by Paul Henry
In class, people wanted me in their groups because I came up with great ideas. I became very good at delegating tasks and saying ‘We need someone who’s really good at this because I’ll be too busy doing something else’, but actually it was because I couldn’t read. You learn great skills to cover up inadequacies.
Most dyslexics excel in sometimes unexplained areas. Dyslexics are like Scientologists in that they love making lists of famous people with dyslexia. It amuses me greatly because they tend to reel off a few names and then say, ‘And that’s just four.’ And I think: ‘Four’s not that fucking many.’ Or: ‘Einstein was dyslexic and he was a genius.’ And I think, ‘Yeah but there have been plenty of geniuses who didn’t have dyslexia.’ You can always find someone who fits into your category but it doesn’t follow that you have an ounce of their greatness because you share one trait.
In the end, I did all right with exams — partly because I worked hard, partly because they weren’t very challenging. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for doing well.
Conscious that we were short of money I was always trying to generate some income of my own. I did what I thought lots of kids did, going door to door asking if people needed odd jobs done. But English kids didn’t do that and I never found out why. Perhaps it was their natural English reserve.
On the other side of the cut from our tenement blocks there was a completely different setting — terraced houses with Bedminster Bridge at one end. These were extremely grand houses with substantial sections. Naturally I thought this was where we should be living, being to the manor born as I was. I genuinely thought at that age I had some direct link to the throne. I just knew that I was better than everybody else. These houses were quite run down because, although they were grand, they were also the perfect example of the best street in the worst area. I looked at them and imagined which one I would choose and how I would do it up to look even grander. And these were the houses where I used to doorknock.
At one house an old woman answered the door. ‘There’s a bit of work in the yard out the back,’ she said. So I went out the back and it was fantastic. There was a barn-sized stone garage there that I instantly knew was perfect for the recording studio I was going to establish as the foundation of the music industry empire I had just realised I was going to build.
The woman lived on her own in this house, which I am sure was at least five storeys — six or seven if you added in the basement or extras. I knew immediately that she was going to leave me this house when she died, which wouldn’t be very far away, she being at least 50. She couldn’t afford to maintain the house and certainly couldn’t afford to pay me, so we agreed that I would do odd jobs in return for use of the garage. What can a 12-year-old do with a garage? I used to go in there with a notebook and draw plans and scheme. There was going to be a mezzanine and a big sign out the front saying Metropolitan House or something grander if I could think of it. Of course, nothing was ever done. I didn’t have time to clean it let alone do anything else to it. Unfortunately, that involvement came to an end as I really needed to find something that paid.
Not far from where my grandparents lived was a pet shop, sitting in the middle of these little run-down terraces. Fish were very popular pets in England because you could keep them in small spaces. This shop sold daphne, a little creature that’s used as live fish food. I saw the daphne in the shop and realised there was a large amount of it down at the docks, which were miles and miles from our home and the shop. I went in and asked to speak to the manager.
My favourite movies
When I was four and a half my mother took me by bus on the long journey from Cockle Bay to Queen Street in Auckland for something she had sold to me as a magical experience. She filled my mind with wonderment as she described what I was about to witness. A room bigger than I’d ever been in before with hundreds and hundreds of people, huge curtains, lions with flashing eyes, stars on the ceiling and ice-cream. She said in this room the lights would go out, people would become suddenly very, very quiet, the curtains would slowly open and I would be taken on a magical journey.
The Civic Theatre was no disappointment and the first movie I ever saw, the first movie to be made in colour is number one on my list of favourite films. So wonderful was that first experience, so excited was I that I begged and begged my mother to take me again straight away. After two weeks of constant pleading, we made the long journey back to the theatre. I was bursting with excitement as the curtains opened and the film started, and then inconsolable as it was explained to me that when you went to the movies you didn’t see the same film every time. I didn’t even understand The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and kept shouting, ‘Where’s Dorothy?’ My mother and I left after half an hour. What was she thinking?
• The Wizard of Oz
• The Great Race (the one with Tony Curtis)
• Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• The Night of the Hunter (the original)
• The Flight of the Phoenix (the original)
• The Poseidon Adventure (the original)
• Love Story (not so good decades later)
• The Towering Inferno (also not so good decades later)
• The Big Lebowski
• The Castle
• The Constant Gardener
• The Last King of Scotland
• Notting Hill
• Love Actually
As a genre I love horror movies but no specific one makes the list.
‘I breed daphne in a controlled environment,’ I lied. ‘Who’s your supplier? Where do you get your daphne from?’
We eventually came to an agreement whereby he would buy daphne from me. So I bought a supply of plastic bags and ties and went down to the dock with a couple of buckets, collected the stuff, falling over and over again into this filthy water as I tried to snare as much as I could. Then I took it home on the bus — it was so thick I didn’t have to worry about it spilling — sieved it out in the bath and packed it up for the shop. This was repeated many times.
Another scheme was my film-developing business. I told people at school I could develop film with a kit I had at home. In reality, I had gone to a camera shop and offered to bring them huge quantities of film if they gave me a discount. I kept the difference between what I paid the shop and what teachers and other pupils at school paid me. Photography was a popular hobby and there was always some film to be processed. The trouble was that the prints came back with the branding of the shop, so I had to get paper in and print my own packets, which ate into my profits.
With all these activities I was seldom at home. I spent a lot of time at the docks. When I wasn’t collecting daphne, I collected anything else that didn’t move and wasn’t nailed down. Sometimes I’d have to hide things in different places on the way home because I wasn’t strong enough to carry everything all the way in one go. Everything was scavenged with a view to making money out of it in some as yet to be determined way. I could make giant leaps of imagination with minimal prompting. Once I found a huge road spotlight. As I was humping it home, with bits falling off it, thus decreasing its value at every step, I was imagining a grand business where I had a fleet of trucks and did contract lighting for events.
School was an interruption to my life really. I’ve always had a lot of things going on in my mind; I’ve always had plans and projects to think about. Sometimes there would be three or four life-changing schemes in a single day. I’d find something else and discard what I was carrying and all of a sudden the empire I was going to have was a completely different one.
I used to wander through the semi-rural posh areas of Bristol and on the edge of Clifton. You crossed the mighty Bristol suspension bridge and suddenly there were beautiful homes with formal gardens on half an acre of land. On the other side were my relations, who were unbelievably unsuccessful but perfectly contented. Buying a second-hand Bedford van and converting
it into a semi-campervan, with a week in Spain every five years, was the giddy height of their ambition.
I was hugely aware of class. It was so evident to me in the way we were living that we were lower class, but I saw opportunity in every direction. Looking at those big houses, I knew that I could be there if I wanted and I knew I wanted, so I knew I’d be there. I had absolutely no doubt that I could be anything I wanted to be. So I just didn’t see my current environment, which was pretty bloody grim at times; I didn’t see it in any way as an impediment. I had more confidence than you could imagine — what I didn’t have was a plan.
“FAME WAS DEFINITELY THE GOAL. DURING THE WEEK, I WAS AT SCHOOL DOING ALL MY COMPULSORY SUBJECTS PLUS STUDYING DRAMA. AND ALL WEEKEND I WAS AT THE BBC WHERE IN THE END THEY STARTED PAYING ME A SMALL AMOUNT FOR HELPING TO ROLL OUT CABLES.”
* * *
LIKE SO MANY PEOPLE I lived my childhood dreams vicariously through celebrities. I couldn’t afford to go to the movies so my idols were television and radio stars. That looked and sounded like fun but there also seemed to be an opportunity there to become quite famous and wealthy. I went to the BBC to see if there was any work and they shuffled me off to BBC Radio Bristol. There wasn’t any really, but the programme director took pity on a 15-year-old schoolboy.
‘If you just want to knock around with one of the producers on the weekend, maybe help out rolling cables or something like that, you’re very welcome,’ he said, little realising what he was setting in motion.
So I took up the invitation and I absolutely loved it. Fame was definitely the goal. During the week, I was at school doing all my compulsory subjects plus studying drama. And all weekend I was at the BBC where in the end they started paying me a small amount for helping to roll out cables. My mother was very enthusiastic about all of it, if only because I was doing it.
My first official job was as cable boy and gofer for See You Saturday with Arthur Parkman. He was an extraordinarily unhealthy, obviously overweight, heavy-drinking, heavy-smoking all-round entertainer, and I idolised him. Every Saturday I would leave my shithole of a council flat, walk the miles to Clifton and relish walking through the big gates with grand pillars and big lamps on each side and ‘BBC’ in bronze above.
It was a music show and a full-scale production. Arthur could play anything on any piano and every Saturday we would take a recording desk out to a pub or club and a live programme would be performed with technicians, music producers, Arthur and his band of equally unhealthy, overweight stars and me. They played between 12 and one while the programme that had been recorded the week before was broadcast.
We had a Hillman Hunter Estate with a hydraulic transmission mast in the middle. On the dash — which being a Hillman Hunter was already as spectacular as you can imagine — there was a sliding panel with proper radio control faders built in. The BBC did things properly in those days. Standards have only fallen in subsequent years. I had a couple of days’ worth of work a week, going to recce the locations for the next show, putting up posters, rolling out cables. I couldn’t understand how anyone could not want to do that job.
My best subject at school was drama and I won a scholarship to a drama school in Clifton which was not far from home. It was a highly structured subject — you had to study the production areas as well as performing and I loved the whole lot. I loved the technical areas — I loved lighting, and I still do. I also got a place in the Children’s Youth Theatre, which did a production in London’s West End, but I didn’t go to that. Even though you were paid what was then a huge amount to take part — something like £20 — the costs of being away from home were even more, so I couldn’t afford to go.
Drama school was also tricky because all the scholarship covered was the fees. I had planned to carry on doing the bits and pieces I had going to cover my costs but that was frowned upon because you were supposed to give your all to your art. But the thing that finished my brilliant drama career before it even started was a visit from the Actors’ Equity rep. I had barely started when he turned up. Acting was highly unionised. There were two relevant unions: Equity and another which was tailored slightly more to broadcasters. You could be a member of both, but you definitely had to be a member of one. You could not utter one line, you could not do a voiceover, you could not do anything that came near the definition of acting unless you were paid up.
The Equity rep came to school to sign people up. The classes were small — only eight people or so. He was brought in and introduced to us and addressed the class. Instead of telling us why we needed to belong to the union, he asked us a question.
‘Do you know anyone in the business?’ he said.
We all looked back at him vaguely.
‘Do you know anyone in the business who can help you,’ he said, ‘because talent won’t cut it. As a union we have the highest number of unemployed members of any union in the world. We don’t want more. You have to be talented or you wouldn’t be sitting in this room but talent is a very small component of whether you’re successful or not. But the biggest component by far is who you know.’
Of course, I knew no one. He was trying to talk me out of it, and it worked. I suppose the dream wasn’t great enough, because in the back of my mind I felt I could have been a huge success as an actor but I didn’t want it quite enough. I did want what I thought that success would bring me, though, so I decided to look for another way of getting it. Since I was mucking around at the BBC anyway, maybe if I focused on getting a full-time job there I would make the sort of contacts you needed to succeed.
I realised that the way to get more work at the BBC was to make myself indispensible. I volunteered to do stuff that probably didn’t need doing at all. However, after I had been doing it a couple of weeks, people found they couldn’t live without it being done. I was paid irregularly and in small amounts, but I kept all my pay slips for a long time because I thought it was so cool that the BBC was paying me — a guy who lived in a council flat.
‘Filling in’ became my key role. I did all of the jobs that were not done, weren’t done properly because no one wanted to do them or were done very reluctantly by the next up in the pecking order. When they realised they didn’t have to do them again, they decided they should never do them again, which is where my job was created. For instance, I filled in at the gramophone library. It’s unthinkable today — a whole gramophone library at a local radio station. This was just prior to the explosion of private radio. And the library had a receptionist who had a lunch break, so I would fill in while she got her sandwich. Then I started filling in on shifts when people were away on leave and I learnt how to operate the equipment really well. It might sound like a great master plan with job security as the goal but all the jobs I got good at don’t even exist now.
Then I started doing continuity. I thought everyone would recognise me when I walked down the street now because I introduced the radio soap The Archers. The discipline was exceptional. Nothing could crash the time signals and no music could be faded — you had to hear the beginning and the end of every piece of music that was played. You didn’t talk over music, and it didn’t go over the time signals. If The Archers finished 10 seconds early then you had to have something ready to fill the 10 seconds: ‘This evening on BBC Radio Bristol an interesting programme for farmers …’
At night I did the fat stock market report for farmers — ‘Pork is sold for 13.5, that’s a rise of 7.9’. You had sheets and sheets of it and you had to do it right or the farmers would complain. That’s something that hasn’t changed.
No one was cut any slack but at the same time, we were fully resourced. We had a 15-minute news programme that went out before the news from BBC Radio that we re-broadcast. For this little programme there were at least four readers sitting around a large oval table and you didn’t have just one microphone. Each of those buggers had their own microphone and their own cue light and their scripts. And there would be at least one live interview in another part of the stud
io with another host, along with at least two phone interviews and a link to one of the radio cars out at some site.
You had to play individual sound inserts for the news and they were on reel to reel, not cartridges or a computer. You had a stack of reel-to-reel tapes, each with its own cue sheet, a 15-second bite on it and nothing else. So as well as getting telephone links up and making sure the right person was there, you had to run these tapes. You got good at spooling, with three tape machines on the go at the same time.
If you got anything wrong, you were called a cunt by someone who was sweating streams and trembling with rage. If you made a small mistake, the producers would assault you verbally until you started crying and if you didn’t, they would hit you. Most days, you were shitting yourself before the programme even started.
I used to get in there at half past 12, and the programme started at quarter to one. Sometimes, by 17 minutes to one you were still the only person in the studio and you were thinking, wouldn’t it be nice even if they gave me just the first tape to load up. Then the doors would crash open, sometimes with 30 seconds to go before the programme, and they’d slam down a tower of tapes on the desk and a pile of paper whose contents you had to ingest while loading up the machines. And all anybody said was, ‘Fucking fuck fuck!’ because they all had their own nightmares going on. It was fantastic theatre and it was brilliant to be part of.
No one ever said, ‘Shit, that was well done.’ If you did something perfectly, that was actually no more than the minimum expected of you so why should anyone comment on it? The BBC view was: why would you thank anyone for doing their job. If you interviewed a policeman on air about a case, you thanked him at the end. But if you had crossed to your reporter, why would you thank him? He was being paid; he didn’t need to be thanked.