A Northern Soul
by
JIMMY NAIL

Get acquainted with a northern soul Ā… Jimmy Nail has been a household name since Auf Wiedersehen, Pet hit our screens in the 1980s. since then, his career
as an actor and a musician has put him on the silver screen alongside Madonna and given him a No. 1 hit single. Success on this astonishing scale was
beyond the wildest dreams of the working class lad whose harsh childhood and brutal schooling put him on a collision course with Strangeways. But a short
spell in prison helped propel Nail onwards and upwards. With the support of his friends and family, it wasn’t long before Jimmy’s unique talents and
single-minded determination brought him attention of a different kind and changed his life for ever. In A Northern Soul, Jimmy Nail tells his own vivid
story in this intriguing, inspiring and sometimes confounding account of how one man rose to fame and fortune by refusing to be anything but himself. 

an imprint of penguin books
w ww .penguin.com

First published 2^04 10

Jimmy Nail, 2004
This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Laura

Acknowledgements

I began writing this foreword ensconced in the luxurious
surroundings of the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Bangkok,
Thailand. We were about to begin what was likely to be the
final chapter of the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet adventure. A few
days later I travelled to Chiang Mai in the north, there to
begin my elephant-riding orientation. Twenty-two years ago
I was on the back lot at Listree Studios doing a crash-course
in bricklaying. It's a measure of how far things have come.
We were hard at it in the jungle on the evening of Saturday,
17 July when word reached us that Pat Roach -- our beloved
'Bomber' -- had passed away. We'd all hoped and prayed that
the big man would be able to make it for our last adventure.
He'd beaten the odds so many times. Sadly it was not to be.
Pat was an extraordinary man and his death has left a terrible
void. It feels as though our body has lost a limb. We carry on,
however: Pat would've been upset if we'd done otherwise. So,
of the original Auf Wiedersehen, Pet seven, there are now five of
us. As the band grows smaller, the bond grows stronger.
I've done my best to make sure all details are correct, but
if your name happens to have been spelled incorrectly, my
apologies.
Although the words within this book are my own, its
production has been a true team effort. I wish to express my
sincere thanks to all those who have helped me over the eighteen
months I've been working on it, and in particular the
following people: to Paul Stevens and the entire staff of 1CM
London, who've looked after me these past twenty years. To
my editor, Rowland White at Penguin Books, who bravely led
me through the often difficult stages of this process and for
whom I have nothing but admiration and respect. Not many
people would've taken it on, and I'm glad to be able to write
we're still on speaking terms! To Hazel Orme, who patiently
guided me through the book's numerous grammatical and
structural errors until it got to the shape it's in today.
As regards photographs, I've made every effort to give
credit where it's due, and my thanks go to those credited for
allowing me to use stills that are not my own. I must make
special mention of the lovely George Wiggins, who took
some wonderful shots of me, no easy thing to pull off. The
one featuring the late Tommy Cooper, Miriam and myself is
a favourite. Cheers, George.
Thanks are also due to the following people: to Ian La
Lrenais, who got me started and has always encouraged me
to keep writing. To Duncan Heath for the very best advice
and guidance, along with a lot of fun. To all my friends in
Newcastle, who have kept their counsel over the years when
it would have been easy for them to make a bob or two. To
Olivia Harrison, for sending me a photograph I didn't even
know existed until it landed on my doormat one morning.
I am indebted to Roger Bamford, who took a monumental
gamble twenty-two years ago when he offered me the part
of Oz and the opportunity of a lifetime. We salute you,
Baron B -- absolutely!
I wish to say thank you to my sons, Tom and Fred, for
their understanding. It can't be easy having a well-known
parent and it's my hope that what's written here might one
day give them both an idea of why certain things were as
they were. The biggest thankyou goes to their mother, my
soul-mate, Miriam. Through you I have come to know the
meaning of love.

I entered this world on Tuesday, 16 March 1954, at 5 Gleneagles
Close on the newly built Fairways estate in the east
end of Newcastle upon Tyne: big, strong and healthy, the
first and, as it turned out, only son of Jimmy and Laura
Bradford, brother to Valerie, then nine, and Shelagh, seven. It
was a home birth, more common in those days when hospitals
were primarily for the sick. Everyone was well pleased: my dad
had longed for a son and my mam was relieved at having
provided him with one. However, my arrival meant they'd
have to leave their little two-bedroom flat and move to somewhere
bigger. Also, there was the matter of my name. My
mother wanted Michael but my dad wanted another James
in the family. Cue heated debate. My mam thought she'd
prevailed until she was well enough to go out, when she
found my dad had, unbeknown to her, already been to the
register office and put me down as James. So there's me not
even a day old and already causing problems. I guess there
must have been a radio playing somewhere in the house
because, from the very beginning, I was music nuts.
Locally that year, the mighty Newcastle United -- and they
truly were mighty back then - were taking a break from
winning the FA Cup, having lifted the trophy the previous
two seasons. They'd won it again in 1955. So I can say they've
won the FA cup in my lifetime, which is a crumb of
comfort as all there's been to speak of since then was an
agamst-all-the-odds triumph in the Inter-Cities Fairs (now
U EF A) Cup way back in 1969.  I recently watched a repeat of
the final on Sky Sports and the footage was black-and-white.
Nationally, on the day my mam was trying to get rid of
me while simultaneously trying to make me appear, Lord
Montagu of Beaulieu was making headlines for all the wrong
reasons: he was appearing in the dock to answer charges
relating to questionable acts with off-duty airmen. Who'd
have predicted our paths would cross one day? I met the
good lord almost fifty years later while I was playing a concert
in his back garden. On the day, I thought it best not to
mention our somewhat tenuous connection.
Eighty miles to the west of London and the High Court,
in Oxford, Roger Bannister managed a mile in under four
minutes that year, the first man to do so, in a time that's still
impressive today; he was wearing T-shirt, shorts and spikes,
but was without the benefit of Kevlar running shoes or a
wind-assisted lunch-box. When I'm fit I run a mile in around
ten minutes. At a push I could do one in under eight, but it
would be painful and I'd be gasping at the finish.
McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain was founded in
1954, a birthday I'd prefer not to have shared but we have no say in these things -- so, hey-ho. The end of post-war rationing
corresponded with the beginning of the Suez crisis. Not
realizing Suez was a region and, never having seen it written
down, I assumed it was 'sewers' and to do with drainage. It
certainly turned into a big stink as far as the British were
concerned. Aden was the other place that figured large in
the news of the day: I remember seeing in the newspapers
photos of British troops in khaki battledress being shot at
by unseen people referred to as terrorists. It's nothing new.

Across the Atlantic, in Memphis, Tennessee, a young man by the name of Elvis Aaron Presley was shaking his hips and
releasing his first single: the raucous, rip-roaring 'That's
Alright, Mama' marvellously muddied the waters that separated/segregated
'black' and 'white' music, scared the pants
off a nation's parents and allowed Elvis to take the first
explosive step on a career journey that would turn the world's
musical landscape upside down.
About a hundred miles up the freeway, in Washington DC,
Senator Eugene McCarthy was giving anyone not swathed in
the American flag a right old roasting. Were he still alive
today, there's no doubt he'd be a happy man right now.
Fairways was a post-war estate built by the local council
on what had until then been a golf course. The street names
were culled from famous courses -- Gleneagles Close, Carnoustie
Crescent. The old clubhouse became the local Conservative
Club; no change there, then. Just how- the members
must have felt at seeing their beautifully manicured lawns
and putting greens dug up to accommodate council houses
can only be imagined, but dug up they were and families like
ours were given wonderful new homes.
My parents were both from Walker, a socially deprived
district on the Tyne's north bank and about a mile west of
its mouth. The community had grown rapidly as a result of
and in tandem with maritime employment opportunities on
the river. As the twentieth century dawned, a local invention
was about to revolutionize the way the world moved around,
just as another had some two hundred years earlier. Back
then Stephenson's steam locomotives had changed the
world; now it was the turn of the turbine. This revolutionary
advance in propulsion power was already well on the way to
changing how world shipping, and in particular naval vessels,
were powered. In the space of a few hectic years these
miracles of heavy engineering made the old piston-driven
steam engines obsolete, and they were designed and built on
Tyneside. The legacy of George Stephenson was carried
forward by another engineering genius, Charles Parsons, the
man who first put the turbines into the ships. All this,
along with an already established reputation for building the
world's finest vessels, made the north-east of England an
economic powerhouse. Work was plentiful.
My father, born James Bradford on 26 March 1914, came
from a large family of Irish descent: five brothers, Davy,
Danny, Benny, Jimmy and john, and a sister, Katie. They lived
in Pottery Bank, right on the river and one of the roughest
places in the city. My paternal grandparents were long-dead
when I was born and, by all accounts, things were hard.
According to my dad, it wasn't unusual for the boys to have to
share a pair of shoes, given to them by the Police Boot Fund;
sometimes you walked to school barefoot. My dad was forced by circumstance to endure a hard early life and it turned him
into a hard man. The deprivation and suffering were undisputed
and very real. He was finished with school and into
the shipyards at the grand old age of fourteen.
He was also something of a sportsman. For young
working-class men in the 1920s sport offered one of the few
escape routes from the life they'd been born into. First it
was boxing, which saw him fighting as a teenager in amateur
contests and doing well locally, but a trip to Manchester,
where he came up against an opponent who could box,
rather than just fight, and got completely hammered, put
paid to that as a career option. He then turned his hand, or
rather his foot, to soccer.
He played first for Hartlepool United, then, some time in
the 1930s, he went to Huddersfield Town, in those days
a successful club. According to my mam, he was injured
almost immediately and spent the rest of his time there, a
single season, trying unsuccessfully to regain his fitness. At
some point on his travels he ended up in digs with Hughie
Gallagher, a footballing legend who met an untimely end.
According to my dad, Gallagher had argued with his son
and, in a fit of temper, had hit the lad. Inconsolable, he'd
gone out, waited for a train to come along and put his head
on the line.
My mam was born Laura Johnson on 14 February 1915,
Valentine's Day. The third of four children and sister to
three boys, two older, Billy and Jack, and one younger,
Edward, the baby of the brood. The Johnsons were from
St Anthony's, also in the Walker district but fancying itself
back then as slightly more genteel. As with my dad, my
mam's parents had died long before I was born. Her mother
had died in tragic circumstances: while heavily pregnant she'd
been trying to turn a mattress when she began haemorrhaging.
Laura was at primary school when a kid burst into the
classroom and told her, 'You've got to come home, your
mam's dead.' Her unborn baby was also lost. Not long after,
Laura's father died of a broken heart, according to my mam,
and from then on the four orphaned kids were brought up
by their aunties, Sarah and Isabelle Topping. Sarah was
married to George and I knew them as Aunts Sarah and
Belle and Uncle George. Taking on four young kids would
be quite an endeavour today, never mind back then, but it
was what people did and not uncommon; there was no
sophisticated social services set-up to offer help and guidance.
The only other option would have been the poorhouse.
Much to my disappointment I hardly ever got to visit my
dad's brothers and sister. In fact, so rarely did I meet up with
them that I can still remember my one and only visit to Aunt
Katie's Victorian terraced upstairs flat in Walker. A big
woman with silver grey hair tied up in a bun and wearing
big white billowing skirts, she was a daunting figure to a
five-year-old, as she stood at the top of her outside back stairs
puffing away on an unripped cigarette while her substantial


4

behind rested against a wooden railing. Although this would
have been the late 1950s it was like a scene from Oliver Twist.
I got to see slightly more of my uncles on my mam's side.
Billy, a railway worker late of the merchant marine and the
Middle East, was the eldest. I remember Uncle Billy as a
right misery with a long grey beard. He'd occasionally come
to visit, arriving on his moped in a full-length greatcoat and
peaked crash-helmet, looking old-fashioned and uncool. He
seemed older than God. He had quite a dry sense of humour,
though. Jack, the teacher, who ended up as head of a grammar
school in Hemel Hempstead, was big, loud and surly. I only
remember meeting him once, on a trip to his home in the
south. Edward was an engineer at Spadeadam. His son,
my cousin Neil, has one of the family's most treasured
possessions, a winner's medal from the 1924 FA Cup final,
won by my mam's uncle, George Mooney, waffle playing for
Newcastle United. I have to admit to being envious of Neil:
were that medal in my possession I'd have it on permanent
display at St James' Park.
According to my mam, my dad was quite the romantic in
those early days, which is hard for me to imagine. He would
often come round to where she lived and serenade her,
accompanying himself on a squeeze-box accordion. That
must have been a sight to see, as they're bloody hard things
to play. God knows what kind of gyp he got from the
neighbours. In describing this happy, fun-loving, carefree
young man to me, my mam was telling me all about a person
I'd never met. The reason for that was that this earlier, jollier
version of my dad went oft to fight in the Second World War
along with the rest of his generation and never returned.
His wartime experiences had changed him, and many other
young men.
My dad wasn't one for long conversations, but on one of
the rare occasions when he did talk to me about the war, the
old man described a scene so sad, so heartbreakingly awful,
that it brought tears to his eyes, which blokes like him tried
to avoid at all costs. Since the outbreak of war in 1939 he'd
been an able seaman in the Royal Navy and was at one point
serving aboard HMS Saxifrage, a flower-class cruiser sent out
to help safeguard the merchant-marine convoys on their
regular runs taking much-needed supplies north to Murmansk
to help the Russians. His description of the people
who were waiting in Murmansk to greet them, desperate,
freezing, starving, scrabbling on the dockside for scraps of
food, hugging and thanking the British sailors for their
efforts, was moving enough, but it was recalling the Royal
Navy's operational procedures when a merchant vessel had
been hit that so upset him.
These merchant ships, laden to the gunwales with their
precious cargoes, were slow and therefore vulnerable to
attack by the ever-present German U-boats. Sitting ducks.
Royal Navy anti-submarine vessels carrying their deadly
depth-charges patrolled constantly, but they couldn't be
everywhere, and when one of these merchant vessels found
itself on the wrong end of a tinfish it invariably went down
quickly; those crewmen lucky enough to survive the initial
attack ended up in the freezing sea. In such situations the
priority was to make sure that as much of the convoy as
possible made it to Murmansk, so a Royal Navy vessel was
despatched to make a single sweep of the area where the
merchant ship had sunk. Rope webbing was thrown over the
side, and as the ship sailed at reduced speed through the icy
water, anyone who could summon up the strength would
grab on to the webbing and either clamber or be hauled up
to the comparative safety of the deck. But they were only
allowed to make one sweep: every moment they were away
from the main convoy left it more vulnerable to further
attack. So, my dad and the rest of his shipmates, most of
them young lads like him in their teens and twenties, would
do their best, shouting encouragement at the poor souls and
urging them to grab on to the webbing. But not all those in
the water could manage it: their frozen fingers couldn't grip
or they'd fall back into the water before they could reach
safety. The memory of looking into the eyes of men only
yards away, knowing they'd be dead in minutes, then sailing
away into the darkness as their cries for help gradually faded
to nothing, brought only a shake of his head.

During those early years my dad occasionally talked about
the time he'd spent in America during the war while seconded
to the US Navy for some eighteen months. He'd laugh as he
recalled the on-deck sloppiness of the American sailors, with
their caps askew and their tunics unbuttoned, their informal
manner when engaged in conversation with an officer. If
they'd behaved like that aboard a Royal Navy ship, he said,
they'd have been frogmarched to the brig and been up on a
charge. He spoke of being billeted just outside New York
with some women called the Andrews Sisters, who were,
according to him, entertainers and quite famous at the time.
As I was mesmerized by Elvis and Co. at the time, the name
meant nothing to me.

He told me of an occasion when he and his mate were
eating in a New York restaurant and Bob Hope, seeing
their Royal Navy uniforms, had come over to their table to
wish them well. Later on, when they'd finished their meal,
they requested the bill, only to be told that Mr Hope had
instructed the management to give the two Limeys anything
they wanted and put it on his tab. Same thing had happened
to them in a bar owned by the ex-boxer 'Two-Ton' Tony
Gilento.

My dad spoke of evenings on the Andrews Sisters' porch
in upstate New York while they sang their close-harmony
songs for him and his mate. He told of sailing down to the
Florida Keys, of Key Largo and Key West, and he said it was
the most wonderful place he'd ever been to, that the water
was such a clear blue you could see right through it. I took
all this to be the yarn-spinning of an old man of the sea. I
mean, why on earth would the Royal Navy have seconded
my dad to the US Navy for eighteen months? After all, he
was just an able seaman first class, not a submarine captain.
Once or twice he'd mentioned something called Combined
Operations he'd been involved with, but he was a sailor, not
a spy. All the same, to a kid they were great yarns.

In most respects my dad was an old-fashioned guy, a man
very much of his time, not inclined towards deep, meaningful
conversation with a five-year-old. That's understandable,
after a working day that required him to leave the house at
six thirty a.m. and return most nights at around ten after
putting in a heavy manual shift, but I wish it had been
different. It wasn't, though, and other than the occasional
chinwag with the old man, most of my parental contact
during those early years was with my mam.

As a result of physical injuries, predominantly leg wounds,
that he sustained while serving in the Navy, my dad spent
months in a convalescent hospital, his footballing days over.
On being demobbed he was fitted with callipers that had
metal rods running vertically to the outside and inside of the
leg and thick leather collars around the knee, thigh and ankle
to enable him to walk. They lived inside the wardrobe in my
parents' bedroom long after my dad had stopped using them
and they puzzled me for most of my early years. I'd often
sneak in there just to open the wardrobe door and stare at
them leaning in the back corner, imagining them to be some

sort of robot skeleton, or bazookas maybe. If I asked my
mam about them, which I did from time to time, she'd tell
me, 'They're your dad's. From the war.'
The war changed my dad from a happy-go-lucky young
man with his eyes fixed firmly on the future into a hard
drinking introvert; bitter, cynical, haunted by the past.
Although his upbringing and social circumstances had him
firmly marked down as a Labour Party man, he never aligned
himself to any one political party, believing them all to be a
wash-out in terms of their supposed worth to the working
man. From what I've seen, he wasn't far wrong. In the
days before therapy, psychoanalysis and the recognition of
post-traumatic stress disorder and its psychological effects
on servicemen and women, many a confused soul sought
refuge in the drink. My dad was one and, it has to be said,
the drink didn't suit him. He was never violent in the house, at
least not physically -- maybe because he knew from first-hand
experience how much damage fists could do. I cannot recall
an instance of him raising his hands to me or anyone else in
the family. No, the damage my dad inflicted was the kind
that goes unnoticed by the human eye: it came from his
mouth. On the odd occasions I was around to hear and not
tucked up in bed, he said things to my mam that were cruel,
nasty and spiteful.
By the time I came along things weren't going well between
my mam and dad. This, coupled with the gap between my
birth and that of my nearest sister (some nine years), leads
me to believe I must have been a mistake, the result of a
temporary lull in the domestic warfare, a 'brown-ale baby'.
As a result of my birth my mam became dangerously anaemic
and suffered severe post-natal depression, with anxiety
attacks and claustrophobia. As with my dad's problems, it
went unrecognized and untreated, and my mam ended up
spending a lot of her time a bus-ride away with her aunts
Sarah and Belle, away from her husband and family. I was
too young to take on board what was happening.
My overriding memory of visiting aunts and relatives is of
having to sit in gloomy parlours with dark wood cabinets
containing hand-painted china tea-sets to be used only on
special occasions, and heavy lace curtains up at the windows.
We listened to the big Bush valve radio with its massive
circular tuning dial and place-names like Belgrade and Stockholm
written in tiny dark-red letters. A television was beyond
the wherewithal of the Bradfords and the Johnsons. Sundays
were the worst, having to sit there while your mates were all
out playing footie or climbing trees, having adventures. I'd
be made to sit there as thick dry slices of fruit cake were
pushed towards me, and I wasn't allowed to move until I'd
eaten it all, by which time I usually couldn't move anyway.
On a Sunday afternoon it was the BBC's Light Programme
or the Home Service -- there were no commercial radio
stations -- with programmes like the wonderful Round The
Home, with Kenneth Home, or the slightly less-than
wonderful The Clitheroe Kid, starring the shrill-voiced Jimmy
Clitheroe. It was harmless and daft. Shrill-voiced he might
have been, but Jimmy Clitheroe was one of the first people
I heard on the radio with a regional accent. It wasn't unlike
my own, and everyone laughed at it.
Never-ending afternoon would eventually drift into
interminable early evening and The Black and White Minstrel
Show or Sing Something Simple. These were the radio forerunners
or the 1960s television shows featuring white guys with their
races blacked up, looking like cartoon Negroes. George
Mitchell was their leader. For a young kid itching to be
out causing mischief with his pals it was stifling, yet those
enforced listening sessions instilled in me a love of radio
comedy and an awareness of the beauty and potency of
words and melodies that has stayed with me ever since.
Ah, melody. It came by way of the radio, hymns sung at
school and Hollywood film musicals I sometimes got to see
at picture houses such as the Scala, the Essoldo, the Stoll or
Black's Regal. I could sing every one of those film and radio
songs all the way through, even the ones I didn't like. I could
whistle them, too, as my dad had taught me how to do it
with the aid of an entire box of matches. At his signal I'd
purse my lips and blow out the lighted match. In no time
there was a note, then another, and I was off, whistling
melodies day and night. Whistling Rufus, my mam used to
call me.
Other than the flicks and the odd 78 r.p.m. record my
sisters occasionally bought, the BBC, via radio, was the sole
provider of all the latest hit melodies and our entertainment.
The BBC was well respected in our house, a national institution.
I loved it. We didn't have a clue as to how the radio
worked, but we knew that when you switched it on, magical
sounds came out of it.
When I was a kid a lot of my pals smoked, but not me. I
have never in my life smoked a cigarette, partly because I had
to listen to my dad cough his guts up every morning before
he could get up. He suffered from emphysema, a respiratory
disease. I thought it was the fault of the tabs, as cigarettes
were then known. Another reason I abstained dates back to
when I was six or seven. On one of those dreaded Sunday
visits to Walker I was talking with Uncle George. A lovely
big gentle man who would then have been around sixty,
George had a speech impediment, one of those little things
that could be rectified these days in a matter of hours but
which was then left untreated. It was difficult to understand
what he said, which was never much at the best of times as
he was embarrassed by his speech. He smoked a pipe, which
fascinated me. The television series Maigret was big at the
time and the eponymous hero smoked a pipe, so I'd constantly
badger Uncle George for a try of his. The answer was
always no, but one day he relented. He filled it up with shag
tobacco, set it ablaze and handed it to me with the instruction
to take a great big suck and breathe it all in. This I did with
the zeal of the inquisitive child.
A moment later I turned blue, then a sickly yellow, and
was violently sick on the carpet. There was hell to pay: Uncle
George got a right ear-bashing from aunts Sarah and Belle didn't
he know I was only a bairn, what was he trying to do
and all that. But Uncle George knew what he was doing, and
I owe him a big thank-you for helping to ensure that I was
never tempted to stick one of those filthy things in my mouth
and set it on fire.
If the street I lived in was my playground then its two bits
of grass were my Wembley. For as long as I can remember
I've been football daft, with Newcastle United being the
focal point and recipient of my devoted support. I'm so glad
I was born and raised in an area where love of the beautiful
game is almost mandatory. Also, with Newcastle, it's one
toon, one team. As someone who's lived more than half his
life in London I feel it's different in the south: London has
half a dozen top clubs and many more in the lower divisions,
so support is more spread out. Londoners know their football
and love their teams, no doubt about that, but we Geordies,
I think, have a greater love of the game itself. When the team
does well up there in God's country, the whole city perks UP> gets a lift; it's noticeable wherever you go, especially
on those Saturday evenings straight after a home game.
Conversely, when the toon take a pummelling in the Premier
League, which thankfully happens a bit less regularly, these
days, or loses a big cup-tie, the whole city feels the pain of
communal loss. But that love for football is always there: if
an opposition player comes to St James' Park and turns in
an outstanding performance, he'll most likely be applauded
off the pitch. As with the people, so with the team: hard but
fair.
I must admit to one brief spell when my allegiances lay
elsewhere, not with another club, never that, but with a single
player, the greatest footballer I've ever seen. I was about ten
when a young lad called George Best began getting noticed
with Manchester United and, like most young lads throughout
the land, I was George-Best potty. Because of his looks,
long hair and lifestyle, he was treated like a pop star, and was
often referred to by the media as the fifth Beatle. If George
was due to do his thing with Manchester United, the gate at
St James' Park would swell by thousands. People, women
especially, who might not otherwise go to a football match
would make the effort to see Bestie and they were usually
rewarded with displays, or at least glimpses, of sheer genius.
Speed, balance, poise, vision, bravery, stamina, two good feet
and he could head the ball as well: George truly had it all. There are plenty of people who feel he never fully realized
his true potential. Maybe, but anyone who ever saw one of
his spellbinding dribbles as he set off towards goal will tell
you it doesn't get any better. On that pitch and with a ball at
his feet, George Best was way beyond the normal parameters
of human ability. He was in a place few of us ever get to go.
I used to dream of being able to do just one or two of the
many things he could do.
One year Father Christmas brought me a George Best
Manchester United replica kit, such as it was in those days. I
was so knocked out by it I wouldn't take it off for almost a
week. I played outside in it, I even slept in it. Everyone
around me was football daft, my pals, the big lads, my dad,
the grown-ups. And England hadn't won the World Cup yet.
Football was a credo, a way of life in Newcastle, and it still
is today. The team carries the name of the town. Both have
been big influences on my life.
Twelve houses made up Penfold Close, two sets of semis
on either side and a four-house link-terrace at the top. At
number one were the 'later' Aliens, who arrived after us, Stan
and Steve and their parents. They moved in when I was
about ten. I can't remember who was there before them.
Next door at number three were the Robinsons, with kids
Elaine, Valerie and Norman. Elaine wore short skirts. Mrs
Robinson seemed a bit stuck-up, which always struck me as
strange, her living where she did. The Erskines were at
number five: Madeleine was much older than me, sexy but
way out of reach, and younger Robert was a bit of a bully.
They moved, and the Nansens arrived. In later years Matty
Nansen became a drinking pal of my dad's.
The Marshalls lived at number seven, kids Keith, Brenda,
Trevor, Phillip, Judith, Johnny, Stephen and Andrew. Mr
Marshall was a real card, with a sense of humour as dry as a
bone. Trevor was my age and we became big buddies, the
best of mates. Hated each other one minute, loved each
other the next. In the middle of a round of 'Knights in
Armour' one day, using bits of old fencing as broadswords,
I belted Trevor over the head, not knowing there was a
four-inch nail in the sharp end of my sword. Trevor ran off
into his house, screaming blue murder.
A few weeks later he got his revenge while he was digging
the back garden. I was standing near him, watching, and he
whacked the spade down on my toes, cutting clean through my plimsoll and all but severing my big toe. It hurt. I
screamed and hopped home sharpish. That necessitated six
weeks of visits to Walkergate Hospital, where nurses had to
keep removing my big toenail with a pair of tweezers. I guess
we were even.
The Grahams were at number nine, their son David and
his sister, much older than me. Tall people, proper grownups.
Mr and Mrs Graham must have been at least a hundred.
David had great push bikes -- he had a Flying Scot, dead cool,
but with mudguards! Nobody had mudguards except the old
people. The Gummets lived at number eleven with their
kids, Peter and Susan. Peter was a year older than me so we
hung out a lot together. Susan was younger and plump. Mr
Gummet expected Peter to follow him into the Army, where
he'd been a career soldier. Peter had a go in the TA and said
it was great, but told me years later that he'd hated every
minute of it.
The Yeats family occupied number two, with kids Ian and
Lorna. Ian was a pal. Dad Harry was a great bloke, wise,
funny, and always had time to talk to us kids. He worked at
De la Rue Bros, printers on the Teams Valley trading estate.
They printed money, banknotes. It was a job for life, so they
said. Ian would follow when he was old enough, so they said.
The McCarthys were at number four, mam, dad, Wilfred,
Cyril, Mickey, twins Leo and Peter, Mary and Susan. Mr
McCarthy was in poor health and couldn't work so they were
always struggling. Great bloke, though, short and plump with
a bit of Edward G. Robinson about him. Always ready with
a smile. When I was older the McCarthys moved out and the
Lusks moved in. Geoff was my age and he was a nice kid. I
quite fancied his mam.
At number six were the Witheys and their daughters,,
Sylvia and Edna, both older than me. Mr Withey had a face
like a tombstone with a friendly smile. Edna Withey was a
dish. Dead trendy, with big hair and mini-skirts. And kinky
boots, like Cathy Gale's on The Avengers. Unattainable. A
horny hormonal young 'un could dream, though, and very
often did.
The 'original' Aliens lived at number eight, Albert, Tilly
and kids Anne, Tess, Gordon, Joan, Rose, Vincent, Paul,
Bernadette and Christine, strict Roman Catholics. All in a
three-bedroom house. Mrs Allen went out to work every
day. There was us at number ten, and the Rogers family
next door at number twelve. Elder brother Ivan, and twins
Pat(ricia) and Peter. All older than me. Mr Rogers worked
for the railways in Ireland; we never saw him. Mrs Rogers
was very bad with her nerves. She used to bang on the
window with her knuckles when we played football in the
street. If the ball ever went into her front garden, it called
for unspeakable bravery on the part of whoever had kicked
it last to leap over the hedge and retrieve it. Ivan was a
printer. Peter went into the post office as a telegraph boy;
you got a uniform and an underpowered motorbike. Ivan
once got Peter some cards printed up that said, Have Gun:
Will Travel, taken from the western series of that name that
was running on television at the time, starring Richard Boone.
That was cool. Underneath, in smaller letters, it said 'Wire
Palladin'. I didn't understand, and thought Wire must've
been Palladin's Christian name. I remember there was a lot
of stuff like that I didn't understand, names, places, etc.
Words I'd hear but never saw written down. I began to be
inquisitive about words, about their meaning, their sound,
their spelling, their origin. I began to ask questions.
The Hewitts lived just round the corner at the bottom of
the street, with kids Peter, Les, David and Angela. David
was the same age as me and Trevor and dead brave, so we
three buddied up. That was our little gang, me, Dave and
Trevor, the three of us. Old Jock Hewitt had been on
submarines in the war, and the word was it had sent him a
bit doo-lally. He used to drink whisky, then raise holy hell in
the house and sometimes out in the street. Next door was
the Cairns family. Their oldest lad, John, was known as
Sputnik. I never found out why, it was a mystery, but we
took it to be derogatory. Could he run! He had a fantastic
turn of speed, especially on the wing. Like a whippet, he was,
lightning quick. There was no way of stopping him other
than with a foul. Mickey, his younger brother, was called
Mick the Greek, again for reasons unknown. I don't think
there was any Greek connection -- perhaps it had more to
do with his swarthy skin colour than anything else. Not far
along, at number too Fairways Avenue were the Baldwin
brothers, Harry and Brian, regarded by all my pals' mothers
as trouble. They were a little older than I was so they ignored
me. Their mam made and sold toffee cakes for a penny. We'd
call with our coppers and she'd take the cakes off a little shelf
by the door and hand them over. We'd lick and lick until
they were all gone. They tasted delicious.
Harry Baldwin used to hang out with Johnny Fail, who
lived across the road from him at the bottom of the bio; field.
Johnny was the first person I knew to have long hair. I'm
sure he wasn't aware of my existence. He was one of the big
lads and never acknowledged us lot. Early evening, around
six thirty, we youngsters would stop kicking a ball and look
on in admiring silence as Johnny Fail walked past us, with
his hair touching the collar of his shirt, on his way into town.
Phew!
Me and Trevor and Dave would meet in the street to plot
and plan our escapades: crossy-gardens, knockie-nine-doors,
Montekitty, a game whose rules I could never grasp. Apple
raiding, bogie-building. Down to the 'cowfield' with our
jam-jars to collect frogspawn to take home and watch until
it turned into tadpoles. The wheat in the cowfield grew high
in the summer and we'd sneak around playing Japs and
commandos and making a right old mess. We'd sometimes
try to eat the wheat but it was horrible. How could that have
anything to do with nice sugary breakfast cereals?
Shows like Ready Steady Go! and Juke Box Jury were on the
telly every week, bringing us the very latest in fantastic pop
sounds. I'd stand there, transfixed, as bands like Manfred
Mann blasted out tracks like '5-4-3-2-1' with wailing harmonica.
As soon as the programme was over I'd be out in
the street to meet Ian and Trevor and Dave and talking,
discussing, comparing. Ian didn't like Manfred Mann's new
one. What? How could you not? It was like a train coming
through the living room! And what about that new one by
the Kinks? They had cool shirts with frills and the singer had
a gap in his front teeth. So it would go as we talked and
played air guitar until the sun went down and long after.
We'd dream of being in pop groups and becoming millionaires,
with American convertibles and Chelsea boots, just
like the Animals who were from down the road in Walker.
Although there were roads and plenty of places to park,
there were hardly any cars, anywhere, as few people could
afford one, so you could play outside as much as you liked
without worrying your mam. This meant whole days spent
kicking a ball, usually a tennis ball, around the grass and
against the kerb for rebounds. Sometimes someone would
appear with a real, big ball and then we'd all go round the
corner to the field and have a big game. Jumpers for goalposts
and mind out for the dogshit. No one ever wanted to play
in goal. I still reckon you have to have a screw loose to want
to be a goal-keeper.
Mr Robinson, the window-cleaner who lived at number
ten, had a big motorbike with a sidecar for his ladders
sometimes he gave the kids a ride. Mr Marshall, a manager
at Pickfords Heavy Haulage, had a company car, a Morris
shooting-brake. Later the street began to fill up with vehicles
as more families could afford them. Not us, though. I pestered
my dad for years, feeling that without one we were
second-class citizens, but he would have none of it. He used
to tell me that if a man drank, he shouldn't drive a car. That
was it. No discussion. So we never had one. My sisters both
bought cars, but that wasn't the same: I wanted to go on
family drives to the country for picnics, like the smiling
people in the adverts. Instead, for us it was the bus, full of
smelly strangers. It turned me into a bad traveller.
I don't remember us as being particularly poor or short
of anything: we just seemed the same as those around us, no
better or worse off, but one of my strongest childhood
memories is of walking across the big field towards the shops
at the Four Lane Ends, with my mam carrying two bags
filled with empty pop bottles. In those days they were made
of thick glass with a big black screw stopper and you got
threepence, about a penny in today's money, when you
returned one to wherever you'd bought it. To me those walks
to the shops were an adventure, an opportunity to hang on
to my mam's coat and play, but they must have been difficult
for her. Not only was she unwell with anaemia and what was
known mysteriously as 'women's trouble', she had her pride.
It was expected of a wife that she would get by on whatever
housekeeping her husband gave her, never mind if he didn't
give her enough, which was often the case in our house. If
we passed a neighbour on the way to the shops, the clank of
those bottles in the bags left no one in any doubt as to where
we were headed, and why.

To be sung to the melody of 'My Darling Clementine':

Benton Park School, Benton Park School, is a load of misery.
If it wasn't for the teachers, all the schoolkids would be free.
Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, put the teachers on the top,
Put the prefects in the middle and burn the fucking lot!

Little wonder things went wrong from early on.
As my daily routine had until then consisted almost entirely
of climbing trees, eating the locally made Tudor crisps and
playing football with my pals, I was none too keen on
interrupting it to attend the local primary school, Benton
Park. I'd heard rumours: lessons, uniforms, teachers. It was
no place to have fun. It did have a football pitch, though,
and Trevor and Dave would be starting at the same time. So
I gave it a go, and didn't like it one little bit. In fact, so much
did I not like it that on one occasion when my mam was
literally dragging me towards the school gates, I moved
my weight forwards, throwing her off balance. My mam
disappeared over a wall.
Benton Park Primary was where I first encountered Ray
Black, institutional discipline in the form of rules, and girls.
Ray lived up near the Four Lane Ends, where the big shops
were, with his mother, three brothers, Eddie, Joe and David,
and three sisters, Norma, Muriel and Moira. Ray's dad had
>een a sea captain but he was dead. Ray was the only lad I
knew who didn't have a dad. I thought that was awful and
mightily unfair. Racing bikes were all the rage and Ray had a
good one, a Merlin, mustard-coloured lightweight frame,
ten-speed Campagnolo gears, the works. I was dead envious.
Even as a boy Ray was a man of few words, never used ten
when half a dozen would do. He was great, a proper pal, a
hard-case no one messed with. He knew all about conkers
and frogspawn and racing bikes. We remain the best of
friends.
I had a problem with discipline from the word 'go' - or,
more accurately, 'go!' I've still not got the hang of taking
orders impolitely issued. Girls were just plain weird; none of
them liked football or climbing fences, and they seemed to
spend an awful lot of time in the toilet. I found girls a puzzle
from day one, yet despite everything I was inexplicably drawn
to these strange non-boys.
My first teachers were the unfortunately named Mr Willey,
and Mrs Thompson. Mr Willey loved to tell us of his own
love for the north-eastern dialect; his favourite words were
'claggy darts', which, loosely translated, means a sticky,
muddy mess. He introduced us kids to Owen Brannigan, the
great bass-baritone singer. Brannigan was a Bedlington lad
who'd achieved international recognition in opera; Benjamin
Britten was impressed enough to write a part in Billy Budd especially for him. To most folk up north, however, Owen
Brannigan was known for his recorded interpretations of
local traditional songs. Mr Willey, a big man himself, was a
huge fan of Brannigan and would sing us songs such as 'Caa'
Hackie', all about a cow that wouldn't wade through water never
mind that there was a rock 'n' roll revolution going on
outside in the streets. Wonderful stuff it was, of real value
and importance, though I thought it tripe at the time. Some
of Brannigan's recordings are still available from Windows'
music store in Newcastle, and a single listen to something
like 'Canny Tyneside' is all you need to understand what all
the fuss was about. For me Brannigan was a Geordie Paul
Robeson.
Mrs Thompson was older than Mr Willey: tiny, blonde,
plump with a sexy asthmatic wheeze and always jolly, she
looked to me like a kind of Easter egg. Always there for a
reassuring cuddle, she was very kind -- so kind in fact that
she spoiled me: I had soon assumed all teachers were the
same. Ha!
Mrs Martin was my last teacher at Benton Park, and she
was horrible. With her tweed suits, glaring eyes, whining
voice and gold-capped teeth, she resembled a well-dressed
witch. On one occasion, having told me to stop talking in
class, she hauled me into the stock cupboard, tied my wrists
together, put a piece of masking tape over my mouth,
switched off the light then left, locking the door behind her.
The only thing I could see were the luminous numbers on a
clock sitting high up on a shelf; it tick-ticked away, making
the time pass even slower. I was ten years old.
The headmistress at Benton Park was Miss Green, a
spindle-thin woman, bone-dry, plain of feature and dress,
and without the slightest hint of a personality. As kids she
and my mam had been at Heaton High School for Girls
together. My mam had won an assisted place, through a
scheme that helped bright kids from poorer families. She
was convinced this was why Miss Green bore me a grudge.
The girls in my class with whom I tried to make friends
were Olwen 'Oily' Thompson, Linda Heads and Lynn
Morpeth. Where are you now, girls? Linda had an older sister
called Sandra, whom I fancied, but she wore fashionable
clothes, went into town at night and was out of my league.
Also, their mam, Mrs Heads, disapproved of me, sensible roman, so there was no joy there. They lived in a private
house, as we called all non-council houses, just along from
the school. There was another girl, Janice Burdon -- we all
gave her a terrible time. I can't remember why, maybe she
was just poorer than the rest of us. Whatever the reason,
Janice was on the receiving end of some awful, cruel stuff.
When I was about ten I found myself spending a great
deal of time hanging around outside the home of Judith
Sanderson. She was a beautiful girl a year or two younger
than me with a beaming smile, long dark hair she wore in a
pony-tail, long legs to match and soft unblemished skin.
Unusually, her skin was darker than most of the other kids
because her mam was Indian. At that time there was no
Asian community in Newcastle to speak of, interracial marriages
were unheard of, and to me it was nothing more than
a novelty -- rather exotic, having an Indian mam. Years later,
Judith told me of the almost-daily racist slurs and insults her
mother endured. Perhaps Mrs Sanderson, like Mrs Heads,
wasn't keen on the prospect of having her daughter mauled
by sweaty little mitts. Our brief friendship was discouraged
and eventually fizzled out.
My days at Benton Park Primary were marked by what
seemed like some pretty extreme stuff. I once decided I'd
had enough of everything so I'd run away. Ray Black and I
made our way to Paddy Freeman's park and played there all
day until we got bored and returned home. In those days it
was safe enough to do such things but I was still in for a
roasting when I got home. On another occasion I organized
a lunch protest when our meals didn't arrive on time. Fists
clenched, we all started banging the handles of our knives
and forks on the tables and chanting, 'we want wer
dinner! we want wer dinner!' Although I was displaying
obvious leadership qualities, I got a smack for
that one.
The aim of every nipper on the Fairways estate was to get
into the gang. The big lads were in charge: they organized
apple raids and crossy-gardens and you had to pass various
tests before you were allowed in. The one that scared the
hell out of me was having to learn, and then recite, the devil's
prayer: 'Damn, damn, bugger-hell, shit, shite, amen.' Every
night I'd cower under my heavy Navy-issue blanket, whispering
bits of the blasphemous verse, expecting a thunderbolt
to come down from heaven and hit me on the head. Then
there was the ordeal of having to recite it in front of all the
other kids. That was really tempting fate, but thankfully the
much-feared thunderbolt never materialized.
One of the best times of the year was 5 November, Bonfire
Night. Good old Guy Fawkes, we got up to all sorts in his
name. Rockets fired through letterboxes, bangers tied to cats'
tails, air bombs aimed at garages. All the things you feel really
bad about once you get older and have a bit more common
sense. How no one ever got badly injured I'll never know.
The building of the bonfire became almost a civil engineering
project, planned months in advance and guarded day and
night during construction. The whole estate would use the
evening of 5 November as an opportunity to get rid of any
old furniture. During the weeks beforehand I would run
home from school, wolf down my dinner and then be out
knocking on doors to see if anyone had anything for the
bonfire.
The centrepiece was always a pole of some sort, which
reached high into the air. Stacked around it was all the stuff
we'd collected. Watching it grow bigger by the day and the week was so exciting. We also had to guard against rival
gangs coming to torch it early. That was a favourite, and
complex plans were laid to avoid such a disaster. Someone
would always be at the site, day and night. It meant having
to sleep there on occasion -- I shudder when I recall what
we used to do. We'd make a kind of den right inside the
bonfire, an Aladdin's cave decked out with old settees and
carpets, and sleep in there. Thank God nobody ever came
along and set fire to it when we were inside.
The search for a suitable centre pole began early on and
the big lads were choosy about what they'd use. One year
they felled a working telegraph pole on Coach Lane. Thankfully
there weren't many cars around back then, or police,
for that matter. I watched it fall, incredulous, and then all we
little 'uns carried it shoulder-high, like munchkins, marching
through the estate and on to the big field.
Try as I might to make it the opposite, there was no getting
away from it: school was getting in the way of my having
fun. As the years passed, rules loomed large in my little life.
I never had a problem with doing as I was told, as long as
an order, instruction or command was delivered with courtesy.
If not, that was when the problems started. It was all
too often a case of 'Do as you're told, boy!' Put like that, I
never could. My biggest problem was that I couldn't keep
my mouth shut. I wanted to answer every question and
would call out the answers instead of putting up my hand.
This led to my being first ignored, then told off and eventually
punished. I couldn't see the justice in that. I began to feel
victimized and also to harbour a grudge against the teachers,
the grown-ups, the people in charge. The worst thing about
it was that I was usually correct with the answers, which
made my sense of injustice all the greater. If only I'd kept
my gob shut, put my hand up and waited like everyone else!
Too eager to impress, I guess.
At the age of eleven, every kid in the country had to
sit the eleven-plus examination, which decided your next
scholastic port of call and pretty much the course of your

life. From Benton Park the top tier of boys went off to
Heaton Grammar School, there to study the more academic,
artistic and scientific subjects with a view to tertiary education;
the middle tier went on to Manor Park Technical
School, with slightly less emphasis on academic study and
more on engineering, wood- and metal-working crafts; the
rest were off to Chillingham Road Secondary Modern, to be
prepared for a life of manual labour. These kids could look
forward to apprenticeships in the construction industry:
bricklaying, plastering, jobs that were then regarded as okay
if you were capable of nothing better.
I was dead-set on making it to Heaton Grammar. My
sister Val had been part of the first wave of young working
class people to benefit from greater educational opportunities
in the 1960s and had gone on to study English at Leeds
University, eventually becoming vice-president of the students'
union. The whole family was rightly very proud.
Trevor Marshall's older brother, Keith, had made it to
Heaton Grammar, and I was impressed.
I had this idea that I'd emulate my sister, make the family
proud of me, become an English teacher at Heaton Grammar,
there to roam around its stone corridors in a threadbare
tweed jacket with a pair of glasses, a leather briefcase and a
book in my hand. James the academic. So I tried really hard
in the eleven-plus, gave it my best shot. When they read out
the results, in front of all the class, I was crestfallen to learn
I'd only secured a place at Manor Park, the technical school.
The teacher who read out the results was a rather
unpleasant middle-aged man called Mr Turnbull. He looked
at me and said, 'Manor Park, although I don't know how
you managed that!' I felt ashamed, felt I'd let the family
down. I also felt thick. The results couldn't lie, could they?
Although going to Manor Park meant I'd actually passed the
eleven-plus, this was my first taste of being marked down as
a failure. I didn't like it. Worse still, my best pal Ray was on
his way to Chillingham Road. On the plus side, though,
Trevor Marshall and Dave Hewitt were both headed for
Manor Park, and it was literally at the end of our estate, no
more than a few minutes' walk, so it wasn't all bad.
Many years later I returned to Benton Park to watch my
niece, Kathryn, perform in the annual school nativity play
with the rest of the nippers. My mam was there, too, and at
some point she bumped into her old schoolfriend Miss
Green, who'd become Mrs Hayes and had long-since retired.
'My, hasn't your Jimmy done well for himself?' My mam
agreed I had. 'Who'd have ever thought it? What a surprise.'
Not to me, replied my mam, he was always a bright lad. In
fact, my mam recalled how surprised she'd been, we'd all
been, at my not making it to Heaton Grammar School all
those years ago. 'He did pass, actually,' said Mrs Hayes, 'but
we decided to award him a slightly lower mark as we didn't
want Benton Park to gain a reputation for sending disruptive
pupils up to the grammar school.' My mam didn't tell me any
of this until years later for fear of what my reaction might be,
and I have to admit I was profoundly upset and angry about it
for a long time, but that anger passed and gave way to disappointment.
For me the saddest part is that, through incredible
good fortune, my life eventually turned out all right. I beat
the odds. I won. But how many other kids' lives were blighted,
and at what eventual cost to both themselves and the state?
And all because people like Mrs Hayes regarded their own
perceived good name as being of more importance than the
interests of their pupils. Things are different now, I hope.

Back in the class, Mr Turnbull put the tin hat on a
miserable day by taking me to one side and telling me that
he knew a lot of the older boys at Manor Park School and
he'd ensure that when I got there my life would be hell.
Those were his words. I remember them clearly: no one had
ever said anything like that to me before. Why he should
have wanted to do this I don't know. He had a daughter I
used to hang around with, but we were only little. Certainly
too little for any of that. Whatever, his sadistic promise meant
that, although we were smack-bang in the middle of the most
creative cultural times there'd ever been, with top tunes being
released every week, the summer of 1965 was an anxious one
for me. I marked the days off in my little diary. It was a sad,
disappointing end to a precious part of my childhood and a
brutal indication of what was to follow.

September 1965. Manor Park: the big school. Full uniform,
blue blazer with a badge on the breast pocket. Boys only.
Phoney coat-of-arms, phoney Latin motto underneath,
swords, shields, the whole nine yards. A technical school, a
fifties innovation to the education system, aimed at bridging
the gap between the clever kids and the dunces.
In the early 1960s various scandals engulfed the Tory party
and rocked it to its foundations, the most notorious being
the Christine Keeler/John Profumo affair. As a result, a
Labour government under Harold Wilson had swept to
power in 1964 on an 'out with the old, in with the new'
ticket. Labour had been in the political wilderness for more
than a decade. Their election victory was followed by a
period of massive social change, the likes of which this
country had not seen since the immediate post-war years of
the 1940s when the welfare state was introduced. This time
round, though, the working classes were empowered as
never before: sustained expansion, most notably in areas of
education and housing, was matched only, and ominously,
by spending. The hangover wouldn't be felt until the dark


28

days of the 1970s, but the 1960s were a swinging groovy
party that everyone seemed happy to buy into. In terms of
the country's long-term good, it had its downsides -- in
municipal architecture for a start -- but at the time it was
incredibly exciting, especially if you were a teenager.
The nation needed engineering trainees, civil, mechanical
and electrical, and schools such as Manor Park were meant
to be feeder farms, set up solely to supply the shipyards,
building sites and mines with much-needed raw material.
The headmaster, Mr Laidlaw -- or Check, as he was known
to us kids -- was short and wore a flowing gown that made
him look a bit like a baldy bat. With his wizened little face
and flat square Slavic head he looked quite scary in an
academic way.
From day one it was a different proposition from the
relative idyll of Benton Park. Any similarity ended with the
names. Manor Park said discipline, loud and clear. Some of
the boys were like men: they had stubble, sideburns and
'taches. Some of the teachers were animals. And from day
one I didn't fit in.
It started badly. My own fault, mind. On leaving Benton
Park Primary I was still wearing my beloved short trousers
with the neat presses in them and continued to do so right
through the summer, running around the housing estate,
kicking a football or climbing trees. Murder on the knees, it
was, but long trousers would have been like wearing two
skinny sleeping-bags. When the time came to think about a
uniform for the big school I was in no doubt: I'd be wearing
short trousers. Did I not want her to get me a pair of those
long ones like the other lads were getting? asked my mam.
Nah! They looked ridiculous, those long trousers. And
Trevor and Dave were going to be wearing their shorts. So
that was that. Until day one.
First day at the big school is always traumatic. Major
nerves. All that noise, all those unfamiliar faces, people
milling around, hundreds of kids, dozens of teachers, and I
didn't know any of them. Just Trevor and Dave, and I
couldn't see either of them. And what about the big lads Mr
Turnbull had briefed to make sure my life was hell? Where
were they hiding? From outside the gates the place looked
like a zoo. Never mind, take a breath and in you go. It must
have been about a minute before some wag shouted out
something about 'Look at the little pouf in his little short
trousers!' Then the laughing started.
When you're a kid, laughter in such circumstances can be
excruciatingly painful and it cut into me like a knife. I stood
out like a sore thumb. I was different from the rest and I
didn't want to be, not on day one, not like this. I looked
around for help, for kindred short-trousered spirits, and
finally spotted Trevor and Dave -- in long trousers. In no
time at all I was rolling around on the playground Tarmac
in my brand-new school uniform scrapping with the wag
responsible for the slur. That scene must have repeated itself
half a dozen times that first morning.
When I got home at lunch-time my mam was waiting at
the front door for me, dying to know how my first morning
at the big school had been. She was shocked to see the state
of her little lad and, more particularly, of his brand-new
school uniform. It was in tatters. I insisted she go down to
J. T. Parrish's department store in Byker and get me some
long trousers, begged her, told her my life was on the line.
This she did and by the second day of that term I had long
trousers. They felt like sackcloth, weighed a ton and itched
like hell but they were the same length as everyone else's.
Bearing in mind we had little money and clothes had to be
bought with coupons - a clandestine and expensive credit
system run by local department stores -- it was good of my
mam to make it work. In all my life she never once let me
down, never disappointed me. I only wish I could say the
same of myself.
In terms of my time at Manor Park, those trousers were a
taste of things to come. Some of the teachers were violent
back then and thought nothing of dishing out the kind of
beatings that today would merit a long jail sentence. On one
occasion a teacher gave me such a hiding I was reduced to
tears. I'd closed my eyes in class and our German teacher,
Mrs McLennan, one of the few women at the school, had
decided I was asleep and told me to report to a senior
colleague. Of all the things I might have been guilty of,
sleeping in class was not one. I couldn't have gone to sleep:
my mind was too active. I was terror-stricken and begged
her not to send me out, knowing what I'd be in for. I pleaded
with her, but she wouldn't have it, so up I went to the next
floor where the teacher was giving a lessson to 3T, a class
with some of my pals in it. I knocked on the door. Through
the little glass panel I could see him as he prowled around
the room. After a moment he waved me in.
He was a muscular man, not bulked up as a weightlifter
might be but broad-shouldered, slim-waisted and fit. Rumour
had it he'd been a goalkeeper before becoming a teacher. He
wandered up and down the aisles, not saying a word, as the
class sat in silent, abject terror. After an age he said to me,
'Why are you here, boy?'
I told him Mrs McLennan had sent me up and then tried
to explain what had happened.
He raised his hand for me to stop, so I did. 'Were you
sleeping, boy?' he asked.
'No, sir' I said.
He made his way towards me by first walking up an aisle,
slowly, then down another, even more slowly, dragging it
out. Then, all of a sudden, bang, his open palm smacked
into my face. I'd never had a smack as hard as that in my
life. My eyes watered. I could feel the skin going all warm
and red. On top of that I was humiliated: some of my mates
were watching this. No one laughed, though. It was too
dangerous.
That was just the start of it. He took a handful of my hair,
yanked my head backwards and asked me again: 'Were you
asleep, boy?'
'No, sir,' I repeated.
Wrong answer. He dragged me to the door and opened it
with the hand that was still clutching my hair, then it was out
into the corridor and we were heading for the stairwell. He
banged my head against a door panel with such force that
the glass broke. Luckily for me, there was Georgian Wired
Polished glass in the doors, a type of clear safety glass, with
wire strengtheners running through it, so it didn't shatter
into shards. But it was also very thick so it hurt. Downstairs
we stopped outside my classroom and he continued
questioning me while he smacked me square in the face.
After about six blows I gave up and admitted to something
I hadn't done. I lied, which I suppose I should have done
earlier. But I had been telling the truth. That's what you get
for being honest. I was then made to go back into Mrs
McLennan's classroom and apologize to her. I think she got
a bit of a shock when she saw the state I was in.
Part of me wanted to tell my dad about it so he'd come to
the school and punch seven bells out of the teacher. I'm
certain he would have if he'd ever found out about it. But
another stronger part of me wanted no embarrassment, no
fuss. Peer pressure. I couldn't have my dad fighting my
school battles. I determined to deal with it myself.

It would be ridiculous to suggest all this grief at school
was one-way traffic, that I was innocent of every bad thing
that ever happened in that place, the victim of mistaken
identity, and that the teachers were all guilty of conspiracy,
victimization, persecution, assault and battery. I accept I
must have been a handful and there were some bad moments,
stuff I really shouldn't have been doing. I once caught Jakey'
Duckinfield, another of our German teachers (what is it with
me and the Germans?), smack in the face with a snowball as
he crossed the yard on his way into the school buildings,
knocking his glasses clean off his head. What made it worse
was that, trying to go one better than everybody else as usual,
I'd put a stone in the snowball. As soon as it connected I
regretted it and felt terrible - though not as terrible as Jakey
Duck no doubt. I remember thinking, That's not the way we
should be seeing our teachers, scrabbling around on the
ground in the snow. I'd made him look a fool in front of the
whole school and I was ashamed of myself. When I saw him
get to his feet and look around, I melted into the crowd, a
real coward. Very poor show. Sorry, sir.
Drawing on my extensive bonfire experience I organized
a book-burning, inspired by the pictures on television of
protesting students in Paris. Kids brought their textbooks
on to the playing field, made a big pile and we torched them.
It was a blazing success until the teachers arrived and put it
out. Unfortunately, some of my textbooks, with my name
and class details written inside, were retrieved from the
smouldering embers and I got a right belting.
Staying with the pyro theme, I set the school on fire one
day, with the aid of a magnifying-glass and some sunshine.
We'd often try to alleviate the tedium of morning assembly
by burning holes in the big curtains in the assembly hall. One
day I succeeded and we left them to smoulder. Soon after
we'd all left the assembly hall, the fire brigade arrived. The
next morning Mr Laidlaw was purple with rage. He wanted
any boy who was sitting in the vicinity of yesterday's blaze
to remain behind. It didn't take them long to rumble the
culprits, and we got a fierce lashing with Mr Laidlaw's leather
belt. We half-dozen culprits had to sit outside his office for
a long while, sweating and fretting. Then at last we were
called in, one at a time. I was near the back of the line and
watched as my mates emerged, tearful and sore, rubbing
their palms. Then it was my turn. Into the inner office and
out with my hand. It didn't half hurt.
So, I was no angel. But two things are beyond question:
first, they started all the violent stuff, and second, my
behaviour was never bad enough to justify those appalling
physical punishments. I was not alone in being on the receiving
end, thank goodness. Lots of my pals were beaten just as
badly, sometimes on the flimsiest pretext, which made me
feel a little better. Eating a sweet in class, God forbid, often
resulted in a smack on the side of the head, the worst possible
place to land someone a blow in terms of potential damage,
and a ringing noise in one ear. Goodness knows how many
eardrums were perforated. I remember Dave Hewitt being
hit so hard across the face the whole class was shocked.
Different teachers had their own preferred way of dishing
out punishment. Mr Niblo, the art teacher, would clip your
arse with the edge of his stiff leather belt. That stung. Mr
Found, the metalwork teacher, was fond of twisting any bits
of hair you might have cultivated down the sides of your
head and in front of your ears. Round and round his finger,
until you were on tiptoe, humiliated and in great pain.
One of the reasons it all went so horribly wrong for me
was that I didn't understand the rules by which the big school
worked. The kind of iron discipline they adhered to was alien
to me. I'd not had it banged into me at home or in primary
school like most of the other kids. When I was asked a
question or was wrongly accused, instead of grovelling or
lying, which would have been the sensible thing to do, I'd tell
the truth, argue my case and, worst of all, question those in
authority. It was a case of 'Children should be seen and not
heard', as near-neighbour Mrs Mather was fond of repeating
to my mother. Any kind of misbehaviour was tantamount to
mutiny and fists would flail. This only compounded all the
feelings of injustice and persecution I was beginning to
harbour towards anyone in a position of authority. Hitting
me was the wrong thing to do, the wrong way to go.
My experiences have led me to believe that it is counterproductive
for any adult to strike a child. I've had rows in
the street with people over it. Once you've done it, carried
out the threat and whacked a kid, then where do you go? Do
you hit them ever harder? It's wrong.
For the first three years of learning at Manor Park the kids
were split into five classes: S, T, U, V and W. On my arrival
I found I'd been marked down for class One U, which after
a year became Two U and finally Three U. Then, for some
unfathomable reason, it became Four Ti and Four T2. I
ended up in Four Ti.
As far as I can recall, everyone seemed to get on fairly
well, but as with all large groupings of kids, you have your
factions and favourites, and some of my classmates became
closer pals than others over the four tumultuous years I
spent at Manor Park. Ken Smith, Hacker Howe, Tommy
Johnson, Mickey Gordon, or Toffo as we knew him, after
Gordon's Toffees, Mickey Young and I had some right old
times, daft stuff, but memorably enjoyable.
In our first year we all went off on a school trip to
Obervesel, near Heidelberg in Germany, ostensibly to experience
a different national culture, broaden our horizons and
offer us the opportunity to try out our newly acquired linguistic
skills on the unsuspecting natives. I remember it was a
major number in our house trying to get the money together
for the trip but somehow my mam managed it. It was so
exciting, going away like that for a week or so with all your
pals. A lot of things stick in my mind about that trip: looking
out of the windows of the converted castle we were staying
in and seeing foxes running around the multi-tiered vineyards
outside; chasing Hacker Howe down the corridor while he
stuffed into his mouth what was left of a big bar of chocolate
he'd refused to share, just moments before he crashed into
a bright white wall and spat the goo all over the place; slices
of cream-covered cake in the Heidelberg cafes, so big and
thick and rich they had the greedy little Geordie gluttons
reeling.
My prevailing memory, though, is of setting David Phillips's
hand on fire, time and again, with lighter fuel. Most of
the kids I was with were already addicted to cigarettes, but
the lighters at home were big, expensive metal things you
could have used to cook a meal. Everyone used penny books
of matches. No one owned a lighter. They were uncool,
something your dad might use. On the continent it was
different. The lighters were colourful and cheap, so we all
bought one, or more than one, whether we smoked or not.
How cool was that? So, we'd gather by the sink, douse Dave
Phillips's hand with the lighter fuel, light it, then stand back
and marvel at the scene taking place before our rapidly
watering eyes. After a moment's waving and flailing, and to
great cheers, he'd stick his blazing mitt under the cold tap.
It worked particularly well in the dark.
Although I was not an unintelligent kid, I found some
subjects unfathomable. Physics and chemistry were beyond
my grasp. It could be argued that the fault lay with the
teachers and their inability to impart the fundamentals of
their chosen subject, but I doubt it. Some kids did well with
certain subjects while others didn't. Either I wasn't ready for
that type of theoretical knowledge or I was too lazy to apply
myself. Probably a bit of both. These days I can recognize
the numerical link between physics and mathematics and I
find it interesting in a non-involving way. I've even grasped
the basics of quantum physics, which I'm rather chuffed
about. Back then, forget it -- I did. All of it. I was too busy
thinking about music, girls, football and ten-pin bowling.
And what was happening in the world of pop culture
during the latter part of the 1960s made it hard to concentrate
on anything, never mind logarithms, concentric circles and
litmus paper. There were simply too many top tunes out
there, all the Motown classics, the perfect accompaniment
for a broken teenage heart, all the blues-rock bands like
Fleetwood Mac and Free, which struck a chord with rampant
young men, and let's not forget the Beatles, my favourite of
them all. Like most of my pals I was music daft. I couldn't
recite a verse of a poem to save my life but I could have told you the entire lyric of any song that had charted in the last
ten years, no sweat. Of course, that was regarded as of no
use whatsoever, a complete waste of time and energy.
In the spring of 1969 I went along to the pictures one
afternoon and got a vicarious taste of freedom and rebellion
courtesy of Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.
The movie Easy Riderwas a real landmark in independent
filmmaking, packed with incredible images, performances,
dialogue and music, and destined to earn many millions of
dollars. From the very first track, Steppenwolf's 'The
Pusher', with preceding rasps from the exhaust pipes on
those chrome-plated, chopped-down, iconic Harley Davidsons,
the soundtrack was amazing. I decided I had to have a
motorbike. I started off on a scooter, a Lambretta 200 GT,
then changed to a tired old Triumph Tiger no. Riding
around the north-east of England in the pouring rain was
not quite Easy Rider, but the dream was there and we lived it
in our heads. I never had a licence, or insurance. Never
bothered with any of that.
There was something else. In June 1967 my sister Shelagh
died, just days before her twenty-first birthday. Shelagh was
a nurse and she'd been deeply affected by the death of an
elderly patient she'd been looking after. Her doctor had put
her on a course of anti-depressants. She was taking these
pills with a drink in an early birthday celebration, and the
result was terrible and tragic. She was a lovely girl, full of fun
and always smiling. I wish I'd known her better, that I had
more memories of times with her, good or bad, but she
was grown-up and I was just the kid brother. It was a
hammer-blow that left the whole family reeling. My mam
never properly recovered.
It was a Saturday morning and I clearly recall the little
police panda car pulling into our street. A visit from the
police was rare. We kids all waited to see which door they
would head for. I was surprised and puzzled when they made
for mine. They knocked on the door and a moment later my
mother appeared. The policemen must have told her straight
away, because she started screaming and became hysterical,
grabbing clumps of her hair and pulling at it. That day she
went grey. I saw it with my own eyes.
The neighbours came running out to see what all the noise
was about. I was frightened - I wanted to go to my mother
but it was just as well I didn't make it to the front door, I
guess. Mrs Marshall took me into her house and held me in
her arms. As I sobbed into her bosom a wonderful feeling
of safety and all-enveloping warmth came over me. I didn't

understand what was happening. I was thirteen and I'd never
been held so closely by any woman, not even my mam. It
was very pleasant -- but it was only happening because my
sister had died.
It's easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to make a link
between the tragedy of Shelagh's death and my going off the
rails, but it wasn't so obvious then. There were no counsellors,
therapists or child psychologists around to help a kid
identify and deal with the traumatic effects of bereavement
and grief. I'm not suggesting this was the sole reason for the
deterioration in my behaviour over the next ten or so years
but I think it must have had a bearing on it. The family,
which was a shaky unit anyway, pretty much disintegrated in
the wake of Shelagh's death. Family, friends and neighbours
did what they could. My pal Ray came down to see me on
his Merlin and told me he understood how I was feeling
because he'd lost his father at an even younger age, which
really helped - it made me feel like I wasn't the only kid
going through it.
My mam was shattered by the loss of one of her children,
and was never again the happy, smiling mam I'd known and
grown up with. An inquest into Shelagh's death recorded a
verdict of misadventure, and the Catholic Church refused to
conduct either the funeral service or the burial. Everything
changed. For Mam organized religion went out of the
window, and didn't return until she was nearing the end of
her life. Unlike me, both Val and Shelagh had been educated
at Catholic schools at my dad's insistence, and my mam had
gone along with it -- anything for an easy life, I guess -- but
after Shelagh died she forbade the priests to come anywhere
near the house. That was fine by me: I found their frowns
and sweeping black gowns spooky. My mam would go to
her aunts' and cry away the evenings. My dad sought solace
in the bottom of a glass. Val had to struggle with the loss
not only of a sister but of a friend, ally and confidante. Only
two years separated her and Shelagh, and they had been
very close. Val was helped through those dark days by her
husband, Mac, who shared our loss and looked after Val
selflessly, just as he has throughout their time together. I
didn't know what to do, where to turn: it seemed like everyone
around me was preoccupied with their own grief. I ended
up turning inside myself and, to all intents and purposes,
turning off.
After Shelagh died, my mam, dad and I continued to live
in the little house in Penfold Close, but it seemed a colder
place, even on the occasional warm day. This was when my
childhood innocence died. There was no way to avoid the
pain, or to shut it out of my life and my heart. Worse still, I
had to watch as my mam struggled on, heartbroken and
depleted. I so wanted to make her feel better, but I couldn't.
At this point music played a big part in my life. I could
get lost in it. Words and melodies helped me through the
really low times when I had nowhere else to turn. I remember
listening to the Beach Boys' 'God Only Knows' a lot and
wondering whether there could actually be a God up there
after what had just happened to us. I'm afraid the jury's still
out on that one. I'd always loved the Beach Boys, ever since
those fun-fun-fun beach-inspired tracks with their sublime
harmonies that seemed to be bursting with sunshine. Brian
Wilson wiggled his toes in a box of sand under the piano as
he wrote those tracks and it shows. The term 'genius' is
much overused these days, but I do believe that, for a time
back then, Brian Wilson was plugged into something to
which no one else was privy. His compositional skill, choice
of instrumentation and structure, with gorgeous tumbling
harmonies everywhere, are real works of modern art. The

truly ground-breaking Pet Sounds gets all the glory but listen
to any Beach Boys record, particularly Surfs Up, and marvel
at that bass playing those counterpoint passes. Groovy. After
the tragic summer of 1967 the Beach Boys became even
more important and precious to me.
The whole world was changing and Swinging London was
in full swing, but my school years from 1967 to 1969 were
unhappy ones and I was pleased to see the back of them. It
wasn't that I didn't like learning or lessons -- I loved some
of it: English, history, languages, geography, art and sport
were all enjoyable but I was unable to find any focus and
knuckle down. No music lessons. At that time too! All those
wonderful sounds, and we were made to ignore them. Get
caught whistling a melody that was less than a hundred years
old and you were in trouble. At school the teachers tried to
pretend the cultural revolution of the 1960s wasn't happening
but they couldn't stop it. England was a creative fulcrum,
and a musical tidal wave swept away everything in its path,
willing or not.
I was one of the willing legion of young folk. Like everyone
else my age I dreamed of joining a band, bringing fame and
glory to the family and the region, and music was the only
way I figured I might ever do that. But the music was already
changing, becoming more experimental, introspective: as a
hurt individual that suited me fine.
I began to miss games lessons because I didn't like getting
changed in front of all the other kids and the teachers, so
that was the end of my football. I'd not been allowed to play
much footie since I'd failed to turn up for a trial with
Newcastle United. No big deal -- they gave half the kids in
Newcastle a similar trial. I wasn't anything special in terms
of ability, but I was tall, so I might have made a half-decent
centre-half. But I had no self-confidence. Come the morning
of the trial, a bitter Saturday in winter with the north wind
whipping in off the sea, I dragged my little arse out of bed
and tried to look out of the window. It was snowing heavily.
I had to breathe on the window-pane to see out, and what I
saw convinced me I should go straight back to bed. Which I
did. On the Monday, when I went into school, Mr Thompson
collared me. Why hadn't I turned up for my trial, he wanted
to know. I said there had been a blizzard blowing. He told
me that was no excuse and that any boy who couldn't be
bothered to turn up for a trial with Newcastle United couldn't
really want to play football and didn't deserve to play football
ever again. As of that day I was dropped from the school
team and never allowed to play another game.
As the year wore on, it was time for my interview with
the careers officer, an individual despatched from the local
education department, supposedly to advise and guide young
people towards a fruitful and rewarding future. The reality
was a middle-aged man behind a desk, uninterested in his
job and the kids before him. I stood in the snaking queue
and after an age I got to have my five minutes. It went thus:
Without looking up: 'What do you want to do, then?'
'I'd quite like to be an English teacher.'
Looks over his glasses and gives a little laugh. 'An English
teacher? Listen, son, for the likes of you there are three basic
choices: the shipyard, the pit or the building sites. The sooner
you get used to that the better.'
So that was it, my future. All mapped out with nowhere
to go. I came out of that meeting angry and upset. Was that
all my future merited, a measly five minutes? Had that man
not been watching television and listening to his radio? It
didn't have to be that way, theirway, the old way. Things had
changed. There was a whole world of opportunities. Maybe
a degree was beyond me but there were other routes. I didn't


tell anyone about it but I decided that if that was all society
had to offer then fuck society, and fuck all those who
belonged and behaved and toed the line. Fuck them all.
I would do it my way, for better or worse.
So that was me and schooling finished, thank goodness.
I'd had more than enough, and I'm sure that as far as the
teachers were concerned the feeling was mutual. Grown-ups,
and teachers in particular, were fond of telling you that your
schooldays were the best of your life. If that was the case, I
argued, what was there to look forward to? That usually
merited a clip round the ear.
Relief, then, at this mostly muddlesome, often violent
period of my life coming to an end. No more beatings at the
hands of grown-ups. From now on things would be different:
the next time anyone laid a hand on me I'd fight back. There
was a lot of rage inside me -- I was almost waiting for the first
opportunity to present itself. But along with the relief I felt
frustration, rooted in disappointment that I had not done
myself or the family justice. My sister Val had beaten all the
odds by going to university, my sister Shelagh had died young,
and now there was me. What was I? A failure. My mam must
have been so disappointed in me but she never once let on.
There was never any criticism, only support, encouragement
and love. I didn't deserve it. But I did feel certain I was
capable of more than I'd managed at Manor Park. Whose
fault was it? Mine? Theirs? A bit of both, I guess. Anyway,
it was time to move on and I never once looked back.
That's not absolutely correct. One of my happier memories
is of landing Mr Found a slap across his chops. It was
September 1969, a few months after I'd left school and I was
working split shifts with my buddy Tommy McCulloch at
the petrol station, which meant that when I was on the late
shift I was free until two o'clock. I could hang out over the
lunch break with my mates who'd stayed on at Manor Park,
then pedal off to work on my pushbike. I was sitting in the
school bike sheds talking to some pals when Mr Found
bowled up and told me to leave. I told him to fuck off.
Everyone looked so shocked. Then my pals laughed. Mr
Found started scowling, then lost it completely. He came
towards me, seething, so I landed him a slap, which brought
a cheer from all my pals, along with more laughter. That was
a moment of liberation for me. The teachers didn't fancy it
so much on level terms. I pedalled out of the gates and off
to work, the hero, and very happy, too.
Every single day, Tommy McCulloch and I talked and
planned and dreamed of having a band, of gigging, of doing
it: making music. We lived for it and spent all our time, when
we weren't pumping petrol, either listening to it or talking
about it. Tommy was already no slouch on the traps he'd
bought a drum kit on the never-never, much to the
annoyance of his mother and the neighbours. Unfortunately
he'd developed a habit of equating tempo with power, so if
a song needed to be played a little faster he would automatically
hit the drums harder, and if the song needed to be
played slowly it would also get to be played quietly. We spent
all our free time indoors, practising and rehearsing, preparing
for when the big moment presented itself.
The jump from boy to man was abrupt and seismic. In six
weeks I'd gone from the problems of the playground to the
reality of working for a living, earning a wage, and suddenly
my life was transformed in a most wonderful way: I'd spent
years having adults tell me I was good for nothing, but the
pay packet I now received every week was confirmation that
I was good for something. After years of being forced by
adults to do things against my will, I was working with people
who let you get on with things. Granted, it wasn't exactly


neurosurgery, just pumping gas and changing oil, but I was
beginning to realize not all adults thought the same way, and
some were even a good laugh. For the first time in my life I
was being treated as a responsible person, given some
respect; along with that came self-esteem.
It was autumn going into Christmas, and bitterly cold. The
garage was run by a big fat man with a beard called Andy
Lane. He was hardly ever there, and the workshops were run
by a guy called Don Taylor. There were two apprentice
motor mechanics, Mickey Ford and Mod Bentley. A lively
pensioner, Jimmy Nelles, made up the cast. It was a right
hoot, a laugh a minute. Tom and I made a lot of money by
draining the dregs from all the discarded oil cans into a gallon
can and selling it as new. We even had a name for the stuff,
DucVeeDol, made up from the names of the most popular
oils of the day. I say we made a lot of money but it was
pennies in comparison to the wages of today, of course. Back
then, though, it felt as if I'd won the football pools. A pair
of Levi's was less than three pounds, remember. I used to
be paid about a fiver a week but I'd always make two or
three times that from tips and the oil scam. I kept a big
tower of loose change on top of the gas fire at home, with
instructions to my mam to help herself any time she wanted
to. Of course she never did. Neither did my dad, for that
matter. It was always there, same place, same height, same
wobbly tapering shape, half-crowns at the bottom and tanners
at the top, never disturbed. I wouldn't be surprised if
she dusted round it.
Money was fab: it meant freedom and independence. It
meant Levi's, Ben Sherman's and ox-blood brogues, clothes
your friends admired, new clothes, bought for cash instead
of the cast-offs and Parrish's Wranglers they mocked you
for. It meant brown ale and dry cider. It opened the door to
girls. I could buy drinks to impress then. And something
more: knowing I'd earned it myself gave me a good feeling
when I spent it. The beer seemed to taste that much better.
Nothing tasted better than the first pint of the day, earned
by my own honest graft, my own sweat and effort. I was
fifteen and no longer poncing off my parents. I began to
understand how working for a living builds your self-esteem
and helps you define your value to and place within society,
however lowly the work might be. It was a good feeling and
I'm thankful it's never gone away.
I've tried to explain this to pals who make their living on
the wrong side of the law but they won't have it. It's not
because, as some would have you believe, some people are
just born bad: that's bollocks, in my humble opinion. Most
of my pals were driven by insecurity and fear, specifically the
fear of being judged unfavourably by others, and, worst of all,
the fear of failing, and being seen to fail. Because humiliation
would automatically follow.
There was a single-minded determination among my
friends to avoid being assessed, tested, judged. 'Here comes
the job interview, what will I do?' I've been there: anxiety,
palpitations, racing pulse, nausea and fear sit like bile in the
pit of your stomach. It's real and sometimes unbearable.
Turning to crime in order to avoid having to punch the clock
banishes any possibility of being judged -- unless you count
the law courts. They are an unavoidable staging-post for
many, who end up being judged in a way they often loudly
denounce but tacitly accept. It's a lifestyle that breeds contempt
towards the man in the street, the tax-payer, the
ordinary Joe who knuckles down and plays the game by
society's rules. I have no time for those who choose such a
lifestyle, but it's rooted in the same fear of failure that's
driven me all my life.
The local pub where I spent most of my teen time was
the Sun Inn. George, the manager, was a tall, thin, fussy man
with slicked-down dyed black hair and a pencil moustache.
He turned a blind eye to our under-age drinking as long as
things didn't get out of hand, which, of course, they did all
the time. There was always some fool standing on top of a
nice slippery Formica table-top singing and shouting. Then
someone would get bored with the impromptu floorshow,
give the entertainer a shove, he'd take a tumble and a
punch-up would ensue. All the familiar faces hung out there,
all my pals, and new ones, too. Lads from Longbenton I'd
not met before. The crowd I'd grown up with relocated from
the streets to the pubs.
Although our house was no more than a hundred yards
from my pal Tom McCulloch's, the county boundary line
ran between the two, separating our estate from his; we
were on the Newcastle side, he the Northumberland. He'd
attended the Thomas Addison School, where a young Peter
Beardsley was a few years behind him. I'd sometimes go
down the bank into Longbenton with Tom and hang out
with his mates. Most were in work, so we all had a few bob
to spend on drink and clobber. There were no drugs around
-- or not to my knowledge. The Longbenton lads were an
unusual crowd, mob-handed yet fiercely individual, tough,
loud and often eccentric in their choice of dress, their manner
and language, all struggling to find their identity, their place
in the world, just like me. Gambling was a big thing with a
lot of those lads. I'm glad to say it's never interested me.
Betting talk, five-threes and short heads, was and still is a
mystery to me, and I struggle to place my annual futile flutter
on the Grand National. I'd often see lads putting the entire
contents of their wage packet on a dog at Brough Park, only
to tear up the betting slip after the race had been run and
the chosen mutt had failed to do the business. Dejected
and prickly, they would spend the next seven days cadging
pennies from pals who'd either been a little luckier or a little
more sensible than themselves. Beer was always there to
ease the pain, make things feel better and punctuate those
frequent gaps in the conversation. Someone would always
stand you a pint.
We all had our favourite bands. As it was the early 1970s,
there was plenty to choose from. I was listening to a lot of
chart stuff at the time, radio-play singles, until I met Chad
Shepherd. A mate of Tom's from Thomas Addison, Chad
was a walking pop-music encyclopaedia, a one-man music
knowledge bank. His tastes have mellowed over the years,
but what he didn't know about the music of that time wasn't
worth knowing, ditto what he didn't like. He'd often be
singing obscure things I'd never heard of -- Frank Zappa's Willy The Pimp was one such gem. I bought the album on the
strength of Chad's singing it and was mesmerized. Where on
earth did Chad hear those cuts? At the Rex Hotel in Whitley
Bay, where a disc jockey would travel up once a week from
Liverpool just to play them. Free was another band whose
work Chad seemed to know back to front. Out I went and
bought Tons Of Sobs. On getting the album home and listening
to it on my catalogue stereo system, I discovered, among
a host of delights, the vocal talents of Paul Rogers and
the incomparable bass-playing of the man who became my
all-time favourite, Andy Frazer.
After a glorious, wild and lucrative six months on the
petrol pumps with my pal Tommy, I saw it would make
sense to have a trade under my belt and applied for a job as
an apprentice at C. A. Parsons, Engineers. In the early part
of the twentieth century Charles Parsons had designed and
built the very first turbine installed within a Royal Navy
vessel, the aptly named Turbinia. The fledgling company
quickly established itself as a world leader in turbine-powered
propulsion and was employing ten thousand people when I
started work there in 1970. The turbines themselves were an
awesome sight, with their high-carbon steel blades splaying
out several metres, glinting in the sunlight and reaching up
towards the high roofs of the huge cathedral-like sheds that
housed them. Like big industrial Catherine wheels, they were.
The casings and housings were structures in which you could
easily have hidden a fleet of double-decker buses. The place
was an institution locally, nationally and internationally,
known to one and all; it embodied everything the North East
stood for in the eyes of the world.
They gave me a job as an apprentice welder and I hated it
from day one.
Around this time, coming up to my sixteenth birthday, I
performed my first ever gig -- sort of. For years I'd been
throttling a broom handle in the bedroom while Tommy
banged biscuit tins with knitting-needles, and we'd convinced
ourselves we were the next whoever, but the thought of
making the quantum leap on to a live stage, singing into a
real microphone in front of a crowd of people I didn't know,
was terrifying. Yet one day when I was asked by Chris Saint,
the son of our family doctor, if I was up for singing with his
band at a gig they'd lined up at a youth club in Gosforth, I
said yes straight away. I had to, really. I couldn't keep telling
all my pals I was going to join a band and conquer the world,
then bottle it when the first opportunity arose. I knew all of
the songs they were planning to play: 'The Hunter', Johnny
B. Good', 'Hi-Ho, Silver Lining', that type of thing.
On the night I took the stage and we were off, no time to
worry. I struck a pose, closed my eyes and sang the songs as
best I could, risking only an occasional peep at the sparse
crowd. Much to my relief, there was no adverse reaction.
There was hardly a reaction at all, but that was fine by me.
All I cared about that night was eliciting no adverse response.
I made it through and wasn't put off trying again.
Punching the clock, arriving on time: I could never bring
myself to do it. I don't know why. I was the same throughout
my schooling. Maybe I just loathed people telling me what I
had to do, and conforming. Maybe it was stubbornness. I
know I'm not like that today and, thankfully, I'm beyond
having to clock in. Mind you, I still have to report to wherever
it is I'm filming at a time of someone else's choosing, but it
doesn't bug me the way it used to. The film business has
shown me the importance of punctuality. Back in my teens,
I didn't see it and couldn't bring myself to obey that ticking
master. I was always late, two minutes, three minutes, five
minutes, but never early. I was always there, too: I was never
off for a day or two like a lot of the other blokes.
I'd been offered a welding apprenticeship, a much-coveted
gig and one that would guarantee me, as a qualified tradesman,
a job for life. Welding was not something I'd wanted
to do and I found the prospect of messing around with heavy
plant and thick sheet-metal daunting and off-putting, but as
I didn't know what I did want to do I thought I'd better take
the offer. In fact, nothing else was on offer and I had to earn
and make some kind of plan for the future. Dreams were
one thing, but reality was more pressing. Time-served welders
were in demand all over the world, which at the time struck
me as glamorous. Working abroad would be like touring
with a band, I convinced myself. I so wanted to go somewhere, and having a trade behind me would enable me to do that. I
had an urge to move on, move out, escape my surroundings
and do certain things differently from my parents and their
generation. The way the Animals had.
It was just as important not to do certain things my parents
had done. I wasn't alone in this, or so I thought. Lots of my
pals talked about joining bands, heading down to London,
making loads of money and even travelling the world. Harry
Baldwin and Johnny Fail had been to London with a band
and had a go. Most of it was just talk, of course, usually
dismissed with cruel cynicism by the older men. We regarded
them as spineless old bastards who'd never dared to have a
go at living their now long-dead dreams. Most of the older
men didn't want you even to try -- that was more than some
of them could bear.
One old guy, Jock, was the exception: he was always
critical of the moaners and cynics. He could see them for
what they mostly were: envious, and bitter about their own
lot. He'd explain to me how the whole system was geared to
the working man's disadvantage. I don't know what his
politics were as he never spoke about party allegiances, but
he was always encouraging me to get out there and get away:
there was a better life to be had elsewhere. He was convinced
I was too bright for a life spent in the factory. Maybe my
reluctance to toe the line had something to do with it, but
he kept on about how, if I didn't make a move, I'd become
one of those old cynics. The prospect of that scenario scared
me into activity.
For the first few years of my time at Parsons I worked in
a place called the Bart shop, a long, narrow, single-storey
building split down its length by a dividing wall. We had one
half of the building and the fitters and turners the other. I
have no idea why the place was given that name but it must
have had some kind of engineering relevance. Our half was
an experimental set-up where the welding and metallurgical
work was concerned with NDT (non-destructive testing)
relating to fault-finding within the finished welds and seams.
The turbines, once operational, had to be able to withstand
thousands of pounds in pressure so we would test new
welding rods, fluxes, heat procedures and so on.
The man in charge was Terry Allen, a likeable young guy,
who was much kinder to me than he had any cause to be.
He was ably assisted in his labours by an assortment of
white-collar oddballs, among them Dave the Scot who liked
a drink or ten, Tony from Staines, who rather than bring
himself to say 'shit' would laboriously pronounce 'S H one
T', and John Batey, another lovely local guy who told me
possibly the worst joke I've heard in my life. There were two
blue-collar guys in there: welders John Bell, ex-Navy, old
school, grumpy, much older than me, and Rob Brown, a
quietly spoken lad with a mop of curly hair and a couple of
years on me.
I'd not had any experience of working with blokes in
managerial positions like Scots Dave, who often came in
extremely hung-over. These guys liked to have a laugh at
work, talk about music and stuff I could relate to. They were
older than I was, but there wasn't the generation gap. By and
large they liked the same music as I did. They made the
workplace fun. I was right at the bottom of the food chain,
of course, and always in trouble over my time-keeping, but
it was interesting work, thought-provoking and challenging,
with day-release for an engineering qualification on Wednesdays
that took me over the Tyne to Hebburn Technical
College, near to where my dad worked at Reyrolle's. I really
enjoyed the work, especially the investigative side: maybe the
future television cop was showing signs of stirring.
Parsons confused me: it represented both security and
entrapment. There was a job for life, should you want it.
Understandably, an awful lot of lads did. But that long-term
life-plan was not what I was looking for and it scared me. I
was tempted to follow a long tradition of notable escapees.
Local legend had it that Animals vocalist Eric Burdon had
worked a lathe at Parsons, and Brian Johnson after him. Brian
scored a couple of bona-fide hits with his band, Geordie, and
he was gone. He reached even loftier peaks a decade later
with AC/DC. No more punching the clock for him. In
terms of making it, that was good enough for me.
My time-keeping continued to be atrocious. I hated getting
out of bed so much that I developed a system to fool my
mam, who was always up well before me due to her constant
chronic back pain. She'd shout up the stairs to me and I'd
swear I was up. Then she'd shout that she couldn't hear me
walking around, and I would lean out over the edge of the
bed and thump my fist on the floor to replicate the sound of
walking. 'There, I'm up,' I'd lie.
'No, you're not,' she'd reply. 'You're thumping the floor
with your hand!'
So it would go every weekday morning. It would have
been so much easier just to get up.
Getting the bus to work at six forty-five every morning
was never fun, and it was almost unbearable if there were no
seats downstairs: that meant going upstairs into the smoke
filled haze of the top deck where the workmen, and women
employed as cleaners, sat puffing away on their first fags of
the day. The air was so polluted you could hardly see the
back of the bus from the top of the stairs at the front end.
The combination of stale sweat, cigarette smoke and cheap
hair lacquer made me feel sick.
My days at Parsons were spent welding pipes and eating
in the subsidized canteen, where the guys met up for a bite
and a natter. A lot of them would make the dash to the
nearest boozer, the Turbinia, but it was too much of a rush
for me so I never did. I couldn't see the point of giving
myself indigestion for the sake of a couple of pints and,
besides, I never felt like doing anything in the afternoon
once I'd had a drink.
I had to catch the bus in the mornings but I'd often walk
the couple of miles home in the evenings, happy, singing to
myself, up the Benfield Road, which became Coach Lane,
then left after passing the Northern Counties College where
I'd broken my elbow a few years earlier, on to Fairways estate
and home. I remember walking into the front room one day
when I was about seventeen to find we'd finally landed a
colour television courtesy of Radio Rentals. The programme
being broadcast as I walked in was The Land of the Giants, and
had American space travellers togged out in red costumes
wandering around overgrown gardens in lush green undergrowth.
I stood there for ages, staring at the multi-coloured
kaleidoscope in the corner. I couldn't believe my eyes. It felt
like we'd just caught up with all that had happened in the
1960s. Better late than never.
After a couple of fairly leisurely years in the Bart shop I
transferred to the auxiliary shop, where the turbines were
assembled. I was now on the shop floor and, this being the
1970s, had to join the union. As a research and development
area, the Bart shop was beyond its reach. Off I went to see
big Ted Gallagher, the Boilermakers' shop-steward, whose
son, Mickey, was a good pal. I'd come to know him through
another school pal, Lewis Wilkinson. I thought my friendship
with Mickey would cut some ice with big Ted but I was
mistaken.
Ted was a fearsome bugger, six feet plus and square
shouldered. He took his union duties very seriously. I had to
do the same -- and union membership was essential. The
unions were very powerful and you did as you were told. A
union ticket meant the difference between being able to work
and not. Never mind if an employer offered you a job: if the
members of a trade union didn't want you in, you weren't
allowed in. After a while I got my ticket and slept a little
easier.
By day, apprentice welder; by night, full-on paid-up music
nut. Other than the one night a week I stayed in to watch The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2, with 'Whispering' Bob
Harris introducing some of the best bands and music to be
heard, I'd be in from work by four thirty and out again by
six thirty every evening looking for music, adventure and
fun. During my apprenticeship, unlike in my petrol-pumping
days when my pockets seemed always to be full of change, I
didn't have much dosh, but a quid still went an awful long
way: you could buy eight pints of beer with enough change
for the late bus home. That journey was an adventure in
itself, with punch-ups galore and people jumping out of the
upstairs exit door at the rear just to save the walk down the
stairs.
A gallon of beer for a quid! That's a cheap headache by
anyone's standards. With the drink came confidence. With
the confidence came social interaction. The city centre
became my playground, its pubs my watering-holes. The
cast of characters ranged from openly gay barmen at the
Chancellor's Head pub in the Bigg Market, which must have
taken some bottle, to Homburg-wearing spivs in the Grapes
Vaults, and thousands of colourful individuals in between.
The boozers were always jam-packed, with music blaring
out of the jukeboxes. The atmosphere was highly charged
and fights would often break out, but they'd be over in
minutes. My social train was beginning to roll and something
was needed to oil the wheels. Over the next few years I went
from drinking moderate amounts, three or four beers a night,
to extremes. Thank goodness I never developed a taste for
spirits or I would have been in real trouble. Some of my pals
developed serious health problems because of the amount
of drink they put away but they were in the minority back
then.
The 1970s had seen pop become rock and groups become
bands. It was a more strident, aggressive genre, which suited
this angry young man down to the ground, although there
were many notable exceptions. A lot of people tend to credit
bands like the Rolling Stones, the Who and Led Zeppelin
for toughening up and supercharging pop music, causing it
to metamorphose into what's now called rock. They were all
rock 'n' roll revolutionaries, but if you listen to the Beatles' circa 1964 rendition of the Tamla Motown cut 'Money (That's
What I Want)' - credited, coincidentally, to a Mr Bradford you'll
hear big chords whacked out and hanging in the air,
courtesy of George Harrison, long before Keith Richards,
Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend took up the cudgels.


4

Tommy McCulloch, Ray Black and I went anywhere and
everywhere to see live bands both good and bad, but the
number one venue for full-on rock 'n' roll, the metal Mecca,
was the Mayfair ballroom. A thirties-era city-centre dancehall,
this two-storey wallpapered palace played host to every band
that made a mark in the 1970s and quite a few that didn't.
This was a time when great bands were out there playing
live; the music was mostly thrilling, occasionally transcendent,
always entertaining, and on consecutive Friday nights
for almost a decade I was lucky enough to catch, in no
particular order, David Bowie, wearing shorts so short his
bollocks were visible; Mark Bolan, sitting on a rug on the
stage with an acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex; Queen, with a
very young Freddie Mercury cavorting around in an ermine
trimmed cloak and a bejewelled crown, supporting the James
Gang featuring Joe Walsh on guitar; the Irish blues-rocker
Rory Gallagher; the mighty Led Zeppelin; from America,
Spirit, a three-piece featuring guitarist Randy California
and bald drummer Ed Cassidy; the Sensational -- and they
were -- Alex Harvey Band, featuring a pierrot-painted Zal
Cleminson on guitar; Arthur Brown's Time Machine (he was
completely crazy, got stuck in a plastic test-tube, set his hair
alight) with Andy Summers on guitar; the Baker-Gurvitz
Army, with Cream's Ginger Baker on drums and the Guns'
Adrian Gurvitz, who split the arse of his tight white loons
almost immediately he came onstage, on guitar; Jeff Beck,
one of the truly outstanding electric guitarists of the era; Black
Oak Arkansas, with their bare-chested singer Jim Dandy; the
Red Indian rockers Redbone; Deep Purple, with Ian Gilmore
on vocals and the barmy Ritchie Blackmore on guitar; Jon
Hiseman's Colosseum; Quintessence, and their semi-hit
single, 'Gungami', on the back of which they toured for years;
Blodwyn Pig; the Savoy Brown Blues Band; AC/DC, who
were always the best night out, had the biggest riffs and were
so loud they rattled your fillings; wonder guitarist Nils Lofgren;
his boss, the great Neil Young, a true rocker; Free, one of the
best of them all, with Paul Rogers on vocals, Paul Kossoff on
guitar, Simon Kirke on traps and Andy Frazer on bass; Bad
Company, with Rogers and Kirk; Back Street Crawler, with
Kossoff; Terry Reid's River; from Ireland, Skid Row, featuring
a very young Gary Moore; Thin Lizzy, with Phil Lynott
on bass guitar, what a really lovely man he was; heavy rockers
Hawkwind, with their Silver Machine; Climax Blues Band,
beautifully losing their sense of direction; Vinegar Joe, featuring
Elkie Brookes and the late Robert Palmer; twin-guitar
riffers Wishbone Ash; Nazareth, with gravel-voiced Dan
McCafferty up front; Family, with raging Roger Chapman on
lead vocals and step-ladders, a set of which he threw into the
crowd one night in a fit of temper because the riggers weren't
finished in time -- I was right at the front and they bounced
off my napper; American rockers Cheap Trick; Patto, with
Mike Patto on vocals and the amazing Ollie Hals all on guitar;
Head, Hands & Feet with guitarist Albert Lee; and Alvin
Lee's Ten Years After. It was a roll-call of great rockers and
a cornucopia of eclectic electric styles and vocal hybrids. It
was like the Woodstock festival landing on Tyneside every
week. Occasionally the local Odeon would play host to some
visiting big-shots like the Who or Pink Floyd. The Who
turning all their stage-lights on the audience at the finale,
'See Me, Feel Me', was one of the great tingly moments.
Then there were all the local bands: Raw Spirit; Blondie,
with Keith Fisher on drums, who became Yellow; Sneeze,
with their cover of Spirit's 'I Got A Line On You, Babe' and
Rod Foggan on vocals -- he sounded great and really looked
the part; Brass Alley, later Long Vehicle, with Dave
Ditchburn on vocals; the wonderful Junco Partners, R&Bmeisters,
veterans of the Club a Go-Go; and the Sect, with
lead guitarist Deck Rootham, the daddy of 'em all and a real
hero to Tommy and me.
Those were the people who shaped my thinking at this
time. The way I dressed, the places I hung out, the people I
hung out with came from the music. Loons were the order
of the day and I had a pair -- skin-tight, bright red satin. I
was built like a stick-insect before all the drink put pounds
on me so I could get into them, but getting out of them or
taking a leak was a right carry-on. Out we'd go on the drink
and at closing time we'd head to the Mayfair for the main
band kicking off around eleven. We'd often sneak in the back
way, through the fire doors, but I came a cropper one night
when I got caught and the bouncers dished out a severe
whacking; one smashed my jaw with the brass-balled end of
a walking cane. The blow was so hard I saw stars and came
to on the deck a little later. Trevor was with me, and when
the police arrived for their nightly look-see he tried to explain
what had happened, but they just assumed I was drunk and
started slapping my face to bring me round. That hurt. I was
arrested for being drunk and disorderly, the one-size-fits-all
charge of the day, and later fined.
The other thing about going round the back of the Mayfair
was it gave you a chance to see the trucks. Huge artics from
Edwin Shirley Trucking or Trans Am Trucking would be
backed up against the lift doors. To me they symbolized the
power and glory of rock 'n' roll, those great automotive
beasts, in the employ of rockers and rollers and booked to
take the tools of their trade, amps, guitars and drums, around
the country and beyond to facilitate the nightly creation of
electric rock music. How we dreamed of being out on the
road with our own trucks. The idea seemed impossibly
ambitious, but people like us were doing it, and there they
were, up on stage, just a few feet away from us. Later on I'd
come to realize how far those few feet actually were, and
how unlike us, in terms of musical talent, those guys were,
but the important thing was that they inspired us, and many
like us, to get a guitar and have a go.
I bought my first electric guitar when I was sixteen, a
walnut-finish Gibson SG, for 170 pounds on the drip from Dixon's Music in the city centre. Did the classic: brought it home
and tried to plug it into the wall-socket. I didn't realize you
needed a load of other gear to make a noise. I couldn't afford
an amp or combo so I rigged it through my stereo system.
It overloaded the speakers something awful but it sounded
great to me and I spent many a happy hour attempting to
play along with my favourite albums. Led Zeppelin //was a
good 'un for that, T. Rex's Electric Warrior another.
For my first taste of mega-rocking, who better than Black
Sabbath to introduce me to the world of ultra-loud music?
Their breakthrough single 'Paranoid' was just out and Ozzy
Osbourne and his merry men were breaking big everywhere.
They were also forging a brand-new genre: heavy metal.
People who know Ozzy only through his recent reality
television incarnation probably have no idea how immensely
influential he has been.
Off we went, Tom and I, to the Mayfair, got there nice
and early and waited right at the front for the Sabs to appear.
The Mayfair had a revolving stage with a flat wall running
the width of the turning circle, a relic from the era of the

dancebands with their tiers of players. Tom and I were
waiting patiently when the stage began to rotate and Ozzy
and the Sabs were revealed. Big cheers. So far, so good. After
a moment Ozzy counted them in with the traditional 'One,
two, three, four . . .' and they began their set with the loudest
noise I'd ever heard in my life. It's difficult to describe the
volume levels the Sabs were working with then. The only
sound that comes vaguely close to it is the noise a 747 makes
right at the point of maximum reverse thrust just after it
lands. I was standing right up against the banks of WEM
speakers and bass bins and the racket made me feel unwell.
We thought we knew all about decibel levels, what with the
local bands we were used to, but this was on another level -- it was beyond beyond. I've never heard anything so loud
before or since, thank God.
There were also quite a lot of fights, Friday night scraps 'Who
the fuck are you looking at, pal?' and the like -- almost
always fuelled by drink and usually over nowt. People got
their teeth kicked in, their eyes blackened, or their noses
broken. My mate Denny Harwood famously lost the end of
his nose in a punch-up. He took it out of the guy's gob and
carried it off to hospital where they sewed it back on. That
was an exception, though. Most of the time it was confined
to fisticuffs.
What we got up to seems tame by the sad standards of
today. Bitten-off noses apart, there was never any wounding
for wounding's sake: knives were considered cowardly, and
guns were unheard of. If you were really unlucky you might
end up with a glass in your face, as happened to my pal
Tommy. I was at home one evening when there was a knock
on the door. I opened it to see him standing there, the left
side of his face wide open and pouring blood. He'd been in
a punch-up at the Newton Park pub and in the heat of battle
one of his pals had accidentally whacked a beer glass into his
face. I called an ambulance and he was taken off to hospital
to have it darned, but he was left with a terrible scar. In that
same fight big Peter Knox took a flying dive at some poor
unfortunate, missed them, landed on a table and flattened it.
An even more terrifying experience involving Tommy
occurred on a trip to the Lake District. We'd taken off with
some pals for a nice wet weekend but Tommy was sporting
a fully wired broken jaw, the result of a fight we'd all been
involved in some weeks before. It was both gruesome and
impressive to behold, a latticework of thin metal strands
running between his teeth and gums. He'd been told by the
doctors he'd have to wear the wires for six weeks or so. Food
had to be mulched and consumed through a straw. On no
account must he drink alcohol. If he were to vomit he'd
choke, simple as that. Not even a fool would risk going on
the bevvy in those circumstances, would they?
There we were, in a lovely old hotel bar by the shore of
Lake Windermere enjoying a beer in front of a big open fire.
By this time Tommy had managed to work open the wires a
little so he could put a straw or a sodden bit of sandwich
through the gap in his teeth, but he couldn't resist a pint, or
two. Suddenly he went all quiet. Tng gonga ge hick!' he
spluttered. 'You'g got to get theve wirev off!' He started to
retch, so I ran to the reception desk, no more than a glorified
counter, told the man we had an emergency on our hands
and did he have any pliers? He shook his head, bemused.
'There's these,' he said, and held up a pair of mole-grips, a
type of adjustable pliers with vice-like square-ended jaws.
I grabbed them from him and ran back to the bar where
Tommy was choking. I held his head back, stuck the mole
grips into his mouth, fastened on to one of the metal clasps
and heaved as hard as I could. Tommy yelled as the wire
gave way. I ripped out another, then another, until they were
all done. By now there was blood everywhere but we'd
averted a catastrophe. Tommy never went back to the hospital
to get his jaw rewired, and he never was sick.
I broke some bones in my face when I dived at someone
and missed them one night. I collided with a concrete post,
breaking my nose and shattering my cheekbones. I was so
anaesthetized by alcohol I wasn't intending to go to hospital
to get my mush mended until Tommy had a look at the state
of it and told me I really needed to go. That gives you an
indication of the amount of drink I used to get through. The
doctor on duty held up the X-rays of my face. My cheekbones
were in bits. It was a little scary. I asked what they could do
and was told the bones had to knit back together in their
own time. They offered to reset my nose but it would have
meant breaking it again, so I passed on that. The doctor
warned me that once the bruising disappeared my injuries
would be very painful. I laughed like a tough guy.
A few days later the bruising had passed, and I was climbing
the walls with the worst pain I have ever suffered, so bad I had
to call the emergency doctor, who prescribed Distalgesic,
a pain-killer, which was useless. I could have done with
morphine but they never dished it out in those days. There was
one alternative, though, a medicine not only readily available
but proven to work -- hadn't it worked when I'd given myself
the injury? The drink got me through those days and weeks
when nothing else was on offer and I was glad of it.
The worst injury I ever received, though, came when I
was hit over the head with an axe -- just a small one. One
minute I was sitting on top of a guy punching his head -- don't ask me why, I can't remember -- and the next thing I
was coming to in the middle of the main road just in time to
see a double-decker bus bearing down on me. I got up and
made the pavement, where a pal asked me what all the mess
was down the back of my treasured Levi's buckskin jacket. I
took it off and saw a trail of congealed blood. Mystified, I
put my hand to my head and found to my horror that it was
wide open. I walked up to the Royal Victoria Infirmary where
the doctor told me the wound would need a lot of stitches.
He pulled out some scissors to cut the hair from around the
wound, but I stopped him: I wasn't willing to let him cut my
hair, which was long and curly. They told me, 'No haircut,
no stitches.'
I said, 'Fair enough,' and left, but the wound was bleeding
so badly I had to go back and let them chop off my locks.
Such was the amount of alcohol I'd consumed that the
next morning, a Saturday, I woke up having forgotten what
had happened the night before. I raised myself up to get out
of bed and -- 'Uuah!' I screamed. The pillow was stuck to
the back of my head. I flailed around, panic-stricken, and it
flailed with me. My mam walked in, alarmed by the shouting,
saw my head with the pillow stuck to it, and screamed. What
an almighty racket. Gradually I got my bearings, remembered
what had happened and managed to calm her. 'It's all right,'
I told her, 'it's just where I got hit with an axe last night.'
Cue more screams.
That passage might read like a scene out of a horror movie
but it was a one-off. Regular punch-ups never struck me as
anything out of the ordinary, but it has been pointed out to
me that this is not the norm for most people -- but that was
how it was back then, young men letting off steam, and still
is now, to some extent. Indeed, if anything it's got worse,
with indiscriminate violent attacks replacing fights, and no
one giving a shit about the elderly or the vulnerable or even
about life itself. There's no respect for anyone or anything,
and that saddens me.

In the Sun Inn I met a young lad who became a lifelong
friend. I was in the back lounge one evening when a group
came in and made for the bar. They were all tall, slim and
blond, wore sealskin boots and spoke in a foreign, yet vaguely
familiar tongue. It was immediately apparent they were not
from Longbenton. They were trying to make George, the
manager, aware of what they wanted and getting nowhere
fast so I went over and asked if they needed any help. The
one who had the best command of English told me they
wanted beer. I reassured them that they'd come to the right
place. What kind of beer? I asked. They conferred for a
moment. What would I recommend? asked the spokesman.
I suggested Newcastle Brown Ale. They all nodded. I ordered
a round for them. George, all suspicious and beady, served
it up. So, bevvies ordered, who was going to pay? Their
spokesman asked me how much it was. I tried to explain it
was 2/6d (1 2.5p) per bottle, but they seemed to be struggling
with the maths. George was hovering, waiting to be paid.
Their spokesman held out some notes and asked me to take
what I needed. I explained I only needed a pound. They
questioned this. The spokesman held up a pound note and
pointed to the beers. 'For one of these, you get eight of
these?' I nodded. Much excitement. It turned out they were
Norwegians, from Bergen, on a two-week educational break.
What an education they received over the next two weeks!
The spokesman's name was Sweinung Osebakken, which
was quite a gobful for a lad like me -- not used to words and
names made up of more than two syllables. At seventeen,
Sweinung was a year younger than me. On the face of it we
didn't have much in common, but once we started talking
about music and I learned he was the singer in a band, that
was it: we were off. We and the Bergeners spent the next two
weeks on the bevvy in Newcastle, cementing already strong
Anglo-Norwegian ties and having some right old laughs
along the way. Norway has always been known as a great
seafaring nation and lots of the visiting lads were bound for
careers in either marine engineering or the North Sea oilfields
and their itinerary reflected this. A surreal moment occurred
as they were being given a guided tour around C. A. Parsons.
Unaware of their presence, I was working away in the cavernous
auxiliary shop. I lifted my welding mask and heard a lot
of shouting and whooping coming from across the shop
floor. Then, I saw all my new Norwegian mates giving me
the thumbs-up, waving and shouting my name, much to the
puzzlement of the Parsons management representatives.
At the end of their visit, Sweinung invited any of us who
fancied it over to visit him in Bergen. I went the next year
with Ray Black, via the Newcastle-Bergen ferry service, and
we had the most wonderful time. What a breathtakingly
beautiful place it is, with its fresh clean air, its deep lakes and
majestic snow-capped mountains. Without exception, the
Norwegian people were warm and welcoming, way beyond
friendly, a direct consequence of Britain's assisting them in
their fight against German occupation during the Second
World War. They were immensely grateful for our help, and
said so many times. We had a great time, with trips into the
mountains, fishing in the fjords, canoeing on crystal-clear
mountain lakes, skiing, water-skiing, walking and, very
occasionally, a pint of beer. The reason it happened so rarely
was the cost: a pint of lager set you back about four pounds,
which was thirty-two times the price of a bottle of brown
ale. Mind you, they weren't averse to getting round the
problem with home-brewed hooch. A lot of people used to
brew it in their baths. It was akin to swallowing fire.
Those two weeks had quite an impact on my life. Through
the most unlikely introductions, we'd met a bunch of lads
from a foreign land who turned out to be very much like
ourselves. Our own small circle was widened, our experiences
enhanced and our confidence boosted. We had met some
foreigners and after two weeks of daft carry-on we had all
come away the better for it. No one had been hurt, no one
had gone missing. So began an unlikely love affair between
me, Norway and its warm-hearted people, which continues
to this day.
It was in 1971 that I got my first real taste of the entertainment
business. One evening, as I stood at the bar of my
other local, the Newton Park Hotel, I noticed a guy sitting
in the corner. Nothing unusual in that, but he was no regular:
short and thick-set, overweight, black hair, balding, tanned,
polo-necked, covered in very heavy gelt and minding a large
ledger. Believe me, this type of person didn't tend to use the
Newton Park Hotel. If I'd had to make a guess as to his
occupation I'd have said he was a Hollywood producer, and
I would've been dead right. I asked the bar-flies who the guy
in the corner was and was told by one that he was a film
producer. Intrigued, I asked what the fuck he was doing in
our pub. Was he lost? No, he was hiring. Extras. For his
film. Putting folks' names in that ledger of his. I made my
way over to him and volunteered. To my amazement I was
accepted and told to report to an address in the city centre.
My pay would be twenty pounds plus meals for a night's
work. I would have done it for free.
I spent a week of nights hanging around in the cold and
wet, and loved every second of it. The idea that you could
get a full meal in the middle of the night struck me as
wonderful. Back then I was always starving. The scene I was
involved with took an age to shoot and I wondered why.
After hours of farting around with lights and props and
people, the star arrived, in a Rolls-Royce. Sheltered beneath
an umbrella held for him by a minion, he walked through
the scene with the director, a serious-looking little man
sporting a flat cap and a beard. Michael Caine was a much
bigger, beefier bugger than I'd thought he was. Not that I'd
ever imagined meeting him, not in a million years, and not
that I did, but I got really close to him that night, close
enough to be impressed by the way he did his thing. He'd
stand behind the cameras, staring ahead of himself into
nothing, waiting under an umbrella for that moment when
someone hollered, 'Action!' and everything changed: the real
world stopped for a moment and pretendies began. Suddenly,
all mean-eyed and square-jawed, he'd stride purposefully past
me and my mate, Sid Butcher, and into the Oxford Galleries
dancehall. God help whoever he was after. On no account
were we to look at either him or the camera.
So, we did our scene, Sid, Michael and me. Again and
again and again. I remember thinking, between takes, God,
what a fuss, people picking little specks of fluff and dust off
the star's jacket lapels. Why didn't he just do that himself?
Lazy bastard. The director's name was Mike Hodges. Alan
McKeown, Michael Caine's hairdresser, was sitting in the
back of the Rolls-Royce. Later he and I worked on another
production where I had a bit more to do.
Get Carter, the first movie to be shot entirely on location
in Newcastle, came out not long after and went on to become
a landmark British movie, the very finest of its genre, some
film buffs say. A cold blue slice of tough film-noir, it's stood
the test of time and depicts a long-gone industrial Tyneside.
Unsurprisingly, I wasn't invited to the London premiere. I
went along to see it at the pictures when it went on release
in Newcastle. Suddenly, after about an hour into the film,
there I was, tucked in behind Sid and opposite Michael.
Then I was gone, and Michael had moved on. Talk about

blink and you'll miss me! No matter, I could tell people, girls
in particular, I was now in films. But so was half of Newcastle.
Nobody gave a shit. I experienced my first taste of
performance-related disappointment, but soon got over it.
Along with everyone else who had worked as an extra on
the movie, I filed the experience as one of those magical things that happen once in a while and forgot about it.
All in all, and punch-ups apart, the early 1970s were
marvellous times. It was great for anyone like me who loved
live music and dreamed of emulating the people up there on
the stage. As you can only discover amplification and its
power once I doubt anything like it will ever come round
again.
I qualified as a welder, with a City and Guilds certificate
to prove it, but left just before the statutory four years were
up. I was fed up with it and wanted to do something else.
One Sunday afternoon when I'd just returned from a second
trip to Norway, I called in to the Sun Inn for a pint. I bumped
into Chad Shepherd and we got to talking, catching up. When
I asked him what he was up to, he told me he was off to
London in a few hours' time to work down there. How about
me, what was I doing? Nothing much, I said. I was at a loose
end and skint. When Chad asked me if I wanted to go with
him and his buddy, Tony Fleck, I thought, Why not? I went
home and grabbed the bag I hadn't had time to unpack, gave
my mam a hug, and I was off.
Chad's gig was plumbing. He'd landed a job on a site in
South London and I got fixed up as a hod-carrier. That,
dear reader, was the hardest of hard work, back-breaking.
Nowadays cranes drop the pallets, each containing a thousand
bricks, on to the scaffolds for the bricklayers to get
stuck into, but back then it was a dozen at a time in a hod.
That I could cope with, but there was a pressing problem I
had to sort out. I had come back from Norway wearing
clogs, which were the only shoes I had with me. Climbing a
ladder in clogs with a hod on my shoulder was a recipe for
disaster and I fell off a good many times. At the lunch break
I blagged a sub from the site agent and got myself some
boots.
For a while, we lived in Bayswater, West London, in a
little terraced hotel just off Queensway where we shared a
room with a single bed and a sink in it. I used to lay the
wardrobe flat and kip in it until a maid came in one day and
opened the wardrobe door. Gave her such a fright we were
asked to leave. Bayswater was great: there were loads of pubs
and plenty to do. There were girls, lots of them, but they
came and went and nothing serious developed. We were
always out pubbing and watching bands. Music-wise it was
heaven: we were spoilt for choice.
There were all the big gigs happening, of course, but the
real energy was coming out of the pubs and bars. We used
to see one of the first pre-punk bands, the UK Subs, at least
once a week. They had a regular gig in a pub basement near
our hotel. They were electric, so exciting, and the place was
always jammed. After all the fatuous pomp-rock of the
early 1970s, when many musicians disappeared up their own
oeuvres, nihilistic songs like '(I Wanna) Live In A Car' were
a breath of fresh air. The Subs blew away the cobwebs, they
didn't give a fuck, and neither did I. More than once and
uninvited I jumped up and joined them on the stage, bawling
into the microphone. The flame burned deep inside me and
sooner or later it would have to be allowed either to burn
bright or blow out.
After our eviction from bijou Bayswater we moved across
the river to Mervan Road, Brixton, known to us all as the
Geordie Embassy, an upstairs apartment occupied by Jimmy
Kit-Kat and Scotch Charlie. It was so named because anyone
and everyone from our neck of the woods who was in town
seemed to end up sleeping and often living there. Whenever
there was a football match in London that involved Newcastle
United you couldn't see the carpet for bodies. It was
pointless planning anything on days like these and we didn't
bother trying: we just went with the flow and the flowing
beer. Brixton was a great place to live, and inevitably, there
were punch-ups. It could get pretty hairy.
Chad never got involved with all the football-based rucking;
he was just too sensible for that. My mate Ray Black was
the same. And it got beyond mad sometimes. Once we drove
a passenger train out of a station to escape some irate Arsenal
fans, Brian Blackburn playing Casey Jones. Another time I
jumped on to a fairground ride in Battersea to get away from
some guys. Thinking I was safe, I gave them two fingers,
only to find them waiting for me when the big-dipper ride
came full circle. And I remember a scrap kicking off in the
infamous Blind Beggar pub in London's East End, and
people getting their heads thumped with pool balls.
Chad and I often used a boozer called the Prince of Wales,
right on the main junction in Brixton, just up from the tube
station and opposite the old town hall. There were some
heavy-duty people in there and quite a few carried guns. We
became friendly with a big Irish lad called Brendan and after
that never got any grief from anyone. I did, however, have a
nasty experience coming out of the tube late one night. As I
hit the street a couple of blokes came at me, one of them
wielding a crow-bar. The bottom edge of a crow-bar is very
sharp indeed and this bloke was intent on sticking me. I got
away without mishap, but I never found out what it was
about.
Chelsea was another place Chad and I loved to have a
beer and a bite, and the King's Road on a Saturday afternoon
was always lively, even before the punk explosion of 1976.
Our favourite place was a restaurant called the Crockpot
where we'd feast on beef Stroganoff and drink ourselves silly.
We had plenty of work and plenty of cash. We were out
every night of the week making merry. We'd sometimes hire
a car and drive up to Newcastle for the weekend. Going
home with some money in your pocket felt good: you could
buy your round in the pub, pay your way, and look after your
mam. You could hold your head up.
This was the pattern of my life for those few years, from
1974 to 1976, up and down from Newcastle to London,
plenty of money, no ties, lots of fun, and very happy I was.
It's funny how you can't see certain things until you're
outside or beyond them, at which point they become glaringly
obvious. So it was in 1976, when I was twenty-two, a
grown-up and a big kid at the same time. Immature is
probably the best word for how I was. Selfish, too. I didn't
give a shit about anything, including my own safety, and
many a time risked my life trying to pull off some silly
stunt to entertain my pals. Swinging Errol Flynn-style on a
chandelier in an hotel one afternoon almost got me killed.
But I'd been dodging the bullets, metaphorically speaking,
for quite a while, thinking I was a clever shite, when in fact
I was heading down a one-way street, sinking deeper and
deeper into a morass of punch-ups and drink. Then the
bomb dropped.
It was springtime when I was arrested in Sheffield for
fighting. I was charged, found guilty and sentenced to four
months in prison. Over the following summer, the hottest
for more than a century, I spent twenty-three hours of every
day locked in a tiny cell, witnessing and experiencing brutality,
violence and hatred, served up and dished out by inmates and
guards. I also met kindness and encouragement. Although I
didn't know it at the time, those experiences did me good
and have stayed with me for the rest of my life. The whole
thing scared the shit out of me, that's for sure. Character
building, some might call it, and it was certainly that.
It was a Saturday night during the spring of 1976 and I'd been to a football match earlier in the day somewhere further
south with a bunch of mates. We'd travelled down by rented
van, about fifteen of us. On our way back we'd decided to
spend the evening on the drink in Sheffield city centre before
heading home up the Mi. I can't remember a lot about that
night, partly because of the amount I'd drunk, partly because
it wasn't a particularly memorable night. We had a pub-crawl
and a couple of punch-ups and that was that. One fight was
pretty horrific with people getting thrown head-first into
walls and such, but it had nothing to do with what supposedly
happened later on.
I was arrested late On Saturday night, along with a couple
of other lads from our travelling party, and charged with
assaulting a guy in the street. I can't recall what I was
supposed to have done to him and the police records on the
case, hand-written back in those days, I'm told have been
either lost or destroyed -- but I hadn't done what I was later
charged with: I hadn't chinned that guy. I maintain that to
this day. I was taken in the back of a police van to a local
nick and photo'd, fingerprinted and charged.
Having your fingerprints taken is one of the most degrading
things imaginable; your hand is forced down on to a long
thin inky pad then over on to the charge-sheet, again and
again, until each digit is done. The policeman has to hold
your hand in his. That wasn't nice, that contact with a
member of the filth, as they were known to us lads. You

can't get the indelible ink off your fingers, they don't allow
you to wash it off, and it's all so bloody grubby. It's everywhere
by the time they're done -- up your arms, on your face,
your dick, your clothes. It makes you feel like a criminal
whether you are one or not.
At that point I did not consider myself to be a criminal,
rather someone mistakenly arrested. As I'd never been in
trouble for violence before I wasn't too worried. I figured
the worst that could happen, if I were found guilty, which
wasn't very likely, was I'd land a suspended sentence. But I
wasn't guilty and I told them so. While I was waiting in a
corridor of the police station to be locked up, a lift door
opened and two uniformed policemen carried a plain-clothes
officer out. His face was caved in, pulped, the way it might
be if a person had been thrown head-first into a wall. It
was a shocking, horrible sight. His carriers were promising
they'd find the bastards responsible and when they did they'd
not leave the nick alive. I believed them and counted my
blessings. Things could've been a lot worse.
After a few hours of tile-counting in the cells I was released
on to the street and expected to make my own way home. I
can't remember how I got back to Newcastle - I must have
caught an early-morning train, I guess -- but I'd sobered up
long before. Getting arrested tended to have that effect.
I had been charged with assault with intent to occasion
actual bodily harm. At the time of my arrest I had informed
the police officers that I was innocent and intended to deny the
charge, so I was eventually summoned to appear at Sheffield
Crown Court. I wasn't working at the time so I was granted
legal aid. The barrister I was allocated by the court was an
affable young man called Nathanson. He wore the wig and I
was most impressed by the tradition and protocol. I told him
what had happened and he said it would all be all right. If
the jury found against me, which was highly unlikely in his
learned opinion, it would be a slap on the wrist. Confirmation
of what I'd thought. I felt fine about it all. At no time did I
have the slightest inkling of what was about to happen.
I'd not told my parents anything about this in the woefully
misguided assumption that either it would all blow over or
I'd get off. They didn't need to know. If I'd told my mam it
would have worried her sick -- and unnecessarily: I was about
to walk away from it a free man. I got there for the hearing
on a Tuesday and, much to my surprise and dismay, was
quickly found guilty, even though the lad I'd supposedly
chinned said he thought it was me but he couldn't be sure.
My features were distinctive even then: there wasn't another
face like mine out there. Of course I'd failed to grasp the
hopelessness of my plight. The plaintiff was a local lad. I was
a marauding outsider, a hooligan, a dole-wallah, scum. Fair
enough, I was sixteen stone at the time and must have looked
scary to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
As I was innocent I showed no remorse. Surly, burly Jim,
what a bloody pillock. If I'd had half a brain I would have
admitted it, been contrite and thrown myself on the mercy
of the court, but that wouldn't have been right -- not the
done thing when you're a big stupid tough guy who believes
himself innocent. Also, it would have required quite an act
of me, and I couldn't have pulled it off to save my life. I was
far too shy -- it may surprise you to learn that away from the
job I'm a very shy person. Then another big shock to the
system: the judge ordered me remanded in custody and sent
to Armley jail in Leeds until the following Friday, when I'd
be brought before him for sentencing. I couldn't believe it
as I was led away down the stairs inside the dock. Only a
couple of hours earlier I'd been sitting on the train having a
beer. It felt like a bad dream.

Being put into prison is a demeaning process, deliberately
so, I'm sure. You are stripped, both literally and metaphorically,
and come out the other end as a number, with a
bundle of clothes countless others have eaten, slept and come
in. I spent the couple of days in Armley's grim surroundings
feeling sorry for myself until I met a funny guy who had been
handed a long custodial sentence for stealing milk off a doorstep,
at least that was how he told it. He was on his way to
Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight. The trial judge had called him
an habitual offender and said a long jail term was the only
suitable sentence. This guy made a persuasive point: you're
not supposed to pay for the same crime twice in this country,
yet when he was sentenced he received a longer stretch than
he would have if he had been a first-time offender -- his
previous was taken into account. A moot point. An injustice?
Maybe. But, wait a minute, what was I doing there? This was
jail. I couldn't take it in. Those few days passed very slowly,
but at last I was on my way back to Sheffield for sentencing.
I wondered if my pals had been remanded. Never mind, it
would all be over soon and I'd go home. Everyone I spoke
to, from the milk-thief in the cell to the prison officers, said
the same: the judge had given me a couple of days inside as
a taster and would send me packing with a grave warning as
to what would befall me if I broke the law again. After two
nights on a wooden pillow I was ready to listen.
I was led up from the holding cells into the dock, feeling
dirty, tired and embarrassed. At least it would all be done
with in a couple of hours and I'd be on the train having a
beer. I looked around the courtroom and was stunned to see
my mam and dad sitting at the back looking concerned. My
first thought was, How unusual. I'd never seen them out
together before as a couple. How on earth had they found
out about this?
If a judge starts his summing up with all the bad stuff
you've done in your life, it's pretty certain he'll then move
on to talk about your good side and you're looking at walking
away with a stiff talking-to. If, on the other hand, he starts
off with all the good stuff, you're invariably in trouble. And
wouldn't you just know where this one started? After listening
patiently to probationary reports about me, and after my
brief, Mr Nathanson, had explained to the court that I had
an offer of work in Saudi Arabia as a welding technician for
an oil company called Aramco, which was true - although
I'd lied about my age to get the gig and would probably have
been rumbled long before I got there -- his lordship gave his
judgement. I'm sure he'd already made up his mind. It was
indeed a pity to see such a bright and intelligent young man,
from a good home and with honest working parents, in front
of him on this most serious of charges, but the court simply
could not have people running around the streets of Sheffield
like Attila the Hun attacking innocent people. His voice had
become a blur -- it was like audio treacle. I couldn't hear him
properly. Did he just say I had to go back to prison? For
four months? I must be dreaming. It can't be happening.
No such luck. I was led back down the stairs and to the
holding cells by the prison guards. They shook their heads.
They were surprised, they told me. Not half as surprised as
I was. I was in shock. I asked Mr Nathanson if he planned
to appeal. He looked surprised and said, 'Appeal? I thought
it went rather well.' I found out later that mine had been his
first case.
I didn't think that day could get any worse, but I was
wrong. My parents were allowed to speak to me briefly
through a thick sheet of perforated Perspex before I was
carted off to jail. I felt so bad about them being there I would
rather not have spoken to them but in the circumstances I

couldn't refuse. I had to sit there, in handcuffs, and watch as
my beloved mother, then my father wept because of what
I'd done. The sight of my dad crying threw me. You'd expect
it of a mother at a time like that, but my dad was such a
tough, hard man who never showed emotion and I couldn't
imagine anything moving him to tears. Yet there he was,
sitting in front of me in his crumpled old coat, sixty-two
years old, weeping silently.
I was so ashamed of myself- I still am. Despite all they'd
done for me, despite a safe home and all their loving kindness,
I'd made it to the bottom of the barrel. They had supported
me as best they could, always arguing my corner, but I'd
proved them wrong and everyone else right. It was, without
doubt, the lowest point in my life. But it was an important
day in so much as I made a vow to myself: I would do
anything and everything to ensure that I never again brought
that kind of suffering upon my family.
I was told I'd have to spend the first couple of weeks in
Armley from where I'd be transferred to Durham. Home
Office rules state that a prisoner should be housed in the jail
nearest to his home to make visiting easier for his family. At
least that was something to look forward to. I can't remember
anything about my time in Armley other than that I was
there for a week before I was transferred -- not to Durham
but to Strangeways in Manchester. Trips to and from the
different nicks on the prison buses were surreal. I felt like an
extra in a prison movie, handcuffed to another con I didn't
know. As far as the world outside was concerned, that's what
I was now: a con.
Through the prison-van windows Strangeways looked
daunting, grey and brutal, with a huge brick chimney rising
hundreds of feet into the sky. It made me think of Nazi
concentration camps as depicted on old newsreels.
Reception involved stripping off and having my clothes
taken away. Someone looked up the crack of my arse to see
if I was smuggling anything in, then it was a nit-check, a visit
to a store where they gave me a prison uniform and that was
it: I was inside. They didn't have any shoes that fitted me
properly so I was given a pair that were far too big, cheap
black slip-ons. That really upset me. It was one thing having
to wear prison-issue clothing: having been boiled to near
destruction it was anonymous. But those shoes stank of
someone else. Who'd been wearing them before me? A
rapist? A murderer? A child-killer? I've never been able to
put on a pair of costume shoes. Instead I carry a large stock
of my own footwear. It's a pain in the arse, but there you
are. The odd time I've done period stuff I've simply taken
off the hired footwear. Nobody's noticed.
Another Home Office rule was that short-term prisoners
weren't supposed to be banged up with long-termers because
it caused friction: it was too much of a wind-up for the
long-termers to watch as cons serving short sentences came
and went. In my case this rule went out of the window.
Deliberately, I believe. I was put into a cell with a local
Mancunian lad. He had a broad back, red hair and wild eyes,
and paced the floor of the cell all day, every day. On my
arrival he asked me what I was in for. I told him for fighting.
He wanted to know the charge. Assault, I replied, but this
was still not detailed enough for him. Was it ABH or GBH?
I couldn't remember, but felt that wouldn't be an appropriate
answer. I guessed GBH would cut more ice with him so I
plumped for that. He nodded approvingly. I'd guessed right.
My respite, however, was short-lived. He wanted to know
how long a stretch I was doing. Sitting on the edge of my
bunk, head in hands, feeling hard-done-by and well sorry for
myself, I told him the bad news. Four months, I said, and

looked up, hoping for sympathy and understanding. Instead
my cell-mate scowled.
'Four months? Four fucking months!' he snarled. His eyes
seemed to be bulging.
'Why?' I asked. 'H-h-how long are you in for?'
'Six fucking years', he growled.
I fought to keep my eyebrows down. 'What for, if I might
ask?'
He explained he'd been in the city centre with his wife
having a drink and some guy had kept staring at her. He'd
asked him to stop but the guy had continued to stare, so he'd
gone out to his van, got his axe out of the back, re-entered
the boozer and set about parting the guy's hair. I sat there in
stunned silence, not knowing what to say. I decided it was
best to say nothing.
I was introduced to prison routine and slang. I figured it
would be sensible to keep my mouth shut, do exactly as I
was told and learn fast. I queued for my meals three times a
day. Open up in the mornings to slop out. Bang-up in the
evenings. Lights out. Slopping out was by far the worst part.
There were no toilets in the cells as there are today, just
a bucket, so if you needed to crap you were supposed to
use the bucket and empty it first thing the next morning.
Most cons caught short in this manner would crap on to a
newspaper, then throw it out of the cell window. Sometimes
there'd be a low, dull thud, other times a squelchy splat.
Certain cons would be assigned the truly wretched task of
collecting up those gruesome projectiles every morning. I
dread to think what they'd done to land such a gig. Trying
to hit a guard with a shit-parcel was a regular pastime and a
major talking-point. It did happen occasionally, a con would
get lucky, a guard much less so, and there was talk of
long-term psychological damage: prison officers seemed





82
3

always to be on the look-out for a way to retire early on full
pension.
Almost every day at the same time, just before lunch, my
cell-mate followed a strange routine. He would grip the bars
outside the tiny window and haul himself up so that his face
was level with the bars. There he would remain, his heavily
muscled arms shuddering with the effort of it, until he could
sustain it no longer. Then he would fall to the floor, moaning
and rubbing his aching biceps. For a long time I wondered
what this was about but he never offered an explanation and
I didn't have the bottle to ask him. But one day curiosity got
the better of me.
What he showed me made me want to cry. When you
looked out of the window you could see the prison's long
perimeter wall receding from where we were. It was nearest,
and therefore highest, to our bottom left, and as it ran back
and up, towards our top right, it appeared lower, although
this was an optical illusion. At its furthest point, however,
you could see over the wall and on to a bit of the adjacent
pavement. At an agreed time every day his wife would stand
there with their little daughter and he could see them for as
long as he hung on to the bars.
It made me think of Sarah, Val's little girl, who was about
two, the only baby in the family. I worried about Sarah while
I was locked up. There were some terrible types in there, sex
offenders, child molesters, and although they were segregated
for their own safety, just being near them made me worry
about how safe Sarah was on the outside. In my letters home
I wrote about the need for vigilance where she was concerned.
Sex offenders came in for awful treatment at the hands of
the inmates and with the tacit approval of the warders. I
once witnessed a man's head held under a scalding tap by
some inmates as the warders looked on. He was screaming
while everyone else laughed. It was gruesome and it was
wrong. I've no time for sex offenders and their like, but no
matter how bad their crime, it's not right for the mob to take
the law into their own hands.
The governor of the day was a Bible-basher, apparently,
and considered pin-ups to be against the will of God, so you
could lose your remission for having a picture of a bird on
the wall of your cell. He also had a thing about food: he felt
the prison should be self-sustaining wherever possible so we
baked our own bread. It was awful: each slice looked like a
small beige roof-tile with a texture to match. It had the
absorbent capability of Formica. It was of no use for mopping
up your dinner gravy, but as there never was any gravy
this wasn't a problem. Most of the guys gobbled it down,
but not me. I'd been spoilt by all those lovely dinners, pastries
and pies my mam made for me.
Another Home Office rule stipulated that inmates weren't
to be given the same meal twice in succession. I went down
to breakfast one morning, joined the queue and held out
my pressed metal tray. A dollop of piping-hot slurry was
deposited in one of the indentations, causing the tray to slew
to one side. I stared at the steaming mess before me.
'Spaghetti?' I queried.
'That's right,' said the con serving it up, a tiny, rather
nasty-looking queen.
'But we had spaghetti for dinner last night,' I said.
'Yeah,' says he, 'but it wasn't pink, was it?'
This was true. Pink food dye had been added to last night's
leftovers. Waste not, want not,' as the saying goes. I was
learning how rules and regulations were interpreted by those
in power.
During the first week of my stint inside I cut into some
mashed potato and hit a cockroach. I was pleased to see it
was dead but it was a shock all the same. Oh, how I longed for
one of my mam's Sunday dinners, with individual Yorkshire
puddings balanced precariously on top of a mountain of
roast beef, roast potatoes, peas, sprouts, carrots and gravy
made from the juice of the joint. The cockroach did it for
me, as far as prison food was concerned. From that moment
until the day of my release I did my damnedest to eat only
what I could afford to buy from the shop, which was usually
a packet of Ryvita and a tub of Dairylea cheese per week,
and whatever I was given by Tommy, the elderly maintenance
fitter who looked after me with bits of grub. I lost two stone
in the short time I was in there and without Tommy's
generosity I would have been in an even worse state.
My first few weeks in Strangeways were unreal -- I felt as
if it wasn't happening to me. I wandered around in a kind of
daze, looking at other cons in a detached, observing way. I
was lucky no one gave me a clout. Then one day it hit me:
you're in prison, this is all real, you can't go home when you
want to, you're surrounded by rapists and murderers, bandits
and other criminals and that's it. There's nothing you can do
about it. Worse than that: in society's eyes you're one of
them, just the same. The truth hit me like an anvil falling on
to my shoulders. I was pretty near rock-bottom. But at least
when you get there, there's only one way to go.
Strangeways was on twenty-three-hours-a-day bang-up
back then, which meant I was in my cell for all but a single
hour every day, which I spent walking around in circles in
the exercise yard along with all the other inmates. This
sub-human regime was against Home Office guidelines and
led to constant tension and volatility among the prisoners,
but it made life easier for the officers so that was how the
nick was run. If you landed any gig that got you out of your
cell for a few hours you were considered one of the lucky
ones. I sewed mailbags for a couple of weeks, which was
inadvertently hilarious as it resembled a scene straight out of
an Ealing comedy, with a room full of tattooed, rock-jawed,
beady-eyed villains trying to do delicate seams. Big thick
hands, much better suited to throttling sub-postmasters,
struggled to hold the tiny needles. I wanted to laugh, but of
course I didn't dare. It would have been lights out for me.
Then, because of my engineering background, I was put on
to the prison works detail. I was nervous about this as I
wasn't sure what I'd be asked to do and whether I'd be able
to do it. The old fear of failure reared its head again.
Come Monday morning, all the inmates on works duty,
twenty or so, were assembled on the wing. A senior prison
officer called out the names and we were led away in groups
of between two and six to different parts of the nick. I was
taken down to the maintenance workshop, a small place with
a low-level window and its own open front door. Crucially,
it was beyond the wing and felt to me like the outside. The
leathery-looking guy who ran things in there was called
Tommy. He could only have been in his late forties but he
seemed very old to me. He wasn't unlike my dad to look at,
and they had the same wry smile and throaty laugh. Tommy
was kind to me, which was way more than he was obliged to
be, and that was precious: an act of human kindness was
uncommon in that nick.
Tommy was a maintenance contractor rather than a prison
officer, so the rules governing his employment were different.
The prison's workshop was just like the cathedral-like fabrication
shops at Parsons, though on a much-reduced scale.
He'd have that morning's newspaper and would let me read
it, an unbelievable treat. Best of all, though, he brought food
in, ostensibly for his own consumption, and we'd cook it on
his makeshift stove. A couple of rashers of bacon and an
egg, with a bit of fried bread as well! Oh, my God! Talk
about a life-saver.
The strangest thing Tommy knocked up on the stove was
a kind of fondue: he crumbled a whole packet of cheese into
a soup bowl, then added enough milk to submerge it. He
placed the bowl on top of a pan of boiling water and the
contents eventually turned into this gooey, bubbling mulch.
Then we clipped bread into it with plenty of butter. It looked
awful but to me it was the most wonderful dish I'd ever
eaten and I gobbled it down gratefully. I tried not to gulp it
too fast but Tommy knew I was starving. He'd laugh and tell
me, 'Go on, Geordie, get it down you, son.' He had no need
or ulterior motive to do these things for me. I had nothing
to give him in return, other than my heartfelt thanks. It was
purely an act of kindness on his part, and had he been caught
giving me any of this stuff he would have been sacked, no
doubt about that.
Because of the brutal nature of the regime, I rarely encountered
much that resembled compassion. If you happen to be
out there reading this, Tommy, your kindness made the
difference and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
The need to spend everything I earned (about ninety pence
a week) on food meant I had to make some difficult decisions.
For as long as I can remember I've always needed to start the
day by cleaning my teeth. I can go without a shower if I have
to, but I cannot function without a scrub of the old dominoes. Out of toothpaste one day, I had to decide between Colgate
and Dairylea. I went for the Dairylea and figured I could use
salt to clean my teeth. I did this until one day there was no
salt, only some Vim-like sink scourer. Out of desperation I
used it. As soon as I started brushing I knew I'd made a bad
mistake. My gums bled and it took the top layer of enamel
off my teeth. After that it was back to the salt.
There was the odd practical joke, and one day I found
myself on the end of a good one. On the way to work one
morning I overheard two inmates talking about how much
they were looking forward to having chips with their dinner
that evening. I asked them about it, and they told me
about the protocol. Those on works duty could have chips
with their meals any time they wished. They just had to put
their name down with the prison officer at the end of the
working day.
Chips! Oh, my God. My mouth watered and my guts
rumbled at the prospect.
About ten hours later I was on the wing landing with all
the other inmates on works detail, waiting for the roll call. The
wing prison officer was a dead-ringer for Fulton McKay's Mr
McKay from Porridge, tall, thin, ramrod straight, with his cap
peak pulled down over his eyes. Just before the names were
read out, I stepped forward and announced to him loud and
clear that I'd like to put my name down for chips in the
evenings. There was a moment's silence, during which I died
a thousand deaths as the penny dropped. The other inmates
were pissing themselves as the prison officer made his way
towards me. 'Chips?' he asked.
I gave a half-hearted nod.
He looked at me from under his peak. 'Get back into the
line before I have you sent down to the block!' he growled.
Food, or the lack of it, played a big part in my time inside.
I was always hungry, and I'd fantasize about big dinners
washed down with a half-decent mug of tea. Boy, was I going
to have a slap-up meal when I got out. In the meantime,
though, there was only the tasteless, inedible rubbish they
served up three times a day, which I avoided -- and was right
to, never mind dead cockroaches.
I was taken into the kitchen one day, under guard, to
mend the belt chain on the bread oven. It ran trays of dough
in and, moments later, baked bread out, conveyor-style. As
I welded the broken link back together I could hear singing,
and . . . splashing? Once I'd finished, I asked the screw with
me where all the noise was coming from. 'It's just the kitchen
cons, finishing up for the day,' he replied.
Job done, time to go, and we were walking back through
the kitchen the way we'd come. As I rounded a corner I saw
the big steam vats used to cook all the prison's vegetables.
They looked like oversized kettle drums, but right then they
were filled with naked inmates having a bath.
As a Newcastle United supporter I felt very alone in
Strangeways. If I'd been in Durham I dare say I would have
known a few other inmates but in Mancunian Strangeways I
was on my own. It was all either City or United. It was also
the first time anyone called me Geordie. I became friends
with a little Irish lad, Davey, a hardened con who'd been
inside before. He was a real tough nut from Ballymena
and had an accent even thicker than mine. It wasn't the
done thing to inquire too deeply into folks' past, but whoever
he was and whatever he'd done, Davey was respected by
everyone and given a lot of room.
He used to say, as did Tommy the maintenance man, that
I shouldn't have been in there, and it was reassuring to hear,
no matter who said it. The thought of coming back scared
the living daylights out of me. Punch-ups were relatively rare,
though, and I managed to keep myself out of trouble, except
on one particular day. The works detail was walking along
the inner perimeter of the jail in a kind of squad formation,
ten men deep and five across or thereabouts. All of a sudden
I got a kick up the arse. I turned round and saw a guy behind
me with a bleached-blond mop. He made it clear he didn't
wish to discuss it amicably. A little further on, he did it again.
This went on for a while with me trying to ignore it, desperate
not to retaliate for fear of losing my remission. It was
becoming impossible, though. Pretty soon I'd have to do
something.
Then, just as I was about to turn and lamp the fucker, my
pal Davey appeared and settled in next to me. 'All right,
Geordie?' he asked.
I nodded, not wishing to involve anyone else.
Next thing I knew there was a crack and I looked behind me. The bleached-blond was lying on his back, out cold. He
was picked up by the guards and thrown back into the
formation. I never heard from him again.
As happened fairly regularly, I was moved into a different
cell; this one contained two other guys. When the screws did
this the resulting pressure-cooker atmosphere was intense.
You were thrown into a cramped cell with total strangers
guilty of God-knew-what, and everyone was unsettled. It
often boiled over into violence. One of my new cell-mates
was a really weird guy, a Londoner with lank dark hair and
wild, staring eyes. He would stare at me for long periods,
saying nothing. It was unnerving, especially trying to get to
sleep. He'd mumble on about northerners, how they were
all a bunch of fuckers and cunts. Ever fearful of doing
anything that might result in losing remission and being
locked up for one day more than I had to be, I said nothing.
It was very stressful, just waiting for something to kick off. I
was sure it would sooner or later. So I waited, trying to be as
ready for it as I could be.
One day I came back from work to find the crazy-eyed
guy was gone. He'd received a 'Dear John', slang for a lover's
goodbye letter, and had apparently flipped out. You wouldn't
normally wish a 'Dear John' on anyone but I was mightily
relieved when I found out about it. He'd been put in a
strait-jacket and sectioned. Hallelujah! After that the atmosphere
picked up a bit.
A rare fond memory I have from my stint inside is of
listening each Sunday night to a dramatized version of Les
Miserables on Radio 4. I tuned in my tiny tranny and for
an hour was transported from my cell to the streets of
nineteenth-century France. The sound effects were simple
but evocative: the clip-clop of pursuing soles and heels, the
scraping sound of metal over stone as manhole covers were
prised open. Jean Valjean led the law a merry dance week in,
week out, and I was transfixed. The whole nick listened to
the radio and the BBC was a lifeline in terms of keeping us
up to date with the world outside. More than that, it was the world outside, and precious to us. The BBC was fast
becoming an important accompaniment to all my ups and
downs, just as it had been when I listened to all those voices
and melodies as a kid at my aunts' house.
Years later I was offered the part of the Innkeeper in Les
Mis and refused it, not because of the part, which was great,
but because of the audience. I wasn't familiar with the show
so I thought it a good idea to go and see it. Seats were hastily
arranged. I went along one evening and was horrified at the
behaviour of blue-rinsed American women, the bulk of the
crowd, who called out to no one in particular whenever a
thought entered their minds. It's the same when you go to
see a movie in America, constant yak and natter. Anyway,
come the death scene of one of the young lovers: hushed
auditorium, backlit figures appearing in ghostly white behind
gauze. Then, a great whoop as an American woman suddenly
bellows, 'Oh, gee, a wedding!' That was enough for me. If
I'd been on that stage I would have pelted her with anything
to hand. As a revolutionary I might have been toting a chunk
of rock, or a rifle with a bayonet! So, not a good idea, I
figured. Best left.
At long last my short spell inside ended and it was time to
go home. As it was August bank-holiday weekend I'd be
getting out on the Friday morning with a number of other
inmates. I never slept a wink the night before, yet when the
time came to leave a great sadness came over me -- not about
my release, for I was desperate to be shot of the place and free
again, but for all those who would remain behind, the innocent
men I'd met, the friends I'd made. They'd be banged up in
their poxy cells that night, and I even felt a bit guilty at having
gained my liberty while they were left to languish. I dare say
one or two of the poor bastards will be there still.
I was given back the clothes I'd been wearing on the day I
was sent down, jeans, a leather jacket and, best of all, my own
shoes. I pulled up the jeans, only to see them drop straight
back down and come to rest round my ankles. Then I was
handed my bits and pieces, along with a giro for about forty
pounds and a travel warrant good for the train ride home to
Geordieland. I was going home. I felt like I wanted to cry.
At nine a.m. they let us out. I'd dreamed of this moment
for the last few months, imagined how sweet it would taste.
With a single step I was back on the street, taking in all
the traffic noise, breathing deep lungfuls of Mancunian air,
walking away from that horrible prison and into the light
morning drizzle. Suddenly music, which had all but left my
life and my mind, entered my head and I started singing, very
quietly, to myself. I crossed the road and reached the other
side. It felt strange, as though I'd escaped. I half expected a
voice to shout, 'Hoi! You!' It never came, though. I had a
great urge to look back, to take one last glance at the place,
but I wouldn't allow myself to do it.
All of a sudden I realized I didn't know which way I
should be walking. I'd just followed all the other ex-cons as
they crossed the road -- that was what I was now and would
always be. It turned out quite a few of the other lads were
headed for the railway station. As I walked along the pavement
with them, the most unpleasant prison officer I'd
encountered inside was walking towards the main gates. This
guy, his face clouded with bitter unpleasantness, had shown
himself to be a sadistic, racist bully. As he walked towards
his next shift, with his peaked cap pulled down over his eyes,
his shoulders hunched against the wind and rain, he looked
across the road. With a triumphant cackle, he shouted, at no
one in particular, 'Ah, you'll be back.'
It almost stopped me in my tracks and sent a cold shiver
down my spine. Was he right? Or was it just bile? Many of
my companions fucked him off in short order, but not me.
For the briefest of moments, that scumbag embodied the
devil.
I looked at him and thought, No, mate, I'll not be back.
I'll fucking die before I let that happen. I shouted it inside
my head. I wanted the devil to hear my resolve.

On the train home I had a cold beer, which tasted very sweet
indeed. Just the one, though. I was very aware of the danger
drink might now pose. The last thing I needed was to get
pissed, have another mindless punch-up and find myself
back inside. Thoughts of returning home and how it would
be were whizzing around in my head. My emotions were
running like a rollercoaster. I determined to keep them in
check and I was all right until the train pulled on to the
high-level bridge and I caught sight of the Tyne, my river,
with its big, broad, murky-grey waters and its old north bank,
the quayside where I'd spent many happy childhood days. I
broke down and cried.
My pal Ray was waiting for me at the station. His reaction
on seeing me gave me a bit of a start. He was obviously
shocked at the deterioration in my physical condition. Looking
me up and down, he simply asked, 'Are you all right?'
I nodded, but the nod was a lie: I didn't feel all right. My
head was certainly a long way from all right. I felt as though
everyone was aware of where I'd been living for the past few
months, as though I had a sign round my neck that read
'prison'. I hadn't and they weren't, of course, but such was
the stigma that a spell in prison brought with it back then
that I felt that way for months, if not years.
Also, I'd come back skint, a penniless failure, and my
failure was major, big-time, there for all to see and have a
good laugh at. The same thing had happened a few years
earlier, after a hot, sweaty summer spent working in the

kitchens of Torquay hotels. What had started out as a great
idea in the pub had quickly ended in ignominy, with me
returning home potless, reduced to begging and cadging
from my parents and friends. I hadn't a penny to my name
and I hated it. The fear of not being able to pay my way in
life has always pushed me into action of one sort or another:
I would do almost anything to avoid being in that situation.
To my mind there is no worse feeling in the world than being
on the end of hand-outs, no matter how well-meant. I'm not
sure when it started, maybe with my mam and those pop
bottles, but by this time the unbearable fear of being, or
staying, poor was very powerful. Now it was as if everyone
could see I had nothing to my name. Much better to be in
the business of giving.
Illogically, this fear of ending up back at the bottom haunts
and drives me still; it occupies ridiculous amounts of my
everyday thoughts, even though in financial terms I'm
beyond the need to worry. Even my dreams feature disasters
that result in me going back to the north-east cap in hand,
humbled and poor, to be mocked by all those I left behind
for having had the temerity to give the fame game a shot.
Smart Alec! Who did I think I was? Having spoken to various
people about this over the years I know I'm not alone in
feeling the way I do, but I'd much rather feel and dream
differently.
Ray drove me to my sister's place in Whitley Bay, on the
Newcastle coast. My mam was there with Val, my brother-in
law Mac and little Sarah. It was an emotional reunion with
lots of tears. Not knowing what else to do for me, my mam
had made me the most wonderful meal, as any mother might
for their son in such circumstances, and she'd spent hours
getting it all ready. Once I was seated she set it lovingly
before me: a great dinner plate struggling to contain all of
my favourite things, roast beef, roast potatoes, vegetables,
gravy, all topped off with a load of little Yorkshire puddings.
But after all those weeks living on near-starvation rations I
found the sight of that food overwhelming and I couldn't
eat it. She began to cry, wrongly assuming she'd failed me.

I left the house and went for a long walk in the rain. I
walked for hours along roads and lanes, eventually returning
when it was nearly dark. Then I had a couple of slices of
toast spread with butter, a treat I'd been deprived of during
my stint inside. I had tears in my eyes as the toast melted the
butter and it ran down my fingers and either side of my
mouth. Never has a bit of burnt bread tasted better.
I'd expected to have my hair cropped off in a basin cut
when I was locked up but, thankfully, that hadn't happened.
You could pretty much have it as long as you liked. I did get
talking to the wing barber, though, a big, likeable lad called
Tony, whose own hair was rapidly receding. Years later I met
him at an AC/DC gig at the Wembley Arena. He was on
security, and I was a guest of the band. I couldn't immediately
place him and, out of courtesy, he didn't want to remind me.
Then I remembered and we had a good old laugh about how
things had changed. He wished me well and I him. Back on
a hair note, I'd deliberately let my barnet grow in the hope
that when I did get out I wouldn't look like an ex-con fresh
out of the jug. Soon after I came home I went to a barber's
in Newcastle city centre for a tidy-up but they made such
a mess of it I ended up having a bloody basin cut to sort
it out.
I was on my uppers. As hard as I tried -- and, believe me,
I did try -- there was just no landing a job. It seemed that no
one wanted to employ a guy fresh out of prison. If only I'd
finished my apprenticeship at Parsons, I could have gone
back on the tools. But towards the end of my time at the
factory the welding had affected my vision so I was none too
keen on revisiting it. I struggled to make ends meet -- but
there were some funny moments along the way.
After much bullshitting and fib-telling, I landed a gig
pipe-fitting on the massive petrochemical plant at Seal Sands,
near Middlesbrough. On the Monday I was given a set of
plans with pipework information and left to get on with it. I
was used to engineering drawings but not on this scale. The
pipes were very small bore, nothing like the monsters I'd
worked on as an apprentice, and were labyrinthine. I looked
at the drawings, mystified, hoping to see something familiar.
But they might as well have been written in Swahili. No
matter, I'd busk it. I looked at the plans all morning and
couldn't work out what was required. Then a load of fittings
arrived. I looked at them for a long time, too. I was beginning
to sweat. I'd hoped to be paired with someone who would
help me get through the worst of it, but I was on my own.
Then I had an idea. There was a JCB working just outside the window of the room I was in, digging out a deep trench,
making ready for the drains to be laid. I gathered up the
fittings and, when I thought the driver wasn't looking, slung
the lot out of the window and into the trench. Every time I
received a delivery of fittings I simply slung them out of the
window for the JCB to gobble up. The foreman visited
occasionally and was puzzled that there had been no deliveries
to this part of the site. I just shrugged. I got away with it
for a fortnight before the inevitable. I was paid, though.
It was a lean time, when my parents helped me as best
they could and Ray gave me a bit of work here and there,
but time dragged, just like it had inside. The difference was I
now understood the crime of wasted time. It was unbearable
to be sitting around with nowt to do and no means of paying
my way. I hadn't been the most driven of people before I
was locked up, liked lazing around, lying in bed, but prison
made me realize that wasting time was the biggest crime. It
was my choice, in my hands, and from the moment I got out
I was determined not to squander any more.
To this day I cannot sit around doing nothing. I find it
hard to relax and chill out, although I'm a lot better than I
was. It's a bit of a curse, and when it spills over into family life
it causes arguments. The kids don't understand the precious
nature of a moment, and why should they? They're young,
and understanding comes with the passing of time.
I was a healthy, willing, able and reasonably sensible young
man, who had nothing to do. I never once considered crime
as a way forward. It just didn't seem sensible. Lots of my
pals were criminals, but as hard as things were for me, it
never appealed. For one thing, there was obviously much
more effort involved in being a criminal than in staying on
the straight and narrow. The returns were debatable and,
after my recent spell indoors, the potential consequences unacceptable. As for the music, my dreams of making it with
a band had all but evaporated. It seemed beyond the realms
of possibility. Never mind a Lear jet, I couldn't afford a pair
of shoes.
Around this time something happened to me that had a
big effect on what I did, and how I did what I did, over the
next few years. I was sitting alone in the upstairs room of
the Burton House, a tiny city centre pub, one Friday night,
with a tomato juice. I'd been off the drink since getting out
of prison for fear of landing myself back inside. My pals
must have thought I was nuts but I didn't care: I was really
concerned about it. So there I was, all quiet and well behaved,
nursing my drink and minding my own business, when
someone put a record on the jukebox that turned my head
tight round and changed everything.
This track started, very loud, and I looked at the jukebox,
unable to believe what I was hearing. It was as if the
place had been hit by mortar fire. Just under three minutes
later I walked out of the pub and on to the street, my body
literally shaking with excitement and anxiety, my mind blown.
I was in an altered state. It was scary. I'd had to clear out of
there quickly as I honestly feared I might throw a table
through a window. That was the effect this incredible cut
had on me. The lyrics, mocking and scathing, had been
spat out with undisguised hatred; the incendiary guitars, like
detonating bombs at the chorus, seemed to sum up exactly
how I felt. I went back in and looked at the credits. The
track was called 'Anarchy In The UK'. The band was the
Sex Pistols.
Soon I'd learned about what I'd missed that summer, the
punk explosion, the safety-pins, the ripped clothes, and the
new bands, the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned. There'd been
a full-blown revolution and I'd missed it! At least, I'd missed
the beginning. The whole punk ethos suited me down to the
ground. I was thrilled there was a movement out there whose
prime motivation seemed to be 'wreck and destroy', and I
bought into it with the zeal of the religious convert.
All the smashing and banging was right up my street and
the swearing was music to my ears. I've always cursed and
sworn a lot, and although I've toned it down over the years
I was worse than any trooper back then. Of course, I wasn't
actually doing any damage, I was too worried about getting
banged up again, but that night my heart and soul were won
over. It wasn't so much that my attitude changed, more that
a whole swathe of society had caught on and caught up.
They felt the same as I did. But my 'fuck off!' T-shirt was
a statement too far for most of the pubs on Tyneside, and I
felt I had to get back to London. Before I could, though, I
met two Geordie brothers whose antics, in their own way,
were as anarchic as anything the Pistols came up with.
Joe and John Watson were a couple of real rough diamonds,
tough cookies out of Shieldfield with no airs or
graces; Joe was the elder by a couple of years. He was a
glazier specializing in leaded and stained-glass windows and
had always wanted to strike out on his own but hadn't the
means: in the late 1950s the banks and lending institutions
weren't as keen on handing out money to blue-collar grafters
as they are today. John was a coachbuilder at the Co-op, but
he hated mending the milk floats, the reek of sour milk
knocking him cockly. I'm sure that was how things would
have stayed had John not won the pools. It wasn't a massive
win, in the thousands, but it was enough for him to give Joe
the stake he needed.
Joe set up on his own, trading as Jos. Watson, Glazing
Contractor, and from the humblest beginnings, which saw
him carrying bits of glass on the bus as he had no other
means of transport, he built the business into a large and
successful concern. By the time I was washed up on their
shores he and John were steaming ahead, employing a couple
of dozen. And what a workforce! More eccentric than any
motley mob ever dreamed up in a work of fiction.
There were Syd and Billy, the two pensioners perched
above the bait cabin with all the leaded-window gear. Looking
like the two elderly buffers, Waldorf and Stadler, from The Muppets, they'd peer down on us plebs in the factory
below and sneak a nap whenever they thought they could
get away with it. Billy, who'd worked as a manager in a past
life, considered his current employment beneath him and
was particularly grumpy.
Then there were the glaziers: dodgepots Bob Smith and
Terry Matfen, the likely lads; Charlie Ollie; John 'Rowley'
Carter, who had, by a long chalk, the worst-smelling arse in
the world; miserable John Sutton, a.k.a. Sooty, with his full
set of gleaming white false teeth; silver-haired, hot-water
drinking Harry Sellars, who'd always backed the day's big
winner but never provided proof with a betting slip. Based
in the factory were little Tommy Miller, foreman John Muckle
and chippie Billy Dixon, star turns all of them.
Then there was John Watson, or Sir John as we called
him, by his own admission the oldest swinger in town; and,
to top it all, madcap Joe, with his look of constant surprise,
his big mug of tea swilling and spilling and his thick-rimmed
glasses forever sliding down his nose. Whenever I watch
Ozzy Osbourne in his reality series on the box I'm reminded
of Joe. In both facial expression and bad language, Ozzy's a
dead-ringer for my former boss. Every day was an adventure,
a crash course in merriment. Best of all, the crack was
incredible. In time, all this stuff would find its way on to the
telly. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
When I was released from prison my mate Ray Black was
working for his brother-in-law, Jimmy the Ripper, at the
woodcraft shop on Chillingham Road. The bulk of their
work was in remodelling doors, cutting out the inner wood
and inserting in its place glass panels. There was a huge
demand for them and Ray was kept busy. His brother-in-law
bought all his glass from Watson's so Ray was down there
two or three times a week. Compared to how most factories
were run, discipline in the Watson domain was non-existent,
or seemed to be. In its place there was a kind of organized
chaos. Ray became good friends with the Watson brothers,
particularly John, who was single.
I met the brothers one Saturday afternoon in the bar of
the Heaton Buffs club. Ray had set it all up, had mentioned
his pal to them, told them of how he was down on his luck

and needed a break. I remember that afternoon clearly: I had
not a penny to my name, and was terrified in case someone
asked me to get a round of drinks in. The Watsons looked
for all the world like a couple of tramps. Joe had on a shabby
old cardigan, covered with bits of putty, and a pair of jeans
with turn-ups so high they reached his knees. John was
different: he was altogether more crusty. I was confused,
because Ray had told me they were wealthy, maybe even
millionaires. They were both slightly deaf and wore hearing
aids which weren't always in full working order, so the pair
were in the habit of shouting. The first thing Joe ever said to
me, in a very loud voice, was, 'Ginger says you've been in
jail for bashing people up. Is that right?'
It sounded so awful but that was how it was, whether I
liked it or not. I nodded. The whole bar was looking at me.
They couldn't have failed to hear. I felt like a leper. I think
it must have been some kind of test, that Joe wanted to see
how I reacted. Goodness knows how I came over.

Joe told me that Ray, whom he and John always called
Ginger on account of his red hair, had mentioned I was
looking for a job and had assured them I was a straight-up,
honest lad. Was that right, he asked. I nodded again, grateful
for the testimonial. Ray was going out on a limb for me here
and I was determined not to make him look like a fool. I
wouldn't let him down.
Joe looked at me over his thick glasses, up and down, then
he looked at John. It was crunch time. John shrugged an
affirmative. Joe looked at me again. Did I want to come
down on Monday morning and sweep the factory floor? The
pay would be a couple of quid a day.
Did I? Oh, boy! Yes, I did, I said, and thanked them for
the opportunity. I'd sweep their floor cleaner than it had
ever been swept before. I was ecstatic. It was the first positive
thing to happen for me since I'd got out of jail, the first
time someone outside my circle of family and friends had
shown a little faith in me. The Watsons knew my background
and were willing to take a chance on me. They didn't need
to, these two wealthy brothers, but they had. It was only
sweeping the floor, but what a boost it gave my self
confidence.
One more thing happened that day, which said a great
deal about Joe. As he was leaving he came over to me. Very
quietly, without anyone seeing, he pressed a five-pound note
into my hand.
I started at the glass factory on a Monday morning in late
1976 and remained there, off and on, right up to 1982. I
received an indication of how it would be one day in that
first week. I was sent out in a van to help John 'Rowley'
Carter with a delivery. We had to drop off a large number of
double-glazed units for a man called Wakinshaw. I accidentally
pinged -- broke -- one of the units while putting it down.
I was crestfallen: I'd only been in the job a matter of days
and I was certain I'd be sacked when Joe heard what had
happened. They'd consider me a liability. Rowley told me to
forget about it: he'd say it was pinged when we went to get
it off the van. When we got back to the factory I found Joe
waiting for me. He already knew about the broken unit and
whose fault it was. Mr Wakinshaw had kindly called up and
told him all about it. As it was lunch-time we all went into
the little office where everyone sat down to eat. Joe put the
kettle on. Rowley told him exactly what had happened. Joe
asked me about it and I told him it was down to me, then
waited for the inevitable.
John, sitting there with his tea, said to Joe, 'So, Wakie rang
you up and shopped the lad, did he?'
'Aye,' said Joe.
An awfully long pause followed as I wondered where and
how I'd get another job, then John said, 'Fuck him!'
To my amazement, Joe replied, 'Aye,' then got to his feet
and left the room.
I was confused. Were they referring to me or Mr Wakinshaw?
This bloke was a long-standing customer, and I'd been
there all of two days.
It turned out they had meant him, and he was never made
welcome there again, certainly not by me. There had been
no need for him to shop me the way he had and, luckily for
me, the Watson brothers didn't like it. I'd been honest with
them and they appreciated that. It was a valuable lesson in
how I should conduct myself in those parts and with those
people, and a lesson in the virtue of being straight. It felt
strange to put my trust in the boss, but I recognized goodness
and responded in kind.
Watson's was a place were fairness was the order of the day.
As long as you could do something you were allowed to get on
and do it. Of course, not everyone was interested and thrived
the way I did, but the opportunity was there if you wanted to
take it. It didn't matter who you knew, or who your father was.
Not only were you allowed to take on all kinds of different
challenges, you were actively encouraged to. For me encouragement
is the single most important thing we can give to
others, especially those younger than ourselves.
Joe would often, half jokingly, tell stroppy customers
they'd better behave themselves because I'd been in prison
for fighting. Although I found it hard at first, this out-in-the
open approach eventually took away the awkwardness I felt
about my recent past.
In no time at all I went from sweeping floors to cutting
glass, making leaded windows, installing plate-glass shop
fronts, bevelling and polishing edges, cutting out circles and
drilling tiny holes. It was fantastic: the work was interesting
and challenging, with no union or management bullshit. Joe
was respected by all the guys under him because he'd done
it the hard way. Those years were the best working times of
my life -- and I include all the jobs I've had since. It was a
revelation to find a place where you could have such a laugh
with the boss. He'd have a beer after work, he'd drop you
off on your way home, he'd loan you a van or even his car.
He'd even accompany the workforce on trips to the races at
Gosforth Park. Over the next few years Joe Watson became
almost like a father to me. I appreciate the patience he
showed me and his sound advice.
With the confidence, job security and personal encouragement
the Watsons gave me I was soon back to my best -- or
worst: I was back on the drink, and this time with a vengeance.
I felt once again as if there was ground to make up
and went for it big-time. The fighting had finished a long
time ago -- or, at least, the kind of mindless mayhem I'd
been involved with before. My days of traipsing around the
country with the football crowd were over. I was almost a
model citizen. I didn't want anything to happen that might
cost me my job. I loved working at Watson's. But try as I
might, I could never quite shake off the bother. I'd woken
up to the simple fact that it was wrong, but the sheer
enjoyment I got from the taste of beer was another matter
entirely and it was a thirst impossible to quench, although I
did try. Drinking heavily made me more inclined to argue,
with anyone, so that was the problem -- and it was a problem.
For someone like me, drink was never the best way of staying
calm. It's worth noting, I think, that I was never one of those
poor souls who could neither live with the drink nor without
it. I could and often did go for weeks without a pint, but
more often than not I was on the sauce.
The quantities were not only daunting but downright
dangerous. I'd think nothing of downing sixteen pints over
the course of an evening. That's two gallons, or ten litres. As
we all know, a litre of water weighs a kilo, so my poor body
was taking on board up to ten kilos of chemical-loaded lager
every twenty-four hours. And I'd wonder why I felt rough
some mornings. I put it down to the flu, never the drink, an
early example of self-delusion and denial, which became a recurring theme where drink was concerned. Today I'd
struggle to carry ten litres of alcohol, never mind drink it,
but back then I thought myself immortal. I bounced off
moving cars and fell off high walls without so much as a
scratch. Never a day off sick. With the drinking came more
extrovert behaviour: I was a loud bugger at the best of times
and must have been an intimidating sight when in full,
foul-mouthed flow. But I was happy, and slowly getting back
to where I'd been before I got locked up.
John Watson was a one-off, absolutely unique. He had
never married and was a confirmed bachelor with a lifestyle
that revolved around beer and dancing, which he loved. His
wealth ran to many hundreds of thousands, but he'd as soon
fly to the moon as go on a luxury holiday or buy something
luxurious. He couldn't stand what he considered to be ostentation,
flash. To him, money represented primarily security,
and I think that rubbed off on me, though I have no problem
with burning a large hole in the stuff. John wasn't big on
personal hygiene, not fond of washing, so he was a bit of a
minger, truth to tell, a crusty old dinosaur from a bygone
age. His digs were dreadful, beyond imagination. It would
have taken a flame-thrower to clean them properly. But he
had a priceless turn of phrase any poet would have been
proud to call his or her own, and he'd often reduce us all to
tears with the rough-edged, blue beauty of his language. It's
difficult for me to describe his gift with the written word, as
it was all about the sound of the words he'd choose -- I based
and modelled an awful lot of Oz in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet on
John, and although I never dared to tell him I think he had
an inkling. And all this wonderful wordplay was no accident.
John knew fine well what he was doing and the effect it had
on people, and he derived as much pleasure from it as anyone
else. His natural gift for emphasizing certain syllables, his
speech-rhythms and cadences, all wrapped as they were in the
broadest Geordie brogue, transformed the most mundane
sentence into something hilarious.
I made a lot of money while I was working with John,
although it was peanuts compared to what I was earning
from television a few years later. John was in charge of the
factory floor and he looked after all the glass supply orders.
As it was a builders' environment, there were always lots of
cash transactions. Some days would see us take hundreds of
pounds at the till, and occasionally it ran to thousands. John
paid me a daily bonus, in cash, depending on how much
we'd sold that day. It was usually twenty pounds, but often
much more. It was hard-earned, though: we got through
caseloads of glass. We often raced each other to see who
could get through the orders fastest. I loved that side of the
job, the sporting challenge. And John always had his radio
blaring the current hits, so the days fair flew. On top of my
weekly wage, around 150 pounds take-home, I'd make at least that
much again in bonuses. Add to that the money I made from
jobs at weekends and I'd be regularly trousering up to 500 pounds
per week, a lot of money for a single bloke in his early
twenties and an absolute fortune compared to where I'd
been a year or so before. I always had at least a hundred quid
in my pocket for emergencies.
The name 'Nail' was bestowed on me by John Watson. I
was atop a big case of glass one day, newly arrived from the
USA and needing to be racked in the big bays at the north
end of the factory. The crowbar was the best way to get
those things opened and I set to. The big wooden side of
the crate fell to the floor taking a good bit of straw packing
with it. I hopped down and landed in the worst place possible:
on the edge of the lid. Because of the straw I couldn't see
what was underneath and I impaled myself on a six-inch
spike. It went straight through my foot and out the top. I
made quite a noise and John ambled over. He looked at this
peculiar sight, then laughed. 'Ah,' he said, 'the nail!' From
that day on I was known as the Nail. It became my nickname.
As I wasn't working officially at the time I told the hospital,
to which I went for a tetanus jab, that I'd had a gardening
accident.
Another incident that everyone has sad cause to remember
illustrates just how special John was, and Joe, for that matter.
I was on my way to work on a grey December morning,
travelling by taxi, having slept in. Just before we arrived at
the glass factory the cabbie turned to me and said, 'Have you
heard about John Lennon getting shot?' Still half asleep, I
assumed it was one of those dreadful cabbies' jokes. I said,
'Go on, then,' and waited for the crap punch-line. But there
wasn't one. The guy just said, 'He's dead.' Like everyone else
around the world, I was shocked, stunned and sickened by
the news. With John Lennon's murder the world became a
little darker and a whole lot poorer for his passing.
For those, like myself, whose lives were inextricably
entwined with the music of the Beatles, it was a traumatic
event. That day a part of my big dream died. I felt as though
I'd lost a brother. Oh, other stars had passed away, lots of
them, and some who'd been influential in the musical and
cultural revolution of the 1960s, legends like Brian Jones,
Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, but when John Lennon, a
man who'd spent a lot of time and money campaigning for
peace, and whose 'Make Love, Not War' message had had
an impact on my own thinking, was brutally killed as he
signed an autograph for Mark David Chapman, it seemed as
though an era had ended, and that maybe the opportunity
for me to break free was now lost. Much as I loved the punk
movement, John Lennon's death depressed me.
At the factory I found a dejected-looking John sitting
alone on the cutting bench. Next to him was a bottle of
Harvey's Bristol Cream and a cup. The radio, turned up even
louder than usual, was blasting out Lennon and Beatles
songs. John Watson was a real music-lover, and the Beatles
were his favourite band. Our working days revolved around
music and the mood was greatly informed by whatever
sounds emitted from the radio.
Without a word, John handed me the cup and I took a
slug. For a long time we just stood there. It seemed such a
waste of a special life. There was no anger, just sadness.
John was unequivocal as to how we should properly pay our
respects: there would be no work that day. People came in
for glass only to be told by John that we'd not be serving.
He got quite cross with disgruntled builders but he felt that
in the circumstances working was out of the question. It
would have been disrespectful to the great man's memory,
and that was that. It's a day I'll never forget, one unique John
honouring another.
John and Joe Watson, two brothers I met in a pub, looked
out for me and looked after me when I was most in need of
a leg up. They'd taken chances with kids before and had their
fingers burnt, but they saw something in me they thought
worth encouraging and had faith in me when no one else
did. I like to think I repaid that faith in all I achieved later
on. I know they both got a lot of pleasure out of telling
customers about my working on the cutting benches. A few
years after Auf Wiedersehen, Pet I even went back and spent a
happy day cutting glass for old times' sake. I learned so much
from them and I consider myself a better, more rounded
human being for having known them and their kindness,
compassion and encouragement. Proper Geordies, great blokes both.

As much as I loved working at the glass factory, I was still
dreaming my big dreams, so when Rob Lockhart, a pal from
Manor Park schooldays, suggested we go to London and put
a band together, I jumped at the chance. Not only did the
Watsons give me their blessing, they told me my job would
always be there for me, and even sold me one of their
company vans, a Commer commercial with the engine in the
cab -- that turned out to be a mixed blessing! As the singer I
needed a mike and a PA system. By rights the band should
have split the cost of that but no
one else had any money,
so my dad loaned me 600 pounds - he had recently been made
redundant and that was most of what he had left from his
pay-off -- and I put in the rest towards a big loud rig. Rob
and I managed to talk Colin Stuart, a pal of ours who'd been
the drummer with a local band, Greenie, into coming with
us - much to our disappointment, my pal Tommy didn't
fancy moving his drums away from home. After a year or so
with the Watsons I set off for London to make it as a rock
'n' roll star.
We had the use of a house in Glebe Street, Chiswick,
owned by the mother of a very bonny girl Rob was friendly
with called Sabrina, and we all lived there. We began rehearsing
above a pub on the river and took on a talented bass
player called Gary. It was very exciting. I was now in a





no
in
bona-fide band and sometimes we sounded really good, but
we were playing R&B music, a hard sell at that time with
punk ruling the roost. Maybe if we'd stuck at it a little longer
we'd have made some headway but we all enjoyed our beds
and the drink too much. We liked the idea of being in a band
but not the day-to-day reality.
I was out one evening at the Lyceum ballroom, watching
a show featuring guitarist Chris Spedding, when I met Johnny
Rotten. He was just about the hottest star on earth and I was
amazed he'd take time out to talk to me, but he did, and he
was a scream, dead funny. We had a few drinks and I told
him of the effect that 'Anarchy In The UK' had had on me
in the pub a year or so before. At the end of the evening he
gave me a telephone number and said I should give him a
call. I did, and was amazed to hear his voice at the end of
the line. We went out on the drink a few times and things
got pretty lively once or twice. Our unlikely friendship ended
when he pulled out a wood-handled corkscrew one evening
and waved it in my face. I took it off him and told him he
should be a bit more careful who he waved it at: it might get
stuck up his arse. I don't think he liked that much.
That summer of 1977, the year of the Queen's Silver
Jubilee, I received an unwelcome blast from the past. There
were street parties going on everywhere with flags fluttering,
booze and food aplenty. I'd somehow ended up in Fulham.
I was in a bar, on my own but having a lovely old time on
the drink. As I lifted yet another pint of Young's Ram and
Special to my lips I clocked a guy standing with a team of
maybe half a dozen across the room. He clocked me at the
same time. For what seemed an eternity but was probably
no more than seconds we stood there, trying to remember
who the other was, trying to place the face.
Then it hit me. It was my Cockney friend from Strange ways,
the Geordie-hater. Thankfully, I got there a moment
before he did. I dropped my pint on the floor and ran from
the bar. He was after me in a flash -- they were all after me.
We were out in the road now and I was running as fast as I
could, passing all the smiling happy people. I had no idea
where I was going. It was near dark. I felt sick with all the
beer I'd drunk that day, but I had to keep running. I could
hear their feet clattering along behind me, hear their voices,
gruff Cockney voices, saying, 'We'll catch him! We'll fucking
kill the cunt! He's slowing down -- we'll have him any minute!'
It felt as though I was running through treacle, and they were
right, I was slowing down. They'd be on top of me any
second. Was this where I was destined to die? In the gutter
of a London street, hundreds of miles from the safety of my
own city and my home?
I made it to the end of a street, rounded the corner and
careered into a group of young men and women, smartly
togged out in formal evening dress and clearly pissed. At my
impact they cheered and tumbled backwards. They were
going into the main entrance of a mansion block. There was
a party going on somewhere inside. They invited me along
and I gratefully bundled myself through the double doors. I
was gasping for breath but my new pals seemed oblivious to
my state.
Moments later I was in an elegant apartment with a load
more well-dressed folk, all staggering around singing 'God
Save the Queen', the traditional version. There was a stack
of beer cans standing about six feet high and I was told to
help myself, get stuck in. A well-spoken young man offered
me a canape from a silver platter so I tucked into a cocktail
sausage with a bit of pineapple. Just moments earlier I'd been
running for my life, and now this. It was an odd end to a
scary encounter.
After a valiant effort, the band came to nothing and we
were all potless. It was an experience I'd known before, and
I still didn't like the feeling one bit, especially after having
had plenty of money in my pocket not long before. We
ended up doing removals, carting furniture around in the
Commer van. As a last resort we decided to try to get work
on the US bases in Europe. Colin had played them, knew
the circuit and the agents, but their needs were different from
our dreams. The first thing they stipulated was that we had
to have a female singer, something for the GIs to look at, so
we took on an American girl who was living in London.
Gaye Perez was a tiny, bleached-blonde, fighting plump,
prom-queen type, a Mormon, and completely bonkers. Soon
after joining up with us she announced that there would be
a period every month, lasting about a week, when she
wouldn't be able to sing. That made planning gigs difficult.
Another time, she lost her voice and insisted the only way
to get it back was to have it blessed by the local Mormon
cleric. Rob and I shook our heads, but Colin took her round
to the tabernacle where the guy did his thing and she came
back cured.
The hoped-for gigs on the US bases didn't materialize,
but we wanted to keep the band going. We ended up going
home to the North East, where we did some gigs in the
clubs, but the band fizzled out. I was disappointed: for
someone who'd long nurtured a dream of making it in the
music business it was a let-down. But we were right in the
middle of the punk explosion: if we'd followed our instincts,
sacked the bird and taken the band down a more raucous,
riotous road, goodness knows where we might have ended
up.
I went back to working with John and Joe Watson at the
glass factory but it wasn't long before Rob and I were making
plans for another band, and this time it was going to rock.
We'd make sure of that from day one.
In the late 1970s I made a great leap forward in terms of
my own personal security. At that time there was a boom in
the north-eastern housing market. Older Tyneside properties
without any mod cons or even inside toilets were at long last
being brought up to date with money from the local council.
Renovation grants were plentiful and lots of houses were
being done up and sold on at a healthy profit. Many of the
builders who bought their glass from Watson's were in on
the boom and Ray thought it would be a good idea to get on
the bandwagon. I agreed with him, but how? Where would
we start and, more importantly, what would we use for
money?
As luck would have it, my sister Val, who'd gone from
teaching English and drama to presenting local radio programmes
for -- you guessed it -- the BBC, wanted to get rid
of a pair of Tyneside flats she and her husband owned in
Sandringham Road, their first marital home. South Gosforth
was a desirable neck of the woods in which to own property.
Val had a couple of young kids to bring up, and although
working on the radio was cool, the pay at Radio Newcastle
wouldn't have been all that much. On top of that, she's
always had strong socialist beliefs and I think maybe the idea
of being a landlord didn't sit comfortably with her. I had no
such scruples: I saw a chance to get ahead and grabbed it
gratefully.
Sandringham Road is made up of terraced properties on
either side of the road, brick-built under slate roofs, converted
into flats, two-bedroomed downstairs and threebedroomed
upstairs. My sister was looking for the princely
sum of 4000 pounds for the pair, a ludicrous amount nowadays but
a lot to us back then. We were determined to get on the
property ladder so we mustered a couple of grand deposit
from our savings and Val kindly allowed us to pay the rest
in instalments. We were now landlords and, using the deeds
to the flats as collateral, we borrowed and bought more.
Soon we had quite a few places dotted around town. A few
years later we sold those flats for 40,000, pounds a ten-fold profit,
and felt we'd made a killing, which we had, I suppose -- but
when you consider those same flats now sell for anything up
to 1 pound 50,000 each, we'd have done better to hang on to them.
I loved the challenge of doing up those old places and I'd
have been quite happy as a property developer. I still dabble,
but back then fortune or just plain good luck had me marked
down for something other than landlording.

7

Another nasty accident in the glass factory marked the time
I met someone who would change my life beyond recognition.
It was the spring of 1980 and I was taking a sheet
of Deep Flemish glass, notorious within the trade for its
unpredictability, off a delivery wagon when it shattered. I
had a piece of rubber between my hand and the glass but
when the sheet went, with a loud crack, it sheered straight
through and took off most of my little finger. There was
blood everywhere and the bone was clearly visible, so I was
off to the hospital. I hated going up there, always felt such a
lead-swinger, but it was a Saturday morning, which meant
I could go straight from Casualty to the pub and watch Grandstand.
I duly reported to the Royal Victoria Infirmary and a nurse
darned my finger with the greatest care. I was in there for
over an hour. Then, suitably stitched up and bandaged, I
made my way across town to the Portland Arms, my regular
city-centre watering-hole. Pint in hand and paper tucked
under one arm, I sat down in the corner by the window. The
sport was on the television. I lifted my beer to my mouth for
that first gulp of the day and felt a rapid ping-ping-ping as,
one by one, the stitches burst. More blood everywhere, and
back to the hospital. The nurse was none too pleased to see
me back so soon. Once she'd restitched me she put an
aluminium splint over my finger, which looked great but was
a right bugger to live with. I had it on my finger the day I
met Miriam.
Miriam Elizabeth Jones had come to Newcastle from her
home in Caerphilly, South Wales, to study for a degree in
creative art. She was just twenty when we met and was as
different from me as it was possible to be. She was petite,
gentle and delicate; I was big, clumsy and rough. She was
fair; I was dark. She was well-spoken and articulate; I was
foul-mouthed and tongue-tied. She was pretty; I was most
definitely not. She was reasonable; I was unreasonable. She
was civilized; I was not. She was placid and non-violent; I was
aggressive and violent. She was middle class; I was working
class. Miriam always thought before passing comment; I just
opened my gob and ploughed right in. She was considerate; I
was inconsiderate. Unlike anyone else I knew, she was completely
non-judgemental. I was the opposite. If you're thinking
I've gone overboard here and that I'm describing some
kind of saintly superwoman, you'd be dead right. She was,
and is, exactly that. Anyone who knows me well will attest
to two things: that I've changed beyond all recognition since
I met Miriam, and that that change has been for the better.
She was, by a country mile, the loveliest human being I
had ever met, and after twenty-four years I still regard meeting
Miriam as the best thing that ever happened to me. Why
was the chemistry right with Miriam, and not with any of the
other women I'd met? Why was I, of all people, the one for
her? I can't offer up a reasoned answer, and I suspect that
no one really knows why these things go the way they do. I
just got extremely lucky. Again. I'm certain I'll never feel
such a depth of love for anyone else and I don't want to put
it to the test. If you love someone and they feel the same
way about you, then you are truly blessed. Whatever I amount
to, whatever I've achieved, it's because of her. Without
Miriam I'd be nothing.
In retrospect I see that this was the beginning of a golden
period in my life. Those five years between 1977 and 1982
were extraordinary. Working for the wonderful Watson
brothers was a lot of fun and gave me the opportunity to
regain some desperately needed self-esteem. Entering into a
relationship with Miriam, which proved all the doubters
wrong in that it endured, gave me enormous self-confidence.
She always encouraged my constant stream of ideas where
others rushed to dismiss them as either hare-brained or
beyond me. If someone as lovely and eminently sensible as
Miriam had faith in me, and that faith was real, I could move
mountains. Anything was possible.
Like many a long-lasting relationship, ours wasn't blessed
with the greatest start. Miriam was working in the bar I used
as a local, the Millstone in South Gosforth. The place has
changed now, it's all open-plan and brass on the walls, but
back then it was a basic bar with a dartboard and some seats.
There was a lounge and a snug, but the bar was where you
went to drink and curse so that was pretty much where I
lived for a few years. How Miriam ever got past those first
few encounters I'll never know. As I was getting through
about sixteen pints a night, God knows what I talked about.
But talk I did, because I fancied this lass behind the bar. That
she seemed unaware of me only made her more desirable.
Then I never dreamed we'd still be together twenty-four
years later, with two fine sons, a cat and a house on top of
the hill. I'm pretty sure she didn't either -- no, I know it for
a fact. The very idea of me, six foot three and a half of
hooligan, shacking up with five foot five inches of art student
was beyond the realm of possibility. Back then, it was beyond
anyone's imagining, with one notable exception.
Her hair was the first thing I noticed, that lovely long fair
hair. It reached all the way down to her bum. She had a
boyfriend at the time, a nice guy called Mark to whom I took
an instant dislike, but that was on the way out before she
and I became an item -- as they now term the process of
getting to know and love someone.
On 28 June 1980 I went along to Miriam's twenty-first
birthday party in Jesmond with a crate of beer and big Peter
Knox -- that one notable exception and a friend to us both.
Big Peter, or Farmer Pete, as he was sometimes known,
looks like a cross between Robert Morley and Henry Cooper,
with rosy red cheeks. He was the local milkman, kind of by
default, as he lived on a farm, Castles Farm, right in the heart
of South Gosforth. Over time the housing estates grew up
around it and it's now long gone. Like me, Peter was a
major music nut and Newcastle United daft, toon-potty. To
celebrate our getting to an FA Cup final one year (we lost to
Liverpool; horrible day) he dyed his hair black on one side,
white on the other. Unlike me, and just about everyone else
in our roistering crowd, he was someone who took all people
as they came and judged them solely on their merits. No
preconceptions or prejudices - it didn't matter to Peter if
you were a student, a navvy or a company director, and all
of those types used the Millstone at that time. If they were
all right, then that was enough for him. He was the conduit
between those vastly differing groups in that bar and, because
of him, the barriers came down and we all got along together,
playing darts, going out on pub-crawls. Peter was a special
guy with a special eye. All who knew him, and they numbered
hundreds, loved him, and those who were lucky enough to
know him well loved him all the more. He and Miriam were
big pals and very close.
My own take on the whole 'students = spongers' thing
was disappointingly predictable. I just went along with the
widely held view. The truth was that it was based in envy,
an unattractive trait. I envied students their fun and their
opportunity to learn, to broaden their minds and become
bigger, more rounded people. And I envied them their contemporaries.
As much as I loved my own mates, I envied
students the stimulating conversation I knew would never
be part of my own life. My pals weren't equipped for it and
capable of it and neither was I.
The downstairs flat Miriam was renting in Hazlewood
Avenue, Jesmond, was not very well looked after by the
landlord. It's become a bit of a cliche but most of the
landlords and property owners who rented to students were
neglectful. Ray and I used to let our properties mainly to
nurses, as the Freeman Hospital was within striking distance
of most of them, and we always tried to look after them
properly. That night Miriam's bog burst, sending shit
coloured water flooding through the entire place. Happy
birthday. Not long after, she happened to mention that she
and some pals were looking for a new flat. As luck would
have it, we had one available for rent, a three-bedroomed
place in South Gosforth, so they took it and moved in. I was
always hanging around the place just so that I could be in
her company, helping her to paint walls and stuff. She never
once asked about my past. What a breath of fresh air. I'd
never met anyone so reasonable in my life.
At this point in my life I was drinking heavily but I liked
to think it was under control. I drank no more nor less than
most of my pals, and it was always the ale, nothing else. I
could work without it affecting me unduly, although there
were times when I was still half-cut from the night before
and handling glass. One day at work I had a black-out, had
to drop a big sheet of plate glass. It was a near thing so I
went to the doctor. He took my blood pressure and told me
it was abnormally high. Did I smoke? No. Did I drink? Well,
yes, but only the Guinness. How much Guinness? When I
told him how much I got through he had a fit. 'I thought it
was good for you,' I said.
'Half a bottle a day, maybe,' he said. 'Certainly not two
gallons of the stuff'
I just loved the taste. The dense texture took a while to
get used to, but, as with most things alcoholic, I got there in
the end. I'd also convinced myself it was as good as a meal,
saving me the bother of cooking or carrying-out.
Our first date. How we got through it only God knows.
I'd asked Miriam if she'd like to go for a drink and she'd said
yes. I couldn't believe my luck. Off we went to a pub called
the North Terrace, a real spit-and-vomit job with sawdust
on the floor. I asked her what she'd like to drink and she
replied, 'A pint of Bass.'
I looked at her for a moment. Was she joking? No, she
wasn't. 'Why would you want a pint of Bass? Are you a lesbian?'
'No,' said Miriam, showing me more patience and courtesy
than I deserved. 'I'm thirsty.'
I couldn't get my head round it. I offered her two half-pints
but she wasn't having any of that. I said, 'I'm sorry, but I'm
not buying a bird a pint.'
She settled for a can of Stella. The ring-pull wouldn't come
off so I gave it a manly tug and tore it off, managing in the
process to take a chunk out of one of Miriam's delicate little
hands. She still has the scar to this day, a memento of our
first evening a deux.
Our first meal indoors. Oh, God, it's all of twenty-four
years ago yet I remember it like it was yesterday. It was in
the Sandringham Road upstairs flat. After spending hours in
the galley, Miriam served up a lovely plate of. . . 'What is it?'
I inquired, regarding what was before me with suspicion and
poking at it gingerly with my knife.
'It's ratatouille,' she told me, with a smile.
I poked about some more, flipping over unusual bits of
veg. 'Where's the meat?' I wanted to know.
'There's no meat with ratatouille,' Miriam explained
patiently. 'It's a vegetarian dish.'
I laughed, incredulous. 'There has to be meat, man! You
can't have a meal without meat!'
You could, and this was proof, Miriam explained, although
why she didn't chuck me out at this point I'll never know.
After looking at it for a while I asked for some sliced bread
and made ratatouille sandwiches. As I recall it my toes are
curling. Forgive me, pet.
Christmas 1980 was going to be 'meet the parents' time.
When I told Joe Watson I was planning to head to South
Wales he loaned me his brand new Ford Granada. I don't
know anyone else who'd have done such a thing for me. Off
we duly went, with me worrying about what Miriam's parents
would make of me. The trip turned out to be wonderful,
with most days spent either in the local pub or at home
drinking wine. Miriam's parents, Jack and Jean, took people
as they found them, and they made me most welcome. It
was a lovely Christmas.
As well as a more balanced diet, Miriam brought me
something else that was sorely missing from my life: rational
thinking. I was forever getting into arguments that led to
brawls. Most of the time it was no more than a cuff or a
punch here and there, or a chair thrown at someone, but it
happened far too regularly. I was no super-tough guy, nothing
special, and I lost plenty of these little tiffs. Now the disconcerting
thing about it is how easily and thoughtlessly I followed
those patterns of behaviour. Today I bore my kids to
death about it, trying to make sure they avoid mindless
violence. As they rightly remind me, they aren't me, and for
that I'm truly thankful.
One day after yet another set-to in the pub, Miriam said
to me, 'You know, if one person thinks one thing and you
think another, it doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong.'
'What else can it mean?' I said.
'Simply that you have differing opinions.'
I'd never had anyone take the time to explain this to me,
and it was a revelation. From that day on I didn't feel quite
the same need to crack people's heads. I wasn't completely
cured of wild rages and needless punch-ups, though. It took
me years to bring that under control. Part of the reason for
that was that I considered myself inarticulate and, for fear of
being made to look a fool, I tended to head off any discussion
I felt wasn't going my way with a punch. I still feel ill
equipped and ill-at-ease in discussion but it seldom ends in
a punch-up. I'm too old for all that now.
Around the end of 1980, with Miriam's encouragement
and help, I put another band together. We called ourselves
the King Crabs, but people tended to refer to us as the Crabs.
It was your classic four-piece beat combo, supercharged with
an injection of punk. Quite a powerful cocktail, both aurally
and visually. Loud in every sense, and deliberately so.
Although over the years the line-up changed with members
coming and going, it was initially and most often thus: I
was lead vocalist, Rob Lockhart was the guitarist, a young,
good-looking lad from South Shields called Simon was our
bass player, and my old pal Tommy was on drums. Miriam
made us some oversized crab claws, all painted up and
perfect, which we wore on our hands for publicity photos.
They looked really neat. Our roadies were Peter the Hair,
my pal Jeff and daft Alan, whose arse we stencilled with a
Batman motif, to be revealed at the end of the show bathed
in spotlights while we rocked out to a version of the theme
from the 1960s television series. I often took a riding crop
to his arse and he'd be lucky to finish the evening uncut. It
was totally wild from day one, which is exactly how it should
be. That's why you join a band. As a live act we were a pretty
heavy handful.
We based ourselves out of Colin the Shoe's big terraced
house next door to the family planning clinic up near the
general hospital on West Road and from there declared rock
'n' roll war on the world. Our dreams were the usual big
ones, far beyond anything we'd ever realistically achieve, but
that didn't stop us discussing what we'd do when fame came
and how we'd handle the pressure. Rob was going to have a
big American convertible to tool around in. I wanted a
Bendey. Tommy just wanted to shag loads of girls, but he
was doing that anyway so it wasn't much of a dream. So we
dreamed. And why not? Hadn't the Animals got out of this
place nearly twenty years earlier? Hadn't Lindisfarne swung
together a decade before? And Brian Ferry, and Mark
Knopfler, and Sting, and just recently Brian Johnson? Yeah,
they'd cracked it, all of them, so shut your mouth! You could
escape via music: they'd proved as much. Win or lose, we
were determined to have a bash.
As I was the only one working at the time we used one of
the Watson's vans to lug our gear around -- not the Commer!
- but the smell of putty was unbearable, and I felt like I was
still at work. Then after we'd been gigging for a while we
bought a twin-wheel Ford Transit, your classic band-wagon.
That was an exciting day. All the established local bands used
a Trannie and, with their squat appearance on the road, back
windows blacked out, they resembled mean-looking scarab
beetles. I really felt like we were going somewhere when we
got that van, really felt like I was in a proper band. Until, that is, Peter the Hair, out of sheer boredom, decided to
paint it, windows, wheels, the lot, in a bright flamingo pink.
With a paintbrush. Jesus, what a sight. I dreaded getting into
it. Also, we were easily spotted by police patrol cars and
always getting a late-night pull.
Our gigs were riotous local affairs that often spiralled
out of control, spilling over into mayhem and sometimes
lawlessness. We were not the finest of musicians but what
we lacked in ability we made up for in passion and commitment.
We were loud and dangerous. Sets consisted mostly
of R&B standards, by the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin'
Wolf, but after our arrangements, additions and changes had
been made the originals were nigh-on unrecognizable. The
audiences took their lead from us and I'm afraid we set an
appalling example. I once got a gig closed down because I
thumped a synthesized drum with my nob. It seemed that
every time we played a gig there was a near riot. It made
for some great word-of-mouth publicity but it was also a
headache: there were often arrests, with members of our
team having to be bailed so they could play a gig. In no time
we'd built up a loyal following, mostly of men who liked a
drink, and we had the best fun. We were never allowed
anywhere near the working-men's clubs, a mainstay for most
local bands back then: the content of our act was just too
extreme for them. We did, however, get to play one weekly
residence.
In a portent of how local times were about to change, the
Benton working-men's club had gone bust. After it had
stood empty for a long time the building became a private
boozer-cum-club owned and run by Derek Brown, a lovely
man. He had previously managed the legendary Club a
Go-Go on Percy Street in the city centre, which in the 1960s
had been a permanent home to the Animals and a temporary
staging-post to whoever came through on tour, everyone
from the Stones and Jimi Hendrix to Tom Jones and Long
John Baldry. Consequently Derek had seen, heard and done
it all, so he tolerated us and our excesses with good grace. I
think he liked the way we really didn't give a flying fuck
about anything - but the fact that we filled the place to
bursting on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning might have
had something to do with it too.
We'd often play a double-header with the Dance Class,
my pal Tony Mac's band. They were friends of ours and very
good indeed, playing sets made up of all their own material
with real style and gusto. There was, however, a rivalry
between us that often got out of hand. One of the things we
used to do was prepare flour, tomatoes and eggs to pelt at
them when they were on. We got them proper on one
occasion. It was very bad. While the chaps were on the stage
belting it out we distributed the ammunition among the
audience. At my signal, we let them have it. A hail of flour,
eggs and tomatoes hit the stage, covering everything, bodies,
guitars, amps, curtains, the lot. The band ground to a spluttering
halt and retired, beaten. No one could have continued.
On another morning Derek was celebrating his birthday.
Something extra-special was called for. Half-way through the
set we stopped and called him on to the stage. Up came
poor, unsuspecting Derek. I announced it was his birthday
and a big cake was brought on. I asked the audience to
accompany me in a round of 'Happy Birthday'. Off we all
went, with Derek beaming. At least, he was until I hit him
with the cake. It wasn't planned so I caught him unawares.
The look of shock on his face made me feel a little guilty,
but the almighty roar that went up in the room banished
that. He took it like a trouper, I have to say. We were
eventually banned from playing there because our gigs were
so unruly.
The worst experience I ever had was having to fight a guy
before we could play our set. It came about because of a
near-riot we'd been involved in at Middlesbrough Polytechnic.
Booked as support act for a London-based punk outfit,
we'd taken to the stage, only to be spat upon by members of
the audience. Now, if there's one thing I will not countenance
it's someone spitting at me. Apart from the health implications
of someone sending a gobful of their germs in your
direction, for me it's the lowest, most despicable thing a man
can do. When I see a footballer spit at another I'm amazed
they're ever allowed to play another game. I'd ban them for
life. So that night I explained, in no uncertain terms, that
we'd prefer they kept their phlegm for the headliners, who'd
no doubt appreciate it. Off we went again, with the same
result: hockle everywhere. At this point, concerned at the
real possibility of swallowing a gobload of someone else's
gob, I told the now-baying crowd that if it happened again
we'd be off the stage and among them. A mistake. Off we
went again, and once again we were coated in spit. I jumped
off the stage into the audience. Fighting followed, the stage
was invaded, the PA columns were toppled and the gig was
cancelled. But not before Rob had caught some young guy
square on the side of the head with his Fender Telecaster.
Guitars like that are very heavy and it almost took the guy's
head off.
Cut to weeks later, and a gig in Middlesbrough. Rob and
I got there late, having stopped off for a beer en route, to find
the gear still in the van. The boys explained to us nervously
that some guys were waiting to see us indoors. Halfa dozen
well-built men with no necks to speak of and inky pictures
all over their arms explained their mission. One was the
uncle of the lad Rob had hit with his guitar, and they were
demanding redress. I went out into the car-park and fought
this bloke. He was a stocky little bastard, broad-shouldered,
and looked a right handful, so before he'd had an opportunity
to get himself squared up, I kicked him as hard as I could in
the bollocks and that, thank goodness, was that. They buggered
off and we played the gig. By then fighting was all but
a thing of the past for me, but there was still the odd occasion
when it couldn't be avoided. And I know this isn't a very
enlightened view, but for me there are some people out there
who just merit a slap.
What ultimately turned me away from brawling was
Miriam. She never once said, 'This is wrong,' or 'I'm not
having it.' There was no ultimatum as there would have been
with me, had the boot been on the other foot. She just felt I
was letting myself down. I couldn't argue with that. Here
was someone willing to support, encourage and love me. I
would have been mad not to take notice of what she felt.
In the eyes of the girl I loved, I was letting myself down.
I wasn't having that.
There was never any money in playing music at this level.
Once we'd taken out the cost of petrol, fines, tickets, PA
hire, food and, always the biggest outgoing by far, booze,
there was never anything left. In fact, most days found us
well in the red. It didn't matter, though. We did it because
we loved it, and it allowed us the chance to indulge in some
serious artistic expression. Most valuably, it allowed me to
find my feet as a performer. Paradoxically, although I didn't
like the thought of what I got up to on stage and considered
it the worst kind of showing off, I liked the feeling that
being up there, centre-stage, brought with it. I still have that
ambivalence with regard to performing.
With her background in the arts, Miriam helped me out
with ideas and needlework on my stage costumes, and I'd
occasionally blag one of her dresses if I was short on choices
for the evening. This became a bit of a talking-point. They





128
129
do say, 'Put an Englishman in a dress and he'll be happy,'
don't they? I have to admit that the freedom, so to speak,
was comfortable and enjoyable after all those years trapped
in tight jeans. After a few beers at the bar, in costume, I
would take to the stage, in my dress and a pair of ox-blood
Dealer boots, to shout and bawl for an hour or two. It raised
a few eyebrows but I didn't care: it was all about eliciting a
reaction.
Once I was driven through the doors of a gig and up on
to the stage on the back of a motorbike, a big Kawasaki. At
least, that had been the plan: we hit the door far too fast and
crashed into a table of drinkers, sending them flying. Another
of our outings saw us fighting with a load of young farmers
during the interval between sets, only to be back onstage
twenty minutes later with split lips and bruises. After a first
half when all the girls were dancing, in marked contrast to
their beaux who'd just looked on, I was at the bar, about
to take a drink, when one of the tuxed-up young tossers said
to me, 'That was a load of shite!' I hit him. What else can
you do in such circumstances? The next thing you know it's
Dodge City.
Eventually it was obvious that the band wasn't going
anywhere and I'd come to an impasse in my life. Since that
leg-up from my sister, Ray and I had acquired quite a bit of
property, but I was bored. I felt I'd achieved little in real
terms and wanted to do something substantial, leave my
mark in the sand. I didn't know what I wanted to do, or what
form it might take, but I was res ties s and knew I'd have to
do something before I drove myself, and everyone around
me, mad. I felt as if I was in limbo, stuck mid-stream in a
river of my own making. I'd had this idea that a different life
existed locally, one in which conversation sparkled, sophisticated
women drank from martini glasses and that property-
developing would gain me instant access to it. I didn't want
to go back to where I'd worked so hard to get away from,
yet I wasn't thrilled about where I'd landed. My imagined
world didn't exist, at least not in Newcastle, so I was stuck
in the middle and restless.
Normally this would have been a difficult period for me,
as my choices tended to be extreme. This time, though, I
had my Miriam to guide and support me in my decisions.
And this time, although I couldn't know it, something
unbelievable was just round the corner.
It was dawning on me that all my mad male-dominated antics ran contrary to the way I wanted to live, the way I was when
I was with Miriam. It wasn't just that making a noise and
smashing things up felt juvenile and immature: it no longer
felt natural. It felt more comfortable -- and natural and lovely
-- to be with Miriam, but I wasn't willing to throw the habits
of a lifetime down the pan just like that. Too much fun. I
struggled for a while, trying to find my feet.
Because of my dad's strongly held socialist beliefs, I'd
been brought up to understand and appreciate the value of
trade-union representation, and my time at Parsons had
made me aware of union power. Although my dad was never
one to bang on about party politics at home and was no
militant, he was clear about the working man's place in our
society and he believed the only way for folks like us to get
anything like a fair crack of the whip was through weight of
numbers and proper union representation. In terms of the
working man's progress, nothing was given freely and nothing
ever won without a struggle. And, boy, did my dad like a
struggle! Not long after he was taken on at Reyrolle's, after
the war, he had been voted in as union shop steward and, by
his own account, was such a bloody pest that the management
decided to offer him the foreman's job just to get him
off their backs. He took it, along with a much-needed pay
rise, to the disgruntlement of his former workmates, but felt
he was best-placed in that post to see that everyone's needs
were accommodated, both workforce and management. Not
everyone felt the same, but my dad could live with that. He
was a thick-skinned bugger.
I'd been a member of the Boilermakers' Union since I was
sixteen but by my early twenties my union ticket had lapsed.
So when I was told, rather stroppily, that I should be in one
of the performance-related unions, I didn't mind; I've never
liked being told what to do but, like most outsiders, I wanted
nothing more than to come in, and the sense of inclusion
that membership of an official body might offer appealed to
me. Why not? I thought.
My first port of call was the Musicians' Union, known to
all as the MU. My first mistake was to assume they'd want
me. They didn't. A rule existed back then, or so I was told,
that excluded singers, who weren't regarded as musicians. I
told them I was a dab hand with a tambourine and played
harmonica on lots of songs, but to no avail: if I really wanted
to be represented, the variety branch of Equity, the actors'
union, was the body I should approach. This seemed bonkers
to me but I went along with it. I knew my sister Val was
involved in some capacity with actors, though I wasn't really
sure what she did. I discussed it with her and we decided
that I'd apply along with Rob Lockhart. I was miffed about
the MU, but Val put a positive spin on things: she told us
that in Equity we might get called up for a crowd scene on
a telly advert -- you could get thirty-five quid per day plus
your meals, just for standing around. That seemed like a
fantasy scenario but as I recalled my brief stint on Get Carter I reminded myself that the most unlikely things could and
sometimes did happen. All we had to do was fill in a form
and come up with proof of paid employment in the form of
a half-dozen contracts -- not difficult as long as you had
access to a photocopier. Val agreed to propose us both at
the next branch meeting.
After I'd attended that first meeting I never wanted to go
to another and I never did. It was held in a big back room in
a working men's club somewhere, filled with smoke and
stern, unfriendly faces. Grey and grim, typical of union
politics at the time, the place was full of people who weren't
very good at the job, in this instance entertaining, and seemed
to busy themselves by making life as difficult as possible
for everyone else -- especially the likes of me, outsiders with
the temerity to seek admission into their jealously guarded
little world. At an allocated time you had to stand up and
answer questions put to you by folk behind makeshift
desks.
It didn't take me long to work out the lie of the land in
that back room: as with the Boilermakers', there was no
reasoning, no middle ground, no sanity, just rhetoric and
dogma. This was the early 1980s, Thatcher's time and a last
hurrah for the closed-shop, for loud-mouthed Militant bullies
and blatant favouritism. These people were running scared
and were bound to do all in their power to see to it things
stayed that way. I hated everything about it. Two weeks later
I learned I'd been accepted. What do I know?
In a few hectic weeks I'd pretty much forgotten the idea
of getting a day's work on an advert and was involved with
life's priorities, which consisted of dealing with falling ever
more in love, drinking, playing in the band, holding down
the now part-time day job at Watson's and making a fist of
Ray's and my property venture. I was now living with Miriam
and it was both wonderful and frightening. She allowed me
to be the person I wanted to be, rather than the one I was
expected to be, and I was happier than I'd ever been but
terrified that she'd see sense, jump ship and leave me on my
own. I honestly thought it was only a matter of time. I never
dreamed of bringing the subject up for fear I might provoke
the very thing I was afraid of. I carried on working, drinking
and worrying.
A few months after I joined Equity I got a message one
day to call Dave Holly, the local Equity rep. He was a regular
guy I always felt comfortable with and he told me there was
an open casting session for extras needed in a television
series about to be made by Central Television. Did I want to
go along? I was surprised. 'Why me?' I asked Dave.
'Because of that stuff you wrote on your union application
form,' he replied.
Shit, I thought, what did I write? My mind went blank.
Was it a load of old bollocks, about to rebound and embarrass
me? 'Er, what stuff, exactly, Dave? Which bit?'
'The bit about your having extensive experience in property
renovation and the construction industry.'
'Oh, that! Right.' I gave a huge sigh of relief as that stuff
was all true. I'd avoided the worst, most unbearable thing:
getting rumbled, being embarrassed. 'So, when is it?'
Dave gave me the dates when the television people would
be in town. Right. I told him I'd think about it and let him
know.
I didn't fancy it, I mean, what were the chances of folk
like them offering someone like me a job? Zero, I reckoned.
I'd had my luck, been an extra, done my scene with Mr
Michael Caine, no less. Leave it at that. If I went along with
this charade I'd be winding myself up for disappointment
and, worse, the dreaded rejection. The way I saw it, if I didn't
go they couldn't tell me I was no good.
Miriam, God bless her, thought otherwise. 'You should
go,' she said. I promised her I'd think about it, but in the
end it wasn't difficult just to forget about it.
Weeks later, Dave Holly called again. He spoke to Miriam
this time. Was Jimmy up for going along to meet the television
people? She'd ask and get back to him. We talked about it,
and I said I felt the same as I had before: nowt would come
of it and it was a waste of time. Miriam insisted I went along,
and as I was permanently terrified of falling out with this
lovely person who'd blessed my life, I thought I'd better do
as I was told. But in this area I had no self-confidence. It
would lead nowhere, I thought. A day and time were set, but
I was determined to watch them pass without putting in an
appearance. I just had to keep quiet about it. With a bit of
luck Miriam might forget. Ha!
On that fateful day I was working on one of our properties
in South Gosforth along with Johnny Fail -- revitalization, it
was known as, and revite grants were available. It entailed
knocking down and removing an outside toilet and I was up
to my elbows in filth and dust when Miriam arrived to remind
me of my appointment with the television people. Like she
was ever going to forget. It was for four o'clock that afternoon
and if I was going to make it I'd have to knock off
there and then, get showered and changed. I told Miriam I
was enjoying myself and didn't want to stop, which was true:
there's something very satisfying about going to town with
a sledgehammer.
Miriam would have none of it. 'Go,' she told me, in no
uncertain terms. 'Get washed, get your arse across town and
at least meet them.'
I tried one last time, one last spineless bottle-out whinge.
Miriam looked at me and said I must go. 'You never know
what might happen.' As a big Bowie fan, she was convinced
we could be heroes, even if it was just for one day.
Half washed, half changed, scruffy, nervous, anxious and
angry, I arrived for my interview having left my car on a
double-yellow line. I entered the building, an old schoolhouse
near the city centre, and parked my arse on a chair. One
other unfortunate soul was sitting there, shaking. I said
nothing, just stared at the unfriendly plaster wall. I felt as
though I was about to be arrested and charged. And who'd
be behind that door, ready to ambush me? What kind of
smug, patronizing people awaited me? I'd no idea but I could
hazard a guess: half a dozen cravat-toting poofters, most
likely, who would take one look at me, shriek and recoil in
horror.
The door opened and Shaky was called in by an elderly
man with grey hair and a kindly smile. The door closed
behind him and I was alone. I so wanted to go home to
where I would be safe, and where I knew and understood
what was under my feet. This was new terrain for me. I was getting more and more wound up. I'd be bound to have a
ticket by now. The big clock above the double doors at the
end of the corridor was telling me it had gone four. I was on
time, they were late. It got to five past and I said, 'Fuck it,
I'm off!'
I got to my feet and the bloody door opened. Shaky came
out looking none too happy, passed me on his way out, and
the man with the grey hair and friendly face was asking, 'Er, Jimmy Neil?'
'It's Nail, actually.'
'Nail?'
'Well, actually, it's not Nail. . . Oh, fuck it, it's too long a
story.'
'Well, er, would you like to come through, Mr, er . . . Nail,
is it?'
I had to decide whether to tell this friendly old man to
fuck off or go in there with him. He was waiting. Ah, what
the hell! I was there now. I'd only get a row if I went back
and told Miriam I'd come all this way, got this far, got a
ticket probably, and bottled it at the last minute. She'd say
I'd let myself down. She had faith in me. Maybe I should
have a little myself. I took a deep breath and went in.
It was a massive room, an old classroom. In the middle,
two oblong flat-topped tables had been pushed together to
make an L shape. At the shorter end, the old man introduced
himself as Barry Ford, Central Television's senior casting
director. I'd no idea what that was but I nodded. Next to
him was a guy in his mid-forties, wearing glasses with thick
lenses. This, Mr Ford told me, was Martin McKeand. He'd
be producing the television series they were now casting. I
nodded another hello. To their immediate left was a guy in
his mid-thirties, who was introduced as Roger Bamford, the
director. I nodded yet again. Hmm, not a single cravat
between the three of them. I'd no idea who was in charge
or, more importantly, who had the juice, as Steve McQueen
used to refer to power, who was calling the shots. So I did
what came naturally and felt right: I stayed quiet, acted surly
and hoped I wouldn't make a fool of myself.
Martin McKeand kicked it off by asking me about past
experience.
'In what field?' I growled.
'Acting.' He smiled.
'None.'
'No experience?'
'No.'
'None at all?'
'Well, school plays and the like, but nowt since then.'
'Commercials?'
'No.'
'The stage, then?'
'Nope.'
'Nothing at all?'
'That's right.'
I could feel what little chance there might have been
ebbing away like a fast-receding tide. Barry Ford and Martin
McKeand did their best to make the situation more bearable
with a bit of chit-chat, but the other guy, the director, had
said nothing all this time. I turned to my right and faced him.
'Is there something wrong with my face, pal?'
"I beg your pardon?'
'I said, is there something wrong with my face?'
'No-er-'
'Well why have you just sat there for the past ten minutes
staring at it?'
'I,er'
'You see, where I come from, if somebody stares at
someone else like you've just been staring at me, that merits
a smack in the mouth.'
'Oh, right, er'
'So I'd be grateful if you didn't do it.'
'Right.'
Poor Roger, he must have wondered what the hell was
going on.
Bridges well and truly burned, I figured it was time to
make my exit. 'Look,' I said, 'I've got nothing in common
with people like you, I don't like the look of you, and I'm
parked on a double yellow, so if there's nowt else, I'm gonna
fuck off home. All right?'
'All right.' Barry Ford nodded.
I left the room without either a goodbye or a backward
glance.
Later I learned that as soon as the door closed behind me,
Martin McKeand had shuddered and Barry Ford had taken
his thick black felt tip pen and obliterated my name from his
list, saying, 'Well, I never want to see him again. He was evil!'
Roger Bamford, however, told them he thought he might
have found one of his leading men. I can only imagine the
looks on their faces when he said that! They must have feared
their director had lost his mind. Roger assures me they
displayed a mixture of abject horror and bamboozlement. It
still makes him chuckle even now, all these years later.
I finally got back to my car. No parking ticket. Unbelievable.
It must be my lucky day, I thought.
I got home and told Miriam all about it. Guess what? No
cravats! I'd tried my best, I fibbed, but it was a waste of time:
they hated me on sight, probably before I even got in there.
She said she doubted that.
Never mind, back to the shelter and security of the sledgehammer
and the outside toilet. Back to what I knew. Not
hiding, exactly -- I was there for everyone to see -- but away
from any kind of responsibility. In contrast to my cowardice,
actors, a group I considered poncy and pansy-like, were
putting themselves on the line like that every day. That's real bottle.
I was working during the day and most evenings, cutting
glass, refurbishing properties to rent them out, and there was
the band to fit in, socializing, dinner dates with Miriam.
Things were so busy I forgot all about the television people.
For weeks my life followed the same semi-chaotic pattern;
organized chaos. There was one constant, though: work. I've
never been comfortable not working. Every day when I wake
up I think straight away about what can be done to avert the
disaster, financial or otherwise, I imagine to be just up ahead.
I used to believe it was a kind of working-class curse, to do
with guilt at being so lucky and fearing it will all be taken
away one day. It's true that every day I have cause to bless
my good fortune but it's not that, thank goodness. The real
reason, I believe, is to do with time, and how precious it is prison,
of course, had brought home to me that it shouldn't
be squandered: it should be packed full of as much action
and doing as you can cram in. If you're free to choose what
you're going to do, then choose carefully. Ask yourself who
you really want to spend precious time with: your soul-mate?
Your buddies? Your kids? And ask yourself what you want
to do: listen to birdsong? Walk along the seashore? Do it.
Don't put it off. All those individual moments will not come
your way again. For us, right now, the clock moves in only
one direction.
So there I was, working away on having a fun life and
generally succeeding, when the phone rang. It was Barry
Ford of Central Television. 'Regarding the interview you
had.'
'What about it?'
'Well, we were wondering if you'd be interested in coming
down to London to read.'
'Read what?'
'Some lines.'
'What kind of lines?'
'Lines of dialogue, scripted lines.'
'Oh, right. And who's going to pay for that little trip?'
'We would.'
'Really?'
Tony Mac was in London with the Dance Class on real
business, rock 'n' roll business. They'd just signed a deal with
A&M Records. I was so envious of their good fortune but
they deserved it: they were mustard, a fantastic little band. A
day down in London would allow me to meet up with them
and get drunk.
A week or so later I was on the train. I spent the entire
journey in the buffet car, drinking. I stumbled on to the
platform at King's Cross. A taxi ride took me to Regent's
Park and a building named Cecil Sharpe House. I was shown
down some stairs to a waiting room. Tim Healy was there
reading a script and another guy was doing his best to hold
a newspaper in shaking hands. I said the briefest hello to
Tim. Although I was aware he worked on some occasions
and in some capacity with Val at the Live Theatre Company
in Newcastle, he and I didn't know each other, and of course
I was so grumpy I just wanted to chin everybody I saw.
'What's wrong with him?' I asked Tim, nodding in the
direction of Shaky in the corner.
'Nerves,' he replied, 'he's nervous.'
'What about?' I asked.
'About the audition. About the job.'
The lad stood up, went over to a sink in the corner of the
room and vomited.
'And it's got him like that?'
'Yes.'
Tim understood but I couldn't believe it. If a job's doing
that to you, it's time to find another.
The door opened and it's my man Barry Ford. He forced
a smile, then asked Tim if he'd like to come in. In went Tim
and it's just me and Shaky. I read my newspaper for a while
and wondered how long I'd have to be there before I met
up with the Dance Class chaps. They were at an hotel
adjacent to Euston station so it wouldn't take long to get
over there, once this was all done and dusted.
Now Tim was out and would I like to come in? I followed
Barry Ford into a big room, low ceiling, dimly lit. What hair
he had was tufty and messy, it needed a tidy-up, the way
older guys' hair often does. My old pals Martin McKeand
and Roger Bamford were sitting behind another desk. They
greeted me with a warm but noncommittal hello. They were
friendly, but I was nervous. What did they want from me, I
wondered.
I sat down in front of them. Would I read some lines of
dialogue for them? Yes. They handed me some pages. I
looked at the formatting. It was not something I'd seen
before, but was not over-complicated. 'Do you want me to
read it all?'
'No, just the bits for the guy named Oz. We'll read the
other parts between us.'
'Right. Shall I kick off, then?' I asked, checking my watch.
'Please do.'
The lines on the page read easily and were effortlessly
funny. We went through a couple of pages and I was getting
the hang of it, going with it. Then there was a little chuckle
from the darkness over to my left, which threw me a little.
'Who's that?' I shouted. Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais,
the writers, identified themselves. I shouted into the darkness
that I'd come a long way, I was trying to read here for these
people and having other people sitting in the dark chuckling
wasn't helping matters. Someone mumbled, 'Sorry,' but they
were still giggling. I carried on for a bit, and then they asked
Tim to come back in. We were to read some scenes where
Tim was Dennis and I was Oz. It seemed to go all right,
and I was soon off to Euston and on the chuck with the
chaps.
I travelled back on the train with Tim Healy. He was
convinced we'd landed the parts and was very excited, talking
about what it would do for us, how great it would be. I was
a little more cautious and circumspect. As with my arrest and
trial six years earlier, I had told no one, not even my parents,
about all this television business, and planned to keep it that
way unless and until something firm came of it. Still, there
was no harm in day-dreaming. A job on the telly? That would
be something to talk about in the pub.
So, then, home once more and back to what passed for
the daily grind: constant work interspersed with lots of
laughs. Good times I still remember with fondness. A few
weeks passed, long enough for me to forget about it all over
again, and then my old pal Barry was on the phone, asking
me if I would like to come down to London next week, this
time for a screen-test.
My first thought was the train strike, which was scheduled
to go off at that time. "I'll not be able to get down until that's
over,' I said.
'We'll fly you,' said Barry.
At this I got a little tingle, an inkling that there might just
be something for me in all of this. Until now it was beyond
fantasy, the idea of me landing a part in a television series.
So much so that I'd not mentioned it to anyone except
Miriam. But I knew what a screen-test was, and the message
was now plain: I was in with a real chance. Of landing what,
though? As far as I knew, this whole thing was probably
about a couple of scenes, maybe half a dozen, in a single
episode of a series. Any more than that was beyond contemplation.
I simply hadn't considered it. Stuff like that didn't
really happen ... did it? Could it? I couldn't think about it
because the idea was overwhelming. My dreams had always
been big dreams but I was a realist, and the parameters of
my dreams had always been based on music and, more recently, property. This would be a walk on somebody else's
wild side.
I discussed these latest developments with Miriam and
she agreed: it was right and proper to get a little excited,
there was a chance of something, goodness knows what, but
something. So I worked and played and waited for the next
big day. Big days were becoming a regular thing now, and
each one was outdoing the last.
In the meantime and the real world the Rolling Stones
were due to play a concert at St James' Park. We went along
with a load of pals, including some of the boys from Dance
Class, and had a wonderful evening. As we walked through
the city centre on our way home, I was talking excitedly to
Dave Taggart, the Dance Class vocalist, when a seagull shat
right on top of my head. There must have been upwards of
forty thousand people on the streets of Newcastle at that
precise moment, jam-packed together, and yet, out of them
all, fate had chosen me to be the recipient of that flying
fucker's crap. I was absolutely livid. Taggart, however, saw
it differently. 'Shit for luck,' he said. 'Don't you know stuff
like that's supposed to mean good fortune?' I told him I'd
happily do without any more luck of that kind.
I was booked on a plane at seven thirty. Tim Healy was
travelling down for the same screen tests so he kindly offered
me a lift to the airport. He'd pick me up on Gosforth high
street at seven and from there it would take ten minutes, no
more, to reach the airport. Just enough time to park, check
in and buy a morning paper.
I slept in.
I woke up at ten to seven. I jumped out of bed, got dressed
and was running up the street in seconds, fastening shirt
buttons and pulling up trousers. No mobile phones back
then to let people know where you were. Feeling sick, I got
to the high street a few minutes after the hour and there was
Tim, God bless him: he'd waited. I wouldn't forget that.
We made the flight, just. As we got on the captain apologized
to the rest of the passengers for the slight delay,
one or two late arrivals. There was much tut-tutting from
pinstriped business types as we made our way to our seats,
but I didn't care: I was on and then we were off.
On the flight down it was vodka and tomato juice for
breakfast. I wouldn't pay it the compliment of describing it as
a Bloody Mary, but it hit the spot. I was getting to know Tim a
little better now and he was convinced we were going to get
the parts of Dennis and Oz. I didn't argue with him: he knew
much better than me the way these things worked, but I was
determined to keep my head in the real world for as long as
possible, thereby minimizing the disappointment when it
finally came our way. Or maybe just my way. Whatever.
We got to the studio, a poky little place somewhere near
Oxford Street, a little late, of course, and everyone was
waiting for us. Perhaps for the benefit of newcomer Nail,
they were trying to give the impression that time didn't
matter and everything was relaxed and fun and ooh-la-la, but
it was obvious to me that time did matter.
After a beer Roger led me out on to a studio floor. A
weird feeling. Lots of big grey cameras, cabled up, the type
I'd seen gliding around the Blue Peter studio. Sound men with
their microphones dangling from the end of boom poles.
Props men, this men, that men, not enough room to swing
a cat! In one sense it was completely unreal, in another all
too real. Roger introduced me to everyone but I'd forgotten
all the names in an instant. In my head I was constantly
running my lines, over and over again. I began to get a little
nervous.
Something had been bothering me since all this began:
ever since the first meeting in Newcastle I'd been swearing
profusely and no one had seemed to mind. Or if they had
they hadn't mentioned it. Now, with a scripted set of words
to adhere to, I felt tongue-tied.
Roger put an arm round my shoulders and said, 'Oh, by
the way, if you want to swear, just go ahead.'
'Really?'
'Really.' With that he was off to the gallery.
The effect this had on me was surprising: I felt no need to
swear. The fact that Roger had paid me the courtesy of
offering me the choice rendered it unnecessary. So for my
very first stab at performing dialogue in front of a camera, I
delivered the text to the letter. It was a long time before I
did that again.
The scene I remember performing that day was one where
Tim and I were standing against a bar counter, drinking and
shooting the breeze. No problems there! I'd supposedly
spent all my hard-earned money on a watch, rather than
sending it home to the wife like everyone else. As Dennis,
Tim doubted the authenticity of my fine new timepiece,
asking, 'Is it any good?' to which my reply was, 'It works
underwater, Dennis!' When I delivered it there was a chuckle
from behind the camera nearest to me, which put me at ease.
The chuckler was Roy Simper, senior cameraman, a cool
guy, a class act and much older than me. I listened to
everything he said from moment one by way of suggestion
and advice. He'd ask me politely to move a little this way or
that so the light would be just right. I appreciated the help
and determined to take on board as much as I could. Roger
kept telling me to take no notice of everything that was going
on around me but that was impossible: it was fascinating to
witness at first hand how it all came together.
Another remarkable thing was that most of these people
were from a very different social class and background from
me, yet it didn't appear to matter: most were friendly, none
was less than polite and, joy of joys, some of the women
swore like troopers! I couldn't believe that.
Had it gone well? I thought it had: I'd said my lines, with
no swearing, and people had laughed. More importantly, as
far as I was concerned, so had Tim Healy, but it was hard to
tell. No one was very direct about anything; instead they
were vague, but in a positive, encouraging way.
The screen-test over, Tim and I headed for Gatwick from
where we were to catch our plane home the next morning.
We had a very late night on the drink and the darts and
ended up missing the flight. I made it home to Sandringham
Road around lunchtime. Understandably Miriam wanted to
know all about how it had gone but I was knocked out,
knackered and simply had to have a kip. Within minutes of
lying down on the settee I was deep in sleep.
Somewhere in the place between dreams and reality I
could hear a phone ringing. It felt as though I'd only had my
eyes closed for a moment when Miriam was trying to wake
me up. It was the television people.
'What do they want?'
'To speak to you.'
'Ask them to call back, pet. Me head's thumping.'
I went back to sleep. An hour or so later they were on the
phone again. This time I got up and wandered through to
the dining room where the phone was. No cordless jobbies
back then. It was my mate Barry on the line.
'Jimmy, I'm delighted to be able to confirm that Central
Television would like to offer you the part of Oz in our
forthcoming series, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'
'Smashing, Barry, that's great, but would you mind calling
back in an hour? I've not been in long and I'm having a kip.'
'Oh,' said my mate Barry, deflated. I guess he'd assumed
I'd be doing hand-springs and offering him eternal thanks.
Any sane person would have been grovelling down the
telephone, but I was still drunk from the night before.
Anyway, he'd ring back in an hour. I put the receiver down
and went back to kip. Or tried to.
Lying on the settee it suddenly hit me: I've got the job!
It was going to be a year-long gig. Crikey!
A whole year away? Where was that seagull? I wanted to go



out and kiss the fucker! I've looked for it on and off ever
since, but no joy. I guess you can only be blessed with such
good fortune once in your life. Any more wouldn't be fair,
would it?
Miriam and I danced around the room, delirious. I didn't
know what the gig was, exactly, probably a fleeting appearance,
then gone again, but I was going to be on the telly.
This was a truly life-changing moment. Our heads were
spinning with the excitement of it all.
Even then it was impossible for either of us to imagine
the sheer scale of what lay ahead. As of that day, my life, as
I'd known it, was over, had gone for ever.


148


Although Ray and I owned a fair few properties by now, our
plan to use any profits to buy more places meant ready cash
was in short supply. In fact, when I got the good news from
London Miriam and I had about sixty quid between us to
last the week. In the circumstances there was no question of
what would happen next, though. We went straight down to
the pub.
At five thirty as the doors were unbolted (this was long
before Britain caught up to the rest of Europe with the
advent of all-day drinking) we went into the Brandling Arms,
intent on celebrating our good fortune and finding a friend
with whom we could share our news.
There was only ever going to be one person already at the
bar: big Peter was quaffing his usual Black Velvet -- Guinness
and cider - his milk deliveries long finished. He nodded his
usual greeting, 'How, James. How, Mirras,' as Miriam and I
bounced towards the counter.
As was his habit he offered us a drink, always did, but I
said, 'No, Peter, thank you, these ones are on us.'
'How come?' he asked. In about a minute flat, without a
pause for breath, I told him I was off to work on the telly, in
London, for a whole year, and what did he think of that?
Peter looked at me, eyes wide, then at Miriam, then back
at me. Maybe he was expecting us to tell him it was a wind-up.
Of all the things I thought he might say, 'Fuck off!' had not
been high on the list. He just didn't believe it. Or maybe
'couldn't believe it' is more apt. Whatever, him being the
first pal to be told of our good news, Peter's reaction took
some of the wind out of our sails.
In fact our news elicited a similar reaction from almost
everyone we told. I told my dad as he sat in his armchair, his
feet up on the gas fire, watching Coronation Street. I was
standing behind him as I retold my story and by now I was
hoping for a positive reaction. He never took his eyes off the
screen, and only when I'd finished did he turn towards me.
Looking at me as though I'd gone bonkers, he said, with a
dismissive half-laugh, 'Aye, I'll believe it when I see it, son,'
and with that he turned back to the telly.
I suppose it was only to be expected but the lack of
enthusiasm and encouragement was a blow and threw my
already shaky self-confidence off-balance. But nothing was
going to get in the way of that golden opportunity, and I told
myself so every time a negative aspect appeared or was
pointed out to me -- which happened frequently.
My new pal Barry Ford had told me they would be sending
me the scripts within days, and I eagerly awaited their falling
through the letterbox on to our clippy mat. Receiving a
script through the post is still a thrill. Not that I receive all
that many, but hey-ho! Anyway, when they did arrive I nearly
had a seizure. There were thirteen, sixty-odd pages long,
stacked one on top of another like half a dozen telephone
directories; and Oz was everywhere, in almost every scene,
with so much to say, reams and reams of dialogue, speeches
here, speeches there. I panicked, lost it. I told Miriam I'd
have to ring them back and say it was off, I couldn't do it,
couldn't memorize all that lot. Impossible. Who did they
think I was, bloody Laurence Olivier?
With great patience, Miriam, the voice of reason, explained
to me that you didn't have to memorize it all, just chunks: they
filmed it in parts. 'So calm down. You can do it. You can.'
'How do you know about all this?'
'Because my father is head of Light Entertainment for the
BBC in Wales.'
I should have known this. Miriam and I had been together
almost two years. Most likely I did know, but as it had no
relevance to my life and world I'd given it no thought. Now
I would, though. Now I'd bless Jack and, even more, his
daughter.
Miriam sat with me day after day and explained how it all
worked. She read other parts while I read Oz, tried to
memorize, tried to learn, tried too hard as usual. She
explained the meaning of television terminology, all the
industry slang and instruction in the scripts, which to me
read like so much double-Dutch. But what a buzz: I was doing
something new and it was exciting. Although the dialogue was
not always easy to learn, mainly due to the sheer amount, it
was almost always easy to deliver. It sounded so natural to say.
Didn't seem anything like the stuff you normally heard on the
telly. It had something else, too, something I unconsciously
latched on to straight away: it somehow allowed me to deliver
it in a way that was, if not strictly musical, then definitely rhythmic,
almost rap-like. It had a groove and I'd stumbled on a
way of doing it that seemed effective. Over and above anything
else, though, the scripts were a great read, hugely
enjoyable. You couldn't go through them without laughing.
I wasn't aware of it at the time but I'd been given some
of the best scripts ever to have been written for television. I
was already on the way to being spoiled.
We'd have to move, we decided. No way round it, other
than my going down to London temporarily and having
Miriam visit, and that was never on the cards. Miriam wouldn't
have put up with it, and anyway, we were two young people
head over heels in love, excited and ambitious, our minds filled
to bursting with the kind of dreams you have at that age. We
were going to take on the world and win! This was an adventure
in which we'd both play an active part -- adventures are a lot more enjoyable when they're shared.

To help me acclimatize to my new circumstances and surroundings,
the good people of Central Television had sorted
me out some temporary digs near the studio. I wondered
what kind of place it might be; a big mansion, high-fenced
and guarded, maybe, or an hotel penthouse. I was about to
get the first of many lessons in the difference between reality
and perceived reality, as regards UK television.
Tim Healy and I drove to London in his little red Triumph
Spitfire, arms hanging out of the windows, suitcases strapped
to the back. Turned out he'd been right about our landing
the job. I remember the journey so well, with the sporadic
downpours coming through the Triumph's tatty fabric top,
dribbling all over my strides, and Tim telling me over and over
that this thing, this Auf Wiedersehen, Pet thing, was going to
change our lives irrevocably. I thought he was full of shit, just
talking bollocks. I had to think that. So much for intuition.
We were going to be filming this series, this television series, for fuck's sake!, at Elstree studios. Elstree! That was where
they'd made the James Bond pictures! And Star Wars! I was
going to be working there. I -- Geordie boy Jimmy, the same
Jimmy who according to his teachers would amount to nowt,
or less than nowt - was going to be making a television series,
and playing a major part in it! I still didn't quite believe it.
I managed to find my digs, not far from the studio,
and here was reality-check number one: my luxurious living
environment was a poxy little room with a scruffy sink in a
house just off Borehamwood's main shopping street. Miriam
planned to join me as soon as all the loose ends were tied up in
Newcastle and then we could set about renting a house -- that
the studio would pay for! The sooner the better. What an
adventure. No thoughts of buying a place locally, mind: this
was still a one-year diversion, after which I'd go back and take
up where I'd left off with Ray and the rental properties.
My digs were a hoot. Every morning I'd sit at the tiny
Formica-covered kitchen table listening to the bleary yak of
half a dozen British Telecom engineers as they discussed
their upcoming day climbing poles and soldering cables. God
knows what they made of me, most probably took me for a
terrorist or a criminal on the lam. I felt like an undercover
agent on a top-secret mission. Daft bat! I didn't dare tell the
other lodgers what I was doing for fear of being laughed at.
No one else had believed it, so why should they be any
different? If you were one of those dour buggers sitting
around that Formica table back in 1982 with a big surly bloke
who never said anything but ate a lot of toast, that was me.
Before all of that, however, I'd to meet my fellow cast
members at the 'read-through'. It's an important part of the
process and is usually the only time the writers will hear their
work performed all the way through by the cast until it's
broadcast. By and large, read-throughs are a bit of a chore
for most actors as they require you to play your part without
actually allowing you to do so. You're usually stuck in an
uncomfortable chair round a big table with other actors,
most of whom you won't have met until then, along with
various heads of department, the casting director, the producer
and, in the words of the immortal Rumpole, he (or
she) who must be obeyed: the director, all-powerful, the big
cheese, the guv'nor. Theoretically, the stronger your position
in a project, that is, the bigger your part, the easier the
read-through should be, but it doesn't seem to work that
way. Invariably there's a good deal of mucus in the room,


what with everyone attempting to clear their throats before
giving their all, darling. On occasion read-throughs can be
excruciating, depending on who's running them.
My first took place in a small studio space next door to a
pub. At this point pubs were still my markers for finding my
way around. Of course, the new recruit was there almost an
hour early. I had no idea what to expect. Seven uncomfortable
chairs, which reminded me of the type you're forced to
sit on in school, had been arranged in a sort of semi-circle
so that their occupants would direcdy face the numerous
production staff and executives. No pressure there, then.
After making sure there were no prearranged places or pecking
orders to observe, I plonked my bag down next to the
chair in the middle. Not for me an end seat. No, sir, safe and
secure was how I wanted it to be. Needed it to be today.
Anyway, I was here first, so there.
The cast trickled through the door in dribs and drabs,
without fanfare. They were offered tea or coffee and the way
they were all greeting one another it seemed that everyone
knew everyone else apart from me. I felt like the outsider.
Of course, it was just the way theatricals tend to greet one
another, but I wasn't to know that. Tim Healy I knew. Kevin
Whately I didn't. He was friendly and polite, if a little on the
quiet side. Hyper-sensitive Nail, of course, took this to be
aloofness, standoffishness. In no time at all I had Kevin
prejudged and pegged as a misery. It wasn't the last time that
day I'd get it wrong.
Pat Roach arrived. I recognized him from his wrestling on
Saturday-afternoon television, but in the flesh his dimensions
took my breath away. I'd never met anyone that big before
- he had a good couple of inches on me. What a physique he
possessed! Amazing definition, and perfectly proportioned. I
kept glancing at him whenever I thought he wouldn't notice.
Pat is one of the most softly spoken guys I've ever known
and gives off no aggressive vibes, but back then I thought,
Whatever this guy has to say, no matter whether he's right
or wrong, whether you agree or not, just nod. From very
early on, Pat took to calling me Big Jim, which, coming from
him, still makes me laugh.
Chris Fairbank was quiet, like Kevin, friendly and polite. He
seemed a little more wound up. Like everyone else in there
that day he must have been nervous. More than anything I
remember the voice. Out of this little bloke's mouth emanated
this incredibly rich, big, deep, sexy voice, like Sinatra's. It
sounded like gravel on velvet. When he began reading Moxey
as this stammering Scouser I was flabbergasted.
Gary Holton exploded into the proceedings. I already
knew of him, of course. Gary was a rock singer. I'd seen him
at the Mayfair with his band, the Heavy Metal Kids. He'd
done a lot of acting as well, playing the Artful Dodger on
stage as a kid, and had television and film work under his
belt, including a role inQuadrophenia, which had been directed
by Franc Roddam, who originally dreamed up Auf Wiedersehen,
Pet. I couldn't believe I was working alongside a bona- fide rock singer, but there he was, laughing, joking, smoking,
swearing, larger than life and putting out more energy than
half a dozen acrobats. Whether that energy was his own or
whether it was borrowed for the day is anyone's guess. With
his jet-black barnet, his wild pecking head movements and
his crackling, cackling laugh, Gary looked like an oversized
crow. As soon as he found out I was a fellow musician he
and I got on like the proverbial blazing building. He was
great company from the off and it was impossible not to like
him.
So there we all were, everyone apart from the one actor
who was apparently running late. His chair, right next to
mine, stood empty. I remember thinking, How disrespectful.
On a day like this! All these people! I wouldn't like to be in
his shoes when he does pitch up. He's bound to cop it. God,
the anxiety. I felt bad for him and we hadn't even met. After
waiting a while, an executive decision was taken to begin
without him. We all took our chosen pews, me safe in the
middle of the semi-circle, my tidy ordered scripts on my lap,
my pencils sharpened and ready.
Martin McKeand began by introducing himself as the
show's producer and suggested everyone should give a brief
explanation of their function in the production.
It was all going along swimmingly until the door opened
and a skinny young guy entered in a state of chaos. Late and
flustered, his hair was bleached a cheap-looking yellow, his
tight pants were candy-striped and his scripts were in loose
pages under his arm. He issued a 'Sorry, everyone. Got held
up in the traffic,' in broad Cockney tones. Apples and pears
and Pearly Kings and Queens? Oh, God, save me from all
that bollocks.
The most surprising thing about all this, however, was
everyone else's reaction to it. No one seemed annoyed.
Indeed, if anything, the rest of the production staff were
fawning over this shabby peroxide arriviste. It was as though
he was doing the production a favour by just turning up.
Why all the fuss over him? I wondered. Just who exactly was
this walking rainbow, this well-late, psychedelic shambles
who was being worshipped by one and all?
The new bloke, the Cockney, plonked himself and his
shambles down in the empty chair next to mine. With a
big smile and a hand outstretched, he said, 'All right, mate? I'm Tim.'
I scoped him beadily, this bloke who, unbeknown to me,
was already the hottest talent in town. He would go on to be
recognized as one of the finest actors of his generation. 'I'm
Jimmy,' I grumped.
The reading finally began and it soon became apparent
why everyone had been extraordinarily lenient with the latecomer.
He was incredible, unbelievable, even in that classy
company. Once or twice over the years I've been in the
company of truly gifted individuals and there's no mistaking
what they have: it's a pure thing and it rings out like a bell.
And talk about bringing the part to life! What he did with
Barry that morning had everyone cracked up - but there was
so much more besides. There was pathos, humanity, honour,
pain. You name it, Timothy Spall rolled it out that morning
for all to see, hear and marvel at. I'd never experienced
anything like it and I had to fight the urge to down tools and
watch him. It was a privilege to be in the room that day, truly
thrilling.
Was I a little envious of all the fuss and attention Tim had
received? I don't think so, though I might be kidding myself.
He seemed so . . . well, normal, I guess. Down to earth.
There were no airs or graces, there was no big fuss. From the
first moment he uttered those lines in that most memorable
dialect, Tim, without spelling it out, made it clear there was
nothing mystical about the process, nothing I need be scared
of. You could either do it or you couldn't, and he reckoned
I could, I'd do just fine - told me as much that day, which
did my confidence the world of good. The rest, he reckoned,
was down to working, grafting, preparing. Preparation, Tim
said, was everything. He always said that God is in the detail,
and he was right about that, just as he was right about a
whole raft of things.
Having said all that about Tim, what was immediately
clear was that this was an ensemble piece. I'd been fortunate
enough to land the part of a character with many great
punchlines, and even I could see they worked gangbusters.
What threw me, though, was the generosity of the other actors,
the total lack of envy or resentment. They'd happily set up a
situation and, having delivered the pay-off, I'd bask in the glory
of all the off-camera chuckles. This, a kind of reciprocal, shared
creativity, was new to me and I was wary of it for a long time,
unable to puzzle it out. It seemed as though everyone, the
entire cast, got a buzz out of it when a scene went well, not
just me. Of course, those chuckles were brought about by
the successful execution of the whole scene, not just the
pay-off. I had a lot to learn about the true nature of teamwork.
Half-way through the day, and much to my annoyance as
I was enjoying it all so much, we broke for lunch and trooped
off to the pub, where I was in for another eye-opener. Any
preconceived notions I had about those working in the television
industry not being able to hold their own in the neck-oil
stakes were soon dispelled. Man and woman alike, these
people could drink for England! I felt like I'd died and gone
to heaven. Surely, though, it wouldn't continue this way.
Nah, it couldn't. Nothing could be so much fun for grownups.
Never mind, the eternal fatalist figured, get it down your
neck before someone realizes they've made a big mistake.
Back in the studio we finished all too quickly and my first
read-through was over. I'd enjoyed it. I'd met a bunch of
people who would be figuring large in my life from now on,
socially and professionally, and we'd all had a great day. As
we dispersed there was a real sense of anticipation and
excitement. I couldn't believe I was going to be paid handsomely
for doing this. Why, it was as easy as falling off a log.
A few words on the subject of my being paid handsomely.
Because I didn't yet have an agent, I had agreed my own deal
terms with Barry Ford representing Central Television. The
contract ran to no more than a couple of typed pages and was
easy to understand. Maybe I should have sought professional
legal advice but for me it was simple. I asked him how it
worked and he told me his version of how it worked and I
took him at his word. The show was an ensemble piece,
which meant there was no single leading character, and
because of this, Barry said, very large fees, the ridiculous
amounts you see written up in the newspapers, were out of
the question. Central Television were proposing to pay me
600 pounds per episode, plus all my expenses. In total it added up
to about twelve grand for the year. Not one to accept a first
offer, I managed to get Barry to agree to 650 pounds an episode.
Did we have a deal, then? Yes, I said, we did, not wishing to
look a gift horse in the mouth. By and large it sounded fine and I was happy. One last question. Would anyone else in
the ensemble be getting paid more than me, I asked. Absolutely
not, said Barry. I took him at his word, but I warned
him if I found out different he'd be sorry. He was.
I made my way back to my grotty Borehamwood bedsit,
wondering where all the other actors' mansions were situated.
I thought back over the day. What a blast! In that rehearsal
room, I'd had a feeling that this oddly named telly series had
real potential. Back then I was big on real: it had to be real
or it meant nothing. I'd been nervous about going into the
read-through but it had been fine and I'd acquitted myself
fairly well. The rest of the guys had cut me a lot of slack and
Tim Spall, kind man that he was, had taken the heat off the
new boy very cleverly. In all the years I've known him I've
never felt the slightest bit envious of his prodigious talent as
an actor. Part of the reason for this is that inside a scene
Tim never feels he has to win, or try any scene-stealing
monkey-business. I just count myself lucky to be around
when blokes like him are doing their thing.
Elstree Television Studios, it transpired, consisted of a
motley collection of run-down buildings just across the road
from the more illustrious Elstree Film Studios, but for me it
was still a revelation. Behind the security gates was a galaxy
of famous faces, faces I'd only ever seen on television or a
movie screen. I'd certainly never dreamed of meeting their
owners, not in a million years, and yet now I was working,
drinking and mixing with those famous faces. They had
voices, too. And on occasion they'd say my name.
The corridors at Elstree were lined with framed photographs
of all the famous stars who'd worked there. You
name them and, believe me, they were on those walls, every
movie and television star from the thirties through to the
eighties. Too many to list. As I wandered along, I'd gaze at
the mugshots of Richard Greene, Kenneth More, Roger
Moore, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, John Mills and many more,
determined to make a go of this television business and not
let Geordieland down. Nobody, but nobody, was ever given
a chance like the one I'd been given -- my director Roger
Bamford had taken a gamble the likes of which would
nowadays be unthinkable -- and I wasn't going to piss it
down the drain. Who knows? I'd catch myself thinking. With
a little bit of luck, a little bit more luck, I might even end up
on one of those walls myself one day. Talk about enough
never being enough!
Just going to work was a highlight. I wanted to tell everyone
where I was going and what I was doing. Being me, I'd
usually get there around nine forty-five for a ten thirty
kick-off and head for the assistant directors' office, a little
cubby-hole just off the main corridor. Usually Dave
McDonald, Francesco Reidy and Simon Flood were already
there, mulling over the day ahead. It wasn't the norm for an
actor to join them in their daily deliberations but I wasn't to
know that and they never told me so I called in there rather
than at the canteen, where the rest of the chaps could usually
be found tucking into a subsidized breakfast.
What made my time in the ADs' office somewhat unusual
was that they'd be doing their preparations over a glass of
Buck's Fizz! How civilized, I thought, how cool. I didn't
know it was actually Veuve du Vernay we were quaffing.
Hey, it tasted fine to my untutored tastebuds. Now things
have changed in the industry: it's a lot more sober and, some
might say, a lot less fun, but back then an awful lot of booze
was consumed and such situations weren't frowned upon.
Indeed, guzzling Buck's Fizz and anything else alcoholic was
actively encouraged. Everyone was at it, the management
included. No matter how all this eventually turned out, I
knew one thing straight away: I was going to enjoy the
working conditions.
The first few weeks were thrilling and terrifying in equal
measure as I tried to learn fast. I'd always been good at that
but there was so much to take on board. Nor was it a matter
of my looking dumb, or even of failing. That didn't bother
me just as long as I was as good as the next guy. I wasn't, of
course -- in fact, I was way off the pace and must have been
a nightmare from the others' point of view, a little like a
rogue attacker on a football team: individually talented but
in terms of tactical team-play a nightmare of unpredictability.
But wait a minute! Suddenly everyone was telling me I
was better than the next guy at this stuff, better than all the
guys. I had to hang on to my ego, but even with all the
sycophantic bullshit that was being pumped my way, and
the alcoholic fog, I always knew where I was: at the start of
a journey with a long way to go and a whole lot to learn.
I discovered a world inhabited not by cravat-wearing poofs
-- oh, there were the odd one or two, but there'd been the
odd one or two back home in the Bigg Market -- but by real
hardened bewiers and party animals and people who swore
even more than I did! I'd never met such an open, full-on
crowd before. And the world of television was and is, by and
large, a meritocracy. As long as you can do the business on
the day, you're in. It was just like Joe Watson's. The sound
of your voice, your accent and your looks weren't held against
you. They could even be an asset. I liked that. Yes, indeed.
One day I was telling Spall I couldn't get over how happy I
was, how comfortable I felt with it all. He said, with a smile,
It's because you've come home, mate.' I didn't understand
him at the time, but he was right.
The year I spent filming Auf Wiedersehen, Pet at Elstree
would have passed as extraordinary by anyone's standards. I
learned all about blocking and dollies, gaffers, close-ups, wide
shots, establishers, going again, and about camaraderie, the
like of which I hadn't encountered even at Watson's. It
seemed these television people wanted nothing from me
except my company, and that's what they gave in return. It
was an education hanging out with my new colleagues, some
of them razor-sharp, others as dim as a forty-watt bulb, some
left of centre, others right, some straight, some gay and
some in between. I had never known such an intoxicating
environment and I drank freely from the cup, expecting at
any moment to be rumbled and sent packing.
Two months into the filming, when I was starting to get
a handle on things and enjoy myself, work came to a halt for
six weeks. Don't ask me why -- other shows were scheduled
for studio time, I'd guess. It would never happen nowadays.
Alan McKeown, one-time crimper to Michael Caine, was
now the boss of Witzend Television Ltd, the independent
production company contracted to make A.uj Wiedersehen, Pet for Central. A business partner of Dick Clement and Ian La
Frenais, Alan made the fateful mistake of saying casually to
me one day (or was it night?) in Munich, 'If you're ever in
Beverly Hills, you must come and stay.'
A few weeks later Miriam and I arrived in Los Angeles
after sitting crunched up in Economy for the eleven-hour
flight and jumped straight into a yellow cab. Travelling in
from LAX along the freeway was like entering a great big
film-set, with all the buildings and trucks, cars, motorcycles,
neon and bright sunshine screaming, 'America!' Everything
was larger than life. I half expected to see Peter Fonda or
Dennis Hopper riding along on their hogs but no joy.
In what seemed like no time we'd left behind all the glass
and concrete that bordered the freeway and were now going
up through Beverly Hills and into the Hollywood Hills. On
the flats, those few ultra-expensive acres either side of Sunset
Boulevard at the foot of the hills, stood fantasy palaces of
all descriptions, from the sublime to the truly bizarre. The
one and only thing they all had in common was their price
tags: they must all have cost an absolute fortune. Movie stars
lived a few yards from where we were, behind high fences.
Jimmy Stewart's spread was pointed out to us, a beautifully
manicured place with a classic picket fence just as you'd
expect of the man who cleaned up the West. He was probably
in there at that very moment chowing down his dinner. Grits
and coffee? I doubt it.
Sometimes words are redundant and you're reduced to
gawping. So, just like all the other tourists, we gawped. Then
we were travelling up Benedict Canyon and it looked as if
we were in the wilderness, the swank flatlands of Beverly
Hills turning in no time to real slopes and gradients.
8816 Lookout Mountain Avenue. I ask you, does that not
read like Hollywood? It certainly did to me. Errol Flynn, my
boyhood hero, had lived just up the hill. Standing outside his
former home one day, just a high whitewashed adobe wall

with a door to one side and a letterbox, its ordinariness made
reality unreal. It was hard to get my head around the fact
that my man Flynn, movie star, swordsman, swinger on
curtains and swashbuckler supreme, had lived, parked his
cars, eaten his meals, shagged his girlfriends and slept right
there. I felt unworthy so I left.
After a couple of days at the McKeown residence, Miriam
and I rented a signal-red Ford Mustang and hit the road.
And, oh, boy, what roads! Whatever else might be said about
America, it's by far the best country in the world to enjoy
motoring. Empty, open roads underneath the ultimate big
skies. Roadside diners straight out of the movies, with vintage
jukeboxes, all-day breakfasts and customers who would
match any Hollywood casting call. We clocked up over a
thousand miles in less than a fortnight, heading north first,
to San Francisco, then due east to Lake Tahoe, where we did
some skiing and hot-tubbing, then down to Las Vegas, where
a wonderful double room was twenty dollars, a steak the size
of a discus ten dollars, and a waitress made Miriam's month
by asking her if she was old enough to drink. From Las
Vegas it was down through Arizona's incredible landscapes
to New Mexico, where I bought some lovely Tony Lama
boots, got drunk and ate nuclear-strength chilli that froze
my face for a couple of days.
Back in England it was more of the same glorious fun.
We finally finished filming Auf Wiedersehen, Petin the summer
of 1983. I tried to sit back and take stock of where I was.
What a truly incredible twelve months I'd had.

Filming on Auf Wiedersehen, Pet ended, and I wasn't prepared
for the terrible feelings of withdrawal I experienced. The joy
of being around a television studio every day, heavily
involved in the making of a drama series, in the company of
creative, talented people I had come to know and like, was
suddenly gone. It was a shock to the system and, of course,
I handled it badly. After spending twelve months being told
by everyone and his uncle that the sun shone out of my
backside, I was out of work with nothing to do. It was my
first taste of the massive come-down that hits you when a
long gig is over. Overnight I went from being out all day and
busy to being indoors and bored. I've never done bored very
well, and my drinking increased again. This was on top of
the hike it had taken on starting Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
The morning after the wrap party I woke with a sore head.
I looked at the clock: it was just gone nine. I stirred Miriam
with a question: didn't she have her fifth attempt at passing
her driving test booked for nine thirty? Yes! We were up,
dressed and out of the door in five minutes flat. I dropped
her at the test centre in Hendon. She, too, was still suffering
the after-effects of the previous evening's revelries, and I was
going to suggest she leave it but, as I was behind the wheel
myself, I thought that might have a somewhat hypocritical
ring. An hour or so later she returned. She'd passed.
With a lot of work on our part and a little help from our
friends, we had our first proper London home, 50 Maygrove
Road, West Hampstead, and I was proud of what we'd
managed: it was lovely. All the main rooms had floor-to
ceiling curtains Miriam had run up. That girl! She seemed
able to do anything and everything. She certainly knew how
to turn a house into a home. Whatever happened now, we'd
have a place we could either use or sell on.
There was a kind of golden period just before the first
series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was transmitted, and life was
pleasant and calm. I had never dreamed of being a television
star, but I was living a dream of sorts. Money was plentiful.
I went out on the drink and wandered the streets unmolested.
Co vent Garden was one of our preferred watering-holes,
and Maxwell's diner a particular favourite. We'd perch on
high bar stools, guzzle super-cocktails like there was no
tomorrow and finally stagger out into the street to hail a cab.
Bound for north London, safe and warm, we'd sit in the
back and cuddle. We were two well-heeled young people
madly in love with each other, we had no ties, we were living
in the most happening of capital cities. We were happy to
the point of completeness and needed no one else's company.
Back then we had the greatest of times.
Just before the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet series aired, a brush
with fame proper came my way when I was offered a guest
spot in an episode of Minder, which was being directed
by Francis Megahy, who'd co-written an episode of Auf
Wiedersehen, Pet. I played a Northern Irish gypsy, and was in
the bar with Dennis Waterman and some of the crew one
lunchtime when a female fan approached and asked Dennis
for an autograph. He was a big star back then, as big as it
got, on UK telly. Instead of signing a bit of paper, he pulled a
glossy postcard-sized signed photograph of himself out of
a pocket and handed it to her. I remember thinking, How
big-headed, conceited and presumptuous to be carrying
photographs of yourself around. Although I understand it
now, it was a lesson in how I wouldn't be conducting myself
with members of the public if ever I made it big. Mind you, I
was so naive back then that when fame came I answered every
single fan letter I received -- in longhand, can you believe? until
they were arriving in mailbags like the ones I'd sewn
years before. At that point I gave in and hired a secretary.

I went along to the Bafta building on Piccadilly for the press
launch for the series, blissfully unaware of the tidal wave about
to hit my shores. The place was packed and the bar was open,
so I skipped the screening and got stuck in. When the episode
finished there was a stampede in my direction. The press
people almost had me on the floor in their eagerness to get
the story. I was hemmed in -- which no one enjoys. They
were all shouting at once, telling me how I was about to be
the next big thing on British television, how I was going to
be a major star. It was a frenzy. I'd never seen or experienced
anything like it before. Where were the Central Television
press officers? I was under siege, being asked so many questions
by so many people that I became a little unnerved and
decided to retreat to the bog to regroup and gather my
thoughts. As I stood at a trough, relieving myself, a reporter
appeared right next to me and started asking questions.
Angry now, I told him to leave it out or I'd give him a smack.
That circus was merely a taste of things to come.
Shellshocked, I went home and waited for my big day.
Then, on November 1983, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was transmitted.
Everything
in the press had been positive that Friday, so
at just before nine in the evening I sat down with Miriam
and a few friends, crossed my fingers and experienced the
unusual feeling of watching myself on television. At the
beginning of filming it had been a novelty to see myself on
playback but that had long since passed. This, though, was
very different. It was going out across the country. The
announcer's disembodied voice was talking about us -- about
me, for goodness' sake. The fact that the episode was book
ended by similar programmes brought a useful perspective:
you could get an idea of how good, or otherwise, it was. I
was biased -- I'd loved it from day one -- but it seemed to
stack up well. It was weird to see myself in the broader
context of the episode's story: until that point I'd only seen
the scenes that involved me. Surprisingly, it was hugely disappointing -- not the programme, I loved that, but its


brevity. A year's hard work, and it was gone in an hour; at
least the first part of it was. It was also cast-iron confirmation
that the adventure was over.
At the end I wanted to phone a lot of people but my first
call was to my mam, to see what she'd thought. Of course,
she was more concerned about all the swearing I'd been
doing than anything else. What would the neighbours say? I
explained that I was only saying and doing what I'd been
told to say and do and she let me off with a gentle tut-tut.
That evening was also a big thrill, and I was more than a
little proud of what I'd achieved. I'd jumped in blind, with
no idea of what to do, and had pulled it off. That was very
satisfying. However, you're only new once and that night I
was brand new, so it was the beginning of the end, with only
twelve more weeks to go. Miriam and I said goodnight
to our pals, polished off a posh bottle of Louis Roederer
champagne and went to bed.
The next morning, a Saturday, I walked along to the end
of the street and on to the Kilburn High Road to get a
newspaper and read a review of the show, if there was one.
All of a sudden all these car horns were honking. I wondered
what all the fuss was about, until I saw people hanging out
of their cars pointing, waving and shouting -- at me. People
in the street were coming my way, lots of them. I ran home
with a mob on my tail, got in and locked the door. People
were climbing up the railings and peering through the
windows. I hid behind the settee and wondered what the
fuck had happened.
Fame had happened, and I was woefully ill-prepared for
it. I didn't know what to do. Everywhere I went there was
madness. It was more than fame, it was hysteria. People
believed Oz was me and I was him. I tried to explain he
wasn't real, but they didn't want to know. As far as the
general public was concerned, Oz was real. I looked like him,
didn't I? I sounded like him, didn't I? Well, there you are,
then. That was my first indication of the power of that box
in the corner of the room.
Not long after, I hopped on a bus in Newcastle to go the
couple of stops between one pub and another. Silly not to
get a cab, I guess, but it shows how, even then, I still wasn't
fully aware of the series' impact. An elderly woman toting a
sour puss and shopping-bags had been staring at me ever
since I got on. Eventually, eyes narrowing, she spat, 'Anyone
can do what you do!', then got up and off. It hurt so much I
wanted to tell her to fuck off, but of course I couldn't do
that. Then I wanted to say, If that's the case, pet, why isn't
everyone doing it?', but I couldn't do that either, so I just sat
there, struggling to work it all out. A while later I told Ian La
Frenais about it. He said, 'Kid, the people who know, know.
As for the rest, forget them.' The bile was what upset me.
I'd only been trying to entertain people, for goodness' sake.
Friends have told me such reactions are a sort of back-handed
compliment as to how convincing you are in a part, but back
then I couldn't see it that way and it drove me mad.
I went home to Newcastle several times immediately after
the show had been on. I wanted to bask in the success but I
also wanted to share it and the excitement somehow with
my old pals. It didn't really work out, though. Back in the
Newton Park one evening, with Scotty and Harry B, Bobby
Shields and little Phil all looking at me as if I'd just landed
from Mars and me not liking it, it was obvious things would
never again be the way they'd once been between us all. Just
as well, in one sense, as we'd shared some pretty wild times.
It was the strangest vibe, with me at the bar looking across
at them, and them, all seated, staring at me. After all the
madness and destabilizing nonsense I'd just been through,
I'd so wanted this reunion to be rock-steady, the way our
friendship always had been. But that was impossible. The
chaps felt I'd changed since the show's success, while I felt
that, because of my fame, their attitude to me was different.
No doubt it was a bit of both, and when I look back it's
understandable. What had just happened to me, the sheer
scale of it, was not only out of the blue, it was almost beyond
comprehension. For better or worse I couldn't make a move
without people shouting, screaming and staring, always
staring. It was sensational, and although there was a downside
for me personally, it had put the Geordie nation right
on the television map. And all of a sudden builders were
cool. What an achievement that was. The guys on the sites
now walked with a swagger. I should have been a local hero,
and I suppose I was to most folks, but not to my old mates.
I was struggling to make sense of it all myself, so goodness
knows what they made of it. It was an odd, rather uncomfortable
evening.
I was an actor now. It said so on my Equity card. I had a
London agent, Pippa Markham. I'd been on the telly in a
show that had been an enormous, if unexpected, success.
The folks back home couldn't argue with that, although
many were almost as mystified and bemused by it as I was.
I'd assumed the phone would ring off the hook with offers
from Hollywood and beyond. I'd assumed wrong. There was
an awful silence. Pippa had done her best to explain how the
whole thing worked: becoming famous overnight brought
with it problems from a casting point of view and the
industry's perception of you. A lot of people would suppose
you were a one-trick pony. Then, again, there was the fame
scenario: one job into my new career, I was already in a
position that prevented me taking another gig without creating
a stir and possibly detracting from the new piece. On top
of that there was artistic snobbery. 'Successful? We don't
want any of that!' A lot of industry people couldn't stand the
idea of how things had happened for me, though no one
ever said it to my face. Today, because of the poor financial
state of the television industry, that attitude is not so much
in evidence, but it was prevalent back in the 1980s. Pippa's
job was to get me past these stumbling-blocks. It wouldn't
be easy. Maybe I was a one-trick-pony. At that stage I didn't
know. I'd had a great year, but I'd been very lucky. I wasn't
sure about acting as a regular job. I'm still not sure about it.
And I was known to just about everyone in the UK
because Auf Wiedersehen, Petwas a phenomenal success. Most
actors climb the ladder of recognition a step at a time,
becoming gradually well known over a long period. In my
case there were no half-measures. Just. . . bang! One day, a
Friday, I wasn't famous, and the next, a Saturday, I was.
When it happened I felt confusion and anger. I'd grown
up in a community where someone staring was usually asked
Who the fuck are you looking at?' or worse. That kind of
reaction, the only one I knew, was of no use to me now. I
couldn't very well threaten the whole nation -- although in
drink that wasn't beyond me. I struggled with the situation
for years. It pushed me into drinking even greater amounts,
brought huge pressure on my family life and eventually saw
me end up in therapy.
I've spent an awful lot of time trying to work out why it
was such a problem for me and have come to realize there's
no simple answer. It's a combination of things, both real and
perceived. I do not like being stared at, partly because,
like most people, I'm insecure about my looks. They never
bothered me until I became well known. It hurts when you
read in newspapers about how ugly you are.
Nor do I like being singled out for special attention. I'd
had enough of that at school. Praise sits uneasily on my
shoulders. I differ from today's fifteen-minute fame-seekers
in as much as I do not see my occupation as involving
anything outside what I do for a living: I go to a film set, ply
my trade, then go home again. I do not go to showbiz parties
or seek mention in the gossip columns of tabloid newspapers.
I do not appear in glossy lifestyle magazines. I do not like
what I see as unreasonable intrusion into my life, be it from
the press or the public. I do not like the fact that I can't do
anything without being noticed and pointed out. Of course,
it could be argued that the people who are noticing me are
the same people who watched me in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and
who took me and the show to their hearts, but that's of no
comfort to me. Just the opposite, in fact. I'm not ungrateful
for the wonderful things success has brought me, but the
general public, fed a daily diet of non-stop rubbish by the
tabloid press, tend to have certain preconceived ideas about
what famous folk are like, and how they should behave. In
my experience they are way wide of the mark.
All this bred in me the desire to prove I was more than
the public saw and more than they thought they knew. 'What
you see is what you get', so the saying goes. That may well
be, but what you see is not always all there is. I felt I had to
prove to the world, or at least our corner of it, that Roger
Bamford had been right to take that chance on me. I was
beginning to formulate a plan as to how I might do that. It
would take a long time, but I was all right with that. I wasn't
going anywhere else. Certainly not back to Newcastle. That
would have been to go backwards, I reckoned. And there it
was again, the overwhelming need to go forward, to prove
myself. But to whom? It was almost twenty years before I
knew the answer to that one.
I'd realized very early into the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet shoot
that, by and large, actors have no power over the course of
their own destiny. Oh, we can kid ourselves that we're
indispensable but all the money-men have to do is order the
writers to type, 'Suddenly, there was an explosion!' and we're
down the road. The only way to take some control of your
own destiny is to own the show. It was a grand idea, you
might think, for a then novice to be harbouring, and I didn't
understand just how big a number I was about to take on. If
landing the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet gig, and all its subsequent
success, had been unlikely, establishing a successful independent
production company was even more so. But the way I
looked at it was, someone has to be the person with the
successful production company so why not me?
There was also the little matter that I did not wish to be
'working for the man', something I'd always had trouble with
in the past. About a month into filming Auf Wiedersehen, Pet I wrote a comedy script based on the characters I'd known
and worked with in Watson's glass factory. It was rough
round the edges and never got made, but I still have it. I also
began to plan my production company. I had my first go at
it with Roger Bamford and Tim Spall: we called it NBS
Productions, but it never got much further than alcohol
fuelled creative meetings. Never mind: the stationery had
looked good. More importantly, I'd made a start and I was
sure there would be opportunities in the future.
The show's success meant that I had lots of lucrative
offers for commercials and endorsements, and I could have
cleaned up financially, but Pippa felt, rightly, that it was not
a good idea. One of the things I was more than happy to
do, though, was introduce the Gary Moore Band at the
Hammersmith Odeon. I had no problem with that one: Gary
had been a big favourite of mine since he burst on to the
scene with the Irish trio Skid Row in the early 1970s (check

out the incendiary 'Unco Up Showband Blues'). The gig was
part of a tour to promote the album Victims of the Future and
I'd already been out and bought it.
I went down to the Hammy early, was let in through the
stage door -- always a thrill -- met the promoters and Gary's
management people, had a bit of a natter and mooched
about the way fans tend to do. Then it was time to do my
bit, so it was down with the house lights and out I went. The
reception I got when I walked on to the stage was a shock.
The place went bonkers, with the audience chanting my
name and cheering me. I was not a little embarrassed -- this
was Gary's show.
At the after-show party I told Gary what a fan I was of
his work. I also met Lenny Henry, and we subsequently
became big pals. The three of us had our picture taken
together and I remember seeing it in the paper the next day.
But it was time to see if I could get another job as an
actor. I'd been lucky with Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, I knew that -- right place, right time. The challenge now was to find out if
I was up to more than that. Rightly or wrongly, a great many
jobs weren't open to me. Landing a bit of Shakespeare was
unlikely back then, as was bumping into Jeremy Irons at a
casting. Among the jobs Pippa did send me up for was one
of the lead parts in a movie entitled Morons From Outer Space. The screenplay had been written by Mel Smith and Griff
Rhys Jones, who would also be playing leading roles, and the
part I was up for, Des, a foul-mouthed intergalactic space
traveller, was hilarious on the page, brutally crude. It was to
be shot in and around Pinewood Studios, home to 007 and
the Carry On films among others, and would be directed by . . Mike Hodges! My old mate Mike from Get Carter. I
couldn't wait to see him again and have a catch-up.
Off I went to Pinewood for an interview, which was
referred to as a meeting. That tends to be the way in this
business, so that fragile egos aren't bruised. I drove through
the big main gates, feeling like I do when I drive through the
gates of BBC Television Centre -- I'm always kind of amazed
they let me in. I parked up and reported to the production
office. I was shown straight into a big inner office and there
he was, my old mate Mike. He'd not changed a bit. There
was the posh cloth cap and the beard. He shook my hand.
'Good to meet you,' he said.
'We've met before, Mike,' I reminded him. He couldn't
remember. I told him when and where, but he still couldn't
remember. Was he shitting me? How could he forget the big
skinny kid behind Sid Butcher in that single set-up in that
single scene for all of two seconds fifteen years ago?
We chatted. Mike congratulated me on the success of Auf
Wiedersehen, Pet and asked whether I felt I'd be able to carry
off a co-lead in his picture. Thrown by the terminology, I
told him I'd just done thirteen episodes of Auf Wiedersehen,
Pet and, by all accounts, I'd managed all right. 'But that was
television,' he said. 'This is a movie. It's different.' He talked
about comedy in a very serious manner. I blustered something
about how I'd be fine, but all my confidence had
evaporated. What was the difference between television and
a movie?

I asked Tim Spall. He just laughed and said, 'It's slower,
mate, that's all. You'll be fine.'
I got the part. I couldn't believe it -- I was going to be in
a proper film, one that would be on a great big screen at the
cinema and people would pay to see it. And, unlike Auf
Wiedersehen, Pet, this one had dialogue peppered with 'fuck'.
Even better. When would all this wonder end? Not for a
while yet, I hoped. Miriam and I celebrated with a knees-up.
More drink.

My happiness was short-lived. At the read-through I was
in for a big shock. I sat down at an enormous table in a
Pinewood suite with the producer, Verity Lambert, Mike
Hodges, various heads of department and all the leading
actors involved: Mel and Griff, Joanne Pearce, Paul Bown,
James B. Sikking and yours truly. Jim Sikking! He was just
out of Hill Street Blues. Even more impressive, he'd killed Lee
Marvin at the end of John Boorman's Point Blank. But
although I was nervous in this company, I couldn't wait to
get started. We came to my first line, which contained 'fuck'.
I read it and elicited a laugh from the assembled company -- a huge confidence boost, until Mike stopped the read: 'That
line's been rejigged.' What he meant was, the 'fuck' had been
cut, as it had from every other line in the script. My face fell.
I was told that this was because someone at EMI, the film's
financiers, had decreed the film must have a U certificate to
maximize appeal to its potential audience. I was gutted, and
felt somewhat cheated. This was not only a major let-down,
as it cut the balls clean off my character, it was also a big
mistake: Mel and Griff were never kids' comedians.
If that was a disappointment, then the news Miriam gave
me. around that time was the opposite, probably the best I'd
ever had. She was pregnant. I was so proud. The idea that
someone loved me enough to bear my child was profound.
I felt complete.
With Miriam pregnant, my mam came down to stay with
us for a while and enjoyed the odd day out at Pinewood. I
was dying to have her visit the set and see me doing my stuff.
I figured she'd be so proud, and so she was, but I hadn't
considered what it might be like if you weren't at the hub of
the action. I'd never been on a set as a visitor. Unless you
are actively involved, a film set is about the least glamorous,
least interesting, least dynamic place you could wish to find
yourself. In the course of an average day's filming for television
-- eleven hours -- you'd expect a yield of around five
minutes' finished footage. On a movie the daily yield can be
as low as twenty seconds, the equivalent of 1.5 seconds of
screen time per hour worked. It's no cavalry charge.
I well remember a morning on one of the big sound stages
with about a hundred of us on a polystyrene spacecraft up
at one end of the building and, at the other end, sitting in
the corner, my mam knitting something for the baby with
Mel's mother reading a book. Between takes I wandered
down to check she was all right and bask with her in the
glory of being in a proper film. After all the let-downs and
all the grief, her boy was a hero at last. 'Can I ask you a
question, son?' my mam said. Of course, I told her. 'Does
anyone ever do anything?' she asked.
Dialogue-butchering aside, I had a great time on that
movie, although the socializing almost put paid to my
relationship with Miriam. In those days Mel used to like the
odd late night and I'd regularly roll home in the early hours
very much the worse for wear. Then, after a couple of hours'
shut-eye, I'd head back to work. I was hanging out with Mel
Smith, no less, eating meals and drinking drinks with him,
lots of drinks, and Miriam was having to miss out on it. I
was carried away with my own success, I suppose, but that's
scant consolation to those left at home.
She and I did, however, manage the odd evening out. The
production took us for a meal to Le Manoir aux Quat'
Saisons, Raymond Blanc's famous restaurant just outside
Oxford. Nouvelle cuisine was at the peak of its popularity when
about eight of us sat down and ordered. After what seemed
like an age, the vegetables arrived. A waiter lifted the lid of a
serving platter to reveal, with a flourish, two small potatoes
and a carrot. I looked at it, distinctly underwhelmed. "I think
you must've dropped some on the way,' I said. The guy just
stared at me. The main course was lamb, two bits the size of
a fifty-pence piece. What really put the tin hat on it, though,
was Mel being told he couldn't order any more wine. It had
turned eleven p.m. So we had to jump into our waiting
motors and whiz all the way back to London simply to get
another drink. The bill for that meal was over 1 pound 100. Now
that's what I call service.
Coincidentally, Griff and his wife, Jo, were expecting their
first child at the same time as we were and we bumped into
them in a corridor at an antenatal tour of St Mary's hospital
in Paddington. Griff seemed in a bit of a state and explained
he'd hailed a cab on the Kilburn High Road, intending it to
bring them both to the hospital, but as it had pulled over it
had knocked down an elderly lady. Griff had put his overcoat
over her and waited for an ambulance. When it arrived it had
taken away the lady and his overcoat. A little later we found
out that she had been brought in to St Mary's A and E -- now long gone. She was going to be all right, and Griff
retrieved his coat.
After our tour I offered Griff and Jo a lift home. When
we got to their place they invited us in for a cuppa. On his
way to the front door, Griff put his hand into his pocket,
and froze. A moment later he pulled out -- not his keys -- a
set of bottom dentures, with traces of a cooked breakfast
still stuck to them. We all stared at them. 'Whose are they?'
I asked.
"I don't know,' said Griff. We stood there, mystified, until
Griff said, with a gasp, 'Oh, my God . . . They'll belong to
the old lady!' We figured they must've been knocked out on
impact and someone had picked them up and popped them
into Griff's coat pocket, which, of course, had been over the
lady.
So many things were happening, and there was so much
excitement in my life that I didn't notice the way drink had
become so much a part of it. Too much a part. I was never
really a daytime drinker -- makes you too sleepy. I was never
a vomiter or a staggerer, so I could look all right when I was
blotto. Champagne and wine, my new tipples, didn't do me
any good: I drank them the way I'd drunk beer -- by the pint.
The results were predictable: arguments, fights . . . one day I
had a terrible punch-up with one of my closest pals, John
Gordon. It kicked off in the Rasa Sayang restaurant in Soho's
Dean Street, then spilled out into the main road. As we went
at it hammer and tongs, a crowd gathered. Sensibly, John
decided he'd had enough and walked away, leaving me swinging
wildly at the empty air like a carnival bear. I remember
hearing someone say, 'Isn't that the bloke off the telly?' Much
more worryingly, I found myself, late one evening, on the
bonnet of Miriam's car with a poker in my hand, jumping up
and down, completely crazed, as she tried to drive off and
get away from me. She was pregnant. I shiver at the -- vague -- memory.
Of course, it would have been sensible to moderate my
drinking. 'Moderation in all things,' my dad would say, but
he could never practise it and neither could I. My alcohol
consumption was not out of control -- at least, I didn't think
so at the time -- but the consequences of drinking so much
were becoming grave. I was going to have to ask myself
some big questions.
In January 1985 we moved, just in the nick of time, out of
Maygrove Road and into a much larger house about a mile
away in Dicey Avenue, Willesden. In February we were
blessed when our first son was born. After thirty hours of
labour, Thomas Owen Jones hit the scales at seven pounds
one ounce. I was lucky enough to be present at his birth and

it was, by a long way, the most wonderful moment of my
life. Miriam and I were truly in love with each other, and
now the physical manifestation of our love was in my arms,
alive and wriggling. Tom was part of us both, yet totally his
own person. I was on a cloud for days, absolutely euphoric
-- I'm in tears now as I write about it.
There was, however, one major and unforeseen negative
to this most joyous of times. Miriam was on a public ward,
and we were plagued by pissed-up parents coming in and
recognizing me. Even with curtains round the bed it persisted.
I'll never know how I never smacked any of them.
The hospital were very apologetic about it and in no time we
were home, but I vowed that such a situation would never
arise again.
We all have defining moments in our lives and this was
the point at which I began to realize drink was not the great
thing I'd always taken it to be. It didn't go with my being a
good father. In fact, it came a distant second. I still loved it,
though, and old habits die hard. The taste of the drink,
and the crack that went along with the drinking, had been
ever-present in my life since I was in my teens and they were
hard amigos to say goodbye to. So, for a little while longer,
the drinking continued apace.
A couple of days after Tom's birth Miriam arrived back at
Dicey Avenue with our brand-new baby, swathed in a shawl,
and her mum, Jean, to find all the windows in the house
wide open. She asked me why that was and I explained the
baby would need fresh air. 'It's February,' she said. 'He'll
freeze to death!' A poor start on my part but I tried hard to
listen and I did get better. We began life as a family and it
was great, better than anything I'd known before. Certainly
better than pub life. We tended to treat Tom as though he
were a porcelain doll, but he was a tough little lad. He even
survived me sitting on him one day, though the guilt nearly
did for me. As we were preparing to go to the premiere of Morons From Outer Space in Leicester Square, Miriam decided
Tom was too brand new to leave with a babysitter so we
wrapped him up and took him along too. My name might
have been up there in lights but Tom stole the show that
night and he was in all the papers the next day.
With my first movie safely in the can, I sat back to await
what I imagined would be yet more glowing reviews. After
all, they'd loved me in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, hadn't they? Why
should this be any different? That weekend, the Observer gave our effort all of one line. It said simply, 'Die before you see
this movie!' The rest weren't much kinder. The film had its
faults and it was no masterpiece, but it didn't deserve that
kind of smart-arse dismissal. I'd taken my first cold bath at
the hands of the critics and it wasn't a pleasant feeling. Mel
and Griff are two tip-top geezers we see far too little of on
the box now. Sadly Morons From Outer Space, through no fault
of theirs, inhabited a place that was neither adult, kids' nor
juvenile humour. It missed the spot and just about finished
off Mel and Griff as film-makers almost before they'd started.
Not for the first time, a really good opportunity had been
squandered by anonymous executives who had called it
wrong.

For five years Miriam and I had loved, looked after and out
for each other. No one else was part of the equation and
that was how we'd wanted it. With Tom's arrival, everything
changed. Two had become three. That's not to say we didn't
want a child: we had been desperately keen to start a family
and fully committed to the idea. But things were different.
It's a well-worn cliche, but nothing prepares you for first-time
parenthood. Some changes were obvious and easy for me to

see, while with others it was a long time before I was even
aware of them. We went through the same ups and downs
I'm sure most couples go through with regard to lack of
sleep, lack of time, lack of sex, etc., but it was an age before
I grasped just how profound a change we'd both experienced.
A child is a blessing, the most precious of them all, but it's
also a challenge, and nature's way of telling you to grow up.
Some heed the call, others don't. I'd like to think I knuckled
down and took my responsibilities seriously, but I didn't see
a lot of stuff - and I should have.
I thought my end of the deal was to earn the money, and
Miriam's job was to look after the kid. Why did I think that?
Because I knew no better. That was how it had been when I
had grown up. I thought I was doing plenty, more than my
share, in bringing home the bacon, big-time. I should have
looked at everything around me and considered Miriam's
opinions and feelings, but I never did -- or not nearly enough.
I couldn't see the important things through a fog of alcohol
and ego. You live and learn, thank goodness, but the fame
and the baby and the drinking were having an effect on our
relationship. We were now in a place neither of us had either
planned for or expected, and although, in retrospect, we
coped well with it all, no one could go through all of that
and come out unscathed. And although I didn't recognize or
realize it then, drinking was an important means by which
both of us let off steam. We dealt with pent-up anxiety in a
shouting match, and then, of course, there was the making
up. Always great. So, there was a pattern to our lives in which
booze played a big part and, by and large, it worked, I thought.
Never considered asking, mind. But I knew it couldn't go
on like that indefinitely. No one in their right mind would put up with it.
after a lot of soul-searching and talking it over with Miriam,
I agreed to do a second Auf Wiedersehen, Pet series for Central
Television. The reason I hesitated for so long was not, as
was widely reported in the newspapers at the time, because
I wanted more money than the rest of the boys: that has
never been the case. It was to do with the fame. I knew if I
did the show, another thirteen episodes, I'd be perpetuating
the recognition thing that was causing me so much grief. It
was a conversation with Kevin Whately that turned me
round. During a telephone call we were discussing the merits
and pitfalls of going again when Kevin said to me, 'You
know, Jim, for most actors, scripts like these only come along
once in a lifetime, and that's if you're lucky.' He was right.
I'd never considered it like that, because I wasn't an actor -- not in the way other actors were. I was someone who'd
landed somewhere by accident and circumstance, not someone
who'd worked for a long period to achieve a certain
status. Suddenly I felt guilty about being so unenthusiastic
when most actors would have cut off an arm for the opportunity
to do what I was being begged to do. In the end, the
chance of working with the guys again was too much to pass
up. The crack was always great among us, and I'd missed it.
I'd missed them too.
After the success of the first series it was almost inevitable
there'd be another. It gave me immense satisfaction to recall
all those so-called 'proper' actors who'd been making their
'proper' drama shows at Elstree while we were there. With
one or two notable exceptions, such as Michael Elphick,
they'd been dismissive of our efforts: 'Who would ever want
to watch a drama series about bricklayers?' I don't know how
many times I overheard that in the bar, and it was the opinion
of most of the management and executives too. It bred a
kind of siege mentality among us, an 'us against the rest' type
of thing, which perfectly suited my simmering persecution
complex. All the detractors and knockers simply occupied
the space vacated a decade or so earlier by my teachers at
Manor Park School. Moreover, it helped to forge a special
bond between the main cast of a kind that I've not encountered
since and which endures to this day.
This time out, we were going to be building and carousing
in sunny Spain. Not straight away, mind: Central Television
wanted a cheaper show so the first eight or nine episodes
were set in and around their brand-new studios in Lenton
Lane, Nottingham. In terms of money earned and profile, it
was great -- Pippa negotiated almost ten times the wages I'd
been paid the first time out -- but it would mean being away
from home for the best part of a year. Instead of the two of
us together, as we had been the first time, Miriam wouldn't be
with me every day. To my eternal shame, I never considered it
from her point of view, or Tom's, and didn't think to discuss
her. iNot only was that unfair and wrong, it was a big
mistake: I missed out on a lot of one-to-one stuff with my
Tom, nappy-changing and pram-pushing, stuff I should have
been involved in and enjoying.
In 1985 Margaret Thatcher was running the country and,
with the help of Nicholas Ridley, MP, was in the midst of
ruining the mining industry. It was a period of sustained
union-bashing, either overdue or unprovoked, depending
on where your political allegiances lay, and broadcasting
companies were determined to wrest control from the
workforce. In the middle of all this, the second series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, one of the jewels in the broadcasting
crown, was being bitterly fought over. The end result of all
this grief, with neither side willing to give an inch, was the
eventual ruin of British commercial television. It's taken a
while, but just look at ITV now: on the rocks and sinking,
both commercially and creatively. So much for the free
market.

The broadcasting unions lost, as did all the others, and it
was now a post-industrial Britain. Lenton Lane was an all
new, hi-tech studio complex, and it stank, literally, the way
hospitals and government buildings tend to, of bleach, polish
and other chemicals. Where there had been decades of tradition
at Elstree, there was only stark, bland newness.
 My
first day there was a scary indication of how life was going
to be. On arrival, I approached the posh main reception
desk, behind which were two smartly dressed security guards.
I'm sure their job must have been a chore at times, but you
expect common courtesy.
^Yes?' asked one guy. 'What can I do for you?' I was there,
of course, to help make the second series of Auf Wiedersehen,
Pet, arguably the most eagerly awaited show of the year, so
they must have known I was coming in, but you go through

the motions. 'Name?' I gave it and he looked down a list
on his clipboard. 'Dressing room five,' or whatever number
it was.
'Can I have the key, please?'
'No key.'
Where was it? The guy shrugged. 'One of your lot must've
stolen it.'
One of my . . . Oh, I eventually twigged. Actors are also
notorious thieves, right? Because you'd want to steal a
dressing-room key, wouldn't you? To organize a late-night
party in a building you couldn't access, or maybe weigh it in
for scrap.
So how was I supposed to get into my dressing room? I
asked. The guy shrugged again. I'd had it by this point so I
went to the dressing room, kicked the door off its hinges and
started to get changed.
A little while later the security guard turned up, accompanied
by the studio manager who looked at the splintered
door frame in amazement. 'Who did this?' he demanded.
Did what? I asked. He spluttered: he was going to call the
police, have me arrested for criminal damage. Didn't I know
that door was brand new? That this whole studio was brand
new? Why, it was the flagship regional. . . His face was going
a dangerously deep red. I explained to him that should he
do as he was threatening and have me arrested the financial
consequences of my not being available for work would be
about eighty grand for a day's lost studio time. That was why
I had wanted to get in. That was why I had kicked down the
door. I honestly felt I was making a valid and important
point, but in hindsight I suppose I could have made it in a
less violent way. Next day the door was mended and they
had a key ready and waiting.
Sadly, it was more of the same all the way through the
shoot. The management folk weren't television people, so
they had no idea of how magical the process is. When you're
asking something special of people, as they were of us, you
have to make those people^/special, because if you don't
they'll not believe they can give something special and the
result may be mediocrity. They looked at us and assumed we
were our characters: builders were working-class blokes, so
they were bound to be union members and therefore trouble.
Worse, they had no love for the craft and process of
programme-making. They might just as well have been producing
fish-fingers. They're probably doing that today, now
the studios have been mothballed. The city of Nottingham
and its inhabitants went a long way towards making up for
the daily nonsense we had to put up with at Lenton Lane,
but after the unbridled joy of making the first series it was a
real downer.

It was mostly work, work, work, but there were some
great nights in Nottingham. We'd originally been offered the
Royal, an upmarket hotel in the city centre, for our prolonged
stay -- the best part of a year -- but Tim Spall, Roger Bamford
and I decided to stay at the George, a smaller, less salubrious
establishment sited on a noisy corner. We three had the top
floor to ourselves and kept open house, with people coming
and going day and night. Roger was usually in his cot by
one a.m., but it was much later when Tim and I sounded
lights-out.


It was a great place, and the star in its firmament was
Mary, the elderly batty barmaid. With her hair stacked up in
a bouffant style and a full set of gleaming dentures, she
looked after us as if we were her own, and we loved her for
it. She'd always refer to herself in the third person -- 'Ooh,
Mary doesn't like that!' Malcolm, the beleaguered night
porter, looked after our late-night refreshment requests,

which were regular and substantial. Over the year the champagne
bill alone must have added up to thousands. Booze
was easy, hot food less so. I was forever after something hot,
and Malcolm would often leave his post to nip out for a
kebab or what-have-you. Spall woke me up one Saturday
morning and found me, face covered in grease, cuddling a
turkey carcass. Overtaken with drunken hunger, I'd gone
downstairs in the middle of the night and pinched it from
the kitchen. Turned out it had been for a wedding reception
that afternoon. Oh dear.
Because of the worsening situation between the unions
and the management, we went out to Spain not knowing if
we'd even get started, never mind complete the location filming. In the end we did, but not without problems. We'd
all taken our wives and kids with us to Marbella and were
billeted in apartments at the Melia Don Pepe hotel. It was
great with all the little ones running around, and filming went
as well as could be expected in the circumstances.
It was in Spain that I ended up looking down the barrel
of a gun late one night and I was lucky indeed not to get
shot. I'd had a gun pulled on me once before, during an
argument in an Earl's Court bar between myself, a fully
robed elderly Arab, his minder and a hooker. The girl took
a slap, I took exception and it went from there. It was a
bowel-mover, not an experience I wanted to repeat. But
drink often makes you invincible -- or so you imagine.
So there I was, sleeping off the drink one hot afternoon,
sprawled out naked on my Spanish double bed, which was
actually two singles pushed loosely together, when I woke
suddenly, aware of a stinging sensation between my legs. I
looked down and found a mosquito right on the end of my
knob. I killed it but it must have been there for a good while
because there was blood everywhere. (The bite left a nasty
scar that remains to this day.) In the process I fell through
the gap in the beds and landed on the tiled floor. In a state
of some confusion and anger I went down to the bar and
showed Spall what had happened to my manhood. It was a
right mess, but he thought my getting a blow-job from a
mosquito was very funny. In my drunk, muddled state, I
decided it was the fault of those two single beds, which kept
parting and landing me on the floor. I'd had enough. I was
going to move rooms.
There were no other rooms available at short notice so I
was forced to stay put. I could, however, change my bed or,
at least, the mattress. My own decision, and a bad one.
Later that night, after a bellyful of San Miguel beer, I found
a stock room and enlisted Tim's help in lugging a mattress
out and along the corridor. Soon we came upon an elderly
Spanish security guard having a snooze. He opened his eyes
and said something in Spanish, to the effect of Where are
you going with that mattress?' I waved him away - 'Don't
worry, Pop, it's all right, we're guests.' But he was having
none of it and started shouting at us, still in Spanish. I
returned fire in English, and so it went on until he pulled out
a gun and pointed it straight at my head, his old hand shaking
dangerously. I remember noticing his fingernails had black
dirt under them. I was stone-cold sober now, wide-eyed and
staring. In an instant the likely outcome had whizzed through
my mind: he was probably a war veteran so he'd get the
sympathy vote from the local court and most likely a suspended
sentence, and I'd be a dead foreigner, going home in
a box. All because of a mattress. For the sake of series
continuity we put it back.

Right in the middle of filming and out of the blue I suddenly
had a hit record on my hands.

As a result of the reception I'd been given when I introduced
the Gary Moore Band at their Hammersmith gig,
Gary's manager, Steve Barnett, asked me if I'd be interested
in cutting a record. He couldn't have known it had been my
dream since I was a kid. A week or so later we met at Steve's
home in West Hampstead with Richard Griffiths of Virgin
Records, but it soon became apparent, at least to me, that
this wasn't going to fly. When we got round to discussing
what kind of material we might record, Griffiths shrugged and told me, 'It doesn't matter. Right now, Jimmy, you could
record yourself singing the phone book and the record would
sell.' As far as the music business was concerned, 'actor'
meant 'novelty record'. Not their fault, just the way it was.
Bernard Cribbins singing 'Right Said Fred' and the like. To be fair, that was never the suggestion, but there was no other
reference point, really, and I didn't fancy it. Instinct told me
to leave it and, as I've tended to act on instinct and intuition
all my life, I passed -- reluctantly.
As it turned out, all was not lost. Soon after that meeting,
I was roped in to sing some stuff on the Morons From Outer
Space soundtrack and, on the strength of that, Peter Brown,
who managed Mel and Griff, arranged for me to spend a
little down time on the Barge, Virgin's floating recording
studio tethered at Regent's Canal basin. Maybe the Virgin link
was connected to my earlier meeting with Richard Griffiths, I
don't know. Over a couple of nights in winter, my Dance
Class pals, Tony Mac and Trevor Brewis, helped me record
a couple of tracks. One was a stripped-down cover of the
Rose Royce hit 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore'. I remember
sitting in a cafe with Tony one morning, having been up
all the previous night in the studio. We were both rather
pleased with the way it had gone.
Virgin's MD was then Simon Draper, whose wife's sister
was married to Koger Taylor, the Queen drummer. Somehow
Roger got to hear my tape and offered to produce some
tracks for me. I was thrilled. This was real rock 'n' roll. I
remember going over to his palatial house in Kensington and
being flabbergasted by the sheer opulence. This was beyond
rich. Rides in Roger's Bentley Turbo to Chelsea nightclubs
only strengthened my belief that I was in the right hands.
We cut some tracks and had a great time doing it. Roger
played drums as well as co-producing with Dave Richards,
and roped in Phil Chen to play bass. What a rhythm section!
I was off and rocking. The record was released in the spring
of 1985, just as I was starting work on the second series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and struggled until Dave Lee Travis
began to play it regularly. Next thing, it was in the charts. I'd
got a hit record! It went to number three and sold over
400,000 copies.
But a major problem soon arose -- and drove the record
company bonkers: I wasn't available for promotion. If you're
lucky enough to have a hit, you really should be out there
plugging it for all you're worth. But I couldn't. I was filming.
For a whole year. I was gutted, but there was nothing I could
do. Roger Bamford kindly let me go early one day so that I
could whiz to London to do Top of the Pops. I didn't even
have time to buy clothes and had to appear in my Auf
Wiedersehen, Pet costume. But it was the fulfilment of a long
held dream. Tony Mac was on bass, and Trevor Brewis on
drums. My pals from the Dance Class were along for the
ride. Oh, it was a sweet moment. While I was singing I tried
to imagine the look on everyone's faces up home, but it
made me laugh so I had to stop. No nerves, none at all.
Funny, that.
A hit, then. Success, of sorts, in music. It had happened
at last and it was a big thrill, especially for my mam. She was
the toast of the Walker Road bingo. After all my talk I felt
vindicated, but it would take a long time and a lot of work
to establish myself in the eyes of the music business as more
than just a novelty turn, a thespian messing around. I was up
against a tradition of actors who'd had a bash at the old
singing malarkey by way of earning a quick payday. I won't
name names. You know the culprits. Take your pick.

Closer to home, Gary Holton was having terrible problems
with hard drugs and trying to keep it together as best he
could. The success of our show depended to a great degree
on the interplay between the actors. Unless everyone was on
song it didn't work. Professional pride made sure we all knew
our stuff and it was usually a joy to do ensemble scenes, but
as the weeks went by and Gary got steadily worse it became
more and more difficult to get things done. It wasn't easy
for anyone. Gary felt bad about letting everyone down, and
none of us knew what to do for the best. In fact, I don't
think there was anything we could have done because Gary
had to do it himself and, God bless him, he tried. He wasn't
the first good person to go under because of drugs and there
have been many since. I tried threatening him with a good
hiding, which scared him into getting his act together for a
week or so, but it all just went to hell again. It was heartbreaking
to witness. The last time I saw Gary alive he was in the
Lenton Lane main studio corridor, crying. 'Look at this,
man,' he said, and he held up a copy of that day's Daily
Star. The front-page headline read, 'heroin hoodlum'. His
mum had seen it and it had made her unwell. He was so
upset. He loved to be in the papers but he'd paid a very
heavy price for allowing the tabloid press into his life.
We were rehearsing in Hammersmith the day the call came
to say he had died. Although I was shocked by the news, I
wasn't surprised. We all just packed up and went home. It
was beyond even a drink.
We all had nicknames, and Gary's was Twinkle, as in 'little
star'. At the end of the funeral service Harry Belafonte's
'Catch A Falling Star' was played. He would have liked that.
Gary died a month or so before we were due to finish
filming, and the decision had to be taken as to whether we
should finish or throw in the towel. After a lot of thought
we decided to finish. We all felt that that was what he would
have wanted. But it wasn't pleasant. The series had to be
completed with a double doing long-shots, back to camera.
It spooked a lot of the guys. If you saw the double from
behind, with his wig on, it was easy to imagine it was Gary.
That year Miriam and I lost another close friend. Midway
through the filming, we received news that Peter Knox, big
Peter, the man responsible for bringing Miriam and me
together, had died from multiple sclerosis. We made the
long, sad journey up the Mi to say goodbye. The crematorium
chapel was filled to bursting with his family and
friends, literally hundreds of people. I saw lads I'd not seen for years -- decades, in some cases. There was no reminiscing,
no catching up, no crack, just shakes of the head at the
unfairness of it all. Lots of hard men cried that day. I did,
too. We often talk about big Peter -- he was a special man.
Miss you, mate.

The second series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet limped to its finish
in early 1986, and we were all glad to be done with it. I'd not
wanted to do it in the first place and kind of wished I hadn't,
what with Gary's death. It was nowhere near as pure, strong
or fresh as the first, and yet in terms of audience numbers it
was even more successful. It peaked with the touching tale
of Oz going home to see his son, which pulled in a whopping

194

sixteen million viewers. Absolutely incredible, but problematic
for a bloke tormented by celebrity.
No rest for the wicked. I was straight off to Scotland to
make a film for the BBC entitled Shoot for the Sun, a dark,
powerful piece about drug-dealers and no-hopers, wonderfully
written by Peter MacDougall. It was an education to go
to those Scottish housing schemes and see kids running
around in the snow with nothing more than socks on their
feet. Every day we would go with our film unit to take
advantage of some poor soul's misfortune, point our cameras
at the poverty, then go back to our nice warm hotels for
dinner and a comfy kip. The voyeuristic side of location
filming has never sat easily with me, and it's one of the
reasons I don't much care for it.
Peter, a whirlwind of a man with a gargantuan appetite
for life, lived in London, in Primrose Hill, and his local,
which doubled as a kind of office, was the Queen's. He and
I spent many a happy hour in there, discussing the script's
plot and sub-plots, willing each other on. Three rather curmudgeonly
old men were always sitting in one corner of the
bar, under the big bay window. We'd sometimes have words
with them, though it was never heated -- they always had
plenty to say for themselves. To me they were just grumpy
old bastards. I found out years later that one was Kingsley
Amis.
Peter had written this piece especially for me, a great
honour and a huge step for me personally. As I was playing
the lead for the first time I felt it only right that I go a bit
more potty, hitting the drink in even bigger measure -- not
so much burning the candle at both ends, more setting the
house on fire, ably aided and abetted, it has to be said, by my
pal Peter. Of course, I was already a big drinker, but for my
Scottish adventure I pulled out all the stops and moved up
the amounts I was putting away were both ridiculous
and dangerous, and by the time I returned to London it was
beyond acceptable. I hated waking up in the mornings with
my head feeling like it had been hit with a brick and my big
mouth desert dry. I hated all that morning-after guilt, not
being able to remember what I'd said or to whom I'd said it.
It was usually something offensive. I had developed a habit
of falling, in a stupor, into the hallway of my house after a
session, and would wake up the next morning covered with
whatever Miriam had been good enough to throw over me,
a coat or a blanket. All that stopped one morning when I
woke up shivering. The front door was wide open, as usual,
and a gale whistling up my arse, but there was no blanket,
nothing. I went upstairs and demanded to know why I'd
been left to freeze my nuts off. Miriam told me that if I could
manage to get all the way across central London under my
own steam, to our house and through the front door, I
should be able to manage the stairs to bed. If not, tough shit.
Thereafter I made it to bed.

As a result of what had gone on between the tabloid press
and Gary Holton, I was now even more anti-print media and
if I was asked to talk to them I didn't want to know. There
was only one occasion when I relented and it had an odd
outcome.

Tim Spall called me one day to ask if I'd be up for meeting
a journalist. The author Daniel Farson, renowned chronicler
of Soho past and present and piss-artist extraordinaire, apparently
wanted to interview us together for a feature intended
to run in the Daily Mail. Ha, those were the days! I'd never
heard of Farson and, having less than zero interest in reading
lots of things I never said in newspapers I'd never normally
read, my answer was the usual 'No.' I suggested to Tim that
he do it on his own but apparently that wasn't an option. It
had to be both of us. It was obvious Tim wanted to meet
Farson (they went on to become good friends) so I agreed,
and a date was set.
Come the day and around midday, the three of us met up
in the French House, a shit-hole one-room boozer with
brown-stained walls tucked between two retail outlets at the
bottom of Frith Street and run at that time by Gaston Leroux,
a bull-necked, grey-haired grumpy old Frenchman with a
wonderful waxed moustache. A haven and a rendezvous for
gay men and ex-pat Frogs, it was already busy when I landed
- it didn't take many to pack the single room out -- and there
were loads of gay men, young and old, fat and thin, most
sporting Village People leather chaps and thick droopy walrus
moustaches. I know the public's general perception of me is
as someone who's been round the block and all that, but I'd
not had any social contact with the gay community and I
was a little nervous around these guys. I was with Spall,
though, and my back was firmly up against a wall, so I figured
I'd be all right. Gulp the grog, say as little as possible, get it
over with ASAP and fuck off home. That was the plan,
anyway.
Dan Farson was around five ten, heavily built and sweaty,
with unkempt silver-grey hair and drink-blotched skin. He
looked to me like an elderly Billy Bunter as he cast a jaundiced,
haughty eye over the pub's motley clientele. He
wasn't unattractive, quite the opposite, sort of slobbishly
distinguished-looking, yet despite his expensive blue suit he
cut a rather sad figure. His voice was rasping, pickled and
posh. He was good crack, 'quite a character', as my pal John
Watson might have said, and in no time at all the drink was
going down a treat, vodka, beer and wine -- gallons of it,
courtesy of someone else, which always gave me an incentive
and a raging thirst. Tim was on cracking form, regaling us
with laddy-actor anecdotes, lots of which I'd not heard.
We were generally having a right old lark when up from
somewhere popped a little man. He was elderly, short, pear
shaped, sallow-skinned, with pinched lips, blown hair and
plucked eyebrows over-emphasized with thick brown pencil.
He was wearing a rather sad-looking singlet. He stopped
dead square in front of me and, with a kind of slow, dirty
smirk, said, 'Can I buy you a drink?'
I was flustered but I did my level best not to look it. I did
a terrible job of pretending to consider his offer and, far too
quickly, decide against it. 'No, thank you.' Polite but firm, I
was aiming and hoping for. Unambiguous.
'Oh, go on,' he pressed. 'Just a little drink.'
People were watching us now, watching me. I could feel
my face and neck getting all hot and going a lovely bright
red. The way this fellow was smiling at me left me in no
doubt as to his intentions. 'Look,' I said, 'I'm sorry, but I'm
not that way inclined, all right? And, really, a bloke your age
should know better than to risk a clip around the ear. So go
on, bugger off!'
Thankfully, the little fellow took the hint and shuffled
away. It would have been impossible not to. I heaved a sigh
of relief. The conversation was back with Tim and Farson. I
was making a good job of being the worst interviewee in the
world. He turned to me. 'Let me get this straight. You don't
like being recognized, you don't like doing interviews and
you don't like having your picture taken. Have you ever
thought you might be in the wrong profession?'
'Absolutely, pal,' I replied, all angry and defensive, fixing,
him a bead, 'but I didn't ask to be here.' Either specifically
or metaphorically.
More grog -- oh dear, lots more grog! -- more stories, more
questions, more grump, more noise. By now I was so happy
I'd even stopped shouting at Gaston about his lot rolling
over in two world wars -- and I don't mean 'happy' as in
'pissed', I mean 'happy' as in 'having a lovely time'. Then,
fuck me, if the old bloke in the singlet wasn't back in front
of me, eyebrows arched, smiling.
'Hello,' he said, looking up rather dreamily.
'You again?' I growled down at him. 'What is it this time?'
He went all coy and cuddly, wringing his little wrinkled
hands. "I was wondering . . . well, I was wondering if you'd
like to come back to my place.'
What? What? He had some bottle, I had to give him that.
If I was an ageing poofter I don't think I would have
wanted to risk the likely consequences of trying to pull a
nasty-looking bastard like I was back then. Or maybe I
would. Maybe the danger adds to the fun. God knows.
'Your place?' I said eventually, my eyebrows standing to
attention. 'To do what, exactly?'
'I'd like to draw you,' he replied, as innocent as you please.
'Draw? Ho-ho! Is that what you're calling it, these days?'
Spall was laughing at me. Ha ha, very funny. I'm not very
good if I think I'm being laughed at -- ever since school and
those fucking short trousers. So there was big pressure on
me now. If I wasn't careful I'd be punching someone. Not
Shorty here, in front of me: he was far too old. It would have
looked great in the newspapers, me filling in some sad old
poof.
'No, honestly,' he said. "I have a place just across the road.'
By now everyone in the room was watching, or that was
how it felt, waiting to see what would happen next. My head
felt like a thermometer that was going to explode real soon
and splatter the lot of them with my expensive mercury.
Spall was in tears now, knowing I was way out of my depth
and drowning. It was all right for him -- he was a theatrical,
hung out with poofs all the time, worked with them. He was
used to them, no problem. I had rather a long way to go.
'Right,' I said, intent on bringing the curtain down on this
painful vignette. 'Now listen, you dirty little bastard, I know
what you're up to, and it's not gonna wash with me, right?
Why don't you fuck off back over there with your poofy
mates and leave me alone?'
'If you're sure?' said Shorty, the look on his crumpled
old boat-race suggesting I was about to miss out on the
opportunity of a lifetime. Ha! I think not. If I'm sure? 'I'm
sure,' I said to him. 'Fuck off!'
Off he fucked, back over to where his pals were parked
and mooching, a gaggle of pretty young leather boys, all
brazen, dirty and mocking. Thank goodness, the cabaret
was over and the place settled back into what passed for
normal.

But Dan Farson was clearly aghast. 'Do you know who
that was?' said he.
'No. Who was it?'
'Francis Bacon.'
'Francis Bacon?' I said, with a shrug and a shake of my
head. 'Who's he?'

'Only Britain's most famous living artist,' said drunken
Dan.

'Never heard of him,' I said. It was true. 'What about
David Hockney?'
Farson dismissed this suggestion with a look of such
haughty disdain that Kenneth Williams would have been
proud of it.
'Well, if that's true, he should be ashamed of himself, the
dirty old fucker!'

Bacon, Farson, Hockney, all of them gay, as it happens.


Easy now, no problem, but hard for me to handle back then.
What a prude.
More drink was consumed, and soon I'd had enough of the
interview and the French House and the whole hassle-ridden
afternoon. I wanted to go home and have a lie-down. Spall
and Dan Farson headed off to Langan's Brasserie in a black
cab and a stupor, intent on continuing the interview. I headed
for the wilds ofNW2.
After I'd collapsed into an armchair and had a lengthy
nap, I told Miriam all about the afternoon's happenings in
the boozer.
'What was the name of the artist?' she wanted to know.
I couldn't remember. 'Bacon? Somebody Bacon?'
'Not . . . Francis Bacon?' she asked, literally stopping in
her tracks.
'That was him! Dirty old fucker. Have you heard of him?'
'Have I heard of him! You should've gone!'
'What? Don't be daft, woman. I might've had to give him
a wank. Or worse!'
'But you would've ended up hanging in the National
Portrait Gallery!'
Maybe. Who knows? And though I'd dearly love to be
hanging in the National Portrait Gallery, the price of admission
had seemed too high.

It was time to try to learn how to be a good dad -- and it was
hard, even though I'd read the books and gone to the
odd class. The renewed success of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet had
brought back all the pressures I was not good at dealing with.
Already uncomfortable with the whole idea of celebrity and
where, if at all, I fitted into it, I began to resent being
recognized by everyone, and to draw back from performing.
The first time round had been great, and I'd loved it: the
gains and behaviour that had got me arrested regularly
were garnering praise, celebrity and massive financial
reward. Now, they were making me unhappy.
I also felt trapped by a sense of obligation to those I'd left
behind in Newcastle. Whether I liked it or not, I was flying the
flag for all the folk on the housing estates who hadn't been as
lucky as me. They told me as much. I was unable to deal with
it rationally so I drank all the more to dull the confusion and
pain. Gradually, my personality changed. Instead of being
the outgoing, open person I'd been all my life, I became
introverted and guarded, ever more suspicious of everything
and everyone, a different person from the one with whom
Miriam had fallen in love. I feared that if I didn't do something
about it now, I would become seriously unhinged.
I still had to earn a crust, though, and the best way of
doing that was by exploiting my television popularity. In
television I could make loads of money, but it meant all
that exposure, perpetuating the vicious circle. But with my
background, I couldn't say no to the huge sums I was offered.
I did a lucrative commercial for Kodak. It ran to six figures,
which at the time was uncommon, and the money came in
very handy as we were strapped for ready cash. But it had
become no fun, the filming business, and I was moving away
from it more and more. I was still quietly buying and selling
houses, but not at the rate I'd managed in the past. What to do?

Early in 1987, we discovered that Miriam was expecting
our second child, and we were both thrilled with the prospect
of a brother or sister for our golden Tom. Having been
through the parenthood experience already, I considered
myself prepared for the new baby but I didn't know what
else was in store for me.
I had realized that if I was going to make a go of it in the


entertainment business, it was essential that I gain proper
control of my work. I had never been comfortable as an
employee, and ever since that first day at Elstree, when I'd
stood behind the camera on the set, watching silently, I'd
had a hankering to produce a show. Not to direct -- that's
never interested me, despite what many people thought when
they labelled me a control freak. Anyone who's ever worked
in the business will testify that the ultimate power-trip is in
directing. I wouldn't thank you for that job. Everyone on
the set has a question for you, and their question is the most
important.
My idea of owning my own production company and
governing my destiny just would not go away. At the time
one or two actors had production companies, but it wasn't
common: the broadcasting companies didn't like the idea of
the kids having the keys to the sweet shop. I decided it was
time to have a go. It would be a challenge -- a big ask, as they
say these days -- but I couldn't stand all the sitting around
waiting for others to give me the kind of work I wanted. I
was awful indoors when I was bored. As usual, there was
nothing but encouragement from Miriam, although she must
have been concerned about the wisdom of such a move. My
reputation within the industry was one of uncompromising
directness, and plenty of people would have loved to see me
fall flat on my face, but that made me all the more determined
to succeed. I took a deep breath and made a start.
I had to tell Pippa Markham -- another who had taken a
chance on me -- that I was moving on. The reason for this
was a simple one. Plant & Froggatt then represented only
performers, and I needed an organization that could help
further my production interests. Changing agents is not a
thing you undertake lightly. It's a big, nerve-racking number,
all the tougher because Pippa had become a good friend to
me, for better or worse, I believe in doing these
things myself, rather than hide behind a letter or a secretary
-- and Pippa was ill when I called on her. I had to stand at
the foot of her bed and tell her I was off. She was understanding,
and even wished me well. I'm glad we've all remained
good friends.
I moved from Plant & Froggatt to the much larger Duncan
Heath Associates. Duncan's outfit represented producers,
directors, writers and technicians as well as actors. I had met
Lindy King, one of the company's talent agents, some time
earlier and she'd offered to look after me, should I ever
decide to move. I'd only been there about a month when
she left to have a baby. Jonathan Altaraz inherited me, and
we got along well right from the off.
I was also introduced to Duncan, who looked after all the
firm's big guns. In terms of industry standing, I was certainly
not in the premier league, but I was determined. I knew that
if I was going to achieve anything beyond acting gigs, I was
in the right place. DHA was loud and bustling, very different
from the rather unnerving calm of Plant & Froggatt. The sprawling offices on Wardour Street seemed to be buzzing
with energy. I felt lucky to be a part of it.
A job offer came in one day, so I went over to Duncan's
Wardour Street offices and made my way up the stairs. A
man passed me on his way down. In a right state he was,
tearful, sobbing. I mentioned it to one of the agents, who
told me he was a client, who was convinced his career was
going nowhere and that he was destined to be nothing more
than a bit-part spear-carrier at the RSC. A little while later
the same actor landed the leading part in one of American
television's biggest shows. You just never know.
The job offer was for a commercial in New Zealand. Auf
Wiedersehen, Pet had been well received in the Antipodes, but,

as much as I liked to travel, I didn't fancy going all the way
to New Zealand just to make an advertisement. Anyway,
Miriam was eight months pregnant and couldn't travel. I said
no - but the New Zealanders wouldn't take no for an
answer, and pestered me for two weeks. Eventually my agent
suggested we put in a ridiculous list of demands, in the hope
that they would leave us alone: a couple of first-class return
tickets and a quarter of a million New Zealand dollars as my
fee. We thought that would be that. But they agreed.
Miriam and I discussed it: NZ$2 50,000 -- around 100,000 pounds
- was an enormous amount, and Miriam felt it was too much
to turn down, but the shoot was in the same week as the
baby was due. Flying was out of the question for her, so late
in her pregnancy, and after much soul-searching we agreed
I'd have to go alone. Miriam promised not to give birth until
I got home.
But what to do with the other ticket? It had been pre-paid,
so I had to either use it or lose it. Tony Mac was on the dole
at the time, living up in Sunderland and having a tough time.
When I called him to ask if he fancied going to New Zealand
at the end of the week for ten days, all expenses paid, he
thought it was a wind-up, but a few days later we were in
the air.
The total number of passengers in the cavernous first-class
section of the Singapore Airlines plane was three -- Tony,
myself and the son of the president of Singapore: Heathrow
to Auckland, with a stopover in Singapore, twenty-nine
hours, or thereabouts. As much champagne as we could
drink and, of course, we made pigs of ourselves. The amount
I got through on the outward journey nearly killed me, and
that was only the start of it.
The brief Singapore interlude had us in a bit of a flap. As
we came in to land, a female voice announced, 'Ladies and
gentlemen, in a moment we will be landing in Singapore.
The local time is blah and the temperature on the ground is blah-blah-blah. We hope you have a pleasant stay, and we
would remind you that the penalty for trafficking drugs is
death.' We were not trafficking anything, but it was a frightening
announcement. As we waited for the door to open, one
of the stewardesses asked Tony where his hat was. He told
her he didn't have one. She explained to him that the airport
authorities would therefore be looking to give him a haircut,
so he tucked his pony-tail inside the collar of his jacket. We
were glad it was a short stopover.
The ten days I spent in New Zealand were wonderful. It
was rather like England was in the 1950s, all open roads and
polite, friendly people. No colour, though: just white faces.
That was a bit odd - I'd expected to see Maoris. The
reception we got anywhere and everywhere was never less
than enthusiastic. Even the bouncers and doormen at the
Auckland nightclubs were courteous to a fault. 'Good
evening, Mr Nail. We're all great fans of your work', etc. I'd
had forks pulled out of my mouth in England by impatient
people wanting autographs, so this was new and it threw me.
More confusion, more booze.
There was quite a lot of down time in which to enjoy the
Winnebago I'd asked for as part of the deal, and Tony and I
saw a lot of the North Island. Back in Auckland we learned
that Billy Connolly, a client of Pippa's whom I'd met once or
twice, was doing a tour Down Under. A phone-call home
secured us some tickets for his Auckland show, and afterwards
we went out with him for an Indian meal. Billy told anecdotes
to anyone within earshot in his broad Scottish brogue, and
the waiters were all Asians with New Zealand accents. On
another night I sang a slightly slurred 'Someone To Watch
Over Me' with the house band in an Auckland jazz club.


I spent a lot of time thinking and worrying about Miriam
and one day I had a bit of a bad turn on the set. Suddenly it
was a struggle to get my breath. The local doctor arrived and
told me I'd been hyperventilating. It sounded scary until he
explained it to me, and the probable causes -- stress and
anxiety. He asked if I'd ever tried acupuncture and I said
I hadn't. He whipped out his box of needles and said,
'Trust me.' All went well until he pushed a needle into my
philtrum -- the fluted tissue between top lip and nostrils. I
almost went through the ceiling, and so did the doctor. But
it worked, and I've used acupuncture since, to very good
effect.
The commercial was for barbecue products. I can't
remember much about the week, what with the drink, the
needles and everything else, but the producers told me they
were happy with what we'd done. On the blower one night,
I asked Miriam what was new. She told me this and that, and
then, almost in passing, 'There's been a bad storm.' It was
October 1987.
Job done, it was party time. Masses more booze for the
big-shot celebrity, then we were off. On the return journey
Tony and I hit the bar once more but this time, somehow,
we surpassed our previous consumption. All the lovely food
went to waste -- lobster, filet mignon, caviar. The more they
brought, the more we drank. It was complete madness. I
honestly don't know how it didn't kill me.
At last we were home, and I had a chance to see just how
bad the storm had been as we were driven from Heathrow
to my home. To the left of the M4, looking north, every tree
we passed seemed to have been uprooted or was leaning
over on a westerly diagonal. It looked unreal, like a movie
special effect.
I arrived home to find that Miriam had kept her word, and
staggered up to bed, leaving Tony on the settee downstairs.
Immediately I fell into a deep sleep. It seemed as though I'd
only just closed my eyes when Miriam shook me awake. The
baby was coming. Oh, God, not now! I was exhausted and
still paralytic. I had also, as a result of overdoing it with the
drink on a previous flight, been breathalyzed and banned
from driving. Tony would have to drive us to the hospital.
Somehow I got myself off the bed. Poor Tony was in an
even worse state than me, and that drive to the hospital, in
the dark, through the rain, with me barking directions and
Miriam gasping, terrified him.
Somehow we made it to St Mary's where, just before
midnight, Fredric Daniel Jones arrived, weighing in at seven
pounds four ounces. Not before some fun and games,
though. We'd arranged to go private this time, so a room
was ready and waiting. The doctor booked to deliver the
baby was summoned and when he got there he took a look
at me and asked if I was all right. I told him I was just tired
after a long flight. He asked if I'd like a coffee, and I said that
would be lovely. This was more like it: no having to deal
with pissed-up punters. How was I to know he'd go off and
make it himself? We were moments away from Fred's birth
and the doctor had disappeared. Incandescent with rage,
Miriam called me a number of unrepeatable names with a
venom that truly frightened me.
Later, after I'd held my beautiful new son in my arms and
made sure Miriam was comfortable, I left the hospital and
walked along to Paddington railway station where I jumped
into a black cab. A shabby-looking middle-aged man was
slumped in the driving seat. Euphoric, I said to him, 'My
wife's just had a baby son.' "Yours, is it?' he replied.
I considered throttling him, but then I thought, Fuck you,
mate. You're not going to spoil this beautiful day.
Soon after Fred was born I stopped drinking. I remember
waking up one morning, after yet another heavy session, to
find Tom beside the bed, staring at me. He must have been
nearly three, but the expression on his face made me feel as
though God almighty was looking down at me and wasn't at
all pleased with what he saw. I'm sure it was nothing to the
bairn, just his dad sprawled out asleep on the bed, but I felt
disgusted with myself. It wasn't right for a kid to see his dad
in such an incapable state, I thought. How long had he been
standing there? What might he have heard me say in my
sleep? It was probably no more than the usual cocktail of
guilt and self-loathing that invariably followed a drinking
session, but it coincided with my need to strike out on my
own as a television producer and, most importantly, my fear
of losing Miriam. We'd not discussed it but I realized that
no one in their right mind would put up indefinitely with my
behaviour. Maybe self-preservation kicked in. Or maybe,
with Fred's arrival, I'd finally accepted my responsibilities.
Perhaps it was a mixture of all those things. Whatever it was,
I gave up that day and haven't had a drink since - well, one
pint, the night my dad died, and a single sip of champagne
to celebrate a special anniversary with Tim Spall, but nothing
more. I vowed my kids would never again see me in such a
mess. They haven't, and they won't.
To my surprise, I never missed the booze and I've never
been tempted. People often say my staying off the sauce is
really impressive, especially without the help of AA, but to
me it was just something I had to do. Where hangovers had
once lasted a few hours, now it was days. After my near-fatal
binges in New Zealand I'd crossed a line. Drink wasn't fun
any more: I'd gone off it. I believe that saved my life.
All the drunken shouting and throwing crockery had taken
its toll on Miriam and me. I was determined to try to mend
my relationship with her before it was too late. No one
should have to put up with the kind of nonsense she did,
and it shames me to think of all the horrible things I said
and did. It's a funny thing, giving up the drink: everyone
assumes you'll automatically become a better person for it,
but the only thing that's guaranteed is that you'll be a different
person, and not necessarily the one with whom your partner
fell in love. We were in for a tough few years, but neither of
us likes to give up, so we worked at it.
Being free of the drink was a revelation. Sometimes I'd go
into a pub for a tonic water and couldn't see what the
attraction had been for all those years -- decades. Then I
started to think about the way daily life was geared in Newcastle
when I was growing up, the way all police overtime was rostered around weekends, the way the courts were
ready for Monday-morning hearings, the defending solicitors
with their excuses that their client had had one or ten too
many, the money the state made from over-indulgence in
alcohol. Suddenly it was more than individual foolishness: it
was organized and endemic. It was so well established that
people couldn't see it. It was only with the benefit of hindsight
and sobriety that I recognized that drink is a convenient
means of anaesthetizing the masses. The patronizing view
of the zealous, dry convert? I'm not so sure.

I desperately wanted to establish myself as a television producer,
behind the camera and out of the way, but the broadcasters
made it clear that I would have to appear in the stuff
I produced. I was back with the double-edged sword. By the
end of the 1980s, I had come to detest being identified as
and with Oz, the character who'd made me famous. I
believed that he was all people thought I was capable of.
If that were so, what difference did it make? Well, in the

absence of understanding, confusion reigned. Where not
long before I'd been an outgoing bloke, now I was a near
recluse, doing nothing to draw attention to myself. I felt as
though my own personality had been buried beneath this
fictitious creation. People would call, 'Oz!' to me, and I'd
reply, 'No -- Jimmy. There's a difference.' I was determined
to be seen for what I really was. The real Jimmy. No artifice.
No fiction. So what did I do about it? I invented a whole
new persona for myself. Bonkers? I guess so, but I wasn't
aware of it at the time.
One day, after I'd caught sight of my naked self in the
mirror in our Dicey Avenue bedroom and noticed my breasts
were bigger than Miriam's, I decided I had to get into shape.
I began to work out big-time. I had to suffer, of course. My
daily regime was Spartan. My diet, self-created and predictably
daft, consisted of nothing but raw vegetables and
fruit for about four months. Goodness knows what the
house smelt like. Four stones disappeared, equivalent to 112
packs of butter.
I'd lost weight and I looked very different, but something
unexpected and frightening was revealed. I was standing on
the driveway at Dicey Avenue one sunny Sunday afternoon,
talking to Tony Antoniou, our next-door neighbour and my
family doctor, when he looked at my throat and asked, 'How
long have you had that lump?' Cue panic in Cricklewood.
The next day, after a night spent checking my life
insurance policies, I was sitting in the waiting room of a
Harley Street specialist. I had ultra-sound and scans, in
gloomy basement rooms, and was sent home. I paced around
the house, anxiously awaiting the results. A week passed, but
I was reluctant to chase what might be bad news. Finally I
was at the end of my tether. I telephoned Tony, who advised
me to call the specialist.

After I'd been passed from secretary to assistant, I eventually
got him on the phone. 'Haven't you had the results yet?'
he said, sounding surprised. It turned out he'd forgotten to
post them to me. I decided to go into town and collect them myself.

There was good news and bad news. It looked as though
whatever was inside my throat was benign, but it was pressing
on my vocal cords. Not good news if you sing. Tony suggested
I consult a surgeon.
Lionel Gracey was a lovely man, slim and distinguished
with silver hair and the kind of reassuring bedside manner
all medical folk should have. He reminded me of George
Martin, the Beatles' producer. He was one of the country's
top thyroid surgeons, and patients travelled from all over the
world to see him. Over a cuppa he suggested an operation
to remove whatever was in my neck. He and Tony explained
that if the lump should turn out to be cancer, the best place
you could have it was in the thyroid gland as the body could
manage perfectly well without it, although I might have to
take a thyroxine tablet every day for the rest of my life.
Lionel and Tony were both of the opinion that it was
nothing to worry about, but I said to them, 'With all due
respect, it ain't your neck.' As usual, Miriam was a tower of
strength, reassuring me and telling me to behave.
A week or so later I was in the St John and St Elizabeth
Hospital, St John's Wood, getting a jab, doing the count and
passing out way before I reached ten. I was under for five
hours, and when I came round, I was convinced I'd died. I
looked up, all groggy, and there in front of me was Mr
Gracey in a dinner jacket and bow-tie. I stared at him,
befuddled. He smiled. 'It's all right, Jimmy. I'm on my way
to a dinner party, but I called in to let you know there's
nothing to worry about.' Then he warned me that I was not

to talk, and that he'd prescribed everything in the medicine
cabinet by way of pain relief. All I had to do was press the
buzzer.
That night I woke in great pain and pressed the buzzer. A
night-nurse appeared and asked me to turn on to my side.
She pulled my pyjama bottoms down and stuck a needle into
my bum. A moment later I was overwhelmed by euphoria. I
lay there smiling without a care in the world. This went on
for three days, by which time I was ready and waiting, bum
bared, for the nurse's arrival. Day three she spoiled the party.
No more jabs, she told me. Pills from now on. 'I want the
jab!' I protested.
'You can't have any more jabs.'
'Why not?' I asked.
'Because they're morphine, and you've had your whack.'
Oh, how I loved that feeling. Total bliss. If that was what
addicts experienced, I understood the attraction. It was an
incredible, powerful, whoosh-type hit. What surprised me,
however, was that although I'd quickly got to love those jabs,
my body and mind seemed to accept it was only a short-term
medicinal thing. How come I wasn't roaming the wards
looking for a fix? How come I wasn't addicted?
A few weeks' recuperation at home followed, and I lay on
the settee feeling sorry for myself. Lenny Henry came over
to see me one afternoon and was a little shocked by the state
I was in: I'd lost more weight worrying about the outcome
of the operation.
A couple of weeks later I was sitting in Mr Gracey's waiting
room with two well-heeled, middle-aged Arab women and
their twenty-something daughters. It was all pretty anxious,
with none of us knowing quite where to look. Then the door
opened and Mr Gracey called me in to tell me the news I'd
been praying for - yes, I prayed, just like every other coward
who tries to cover all the angles when the chips are down.
He explained it had been a benign cyst, and that he'd carried
out a partial thyroidectomy to remove it. I wouldn't even
have to take the thyroxine tablets. All I'd have to do was
go for six-monthly, then twelve-monthly check-ups. I was
ecstatic -- I wanted to do a dance, but settled for giving him
a hug. As he ushered me out, his arm round my shoulder, he
said, 'Now I have to tell these ladies that their daughters
weren't so lucky.' It seemed that I'd had all the luck - again.
I hit the street, walked round the corner, took a deep
breath and kicked my heels in the air.
By the time Ian La Frenais arrived in London, in the spring
of 1989, to discuss ideas for our brand-new television series,
I'd lost a quarter of my body weight, and was, quite literally,
a different man. I think it frightened him a little.
I was also, for better or worse, teetotal. Knocking the
drink on the head left a big hole, and I needed something to
fill it. I turned to work: I'd double my efforts on all fronts, I
thought. 'Driven' doesn't really do it justice: I became madly
focused.
And although I was run off my feet with work and two
kids to help bring up, the end of the 1980s found me feeling
restless, bored and listless, trying to work out what to do
with the rest of my life, what direction to take, and the
answers to life's big questions. I was in my mid-thirties. I'd
been away from the high jinks and adventure that had been Auf Wiedersehen, Pet for a couple of years, and although there'd
been plenty of well-paid work in film, television and music,
nothing had matched up to ft.
I'd worked on some lovely projects, such as Danny, the
Champion of the World, with a blond-streaked Jeremy Irons
and Robbie Coltrane, but the crack on other gigs just wasn't
in the same league. Nor was the writing quality. Kevin
Whately had said as much when he was trying to convince
me to do the second series. Stuff like the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet scripts just didn't come along very often. Did I want to
continue in the fickle world of television, where you could
be everyone's fave at one moment and forgotten the next?
Or should I go back to the property game? The anonymity
of buying and selling property was certainly a plus point.
Should we stay in London or go back north? For a long
while I wondered about all this and talked about it endlessly
with Miriam. The top and bottom of it was that I wasn't
being challenged or stretched, which I need.
Meanwhile, day-to-day life flew by. There was always more
than enough to do, with our two lively sons, Tom and Fred,
to occupy our every waking hour and a few of the sleeping
ones, too. Incredible how two little people cast from the
same mould can be so unlike each other. Tom's dominant
characteristics seemed to be those of his mum, and Fred's
were mine. Sorry about that, Fred. Every hour of the day
brought a new discovery, and I began to understand why
people make such a big deal about having children.
So, there was unbridled joy at home, but creatively I missed
working with the Auf'Wiedersehen, Pet gays. The challenge of
making something substantial and special out of abstract
scenarios and daft ideas in ensemble performance had been
satisfying. I guess Tim had been right when he'd said I'd
come home, and now my adopted home had gone, I missed
it. More than anything, I missed working with Ian. The urge
to write something was growing.
I'd got to know Ian over the time we'd been involved with Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and although we seldom saw each other,
because he lived in Los Angeles, we'd developed a friendship
based on our regional ties: Ian had been a West Monkseaton
lad, and had a sense of humour that was similar to mine. We
respected and admired each other too. He and I had had
some fallings-out while we were working on Auf Wiedersehen,
Pet, especially during the second series, but Ian doesn't let
disagreements fester and doesn't bear a grudge, which is just

as well for me. During our many arguments, which, nine
times out of ten, I would have kicked off, he was patience
itself, trying valiantly to make me see sense and picking up
the tab for dinner. My relentless pursuit of authenticity was
in itself unrealistic: television is not reality - not our bit of it,
anyway -- and it's not the job of comedy-drama scriptwriters
to make it so. It took me a long time to understand that, and
to appreciate what Ian gave me. I'm glad I can recognize it
today and say a big thank-you.
From the outset, Ian had encouraged me to write, advising
me to look for the good idea, the strong idea, the one that
keeps coming back into your mind, and, as a rule of thumb,
to write about what I knew. I'd set to work, blissfully unaware
of just how difficult it would be. He also suggested that I
give my characters the names of people I knew so that I
could more easily envisage them talking, moving, doing. It
worked a treat. The first thing I came up with was Welcome to
the Working Week, set in a glazing factory. Structurally it was
all over the place but there were one or two decent gags, one
or two promising moments.
I well remember in the mid-eighties having Ian over to
the house in Dicey Avenue to show him a draft of something
I'd been working on and was excited about. It was hard work
getting him to come out to such an unhappening postcode
as NW2 but eventually he relented. I felt the content of my
script was strong. I'd followed Ian's suggestion and based it
on something I knew about. Now I was about to get an
opinion from one of the acknowledged masters in the field.
My script told the story of two English guys, a rough northeastern
musician and a softie southern manager, who journey
to America in search of fame, fortune and recognition. They
end up in Nashville, where all goes pear-shaped. I'd called it Crocodile Shoes, which was the title of a song Tony Mac had
written some years before. It was a pretty little ballad with a
memorable, catchy chorus. Once you'd heard it you couldn't
get it out of your head, and I was convinced it could be a
big hit.

As Ian read, I paced the living room and made some of
my undrinkable coffee. After an hour or so he put the script
down. 'Well?' I asked. Any good?'
'No,' he said. 'Not really.' Just like that. Didn't feel the
need to elaborate.

Talk about crestfallen. Talk about deflated. Once I'd
picked myself up off the floor I chucked the script into a
drawer and left it there. I learned an important lesson that
day. When it came to work, Ian wasn't into flattering folk
for the sake of it. Inside his passport it gives his occupation
as writer, and he's rightly proud of that. I accepted his opinion. It would have been pointless not to just because
what I'd been told wasn't what I'd wanted to hear. I did the
right thing.
There were other ideas, lots of them -- too many, in fact.
I was working on about a dozen different things in the hope
that one or two might be picked out by broadcasters as
possibles. Alan McKeown, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet's executive
producer and a man of great experience in the field, once
gave me a useful piece of advice: 'Don't hit people with too
much. One idea's enough -- if it's the right one.' But how do
you know which one's the right one?
I'd spent many hours working on a project close to my
heart and my roots, a labour of love, you might call it, and
that would be true. It was the story of the Stephensons of
Wylam, George and Robert, father and son, Geordies who,
like me, had been born into humble beginnings, had lived,
worked, experimented and invented in a little place called
West Moor, near my family home in Benton. We'd all learned

about them at school but then the sheer scale of their
achievements had been lost on me. They were the first railway
pioneers, and their visionary efforts, stubborn self-belief and
tireless endeavour in the face of mockery, ridicule and often
danger had changed the world.
Having published a book about the lives of these two
great men to tie in with the 150th anniversary of the 1824
Rainhill Rail Trials, Hunter Davies, fellow-northerner, journalist
and author, was an authority on the Stephensons and
I talked him into being involved with my idea. I set about
preparing a pitch document for submission to the BBC's
drama department. Hunter did most of the writing, and in
no time at all I had what I believed to be an informative and
exciting proposal for a ten-hour series depicting the life and
times of Messrs Stephenson.
Armed with my document, I set off from Dicey Avenue
and headed for Shepherds Bush Green for my pitch meeting
at the BBC. I'm glad now that I didn't realize just how long
the odds were against it being taken on: this project would
have meant multiple crews shooting in locations all over
the globe, with actors in period costumes, and steam
trains. Nowadays, with the aid of widely available computer
generated imagery techniques, you could get it done quite
cost-effectively, but that's by the by.
The head of drama series at the BBC was then a man
called Jonathan Powell. On the odd occasion that we'd met
he'd struck me as a rather miserable individual. But this was
a corking project -- he'd be bound to recognize that. I parked,
signed in and entered Threshold House, a drab office block
right on Shepherds Bush Green with long grey corridors
and a strong smell of Dettol. I bounced along, filled with
excitement, spurred by the conviction that I had a real winner
in my possession.
Eventually, I was shown into Powell's inner office by a
rather pretty young lady and found a scene that seemed to
greet you everywhere in the BBC back then: piles of to-be
read scripts threatened to capsize the desks, and the people
sitting behind them looked as though they were drowning.
Powell grunted hello, and asked me what it was all about.
I began to tell him about my project but before I'd got far
he informed me that the BBC had already done something
with trains that year, so it was sorry, no, and cheerio. I'd
been in his office no more than five minutes.
As I wandered down the corridor on my way out I didn't
know whether to go back and lamp him or skulk off and
have a good cry. The very least he could have done was let
me finish the pitch. I was trying to decide what course of
action to take when an office door opened, a bearded head
popped into view and a rich, friendly voice said, 'Jimmy,
what are you doing here?' It was Colin Rogers, a producer
I'd met while I was working on the BBC drama series Spy ship shoot in 1983. He must have seen I was upset and he very
kindly invited me in for a coffee and a calm-down.
I had a good moan about Powell and Colin was very
understanding. Eventually I stopped feeling sorry for myself
for long enough to ask him what he was up to. It transpired
he was on the look-out for drama projects to be developed
with a view to their eventually becoming year-on-year series
and asked me if I had anything that might fit the bill. Never
one to let an opportunity pass for want of a little bullshit, I
said, yes, of course I had: what exactly was he after?
Colin said he fancied developing a cop show.
I had one all mapped out and ready, I lied.
To star who?
Why, me, of course. Who better, who more unlikely, to
play a cop?

OK, said Colin gamely. Did I have a writer on board?
That was what these things often hinged on, and the right
man for the job would be paramount.
Oh, yes. Ian La Frenais, I lied. Colin wanted to see some
pages with a view to commissioning it.
I got home to Dicey Avenue in a state of some confusion.
So much had happened in the last few hours, I'd all but
forgotten about George and Robert Stephenson. I called Ian
in Los Angeles to see if he had any ideas and if he'd take pity
on a poor bullshitter. He was away working in Italy but
would be passing through London on his way home to LA:
we could meet up and discuss my situation over dinner.
A few weeks later, I was waiting to meet Ian in Le Caprice
restaurant in Mayfair on a balmy spring evening. He arrived,
we had a hug and then a meal. After I'd filled him in on my
cop show half-idea, he laughed. It turned out he'd always
fancied writing a cop show set in the North East but Dick
hadn't. He and Ian were a script-writing team, working only
with each other, so the idea had never gone any further. I
hadn't realized he'd be breaking with tradition when I asked
him if he'd be up for writing a series. If he'd said, 'no,' or
that he was contractually tied to someone or something else,
I'd have understood. But he was keen. He said he'd talk to
Dick about it. He didn't have the time to devote to a whole
new series as he was writing all sorts of other stuff, but he'd
work with me on the pilot episode. I'd won the lottery again.
My pal Colin Rogers sorted out the contractual side of
things with the BBC relating to Ian's writing services, while
Ian and I began to dream up characters, storylines and, most
difficult of all, a name for the embryonic show. The done
thing genre-wise was a generic title -- Inspector Morse,
Dixon of Dock Green, that kind of thing -- and we had to come
up with a name that both we and the BBC were happy with.
Titles are very important. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
They have to make an immediate impression. Try Winterbottom
of Dock Green. Not nearly as good, is it? We kicked all
sorts of ideas back and forth with nothing really taking our
fancy. Then, I had a thought. Years before I'd read of an
American blues musician called Freddie Fender. I liked the
ring of the name, but we couldn't just lift it, lock, stock and
barrel -- anyway, he was still alive. After a lot of brainstorming
and heated debate, Freddie Fender became Freddie Spender
and we had our name. I can't remember which of us 
suggested 'Spender' but it was probably Ian. When I said I'd like
Spender to be called Freddie, Ian was aghast. 'You can't call
anyone Freddie!' he said.
'That's my son's name,' I reminded him. We went with it.
I never imagined people saying the name, writing it down,
talking about the character. It seemed to be tempting fate.
Mind you, I'd been convinced that no one would ever pick
up on a show with a name as long-winded, unmemorable
and plain awful as Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
After a couple of months of long-distance phone calls Ian
delivered the first draft of episode one, the pilot. I was less
thrilled about it than Colin, but only because, having worked
with Ian on all the scenes, plotlines and dialogue, I pretty
much knew what was going to be in there. All the same, it
was a knockout. As I'd wished, the character was a moody
bastard, grumpy, surly, insubordinate and smartass. It would
be a major stretch for me to play someone like him. There
were other characters in there, too: Dan Boyd, the steady,
dependable, desk-bound detective sergeant, Yelland, the
boss, and Frances, Spender's ex-wife. But the most memorable
of all was Stick, petty criminal and best buddy. Spender
and Stick were different facets of the same person, and that
person was me.

The script was submitted, and Colin Rogers loved it. The
BBC wanted more of the same. But that was a problem: at
that time, Ian was not available to write any more episodes.
We started the long, difficult process of finding suitable
writers. I sat in on many meetings between Colin and the
various candidates. Some were well-known and lots were
very good, but none, we both felt, was right. Things sat for
a while with the project stalled until Colin came up with a
suggestion that threw me. Why didn't I write an episode?
Well, I'd never written anything.
'Doesn't matter,' said Colin.
'But what if it's shit?' I asked.
'Not the end of the world,' said Colin. The BBC would
lose an episode fee, but it would survive.
I went home, thought about it, counted the pages in Ian's
pilot and set to work. It was a big step: I had no idea whether
or not I could do it. If it turned out I couldn't, then that
would be yet more time wasted and maybe the BBC would
go off the boil about the whole thing.
With Miriam offering firm but subtle encouragement, I
visited the stationer, got stocked up with paper, pencils and
erasers, set up a desk, sat down and began. What a pantomime.
I started off working on a traditional typewriter, but
it took an age, and I was no typist then. The result was paper
everywhere, half a rainforest strewn around the floor.
The next stop was the computer shop. It was a quantum
leap for me. I knew nothing about, and had no interest in,
anything electronic, so I jumped in blind and bought what
the shop assistant recommended. Back home, I spent the
best part of a frustrating day surrounded by big brown
cardboard boxes, plugging in all kinds of leads and cables.
Finally I flicked on the power switch and, amazingly, my
Amstrad was working. It soon became apparent that the
machine had limitations with regard to scriptwriting, and it
was at this point that I made a decision that had a lasting
effect on my life. I defected to Mac. It was 1989, and my
lasting love affair with the Apple brand had begun.
Back then, desktop Macs were in their infancy and anyone
looking at the old models today would laugh, but they were
funky, a design classic, and so much fun to use. It's hard to
explain why. I had to squint to see everything on the screen,
but every time I switched that machine on, heard the warm
'wahh' tone and clocked the little smiling face, I got a thrill.
I still do. Sad, eh?
Six weeks and a lot of worrying later, I finished my first
commissioned script -- that means someone is paying you to
write rather than you doing it off your own bat, which is
known as writing a 'spec' script. I've never been interested
in doing it that way: I like to think I respond positively and
productively to financial commitment. Entitled Halfa Ton of
Heartache, my script told the supposedly fictitious story of
oil-riggers who regularly pooled their earnings to buy hard
drugs in the south, brought them north and sold them on at
vast profit. Ian helped a lot, with advice and encouragement,
on the phone -- I didn't have a fax machine back then. I'd
do a bit, print out the pages, ask Miriam to have a look at
them, then carry on. She was absolutely invaluable, almost a
co-writer at times. It had been a mistake, though, to count
the pages in lan's pilot script before I began my own: he had
over-written by about a third, so I did the same. I handed in
my humble effort, all neatly formatted and well presented.
Charlie Ollie, one of the glaziers at Watson's and a star turn
in his own right, had impressed upon me the importance of
always presenting a job the best way you could -- even if it
was badly done. Then I sat back and waited. A couple of


days later Colin called to say he loved the script and would I
be up for writing some more?
I was ecstatic -- for all of two minutes. Then the holy
terrors set in. What if I'd just got lucky with my first effort?
It happens. What if that was the only story I had in me?
What if, what if... so many what-ifs. Never mind, I'd have
a go. Of course, Colin was just being a really good producer:
the draft I'd written wasn't great but it had potential, and
Colin made me believe I could pull it off again. Back to the
most important thing throughout my life: encouragement. It
worked a treat.
But I knew I'd need help. I was taking on something very
big indeed, and I had no real grounding in the script-writer's craft. In fact, I had no literary or grammatical grounding. I
discussed it at length with Ian, who very kindly suggested
that I go over to Los Angeles and stay at his place where I
could write under his supervision. This was turning into an
adventure, and no mistake. What an offer! Hollywood!
In all the excitement I made an error so fundamental that,
in retrospect, I find it almost impossible to believe, but I
made it. I did not fully discuss my plans with Miriam. Instead
I announced one day that I'd soon be off to LA for the year.
I'd be over there doing my thing while she would stay at
home and look after the kids. I thought I was doing the right
thing but I couldn't see the other side - Miriam's side.
I'd been to Los Angeles before, but this would be different.
This time I'd have a legitimate reason for being out there in
all that lovely sunshine: I'd be working. Even better, I'd be
working at my own pace -- which would, of course, be
ferocious, as I knew no other -- on my own project. I'd not
be at the mercy of some studio bully. So off I went to get
stuck in.

I'd been concentrating so hard on the Spender project,
and the more general issue of making a living, that I hadn't
considered the impact my leaving might have on myself,
Miriam or the bairns. Too late I grasped what a traumatic
experience it was going to be and my leaving was horrible.
I'd booked a chauffeur-driven car to take me to Heathrow
airport. Unfortunately, a Mercedes stretch limousine arrived,
an awful, ostentatious thing, but there wasn't time to send
for a different car. And things were about to get worse.
Miriam and the kids were at the front door, waving. As
the car pulled away from the kerb Tom, aged four, shouted,
'Daddy, I don't want you to go!' and started to cry. I can still
remember how awful I felt as I watched my little boy crying
because he wanted me to stay. I so wanted to cancel the trip
but of course I couldn't: everything was booked and paid
for. It was a terrible time to decide to be sensible, but Miriam
had done a good job in encouraging me over the past decade.
Now I felt almost obliged to be successful, and that feeling
overrode just about everything else. I had to prove her right,
show there was more to me than just playing Oz. The mistake
I made was in not understanding how important it was that
we did it together, as a couple and as a family. I would have
liked that, but it didn't seem possible: there were domestic
practicalities to take into account. Maybe I could have stayed
put and made it work, but the end result would certainly not
have been the same and it would have taken two or three
times as long. My stay in LA entailed a great deal of sacrifice
on Miriam's part and, of course, we should have discussed it
in more detail, but we didn't and I was on my own.
Loneliness and longing apart, the year I spent in Los
Angeles with Ian La Frenais and his family was productive
and I'll never forget it. Ian's wife, Doris, their son, Michael,
Doris's mum and brother Sam all accepted me into their
Hollywood Hills home with much better grace than I could
have mustered had the circumstances been reversed. Ian's
house was a rustic pile nestled in a lovely part of the hills,
high above Sunset Boulevard. Possums ran around on the
roof. Ian's pal, musician Jeff Lynne, of ELO and Traveling
Wilburys' fame, lived about a mile up the road, and Dick
Clement lived about the same distance in the other direction
with his wife, Nancy, and their young daughter, Annie. From
the moment I arrived I loved the place. The idea of living
out there, even temporarily, was beyond fantasy. All those
films I'd watched as a kid had been made right there. It was
where the best movie talent was billeted, and, because of
Ian's social contacts, I'd soon meet a good portion of it. No
lolling around by the swimming-pool, though. First, Ian
didn't have one, and second, my work ethic wouldn't have
allowed it.
I've always used work as a means of relieving pressure,
and the only way I could justify being there was to work, so
Ian soon had me hard at it. Each evening on his return from
his day job at the Warner Bros studio on the Burbank back
lot, we'd have dinner then go over what I'd written that day
and add to it. As a way of learning how to write for television,
those evening sessions were hugely enjoyable, with Ian at
one end of his long dining-table, his five-dollar gas-station
reading-glasses hanging off the end of his nose, bashing away
on an ancient typewriter, and me at the other end, doing my
thing with my Apple Mac. We'd ask each other questions,
laugh regularly and occasionally argue, but what a blast it
was. To have someone like Ian, who was just about the most
gifted television comedy writer of his generation, guiding,
advising and encouraging me was invaluable. That stuff just
can't be bought. He was never judgemental, always clear with
his advice, and on the few occasions we disagreed big-time
he defused the tension with wicked humour. He kept reminding
me to write about what I knew. One evening while
we were discussing something to do with a middle-class
character, he said, 'You do the housing estates, kid, and I'll
look after the shires.' I was miffed, but he was right. I
accepted it and learned from it. Many creative types don't
feel comfortable with letting others get too up-close and
personal: I reckon most of them don't like close scrutiny
because the)^ don't want to be rumbled for the chancers and
literary pilferers they are. Not Ian: he is a man not afraid to
share his gift with others so that they may benefit from his
experience. In terms of learning how to do it, I cherish those
days as among the most valuable of my life.
In LA, I'd be up early, around six thirty, without the
need for an alarm call. Before I did anything else, I'd go into
the en-suite bathroom and clean my teeth. Then I'd pop
down the corridor to the kitchen, on tiptoe so as not to
wake the rest of the household, and put the kettle on to boil
while I took an invigorating power-shower. Then I'd
make a pint mug of tea -- I still do -- with fresh milk and an
English tea-bag, Tetley's or Typhoo, and start work on my
Mac in my bedroom, applying any notes and amendments
from the night before and writing as much new stuff as I
could. I've always been at my most creative, in terms of
writing and dreaming up ideas, in the mornings, before the
rest of the day's mess has got to me. Out there in the
Hollywood Hills, with the sun bleaching in through tall
windows, it was the perfect environment for dreaming and
scribbling. At some point I'd bump into Ian before he went
off to work but it wasn't unusual for me not to see anyone
all day. I'd work till about midday, getting through three or
four mugs of tea, by which time I'd be ready for a break and
a stretch.
Although I always had my hired Jeep sitting outside the
house -- you had to have a motor over there -- I'd walk the
few miles up the winding road, which eventually leads out
on to Mulholland Drive, along a few hundred yards and then
left, down to Beverly Glen Boulevard and the little cluster
of shops that included the Glen Deli, my favourite diner.
Along with a stupendous cooked breakfast, it sold the finest
cakes, pastries and savouries. Choosing from the multi-page
menu was always difficult and I had to exercise real restraint.
I steered clear of heart-attack fodder, such as waffles with
maple syrup, ordered a pot of English breakfast tea with a
blueberry muffin, all very sensible, all very English, and sat
watching the world go by.
I loved being an Englishman surrounded by Yanks. I
longed for someone to ask me what I was doing there so I
could tell them I was one of them, a player, but no one ever
did. Many a well-known face would arrive in an immaculate
chrome-plated vehicle, both two- and four-wheeled, to buy
their sticky buns. The actor James Caan often appeared on a
Sunday morning astride a gleaming Harley-Davidson, along
with a bunch of executive would-be outlaws. They'd have a
decaf, do a bit of posing, then split. Bruce Willis was an
irregular. If folk think I'm surly and standoffish, he could
have written the book. I was behind him at the check-out
one day as he was grumping his way through paying the
grocery bill. After he walked out, the young guy behind the
till said, to no one in particular, 'Where does he get off, acting
like that? It's not as though he's done much, one hit movie
and a bunch of flops.' It's a tough town.
My daily walks to and from the Glen Deli caused some
consternation at the La Frenais residence. Ian would often
tell me nobody, other than those sad, haunted folk with
their headbands and Walkmans, ever walked anywhere in
Los Angeles. Indeed, where he lived there were no pavements
by the roadside, just black Tarmac and kerb. He made
walking sound quite uncivilized, but coming from a place
where it was always raining, I wanted to walk everywhere. I
loved walking, I still do. Ian was convinced I'd be mistaken
for a robber casing the ultra-expensive joints on my way to
the cafe. I think he was more concerned about his own
embarrassment than my possible incarceration.
It wasn't long before he was proved right, and in pretty
spectacular fashion. One bright morning, as I was wandering
past a gated mansion, the owner took one look at me, decided
he didn't care for what he saw, opened the big gates and let
loose his guard dogs, two rather frisky Alsatians. They'd been
barking and howling for some time and now they were upon
me. I'd got into the habit of taking a copy of Daily Variety, the trade magazine, to the deli, and that day I had it rolled
up in my right hand. I smacked the first dog to arrive as hard
as I could on top of its head. Luckily for me it was a puppy.
It yelped, as much in shock as in pain, then scuttled off.
Encouraged, I snarled at the second dog and, thankfully, it
too turned tail. Seething, I went over to the guy's gates,
intending to give him a piece of my mind, but he also ran off, into the big house. Just another day in LA, I guess.
On arriving back at the house after my daily tea-and-cake
break, I'd look over that morning's work, do a bit of editing,
then maybe have a snooze or go shopping until early evening
when the house would come alive and we'd all have a
catch-up. Dinner would be followed by the work session
with Ian, then bed.
The writing process, the physical act of banging on those
keyboard letters, is something I've loved from the off. I often
sit for hours just typing or moving text around. I've spent
days, literally, trying to decide whether to put a semi-colon
or a colon somewhere, a question mark instead of an exclamation
mark. Along with getting someone to commit millions
of pounds to an idea or suggestion, creative writing has
always been the most enjoyable part of the process. The rest,
especially performing, is often an anti-climax. I often feel
that, having shot it already in my head, when I act it I'm
doing it all for a second time.
Ian's Sunday evening at-home get-togethers were popular
and always well attended. Lots of exiled Brits would converge,
swap stories and trade tea-bags. I once spent a lovely
evening in the company of the late Maureen Starkey, Ringo's
ex-missus. In the course of our conversation I happened to
mention I was desperate to get my hands on some decent
English tea-bags, preferably the proper northern stewing
variety, not those wishy-washy minuscule things they sell in
LA. Maureen sympathized. As a northern lass, she understood
my craving. At around nine thirty the next morning,
there was a ring on the doorbell. When I answered it I was
greeted by a capped chauffeur standing in front of a black
stretch limo, holding a box of proper, industrial-strength
English tea-bags. 'Mr Nail?' I nodded. He handed me the
tea-bags. 'From Maureen,' he said.
I spent a bizarre evening in the company of free-love
trip-drug guru Dr Timothy Leary. Though blunted by
decades of self-inflicted psychedelic abuse, he was nevertheless
a pretty sharp cookie and fascinating to talk to, although
his doctrine didn't appeal to me. After all the years I'd spent
in an alcoholic stupor, I now wanted to be as 'there' as I
could be, bright, focused, sharp and aware. I didn't want to
miss a trick. I also needed to have my wits about me to avoid
Mrs Leary, a rather fiery New York redhead some thirty
years her husband's junior. I got out of the shower one
evening to find her half sitting, half lying on my bed. I got
really angry, which seemed to give her quite a shock. That
room was the only privacy I had, the only place in the house
that was mine. Ian and Doris understood that and respected
it, but not Mrs Leary; Out she went, in short order.
I was lonely, though. I was over there and Miriam was in
England with the kids. Things began to get a little fractious.
Miriam and I did our best to stay in touch with each other
and what was happening on the telephone, but neither of us
loves the blower and there was the eight-hour time difference.
When one of us had something important to share, the other
was usually out of the house or fast asleep. Pretty soon
keeping in touch became a bit of a struggle and I avoided
the telephone. Blips occur in any long-running relationship
and ours was no different.
But despite all the personal upheaval and missing my
family, I was getting a lot of work done. Guilt can be a
powerful spur. Things were going well enough for me to

suggest to Miriam that she and the kids might come out and
spend the summer months with me in sunny LA. We might
never get another opportunity to do something like this and
we agreed it would be worth the considerable expense the
trip would involve. Also, we'd be together for Miriam's
impending thirtieth birthday. By then we had employed a
nanny, Sharon, and Miriam persuaded her to come along for
the ride.
I couldn't impose such numbers and noise-levels on Ian
and Doris, so I had to rent a place - no easy task when it has
to be furnished and you need it for just three months.
Enjoyable as it was, the time I spent looking at big posh
houses ate into my work schedule and in no time I was falling
behind. Cue major stress and anxiety. Eventually I narrowed
down the choice to a house in Santa Monica, half an hour
down the road from Ian, or a place in Westwood, home to
UCLA, the city's university, and a large student community.
The sprawling multi-acre UCLA campus included the frat
houses - student digs -- wonderful shopping facilities in
Westwood Village, a state-of-the-art medical centre and sports facilities that would put most Olympic villages to
shame. There was a great vibe about the district but the
clincher, to my surprise, was that the Westwood house did
not have a swimming-pool. Of course I'd wanted something
Olympic-sized but Miriam put me straight: with the kids at
the ages they were, four and nearly two, it would have been
no fun patrolling the garden all the time, a duty that would,
no doubt, have fallen to her. Never mind, it had a lovely spa
pool.
Miriam arrived with the boys and Sharon on 28 June 1989,
her thirtieth birthday. I had been eagerly awaiting their arrival
and planning things for ages. Doris had volunteered to take
care of a birthday cake, so I felt I had all bases covered. I
went out to the airport and waited. It's always very busy with
English folk meeting relatives and friends, so I kept my
head down at the edge of the terminal until the Tannoy
announcement telling me the flight had landed safely. My
family were just beyond the arrivals gate. I was thrilled and
dying to see the kids: they would have changed since I'd seen
them last. Would my little soldiers even remember me?
At last, they were making their way up the ramp that
leads into the arrivals area. Miriam and I clocked each other,
made for the middle ground and I gave her a hug. Then,
before she could do or say anything else, I got down on
one knee and said, 'Happy birthday, darling,' pulled out a big
diamond ring and asked her to marry me. I'd been thinking
about it for a long time and figured this would be a romantic
birthday surprise. I should have balanced that with Miriam
having just finished an eleven-hour flight with two small
kids. I've always been one for the big gesture, but I got this
one well wrong. Miriam cast her bleary eyes around and told
me to get up. Everyone was staring and I was embarrassing
her, she told me. Somewhat subdued, we made our way
outside, climbed into a stretch limo and headed for Ian's place.

I should have thought about Miriam being tired from the
flight but I had no idea that this particular birthday had upset
her. On reaching thirty she had wobbled and was having a
tough time dealing with it. The last ten years had been
demanding for us both. She had come to Newcastle from
her home in Caerphilly, near Cardiff, to study for a degree
and had been awarded a two:one. When she met me, her
own plans and dreams had been sidelined. At thirty she had
two young children, and she had felt for a long time that her
identity was being subsumed into mine. She didn't want to

be seen simply as the partner of a famous guy. We knew
quite a few couples where the non-famous partner was
basically ignored by all but close friends. All of this was going
around in her head, so my proposal must have been like a
red rag to a bull. In LA, I had been unaware of the struggle
she was having.
We got to Ian and Doris and out came the cake. A
multi-coloured marzipan hooker in crotchless knickers stood
on the top cracking a bullwhip, beside Miriam's name and a
single phallic candle. We all stared at it, speechless. Doris
asked what we thought of it. I didn't know whether to laugh
or cry, so I laughed. Miriam was too jet-lagged to respond.
We have a photograph of that cake in one of our family
albums.
The owner of the rental property, a dour doctor of
metallurgy, was an eastern European emigre and a right
fusspot, always at the house on some false premise, sniffing
around, making sure we hadn't broken or stolen any of
his tasteless goods and chattels. He checked the copper
chandelier in the hallway one day, maybe thought I'd been
swinging on it like Errol Flynn, my hero. A pain in the bum,
he was, but never mind: the house was huge, on a lovely
large corner plot with plenty of parking and lots of beautiful
songbirds in the back garden.
Oh, what a glorious summer. Those balmy days, driving
out of and back into Westwood, cool, cool Westwood.
Guaranteed sunshine, picnics on the beach at Santa Monica,
the kids running around in shorts and vests plus lots and lots
of factor 100 goose-lard. The most magical part of each day,
though, was the time just before sunset, when the garden
would be visited by half a dozen hummingbirds. We'd watch
in silent wonder as these tiny colourful creatures, with their
long slender beaks, would hover, then dart head-first into
the open bud of a flower, sneak a bit of nectar, then fly
backwards in an almost mechanical motion. With their wings
giving off a kind of humming-bumble buzz, these incredible little
contradictors of the laws of physics would entertain us for a
few minutes and then be gone, like will-o'-the-wisps. The
kids can't remember any of it, of course, but I treasure the
memory. Ian's wife Doris is a dab hand with a stills camera,
and she took some incredible shots of the kids in that garden.
I have them on my desk. She'd do this thing with Polaroids
where, after taking a shot, she'd mess with the picture as it
was developing, rub it on her clothing until it was hot and
blurred in places, kind of interfere with it. The results were
often remarkable.
I was so happy to be with the family that the work was a
doddle. I'd work on scripts in the morning, then go out with
Miriam and the kids in the afternoon. We'd go to the beach
at Santa Monica, build super sandcastles and bury Dad up
to his neck, or drive across the city and watch the natural
bubbling, glugging tar-pits in downtown Los Angeles. Parks,
walks, beaches, movies, museums and flea-markets. Best of
all was the LA weather: you could plan a trip in the morning
and actually be able to enjoy it in the afternoon, instead of
it being rained off as it is usually in England. The kids
were happy, we were happy, and Sharon the nanny was
happy, too.
One Monday morning I started working on a Spender idea
that had popped into my head the previous day, the story of
an ex-professional boxer who'd been reduced to participating
in illegal back-street bare-knuckle contests to pay the bills
and keep the already-fragile family unit from fragmenting.
Maybe the story sprang from my own sub-conscious guilt, I
don't know. A tale of pride and misplaced trust, of deception,
betrayal and heartbreak, it would feature the Scottish actor
Maurice Roeves as the boxer; he turned in an outstanding
performance. Our Tom, at five, was press-ganged into playing
his young son. As I sat in my chair in Westwood, it all
seemed to work pretty well in my mind's eye, so I wrote it
down exactly as I pictured, imagined and heard it. No notes,
no prep work, nothing. I just wrote it as I envisaged it on
the screen. By Saturday I'd finished it. Fifty-odd pages. Six
mornings' work. I called it Tough, and gave it to Ian to read.
He was happy, and didn't have any notes. I sent it over to
Colin Rogers at the BBC in London. It was accepted, again
without notes. In the end it was shot exactly as it was written
and turned out to be a terrific episode. How did I manage
it? I'd just got lucky. Try as I might to pull it off again, it
hasn't happened since.
September was upon us all too soon. Miriam and Sharon
packed and went home with the boys. I wanted to go with
them. I'd experienced proper family life for a while, with
everyone playing a part and doing their share, and I'd loved it.
I'd also become aware of just how much work was involved
in looking after the boys. Miriam was at it all hours of the
day and worn out by the evening. My family needed their
dad. But I had a bit more work to do with Ian before I could
go home. I set to with a vengeance, and not long after, I was
on my way to Dicey Avenue, job done.
In the autumn of 1989, I was back home, and the Spender project was about to become reality. The thrill of going on a
journey with an idea, pitching it, selling it, seeing it through
to development and making a television series was incredible.
And it was more than a creative thrill: it was a major vote of
confidence from the drama executives at the BBC who
would put millions of pounds into its production. I had never
done anything like this before and I liked the satisfaction it
brought. It had happened incredibly quickly -- I would only
come to realize just how quickly a few years later when I
embarked on the same journey with other projects.
We had a producer in Martin McKeand, who'd produced Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. That was a big plus for me -- I knew
Martin and liked his easy-going style. A funny thing happened
while we were discussing his possible involvement over lunch
in Charlotte Street. In mid-sentence I spotted the great Mark
Tully, the BBC's renowned and revered India correspondent,
at an adjacent table. I wanted to go over straight away, but
having been on the receiving end of that type of thing, I
made myself wait until he'd finished his meal. When at last
he had, I excused myself to Martin, went over, introduced
myself, assured him I wouldn't keep him long, and congratulated
him on a lifetime of outstanding broadcasts from all
corners of the Indian sub-continent. He obviously didn't
know who I was -- why should he? -- and when he asked, I
told him I was just one of his many fans.
We had a director on board too, Mary McMurray. (As a
rule I prefer working with women: they seem far less intent
on proving something that usually has nothing to do with
the job in hand -- maybe it's a guy thing, a macho thing, I
don't know.) We had our scripts, and they were good. Now
we needed to find and secure the special people who might,
with a little luck, bring the thing to life. We were about to
begin casting.
The audition process isn't easy for anyone. If you're the
actor you want to give a good account of yourself, shine in
the part. If you're the writer you're desperate to have someone
glean the best from the words you've toiled over. If
you're the director or producer you have to get the choice
right. It's make or break time. Many projects falter at this
stage. And you have maybe twenty minutes to work it all out
and carry it off. It was even more complicated for me as, at
various times in the process, I was all of the above. Sometimes
I was asked to read my part, Spender, with other actors,
and sometimes not. The actors we met were all bravehearts
and it was tough knowing they wouldn't all land a part. I'm
glad the final choices weren't mine to make.
Early on, Berwick Kaler came in and was dead right for
Dan Boyd, the stoical desk sergeant. Berwick had been in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and had been up for the part of Oz, so
immediately we had a little common ground. Berwick and I
became friends; my family and I look forward to making the
annual pilgrimage to York to see him in pantomime. It's one
of the year's highlights for us. He's been in residence at the
city's Theatre Royal for twenty-five years, writing, producing
and starring in panto, and is a much-valued member of the
community -- he was made an honorary freeman of York in
2003. Now he can graze one or both ends of the pantomime
cow on Acomb Common, should he so desire. Paul Greenwood,
an experienced Shakespearian actor with the RSC,
was cast to play DCI Yelland, my immediate boss. Denise
Welch, wife of Tim Healy, was cast to play my ex-wife,
Frances, the mother of our two daughters. As a maverick
cop, Spender had to have an ex-wife and a personal life in
turmoil. Denise bemoaned the fact that her character always
seemed to be in the kitchen making tea -- I'm afraid I took
that as an opportunity to see how often I could imprison her
there. There was also the part of musician Keith Nichol,
who was suffering from MS: we managed to persuade the
BBC to agree to our casting my old musician buddy Tony
McAnaney. He was already on board to compose and supply
the show's incidental music and had come up with a memorable
whistled melody for the titles and credits. He had never
acted, though, so it was a punt that, thankfully, came off well.
Almost bald, pony-tail, nursing a guitar on his lap, Tony
looked dead right.
Hardest of all to cast was Stick because it was the plum
part, even better than mine. Stick was the classic dodgy
buddy, the 'Ratso', the villain with all the best pay-off lines.
It was essential to get it right. Mary McMurray narrowed the
field down to two, both from the North East, both vastly
experienced: Dave Whittaker and Sammy Johnson. I read
scenes with them and it was a real blast -- they were both
terrific in their different ways. We would have been in safe
hands with either of them. Mary went with Sammy. She said
there was a glint in his eye.
I was over the moon about the series going into production,
but what I hadn't thought about was the schedule:
I'd be away from London for the best part of eight months.
I'd only just got back from having been away for the best
part of a year. But I had no choice: after all this work I
couldn't just not go. Miriam and I decided it would be better
to buy a house in Newcastle rather than throw away the

BBC's money by bunking down in an hotel for all that
time. If things went well with the series, there was a chance
I'd be up there for a few seasons. It turned out to be a good
move.
Production began in the spring of 1990 with Mary
McMurray at the helm, and me with a PA and a driver.
Corinna Bonicelli was a local lass with an Italian dad, very
handy for pasta tips. I'd avoided it for as long as I could, as
I thought it might look a bit poncy and big-headed, but in
the end I had to have help. There was just too much for me
to do on my own, too many questions, and not enough hours
in the day to answer them all. Geoff Knox -- no relation to
Big Peter -- was a buddy from my schooldays, although we'd
never attended the same school. A fellow music-nut, he came
on board as my driver and worked for me for over a decade,
looking after me and even accompanying Miriam and the
kids on holiday when it was impossible for me to be with
them. He talked me into letting him play a blagger in one of
the Spender episodes and he was very good - he stole the
show, which was appropriate.
I was proud to take the production home, to where I'd
started off with all my daft ideas. Not so daft now. The first
day's filming was an absolute thrill: I stood behind the camera
to watch and listen as the actors delivered lines I'd written.
They worked. It was odd filming on the streets I'd grown up
in. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet had only been up there occasionally,
but this shoot would be there six days a week for the next
eight months. We had a truly marvellous crew, all up for it,
all giving it their best shot, particularly Mary, and Nigel
Walters, the director of production, for the programme's
outstanding visual grit. Film director Ridley Scott -- himself
a Geordie -- complimented me on the look of the show.
High praise indeed.
While I was filming the new series, my father, whose
health had been deteriorating badly, was taken into the
Freeman Hospital. He had suffered from emphysema for
decades, and it was made clear to us by the hospital staff that
there was no chance of him recovering. He should have died
before he did but, typically, he fought on for weeks. I visited
him whenever I had an hour free or during my lunch breaks.
At least I was in Newcastle when he was taken ill. Had
I been filming something on the other side of the world,
I'd have been unable to get there at all. The time I spent
with him at the hospital was important for us both, our
conversations dictated by clarity, urgency and honesty.
One weekend Miriam brought the kids up from London
so we could have a few days away as a family in a hired
camper van. Before we left Newcastle we called in at the
hospital so the boys could see their granddad. We all sat on
the bed, my dad, the boys and me, three generations together.
We had reached Alnwick, some sixty miles north of Newcastle,
when we received a phone call to say he had passed
away. I like to think he waited to see the kids before he
clocked off. Once they were asleep we parked the camper
outside a pub. I nipped inside, raised a glass and sank a
single pint to his memory. Just the one. It tasted absolutely
wonderful. No time to grieve, though. The schedule didn't
allow for that. I envy anyone who has a strong religious faith
-- I could have done with one just then. As it was, I felt as
though I'd run into a brick wall.
A couple of weeks later, while I was going through my
father's few bits and bobs, I came across his old brown
leather wallet. Inside, among his CIU (Working Men's Clubs)
membership cards and some other inconsequential stuff was
a worn, faded piece of cardboard. On closer inspection I was
surprised to see it was a security pass for entry into Staten

Island Dockyards, New York, during the Second World
War. I'd doubted all those stories he had told me as a kid,
considered them to be no more than a father's tall tales. Now
I had to believe, although what on earth my dad was doing
in the US Navy for eighteen months remains a mystery.
It was a long time before I could dispose of my dad's
ashes. I had them in the back of my car for over a year, used
to talk to them, which may seem macabre, but it wasn't -- I'd
know when it was the right time to say goodbye. In the end
I chartered a trawler and scattered his ashes at sea off the
Northumbrian coast. He got me one last time, though. I was
careful about my position on the boat, standing downwind
at the stern, but a gust blew some of the ashes back into my
face. As awful as it was, I had to laugh.
The first episode of Spender was broadcast at nine twenty
five p.m. on BBC 1 on Tuesday 8 January 1991. By and large,
the press previews had been encouraging, and the BBC
were so happy about what we'd delivered they'd already
commissioned the next series of scripts; that meant I was
guaranteed my writing fees before I started work. It's
common within the television industry not to be paid for
ages after you've finished a job, but I won't do any work
until I know when I'm going to get paid. This is to do with
fears of being ripped off, but to me the idea of spending
weeks or months working on something for nothing in terms
of financial reward is inconceivable. And it's not simply a
mercenary thing. Receiving payment is about more than just
money: it's validation, vindication and encouragement.
Not only was the character brand new: so was the actor.
How would viewers receive the all-new, slimline, long-haired
Nail? Would they hate the idea of Jimmy as a cop? You never
can tell. It had been a long, hard road getting thus far and I
had had a long wait for this particular day. Now here it was.
Transmission time. Stonker or stinker? I'd soon know one
way or the other. But I wasn't in London -- or even England.
I was back in Los Angeles working on the next scripts at
Ian's place. At least if it went down like a lead balloon I
wouldn't be there to suffer the indignity in person.
Come the time, I was sprawled out in the den watching a
daytime ballgame on television, trying not to think about the
programme I'd been living and breathing for the last year or
so, when Ian arrived home from the Burbank lot clutching
a wad of faxes. 'As if your head's not fucking big enough!'
he said. 'Here, wank over that lot!' The reviews had been
faxed to him by the BBC.
I read them, then re-read them. I couldn't believe what
was in front of me. They were far and away better than I'd
dared hope. They described the show as a visceral, vital slice
of urban noir television and the eponymous character as an
important addition to the cadre of television cops the viewing
nation thrived on. They called me a sex symbol, for goodness'
sake! It was all a bit much to take in, but Ian put it into
perspective: 'We've pulled it off, kid. The show's a hit.'
I wanted to speak to everyone. My first call was to Miriam,
who was as happy for me as I was for myself. She told me
she was so proud of what I'd achieved, which made me feel
ten feet tall, and that there had been lots of congratulatory
calls from pals. Then I called my mam -- thankfully, she
wasn't aware of all the hullabaloo surrounding the show's
success: she would have been frightened by it. I wished my
dad had lived long enough to see it.
After all the work we'd put into the show, it was a satisfying
outcome for Colin Rogers, Ian La Frenais and me. The
sweetest part was that I'd proved wrong the nay-sayers who'd
had me down as just a lucky beggar who'd landed, in Oz, a
great part. Maybe I was lucky, but this show had my name


down as writer, creator and producer, as well as actor. Its
success said, loud and clear, that I wasn't just a hired hand:
there was a bit more to me than that.
It was around this time that I met a truly magical, special
man. By most people's standards I'd had some extraordinary
and memorable encounters with all kinds of folk, famous,
infamous, talented and rich. But all before, and since, were
eclipsed by a chance meeting that led quickly to friendship.
And it was all down to a ukelele.
At one of Ian La Frenais's regular Sunday evening gettogethers,
the house was filled with the usual mix of showbiz
people, actors, models, producers, directors and musicians.
To this council-house kid from Benton it was always an
interesting crowd to watch, listen and sometimes talk to.
Liberating, too, as accents were no big deal like they are in
Britain where you're immediately placed in a social and
intelligence grouping the moment you open your gob. As far
as the Yanks were concerned, we all sounded weird.
This particular evening most of the Traveling Wilburys
had turned up and were mooching around the house. Great
for me, the music fan. Suddenly there was a big exodus into
the kitchen, where I was. Everyone seemed to be trying to
get away from the noise next door. I stuck my head in the
den -- and there was George Harrison strumming away on a
ukelele. I asked him if he'd mind me joining him and he told
me to come on in and sit down. Jesus, I was on the settee
next to a Beatle! An awful urge to call someone, anyone,
came over me, but I couldn't move. Instead I just sat there
until George asked me if I played. I told him I could strum
a guitar in a basic way. Did I want a bash on his ukelele? All
right, I said. What a nerve I must have had. I picked up the
uke and managed a few rough chords, the first few of the
Beatles' song 'Something', which George had written. He
was so knocked out to find someone else who played the
ukelele that he asked if I'd like to get together with him the
next day at his bungalow in the grounds of the Bel Air Hotel.
I wondered if that would be all right with his wife, my just
calling in like that, but he said it would be fine, it was his job,
it was what he did.
Not much sleep that night. The next day I drove down to
the Bel Air and was led to George's bungalow. We sat all
afternoon strumming on ukeleles. George always carried a
spare in case he met a like-minded individual who might be
up for a strum. From there, I got to know George Harrison.
It was beyond my wildest dreams. I'd met plenty of famous
people and it was no big deal, but this was George, this
was george! fab george, from the beatles! I kept
saying to myself, 'Is this really happening to me?' It was.
George and his wife, Olivia, were the warmest of people.
I've been told several times that he was careful about who
he hung out with, and I can believe it. But here we were,
George and me, and for a good few years we were pals.
When I got back to England George invited me to his
place. Miriam and I went to visit him at Friar Park, his home
in Henley-on-Thames. The house took my breath away. The
idea of going to see a Beatle at home was almost unreal. I
know this must read like the ramblings of a madman, but
remember what that band meant to me and millions of others
around the world. Never mind them being the soundtrack
to a generation, the Beatles were a big part of almost every
facet of my life. If I looked closely at an idea, a dream or an
ambition, the Beatles weren't very far away. The thought of
hanging out with George Harrison made me catch my breath.
Meanwhile, Ian and I were on a roll. In Spender we had a
bona-fide hit, and I'd co-written it. It was the first filmed
television drama series to be shot entirely on locations in
Newcastle and the North East, and I'd fought hard for that.
Newcastle was struggling economically, with most of its
heavy industries either already gone or on their last legs, and
there were high levels of unemployment. We had over a
hundred people on the cast and crew, and those who weren't
local stayed in hotels or rented houses and spent their leisure
money in the area. The pubs and nightclubs benefited. There
were more practical, cost-effective options, like filming the
recurring interiors in London, but I wasn't having that: I
owed it to Newcastle to show the rest of the country what it
was really like in Geordieland. Sure, it was rough, tough and
eastern-bloc bleak in places, the dialect was pea-soup thick
and near-impossible to decipher, even for me at times, but
it was so much more: it was rich in character and steeped in
tradition. Its inhabitants were warm-hearted, resilient folk.
Its Georgian architecture and city-centre buildings, its wild
countryside and windswept coastline were magnificent. I
wanted the show to look, feel, taste and smell like the
Newcastle I knew and loved. Most of all, I wanted Geordies
to be proud of it: 'Aye, that's about right, that's how it is that's
how we are.' I hope we managed that.
With the success of Spender I thought it might be a good
time to return to my music career. It had been dormant
since the expiry of the one-album Virgin deal some years
previously, and I wanted to record some songs and maybe
make another album. Although I'd done all right last time
money-wise, I'd learned a lot from the Virgin experience and
was determined not to make certain mistakes again. If I got
lucky, I'd try to make sure I was available for promotion this
time round!
First I approached Danny Schogger, whom I'd met while
I was working at Dave McKay's studios on my album Take
It Or Leave It. He and I had hit it off straight away, and he
agreed to work on some new songs with me. He suggested
bringing in a third writing partner. I'd met Guy Pratt briefly
when we both appeared on The Tube in the late 1980s. At the
time he was playing bass with the Womacks, who had invited
me on stage to sing with them on their final number, 'It's All
Over Now', and subsequently invited me to do the same at
their Albert Hall gig a week or so later. I declined their offer
but remembered their masterful bass player. Now it was
1991. Guy had played bass with Pink Floyd, Madonna and
Michael Jackson among others. It turned out his dad was the
late Mike Pratt, an actor probably best remembered for
appearing in the 1960s cult television series Randall &
Hopkirk (Deceased). Mike had played private detective Geoff
Randall alongside Kenneth Cope's ghostly white-suited
Marty Hopkirk. Like me, Guy was a big Tony Hancock fan,
and his raw sense of humour was similar to Danny's and
mine. He agreed to come aboard and we started kicking ideas
around in Danny's studio up in Totteridge.
Pretty much straight away we were knocking out tunes.
One particular melody was impossibly infectious. Charlie
Dore, another colleague of Danny's, helped us with the lyrics,
and once Guy's signature bass-playing had been added to
the rough mix it was so catchy it drove you bonkers. It was
called 'Ain't No Doubt'.
At the time I had no music management, but it was
obvious I was going to need some if I was to take all this to
a recording deal. Danny told me about a guy he knew who'd
been asking what we were doing and had offices on West
End Lane, not far from where I was living. Laurie Jay had
been a drummer in the sixties, had gone on to run London
clubs and was now involved in personal management,
looking after Billy Ocean among others. I liked Laurie
immediately. He was a lot of fun.
We played him some of the songs we'd recorded, and he
reacted positively. He suggested we continue working on
stuff at Danny's, then bring the tapes down to his place for
a professional polish. In the meantime he'd put out some
feelers, see if there was an album deal out there with my
name on it.
As it turned out there was plenty of interest, and we
eventually decided to go with Sony Records. A deal was
drawn up, but Sony pulled out at the last moment: Laurie
and I were sitting in Sony's opulent Soho Square offices, the
contracts having been brought in for my signature, when the
Sony finance director said something to the head honcho
and the deal was off, just like that. We left the building and
stumbled into a cafe to try to figure out what had just
happened. To this day I still don't know. But as one door
closes, another opens, they say, and we were offered a deal
by EMI. Just before we committed, Laurie played me a
message on his answerphone from Max Hole, the MD of
east-west Records, a Warner's subsidiary. Mark Fox, a pal of
Danny's and a percussionist, then moving into A&R, had
played him a tape of our songs and he had liked what he
had heard. He begged Laurie not to sign with anyone other
than east-west. He was convinced that one of the songs,
which none of us could stop humming, was 'an out-of-the
box smash'.
The next day we met up with him at his palatial offices in
the Electric Light Building just off Kensington High Street
and accepted his substantial five-album offer. The track he'd
raved about was 'Ain't No Doubt'.
With the east-west advance we were able to move into
more spacious and luxurious recording facilities and we took
one of the big rooms in Livingston Studios in north London
and got stuck in. I recruited a lot of help and called in a lot

of favours. The guest guitarists included Dave Gilmore (Pink
Floyd), Elliot Randall (Steely Dan), Gary Moore and George
Harrison -- George, playing on one of my little songs! As far
as I'm concerned it gets no better. It had taken me a long
time to work up the nerve to ask him. It seemed a liberty,
but as Laurie said, If you don't ask him he might be miffed.'
So I sat in my car outside Laurie's office one wet morning
and called him up on my Motorola 8800 housebrick-sized
mobile. I'd only got as far as, 'George . . .' when he said, 'Of
course I will.'
'What?' I asked, thrown.
'Aren't you gonna ask me to play on your record?' he
asked. He made it really easy for me.
George rang Danny Schogger to arrange for the multitrack
tapes to be sent over to his place where he'd put some
guitars on. I took them over to Friar Park myself and was in
for a surprise. George listened to a few tracks and suggested
he play on 'Real Love'. He also suggested getting Gary Moore
over to play on a ballad called 'Absent Friends'. Gary kindly
agreed and contributed some blistering guitar-work. George's
solo is perfection, beautiful, sweet and lovely. I don't usually
listen to any of my own music but I sometimes play that
track to remind myself that it really happened.
The album, Growing Up In Public, was released in 1992 on
the back of the successful first single, 'Ain't No Doubt', and
immediately went gold, moving over a hundred thousand
copies in a couple of weeks. Max had been right about 'Ain't
No Doubt': it went through the roof, selling over six hundred
thousand, and seemed to be just about everywhere, on the
radio, on TV, on jukeboxes, on supermarket Tannoys, in
lifts. Jen Samson, who was then working as a script editor
on Spender, complained of getting to the top of a Tibetan
mountain in an attempt to escape all things Nail, only to hear


that song coming out of a radio in a rickety wooden shack.
It entered the UK chart at number five, went to number two
the following week, then to the top spot.
We were all over at the Spalls' house having Sunday lunch,
with my mam, who was visiting for a few days, when I got a
call from the management to say I was at number one. I was
ecstatic and danced around the kitchen with my mam in my
arms. Everyone was happy for me that day but it's the
memory of my mam, as pleased as punch with her Jimmy,
that I'll treasure the most. Ever since I was a kid, she'd had
to listen to all my half-baked ideas in the quest for musical
success, and she'd never dismissed my dreams. Against all
the odds, it had happened, and I'm thankful we could savour
that moment together.

By now the fame thing was as potty as it gets. Miriam and
I decided we wanted to get away from London so we
moved out of Dicey Avenue and rented a place in North
Wales, where the kids could continue their Welsh-language
education. In retrospect the move wasn't a good idea.
North Wales was just too far for me to go from Newcastle,
and I was there only a few times in the year we had the
place. In the end Miriam declared it too isolated so we
returned to London, and rented a huge place in St John's
Wood.
I had to write a Spender script set in Marseille, so I took
myself to Toulon for four months. This self-imposed exile may seem crazy in view of what had gone before, but it
worked because Miriam wasn't isolated: she was in London
with her friends nearby. And in our case absence really does
make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes less is more.
While I was in Toulon I found out that Sting was to play
the local arena, so I called Pippa Markham, my former agent
who looked after him,'and asked where he'd be staying. It
turned out he was in an hotel just down the road from where
I was billeted, so I left a message inviting him for a cuppa.
I'd watched him playing with his band, Last Exit, at the
Newton Park pub in Newcastle, but our paths had never
crossed and I guess I was half expecting to meet a big-head.
No way, Jose. He turned out to be a humble soul, and funny.
I wasn't expecting that. We spent the next few days hanging
out together, recalling times past, and parted friends. Don't
*»

believe the derogatory stuff you read about Sting: I'm telling
you, he's not what they'd have you believe. .
Spender ran for three seasons. By 1993, we'd made twenty
episodes as well as a two-hour film. I'd taken the series
outside the BBC and into the independent sector, primarily
because the financial rewards were better: Duncan, who
pioneered talent packaging in the UK, stepped in and swung
a deal that allowed me to make the show myself for a
per-episode fee. As a result, Miriam and I were able to buy a
big, dilapidated four-storey house in Alma Square, St John's
Wood, from a merchant bank for a knock-down price. We
were on holiday at the Forte Village in Sardinia when I
spotted it in an advert in the Sunday Times. We'd always
fancied St John's Wood as a permanent base: it was handy
for the West End and had a villagy feel. I flew back to
London, viewed the house and by the week's end we'd
bought it.
I'd also fallen victim to my personal curse and become
bored. Success can be a dangerous thing, and in my experience
it's never quite what you expect it to be. After all that
work getting Spender up and running, I decided to pack it in.
It wasn't a popular decision: the BBC had spent a lot of
money on it, they had a hit and would have been happy for
it to go on. I would have made a lot more money, but I was
bored and no amount of money compensated for that. I'd
been away for long periods and I wanted to be at home
more. With Spender I'd proved to the world I could do it from
scratch, and it no longer challenged me.
Crocodile Shoes, the script that Ian La Frenais hadn't liked
all those years ago, was the project for 1994. But I'd had
time now to work on it. It revolved around songwriter Jed
Shepperd, the lead character, and his journey from Newcastle
to Nashville and all the way back. Jed was based on the
younger brother of my old pal Chad Shepherd. Chad! How
cool was that for a council-estate boy? Steve McQueen had
a son called Chad. And Jed? There was Jed Clampett, from The Beverly Hillbillies, but no one had names like those back
then, at least not in our neck of the woods. It would more
likely be Alan, Peter, Paul, Michael, David, Brian or John.
There weren't many Jimmys, even, just me and my dad, as I
recall. When the time came and I needed names for my
leading characters, it wasn't a struggle to find them. I'd waited
years for an opportunity to use those monikers.
In the UK television market there was a great deal of
money to be made from owning and producing your own
television programmes and records, but there were big costs
that had always to be recouped before you earned a penny.
Advertising was one, production another. It seemed to me
that if I could make television drama featuring music as an
inherent element, we could pool the advertising spend and
save a lot of money. My new music management team agreed.

I had parted amicably from Laurie Jay, and hooked up
with Tarquin Gotch, whom I'd met, once again, through Ian
La Frenais. Tarquin and Emma Kamen agreed to look after
my music affairs and it proved a fruitful relationship, both
creatively and financially. I now had agents and music management
and I needed them both. There was an awful lot
going on.
Around this time something else happened, which had a
profound effect on how I viewed life. Ever since I was a kid,
I'd dreamed of becoming a millionaire. In the 1950s and
1960s it had been a magical, unattainable number, but over
the previous two years, mainly because of Duncan's shrewd
deal-making, a great deal of money had come my way. I
asked my accountants to call me when the great day arrived
-- not on paper or in the value of my house, I wanted to be


told when I had cash running to seven figures in the bank.
I'd worried about balancing the books, having enough to get
by, for as long as I could recall and I thought I'd be off the
hook at last. Come the day, I answered the phone and was
told I was there. What an anti-climax. I felt empty and stupid.
Worst of all, it made not a jot of difference. Like a lot of folk
who've started with nothing and done all right, I still worried
about money. That's never changed. I don't suppose it ever
will. It sometimes doesn't do to realize your dreams.
Cut to 1993 and the end of Spender. Duncan and I met
Alan Yentob at BBC Television Centre to discuss my idea
for a new series. I wanted to get away from stuff I'd be doing
year after year. I also wanted to do a little project about
music. Whether Alan liked it or not I don't know, but I was
hot property so we were given the green light to make seven
hours with my own company. The condition was that we
had to make the series in partnership with a more established
independent, as a safeguard against anything going wrong.
We trawled around and finally did a co-production deal with
Red Rooster, a company based in Floral Street, Covent
Garden, owned and run by Linda James and her husband,
the director Stephen Bayley. It seemed like a good idea at
the time, but sadly proved a match not made in heaven.
We needed some songs, and they had to be exceptional.
As far as possible I wanted to retain a kind of organic
north-eastern connection to the creative side of the Jed
Shepperd character so I approached Paddy McAloon, a
Geordie, whose band Prefab Sprout was on hold. I met up
with him in Newcastle, explained the project to him, and he
agreed to give it a go. This was quite a coup as I had been
expecting a knock-back, but Paddy was lovely from the off. A
few weeks later the first of his efforts arrived in the post. As I
listened to beautiful ballads like 'Cowboy Dreams' and 'Love
Will Find Someone For You' in the kitchen at Alma Square
with Miriam, I knew we'd hit the jackpot. These weren't just
songs, they were gems. Paddy's compositions went a long way
to making the project a success and I'm in his debt. What a gift,
to be able to come up with magnificent songs on a regular
basis. Don't stop, mate. The world needs groovy songs.
Around this time we received some dreadful news. Miriam
had been having problems with her joints ever since Tom's
birth ten years earlier. A visit to Professor Black at the Royal
Free Hospital in Hampstead revealed that she was suffering
from rheumatoid arthritis. It's one of the more common
types of arthritis and causes immense pain. It also triggers
related conditions, like Reynaud's Syndrome, which causes
the extremities to go white and numb. Although the news
was crushing, it explained a lot. No wonder she was unhappy
after a long flight. It must have been agony for her.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a viral condition: it can go away
for years then be back in an instant. Stress can trigger an
attack - or a flare-up, as they're called - so, plenty of guilt
for me. I wish I could buy her a cure - I'd give everything I
have in a heartbeat, the lot, were that possible. But it's not.
Some things can't be mended with money.
It was also around this time that I decided to consult a
therapist. I had to sort out the muddle I felt over my identity.
I'd considered it before but had dismissed it as too 'Californian'.
Avoiding the issue, I guess. I had occasional sessions
over the next couple of years, mostly alone but sometimes
with Miriam. Contrary to what I'd expected, there was no
specific advice, only questions left hanging in the air to
resonate at the end of a session. It wasn't an easy journey
but I learned a lot about myself and hopefully am a better
person for it.
The shoot was not a happy one. I had taken on far too


much responsibility, and the conduct of some left a lot to be
desired. I remember one day on Regent's Canal having to
placate an angry man who wouldn't let us get on with filming
because his girlfriend, a low-ranking member of the crew,
had apparently left him to carry on an affair she was having
with another person on the production staff. I knew nothing
about any of this until I turned up on the set. I sympathized
with the man but explained that it was neither my doing nor
my problem, we had a hundred-strong crew standing around
sucking their thumbs and we had to get on or fuck off. He
accepted my point, but we had lost precious time. Chaos
followed as the weeks went by, until we brought in the
steadying hands of producer Peter Richardson. Things
settled down after his arrival but making Crocodile Shoes was an
unenjoyable experience, which was frustrating, considering it
was my idea, my company -- and my ass on the screen.
We filmed in Newcastle, London and Nashville, using a
lot of the actors I'd come to know so well from Spender. Sammy Johnson and Berwick Kaler were prominent
members of the cast. David Richards was the lead director
and did a good, solid job. Against everyone's wishes I insisted
we cast James Wilby, not known for his light comedic touch,
to play the gritty part of ravaged A&R veteran Ade Lynn.
He turned out to be less than ideal. Another lesson learned:
let others make those decisions.
We had a second director, Malcolm Mowbray, best known
for A Private Function, written by Alan Bennett and made by
George Harrison's HandMade Films. He seemed to me to
be a terrible procrastinator, and seemed quite incapable of
explaining what it was he wanted. I felt he was the wrong
man for the job. It happens. He refused numerous requests
to give the first assistant director any kind of shot list, saying
that such a request compromised his creative integrity. But
it's industry standard, how everybody works and we couldn't
continue as we were, losing time every day. A few weeks into
shooting Malcolm Mowbray left. The last thing anyone wants
to happen is to lose a director: it causes chaos and usually
costs a fortune to remedy. I was lumbered with directing
duties until Rob Knight came on board. I hated it but it was
either that or close down the shoot, which would have meant
losing the transmission and album-release dates. However,
James Wilby then appeared to get the notion that I was
taking over the show -- which was my show anyway - and
our relationship became very strained. There was a mad
period of about five days when I got no sleep whatsoever.
The whole thing came to a head when I was discovered
sitting on my trailer floor, confused and delirious. Tony
Antoniou, my doctor, appeared and drove me away. He told
me I was suffering from mental and physical exhaustion and
wanted to have me hospitalized, sedated and drip-fed for the
next few days. I didn't fancy that and pleaded with him to
allow me to go home. He relented, but only if I agreed to do
absolutely nothing. It wasn't hard to comply. I lay on the
settee for days, unable to even think. When Miriam asked if
I'd like a cup of tea, I found myself incapable of replying.
A few days later I arranged to meet with Wilby at my
office in Regent's Park. This was strange as he and I shared
the same acting agent, Paul Lyon-Maris, but Paul was, as
always, totally professional about the whole thing. Over tea I informed Wilby I'd decided to pull the plug on the show.
This would mean a great deal of grief for me personally but
no amount of money was worth killing myself for, and I was
fed up to the back teeth with how difficult things had become.
He seemed genuinely surprised. What about all the work
we'd done? he wanted to know. What about all that footage
already in the can, footage of him? I explained that I'd gone


out on a limb for him in getting him his part, and thought
that it would count for something. I was worn down with all the grief.
After a while, mulling it over, he said that if I would
continue and finish the show, he'd get on with it. I asked
why I should believe him. He gave me his word. I thought
about it for a while, then I agreed. Make the best of a bad
job, I thought. As he left he turned and said to me, 'I'm so
glad that's sorted. I couldn't have kept it up for another day.'
I wanted to knock him out there and then, but he was on his
way down my spiral staircase and it would have been difficult
to land a decent punch on his jaw.
We finished the series and I've not seen or heard from
him since.
For all the trauma of making it, Crocodile Shoes was a success
with the punters and that, ultimately, is what counts. In terms
of ratings it pulled in between eight and nine million viewers
during its seven-week run, at that time perfectly acceptable
for a non-formulaic one-off serial and these days more than
enough to qualify as a hit. The music was a thundering
success: it spawned three top-twenty singles, the first selling
half a million copies, and the album went on to sell over a
million, a thrilling figure. .
The series also prompted my first national music tour.
After the success of 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore', I'd
been approached over the years by promoters eager to cash
in on my fame and popularity but I'd either not had the time
or just not fancied it. A million album sales alters your
thinking. This time, when the call came, I was up for it.
Tarquin spoke to various promoters and we signed up with
Tim Parsons at MCP, who suggested we put four dates on
sale to test the water, see if anyone would pay to watch me
play and sing. The dates sold out quickly so Tim booked a
couple more, with the same result. In the end we sold out
twenty-two dates. I was thrilled, but also a little apprehensive.
The voice is a fickle thing, and everything would be resting
on mine. Still, it was the next challenge, and what had begun
as a tentative look-see experiment turned into a bona-fide
occupation.
People often ask me which I like more, singing or acting.
It's not a question I can answer with a simple 'this' or 'that',
because it's unrealistic to compare the two. Although both
come under the category of creative arts, they are, in my
case, so different as to be almost unrelated. I don't do theatre
so my acting is confined to occasional in-front-of-the-camera
stints. I'm never offered theatre work. Duncan thinks I'd go
bonkers with its repetitive nature, but I'm not so sure. I'd
like to have a crack at it, and certainly musical theatre would
seem to make sense. I think I'd be able to make a decent fist
of it if the piece and the director were right for me.
As a musician with thirty-five years' experience, however,
I feel at home on a live stage fronting a band. I've never had
stage-fright before a gig. Most performers will tell you that
if a person says they're not nervous before a performance
they're lying, but I've rarely felt uncomfortable. Just the
opposite, in fact: usually I can't wait to get out there. The
reason's simple: if you know all the words to the songs, your
voice is in good nick, your band is well rehearsed and you've
sold all the tickets, what on earth is there to be nervous about?
Messing up? Making a mistake? It happens -- but so what? In a
live situation it doesn't really matter. I've dropped some right
old clangers over the years but most times you get away with
it, and if the audience should happen to notice you've dropped ,
a bollock, or you bring it to their attention, as I do, they usually
respond positively. It shows them you're human.
The Crocodile Shoes tour would be different from the old
days with the King Crabs, when we charged around the
North East from pub gig to pub gig in our tatty old pink
Transit van. Tarquin and Emma assembled a band and crew
who were veterans of the road and of the highest calibre. So,
ladies and gentlemen, a big hand for the band: on electric
guitar and harmonica, Chester Kamen; on keyboards and
squeezebox, Guy Fletcher; on pedal steel and Dobro guitars,
Melvin Duffy; on bass guitar and mandolin, Finn O'Laughlan;
on drums and all things percussive, Geoff Dugmore. What a
line-up. After the first day of rehearsals I realized I was a
lucky boy to be in such company. They are all talented
musicians with CVs to prove it. They took a flyer in agreeing
to go out on the road with someone like me, someone off
the telly, unproven on a big stage, and I thank them for their
faith and all their encouragement. They were great.
And they were a lot of fun. We all worked hard but, boy,
we had a laugh. After all the television-based politics and
nonsense I'd been involved with over the previous few years,
it was a breath of fresh air. Our tour manager was Dee
McGlaughlan, a Dubliner who'd been around the block and
the world many times, seen it all, done it all. Robbie McGrath,
another Dubliner, late of the Boomtown Rats and Simply
Red, was in charge of front-of-house sound. On the monitors,
the worst job on the tour in my book, we had Flakey, late
of Elvis Costello. The guitar technician was Phil Docherty,
a Scotsman who now looks after Dominic Miller, Sting's
long-time guitarist. Don't let anyone tell you rock 'n' roll is
a lazy man's alternative to the day job. It's incredibly
demanding, but compared to making a television show, it
was a joy. No politics: just people who love the life working
their nuts off to help you shine for a couple of hours every
evening. I was the headline act, the star turn. It was my name
alone on the posters and tickets, not the band's. The whole
thing would stand or fall on what I came up with and how I
sounded. There was no one else to shoulder the weight or
to whom I could pass the buck.
I knew that if the dates were to be a success I'd have to
get my voice in shape so a few weeks before the start of the
tour, I sought the advice of Tona de Brette, famed vocal
coach. Based in Muswell Hill, she had worked with people
like George Michael, Phil Collins and, famously, John Lydon.
I went along to see if I could strengthen my vocal cords, but
I got much more than that out of the process. People would
probably describe Tona as eccentric, but I recognized her as
a really committed teacher. She asked me what I needed to
achieve and I explained that I wanted to be able to hit the
high notes every night. She asked me to play her the tracks,
which I did, and I pointed out the notes I was concerned
about as they came along. Tona soon had me singing scales
and doing various other exercises. Tuition in breathing, and
its beneficial effect, came as a shock. I improved almost
immediately -- it's amazing how the voice responds to being
worked correctly. After a few weeks, Tona asked me to hit a
note she played on the piano and hold it, which I did. Then
she played a lower note, maybe a tone down from where I'd
just been, and explained to me that this second note was in
fact the highest note on my album. The psychological effect
was immediate: I felt as if I was capable of singing anything.
As I'd realized with A.uf Wiedersehen, Pet, you're only new
once, and as much as you might try you can't replicate that
first experience. It's over all too soon and it's easy to miss
the sheer joy that is part of the experience. I was lucky.
Because I'd already been there with Auf Wiedersehen, Pet I
knew how quickly the tour would pass and I was determined
to step back and savour it as best I could. I felt at ease with
my surroundings: the acting was something I'd had to master
quickly as I went along, but music was my forte, something
I'd been doing since I was a teenager. And from the moment
I stepped on to the rehearsal stage I felt as if I'd come home,
to use Tim Spall's phrase. That first tour was such a buzz,
with audiences singing along to the songs from the album.
They knew every word. It was nothing short of thrilling to
stand there singing along with them all. It was also a revelation
in as much as it confirmed something I'd not dared
think about: people were willing to pay good money to see
me perform live.
One of the things I had to get accustomed to was using
in-ear monitors. You often see singers wearing them onstage,
with curled cables disappearing down the back of a collar to
a battery-driven belt-pack receiver. They're fiddly to put on,
and it was the last thing I wanted to be bothered with
moments before the start of a performance. In the end I was
swayed by the pitching advantages. If you take enough time
with the sound balance you can get an absolutely wonderful
mix, which then gives you the best shot at being in tune.
They are a modern alternative to the more traditional and
much less accurate stage-mounted wedge monitors and fills.
You're in your own zone, cut off from the atmosphere of
the room, and often can't hear people's shouts. All went well
until a gig at the NEC in Birmingham. Suddenly, mid-way
through a song, my earpiece exploded with noise from a
passing mini-cab radio. There was a volume dial on the
belt-pack but for some reason it wouldn't turn off. It was
excruciating. In front of ten thousand punters I had no
option but to rip out the earpiece and throw it on to the
deck. My head was reeling but the sound boys switched me
over to the wedge monitors on the floor in front of me and
we kept going. It didn't do much for my mood, though.
The concert we played at the Newcastle City Hall on that
first tour was cathartic. We'd all been looking forward to and
dreading it in equal measure. Robbie McGrath told me
afterwards that the crew had been desperate for this to be a
successful gig because they'd all known how I felt about
coming home. Playing your home town or city is always
nerve-racking. You never know what sort of reaction you're
going to elicit from the audience or what sort of evening
you're in for. I'd thought about it a lot and tried to dismiss
it as just another gig, but it was a monumental occasion for
me. During my time making television I'd been insulated,
protected, kept away from contact with real people and their
opinions. Now, one way or another, I'd get to know how
my fellow Geordies felt.
It was a long day. We'd travelled down from Glasgow,
where we'd played the night before and had a grand old
evening, and followed what was now our daily routine. There
was a sound-check at four thirty. They usually ran until about
six but this one went over. Then a meal for band and
crew. I could never eat before a gig -- the last thing an
audience needs is a great big belch when you're belting out
a ballad. So:
Doors open at seven p.m.
Support act, Deana Carter, on from seven forty-five till
eight thirty.
Intermission.

Eight fifty: ten-minute warning from tour-manager Dee.
Nine p.m.: showtime!
Onstage until ten thirty p.m., then finish. A minute longer,
and you incur financial penalties imposed by the local council.
If you decide to do an encore, it costs you.
That wait backstage was a long one. I'd been wondering
about a night like this for over a decade, and now it was
upon me. What would it feel like? Who'd be out there?

Someone with a grudge or a score to settle? I half expected
someone to take a pop at me as I stood up there, alone in
the follow-spot's bright light. But enough of all that dithering:
it was eight thirty and I had to prepare. The place was
jam-packed with people who'd paid their money and they
were expecting to be entertained.
I followed the established routines. First the bathroom
routine, then dressing routine, then the breathing routine,
then vocal routine, then the bathroom routine once more.
After that I dawdled in the wings.
The lights went down and it was time to hit the stage. The
band struck up, and a moment later I walked out into the
semi-darkness from stage left. A follow-spot picked me up and . . .
The audience gave me a five-minute standing ovation. I'd
come home, all right. I'll never forget that feeling and that
evening as long as I live. That night the Geordies were good
to me.
Although everything, to the last detail, had been preplanned
with military precision and ran like a Swiss clock for
most of the time, there were one or two unfortunate
moments. Having played a gig in the city the night before,
we left Birmingham at lunch-time on our way to Brighton
for the show that evening. I was looking for some sweets on
the tour bus -- there were always plenty on board, thoughtfully
supplied by Brum Dougie, our redoubtable driver who
also happened to co-own the company, Phoenix, but that
day all I could find were some fruit pastilles in a big bag.
Whose were they? It was just gone one o'clock and the boys
in the band had gone to bed in their bunks, so I couldn't ask.
I tucked in as I read my Daily Telegraph. Very tasty, they were.
So tasty, in fact, that before I knew it I'd polished off the
whole packet.
A little later on, Kellie Gordon, my PA, appeared from
her cubicle-cum-office near the front of the bus. I hadn't
seen a packet of sweets lying around, had I? Pastilles, big
bag. Embarrassed, I admitted the greedy deed and apologized
for not leaving her a single one. We'd pull into the next
service station and replenish our depleted stocks. Kellie
looked more upset than she should have done. Worried,
even. Hadn't I read the wording on the packet?
I shook my head.
They were laxative lozenges. Superstrength. No more than
two to be taken at once. And I had eaten a bagful.
By the time I took the stage that evening my stomach was
burbling and gurgling like a cannibal's crockpot. With cheeks
nipped together I made for the microphone. The opening
number was 'Crocodile Shoes'. I got as far as the first line,
and then -- agh! A semi-solid disaster nestled in the backside
of my trousers. Could people see? Nah, it was dark and I
was dressed in black. But they'd smell it soon enough. Knees
pressed together to prevent my crocodile shoes getting
covered with untreated sewage, I waddled backwards to
where Geoff Dugmore was parked on the drum rostrum. He
was smiling, having a ball as usual while keeping perfect time.
Once we were face to face, he said, 'How is it?'
'I've shat meself!' I replied, loud enough that he could
hear me above the clatter of the band but not so loud that
the mics picked it up and broadcast it to the audience. Geoff's
face was a picture -- he didn't know what to say. In the end
he shrugged. I had no choice but to get on with it. The
evening was long and uncomfortable.
Sadly, there was tragedy too. After I had played two
sold-out nights at the Hammersmith Apollo I was informed
that a member of the audience, a lady in her late thirties, had
gone to the loo, suffered a heart-attack and died. I was floored


and quickly became angry that I hadn't been told sooner.
Tarquin explained that he'd feared I'd go to pieces if I was
told at the time, and the gig might have descended into
pandemonium, with the possibility of more casualties. He
was probably right, but I was still in bits. This was someone's
life and death. It made what we were doing seem so pointless.
We contacted the lady's husband: she had been married with
a couple of kids, like me, and he told me she was a big fan
of mine. She'd been looking forward to the concert for
months. She would have been enjoying herself, he said,
having a good time, and happy. They were kind words but
I couldn't help feeling that it was somehow my fault. If I'd
not done that tour, if I'd not played that gig, she might
still have been alive. It took away any pleasure I'd felt
about successfully completing the tour and makes me sad to this day.
That incident was an inauspicious start to what would soon
turn out to be a big adventure, one of my biggest and most
eventful yet. That, for me, is the second most wonderful
thing about working in the entertainment business: you never
know what's round the corner. Sometimes it's bad, but
for me it's been mostly good, and once or twice it's been
unbelievable.
The grey stone facades that make up Hanover Square in
the West End of London looked damp and drab that wet
Wednesday afternoon. Duncan Heath and I were travelling
down in the lift from the fourth floor of my then lawyers'
offices. As the doors opened Duncan turned to me and said,
'Oh, we must speak about this movie thing.'
'What movie thing?' I asked.
Evita,' he replied, as he dashed towards the door. Bvita? 'Didn't I mention the telephone call?'
I didn't know about any telephone call, I said, at once
excited and pissed off. Hang on! What telephone call?
'From Alan Parker.'
The internationally renowned movie director? What did
he want? 'To find out whether you'd be up for going to see
them to talk about a part in his upcoming movie, Evita.''
My mind raced and spun as it tends to do at such times.
Proper movies, the real deal, the silver screen? Limos, red
carpets, flashbulbs? Steady, James!
I'd met Alan Parker only once before and very briefly, up
at - where else? - Ian La Frenais's house in the Hollywood
Hills during one of his Sunday evening get-togethers.
Alan and I were introduced and had a friendly chat over
drinks in Ian's kitchen. We'd yakked about the film he'd
just finished shooting, Come See the Paradise, starring Dennis
Quaid, which told of the rough treatment many Japanese
American internees had to endure during the Second World
War. Then, the American movie-going public, made up
predominantly of single white males aged between thirteen
and twenty-five, were not much interested in that type of
story (are they ever?) and the movie stiffed at the box-office,
but Alan was upbeat that night and great company. I was
a big fan of his and it was great to meet him. We discussed
the kind of things ex-pats tend to discuss in such circumstances:
how you miss your HP sauce, how you can never
get a decent cup of tea in the States, the usual stuff. He
struck me as a sound guy and his beginnings had been similar
to mine -- i.e., humble. There was no bullshit about him,
no side, and he was very funny. I liked him straight away
and we seemed to get along, but there was no more to it
than that, no talk of my playing parts or anything remotely
promising.
Actually, that's not strictly true: there was just a little thing,
but any actor reading this will know what I mean. Every
once in a while I'd clocked Alan clocking me in the same
way others had done, people like Roger Bamford and Ian La
Frenais: as if he were logging details into a memory bank to
be stored for retrieval some time later on. At least, that was
what I'd assumed they were doing. They might just have
been having a good squint at the configuration of my boat
race. Who knows? Anyway I'd seen and heard nothing from
Alan since then so this was an exciting surprise development.
By the time we left the lift I knew a little more, but Duncan
didn't have time to explain in detail. As he ran out to a

waiting cab he shouted over his shoulder that he'd call and
fill me in. I hardly slept a wink.
The next day brought exciting news: Evita was to be a
full-scale film production of the stage musical, a massive
enterprise with a budget of $70 million. It would be filmed
in Argentina, Hungary and the United Kingdom. Hardly able
to contain my excitement, I asked if anyone else had been
cast. 'Madonna is to play Evita, Antonio Banderas is to play
Che, and Jonathan Pryce is cast as Juan Peron.' Would I be
up for a meeting with Alan Parker to talk about the project
over a cup of coffee? They were interested in me for Agustin
Magaldi, an Argentine tenor who had apparently befriended
and seduced the young Eva Peron on her way to Buenos
Aires and immortality. Would P. When? Where? What would
I have to do? Paul Lyon-Maris, who handles my acting
affairs at ICM, suggested I should familiarize myself with
the soundtrack/score of the Evita musical.
At this time I was working on what was to be the follow-up
album to Crocodile Shoes. A while earlier I'd started writing a
song at the rickety old piano we had in the drawing room at
Alma Square. It had a strong feel to it and I was rather
pleased. The chorus was all about the Tyne so I called it 'Big
River'. I eventually completed it one day on the tour bus.
We recorded the album at Mickey Most's Rak Studios in
St John's Wood, just a short walk from our house. While I
was at Sir George Martin's Air Lyndhurst Studios in
Hampstead one day I happened to bump into Mark Knopfler
who asked me what I was up to. I played him 'Big River'
and he offered to put a bit of guitar on to it. That was a
thrill. Mark was from Newcastle too, and I'd always been a
fan of his. As well as playing guitar, he also lent a helping
hand with one of the verse lines I was struggling with. 'Big
River' was the best thing I'd ever written and by far the most
popular with live audiences. I wish I could have come up
with more songs like it, but I fear it was the only one of its
kind I had in me. Never mind. I'm proud to have written
just one.
I was in the middle of mixing the Big River album and
happened to mention to my co-producer Danny Schogger
that I'd have to take a morning off to audition for Alan
Parker. Danny asked me what I was up for and when I told
him he laughed. 'You'll never believe it,' he said, 'but I played
in the original West End production of Evita in the 1970s!'
While he was studying at the Royal College of Music, Danny
used to dash off after his classes to play in the pit on the
show. This was not only a coincidence, it was a major stroke
of good fortune. Danny would take me through the score,
help me prepare for my audition and accompany me on the
day.
It had been a long time since I'd been to any kind of an
audition, not since Auj'Wiedersehen, Pet, in fact. I'd had things
comparatively cushy and didn't see any need to put myself
through the kind of nonsense auditions often entail. Some
of the things you're asked to do at these get-togethers can
be nothing short of degrading, so it's better all round for me
not to put myself in those situations. I've probably missed
out on many an opportunity but never mind. C'est la vie.
I had to go to meet Alan Parker and Ros Hubbard, the
movie's casting director, at a primary school somewhere in
central London, then run through some songs from the
show. Come the morning, I had listened to the Evita soundtrack a hundred times, and at ten a.m. Alan, Ros and
I, with Danny at the piano and a young lad who operated
the video camera, were in this big bare first-floor classroom.
As we lined up the picture frame and checked the sound, the
lad looked half-asleep. Bless him, I thought. All dishevelled
and dreamy, he could have been one of my sons. We shot
the breeze for a while, skirted around things, then Alan
suggested we run through one of the songs. The one I'd
routined was 'On This Night Of A Thousand Stars', a big
showy number that Magaldi had made his own. I'd rejigged
the end of the song with Danny so I would hold the final
high note for seven bars, quite a lungful and quite a challenge
at ten in the morning. I'd practised it, though, and was
confident.
I stood in the middle of the room and Danny gave me the
intro with a flourish that set me up perfectly. A deep breath,
a quick prayer and I was off. It must have been my lucky day
-- either that or the prayer had worked wonders -- because
the rendition went marvellously. I hit every note on the
button and finished with the seven-bar finale, on and on and
on, and then . . . out! It elicited a round of applause from
Alan and Ros Hubbard and even from my man Danny,
who's not one for insincere flattery. Even I was pleased with
my performance that day: I'm no great fan of my own
endeavours but I knew I'd nailed it.
Alan said, 'Fuck me! That was amazing! Where did you
learn to sing like that?' I couldn't answer properly: I'd only
practised my breathing and those vocal exercises at Tona de
Brette's piano some two or three years earlier. I'd just busked
it as best I could, as per usual. I allowed myself the luxury of
being hopeful.
Alan turned to the lad on the camera and said, 'Right,
rewind it and let's have a look at the tape.'
The lad glanced at us all in turn, went even paler than he
already was, then looked at Alan sheepishly. 'Did you want
me to record that?'
Silence in the room. I knew, and so did everyone else, that
I'd never pull it off again like that first time. I looked at the

young lad. For a moment I wanted to choke him to death
with my bare hands there and then. My pop at a Hollywood
movie, gone, lost, out of the window, and all because of this
light-headed, sleepy dimwit. Alan put an arm round my
shoulders and said, 'Sorry about that. Shall we do another?'
I agreed, and we did and it was fine, and I hit all the notes
and held the long one at the end, but it was nothing like as
magical as that first one. We watched it back and it was all
right, but I was seething. Off it would go to Hollywood and
someone there would say, 'Well, it's OK but it's nothing
special,' which was true.
Alan walked me to the door. "I don't think we'll be using
him on the movie,' he said, nodding towards the now
dejected-looking young lad.
'Right,' I said, and then I was outside in the fresh air. ' We won't be using . . .' Did he mean 'we' as in he and the rest of
them? Or could he have meant 'we' as in he and I? No, surely
not. I couldn't let myself believe that. I went back to the
studio to continue the mixing.
At the time I had an office in Portobello Road and about
a week after the audition I was there discussing business
matters relating to the musical side of things with Tarquin
and Emma, the next album, which was to tie in with the
second Crocodile Shoes series, when the phone rang. It was
Paul Lyon-Maris to tell me Alan Parker wanted me to play
Magaldi in his movie! Cue major celebrations and even a
little bit of dancing around the coffee table.
Later I met up with Paul and Duncan at the I CM Oxford
Street offices to discuss the project. It was an interesting day.
I'd been offered a lot of money to do a commercial, almost
seven figures over two years. As I sat studying the Evita script, Paul popped his head round the door. At that moment
I was reading about how Magaldi seduces the young Eva
Peron then dumps her in the big city to fend for herself.
Double-take. Mind-muddle. I read it again, disbelieving, but
there they were, right there in front of me, those same
words: I'd be in bed with Madonna! I laughed, hollered and
whooped. What did I want to do about the commercial? Paul
was asking. I asked Duncan what he thought. 'Do you need
to do it?' he asked. No, I said. 'Do you want to particularly?'
I didn't. 'Then don't,' he said.
Paul informed me that the Evita money was two thousand
dollars a week. It was an indication of how far I'd come that
I was just about to have a moan, when he added, 'Per diem.'' Two grand a weekperdieml That meant the expenses an actor
is paid by the film company to cover laundry and meals away
from the set, et cetera, while they're on location. Two grand
a week! On telly jobs it's normally a tenth of that figure.
Never mind that it's only dollars. My actual fee was well into
six figures, along with perks like two first-class round trip
tickets to Buenos Aires, all courtesy of the Mouse -- the
Disney Corporation, who were financing the movie.
I raced back to Alma Square to share the news with Miriam
and we celebrated with a meal. I wasn't sure that she would
want to do the thirteen-hour overnight flight to Buenos
Aires, but she was excited at the prospect, and keen to go if
we could work out cover for the boys, who were now aged
ten and eight. She had an Argentinian connection that made
the whole thing even more appealing to her: her aunt Cathrin
taught Welsh in Patagonia. Nannies permitting, we'd soon
be Argentina-bound.
The first day of rehearsals was nerve-racking, to say the
least. You make as though you're not too bothered and
everything's cool but of course you are and it's not. Everyone
is uptight and anxious. It has to be like that, really. Madonna
alone would have been a daunting enough prospect but
this was Madonna, Antonio Banderas, Jonathan Pryce, Alan
Parker, David Caddick (Andrew Lloyd-Webber's and the
movie's musical director), and little old me from Benton. I'd
done as much preparatory work as I possibly could: as well
as memorizing my own pieces, I'd listened to all Madonna's
albums, read up on Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce,
and sung endless scales so that I'd be vocally prepared and,
hopefully, able to cope with anything that might be thrown
at me. Now the time had come. At the appointed hour a big
posh car picked me up and I was whisked away, a bundle of
back-seat nerves.
The rehearsal venue couldn't have been less auspicious:
the first floor of an old warehouse in King's Cross. Grim,
unglamorous, chosen, I'd guess, deliberately by Alan to let
everyone know that he would be making all the decisions on
this shoot. The room was cavernous, with a high vaulted
ceiling, good for live vocals, and just a piano in the centre.
David Wimbury, Alan's line producer, whom I knew from
my first visit to LA, offered me coffee and generally exuded
an air of calm. My nerve-ends felt like live wires.
Antonio was already there and was friendly from day one.
He's a lovely man, totally committed to his work and family
yet always up for a laugh and a joke. On top of that he's
probably one of the best-looking blokes in the world. The
lucky bastard had it all. I liked him from the off and that
never changed. He called me Jimmy Nails and I called him
Tony Flags -- a translation of his name into English. He
made a joke of his singing, saying he was dreadful and
knew it, but his voice was fine with a rich husk to it, no
doubt the result of all the Marlboros he got through. There
was a good bit of coughing in those first few weeks as
Antonio got used to the breathing required to hold those
notes, but he was a willing pupil and his enthusiasm was
infectious. There was no big-star bullshit about him. He
knew, of course, as did the rest of us, that no one would
have been in that room if they couldn't hack it, even
Madonna. Alan Parker is not one for carrying passengers or
suffering fools. Cap'n Al was master of the ship and I was
glad to be a member of his crew. Because I'd spent several
years on the road, singing with various bands, I felt a little
more comfortable and confident than some in that room,
but I wasn't about to take anything for granted. The Queen
of Pop had yet to arrive.
All of a sudden she was there, making for Alan and big
hugs. Bob, her Atlas-like bodyguard, was with her and never
far away. I'd been told some of the people around her were
authorized to carry guns, but Bob looked quite capable of
murdering simply with a look. I waited my turn nervously in
the introduction line and then there she was, and we were
saying hello. I remember thinking how short she was in
comparison to me and how fit she looked as we shook hands,
all sinew and muscle, great definition. Madonna was gazing
up at me and shaking my hand! I had to take a quick reality
check. She said she'd been told I was a musician. I said that
was right, although not on her scale, which was a stupid
thing to say, as no one was on her scale at that time. I think,
though, that this one thing we had in common: that we were
two musos in a movie full of 'actors', made her feel a little
more comfortable with me. It couldn't have been easy for
her, as an American, a woman and a musician in control of
her own universe, to come over to Britain and play the lead
in a movie written by Brits, directed by a Brit and for the
most part performed by Brits, to be sung in a style very
different from her own.
Jonathan Pryce arrived, completing the main turns. He
seemed a rather quiet type, with no sign of nerves. If he was


bluffing he was convincing, but his track record in movies
and musicals was impressive so maybe he wasn't fazed by it.
After more introductions and a bit of laboured banter, we
were at last standing around the piano. I felt I was on safe
ground now and breathed a sigh of relief. As the music began
I thought about how far I'd come from those long-ago days
in Newcastle when I'd dreamed as a kid about days like
this one.
We took our turns at singing, with David Caddick guiding
us through the various passages. After a few verses it was
clear that Madonna could sing really well. Her voice was
clean, pure and impressively strong, even in the lower registers,
and had such a comforting familiarity to it that I forgot
about the circumstances and just enjoyed it. She had also
done her homework thoroughly: she knew not only the piece
but all about everyone else involved. I understood that total
commitment to preparation and nobody worked harder than
she did to make something special of that movie. She wasn't particularly fond of the music but she dished up some
great vocal performances, particularly on 'Another Suitcase,
Another Hall' -- which was given to her character in the
movie rather than to the young girl Juan Peron is seducing,
as in the original musical -- and, of course, 'Don't Cry For
Me, Argentina'. For my money she bestowed upon those
songs a quality and depth they'd never previously had.
I kept thinking it was beyond belief for me to be standing
at the piano in such company. It was all I could do not to
shout, I was so excited. At times like those you desperately
want to call up a pal and say, 'Hey, you'll never believe what's
happening here!' but of course you can't. Doesn't stop you
thinking about it, though.
I felt great going home in the big posh car at the end of
that first day, relieved I'd not let myself or anyone else down.
That's the worst nightmare, the idea of letting down folk
who've shown faith in you, disappointing them. And my
fellow cast members were now aware I wasn't there on looks
alone.
On day two, it started hotting up. Madonna and I had a
scene in which she had to belt me with a tatty old suitcase,
then storm off. Now, there is no need whatsoever to lay into
someone with a suitcase in rehearsal, but of course she did,
harder and harder, time after time. I guessed she was waiting
for me to complain, but I figured it was maybe nerves on
her part so I kept it buttoned. At the week's end I had a blue
bruise the length of my upper left arm. She told me later,
with a giggle, it had been deliberate. I didn't mind but I was
glad I hadn't made a fuss. Not in front of anyone, anyway.
The week's rehearsal had established a few important
things as far as I was concerned. We'd broken the ice, the
rest of the ensemble knew that I could hold my own on any
level -- other than, perhaps, in sparkling repartee -- and, most
importantly, Alan Was happy with what I was offering up. A
massive relief, that one. If the boss isn't happy you can still
get the bullet a week into a job.
There would be a three-month pre-recording period, then
about five months filming and post-production work to do.
What made the job unusual was that, first, the entire piece
was sung, there was no spoken dialogue, and, second, it
would be pre-recorded and we would mime to it on set.
Asking audiences to sit through a couple of hours of sung
through Rice/Lloyd-Webber was asking a lot, I thought, no
matter who was directing, who was in the cast or who was
playing the lead. A lot fell upon Madonna's shoulders, but
she bore it like a trouper.
We embarked upon the recording sessions at the Sony/
CBS studios in Whitfield Street in London's West End, the
same studios I'd been working in when I'd gone for the
audition. Straight away there were fireworks. Madonna had
her own guy in from LA on the mixing desk, which I
understood. It's difficult to record vocals properly and regularly.
If you're the producer or the engineer, no two microphones,
recording booths, or mixing desks are the same. It's
a highly skilled job yet it's far from an exact science. If you're
the vocalist, your head has to be in the right place, you need
to feel comfortable, confident and at ease with yourself, your
surroundings, the playback level and mix coming through
your headphones, the microphone, the room temperature,
the tape operator, the tea boy, the world. You need to be
relaxed and happy; you need to feel everyone in the building
is on your side. Then you begin wailing and yowling, purring
and hollering in the hope that some part of what you're
putting down will have a little bit of magic dust sprinkled
on it.
That's not to say there's no help available: it's a sad fact
that nowadays, with the aid of modern recording technology,
you could sing a lyric in a monotone drone and in no time
at all you'll be hitting any note the engineer programmes in.
You can change the key of an entire vocal should you
want to. State-of-the-art studio techno-toys make just about
anything possible. Every producer and engineer in the game
uses these tools at some point, sometimes to repair a single
syllable, sometimes to make a decent fist of an entire song.
Anyone who says otherwise is telling fibs. If you're stuck in
a studio with a singer who can't hit the notes, or sings flat or
sharp -- quite a common occurrence -- these tools can be a
godsend. No need for them on this job, though.
The first vocal sessions were a laugh -- or, at least, I can
look back and laugh about them now. At the time it was
stressful: I was required to do some two-handers with

madam, or Mads as I used to call her sometimes. Not Madge,
though. Never Madge. That particular moniker is more
recent and she hates it. A week or so into the recording
sessions, she and I had a bit of a disagreement about something
or other, probably the incense candles she had smouldering
away in the booth. In the middle of a take I noticed
her giving me a single finger, which threw me. We exchanged
some heated words and she told me to do something I
wouldn't even repeat in print. Then, for no apparent reason,
she decided she'd be better off lying on the studio floor.
Nothing to do with me. By the time Alan Parker arrived, she
was on her back and I was looking like the bad guy. Alan
suggested that he and I retire to the pub for a drink. I agreed,
at which point Mads said, from her berth on the deck, 'I
thought I read you didn't drink.'
'That's right,' I replied, 'but I'm nearer to having a beer
right now than I've been in the last ten years.' So off we went
to the pub.
Booze was never an option - it would have been a disaster
if I'd started back on the drink that day -- so I gulped down
non-alcoholic lager. 'You're going to have to help me, Jim,'
Alan said. 'Madonna's got a lot on her plate with this and it's
having an effect. One day she may be up, the next down. I
need you to be nice to her, be supportive. Can you do that
for me?'
I went from feeling furious and aggrieved to feeling an
utter twat in about three seconds flat. I had nothing but the
utmost respect and admiration for Alan, and he was asking
me for help. I felt I'd let him down. I promised it wouldn't
happen again. To the best of my knowledge, it never did.
We went back into the studio and while the engineers
reset I took time out to have a natter with her nibs. I
explained to her that it was my job to support her, just as
foundations support a building. Alan was the builder, his
script our blueprint, and she was its penthouse. If we all
did our jobs well and the penthouse looked good, we'd
successfully sell the building. She probably thought I was
bonkers. I also told her I was there on merit and wouldn't
be going away, so if she ended up liking me that would be
lovely, but it wasn't essential. She could have insisted I be
replaced, but to her credit she didn't, and I'd like to think we
finished that movie as pals.
The recording sessions carried on up to Christmas 1995. As
far as they were concerned, it was akin to a holiday for me.
No, better than that, it was being paid to do something I
would happily have done for free. It was only singing. The
other stuff could sometimes be a little taxing, mind. On one
occasion we had to do an orchestral session at CTS Studios
in Wembley. The main room was massive, big enough to
accommodate all the fiddlers, blowers and bangers.
As is my habit, I got there early. Never mind late, I can't
even bear to be on time. It was an early one, nine thirty a.m.,
and the control-room staff were already buzzing with nervous
anticipation as they awaited her ladyship's arrival. By this
stage of the project I'd watched her routine played out many
times and was never sure in my own mind whether I was impressed by it or considered it ridiculous. A bit of both, I
suspect.
The security men's hip-radios would crackle into life with
'M due with you in twenty minutes.' Then it would be
fifteen minutes. Then ten. Then five. From there it would
be counted down in single digits. By the time she arrived,
everyone's nerves were in shards. Steady men got the shakes,
sensible pros stammered. You could smell the fear. It was
no way to conduct a recording session. Not down to her
either, I'd guess.
That morning I took myself off to the far end of the live
room, opened up my Telegraph at the crossword page and
waited for the fireworks. It wasn't long before she arrived. I


watched through the big glass viewing panel as she said hello
to the production team. Then she was asking something and
an engineer was pointing towards me. Out she came, heels
clip-clopping on the parquet as she made her way down
the long room. I hid behind my broadsheet, waiting. The
clip-clopping stopped and a hand came down, crumpling the
pages. 'Good morning,' she said, in a way that left me in no
doubt that she was pissed off with me for not being among
the welcome committee.
'Morning.' I smiled.
'Shall we get on, then?' she asked imperiously.
'Ready when you are,' I answered.
I knew it would take a little while for her to get the recording
booth just the way she liked it with the incense, lighting and
vibe, so I wasn't really living dangerously, but it made for
some spiky sessions. It wasn't contrariness on my part. I just
couldn't bring myself to do that obsequious worship stuff.
I've never liked it and have always felt embarrassed for those
who chose or were forced to go along with it.
The times I spent in the vocal booth with Madonna were
terrific and, once we were singing the material, we had a
good laugh. She is an accomplished vocalist who knows how
to use her vocal cords and the sound of her breathing; she
knows the power of a word gently spoken, and as soon as
she sings you know straight away that it's Madonna. Who
else could it be?
One of the best things to come out of the time I spent on
the Evita shoot was unexpected. Madonna had to wear caps
on her front teeth to disguise that famous gap so a dental
technician came up to sort her out. While he was there I
took the opportunity to ask him about my own, rather more
noticeable gap, the result of losing a front tooth in my teens.
It had worked well for Oz, but I felt it wouldn't look right
for this production: Magaldi was the type of bloke who'd
spent a career smiling insincerely as he was ever-so-lightly
showered with applause. I consulted Alan, as I had about
anything and everything else. With or without? He felt with,
and that was that. I was measured up and a few weeks later
my gap had been filled. I'd tried a dental plate years earlier
but had soon binned it as I couldn't stand the feel of it inside
my mouth. This, though, was (still is) an incredible little
number, fixed by fusion on to the tooth at either side by
some kind of laser thing, and so good a match that it looks
more real than the real one next to it. They warned me to
take care when I bit into something hard like an apple or a
French stick, but so far so good. It was awkward for a long
while as I tended to lisp, but we'd already recorded the sound
before we shot picture on Evita so it wasn't imperative for
me to be speaking, or singing, crystal clearly. I might have
sprayed one or two folk inadvertently, though.
. When the recording sessions had been completed and the
Burbank powers-that-be declared themselves happy with the
results, I headed for Buenos Aires at the front end of a
British Airways jumbo. Until 11 September 2001 I had travelled
around the globe for the best part of twenty years, and
in my experience there was nothing to compare with the
service I received when flying first class with BA. Now
everything has changed, and not necessarily for the better,
as far as the passenger is concerned, but back then BA
bossed the skies in terms of unadulterated luxury. Which
was only right and proper, bearing in mind the astronomical
prices they were charging. But on this trip I wasn't paying,
Mickey was. The flight was an overnight one, with duvets
and hot chocolate. It's the only way to travel but it does spoil
you. I drifted off into dreamland, all snug and warm, far


above the clouds, and slept like a log. In no time at all we
were in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Rude officials, surly security men and worried-looking
travellers: everything seemed normal at the airport. But I was
wary about landing in a country full of angry Argentinians,
which had seen its share of military dictators over the previous
few decades. Many people were still unaccounted for,
their own people. You'd be a fool not to take things like that
seriously. It's not a joke, or an on-screen scenario in which
the good guys and the bad guys fire blanks at each other and
explode in ketchup. I'd be an outsider, a visitor, a stranger
in their manor. And we'd been at war with Argentina in 1982
over their illegal occupation of the Falkland Islands. Many
lives had been lost on both sides, and I had no doubt that
Argentinian feelings would still be raw. This was not a nation
to be messed with.
There was also something else, something I remembered
from my childhood. I'd seen their antics way back in 1966
when they had come to Britain to play in the World Cup -- which we won, by the way. They had proceeded to kick,
hack, punch and spit their way through some of the world's
finest footballing talent, teams and individuals, including our
own. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who's capable of doing
things like that in front of impressionable children and the
eyes of the world is to be treated with caution.
But how would they behave towards a sprawling, UK
staffed, US-financed film unit of some two hundred people?
And it was not any old film. It would tell the story of
Eva Peron, who appeared to be both loved and loathed in
her home country in equal measure. Memories of her were
still strong on the street and her presence was to be felt
almost everywhere. Unless you've been to Argentina it's
difficult to imagine how all-pervasive Eva Peron's spirit
and legend are. She haunts the nation and everyone has an
opinion.
As far as the government was concerned the script had
been read at the highest levels and we were allowed to
continue. In a situation like this, it's not unusual to hand in
a different, less contentious draft, one that's been doctored
to obtain the required permissions, but I don't think this had
happened: the potential scale of it all going wrong would
have been too heavy even for Hollywood to take the chance.
A buck may be a buck and the dollar may be king, but a life
is a life and not to be risked. Especially if you happen to be
talking about the life of a megastar like Madonna. Just think
of the insurance claim that would land on the corporate mat
if she were to get whacked. What I do know is that, as in a
great many Latin-American countries, corruption is endemic
throughout every level of society in Argentina and the
amount of palm-greasing that took place was enormous.
Coming from a country and a society such as ours where all
that stuff, though widespread, is much less blatant and (I
think) on a much lesser scale, it came as quite a shock, but
you just have to say, 'When in Rome . . .' and accept it.
Predictably, a right song and dance erupted about the
production's supposedly negative reception on its official
arrival in Buenos Aires. In fact, there was nothing more than
a few daubed slogans on a flyover as we approached the city,
and in all the time I was there I only ever encountered one
uncomfortable incident. I'd taken my mountain bike with
me, a US-made Scott, and I was in the habit of catching the
train up-country to the town of Tigre, about an hour away,
then cycling back to the city. It was fun for a while, especially
as the Tigre delta is an incredible natural haven for wildlife
and man. On little strips of land hemmed in by the numerous
tributaries stand the holiday homes of wealthy city-dwellers.
They are accessible only by boat, and to get there you
have to pass the Argentine National Naval College. In the
untended grounds at the front there was a pock-marked
gun-turret, which, until 1981, had belonged to an Argentinian
warship. A small plaque attached to it gave damning details:
the damage had been inflicted by British warships, the
shellholes made by British cannon. The sunshine forced an
uneven glint from the numerous lumpy coats of paint on the
heavy sheet metal, which reminded me of the great ships I'd
witnessed being built on Tyneside. Many had been warships,
destined for active service with the Royal Navy. Perhaps one
had been responsible for that gun-turret ending up there on
the scrub. I always felt sad and a little uncomfortable when
I passed it, and stopped to ponder: had young Argentinian
lads lost their lives in it? Probably. Had the British lads and
lasses who'd fired the rounds made it home safely? Maybe,
maybe not. Had heavy-calibre shells ricocheted around the
inner walls of that gun-turret, causing injury and death? More
than likely. I always fancied that someone in military uniform
would come running out, rumble me as a Brit, point me
out, then chase after me bent on vengeance, but it never
happened.
The nearest I got to any bother was on the train coming
back to Buenos Aires. For a change I'd cycled up to Tigre
and my legs weren't up to the return journey. With my bike
safely secured in the guard's van, I was sitting minding my
own business when a dozen or so guys appeared at the far end
of the carriage and made their way towards me. Unshaven,
dressed in combat fatigues and boots, they were engaging
the seated passengers in conversation. Then I noticed the
fliers they were handing out: one word stood out prominently,
malvinas. I guessed these guys were ex-conscripts
carrying a grudge. They weren't tooled up, as far as I could
see, but they might have been packing something under the cloth. People tended to do that over there.
As the rag-tag bunch shuffled and grumbled their way
nearer, handing out their fliers, attempting to engage the
recipients in conversation, I could see that some of them
looked a little crazed. I hoped we'd arrive at one of the many
stops along the route but we didn't. Where the hell had all
those little stations gone? No time for any more weighing-up,
though, they were almost upon me. I had to make a decision.
Should I get up and move back through the carriages towards
the guard? Or sit still, say nothing, and front it out? I was
getting a bit sweaty. As I was considering the options I
happened to notice that most of the passengers in the carriage
were either giving the fliers back to the guys or ignoring
them. One elderly woman scolded them, gave them a wag
of her finger and a piece of her mind. They seemed bemused
by that and stared at her.
At the last moment I decided to take the say-nowt course.
A guy thrust a flier into my hand. Trying to look as hard
boiled as I could, I shook my head, turned and gazed out of
the window. The guy asked me something. I looked at him
a second time, this time more intensely. He was young and
in need of a good meal. Haunted eyes. I so wanted to say all
kinds of things to him but it was neither the time nor the
place; I knew if I opened my mouth there would be trouble.
So, again, I shook my head and turned away. He gave up on
me and moved on.
My hotel was not far from La Recoleta, a district consisting
entirely of a sprawling cemetery filled with mausoleums so
large it looked from a distance like one of the city's affluent
residential areas. With their doors, windows and grey stone
facades these multi-floored monuments to the departed were



like mini-mansions. When I entered through one of the many
iron gates, though, the place's true nature became evident:
coffins sat behind broken glass panels. Strolling around this
extraordinary place is a popular pastime for locals and tourists
alike, and the Duarte family mausoleum is one of the most
visited sites of all. The embalmed remains of Eva Peron, nee
Duarte, are supposedly bolted securely down underneath a
thick concrete slab: the kidnapping of the dead for political
gain is not uncommon in many South American countries. I
say 'supposedly' because the story of what happened to Eva
Peron's body after her death is so outlandish. I suspect only
God knows who or what, if anything, lies beneath that
concrete duvet. It's a tale of bodysnatching, necrophilia, and
corpses resembling Eva's (there were six, apparently) being
buried in different parts of the world, including a plot in Italy
provided by the Vatican, of her remains being dug up and
driven at dead of night along the Riviera to Spain, there to
be reunited with her exiled husband and sisters, then being
brought back to Buenos Aires and finally laid to rest under
that bolted-down concrete. And we sometimes think we're
an uncivilized bunch!
A favourite pastime of mine, wherever I happen to be, is
to seek out the cafes and bars where ordinary working people
take their breaks. I found just such a place half-way up the
Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires' main square, and just down
from the obelisk monument. It was a low-ceilinged, strip-lit,
Formica-clad cantina filled with chatty customers and served
up meat, chicken, pasta and rice dishes from big stainless
steel containers. My favourites were the empanadas, mini
pasties filled with meat, chicken or veggie things like cheese
and spinach. Over the years I've gone right off eating the red
meat on offer in Britain mainly because it doesn't taste of
anything, but in Argentina it's so great that I soon reverted
to my former carnivorous ways. In no time at all I was
tucking into steaks galore.
Argentinian cattle roam the vast areas of grassland known
as the pampas. The Atlantic to the east and the Andes to the
west form its natural borders, and cattle and sheep munch
away, untroubled by the farming methods that have brought
the UK meat industry to the brink of ruin. Argentinian
farmers believe that the relatively stress-free existence their
livestock enjoy is the reason their meat tastes so good.
The first scenes we shot were those that told how a
teenaged Eva Duarte made her way by steam locomotive
from the backwoods to the big city, accompanied by love-rat
Magaldi. Everyone was a little uptight but once we were
shooting, people's nerves settled down. Alan was great: he
knew exactly what he was after, which put everyone at their
ease. He told us in clear, unequivocal terms what he wanted.
Madonna and I were shot clambering on to carriages, waving,
winking and worrying. Then came the wonderful wide shots
of the train travelling across the pampas, its chimney-stack
belching black smoke into the blue sky. Between us and the
camera, gauchos were at the gallop, their horses raising a
great cloud of dust. A huge swathe of orchestral score would
go under these images. It was an astonishing sight to behold
and I was thrilled to be in the middle of it, albeit in a fairly
minor part. My mega-star companion felt differently: 'I'm
bored. Who do I have to fuck to get off this picture?' She
was only joking, of course, but I was so incensed at what I
perceived as her ingratitude that I called her an ungrateful
little . . . well, something. At this point the makeup and hair
staff ran off to the end of the carriage and left us to it. We
sat there in silence for a while, then just got on with it.
Shooting those big scenes on the pampas meant we had
to bunk down in the wilds once or twice, away from the
super-luxurious pampering of the Hyatt Regency in Buenos
Aires. On one memorable occasion I stayed with Alan Parker
and a few others on a working hacienda in the middle of
nowhere, miles from the nearest town. After a wonderful
dinner and, at Alan's insistence, a ropy rendition of'Crocodile
Shoes', strummed on an out-of-tune guitar taken down from
its mount on a wall, we all went outside to look at the night
sky. It was breath taking. It looked like a great black canvas
covering the earth, with just the light from long-dead stars
to illuminate the heavens. We all just stood there lost for
words, staring up at the majestic beginnings of infinity.
The Hyatt Regency was a wonderful place with outstanding
facilities. Their tenth-floor business centre, where Jonathan
Pryce and I made the most of the complimentary food
and drinks, offered stunning views across the city and was
never busy. Prycey often landed there early on and got
stuck into whatever there was before he went on to dinner
somewhere else. Goodness knows where he put it all! I spent
a lot of time in the fitness rooms and gym, which were
tip-top. I weighed around 18 5 pounds and made sure I stayed
at that. There's nothing worse than feeling your costumes
getting tighter. My routine was always the same: some
stretches on a mat, then a brisk walk of maybe three or four
miles on the treadmill, some free weights and bench-work,
then a run on the treadmill of a few miles, some more
stretches, then a steam or a sauna to finish. It usually ate up
four or five hours so I'd look to start at around nine a.m.
and be done for lunch, which would be a chicken sandwich
and a pint of fresh orange juice by the pool. This was
happening every other day so I was in pretty good shape.
Madonna had her own work-out gear set up in her suite and
worked out there with her personal trainer. Common sense,
really: had she used the gym it would have turned into a zoo.
There were always dozens of fans outside her rooms, both
day and night, begging for a glimpse of their idol. She'd often
nip out on to the balcony and wave to them. Although she
sometimes bemoaned the lack of privacy her megastardom
brought, she was never condescending towards her fans and
I never once heard her speak disparagingly of them.
She sometimes invited me over for dinner or a drink,
which was always interesting, if somewhat nerve-racking -- the walk across the first-floor lobby past the gaze of the
armed security men, then up in the lift to her quarters. Sushi
was favourite, but I used to laugh when I opened the fridge:
it was always chock-a-block with chocolate. There'd always
be bits of dogshit on the floor from the little mutt she had
with her, a tiny thing, it was, with great big eyes. I'm not the
world's biggest dog fan so that was a real turn-off before a
nibble. She kept a record of her thoughts and events, which
was later published to coincide with the movie's release, and
would sit at her laptop typing away. Woe betide anyone who
got near enough to glimpse what she was writing. I once
made the mistake of looking over her shoulder and was
immediately told to fuck off. 'Fuck off' and 'fuck you' were
regular refrains but I didn't mind - it made me laugh. I
wouldn't like to have been on the wrong end of a roasting
from her, mind. Just witnessing her dish out a bollocking
was enough to chill the bones. Whatever else was going on,
though, and it was a constant circus with all the petty political
manoeuvrings inherent in a big shoot, you always knew
exactly where you stood with Madonna. We shared a lot of
laughs during those long months and I don't have a bad
word to say about her.
A sequence between the young Eva Duarte and Agustin
Magaldi, as they made their way across 1930s Buenos Aires
by bus, followed our jaunt across the pampas. Come the day
of shooting the city's officials had allowed the production to
cordon off a dozen city-centre blocks -- the equivalent of
closing the western section of Oxford Street, from Oxford
Circus to Marble Arch and half-way down Park Lane through
to Regent Street. Goodness knows what it cost in backhanders
but the effect was incredible: all the buildings had
been dressed with huge pro-Peron banners and the people
were wearing period clothing. I felt as though I'd stepped
back in time. Moments like that give me the same kind of
thrill as when I see articulated trucks carting rock 'n' roll
equipment across the UK. The scale and clout of the music
industry always makes me smile: it's as though we've won
the battle against the conformists, the nine-till-fivers, the
straights.
Off to Costume, Makeup and Hair, then into your air
conditioned trailer to wait for your call. All of my spare
moments were gobbled up in trying to finish the six scripts
for the second Crocodile Shoes series, which was due to start
filming in mid-May, just a few days after I was scheduled to
finish on Evita. I had also to complete the songs and incidental
music that were to underscore and accompany the episodes.
I tried not to dwell on the schedule as the reality was
scary. I had all these production dates in front of me and no
finished scripts. Somehow I got through all the work but I
was neither happy with nor proud of the end-result.
When we started filming that day, things went a little crazy.
The period bus we were travelling on was pursued by about
two dozen paparazzi riding pillion on motorbikes piloted
by local kamikazes. I was sitting next to Madonna and they
were attempting to get right beside the window to take their
photographs. In the midst of all this mayhem we were
supposed to be turning in a performance for the film cameras
mounted on the bus. It's one thing someone taking a photo
of you outside a restaurant or club, you learn to live with
that, but these twats were making difficult work even more
so. They were like flies around shit. I wanted to reach out of
the window and smack them, knock them off their bikes, but
I'd been warned not to do anything like that. I could only
shake my head at the madness of it all.
Of all the little treats our hotel used to provide us with,
my favourite was the tango dancing, not my own clodhopping
efforts but those of the immaculately turned-out couples
who, on alternate evenings, glided effortlessly through the
foyer. No big deal, no fanfare, just the sublime beauty of the
dance. Not long before I had spent a couple of months in a
room at the Vanderbilt Racquet Club, in Shepherds Bush,
trying to learn the basics of this complex dance to cope with
a two-step in the grip of her nibs. As I kicked the shit out of
my instructor's shins, I appreciated all the moves the pros
made to look so easy. The tango is a dance that developed
out of moves and steps performed between prostitutes and
their pimps, and finally evolved into the complex routines
of today; consequently it's very tactile and sexy. My attempts
to master the basics were a waste of effort as the dance
sequence we shot, a fantasy where the dying Evita imagines
herself waltzing with each of the men from her past, was cut
from the final film. Alan reckoned it wasn't needed, and he
was the boss, but I was gutted. Still, Geordies should know
better than to try to dance the tango.
I had been receiving faxes from home, pictures the kids
had drawn for me, which made me homesick. At last, it was
time for Miriam to come out and visit. I met her at the
airport and this time I didn't propose. She was going to be
in the country for ten days, and as I had a bit of time off, it
was perfect. We did the city from end to end, the tango
clubs, the museums, the works. One day, on the spur of the
moment, we decided to pay a flying visit to her aunt Cathrin
in Patagonia.
Two hundred years ago, the Argentinian governors in
Patagonia, descendants of the Spanish conquistadors, were
desperate to make sure that all the land was settled by white
Europeans, rather than the indigenous people, so they offered
to anyone willing to make the long journey great swathes
of land as an inducement to do so. Michael D. Jones, a
nonconformist Welsh minister and the victim of religious
persecution, set sail with his congregation in 1865, bound
for South America. They reasoned, correctly as it turned out,
that they'd have more chance of preserving their native
tongue than if they'd headed to English-speaking North
America, like most other emigres of the day. After a sea voyage
lasting some two months, they landed, set up camp and stuck
it out. Nowadays, the indigenous community in Patagonia, a
squat, dark-haired, brown-eyed people, are fluent Welsh
speakers. Cathrin spent six months of each year in Trelaw
teaching Welsh there. Her digs were basic. She didn't have a
telephone so we couldn't let her know we were coming or
even check that she'd be in when we got there, but off we
went. I was dressed from head to foot in black leather,
jacket, trousers, boots, completely inappropriate even for
the weather in Buenos Aires, never mind the semi-desert
conditions that awaited us in Trelaw. The flight, due south,
took four hours. As we got off the plane the heat was almost
overwhelming, up in the nineties. We managed to get into
the centre of town and it was apparent the place was dirt-poor
- no displays in the shop windows, nothing in the shops at
all, in fact, just dusty shelves.
After an hour or so we found Cathrin's rented house, a
tiny, whitewashed, single-storey place situated just off a main
street. I knocked on the door and waited. No answer. I
knocked again, this time a little harder. Still no answer. We
were just about to give up and walk away when the door
opened and there was Cathrin. She just stood there staring
at us, as though we were back from the dead. It wasn't shock,
more disbelief. She simply couldn't accept what she was
seeing. I ended the silence by asking if we could come in.
Cathrin made us a cup of tea and we brought her up to speed
on things. It was an odd day, meeting the Welsh-speaking
locals, visiting the Welsh Hall, where the original deeds to
the tracts of land given to those first settlers were displayed
on a wall, and taking afternoon tea in town. I'd love to have
travelled on down to Tierra del Fuego, a magical place-name
that has intrigued me since childhood, but we didn't have
time.
Not long after Miriam went home, our time in Argentina
was up. Two months had flown by. Then it was off to
Budapest for the next leg of the adventure, but not before a
spot of rest and recreation. It was mid-March and my birthday
was just a few days away, so Miriam and the boys flew
to St Bart's, where we all met up. We had a lovely time in a
rented villa, complete with infinity pool. Tom and I walked
the whole island, and it's a beautiful place. The wildlife on
our doorstep was incredible: it was a live nature class for
us all, with brightly coloured parrots, hummingbirds and
tortoises tootling about. Also, rather scarify, there were one
or two tarantulas. You really don't want a nip off one of
those buggers. One day we spotted a big one by the pool
and made a right old noise. The maid appeared, clocked the
reason for our panic and was just about to wallop it with a
broom when we stopped her. We didn't wish it dead. But
she reasoned that if it was left to scuttle away it might make
its way into the house and, possibly, one of the bedrooms.
The prospect of that overrode our compassion, I'm afraid,
and we gave her the go-ahead to flatten the poor thing.
At that point most of the cast and crew made for Hungary,
but I returned to London to mix some songs and music for
the Crocodile Shoes II album and series. One track was a
beautiful ballad, 'Blue Roses', written by Paddy McAloon.
Paddy is one of our finest songsmiths and through the
mass-exposure of television I hoped to bring his work to the
attention of a wider audience. His compositions, among them
the sublime 'Cowboy Dreams', had helped the first-series
soundtrack rack up sales of well over a million copies. That's
an enormous number for domestic UK sales, seldom reached
by anyone. We hoped to do half as well the second time
round.
On arrival at the location in Budapest's old quarter, I
headed to the set to say hello and see how it was all going. I
made my way to the Makeup trailer to find Madonna already
in the chair. She demanded to know what I'd been doing in
London, so I told her. She inquired if I had a copy of the
finished mix with me, and when I said I had, she told me to
whack it on the beatbox. Everyone else was asked to leave
so that she could give it her undivided attention. I hit the
play button and on came 'Blue Roses'. It moved her to tears.
Of all the reactions I might have expected from her, that
wasn't one and it touched me. Now whenever I bump into
her, she sings the opening lines by way of hello.
There was another reason Madonna might have felt even
more emotional than normal around that time. I'd not been
in my hotel room five minutes when the phone rang. It was
her nibs, asking if I'd join her in her suite. I cleaned my teeth,
then headed up to the top floor, past the security men,
and knocked on the door. A moment later it opened and
Madonna was there, wrapped in a big white towelling robe.
She ushered me in and closed the door. 'How are you?' I
asked.
'I'm pregnant,' she replied.
I confess that my first thought was, How will we get
through the filming without it showing? but I offered congratulations
and asked how she felt. She said she was frightened:
she'd have to have an amniocentesis test, no pleasant
thing, because of her age -- she was thirty-six. I felt so sorry
for her: she was one of the most famous and powerful
women on the planet, but now she was alone and scared,
just like millions of ordinary women all over the world when
they learn such tumultuous news. I asked her if she'd told
anyone else. 'Just Alan,' she said. How had he reacted to the
news? 'Great,' she said. He'd been really cool about it. I
doubted that was his immediate reaction, but admired him
for keeping it from her. It could have left him in a right
pickle. But nature doesn't recognize schedules.
The unit was in Budapest for a month, with me flying
back and forth, working on both projects. Once it had
wrapped, it was back to rainy old England. Six weeks at
Shepperton Studios were scheduled to finish off Evita but
things didn't go to plan. Madonna's unexpected pregnancy
had a disruptive effect on the schedule: scenes had to be
rejigged and moved around. The result was that we overran:
it meant I would finish filming on Evita on a Thursday, then
begin work on Crocodile Shoes II the next day, Friday. Other
than passing messages and instructions to them through
Kellie, my PA, I'd not had a chance to sit down with any of
the heads of department to discuss ideas, aims and needs for
the shoot. It had been impossible to organize a single meeting
because I had been unavailable.
I was less than thrilled at the prospect of starting without
any preparation or proper rest, but contracts had been signed,
advertising slots booked, and as my company, Big Boy Productions,
had been commissioned to make the series, we'd
be liable for millions of pounds' worth of cancellation costs
should we fail to meet the agreed dates. I'd been lucky
enough to secure the services of producer Peter Richardson
and I was mightily pleased about that. Peter, a warm, friendly
northerner, possessed as safe a pair of hands as was available
out there, and he was interested only in making the best of
the job. He had no hidden agendas or ulterior motives and,
other than his all-embracing passion for Manchester United,
we agreed on most things, had a laugh and got on well. I'm
just glad we weren't working together in 1999 when Man U
won the Champions' League final. I'd never have heard the
end of it.
As tumultuous as the year had already been, it had another
surprise in store - a dreadful one. One Monday evening in
May I was at home in St John's Wood with Miriam watching Coronation Street. We're both big fans and everything at home
tends to stop at seven twenty-nine so that we can get ready
for the latest instalment. Immediately an episode was over
Shane Spall, Tim's wife, would call Miriam, or vice versa, to
discuss all the latest developments. All of our friends knew
not to disturb us while the show was on, so when the
telephone rang we were less than pleased. Who'd be calling
at this time? To my eternal regret, I answered the phone
rather brusquely, only to hear a hysterical Shane at the other
end, sobbing and spluttering, 'Timmy's got leukaemia.'
A few weeks earlier Tim had been to see Dr John Gaynor
about a medical for a movie. For insurance purposes, actors
have to be passed fit enough not to take a bad turn or die
during the period they're contracted to work on a shoot.
This is standard practice across the entertainment industry.
There is no choice in the matter; we all accept it. While Tim
was in with Dr Gaynor he mentioned he'd been feeling run down. He was also nursing some bruising on his arm. Dr
Gaynor had taken some blood samples and off Tim went to
await the results. This was on Thursday. The following
Monday he was shooting a commercial when Dr Gaynor
telephoned with the shocking news. He told Tim to drop
everything and go immediately to University College Hospital
in central London where they'd be expecting him. Tim had
always been prone to hypochondria. A headache would be
certain indication of a brain tumour. We'd always pulled his
leg about it, told him not to be so bloody daft. Now it was
horribly real. Goodness knows what went through his mind.
It was made even worse, if that was possible, by the timing:
he was due to go to the Cannes Film Festival the next day
for the screening of his latest Mike Leigh movie Secrets and
hies. (It went on to win the Palme d'Or.)
I was straight out of the house and on the way into the
West End. I could hardly bring myself to believe what I'd
just heard: Tim was my closest buddy. I shot a few red lights
on the journey to the hospital and I tried to think of what I
might be able to do when I got there. When I arrived at
UCH and signed in, Tim was on a bed in a private room on
the sixth floor. He looked remarkably normal. I wanted to
give him a hug but was nervous in case it hurt him, so I left
it. I asked him how he felt. He said great, that he wanted to
go for a pint round the corner but the doctors wouldn't
allow it. They planned to start administering a course of
chemotherapy in the morning. I asked if there was anything
I could do and he shook his head. That frightened me. I
went home and cried.
Instead of basking in sunshine and well-deserved praise at
Cannes, Tim was laid up on a hospital bed having a chemical
cocktail pumped into him via a Hickman line, a clear plastic
tube that wouldn't have looked out of place under a car
bonnet. It was inserted first into his chest, then, when that
became infected, into his groin. The nurses who attended to
it had to wear thick rubber gloves for protection, such was
the drugs' toxicity. Tim was massively pissed off at having
missed such a golden window, but it soon became clear just
what a close call it had been. According to Dr Gaynor, the
pressure inside the cabin on the flight to France would
probably have brought on fatal internal bleeding. Tim has
always had a wonderful sense of gallows humour. Just as
well: he had plenty of opportunity to use it in the weeks and
months that followed.
No two ways about it, they were dark days. According to
Dr Panos, Tim's specialist, his chances of making it through
weren't great. It was all to do with the bone marrow and its
ability to produce healthy platelets, or white blood cells.
Tim's platelet count should have been near to 140. At that
early point it was six. If the chemotherapy didn't do the trick
there would be radiotherapy. A bone-marrow transplant was
a last resort but they got on with checking Tim's family for
a possible tissue match. His brother Richard was found to
be a suitable donor. In a time of unknowns, it was something.
When Tim fell ill I was still working on Evita and just
about to kick off Crocodile Shoes II, so those last few weeks on
the movie were difficult. I'd lie in bed going over all the
different permutations. Maybe there'd be another specialist
somewhere - an even more specialist specialist who maybe
knew something or could do something special. I trawled
the Internet and read medical magazines, but soon realized
Tim was already in the best hands. Miriam made sure Shane
knew we were there for her but I felt useless. I couldn't chin
this thing, much as I wanted to. It was in the hands of the
doctors and the lap of the gods.
In no time at all I'd started filming in Newcastle. I travelled
down to see Tim as often as I could. All of his pals did the
same, and Shane was his rock throughout. Talk about defining
moments. I took time off when I should have been on
set and the TV show might have suffered as a result, but I'm
glad I did things the way I did. Fuck it! It was only a television
programme. Tim was fighting for his life. I'd fly from Newcastle
to Heathrow or get the train to King's Cross. From
there I'd go straight to UCH, with all those artificial strip
lights that seemed to blur day and night into a constant
greyish twilight. Into the toilets, scrub hands and face, put
on the regulation mask, gloves and slippers, just in case I
took any dangerous germs in with me. Tim's immune system
was so low that any microbe might have been fatal to him.
We all took the greatest care. This was not television drama,
it was all too horribly real. My best pal's life was on the line
and there was nothing substantial I could do to help him. I
could only hang around and yak, keep him company, try to
make him laugh, offer support. Poor Tim, I probably bored
him to tears. I prayed, too, like I had when I learned of
Miriam's illness. I'd prayed then for her to get better but this
was different. This was asking that Tim be allowed to live. It
was selfish in a way. If Tim left us, all our lives would be
diminished. In fact, I did a fair old bit of praying, as we tend
to do when all else seems to be failing. It was dumb, really.
Why should my prayers be heeded ahead of all the others
from around the world? Daft, desperate, clueless, useless. I
was trying to cover all the bases.
Something I could do was organize a little film filled with
get-well messages from Tim's friends and family, many of
whom he hadn't seen for years. I thought it might make him
realize how many people loved him and needed him to get
better. My buddy Matt Forrest shot it, travelling far and wide.
Everyone we asked wanted to be in it. No one said no.
People rearranged their schedules and went out of their way
to help. We gave the finished film to Shane. It ran about
thirty minutes and was very moving. She played it for Tim
when just the two of them were together in his hospital
room. Later Tim told me it had been a real fillip, just what he needed at that point.
We all did what we could in whichever way we thought
best. Where I went for the big gesture, Miriam lent quiet but
rock-solid support to Shane. No mawkishness, just clear
common sense. Resolute, unquestioning compassion, tenderness
and love. Great friends already, they're now even
closer.
Sometimes I'd get to the hospital only to find Tim wasn't
up to having visitors and I'd go home, but it was always
worth the traipse. I learned more about the important things
then than I had at any other time in my life. And I learned
most of all about Tim. For some reason I'd always thought
of him as a bit soft, a bit weak, I guess because he's not a
very physical guy, not interested in exercise. I couldn't have
been more wrong. He was much braver than I would have
been in the circumstances. I know that for a fact. We had
some laughs but they were always clouded by the bigger,
darker picture. Tim had to face some long nights alone.
Anyone in his position would have been forgiven for freaking
out, screaming and crying, but Tim was a real man. For
everyone else's sake, for Shane, and the kids, and all the rest
of us, he kept on smiling, kept on shining, kept on being the
person we all loved and needed. And he made it. He got
through all the pain, grief, fear and months of treatment, and
came out the other end intact. He didn't need the transplant.
Nowadays he's a different person, not better or worse, just
different. Who wouldn't be? He has a much more laid-back
take on things that once seemed important -- work, for
instance - and that's a good thing.
Strangely enough, I think we're less close now than we
were before he was ill, but that's right in a funny way. If
you've been through something that intense with someone,
you don't want or need to be seeing them and chewing it
over all the time. I tend to remind Tim of how lucky I feel
we are that he made it, I can't help it, but I'm sure he gets

sick of hearing it. Quite rightly, Tim wants to look forward
now. His career's gone from strength to strength. I look at
what he's doing, working in Hollywood with the likes of
Tom Cruise and Jim Carrey, and I'm just proud to be able
to say, 'He's my friend.'
I'm different for the experience, too. You couldn't not be
changed by it. I'd like to think I'm a better person because I
watched Tim deal with his illness in such a dignified and
courageous manner. I'm also sixteen years into my life of
sobriety. I miss the mad times he and I had when we were
both a bit more barmy, but we're older and wiser now. Great
to have done all that stuff but a relief to have left it behind.
Most importantly he's alive, and I thank God for sparing
him.
The Crocodile Shoes II shoot ground towards its conclusion,
with me not fully focused on the job in hand. There was too
much other stuff going on, and dropping back to domestic
television after the excitement of Hollywood was an anticlimax.
And I was producer, writer and lead actor. I was
completely exhausted, and things came to a head on the
penultimate day. I was required to be on board a trawler
moored in the harbour at Alnmouth, one of the many pretty
villages to be found on the Northumbrian coast. The scene
called for my character, Jed Shepperd, to take a tumble over
the side and disappear into the sea. We should have used a
stunt double but we didn't - another bad call I made through
tiredness.
Action! I went over the side and under the water. So far
so good. Then the current dragged me under the trawler. I
was upside down and confused. I managed to right myself
and looked up to what I took to be the surface of the water.
In fact it was the trawler's hull. I kicked out hard and smashed
my head into it. When I made it to the surface, the director
asked if I'd mind going down again as I'd not been fully in
the frame when I came up. They were still filming. I'd
forgotten what we were doing and why we were there. Dazed,
I went under a second time. This time, though, I started to
lose consciousness. I signalled to the divers -- in the water
with me in case of just such a mishap -- that I was in trouble
and was quickly pulled out of the water and into the boat. I was very cold and feeling sick.
I have no recollection of the next few hours but I was
taken quickly to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary, scene
of many a previous patch-up, where I underwent a scan.
Throughout the rest of the day and all through that night I
was woken regularly by nurses asking me how many of their
fingers I could see.
The next morning a specialist arrived at the foot of my
bed and informed me he couldn't be sure but he thought I'd
suffered a depressed fracture to the skull. He'd like to do
another set of scans. I asked when I could leave and he told
me I could go home later on that day but should do nothing
except sit in a dark room for at least a week. I told him that
was impossible. There were people waiting for me across the
city, a film crew and actors, and all kinds of problems would
ensue if I wasn't there. He laughed and said that I couldn't
do anything.
His advice was sound but he wasn't the one looking at a
cancellation bill in six figures. Insurance cover? Yes, I could
have claimed an extra day, but it would have meant reassembling
the cast and crew, most of whom were booked to start
their next jobs in a couple of days' time. Time was so tight
we would have been looking at missed transmission dates.
Advertising slots for the series and the album had been
booked months in advance -- there was going to be a massive
push and we couldn't have changed it. If I didn't get it
finished we'd have to cancel the whole thing. And I was due
to fly out to LA, where Miriam was waiting for me with the
kids.
An hour later I checked myself out and left. What with
the bump on my head, I didn't think to call Miriam, but she
didn't really need to know about it at that point. Why worry
her? That last day was long and very difficult. Despite the
super-strength painkillers I swallowed by the handful, my
head pounded and throbbed. I was plonked in a canvas
director's chair near to the camera and, once everything was
ready, lifted into position. I said my lines as best I could,
then collapsed back into my chair.
Somehow I got through that final day of shooting and we
wrapped with everything in the can, but it was a messy,
unsatisfactory end to a difficult and, for me, unhappy shoot.
What with Tim being ill and my recent prolonged absences
on Evita, I'd not wanted to be away from home again. I was
angry with the production -- and now my head was broken.
But at the root of my unhappiness was my conviction that
I'd not given the project enough care, attention and time.
Unforgivable. On top of that, I wasn't thinking straight. It
was, I felt, the end of my love affair with television.
There was a little bit of light in all this darkness in that the
finished soundtrack album for the new series sounded great.
I'd co-produced it with Steve Robson, who'd worked with
Tony McAnaney on the first Crocodile Shoes album, and he'd
done a terrific job. Jon Kelly mixed it for us and Anne Dudley
did the arrangements -- thank goodness, we'd secured her
services just before she won an Oscar. After that her fee
would probably have quadrupled. Paddy McAloon supplied
some gorgeous songs: 'Blue Roses' and '(I'm A) Troubled
Man' were both pearls. You couldn't not be moved by them,
no matter whose rendition you listened to. We also cut a
version of Brian Wilson's 'Still I Dream', which I was pleased
with, but for me the highlight was a little song called 'I Will
Fear No Evil'. By now my mam had returned to the Church
of England and, because of its biblical theme, she loved that
song, which made it all the more important to me. She'd
played it to her cousin Irene and all her friends at the church
hall, and was dead proud.
When I told Miriam about my head, she didn't want me
to fly out to LA. She wanted to come home, but I wouldn't
hear of it. Once something like that's been arranged, paid for
and people have travelled, I'm not going to be the let-down.
I'd got holiday into my head and holiday it was going to be.
After I'd checked with B A that it would be safe for me to fly,
I boarded Concorde to New York. I was given a pillow and
the cabin pressure gave me no problems. The next leg of the
journey, from New York to Los Angeles with American Airlines,
was a nightmare. Almost from the off my head felt as
though it was going to explode. The flight, some six hours,
seemed to last for days. I consoled myself with the thought
of lying peacefully on a recliner in the rental-house garden.
Miriam was waiting at the airport to whisk me off to our
posh holiday digs. I was expecting posh because it had cost
an arm and a leg but Rustic Canyon was just that: rustic. The
house itself was lovely but there was no garden furniture,
not a stick. Call me spoilt, but was I expecting too much? I
think not. Off we went to the nearest Home Depot and
bought some recliners. I settled down in the garden and lay
there for two weeks with Miriam looking after me and the
kids entertaining each other. Some holiday! The break we'd
all been so looking forward to was cattle-trucked. If nothing
else, though, the bang on the head had forced me to stop
chasing about like a madman and do nowt. Afterwards I was
better rested than I'd been for a long while.
All too quickly it was time to go home and face the rigours
and long hours of post-production on Crocodile Shoes. I was
due to travel a day later than Miriam and the boys so, as I was feeling a little better, I decided to drive to the airport
with them then go back to the house. I could dump the car
at the airport the next day. On the way to LAX we passed
the Santa Monica pier with its massive ferris wheel. The boys
asked if we could stop. We had time to spare so we parked
the car, always so easy in the States, and wandered around
the amusement arcades and rides. At the entrance to the
ferris wheel the kids said they wanted a ride. Miriam was
about to take them on it when I decided to join them. She
asked me if I was sure I wanted to, what with my head, but
as I felt better I thought it would be fine. We paid our dollars
and were bolted into the bench seat, the happy holiday

family.
The moment the wheel moved I knew I was in big trouble.
My balance went and I felt very sick, but we couldn't stop
the ride. Round and round it went, with me feeling like I was
going to die, but staying quiet so as not to freak out the kids.
I'd hoped it would be like the rides in England -- over in
moments -- but this was America where the customer
expected, and almost always got, value for money. On and
on and on it went. I wanted to vomit but was afraid to in
case I showered someone underneath, so I held it back. I've
not bothered with fairground rides since.

Nineteen ninety-six ended with a trip back to Los Angeles
for the US premiere of Evita on Saturday, 14 December.
The movie was given a limited release in a few theatres
just before the year's end so that it was eligible for Oscar
nominations the following month. I'd been to a few premieres
over the years but, in terms of scale and expense, this
was like nothing I'd seen or experienced before. Miriam
broke the bank on a lovely dress and then we were off to
Los Angeles, first class on BA, then to the Four Seasons
Hotel to await a call from some over-energetic soul in Press
and Publicity at Disney Corp. Because of the amount of
money at stake, these things are usually organized and
executed with military precision, but we threw a spanner into
the works. It wasn't our fault: the limo driver was late and
didn't know where to go, so we ended up jumping out of
the motor a few blocks from the Shrine Auditorium and
legging it in blind panic.
Once there, we were confronted not only by huge crowds
of people but also ultra-heavy-duty security. I tried to explain
to the beefcake that I was in the movie and really needed to
be on their side of the cordon, but they weren't having any
of it. So, our worst nightmare: all this time spent on the
project to get to the launch, in front of banks of the world's
press corps and more photographers than you could shake
a stick at, and where was I? On the wrong side of the cordon!
And now . . . here they come! I could see Antonio in the
distance with Melanie Griffiths, his wife. I was watching
from the crowd, hemmed in, couldn't move even to get my
invitation out of my pocket. Then, at last, a break. David
Wimbury, the movie's line producer, was strolling down the red carpet, being photographed by the snappers in case he
was someone mega-famous they didn't know. I shouted his
name: 'David!' About as undignified as it gets, but I had no
choice. The people around me gave me the best of dirty
looks, no doubt figuring I was just another chancer trying to
gatecrash the do. I couldn't have cared less what they thought.
David ignored me. I tried again. 'David! It's me, Jimmy!'
At last he turned and clocked me. What was I doing in
the crowd? he wanted to know. The movie was due to begin
in ten minutes. At his behest a beefcake lowered the cordon
and Miriam and I clambered over it on to the red carpet -- just in the nick of time. Right then Madonna glided round
the corner. The light from the flashbulbs was blinding. It
was an odd place to say hello to her. Just a wave, and then
in. Let her get on with being the movie star. And no one
could have done a better job of it. Talk about born to it.
Inside the theatre I could relax a little. We were ushered
up grand stairs to our allocated seats in the dress circle by
one of a legion of half-starved, beaming, Chanel-suited
Disney girls and settled in. No popcorn. After a brief introductory
natter by Alan it was down with the house lights and
at last the movie played. I have to say I found it exciting.
Whatever your opinion of Lloyd-Webber's music, the effect
of hearing the fully orchestrated soundtrack coming through
big banks of top-end speakers was overwhelming. Alan's
pictures were a treat on the eye. He'd pulled it off and
made the whole thing work, no mean achievement for a sung-thro ugh project.
Yet for me there was something unreal about it all, something
daft, which left me feeling detached and unconcerned
as to the outcome. Maybe it's different when you're playing
the lead, or doing this kind of thing all the time, I don't
know. The movie was well received, but what could you
make of that? The theatre was full of invited guests, folks
flown in from all corners of the world at great expense: they
couldn't really sit there and boo, could they?
The after-film party was a hoot. Tim Allen, star of US
television show Home Improvement, turned up seemingly so
off his face he literally couldn't speak. Madonna introduced
us. I thought about telling him that, not long before, I'd been
tip for a part in his upcoming movie but it would have been
pointless. I didn't get the gig anyway.
Evita's London premiere, on the following Thursday,
19 December, was, if anything, even more spectacular - a
party like I've never seen or been to either before or since.
The movie was screened at the Odeon, Leicester Square, with
all the hullabaloo that a Brit-written, Brit-helmed blockbuster
merited, and then some. It's a strange feeling to walk through
a throng of snappers and punters, shouting your name and
barking requests. I've never felt I've done enough to earn
that kind of reception and, of course, on this job I hadn't.
Everyone was there to catch a glimpse of, and maybe eye
contact with, Madonna and Antonio. I like to walk the last
few paces to the red carpet instead of sitting in a limousine
as you tend to be stuck there like a goldfish in a bowl for
ages while folk peer through the tinted windows and put
their greasy fingers all over the glass.
The entire cast were to be trotted out and introduced to
the audience, a bit of an ordeal. I stood in an aisle, dressed
in expensive Comme des Garcons, talking to the actor
Laurence Fishburne, a mean-looking, grumble-voiced dude,
then it was lights dimmed, applause and out on to the floor.
It felt a bit like an identity parade, and I think that's at
the root of my discomfort in such situations: they're too
reminiscent of bad times past. There was an awful lot happening
that evening with many a well-known face saying hello
and well done, but the one thing I remember more clearly
than anything was Madonna telling me I had the most
wonderful eyes on the screen, a lovely thing to hear.
After that it was off to Wi 2, where a whole commercial
building had been rented in Shepherds Bush and dressed to
look like a Buenos Aires brothel, with entertainment on all
floors. Robert Stigwood, owner of the Evita movie rights,
had worked hard for many years to bring it to the screen.
Big-name players like Oliver Stone had been attached to the
project at various times, only for it to fizzle out. Just when
things were shaping up, looking good, something went wrong
and the thing would falter once more. Stiggy had waited a
long time for his moment and had pushed the boat out.
The party was a hoot, with hundreds of people eating,
drinking, dancing and generally making a hell of a racket.
Miriam and I were seated in a cordoned-off VIP area along
with large helpings of posh nosh and bubbly. I never feel
comfortable in those situations either, knowing people are
looking at us enviously. Richard E. Grant was trying to get
over the cordon and I was glad he made it in the end. At
one point the Duchess of York ended up on my lap and she
was a bigger girl then than she is today. She was being given
an awful time by the press and I could empathize with her
on that.
I always like to share these events with old pals and I'd
invited Geoff Knox, the broadest of Geordies, to come to
the do. He must have spent a good half-hour chatting to the
Duchess. He was made up -- couldn't get over the fact that
she'd given him a bit of her time. At times it's a struggle for
me to understand Geoff so I'd love to have been a fly on the
wall, privy to their conversation. Goodness knows what they
talked about.

I managed to make a dream come true for my mam. During
the last twenty years of her life she wasn't able to travel very
much as, due to lower-back problems, she found it too
painful to sit for more than five or ten minutes. Planes and
trains were out of the question, so we didn't see much of her
in London. I noticed in the papers that her hero, Luciano
Pavarotti, was scheduled to play at the Royal Albert Hall, so
I called her up. As much as she'd love to see him, she told
me, there was no way she could get to London.
I had a thought. What if I booked my tour coach, the one
I used when I travelled around the UK doing concerts? In
terms of sheer comfort and luxury these coaches are beyond
most people's imaginings: lounge areas with luxurious settees
and reclining chairs, fridge-freezers, halogen cooking hobs,
beds. Most importantly, my mam would be able to get up
and walk about. I put it to her and she agreed to give it a go.
Up went Dougie, the coach firm's boss, and collected my
mam, my sister and my great-aunt. We kept in touch via
mobile phone and a few hours later they were in suites at the
Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane. My mam couldn't get over
the bell on the wall that summoned a man carrying a tray
with tea and biscuits. And the curtains! She was very taken
by all the fol-de-rols round the edges. I'd booked a box near
to the stage at the Royal Albert Hall so on the night she was
close to Pavarotti. I spent the evening watching her watching
him. She was so gloriously happy she forgot her pain for a
couple of hours.
Around this time I was able to do something else for my
mam. I met Pavarotti's flautist, an Italian guy called Andrea,
at Sting's place in Wiltshire and happened to mention to
him, over a plate of spaghetti, my mam's utter adoration of
his guv'nor. He asked me if she would like a signed photo
of the big man. I told him that such a gesture would make
her year. A few weeks later it arrived, with a personal message,
written in Italian, to Laura from Luciano. We had it framed
and put up on her bedroom wall, and whenever I visited her
in Newcastle, she'd look at that signed photo of big Pav, her
other hero, smiling down on her, and beam with happiness.



Around this time, in 1997, I had an exciting call. A few
months previously I'd travelled down to the wilds of Wiltshire
and recorded a beautiful old Northumbrian ballad,
'The Waters of Tyne', in a duet with Sting, accompanied by
Catherine Tickell, the renowned Northumbrian piper, and
pianist Dave Hartley, to go on a compilation album Sting
was putting together to raise awareness and money for his
Rainforest Foundation. The media tend to rip the piss out
of him over this, writing of 'pet projects' and 'Indians with
saucers in their lips', but isn't what he does worthwhile and
necessary? If he didn't put himself out and do it, who else
would? It's the planet we're talking about here. He doesn't
need to do it but he does, and he puts up with all that shit
because he cares about the future for all our children. Good
on him.
It was an easy session as our voices worked well together.
Maybe it's something they, put in the water up the road.
There is a pitching similarity between Sting, AC/DC's Brian
Johnson and myself, in as much as we're all comfortable
singing in a high register. I reckon it's down to all the
shrieking Geordies tend to do in conversation. That and the
diphthongs. The theme of the album was to be favourite
childhood songs, and all sorts of people, including Luciano
Pavarotti, James Taylor, Annie Lennox, Shawn Colvin and
Bobby McFerrin, had come up with tracks. The end result,
entitled Carnival'., was a very listenable collection.
Now Sting wanted to know whether I'd be up for singing
'The Waters of Tyne' with Catherine and him at a benefit
concert that his wife, Trudie, was organizing at New York's
Carnegie Hall. Would I! Yes, please.
Carnegie Hall. Wow! It has a lot of history. Everyone
who's anyone has played there. I'd played the Royal Albert
Hall a couple of times, kind of its London equivalent, but
I'd never performed on a stage in New York. There'd be
nowhere to hide. This would be just the three of us in front
of a room filled with movers and shakers. The ticket price, a
thousand dollars, would see to that. So, no pressure there,
then. Child-minders safely in place and cupboards stocked
with treats for the boys, Miriam and I flew to New York.
Our pals Matt Forrest and Sarah Wadey came, too.
We arrived two days prior to the gig and checked into the
Plaza Hotel, right on Central Park. It desperately needed
refurbishment but had a cosy, traditional feel and was well
placed for all the shops, which would be handy for Miriam.
The rehearsal, in a large recording complex somewhere in
mid-town, was something else. In different parts of the room,
Elton John, James Taylor, Annie Lennox, Sting, Bobby
McFerrin, Lyle Lovett, Bonnie Raitt, Shawn Colvin, Garry
Shandling and others did their best to run their songs with
the house band; on guitar and MD duties, Nile Rodgers; on
bass Nathan East, who also happens to be an accomplished
magician; and on drums, Narada Michael Walden. Add to
that a red-hot brass section and backing vocalists and you
have a bit of a band. On top of all this there were film crews
from CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and the BBC among others,
trying to get an exclusive with someone. It was absolute
pandemonium, but I didn't care -- I would have paid to stand
in that room and just watch what was going down.
Then a door opened and everything went quiet. Stevie
Wonder had arrived. All the clowning died away. We knew

we were in the presence of someone special, even by those
stellar standards. Contrary to what a lot of people assume,
'Little' Stevie is in fact a big guy, at least six foot two,
and heavily built. We'd met a couple of years earlier, introduced
by Laurie Jay after an amazing gig he'd performed
at Wembley Arena. It was interesting to watch the reactions
of the other superstars present: they all seemed readily to
accept and acknowledge that he was on another level. I
witnessed a similar thing in an hotel in Kensington straight
after a Bob Dylan gig in London, when a group of heavyweight
musicians, including George Harrison and Van
Morrison, seemed in awe of the great man. On Dylan's
arrival, everything had gone quiet. I guess it just shows
that everyone's a fan of someone, everyone has their own
personal hero and is liable to be struck dumb in their
presence.
Stevie was led across the room by a couple of young,
punky black kids, who looked out of place in that room. He
sat down at a Fender Rhodes keyboard and started to play.
Music flowed out of him, as though the keyboard were an
extension of his body. He was just messing around, singing
and laughing, but you could have heard a pin drop in the
room. Suddenly he needed a chromatic harmonica. A stretch
limo was despatched and in no time the instrument was in his
hands and at his lips. He went into 'Overjoyed', a beautiful,
complex ballad. I was with Sting and we looked at one
another - 'There isn't anything to say, is there?' It was a
privilege to be in the same room.
At the gig the next day, time was tight and so were people's
nerves. A rehearsal schedule was drawn up to within the
minute. Sting's wife Trudie was in charge. She does that stuff
very well. It can't be easy, harnessing all that talent then
having to stroke all those egos. I was sharing a dressing room
with Sting. I have to say the bastard has a great body. All that yoga, no doubt. Worth it, though. I don't know what
pushes Sting. He'll drag his arse out of bed and drive a
hundred or so miles to do a guest slot on breakfast telly or a
Saturday morning kids' show. He certainly doesn't need to.
In answer to that question, put to him recently by a journalist,
he said something like, 'If I didn't go out there and do it,
what would I be? Just a rich bloke who sits in his garden at
home counting his money and reading the papers.' I remember
reading that and thinking, That's my life's ambition!
Back on the stage and, time-wise, things had taken a turn
for the worse. Stevie was at the keyboard and he was singing
a melody for someone's kid. It was lovely listening to him
sing a little lullaby for the bairn, but there was no time for it.
But what do you do? Answer: nowt. He was the only person
on the bill Trudie wouldn't tell to hurry up. On the night he
was going to do 'Overjoyed' and an encore with 'Living For
The City', one of my all-time favourite songs. Once again,
the rehearsals were moving. I was standing to one side of
Stevie's keyboard, next to Elton John, while Stevie performed
his ballad. At the end I was in tears. I'm not one for gushing,
not in public, but this just did me in, and Elton, too. When
it was over, we stood silently for a moment, then I shook
my head and said, 'I'm going for a lie-down,' to which Elton
replied, 'I'm off for a wank.' Kind of broke the spell.
Before I could leave, though, one more thing had to be
sorted out. Sting informed me that a volunteer was needed
to accompany Stevie on the harmonies in 'Living For The
City'. 'It's only you and me can get up there to those notes,
and I've already got plenty to do. Would you mind?' I ran
the song with the band. There's a descending vocal passage
at the end of each chorus, the bit where Stevie sings, 'Na na
na naa, naya na naa, na na na na naa na naa, naa naa naa naa,

na na na na naaa!', which is tricky to pull off but truly magical
once you're on top of it, and after a little while I had it.
Come the evening, I was in the dressing room getting
ready when Sting said to me, 'Thanks for doing this.' I told
him it was not only my pleasure but also an honour. 'No,'
he said, 'it means a lot that you're here. We're both from
Newcastle. You understand?' I did. I do.
The gig was sensational, and also very funny in an unexpected
way. All the performers were on stage throughout, seated
in a big semi-circle. When it was your turn, you just stood
up and walked forward to the microphones. I was sitting
next to Elton for a good bit of the evening and the stuff he
kept coming out with, in loud stage whispers, was hilariously
outrageous, but impossible to repeat here. I was praying that
no one in the front rows, within sight of us, could lip-read
what he was saying.
To say it was an honour to stand out there and perform
is an understatement. We were giving the cream of New
York society a Northumbrian anthem, and they loved it. It
went down a storm, and Miriam was out there in the audience.
I've never felt so proud to be a Geordie, before or
since.
At the show's finale, I stood next to Stevie Wonder and,
lungs filled to bursting, belted out one of his greatest songs.
That was the best it's ever been. It seemed like a dream -- so
I'm glad Miriam was there with Matt and Sarah to confirm
it was real.
Afterwards there was all the inevitable but justifiable
gladhanding and back-slapping. Lots of famous folk gushing
congratulations. Lyle Lovett, a real gentleman, introduced
Miriam and me to his ex-wife Julia Roberts, who is
surprisingly tall. They seemed to be on good terms.

Then there was a wonderful party with an auction in an

hotel, which raised even more money for the Rainforest
Foundation. We shared a stretch limo with Peter Asher and
James Taylor. There was a funny moment when the Italian
singer Zucchero, who'd bid a ridiculous amount for a Mercedes
convertible, was handed a pen and a slip of paper by a
young black girl. With a shrug and a smile, he asked her to
whom he should address the autograph. The girl put him
straight: it was the receipt for the Merc. That was followed
by a lavish do at Sting and Trudie's Central Park duplex,
where we met, among others, Gianni Versace and Paul
Simon. Miriam recognized neither of them, of course. She's
hopeless like that -- it's rather endearing. I have to say I
struggled with Paul Simon, who was dressed in a kind of
formally cut denim jacket with matching peaked cap. He
looked as though his mam had dressed him. Maybe she had.
Soon afterwards, Versace was tragically shot dead in Miami.

By 1998 we'd moved - again -- from leafy Alma Square to a
house nearer the kids' school in Hampstead. Moving has
never bothered me -- I tend to balance leaving a place full of
family memories with the profit we've made on a place -- but
Miriam dislikes all the upheaval and disruption intensely.
Rented properties included, this would be our eleventh
home. The four flights of stairs in the Alma Square house
had become too much for Miriam with her arthritis. We'd
bought it in 1994 for a relatively knock-down price and made
a handsome profit on it, selling it for more than twice what
we'd laid out. We bought a place over two floors only, as
estate agents tend to say, with parking for six cars and backing
on to the Heath extension. The kids could walk to school in
six minutes -- that had to be better for them than sitting for
forty-five minutes in the car every morning and afternoon.
I was offered a part in what turned out to be a lovely little
feature film. Still Crazy, scripted by my old pals Dick Clement
and Ian La Frenais, told the tale of a dysfunctional gang of
dodgepot musicians collectively known as Strange Fruit,
whose warring members temporarily bury the hatchet and
re-form for one last shot at the big-time, only for the old
problems and animosities to resurface and remind them
why they'd packed it in the first time around. I played Les
Wickes, the band's surly bass-player, and the rest of the cast
was a dream-team: my mate Tim Spall played the drummer,
Hans Mathesen was the good-looking young guitarist,
Stephen Rea was perfectly cast as a prickly, sourpuss keyboard
player, Billy Connolly was the roadie, Juliet Aubrey
our manager, and, in a star turn that blew everyone else clean
out of the water, Bill Nighy played the neurotic, messed-up
lead singer. If you like your movies with lots of laughs,
see this film for Bill's barnstorming performance. It has
everything: pathos, bathos, ups and downs, perfect timing
and execution, poignancy, sensitivity, subdety, sarcasm,
warmth, wit and a good dollop of physical magic. Bill also
did all his own vocals, something he'd never done previously.
Performances just don't come any better than that and Bill
rightly won a clutch of awards. As I write this, he's recently
won a Bafta and lots of other awards for his star turn in Love
Actually, again as a dodgy old rocker. (Why wasn't there any
punctuation in that movie's title? Surely there should've
either been a comma or a colon? When I asked Richard
Curtis, the movie's writer and director, he told me not to
ask!) The music producers were Clive Langer and Alan
Winstanley, two easy-going guys known and respected
for their magnificent work with the likes of Madness,
Elvis Costello and Bush. I had a great time recording with
them at their base, Westside Studios in London's Holland
Park, which I'd used many times before and in which I
felt comfortable. A tip-top team. The late Brian Gibson
directed us all and came up with a movie of real warmth and
wry observation. On its UK release it did nowt and after a
couple of weeks in cinemas it disappeared. It did, however,
make an impression on the foreign film critics based in
America and, much to my surprise, a song I'd performed in
it, 'The Flame Still Burns', was nominated the following
January for a Golden Globe award. Off I went to Hollywood
once more.
When you're lodged in the Four Seasons Hotel and everything
is on the film company's tab, it's a treat. When you
open the door to that sumptuous suite . . . oh, what a life!
Believe it or not I still do the obligatory jump on the bed.
How sad is that? Back to the excitement of being a kid, I
guess. In a way it's a pity I don't drink any more: I could
have slaughtered their impressive wine list. As it was, I spent
a wonderful week in the company of all the British nominees
who were billeted alongside me. I seemed to see Robert
Carlyle and Emily Watson every time I went down to the hotel lobby.
Early one morning I received a call from David Foster,
an LA-based Canadian music producer I'd worked with a
few years earlier on some songs. David is not only great
company, he's also a major player in that town, so when he
asked if I could do brunch with him and a friend later on
that morning, I said, sure, no problem. Where should we
meet? They'd come over to me, he said. Great. Who was the
friend? I asked. Anyone I might know? Quincy Jones, said
David. I certainly knew the name.
In terms of his CV and the length of time he's been at the
pinnacle, Quincy Jones is probably the biggest living name
in American music. From his scores for movies such as In
the Heat of the Night, to his work with such recording artists

as Sinatra and Michael Jackson -- for whom he produced Thriller among other things -- Quincy Jones, or Q, as he kept
telling me to call him, has been at the top for over five
decades. If you're someone like me, you accord him the
utmost respect. In the flesh he was the epitome of cool, real
cool, with his husky voice, sparkling eyes and memories to
beat them all. When you're where he is there's no need to
talk about your success. It's global, all-encompassing.
What was all this about, though? Such people don't call
you out of the blue to share a joke and an egg-white omelette
- or at least they don't call me. A few hours later I went
down to the restaurant and there waiting for me was Foz,
along with the legendary Mr Jones and another guy. On the
table lay a plain white test-pressing CD marked 'Quincy
Jones: Compilation'. The name against track one was Frank
Sinatra. I didn't bother reading any further. After introductions
the third guy left us to our brunch. I was desperate to
know why I had been invited to sit at this power-table but I
knew better than to ask. Just sit tight, keep your gob shut,
listen to all that's being said, and sooner or later it'll become
obvious.
After a wonderful half-hour mostly made up of Michael
Jackson and Will Smith anecdotes, the conversation turned
to movie musicals. David and Quincy both professed a desire
to crack this difficult but enormously lucrative area of the
market. Quincy explained their quest thus: they wanted to
come up with a movie musical format that was classy enough
to deliver great music, yet hip enough to appeal to the
young. They felt it both unrealistic and unacceptable to have
performers just burst into song, and were searching for the
holy grail: a method of transition from speech to song and
vice versa. Bearing in mind his track-record, Quincy's drive
was impressive and infectious. After all he'd seen and done
he still had a kid's enthusiasm. As I'd done quite a number
of music-to-film projects they wanted my take on it. So there
it was, the reason for my invitation. I so wanted to tell them
I had some cool magic formula that would knock their socks
off, but I couldn't 'cos I didn't. Still don't, although after a
great deal of thought I have come to the following conclusion,
for what it's worth: as long as your film has wonderful
music, compositions like those of Paddy McAloon, for
instance, it'll work. It'll move people. Whether it goes ballistic
and earns you squillions of dollars is another matter.
On the night before the Golden Globes, a Saturday, the
city and the Four Seasons were buzzing with excitement. As
a guest of Ian La Frenais, I'd had a stupendous al-fresco
dinner under the Beverly Hills stars along with a bunch of
people that included Gregory Peck, a dignified, well
mannered man. I remember thinking, I can't wait to tell Mam
-- she'll be knocked out. I was back at the hotel and in my
room around midnight, getting ready to turn in, when the
phone rang. It was Miriam.
Unknown to me, my mam had fallen ill and been taken to
hospital the previous Tuesday. My sister hadn't told me
previously because everyone had assumed that Mam would
be home again after a couple of days on medication. That
was what usually happened, but not this time. She'd had
a stroke, then passed away in the early hours of Sunday
morning. I know my sister decided not to tell me with the
best of intentions, and Mam would have felt terrible if I had
missed the big night for a false alarm, but how I.wish I'd
known.
Instead of making my way by limousine to the Golden
Globes, I headed for the airport and the sad journey home.
As it was a Sunday, LAX was quiet, and the British Airways
first-class lounge was empty, save for one couple: Alan Parker
and his partner Lisa Moran were travelling to London that
evening. I was glad to see such familiar friendly faces. Alan
asked me why I wasn't at the Globes and I explained. After
offering their condolences, Alan asked my mam's age. I told
him she would have been eighty-four in a couple of weeks'
time, on 14 February, Valentine's Day. Alan shook his head.
'That's my birthday, too,' he said. For some reason that
coincidence made me feel a little better; as if there was a
connection with my mam on that aeroplane other than me.
Having said that, it was, inevitably, a long and difficult journey
that finally ended in Newcastle upon Tyne.
I visited the hospital's chapel of rest and sat with my mam
for a long time, remembering everything she'd done for me
throughout my rollercoaster life, all the good, kind things,
her help, encouragement and love. I tried to make my peace
with her and myself but that wasn't possible and I found
myself apologizing again and again for not having been there
when she'd most needed me. How could I not have been
there? I was sure I could have done something for her. When
it came to my mam's health I had always overreacted, fearing
the worst and throwing money at the problem. This time it
wouldn't have been an overreaction: it would have been
justified. After all she'd done for me, how could I have
let her down so badly? I sat there, disgusted by my own
shortcomings. My mam, the great encourager, would no
longer be there to encourage me.
Jet-lag had begun to kick in. The room and everything in
it seemed to be black and white or shades thereof. It seemed
as though the clock had stopped for us both. I said goodbye
to my beloved mam for the last time. Before I left her I
asked the staff if I could take with me a lock of her hair.
I walked out into the grey Newcastle daylight, an orphan.
For a long time I'd pictured life and death as a cliff, with my
parents ahead of me, all of us shuffling nearer and nearer to
the edge. There was always a feeling of comfort and security
as long as they were ahead of me, but now they were gone
and I was next in line, with my boys behind me.
The funeral was as difficult and sad as funerals are, but
there were a couple of sunny moments. It was a High Church
Anglican service and the priest, Father Peter, spoke with real
warmth about a person he'd come to know well; about how
she'd arrived at a carol service one Christmas to find the
church full. She'd loved singing hymns and was so disappointed
that he'd sneaked her in through a side door and
given her a seat in the front row. From his vantage-point in
the pulpit he'd watched as my mam beamed and sang her
way through the carols. He said that he couldn't remember
her ever having a bad word for anyone. Above all, he would
remember her smile, he told us. We appreciated his words,
and I thank him for his kindness towards my mam throughout
the time they knew one another.
At the final parting, one of Luciano Pavarotti's recordings
of'Nessun Dorma' was played. It's a stirring piece at the best
of times, but in those circumstances I found it impossible to
remain composed. My mam had loved big Pav, as she called
him - she even forgave him for running off with his young
secretary, although she didn't approve. I've never felt happy
about what little I was able to give back to my parents, and
especially my mother, but I thought of when I'd made her
dream come true with that box at the Royal Albert Hall.
She'd been truly happy that day, so this was a fitting way to
say goodbye. Now, that piece takes me straight back to the
pain of that day and I can't bear to hear it.
After the funeral, we were preparing to leave the hotel
when I bumped into Alan Shearer in the car park. I'd met
him a few times at functions and had presented him with an
award a couple of years earlier. He asked if I'd be at the
match the following day for the home game against Aston
Villa. I explained the situation and said Miriam and I wanted
to get our sons home after such an emotionally charged and
difficult day. Then Alan very kindly asked if the boys would
like to come along to the game as his personal guests. I was
about to say, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' when I caught sight
of their faces. They were so excited and up for it that I
couldn't refuse. We postponed our departure and the next
day we all went along to the game and Newcastle won, thank
goodness. Afterwards we had a drink and a natter with Alan
and the other players in the players' lounge.
My mam was in the care of the Royal Victoria Infirmary
from Tuesday afternoon until the early hours of Sunday
morning, when she'd died. If the shock of losing her like
that was bad, it was as nothing compared to what slowly
unfolded over the next fifteen or so months.
After a lengthy and protracted investigation, carried out by
the local health authority, into the circumstances surrounding
my mother's death, dreadful instances of neglect and improper
practice were acknowledged. I discovered all this by
accident when I asked to meet the doctors and nurses who'd
looked after her during her final hours. During that meeting
it soon became obvious that all had been far from right. In
fact, it added up to a terrifying catalogue of ineptitude.
Because of the way in which food was served then to the
patients, the only thing the hospital could say with any
certainty that my mother had eaten in the five days from
Tuesday to Sunday was half a tub of yoghurt. My sister,
visiting on the Thursday, had found her to be near-starving
and had gone straight out to M&S and bought some chicken
sandwiches. She had returned to the ward and fed Mam the
chicken from between the slices of bread.
Worse, it came to light that even though she'd been
prescribed morphine on Tuesday to alleviate her excruciating
bowel pain, she hadn't received any. It was later discovered
that three different batches had been despatched during that
week from the pharmacy but not one had reached her ward
-- or, if it had, no one knew, or was saying, where it had gone.
Where could it have gone? I asked. The hospital could not
say. Apparently at that time no one had to sign for anything
or account for it.
It became obvious at this point that we were dealing with
criminal acts, so on the advice of my lawyers I went to the
local police to ask for their help and advice. In the end I had
to decide whether I wanted to bring charges against the local
health authority. Part of me was hell-bent on vengeance. I
wanted justice -- I wanted all those responsible to be brought
to book for what they'd allowed to happen to my mam. But
what then? Wouldn't that just frighten other elderly patients,
and undermine their confidence in the local health service
that had served my mam well in the decades before this
tragic catastrophe? And, of course, a case involving someone
like me would be all over both the local and national press,
with the accompanying slurry such coverage brings. There
would be no winners.
After much soul-searching I decided against it. I felt that
my mam wouldn't have wanted me to go after people. She
was too good-hearted to do something like that so I decided
that, as much as it grieved me, I would do as she would have
done. The local health authority gave me written assurances
that protocols would be implemented so that nothing like
this would befall another patient. Did I make the right call?
I don't know. What I do know is that to this day I'm
tormented by the memory of those dreadful events, and no
matter what I say or think or do, and no matter what kind

words people offer me, they trouble my conscious thoughts
and haunt my dreams. I feel a terrible sense of failure.
We didn't win the Globe either.

During the summer of 1999 I set about recording what I feel
to have been my best effort, the album Tadpoles In A Jar. Although everything I did around that time was overshadowed
by my mam's death, it's a fine collection of songs,
if I say so myself. Jeff Lynne played on and produced the
single, 'Blue Beyond The Grey'. Q magazine gave it four
stars, and they don't dish 'em out to the likes of me unless
they're merited. I was thrilled with the results but, as is often
the case in the music business, politics took a hand in things.
Rob Dickens, the Warner Brothers Records chairman who
had personally championed the album, left the company, and
suddenly all interest in it cooled. We'd spent over 300,000 pounds
recording it, yet it was released without any push or fanfare,
and soon died. After everything else had gone either platinum
or, in the case of Crocodile Shoes, triple platinum, it was
frustrating and disappointing. I don't think I'll ever do better.
Towards the turn of the millennium I was on my way to buy
some new mugs from Ceramica. I couldn't park anywhere
near where I wanted to go -- what's new? -- and ended up
having to leave the car on the more dodgy east side of
Portobello Road, outside a bathroom showroom. The fittings
in the window looked really posh so I stuck my head in and
had a look round. Indeed it was posh, with a one-off Philippe
Starck free-standing circular shower a giveaway at only 3,500 pounds despite the best efforts of an attractive redhead, I
decided to pass and head off in search of my mugs. Miriam
would have been proud of my resolve.
A successful, albeit expensive hour later, I had them. As I
passed the bathroom-shop window on the way back to my
car I couldn't help noticing a bum, wrapped in expensively
faded denim, stuck in the air as its owner bent double over
some expensive bogware. The body straightened up and I
saw it was Franc Roddam. We hugged and exchanged hellos;
it had been years since we'd seen each other and although I
didn't know him well, I liked Franc, not least because he had
come up with the original idea on AufWiedersehen, Pet. Franc's
mate Mick, a bricklaying buddy from his growing-up years
in Middlesbrough, had happened one day to tell him how
and why he and thousands of other building workers had
had to go to Germany at the end of the seventies to find
work and wages, and about the adventures they'd had in
the process. Franc had recognized the situation's dramatic/
comedic potential, and had written a screenplay based on


Mick's stories, but it wasn't made until Dick and Ian had
read the script and suggested turning it into a television
series.
While they were writing the first AufWiedersehen, Pet series,
Dick and Ian had asked Franc if he could put them in touch
with Mick for research purposes. He gave them a phone
number with strict instructions about the time they should
call. Dick and Ian would dial at the appointed hour from
leafy Benedict Canyon, and moments later a phone would
ring in a phone box on a Middlesbrough council housing
estate. Mick would be waiting to pick it up.
After we'd shot the breeze outside for a while, dodging
the dog-poo on the pavement, Franc told me that ownership
of the format rights to Auf Wiedersehen, Pet had reverted
to him. Alan Yentob, Franc's near neighbour, was doing
something with it for the BBC, and would I be interested?
Until Sunday, 8 February that year I would have had no
hesitation in saying no. The idea of revisiting any previously
worked on project has never much appealed to me, for
all the obvious reasons, and this one would be uniquely
hazardous, loaded with potential down-sides: the nation's
former favourite, very hard to walk away with your reputation
intact, retain any credibility etc. It was best left as a wonderful
memory. But on 8 February we'd organized a bash at the
Newcastle City Hall in memory of Ronnie Johnson, known
professionally as Sammy Johnson, to raise money for a
charitable trust fund we'd set up in his name. For all three
seasons, along with a Christmas special set in Marseille,
Ronnie had played Stick, the villain you couldn't help but
like, in Spender. When he wasn't working in Britain he'd lived
in Spain, and was out running one evening when he suffered
a massive heart-attack and died. We were all stunned at the
suddenness of his passing, and no one more so than Tim
Healy: he and Ronnie had been the closest of friends.
All things must pass, I know, but it was hard. Ronnie had
seemed so alive, invincible. I guess that's another lesson
learned right there.
Among the things we hoped to include on the all-singing,
all-dancing Sunday Night For Sammy was a short scripted scene
involving the three Geordie characters from Auf Wiedersehen,
Pet: Tim Healy's Dennis, Kevin Whately's Neville, and my
Oz. On hearing about the gig, Ian La Frenais had promised
three or four pages in plenty of time. I was aware that he
and Dick were very busy so I wasn't holding my breath.
There was a Plan B, in case the pages never came through,
but don't ask me what it was.
Dick and Ian faxed me the pages a week before the gig -- only there weren't three, there were seventeen. They were
very funny, and I called the guys to thank them. They told
me it had been immensely enjoyable to write dialogue for
those long-lost, oft-remembered friends. But how were we
ever going to get it together? Three scenes rather than the
requested, and only half expected, one? Seventeen pages.
Props, lights, extras. Kevin, Tim and I all working on other
jobs. And one week until the show.
Kevin and Tim came over to our place on the Thursday
before the show and we ran the lines. As we scratched away
at the surface layers, looking for the gems hidden in the
subtext, I was mindful of what Kevin had said to me all
those years ago, when I was trying to decide whether or not
to do the second Auf Wiedersehen, Pet series. 'Scripts like these
don't come along very often, once in a lifetime, if you're
lucky.' The years had proved him right. And they were still
great, but it was peculiar for all three of us to read those
scenes and try to crawl inside those once-familiar skins and
inhabit those personas one more time. In truth it was not

very enjoyable: I was distinctly uncomfortable. It felt as
though I was playing a dead man, to whom I'd long since
said goodbye, didn't particularly wish to meet again, and who
had muddled my recognition of my own identity. Tim and
Kevin, the professionals, shamed me, having already memorized
their lines while I had to read mine. I used lack of time
as an excuse. Feeble: I hate being the last one off the page. I
don't mind not being first at anything - in fact, I don't care
at all - but I do mind about being last. It takes me back to
my schooldays and I won't let it happen -- at least, not
without a battle. After a couple of hours we had convinced
ourselves it would be all right on the night, which of course
it always is. Funny, that.
Sunday Night For Sammy was a resounding success on every
level: all the tickets sold out long before the gig, and by
general consensus a great time was had by all, performers
and audience alike. I felt a real sense of Geordie pride in the
whole thing: the way people pulled together, and got on with
it - for Ronnie. I had a lot to do, singing a couple of songs
on top of doing the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet scenes with Tim and
Kevin, which necessitated two elaborate, speedy costume
changes -- and this for someone who'd never done theatre
before. No time, or room, for personal assistants. I was
running around like a blue-arsed fly trying to get costume,
kit and props ready, apply inch-deep Panstik I'd scrounged
from Tim's wife, actress Denise Welch, to conceal my goatee,
then run through my lines in my head. And then, oh, my
goodness, we were on.
Tim and Kevin took the stage first, in darkness, to silence.
The PA played the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet signature tune, the
lights went up and . . . Dear me! They were given such a
thundering, awesome reception that I was quite miffed I
wasn't out there with them. I'd soon get my moment, though.
They went into the dialogue -- or, rather, attempted to -- and
every line was greeted with raucous whooping and cheering.
Now it was time for me to deliver my first line, via a
microphone, from the wings. I took a breath and then I was
him again, Oz. It was spooky. I was unsure how I sounded:
like me or like him? Then all doubts vanished as the place
went potty -- and I hadn't even walked on to the stage. At
this point I was caught: on the one hand I wanted just to
stand there, let the cheering go on and on, and on the other
I was desperate to get out into all that adulation, bathe in it,
gulp it down, get drunk on it. I waited as long as I dared and
then I made my entrance.
Popular character, popular television show, home crowd,
you choose; the reaction as I walked out on to the stage was
nothing short of frightening, the sheer raw emotion in the
room totally overwhelming. Two thousand plus people, most
of them adults, were going bananas. The balconies were
visibly moving as people jumped up and down. The sound and
lighting rigs were wobbling. The whole building seemed to be
shaking. I just stood there for a while, gazing out dumbly into
the cacophony, enjoying the moment. Newcastle United winning
the FA Cup couldn't feel any better than this, could it?
The cheering and screaming went on for what seemed like
an eternity, but in reality was probably no more than a few
minutes. Kevin, Tim and I could only look at each other,
speechless. Then we smiled, big daft smiles. After a while I put
up my hand to try to stop the racket so I could deliver my
next line. Otherwise we would have been there all night. It
worked. I said my next line, and -- boom! Pandemonium again.
Strange indeed. I was up there in front of all those people
playing a character I'd brought to life almost twenty years
earlier and it was more than a little unnerving. I'd glibly
assumed that I would slip straight back into him as a foot
does into a well-worn shoe. I didn't. And I was nowhere
near word perfect, which really pissed me off. Always has.
Only when you're completely familiar with the text can you
begin to look for ways to explore and expand within a scene's
given parameters. Never mind. We got through it, and I
had the big punch-line, which, almost literally, brought the
building down.
Later on, sitting alone in my big posh suite at the Malmaison
hotel, I was still not sure whether I'd enjoyed myself. Just like
other truly memorable moments I've enjoyed as a performer,
and there have been a good many, this one seemed to have
been over so quickly. But it had been different, this night,
different from singing with Stevie Wonder and Sting at New
York's Carnegie Hall, from headlining at Wembley Arena
and the Royal Albert Hall, from dancing with Madonna,
from playing the ukelele with George Harrison, from meeting
the royals. Tonight had been a profound experience, disturbing,
almost, the kind that moves you to think, examine
and question. I sat alone for a long while just thinking. Lots
of mixed emotions on an emotional night. I tried to put the
evening into perspective, tried to draw some meaningful
conclusion from it all, but I couldn't, other than knowing
that Ronnie would have been as pleased as punch about it
and as proud as a peacock. Right then, that single certainty
was enough. 'Champion, kidder!' he would likely have said.
So when Franc asked, I said, 'Well, let me think about it.'
It would still be a hell of a decision: did I want to go back to
a character who had almost unhinged me? It had taken me a
long time to establish myself as something more than Oz.
Did I want to be stared at and have all that fuss everywhere
I went? Did I want to dip my toe into those murky waters
once again? The answer was no, but. . .
Fast forward to April in Los Angeles. I had called in there
on my way back from a family holiday in Australia to see
Tim Spall, by then four years in remission and in rude health.
He was working on a movie, and I was sitting with Dick and
Ian in some swank Beverly Hills eaterie having lunch. The
boys had just returned from a trip to Hawaii where they'd
been doing some script doctoring on Pearl Harbor for Jerry
Bruckheimer. During a suitable lull in the lettuce-munching
I mentioned that the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet format rights had
reverted to Franc. We all agreed it had been a blast working
on the scenes for Ronnie's benefit night and, there and then,
began to kick around various storylines. It was exciting, as it
always is with Dick and Ian, but before we all got carried
away, there was the little matter of getting the rest of the cast
to agree to it.
Although we'd all kept in touch and, to the best of my
knowledge, got along, the six surviving members of the main Auf Wiedersehen, Pet cast, Tim Healy (Dennis), Kevin Whately
(Neville), Tim Spall (Barry), Chris Fairbank (Moxey), Pat
Roach (Bomber) and yours truly (Oz), all very different
individuals, had gone their separate ways and were busy boys.
Busy dads, too. Rafe and Mercedes Spall, Kitty and Kieran
Whately, Matthew and Louis Healy, Matteus Fairbank, and
my own Tom and Fred are the junior cast members I know
of; there may well be more. Would our lives have been
altogether different without the phenomenal success of that
show? I know I wouldn't be in the position I'm in today if it
weren't for Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Sooner or later the others
would most likely have broken through to national acclaim.
As for me, but for that show, and Miriam, I'd have been
either running a property empire or languishing in a jail cell.
I reckon that's what the fates would have held in store for
me - maybe still do, you never know. And, as Gerald Ronson
proved, the two can be successfully combined.
Cut to England and a sweltering Saturday night in May.
Miriam and I were having dinner at Orsini's in Holland Park
with Ian and Doris -- they were in town on their way to
Prague to see their son, Michael, who was shooting a movie
with the lovely Anjelica Huston - Franc and his very pregnant
wife Corinna. It was not a good night for me: my sinuses were
bad and I couldn't contribute much by way of conversation
without sounding like the guy from the Tunes commercial.
Eventually Ian said to me, 'So, about Auf Wiedersehen, Pet? What are we going to do?' I don't know, I answered. Where
are we? Franc told us he had an idea for a storyline, and that
Alan Yentob was keen to make it happen as a BBC project.
Ian also seemed keen.
Dinner over, we wandered towards Ian's digs at the Halcyon,
then a funky little Holland Park boutique hotel, now
sadly closed. I asked him if he and Dick would be up for
writing a new Auf Wiedersehen, /^/screenplay. 'Yes, as long as
we have a good storyline,' he answered. His interest surprised
me: apart from being very busy, he's a hard man to get
aboard a project. But in writing those new scenes for Ronnie's
charity bash, in breathing new life into those old characters,
it seemed he, too, had been reminded of how uniquely special
the experience we'd all shared had been. If this project ever
happened, the irony of how it had come alive again wouldn't
be lost on me. Ronnie would have loved it.
On the way home from the restaurant Corinna went into
labour and a few hours later gave birth to her and Franc's
fourth daughter, Zazou.
The following week I spent a couple of fun days at Franc's
place spitballing, kicking ideas around (including doing three
hundred-minute films rather than the mooted one: my shout,
that one, and cost-effective because you can shoot them all
back-to-back, but tricky story-wise. Also, it would have been
three times the pay-packet). Franc had two main ideas he
wished to incorporate in the tale: the historic Middlesbrough
Transporter Bridge and the plight of the Native American
community -- two pretty disparate elements, on paper at least.
However, there was no point in doing too much work
until we'd spoken to the other actors to see how they felt
about it. This was a crucial and delicate moment. If it
appeared to them that I was somehow involved in the
production side of the project, they might have been put off.
And understandably so. But I was where I was: Franc had
asked me to work on the storyline with him, that was legitimate,
and I'd not be producing, so it should be OK. All the
same, gently does it.
I put in calls to the other five players. Turned out they
were all up for it, which I really hadn't expected. Spall in
particular had good reason to pass: movie work was plentiful
and who wouldn't rather shoot a feature instead of a film for
television? But he was up for it, as long as the script was
right. Kevin had so enjoyed the Ronnie benefit concert that
he felt the same: as long as the script was right. That might
seem a given, bearing in mind who was doing the writing,
but one thing you learn quickly in this game is that nothing
can guarantee your screenplay will actually play, that the cake
will rise. For this project, though, there was no alternative: if
Dick and Ian couldn't get Auf Wiedersehen, Pet to play, it
couldn't be done.
Alan Yentob was now calling to Franc over the garden
wall: what's happening with Auf Wiedersehen, Pet? It was time
for a meeting with my I CM agents, Duncan Heath and Paul
Lyon-Maris, to clarify what was on offer and what was wished
for. The plan was then to meet somewhere in the middle.
Come July, and Franc, who believes in starting negotiations
firmly on the front foot, had told the BBC what he
planned to do: a series of three hundred-minute films, with
a single storyline running through them, to be written by
Franc Roddam and yours truly, scripts to be written by Dick
Clement and Ian La Frenais, cast to include Tim Healy,
Kevin Whately, Tim Spall, Chris Fairbank, Pat Roach and
yours truly. Storylines to be delivered to Dick and Ian by the
end of October, first drafts to be in by the end of April 2001,
to shoot June 2001 for six months. Actors and writers to be
contracted ASAP before they got signed up to do something
else. It was an ambitious schedule. I told Franc that, in my
experience, things tended to move at less than a snail's pace
within the BBC, and a project you should be able to do in a
year might well take two, three or four. Everyone is so
terrified of making a wrong decision that nobody makes any.
Franc wanted to push ahead: he was concerned that Alan
might not be there in eighteen months' time. Perhaps he
knew something I didn't, or he might just have wanted to
get on. Whatever: the real deciding factor on this one would
be when, or whether, Dick and Ian could get started on the
writing, and how long it would take them to deliver the first
drafts.
The BBC wanted to do the films in-house, and initially
that worried me: it's widely accepted that the best of the
production staff left the corporation long ago, only to come
back and work as independents, doing exactly what they'd
done previously but usually for higher rates of pay. So much
for the cost-effectiveness of deregulation in broadcasting.
But it had its up-sides: the BBC would negotiate directly
with Franc, and that was fine by me. I wouldn't be involved
with that side of things. Hopefully I'd avoid being tagged as
a mercenary. I guessed Franc would probably kick off a
production entity specifically for the venture and then do
what's known as an 'above-the-line' deal where he'd take in
the actors, writers, directors and producers -- all referred to
in budgeting terms as 'above-the-line' -- and the BBC would
provide all below-the-line items, i.e. everything else. It's a
sensible deal unless you want to get involved in the day-to-day
nuts-and-bolts of television production. I've been there and
I don't wish to if I don't have to. There is one more, major,
plus to this set-up from a programme-maker's point of view:
because the BBC costs its projects internally and, more to
the point, inter-departmentally, not only is the worry about
the overall project cost their worry, but because of the
aforementioned costing methods, true and accurate budgets
are seldom if ever known. That could only be a good thing
from Franc's point of view. Once they'd agreed to his storyline,
any spiralling costs would be their problem.

While I was at Sotheby's auction house enfamille for a Spitting
Image sale, I bumped into Alan Yentob. He said hello just
as I was leaving: I'd got my troops marshalled and moving
together through the sip-and-snap bun-fight towards the exit
and was loath to break the momentum although I knew I'd
have to. As I watched Miriam and the boys being swept along
by the crowd, Alan introduced me to a programme-controller
colleague of his who couldn't muster more than a disinterested
hello, then asked me how I was. I like Alan: he was never less
than straight and fair when we had dealings with him at the
BBC throughout the early nineties. He and I made small-talk
and I knew he was waiting for me to mention Auf'Wiedersehen,
Pet, but it was not the place for such a conversation, surrounded
as we were by photographers and those desperate
to be photographed. There was a bit more small-talk, then a
pregnant pause. I told him I had to get off to feed the kids.
Just as I was heading back into the scrum, he mentioned it,
had to: 'I was talking to Franc. Great news, isn't it?'
'What's
that?' I somewhat disingenuously inquired.
'The project'
The project?
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.'
Ah, now I've got you. Yes, great, I replied half-heartedly.
I'm not sure why I was being so casual about it -- never
appear too keen, I suppose. I told Alan that I had been
surprised all the cast members were up for it, and he nodded
enthusiastically. So, there it was - from the horse's mouth,
so to speak: confirmation from a broadcaster. And not just
any old broadcaster: the BBC, my preferred and favourite
home. My mam, God rest her, was so proud of seeing that
three-initial logo on my programmes, and so was I. Now, for
the first time since all this had started up again, I felt a new Auf Wiedersehen, Pet might really happen.
There was something more to this for me, though, something
even more important than all the fees, costs and the
budget: ever since the idea had surfaced I'd been asking myself
one question: could we make television that would be as
good as, if not better than, what was being screened at that
moment? I'd seen nothing to make me doubt that we could.
In late July, a distraction: I received a script from the
casting director Sheila Tresize. It turned out to be a major
Hollywood movie called Behind Enemy Lines and one of my
favourite screen actors, Gene Hackman, was playing the lead.
For years I'd dreamed of working with him -- just one scene,
please! Shooting would be for three months in Slovakia,
starting 1 October. The family was making preparations for
a camping holiday so I didn't have time to deal with the
script when it landed on the mat and took it away with the
intention of reading it under canvas.
Behind Enemy Lines turned out to be a major disappointment.
The character I'd been asked to read was Arkan, an
indicted Serbian war criminal, right-hand man-cum-enforcer
to Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, gangster,
leader of the Tigers, his own paramilitary force, allegedly one
of the Balkans' biggest butchers and recently shot dead
in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, Belgrade. Any
decent-minded, right-thinking human being would want less
than nothing to do with such a scoundrel. I'd cross a continent
to avoid him, but as an actor considering a part, that
would have counted for nothing if the character had been
well written and the story factually correct. The opportunity
to try to get inside the head of such a beast would have been
a great temptation and a huge challenge. But the part had
been underwritten: it was one-dimensional and factually
incorrect. As scripted, this Arkan was to be captured by four
heroic Interpol agents while trying to board a train to make
good his escape. To put the tin hat on it, there were no
scenes featuring him and Gene, so had I landed the gig I
probably wouldn't even have met the great man. That was
it. I'd not be going to the Balkans.
Among the dozen messages waiting on the answerphone
for my return from the wilderness was one from Ian La
Frenais and one from Mark Boomla of Prager & Fenton, my
accountants. Ian was just calling to say hello, which was
unusual, if not unprecedented. Mark had taken a call from a
journalist at Marketing Week, a media trade magazine, who
had it on good authority that we were about to do some
more Auf Wiedersehen, Pet with the BBC: did I have any
comment to make? My comment was, and always is, 'No
comment,' but the cat was out of the bag. That was bad
news, bearing in mind that not everyone was under contract.
Franc had taken the same call, which he said he'd also
blanked, and had spoken to Alan Yentob. The BBC were
keen to lock the deal and get the actors signed up. Franc told
I CM he wanted it all put to bed before he left for Australia
that week, where he was to begin preparatory work on a
movie based around the Waltzing Matilda story. The BBC
was waiting for confirmation and specific detail of the Canadian
tax-refund situation. There was a possibility we might shoot in Canada instead of Arizona where the new series
was to be set. I told Franc that if this was all sorted out
within a week I would eat not only my hat, but every other
item of headgear in the capital, including crash-helmets!
It's worth recounting the following, I think, just to make
the point that not all of my ideas and projects get made as a
matter of course. Around this time I met with Jane Tranter,
the BBC's head of drama, to try to move things forward on The Road To Somewhere, a project telling the true story of the
1936 Jarrow marchers. I'd written a pilot episode for what I
hoped would be a six-part serial and I had high hopes.
According to Duncan, my agent, the BBC liked the idea, but
not the script. My script! After I'd worked on it for two
years! How dare they? Didn't they know who I used to be?
A few years ago that kind of response would have crushed
me. But it's different now. I'm different. My priority was to
get that project made whatever it took because I consider
the true story of what happened in Jarrow back in 1936 to
be of great historical importance and social significance. If
they wanted another writer, I could live with that.
Duncan and I went to the BBC. I almost had a punch-up
at the gate-house, before I'd even got on to the premises. A
van driver was shouting and screaming at me. What is it with
some people? The weather? Guys driving convertible sports
cars? It's no wonder they get smacked. In the car park,
Duncan stripped off down to his knickers, in full view of
anyone who might have been interested, threw on some
Ralph Lauren agenting casuals, and we were in the building.
He got straight to it with Jane. Did the BBC want to make
my Jarrow serial or not? The answer was, no, they didn't, but
they'd be up for a single film, or a two-parter. That was fine
by me -- with a book to accompany the film, plus the
possibility of an educational DVD, details to be thrashed
out. To lull me into a false sense of optimism I was given
my own project executive. I should have been doing handsprings,
especially after all the time and energy I'd put into
the project.
But it's odd, but with the successful securing of a commission
-- which, in my experience, usually means a commitment
by a broadcaster to spend millions of pounds on your
idea -- I've found that when the moment comes, and they
say the yes-word, I'm never as euphoric as I thought I would
be. There's more of a sense of relief than anything else. It's
back to that feeling of anti-climax on achieving your dreams,
I guess.
While all this power-broking was going on, right next door
to Jane Tranter's offices, Miriam, Fred and a boot full of
discarded playthings were at the sprawling White City car
boot sale. Good idea: the house was so bunged up with old
clothes, toys, bits and bobs it felt as though it needed a good
shit. Not my idea of fun, though, with scores of people out
to kill an afternoon, looking through your stuff, pulling faces,
haggling for pennies over things that originally cost a bundle.
It was a resounding success, and Miriam and Fred raked
in an impressive hundred pounds (never mind that the stuff
they flogged had originally cost ten times that amount: it had
lain around in boxes for years and simply had to go). As
soon as they arrived people were thieving from them, so
when they went back for a second bash they took along Tom
as their minder and managed to make another fifty pounds,
with nothing swiped this time. Good for you, big boy. I got
much more pleasure from their result than I ever did from
deals of my own. Feeling like winners, we had lunch in a tiny
Chelsea bistro, Italian food served by Czechs. Pizza inedible. Hey-ho.
I returned Ian's call of earlier in the week and spoke to
him and Doris. A project with Liam Neeson, which they'd
been working on, had taken a bit of a body-swerve, as had
Liam himself, by all accounts: his Harley Davidson had
collided with a red deer on a road in upstate New York and,
according to Doris, he had been sent tumbling down a
fifteen-foot slope. He managed to crawl up again and flag
down a passing motorist, who got him to a hospital where it
was discovered he'd sustained, among other injuries, a
broken pelvis, a broken heel and internal bleeding. He
wouldn't be doing anything for a while. It sounded as if he
was lucky to be alive. Would this alter Dick and Ian's thinking
on Auf Wiedersehen, Pet? We'd have to wait and see. Although
the contrary would probably have suited me better, I wished
Liam a speedy recovery. It was bound to take a while, though:
as you get older the body takes longer to get over knocks.
Franc and I took a trip to Canada to look at possible
locations in and around Toronto, but it was soon obvious
they weren't what we were after. We'd have to go for the
real thing. If you think getting into New York or LA from
London is a draggy chore then you really should try entering
the US via Toronto. It makes those New York/LA immigration
experiences seem positively pleasant. Carry-on bags
at our feet, we became part of a slow-moving queue that
snaked twenty yards each way, about ten coils deep. After
about two hours of this bag-shuffling misery we arrived at
the security X-ray machines. Make that 'machine'. There was
only one to cope with the three hundred or so tired, sweaty,
smelly people who made up the undulating snake queue. It
was a little after six a.m. Babies screamed, crotchety nicotine
addicts grumbled, and tempers frayed. I have to say that
getting on and off aeroplanes is one of my least favourite
things.
Arizona. As soon as we got there we knew. November
sunshine, cacti and big hats. Really big hats. And we weren't
even outside the airport. This was the place we had to come
to make our series. We spent a night at the fabulous Biltmore
Four Seasons Hotel, then picked up our rental car and headed
north towards Lake Havasu. That was where they'd rebuilt
London Bridge. We smartass Brits like to think we sold some
dumb American guy the wrong bridge, sold him a pup, but
it was bought by a Mr McCulloch, the man whose company
brought the world, for better or worse, the chainsaw, and
who was, even back then, worth millions of dollars. He had
the bridge painstakingly dismantled and shipped, lock, stock
and barrel, to Lake Havasu where it was carefully reassembled
and now makes the holding company millions of dollars a
year as a tourist attraction. There's dumb for you.
We walked the short distance over the bridge on to a small
man-made island on the lake. The only places you can go
when you get across there are a few coffee and gift shops.
And guess who owns the shops and the island? That's
right, daft old Mr McCulloch. We enjoyed a funny breakfast
experience out there early one morning. I asked for eggs.
You always get served two in America, God bless 'em. The
waitress asked me how I'd like 'em cooked. Fried, I replied,
with a smile. She asked me how I'd like them fried. Not
being able to decide between over-easy or sunny-side-up and
getting bored as well as hungry, I asked for one of each. The.
commotion that simple request caused! Our waitress took a
step back, rocked on one heel and looked at me as if I'd
asked for boiled bull's balls. She asked me if I was shittin'


her. I assured her I wasn't. She brought out the short-order
chef, who scratched his head and frowned. In the end the
entire diner staff, half a dozen people, came and had a look
at the weird English guy who wanted 'one of each' for his
breakfast. There is a salient point to all this: in America
you're usually all right as long as you don't divert from
the norm. So be warned: one little detour can result in a
short-circuit.
It should have been an exciting time for me, but the run-up
to the principal photography on Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was
overshadowed by the terminal illness of my ex-boss and
close friend John Watson. A man tougher than old boots,
who'd never suffered a day's illness in his life, he'd become
unwell at the turn of the year and colon cancer had been
diagnosed. Sadly, the disease was already at an advanced
stage and palliative care was considered the best option.
My pal Ray Black had called me in January to tell me of
John's illness. When I visited him in the Freeman Hospital,
Newcastle, I was dismayed to find he couldn't hear and had
to be shouted at by the doctors and nurses. John's hearing
was severely impaired and without his hearing-aid he could
understand little. It was frightening for him because, on top
of being gravely ill, he couldn't hear the questions he was
being asked by the medical staff and he was worried that he
might give a reply that could prove fatal.
I asked about his hearing-aid: it needed fixing. The menders
were situated in a shopping precinct in the city centre no
more than a mile from the hospital but no one was available
to sort it out. Social services were busy right now, we were
told. Here was a man who'd never been out of work for a
day in his entire adult life, never cost the country a penny.
He'd diligently paid his taxes and his stamp for fifty years, .
and in his hour of greatest need the nation's much-vaunted
health service couldn't manage to get his hearing-aid repaired.
We took it to the menders. Turned out it would take three
days to put it right. When we explained John's predicament,
the head man fixed us up with a temporary hearing-aid. We
took it back to John in hospital and, hey presto!, he could
hear again. It wasn't too difficult.
Some weeks later, Miriam and I travelled up to Newcastle
to see him again. He was now in the Newcastle General
Hospital and in a pitiful state. Propped up on pillows in a
bed in the corner, he looked like a wounded animal, the fight
knocked out of him. Ray had been looking after things and
helping out as best he could, but John was so depressed he
just wanted it over, wanted to get away. Miriam went straight
out to M&S and bought him new pyjamas, sponge-bag,
everything he needed. It perked him up no end. The sad
thing about John's lot was that, although by most people's
standards he was a wealthy man, he never spent anything on
himself. He had come from a life of poverty, so money in
the bank was a security blanket for him, a comfort to be
looked at on paper statements rather than used. I'm exactly
the same, although I try to fight it. I know it's not logical,
but in matters like this logic doesn't apply. John could have
lived in opulent splendour; but chose instead to live in
near-squalor. It was heartbreaking to see.
We managed to get him moved to the Marie Curie hospice
in the west end of the city and he couldn't get over what he
considered to be the luxurious conditions. Ironically, it was
the first decent place he'd ever lived in. When we went to
visit him a week or so later the turn-around in his spirits was
nothing short of incredible. If I wasn't such a sceptic I'd
have called it miraculous. After just a week in that brightly
coloured, sweet-smelling, warm, peaceful and, above all,
caring environment where a dedicated, friendly group of staff
and volunteers offered nothing but kindness, compassion,
respect and encouragement, John had gone from wanting to
die to wanting to live again. He talked about going home,
and although we knew, and I think John did, too, that his
days were numbered, it was lovely to hear him being so
positive and optimistic. He had even regained his unique
sense of humour. He was well looked after, and eventually
he went home, but sadly he was not so comfortable there.
By this time he was beyond taking care of himself but if it
hadn't been for Ray calling in every day with food he would
have gone without.
We took him to Tynemouth, his last day out, and a bit of a
pantomime it turned out to be. He was wearing a pair of
trousers that had previously belonged to his brother. Joe was
slightly bigger round the waist than John and, with him being
so ill, the weight had dropped off him. He had no belt, so when
we got him out of the car and on to the busy pavement by
Tynemouth Priory his trousers fell down to his ankles. He
couldn't move so Ray and I got on our knees to pull them up.
At that moment a group of children came out of the priory
with their teachers. They just stood and stared at the sight in
front of them: two middle-aged men on their knees, their
faces level with an elderly man's crotch, their hands on his
crusty kecks. I half smiled and said to one of the teachers,
'He's not well.' She recognized me and looked confused.
Then the kids were led away at a brisk pace, while being told
it was rude to stare.
John passed away at the end of July, a week before filming
on Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was due to start. It was a major
downer. I feared a sparse turn-out at his cremation but his
pals from the Heaton Buffs club arrived on a coach and did
him proud. He would have liked that. I read the eulogy, kept
it brief but acknowledged the great debt I owed him and his
elder brother, Joe, now also gone. It made me feel a lot better
to say it publicly like that. Most people would have dismissed

John as a scruffy old bugger, and he certainly was, but he was so much more besides. What you saw wasn't all there
was. John and Joe Watson, two proper Geordies: their like
will not be seen again. It's our loss.
I'd asked the production office not to contact me during
the week of John's cremation, but of course they did.
Although I'd asked to read with actors up for the parts of
Oz's son and lover (different parts!) they had gone ahead and
cast them. This made me angry. As I saw it, there could
only be benefits to having a leading member of the cast in
attendance at casting readings. The producer and the director
considered otherwise. They had thought I might insist on
the actors of my choice no matter how they felt. That was
not only wide of the mark but deeply offensive. I felt it
questioned my professional integrity. If I'd wanted any more
clout I would have made sure I got it. Franc had already
offered me a co-executive producing credit, which would
have given me a veto over any and all casting decisions, but
I neither needed nor wanted it. As a matter of fact I wanted
nothing to do with any behind-the-camera stuff. It would be
challenge enough to get the character properly pegged and
the ensemble work right. I'd have my hands and my head
full with all that brought with it, and I wanted to concentrate
on the acting. It was always the most difficult area for me,
and so it would prove once again.
Only days before we were due to begin rehearsals a mini
crisis developed. I was unhappy about the way Wyman
Norris, Gary Holton's character's hitherto-unknown son,
appeared on the scene and no one passed any comment on
the fact that he was of mixed race. The production staff were
thinking, no doubt, in terms of political correctness. They
didn't want to go near the subject with a barge-pole, and the
writers, on holiday in the South of France, weren't thrilled
at the prospect of a major rewrite at this late stage. From an
acting point of view, this was one of the pitfalls of signing
up to a job before the scripts were in -- but the subject had
to be acknowledged. Something had to be said. I informed
the BBC that unless a rewrite was forthcoming I might not
turn up for work. Of course, the guys at I CM had a fit,
warning me I'd never work again and all that stuff, but
where getting it right's concerned, that's never bothered me.
Thankfully it didn't come to that, and the rewrites were
carried through. Inevitably, Oz was the one to deal with the
difficult issue of race and skin colour. It's not pleasant to say
stuff like that even as a character, but it had to be addressed.
If the situation had existed in Newcastle, it would have been
mentioned and commented on. That's always my personal
benchmark for Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
The rehearsal period was strange: the old hands mingled
a little awkwardly with the new boys and girls, fumbling
around as we tried to feel our way back into character. The
production staff gave us plenty of respectful room. Fletcher
Rodley, the second assistant director, and Scott Bates, the
third, looked after us well that week, and that was how it was
for the duration of the shoot. Along with Dominic Fysh, the
first AD, the assistant directors' department played a blinder.
It helped that they all professed to liking the show. Lots of
respect came our way. Maybe a bit too much at times. You
could feel it in the air. It was a bit intimidating.
One rather unsettling situation occurred during rehearsal
week. I had been pulled by Kevin Whately, who felt I'd given
Noel Clarke, the young lad cast to play Wyman Norris, a
hard time. I certainly hadn't intended to. The director, Paul.
Seed, came to me at one point, his lip literally trembling, to
have a word in my ear about it. I was aware he'd had a
heart-bypass operation so I explained to him there was no
need for him to be nervous with me -- there's no place for
that stuff at work, or anywhere else. Maybe I'd been less gentle
or diplomatic than I might have been. I have no problem giving
anyone a hard time if I reckon it's merited, but I had no reason
to do so with Noel as I didn't know him. I'd met him once at
the read-through the week before and worked with him for all
of one day so the jury was still out, but he seemed a pleasant
young man. I was well aware it was difficult for him, coming
into such a top-heavy show. I spoke to him and made my
position clear: my beef was with Wyman, and it went back
to the beginning of this third series.
After our initial story recce across most of Arizona Franc
Roddam and I enjoyed a break back at the Biltmore Four
Seasons Hotel. It was a beautiful place, designed by the
renowned American architect Frank Lloyd-Wright. Dick and
Ian flew down from LA and joined us there for storyline
discussions. Over dinner and a couple of expensive bottles
of red wine we wrestled with the one problem we'd not
satisfactorily nailed down. How were we to deal with Gary
Holton's absence? Although Gary had died, Wayne Norris,
his screen character, had finished the second series very
much alive and had last been seen sailing off into the sunset
with the rest of the lads, bound for North Africa and uncertainty.
Dick mentioned the possibility of a son, hitherto
unknown to the rest of the lads, who would turn up to tie
up the Wayne loose ends. We all liked that one, but what to
do with the son once he'd served his purpose in the story?
My suggestion was for Wyman to appear at Oz's fake wake
- a plot device to bring the guys together again - and explain
to the chaps that his dad had passed away. Then the wake
breaks up, he's given a bed for the night by the ever
accommodating Neville - but, like father, like son, he shags
one of Neville's daughters. Neville rumbles the pair and
sends him packing the next day with a flea in his ear. I felt it
was a clean way of dealing with the problem and would get
the whole thing out of the way in the first episode. Dick and
Ian didn't fancy it, and they won the day, in part, I believe,
because it would allow BBC executives to point to the fact
that they had a young, mixed-race character in the cast.
Hooray for PC. I still feel the same about it. From the story
point of view the Wyman character was woefully underemployed.
Once he'd served his purpose as a plot device he
was all but surplus to requirements, and everything he said
or did was something the established cast could and should
have been saying or doing. In the end, Noel's acting ability
and his genuine on-camera warmth made it work.
Another problem surfaced in rehearsal week. Paul Seed
was messing around on his hands and knees trying to get a
beatbox to work. When I asked him what he was up to he said
he wanted to play a piece of music. I said he needn't scrabble
around on the floor like that: it was my job. I'd been contracted
to supervise the show's music. Paul continued with the same
routine for a few days until I pulled him about it. We sat
outside the rehearsal rooms in Ealing and I explained the
situation again, as I understood it. It was very simple: I was
contracted to look after the music side of the production
and, whether he liked it or not, that was how it was. He said
that that was not what he'd been led to understand. I called
Joy Spink, the producer. She came over and took Paul for a
walk. On their return, he sloped off into the rehearsal room
and she came over to where I was still sitting. Had the
situation been made clear to Paul? I asked. It had, said Joy.
I'm sure it had, but that was far from the end of the matter.
After the week of rehearsals it was time to get down to
business and start doing it for the camera. The schedule read
thus: first up, a couple of weeks filming in and around
London and the south-east; Middlesbrough for the whole of
September; October in London; Arizona in November; three
weeks at Bray Studios, Berkshire, in December. I felt a fair
bit of anxiety but my first scene was to be with the mighty Bill
Nighy -- who would be so memorable as dodgepot Geoffrey
Grainger. I'd worked with Bill on Still Crazy, where he'd turned
in a bravura performance as the over-the-top, over-the-hill
lead singer with Strange Fruit. We'd got on well so that made
day one a little easier. All the same I felt terribly rusty and the
weight of expectation seemed almost palpable. The best thing to do on day one is just get stuck in and get it out of the way.
On a shoot of ninety filming days you can guarantee it won't
ever be your best day but the fact that it's all shot out of
story order usually sees to it that your first fumbling efforts
are buried somewhere in the middle of the series.
The other thing I remember about that day is getting to the
unit base, a pot-holed car park in Maidenhead, finding my
trailer with my name on the door, going in, coming straight
back out again and saying to Fletcher Rodley, 'That can't be
my trailer, son. It only goes half-way down the length of the
vehicle. Must be some mistake.' He reminded me of the contract
agreement whereby we'd all have split trailers -- i.e., semidetached
ones. Months ago I'd suggested this arrangement to
save on costs and transport logistics, then forgotten about it.
Once we'd shot those first fraught couple of weeks and
got ourselves off the mark it was time to move the circus to
Middlesbrough. I'd forgotten how bleak it is. Dominated
by the chemical plants of Zeneca I CI and all the other
multinational conglomerates based up there, the sky has a
permanent grey-brown colour, the result of round-the-clock
discharges that seep into everything and everybody unlucky
enough to come into contact with them. If you're up there
you have no choice but to breathe the filthy rubbish into
your lungs. I'm sure the local councils will insist the factories
are all operating within EU emissions limits, but don't take
my word for it or theirs. Have a trip up there and decide for
yourself. Fill your lungs, rub your eyes and then make up
your mind. The Geordie football fans refer to the locals as
smog-monsters, due to their mutated forms, which is a bit
harsh but that's football-terrace humour.
We had been put in a brand-new hotel, the Seaham Hall,
and it couldn't have been more of a contrast with our grim,
grimy locations twenty miles down the road. It was an amazing
place, with every mod con you could imagine and quite a few
you couldn't. The suites were voluminous sets of rooms with
en-suite facilities as good as any I've ever come across. The
lighting and music system, worked via a touch-sensitive panel
on the wall, took a bit of mastering, but once you were on top of
it you had total mood and modal control of your environment.
The restaurant was tip-top, with great food and service to
match. The hotel staff couldn't do enough for us. We had
some rare old nights there and I'd recommend a visit to
anyone thinking of spending time in that neck of the woods.
We were about a week into filming when the schedule
blessed me with a day off. As Oz was pretty much integral
to the series I was working most days so it was an unexpected
treat. I decided to ask my pal Geoff Knox to drive me home
to see the family and get Sue Dalgetty, my hairdresser for
some twenty years, to give me a short-back-and-sides. Next
morning we drove to London, arrived around midday, and
made straight for the salon. When I came out it was around
one o'clock. I climbed into the back of the car. Geoff told
me I'd better take a look at the dash-mounted television. It
was showing what I initially took to be scenes from an action
movie: a commercial jet was smashing into the side of a
New York skyscraper, followed by a fierce ball of flame. I
remember thinking, That's pretty impressive, it looks almost
real. But it couldn't have been real: it was beyond anyone's
reality. Then the stunned tones of the reporters made me
realize it wasn't fiction.
I got home as soon as I could -- in time to see it wasn't
over: a second jet ploughed into the other of the Twin
Towers. We all stood together in the peace and quiet of the
living room, and it was very frightening. I wondered if we
were witnessing the beginning of the end. Fred was thirteen
at the time, and pretty shaken by what he saw. We looked
for words of comfort, but it was impossible to explain away.
The events of 11 September 2001 cast a pall over everything.
Our piddling everyday production problems paled into
comparative insignificance. No, that's wrong: there was no
comparison. I was born in the 1950s and had grown up
accustomed to horrific global happenings being beamed
straight into the living room by the in-your-face sixties generation
of television news-gatherers and broadcasters. They
gave it to us raw and often uncut, whether we liked it or not.
International scandals like Vietnam, where kids ran burning
through the streets, their skin on fire with napalm, vied for
the viewers' attention with domestic tragedies, such as the
Aberfan disaster, in which over a hundred Welsh children
lost their lives when a slagheap engulfed their primary school.
But nothing in my lifetime came even close to the dreadful
sequence of events that went down on the morning of
11 September in those clear skies above New York and
Washington. Like most right-thinking people the world over,
the entire Auf Wiedersehen, Pet unit was knocked sideways,
stunned, unable to take on board what had happened. After
the initial shock had subsided, we realized we'd be directly
affected by what had happened: we were all scheduled to fly
to Arizona in a few weeks' time. We worked on in limbo, no
one knowing what would transpire. I spent a lot of time in
front of the telly and reading the papers, trying like everyone
else to get a handle on it all, but it was impossible. How do
you rationalize the actions of a group of people who want
the entire population of the western world dead?
In the short-term the US government put a block on all but
essential travel in and out of the USA. Everything was now in
doubt. Usually when there's a problem on a shoot there's away
out of it, even if it costs a fortune; in any other circumstances
I think we could have completed the shoot somewhere else,
but these circumstances were unique. We couldn't relocate
at that late stage: it was just not possible. If it turned out that
we couldn't go to the USA, we didn't have a series. We carried
on and waited to hear whether or not we had a show.
Every member of the crew had been looking forward to
the US leg of the shoot. I dare say that was why some had
signed on in the first place. Now it was all up in the air. No
one knew what was happening and you couldn't get a firm
answer out of anyone. Despondency began to creep into our
chirpy team. Then we had some news. We were told to
submit the names of all the crew to the US Embassy in
Grosvenor Square, London. Everyone was encouraged by
this until it was announced that only heads of department
would be allowed to go to Arizona. More despondency. All
the while we continued shooting.
Time was fast running out as we waited for a decision.
Near the deadline we were told that, against all the odds and
contrary to our expectations, we would be allowed to take
the entire UK crew to Arizona. This was fantastic news and
buoyed up the whole unit. Gary, our props man, was ecstatic,
beaming, bouncing. He was already two bundles of upbeat
energy, but it meant so much to him to see the job through
to completion. That was how the whole unit seemed to feel.
Because of the show's history this was a prestige gig, and a
lot of people had wanted to be on it. Joy Spink had done a
top-notch job in selecting and putting the crew together.
You're looking at and talking to the same faces for twelve
hours-plus a day, six days a week. And then there are all the
egos that have to be accommodated, lots of highly strung
people working under the constant pressures of time, cost
and quality. We're not in the business of shelling peas. At
the end it has to be great: a little bit of magic has to be
conjured up, so it's an art and skill to get the crew balance
right. Over the weeks we'd all been together, though, in the
trenches, so to speak, it had become more than that: a bond
develops, especially when you're away on location. You work
hard and you tend to play hard. Those days are behind me,
but I'll tag along once in a while, just for the crack.
It was unusual, maybe even unprecedented, for a UK
production to be allowed to take its entire crew into the
USA, so we all heaved a big sigh of relief, then started buying
maps and planning road-trips. We spent our last UK location
day before departing inside a Russian-built Ilyushin aircraft
on a runway at Lydd airport in Kent. It was a horrible day.
The whole thing was a compromise, from the way the scenes
were shot to the time we actors were given to pull something
out of the bag, which was no time at all. Some of the
continuity props and costumes had already been packed and
sent to the USA. Some people seemed more concerned with
getting away to pack a posh bag than completing the shots
we needed. Their heads were already across the Atlantic. It
was like a Christmas party with no booze, one of those days
when performances came a poor second to just getting the
scenes shot and in the can. That was all that mattered - but
I guess, ultimately, that's all that does matter. But I felt I'd
been screwed and couldn't wait to get away.


I'm sure anyone who had to get on an aeroplane around that
time felt at least a little uneasy, and I was no exception. I
liked to have the family accompany me when I worked
abroad - at least, I did until the boys grew too old to be
enamoured with all the schlepping around and put their
collective foot down - but not this time. I'd go alone. I flew
out a week before everyone else to get settled in and sorted,
but my back had been playing up. An accident in 1998, when
I pinged something while carrying a pinball machine up the
stairs at home, a Christmas present for the boys, had resulted
in many a morning's crawling across the carpet to the bathroom.
Painful spasms came and went without warning and
it had been giving me gyp for months. I needed to make sure
the bed, the car and the chair in my hotel room were all OK.
So off I went, with bag, cards and lumbar support.
The journey on BA from London to Phoenix was an
anxious ten-hour plod that seemed to last ten days. After
enjoying the super-security and resultant delays you'd expect
a month after 9/11, it was over to a small runway and on to
a nineteen-seater prop plane for the two-hour hop to the
town of Page, way up on Arizona's northern border. Before
that, though, more security checks. Everyone was very nervous
and you'd better not be cracking one of your lame-ass
Limey jokes, because whatever national sense of humour
there was had temporarily disappeared. I was made to empty
out all my belongings so that the security lady, along with all
my fellow travellers, could have a good squint at my kit.
'And what would you be doing going up to Page where
there's nothing much except the big hydro-electric dam? An
actor, huh? Making a drama series for the British Broadcasting
Corporation?' Yes, madam, and there's the visa, proof, it
tells you on the top. Long pause. 'Sure don't look like an
actor.' Thanks for that, pet. You should see my fellow cast
members!
The town of Page, Arizona, is a small place, situated on
the southern shore of Lake Powell. It boasts a main street
half a mile long with a few shops, a few bars and a half-dozen
hotels. There's a lovely little primary school where the majority
of pupils are Native American, reflecting the area's demographics.
We were in the Marriott, the best place available,
and it was fine. It was the low season so we had the place
pretty much to ourselves and made it our own. About an
hour or so down the road was Marble Canyon, one of our
main locations, and beyond that, the majestic deep red ranges
of the Grand Canyon. It was an incredible landscape to be
in the midst of. Best of all for me was the journey to and
from work each day. Because I'd had lumbar trouble getting
into and out of the low-sprung and soft-seated Lincolns the
production had hired for the actors' transport, I was supplied
with a big, fat-wheeled Ford SUV. They may lag a long way
behind the Europeans in terms of planet-friendly engines et
cetera, but in terms of what Americans want and need a tool
to do, they have their SUV design down to a fine art.
Long before sun-up I'd climb into the cavernous cab and
fire up the big V8. Ooh, just feel that baby throb - a
petrolhead's dream. I'd select Dylan's just-released Love <&
Theft album on the CD player and Bob would kick off into
'Tweedledum And Tweedledee', just as he had every other
morning. You can rely on Bob: he's the man. Then it would
be on to the highway for the spectacularly scenic hour's drive
into Marble Canyon. I'd arrive at the unit base just as the big
red sun was coming up. Same in reverse on the way home.
The sun's long shadows turned the landscape into something
resembling another planet. Indeed, the dirt and cactus scrub
looks so convincingly alien that film-makers regularly make
the trek from LA to use the area for just this purpose. The Planet of the Apes production had been there not long before
us, shooting their exteriors. I found listening to Bob's songs
in those surroundings a much more potent, relevant, affecting
experience. Makes sense, I suppose: America and Americans
are what the songs are all about.
The wondrous settings had an equally wondrous effect on
the cast and crew but, sadly, not on the filming process.
Our director and the director of production didn't seem to
communicate with each other a great deal, and the end-result
was that the camera was almost never allowed any movement.
We shot everything on tripods - or legs, as they're known.
This old-fashioned style of shooting is highly unusual nowadays,
if not obsolete, and with an ensemble piece such as
ours, top-heavy with cast, moving the camera would have
made the thing not only much more dynamic and enjoyable
from an acting point of view, but infinitely more achievable
from a scheduling standpoint.
This thing of not moving the camera really bugged me. I
had asked Paul Seed about it many times and he would always
say it just wasn't his style. Fair enough, I suppose. The problem
was, the piece cried out for camera moves, for dynamics, for a
bit of visual ambition. Having witnessed the sumptuous reality
of our surroundings I was hoping we'd have some breathtaking
shots, but when I saw the end-result it was such a letdown.
It looked at times as if we'd locked off the camera and
shot a postcard. I suppose it might be argued that, as this
show is first and foremost a character-driven piece, and
ultimately the series was a great success, it didn't much matter
how it looked. Another case of what might have been.
Life for a teetotal actor on location can be boring. Thrills
are few. Next to bumping into Gary the props man in a
Flagstaff tattoo parlour and almost getting a tattoo, one of
the most exciting things I came across while I was stationed
in Page was the local Ralph Lauren retailer. I'm a big fan and
I didn't expect to find lots of it out there in the wilds, but I
was pleasantly surprised at the wide choice on offer, and
thrilled by the prices. Everything was reduced! Jeans were
twenty-five dollars! Jackets were forty! This was no out-of
date swag, either: all the garments were for the current season.
Never able to resist a bargain, I bought a load of kit, including
a fantastic pair of dark blue all-weather trousers for the giveaway
price of twenty-five dollars. That's fifteen quid, almost
too cheap. When I asked the lady who owned the place how
come the prices were so ridiculously low, she told me with a
shrug that, around those parts, at that time of the year, the
autumn, people simply weren't willing to pay any more, so that
was that: you either marked it down or watched it gather dust.
Strike one for consumer power. I bet it doesn't catch on over
here. I still have most of that stuff and I wear it all the time.
The all-weather strides I particularly love. Can't wait for some
awful weather so's I can pull 'em on and get out there.
Because a state of national emergency was in place, I was
arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist while walking near
the Lake Powell dam one balmy evening. The locals were
jittery: they constantly feared yet more terrorist attacks, and
wild rumours were fanned by the nightly TV news broadcasts,
some of them downright irresponsible. The whole
country was on a knife-edge; the police and the armed forces
were super-sensitive. Patrol cars and military vehicles cruised
the highways day and night. For me, coming from the UK,
it was oppressive. I was half-way across the dam when a
loud-hailer ordered the person on the footpath, which had
to be me as there was no one else around at the time, to step
over the low guardrail that separated the path from the road,
then remain still. I did exactly as I had been ordered. No
time to be playing smart-Alecs. A young cop got out of a
patrol car, his gun already drawn. Over he came, gingerly.
What was my business on the bridge at that time of night,
he wanted to know. I said I was out for a walk. He asked to
see some ID. I explained I wasn't carrying any as I was
staying at the Marriott just up the road and had decided to
take a walk under the stars after dinner to breathe the fresh
clean air and give my food, Mexican and very heavy, an
opportunity to go down. He radioed my name, along with
that of the Marriott, to his control and a long moment later
they cleared me. He offered his best wishes and bade me
goodbye.
We were made aware of an impending meteor shower,
the like of which wouldn't be seen again for at least another
sixty years, so I decided to check it out and took the SUV
to the dam in the late evening. I parked up, switched off the
lights and clambered up on to the roof, there to await the
evening's entertainment. I waited. And waited. And waited.
Nothing at all for at least an hour. Now, if this had been the
UK I would have given up and buggered off back to my
digs, doubting the accuracy of our Met Office. But in my
experience the Yanks tend to get their predictions right in
matters like this, so I decided to stick it out a little longer,
and thank goodness I did. The show began with a single
lateral streak high across the sky, so quick I wondered if I'd
imagined it. A moment later, there was another, and then
two together, then a couple more, slightly lower this time,
then more, and more, and more until the black Arizona sky
seemed filled with rocket-sized fireworks. Act of God or
natural phenomenon, whatever it was I take my hat off to its
magical wonder. Walt Disney might have put together a night sky such as that. The only downer was that I was watching
it all on my own. I really felt I should have been with Miriam so we could have enjoyed it together.
Lack of camera movement apart, those five weeks spent
filming in the wilds of Arizona were really enjoyable. The
scenic splendour played its part, of course, but for me it was
mostly to do with working with the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet regulars, a cast-iron cast who'd become my close friends over
the years. Tim Spall was my closest buddy, but we all had a lot
of fun together, shooting the breeze, catching up with each
other and, of course, acting together. People often talk about
there being a special bond between the actors on long-running
series or shows, but I've never known anything like the thing
we share. It's hard to define or even describe but it's to do with
respect and love. Real love. I'd bet it's a similar thing between
the England football team of 1966. We don't all see eye to
eye politically or philosophically. We don't hang out together
when we're not shooting. But something ties us together: it's
strong and it runs deep. Spall reckons there's an esprit de cops about the Auf'Wiedersehen, Pet cast like no other. It's the show
I've most enjoyed working on as an actor. Usually making
television drama is either a pain, plain hard graft, or grief.
There was a general feeling of magic among the cast and
crew about our time over in Arizona where we felt we were
part of something special. One incident stands out. We were
shooting a sequence of scenes in Marble Canyon late one
afternoon with a big crowd of Native Americans all kitted
out in their ceremonial feathers, paint and beads. There were
about sixty people in all, and as we stood in a wide circle our
characters were given a traditional welcome by the Chocinaw
tribe's medicine man, Saginaw. With a wizened face that
made him look older than God, Saginaw was a real medicine
man, a friend of Franc and godfather to his daughter, Ithaka.
He was an amazing guy, mystical and special. As the sun
disappeared behind the western edges of the canyon he
slowly made his way around the inside of the circle, nodding,
shuffling his feet to the beat of the talking drum, incanting,
high-pitched, in his own language and wafting smoke from
a smouldering sage plant. The effect was mesmeric. Dominic,
our first AD, called quietly for the camera to be cut. The
filming stopped. We had our scene in the can but no one
moved away for fear of breaking the spell. We were in the
midst of something that had transcended scripted words
and actors' reactions and we all wanted to be a continuing
part of it and savour every moment. So on it went, with
us standing stock-still and Saginaw making his way around
the inside of the circle. Then it was over, the sun had gone
and the fires we'd stood in front of were little more than
embers.
I remember shivering, but not because I was cold. A few
other people did the same. It was an elemental thing. A
spontaneous round of applause rippled around the circle.
Nothing remotely like that had ever happened to me before.
As I was preparing to make my way back to the hotel,
Saginaw came over and gave me the sage plant. He told me
I should use it only if there was a big life problem and I
needed the power of good medicine. I have it at home,
haven't needed it yet, but I wouldn't rule it out.
Saginawr gave me another gift, a baseball cap he'd designed
for the Navajo tribe with an unusual and distinctive feather-,
motif woven on the front just above the peak. I'm not one
for baseball caps as a rule but I loved that one and wore it
all the time until it went walkies from my trailer up at
Luton Hoo while we were filming the fourth series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
It was while we were in Page that the prospect of a fourth
series was mooted. The BBC had already let it be known that
they were thrilled with what was already in the can and wanted
to know how I felt about making some more. I was up to
the eyes with acting and music supervision duties but it was
exciting to know that, back in Wi 2, someone wanted to carry
on with the project. Where in the world should we next send
our intrepid team of international grafter-garglers? It would
have to be somewhere pretty special to beat the Grand
Canyon.
Franc had told me the BBC would like us to go to Australia,
as they had a co-production deal with a TV channel down
there and would be able to offset the potentially massive
budget. Australia did nothing for me as a shooting location,
left me flat, didn't excite or inspire me one bit. Viewers have
become used to seeing series go down there on the flimsiest
excuse. It looks like nothing more than a jolly for the actors
and execs and makes for pretty flat television. No offence,
cobbers, I'd loved the place as a holiday destination, but for Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, our boys and our audience, I was sure
we could do better. So where did I think we should go to?
the BBC asked politely, if a little impatiently.
My fancy was the Caribbean: there was drama aplenty out
there, what with the South American drug cartels using whole
islands as their staging posts, the Yardies, poverty, pirating
and the rest -- the other side of the coin to those Bounty
commercials. It also had one more important advantage over
Australia: if someone was taken ill they could be back in
London, courtesy of Concorde, in just over four hours. More
than one person on the team had been seriously ill so this
mattered.
We set our minds to finding a good reason for our chaps
to be in the Caribbean. I suggested they could be out there
initially rebuilding after a hurricane. Not bad. Then Ian called
from LA. How about Cuba? As soon as he said it I knew it
was the right place. It had everything we needed and more:
it had Spanish colonial mansions falling to bits, it had a
people's revolution in situ. Best of all, it had Fidel! I got very
excited at the prospect. Cuba! Could we be the first people
since 1959 to be allowed in to make a television drama series?
And we hadn't even finished the Arizona one!
But it was almost December, almost Christmas. We'd
nearly done. Just another three weeks at Bray and that would
be it. Where had the time gone? All too soon the Arizona
shoot came to an end. We packed, said goodbye to the locals
and headed to the airport for the short hop down to Phoenix.
On the way, I stopped off at the school and gave the headmistress
a Sony beatbox I'd bought on arrival - I couldn't
be bothered to cart it home. It wasn't much, but they were
knocked out and made an awful fuss.
Later, sitting slumped in a deep armchair in the darkened,
cavernous Phoenix International business lounge, I drank
tonic water as the television news blared out its endless noise.
Then, at the top of the hour, came some news that shook me. The newscaster said the world was in mourning following
the death of Beatle George Harrison.
Ian had told me George was close to death when he'd
called to suggest going to Cuba, but that news bulletin was
still a shock, and I feel the same today. It wasn't just that I'd
been lucky enough to know George as a pal for a while although
that was fab - but I'd got to meet, know and hang
out with one of my heroes, one of the world's heroes, a
Beatle, the Quiet One. He'd been everything you could have
hoped for in a hero and much more. He was truly a beautiful



human being. All things must pass, as George sang, but if
there's a beyond, and he firmly believed there was, it will be
the better for having his loving soul within it. 'Isn't it a pity?
Isn't it a shame?' Yes, it is. It's our loss, but we have his
musical legacy.
The first three weeks of December were taken up with
shooting on that same sound stage at Bray studios where,
almost a decade earlier, Geoff Knox and I had sat on the
fire-escape stairs as guests of George. I'm a sentimental
person at the best of times and it was tough finishing up
there.
By the end of the shoot, everyone was on their knees, but
there was still the feeling that we had turned in something
special. It kept us all going. On the penultimate day, I found
Joy Spink collapsed in a heap on the floor of her office. I
put her into my dressing-room bed then I ran off to find
help. Battle fatigue. On the final day Tim Healy and I came
near to blows, but it passed. We were just frazzled. Then it
was over.
The word in the press was mostly positive, though one
or two were predictably sniffy about our return. Everyone
involved with the show was fairly confident, but we'd been
away for a long time -- a lifetime in viewing terms. Tastes
had changed in the twenty years since those first bricks and
insults. Nothing could be taken for granted. We wondered
if we would get an audience at all. The BBC programme
schedulers had decided to screen Auf Wiedersehen, Pet at nine
p.m. on a Sunday evening, which I thought was a big mistake.
I thought mid-week would be its best home, and that Sunday
was the God-slot. Just shows how much I know. The Forsyte
Saga, ITV's glossy flagship drama, was airing at exactly the
same time: it was a period drama with lots of lust and intrigue,
low-cut dresses and moody glances, chalk to our cheese.
You'd be hard-pushed to think of a better example of two
polar opposites in drama. They'd had a two-week jump on us,
time to establish themselves in the viewers' consciousness. So
we all held our breath and waited for the ratings figures to
come in.
We needn't have worried. The overnight ratings for episode
one were thirteen million, similar to what we were
getting in the good old days before the advent of Sky and
cable, and almost unheard-of in present terms. We weren't
just thrilled, we were shocked. It seemed too good to be true.
However, it was only week one. The test would be whether
we could hold those figures through the run. A popular
Sunday broadsheet wondered, rather sarcastically, what the
viewing figures would be by week four, when all the media
hullabaloo had died down. They turned out to be twelve
million. I had to smile.
I sat and watched the show on television like everyone
else. No matter how many times you may have seen a piece
of work before, there's something different about seeing it
on the telly for the first time, hearing the tones of the
anonymous announcer as he or she tells the nation this is it,
here it is, you're on. It also enables you to see the thing in
context, surrounded by other programmes, and get an idea
of how good or bad it really is. Despite my concerns about
its visual shortcomings and last-minute score, I thought our
series stacked up just fine. But what were we in terms
of categorization? Predictable headlines were trotted out 'National
Treasure' and 'Britain's Favourite Brickies'. These
were twenty-year-old phrases that hadn't even been original
the first time round. I've concluded we inhabit a place all our
own somewhere between Last of the Summer Wine and The
Wild Bunch. That'll do me. Not a bad place to be.

After the runaway success of the series I was looking to
spend an idyllic few months at home resting, relaxing, basking
in all the glory, and hoping to land a lucrative commercial.
The old days when the entertainment industry regarded
doing a television commercial as selling out, the domain of
the desperate and certain career death, were long gone.
Commercial realities, along with stars like Rowan Atkinson
and his wonderful turns in the Barclays Bank commercials,
had seen to that. No joy there, though. Instead I spent the
entire summer bringing libel actions against thirteen different
newspapers, magazines and individuals, some of them
powerful corporations, stemming from the show's reemergence
and new-found popularity. I won them all, but
it's taken two long years and a lot of grief.
The trip I'd made to Havana in January, to meet up with
Franc, then Dick and Ian, to look for a suitable storyline,
had been of the usual order, sometimes incredible, sometimes
unbearable. I hadn't wanted to go as I'd arranged to spend a
week or so hanging out with Brian Johnson, an old mate
from Newcastle and the singer with AC/DC, who lives in
sun-kissed Sarasota, Florida, but Franc felt it essential that I
was along for the ride to add the required grit. I went to
Florida for about ten days, the beautiful Keys, which my dad
had visited sixty years previously during the Second World
War, while he was serving temporarily with the US Navy,
then flew to Havana from Miami via Mexico. You can't do
it direct - even with journalistic clearance, which I had. As
far as Uncle Sam's concerned Cuba is still the bad guy, Fidel
the bandit. An entire day was devoted to and wasted on
unnecessary air travel. I was met at the airport by Irene
Prado Capo, the Cuban government's cultural representative
charged with chaperoning us for the duration of our trip.
Anything we wanted to know, we were just to ask Irene.
Anywhere we wanted to go, we had just to ask Irene. No
problema. Just ask. Which in effect meant we couldn't go anywhere or do anything without first asking Irene, couldn't
make a move without Irene's knowledge, consent and
accompaniment. Unintentionally I caused Irene to burst into
floods of tears in the mini-bus one day when I asked her if
she was a spy. Turned out she was. Bit of a giveaway.
The hotel phones sometimes clicked before you'd put them
down.
When I met up with Franc at the hotel he informed me
of Dick and Ian's intention to stay for only four days instead
of the pencilled eight or nine. Apparently they had other
commitments they couldn't move. We'd not even started
work and the plan was already under pressure. Four days.
Time would be tight, so we got stuck in. We kicked some
stuff around but it wasn't going anywhere special, and we
were flapping a bit. We needed a spark, something that would
fire us all up.
We did the cigar factory and the nightclub, the sugar cane
plantation and the ballet, accompanied at all times by the
lovely if occasionally tearful Irene. The ballet was incredible.
We were allowed to sit in on a dress rehearsal, with full
orchestra, of Don Quixote. The dancers were sublime and the
musicians magnificent, but what made it all the more moving
was that their costumes were threadbare, as were the auditorium's
sad old seats. Yet there was no self-pity, only dignity
and pride. It brought tears to my eyes.
As we left the auditorium I had an idea about Oz and a
prima ballerina. Could there be a romance between the two?
Beauty and the Beast? We travelled across town in the
local transport, bright orange two-seater scooter taxis with
Outspan-shaped outer cowlings for protection. Franc and I
were in one, Dick and Ian in another. I told our young female
driver that if she got us to our destination before Dick and
Ian we'd give her twenty dollars. That was a mistake. There
followed a hair-raisingly fast journey across town, which we
won. It was a blast.
In no time at all (four days!) it was time to head home,
and we had little to go with. We had one last jaunt scheduled,
a visit to the British Embassy, where we were to be welcomed
by the ambassador, and then it was off to pack a bag and
argue about the hotel bill with the receptionists. The visit
was a scream, dafter and more cliched than anything you see
in sitcoms. On our arrival we were led into a huge room
containing a big table and a dozen flunkeys and spooks. Over
to one side there was another, much smaller table, on which
sat cans of beer and Coke. A sugar bowl contained Twiglets.
I asked if I could have a cup of tea. Once they'd stopped
laughing and twigged I actually did want a cuppa it caused
no end of consternation. Someone, no doubt of lowly rank,
was despatched to sort it out. Some fifteen minutes later I
got my cuppa, all milky and tepid. During that time I'd
learned a lot more than I'd ever wanted to know about the
assembled bunch.
Eventually it was time to go, thank goodness. After we'd
thanked the gang of Brits, which had included Richard
Bebbington, an ex-ICI employee who is now working part
time as the British consul in Finland, we made our way to
the foyer and out into the sunshine and fresh air. I happened
to comment on the immaculate stucco exterior of the
embassy to the head of Security and asked him who they
entrusted with such work. He told me the outside of the
building was done by CubaCon, a local company, but for
security reasons all internal works were the responsibility of
the OED. Then the driver was calling: we had to go. Dick,
Ian and Franc drifted towards the big main gates. But this
was the first potentially interesting thing I'd come across all
day. What was the OED? I asked. Our mini-bus driver was
tooting his horn now. Head of Security told me OED stood
for Overseas Estates Department. A young lady, Susannah
Payne, from Hexham, asked if she could be of help in her
capacity as second secretary. I asked her whom we could talk
to about the workings of the OED. She told me they were
based in Croydon. The driver was calling me now. I was in
danger of capsizing our travel plans. Susannah gave me her
card and promised to e-mail me the details.
The Overseas Estates Department is charged with the
maintenance of government buildings all over the world, and
sends top-notch tradesmen and -women to all corners of the
globe. These workers are in a sort of grey area whereby they
aren't fully protected by diplomatic immunity but they are
representing the government abroad, and have to sign the
Official Secrets Act. Susannah helped arrange for us to visit
their offices in Croydon and it was a revelation. After the
rigmarole of signing in we were escorted to the twentieth
floor where we were introduced to three of the men whose
job it was to run this mysterious department. In a past life
they'd all been civil engineers. Now, dressed in regulation
dark suits, they made an odd trio behind their big conference
table. Crucially, they were all fans of the show. There was
immediate goodwill, common ground, and we soon relaxed.
After tea and small-talk we got down to it. I explained I
had an idea for a storyline I'd like to tell them about and
we'd appreciate their reaction to it. It was probably nuts, I
said, unworkable, but if they'd pay us the courtesy of listening
to it they could shoot it full of holes once we'd done. It
wouldn't take long. I started off on my idea, with Franc filling
in bits and pieces as we went. Ten minutes later we'd finished.
The three suits sat there for a moment, then they laughed.
One said, 'It's as if you'd worked in the department for
twenty years!' Our little idea was right on the money. In fact,
the stuff we thought might be too preposterous turned out
to be anything but. They gave us the low-down on the way
it all worked, with incidents, anecdotes, stories and scandals.
I couldn't believe what we were being told.
Outside, I looked at Franc. We were like a couple of kids.
We both knew this was paydirt, absolute gold. We'd just
been given a template for as many Auf'Wiedersehen, Pets as we
ever wanted to make. No need to worry about dreaming up
a plausible dramatic reason to get the brickies out to wherever
we wanted them to go. Via the OED we could legitimately
send them anywhere in the world. I did a little dance on the
Croydon pavement.
Next job was to put it all down on paper. This was no
problem as the guys over at Croydon had given us so much
wonderful source material. A week later, after clearing it with
Franc and making sure he was happy, I sent e-mails to Laura
Mackie at the BBC and Dick Clement in LA. Along with
my cover note was a five-page beat-sheet containing an
outline of the Croydon info. A week or two later Dick sent
back a draft storyline for me to have a look at. It was strong
and read well, but there were one or two points I wasn't
happy with. My concerns were to do with plot credibility. I
often steer too close to the naturalistic side of things but that
was what Franc had asked me to bring to this particular party
- a dose of reality. I went through it with Franc then e-mailed
Dick and Ian with my suggestions. Soon we were all happy
and the thing was moving at a pace.

For a long time it had been touch and go as to whether we'd
be able to film in Cuba. Nothing like that had been allowed
since Castro seized power in 1959. In terms of achievement
it would be a real coup. The BBC were given permission for
us to go on a recce, then to proceed with our plans for
production. Everything was looking rosy and we were buzzing
at the prospect of pulling it off. Then, two weeks before
we were due to set off and without any consideration for the
hard work we'd put in, George W. Bush and Tony Blair
declared war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq. As far as making
the show went, it wasn't the greatest thing that could have
happened.
Post-9/11, Cuba was high on the Bush administration's list
of states and regimes that sponsored terrorism. Washington
made no secret of its burning desire to do something about
this perennial thorn in its side and was threatening to deploy
US forces down there. This was at exactly the same time as
orange-suited and manacled terrorist suspects were being
held in cages by the Americans at their military base in
Guantanamo Bay -- situated on the south-eastern coast of
Cuba. If anyone can figure that one out I'd like to know how
it works. Havana told the BBC that any friend of George
W. was an enemy of Cuba and that was that.
I was given the news at I CM by Chrissy Skinns, our newly
appointed producer, and went away to mull it over. There
were two alternatives and not much time: we could move
over to the nearest available Caribbean island, which was the
Dominican Republic, or we could cancel. For a while I
favoured the latter option. Never mind the Dominican
Republic, there was nowhere on earth that resembled Havana


with its wonderfully faded, multi-coloured Spanish colonial
villas and architecture, its wacky 1960s eastern-bloc buildings,
its massive Che Guevara murals, its people, its history and
the unique sense that time had stood still for five decades. It
was such a let-down. On the other hand, an awful lot of
work had gone into the project, and the design team felt they
could convincingly re-create Havana in Santo Domingo. I
had my doubts but I thought, Let's give it a try. Hopefully
the worst we'd end up with would be a well-made show that
didn't look 100 per cent authentic. We'd be in for one or
two letters and sniffy reviews. A compromise, for sure, and
by no means perfect, but in these days of grey, drab telly I
could live with that.
Me and my lumbar cushions arrived in the Dominican
Republic after a ten-hour BA flight from London to Miami,
a four-hour stop-off and then a four-hour hop down to Santo
Domingo. By then my back was giving me terrible gyp. It
had started up a few weeks earlier and I could hardly get in
and out of bed. More worryingly, it was going to impact on
my ability to perform. I wondered if I'd be able to do anything
at all, so bad was the pain. After an MRI scan had shown up
no sign of bone or disc damage I'd been to see the top chap
in Harley Street. He'd administered steroid injections: local
anaesthetic followed by a great big needle into the end of my
spine. It was all of ten minutes before the syringe was empty.
The procedure was painful and unpleasant.
Worse: a week later I was still in great pain. I was getting
desperate. I'd requested the Santo Domingo production
office to organize an osteopath for me and was relieved to
learn, on arrival at the hotel, that the island's best practitioner
was coming out to see me. A lady turned up and introduced
herself as Isis Martinez, manual therapist. Little did I know
she would be my saviour.
Isis explained to me, in her sweet broken English, that she
had never before made a trip like this to treat anyone,
especially a man. People might get the wrong idea, you
understand, as to what she was offering. I explained to her
that even if I got the wrong idea I was in so much pain I'd
be incapable of doing much about it. She didn't laugh. With
her dark look and gruff manner, I thought maybe she was a
dyke. She examined me, asking me to bend forward slowly.
When I told her about my Harley Street jabs, she shuddered.
After a while she pronounced her diagnosis. I was suffering
neither from disc nor bone trouble. The problem was ligament
damage. And, wait for it, she was going to fix me.
Somewhat sceptical, I explained she was flying in the face of
the best Harley Street doctoring that money could buy. She
tut-tutted and shook her head disdainfully.
It turned out Isis was no dyke. She was a warm, lovely
woman with a sixteen-year-old son. And just over two weeks
later she had indeed fixed my back. It was not far short of
miraculous and, although I was not quite 100 per cent, I was
able to complete the location work and the rest of the shoot
in the UK. I'm still pain-free, touch wood. Anyone who's
suffered a back problem understands how thoroughly it
affects your life. It's debilitating, sickening, the absolute pits,
and you'd pay any amount to get yourself sorted. I am
eternally grateful to Isis for blessing me with her healing
gifts. Although I'm not a believer in specific destiny things,
I did wonder about the sequence of events that led me to
Isis. Had there been no conflict in Iraq, I would have been
in Cuba and she and I would never have met. I might still be
hobbling around. Life's a miracle indeed.
By any standards the Dominican Republic is very poor. I
always feel a twinge of guilt on seeing the plight of those
around me when I'm away on location somewhere, taking


visual advantage of their lot; I usually assuage it by reminding
myself that I'm spreading around a bit of moolah, which is
true. Outside the capital, which itself was dirt-poor in many
places, things got really rough. Most families had no more
than a flimsy One-room wooden shack with a corrugated-tin
roof. No doors. No floor other than the earth. Yet the
pride the local people took in their humble belongings and
surroundings was humbling. Most impressive of all, the kids
were always immaculately turned out for school, their hair
neatly combed or braided. Just how and where they ironed
shirts and blouses was a mystery.
As desperate as it was, the locals didn't seem to resent
their lot. They looked upon the jungle, with its plentiful
supply of bananas, coconuts, exotic fruits and vegetables, as
their back garden. Mind you, they were much better off than
their neighbours, the Haitians. The Dominican Republic's
inhabitants were predominantly of Mediterranean stock, and
the Haitians were of African descent. Their difference in
appearance set the many Haitian immigrants apart and the
indigenous people tended to look down on them as second
class citizens. According to my driver, Ariel, there was no
love lost between the two peoples.
The only thing I knew about Haiti was that it was off-limits
to foreigners. The beautiful, lush island of Hispaniola had
first been discovered and settled by Christopher Columbus,
whose son became its first governor. Now it was home to
two different nations, separated by a border running roughly
from north to south. The French-speaking Republic of Haiti
occupies about a third of the island to the west of the border
and the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic accounts for
the rest. According to the CIA website Haiti has a population
of around eight million to the Dominican Republic's sixteen
million. There is no economic infrastructure, no national
export, no tourism industry. How does the place survive? As
a staging post for drugs, it would seem. As a result of the
Colombian drug cartels' all-pervading influence the place is
all but lawless, and extremely dangerous: unrecognized visitors
are often being dragged from their cars and shot.
Nobody went there other than those up to no good. We
were under strict instruction not to visit. This normally acts
for me like a red rag to a bull but Ariel did a good job
convincing me of the folly of any such adventure. He and
others told me something else about the place. There were
zombies there. Real zombies. Not like the ones depicted since
the 1920s in Hollywood movies that are fond of bursting out
of the earth to go looking for new bandages. These are
people kept under the spell of witch doctors. Apparently a
certain species of fish, found only in the coastal waters
of Haiti, is caught, dried and ground into powder by the
local witch doctors. When given to unfortunates in drink
or sprinkled over food, it renders them semi-comatose.
Repeated doses keep them in a trance-like state. True? Maybe.
Or maybe they were all just stoned. I'm inclined to believe
Ariel.
It was very hot, usually in the nineties throughout the day
and the high eighties at night. Then there was the humidity.
Within a minute of stepping outside an air-con zone you and
your clothing were soaked. I'd visited the Caribbean on
holiday many times but not to work. I didn't mind the
conditions, but the sun-block was another matter: to prevent
continuity problems, we were issued with factor 1000. Duck
fat. It was quite a sight, all those greasy actors reclining by
the hotel pool.
Because it was all a little last-minute, the shoot kicked off
without the usual thorough preparation necessary for the
success of an ambitious venture such as ours, and it soon
'

showed. Organizationally it was a shambles, and partly
because there was no real film infrastructure on the island:
other than the odd commercial nothing much happened
there. So we muddled along from day one. Location food
was a good example. Four times in the first week of filming,
over a period of six days, I arrived on location after a
forty-five-minute drive to be informed there was no food
left. The location caterers, a lovely bunch of people, were
restaurateurs and had no experience in film-industry catering.
On one memorable morning the boss pulled the lid off one
of the big metal serving trays with a flourish and a smile,
rather as a magician might reveal a rabbit, only there was no
rabbit, or anything else, for that matter. All gone, he said,
with a satisfied smile. I ended up sending Ariel for some sandwiches. It happened all too often.
There was real cause for concern with the action vehicles.
The production needed to fill the streets with the type of
colourful 1950s American gas-guzzlers you still see in Cuba.
It wasn't easy as there weren't many on the island -- in fact,
there weren't many decent cars of any kind, vintage or
modern. The Dominican Republic is a very poor country,
rotten with corruption. It ran from top to bottom. I witnessed
an example one day in the business lounge bar of the hotel.
An official from the Department of Tourism and a Russian
businessman, who had the deepest voice I've ever heard
other than Paul Robeson's, sat two metres away from me
discussing deals, developments and kickbacks over omelettes
and vodka. The amounts being bandied about were in the
millions of dollars. Maybe I should have asked them if they
could sort us out some decent vintage cars. As it was we
were lumbered with tired-out old dogs, which looked all
right as set dressing but were good for not much else. We
must have lost hours while they were pushed and pulled into
place. On one occasion a continuity vehicle, one of two
identical trucks, didn't turn up for an all-night shoot. Cue pacing up and down, pulling of hair and expletives. When
the owner was eventually tracked down he said he didn't
know which of the two vehicles we wanted so he'd thought
it best not to bring either.
A BBC insurance assessor came out from London. I was
glad to see him. He immediately condemned one of the
action vehicles, a pick-up truck, declaring it unsafe and highly
dangerous. No brakes to speak of. This after Tim Healy had
been driving it up and down the set for the best part of a day
with us perched on the back. Not that this would have
deterred the locals. I've never been anywhere like it in terms
of both how and what they drove. For the likes of us, used
to new cars, the state of the motors over there was hard to
believe. Forget safety, MOTs and emissions controls and
think instead total corrosion, sticky tape and choking filthy
fumes.
The filming was a bit off-kilter for the first three weeks
because Tim Spall was tied up in New Zealand with Tom
Cruise on The Last Samurai. Big-budget with locations worldwide,
it was overrunning and Tim was delayed. He ended up
joining us direct from finishing down there. He'd not been
home for something like eight months. Not healthy, that.
Once he'd joined us it.felt like the beast had all its limbs again
and we began slowly to resemble the well-oiled ensemble of
old. I'm not the biggest fan of the filming process from the
actor's point of view: I find the waiting around unbearable. Reading a book doesn't work for me as I need to be tuned
into what I'm about to do, not detached from it. The same
goes for a snooze. For me it becomes one long waiting game
and if I'm not occupied I end up getting involved with all
the mini-dramas and distractions that tend to bedevil a shoot.
»~

Or I used to. Now I'm better at ignoring stuff that doesn't
really concern me.
We had some fun out in the jungle, but most days it was
just plain hard slog. I'd be up around four forty-five a.m. to
leave the hotel an hour later. After an always-eventful drive
I'd arrive at the unit base around seven, to get changed, made
up and, if my luck was in, fed. Ready to rehearse on set for either seven thirty or eight. Shoot till one p.m. Lunch till
two. Back to the set, rehearse and shoot till seven. Get
changed and head back to the hotel, arriving around nine.
By the time I'd taken a pummelling from Isis, it would be
gone ten o'clock. Order a snack, go over tomorrow's lines
while waiting for it to arrive. In bed by eleven. Book an alarm
call, set the alarm on the bedside clock as a back-up. Lights
out. The next day, run the whole routine again. Six days a
week for six weeks.
And on the seventh day you rest, right? Maybe in biblical
times, but they weren't making television series in those days,
so you do your washing, make your calls home, always a pain
with connections and the time differences, and that's about
all you have time for. As usual, I missed the family terribly.
The boys, being teenagers, aren't nearly as interested in
shooting the breeze with their dad as they used to be.
'But you're paid a bloody fortune!' I hear you cry, and
there's no denying we're lucky in that respect. I'm just
pointing up the mundane, draggy nature of the daily routine
that is filming. Glamorous? Yeah, right.
It was lovely to see Spall at long last. His arrival brought
joy to the set and the business lounge bar. He's such a funny
man, and since his illness he's become even more irreverent.
Having known him before, I wouldn't have thought this
possible. He's not a bad actor, either. It's always fun to be
in scenes with Tim, and sometimes it's nothing short of
thrilling. It's a treat just to watch him at close quarters as he
does his thing. Once or twice I've made the mistake of
thinking, Nah, that's not going to work, only to see it later
on, in the context of the piece as a whole, and realize I was
well wrong. He's a man at the top of his game. The show is
lucky to have him at its heart. For me he is the jewel in the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet crown, but for a long time it looked as if
we'd have to do that series without him. He didn't fancy
another five months reprising boring Barry the Brummie
and knocking out six hours of UK television, no matter how
good the scripts. Who can blame him? If your choices happen
to include working with some of the world's top movie
actors and directors, which would you plump for? In the
end, Tim chose to do another Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and we
were all glad to have him back on board. We couldn't have
done without him. But his other commitments made our job
a scheduling struggle.
I was incredibly lucky with the bugs and the mozzies. The
once-a-week anti-malarial pills were no fun, resulting in
double vision and dizziness among other things, and the
daily dousing in what smelt and tasted like kerosene was a
real stomach-churner, but I wasn't bitten once in the entire
six weeks I was out there. I must have been the only member
of the production to get away with it. Poor Justine Luxton,
our lovely, gifted costume designer, was poorly almost before
we'd started. It turned out she'd contracted dengue, a
thoroughly unpleasant mosquito-borne virus. Justine has a
fair complexion and the mark left around the spot where the
insect had bitten her was awful. It looked as though it would
be there for good, but things could have been worse: dengue
fever, a more aggressive strain of the same virus, can be fatal.
As a result of the heavy schedule I had only one opportunity
to flee the capital and enjoy the island's beautiful beaches
and clear blue seas. Rather surprisingly, the best beaches
were to be found on the island's north coast, facing the
Atlantic. Smack in the middle of the shoot I had three whole
days free, so Kevin, Chris, the two Tims and I were driven
to the resort of Punta Cana on the easternmost tip of the
island. Not only was it a Bounty-bar paradise with palm trees
and white sand, the complex was all but deserted so we had
the place to ourselves. From our beachside cabanas it was a
few paces across the sand to the ocean's edge. After a
golf-buggy ride through tropical grounds we were dropped
off at our digs and we all immediately stripped off, donned
our swimmies and got into that glimmering water. Kevin and
I were a little further from the shore than the others, standing
chest-deep in beautiful warm gentle waves when a shoal of
glistening gold flying fish, scores of them, appeared from
nowhere and swam, leaped, sparkled and splashed their way
past us, around us, straight through us, it seemed to me. In
an instant they were gone. The others missed it completely.

After a shambles of a journey from Santo Domingo via New
York to London, we began the latter stages of the shoot at
the beginning of June. We spent six weeks on location in
and around London and the South East, and five weeks on
the sound stages at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.
It was a long, arduous shoot and by the end, in mid-August,
I was wiped out, mentally and physically exhausted, and felt
I never wanted to do another day's filming in my life. Unlike
a lot of people who tend to react to the end of a long filming
stint as they would a bereavement, I'm always ecstatic that
it's over, that we've managed it without murder or mishap
and that it's in the can. I guess it's proof, if proof were
needed, that I don't like the filming aspect of what I do. I
don't like being in the middle of all those people and their
knowing my day-to-day business. I don't know if I'd feel the
same had I not fallen into this line of work all those years
ago, but it's my guess I would. I'm basically a private person
who likes to keep himself to himself. I prefer pottering about
at home with a newspaper and a cup of tea. However,
Miriam's always reckoned I'm good for about a month and
then I go stir-crazy. In the past I would have agreed with
that, but I'm not so sure these days. Making programmes
matters less and less to me.
The up-side of this adventure was working with the show's
directors, Maurice Phillips and David Innes Edwards.
Maurice was new to me and it's always a worry as to how
people you don't know will be. Will their thoughts, ideas,
aims and ambitions for the project correspond with your
own? On a more basic level, will you get on with them over
a five-month filming period? Maurice turned out to be gifted,
laid-back and, most important of all, very likeable. I'd known
Dave from when he'd worked as a first assistant director on
the Spender series a decade earlier. A big fellow, he tends to
suffer from people assuming wrongly that size is somehow
linked with subtlety. Not so. They were both great men to
work with, had a sense of humour similar to mine, and time
spent with either or both of them on the floor was always
enjoyable, never a chore. Though we occasionally disagreed
on points of interpretation, I trusted their judgement implicitly.
They were ambitious for the series, wanted to take it on
to the next level. Best of all, they moved the bloody camera!

When I got back to London, it wasn't long before we were
bereaved. Jack, Miriam's dad, had been terminally ill for some
time and wasn't expected to live as long as he did. He'd had
a severe stroke twenty years earlier and had been all but
incapacitated. Having started off as a scene painter, he'd
ended up running the entire BBC Light Entertainment
Department in Wales and was responsible for a lot of successful
programming, including the first Welsh-language
soap, Pobly Cwm, which is still going strong today. It was
heartbreaking to watch a man who'd been so articulate
struggle to say a single syllable, but it meant I could say
goodbye to him, which was important for me, and let him
know everything would be all right with the rest of the family.
I reassured him I'd always look after Miriam. He nodded,
then said, 'Nice to hear, though.'Jack was a wonderful man
and is greatly missed by us all.
It was time to get stuck into organizing the house renovations
and the Sunday Night For Sammy concerts we now
stage every other year. I'm not sure which was the more
traumatic, but I do know which was the more expensive, by
a long way. We had a ball: Brian Johnson did a guest spot,
and this year alone we raised over 100,000 pounds Not bad for a
daft Geordie, eh?


'Thank fuck that's finished!' That was my overriding reaction
to the nice people at Penguin finally telling me, 'No more.
That's enough.' Other, more complicated feelings have since
kicked in, but after fifteen months of almost daily slog I still
feel an overwhelming relief at having got the thing down and
done. In taking on the writing myself, I had had no idea of
just how hard it would be and what I was letting myself in
for. I now understand why most folk choose a ghost-writer.
In retrospect I would've preferred that route but it wasn't an
option: the Penguin people insisted I wrote every word. In a
way I'm glad they did. There's a satisfaction in getting to the
end, I guess, as there would be in finishing any kind of
marathon, but in terms of what I've managed it's a hollow
victory. Reading over it all just makes me aware of how
woefully ill-read I am. If I'd read more, instead of propping
up bar counters and lying in gutters, I'd know more and have
a much better turn of phrase than I do. How I envy those
writers who can draw on their accumulated knowledge and
conjure up literary magic.
A pal of mine who must remain nameless (Sting) was
writing a similar book and he finished before me. Well, he
would, wouldn't he? I asked him how he felt on getting to
the end. 'Depressed,' he said, and I understood exactly what
he meant because I was going through the same downer. All
the life-shit you've buried, either deliberately or subconsciously,
has to be dredged up, raked over and dealt with as
you struggle to bring some kind of hindsight perspective to


it all. For better or worse, my life can neither be relived nor
undone. All those moments are now memories. It's also
impossible to avoid a sense of the best things being over
and gone. Certainly my fitness has peaked. Although I feel
great, the natural way of things means it'll be a downhill run
from here on in. I reluctantly accept I'll never play football
for Newcastle United, although there's always the charity
matches.
It's been an enlightening, sometimes sobering experience
in as much as I now realize my memory of incidents and
occasions is no more than that. I wish I'd kept a diary,
but that wasn't on the menu back then. Photographs, too.
Without filmed or recorded evidence there can be no definitive
version of events. Even so, my own research has shown
my recall of times past has often been wide of the mark. I've
tried to temper that with this new-found reality. I hope the
balance struck is near to the actual. Miriam's recollections
have sometimes been sobering and difficult for me to accept,
but have mostly been deadly accurate, bless her.
There have been one or two big surprises. Somewhat
oddly, I couldn't remember which year I was in jail. I knew
it was either 1976 or 1977 but had no record (ha!) of events.
When I asked my sister, Val, about it I discovered she'd kept
all the letters I'd written to her from my cell in Strangeways.
This blast from the past came as a complete shock, and I
confess I've still to read them. I'll have to be in the right
frame of mind, sit on my own on the seat under the tree in
the garden one day and just look through them. I did read a
little of one, at my sister's prompting, and was pleasantly
surprised by how articulate it was. I'd remembered those
letters as messy, ink-stained, clumsy and mistake-ridden, but
they weren't at all bad. I'd signed off by asking Val if she
would send me some books, music-related, as I was down
to my last two from the prison library: biographies of Hughie
Greene and General Franco!
I wish I could report that I had answers to life's big
questions, at least ones that made more uplifting reading
than 'We're born, we live, we die, we're dust', but I don't. I
wish I had my mother's unwavering faith, but I don't. I don't
trust organized religion: it usually means that the poor are
encouraged to give what pennies they have to folk offering
them entrance into one or other of the various kingdoms on
offer. It could be argued, though, that even if it's all a load
of con-man's cock and bull, it gets some through the night.
Maybe, but shouldn't we be trying to make the 'here' better
instead of worrying about the hereafter?
The nature of religious belief means there's no indisputable
proof of anything after this life. But that's not to say
there's nothing. And there's the rub. It's an attractive proposition,
and I can testify to its value and importance, having
watched my mam get through terrible times with nothing
more than her faith and a hot-water bottle. And yet. . . and
yet I'm not convinced. In the end there are just too many
contradictions. It's tempting, though, the whole God thing,
and I do envy those with enough pure faith to transcend the
logical anomalies within most religions. As a set of rules to
live by, the basic Christian values are as good as any I'm
aware of. We try to adhere to them and have our kids do
likewise. Like most professed non-believers, I hedge my bets
and harbour the quiet hope that, come the time and I'm
proved wrong, the Great One will take pity on me and allow
me to eat grapes while I'm reclining on a cloud.
I've never had what could be considered a game-plan, or
a career plan, or any plan, really, other than making enough
to get by, keeping the bairns in shoes, and after that having
a good time. I've managed to do those things, but too much
forward planning is asking for trouble. I'm not a believer in
luck, as it implies some sort of predestination, but I know
I've been extremely fortunate. I have no ambitions as such.
I don't know what the future holds in terms of what I'll be
doing, but I do know it'll not involve acting. The politics are
plain horrible. I became an actor by accident and have no
great passion for it. I'm working with Franc Roddam on a
script for a new BBC drama series that, if it works out, will
keep me busy for a year or two. Eventually it'll peter out, but
that's fine by me. I'm more than happy reading the papers,
buying and selling the odd house and indulging in my two
real passions outside the family: motor cars and music. I'd
like to do a stage musical at some point, but that's about it.
Would I change anything, were I to have my fifty years
over again? You bet! Margaret Thatcher apart, I'd like to see
more women in charge of the world. There'd certainly be a
lot less bother, and they're much easier on the eye. I'd keep
a civil tongue and I wouldn't drink alcohol -- I'd never fall
for that one again. All those wasted hours, days and years,
spent either lolling around aimlessly or propping up bars and
causing a disturbance, would instead be spent sober and
focused. I'd fill my head with as much learning as I could
take on board. That said, I did meet the love of my life (and,
no, we're still not married) in a pub, so I guess some good
came of it.
As time passes, I'm thankful that most of the close friends
I had in my earlier years are close friends still. In the flaky,
here-today, gone-tomorrow world of entertainment, there's
real reassurance in that. I wonder about pals who've gone
from my life, and in some cases gone from this life altogether.
One of my closest friends, Tommy McCulloch, was almost
certainly murdered and I wonder sometimes what he must
have suffered in those last moments. I think about my
parents, and particularly my mam, more and more. She really
was goodness personified, refusing to think badly of anyone,
even those who set out to do her family harm, instead
insisting gently that there'd be some reason for their actions.
How I wish I'd appreciated her wisdom more fully while she
was alive.
Most of all, I marvel at the act of creation that gave us our
two sons. Every single day I watch them, just living and
breathing and laughing, and I give thanks to the heavens.
Every single day I've reason to count my blessings. Surely
this is the blessing. They are beyond wonderful and, because
of them and others like them, I have real confidence in the
future of this planet. I'll sign off with a couple of lines by my
favourite wordsmith, Mr Paddy McAloon, which say it all
much more succinctly than I ever could:

Life's a miracle,
we've got to make the most of the passing moment
got to do our best, before it's time to rest.

Jimmy Nail

Film

Still Crasy (1998) Columbia Tri-Star. Dir. Brian Gibson. Played les
WICKES
Golden Globe nominations 1999: Best Picture, Best Original Song
('The Flame Still Burns', performed by Jimmy Nail). Winner: Ivor
Novello Award. Best Original Song In A Movie: 'The Flame Still
Burns'.
Evita (1996) Cinergi/Buena Vista. Dir. Alan Parker. Played agustin
MAGALDI
Academy Award 1997: Best Original Song CYou Must Love Me',
performed by Madonna). Golden Globe Awards 1997, Best
Picture, Best Actress (Madonna), Best Original Song (Rice/
Lloyd-Webber)
Danny, the Champion of the World (1990) Portobello/Disney. Dir. Gavin
Millar. Played rabbetts
JustAsk for Diamond (1988) Goldwyn Co./Warner Bros. Dir. Stephen
Bayley. Played boyle
Dream Demon (1987) Palace Pictures. Dir. Harley Kokliss. Played p aul
Crusoe (1986) Walt Disney. Dir. Caleb Deschanel. Played tarik
Morons From Outer Space (1985) EMI Films. Dir. Mike Hodges. Played
DESMOND

Television

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (2004) BBC. Dir. Sandy Johnson. Played lead role:
oz
2 x 1-hour episodes scripted by Dick Clement/Ian La Frenais.
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (2004) BBC. Dir. Maurice Phillips, David Innes
Edwards. Played lead role: oz

6 x i-hour episodes scripted by Dick Clement/Ian La Frenais.
Co-writer storyline.
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (2002) BBC. Dir. Paul Seed. Played lead role: oz
6 x 1-hour episodes scripted by Dick Clement/Ian La Frenais.
Co-writer storyline.
Crocodile Shoes (1994--6) Big Boy Productions/BBC. Dir. David
Richards, Roger Bamford, Baz Taylor. Played lead role: jed
shepperd
13x1 -hour episodes on film. Creator/writer, producer, lead actor.
BAFTA nominations: Best Original Music, Best Song ('Crocodile
Shoes', performed by Jimmy Nail). Soundtrack album sales
quadruple platinum.
Spender (1989-93) Big Boy Productions/BBC. Dir. Mary McMurray,
Roger Bamford, Richard Standeven, Matt Forrest. Played lead role:
FREDDIE SPENDER
20 x 1-hour episodes on film plus 1 x 90-minutes single film.
Co-creator (with Ian La Frenais)/writer, producer, lead actor.
BAFTA nomination: Best Drama Series. Television and Radio
Industries Award: Best Drama Series.
Shoot for the Sun (1986) BBC. Dir. Ian Knox. Scr. Peter McDougal.
Prod. Andre Molyneaux. Played lead role: geordie
BAFTA nomination: Best Single Film.
Wallenberg (1986) Paramount Pictures. Tel. Dir. LaMont Johnson.
Played: vilmos langfelder
4 x 1-hour mini-series.
Master of the Game (1985) NBC Tel. Dir. Kevin Connor. Played:
SCHMIDT
4 x 1-hour mini-series.
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1982--6) Central Tel. Dir. Roger Bamford, Baz
Taylor. Played lead role: oz
26 x 1-hour episodes written by Dick Clement/Ian La Frenais.
BAFTA nomination: Best Drama Series. Broadcasting Press Guild
Award: Best Drama Series. Television and Radio Industries Award:
Best Series. Series voted (by the public) Most Popular British
Drama of the Decade.

The End.