My (funny) Life part eight

PART 8, 

Nothing fancy in the title- what did you want fireworks ?, it's part 8 of God knows how many , depends how long this bloody lockdown goes on, I'm only writing this to take my mind of drinking !

Okay so you've done with 7 and we're off to Spain , lovely sunny Spain ,Land of Flamenco , Sangria , Senoritas , Tapas, Chocolat y churros and the rest of that == well Spain can Sod-Off, from the moment we left Polbrook things didn't go well, I was driving a short AEC Mandator with a trailer full off seats, poles,ring-fence, props, basically everything, the load was grossly overweight and on the way to Southampton docks I managed to half jacknife the whole thing and bent the drawbar so while everyone else buggered off Michael Austin stayed behind with me to repair it, We got help from Jimmy Chipperfield and had a nice couple of days staying at his home while we got the job done, that was the best bit of the whole exercise . We met up with the rest of the convoy in France so that we could cross the France /Spain Border together , Britain had only recently joined the common market so Border protocols were still observed ,the Elephant act and Ponies had a contract for the Xmas Circus in Madrid and we were smuggling the rest of the RBC circus into Spain with the intention of touring the south coast with 'Circo de Inglaterra' ( RBC with a Spanish accent ), That was the plan and you know what happens with plans !! The tent that they got for the trip was the first Plastic tent in the UK ,I heard that they had got it in a swap from an Italian show in exchange for a Lion act, when it arrived in England it came with an Italian who explained to Michael and me how to build it up , I was just there with Michael and didn't take a lot of notice, anyway it was then stuffed into the swan neck of the elephant waggon and the kingpoles were strapped on to the top with the hope that we could convince the Spanish Border guards that it was the stables for the animals, We actually had 9 elephants and there were only 6 on the contract for Madrid , maybe the guards thought they were Subs to come off the bench if one was injured , anyway they fell for it and we were in !.

If it had been me I would have got to the first Spanish town , built up and opened so as to get some money in , but no we then drove another 1000km to the South coast , with a stop in Madrid on the way, I say we , I very nearly didn't make it .Going through any town in a convoy is always risky ,with Sat Navs it's easy peasy, but Spain , Madrid , Rush Hour, I was last in the line so problems arose , I could see the elephant waggon about half a mile ahead and it turned right at a big roundabout which was presumably where we were going to park for the night, the 'Placa Eliptica Madrid' so I just carried on, The traffic was horrendous and slow when all of a sudden a Spanish Police officer jumped onto the running board of my tractor and shouted “Ve, Ve, Mas Rapido” which I , at the time didn't understand , I thought he was welcoming me to Spain and hoped I would enjoy it's countryside and be sure to visit it's many places of beauty , I was wrong , how did I know I was wrong you ask , and even if you didn't ask I'm going to tell you , I knew I was wrong 'cos he POINTED A BLOODY GUN AT ME ! You can believe me I 'Ve,Ve'd as rapido as I could Rapido, we kept going straight for a while until we got past the main traffic , me desperately trying to remember the way back to the 'Placa Eliptica', As suddenly as he had arrived the policeman shouted “Basta” which I presumed was either stop or “would you like coffee”

I stopped and he jumped down off the running board stepped into the road and did the scene that you see in all Cop movies, pointed his gun at a car coming up the road and when it stopped got in and buggered off .
So recap , I'm a few miles from where I should be and I'm facing the wrong way so I drive until I see a piece of waste ground so I drive on and on the way out get stuck, not badly but I didn't want it to get worse so I uncoupled the trailer, turned the tractor round so as to couple it from the front but the trailer still wouldn't move so I uncoupled again got on the road and drove back , by this time it's safe to say that I was mildly aggrieved and my mood didn't get any better when I got back to the ground and found everyone in one of the caravans drinking tea , I had a small hissy fit explaining what had happened complete with expletives , details signs and interpretive dance moves , declaring that for me Spain could go F*** itself and take it's police with it especially the fascist with the gun and the Starsky and Hutch impression . Michael calmed me down enough to explain where the trailer was and said OK lets go back and sort it out , He got the land rover and I said you'll need more than that the trailer is really stuck, don't worry said Michael, so I didn't, we got back and I coupled up the trailer again knowing it was futile when I heard a whooshing sound , that was Michael emptying the Brake air tank on the trailer , those of you who have driven big stuff will now be giggling at my stupidity ,the rest of you just be content with the fact that I felt a complete pratt.! In my defence I had just had a Star Pistol next to my head for about three miles which tends to upset your equilibrium and turn your thinking capabilities to jelly . Suffice to say all these years later it's one of the first topics of discussion whenever the trip to Spain comes up .
The rest of the tour was eventful but the business was awful and it came to a head when we got to a site which was a football ground on a single track road with a small gate and 2 concrete huts as payboxes on either side . Michael and I were always the last two loads he with the tent artic and me with my tractor, and now 2 trailers , Oh I forgot to mention that we had got a booking office from a Spanish circus which was a small 4 wheeler with Ackerman steering , if you ever had a go cart or a pedal car you'll know what that is , enough to say if you went over about 25mph it would start to tango all over the road, even uphill, thats why we were always the last. Anyway we arrived at said ground and realised we wouldn't get through the gate with our loads , the others were walking the ground marking out where the tent , stables etc would go so Michael and I tagged onto the group occasionally mentioning that we couldn't get into the ground but not being heard , this went on for a while until Michael suddenly erupted , now this is a man who speaks quietly but is always listened to because he's well respected and he's been around a while so when he raised his voice everyone stopped and turned , very slowly he explained the problem , what followed was a Monty Python sketch various solutions were mooted among them strapping to steel cables aroung the concrete huts and pulling them down , finding another place to enter and take down the hedge and bushes etc, and one , I kid you not ,which suggested that we could blow the huts up , one of the directors did a cowboy act and had black powder and ignition caps on hand ! In the midst of all this someone asked Michael what we should do and he said “I'm going to the next town” I was behind and said “I'm with him” so we got into our transport and went to the next town .
The next day we were all around talking about what to do next when somebody said to Michael “What do you think we should do “ Michael replied “ I'm going home “ I was behind him and said , well you know the rest , we got our transport ready and early a.m. the next day we started the journey home with the wager between me and Michael that the last one home paid for the drinks. I won 'cos Michael stopped at Oxford services for a tea .
A lot more happened in Spain ,most of it's painful but one story typifies Michael Austin and why he's my best friend and for the last 25 years my Uncle and I love him dearly . We were opening the tour in Murcia on the south coast and everyone was away except for me, Mike and Kevin, he was one of our ring boys but so much more, anyway the ground was not the biggest so when we were pulling the poles up Mike had to back the tractor out onto the road so Kevin is on the ground making sure the stakes don't pull and that the cables are OK , meanwhile I'm on the road checking traffic ready to tell Mike when it's safe to go , As I'm looking up the road I see two girls, well girls doesn't do justice to the beauties that were strolling in our direction, all thoughts of work was put aside while we enjoyed the view, the closer the girls got the more we appreciated the difference in the sexes until they got real close to the tractor and one looked up and said in a thick Irish accent “Jaysus Chroist, It's Michael Austin” ! . Very few times in life have I been lost for words and this was all of them . They were showgirls from a touring theatre company who had worked with Michael before on some other circus , Small world , made smaller and a little brighter on that day .
We got home and started building , painting , getting ready for another season , Timm was there for the season showing the lions, Michael was there as well so it was a fun season ,Timm left before the end and even though I agreed to do the winter in Edinburgh I knew my time on RBC was coming to an end , I enjoyed the work but it wasn't challenging enough , I wasn't sure if they wanted me because I was a good RM or the fact that I drove a heavy load and built up the lights.
For 1977 I had a contract to RM the Hippodrome Circus in Gt Yarmouth at the time it was one of the most prestigious shows around , the big 4 were Blackpool, Yarmouth in the Summer and Belle Vue , Kelvin Hall in the Winter .
I had also been contacted by an agent who wanted me to compere some Sunday Shows on the south coast and with the agreement from Roberto Germains who was the Agent and Manager at Yarmouth I had a busy summer ,Saturday night I would drive to either Bournemouth or Eastbourne stay in a hotel and do two shows on Sunday with some great stars . Ken Dodd, Vince Hill, Mike and Bernie Winters, Frank Ifield, Lionel Blair, Anita Harris , Rod Hull and Emu just some of the names , alongside all this I was also doing cabaret spots on a Wednesday in the Gorleston Ballroom / Cabaret club just down the road from Yarmouth .
By the end of the season I was knackered but my bank account was pretty healthy. During the season I got an offer from Gerry Cottles Circus to join them as RM , Mike Denning was the normal RM but he was being moved up to General Manager and I was headhunted , seriously it was a compliment because at the time GCC was the best and most innovative show on the road, He had the Seaside specials and was about to host the Circus World Championships in a Huge tent on Clapham Common and it was run as a business , I wasn't expected to drive or build-up and pull down, my responsibility was putting the ringfence together making sure it was always painted , clean and full of sawdust, sort out rehearsal times , organise the ringstaff and run the show from when the public came in to the last note of the finale, I was also in the discussion on the programme running order , proper RM work .
It was an enjoyable time , Gerry and I had first met many years before when I was about 14 and my father and I were clowning( sic) on Gandeys Circus for a few weeks , this young guy turned up to join the show with a bag containing some juggling props and it was Gerry.
We didn't have that much contact on his show, he was away most of the time doing PR or plotting his next venture , I had a credit card from the company for sawdust, dry cleaning ,paint etc and anything else I sorted out through Mike Denning . I knew everyone on the show and was related to most of them, Sydney Howes with the Lion act, Carlos MacManus presenting the Elephants, Horses and exotic acts , Julie and Baba Fossett with aerial acts , Barry Walls being anything anyone wanted , he would be an Indian chief for a western show, El Hakim the Fakir for his own act but whatever he did he put his heart and soul 100% into it , the most talented man I have ever known in and out of the ring. We used to get Milk delivered to the caravans , one of the jobs the advance team organised, one morning I woke to find bottles with my name on them on my steps, Barry had bought an engraving kit , His painting, signwriting and leather engraving was of the highest professional standard and he could have got a job anywhere at a lot more money but all he wanted to do was entertain , a wonderful man and he was gone way too soon.
The Clowns were Sonny Fossett, Matto and Jimmy Scott , Jimmy was the prime example of what a reprise( run-in) clown should be and I learned so much from him which was to stand me in good stead a little later in my life even though I wasn't aware of it at the time . Matto was a young eager clown who had a wicked sense of humour and a talent beyond his years , Uncle Sonny, thats how everybody knew him ,was a clown of the old school , easy to work with a good carpenter outside the ring .

The Circus World Championship took place on Clapham Common it was one of the best things I've been involved in with some of the best artists taking part and some great memories , it ran for about 6 years and I was there for 3 of them as assistant to Norman Barrett. His years at the Blackpool Tower Circus, Big Apple Circus and latterly Zippos are a testament to his professionalism and his calm nature is a reassuring presence in any situation , working with him also made me realise that there was only room for one 'number 1' and he was it in the UK so If I was to make my name as a Ringmaster I had to travel further afield. I would be a couple more years before I could achieve this but I knew what I had to do.

OK enough for number 8, my fingers are tired, I'll be back with No 9, take it as a threat or a promise however you like , but I'll be back 

PART V11

PART SEVEN = just in case you don't read Latin

We opened in Basingstoke with a strong show but the vagaries of show business in general and circus in particular meant that for contractual or

travel reasons some artists had not turned up for the premiere so we had a couple of temporary acts , Oh I forgot some of you may not have read parts 1-6 so you'll need to catch up ---- here's your chance .

https://thoughts-from-the-big-top.blogspot.com/2020/03/life-my-universe-and-few-other-things.html

all caught up ? Good, on we go . As I said, Basingstoke, it was a good week despite lots of rain which I didn't really take notice of, I had an umbrella to take me from my caravan to the Ring Doors ( backstage for those of you who have never been to a circus), My approach to being a RM was to treat it like any compere job but with a red coat instead of a dinner suit, I like people, especially when they are together and called an audience and I wanted to talk to them and not at them , the comedy in the show was handled by Charlie Bale ( Jacko Fosset for the first couple of weeks) and the Enos family, Phil with his comedy car, Colin and Rudi doing reprises, luckily we all got on well together and had lots of laughs both in and out of the ring, Phil's wife Doreen had been my babysitter when she worked on Fossetts circus with my parents, my relationship with the Enos family was to take on more importance many years later, you'll read about it in later chapters if you stick around and I'd recommend that you stick around, it's more fun than watching re-runs of countdown .
Back to the rain , not until Saturday night did I realise the significance of the weeks downpours , these were the days of Lord Chamberlain when Circuses and some other forms of live entertainment couldn't work on Sundays so Saturdays comprised of driving my caravan through to the next ground , coming back changing into my RM outfit wherever there was a space do 3 shows pull down get into my 2^nd load which was the Crocodile bus drive through to the next town get up Sunday and build it all up again , fun, fun, fun, all the way, I had never done a pull down on a big show, the Circus in Wales that I referred to in Chapter 1 (bet you wish you'd read it now ) was a 1 pole small tent about 60ft across and was easy work, most of you reading this who have any circus experience will have grown up in a world with Plastic tents , winches , forklifts all of which makes the actual manhandling a lot easier, Chipperfields was a big show with a huge canvas tent and on that Saturday night it was getting heavier with each drop of rain, describing the whole pulldown will probably bring on a migraine but suffice to say at 03.00 am Sunday we were still rolling up the sections of the tent by hand.
About midnight Dickie's brother in law Dave Thomas , who was and still is a huge Everton FC supporter and the word 'huge' doesn't adequately describe his love and adoration of the Blue side of Liverpool, suddenly ran into the middle of this mayhem of wet canvas , mud, skidding lorries and muddy skidding people and shouted, nay screamed across to Dickie “Dickie Dickie, I've got to go back to the farm , It's really urgent” everybody stopped and looked at him , “I've left my Everton tie in my old waggon and I've got to go back and get it “.One bright funny moment in a tough wet night , eventually we managed to extricate ourselves from what had become a huge morass of brown windsor soup by which time it was morning again.

Over the next weeks I became used to a totally different lifestyle and realised how readily I had been accepted by the community, many of them had known me as a child or we were related in some way and most of us were of a similar age , I wrote somewhere that with the shared talent we had between us we could have done anything but we spent most of our time laughing and joking and there wasn't a situation that we couldn't turn into humour, much of it was directed at Dickie Jnr who was an affable character but not a 'joiner in' , I think he felt the huge responsibility of his name and what had gone before under the Chipperfield banner. We had no such restrictions, very few nights went by when there wasn't something happening somewhere in somebody's waggon, usually John Jnr's , card games , listening to LP's, telling jokes, drinking and generally having a good time, in this manner the season rolled merrily along.
All went well until we got to Chelmsford .

The normal build-up routine was that Mike Freeman his brother Dave and I got up and set about putting the Kingpoles up , at the same time Jim Stockley, John Jnr, Tommy and Charles would build-up the stable tents , sort out the wild animal waggon line-up and the Zoo in general, when the poles were up I went for breakfast while the tent was going up and came back to set the ringfence , bandstand and get everything ready for the first show. That was normal-- until Chelmsford !

During the season a new tent had been ordered and had arrived a few days previously, unlike most circus tents at the time which were made in Germany by a firm called Strohmier this one had been made in Chester by a firm which normally built marquees. It was a different configuration from the 4 Pole canvas tent we were used to, this one was a 6 pole, 4 king poles 2 queen poles ,one on the left one on the right , from above it would have a diamond shape, this meant a more complicated rigging system for the wire cables , the fabric for the tent was new and was supposed to be resistant to tearing and ripping which was always a problem with canvas tents especially older ones. As far as we knew the tent was not going to be used until the next season but we had now been told that we were going to put it up in Chelmsford, hey ho, co-incidentally during the pull down on the Saturday Dickie had driven the seating waggons out , a job normally done by the Freeman boys and while taking the last one out he ripped a great hole in the old tent which was in the way of being a 'fait accompli'

there was now no choice ,the Green Monster had to go up .

Also taking place on the Monday in Chelmsford was Colin Enos's wedding to Dorette , an event to which we had all been invited and were looking forward to with great eagerness especially the party in the evening. The build-up didn't start off well, Dickie took charge of putting the poles up and not to put to fine a point on it he didn't have his finest hour, after we had put them up and down 3 times due to the rigging being wrong the 4^th time we left them up and re rigged by climbing up the poles and changing the shackles in situ .I say we, from my memory it was mainly me, Alex Storey and Charles, by midday the poles were up , hoo-bloody-ray !
The tent presented other problems as we got it up you could see the stitch-holes where the makers had gone off line on the seams and lacing it up around the 6 poles was damned near impossible ,Oh and did I mention that it had rained all day ?
The tent was up and the seats were in very late in the day and everyone was knackered I told the Ringboys to have a lay-in on the Monday morning just to make sure that the seats were clean and tidy and I'd be back from the wedding at 2.00 pm and then we could set the props, ,sawdust the ring and the front of the Box Office and still have plenty of time to be ready for a 4.45 pm show. I actually arrived back at around 1.00 to find that Dickie had had the boys working from the morning doing those same jobs , I said that it was silly to do the Box Office too early as the rain would mess it up by showtime and also the boys deserved a break as they along with us had had a stressful weekend, we had a few words during which Dickie recommended that I seek out a job involving sex and travel, further advising me to follow the Biblical entreaty to “Go Forth and Multiply “.
It was a small ground and the caravans were quite close to each other and I couldn't easily get mine out so I said I'd need some help to which Dickie said anyone helping me could ****** off as well which resulted in the crazy sight of the artists and men from the show lifting my little home and carrying it to the gate . I was sad that it ended the way it did but I wasn't sorry because I wasn't prepared too be verbally abused by anyone , I had taken enough abuse from my father to last a lifetime and wouldn't tolerate it any more , during build-ups and pull downs there's a lot of shouting and yelling but most of time it's an emotional outburst and not aimed at anyone in particular and yes, I'm as guilty as everyone else, sometime it just gets too much and you have to explode but in my experience most of the time it's deflated with humour and is not a huge problem ,
It's the measured abusive response of someone who has run out of a logical or convincing argument that proves to be the proverbial 'Straw that breaks the camels back ' for me . My greatest teacher in this was my stepdad Ron as I wrote in Chapter 2 ( go back and read it again in case you missed it ) ! .
PS The Chipperfield's endgame, I had to go back a few days later to sort my wages and also my % from the mobile shop I had with Jim and John jnr , the show was at Romford so I parked outside and went round to settle up and say goodbye to those I'd missed out with my hurried departure including Dickies mum and dad who had known me all of my life and had both been exceptionally nice to me during my time on the show, on my return to the car Dickie was there, we didn't exchange any words he just kicked my car. !
I went back to Rosaires farm wondering what to do next, quite a few Circuses were around so I went visiting and had a couple of offers for the next season which was 5 months away so I worked a few clubs to take me through the winter while I made my mind up, ! 1975 saw me with Robert Brothers Circus , Michael Austin was on the show and when I arrived I found he was in Viet-Nam with a boxing Kangaroo , he got all the good jobs !
This was a very different show, more of a 'them and us' between the directors and the artists, once again I was in a strange position because they were from the Fossett family the same as me so we were cousins a couple of times removed but I had spent a decade away from Circus and in an age without social media or instant communication it was a case of 'out of sight out of mind' . My responsibility as RM was also a lot less, I was basically a compere, I had no control over the show itself, it started when Bobby Roberts Snr gave me the signal to start , the ringboy's answered to the family not too me and I was not involved in the actual programming of the show all things that were part of my job on Chipperfields.

I managed to steer around the in-house politics which is a part of every circus and probably every business in some form or another and the season progressed fairly well .
I bought Michael Austins 4 wheeled showmans waggon which was more comfortable than my little one and a few weeks into the season I heard that Timm Delbosq a friend from my youth was back in the UK from a couple of years in Scandinavia and was working odd days for a small circus not far from us, Bobby jnr and I went over to see him and he was doing a spinning plate act in a one pole tent , all through his act he kept looking at the pole in the middle of the ring until finally he grabbed a plate , ran out of the ring after a couple of seconds came back in and shook the pole as though there was a plate on top , funny gag , end of the act he took all the plates off the props in the ring took a bow and as he walked out he kicked the king pole,== a plate dropped from the top and he caught it ! Funniest thing I'd seen for years , after the show Bobby had a chat with him which resulted in Timm coming to work with us, If I remember he took over presenting the wild animals , he was and still is an accomplished animal trainer and he recently retired after an illustrious career working for some of the most prestigious circuses in Europe. Before his return to the UK he had a burgeoning film career in Scandinavia but gave it up for his love of circus . Anyway he arrived on RBC ( Robert Brothers Circus, acronyms are easier than the full thing ) with no transport so he moved in with me for the rest of the season, It was a bit like 'Men Behaving Badly' but awkward if we chatted up any girls after the show, two sex-bombs-- one caravan , OK I'll wait for the laughter to die down and carry on when you're ready.
Just to clear things up , the next season Timm had his own transport which was great and made 'dating' easier , all was well until the day I got up and everyone was giving me really bad looks and moaning to me about the noise of the baby crying all night keeping everybody awake, I didn't understand until I discovered that Timm had had a 'date' In his waggon who had a small child who cried a lot , I was still confused until I found
he had put the pushchair under my veranda .

For the winter RBC had two shows out, one went to Spain as 'Circo de Inglaterra' the other went to Leith in Edinburgh , you know Leith, where the polithe dithmitheth you ? ( another one for the oldies ) Timm went to Scotland with my lorry and waggon , I went to Spain and 46 years later I still don't know who got the better deal .

Thats it for 7, back with 8 as soon as I can remember what happened.

LIFE THE UNIVERSE AND PART 6 & 6(a)

Wednesday, 6 May 2020

LIFE THE UNIVERSE AND PART 6 & 6(a)

LIFE STORY PART 6

My run in the Whitehall theatre came to an end in early October and I went to Malta for a months work in a wonderful night club run by an old friend, I took my girlfriend at the time and the trip was eventful, in those days to get to Heathrow you took an airport bus from Victoria Station, a little nervous of flying we had a few drinks to calm our nerves, by the time we got to the Terminal we were as calm as newts .

We were put into the VIP lounge at Heathrow had a few more Chardonnays 

and found out that travelling on the same plane was a well known Magician /Illusionist whose main trick was the famous 'Bullet Catch', now this was '73 and the latest threat was plane hi-jacking , (it's how Cuba got a tourist industry)
so security measures were strict including the transportation of the guns and bullets for the Magicians act, now in those days there were no moving walkways , jetways or other ways to get from Terminal to the plane just a walk from the building across the tarmac to the front for first class or the rear for everyone else so on this particular evening approaching the front of the plane was a line-up led by the cabin crew, the pilot at the front carrying the gun, a steward following with the box for the bullets , the magician, his assistants and bringing up the rear me and Mary staggering ever so slightly , I can't adequately describe the different looks we got from the passengers queueing at the rear door waiting to board but I can guarantee that we were the subject of many stories when they got back home . There was more drinking on the plane but the biggest surprise was to come at Valetta airport where a press conference had been arranged to herald the arrival of both me and the magician, he was appearing at the other famous Maltese nightspot the Buskett roadhouse , around the press office were posters advertising the two different clubs mine was black letters on a dayglo green background with the following text
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

THE NIGRET NIGHT CLUB AND RESTAURANT 

IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE 

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MALTA 

A SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCE

by

DAVID KONYOT 

* A STAR IN LONDON AND MOST PLACES IN ENGLAND *

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was probably around then I sobered up and started to re-consider my future.

Malta was an absolute blast, we had a beautiful apartment and Paul , the club owner, gave me use of his Chevrolet Camaro while we were there, I worked about 3 nights a week mostly to British army Soldiers and Staff who were stationed on the island so a good time was had by all.

But,

there's always a 'But '

before I left for Malta Terry and I had another of our conversations about my future, I had been thinking quite a lot about this during the West End run and a certain amount of realism and logical thinking had entered my brain, I was hoping it would leave quite soon but it resulted in an honest and in my opinion a true assessment of my situation, I made a mental list of my pro's and cons, 

on the plus side I could sing, dance, do good impressions, could tell a joke plus play a couple of instruments and over the previous 9 years I had built up a decent reputation as a good all-round entertainer, privately I had a decent flat in Hendon, a new Ford Capri and money in the bank , on the con side the cabaret/club circuit was changing and working alone was not what I wanted any more.
Another option was to try to get into musicals and maybe dramatic theatre but that was a part of show business that always had a 80% unemployment rate and I liked to eat so there was a lot to think about . 

While I had been working at the Star and Garter I had got a strange phone call from an old friend Micheal Austin.

We had known each other since we were kids and he was one of the few Circus friends I'd kept vaguely in touch with over the years, The phone call was to offer me a job with a Circus he was taking out, Co-incidentally it came on the same day I got the part for Pyjama Tops so I politely declined.

This was 1973 and mobile phones were not around yet so for Michael to trace me had taken some effort and I wanted to thank him for thinking of me soon my return from Malta I found out that he was working for Chipperfields Circus at the Bingley Hall in Birmingham so I drove up to see him , a journey that would have life changing consequences.

What happened over the next week is strange and I still don't completely understand it , Circumstance, Serendipity, Fate, Happenstance, Re-alignment of the Stars, and to paraphrase Prime Minister Macmillan” Event's dear boy, Events”
It started when Gordon Howes got a sore throat, Gordon was a wild animal trainer but was Ringmaster for this winter season of the circus and for obvious reasons a sore throat is not a good thing for a Ringmaster to have, Had I not been there that would have been the end of the story but I was and it wasn't so someone, I don't know who but if I ever find out there will be a conversation, suggested that because I was a comedian/ entertainer and was used to talking in public I could be RM for a day or two until Gordon got better, This was eventually proposed to me and I said OK but I only have my day clothes so I'll do the announcing from behind the curtains which was fine until Gordon's daughter Barbara came out with his Red Tailcoat so that was that .

I did a couple of shows and went back home but returned the following week for a few days because it had been fun and the company was good , as I was wandering around when Dickie Chipperfield Jnr called me into his waggon and offered me a job as Ringmaster for the Circus for the upcoming season, without a moments hesitation I said yes.

Over the last 46 years I have thought about that decision and it's ramifications many times, but never, ever, not for a moment, have I regretted it .

As I drove back to London I realised that my flat would have to go but that wouldn't be a problem, luckily I still had my caravan parked at Rosaires farm, I would need a proper Ringmasters Red Coat would have to be made so I would have to visit my tailor , yes I had a tailor, a lovely guy in Hammersmith who made my dinner suits and working costumes, I still had a couple of months work on the clubs and Chipperfields didn't start for a while so I had time to make all the arrangements.

For quite a few years despite the uncertainty of show-business I had worked regularly, I had been paid well plus the last couple of years in London and my stint in the Whitehall theatre had pushed me way up on the salary scale so the fact that I'd just accepted a job for £45 a week was a little surprising, and there was still the conversation with Terry to be had, I thought it would be uncomfortable but it was the opposite, he agreed that the cabaret scene was undergoing a dramatic change, with smaller stages to accommodate more seating the predominance of Organ and Drums duos replacing live bands of 5/6 musicians and with the amount of comedians and impressionists on TV it was hard to keep up with new material that an audience hadn't seen the night before,  Terry accepted my decision with his normal good grace, he was and still is a very good friend and over the years we kept in touch he now runs a very good tour with his orchestra raising funds for the British Legion, we actually did some shows with him a couple of years ago which was fun and an enjoyable trip down memory lane.

Before the season started I arrived at Chipperfields winter quarters nr Chipping Norton a place I remembered from my childhood, they had bought the farm in the late 50's when the show was at Bingley Hall for Xmas, My father was in charge of the Elephants at the time and had journeyed there to check out the stabling for the animals, I was with him so we were the first to see the now famous or infamous farm , co-incidentally that show saw the first “Grimble Clowns ' the story that I understood was they had employed a troupe of continental clowns who had backed out at the last minute and Uncle Dick Chipperfield had come up with the idea of getting my Dad, who was a good clown, to put some sort of act together The previous season dad had worked in the show with Richard Hearne the famous ( for anyone over 60 ) Mr Pastry, For the advertising posters there had to be a name so Uncle Dick came up with 'The Grimble Clowns' the act was my Dad , Tommy Fossett, my mum and Bill Smee who was the shows signwriter / painter. From this mix came a very good clown act and a name that Tommy Fossett later took over with outstanding success, many years later Tommy was the inspiration for me to start my own musical clown act. Very quickly so as to get it out of the way my Father was, in my opinion, one of the best clowns I ever saw, he was also very good with animals, if he had been as funny and as good with his family our lives would have been very different and a whole lot better.

OK back to the timeline, it's coming up to Easter '74 and I have arrived at the Chipperfield winter Quarters , there was a lot going on and somewhere in the middle of the lot going on I got a job fixing the lights on the transport now I am not nor ever have been an auto electrician , after 40+ years I know my way around a tool kit and I can wire a plug but in '74 I knew sod-all so off I went to and auto shop in oxford bought a book and a whole load of auto electrics went back to the farm and gave in the bill to Auntie Myrtle (Mrs Dick Chipperfield) it was then I learnt an important lesson , Circuses don't like to spend money ! I'll emphasise that CIRCUSES DON'T LIKE TO SPEND MONEY !!!!!!!!.

That evening slowly but surely my caravan filled up with people until there some playing a multiple patience card game at one end coffee being drunk at the other and a hum of chatter and laughter from everywhere and I realised what had been missing from my life for as long as I could remember .
The cabaret circuit meant a different town and a different club each week you made friends along the way but they were transitory , a six week panto or a decent summer season was good for flirting and a couple of parties but then it was over and off you went again , 

In my caravan on that evening in that far flung desolate piece of middle England I laughed and enjoyed myself more than I had for many years and made friends that I still have to this day, a confirmation that my decisions was good .

The work of lights on the transport was taken very seriously , at least by me , at the time I didn't know of the reputation that Chipperfields had about their transport so I carried on regardless. Every day at some point John jnr would pass by whatever lorry I was working on or under, he'd stop and say “it'll all end in tears “ day after day very quietly he'd just appear and repeat “It'll all end in tears “ a couple of days before we set out for the season all the vehicles were done, any lorry could be coupled up to any waggon and the lights would work, my job here was done now I could buckle down to the new challenge of being a RingMaster. On the day we set out, the lead load, an Albion tractor with two trailers, was driven by Dickie jnr, as he exited the farm he turned right instead of left and scraped every light off the right hand side of the load and – you guessed it, standing behind me was John jnr who looked at me and said , very quietly “I told you it would end in tears” I loved John jnr like a brother, we had met over the years at Circus re-unions and always got on, he had a dry sense of humour loved Neil Diamond and not a day went by that we didn't laugh over something or nothing , Sadly he was taken from us a few years ago re-inforcing the saying that the good die young , in Johns case way too young.

Jim Stockley gets a whole paragraph to himself, another one of the Chipperfields family his Dad, Jim snr had been the transport manager on the show at the same time my dad was there and they were good friends as their sons would be a few years later , his mum auntie Marjorie became my surrogate mother she was a wonderful lady with a wicked sense of humour a constant twinkle in her eye and an ear that would listen to any problem with sympathy and a cup of tea .OK back to Jim and the rest of his paragraph , I never saw him flustered , in the middle of any crisis and there were always crisis , crisises , crisi , what is the plural of crisis ? There must be one , if there is it'll have something to do with circus 'cos theres always a crisis ( singular) anyway before , during and after any crisis Jim was a steady balanced figure who never ran or seemed to hurry anywhere, his long lanky figure would lope and yes thats the word I'm gonna use, he would lope into view and generally sort things out or not as the case may be, his sense of humour was just as sharp as john but a little more subtle, in his later years he has turned out to be something of a historian, he knows and has learned lots about the family and their ups and downs through the generations and is the go-to authority on all things Chipperfield , he lives in S.A and one of the great joys of social media is the ability to be able to connect with those friends and family who are spread throughout the world, Jim and I meet regularly on FB , the last time we met face to face was a few years ago when he was visiting the UK and we were both driving around the M25, with phone calls and sat-navs we met up on a slip road nr gatwick and had a few minutes of re-union and like all good friendships the years in between slipped away for a few moments before we split to go our seperate ways.
There will be more on Jim, John jnr, Dickie ,Mike and Dave Freeman , Rudi, Colin and the Enos family , Carol, Claire, Sally, Tommy, the Valla- Bertinis, the Icarus flyers ,Charlie and Nora Bale, Herman , the Major and many others who made that season , my first back in Circus, funny, muddy and memorable

in Part 7 

LIFE THE UNIVERSE AND ME 

QUINTUPLE PART 

Welcome back , 1^st=== VERY IMPORTANT ===== 

To find out how many are actually reading this story I put a deliberate mistake in part 4 . If you found it, send me a PM on facebook saying what it was .
And now ,on with the book .

Plymouth Hoe Theatre Xmas 1970 Terry Steel entered my professional life he'd been a saxophone player in the Ted Heath band and was now the musical director for a couple of the local amateur Operatic companies and still engaged in the music business, As I wrote at the end of part 4 he came into my dressing room and said I needed a manager , I did all my own contracts and was doing fine, why would I pay a percentage to a manager. ? I thought no more about it until I got home after the panto and there was a letter with a couple of contracts at more money than I was earning at the time , that got my interest so I did the work then went to meet up with Terry and his family in Leigh-on-Sea , I stayed a few days and we talked about what my ambitions were and where I saw my future,  to be honest

that wasn't something I'd thought about, the round of summer seasons, Pantomimes with cabaret clubs in between was fine but Terry said that with a proper plan I could do better. He asked a few times what I wanted, all I really wanted was not to go back to Circus but being a bit cheeky I said I wanted to work in the West End and thought no more about it.After a few weeks and more meetings we got a company together and formed a show called 'Stardust' to work in Hotels, Dinner Dances, Function rooms etc, There was a couple of such troupes already working in London but we had a tour bus and pitched ours around the home counties. Our company consisted of a troupe of dancing girls, a girl singer, a live band and 3 or 4 acts that we could call on for different venues depending on the conditions , I was to compere the show and do my act, this was where the first shock came, Terry said I could have 10 minutes for the act,

My argument that I couldn't possibly do that because my act was 40 minutes and I couldn't cut it got the response that 10 minutes out of the 40 was good , 10 were average , 10 were self indulgent and another 10 was just padding. I had a small hysterical paddy but there was no alternative and I learned my lesson when on our second or third show I overran my 10 minutes and the band started playing the music for the following dance routine, cue another paddy from me during which I punched the dressing room wall, Terry's answer to that one was how are you going to play the trumpet with broken knuckles.?
The road show was succesfull and we were working regularly so I got a small flat in Southend a couple of miles away , the flat was in York Road which caused a few snickers , not the chocolate bar but the 'you've got a flat in the red-light district again' remember Moss side in part 3 ? No - your obviously not paying attention !
After a few weeks we were on our way to another show and Terry quietly said “ do 15 minutes tonight”, that threw me until I realised that he had taught me to discipline myself and be selective, basically 'Less is More', something that still rules me today.
Terry became a partner in the Vince Shaw Organisation an agency that represented among others Harry Corbett ( Sooty not Steptoe) Jessie Mathews and now me so the next couple of years were non-stop , Summer season in Teignmouth, back to the roadshow, I was also doing a lot of dates in London so I bought a caravan and stayed in Billericay on the Rosaire Circus family farm which made the journeys a lot shorter.

In late '72 I'd just finished a summer tour with the Sooty Show finishing with a short run at the Mayfair Theatre in London was back doing the roadshow a couple of times a week, I then got a job compering at the Stars & Garters club in Leicester Square 4 nights a week starting around 10.30 till the early hours. If the roadshow was too far away we had a standby compere but I had my own car and normally I'd be back in time.

I was still parking the caravan at Billericay and during the days I spent time with the Rosaire family, Joan was a lifelong friend and a brilliant horse trainer who did a wonderful act with her Palomino 'Goldie', in late 72 they were appearing at the Victoria Palace theatre with Max Bygraves, Max would be onstage with Goldie and Joan was on the side of the stage giving the cues to the horse, At the same time she had 2 more horses in 'Gone with the Wind' at the Drury Lane Theatre (they were housed at Camden Stables, now Camden market) and another one 'Nellie' in the 'Robin Hood' Pantomime at the London Palladium,who was driven in and out by a Groom. For Joan it was a hectic schedule, she would drive to the Victoria Palace park her Horsebox get a taxi to the Camden stables take the other two horses to Drury lane harness them to a waggon which had to cross the stage during all the chaos and mayhem of the Burning of Atlanta scene during which Joan was hidden under the seat to drive the waggon, back to the stables with the horses, taxi to the VP for Goldies performance with Max then back home, all went well until the groom who was handling the Palladium horse 'Nellie ' remember Nellie? decided he was leaving, so he left -- the same day ! Joan was in a quandary, that's the same as a twodary except twice as bad , Ok it's a crap joke but this was starting to get a bit dull so I thought I'd brighten it up a bit, 'You want to brighten something up, put some flowers in this room ' which film was that from ? You see, from an autobiography to a quiz show ! What do you want for free ?
Back to the tale of Nellie and me , the story ended up with me driving a horse box to the London Palladium parking outside the stage door unloading and harnessing Nellie putting on a Lincoln Green 'Merry Men's' hoodie and walking Nellie onto the stage for Edward Woodward to get in the saddle and ride off , =have you ever realised that saying Edward Woodward quickly sounds like a fart in the bath = on other side of the stage I unharnessed Nellie put into the horse box drove to Billericay got in my car and went back to London.
The Stars &Garters was a brilliant place, it was next to the Odeon Leicester Square down a flight of stairs into what was a combination of an old time American speakeasy and an English pub, It had a small stage with a 3 piece combo – Piano, Bass & Drums, Lenny Felix, Jack Fallon and Lennie Hastings, three of the best musicians it's ever been my pleasure to work with, Occasionally the club would put on a 'Shop Window' this would be a night where a lot of agents would book acts in for other agents and managers to see , I was always compere because if there was a comedian working I didn't do my comedy stuff or if it was an impressionist I'd cut my impressions, I could and would work around what there was on the bill. One night we had an escapologist who had a new wrinkle on an old trick, He was handcuffed and chained to a target board , on the other side of the stage was a contraption with 3 crossbow arrows on the top facing the board, underneath was a digital timer set to 30 seconds, the countdown would start and he would extricate himself from the handcuffs and chains before the 30 seconds elapsed and the arrows were fired , well he was obviously nervous on his debut of the new trick and was out of the handcuffs in about 10 seconds and as he bent down to release the locks around his ankles the buzzer sounded and the arrows went off thudding into the board just above his waistline or where his waistline would have been had he not bent down .he got a huge round of applause as I back-announced him but I could see he was shaking as he returned to the dressing room, a couple of minutes later I got a call to go to see him and found him I a panic 'cos he was stuck into his costume , an all-in-one jump suit with a zip at the back which was jammed , 'escapologist' ?? I asked why the trick had gone wrong and he said that the timer on his prop was some sort of solenoid that set the arrows off with a shortwave signal but had probably been triggered early by a passing cabbie on the same wavelength ! And I thought comedy was hard !!!!.
As a sidebar to this story during this time Terry arranged for me to compere one of these shop window shows at the Astor Club, now the Astor had a regular advert in 'The Stage ' newspaper looking for acts for the club with the proviso 'Singers and Comedians need not apply' at the bottom of the ad , I compered the show which went on until about 2.00 am and the only act who was booked was me , a singer and comedian, Go figure ! 

Back to the S&G 

I had a friend, Harry Dickman who was the understudy to Anthony Newley at the Prince of Wales theatre, Newley was my hero I had the LP's of all of shows and all of his singles, of course I did an impression of him in my act doing 'pop goes the weasel' and 'What kind of fool am I', anyway one night I am starting the impression and I hear this laugh from the back of the room which I recognise and of course it's the man himself , Harry has brought him to see the show, needless to say the rest of the impression was a disaster, I did get to meet him afterwards and he was charming and complimentary and it was a nice memorable evening .

Early in '73 I was introduced to George Richardson who was the general manager for Paul Raymond productions, he'd been to see me a couple of times and they were interested in me for one of their shows , I could take my pick which one ,Oh Calcutta ' 'The Dirtiest Show In Town' or 'Pyjama Tops' I chose pyjama tops because it was the only one where I wouldn't have to take my clothes off ! Honestly that was the main reason , well apart from the fact that Pyjama tops was a very funny show that had been running for a few years and had featured some good comic actors during it's time , The first 'Leonard Jolly', the character they wanted me for, was Bob Grant from 'On the Buses' he was followed by Joe Baker
former partner in a double act with Jack Douglas , next was Roger Kitter who was a golfing buddy of mine and fourth it would be me.

Two things persuaded me even more , I talked with the director Alexander Dore a well known comedy actor in his own right and he said that PJ was originally a french farce which had been very well translated to suit the english humour, secondly when Joe Baker came into the role he said that he wasn't an actor and asked could he have a bit more freedom to try his style of comedy which he did , Roger then took it even further in his own particular way so that when I got the script it was a few sheets of A4 paper with page one having the synopsis of the story , the next few pages were the order of the scenes with some lines highlighted , these were plot lines that I had to learn so that the play made sense other than that it was my show, there were two rules, Be funny and finish before 10.00 pm , they wanted to make sure the bar would still be open as the customers went out !
Alexander said not to see the show with Roger in it because we were very much alike and he didn't want me to be influenced in any way , yeah like that was gonna happen , I snuck into a matinee and watched from the back Roger was excellent but what I wanted to do was totally different.
During all this time Terry and I had negotiated with George Richardson and I didn't meet Paul Raymond until the party after my premiere , He was a shy man but we got on well, he started talking about his time in the variety theatres he said that he followed the advice of an old show producer who said the formula for a successful show was 'Pretty Girls and Funny Men' In case you're wondering NO , I wasn't the pretty girl.
After the premiere Alexander took me and Terry outside and pointed to the title display on the theatre , my name was there along with Fiona Richmond's 'Starring in Pyjama Tops ' He said at any one time there are only19 people who can say they have their name in lights outside a West End Theatre, only 12 have their name above the title and I was one of the twelve, I felt a tap on my shoulder ( my plumber has a weird sense of humour) it was Terry who said , not bad, only took us 3 years from Southend to the West End, that was the first time I remembered our conversation about what did I want to do.

Fiona Richmond was the star of the show and because she was a star she didn't turn up for rehearsals so I worked with her understudy, this was a pattern that continued during my run in the show, Fiona did the premier with me and a couple of shows after that and then went on holiday with Paul, on the second day of her absence ,halfway through the first act I stopped the show and said “Knock Knock “– Tony Bateman my wonderful straight man and feed replied “who's there” “Fiona “ Fiona who” ? “ only been gone for a day and you've already forgotten me ” That got me my first 'Yellow Peril' a rebuke from head office .'Do not mention Fiona Richmond in any derogatory fashion during the show'
I probably worked more with the understudy than Fiona during my run in the show which was good because she was a good actress and easier to work with.
The show started in 1969 and was a 'saucy romp ' but was never obscene, I have never done 'blue' comedy and the show didn't need it , It was a typical farce involving a businessman, his wife, his girlfriend, a maid ,a shady butler, the police and the wifes gay friend ! One third of the stage was a swimming pool and occasionally during the play a couple of girls got into the pool , naked of course ! I played the gay friend Leonard Jolly who for the first two acts is camp and outrageous but in the interval between the second and third act he is 'visited' by one of the women in the house and comes out in the third act all Macho , Butch and Tarzan-like setting the third act denouement - which of the ladies has caused the turnaround ? The Whitehall theatre seated about 450 and we were always full so at on evening show to see a couple of empty seats on the front row was a surprise, we were into the second act and Tony and I were sitting on the edge of the pool moving the plot along when we heard the doors at the rear of the stalls open, down the aisle came an usherette with a young couple trying not to be conspicuous, I started to speak more slowly and quietly , Tony followed until we were both silent , I looked up to the spotlight and nodded towards the pair still trying to get to their place unnoticed, the spot guy got it straight away and put a light on them but because it was behind them they didn't notice, edging their way along the front row they were suddenly aware of the silence and the atmosphere and realised that they were the centre of attention, I got down off the edge of the pool and started talking to them doing the normal gags , “did car break down” -”did you bring a note “ just conversational, trying to put them at ease, when they sat down I asked how much they'd paid for the seats , front row at the whitehall wasn't cheap and for a few moments we chatted like that till I had an idea , I said to the audience , it's not fair that they've paid the same money as everyone else but have missed half the show, If none of you mind could we start from the beginning again, the audience cheered and clapped and on the side of the stage I saw blind panic from the stage manager and all the staff, shaking their heads , and fists, at me, I knew it was impossible but it got a hell of a reaction from the punters so I calmed them down and said no we can't do that but I have an idea , I then went through the show from the start, at speed, picking up all the feed lines and major punch lines with each one getting bigger laughs than originally until I said “ and then you two silly tarts walked in and screwed it up “ well the laugh went on for quite while, eventually Tony and I got back to the script finished the second act and then the show. Next day I got a 'yellow peril' not a complaint but a request from head office , if we kept two seats empty and employed a couple of stooges could you do that every show?

comedy is a serious business !

I'll finish part 5 here and be back with part 6 ( thats where the Circus comes back into my life ) soon .

LIFE AND ME PART 4

Well you've had time to digest the last sentence of part three, what do you mean you haven't read it yet ! RIGHT , PUT THIS DOWN and go and read parts 1/2&3 immediately, excuse me for shouting but I'm spending lockdown time pouring my heart out to the world and you ignore it , That's it I'm not carrying on until you've read it , and don't cheat there'll be a quiz at the end ========================== =========================================================

oh good you're back , you see, it was worth it, now continue .

OK where were we, Isle of Man 1967 summer season and I've just done my impression of Al Pacino in the Godfather Pt 1, (It's the scene where he's in hiding in Corleone ,Sicily having shot Captain McCluskey the bent copper who was trying to get his father killed,  During a walk in the countryside he see's a local girl  Appolonia and gets 'colpito da un Fulmina' (struck by lightning ) I wasn't in Sicily I was in Douglas , I'd done a show at the theatre followed by a late gig at one of the local pubs , a couple of gags, a bit of music and a song and dance to finish and I'd gone to the Casino Cabaret club to relax and see the show, Dancers, Compere, Magic act ,Singers, not a bad show but there was a girl in the show I couldn't take my eyes off, she was a singer and assisted the magician, long blonde hair, beautiful face, legs that never stopped and a body that would have persuaded any model to commit a capital crime just to borrow it for a day !. 

I managed to meet her after the show and not only didn't she run for the hills but we got on really well , there was a mutual attraction and after that meeting not only did we spend every moment in each others company we started rehearsing a double act so that we could work together after the season .
Back to the mainland at the end of the season, Lorraine and I had some clubs booked so I bought a car, I'm embarrassed to say it was a Vauxhall Viva, --don't judge me ! The insurance was cheap but it carried our costumes and instruments . With her voice and personality interspersed with my impressions, music and other stuff we had good work and enjoyed a lot of success but then life slaps you with a wet sock and reminds you not to be so cocky !!! 

For Xmas and New Year we were booked to a club in South Wales a large restaurant with a stage and a 4 piece band, we had a flat upstairs with meals provided for the 10 days over the holidays , sounded perfect so off we went.
On xmas eve after the show we joined the customers and staff for the Xmas party had a lovely time and at 12.00 wished everyone merry xmas and went to bed , Next day the place was a ghost town , no show on Xmas day, all the staff had the day off and had forgotten that we were in the building ! Eventually when we realised what had happened we made our way down to the kitchen which apart from condiments, spices, pots and pans was empty, it wasn't worth going out as nothing would have been open , we didn't know where the boss or any of the staff lived and I was worried that maybe the doors were alarmed, if we set them off and the police came out I wasn't too sure of the outcome. Eventually we found some frozen peas in a fridge and a few packets of crisps and that was our Xmas dinner.
We finished on New Years Eve with an early show so decided that we would drive to North wales after the show , Lorraine lived in Rhyl which was a 4=5 hour drive and with a little luck we could be there to see in the new year, Do you remember the wet sock ? Well it made an encore, The journey took us through the Brecon Beacons which has a few hills , it was bitter cold and halfway up one of the hills the car decided to stop , I didn't have any tools so it was useless looking for the problem, we'd driven through a village at the bottom of the hill but that was a couple of miles back and finding a mechanic on New Years Eve was going to be an impossible task so with no other choice we welcomed in 1968 not with a celebratory drink but bedded down on the back seat of a Vauxhall Viva in the freezing cold under whatever coats and jumpers we had. We eventually rolled into Rhyl after lunch on new years day cold miserable and hungry , the signs didn't bode well for the rest of the year which was prophetic .
After the xmas trauma we went back to the club circuit and signed for a summer season but somewhere along the way we fell apart, while we had been in Rhyl she had met an old flame and slowly the fire had re-ignited , we decided to part after the season in New Brighton and got separate digs in the town, She was totally professional during the show but we had very little contact outside the theatre, it was all very agreeable until my 21^stbirthday which was as miserable and depressing as a day could get, I was still in completely and utterly in love with her but had stepped aside without a word, I'd done what I thought was the right thing to do but it hurt like hell and set me and my shaky emotional state back behind our wall , it would be a long, long time before I stepped out from behind that wall again.

In the years that followed I was rarely without a companion but as soon as a relationship got anywhere near being serious I would find a way to back off , usually with the “it's me not you “ excuse . In my mind I reasoned that I didn't want to be like my Father, he and my mother were 19 and 17 respectively when they married, she turned 18 in June '47 and I was born in July, when I was 6 months old she found him with another woman, the first of many during their 13 turbulent years together, I didn't want to see anyone hurt the way my mother had been.
I was never a violent character like him but as it turns out I may have been just as bad in other ways, thinking back my selfishness and  emotional cowardice caused much harm and hurt many women in my life, none of them deserved it and it is to my great good fortune and their understanding that some of them remained good friends despite my shortcomings and boorish behaviour. To those that were affected I offer a late but sincere apology. 

Getting back to the story , At the height of the New Brighton season I was travelling to Rhyl every Saturday night to compere the Sunday Pop concerts put on at the Pavilion Theatre, Chipperfields Circus was performing there during the week so it was a chance to catch up with some old friends , My cousin Peter Sandow was there as well many others including Timm Delbosq and Dickie Chipperfield Jnr, it was only a 50m journey and the company putting on the shows paid for a small hotel for 2 nights so I would arrive around 10.00 pm go to my cousins caravan where there was usually a party or a poker game and so started a good weekend. This was slightly different to the Morecambe concerts, it was a theatre with a seated ( most of the time ) audience and the bands were more middle of the road as opposed to 'Rock and Roll' groups , during the run we had the Bonzo Dog DooDah Band, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddie and the Dreamers and a couple of others all at least twice during the short run, the nearest I ever came to being a star was on Sunday night when Gerry and the Pacemakers were there , after the show I went out of the stage door and a host of fans ( female mostly ) mistook me for Gerry Marsden , OK I was thinner and at a distance through a fog it was an easy mistake to make, but for a few seconds it was quite scary, They started screaming and reaching for me , I was back through the door quicker than Usain Bolt.
Those weekends brightened up what was a miserable season in many ways so at the end I went back on the club circuit , I was in Scotland for a couple of months and enjoyed success not normally afforded to English comedians , one night I did an early show at the Pollock Rangers club followed by a late show at the Celtic supporters club== I survived,
1969 I had an absolutely fabulous season in Cromer ,a beautiful little town on the Norfolk coast with an even more stunning theatre at the end of the pier , well not right at the end, behind the theatre there is a ramp down to the sea for launching the Cromer Lifeboat , that in itself is not newsworthy but there are 2 things attached to that sentence, (1) on arriving in town in the early hours the day before first rehearsal I drove up the coast road and entering the town you can see the pier on the right with ramp at the end , not knowing about the ramp at that time it looked like the pier had collapsed into the sea, this same observation was made by everyone in the cast at some point on the first day, (2) the signal for the life boat to launch is the ignition of a maroon in a big dustbin sized re-inforced barrel , for those who don't know, a maroon is big loud firework with a bang around the decibel rating of a medium sized Naval Cannon . We, that is the cast, knew nothing about this until a few weeks into the season when halfway through the first half of our matinee the maroon was ignited, the pier shook with the reverberations but that was only the beginning, about 2 minutes after the bang there was the sound of a bunch of men running down the pier to man the lifeboat followed by a huge Whooooosh, the sound of the life boat launching, as the footsteps went by the theatre they were followed by the audience who decided that watching the Lifeboat launch was much more entertaining than watching us , I can't really blame them because we ,the cast, were out on the pier watching with them .
That season the top of the bill was a comic called Alan Wells, I was doing my act with a new impressions routine based on old saying that comedians want to be actors and vice-versa, so =Michael Crawford as Hamlet , Laurence Olivier doing knock knock gags etc, Tommy Cooper as Romeo was my favourite , anyway the day after the first show the local paper printed a review of the show and I came out of it really well , I went the the theatre for the show with some trepidation, when the Top of the Bill gets upstaged by the junior comic it's usually the start of an uncomfortable season , As I walked in the first person I met was Alan and he could not have been nicer , We were doing a couple of sketches together, The Golfer which was a Sid Fields classic and 'Dinner for One' made famous by Freddie Frinton, in both of them I was the straight man but in an unprecedented gesture Alan suggested that we could swap roles occasionally to give me a bigger profile in the show, Alan was a wonderful comedian and working together in this way was a powerful and intense education in comedy, we met a few times over subsequent years and when I got the starring role in the Whitehall Theatre in 'Pyjama Tops' he sent me a beautiful note of congratulations . A real Gentleman and a true professional, It's no exaggeration to say that he changed my comedic life.
On the personal side I was dating , what an old fashioned word that is ,I was always chatting up the dancers and was very rarely alone but the wall was still there to hide behind when I needed it.
July 29^thwas a momentous day , the Moon landing was on TV and my interest in astronomy and physics had been growing since the Kennedy speech about “Putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade” and to this day it has never faded , I like to think that If I had my time again I would try to get a better education and follow that route but then I remember, Scientist don't get many laughs .
The end of another season a few clubs and back home to Barons Court where my brother now a whole 3 years old had tripped over a small footstool shaped like a Camel and broken his arm , luckily the Charing Cross Hospital on the Fulham Palace Rd 

was about 5 minutes away so that's where he and mother , who stayed with him 24/7 were ensconced for the duration, he must have enjoyed his time there because as soon as he got home he fell down the stairs and broke his arm again, The only thing we took from that as a family was , physical comedy wasn't his thing .
Pantomime in Gravesend followed, It my first time as 'Buttons' in Cinderella , a part that fitted me like the proverbial glove, more clubs and it was 1970 and off to Ilfracombe for the summer . The show producer was Issy Bonn a jewish singer /comedian who'd had a been a star on the Variety theatres. He was a big man with a big personality who had a quote for every occasion. His best was after an incident involving me and my passion for Golf ! (small interlude for story set-up ) Wherever I was in the country , apart from performing my passions were football and golf , watching one and playing the other , most saturday afternoons in the winter I'd be at a match, and during the summer on the golf course. Ilfracombe was a lovely resort but the nearest golf course was about 20 miles away, no problem I had my car ,a Rover 90 at the time, and off I'd go. For publicity a golf match was arranged with a couple of local journalists and a couple of performers, I was one and therer was a singer from the other theatre in town that was presenting 'The Desert Song ' about 3 evenings a week. Due to bad weather and unavailability of one or the other of us the match kept getting postponed until eventually a note came to the stage door that it was on the next day. We met up were having a good game chatting about different things and about halfway round the reporter with me asked about our show , it was the usual questions and he was getting the usual answers then he asked about the showtimes and I said it was a normal summer season 8 shows a week,  once a night Sundays off and matinees Wednesday and Saturday , he went a little quiet and asked what times are the matinees , I said 3.00 I saw the puzzled look on his face and said “it's fine today's Tuesday”, he shook his head looked at his watch and said “no it's Wednesday” and it's 2.15, We were on the back nine of the course but still a long way from the car park, I started running and shouting to him to get my clubs back to me somehow, I got to the car and started the 20 mile journey back to the theatre, 1970 no motorways or dual carriageways, The show opened with a short overture, an opening dance from the chorus girls which blended into a musical scene with a comedy sketch that started about two minutes in , As I pulled up to the theatre and rushed into the stage door I heard the start of the musical number, I ran across behind the back curtain upstairs to my dressing room on the first floor shedding clothes as I went threw my costume on and without make-up ran downstairs to the stage , as I got to the bottom of the stairs I heard my cue for the start of the comedy sketch, I was about 12 ft and a couple of seconds away from the stage but it was the longest couple of seconds of my life , I was late!.
After the show Issy Bonn called the company together and gave me the biggest bollocking ever in front of everyone , he went through the every cliché in the book , how I had disgraced my family ,( he'd worked many times with various Konyots in the variety days ) He closed by saying that there were only two reasons not to be onstage on time , you're either dead or have diahorrea !.
A few weeks later as Issy's opening music played the stage remained empty for quite a while , the orchestra played his intro twice more before he came on and started singing , he had been taking a phone call and not heard his cue , didn't matter, at the end of his act the whole company stood at the side of the stage and threw toilet rolls at him , we had reasoned he wasn't dead so *******, Call it Karma call it Hubris or stuff happens, he took it well and joined in the laugh , a nice man and a real pro .There was one sad note was during the season, my Grandmother Konyot died , a solid rock which our family was built around, she had suffered many operations for cancer but never complained , when you asked how she was the answer was always “ never mind me how are you? “
Come Xmas and I was playing Buttons once more this time at the Hoe theatre in Plymouth ,Cinderella was played again by Mary Pickering a petite litle blonde packed with talent and a lovely voice we worked really well together no romance but we were really good friends . We had a great time especially when, as a publicity opportunity the cast was invited to tour the Plymouth Gin Factory one morning , during the tour we were given samples of their various products, I don't drink gin but they made Vodka as well which suited me perfectly , suffice to say the matinee that day was a little strange , another strange thing happened a few days later , a man walked into my dressing room introduced himself and said I was wasting my time and my talent and I needed a manager , I replied I needed a manager like I needed a hole in the head , didn't he see that my name was at the top of posters all over town , Oh I forgot to say that at some point in my 23 years I had turned into a bit of a pratt , I was a little bit up my own **** and thought I was God's Gift to show business . I know that there are many out there who will say “What do you mean- was “ ?


I will leave it there and try to salvage my pride in part 5

make sure you come back it'll be worth it . 

Life the Universe and Me 

Ternary Segment.( if it goes more than ten parts it'll be in Swahili) 

We ended part two on a cliffhanger , not really but anyone who reads this in the wrong order will be confused , tough!
It's 1965 and I'm in the Palladium Theatre Edinburgh as half of a Dancing act, The Shows is Aly Wilson a scots comic very funny and a nice man , Hector Nicol producer and Aly's straight man, Roma Derry and George Johnson -Scottish Singing Duo, Mal Hollander -all rounder, Johnny St George Singer ,a troupe of Dancing Girls and Us , not a big cast but there were lots of musical numbers and many comedy sketches ,
Mal Hollander was a great character, during first couple of days he asked. “Do you play golf “ answering truthfully that it had never entered my head, that weekend (no shows on Sunday in Scotland) off we went to Prestonpans Golf course, I was lousy but at the same time fell in love with the game and we played every available moment sometimes getting up at 07.00 am for a quick nine holes in before rehearsal, Mal was good company, easy going, light hearted and funny, over the next few weeks my social apprehension was slowly melting away. Sometime during that short season I lost something else , well not actually lost but , how do I explain this delicately, there was a troupe of dancers and one took a liking to me, well a little more than just a liking, maybe that's why my social awkwardness was disappearing. !
OK enough , this is not 50 shades of Konyot . If you haven't got it by now I'm not going into any more detail,

I mentioned comedy sketches , in Scotland they were called Scena's (pronounced Shayna's) and they usually involved many of the company doing small parts, in each of the six shows we did there were 2 or sometimes three of these Scena's, during the first week we did a hospital sketch,plus something military and I was in both, as the weeks went on I was in more and more with bigger roles and even getting laughs in some of them , Laughter is infectious and I caught the bug up there in Scotland . When we finished the run Hector had arranged for us to go to the Gaiety Theatre Ayr for a short season , same deal change of programme every week but he had also recommended me to be the Compere of the show, He said I had a knack for comedy, my timing was good and being compere meant that I only had to present the acts but if I wanted to I could do some gags during those Intros; It was an incredibly kind thing to do, I have been lucky enough through my 6 score years and ten (plus a couple more ) to meet people who have been a huge influence in whatever success I've had and I'm forever grateful for their friendship and advice, I will introduce them as the story goes on .

Ayr was a success , my partner Irene was a superb dancer I just hung on and tried to keep up, The compering was a revelation, standing alone onstage telling a story and getting a laugh from a couple of hundred strangers is the most incredible feeling, none of my material was original but I had, as Hector Nicol said, good timing and that is a most important ingredient in any comedy exercise.

Our lives are based around rhythm, from our heartbeat to our walking gait everything has a tempo , listen to speeches from great orators , It's there , Michael Kidd one of the main dancers in 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' was a brilliant tap dancer, he once did a routine in perfect time to an Adolf Hitler speech .
Comedy lives and dies on timing and diction, too many modern comedians and singers forget the importance of the words.

After Scotland I returned to London , we had a contract for the '66 summer season on the Central Pier Morecambe but that didn't start until Easter so back to dance school, Pageboy job had gone so I got work in a local garage as a petrol pump attendant on nightshift ,three weeks, two holdups, one with a gun the other with a knife, who knew garages were so dangerous so I looked for other employment , Quickly. !!.
I got a job in a wallpaper factory as a filing clerk ,Up until then the only thing I filed was my nails. 

( how are we liking the humour so far, OK it gets better ,,,, maybe )
A few weeks after I got there they introduced a Computerised filing and accounting System , everyone go OOOOOH ! , the computer in question was an ICT 1500 and it was the size of a small house , it looked exactly like those you see in all the old B/W films , big cabinets with whirring tapes, flashing lights and people walking around with clipboards and files full of paper , I was one of those people, there had been 4 of us in the filing clerks room but we were now , wait for this it's a goodie , we were COMPUTER ANALYSTS again with a OOOOOH please , thank you.
Our job was to go through the reams of paper that came out of the printer,look for mistakes and work out if they were the fault of the original programmers , the typists who typed up the programme or if it was a computer error, To be honest none of us knew what the hell we were doing ,mostly we made it up as we went along , If we'd been in Cape Canaveral in July '69 Apollo 11 would have ended up in Birmingham .

Just before Easter, bags packed and on the train for Morecambe , I had digs just opposite the pier , full board £4 10s per week , use of cruet 2s/6p extra. (a gag for the oldies reading this ) the Central Pier show was run by Eddie Morrel the show starred Billy Stutt an Irish comic, Tommy Wright a baritone singer who was also Billy's straight man, Johnny Stafford harmonica player, us, and a troupe of dancers ********, there were other artists but my memory of them has gone. It was a normal end of the pier summer show, Big opening ,lots of musical numbers and acts and an even Bigger finale. There was no chance to do any comedy as that was all done by Billy and Tommy, I did manage to get some golf played and followed some other new interests ****************** !
The Central Pier also featured the Marine Ballroom which during the summer had Pop concerts every Sunday , Billy Stutt was asked if he would compere the shows but declined because he liked his day off , When Tommy also refused it was offered to me and I accepted straight away, it was a chance to improve my compere skills plus it was extra money and I wanted to buy a car . The first concert of the season featured The Troggs with a supporting group , I dressed in my Bronze mohair Dinner Suit , frilly fronted shirt, Bow Tie and tan patent leather shoes , I know what you're thinking -Smoooooth ! , I had the intro ready with a few gags to start off , backstage I asked Reg Presley the Troggs lead singer if there was anything special I should say for the intro , he gave me a weird look and just walked away , Showtime I went out onstage to announce the support act, I did a couple of opening gags which died but I thought OK , I'm a bit nervous it'll get better later on , I announced the Interval without the aid of any more gags , that went well ! The second half was the Troggs, I walked out to a barrage of noise and screams reminiscent of Finsbury park a couple of years earlier when I got to the middle of the stage I had mentally thrown out all the gags and funny stuff I was going to do and as loud as I could said into the mike “Ladies and Gentlemen=The Troggs ! End of the show wished everyone goodnight announced next weeks attraction walked off the stage got paid and went back to the digs for my evening meal , (I could afford the cruet now),
This was my Sunday routine until the end of the season, go the the ballroom meet the acts have a chat , announce the show over the screams , go home, During that time I met the Troggs , PJ Proby, Hermans Hermits, The Who, Tom Jones and the Squires and many others who would become household names over the following years , It's a quirk of life that I remember them but they would have absolutely no idea who I am but before the end of the season I'd bought a VW ---Result !!!!!!.
The end of the season also saw the end of the 'Dancing Dunnes' by mutual agreement, I had my guitar, some songs, some impressions, some gags, some contracts for the clubs in Manchester and of course a car, life was good. Before I went to Manchester I had a date for a club in Barrow-In-Furness, I had heard things about this place and I should have listened but I was young and stupid, OK -when you've all stopped giggling , yes I know , now I'm old and stupid, I get it, but this was a contract with good money, for the season in Morecambe my partner and I got £35 between us, one week cabaret solo I got £60, not too shabby.

Manchester in the mid-'60's was the place to be , I had a room in a hotel in Moss side, anyone who knows Manchester will be giggling now because Moss side was known as a place to obtain horizontal refreshment 24/7, well , known to everyone except me , this wouldn't be the first , or last, time this happens , ( wait until part 4 or possibly 5).
The club scene was really lively and having arrived with a contract initially for two weeks I stayed throughout the winter working social clubs in the evening and night clubs at night , pretty obvious really. One club became a bit special , The 'La Petite' became a sort of social club for performers, it was open into the early hours and you could relax, swap stories about the places we'd worked, both good and bad , card games started, a great place to wind down.

One event brought life into focus , on 21^st   October in Aberfan in Wales a colliery spoil tip collapsed , sliding down the hillside and engulfing the school and parts of the village, 144 people died including 116 children. The response from the nation was immediate ,a national memorial fund was setup ,artists and performers in Manchester played their part , a series of charity shows raising money for the fund was organised throughout the city , At the La Petite we did a charity marathon, I think we did over 24 hours and raised a few thousand pounds , a small drop in the millions that were eventually raised but well worth it .

Xmas I went to Peterborough for Pantomime , I was 'Man Friday' in Robinson Crusoe, Yes I was in 'Black Face' actually I was blacked up all over except for a black curly wig , after the show I was always the last one out of the theatre and the shower looked like an oil slick, I did the role a few years later in Camberly but I'd learnt by then -black tights, black longsleeved leotard , black gloves adapted as socks ( they looked like feet) and a tight thin nylon balaclava , topped off with the black curly wig , the only black make-up was on my face , I was finished and out of the theatre before the final note of 'God Save The Queen' .
Back to Manchester , learning all the time , getting better and working better clubs until late one evening travelling back to the city from a gig in Chesire there had been an accident on the dual carriageway , the Police, Fire and Ambulance service were already there, the hard shoulder and inside lane were blocked and the police were directing traffic slowly onto the outside lane past the incident , for whatever reason the driver two cars in front of me stopped and in a few seconds there were 4 stationary cars , I was the third , no one saw the 5^th car until it was too late , he was speeding down the road didn't see the lights around the accident and hit the car behind me which went up in the air and crashed down on the back of my VW with his front bumper resting on my back seat and my front bumper under the boot of the car in front, I remember getting out of the car , I wasn't injured and luckily neither was anyone else in this 4 car game of squash , I managed to get my boot open ( on the old VW's it was at the front) found my instruments and Dinner Suit , a couple of scratches on the guitar and trumpet cases but otherwise OK , the car was obviously a write off but at the time it didn't seem to bother me I just kept telling the police that I had to be in Manchester as I had a show at 10.30, I must have sounded like a complete idiot but I was insistent and eventually a Women PC put me in a squad car and drove me to the Piccadilly club, not only that she came in and explained the the manager what had happened , all a lot different from the procedure today . After she'd gone  the manager, who was a really nice guy gave me a very large whiskey to calm me down , now when I say very large I mean VERY LARGE, I did my usual spot of about 30-35 minutes got a taxi back to the hotel and slept for two days, in retrospect I was obviously in a state of shock
When I returned to the Piccadilly club a couple of days later everyone was extremely kind constantly asking if I was alright and did I want anything, did I feel OK , I asked the manager what was going on and he said that on that night I had done nearly an hour onstage the act was fine and I had ended up as usual with my song and dance number but I had done an encore singing a sad ballad ( or a bad salad as we used to call them ) and cried all the way through it , he said it must have been the effect of the whiskey , I said what whiskey , I don't drink ! He then explained about me being brought to the club by the PC, being told about the accident and giving me the drink to steady me , It was the first time in my life I had ever had strong alcohol , as a child If we were at the family home in Brixton my cousin and I would be given a small glass of white wine with lots of lemonade at Sunday dinner so that we felt like grown-ups but otherwise it wasn't something that interested me, I have made up for it since but never before a show , you never know I might start singing and crying again.
Anyway the outcome of all this was no car and getting around to the clubs without one was impossible, the insurance was going to take a while to sort out so back to London where Ron and Mother were in talks with a producer called Stella Hartley about a short summer season in Douglas, Isle of Man, they got me into the show as choreographer and performing in the musical numbers on the understanding that I could do my act around the clubs on the island while we were there and this was agreed .
Before we went off for the summer we moved house , from Shepherds Bush to Barons Court, we had the top two floors of a house and I was given a small room on the top floor , all was sweetness and light until I realised the date we would be moving , 20^thMay 1967 – this of course means nothing to 99.99% of you reading this, but to me it was devastating for the 20th of may 1967 was Cup Final Day -not only Cup Final Day but one of the teams in the final was ??? you guessed it ==== CHELSEA , the other was some bunch of scruffs from north london, tottenham something or other, this was a catastrophe , I tried to get the moving day changed but the man who owned the moving company was a lodge friend of Rons and was doing it on a Saturday as a favour so we couldn't really ask him to change , after much ( heated) discussion with Ron ,on moving day morning I was given the key took my B/W portable TV on the underground to the tube station near the new house went upstairs to my empty room sat on the floor and watched , on a grainy screen , as my beloved Blues lost 2-1 to the mob from white hart lane. years later it still hurts. !
We moved in , settled down and started rehearsing the summer show in a local hall  before all setting off for the Isle of Man , we had nice digs in Douglas up a hill not far from the theatre , my brother ronnie was about 16 months old and getting interesting , he had refused to crawl on the way to walking instead choosing to shuffle about on his bum , Oh how I wish mobile phones with cameras had been around at the time !.
The show was successful with a nice company, I'd put some good scenes together even doing an acrobatic dance with Mum , but after the first week I spent very little time at the digs with the family, there was a good reason for this , I'd fallen in love.

End of part three

Oh , I bet you come back for part 4 !.