Dispatches From a Dilettante

by Paul Rowson

  If there were advantages to be gained from having a restless nature and therefore constantly changing jobs/careers it was that I had the opportunity to meet and work with an incredibly diverse group of people, from those living in extreme poverty to power obsessed politicians. Many politicians in the past had often tested their theories about justice, policing and social equality in real jobs. Despite the padded out CVs of the current crop, this rarely is the case today.

  Down in Sparkbrook, one of Birmingham’s most deprived inner city wards and my next port of call, political chicanery was something that I came up against on a regular basis. Mostly politicians emerged with very little credit but there were a couple of exceptions who displayed integrity when the chips were down during what was to prove an exhilarating two years.

  8.

  DOWN IN THE RIOT ZONE - BIRMINGHAM 1984-1986

  Machiavelli said that “The innovator has for enemies those who profit from the existing system and lukewarm friends among those who may profit from the new” which was why the hundred and fifty acres in Sparkbrook that was about to become my workplace had been derelict for years. It was the former home of the once world famous BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) motor bike factory and the focal point for work in the area. Nowadays it would be called a ‘brownfield’ site with all the implicit potential that phrase is supposed to engender, but in the nineteen eighties it was just called a dump.

  The Council, thanks to constant prompting from an old school honest toiler of a local politician called Jim Eames had formed a charity called The Ackers Trust, given them the land for a peppercorn rent, and appointed a Director to ‘develop leisure and recreational facilities for the community’. In doing this jobs were supposed to be created and income eventually generated. The first Director ran out of steam after couple of years and his single legacy was a small nature reserve which local schoolchildren infrequently visited to deposit their soft drinks cans and chip paper. Finding the stress of working in a tough area more than he could cope with, he could hardly bail out quickly enough.

  It would be flattering to relate that I became the second Director after being head hunted for my track record, resilience, strategic vision and all round brilliance but the truth was much more mundane. There were plenty of applications when the post was advertised, but very few of quality and I probably got the job because I knew a well respected and connected principal of a local college. Having uprooted family – again, it was strange to arrive on the site for my first day to find no one there, no activity and actually nothing to do.

  There was the dilapidated old BSA social club which was still ticking over in the evening as a drinking den, a one acre plot where a ‘Peace Fountain’ had been commissioned but not built, and acres and acres of rubble with the nature reserve in the distance.

  I walked round aimlessly an for a while and then, for want of something better to do, went to the local hospital to where Councillor Jim Eames was having his prostate gland removed. Quite understandably after doing his best to look pleased at my arrival he didn’t seem overly concerned about the conspicuous lack of welcome for the incoming Director. He was a ‘hands off’ kind of a guy, and an astute local operator with a good heart. He possessed an incredible talent for becoming invisible whenever there was trouble, which in the first few months was often.

  The vision for the hundred and fifty acres of The Ackers Trust specifically included a Social Centre with classroom facilities, football pitches, a climbing wall a ski slope and a Canoe Centre, as the Grand Union canal ran through a corner of the site. All this was eventually achieved - but not without money troubles, fist fights, riots, brinkmanship, and burglaries

  I became quite an expert on Weils disease (look it up) and water quality. I looked knowingly at architects’ drawings and sometimes they were the right way up. I recruited people for their doggedness rather than degrees. For the first two weeks I was the sole alarm key holder of the social club and was called out in the middle of the night by police four times after burglaries. It was low rent crime because there wasn’t much to pinch inside the seedy bar with adjoining old snooker room, but it was spooky going in there at two o’clock in the morning.

  Ceebert Gibbs was the barman who returned from holiday and took the keys back. When I say holiday, he had actually stayed at home during his vacation period and confided in me that he had not left Birmingham since arriving there twenty years ago from Dominica. He was a tall gentle, kind and patient man who didn’t drink, and a less likely barman would be hard to imagine. He kept a Bible by the till on the bar, and as custom there had slowed to a handful of people on the four evenings a week it was open, Ceebert has plenty of time for Bible study.

  Almost all the dwindling band of customers were hard men and dedicated drinkers but they respected Ceebert and instinctively knew that it would be a cheap trick to abuse his trustworthy nature. One exception was a teenager who drank there illegally and persuaded him to leave the bar untended for a couple of minutes. It was only at the end of the evening that Ceebert noticed that the keys to the building had gone. Clearly the lad was planning a break in which would have been one of the dumbest ever. I was again called from home at midnight.

  The police were not remotely interested in attending but I knew where David Clark, who was the would be thief, lived. His mother who was still up drinking when I called said that he was miles away at his girlfriend’s flat. After a long drive across town and several failed attempts, I located the girl’s flat in a manky looking sixties tower block. It was by now two thirty in the morning. Lights were on and, having somewhat nervously knocked on the door, I was surprised to have it instantly opened by the chief suspect.

  He denied all knowledge of the whereabouts of the keys, changed his story mid sentence and then disappeared for a moment. Without apology or any degree of sheepishness he then returned jangling the keys he’d denied having and handed them over. Displaying monumental ‘front’ he declared that as he just finished with his girlfriend minutes previously he would now like a lift back with me to his mother’s house near the Ackers Trust. I was so stunned and exhausted that I meekly said ‘Go on then’.

  I received not a word of thanks as we walked in silence down the stairwell to my car. There was though an unspoken quid pro quo after that evening and David never drank at the bar again. Eighteen months later he had become a father and soon after started as a volunteer member of staff on the newly opened climbing wall.

  In the eighties, both indoor and outdoor climbing walls were only dotted around the country at a few locations. The outdoor structure proposed for the Ackers Trust was to be the largest in the UK but it almost never got built. Funding was obtained, plans drawn up and approved. I confidently waited for the final assent needed to start the work, knowing that everything required to get the go ahead was in place.

  What followed exemplified the petty posturing of local politicians, one of whom attempted to invoke some long forgotten by- law in order to stop the project going ahead. At the eleventh hour he suggested that, as the climbing wall was potentially dangerous, there should be a wall built around the wall so to speak which would act as a barrier to access.

  The mental picture of local youths illegally scaling the outer wall without insurance and unsupervised to get the ‘inner’ wall where there would be equipment and supervision, stayed with me for a long time. It delayed the project for weeks but, after some serious lobbying, planning permission was finally granted and a creative grand opening was planned.

  Recovering alcoholic and former international footballer Jimmy Greaves had recently been hired by the local TV station to do different stunts every week. He would paraglide, canoe down rapids and attempt other adrenalin related escapades in what was becoming a successful personal reinvention on television. After a bit of discussion with Gary Newbon who fronted the programme, and a site visit, Jimmy Greaves was signed up to do a climb for the opening of the wall. Channel Four had just screened a tremendous documentary with top climber R
on Fawcett in the Verdun Gorge and we got him to come as the ‘expert’. Two climbing instructors Dave Stewart and Vinnie Middleton had been hired and both were strong personalities who shared a wicked sense of humour.

  Sunny skies on the opening day and the presence of the TV cameras meant that there was quite a crowd as the opening ceremony started. Predictably the same councillors who had objected to the wall being built were forcing themselves in front of radio and TV microphones to talk about their commitment to the regeneration of the area and support for the great work going on at the ‘Ackers’. With the exception of Jim Eames not one of them had visited the place before.

  As someone who has tried climbing, lacked talent and was paralysed by fear, I still love to study the experts in action. Watching a full climb with the strength, delicate balance and timing required for most moves is so like watching ballet in many respects. Brute strength is not enough as subtle use of muscle has to be combined with fast and slow movements which require incredibly developed hand eye co-ordination. At the top level, and while operating at altitude, fear has to be managed in order for athletic prowess to be fully utilised. Ron Fawcett specialised in free climbing i.e. climbing at great height and tacking technically difficult pitches without ropes or any other equipment. Climbing the sixty foot wall at the Ackers was, for him, a doddle.

  The plan was that Jimmy Greaves, all roped up for safety, would be coaxed up the wall by our two staff, Vinnie and Dave. Ron Fawcett was going to be waiting at the top with a pair of scissors which he would hand to the all conquering Jimmy Greaves when he made it to the summit. A ribbon would be cut to cue applause from the throng gathered below.

  However when things actually got under way and Ron Fawcett was hanging from the highest point of the wall by what appeared to by just one finger, Jimmy Greaves was finding the going tough. The weather had suddenly turned and hail was making the climbing surface wet and genuinely challenging. Out of audio range, and probably because he was understandably nervous, Jimmy Greaves was effing and blinding at the two instructors to pull him up in double quick time as he was effing soaking his effing arse off. As the word ‘please’ didn’t feature in these rants Vinnie and Dave decided to invent a technical problem which necessitated Jimmy being put on hold in a crevice half way up. This of course made for great TV ‘drama’ and was thus edited for maximum effect by the time the programme went out. Vinnie and Dave displayed and used hitherto undiscovered thespian qualities as they realised this and hammed it up even more.

  Maximising the delay while they sorted the non existing rope ‘problem’ meant by the time a thoroughly cold and soaking Jimmy Greaves got to the top he ripped the scissors from Ron Fawcett’s hands and cut the ribbon without a word. All that did was make his abseil to the ground a very bumpy ride courtesy of Vinnie and Dave who had already become the stars of the piece. Ron Fawcett may have free climbed up the Verdun Gorge but I doubt that he ever had a more bizarre experience than the day he opened the outdoor climbing structure at the Ackers Trust.

  A sense of momentum in any project is, once achieved, a major breakthrough. Self belief in staff breeds confidence and then emerging personalities are able to use their strengths to full effect, confident that they are part of a team with a shared sense of purpose and direction.

  To bond a team that now had eight members I arranged a residential few days in the Lake District. I had employed an administrator/PA who was slightly overweight, prone to use too much make up and regarded the four metre stroll from the car park to the office as her major form of exercise for the day. The four metres often took twenty minutes to enable a last cigarette to be puffed en route. Jackie Johnson pouted and sulked and made it quite clear that she had no intention of going to the Lake District and further informed me that even if she had wanted to go, her husband would not let her. I was very clear that it was essential that we all went and so phoned her husband. He, rather too quickly I felt, said that it would be great and give him some a chance to go drinking with his mates. They divorced shortly afterwards. Having had a major obstacle removed and with a huge persuasive effort from everyone Jackie finally relented. Days later, we set off for the Ullswater Outward Bound Centre in the Lake District.

  To set the tone for adventure and togetherness I had arranged for us to meet one of the Outward Bound Instructors at a cave in the Lakes. We would drive to the cave before reaching the centre and we would spend our first night there, although I had omitted to mention this to any of the group.

  It was a big cave, but nonetheless a cave. Just before we left the M6 I broke the news to them. As it dawned on Jackie that caves tended not to have central heating, toilets, TVs or beds she became hysterical. Ceebert looked up from his bible and clearly felt that, as God worked in mysterious ways, he would go with the flow. Vinnie and Dave whooped with excitement and the others were shocked into silence. On the radio the DJ announced that the next record would be ‘Road to Nowhere’ by Talking Heads and we parked by the cave to the sound of David Byrne’s voice and Jackie Johnson’s quiet sobbing.

  The Outward Bound man Steve Brown had brought food, something to cook it on, a few bottles of beer and wine and some candles. Once people has bowed to the inevitable spirits rose, jobs were allocated and everyone spent as good an evening as it is possible to have in a candlelit underground cavern. The result of Ceebert’s praying manifested itself in fantastic weather, or so he constantly reminded us, and a terrific, enjoyable and productive time was the result. So much so that when at the end of a long walk on the final day we came to the remotest part of the lake at Ullswater and I announced we were sleeping out on the pebbled lakeside, hardly a murmur of discontent was heard. After a night watching the stars Ceebert almost converted a couple of the group.

  In the morning the early mist had cleared by the time we were up and a beautiful autumn day was in prospect. Steve Brown had hidden a large rowing boat nearby and so, to the beat provided by Ceebert thumping his bible, we rowed united in purpose and spirit across the lake for a champagne breakfast to round off our stay. It really was that good and did so much to keep us together in the tough next few months back in Sparkbrook.

  Years later I briefly met Jackie Johnson in Birmingham at a conference. She was with a colleague who had been talking about her exploits on a recent holiday in Spain. Time is a great healer and Jackie cheerfully asserted that she and her husband always holidayed in the Lake District near to Ullswater. A representative of the Lakeland Tourist Board could not have done a better selling job although despite her waxing lyrical, there was no mention of caves in her paean to the Lakes.

  When I left the Ackers Trust a year later, Vinnie had a girlfriend and looked to be settling down but there was to be a further nod to that memorable trip twenty years down the line. Inevitably as time goes by some friends drop away, new friendships are forged, simply because of different agendas, priorities, emerging relationships and new geographical locations.

  On returning from a speaking engagement in Madrid, an email popped up asking if I was the same Paul Rowson who had been the Director of the Ackers Trust. It was from Vinnie and we immediately started an email correspondence which quickly illustrated that his life had taken in some spectacular and unimaginable changes.

  Shortly after I had left the West Midlands Vinnie, who came from a large and close Catholic family, felt that he had a vocation and almost overnight finished with his girlfriend and relocated to a Spanish seminary. At the time he spoke not a word of Spanish and so was put through an eight week crash course after which he was thrown into the lectures with the other Spanish seminarians. There he remained for eight years. As his ordination to the priesthood drew closer he began to have doubts and occasionally nipped over the seminary walls to have a contemplative beer. There he met Ester and they fell in love.

  Initially it was a tortured love and Vinnie went home to Birmingham to receive counselling from the bishop. Returning to the seminary he tried to shut Ester out of his mind but failed to do so. Eventual
ly Ester, a beautiful and feisty woman, made it very clear that any more contemplation or procrastination would result in her departure. Vinnie renounced his vocation and they were married.

  By the time he contacted me the tale had taken a further twist. After the wedding, things were tough. There was had no money and Vinnie had no job. They moved to a small town near Cadiz to be near Ester’s family and, with his now fluent Spanish, Vinnie started work as a language teacher. A chance came up to buy the language school and, taking a considerable risk, they took the plunge. Fast forward a few years and he now owns two very successful language schools in Chiclana de la Frontera, has two teenage boys and is a pillar of the local community.

  When I visited him recently there was a picture in the lounge of a smiling young man hanging upside down from a roof beam at the Ullswater Outward Bound Centre.

  Gradually and at first almost imperceptibly the old drinking den of the BSA Club was changing into a first class social centre and resource. Huge physical upgrades enabled classes to start and therefore bar income produced steady revenue. I hope it does not seem too immodest for me to claim to be the person who introduced quiche to Sparkbrook as part of the revamped lunchtime menu. When this was first mooted, the reaction was one of shock and disbelief. Had I announced that I was an alien from the planet Zog there would have been less fuss. I forced it through but with the concession was that chips stayed on. For all this light hearted stuff there was a daily grind of battling with the Council on trivial petty and counter-productive issues which continually threatened to derail our large ambitions.