Near Misses!...famous people I've 'stood next to'... in a 'manor' of speaking!

You know how when you're laid up with a broken ankle you just have to keep weight off your foot for 4 weeks at least! I thought so, well, recently I was between paintings... foot up, without the necessary urge to do a painting, so I started scrolling through photo's to see what might inspire me by way of a subject. I saw a few that diverted my attention and I came across one of Tunnel House, in Saltford near Bath, a house that we had lived in when Micki and I got married back in 1970. This got me thinking about 'near misses'. Places I've been or people I've met - or almost met... And this got me thinking about brushes with celebrity that there may have been throughout my life. So this house was our first 'home'; the top floor of Tunnel House, a manor just off the A4 between Bath & Bristol...

I'm not even sure I realised at the time of moving in, that the house had been owned by Isambard Kingdom Brunel! We slept in Brunel's house!... For a year! Tunnel House is actually built right over the original main GWR line from London down to Cornwall from where Brunel imagined his railway would travel to Land's End and, from there, where his 'very own' steam ships would set off for New York and even Australia. So, whilst creating his masterpieces that would benefit the west country, The Great Britain, the Great Western Railway, The original Saltash/Tamar Bridge, The Clifton Suspension Bridge, whilst he was actually living in a house that we would later rent a piece of. And as a testament to 'Izzie' (well we did probably sleep in the same room... so I'm allowed!')... when we were standing in our top floor kitchen within his house and looking back down the line towards London...as a train disappeared under the house... you might just feel the very slightest of rumbles... almost imperceptible - Brilliant! But to walk the hallways and rooms also occupied by such a powerful presence?  A 'near miss' you might say...

This next memory is bit like those 'handshake near misses' you sometimes become aware of... With me, I once shook hands with Margaret Thatcher (not out of choice you understand... I was in a line up...she was Minister for Education when I manned an exhibition stand at the Head Teachers' Conference in Harrogate back in 1970 - I was a rep for Reeves, Art Materials). So, I've got Ronald Reagan - for example - in two... So it's dozens, hundreds really of course... Henry Kissinger even!

 I was doing CPR (or was it the Holger Nielsen method in those days?) at a school in Birmingham back in the 1960s when the Duke of Edinburgh landed a helicopter on the roof (intentionally)... and I shook hands with him - so I've also got him in one and Her Majesty, of course, in two. Get it? Incidentally I got suspended (a red card) from the Duke of Ed's Award Scheme because I didn't call him "Sir" on being 'presented'. When our geography teacher took me on one side and asked me why... I said' well, it's all really an accident of birth isn't it... Sir?" So anyway... I didn't get that award! 

Famous Associations!

Still whilst at school in Birmingham, I'm not sure I was aware of this at the time either, but in the year below me was Carl Palmer - whippersnapper (erstwhile drummer for Atomic Rooster and later Emerson, Lake 'and').  He was having his early flirtations with drumming at the time and, in fact, was actually earning £23 a week at the age of 15 playing with the Mecca Dance Band; whilst still at school... That is astounding! I even have a namesake (Chris Slade) yet another drummer, who kicked off his career with Tom Jones and the Squires, way back... It's Not Unusual etc.,...and then moved up in terms of volume and kit size, at least, by working with AC/DC. Chris takes up the first few pages of any search for our shared name on Google... and I am way down, way down!...
Just before my family moved south to Sussex I went, with a couple of friends, to their youth club at Great Barr Comprehensive. There was a kid standing at the piano over in the corner of the gymnasium whilst the rest of us were playing table tennis or snooker. He must have been one of the last people at his school to switch from shorts to long trousers. Usually, I'm sure most blokes will confirm, moving from primary school - shorts - to secondary school - long trousers - it's a given... a rite of passage... definitely. That's when it happens. But this kid's mum didn't seem bothered by that because this kid was skilfully knocking out 'What'd I Say?' with a gaggle of girls around him... whilst he was wearing short trousers... A very incongruous vision. Well done Steve Winwood! Within just a few months I paid 2/6d to see him fronting The Spencer Davis Group. From the point of view that I had aspirations to get into bands myself...that was another near miss! 

Before all this, when I was probably only 12 or 13, we, as a family had a few brushes with those in 'the business' they call 'show'...
A mate of my dad's from RAF days during the war years, Des Lane, a performer during those years with ENSA, moved onto the post-war variety circuit...many of the theatres known as Moss Empires. I bet Mr Moss has shaken hands with Maggie too. Des would stay with us when he was working the local theatres. We moved around a lot so he was often with us for a week or so at a time. The late 1950s and early 60s spawned loads of young performing artists and I would go with Des backstage and run errands for whoever was on the bill... and often these artistes would all be from one management 'stable'. So it was that I would walk dogs (Bernie Winters, Craig Douglas, Yana) go to the offy (with a signed note that seemed to work in those days) from the likes of Tommy Cooper, Ruby Murray, Bruce Foryth, Cliff or Nat Jackley, Arthur Haynes (you're going to have to Google some of these)... run errands for Val Doonican and Tommy Steele (in his variety days).
Des's manager, Evie Taylor, also 'looked after' Val Doonican, Larry Grayson, John Barry, and Jackie Dennis (Flying Purple People Eater) Adam Faith and Sandy Shaw... I have ducked into stage doors as a decoy so that the real stars could avoid the crowds on more than one occasion...and as a family we played host to a number of famous people performing in town.

But music has always been a passion and I have been in bands myself (5 or 6 over the years)... so, soon after moving south (to Bognor) I joined my first 'covers' band. The Road Runners which became The Rumour, Steamhammer Blues Band and Castle - even a folk trio called the Farm! I had also made a demo at RG Jones in Mitcham/Wimbledon and played it to Des when he first visited our place in Bognor after moving down from Birmingham. He dissed it straight away by saying that it sounded like Cliff Richard which, for me, was far from the truth and almost an insult! As far as I was concerned the last thing I wanted to do was sound like Cliff Richard!
One of the things I was not aware of for many years after it happened was whilst I was working the school or college holidays at Butlin's in Bognor. I had just finished a shift peeling spuds for the dining room lunch crowd and was checking out of the camp when the clerk at the gate asked me if I wanted to do some extra work that day. There was an international chess tournament taking place in one of the other buildings (not the one I had just spent four hours in) and a stream of players, observers and officials were in need of drinks snacks and light lunches and there was another shift if I wanted it. Waiting on tables and loading dishwashers and stuff was nothing new. I'd done it many times before in different places. So I went over to the Prince's Building on the east side of the camp and reported to the supervisor of the Tyrollean Bar. She pointed me in the direction of the back area behind the counters so that I could get on with whatever needed doing. There were a couple of other kids over there coming and going with trays of used crockery and glasses and stuff as well as delivering sandwiches and drinks as and when the service bell rang out front. There was one lanky blonde kid, a smiley faced boy who I chatted to as we loaded the vast machines with pots and pans... Tim, I think his name was. He went to Lancing College... a 'posh' boy's boarding school on the other side of Worthing - he was in a fledgling band - as was I... so, easy to get on with.  Butlin's was a great venue for all sorts of events... Touring Shows, Seminars, Choral competitions, Choir Championships, Barbershop contests etc., Drama workshops, talent shows, Religious gatherings, some local regional and some even international events where hundreds, even thousands of people, needed to be accommodated as with, it would seem, these chess players (I might have Boris Spasky in two!) and their supporters and their followers who were there. Although here we were probably talking just hundreds. But the players had, it was obvious, come from all corners of the globe - always the brainier ones from their communities...

 

So anyway, we met, we worked and we parted at the end of the shift. This chance meeting never occurred to me to be out of the ordinary until I heard the song "One Night in Bangkok from the muical, 'Chess'... that had in it the seemingly odd lyric just a few bars in... that goes:- "It doesn't seem a minute since the Tyrollean Bar had the chessboards in it". Right, yeh! So, my workmate for four hours, back in 1964 had been Sir Tim Rice! I'd ask him to confirm it but I don't have any contact details... He seems to be doing well though, and, thinking about it - there's not a huge difference in our lives that, for me, 150 million quid wouldn't straighten out! But, in a similar way to Andrew Lloyd Webber I did work - and damned hard too - with Tim Rice, but just a few years earlier. But not quite so profitably (arf!). Interestingly much, much later the Ad Agency that I was involved in, Slade Street Advertising, in Brighton, we handled the design and production of Butlin's brochures for three years. But we didn't get the job just because I had worked there spud bashing and waiting on tables!

When I was at art college in Worthing, Gerrard Sayers, a bubble haired graphic design student, he'd been in the year ahead of me, was in a band at the time, as was I... We from Bognor... they from Shoreham/Worthing... In the years when we had been at art college together and my band, The Rumour (because I was part of the team that booked the bands for end of term events) had been playing at a college dance, he pushed his way to the front and asked our lead guitarist if he could join us for a number. Bob said he had told him 'no'... "maybe later". After we both left college and just a few years later (early 1972 if I remember rightly) I was in band called Castle and we and Gerrard's band, Patches, both played in the Melody Maker Folk and Rock Contest and played in the heats at The Black Lion, Patcham. Leo, as he later became, went on under the mentorship of Adam Faith (effing fate eh?) the same Adam Faith, of course, who'd come to tea with us back in Birmingham in 1962 with his manager Evie Taylor) so, I naturally felt a little bit as though fate had passed me by again. His band, Patches, were a good blues based set up and he played great harmonica as well as having an enviable follow on career but sold out into Pop and, probably as a result, made a shedload more money than he might have done. It's a question of integrity really. He may now be best remembered by some as the bloke who made a complete arse of himself on 'Celebrity Big Brother' over wanting his laundry done for him instead of washing his smalls out himself... and he escaped the BB house between BeefCake bouncers... It did his street cred zero in terms of positivity... but he still tours and sometimes, at our age, and probably with some money to spare, you have to wonder why.

But without doubt the biggest 'bail out' on a career path was in 1968 when I was encouraged by a girlfriend at college to pop into Churchers, a wallpaper and paint store (B&Q was just a twinkle in somebody's eye back then) on Richmond Road. I should have a word with her friend, Chris who would be behind the counter. Apparently they were looking for a singer. I should have a chat to this bloke Chris Aylmer - who would forever be known as 'Chris Wallpaper'. He had recently joined a band in what, when I turned up, seemed to be a nucleic stage, morphing from a number of other good  local groups into one. Chris seemed a nice enough bloke big lips (before Botox) and a probable adenoid condition in the making from the sound of his voice... at least he spoke as though he was developing a bad cold... but permanently! He said they were practicing that night at the Seaman's Mission in Buckingham Road and I should 'trot along'. As I walked down the road that evening I could hear bass runs and drum patterns through open windows above the narrow street and, upstairs there was the familiar sight and sounds of a band setting up and... if I wasn't mistaken, a whiff of hash in the air. Lead Guitar, Bass, Keyboard, Sax and drums. At this point I always have deep regret that I hadn't progressed on guitar beyond my encounter with Mr Upcott at 7/6d per half hour when I was 13.
For me there was always an easy atmosphere amongst band members and followers. I don't remember feeling awkward or nervous. Anyway, the audition cum tryout went well.

Steamhammer Mk I, Me (I look like I'm going to be ill) Chris Aylmer, Steve Davy, Des Mills & Andrew (Fizz) Fizackerly

It seems we all knew a piece called 'I'm Your Witchdoctor' which, uncharacteristically, had been a 'hit' or close to it for  John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. They never did 'hit' material being better known for nonchalance, scowls and earnest blues, but at a slightly lighter level than the real black American blokes whose dads were probably real slaves and passed down the angst to their cotton pickin' kids. I think we might also have done a Freddie King 12 bar called 'I'm Tore Down' to see if I fitted in. We spent many happy hours together practicing week in, week out, in rooms above The New Street Inn (now Liming - a Mexican restaurant) where the pub landlord was a recently retired police sergeant. We often wondered if he knew that we were smoking weed up there. We gigged about five times stretching our material to fit each event -  it was all going reasonably well. After 3 or 4 months and, by the time we had something approaching a full repertoire of blues based material, Barry, our manager who had obviously worked hard in terms of geeing up A&R people and agents without a demo recording, when he and Steve, who played bass, turned up at my bedsit one night. "I've got us in with a company called Red Bus up in town and...we... we're on our way mate!" I could tell Barry was pumped... very excited about what he'd been able to set up... "We need to talk about the future". For me it wasn't a difficult decision. It was still, as I recall, early '68 and I didn't finish college until July '69 so I wasn't going to leave a whole year early without 'the qualification'. It wasn't so much that, but I couldn't let my folks down after their support for me.... So, one of our regular 'followers', Keiran, who would lay on the floor whilst we practised and, it seems had sleep learnt much of the material we were doing, stopped laying on the floor and stood behind the microphone. Martin Quittenton, another well respected Worthing musician/songwriter also joined the band and went on to write 'Maggie May' and 'You Wear it Well' with Rod Stewart. In retrospect, of course, I am sorry that I left Steamhammer. Another near miss... It would have been a great experience. But, of course, it's not to say that with me tagging along they would have had the success that they enjoyed.

Before I forget... Daley Thompson's trainer for the 1980 Olympics sold me my first VW Beetle... Lovely little beige left hand drive. So... that's a near miss too! And after I test drove it round the block in Crawley, I popped up to the bloke's flat to hand over the money and do the paperwork and there, glued to training videos of pole vaulters and javelin throwers, was a young Daley with the rest of the Olympic Track & Field team members! In 1991 I even stayed in the 'team hotel' where Daley would have stayed in Moscow... I was there doing a marketing project for the Bolshoi... He had been taking part in 1980 in the Decathlon. I had another near miss... He won Gold. I often tell people I'd had the same room as himas I'd found his javelin, the one he'd left behind in the wardrobe! Get the point? Another near miss! But I've got Daley Thompson in one!