The velvet voice of Teddy Pendergrass filled my little car, and the melancholy lyrics hit home and hit hard as in that moment every word seemed to have been written just for Carolyn and me. I had lost a sweet love, a complete love and I was sure that I would never love that way again.
Tears began to well up and I had to pull my MG to a stop at the bottom of the hill and even as I did, Teddy reminded me of the good times that Carolyn and I used to share and of how sad and lonely I would be without her. It was all too much so I punched the eject button and the tape popped out of the player.
I sat there in silence with my head in my hands and I cried like a baby. Just what was I doing with my life? What was I thinking that I could let someone like Carolyn go in the wild hope that I might one day be a DJ?
Reality sank in as the song’s words continued to play through my head of the love I had just lost. I felt stupid, heartbroken and so alone.
GETAWAY
The summer of ’74 came to a crashing close on the evening of September 2 when a major gale swept down across the south of England from the North Sea. The dark, foreboding storm front was driven by category-nine winds which uprooted trees and whipped up massive waves that forced vessels to seek shelter from the Thames Estuary to Plymouth Sound. One boat that didn’t find safe harbor in time was the forty-four-foot Morning Cloud, the racing yacht owned by former prime minister Sir Edward Heath.
I awoke on the morning of September 3 to see Dad’s beloved lawn flooded and littered with debris from a shattered apple tree that was the first thing he had proudly planted in that garden a decade before. As wind-driven rain and hail hammered unrelentingly against the windows I turned on the radio to catch Noel Edmonds’s Breakfast Show and heard the news of the loss of the Morning Cloud and two of her crew.
The BBC newsreader explained that waves in excess of thirty-five feet had pounded the vessel and swept away the life raft. The five surviving members were said to be in poor condition, suffering from broken limbs, a punctured lung and hypothermia. He continued that the meteorological office advised that the storm would continue for a number of days and that all persons in the south and east of England were cautioned to stay inside and “make alternative plans.” It was that phrase that triggered something inside of me, alternative plans.
The summer had been fantastic, but now it was over. The long sunny days would become a fading memory and the tourists would flee the sleepy seaside resort that Ian Fleming had used as a disparaging comparison in a James Bond novel, saying “Miami is a lot like Torquay, a town where old people go to die.” Even those dying old people would stay inside the comparative safety of their warm homes as the English Riviera wound down and buttoned up for the long, harsh winter.
The amusement parks, tourist attractions and boat rides would not be the only things shuttered for the season. The quiet months ahead meant that the clubs would only open at weekends, narrowing the opportunity for my DJ gigs, and social gatherings would be limited to meeting up at the neighborhood pubs and chasing the same rosy-cheeked local girls that we had all already dated. It sounded like a waking nightmare to me.
Plus what would I do for work? My life had been non-stop since leaving Westminster College; teaching English to Scandinavian girls in the mornings—yes, I know there were guys in the class too, but they weren’t my focus—working as their lifeguard at Elberry Cove in the afternoons and DJing their dances at night. SIS paid me good money for my services and that job had fringe benefits beyond belief. But now what?
I was fortunate that my mother and father weren’t pressuring me. I’d just moved home three days before after my summer-rental arrangement had concluded and they were happy to have me back. Dad gently hinted that he could get me a job as a teacher starting in January. He knew it would be no problem finding a school to give me an entry-level position after my studies in Oxford and my degree from Westminster, but teaching still didn’t seem right for me. I wanted to travel, to meet new people and I was really starting to fall in love with music and being a DJ, but how could I make that combination all come together?
I thought radio might be the answer and had been cutting more demo cassettes of radio shows that I would make on the DJ equipment after the club closed. It was a laborious hit-or-miss process. You used three buttons to make a tape, PLAY, RECORD and PAUSE. If you screwed up you had to hit the dreaded fourth button, STOP, and begin all over again. It took many hours to put together an acceptable five-minute demo. However, my opinion of acceptable and the professionals’ opinions must have been very different because even though I sent out dozens of cassettes and somewhat exaggerated resumes of my DJing history to the BBC, London’s Capital Radio, 208 Radio Luxembourg and even the United Biscuits Network (UBN) I was not even getting one call or response. So what should I do? That’s when the letter arrived and my future was decided by a two kroner airmail stamp.
Tove Amundsen was a beautiful eighteen-year-old Norwegian girl that I had been seeing in July. Her family had sent her over to Torquay for a month with SIS to immerse her in the British culture and improve her already-excellent English.
We met on her second day in Devonshire at Elberry Cove, the beach where I worked for SIS as a lifeguard. She looked stunning in a snow-white bikini and already had a golden tan that accentuated her shoulder-length blond hair and aquamarine eyes. We hit it off instantly and the month blazed by with a series of passionate encounters. And now, five weeks later, I was holding a letter from Tove. She wrote that she had told her parents about me and that they would love for me to come over and visit. They had a house just outside of Oslo and I would be welcome to come and stay there anytime.
This was not the first invitation I’d received from the Scandinavian girls I’d dated over the previous summers. Most would ask me to come and visit them but I’d never taken any of them up on it, but now I was out of college, and with winter barreling in and nothing but time on my hands and boredom looming, maybe I just would . . . I raced upstairs to my bedroom and dragged out my box of letters and photos. Maybe, just maybe, I could put something together?
I flipped through the well-worn correspondence. Britt lived in Gothenburg, Sweden. She had been to Torquay two summers in a row and really wanted me to meet her family. There was a daily ferry from Newcastle to Gothenburg, so that would be a great place to start. Then there was Una. She lived in Jonkoping, which was halfway between Gothenburg and Stockholm. I could stop there for a few days and say hi before moving on.
Stockholm was where Inger lived and worked and she had asked me many times to stay with her in Sweden’s capital. From there I could head back west and up to Norway where I’d wrap up my visit to Scandinavia by spending a final week with Tove in Oslo before returning home and facing a dreary winter in England.
I immediately started writing letters asking the girls if it was okay with them and their families to come over, and outlining some possible dates. In my head I had it all worked out. The trip would have me visiting two countries and last about a month. In reality it would turn out to be more than a dozen countries and take over two years.
Replies came back from the girls in less than a week. All of them said, “Yes, please come and stay.” I had lucked out with my timing. Scandinavia was also sliding towards winter so the family holidays were done and the parents were back at work. I would be a welcome distraction from the encroaching nights and a chance for the entire family to practice their English with the genuine article.
My parents were a little apprehensive about me taking off to Scandinavia alone, but they knew there would be no stopping me. Instead Dad posed one question only, already knowing the answer. “How are you going to get around when you’re there?”
I held up my thumb. Dad nodded. “Okay, just be careful.”
The train journey on British Rail up to Newcastle was long and tiring but nothing compared with the forty-eight-hour crossing of the North Sea on the DFDS ferry. The old, diesel-burning vessel plowed slowly through one of the planet�
��s roughest bodies of water as if she were resigned to the battle ahead.
The entire ship shuddered as the huge waves threw themselves against her towering metal bow and you could have sworn that you could hear the rivets holding the rusty hull together coming loose, but after a moment’s hesitation the aging workhorse of a boat continued cutting through the swells on her way to our scheduled arrival in Gothenburg.
Britt and her parents were waiting for me in the disembarkation area at the ferry terminal. I only had a backpack with me so within minutes we were on our way to the suburbs of Gothenburg in the family’s Volvo. I wondered if it was a requirement of all Swedes to show their patriotism by driving the country’s biggest car brand.
For the next five days Britt showed me the sights of Gothenburg—or Goteborg as I called it after getting used to the Swedish pronunciation of that city. We went to Goteborg’s equivalent of Disneyland, Liseberg twice. I loved it. It was much bigger than any amusement park in Britain at the time and had some incredible rides.
But it was at night the fun really happened. After the family had gone to bed Britt would sneak into my room and we would try to keep our trysts as silent as possible. I’m not sure how successful we were because every morning over a breakfast of crispbread, muesli and goat’s milk I would see knowing winks and smiles between Britt’s mother and father. I could only admire the tolerant attitude that prevailed in Scandinavia towards sex. Whereas in England it was something that should not be talked of lest one would be thought to enjoy it, here it was embraced as both a natural and very welcome part of life.
It was time to move on from Goteborg to Jonkoping. It was a straight shot across Sweden and barely one hundred miles. Britt’s parents offered to drive me but I didn’t want to push their boundaries too much. I wasn’t sure how well they would take the fact that I was leaving their daughter to go and stay with another girl. Instead they dropped me on the main highway outside of town; I hugged them and Britt goodbye and claimed a prime position by the on-ramp to the busy road.
I was no stranger to hitch-hiking. Two summers before I’d “hitched” across Europe with my childhood friend Mike Frost, and we’d always had great success. I’d learned a trick that served me well. Virtually all Europeans learn English from a young age in school and many love to practice it whenever possible. So I had sown a large Union Jack onto my backpack to advertise the fact I was from Britain and positioned the bag so that the drivers couldn’t miss seeing the flag. I held up a handwritten sign that said “Jonkoping” and stuck my thumb out; ten minutes later I was speeding eastbound along Highway 40 giving a free conversational-English lesson to an enthusiastic Swedish motorist.
Una was thrilled to have me at her family’s farm on the banks of Lake Vattern. Even though it was late September, that first afternoon still clung desperately to the sun’s remaining warmth and we went canoeing on the lake. It was gorgeous; the calm waters sparkled before us and dragonflies buzzed low across the bow of our canoe. Una paddled us to a tree-lined inlet and we rekindled our relationship.
Her parents had been anticipating my visit and had prepared a magnificent feast fit for a family of Vikings that night. As we sat by their open fireplace enjoying that sleepy feeling of fullness Una’s father looked at me and asked, “Would you like to make some money while you are here?”
I said sure and asked how.
Una’s family farm was big—massive by my small-town standards—and required a lot of maintenance. There was one area in particular that needed help, an orchard grove that had been hit by a blight that had killed all the trees and now they needed to be removed before the contagion spread further. Would I like to work as a . . . He struggled for the English word and could only say it in Swedish. . . . timmerhuggare? Una looked at me and laughed.
“Do you mean lumberjack?” I asked.
Apparently that was the plan, and the next day Una’s father equipped me with a jacket, gloves and goggles and after a quick lesson on how to use a chain saw, let me loose on 400 dead fruit trees on two acres of land. I earned 600 Swedish krone (about sixty-six dollars) and two calluses!
Stockholm and Inger were fun. I actually saw very little of her during the afternoons and evenings as she worked as a typesetter for a big Swedish newspaper and had to make sure the articles and photos were ready to go to press each night in time for morning delivery.
Instead I explored the nation’s capital by myself and was stunned at how the city was built over and around water on multiple islands. In many areas it was more common to take a ferry than to take a bus.
And water is an inescapable part of Stockholm’s history; my favorite place to go became the Wasavarvet, a shipyard dedicated to a mighty Swedish warship, The Vasa, which, to the complete embarrassment of King Gustav, capsized and sank in the harbor as she was leaving on her maiden voyage in 1628.
The days flew by in Stockholm and soon it was time to say adjo - goodbye. I was off to my final destination, Oslo, Norway, for a six-day trip that would change my life forever.
SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED
Tove’s family lived on Nesodden, a large peninsula in the Oslo fjord that was a short ferry ride from the city. My first two days were quiet and her parents weren’t quite as welcoming to me. It turned out that Tove had a serious boyfriend who was away at university in Stavanger. Tove felt that at this point we should be “just friends.”
I was surprised because it was she who had instigated my entire trip. She apologized and told me that during her time in Torquay I was her summer fling and she apologized for it, calling me a “holiday boy.” It boggled my mind to have it presented that way. I’d thought of myself as the one doing the chasing but here was this gorgeous girl saying that it was she who was actually in control of the relationship and how it had played out the entire time. The shoe was definitely on the other foot and here was a girl proud to own her independence and sexuality.
As for my visit, Tove said she had gotten to really like me and thought it would be fun for me to come and see Norway. On my third day in tiny Nesodden Tove sensed my boredom and suggested that we explore Oslo and maybe go to a club that night before catching the last boat home. Hitting a disco in Norway’s capital? I was in for that!
Our first stop was the spectacular Holmenkollen ski jump which had towered over the city like a colossus for more than a century and had been home to many major skiing events including the 1952 Winter Olympics. Then it was on to Sofienberg Park where we walked through the trees then hung out with students and drank coffee and talked about the latest movies like Blazing Saddles and Towering Inferno. It was already dark when we headed back to the city center and saw the line to get into Key House Disco.
The club had just opened its doors thirty minutes before but already it was three-quarters full. To get inside you had to first pass an intimidating bouncer from Yugoslavia who looked like he had exhausted the supply of people to beat up in his own country so he’d moved to Norway in search of new victims.
After that it was up a steep flight of stairs which led you straight into the main dance floor. But that was not the only room; Key House had three different areas for dancing and drinking. The décor was decidedly psychedelic with posters of rainbows and kaleidoscopes pinned to the fifties-style velvet patterned wallpaper that was pasted everywhere.
Despite the club’s retro appearance the music was bang up to date and I recognized all of the songs that were playing, Johnny Bristol’s “Hang On in There, Baby,” Eddie Kendricks’s “Boogie Down” and Rufus’s “Tell Me Something Good,” but I was a little disappointed as they were all on a tape from some prerecorded cassette.
I asked Tove if they had a DJ and she smiled, “Oh yes, they are famous for their disc jockeys!”
Even as she spoke a DJ entered the booth and pulled a couple of records from the built-in wooden bins behind him. I watched as he cued up his first songs. He looked good. He had long dark hair, a drooping mustache that a porn star would have envied and a bright shir
t that stood out in the dim light of the club.
He turned to the crowd and picked up a microphone. “Good evening everybody and welcome to Key House. I’m Bobbie Junior and if you are ready to dance here’s Barry White!”
Boom, “You’re My First, My Last, My Everything” blasted out of the PA and the young crowd raced onto the dance floor. I was stunned. I stared at Bobbie Junior trying to understand what I had just heard then turned to Tove to make sure.
“He’s English?” I asked.
Tove nodded. “All the DJs in Oslo are from England, and the best ones work here.”
She took me into the other dance room and sure enough another Brit, John Warner, was packing the floor in there.
I watched John and Bobbie work the crowd for about an hour before I said hi. I made my way to the DJ booth and waited. Bobbie Junior saw me, stepped over and bent down from the suspended booth.
“Got a request?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “I’m from England. I’m a DJ too. I like your music.”
Bobbie smiled. “That’s cool, man. You should meet the boss.”
Bobbie called one of the bouncers over and asked him to take me to Anders, the owner of the club. He led me to an office in the back, knocked on the door and let me inside.
Anders was tall and skinny with cropped hair. He asked me about my DJ experience and explained that Key House was open seven nights a week with three separate rooms and DJs that rotated during the month. He needed at least one more disc jockey on staff to work into the schedule. Would I be interested in trying out? I didn’t have to think about it.
“Sure” I said.
World in My Eyes: The Autobiography Page 7
