Teenager in Love.

Haymarket Theatre, Leicester

 

Some years ago, I was on a national tour in a play – Fur Coat and No Knickers – where I played a drunken Irish Priest. It is the only play I have ever been in where I didn't get a picture as a souvenir. I wasn't in the premiere, but took over when they decided to revive the play for a tour from the north of England, in Darlington, to the south in Plymouth. In fact those were my favourite places from that tour; I got to know them quite well and one time when we were travelling from Reading, in Berkshire, to Plymouth, in Devon, we stopped over in Somerset.

The guy, whose car I was sharing, in fact not sharing as he drove all the way, knew a writer, who would write short stories for BBC Radio 4, and we stayed in his remote cottage near Yeovil. We arrived in the dark and I stayed in a bedroom at the back of the building with, I presumed, a garden to be seen through the back window.

When I woke the next morning, I found the garden almost came up to my window. I don't know what happened downstairs, whether the back door led in to any garden but I suspect there wasn't a back door and we were built to the side of a hill; rather like Jericho, which is another story..

On Sunday morning, after breakfast, the writer took us to his local pub, for a lunchtime drink. On the way, he drove his car, at speed, straight to the place without stopping at any stop signs and ignored every other traffic sign too. One of the them was a main road and over we went at about fifty miles an hour.

'Nobody ever comes down here' he said.

Nobody has came down here yet, I thought.

The pub, itself, didn't have a bar. It was oldie worldly and the drinks were all at one side, with the pumps for the draft beer, and the whiskeys and whiskys and all the shorts were on shelves and, I think, we were allowed to help ourselves – but that might not be right. In the corner was an old guitar and I picked it up and tuned it.

'Do you play?' I was asked.

I said I played a bit, which was true – I knew a few chords and knew where to play them and as I was messing about I started to sing Teenager in Love quite easily and people joined in and they gave me a big round of applause.

But we had to get back to the writer's cottage, as our lunch would be ready, so we waved goodbye and the other guy, whom I was on tour with said, we'll see you next week on the way back.

It was probably the only song I could play at the time and I also knew All I have to do is Dream.

The strange thing is I don't really have a memory for which chord goes where in various other songs I know. I suppose I could sing a song, if challenged in a bar, but guitar chords?

When I was doing my Irish show I would sing 16 Irish songs and accompany my self on the guitar – but when I I took a break from that and then take up the show the year after, I had to learn the chords again.

There is a strange thing about memory. I have spent, I don't know 40 years – 50?? learning lines for plays. At one time I was in fortnightly rep in Northampton when I had to learn a different play every two weeks. It's called fortnightly rep: you start work on a Monday morning, rehearse, learn, rehearse etc for two weeks, then on the following Tuesday you open – Monday was for the dress rehearsal – technical etc.

After the first night the next day you start on play number 2: you rehearse that and in the evening you would do, publicly, play number 1.

So when you rehearse, you have to drop from your mind the play you are playing in the evenings and vice versa when playing.

You have to kind of learn to drop things from your memory.

Other actors reading this will say durr!

Incidentally, the first play was Night Must Fall and when I turned up for the first day of rehearsal, where everyone sits in chairs for the read through, I didn't have script. I was playing a role with loads of lines, it had ben written by Emlyn Williams, and as he was an actor and had played the leading role, it had loads and loads of lines, and, I may repeat, I didn't have a script.

An old actor, Lionel Hamilton, who had a wonderful old actors' deep voice with wonderful resonance said 'not in my day; in my day we always gave the leading actor a script.'

I think that act alone has led me to many nightmares of turning up to do a play – and it's usually 'Night Must Fall' and when I reach the theatre not only do I not have a script, I can never find the stage.

I think I sometimes I get near the stage and no lines come to me and then I leave the theatre and I am back in Los Angeles not knowing the way to down town.

Those dreams come to me on many nights and I usually wake up totally confused to the sound of the Greenwich Meantime pips at six-o-clock.

It wasn't the only time I didn't get a script: the other time it was a huge role in a play called Spokesong! The reason I didn't get script for that play is that I only auditioned for it on a Thursday, was offered the role on the Friday and started work on the Monday. Whilst walking to the theatre, in Leicester, I saw posters for the play, which was a couple of weeks away, thinking 'they'll be lucky.'

So the script was given to me at the read through and as we read the lines just churned out and the last speech had maybe two full pages.

It went well – it was a little bit avant garde but we didn't mind.

A few weeks after I'd finished that play a television director called me in – I had worked with him before in a commercial, and we had a chat and he said 'I hear you did Spokesong, recently' – I said 'yes' and he said 'do a bit for me.' Just like that, and you know, I couldn't remember a word.

When we had finished in Plymouth, a town full of matelots and artists, we drove back towards London and stopped, once again, at the writer's cottage near Yeovil. Once again we arrived in the dark and after the Sunday morning breakfast we went to the pub, speedily avoiding any other traffic at the main roads, flying through the countryside like President Clinton, on a very fast trip he took through Santa Monica, which I witnessed one day, and arrived at the pub.

Not so empty that time, quite a few people there.

I said to someone 'more people here this week' and he said 'there's a guitarist coming.'

At a Time Like This

                  

At a time like this it makes you think: maybe a monarch is the best plan, I've always supported the idea in any case, as opposed to an ambitious politician, as head of state; they get to be head of the government, and that should be enough, but it's always good to know they have to answer to someone.

I've been of this opinion ever since I realised that Thatcher had to bow down to somebody; and it was the Queen.

The royal family have had their own problems, but they are never in need of money, never ambitious and the hundreds of people they employ all pay taxes.

Trouble is, it's a bit like The Truman Show and if asked, who would want to do it?

Charles will be fine he's the first king in a long time to use his own name; the Berties and Davids chose Edward and George.

He was talking about climate change 50 years ago when he was a jet pilot action man.

My heroes.

 

Burcot Grange (above) built in 1890 and my home for a while as a young child.

I remember it well, in fact I remember lots of people as I am fortunate to have a good memory. On a now defunct site in the UK called Friends Reunited I looked at the people in my class at school and there were just a few; one or two of them got in touch with me, the memory man, and one or two wrote to me that I had forgotten; so not too much of a memory man after all. All the things I write on here are from memory and sometimes I look on the Internet for some details like the road where such and such happened; one guy I wrote to, wrote back and said he couldn't remember anything about school at all. If you mention his name to anyone from my class they certainly would remember him as he would sit back on his chair in full view of the rest of the class and . . . well maybe if I put that in it will be picked up as a metatag and draw porn readers to the site – so he forgot all about school did he? The teacher (male) of the class must have seen him but what could he do? What could he say? **** put that thing away? That boy is probably a grandad now and what would his grandchildren think?

I often think back to the kids at school, the local heroes, the ones good art sport – one of them, Alan Deakin, played for Aston Villa; he was a hero of mine then..

The heroes most people remember, of course, are the dead from wars. I think they go back to World War One which started in 1914 and ended in 1918 and there is nobody left who actually fought in that war – the great war the war to end wars.

The other world war started in 1939 and ended in 1945; I have to put those dates as some people, in the USA, might say 1941-1945 and 1917-1918 – I have heard both and, indeed, people just might not know.

I hate the idea of war as it has always been young men fighting old men's battles and even though I had a small amount of military service war heroes have never been my heroes; they are everybody's heroes and should be; they paid the ultimate sacrifice and they should never ever be forgotten - but my heroes have always been pioneers and not necessarily people who fight. I am more impressed by ideas and most of the long conversations I have are about ideas; in Los Angeles, once a week I met a pal for breakfast who majored in philosophy, and we would have many an interesting tête-à-tête; I have read books by Nietzsche for example as a result of our meetings; I have another friend I met once a week for lunch to talk about politics; I talk British politics and he responds with the American version. I feel quite privileged that I have experienced both worlds and can't think what I would have done without that knowledge; I would never have written my novels, for one, and I don't think I would have started my one man Irish show in the theatre – A Bit of Irish. But I have always been curious; I watched a film once called The Land That Time Forgot and I remember one line from it - Plato was right and I wondered who Plato was and researched it; I put this curiosity down to my lack of formal education so when I look back I don't regret anything about my education or experience. But the four men I admire the most (no not the Father, Son and Holy Ghost) are Muhammad Ali, John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Roger Bannister.

I really admired the way Ali stood up to authority, forfeited his world championship for his beliefs and finally, in the end, won. A lot of people disagreed with him including Jackie Robinson who was also a black pioneer in baseball – his own business, of course, but I know very little about him.

John Lennon was just a hero because he was a singer; I stood within three feet of him once in a bar after seeing the Beatles at the Ritz Ballroom, King's Heath, Birmingham. Looking at him then, and you could see the Beatles were destined for something, I wasn't sure if he knew what was going on; The Beatles came from a middle class background; John wanted to be a 'working class hero' but he was middle class; they were art students and up to that time art students – students in general in Britain – liked jazz.

When I was a student – a mature one – we liked The Beatles. Later on John might have been misguided by Yoko Ono but I think he was a man that did more for peace than is generally realised; I know Beatles fans dislike Yoko and he loved her but I love my wife; I wouldn't take her to work.

Bob Dylan I just find the most talented poet I have ever heard or read; I like lyrics by Chuck Berry and John Lennon but Dylan has so much imagery in his work - just look at any of his lyrics – look at these I ran into the fortune-teller, who said beware of lightning that might strike I haven't known peace and quiet for so long I can't remember what it's like. There's a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door, You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars After losin' every battle. I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars. You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies. One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin' around your eyes, Blood on your saddle.

I have been more influenced by Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran when I know, as an actor, it should be Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier. So who have I left out? Ah!! Roger Bannister.

Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile barrier in May 1954; I was a little boy watching my friend nearly drown at Moseley Road Swimming Baths and finding out that another friend had died. I lost a lot of time at school as I suffered from conjunctivitis which developed into ulcers; I remember seeing the horrible white things on the blue of my eyes and I was told that this was because I rubbed them; I couldn't face the light and water would consistently run from my eyes.

So that was the end of my education as I failed the secondary exams - but that's only an excuse as I can clearly remember sitting to do a paper for the 11+ and not putting anything at all on to the sheet of paper.

Then one day on the TV, the news came on and it said that the 4 minute mile had been achieved; the race came on and there were only 3 runners in the race; the other 3 were invisible. Christopher Brasher was ahead with Bannister behind up to about half a mile and then Chris Chataway took the lead with Bannister second to him up to half way around the final lap and then on the final lap Bannister took the lead and made history; to a ten year old boy this was like an orgasm. Later in the year the Bannister/Landy Miracle mile and that was the best mile race I have ever seen – do yourself a favour and look for both races on YouTube. I won't give you the result of the latter race but John Landy of New Zealand broke the world record after Bannister and then they had to meet in the Empire Games. Have a look - it will bring a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat.

So I had to go a place called Burcot Grange - above; this is a very large house in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. It is a very large Victorian House and had been donated to the Birmingham Eye Hospital by its owners giving prolonged treatment of children suffering from inflammatory conditions of the eye associated with harsh city life. It was also a place where squint operations were performed and a lot of the other children had lost an eye. It was at Burcot Grange that I was introduced to elevenses which was a snack at eleven-o-clock; maybe a biscuit and some orange squash. It was like being let loose as there were 5 acres of grounds; so we played cowboys with real hills, valleys and bushes to hide behind. The other thing I did was run; I was going to be a Roger Bannister and I ran around those acres every day. My mother came to see me with a tear in her eye, and encouraging one in my infected ones, every week and I cried when she left and then forgot her for a while. Of course one of the nurses was my girl friend; she was Nurse Hollingshead and maybe 15 years older than me. She wrote to me for quite some time after I left and when I did they presented me with a book by Enid Blyton called, something like Around the Year. It was a nature book and they wrote in the inside cover to Christopher with lots of love from Burcot Grange. I still have the book which is at my daughter's in Suffolk. As we sat there in the sun the nurses would 'time' me as I ran around the grounds. I remember I could get around in about three minutes; one day one of the nurses, who had timed me, called another nurse and said 'Hey! Is it the four minute mile or the four mile minute.'

I can just imagine the four mile minute. When I got home I would run around the block – where we lived – and I managed to get a sucker to beat. He was Roger and looked more like Roger Bannister than I did and I would let him run ahead of me so I could run along the back straight which ended just by the lane where we lived in South View Terrace on Moseley Road.

So Roger Bannister is my hero; he ran for many years after that to keep fit although he retired from competitive racing early after the 'Golden Mile' to continue his studies to be a doctor. He worked at Northwick Park Hospital as a neurologist and later as Director of the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in London and a trustee-delegate of St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in Paddington.

A few years ago I bought his book called The Four Minute Mile, of course, and just as I was coming up to the Golden mile on page 224 about the Empire Games, where he met Landy, I found the page was blank. The next page was there and from there till the end of the book many pages were missing and there was only an intermittent report from that section. I called Amazon, where I had bought it, and they referred me to the publishers, The Lyons Press, and when I called them they hung up on me. So there we are – there are my memories; I wonder what yours are?

The Men who Run Hollywood.

There we are above – the men who run Hollywood. On the left, wearing a baseball hat, and red shirt, is a film director; he has directed, among many other things, quite a few episodes of the TV series Star Trek, The Twilight Zone and many movies. The next one across the back with the white hair is me – and you know me; Hollywood actor and novice novelist - and to my left, wearing sun glasses and the inevitable baseball cap, is a Hollywood agent. He has represented many of the actors you may have heard of and seen work throughout your life. Then we have a writer: he writes screenplays and is wearing the aqua marine zipper jacket, the baseball hat and a big smile. He has written many movies, which have been produced, and a couple of books and, as you can see, is about to get stuck into that breakfast we were all enjoying a couple of Sundays ago. In the background you will see The Pacific Ocean and yes that is a man wearing a cowboy hat playing a guitar behind the bullet proof glass; click on the photo if you want to see it large. Oh the girl? She is a guest of one of the above. She was telling us that she has started to make guitars. As you can see, we have the best table at the Fig Tree Restaurant and on the right, by the door, is our security 'back up' in the white trousers. He is talking to someone and getting them to bring the limo around with our bikes and making sure the paparazzi are kept out! The girl taking the photograph is Angelina Jolie, by the way, but we didn't take one of her. Of course there are other people who think they run Hollywood: people like Tom Cruise, agents like CAA and the rest of them – but as you can see they don't have the best table at The Fig Tree and we do. Hollywood is run by agents, actors and writers and there we are – we even have a guest who makes guitars but I have told you that already. Actually I am a guest too, these days, as I now live in London where I am pursuing my career of trying to run London; but there is no one to run it with me yet. My wife isn't interested; she's far too sensible. We used to meet each Sunday, as above, and report to each other the comings and goings, happenings and shenanigans of our busy week; they still do that – I don't and I miss it. We would tell of the movies we'd seen, sometimes even telling the whole plot, which would save the others from going to see the talked about movie at all. Sometimes one of us would tell the story of the same movie t wo weeks in a row forgetting it had been relayed the week before. That is called a senior moment but, as you can see, none of us were spring chickens.

Abdulmutallab, the Cuba connection and the wise men not finding their way.

We have been inundated here on news shows with the Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab since it happened – or nearly happened if you like; every news programme, every magazine programme - every day.

There are a few things about the whole episode and Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab which fascinates me.

First of all I am using his full name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and not just Abdulmutallab in case there are lots of other Abdulmutallabs and you get mixed up as to which Abdulmutallab I am talking about.

Number one: doesn't he look a lot like Tiger Woods? He does, doesn't he – will they be asking Cuba Gooding Jr to play him too?

Another thing which I find intriguing is the list of bad guy countries that have been red flagged for special attention; you know countries like Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen and Cuba; Cuba??? Cuba?????

What has Cuba got to do with anything?

Can't the Americans get rid of the 'hard on' they have for Cuba after all this time? It's all over - the Cubans have no plans, I'm sure, to invade or even attack America.

After Hurricane Katrina Castro offered help and the USA ignored him; what does America want Cuba to do now?

Castro got rid of a very very corrupt government run by the American Mafia, turned the country from being mostly illiterate to mostly literate by sending young student teachers into the rural areas to teach reading to workers in isolated spots throughout the country; he established a universal health care system and before he reached towards the USSR Castro reached towards the USA to recognise his government and the USA refused.

The USA recognised the Batista government in Cuba immediately after the Batista military coup which happened overnight a short time before a general election; after the coup Batista worked with the mob and the mob had their own country which Castro got rid of – I am still bewildered!

Castro is reputed to have done some bad things too but show me a leader who hasn't!

But back to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab; I know we have seen a lot of 'after the event' wisdom with the accusation that the USA security services didn't join the dots.

Well you know sometimes there are so many dots that they are hard to join up.

I have heard that the embassies around the world get one hundred and thirty five tips per day about some individual or other being a bad guy so Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father's information must have been lost in the mix; the fact that the security services had heard that there was a Nigerian in Yemen who was being trained by Al Qaeda must also have been lost in the mix and when he booked his ticket one way and paid cash and had no baggage for his trip must also have gone astray.

An ex-CIA man on the radio the other day was asked why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was refused a visa to enter Britain and granted one for the USA and he answered 'because the British are better at this game than we are.'

I think he meant that there are so many law enforcement agencies in the USA that they seem to fight each other and they don't have computers that speak to each so things tend to – get lost in the mix.

But what gets me about Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the other terrorists from Al-Qaeda who carried out the nine eleven attacks is why they didn't buy round trip tickets, why they didn't have luggage with them and why they paid in cash.

These are the three things that WE all know about so why didn't Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the nine eleven terrorists go through the motions of packing bags and buying round trip tickets? To pretend they were regular passengers? WTF?

By the way my friend Jim wrote in the comments after my last post about the Christmas trees and the fact that the Americans tend to take them down too early:

For the record, my mom who's 86 celebrated Christmas with me in Canada with a tree I cut down with my handy axe (actually my friend's axe)in the real wilderness of Northern Manitoba and had a cousin's two 6-yr olds and myself and some people in their 70's decorate it. And it's still standing in my mom's living room, although she thinks it might come down this week-end. Cheers to trees staying up as long as they can, don't we owe it to them?

I can vouch that Jim did cut down the tree and there's a photo up at the top to prove it but the reason the trees are supposed to come down on twelfth night (apart from being a fire hazard when the needles fall off) is that it is supposed to be unlucky and according to the traditions of man, and not the Bible, January 6 is the Epiphany - sometimes called "Little Christmas" or "Little Epiphany" - and is the day the Magi met the newborn King and presented him with his royal gifts.

It is explained to children that, if you take down your lights before January 6, the Wise Men may not be able to find their way, even though all the Christmas lights in the world, combined, would not be as bright as the star God used to guide them.

Taking down ornaments on January 6 is a European tradition still followed by many people of German, Polish and Czech ancestry. The tradition, in part, dates before 1900 when ornaments were often real fruit, nuts and marzipan and would be eaten.

My second bike - the Raleigh.

                                                      BUDDY HOLLY

Hey!! A lot of people liked the story of my first bike last week and the frustrations of the 13 year old boy that I used to be when it came to girls; well things didn't get better with girls for years.

I might have said this before but I left school at the age of 15; that was the legal age for leaving. It was not called a high school and the only thing we received when leaving was a 'leaving certificate.'

I remember receiving that as if it was yesterday; we had to line up in the school hall to shake hands with the headmaster who would shake our hands with the one hand and slip us the certificate with the other. I can remember the look on his face; it was a look of concern as I wasn't at all ready for the big wide world of work; I was a child.

His name was WH Griffin and he would sign our end of term reports in red ink – this is disgusting! - or could do better!

I think he was a nice man but the little bit of authority had gone to his head as he sat in his Ivory Tower of an office. He really didn't want me to leave and had many a talk with me about staying on; but what would I do? Look through the window to see what the weather was doing and dream of playtime?

I used to pretend I was in a movie playing a school child and whenever I was excused to go to the lavatory I would walk the corridors of the school pretending to be one of Flash Gordon's guards; it's a wonder they didn't put me away; my parents used to call me John Barrymore.

I left school that day and hardly saw any of my school friends again. I had loads of friends at school, I was never bullied and never bullied anybody. I had my fair share of fist fights, mostly when I first started the secondary school, I was no trouble and I was popular with my mates but that was it. None of them lived near me so I lost touch.

I left school with no job to go to and no idea of what I wanted to do; the first thing I had to do was to register at the Labour Exchange and they sent me for a job in the centre of Birmingham at an Army and Navy Store called Oswald Bailey.

It was my first interview and they offered me the job as a warehouseman – 'starting Monday.'

I was delighted; I would be earning money and I had a job – a job!! I was a working man and when I got home I found that that was my new nickname; The Working Man!

My dad gave me his Raleigh bicycle, or said I could use it to go to work, and off I went on that first day; it was a 'sit up and beg' bicycle with old men's handlebars and brakes but it saved me bus fair.

The job was great for five days or so; I had to receive goods at the 'goods inward' door and put what I received into stock after checking them and signing them in.

I had to climb ladders and when I was up the ladder the supervisor would put his hand up my legs to try and feel my arse and genitals. Well I was at a Secondary Modern Boys School and I was used to such foolery. I did what I did at school and lashed out with my feet. He didn't like it and said he was only joking but it didn't matter how many times I kicked he still did it.

I wouldn't tell my dad as he would have killed him; my dad taught me and my brother to box so we could always look after ourselves at school but at work with the really big fella and me being so little the boxing lesson didn't really work – I have to say it didn't really shock me; but I didn't like it.

I heard some tall tales from other boys of bullying in the work place and initiation ceremonies so what I was getting was quite tame. The big thing I remember from Oswald Bailey's is that Buddy Holly died when I worked there and that was the worst day of my life. Nobody there knew who he was and a fella called Ken Lloyd, who was a jazz fan, said it was a good thing he died as he was a terrible influence on music. Little did he know what influence Buddy had on all people of my age but I didn't take offence as most of them were squares and they liked Johnny Mathis and people like that.

Oh the other thing I remember about the place was a blonde girl called Brenda Smith. She worked in the office and was the only other person of my age who worked there; I have no idea how we kind of became buddies – that's all I can say we were – buddies.

I didn't know her that well but when I was offered a job on the post office she asked me if I would still be able to see her. So I started meeting her after work, on my dad's bike, and I would walk her to her bus stop.

She would get the 45 bus along Pershore Road to where she lived.

We had many a conversation on the way and sometimes I would leave my bike and take the bus with her so far and when we passed the cinema on Bristol Road she would say things like 'when are you going to take me to the pictures?'

I never caught on to that.

She told me she lived at 99 Baldwin Road and so I would take a bike ride up there later in the evenings and then the next day I would tell her and she would say 'let me know next time you come and I'll meet you.'

Again I didn't catch on.

I have often thought about that first job at Oswald Bailey; there were many departments there. They had a shoe and boot department, a tent department, clothes and other things to do with camping or the military.

The salesmen wore suits and were all ages. An older gentleman would take his hat off to women in the street – he was old school – and was nearing retirement I would say.

There was a strange hierarchy; the salesmen thought they were a cut above us poor buggers in the warehouse; they wore suits and we wore brown cow gowns.

The owner of the company was the son of Oswald Bailey and there was a Mister Robbins, who was the managing director, and a Mister Sharrat,who was the manager of the shop; Mister Robbins was the man who gave me the interview and hired me and asked what my plans were if I got the job and I told him I was after promotion – as if???

We worked a five and a half day week having a half day on Wednesdays.

On the first Wednesday we exited the building through a side door and standing there by the door was Mister Sharrat.

Dressed in his light grey suit which showed off his pot belly and slight balloon figure, he stood there puffing on his cigarette as people filed passed him; 'good afternoon Mister Sherrat', they would say, 'good afternoon,' he would say.

Sometimes he didn't puff on the cigarette but would let it burn in his fingers leaving a long piece of ash.

Everybody smoked as they filed passed. I don't know why they felt they had to smoke as they smoked all day in those days without restrictions: news readers smoked, politicians smoked everybody smoked all the time.

And so it went on - 'Good afternoon, Mister Sharrat,' 'Good afternoon' and then I passed him – 'ta ta Mister Sharrat,' and off I went into my first afternoon off and the bike ride home.

The next day when I got into work the warehouse manager came up to me and said – 'ta ta Mister Sharrat!! Ta ta Mister Sharrat!! You say Good afternoon Mister Sharrat! Say it!!'

Yes right – little did they know, 1959, that The Beatles were only around the corner.

TRAVELOGUE.

 

It's been some time since I wrote a post here, but I have kept my eye on it, checking the comments, seeing how many hits it gets and deleting offensive comments and spam. It doesn't get as many hits as it used to about ten years ago and the only reason I don't write so much these days is that I am writing other things. It's never because I have nothing to write as I think of things when I'm on a train or walking down a street which is a little bit like the following: 

It's strange the way we travel and the way the mind travels as I was thinking the other day about walking along Sunset Boulevard at one time; another time along La Croisette, in Cannes, on the French Riviera and another time going through Saint Anne's Shopping Centre (arsehole) in Harrow-on-the-Hill, and who should I see in those three none connected locations, but the guy who played Hercule Poirot on television; David Suchet. 

I never met the man but the reason I remember it so well is that he is well known, has a well known face and wouldn't remember seeing me in those places. Setting aside the recognition on my part there must be many others I have passed closely to and not realising it.     

In Los Angeles I would go to the post office each day where I had a post office box to pick up my mail. The other place I would go to daily was the supermarket (rock'n'roll) Ralphs and maybe the doughnut shop in the Farmers' Market on Fairfax and a few times I saw the same person at each one. 

At a certain period in my life I was a regular patron of The Red Lion pub in a place called Little Houghton in Northamptonshire and a guy who drank there on a regular basis, who really wasn't very friendly with me, but who might say 'hello, said he had been on holiday in Florida and that he met a glamorous girl and the great thing about her was that she was an 'extra' in the TV series Magnum – even though Magnum was filmed in Hawaii; but we'll leave that. 

Many years later I was getting off a small boat, on the island of Catalina, which is 22 miles out in the Pacific from Los Angeles, and there he was, waiting in the queue to get on the same boat: by himself, dreaming of meeting some other distinctive person he could tell storeys about in The Red Lion when he got back home. 

Kind of makes me think that after I finished in a soap opera on TV (Crossroads for ATV), I went into a pub in Birmingham and a fella came up to me, wearing an 'ATV tie,' and said 'what's it like being out of work?' He was the big man at the bar, apparently, with his ATV tie – but we'll forget about him cos I'm the one name dropping here. 

In 1993, I was in some kind of demonstration, outside of our hotel in Jerusalem. I didn't know what it was about so I went down and joined them: I could see film cameras, there for the news, and it seemed peaceful albeit a bit noisy.

I noticed that they had locked the hotel and wanted me to come back. 'Come back, come back,' they were shouting 'you should keep away.' But I wandered into the crowd. I met a guy from Chicago and we chatted. When the TV camera came close by the few people it was pointed at, started to get exited and shouted something in Hebrew at the camera and then when it went away they quietened down. 

I asked the Chicago guy, who had immigrated to Israel, what they had said and he said 'we want Rabin to meet Arafat – it's time they talked.' I asked him why they were in that particular place – 'it's where he lives' he said 'just over there.' 

Rabin hadn't been seen for some time as he was away; writing his own death warrant; he was with Arafat – Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinians, talking peace; he had recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Two and a half years later Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a right-wing extremist who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords. 

The place where he was killed is now called Rabin Square. 

Yasser Arafat died nine years after Rabin, in France, and it was thought that he died under foul means - but who knows, aye?

 I wanted this post to be about coincidences and it's turned out to be a travelogue – hence the title; that's the way writing goes.

Get Back.

photo by Vanessa Roberson
 

Hi folks: it's been a long time coming, I know, but even though I have had a lot to say – always a fault of mine – I just couldn't get to the lap top.

I am on here now as I am bursting with hope and energy after watching the three part Beatles documentary, Get Back.

If you haven't heard about it you may be in the Antarctic but here is my take on it in any case. Regular readers on here will know that I was a great fan of The Beatles – The Beatles, that is, but not necessarily after the individuals left the group. I was a fan of John Lennon after he left and up to the LP Imagine and possibly the odd song from the others, especially George Harrison, but it was The Beatles in their day where I am a big fan.

There is an argument that they were geniuses which would be very hard to argue either for or against. Musical geniuses of the past usually created in their formative years and both Mozart and Purcell spring to mind, both dying at 36.

Is that the top age of a Genius? – discuss. Einstein??

There's a very strange moment at the start of part two in this documentary when a meeting was arranged to discuss the fact that George Harrison had left The Beatles. At the meeting only Ringo turned up – Ringo Starr, known by the group (The Beatles) as Rich. After a while, Paul McCartney turned up with Linda – his girl friend or wife – and they, mainly Paul, discussed John and Yoko. Paul said that if it came to the push and John had a choice between Yoko and The Beatles, he would choose Yoko. He seemed puzzled by it.

The thing was, Paul said he couldn't write with John because Yoko had to be there and he was looking for a compromise with Yoko turning up. At this point they had lost their manager, Brian Epstein, who was found dead in his London flat.

There are two conversation which take place with three of The Beatles. The one with John missing had Paul talking about Epstein referring to him as their 'dad' and what's going to happen next. 

And then we had John talking about someone he knew taking over the management of the group; Alan Klein. Back then we were in a state of confusion, when we heard this, as we had been working with Alan Klein. He wrote What a Crazy World and we wondered how this little cockney kid would do it and then we found out – there was another Allen Klein (spelt that way), an American businessman. John loved him and Paul hated him. 

That, I think, had something to do with The Beatles splitting and then when John asked Phil Spector to put strings on Paul's song The Long and Winding Road without Paul's permission – officially the song was written by both of them but you know what I mean.

Paul would also bring Linda to the recording sessions and, in fact, at the sessions neither woman interfered with the work as they all seemed to get on well together but when at least one Beatle was missing the others, very politely, would talk about him.

If they had any disagreement Paul would resort to a joking kind of approach. When John arrived at this meeting he discussed their relationship with George who was really unhappy because he felt like a junior Beatle, the seniors being John and Paul as they are (were) the song writers. 

Paul, in this documentary appears to do all the talking and suggesting how he would like the song played. That would mean telling Ringo how many beats he would like Ringo to play on the drums and George what to play on his guitar.  

 Whilst George was away, not being a Beatle any more, Paul and John never really believed that George had left and that he would be back.

One surprise to me was how good John was playing lead guitar on the song Get Back! The other thing Ringo, sorry, Rich, like all drummers could tap dance and play boogie woogie on the piano.

Many years ago I would do voice recording in Denmark Street and I heard chatting one day by the studio manager who said that The Bee Gees would rent the studio for weeks on end and write their songs when they were there. Now that was a new thing as most song writers, over the years, would do all their song writing at home. Looking at this film we can see that Paul liked writing in the studio. Like most guitar song writers they would find a group of chords, say C, Am, F, G and keeping playing them till they put a tune to them – that's it.

In this Paul messes around on the piano playing a song called 'Woman' – the song ended up with Peter & Gordon but he talks of Peter and Gordon and the fact that 'Gordon' could not get the high notes and dear old faithful Mal taking the words of a particular song down and this time it was on 'Get Back' which is the name of the documentary.

They recorded on 4 track machines – two of them – so that when they are together there are 8 tracks. You can double these as well by bouncing from one to the other which means playing one into another like when you sing along at home to a recording.

These days you can use hundreds of tracks.

Throughout the whole documentary it's nice to hear the group called a group and instead of using words like 'covering a song' they sing them. They sing lots of standard rock'n'roll classics as they mess around looking for tunes. For instance they play and muck about with  a Chuck Berry song School Days then go in to Stand by Me (Ben E King) and without skipping a beat they go into Two of us going nowhere which is on the Let It Be! album – in those days an LP.

Sometimes they sing a song that we know but you have to realise at that moment they didn't – they're writing it, making it up.

One time John sings a song 'On the road to Marrakesh' which might sound familiar to Lennon fans and is, in fact, Jealous Guy from the Imagine' album, which I seem to remember Brian Ferry recording too.

The first episode is set at Twickenham Film Studios where Ringo – Rich to the group – was due to appear in a movie around February 1969, and was available to film The Beatles at work by the film maker Michael Lindsay Hogg. After a while they moved to the Apple offices in Saville Row – where the best clothes in the world are sold and I think, it was the headquarters of either MI5 or MI6 – might be wrong on that but it rings a bell.

I was surprised that when they were playing about someone mentioned Bob Wooler; he was a deejay at The Cavern and when the Beatles first started, at a party, he had accused John of having a gay affair with Brian Epstein on holiday in Spain. John was drunk at the party and beat up Bob Wooler, as he was antagonising John about it; which was all over the British press at the time. It was said that the reason Epstein was interested in managing The Beatles, in the first place, was Epstein's obsession with John. I remember the fight being reported on the back page of The Daily Mirror and it wasn't long after I had seen them at The Ritz in Kings' Heath for the second time.

Another big thing about the documentary was 'Mal.' He was the one banging the hammer in the song Maxwell's Silver Hammer and would also assist in taking down the words Paul or John wrote a line. He was also the man counting – and you can hear him if you listen carefully on Day in the Life on the Sgt Pepper LP. The sad thing about Mal is that he was shot and killed by the police in Los Angeles. They thought he had a gun and shot him on his doorstep, I believe.

Most people have seen some of the third part of the three part series where they sing Get Back on the roof of the Apple Building. If you cannot see this documentary but can only see that last performance by The Beatles you must see it.

The first thing about it is they are NOT lip syncing – or miming as people call it – it is all live. There are various parts in the series where a caption gets into the picture letting us know that a particular 'take' is used on either Abbey Road or Let it Be.

There is a lot more for me to write about this but I think that's it.