Life , the universe and me  Part the 2 !

OK so after Part 1 you've come back for more well here it is PART 2 !!!! hows that for a surprise ?

 

It's February 1962 I'm 15½ and I'm in London , since I last saw my mother she has remarried, my stepfather is Ron Beadle, (stage name -Ron Rowlands ) a comedian /writer and as different from my father as it was possible to be , My arrival was a shock to both our systems but he handled it way better than I did.

My first month back was a whirlwind of activity, I got new clothes, a job and enrolled in a dancing school . OK in order , the clothes I arrived in and brought with me were consigned to a fire in the garden, We were living in Shepherd Bush one road back from the green so shopping wasn't a problem , I was bought a new wardrobe of clothes, the Job was as a page boy in the Mount Royal Hotel in Marble Arch and the Dancing school was the Billings school of dance above the famous Bush pub next to the BBC studios at the end of the Green, it doesn't sound very impressive but that school had great teachers and produced some very good dancers and artists, 

The job of pageboy was completely different to anything I'd done before, dressed in a beige/brown uniform with the obligatory pageboy hat slightly slanted I looked good and was soon making a lot more in tips than my wages of £4-10s pw ,Time for a little perspective and a maths lesson , in todays money that's £80 for a 6 day week of 8 hours a day =£10 a day , thats just a little over what the minimum hourly wage is now in 2020 plus that was before NI and Income tax were deducted . Enough with the maths = I could make good tip money and soon learned who the good tippers were

#1 American tourists , always good especially if you were small like me and made a bit of a struggle with their heavy luggage -no limit to baggage allowance on flights in '63 .

#2 Japanese tourists , individuals not groups , I quickly learned and practised how deep the bow had to be in order to get a big tip for respect .

The worst were the Brits, French, Dutch and German businessmen , avoided them at every opportunity .

The work was 8 hour shifts, nobody wanted the night shift but I volunteered to do it on a regular basis because it fitted my schedule which on these days would be = Finish my shift and walk home which was a distance of just under 3 miles but saved me a lot in bus fares , be home by 7.00 am, sleep till 12 , afternoon in dance school, from 2pm Ballet = 2 hours bar and floor work , Modern dance = I hour , finish off with Tap = 1 -1½ hours then back home for a meal, our house was literally 500 yds from the school, a couple of hours relaxing then back to the hotel, I knew I wanted to be in show business but didn't know where as long as it wasn't Circus .

On the personal side life was tense , Ron and I had an unspoken truce, we didn't really know each other and my lack of interaction with my parents in my young years had made any emotional contact difficult, I know my mother also suffered in those early years but we could never talk about it, although I loved her there was always an unspoken barrier between us that was and still is a cause of regret to me .

when I first thought about a book I was going to call it 'Conversations I Never Had '.

As time went on Ron and I got on much better , we argued about anything and everything for over 50 years but never fell out , I learnt to love and respect him because he made my mother happy every day they were together but it was a long time before I realised how much I had learned from him, even during the arguments there was logic and reason in abundance, well at least from his side.

Another reason for my admiration and love for them both was that they gave me a brother, well actually they had a son , Ronald Walter Alexander Leslie Beadle who has been my rock and my best friend for most of my life and co-incidentally all of his . From a family of entertainers reaching back centuries he became a full Professor of Business ethics with more letters after his name than I can count , a published author, a leading academic in his field and the go-to guy on Macintyrian Philosophy, 

I regard him as the black sheep of the family .
He will appear more during this book as he is an important part of my life and we are more than brothers we are friends and in the 50 years + that we have known each other we have never had a disagreement, not even about football. ( he's a Mackem and If I have to explain what that is it's not worth the bother 'cos you know or you don't and if you know you'll either stop reading or carry on and if you don't you won't care anyway and the last sentence has been a waste of time )

I'm getting ahead of myself , it's still the early '60's and life was a round of Work, Dance lessons and Football, Stamford Bridge on a Saturday when Chelsea were at home or if they were away at another London team I would go there, Football was different then,  it was and has always been tribal, you had your club but if they were away and you couldn't get to Birmingham or Liverpool you could go to another London ground to see a game of football, Now you are expected to hate every other club except yours , other fans are the enemy, a lot of the joy has gone , when I was touring I would go to whatever ground was near me if there was a game on , I enjoyed football , the game, the banter, the sometime really funny abuse thrown at officials , all gone to be replaced by millionare superstars who fall over and writhe in agony at the slightest contact , temperamental prima donnas, who never saw players like George Best , Denis Law, or my own king Peter Osgood , another time, another place ,

Anyway back to the story       

  Apart from football matches I spent my time and money on the lessons , I bought a guitar of course , everyone did in the '60's, then a clarinet and a harmonica and somewhere down the road found a little talent for music, I spent hours listening to the radio or reading and apart from a couple of mates at the Bridge and the other students in the Dance school I made very few friends, socially I was still very awkward.
A couple of things that happened around that time, I went to class one day to find the road leading to the Bush Pub packed with teenage girls , I pushed my way through to go upstairs to our changing room , and found that the other students were all there but the hall had been rented out to a film company for the day , they were rehearsing scenes for a film called 'HELP' starring the Beatles who were in the rehearsal room going over lines .
We all knew who the Beatles were but in an age without social media and the hype that surrounds Pop stars and Celebrities they weren't that important except to their devoted fans , mostly teenage pre pubescent girls, all of whom seemed to be surrounding the pub screaming out “John”, “Paul”. “George” we did hear a few “Ringo's” but not many, anyway all we were concerned about was our Dance time was being taken over by a bunch of scousers and couldn't wait until they buggered off so we could get on with our lessons. There is a footnote to this episode which shows how times changed and also my naivety,  January '64 the Beatles were appearing at the Finsbury Park Astoria, it used to be the Empire and my parents had worked there in their variety days so off I went to see the show, once again a huge crowd of fans around the theatre , I went to the Box office to buy a ticket only to be informed that there were none left but if I hung around there may be cancellations , a couple of minutes later the cashier called me over and said there was a single ticket available in the front row , I duly paid and when the doors opened went and found my seat and apart from the screaming girls it was normal procedure just like going to the cinema .
The show featured Cilla Black, the Fourmost, another liverpool group, and I think the compere was Bobby Willis, later Cilla Black's Husband , The first half was OK the audience was a bit noisy but of course it was full of girls and me, I was the quiet one , After the interval the sound ramped up a bit because 'they' were coming on , Curtains opened, onstage was a set of stairs leading up to a Helicopter , obviously a stage prop but very well done , the doors opened and out came the Beatles walking down the stairs to start their set, The auditorium erupted into the loudest noise I had ever heard, over 1000 girls screaming the names of their favourite's , a cacophony of mayhem and audible torture , now my seat was on the front row about 6 in from the end aisle , within about a minute of the 'Boys' appearing half of the girls at my end of the row had fainted and had been carried out by the ushers, So here I am alone in the front row of the Astoria Finsbury park listening to one of the greatest groups in History , except I couldn't hear a bloody word for the screaming , other than that it was a nice day out . I often think If I'd kept my ticket what would it have been worth all these years later , Hey Ho , that's life .

The second story is a strange one , once again the dance room had been rented out but we were welcome to sit in as they needed an audience , it was hired out to 'Opportunity Knocks' for auditions , we sat through the usual parade of singers, impressionists and a couple of dancing acts ,who we cheered wildly as kindred spirits, there was then a break while the next hopeful brought his 'props ' in , now remember the room is on the first floor above the Pub up a flight of fairly steep stairs accessed from the Goldhawk Road , first he came into the room with an easel and a bucket full of brushes , he then went down the stairs and returned with a couple of paint pots , down and up again about three times with more paint cans and finally a white canvas in a frame which he put on the easel . It was obvious what he was going to do , one of the biggest stars around at the time was Rolf Harris whose gimmick on his TV show was to do a big painting using house paints constantly enquiring “can you see what it is yet”? but not revealing the subject till the last couple of brushstrokes, so obviously this was the intention of this budding Op-Knocker , he studiously set everything up then performed what I thought was a master stroke  he got out a folder and gave the pianist some sheets of music to accompany his 'act' , Off went the piano , off went the painter waving his brushes with different colours of paint wildly landing on the canvas in a whirlwind of action all the while we were trying to decipher 'what it was yet' eventually he threw down his brush looked at the result and in a loud voice said , “Well that's fucked” turned round went out of the door down the stairs and was gone. There was an awkward silence for quite a while as we waited for the punchline and then the slow realisation dawned that there wasn't one, then the laughter started, we rolled around the floor with out sides aching and for weeks afterwards at the end of the Dance lessons one of us would say .'Well thats fucked " and the laughter would start all over  again, 

Jack Billings owned the school with his wife Una , he and Stepdad Ron were friends which is how I got into the school , he was American and had appeared in a couple of Musical films in the States but admitted that he couldn't compare with Astaire and Kelly so he'd come to England to try his luck , he'd done well on the variety circuit and opened the school , he was our Tap-Dance  teacher but he was so much more , his classes were lessons in life, his approach to a tap class were much about improv and music appreciation , once you'd learned the basic 'Time-Step' and entered his world the limits were what you set for yourself , He would bring different music in to each lesson usually on an LP and tell us to just listen , after it finished he would pick on one of us and say "OK give us a routine" whoever was picked would have the lesson time to teach us a dance to the music, as we got better the music got more challenging , A couple I remember for me were 'Big Noise from Winnetka ' and 'Skyliner', both standard  swing numbers and fairly easy until he came in one day and played 'Unsquare Dance ' by Dave Brubeck which is a 7/4 time signature, I got the short straw or as it happened a great compliment, his explanation was that audiences got into a comfort zone, if they saw a couple in evening dress on a dance floor they expected a waltz or a foxtrot but if they got something else they took more notice so a 7/4 time tap dance is what I did, the rest of the class got the same challenges  and in shows that I have put on since I have used that same principle that I learned from Jack all those years ago, give them the unexpected and they'll remember, I did it with lasting  consequences in producing the first Circus Harlequin in 1994 but more of that later , we're getting ahead of ourselves (  or am I laying easter eggs)?    

  

Somewhere during this period I passed my driving test (first time) couldn't afford a car but I could dream .

1965, after 3 years of dancing school I teamed up with one of the girl students and we became 'The Dancing Dunnes' 'Twenty Tiny Toes Tapping Their Way To The Top ' , we didn't use that bill matter , thats from Julian & Sandy in Round The Horne '.

Through Jack Billings we got our first contract , Palladium Theatre,

Edinburgh , 6 week run so we packed our straw hats , Canes and Tap shoes and set off for Scotland.
The first two days of rehearsal were fine, I was asked to help in a couple of comedy sketches, we rehearsed our music job done ! 3rd day we were rehearsing different sketches and musical numbers and wondered what was happening , upon asking the producer , a wonderful guy and well known entertainer in Scotland called Hector Nicol, we were informed that the six week contract entailed a change of  programme every week, same artists , 6 different shows !!!!!!!. Panic does not adequately describe what we felt at that moment, Hector realised what had happened and gave me the phone number of a firm in Sauchiehall street Glasgow who specialised in costume hire so we appeared as 'The Dancing Dunnes" in wk 1, Straw hats and Canes, wk 2 Top Hats and Evening Dress, wk 3 Indian Headdresses and Tomahawks, wk 4 Welsh outfits, wk 5 Sailors Uniforms , wk 6 believe it or not Kilts and Tam o'shanters, 

different costumes , different music , same dance routine.

this was it , not a tent or caravan in sight but 

              I WAS IN SHOW BUSINESS . 

End of part the second , had enough - NO! well you asked for it 

  third part========= soon , the suspense is intense !!! 

LIFE , MY UNIVERSE , AND A FEW OTHER THINGS Pt1

My Life , My Universe and a Few Other Things

                           PART THE FIRST 

it's said that the first sentence of a book should grab you and force you to keep on reading so here goes ,

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT ,---- maybe not ---- IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES ,IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES, too dramatic – IN THE BEGINNING ! that's a bit much,

ok , I think i've got it ,

Until I was 15 I did what I was told to do ,

from 15 -25 I did what I had to do ,

from 25 onwards I've done what I wanted to do !

That's better , that's me !

The end result ( well not quite yet the end ) of those years has been a wonderful life , family and friends plus memories that I wouldn't change but to get this far has been an eventful journey so before I forget my name and where my medication is let's retrace it together and hopefully have a few laughs along the way.

0-15

First let me get the early stuff out of the way , my childhood is not full of happy memories , it's longer lasting effects were a perpetual fear of abandonment and a big hole where my emotional intelligence should be , By the time I was 14 I was full of rage, very close to being ferrel and educated to a point where I had a grasp of the three R's but that was about it .

Many years later trying to rationalise my attitude I read about the children who were evacuated because of WW11 and I wondered if they had the same emotional fragility and terrors that I'd had for many years , much as I could try to sympathise I was aware that every situation is uniquely different and my problems could only be solved by me or expensive therapy , I am not a great believer in the 'psych' isms iatry, ology, otherapy etc, plus the cost of laying on a couch and talking to a stranger seemed excessive so I meandered down the self-help road minutely examining every interaction with my parents in those early years alternatively blaming them or making excuses for their behaviour , this went on until I turned 50 when I realised that this, in itself was altering my own behaviour .

What changed you ask ? Well maybe you didn't but I'm going to tell you anyway , thats the idea of the book , I found a poem by Philip Larkin entitled 'This Be The Verse' and it was , as they say, a Lightbulb Moment .

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

The first two verses probably took Larkin a couple of hours to compose and edit but they put thirty five years of my life into perspective and it cost me nothing , well in monetary terms anyway.

OK now we'll start for real , well first I have to explain the 0-15 -25 bit ,don't worry well start properly in a minute , in 1962 I was 15 and my father and I had our last confrontation, it ended as usual in violence but it also marked the end of what little relationship we had. I contacted a Circus ran by some relations of the family and agreed to go with them starting immediately, I joined the circus as a clown and Elephant handler/groom, because my father had been in charge of the Elephants on a couple of the biggest shows in the country at the time so it was assumed that I would know everything about Elephants , of course I didn't but I would have said anything to get away, anyway the Circus was in Wales so I took a train the the village where they were and they weren't , there I mean ,so I went to the police station and asked if they knew where the circus had gone and not only did they know they took me there in the police car , those were the days . Arriving at the site I was quickly shown the baby elephant who had been there for about a week , she was beautiful, a tiny loveable grey lump called 'Princess Marilyn Mandy' she was very young and about the size of a small horse. The horse box they had was not strong enough to travel her in so the owner bought a coach , stripped the inside, lined and insulated it and made a ramp at the back so that it was more suitable for her for the journeys.

PROVISO , This is important.
After years of Stand-up routines in Clubs and relating different incidents that happened in my life I know that every tale is told from a personal perspective, this was brought home to me a couple of years ago while at a cousins house , her father told a story that involved both of us but his version differed from mine in a few places ,of course his telling made him look better, I was about to gently challenge him when I realised that everyone is a hero in their own story , I am no exception so just remember while reading this , hopefully riveting narrative, it is biased in my direction and and I beg your indulgence but whatever the story or whoever tells it the aim is to amuse and entertain.

Carrying on !- the first journey with my new baby elephant Mandy was eventful, the coach that she was in was driven by the boss of the show ,Uncle Claude, I was in another van following close behind, a couple of miles out we saw smoke coming from the coach so we honked the horn , flashed the lights and everyone stopped , I jumped out of van I was in and started lowering the ramp to get Mandy out, the fire was underneath the coach and quite small It hadn't affected the interior so she came out easily. As I was walking her around Uncle Claude had jumped out of his cab grabbing a fire extinguisher on the way out and slid underneath the belly of the coach , at the same time one of the artists , a Unicyclist/Juggler whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, jumped out of his transport with his extinguisher and dived under the belly of the coach from the other side, OK by now you will have already completed the story by yourself but I'll continue anyway , from beneath the coach came a loud swooshing sound just like that made by two foam fire extinguishers going off at the same time , which co-incidentally is exactly what had happened , a few seconds later from opposite side beneath the coach came two figures resembling badly put together snowmen , dancing around trying to get rid of the foam while underneath the coach still blazed away quite merrily , I had a blanket over Mandy and was walking her away from the whole thing keeping her calm when a lady from one of the cottages came out and asked if I'd like a cup of tea . Slowly the situation resolved itself, the fire was from something beneath the coach rubbing on the propshaft and the friction had set some straw and other bits alight with no lasting damage , Uncle Claude and the unnamed artist got cleaned up, I had a cup of tea with a lovely Welsh pensioner and Mandy quietly ate all the cabbages from her garden .
The rest of the season passed quickly without further drama and we returned to the Winter quarters, I had been teaching Mandy some basic moves in the ring copying what I had seen trainers do on other shows. When I came into the stable in the morning I always brought an apple or a pear from the adjoining orchard and she would feel in my jacket pocket to find it ,this became a little game between us which later had dramatic consequences .

During that autumn the film 'Hatari' starring John Wayne had premiered and we were invited to the opening at the Odeon cinema in town thousand turned out on the day and Mandy behaved impeccably , lots of photo's in the local papers followed and we got asked to do more press stunts, one was from a famous Inn/Hotel called “The Swan” It's well known locally and has a set of semi circular concrete steps leading up to the main entrance, I wasn't too sure how an elephant would handle steps but she breezed up them, went through the big main doors and drank a pint of what was supposed to be Beer but was actually cold tea, she then peed all over the floor putting out the big fire in the hearth, that of course was the picture in the papers the next day. Thinking back maybe she had remembered the fire in the coach and decided not to wait for the snowmen to put it out this time .

The winter of 1962 was the coldest on record and boy did I know about it , my day started early, the water on the site was frozen so I shovelled snow into a large oildrum over an open fire to melt so that Mandy could have a warm drink , I was 15, it was coming up to Xmas and I was miserable , I went to my Grandmother for a short break she was in leeds with Billy Smarts Circus, I was away maybe 5 or 6 days and on my return I went to see Mandy, she started fumbling around in my jacket pockets for her piece of fruit but I had forgotten to get any, ( remember the dramatic consequences I mentioned in the previous paragraph ? Well here they come) She pushed me away in frustration , it wasn't with any viscous intent but a gentle push by an elephant is still a push by an elephant, It spun me round sending me face first into the brick wall of her stable, I went out into the main hall of the big shed that was part of the WQ , my cousin Victor Fossett who was in the hall , took one look at me and I saw his expression change at the same moment my vision was obscured by a red stream of blood coming down my face , then everything got a bit hazy I remember Tommy Fosset's wife Vera putting a makeshift bandage on my head and Tommy rushing me to the Hospital , apparently when I collided with the wall I hit a piece of mortar sticking out which had caused the split in my forehead which was repaired with 5 huge stitches in I was kept in 'for observation' because there was concern that some of the mortar may have got into my bloodstream and any large pieces could cause complications I think I was there for a couple of days but I can't be sure , I do know I had time to think and the results was ,Circus was not for me so I needed to get out and do something else !
I remembered that the Konyot family home was in Brixton and over the next few days I managed to get in touch and through them I found my mother, packed what I had and went to London.