Better Late Than Never

by Len Goodman

  'Oh, no,' said Izzie. 'You either do them all or none at all.'

  It was that short and, as far as I was concerned, not very sweet.

  I phoned Gill McKenzie, the lady who then ran the British Championships, and told her about the BBC show and how I was hoping that it was going to be a real boost for our business. I explained that they were going to hold the second week's show in Blackpool and could I be excused from judging for the hour and a half that the BBC show was broadcast on Saturday night.

  'Well, a couple of hours at most, Gill, it's only just around the corner to the Tower Ballroom where they will be broadcasting from.'

  'Len, absolutely not.'

  I was stumped. I went to my closest friends in the ballroom business and explained my predicament. Typical of the replies I got was this fairly blunt assessment of my future from one friend. 'Listen, Len, if you turn down Blackpool you'll never be asked again. You'll be finished in the business.' To a man and woman, that's more or less what they all said.

  'Sue, what shall I do? Being asked to judge at Blackpool, although it's flattering, is of no intrinsic value financially other than the fee you get – which isn't a fortune. About all it does is flatter my ego.'

  'Len, I think you should do Strictly Come Dancing. But maybe you should phone the BBC and find out what they will do if you say you're not going to do their show.'

  So I phoned Izzie to ask her.

  'We will probably go with just three judges – Bruno, Arlene and Craig, who are all very good in their own fields, but not the most knowledgeable people in ballroom and Latin.'

  'Leave it with me, Izzie. I just need to make one more phone call.'

  I knew I had to bite the bullet and so I called Gill McKenzie again.

  'I am really stuck because you won't let me off judging on Saturday night, neither will the BBC release me. My only wish is to be able to further ballroom and Latin dancing. I think I can serve our interests better by judging the BBC's show than just being one of 11 judges at the Championships. You've got a pool of others that you can pick from who are equally knowledgeable, probably more so than I am. Would you please release me from my contract?'

  'I don't like it, Len, a contract is a contract.' I told her that in the past I had been asked to do a demonstration for Butlins at Barry Island in South Wales and a week later I was asked to go to South Africa for three weeks to judge, which was worth 50 times the money, but it never came into my head to cancel Butlins; my word's always been my bond.

  'I just think that it's so important for the whole dance world that this show is a success. I'm the only one the BBC has who really knows anything about ballroom and Latin.'

  After a bit more chat from me along the same lines Gill said, 'Okay, Len, I'll release you.'

  With that our conversation ended, not exactly abruptly, but far from warmly. I fully expected never to be asked again and to be blackballed by my profession. It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make in my professional life. To my surprise, and rather marvellously, after the third week of Strictly, I got a letter from Gill. Inside was a compliments slip on which all it said was: 'Len – good decision!' It was really a lovely thing to have received.

  Before all that, there was the little matter of the pilot-cum-dress run through on 24 April, the day before my sixtieth birthday – it must have been an omen. Not that I knew anything about it, but Sue had been busy arranging a surprise party at the Ivy in London for a few of my best friends and closest family. She had also organised a surprise match at my golf club for me and some of my mates. She had wanted to keep it a secret until the Saturday morning, but ended up telling me about it the night before because I was insisting on leaving around lunchtime to be sure to be at Television Centre in good time to film the pilot. She was adamant that there was no need to do that because a car was picking me up from the golf club to get me to the BBC in good time. At first I got a bit shirty about it all. Sue also told me she was taking me to the Ivy for my birthday, just the two of us. What I didn't know at the time was that Sue had called Izzie to see if the pilot could be rearranged for another day. She got the same answer as their original choice of judge: 'If Len doesn't do the pilot, then Len doesn't do the show.' Sue and Izzie had also spoken about getting me over to the Ivy; they agreed it would be tight but I would be all finished by 8 p.m. and a car could then rush me to the restaurant.

  I play golf at the London Club, which is in a little tiny village called Ash, not far from Brands Hatch in Kent. My birthday golf game was a real treat and we all had a great time. Sue had arranged prizes and when the golf finished at about half past two we sat out on the terrace, as it was a lovely spring afternoon. Champagne, sandwiches, all my mates laughing and joking, made it a very happy birthday. The BBC had arranged a car to pick me up at four o'clock; by 4.15 there was still no car.

  Half past four, still no car. I called Izzie.

  'It's going be touch and go for me to get to you by 5.30.'

  'It's okay, Len; if the driver gets there in the next few minutes we'll be fine as the programme is due to go up at 6.30 and that should still give you time to get sorted when you arrive.'

  'It will, but only if all the traffic lights are going our way.'

  Fifteen more minutes went by before Izzie phoned again.

  'Len, he can't find the golf club.'

  'What a right Herbert!' was what I started out saying, but I'll spare you the rest.

  Apparently his instructions said Ash near Sevenoaks, whereas the club is actually ten miles from the town, although it is in the borough of Sevenoaks. Apparently the bloke had been driving around Sevenoaks itself looking for the golf course. He finally got to Ash at 5.30. He was stressed beyond belief, I'm stressed even beyond that and I'm convinced my big break is going to end before it's even started. I jumped in the car and listened to ten minutes of an apology, while he was driving like a ruddy nutcase. We finally arrived at the BBC at ten to seven, the show having started without me, 10 minutes earlier.

  Imagine the scene. I'd never really done any television and I walked in – late – and there's Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly and everyone else. They whisked me on to the set and practically shoved me into my seat. No one had had time to give me any kind of brief and so I was blissfully unaware that there were no professional dancers involved in this pilot. I had no idea what to expect and when a young lad and girl come out who are supposed to be doing a foxtrot I couldn't believe it. As they finished Bruce said:

  'We'll go over to our head judge, Len Goodman.'

  No one had thought to tell me I'm the head judge: they had just decided I was – I guess it was because I'm the oldest.

  'Well, that was pretty good I thought, what do you think of that foxtrot, Len?' says Bruce.

  As usual I'm thinking of something positive to say. I was somewhere between totally confused and in total shock. I was even thinking, maybe this might become the disaster for dance that I had thought it could be. As usual I found something positive to say before giving them a bit of a roasting. Thankfully, while the next couple were dancing, someone came over to tell me that they are just people that work at the BBC; they must have seen the look on my face. I managed to muddle through and we finished at eight o'clock. Izzie and the Director wanted a ten-minute chat and so my leaving for the Ivy was put back. Fortunately, they told us that everything had gone off fine and they were happy with what we'd done on the pilot. Despite all the horrors of my getting to the studio and being late, they said I'd done really well, so at least that put my mind partially at rest. There was plenty to talk over with Sue during dinner was all I kept thinking.

  We finally left Wood Lane at 8.25 p.m. to drive over to the West End and as soon as I got in the car I called Sue to say I was going to be late. I was agitated, and upset, that she was having to sit there alone waiting for me, but I was also thinking why the Ivy? I'd been there many times, so for me it was no big deal. At the same time I was excited that the pilot had gone well and things had
worked out despite all the earlier dramas, but I couldn't help feeling more than a little frazzled.

  When I walked into the Ivy I said, 'Hello, my name is Len Goodman. I'm here to meet my partner, Sue.'

  'Oh yes, Mr Goodman, she's upstairs.'

  Now I knew that at one time there was a private dining room upstairs, but before I could put my brain into gear Fernando, the maître d', came over.

  'Hello, Len, we've turned the function room into a bar, so Sue's waiting for you up there.'

  I walked up the stairs and into the room where an absolutely marvellous scene confronted me. My closest friends and family were waiting to greet me; they were all slightly the worse for wear from having to wait for me to turn up. My friend Martin Ling, who's in advertising, was there and he'd done life-size posters of me, including bloody photos from when I was a baby. Besides Martin, there were 11 of my closest friends, my son and my step-mum, the only one of my older family that's still alive. We had a three-piece band – piano, bass and drums – and partied well into the night, singing and dancing. It was a brilliant party and one of the most wonderful nights of my life; the whole thing was just fantastic. The perfect finale to a slightly less than perfect day.

  Here I was, 60 years old and starting out on a whole new adventure. Sitting there surrounded by my friends and family, I suddenly thought about something my old dad used to say to me.

  'Work is only something you don't like doing.'

  Well, I've been blessed because I've had a job I love, one that I would have done even if I hadn't been paid.

  Chapter One

  Carry On Up the East End

  I was very nearly born in Wales. I was also almost born in Whitechapel, within the sound of Bow Bells, but ended up being born in Kent, which will probably come as a bit of a surprise to most people who assume from my accent that I'm a Londoner. Well, I might not have been born one, but I was certainly bred as one. My family were all typical East Enders from a London that was very different from today, although in many respects we were our very own soap opera. My family's world was a two-up and two-down, an overcrowded house, lots of love and laughter, but in the early years there was not a lot of money.

  Sixty years before the dress run for Strictly Come Dancing and my party at the Ivy, my family could scarcely have dreamed of what would end up happening to me; to them it would have been strictly unbelievable. Although they were Londoners they came from a world that was as far from the glitz and the glamour of television and the West End as is possible to imagine. And while both my mum's and dad's families had lived in London for generations, on Mum's side some of them came from a little further east.

  In wartime Britain most people had little or no time to think about what the future might hold; they were too busy getting by, concentrating on the day-to-day. My mother's thoughts, in particular, were on the practical issue of where she was going to have her baby. When she had a pre-natal check-up they found that I was upside down or back to front, I'm not sure which, but whatever it was I wasn't going to be an easy birth. The doctor told Mum that she should go to Swansea to have me. I know Swansea's even further from East London, but in early 1944 Dad and Mum were living in the little village of Felinfoel, about ten miles from RAF Pembrey, which is near Llanelli in South Wales. My father was not serving in the military, but he was an electrician working mostly at airfields, maintaining the lights and other electrical equipment. His was a reserved occupation, one that was considered vital in the war effort, which is why he hadn't been called up into the armed forces.

  When Mum arrived at the hospital in Swansea there were no beds available so they decided to send her to London by rail. While she was on the train her waters broke, and so I was very nearly born in a railway carriage. Just as Mum, with me inside her, was leaving Swansea the last major Luftwaffe air-raid on London took place. This was the tail end of what became known as the 'Baby Blitz', Hitler's final attempt to bomb Britain into submission. North-east London took the brunt of the bombing on that raid and I assume because of the fear of more raids, when Mum finally arrived at The London Hospital in Whitechapel it was decided that it was safer to send her to Kent, which is how come I ended up being born in Farnborough on 25 April 1944.

  Dad's name was Len Goodman and he was 30 when I was born. My mum's name was Louisa, although everyone called her Lou; she was three years older than my dad. Mum was an Eldridge before she married Dad in 1935. My father had somewhat appropriately met Mum at a dance. Mum was one of five brothers and sisters who were all born in Bethnal Green; not that it was that large a family for the time – my mum told me about her Aunt Emma who had 26 kids. Mum's sisters were Gladys and Ada and her brothers were my uncles, George and Albert. My great-grandfather was of Polish origin and his name was Sosnoski; the family came over to England some time in the early part of the nineteenth century. The only thing I really know about my great Granddad is what my nan told me.

  He got the sack from the water works

  for smoking his little cherry briar.

  The foreman said he'd have to go, Joe,

  cos he might set the water works on fire.

  His daughter, my nan, Louisa Sosnoski, married my grandfather, Albert Eldridge; he was a costermonger, which is what street traders dealing in fruit and vegetables used to be called. My granddad was a real-life 'barrow boy' and his stall was on Bethnal Green Road.

  Granddad Albert was a real character and taught me all sorts of things; he had all sorts of homespun philosophies giving him something of a unique take on life. One day, I must have been about 11 or so, he said to me:

  'Your money's like your willie – it only grows if you play with it.'

  For Granddad, playing with your money meant pawning his gold watch every Monday morning for a couple of quid. He would then go down to Spitalfields Market to buy whatever he could get. It was always cheap stuff – vegetables or it might be fruit that was not of the best quality – which he'd load on his barrow, a flat thing with two big wheels. They needed those barrows because all round Spitalfields Market there are cobbled streets and they were the only things that could be wheeled around easily. Once he got his barrow back home he'd sort through what he'd managed to buy. Then he'd take his barrow to his pitch in Bethnal Green market where it turned into his stall – his was one of over 200; for six days a week this was his routine.

  Come Saturday night he would give my nan the money he had made during the past week to keep the family fed in the coming week. He always kept a little back so he could go down the Beehive, his local, which was on the corner of Harold Street and the Old Roman Road. It was a proper working man's pub – a spit and sawdust – and Granddad never went anywhere else, nor did other people; you stuck to your 'local'. There would always be someone playing the old Joanna (piano) while men hung around the dartboard having a game. Almost everyone smoked, mostly roll-ups, so there was always a fug in the pub. Granddad always kept enough money back to go and get his gold watch from the pawnbrokers for Saturday night and Sunday. On Monday the whole routine would start all over again.

  Granddad would rope himself into his barrow, like a horse, and pull it the mile and a half up to Bethnal Green Road from Spitalfields. When I was about four or maybe five, just before I went to school, I would often go with him when he went buying his produce; it seemed like a real adventure to me. He would put me on top of the barrow before pulling us back to his pitch in the market. Every day on the way back from Spitalfields Granddad always stopped at a café called Pellicci's so he could have a cup of tea. It's still there: the café's interior is beautiful, and the marquetry dates from the early twentieth century – it's now a listed building; whenever I'm up that way I pop in for a coffee and to reminisce.

  One day a few years later, when I was about 12, Granddad bought a load of celery, which was verging on being rotten – costermongers called it 'melting', don't ask me why. The celery always stuck in my mind because I was given the job of cleaning it. First I had to put it into cold water to
'stiffen it up', then I'd clean it up by cutting off all the brown smelly leaves and then trim off any other rotten bits so we could sell it.

  Dad's family came from Walthamstow and his dad's name was James William Goodman. Because we lived with Mum's parents I was much closer to her side of the family and know much more about their family background. It's funny because it's only when you come to do something like this, or when you get older, that you start thinking about your own family history. I've managed to trace my father's family back as far as the early part of the nineteenth century when my great-great-grandfather David Goodman was born in Trowbridge in Wiltshire; ironically, given my love of shoes and dancing, he was a shoemaker. David had moved to Islington by the time my great-grandfather James was born. James married my great-grandmother Sarah in Bedford in 1880 and two years later they had a daughter in Aldershot and then my grandfather James William was born in, of all places, Stirling Castle in Scotland. Not that the family had suddenly shot up in the world, Great-granddad was a gunner in the Royal Artillery and they were based there for a while. By the time the twentieth century came around the family was back in London living in Clifton Buildings in Bethnal Green. Greatgrandad was an office messenger and my granddad was a telegraph messenger. Granddad James married Grandma Clara, who was a Spranton before their wedding.

  After the war ended Dad, Mum and me lived with her parents in their house in Harold Street, close to Bethnal Green tube station. Recently I found out that Barbara Windsor's grandfather also lived in Harold Street – it was a bit like 'Carry On Up The East End'. Bethnal Green's other claim to fame is that the Kray Twins lived and 'worked' there, but by the time they became infamous we had moved away. The house in Harold Street was a block end, beside a little alleyway that everybody called 'Tight Passage'. You went up this passage, at the side of our house, to our back entrance; unlike the other houses down our street ours had a back yard – although it very definitely wasn't a garden. Off the yard was a door that went straight into the kitchen. From the kitchen there was a room where they used to have the galvanised bath they placed in front of the fire. Once a week my granddad sat in it for his weekly wash. There was also a front room, which was only really used once or twice a week, and that's where the piano stood. The front room faced on to Harold Street; there was a front door that opened straight on to the street. From the hallway you went up the stairs to the three bedrooms. It was the poshest house in Harold Street – which isn't saying a lot.