by Chris Evans
And that was the moment.
That was the moment that I knew, whether it was today, tomorrow, next year, or in five years from now, Bill and I would one day have to part. It was inevitable. I sat there with tears streaming down my cheeks, filled with memories of how we’d met, saved each other from our demons and embarked upon our magnificent adventure together.
And that’s exactly what it was. A magnificent, magnificent adventure.
The next morning, after a fitful night’s sleep, I awoke earlier than Bill and wandered into the kitchen to make us some tea, feeling sick at the thought of the conversation I knew we had to have. While I was still messing about with the teacups and teabags, Bill shuffled in behind me. I felt even sicker. ‘Babe, I need to talk to you,’ I said.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Can we go and sit down?’ ‘Sure, what is it?
We went into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Bill suddenly looked terrified. She began to clutch her cup with both hands, her knees tight together under her chin, her shoulders hunched.
‘There’s something I have to say…’ I began.
‘Go on, tell me.’
As I looked at her I noticed there were tears in her eyes. Did she know?
I paused and took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if I had the courage to get the words out. It felt as if they were still hiding somewhere in my stomach.
‘I think we’re about to start not being “us",’ was as close as I could get to what I wanted to say.
Bill didn’t say anything, but her eyes were sad and afraid.
‘I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but whatever we had together, I think we’re about to lose…’
As Billie started to fight the tears it made what I was saying all the more difficult. There had been no rows, there was no animosity, no jealousy, we loved each other completely and unreservedly, but we both knew that our love had evolved into a deep and sincere friendship and was no longer that of a husband and wife.
As I continued talking, Bill began to sob. She was just extremely sad, as I was, and am again now writing about it.
Bill and I both knew that whatever we had was dying, right in front of us, as we sat there hand in hand feeling helpless.
We were like two little kids being pulled apart by the grownups, and we were both devastated.
When I think about the worst moments of my life, this was second only to the moment my mum told me, when I was thirteen, that my dad was going to die. The feelings of hopelessness and despair were exactly the same.
The more Bill and I talked about our situation, the more we both cried, like two people consoling each other over the loss of a loved one. Bill had begun to nod in agreement at what I was saying. ‘I know, I know, I know…’ she kept repeating, although she said she would rather have stayed together than bring the conversation up herself.
We hugged, we kissed and we held each other tightly, like we never wanted to let go. Billie and I had never planned anything, so how could we possibly plan for what was happening now? We were lost and confused. It hurt so much but there was no turning back, life was moving on and we had no choice but to move on with it.
By the time Bill’s car arrived to take her to work, we were both a puffy-faced, snotty-nosed, red-eyed mess – and we still hadn’t said goodbye.
‘So, are you going to go then … is this it?’ Bill asked.
‘I suppose I should,’ I said. It all seemed so horribly final.
‘Oh. OK then. I love you.’ Bill began to sob again, silently this time.
As I turned to walk away, she looked every inch the lost little girl I had first met five years before, but I knew she was different now – and stronger than she had ever been.
Pulling out of the car park in my old man’s silver Mercedes saloon, I burst into tears myself. The best friend I’d ever had was back inside the building I had just walked out of and I knew that if I turned around and went back, we could both stop the misery immediately. But I also knew that if we did that, the pain would be back one day and we would end up making each other unhappy. Breaking up was our best chance of staying friends for life.
And we have. Other than my wife, Bill is still the best friend I have and she always will be. When I think about that morning and all that sadness that went with it, I cry the same tears that I did that day; they feel the same, they taste the same, they are the same.
I love you Bills … I really, really love you.
Plates 2
Happy Birthday Sir Terry, only 13 years to go ‘til I take over your show
Bruce Forsyth, Strictly the Gentleman
Me and the Drivetime team after we won Sharleen Spiteri in the annual Sony Awards raffle.
Natasha marries Steve Davis
Seven beauties that are no more
The only thing I still own is the number plate.
Please hand Daddy the microphone
‘So Noah, here’s how it’s going to be, we both do exactly as your mother says, otherwise we’re toast’
How to stare your Dad out at 4 weeks.
Mad Dad strikes again
Big sis, little brother
Please, give me just 4 more weeks on the breakfast show — I promise I’ll get better!
Quick, cut to another camera — I can’t hold my stomach in much longer! Me on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.
‘ Now son, there’s a film called Ferris Bueller’s Day Off I need to tell you about…’
For the red one to stay, the black one has to go — sometimes life’s like that
And save the best for last, cue Alex Jones, you’re on.
Hey, let's point some fingers
Senor di Montezemolo, I love all your cars — will you adopt me please?
Excuse me, can you tell us the way to Pope’s house please
Me and the Breakfast team 30 seconds before our last show: ‘Don’t panic’
PART THREE
THE RETURN OF RADIO BOY – TAKE THREE
TOP
10
THINGS I’VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH
10 Walking out of grammar school after clumping a teacher over the head with a chair
9 Losing all my records as a mobile DJ the week before Christmas
8 Dropping a three-and-a-half tonne fat-fryer, when I was a forklift-truck driver, onto my boss’s brand-new Rover Vitesse
7 Setting fire to the outside broadcast truck at Piccadilly Radio
6 Taping over an interview with Sir Bob Geldof yet to be broadcast only a week after Live Aid
5 People still believing in me when they must have been close to giving up
4 Not becoming an alcoholic
3 Not going broke
2 Not being dead
1 Being given one last chance, both professionally and personally
SO HOW DID I END UP HOSTING the biggest show on British radio, the Radio 2 Breakfast Show? Initially two things happened:
In September 2004 a very nice lady called Helen Terry who produces the Brits every year (despite also saying every year that she’s never going to do it again), called me up to ask if I fancied a third pop at presenting our national musical gong show, following my first two efforts in the mid-nineties.
She said the Brits always needed a twist and bringing me back to telly after such a long layoff would get them at least half the way there.
I was flattered and surprised, not to mention a little apprehensive. But I wasn’t going to let any of that stop me. After all, what did I have to lose? I was completely out of the loop and this was as fun a way as any to get back in, or to fail trying.
Before Helen had the chance to come to her senses and change her mind, I instructed my agent to do the deal. A week later, a press release went out and a few hours after that I found myself in a swish London bar, on a Wednesday morning, answering questions to various assembled members of the nation’s media.
‘So Chris, what albums have stood out for you these last twelve months?’
; Ah, now here’s the thing. I hadn’t been listening to anything new musically for three years. I had been in self-exile from all things radio and musical. I could feel myself going red from the ankles up as I looked at all the journalists who were wondering why I had lost the power of speech.
‘I believe technically anything I say may be taken down and used in evidence against me and seeing as I am the host and really ought to be impartial – I am going to pass on that one, I’m afraid.’
I just about got away with it. And the first thing I did, after I left the launch, was order twelve months of back issues of the NME, The Word and Q magazine.
‘Time to bone up, bonehead,’ I chastised myself.
Everyone involved with the Brits was kind to me and seemed genuinely glad to have me back on the scene. I was excited and, more importantly, I felt like I cared again. I don’t know quite how well I did when it came to the big night, but I was OK enough to be asked to do it again the following year.
It was because of this Brits-induced blip in my profile that my next offer of work came in. On Boxing Day 2004 a tsunami had devastated thousands of square miles of Asia and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives as a result. In response to this, early in 2005, the UK independent radio network decided to join forces for the first time in a twelve-hour fund-raising simulcast on behalf of the victims.
It was a noble, brilliant and ambitious idea, and when I was asked to be part of it I jumped at the chance – it would be the first time I’d been on the radio since I walked out of Virgin almost four years earlier.
The organisers paired me with the lovely Kate Thornton and asked us to host the main 8 to 10 am slot. I was going to be back on a breakfast show! This felt a little strange at first, but I wanted to do it. Tony Blair was to be our guest, there was as much tea as we could drink and it was all for a worthwhile cause.
‘Good morning, it’s five past eight and you’re listening to UK Radio Aid.’
I was back on the air, and two hours later I was back under the spell of the one thing I’d wanted to do for as long as I could remember.
Radio Aid went well, in fact it went very well, raising over £2 million and it won a special Sony Radio Award two months later. The one thing that struck me above everything else that day was how blasé a lot of those involved had become about being on the radio.
‘I’d kill to have any of their jobs,’ I thought, and then realised this was how I must have been for the last few years of my previous radio incarnation. It had become the norm for me then, as it was for these guys now. But being on the radio should never be the norm. It’s a great privilege to be able to do something you love for a living, especially when it involves being allowed into people’s lives via the wireless. I too had come to take that for granted, I could see that. But now everything had changed and suddenly I felt like the spotty teenager I once was back in Manchester, the kid who would do anything to get on air. I remembered the words of my letter to Tony Ingham, the boss of Piccadilly Radio, begging for a job:
… I will do anything, for nothing, for ever, to be able to work at your radio station.
I made a vow to myself that I would never take being on the radio for granted again – if I could ever get back on the radio in the first place, that was. And I was going to give that my very best shot, one last time.
I was a big fan of Radio 2 during my time away from the business and especially of Jonathan Ross’s show on a Saturday morning, but I felt that following on from him the listeners needed a wall of fantastic music, after all that chat.
I made up my mind to pitch this idea to the controller of Radio 2, a lady by the name of Lesley Douglas. I had heard a lot about Lesley. There were few who knew the station better, as she had climbed all the way up from being a secretary to the number one job, some twenty years later. She lived and breathed Radio 2, but would she even be willing to see me? What I was about to request was akin to a former Premiership footballer asking for a meeting with Sir Alex Ferguson, to see if there was any chance of the odd game.
To my great relief, the word came back from Lesley’s assistant; the meeting was on, and a date and time agreed. We were to meet at my agent’s office over a cup of coffee.
Lesley is a larger-than-life Geordie, and as soon as she arrived at Michael’s that day, it was clear from her energy and enthusiasm just why all the big names wanted to work for her and why her station conveyed so much vision.
Radio 2 had always been successful, of that there was no doubt, but over the years the gap between Radio 1 and Radio 2 had become a chasm as Radio 2’s original audience grew ever older. Lesley had arrived in the controller’s job determined to reverse this process.
It wasn’t a difficult task, simply one that needed someone with the balls to do it. Radio 2 needed to be repositioned before it was too late. Lesley saw this and, while respecting her older listeners, she had the good sense to revitalise the output of her station in order to attract Radio 2’s next generation.
After a few pleasantries, I put my idea to Lesley.
‘Well, that was the last thing I expected you to suggest to me,’ she said. ‘Chris Evans coming back and hosting a Saturday afternoon music show on Radio 2. I have to tell you I’m very pleasantly surprised. As much as I was intrigued to meet you, I thought you were going to offer me more of what I already had, but this sounds a lot more original.’
Lesley had assumed that I would be after a show not dissimilar to Jonathan Ross’s, which was the last thing she needed, but once I had focused on the idea of playing great tunes and lots of them, Lesley smiled and there was an ever-so-mischievous twinkle in her eye. The type of twinkle that alerts the rest of the world to the fact that the one doing the twinkling may well be hatching a plan. I was in, only just, but I was in and I knew this was my last chance. If I messed up at Radio 2, then Radio Boy was dead, once and for all.
Lesley has many attributes but more than anything, she is the queen of spotting talent and knowing what to do with it. She is also a highly astute operator.
She suggested that rather than suddenly appear on air as part of the weekend schedule, it would be useful for everyone concerned if I first covered a couple of Bank Holiday relief shifts. She would slip me in under the radar and that would be that. It was a subtle tactic but one that worked perfectly. After a couple of successful holiday fill-ins, it was announced that I would be taking up a regular Saturday afternoon slot.
Whether Lesley thought she was taking a risk with me, I cannot say for sure, but of course it had to be. Maybe this was why she put me together with a producer by the name of Helen Thomas.
‘She’s as mad, if not madder than you,’ Lesley informed me. ‘But she’s tough and I have a feeling that’s just what you need. She’s in China at the moment, though, so you’ll have to talk to her on the phone. Let me know if you think you can work with her, but I think you’ll be perfect together.’
Lesley, as usual, turned out to be right. I have always had the creativity, but I had also been handed the control. This was not a risk she was prepared to take.
Not only did the live-wire from Hull turn out to be as mad as had been promised but she was also very, very loud. She may have been in China but I swear I could still hear her five minutes after I’d put the phone down. When I finally got to meet her, I couldn’t believe how small this almighty force of nature was, and in the flesh she was even more unbearably enthusiastic than she had been on the phone.
We clicked immediately, not least because Helen was prepared to stand up to me from day one, letting me know that, although she would do everything she could to facilitate the kind of entertainment I wanted to create, there would always be limits to how far I could go.
My Saturday afternoon show kicked off in September 2005 and went well straight from the get-go. We started slowly, sitting on our hands. We were both bursting with ideas but we knew we had to let the audience get to know us before we dared invite them on a more original date. Lots of music was the order of th
e day, plus a few fairly quiet features but most of all we had to have the patience and the good sense to stand back and let the show grow of its own accord.
It felt very, very good to be back on the wireless, and on a great station to boot. I promised myself that, whatever happened, I wasn’t going to blow it this time.
So, with my radio rehabilitation under way it was time for me to try to sort out the rest of my life back in the real world.
TOP
10
FRUITCAKE MOMENTS
10 Trying to pay for things with bananas
9 Flying to Ireland for one drink
8 Flying to Cape Town for one drink
7 Playing one hole of golf for €247,000
6 Spending $12 million on a car I’d never driven
5 Spending £7 million on land I’d never seen
4 Forgetting I’d bought an £8 million house
3 Paying lawyers £2.3 million to lose in court
2 Waiting for 10 million shares worth £37 million to go down to £250,000 before selling them
1 Thinking for one second any of the above is remotely important
‘ONE LIFE FOR SALE – ONE RECKLESS OWNER’ read the headline on the front page of the Independent newspaper.
I had decided to sell most of my belongings so that I could start afresh. I had hundreds of items in storage from houses I no longer owned – my house in LA, the six-floor house in Wilton Crescent and the rock-star mansion in Surrey. It was costing me a small fortune to hang onto these things, most of which I would never need again.