Seize the Day Page 7

  ‘We stop over there for tea.’ He nodded towards a terraced house.

  I was stunned. I almost offered him my goods and chattels and prostrated myself before him.

  ‘I always get a cup of tea there.’

  I was so overwhelmed by the moment I almost forgot my job. He hadn’t. ‘Well, go on then.’

  I took the milk, rang the bell and was invited in. The lady of the house ushered me down the passage to the kitchen, where her husband had the kettle on. The back of an old pair of pyjamas greeted me without their occupant even bothering to turn round. ‘Put them on the table’, I was instructed by this strange northern voice, ‘and sit down.’

  I sat. He continued some odd conversation in an even odder dialect. I couldn’t even be sure it was Yorkshire. It seemed to be a rather weird mixture, but he didn’t appear to be in the mood for me to question his accent. I hoped his blend of tea would be easier to swallow. I explained that we were broadcasting and that I was about to do a link to the rest of the country from his kitchen. That’ll get his attention, I thought. I was right. As I began to speak, he turned round. It was Noel Edmonds.

  Another milk round, another place beginning with B. Bristol was too close for comfort to Smiley Miley country for me. Smiley Miley, for the uninitiated, was the guy who ran the Radio One Roadshow and my sometime nemesis, but let’s not squander words on this rascal yet, there’ll be time for that. So, as you can imagine, I had to be on my guard. My round this time took in some of the more unusual buildings and sights of the city, including Bristol Zoo. As an experienced assistant I was now allowed to deliver to some of the more important customers. The milk float could only get within a certain distance from the delivery point at the zoo, meaning that I had to carry a crate of bottles some 100 yards or so. No problem, I’m a big, strong chap. No Tarzan, but more than capable of holding my own on the crate-carrying scene. I was just contemplating imitating the old ‘milko’ cry that these cheerful chaps apparently executed in the days of yore, when someone beat me to it. Actually it was more a cry of desperation, as two characters hurtled out of the shrubbery and vanished at a rate of knots. It was only after they’d gone that the actual words registered. If they hadn’t actually shouted ‘The gorilla’s escaped’, it was something extremely similar. There was a thrashing sound a few yards ahead in a thicket. More cries went up from another location. My eyes, though, were fixed on the area of the thrashing. Putting two and two together I should have bolted, but I had no idea how fast a gorilla could run. I knew that a polar bear could do 40 mph if there was a raw takeaway seal at the end of the course, but gorillas, either in the mist or in the shrubbery, were an unknown in the Olympic stakes. In case the situation ever occurs again, I have since checked up on how a gorilla compares to say, Usain Bolt, and the answer is, at 20–25 mph, you can hardly get a cigarette paper between them. Mind you, you’d have to crack on a bit yourself to have even half a chance of achieving such an improbable and pointless feat. To be honest, in 1986, I stood more of a chance against Usain then a large runaway primate, as Mr and Mrs Bolt’s new arrival was having his umbilical cord cut at the time and I was, if I may use a little poetical licence, loose-limbed and lithe. The milkman’s guild, if there is such a thing, would have been proud of me. I stood my ground and gripped my crate as the creature came thundering through the undergrowth. OK, herbivores they may be, but if they take a shine to you, they can give a chap one hell of a ‘man-hug’. This was my ‘Ernie’ moment, with the ape, in all likelihood from the Rwandan Virunga Mountains, cast as ‘Two-Ton Ted from Teddington’. Maybe they’d write a heroic song about me as my mangled body was dragged unceremoniously away from the battlefield, still courageously clutching my crate. We’ve seen extraordinary images of the human-like behaviour of these great apes on YouTube, but I’d never seen one unzip itself before. Until now. This was surely taking anthropomorphism too far. Before you can say ‘Excuse me but are we related?’ they’ll be working as librarians or as customs officials at Heathrow. This one, though, contained a human being. Noel Edmonds. He certainly got about a bit.

  While we’re deep in zoo territory, I was never more than a few hundred feet away from wild animals while presenting the breakfast show. My neighbour in Weybridge was Gordon Mills, manager of Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck and Gilbert O’Sullivan, also locals but not the wild animals to which I refer. Gordon had a private zoo with gorillas, a puma, Siberian and Sumatran tigers and other such cuddly creatures not a stone’s throw from my bedroom window at his house, Little Rhondda. If the alarm clock didn’t wake me at 4.30 one of the apes did, beating out a tattoo on his chest which resembled a drum battle between Carl Palmer and Keith Moon. My prayers included his safekeeping along with my nearest and dearest, for if he were to take it upon himself to embark upon an early morning stroll and present his calling card to his nearest neighbour, Radio One would be one breakfast show presenter short. I was never certain which ape was my wake-up call, but of the tribe of primates that were my former neighbours, Memba, Winston and Janey, now all well into their forties, appear to be alive and well in various parts of the USA. Presumably still beating their chests to terrify some poor American breakfast show jock.

  Continuing to deliver milk to the calcium-deficient in places beginning with B, we sailed to the Bailiwick of Jersey. Talk about coals to Newcastle. They practically invented the stuff. I also presented several non-lactic and orangutan-free breakfast shows from the Channel Islands in 1985 for the fortieth anniversary of their liberation. The islands had been occupied by Nazi Germany for much of World War Two, the only part of the British Isles to be invaded and occupied. Despite a resistance movement, the period from July 1940 to May 1945 was a dark period for this beautiful archipelago, with some 4,000 inhabitants being sentenced for breaking draconian Nazi laws. Four concentration camps were built on Alderney, and 6,000 souls were imprisoned there. It’s reputed that those areas still have a strange feel about them. We captured the atmosphere in St Peter Port and St Helier as tanks, bands and hundreds of veterans of the three armed services took to the streets of Jersey and Guernsey. Old comrades hugged, reminisced or just fell silent. It was impossible to imagine their thoughts and emotions, impossible not to be respectful, humble and grateful. While in Jersey we stayed at the Pomme d’Or, where the owner relived his boyhood; he was a young lad when the German soldiers marched into his parents’ hotel, informing them that their home would henceforth become the Nazi HQ. In Sark and Herm, the reflection and memories were of a more intimate nature. When I first visited the Channel Islands in 1980, there were still families and friends split due to the ongoing conflict between those that had collaborated with the enemy and those that had resisted.

  I’ve returned regularly to the islands, even being their Mr Battle in 1987. The Battle of Flowers festival had been inaugurated back in 1902 to celebrate the coronation of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, hence them choosing an annual king and queen, a Mr Battle and a Miss Battle. I was proud to be a part of the family, with previous Mr Battles including Stirling Moss, Sacha Distel, Roy Castle and more recently Gareth Gates, following a revival of the role after a period in abeyance. This Mr Battle gig was not a slow canter by any means. Interviews, float inspections and a host of other duties kept me busy for several days. The inspections of the floats necessitated some dozen questions a minute. I felt like Prince Charles, and certainly borrowed a few of his time-honoured phrases. ‘So how many flowers did you use?’ ‘Really, and how do you keep them fresh?’ ‘Extraordinary, and what happens to them afterwards?’ ‘Marvellous, and how many of you worked on it?’ ‘Amazing, so who’s the boss?’ The last question always guaranteed a degree of guffawing, at which point one could respectfully move on amid the mirth.

  The Governor of Jersey came down to join me on one such excursion. What a delightful chap Bill Pillar was, or Admiral Sir William Pillar GBE KBE FIMechE to give him his full title. He was also a Knight of St John, an ancient order whose ranks I would join in 2011, and a vete
ran of World War Two and the Korean War. He and Ursula, Lady Pillar, rather decently invited me to Government House for tennis, supper and drinks at various times during my stay on Jersey, treating me like one of the family. I stayed in touch with one or two members of their tribe for some while with Bill and Ursula continuing to send Christmas cards. I was soon back on Jersey again, promoting and performing on Channel TV with their presenter Liam Mayclem to promote my first Betjeman album. Guitar in hand I wove my poetic way through a handful of songs and a good time was had by all. Well, I can’t be certain about the viewers, but Liam and I enjoyed ourselves. This was clearly the boost he needed. He moved to the USA to host the coast-to-coast show Tomorrow’s World America, and continues to be a major player in US TV.

  Doreen Davies was always open to programme ideas. When I suggested Three Men in a Boat to her (see Chapter 5) she was onto it at once. She got it. She always did. Astute, inspirational, wise and never seeking the limelight. Peter Powell and I did Ticket to Ryde with 100 or so Radio One listeners on a round trip to the Isle of Wight. I did shows from Shire horse centres, stately homes and even a submarine. The submarine would have seriously troubled the claustrophobic. You squashed down a small tube into a longer but not much bigger one packed with sailors. If there was one thing I learned that day, it was what it feels like to be a Smartie.

  During that period of the breakfast show I thought that it might be an amusing interlude to pretend I was learning the guitar. It was inspired by legendary guitarist Bert Weedon’s Play in a Day tutorial book and my idea was to deliberately get the wrong end of the stick. It just seemed a mildly off-the-wall thing to do, to get to page thirteen and discover that Bert was wearing cufflinks and that was the reason you weren’t as good as him, or after ten pages notice the guitar strap and realise that was why you’d broken so many instruments … they were simply falling on the floor. The only problem was that after some months of that, people didn’t believe I could play. At one of my group’s gigs, with Monkee Davy Jones in our line-up, a girl came up to me and snorted, ‘You were obviously miming. We know you can’t play.’ Although I’d been giving it my all for over an hour she was unconvinced, walking away with a final, dismissive ‘Everybody knows you’re only just learning’.

  Davy sang with my group a couple of times and I saw quite a bit of him socially as he and his then wife, Anita, came to various gatherings when I was living at The Aldermoor, Holmbury St Mary. On one of these occsions he asked me if I’d edit and possibly add to a book he’d written, They Made a Monkee Out of Me, handing me bundles of copies of Screen Gems paperwork along with the manuscript. I read it, and assured him that he didn’t need any input from me. It was well written, amusing and spoke from the heart, but tinged with a frustration that none of the guys in the band really made any money out of a group that was meant to rival the Beatles. Davy and I performed a track the Monkees had covered, ‘Cuddly Toy’, on Saturday Superstore. I played guitar as we duetted and again someone asked if I was miming while a real musician offscreen performed. Pretending to learn was a reasonable idea, but I did rather shoot myself in the foot. It was a gag that took a lot of living down and I’m still not quite sure that I have. It did wonders for Bert Weedon, though. He thanked me profusely on many occasions for introducing him to a whole new generation of fans. He told me he’d been performing for a family function at a holiday camp on the south coast, when one very young child came up, looked him up and down, walked round him and then stared up at him, asking, ‘Are you really Bert Weedon?’ He said he was. ‘Oh,’ said the girl. ‘We thought Mike Read had made you up.’ I’d later play a one-off gig with Bert in a band you couldn’t buy or make up.

  I also performed with Spanish flamenco guitarist Juan Martín, who has not only played with Miles Davis, but has been voted one of the top three guitarists in the world. Sure, I’d played a bit with him for fun on Saturday Superstore, but when he asked me to accompany him for a major gig at the Institute of Contemporary Arts I thought it was some kind of Spanish joke. Not so. He informed me that I was one of the best rhythm guitarists he had performed with. Reason? ‘You’re not the greatest lead guitarist.’ I can live with that. Accompanied by a visual wall we performed ‘Guernica’, inspired by the Picasso painting that he swore would never hang in Spain while Franco remained in power. This was no gig where you could have a laugh, smile at the crowd, pose a little and strut around with your guitar. I have to say it went down pretty well with an audience for whom I was off the radar. I doubt whether many of them had ever listened to Radio One or watched Top of the Pops. A delightful lady who I would swear had a virtual ‘Radio Four Listener’ tattoo somewhere and looked as if she’d deposited her trug by the herbaceous border for a second drawled, ‘Have you and Juan been playing together for years?’ More like hours, but I maintained the mystique, such as it was.

  With the breakfast show came a series of one-hour specials with the likes of Phil Collins, Wham! and the Everly Brothers. These led to later specials with Queen and Paul McCartney.

  For the show Queen for an Hour, I was warned that certain areas of discussion with Freddie Mercury were off limits. No one mentioned any specifics so I was told to tiptoe through whatever minefield I might stray into. No trained sappers at Broadcasting House to go in first to check the ground. However, all uncertainties were dispelled by Freddie, with a casual wave of the hand. ‘Ask me whatever you like, Mike, anything goes.’ The hour’s show has, I believe, been attached to various box sets.

  The Paul McCartney special, which would turn out to be a much more comprehensive affair, was spread over a couple of days in the studio with him in East Sussex. Great vegetarian food, I have to say. We ended up with eighteen hours of conversation, Paul debunking myths, and discussing his relationship with John Lennon, the early days of the Beatles and how many of the songs were written, occasionally illustrated with a burst of live guitar and vocal.

  Prior to travelling down to Sussex, a BBC informer tugged my sleeve and in a covert voice reliably informed me that Paul was a Wordsworthian pantheist. OK, why not? There’s no reason why a left-handed bass player shouldn’t believe in the pagan concept of a life force in all of nature. It wasn’t too hard to believe that he had Spinoza-type views and I reasoned that if he were indeed a Wordsworthian pantheist, he must have seen the light via the former Poet Laureate’s ‘Tintern Abbey’. Looking in depth at the former Beatle’s left-field animism was going to be a fascinating and illuminating part of the interview. When I asked him about it, he hadn’t got a bloody clue what I was talking about.

  Recovering, I asked Paul about the first song he’d ever written, at which he picked up the guitar and launched into it. He’d hardly got into his stride when the excited tones of my producer, Paul Williams, became audible through a layer of supposedly soundproof glass. ‘It’s a first,’ came the voice, ‘it’s a bloody first!’

  Paul McC. glanced at me but, ever the professional, refused to be thrown. It became tougher to continue after the door to the studio burst open and the aforementioned producer, cigarette cemented to his lips, bellowed triumphantly, ‘You’ve never played this before in public!’ I’d have said that there was a pretty good chance that McCartney was aware of the fact. The situation deteriorated as an overenthusiastic Williams grabbed the neck of the guitar and began to shake it, repeating his mantra of it being ‘a first’.

  Even a world-renowned pop star can’t continue under these unforeseen circumstances. Like someone who’s been electrocuted, Paul W. seemed unable to let go of the guitar and Paul McC. seemed equally unable to shake him off. Paul W.’s ‘dead man’s grip’ made the former Beatle’s strumming sound like a muted, out-of-tune ukulele. The Fab Four had been experimental, yes, but this was taking things a little too far.

  Paul McC. took control of the situation. Of course he’d known Paul W. over his years at the BBC and was aware of his eccentricity. ‘Paul.’

  ‘Yes … yes?’ He was still excitable but had at least let go of the guitar.<
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  ‘Why don’t you go back into the control room and do your job and let us do ours?’

  He needed no second bidding. ‘Absolutely, right, quite right, yes…’ And as he’d arrived, so he departed, unabashed.

  If for a moment I’d thought that Paul McC. was going to storm out diva-like at this untimely intrusion, I’d have been wrong. He took it with a grin and a chuckle, or something that was a kissing cousin to a chuckle. ‘Eccentrics, don’t you just love ’em?’ What a nice chap. Well actually they’re both nice chaps. It was a pleasurable experience making this special, which finished up as an eight-part series for Radio One. It crops up now and then on Radio Two and Six Music.

  I was privileged to compere an elite lunch at the Savoy for a special presentation to Paul McCartney, attended by several luminaries including the Bee Gees and Tim Rice. At lunch I was seated next to a delightful gent in his late eighties. We chatted about songs and he asked me about Radio One. He admitted that it wasn’t his station of choice but conceded that it was doing a splendid job for young songwriters, singers, musicians and composers. Eager to let him know that my musical taste and knowledge spread beyond the top forty I declared, rather grandly, that I often featured an element of light classical music as a ‘bed’ when I was talking.

  ‘Oh I see … and you have it underneath your voice?’

  ‘That’s it.’ He caught on fast for a non-listener.

  ‘Why don’t you play these pieces in their entirety?’

  ‘Well, it’s a pop music station really.’

  ‘So you put them on and then talk all over them.’ I could sense the change in his tone.