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 !.

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.