Seize the Day (17 page)

‘She has lovely tomatoes.'

‘What?'

‘Lovely tomatoes … you know.' And again he rubbed in a circular motion.

‘Look old chap, that's a seriously bad USP.'

‘Eh?'

‘Not good … tomatoes not a great analogy.'

‘Bad?'

‘Wrong fruit old son. You want to go for something bigger … like melons.'

A commercial light dawned in his Acapulcan eyes.

‘Melons. I like! I try.'

And off he ran with a new plan and perhaps an eye on sponsorship, re-branding, or even a trademark. I hope the business model appreciated her new business model. I wonder how many tourists got at least two of their ‘five a day' in Acapulco. Like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley back in the resort's heyday in the '50s I hope I contributed something to its lifestyle.

As this chapter is headed ‘Travellin' Man', let me chuck in a few stats. The farthest west I've ventured is to Honolulu, where the visit
to Pearl Harbor was chilling but atmospheric. Following a screening of news footage from the turning point there in the mid-Pacific in December 1941, you take a hushed walk to stand over the hull of the USS
Arizona
, which lies in just a few feet of water. This is the tomb of more than 1,000 sailors and marines, one of whom appears on your admission ticket. In many ways, it's a living ship, inhabited by the ghosts of men, and one can witness oil from the wreck still seeping to the surface well over seventy years later. The most southerly point I've visited is Cape Town. At least I think it is. The decent thing about South Africa is the lack of jet lag, even after an eleven-hour flight, as there's never more than two hours' time difference. It's worth the journey, though, just for Robben Island, or Robbenelland, if you prefer to browse this section in Afrikaans, a cluster of penguins (
pikkewyne
) and some good shops on the Waterfront (
Waterfront
). I hope those translations helped a little for those not conversant with the local language. The northern and eastern extremes of my travels have already been firmly established elsewhere as the tip of Norway and the Gold Coast of Australia respectively, while the highest point would be 10,000 feet up in the Austrian Alps and the deepest on a submarine somewhere off the south-west coast of Britain.

W
HEN IT WAS
announced that the Saturday morning TV show
Multi-Coloured Swap Shop
was coming to an end, the BBC also let it be known that the format would continue, but with a slightly different look. I was among many who were interviewed in the show’s offices, with editor Chris Bellinger and his team scrutinising potential candidates to front the new programme. Post-interview, and not expecting too much in the face of stiff opposition, I was walking towards the heavily commissionaired entrance, across what was lovingly referred to as the ‘horseshoe car park’, when a somewhat breathless Chris caught up with me. ‘This is just hypothetical, but were we to offer you the job, would you be interested?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘OK. No decision has been made yet and we have more people to see, but I just thought I’d clarify your position.’

‘Oh yes, I understand.’

‘Right then, thanks for coming for a chat.’

‘No problem.’

He vaporised and I was left to ponder the brief encounter. Much the same as Radio One, I reasoned, they weren’t sure whether I was that keen. I had no idea that I came over as being that laid back.

My agent, the lovely Michael Cohen sent the message that the gig was mine while I was at St Paul’s Cathedral for a service to mark the BBC Diamond Jubilee. This celebration of sixty years of the BBC took place in July 1982 with Richard Baker and me being designated readers. As such, we had to follow Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, up the nave and peel off to our respective lecterns. I’d just come off a ship and was in the process of re-discovering my land legs, so I wasn’t entirely certain whether it was the magnitude of the occasion or the briny that made me a trifle unsteady in the ‘steering a straight course’ department. My lectern was some 6 feet in front of the Queen, Prince Philip and several other royals. Beyond them were the serried ranks of famous BBC faces that had graced our TVs and radios for decades, some since the inception of the BBC. This was a seriously historical day, but I would have enjoyed it a heck of a lot more had I not been so thankful to reach the seat by my lectern. Delighted that my sea-legs navigated the passage through the cathedral without giving me the appearance of being in a Popeye the Sailor talent contest, I was more than relieved to relax and sit down. There was only one small problem. Everyone else, including Her Majesty, was still standing. The Monarch’s eyes spoke volumes. I knew that look from my mother and needed no second bidding. I lurched to my feet, resisting the temptation to excuse myself by mouthing ‘I’ve just come off a ship’. In a previous era I might have been put straight back on another one. The service was broadcast around the world and was an amazing and awe-inspiring occasion, especially when your voice is sending sizeable chunks of the Bible echoing around Sir Christopher Wren’s cathedral and across the planet. It was an amazing coalescence and distillation of much that is quintessentially British: the Queen, St Paul’s, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the BBC.

Saturday Superstore
was live every Saturday morning from 9.00
until 12.15 or thereabouts and ran for five years, the main team including Sarah Greene, Keith Chegwin and John Craven. Our sports presenter was David Icke, former Teflon-gloved Coventry City and Hereford United goalkeeper and future Son of God. Maggie Philbin was there for my first year and Vicky Licorish joined later. Every few weeks I hindered Delia Smith in the food department, and assorted pop stars, veterinary surgeons, England captains, ice-skaters, MPs, magicians, astronauts, astronomers and gardeners trooped through the store to promote, plug, inspire, educate and entertain – the Reithian principle and beyond. It would take another tome to march through the five years of fun, but highlights, for the wrong reasons, would be along the lines of this exchange with the group Matt Bianco. One can imagine the excitement. Their first hit single, ‘Get Out of Your Lazy Bed’, their first live TV, and the second caller calls them a ‘bunch of wankers’ in front of ten million viewers. Another group, I can’t remember who exactly, asked one Scots caller where he was from. The reply, ‘Fuck off’, made their heads turn quizzically in my direction. ‘What did he say?’

‘I think he said Falkirk.’

As Chris Bellinger put it later, ‘a good try but we all heard what he said’. Similarly, I was almost at the end of an interview with the great Bobby Robson, who at the time was the England manager, when the final caller, a young lad, piped up, ‘My dad thinks you’re a prat.’ Unflustered and gentlemanly, Bobby smiled and replied, ‘That’s the way it goes in football, son.’

We had all three main party leaders on the show in the run-up to the 1987 election, one a week for three weeks, Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock and David Steel. Near the end of the programme with Steel, he glanced at his watch just before the final interview and asked me, ‘What time does this finish? I’m meant to be at a meeting at twelve.’

I pointed out that as the party leader he called the shots. ‘Tell them to wait.’

He re-assessed and concurred.

Kinnock went down the populist route, pointing up his membership and sometime presidency of the Chuck Berry and Gene Vincent fan clubs. For the Video Vote, where we all sat in a semi-circle, he asked me if he could sit next to Paul McCartney, ‘as we’re both bass players’, but Paul wasn’t keen to be seen as a political pawn.

Thatcher’s appearance is now legendary, for three reasons. First, a serving Prime Minister agreed to appear on a children’s TV show, and second, she gave her approval to the Thrashing Doves’ offering in the Video Vote, which simultaneously consigned their short career to the waste disposal unit and secured their place in the annals of music history. The third reason, and now the best-remembered of the PM’s moments on the show, was undoubtedly the part of the phone-in where the appropriately named Alison Standfast stood her ground against the Iron Lady. The woman who dominated Reagan and Gorbachev failed to eclipse Miss Standfast. With the determination of a Paxman and the doggedness of a Jack Russell she set out her stall with a series of questions that appeared to have the PM on the ropes. Neither John Craven nor I could have asked her how she could guarantee that there would not be a nuclear war, nor hector her about having a private bunker, but Alison persisted and found her way into the history books. She now, unsurprisingly, works in the legal profession.

What a fun show it was to present, often flying by the seat of your pants, never quite sure who was going to drop in or what was going to happen. I even sang with the odd artist, whether it was performing ‘Michael Row the Boat Ashore’ with Bananarama or bashing out ‘Only Sixteen’ with Dr Hook.

I confess to being a trifle sceptical when I was asked to participate in a TV series on regression in the mid-2000s. I was convinced neither of the validity of these ‘regressors’ nor of the sense in doing it. However, intrigue prevailed and one of the country’s leading exponents in the field, Lawrence Leyton, arrived with a camera crew. I’d already asked him the same daft questions that I expect every candidate asks him, especially what it feels like to ‘go under’. He said
that it was similar to driving a car over a familiar stretch of road and you don’t recall doing it. You go onto auto-pilot.

His first attempt at regressing me failed. Not Lawrence’s fault, but mine. He put me straight. ‘Imagine you’re going to sleep. At first you’re 100 per cent awake then 90 per cent awake and 10 per cent asleep. Soon it’s 50/50, until you’re more asleep than awake. Just relax and don’t think about it; if you do you’ll stay “awake”.’ He returned for a second crack at sending me back in his time machine. We started chatting and moments later I returned to the surface. I looked quizzical.

‘How long would you say we’ve been talking?’ he asked.

I had no idea. ‘Five minutes or so?’

The crew laughed merrily.

‘One hour and twenty minutes.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Seriously and you were in a cataleptic state. You were sitting in an uncomfortable position the whole time without moving.’

‘What happened?’

I had to wait to find out until they showed it in front of an audience at the Maidstone TV studios. I was in buoyant mood. The hard work was done. Now I could sit back, listen to whatever crazy stuff I’d said and have a laugh. Wrong. Within thirty seconds of starting to watch the playback I had tears running down my face. I had no idea why. I didn’t feel any emotion or any connection with the past. It came as a complete shock. They’d also sent a crew to film the area I was talking about and everything checked out. Now that was weird.

Here is what I came out with when under regression. I was George McPherson. I couldn’t remember much before the age of fifteen or sixteen when we local boys used to stage sporting contests between ourselves. The games normally made use of the multitude of stones that littered the terrain in and around the West Linton area. We’d see who could lift the heaviest, who could throw the same stone the furthest, either individually or in teams, who could hit a mark from different distances, or who could hit a stone tossed in the air with
a second missile. This was the way we passed our days, as well as learning skills with other more conventional weapons.

I talked of the kirk of St Andrew and the battle that had taken place. Lawrence Layton asked ‘What was the name of the battle, George?’ In regression I had no recollection of any of his questions nor any idea what the question meant. Of course you don’t come face to face with the enemy and shout, ‘I say, just for the record and in case anyone asks, what shall we call the battle? Any ideas, anyone?’ It turned out that it was the Battle of Rullion Green, a part of the Covenanter Wars, fought here in the Pentland Hills. The Pentland Rising occurred between 15 and 28 November 1666. We Covenanters were led by James Wallace of Auchens, while the Royalist leader was Tam Dalyell of the Binns. The unrest was due to a long-running government campaign to force the country into episcopalianism, the church in effect being run by a governing order of bishops. As with so many conflicts, there was a small spark that triggered a raging fire. It started in St John’s Town in Dalry. Troops beating an old man who had defaulted on a fine for not attending a government-approved church service were disarmed by a handful of Covenanters, supported by the locals.

Robert McClellan gathered men from Dalry and led them in a skirmish at Balmaclellan, where he enlisted more followers before heading to Dumfries and capturing a local commander, General Turner. The Covenanter Army then moved through Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and thence to Edinburgh to present their petition to Parliament.

Though we were much depleted through distance, foul weather and fear, our leader, James Wallace, held a parade and inspection of the ‘rebel forces’ as they called us, at Rullion Green. This is where I and several friends from my youth, although we were still young, joined their ranks. As the review was taking place, the Royalists burst through the hills and came upon us. There must have been some 3,000 of them, to just under 1,000 of us.

‘What do you remember of the battle, George?’

I didn’t miss a beat. ‘The swearing and the smell.’ An expert
confirmed that. To this day people pump themselves up for a fight by swearing, punching the air with foul words. Letting the enemy know they mean business. The smell too, was spot on. It seems many people become loose of bowel and bladder on a battlefield, through nerves, serious injury or death. So what did I remember? I didn’t recall a brothers-in-arms feeling. Not the fight for glory. Not the cause or a patriotic swell. I remembered the swearing and the smell.

‘What weapons did you use, George, a sword and shield?’

Nothing so neat and organised on the weaponry front. ‘A long knife and a short knife.’ We failed to win the day and we lost over fifty men, while they came out of it very lightly. Not content with victory, the Royalists tortured many of the survivors and treated us with calculating cruelty. Fifteen men, including Neilson of Corsock, were hanged, drawn and quartered. Several of the boys, even younger than us, were tortured first, being kicked repeatedly by heavy Army boots.

I had no idea of my physicality, size or colouring. I liked to think that I was Big George McPherson, wielding my blades in the thick of the battle, yelling, ‘To me, lads, to me.’ I may, however, have been Wee Georgie McPherson, wetting myself and scuttling for the shrubbery at the first sniff of the enemy.

‘You clearly survived the battle, George.’

‘Yes, but no one stood around waiting to be hanged. We dispersed and were pursued. I suppose some were luckier than others. The plan was to rout us all in the end, so someone suggested appropriating a boat and heading for Holland.’ I had no more information to give Lawrence, my regressor. It all went dark. He said in a gentle voice, ‘I don’t think you made that boat, George.’

The local historian whom the programme director consulted said that much of my story aligned with the actual history and that I should visit the area. I keep meaning to. Each November I promise myself that this will be the year. I’ll walk the battleground and see if anything feels familiar.

A less daunting show was
Through the Keyhole
. I managed to appear
as the keyholder on several occasions. There were probably two reasons for this: first, the programme was directed by Ian Bolt, who’d given me my first national TV series with
Pop Quest
; second, I moved house a couple of times. They seemed to like my houses because I didn’t go to great lengths to neutralise them or import books and objects to create an impression. There were also enough oddities about the place without going near the giveaways of the record collection, the jukeboxes or the tennis bags.

For some reason I had acquired an army of frogs. These amphibians arrived mainly by default. There was never any intent to hoard, collect, impound or colonise these slimy but loveable creatures, yet they infiltrated my home disguised as Christmas presents, birthday presents and dinner party gifts. Some just seemed to materialise. I swear there was some reproductory thing going on. I’m reliably informed by the anuran experts in my social circle that they get into a position known as ‘amplexus’. Whatever this position may be, and I’m told it’s pretty normal biological stuff, I can honestly say that I never encountered any amphibious shenanigans while patrolling the corridors. When Loyd Grossman arrived to probe into my personal possessions he seized upon the frogs with the creative hunger of Aristophanes looking for a new comedy. There were frogs reclining in soap dishes, frogs playing the guitar, frogs honking saxophones, frogs on lilypads, waste paper baskets in the shape of frogs, frog mirrors, frog vases … the list seemed endless and a tad embarrassing.