Read Seize the Day

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-84954-812-0
Verlag: Biteback Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten

A fascinating romp through the life of a broadcasting legend, Mike Read's autobiography offers an exciting insight into his three decades in showbiz. From ventures in radio, television and music, to tales of sport, romance and the royals, Mike writes with candour and humour in equal measure, including tangential stories of famous friends, near-death experiences and extraordinary happenings along the way. Recounting his stints as a Radio One DJ on the Breakfast Show, a prime-time television presenter on Pop Quiz, a co-founder of The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and a jungle star on I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!, this high-energy journey encapsulates all aspects of the celebrity's vast and varied career. Mike has seized every opportunity, whether in pop, poetry or politics, and continues to entertain audiences as a presenter on several major national radio networks. A story packed with scintillating anecdotes, witty observations, and nostalgic recollections, this is an autobiography that hits all the right notes.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Read, Mike

Leseproben

CHAPTER 2

PASS THE DUCHY

I WAS ON MY way to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The station’s managing director, Alan Keen, wrote to me confirming the basic salary of 53,403 Luxembourg francs, which I seem to recall was about £11,200, explaining that there would be additional payments and of course gigs back in Britain.

The other new boy, Rob Jones from Radio City, and I were thrust into the limelight overnight. Radio Luxembourg was still a big deal then, so we received a lot of media attention, even appearing on the front of , by which time my Shirley Temple curls had thankfully settled into a more acceptable mini Jimi Hendrix. A flurry of telex messages between Neil ffrench Blake and Alan Keen established that I would join my new station on 4 December 1977 and that Alan agreed to buy NffB ‘several drinks’ in, for some reason best known to themselves, Jersey. Possibly because the gin was duty free. Gin was NffB’s tipple, usually out of a plastic cup. That’s style … or, more likely, polystyrene.

A theme that was to repeat itself with the run-up to the Australian adventure of 2004 began at the end of 1977. Knowing that I would have to commute to and from Luxembourg, I convinced myself that I would be able to make every journey by boat and train. Unfortunately everyone else remained unconvinced, while I continued to fool myself right up to the last minute. Rather bizarrely I even contrived to be late for the flight so that I’d to go by boat, an off-the-wall notion that could only be conceived in the mind of someone who didn’t like flying. Somehow I hadn’t allowed myself to realise that there’d always be a ‘next plane’, however many I missed. I was aghast to learn that my winged chariot was still on the tarmac and that if I hurried I could still make it. I must confess that Olympic anti-hero Eric the Eel could have swum it faster with house bricks tied to his feet and a full suitcase in each hand, yet still I was thwarted in my attempt to miss the flight and found myself being welcomed on board by a smiling, or was it gloating, stewardess, as they were called then. As I staggered blindly towards the blunt end trying to find the back door I was hauled into a spare seat by a familiar face. Well, the face didn’t do the hauling, but you get the gist. I couldn’t say ‘familiar hands’ as I wouldn’t have known the hands from Adam’s, although on reflection Adam’s probably had a film of sandy loam under his fingernails. As a dedicated non-flyer I mused that if the flight came to grief, I could actually be enjoying a one-to-one with Adam, about the Garden of Eden fruit cages and autumnal crop, within the next couple of hours. Provided, that was, that paradise didn’t have a boring holding area like Heathrow or Gatwick, with those passing over banking up, due to an industrial crisis. The ‘hauling’ chap was actually Big Norm, a radio lover and great supporter of 210, especially Read and Wright. Norm, when not listening to the radio and passing on his well-informed and incisive thoughts, worked as an air traffic controller at Heathrow and had not only organised to be on the flight to hold my hand, but also managed to hold up the plane by devious means known only to air traffic controllers.

It proved to be not quite as bad as I’d imagined, although I avoided looking out of the window and rather pointlessly gripped the seat in front. Before long I’d be an old hand, hopping on and off planes two or three times a week, often disembarking with a goodie bag of leftover milk, sandwiches and cake, purloined for me by a stewardess. A similar theory, one imagines, as the one where folk put butter on a cat’s paws to make it feel at home.

I was met at the Duchy’s airport by the gravel-throated former pirate radio hero ‘Baby’ Bob Stewart. Not sure whether to call him ‘Baby’, ‘Bob’, or ‘Baby Bob’, I took one look at him and decided to navigate around all of them. He looked mean, and in his deep American tones informed me that everybody got hit by a regular dose of the local disease, the ‘Luxembourg blues’, and that it was bound to happen to me. Sooner rather than later, it seemed. This wasn’t exactly the happy-go-lucky Luxy atmosphere that I’d imagined, as Bob ploughed on, asking if I swore. I bleated out something pathetic along the lines of ‘Well maybe, if I’m extremely peeved, I might say “rats” sometimes, but on the whole I keep a fairly clean sheet, except in the excusable circumstances of traffic warden confrontation.’

‘Everybody fucking swears here, sunshine, so you’d better fucking well get used to it.’

‘Sure, Bob. Well, in that case, “fuck”. Will that do?’

As he fell into what I ascertained to be a slightly aggressive silence, I changed the subject. A spot of pandering should do the trick. ‘So when did you first bring that great, rich, deep brown voice over from the States?’

‘I’ve never been to the States in my life, sunshine.’

The words ‘so how come the American accent?’ failed to materialise into actual sound, which was probably just as well. Maybe he noted my puzzled look as he took me back to his apartment, where he ‘cooked’ me a plate of hash browns that were still frozen in the middle when he served them up. I said nothing. Well, I might have said ‘Mmm’, or ‘Yummy’, but nothing derogatory, as I crunched on the unappetising centre of this haute cuisine and watched him train his binoculars on the middle distance. I would later discover that he was watching a girl with whom he was obsessed, but at that moment felt it prudent not to be too inquisitive.

The Villa Louvigny, which housed not only the English but also the French and German services, was situated in the middle of a charming park. Well, it held a certain appeal for the connoisseur of run-of-the-mill continental shrubs by day, but by night it had a distinctly different feel. To avoid marauding men (not always dressed as men) asking if I had a light for their Gauloise I strode through as fast as possible with an unconvincingly butch gait. I was no Eric the Eel in instance, as I swerved past moderately hung exhibitionists flaunting their wedding tackle for passers-by to admire and deftly sold dummies to chaps who wanted to be my new best friend for ten minutes. I could be doing some of these blokes a disservice. Maybe they only wanted to learn about Britain’s foreign policy or slide me a request for their girl back home in Wasserbilligerbrück, but somehow I doubt it. I had my finger on the pulse all right … but only on my own pulse. I was also strongly advised not to attempt to make idle conversation with girls in the local clubs. From that, I wrongly deduced that the Luxembourgers were be a prudish nation and that a stranger may well be clapped in irons for such an outrageous offence, but it turned out to be more of a warning, as most of the girls were blokes. Yes, it was a hotbed for transsexuals and cross-dressers, a far cry from Radio 210, which was all Transit vans, transitory disc jockeys and cross bosses. The clubs played a mixture of Euro disco and the more popular face of punk, the latter regularly allowing me to pogo away the hours until I was due on air. Lest it be misconstrued and people imagine that I’m a loose-limbed one-man dance machine, I have to come clean and admit that pogoing, if that’s how you spell it, is my dance. From a tender age I’d had lessons in tap, tango, waltz, quickstep and countless other forms of ballroom torture, but had proved a dismal failure through a lack of ability and the total absence of any enthusiasm. Pogoing (the word still looks strange written down) was undoubtedly my forte so I’ll always be grateful to whichever punk invented it, presumably one whose parents refused to buy him a pogo stick when he was a kid but he still wanted to act like his mates whose parents were pro-pogo. Anyway, this great, unnamed inventor allowed me to behave like Zebedee from and still look cool … well, cool-ish. Maybe that should be foolish.

Former Radio One DJ Stuart Henry was also part of the team. His slow delivery led many listeners to believe that he’d been flirting with his substances of choice on a nightly basis. In fact Stuart had multiple sclerosis, but bore it stoically and with great humour. Despite his problems, he and his wife Ollie were always inviting people round and on more than one occasion I had to help Stuart up off the floor. ‘Excuse me, darling [don’t read anything into that, that was Stuart’s style], I appear to have fallen over and I can’t get up again. Not a good thing for a grown man. Can you help me?’ He asked for no special treatment, which is why I played the same tricks on him that I played on the other guys (well, apart from Bob as he was a bit scary.)

When I was on after Stuart, I’d sometimes find the studio empty and guess he’d shuffled off down the corridor to the loo, as his condition increased incontinence. He’d have to make sure there was a long song playing to give him enough time, and the studio door would be ajar. I would wait until I heard him coming back down the corridor and slowly turn the volume down as if the record was fading. I’d hear the shuffling increase in intensity and the muttering of unrepeatable oaths that could only be made by a true Scotsman as he attempted to hurry to the studio. Rounding the door breathlessly the realisation would dawn on him. ‘You bastard,’ was his usual line.

The incontinence was an unfortunate side effect of Stuart’s condition, so much so that once when we were driving down one of the main shopping...