I don’t go down to the cemetery at all these days unless I happen to be passing. In which case I’ll take flowers. The beauty of her headstone is that it’s located on the main thoroughfare through the graveyard. So if I’m pushed for time I can open my passenger-side window and throw the flowers out without stopping. That might sound crass, but in many ways it’s a tribute to Mum because she was a real stickler for punctuality. Not that the flowers always land in the right place. Quite often they end up on the grave of Dan ‘loving father and loyal husband’ Faversham. Occasionally other mourners will see this happening and frown. I can only assume they think I’m a predatory gay with a fetish for the dead. And I know that would have made Mum chuckle.
209 Press play on Track 38.
210 The first one I ever went to was that of my dog, Barney the dog. He lost his life at the hands of an ice-cream van. I decided to bury him in the back garden but it had been a very hot July and the earth was rock-hard. I managed to dig a hole big enough for his head but then had to give up. It looked like he was digging for a bone; a bone that, sadly, he would never get to chew on.
211 Always M&S, unless finances were tight. In which case, I’d cut the budget and send her to Next.
212 A Phoenix Stainless Steel 4 Burner. It’s actually a lovely bit of kit. And with a cooking surface of 70cm x 45cm it allows the adventurous host to try his hand at any type of food. Play it safe with sausages, or become the talk of the town with a delicious spatchcocked chicken? The choice is yours.
213 I never actually called him Poppa but it just looks cool on the page.
214 Seriously, let me know because I can easily turn round a mis-lit book: – e.g., 1968: Summer of Hate (For Me) or Locked in the Larder.
215 But she was fat in a nice way. She wouldn’t have looked out of place on a packet of Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire Puds.
216 Hell.
Chapter 30
Classic House
BEFORE CHANNEL 4’S INSUFFERABLE Grand Designs programme, few people realised that it was possible or legal to build your own home. Apart from me. My project was in the works a full six months before the first transmission of the show, and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.
Unlike the deeply unpleasant couples who appear on Grand Designs, I wanted to create the perfect home rather than an art installation with a built-in toilet. So, working with a team of expensive architects, I asked them to duplicate exactly the design used by Redrow homes, with a soupcon of Barrett thrown in around the porch area. Imagine Henry 8th had commissioned, nay ordered, Redrow and Barrett to create a modern 21st-century house for a pre-renaissance fat king using the efficiencies of modern techniques combined with a Tudor brick quality (a sort of Hampton Court fit for a Norfolk Conservative), that’s the effect I was going for.217
I could sense the architects were disappointed not to be able to flex their creative mind muscles, but Redrow and Barrett are experts in creating homes. Architects aren’t.
Besides, as with advertising agencies, it’s hard to think of architects as genuinely creative people when the best company names they can muster are a list of the owners’ surnames: Beeden Allison Lyons or Humpleton Goggins & Fox. Or Tithe St John Crooks. Or Cannock Jones Scilly Andrews Haynes. Or Peterson Johnson Magnusson Hanson. Or Dennis Dennis & Dennis. Or Grigson Smith Oliver. Or Barrow McGuigan Bounder. Or Hiscox Greengrass Mitchell and Matthews. I could go on but I won’t! If advertisers/architects were even a fraction as clever as they think they are (Swinson Shaw Lancashire – that would be another example), they’d call themselves Rock Steady (architects) or Pizzazz (advertising). The fact that they don’t proves that they’re either vain or thick.
They could (should) have taken a leaf out of my book. Long before the design was finished, I’d brained out a list of potential names for the property.
COLEMAN HOUSE
ATLANTIS
ACE HOUSE
ALAN HOUSE
THE COTTAGE
THE OLD RECTORY
BARN COTTAGE
FOLLYFOOT
STEED MANOR
LORD HOUSE
ROCKFORD HOUSE
FLAMBARDS
BRIDESHEAD HOUSE
THE SKIRMISHES
APACHE
TOMAHAWK
SCEPTRE HOUSE
THE CINNAMONS (it’s just a lovely ingredient)
CLASSIC HOUSE
THE CLASSICS
MANOR HOUSE
BENTLEY HOUSE
LARGE COTTAGE
That kind of thing. No, I was happy for my architects to mimic the Redrow boys wholesale, then I paid them handsomely and the building work began. But where to live in the meantime?
The Linton Travel Tavern had made it abundantly clear that I was welcome back at any time, but knowing that builders are often ex-offenders, I thought it best to stay on site where I could better observe/befriend/monitor them.
I would be staying in a static caravan (see picture section) – a 10-footer from the yet-to-be-bettered Delta range. I was comfortable with this (I’d be living in it for three years anyway, parked up in the garden of a kindly farmer.)218
It’s funny – when you move from a hotel or detached house into a 10-foot static home, people are quick to assume you’re down on your luck financially.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. After all, for some time Jimmy Savile lived in a caravan and absolutely insists it was a lifestyle choice. Scruffy crooner David Essex also lived in one.219
My reasons had nothing to do with money. Caravanning had long been an ambition of mine. It gave me the opportunity to live out the holiday I’d always been denied in my harrowing childhood – minus the swingball. At the same time, I hoped it would give me a chink of insight into the mind-set of the travelling community, so that I might come to understand how they could even consider dumping a binbag full of used nappies in the ginnel next to someone’s house.220
No, I was doing pretty fine, thanks. I was approaching my 200th episode of Skirmish and had learnt all there is to know about military strategy. I don’t think it was in any way arrogant of me to offer my services as a consultant to the Ministry of Defence. (I revoked the offer when I realised it might mean travelling to London or Aldershot, but I’m confident they’d have literally bitten my hand off.)
At the same time, my other business interests were blossoming like the small flowers that grow on trees each spring. Peartree Productions had been a great success, having achieved everything it had set out to. And so, with its mission accomplished, it was placed into liquidation.
Instead, my efforts were focused on a new and exciting venture. The Apache Group of Companies® was aimed squarely at the canny businessman, a one-stop shop providing everything a business might need. Comprising six distinct brands – Apache Communications, Apache Productions, Apache Office Supplies,221 Apache Media Training, Apache Risk Management (‘Trust No One’) and Apache Military Strategy – it was a welcome revenue stream that complemented Brand Partridge beautifully.
It was a tri-headquartered concern, with my business activities based out of the static home, the property-under-construction and Choristers Country Club.
Now a leading light in the local business community, I had taken membership of Choristers to provide some much-needed respite from the hustle and bustle and fustle of Norfolk life. As a haven for businessmen, Choristers was quite unique – with the Norwich club only complemented by the one in Bristol, another in the Roman town of Chester and one at Stansted airport.
Much like a masonic lodge, it provided a meeting point where the region’s most important people could get together, share ideas and do each other clandestine favours. Unlike a masonic lodge, there was no snobbishness towards celebrity broadcasters. Nor was there any suggestion that members must sacrifice livestock and daub themselves in its blood while chanting. I liked it there very much, and enjoyed offering suggestions to the management as to how the staff could improve. (I’m still a member to this day. After several ye
ars of lobbying, I have managed to ban children entirely. There is now a heated outhouse for children with a light and running water.)
The Apache Group of Companies® had its fair share of work – some people think it didn’t but they’re wrong because it did. Trust me, Apache Productions made quite the name for itself and found a niche satisfying the easy-to-satisfy corporate market – whose idea of entertainment is generally limited to a Dilbert cartoon or the use of Comic Sans font in an otherwise serious PowerPoint presentation.
I did well out of it – my versatility and willingness to leave my principles at the door (for the right price) making me an attractive proposition for even the most toxic brands.
The only time I faced a slight moral twinge was when asked to give a motivational-presentation-plus-rock-music to a well-known cigarette brand. Tobacco was a sensitive subject area because I knew my assistant’s racist mother had just died of lung cancer. Upset an employee for money or upset a lucrative paymaster? You can see the bind I was in!
I eventually agreed to do it. Even the most ardent do-gooder would agree that the £5,000 fee on offer made my assistant’s feelings pretty inconsequential. Sometimes in business you have to be hard-headed.222
And the presentation? It went well, thanks. Ever the pro, I always made sure I gave the client exactly what they wanted.223
And so it was that later that week, I walked out in front an audience of 400 tipsy sales execs … wearing a gas mask!
After the 15-second blast of intro music224 stopped, I began: ‘I once had a teacher who smoked,’ I said. ‘Smoked his whole life, didn’t miss a day’s work. He died at 36! Ha ha.’
I was paid in full.
Like my now-completed home (I opted for the name Classic House), the Partridge that saw in the third millennium post-Christ was strong, impressive and had fully working plumbing. Yes, this was a good time for me. A very good time. People noticed that this incarnation was good. And they liked it.
That – the liking of other people towards myself – found itself manifested with all the clarity this sentence has in manifesting itself in front of yourself as you currently read.
For one thing, I was promoted to Radio Norwich’s glamour slot, Norfolk Nights. It really didn’t get better than that.
According to listener figures, it was only the third most popular slot on the station. But that’s statistics for you. You can make statistics say anything. ‘Statistics’225 say that 80% of women under the age of 30 are either indifferent to, or actively dislike, my current show Mid-Morning Matters. That doesn’t make it true!
My show came directly before the graveyard226 slot of Dave Clifton. Despite our differences, I took no pleasure in having a much better slot than Dave. I mean, I enjoyed helping him out because – and he’d surely be the very, very first to admit this – he needed all the help he could get. Dave was drinking a hell of a lot by now and no amount of Polo mints could mask that. I’d like to say it wasn’t affecting his broadcasting but that would be fraud. Dave wasn’t able to muster anything like the energy needed to carry a three-hour late night show, so I’d have to generate enough energy and momentum in the final hour of Norfolk Nights to carry the listener to the bitter end227 of Dave’s show.
It’s similar to the slingshot technique used to propel the Galileo probe out into the solar system. They basically razzed it round the sun a few times to get its speed up and then they used that momentum to hurl it into deep space. That was what I did to my listeners in the final hour of my show, before pelting them into the atmosphere-free void of Dave’s slot.
We’ve never spoken about it but I was doing him a massive favour. Still, I was happy to do it every night of the week for Dave because he was – and is – in a very bad place. (If I thought Dave minded me saying any of this, of course I’d not have committed it to print. I wouldn’t dream of upsetting the guy, because I know he has a bit of a temper, although it’s mainly directed towards women.)
In terms of making me feel good, this gave me a metaphorical ‘hand-job’.228 As did (less metaphorically) the new love in my life, Sonja, then 33.229
Yes, on top of a luxury abode, a successful business empire, a burgeoning television and radio career and membership of Choristers, I also had a girlfriend who was significantly younger than me. Fourteen years younger.
Sonja was responsible for awakening my dormant libido – and making it do press-ups! It had been a-slumber for a while. Apart from a truly distasteful dalliance with a menopausal member of staff years earlier,230 my sex life post-Carol had been as threadbare as the gusset of my ‘Number One Dad’ novelty briefs.
But Sonja changed all that – and how! I’ve heard of the phrase ‘a healthy sex life’ but this was ridiculous. I don’t know if it’s possible to be too healthy – Lance Armstrong maybe? – but that’s what our sex life was.
Within reason, I loved every minute of my time with Sonja. She was introduced to me by Pete Gabitas, MD of BlueBarn Media. Sadly no longer with us, Pete had been a confidant, friend and lender of production facilities for over a decade.
Pete had a stunning Ukrainian girlfriend, a decade his junior, and arranged similar girlfriends for six or seven of us. Mine was probably the second best.231
Lithe, smooth-skinned and so youthful I’d started pubing before she was even born, I couldn’t help but notice that she was a svelte, effortless size eight. In other words, she’d achieved through genetics and poverty the exact body shape that Carol had been fruitlessly striving for since she was 20. Just a thought!
And right from the off, it was an exciting time. I think I’ve mentioned what a lot of sex we had? Ever the joker, she bought a window sticker that said, ‘If the caravan’s rocking, don’t come knocking!’ And I made my own one that said, ‘If it looks like we’re having sexual intercourse in here, please respect our privacy!’
I was in two minds about whether to include intimate details of my sex life in this book, but I read a pamphlet in a dentist’s waiting room which said that it was healthy and important to speak openly about sexual issues, so I will. If Carol is reading, that’s her lookout.
Sex with Carol was all very sedate. It was effective – at least two of our copulations resulted in children – but sedate.
With Sonja, it was much more spontaneous. What I like to call smash and grab sex. Or a ram raid!! Sonja delighted in the spontaneity of our sexual salad days and relished my playfulness.
Using the full area of the caravan, I liked to pretend to be a KGB agent. But as a Ukrainian who had spent half of her life as part of the Eastern bloc, she’d rather pretend to be an East German gypsy, so I’d be the Stasi. I’d ask to see her papers before mounting her from behind over the twin hobs that were concealed beneath a work surface. She’d pretend to be confused and … I think you get the idea, gents. At that point we must draw down a veil.
Suffice to say it ended with us showering off, and me returning to my normal accent (Sonja had retained hers) before we’d both settle down to a quick boil-in-the-bag curry while watching a VHS of Taggarts and Magnums, the austere greyness of those Glaswegian skyscapes contrasting perfectly with the sunshine of Magnum P.I., like a TV detective yin and yang.
But it was more than sexual. Apart from the lots of sex we were having, Sonja had plenty more to offer. She had a wonderful anti-ageing effect on me, like Oil of Olay has on a middle-aged woman’s cracked, craggy skin. Energetic, boisterous and really very zesty,232 she loved to laugh – boy, how she loved to laugh – and had a relatively infectious giggle. I’m glad to say that was the only infectious thing about her – I had her fully checked out before anything happened. (A lot of nonsense is spoken about germs passed from one to another. There’s nothing more unsexy than talking about venereal disease – when I’m with a new lover, I merely casually suggest/insist that we take a hot bath together with three caps of Dettol, an activity that is sexy and hygienic.)
All in all, Sonja had that indiscriminate fun-loving quality that you often find with peo
ple from post-Soviet regimes. It’s as if their people have cast off the state-imposed grumpiness of Communism and are now grabbing life with both hands. After a while, of course, it becomes incredibly tiresome. But Sonja’s love of practical jokes, sex, laughter, chintzy homeware and relentless intercourse was a sometime source of periodic happiness for quite a while.
We broke up just hours after the house was completed. She was understandably miffed by this but, as I explained patiently in rudimentary English, it was a new build so I wanted shoes off at the door – and she was hopeless at remembering to do that.
You know that phrase, if you love someone set them free? I’ve always liked the sound of that – even if its logic is plainly horseshit. It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘If you like beefburgers, don’t eat them’ or ‘If you hate London, go and live there.’ Instead, I’ve adapted it slightly to read, ‘If you don’t love someone and don’t want to hang around with them any more, set them free’. It just makes more sense.
Breaking the news to her wasn’t easy. We’d been living together for a year and a half for goodness sake, and she’d often talked about marriage – ideally to me, but at a push anyone with UK citizenship. This was a big deal for her.
So I locked myself in the bathroomette and got my assistant to do it. She broke the news with some relish – a bit too much if you ask me. Of course, Sonja was devastated. She kept banging on the door and telling me to come out and face her. Knowing she was from a former Soviet country where human rights atrocities are commonplace, I had no idea what she was capable of, so I had no choice but to stay inside.
‘Come out, Alan!’ she was shouting.
Through the door, I could hear my assistant trying to placate/fib to her. ‘He’s not in there any more,’ she attempted. ‘He clambered out of the window and ran off.’ I winced at her utter inability to lie and pledged to fine her £10 later on.
I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan Page 22