by Paul Rowson
She had fiddled with her pass key when reaching her room and was just about to give up when the door clicked open. Striding in with her wheelie suitcase, she flicked on the light switch and was confronted with an airline pilot energetically shagging a stewardess. She informed us, in Sherlock Holmes style, that she had deduced this because she had nearly tripped on the uniforms scattered about the floor. The story had extra piquancy because it was delivered in Julia’s plummy tones, at full volume and without a trace of embarrassment.
At a country house just outside Saffron Walden Julia and I were co-presenting a black tie awards ceremony. The opening drinks on the lawn had gone well with a string quartet playing to the four hundred distinguished guests. The meal was now nearly finished and we were due to take the stage in ten minutes. I knew all this with certainty because we were still in the car fifteen minutes from the venue. My regional director was maintaining an admirable calm as he relayed this information by phone. Even by Julia’s tardy ‘standards’ we were pushing it. There was also the small matter of getting changed into our black tie regalia which, according to the itinerary, was supposed to happen at the hotel that we were now not going to have time to check into.
None of this bothered Julia in the slightest although I was a clammy mess of nervous anticipation. Incredibly we were told on arrival that the only possible place to change was a tiny ante room inside, yes inside, the very posh ladies toilets. Julia immediately began stripping off and was all velvet and taffeta swirls as I took my trousers off. Every minute or so a bejewelled lady would appear and instantly back out apologising profusely for having got the wrong room. The third time this happened the woman reappeared and informed us that were in the ladies toilets. Her tone suggested that she was irked although she clearly presumed that we had somehow failed to spot our location. “Do carry on darling” said Julia to her charmingly, as I was doing my flies up with as much dignity as I could muster in the circumstances.
Every profession loves to have the exclusivity of its’ own language. Technology companies baffle you with invented words. Lawyers use thirty arcane sentences where three would suffice. Consultancies thrive on taking the information you have given them and then replaying it wrapped up in professional gobbledygook and a big invoice. Engineering firms produce words with four syllables that actually mean simple things like ‘stress’ or ‘load’. What they all share is the ability to put on terminally boring dinners and awards to celebrate their fabulous achievements.
Does anybody, hand on heart, ever go home at midnight on a Friday and say to his/her partner ‘You know I really enjoyed that Chamber of Commerce black tie dinner’ or ‘Doesn’t the Institute of Directors put on creative events’. Never has anyone left the Accountants Ball high on adrenalin from the kickin’ band. If you haven’t been to one of these events do not feel excluded. You are very, very lucky. Professional dinners/awards on the rubber chicken circuit in drab chain hotels are death by a thousand stale rolls.
I mention this only because ‘be creative and inspiring’ was stamped on every event planner’s forehead at BITC, which when carried out ultimately translated into new members and enthused converts to our cause as a campaigning charity. From the Albert Hall in London to a vineyard in the East Midlands and from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier to a refurbished monastery it was fun for them and for us, which surely is the point.
Luckily we now had a new chief executive who also believed this. Steve Howard had already made his name running global organisations when he took a huge hit in salary terms to join us. He was an American from Detroit and an inspired choice who managed to effortlessly make the huge downward shift from chauffeur driven limos to London buses, and from an exclusive and palatial office overlooking the Thames to a grubby shared office overlooking the canal. Only occasionally did he break down into tears when thinking of his former luxurious existence.
He was a class act who did not sweat the small stuff and thus went down very well with senior private sector executives, very few of whom had operated at his global level. Steve had a perfect mix of hauteur and humility and quietly displayed real commitment to a number of homeless charities. An invitation modestly offered to ‘go and see prisoners performing some music’ at a swish corporate headquarters in London turned out to be an unforgettable evening where forty or so ‘suits’ listened to a really tight band of ‘cons’ who had as lead guitarist Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. He, also modestly, was the patron of Music in Prisons.
Steve’s stint as chief executive coincided with Sir Stuart Rose of Marks and Spencer becoming Chairman of Business in the Community and so it was that eight of us were invited to a working lunch at the swish new M & S offices in Paddington. Steve had told us that Sir Stuart wanted us each to speak for a maximum of two minutes on our roles and responsibilities. I think on reflection that it might have been Steve who wanted to see what we were really up to but no matter. It was a sit down lunch in the board room with the M & S staff in all black attending to our every need. After the small talk the two minute sessions began and when the second one ran over the limit it was axed by our host who, on that basis alone, I was beginning to really warm to.
A colleague to my left was wrapping up his brief summation and when finishing he passed over to me. At this point he was probably inwardly feeling relieved and hungry and he reached across me to the fruit bowl, which he contrived to knock over. M & S produce flew in all directions. Plums rolled under the table, apples rolled along the table, oranges came to rest in napkins and the concerned waiters were down on their knees picking it all up.
It was a fantastic result for me as no one could concentrate on a word I had to say. As the fruit bowl was restored to its’ former full and pristine condition I concluded. From that day on I always got a confused smile when meeting Sir Stuart at our events. I could see his brain computing that I worked for Business in the Community but then struggle to remember what I did. I have felt like that on so many occasions myself, which is why I knew what he was thinking.
At extremely short notice I was deputed to fly to Madrid to make a speech at a conference sponsored by Iberdrola the Spanish utilities giant. It was great boost to fly from grey and drab Luton in February and arrive in the sunny sparkling Madrid. My upbeat mood was only somewhat darkened by the haste with which I had prepared my speech and the fact that it would be the first time that I had delivered one with the aid of a translator. After lunch with some patrician Spanish grandees I met the man who would be making or breaking my contribution.
The translator was a chain smoking affable guy who immediately told me that he would be in a booth at the end of the conference hall. The delegates would have headphones and his translation would go directly to them as I spoke. He said that he would raise his left arm if I was going too fast and his right arm if my pace was too slow. He puffed away while smiling as he delivered this vital information, and merely shrugged when I asked him if he was comfortable in attempting to translate a couple of lame jokes I had inserted.
At this point I was called for a sound check and when I got on stage I could barely see the translator’s booth which was so far in the distance that it may as well have been located on the Portuguese border. Matters were further compounded by the fact that I would be sharing the stage with an Italian and a Frenchman who would both be giving twenty minute papers before I was introduced. Bored looking delegates trudged in after lunch like prisoners being recalled after day release.
The Italian got up and I nodded wisely when the delegates did, as I understood neither Spanish nor Italian. His twenty minute slot ran to thirty five and then the Frenchman started in animated fashion. I could understand some of his speech with my rusty French and was distraught to find that he was saying much of what I had planned to wow them with.
My turn came and I walked up to the podium to lukewarm applause from those delegates who had actually bothered to put their headsets or who were still awake. After about five minutes when I felt my confidence gr
owing I was aware in the dim distance of a hand going up in the translator’s box. Was is his right hand or left? Was I going too fast, or slow? I slowed down and his other hand shot up so I increased pace. More delegates were putting on their headphones which I took to be a good signal. I later found out it was only because the delegates who had bothered to put the headphones on from the start of my epic oration were in fits of giggles at the chaotic changes of pace and delivery.
Both hands were raised in the translator’s booth and although I was sure that I had not received instructions on what to do if this happened I stopped. Now I was losing my thread as once more the translator’s hand went up and frustratingly, just when I had gamely started again, a further hand movement occurred. I decided to ignore them all and carry to the end, which I raced towards with reckless speed. By this stage there wasn’t any semblance of concentration from delegates, most of whom had now taken their headphones off and were drifting out.
Weak applause from the remaining few smacked of sympathy rather than approbation and I shot to the end of the hall intent in venting my spleen on the translator. He was incredibly apologetic and explained that the first few minutes had gone smoothly. There had then been a brief power surge (this at the electricity company’s conference) and he had lost the thread. In his panic he had dropped his cigarette and in the tiny smoke filled booth, and the constant spate of hand signals in the distance that I was trying unsuccessfully to adjust to, was in fact his attempt to open the top window to get some air in.
On return I naturally glossed over my abysmal contribution and waxed lyrical about the strong partnership I had forged with Spanish companies.
How many people reading this can say that they have fun every day at work, that they buy into the ethos of the organisation they work for, that their ideas are listened to no matter what their position in the hierarchy is, that every day brings real challenge, that more is expected of them in a positive way than they thought they could ever achieve, and that they work in a flat organisation with a vibrant and diverse workforce? Suddenly thirteen years had flown by and I, formerly a drifting, angry and energetic outsider, believed all those things about what had by stealth, undergone a metamorphosis, and become a career. It was perfectly clear to me that there was now only one course of action, and that was to retire as soon as possible while it was all going well.
15.
ROCK AND ROLL - BOSTON 1972
In any sphere of life it is rare to see someone just before they achieve indisputable legendary status. My abiding love of music was fully kick started in Ilkley. On a Sunday night there in March 1967 I saw Jimi Hendrix at the Troutbeck Hotel. Not only did I see him but we sat chatting for twenty minutes which was the first conversation I’d ever had with a black American.
Prior to this my first brush with live music was the memorable evening I snuck into the Leeds Mecca to see Edwin Starr when I was fifteen. We were so naive that we started cheering when a black guy came onstage who we assumed must be him. It turned out to be the drummer in Edwin Starr’s band who sang a few numbers to warm the crowd up.
At home we had a university student as a lodger. Fortuitously, he was not into music or drinking and so gave me his student union card on Saturday nights. This enabled me to get into gigs at Leeds University. I often tell people that I saw The Who at Leeds and they assume that it was when the famous ‘Live at Leeds’ was recorded. Sadly it was two months before that performance and I watched three members of the band mooch disconsolately around the stage waiting for Pete Townsend, who never showed, before sloping out and catching the bus home.
Cream regularly played at Leeds. On one occasion Ginger Baker pulled up in front of the queue by the Union building and scrunched his Rover to a halt on the gravel, before abandoning it and sauntering in. A flunkie appeared from nowhere to park it properly. The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band were unforgettably good there, which is why I would still travel miles to see Neil Innes.
Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band were touring at this time and I failed to get into three of their gigs. Owen Gray and the Groovies were the first reggae band I saw way before Bob Marley softened his sound for the white middle classes.
In 1967 though, nothing could compare to that night in Ilkley. I had gone with a friend of mine and his girlfriend and we drove from Leeds in my mother’s Morris Minor. The conservative and respectable Troutbeck Hotel, which exists today as a nursing home, rented out a downstairs room named the Gyro Club, which is where Hendrix played. He had only been in London a few weeks and their manager Chas Chandler had sent the band on a northern tour to hone their act. They got paid just sixty pounds for their Ilkley gig. We knew none of this at the time but had heard ‘Hey Joe’ on constant radio rotation for the last couple of weeks and would have walked to Ilkley to see him. The result was, having been booked as a complete unknown, two weeks of radio play had attracted a big crowd and there was quite a bit of ‘push and shove’ to get in.
The place was heaving and I do remember being slightly uneasy in the crush. On the plus side I was right at the front when Hendrix came on. I don’t remember them being introduced but the shock of seeing and hearing The Jimi Hendrix Experience was instant and memorable. It may not actually be a perfect memory because, on doing a little research on t’internet, some say the first number was ‘Killing Floor’ although I recall ‘Foxy Lady’. What I am crystal clear about, as I was stone cold sober having been unable to get to the bar in the crush and never having smoked a joint at this point of my life, is what happened during ‘Stone Free’ - his second number.
Already there was an atmosphere in the packed tiny club that, even now, is hard to explain. I knew I was experiencing something exotic and special and I knew that music had never affected me in the way this was doing. It was too loud and visceral to indulge in introspection but then suddenly it ended in mid song. The sound died and then a solitary policeman, still with his hat on, got up onto the stage.
“Boys and Girls” he began to hoots of derision which I joined in with, mainly because I was there illegally as a seventeen year old. Compounding his error he continued to say that the concert, as he called it, “would have to be abandoned for the safety of all involved”. What happened next has been described as a riot but was far from that. Somebody mentioned that the first out would be allowed back in until the fire limit numbers had been reached and then Hendrix would start again. That ridiculous rumour caused a stamped for the exits and as people rushed along the carpeted corridors pictures got knocked off walls and some damage done.
I had long since lost sight of my friends and was in a tight throng forcing their way along a corridor to the exits. Pushed against a half open door I was a thrown into a room which contained Jimi Hendrix, a couple of fans and, I think Noel Redding his bass player – although I would not have known his name at the time.
In March 1967 I had just resigned from my first proper, and terminally, boring job as an insurance clerk and now sitting three feet away and chatting with me was quite possibly the coolest human being on the planet. It would be lovely to report that there was an instant and empathetic bonding and that we went on to be lifelong friends, but although that didn’t happen it is worth repeating the only meaningful conversation I had with the world’s greatest guitar player.
Nervously I said “Are you going to play again later?” I do remember him smiling and politely replying “ Yeah man…we’re going to try and do two shows so everyone can get in”. That is, word for word, exactly what James Marshall Hendrix said to me on the 12th March 1967. How you might ask could I be so certain that those were his exact words, when I have a different view, as to his first number he played on stage, than others who were there. I am one hundred per cent certain because in my seventeen years and seven months of existence no one had ever called me ‘man’ and it felt great.
So great in fact that for the further fifteen minutes that I was in his presence I sat in awe filled silence and observed the small talk before he, and his
modest entourage, left. Self evidently there was never going to be another show and after milling around outside for a while, and reconnecting with my friends, we drove home secure in the knowledge that we were cool. Years later for my fortieth birthday a friend gave me a surprise present. It was a T-Shirt with the words ‘I saw Jimi Hendrix live in Ilkley’ on the front. On the back it said ‘Honest!’
Newspaper headlines reported it in the lingua franca of the day. The Yorkshire Post ran with ‘700 uproar at beat club as police stop the show’. It is always reassuring to see that the fourth estate were as cavalier with the facts then, as they are now. The Club held two hundred and fifty legally, and probably had in four to five hundred at the very most that evening - and I never saw more than one policeman. The Yorkshire Evening Post breathlessly reported ‘Fans of Jimi Hendrix, the American pop star who’s gimmick is to play the guitar with his teeth, last night caused a riot in an Ilkley hotel’. That was another plus for me when recounting the evening to friends. A riot was something that didn’t happen in Ilkley, and the fact that it never happened that night didn’t detract from the story. If the Yorkshire Evening Post said it was a riot then it was fine by me and I was proud to have played a part in it.
Woodstock was a different kettle of fish altogether. It was scarcely believable, after my seminal rock experience in Ilkley, to see the great man play the definitive version of the American national anthem at Woodstock. Tragically I was watching it on DVD forty years later but I was at the festival in 1969. Or to be strictly accurate I was on the outer reaches of the outer reaches of the farm grounds in upstate New York. In the days before video screens I might have well have been in Manhattan for all I could actually see or hear. If you have got this far you may recall my fabulous soccer skills thrilling crowds in the Catskills during the summer of sixty nine. That took place quite near to where Woodstock happened which actually was at a place called White Lake. Late in the day residents of Walkhill which was the planned venue, had wisely forced the promoters to go further afield which they did in every sense - to Max Yasgur’s farm.
