Tony said hello, and I waited with millions of others up and down the British Isles to see if they would play a pop song that we could relate to or just go into some dross like Andy Williams. When he introduced that first record, The Move and “Flowers in the Rain,” I was ecstatic and knew right there and then that a new era in pop music had been born. Now we kids could listen to the songs and groups we loved twenty-four hours a day.
The revolution that had started five years before with The Beatles and had been fought on the high seas with pirate radio ships firing musical broadsides was over, and for once we had won and brought down the mighty government of the United Kingdom. The airwaves were finally ours. British music—and my life—would never be the same again.
FUN, FUN, FUN
Torquay had plenty of jobs available for kids during the holiday seasons which in the “Queen of the English Riviera” were Christmas, Easter and all summer. I was fourteen when I got my first job, washing dishes at the Conway Court Hotel. As the seasons came and went I worked my way from behind the scenes at the back of the kitchen to hitting the dining-room floor, first as a food waiter and then as a wine waiter.
What I knew about wine could have been written on a cork: it came in a bottle and you drank it. When I was asked for a recommendation—because I’m sure that you always trust a sixteen-year-old boy to be your sommelier—my go-to was Mateus Rose. I chose that because not only does a rose go with everything but it had the coolest bottle that I could take home to Mum and she would turn into a brilliant candlestick holder. I think my two summers as a wine waiter helped keep Portugal’s economy afloat during the sixties.
I worked hard and saved my money and at sixteen took the jump, became a mod and bought a scooter. It was a Lambretta LI 150, white with blue side panels and rabbit fur on the back support of the passenger seat. Now I had transportation that looked cool, I didn’t have to pedal and—most importantly—the girls loved it.
Many a time I would see an exchange student waiting at a bus stop and if she was cute I’d pull up and offer her a ride home. It became a great dating machine.
My scooter also gave me something to transport my spearfishing gear on. I’d been snorkeling and spearfishing since I was twelve, and at fourteen bought a roll of neoprene and a design from a company in London and with scissors, glue, tape, a thick needle and nylon thread, made my own wetsuit.
The wetsuit was vital; even in summer the water in Torquay was cold, in the low sixties, so without a suit you couldn’t stay out for more than fifteen minutes. Now, incased in my custom neoprene shell I could drift with the tide for hours before my extremities began to shake and turn blue.
I found a secret spot off of Torquay, in deep water nearly a half mile offshore where a submerged rock reef sheltered schools of fish. I discovered it accidentally one day as I floated over it. I made a note of its position by triangulating it with three objects on the shore and it became my spot. I never saw anyone else there and never told anyone about it.
I only took fish that Mum, Dad and I could eat and never more than two at most. In the mid- to late summer schools of bass would come in with the warmer water to graze on the kelp and seaweed that grew on the rocks. They only arrived on the incoming high tide which meant that to get to them you had to swim out against the current and after the hunt, whether successful or not, your long swim back to the shore was now against the outgoing tide. It was a workout but one that I looked forward to and loved.
These beautiful silver fish ranged between seven and twelve pounds and were not only amazing swimmers but smart. I swear that if they caught you looking at them they would be gone in an instant. My trick was to lie on the surface motionless until I saw them below me then let the tide take me past them, dive silently down and swim back underwater.
If I was lucky I would have time to get one shot off. Miss and you were done. Hit, and the fight of a lifetime would break out. You were twenty feet down, surrounded by rocks and kelp, with a fish that was desperately trying to escape by kicking and whirling. It would whip up the long, barbed fins on its back in defense and several times over the years I felt the five sharpened points rip through my gloved hands and tear deep into the flesh between my thumb and finger as I tried to subdue the fighting fish.
You had to do this, and quickly, because otherwise its frantic spinning would free it from the spear and the bass would swim off somewhere to die and that would be a tragedy because a fish like this deserves much more than being shot just for kicks. To finally bring the bass to the surface and slip it into my mesh game bag was a thrill and it was great to know that that night my family and I would be eating the freshest catch around.
The ocean became my playground. I loved it and treated it with great respect. Despite the fact that Torquay had very little surf due to its sheltered location in the heart of Torbay, I bought a used nine-foot, single-fin surfboard. I could only use it locally in the dead of winter when the water temperatures had dropped into the forties, because it was then that the massive storms rolling in from the Atlantic and eastward up the English Channel would push huge rollers into the bay.
I would get my parents to drop me off in Paignton, the next coastal town over, and there I learned to surf in the thundering white-water swells that would break at Paignton Pier. Mum and Dad would sit in the restaurant on the pier and have dinner while their son paddled frantically into the pounding foam below them as I attempted to get out past the endless line of waves. In my head I could hear Dad saying to Mum, “He’s a little fish, Mary. And if there’s any trouble I’ll be in there in a flash.”
Outside #22 with my first car, a Morris Minor
When I turned seventeen I passed my driving test (the second time—damn you, parallel parking!) and sold my scooter to buy a car. I borrowed some money from my parents to make up the difference and bought a Morris Minor convertible. Now I could stash the board in the car and speed off to the surf spots in North Devon and Cornwall, a good sixty miles away.
I had finished my O-levels and had moved on to the sixth form at school where at the tender age of sixteen you were required to decide what you were going to do with the rest of your life. To tell you the truth I had no clue.
Stephen was beginning a successful career as an actor in London having graduated at the top of his class at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and had just shot his first film with perhaps the most famous movie star in the world, Richard Burton, so I felt like the no-good brother condemned to living an aimless life.
I selected the three subjects I was best at; English, art, and history and they became the three A (advanced) levels I would attempt to pass. Get those and maybe I could find myself a place at university.
My parents suggested teaching but that wasn’t what I wanted to do.
“Then what do you want to do?” Dad wanted to know.
“Not sure, but not teach.”
Finally I found a compromise. I was at the public library going through their books on colleges and university colleges and found one that was affiliated with Oxford University that also offered a teacher training course, Westminster College, Oxford. This would make Mum and Dad happy and I could take an accredited Oxford University degree. But most importantly for me, it had a swimming pool on campus and a competitive swimming team. This way I could study and pursue my favorite sport in one place.
My teachers advised against me applying to a college that was a part of Oxford University. They said it would be much easier to select a college that wasn’t associated with an institute that had such a storied background; after all the University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Established in 1096 it set the standard for Western education. They recommended I try to get into Plymouth or Reading College instead. I understood their concern but that swimming pool was calling my name and Oxford with its multiple colleges seemed to be an amazing student party town.
I put the naysayers’ gloomy advice aside and applied to Westminster based on
my academic record and the courses I was taking. Two weeks later I received a letter back. I had been accepted pending the results of my A-levels. Pass, and I was going to Oxford, fail and . . . Well, I didn’t even want to visit that option.
SCHOOL’S OUT
I had never been to Westminster College until that day in September, 1970 when I pulled into the parking lot at the top of Harcourt Hill. I had applied—and been accepted—sight unseen, based on my courses and academic record.
For me the choice had been swayed by a number of reasons, the most important being the chance to join the college swim team. Other factors included the fact that Oxford was almost 200 miles from Torquay so I would have the chance to get away from home and meet all-new people in a brand-new city and that I could take an Oxford University degree if I stayed on for a fourth year. That sounded particularly attractive as I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life so four years at college and university seemed a good option. What I wasn’t prepared for was that it was a religious college.
Somehow while reading through the endless parade of available colleges presented in the careers section of Torquay public library I must have skipped past the part that said, “Westminster is a Methodist college.” That oversight was quickly corrected that very first day at the assembly of all the new students where we were addressed by the college chaplin, who explained in no uncertain terms that while we were not required to attend the daily services it was highly recommended. The subtext was painfully obvious: don’t go to chapel and not only will fire and brimstone rain down upon your head for all eternity, but you’ll also be viewed unfavorably by the academic staff for the next three years. You’ll be going to hell and so will your grades!
I hadn’t been to church since I was eleven years old and my voice broke in the middle of “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” ending my budding career as a choir boy. It was all I could do not to jump up from that first assembly, run to the parking lot and speed back to Torquay.
One thing that stopped me from doing that was the ratio of girls to boys in that meeting. It was at least two to one in my favor. Because Westminster offered such a strong teaching course it attracted a disproportionate number of young women who had decided, very admirably, that teaching was to be their vocation. And a lot of those girls were very cute. Maybe I should stay for a while. If I didn’t like it I could always do what Timothy Leary had suggested just a couple of years before, “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.”
I was assigned my dorm. Westminster had more than sixty “houses” on campus with nine bedrooms in each. First-year students shared a room, second- and third-years had their own. It was very basic; just a bed, a small wardrobe and a sink. Communal showers, toilets and the kitchen were downstairs. Your roommate was assigned alphabetically; I was Richard Sheppard so I was sentenced to year sharing a room with Robert Shellard. Aside from our last name being just one letter apart we had nothing else in common. Bob was taller than me at six-foot four-inches and maybe fifteen pounds lighter. I was six two and 168 pounds, twelve stone, so Bob was a bean pole. He also had no interest in partying, music or girls. It was going to be a long twelve months.
Each house had a letter designation starting at A; ours was PP. As I got to know the ins and outs of Westminster College I was thankful every day for where I ended up. Most of the guys’ houses were populated by clones of Bob, but two houses had developed a reputation, CC and PP. The word was that the boys in those houses should be avoided by “decent” girls at all costs.
Umm, let me think about that for a moment. You take an attractive eighteen-year-old girl, away from home for the first time, put her in college and then say, “Stay away from those boys, they have a scandalous reputation. The other boys are much nicer and safer, just like the ones back home.” Who do you think she is going to be most interested in?
Amongst the residents of PP house were the captain of the field-hockey team, Phil Richards, the captain of the rugby team, Keith Martin and the DJ of all the college dances, Norm Holmes. PP was a good place to be.
My first day at PP put me face to face with Phil Richards. He welcomed me to the house.
“What’s your name?” asked Phil.
“Richard Sheppard,” I replied.
“Richards is my last name. Too confusing to have two Richards in the house. You’re Dick.”
And just like that Dick Sheppard was born.
PP was just yards from the swimming pool rather than way across campus, so even in the pouring rain or blowing snow I could make it to the pool to train, often twice a day. I’d tuck my long hair into a swim cap and start by doing laps then sprints. Apart from the late afternoons I usually had the pool to myself. Westminster had its chapel; the pool became my church.
Being a part of Oxford University had benefits that I hadn’t anticipated. At our student union orientation we were introduced to the literally hundreds of extra-curricular activities available, everything from needlepoint to mountaineering—which puzzled me as the nearest mountain to Oxford was the hill that Westminster College was located on and most of the students already scaled it twice a day as they made their way to and from the pub.
My roommate chose to take Bible studies while I signed up for Shotokan Karate. It was an intensely physical but fun class that met twice a week, once at the gym at Westminster and once at a dojo in town.
I’d been at college just one week when the first dance was held in the cafeteria. The sound gear that the student union rented was delivered and Norm readied his record collection.
Coming from Manchester, Norm was big into Northern Soul which is an English term for fast, uptempo American black music imports which had at its forefront amazing artists such as Gene Chandler, Al Wilson, The Elgins and Dobie Gray. It was huge in the clubs in the north of England but being a “southerner” it was a style of music that I hadn’t been exposed to before and I lapped it up. It made me want to dance and I could immediately hear how effective it would be in a club or played loudly over a mobile disco system.
I worked as Norm’s roadie that first night and watched in awe as he kept the floor packed. He didn’t arrive with any pre-set plan of what to play; instead, he allowed himself to feel the ebb and flow in the room and would deliberately let the energy start to drop then slam into a huge song to bring it back up and take it on to the next level. He’s reading the crowd, I thought to myself. That’s how a great DJ does it.
As the evening wore on I noticed another thing starting to happen. Girls were asking Norm for requests and then hanging around the DJ booth waiting to be noticed. In that college cafeteria on two rented turntables, Norm was the star. He didn’t sing, he didn’t dance, but he ruled that room with his music and the girls loved him. A light went off and on September 26, 1970, I glimpsed my future.
The dance was scheduled to end at midnight and at around eleven o’clock two third-year girls arrived, Sue and Pauline Cook. They weren’t sisters, just friends who had met each other two years before when Westminster’s alphabetical system assigned them as roommates. The blond, Pauline, hit the dance floor while Sue came up to Norm at the DJ booth to say hi. She caught my eye and smiled.
“And just who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Dick. I’m in the same house as Norm.”
Norm looked over and grinned. “Be gentle with him now, Sue.”
Sue waited as the dance wound down and the exhausted students piled out. I started to help Norm with the rental gear but he waved me away,
“You’ve got other things to do,” he said.
Sue led me across the quadrangle to the outside of L house.
“Pretend you’re saying goodnight to me then go around the back. I’ll open the window for you.”
I nodded in understanding. Westminster College had stern policies against a man being in a girl’s room or vice versa. It was strictly forbidden after 8pm. If you were caught you had to appear before Donald Tranter, the principal of the college. The second time was grounds for expulsion.
Despite that harsh ruling, after dark when hormones were raging, the quad came alive with scurrying young lovers dashing back and forth.
I tumbled through Sue’s window as gracefully as possible and within seconds we were going at it on her bed. That’s when she stopped me.
“What is your hurry?” she said. “Let’s take our time.”
“Okay,” I replied.
“Wait a minute, this is new to you isn’t it?” Sue was smiling now.
I was flustered. Was I so inept she thought I was a virgin? “No, I’ve done it a lot. I’ve had plenty of girlfriends.”
“But not like this, right? Not alone, in a bedroom, with no worry of your parents coming home? I bet you’ve always had to be fast so you didn’t get caught. Right?”
Sue had seen right through me. There had been plenty of girls but I’d never had the luxury of a private bedroom with no fear of that dreaded knock on the door. There had been many stolen, furtive encounters, all passion and young lust cooped up in the backseat of a small car but no long, safe nights of love-making. I nodded in agreement with her assessment.
Sue smiled, “Then this is going to be fun. All you have to do is relax; I’ll show you what to do. We’ve got all night.”
And just like that, on the same evening that I began to learn about DJing from a pro, another expert took me under her wing to educate me in something else equally important, the ways of women.
For the next three months I played Benjamin Braddock to Sue’s Mrs. Robinson. I’d come to Westminster for an education and I certainly got one, but perhaps not the kind that my parents or Donald Tranter had planned.
Sue and I were not “boyfriend and girlfriend” or even exclusive. We both saw other people but we still found time for me to climb in through her window four nights a week.
The Christmas holidays came and went and when I returned to Westminster I found Pauline Cook waiting for me. Sue had decided it was time for her to move on to greener pastures and her best friend, Pauline, had volunteered to step in and continue my education. I was not complaining.
World in My Eyes: The Autobiography Page 4