MODS MINIS AND MADMEN
A True Tale of Swinging London Culture in the 1960sBy D. Richard TrumaniUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 D. Richard Truman
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-6756-4Contents
Gratitude, Oh Yes!.....................................................................viiThe Incredible Mister Cronan...........................................................xiPreface................................................................................xiii1. A Sense of Wonder..................................................................12. Awakening my Soul; Exciting Every Nerve............................................233. Can't Buy Me Love..................................................................434. A Great Leap.......................................................................615. A Hooker Loves Mayonnaise..........................................................696. The Big Break and "Maxing" It Out In Belgravia.....................................817. Chasing the Sharks into the Net....................................................1158. It Happens All the Time............................................................1339. Secrecy and Losing It in Ireland...................................................14110. The "Consequences" of Losing It in Morocco.........................................15311. Joe Snags His "Pet"................................................................16912. Monte Carlo, Where Producers (from Saints to Wankers) Hang Out.....................18313. Too Many Orchestra Conductors......................................................19914. The World's Worst Script...........................................................22315. Losing Our Heads in Paris..........................................................22916. Enter Here, But There's No Exit....................................................249The Author.............................................................................257
Chapter One
A Sense of Wonder
The music purred like a Lamborghini. Pattie shifted her body to get closer, and then embraced me with warm welcoming arms. She sighed while in vacant thought, then ran her fingers through my long hair. Her ink-blue eyes sparked in the soft light, her complexion was smooth and pure, and her wet lips glistened as they met mine. If the mind had a thousand eyes, the heart has one. A kiss writes the secrets of the heart and mine had many this day.
Then George interrupted, "Who's this, Luv?" just as we discovered each other.
She turned away almost embarrassed.
Starkey rushed over to join the table. Then Richard Lester, sitting next to me snickered, "Three Richard's, now that's a crowd!"
We were at Annabel's celebrating the success of the film, "A Hard Day's Night." The club for new snooties at Berkeley Square was the high altar for the rich and famous and me.
"Somewhere to party and pluck each others strings," grunted, I think, the club founder John Aspinall. Yes it was cool and elegant with walls covered with wild Birley paintings; that's Annabel's. Royalty, presidents, Greek tycoons and hordes from the film and entertainment world were scattered about tonight delighting in their olive soup.
George met Pattie while filming. She was the Smith's Crisp girl first introduced to filming by Richard Lester, the lunatic director the Beatles had scooped up to film their first movie. For gangly George, who could have any woman in the world, this was love. The sweet, innocent and fabulously beautiful Pattie Boyd had plucked his guitar.
But tonight things were different. She was mine. She had wandered across the floor through a throng of admirers, removed her blouse exposing her firm but tiny breasts and simply said, "Don't stand up too fast, or you'll bash your brains out!"
After a poke in the shoulder, I was awake. Dammit, I'd dozed off during the long flight from Toronto.
With eyes wide open, I glanced up at two nostrils and soon realized the body attached to the nose had muttered a term I disliked, "Don't stand up too fast or you'll bash your brains out!" My immediate reaction was to cringe. I knew the voice and the expression. The stewardess was probably from my home town. Not only that, she was undoubtedly from Catherine Street in the north-end. And this young lady had all the mannerisms I disliked, but I didn't react to her as it might indicate a prejudice I was about to discard. In retreat I noticed she had an ass like a bag full of bowling balls.
My nostrils flared when she withdrew, as I inhaled the scent of Evening in Paris, an aroma hiding in a thin blue bottle with a silver tassel. It was another reminder of the past I was trying to leave behind. The future lay ahead and it beckoned me.
My remarkably brief dream soon morphed into a fiery red eye, straight ahead. The DC8 purred quietly while dropping through the golden light toward London's Heathrow Airport; the end of a journey this bird had made a thousand times before.
After a sure-footed landing I realized we denizens from the new world were about to meet the old world and its promise. Old ways would soon give way to newer ways as we were about to jump ahead to a new century where everything was turned upside down. The opportunity to succeed was just ahead, and we were about to enter a new universe.
Mindless muscles twitched as I pulled my body upright just enough to see my travelling companions heaving their bodies from economy class seats to the aisles. It was seven A.M., September 21, 1964, flight 806. I would soon learn that travelling across the Atlantic to or from North America is always a bewildering journey no matter how often you fly this route. You look ahead to the past, or back to the future, depending on which way you travel.
Because it was autumn, vibrant colour was drained from life. The landscape through the tiny windows was like a faded colour photograph. My eyes turned away from the headlights of BOAC, BEA, Pan American and TWA jets as the mass movers buzzed about in search of a lifeline at Terminal 3.
While sleepwalking through disembarkation I reflected on the team players who'd joined me and what lay ahead. Eddy and Betty, Dennis and I were the opportunists from the new world who'd been invited to London by the Beatles on what was to be an incredible adventure, metaphorically of course. The big question was, "Will we make it?"
Eddy and Betty Grant always appeared awake. He was a gifted Belfast lad of 26 who'd moved to Toronto with his wife a year earlier. Eddy's sparkly blue eyes and Plantagenet good looks made him a celebrity in Toronto. Eddy always wore a dark pin striped suit, even if he was sleeping. Some said he dressed like a Beatle and drank like a whale. Throw in Cuban heels to raise his height to five foot, five inches, an endearing chuckle and a Paul McCartney hairstyle and everyone had a friend for life. His trousers were always pulled up to his breast, revealing his socks - not very fashionable though. Powerful short suspenders were guilty of producing this fashion injustice. Oh, he had talent too, as this creative genius would lead us out of the wilderness. Eddy, more than anyone, was determined to meet the Beatles and suck up the creative air that begged disciples. Someone in a Toronto bar said he looked like Paul McCartney. Although the resemblance was faint, it contributed to his Irish over-confidence when chatting up the birds. Betty, his wife, was a beauty consultant, with hair as black and shiny as a raven's wings. Bet had well-formed lips, wide and generous, touched up by the faintest art. Her eyelashes were long enough to clean car windows. Her striking green eyes sparkled like grade B diamonds. She was a sultry five foot, eleven inches, with a Rubenesque body forever wrapped in pink. In wrestling, she'd win hands down. A beauty with striking Spanish features, she'd set Eddy's spirits on fire. Half the men on the plane had noticed Betty. They made a handsome couple who spread warmth no matter where they went.
Dennis was also part of the group; a Paddy transplanted from Belfast to Oakville, near Hamilton, at the age of five, with the phoniest Irish accent. It grated; it snarled and turned my ears off. He was generous of heart; a wisp of a lad and a source of laughter and a sense of togetherness when the going got tough. Yes, Den was a ragamuffin of a soul who attracted wayward dogs and loose eyes while walking down sensible street. Someone once said he walked like a ballet dancer in army boots. No matter, our Dennis had a gait that provoked curiosity. He too was an artist.
I was the elder statesman, being a year older than the rest.
After completing a four year arts program at Central Art College in Hamilton, I'd pursued further studies to achieve graduate certification and had applied to McMaster University, also in Hamilton. Much to my disappointment, no financial assistance plan in the world could fund my ambitions. Poverty was a brick wall for many in my hometown. Therefore the pursuit of higher education went into the dream drawer. Life and experience would be my entrée to the adbiz.
Like the others, I was attracted to London by the sound of the four kids from Liverpool, and the creative and fashion freedom they preached. Otherwise destiny would have sent me into the driver's seat of a garbage truck. So in our 1960s gang, creative ambition seemed to be the glue that bonded us and would allow us to board a career train together. To most of our friends back in Canada, chasing career opportunities in London seemed a hopeless dream at best. To us, like a world of others, it was an obsession we couldn't overcome. The hypnotic appeal was more than a drug: it was a powerful beacon and our souls were drawn to the light. We would never make it in our hometown.
In my hometown my fashion sense was shaped by regular visits to Amity to buy clothes. Amity was a wonderful Hamilton charity store that sold used clothing to thousands of poor families who simply couldn't afford to buy new.
The other personal failing was a lack of easy good looks, marred by disabled teeth that had been knocked about by poverty and salt, just like everyone else in England we were told. So we soldiered on to Mecca.
Messed up teeth was the result of pre-Victorian carelessness about cleaning teeth. Bad teeth discouraged people from smiling, up to about 1903, when Eton, a private English boy's school, won a competition to encourage people to smile for photographs.
The solution was easy: ask people to say "cheese" when pictures were taken. That way it looked like they were smiling when the photo was printed. Smiling for photographs soon became fashionable; a magic tool for photographers bent on making their subjects look more attractive, despite many people having bad teeth. It is said that if Queen Victoria's household had smiled for the camera, it would have been a frightening toothless sight.
But the Beatles said "We Can Work It Out," so we didn't worry.
So the sum total of my personal attributes wasn't encouraging as we ventured toward hope on distant shores. But my strength was a terrier's instinct to never let go, and the need to escape to a freer world.
"It's in the genes," some would say. Others would say, "It's the 1960s and the environment you live in, stupid."
No matter. It was done, we were here. The test lay just ahead.
The transformation had begun months earlier with the growth of shoulder-length hair. The Beatles, after all, fired our imaginations: the young were given a new passion for life. Just breathe the air and look around. London was full of it.
We had a lot of things in common with the Beatles. We were in the arts, where restrictions on lifestyle were practically non-existent. John Lennon went to The Liverpool College of Art; I'd gone to Central Art College in Hamilton. Music was a drug for the soul as well as the ears. That's what drove us, with the help of the westerly tailwinds, to the centre of creative freedom. We'd enter that world through the front door and succeed within record time. Being the same vintage as the Beatles gave us real hope. "Yes," we thought, "this pugnacious lot will set the world alight and share in the feast, despite humble origins and the rusted padlocks that had locked the doors to the future." Swingin' London was our "Ticket To Ride," and "We Can Work It Out!"
When our bus, Flightline 777, reached the borough of Kensington, the prospect of life in London began to overwhelm us. London felt just like the promise that had been made, and it was now her time. Paris was the magnet after World War I and New York after World War II. Now, London was attracting creative people from all parts of the world. If you asked them why, they didn't know! But they were being pulled to London in a zombie-like frenzy.
It was the plebes from working class towns who lit the fire. Plebeian writers, artists, musicians and students scripted the new trends and tore down the barriers. They would soon be followed by the beautiful people, the playboys and the moneyed set. History would repeat itself. London created a sound, a look, long hair and a wonderful juvenile arrogance and the freedom to laugh. It crept up on a world still mourning the death of Camelot a year earlier. The assassination of United States president John F. Kennedy was a tragedy that destroyed American dreams of a better world and a better tomorrow. Now, with travel made easier, the hordes could escape the stagnancy and gloom in far off lands and descend on hope. And here we were: Eddy, Betty, Dennis and I about to enter a dream world. But we were not alone.
Life from a fire red bus
The impression of London from the airport bus was - colour, excitement, legs, and chaos. Noisy jets scratched through the clouds overhead. But on the ground, it's not just the sights that I'll remember; it's the sounds and the smells. This was a city with bad breath from diesel fumes, fuelling eight-hundred-and-eighty six red, overweight buses that criss-cross this pulsating city of eight million. It's a stench that stays with you; impregnating everything you're carrying or wearing, even your hair.
A loaded double-decker Routemaster, at eleven tons, was the weight of nearly four elephants. The mind's eye runs wild imagining three-thousand five-hundred elephants clogging the streets of this massive metropolis while carrying people about.
As our bus got closer to the centre of the city our senses were bombarded by live images and sounds. The images were flip-flopped of course, because the cars, taxis and busses were driving on the other side of the road. Colour, despite the morning haze, was slowly breaking through the saturation of fumes and London grey.
It was interesting to ponder that the use of the English language across Great Britain began less than six hundred years earlier when the Henry V decreed that a common language had to be found to bring his people together. And he did it with the help of troubadours, the earliest pop singers, poets and writers. Usage of the English language spread quickly. Today, more than a billion, that's one thousand million, people around the world speak English as a first language. It was some achievement within six centuries. It took special determination by extraordinary people. And now they were about to embark on another global conquest.
The first sight of "dolly birds," didn't disappoint. Their shapely legs seem to go on forever as they surfed along the streets, oozing uncorrupted sexuality along with London "chic." Saucy big eyes, bobbed hair and wild colours were splashed along the avenues.
Thirty year old Brit Mary Quant must be thanked. She's the brazen page turner of the London fashion scene who launched the miniskirt, even though French designer Andre Courreges argued differently. When the leggy Kent girl said, "Fashion, as we know it, is over. People now wear exactly what they feel like wearing," the world queued up behind Mary and plugged in. How about, "Good taste is death. Vulgarity is life." Yes, Mary breathed in fresh air, opined and was loved.
Four years earlier, Mary Quant hit the decade with fashions that were the product of her revolutionary mind. Styles were more daring, more colourful and more exciting than ever before. "Queen" Mary was the hippest designer, in the hippest area of the world, the unrivalled queen of swingin' London. The look was easy: simple lines, short/shorter/shortest skirts, and big geometric patterns.
The Kent kid, with brown locks and big brown eyes was born in 1934 and had shaped the tastes of millions already.
Vibrant shades of purple or chartreuse; dresses made of shiny vinyl, or cellophane, or paper; dresses with pieces cut out or made of metal or covered with mirrors. Two-piece trouser-suits, fur vests, gogo boots, prints from India, micro-mini skirts that revealed what was previously only imagined and ruffled shirts. Men wore Nehru jackets, sharp Sassoon hair styles and enormous wide bellbottoms that were the new rage. The hair for dolly birds was short and wrapped around the forehead like a slap of butter. Quant was at ground zero when she opened Bazaar in London. The first shot was fired in the fashion revolution.
When we arrived at Victoria Station, the stimulation continued to hammer our senses like never before. This was swingin' London: it was moving even though the bus had stopped. Victoria Station was the end of the beginning. We had finally landed on our feet. It was up to us, as the world's doors were swung wide open. The smelly air greeted us along with the hordes of others seeking fortunes and futures.
This celebrated station was where every mode of transportation held hands. So we jumped from the red bus as if we'd been squeezed from a toothpaste tube. Here we were with an assortment of suitcases held together by strings and belts, pausing briefly while our legs grew accustomed to the uneven pavement.
The first part of our adventure was walking along the crowded pavement, everyone looking down, following the shadow left by the person ahead. Only new arrivals looked up, for "flat available" signs on hoardings amidst the millions of signs strung along Wilton and Belgrave Roads.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from MODS MINIS AND MADMENby D. Richard Truman Copyright © 2010 by D. Richard Truman. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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