Alfie Read online

  We were due to get picked up at seven the next morning, not aware at that point that we were miles off course. I woke up, crawled out of the bivouac and stood on this mountainside, on the edge of this cliff, in the fog and the rain wearing nothing but my underpants, just as a family of Norwegian hikers, a guy and his wife and daughter appeared. ‘Morning!’ they said. I asked them the time and they said it was 3pm. I’d slept for about 20 hours, and, it transpired, a rescue team had been sent out for us with our locations, but the map coordinates they’d been given didn’t match up to where we were because this clueless instructor had dropped us off a mile between each other, so they’d only found the first two people. They found me eventually. And then I got sick, caught an abominable bug. I was in a right mess. The instructors didn’t do anything for me, they said, ‘Either get up and do the tasks or go home.’ So compassionate. But I did, I dragged myself out of bed and threw myself into a canoe and started paddling, feeling really ropey, but gradually worked through it. It’s impressive, what your body can do when it’s not given a choice.

  Soon after that I got some semi-regular work as part of the stage crew for the Blackpool Opera House, where I met a guy called John Ginley, who’d recently started working there, and we hit it off straight away. I wasn’t on the payroll, it was a part-time job. I’d be brought in if they needed a hand. The first gig I did was on Swan Lake for the Moscow Classical Ballet, carrying dry ice, putting it in the machines, turning the machines on at the right time, watching this dry ice fill the stage, shifting sets and scenery, packing up. The get in and get out – get the show in, then get it out of the theatre after it’s finished. The get out, you could be working from 10.30pm when the show came down to 4 or 5 in the morning. But it was good money, £200 cash in hand. And sometimes if it was a concert gig John would call me in to do backstage dressing-room security, get my tie and shirt on. First floor, dressing room number one. Most of the time I’d turn up without knowing who I’d be doing security for.

  The first security I did was the Pet Shop Boys. I was sitting outside Neil Tennant’s dressing room and their personal assistant, Peter Andreas, had an apoplectic fit in the dressing room when the band were on stage and I had to go in and help him out, it was really frightening. Next was Don McLean, the ‘American Pie’ guy. He was a really sweet fella, really nice guy, no airs or graces, sat in the corner of the stage with his guitar waiting to go on, did the job and left. But the one I was really thrilled by was The Everly Brothers. That was one of the times I didn’t even know who I was doing the security for. I was sitting outside the dressing room and some fella came up to me, combat trousers, army boots, army jacket, greased-back hair with a plaited rat’s tail down his back. He started talking to me in this crazy American accent, I presumed he was their manager. He asked me what my favourite food was, I told him I loved Italian, and he said, ‘Pizza, you like pizza? You know, son, to make a really good pizza you need the best ingredients in the world. In my house in California I have a huge brick pizza oven, it really does the job.’ And then Phil Everly appeared and this guy followed him into the room. Some time later Phil came out, on his own, all done up in his black suit and tie, and went down to the stage. And John radioed me and said, ‘Alf, you’ve got a minute break, you can come down if you want, go get a brew.’ Someone came to take over from me and I went downstairs and there rehearsing onstage with Phil Everly was the pizza guy – it was Don Everly. And I’d been talking to him about pizzas. So cool. John told me to go back up because the support act had arrived, and there was this huge Texan fella with an enormous Stetson on, rhinestones, and a mother of pearl guitar. Duane Eddy. I could tell who it was this time because it said Duane Eddy on the neck of his guitar, bit of a giveaway. And he came and sat next to me outside the room and started chatting as well, it was wicked. What a job.

  Tom Jones played one night. I just remember loads of knickers being thrown at him. They all went in a bin-bag afterwards. You don’t wanna be taking those Blackpool knickers back to LA with you. Shirley Bassey played, it was like royalty had arrived in Blackpool. Big artists like that coming into town were few and far between, so when the likes of her and Tom Jones and The Everly Brothers played it was a big deal, the whole area knew about it. After Shirley Bassey’s gig I was peeling some tape off the stage floor, crawling along the stage, backed into her by accident and her security guards stepped in front of me, blocked me. I’ll be on stage with her one day, I thought. A few years later she sang at a Prince’s Trust concert at the Royal Albert Hall, I was there singing that night as well and I was on stage next to her at the end, so I was just about right, but I was more excited to meet Eric Clapton. I went up to him at the after-show party, I really wanted to pay tribute, to shake his hand, and I introduced myself. I couldn’t believe I was shaking the hand that had played ‘Layla’.

  I nodded off one night while I was working at the Opera House, and that was the end of that. We were doing a production of 42nd Street, the fit-ups took a long time, and you’d lose sleep with one thing or another. I was due to work on the whole run, doing cues throughout the show, and in the rehearsal for one of the early ones, I nodded off for a minute, missed the cue. And I wasn’t asked back again. Duncan, the guy who ran the place, wasn’t particularly endearing. His dad had been stage manager before him – we knew him when he was crew. And he became stage manager and quite liked to push us around. I think it must have been that my face didn’t fit, because I worked really hard, worked round the clock quite a few times with John. But there you go. At least I got a great friendship out of it. He’s like a brother to me, John. I sang at his wedding a few years ago while he and his wife signed the register, it was lovely. He’s a project manager now at a big lighting company, works with loads of massive bands, Coldplay, Chemical Brothers, Kings of Leon. Incredible stuff he does. I want to get him involved with my next tour. I’ve always been so proud of him – he got out of Fleetwood and has done great work. He worked on the animatronics in the Doctor Dolittle show in London in 1998. I went to a preview. I was sat next to Phillip Schofield’s parents – I didn’t know it at first. I leant over to this lady towards the end of the show while Phillip Schofield was flying over our heads in the car, and I said, ‘You see that horse down there? My mate’s operating that horse.’

  And she said, ‘Oh, very good. My son’s in the show too.’

  I went, ‘Oh is he? Who is he?’ She said, ‘He’s flying the car.’

  Ah.

  One night while I was still working at the Opera House, John phoned me at home and said, ‘Put a shirt and tie on, Alf, you’re needed for security.’ So I smartened up, turned up to work and he said, ‘Right, we’re off out.’ What? I thought we were working? ‘Nah, that was a ploy. Let’s go out.’ And me, John and a friend of ours called Darren Williams went off to this nightclub called Rumours and got wholeheartedly plastered. Before moving on to what undoubtedly would have been some other awful cesspit we went to a cash point, except as we were crossing the road John did a vanishing act, jumped into a cab and disappeared into the night before we even knew he’d gone. I got a cab to his house to see if he was there and alright, knocked on his front door, one in the morning, and his mum, thankfully still up, came out. I said, ‘Hello Mrs Ginley, is John in? We lost him.’

  And she said, ‘Yeah he came back, but he’s in a bit of a state, Alf. He’s never usually like this.’

  I said, ‘I don’t know why, I’m sorry, we all had a few drinks, I’m pretty sober myself.’

  And my trousers fell down. In front of John Ginley’s mum. John says she delights in telling people that story whenever she sees me on TV, which is nice.

  I never used to go out much in Blackpool, mostly Fleetwood. I hated going out in Blackpool really, it was always a bit of a production. It was expensive, drinks were twice as much, watered-down lager, and then getting home consisted of a kebab on the town hall steps, stumbling around trying to find a taxi which would cost you ten quid, and you wouldn’t get back
until three or four in the morning. There was one place we went to a lot in Blackpool called Your Father’s Moustache, otherwise known as The Tache, fantastic rock club. They had some really wicked bands there, cool venue. Dingy old dive, sticky floor, sweaty roof. They closed it down last year – the council bought it. They ordered its closure for safety reasons, said the building was in an appalling state, that the carpet was “encrusted with filth”. Erm yes, rock clubs generally are. What did they expect? But they didn’t like some of what had gone on in there, people got glassed a few times. That was just the sort of place it was. Some guy did apparently get his ear bitten off in there one time. To be fair.

  Chapter Seven

  HARD GRAFT AND HEARTACHE

  I rarely got into any trouble, but I did a bit of karate and used to go kickboxing once a week, because my brother was into it. John, black belt in karate, third dan. I didn’t stick at it, I only went a few times, wasn’t any good, but I worked out a bit. And when certain people hear about that sort of thing they want a fight, see what you’re made of, and I did get into a couple of scraps in Blackpool. There was one guy, Billy Mullan, who had a bit of a reputation. I was in the Broadway pub and he started coming on to my sister Maria, who didn’t really want to be bothered by him, so I just stepped in and said to her, ‘Let’s go, let’s leave.’

  But she’d said, ‘I’m alright Alf, leave it be.’

  So I said, ‘Please mate, leave her alone.’

  Next minute, he grabbed hold of me and pulled me back off the chair, I crashed onto the floor. And he jumped on top of me and put his hands around my neck. The weird thing was that although he had his hands around my neck he wasn’t squeezing. I thought, ‘That was a waste of time, wasn’t it?’ So I got my leg underneath him, put my foot on his chest and kicked him off, he went flying into the table, and as he got up I smacked him in the face. The bouncers stepped in, kicked us both out and he disappeared. And Maria came out and I said, ‘Don’t piss around any more.’ Because she was really upset that it happened, we could have just left. But he really was the cock of Fleetwood, Billy Mullan, big fighter. Somebody said to me, ‘You got in a fight with Billy Mullan. He’ll come after you again.’ I said, ‘Well if he does he does.’ And I saw him a few months after that when I was working in a pub. I went up to him and said, ‘Alright mate, how you doing, remember me?’ I just didn’t want to ignore the fact that he was there. And we had a chat, I bought him a beer and he bought me one.

  There were a couple of good pubs John Ginley and I would go to where there was never trouble. The Queens was alright for a good beer. Some nice little bars here and there, but I was never exactly blown away by Blackpool. It was a bit of a dive. Fleetwood had its fair share of trouble spots too. There was a particularly rough club called Planters where there would be a fight every single night. Without fail. It had a pretty grisly reputation, a real last resort, all the parents would worry about their kids if they’d gone to Planters that night. Big scraps, gangs of lads just beating all hell out of each other, inside and outside. If you were on the dance floor you’d invariably get dragged away into the crowd while the bouncers sorted out some trouble. And when it closed you stood a good chance of being followed home by someone who wanted to have a go. If we ended up there we’d usually hang out in the back bar doing shots and tequila slammers, having a good time but trying to keep our heads down. And every six months or so the police would shut it down because it was full of kids under 18. They’d wait a bit until it was buzzing and happening, and then raid it again, and someone would take over the licence and rename it and reopen it a fortnight later. I think they knocked that one down too. No great loss to mankind.

  One night in a bar I convinced a couple of girls that John was the stuntman who did the bungee jump in GoldenEye, the James Bond film, because one of his mates had worked on that film and had given him a crew jacket with the logo on it. Why John thought it was a good idea to go out for the night wearing a GoldenEye jacket I do not know. We did have a laugh, we used to go out in Fleetwood quite a bit, but later on, once I started to get known for my singing, especially after I’d done a couple of shows at the Marine Hall, I started to feel self-conscious around people. Because, certainly in places like The Queens or The Broadway or Planters, a small minority would take the piss. ‘Give us a song!’ Someone would do some opera impersonation, assuming that I was big-headed. Most people I’ve known in Fleetwood have always been really supportive, but there are some like that who have a pop, and it put me off going out around there really.

  I was always trying to find a way out of Fleetwood, some sort of exit. Working at the Opera House inspired me to do something musical with my life. I’d watch all those people perform on stage, wishing I was there, wishing I could do it, I got a real buzz simply for being that close to live performance. I thought my drumming could have done something for me, could have maybe helped with my escape, but it didn’t. Everything around there seemed so insular. There were three things you could have done – become a fisherman, got a job in a local industry, or joined the Army. A lot of my friends joined the Army, went in the forces to get away. I went to sixth-form college after I left school, when I was 16, but I lasted less than a year because I hardly went. I used to stay on the bus instead of going to college and do stage crew at the Grand Theatre. I’d started working there too. Same sort of thing I’d been doing at the Opera House, on a smaller scale. It was a smaller venue, I’d be working on theatre shows, pantomimes, comedy gigs, local drama things, just the odd little job to keep some money coming in, and it was a better alternative to college. Eventually I got a letter sent home because I wasn’t turning up. So I re-sat my GCSEs, and that was it. Didn’t pass them, other than art and graphics. I wanted to work, I wanted a job. I thought you learnt better by throwing yourself in at the deep end, getting stuck into something. I’d always had that work mentality. Mum and Dad told me I could get a Saturday job as soon as I was 11, and I couldn’t wait. The day I turned 11 I went looking for work. I walked around town, went in to practically every shop, asking if they were taking anybody on for a Saturday job, and got lucky in this garage, C & H Coaches, who were looking for an MOT assistant. It was child labour basically – they were getting away with an extra pair of hands. But it was great for me because I learnt a lot about cars, about chassis and suspensions and exhausts and tyre treads. Dad used to tinker around with cars on the drive, do his own maintenance, so I’d already learnt quite a lot from him.

  I loved the MOT job. I worked with a great fella called Terry Fleming. He always used to give me an extra bit of cash from the till. I couldn’t believe it. I was only on £7 a week, and he’d always give me a tenner. A tenner! And I’d go to Kwik Save over the road and get these fantastic Cornish pasties for my lunch. I drove one of the coaches, backed it out onto Dock Street, 11-year-old coach driver, watch your backs. Peter McLoughlin worked there too, who was in that band Roadhouse I joined a few years later. He used to get up to all sorts of pranks. He was always getting fired but would turn up to work regardless the following day. He just refused to get fired, and the boss, Roy Coupland, would let him carry on working. It was a sitcom. One Saturday morning Roy was pushing Peter’s P45 under his flat door and Peter was there on the other side pushing it back saying, ‘I’ll be in on Monday, Roy!’

  I eventually left and when I was 14 got a glass-collecting job at the pub in the North Euston Hotel, which was a lot more money but pretty grotty. Lots of dodgy fishermen in there, proper undesirables who I don’t want to dredge up in any detail here. So I switched to the portering side, which was better, bit of catering. I worked at the Marine Hall for Fleetwood Council, as a caretaker and stage crew, waiter, silver service, bit of everything. I just liked working. Even on the summer holidays in Keswick when I was 15 I got a part-time job in the kitchens, as a commis chef for a fella called Donald Turnbull. I peeled spuds, chopped onions, all of that. He taught me how to do a wicked roast ham, I still do it the same way. And after my short stint
at sixth-form college I started looking for something serious, a career. I traipsed around Blackpool asking businesses if they were taking on any apprentices, and finally landed a job at the TVR sports car factory in Bispham, just on the edge of town. It was an apprenticeship scheme, to learn the process of body mechanics. I think Dad would have loved to have been a mechanic, tinkering around with engines, rather than working in that chemical factory. I used to watch him fiddling with carburettors, tuning them up, and that was what I thought I could get into doing by way of this job. I wanted to be an engine mechanic, but I never really got the opportunity. They were sending me to college once a week to get a body mechanic qualification, so I was learning how to weld, how to use jigs, how to straighten cars that had been in accidents, panel-beats, painting, spraying. I started off as a matte blacker, which was one of the lowest jobs in the factory, spraying the undersides of bonnets and boots and insides of doors, protecting the paint, then polishing. The work wasn’t much fun at all. I was laid under cars all the time, spraying and spraying and spraying, but we had a laugh, as you have to do to stave off the insanity. Insanity from inanity. There was a guy called Gerbil, because his name was Kevin, like Roland Rat’s mate. Another fella called Abdul, Absey. Cabbage, who looked like a Cabbage Patch Doll. And then there was Limper Jeff, who had a bad leg and hobbled around the place, nice guy. He was my boss to some extent, working with me in my corner.