we all got sloshed, celebrating the fact we were alive.

As we were about to cross the frontier next day one of the drivers, Bob Horgan called out. ‘If you’re carrying any dope now’s the time to throw it out the window because these guys have appalling prisons.’

We made it to Skopia where the bus drivers disappeared off to get the generator for the lights fixed. We found an open space, played guitars, sang and behaved like idiots until someone mentioned we had left all our stuff on the bus and none of knew where in was. Me, I was sensible and kept my money & passport with me at times.

Panic was on the cusp just as the ratty old bus hoved into view, flashing its lights in the triumph of a newly fixed generator.

Everyone scampered aboard, all thoughts of being stranded swiftly left behind in the wheelie bin of dispair. We drove on through the night. Because of our erratic driving hours some people couldn’t eat for days as the bus frequently managed to stop out of banking hours. This became problematic as the journey progressed. We stopped at a wayside supermarket. While waiting to be served, the check-out girl kept pointing to my gold ring. It took the combined efforts of three different languages to figure out what was on her mind. Marriage. Don’t blame her, if I had to live in that heathen country, WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 73

I’d do my darnedest to leave too.

We made a stop 30km north of Nis and, with the Middle East oil crisis taking hold, we had to wait hours to fill the tank. I decided this was not the best time to lecture the complaining Septics about why the oil tap had been turned off. The locals were queuing with drums and buckets, long lines of trucks and buses controlled by the police who were not welcome to the idea of foreigners taking pictures. Eventually we were on the road again and took the Austrian border at dawn. Someone said it was Wednesday.

Some of us had lost track of time. It was the last day of October and in England people were putting their clocks back an hour. Fall back, Spring forward. My sister lived, still lives, on the French / Italian border in Ventimiglia. It crossed my mind to ditch the bus and hit the train across Italy but I wasn’t sure I could handle relatives at that point in my life. She would tease the whole war story out of me and I wasn’t sure I could cope with sibling recriminations, the foolhardiness of her little brother straying into war-torn countries, scaring the family. Yes, I could just see that jolly conversation playing out, best not go there. I was on the bus for good or ill.

We hit Germany at 5pm and made the hideous error of mistaking the border post for a gas station and overshot it. The West German border guards were not amused and vigorously searched the bus. It was pretty funny. I mean, who is ever going to believe a bus full of hippies mistook a well lit border post for a gas station? Well, not unless we were all on drugs obviously. At least we had the honesty to reverse back. Germany was still in the grip of Bader-Meinhoff terrorism and the armed border guards were not about find us amusing. We stopped in Munich for a break but managed to arrive after the banks had shut. Again. We were past the point of sharing food because no one had any left. This stopped being funny in the country before last. The chorus of rumbly tumblies was quite audible. We drove on but 10km beyond Frankfurt the fuel line broke.

This at last meant we arrived somewhere where the banks were open.

People split up into their bus buddy groups and went off in search of food. I hooked WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 74

up with a pleasant couple from New England, Mike and Pat, and we took our time gorging on the most wonderful hot sausages we’d ever tasted. In fact, at that point of starvation hot horse manure would have tasted just as wonderful. We took our time getting back to the bus on the grounds they had held us up often enough, now it was payback. Although I had this horrible feeling we might get back to find our packs sitting forlornly in an empty lot. If we were lucky. In fact we got back to a bus load of people who were in a black funk. Sod this for a lark, I gave them both barrels of full-on British sarcasm.

‘Thank you so much for waiting.’

We took our seats to a silence so pervading you could have cut it into blocks and sold it as building material. Later we found out the black funk wasn’t aimed at us but at the drivers who had been running a barely road worthy bus to the annoyance of everyone on board.

The bus ground into Amsterdam at 1am next morning. We’d made it. Seven days of buffoonery. The bus passengers scattered to the winds like survivors off a beached ship. Audie, a Canadian I had hooked up with on the bus, and I found a seedy hotel with the help of a local hustler. After our first real sleep for a week we woke around noon and went for a stroll to dig the vibes and, along the way, met up with most of the bus people. There was a hippie café in the centre of town for folks like us straight off the bus; all you could eat for a dollar. I was really starving but couldn’t finish the meal.

Audie said my stomach had probably shrunk. We heard Canadian Tom couldn’t find a place to stay but Bill Horgan let him doss down in the back of the bus at a truck park until a decent hour. John, a New Yorker, and I found a cheaper hotel, The Kabul, in the Warmoesstraat red light district near Central Station. We went back to tell Audie the good news but she’d decided to split for London that night. John left us to say our long good-bye while he went in search of Tom to tell him the good news, that he could have Audie’s room. Carol and Audie, I seemed to be saying good-bye quite often to all the women I had hooked up with on the trip. Audie said she would stay in London and wait for me to get back, something to look forward to with the only woman I had really dug on the whole darn trip.

Broke in Amsterdam was one of the worst and at the same time one the most heart warming experiences of my entire life. Worst because I couldn’t afford to eat properly WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 75

and heart warming because we were undemanding of each others’ situation. We were young and broke together, really bad and really good. What happened to my Kuneitra thousands? In a bank in London which, in those days, was a right mission to get sent over to Holland. Even 50-quid would have helped. We spent all day in the AVC club keeping warm and making a beer last all day.

Bill Horgan showed up and offered me a job selling bus tickets outside the American Express calling, ‘Athens! Athens! Cheapest tickets in town. Athens! Athens!’ Living on spring rolls and beer in a motiveless daze near the Central Station right up until the day when the Dutch tested their city air raid sirens and I freaked right out. Next day I took the boat home.

From my diary: ‘Another dreary day selling bus tickets outside the American Express.

It hailed. One of the guys who ran AKC Bus Tours between Amsterdam & Athens, Bill Horgan, turned up and marched me off for a coffee break. Booked ticket home.

Celebrated leaving with the folks I had got to know from the bus and here in the ‘Dam at the AVC Club in the red light district. Pissed off to the train station about 8.30pm, leaving all those people it will take a while to forget. Hassled by Dutch Customs as soon as they saw my Middle East visas. Sea crossing rough at first but managed to sleep.

November and I’m going home. Everyone goes home in November. Arrived Harwich 6am WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 76

and it is bloody cold. When I think of all I have left behind in Jordan, all those people I had met on the trip, something inside asks why didn’t I stay where I was happiest?  There was no Post Traumatic Stress Disorder counselling for war photographers back then. My father thought I had gone native, my mother refused to discuss the matter and all my friends thought I had been brainwashed by the Arabs because I’d changed my opinion about Israel. No one likes a smart arse. But the main thing I came out with from that experience was, covering the wars, nothing worse can happen to me ever again. I was going to live forever and die in the attempt and no one was going to get in my way. And I meant it. The war experience turned me into a risk taker. I realise that now. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. I had no fear of situations which should have been frightening and often pushed my luck a little too far. Later, working as a journalist close to the drugs underworld, there were close shaves. One news editor told me he thought it was displacement. I was an excitement junkie who missed the rush of being shot at.

viii. THE LUMP - 1996 I had a problem with my mouth. My GP whisked me off to Hospital for tests. A lump on my upper jaw. An operation was called for. My surgeon had an Arabic name and I had to ask.

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking but where are you from?’

‘Syria. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh. I was in Syria. October 1973.’ A short version of my war story followed.

‘You were on the Golan Heights the night the war broke out? If you ever decide to go back you will be declared a hero of The Glorious October War. My family would be proud to welcome you into their home.’

But I never got the chance to return. It was profoundly disturbing to me that the 1973 October War did not get the Israelis and the front line Arab states round the negociating table. True, Egypt got the Sinai back but the illegal building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land goes on apace. In the 1995 Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin, having signed the Oslo Accord which would made way for peace with Palestine, was assassinated by right-wing radical Yigal Amir. The right wing took over the government and we’re still where we were. The never ending war.

WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 77

CHAPTER 2 - FOOTNOTES 1

American code name for Viet Cong fighters

2

LZ, pronounced el-zee = landing zone

3

those Mk3 tanks were notoriously under-powered

4

Minor flesh wounds

5

It took years for all the bits to surface & fall out and going through an airport metal

detector was a laugh riot 6

Not my Aunt but my best school friend’s Aunt who became, by default, everyone’s

Aunt 7

Palestine Liberation Organisation

8

a letter from the UK Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to Baron Rothschild, leader of

the British Jewish community to wit, ‘His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’

9

I didn’t convert until the late-80’s

For more information about the Anatolian Plateau see; www.photius.com/countries/turkey/geography/anatolian_plateau

* WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 78

CHAPTER 2 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 40 - Al & Moosa on the road to Ulukisla Al & Moosa driving across the Anatolian Plateau Moosa and the Custard Torpedo Page 49 - Syrian barrage on the Golan Heights ibid Israeli tank column Page 50 - Disabled Syrian tank Explosions follow us up the road Photos at war Page 53 - Dera’a air raid Page 56 - Moosa in Zahrain, Amman Air raid on Amman Page 58 - Hamadea family at Jerash Dog fight near Jerash Moosa on the ampitheatre, co-inciidentally his shadow is shape of the cross Al wearing terrible loon pants at Jerash Page 65 - Al on a mission with a camera, somewhere near Kuneitra Page 67 - Antonov freighter (photomanipulation) similar to the aircraft which crash landed with Al onboard Page 69 - Athens Page 70 - Carol & Al’s plastic wrap bender in the beach Page 73 - Off the bus, in a very long queue for derv Off the bus, canaian Tom Graz Austria, first time the hippie bus stops in civilisation Page 74 - New Englanders John & Pat, in Graz.

Page 76 - Room with a view; The Kabul Hotel, Warmoesstraat Amsterdam

* WAR CORRESPONDENCE - PAGE 79

3

LEARNING THE CRAFT

i. A RIGHT PEN AND INK Back in London I found an ad in the local paper for a camera operator which turned out to be a printer’s camera operator and not a film camera operator of which I didn’t find out until the interview. There was an inky world of difference between the two. Film sprocket hole camera operators were clean living folk who rarely go their hands dirty.

Printers’ camera operators existed in a world of grime, inky little fingers and chemicals.

It worked like this; an experienced man, aged-80, would enter with a pile of A3 size pages which I would put under a gigantic camera, about the size and shape of an old style freezer, which housed an A3 size sheet of monochrome unexposed negative and I would spend a whole morning exposing the b/w A3 sheets of neg stock. The rest of the day would be spent up to my ruddy elbows in chemicals, processing the negs and re-photographing them onto aluminum plates which were then rubbed down with thick, evil smelling ink before being handed onto the printer boys (average age, 90) downstairs where they operated huge printers which looked like Tang Dynasty (618907) wood-block printing presses.

It was another skill worth learning but in the worst working conditions I’d ever seen, breaking every rule in the Factories Act and decidedly bad for the health. How did we dispose of the photographic chemicals each night? We were told by the boss’ son, just waiting for the old codger to die so he could inherit the business to sell it off and live in luxury on the proceeds, to flush all the chemicals down the lavatory. One day the boss’ wife used the loo just afterwards and nearly died. A hell hole. Fortunately I was rescued by the ‘three day week’, a result of the coal miners’ strike, and it was the only time last-in-first-out worked in my favour.

Less than a month after starting at the inking wilderness I hooked up with Les Harris who gave me some work as a freelance assistant editor for a while laying sound tracks for The Magic Roundabout which was as boring as it gets. But in no way inky. Whoosh!

Boing! Eric Thompson’s voice over and title music. We would put a batch of episodes together onto one reel and take them off to Universal’s dubbing studio in Soho to make the final mix. Les’ transport back then was a flash American car he had bought from a returning US serviceman who didn’t want the hassle of taking the vehicle back to the States. Les’ driving was chaotic and, in a left-hand drive car, alarming. I travelled on the Tube as much as possible but sometimes there was nothing for it but sit in the front LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 81

seat of that car with my eyes closed. Holding onto something. In 2005, during a BBC Radio interview about a film I directed, the interviewer alighted upon my working on Magic Roundabout and asked if it was the big hippie freak-out it was alleged to have been. Sorry, no it wasn’t. It was run by a serious minded tweedy BBC lady by the name of Monica Mead and, although I had long hair, if there was any spliff6 flying about I never saw it. My drug of choice was real ale in a lunch-time boozer off the Cromwell Road. But of debauchery on the Magic Roundabout, sorry to burst the bubble, there was none. I always said naming an animated rabbit Dylan was going to lead to trouble.

Industry chums made fun for working at the bottom end of the short animation market and my social friends thought it was far out and amazing. People would actually ask what Dylan was like to work with? It’s a fecking animated puppet, you bozo, it doesn’t say anything.

‘Yeah we all know Dougal’s sugar lumps are LSD ma’an, we get that dood.’

The poor deluded fools. When the Magic Roundabout contract ended I was syncing Santa Pod drag racing rushes which almost sent me deaf and stupid. The crew were putting clapper boards on to sync the sound to picture but all that came out of the tiny speaker was white noise. But, hey, work’s work and Les knew a lot of people who could have done that job for less dough. Les’ production company, Leshar Films was a pretty busy place with a mixture of TV and independent productions. In the cutting room next door a group of Palestinians were making a documentary about what the Israelis did in Kuneitra. Intrigued, I peered in through the open cutting room door. The Palestinian film makers looked back at me as if I was something unspeakable on the bottom of their shoe.

‘Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. I was there.’

‘This is Kuneitra,’ said a mound of black burqa, as if speaking to a child with severe learning difficulties.

‘Yes, I was there with a Canadian reporter, October 1973. We filmed the Israelis blowing up the-.’

‘There were no western film makers in Syria, if there was any film of Kenitra we would know about it,’ the mound of black burqa interrupted in such a way as to indicate that all communication on that point was concluded.

That gave me a touch of the jitters. I had no problem with people believing or LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 82

disbelieving I was where I said I was, doing what I said I did. The problem for me was finding out the Palestinian elite, film makers and writers, were just as dogmatic as the Israelis. That brief glimpse of grainy black & white film I got through the doorway was shot sometime after the town was destroyed. I wasn’t telling them their job, merely interested in what happened because I’d seen it being done. A kind of ‘wow that was terrible I’m glad someone’s making a film about it.’ Years later it occurred to me they may have thought I was an Israeli spy and I had been party to the destruction. We were in cosmopolitan London, after all. You never knew who you were standing next to.

One lunch time, in the back street boozer on North End Road, I met film director Peter Van Praagh. I had seen him about Les’ production company, having a cataclysmic argument with a film editor who apparently did not share Peter’s artistic view of how his movie should be made. The row ended with a door slam and sudden silence. It looked as though Peter was in the pub for much the same reason as me. Peace and quiet. We got talking, our respective minor moans, me having directed music films but still deemed too young at the age of twenty-two to be taken seriously and Peter as a director having a hard time finding an editor for his independent film, Elegy. There was a moment of cogitative silence as we contemplated our respective woes.

‘Another pint?’ asked Peter.

‘I should be getting back.’

‘I have a proposition for you.’

Which was how come Peter rescued me from the drudgery of syncing rushes and got an editor who wasn’t going to be a hindrance, sticking to the bygone rules of film making. Les was okay about me taking off with one of his clients as Peter was still hiring the cutting room and I found a replacement assistant to cover for me, it all worked out.

Post production lasted six weeks, with trips to Wales to film additional scenes to cover holes in the narrative and a wonderful recording session with Sir John Betjimen who came in to read the commentary. Sir John refused to record in a studio.

‘Commentary booths always remind me of Spanish bordellos and when I get inside,’ he said, ‘I’m always disappointed.’

We recorded the commentary in a London flat and, as the sound recordist had previously worked with Sir John at ATV, the atmosphere was quite convivial. During a tea break Sir John and the recordist chatted about people they knew. Their conversation LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 83

alighted upon a particularly querulous film director they had worked with of whom the sound recordist referred to as a ‘head wanker.’ Peter and I exchanged a worried glance.

He just said head wanker to Sir John Betjimen.

But Sir John, unperturbed retorted, ‘Yes, there was a degree of mental masturbation in that department.’

The film went for final mix in September and I found myself out on the cobbles again. I enjoyed working on that film and still hold wonderful memories of it, including meeting the great poet, be it ever so briefly. The peoples’ teddy bear.

A brief spell of unemployment followed before four days of hell working in an IBM warehouse shifting heavy things around the shelves and being spoken to as if I were an imbecile. I have never understood why warehouse foremen behave in a bullying, hectoring manner towards temporary staff. Perhaps it is in the job description.

Dotted around Soho and West London were facility companies who were contracted to edit huge swathes of BBC Light Entertainment and Drama films. And they paid proper wages to people who did this. On Thursday 26th September I had an interview with Bob Rymer at Group One Productions who took me on, as a short term contract assistant editor with John Nunn editing film inserts for Open University. Fifteen months after leaving the cloying confines of the BBC and almost exactly a year after walking in on The Glorious October War I bumped into some former BBC workmates who, full of commiserations for I was surely living on the streets in a cardboard box, asked what I was doing.

‘Assistant film editor on the Open University.’

They were not amused. Said I had bucked7 the system bypassing proper channels at the BBC. If there’s one thing I’d learned about people in all my months of travel and meditation, it is there is no system and there are no proper channels. Start believing in that malarkey and you’re doomed. Make your own luck, your own reality. Do not be led, lead. The ex-workmates described me as over ambitious. Claptrap. People who use phrases like over ambitious are, to me, those who have no original thought, prepared to put with the status quo8 because its an easy way out, they have no ambition of their own and criticize us for daring to look at the bigger picture. Know your limitations and you shall surely have them.

After a month on Open University and with the series coming to an end I found LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 84

myself as assistant editor to John Rushton, working on The Ken Dodd Show. John was known as a bit of an old woman, a strict disciplinarian in the cutting room and, like most of the editors at Group One, had come from the strict regime of feature films. To them, anyone who had not been grounded in cinema films was a to be pitied, the bloody bootlace9 brigade who needed to be shown the right way to do things. To wit: Get in at 9am, on the dot. Sharpen the chinagraph pencils, general tidy up, file trims. 9.30am editor arrives, make coffee. Speak only when spoken to, do not make any creative suggestions. Especially don’t make creative suggestions when the director is in the room (sacking offence). When sent on an errand to another editor, do not go straight into his room, knock first and wait. Do not go in until invited. And so on ...

John had been Reggie Mills’ assistant on Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film version of Romeo & Juliet, which grossed $38.9m at the box office. One could see how he became fractious about being reduced to working on The Ken Dodd Show with the rest of us TV bootlace brigade. Group One was a great place to be; across the corridor Ron Pope was editing The Goodies, next door Bob Dearberg was working on Monty Python’s Flying Circus and hither and yon throughout the building other editors were beavering away on half a dozen sit-coms. John was scheduled to work on Top of The Pops but it was so far beneath him he handed it off to me, for the experience he said. The music films were of The Jackson Five, Telly Savalas, John Lennon’s Imagine and Rod Stewart’s Sailing. Because of some arcane system I could only guess at I did not receive an end credit for my labours but instead it was taken by Bob Rymer, the company boss. Later we discovered Bob took the credit for a number of BBC shows but no one discovered the reason.

I had to take the finals prints off to TV Centre for the video tape recording of the show, the night before transmission. The BBC bar on Top of The Pops nights was best avoided as the place with stuffed with scantily dressed young women trying to get it on with the pop stars. There was an unspoken rule around TV Centre that anyone suggesting prostitutes abounded on the premises might not have their contract renewed. There were rumours Jimmy Saville had a mobile knocking shop operating from a tour bus in the car park, one pop star having the tip of his gentleman’s member bitten off during a sexual act and, with blood everywhere, was rushed to hospital. Knowledge if this was swept under the Corporation carpet with great zeal. It never occurred to us young LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 85

hairy chaps of the lower orders that children were being groomed as slave labour sex workers for musicians and DJs. And even if they were, who could we tell? For shame on us so many BBC employees and freelancers walked away and said nothing. One abiding memory of the BBC Club bar on Top of The Pops night was the sight of The Small Faces trying to gain admittance.

‘I don’t care how small your faces are, you can’t come in if you’re not a member,’ rumbled the Commissionaire.

The Ken Dodd Show inserts were pretty hectic to work on with a weekly turnaround; Monday receive and sync up rushes, Tuesday through to Thursday edit sequences, Thursday night cutting copy off to neg cutters, Friday cut neg goes to film lab for final print and we go off to BBC Ealing to dub the final mix sound, Saturday final print to BBC TV Centre for VTR recording with a live studio audience. Monday, start again. It taught us deadline discipline and comic timing. Diary entry for Monday 25th November, 1974: Thank God!! This is the last week of the bloody The Ken Dodd Show.Although I enjoyed working on a show for Doddie’s comic genius, the deadlines were brutal. Ken’s spoof of the Hovis commercial, originally directed by Ridley Scott, was hilariously inventive.

What followed were more delights of Open University and, just for a change of scene, The Cilla Black Show. My only memory from the latter was the sight of John Rushton, totally out of his comfort zone, trying to edit a music sequence involving a jolly tune entitled Dancing In The Street with members of the public wearing loon pants doing just that. John didn’t have the knack for music and I tried to ignore the director looking at me and tutting, as if to say, fer gawd sake take over or we’ll be here all night. I know my place. It was the same old during the editing of a music sequence filmed sync to playback on Wimbledon Common, Wombling Merry Christmas. It was excruciating watching someone get into a complete pickle, editing all over the beat and, as much as I wanted to snatch the editing machine away from John, it was more than my jobsworth. I admit to a slight moment of grim satisfaction that the strict disciplinarian was not the big know it all he cracked himself up to be. We shall not mention this again.

Except to point out my path crossed with one of The Wombles about thirty years later.

My contract ended on December 24th, working us right up to Christmas Eve after which I started my first full editing job at Athos Films, Hanwell, on December 30th. So much for waiting five years to become a film editor. So much for other peoples’ petty LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 86

fogging rules and their system.

ii. CUTTING A FILM IN A SUIT Geoff Harris, who had been Ron Pope’s assistant on The Goodies, came with me to Athos Films to be my assistant, sub-contracted by David Painter to edit a BBC documentary, Inside The Press. Geoff and I were known collectively as The Bookends because we both had long hair. Geoff once had me rolling on the floor in a fit of the giggles when he announced, ‘There’s a man upstairs who’s cutting a film in a suit.’ He wasn’t joking.

We had reached the nerve centre of strict disciplinarianism where elderly men really did edit films whilst wearing a suit and tie. It was like we had wandered into the land time forgot. Eeeek!

However, we were experienced freelancers and undaunted by such things. I was determined if I was going to become a boss I was not going to turn out like the rule crazy old crackers I’d had to deal with in my, so far, short career in the cutting rooms.

Treat people decently and with respect you get decent people, you pay peanuts you get monkeys. I wondered what had happened to my previous bosses that made them such a sour bunch. It would take a few decades to find out but there was an answer.

Inside The Press was transmitted on Sunday 9th February10 and I stayed with David Painter working on a BBC pre-schools programme, Watch. It wasn’t exactly the height of intellectual television but it paid the rent and the contract lasted four months. I felt for the programme presenters; I mean, how can you keep up a jolly enthusiastic TV performance in the knowledge the person on the other side of the screen is two years old and has the vocabulary of a molusc. Although I did see a location sound recordist lose two Nagra tape recorders on the same day on that show; it had been raining and there was a slight dampness about the front bonnet of the camera car where recordist had placed the Nagra.

Eventually it slid off and smashed on the ground. Another Nagra was sent LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 87

for and duly delivered to the location where the van driver placed it momentarily on the bonnet of the camera car before it slid off and smashed on the ground. We didn’t get out much but we did see life.

iii. THE BIG WHITE HOUSE ON THE TOP OF THE HILL In the summer of ’73, I had shared a house in Greenford (middlesex, UK) with a bunch of freaks including the Glaswegian long-hair Stan McFarlane. I hadn’t seen anyone from the old house for over a year until one evening when I found Stan, the little giggling freak, standing on my doorstep. We went off to Nottinghill for a swift half and catch a movie at the Electric Cinema; 2001 A Space Odyssey. Being Stan, of course, he’d brought with him some chemical amusements. LSD. I could take every sci-fi visual gimmick Kubrick could throw at us until we got to the spaceship silently skimming across the Moon’s surface with a choral background. There was something so unsettling about a silent spaceship that it gave me a fit of the willies and I had to stare at the ceiling lest I should become the epicentre of a public drug fuelled freak out.

Later we went back to Stan’s place in Harrow, a vast rambling Victorian semi-detached pile in Preston Road, which triggered a life changing event. Stan shared the house with fellow freaks Dave, Pam, Irish Steve and a laid back black moggie. They had a room available, advertised in the magazine Time Out12 for a “friendly furry freak to inhabit a big hovel at The Groveling Heap Liberation Front” but had had no takers. I was looking for a new place to live, nearer to work. Geoff helped move me in on Sunday 16th of February. Irish Steve & Pam, it turned out, had a lot of friends. They also had vast drug connections; coke from Columbia, hash from Morocco, opium from Afghanistan and LSD, we later learned, from Wales. The house was a busy place. I was living with hardcore drug dealers and actually thought they were nice people. The ignorance of youth.

My BBC contract ended but I was rescued by making a music promo for a band noone had heard of, Valkyrie, progrock about ten years too late. I’d worked with their drummer, Clive Davies, when we were both LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 88

editors at Athos Films and it didn’t take much persuasion from him to get me out and about as cameraman on his promo.

The house held strange vibes which got stranger when a sensitive woman with issues, Jill, moved in. Her presence screwed everyone up; bad scenes, heavy trips and floating paranoia. I knew I’d made a mistake and was in a bad place but didn’t realise how bad until a guy called Little John got into a bit of a scrape with Irish Steve. If I needed a reality check about the availability of Class-A drugs and freak dealers in the house, Little John provided it. Irish Steve gave him £500 to go to Wales and pick up a batch of LSD. At most an overnight trip and not the five days it took Little John. In the intervening time things at Preston Road got a touch heavy.

Had Little John, the coolest most laid back freak anyone had ever met, run off with the drugs or, worse, the drugs and the money?

Actually not. He’d stuck around to sample the wares, lost track of time and returned to Preston Road as stoned as a brick. Irish Steve was not amused. I was fascinated, despite myself, to watch this moment of heavy duty gangsterism unfold right in front of me. I mean, Irish Steve and his drug buddies were properly prepared to beat the crap out of this little freak for the stupidity of getting high on someone else’s LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 89

supply. That’s when I knew I had to get the hell out of that house before I fell into unforeseen traps.

Dave, with whom I shared the top floor, said he was looking for somewhere else to live since the druggies had taken over the house. I knew what he meant; one night I came home late from work and there was one carrot in the kitchen. One flipping carrot. Irish Steve’s drug customers had eaten everything in the house, like gannets.

Subtle hints didn’t work.

Dave said he was worried about my drug intake. I hadn’t noticed. Drugs breed paranoid people and if Little John came close to a good kicking then what chance did the rest of us have who lived in close proximity to an Irish drug gangster dealing class-A drugs, with awesome connections in foreign parts. One misunderstood moment and we’d all be treated as potential police informers. For all we knew Irish Steve’s contacts and their psychedelic experiences were funding the armed struggle on the streets of Northern Ireland, killing and maiming innocent women and children.

But, back then, we would have laughed if anyone had suggested it as a serious proposition. We were that naïve. Despite Dave’s fears things in the house seemed to calm down by mid-April. At a house meeting it was asked who had invited Gill LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 90

to move in because, whoever it was, they would be the one to tell her to leave. Of course, it turned out, no one had invited her to stay. She’d just moved in on us and we were all too polite to tell her to sod off. Another week passed at Preston Road and what lessons had we learned? Well for one thing, what the neighbours thought of us.

Dave and I, the only two working guys in the house, wandered down to the local pub The Preston near Preston Road tube station and overheard the locals discussing our decadent lifestyle in the big white house at the top of hill. It was fascinating. Dave couldn’t help himself.

‘If a quarter of what you’re saying is true I’d be having a really great time. But I’m not.’

Saturday, 27th April, from my diary: ‘What should have happened months ago is finally coming together. I can finally feel the house pulling back together, a unity which we have all missed and can be again if we all come together. Alas, Stan has gone into one of his reclusive moods and talks only in obscurities when he decides to communicate at all. Tonight will be a test. Pam & I have planned a cooked meal, which even in its preparation was great fun, and is an effort to get everyone around the table – even if nothing is resolved, at least we’ll be talking to each other again. I feel that good vibes can only result and lead to a happy household. Funny this should only happen now that Gill has finally left.’

Wow. Far out. Good vibes ma’an. Well for about twenty seconds because Irish Steve failed to mention to the household that he had invited the Afro-pop drum band Osibisa round to play to all his druggie mates. Irish Steve thought it was far out and amazing that he was supplying drugs to a top ethnic band. Dave and I just looked at each other, said nothing and left. Which part of unity in the house had we misunderstated. Face it, those drug guys ran the house and we were tolerated as camouflage, the straight front.

It couldn’t have been for our contribution to the rent because Irish Steve & Pam were loaded with drug profits.

I decided to keep my head down, enjoy my BBC contract and keep my eyes open for someplace else to live. I even asked the dreaded John Rushton if he had any work for me in Soho as my contract with David Painter was due to end on April 30th. Rescue was with a non-freak woman, Lisa, who was the stability I was looking for once one got past all her talk of hair cuts and buying nice casual clothes. That’s women for LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 91

you. Settling down means changing into someone we’re not. It was quite amusing.

The problem about getting bothered about things which don’t matter is losing sight of things which do. We planned to travel, that seemed safe enough, but to South Africa, which was not.

The whole problem of foreign travel became moot when, at dawn on Friday 13th June14, the house was raided by the Met Drugs Squad, one consequence of which was Lisa never spoke to me again.

And who can blame her. A bunch of dirty, druggie freaks. Dave didn’t actually say I told you so but I wouldn’t have blamed him he had. He was at work when the cops kicked the door down and was unfairly blamed for informing on Irish Steve who was not unmindful his drugs business was not approved of by everyone in the house.

We all got caught with a little something; Dave with a blim of dope, Stan with a couple of tabs of acid, me with some squidgy Afghan-black. Irish Steve was caught with the mother lode. You name it he had it in vast quantities. And, of course, Dave was right. Irish Steve was looking at losing his liberty for a lot of years and he was ready to pin the raid on us, that we had informed on him. The fact is, someone did but the who of it did not become clear for many years. It was a round up and a LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 92

lot of people got caught in the crossfire.

The hairy cop who busted me, DS Kevin Carrington15, up in my top floor room made me a deal.

‘Give me what you’ve got and we’ll say no more about it.’

And being a trusting fool, I gave him the 2-grams of dope from the mantelpiece, all I had. He looked at it in bewildered astonishment.

‘Not worth my while this. You’re nicked.’

Taken down to the first floor I could see the delighted glee on the officers’ faces as they kept turning up large quantities of Class A drugs in Irish Steve’s room.

Although it was blazing hot outside, inside the house there was the accustomed cave-like chill and I started to shiver from combined fear, cold, hangover and dope.

The cops pounced, searching my arms for needle marks. There were none. Like a good little freak I stayed well clear of junkie needles, no one wanted to become an addict and, besides, we all had bad childhood memories of the dentists and inoculations16. We freaks were too cowardly to stick a needle in ourselves, no matter what the dubious druggie rewards, and it was all down to 1950’s thuggish dentists who can take the credit.

Sitting in the cells at Wembley police station I could hear Irish Steve being LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 93

beaten up next door. I tried to remember the advice I had been given back in my war correspondent days, if you are ever in a bind remember the tricks of the trade; count the tiles on the wall to distract yourself from the sound of screaming, do not answer incriminating questions; focus on one spot, hypnotize yourself into a trance; do not, repeat do not, attack them as this may not be well received by the arresting officer. Was that tank treads I could hear rumbling past? This must be working … no it was the cops unlocking the cell door. Oh well, here we go, I thought. Although not how I expected.

The Drugs Squad were very interested in my passport with its plethora of visas and not much interested in my relationship to Irish Steve whom they had bang-to-rights.

‘Who did you meet in Lebanon?’

‘What were you doing in Saigon?’

‘Who was your contact in Istanbul?’

‘You could save yourself a lot of trouble later if you just tell us.’

And so on but it was easy to sit there stony-faced and silent because they were thinking about class-A drugs in poppy growing regions and I was thinking of something quite different. I was thinking of a way to walk out of this whole mess with an idea which the Drugs Squad themselves had put into my head. It was so simplistic and sublime there was no downside. Of course, it might not work and that was a big downside. If you can’t convince them, confuse them with a story which essentially could not be verified. It wouldn’t help Irish Steve but he was going down the road anyway. Every man for himself. After half an hour of listening to their circular babble I jumped in.

‘Look, I’m really sorry but I can’t discuss this with you.’

And then I shut up. Silent, let them mull over that one.

‘Why not?’

Let them think they’ve got something here but they’re not sure what it is. I’d been trained by the very best … well, when I say trained, I mean sat in various Saigon bars with US Marine Corp specialists while they ran off at the mouth. They could have been making it up as they went along for all I knew. Anything had to be worth a shot in a tight corner.

Stages of interrogation; anxiety, suspense, awareness of being avoided, feelings of unfocused guilt, fear & uncertainty, bewilderment, increasing depression, fatigue & dispair, great need to talk, utter dependence on anyone who befriends, great need of LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 94

approval of interrogator; increased suggestibility, confession, profound relief.

It wasn’t much of a plan but it involved hotwiring their expectations in such a way as to overloaded their circuits causing so much chaos and confusion they’d let me go in case anything worse blew up in their faces. The trick was not to lie. Hint and let them fill in the gaps. I once met a Canadian in Amman who claimed he got out of the Blue Building17 by doing this. These London coppers were fat and venal and probably not very bright.

‘What do you mean, you can’t discuss this with us?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just … it’s not about drugs. But I‘ve said too much and … erm … no, sorry. Sorry.’

They had reached ‘bewilderment’ and it was just a matter of time before they bypassed a few steps and landed on ‘great need to talk.’ I didn’t have long to wait.

‘Who will you talk to?’

‘No one. Look, if you can find the information officer who was posted to the British Embassy in 1973 then we might get somewhere.’

‘But if it’s not about drugs? You said its not about drugs.’

‘I don’t know what anybody else is doing in that house18, but you asked about my visas, countries I had visited, war zones and that’s not about drugs19.’

‘So who can you talk to about that?’

‘Like I said, no one because, you know, that’s not something I can discuss. Well, not unless you’ve got someone from the diplomatic corps standing outside my cell. who wants to talk about the strategic disposition of mellons ...’

But I could see he wasn’t buying it. And I was wandering off into a psychedelic ramble and gave up.

‘Are you some kind of spy?’

‘That’s why I’m covered in mince.’

‘What?’

‘I’m a mince pie and a merry Christmas.’

‘We’re just getting your paperwork sorted. You will be charged with possession and bailed to appear.’

Later I discovered it had worked for major drug runner Howard Marks20 who was busted with a major drugs shipment to the US. His defence in court? He was an MI6 LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 95

double agent21, in the pay of the British Government, supplying information about the IRA. His arrest coincided with the 1975 London busts which netted Irish Steve in Harrow and, by default, me. But fortunately this was back in the days when the Drugs Squad were as bent as a nine-bob note22 and they cleared the way for Irish Steve & Pam to jump bail and leg it over to Morocco, the fact of which Diave and I were mightily pleased to hear as we didn’t fancy standing alongside them in the dock with our little blims of dope and their great list of awesome drug possessions. Rumour had it the cops were going to put him away for fifteen years. The downside, personally, was when the lab results came back from forensic analysis my blim23 of squidgy black hash turned out to be pure opium, a class-A drug. Dave had been right all along. Irish Steve was keeping us doped up so he could run his drugs racket without objections being raised by the other tenants. That experience gave me a life-long hatred of drug dealers. In court six weeks later, after Irish Steve had skipped bail and fled to Morocco, we received a £100 fine across the board and the first thing I did, after paying the court fine, was move to Germany working on a music films at Studio Hamburg.

From the diary: ‘Dope can muck you up even when you don’t think it can. I’ve had my near-miss with Class-A drugs and the bust has given me a moment to think about where my life might have ended.’

On a slab probably. Whatever else that drug bust did, part of it gave me a massive anti-drug bias and a single-minded determination to stay clear of the idiots.

iv. STUDIO HAMBURG, 1975 As a British film director I was allowed to import an English main camera crew to make an on the road movie with Crackerjack, a German pop band whose members consisted of Rhodesian drummer Mark Robbins, Mario an Italian guitarist24, Hans Deiter-Franke25 a German keyboard player and forty year old Heiner Koenig26 German bass player who contrived to look at least twenty years younger than his true age. The film was called Glazen and I still have a 16mm copy of it in my broom cupboard.

My crew were picked up from Hamburg docks by the band’s ex-Dutch Army roadie who drove their tour bus like a sports car, at top speed around the back roads of Luneburger Heide at night. After a brief stop en-route for refreshments our sound recordist Terry Lucking had a brief discussion with the roadie.

LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 96

‘Can I ask you, please, to take if easy on the road. You’ve got a delicate cargo on board.’

‘Your microphones? asked the roadie.

‘No,’ said Terry, ‘Me.’ The roadie drove slightly slower as we continued on. Terry’s assistant, Dave Baumber, and I had a mystical conversation about driving across Northern Germany, a suggestive historical resonance in our genes of brooding menace. Not exactly about the ‘39-’45 war, we were too young for that, but in some way the echo of those times which hadn’t quite died away. The after-images still flickered. We arrived at Mario’s house in Drangsted at dawn and stayed for four days to film a gig in a 5,000 capacity venue near Cuxhaven. The band wore silk stage suits in such eye-watering hues it was difficult to look at them for too long. Band leader Deiter made them take their wedding rings off so they didn’t look like old men in front of the teeny-boppers.

Mark maintained Deiter ran on a twentyeight day cycle of mood swings. He would be nice to everyone until full Moon when he became Mr. Angry. I, on the other hand, almost got into a punch-up with one of the German cameramen because of his sarcastic, argumentative attitude. He resented the idea that he was being told what to do by an upstart whipper-snapper LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 97

film director. An English upstart whippersnapper too. I was a twenty-three year old film director and he was over thirty but failed to appreciate was I had come into the industry young and, the worse curse of all, I looked younger than my years. I never employed him again.

We held the press show for Glazen at the Crown Preview Theatre in Wardour Street (London) on March 25th 1976 and the film went to the MIP TV festival at Cannes soon after.

v. BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY On Monday August 11th 1975: I was back with John Rushton, this time at Film Fair Productions where they made The Wombles and Paddington Bear. Discipline! That’s what I’d been lacking. Good all round John Rushton style tub thumping discipline.

I was not to be a film director. In England I was only allowed to be a 2nd assistant film editor. Thrash. Beat. Stomp. To wit; 08.30,

2nd

assistant

editor

arrives,

sharpens chinagraph pencils, file trims 09.00, 1st assistant editor arrives. If he says good morning to the 2nd assistant editor, the 2nd assistant editor may say good morning to him. Do not speak unless spoken to. 09.30, the Editor arrives. If he says good morning to the 1st assistant, the 1st LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 98

assistant may say good morning to him. The 2nd assistant may not offer a good morning to anyone unless spoken to. The 2nd assistant will now make coffee for the Editor and 1st Assistant. I know my place.

10.00, the Film Director arrives. The Editor says good morning to the Director and the Director says good morning to him, the 1st Assistant editor may only say good morning to the Director if the Director says good morning to him first. The 2nd Assistant editor speaks to no one. I know my place.

On my first day John got in early to make sure I knew how to unlock the door, get past the alarm system and turn the lights on. On a plinth in the middle of the room was a red telephone, the client’s phone, and no matter what I was doing if that phone rang I had to drop everything and answer it. John said he was going out to get a paper and left the cutting room in my sole charge. Cor. A few minutes later the client’s phone rang and I answered it but before I could utter a word the caller rang off. John came back with his newspaper and asked if there had been any calls. But before I could reply, John told me he already knew because he was the one who called to test my reaction time.

If anyone is wandering at all about the parlous state of the British film industry in the mid-1970’s look no further than that merry tale.

What were we doing? Putting sound effects on Paddington Bear. The 1st assistant editor had forgotten to take a sound effect of a cup popping off Paddington’s nose to the dubbing theatre – guess who got the blame for that – so instead of going into a blind panic along with everyone else I walked into the commentary box, stuck my index finger in my mouth, puffed my cheeks and popped my finger out. Pop. When we got back to the cutting room I got a good talking to about that because I had made an unrequested artistic decision in front of the director, thus in contravention of some rule or other. I mean, this guy was completely barking.

I lasted until August 30th before returning to the joys of Studio Hamburg as a director.

Another music film but anything had to be better than working for John. He disapproved of me working in Hamburg because he was married to a Jewess and, he said, she was convinced the Germans would go for the hat trick. Or racism, as we call it.

* LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 99

vi. COMEDY OF TERRORS When my second contract was up in Germany I was just in time to come back to London when Group One Productions were recruiting for Christmas freelancers. I have no pride.

A job’s a job. It turned out to be ‘Til Death Us Do Part as John Rushton’s assistant.

Offensive bad language on the BBC? Alf Garnett on ‘Til Death speaking to a West Indian bus driver (Kenny Lynch); “Oi Sambo, get this bus shifted or you’ll get my boot six lace holes up your jack seat.” Good grief. I suppose I could have run away.

Although I feel I should put my hand up at this point for making a colossal, job threatening, cock-up of massive and overwhelming proportions on the opening titles of ‘Til Death Us Do Part. I shudder even now at the memory although it was almost 40-years ago. The series title background, a slow high pan over the east end docks, was on 35mm film played-in at the studio recording where the title text was superimposed electronically. The sound was on 35mm magnetic track. John decided he had better things to do than fiddle about with a piddling little job like that of a Saturday morning so he handed it over to me. I lived nearer. Now, for all the bantering about ‘the bootlace brigade’, I had never actually touched 35mm film before. I was slightly scared of it to tell the truth. Oh well, same urine different bucket. All I had to do was battle my way into the building with the biggest set of keys I had ever seen in my life and deal with the labyrinthine security alarm system. Get that bit wrong and you’d see more coppers outside on the cobbles than the mind can comfortably deal with.

Once inside the cutting room it was a simple matter of synchronising the 35mm picture with the 35mm sound on an editing machine which looked like a medieval siege engine. 35mm film, being on the big side, runs really fast through the gate. Really fast.

About the last thing you will want to see is your long hair caught in the mechanism; I was very careful about that. Not unless I wanted to walk around like a skinhead for the next few months. So, hair down the back of my coat, I proceeded. Run sound track over the sound head until hearing the ‘plop’, a single frame of –8Db tone, and mark the frame with a chinagraph pencil. Take the sound off the head and roll 35mm film down through the gate to the ‘4’ on the countdown leader. Place marked sound track back over the sound head. We have now achieved ‘plop on 4’ sync; all that is left to do is join a sound leader to the sound track, cut it off from the rest of the multi-copies on the roll and rewind, place in film cans, place in taxi to be delivered to TV Centre for that LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 100

evening’s telecine transfer to VTR in front of a live audience. So far so good.

The following week it was slightly more complicated. The BBC, for whatever arcane reason, did not run the same title sound track twice. So this time, back to the medieval siege engine, I had to roll down the sound to the next ‘plop’ on the track and synchronise it with a film leader as before. Off it went in the taxi to TV Centre, off I went home. It was not until the following Monday morning t I discovered something was amiss. People were rather reticent to speak to me. John was waiting in the cutting room.

‘What did you do?’

A hint that something untoward had happened and it had my name written all over it. So I showed him what I’d done, synchronising the picture with the sound.

‘Did you listen to it?’

‘Well, no, it came off that big roll of title music you gave me.’

‘Ah!’ I didn’t like the sound of that ‘ah’ one bit. And with good reason. It turned out the big roll of music copies, wasn’t. And if I had listened to it all the way through I would have found that out. Although what I could have done about it was anyone’s guess.

Used last week’s copy probably. I could feel my legs giving way. The implications were horrible. Picture the scene; Television Centre studio-8, a packed audience waiting in anticipation to see their favourite comedy show recorded right in front of them; actors fully rehearsed and eager to give a stunning performance; the opening titles roll but for some reason, instead of the rousing music they expect, they get the sound of Dandy Nicholls having a telephone conversation with someone from a different episode; in the control box, absolute pandemonium. The producer was Dennis Main-Wilson and that was one guy you never wanted to get on the wrong side of. On any side of. He was a big man and filled any space he walked into. John and I were once with ‘Main-drainage’ in the BBC bar, a huge great cavern of a place. I can’t remember the story he was telling but I’ll always remember the bellowed punch-line; ‘BOLLOCKS! BOLLOCKS I SAID TO HIM!’ And the whole bar stopped. Silence. The guy ignored the effect he had made on the crowded emporium and carried on with his story. That was him being cheerful. I’ll leave it to your imagination what his was like angry.

On VTR day an urgent call was put through to John Ruston at home but who had not LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 101

there. Another even more raving and babbling call was put through to Bob Rymer, the big boss of Group One, who was at home but not for very long because he was soon in his car making a high speed dash to the cutting room to put things right. I almost fainted. That’s it then. Well, not quite because John took responsibility for not checking the right sound was in the tin he gave me (thank you) and Bob scowled at me for about a week, they could have lost their BBC contract, and then it all blew over. Lesson learned; never assume anything. Never believe anyone. Always check. There was one other mistake which no-one seemed to have noticed. When I rewound the film, I wound it the wrong way onto the bobbin so the picture came up the wrong way round. I could never watch ‘Til Death again because the title background always came up left to right instead of right to left. Shudder.

By late November 1975 the Christmas Specials were winding down, John and I had moved onto Jim’ll Fix it, but soon after Bob Dearberg enticed me away to be his assistant on Rutland Weekend Television. We moved out of Group One and set up in a small cutting room in Ealing Broadway at Merrill Smith Films, conveniently round the corner from Ealing Film Studios. Bob Rymer was not happy I had been poached but I was glad to be out before the lay-offs started. It was a gas working for Bob and, even though he had come from the 35mm features discipline on Joe 90, Robin Hood and The Avengers, he didn’t use it like a blunderbuss. Rutland Weekend was a hoot to work on with a very hands on Eric Idle and his gang of Neil Innes, Mike Rappaport, Mike Battley & Henry Woolf, produced by Ian Kiell. The Ruttles started out as a sketch and later went on to become a film in its own right, a legend in its own lunchtime. We had a fast turn round of episodes and, as it was coming up for the Rutland Christmas Special, Eric kept banging on about having George Harrison on the show to do voice overs. No one believed him, he’ll never get yer actual Beatle to come and work on Rutland Weekend for the BBC. We were down in Soho for the day, mixing the sound at a dubbing studio in St Anne’s Court, and still Eric’s telling us George Harrison is coming. Ian Kiell, Bob Dearberg and Eric Idle sat down front of the studio in the comfy chairs while the dubbing mixer and I were up the back twiddling knobs at the mixing desk. Every so often a guy called Clive, whose sole job it was to listen for clicks on the tracks, would come round front to replenish the chocolate biscuits & coffee and empty the ashtrays. In the days when we were allowed to smoke at work. Clive had a pretty distinctive look; shoulder length LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 102

black hair, droopy moustache and a faded Levi jacket. So there we are, mixing, and on my peripheral vision I saw Clive standing in the doorway, shoulder length black hair, droopy moustache and faded Levi jacket, so to save him disturbing the mixer I handed off the ashtray. Clive didn’t take it. Instead this Liverpudlian voice, who sounded a lot like George Harrison, said, ‘Why are you giving me an ashtray.’

Ta-daa! Yep. It was himself, George Harrison. But what a cool guy, no big Beatle histrionics, I guess he didn’t need to. You reach that level of creative fame and you’ve nothing to prove. When I left for home that night he shook my hand and I was still enough of a newbie to think that was the coolest thing ever. I have been touched by a Beatle. Swoon.

vii. DON’T MENTION THE WAR My time on Rutland finished at the end of January and I had to scoot back to Hamburg to direct another music film. I was over there so often I was starting to pick up the language, which is a good thing, except all the Germans I knew wanted to try out their English and I had to force them back into their language or I would never learn it. It was a big day for me when I finally took a tram to work without speaking English.

There was a cadre of English film makers and musicians in Hamburg and I guess we did hang out together as the herding instinct took hold. Fawlty Towers was all the rage on TV and we got into the ‘don’t mention the war’ habit. We were invited to a party one night, at the top of a five storey block near the docks. As we climbed the rickety central staircase we went a bit quiet; we knew it was a straddle, you could tell by he way the building shuddered when a tram went past, that a stick of bombs had near-missed the place. A lone Australian voice, holding his nose for the right inflection.

‘O-for-Orange, O-for-Orange, go round again, you bloody missed this one.’

Followed by a chorus of ‘don’t mention the bloody war.’

Generally nobody did. It wasn’t our generation who fought it and we were not involved although sometimes we couldn’t help wondering how far below the surface those feelings were, on both sides. One night in a bar an old guy came over, ordered drinks all round for us English, got talking. He was pretty old but he looked like he’d been good looking in his day. The photos came out, his family, his kids and him – in full SS uniform. I mean, the guy blew it, he didn’t realise some people are not going to LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 103

react kindly to someone who had been in the SS. There were a couple of Jewish guys with us and I can’t even begin to imagine what was going on in their minds. There were 8,000 SS guards at Auschwitz and 7,200 of them escaped justice.

Then there was the young guy I met at the studios, aged about thirty, bared his palms towards me and said, ‘Look at them, it will take us a thousand years to wipe the blood from our hands.’ He didn’t look old enough to have been around during the war but he had somehow tapped into the collective German guilt trip. Some of them had it bad.

Some of them thought the death camps were a Zionist lie, history is always written by the victors, but many of us found it difficult to believe the German people didn’t know about the extermination camps. The crematoria death smell drifted for miles. One of the questions the Brits always had was ‘if everyone we meet says they were not a Nazi then where did Hitler get his armies from to conquer all Europe?’ But the brutal truth was some people really didn’t know about the murdered millions and it was a big shock to them when it all came out at the Nuremberg Trials at war’s end. That was then and this is now (1976). I came to the conclusion Germany couldn’t move on until the last WW2 soldier died. We must be pretty much there by now.

I was walking out with a German woman whose father (ex-Afrika Corps) was keen to meet my folks. My father (ex-RAF) held views about the Germans which I thought were probably not conducive to modern European relations.

‘We should have kept on bombing them until there wasn’t one brick left attached to another and not let them surrender so they can start the whole thing off again.’

I was beginning to run out of excuses for Sigrid’s father but was saved when my contract finished and, since Sigrid was not keen on moving to London, we had a weepy farewell on the dockside. Another one. My father had a few things to say about Hamburg Docks.

‘The way our ten ton bombs sliced through twenty-three feet of ferro-concrete over the U-Boat pens was a joy to see. That’ll teach ‘em.’

Yes. Well. It was an opinion.

viii. THE REGIONAL SPRING I returned to a London awash with unemployment and happened across former BBC cameraman John Rosenberg at Tottenham Court Road tube station who told me BBC LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 104

Birmingham were looking for freelance editors. Birmingham? That’s a bit up t’north, isn’t it? Midlands actually. So I phoned up and, any old port in a storm, went away to BBC Pebble Mill, known amongst its denizens as Mibble Pleb, in mid-April to the deep joy of regional TV documentaries about country things, all shire horses and brass bands.

I’d never worked outside London before and it was a real education; beer that’ll flatten you just by being in the same room, shown round The Archers studio and learned to play lawn bowls with colleagues.

‘It’s not like Ealing here you know. We don’t talk about sprocket holes, this is real life, mulching compose for our rhubarb and fishing by the canal.’

It was a short contract that ended in time for me to see The Who and Little Feat play in London. Feats don’t fail me now. June was spent trudging round Soho looking for work but the BBC regions beckoned once again and mid-July, during the hottest summer on record, saw me off to BBC Manchester for a two week contract working on the local news and to what became known as the Great Big Phucking Crap Insurrection.

Most reporters know never to assume their microphone is switched off and one luckless soul forgot this basic rule, saying at the end of a piece-to-camera, ‘Well that was a load of phucking crap.’ For reasons no one knew then and probably no one will ever find out now the film editor on that story forgot to the cut the ‘phucking crap’ comment off the end of the item and it went out on air. The switch board was jammed by angry viewers. There were ructions. No one admitted to it and no one could even remember working on the story. Since no one coughed to it, just a simple oversight really, the BBC management blamed all the freelancers and sacked them. Which is how come it became known as Great Big Phucking Crap Insurrection.

It was surprising mistakes didn’t happen more often; while the reporters were working on one or two stories a day, the film editors were working on up to six stories with a turn round time of as little as an hour on each. The trick was to be fast. Some editors were good and fast. Mistakes happened in that charged atmosphere. We all trudged off to the railway station together in a black funk, muttering darkly about never taking a BBC job again. I had no such pride and, after a short holiday to see the Crackerjack lads in Bremerhaven, pitched up again at BBC Pebble Mill.

Regional freelancing had a weekly routine; home, train, work-hotel, work-hotel, work-hotel, work-hotel, work, train, home. We were known as the highest paid gypsies LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 105

in the country, living out of a suitcase. Some staffers didn’t like us because we were earning twice what they were but the other half of our fee was to pay for an hotel, away from base meals and first class train travel. It was the Union rate for the job. The same Union the staff were in and if they didn’t like it they had the choice of either going freelance themselves with a fair chance of lengthy unemployment or not going on the holidays which our contracts were covering. The staff had huge benefit packages which freelancers could only dream about. My brief spell was spent working on Gangsters, as a dubbing editor, which annoyed the staffers because it was seen as prestige drama.

I was there for two weeks before going back to London to live off my earnings until September when I started work on a BBC Man Alive documentary in Soho with the most morose editor I had ever met. Fortunately I cannot remember his name.

It was, without doubt, the most dreary seven weeks of my life. The facility company was run by the iron hand of the an aged blue rinse receptionist for whom everything was too much trouble. In order to obtain a new marker pencil we had to show her the stub first and if it was not small enough, tough buns. The editor said he thought it was because she didn’t like my long hair which was another way of saying get yer hair cut.’

This purgatory ended in late October when I bit the bullet and took a staff job.

CHAPTER 3 - FOOTNOTES 1

derivation of Limey, meaning English, from when the Royal Navy introduced limes into

sailors’ diets therefore eradicating the disease Scurvy aboard ships 2

I could hear in my mind’s ear, my Father mithering on about being a man!

3

Although now metal free and completely healed I still know when the weather is going

to change.

4

I almost wrote ‘my weird war adventures’ but war isn’t an adventure

5

Slag: Septics > septic tank > Yank > an American

6

Whatever that is

7

I think that word was bucked

8

NOT the band!

9

16mm

10

my first TV end credit as a film editor

11

As in ‘ckin’ ‘ippies!’

LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 106

12

Grovelling Heap Liberation Front, Harrow branch needs friendly furry freak to inhabit

big hovel 13

There was a freak expression which covered this; don’t lay your paranoid trip on me

ma’an 14

The Drug Squad said they planned to come on Thursday 12th but changed it to Friday

13th, unlucky for some, because they thought we’d appreciate the joke.

15

Carrington, in another operation, was later gaoled for nine years when police from

another force raided his lock-up garage in Hornchurch, Essex, and found 11 kilos of cannabis resin. Although several members of the Met Drugs Squad were arrested, only Carrington was charged and sent for trial. His supervising officer, Fred Luff, was moved sideways into uniform and put in charge of Seville Row police station.

16

Needles the size of drainpipes which really hurt.

17

Security police prison and interrogation centre in Amman, Jordan.

18

Almost true

19

Completely true

20

To people of a certain age this man is not a drug baron hero, the self-styled Mr. Nice

21

MI5 completely disowned him, as is their custom and practice.

22

In the parlance of the day – in pre-decimal coinage 10 shillings (50p in today’s money)

was known as 10-bob, therefore as bent of a nine-bob note refers to counterfeit money or, when referred to the cops, corrupt.

23

2.2 grams

24

whose father had been in the SS

25

who owned a string of chemist shops

26

Heiner once told me his first encounter with an Afro-American was when, in the

rubble strewn streets of 1945 Cologne, the soldier had given him a chocolate bar.

* LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 107

CHAPTER 3 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 87 - Geoff Harris, my assistant for a while Page 88 - Al aged-24, living in the big white house at the top of the hill, Harrow Page 89 - Spaced out Gill, squatting in the big white house at the top of the hill Little John, crashed out in the big white house at the top of the hill Page 90 - Stan Mcfarlaine, living in the big white house at the top of the hill Dave Bryant, living in the big white house at the top of the hill Page 92 - Pam & Irish Steve leaving the big white house at the top of the hill Al, living in Hamburg after the big white house at the top of the hill Page 93 - Al, waiting to move out of the big white house at the top of the hill Al, filming the band Valkyrie The Preston Road skyline Page 97 - Heiner Koenig, baasist of the band Crackerjack, Bremerhaven 1975 Mark Robbins, drummer of the band Crackerjack, Bremerhaven 1975 Page 98 - Mark Robbins & Al, filming in Bremerhaven 1975 The Atlantic Bar, Bremerhaven, Mark’s band spiritual home 1975 This page: Valkyrie film crew, on Barn Hill, Harrow 1975

(right) Andy Gunn camera assistant, Clive Davies, film director and Al Stokes, camera operator

LEARNING THE CRAFT - PAGE 108

4

BIG BOYS GAMES

i. SOHO DAYS Meard Street Movies were in the basement of a Georgian terrace house on the south side of Meard Street, a wide alley running east/west between Wardour Street and Dean Street. Opposite was The Golden Girl Club. Running underneath was the River Fleet.

Working in the heart of Soho put me right at the centre of the British film industry. It took some time getting used to the foibles of the area. I didn’t consider myself a prude, I had been about a bit but I didn’t expect the welcome I received on my first day. A young lady of easy virtue, sitting on a window ledge of The Golden Girl Club, called across the alley as I put my key in the door on my very first day at Meard Street Movies.

‘Morning love, d’you wanna come over and lick my strawberries?’

Gosh. I’d never heard it put like that before.

Meard Street had a Dickensian feel to it and I was always expecting to run into characters from Edwin Drood going muffled through the chilled gloom, difficult to believe that behind those fronts there didn’t live an assortment of misers, mad spinsters, saintly clergymen, eccentric clerks and lunatic sextons in this rather theatrical antiquity1.

Meard Street Movies had a plethora of BBC and ITV contracts, considered a bit risky at the time as the contracts were considered exclusive by both parties, so I could be working on The Book Programme with Robert Robinson in the morning, in the afternoon there’d be schools Watch for Thames TV, hoping they never met accidentally on the stairs.

The boss, Margrette Bendell, was not keen on employing male assistants and preferred women. Unfortunately there were no female assistants to hand when she advertised the job so she grudgingly wound up with me. That was not an encouraging thing to say to someone on their first day and it set the tone for our professional relationship thereafter. Someone suggested I should tell her I was gay so she didn’t see me as a sexist threat. Dealing with Margrette was like balancing on a tightrope over a mine field and juggling hand grenades with the pins out; I never knew when things were about to go off. Best to ignore the predudice and just get on with the matter in hand. What kept me going in that grim basement – my cutting room was in an excavated coal bunker under the street and mere feet away from the River Fleet – were the regular weekly wages. Although hardly the Union rate for the job. I know it was my imagination but I was sure I could hear the River Fleet gurgling past in its pipe inches from where I was sitting. Worse, it kept going round in my head what would happen if the pipe burst and BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 110

whether I would make it out of my coal hole in time. Paul Sharkey, sound recordist just down the street at Osbourne Sound, had an even wilder scenario; two film technicians, trapped in the sinking hull of a capsized cutting room after an underground river bursts its pipe, desperate to make their way to the surface before they call last orders in The Intrepid Fox. I see we’re back to the Poseidon Adventure, then.

Ah yes, the Soho boozers; each with their own character, each to their own trade. The Nellie Dean; in Dean Street, mainly actors and directors. The Crown & Two Chairmen; Dean Street, editor’s pub. The Intrepid Fox; Wardour Street, sound recordists & assistant editors. The Ship; Wardour Street, a mish-mash of unemployables, best not to be seen drinking in there. There was another one somewhere around Poland Street which was a director’s pub. The Blue Posts in Broadwick Street was a cross mix of market traders, sound engineers and editors. I have no doubt all the pubs, if they are still in business, have completely changed. Last time I walked past The Intrepid Fox it had turned into a punk pub. When I speak of Soho pubs of my youth, everyone expects arty stories of debauchery in the French pub but, sorry to say, that hostelry in Old Compton Street was too far to walk in a lunch time and appeared to be full of mad old artists who thought they were still living in 1942. I got enough of that at work.

I found Margrette difficult to understand sometimes; in my view we’re all in the film industry, contacts are trade, there is none of us so mean and base we hath not noble commerce in our hearts and so it came as a mite puzzling the day someone turned up unannounced with an armful of film tins looking for a cutting room. Margrette was about to turn this Hollywood guy away. You could see he was straining under the weight of five 35mm film cans – been there, done that, almost broken my neck on a studio roof – so I invited the bloke in if only to give him a cup of tea and somewhere to rest before his legs gave out. Any film person from America had to be encouraged in case they decided to throw a job our way.

‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ warned Margrette, in case he walked off with our film equipment.

Margrette found something urgent to do in another room so she didn’t have to watch me being brutally mugged. This guy was just in from LA with an art film he wanted to get into distribution over here but at every door he banged on he was rudely rebuffed so he decided to do it himself. Good call, never take no for an answer. He’d booked a BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 111

cinema and needed a poster for the publicity which was how come he was wandering around Soho with the film under his arm, looking for someone with an edit suite who could make a freeze frame. I asked Margrette if we could do this and she grudgingly said yes but only after normal business hours and in my own time. The guy – I cannot remember his name – came back the next evening, I put the roll of 35mm film on my editing machine and wound down until the guy said stop. It was a quite unedifying frame. An actor peering through his fingers so all you saw was his left eye.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

‘That’s the frame,’ said he.

How boring I thought. It turned out to be for a 1973 film called Mean Streets with Robert De Niro, both title and actor largely unknown in this country at the time, although it was released in 1973.

Next day Margrette asked, ‘Did you get paid?’

‘No.’ ‘Told you.’

Fair enough but I like to think I gave something to an art film even though I didn’t get credited / paid / any thanks. Hey-ho. That poster was everywhere, mocking from every street hoarding, Underground station, passing bus and listings magazine. Obviously, no random act of senseless kindness ever goes unpunished. I still had a lot to learn. Janet Street-Porter came traipsing down into the basement with an LWT job, The London Weekend Show, which was the beginnings of youth television. Let’s all get down and hip with the kids. Man. Person. They ran some good film items – custom cars, punk fashion and that ilk – but I couldn’t help feeing it was all a bit sad. Blue Peter for school leavers, slightly patronizing as interviewers tried to be cool and right-on. Best not to think too much, I guess. Take the paltry 50-quid a week and keep yer gob shut. The 50-quid a week was just about enough to survive on, given I had a twenty-five mile round trip on the London Underground every day. It turned out Margrette owned property in Soho, a flat above an Ingestre Place tailor’s shop, and was happy to rent it to me for a pepper corn rent. Apparently the rents in Westminster were fixed by the Church. It was petit and unfurnished but right in the throbbing heart of Soho. There was a downside, mainly the reason I didn’t take it, in that Margrette might see it as a tithed property and if I left the job I might lose the flat. Also the property was in easy walking distance of the BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 112

cutting rooms which meant my unpaid overtime hours would soar. Back to Victorian values of work-eat-sleep, work-eat-sleep with one week off a year and be thankful you mewling cur, get back to work, thrash-beat. No thanks. Of course I regret it now; I might still be living there.

By early November 1976 there was an offer of another music film to direct, Ice Cream Dream, about bands trying to make it in an overcrowded industry. Margrette wouldn’t release me to go work on it so I was working for her by day and directing the music picture by night. Sometimes I saw my bed. Sometimes I even slept in it. What made life further crowded was Mark Robbins, formerly of the band Crackerjack, and his wife had split Germany and were looking for somewhere to stay in London. I could hardly turn them away. They needed temporary quarters until they were granted emigration papers for Australia where Mark had been offered a job with a rock band. This turned out to be a right mission because Mark hadn’t realised being offered a job was not the same as having a job so, disappointingly, Mark was marooned in London. Matters were complicated by Mark having Rhodesian citizenship when his country no longer existed.

South Africa dealt with his affairs but applying for a work permit was challenging.

After the right royal runaround at Australia House, an Antipodean catch-22, Mark fled to Brighton and his long lost British father. Worse, Mark had jumped the gun, sold up everything in Bremerhaven and there was a big removal truck with all his chattels inside heading his way.

Ice Cream Dream was a one hour documentary for Claire Rawcliffe at AZ Films about the trials and tribulations of wannabe progrock band Valkyrie as they strove for success in the over crowded 1970’s punk music industry. The film was also to feature live performances from The Mojos and The Bozos and interviews with Tony Burrow, former Beatles Apple publicist and Pete Scott from Savoy Brown whom I had met six years before at the Plumpton Jazz & Blues Festival. Despite what folks like to say, it was a very small industry and eventually everyone ended up knowing everyone else. They may not have much to say but sometimes folk got work through the grape vine.

To make life more interesting Margrette took on a feature film, Tigers Don’t Cry with Anthony Quinn, for sub-titling. I had the distinct impression she was slightly out of her comfort zone with this as the 35mm medieval siege engine she hired was not entirely up to the job. There was no script provided so, with the aid of a temporary 2nd assistant BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 113

editor, Rob Nicholls, I decamped to Roger Cherrill’s cutting rooms round the corner in Dean Street where they had the right tools for the job. All that was required of us was time the dialogue in such a way as the sub-titles did not run over a cut. The tendency was, if sub-titles did run over a cut, the audience would see that as a new sub-title and read it again from the start. Something the eye does by itself without engaging the brain, apparently. Although I notice these days the craft of sub-titling has been lost as film makers splash sub-titles hither and yon across the screen with no regard for cuts or the speed of the viewing public’s eyeballs.

Next door to us someone was cutting a commercial for Nestles Coffee Compliment in the worst WC Fields and Mae West accents we ever heard, played at top volume. Trying to listen to Anthony Quinn mumble his way through the dialogue with fake WC Fields and Mae West blasting through the wall became by turns hilarious and infuriating. Rob, a big Fields fan, wanted to go next door and let them know Mae West never actually said ‘come up and see me something.’ I told him not to bother as I had a feeling his criticism would be disagreeably snubbed. Fortunately the top volume fake WC Fields only lasted a couple of days and, with volume decrease, our ears stopped bleeding. When Tigers Don’t Cry finished I asked Margrette to keep Rob on as 2nd assistant but she would have none of it. Too much expense, allegedly, although we suspected we were in the land of too many men being employed. Rob had a quaint theory that Margrette was piling the work on so I would make a cataclysmic mistake for which I could be sacked, leaving the door open for the feminists. Sexism in the workplace works both ways, even though the sex discrimination law did not come in until later. I could not possibly comment.

More work heaved up when the morose editor wanted me back on the BBC Man Alive doco even though he knew I was working for somebody else. I think he did it out of spite, as if there were not enough unemployed assistant editors out there on the cobbles. Into that crowded work space came another Thames TV schools programme, Comment Dit-on. I asked Margrette if she had thought any more of taking on another assistant and she asked if I wanted to be replaced? As subtle as a flying brick. I suppose I should have been grateful I was being worked to death because I was learning the craft. Nothing on God’s earth would ever phase me after working for Meard Street Movies. I was also learning 50-quid didn’t go very far although, of course, I didn’t have BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 114

much free time in which to spend it. Some ‘late ones’2 meant sleeping on the office sofa, in the office sleeping bag because by the time I struggled home it was time to come back to work.

Another feature film, QB7, came in from the BBC who wanted the sound tracks re-mixed. It didn’t make any sense. Using Margrette’s museum piece 35mm editing machine it seemed as though the tracks were already mixed. I consulted Paul Sharkey down the street at Osbourne Sound. A property of 35mm sound, which was unknown to me, was while 16mm sound ran over one audio head, 35mm track had three pick-ups on the same head. Ah-ha! Slight problem, though. Margrette’s museum piece machine didn’t have a multi-track head. Of course, there was a solution which I broached.

‘I’ll need to go back to Roger Cherrill’s because your machine isn’t multi-track. I can only hear one mixed track.’ This was not well received.

‘Then use your initiative,’ came the irritable response, ‘write out the cue sheet where another sound comes up. It’s hardly rocket science.’

No, but it did mean guessing what was on the other two tracks. Oh well, always obey the last order. The folly of this came to light when the BBC producer turned to check on progress. She was not happy the sound engineer was expected to go into a re-mix with a wildly inaccurate cue sheet and rather bluntly said so to Margrette who tried to shift the blame onto me. The producer was having none it.

‘If you didn’t have the correct tools for the job you should have said. As it is we’ll have to put this with another company which will put us behind schedule.’ Margrette did not speak to me for days. It was obviously my fault for not guessing properly or, in extremis, not covering up for her. It made me smile with a degree of schadenfreunde. That whole episode was entirely avoidable if only Margrette had hired the correct equipment. The work load calmed down in the early new year of 1977 with only The London Weekend Show and Comment Dit-On, the twin peaks of London Weekend and Thames TV. At least they were on the same channel if not the for same broadcasting company.

Mark came back from Brighton resigned to his fate. The Australians would not let him emigrate, in all probability because of his questionable citizenship status born a Rhodesian, a country re-named Zimbabwe and to commiserate we took ourselves off to Hammersmith Odeon to see American jazz-rock band, Chicago. Two weeks later I BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 115

waved Mark and his wife away at Harwich Docks, on the ferry back to Bremerhaven.

I seemed to have got into a rut which involved dockside farewells. It was a crushing blow for Mark who had sold all this chattels to start a new life in Australia, only to be recaptured and returned to Germany. Don’t mention the war.

By early February I was pretty determined to escape Weird Street Movies and find somewhere that paid Union rate. It wasn’t the responsibility which was so depressing, doing the work of a film editor but still graded as a flat-rate assistant, it was the fact that all my Soho mates were doing a lot less work for a proper wage packet. I couldn’t help feeling there was a slight rip-offness going on, working on four films at the same time but getting paid for less than one. Something not quite right there. I went for a staff job interview with Anglia TV, into the land time forgot, whose premiere shows were Sale of The Century and Farming Today, where the elderly bosses were more concerned at the length of my hair than whether I could do the job. They were trying to phrase the question, ‘will you cut your hair off if we offer you the job’ without actually coming out and saying the words in case I reported them to the Union for, presumably, racism or some such. It was worth the two hour train journey up into the wilds of Norfolk just to watch these useless old gits squirm. The more they said, the worse they sounded.

‘Its um … er …’

‘What my colleague is trying to say is er …’

‘We have a family image here at Anglia Television and I’m not sure …’

‘I mean we can’t tell you, heaven forbid, we can’t make the job conditional to your erm …’

And it went on like that until I got bored.

‘So are you saying you want me to cut my hair off to get the job?’

‘No-no, we can’t possibly tell you to do that but erm …’

‘We could get into a lot of trouble, erm …’

‘If we told you to er …’

Those old duffers needed to get out more. That conversation could have gone on until hell froze over but by that stage I decided I didn’t want to work for people who were more concerned with country bumpkin fashion than what an employee brought to their company. I wasn’t that desperate. I could understand employing neat suit & tie types as news reporters and employees in the sight of the public but for back office staff no-one BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 116

ever saw, it was just plain prejudice. Dinosaur thinking. The day they bring in uniforms for editors is the day I run screaming. Although it was kind of funny considering what happened less than ten years later.

To give some idea of how grim things were becoming with Margrette Bendell and Meard Street Movies, I found this rare notation in my diary for Friday June 24th 1976. I was working on several commercials for Saudi TV. Commercials are generally considered top of the range and highly paid. I was a badly paid assistant doing the work of three editors and it was inefficient. No one had proper authority to keep cutting room discipline3. To wit, ‘Margrette went off to Twickenham Film Studios today and left me with John Garcia and the worst ever commercial to dub4. The tracks were so ghastly the dubbing mixer5 almost refused to mix it6 and Garcia’s profound statement nearly blew it. ”I don’t care what it sounds like, its got to be there by next week.” So much for artistry and skill. Now Garcia wants it re-cut (no overtime) and the other commercials assembled in sequence order by Monday and it dawned on me one of us is completely insane, expected to work flat-out through the weekend for a crappy 50-quid7.’

It speaks volumes that by then I had taken to writing a diary to keep a record of what was being said in the recording sessions. The volumes were saying get another job pronto.

Finally Ice Cream Dream8 had finished post production and AZ Films held a screening at the Sapphire Theatre in Wardour Street on June 29th. Everyone was there, including The Mojos who had initially gone to the wrong venue, The Golden Girl Club, having walked in asking to be shown the film and were rather perplexed it was not the film they were expecting. It didn’t have them in it for a start. Post screening we adjourned to The Intrepid Fox where an angry feminist music journalist hauled in on the film I had not made as opposed to the film which I had. Why hadn’t I mentioned Krautrock? Why I hadn’t mentioned emerging punk? Because it was a film about the German touring band, Crackerjack. You make the film that’s in front of you. Of course my big mistake, which I shudder to recall now, was asking her if’n there wasn’t some urgent washing up she should be doing rather than bothering films makers who actually employed people during a slump in the movie industry. The distributor thankfully stepped in and sidetracked her away with free booze. Ice Cream Dream got artiste contributor approval which meant AZ Films could do their magic to arrange for it to enter the land of the film BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 117

festivals. This was not looking for awards but heaving the production out in the market place of cinema release and world TV sales.

Joy of joy in July as Margrette actually gave me two weeks (unpaid) leave from Meard Street Movies during which time I had a job interview at United Motion Pictures – although, the unwritten rules of film making clearly state that one should never work for a company with the word ‘united’ in their name because they’re usually not. Same goes for any job interviewer who uses the expression ‘we are like a family here’ which always translates out as, ‘we’re dysfunctional, always fighting and shouting at each other and there’ll be tears before bedtime.’ Like the Manson Family, the family that slays together stays together. United Motion Pictures (UMP) had one major benefit as a potential employer – they paid Union rate. I put my papers in at Meard Street Movies, stood well back for the ‘light the blue touch paper and wait for Margrette to explode’ but there was no need because she’d employed another assistant while I had been on leave, female and Japanese, whose command of the English language could only be described as ‘loose.’ I made sure all my TV commercials were up to date because Margrette struck me as the type to play the blame game after I’d left. I was not to be disappointed.

Before starting at UMP I went off for a week’s holiday to Germany to catch up with Mark. The only moment of disquiet came when Crackerjack’s Deiter Franke, the band leader, was a tad miffed that he hadn’t received any royalties for Glazen, which were handled by the distributor in another country, for which he held me responsible. Because I directed the film. A few days later I found Deiter Franke loitering outside my hotel, like a mugger. I explained I don’t hold the distribution purse strings, I have to wait for my royalties too like everyone else but gave him 47DM cash (about £7) to keep him quiet.

Amazing, Deiter runs a chain of chemist shops but he comes after me for 47DM outside my hotel. I shall never understand the Germans. Some Germans. Mark and I went to see Heiner – he was more together than I had known him before, very positive and off the booze. Spent a couple of hours chewing over the good times. Said if he had known I was in Germany12 he would have arranged we go out for a ride which is code for, drive out into the country side and drink beer. Back in Wulsdorf I noticed Mark and his wife fight a lot over him being back in Crackerjack. He doesn’t like it for artistic reasons, she loves it because of the money, the envy of her friends. Later took Mark off for a beer to BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 118

let off steam and joined by Helmut, Crackerjack’s sound engineer, and his wife. Grand reunion and much drinking. Hey-ho and why do I live in England?

ii. UNITED MOTION PICTURES August 1st, Monday: Start at UMP, on three months trial. I had escaped from Meard Street and descended into the deep joy of a Fitzroy Square basement. Slightly off piste from Soho, in the gentler climes of almost very nearly Euston, round the corner from the Telecom Tower.

A few words of explanation about film schools; when I came in the business in 1968 there were few film schools, the London International and some small colleges who ran ‘media’ courses. I remember Harrow Technical College had one, now Westminster University, because they offered me a job which I turned down. Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; those who can’t teach, teach teachers and all the rest work for the universities. Working at a film school was like admitting you were unemployable. I had a career as a film director I had yet to properly carve out for myself.

On the same day as I started at UMP, as an experienced assistant film editor, Chris Newman started at UMP as an inexperienced assistant film editor straight from film school. People from film school where generally reviled by industry folk as someone who got into the business without having to do it the hard way. Kurt Vonnegut had something to say along those lines and I suggest you read Cat’s Cradle13 to find out what it was. Of the two new assistant film editors, one looked clean cut, short hair, sharp and smart while the other had long hair and looked a bit like a hippie. This is an object lesson in gross prejudice. Film director Peter Gaffney was slightly older than me but I suspected less experienced and of the ‘two hours work a day and the rest whimsy’ school of film making. He hadn’t worked in TV, commercials or feature films but in something called ‘corporates’ which turned out to be road safety information, in-house training or company sales films. Well I recall his elegant script describing the brown gunk sprayed on generator parts, so they wouldn’t short out when exposed to sea spray on oil rigs, as ‘the epoxy resin encapsulation process.’ Well, it was short and to the point I suppose but explained nothing. Peter could be a laugh riot because he loved arguing politics to the point of total exasperation in everyone else. Devils advocate supreme; what he saw on our first day at UMP was a scruffy hippie and a straight guy, one of BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 119

whom came from Soho film production and t’other from film school. He gave Chris all the best jobs and would allow reasoned debate in the cutting room. Unheard of where I came from. What I got was lousy jobs and scorn. On one occasion Peter hitched up at my cutting room, where I was laying sound effects on a Ford Motor Company Capri corporate for Simon Rose, and told me under the factories Act I had to wear a hair net so I didn’t catch my long hair in the editing machine drive sprockets. I wasn’t going to argue with the irritating little nit so I led Peter round the corner to where a copy of the Factories Act was screwed to the wall.

‘Read that. Out loud.’

We had gathered quite an audience along the way and most of them knew what was coming next.

‘Employers shall ensure that all exposed machinery and drive shafts are covered and made safe … from … the … employees …’ he trailed off.

I left it at that and went back to work. Every piece of editing equipment I’d ever used, Steenbecks and pic-syncs, were a mass of whirling drives and sprockets, all impossible to guard against and still be useable. Persons of the long-haired persuasion learned to keep their locks behind their ears or under a hat. Scalp tearing stories were legion and blood curdling, no one was going to let their dangling locks anywhere near machinery.

But Peter was not going to let it rest and, later in the pub, came out with that time honoured phrase, ‘The trouble with you film school people is-.’

‘I’m not film school.’

‘I’m film school,’ said Chris.

‘Yeah, Chris’s from film school. I came from industry.’

‘What?’ blood draining from Peter’s embarrassed face.

‘Al started at the BBC in ’68,’ supplied Chris.

‘So you’re from film school?’ Peter asked, pointing at Chris.

And true to form Peter started to show respect to me and treated Chris, with whom he had previously been on friendly terms, like a dogs-body. If Chris made tea for Peter and it wasn’t the right shade of brown Peter would send it back and make him do it again. What a numpty. A waste of tea, too.

The Boss was an elderly gentleman, much of the same generation and attitudes as my former BBC bosses, who had been on holiday when his son and chief film editor BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 120

Barry Shepherd had taken me on. This news had not quite filtered through the system until one day, working as Simon Rose’s assistant on a BBC Man Alive documentary, an elderly gentleman in a brown work coat stopped me in the corridor.

‘Who are you?’ in a rather brusque manner.

Taking the brown coat man for the caretaker I asked, ‘What’s it to you?’

‘I am the managing director of this company and I want you to leave. Now. Or I shall call the police.’

There you go, great moments in mistaken identity which would have made the Whitehall Farces, Brian Rix and William Shakespeare proud. I seemed to have, still have, this uncanny knack of attracting weirdness like a magnet and, despite what some folks say, I didn’t do it on purpose out of anarchic fun. If I ever find out what I’m doing, body language, which causes this fatal attraction in people I’ll stop doing it. I was once threatened with the police by a member of the public for loitering, a filthy street beggar no doubt, and getting in the way of a film crew and it was my film crew. It is one of life’s mysteries to me.

According to Simon, Barry got a thick ear off his old man for employing a hippie while he was on holiday. What was Barry’s role as head of film editors? He was the custodian of the cutting room supplies, kept in a combination lock safe and the editor of that ubiquitous children’s television series, Captain Pugwash which wasreputedly taken off our screens because of parental outrage at some of the character’s names; Seaman Stains and Master Bates. All those years I’d watched it as a kid and I never knew it was mucky. It’s not until you write Seaman Stains and Master Bates down on paper you realise the connotations.

Now let us wend our merry way back to Meard Street Movies, be it ever so briefly.

Rather than shell out on unnecessary taxis I walked the Ford Capri corporate film down to the neg cutters in Soho, prior to making a final print. The technicians greeted me with wry amusement.

‘We were cursing your name out last week,’ they chortled.

‘Why?’ ‘Margrette Bendell said you must have binned the Saudi TV commercials titles because no one could find them.’

Ah-ha. Let’s blame the bloke who isn’t here and can’t defend himself.

BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 121

I wandered round to Meard Street Movies to see what all the fuss was about and got a Bendell-like ear ache all the way from the front door to my old cutting room, of what a very bad man I was for sabotaging a TV commercial, making her look stupid in front of her mega American clients, blither-blather, blither-blather and other righteous indignations. The new Japanese assistant was twittering around Margrette like a small harried lap-dog. I kept my cool, didn’t say anything, just get this over with. Luckily John Garcia was in the room, for full nitwit witness effect, as I went to the film rack and, in full view of everyone in the room, put my hand on the three ‘missing’ cans of TV commercials.

‘Do you mean these?’

Total silence. What could she say? No apology, of course. I pointed out the cutting room log book and my notation of what needed to be done after I left.

‘Take the A&B rolls of cut neg of the commercials background and caption texts to the labs for colour corrected 1st answer print14.’

I have since learned not to admonish people in public. You get more respect by taking them aside and having a quiet word. I was halfway down Meard Street when John Garcia caught up and said he’d be a lot happier if I came back to work at Meard Street.

‘Sorry guv’, I’m working for someone else now.’

‘I can’t understand a word that new assistant says. She doesn’t even speak English.’

‘She’s Japanese. She speaks English with a heavy Japanese accent.’

‘You can understand her?’

‘No. Not a word. A very heavy Japanese accent. She was taken on while I was on leave.’

‘How did she get the job if no one understands a word she’s saying?’

‘She is not a man.’

‘Oh. Well where are you working? I’ll bring my commercials to you.’

‘I’ll give you the contact details but that’s no guarantee I’ll be your editor. We do what is put in front of us.’

John gave me a wan smile and a wodge of notes in a clumsy handshake tip. I didn’t like him much, it isn’t necessary to like the people you work for but at least he wasn’t mean. Later when I got home the tip turned out to be a month’s worth of Meard Street Movies overtime which Margrette was too stingy to pay.

BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 122

Back at the neg cutters, the lads were looking for the expected bruises and black eye but instead I gave them the ‘missing’ cans of film. We all had a good laugh with no harm done, knowing Margrette Bendell had played the blame game and lost. No one needed to mention that again.

My editor at UMP was Simon Rose and he was a joy to work for. A man with a quiet sense of humour who taught me more about the craft of film editing than I ever thought existed. Never leave an empty frame before a cut, how to use a jump cut and when to leave a shot long, a sound effect covering a dodgy cut you can’t get out of because the camera crew didn’t shoot a cutaway. Tricks of the trade. The answer to moaning film directors, if you don’t shoot it I can’t edit it. Simple. The day came when I was seconded to Barry Hinchcliffe, who had made one startlingly brilliant car rally film in his younger days and he had been remaking the same film over and over ever since for Ford, Honda, Vauxhall and Toyota. He brought shed loads of contracts into UMP, travelled the world from motor sport rally to motor sport rally and turned out essentially the same film for different companies for years. And the beauty of it was no one seemed to notice. Same shit, different bucket. The man was a genius. The flip side, for in great genius there must be the drawback, this man was a complete and total bastard. He was rude and short tempered, generally unfair and unthinking to everyone. His nickname?

What-what.

You could hear him halfway down the corridor, rage boiling up as he stammered.

‘What-what-what-what-what-what-what15 do you think you are doing?!’

He had this way of walking very fast along a corridor, what-whating as he came, sucking on the stem of his glasses and you just knew some poor bugger was going to catch it. He seemed to steer clear of me after my encounter with Peter Gaffney and the Factories Act. It didn’t mean I was right. All it proved, if proof were needed, I wouldn’t put up with petty-fogging bullies. Bullying in the workplace should be a hanging offence.

UMP had had so many rally films pass through their doors they had the system down to a fine art. All film came into Heathrow and was taken straight to a film lab near the airport. As the film was processed in batches it would be sent to UMP where every assistant editor was on standby to synchronise the film with the sound which had already been transferred from quarter inch tape to 16mm magnetic track. Busy, busy, busy. Whatever else the old hands had to say about Hinchcliffe, he did pay rate. Of BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 123

course, they also had a lot to say about the UMP ghost who was alleged to wander the corridors late at night. We were going to work round the clock to get the rally film fit for an ITV sports deadline. It was exhausting but worked if one took regular short breaks.

We took an evening meal break at a nearby pub in small groups so the building wasn’t left empty; that security alarm was a bugger. At one point I found myself alone yet, mysteriously, could hear footfalls in the corridor.

‘All right, who’s playing silly buggers?!’

But there really wasn’t anybody there. Simon said later it was probably the building cooling down, making contraction noises. Of course, on the overtime front, those payments are a thing of the long dead past in our HD glittery 21st Century generation-X UK unpaid work placements or minimum wage and be thankful.

Back with Simon Rose, working on BBC Man Alive documentaries kept me away from the grim dross of corporate films. The cutting copy screenings of Man Alive were made at BBC Woodstock Grove, Shepherd’s Bush, also the hearth and home of That’s Life and Esther Rantzen. She shared an office with the Man Alive team and it came about one fateful day that Simon and I walked into the office to wait for reporter Jack Pizzy.

I still had long hair, so common amongst the young male population that no one ever mentioned it. Esther Rantzen did. She probably thought she was being awfully witty.

‘What’s that? I didn’t order one.’

I kept my trap shut like a good freelance assistant should, I know my place, as Jack leaned close with sage words about Ms. Rancid.

‘Yes. First impressions are often right. Take no notice of her.’

That encounter spoilt my whole day. Up to that point I was a big fan of her consumer show but ever after, whenever I saw her on TV, all I could think of was ‘what’s that?’

Geoff Harris, who had been my assistant a few years before, had worked on That’s Life and said she was like that to everyone all the time. Best thing, he advised, was to ignore the comments. She only did it to men which suggested deep seated issues.

Back at UMP I passed my three month trial on Halloween and by the following Spring of 1978 UMP were expanding their business. This meant employing more film editors but they were determined not get caught in Buggin’s Turn, that old chestnut of promoting technicians by length of service rather than their ability to do the job. They decided to make up assistants to full editor on a rotation trial period. Unfortunately this meant BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 124

moving out of the cozy confines of BBC Man Alive with Simon Rose. Hey-ho. And off to the low rent world of corporates. UMP had taken on a new assistant film editor, Simon Clayton, to make up the compliment. Simon was also fresh out of film school, he came from a family of Quakers and had a sort of anti-establishment punk attitude to us old farts. I was a twenty-six year old fart. Wow. Top of the world ma’!

As far as UMP were concerned, they had a bit of a problem; a hippie editor16 with a Quaker assistant.17 I had an interview with Barry Shepherd, asking how I felt about working on military sales films for Westland Helicopters and training films for the British Army.

‘No problem. I’ve been in a couple of war zones. Caught shrapnel. Stuff happens.’

‘Yes but would you be able to cut the films together.’ I knew what Barry meant but I decided to play it dumb.

‘These are 16mm films?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Well that’s okay then. If you asked me to join a bit of 35mm to a 16mm film I’d have a bit of trouble. Won’t go through the projector gate.’

Confused pause. The penny drops. General amusement. Exit laughing.

I wasn’t so sure about taking on Simon Clayton as my assistant, I had a feeling he might be difficult. But I had no say in the matter. For reasons I know not what of, probably to keep us out of sight of the clients lest they be alarmed and distressed thereby, Simon and I were packed off to a rented cutting room off Wardour Street, a sub-basement in Bourchr Street which turned out to be a fetid alley where vagrants regularly came to relieve themselves, usually up against our grime encrusted windows.

‘Is that rain?’

‘No.’ ‘Oh.’ I couldn’t wait to see the looks on the faces of the Men From the Ministry when confronted by the shabby environs of our happy hideaway. But at least Bourchr Street put me back in the throbbing heart of Soho. My first editing job at UMP was for Westland Helicopters, showing off the operational capabilities of their Lynx helicopter and its TOW missile systems on manoeuvres. It was a sleek little thing and, apparently, the only helicopter in the world able to make a 360-degree barrel-roll. The film was beautifully BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 125

shot and easy to put together with the commentary. Of course, the cameraman had gone amok with beauty shots so we ended up with way more footage than was strictly necessary. Be a shame to waste it. I suggested to the Westlands rep we use some of the excess material with a music sequence at the end of the film.

‘Music! We’ve never used music in our films before,’ as if this was sacrilege, rather like farting in church.

I was going to suggest something like Walton’s Spitfire Fugue, starting about a minute thirty into the track where there is quiet moment before the big finish. I could see it in my mind’s eye. Or perhaps some quiet Vaughan Williams. But before I could say a word Simon jumped in with Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction. My heart sank. The look on the Westlands rep’s face said it all. He was in the hands of dangerous long-hair loonies.

I tried again, ‘Give me a couple hours and I’ll put something together, see if you like it. If you don’t we’ll leave it out.’

The Westlands rep decided he had some urgent West End shopping to do for his wife and said he’d be back. I sent Simon off to find a copy of the music, get it transferred at Osbourne Sound while I set-to with the pictures. We had it all lined up and ready to go for the Westlands rep but he didn’t return. Instead there was an outraged telephone call from UMP demanding my presence back at base. There had been a complaint from Westland Helicopters. Oh dear. I gave Simon the rest of the day off as I tramped back to Fitzroy Square with the film under my arm, contemplating sudden unemployment.

The gang was all there, waiting and bristling with righteous indignation. The Westlands rep, Brown coat boss, son Barry and Hinchcliffe with the demeanour of ‘I told you so, flipping hippies, you can’t trust them.’ Always let angry people have the first say, let them work themselves up into a towering inferno of bile, get it off their chest then, softy spoken, steal their thunder. Always give them an avenue to escape down when they have to admit they are wrong. Never corner bosses for that way confrontation and potential unemployment looms. Refrain from turning it into a points scoring contest for they are the boss and own your working time.

After a lengthy harangue, Barry offered, ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’

‘Of course, I apologise for the inappropriate suggestions made by my assistant and I take full responsibility for that. However, may I suggest we watch the film to give everyone an opportunity to discuss it?’

BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 126

It slowly dawned on the UMP bosses that the Westlands rep had not seen the film.

Whatever the guy was affronted by, it wasn’t the actual product. We adjourned to the preview theatre. The result was not so much a tribute to my outstanding editing abilities so much as the excellent cinematography set to Walton’s masterful music. The film finished. An hiatus.

Then, ‘Can we run it again,’ asked the Westlands rep.

The reason, I think, the Bosses loved it so much was they had never employed anyone who had the gift of juxtaposing images with music. It is a craft and there were more talented people than myself out there but UMP didn’t employ them. Instead they had me. I got the impression UMP were so set in their ways, pumping out bland product for defence contractors, it never occurred to them to make it look stylish. It is a shame and horribly true that war related images can look beautiful in the right hands and with the right music.18 I knew all was forgiven when I was invited to the pub. Over a jar or two the Westlands rep asked what had inspired the use of Walton.

‘A bit of a cheat really. My father worked on the 1968 film Battle of Britain and I remembered the battle scene cut to music with no sound effects. I have no idea why they didn’t use the Walton’s Spitfire Fugue which works so much better with aerial images, don’t you think?’

Satisfied, the Westlands rep said his good-byes and left. What I was left with was a bunch of UMP management who felt they had had a narrow escape. The problem, if it was a problem, was what to do with Simon19. It was not that he was a bad lad but he knew his own mind and came over brash and acerbic. I was no John Rushton and didn’t want to be either but Simon needed to be with an older, more experienced editor who could mould him into the ways of cutting room discipline. They decided to give him to Simon Rose. That left me without an assistant but there were people out there who could do the job and hit the ground running. I asked for and got Tony Caruana. Tony was a good deal older than me, a career assistant editor with a wry sense of humour and always good with the clients. I kept a bowl of fresh fruit in the cutting room and seeing a bunch of grapes, Tony wrinkled his nose.

‘I refuse to take my wine in pill form.’

UMP had a rule that all Ministry of Defence work had to be locked in the company safe overnight. This meant for us, down in Soho, clearing everything out of the cutting room BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 127

each night and taxing it personally to head office to be locked away, with the converse next morning. That sure took time. Barry wanted to install a safe in the rental company cutting room but the owners wouldn’t have it. Anyone watching the safe being delivered would suspect we had something worth stealing and rob the place that night. Tony came up with the solution.

‘No one knows what we are working on, we are not going to tell anyone and beside, in Soho, who would want to go down a fetid alley on the off chance they might find the secret plans of whatever it was we were doing?’

Common sense prevailed. Simon Rose once told me he went into Barry’s cutting room to get a new chinagraph pencil and Barry literally threw himself over his Steenbeck so Simon couldn’t see the highly classified film he was working on. It turned out to a training film of how to assemble the Army’s new six-man collapsible rowing boat. True, the Cold War was still giving the West paroxysms of nuclear paranoia and the IRA were letting off bombs, but UMP never had any high grade material.

My first real taste of the Ministry of Defence came when editing an Army training film involving the new laser-sighted gun mount in their Chieftain battle tank turrets. I have no idea how it worked but essentially, no matter what the terrain, the gun would sight on target. They must have had the same cameraman as the Westlands job because the photography was awesome. Lots of tanks sploshing through deep muddy terrain, firing off rounds at hulks. They shot the film in the same old way and we almost had a Westlands music scare in the same old way. I wanted to use Pink Floyd’s Careful With That Axe Eugene even though I knew the budget would not allow it and probably nor would Pink Floyd. Tony went off to Bruton Music’s mood library to find something similar.

And cheap. The Ministry clients were a wonderful bunch of people and not the old brass hat duffers I was expecting. They knew their business, been around the barrack square a few times and had a marvelous sense of gallows humour. They knew a lot about UMP’s employees, knew I’d been a photojournalist in war zones and we once spent a convivial evening in the Grafton pub discussing the relative characteristics of the Russian Mk.3 and the British and West German main battle tanks. Inevitably I had to ask, did they think there would ever be war with Russia? A big worry to my generation.

‘The war will last three days,’ they said. ‘British tanks have a gun sight which can hit anything but an engine which will conk out after a day. It’ll just sit there and pop off at BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 128

anything which comes into range. The German’s have a tank which can drive to Moscow and back without an oil change but a gun which couldn’t hit barn door at point blank range and the Russians have thousands of tanks but not all of them have radios. After banging away at each for three days it would ground to a halt on approximately the same lines we hold now. Of course, if it goes nuclear …’

He didn’t need to go on. We had the four minute warning.

‘That’s four minutes from the time the early warning radar picks up the missiles coming up over the Pole. By the time that information filters down the chain of command we’ll be dust.’

So no gut curdling air raid sirens then? But if we stick to tactical battlefield nuclear weapons ..?

‘They come in three sizes. Big ones, bloody big ones and cor blimey where’s everyone gone.’

I was left thinking not how can they sleep at night, but how can we? It could happen at any time without warning. Best to enjoy life to the full and not think about it.

When director Peter Gaffney saw my tank music sequence he almost fainted. It was too late to remove it from the sequence roll so he decided to stop the film before the music started. Of course, the Ministry chaps were no fools and insisted on seeing it.

They loved it. Said it would keep the squaddies amused when they had to sit through a boring training film. They wanted the Army big-wigs to come and take a look. Next day I booked the preview theatre for them but, badly misinformed, Hinchcliffe burst in shouting the odds assuming I was showing one of my music films to a bunch of hippies. I have never seen a person’s expression change so rapidly, from scowling rage to simpering obsequiousness in the blink of an eye. Masterful. A person could learn much from this man. The Ministry chaps already had. After the show they told me they knew Hinchcliffe was unstable, doing them over on the budgets so, the night before a budget meeting they sent the Spooks in to bug his office. Straight after the meeting they listened to Hinchcliffe’s jubilation at putting one over on Army and went straight back in to renegotiate the deal. Big boy’s games, big boy’s rules. When my trial period was up someone else got the editor’s position, a long serving assistant, so I started job hunting again. The money was good but the level of Hinchcliffe’s weirdness wasn’t.

He had suspended a camera assistant for some minor infraction of the unwritten rules, BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 129

the penalty for which was being reduced in the ranks to that of a menial washing UMP vehicles in an underground car park. We suspected Hinchcliffe’s random bursts of furious hysteria were alcohol related and unless he was prepared to admit he had drink issues, matters would only get worse. One night he came out of a night club, paralytic, couldn’t remember where he parked his car and began screaming someone had stolen it. The real mystery is why he wasn’t arrested for a breach of the peace and what could have happened if he had got in his car and driven it away.

iii. THAMES TELEVISION - 1978 I started at Thames TV, as a staff assistant editor, on the local news in October 1978 and, on the promise of being made up to full editor after a year, stayed until August 1979. It was a classic re-run of what had happened at UMP. The staff gripes of why should newcomers get an editor’s job when some of them had been there for years, Buggin’s Turn, seemed highly suspect to the new intake of experienced assistants. The long-serving staff assistants, lifers, were always moaning while taking the company for every penny they could squeeze out of them.

On Thames News we were paid overtime because the programme was transmitted half an hour after knocking off time. You wouldn’t think half an hour’s overtime was worth the hassle but the local BECTU Union shop negotiated a deal so we got six weeks money for four weeks work, plus a waitress service cart of beer, wine and nibbles each night delivered to the cutting rooms. Those guys were old school Union ‘everybody out’ types no matter how trivial the management infraction of the rules. On one occasion, having waited over an hour for a researcher to walk up the corridor to the library and bring back a reel of film, I did it myself. Just as I was about to start work on the news item the Shop Steward turned up, gave me a severe tongue lashing for doing someone else’s job and took the film back to the library where the researcher was waiting to bring it back to me. I kid you not. It appeared the Union were spoiling for a fight with the management at all times. One of the Union pet hates was management custom and practice of hiring freelancers to come in and cover holiday relief staff jobs. At Thames Television freelance contract workers were allowed to sit in on staff Union meetings but not allowed to speak even though they were in the same Union and paid the same subscriptions. One Union proposal was to bar the management from employing BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 130

freelance editors instead of the internal promotion of making up assistants. The problem with this rigid attitude was how to cope with holiday relief and, on a general note, staff intolerance toward their freelance colleagues. The Union had rules against one set of members discriminating against another set which Thames staff were breaking. The meeting dragged on, becoming more surreal and fanciful until a freelancer, my old time 1st assistant from Paddington Bear, lost his temper.

‘God help you if any of you ever decide to go freelance!’

The Thames staff were so busy shouting him down “out of order” that no one was listening to his words. If staff shut the freelancers out of the Thames TV jobs market it would be remembered should they decide to leave and try to get a job in the big outside world. The spoiled brats of Thames TV were quite happy to split the Union to preserve their outmoded belief system of Buggin’s Turn, promotion by long service and not ability. It struck me they were all barking mad until I realised, for those staffers under the age of thirty, this was the only job some of them had ever known since leaving school with no idea how the rest of the industry functioned. My editor was an aging skinhead Millwall supporter who spoke in the patois of the racist football terraces and I had the distinct impression he wasn’t being ironic. He had a problem with my long hair and frequently referred to me by using the c-word. Next door was another Thames News editor who appeared to be in a perpetual state of inebriation. Rather than try to entice the man to realise he had a problem and seek help his colleagues routinely hid him from the management and spread his work load right up until the day he screwed up so badly they had to drop a news story after a paralytic freak-out. We may as well have been working in a factory making left-handed spoons for right-handed people for all the staff cared about the craft of film & TV production. Apart from the older editors who had had a life before Thames TV, the majority of the staff were only concerned with their pay packets and nothing else. I tended to hang out with the freelancers and reporters who had more on their mind than fashion, football and fast cars.

There were jolly japes, however. The whole Thames News compliment of reporters, post-production and film crews were brought into the newsroom to be introduced to the new office manager who made a classic error.

‘No matter what the problem, remember, my door is always open.’

Which, of course, in the literal sense it never was so early one morning a group of BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 131

anarchic reporters, armed only with screw drivers, came into the newsroom and took his door away. I have to admit it was a wonderful sight, a man putting his hand out to a door handle which was no longer there and staring at the void which had, until that morning, contained a door. There were ructions. In an apoplectic fit of outrage, the new office manager unleashed the full force of Thames TV security, who also had a sense of humour, to find his door and bring the miscreants to justice. Two grinning security guys came into our cutting room and searched the litter bins for the missing door. No one was going to take this seriously. As for the new office manager, if he didn’t have a sense of humour he shouldn’t have joined. The door turned up in a builder’s skip across the road about six weeks later.

Even in the enlightened times of the late-1970’s, some people equated long hair with drug taking, some seriously but most as a sort of stereotypical joke. One staffer engaged me in a “Can you get me some dope?” conversation and became fractious when rebuffed.

‘I don’t take drugs and neither should you.’

You’d think, by the reaction, I was going equipped to defraud. Early one evening I came across crime reporter Steve ‘He’s Only Doing His Job’ Chambers and Colin ‘Crusher20’ Baker coming out of a dressing room, attired for a night out at a copper’s dinner in crushed velvet jackets, frilly shirts and bow ties. For some reason I couldn’t explain then and certainly can’t now, I found the sight of them so hilariously amusing I fell to my knees choking with laughter. Determined to put the lower orders in their place Steve and Crusher threw me against a wall and carried out a mock drugs search to the wild encouragement of the newsroom. Or the day anchor man Andrew Gardiner turned the fire hose on Australian reporter John Ayres for reasons no one ever discovered.

Thames main entrance involved the foibles of a revolving door which had a tendency to speed up if a lot of people went through, one after the other. One night an anti-fascist group21 were protesting outside the studios. It was knocking off time which meant the entire production crew of Thames News leaving via the revolving door which duly speeded up. I happened to be the last one to leave and was propelled, rather like the sling-shot effect, into the midst of the protesting punk kids. They were not amused and chased me down the street, with cries of the ‘f-ing hippie’ variety, until I reached the safety of the local Thames watering hole nearby. The protesting punk kids left about BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 132

four pints later and I managed to wobble home unscathed.

One evening my woolly hat22 went missing and was later returned by the costume mistress who had been instructed by producer Simon Barnes to sew an antique Tibetan monk’s bell onto it. Every time I a passed a bus stop on my push bike I’d jingle on the uneven road surface and every head in the queue would turn to follow my jingling progress. Jingle-jingle-jingle.

Xavier Russell, son of film director Ken Russell, freelanced in the cutting rooms for a while and managed to nip the tip of his finger in an edge numbering machine. It used white ink but after Xavier’s finger tip moment the ink turned pink. We all thought Thames were using a different supply company until we realised we were numbering the film with diluted blood.

We never figured out what possessed crime reporter Steve Chambers to invite myself and John Ayres, the alleged bad boys of the newsroom, to his New Years party. His house was fairly heaving with trendy coppers who made The Sweeney look like old tarts. Both John and I had taken a little something beforehand in case our indulgence of choice23 did not fit in with Steve’s guests. There is such a thing of not embarrassing one’s host. By midnight we were going through a mild freak-out partly because some of the guests thought we were from an awesome branch of the Drugs Squad but mostly because the paranoia was getting a little heavy. It was mildly amusing at first, two stoners partying with a load of cops, but once we allowed ourselves to think about it we started to get a fit of the giggles. A dead give-away. Next it would be s bad case of the whirling horrors. We made our excuses and left. It was 1am on New Year’s morning, John said I should go back to his place which was nearer than going back to mine and we managed to wave down a taxi which was going our way. The cabbie dropped us on the Talgarth Road which was within staggering distance of John’s flat. We were a couple of streets away when a police car rolled up beside us. Oh crap! John was fingering his teeth.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m touching my teeth. I have a feeling this is the last time I’ll be able to feel them intact.’

The cops wanted to know where we had been that night and we decided to lie because we knew they would never believe us, partying with a load of Scotland Yard undercover BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 133

cops. The nasty one looked like he wanted to search us but John had the presence of mind to pull his Thames News press card. I fumbled mine out of a jacket pocket at the third attempt. The cops’ attitude changed instantly and they offered us a lift.

‘No thanks, officer, I live just round the corner,’ said John.

But the cops insisted, this being New Years morning, to do their good deed for the working press. I left the talking to John, I knew I couldn’t handle it. Sit still, mouth shut, speak only when spoken to. Name, rank and press ID. They dropped us off and drove away with merry New Years cheer. There was nothing we could say. If those guys had searched us … a narrow escape.

ITN had brought in a innovative style of news presentation with the news reader apparently broadcasting from the newsroom. In fact, the news reader was broadcasting from no such place. The news reader was, in fact, broadcasting from a tiny blue screen studio and superimposed onto an open shot of the newsroom. When Thames TV decided to copy ITN’s innovative style they decided to take a more literal minded approach and built a Presenter’s podium in the newsroom. At first all went well but then the local Union shop decided that if one single member of ACTT was caught on camera during the lunchtime or evening news bulletins, then all Union members who worked on Thames News had to be paid an appearance fee whether they were on-screen or not. That would involve around thirty or more technicians. Since Thames TV had no intention of paying an appearance fee to people who were not on-screen they had to close the newsroom during live broadcasts. Everybody out. They ended up with the innovative spectacle of a news reader in a deserted newsroom.

The new year wound its way round to spring and with it came the news AZ Films were putting the long delayed release of Ice Cream Dream into the Cannes Film Festival. The news editor at Thames was chuffed to bits that ‘one of theirs’ had a film at a prestigious international film festival.

‘You must be very proud. You’ll have a ball at Cannes.’

‘I’m not going. The distributor takes the film. I can’t afford it anyway.’

There was then set in motion an entire sequence of events over which I had no control.

The news editor told the big cheese managing director of Thames TV, Brian Cowgill, that one of his bright young staff had made an independent film which was being shown at the Cannes Film Festival. They all thought this was a jolly fine enterprising thing for one BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 134

of their young staff to be doing24 and decided to fly me over to Cannes so I could attend the Festival. No one bothered to ask if I wanted to go. I had been before, with Glazen, and it was horribly boring after about the first three hours and hideously expensive.

You would need to re-mortgage your house to buy a can of soft drink. Really. That is why distributors exist to do the boring bits for film makers, like sell the product. Of course, the further downside was plain old simple jealousy when the staff found out I had squirmed an all expenses paid trip to Cannes ahead of all the others, Buggin’s Turn, staff who had not made an independent film themselves. Being of a suspicious turn of mind it did occur this was a bit of divide and rule on the part of the management. If so, it worked. I was no longer considered by my contemporaries to be one of the chaps in the cutting rooms but a film director they had never met before. I tried to plead with the news editor to forget the offer, it wasn’t like I was going with a major Hollywood distributor who treated their assets like multi-billion dollar stars, this was a one office distributor in Soho taking a crate full of films and no ticket for me. But it was too late, I was told to go up to Brian Cowgill’s office to pick up my air tickets and expenses. And, of course, Brian Cowgill’s secretary knew nothing about it. I had walked straight into a massive practical joke. I was not a happy bunny as I went back down to the cutting room determined to keep my cool. Do not rise to long-hair hippie bashing. Do not punch anyone really hard in the face. The news editor found me to make sure I’d got everything I needed.

‘Yes, most amusing you f-ing c-word. You must have been splitting you sides with laughter while I was going up in that lift. You can shove your mf-ing air tickets up your f-ing arse, you dumb f-ers. You think this is funny? I’ve seen people stabbed in the face25 for less.’

Stunned silence all round. The venal look of the Millwall skinheads’ grimace at a person whose uppence had come. I left them to it.

‘Where are you going?’ asked the news editor.

‘Oh nothing much, I’m off to find a shop steward because, you know, there are some lines you don’t cross for a bit of a laugh.’

‘But-but …’

I left the news editor but-butting like a motor boat and went in search of somewhere quiet to figure out if I should just walk out on the job or fight the intolerant scum.

BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 135

But before that happened I got called into the head of film’s office. Here we go. The head of film was not alone, he had an unmistakable big cheese in there with him and no matter how the thing had started out, as a joke which got out of hand, I walked out of that office with an air ticket and expenses for a festival I didn’t want to attend.

‘It is so refreshing to see you people making your way in the film business with enterprising enthusiasm’ Cowgill told me, ‘May I wish you the very best of luck at the Festival. I can see you’ll have a bright career ahead of you in this company.’

Patronising git. I should have nutted him. You people. My people in the cutting rooms avoided me like the plague as I got my stuff together. My life in the cutting room was going swimmingly well until some idiot came along and turned me into a class traitor.

The left-handed spoon makers were not the type to forgive and forget. AZ Films were miffed because they had to shell out for another festival ticket for one of their minor directors and, as there was definitely no room at their hotel for me, I had to make my own arrangements. I was obviously a spare part and they made sure I knew it.

Fortunately my sister still lived just over the Italian border in Ventimiglia and, every morning, she saw me off at the train station with a packed lunch with dire warnings about the cost of restaurant meals in France. I could barely afford the train fare. Clare at AZ Films introduced me to all her Hollywood chums as one of the new breed of London independent film makers and a couple of Hollywood producers took me to lunch to discuss new projects. Nothing come of it, of course, but it gave an insight into how their minds worked. Three days later I was on a flight back to London and the bumpiest Heathrow landing I’d ever known where crosswinds almost had us all cart wheeling down the runway in a ball of aluminum. The perfect end to my week.

Back at Thames TV, amidst a strained atmosphere of general avoidance, the company had decided to run a clip of my film on Thames News, as a new young26 film director just returned from the Cannes Film Festival. They were perplexed when I didn’t hand the film over. It was still in France and anyway the news editor had to clear the transmission rights with AZ Films. Thames had snapped their fingers and were rather bemused when nothing happened. About a week later the film turned up at Thames TV but the local Union shop ‘blacked’27 the film from being transmitted because – ta-daa! - Thames News had brought the film in without using a film researcher. The news desk were stunned. The Union were crapping on one of their own members. I was called into BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 136

a meeting with the news editors who said, if I was prepared to stand up for it, they would fight Union censorship and transmit what they darned well pleased. I contacted AZ Films who turned up at the studios to collect the film, advising me to leave my staff job at Thames TV pronto before I accidentally triggered a strike. I was writing out my resignation when I was offered a trial period as a film editor, prior to being made up permanently. Being ambitious and stupid I took them up on it.

One of the news stories I edited was the trial and conviction of Detective Sergeant Kevin Carrington who had arrested me four years previously. Well, it made me laugh.

But having worked diligently and professionally for my trial period I really couldn’t believe it when, Buggin’s Turn, none of us new intake from the year before got any of the staff editing jobs. Several things happened in rapid succession. We had a new Prime Minister, Thatcher, the Union was spoiling for a fight28 with Thames TV and I was offered a job directing a BBC documentary.

iv. BACK TO THE BBC Via a Thames News contact, I became a stringer29 for the Daily Mirror. My first assignment, covering a Legalise Cannabis Campaign demonstration in Hyde Park, was photographically fruitful in various ways. It was the first major London demo since Thatcher took power which generated a lot of press interest. Secondly I managed to get a shot of a large bleeding policeman, being supported by two diminutive female officers, one of whom shouted in the direction of my lens.

‘Why don’t you leave us alone!’

Which was pretty ironic when one considered the bleeding policeman’s wound was borderline self-inflicted after he grabbed a demonstrator who happened to have a bottle in his hand. The laws of gravity and trajectory meant the policeman had inadvertently put himself in harms way. It was also disgraced ex-drug squad Superintendent Fred Luff’s first large demonstration to supervise since being moved to Seville Row. That particular irony was lost on none of the press who were there. He’d been Kevin Carrington’s supervising officer.

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An accidental happenstance of the 1979 ITV strike was Channel Television stayed onair and, starved of material to show, were the first television station to buy in and transmit Ice Cream Dream, the very film the Thames TV Union shop steward had banned.

Although I stayed a union member, to my mind the ITV Union played into Government hands which led to legislation outlawing closed shops30, brought in laws against secondary picketing but, on the up-side, forced in compulsory secret ballots. These actions, along with many changes brought about by the growth of small independent TV producers, particularly after the start of Channel Four, meant the television unions lost the massive clout they had prior to the ITV strike. Good job too.

Directing a documentary at the BBC was wonderful, like being handed the keys to the biggest Mecano shop in the world, but not without some minor glitches of personality.

Standing in a corridor scanning a notice board of BBC staff vacancies I was approached by someone who looked faintly familiar and who turned out to be one of the film managers on a long-ago interview Board. Seeing me looking at the job vacancies, he advised in what he probably thought was an encouraging tone.

‘Keep looking, don’t give up, you’ll make it one day.’

‘Really? You don’t say.’

‘What are you doing now?’

‘I’m a film director.’

That wiped the supercilious grin off his face. Technically I out-ranked him by several pay grades but I had learned on my travels not to demean one of life’s natural born middle managers. One smiles inwardly. The word payback never even entered my mind. I was working for an obscure BBC unit known as Community Programmes Open Door, obstensively a slot for members of the public to make their own programmes, and in this case the members of the public were the Legalise Cannabis Campaign for whom I had written a script some months before. The LCC came back to me to direct the documentary on their behalf. Community Programmes were so obscure they didn’t have an office in Television Centre but were located in a row of rented terraced BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 138

houses converted into offices in deepest Hammersmith. The Open Door producer was Eddie Montague whom I had last seen editing Late Night Line Up. There was a real antediluvian charm of working off site and, although somewhat primitive, it was good to be away from the bustle of TV Centre.

Open Door tended to use freelance camera crews which was fine by me because I got the distinct impression the staffers saw working on Community Programmes as beneath their dignity.

While the LCC were lining up interviewees for the programme I was deep in preparation for the docudrama film inserts. The plan was for three LCC presenters, headed

by Tim Malyon, to introduce the filmed interviewees from the studio31 and link the film sequences along with two studio interviewees, a Professor from the Drugs Advisory Panel and LCC supporter Lord Melchett. I can’t remember whose idea it was to have a cannabis plant in the studio but I do recall the worried look on Eddie’s face when the prospect was broached. The LCC had a Home Office contact, Bing Spear, who said he would grant a temporary licence to possess a cannabis plant so long as we obtained it from a legal source. I called around my Scotland Yard contacts, a left-over from my time on Thames News, and was passed to the Forensic Science BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 139

Laboratory32 at Aldermarston which was also home to the British atomic bomb factory. I always wondered what those scientists put in their warheads. Perhaps they were planning to stone the Russians to death. The Forensic Science Laboratory were happy to lend the BBC a cannabis plant so long as they got it back in one piece. So for one weekend in October 1979 I was legally in possession of a cannabis plant.

I invited the crew33 for lunch to discuss the script and especially the opening sequence which involved a dramatised drugs bust. I was determined not to have the production come across as a bunch moaning stoned freaks and knew we had to grab the viewers’ attention in the first ninety seconds. Cameraman Trevor Walker said he was shocked to be invited to a prep meeting because normally the BBC didn’t bother, the crew just turned up on day one of the shoot and got stuck in. I was shocked that he was shocked as the last thing I wanted was some old camera guys going through the motions. People will give their best if they feel part of the production. The actors playing the cops were all LCC members and played their roles with gusto. The word payback did enter my mind. We needed an on-screen reporter for the film inserts and, mindful ITV were on strike, offered it to and got a Thames News journalist who was not on strike but lockedout by the company. Eddie asked if I wanted to edit the film myself but I felt I had enough to do without multi-tasking and asked, if he was available, whether the Beeb would hire Simon Rose. Of course, this did mean going back to UMP but since Simon had taught me the craft of editing I felt we should spread the happiness around.

Location filming started in early-October and lasted four days. On the first day of shooting I was in a BBC camera van driving past Thames TV where my former colleagues where out on the cobbles, as happy as Larry they had brought ITV to its knees. I wound down the window and waved34 as we passed. The programme contained contributions from C.P. Lee, a number of people whose lives had been detrimentally changed by receiving a criminal record for possession of the herb, including one man who had been effectively rendered stateless, an ex-policeman who was busted for possession35 and a BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 140

solicitor who dealt with drug cases. Eddie suggested I do my ‘Hitchcock bit36’ by being stopped and searched on the street by an actor in uniform which caused much hilarity amongst friends who said they always knew I took drugs really. Hohoho. Unfortunately, most folk missed the point because what the scene was highlighting was the police use of the sus laws to arbitrarily stop and search people on the street merely because they looked like freaks.

Post production editing started with Simon Rose at UMP which caused Hinchipoo a moment of disquiet.

‘Nobody told me you were working here!’

‘He’s not. He’s the BBC director,’ said Simon.

A week later we were in studio to record the completed show. A large detective turned up holding a rather sad, wilting cannabis plant.

‘I’ve numbered all the leaves and if we don’t get them all back you’ll get numbered too.’

The deal with the cannabis plant was we would provide BBC security guards, rotated every two hours, sitting just off camera to make sure no one did anything of a consuming nature with the weed. Because we were recording on a Saturday, the cop had no intention of hanging around to take the plant back to Aldermarston, so we were required to store it in a secure place until the following Monday. At the end of the recording session Beeb staff were amused by the sight of Eddie and I, flanked by four security guards, pushing a flat bed barrow together with the wilted plant onboard along the corridors of TV Centre. The secure place turned out to be the armoury in the sub-basement which contained firearms. What a terrible environment for an innocent cannabis plant to spend the weekend. As a security guard was locking the vault he turned to me.

‘What a sad looking plant. Mine are much bushier.’

After eleven years of struggle and strife in the movie industry, by 27th October 1979 I had two documentary films airing on TV with a director’s credit. Ice Cream Dream on Channel TV and Stand Up And Be Counted for the BBC. I wanted the title to be Stand Up, Get Up from the Bob Marley song of the same name which we used over the end credits but this was denied us for some reason.

Such is life.

BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 141

CHAPTER 4 - FOOTNOTES 1

Misquoted from JB Priestly, 1933

2

Excessive overtime hours which ended after public transport shut down. According to

the Union I was on Golden Hours’ overtime, double time payments which double with each passing hour until 9am next morning when the employer was required to pay a ‘penalty payment’ of a day’s wages for working round the clock without a 10-hour break. It should have been a huge wage. It was 50-quid. You don’t get rich if you pay the staff to that which they’re entitled. Penalty payments were in place to discourage employers from the use of excesive working hours.

3

Oh dear, I sound like John Rushton.

4

The sound tracks had been laid in Saudi, there was actual sand in yer actual tin – no

kidding – and the only reason I was there at all was to supervise the sound engineer, who out-ranked me, but the American commercials producer John Garcia seemed to work on the theory the more chiefs there were in the room the more people he could spread the blame around onto when he screwed up. Which happened often.

5

Sound engineer

6

The dubbing mixer mistakenly assumed the shoddy workmanship was of my making,

chewed me out for it then, later, found himself apologising when he realised I had no control over the production. By then I was immune to all criticism when my employer refused to take responsibility. A reputation for ‘shoddy workmanship’ is an employment killer.

I rebelled and decided to ‘obey the last order’ from my boss, Margrette, who had

7

taken early leave home for Poets Day (piss off early tomorrow’s Saturday). No overtime authorised by her for the commercials and I was too exhausted to care. Downed tools until my boss told me otherwise.

8

I was on a no up front fee, 5% of income deal with AZ which I learned to regret.

9

That’s probably a racist slur now but that’s what young Germans called their elders in

1976; Bader-Meinhoff terrorist fans claimed they were rebelling against their parents generation of top nazi Hilterite capitalists.

10

I have a feeling this does not refer to a musical instrument

11

This was probably the worst mistake of my life – I should have taken the job. Ah, the

stupidity of youth BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 142

12

he only found out I was in Bremerhaven a couple hours before we turned up

13

After you’ve read this, of course

14

There’s a prize for anyone from the cutting rooms old enough to know what that

means 15

That phrase is so spooky and frightening, it still makes me shudder 35-years later

16

I am not, nor ever have been a hippie

17

Simon wasn’t a Quaker, his parents were

18

Go and watch Platoon, Patton or The Bridge At Remengen for their use of music.

19

Last I heard of him he had become a Big Cheese in the Union

20

On his first day Baker made it his business to introduce himself to the whole crew

with a bone crushing handshake 21

School Kids Against Nazis

22

Cycling in from Ealing to Euston every morning, Euston to Ealing every night it was

essential cycling kit to wear a woolly hat to keep the hair out of my eyes.

23

There is a difference between puffing the odd spliff and being seen as a drug dealer

24

Even though the film had been made several years before I joined Thames TV

25

The expression ‘stabbed in the face’ is never taken in the literal sense within the

movie industry – more the worst possible outburst for bad behaviour 26

I was 28-years old which is hardly young in the movie industry

27

Since the Race Relations Act this expression, meaning effectively banned, is no longer

used.

28

The operation of new graphics caption equipment from the studio floor, live on air

29

Freelance press photographer

30

Thatcher is often cited as having banned closed shop unions but the credit should

really go to the European Court of Human Rights. Thatcher just happened to be Prime Minister when this piece of European legislation was brought in.

31

Back to studio Pres-B, home of Whistle Test

32

now called CGI

33

cameraman Trevor Walker and sound recordist Nigel Williams

34

the two finger Agincourt salute

35

not Kevin Carrington

36

Director Alfred Hitchcock’s trade mark, making a cameo appearance in his films BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 143

CHAPTER 4 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 137 - Bleeding police officer at the Legalise Cannabis demo, London 1979 Page 138 - Supt. Fred Luff, disgraced former head of the London Met Drugs Squad Page 139 - Al, film director of LCC film, October 1979 BBC camera crew, October 1979 Cannabis plant used on LCC film Page 140 - Film Crew and actors on location, Fermoy Road London October 1979 This page - LCC cartoon post transmission

ABOUT THAT REPEAT ... ?

BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 144

5

TROUBLE AND STRIFE

i. GETTING ANIMATED The bright new decade started with Tony Caruana and I back in the cutting rooms after I totally failed to exploit my film directing credits. I know this sounds mad but after a run of directing films in late the 1970’s I actually believed producers would beat a path to my door. Wrong! This doesn’t happen in real life. What actually happens is one is supposed to seize the day, grab life by the boot straps and go out there and grasp … whatever it is there is in the big outside world that makes us employable. Whatever that is. I had met people who, whatever industry career structure they were in, would steadfastly stick to their department and pay grade no matter what.

‘I am a film director and I’d rather be an unemployed film director than an employed editor1.’

Some of us had no such pride, mainly because we had no such bank account to fall back on to pay the rent and feed the sprogs.

I had an idea, using Lego, of live action characters having wild adventures inserted into an animated background. Morality tales for grown-ups. Of course, the problem was getting copyright permission to use a commercial product2, Lego, in a film. Working at Film Fair with John Rushton on Paddington Bear had given me a taste for animation3 and it was merely a question of finding the right medium to go with the narrative. This needed cogitating but with no backing the animation project went on the back burner, which was how come I took a short-term contract at UMP to work on an epic compilation film of the world champion Ford Escort rally car. I hired a Soho cutting room above The Ship pub in Wardour Street into which Tony and I moved for the duration. Old WhatWhat Hinchcliffe, who had a acquired the new nickname of Hinchipoo since last time I worked there, was the producer but he seemed less shambolic than before right up to the day he ordered me to attend a dubbing session, with no prior warning, back at Fitzroy Square for a film I hadn’t edited. I tramped the long march up Rathbone Street and Charlotte Street in the pouring rain, intending to have a few words about late call overtime, but Hinchipoo chewed me out before I had chance to say anything.

‘I never wanted to employ you,’ he said. ‘You’re a trouble maker and you’re a detriment to the company and I don’t want you here.’

Effectively fired on the spot for no good reason I went home and phoned Tony.

‘Hinchcliffe fired me for turning up to a dub I wasn’t booked to do. I’m not coming BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 146

back but it’s up to you if you want to continue working there. I wouldn’t blame you if you stay on, a job’s a job.’

Tony said he would mull it over and see what happened next day, what Ford would have to say when they turned up and there was no editor in the room. I got a simpering phone call early next morning from Hinchipoo’s secretary once UMP realised the Ford Motor Company were a bit upset to find Tony home alone, profusely apologising for their unfortunate mistake and would I please come back to work? She claimed they had phoned the wrong Al4 to come in for unscheduled overtime, they had meant to call another film director called Al and it was all a big mistake, hohoho, let’s all be friends together again. Ford didn’t like paying for an editor who wasn’t there especially as the boss was a twerp and had maliciously fired said editor in a moment of brain damaged alcohol poisoning.

Werl, I don’t know,’ I said, trying to sound more offended than actually was.

Of course I went back to work as I didn’t want Hinchipoo in a position where he could blacken my name with Ford. He was the sort of person with a mean streak a mile wide.

As soon as the film was completed I decamped to Germany to look up Mark and take time out to appraise my life and career. I hadn’t had a holiday since 1972. Mark had left Crackerjack yet again and was working in a Cuxhaven disco bar, pouring Jim Beam and sodas for the kids5 and hating every moment of it. I needed to get my head straight and travel seemed to be the way forward even if it meant going back to old ground.

Although I would never admit it then, I realise now it was the excitement of working in the Middle East. I had become an adrenalin junkie in the war and missed the buzz which music films didn’t fill. Maybe going back, I thought, I could lay some ghosts and get my life back and live like a normal human. Maybe.

I spent four days with Mark plotting my route; by train from Cuxhaven to Hamburg, Hamburg via Switzerland to Bologna in Italy, Bologna to the sea port of Ancona where I could pick up a ship down the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, through the Gulf of Corinth to Athens, island hop down to Crete, pick up another ship to Cyprus then the port of Latakia in Syria and maybe even Beirut and, ahem, quietly nip into Israel. Travelling by train and ship was a deliberate act, to rove slowly and bask in the changing landscape.

I was in no great hurry. As it turned out I made it almost a third of the way to Israel.

It was a grey and misty afternoon when Mark waved me off at Cuxhaven bahnhof, BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 147

travelling east along the lonely flatland coast of Luneburg6 before swinging south-west, following the Elbe to Hamburg. Dusk was coming down as I joined the long queue in the Hamburg ticket office hoping I would get the ‘right sort’ behind the counter. The wrong sort were middle-aged Germans who would lose their comprehension of any language if the mood was on them, including their own. My command of the German language was adequate for ticket buying purposes but you never could tell. If you show any sign, with the wrong sort, of understanding a conversation in German they had a tendency to speed up to the point where their own grandmother wouldn’t understand them. And I had one of those. T he woman behind the glass looked to be about fifty and had a hideous scar of twisted flesh across her face. Fire-storm, I thought. Talk to the person, not the disfigurement.

I couldn’t keep the English accent out of my German, I hadn’t learned how to do that and asked for a single ticket to Bologna. In Italy. She stared dumbly at me, as if I had been the one with my hand on the lever which opened the bomb bay doors. She didn’t understand my German or Italian and refused to converse in English although she had had no problem with the Scandinavians ahead of me in the queue who had no German, only English and Norwegian. This was not good because the clock was ticking and that international train was not going to wait for anyone. Next train, tomorrow. Finally help came from the American behind me in the queue who knew exactly what was going on and took over the conversation. He was speaking German with an American accent which was just fine because, although the Yanks had bombed the crap out of Hamburg too, their mighty dollar of the Marshall Plan had rebuilt it afterwards. Ticket transaction completed, business concluded by the friendly American, I gave the ticket counter woman a friendly smile and wished her a good evening and she responded with a merry ‘good journey.’ In perfect English. The friendly American and I exchanged a rollingeyeballs shrug-shoulders and went on our various ways.

My imperative was to find the right platform pronto and, in the chaos of rush hour, not something to be undertaken lightly in a station the size of Hamburg. Commuter and international trains came in and zipped out of the through station a few minutes apart and this was no time to become a lost boy. Fortunately a Cooks Tours representative was prowling the concourse and set me straight. To my great relief. My train was coming from Copenhagen which could mean it was already full to the rafters and Bologna was BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 148

a very long way standing in the corridor. The train crept in like it was ashamed to be seen which gave me enough time to find the through carriage to Italy. No worries, there was plenty of room and as the train left Hamburg I unrolled my sleeping bag, pulled the facing seats together on their runners and slumbered my way though Germany.

Something I had noticed about overnight express trains in Europe was how they eased into stations and oozed out again, giving due consideration for sleeping passengers.

British Rail had yet to gain the knack. I dozed happily through Hanover, Cassell, Fulda and didn’t wake until Nuremberg when an engineer, on his way home to his family in Augsburg for the weekend, entered the compartment.

Dawn was seeping across the Bavarian Plateau when I woke and noticed the engineer had gone. I chanced the restaurant car for breakfast between Augsburg and Munich. The days of the luxurious blue and cream Wagon-Lits dining cars had gone to be replaced by something wich looked like a works canteen with plastic chairs. Although I didn’t know it at the time I was thundering through the heartland of Krautrock. We crossed briefly into Austria, south of Kempten, before the daylight joys of the Swiss Alps which were once described to me as the biggest miniature railway layout in the world. I recall being in a long tunnel before the gasping surprise of emerging, blinking into the sunshine, several thousand feet up a valley wall overlooking a precipitous drop.

We popped out of Switzerland, into Italy, where the rail line takes a long left-hand sweep around the Lake to Como and exuberant Italian youths piled into the compartment. Out of the mountains, down the slope of Lombardy towards Milan, my eyes bugged at the sight of their wide rolling papers, tobacco and lumps of hashish as they proceeded to skin up. One of the exuberant Italian youths noticed my reaction and drew his fellows’ attention to it who laughed uproariously and, in their wonderful lilting English declared, “Hash is legal in Italy.” Travel really does broaden the mind. They left the train at Milan and left me with essence of hashish in the compartment, as though I had been smoking it, while the train crossed the Po valley basin towards Piacenza, Parma, Modena and finally Bologna. Dead on time.

For years I laboured under the delusion of ‘what did Mussolini do for the Italians – he made the trains run on time,’ until I found out how he did it. Tardy engine drivers were put up against a wall and shot. The incentive of the bullet. Stepping down from the Hamburg train, which had been my home for a day, I shifted gears into a another BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 149

language. The train went on to Rome while, with time to spare before my connection to Ancona, I became a tourist and mooched about the university city with its fine 1767 Twin Towers. Lunch became a priority after living on train food and my tummy was not to be thwarted. Having Italian relatives meant learning to eat workers’ food and avoid expensive tourist traps. Replete, I made my way back to the railway station where someone in an earlier age had run amok in renaissance Florentine marble. A few months later a 20-kilo suitcase bomb was left in the waiting room, killing eighty-five and leaving hundreds injured by flying marble splinters.

The train to Ancona was something of a disappointment. I’d heard of Italian trains with wooden seats but had never actually seen one. I was seeing it in Bologna and all the way to Ancona as the train stopped at every halt along the way. If it had a platform, the train stopped. This was an enlightenment to an observant traveller as, not only did the landscape change, so did its people. A full array of a region’s diverse ethnology, all happy to share the experiences of their day in a phalanx of regional accents. This was not enough, however, to distract from the fact that the wooden seats were flipping hard. My folded Levi jacket was not enough to take the sting out of my tail and I finally understood why the Italians bulked themselves out with pasta. Wooden seats. The train clickerdy-clacked through the low southern hills of the Northern Apennine backbone of Italy, the sun slowly setting, like something out of the Shire in Lord of The Rings. It reminded me of Herefordshire. The gloaming was on us by the time we reached the Adriatic Sea at Rimini where the train more or less emptied. It was full dark by the time the train pulled into Ancona, making it hard to read the station name boards. I didn’t want to end up at Ancona Marittima by accident and have to talk my way out of the dockyard at night. Not with a numb bum and a serious mission to find somewhere to park my head for the night.

What I found was a cheap out of season palatial hotel of faded grandeur which looked like it had reached its heyday in about 1935 and had slowly gone down hill ever since.

Here, were there glamorous movie stars and minor royals who had lost their countries in distant wars? Did Mussolini stay here, hot foot from executing engine drivers? The faded hotel with its air of distant memories still engaged a bell boy, approximate age seventy, whom I mentally named Grimolino. He insisted on taking my bags7 to my room, stopping to wheeze every few steps on our long journey to the third floor. He BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 150

hung around unpacking my bag, so obviously beneath his dignity and not what he was used to in the royal days of European empires, until I offered him a tip. Grimolino took it with a shrug shoulders which seemed to indicate, I’m so sorry, it is as much an embarrassment for me to take your tip as it is for you to offer a tip but just for the look of the thing I will take your money, sir, not like the old days, you understand, when the beautiful people came to stay. I never found out his name and had a feeling he would have been as mortified as he had been about the tip, had I it found out. There were deeply rooted primeval etiquettes and conventions which I was breaking in my gauche British ignorance but which he felt unable to correct due to the same deeply rooted primeval etiquettes and conventions. In 1935 I would have oiled my way into the building via the tradesman’s entrance and my whole sorry social gaff would have been ignored. They knew how to deal with my sort before the war. I wondered if, in his younger days, Grimlino had fought with the Italian Partisans up near Bolzano. I strongly doubted it. I mused on this as I luxuriated in a steaming bath washing away travel grime.

Next morning up like a lark, I found the shipping agent who dealt with the passage to Athens. Bad news; I had missed the boat by a day and the next departure was a week away. Not wishing to disrupt the silent grandeur of the hotel I took a train back up the coast to Senigallia, an out of season resort which sported hotels run by people under the age of sixty, and settled into a five star hotel charging two star prices. I wrote to Graham Clutterbuck at Film Fair to let him know where I had hitched up in case he had any news on the animation project. You never know. The hotel was bed and breakfast so I wandered off to find lunch. We might be all friends together now in 21st century Europe but even as recently as the 1980’s there were still dull resentments between the former combatant countries of WW2. Italy had surrendered to the Western Allies in 1943, having overthrown Mussolini, but Italians of a certain age never forgave Germany who effectively invaded their country to continue the war. There were massacres of Italian troops surrendering to the Germans and, of course, round-ups of Jews to be packed off to the gas chambers. The older Italians had long memories and were not quick to the idea of a new forgiving Europe. What the Germans had to say about all this was anyone’s guess as they flocked to the Italian resorts in droves, winter or summer.

Italian restaurant staff had a way of dealing with blonde haired, blue-eyed Germanic BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 151

tourists which involved sloppy service, plates banged down in front of customers and serving indifferent wines which had been kept out in the sun too long. So I was rather surprised to be on the receiving end of this treatment on the patio of a splendid seafood restaurant. I didn’t understand the nature of the problem until the following day when a waiter asked me something for which I did not have adequate Italian to answer and slipped into English.

‘Oh Inglese!’ he exclaimed as he scurried back inside.

A moment later he reappeared with the manager who, apologising profusely, explained their ethnic misunderstanding of assuming I was German because I had blue eyes, blond hair and spoke passable Italian but with a strangled accent. I told him I had learned Italian in the north, Ventimiglia, where my sister lives. All became sweetness and light as though we had a shared ethnicity8 by my sister being married to an Italian.

He refused payment for the meal and I knew better than to offend him by insisting on paying. I loved Italy, had spent many long summer holidays there as a kid and got to know the ways of the people. It was my, then, seven year old nephew who taught me to speak the language on our daily forays to the vegetable market so I could converse with the stall holders. It seemed every stall holder at the market knew of the English woman9 who lived in an apartment block on the Via Dante. Her flat was just above the level of the raised shunting yards across the street. Ventimiglia was the main route to the French frontier10 and, during busy holiday periods, the traffic would back up through the town. It was the delight of a Neapolitan engine driver to draw his shunting loco up beside the traffic and join in with the irate drivers’ blaring horns by sounding his shrill loco whistle, accompanied with ribald comments which came out, in loose translation.

‘Hey, stupid, next time take the train.’ Except, perhaps, in somewhat fruitier language.

His wild gesticulations were an art form and conveyed everything mere words could not. According to my brother-in-law, the Neapolitan engine driver really had fought with the Partisans and was utterly fearless. I watched him one day and, shunting carriages to make up the trains, his technique and timing were breathtaking. With two or three unhooked carriages in front he would race across the yard at full tilt, come to a stop and the unconnected carriages would glide into different sidings with barely an audible clink as they touched buffers.

Meanwhile, back in Senigallia, although the deserted beaches and long walks through BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 152

forests and over hills were doing my body a power of good I could not shake the qualm of being self indulgent by pursuing a fanciful journey to heal an imagined identity crisis. When I got back to the hotel a letter was waiting from Clutterbuck, to proceed forthwith to Billund in Denmark to meet a Mr. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, boss of Lego, to discuss my stop-frame animation idea with him. He was very keen, apparently. Billund?

Where heck was Billund? Sounded like some kind of wading bird. It was just as well I left Senigallia when I did as the weather took a turn for the misty rain with a damp chill.

On reaching Hamburg I took a flight direct to Billund as the joy of the train was beginning to pall. I felt the pull of home and didn’t want to hang about. Mr. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen at Lego said he had never heard of me or Graham Clutterbuck11 and the best course of action would be to go home and write him a nice letter including a proposal for my rather nutty idea of using his world-selling product for my stop-frame animation. The best course of action, I felt, would be to go home and take a very large mallet and hammer Lego bricks into Mr. Clutterbuck’s every orifice for making me look like a jerk on a wild goose chase. Dealing with multi-national companies is a one time only pitch and I could only imagine what Mr. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen thought when this English gypsy showed up with a pack in his back, with no accreditation and a fuzzy idea about using Mr. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen’s internationally renown product for his own unspeakable ends. Amateur night at the movies.

ii. MOVING ON I moved to a shared house in Ealing, the Queen of the Suburbs, two days after my birthday. John Macklin, Valkyrie’s former roadie and who would later became a big cheese in Soho’s sex industry, came round with his van and facilitated the move. As we drove away we very nearly crashed, distracted by a low-flying Lancaster bomber heading for nearby RAF Northolt.

‘Now there’s something you don’t see everyday,’ said John, barely missing an oncoming car.

‘No. Usually round here we drive on the left,’ I managed as I hauled myself back up onto the seat.

My co-tenants were Maurice, a New Zealand writer for Jane’s Fighting Ships, student Amanda and Margaret, a teacher in a remedial class for wayward teenagers. The house BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 153

was co-owned by Max Hoskins, who had been my assistant during a brief spell as an editor on Thames News, and his erratic brother Rob who styled himself as a chef for British Airways. Margaret took a more direct outlook, that Rob was half a chef because BA half cooked the food on the ground to be re-heated on board the aircraft before serving. As it turned out Rob held views on the tenant / live-in landlord relationship. He also had Rules.

‘No overnight stays by visiting boy or girlfriends, always do the washing up, pay the rent on time, no smoking in the house and no drugs.’

As far as I knew no one in the house used drugs. Margaret told me Rob kept a loose squeaky floorboard outside his room on the first floor landing so he could tell if visitors were being smuggled in for rule-breaking illicit shabby encounters. She went on to explain this prudish attitude was the result of no woman in her right mind would want an encounter21 with him and, knowing this, Rob was going to make darn sure no one else in the house was going to have any fun either. I found this rather hard to believe in those enlightened times and, to test this theory, going up to bed one night I trod on the squeaky floorboard twice just to see what would happen. Ten minutes after climbing into bed my door flew open, the light snapped on and there was Rob in his dressing gown standing in the doorway, bristling with stuffy outrage.

‘Ah-ha!’ It took him a moment for him to realise I was alone in bed but rallied with.

‘Oh. Erm, can I borrow your bicycle pump? he stumbled, ‘I’ve got a flat tire.’

Well, we all had a good laugh about that one over breakfast next morning. It was rather sad, Rob was younger than me and behaved like a middle-aged Victorian father.

We moaned mildly to Max who said things would improve as he was buying out Rob’s half share of the house but with Max working away in Manchester we were left at Rob’s mercy. He could clear a room in three minutes. We were all watching a classic French film22 on TV one night, Rob came home from work and joined us. He lit up one of his foul smelling cigars23 and after a few minutes fidgeting, said, ‘Is anyone watching this,’ although not as a question. Before anyone could react, Rob grabbed the remote control and switched over to the snooker. In dribs and drabs we all wandered off to the kitchen. We noticed he only became the arrogant, room clearing landlord when Max wasn’t around. True he co-owned the house but the man was a complete social tit. Margaret had had enough and said she was moving out. It was after the night of BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 154

the snooker I came up with my ‘there’s always one’ theory of life that no matter what the circumstance in a work or social setting, where everyone gets on together, there is always one individual who comes along and spoils it for everyone else. Always. There are no exceptions.

One afternoon Rob came home from work and found me in the house. He wanted to know I was doing there.

‘Reading a book,’ I answered.

‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’

‘No. I’m between contracts right now.’

Apparently this was another infraction of his unwritten house rules, hastily made up on the spot to belittle the tenants, of going wilfully and with malice aforethought loitering in the house whilst unemployed. Probably a hanging offence.

‘I don’t like people hanging around the house all day,’ was his petulant response.

‘Oh sorry, I didn’t realise I’m only allowed in the house at certain times,’ with just a hint of sarcasm, ‘you should have said. I thought the rent was for a twenty four hour day.’

He grumphed and humphed as he oiled his way out of the kitchen. There was one perfectly well balanced individual. He had a gigantic chip on both shoulders. I knew I had to move on, find a flat on my own with no mad live-in landlords. Rob hadn’t realised his tenants were not there to pay his mortgage so he could live rent free. He had no respect and referred to us as punters. And to show his complete contempt he invited his sister over from Ireland with her screaming undisciplined children who took over the whole house. I came down for breakfast one morning to find my food cupboard24 empty.

‘Erm, Rob have you moved my food?’

‘If you had a job you could afford to buy some more.’

‘So what happened to it?’

‘The children were hungry.’

‘But that was my food for the entire week.’

‘Oh boo-hoo,’ came his nasty response.

I had to get out of that house and sought solive with a friend over in Camden who offered tea and sympathy. I’d known Colin since my stringer days at the Daily Mirror and he was one the few hairy cops in London who left his job at the office door when BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 155

he went home. As afternoon wore onto evening, he offered a lift home. Colin, a keen amateur photographer, asked to borrow one of my lenses and came inside while I rummaged through my camera gear. A knock at my door. It was Rob, asking in a roundabout way what this disreputable long haired person was doing in my room.

Obviously drugs were suspected.

‘Hi I’m Colin,’ but his extended hand was left unshaken.

‘You know Al?’ Now, I was desperate not to catch Colin’s eye line because we both had a cynic’s sense of humour and I didn’t want to encourage comments of the “we met cottaging’” variety because I knew Rob had no sense of humour. Colin kept it straight and simple.

‘Yes.’ ‘Are you unemployed too?’

‘No. I’m a police officer.’

At which Rob ran away, bolting down the stairs.

‘Is he all right?’ asked Colin.

‘He’s the landlord.’

I found the lens Colin wanted and he stayed a while looking at my old press photos, asking how I could stand there25 and take photos in a shooting war, discussing the benefits or otherwise of various filters when the door banged open and a stranger26 stood on the threshold in a state of barely suppressed outrage.

‘There’s been no theft here.’

‘Pardon?’

‘No one has stolen your food.’

‘Who said it was stolen?’

‘I want this person to leave. He has no right to be here.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t believe you are a police officer. They don’t employ vagabonds in the Met.’ I closed my eyes in embarrassed dispair. I knew exactly what was going to happen next, how it was probably going to play out and I was too much of a coward to watch.

‘I don’t know what’s on your mind, pal. I’ve known Al for years, he’s a well respected press photographer and I’m visiting my friend.’

In the deathly silence which followed I had to open my eyes to witness the final BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 156

inevitable outcome of this miserable scene. The big brother loomed, like he was chewing on a lemon, weighing up his chances of what might happen if he actually punched one of us. Instead he decided to stick to the code of the balled fist bully.

‘I want you out of this house now,’ and referring to Colin, ‘and you can take that individual with you.’

In the bewildering silence which followed the big brother’s departure I turned to Colin, ‘You didn’t have to do that, you know.’

‘I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me. Those guys looked like they really wanted to beat you up.’

‘Well thanks for being here.’

‘Its what friends do. Pack your bags. We’re leaving.’

‘I’ve got nowhere to go.’

‘You can’t stay here. Not if you want to wake up in the morning with all your arms and legs in one piece. Stay at mine, I’ve got a spare room.’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ I said secretly grateful for the escape route.

‘Yep, I do. Take as much as you can carry now and we’ll come back for the rest of your stuff tomorrow.’

We went back next day to pick up my chattels. Fortunately the brothers were out so we didn’t have to endure a repeat performance of the night before. Maurice gave us a hand moving my things out to the car and apologised.

‘I heard it all. I was in my room but I was too scared to come out.’

‘That’s okay, its not your problem.’

Maurice told us what had happened after I found my food missing and had left the house. The visiting sister told Rob he shouldn’t allow the tenants speak to him like that so she phoned their big brother to come round to back him up. All four of them had locked themselves away in the lounge all day waiting for me to come home. Maurice added that everyone’s food had been taken but he and Amanda were too scared to say anything.

‘There was a terrible atmosphere in the house. Their big brother came round and told Rob off for not keeping his tenants under control. You could see Rob was really scared of him. They let the kids run around the house all day. Amanda found them in her room going through the wardrobe, trying on her clothes and when she shooed them out the BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 157

sister came up and told Amanda to leave her children alone. It was a mad house. They obviously weren’t expecting you to come home with a friend and they didn’t know what to do about it at first. Then the brother sent Rob up to confront you because they assumed you were both taking drugs.’

Colin gave Maurice his address to forward my mail and his phone number if anyone wanted to me for work. As we drove away Maurice looked like he really didn’t want to be there on his own to deal with the landlord brothers upon their return, especially once they realised they couldn’t hold my possessions for ransom. And that’s how I ended up living with Colin for a while, like an odd freak couple, a cop and a press photographer under the same roof. Sadly I never saw Maurice again.

iii. A PLACE OF SAFETY Living with Colin was a real hoot. Two hairy freaks with a shared background, awesome record collections and a sick sense of humour. In our respective professions we both came across the absurdities of life on a daily basis and knew how to handle them. The fact that he was the Filth and I was the Yellow Press never caused problems between us. We knew where to draw the line. Colin was concerned I was without a woman and made it his mission in life to set up female company. I told him I was having a sabbatical away from women but Colin had other ideas.

‘Its not healthy to be man alone. Besides, everyone needs to clear the custard27 occasionally or he’ll go nuts.’

Unfortunately all the women Colin set me up with tended to be cops28 who rapidly lost interest once they realised I was working press. Colin became fractious when all his matchmaking schemes came to naught, like I was deliberately avoiding a relationship but fortunately Margaret, the remedial teacher from the old Ealing house, got in touch to ask if I wanted to go out with her to see a play. I said as how I would like that a lot. We went to see a three hander kitchen sink drama at The Bush Theatre about a woman discovering her husband was gay. It was the thrown cup shattering against a brick wall which woke me up. Fifteen years before the gay lover triangle might have been considered daring but by 1980 it was run of the mill. So what? Margaret insisted on driving me back to Camden where I felt duty bound to offer her a night cap. I introduced Margaret to Colin but didn’t mention his job which was the only house rule BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 158

he laid down, the only one he needed.

Pouring two shots of some South American liqueur in the kitchen, the aroma of which reminded me of paint stripper, Colin wandered in while Margaret made herself comfortable in my room.

‘Not that I want to interfere,’ he said interferingly.

‘You’ve been on at me to get a woman and now I have-.’

‘I know her.’

‘Oh no. She’s escaped from Broadmoor?’

‘No, nothing like that. Not quite like that.’

‘What?’

‘She’s married.’

‘She told me about that. He left her.’

‘She’s married to the governor of a young offenders’ institution.’

‘Ah!’ ‘She’s a teacher of a remedial class.’

‘And your point is?’

‘She probably thinks you need saving from yourself,’ he said, putting a comforting arm around my shoulder, ‘and she took you to see a gay play.’

‘Ah!’ ‘Are you coming to bed, Al?’ came a call from the kitchen doorway. Colin guiltily dropped his arm from my shoulder which Margaret seemed to be staring at. Like two naughty schoolboys caught fiddling with something we should not what of. What the heck, she thought I was a gay anyway.

‘Yes, just coming I mean-,’ going for the correction too late.

Colin slipped me a prophylactic as Margaret and I left together.

‘Just in case,’ he whispered.

‘In case of what?’

Cuddling under the duvet, my passion was marred only by being lectured on gay relationships, that she had taken Maurice to see the same play and he had reacted the same way, QED, we were both gay and Margaret was going to sexually educate the abnormality out of me. Well, it was a theory. Sex is sex, why worry about a person’s misinterpreted motives for intercourse. She was the sort of person who, when told by a BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 159

bloke he was not gay, would see more gayness in them because of the denial. I gave up on that score. She could fornicate me sideways ‘til Yule Tide for all I cared. Until Colin stepped in a few weeks later.

‘Have you looked at yourself the mirror recently?’

‘What? I’ve got a zit in the middle of my forehead?’

‘You look like the portrait of Dorian Grey. That woman is going to suck the life right out of you.’

‘I know. She’s so demanding.’

‘And you don’t have a job.’

Colin did not see this as a contentious issue, as in “get a job and start paying your way you worthless freak”, but in the usual sense of a person feeling better for themselves by working. And, I had to admit, I was missing the routine. Colin had a suggestion. The Met police were looking for civilian workers to come in and take over back office jobs to release more Plod out on the streets detecting miscreants. He said I would have a ball in the technical section with my photographic credentials. I told him I’d think about it which was code for never in a million years am I going to work for the police, present company excepted and all that. In fact, I wasn’t sure what Colin was doing in the cops either.

* BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 160

CHAPTER 5 - FOOTNOTES Or supermarket shelf stacker come to that – which was deemed a fate worse than

1

death, an end of career moment.

2

Product placement was a huge problem back then

3

actually it was seeing Hoppity Goes To Town as kid and the use of Rotascope by Max &

Dave Fleischer, filming live action humans with Willard Bowsky tracing them in with the animated creatures. I successfully use the technique in my 1984 film of the Stonehenge concert film I have no respect for people who make an honest mistake and make it worse by

4

refusing to put their hand up for it; there were no other Als working at UMP all shoulder pads and jacket sleeves pushed up to the elbow in the fashion era time

5

forgot where the bulk of the 15th Panzer Army had been holed up just before the fall of

6

Germany in 1945 7

one H-frame backpack, one sleeping bag

8

Although that probably wasn’t the word we used back then as older Italians were more

forthright about our German neighbours 9

My sister

10

before they built the autostrade

11

which I think he suspected was a made-up name

(some foot notes deleted due to major edit) 20

at least, I hope he didn’t

21

sexual or otherwise

22

with sub-titles

23

thus breaking rule three

24

each tenant had their own food cupboard so we didn’t accidentally eat Rob’s food.

However, this was not a reciplical arrangement. He would dip into our food whenever he liked because he was the landlord.

25

Actually, I hid behind something there

26

The older brother of Max & Rob I later discovered

27

a euphemism for sexual intercourse which Colin had picked up on a holiday to Australia

28

not that I was prejudiced against cops BIG BOYS GAMES - PAGE 161

6

BACK TO WORK

i. HONDA IN THE EIGHTIES Back in the day I never signed on for unemployment benefit, partly out of the shear botheration of all that paperwork but mostly out of misjudged sentiment that maybe a destitute family needed it more than me. It took years to understand the benefit system doesn’t work like that but it was pride, in the early 1980’s, which drove me to find work.

The money runs out, get a job and that’s why I routinely worked for unsuitable people like Ron Herring.

Ron operated out of a basement office in The Mall1 and arranged for me to meet film director Graham Fowler in the King of Corsica in Berwick Street. Graham struck me as young whiz-kid who expected something for nothing, the sort who had under-bid to get a prestigious contract then had to learn the harsh reality that people would still want paying proper wages. Film technicians always end up subsidising directors’ ambitions on the promise of jam tomorrow but either tomorrow never comes or, you can depend upon it, the jam goes to someone else who never had to put up with working on the cheap. Story of my life. Now if someone tells me their low paid job2 will look good on my CV, I laugh and walk away.

Graham wanted an editor to work on a thirty-minute motorbike racing documentary for Honda and my name had come up as experienced in motor sport films. I immediately suspected UMP had turned it down and shovelled it my way. I took the job for the sake of something to do and, even though minimum Union rate was not a massive incentive, I hired the usual Soho cutting room. The pull of The Ship was too great. Tony Caruana agreed. We were confronted with hours of film of motorbikes going round and round a circuit with no script of what we thought was one big race and that’s how I assembled the rough cut. When Ron and Graham saw it they groaned at my howling error. Not only was it not one race, the races themselves comprised of different motorbikes.

I didn’t know the difference between a Formula-1 bike and an off-roader even if you drove one right over me which Ron, after the screening, looked very much like he wanted to do. The post production run was only three weeks and I used one of them getting the first cut wrong. We would BACK TO WORK - PAGE 163

have to reassemble the footage and start again although this time, we hoped, with continuity notes and a script.

It looked very much like Ron and Graham had been given a big pot of money by Honda to feature their racing bikes at an event at which they had spent most of the budget photographing it beautifully without a single thought of how they intended to put it together in post production. They had drummed up a problem of their own making because no one had bothered, on the day, to make notes of the races. Editing Honda In The Eighties into race events was stunningly boring with no redeeming qualities at all so I decided to jazz it up by adding music, just like the tank and helicopter films of yesteryear.

Tony said I would regret it, petrol heads like Ron wouldn’t get it. I used The Barber of Seville by Rossini and hardly had to edit the pictures as the motorbikes seem to ride with the music. The re-cut screening brought mixed feelings from Ron and Graham. Ron hated it in exactly the way Tony said he would and Graham loved it because, I swear, he had never thought of using classical music with roaring motorbikes.3 Fortunately Graham won the argument for the music to stay, being director’s choice. Unfortunately, the whole effect was side-swiped because they brought in race commentator Murray Walker to shout all over the finely crafted music sequences. Worse was to come when the bank sent a letter saying the cheque for Honda In The Eighties had bounced. So had cheques for Tony’s wages, Jim the neg cutter and Doug the sound recordist. Of all people to bounce a cheque on, the neg cutters were not a good idea as they had awesome power to put the stop on a production if they decided to hold onto the neg as collateral. In this case until everyone was paid. That meant Herring and Fowler could not make a final print for Honda who would doubtless start asking awkward questions.

Tough buns. It became tougher buns when Ron left a message on Colin’s answer phone to say he was going to come round and break my fingers unless we released the negative. Colin was most amused.

‘What awesome criminals have you got involved with this time?’ he asked.

‘Oh you know. The usual. Arty film making types.’

Colin explained the foibles of a hostage exchange and cometh the day I was extremely nervous waiting in the car park at the back of Safeways supermarket in Ealing Broadway with Jim and Doug hovering nearby in case Ron decided to pull a last minute nasty.

BACK TO WORK - PAGE 164

He decided not to turn up in person4 and, instead, sent his secretary who rolled up in a Volvo. We were parked driver’s window to driver’s window and if any cops were watching we must have looked as suspicious as hell. She passed an envelope with the cash, which I took my time counting, and I passed the address of where the neg was being held – the Union head office. With any luck Herring would have to explain about broken fingers to BECTU before they handed over the film cans.

Ron Herring phoned later to apologise for bouncing the cheque and to show no ill will he offered us another film to cut. Not being a vindictive person, nor stupid, I turned him down which was just as well because Yorkshire TV phoned offering work at their Leeds Studios on the 6 o’clock news, Calendar, starting on November 10th. Hoorah! Escape!

Well, it was only for a trial week but one never knew where these things might lead.

ii. A HARROWING EXPERIENCE With the end of November came the end of my relationship with Margaret. We went to Nottingham to visit a long term friend, Rob Nicholls. The weekend got off to a shaky start because my new employer, Sue Imrie5 whom I knew as an assistant back in our Group One days, had taken me off drinking the night before and I woke with a thundering hang over. Margaret did not take this well because she jumped to the conclusion I was playing away instead of merely having an inebriated night out with my boss. What followed were two days of miscommunication and a psycho analyst’s nightmare conversation on the train home. I got the distinct impression Margaret saw me as some kind of social muck-up like the remedial kids she taught and maybe that’s why she went with me, that she could only cope with men who measured below her level of expectancy so she could ‘cure’ them. Projection, healing her own hurt of Clive the prison governor who walked out on her. She left me feeling like a rat in some complicated experiment, scoring moderate to fair on the open ended intercourse scale.

Never go with teachers, never again.

‘Told you so,’ said Colin.

The end to a perfect year of 1980 saw me working as an assistant editor to Sue Imrie on a BBC Schools series and hating every moment of it. The new year just begun saw some meathead shoot John Lennon in New York. I was too young to remember what I was doing when JFK was shot but I do remember exactly what I was doing when John BACK TO WORK - PAGE 165

Lennon stopped a bullet. I was on the point of getting out of bed and had just switched on the radio, catching the back end of the news. Someone had been shot and from the sound of it, a Beatle. I had to wait an hour for the news to come round again so I could find out who. I was an hour late for work that morning and, as it turned out, so was everyone else. We were all stunned by the news our working class hero was dead. A Harrow freak, JT, on hearing the news had a mild freak-out running around his shared house, banging on peoples’ doors.

‘He’s dead! He’s dead! Everyone get up, he’s been shot.’

It took a while for his startled house mates to realise there was no one shot dead in their house. JT, in his stoned freak way, was babbling about Lennon.

I had to quit working for Sue because I couldn’t stand being her assistant. That was one person who had no inner soul, no artistic understanding of how shots flowed together.

It was painful to watch her attempt to edit anything more complicated than chopping the clapper boards off one shot and assembling them onto the back end of another.

She was worse than John Rushton trying to edit a music sequence. And therefore very depressing to watch. I noticed the programme had an all women production team who were gentle with her, as if they knew how awful she truly was as an editor but were powerless to give her the boot because of the sisterhood. Later I wondered how many mediocre technicians made it into the big time by spouting gibberish about sexism in the work place to hold onto their jobs as a defence for incompetence. Rather than leave Sue in the lurch I put her together with Tony Caruana who took over from me.

9th January, 1981: I figured it was time to move on as I needed to find a place of my own. Colin insisted on driving me over to Harrow to check out a couple of places on the ‘two eyes are better that one’ theory.

‘You really don’t need to move out, you know.’ ’Yes, I know and it’s been great living at yours but I feel the need to stand on my own two feet. Besides I notice how your mates are with me, like they might accidentally blurt something out which will appear in the newspapers next day. Not that I would.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying so that sounds a little paranoid.’

‘What’s wrong with a little healthy paranoia?’

‘The cat will miss you.’

And so the small talk wandered on as we drove through North London. I felt he had BACK TO WORK - PAGE 166

something he wanted to say but couldn’t quite bring himself to say it. We were driving up Kenton Road before he could finally gob it out.

‘You know what they say about Harrow? The last bastion of the hippies.’

‘I’m not a hippie,’ I said indignantly.

‘I know but a some of the people you hung out with are known faces. Known to the police is what I’m saying. I don’t want to have to come and dig you out of some suburban nick because of your unsuitable friends.’

What Colin was driving at was the knowledge Irish Steve, the dealer, was back and living in deepest Harrow. The man had led a charmed existence, having jumped bail and escaped to Morocco in 1975 where he was later arrested for drug trafficking and thrown into a hell-hole prison from which he escaped and made his way back to England. To the very town where the ‘want’ was issued, going to ground amongst the freak drugs underworld.

‘So why don’t they nick him?’

‘It is more complicated than that,’ said Colin.

‘I had a feeling it might be.’

Someone like Irish Steve could be very useful to the police, if not as an informant then merely watching his movements would probably net a lot of other faces. I had the feeling Colin had crossed a line, trying to dissuade me from going into a situation I might accidentally bog up simply by the fact of being there. Irish Steve and I had history. He had introduced me to Class-A drugs, I had a criminal record because of his incautious dealing and I had seen what he was capable of, putting the frighteners on Little John when he was late back from an acid run to Wales.

‘I can handle Steve. There is no way I’m going to make the same mistake again, that’s ancient history’ I told Colin.

‘Yes. I thought you might say something like that.’

We looked at the flats. One was a big bedsit with a separate kitchen and the other, in the same house, was little more than a box room. Colin was appalled when I said I’d take it. Truth be told I didn’t want to move out of Camden but at the same time I needed my own space. Our respective friends thought Colin and I were brothers and, in a curious way, we were.

Before heading back to Camden we had lunch in The Kings Head, the local freak BACK TO WORK - PAGE 167

watering hole, to show Colin how harmless they were. This may have been a tactical mistake because our visit served to highlight the denizen’s foibles. I could see he was uncomfortable so I suggested we go for a walk up Harrow Hill to soak in the old world charm and rustic scenery.

Halfway up the path which led to St Mary’s Church at the top of the Hill, he had to say it.

‘I couldn’t believe it. They weren’t even bothering to do deals under the table, they were doing right in front of everyone.’

‘Sorry about that. Things must have gone down hill since I last lived here.’

‘Watch your back is all I’m saying.’

And we left it at that. Standing up on the top of Harrow Hill my thoughts unexpectedly turned westward, to where a sister lived over the horizon towards High Wycombe and I shuddered.

‘What?’ asked Colin.

‘I don’t know. Something … happened.’

I had a strong urge to phone home. Something was wrong, out of place, a feeling of essential wrongness. Spooky. When we got back to Camden I phoned my folks but they were out. I phoned around family members but no one was home. Finally I got hold of a brother-in-law who laid it on the line. A sister had had an aneurism that morning and died in hospital at 4pm. At the precise moment my attention was drawn towards the west and I shuddered. Had I felt her passing? I didn’t hold with hippie spiritualistic gibbering but something had triggered the need to phone the family. Back in Camden brandy was brought forth, for the shock, and I slouched off to my room for a bit of a cry. 2am next morning I swear I heard my sister tell me to stop mourning. So I did.

The service was held the following Friday 16th January. It was my first family member BACK TO WORK - PAGE 168

funeral and shook me badly. I was mentally geared up for losing the parents, who were up in the age, but not for a close relative of only forty-four years. An event like that can seriously alter a person’s perception of their own mortality.

The following day I moved into the Kenton Road HMO9 with a strong desire not to a waste a single day of my life. Colin was still fretting, that I was making a big mistake and said he wouldn’t let the spare room go in case I changed my mind. It was not like I was moving to the other side of the world and, besides, I’d still be around because my books and albums wouldn’t fit into the bijou six-foot by eight-foot room. If I wanted to listen to Santana’s Black Magic Woman or Beethoven’s 7th I would have to go back to Camden.

In Harrow I was surrounded by old, if somewhat neglected, friends. JT, the freak who got his highs from booze and dealing a little hash. He had a scam going where he would sneak into a pub yard at dead of night, steal a keg of beer and have free booze for a about a week then sneak the keg back into the pub yard when it was empty. I have no idea how he managed to get away with it for years. Legman, the ex-dustman with whom I had a shared history from when he was a skinhead in the year below me at school, now with a great mane of hair, the BACK TO WORK - PAGE 169

maestro of the waterpipe. Steve Pullen, artist and part time window cleaner. Stan, Roger and Ted who, when not being a printer, truck driver and plasterer respectively, were the local R&B band The Bozos playing the pubs. Irish Steve was out there somewhere, hiding from the law. The petit and lustful ladies were all around Harrow and I felt I had come home with an air of optimism for a new life.

The natives of number eight Kenton Road were sociable thinking people with a taste for the local pubs. John & Bianca were in the attic flat. Jon had a enormous latex Vogon’s bottom on his wall from his days working on Ken Campbell’s stage version of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and by early 1981 was working in the art department at Clearwater Films. Ironically, Jon gave me a part time job on a stop frame animation Lego TV commercial. Pam and Russ had the big bedsit I was initially after and Tony had the front ground floor. He worked in a saw mill and we tell by the diminishing state of his fingers. The back ground floor was taken by the irascible Scot, Mr. McCrae who was in a constant state of agitation about the younger tenants. Which was all of the rest of us. My first floor back room had a view of the garden, long ago tarred over for a car park and the Kenton Avenue cul-de-sac which ended at the cutting for the Metropolitan Railway line, with the constant rattle of passing tube trains bound for the City and points west.

I hadn’t been entirely idle in my last few months in Camden and had written a screenplay, The Fall Guy, based on the 1975 drugs bust. A sort of catharsis, I guess.

By the end of January the script was ready to go to Brent-Walker Distributors for production funding and Paul Sharkey put me in touch with casting director Gregg Dark in case I actually got the money. Starting the prep for a feature film always put me in mind of being chased downhill by a snowball, growing ever larger as if picked up speed.

The trick was knowing when to jump out of the way if it got too big or out-running the thing until it reached bottom and stopped. I always knew the right thing to do but could I run that fast? In early February I took another copy of the script to the National Film Finance Corporation for additional funding but, with another finance body involved, my proposed start date of summer 1981 was slipping away. After dropping off the script at the NFFC I went to see a screening of Peter Watkins’ early films and came away feeling slightly ill, wanting to puke. So that’s what it took to raise a budget, a big Name. If I had made a film full of crash zooms and late focus pulls I would be laughed out of the BACK TO WORK - PAGE 170

cinema. Watkins does it and all I could hear were people talking about his ‘film noir genre filmic aestheticism.’ Sod ‘em.10 AZ Films got in touch in early April, asking for an up-dated version of the German film Glazen, to start production in March. Using the original film as a basis, they wanted a new documentary about the difference in musical influences between German and British bands in the wake of the Beatle’s apprenticeship in Hamburg. With 20x20 hindsight I now realise I missed a trick by not including Krautrock11 and stuck to pop bands. A terrible oversight. I brought in The Bozos as the British example, interviewed Ted Lemming as the lynchpin to the new story and Claire Rawcliffe took the completed new version to the Cannes Film Festival with thirteen other films as part of the AZ Films package. It had been eighteen months since I had last directed a film and had forgotten how exhausting the process was. I was cream crackered.12 Following hard on the heels of Glazen I heard from producer Martin Shirley, who had read The Fall Guys script and wanted to take it on but wouldn’t know for a month if he could raise the budget. Meanwhile, the BBC phoned with an invite to an interview on the local TV news in Belfast on account of having worked in overseas war zones. Blimey!

iii. ONE DAY IN ULSTER The flight to Belfast was an education. Initially I planned to fly to Dublin from Heathrow and take the train to Belfast but had to switch flights at the last moment because of a train strike in Ireland.

I took my brief case containing the letter from the BBC and sandwiches because a man travelling without baggage to Belfast was libel to get strip searched. The briefcase was wrapped in plastic and sent off to the cargo hold, this being the first indication of travelling to a dodgy security zone. The flight itself was entirely uneventful under a cloudless blue sky which meant I could spot landmarks on the ground. I always liked to know where I was. We passed the Irish Sea and began letting down over Lough Neagh, a fifteen mile stretch of water which I initially mistook for the sea. Strange but true, I took my passport as ID in case of heavy security at the airport. In fact, being a domestic flight, there was no need as I was through arrivals and outside the terminal in minutes. Bus or taxi? Taxi or bus? I went for the taxi because the IRA had a reputation for planting bombs on buses.

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The first indication I had that we were not on mainland Britain anymore was, on leaving the airport, the disquieting sight of an Army check point where I just knew the soldiers had one up the spout and were quite prepared to squeeze the trigger if they felt like it. Living in a country where one never sees the army on the streets it came as a big shock to see so many of them in one place. How did people live like that? The taxi driver asked if I wanted to go the scenic route or on the motorway.

‘The scenic route,’ I told him as, ‘I’m here to learn and I won’t get a feel for the country on the motorway.’

The taxi driver was happy with that and gave me the journalist’s guide to Northern Ireland as we made our way to Belfast. Every town we passed had some history to The Troubles, it seemed. But more importantly the taxi driver had vast local knowledge of what we on the mainland, ignorant of the intercinine power structures of the opposing groups, did not. Background history. It was worth the taxi fare to find out. As we approached the city limits I noticed the driver remove his dashboard taxi sign and hide it under his seat. Into the heart of darkness, he had no intention of making himself a target. As we passed a huge fortified building and, surrounded so it was by spiked railings topped with razor wire, I had to ask, ‘What’s that?’

‘RUC13 headquarters.’

‘It looks like the elephant enclosure at London Zoo. Maybe I should throw buns to them.’

‘Please don’t make throwing gestures in the car. They don’t have a sense of humour.’

We arrived at the BBC, a formidable building festooned with CCTV cameras, which didn’t have a front door but instead a metal plate set flush with the brickwork.

‘How do I get in?’ I asked.

‘Stand in front of the blast door and wait for it to open.’

I thanked the driver for his guided tour and stood in front of the armoured door which was festooned in CCTV cameras. Nothing happened. I had this horrible feeling it was set-up, that this ‘blast door’ was, in fact, some structural appendage to the fabric of the building and I would stand there until I was arrested for loitering. Just as I was about to wander off in search of another entrance the door, with a ka-thunk of servos, opened like something out of a cheesy science fiction movie. I stepped inside but not into the reception area I was expecting. Instead I was standing in a bullet proof glass BACK TO WORK - PAGE 172

cube. Nothing happened. A voice squeaked out of a speaker.

‘Please open your brief case.’

Since there was nothing of a combustible nature therein, the glass door ahead, kathunk, opened and I was in. From that point on the building had the same old reliable Beebness I had come to know and love. The interview was short, sharp and to the point.

Up on the top floor I took lunch in a restaurant with plate glass windows of three sides.

It did not go unnoticed other diners were taking a lot of interest in the local scenery. I asked a fellow diner about this.

‘What’s everyone looking at?’

‘Vapour trails. When the IRA launch a mortar you can see them coming.’

‘Ah.’ On the flight back to London I had time to ponder. Did I really want to live out my days in a BBC backwater, wearing a tin helmet and a flak jacket with the prospect of ending up shot by the IRA or a trigger happy squaddie? Probably not. However, it was interesting to see how other UK citizens lived, coping with streets full of armed British soldiers and instant home made death. I wondered how people on the mainland would cope if it happened here. Trying not to think about it, looking out the aircraft window to where I could see Anglesey hove into view, we crossed the coast at 35,000 ft over Dundrum Bay.

iv. BACK IN THE SNAKE PIT In early April Glazen Mk2 was press previewed at the Bijou Preview Theatre in Soho. An otherwise jolly event was marred by an uninvited music journalist who, in The Intrepid Fox after the show, slagged off me as director, the film, the distributor and the artists.

There then followed a series of unrelated and over intellectualised questions to which I committed the worst sin of I losing my temper. I suppose it meant I had finally arrived on the scene if the music press slag off my work and I retaliated with bad language.

Martin Shirley got back to me about The Fall Guys script to say he had not been able to raise the £250,000 budget. Oh bum. Next day the BBC got in touch to say ‘tough buns’ you didn’t get the job in Belfast. Almost a blessing really. It seemed a pretty paranoid lifestyle. The rest of April was spent writing letters to ITV regional companies, looking for work, but they were not swift to reply. Meanwhile, Glazen went off to the BACK TO WORK - PAGE 173

Cannes MIP Festival in late April and Claire Rawcliffe sent word from France, fingers crossed, they would start selling my product next day. Good. I needed the money. I was suffering a bad case of post-dub torpor.14 A mild depression of no job and no prospects after working solidly for over twelve years. The mindless boredom of languishing in a 6ft by 8ft bedsit and the lack of warm bodies with whom to commune was fearsome.

Pam Rathbone and I went to see The Bozos play and my mood was made worse because we entered the pub just as they were playing the song they performed in Glazen and reminded me all too clearly of my current lack of ongoing situations.

Just when I thought nothing worse could happen, Irish Steve came for a visit. I got the distinct impression he was on a fishing trip, to find out if it was likely I would grass him to the Plod15, what with him being on the run from the police and so forth. For a man on the run he sure was visible. But if Irish Steve was expecting some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, me identifying with him in a sort of all freaks together scenario, then he was making a bad mistake. I was no longer the gullible young twit I once was.

So far as I was concerned Irish Steve had no moral conscience beyond his own self preservation and anyone who bought into his loveable Irish vogue persona was going to get badly burned. It was fairly sickening the way the guy had come round to look up an old friend when all he really wanted to know was, if he was safe on the run or was I going to the police? I assured the man I had no interest in his legal status, that I had sworn off drugs for life and whatever had happened six years before was firmly in the past. When the small talk dried thereafter Irish Steve made his excuses and left. I felt need of a hot bath and a scrubbing brush after the encounter although, spookily, it was not to be his last. A week later Irish Steve was on the phone, setting up a meet with his older brother Jim who had a story to tell. I immediately suspected a set-up which involved me somehow being put into a position where I could not rat-out Irish Steve to the police.

Jim Duggan claimed he worked for a funeral parlor who paid bungs16 to police coroners officers to put work their way. I wasn’t sure what Jim expected me to do about it and I suggested he contact police complaints. This he had done and what he wanted me to do was set up a mic & wire job17 to record his conversation with the police, for his own evidential purposes. Whatever they were. It all sounded exceedingly dubious but, suspecting entrapment, I couldn’t figure out which one of us was being set up; the BACK TO WORK - PAGE 174

coroners officers, police complaints or me. The penalty for being caught recording a police conversation was probably a good kicking. Was it a test to see if I would tip off the Plod? Were the expected police complaints officers even Plod at all? Was I getting paranoid dementia brought on by close proximity to Irish Steve? Probably. When, on May 4th18, Paul Sharkey asked and I told him what I needed the Nagra SN and ECM50 mics for19 and he nearly fainted clean away. Paul insisted I needed a safety net so I told Jim I had given his phone number to my boss20 in case I was needed and, on the night of May 5th, Jim Duggan’s Belmont Circle flat was wired with microphones. Next morning, the only mildly spooky moment was when Jim decided to lock me into a back room so the cops didn’t accidentally wander in and find me recording their words. I was off the premises by midday and making a audio tape copies from the Nagra SN by close of business that evening. Paul wiped the original SN tapes and I gave one audio copy to Jim. The other copy I held back as an insurance policy, although insurance against what I didn’t rightly know, then as now. Next time I went to visit Colin I left the tape amongst my stuff at his place just in case something back fired. I never mentioned the wire job to Colin lest he worry unduly.

Back in the leafy environs of Kenton Road, Russ had left Pam for reasons he felt unable to artfully explain and subsequently moved out of the HMO. After a few weeks Pam and I started to go about with each other which is not the same as going out as a couple. A rather complex woman, Pam. Politically she was at the heavy end of the ultraleft feminist with a side order of woolly minded Guardian reading Liberals against the Bomb. She would brook no dissenters which was the role reserved for me. Boy, did that woman like to argue. And drink ale. Her ethos? We rich people in the west should give all our wealth to the poor everywhere in the world with the UK taking down our border controls so anyone who wanted to could come here to live in free housing and on state benefits. That was pretty much all of it, really. Pam didn’t believe in us and them but was constantly forced to use words the words us and them due to the constraints of the English language. Pam believed the British Empire was a very bad thing and, although the British Empire died out after WW2, us descendents of the British Empire should be forced to pay for past mistakes. This was at a time when prime minister Thatcher, in power for two years, was busy dismantling the British way of life; jobs, industry, housing and blaming the resultant unemployed millions of being lazy scroungers on the BACK TO WORK - PAGE 175

dole. Nothing changes around the Tory right.

Back in Pamland, the left-wing guilt trip went on unabated. Not even the enlightened and much travelled freaks of Harrow could reason with Pam when she was on a socialism jag, although JT21 did make the effort; ‘Our small country, population 55-million, can’t sustain a massive influx of immigrants.

I live here. Why should I be robbed of what I produce so some street wise family from across the other side of the world can come here and live on benefits because of what our grandfathers may or may not have done two hundred years ago to their grandfathers?’

‘Why should we give our heritage away?’ asked Oiseau22, a hippie freak of the old school, ‘You’re selling the people of this country short, the ones who live here and pay their taxes, people who can’t afford to up sticks and move out so your imported dirtpoor millions can take over our wealth and culture. There’s not enough housing for our own people.’

‘Educate the masses, degrees for all and the mediocre will rise to the top, give everything away to incomers without a single thought for the poor working class sods who have to live here,’ tried Ted, ‘Or keep the masses down and retain what you have.’

To which there is no answer because we’re not living two hundred years ago and no longer have an Empire. It was difficult to explain basic population and world economics to Pam who was so travelled, who had seen so much and yet was apparently so dumb.

Trying to argue with Pam was a dangerous game and we often accidentally fell through the cracks of reason and into the stinking bog of racism below. Pam and I were poles apart in our thinking and at every turn she labeled me ageist, sexist, racist and quite a few others ists. Pam and I didn’t so much split up as she did a moonlight flit, gone to live in Harlesden with an ex-policeman. I was sure they would be very screwed-up together. She worked as a lab technician at Northwick Park hospital and had a long term experiment on the go. One of her colleagues explained what had happened.

‘Pam came in pissed one morning and destroyed the experiment she was working on so she topped up the liquids with water and referred to her university research notes to fake the results. No one noticed a thing until someone checked her notes which were 100% in line with the experiment. Obviously there were shenanigans afoot and the water bubbling through the tubes was a dead giveaway.’

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Unable to stand up for her gigantic swindle, Pam ran away. I never saw her again.

However, every cloud an’ all that, I saved the landlord the bother of finding a new tenant for the big front room with separate kitchen by offering to take it on myself. This would be the same big front room with separate kitchen I wanted from the day I came to see the HMO in January. Sorted. In early June Colin came over with my albums and books and assisted in the thirty-foot move along the corridor from one room to another.

‘You’ve got two single beds,’ noticed Colin idly.

‘One for sleeping, the other I’ll use as a sofa. You’ll never spot the difference under the antimacassar.’

JT and Oiseau, armed with blockbusters23 of cider, turned up fashionably late to assist with the move. Later, we walked up to the common near St Mary’s Church on the top of Harrow Hill with a Frisbee and cider. Colin took me aside and asked a question in that cautious parlance of the police.

‘Have you thought anymore about that thing we said?’

‘Sorry, I don’t speak patois.’

‘That technicians jobs we talked about?’

‘Oh that. No, I haven’t done anything about it. I’m not sure I can handle the double life, what I’d tell that lot,’ indicating JT and Oiseau, ‘if I’m working for the Plod.’

‘Only I’ve arranged an interview for you.’

Which, at the time, I thought rather presumptuous but looking back over the decades puts a smile across the old physog even now. A few days before, on June 18th, I photographed a Hyde Park demonstration for the Daily Mirror. The Legalise Cannabis Campaign were out in force again and so were the police and, if I hadn’t seen them in action with my own eyes, I never would have believed their rancid behaviour24 possible in this country. The softly-softly Fred Luff style of coppering of yesteryear had turned into a bunch of young thugs spoiling for a fight. Their antics comprised mainly of barging mob-handed into the crowd25, indiscriminately grabbing any protester within reach and arm-locking them, amid a volley of flying batons and helmets. But to prove the crowd had changed too and were just as ugly as the police, in the melee which followed I got hit on the head by a flying grapefruit26. Not everyone had fellow feeling for the running nose lackies of the capitalist press, even the ones who had supported their cause in the past. So it was, with the Hyde Park experience sloshing around in recent memory, BACK TO WORK - PAGE 177

I went to the Met’s technicians interview.

Just to keep Colin happy, to see where this weird moment in my life wound out.

The interview panel comprised of serious looking men in blue serge uniforms dripping with braid. I comprised of a carefully selected wardrobe designed to make sure I never got the job; a floppy hippie hat, long unwashed greasy hair, love beads, Furry Freek Brothers T-shirt, furry Afghan coat with just a hint of patchouli oil mixed with the dead goat of Afghan coat, washedout frayed Levi jeans and battered green flash sneakers. Not even I would give me a job coming to an interview dressed like that. I made sure they knew I had a class-A drug conviction but they seemed more interested in my press photographer exploits in war-torn Muslim countries and how I would react to photographing dead people. It was in the bag. There was no way they were ever going to offer me a job with a resume like that.

v. STONEHENGE PEOPLES’ FREE FESTIVAL 1981 Saturday June 20th I was sent off to photograph the Glastonbury CND28 Festival for the Daily Mirror. Or not as it turned out.

Tony Caruana came along as my driver29 and by the time we hit the Somerset county line we noticed a distinct chilliness in the BACK TO WORK - PAGE 178

air. Civilian stewards, with no apparent authority

whatsoever,

were

flagging

down motorists on the Queen’s highway demanding to know their destinations. We of the press pass persuasion refrained from telling them and instead asked to see the vigilantes’ warrant cards. That seemed to shut them up as we proceeded about our lawful ocafions. Petit-fogging jumped up robber barons defending some misbegotten music festival from people who didn’t even want to be there in the first place, out on the public highway. How is that allowed to happen? What benighted police state had we wandered into? Things grew darker and more perverse at the festival site. It was if we had stumbled uninvited onto a private meeting of the KKK or a neo-nazi rally for all the waves of bad attitude we were getting from the civilian festival staff.

The vigilantes would not allow Tony to park on the public road while I got out and took photos of the hippies, so we did it on the hoof30 with the intention of going back later to photograph inside the festival site for which we had tickets. We never got that far.

A motorcycle cop flagged us down and despite producing our 8-quid tickets and press passes31 he told us we were not allowed to photograph on the roads around the festival site, that he was going to escort us to the county line and if we came back BACK TO WORK - PAGE 179

into Somerset we would be arrested and locked up for the night. Wow! Whatever the heck the coppers were protecting it must have been huge. It turned out to be John Cooper Clark, Aswad and Hawkwind.

I couldn’t help noticing Tony was driving very slowly.

‘Is there something wrong with the car?’

I asked.

‘No. But its very difficult to ride a motorbike at two miles an hour.’

We went on like that for a few miles until the motorcycle cop drew up alongside.

‘Don’t come back or you will be nicked and put up in front of the magistrate tomorrow.”

There was no point in arguing with the man although I was intrigued to find out what the charge would have been.

Anything he damn well pleased. All I could manage was a forced cheeriness.

‘Yes, I shall definitely remember to tell my editor the press are not welcome in Avon and Somerset.’

‘You ain’t no f-ing press photographer, now f-off before I nick you for theft of that press pass.’

And with his joyful words ringing in our ears I contemplated what I was going to tell the Mirror picture editor about my distinct lack of festival photos when what appeared to be a scarecrow fell into the BACK TO WORK - PAGE 180

road ahead of us. Tony slammed on the brakes and, barely missing the bundle of rags, watched in horror as the thing picked itself up from the road and approached the car. ‘Give us a lift to Stonehenge,’ demanded the apparition. We drove on. Seemingly, according to our new best friend and hitch-hiker, we had gone to the wrong festival32 which was run by a money grabbing diary farmer. The festival we should have gone to, the one our new best friend and hitch-hiker was directing us to, was the Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival. And all life’s plenty was there. Open drug dealing, naked dancers, free bands with every youth cult imaginable co-existing peacefully together across the road from the huge Stonehenge monument.

The usual suspects of leftie press were there too including Tim Malyon who I had last seen at an LCC demo in Hyde Park. Mindful of what had happened at Glastonbury I approached the only copper I could find, the only copper who seemed to be policing the event.

‘Do you mind if I take photographs?’

‘Do what you want,’ he said, ‘everyone else does.’ So I did.

It was like being let loose in the biggest candy store in the world. And the rest of the straight-going press didn’t know about that place or, if the did, they ignored it. A bunch of blardy ‘ippes33! The photographic choice was so large Tony and I stayed onsite overnight to capture the full range of festival activity. To show my utter ignorance of festival etiquette I almost blundered catastrophically with a big greasy biker. I was sus enough to know not to show out with a big press camera and, lest it be stomped into the ground by the disaffected who frowned upon us running nose lackies of the capitalist press, left the great thing34 hung round my neck and concealed under a zipped up hoody. However, it was not zipped up enough because the big greasy biker saw a smidge of lens poking out of the neck area of the hoody.

‘Les ‘ava look at yer camera then?’ said the big greasy biker.

Ah! This was not good. The camera was the tool of my trade. I was very attached to it. Literally with the strap around my neck. I made excuses, the big greasy biker persisted. I unzipped the hoody and handed over the camera which was still strapped around my neck, he clicked off a few pictures with us tied together like Siamese twins.

‘This ain’ no good,’ said the big greasy biker. ‘Take it off yer neck.’

Oh well, it was a nice camera while it lasted. But as I handed over the camera he took BACK TO WORK - PAGE 181

off his reeking, grease encrusted jacket and gave it to me to hold. It hardly seemed a fair exchange. The big greasy biker took a few more shots and handed back the camera. I handed the stinking jacket back to the big greasy biker.

‘You come to a place like this, man, you gotta learn to trust people. Know what I mean?’ the big greasy biker explained. ‘I was Don Sharp’s assistant.’

As we went our separate ways the name faintly rang a bell. On a last tour of the site we bumped into a few Harrow freaks who were using the festival as their summer holiday then we saddled up to hit the 4pm picture deadline at the Mirror. It had been my plan to drop off the film and slob off home to my pit but the newsroom was agog for festival tales.

‘He actually said he’d arrest you for taking pictures?’

‘They were all naked?’

‘Escorted to the county line? Really escorted?’

‘Openly selling class-A drugs?’

And it takes time for seven rolls of film35 to go through the processing lab. The average tally of photos on any news story was half a roll, about fifteen shots. I came back to Holborn with seven rolls. Seven rolls! Good gawd. I used the time to write up the captions and scribble the invoice to make sure I got paid. As I was leaving the picture editor took me aside.

‘He really gave you his jacket to hold in exchange for your camera?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Then you got the better part of the deal. I’m surprised he let you hold his Colours.

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They’re like his soul to him. He was letting you hold his soul in exchange for your camera. He must have really trusted you.’

Which made sense of the ‘.. you come to a place like this man you’ve got to learn to trust people,’ comment. The big greasy biker had given me an object lesson in trust at my first Stonehenge People’s Free Festival. I salute him for it The Mirror story broke with my photo of a woman smoking an enormous hash pipe under the not very inspiring headline of, Stoned-Henge - high noon for hippies at the festival of hash.

The provenance of some of the interviews were a tad suspect unless the Mirror sent a reporter to the Festival after I took the photos. My princely fee? 50-quid for the photo and 20-quid from the Evening Standard for a shot of the Druids which they didn’t use.

Colin came round with bottles of wine to celebrate my Daily Mirror hot story, or so I thought. What we actually did was engage in one dilly of a cross purposes conversation.

‘You must be very pleased,’ Colin enthused.

‘Well, yeah, just doing me job really.’

‘I know the bosses were very impressed.’

‘I don’t know if impressed is the word I’d use,’ I said doubtfully. ‘More sort of amazed I got out alive.’

‘Great idea going dressed as a hippie. They really liked that. Showed enthusiasm.’

‘Well else would I wear … to … a … hippie … festival …’ I slowed to a dawning halt as my ears caught up with Colin’s mouth.

Far off, I could hear the sound of a penny being dropped.

‘We are talking about the Daily Mirror story, aren’t we? You know, my page five story?’

‘Erm, you’ve had the letter?’

‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, with a horrible sinking feeling.

‘Oh you haven’t had the letter yet? Well its good news. The Met have offering you the technicians job.’

‘The Plod?’

‘Why do you call them that? Some people find that personally offensive.’

‘To plod, to work doggedly,’ I improvised quickly. ‘I’ll call them the Filth if you prefer.

Just about sums them up after what I saw at Hyde Park. Anyway, what ever possessed them to offer the job to me?’

‘You’ve worked in Muslim countries, in war zones and for the Army.’

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‘Not intentionally. And I worked for United Motion Pictures who made training films for the Army. I didn’t work for the Army.’

‘And you’ve been to Belfast.’

‘Yeah. For about eight hours for a job interview which was a done deal anyway, probably an internal promotion.’

‘You’ve been around Irish Steve. You know how these people tick.’

‘What makes you think I want to put my life on the line for people who have a semtex complex?’

‘Because you’re an excitement junkie.’

There. He said it. It was out in the open for all to see, to be studied and mused over.

Discussed at leisure. It may even have been true. Up to that moment I hadn’t even contemplated where fate had taken me over the years. Best not to think about those things, never look over your shoulder because you don’t want to know what nasty might be coming up behind, ignore the madness and get on with life, look to the future, always moving forward, further, no regrets and whatever it is I am not responsible.

Colin’s act of senseless kindness, to find me a straight job which fitted my peculiar talents in a twisted world, could never go unpunished. On the same day as I was wiring Jim’s house with microphones, IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands died of ‘self-inflicted starvation’ in Longkesh Prison. What was taxing British minds, claimed Colin, was what would happen if the six other IRA prisoners and three Irish National Liberation Army members starved themselves to death in pursuit of political status. How ugly would it get on the streets of Belfast? Or London?

‘You think I’m suicidal? You think I’d knowingly go over to Northern Ireland, roll around in it and find out how mental the IRA are prepared to go if all their guys die in prison? I know the answer to this one. You tow it out into the North Atlantic and bomb the shit out of it until it sinks.’

‘Or send a reporter in on a hot story,’ tried Colin.

‘I know what that means. Reporter in Belfast is slang for MI5. A tout is police informer.

I’m not equipped for this.’

‘Oh I’ll make sure you’ll get what’s coming to you,’ smiled Colin, not unmindful of the double meaning. ‘State of the art camera kit and the tools of your trade-.’

‘And a cloak and a dagger?’

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‘Just a photographer … a trial period.’ said Colin trying to sound nonchalant.

‘No. Never in a million years. Do not presume upon our friendship.’

Fortunately I escaped up to Manchester for a couple of weeks on the local news, Look North, and missed a golden opportunity of some revolting revolutionary capping my lid, whacked in the back of the head. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

vi. GEORGE PAVLOU Monday 22nd June, AZ Films put me in touch with producer George Pavlou. He had read my film script, The Fall Guys, and wanted to meet for a pre-production chat.

Prospective producers of The Fall Guys always got as far of the pre-production meet but when it came to a big grown up budget, that’s where all they failed to deliver. George seemed different in that he insisted I leave all the business side of the film to him so I could concentrate on the art. Fine by me. We parted on a hand shake and that I would hear from him again. A couple of days later I was off to Manchester to work on Granada Reports36. It was pretty hectic up there working six or seven stories a day and I had the time of my life. Sadly it was as holiday relief and only lasted four days in the Sports department, out of my comfort zone.

The last weekend of June was spent up on Harrow Hill, a debauched tribute to the summer with the local freaks, JT and a young guy he introduced as Gobbo. The only Gobbo I knew of was in The Merchant of Venice, the clown. He was not the same Gobbo he assured me. This Gobbo was in his late teens with long hair, a little giggling freak, whom JT described as ‘a trainee hippie,’ a very laid back spiritual kind of guy. We must have had a good time because I woke up next day with a thumping hangover.

I caught up with George Pavlou in mid-July to discuss The Fall Guys, to prepare a budget and lay down the ground work for the backers. Meanwhile, he suggested, I should write a WW2 ghost story for him. There was a degree of synchronicity as I had been toying with a story along those lines but never found a reason to set pen to paper. Locked away with a typewriter, the story Allotment was finished with the rising dawn of Monday August 3rd. The script should have been delivered on August 4th but JT phoned to ask if I wanted to go up the Hill with a Frisbee. It was a hot day, over 80F and the sun was shining. What was a man to say? Stay inside with a typewriter or go out and flollop in the sun? What harm could an hour away from the script do? Quite a BACK TO WORK - PAGE 185

lot as it goes, when one hour turned into six and involved JT with a blockbuster of cider.

The script was delivered to George on August 4th and I never heard from him again, just another producer who talked a lot but didn’t deliver the goods. He never paid for Allotment either.

On August 12th AZ Films popped up from wherever they had been hiding to announce Ice Cream Dream and Glazen were going off to an audition screening in the US and to an agency who acquired programme material for The Fourth Channel37. My reputation as a reporter with a background in the alternative scene must have been getting around because on the same day Mervin Edgecombe from The Sun newspaper asked for research material on the drug cocaine. I phoned in my copy but assumed it was not salacious enough because I never heard from him again. No great loss there.

Gobbo reminded me it was soon to be my 30th birthday and, he claimed, a party should be arranged at The Roxborough pub with The Bozos playing, surrounded by assorted Harrow freaks. With only £15 left in my bank account my situation was desperate until, back firmly to the wall, I was saved from fiscal ruin by a phone call from Yorkshire Television in Leeds. Come quick, they said. We need someone on the local news for three weeks. I took the first train out of Euston on the morning of August 17th and headed into a whole new world.

CHAPTER 6 - FOOTNOTES 1

Ealing, London, W5 and in no way should be mistaken for the Queen’s residence

2

Often now an unpaid job

3

Top Gear run music sequences with cars on a weekly basis now

4

all bullies are cowards

5

a bit of a booze hound

6

a woman born with empty legs

7

and therefore technically a wanted man

8

Cats don’t have owners, they have servants

9

House of Multi Occupation

10

Looking back that may have been sour grapes on my part, of course

11

Amon Duul and all that

12

slang; knackered = tired BACK TO WORK - PAGE 186

13

Royal Ulster Constabulary

14

post production blues, just finished a big job with nothing new about to happen

15

derivation: PC Plod the policeman was a character in Enid Blyton’s Noddy & Bigears

children’s’ books 16

bribes

17

clandestinely recording a conversation with hidden microphones

18

May the fourth be with you

19

bugging the Plod

20

Paul, as we figured no harm would come if the Duggen Brothers thought a third party

knew where I was 21

JT = John Tribe

22

how Mark came by the French nickname (bird) is lost in the mists of time

23

local name for 2-litre bottles

24

it was the first time I heard the expression ‘Thatcher’s Storm Troopers’ in relation to

the police 25

the infamous ‘flying wedge’

26

slightly bruised, I had it for breakfast next day

27

I later found out

28

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

29

to this day I still don’t drive

30

On the hoof = from the car on the move

31

recognised by the British Army, the Royal Navy, the RAF and the Chief Constable of

Constabularies but not, apparently, Avon & Somerset Police 32

get orf moi land!!

33

Translation: a lot of bloody hippies

34

Pentax ME Super with motor wind, 400m lens plus double back converter & 56mm

lens for those of you who remember the joys of sprocket holes and non-automatic aperture settings, Ilford MP4 stock 35

252 frames

36

Actually working on the local news and not a euphemism for something else37

Channel Four, as it was later to become known

BACK TO WORK - PAGE 187

CHAPTER 6 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 163 - Tony Caruana Page 168 - Al’s Kenton Road flat & The Kings Head, Harrow.

Page 169 - The Bozos band at the Kenton Pub, Harrow Kenton Road in the snow View from Al’s Kenton Road flat ibid Page 178 - Legalise Cannabid demo, Hyde Park London 1981 Page 179 - Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Frestival, 1981 Page 180 to 188 - ibid

BACK TO WORK - PAGE 188

7

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT

i. EEEEE BY ‘ECK AS LIKE I went to work in Leeds, on Calendar, for three weeks and stayed five months.

Yorkshire TV operated a slightly precarious system for freelancers known as the weekly rolling contract which was advantageous for the company because they could give us short notice if we were no longer required but not so good for us when we tried to find another job, seamlessly attempting to finish on a Friday and start elsewhere on the following Monday without bothering the benefit system to pay us for being unemployed. But, hey, work’s work at Union rate and first class travel, hotel and meal expenses thrown in. The best days of my life in God’s own country among wonderful people with a keen sense of humour and that amazing accent.

The first time I made a minor mistake1, I was regaled with, ‘You bludy southerners, you cum oop ‘ere, taking ar jobs, yer know forking nowt lad.’

But said in such a way as the butt of non-offensive local humour which accepted us bludy southerners into West Yorkshire society. In the same way my nickname on Calendar was ‘Long-Haired Weirdo’ but shortened to ‘Weirdo’ because ‘LongHaired Weirdo’ took too long to say in a busy newsroom. My first day initiation was being taken to the nearby Highland ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 190

pub and introduced to the joys of Tetley’s ale. It was insanely inexpensive, tasted of nothing very much but it wasn’t until halfway through the second pint that the first one hit the mark. Wow. Since I was still standing upright and coherent by the third pint, it was deemed I had passed some sort of test. Another local jape2 was being told by news editor Graham Ironside to put by long hair inside the back of my coat when walking out at night because the Yorkshire Ripper attacked from behind and he might mistake my long hair for a woman. It took a few days for that to sink in until I realised the Yorkshire Ripper had been caught, was on remand and awaiting trial.

On my second day the Union shop stewards Cracknel3 & Fitzpatrick turned up in the cutting room for a card check to make sure I had paid up my Union subscriptions and if not I’d be on the train back to London.

ITV companies were still, despite the 1979 strike, heavily unionised and ran a closed shop. Part of the Union agreement with YTV was management were not allowed to employ freelance editors so I was back to being an assistant although not in a dogsbody capacity thankfully. Staff film editors cut the main news stories but the assistant editors cut the short mute4 stories with the reporters’ commentary voiced in live from ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 191

studio. My first mistake there was, having been a sound effects editor in days of yore, adding cannon and rifle fire to a mute story of a Civil War re-enactment. The supervising editor, Keith Campling, came steaming over to stop this outrageous creative endeavour because I was breaking Union rules by using sound on a mute story.

Twice a day the cut film sequences were made-up by the assistants into transmission reels; the lunchtime and evening news for the Yorkshire region and Belmont5. The A&B reels for each broadcast were made up in such a way so the first story was on reel A and the second story was on reel B, and so on, because the live studio voice links were sometimes shorter than the countdown leader of each film. Nobody wanted the dire embarrassment of a countdown leader being shown live on screen. The sight of four assistants beavering away on the A&B make up reels appeared to be frantic organised chaos but, amazingly, it all worked. On rare occasions when a late hot story was still being edited after 6pm, while the news was on air, was not for the faint hearted. The latest hot story I recall came off the editing Steenbeck at 6.19pm and was sprinted to the telecine area6 to be laced onto the machine just as the studio cued in the story. The telecine operator took his fingers away from the sprockets just as the film rolled. On the long walk back to the newsroom I realised boots were not suitable footwear for a late hot story mad dash along the corridors and switched to Green Flash plimsolls thereafter.

We kept fit that’s for darn sure. As the mad dash happened at about the same time the entire rest of the staff were wandering off home the best course of action, so as not to be delayed enroute, was to enter the corridor leading to the transmission area and shout, ‘hot story,’ at the top of our voice, giving fair warning so no one got hurt,

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 192

the staff plastering themselves against the walls giving us a clear run. On the news we were told not to stop for anyone loitering in the corridors and get the reels to telecine at all costs. No one ever got hurt and we never missed transmission. We shall never know why the company hadn’t built the telecine area closer to the news room. A slight error, there.

The staff assistants were a lively bunch. thirty-three year old Peter Bensimon was of dual nationality7 who deserted the French Dragoon Guards and was banged up in a German prison for several years. The worst part for him was once his sentence was over he still had to see out the rest of his army service; John Parr, wonderfully leftfield who aimed to become a screenwriter, a fighting spirit with a sense of humour only he understood; film editor Derek Earp who had been waiting so long to get out of Calendar news he had totally given up on everything, including a social life; Gordon Hopps, the studio gay, who was resigned to never, ever escape Calendar. All good guys, all talented but doomed to a life on the news.

There were the requisite number of production

staff

idiots

however

who

seemed to have wandered into the studios at an early age and had been desperately looking for a way out ever since, taking ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 193

their frustration out on any seemingly soft target who came their way. Film director Derek Goodall had a habit of blaming anything and everything on assistant editors for his own incompetence. He once blamed a staffer, almost reduced her to tears, for losing a roll of film which had, in fact, gone off to the lab for processing; director Gary Ward was so inept he couldn’t remember what he’d shot on a hot news story.

There was a few hairy8 moments outside the studio when, returning to London by train at the end of the week, the train Guard9 standing on the platform further down the second class section of the train saw me enter a first class carriage. Moments later I was confronted by the Guard, bristling with outraged indignation.

‘This is first class, you know!’

‘Yes.’ ‘Ticket!’

I took my time fishing the ticket out of my wallet, making him wait before handing it over. The look of profound disappointment on the Guard’s face was a joy to behold.

‘Oh,’ he said.

As he was about to go back into second class I asked, ‘Well you’ve seen my ticket, aren’t you going to check everyone else’s now you’re here?’

So the Guard, hoist by his own indignant petard10, was forced to check all the suited businessmen’s tickets in the, by now, full carriage. Hopefully he learned a valuable lesson about stereotyping long-haired weirdos but I somehow doubted it. What the Guard failed to appreciate was most of the Suits in first class, my hairy self included, were on company expenses and in real life could never afford to travel in first which had less seats, more leg room and usually no screaming seat back kicking kids.

There was an hilarious moment on a two hour journey to London with a middle-aged Dad trying to cope with his precocious eight year old bored son. The little lad, in all child like innocence, asked his harassed papa in a loud whisper pointing my direction.

‘Is that a man or a woman?’

I smiled across the aisle at the embarrassed Dad, kids eh ha-ha, but Dad was so unnerved he gathered up all his son’s books, toys, games and their baggage and fled to another carriage with his child scampering along behind asking the same unanswered question. A bit sad really. Another hairy moment was at Leeds station, taking a taxi to the studios one Monday morning, with the cabbie not driving off but instead staring at ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 194

my hair.

‘Problem?’ I asked.

‘Not unless you take your flick knife out and start ripping up the seats.’

‘I see,’ I replied as I got out of the taxi and took the one behind.

The second cabbie asked, ‘Why wouldn’t he take you?’

‘I think he has an attitude issue with long-hair.’

‘Oh has he?’ replied the second cabbie. ‘I’ve taken his number and I’ll report him later. We don’t want visitors to our city getting the wrong idea about us.’

The north of England had suffered badly under Thatcher’s government11 with industrial closures and mass unemployment. The notion of having issues with incomers from the south was not generally encouraged.

I found a clean and quiet B&B up Cardigan Road, a short stumble from the studios, run by a young couple who knew how to cook a wholesome breakfast of sausages, bacon, egg, black pudding and fried bread. A thing of beauty and the past now, of course, in these food-fascist days. On the walk into work I noticed a row of shops including Sutcliffe The Butcher and wondered how much their trade had dropped off since the arrest of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. There were some things best left unmentioned in Leeds. Taking a taxi one night I casually asked the cabbie if trade had improved when the Yorkshire Ripper was active, as women generally kept off the streets for fear of attack.

‘Not really,’ came the gloomy reply, ‘At one point the police thought the Ripper was a cab driver.’

My one ignorant soft southerner moment. The conversation wilted thereafter and I learned a valuable lesson about Leeds. Some things just aren’t funny.

ii. THE BIG THREE-OH My three week trial period on Calendar ended on September 4th which also happened to be my thirtieth birthday. Thereafter YTV put me on a rolling contract which meant, in real terms, six months work.

I took an internal British Midland flight down to London so as not to miss my own birthday party in The Roxborough pub. On the approach to Heathrow, under a cloudless blue sky, we flew over Harrow and it was all I could do not to blurt out, “I can see my ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 195

house from up here.” The party was a hoot. The Bozos played, the downstairs bar was heaving with freaks, old friends turned up and we all got bladdered. I was thirty and I had survived. Amusements of the night included Chris Padwick, a young acid head, who asked if I had any LSD. I didn’t but instead had a business card from a Leeds taxi firm, ripped a corner off the cardboard and, Merry Prankster-like, gave it to Chris.

‘Here, try this, its Taxi Acid.’

Chris happily gobbled what he thought was a new type of LSD blotter and wandered off into the crowd. A couple of hours later he wandered up, stoned as a brick, to say how far-out and amazing the LSD was. I am not a cruel man and, thinking on what I had done, vouched safe to Chris what he had ingested was not in point of fact a class-A drug but a piece of harmless business card. He was not amused. Sue Imrie turned up with a bottle of Philisan12 and Colin, sporting freakish long hair and a full beard, had made the drive over from Camden with a leggy bird called Lucinda. I was glad he was with woman as I had begun to worry about him. His job didn’t offer much scope for holding down a mature relationship. Mick, the Irish landlord of The Roxborough, was still chucking people out of the pub by the time we left at midnight. Colin insisted on giving Sue & I a lift home with Lucinda in case I fell drunkenly under the wheels if a speeding bus enroute. He needn’t have worried as, exasperatingly, I was stone cold sober by the time we got back to my flat in Kenton Road.

Lucinda and Sue chummed together in one room, discussing the finer points of us, while Colin and I retired in the kitchen to do much the same about them.

‘Sue’s not my girlfriend, she was my boss,’ I explained hastily. ‘But I’m glad to see you’ve found someone.’

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 196

‘Lucinda

found

me,’

he

admitted

sheepishly.

We both knew we were likely to become life’s bachelors and were thankful to soak up whatever companionship came our way.

Be it sometimes ever so brief.

iii. ON ILKLA MOOR BAHT ‘ATv Back to Leeds on September 7th and a new four-week contract at YTV. Having passed some kind of test working on the local news I was allowed out to work as Graham13 Shipton’s assistant on a documentary. Ooooh, the big time. It wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs, dealing with the victims of asbestosis who’d worked at a local factory and were dying in their droves from mesothelioma. The factory bosses had denied all health and safety responsibility for decades. The investigative doco, directed by John Willis, proved to be ground breaking stuff and led to a change in the law with regards to employers’ responsibility towards their workers’ past and present, employed in the manufacture of dangerous industrial substances.

Graham (nick name Attila the Bun due to his beer gut) was fun to work for, originally from south London and the longer he was away from his roots the more cockney he became by adopting fictional rhyming ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 197

slang to fit the workplace.

‘I’m going down the Sherman to sausage a Gregory.’

Translation: I am going down to the Sherman > Sherman tank > bank to sausage > sausage and mash > cash a Gregory > Gregory Peck > cheque. A loose and floppy referred to the film cutting copy.

Graham at first took me for a film school graduate14 but soon learned his error and introduced me into the social ways of Leeds; the monthly editor’s curry at the Taj Mahal restaurant up behind the studios around Woodhouse Moor and Hyde Park Road and the watering holes of Leeds. John Hay, Calendar motorcycle despatch rider, his wife Sue and small child acquainted me with the stunning Yorkshire scenery and the joys of walking up Otley Chevin, overlooking the Wharf Valley, and down to The Junction pub and further afield to Ilkley Moor15, Rombalds Moor and Blubberhouses. Mention was made of the Three Peaks Walk16 until some kind soul in the newsroom informed me this was no afternoon stroll in the hills but a serious piece

of

hard

physical

athleticism.

I

suddenly became quite busy that weekend and had to reluctantly pull out. I needn’t have lied as the Walk was cancelled anyway.

By early October I was back on Calendar and the contracts rolled on, leading a hectic ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 198

social life of hiking the moors with John and his family, stuffing myself with food down the local Taj with the editors or being silly with John Parr.

John Ayres at Thames News was still in touch which meant covering demonstrations as a stills photographer when in London, like the CND rally in Hyde Park on October 24th when Her Majesty’s leader of the Labour opposition Michael Foot took the tube train home like the rest of us after the speeches were over. A magic moment. Prime Minister Thatcher would have needed an armoured car.

Peter Bensimon took a job with Tyne Tees TV in Newcastle on The Word which meant, like me, he was away from home four nights a week. In order to keep his Regents Park Terrace house safe from nocturnal miscreants Peter rented his house to me for the four nights a week I was in Leeds. This meant we never actually saw each other apart from the occasional weekends when I didn’t go home to Harrow. I moved into Peter’s house on November 2nd which was the same week a news producer gave me a slight perk of editing the Calendar end credits background sequences. This comprised of editing a 55-second sequence from out-take images with whatever suitable music grabbed my imagination from the record library. Although there was no extra money for doing this it did have the advantage keeping my creative juices flowing. These end credit sequences became so popular amongst the film crews that cameramen were deliberately shooting unauthorised stockshots and vying to get their images used. One camera operator, Jon Felix, managed to finagle a full set of fog, star and graduated filters from Yorkshire TV obstensively for the end credits background sequences but in reality becoming part of his camera kit. We were in danger of spawning our own department which would surely have been taken off me once the management realised it was being run by a freelancer.

Not that YTV were as pernicious as Thames TV but freelancers still had to watch their step and remember we didn’t have the same employment rights as the staff.

I had a few days off for Christmas in Harrow with friends I’d almost forgotten but was back on the train to Leeds by Monday 28th December, with New Year’s Eve spent with the YTV editors at a party which included some members of a band called The Human League, whoever they were. All I can remember, in the wee small hours of that first new day of 1982, was trying to stay upright on the steep icy streets of Leeds and get back to Regents Park Terrace without breaking my neck. At a crossroads, with nothing to hold onto, I took one small step onto the ice which became one giant slide all the way down ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 199

a long hill on my back, arms and legs waving in the air, until my graceless slither was halted by a dustbin which loomed large in my immediate future.

My party came to an abrupt end with the news YTV weren’t extending my rolling contract. There was an almighty assistants piss-up in The Highland followed by a proper workers meal at The Karachi in Bradford. With horrible sadness I packed my bag and said good-bye to the circus, having made the fatal error of seeing a long running freelance contract as being more permanent than it actually was. Yes, all was left behind for the dubious pleasures of freelancing at London Weekend Television on the south bank. At least I had seamlessly left one job on a Friday and started another on the following Monday but somehow felt unaccountably lost, culture shock at being back in London after having spent too long away in glorious Leeds.

iv. OF SPORT AND THE BALLET The first thing I noticed in my LWT cutting room were the windows. By some surreal design fault the bottom of the windows were situated just above eye level so although the whole of the capital city was out there somewhere, I couldn’t see it. The great illustrious panorama of the River Thames, Victoria Embankment and Temple were lost to me in a square concrete box just wide enough to fit a Steenbeck editing machine and nothing else.

Back on the bottom of the pile once again but at least working on another rolling contract. What could possibly go wrong? What went wrong was the water tank in the attic above my Harrow abode burst and flooded out not just Jon and Bianca’s attic flat but mine too. Our dim yuppie landlord, unaware of his legal obligations to his tenants, refused to rehouse us while he initiated repairs and, instead, offered us the order of the boot. His mistaken belief that he was living in a feudal merry England society, with us as his serfs, was soon disabused once he received the solicitors letters. The following day, however, I was forced to move in with my parents until the work was completed.

At London Weekend I found myself working with Brian Moore on a documentary about the Queen’s jockey Willie Carson. The following day I had to nip off to a job interview, as arranged by Peter Bensimon, at Tyne Tees TV in Newcastle. Because the interview was at some ungodly hour of the morning I had to fly up and take the train back. The main item which seemed to flummox the interviewers was why a soft ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 200

southern Londoner would want to come and work oop t’north but, as I told them, since I were working oop t’north in Leeds I had grown accustomed to the oop t’north way of life. I gathered Tyne Tees t’management didn’t see Leeds as being oop t’north enough and were fairly dismissive of my experience as stated on the application form. I got the distinct impression the job was a done deal17 and I wasn’t on’t t’shortlist. Eee by ‘eck as like. Not so much racism as regionalism.

On’t … oops, sorry … On my return to London Weekend I found my cutting room piled high with the entire series of The Professionals. My job was to view every single episode in real time to check the prints for scratches and neg damage before they were sold off to an overseas television station. It sounds like a simple endeavour until you come to do it. The trick was to be alert enough to spot blemishes on the film without falling into the routine of, what amounted to, watching movies all day long and accidentally nodding off. There’s only so much a man can take watching Martin Shaw being a cop super hero before the brain starts dribbling out of the ears. After two weeks of print checking I went back to Brian Moore and the delights of Willie Carson, where I learned more about horse racing than I thought possible. No wonder it’s the sport of kings.

My journey into work each morning involved the long march from Waterloo underground station to the south bank studios. I noticed most staff took the long way round to Upper Ground Road instead of using the massive concrete walkways under Waterloo Road and had to ask why.

‘You don’t go down there do you?’ said my boss, horrified.

‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s Cardboard City, where all the homeless live. You’ll get mugged if you go down there.’

‘I’ve never had any problems,’ I said, a bit shocked.

My line manager paused to look at my long hair and said, ‘I’m not in the least surprised.’

A face from the past popped up at LWT, assistant camera operator Ken Lowe whom I hadn’t seen since our days together at UMP. We hoisted a few in the studio bar, recounting horror stories of the dreaded Hinchipoo and what became of various folk we had known. My last week at LWT was spent working on a film of the Baryshnikov Ballet for the South Bank Show. Unfortunately whomever it was I was replacing came back to ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 201

work so after five painless weeks freelancing I was out on the cobbles again.

v. JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PARANOID Although I missed being an independent film maker, working as a professional assistant film editor had the advantage of a regular income and paying the bills. Other projects were never far from my thoughts and to that end I contacted Claire Rawcliffe at AZ Films about producing a TV series on the history of Ban the Bomb protest songs married up with post 1945 contemporary news footage. Claire thought this was a jolly good idea and put it up to Channel Four and suggested I make a short test film to introduce the story to potential backers.

LWT had jumped the gun in ending my contract and gave me another week’s work as the person I was replacing hadn’t returned. I went back to work on the Baryshnikov Ballet and met up with Ken Lowe again. We went for a swift half18 in The Intrepid Fox and, as Ken had an early start the next day we cut the evening short and walked to Great Portland Street Underground station, homeward bound. It was at Great Portland Street where the world took a turn for the weird. Two National Front style skinheads on the platform saw us as an easy target and proceeded to harangue us in the mode of “you f-ing long-haired weirdoes.” Like we hadn’t heard that one before. How original.

In the face of adversity, I tend to clam up and ignore the madness in the hope the haranguers will eventually get bored and drift away. Ken had other ideas. He responded, never a good idea, with concepts such as “why don’t you grow up and grow your hair.”

This theme seemed to agitate the skinheads in some way and intensified their hostility.

I saw a train pull into the station, grabbed Ken and bundled him into a carriage. The doors closed, leaving the skinheads on the platform. Ken gave them the unbridled benefit of his middle finger. The doors opened again and the skinheads got on. As fisticuffs seemed likely I decided the best course of action was to babble. My knowledge of Northern Soul was miniscule but just enough to distract them from thumping us. By the time we got to Baker Street, with the skinheads feeling they had somewhat lost the initiative for a bruising, I waited until the doors were about to close before bundling Ken off the train. Shaken, we made our way to the Metropolitan Line platform while our new found shaven-headed chums hurtled onwards to the urban delights of Edgware Road and beyond.

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 202

What amazed me was that everyone in that carriage could see what was happening but did nothing to come to our aid. One presumes if we had been beaten to a pulp the passengers hidden behind the safety of their newspapers would, later, as the emergency services were scraping us off the carriage floor, have been touched by a collective case of amnesia. London in the 1980s was becoming a dangerous place to live.

‘I can’t believe you just did that,’ said Ken, still shaking.

‘In the face of adversity, talk potential attackers to death.’

‘Where did you learn to do that?’

‘Apparently the same thing happened to George Melly on a train. He quoted lines from Shelley at them until the skinheads gave up on him. They took him for a babbling idiot and left him alone.’

‘How did you know it would work?’ asked Ken. ‘I didn’t. I only know one self defence move19 and I wasn’t convinced I could get one of them down and keep him there. The best course of action I’ve found is to walk away from aggression so, for all the world, the aggressive person looks like a mad idiot shouting at nothing.’

We parted company at Harrow-On-The-Hill station and, the evening still being fairly young, I made my way to JT’s flat at Roxborough Court. The art deco block had been a squat and, under Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council, it became licensed. Later the squatters formed themselves into a housing association and took over the building.

Some of the original squatters had moved on but under MHA20 rules, due to the dire housing shortage in London, existing tenants were not given the opportunity to vet new applicants as suitable flat mates. The upshot was you never knew who was going to come through your door and whether you could stand living together. If the encounter with the skinheads was just plain weird, what followed in JT’s flat was all out thermonuclear war. JT had had the top floor flat, no:7, on his own since the MHA began and had gotten used to his splendid isolation. He was not best pleased when Carla moved in on him.

Unlike the usual freak denizens of Roxborough Court, Carla led a yuppie lifestyle, held down a straight-going career and drove a flash motor. Carla and JT did not get on.

‘The first thing she did when she moved in,’ explained JT, ‘was put a lock on her bedroom door and install her own private telephone. I don’t understand what she’s doing here in a freak flat. On her income she could be living in a penthouse apartment ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 203

in Hampstead.’

The reason for seeing JT that night was not only to catch up with an old friend but also to tap his encyclopaedic knowledge of British music for my forthcoming Rhyme and Reason research. His vinyl record collection was huge. We were halfway through an album by Bert Yangst when Carla stormed into the room and demanded JT turn the record player down, which he did. We carried on discussing music ideas and when the disc finished JT, mindful of his flat mate’s need to get up in the morning, turned the record player off. At which precise moment the front door crashed open and the flat filled with police officers and the squawk of radio chatter.

It was like something out of The Sweeny with a side order of The Keystone Cops.

Carla, it later transpired, had called the police but what story she had told them about us one could only guess. Two hippie men in a flat with one middle class female. A stab in the dark, her telephone conversation with the police probably didn’t include an evening gathered around the gramophone. Whatever the police were expecting to find wasn’t happening but that didn’t stop a WPC21 laying into JT with heavy verbals.

‘Turn that record player down right now!’ she shouted.

‘Its turned off. Its not even on,’ responded JT quietly.

‘And just behave yourself in future!’

I mean, having that come into your home, shouting orders on the unsubstantiated say so of an Asian business woman obviously out-ranked anything a male freak had to say on the matter. The cops assumed racism in JT and became racist themselves, giving JT a lot of silly verbals and JT gave them some silly verbals in return. Of Carla during all this there was no sign. I saw a water pipe22 on the floor and managed to stand between it and the police officers, shielding it from their sight. Getting JT busted for drugs would have just about made Carla’s evening. JT asked the Police to leave.

‘This is private property and you have not been invited here.’

‘Carla invited us in!’ bellowed the WPC, ‘And we’re here to stay!’

JT eventually saw them off the premises and Dick, in a flat below, invited us in for tea. A good move as I didn’t fancy leaving JT alone in his flat with Carla and the irate repercussions which could have ensued. I went home to sit and ponder the awfulness of a capital city so full of madness and intolerance, where muggers on the Tube are ignored and people quietly enjoying a convivial evening in the privacy of their own ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 204

flat are raided by the police. Next chance I got, I decided, I’d move out to somewhere quieter. Next day JT was on my doorstep asking for a witness statement about what happened the night Carla called the police. I asked him up to my flat, wondering.

‘Why do you need a witness statement?’

‘When I got up next morning the record player was gone and I found it out on the roof23, smashed to pieces. She must have used a hammer on it.’

JT was grief stricken. That record player was an antique, full of hard to find valves, the sound quality of which none of us were likely to hear again. He was suing Carla for damages. I frankly didn’t think JT had much chance of success with that but being a friend I wrote him a statement, signing it as a journalist. I figured JT needed all the professional clout he could get.

Three days later it was my turn to get pulled by the police. The one thing my flat needed was a TV. It hadn’t seemed important while I was away in Leeds with only a few weekends back in Harrow. But now, with a healthy bank balance, I invested in a small portable screen. I asked the shop if they could deliver it but the matronly lady behind the counter decided I could man-handle it the few yards round the corner to my home.

This was easier said than done as, boxed, the thing had a mind of its own. Barely able to grasp the great thing I had to stop every few feet and rest it on a garden wall to keep the circulation going to my fingers. The matronly lady obviously had a sense of humour.

A flashy red Triumph pulled and a youngish portly Suit got out with a cry of, ‘Excuse me, sir.’ Which usually meant a victim of the notorious Northwick Park roundabout had got himself lost. The next comment was bound to be, ‘I’m lost can you help me.’

But it wasn’t. The Suit turned out to be a police officer in search of someone to pull and he found me, a woolly-hatted long-hair struggling up the road with an enormous cardboard box. The look on his face told its own story, his bust of the week was looming large on his promotional horizon. Unfortunately for PC Idiot I had the receipt for the TV and my ID card from LWT. His attitude changed gear almost seamlessly as he offered a lift home which was only yards away from where we were standing. He insisted on getting me into his car for a free ride. I insisted on walking the rest of the way, the width of Kenton Avenue, home. His insistence took on an unhealthy tone. In order to calm this pointless circular conversation I picked up the box from the garden wall where it rested and walked to my house with PC Idiot babbling along in my wake. It struck ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 205

me then, fumbling in my pocket for keys, that I hadn’t asked for his ID and wondered if the Suit might not be a miscreant himself intent on barging through the open front door and robbing my flat.

‘Can I see your warrant card, please?’

‘What? You going to make a complaint, are you?’

‘Can I see your warrant card, please?’

‘Right, if that’s the way you want it. Name, age and address?’

‘Can I see your warrant card, please?’

‘I want your name, age and address.’

‘Why do you need that?’

‘So I can file a report to say you’ve been stopped and searched.’

‘You haven’t arrested me. So why do you need to file a report?’

‘Name, age and address. Now.’ I gave him my full details in the hope his scabby computer would choke on the information and throw a cog. He never did show me his warrant card but, instead, drove off into traffic without signaling and almost collided with a truck. That would have just about made my day.

Struggling the huge cardboard box up the stairs to my flay I unearthed the TV from the voluminous packaging, found the mains lead didn’t have a plug on the end of it. I decided against going out again to forage for a 13amp plug but phoned Colin, whom I hadn’t seen since my birthday five months before, and suggested we go for a swift half.

Later, musing over a pint in a Camden pub, I unburdened myself of the PC Idiot story which made Colin giggle with barely suppressed mirth.

‘What’s so funny?’ I asked indignantly.

‘Boy is he going to get a shock when he runs your details through the computer.’

‘Why?’ ‘When your name pops out of that computer some very inquisitive people are going to be asking questions why he was asking you questions.’

‘Why?’ ‘The technician’s job at the Met is still open and your name is on it.’

‘Oh good,’ I said with heavy sarcasm. ‘Just because I’m paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me,’ I explained.

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vi. THE RHYME AND THE REASON Since no one showed any sign of wanting to employ me, I decided the best course of action was to keep myself busy by researching the proposed Rhyme and Reason documentary. A brisk search of my war and London demo photos disclosed some pictures of use with a suitable CND song. JT suggested Fixin’ To Die Rag by Country Joe & The Fish which was written for the Vietnam War but the sentiments expressed in the lyrics were about right for Ban-The-Bomb. I sent all the negatives off to Pearce Studios for Rod Lord and Dave Sproxton to put under their 16mm rostrum camera and gave the LP to Cine Lingual Sound Studios to re-record the song onto 16mm sound for the screen test. This process took a while to achieve in our pre-digital age.

In early March I was invited to a job interview as a staff assistant editor at Yorkshire TV in Leeds. All seemed to go well and John Parr put me up for the night. I could see the words “escape from London” writ large in my mind. By mid-March Sharon Needham, whom I vaguely remembered from my days at Thames TV, phoned wanting a junkie to interview. She reasoned that since I’d directed a doco for BBC2 about legalizing cannabis, it followed I could lay my hands on a junkie for a Thames Report interview. I was about to turn it down, on the grounds I didn’t know any junkies, when she offered expenses for every day I worked on her TV programme. I said I’d see what I could do hoping she’d forget about it and not call again. She made me feel like a pimp.

Rod Lord at Pearce Studios rang to let me know the Rhyme and Reason test was finished and I took it over to Claire at AZ Productions to show her the result. It would be fair to say it blew her mind. From that moment the project was set in motion for a massed UMP/Reflex Films/AZ Films co-production to shoot the Glastonbury CND24 festival and trawl the film archives for suitable material to illustrate the music. The next couple of weeks involved a plethora of meetings with production companies, film labs, record companies, CND, the Musicians Union and Mechanical Copyright Protection Society to get clearance on the songs. My contact at CND was Rob Nicholls, an old buddy from back in the day, who said he would sort out the Glastonbury CND festival organisors so we could film there. This proved to be over optimistic on his part as festival organisor Michael Eavis had other plans for selling the film rights. I wrote to him direct but didn’t get a reply. Fortunately his was not the only peace festival that summer and we had better luck elsewhere.

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Claire organised a dinner party, inviting several film producers, to discuss the proposed TV series. I showed the test film to those there present and before we reached the port and after dinner mints producers were making calls to the US of A to raise funding for the project. My old Mum used to say that something must be wrong if everything appears to be going right and the crash came on March 26th when the Musicians Union decided to lay down the law about the use of recorded music. Seemingly, the ratio of recorded music to live performance in the proposal was too high and against union agreements with the TV companies. We were free to go ahead and make the film, they decided, but no TV company in Europe would be allowed to screen it. A major re-think was needed.

On April Fools Day a call came through to AZ Productions from Michael Eavis in Somerset to say it would take him two weeks to decide if we could film at his CND festival. In fact, we never heard from him again. The budget proposal went into AZ Productions and I started the process of finding camera crews with Bob Spiers as assistant director, Paul Sharkey as sound engineer and John Boulter as director of photography. The replacement for Glastonbury CND festival was the Nottingham Peace festival. Dave Clarke at the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society claimed he was making progress with the Musicians Union with regards to the use of recorded music.

Which goes to prove every major film endeavour always25 has a colossal muck-up just before everything comes right at the last moment. We should all be respectful of the four stages of film production; wild enthusiasm, total confusion, search for the guilty and promotion for the uninvolved. Just when things were getting interesting Claire went to the Cannes MIP Festival to, amongst other things, promote the Rhyme & Reason project.

Sharon Needham got back in touch to find out if I had found her a suitable junkie she could interview. I hadn’t and hoped she’d take the hint. She didn’t and insisted I should earn my expenses. Oh crap.

‘Look, and this is important, I don’t know any junkies,’ I whined.

‘You’ve made films about drugs, there must be someone you know.’

‘I made one film about the Legalise Cannabis Campaign for the BBC two years ago, and no, the LCC don’t hang out with junkies either. Try Release they might know someone who’s up for being interviewed but take my advice, don’t call them junkies.

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They’re drug addicts with issues,’ I advised.

‘I don’t know who Release are but you’ve got contacts. I’m sure the expenses I’m paying you will come in useful,’ she persisted.

‘I’m in the middle of prep, about to direct a TV series. You must have researchers at Thames TV who can do this?’ I squirmed.

‘You’ve got a week to find me a junkie. Just get on with it.’ She hung up.

This insistence that I should find a junkie for Sharon at Thames TV didn’t sit right with me. They do have researchers whose sole purpose in life is to find people for interviews and especially on an investigative series like Thames Report. I began to get a little paranoid. Why me? Its not as though Thames TV did me any favours when I worked there. Then this horrible little twinge came over me like I was being set up for something. Journalists who work around paranoid drug criminals sometimes pick up some of the paranoia themselves. Oh well, time to go over Sharon’s head and call her producer and, as I feared, he knew nothing about me providing a junkie for Thames Report. With any luck I had dropped Sharon so far into the brown and smelly with her producer she would never speak to me again. Luck, however, was not on my side.

‘What d’you think you’re doing phoning my producer! I could have got the sack! Just get off your high horse and do your job!’ screamed Sharon.

‘Good. It says film director on my union card and it’ll be a cold day in Hell when I start taking orders from a programme researcher. Don’t call me again. Good-bye.’

Ten minutes later the phone ran again and a demure voice similar to Sharon’s vocal range tried using guile. The thing about guile is some people are useless at it. Guile is not far short of emotional blackmail and like all blackmailers everywhere it only works if they’ve got something with which to blackmail the blackmailee. No matter how cunning and devious a blackmailer is, they can’t threaten someone with an empty gun.

‘Look, I’m sorry about that but I’ve been under a lot of pressure. I’ve got to find a junkie for the programme and you’re the only person who can get me one. I’ll pay you the going rate for your trouble,’ she tried.

‘Three hundred pounds a day26 plus expenses but I’m promising nothing.’

‘Oh thank you. I knew you’d help. Thank you so much,’ whimpered Sharon, guilelessly.

It did cross my mind she was having some sort of breakdown. If Sharon was so useless at finding an interviewee for Thames Report, why were Thames even employing ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 209

her? Oh yes, Buggin’s Turn, now I remembered.

The following weekend Gobbo insisted I should go with him to Chorleywood to watch a mate of his, Nick Mersch, play drums with The Hamsters. Gobbo had managed to round up a large contingent of the Harrow freaks and it was good to be in the company of friends away from the stress of film making. While the band were good, their drummer was awesome. Nick was obviously a man destined to go places but it would be a few years yet before we’d realise how far. In amongst the Harrow crowd was a guy called Nolan. I didn’t know him well but I suspected he was a Face in the local drug scene.

JT had news of Carla, that the MHA had finally figured out that putting random people together wasn’t a good idea and moved Carla to a ground floor flat in the same block.

Since the rest of the tenants thought Carla was poison, that no one was safe from her calling the cops on any freak who got in her way, she ended up with a flat on her own.

Cynics suggested that was her evil plan from the start and JT was collateral damage.

This left JT as the sole tenant in a two person flat and the MHA, give them their due, gave him a month to find a replacement flatmate who eventually turned out to be Gobbo27. JT asked how Rhyme & Reason was going. I told him the latest, that filming was due to start in July.

‘You don’t look very happy about it,’ said JT. ‘Oh its not that. There’s a researcher at Thames TV who’s been hassling me to find a junkie she can interview for Thames Report. She’s seriously getting on my tits.’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Nolan.

‘What?’

‘I’m a registered drug addict. Its about time someone explained what’s going on out there. Blow a few myths and government lies about heroin.’

‘You sure? Thames aren’t exactly the most enlightened people,’ I warned.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Nolan with a shrug.

Blimey. That was the easiest 300-quid research fee I ever earned.

The relaxing weekend was over and it was back to the grindstone of organising the Rhyme & Reason film shoot, starting at the Nottingham Peace festival in July. So much to organise, so little time. Bob Jones came in as cameraman with his crew from UMP who also supplied the sound engineer. John Boulter and Paul Sharkey were excused duty on that shoot until the main bulk of filming, and therefore funding, began later ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 210

in the year. According to Dave Clarke at the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) we could get round the Musicians Union (MU) ban on the use of gramophone records by re-recording the disputed songs with session musicians. The downside to this was we wouldn’t have the original artist recordings and I didn’t want us to sound like some cheapo Woolmart compilation album. Short of gathering up all the original artists from around the globe and re-recording them for the film we were stuck with the compromise. There are no problems, only solutions which goes to prove any fool can make a proverb and every fool will follow it. Don’t even get me started on the glass half full brigade.

There were urgent meetings between Dave Clarke, myself and suitable session musicians to re-record the songs. Ted Lemming, former singer with The Bozos, Tony Larnie from Valkyrie and Leeds singer Martin Carter were finagled in to the production to set a schedule for the studio sessions. Dave became our unofficial28 music producer to oversee the work. This compromise did strange and difficult things to the production budget, yet to be approved by AZ Productions but with Claire still in France attending the Cannes TV Festival, the way we saw it, the sessions were the only way around the Musicians Union ban and keep the production on track.

I put a call into Sharon Needham to tell her I had found a drug addict to interview.

‘Deliver him to Thames Euston Studios at noon on Monday 19th so we can have a chat to see if he’s suitable.’

Brief, demanding and to the point. Duly instructed I took Nolan to Thames TV but it was soon apparent I was not invited to attend the suitability chat. Fine by me although rather brusque in tone.

‘Who do I send my invoice to?’ I asked.

‘What invoice?’ Sharon demanded.

‘My researcher’s invoice for finding you an interviewee.’

‘You don’t expect to get paid do you?’ came her petulant response.

‘We agreed. The 300-quid researcher’s fee.’

‘If you can show me the contract where we agreed to that I’ll see what I can do for you. We don’t as a rule pay for interviewees. I’m surprised you’re even asking me for money.’

Wow. I didn’t see that one coming. More fool me. It was an unseemly discussion, ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 211

there in the busy reception of Thames TV, like a pimp haggling over small change with a punter for the services of a prostitute. I wished Nolan the best of luck and left before I exploded. I composed a stern letter to Sharon’s producer in my head as I wondered down to the Soho offices of AZ Productions to tell them the Musicians Union had lifted their ban.

Claire’s PA told me not to worry about the budget as Claire was due to meet Hollywood producer Bill Morton later that week. With nothing left to do until Claire got back I wondered off home and decided to take the rest of the week off. I had been neglecting the domestic duties and my clothes were demanding to taken to the launderette. Two days later all hell broke loose when Thames TV turned up at Nolan’s place to film his interview and three days later I got an irate visit from one of Nolan’s house mates who had decided it was all my fault. Landscape gardener James Provost was hammering on my door demanding to see that f-ing c-word who set up Nolan with Thames TV. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’ I asked James, handing him a cup of herbal tea.

‘The trouble? You know very well what the trouble is and its all down to you!’

And this he told me; James had come home from a hard day of manual labour with his gardening company Luna Landscapes with nothing more complicated on his mind than having a shower, a change of clothes and a swift half down The Roxborough. What he actually got was grief when he couldn’t park his van anywhere near the house, on a busy main road, because Thames TV had parked their vehicles up on the pavement and in his front garden. It got worse. When he tried to get inside the house he was turned away at the door by one of the Thames camera crew.

‘We’re filming here, you can’t come in.’’

Which caused a monumental row on the doorstep and a crew person offering to call the police if James didn’t leave them alone. James, however, managed to batter his way into own house and went upstairs to his room where he found a camera crew using the vantage point of his bedroom window, filming Nolan wandering around in the garden below. James was told to leave. James refused and, being of a builder’s wiry frame, he managed to chuck the crew out of his personal space. With much bad grace the interloping camera crew retreated to the relative safety of the garden. James complained to one of the crew, a researcher, who told him if he had any complaints to take the matter up with me because I had arranged the filming. Oh the little fibber!

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 212

By James’ description of the researcher I concluded this to have been Sharon Needham.

‘It gets worse,’ James continued, ‘Nolan did an interview with these people about his heroin habit and decided to disguise himself. You know what he did? He wore a woolly hat. Everyone knows who he is, he’s a known Face. As soon as that film is shown on TV we’re going to get raided by the police. Everyone knows you work for Thames TV, this is down to you, what are you going to do about it?’

‘Nothing. There’s nothing I can do. I left Thames TV three years ago. They’re nothing to do with me. All I did was put Nolan and Sharon together. Take it up with Nolan. If I were you I’d put in a damages claim to Thames TV.’ And there really was nothing I could do. Sharon was the sort of irresponsible person who didn’t care what happened to anyone who got in the way of her career. Sadly, British TV was to become peppered with the Sharon Needham’s of this world who seek, to quote Stanley Baldwin, “… power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.” James left my place slightly placated that I hadn’t had a hand in the Nolan debacle but for years after I was known as a person not to be trusted, a running dog lackey of the capitalist media who would stop at nothing to get a good story. Of course, if that were true I wouldn’t have been living in a glorified bedsit in Harrow. Such is life.

Just when I thought nothing worse could possibly happen, Claire got in touch to say Hollywood producer Bill Morton had decided Rhyme & Reason was too political for him to handle and he was pulling out of the deal. And to show solidarity, AZ Productions pulled out too. This came as a blow because I already had filming dates set up but decided to go it alone even though the coffers were low. I was rescued by the northern delights of Yorkshire TV who offered a freelance rolling contract back on Calendar news.

There is a God. Not to be confused with St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.

vii. ESCAPING UP T’NORTH On the same day I started back on Calendar, May 4th29, Yorkshire TV offered me the staff job for which I had been interviewed. Deep joy. I was required to attend a company medical on May 6th and that’s when the defecation hit the air conditioning. It turned out the elderly company doctor was also the medic for the local Territorial Army and ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 213

held views about people who were not of the Anglo-Saxon races30 or of a straight going appearance31. Which is probably why he chose the most embarrassing health defect he could think of to fail my medical.

‘Your testicals haven’t descended. You’re not fit for the job.’

‘What?!’

It took the Union two months and four doctors to prove not only were my testicals where they should be but problems of a testicular nature were not sufficient grounds to refuse someone a job. I had kids and, subject to their approval, was prepared to take a blood test to prove it. Angry male staff at YTV, who had had a vasectomy, were outraged that their decision not to have children would put their promotion prospects in jeopardy.

The Company were suddenly thrust into the embarrassing position of refusing someone a job, for which they were qualified to do, on the word of a bigoted doctor. Union rep John Surtees32 decided to fight for my job on the grounds of a non life threatening health issue, which didn’t actually exist, could preclude me from employment. My line manager said I should carry on searching for local accommodation as, in his view, the Company ‘don’t have a leg to stand on.’ YTV kept me on as a rolling contract freelancer until they could figure out what to do. Well, giving me the job would have been a start.

Estate agents kept sending details of suitable stone back-to-backs in Otley even though I couldn’t do anything about a mortgage until YTV made up their mind.

Back-to-backs were a new one on me. Like two rows of terraced house without back gardens stuck together, the houses were surrounded on three sides by other properties with single rooms on top of each other. They were surprisingly roomy and, compared to London house prices, affordable for a single bloke on a decently waged staff job. It was my idea of bliss. Job for life, good people, away from violent London with a house out in the country and they’d pay me money to do this. Bliss. In early June I moved back into Peter Bensimon’s house in Regents Park Terrace and returned to the joys of editing Calendar’s music end credit sequences which, according to the news producer, had gone downhill since I left. More likely, none of the staff editors wanted to fiddle about with bits of random film and music tracks.

My first effort, shot by cameraman Jon Felix, was of a summer downpour cut to The Doors, Riders of the Storm. Instead of merely chopping the shots together I used jump-cut wipes, a person or vehicle passing close to the camera and making the cut ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 214

when the they blotted out the shot, effectively ‘wiping’ from one scene to the next. To understand how this works watch Alfred Hitchcock’s 1972 film Frenzy. The Internet Movie Data described the technique as, “Midway through the film, there is a famous continuous shot in which the camera backs away from the door of Rusk’s apartment and descends the staircase, seemingly without a cut33, to the ground level, out the building’s front door, and then to the opposite side of the street. The interiors were shot with an overhead track in a studio, and there is an imperceptible cut as34 a man passes by the front door, carrying a sack of potatoes. This is subtly blended into a new shot of the camera pulling away from the building exterior that was actually used on location”.35 Editing of the end credit sequence was interrupted by an call to go and see the Head of Film about my staff job. YTV officially withdrew their job offer on the medical advice from their doctor.

‘But you know that’s wrong. You know I’m not medically unfit,’ I protested, ‘I’ve been working freelance on the job for months and no one’s ever mentioned that I’m medically unfit to do it.’

‘We have to stand by our doctor’s advice.’

‘Four other doctors have contradicted him. Even the Union doctor. And even if it were true, which it isn’t, it wouldn’t stop me from working.’

‘Our doctor says you’ll need to take a lot of time off to get steroid treatment for undescended testicles.’

‘But that won’t happen because I’m not suffering from what he claims I’m suffering from. He’s just plain wrong,’ I reasoned.

‘Well we need to fill the post so we’ve already given the job to the next person down the list after you,’ came the embarrassed reply, although not embarrassed enough to give me the job.

It was a mad situation. I got the distinct feeling this decision had been made further up the YTV chain of command to send out a the clear message, “we stand by the Company doctor, right or wrong.” Disappointment didn’t even begin to describe how I felt right at that moment. Cheated, possibly. I sought out John Surtees who advised I take it up with Union head office in London and this I did, with all the various doctors’ reports. It was just a case of waiting it out to see who had the better lawyer. In typical local humour the news room joke was, ‘Have you got the balls to work for Calendar.’

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Even I had to laugh at that one.

Being cruelly rejected by YTV I considered myself back on the freelance market and took a job as a stringer with the Daily Mirror covering the National CND demo in London.

A few days later Bob Hamilton at the Union got in touch to say they were sending me to see their doctor to get a confirming examination of my gentleman’s bits.

Summer Solstice saw me back at the Stonehenge Festival36, taking photos of freaks and the following day met up with John Ayres to discuss a feature article along the lines of whatever happened to the ageing hippies. John agreed to take it on but gave me a long lecture about where my future lay. Strangely, Paul Sharkey at Reflex Films did the same thing and, fired by these blasts to my ego, I trotted round to AZ Productions and gave them a long ‘talking to’ about supporting young film makers, distributors who live off the backs of independent producers and who never help talent when its down on its luck. It must have worked because three hours later I walked out of their office with a distribution contract for Rhyme & Reason.

I saw Dr. Gilchrest the Union specialist who confirmed all my gentleman’s bits were intact and, in his opinion, the company doctor who claimed otherwise should be given the boot. Meanwhile YTV asked me back as a freelance on a rolling contract with Calendar as, they claimed, the person next on the list after me had turned down the job. I rather suspected this was a face-saving exercise once YTV had figured out where their doctor’s decision might lead. In court, facing a loss of earnings and damages claim from the Union. The YTV doctor, using an unseemly diagnosis involving testicals which no long haired freak would dare dispute out of shear terrified embarrassment, had picked on the wrong guy. Yes, I did have the balls to take on the company doctor.

Take no prisoners.

On entering the newsroom back on contract there was a round of applause. I had to look round to see who had come in behind me. It felt like I’d come home but on the understanding that I had contractual obligations elsewhere due to the loss of my previous rolling contract. So with that in mind, along with Peter Bensimon who had come down from Newcastle in his V-Dub bus, on July 4th I met up with the UMP camera crew on the first major shoot of Rhyme & Reason at the Nottingham Peace Festival. Out on the road directing again made me realise the only way to solve my career problems was get off my backside and get motivated. YTV let me off for a few days so I could fly37 ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 216

down to London for the rushes screening with Claire from AZ Productions and the film crew at UMP. Everyone walked away happy with what they had seen. The first shoot in the can. I flew back to Leeds the following Sunday, fresh and ready for work at YTV and met up with Martin Carter for a meal to discuss recording one of his songs, Someplace In Japan, for Rhyme & Reason. When I flew back to London the following Friday John Willis, the producer from the asbestosis documentary, was on the same flight.

‘Oh look, I can see your house from up here!’ he said, as we passed over Harrow.

Leeds Yeadon Airport38 had a short runway and, if you weren’t expecting it, take off could be quite nerve racking. On one flight, an elderly four engined Viscount, the pilot went to full throttle before leaving the taxi-way. That fast left turn onto the main runway could sure upset a nervous flyer. Being brought up in the jet age, friends were intrigued to know what it was like to fly in a propeller driven aircraft. Very quiet in the cabin, no vibration and difficult to realise those four great whirling things on the wings which kept us aloft made almost no sound at all. Very sedate and restful, I thought. The only disadvantage, travelling in a twin-engine high wing Fokker Friendship, which came to light was at Heathrow Airport when we had to wait half an hour for a set of steps to arrive for the low door. Passengers became so impatient, there was talk of mutiny, stepping down onto the tarmac had not the stewardess blocked their way.

‘No! Don’t do it! Don’t jump!’

And everyone broke up with laughter. You’d think we were about to attempt a mass suicide plunge.

viii. GREENHAM COMMON FESTIVAL During the early part of the 1970s, mainly the middle class monied, young people bought old buses and converted them for use as mobile homes, touring the British countryside or staying on commons in low numbers without causing trouble. They tended to work as fruit pickers and were on good terms with farmers, living by a code of gentility and social awareness. Generally they were discreet and largely invisible to ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 217

the working press.

By the time Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, with her monetarist policies which caused mass unemployment, the disenfranchised urban young took to the road in droves, in a collection of buses and trucks upsetting land owners and country folk alike by squatting rural land. They had a tough reputation for drug dealing and petty theft, travelling in long convoys of large vehicles who left public resentment in their wake. On September 5th 1981 a group of women peace protestors, known as Women For Life On Earth, marched on the Greenham Common USAF base which was due to house ninety-six American controlled

ground

launched

nuclear

armed cruise missiles, with four spares, in response to the Soviet Union’s deployment of SS-20 missiles aimed at Western Europe.

The women sent a letter39 to the base Commander of the 501st Missile Wing40, set up camp at the main gate and stayed for nineteen years. The ‘yellow’ gate at the main entrance to the base was made up of women and children who allowed themselves to be interviewed by male journalists from around the world but the ‘green’ gate, further along the perimeter fence, was deemed women only with no male visitors allowed.

After the 1982 Stonehenge Peoples’ ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 218

Free Festival a group of freaks, living in converted buses and styling themselves as The Peace Convoy, left the site and headed for Greenham Common to show solidarity with the Greenham Women by seizing common land beside the perimeter fence close to the women-only ‘green’ gate in July and held the Rainbow Peace Festival41.

According to one Convoy member42, ‘The CND’s reaction to these Rainbow rabble, who’d actually used the direct action tactics hallowed in Disarmament Tradition, was unenthusiastic. Although CND had netted at least $100,000 at the giant Glastonbury Peacefest a few weeks before, the most CND would give the (Greenham) occupiers was $60.”’The massed ranks of journalists from the Street of Shame43, including the News of The World, went to the Rainbow Peace Festival to get the story on the Peace Convoy. Unfortunately, the Peace Convoy had brought their Stonehenge habits with them, that of openly selling illegal drugs on site and in full view of the working press with the result that shock-horror headlines appeared soon after. Coupled to that, the merry pranksters amongst the hippies claimed to have spiked the News of The World journalist’s food with LSD with the result of them apparently seeing what they were not really seeing. When the Tibetan Ukranian Mountain Troupe performed a set ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 219

which involved the use of fake guns and the ensuing headline, Hippie Gun Convoy Horror, set the Peace Convoy on a protracted collision course with the law.

John Ayres phoned asking for a follow-up story at Greenham on the grounds I’d photographed the 1981-82 Stonehenge Festival and lived to tell the tale. I had a problem there because, geographically challenged in Leeds, I didn’t have transport to get down to Greenham Common. I said I’d see what I could do, making a mental note to do nothing44. Back home on the weekend of July 17th & 18th I wandered up to The Castle, another freak pub on top of Harrow Hill, where a large contingent of hairies had gathered for a lunchtime session. Gobbo along with Nick Mersch came over to the table I was sharing with Ted Lemming and JT. ‘We’re all going off to the Greenham Festival this afternoon, d’you wanna come?’

Ah. Serendipity strikes again. How could I say no? JT rushed off to find his new girlfriend, Joy, and Ted went to alert the ageing-freaks. But I had a problem.

‘I’d love to come but I have a flight to catch from Heathrow tomorrow night and I can’t get myself stranded down in Berkshire.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Gobbo, easing me out of my chair, ‘we’ll make sure you catch your plane.’

Gobbo and Nick reminded me of Donald Duck’s nephews. They were never so happy unless they were making me take part in some dubious young person’s activity. They had a nickname for me, Uncle Al, like I was someone’s dotty but rather game elderly relative. I was twelve years older than them which must have made me positively ancient ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 220

in their eyes. It was done out of fondness, I knew, rather than sarcasm. Nick, who drove a VW-Beetle, ran me home to pick up my camera and we set off with Gobbo riding shotgun. It was a hot afternoon, the windows were down, our long hair flowed and we were wearing sun glasses. Looking out of the rear window I could see a convoy of Harrow freaks following along behind and, nearing the Greenham site Gobbo said, ‘If you’re carrying, now’s the time to stash the hash.’

Nick attempted to conceal a lump of hash in his undergarments but was having trouble what with steering the car, operating gear shift and peddles so Gobbo took over the wheel while Nick concentrated on his urgent hash stashing. Nick’s gyrations became quite extreme which distracted Gobbo just long enough for him to take his eyes off the road ahead. We hit the curb at speed and bounced but Nick managed to regain control of the vehicle. Later Stavros, another Harrow freak in the car behind said, ‘We all thought you were going to die when the car hit the curb. How it didn’t roll end over end I don’t know. It could have been worse if we’d ploughed into the wreck.’

God obviously looks after small children, life’s waifs and the cataclysmically stoned.

The first thing I noticed as we drove onto ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 221

the site was the complete absence of a stage or any form of entertainment. Oh it was one of those festivals, an encampment of Convoy vehicles and mass drug dealing. While the Harrow freaks were putting up tents Gobbo and Nick dragged me off into the woods to collect firewood. This took some time as Nick, armed with a saw, cut fallen branches to manageable lengths. That’s when I saw a fir tree bent over to the horizontal, covered with ferns and a thin column of smoke rising from within.

‘Having a good look are ya, f-off outta it,’ growled a voice from the leafy depths.

We had crossed a shallow ditch on the way into the wood but coming back with an armful of heavy logs the ditch looked a whole lot deeper. I hesitated, wondering how to cross it, when Gobbo took hold of my shoulders and steered me across.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘That’s all right. We’ll look out for you,’ replied Gobbo. And they did.

Later we took a turn around the site in search of adventure and found it in the shape of a boy, about 8-years-old, sitting outside a tipi. An unwashed t-shirt hung from his shoulders, like his own portable bell tent, giving him the appearance of a slum dweller in some third world country.

‘Want some acid?’ the child asked, radiating charm and confidence.

‘What?’ I said, shocked at a kid selling class-A drugs.

Gobbo laughed and in a whispered an aside to Nick.

‘He’s just a kid, we could mug him and take all his drugs.’

‘Any trouble out there Zak?’ asked a middle-class male voice from within. Zak’s father or possibly his Fagin-like gang master had obviously overheard every word through the thin canvas of the tipi.

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 222

‘No, I can handle it,’ responded Zak. He turned his attention back to us. ‘Well?’

We bought an acid tab each to avoid unpleasantness with the minder within and wandered off slightly faster that was entirely necessary. I remembered a crime reporter once telling me about Gypsies using their kids to front their illegal activities as, being under the age of criminal responsibility, the child couldn’t be prosecuted. Good to see the old traditions of child exploitation being kept alive by right-on, peace loving hippies on the Convoy.

I hadn’t brought a tent, not that I had a tent to bring, and, devoid of festival entertainment, I huddled round the camp fire with the Harrow freaks. Joy, JT’s new love in his life, looked bored out of her mind by the whole non-event. She wasn’t comfortable around the freak crowd and I had a feeling there would be words with JT about this later. JT was in his festival element and kept the trainee freaks amused with tales of festival days of daring-do gone by. I couldn’t help noticing the divide between our young middle class freaks and the great unwashed Convoy crusties who coalesced around our fire to the point of bad vibing everyone away. Gobbo and I took another turn around the site, the acid just nicely taking hold, when we came across a biker with issues who pulled a gun, a .38 revolver by the look of it, and told me to f-off the site.

Gobbo giggled, this obviously wasn’t happening in whatever universe he was currently inhabiting, but I remembered some sage words of advice from Colin before I went to Belfast.

‘Don’t look at the gun, look the person straight in the eye. If you’re not dead in the first five seconds the chances are the shootist won’t pull the trigger. Don’t try any of that “put the gun down” business and let the man have his say, let him get whatever’s troubling him off his chest. The longer he talks the less chance he’ll pull the trigger.

Don’t make any sudden moves and keep your hands where he can see them.’

This wasn’t a biker raging against the hated press, this was a mad biker raging against anyone who happened tocross his path. Is this what happened to the News of The World journalists, I wondered. Maybe that “hippie gun Convoy” headline started like this and the apologists made up the “we put acid in their food” excuse later. The gun was real, held a foot from my face, I could see it was no replica. This biker’s gun had weight by the way he was holding it. Before this ugly scene turned fatal a bunch of Convoy folk led him away, apologizing for the inconvenience. I said it was okay but ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 223

I knew in my heart it wasn’t. There were some seriously screwed up individuals on the Convoy and I wondered how long it would be before someone got murdered. Or had been already. I lost Gobbo in the confusion and decided this wasn’t a place to be alone.

As I walked away. I could hear raised voices, the sound of gun shots and maniacal laughter. Not my idea of a Peace Festival. Back at the Harrow freaks’ camp I stayed awake all night, watching Skylab track across the heavens.

In the quiet of the dawn I grabbed my camera, took pictures of the site and came across a lone hippie leaning against a demolished section of the air base perimeter fence. Later I learned this had been the work of the Hammer Boys in retaliation for the Base Commander cutting down all the trees.

Later a Convoy person45 said, ‘… the CND London office bowed to frantic calls from the U.S. embassy about “the wild, petrol bomb throwing mob attacking the Base perimeter.”

CND cancelled their Chairwoman’s dinner engagement at Rainbow Camp46. Other CND (spokespersons) gave interviews to the press duly dissociating themselves from the “violence,” falsely suggesting the “real” protesters of the Women’s Vigil condemned cutting down the fence. After two weeks of this, the consensus among the Peace Convoy was that it was time to move on. A small Rainbow Camp remained whilst the rest embarked anew upon the Festival Trail.’

By midday Sunday I decided I needed to get away from Greenham. Gobbo and Nick had decided to stay on but another Harrow freak, David Wicks, offered a lift in his van as he had to get back to London too. Unfortunately Wicksie took a wrong turn onto the M4 and we ended up going fifteen miles in the wrong direction. I was starting to get the jitters about catching my 8pm flight from Heathrow but he dropped me off at the terminal just as the last call for passengers was announced. I fell asleep on the flight back to Leeds and stumbled wearily into the Calendar newsroom around 10pm to call John Ayres and phone-in the story, tales of a weird weekend at Greenham Common.

‘My god you’ve finally turned into a dirty, smelly hippie,’ declared the Calendar news editor as I was leaving.

Back at the hotel I steamed the grunge off and next day went on a major shopping expedition. There had been no time to pack a bag before the airport and my clothes seemed to have brought some corner of a Greenham field back with them.

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 224

ix. UGLY HIPPIE SCENES I couldn’t help feeling I was hogging my good fortune of the West Yorkshire countryside and should share it with London friends. The Rolling Stones were playing on July 25th in Roundhay Park and I hadn’t seen them play live since their 1969 free gig in Hyde Park47. It was arranged JT would come up for the weekend.

Because I’d been away from Harrow for long periods I didn’t know JT was going through some personal changes which were either influenced by his new girlfriend, Joy, or through his meditation techniques.

Or both. This involved taking a hard look at the inner self, never a good idea, and something called the primal scream48 which allegedly cleansed repressed childhood memories by screaming out the pain of inner turmoil. I never did get the handle on that as it sounded positively too mystic and hippie. Whatever the primal scream was JT was into it in a big way and like all born-agains everywhere he intended to pass this knowledge onto everyone else whether they needed it or not. He tried to pass it onto me in Leeds but I wasn’t buying into the mind trip.

The plan was JT would arrive Friday evening, stay over at Regents Park Terrace, then next day we’d meet up with John Hay & family in Otley for a gentle stroll across ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 225

the Chevin. All went well until Otley, where JT picked up a blockbuster49 of strong cider and by the time we were strolling along the Chevin JT was rascally drunk. Give the man his due, he could hold his drink but there was something else at work on him and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Whatever it was, it was making John and Sue nervous.

I was quite glad when we got back to Leeds, several pubs later, and that’s when the damn burst. JT, wrecked on rough cider, gave me the full throttle lecture about my cynical outlook on life and went ape, shouting his bad news trip. He told me I should scream out my pain. I told him I didn’t need to as I was quite happy with the way I was, thanks all the same.

What I refrained from saying was, I don’t need some spaced out zombie giving me life lessons. That would have been rude and may have resulted in a smack in the gob.

Next day, in company with a hard core ex-hippie contingent from Yorkshire TV, we went to Roundhay Park to see The Rolling Stones and, thankfully, all JT’s excesses of the night before had been forgotten. Almost.

x. CALENDAR COUNTRY In July Calendar promoted me to temporary full editor to cover for Tom Oliver while he was on leave. The theory amongst some of my staff colleagues was the management had one heck of a guilty conscience about turning me down for the staff job I was already doing as a freelance. Although there were no ‘hand grenades down the corridor’ from the staff assistants, one slightly disgruntled person did remark, ‘They’re only doing this because they feel sorry for you.’

How charming.

It was great to be working on top news stories at long last and by early August film director Graham Wetherell asked for, and got, me into the production department on Calendar Country. Not about the local countrside scenery I soon discovered but of the new generation of country and western singers50 in the region. Locations were spread around Hull, Doncaster, Harrogate, Scunthorpe and Barnsley filming the singers insitu against a background of the declining industrial north. It was a joy to work on and, with long hours51, worth every moment for my first production screen credit in three years.

I had my thirty-first birthday at the Pack Horse in Leeds, where Martin Carter played and Rob Nicholls had come up from Nottingham. I dragged Rob off to Otley Chevin, my ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 226

usual sight seeing destination for visitors, and had a wonderful weekend with friends.

After Calendar Country, my moment of glory over, I was back on the end credit background music films and all seemed well with the world. Gobbo came up from Harrow for a weekend and we spent time up on Ilkley Craggs in a fine drizzle. He was slightly older than my absent kids and in a way I think I may have taken him under my wing. Although I didn’t realise it at the time. Displacement theory. Gobbo exuded a sort of calm spirituality with a keen sense of humour and was good to have around.

Everyone in Leeds who met him, liked him straight away. Young women swooned and matronly ladies wanted to cuddle him. He was only eighteen but came over as a knowing 25-year-old.

My work bubble burst at the end of October when the local Union reps came to see me saying the Head of Film was prepared to offer me the staff job I’d previously been turned down for on medical grounds, but there were strings attached. YTV wouldn’t admit liability for their medical cock-up (haha). In all probability I would never be promoted beyond assistant editor and, by the look of the thing, YTV were taking me on permanently not because I was any good at the job but because, effectively, I was a cripple52 to be pitied. This was not the sort of thing one wanted to be known for and it would, by default, get their medic off the hook for a wrong diagnosis. It was, in short, a bribe. They gave me twenty-fours hours to decide how much pride I was willing to swallow for a staff job.

‘I don’t need that long,’ I told them. ‘I can’t take it.’

‘Thank God for that,’ said John Surtees. ‘If you’d agreed to their offer it’d allow the management to get rid of anyone on any old medical bullshit. You’re doing the right thing.’

I didn’t think I was doing the right thing at all. If it was the right thing I would have swallowed my pride and taken the job but, I reasoned, if I was good enough to be employed freelance then I was good enough for a staff job and was good enough back in May when they first offered the job. If this is how they operated they can shove it.

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 227

But instead I said, ‘I won’t be pitied by anyone because of a medical condition they know I don’t have.’

What next? No ethnic minorities? No disabled need apply? You haven’t got any kids so there must be something wrong with you, you’re sacked? Know your employment rights do you, a mentally ill barrack room lawyer, you’re sacked? Stuff ‘em!

My rolling contract was immediately terminated. The Calendar news editor, Graham Ironside, said he was disappointed I was leaving but understood why. I slunk off back to London on October 30th, sans last day piss-up, secretly afraid I might start crying.

xi. RHYME AND REASON - REPRISE I knew I’d miss Yorkshire, the people and the places but life moves on. It moved on to AZ Productions who were glad to see their wayward young film director returned to the fold and we got straight back into Rhyme & Reason production. Dave Clarke had put up a protest singer, Barry Ford, in Brixton where riots had recently taken place. With the recession and mass unemployment in run down inner city areas, under premiere Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s hard-line government, life was difficult for Black unemployed youth. It was made harder by the constant harassment of random racist stop and searches by the police, the notorious ‘sus’ laws. It took only one spark of resentment to kick the whole thing off again after the major nationwide riots of 1981.

I wasn’t looking forward to filming in Brixton in case something kicked off around us but met Bob Jones and his camera crew at Osbourne Sound at twelve noon on November 5th.53 The sound recordist was Peter Sutton54 and I couldn’t help noticing Paul Sharkey loading up more gear into Peter’s car than I remembered ordering.

‘What’s all this?’ I asked.

‘You’re going into a hazardous area. You’ll need radios55 in case anything kicks off,’ advised Paul.

‘Erm, how’s that going to work? If it kicks off and we radio in, by the time the coppers turn up we’ll be hairy lumps of charred grill.’

‘My boss won’t let you have the kit unless you take the radios.’

‘Ah. Carry on loading.’

I looked at our vehicles. Bob’s green Triumph and Peter’s yellow Capri with radio ariels on the roofs looked like something out of The Sweeney with us bundled up in woolly ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 228

hats and wind cheaters as if we were going on a dawn raid. In Brixton. Paranoia? Riots can kick off by silly misunderstandings which escalate and I didn’t want to get blamed for anything untoward later. Dave Clarke travelled with the camera crew in Bob’s car, I went with Peter. As we pulled into Barry’s street I got onto the new fangled radio.

‘Stay in the car until I’ve gained access to the premises.’

Yea God’s, I even sounded like the cops. There was no response from Bob because he was too busy overtaking us, barreling down the road and doubled parking outside Barry’s flat. The entire crew were out the car and running up the steps to the house.

Curtains were twitching.

‘Oh my good gawd!’ I managed was we stopped behind the Triumph.

The crew were fast workers and we got the film of Barry singing his song in the can, wrapped and on our way back to Soho by half past one. As Peter drove round Marble Arch he picked up the radio hand set.

‘Osbourne mobile one to Osbourne base.’

‘Osbourne base go ahead,’ came the radio distorted voice of Paul.

‘We’re ten minutes away.’

‘What’s your pleasure?’

‘Golf Tango.’ Peter looked across at me. ‘What do you want?’

‘What?’ I asked, confused by the question.

‘What do you want to drink?’

‘Oh er … a pint of Youngs, please.’

‘Osbourne base, the director would like a Yankee Alfa.’

‘Will do. Osbourne base to Osbourne mobile two …’

‘So … we had the radios because ..? I enquired.

Peter smiled, ‘Paul could get a gin & tonic for me and a Youngs Ale for you before last orders.’

Foxtrot Oscar, I thought. It was a new one on me and set the tone for later film shoots and not just for ordering drinks. Those radios would become a god-send working with crews who were out of line of sight or beyond shouting distance. In the pub, I asked Bob why he ignored my advice to stay in the car.

‘Because you didn’t say Osbourne mobile one to Osbourne mobile two,’ chipped in Paul.

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 229

‘Ah. I see,’ and asked Bob, ‘Did you know that?’

‘Yeah,’ said Bob, ‘You could have been anyone.’

‘Right,’ I wondered, not entirely convinced.

Radios were a new tool to learn and worth knowing. Never stop learning about new technology. Next day Bob and I went back to Brixton to film the cutaways of urban decay, him driving and me operating the camera out of the nearside passenger window.

The following week was spent editing the Barry Ford material at UMP and viewing Atom Bomb test archive film. JT came for a visit to see how the film was progressing.

‘Slowly,’ I told him, ‘because I don’t have an assistant.’

I asked JT if he wanted to do it, as he had assisted on Ice Cream Dream a few years before.

‘I’d like to but I’ve got a lot on. I don’t think Joy quite approves of you.’

‘Thanks. What a shame.’

‘Why don’t you ask Gobbo? He’s young, jobless and he’ll probably enjoy learning the trade.’

‘That’s a thought. Get ‘em while they’re young. And cheap56. D’you think he’ll do it, though?’

‘I’ll make sure he’s down The Roxborough tonight. Ask him.’

And that’s how Gobbo became my assistant for about three years, off and on, working on various music films. He started as a trainee assistant on November 12th and met Dave Clarke for the first time, in at the deep end, learning the craft. Dave was brash and in yer face while Gobbo was quiet, thoughtful and nobody’s fool. I think Gobbo handled him quite well considering Dave could even frighten me sometimes.

The following week Dave, Ted, Gobbo and I were at Mekon Studios, recording Martin Carter. I asked if we needed another run to double track Martin’s vocal but before anyone could move, Gobbo hit a button on the desk and Martin’s voice came out of the speakers double tracked.

‘How did you just do that?’

‘Ah, trade secret,’ replied Gobbo, slyly.

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 230

Sound recording was my weak point in the scheme of things and I was impressed the pupil was teaching the master. There were smiles around the control room and I could see trainee Gobbo had impressed a lot of people, he was that kind of guy and made friends easily. Years later I found out how Gobbo had known about double tracking Martin’s vocal. While I was out of the room, taking a leak, Gobbo had seen the engineer push the multi-track button so when I asked if we needed another run he knew what to do. The little scamp.

Dave said he had set up John Cooper57 for filming but he was unavailable at the time and we couldn’t hang about. The screening of the Barry Ford sequence was held at UMP on November 22nd with the full cast, crew and Claire from AZ Productions. It went down well and, as we retired to the pub, Claire took me aside.

‘How would you like to edit the Glastonbury Festival film? she asked.

‘Um, yeah, probably. As long as someone’s paying,’ I responded.

‘I’ll set it up.’

Editing a big festival film would mean taking time out from Rhyme & Reason but, I knew, the financial reward outstripped the delay. I could do with earning a few quid to supplement future filming. Later, in the pub, I found a quiet spot with Gobbo.

‘I may have to hold off production for a while. I’ve been offered another film.’

‘Oh,’ said Gobbo, disappointed that he was soon to be unemployed.

‘I want you to come with me if you’re available,’ I reassured him.

‘What’s the film?’ he asked, cheering up.

‘The Glastonbury Festival.’

And he cheered up considerably at that.

‘But its not signed on the line yet so don’t tell anyone,’ I continued.

It never did get signed on the line because there were confusing behind the scenes shenanigans about the film. An industry friend58 claimed the crew had seized the Glastonbury tapes, for non-payment of their invoices, and I should tread cautiously.

‘The Union are involved in recovering fees,’ my source continued, ‘and the Glastonbury management might try to get another editor on the film to bypass paying up. My advice is, don’t touch it with a barge pole.’

Yes, that could have got lively. In a trade union, of which I was a member, I could end up not getting paid59 and thrown out of the Union for crossing the line. There was ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 231

a meeting with Luke Jeans and John Lee at Atmosphere Studios who had the full story about the dispute on the Glastonbury film and decided the better part of valor was to steer clear. I had to tell Claire I wasn’t interested unless they paid a third and a third and a third60 but the Glastonbury management weren’t prepared to do that. The worse bit was having to tell Gobbo his dreams hadn’t come true. He took it quite well.

Yorkshire TV offered a month’s contract back in Leeds. I told them I was working on another picture and had filming dates in December. They said they could work around them. Being a sucker for a paid job I agreed. I guess I was missing Leeds more than I thought. Dumped back to being an assistant editor again, working for Graham Shipton on a drama with John Thaw, Killer Waiting. Back into the routine of 16mm film, Tetley’s ale and curries at the local Taj restaurant. I served out my time at YTV until the last day of 1982. The end of a contract and the end of an era in my life. Or so I thought.

CHAPTER 7 - FOOTNOTES 1

I got lost in the corridors on my way to the telecine area and almost missed transmission

2

gallows humour

3

Peter Cracknel was 1st assistant director on the 1968 film Battle of Britain and I

couldn’t figure out how he wound up at Yorkshire TV 4

mute = film shot without sound

5

The Belmont transmitter took in parts of Lincolnshire and had its own studio

6

several long corridors away from the news room

7

he had a French mother

8

literally

9

later renamed Conductors’ for reasons no one has ever understood

10

Petard – a short fuse French mine hoisted onto castle walls to bring them down,

notorious for exploding early thus killing the hoister 11

the saying at the time was, ‘what the Luftwaffe couldn’t achieve in 1940, destroying

the country’s industrial infrastructure, Thatcher’s policies were finishing off in the 1980s’ 12

a fortified cordial drink which claimed to ‘fortify the over forties’

13

nickname – Attila The Bun, on account of his huge spherical beer gut

14

it must have been the long hair

15

without a hat on ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 232

16

The Yorkshire Three Peaks walk takes in the peaks of Pen-y-ghent (691 metres),

Whernside (728 metres) and Ingleborough (723 metres) in under 12 hours. These peaks form part of the Pennine range and encircle the head of the valley of the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. And far too gruelling for a weed like me.

17

They had already promoted someone from within the company but were going through

the motions of advertising the job because the Union said they should 18

a swift half – a euphemism for a boys night out on the ale

19

grab an attacker’s thumb, twist it backwards so the attacker has to go with it or break

their digit and the theory is it gets them on the floor unable to move.

20

Middlesex Housing Association

21

a Woman Police Constable, now an anachronistic term

22

an implement used in the smoking of cannabis

23

the landing adjacent to JT’s flat let out onto, via the fire escape door, a flat roof over

the apartments below, often used in summer as a roof garden.

24

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

25

there are no exceptions to this

26

Generally if you ask over the odds for a job, pricing yourself out of the market for a

job you don’t want to do, people will leave you alone. The downside to this is they might not.

27

JT secretly referred to Gobbo as his trainee hippie

28

Unofficial because he was still employed by the MCPS

29

May the Fourth be with you

30

white

31

long-hairs need not apply

32

the new YTV union rep

35

source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068611/trivia

36

story spiked due to a Royal Wedding

37

there was a train strike which meant London freelancers had to take domestic flights

to get home. British Midland, seizing the opportunity, lowered their internal flight fares to that of the train. I asked the travel agent what kind of aircraft it would be and, smiling, she said, ‘I think you’ll like it sir, it’s a little Fokker.’

38

Leeds, the highest airport in England, elevation of 681ft ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 233

39

“We fear for the future of all our children and for the future of the living world which

is the basis of all life.”

40

501st Tactical Missile Wing’s motto: yes we can

41

For more information see,

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/greenham-page1.html 42

Convoy Steve

43

Fleet Street, London, where most of the national newspaper offices were based

44

when in doubt, leave it out

45

Convoy Steve

46

thought to refer to the main Women’s ‘yellow’ gate camp

47

London, “Stones In The Park”

48

not the band

49

two litres

50

including Benny Lee “Miner’s Anthem” & “Magic Underpants”, John J. Paul “Wide Open

Spaces”, John Aston’s “Cowboys Don’t Ride Horses Anymore” with studio appearances from Tammy Cline “Two More Bottles of Wine” and Mel Hague & The Bootleg Boys “Its Hard To Be Humble”.

51

1am night sleeper from London, location filming from 6am to 10pm, the longest day

52

their word not mine

53

as the old rhyme goes, ‘Remember, remember, the 5th of November, gunpowder,

treason and plot …’ on the day Guy Fawkes tried and failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

54

Credits included The Magic Christian, Return of The Pink Panther, Star Wars episode

5 (Oscar for best sound), Great Muppet Caper and Dark Crystal 55

this was pre-mobile phone days

56

The trainee rate was about £100 a week

57

Unfortunately, I can’t remember if this was punk poet John Cooper Clarke (no relation)

or not and, if so, we missed a trick not getting him into the film 58

possibly Paul Sharkey

59

if the management hadn’t paid the original crew, non-payment tends to be contagious

throughout a production, so I probably wouldn’t see any wages either 60

a third of the fee up front, a third on first day of editing and a third on completion.

ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 234

CHAPTER 7 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 190 - Al the long-haired weirdo at Yorshire TV, 1981 Keith Campling at Yorshire TV, 1981 Luke Perry at Yorshire TV, 1981 Al’s cutting room at Yorshire TV, 1981 Page 191 - Ernie Woods at Yorshire TV, 1981 Calendar newsroom, 1981 Tom Oliver at Yorshire TV, 1981 Richard Gregory producer at Yorshire TV, 1981 Page 192 - Editor’s notice Page 193 - Gordon Hopps at Yorshire TV, 1981 Derelict house near Yorshire TV, 1981 Lead City at dusk, 1981 Hyde Park Road journey to work, 1981 Page 197 - John Hay, Otley 1981 John & Sue Hay, Otley 1981 Al & Sue, Otley 1981 Otley 1981 Page 198 - Michael Foot speaking at the CND demo, Hyde Park London Child protester at the CND demo, Hyde Park London Placard at the CND demo, Hyde Park London Page 217 - Viscount aircraft of British Midland Airways, Yeadon Airport Page 218 - Stav, Harrow freak driving to Greenham Common Festival Dawn site, Greenham Common Festival Rico’s Lounge, Greenham Common Festival Acid Bud, Greenham Common Festival Page 219 - Hot knives, Greenham Common Festival Dawn site, Greenham Common Festival Gobbo & Stav, Greenham Common Festival Tony Stoner, Greenham Common Festival Page 220 - The Harrow freaks, Greenham Common Festival * ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 235

Page 221 - Harrow Camp, Greenham Common Festival Harrow Massive, Greenham Common Festival Missile Site fence, Greenham Common Festival JT & Joy, Greenham Common Festival Page 222 - Wagons and horses at the Greenham Common Festival Page 225 - Sue, Al & JT, Otley JT, Otley Sue & JT, Otley Sue, Jogn & JT, Otley Page 227 - Gobbo visits Leeds Page 230 - Gobbo working for Pixie Productions

* ILKLEY MOOR WITHOUT A HAT - PAGE 236

8

YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN1

i. FULL OF EASTERN PROMISE Remembering my 1977 encounter with Anglia Television and their funny little ways concerning the length of a person’s hair I was a little reticent taking a short term freelance contract with them in mid-January 1983. That in mind, I took myself off to the local barber’s for a trim.

‘You sure?’ asked my barber.

‘They’re a funny old lot, they once turned me down for a job because I had long hair,’ I explained.

‘Well, you know your own mind best,’ came the laconic reply, ‘I’d tell them to get stuffed, meself. Collar length, you say?’

‘Yes. Sadly. I used to think long hair was the answer to life itself.’

Snip. Snip-snip-snip. Later, brushing myself down and feeling somewhat draughty about the neck, I looked down sorrowfully at my severed locks.

‘I hope you’re not thinking of selling that to a wig maker,’ I observed.

‘Perish the thought,’ said my barber, as he swept my long blond strands into a careful neat heap.

Of course when I arrived in the Anglia News studios in Norwich I discovered the company had dragged itself, sartorially speaking, into the latter part of the 20th century and most of my freelance colleagues, most of whom I knew from other TV stations, were all as big a bunch of long-haired freaks as anyone could wish to meet.

‘You cut it off!’ laughed John Mister.2 ‘You’ll regret that when the Norfolk snows come,’ advised Roy Perkins.3 ‘Good God, you’ve got a neck,’ declared Gloria Cooper.4 ‘Yes well, when I tried to get a job here six years ago all they went on about was the length of my hair and I didn’t get the job. Its not like they didn’t give fair warning. Mind you, it’s improved my peripheral vision.

I can see buses coming without turning my head when I try to cross the road,’ I responded lamely.

Anglia News was much like Calendar except the news stories had a more parochial feel. Farm fires, road traffic accidents and YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 238

what the ‘plucky’ cancer victims were up to. The newsreaders all sounded like they were talking to three-year-olds. Isn’t that jolly, jolly good. And quite possibly, nice.

Actually, they all sounded like the sons and daughters of the local gentry who long ago developed a tone of voice for the serfs and weren’t about to let go of the vocal intonations of their forbears. Reporting on people with terminal illnesses, especially the young5, were always “bravely battling cancer, refusing to let illness get in the way” of their lives. Or “brave 3-year-old Timmy who needs an operation.” I strongly suspected these stories were to cover up bad news on the jobs front. “You 3-million unemployed think you’ve got it bad well what about poor little Timmy.” Whatever the reason, we were no longer in the realms of northern conurbations with their urban problems.

My immediate problem was to find accommodation and John Mister suggested the Maid’s Head Hotel which turned out to be a posh joint whose staff had heard stories of people coming from London but never really believed we existed. I had to ask a colleague why the locals were so suspicious of us.

‘You have to remember the last time someone came up from the south they brought the combine harvester with them which put most of their ancestors out of work,’ explained John Mister. ‘They don’t get out much, what with Norfolk being surrounded on three sides by the sea and on one side by an indifferent trains service and the A11, the road to nowhere.’

The Maid’s Head put me in a room next to the lift which had the drawback of whirling up and down all night next to where I was trying to sleep and loud voiced, drunken sales reps who woke everyone up in the early hours when they staggered back from whatever night club they’d just been thrown out of. Given a sharp suit, a Ford Cortina and loadsamoney, they thought they owned the world. At that time, in those days they probably did. Whirling lift accompanied by loud carousing with a finale of noisy puking three rooms away. How absolutely lovely. Next morning a meagre breakfast was served by obdurate waitresses who kept staring daggers in case I turned out to be a pikie who’d slipped past the strict dress code, probably there to steal the silver. I stayed a week before decamping to the Castle Hotel. When I came to pay my bill at the end of the week the receptionist asked, ‘I hop you enjoyed yew stay hur.’

‘Not especially. I’m moving to the Castle Hotel,’ I said in case the management ever thought of losing their Basil Fawlty attitudes.

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‘Ooo, oi’m sorry to hur tha’,’ said the receptionist, brutally stamping my receipt into submission.

‘Anyway, not to worry, it’s closer to where I work.’

‘An’ woes tha’ then m’dear?’ asked the receptionist with dull automatic eyes.

‘Anglia TV.’ Her penny dropped just as I reached the street door and she came clattering unsteadily over on high heels, with promises of a better room. I had no idea the words Anglia TV held so much sway in the small provincial town. Apparently it held god-like status in the minds of shopkeepers, taxi drivers and inn keepers alike who mistook where I worked for who I am. Anglia TV was one of the highest paying jobs in a town who, according to local legend, only took the very best people. To me it was just another job on the ITV circuit. The Castle Hotel was slightly less posh than the snooty Maid’s Head with the advantage of being a short stagger from the studios. At least they understood the concept of customer service. The trick was, on Monday evenings checking in, to get a room which fronted on to Castle Meadow. Rooms at the back suffered from the all night shenanigans of bakers playing tin can football in the shabby alleyway behind, curiously named Castle Street.

A vaguery of Anglia News was the way assistant editors cut the mute news stories.

Instead of voicing these in from studio, like Calendar, the reporters recorded their voice overs on quarter inch tape which had to be edited to the film. If you weren’t used to it, editing audio tape was a messy and confusing business involving an ancient tape recorder6, a steel block, a razor blade and sticky tape. It was like something Blue Peter might have conjured up as a joke. And it had to be done fast. I asked why the reporters didn’t record onto 16mm mag stock but the answer was the inevitable, yes you’ve guessed it, it’s against Union rules. Luddite land. After a week on the local news I was moved into documentaries with editor Richard Kennon on Bygones which was a half hour series on old farm implements and other antiquities. This might have been boring but for the fact that the films had no audio until I let rip with sound effects, beefing up the style by hunting up live audio with the assistance of the sound department. Richard was a former RN submariner who, when confronted by a heinous deadline, would call out the orders for a crash dive. The first time he did it I thought he’s lost his mind.

‘Close all watertight doors, flood Q, periscope depth, full ahead both, watch that YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 240

bubble coxswain!’

Eventually I got used to it. And sometimes joined it.

The series was directed by David Kenton, a large imposing gentleman, who on one occasion turned to me in a dubbing session to asked in a stentorian tone, ‘What is your name?’

Fearing I had perhaps gone a bit too mad with the sound effects, I told him and wondered if I should have added ‘sir.’ Carefully writing my name in his notebook he turned to me saying, ‘I’m going to give you an end credit as dubbing editor for your sound effects. Most of the staff here don’t bother.’

I fairly glowed with pride.

As Roy Perkins lived a few stops up the Metropolitan Line from me in Northwood, he got into the habit of giving me a lift to and from Norwich every week, sharing the petrol costs. He drove a blue Ford which looked like a huge box on wheels and thereafter became known as ‘The Big Blue Whale.’7 We once got pulled by the police on the A505, near the aptly named town of Royston, when he’d forgotten to wear his seat belt. Roy had a knack for the snappy comment and I was praying he wouldn’t say something untoward to these huge coppers and upset them. I wasn’t with him the night he got pulled in Norwich, just after a blameless London film editor got shot nine times in a case of mistaken identity and when the Norwich cops asked what he did for a living, Roy responded with, ‘I’m a film editor. What are going to do? Shoot me?’

Ah, the joy of Roy. Another old Thames TV hand who joined the throng of London freelance at Anglia was Bill Garlict and a face from the distant past, Mike Cummings, whom I hadn’t seen since those long-ago days of Top of The Pops at Group One Productions.

Eventually everyone got to know everyone else on the ITV freelance circuit and often found ourselves working with old friends. The highest paid gypsies in the country, a cadre of 400-quid a week freelance assistant film editors. In early February I got caught for a late news story and missed my Friday night train back to London. Up stepped Mike Cummings who kindly offered a lift back to Harrow, on his way home to nearby Rickmansworth. Now it was good of the bloke to help me out, to be sure, but Mike was one the worst drivers I’d ever known. How he passed his driving test was beyond me.

Mike was a likable guy8 but his without due care and attention approach to motoring was heart stopping. I can’t for the life of me, looking back, remember why I didn’t buy YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 241

a car. The end of my contract came in midFebruary and, home again, was confronted by a letter from the Inland Revenue. It took two days to work up the courage to open the envelop and when I did the figure was enormous until I read it again and realised it was a rebate. Deep joy.

ii. BACK TO GREENHAM COMMON February 20th and back to the neverending saga of Rhyme & Reason, filming with Bob Jones and his crew, including a female9 sound recordist, at the Greenham Women’s Peace camp. We dragged Gobbo out to give him location experience and, waiting in the van outside his flat while he finished preening himself, Bob made a Beckett connection which had previously escaped us all.

‘I’ve just realised what we’re doing here.

We’re waiting for Gobbo.’

Groans all round. Our day started outside Holloway Women’s Prison where a group of Greenham Women were holding a vigil for their sisterhood who were banged up inside. Stepped forward Debbie the sound recordist who tried to interview them but the Greenham Women failed to respond.

It was like we had been wiped out of their field of reality. We didn’t exist. Oh-kay. We retreated to the other side of the road and filmed everything on a long lens. A copper YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 242

strolled up asking who we were.

‘Local news,’ I lied10.

‘Right. And you’re leaving soon aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Right now, officer.’

‘Good because I don’t want to have to arrest you for filming outside one of her Majesty’s Prisons.’

Which may have been an arrestable offence but probably not from the other side of the road, fifty yards away. Why argue and make a copper’s day. As the last piece of kit was being loaded into the back of our white, long wheelbase transit van11 we were approached by two Greenham Women. They looked frail of temperament, emaciated and glued together. Literally.

They spoke barely above a whisper which is why it took so long to figure out what they wanted. A lift to Greenham. Fine by me, whatever it takes to get down with the Greenham Women, showing up with the sisterhood. They sat right at the back of the van, spoke in whispers to each other and to us not at all. Debbie tried to make conversation but the moment anyone spoke to them it was like they switched off from the world, life draining from their eyes. To tell the truth they were a bit spooky. Their all pervading pall of gloom was so palpable they killed all conversation in the van. As we arrived at the main gate of the Air Base YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 243

the two Greenham Women skipped joyously away to join their comrades, Bob turned to me and said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’

I knew exactly what he meant and apologised.

‘Its women like that who give the feminist movement a bad name,’ said Debbie, shuddering.

We filmed the ‘yellow’ gate protest camp without incident and managed to get an interview with one of the more mature Greenham Women. As we were finishing Bob asked if there was anything more I needed to cover, the interviewee jumped in and warned us not to go up to the women only ‘green’ camp. I was just about to call it a day when a man in a suit, who reeked of Special Branch, wandered up.

‘You know this is common land? You can film anywhere you like. Don’t let these women tell you what to do.’

I could see Bob was up for it but I wasn’t so sure, suspicious of Mr. Special Branch’s motives. He gave us helpful directions of how to find the camp and I had to give Gobbo a frown in case he let on we already knew. Been there, done that, had the gun in my face. As we loaded up the van and drove off I noticed Mr. Special Branch get into his car and drive into the Base.

‘All right,’ I said, ‘we may as well give it a look. But if it turns dodgy, we leave.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you sound a little paranoid,’ said Bob. ‘In my experience random men in suits don’t tell film makers about their rights as to where they can film near a US air base. It think we’re being set up.’

Gobbo, sitting up front, gave Bob detailed directions.

‘You’ve been here before?’ asked Bob. ‘I’ll explain later,’ I said, in case Gobbo decided to mention our previous psychedelic experiences.

As we approached the ‘green’ gate I asked Bob to park just short of the perimeter fence. Debbie and I got out and went in search of the women only camp. There was no sign of them as we wandered over to where the Convoy had camped, near the cruise missile bunkers, back in July. The site was clear.

‘I don’t want to worry you,’ said Debbie, ‘but we’re being watched.’

‘Two guys standing on top of a bunker. One with binoculars, one taking photos. I’d give them a wave but it might annoy them.’

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‘Well there’s no sign of any women …’

‘Waste of time. Let’s get out of here.’ I decided.

We followed the perimeter fence to the ‘green’ gate where Mr. Special Branch was waiting for us. He must have floored it across the air base to get there. That settled it as far as I was concerned.

‘You’re looking in the wrong place,’ he advised. ‘They’re on the other side of the road.’

We looked to where he was pointing. A dense forest with no light. The chances were if we went in and the women kicked off, we’d never get out in one piece, tripping over in the gloom and probably with a smashed camera.

‘No. I’ll give it a miss thanks.’

‘They’re right there,’ insisted Mr. Special Branch, pointing at nothing but trees.

‘Its too dark to film and we haven’t got any lights.’

‘You’ve got nothing to worry about. Its quite light once you get inside.’

As far as I was concerned Mr. Special Branch had crumbed his play. Nice try but I’m not falling for it. We left him at the gate and walked back to where Bob and the crew were waiting for us in the van. I saw the white transit ahead and beckoned it to come and pick us up. It didn’t move. As we got closer we could see it had a blue light on top and was crammed full of burly policemen. So was the van behind that and the van behind that. The fourth white van was ours.

‘Don’t anyone say a word,’ I said, as we climbed aboard, ‘we’re being scrutinized.’

No one spoke until we were passed Newbury, heading towards the M4.

‘Call me Mr. Paranoid but I think we just escaped being banged up,’ I said.

‘For filming a women’s peace camp? asked Bob, incredulously.

‘I think we were meant to go into that wood so the women would riot and give the police the excuse to arrest them all.’ There was a thoughtful silence.

‘Or,’ said Gobbo, ‘they would have arrested us for starting a riot.’

‘What makes you think that?’ asked Debbie.

‘There’s been stuff in the papers about the cops blaming news crews for provoking the women to violence.’

‘And that guy was pretty insistent we should film the women,’ I said. ‘It’d prove their point if we tried to film the women and they kicked off. When did the riot vans turn up?’

‘About a minute after you got out of the van,’ said Gobbo. ‘That wasn’t co-incidence.’

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‘And there were soldiers on top of bunkers taking our photos,’ said Debbie.

We

lapsed

into

another

thoughtful

silence. Bob wasn’t contributing to the conversation. I got the distinct impression we were scaring him. Well, cops don’t do that sort of thing. Do they?

Much to Gobbo’s disgust I had to farm out the editing to Uris Ekts at Aspect Films. I asked Uris if he would take Gobbo on as trainee and, to give him experience with another editor, Uris agreed if I paid Gobbo’s wages direct. Fine by me but for reasons unknown Gobbo didn’t want to do that. We spent the next week editing the Greenham and library films to the session recordings of God On Our Side and Give Peace a Chance which were shown to Claire Rawcliffe at AZ Films on the last day of February. In early March Gobbo wobbled round to ask for his job back but, so far as I was concerned, he never actually lost it. We celebrated his return to the fold by wandering off to Stanmore Common with friends and ended up sitting in what forever after became known thereafter as ‘The Hippie Tree.’ Five Go Mad on Stanmore Common but without the dog. We got back to Harrow just in time to receive a phone call asking if I’d go back to Anglia News for three weeks and the joys of Norwich.

‘That’s why,’ I explained to Gobbo, ‘I had to farm the editing out to Uris, because I need to work away to make money and these breaks are holding up Rhyme and Reason production12.’

So on March 7th I decamped to groovy Norwich and Gobbo started work in Soho. The lucky scamp.

iii. HAIL THE CONQUERING FREELANCER RETURNS One uneventful week on Anglia News was followed by two creative weeks with Richard Kennon on Bygones, marred by the tragic news from Leeds that director David St David Smith and cameraman Graham Barker had gone down in a helicopter crash over the River Humber. Apparently they were filming a ship steaming down the river and when the helicopter pilot backed away the rotor blades hit the ship’s mast and they went straight in. Only the pilot got out as it sank. I phoned Calendar to pay my respects but YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 246

Keith Campling was too stunned to speak.

My memory of Graham Barker was of a middle-aged grumpy cameraman who once gave me a public drubbing of the “you young long-haired film school types,” with everyone giggling behind his back because they knew what was likely to come out of my mouth once his tirade was over.

‘Nah, I never went to film school. I learned my ignorance the same way as you, pal.’ which was the best put down I could think of at the time and now makes me cringe every time I remember it.

Be nice to people no matter what the provocation, for they may not be around long.

On my last day at Anglia TV I got a call from Leeds asking if I’d come back to work on Calendar, that rare but welcome ending of a contract on a Friday and picking another one up the following Monday. Calendar producer Richard Gregory announced, ‘Hail the conquering hero returns,’ as I entered the newsroom and said he was over the moon at my arrival.13 Although most of the news staff were somewhat overwhelmed by my short hair. No more the long haired weirdo. It felt good to working with people who made every day fun and, like I’d come home, was given an end credit music sequence to cut of Castle Howard. Later that evening, out for a swift half with Ernie, he told me there were eight staff editor’s jobs going at YTV and I should apply. Well, not if it involved a medical.

That weekend was spent filming more Rhyme & Reason with John Boulter at Aldermaston weapons centre and Greenham Common when 10,000 people linked hands around the bases. Because I wasn’t insured to drive John’s car this involved him driving while I pointed the camera out of the passenger window in a sort of slow drive-by, filming the protestors. John got into the melee at the front gate of Greenham where the Women held a sit-in singing merry, happy-clappy protest songs. Well that should keep the Musicians Union off my back. Keep music live! By the time I got back to my flat Mark Wood, an old freak from back in the day, and Gobbo were waiting outside my front door.

We went for an Indian meal and I could tell they were bursting to tell me something. It turned out the flat beneath JT at Roxborough Court, no:5, was becoming vacant and the MHA said Mark could have it if he found someone who’d share with him. Being a bit of a cynic it occurred Mark chose me as a co-tenant because he knew I was usually working away from London but since my Kenton Road abode was expensive and hardly used I YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 247

agreed. We went to look over the flat next day and were subtly railroaded into helping the incumbent tenant, Graham Humphry, to move out. JT and Joy arrived later at my flat to discuss the new arrangements and I got the distinct feeling this had all been set up in advance. I didn’t need much encouragement, though, to be out of Kenton Road.

Back at Calendar, since my long absence, a new strand called The Friday Special had been introduced to the news which was a magazine style round up of the forthcoming weekend events. I was given the music part to work on with my ‘zany’14 style. Well, if they wanted zany who was I to stand in their way. I found a psychedelic track from a Gong album and zanied away like mad on a four minute sequence which involved a lot Jon Felix’s psychedelic camera work and his big box of filters. Richard Gregory loved it, everybody loved it but with the down-side that YTV weren’t renewing my contract. Oh. Just when I was getting into the swing of things. Such is the freelancer’s lot. On the last day of contract I had my staff editor’s interview; I came on in the same old way and didn’t get the job in the same old way.

The following Monday I was in court as a witness to JT’s case against Carla, the record player slayer. It was the first time YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 248

I’d seen JT in a suit and it was good to see the old freak scrubbed up so well. Carla crumbed her play with the Beak by constantly interrupting with irrelevant comments of the ‘smelly hippie’ variety. The Court found for JT with costs and damages against Carla. The Beak asked both parties to shake hands but Carla refused. I’d never seen JT so happy, the thought that the establishment on the side of the freaks for a change, but it was sad to see their dispute end in court.

iv. OF BUNS AND A NEW ABODE I went back to work on Rhyme & Reason with Uris and Gobbo. Paul Sharkey introduced me to producer Vance Goodwin who was interested in taking on the film which was good news because AZ Films seemed to be dragging their feet. Admittedly, I was working away from London a lot but with a full-on producer we might actually see an end to the pilot programme. Vance said he’d think about it.

One of my culinary peccadilloes was herbal buns. I had got out of the habit of making them for several years but with time on my hands, I decided to try again. Gobbo came over for a food tasting. I mean, I didn’t want to poison anyone but he decided I’d got the recipe just right. Word must have gotten around as freaks variously showed up at my door asking to try my rock cakes. They seemed to have a relaxing effect on people, so relaxed in fact some of them fell slumped into a haze and keeled over. It was the lack of herbs which put an end to my special buns.

Gobbo mentioned a CND concert was to be held at Brockwell Park in south London and should we film it for Rhyme & Reason? I said I’d enquire of Dave Clarke. At the back end of April Dave said yes we should and he had already made arrangements, clearing the rights, for us to film Clint Eastwood. There then followed a lengthy confusion until we realised Clint Eastwood was an Afro-Caribbean singer with a band called General Saint. Or possible the other way around. Crews were scurried together with John Boulter and Stuart Bennett on cameras and Bob Nightingale on sound.

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Just when I thought it was safe, YTV Calendar called me to Leeds for a month so I left the last minute pre-production details between Dave and Gobbo. Well he’d got to learn to take responsibility some time.

Assuming I was to work on The Friday Special it was a considerable disappointment to be back with Attila The Bun on a children’s programme, Doris The Cat, which had a long way to go before it came up to Magic Roundabout standards. There was just time to scoot down to London on May 7th to film the Brockwell Park CND Concert before scooting hastily back to Leeds for Doris The Cat the following Monday. To save time I sometimes took the night sleeper which consisted of one coach15from Euston which, cobbled onto various trains enroute, eventually sat in Leeds Station until the Guard woke us up to serve tea and biscuits. That sleeper coach was a last remnant of a splendid railway age gone by and I doubt we shall ever its like again. As soon as my time on Doris The Cat ended, and with it my final contract16 at YTV, I scampered back to London to get on with Rhyme & Reason. I was so disappointed at losing a staff job at YTV twice and hustled off the prestigious Friday Special, probably because the management thought I had ambitions above my station, I left Leeds vowing never to return.

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With Uris busy elsewhere I hired a cutting room at UMP, with Gobbo assisting, and jolly well got on with editing the Brockwell Park material and making the final cut for the long, overdue pilot programme. Enough is enough. At some point Dave Clarke showed up in the cutting room to check on progress and went nuts when he saw what I’d done with the Greenham Women sequence. For some inexplicable reason he thought Yoko Ono, who at the time owned the rights to all the Beatle’s music, would sue us. I honestly didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I shrugged. Dave had cleared the music, we’d recorded a cover version and Yoko Ono would get the publishing royalties. I looked at Gobbo. We both shrugged, bewildered.

‘What’s the problem?’ I asked.

‘You can’t use Give Peace a Chance with film of the Greenham Women!’ shrieked Dave, ‘Yoko One will sue you for defamation!’

He was becoming so strident, other editors were wandering into the corridor to see what all the fuss was about. I oddly wondered if we’d been transported to a different planet where the laws of logic no longer applied. Dave looked like he was about to have a seizure. I tried humour.

‘Well she’s welcome to sue me, of course. I don’t have any money so it won’t be worth her while in the long run.’

‘She’ll sue you precisely because you don’t have any money. As an example to other film makers for misusing Beatle songs.’

‘I don’t get where you’re coming from,’ I tried, ‘it’s a song about peace set to film of the Peace Women. How is that in some way wrong?’

‘If you can’t see the blindingly obvious staring in the face then I’m longer prepared to help you,’ he shouted and flounced out of the cutting room.

He got an ironic cheer from the other editors who knew a twit when they saw one. A moment’s hiatus. I looked at Gobbo.

‘I know you’re only a lowly paid trainee, Gobbo, but on this one special occasion I’d like you to tell me what I missed just then?’

‘Oh that’s easy,’ said Gobbo. ‘The man’s an asshole.’

‘Oh thank god for that. I was beginning to think my head had come undone.’

Totally fazed we adjourned to the pub round the corner for a swift half. Bob Jones and his crew joined us and we were quietly supping when Dave Clarke, whom we hadn’t YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 251

seen in a corner of the pub, came steaming over to give us his wisdom.

‘I’m trying to help you out here and this is how you repay me, you’re an amateur who won’t take advice and you’ll never make it in the film business with your naïve hippie ideas.’

Wow. That told me.

‘I’ve known this guy for years,’ Bob tried. ‘He’s a known professional film director.’

At which point Gobbo stood up. I got the distinct impression he was about to lamp Dave but instead looked down at me and said, calmly, ‘Coming?’

Which was the right thing to do. Leave. Don’t make the mistake of arguing with an angry person. Especially not in a pub which could so easily be mistaken for a drunken brawl. I couldn’t stop myself from making a leave-taking comment, though.

‘By the way Dave, you’re sacked.’ It was heartfelt.

We were halfway up Fitzroy Street when we heard Bob Jones scampering up behind us, full of anguished woe.

‘We’ve had a word with Dave, set him straight on a few things here and there and he wants to apologise.’

I looked at Gobbo, my barometer of people’s moods, who shrugged.

‘You’re the guv’nor17, guv.’

Back in the pub I kept it low key and let Dave talk his way out of the deep pit he’d dug for himself. Always give an angry person an avenue of escape. The upshot was, he claimed, the film business is different from how the music business works and, yes, the film director is the guv’nor of the production and he agreed not to call the film director’s professionalism into question again. But without actually apologising. And that was as good as it was going to get. Back inside the tent pissing out.

In late May, Mark and I moved into YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 252

Roxborough Court and held a soiree with friends. I had finally arrived into the hearth and home of Harrow freakdom. Later that afternoon I escaped with Gobbo and Nick up Harrow Hill with a Frisbee. Nick was of shorter statue than us and we discovered if he stood downhill, the Frisbee would sail past overhead just out of his reach.

He spent a lot of time running down the hill chasing the thing while Gobbo and I cruelly laughed. After a while we changed ends.

I took the small bedroom at the back of no:5 Roxborough Court, overlooking the Hill, but sans curtain rail. Not being gifted in the use of power tools it became quite a mission to get the thing up and involved much cursing, brick dust, screw plugs, screws and grunting. Finally I got the thingl up and we held the Grand Opening of The Curtain Pail Party with everyone from the flats and local curious freaks to celebrate the event. With everyone crammed into my tiny room, I grasped the curtains firmly, pulled them apart and - the whole lot fell down, amid screams of laughter. Gough, a builder living at no:10, inspected my handiwork.

‘Ah. I can see the problem right there.

You’ve tried to drill into the concrete lintel.’

‘What’s a lintel?’

More gales of laughter.

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‘It’s the concrete beam over the window. It stops the wall above falling in.’

‘Ah.’ We adjourned to the flat roof over Bill’s apartment, no:4, which had been appointed over the years with old sofas and chairs, for a cider driven soiree.

Since I knew how to cook, a life alone will do that to a man, we invited JT, Joy and Gobbo over for Sunday lunch. The dessert course was a gigantic strawberry layer cake with butter cream filling. Word got round that I’d been baking again so come Sunday we had a flat full of freaks staring at the cake. Everyone said they enjoyed it very much but it lacked a certain something. Yes. Herbs.

Since the previous tenant had used what was now my bedroom as an office-comejunk room it hadn’t been decorated for years. I chose an eye watering pot of lime green and purchased the brushes. How hard could it be? Where I went wrong, of course, was forgetting the air pressure involving open windows and doors. I took the lid off the paint pot and, in the sweltering heat, decided to take my pre-decorating cup of tea out on the back fire escape at which point the back door slammed shut, locking myself out of the flat. No worries, all I had to do was walk down the fire escape and go around to the front of the building and up the stairs to the flat door. Which was when I discovered I’d left my house keys inside the flat. Ah! Up the fire escape again, onto the flat roof where I dozed all day waiting for Mark to get home from work. By the time he arrived I was fried to a crisp. Next day painting began, remembering this time to keep my keys in my pocket to avoid any breeze driven door slamming incidents. Mark thought the colour lurid while Gobbo mentioned something about puke. I found it relaxing.

My portable TV had good reception back in Kenton Road and I assumed, wrongly, what with Roxborough Court being higher up the hill, TV reception in the new flat would be the same or better. It wasn’t. It ranged between white noise and rapid horizontal flicker. JT appraised us of a spare TV ariel on the roof which wasn’t attached to anything.

Mark and I bought a very long cable to achieve this and almost went insane trying to connect it up. The result was a slightly better picture with added snow.

v. ON THE ROAD AGAIN – STONEHENGE 1983 Just when I thought we’d finished the pilot episode for Rhyme & Reason, AZ Films decided we needed more youth cutaways for the final edit. We all knew the Stonehenge YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 254

Peoples’ Free Festival was coming around again so I fell back on the easy option and got a crew together to shuffle off to Wiltshire for Summer Solstice.

Cine Lingual Sound Studios asked if I’d take a couple of their lads with the crew, to gain location experience, in return for a discount on my next studio session. Fine by me. Andy Snowley18 was attached to the sound department and Steve BrookeSmith19 on the camera crew with Stuart Bennett. We weren’t interested in filming the bands just the crowds of festival goers.

Of course, word got around the Harrow freaks that Steve and I were taking a van full of camera kit down to Stonehenge and were queuing up at my door, I kid you not, to get a lift down to the festival. I figured it would do our street cred20 no harm and agreed to take some of them on the understanding no one smoked anything of a herbal nature in the van. Nothing the coppers loved more than stripping down fourteen boxes of delicate optical equipment on the road side to check serial numbers for stolen property and I didn’t want to give them the excuse if they gave us a tug and smelled herbs in the truck. Its not so much the hassle of the cops taking everything apart, standing on a windswept verge, then spending hours reassembling the lenses back together as the cops drive YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 255

off, laughing as they go. I’d known bands have their amps torn apart in the search for illicit substances.

Steve and I left sleepy Harrow on the afternoon of June 17th, with a van full of camera kit & freaks, and arrived unmolested at the Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival by early evening. We parked up at the back of the site, well away from the hurly-burly and let the freaks out, who practically fell out amid a haze of blue fug.

The plan was to take a look around the site, to see what we could film ready for when the main crew turned up next day.

Armed with an Osbourne Sound walkietalkie I stood in a lay-by on the A303, calling the crew who had the other radio so we didn’t get lost in the crowd. Then I remembered Brixton and who a person could look, standing there with a radio in his hand. I wasn’t getting any reply but the crew saw me by line of sight anyway and stopped.

‘Why didn’t you respond to the radio?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I forgot to turn it on guv,’ said Stuart, innocently. They will have their little joke.

The crew spent the morning driving up and down the A303, with Stuart perched precariously through the sun roof of Andy’s car, filming tracking shots of the festival site and the monument. I have to say I YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 256

was slightly reticent about taking Stuart on the crew. He was a lot older than me and worried he might have trouble taking direction off a hairy whipper-snapped. Actually, he proved to be an easy going guy whose experience was worth having. Nothing phased him. Including lying on his back between Nick Mersch’s legs, as he juggled clubs, with Stuart’s groinal area being in exactly the right position for injury if Nick dropped a club. Up on a barrow mound, Stuart produced an awesome collection of filters which turned the Stonehenge monument into a series of gorgeous beauty shots. In fact, Stuart produced such beautiful pictures it was hard to know why I hadn’t employed him before. Oh yes, I remember, ageism21.

While we were waiting for the rushes to come back from the lab, Aspect Films offered a job which is how come Gobbo and I spent Solstice Day in a Soho cutting room editing a beer commercial. It lasted three days and we walked away loaded down with coins of the realm. It was good to see how much Gobbo had come on in cutting room technique with his natural easy way with clients. Aspect Films liked him a lot and made me realise I should treat him better before he got head-hunted. We went back to UMP to edit the Stonehenge22 material into Rhyme & Reason and, during our time there, Aspect Films phoned in with another job. But they didn’t want me. They wanted Gobbo. He turned it down because, he said, he wanted to see Rhyme & Reason through to the end, which I thought was a big mistake and possibly a lost opportunity. But one can’t live other people’s lives for them. We wrapped the Rhyme & Reason final edit just in the nick of time as Anglia TV called up wanting me back in Norwich.

vi. A LOT O’ SQUIT23 I arrived back in leafy Norwich in the last week of June and fell into a sort of miasmic doze. Once one realises one is merely doing a job for money, all enthusiasm tends to wane rapidly. Like Thames TV staff, I couldn’t quite figure out why most of the people were working at Anglia.

The younger editors, as in strip cartoon character Bristow, seemed to live by the credo of “two hours work a day and the rest whimsy.” This was certainly true of one editor who signed listlessly, got bored easily and would wander off about midday, never to return. He had a Lotus Esprit and would leave the car park in a cloud of dust, a man with a busy social life. I, on the other hand, had to stay idly in the cutting room all YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 257

day in case the phone rang. It never did. If anyone came looking for the editor and he wasn’t there, they’d merely shrug shoulders and wander off. Absenteeism, it seemed, was standard practice. How anything got done was a complete mystery to me.

We were working on a documentary about the P51 Mustang24 fighter aircraft of WW2 vintage which I found fascinating, especially as all the research books were in the cutting room. I read avidly. There was nothing else to do and since I couldn’t leave the room until knocking off time I accidentally became an expert on the P51 Mustang. Did you know the last dog-fight in May 1945 was between a flight of Mustangs and two Focke-Wulf 190 fighters who defiantly took to the air only a few hours after Germany surrendered to the Allies? Not many people know that. I reached the conclusion most of the people working at Anglia came to it either because they had relatives working there or it was the highest paid and therefore most prestigious job a local school could proudly shove a half-bright pupil into. It was either working at Anglia or Norwich Union in terms of job status. Young editors looked like they’d just stepped out of the pages of Howards End, dressed in soft pastel colours, an angora sweater draped casually across their shoulders, sensible shoes and khaki trousers. And the women were no better.

They treated freelancers like servants. One knob-head took my woolly hat, levered open the Tibetan monks’ bell and removed the stone so it no longer jingled. They all thought this was a great joke, like naughty school bullies, until a producer at Thames TV heard about it and called up wanting to know who’d vandalized a priceless antique.

A present from Thames News.

‘What’s your problem?’ an editor jeered. ‘It’s just a bell.’

I wondered what would happen if I deliberately scratched the guy’s vehicle, after all it’s just a car. No one owned up to the dirty deed but when I left a couple months later, the perp’ was duly grassed by one of his co-bullies. I know who he is and, thirty years later, I’m biding my time. They were no respecters of the hired help. The bell incident was the worst of their childish pranks but set the tone for their behaviour. Freelancers were the below stairs scullions and were treated as such. Staff as small fish in a tiny pond. There were good guys; Keith Judge who had taught at the Royal School of Art and taught me a few tricks of the trade and Richard Kennon who, while slightly eccentric25, could be forgiven everything because he had a passion for film. I thought that’s why we were there.

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My freelance contemporaries inveigled me to stay in Norwich over the weekend of July 1st and go to the Peaceful Green Festival which sadly turned out to be very boring. More like a village fete. But it gave me time out to explore the medieval City of Norwich and to fall in love with its environs26. A great place to live but the land time forgot so far as business is concerned. One encounter I had early on was with a taxi driver who looked about ninety.

‘What du yew think of Naaaaaaaridge, then?’ he asked.

‘It’s not a bad little town, I like it.’

He slammed on the brakes and I almost went through the windscreen27. The driver got out of the taxi, opened the back passenger door, took my bag out and threw it across the road, pulled me out and threw me on the pavement. He stood over me, quivering was rage. ’It’s a City, not a town.’

He got back in his taxi and drove off.

The driver across the road, who managed to narrowly avoid hitting my bag, ran over to help.

‘What happened?’

‘I made the mistake of calling Norwich a town.’

‘Oh bad luck,’ said my rescuer, helping me up, ‘although strictly speaking it’s a YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 259

city a city.’

‘Why?’ ‘It’s got two cathedrals.’

Exit laughing.

Claire at AZ Films phoned wanting more CND footage so the following weekend Steve & I went off with a camera to cover the Watford CND march to HMS Warrior, the local NATO command centre and the sadness of 150-protestors trying to save the world. One moment of hilarity presented itself when a photographer, obviously Special Branch28 or similar, started taking photos of the press photographers. One local photographer got so annoyed with the intrusion, he put his lens right in front the guy’s face and kept his finger on the motor wind.

‘There. You’ve got all our photos and now I’ve got yours.’

As he was led away in handcuffs to a waiting riot van the press photographer called out to us, ‘Someone call the NUJ29 and tell them what’s happening here. Don’t forget me!’

And that’s when we realised our peril.

When a regime starts rounding up the journalist, that’s when we’re really in trouble.

At Anglia TV, my diary entry for Tuesday 5th July: Oh God I’m bored! On July 11th I moved into John Redding’s house. John, YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 260

a local solicitor, had some vague connection with Anglia TV and as a sideline took in lodgers. He took in me. He lived in an end terrace of a row of cottages up the far end of Constitution Hill, drove a kit sports car and owned30 a cat. John charged a lot less than the Castle Hotel and there was a bus stop bang opposite the house. Almost like home.

Reporter Marcus Powell was newly arrived in the newsroom and, since we both didn’t hang out with the in-crowd, we took a turn round the local pubs and nearly had a nasty moment in The Golden Star31. The pub had a brewery at the back and sawdust scattered on the floor for that touristy ye olde worlde look. There was a small knot of long-hairs up one end of the bar who were engaged in a whispered conversation with the landlord, giving us sideways glances. There was no one else in the pub but the landlord seemed disinclined to serve us. No amount of discreet coughing or eye catching would tear him away from his deep conversation. We were on the point of leaving when the landlord sidled up to us.

‘What d’you want?’ he asked in an unfriendly tone.

I got the distinct impression he didn’t mean what do you want to drink? We ordered two pints of the local brew and as Marcus paid for the round he let his wallet flop open in such a way so the landlord could see his press pass.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry. We thought you were the drugs squad,’ apologised the landlord as he took the money.

Marcus almost sprayed the man with a mouthful of ale. Us? Drug squad? We hurried our drinks in case the coppers showed up for real and repaired to the joys of The Merchants pub up the road.

In early August I met up with John Ayres, then working for the Sunday Times, to discuss writing a feature article on the Peace Convoy. There were rumours in the local Norwich press that the ‘hippie gun convoy’ were heading for Norfolk and rather than me going to the story the story, it seemed, was coming to me. The added bonus being I had contacts with the travellers.

vii. THEY CAME, THEY SAW, THEY DID NOT CONQUER Just to be on the safe side I asked my line manager at Anglia if he was okay with my working for the Sunday Times.

‘As long as it doesn’t interfere with your work here,’ said Mike O’Hallaran.

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That’s a laugh, I thought. Its as much as I can do to find enough work to fill the day. I got a call from a contact on the Convoy on August 5th to meet them the following day at somewhere called Harford.

The City Council’s plan to keep the Peace Convoy away from local residents involved supplying them with a site at Harford, off Hall Road, to the south of the City.

The Council thoughtfully supplied the site with a single water standpipe and latrine pits but failed to warn the soon-to-arrive Peace Convoy the site was, in fact, a disused council rubbish dump. And to make absolutely certain the Peace Convoy did not return to Eaton Common32 the council dug up Marston Lane leading to the Common for ‘urgent sewer repairs.’ Since I still didn’t know my way around Norwich I took a taxi up to Eaton Common to photograph the road works and the helpful cabbie took me on to Harford Tip. In the lane leading to the site entrance was the obligatory police van full of bored coppers. I showed them my press pass33 which elicited a stage aside whisper, from inside the van, which could be heard in the next county.

‘What’s that? His giro?’ followed by barely suppressed mirth.

‘He’s press,’ hissed the sergeant as he handed my press card back.

As we bumped down the rough track onto the site the cabbie advised, ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’d rather not park down there.’

‘I don’t think they’re going to riot.’

‘It’s not that what I mean. The ground’s very boggy and I don’t want to get stuck.

Can I drop you here and I’ll turn round ready for you when you want to leave.’

As I walked down the track, searching for signs of travellers’ vans, I couldn’t help notice the desolate state of the landscape under the lowering clouds. The soil, if that is what it was, consisted of noisesome pools of standing liquid and piles of trash.

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I found my contact, Spike, who told me, ‘The site is too muddy and too small and the local council are expecting us to hold a festival here. Yesterday’s rain is causing our vehicles to sink and we’re definitely not satisfied with this site. Some of us have children and dogs and they’re going to run around and cut themselves on the broken glass. The council have a really strange opinion of us if they think they can shove up here.’

I stuck around to take photographs of the site but really there was nothing anyone could say which wasn’t blindingly obvious.

Back in the cab, driving away, a police car came slowly head on to us. The track was narrow and neither driver wanted to pull over for fear of never getting out again.

The vehicles stopped driver’s window to driver’s window and an Inspector called across wanting to know what I was doing there.

‘He’s press,’ said the cabbie, helpfully.

‘This is private land. You’ve no business here,’ tried the Inspector.

I had a feeling it probably wasn’t private land, not if the City were expecting the travellers to organise a festival but the cop was there on a point scoring exercise and I didn’t want to give the guy an excuse to arrest me.

‘Just leaving officer,’ I explained.

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But before we could drive off the Inspector wanted to see my press card.

‘Where did you steal this from?’ he asked.

‘I’ll give you my news editor’s phone number. The Sunday Times is always happy to assist the police.’

The Inspector waved us away with a curt nod and as we drove back towards the city, I mused.

‘Friendly lot ain’t they.’

‘Were you here last year?’

‘No,’ I said. I had a feeling cabbie had something on his mind.

‘Bloody hippies. They invaded Eaton Common and wouldn’t let anyone else use it. Dog walkers were thrown off, there was thieving and drugs. The cops decided on a softly-softly approach but that just made things worse. People got beaten up and even the Lord Mayor got thrown off the Common when he went down there to speak to them. Dirty nasty people they were.’

Just about par for the course, I thought.

The Eastern Evening News quoted Trevor Broom, the landlord of a nearby pub, as saying, ‘There are toxic fumes coming off the dump and the whole place is a fire risk. Its absolutely stupid putting people there, you wouldn’t believe what has been dumped on that tip over the years and I’m YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 264

concerned about the health hazard. There is a serious fire risk and tents could go up in flames. The weather could set the whole lot on fire. Whatever people think about these people they are human beings34.’

Sadly for all concerned Norwich City Council showed no interest in where the Peace Convoy wanted to camp and chief executive Anthony Glover responded to criticism of toxic waste with, ‘We wouldn’t dream of doing any such thing. Fumes could be seen rising but it was because the city parks department were burning old trees and the topsoil has been undisturbed for years35.’

And the council’s chief environmental health officer claimed, ‘I would hate it to be suggested this was anything other than a satisfactory place36.’

Despite these assurances the Peace Convoy decided not to stick around and, on the evening of Monday August 8th, decamped en-mass from the Harford rubbish dump to land owned by the UEA, beside the B1108 in Earlham. The main body of approximately 450-travellers broke a locked gate and filled in a ditch to drive their vehicles onto the site, previously used by the Peaceful Green Festival. I caught up with Spike there who introduced me to Bendy Dave. He gave a good interview and showed me round the site, with no problems about taking photos.

‘Always ask first. People don’t like it you just shove a camera in their face. How would you like it if I came into your kitchen uninvited while you were eating breakfast and shoved a camera in your face?’

Fair point. The following day, after collating my interview notes I walked straight into more pointless shenanigans with Norwich Police. I couldn’t be bothered with all YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 265

that press ID stuff again, I was walking on the Queen’s highway and I wasn’t going equipped to commit an arrestable offence.

To keep them at bay I walked on the other side of the road. This didn’t work and the coppers went nuts at the sight of long hair.

‘You! Stop! Police!’

They ran across the road and shepherded me to the check point. I knew exactly what was going to happen. They would find my press ID, say sorry and I’d go on my lawful way. I mean, what copper is going to search someone for drugs going onto a traveller site? Coming off maybe.

I opened my shoulder bag and there was the camera and there was my press ID. I was being eyeballed by two hairy guys who were probably the local excuse for the Drugs Squad. Let on my way, I noticed a rather strange stand-off between the press and police on one side of the road and the Peace Convoy on the other and I had distinct impression they were really scared of the Convoy people. It had all the hallmarks of a siege. I got onto the site and spoke to people about their plans for a festival without any trouble at all. Although there was no sign of staging equipment at the Earlham site, the Peace Convoy claimed they were planning to stay for a fortnight to organise a peace festival. Now the fact of the matter is, I didn’t smoke YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 266

cannabis. Didn’t then and don’t now. Some people find that hard to believe. Tough buns. The travellers didn’t believe me either and were fairly aghast when I refused the proffered chillum37. For a start I didn’t know where it had been and there’s always a chance the mix is laced with something else. To show their utter contempt for a nonsmoking reporter, they exhaled their smoke in my direction. I must have fairly reeked of cannabis as I made my way back towards the police check point.

‘We clocked you going onto the site and we’ve clocked you coming off,’ said a gruff sergeant, ‘you’ve been down there for one hour and thirty eight minutes and for that reason we’re going to search you for drugs.’

They gave me a cursory pat down and examined the contents of my pockets. On finding my press ID they uttered the time honoured, ‘Where did you steal this from?’ It wasn’t funny the first time I heard it, either.

The sergeant wasn’t satisfied and decided to heap shame onto my humiliation.

‘These officers will now take you to the van over there where you’ll be strip searched,’ he said.

These officers turned out to be the two hairies who’d given me the eyeball when I arrived. The larger of the two, calling himself Steve, said he knew I was a reporter and wasn’t going to strip search me. I thought the whole strip search in a van scenario had been a sideshow to get me to assist them with their enquires. He, and the one calling himself Harry, were too well known to go on site, he claimed, and just wanted a few words about anything I may have seen while down there.

‘You really stink of dope, you know,’ said Steve.

‘I know the buggers kept blowing smoke over me.’

‘Do you know where they’re keeping their stash?’

‘No. No idea.’

Realising they weren’t getting anywhere they offered a lift back to the city.

‘No thanks, I’ll take a cab,’ I declined, on the grounds I didn’t know where they planned to take me and what might get planted along the way.

That night I called John Ayres and told him the local coppers were no respecters of press ID, that I’d been searched and propositioned by the Drugs Squad. What should I do? He said to FAX him the story so far and he’d sort things out with the cops.

John Wood, registrar at the University of East Anglia, gave a statement to the press; YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 267

‘The University takes a very serious view of any unauthorised occupation of its property.

This is an entirely unauthorised entry, they neither sought nor were granted permission to use university land. If they had sought permission it would not have been granted.

We don’t think it’s a good idea to have open house for anybody who comes along38.’

By August 10th Norwich Police had arrested thirteen people for drug offences and one for vehicle theft. Chief Supt. Roger Brighton advised local residents to keep their children away from the ‘hippy camp’ due to suspected health risks. Despite this the local health authority sent social workers down to the site to check on traveller children who were given the all clear. This was normal procedure for community health care who also gave advice to young traveller mothers, pregnant women and handed out condoms but not because of Chief Supt. Roger Brighton’s scare tactics.

Two days later the High Court in London granted the UEA an order to repossess the land and, amid ‘ugly scenes’ according to the local press, UEA officials were forced off the site and the Summons torn up and burned when they tried to serve it on the travellers. The actual eviction, however, would be carried out by the under-sheriff of Norfolk and the police. The Peace Convoy were given until August 28th to move off voluntarily. Grabbing my camera I went down to the police road block in case there were further ugly scene. I flashed my press ID at a copper but they had already been warned.

‘Yes, we know who you are,’ said a sergeant, ‘Your boss at the Sunday Times phoned the Chief Constable complaining you’d been stopped and threatened with a strip search.’

Feeling something else was needed he whined reproachfully, ‘There was no need for you to do that.’

I shrugged it off and settled down to take whatever action came my way. A few minutes later a traveller, taking exception to being offered an intimate search, stripped off in the middle of the road shouting about the rights of man. When I tried to take photos a constable stood in front of my lens ‘If you value your position in the this city you’ll stop taking pictures.’

‘I’m on a public road.’

‘If you take any more pictures, I’ll arrest you.’

Nearby an Anglia News cameraman was catching the action too without any agro from the cops. I waited until he’d finished and blagged a lift off him back to the studios.

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He looked uneasy on the drive back.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘The police saw you get in the car. They probably think we’re working together and I’ll catch it next time.’

‘It isn’t actually a criminal offence to take photographs, you know. What are they going to do? Raid Anglia TV?’ ‘It’s all right for you. Once this over you’ll be back in London but I have to work here and deal with the cops.’

He had a point. But it was a foul situation where the police seemed to think they ran the press and which bits of it were allowed to report what was happening. I was in the Anglia newsroom about a week later when a researcher told a reporter, named Alan, that ‘Harry called to say he’ll meet you in the Nags Head at 6pm.’

‘I don’t know anyone called Harry.’

‘Oh. I do,’ I said, a light dawning.

Later that evening, with the Nags Head pub full of Anglia drinkers, I was joined

by Harry and a couple of his hairy colleagues from the Drugs Squad who all had the triumphal coppers’ look, like they’re about to set up the biggest entrapment in the world.

‘Get you a beer?’ asked Harry ‘No thanks,’ I responded. ‘I’ll get my own. You know how it is, coppers and reporters drinking together. I don’t want it said I coerced you into admitting something whilst under the influence of alcohol.’

‘Oh.’ ‘You know, something that you might regret saying later. So what-?’

But before I got a chance to find out, Marcus tapped me on the shoulder needing an urgent word. He dragged me across the pub out of the way of prying ears.

‘You know who those guys are, don’t you?’ whispered Marcus urgently.

‘I know.’

‘They’re not hippie travellers.’

‘I know.’

‘I saw them on the road block. I think they’re Drugs Squad.’

‘I know.’

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‘So what are you doing with them?’ wailed Marcus.

‘An object lesson in never trust nobody,’ I smiled.

‘Be bloody careful,’ advised Marcus.

I got back to the hairies and continued, ‘So what is it you want?’

‘We’re known faces, the local dealers know who we are so its difficult to get inside information on what they’re up to.’

‘I can see that must be frightfully frustrating for you.’

‘And you’ve been down to the travellers site so they obviously trust you and you must have a fair idea about what’s going on down there,’ said Harry, almost getting to the point. ‘So we’d like see your notebook and what you’ve reported down on site.’

‘Well, I’ll let you know when it’s published.’

‘No. I mean all your research notes, contact names and things,’ Harry said, matter of factly.

‘Right. Okay. Can I see the court order?’

‘What?’

‘You’ll need a court order if you want all my background notes,’ raising my voice slightly, hopeful that nearby reporters might start ear wigging and take an interest.

‘We don’t normally do that,’ said Harry, slightly miffed.

‘No, I don’t expect you do. I bet you’ve got some right cozy understandings with the local hacks. But if you don’t have a court order you can’t read my reporters’ notes.’

‘I’m trying to keep this friendly.’

‘And I’m trying to keep it legal. Oh, and you’ll have to apply for a court order in London because that’s where the Sunday Times is.’

‘I could make things very hard for you in this town,’ said Harry, trying to change his tone to mister nasty.

‘Yes. I expect you probably can,’ I responded, patting my inside jacket pocket, ‘I could always introduce your guv’nor to mister ECM50 and mister Sony39.’

Harry and his chums, not another word uttered, got up and left the pub. Marcus came over and sat down.

‘That looked a bit heavy. What did you just say to them?’

‘They think I was doing a mic and wire job on them.’

‘And were you?’

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‘No. That wouldn’t be legal would it,’ I smiled.

I arrived down at the Peace Convoy site on August 28th to cover the travellers moving off. Terrified police officers scampered away at the sight of this London news hound after the Drugs Squad had fumbled a dodgy proposition. And they might have done it on tape or possibly with person(s) unknown listening on the end of a wire. Oh woe, for we are undone, oh bugger. Oh well it jolly well served them right. Although it occurred to John Ayres and myself that the coppers were probably planning some nasty little revenge, as a fall back position, if any of their untoward words happened to appear in the public prints. But it’s not our place to do the coppers’ job for them and besides, if reporters were compelled to hand over their notebooks, no private source of information or whistle blower would ever trust us again. I will hand over my notes, if I still have them, to the police if a Judge tells me to.

I didn’t go on-site to take photos as, with the travellers preparing to leave, I didn’t want to get in their way. Instead I stood with the ‘straight’ press across the road, film cameramen from the local BBC and Anglia News, reporters from the Eastern Evening News, Eastern Daily Press and a couple of other freelancers, all waiting for YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 271

the punch-up which I was pretty sure wouldn’t come. I was taking photos of the site when we all heard the shout.

‘Oi! You point that forking camera at me and I’ll smash the forking lens!’

It was Spike, to my great relief, who had a flare for street theatre. Out of decency I put the camera away and noticed my press colleagues shy away like nervous ponies in case whatever was coming my way happened to them too. Spike gave me a man-hug which probably gave the press a near heart attack. Erg, the germs.

‘You coming over for tea?’ suggested Spike.

‘Can I bring my friends if they promise to behave themselves?’ I asked, nodding at the knot of press.

They all muttered on the theme of no thanks and moved just a little further away in case we grabbed them in an arm lock and forced them to take tea with the travellers.

‘Why did you ask if they’d take tea?’ asked Spike as we crossed the busy road.

‘I thought they might learn something, you know, lose some of their irrational stereotypical opinions of travellers over a cup of earl grey.’

‘Not them. They’re paid to hate us.’

All around the site were vehicles in various states of preparations for leaving with people loading up personal items, grease encrusted travellers attacking the recalcitrant guts of a bus engine, merry pranksters wearing ‘suck the siege t-shirts’ or in fancy dress gamboling around in front of the press. The chillum guys came over for a last puff which I still refused.

‘I don’t get you man,’ said Mr. Chillum, ‘You don’t wear a suit, don’t wear a tie, you YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 272

don’t have a beer gut, you don’t hang out with the other press and you won’t smoke a pipe with us. What are you, ma’an? Drugs Squad?’

‘I’m me,’ I said, as honestly as I could.

‘You coming to Lyng?’ asked Mr. Chillum.

‘What’s at Lyng?’

‘A festival this coming weekend,’ interjected Spike. ‘Donovan’s headlining.’

‘You should try and make it, ma’an,’ said Mr. Chillum, proffering his loosely clasped fist, ‘I’ve got something you might like.’

He unfolded his hand to reveal four purple microdots40.

‘Um ..?’ I surmised.

‘I know you don’t smoke but I spotted you for an acid head straight off.’

‘That’s very … um … nice of you. You’ll ruin your hard man image you go around being nice to the working press.’

‘Take ‘em somewhere nice,’ smiled Mr. Chillum.

‘I’d better go. Good luck on the road and drive safe,’ I advised.

‘I’ll see you off the site,’ said Spike.

As we walked back to the road, amid good natured ribald comments about the press, I couldn’t help wondering how long the new travellers / Peace Convoy had before they truly miffed someone enough for the full weight of the law to come down hard on them. How would the near-feral Convoy kids fit into polite society once social workers removed them from their banged-up drug dealing parents? It was a conundrum all right and it would take another two years to find the answer.

‘We heard you were getting stress off the filth,’ said Spike.

‘They really don’t like you, do they,’ I mused. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not a grass. I don’t know anything to grass you about.’

‘You’re holding four tabs of acid.’

‘Not anymore, I’m not.’

‘You didn’t throw them away did you?’ asked Spike, aghast almost beseeching.

‘Nah, don’t be daft. I left them in your ‘van.’

We executed one of those complicated biker handshakes that are all fists and clasped thumbs, as I left.

‘Look out for each other and one other thing.’

YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 273

‘Yes?’ asked Spike.

‘Don’t wave when you drive past my camera. It looks cheesy in the paper and it’ll upset the coppers.’

I took my place by the Yare River Bridge on the Earlham Road and waited for the guys to head out. Once the bulk of the vehicles had left the site I headed back to the city to fax my feature story to John Ayres at the Sunday Times and shred my notes. Not that I’d written anything salacious, I just didn’t want my notes falling into the wrong hands to be wantonly misinterpreted for political purposes. Anyone who says, ‘the innocent have nothing to fear,’ obviously never lived through the Thatcher years.

I was going back to Harrow most weekends and noticed two things were happening while I was home. Mark had the flat to himself four or five nights a week which meant when I came back it felt like I was interloping into someone else’s social scene. I was becoming the unwelcome visitor in my own abode. Something which became almost a tradition was taking Gobbo and Nick for a curry on Friday nights. JT referred to them as ‘trainee hippies’ while I saw them as ‘the pot head pixies’41. I figured, at the time, those guys were on the dole while I was earning an indecent wage packet and could afford to feed them once a week. Nick Mersch told YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 274

me years later that he and Gobbo got so used to being fed every Friday, they spent their dole money on dope and beer because they knew I wouldn’t let them go hungry.

The little scamps.

‘Gobbo used to wrap you round his little finger,’ Nick said twenty years later, ‘but you never seemed to notice.’

Back on the timeline, mention was made of the forthcoming Lyng Fair and Gobbo suggested he’d like to come up to Norfolk and stop over at my place. I enquired of my live-in landlord if it was cool for Gobbo to do this and apparently it was as John was going boating that weekend. Come the weekend, of course, John’s plans changed and he forgot about Gobbo staying over so I put him in the Castle Hotel which is where I should have been. Confused yet? I’ll have to try harder.

Armed with a new tent and sleeping bag, Gobbo and I patiently waited for the bus to take us up to Lyng. We patiently waited for quite a long time until we found out the bus didn’t run on Saturdays. Not to be thwarted, I grabbed a taxi from the same firm who’d been running me about on the Convoy story and who probably thought I was good for the entertainment value alone. They gave me a deal on the twelve mile run out to Lyng although Gobbo thought it was outrageously ostentatious to arrive at a festival in a taxi. So did some festival goers who mistakenly thought we were an arriving rock band. It was time to see if raising a tent was as simple as everyone claimed. It wasn’t.

I let Gobbo teach me in such a way as he did most of the work. Hah! By the time we’d sorted ourselves out a vast contingent of Harrow freaks had turned up, a sort of home away from home. Inevitably I bumped into Spike and the Chillum Boys who had arrived three days before and were staying in a separate field. The Convoy seemed completely out of place at a village fete style fair with added rock music. Gobbo and I experimented with purple pills of altered awareness. He had an almost uncanny knack of attracting furry animals like a magnet. At one point I thought I was leaning against a marquee pole but, upon further investigation, discovered it to be a tripod of Gobbo, a huge dog and me all leaning against each other. I was afraid to move in case we all fell over or the dog went biting mad. I had to shove off on Monday and, being fairly fit and a keen walker, decided to leg the twelve miles back to Norwich but just as I reached the main A1067 a Convoy bus drew up and was bundled aboard by friendly furry freaks. They let me out on the edge of the City and it was interesting to get a hint of what if was like YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 275

for the Convoy of a daily basis; shouts of ‘smelly hippies’ and the occasional flying beer can from passing cars. How charming.

As for the conclusion to my Sunday Times feature story I sent this as an add-on: ‘The 1983 Lyng Fair was over-run by the Peace Convoy who brought their anti-social attitudes of drugs and violence with them … near feral Convoy kids ran amok in the children’s play area, completely trashing a clown’s stage equipment. The sadness being no one felt able to step in and stop them. Any intervention by local people was rudely rebuffed by Convoy parents who offered violence towards anyone who criticized their children’s behaviour as if this were the norm and quite allowable. The Fair organisors had had enough, especially when the Peace Convoy had overstayed their welcome by two weeks, and decided to call it a day. And so another East Anglian fair bit the dust at the hands of the new travellers.’

I may have had mates on the Convoy but they knew what they were doing and where it could lead. Future East Anglian fairs were publicised by word of mouth lest the terrible hippie hordes should descend on them in droves and spoil the party. Eventually the fairs deceased in number and faded into the mists of memory. And there was no way I’d report it any other way. Without fear or favour. Which brings us back to the cops.

Det Sgt Steve Wilson of Norwich Drugs Squad wanted to see me about my coverage of the Peace Convoy. There had obviously been a terrible misunderstanding by his junior officers who may have over-stepped the mark and he hoped we’d have better working relations in future.

‘I think that’s very unlikely.’ I told him.

‘Why so?’ he asked.

‘I leaving tomorrow, going back to London.’

‘Ah.’ But, of course, it wasn’t the last time we saw each other. Life is never that simple.

* YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 276

CHAPTER 8 - FOOTNOTES 1

Translated from the Norfolk accent; I offer you the hospitality of my humble abode

2

ex-Thames news

3

Ibid

4

ex-BBC Brentford librarian

5

alleged ‘human interest’ stories or just plain old nosiness on a slow news day

6

something BBC radio might have used in the back of a Lancaster on a bombing raid

over Berlin, circa 1944, with a commentary which undoubtedly referred to RAF airmen as plucky wizard prang cheeky, chirpy, chappiess 7

in honour of American writer Hunter S. Thompson of whom we were both fans

8

even if he did wear a suit and tie

9

yes, I cynically took on a female crew member so the Greenham Wimmin would be

cool with us, then realised I was being sexist for that very reason – a person could get seriously screwed up even thinking about it 10

this was the normal response from film crews when asked questions by the police as

news crews tended to be left alone – there were a thousand ways the cops could stop us filming something ‘politically’ sensitive, a charge of obstructing the highway usually 11

it is important to know this for what happens later

12

for which I wouldn’t get paid until AZ Films sold the rights

13

I gathered from that the state of the end credit sequences had been less than awesome

of late 14

Yes that was the word they used, zany

15

attached to a long train which dropped coaches off enroute to somewhere else. Back

in the old days they were known as slip coaches which were detached while in motion and, points changed, diverted onto branch lines. So now you know.

16

What a horribly ignominious end to a long and fruitful relationship with a TV company

– Doris The Cat. Says it all really.

17

As a general rule the director of a film, mainly on location, was referred to as ‘Guv.’

18

Andy had been invalided out of Hendon Police College with a knee injury and looked

exactly like a copper which we put to good use every time we needed someone ‘authorative’ looking front of camera as an unpaid supporting artiste. His nickname was Flobberlobs for reasons I never discovered.

YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 277

19

Steve’s father, John, was an editor on The Prisoner and The Avengers

20

the denizens of the festival were generally camera shy and the feeling was if we

turned up with a load of freaks, we wouldn’t attract undue attention 21

Which ironically I suffer from today – what goes around comes around

22

some of this footage wound up as cutaways in a later live concert film of Stonehenge

23

Translated from the Norfolk – you make no more sense than any of the others

who moved here in the hope of enlightening simple folk and pushing Norfolk into the twentieth century.

24

Cadillac of the skies

25

‘set depth to eight feet, range to target, open outer doors, shoot!’

26

and still in love with

27

this was in the days before compulsory back seat belts

28

we could always spot them in a crowd because they didn’t herd with the rest of the

photographers at a demo and if you started talking to them, they’d silently shy away as if we were poison. Which, so far as they were concerned, we probably were.

29

National Union of Journalists

30

cats don’t have owners, they have servants

31

corner of Duke Street and Colegate – and its still there.

32

Which the Convoy had ‘invaded’ the year before amid ugly scenes and open drug

dealing 33

so they didn’t mistake me for a member of the ‘hippie gun convoy’

34

source: Eastern Evening News, July 19th 1983

35

ibid

36

ibid

37

a type of pipe for imbibing cannabis

38

source: Eastern Evening News

39

A concealed ECM50 microphone and a minute Sony tape recorder. This is about as

subtle as introducing Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson to a cheat at the card table.

40

lysergic acid in pill form

41

after the Gong song of the same name

YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 278

CHAPTER 8 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 238 - Anglia TV Studios, Norwich Page 242 - Bob Jones camera man on a van Greenham Women’s demo Police gallantly defend the US nuclear missile site Page 243 - Bob & Al pose for ‘soviet style’ production still at Greenham missile site Protest at Greenham yellow gate John Boulter and the wrong transit van Page 246 - Gobbo’s Pixie Tree, Stanmore Common Page 248 - Cameraman John Boulter at Aldermaston CND demo Aldermaston CND gate demos Mark Wood, Harrow freak Page 249 - Gobbo munches another of Al’s cream cakes Page 250 - Brockwell Park CND concert withh Clint Eastwood & General Saint Page 253 - Al’s curtain opening party with Gobbo on the roof Gough, Gobbo & Legs on the roof James Provost on the roof Pages 255 to 256 - The 1983 Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival Pages 259 to 260 - Watford CND demo at HMS Warrior Page 262 - Eaton Park Norwich, Marston Lane road closed Marston Road urgent road works Page 263 - Harford Rubbish Dump, police road block Harford Rubbish Dump, toxic pools Harford Rubbish Dump travellers site ibid Page 263 - Traveller Spike at Harford Rubbish Dump Harford Rubbish Dump travellers site Single cold water tap at Harford Rubbish Dump Al Photographer at Harford Rubbish Dump travellers site Page 265 - Police road block at entrance to University of East Anglia Page 266 - Traveller site on University of East Anglia land Page 271 - Travellers prepare for eviction from University of East Anglia land YEW KIN CUM DUN OURS IF YEW WUN - PAGE 279

Page 272 - Traveller site on University of East Anglia land Page 274 - Eviction day for travellers from University of East Anglia land Page 280 - (this page) Confrontation; a traveller at the University of East Anglia road block

9

ENCOUNTERS

i. LOOSE ENDS Back in Harrow for my thirty-second birthday I needed a change in my domestic situation as Mark and I were not getting along. I was just a bit too straight for him and he was just a bit too freak for me. As usual after 10-weeks away, I’d been ignoring my friends and needed to get back into the social swing of London.

Colin called up and, since Lucinda was no longer on the scene and I’d been out of touch with everyone, he suggested we have a boys night out Camden. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen him and he seemed happy to hear I was planning to get out of Harrow soon. No matter where I lived it was a fair bet I’d get a contract somewhere else. Claire at AZ Films, as ever, wanted more changes to the pilot episode of Rhyme & Reason so Gobbo and I were back at UMP editing the final, final version of the film. And just to make life interesting Aspect Films offered us another TV commercial to cut. We finished both productions on the same day, often working round the clock, because I had a heavy deadline set up for mid-September. To tell the truth I had a feeling Julie, the bookings clerk at Aspect, had her eye on Gobbo’s body but had to employ me too because he was my assistant. I could be wrong, of course. Her eyes glazed over every time he walked through the door.

I cooked a last big Sunday lunch on September 18th and next day I was off to Birmingham and the joys of the documentary department at Central TV as an assistant editor on a programme about people who breed rare pigs and accidentally gave the director his episode title.

‘I suppose people get into quite a fervour about rare breeds?’

‘Yes. They do.’

‘Swine fervour?’ And that was how he got his title.

Central TV had a hotel system for freelancers. For the first two weeks on contract they paid for us to stay in the Holiday Inn. Don’t open the mini bar!1 Or until we found a cheaper hotel thereafter on fixed rate expenses. I found mine in the throbbing heart of the City centre off New Street. While at the Holiday Inn I was accidentally mobbed by fans of the band ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 282

Genesis who were waiting outside for a glimpse of their heroes. I’m not sure which one I was mistaken for but he’ll get a thwack up-side the lug’ole if I ever meet him. His fans chased me full tilt across the Square and into the main entrance of Central TV where the security guards didn’t recognise me and would have thrown me back out to the screaming hordes had not another assistant editor recognised me.

Our cutting rooms were in Stanier House, a building we disconcertingly shared with British Transport Police, across Halliday Road from the main studios. Payday could be precarious for unwary freelancers using the underground walkways as muggers had learned to lurk down there, waiting to pounce.

After the joys of Paul Jackson on Swine Fervour I was moved off to a semi-religious series, Encounter, which was so dreary a subject matter I took in a fat book to read and did my job on automatic pilot.

As far as I recall an episode I worked on was entitled The Two Bills, one being Bill Westwood the Bishop of Norwich (father of Tim Westwood the radio-1 DJ) and the other Bill Westwood unemployed; contrast and compare. As a concept it could have been quite exciting but it wasn’t. TV to slit your wrists to. The editor2, it turned out, was gay and such was homophobia at the ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 283

time the company were obliged to give him a freelance assistant because none of the staff would work with him3. By implication this meant the staff assumed I was gay too because, in their limited human experience, no straight person would work with a gay.

‘Look here’s my wedding ring4 on my finger, I’ve had children and besides all that, freelancers don’t have a choice who they work with,’ I tried.

‘Well you would say that, wouldn’t you, if you’re a turd burglaring shirt lifter.’

Some of those Brummie staff guys were stunningly thick. Longish hair equated to being a limp-wristed gay. Except they didn’t use the word gay.

Gobbo sent word from Harrow there was a big Halloween party and I should come down because all the local freaks would be there, a meeting of the clans. This served a duel purpose, an excuse if you will, to ask a Daily Telegraph reporter I’d met covering the peace convoy out on a date. Sally said she’d love to come, that moment of shared knowledge when a prospective couple knew they were right for each other. Besides which she had a car and could drive Gobbo & self up to Fred’s5 party in North Harrow.

Those guys had really pushed the boat out. Everyone, apart from us, were wearing elaborate fancy dress and there were some real dandies parading around like freak peacocks.

‘You didn’t tell me it was fancy dress,’ said Sally.

‘You didn’t tell me it was fancy dress,’ I whispered to Gobbo.

‘No one told me,’ he hissed back.

I’ve never liked fancy dress parties because its too much hassle to get kitted up just to stand around talking happy horse manure to wealthy people who can out-do everyone in the room by hiring exactly the right costume. I’m always going to look like a wall flower at a fancy dress party, so why bother. Or, if there’s two of you, say you’ve gone dressed as each other. The house was absolutely heaving with freaks and bikers, you couldn’t get another person in through the door, which was when Sally and I decided to split. It wasn’t really our scene, like covering yet another convoy story and we had other things we wanted to do. Alone. And that’s when one the weirdest encounters in my life happened. A moment of misunderstanding, violence and helpless paranoia.

Because the party was so crowded and the house so small, it took ages to open a glass door to even reach the hall beyond. The pocket of my new Levi jacket somehow got caught up on the door handle and, in an effort to free it, I looked down at the jacket ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 284

and called it a fecking idiot. Unfortunately the person standing behind the glass door, a middle ranking greasy biker, thought I was speaking to him but we never got to discuss the matter further or me to apologise for my social gaff because as soon as Sally and I were through the doorway, the crush of bodies slammed the door shut behind us. If the biker wanted restitution it would take him ages to open the door again. But alas not. He was a tough, angry, pissed biker. He didn’t bother to open the glass door. He walked through it. Glass everywhere. Stifled screams and gasps of amazement. I had my hand on the front door knob when I felt the kick to my back. There was no real force in it because either the biker misjudged his range to target or he wasn’t that pissed.

I turned to face him, never turn your back on an angry biker, and stood there taking his verbals as to what a waste of space I was and so on and so forth. At the end of his tirade he drew his head back and I knew exactly what was going to happen next; he was going to head butt me. So as his head came forward, I pulled my head back with the heroic vision of grabbing his ears and slamming his face down onto my rising knee.

Wham, how d’you like them apples? But it didn’t work out that way because as our respective heads were about level the biker switched to his secondary target. He bit my nose. In the hiatus which followed I could see everyone I knew standing like statues, staring at this surreal and ugly scene. No one was going to wade in to put a stop to it but on the plus side no one was taking sides either. You find out who your friends are in a punch up and discovered I didn’t have any.

Sally got the front door open and we bundled down the garden path to her nearby car. I was just climbing into the passenger seat when a straight looking guy came out of the house and called after us.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Sally.

‘No idea,’ I replied. But in my heart of hearts I knew precisely who he was. He was the guy who was going to finish me off.

Sally got us away from the scene just as the guy reached for the car door.

‘What an exciting life you must lead,’ laughed Sally as we drove through the midnight streets of Harrow.

‘Not really. I seem to attract weirdness like a magnet and I wish knew why,’ I reasoned. ’Why?’ ‘Then I’d stop doing it,’ I said wistfully.

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 285

Back at Roxborough Court, Sally cleaned up the teeth marks6 on my nose as I winced at every dab like a kid.

‘Stop making a fuss, its only antiseptic.’

We adjourned to my bedroom but were stopped on the threshold of our passion by some idiot pounding for all their worth on the door. This person was obviously not taking no for an answer. I cautiously opened the door. It was the guy we left behind on the curb outside the party house.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I was until you started banging on me door. What d’you want?’ I asked, trying to sound like an outraged citizen.

‘I just wanted to make sure you’re all right,’ he said as he pushed passed into the flat.

I heard the bedroom door close softly. Whatever was going to happen next at least there was going to be a witness. Oh, come in why don’t you, I thought, but actually said, ‘Why wouldn’t I be all right? Apart from the fact some biker bit my nose and someone I don’t know is standing inside my flat right now asking me how I am.’

‘I’m Fred’s brother. I want to make sure you’re all right.’

‘Well I am so you can bog off.’

‘I’m so sorry for what happened,’ he insisted.

‘You said. Goodbye.’ And, eventually, he left.

As I snuggled down beside Sally, careful to avoid noses then sat bolt upright staring at nothing.

‘What now?’ asked Sally.

‘That bloke. I’ve never met him before.’

‘So what?’ she said in a tone which betrayed irritation.

‘So how does he know where I live?’

Sally split early next morning, to go home and feed the cats she said, and I later bumped into Gobbo in one of the Harrow freak pubs.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I wish people would stop asking that,’ I replied, irritably. ‘Who was that twerp who came round my flat last night? A real passion killer.’

‘That was Fred’s brother. After you left there was a big discussion about what to do, you know, because that guy attacked you. So it was decided Fred’s brother would go ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 286

round to see you because they were really worried you’d call the police on them.’

‘Why would I call the police on them? It was a silly incident at a party, hell I was probably as much to blame as he was,’ I said.

‘Well that’s what I thought but Fred and his brother really freaked out when they found out you’re a reporter,’ said Gobbo.

‘Why? What difference does that make?’

‘Fred’s brother is Old Bill and he was worried you could get him suspended.’

It made no sense to me so I left it at that and shrugged it off. Never get involved in other people’s misconceptions. Or, put another way, don’t lay your paranoid trip on me ma’an. The worst aspect of the whole sorry mess was I never saw Sally again, presumably scared off by my fatal attraction for weirdness. Next morning I was back on the train to Birmingham where I was packed off to the Central TV nurse to have my wounds treated. There was no telling what a man could catch off a greasy biker.

The nurse, in turn, packed me off to hospital where I was given hepatitis and tetanus shots. Oh, poor me in the wars. Of course, my reputation went up in leaps and bounds amongst the local co-worker homophobes as word got out I’d beat off a horde of bikers.

Later the police called round to ask about the attacker because he’d broken the skin with his bite which translated out as Actual Bodily Harm but I had a sudden attack of amnesia. I really couldn’t be tossed with a load of bikers I wasn’t ever likely to see again. Of course, that was just wishful thinking. By November it became clear I was at Central for the long haul so I decided to move to up Birmingham permanently.

Tony Edmondson, who’d been on the staff at Yorkshire TV on Calendar was now freelancing at Central and said if we found a place to rent it would be cheaper sharing than staying in hotels. I found a ground floor two bedroom flat in Grove Avenue, Moseley Village7, and we moved in. Nick Mersch and Gobbo loaded up a van with all my chattels, drove it up the M1 to my new place and spent a pleasurable weekend more or less saying good-bye. There was a certain permanence about Birmingham which gave me the strong impression I ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 287

really was cutting myself off from everyone and everything I knew down south. Living in the same flat as Tony could be a laugh riot, another ex-copper who was rumoured to have been thrown out for decking someone. He wouldn’t talk about it and I decided not to ask. We’ve all got skelligogs in our cupboards and some of us want to keep them there.

At weekends we explored the surrounding countryside, once going out as far as HayOn-Wye in Wales to see if we could find my old house. Tony’s only rule about being in his car was the total ban on wearing my Afghan coat which proved a God-send in the Brummie winter. Tony’s contract ended before mine but I kept the flat on and let it be known to passing freelancers I sometimes had a room available. My contract went through to February 1984 at which point I decided I needed a holiday.

ii. LA DOLCI VITA In fact, I hadn’t had a holiday since 1980 and what I needed was a full-on, feet up doing nothing foreign holiday. Recharge the batteries before I ended up a complete loony with work-work-work and no time off for good behaviour. I hadn’t seen my sister in Italy for years and booked on the couchette train which unfortunately no longer went all the way through to Ventimiglia and involved a fiddly change onto local trains at Nice. Since Gobbo was on the lowest Union rate possible for a trainee on Rhyme & Reason I offered him a train ticket for being a loyal employee. I doubted he’d take it up but the offer was there. In fact, he did take it up and we scampered off to spend a week in Laigueglia. Sun, sea, wine and pasta. Long walks in the hills, excursions to historic towns and the terrifying sight of Gobbo trying to teach me to juggle.

Back home, refreshed and fit for anything but what I wasn’t fit for was a long period of unemployment. All freelancers feared this and yet we all knew it was coming. TV companies had moved on to ENG8 which ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 288

was soon to be the curse of the industry. Staff were trained onto the new video editing system but freelancers weren’t, which meant we had to find an expensive skill upgrade course where we could, if we could. The death knell of film was about to be upon us and, at the time, no one could imagine the amount of unemployment the new technology was about to bring. The grade of assistant film editor vanished overnight as ENG, which as the name implies was intended as fast turn-around news, seeped into documentary production. ENG, it turned out, wasn’t better quality or faster – in some cases it was actually slower – but it saved the companies money by getting rid of a lot of jobs9 which put people out of work. I’m no Luddite but the problem for freelancers was we were either too busy working to re-train onto the new technology or, if we weren’t working, we couldn’t afford to re-train. Only the rich or full time staff survived.

I was three months out of work, not entitled to state benefits because I was self employed. but rescued off the heap by a short contract at Granada TV in Manchester on their local news, Granada Reports, followed straight after by a short contract at BBC Manchester local news. Not all of it was ENG so there was still the joys of the mad dash down the corridor with film reels to be had. One evening a staff assistant editor, for ease of handling, had put the transmission reels in his bag to be dropped off on his way out the door, homeward bound. It was only when he was on the bus he happened to look down and saw the transmission reels. He’d forgotten to drop them off on his way out the door and, with no film inserts to show, the news broadcast went on air with no visuals. It was kind of funny in a way because the reporters in studio had to go back to the old fashioned way of reading scripts to camera. I think the assistant editor concerned was given a week’s leave, treated kindly and moved onto something more sedate, like documentaries. The BBC kept me going until late April when a major catastrophe occurred at AZ Films and the management vanished off the face of the earth. There was a mad scramble by directors to grab their films before they ended up in a skip. What also went into the skip were all our expectations of selling our product and, in some cases, our life savings. Back to scrabbling about on the bottom end of the market, I was asked to make a short film of the anarchist Stop The City demonstration in London.

The May 31st rally was my first foray into punk civil disobedience and realised why video, in certain cases, was easier than film. The sheer flipping bulk of a 60-kilo film ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 289

camera could be a hindrance. Bang-on noon the punks who were sitting on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral all got up together and jog-trotted down Ludgate Hill, with my crew11 following along at an easy pace. As if this were the signal for hostilities to commence the city ambiance was rent with the sound of police sirens barreling in from all directions. At some point I was grabbed from behind by three sturdy police officers, two of whom took the weight of the camera by grabbing me under the arms. A little known fact to one of the officers was the button which turns the camera on is the same button which turns it off. The third policeman12 grabbed my right index finger to stop me turning the camera on, mid-riot, but failed to notice the camera was rolling and what he was effectivelt doing was stopping me from turning the camera off.

‘If you stop or turn round I’ll arrest you for obstruction,’ said a police officer somewhere close behind.

Given no choice in the matter and, with the officers taking the weight of the camera, they majestically propelled us through a massive riot which, in normal circumstance, I would never have been able to achieve. Everyone who saw the film afterwards said it was the best tracking shot through a major riot they had ever seen all thanks to those gallant officers at City of London Police. Thanks lads, I’ve never forgotten what you did for me that day. As for sound recordist Andy Snowley, who became separated during the melee, we worked out later he was twenty five feet away during the unexpected tracking shot because that’s how far the sound was out of sync with the camera when we viewed the rushes.

Again, press photographers were bundled en-mass into riot vans and taken away.

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But of course, as we all know, the innocent have nothing to fear. Excuse me while I split my sides with mirth.

iii. THE 1984 STONEHENGE PEOPLES’ FREE FESTIVAL The subject of making a film of the Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival over the coming Summer Solstice was broached by film producer Vance Goodwin. After all, I’d filmed there before and knew what we would be up against. Feelers were put out and Festival Welfare Services10 responded positively. I never really intended to film the 1984 Festival and I can’t rightly remember whose idea it had been originally to do so. I have a feeling it was Gobbo’s idea but just to test the water I got onto Penny Mellor at Festival Welfare Services put us onto Keith Bailey, bassist for space-punk band Here & Now. A London meeting was arranged with producer Vance Goodwin, Gobbo, Keith and self in a Soho preview theatre to run Rhyme & Reason, to show Here & Now what we were about. Keith loved it and agreed to let us film his band at the Festival. After that the film production just sort of snow-balled with a mind of its own.

Filming the Stonehenge Free Festival was a new departure for Pixie Productions because normally we lifted the track off an album, did a deal with the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society and laid the music in with the film archive material. I was not a festival virgin but the Stonehenge Festival had a reputation of violence towards the press by Hells Angels & travellers with a deep suspicion bordering on the paranoid of anyone carrying a camera. Let’s face it, they had a lot to be paranoid about. There were illegal drugs being sold on site and not all the long haired photographers were journalists. We at Pixie Productions didn’t fancy our chances if some wandering dude got the wrong idea of who we were and decided to take action with extreme prejudice.

If that sounds overly cautious you have to understand that a 16mm film camera, back in the day, was worth around £25K and not an asset to be put at needless risk. Insurance companies had a fit of the vapours about rock concerts and insisted on expensive hazardous assignment policies which could person’s brain could turn to the consistency of warm oatmeal just to contemplate. But Gobbo was most insistent that the Pixies should not miss the opportunity to film live at Stonehenge. Looking back, ever the cynic, it has since occurred to me Gobbo just wanted to go to the Festival and be paid for the privilege.

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I don’t think either Vance, the producer, or I saw the film of the festival as a massive money spinner, more a positive record of an alternative event which was barely noticed by the general media. If we broke even it be a plus but sometimes films need to be made for their own intrinsic artistic value. Dave Clarke came in as musical director to sort out the contractual arrangements with the band. Sometime around early spring of 1984 Gobbo mentioned he had a contact, a friend of a friend an’ all that, who knew Nik Turner of the band Hawkwind. And since Pixie Productions were taking a film crew to Stonehenge anyway ... yes, you can just see where this one is leading, can’t you. So Gobbo and I, along with stills photographer Clive Moore, toddled off to deepest Wales to see the great man. It was a surreal journey, not quite into the heart of darkness but it came pretty close at times.

Clive had a Morris Minor van but he didn’t think it would survive the round trip to Wales so we hired a car from Hertz. The vehicle was brand new, it had about twelve miles on the clock; it had a lot more than that by the time we got back. I always felt safe when driven by Clive but that hire car brought out something in him which the sluggish Morris van had previously concealed. Clive drove like a banshee. I hadn’t realised quite how fast he was driving until he hit the level crossing just north of St. Clears. The tracks of the main railway line were slightly raised above the level of the road, with an up ramp.

Normally one would slow down but for some reason Clive speeded up. He claimed later we were travelling at 75mph when the car reached the crossing. The upshot was the car became airborne, flew serenely over both tracks and landed on all four wheels on the other side. At some stage during the flight Gobbo became weightless in the back, hit the roof and when gravity took over he bounced in his seat and hit the roof again.

After a long silence I let out a nervous giggle. Gobbo wanted to go back and do it again.

To my extreme relief, we didn’t. Instead, we got lost.

Due to a complicated misunderstanding, to be found amongst the denizens of the rock music industry, Nik didn’t actually live in the village of Cwmbach itself but down a half hidden track bounded by overlapping brambles. That brand new hire car sure looked sorry for itself by the time we rolled up at Nik’s farmhouse. We brought a VHS copy of Rhyme & Reason, so Nik could see what we’d been up to, but he didn’t possess a video player so our merry crew set off on a grand tour of the countryside to root out one of Nik’s mates who did. A very beautiful part of Wales, stunning in the spring ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 292

twilight but not easily appreciated from the crowded back seat of a speeding car. Upon viewing the rough cut Nik understood the concept of the movie and cleared us to film Hawkwind at the Stonehenge Free Festival. Back at Cwmbach, Nik offered us a spare room for the night but Clive was eager to get back to his beloved Moggie. It was only when we were about to drive off we noticed where Clive had chosen to park the car, under a gigantic tree. which resulted in the vehicle being covered in bat guano. We got back to London at dawn and parked the excrement covered, brambled thing between two vans lest the Hertz people saw what the freaks had done to their nice new hire car.

Next day I got straight onto Dave Clarke to get the contract underway for Hawkwind and settled in for the long haul known as hunt the film crew. Difficult as this may be to believe but there were people out in the World who had an even more jaundiced view of the Stonehenge Free Festival than I did. It was quite hard to entice camera crews to come and work at a rock concert once they knew the location; two days at the largest , anarchic free festival in Europe. Gobbo was promoted to the role of production assistant for the duration to spread the load of organising the multi-camera shoot; it was decided we would film with five cameras for best coverage but the teeny-weeny budget would only allow for three. I had a meeting with Paul Sharkey, at Osbourne Sound, to discuss how we should record live sound at a rock concert. Well, I knew how it should be done but trying to arrange access and facilities with the ever illusive anarchist festival organisors was like trying to nail jelly to the wall. Every time we thought we were talking to the right people it turned out we weren’t. It could be pretty frustrating and I came close to pulling the plug but we hammered out a deal, through the good offices of Penny Mellor and Big Steve, whereby we would have an exclusive clean feed from the mixing desk straight into our stereo Nagra quarter-inch tape recorder. The sound engineer, Ian Voight, would have to take a second Nagra to record the clapper boards, each of which would have a radio mic attached because of the expected PA sound volume, to record the editor’s guide track. The crew were to experience many sound difficulties later but for now, in preproduction, everything seemed to be on track. As it were.

The production was getting bigger by the day and, reluctantly, I was forced to farm out the crewing to UMP. From there we hired in Bob Jones as a camera operator with Ian Voight as the sound recordist plus sundry logistical support. And word was getting around. I’m not really sure how but via some exotic connection Dave Clarke had, ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 293

through his record industry contacts, signed up Roy Harper for filming at Stonehenge.

This was seen as a bit of a coup at the time because, Roy had been aboard for some years and the Stonehenge Free Festival was to be his first major performance back in the UK. Dixie Dean, who had been a camera operator on Granada TV’s 1969 film Stones In The Park, came in as director of photography with Steve Brooke-Smith as his camera assistant. I largely left the camera operators to find their own assistants partly to take the load off the production team but mostly so they would feel comfortable working with people they knew. At some stage Ivor Alison joined the crew as Bob’s assistant and Clive expressed an interest in being Ian’s sound assistant. Stuart Bennett, who had worked with Pixie Productions on previous Rhyme & Reason film shoots, came on board as third man to film the crowd atmosphere.

By late May it occurred to me that the production had arisen with a life of its own, far from a one band shoot band we were now facing an entirely separate film. It was not exactly running away from us, more straining at the leash. Vance, it turned out, had awesome connections to Channel Four and it was heavily hinted that he could place the finished product with them. Vance and Dave Clarke had a healthy cynicism about freak festivals and they were good to have around to keep my feet firmly on the ground.

Which is how come I didn’t get to film from a helicopter. It was Vance who solved the supply of 16mm Eastman Colour by doing a sale or return deal with UMP; it had been calculated that for a fifty-two minute TV concert film with three cameras, the crew would need sixteen rolls of high speed film, plus a bit for contingencies which was not leaving much of a margin. With Vance’s deal the camera crew could take double that amount and feel less constrained. But with the production beginning to take on epic proportions there were casualties; Gobbo was bumped back down to trainee as the big budget suits came in and took over. I didn’t feel too bright about that, since it was Gobbo who had kick started the whole project, but as Vance was oft to say, ‘business is business.’

Dave Clarke pulled off one last deal when he brought The Enid into the movie. He had tried to inveigle the band Man too but their management were not keen on them being filmed at a free festival. No, I don’t understand the logic of that either. There seemed to be an underlying misunderstanding amongst some people as to what was free at a free festival and what wasn’t. So far as the Pixie Productions team were concerned everything had to be contractually cleared, bought and paid for but to a ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 294

sizable number of festival goers free meant free gratis and for nowt. There were raging debates about how we Pixies were contaminating the free festival ethic with contracts and fees. Although I agreed with the sentiment, I also knew that if we didn’t do this thing legally right from the outset, we’d be on the shit train to oblivion when all the musicians tried to collect their Performing Rights fees. The way I saw it, back then, was from the edge of the stage out into the audience everything was free but from the edge of the stage back, where the bands worked, it was business as usual. That concept would come back to haunt me for years.

Reports were filtering back that preparations were well under way at the Festival site; work was progressing on erecting Nik Turner’s pyramid main stage and the New Travellers were setting up camp. No turning back now, the film crew were committed.

Gobbo announced that he intended to go to the festival as a punter but he would come and help out, backstage, if needed. The way he was treated, demoted, he looked like a kicked puppy. Vance did another one of his awesome deals, this time with regard to payment for the film processing; UMP would put the exposed film through the processing laboratory on their account but they would not bill Pixie for ninety days thus giving us time to hassle up income on pre-sales. UMP were later to become the first of many who turned into hungry greedheads by the simple expedient of putting the words rock and concert into the same sentence. Whenever I went to their office, to arrange production facilities, I got the eerie impression they were fairly dismissive of the whole project. One of the deals they had to negotiate involved the camera crews’ fees. Under Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph & Theatre Union (BECTU) rules the crews were on straight time from 9am to 6pm, time and a half from 6pm to midnight and double time for every hour worked thereafter, the infamous and highly lucrative golden hours. Because the bands didn’t start playing until late, I wanted to move the crew start time to 6pm. I just didn’t see the point of paying the guys to sit around for nine hours doing nothing. The Union were reluctantly okay with that, so long as we put the film crews up in a 3-star hotel as compensation, but UMP wanted the full monty. It was only the prospect of losing the entire deal that changed their minds. With only a week to go before the shoot that was not the time for tantrums. My last dealings with UMP was to give their bookings clerk the all important crew call sheet; dates, times, equipment and the plethora of miniature that makes a film shoot work. Everything had to be planned ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 295

like a military operation because, in those pre-mobile phone days, once the camera crews were on the festival site they were incommunicado. To be sure I made UMP sign for the call sheet schedule, to dissuade them from any last minute surprises, before I headed home to Harrow for the last full night’s sleep I would get for days.

June 19th 1984, Steve Brook-Smith and I headed off to the Stonehenge Festival site, to iron out any last minute glitches which might arise with the organisor Big Steve. Enroute we stopped off at a Soho pub for a final meeting with Vance before the off. Steve and I found him in the Intrepid Fox pub in Wardour Street, the hearth and home of Soho’s film district, with Paul Sharkey curled up with laughter at the sight of us.

‘What? What’s wrong with going to a freak festival wearing patchouli oil, an afghan coat, flares and love beads? We want to blend in, don’t we?’

By the time Vance and Paul stopped laughing, I got the distinct impression that Vance was not expecting to join our sartorial excesses any time soon.

It is debatable if anyone who has ever been to the Stonehenge Free Festival really gets over their first sight of that vast encampment sprawling over the rolling grass lands of Salisbury Plain. A magnificent tent city and, at the epicentre, the pyramid stage rising above a vista of the great stone monument itself. The Rainbow Warriors, the brightly painted buses and trucks of the New Age Travellers and the signs advertising exotic wares for sale. Well, that’s enough poetic pontificating for now. We Pixies were professional film makers and had serious stuff to do.

First item of business was to track down the stage manager, Big Steve, to let him know we’d arrived. Big Steve, sporting a gigantic plaster on his arm from a recent bicycle accident, had been running the main stage at Stonehenge since 1981 and seemed to be the only person who knew what was going on. He allotted the Pixie crew a space to camp backstage and left us to get on with it. I found Gobbo wandering down the main drag, with a silly stoned grin on his face, and he took us back to where he and Clive were camped. The entire massed ranks of the Harrow Freaks had drawn their Morris ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 296

Minor vans into a circle, topped them off with a tarp and had herded inside. They looked like a wagon train of settlers waiting for the natives to attack. Or possibly the Cavalry depending how you view the thing. Bring us your teeming hordes of Gareth and Kiwi Ian and Sparky and Elliott and Mark and the gang’s all here. I, on the other hand, still had my own tent to erect. We left Gobbo, the giggling freak, to his nefarious devices and gave Clive a call sheet to remind them when to turn up back-stage next day.

I have never been good with tents; there always too many guy ropes and not enough tent pegs to be hammered into rock hard ground. Steve, meanwhile, had his spacious abode up with no trouble at all. The Travellers had it right; buy a bus and sleep in a bed. Settling down to tiffin, Steve and I were approached by whom we took to be a band but actually turned out to be another camera crew. It transpired that the Pixie’s exclusive coverage of the event, wasn’t. Jettisoundz were under the same impression and were as perplexed by the situation as us. I didn’t see the video makers as competition at the time since they were shooting on domestic S-VHS whilst we were using broadcast standard film. However, it did mean we were both using the same sound clean feed. The cable connection was run out of the festival mixing desk, right through the audience, round the back of the stage, past the generator, into the Jettisoundz recording truck, out of their desk via another cable and into our recording truck. Which is a long way for a signal to travel in a fairly hostile environment. I decided to wait for our sound engineer, Ian Voight, to arrive before getting into a conversation about who had first rights to what had been negotiated between Dave Clarke and the bands anyway. This was not the time for fisticuffs.

At noon on June 20th 1984, Summer Solstice Eve, the Pixie Productions film crew arrived on site; Vance with Dave in his Volvo and a big white Transit van bursting at the seams with technicians and aluminium flight cases. I walked them up the access track to the backstage area, lest some hapless hash-headed freak should wander aimlessly under the truck wheels. Finally the van doors were flung open and the travel weary crew tumbled out - into Babylon. There is a long held tradition amongst camera folk of playing merry japes on young film directors, especially at his first major rock concert, which ensures bonding. So it was of no surprise when Ian Voight sought me out to announce, ‘I hope you’ve got the sound recording equipment because we haven’t.

‘Hohoho. Most amusing.’ I opened the back doors of the van, fully expecting to see ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 297

the missing flight cases but all I saw was - they were missing. ‘Okay, a joke’s a joke but where is it really?’

But the sound equipment really wasn’t there. Despite having furnished UMP with a call sheet, detailing who and what equipment to pick up along the way, their production office had not bothered to pass it onto the guys. The crew were eighty-five miles from London with Roy Harper due on-stage in a matter of hours and, with the sound equipment supplier Osbourne Sound due to close up shop for the day, the crew found themselves without any tape recorders. And mobile phones had not been invented yet.

Time for Vance Goodwin to take command! The crew gave him every ten pence piece they possessed so he could drive into the nearest town, phone Osbourne Sound to see if they would stay open until he arrived and hopefully get back to the site in time for Roy Harper. And even if this endeavour was a success, there was no way for Vance to let the crew know if this would work until he got back to Stonehenge.

As we waved Vance away in his Volvo, Gobbo and Clive turned up back-stage. They could see straight away that something was wrong by the pall of gloom which had descended around the crew but, being of a naturally sunny disposition, they would not allow us to descend any further into the slough of despond. Gobbo treated me with kid gloves while Clive gave the guys, all of whom outranked him in age and experience, a pep talk about professionalism. It seemed to do the trick; suddenly everyone burst into action as the sound bollox-up, if not entirely forgotten at least not referred to, as everyone carried on as if nothing was wrong. What we did in time of stress was what we always did in times of stress. We went of lunch.

The crew found a pub with a good restaurant, close to the banks of the River Avon near the village of Salterton, just south of Amsbury. We rolled up in the great white Transit van and were about to wander into the pub when Gobbo espied a big sign on the door which read, “no hippies.” Good job too, who wants to sit next to a bunch of dirty, smelly hippies when savouring the culinary delights of a quaint olde worlde English hostelry. The crew looked at the sign. They looked at me. I looked at the sign. It was a good sign. They were still looking at me. Ah. Right. Ian went in to ask the landlord if as he would allow this dirty, smelly hippie film director to have lunch in his 5-star dining room, what with the dirty, smelly hippie in question holding the cash float and all. The landlord said as he would make an exception this time so long as the dirty, smelly ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 298

hippie film director didn’t start ripping up the seats. I can recommend the trout.

On our way back to the site, near Great Durnford, we encountered a white police van travelling towards us. There were the usual hilarious comments of “stash the hash boys’” and “they know we’ve got Al in the van” when the police van flashed its headlights at us. My heart sank. Nobody spoke. We just knew we were going to get a tug. But nothing happened. The police van continued on its mysterious way. It was a real conversation killer. At Pixie Productions we had a hard and fast rule; no drugs.

This was not meant judgmentally, as a life style comment, but our film shoots often took us to places where the police lurked. Being busted for drugs would hardly do our reputation any good if we were caught with something we shouldn’t have.

Back on site, Dave steamed into the bands to get their set lists of which songs could be filmed while the crews set up their camera gear on-stage. The crews worked out what areas of the stage the various cameras would cover. Dixie & Steve stage right, Bob & Ivor stage left whilst Stuart roved. The plan was to cue, by radio, each camera to start rolling two minutes apart; this was to avoid all the cameras needing a magazine change at the same time and create gaps in the coverage. Also, the crews were under strict instructions not to stop filming unless directed to do so. This was to help the editor, later, who would not know one song from another. But truth be told Stuart was not keen on roving with a camera amongst a mass of anarchists so a friendly biker offered to go along as his minder. Indeed, later we got a visit from a whole bunch of friendly bikers who said they would mind the entire camera crew from the ravaging hordes of the travellers, if they were kept them in wine all night. I was half expecting a scam like this but since Gobbo knew the bikers concerned and, working on the theory it was better to have them on our side than not, we hired them. Of course, like bikers everywhere, they were cuddly teddy bears underneath it all really. But I don’t think they’d be very pleased if I told you that. Nobody wanted to mention Altamont either.

Meanwhile, this is what happened to Vance; he managed to bluster his way to the front of a very long queue at a callbox in Amsbury, loaded down with every ten pence ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 299

piece the crew gave him, stuffed into them into the coin box and called Osbourne Sound. Paul Sharkey wanted to know if Vance was aware that the crew had not picked up the sound equipment. Vance said that he was. Paul, in one of those rare moments of uncommon valour of the sort that gets people mentioned in dispatches, offered to drive up the A303 until he met Vance driving in the opposite direction, to hand over the equipment. So Vance shot off, headlights on peddle to the metal, in one direction while Paul loaded up his MG sports car with flight cases and, headlights on peddle to the metal, shot off in the other direction. They met in a lay-by near the town of Hartley Wintney, where the exchange took place. Business concluded, due deference given, Vance turned his car around and, headlights on peddle to the metal, shot back down the A303 to Stonehenge. He arrived just in time to see the stage crew changing the back line for Roy Harper. Everyone grabbed a flight case and the sound gear was set up and ready to roll with minutes to spare. I knew that without Vance the crew would have had to pack up and go home in a grey shroud of total embarrassment.

Vance couldn’t quite understand why I had a huge hairy biker trailing around after me.

I explained, ‘This is Timothy. He is my minder.’

Vance thought this was a tad over the top until moments later when he was approached by what appeared to be a 10-year-old boy. He was a Convoy Kid. I knew something of their toxic back history, as did the biker minder, but Vance didn’t. Although the crew had the permissions required to film on-stage, the Convoy Kid decided Vance should pay the travellers £250 by way of a facility fee. The facility? To not trash the cameras.

Vance made the error of treating this lad as though he were a rather naughty child and promptly told him so. Wrong!

‘If you don’t give me the money I’ll tell my dad you tried to touch me up,’ the Convoy Kid responded.

This brought a look of blanched horror to Vance’s face. At which point the biker minder stepped in and told the Convoy Kid to feck off. Which he promptly did, of course.

According to Vance, ‘In all my years as a film producer I have never encountered anything like that from a child.’

‘Welcome to Stonehenge,’ said my biker minder.

Although the film crew arrived early enough to make sure their camera equipment ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 300

was working, because of the late arrival of the sound gear this luxury was not true for Ian and Clive who had to jerry rig the system whilst Roy Harper was performing.

One of the items included in the sound package

were

the

walkie-talkies

and,

unbeknown to the film sound engineers, the site stage crew were using unshielded cables so every time I tried to use a radio to cue in the cameras my voice came out of the PA system like the voice of God. Only much, much louder. I abandoned the radios for fear of dire consequences at the hands of an irate Roy Harper, later, whose show I was interrupting.

More worrying was that, although the radio mics attached to the clapperboards were transmitting merrily, the signal was not being received on the tape recorder.

Apparently two vital pieces of equipment were missing, the banana clips, which meant Ian could not connect the radio receiver to the recorder. This was to cause endless hours of grief later when it came to the edit. The sight of Clive bending over the recording system, a red hot soldering iron close to his dangling long hair, gave me a near fit of the willies. Heath and safety at work? Not in those days.

In

the

break

between

Roy

Harper

coming off and Hawkwind going on, I was approached by Nik Turner who wanted ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 301

to let us know the band had something special planned for his entrance. Nik and his wife had been rehearsing the song Ghost Dance all afternoon with a group of female dancers he would only describe as The Vestal Virgins, who were to perform a rite for the Summer Solstice. Meanwhile Dave Clarke was deep in conversation with guitarist Dave Brock who told him to beware of the Tibetan Ukrainian Mountain Troupe fire eaters who were going to be juggling at the front of the stage.

Vance took me aside and casually asked what insurance cover we had regarding accidental damage by fire. Not enough, obviously, if the look on his face was anything to go by.

Hawkwind came on and played an incredibly long intro; it took a while to figure out why. It was because Nik was wending his way through the audience, perched on the shoulders of the stage crew whilst the jugglers juggled. Finally Nik made it to the stage and The Vestal Virgins did their thing. Indeed, they carried on doing their thing long after the song finished and I got the distinct impression Dave Brock was not a happy bunny about being upstaged by a bunch of virgins, vestal or otherwise.

Before the days of video assist for film cameras, where a director can see via a video monitor what the camera operators are doing, there is very little for a director to do once everything was rolling. Plan ahead, get the best photographers you can afford and trust them to turn in the goods without unduly hassling them but there was something the highly paid camera crews had not. Great balls of fire! It is not unknown for photographers to get tunnel vision whilst looking through a view finder and to not actually see the environment around them. Generally camera assistants act as spotters but if they are in the middle of some complicated lens fiddling they can miss things too.

What they missed were these enormous great fire balls erupting out of the audience.

And since I could not use the radios there was no easy way to alert the crews, either. So ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 302

the only thing I could do was lunge at Steve Brook-Smith and slap him hard on the leg, whilst jabbing my finger towards the fire. Finally Steve got the message and nudged Dixie in the right direction.

There is something else that can happen to camera crews; they can freeze in the face of apparent adversity. When the crews first started filming in the early evening there were a few thousand people in the audience. By the time the fire eaters got going for Hawkwind that number had swelled to the tens of thousands. And, of course, the camera crews had been too busy to notice. But now, illuminated by the fireballs, Steve had a grandstand view of thousands of people staring at him. Staring at them. He froze.

The production crew at the side of the stage could see this happening to him but were powerless to help because in their own sweet way they were mesmerized by the fiery scene too. It was Dixie who broke the spell by the expedient of slapping Steve really hard until he snapped out of it. I always wondered if that was some kind of a record; Steve Brooke-Smith, the first camera assistant to be thrashed within an inch on his life, live on-stage in front of 100,000 freaks.

What also caught the crews unawares was that, strange as this may seem, even in mid-summer it gets cold at night. It was midsummer, it had been a hot day and most of the guys were wearing shorts. I had carefully explained to them beforehand that, no matter what, they were stuck on that stage until The Enid came off at approximately 2am. They could take comfort breaks between bands and only one at a time or the camera probably would not be there when they got  back. What they didn’t have time ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 303

to do was get changed. Gawd, it got cold.

Suddenly people were not making stupid jokes about my furry afghan coat anymore.

Now they knew why I was wearing it and why shorts were not such a good idea. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it, almost thirty year on. Us Pixies filmed the songs Ghost Dance, Watching the Grass Grow and Social Alliance. Hawkwind finished just after midnight and The Enid played through until 2am as expected.

My gallant film crew got the equipment stashed in record time and shot off to their nice, warm comfortable hotel in Amsbury. The production team, however, were under canvas backstage. To this day I can’t help feeling we had got that the wrong way around. It had been a long and strange day and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. And, since I had no intention of arising until the sun was well over the yard arm, I gave the Pixie Productions official English Heritage press passes for the dawn Solstice Ceremony to Jettisoundz. The Pixie crew couldn’t film it without getting into an heinous overtime claim, anyway. Gobbo, it transpired, had other ideas.

At Stonehenge dawn doesn’t so much come up like thunder, it more sort of seeps into the landscape. Nothing was going to seep into me, bundled up under an igloo of sleeping bag, duvet and afghan coat. I definitely wasn’t expecting an earthquake, the ground shouldn’t have been vibrating like that. Just a dream, burrow deeper under the igloo and ignore the madness going on outside the tent. Let the children play. A hand was on my shoulder, gently rocking. To sleep? I was I ready asleep. Somewhere in the deep recesses of slumber, I got the distinct impression I was not alone. There was a Gobbo sitting cross legged beside me. It spoke.

‘It’s dawn. Vance says you’ve got to get up. We’ve got to film the Druids.’

‘Can’t, haven’t got a camera. The cameras are with the crew in a hotel in Amsbury.

Go away,’ said the sleeping bag.

‘And Hawkwind are playing again,’ said Gobbo.

‘Nice for them. Leave me alone. Mumblemumble.’ ’Where’s your stills camera?’ asked Gobbo, pushing his luck.

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 304

Which is how come Gobbo went up to the Stones at dawn and took photographs whilst I lay dead to the world in a cocoon of duvets.

By the time I finally surfaced, in the late morning of June 21st 1984 Solstice day, the camera crew had already turned up which was odd because Here & Now were not due on-stage until 11pm; it was a full twelve hours before the madness was due to break out again. But the guys had come early to bundle the production team, who had endured a night under canvas, into the truck and take them to lunch. As the waifs clambered aboard I couldn’t help noticing a strange dent in the roof, a leftover from the night before when our biker minders had climbed atop the vehicle to get a better view of Hawkwind. Ever resourceful, Gobbo braced himself atop a seat and kicked upwards. There was a boing-ing sound as the roof sprung back into shape. It reminded us of an Antipodean musician’s wobble board.

We went to the same pub restaurant as the day before and, spookily, saw near Great Durnford a white police van travelling towards us which flashed its headlights at us. My heart jumped. Nobody spoke as the police van continued on its mysterious way. It was a real conversation killer, though. And faintly eerie.

We arrived back on site, bulging with food, to find that Jettisoundz had packed up and left. Their spot on the landscape was now occupied by Here & Now who had arrived whilst we were feasting elsewhere. It was the first time I had actually met them and they didn’t seem to fit my mental image of anarcho-punks. But, as experience tends to show, looks can be deceptive. A long chat with Keith, discussing how to film the band, was interrupted by an impromptu game of five-a-side football which had broken out between the band and crew. A good bonding exercise. I liked the idea. Not built for hectic sports like football Clive, Gobbo and I sauntered off to find a quiet spot to bask in the sun. Talk turned to a dissection of the show so far; Roy Harper’s amazing guitar technique, Nik Turner’s costume, the Vestal Virgins, The Enid’s guitarist who reminded Clive of a moth for some reason and the sight of Steve Brook-Smith being thrashed by Dixie. And the drugs. Gobbo couldn’t understand how I could come to the biggest free ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 305

festival in Europe and not get stoned.

I told him, ‘Getting stoned was not an option; all that miswired energy coming off the freaks in waves, the spirituality of the ancient Stone Circle, the responsibility of a massive film crew, why, a person could wind up with a serious personality disorder trying to keep all that lot together with a head full of chemical amusements.’

We were joined by Clive’s brother, Elliott, and Gobbo’s flat mate Nick Mersch, aka Nick Danger. Elliott had been reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas and wanted to know the meaning of a word Thompson kept using; atavistic. I thought it meant a reversion of an ancestral peculiarity which seemed quite relevant considering where we were. Who needs drugs when there’s an Elliott to keep everyone entertained.

Nick Danger (nee Mersch), playing drums that year with the Wystic Mankers, said he and Glen from the Tibetans were juggling with Here & Now later that night on the main stage and was it true the Pixies were filming them? I told Nick not to worry, as we would edit out the bits where he dropped his clubs. The afternoon wore on into evening which meant it was time to get the crew together for a pre-shoot meeting. Ian said he had got the sound system sorted which meant we could use the radios. Vance had to return to London and gave Dave Clarke a ride back with him. Stuart Bennett had another job next day, with an early call, so he was excused duty for the night with Steve taking over his camera. The motley crew were breaking up. Keith and I agreed on the three songs we could film - Secrets, Theatre and Glad You’re Here.

That night I sat on the edge of the stage, wedged under Dixie’s tripod, with a note pad in one hand and a radio in the other ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 306

to cue in the cameras.

The whole thing went off without a hitch and the crew were wrapped and off the site before midnight. As the crew were packing up the lead singer from the band Man, who were due on next, asked if I would film them. Too late, he was told, we’re out of film and our musical director had been told we were not allowed to film them. Looking back, if there are regrets of that night, not filming Man rates pretty high on my list of great lost opportunities. It was their farewell gig and we missed it. Hey-ho. Steve and I spent the night backstage before returning to London early next day.

I arrived at UMP studios and walked into a defecation storm of greed and recriminations. The sound department, instead of using twin-track 16mm magnetic sound, had transferred the quarter inch master tapes twice therefore doubling the cost.

When told to re-do it properly they informed us we would get charged for the extra run, thus tripling the cost. Before I could take the tapes to another studio, UMP retaliated by saying we could not remove the masters from the building because they owned the tapes. Actually they didn’t, as the tapes had been supplied by Osbourne Sound. When pressed, the sound technicians claimed their boss had belatedly realised I had been filming at a major rock concert and the boss “wanted some of it.” On the way out of the door a minion, minioning, gave me an envelope which it contained the bill for the crews’ fees, at full union rate, plus a copy of the film processing invoice.

‘What happened to the wages deal? What happened to the ninety-days before invoicing? Do contracts mean nothing to you?’

Not only had they stuck Pixie Productions with an outlandish wage bill, according to them their guys were still filming at the festival while Steve and I were driving back to London. UMP were trying to wrest control of the movie from the Pixies by spouting gibberish about ownership. It got pretty ugly; at one point the company tried to seize ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 307

the original negative from the film lab. When the lab realised what was going on they switched the processing bill straight to Pixie Productions, cutting UMP out of the whole deal. To add a final insult UMP never apologised for screwing up the sound gear debacle.

As for the missing banana clips, Paul Sharkey found them in the flight case where they had been all along.

Gobbo and I decamped to the leafy environs of Norwich where we spent a blissful month editing the movie at a film makers co-op. Apart from the occasional visit from Vance we were left to our own devices which was fine by me because we were free to meld into the vibes of Stonehenge as it was and not how it was perceived to be by the straight-going media. To make up for bumping Gobbo back down to trainee, in prep, I gave him his head and let him edit some of the Roy Harper sequences. I loitered in the cutting room to dive in if he needed help but my presence seemed to be putting him off.

He was holding a strip of film in each hand, undecided which one to use. ’Do you mind if I make a suggestion?’ I enquired. ’Do you mind if I make one first,’ said Gobbo.

He didn’t actually tell me to feck off but could feel the unsaid feckishness loitering in the air. I decided to wander off for a while and leave him to it. When I came back he had a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face with a job well done and, after looking at the film he had cut, I decided I should give him his head more often. Credit where it is due; well done Gobbo!

The final master sound mix was recorded on my thirty-third birthday at Cine Lingual Sound Studios in Berwick Street, engineered by Aad Wirks with Keith Bailey and Nik Turner supervising their individual bands’ sounds. We took the show print to Trillion Studios to have the end credits added to the master U-Matic video and made a few VHS copies for the bands. I have a vague memory of a post production party afterwards, in The Intrepid Fox, but it all seems a tad hazy for some reason. I remember ending up in Gobbo’s flat but beyond that - nothing.

After the final print was made Gobbo and I took the train down to Axminster, to be met by Dave Brock who took us back to his palatial home set on a headland overlooking Seaton Bay. While a meal was being prepared, Dave suggested we explore the garden after regaling us with the tale of while Hawkwind were on tour part of the cliff and their back wall had collapsed into the sea. It was getting dark and I had this horrible ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 308

feeling my next step was likely to be my last before the long drop ended with a faint splash. We ran the Stonehenge ‘84 VHS, for approval purposes, and after making a few suggestions Dave cleared it. We asked what time the next train ran back to London.

Tomorrow morning. Oh dear. Dave put us up for the night to the sounds of the sea and, as I thought, ominous creaking and groaning from the house. Maybe it was my imagination but there seemed to be a crack in the wall which I didn’t remember seeing the night before. With all due thanks for his hospitality, Dave dropped us back at Axminster station.

1n 1993 Dave left a message on my answer phone; ‘I heard you’ve made a film of us, none of us have seen it, get in touch because we’d ready like to see what you’ve done.’

I wrote back to him, that we’d met at his home with an approval copy of the film but I never heard from him again.

1984 and Vance came back with bad news from Channel Four. They weren’t interested in screening a film which featured unknown hippie bands produced by an unknown production company. Hawkwind? Unknown? Which was a bit of laugh at the time because that was precisely what Channel Four were, supposedly, set up for. In an obscure way it was a sort of back-handed compliment that we were not left-field enough for the arty glitterati of Channel Four.

A C4 insider, who begged not to be named, told us, ‘The general view at C4 is they don’t want to be associated with a bunch of dirty smelly hippies who, having probably borrowed their mum’s 8mm cine camera, banged off a few shots of some nameless bands between acid trips.’

How quaint.

The movie was signed to distributors Glenbuck Films in 1985 but by the early-1990’s cinema bookings were down and it was deleted from their list. Apparently, Glenbuck were not planning to invest in VHS copying equipment as they saw no future in the home video market. Famous last words. In 1993 I had a letter from the British Film Institute with news the Stonehenge film had been screened at a film festival in Bratislava and the jury panel had voted me a cult music film maker. In the BFI’s own words, ‘... that word is spelled C.U.L.T.’ At least they had a sense of humour. * ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 309

iv. FRAUD, THREATS AND CRUEL DEFAMATIONS We wander off the timeline here; over the thirty-nine years since Stonehenge 1984, a midsummer night rock show was made there was a weirdness about that film, a mill stone around my neck, which attracted some quite unsavory people who tried to variously pirate the film for their own unspeakable ends or demand money with extreme menaces; one Stonehenge band, Here & Now, later accused me of pirating my own film. Quite often these shenanigans were driven by a general misunderstanding of how the copyright laws work, coupled with musicians not registering their music with the Performing Rights Society then wondering why they weren’t getting any royalties when the film was in distribution. Copyright seems complicated but really it isn’t.

I own the film rights. I do not own the music publishing rights which is why Dave Clarke organised contracts between the producing company, Pixie Productions, and the individual bands giving the production company licence to use their live music in our Stonehenge ‘84 film. Whenever this film is shown on TV, cinema screening or DVD sales the Performing Rights Society collect royalty fees on behalf of the bands who appeared in the production. These fees never come to us film makers at all and are dealt direct to the bands which is just as well, for them, because Stonehenge ‘84 never made it’s production costs back. It didn’t even break even. Sometimes stuff doesn’t happen and we the producers have to stand the loss. I never made the film expecting to make my fortune; it was a good thing to do at that time with those people and stands as a slice of mid-1980s socio-political archive. Which is why it grinds my gears when people who were not contractually involved in the original production slither out of the woodwork, demanding a slice of the action. Bah! Humbug!

In the mid-1990s a regional college of further education was caught bang-to-rights selling VHS copies of Stonehenge ‘84. When challenged the technician concerned disappointingly assumed I was a stoned brain-dead hippie, a common misconception of confusing who I am as a person with the nature of the product which often gets people into trouble, who don’t understand the legal position for copyright theft. The college administration were rather bemused when they received legal papers demanding they stop selling VHS copies of the product forthwith from their college library and pay restitution. They tried to bluff it out but were caught in a tangle of their own inexactitudes. We settled out of court and the technician almost lost his job, the fact ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 310

of which he bemoaned to anyone who would listen of what a heartless swine I was for putting a stop to him illegally making a profit off our backs. I pity the students who are being taught on that college who think it is okay to rip off someone’s copyright because the chances are they won’t get caught.

At the turn of the new millennium a conman tried an old century robbery. A guy calling himself “Mike” phoned claiming to be Hawkwind’s biggest fan.

‘I heard you’ve made a film at the Stonehenge Festival and I’d like buy the Hawkwind sequences from you,’ he claimed.

‘Sorry,’ I explained, ‘the film runs an hour and I’m not cutting it up to sell in bits. You buy the film rights of the complete product or nothing.’

‘I’ll give you two grand for it.’

‘No,’ I said laughing, ‘That won’t even cover the original production costs.’

I mentioned a figure to him which he found outrageous.

‘No one will ever pay you that amount for a Hawkwind film,’ he spluttered with outraged indignation.

‘Well that’s okay then because I not selling it.’

“Mike” hung up with bad grace pertaining to my parentage, or lack thereof, but called back a few hours later with what he considered a better offer. Five thousand pounds.

‘You’re not getting this are you. It is a complete film and I’m not cutting bits out to sell separately. The film is not for sale.’

He eventually rang off in a rather grumpy mood to be replaced a few hours later by an irate Nik Turner demanding to know why I was trying sell him his own product for £20,000 when he could get a VHS from me anytime for nowt. What we presumed to have happened was “Mike” tried to buy low from me to sell high to Nik. The flaw in his plan was Nik & I knew each other and could spot a fraudster when we saw one. Since the coming of the internet there have been various attempts to put the Stonehenge ‘84 film up on Youtube but all, so far, have been dashed. Mostly the people concerned were hippies who thought it was cool and amaaaaaaazing ma’an to put the film out to the greater world with no respect for the film copyright or the bands’ PRS. In 2002 I went to Norwich School of Art & Design for a late degree, upgrading my analogue film making skills to digital. Digital vision technician, Liam Wells, had the knack of teaching new technology in such a way as to make the process easy and ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 311

enjoyable, showing us softwares we needed to know in the real world. One of which was learning how to produce a DVD which made the road to distribution a whole lot easier.

Liam had seen my Stonehenge 1984 film and gave endless encouragement to get it out into the World. I wasn’t so sure of that because every time I tried to re-release the film Here & Now, alone amongst the other featured artists, would jog up and make wild accusations of copyright theft even though they’d signed a contract way back in 1984.

They consistently misunderstood that I didn’t make money from their published work.

Which was why the film never went back into distribution; too much trouble for very little or no return and a whole lot of agro from one band.

In 2004 I met up with author Chris Stone and photographer Alan ’Tash’ Lodge at Stonehenge for summer solstice. Between us we had a vast wealth of background knowledge, photos and film archive material on the alternative scene. We discussed writing the definative traveleresque festival book or documentary film on the subject.

And what better place to talk about it than at the Stonehenge monument. The 2004 event was a disappointingly watered down version of the solstices we knew from our youth, over managed by English Heritage with huge numbers of police in attendance.

I video’d a young woman fire juggler who was wrestled to the ground by a dozen officers and frog-marched off the site in handcuffs. We were not, it seemed, into free expression at Stonehenge anymore. It was 20-years to the day since I’d filmed Roy Harper, Hawkwind & The Enid and the world had moved on to something less appealing.

The spirit of the free festival scene was crushed and lay in ruins. Andy Worthington had just brought out his book Stonehenge Celebration and Subversion which caused Chris Stone to decide there was no mileage in our proposed collaboration. Andy Worthington had said it all, Chris decided. I tried to revive the idea of a TV documentary, using Stonehenge 1984 as the basis, but there was no interest.

Liam Wells, my hero, encouraged me to put Stonehenge 1984 out the DVD to test the waters, as it were, and we made limited edition copies which went into a local independent record store. Amazingly they sold out in a week. There was obviously a market there but I couldn’t possibly afford to put it out with only a teeny-weeny student loan to live on. It was a fine idea, a gallant attempt but fell at the first fence through lack of funding. Over the years several people popped up to say there was a huge untapped world market out there for Stonehenge ‘84 but nobody wanted to back that ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 312

up by financing the project. A master DVD alone cost over 200-quid, plus the outlay for bulk copies in an unknown market. To me it was a nice bit of art I’d made a quarter of a century before but too troublesome to seriously re-release. According to the Musicians Union and the Performing Rights Society there would be no problem in re-releasing my product because Dave Clarke had the foresight back in 1984 to make signed contracts with the bands. I had a feeling it wasn’t as simple as that and it would take just one musician to object and I’d be left with a lot of DVD stock and deeply in debt.

The other rather spurious argument folk used, to get the film into DVD distribution, was I somehow ‘owed it’ to the new generation of alternative youth to show them the way we were. I didn’t think I owed anyone anything for making a live concert film long-long ago in the ancient mists of time. BBC4 made a documentary about the band Hawkwind and Nik Turned put the producer Tim Cummin in touch with a view to licensing a 90-second clip from my 1984 film. If there was any doubt how the copyright system worked, here it is; the BBC paid two fees, one to me for the use of the film and another PRS fee direct to Hawkwind. There was absolutely no copyright misunderstanding between myself, the BBC and Hawkwind. Later Tim and I got together and put a documentary proposal to the BBC to produce a complete history of the Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival from 1974 to 1985, ending with the punch-up between the Peace Convoy and the police.

This was to be achieved by a nostalgic trip to Stonehenge in a travellers bus, taking the scenic route to interview the main protagonists who organised or appeared at the festival, using archive film of to illustrate the narrative. Research with the British Film Institute revealed over six hundred related film clips in their vast film library. The BBC said they’d think about it.

By 2009 Voiceprint were keen to take Stonehenge ‘84 on but knowing Here & Now could kick off about my alleged plundering of either their copyright and/or the ethics of the free festival scene, I wanted to cut them out of the final DVD version. They gave me brain ache. Rob Ayling at Voiceprint claimed Here & Now couldn’t cause distribution problems because I had a contract with them and what would be the point of putting a stop on the DVD anyway since they were entitled to their PRS fees. Their stop on a DVD re-release would cause the other artists to lose their potential fees from the film too. It made no sense. Who said rock’n’roll had to make sense? To solve the prospect of trouble ahead with Here & Now I decided to waive my fee from the proposed distribution ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 313

and license the DVD rights (only) to Big Steve who had managed the Stonehenge main stage. I would retain the film rights and take my fees from future, if any, television, cinema or archive screenings. All I needed was a signature on a Voiceprint contract. It never came.

Several things were happening in 2010; the BBC4 licensed another 90-second clip, this time of Roy Harper playing on the Stonehenge ‘84 film for their Festivals Britannia documentary which included interviews with Nik Turner, formerly of Hawkwind, and Keith Bailey, of Here & Now fame, which was transmitted on December 17th. Both Tim and I were disappointed BBC4 had rejected our Stonehenge Festival documentary as we felt Festivals Britannia was a watered down broad overview of the British festival scene but by then I had other things on my mind. I was due to start an MA creative writing course in September at the University of East Anglia and was also up to my ruddy elbows getting Stonehenge 1984 DVDs mastered, the latter needing a major director’s cut with added rostrum photos of my 1981 foray. Voiceprint said they would release my band’s DVD, Back From The Beanfield but with strings attached; we had to include an interview with The Levellers on the spurious grounds that our guitarist, Paddy Stratton, had written songs for them eight years before. The Levellers were a very hard band to track down and it was probably going to cost us a fortune to film a short interview with them. It took months for their tour manager to get back to us and the best she could offer was my crew paying to get into one of their gigs, not allowed to film any of their set but wait until the end when the band did a Q&A session with the audience where I could ‘interview’ them, if they had time. I could see that becoming a very expensive non event if they didn’t like the questions I might ask publicly in front of their devoted fans. Frankly, I couldn’t see what was in it for The Levellers either as they had no connections to my band. Eventually, with the clock ticking away, we Trolley Men decided to scrap the whole Levellers idea. This did not go down well with Voiceprint who, we thought, might be trying to use us as a conduit to The Levellers’ so Voiceprint could re-release their back issue. Rob Ayling became rather fractious on that subject and decided he wanted nothing more to do with either my band The Trolley Men or me. Nik Turner later told me I’d probably had a lucky escape as Voiceprint had a dodgy reputation when it came to coughing up royalties. Since I hadn’t signed a distribution contract with Voiceprint for the Stonehenge ‘84 DVD it kept that project safe too. Or so ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 314

I thought.

In March 2011 we took our band’s Back From The Beanfield project to Highlights Video in Boston (England) for DVD mastering. Whilst there company director Harold Houldenshaw asked me to pay for the eighty Stonehenge ‘84 DVDs Rob Ayling had ordered but couldn’t use because Voiceprint had gone bust. We all tried very hard not to hold our sides with mirth about his misfortune. Harold was told to erase the Stonehenge ‘84 files from his computer hard drive so the they didn’t accidentally escape into the wider world. To my otherwise relief the day after Rob dumped us a local alternative record store took up the slack. Phew! A nasty accident neatly avoided there. Or so I thought - squared. Life went on.

Then graphic designer Martin Cook got in touch to congratulate me on the success of the Stonehenge ‘84 DVD. ‘What? I asked, almost fainting clean away. I had a horrible feeling I knew what was coming.

‘Its all over the internet like a rash,’ claimed Martin.

There was no way that could happen because Harold had wiped the files off his system and I held the master. Upon checking via Google search it came to light the DVD was indeed being sold hither and yon by Voiceprint, with a rather cheesy unauthorised sleeve. But that was impossible. I never signed a contract with Voiceprint. There then ensued a crowded few days, contacting Big Steve to ask if he’d received any royalties.

He hadn’t which meant no one else had either. Visions of an angry Dave Brock turning up on my doorstep demanding money with extreme predudice loomed large in the not too distant future, closely followed by an irate Here & Now demanding restitution in a self-satisfied I-told-you-so frame of mind. The thought of undue repercussions caused a Cease & Desist notice to be sent to Voiceprint, Highlights Video for supplying illegal DVDs and a company called Gonzo who were selling the DVDs in their shop.

A plethora of emails followed from Harold at Highlights Video who claimed ill health.

‘I am bipolar and your threatening email could bring on attack.’

There’s nothing particularly threatening about a Cease & Desist except it was a legalese version of, “stop doing what you’re doing or you’ll end in up in court.” Harold persisted with lame excuses about all the favours he’d done for me in the past. He hadn’t done any. I had to pay him for the eighty DVDs Voiceprint shouldn’t have ordered and, ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 315

anyway, Highlights Video had been told to erase my Stonehenge files from their system back in 2011. They were all in big trouble and they knew it. The best course of action for them was to settle out of court and cough up the royalties. But they chose not to do that. Voiceprint remained silent. Gonzo took a more mature attitude and agreed to stop selling the DVDs. ‘They’re not exactly flying off the shelves,’ they said, agreeing to take the remaining DVDs to a local charity shop and give them away.

Just when I thought it was safe a woman (name withheld at the insistence of my lawyer) claimed Big Steve wasn’t the 1984 Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival main stage manager and shouldn’t be allowed a royalty. She claimed she was the main stage manager in 1984 and demanded a percentage of royalty payments from DVD sales.

The flaws in her suspicious story were quite interesting; why had she waited twentysix years to make herself known as someone who needed to be paid for work done at a free festival and since the film wasn’t in distribution she had a snowball’s chance of ever seeing any fees from me anyway. Her emails became persistent, demanding and faintly threatening.

‘I wonder what the Peace Convoy would have to say if they found out you are making money out of their Festival?’

Their Festival? It was everyone’s free festival. The Peace Convoy didn’t own it although some of them may have thought they did back in the mid-1980s. I didn’t own it and had to make contractual arrangements with the bands for the use of their music. The bands didn’t own the Free Festival either. One wonders what the ageing members of the Peace Convoy had to say if they found out they were being used as a blunt instrument and I asked a few old time travellers what they thought. They were not best pleased.

The thing, the main thing really, is you can’t threaten someone with an empty gun. I don’t have this alleged DVD money to be blackmailed out of. Since email communications

weren’t

calming

her

hostile attitude I called the phone number on her email. Well, it made me laugh.

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The number turned out to be her place of work at one of the HM Government’s unemployment training companies in the west country. The possible former free festival stage manager probably thought that after bullying the unemployed back to work, unpaid in non-existent jobs, I’d be a push over. Oh dear me, no. Turned out she’d taken a day off and I ended up speaking to her office manager and appraised him that further threatening calls from his staff demanding with menaces would be reported to the police. Not to be intimidated by a man offering to call the police, the training manager offered to call the police on me for making threatening phone calls. So I called the police who thought we were the most hilarious bunch they’d come across all week and advised that if the Peace Convoy actually turned up at my house to give me a good kicking then the best course of action would be to wait until they battering their way into my home before phoning the police. Their advice did put the possible former (alleged) free festival stage manager’s rant into perspective but having to deal with strangers demanding money based on that flipping film could be quite frightening. You just never know when one of them is going to explode in your face.

I decided never to put the Stonehenge ‘84 film back into distribution again partly because I didn’t see a market for it but mostly because of the cost. The DVD inlay & sleeve printing and packaging would involve more outlay poured into the original production black hole. So much for peace loving free festival hippies. “Give us yer fecking money!” However the whole sordid Stonehenge ‘84 business blew up again in 2012 when Floating World Records were caught bang to rights selling Stonehenge ‘84 via the internet.

I did manage to put a stop on New York City Library selling copies of the DVD after they received a Cease & Desist, explaining the bands were receiving no royalties from their sales. Emotional blackmail rarely works in these cases but New York City Library must have had a conscience. Both Amazon and HMV refused point blank to stop selling my product because, according to them, I couldn’t prove I was the legal owner even though my name was on the end credits as film director and I had documentation.

Legally, it turned out, none of the Internet companies were taking this seriously precisely because they was no contract between myself and whoever it was distributing the DVD. There was a definite ‘you and whose army’ attitude when dealing with HMV. Floating World Records received a Cease & Desist and I happily grassed them to the PRS for ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 317

non-payment of band royalties. Emails ensued. Floating World’s version of events went like this; after Voiceprint went bust they, Floating World, bought up all their redundant stock from the liquidator, including the Stonehenge ‘84 DVDs (which I technically I owned because I’d paid Highlights Video for the eighty DVDs Rob Ayling had ordered without a contract from me. But I digress). Floating World said they didn’t know there was no distribution contract between me and Voiceprint for Stonehenge 1984 and were an innocent party. Since emails were getting us nowhere I used the telephone to get to bottom of who did what regarding the product. At last there was someone sensible who was prepared to talk. The upshot was, the better part of valour, to put the DVD on a formal contractual basis between Floating World Records and myself as the only winners in a legal action are lawyers. The 1988 Copyright, Patents & Designs Act is there for a reason, to protect our original product, but we have to be rich enough to implement it. At least with Floating World the bands will get their royalties and, in that respect, it was legally off my hands. The contract lasts for three years and if Floating World don’t make their artwork and packaging overheads back in sales then I’ll have to cough up the difference. So my advice is get on the internet right now and buy a copy or I’ll end up in penury. Again.

The cruel defamations from Here & Now bubbled up again about six months after the Floating World contract was signed, claiming on their Planet Gong website that Voiceprint, Floating World and I were making a fortune (hah!) from the DVD while the featured artists were receiving no royalty payments. There is an easy answer to that; contact the Musicians Union and PRS to find out why they aren’t getting their royalties.

It is a constant amazement to me that Here & Now claimed they didn’t know the DVD was in distribution when Keith Bailey had been interviewed along with Nik Turner and Robert John Godfrey of The Enid by Prog Magazine (issue 30, September 2012) promoting Stonehenge ‘84.

iv. HENT SIN YEW ROUND THESE PARTS AFORE13 Back on the timeline; with Stonehenge 1984 put to bed, I was mercifully hauled off to Anglia TV in Norwich working as an assistant to editor Keith Judge on a doco series, Professionally Speaking, which turned out to be a load of old duffers ponficating about their worthy their careers.

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 318

The return train from Birmingham to Norwich every week was a bit of a mission, slowly hauled by a diesel loco, to be punctuated with moments of frozen misery, changing trains at Ely in the fens. The surrounding countryside was low-lying with the station up on an embankment. Arctic winds blew across the flat-lands and stopped up my trouser legs. Regular train passengers got used to it. After a couple of weeks at the Castle Hotel, John Redding called up and I returned to his Constitution Hill home. I settled back into a form of normalcy on a long contract from summer through to the new year.

There was a moment of Union shenanigans which reminded us all we were still in the land of Ludd; the Anglia staff social club was in a little lane which had once been part of old Norwich before the television company integrated it into their premises. A director was using it as an exterior location that evening as if it were a pavement cafe, festooned with supporting artistes. Because the supporting artistes were not due to arrive until later, the programme director toured the studios looking for Anglia staff who weren’t especially doing anything who could sit in the pavement seats, as stand-ins, while he rehearsed his cameras. I had a sweater my niece had knitted with a colour scale pattern on the front. It was a fine sunny day, everyone was in a jolly mood lounging about outside and just for a laugh one of the camera operators zoomed in on the colour scale sweater. At which point everything unaccountably stopped. Turned out a Union rep was in master control, saw the colour scale sweater, recognised it as mine and assumed we were all being ‘illegally’ filmed. Within minutes the Union rep was out on the cobbles, shouting the odds at the director about using unpaid staff in an outside broadcast. We could all see the frustration on the director’s face, trying to make logic out of illogical Union rhetoric. Some of us argued we were being paid by Anglia TV anyway, just at that moment not in the departments where we were contractually obliged and since we were at a loose end what difference did it make? Paid to cut film or paid to sit in a chair doing nothing not being filmed. Na’, the Union rep wasn’t having any of that.

Outraged at the suggestion we should do what we’re told by our employers, the Union rep responded with, ‘Don’t you try that London freelance rubbish on me!’

The Union rep packed us all off like naughty school kids, back to our proper jobs and told the director he couldn’t rehearse until the official supporting artistes turned up about an hour before the live transmission. All the fun of that warm sunny day drained away. What a strangely perverse place Norwich is.

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 319

If that wasn’t bad enough, what followed was hair raising. All was at peace with the world until a close encounter with one of the hairy coppers from the previous year asked what I was doing back in Norwich.

‘I’m working for Anglia TV,’ I said, hoping it would shut him up.

‘Oh yeah? D’you know what the Convoy are doing?’

‘Yeah, expect they’ll be back again in a few weeks, bigger and stronger,’ I smiled, joking.

‘Oh right, thanks for the tip,’ said the hairy cop gratefully as he scurried off.

With any luck it would spoil his whole day. I didn’t know where the Peace Convoy were and didn’t much care.

During the late summer I fell in with a bunch of freaks who were living in a street full of old council houses as a mass licensed squat. They had applied for a million pound grant from the Department of the Environment to buy their houses off the local council and renovate them. All was coasting along quite happily until September 1982 when the government minister, Michael Heseltine, realised he was dealing with a bunch of hippies and withdrew the grant offer. All the squatters could do was fight a rear guard action in the courts to delay the inevitable eviction. This story bubbled along all summer and on into the winter of 1985 with Anglia News crews going down the street to film the squatters’ environment in the worst possible light; dog mess, screaming kids and over flowing rubbish bins. Look at these filthy hippies, the pictures seemed to say, look at these wastetrels whining that the government won’t give our hard-earned tax money to a bunch of disgusting scum. When I questioned the middle-aged grumpy cameraman’s style of images he expressed his issues with the squatters in a rather baroque and animated manner which seemed to suggest the long held view by persons from a certain generation that, ‘anyone who wears combat trousers as a fashion item should be air-dropped into the nearest war zone and made to fight their way out.’

The squatters did provide moments of wild excitement in the City. When news came through they had lost their one million pound grant application, the squatters’ co-op decided to invade the TV station and take over the lunch time news. Of course, this ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 320

act of anarchy turned out to be harder than they thought. For a start they didn’t know where the news studio was and there were no internal sign posts. It all boiled down to a group of angry desperadoes being chased all over the building by aged, wheezy security guys which soon became a spectator sport as the staff came out of their offices and technical areas to watch this Benny Hill style comedy chase.

‘There’s one over here!’

‘No! This way!’

‘He went that’a’way!’

I managed to miss all the action because I was out at lunch and, when I tried to get back into the building, security wouldn’t let me pass because they assumed my hairy self to be one of the anarchists. I had to walk down the road to a phone box and call the newsroom so a reporter could come and fetch me. As the burly security men were throwing the interlopers out, they closed ranks as we approached.

‘It’s all right he works here,’ which the security guards didn’t believe for one moment even though they saw me enter and leave the building every day. They would have their little amusements.

In Norwich, being a small city14 made up of tiny of interweaving medieval villages, it wasn’t hard to find someone who knew an Argyle Street squatter. Their watering hole was The Ferryboat Inn15 on King Street which tolerated the squatters because they were big drinkers. It was time to go check it out and met up with Alex, a geodesic domes designer, who lived up the far end of Argyle Street. I said I was interested in making a documentary film about the back history / future of the street for the overseas TV market, how did he feel about that? Alex said he’d have to put it up to the Co-op and get back to me. Meanwhile, the snows flumped onto Norwich with such vigor I actually banged my head on an overhead road sign when walking over a snow drift in a blizzard.

Oh, the deep joy of wearing a furry Afghan coat. Alex phoned a few days later and asked me to a meeting at his place. When I mentioned this in the newsroom there were dire warnings of the personal risk involved, that it was probably a trap to assault a media hound and, yea verily, I might get in but I probably would be seen alive again. Sounded a tad far fetched to me. Perhaps a little paranoid for all the ‘dirty hippie’ propaganda Anglia News had been pumping out.

The news programme was becoming so right-wing a police officer had a desk in the ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 321

newsroom from where she collated crime reports for her later on-screen appearance.

So much for the independence of the press. Some of us freelancers were cautioned by the management to be careful what we said in the presence of the spy in the newsroom in case it got passed on to her superiors. Of course, we had loud gratuitous canteen conversations about fake crimes in the hope our police mole would waste her ‘valuable’ time. What next? Coppers in broadcast control?

On the day I went to meet the squatters’ Co-op the snow had turned to ice so walking up Argyle Street was a perilous affair. There were plenty of people around on the Street so if I got lost I could ask directions. Slithering up to Alex’s house, got no reply, turned to ask if I’d got the wrong house. There wasn’t a soul to be seen, just a hint of curtain twitching at the stranger on the street. I gave up and decided not the retrace by steps on the ice and went the scenic route, down a flight of concrete steps on the bottom of Southgate Lane onto King Street. The steps were deep in snow covering an ice layer below. I went down on my back until I slithered to a halt hard up against a mound of pack ice at the curb, thrown up from an earlier passing snow plough. I looked into the face of a grinning biker, Smiler, who helped me up and took me back to the right house.

Such was my introduction to Argyle Street.

I was coming to the end of my contract with Anglia and rustled up the guys from the Pixie Productions crew with a view to filming the run up to the last night party and eviction of the squatters in late-February 1985 with Dixie Dean, Graham Humphry and Debbie Cutler on stand-by as camera crew with Gobbo coming back to the cutting room.

Filming on Argyle Street began in mid-February interviewing Andy Pratt, spokesperson for the Street Co-op, and general views of the squatters homes. Although the Street Co-op welcomed us in some of the anarchists were less sure. During filming at the last night party I became aware of a young biker standing extremely close behind us.

Smiler sidled up and whispered, ‘Don’t turn round.’

Later he told us the young anarchist was holding a huge wrench behind his back, with a view to spannering the camera, but was led away by kindly bikers who gave him a few words of gentle advice about ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 322

the inadvisability of attacking the friendly press. Filming of the February 19th last night party and February 20th eviction was with a split crew due to the long continuous hours involved. I took the camera with Clive Moore assisting and Debbie Cutler on sound while Dixie’s crew stayed overnight in the Castle Hotel, to take over at dawn the following day. We were joined by Guardian photographer, Mark Foster, who attached himself to our Pixie Productions crew22 so he could go down the Street unmolested with us. I never understood why some sections of the press felt the need to act surreptitiously when all they had to do was ask the squatters. That’s all I did, ask.

It was a freezing cold night, ‘too cold to snow’ according to one nearby copper, and the few remaining squatters built an enormous bonfire in the front garden of one of the houses. We didn’t take a portable lamp with us as we didn’t want to disturb the frolics of the evening. A record player belted out prog rock, the squatters reveled and we filmed on high speed Ectacrome as best we could by the light of the bonfire.

‘Let us know when your light level drops,’ said Smiler, ‘and we’ll stoke up the bonfire.’

‘We went down there about 4pm,’ recalled Clive Moore, ‘The director wanted to arrive in daylight so all the Squatters could see who we were and he told us we’d been invited to ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 323

what amounted to a private party and we should behave accordingly. Apparently the local media were not invited because of all the bad press the Squatters were getting. I personally saw two reporters being bricked off the Street. At one point the director got threatened with a monkey wrench, then a house caught fire in the wee small hours and there was the incident with the gas canister.’

Ah yes, the gas canister. There had been a corner shop on Argyle Street which the Squatters spent all night trying to demolish by sawing through the heavy duty wooden beam supports by the door. It got towards the early hours of February 20th and the shop refused to collapse. Eventually someone doused the beams in petrol and set fire to it but it still declined to demolish itself. Finally Mick Sankey threw a bottle of Calor gas on the fire, hoping the ensuing explosion would blow the shop down.

‘Everyone on the film crew could see this bottle of pressurized Calor gas on the fire,’ remembered Clive, ‘and knew what would happen if it went off. It wouldn’t have just blown up the corner shop. It would have flattened the whole Street. Someone said that maybe we should move away, our cameraman asked how far we should go because he wanted to get a shot of it when it exploded and our director said, jokingly, ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 324

“How about Brazil, where the nuts come from?” which was overheard by the biker with the monkey wrench. Fortunately for us Smiler went in and hauled the gas canister out of the fire which distracted the monkey wrench biker.’

At dawn, totally exhausted, we almost cheered as Dixie and Graham sauntered down the Street to take over the day shift for the eviction. The only moment of marked defiance came when one of the squatters, who had acquired an ancient vinyl copy of the comedy song The

Laughing

Policeman,

played

the

record at full volume as the police moved down the Street ahead of the Bailiffs. An abandoned house inexplicably caught fire and the police, fearing a gas explosion, tried to clear the Street of press. We Pixie Productions film crew adamantly refused to budge on the grounds we were there to cover the whole story, for good or ill. None of the Squatters would budge either as they saw it as a cynical ploy on the part of the authorities who wanted them out without a fight. The first front door the Bailiffs sledge-hammered turned out to be a burnt-out, abandoned property; if they had gone to the rear of the premises they would have discovered most of the back wall was missing. The irony was not lost on the Squatters. The bulldozers ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 325

came in straight behind the Bailiffs and the first thing they demolished, many of the environmentalist Squatters noticed, was a living tree.

Soon the site became a cacophony of

bulldozers,

falling

masonry,

flying

dust, firemen dousing the flames of the party bonfire and the press drifting away to file their stories. One of the most infamous news photos of the eviction appeared on the front page of the Eastern Daily Press the following day; it showed Smiler and George ‘Gurge’ O’Reilly battering an abandoned car with pickaxe handles in a moment of senseless violence. What the photo caption failed to reveal was the fact that the vehicle in question belonged to Smiler.

We began editing the film, Street of Experience at the same Norwich film makers co-op as we’d used for Stonehenge 84 and was interrupted when, late one evening, a police officer turned up unexpectedly.

‘We’ve seen all the BBC and Anglia news film of the eviction and I’d like to see yours,’ he said politely.

‘Where’s your court order?’ I asked.

‘Oh I see,’ he said less politely, ‘if that’s the way you want to play it I’ll come back with a search warrant.’

‘Best of luck with that.’

I never understood what it was the cops ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 326

thought we’d filmed, merely because we were the only crew trusted enough by the squatters to be allowed down the Street. The rest of the local media had queered their pitch long ago when they decided to treat the squatters as ‘dirty smelly hippies’ and were therefore shut out of the final days leading up to the eviction. We never did have some vast political agenda of the inside story of alleged drugs, anarchy and debauchery, although the police obviously thought we did. They were not alone in this.

When I booked the cutting room from the largely middle-class graduate management at the film makers co-op they were worried.

‘We don’t want a load of scruffy hippies traipsing in and out of here.’

They were worried the, by then, ex-squatters would traipse out with their valuable23 film equipment or the co-op might lose their £35,000 a year grant aid from Eastern Arts if it became known they were consorting with riff-raff. Including us Pixies, one supposes. We might have had more respect for the co-op management if they weren’t charging full commercial rate for the dry hire24 of the cutting room or they actually made films themselves.

As sometimes happens with grant aided co-ops the management tend to be arts graduates with degrees up to their armpits but who had never walked across a film set in their lives, the co-op merely a staging post before they took up university teaching posts in media studies. They couldn’t decide what they were; an arts studio, learning facility or commercial studio. They were none of those as both students and professional film makers together under the same roof never works because one set of clients will always get preferential treatment to the detriment of the others. It was this sort of narrow thinking which gave rise to my film being deemed controversial in some quarters. The subject matter might have been deemed controversial by some people with issues but us film makers were not, of ourselves, controversial people.

Our second run-in with the police involved Guardian photographer Mark Foster being locked inside the co-op darkroom one evening while processing his stills. The general rule was the co-op management would make sure the building was clear before locking up. For some reason the last person25 to leave the premises not only locked Mark in the darkroom full of chemicals, they also locked us paying film producers out. By the time I turned up the building was locked26 and could hear Mark banging on the darkroom door demanding to be let out. I couldn’t find a key holder and had to resort ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 327

to calling the police who sent two Special Constables

to

assist

while

I

shouted

through the letter box trying to calm Mark down. He was locked in with chemicals and the fumes extractor was turned off when the last person locked up, with no hope of rescue until a key holder could be found.

We were gathering quite a crowd to this piece of street theatre of one man in an afghan coat on his knees shouting through the letter box with the sounds of a frantic Mark trapped inside.

‘Move along now please. There’s nothing to see,’ tried a Special Constable.

Eventually a key holder arrived to release Mark from his chemical nightmare and, after the Special Constables checked him over before leaving the scene, we were left in a state grand perplexity. Later, no one from the co-op management would admit to locking Mark in and us out. The best course of action was to take Mark somewhere to relax from his ordeal. He relaxed in the nearby Merchants pub.

There was to be one more moment of absurdity before we finished editing the film. We’d heard some of the squatters had driven their buses up to a stretch of land behind the sand dunes at Sea Palling on the Norfolk coast and we decided to take a camera up there to shoot some footage of them. Because none of us owned a car, ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 328

transport was going to be a problem until Mark offered to hire a car and drive us there. Unfortunately Mark didn’t have his drivers licence with him in Norwich so he inveigled his girlfriend to hire the car for him. Unbeknown to me at the time Mark and his girlfriend changed seats in full view of the hire company who naturally thought their car was being stolen and phoned the police.

Sound recordist Debbie Cuutler and I filmed the travellers from the top of the sand dunes and went back to Norwich with no problems. Mark dropped us off with the camera and continued on to the hire company with his girlfriend to return the vehicle. Where the police were waiting for them. He got charged with taking and diving away without the owners consent.

When we found out about this a few days later Gobbo was on his knees, helpless with mirth. ‘The silly sod. He could have at least waited until they were up the road before changing drivers!’ he gasped between howls of laughter.

We took the final cut of Street of Experience down to London for dubbing at Cine Lingual Sound Studios and mastered it onto video in late March 1985. It went into distribution with Glenbuck Films who sold it around the world and it even picked ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 329

up awards in Holland for best film and best director in the documentaries section. I tried to get the film shown in a Norwich independent cinema but they refused to screen it.

The manager decided the film was too controversial to be screened on the grounds the cinema might lose its council funding if they showed a film which included the same council who had evicted the Argyle Street squatters.

The film was finally screened in Norwich 27-years later at a café bar which had a separate screening room. So many people turned out to see the film, including fire crews who had attended the February 20th dawn house fire, the café bar had to run the DVD five times.

v. ITCHEN TO GO By the spring of 1985 I was an assistant editor on The Perfect Lady, a TV South documentary following the life of a TR9 Spitfire and, fitted with a back cockpit seat as a trainer29, interviews with the RAF pilots who flew it. Post war the aircraft was sold to the Irish Air Corps who in turn sold it on to the Strathallen Collection before Spitfire enthusiast Nick Grace bought it and restored the aircraft from what, at the time of the TV South film, he described as ‘the biggest Mecano set in the world.’ TV South arranged for the aircraft’s first combat pilot30 to be brought over from New Zealand to fly in the back seat, with an early version minicam, and it was during this flight he gave the programme it’s title, “She’s a perfect lady to fly.”

Our cutting room was in an articulated lorry31 minus the tractor in the studio car park, beside the River Itchen. The car park had its own strange history being the only TV station in the country with an active railway line running through it. The line was out of use by the time I arrived after the A3024 bridge had been built over the ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 330

river thus blocking the line to the docks. Editors told of mass panic to get their cars moved when goods trains were about to pass through.

It was at TV South in the summer of ’85 when a group of freelance assistant editors, taking a swift lunchtime half down the local pub, decided the golden days32 of freelancing were coming to an end with the introduction of ENG and video editing. It was all a bit sad. The pub was beside the River Itchen and we had found a short cut, rather than go the long way round by road, which involved walking along the foreshore. The trick was to take into account the tides although I slightly miscalculated on one occasion when the fast rising waters almost left me stranded. There was nowhere to run inshore as the main London railway line ran alongside and I arrived at the pub, squelching up to the bar with damp socks.

My time on Perfect Lady was pleasurably spent tracking down, amongst other things, the correct sounds for combat aircraft and machine guns. For a hit on an aircraft I used a dynamite explosion, a short crack as a wing came adrift or bits flew off, double tracked with loads of bass on one channel and loads of treble on the other and cross mixing them. My editor thought I was taking it all far too seriously until I played him the difference in sound between a Spitfire’s .303 Browning machine guns and a FockeWulf 190’s 13mm MG 131. One problem we encountered was finding clean sound of a Spitfire passing and diving overhead so a sound person was despatched to Nick Grace’s base in Cornwall to record his aircraft flying past the microphone.

I should have got out more.

There wasn’t much time for a night life although I was once taken off to a freak pub in an area where, in another time, Titanic’s crew had lived in rows of terraced houses.

There were more crusty jugglers in that pub than a man could comfortably shake a stick at as talk turned to festivals we had known and loved. By sheer synchronicity I had beamed down into the heart of freakdom once again.

It was while at TV South that the infamous Peace Convoy ‘Battle of The Beanfield’ took place when the police finally decided to stop their drug addled shenanigans from reaching Stonehenge yet again. I was only 25-miles up the road but since I wasn’t working on the local news I couldn’t find a reasonable excuse to go there and take pictures. Probably a narrow escape as a reporter on Coast To Coast33 told me afterwards as the police were laying into anyone with long hair. I probably would have been arrested on general ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 331

principals. There was a strange sense of loss at not being able to get to Stonehenge with the Convoy and, as there were people I knew up there being attacked, it was the end of another passing era. Two months later I received a call from Spike, last seen on the Convoy’s 1983 site in Norwich, saying there was a bunch of Convoy parked up in Wales licking their wounds from the Beanfield and did I want to come over and film them. Apparently they had a lot to say on the subject.

Only a few of the old Pixie Productions crew were available that August weekend, Graham

Humphry

and

Debbie

Cutler

with a Norwich cameraman, Martin, who trundled down to Southampton to pick me up. We stopped enroute at Stonehenge to get some shots of the monument and I had a quick juggle for the memory of all the Convoy people who never made it. We had an overnight stay in a Nailsworth34 pub and proceeded into Wales bound for Cantlin Stone in the Clun Forest, up to our knees in OS maps. After a few wrong turns Debbie spotted traveller buses beyond the trees and we finally arrived up a muddy track to the Convoy site. It looked like we’d wandered into the staging area of the 15th Army after some heroic but fundamentally pointless lost battle; traveller buses, many with smashed windows covered in tarps, ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 332

internal fixtures totally destroyed with shell shocked people roaming the site.

Whatever had happened in that bean field two months before, it was going to leave a lasting mark on the people who were there, victims of an overzealous police attack to ‘decommission the Convoy,’ as the Wiltshire Chief Constable told the press.

I told my crew to stay in the vehicle until I found a friendly face who knew we were coming. It didn’t do to upset people in a delicate frame of mind. A traveller came over to the car.

‘Help you?’

‘Yeah, we’re Pixie Productions. Spike said we should come over and film some interviews about the beanfield.’

‘Got any ID?’ As I fumbled for my press pass we had attracted quite a crowd and, as the traveller was examining my ID, the cameraman decided to make a merry quip.

‘You know the drugs squad print those things up by the thousand, don’t you?’ said Martin. The moment froze as everyone gasped at his attempt at humour, an appalling faux pas, a comment which could have got us all killed.

‘Right next to the studio where they faked the moon landings,’ I said trying to keep my voice level. That was no time for panic or a stupid denial. The moment passed when Spike wandered up.

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 333

‘Its okay, I know him, I invited them here,’ he explained.

There was a collective exhalation and some travellers even smiled in that faintly distant way of survivors who have come through tragic events and are starting to see why people have seen the funny side of things. As I opened the door to join Spike for a walkabout I looked across at Martin with my hard face on.

‘Don’t ever do that to me again,’ I said.

‘Wait here and don’t get the camera kit out until I return.’

‘Right guv’,’ said Graham, who looked like he might have a few gentle words of advice for the cameraman on the subject of inappropriate humour.

As I walked around the site looking at buses and trucks parked up on woodland tracks I spotted Smiler’s big white exNational Express bus with half its windows out and missing one of it’s rear eight wheels.

‘My god, that was Smiler’s pride and joy,’ I said.

‘After they trashed his home and dragged him out of the bus, the cops took his dogs away and put them down,’ explained Spike.

‘Is he about?’

‘No, he’s gone into town on a food run.

I told him you were coming though,’ said Spike.

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 334

‘Poor Smiler.’

‘Poor us,’ said Spike thoughtfully.

By the time we got back to the camera car Martin was arousing distrust amongst the denizens of the traveller site. He was not a man to take direction well and saw my instructions more as guidelines.

Despite being told to stay in the car until I’d worked out the rules of engagement with the travellers, Martin was up and filming

Convoy

people

who

obviously

didn’t want to be filmed. You could tell they were unhappy by the way they pulled their hats down over their faces and glowered menacingly at the crew.

‘I’d put a stop to that if I were you,’ advised Spike.

I managed to stop Martin filming by the simple expedient of standing in front of the camera and apologising to nearby travellers.

‘We told him not to do anything until you got back,’ said Debbie, ‘but he wouldn’t listen.’

‘Right. These are the ground rules. If I say stay in the car, you stay in the flipping car.

This isn’t like your fluffy Norwich film makers co-operative back home, this is big boys’ film making. Do as you’re told. You don’t film anything on a travellers’ site unless I’ve asked first. These people don’t mess about, if we do something they don’t like we’ll be lucky to get as far as the car never mind drive off the site.’

Well it would be safe to say Martin didn’t like being spoken to in that manner by someone whom he saw as a low class oik, not university material obviously, but since Debbie and Graham spent the entire rest of the day gratuitously calling their director “guv’” one hoped something rubbed off. The trouble with university and film school graduates is they’ve been trained by people with lots of degrees who’ve never walked across a film set in their lives and don’t understand the working practices of the business.

The camera operator is35 not the chief of the crew, doesn’t make directorial decisions ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 335

and certainly not on a traveller site amongst wounded victims of a government-led attack on their culture. I apologised to a passing crusty traveller who’d been filmed against his will, his hat over his face to disguise himself.

‘You should know better than to come on here and treat us like a freak show,’ the crusty traveller complained.

We filmed an interview with Spike in his truck who spoke on behalf of the travellers there present; his best quote?

‘We just wanted to go to a rock’n’roll festival. A free one. You know, we thought the police might try and stop us but you couldn’t have imagined how they did it.’

And then Spike went into a long explanation of what the police did to the travellers on their way to what would have been the 12th annual Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival.

I held the footage over until the end of the year so I could tie it in with the winter Solstice and get it out for distribution in early 1986.

My TV South contract came to an end in September from where I went off to relax around the autumn fairs before moving my home base from Birmingham to Norwich.

I’d fallen in love with the place; once visited, never left. In December I was gearing up for Stonehenge again.

vi. SPOOKY ENCOUNTERS OF THE TRAVELLER KIND More new faces joined Pixie Productions for Stonehenge Winter Solstice with Dave Wright on camera and Steve Graham on sound. We filmed in the town of Amesbury and at the Stonehenge monument on December 20th before finding a small B&B in nearby Shrewton to be up before the crack of dawn on the 21st to film the, hopefully, nonviolent Solstice celebrations.

In fact there were only handful of devotees and hardly any police on site. Dave Wright proved to be a fine cinematographer picking up excellent shots of dawn landscapes and people milling around the stones. We drove up to Fargo Plantation where most of the buses were parked, to see if we could find any beanfield refugees to interview. In case any of the crew had doubts about the serious harassment the police could mete out to the travellers, a police Range Rover drove onto the site and, through a loudhailer, announced; ‘This is the police. You are trespassing on National Trust property and you must leave immediately or arrests will be made.’

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 336

To which our astonished cameraman said, ‘Oh what?’ Oh yes. The police really were that direct.

The film went into the lab for overnight printing and the tapes into Osbourne Sound for transfer to 16mm so by December 22nd I was installed in one of Steve Orton’s cutting rooms in Paddenswick Road opposite Ravenscourt Park. Roosting up in a top floor cutting room sans Gobbo, who seemed to have wandered off to seek his fortune elsewhere, I set to work editing the Cantlin Stone interviews about the summer violence at Stonehenge intercut with the peaceful winter ceremony.

Late

one

night,

with

only

Steve

somewhere in the building, there came a knock-knock knocking at the street door.

Steve answered it and, by the sound of the foot falls coming up the stairs, a lot of people were headed my way. Oh gawd, here we go again, prepare to be raided. But not so as it turned out. In another moment of bizarre synchronicity, the universal freak herding instinct, it wasn’t cops who came through my cutting room door but travellers coming back from Stonehenge Winter Solstice. And the weirdest part of it was we didn’t know each other.

According to the travellers their bus broke down across the road from us and, with no phone box in sight to call out the ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 337

AA and the only lights they could see in the street were from our building, they knocked on the door. When Steve opened up to them he sent them straight to my cutting room because he assumed they were part of my Stonehenge production. In a vague sort of way, they were. The travellers couldn’t believe that by sheer chance they’d walked into a building where a guy was cutting a film about a place they’d just come from. It was kinda spooky for both sides and they stayed watching the film until the AA turned up to fix their bus.

‘I don’t mind your mates turning up late at night,’ Steve said later, ‘but can you give me warning next time.’

When I explained the synchronicity thing to Steve, that we didn’t know each other, he had a mild freak-out. It is pretty hard to believe even now but that’s cosmic freakdom for you. And it just followed wherever I went.

CHAPTER 9 - FOOTNOTES 1

Because even if you only take a can of soft drink, the staff will clear out the whole bar

for themselves and replenish it at your expense. Never, ever open the mini bar.

2

Whose name I can’t remember

3

presumably homophobia is now a sacking offence

4

we never got married but it’s the symbolism that counts

5

not his real name

6

which had drawn blood and, on the charge sheet in my head, came out as grievous

bodily harm which by complete chance turned out to be the freak area of Birmingham, a sort of

7

Harrow of England’s second city 8

Electronic News Gathering

9

The film and TV industry suffered from being labour intensive and video got rid of a

lot of the wrong people 10

FWS

11

self on camera, Gobbo as camera assistant and Andy Snowley on sound

12

Co-incidentally the name of a surreal book by Flan O’Brian

13

Translated from the Norfolk – It is abundantly clear you are a complete outsider and

we are at a loss to understand how you managed to get past the armed border guards.

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 338

Don’t let this homely smile fool you as I am a dedicated xenophobe.

14

Its only a city because its got a cathedral

15

purveyors of the best Abbot Ale in the city

22

obstensively as our production stills photographer

23

second hand

24

as opposed to their co-op members rate which was about a quarter of what we were

paying 25

actually not the last person as it turned out

26

even though the management knew I was coming

29

See: http://www.arc-duxford.co.uk/spitTix.htm for full aircraft history although some

of the website dates don’t jibe with my memories of the film 30

Credited with shooting down the first two JU88’s after D-Day

31

custom built for location editing on the TV series Worzle Gummidge

32

average earnings £400 a week by 1985

33

the local TV South news

34

Gloucestershire

35

The reason for the temporary change in tense in that sentence is because media

graduates still hold the same misconceptions about the workplace; they’ve been told by their tutors they’re going to be camera operators, editors or designers but they’ve never been told how to take direction.

* ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 339

CHAPTER 9 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 282 - Paul jackson, editor Central TV 1983 Page 283 - Birminghan England, city views Page 287 - Gobbo the removal man visits Birmingham Page 288 - Al meditating in Italy, January 1984 Page 290 - Stop The City demo, London May 1984 Page 296 - Al in that coat Page 299 - Dave Clarke, Al Stokes & Steve Brooke-Smith, Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 301 - Roy haroer playing at the Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 302 - Hawkwind playing at the Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 303 - Tibetan fire eater & the Vestal Virgins at Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 304 - The Enid playing at the Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 305 - Dawn at the Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 306 - Here & Now and the Tibetans at the Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Al Stokes director at the Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 307 - Steve Brooke-Smith & SDixie Dean filming at Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 316 - Dixie Dean & Al Stokes filming at the Stonehnenge Festival 1984 Page 320 - Traveller’s bus parked in Argyle Street, Norwich 1985 Page 322 - Al filming in Argyle Street, Norwich 1985 Page 323 to 324 - Argyle Street squatters last night party, February 1985 Page 325 - The eviction of the Argule Street squatters, Februaury 20th 1985 Page 326 - ibid The last post on the Street Š Mark Foster Assembled press, Argule Street squatters, Februaury 20th 1985 Page 328 - Mark Foster moments after being rescued from the Co-Op dark room Al & Gobbo outside the film makers Co-Op Al, mark & Gobbo outside the film makers Co-Op Page 329 - Al filming at the Sea Palling travellers site, Norfolk coast Page 330 - Al having a quick juggle outside his portable cutting room, TVS 1985 River Itchen, Southampton 1985 Page 332 - Al stops at Stonehenge for a quick juggle, en-route to Cantlin Stone Pixie Productions camera crew, August 1985 ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 340

Sound recordist Debbie Cutler, August 1985 Smiler’s bus, Cantlin Stone, Wales 1985 Page 333 - 335 - Cantlin Stone travellers site Cantlin Stone, Wales 1985 Page 337 - Steve Andrews of English Heritage, Stonehenge Winter Solstice 1985 Travellers camped at Fargo Plantation, Wiltshire December 1985 Dawn, Stonehenge Winter Solstice 1985 This page: Bob Jones & Al Stokes filming at Greenham Womens Peace Camp, 1982

ENCOUNTERS - PAGE 341

10

STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE

i. THERE & THEN Making the move out of Birmingham had been on the cards for some time despite knowing I hardly ever worked where I lived.

The trick was to live somewhere pleasant for those rare occasions when there was time at home. Although Birmingham had it’s moments of jollity there wasn’t enough of it to make the place viable and, for all the jokes about webbed feet inhabitants, Norwich harboured quaint notions of being shut off from the rest of the country in a twee make-believe world of twee everyday country folk. But only in certain immediate post-war nostalgic ways. Rather like Brigadoon1.

Back in the 1980s a fair majority of Norfolk folk still saw themselves as serfs who worked the land and knew their place in a rural idol ruled by the worsted clad country squire, even though hardly anyone worked in agriculture. In Norwich, still full of narrow streets and medieval architecture compared to most other English cities, there was a deference to their betters who were no better than anyone else. This Norfolk mind-set of self-inflicted exile from the rest of the country fostered rumours of passport control near the Suffolk/Norfolk border town of Diss. Norwich was so culturally removed from everywhere else in the country, the right-wing National Front party referred to it as ‘the last white city in England’ and hippies, who bought cheap tumbledown cottages in the early-1970s, acquired the imagined rustic folklorist skills of knitting yogurt and weaving lentils. Despite all this I bought into the dream and fell in love with Norwich like everyone else. My first month was spent living above a Magdalen Street kite and juggling ball3 shop, Monday Lunch, run by an amiable hippie couple. Eventually I found a large terraced house in Cambridge Street at a ludicrously low rent. I’d always wanted to live in a huge house and my wish was fulfilled.

A black over white cat, Audax, came with the house and feeding her was part of the rent. She didn’t respond well to Audax so I re-named her Greebo which seemed to suit her better. At the house viewing Audax/Greebo sat in the middle of the floor STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 343

and gave me a full-on moggie stare which seemed to say “oh god it’s a hippie but I’ll let you stay here if you feed me and give me all your love and attention when I demand it.” Later, I found, Greebo was the only moggie I’d ever met who would play fetch4. I got the distinct impression she had endured a string of indifferent tenants who gave her inadequate care and attention. Greebo was skittish but calmed with regular meal times, a flea collar and a jolly good combing. The flea comb lived on the front room coffee table and when Greebo fancied a grooming she’d nudge it with her nose. When in doubt, preen. In the bedroom she was the best foot warmer in the world and on one particularly cold winter night had snuggled in under the duvet and gave me the shock of my life next morning when I found her head facing me on the pillow. Ly-ins were rare; Greebo had vigorous methods for waking recalcitrant servants; a 140db purr in the lug’ole, the full weight of a ball on fur padding the chest area or sitting on the bed head book case staring down in a most disconcerting way until the intimidation became more than a person could stand. She point blank refused to open the cat flap on her own and would look up and wait for her servant to open it for her. Strangely she could open it to come in.

My neighbours on one side were born again Christians and, on’t’other side, smack heads with the loudest music system5 in the world. One of the Christians asked why I’d come to live if Norwich. ’Has no one told you Norwich is the graveyard of all ambition?’

No. No one had. I quite liked the idea of the slower pace of life. The Magic Christians had a fair few homilies. ’Norwich is like sitting in a luke-warm bath in a freezing cold room; its really hard to get out and leave.’ Or, ‘Norwich, once visited never left.’

I always liked those sayings and passed them on to incomers at every opportunity.

STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 344

Years later people thought I’d invented them and told me how very witty I was. Stealing axioms off Magic Christians is probably a hanging offence so I’m putting my hands up for that one now in case their god ever finds out. The entire rest of the neighbours seemed to be a mixture of school teachers, university tutors and unemployed artists who lived in quiet equanimity in an area known as The Ghetto when I moved in but later became The Golden Triangle6 as house prices soared.

What was left of Norwich industry was run by crinkly old men who’d had almost no commercial competition in their entire complacent company car lives or by young turks, yuppie entrepreneurs who dressed like dippy fashion victims and lived on massive credit but were, essentially, semi-talented amateurs who were running businesses funded by government grant aid which wouldn’t otherwise exist in the real world of profit and loss.

These new barons of the small business world had no interpersonal or social skills and treated their workers with utter disdain. One camera job I did with a Norwich video company required working very long hours for almost no pay. Why? ’I’m not paying this, you’ve put twelve hours on your invoice, ten of which were spent doing nothing in the back of the company van travelling to and from the location, so I’m only paying you for the two hours you actually worked.’

The daily national Union rate was £250, the video company actually paid £41 and you can bet your life the client was charged full whack. The normal course of business was to load employees’ wages to the client by no more than 5% which was to pay the employers’ overheads from the transaction. Stealing £209 from an employee was just plain greed. Norwich, I found, was a great place to live but flipping awful to try to do business with people who saw themselves as new wave movie moguls, just because they could afford to buy a load of video kit but actually had no background in professional industry whatever. They got their ‘skills’ from reading a ‘how to’ book and the soulless graduates had inherited Margaret Thatcher’s brave new world order with wild, unsuppressed glee.

There were moments of hilarity however; returning from a trip to London on the Norfolk Flyer late one evening I espied a knot of loud-mouthed, champagne swilling bumptious Yuppies7 getting on the train at Ipswich. They had, if their self-aggrandisement was to be believed, pulled off some awesome business deal which involved the shipment of something or other into Ipswich Docks. They guzzled champers by the bottleful STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 345

while shouting instructions to minions on their brick-like mobile phones for flunkies to pick them up in flash limos at Liverpool Street Station; Home James! One thing which seemed to perplex them was the nearer they got to London, the worse their mobile phone reception became. There was a good reason for this. The champagne swilling yuppies were on the wrong train, heading in the opposite direction and no one in that railway carriage who had had to endure their loud and brutish drunken behaviour since Ipswich was going to apprise them of their error. That last train from London terminated in Norwich at 1.30am. The yuppies were still carousing as, last man to leave, I was about to step off the train. ’Sorry, I don’t mean to intrude but this train terminates here.’

I was treated to four expressions of utter bewilderment at the dawning realization of their being geographically challenged. ’When’s the next train to London?’ one of their number demanded, as if I were a footman who had spoken out of turn. ’Five-twenty tomorrow morning,’ I informed them.

Schadenfreunde, I thought. With any luck they’ll get picked up for drunken vagrancy by the coppers and shoved in a cell for the night. Walking up the platform towards the ticket barrier I was accosted by one of my fellow passengers who demanded to know why I had tipped the loud, aggressive businessmen off? ’I am not a cruel man and I suspect they’ll have a tough enough time trying to survive on the streets, drunk and penniless, until dawn.’ ’Well we had a bet they’d still be quaffing champers when the train was parked for the night in the carriage sidings.’

Yes, I thought, what better tribute could there be to the new arrogant rich than being marooned all night in Crown Point marshalling yard. I apologised profusely at my error of judgment and swore never to help a yuppie again.

My social life expanded in Norwich because I finally had time to have one. There were women everywhere and they were all beautiful. Nick George, a punk artist from the film makers co-op, was looking for somewhere to live so he moved in as my co-tenant. He was a happy if slightly left-field soul who kept himself amused by making peculiar art works in the basement. One of these involved me as a reluctant actor in a short video, Tales of The Crib. Since there was no script for the actors it was impossible to know STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 346

precisely what the storyline was meant to be beyond it somehow involved a child’s crib. It also involved being dragged off across the city to a garden shed belonging to make-up special FX artist Paul Spateri8 who made a life cast of my face. Nick didn’t explain why I had to do this. This involved a layer of quick drying lime green alginate smeared over my face followed by plaster bandages to stiffen the cast when it was removed from my physog. Paul then made a cast from the alginate former onto which he sculpted features for the latex mask.

Turned out I was the creature with no mouth. The make-up process took several hours and, Nick decided, this was best prepared sitting in the Cambridge Street bay window where I sacred the willies out of neighbours as they passed by. Nick had dressed a set in the attic and filmed the creature looming over a child’s crib full of flowers. Removing the latex mask took several more hours and involved a chemical solvent9 which went straight up my nose. Relieved of the mouth covering, I adjourned to the kitchen where I drank several pints of water. As weirdly grim as this artful tale relates it made future makeupFX acting jobs easier, because I knew what to expect.

We held a moving in party to which the whole world turned up including Spike, STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 347

Keith Bailey from the Here & Now band, my mate Sparky from our Harrow days, Colin and some anarcho-punks who thought it was outrageous we were living in a beautiful middle-class home and decided to trash the place. That was a very Nick thing to do, to invite contentious people who would disapprove a person’s lifestyle in the most physical way possible. They probably would have wrecked the gaff that night had not a large group of friendly and very persuasive Convoy folk turned up who knew how to deal with the scum; middle class kids who lived off mummy & daddy and could afford to be anarcho-punks in some socialist fantasy. They all called each other Comrade. Keith, Sparky, Colin, Nick, Spike, Greebo and I escaped to my room from where we could hear the theatre of destruction followed almost immediately by the soft thump of anarchopunks exiting the premises in a flat trajectory. There were notable absences; Gobbo, according to JT, had hooked up with a woman and was working as a van driver. Our little man was all growed up and had moved on.

In mid-January 1986 I received a call from Keith to say Here & Now were splitting up after nine years together as a space punk band and were performing their last gig at Dingwalls Dancehall, Camden, on the last day of the month. Did I want to come to London and film their farewell concert? I got onto producer Vance Goodwin to ask if he thought there was any mileage in the project and he rather thought there probably was. Cold Harbour Records were providing a mobile studio to record the live album so Vance, Keith and I decamped down the Old Kent Road to discuss a film tie-in with them.

Actually Keith and I got a bit bored with the business side of things which must have shown because we were both packed off to the nearest pub until a deal was worked out between the grown ups. I called in as many of the old Stonehenge Festival film technicians as I could find and the crew list was a combination of the old and the new.10 Gobbo was asked to come and work for us, for old times sake, but he declined so a guest ticket plus one was left out for him in case he wanted to come to the gig. All the crew who knew him were disappointed he wouldn’t be working with them. He had that effect on people.

I’d learned from the Stonehenge Festival experience that stringing wall-to-wall songs together in one film can be tedious, waiting for a fav’ track to turn up, so in the style of Woodstock11 I decided to insert band interviews between clumps of about three songs to break it up. This worked well in the edit but actually filming the interviews became STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 348

problematic for the roving eye of camera operator Martin. During Keith’s insightful telling of the band’s back history Martin got bored with shooting what amounted to a talking head and panned off Keith onto some bloke making wicker chairs in a nearby Camden Lock workshop. The wicker chair man had nothing to do with the band. The first I knew Martin had switched shots was when Keith trailed his interview to a halt. ’I think there’s something wrong with the camera,’ he said.

I looked round and found Martin filming something else and went over to find out what was going on. ’What

are

you

doing?’

I

asked

incredulously. ’Talking heads are so boring and I saw this chap making chairs,’ Martin tried. ’What’s this wicker chair man got to do with the band?’ ’Well ... you can use it as a cutaway,’ said Martin. ’For it to be a cutaway you need to shoot the original interview in the first place and I’ll decide what’s going to be a cutaway. The cutaway in this case will be the interviews in between the band playing live on-stage. So would you mind awfully shooting my boring talking head as requested?’ I asked, just able to keep STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 349

my seething anger down to a manageable level.

As I walked away I heard camera assistant Graham Humphry mutter under his breath, ‘Cantlin Stone.’

Yes, I thought, he’s right. I had a cameraman on my hands who refused to take direction and we all knew it. Big mistake on my part hiring that guy again.

We had to re-shoot the interview from the start but by that time, having to ask Martin nicely to do what he was flipping well paid to do, Keith had gone off the boil and take-2 of the interview wasn’t anywhere near of good as the interrupted take-1. Assistant director Tony Panther positioned himself right beside Martin to stop him from wandering off shot again.

It wasn’t until Vance and I viewed the rushes later we noticed Martin had done all manner of uncalled for arty camera work. He was told not to zoom in and out, to hold the shots of the band interviews because I’d be cutting on their words. If the interview is in the middle of a zoom when we cut away it looks messy.

My interview technique was to keep me off screen with, in edit, the questions cut off so the interviewees’ comments flowed one into the other. Unfortunately Martin ignored the direction to hold the shot static and zoomed in and out with a will, STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 350

so not only was I an unexplained figure in-shot but you could see me holding this whacking great gun mic which I was trying desperately to shield with my body. Nick hid himself and his tape recorder behind a wall and it wasn’t until we finished filming Keith and I realised he was balanced on a narrow ledge beside the deep, murky waters of the Grand Union Canal. He was later mentioned in dispatches for bravery beyond the call of duty. What Vance and I saw at the rushes screening was Martin had consistently managed to film the exact opposite of what was asked of him. Years later he went on to teach12 animation at Norwich School of Art. I am not in the least surprised.

We had three film cameras up and it took the crews all afternoon to prepare, bearing in mind each camera came in fourteen boxes so with three cameras we took over most of the floor space, with Dixie and David either side of the stage and Martin half way up the dancehall for the wide safety shot. Out of harm’s way.

Nick was going to be stuck in the mobile recording studio outside all night with his Nagra plugged into a spare channel recording the rough mix. The mobile engineer told us he could generate a 50Hz crystal pulse so his tracks would be in sync with Nick’s Nagra and all of the cameras.

STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 351

This later proved to be an inexactitude but not terminally so. Because we didn’t have an open mic in the venue and Keith didn’t want film assistants wandering the cramped stage with clapperboards, we arranged with drummer Paul Rose to count in the songs with his sticks over his head where all the cameras could see him.

Clapperboard by drums sticks.

By late afternoon Gobbo showed up with his girlfriend who seemed to take an instant dislike to me. I got the distinct impression she felt I was going to lead him astray in some undefined way which would corrupt his very soul. Mandy my almost girlfriend christened her Mrs Gobbo, a label which stuck, as being the possessive kind who probably didn’t allow him out much. Gobbo had the look of a man who was petrified one of us was going to say the wrong thing in front of her for which he would be severely punished later. Work stopped as the crew welcomed Gobbo back like a long lost brother. Time was pressing and the Dingwalls management demanded all the camera boxes be stashed in a stage store storeroom as the paying punters were soon to be let in. Yes and quite right too. Health and safety an’ all that. ’Okay chaps, let’s get this lot stashed away, we’ve got one hour before the doors open,’ I announced.

STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 352

’Oh we’ve got loads of time, I’ll put things away when I’m good and ready,’ said Martin, the barrack room lawyer.

It was physically draining to have to argue the toss with a person who saw film directors as a mild interference to their otherwise busy and important lives. I saw Tony looking at me, looking at the floor and shaking his head. He knew this wasn’t how crew discipline was meant to go. He took a deep breath. ’All right you ‘orrible lot, you heard what the guv’nor said. Don’t just stand there.

Get these boxes stashed. Oi. You. What are you loitering there for like a spare part?’ ’Nothing. I’m a guest,’ smiled Gobbo. ’Guest? Don’t you bloody guest me. You can earn your bloody guest ticket and lend a hand yer lazy hippie,’ commanded Tony.

Amazingly the crew went from saunter mode to frenzied activity in seconds flat.

Tony, shaven headed and covered in tattoos, wandered over. ’I’m dead impressed,’ I said. ’You can’t let them get away with slack behaviour,’ advised Tony. ’I’ve never had this problem before. I don’t know what’s got into them.’ ’I do. It only takes one stroppy git and all crew discipline breaks down. We both know the one I mean. A word of advice if I may, guv?’

STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 353

’Of course.’ ’Vance is the producer and he owns the film, you’re the director and you own the artistic input of the film, the band own the music and me, I own the sorry ass of every member of this crew. You want them to do something, tell me and I make it happen.

I say jump, they say ‘how high?’ Anyone argues, they’re off the set.’ ’Wow.’ ’These people are not your friends, they’re employees first and maybe your friend in the pub after. You get too chummy with them and they’ll take advantage.

Anyway, they’ve cleared up now so I’ll take them off for their evening meal. I’ll get them back an hour before the band comes on.’ ’Thanks,’ I managed feeling extremely educated.

Tony was right, though. Making films is a business like anything else and if you get saddled with a stroppy employee you have to deal with them good and hard. I decided from that moment on, there’ll be no more back chat on my crew and the test came immediately. Martin’s camera was set up half way down the auditorium and the punters were being let in; he really didn’t like being told to stand guard over it, like we had to do at the Stonehenge Festival and for the same reason; turn your back STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 354

on it for two secinds and don’t expect it to still be there when you look round. He moaned a bit but did what he was told.

Tony obviously had had an effect.

We filmed ten songs from the Here & Now set13 and it looked wonderful. Dixie had forsaken his tripod and went completely hand-held, roving all over the stage and at one point balanced precariously on the edge in front of Gav’s keyboard. Sadly, Dixie couldn’t get a shot of Gav twiddling his VCS3 knobs because there wasn’t enough light back of stage to film by. Later, Keith was to say that having Dixie roving around them was like having a fifth member of the band on stage, that he didn’t get in anyone’s way. Dave Wright was a demon for the ultra close up shots of Dino’s fingers on his guitar strings and Martin got what he got because at the back of the crowd he didn’t have chance to do anything else.

One point which no one warned us about, in Martin’s camera position, was the sprung dance floor. When that crowd got going it took the combined weight of four people to hold the tripod down, Gobbo included.

We wrapped at about midnight and were away by 2am. Gobbo couldn’t get home at that late hour so he and Mrs Gobbo were offered a lift back to their flat in Sudbury as I’d arranged for the Norwich crew to stay over at my folk’s place in nearby Greenford.

STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 355

As we dropped Gobbo off I mentioned we’d be filming Gavin’s interview the next day and would he like to come. By the look on Gobbo’s face obviously he did but the thunderous grimace Mrs Gobbo gave him settled the matter. ’We’ve got things to do,’ she said.

As we drove away Mandy said, ‘Oh bless, he looks all crushed and vulnerable.’

Which was true. But people find different friends by different roads and what was our past social life doesn’t last forever.

True peace of mind comes in accepting the things we cannot change. Move on.

The following day we filmed Gavin’s interview and inveigled

to

cutaways. The crew were do

their

‘Hitchcock

bits’

appearing in the film; cameraman David Wright filmed himself in a car wing mirror for the track Room Within A Room, producer Vance Goodwin as a labourer and Nick ‘Danger’ Mersch14 as a homeless person in Opium For The People and myself juggling near Camden Lock and being seen off by Stephen Graham in Glad You’re Here.

I went back to the film makers co-op in Norwich to edit the film, with Nick George replacing Gobbo as my assistant, but the vibes were not good and I got the distinct feeling the one thing the management didn’t

like

were

London

freelancers15

who didn’t measure up to their exacting STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 356

standards16. I’ll never forget their litany of the snide while they were being paid full commercial rate for the hire. ’How can you call yourself a film director with no academic qualifications?’ Or, ‘It’s people like you and your closed shop who’ve kept me out of the film industry.’ And that old chestnut, ‘You people make me sick, you won’t give graduate newcomers a chance to show what we can do and when I’m in charge of film production I’ll make sure we never employ people like you.’

Ah, blind predudice. Don’t’cha just love it? Somehow their university tutors had never explained to these poor deluded fools, with their degrees and lack of social skills, no one is owed a living and having a bit of paper saying they’re entitled to wear a cap and gown doesn’t automatically invest them as film makers. They might make it in industry with raw talent backing them up but not by merely being rich enough to afford three years of university. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so flipping serious. The academics really were taking over the industry. And I’d have had more respect for them if they actually went out and made films. One of their favourite methods of arty film making was what they called found film, discarded by previous editors. It was no more than what I did back in the BBC as a film assistant, playing with bits of gash but there is no such thing as found film in the commercial world because all film everywhere is owned by someone. What there is such a thing as is copyright theft. But the co-op graduates said that didn’t apply to them because they were grant aided. They saw themselves as educationalists, selling the film making dream by charging 200-quid a hit to bored housewives and retired factory workers on training courses which bore no fruit. The unspeakable academics in pursuit of the monied ignorant. No one had ever taught them film makers etiquette, either. This goes right back to my days with John Rushton and the ‘knock first’ school of entering a cutting room.

While Nick and I were editing the Here & Now film Keith had been mixing the album tracks in London. We finished our respective tasks at about the same time and Keith brought the master mix up to Norwich to lay in with the film. The master mix needed to be transferred to 16mm magnetic track which the co-op claimed they could do.

When it came to it, they couldn’t. They had bought some old second hand kit off an enthusiast but it wouldn’t keep sync-lock and nobody knew how to do it. Neither did I but I was the client paying them to know what they’re doing. After several hours of STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 357

happy horse manure the management brought in Martin, the cameraman who wouldn’t take direction and, while he was fiddling about with cables and plugs, I could hear a Here & Now track playing somewhere in the building but not coming from the transfer machine. I tracked it down to my cutting room where I found a total stranger sitting at the editing machine watching the film. I leaned across and turned it off. ’Who the hell are you?’ I asked. ’Oh its okay, I’m allowed to watch this film,’ said the stranger. ’Well I’m the director and I haven’t given you permission.’ ’I told him its okay,’ said Martin coming into the cutting room. ’You don’t just walk into someone’s cutting room and start going through their stuff.

I’m in the middle of an edit here.’

‘Look, I’m doing you a big favour transferring this sound for you so the least you can do is let my friend sit here and watch the film I shot.’ ’Actually ... no, that’s not the way we do things. You’re not doing me a favour because your equipment doesn’t work. You didn’t shoot my film, I shot my film and I’m taking my film to London to finish it off down there,’ I decided. ’Well,’ came the stroppy response, ‘they’ll make you pay more for it in London.’

‘Yes. I know. We call it professionalism.’

I would have flounced out of the cutting room at that point but flouncing wasn’t an option as I had to stash all the film away in cans and that took time. The co-op management tried to stiff us on the cutting room bill but they didn’t have the panache to pull it off. As with UMP a couple of years before, they didn’t like it up ‘em when they were caught bang-to-rights trying to ramp up the cost for an inferior service. ’We want this paid before you leave,’ declared the Co-op Manager huffily. ’All invoices go to the producer in London as you well know.’ ’Well, we’ll have to do a property check before you leave,’ he tried. ’You think I’ve stolen your property? Call the police.’ ’Oh, erm, I didn’t mean-.’ ’Then I’ll call the police. I wouldn’t want to be accused of anything after I’ve left the premises.’

The morally indignant, hoteliers and shopkeepers usually, always start from a psychologically bad position when making threats based on unfounded allegations or STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 358

blind predudice; unless, of course, they have caught someone with their hand in the till and have photographic evidence to back it up. They’ll accuse a client of theft as a means of misdirected intimidation and they should always be called out on it and, when they back down, the client should go in for the kill, slap them down hard. Don’t give bullies an inch, no escape, take no prisoners. Over charging for bad service should be a hanging offence. I vowed never to return to East Anglian Film Makers Co-op after that nasty episode but life has a strange way of making a mockery of solemn promises.

Keith and I adjourned to the nearby Red Lion17 pub for a swift half to recover from the trauma of dealing with no-class academic punks. I wasn’t sure if it was me being unused to the primitive ways of small town England18 or I’d seriously lost my marbles.

Whichever, that London train sure looked inviting. ’I thought you were going to burst your brain back there,’ said Keith. ’Yeah, I’ve been and gone man,’ I mused.

There was a thoughtful silence before Keith spoke again. ’Here and now, been and gone,’ said Keith. ’What?’

That’s my memory of how the album was named but that incident was over a quarter of a century ago. Of course, I may be wrong. Back in London, Vance installed us in a cutting room at Colour Film Services to synchronise the master music mix with the film. A week later the film was dubbed at the same studio by Roger Rebutt. Keith and I made a slight error on the end credits because we’d used a non-authorised recording of What You See Is What You Are which was not covered by the original Cold Harbour Records deal so to make up the time Vance put us into the commentary booth and told us to talk about anything, to just keep going until the end credits faded out. The voice over was Keith’s memory of the first time he played at the Stonehenge Peoples’ Free festival, with a load of psychedelic reverb on the track. Vance brought David Wright back to colour grade the final print and Glenbuck Films had it in distribution by the summer of ‘86.

ii. THE NORWICH MALAISE In the summer of 1986 I had a call from Don Farrow, with whom I’d worked at both Granada and Anglia TV, asking if I’d come in as editor on his first feature film Blood Ties.

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It was a salvage job after the film makers co-op crew had bodged it. They really had no idea how to compose a shot.

There was a breakfast scene and the convention is the hand actions happen out of shot because of the danger of lost continuity involving jam pots and tea cups. The film makers co-op had never heard of that one so the condiments were appearing and disappearing hither and yon around the table from shot to shot.

Great moments in bad continuity. I offered to bring in some of my Pixie Productions crew who could be persuaded to work for Mates Rates19 but since Don was hiring the equipment from the Film Makers Coop they expressed the view if their crew services were no longer required then the equipment would become available. How very unprofessional of them.

Don changed my role to 1st assistant director which meant I could cut out the absolute deadwood on the crew without upsetting the Co-op management too much20. I managed to finagle Nick Mersch onto the shoot as a supporting artiste juggler and Gobbo, for old times sake, as the boom swinger - the bloke who holds the long pole with a microphone on the end of it. Gobbo brought Mrs Gobbo with him which meant I had to forsake my double bed for the joys of sleeping on the sofa.

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A small price to pay. The locations ranged around Norwich; the Riverside Walk at the back of the Art School and a derelict laundry building in the city, a leafy back alley up on Gas Hill and the University of East Anglia television studio. The actors, notably Clive Stubbs and Richard McLaughlin, were graduates from the UEA drama school. Richard was the dead spit of Bob Hoskins and could pull off ‘nasty villain’ at the drop of a hat.

The story was of an investigative reporter trying to frame Clive’s character to keep him away from his sister.

All I recall of the ending was a big punch up in a country house and someone got shot. The prop gun was a cigarette lighter which somehow ended up with Nick who later gave it to me as a birthday present. The final film21 although completed was lost for years and inexplicably turned up in the animation department of Norwich School of Art, where Clive Stubbs was working, and from there it was lost again.

This was the time of the radical hair cut; my hair had grown very long and Spike the traveller said, probably as a joke, that I’d look a lot better if I had a dyed Convoy Cut. This was rather like an extreme mullet; shaved on the top and sides with a long mane at the back, dyed turquoise. It fairly glowed in the dark and there was something faintly spiritual about having a shaved head. It had a profound effect on my friends and neighbours who claimed the turquoise made their eyes water. When that colour faded it was re-dyed green and, when a neighbour’s child asked why, I told her it was because green is the colour of summer. She asked if my hair would change colour in autumn.

I duly obliged when the time came and dyed the hair russet, the colour of autumn leaves.

In the late summer of 1986 Colin Vaines at British Screen was offering grant aid for original screenplays of no more than six minutes duration. I put up two scripts; Revenge of the Moggie about a young wife who disposes of her husband’s cherished Morris Minor car which comes back to haunt them and Edge of The Universe, a circular story about an astronaut sent out STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 361

into deep space but instead finds a wall which he burrows through and comes out in Hyde Park on the day of his rocket launch. Colin sent word to say he was quite keen on my work but before he could do anything about it, British Screen folded.

Drat! Colin Vaines, it turned out, had moved to the London office of Columbia Pictures as script editor and he suggested I might like to follow him across. Wow. The following months were spent in London script meetings and re-writes of the astronaut story. We’d just got the script nailed down when Columbia Pictures closed their London office due to some fracas involving David Puttman and Colin suggested I take myself off to the Hollywood office of Columbia, pronto. There was a slight hitch. I couldn’t afford the airfare and Columbia Hollywood weren’t about to pay for me to go over. Just another life changing opportunity shot to hell. Stuff happens and to prove that point I got a call from BBC Scotland to go up to Glasgow as an assistant dubbing editor on a comedy drama called Tutti Frutti, written by John Byrne and starring Robbie Coltrane, about a rock band on the road. To show respect to my BBC employers, the mullet got the chop.

iii. TUTTI FRUTTI After the heady joys of film directing it came as a bit of a jolt to be busted back down to assistant editor again but it was a six month contract and I certainly needed the steady wage, albeit far from the furry adoration of Greebo in leafy Norwich.

The BBC in Glasgow paid all the usual expenses but with one proviso; married London freelance had their travel costs paid every week but we single London freelance22 had our travel paid once a fortnight. Fortunately the local staff didn’t have any hang-ups about freelancers in their midst as we’d only been taken on because they didn’t have enough warm bodies to work on a multi-episodic drama. The B&B I’d been billeted STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 362

into was a huge stone edifice somewhere in deepest Hillhead run by an elderly couple who cooked an awesome breakfast.

She was a lady with a lilting accent from the Isles and he had been a cook on the battleship Hindenburg when it was interned with the rest of German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow, as reparations after WW1. The breakfast room was adorned with framed photos of the great leviathan. Unfortunately the lady of the house was taken ill and I moved to the Kelvin Hotel around the corner from the studios.

Obviously there had to be the ritual ‘new boy’ initiation which involved being taken to a pub in the roughest part of the city and, when it was my turn to buy a round, the brave lads fled the premises, leaving me with ten pints of ale and no one to drink them.

A hard looking Glaswegian loomed over me. ’Is that your friends who’ve left you here?’ he enquired. ’Looks like it.’ ’With all those pints? Yea dinnae know what to do with them, I suppose?’ ’Someone should drink them before they congeal.’ ’Aye, that’ll be the one right enough.’

So my nine new-found friends drank the drink and bought a few more for the lost looking Englishman who didn’t know where he was and had no idea how to get back to his hotel. I learned more about working class Glaswegian society in that pub than I had a right to expect. It was a great night out and probably not what my co-workers had expected. By closing time my new friends found someone in the pub who was sober enough to drive me back to the hotel and I left vowing to return. I probably would have done so too had I any idea where I’d been.

At breakfast my smiling co-workers were disappointed to hear nothing untoward had happened. No evidence of flesh wounds. ’You missed a great night out. We must go there again,’ I enthused. ’Oh. Right.’ ’Pity all of you got paged to go back to work at the same time,’ I said.

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I acquired a nick name; The English.

An affectation of the wages department was to pay our expenses in Scottish pounds as opposed to English Sterling. The exchange rate was the same but it phased Norwich shopkeepers who, remembering pre-decimalization when a Scottish pound was only worth 19-shillings and 6-pence, refused to take my money in payment for goods. When the studio electricians went on strike the Securicor drivers refused to cross the picket line so all the freelancers had to be paid in American Express travellers cheques. ’Now I know I really am working aboard,’ came the merry quip.

Haggis was served in the BBC canteen once a week and jolly nice it was too. I seriously don’t know what all the fuss is about. As sometimes happens in TV, the BBC had contracted me several weeks too early which meant my first week was spent reading through the Tutti Frutti scripts which were so hilarious and I had to pause to catch my breath. John Byrne had written them in the Scottish idiom and dialect; “He doesnae sound too pleased ... it was Mr Clockerty’s motor the big eejit wrote off when he banjoed the bus shelter!”

I was temporarily drafted onto a documentary, Secret Society, which was deemed to be hot stuff about Britain’s secret spy satellites. For some perverse reason the Secret Society cutting rooms were in a portacabin in the BBC car park, above the rushing waters of the River Kelvin and a distinct throwback to TV South and the River Itchen.

The documentary was pretty much the usual talking head with archive film I’d come to know and therefore was somewhat surprised when we were raided by Special Branch.

They took away all the archive film and an angle poise lamp from my cutting room.

The film I could understand but the lamp? Perhaps they didn’t have one of their own. A bizarre side effect of the raid was, coupled to my London accent and sheep skin coat, when I strolled up in reception one morning to collect the cutting room key the security guy asked to see my warrant card. What?! The raid culled several outraged column inches in the press who deemed it another terrifying example of the right wing Thatcher government curtailing the freedom of the press. They were actually raiding TV stations now. Shock, horror! By the time I made it back to Norwich for a weekend home the backlash was so great I was cheered down my local boozer for being a revolutionary hero of the liberal-left, having been raided by Special Branch. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was only filling in until Tutti Frutti started.

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I didn’t always go home on my allotted fortnights as the time taken travelling back and forth didn’t match the time in Norwich; night sleeper from Glasgow to Euston arrived in the wee small hours, Circle Line tube round to Liverpool Street then two hours up to Norwich so by the time I got home it was 11am and I was cream crackered.

Journey back; 20.30 train from Norwich to Liverpool Street, Circle Line tube round to Euston to pick up the 23.00 night sleeper to Glasgow, taxi to studios by 7am. I worked it out once, I had 33-hours in which to cram my entire weekend social life. And God help us all if it snowed.

Passengers were once de-trained at a place called Witham in Essex due to a threat of snow, which never came, and were left on the exposed platform in sub zero temperatures for several hours. The promised connecting buses never materialized. What passengers couldn’t understand was why the express train we were de-trained from then continued on towards London. The station staff, found hiding in a super-heated office, vouched safe there was nothing they could do for us and refused point blank to unlock the heated waiting rooms for reasons of health & safety. This did not incur good feelings towards them. Eventually, in a moment of passenger power, the driver of a two-coach local train which pulled in at the end of his shift and was ‘persuaded’ to rescue us. The gallant train driver phoned ahead to clear the line for us stranded passengers he was about to take on to London. At Liverpool Street a huge contingent of station staff were shovelling passengers into taxis to get them home. ’Where are you going, sir?’ ’Glasgow.’ ’Well I can’t send you all that way in a taxi and you’ve missed the night sleeper.’ ’Yes. I know.’ ’I’ll send you round to Euston and warn the station staff to be ready for you.’

And they were. Bustling with super efficiency they held the late train, bundled me onto the coach which was going as far as Crewe where more caring hands pointed towards a Glasgow train. Funny thing was it didn’t snow until we were well past Preston.

Domestic flights were faster but the Norwich to Heathrow leg was in a Short SD323 twin engine aircraft. It looked a lot like a transit van with wings and flew a bit like one.

Once, next in line for take off behind a Boeing 757 at London Heathrow, the whole aircraft shock from the full power jet wash of the aircraft in front. Well I recall (sick STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 365

bag!) circling a beacon (sick bag!) somewhere in deepest Essex (sick bag!) in heavy turbulence. I don’t suffer from air sickness24 but when the flight attendant came along offering breakfast she gave me a fit of dry heaves. ’No thanks. I’ll wait until my connecting flight.’

The chap sitting next to me threw up so violently I thought he was going to turn inside-out. On the 757 flight from Heathrow to Glasgow, as stable and steady as a rock, I could smell bacon frying. Oh deep joy. The flight was so serene the pilot had time to nonchalantly point out The Red Arrows practicing their display over Scampton airfield several thousand feet below.

Tutti Frutti was still delayed so I was set to work as assistant dubbing editor on another BBC drama Crossfire, set in Belfast during the Troubles where a police computer expert is seconded to Belfast to track down the identity of an IRA mole, until Tutti Frutti finally wended its way up to Glasgow from a London cutting room.

A foible of Tutti Frutti was that although it was in six episodes, the middle two were shot by the Outside Broadcast Unit. The theory at the time was that the OB Unit was normally consigned to sporting events and the video part of the Union were miffed they’d be cut out of a prestigious drama production. An unfortunate side effect of this internal politicking was the technical managers, deep in the bowels of the BBC, hadn’t noticed there was a difference between the OB video time code sync lock system and that of 16mm film. This was to cause much hair tearing later when sound shot by the OB Unit wouldn’t stay sync-locked to the film which caused many overtime hours trying to stabilize the two systems.

My weekends away up in Glasgow were spent exploring the delights of the Botanic Gardens, the Kelvin Museum & art gallery25 or copiously reading paper back novels to pass the time in the hotel. It was winter and when the snows came staying warm was a big priority. The Glasgow Underground trains were like something dreamed up for the children’s TV series Trumpton and were aptly nicknamed The Clockwork Orange. The bench seats in the carriages were so close together, taking a train to the mainline station with a big case was positively dangerous. For other people. Christmas was coming and the London freelancers were looking forward to their first New Year in Scotland. We were in for a bit of a disappointment. It turned out Hogmanay was a major holiday during the new year festivities which meant all the middle-range hotels shut down and, STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 366

consequently, we freelancers were out on our collective ears.

Help came from a large hotel further up Great Western Road from the Queen Margaret Drive studios. It was self catering on a grand scale since all the hotel staff were away and we had the run of their kitchen. It was like having no means of escape from the galley of a grand old liner adrift in mid ocean. Nick came up from Norwich and we were amazed on New Years Eve when the pubs shut at 8pm, so the staff could get away home to their parties.

We scurried off to find an off licence but because of the Scottish licensing laws I only managed a bottle of fortified wine and Nick came up with a small bottle of whisky.

There was no warning to foreigners that the expected jollity of Hogmanay was a myth.

First footing and gaiety must have been happening somewhere but it wasn’t happening to us. We retired early.

New Years morning we all piled into a sound recordist’s Landrover and drove up to Loch Lomond in search of adventure. There was a lot of snow up there and Nick spent the entire journey shivering inside a sleeping bag. The plan was to follow the A82 up to Arrochar then hang a left onto the A814, passing Loch Long and Gare Lock on our right to come back in a big circle to Glasgow. Unfortunately the fool reading the map26 managed to overshoot the turn and instead took everybody on to Cairndow and the A815. I had a feeling something was wrong when Gare Loch didn’t open out into the River Clyde but instead petered out into the Argyle Forest. What I’d taken to be Loch Long was, in fact, Loch Fyne. Oops. I finally had to admit the error when the driver said he was running low on fuel. Nothing was open; no gas stations, no pubs, no anything. A mass map reading by everyone in the vehicle revealed the error and we calculated our position as being at Ardbeg, substantially on the wrong side of the Firth of Clyde and way beyond the point of no return without an open gas station. Then someone noticed STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 367

a car ferry marked on the map, at Dunoon. Would it be open? We drove on.

We knew BBC sound recordist Keith Rogerson lived in Dunoon so if we became stranded the plan was to bang on his door. If we could find it. ’I thought he lives in Campbeltown,’ someone said. ’Where’s that?’ asked another. ’Isle of Mull,’ said another gloomily. ’How does he get into work in the mornings?’ ’How will we?’

Our journey took us past Holy Loch, the base for the British nuclear subs. What a gloomy and forlorn place it was. It had just the right air of grey menace which shouted keep away from here, this is an area of broody death.

We found the ferry quay just as the afternoon turned into the gloaming. There was no one about and no cars in the queue. We waited in quiet expectation and were relieved when other cars pulled up behind us. Ah-ha! The ferry to Gourock, when it came, turned out to be one of those small flat-deck affairs with an overhead midsection wheel house.

It looked diminutive in that vast stretch of cold water we’d have to cross. We rumbled onboard, counting out small change between us to pay the ferryman and, as the first night of 1987 caught up with us, we realised how far we had to go before landfall. Talk turned to thoughts of lifebelts, the floatation capabilities of Landrovers and how long we’d last in the freezing water if a big ship hit us in the dark. The journey only took twenty minutes but out in the middle of the Firth it seemed like we could have bobbed on forever. We picked up the motorway at Greenock, passing the silent cranes of Govan ship yards and crossed back onto the north side of the Clyde at Erskine Bridge. We may have detoured somewhat off our route but the sight of the Benmore Forest in winter was worth the map reading error. We never did find out where Keith Rogerson lived.

Nick took the bus back to Norwich a few days later but not before we introduced him to the delights of the Ubiquitous Chip, the local BBC watering hole27, and real whisky. I once made it, slithering and sliding, to the Chip in a raging snow storm to be confronted

by Robbie Coltrane on the stairs staring out at the weather. ’Is it still snowing?’ he asked. ’Oh yes,’ I said, with all the appearance of a portable snowman. ’Sufferin’ Christ,’ said the big man.

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’I fell over, thought I wouldn’t be found until Spring when the drifts melt.’ ’You should get yourself some wee booties,’ he advised.

Which was true. My first pair of Doc Martens were the result of the snow in Glasgow.

They were like walking on a new carpet. bouncy and warm. Due to the foibles of the Gulf Stream it was never horribly cold in the city. Fallen snow soon turned to slush and didn’t freeze over like the skating rink streets of Norwich. The thaw came and Spring suggested itself but not before a moment of madness from back home.

I had a call from Norwich police to say someone had stolen my cheque book and tried to cash a thousand pounds from my account but the bank stopped it and that they, the police, were giving me a courtesy call to ask if I’d come in and make a statement to give the bank retrospective permission to put a stop on the cheques. ’But I’ve got my cheque book here. Its not been stolen,’ I explained. ’Well did you leave it somewhere for a moment?’ asked the cop. ’No. And what’s more the thief must have a time machine because I’m four hundred miles away up in Glasgow.’ ’Oh well perhaps it was your next cheque book that’s been stolen.’ ’If its my next cheque book that means someone must have broken into my house to get it.’ ’No, because we spoke to the chap living there and he said nothing’s been taken,’ assured the cop. ’Um slight problem. I’m in Glasgow and my co-tenant is working away down south.

Whoever assured you nothing’s been taken shouldn’t be in my house. Did you ask him for ID?’ ’Well, no, because he was obviously living in the house,’ tried the thick cop. ’I’ll get down there as soon as I can,’ I said.

John Grove, Head of Film, was wonderfully helpful. The rumour was a number of people who had worked on Secret Society had had mysterious break-ins and my boss put me on the next flight to Norwich to sort it out. Back home, as soon as I walked through the door, Greebo came running down the hall from wherever she’d been hiding and gave me a glowering, pleading look. As I walked around the house I had that queasy ‘who’s been sleeping in my bed’ feeling as whoever had been nesting in the house had made the place their own. Furniture was repositioned and the kitchen was a STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 369

mess. It looked as though we’d had a bad attack of the squatters. I called the police to say I was back in Norwich but the duty sergeant said the detective dealing was off duty and to call again in the morning. I locked the front door just in case the squatters came back and Greebo followed me up to bed, reluctant to leave my side for a moment. Poor mog. She deserved better than to be left in the indifferent care of a neighbour.

We dozed off and at 2am someone was leaning on the doorbell. Let them lean, I thought. The next thought was maybe its better to confront the thieving beggar, have him in the house ready for the coppers to collect later. I went downstairs, opened the front door and put my foot behind it so whoever was on the other side couldn’t push past into the house. This seems to annoy the gentleman concerned. ’What’s the meaning of locking me out?’ he demanded. ’I always lock my door before going to bed,’ I explained then wondered why I was explaining myself to someone who didn’t belong.

In seething indignation he pushed past into the hall. Oh, one of them, I thought. He looked to be about twenty-five, well dressed, a plumy London accent and the sort who probably wasn’t used to taking lip from the servants. ’You’re not the only person who lives here, you know’ he said, petulantly. ’You’re in my house, I don’t know who you are and there’s been a theft. I’ve had to fly down from Glasgow to find out what’s been going on.’ ’Well I don’t know anything about that and you can’t stop me staying here.’ ’Okay, this is the deal. You can sleep on the sofa tonight and in the morning you pack your bags and leave.’ ’Well I’m making some tea.’ ’No you’re not,’ and I gave him the benefit of the full-on look of quiet menace.

He went into the front room and slammed the door. I didn’t get much sleep that night, wondering what kind of dangerous loonie I had on my hands, waiting for the daylight hours to roll around until I could phone the police. Later, two detectives turned up and we had a whispered conversation in the hall. ’He’s here?’ they asked. ’Yes. He pushed his way in at 2am this morning. I don’t know who he is and he’s asleep on my sofa. He walked into my house as if he owns the place.’ ’Okay. Let’s wake him up, see what he’s got to say for himself.’

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We quietly walked into the room and there was the recumbent miscreant slumbering peacefully on the sofa. His entire day was about to be ruined. ’Can you get up now, please?’ asked a detective. No response. The detective tried shaking him awake. ’I am sleeping. Go away and stop bothering me.’

The three of us exchanged a glance. Considering the circumstances this man was not making any friends. The gentle shaking turned more determined until the stranger became aware he was not alone. ’What is it?’ asked the stranger, rather annoyed. ’Police. We’re investigating a theft and the person who lives here doesn’t know who you are.’ ’I’ve got permission to be here.’ ’Not from me you haven’t,’ I put in. ’I think you should get up and get dressed,’ said the detective who gave me a nod which indicated I should go and make coffee so they could give the benefit of their wisdom to the stranger in private. In case I lost control and lamped the surly little twit.

By the time I returned with coffee for the detectives, none for the stranger, they had ascertained the stranger’s name but he was unable to identify himself. He claimed he had no ID on him. He had, however, changed from being a surly little twit into a person unduly nervous because it finally dawned on him he had no friends in that room and he was prime suspect in a bank fraud. ’Is there anyone we can call who can identify you?’ ’I’ve got friends in Norwich.’ ’It needs to be a family member.’ ’My mother lives in London.’

And on it went, round and round. What put me off the guy was he’d made himself so thoroughly at home he thought it was okay to sit on my coffee table with his feet up on the sofa, holding Greebo in such a way which made her growl. ’Can you put my cat down please, she isn’t liking it. And you can take your feet off the sofa while you’re about it.’

He made a big mistake. He tried to be my friend. ’We have met, you know. I came to see one of your films,’ he said putting Greebo STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 371

down. She shot into my arms like the hounds of hell were at her tail. ‘Nick George said it was okay for me to stay here.’ ’He’s not said anything to me about this. When did he give you the key?’ ’He didn’t. He left it with someone for me to pick up.’ ’Can you confirm this?’ asked a detective. ’Nick’s away working down south for a month, but I’ll try his family,’ I suggested.

I called Mike George, Nick’s college lecturer father, to see if he had a location phone number for Nick. Several calls later, trying to locate him, Nick rang. No he didn’t know the guy either but he knew the bloke had some vague connection to the film makers co-op and thought it would be okay to let him stay at the house. I told Nick about the stolen cheque book and the inadvisability of letting total strangers have free run of our house, that the bloke neither of us knew was about to get nicked. I passed the phone over to the detective so Nick could explain it all again. Before leaving, having got an address off the stranger in case they needed to pursue further enquires28, the detectives advised me to have a few words with my co-tenant. I thanked the officers for their time, promised to come in later to make a statement about the theft and as I closed the door I only had the twit left to deal with. He made the mistake of smiling as if he, the totally innocent, were off the hook. He wasn’t. ’Get out of my house now and if you ever come back here again I’ll break both your fecking legs.’

That wiped the stupid grin off his face. And he left. Very fast. Nick came back that night to sort things out in the house. All he was guilty of was being too trusting of other peoples’ friends. Never again we agreed. I left him to clear up the stranger’s mess as mild punishment. I had to stay down in Norwich for two more days to get everything sorted with the bank, who admitted liability for allowing the fraudster to dip into my account. The BBC let me stay over the weekend to be back working on Tutti Frutti the following Monday. During that time the film maker’s Co-op Manager phoned wanting to speak to the evicted stranger. ’I don’t know where he is. Probably sleeping in a bus shelter for all I care. There was a theft from the house, bank fraud, the police were called and I threw him out.’

The Co-op Manager thought this was a terrible way to treat one of their visiting guests and I told him to f-off. I thought that would shut him up. But it didn’t. During those few STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 371

days at home, playing truant from the Beeb, Nick told me a nasty little story of East Anglian Film Makers Co-op’s shenanigans. According to Nick, the Co-op never actually made any films and in order to satisfy the terms of their £35,000 annual arts funding they borrowed other peoples’ film titles for their re-application. They’d borrowed my film Street of Experience as having been produced by them. ’Oh my God,’ was all I could manage.

Those people were just dreadful. No manners. The idiots. How did they think I wouldn’t find out. They treated commercial producers like scum when we hired their facilities and now they thought it okay to steal my product name to obtain pecuniary advantage by deception. Fraud, in fact. I got onto the Union lawyers who sent a stiff note to the Co-op Manager, to cease and desist as East Anglian Film Makers Co-op didn’t have the copyright owner’s permission to use his name and product. The Co-op Manager wrote back with a qualified apology; a couple of lines of the ‘oops sorry’ variety followed by several pages of feeble qualification. A qualified apology isn’t an apology and they still thought they had the right to claim they produced my film because they hired a cutting room to me. The Union lawyer wrote back saying the only way they could claim to have produced my film was if they paid the full production costs plus damages. This suggested figure was a lot more than the grant aid they were applying for. The Coop Manager tried to counter claim until the Union lawyer strongly suggested he seek legal advice before responding further. The Co-op Manager did not respond at all after Eastern Arts discovered their shenanigans involving someone else’s copyright. The Coop committee29 withdrew their grant application for an urgent re-write. From that point on no one at East Anglian Film Makers Co-op would have anything to do with me which was just fine until it came to light that everyone on the Co-op committee also ran the local regional branch of the film Union. In effect, a group of grant aided producers who didn’t make films were deciding who worked and who didn’t in the five counties which made up the east anglian region. It wasn’t enough to be a Union member to get work, members had to be approved by the East Anglian Film Makers Co-op committee.

It came to a head when a large government film contract came up, which everyone had to bid for via East Anglian Film Makers Co-op who had under bid everyone else, got the contract and employed moonlighting Co-op technicians who employed each other doing more than one job; the cameraman was also the editor and so forth. Insider STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 372

trading. Uproar ensued when local companies realised what those Co-op guys had been doing. This all came out at a meeting to elect Union officials, held out in the middle of nowhere30 presumably so all the East Anglian Film Makers Co-op committee members could vote for each other as Union committee members. They were a bit surprised when a lot of angry freelancers turned up with a London Union organisor.

Nick claimed afterwards that the Co-op Manager had bugged the meeting so he could play the bad news back to his non-union company co-directors31 later, especially those of us who were being vocal about East Anglian Film Makers Co-op’s restrictive practices. The meeting, with an overwhelming show of hands, decided to postpone the election of Union officials until all the local members could be canvassed. Later, most of East Anglian Film Makers Co-op’s committee were voted out of their Union posts to be replaced by working freelancers. The Union HQ organisor suggested I be put up as Chair of the East Anglian Branch which meant both the Co-op Manager and I had to leave the room while the members debated our fitness for the post. As we waited in the bar I offered the guy a drink. He declined but couldn’t resist sticking the knife in. ’You do realise if you’re elected tonight you’ll have to take over the meeting. Do you really think you’re capable of that,’ he said with a supercilious smile. ’The normal course of business is the out-going Chair continues the meeting but if you want me to take over, fine my me.’ ’But you don’t have any committee experience.’ ’Twenty years in the business, shop steward at Athos Films and attended national freelance Conference. I think I’ll cope.’

We were called back into the meeting and it turned out I’d been elected Chair. I thanked the out going Chair for all his hard work and since there was no other business, declared the meeting over and we adjourned to the bar. It was rather sad that none of the East Anglian Film Makers Co-op committee members stayed behind to hoist a few and bury the hatchet32. That was my penultimate dealing with East Anglian Film Makers Co-op and three years later they lost their £35,000 a year grant aid from Eastern Arts.

All the non-committee Co-op members jointly owned the film equipment but, with their premises gone, the camera and editing equipment were housed at Norwich School of Art who, in turn, saw the equipment as their property. Former Co-op members became rather miffed by this seizure of their assets but were powerless to retrieve the goods as STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 373

it meant going up against the former Co-op Management who had taken staff jobs at the Art School. Small town England, personified.

Back in the comforting arms of the BBC once again I plodded on with Tutti Frutti until March when I had to leave the contract a few weeks earlier than planned because our Landlady had decided to sell the Cambridge Street house and wanted us out, with only a month’s notice. All part of the Norwich Malaise, I decided.

iv. YOU’RE FLIPPING NICKED ME OL’ SON Although, actually not nicked as it turned out. Since the previous summer of 1986 Nick and I had been growing herbs secreted away up in the attic. It been a hot summer and with a skylight window the plants had gone crazy in the near green house conditions.

They amazingly survived through winter and, in the spring of 1987, we moved the plants into the spare box room to catch the meagre sunlight. And thus was our undoing.

Next door the landlord of the druggie house had moved in a straight-going chap who was unaware he was about to consort with thieving junkies. This came to light when all his goods and chattels which the new tenant had delivered earlier went walkabout. He called the police. The police made house-to-house enquiries which was how come the hairy cop from the Nag’s Head, circa 1983, pitched up at my front door. Trimmed hair, in a suit and transferred to CID. ’Have you seen anything suspicious?’ ’Where do I start?’ ’Yes,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t help noticing those guys chasing the dragon while I was questioning the victim. I’ll jack up a double-U and give their drum a spin later34.’

Since I hadn’t seen anything remotely more suspicious than usual the officer went on his merry way. A few minutes later he was back. From the ground floor vantage point of the house opposite, pursuing his enquiries, he had spotted what we had not. He could see our herbal endeavours growing in the spare room and he was back to exact his constabulary duties. With Nick out of the way in the basement, the cop pinched off the tops of the herbs. ’I’ll leave you enough for a couple of joints,’ he said mysteriously before pinching the stems off at soil level. ’That’s no longer manufacturing drugs when its not attached to the roots,’ he said before bundling up the remaining bush under his arm so it looked STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 374

about four times the size it actually was. At the front door he turned and said, in a stage aside whisper which could be heard all the way down the street, ‘Let that be a lesson to you and if I catch you with drugs again I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.’

He got in his car and drove off, leaving me standing on the doorstep wondering what just happened. Nick appeared from the basement, his hands blotched with paint. ’What just happened then?’ he asked. ’A copper has walked off with our oregano and chilli plants,’ I mused. ‘I have no idea why.’

It took several phone call to London legal charities to discover the Norwich cops had illegally entered our premises without a search warrant, taken away something of a herbal nature without making an arrest nor making any note of what had happened.

An advisor at the legal charity Release suggested if the cops got in touch again I should wear a wire. I didn’t have to wait long. About a week later a detective sergeant in the Regional Crime Squad suggested all drug charges relating to the herbal plant material would vanish if I were to assist them by becoming an active participating informant.

‘What charges and what herbal plant material?’

I found the best course of action was to ignore the cops in the hope they would eventually get bored and wander away. There were a few moments of small town England, police cars turning up wherever I was and months of nuisance calls but when they realised they couldn’t blackmail someone who hadn’t been arrested for drugs we never had, all the botheration died down. Clumsy of them. Very clumsy. A local rock drummer, hearing of the oregano bust asked me if I’d tried imagiro. ’No. What’s that?’ I asked. ’The venerable Japanese art of paper unfolding.’

v. ALL AT SEA I found a two-up, two-down terraced house in Grant Street sharing with an Irish UEA student who had had the house on her own for so long she wasn’t exactly overjoyed when the landlord moved me in on her. Since there was an overlap of tenancies I continued living in Cambridge Street, looking after Greebo, until the end of our notice to quit. In the meanwhile I was picking up odd jobs as a photographer from a local listings magazine.

STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 375

One of these assignments involved a group of ex-Argyle Street squatters who had moved up to the Orkney Islands and bought the trawler Hamnavoe, which had had an illustrious career as a war-time RN guard vessel in Scapa Flow, registered in Kirkwall and sailed it back to Norwich.

En-route they had a misadventure when the crew discovered the Admiralty charts they’d been sold were out of date and involved them circling a buoy off Great Yarmouth until the Coast Guard turned up to lead them into port. The Coast Guard decided they wanted the Master arrested and the trawler impounded for going about the high seas with inadequate charts but after lengthy wrangles it was decided the Orkney chandler was at fault for selling them dud charts in the first place. Allowed to go, the trawler berthed at a Council owned disused scrap wharf just across the road from where the Argyle Street squat was evicted two years before.

Norwich City Council were so alarmed and distressed by the arrival of the Hamnavoe, illegally moored on the River Wensum, they evicted the ‘boat people’, as they became known. By the time I was sent down to the wharf the boat people were preparing to cast off, heading for a berth at Lowestoft Docks with all the usual suspects there to see them off. The boat people were STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 376

paranoid about being constantly watched by the police, who were pointed out to me across the river where a camera could be seen in an upper storey window of an disused office block. I didn’t have the heart to tell the boat people that the guys with the camera were Nick George and Glen Medler who were working for a corporate video company that day, taking panoramic shots of the city. Once folk from the alternative scene get locked into the ‘cops & robbers game’ it becomes quite difficult to disentangle the self-perpetuating myth from reality. As the trawler left the wharf the Carrow Road lifting bridge opened to let them pass, which was the only time I’d seen it happen.

Nick and I held our Cambridge Street moving out party at the end of March and the house was swamped with bikers, crusties, convoy people, boat people and sundry hippies. The Lost Garden Band35 played in our front room bay window and even Colin put an appearance to chuckle over my latest episode with the Old Bill.

They obviously thought I was some major player on the local drugs scene when in reality I was a reporter who wrote news stories and made films about alternative people. That misunderstanding, between who I was as a person and what I did for the living, would haunt me for years.

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Greebo, however, was aloof to all this and basked languidly in the total attention she was receiving from all those there present.

Bikers, apparently, venerated cats like gods. Or, in Greebo’s case, a goddess. She strutted round the party people as if she owned the place which, in a way, she did.

There was bad news coming which I was putting off; my new Grant Street abode was a pet-free zone and Nick couldn’t take Greebo either so a complicated arrangement was made whereby a Cambridge Street neighbour would feed her until the Landlady made it up to Norwich to collect the great furry beast and take her back to London.

As it turned out leaving the house after the party became problematic. It was four in the morning when I snuck out and I hardly made it half-way down the street when I heard the sound of a crying cat right behind me. Greebo knew she was being left and didn’t like it one bit. Deep breath, ignore the sobs and keep going. I turned round and saw the sobbing moggie on the edge of her territory, crying horribly. I picked her up, she snuggled into her favourite position, claws hanging on for dear life and I took her back to the house. ’You’ll have to make sure she doesn’t get out of the house or she’ll try to follow me,’ I told Nick.

I snuck out of the house and I hardly made it half-way down the street when I heard the sound of a crying cat right behind me. I took her back to the house.

‘No, you really have to hold onto her and make sure she doesn’t follow me,’ I told Nick.

I managed to get past the cat at the third attempt and I still feel bad about leaving her behind. There was nothing else I could do. A couple of weeks later I got a call from the Cambridge Street landlady asking if I’d feed the cat once a day as there was a lot of work needed to be done on the house before they could sell it. Oh great. We could still have been living there instead of the scummy little terraced house I’d moved into. The landlord of the Grant Street house was a typical Norfolk farmer who saw all his tenants STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 378

as serfs living in tied cottages, like something out of 17th century rural England without realising his tenants had rights. Like making repairs to a bathroom with a leaky ceiling where the rain was getting in. I came home one night to find the bathroom ceiling had migrated onto the floor and in the bath; the landlord said he’d send a man round to fix it in a couple of weeks. How nice.

Fortunately I was rescued from small town England by a lengthy contract down in London for Channel Four’s Asian unit on, Movie Mahal, with clips of old classic Indian films. It was hard going because the films turned up in London in a filthy condition, often without reels or cores, squashed and covered in gunk. It was amazing what the Film Clinic could do with patience and tender loving care. Bollywood may be the most prolific films makers in the world, it was just a pity they didn’t look after their archive prints. The series turned me on to Indian cinema though and I even started to learn the language; Bahut Shukriya. The series went out at 9.40am on Sunday mornings.

When the Head of Asian Programming turned up at Hyphen Films to discuss contracts he demanded I be sacked forthwith because C4 thought it an outrage a white skinhead was working on a series about Indian films. I referred to it as inverted racism until a Union colleague pointed out there’s no such thing, there’s just racism. Thankfully Hyphen Films stood their ground and kept me on in their cutting room at Mr. Young’s Studios in Falconberg Court, behind Tottenham Court Road tube station and beside The Astoia rock music venue36. The reason there was no overtime on Movie Mahal was because once the drum sound check started at the venue across the cobbled court that was it. No one was going to hear anything else until the gig ended.

Late summer into early autumn 1987 was spent in the company of Unicorn Video based in the back streets of Bury St. Edmunds. Another low-res video company who had bought their way into the business by dint of a huge arts grant but with no professional experience in the motion picture industry to back it up. They had acquired three VHS cameras, an OB truck for hot mixing live music performances and an editing set up. All their regular video operators were young unemployed on dubious government ‘back to work’ schemes. The managing director of Unicorn got in touch with both Nick George and myself, as experienced music film makers, inviting us to what amounted to a job interview to see if we were good enough for his exacting standards. After about ten minutes we got the impression the MD had acquired his strange management style STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 379

from from an employment bureau training seminar. He wanted me to crouch down with a video camera and weave in and out of the legs of his dining room table. ’If I ever come across a dining room table live on-stage at a rock concert I’ll figure something out,’ I told him. ‘Generally I send people my showreel and if they decide they like what they see and they offer the right fee, I’ll work for them.’

The MD had not found a friend in me. Unicorn had never heard of Union rates and had no intention of paying them, especially when they could pick up young unemployed for a fraction of the wage. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. What we got was the bumnumbing experience of sitting through Unicorn’s showreel; it was a mess. It looked like it had be shot in Glorious Wobblivision37 and hot mixed and/or edited by some half bright school student on bad acid in the throws of a psychotic episode. ’What do you think? asked the MD proudly. ’Um ... I sometimes find it is useful to be able to see the band playing from time to time. The fans aren’t really interested in a film maker’s psychedelic freak out. They’re buying a video to see the band not how far out and amazing your kit is.’

There was a moment of shocked silence before the MD dismissed me from his reality. ’I don’t need you. You can leave but Nick can stay because he is obviously an experienced film maker.’

I couldn’t actually leave because Nick had the car keys so I left the room and sat on the naughty step at the bottom of the stairs. Presently the MD’s partner came out and found me sitting there. ’Oh, you’re still here?’ I explained about the car keys. ’I’m sorry about John,’ she explained. ‘He has man management issues. He’s a lot better than he was now he’s in recovery,’ she informed me, casually.

Ah-ha. A drug addict. And what is it we all know of people with social issues? You can’t deal rationally with irrational people. ’Don’t worry. I’m not really a cameraman. It says film director on my Union card.’

On the drive back to Norwich I asked Nick what he thought. ’He doesn’t like you one bit,’ Nick said. ’Yes. I did get that impression.’ ’He doesn’t know much, he was trying to pick my brains and he didn’t really have any solid ideas of his own.’

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And that was the crux of the cultural change in late-1980’s film making. Academics and the mentally bewildered really had taken over the business. No one had time for artisans in a craft industry anymore in a headlong Thatcherite grasp for short term profits. The experienced need not apply. Funding went to those who were teaching, passing on skills they didn’t have or who slotted into a make believe pigeon hole invented by worthy types with no industrial experience. Film makers who made films were shunned with a will. Just before his death in 2011, veteran film director Ken Russell38 was turned down for grant aid because the Suit in charge decided his script ‘wasn’t cinematographic enough.’

Anglia Television, in an attempt to be hip, groovy and down with the kids advertised for and employed script editors aged between sixteen and twenty-four who had little or no life skills and rejected any submission which came from experienced screen writers.

Their First Take series, allegedly for first time film makers, was completely over run by friends of the producer who herself came direct from Eastern Arts management with no broadcast experience. The partner of the First Take producer was a ‘first time film maker’ on every series Anglia commissioned. Small town England. A gay men’s group in Norwich wrote to Anglia TV saying they knew who heterosexuals had to shag to get a commission so could the TV station put up a gay bloke they could apply to. For some reason Anglia TV never bothered to reply. ITV, in order to rid itself of a ridiculous and outmoded system of employing old time experienced film makers had replaced it (wicked innit) with an entirely new ridiculous and outmoded system of employing young film makers with no experience. Unpaid slave labourers in the name of youth opportunity. At the tender age of thirty-five this rendered me an unemployable boring old fart. Well, in Norwich anyway. Away down in London I bumped into the Cold Harbour Records guys in Soho Square. ’My god, we haven’t seen you for ages. We thought you were dead.’ ’I live in Norwich.’ ’Well, that is a bit like death, isn’t it.’

I rest me case, m’lud.

Despite all this ageism nonsense Unicorn Video called asking if Nick and I would be available for work as camera operators at a Rougham Fair. They were offering 60-quid, I turned it down and Unicorn told me it would look good on my CV. I told them it was STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 381

unlikely my green grocer would give me free carrots on the basis of having a low paid job on my CV. Unicorn were not best pleased I had turned them down. They tried the same gag on Nick and he turned it down too. Eventually they came back offering ‘rate’ but both Nick and I had the feeling we were walking into a nightmare. Debacle was in the air. The plan was we’d shoot on video tape for later editing into their live hot mix.

I taught Nick a little trick which always wowed new directors; place the camera lenses together and step back, pulling them apart whilst turning away and filming a festival site long shot. As a split screen that always freaks people out. How did I think up that amazing idea? I didn’t. Two BBC cameramen did it on the front titles of That’s Life ten years before.

I knew most of the bands39 playing at the festival, some I’d filmed before and decided there were unlikely to be any problems filming on-stage. My method back then was to to dress in black, sit cross-legged on the corner of the stage, balance the camera on my knee, zoom right in and move the shot from musician to musician with tasteful focus pulls. That way there are no unsightly and time consuming crash zooms. Everything was useable and on-shot. Everyone loved it. Unicorn didn’t. First I knew something was amiss was halfway through Nik Turner’s All Stars set when someone I didn’t know was tugging at my foot. I ignored it as I tried to keep the camera steady. Next thing, some kid I’d never seen before climbed up on stage beside me and yelled in my ear. ’John40 said you’ve got to give me the camera. Your camera work’s no good. I’m taking over.’ ’I don’t know who you are.’ ’You’ve got to give me the camera. You’re crap!’ ’Well so long as you make sure John knows I’m on contract and he still has to pay me.’

The unknown kid ran off and at the end of the gig no one mentioned the state of my camera work. Must have been a nutter, then. A few days later John phoned to say my camerawork was so bad it was unusable and as such he wasn’t going to pay me.

However, he went on, Nick’s camerawork was brilliant and he was going to pay him.

This was an old dodge to get out of paying; the invoice is for work done as per contract, not whether the company chooses to use it or not. Later Nick phoned to say Unicorn had tried the same horse manure on him and they must have forgotten we knew each STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 382

other and were likely to compare notes. I offered Unicorn the Small Claims Court to recover my fees and Unicorn offered a compromise payment of 60-quid, well below the contract rate. They’d shot themselves in the foot in the process, agreeing to pay something, as they wouldn’t be able to use the ‘unusable camerawork’ excuse in court after offering remuneration. As soon as Unicorn realised their ‘divide and rule’ strategy hadn’t worked, playing Nick off against me and vice versa, they found themselves in a serious pickle. They’d tried to rip off two members of the local Union regional branch committee and it had pissed right back on them. We knew how it was supposed to work. Eventually I got a cheque for 60-quid with the rest to follow41 and the amazement was it didn’t bounce.

Unicorn got back to me to cover a Halloween Albion Fair in Suffolk as an on-stage camera operator with Neil Innes on the bill. I turned it down on the grounds I didn’t want the agro of hassling for my money but Unicorn swore that was never going to happen again. But it did and in a most perturbing way. I got a call in early December from Unicorn saying they were never going to employ me again because the Manager of East Anglian Film Makers Co-op had been over to see them, warning of my unstable mental condition. ’My what?!’

So Nick and I hauled ourselves over to Bury St Edmunds again to try to clear up another fine mess instigated by the Co-op Manager. It turned out he had been to see Unicorn to drum up work for the Co-op, my name had been mentioned and the poison of the impossible to disprove ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ variety was inserted into the MD’s delicate ear’ole, a man with a class-A drug dependency and therefore slightly paranoid. The poison? ’He is mentally deluded that he is an undercover police officer and therefore cannot be trusted.’

Good god. I’d heard of some stinky dirty tricks in my time but that one took the all time biscuit. ’Well, you have to believe what you want,’ I told Unicorn, ‘but thanks for the tip off.

This man was caught trying to claim copyright of one of my films and we have history.

I’ll certainly let the lawyers know he’s at it again.’

The Co-op Manager, it turned out, had broken an obscure Union rule about slagging STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 383

off a fellow member and was hauled up in front of the Committee, with the MD of Unicorn as a witness, and made to prove his allegation. When he couldn’t, the Co-op Manager was forced to publicly apologise. Later the Manager left the Co-op and was last heard of teaching film & TV in a northern university. Pity the poor students saddled with him.

To quote Solomon: We can be sure of talent: we can only pray for genius.

CHAPTER 10 - FOOTNOTES 1

See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046807/

2

An incomer was the Norwich word for anyone not born in Norfolk who settles in their

fair city.

A little known fact of Monday Lunch juggling balls was they were stuffed with red

3

lentils, the theory being if you didn’t make any money busking you could always eat your own balls; that may be an urban myth, however.

Small rings made out of pipe cleaners, thrown down the long hallway which Greebo

4

would fetch and drop at our feet, looking up with a pleading ‘do it again, do it again’ the volume control went all the way up to eleven, usually between th hours of pub

5

closing time & 4am and, like all incautious class-A drug dealers, they were very visible.

The Golden Triangle refers to the triangular area of Norwich bounded by Newmarket

6

Road, Ipswich Road and Lime Tree Road filled with large, wealthy households. The area has spread as far north as Dereham Road, however it is generally taken to be the area bounded by Earlham Road, Newmarket Road and Colman Road / Mile End Road.

Originally ‘YUP’ denoting a Young Urban Professional which became ‘yuppie’ in the

7

1980’s 8

who I was to meet again in 1997 on the set of The Mummy at Shepperton Studios

9

Pro-Clean

10

Director of photography Dixie Dean; camera operators David Wright, Dixie Dean &

Martin Sercombe; camera assistants Glenn Medler, John Tierney & Graham Humphry; (film) sound recordist Nick George; sound assistant Steve Graham: assistant director Tony Panther; 11

‘Woodstock’ rock concert film, 1970, director Michael Wadleigh, dist: Warner Brothers

12

Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; those who can’t teach, teach teachers STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 384

13

Here & Now songs filmed at Dingwalls 1986: 23 Skidoo, Intuition, Fantasy Shift,

Spaces In Between, Room Within a Room, Fake It, Speed It Up, Last Chance, Opium For The People and Glad You’re Here.

14

Who had since joined The Tibetan Ukranian Mountain Troupe as a juggler / drummer

15

big boys’ games, big boys’ rules

16

I didn’t have a degree

17

aka The Dead Brian, the hippie/punk/biker/student pub in the City

18

Small Town England is also a track on the post-punk New Model Army 1984 album,

Vengeance, and if this book is ever turned into a film (good luck with that one) then use that music track on this chapter. On a loop.

19

Working for nothing but fed, watered and given a free holiday in the countryside

20

the revised crew involved Glen Medler on camera; Steve Graham, camera assistant;

Nick George, sound recordist; Gobbo, sound assistant/boom swinger 21

expected to become available on Youtube in late 2012

22

I was classed as London freelance as Norwich didn’t appear on their mental map

23

a Short Sd3: 36 passengers in two rows of seats on the starboard side and one row

to port, top speed 215mph and a 10,000ft ceiling.

24

So far so good

25

which was accidentally built back to front when the later main road was built behind it

26

it was an honest mistake guv’, the turn-off was right on a fold of the map

27

somewhere near Great George Street

28

Always a good one to leave on, it makes the suspect feel horribly insecure.

29

The film makers co-op were very big on committees, sub committees and sub steering

committees, talking about talking but never actually making films 30

Well Ely, in fact, but for the geographically challenged it may as well have been on

the Moon 31

it was never made entirely clear which Norwich corporate video company was involved

with the Co-op Manager; the general understanding was the guy was a company codirector who used his position as film makers Co-op Manager (£14K pa) and East Anglian Union Chair to the advantage of his fellow company co-directors. Insider trading or just plain old sharp practise.

32

Probably in my head STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 385

33

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs

34

Like something he must have heard on a 1975 episode of The Sweeney the rough

translation of “I’ll jack up a double-U and give their drum a spin” is “I shall go to the magistrates court and apply for a warrant to search their house for drugs.”

35

An anagram of The Golden Star, the Norwich pub where the band first played their

peculiar style of folk rock.

36

Now sadly demolished to make way for the renovated Underground station

37

the camera never stayed focused on anything for more than 2-seconds at a time

38

for more details see: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001692/

39

Nick Turner’s All Stars and The Seven Kevins

40

The MD of Unicorn whose surname I have forgotten

41

and I’m still waiting

CHAPTER 10 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 343 - 30 Cambridge Street Norwich Page 344 - Greebo Page 347 - Al undergoing make-upFX for Tales of The Crib Page 349 - The Here & Now band, Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Page 350 - Keith Bailey of the Here & Now band, Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Page 351 - Gavin D’Blitz of the Here & Now band, Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Page 352 - Dino Ferrari of the Here & Now band, Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Page 353 - Paul Rose of the Here & Now band, Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Page 354 - Keith Bailey of the Here & Now band, Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Gavin D’Blitz of the Here & Now band, Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Page 355 - Camera operator David Wright, reflection in a wing mirror Al juggling at Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Camera operator Dixie Dean at Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Supporting artiste Nick ‘Danger’ Mersch Page 356 - Producer Vance Goodwin Al & Steve Graham at Dingwalls Dancehall January 1986 Former site of East Anglian Film Makers Co-Op, February 1986 Supporting artiste Nick ‘Danger’ Mersch STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 386

Page 360 - Don Farrow producer / director, Blood Ties 1986 Gobbo the boom swinger on Blood Ties Filming Blood Ties in a TV studio at UEA Page 361 - Al with blue hair Page 362 - Al with russet hair in autumn Page 363 - Al at BBC Glasgow working on Tutti Frutti Page 367 - Nick George visiting Glasgow Page 376 to 377 - The Norwich ‘Boat People’ moored on the River Wensum Page 378 - The Lost Garden Band playing in Cambridge St, leaving party This page: Film director Al Stokes during a relaxing moment juggling on Sea Palling beach, summer 1986

STRANGE TALES FROM THE GRADUATE AGE - PAGE 387

11

MAKING ENDS MEET

i. THIS IS NOT THE END Whatever charmed life I’d been leading, always in work despite the bad times, my life finally caught up with reality in 1988. I was living in the wrong town,1 one hundred and twenty miles away from the main industrial event but was loathe to move back to London because it would be like admitting defeat. Besides which I had friends in Norwich instead of mere business acquaintances. I soldiered on, into the nether world time forgot with occasional forays into the world of big boys games down south.

With the coming of the new year a new abode came forth, moving out of distant Grant Street and into the throbbing heart of the Golden Triangle’s Grosvenor Road.

Grant Street was just a tad too far for most of friends to stagger and consequently I hardly saw anyone apart from Fatty Paul when the weather turned cold and he needed somewhere warm to crash. Paul Matton was a street artist who allegedly lived in the woods on Mousehold Heath although no one actually saw him do this. He had a lot of mates who, he knew, would put him up on their sofa, give him a hot meal or a shower because, despite of his relentless sponging, he was a good sort. All who knew him had a Fatty Paul story to tell; he once borrowed 30-quid off me for a portrait commission when he needed paints and brushes. Said he’d pay me back when he got paid. Fair enough.

He disappeared for a while, people got chatting about ‘where’s Paul haven’t seen him in a while’ then realised we’d all fallen for the same ‘give me 30-quid for paints and brushes’ gag and, it transpired, he’d wandered off to Paris. Amazingly everyone was cool with him when he got back apart from feeling darn silly for having been duped.

Another time, it was too late for him to get back to his woodland retreat so he asked to crash with his tent in my front garden.

‘Sorry, Paul, no can do,’ I said.

‘Why on earth not!’ he exclaimed angrily, ‘Are you worried what your middle class neighbours might say?’

‘No its not that. We’ve got the builders in repointing the house and you might wake in the morning encased cement.’

Without a word, Paul, bristling with MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 389

outraged indignation, flounced out of the pub and didn’t speak to me for three weeks. But how could anyone complain about Fatty Paul? It’d be like kicking a puppy. Unfortunately he did this once too often and with the wrong people who weren’t as understanding as us. Fatty Paul vanished off the Norwich scene in the mid-90s and was never heard of in the fine city again.

In January 1988 I got to grips writing a screenplay about the Titanic disaster. When at Yorkshire TV in 1982 I’d come across a publication in their extensive library, Shipbuilder Magazine, which went into vast detail about the building of the Titanic, the disaster and the British court of enquiry. My passing interest in the subject might have lain forgotten had not Dr. Robert D. Ballard, who discovered the Titanic wreck in 1985, been operating out of TV South while I was working on The Perfect Lady. Not that we actually met so much but he personified the continuing global interest in the Titanic story. None of the feature films2 made about the ship knew what we technically knew then3 and I could see an opening for a more precise dramatic account with the added bonus of using Shipbuilder Magazine’s plans as a timeline animation of the sinking. I couldn’t understand why no one had thought of doing this before. Well, the assumed astronomical budget probably put most producers off. I put my idea up to Peter Williams, a producer at TV South, who also had an interest in the ship and he said I should jolly well get on with researching and writing the script before anyone else stole a march on us. Which was how come my grey January days were spent in the city reference library4 pouring through a transcript of the British court of inquiry.

Work on the Titanic script, by then entitled Testament To Arrogance, was interrupted when the landlord of my local boozer, Wolff Witham at the Reindeer pub in Dereham Road, asked if I’d put a camera crew together to make a video of his Comic Relief events which is how I innocently walked into a situation of police harassment which would haunt me for decades. The Reindeer Comic Relief video was press previewed at Norwich Cinema City in late February and afforded us the glorious spectacle of The Foolhardy Folk, in full clown’s make-up, stepping out of a taxi at the cinema not realising the press were inside the auditorium waiting to see the video and not outside waiting to photograph them.

The Stonehenge 1984 film reared its head once again when Norwich Cinema City ran it as the support to Pink Floyd’s The Wall on February 19th. As I’d never seen the film MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 390

in a cinema before I went along to see how it looked. A large contingent of local hippies had turned out to see the film too but the cinema management did a strange thing.

They showed The Wall first then put the house lights up before showing the support film, Stonehenge 1984, giving the false impression the night’s performance was over.

A large contingent of the audience left and, feeling they’d been bilked, muttered darkly about paying good money to see two films but the cinema had only shown one. As soon as most of the audience had left, the cinema lights dimmed and they ran Stonehenge 1984 to about ten people, eleven if you count me in. Afterwards I asked the duty managed why he had shown the films the wrong way around and was told to mind my own freaking business. There then ensued a conversation straight out of the realms of Annie Hall,5 “You know nothing of my work! How you got to run a cinema is totally amazing!6” But hey, I got the distribution fee from the cinema showing so maybe ruining a night out at the cinema for alternative movie goers really wasn’t my any of my business.

ii. THIS ISN’T EVEN THE BEGINNING OF THE END Screenwriting Testament To Arrogance stopped over the last weekend in February when my old school and Questors Theatre buddy Rob Nicholls turned up for a rare visit.

I hadn’t seen him for eight years, when Margaret and I broke up during our trip to Nottingham, and I had a feeling Rob had brought those bad vibes them with him. He’d always seen me as the class clown and his biting comments in front of Bonny7 didn’t go down well. His belittling observations were beginning to wear thin with me too but I was too polite to tell him so. On top of that strange social mix Gobbo, whom I hadn’t seen for two years, turned up for a wild weekend in leafy Norwich.

We met Nick George down the pub and Gobbo, never a big drinker, felt unwell by the time we got back to my place. He was so unwell I later found him with his head down the lavatory, vomiting freely. Knowing how wretched puking up a gut full of ale can be I stayed with him until he felt well enough to stand which is how Rob found us and, Gobbo clutching my hand for support, got entirely the wrong idea of what we were about in the toilet. The look on his face said it all. It was kinda funny. Later, with Rob, Gobbo and Nick deep in some scatterlogical sociological conversation, Bonny and I wandered off to the privacy of the kitchen for a hug. Which was where Rob walked in us, MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 391

about to make some cutting remark, but got a glare from Bonny instead which made him walk out again. By his demeanour you’d think he’d caught us fornicating naked on the floor. At the end of the evening Nick took Gobbo back to crash at his place and Bonny left me with Rob to crash at mine. We talked for a while but I got the impression that, although we’d known each other a long time, we didn’t know each other at all.

Our lives had diverged, grown apart to such a degree we no longer had anything in common. Stuff happens.

Next day I planned to take Rob round to Nick’s, pick up Gobbo along the way and go for a gentle stroll around the fine city in the early spring sunshine. It didn’t work out that way because Rob had packed his bag and left without a word. No note, no goodbye, just an open front door and a faint hint of recriminations. I never saw him again.

The day didn’t improve much as, by the time I got round the Nick’s flat, he and Gobbo had a terrifying story to tell. Shortly after they’d left my place the night before they’d been given a tug8 by the local cops.

‘Not just the local Old Bill,’ said Gobbo, ‘these guys were plainclothes undercover Drugs Squad.’

‘That almost never happens in Norwich. No one gets tugged on the street here,’ I explained. ‘Are you sure they were Drugs Squad? They weren’t just hippie idiots playing with you?’

‘No. They had warrant cards and they knew my name, that I’d just left your place,’ responded Gobbo, with a hint of accusation.

That just about put the tin lid on any jollity we might have had that weekend. It was a mystery. It made no sense. Out of all the thousands of people abroad on the streets of Norwich that night, why pick on Nick & Gobbo? The gloom set in as we discussed and analyzed the events of the night before, round and round, like everyone does after being questioned by the police; who tipped them off, who grassed them up and why would anyone do such a thing. Gobbo was so traumatised by the whole surreal scenario he decided to go back to London that afternoon. Nick and I waved him away at the bus station and as we wandered into town for a swift half. I had to ask.

‘What really happened?’

‘Just like Gobbo said. We got stopped and searched on the way back from your place.’

‘You didn’t … do … anything to attract the cops’ attention, did you?’

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‘No. They just pulled up beside us and wanted to know what Gobbo was doing at your place,’ said Nick. ‘We got the definite impression they’ve got you under observation.’

‘Weird,’ was all I could think of to say. Definitely weird.

One of the drawbacks of being a journalist / film maker on the alternative scene during Thatcher years was we tended to attract sources of information on both sides of the criminal fence. It was a fine balance to maintain and when things went wrong we were at DefCon-212 very fast. I guess it was a kind of balance, being distrusted by both the police and the alternatives. I got stuck back into writing Testament To Arrogance and hoped the coppery would pass me by.

Out of the blue in mid-March Thames TV called and asked me to go back for a week’s work at their Euston Studios. I felt inclined to turn it down after the Sharon Needham debacle five years earlier but times had changed, we’d all changed and the golden days of rolling contracts were gone. Three days in London on Union rate wasn’t something to be turned down. Being in London also gave the opportunity to make VHS copies of the Reindeer pub’s Comic Relief event, to be sold in a local record store with all proceeds going to charity. Comic Relief was a free job, no one was getting paid but I didn’t mind doing Mate’s Rates for a good cause. As soon as I got back from London I delivered the video copies to Wolff at the pub and a few days later took the news clips round from the press show. All very positive stuff.

On top of the slow burn research for Testament To Arrogance I was determined to make a short exemplar clip of Drongo Express9 for funding purposes. Drongo Express was the traveleresque version of the 1980s script, The Fall Guy. There was always a huge debate about making an exemplar10, whether it ultimately helped or hindered a script proposal, but at least I’d feel better for doing something. I met up with actors from the The Great Escape Theatre Company and a new production outfit in Norwich, Fusion Video, in the Beehive pub to discuss the project. There were a group of longhaired freaks in the public bar11 who kept squinting at us through the connecting door.

It became rather unnerving since we all looked fairly clean cut and weren’t impinging on them. I knew the pub barman, Hugh, but didn’t want to bring it up with him in case, by asking who they were, we might inadvertently cause a problem. Strange place Norwich.

We had a script read in early April and planned to shoot the scenes over the weekend of April 16th/17th. There was a lot of prep to do, choosing locations and making sure we MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 393

had all the technical gubbings arranged. This was to be my first full video drama shoot and knew I had to get everything exactly right. I was not in to Mr. Cock-Up. It was Perry, the Fusion cameraman, who first noticed something odd. While we were driving around photographing potential locations he turned to me and asked, ‘Have you hired more crew than you’ve told me about?’

‘No. Why?’ ‘There’s a vehicle, two cars back, who’s been following us since we left your place,’ observed Perry.

I adjusted the wing mirror so I could see what was coming up behind. Two vehicles back a standard issue Cavalier, four-up, making a bad job of being invisible.

‘Yes. We’ve got company.’

‘Should I be worried about that?’

‘Not unless you’re in possession of something you shouldn’t have,’ I warned. ‘Next left … next right … emergency stop.’

Perry stood on the brakes in a back street and with great panache we came to a driving test pass mark stop.

‘What happens now?’ he asked.

‘Well, they’re either going to nick you for dangerous driving because they came very close to sitting in the your back seat-.’

‘Thanks,’ said Perry, without much enthusiasm.

‘Or they’re doing exactly what we’re doing, trying to figure out how to extricate themselves from showing out without losing face.’

‘They’re just sitting there,’ observed Perry, looking in the rear view mirror.

‘Then I suggest we proceed taking all due care and attention, observing the speed limit.’

We drove on. The car behind followed at a sedate pace, indicated left and turned off.

Later in the Festival House pub I felt some explanation was due. I told Perry about my earlier misadventures with Norwich police when I refused to hand over my notes on the Peace Convoy news story or show them the out-takes of the film Street of Experience.

He seemed to understand but I got the impression he felt nervous being seen in my company.

‘Essentially, what we’ve got here is a bunch of malcontent hick-town coppers playing MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 394

silly buggers out of spiteful revenge. Best course of action is to ignore them, wait for them get bored and drift away.’

Hugh, the barman from the Beehive, wandered over and asked if he could have a few words. In private. Just when I thought I’d got Perry settled here was some new weirdness.

‘Just thought you should know,’ Hugh whispered, ‘you’re banned from the Beehive.’

‘Good god. Why?’ I asked. ‘I’ve never even been in that pub before, how can I possibly be banned for talking about a film?’

‘Those long-hairs in the bar turned out to be Drugs Squad and they told the pub landlord you’re the biggest heroin dealer in Norwich and he’ll lose his licence if he lets you drink there.’

Stunned silence. There was really nothing to say to that. ’I told the landlord it was rubbish,’ continued Hugh, ‘that I’d known you for years and you don’t take drugs but he’s worried about his licence. I thought you should know.’

‘Thanks for the tip off. Someone’s got their wires crossed. Ignore it.’

Perry was looking pensive when I sat down with him.

‘Problem?’ he asked.

‘No, just some personal stuff.’ And we left it at that.

The following weekend we shot the exemplar sequence for Drongo Express outside my Grosvenor Road home and inside my basement flat. The scenes involved plain clothed police officers, played by members of the Great Escape Theatre Company, raiding the house of someone who wasn’t at home. I’d forgotten to explain to the crew this involved comedic back-chat and we went to several takes because the guys kept breaking up with laughter. At least I knew the dialogue worked. The last shot of the day involved two actors having a conversation in one car with the ‘police’ following them in an unmarked car and required one camera car ahead filming out of the tail gate and another camera car behind filming through the windscreen. In order not to clog up traffic on main roads I decided the safest way to do this was to keep driving round the block on the back streets. Also, in a four-car slow moving convoy, we were less likely to get split up in traffic. The sound recordist had to hunker right down behind the driver’s seat of the lead action vehicle so he wouldn’t be seen by the camera cars. It took a bit of doing, shoe horning him into the vehicle with his bulky kit, but once he and I were MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 395

settled we set off. Round and round we went. On the fourth circuit someone came on the radio from the rear camera car.

‘There’s a police car behind us. What do we do?’

‘Yes, I know,’ I said theatrically rolling my eyes, ‘its meant to be there.’

‘No, not the action vehicle, there’s a proper police car right behind us.’

Before I could work out which police car he meant another radio voice chimed in, from Perry in the lead camera car.

‘There’s a police car head on to us blocking the road. What do we do?’

‘I suggest you stop,’ was all I could think of to say, ‘and that’s a cut!’

With a police car ahead of the camera and action vehicles and another one behind, the cops had effectively shut the road to other traffic. Not that there was any other traffic but I had a queasy feeling I knew what was coming.

‘Who gave you permission to shut the road off?’ asked a burly sergeant.

‘We haven’t shut the road off. We’re driving round and round very slowly,’ I responded, careful not to suggest he was the one blocking the road.

‘Who gave you permission to film here?’

‘We don’t need permission to film on the public highway.’

‘Who says?’ grumped the sergeant.

‘Norwich Police and Norwich City Council said. I checked with them and they said its okay so long as we keep moving and don’t cause an obstruction to other road users or members of the public. The police were informed.’

‘I’ll need your name and address?’

By that time I’d gotten out of the lead action vehicle and was sitting on the wall outside my house and noticed, on my peripheral vision, one of the crew filming our own little drama with the cops in that subtle way of camera operators by holding the camera under arm.

‘Here,’ I told the officer.

‘What are you, a gypsy?’

‘I don’t understand?’ I said, understanding sarcasm when I heard it.

‘You live on the street, do you?’

‘No. I’m sitting on the wall of my house.’

But for the sake of the hard of thinking there present, I reeled off my name and MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 396

address.

‘Right,’ he said in what he probably thought was a commanding voice, ‘if you’re still here when I come back I’ll nick the lot of you. Understood?’

Yes, I thought, we understand a petty-fogging jumped up rule crazy cop when we see one who has just threatened to arrest me for loitering outside my own house. We waited until the police cars were out of sight before taking stock of our situation. As it turned out we’d got the scene in the can just as the police arrived and Perry was deliriously happy he’d got the rear police car in shot as we turned the corner.

‘Think how much that would have cost hiring-in a police action vehicle,’ he beamed.

We extricated the sound recordist, who was wedged in so tight in the ‘dialogue’ vehicle he couldn’t get out when the police arrived. He hadn’t heard me say cut either and, in the confusion, had recorded their whole jaded conversation. Once all the video kit had been stashed and the vehicles neatly parked we wandered down to the Lily Langtree pub for post filming refreshments.

Perry regaled the actors and crew with tales of our earlier confrontation with the police.

‘I thought your film dialogue was hilarious, which it is, but after seeing how Norfolk police behave I understand the dark humour in your writing style. You didn’t so much write it as remember it.’

It was a nice compliment and I didn’t have the heart to tell him the dialogue for Drongo Express had been written thirteen years previously. What had happened a few days before, being followed by the cops, was just more of the same. The following two days were spent editing the video before jumping on the train to London, to show the exemplar to potential producers at Canned Images and Consolidated Pictures.

The first week in May brought a commission to screenplay an unpublished novel, Chicken Supreme, by a local author. It was a tale of the misadventures of a wayward youth set against the back drop of impending nuclear war. It was a fast-paced black comedy as the protagonist careened from one hilarious misunderstanding to the next like a ball in a pinball machine. Unfortunately nothing came of it and I didn’t get paid but soon after picked up a message from an American cable TV station asking if I intended to cover the Stonehenge Summer Solstice. Not if I could help it, I thought. They were offering hard cash if I’d provide a one-off documentary about why the hippies resolutely MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 397

tried to get to the Stones while the authorities resolutely tried to stop them, often resulting in fisticuffs. Nik Turner said he would consent to being interviewed so long as I was prepared to travel to Wales to do so. This was a fine idea because Nick Danger13, whom I hadn’t seen since his time with the Wystic Mankers at Stonehenge 1984, was then Nik’s drummer in Inner City Unit. It would be a fine reunion of the chaps, an exchange of pleasantries and a time to reminisce about days gone by. I contacted Tony Caruana and he said he’d come onboard as video operator with camera kit hired in London. All set? Ready to go? Not quite.

There were more police shenanigans to deal with before I left Norwich. I met the guys from Great Escape Theatre in The Reindeer pub to report back on progress with potential Drongo Express producers. We’d hardly got into our second pint when the landlord, Wolff, loitered nearby sniffing as though he had a terrible cold.

‘I can smell cannabis,’ he said. ‘Someone’s smoking cannabis in here.’

We shrugged it off as some random whim of Wolff and went back to our conversation.

Wolff was not to be put off.

‘Can I have a word with you up at the bar, please?’

‘Well, I’m having a private conversation here. I’ll come and see you when I’m finished,’ I explained, assuming he wanted to talk about the free Comic Relief video I’d made for him. But it wasn’t about Comic Relief at all.

‘The Drugs Squad have been in here,’ he said, ‘and they’ve told me you’re the biggest heroin dealer in Norwich.’

‘Well I’m not,’ I laughed, ‘Who needs drugs when there’s Abbott ale?’

‘I want you out of here now,’ he said, silencing the pub, ‘and don’t come back, I won’t have drugs sold in my pub! You’re barred.’

There was nothing I could say. He was well within his rights to ban anyone he jolly well pleased without giving a reason. The fact that he’d decided to give a reason, in earshot of everyone there present, was an added and unnecessary nastiness. As I seethed my way homeward bound, I decided my ‘ignore the cops’ policy wasn’t working. If I was the biggest heroin dealer in Norwich I wouldn’t be living in a basement flat, that was for darn sure. I’d be in a prison cell serving a long sentence but since Norwich police had opted for ‘harassment of a reporter they didn’t like much’ I decided to break the habit of a lifetime and make an official14 complaint. I knew the cops would close ranks MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 398

and back up each others’ stories but I’d feel better for giving them a warning shot across the bows. I couldn’t think of anything I was working on that could possibly be misconstrued as dealing heroin. Once, swapping stories with Colin on the foibles of the ‘innocent have nothing to fear,’ he’d told me some police officers have such a tenacious theory of suspects they lose sight of reality; if they raid someone and find nothing, the tendancy is to fall into the trap of “He’s a clever swine, we’ll have to try harder next time,” whereas the reality of innocence never occurs to them. In short, people with prejudice are a problem. I made an appointment to see Inspector Frazer of Police Complaints on May 24th at home. Get him on my turf.

Friends gathered round to share their outraged concern at Wolff’s public banning which they saw as completely over the top and based on unfounded allegations. Some said they’d stopped frequenting the pub in sympathy while others were trying to get the ban lifted because it was no way to treat someone who had produced a free video for the pub. I thanked them all for their concern but had already decided to spend my beer tokens elsewhere. I escaped the Norwich Malaise by driving down to Wales with Tony, to record an interview with Nik Turner.

Tony was a big opera buff and I had to endure screeching female sopranos at top volume all the way down the motorway. It was a small price to pay as Tony was doing all the driving. We arrived at Nik’s farmhouse amid the sunny, quiet of the Carmarthenshire hills with the distant sound of sheep and tinkling cow bells across the valley. As we pulled up Nick Danger was clambering aboard a transit van.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked cheerfully.

‘Interviewing Nik for an American TV documentary.’

‘Oh I wish I’d known you were coming. I’ve got to go out now but I’d love to have had a proper sit down and catch up,’ said Nick. And that was the full extent of our conversation. But when you’ve got to go, you’ve gotta go.

As Nick Danger drove off Nik Turner bounded out of his farmhouse and we set up for the interview. Nik, wearing a green boiler suit, psychedelic sunglasses and a biker’s helmet adorned with a wire Mohican, sat in a derelict travellers bus while he recounted his tales of the Stonehenge Festival and the Battle of the Beanfield. Nik has a great on-screen presence and can get his message across without undue prompting. It was a fabulous interview and well worth the drive down to Wales. I held over the edit MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 399

until I’d recorded more interviews at Summer Solstice so the whole was easier to slot seamlessly together with previously unused material from my earlier Stonehenge films.

Back in Norwich, the slough of despond, I got onto English Heritage to obtain filming permission at Stonehenge Summer Solstice. Finding a film crew willing to take on the job wasn’t so easy as my alleged drug dealer reputation swept all before it. Amazingly cynics believed the gossip because it was said often with supposed authority.

‘Well maybe they haven’t got enough evidence to charge you yet.’

‘Why d’you think that is? Could it be there’s no evidence because I haven’t done what the police claim?’

Evil happens when good people stand by and do nothing. Why? Because, secretly, people want the wrong to be right. “I always thought he was a wrong ‘un,” which the wise dismiss as lazy thinking.

Tuesday, May 24th rolled around and so did two officers from Norfolk Police Complaints.

Only Inspector Frazer identified himself, his companion didn’t and I didn’t ask him either because I believed in having a friendly relations with the cops as I still laughingly believed the innocent have nothing to fear. I have since changed my mind about that.

I rolled off the story of undue police surveillance, Chinese whispers with pub landlords which got me banned from both the Beehive and Reindeer where the Drugs Squad used the biggest dealer in Norwich gambit of the landlord losing his licence if he served me.

My main complaint was that of the Drugs Squad telling porkies to blacken my name because I wouldn’t grass up my 1983 Peace Convoy sources, the oregano raid and also, didn’t the police find it at all odd that the Drugs Squad were passing alleged active information to third parties – the pub landlords – about a man they suspected of taking part in major drug crime? Where was their security? He could have tipped me off and, if I really had been a drug dealer, screwed their investigation. If it was true.

Watching Inspector Frazer’s companion was interesting. At the mention of the word “Beehive” he momentarily dropped his stony-faced composure and appeared unduly nervous. He wasn’t happy sitting in my home, drinking my coffee and listening to what was being said, looking at the carpet and twiddling his wedding ring. That guy was a champion twiddler. Later, telling Hugh what had transpired in the interview he was able to pick up the story word perfect.

‘How d’you know all that?’ I asked incredulously.

MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 400

‘Because the landlord of the Beehive pub is a part-time social worker and sometimes attends police interviews. He was in your flat when you complained about what the Drugs Squad told him, saying you were the biggest heroin dealer in Norwich.’

‘Good God!’ I phoned Police Complaints to say they’d crumbed their play. What was a witness to a potential legal action doing in my house without being introduced as such. I thought he was another police officer when, in fact, he was a civilian social worker who would have been the main witness to the Drugs Squad cracking out of turn. Inspector Frazer’s response?

‘It was a co-incidence the landlord of the pub was in your house with me, I can see how you might construe that was a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice but I can assure you that is not the case.’

Actually I hadn’t mentioned a conspiracy but now Frazer had, I was on my guard.

At the end of May, to escape the madness and went down to London to see my three favourite prog-rock bands playing at the Town & Country venue in Kentish Town; Hawkwind, Man and Here & Now. Man especially so because I had failed to film them at the 1984 Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival four years before. I had a real pig-out on favourite bands that week because Daevid Allen & Gong were playing with Here & Now a few days later at Brixton’s Electric Ballroom. I managed to get back to Norwich and take a well needed shower before Inspector Frazer, alone this time, turned up to give me the results of his painstaking week-long investigation. It was not good news.

According to Frazer’s alleged meticulous probe the Drugs Squad had flatly denied having had any conversations of the biggest heroin dealer in Norwich variety with anyone mentioned in my complaint.

If pub landlords were banning me it was for some other reason than police gossip.

Frazer claimed that, nonetheless, he had left the Drug Squad officers with smacked bottoms and thick ears in case they ever tried that sort of behaviour again. It was MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 401

the ‘again’ word that struck me as an absurdity; so if they hadn’t done what I defended myself against in the first place how could a thick ear stop them doing it again? Trying to pick one’s way through a police conversation was like trying to juggle live hand grenades sans pins. You just never knew when one was going to explode in your face. It wasn’t as though I was accusing them of anything, merely trying to defend myself from unfounded police allegations of drug dealing. From that point on I assumed all police officers are natural born liars and couldn’t be trusted. Inspector Frazer’s whitewash proved that. What possible circumstances could prevail which would allow a witness to attend an evidence interview about themselves without telling the complainant concerned who they were? I imagined Frazer and the pub landlord had got their stories straight before they’d even reached their car or I had closed my front door, whichever was the soonest. Nor did the dangerous allegations stop.

Wolff, landlord of The Reindeer, sent out a message asking why had I set the police on him? The messenger answered the question for me.

‘Why did you ban him, a friend of yours who had done a free job to promote your pub and in return told him he was banned for dealing drugs and then make him look like a loonie when you denied ever having said it? No one’s ever going to help you out again if that’s how you treat people.’

‘But the police said-.’

‘You’re doing it again! The police said they never spoke to you.’

I’ve never been back to that pub, even though the owners have changed several times since, because the sour memory of what happened a quarter of a century ago still turns my stomach. And the shame of it, allegations of major drug dealing stick in some folks’ minds. It is hard to lose the poisonous memory.

The time rolled round to find a camera crew to take to Stonehenge for the annual Summer Solstice shenanigans. My first choice was Glen Medler on camera with Steve Graham on sound and I arranged to meet them in the Coach and Horses pub in Bethel Street, a short jack-booted goose step away from the city police station. For reasons of his own Martin, the calamitous cameraman from Cantlin Stone travellers site, turned up and gave me his full appraisal of the 1986 Here & Now Been & Gone film which, he suggested, would have been considered professionally made if I had had four more cameras covering the stage. Four more cameras in Dingwalls Dancehall would have MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 402

meant the audience standing out in the car park for lack of space in the auditorium. I assumed the man heard I was going to be in the pub that night and showed up to pour distain upon my abilities as a film director. Told him, he was going off at the wrong person and he should direct his derision at producer Vance Goodwin who controlled the purse strings. Not to be thwarted, Martin, in a compendium of my personality defects, gave a lecture of my faults. ’I don’t know why you’re bothering to film at Stonehenge, there’s nothing new to say and they’re just a bunch of dirty drug taking hippies.’

Which is one opinion certainly and he can have it.

‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ I explained, ‘but when an American TV station sends me out to cover the story I tend to take the job seriously. Money in the bank and all that.’

At that Martin turned on his heel and strode out of the pub. Glen and Steve got down to business. I noticed an individual standing close by who seemed to be taking undue interest in our conversation. I don’t know what got into me, childish really.

‘I’ve got an exclusive on this. The coppers don’t know about the four hundred and fifty vehicles of the Peace Convoy coming from an unexpected direction, driving across the army’s live firing artillery range to get to the Stones.’

The eavesdropper shot out of the pub like he was on fire.

‘You do realise that bloke was a copper? This is a copper’s pub,’ advised Glen.

‘Yeah. I know. I clocked him straight off.’

‘Well don’t you think it was a mistake to let on the Convoy are coming over Salisbury Plain army range?’

‘Not really,’ I said.

‘But that cop is probably on the phone right now to Wiltshire police, tipping them off.’

‘You think so?’ I gasped in mock horror.

‘You don’t look particularly concerned about what you’ve just done to the Peace Convoy,’ said Glen, worried that I’d just dropped them in the middle of a potential police battering.

‘I shouldn’t worry about it,’ I explained. ‘Its not true.’

‘What?!’

‘I made it up. Its not true. I could see him ear-wigging and decided to make his day.

Probably thinks he’ll make inspector by next Tuesday with a hot tip off. Four hundred MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 402

and fifty fictitious Convoy vehicles coming from an unlikely direction will probably waste their entire budget for the year and when they’re looking for someone to blame they’ll eventually come up with some big eared yokel copper from Norfolk who won’t be able to name his source because his tip came from an overheard pub conversation. Teach him to listen to gossip.’

‘That’s … evil,’ wondered Glen.

‘Yes.’ I responded, idly. Tit for tat.

Glen decided he didn’t want to get beaten up by the police at a Summer Solstice riot, especially caught in the company of an alleged known anarchist film maker and declined my generous offer to pay him hazardous assignment wages working for American TV. So it came down to just me and Nick George with an ENG15 camera. I applied for and got two English Heritage press passes and was told we’d be placed in the outer circle of Stones, if that was all right by us at Pixie Productions.

That year English Heritage, who stage managed the Solstice event after the riot of 1985, told the Travellers they wouldn’t be allowed onto the monument site but were offered five hundred free tickets for which they would have to apply. Not surprisingly the Travellers turned this offer down as their credo was free access to the Stones16, as it was enshrined between the owners of the land back in 1918 and what is now the Department of Environment, for the benefit of the nation. The travellers were being asked to apply for free tickets for something which were freely accessible to everyone anyway. In theory. The travellers said they wanted to peacefully worship in their sun temple, albeit a several millennia old ruin, and this random figure of five hundred tickets was probably the number Wiltshire Police thought could comfortably control should they all decide to riot which the travellers, no longer in the thrall of Class-A drug dealers, said they had no intention of doing.

There was a vicious circle of prejudice against indigenous travellers caused by people who had nothing to do with them and had so annoyed the authorities years before. For reasons no one could comprehend English Heritage were allowing the Druids, a purely Victorian invention, free access to the Stones to perform their entirely invented rights which, the Druids claimed, predicted the fate of their lives by the turning of the moon.

The Druid leader in the 1980s was actor William Roache, who played Ken Barlow in the long-running ITV soap Coronation Street, and it was Hawkwind’s Nik Turner who MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 403

started the Festival counter chant of “Ken Barloooo, Ken Barlooo, Ken Barloooo” which was picked up by the festival freaks who all happily and anarchically chanted Ken Barlooo at the dawn of Summer Solstice.

It was this dichotomy of beliefs at an ancient English monument, which confused even the archaeological experts of the day as to its original use and so intrigued the Americans which was why they were prepared to send Nick George and myself with a video camera in an to attempt to discover the true explanation of the conundrum.

Why were one group of sun worshippers be so reviled while another group of moon worshippers were not? Would the egalitarian American TV executives comprehend the English class structure of fringe religions? It didn’t make much sense then and it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense now that the former were regularly hounded by the police while the latter were given free reign to perform their invented rites at what amounted to a pile of Neolithic builders rubble in the middle of Salisbury Plain. And we gentlefolk of the press bought into that concept and turned up every year to photograph the ensuing theatre of mayhem.

Nick and I decided to wear suits so we didn’t get mistaken for hippies if the truncheons started flying but this turned out to be a mistake because the entire rest of the press had dressed down so they didn’t get sussed as straight going reporters by the hippies if the truncheons started flying. Nick hired a blue MK1 Cavalier which marked us out immediately by both sides some kind of awesome undercover types. Nick had a tendency to make anarchic statements which were spotted by everyone as static interference to be ignored. We drove down to Stonehenge on the morning of Monday June 20th in order to arrive early to shoot cutaways of buses and travellers before the evening entertainments at the Stones. I had pre-arranged video interviews with friendly people but it was always difficult to find travellers who had a tendency to vanish into the scenery when they didn’t want to be found by the authorities.

‘I wonder where they are?’ I mused.

‘They’re behind us,’ said Nick.

‘Oh no they’re not,’ I responded, in true pantomime fashion.

‘No, really, they are. I can see them in the rear-view mirror.’

I turned in my seat and saw through the back window a line of Convoy vehicles about a hundred yards back, following us up the A303. Scrambling the ENG camera out MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 404

its flight case on the back seat I banged off a long tracking shot before they turned off, heading south towards Quarley. I nestled the camera in my lap, prepared for whatever surprises the Convoy threw up.

Off to the left, on a road running almost parallel heading towards Cholderton, I could see the roofs of Convoy vehicles and squirted off another long tracking shot. Off to the right was the site of the old Beanfield where the travellers were trashed by the police three years before. Oh Lord, I beseech thee, please don’t let me get battered by the coppers tonight, I intoned to myself.

‘Do you want me to turn back so we can film them properly?’ asked Nick.

‘No. Let’s check in with English Heritage at the Antrobus Arms first. Get our press accreditation sorted then sus out the lay of the land.’ I reasoned.

But before we hit our RV with English Heritage we found the roadside littered with police warning signs, motorised officers and a long line of ragged hard core Solstice seekers dressed in afghan coats, leathers, combats and faded Levis heading towards the Stones like a distant memory of the 1945 Long March. Filming from the car afforded a degree of safety without the need for long-winded explanations of who we were or to listen to that time honoured refrain of, ‘you point that camera at me and I’ll smash the f-ing lens,’ even though they’re on the public highway and therefore fair game to be photographed. Try explaining that one with a hat full of your teeth, though.

We made it to the Antrobus Arms Hotel but were thwarted in our attempt to sign in for press accreditation as English Heritage had set a time for everyone to sign in. We could all see the flaw in their thinking as hundreds of journalists and video crews would later try to claw their way to the front of the queue at the same time, even though they were invited. It has always been a fascination that the English will queue patiently with gallant stoicism until one person is jostled and then the whole contrivance breaks down into a melee of hostile elbows and enthusiastic pushing. That should never have happened with English Heritage as no one can obtain press accreditation without the magic covering letter. It is rather like an impatient passenger’s determination to barge through a knot of standees on a crowded bus even though they can’t get off the vehicle MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 405

until it stops.

Nick and I drove back down the A303, found a bus laden lay-by and worked our way through the owners of parked motor homes,

interviewing

them

about

why

they felt the need to get to the Stones for summer solstice even though the police had declared a five mile exclusion zone around the monument; no long-haired weirdoes allowed. By word of mouth we discovered the Convoy hard core were camped in a wood near Cholderton, including the people I had pre-arranged to interview. Oh well, into the madness once more, on-on, you noblest journalists.

We knew we’d found the right place when we came across a large contingent of police and riot vans blocking the lane leading to the woods where the travellers were camped. As we edged slowly forward the police harassment began immediately.

‘You can’t park here.’

‘We’re not parking, we’re driving.’

‘What’s your business here?’ a brusque sergeant asked, looking at our suits, looking at the car and looking at us looking at him.

‘Press,’ I said smiling congenially, idly waving our press ID. ‘Well its up to you but if you go down there and if all kicks off we’re not coming in to rescue you,’ he advised.

MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 406

‘Understood, thanks,’ I said, rolling up the window as Nick drove on.

‘What did he mean by “if it all kicks off”?’ asked Nick, a thoughtful moment later.

‘It’s the lexicon of the age,’ I said, ‘Translates out as if the cops come in swinging truncheons, we’ll get beaten up along with everyone else.’

Our car bumped onto the traveller site under the eaves of a wood and Nick parked beside a caravan with plastic garden tables and chairs round it.

‘Stay in the car until I find our contacts,’ I told Nick as a group of suspicious travellers closed in.

‘I know him, I know him,’ called Spike, ‘he’s invited.’

And the tension eased further as Mr. Chillum strolled up laughing, ‘A suit, you’re wearing a fecking suit!’

‘Sorry,’ I said with counterfeit bashfulness, ‘all done to confuse the Bizzies17.’

‘Yeah, I remember,’ said Mr. Chillum, mystically.

‘Tea?’ asked Spike.

That’s when I realised the tables and chairs around the caravan were an impromptu tea and bun café.

‘Mushroom, hash or Earl Grey?’

‘Earl Grey please,’ I said, ‘we don’t want to get caught stumbling around with a fit of the giggles in front of a thousand cops.’

Mr. Chillum extracted Nick from the car and brought him over to take tea with us.

I leaned close to Nick’s ear, as nonchalantly as possible whilst a crowd of travellers MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 407

regarded us like strange new species to be studied.

‘No matter what the provocation, don’t take any drugs they offer, you don’t know what you’re getting. This is Prankster Central and these guys don’t mess around. Don’t assume anything.’

Nick seemed to understand as we cautiously sipped what may or may not have been tea. Spike set us up with a couple of people to interview about the five hundred free tickets for an event to which they were entitled to attend. Some of the interviewees hinted darkly of a secret plan to walk to the Stones later but then came the bombshell.

Someone produced a copy of a notice Wiltshire Constabulary had been passing around, the rules of engagement, which informed the travellers they would be marshaled, under police escort, on the A344 adjacent to the Stones. Only specially invited guests – the press and the Druids – would be allowed into the stone circle. To wit, from Chief Constable of Wiltshire, D. Smith’s open letter;

“Under the provisions of Section 14 of the Public Order Act, 1986, I reasonably believe that the public assembly which is intended to be held adjacent to the Stonehenge Monument may result in serious public disorder or serious damage to property. I therefore direct all those persons proposing to take part in the proposed assembly as follows;1. To proceed on foot to the A344 road.

2. To be accommodated on the A344 road in groups under the control of the MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 408

police.

3. Not to attempt to gain access to the Stonehenge Monument Site unless in possession of tickets issued by English Heritage 4. To disperse from the A344 road by 6,30 a.m. on the 21st June, 1988. Any person remaining after this time will be removed by Police.”

The travellers obviously had a lot to discuss so I made our excuses and, with thanks to Spike, jumped in the car and got the heck out of there.

‘That was a bit rude, leaving like that,’ said Nick.

‘You know those people there, do you? Friends of yours?’ I asked. ‘I faintly know two of them and if the rest get to discussing how come the cops know so much about their plans to walk to the Stones and we the press are sitting right in the middle of them, I don’t fancy our chances.’

‘You’re paranoid,’ laughed Nick.

‘I’m keeping us safe. Remember when that cop said if all kicks off they’re not coming in to rescue us? Well he wasn’t joking.’

‘Even so …’ Nick tried.

‘Trust me on this. Road people have a different set of values to us and always remember the one golden rule. You can’t deal rationally with irrational people.’

We

found

some

ex-Argyle

Street

squatters who had made it down from from Norfolk and allowed themselves to be interviewed. They presented us with a tale so surreal it was as much as I could do not to laugh out loud on-camera. One of their number had pulled an armed robbery in London but was immediately caught outside the bank when he fell over a copper during the getaway. Trip, bump, oops and banged up for fifteen years.

About six months later HM Prisons made a MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 409

cataclysmic error when, mixing him up with someone else, they released him fourteen and a half years early. He immediately bought a bus and had been hiding out with the Convoy ever since. Although I found his story hilarious it probably wasn’t a lot of fun for the people in the bank who were forced to stare down both barrels of his shotgun. An highly edited version of his story ended up in the final film, not to protect his identity so much as to give the Americans a fair cross section of those who peopled the Convoy at Stonehenge. They weren’t all nice fluffy hippies.

We drove back to Amsbury and walked into a press reunion at the Antrobus Arms bar. Old media faces from past Convoy forays and demonstrations; notably Tim Malyon, last seen at Stonehenge 1981, now representing The Guardian newspaper and camera operator Dixie Dean, who was director of photography on Stonehenge 1984, with a TV news crew plus others who were on nodding terms, usually from across a crowded riot. The news editors had sent in their top guns for this one. Looking around the bar reminded me of Hunter S. Thompson’s description of covering the Mint 400 race in his book Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. For Thompson it had been sports reporting and for us it was crusty travellers but the outcome was about the same. We were told by English Heritage to be back at the hotel at 11pm in time to pick up the press coaches to take us down to the Stones. I didn’t fancy that much, being stuck on a bus with a load of squawking press rabble and I went my own way filming people preparing for the long six mile walk to the Stones.

Nick decided he needed to sleep in the car as we couldn’t get hotel reservations anywhere. No room at the inn and no forgiveness for the press. We bedded down uncomfortably in the Cavalier and waited to see what the pre-dawn might bring but it was way before dawn when the police helicopter dragged me out of a fitful slumber and set us off on our travails yet again. Nick wasn’t happy about being hauled out into the cold so I offered to take the camera on my own, stuff was happening out there and it was our job to record it. Film everything, leave nothing out then it’s up to the client to decide what ends up on the cutting room floor. If we don’t shoot it they don’t get the opportunity not to use it. All this was lost on Nick since Stonehenge Solstice was his first foray into broadcast TV documentaries. Grudgingly he geared up for the night ahead.

We found the walkers at the Amsbury roundabout where the cops had set up a road block of massive and wondrous complexity. As the travellers from Cholderton arrived MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 410

at the traffic island they found a massive continent of civilian and military police reenforcing a line of gritter lorries blocking their egress down the A303 towards Stonehenge, with a one-person width gap allowing people through. This whole unworldly scene was lit by floodlights plugged into thrumming roadside generators. The police, some drafted in from as far away as Wales, crowded around their tiny gateway to rigorously search the walkers and relieve them of offensive weapons like flags, food and blankets. On the southern exit onto the A345 a white police van drew up and disgorged a group of the cleanest looking freaks I’d ever seen. The new white trainers were a dead giveaway. I told Nick to keep his camera on them to see what they’d do and what they did was seed themselves in amongst the walkers to the Stones.

‘There goes the neighbourhood,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘This paranoia of yours is really getting me down,’ said Nick just moments before a copper saw us filming with the aid of their floodlights, came over and switched the generator off.

‘You’ve had your fun,’ said the police officer, ‘Now f-off with the rest of the scum since you love them so much.’

Which is precisely what we did. It hadn’t been my grand plan to walk to the Stones with the travellers but now it had been sanctioned by the police that’s what we’d do. It put me in mind of those City of London police during the 1984 Stop The City rally who stopped me turning the film camera off when they didn’t realise it was the same button which turned the camera on during an anti-capitalist riot. And we filmed everything as a result. There and then in the middle of the 1988 Solstice long walk to the Stones the cop, who probably thought he was punishing us for using his floodlights to film by, was doing us a favour by accidentally sending two accredited press in amongst the travellers.

‘Why didn’t you tell him we were press?’ asked Nick.

‘He knows. He could see the press badges pinned to our coats.’

‘But we’ll miss the press coaches …’ wailed Nick.

MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 411

One can obtain a fearsome insight, on-camera, of the police mentality when they think they’re interacting with hippie scum. This wasn’t dark arts on our part, we were wearing dayglo press badges although I could understand how the cops might have missed them in the dark and, as a result, we caught some interesting police comments on video.

‘Why don’t you fuck off back to where you came from yer hippie scum.’

‘Fuck off and cash yer giro18.’

‘Wiltshire Police welcome you from the hearts of our bottoms.’

The roadside coppers unloaded their bile on people who, as far as anyone knew, were completely innocent tourists on their way to visit an ancient monument.

‘Why don’t you fuck off and get a job.’

‘I’ve got a job,’ said a timorous voice behind me.

I turned round to see who the fool was who’d gobbed out of turn at a copper and found it was Nick. No matter what the provocation, never respond to a cop who is oathing off at a group who don’t involve you personally and aren’t fighting back. A person could accidentally start a riot that way. Fortunately the walkers were streaming silently past us, heads down while others played bongos and chanted.

‘Oh yeah, and where d’you work son?’

‘He works for me. I’m his guv’nor,’ I said, jumping in before Nick had time to pass a smart remark.

‘Oh yeah? An’ who are you then?’

I whipped out our press credentials with a flourish so there was no mistaking the cop, that he was dealing with the press and it probably wasn’t a good idea to give us a good kicking. For cheeking a copper, no doubt.

‘You should have gone with the coach,’ he said.

‘Yes, I know, but one of your colleagues up at the roundabout wouldn’t let us back into Amsbury to catch the transport. Said we’ve have to walk here.’

‘You can’t get down to the Stones now. All this lot are in the way.’

‘Well we’ll have to put up with standing in the road with them. That’s no hardship,’ I said.

The officer went over to a sergeant for a conflab and they nonchalantly glanced back at exhibit-1 (us) and exhibit-2 (our press accreditation). A few friendly travellers MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 412

walked by, averting their eyes so they didn’t get hauled into whatever madness we were involved in. One of them, a Liverpool University student who ran the Here & Now band fanzine, apologised later for not coming over to say hello because, whatever trouble we were in, he didn’t want to get drawn into it too. Guilt by association. I fully understood.

We didn’t want to be involved with it either. The sergeant came over to where we had been pulled out of line.

‘I’ve radioed ahead to alert my officers at the Stones that you’re on your way but its up to them to allow you in.’

‘We’ll be making for the English Heritage press tent in the car park but if we don’t make it, like I said to your constable, it’s no hardship for us to stand in the road like everyone else,’ I oiled.

And just for a moment I caught a look in his eye that spoke volumes; the police didn’t want the press standing anywhere near the walkers and I knew in that moment with all certainty what those clean looking freaks from the police van were about. Cruising for a bruising and preferably not in front of the press. Nick and I walked on.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Nick.

‘You’d better give me the camera,’ I said.

‘Why?’ he enquired.

‘Because the coppers generally talk to the cameraman not the reporter and we might not have time for lengthy explanations.’

We walked on into the maw of the A344 where the walkers were congregating and got as far as we could until the crowd became a solid, impassable knot in the road.

‘This way,’ I told Nick.

There was a grumbling in the crowd as we eased through the masses towards the northern fence which led onto an open field19. Nick went over easily but I got hung up on the barbed wire atop the fence. I cherish to this day the sight of half a dozen crusty travellers helping a suited pressman with a video camera over a barbed wire fence, in complete darkness, starting to get a fit of the giggles and them not running off with the camera. I made it over the other side of the fence and we steadily progressed towards the car park and the safety of the English Heritage press tent. And we’d almost made it when we got caught in the cross beams of police searchlights. It really did feel like we were making an escape from Stalag Luft III. MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 413

‘Stand still! Or you’ll be arrested!’

Yep, the camp guards were on edge tonight, all right. We made our way back to the fence where the flashlight cops were excitedly shouting dire warnings of what would happen to us if we kept walking towards the English Heritage press tent. What were they going to do? Shoot us? A quick burst of dum-dums from a Mauser Werke 7.92mm as used by the Waffen-SS, perhaps? Then there were other voices.

‘They’re press! They’re press!’ shouted the travellers as they ran towards the fence to help us back over but were, instead, kept at bay by the full authority of the Law. We were within sight of the press tent but decided to give up and walk over to the cops who shouted in my face.

‘Get the fuck over this fence.’

Several travellers came forward to help facilitate this but were kept back by the police.

‘We will need help getting over this fence or I’m going home in an ambulance,’ I said, trying to lighten the mood.

‘What were you doing in the wrong side of the fence anyway,’ grumped a police officer as he allowed a few faces through the cordon to help us over.

‘An inspector back on the road told us to come this way when we got left behind, said he’s radioed ahead to let you know we were on our way.’

The copper obviously didn’t believe a word and, as we were about to move off towards the press tent, he blocked our way.

‘Where the fuck d’you think you’re going, fuck head? Press IDs! Now!’ All of this foul language was being caught on camera as I handed over our press accreditations. I wondered what the Americans would make of it later. After a moment of matching faces to press IDs the copper grudgingly let us through to the English Heritage press tent where, in a complete change of attitude, a kindly woman took us to our allotted position amongst the Stones.

‘I’m so sorry we’re late but the police wouldn’t let us through,’ I groveled.

‘Oh dear, I didn’t realise you’re English. I assumed Pixie Productions were a German company and I’ve put you on the outer ring of Stones. Just wait here a moment …’ she said skipping off into the gloom.

A moment later she was back, having removed a foreign news crew from the inner MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 414

ring of Stones to the outer regions and replaced them with us. I had the feeling if I’d asked for a plate of dainties and a pot of tea, she would have skipped off and got that for us too. As she wandered away into the gloom I knew I had to deal with Nick as I had reasonable grounds to suspect he wasn’t expecting covering Stonehenge to be this hectic, probably more in the realms of maypoles and country dancing.

‘Enjoying it so far,’ I asked as I handed the camera back.

‘I didn’t know it was going to be like this.’

‘That’s why you’re getting a 500-sobs a day hazardous assignment payment.

‘What do we do now?’ he asked.

‘We wait.’

‘Wait?’

‘Yeah. For something to happen.’

It would be fair to say that although Nick saw himself as a bit of an anarchist, how much of a bit of an anarchist he saw himself as had to be taken into the relative account of the grass roots hard core traveller anarchy which was going on all around him. I didn’t enquire into what he thought of the cops because I knew he’d never seen out front coppery at such an intense level before. Best not to go there. Just give him time to file that one away. Trust me, I’m a journalist, we know about these things.

‘What happens if they riot,’ asked Nick.

‘You’re quite safe with the Druids. They don’t go in for fisticuffs much. Well, not unless you set fire to their pointy hats o’course,’ I said trying to be jolly.

‘You’re expecting the travellers to riot aren’t you?’

‘Good heavens. Whatever gives you that idea?’

‘We could have caught the coach up here but you decided to walk with the travellers.’

‘I’ve never seen them so blatant before. Rolling up in a police van and seeded into the crowd. I bet they’re in amongst that lot in the road right now, stoking the fires. The fact the coppers didn’t want us in amongst them, says it all really. They don’t want press witnesses when their agent provocateurs start a riot.’

Nick and I listened to the drumming and chanting for a while. Zulu. It reminded me of the film Zulu and we were the Welsh Guards defending the Stones against insurmountable odds … then snapped out of my reverie when Nick asked another question.

‘What do we what?’ I asked.

MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 415

‘What do we do if they riot?’

‘Well, if the coppers contain them at the fence we go down there and film them. If they break through the fence then we either stay here and film them or run away. If you run away with the camera then I’m stuffed because I’ll get beaten up by both sides.

Man without a camera is a man waiting to get thumped. We should stay here between the stones, wait for them run past then come out and film everything. You ever see a film called Zulu?’

But I never found out if Nick had seen the film or not because that’s when it all kicked off down on the A344 where the travellers were penned in. There was a surge of press and camera crews who ran down the slope from the Stones towards the melee near the Hele Stone but Nick was a tad slow on the uptake which meant we were fielded by a young copper who was only obeying orders.

‘You can’t go down there!’

‘Why not? This is English Heritage land and they’ve invited us here,’ I tried.

‘You’re not allowed to film it.’

‘Film what?’

I was trying to get him to say, on camera, that we weren’t allowed to film the riot which was worth more in words from a cop than any soft focus night shots of them knocking seven bells out of on-lookers.

‘If you leave the Stone circle I’ll have to arrest you,’ the young cop tried.

I had the feeling that if we put the young cop and Nick in the same room together they’d be making Bovril and discussing how to set the world to rights before you could say, “Don’t just stand there gawping, move yerself!” But none of that happened.

Instead; ‘So are you going to arrest all the camera crews who are already filming the riot or MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 416

just us for trying to get down there to do our jobs? Of course, once you do arrest us all that lot will come steaming back to watch you do it. The press are very keen these days on photographing their own being dragged off by the police.’

But it didn’t work because the young cop had obviously been schooled in ‘obey the last order’ and told not to listen to reasoned debate. I told Nick to film what he could from where we were but I got the distinct impression he’d been schooled in ‘always obey the nice policeman’ and would have obliged the young cop by turning off the camera had I not been there to tell him to carry on. Those young camera operators with their art degrees had a lot to learn about news coverage. The main riot was over and the news crews wandered back to the Stone circle. None of them in chains nor under arrest.

‘Where were you, guv’? Expected you to be in the thick of it,’ smiled Dixie.

‘Ah me ol’ legs can’t run so fast these days,’ I joked back. ‘Anyway I can’t get the staff.’

But inside I wasn’t joking, I meant it.

We can’t find the staff to do what they’re told. What was it with these university media graduates that they go weak at the knees at the sight of real life? A cop with no authority at all on private land tells the MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 417

press they can’t do their job or if they try to do their job they’ll be arrested and he’s actually believed. There was a reason they were micro-managing the press and that was because they’d set up the riot to grab headlines which justified heavy-handed police actions. This wasn’t press paranoia, it was the stark reality of what Thatcher’s storm troopers were capable of doing to demonize anyone who rode around the country in a house with wheels underneath it. The bad old days of drug dealing traveller scum might have gone under the jack boots of authority in a bean field three years before but Wiltshire Police weren’t going to let a little thing like ‘proof of criminality’ get in their way. Cue the Druids.

They came on and performed their mystifying ceremony at the Stones which we all filmed like robots because it was the main attraction. Allegedly. We all knew the main attraction were the traveller walkers who were still fighting with police because the police wouldn’t let them escape, trapped in a fenced off road. The vast majority of the 500 walkers had left the scene but some travellers were caught behind the lines and were getting battered for it. One guy, looking for his shoes, was rather dumfounded when bodily thrown over a fence by the police.

‘I’m trying to find my shoes,’ said the shocked walker.

‘Go!’ demanded the sergeant. ‘You’ve been told to go now go!’

A police helicopter shone its searchlight on the scene and, like the voice of God from the heavens announced, ‘Those people at the Hele Stone, you must disperse or police officers will be sent in to make arrests.’

A woman on crutches wasn’t moving fast enough for the police so they pushed her over.

‘Well done dimwits,’ came a call from above, three people sitting atop the Hele Stone waving a flag. They spotted us and called out. ‘Press! Pressmen! They won’t let us get down.’

I walked over to hear their sorry tale of woe but Nick shut the camera off and tried to walk away. Why? ‘You’re just encouraging them. It’s their own fault.’

‘We’re doing our job here. If you don’t want to do it Nick, shuffle off back to the car and I’ll do it. And I’ll hold onto the car keys so you don’t do a runner.’

Grudgingly Nick stayed on and filmed as directed. We got an interview out of the MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 418

two guys and a woman trapped on the Hele Stone even though they didn’t have much to say for themselves. Later I was told that one of them had been Fagin who had invaded the Queen’s bedroom months before.

‘The police started that attack and we’ve got no chance of getting down from here now if we want our arms and legs in one piece.’

I was more interested in how they managed to get up there at all. The woman slithered part way down the Hele Stone, the police wouldn’t help her the rest of the way so she jumped and fell on an upturned crash barrier. The police all moved away so they didn’t have to deal with her injuries and, fortunately, a group of walkers rushed to her aid so we didn’t have to either. The disabled woman on crutches had managed to get herself upright and three burly coppers zeroed in on her.

‘I don’t care what you have to say, just go!’

‘I’m going, I’m going, don’t push …’ came her plaintive response. And inevitably she fell over again. Away off across the field came a muffled cry of, ‘Get the press out of there!’

A voice beside me replied, ‘Get the press out of there? Let them in, I say, let them in.’

MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 419

We scanned an area where massed ranks of coppers were heading; there on the fence near the corner of the A303 and the A344 something was happening which involved flying truncheons. We couldn’t quite figure it out but, as one, the legions of the press headed for the whatever it was the police wanted us out of. We never made it but it wasn’t the police stopping us this time, it was the burly civilian National Trust security guards who, with no powers of arrest and more brutal than the cops, steamed in on the curious press. One photographer was pushed so hard he was left sprawling on the ground. These guys were a class act. The photographer went over to Stuart Andrews of English Heritage, who managed the site.

‘How come I’m not allowed to go over there and photograph what the police are doing even though I’ve got English Heritage press accreditation?’

‘Who’s not allowing you?’ asked Andrews.

‘Your security guards have told us to come back over here because the press aren’t allowed to photograph what the police are doing to the hippies down by the field fence.’

‘Well I’m not stopping you,’ announced Andrews indignantly.

‘So you’re saying I can go back over there and photograph?’

‘You can photograph what you want,’ Andrews told him.

So the photographer, filmed by us, walked all the way back towards the police action but when he got about half way he was intercepted by a huge National Trust security guy who stopped him. There was a good deal of arm waving, pointing hither and yon, before the photographer came all the way back.

‘What did he tell you?’ I asked, sticking the microphone under his nose.

‘He told me he was from the National Trust and since it was national Trust property I wasn’t allowed to film anything and if I did I’d be trespassing on National Trust land and he would have me arrested.’

‘What d’you make of that?’ I asked.

‘Nobody seems to know who the police were beating up but whoever it was they seriously didn’t want the press anywhere near them.’

In dribs and drabs we saw the pathetic survivors of the beating, arm locked and dragged across the field, under arrest taken towards the queues of waiting police vans.

One youth was valiantly trying to safeguard his acoustic guitar but it was hampering the police efforts to handcuff him so it was snatched away and thrown across the field.

MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 420

One of the walkers at the Stones accosted a couple of stone washed denim tourists to explain what was happening but they didn’t want to know.

‘There’s all these police stopping people from standing at the Stones on Solstice-’ ‘We’ve come all the way from Canada to see this,’ said the young woman.

‘Well however you got here, but there’s all these English people who’ve come here to celebrate the Solstice and the police won’t let us through and-.’

‘Why are you telling me this, why did you come up to us, go and tell someone else,’ said the young Canadian man.

‘Oh no, I’m not attacking you. I just thought you should know there’s another side to this.’

But we never really got to hear his other side of the story because Nick got a fit of the willies and turned off the camera. By the time I got him back on track the confrontation had subsided.

‘Why did you stop filming?’

‘Because its boring,’ said Nick.

I was pretty sure we’d got the story but there were a couple more moments of comedy theatre to be played out before we could leave. One was a very dramatic arrest right in front of us.

‘You can film this,’ the inspector told us.

It looked like a set-up. I’d noticed the inspector moments before nodding to a sergeant nearby, nodding towards the ‘suspect’ and nodding towards us. The suspect, who reminded me a lot of one of the guys who decamped the police van the night before, was grabbed and handcuffed. There was no struggle, he meekly sat down and allowed himself to be handcuffed while talking to the world at large.

‘See what they’re doing here? They’re handcuffing me for wanting to sit here and look at Stonehenge.’

‘Don’t bother,’ I whispered to Nick but he shock me off and continued filming.

Afterwards I explained my reticence to film the arrest but Nick was back to his “the police are always right” mode of thinking coupled with the “you’re paranoid” credo.

‘No, not paranoid. I’m a realist. Why do you think the Americans sent me to report on this stuff? Not because I fall for the copper’s pranks, that’s for darn sure. And not because I have any finer feeling for travellers. They send me because I know the tricks MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 421

of the trade and they pay me money to do this. I’m a running dog lackey of the capitalist media just like everyone else here. Don’t mistake me for some kind of revolutionary anarchist.’

But Nick was, by then, a tired little bunny who wanted to go home and wasn’t really listening. He carried on filming photogentic faces in the crowd while I’d got into a rather jolly chat with an elderly sergeant who looked like he didn’t want to be there either. He had news of how to get back to our car in Amsbury. We couldn’t, not easily. I wandered back to Nick, to impart the joyful news, just as he caught a cop in full para-military gear and riot shield exclaiming, ‘D-Division! Where the hell d’you think you’re going?’

Ah, disorganisational bliss. Don’t’cha just love it? We filmed the press conference with Chief Constable Donald Smith about how well his officers had done in the circumstances, trying to stop a riot, but nobody asked the right questions, myself included, and we ended up with a one sided police view of reality.

‘Well we’ve got to deal with these people every year. There’s very little we can do,’ he said sorrowfully.

But he was interrupted by a Druid who didn’t take kindly to seeing the police beating up hippies.

‘Its a disgrace and it brings disgrace upon your office and I hope when you retired at the end of the month it’ll make you a happy man.’

The assembled press were diverted from his outburst by a police press liaison officer showing us all the weapons they’d seized. They didn’t look terribly threatening, just the usual dross you’d find in the grass after a rock concert. I decided to let the footage do the talking when it came to the edit.

‘Right, that’s sort of a wrap but there’s a bit of a glitch,’ I told Nick.

‘A glitch?’

‘There’s thousands of police and travellers between us and the car. We can’t deviate off road because there’s nowhere to deviate onto unless you want to get lost in the landscape, across the fields. We’ll have to follow them down the road until we get to Amsbury.’

Nick took it quite well considering. Perhaps he had gotten his second wind. Some of the press, including photographer Jeremy Dunn, had taken a less literal interpretation of ‘follow them up the road’ and stuck to the roadside verges and the tops of overlooking MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 422

cuttings, photographing down onto the road.

And

whoever

said

there

were

thousands of police and travellers wasn’t joking. I looked behind and saw police riot vans five-across the roadway, two on each carriageway and one driving down the central reservation, following us like sheep dogs. I mentioned this to Nick but it was a friendly20 copper who replied.

‘Have you seen how far they go back?

They’re five across and ten rows deep. If I were you I’d get between our front line and the hippies.’

Which made perfect sense. In that position we could film both sets of people and duck out if things went pear shaped and fluffy round the edges. See, there are polite helpful coppers out there. As often happens with best laid plans we were walking slightly faster than the travellers and were soon in the thick of them which gave rise to shouts of “Press! Press!” and gave them cause to stop in the middle of the road and dance to an impromptu acoustic version of “Redemption Songs” by Bob Marley. Far from tagging along with the crowd we had by our very presence stopped them dead in their tracks.

‘Keep walking, keep walking,’ I whispered to Nick at about the same time as the cops told the walkers to do the same thing.

Nobody wanted last minute fisticuffs on MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 423

the Long Walk. Just as we reached the Amsbury roundabout our last shot of the day was the tattered remnants of the walkers, ever onward to Chalderton, singing ‘Won’t you help to sing this song of freedom’ which became a desperate chant of ‘Freedom!

Freedom’ at the tops of their voices, fading out as they marched away. All we had to do was peel off into Amsbury, grab the car and scoot off back to civilisation. But it was not to be. A line of police officers barred our way into Amsbury.

‘You can’t go down there,’ said a sergeant.

‘Our vehicle is parked in the Antrobus Arms car park.’

‘I don’t care about that. You want to film these fucking scum, you can fuck off with them all the way back to Chalderton.’

I didn’t respond but stood in the road, waiting.

‘What are you standing there for?’ asked the Sergeant.

‘I’m waiting for your Inspector to come up the road. He’s on the end of this lot and we’ll see what he has to say about retrieving our vehicle from the Antrobus Arms. Its okay, we don’t mind waiting.’

‘Oh go on,’ he sighed, ‘fuck off back to where you came from.’

I whisked Nick past the police line and we slumped in the car too battered and drained to talk. After a few brain dead moments we were fit enough to drive off and, at the Amsbury roundabout, there was no sign of the police or hippie hordes except one solitary police offer who suggested we take another route to London as the A303 was suffering a blockage. We stopped at a roadside diner and gorged ourselves on a breakfast of carbohydrates until we felt human again. Later, back on the road, we came MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 424

across an over-turned Eden-Vale truck and I sold the pictures to a local paper, enough to cover the gas in our tank.

Back in Norwich I tarted the video and a couple days later Keith Bailey of the Here & Now band came up to Norwich to add an interview about the event. A week later I met Nick for a drink to make sure he was okay and paid his wages. I didn’t mention anything about keeping director / cameraman discipline as I didn’t think he’d have any idea what I was talking about. I did vow to myself that I’d never cover a Stonehenge Solstice again whilst holding a press pass unless there were extraordinary circumstances to take into consideration. The video tapes were packed off to the client in America who phoned as soon they were received.

‘What the heck is this? It looks like it was shot in a war zone.’

Soon after I went back to work on Movie Mahal. To recover.

iii. THE END OF THE BEGINNING I stayed with Hyphen Films for a month on a documentary about the life of Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachan on the set of his last big Hindi picture, Shanhenshah. He was an amazing guy, a true inspiration but as much as I wheedled there was no way Hyphen Films were going to allow me to travel out to India with the crew. I had to make do with London post production instead. Across the corridor Peter Greenaway was editing Drowning By Numbers so although I was hobnobbing in the right company I was not not on the right films.

In September Keith got in touch to say Here & Now were going on tour and how would I like to promote them at a local Norwich venue to which I’d at first said no but then said yes after realising there was money to be made from them tha’ bands.

Putting a gig together wasn’t far off organising a film shoot and the end result wasn’t so different as you’d think; hire the venue, lights and sound system, print tickets and get the advertising out then open the doors and wait for the audience to flood in. Well, with help from the band’s management, of course.

I booked Here & Now into Norwich Arts Centre for Friday October 14th 1988 and it MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 425

opened the door onto a whole new world and career.

Fondest memory? I can remember standing at the back of the venue watching the band with a terrific light show and thinking, ‘I did that,’ and feeling quite proud.

The rest of the year was spent not getting paid by Unicorn Video for filming fairs and festivals or sending out film scripts to producers for funding purposes. Both activities became as pointless and unproductive as each other so I decided I definitely needed a change of direction.

iv. THE BITTER END Nik Turner got in touch to say he’s heard I’d had a successful gig with Here & Now and how would I like to promote his band, Nik Turner’s Fantastic All Stars, at Norwich Arts Centre. I said as how I would probably like that very much.

In one final moment of movie madness; Star Productions run by actor Raj Patel, star of such memorable 1970s ITV sitcoms as Mind Your Language playing Furrukh Azzam, poached me from Hyphen Films to edit their English made Bollywood style film in the depths of Clapton, East London. It was a strange set-up in the basement of the Patel family home and employed young Hindi guys whose command of the English language one could only describe as obdurate. According to Raj the local arts board grant aided him to take on young unemployed Hindis with little or no language skills to give them a break in the movie industry. It looked a lot like exploiting young foreign immigrants who didn’t speak English. The not speaking English part of the enterprise could be quite frustrating as they couldn’t understand a word I was saying while I could understand some words they were saying. I was the only white, English born employee in the company and they sure let me know it.

Star Productions booked me to do wasn’t the job I was expecting to perform. They asked for a film editor but they actually wanted an assistant editor because second generation Anglophile Indian editor Sami couldn’t understand a word the assistants were saying. I had the distinct feeling I’d been duped into taking a job no one else wanted and with good reason. The hours were brutal, the pay was low and the house rules were bewildering.

I’d started the contract by staying at my parent’s place in Greenford but the forty mile round trip everyday across the city was mind numbing so Star Productions put MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 426

me up in the family home. There was no escape. Turfed out of bed at 7am, given a hearty breakfast21, told ‘you work now’ by the Mother and allowed to attend the evening meal at about 9pm then back to work until midnight and bed. Being a Hindi house no alcohol was permitted, which was fair and reasonable, but also meant I wasn’t allowed to escape for a social down the pub with my mates at weekends because, in the Hindi house, weekends didn’t exist. I was expected to turn my hand as dubbing editor with no extra pay and train up the untrainable assistant editors who didn’t speak English.

When they started nattering together I had to stop them.

‘Speak English. You’re in England now and I can’t train you if you refuse to speak my language. If I went to India I would at least try to speak the language of my host country. I know you can speak English, I’ve heard you do it but you lose all command of your linguistic skills the moment I enter the room. Let’s get on with it shall we.’

They’d proceed to speak English until they forgot so the simplest course of action was to treat them as if they weren’t there and do everything myself. Money in the bank to Raj but a waste of space and a pain in the fundament to people who had to cope with them. Which is how come I edited the sound effects and dialogue tracks for a feature film by working round the clock, not allowed out. The night before the final mix Sami and I escaped to a Clapton pub for a swift Christmas half and were given a verbal thrashing by the irate Mother upon our return. I made it known as politely as possible that this wasn’t normal industry custom and practice, making unreasonable constraints on an employee’s personal life, that the trainees somehow thought they were my boss through their complicated caste system and if she felt impelled to terminate my employment, fine by me and she should let the non-English speaking trainees take over the final mix. I felt they were probably competant to do this but would fail catastrophicly when the sound engineer asked them a question and they wouldn’t be able to understand or reply because their English was so bad. Positive discrimination only works if the workers concerned can speak the same laguage. In the middle of all this Raj turned up and told me I was no longer required and, a few days before Christmas, informed me I wouldn’t be paid either. Nice people.

Although its not like I didn’t get fair warning as producer Ian MacCauly at Hyphen Films had advised me Star Productions had ‘a bit of a reputation.’ If I needed a jolt to remind me the bright days of my film career were over, that was it. Treated like a MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 427

slave labourer by people who couldn’t be bothered to speak the same language and threatened to report any industrial complaints as racism. I thought it would be a dream come true to work on a Bollywood film but it turned into a nightmare. Not that it left me all bitter and twisted, you understand, just disappointed my twenty years in the film industry had become an irrelevance. When the going gets weird, the weird get going.

Time for a life change.

v. A RUDE AWAKENING This is like the pay-off, you know, that silly season story at the end of the news broadcast to cheer ourselves up after half an hour of depressing stories from around the world.

Skate boarding ducks and cheeky chirpy chappies bravely fighting deathly injuries after they hilariously bounced off their child’s trampoline and landed on the tailplane of a passing jumbo jet which crashed into a custard factory. So here it is; And finally.

After months of low level static interference from the local police things finally came to a head the day before Nik Turner’s Fantastic All Stars were due to play at Norwich Arts Centre. I don’t know what the cops thought I was promoting, some anarchist armed uprising perhaps, but the dawn raid put a definite crimp in my day. Working around the fringes of the alternative scene as a journalist and film maker, I’d invariably come across people who were convinced the police were out to get them and who I thought, by their lifestyle or drug of choice, had engendered their own low level paranoia field.

It’s not until it happens to you, for no apparent reason, that one realises the police really are out to get us with no logical justification.

There is publicity routine to promoting music events at hired venues; send out a press release to the local papers, radio, TV and fly post at legal sites. There is such a thing as illegal sites which caused an environmental by-law to be passed by Norwich City Council which could result in the concert being pulled and prosecution for the promoter.

Fly posting was confined to council run poster boards and shop windows with the owners’ permission to which I and other promoters strictly adhered to keep the city safe from unsightly fliers on public MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 428

buildings. You know it makes sense. So with that in mind what happened on Monday 9th January made no sense at all.

Nik Turner’s Fantastic All Stars, supported by Jonathan Lambert’s band Jumper Than Swing and Herman The 100% Machine, were booked to play Norwich Arts Centre on January 10th so on the preceding Sunday I held a final prep meeting, a transferable skills from my film production days, in the Lily Langtree pub with the box office, security staff and venue technicians to iron out any last minute glitches. The security staff were hired in from Hy’s Nightclub because they were fully trained and experienced professionals. Expecting a ‘hippie’ audience, the last thing anyone wanted was roughhousing by untrained bully-boy bouncers who were handy with their fists. Being a dry hire we couldn’t use the venue box office on the night so Paul Matton sat at a table by the door with a locked cash box and a minder. The prep meeting broke up and, full of beer, we wended our various ways home.

I was awoken at dawn by someone leaning on the flat door buzzer which I ignored because the hangover from the night before didn’t allow me out of bed. The buzzing stopped and was followed shortly by someone pounding on my basement door. Eventually I decided the whoever it was needed attention lest they wake the entire building.

Grabbing a bathrobe I staggered up the stairs and called irritably through the door.

‘Who is it?’

‘Police! Open the door!’

Now what, I thought. One of the foibles of the basement flat, for there were many, was the door opened outwards into the corridor. From the outside it looked rather like the door to a cupboard under the stairs. No amount of vigorous kicking was going to smash down an outward opening door. My advice seemed to annoy the persons unknown standing on the other side.

‘Can you step away from the door, please?’

‘Get this door open!’

‘The door opens outward. I can’t open it until you stand back,’ I advised.

There was the sound of scuffling feet outside and I fumbled the lock open which was a practiced art in itself because there was no landing before the door. The stairs went straight up with a ninety degree curve at the top. This meant, with the stair case above, one couldn’t stand on the top step to open the door and had to lurk three steps down to MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 429

fiddle the key into the lock. It was also dark because the walled in staircase didn’t allow much light in from the open fire door below. And that’s how the CID Officers found me, bleary eyed from a hangover, wearing a bathrobe and standing in what seemed to be a dark pit looking up at them like a scared rabbit.

‘What is it?’ I wanted to know.

‘Police. We’ve come to search your flat.’

‘Can I see the search warrant?’ I asked.

‘We don’t need one because you’re under arrest.’

‘When did that happen?’

‘Just now because you wouldn’t answer the door.’

In my addled brain I thought that probably wasn’t correct because they were standing beside my open door but since I didn’t have anything to hide I let them in. After all, the innocent have nothing to fear from the police. Down the narrow ill-lit stairs we trooped.

‘So what are you looking for?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ said the Inspector of CID nastily.

I thought it best not to get lippy with “yes I would like know” as the Officer, I suspected, had no sense of humour at all. In fact he bore an uncanny resemblance to Inspector Chisholm in the 1970s TV series Minder and seemed to have modelled himself on the fictional character played by Patrick Malahide. It has always been my contention that faced with authority figures in the home one should act pleasantly and offer refreshments, the fact of which in this case was rudely rebuffed. And ‘Chisholm’ wouldn’t let me have a cup of coffee either. Instead the Inspector wandered into the kitchen and ordered his Sergeant to search my living room.

‘Do you mind if I put some clothes on?’ I asked the Sergeant.

‘Go ahead,’ he said and turned his back for my modesty as he searched for evidence of who knew what.

Amongst the enormous detritus of my room the Sergeant came across an unposted letter addressed to Brenda Ferris who at the time was the leader of the City’s Licensing Sub-committee. The letter was an application for local certification to show one of my films in Norwich. The Sergeant’s eyes lit up with glee.

‘Ah-ha, what have we got here? What are you sending to Brenda Ferris?

I explained but he ripped open the letter anyway and his face dropped in disappointment MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 430

when it turned out to be exactly what I’d said and not some dire threat.

An agitated voice off, called. ‘Oh no!’

Scurrying into the kitchen I found the Inspector staring at a pile of newspapers which were awaiting collection for re-cycling by the local Green environmentalists. His cry of err was because he’d been reading every newspaper, from cover to cover and, on finding a great heap of old papers, meant he was likely be there all week.

‘If you can tell me what you’re looking for perhaps I can point you in the right direction,’ I tried.

‘You know why we’re here,’ he said mystically.

Back in the living room I found the Sergeant about to open my sock drawer.

‘Can I explain something before you open that. There’s replica gun in there which was used on a film production,’ so as not to have him find it and jump to the wrong conclusion.

He opened the drawer and took out the gun, looking at as if he’d never seen one before.

‘Can you pop the cylinder so I can see if its real or not?’ he said, handling me the weapon.

What a complete buffoon, I thought, handing a firearm to a suspect. It crossed my mind to point the thing at him and order them out of the house but I figured my survival prospects thereafter were non-existent if I’d tried it. Instead I popped the cylinder and gave the gun back to him butt first.

‘See. Solid barrel. It can’t be fired.’

He gave it a good look, closed the cylinder and put it back in the drawer where he’d found it. Replica guns weren’t illegal back then.

The phone rang. I asked if I could answer it and the Sergeant nodded, okay. It turned out to be Glen from the All Stars to ask if he could have some specialised stage equipment for their gig next day.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but now’s not a good time. I’m being raided my the police.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Glen, astonished.

‘No, really. They’re turning my flat over as we speak. I have no idea why.’

As the phone went down the Inspector, having made a thorough fruitless search of the kitchen, joined us in the living room and made a vigorous search of everything MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 431

on my desk which the Sergeant had just searched. Another ah-ha moment. What the Inspector had found were a pile of posters of my old movies plus the current poster for the Nik Turner gig at Norwich Arts Centre.

‘You could have saved us a lot of time if you’d showed us these straight away,’ he said, annoyed.

‘Well I would have if you’d told me what you were looking for.’

He dipped into his pocket and brought out a much folded copy of the Nik Turner poster wrapped in plastic.

‘Can you confirm this is the same poster?’ he asked.

‘Well not folded up like that, no. If you show me-,’ but he cut me dead.

‘Right. You’ll be charged under the Public Order Act and we’re taking you down to the station for further questioning.’

He collected up a pile of flm and gig posters and seized a video tape of a band promo, presumably as evidence of my alleged anarchistic crimes.

vi. UNDER QUESTIONING The Custody Sergeant asked if I wanted a solicitor, which I probably did, but the Inspector decided I didn’t because “there is no need”. Whatever I thought about the matter was deemed irrelevant.

They shoved me in the cells for five hours, presumably to teach me a lesson so I could stew in my own juice and be malleable by the time they got me into the interview room but instead I chose to use the time productively. Although desperately dehydrated I slept until the hangover got down to manageable level. Eventually the key rattled in the lock and was led to an interview room.

Tapes duly inserted into the recorder and everyone identified, the Kafka-esque questioning began. Slowly and inconsequentially at first; what were my politics (none), why was I living in Norwich (it’s a nice place) until eventually we wandered into the deep and meaningless waters of bewilderment.

‘You’ve got a conviction for a Class-A drug offence in 1975.’

‘Yes. Although I thought that’d been wiped off under the Rehabilitation of Offended Act by now,’ I mused.

‘It never gets wiped off,’ the Inspector informed me with knowing satisfaction. ‘You’ve MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 432

been about a bit. Vietnam, Syria, Jordon, Lebanon, Belfast.’

‘War reporter. You go where you’re sent.’

‘Poppy growing areas, heroin.’

‘That too. But I was there to cover the wars. Except Belfast. That was a job interview.

I didn’t get it.’

‘Why?’ ‘Internal promotion probably. A relief really, I didn’t want to get blown up.’

‘You were interviewed by the Metropolitan Police in 1981 but no charges were brought.

Why was that?’

It took a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Media people were often questioned, usually in a random way just for doing our job. We all remembered the reporters being taken away in riot vans for photographing demonstrations. But I hesitated too long for the Inspector who jumped in with another question.

‘Is that a no comment?’ he asked filling the gap.

Then I remembered, ‘It was for a job interview.’

‘You were a police informant,’ but not said as a question.

‘No, nothing like that.’ I said almost laughing. ‘It was for a back office job.’

‘Undercover?’

‘No, you’ve going down the wrong road there.’

‘Who was your handler?’

But I hesitated again, wondering how that question might impact on Colin if I admitted he’d put me up for the job and we’d shared a Camden flat. Lying was out of the question because I wasn’t consistently inventive enough. I had a feeling those Norfolk dumplings might be running on rails and wouldn’t be derailed no matter what I said. They had something in mind but I hadn’t quite figured out what it was. They were fixated on undercover informers.

‘Are you refusing to answer the question?’

‘No, its not that. But we’re wandering into areas I can’t answer. I think I need to make a phone call to get clarification.’

‘No phone calls. You’re under arrest,’ the Inspector paused then said, ‘Who do you want to call?’

Again I hesitated. It was the wrong thing to do and knew it. Honesty is the best policy.

MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 433

‘I think the best course of action is for you to contact the Met’s personnel department and get them to confirm I had an interview for a civilian photographer’s job. I didn’t take it because I was offered a better job elsewhere.’

That was the truth but I felt the Inspector was in the business of creative misunderstanding.

‘What job?’

‘Granada television local news.’

‘But you do know undercover police officers.’

‘I was a reporter. We get to know a lot of people. I may have met undercover officers and not known it. Its not something that’s generally discussed, reporters know better than to ask.’

‘Why?’ ‘Because we might accidentally gob it out to the wrong person, pub gossip, that sort of thing.’

‘But you know Paul Harris.’

‘I know several people called Paul Harris. Which one have you got in mind?’

‘Paul Harris, the undercover officer you met in 1983.’

‘Oh yes, I remember him. Hairy little guy. Got fractious when I wouldn’t hand over my background notes on a news story. Is that what this is about?’

‘So you know Paul Harris and you socialised with him?’

‘I wouldn’t call it socialising. I had a drink with him once in a Norwich pub.’

‘You know Paul Harris, you’ve socialised with him and he’s been to your house?’

‘Yes. He was making door-to-door enquiries about a theft on the street. That’s not what I’d call socialising.’

‘And whilst there he seized a quantity of drugs?’

‘No, whilst there he seized a quantity of oregano and chilli plants. I wasn’t arrested or charged and later the Regional Crime Squad offered to get the nonexistant charges dropped if I worked for them as an active informer and I turned them down.’

‘Why? Don’t you believe in helping the police? You claim the Met offered you a job but you turned it down. Why was that?

‘Oregano isn’t an illegal substannce and I didn’t take the job with the Met because I had a better job offer from Granada TV.’ MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 434

‘Why did you send Paul Harris a copy of this poster to his home?’

For the first time the Inspector revealed the Nik Turner poster. I had a good look and it was obvious the thing had been doctored.

‘That isn’t the original artwork, it’s been doctored with a phone number I don’t recognise and besides which I don’t know where Paul Harris lives.’

‘He’s in the phone book. You could have easily taken his address from there.’

‘So could anyone else. I know I didn’t and there’s hundreds of these posters all over the place.’

And so the questioning went round in circles until they decided they weren’t getting anywhere and let me out on bail to appear later for further questioning. Showing me out, the Inspector hustled us into a side corridor and, when there were no witnesses around, explained. ‘Look I know this is a waste of police time and so do you. You’ve upset the Bosses and this is the result. You should have left Norwich instead of going to police complaints. They want you gone and this is the way they’re doing it.’

‘Well if they’re that threatened why don’t they offer to relocate me some place else?’

He hesitated, weighing up the chances of that ever happening then said, ‘That’s not going to happen. There’s nothing I can do, you’ve trodden on someone’s toes and you can’t ever mention we’ve had this conversation.’

Of course he might have been lying but I had an eerie feeling he wasn’t. Back home I got straight onto the Union lawyers who arranged a meet in London a few days later to go over whatever trumped up case the police were going for. His advice meanwhile, knowing I was promoting a gig next day, said, ‘Whatever you do don’t mention you’ve been arrested on stage. The police will be there and could re-arrest you.’

Next day Nik Turner played at Norwich Arts Centre to a packed house. At least it made up for the strange and terrible shenanigans of the police. On a temporary basis only.

vii. DOWN THE SMOKE WITH MY BRIEF After unloading my grief on the Union lawyers I got the impression I was not alone amongst my colleagues who had suffered similar strange fates, although the oregano bust was new one them. Their advice was to be aware my phone was probably tapped and not rise to the bait when I spotted their surveilance. According to the lawyers, the MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 435

cops had a habit of parking right outside a suspect’s house in full view waiting to see what would happen. The little chat in the police station corridor was more of the same.

Act normal and carry on was the advice. The business with the posters was deemed a ploy to engender low level paranoia which was to be avoided at all costs because advertising material generally wasn’t an offence unless they contained bad language or threats to incite violence.

‘You’ve certainly rattled someone’s cage and the police are dealing with it in their usual unsubtle way,’ said the lawyer, ‘but I can’t see them proceeding with this unless they want to be laughed out of court.’

The Union arranged for a local solicitor to be on hand when I answred to bail just in case of any surpises. And there were one or two.

viii. CHARGED AND NOT CONVICTED I hadn’t met the Union’s local solicitor before arriving at the police station. He was agitated and nervous.

‘I spoke to the Inspector and can’t believe he’s actually going to charge you. I got the impression he doesn’t like you, personally.’

‘Yes. I did get that impression myself,’ I said.

The Inspector was not a happy bunny when I showed with the solicitor, answering to bail. There was a short interview in which further fruitless allegations were made concerning my relationship to various unnamed police officers. The solicitor advised I respond ‘no comment’ to all questions which seemed to upset the Inspector more.

‘You had plenty to say when you were in here before. Why are you changing your story?’

‘Before I was hungover, dehydrated and confused.’

‘You seemed perfectly coherent to me.’

Which illicted a knowing look from the solicitor to stick to the no comment strategy in case I bumbled into addmitting to something I might later regret. The interview ended with a curt nod to the solicitor as I was taken away to be charged.

‘I have to go and see another client but they can’t do anything to you once you’ve been charged. Don’t say anything at all,’ said the solicitor and left me to it.

I was charged under the Public Order Act for “... allowing written material to be MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 436

caught in the sight of a person who might be alarmed and distressed thereby.” The written material concerned the poster for the Nik Turner gig and several posters for commercial certificated films. Asked if I had anything to say I declined and said no comment, as instructed. There then followed a weird moment of theatre of the absurd when Paul Harris wandered into the charge room and tried to strike up a conversation but I’d been told not to make any comment and was sticking to it. When nothing was forthcoming he wandered away to be replaced by the Inspector.

‘I asked him to come down here so you could apologise to him.’

‘No comment.’

‘I thought you knew him, he’s your friend but you had nothing to say to him.’

‘No comment.’

Several no comments later I was bailed to appear at Norwich Magistrates Court a few weeks later. Life went on. Several film directors and news editors, outraged by the incident, were lining up to give character references and testify that finding me guilty of a public order offence involving advertising material would set a dangerous precedent of impeeding the freedom of the arts and the press. There were angry people out there.

I met the local solicitor outside the court and he was joyous.

‘They’re dropping the case against you.’

It was an enormous relief, of course, but I had a feeling he had something else to say. He did.

‘As long as you agree to be bound over to keep the peace.’

‘But that’s like I’m admitting I did something wrong.’

‘Its better than being fined.’

‘No it isn’t, it’s like saying I’m guilty of something I didn’t do.’

‘If they proceed with the case the Magistrate will give you a heavier fine for pleading not guilty.’

‘But I’m not gulty. What do the Union legal team have to say about this?’

‘Oh I don’t think we have to bring a trade union into this.’

‘Yes we do. They’re paying your legal fees.’

But it was too late for find out what the Union thought of this sudden change of events because that’s when we were called into Court. Debacle was in the air and I was not to be disappointed. The Prosecutor got up and told the Magistrate they were MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 437

dropping the case then outlined what the case would have been had they not dropped it. They produced all the adverising posters of my commercial work as evidence which I couldn’t defend because the case had been dropped. It was pretty frustrating because my defence solicitor sat there and said nothing. The Magistrate asked if I was prepared to be bound over but before I had chance to speak the solicitor bounded up to say yes I was. Gutted.

No one explained what the ‘bind over’ meant, there didn’t seem to be any terms or conditions to follow and no one asked for any sort of payment. I’m still not sure if that went on the books as a criminal conviction - for a case which was dropped? The Union lawyers were not best pleased because they had plans for a ‘freedom of espression’ case in a higher court, all dashed by a local solicitor. But at least it was over and the police had had their little tantrum in court.

Not trusting the local solicitor I was put onto another solicitor recommended by the Green Party, Tim Cary, to retrieve the seized property from the raid. Getting the posters and video tape from the dropped case was harder than you’d think. Although the case technically didn’t exist the police wanted to hold onto the evidence in case of future charges. Tim offered them the opprotunity to go back to court over the seized material but they decided not to do that and released the property back to me. Unfotunately, when I went to the police station to collect it the desk sergent informed me it had been ‘lost.’ A typical ending to a typical police bungle. I mean, nothing worse was going to happen like that again. Was it?

* MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 438

CHAPTER 11 - FOOTNOTES 1

Sorry, sorry, I mean a City!

2

Most notably A Night To Remember (1958) www.imdb.com/title/tt0051994/

3

1985

4

open afternoons only

5

see: www.imdb.com/title/tt0075686/quotes

6

paraphrased from the original: “You know nothing of my work! You mean my whole

fallacy is wrong. How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing!

7

my then current girlfriend

8

tug: slang, meaning an arbitrarily stop and search on the street by the police

9

Formerly known as The Fall Guy, the change being made due to a US TV series of the

same title 10

These days called a trailer

11

In the days when pubs had a saloon bar and a public bar

12

for more info on the US military Defence Conditions code see:

wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON DefCon 5 is peace, DefCon 1 is all out thermonuclear war.

13

Aka, Nick Mersch as was

14

Official complains to any organisation tend to result in more of the same bad behaviour;

a) it puts the complainant on the official investigator’s mental map, b) confidential reports never are because details will always leak out via canteen gossip and c) the result will always be a whitewash 15 16

Electronic News Gathering Left in trust by the owner of the land in covenant for the benefit of the nation,

according to the deed set up in 1918, with free access to all for no more than 1-shilling.

17

Bizzies: a Liverpool slang word of the time for The Police

18

referring to unemployment benefit cheques

19

this was known as ‘the old field site’ where the free festivals were once held

20

friendly coppers do exist but generally not in the middle of a soon to be riot and out-

number the nasty coppers by a large majority. So far so good …

21

The one redeeming feature of the contract, home cooked Indian food MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 439

CHAPTER 11 - LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS Page 389 - Paul Matton, 1988 Page 401 - Al & friends at Here & Now gig in Reading Page 405 - Frame grab: Traveller bus, its behind you, 1988 Page 406 - Travellers at Amsbury roundabout © Jeremy Dunn 1988 Hippie’s horses on Amsbury roundabout © Jeremy Dunn 1988 Frame grab: police van speeding to Chalderton Convoy camp, 1988 Hippies on Amsbury roundabout © Jeremy Dunn 1988 Page 407 - More hippies on Amsbury roundabout © Jeremy Dunn 1988 Page 408 - ibid Page 409 - Frame grab: Police vans near Stonehenge monument 1988 Page 411 - Frame grab: Amsbury roundabout tarvellers walk to Stonehenge 1988 Page 416 to 419 - Rioting travellers at Stonehenge 1988 Page 419 - Frame garbs: Riot press 1988 Frame garbs: Traveller up the Heel Stone 1988 Page 423 - Travellers on the long walk from Stonehenge 1988 © Jeremy Dunn Frame grab: Traveller buses moved on at dawn 1988 Page 424 - Travellers on the long walk from Stonehenge 1988 © Jeremy Dunn Page 425 - Eden Vale dairy truck jack-knife accident 1988 Page 428 - Nik Turner gig listing 1989

oOo MAKING ENDS MEET - PAGE 440

APPENDIX

QUESTOR’S THEATRE PROGRAMME 1968

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE I

AT THE BBC (above) aged-17, Al becomes acquainted with a multi-dimentional police box in the prop store.

(left) the fresh face kid at BBC Ealing Film Studios who ten years later became a film director.

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE II

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE III

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE IV

(top left) Geoff Harris & Al Stokes team up as a film crew for the progrock band Valkyrie’s music promo, 1975

(above) Al stoops to pool in 1976

(bottom left) 1979, Al at the time of his first directing job with (below) a cannabis plant

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE V

NEWS PAPER PRHOTOGRAPHER, 1981

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE VI

(above) Stonehenge Peoples’ Free Festival 1981 (below) Stonehenge, 1985

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE VII

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE VIII

APPENDIX : PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE - PAGE IX

THE TWENTY UNOFFICIAL UNWRITTEN RULES OF FILM MAKING 1. The Director is always right.

2. When in doubt, refer to Rule 1.

3. If a line producer says at a pre-production meeting, in order to save time, the main points under discussion will be itemised beforehand then expect the meeting to last three times longer than necessary and put a glaze like Dresden pottery on the eyeball.

The first hour will be spent explaining what is about to be discussed, the next hour will be a discussion itself and the next four hours spent explaining definitions; excessive prolix tends to expand to fill the space; keep it short and to the point.

4. When a writer turns in a well drafted script which everyone understands, the client will always demand changes which renders the manuscript incomprehensible. All clients believe they are Ridley Scott when, in fact, they are half bright PR managers. Be firm and diplomatic. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; at all costs keep the client away from the business end of film making; been there, seen that and groaned inwardly when, standing on a film set, they have ‘bright ideas’ which are too expensive or impractical to shoot.

5. It is better to ask dumb, stupid questions than to make dumb, stupid and expensive mistakes.

6. Film directors have a tendency to explain how the film will be made rather than how the finished product will look. This should be discouraged as it confuses clients.

However, the film is the director’s artistic creation and should be encouraged rather than needlessly questioned.

7. The Producer’s relationship to the Director; you are the director’s best friend, stern headmaster and nanny. If a director looks like losing control bring in an experienced 1st assistant director to take the load off, managing the crew.

8. Editors; they cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, if the director doesn’t (forgets to) shoot a scene the editor can’t cut it. There is nothing an editor can do about a slightly out of focus shot. Best course of action is to re-shoot the shot as including an out of focus material in the final cut is very noticeable.

9. Never roll the (sound) tape back on location to listen to how it sounds. The tendency is to forget where the last take ended or not roll forward at all and over record, which is why editors can’t find lost shots. This only true of film shoots and probably doesn’t APPENDIX - PAGE X

happen using video. With any luck. The expression “we’ll sort it out in post” ends up being twice as expensive than if the material was shot properly in the first place.

10. Directors & 1st assistants; start the day early and call the lunch break late. The afternoon will seem short and the crew will think they’re being let off early. They have a social life too. Never overwork a crew for that way exhaustion sets in, silly mistakes happen and it effects the budget.

11. If a crew member does something monumentally daft on set always take them aside to set them straight. Never chastise people in front of the entire crew as humiliation doesn’t work, it embarrasses the rest of the crew and you need them on your side.

12. The difference between amateur and professional; an amateur works for love, a professional works for money. Unpaid amateurs (aka work placements) are a false economy as they don’t have the experience of paid professionals. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. If you must employ work placements they should be an extra person on the crew who can be trained by experienced people otherwise they won’t get anything out the transaction (aka exploitation).

13. Actors on film sets - stunts; they are not moveable props, they are human and should be treated as such. If they are not trained stunt artistes do not expect them to perform dangerous gags unless a fight arranger is on-set and even then no means no.

If an actor says ‘I can do that’ make sure they can and that you are fully insured.

14. Actors on film sets - nudity; acts of nudity on film must be pre-arranged with the actor’s agent so there are no surprises on the day. If the actor calls for a ‘closed set’ for modesty, all extraneous crew must leave. Again, no means no.

15. Actors on film sets - general; if you overhear an actor saying ‘this is one of the most demanding roles of my life’ take them aside and gently remind them there are people out there with real demanding jobs – fire fighters, nurses & doctors, the police and armed services. Luvvie Dwarlings need a brief lesson – learn the words, turn up on time, don’t moan and go home happy. Having fun should be part of the process too.

16. Supporting Artistes on film sets; often mistakenly referred to as ‘extras’ although extra to what nobody seems to know. They are referred to as Supporting Artistes on the release form so don’t demean them using slang terms. Production grades below 1st assistant director tend to treat Supporting Artistes with disdain because they’ve finally found someone on a film set lower down the pecking order than them. Show respect to APPENDIX - PAGE XI

fellow film workers.

17. Careers; be nice to people on your way up and they will kindly remember you on your way down.

18. Sound recordists, dubbing editors & mixers; they an integral part of any production and their preparation needs must not be forgotten or ignored. Sound-FX technicians and dubbing editors are only called Foley Artists in America and for a diiferent reason.

19. Advice: listen to all advice freely given for the advancement of your career but be aware you may be listening to other peoples’ disappointments. Only you know what is right for you and you shouldn’t put too much stock in other’s advice. Including this.

20. A career in films; look at it this way, you’re doing something you enjoy, it is fun, you may travel the world, meet interesting and experienced people, work in a creative industry and the really amazing thing is – people will pay you money to do this.

A RANDOM TALE OF FILM SCOOL SHENAGIAGENS In 2009 a film school student got in touch to ask how to start a shot. After we worked out the confusions of what he actually meant, it went like this.

1st assistant director: Turn over sound.

Sound recordist: Sound running, speed 1st assistant director: Turn over camera Camera operator: Camera running, mark it.

Camera assistant: (inserts clapper board in shot) and verbally identifies the shot and take number (clap) 1st assistant director: Settle.

Director: (waits for everyone to stop moving about, then) Action.

The film student asked if I had a recording of that conversation which he could put on his mobile as a ring tone. Why? Because he’d been told by his tutor that between ‘settle’ and ‘action’ the director asks if anyone has any problems. While that very expensive film is running through the gate at 25-frame per second. Bit late for problems, that should be worked out in pre-production. It made me laugh like drain. Film schools, eh?

APPENDIX - PAGE XII

CUNNING STUNTS A newly graduated film director called an actor at home asking him to appear in an MTV promo for a famous Goth band. The actor told the director to call his agent but this was aggressively refused as ‘they cost too much.’ The actor became wary and asked what the director required.

‘You’ll be wearing a latex zombie suit, dancing on a suspended 40ft diameter flaming pentagram which will be lowered into a water tank and you’ll have to hold your breath for thirty seconds underwater until all the ripples die down.’

The actor thought for a moment and asked, ‘Is the latex suit fire proof, what is the head piece made of because if it is foam it will be hard to submerge, if it it hollow the weight of water will make it hard to surface, what sort of safety rigging will you be using because if the flaming pentagram drops I don’t want to drop with it, how deep is the water tank, is it heated, is there an airline down there waiting for me so I can breathe under water, how many safety divers will there be in the tank, will there be safety officers and medics on standby in case I get trapped underwater and need to be rescued, have you got full insurance for the stunt because you as director will be personally liable for my safety and any compensation claims for injuries received? And if the answer is yes to all my questions then my fee is £3,000 per day.’

There was a thoughtful pause down the other end of the phone before the director erupted, ‘Why are you being so negative, giving me your negative vibes, why can’t you be positive, this water tank is used by circus performers all the time and they’ve never had an accident. I know twenty actors who would give their right arm to do this job!’

The response, ‘Then if I were you I’d employ one of them. This is a stunt person’s job, it is very dangerous and if you kill someone that’s not only the end of their life but your career. Best of luck. Good-bye.’

Three months later the actor happened to be in same Soho bar as one of the Goth band members and asked how the shoot went.

‘The latex suit caught fire but no one could get to the actor with an extinguisher because he was suspened in the air, someone dropped his wire so the water in the tank would put the flames out and that’s when he got trapped and everyone piled into the tank to pull him out. It was really funny.’

‘Bloody hilarious,’ said the actor. ‘I am glad I turned it down.’

APPENDIX - PAGE XIII

TRADE UNIONS Closed shops are illegal in the UK but it is worth joining a trade union because they will fight your corner if you don’t get paid and will give free legal and Public Liability insurance advice.

Actors: EQUITY see: www.equity.org.uk/home Supporting Artistes: FAA (Film Artistes Association) a subsection of BECTU, see: www.creativeskillset.org/film/jobs/performing Beware, be aware: any agent asking for up front fees to be included in their casting book should be avoided at all costs. Casting agents obtain their fees as a percentage from the client. Not you.

Film and TV personnel: BECTU: www.bectu.org.uk/home

For more information about the Stonehenge Festival scene go to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/stonehenge84/

if you have enjoyed this eBook find out what happens next in

“AN ACTOR’S LIFE FOR ME” written by Al Stokes & available in 2015

APPENDIX - PAGE IX