by Paul Rowson
Even though at the time I never gave this too much thought I was disturbed by it on some level. Men working and signing on were displaying enterprise and ambition, albeit in a way that could only ever ‘work’ in the short time. Put a public school educated government minister in the same life position as those men, taking as read their poor educational background and lack of inspirational role models, and grand larceny of a massive scale to generate income would have been taking place.
Not that the workforce of Langdale Contractors were overly troubled by moral issues. Although genuinely ashamed today of some of the work scams that I was party to then, I laughed it off at the time as par for the course in the building trade. One such ‘enterprise’ still makes me smile today for, although immoral, the outcome did have a kind of poetic justice to it.
We had obtained quite a sizable contract to ‘fix the roof’ at a privately owned nursing home. The owner was a nasty, greedy man who came complete with gold chain and spiv’s Jaguar. He cared not a jot for the old people in his ‘care’ and the place stank of urine. Disgruntled staff looked after deeply sad and unhappy residents. We were there only because the Council had forced the owner to get the leaking roof fixed and he truculently complied. Anything that stopped the money rolling directly into his pockets was regarded as a major inconvenience.
It was a gothic horror of a building, extremely tall and all steep Victorian gable ends. We were replacing a few hundred tiles and were having great difficulty getting on and off the roof and also hooking our roof ladders over the apex in order to move around when we did get on. Needless to say we had added to the already dangerous job by illegally cutting costs and not erecting scaffolding. The one advantage was that with all the gables and chimneys it was hard to spot what work was being done up there from down on the ground.
After struggling for a day we abandoned all safety on the roof and scrabbled about the steep gables as best we could. There were three of us on the job. Lionel was the original ‘scally’ in all respects and knew no fear. I was very nervous of moving around up there and the third guy John who had just started (‘Paul, go down to the dole and get someone for this job’) was downright scared. Just before finishing on the second day John lost his footing and started to slip down the roof. He involuntarily emitted a squeal of terror and then tried to slow his descent by digging his nails into the roof tiles, but to little effect. It was an eighty foot drop and he was sliding slowly but steadily towards the edge.
Lionel glanced over and immediately started singing ‘Climb every Mountain’ from the Sound of Music, as mercifully the gutter held and saved John’s fall. I know Liverpudlians are famed for their humour but……
This had the galvanising effect of forcing us to come up with a better way of doing things. I was dispatched to go and buy several cans of slate grey spray paint and told to being them back in a plain bag. Thereafter we sat on the roof smoking and occasionally making contrived banging noises, after which we would spray the old tiles rather than replace them. Nothing was detectable from the ground. We’d chuck an old tile off now and then for authenticity, but even then we’d take the same tile back up on the next ascent and throw it off again. The miserable bastard of an owner was getting his comeuppance as we told ourselves.
Consequently we saved money, made a handsome profit on the job and I like to think played a significant part in helping put him out of business. He went broke weeks later when a Council inspection found the roof still leaked and they stopped placing people in his home.
Back at work Elwyn’s way of courting favour, in the hope that I would continue the good run of getting work for the firm, was to invite me to accompany him to the races at Haydock Park one Friday afternoon. I had not really, until this point, displayed more than a passing interest in the sport of kings. Nonetheless it didn’t take me long to accept an offer that was clearly preferable to shovelling concrete on the current house project we were bravely, and with no previous track record in house extensions, undertaking.
Haydock Park is a lovely little race track just off the East Lancashire road and in the crowd on Friday meetings there were usually a fair smattering of footballers and priests. In these pre-Premiership days footballers were still well known but not earning the vast salaries of today’s top stars. They mingled happily with the rest of the punters and some of them clearly had both a keen knowledge and genuine love for the sport. The priests were a different kettle of fish altogether and looked like prisoners on parole, who had been given a couple of hours to enjoy themselves.
On that first afternoon I recognised a priest who had been a lecturer at the Catholic teacher training college that I had attended. I accosted him at the very moment he was about to place a substantial bet. Although he was rightly a tad impatient, wanting to get his money on before the odds changed, he was not remotely embarrassed about the financial scale of his forthcoming wager. After he completed the transaction we continued our small talk and he laughed at my preferred choice of horse to bet on for the next race. He proceeded to give me, with all the authority of the Church clearly behind him, what was certain in his view to be the winner. I dismissed his tip failing to realise that he was an experienced punter, and if memory served me right a drinker of distinction, and a priest who regarded the vow of celibacy as an optional undertaking. Needless to say my horse lost and his won in a canter.
As these Friday race days became regular outings, I could hardly help but pick up a bit of knowledge. Ultimately I never had the nerve to be a regular or serious gambler but for a short period became totally absorbed by horse racing. What quickly became apparent was the folly of most punters who didn’t put in enough, or indeed any, work into researching form or applying some basic principles. Previous form, the course, the going (state of the course), the draw, the jockey, quality of opposition on previous outings, the weight, and the condition of the horse in the parade ring would be just a few of the things any serious better on horse races would take into consideration.
For example Chester, which was a tiny little course with tight bends, was a completely different proposition from the wide open spaces of Epsom. However it was the small northern courses like Pontefract, Wetherby and York that we frequented all those years ago. Haydock Park was a favourite and amazingly the older I get the more wins I seem to remember there. The fact was that I was barely breaking even. I became a regular in betting shops and once won so much on a double that the betting shop owner announced loudly that he would have to go to the bank to get more cash. I was terrified that, when he returned with it, I would be mugged. My biggest win was a sizable ante post bet each way at thirty three to one on Morston, who won the Derby in 1972. Immediately I went to a boutique and purchased a ridiculously expensive, flash and ill fitting coat which I left on the bus two days later, never to be seen again.
It was at this point that hubris got the better of me. I had convinced myself that a certain horse was going to win a race at Pontefract. The week before the planned Pontefract bonanza Brigadier Gerard was racing at York in the inaugural Benson and Hedges Cup. For those of you not familiar with racing, the Brigadier was named after the swashbuckling hero of an Arthur Conan Doyle novel and is now generally acknowledged to have been one of the greatest racehorses ever. At the time of this tale he was undefeated in thirteen races.
In my febrile brain I thought that by placing a big bet on this certain winner at York, I would generate a bigger stake to put on my Pontefract horse which would be at decent odds. That way I would acquire some serious money. To obtain the stake for the Brigadier Gerard bet I had concocted a story about needing a car to get to a new job which was soon to be offered me, conditional on my having transport. I drew upon all my thespian qualities and used them to persuade the nice manager at the National Westminster Bank local branch to advance me two hundred pounds. This was, in those days, the equivalent to two months wages for the average working person.
Armed with the money I got a lift in a coach provided by my loca
l bookie to give mugs like myself a comfortable ride to oblivion. In my euphoric cash laden state I had failed to notice some key events and changes in the lead up to the race. A Panamanian jockey Braulio Baeza, who had never before ridden in England, had been given the ride on the unfancied horse Roberto. Roberto’s usual jockey Lester Piggott had declined the chance of the ride for this race and opted for a mount called Rheingold. I remained resolutely unmoved by these significant pointers. Additionally the Benson and Hedges Cup at York was to be run over a mile and a quarter, whereas a mile was the Brigadier’s preferred distance.
In films and plays the weather is often used to illustrate moods and to portend disasters but it was a beautiful day when I arrived at one of the oldest racecourses in the country. Knavesmire looked good to me as I settled down at a spot ‘by the rails’ where serious money was placed. Even when the odds lessened I failed to take heed. When placing my bet I eventually noticed that the odds on the Brigadier had got even shorter and it started at 1-3 on. That is to say to win one hundred pounds you would have to have bet three hundred. I was therefore risking what was to me a fortune, and one which I had no way of repaying, in order to win around sixty five pounds.
As the race started my confidence had collapsed before the horses had covered a furlong. Roberto came out of the stalls like a bat out of hell and eased into the lead with six furlongs to go. My throat constricted with dry apprehension as the implications of my foolhardiness began to dawn on me. I turned away before the end and defeated, demoralised and destitute, walked slowly off into an uncertain future. Ambling along in the vague direction of the main road I found myself at the start point for the next flat race, which was about to get under way over a much longer distance. Thus the start was only feet away from the road along which I was disconsolately trudging.
The jockeys were circling their horses in preparation, watched in silence by a scattering of people. The breathing and snorting of the horses provided the only sounds. The crowds and the grandstands were a distance away and part of a world that I had left behind. A woman suddenly said quite loudly, “Go on Lester I’ve got a pound on you” as the great man and his mount passed almost within touching distance. Nearer to where I was now standing I heard another jockey, Paul Cooke, respond to the woman’s encouragement by nonchalantly saying to a colleague “It’s got no fucking chance”. The thought crossed my mind that I should perhaps have consulted Paul Cooke with regards to the outcome of the previous race.
That evening I went to the pub and did my best to deny the angst that I was so obviously displaying. It was a tough lesson to learn and I kept learning it for months as I struggled to pay off the debt. Even worse news came that a non betting friend of mine had won a considerable amount on the pools around this time. As Gore Vidal once remarked, “Every time a friend succeeds a little part of me dies”, and it was a phrase that I thought about and related to no more than three times a day for many weeks.
As the correlation between behaviour and happiness gradually began to dawn on me, together with the realisation that there are very few short cuts in life, it was the events at Knavesmire that enabled me to start growing up. It was to be an excruciatingly long process but it started that afternoon in York. For years afterwards, as if to help keep my focus on the journey to maturity, whenever I drove through the city I inevitably seemed to go past a popular local pub called The Brigadier Gerard which had been renamed soon after the race.
My gambling habit had been instantly cured and going through the betting equivalent of cold turkey proved relatively easy. Elwyn soon had new friends to take racing and I wanted to get my life in order. Getting the sequence of personal perestroika tragically wrong, I took the high moral ground and stopped signing on the dole. However I had misjudged the zeitgeist and was laid off from Langdale Contractors the following week as building work hit a slow patch. There is a trite old saying that ‘Those who can…do, and those that can’t teach’. Having left the profession once in fairly dramatic fashion I opted for a cash driven swift return to salvation in multi racial inner city Leeds.
6.
LIVING IN THE CITY 1973-1976
Those of you with musical memories that include Tamla Motown will recall this as the title of a Stevie Wonder hit from the seventies. Eric Prince was the Head of Drama at Primrose Hill High School when I worked there. Unsurprisingly he was known to all the staff as Prince Eric. He went onto become Professor of the Dramatic Arts at the University of Colorado but was at this point just another jobbing teacher - albeit one with ambitions. The ambition manifested itself in his declaration that he would write a play with input from kids, based around inner city life, racial prejudice, and unemployment. As part of the preparation a letter was dispatched to Stevie Wonder’s record company in Detroit who generously let us play his music as backdrop and even threw in some free LPs when responding.
To Eric and the school’s huge credit everyone seemed to back the preparation for what was to be the first time a play had been attempted, let alone performed in public. Challenging young people who had never acted before were given key parts, staff came in at weekends to prepare stage sets, tickets were printed on ancient banda machines and publicity posters put in local shops. Disaster seemed to have struck the day before the opening night when the lead male was suspended from school after a knife incident, but nothing could prevent the triumph that the sell out three night performance turned out to be. A reprise was demanded and took place at the Grand Theatre in Leeds. Furthermore a school in Birmingham, having read the write ups, put on their own version.
It was, on reflection, a representation of everything good about teaching and education in a different era. There was no national curriculum, no SATS and no OFSTED so, at best, exciting things that changed hitherto damaged lives could evolve. It wasn’t all good because such a loose system could and was abused by some staff, but the moments of glory transcended anything that was to come at the school in future years. One pupil at that time now holds a regular part on Coronation Street after making a name in The Full Monty. That of course proves nothing but I bet it still makes Prince Eric smile up there in Colorado.
I have only one other memory of Eric, who was quite a dramatic personality over and above professional requirements and had a penchant for flash cars. The drama department was situated in an old Victorian junior school building with the classic separate entrances marked ‘BOYS’ and ‘GIRLS’. Stone stairwells were worn in the middle after countless thousands of feet had bounded up and down them over the years. The sloping tarmac school playground was surrounded by the usual pre-war railings and at the bottom of the slope in one corner was the caretaker’s house together with a row of dustbins for educational detritus. Staff parked their cars in a row at the top of the playground. From the staff room on the top floor all this could be observed.
Such was the dedication of the staff here in this annexe, away from the main building, that the day often started with a round of cards. Eric burst into the staffroom one morning proclaiming to the card pool and anyone else who would listen, that he had purchased a fabulous new vehicle which he had just driven to school for the first time. John Dixon, a droll Scotsman put down his cards, stubbed out his cigarette and languidly strode to the window. “Would it be the shiny red Datsun below?” he enquired. When Eric confirmed that it was indeed his new steed John, who had not previously shown the slightest interest in cars, enquired further as to the efficiency of the handbrake system. Eric was halfway through the technical specification of the brakes when John cut him short and with a smirk announced. “I think you may want to have a word with the dealer”.
Alerted by John’s facial contortions we all rushed to the window in time to see the new Datsun slowly, but inexorably, moving with increasing speed down the slope towards the dustbins where it came eventually to rest.
Larger than life teachers were conspicuous in numbers at Primrose Hill and John Dixon was one of them. In a previous life he had been a professional magician. Co
nsequently he was called into action by colleagues to perform at their children’s parties. One such gig was duly booked by the art teacher Rod Wells for his daughter’s birthday ‘do’ to be held on a Sunday. Dramatically and tragically John was killed in a freak accident the day before the party. Ignoring all advice he had decided to repair a leak on his roof and rigged up a ‘safety’ rope around the chimney. It snapped and the fall killed him instantly. Rod broke the news to his five year old daughter as gently as possible. After a pause for thought which Rod interpreted as grief she replied, as only a five year old could, “Daddy do we know any other magicians?” John would have loved that.
One of the biggest TV hits in the early seventies and one of the first ‘Talent’ shows was the original version of ‘Opportunity Knocks’ hosted by Hughie Green. The nation duly tuned in every week to watch the old cornball say, while hamming it to the camera, “And now for the musical muscle man from Southport (dramatic pause and rise in voice tone) Opportunity Knocks”. The audience on the night aided by the famous ‘clapometer’, judged the most popular act and then viewers voted to determine who returned to the show in later weeks. Back in the smoke filled staffroom one break time, the lone non smoker and head of PE declared that he was going to enter the school gymnastic team in the regional auditions for Opportunity Knocks, which were about to take place in Leeds.
He was a man who, remarkably, had no enemies among the staff. Gordon Fee was a swarthy, stocky muscular Christian with lovable, successful and slightly eccentric teaching methods. He was liked and respected by the kids, but would be languishing in jail in today’s nanny state. Eschewing formal punishments he would approach a transgressor and give him the famous ‘Chin Pie’ which consisted of rubbing his stubble into the offender’s face. This was offered without the least trace of malice and always had the desired effect. The only time I observed him getting even mildly angry was when the rowdiness in the minibus on the way back from a basketball game continued after his final warning. He stopped the bus which was five miles from school, calmly and without rancour ordered the occupants out and drove away leaving them to find their own way home. That one action alone, if carried out today, would have meant the end of his career.
