It's Not What You Think (16 page)

10 ‘Money’s Too Tight to Mention’—Simply Red

  9 ‘Girls on Film’—Duran Duran

  8 ‘Too Shy’—Kajagoogoo

  7 ‘If You Let Me Stay’—Terence Trent D’Arby

  6 ‘The Last Picture of You’—The Lotus Eaters

  5 ‘Oblivious’—Aztec Camera

  4 ‘Chocolate Girl’—Deacon Blue

  3 ‘Living in a Box’—Living in a Box

  2 ‘You are my World’—The Communards

  1 ‘Don’t Try to Stop It’—Roman Holiday

As Michael moved to Finland I slowly moved more and more onto the air.

The usual passage of apprenticeship followed with a try out in the middle of the night on the graveyard shift: 2—6 a.m. This is a show I had witnessed being performed hundreds of times before, sometimes well, sometimes really not that well.

These nightly marathons were useful hours, however, for a young disc jockey trying to find his voice; it was the longest show on the network, making it easy to rack up lots of flying hours relatively quickly and as any pilot will tell you, it’s all about building up those hours. In many ways operating a radio console is very similar to learning to fly, with certain things having to become automatic before you can concentrate on the next thing—like entertaining people for example, which let’s face it is pretty essential if you are going to try and make a living out of this.

To start with, just playing all the records and jingles in the right order and managing to say, ‘that was’ and ‘this is’ along with the odd time check proved to be enough of a challenge—any chance of saying something funny or colourful on top was a rare bonus, for the first few weeks at least. Some people have been on the radio for years and still haven’t managed this last bit—harsh but true.

Another challenge for the presenters of
Nightbeat
, as it was called, was the lack of availability of well-known songs to play. Due to budget
restrictions this was limited to six records per show! And if you used all six in the first half hour, as I did, this meant you then had three-and-a-half hours to fill with little more than pan pipes and lift music hardly recognisable and barely worth the vinyl it was printed on.

Once again a problem became an opportunity as they so often do. I was free to create—and creating was what I did best. Ideas were needed and lots of them, the great thing was that anything that I came up with would probably sound more entertaining than playing these godawful records, so there was plenty of room to experiment.

I tried out tons of ideas during my duty on the graveyard shift, mostly phone-in ideas—competitions, agony uncle, blind dates, challenging bored listeners to get out of bed and drive somewhere and all meet up, races to the studio, night-time picnics.

One of my favourites slots and one of the most successful things I ever did was a thing called moon bathing, where I encouraged the night owls not to be outdone by their daylight-loving counterparts and get out there to acquire a moon tan—people sent me pictures of themselves in their deckchairs wearing Speedos out in the garden in the wee small hours, it was hilarious. It’s amazing what people will join in with if it’s all done in the right spirit.

I even had a suicide slot where I would play the most depressing record from the lift music selection at the same time every night. It was a track called ‘Deck of Cards’ by Wink Martindale—a bad bad bad song, miserable enough to plunge even the happiest of souls into darkness. For this I would ask people to ring in and tell me why they were particularly happy that night and then invite them to stay on the air and listen to this song…After it was over I would ask them at which point during its playing had they first contemplated death—the answer was usually somewhere within the first thirty seconds.

No idea was too flimsy for
Nightbeat
, no show a better place to learn. I used almost every idea I came up with. I had to, there was so much time to fill.

Make your mistakes in private is another great lesson I have learnt, or at least when there are fewer people around. This was most of the time on
Nightbeat
, but I didn’t care as I was on the air and I was learning with every show. No two shows on the radio are ever the same,
there’s always something to test you or some new avenue down which to wander.

With the passage of time, again came more regular stints. Soon whole swathes of
Nightbeat
were mine and mine alone—it may have been a job few of the other DJs wanted but I would have happily presented the show every night if they’d asked me to. I was living the dream. I even started to receive a few letters. Listeners would ask could they come to the studio and sit in on the show. They would bring me presents and midnight picnics. There was one amazing lady who had fostered over sixty children, all of whom had kept in contact with her, but that wasn’t all: somewhere in her life she had struck up a friendship with Dirk Bogarde! She’d met him at a book signing and had become something of a confidante, both of them corresponding with each other on a regular basis. She brought in all these amazing handwritten letters and showed me one in particular where he referred to her as his Salford Rose. This was one of the first times I realised that it’s often the most unlikely people who have the most amazing stories.

Another time I received a call early on in the show, sometime just before three-ish. It was a local nightclub who said they had a celebrity in who was most upset as something terrible had happened to him and he wanted to come on the radio and talk about it.

‘What—at three o’clock in the morning?’ I replied.

‘He says it’s a big story and if you want it’s yours.’

This was my first brush with the madness of celebrities. For some bizarre reason, celebrities feel the need to tell the whole world everything about themselves (by writing an autobiography, for example!) whilst often complaining about their lack of privacy. An annoying trait brought on by self-obsession and megalomania, two conditions with which I would become all too familiar with myself before my time on this mortal coil was done.

As far as the phone call from the local nightclub was concerned I’d never had a big story before—in fact I’d never had a story at all and this by all accounts might even be a scoop.

‘Sure, tell him to come over,’ I said. I had another four hours to fill, and all content was welcome, planned or otherwise.

Straight away I started to tell the story on the air of what had happened. The story about the story is often infinitely more interesting than the
story itself. I explained that the celebrity, a hugely popular household name, was currently on his way over to the studios and although I had no idea what he was going to say, I suspected it may well be worth sticking around for, at least I hoped it would.

The celebrity turned out to be Bernie Winters—he of Mike and Bernie Winters fame—the likeable television double act consisting of two Jewish brothers, who had now gone their separate ways but for years had graced our screens. Mike was skinny and handsome, Bernie the more roly-poly, smiley kind of character.

When Bernie arrived he was in a right old state—in floods of tears, his eyes red raw. It was obvious he’d been crying for some time and he still was, although I was yet to find out why. Before we went live I asked him for some idea of what was the matter but he was insistent that he would only talk about it on the air.

‘Fair enough,’ I thought, ‘in for a penny and all that.’

I asked him was he ready, to which he replied he was. He became more composed but was still audibly upset. The red light went on. I began to speak.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am now joined by one of Britain’s favourite entertainers, Bernie Winters, who has something he’d like to share with us. Good evening, Bernie…’

Bernie said hello and very graciously thanked me for giving him the opportunity to speak on the radio. He then went on to inform the listeners of the death earlier that day of his beloved doggie Schnorbitz, his famous St Bernard canine sidekick.

I was gobsmacked—we all were. What a bizarre story to have as your first scoop and what an even more bizarre way of coming across it. Schnorbitz was a dog deeply loved by television viewers all over the country—of that there was no doubt—and evidently adored by Mr Winters himself, but if you’d have asked me to predict what he was going to say when he walked in that night there’s no way I would have guessed it was to announce to the world the death of his furry friend.

Along with the post of regular overnight presenter came sporadic depping jobs on more prominent shows, shows with proper formats, content and even songs people recognised!

Depping on the radio is called swing jocking. It sounded pretty swish to me and it was. Eventually it involved me leaving my beloved
Nightbeat
altogether and moving on to the weekend early breakfast shows—plus I was now first replacement for anyone on holiday in the weekday part of the schedule.

If I was happy before, I was
flying
now, but there was yet more good news to come. I was also offered my first full-time contract. If I accepted—which of course I did, like a flash—I would no longer have to worry where my next buck was coming from. I was now officially on the payroll and for the princely sum of £10,000 per annum. I was rich.

With more shows came the need for more ideas and more writing. I have always written my radio shows, almost everything of what I intend to say. I may not end up saying much of it, sometimes none of it at all, but it’s always there if I need it. I am first a producer and then a presenter—always have been, always will be, always beginning, middle and end, preparation, preparation, preparation. Chefs have a great phrase for it—the more you do off the board, the less you have to do on the board. The less pressure, the more freedom.

The Dalai Lama even applies this theory to death. He says, if you throw a dinner party and you leave everything until the last minute then you are more likely to have a really stressful time and wish you’d never bothered. He goes on to say that death is very much the same—the more you prepare for it, the less chance of it being stressful and therefore more peaceful and although none of us particularly wants to die in the first place, it is a surefire thing that it’s going to happen and generally accepted that a peaceful death would probably be the nicest way to go. If the Dalai Lama ever tires of Buddhism, he should take up producing.

It’s always amazed me the number of people who fall on to the air on television and radio who haven’t given a second thought as to what they might want to say. What on earth do they think is going to come out of their mouths that could be remotely worth listening to?

I hear this kind of thing all the time when I listen to the radio and it drives me insane, I don’t want to hear some halfwit scrabbling around for ideas on the air, I don’t want to have to put up with constant streams of ums and ers whilst they are wondering what to say next, having been too lazy to have considered it beforehand. Don’t have the meeting on the air—have it before the show or don’t bother turning up.

Also the really crazy aspect of this approach is that you just end up sounding like an idiot. Five minutes’ preparation for a three-hour radio show is never going to work—do the maths!

The same can be said of awards shows: when people haven’t prepared a speech, they just come across so badly. I know—I have been that fool. Those brilliantly off-the-cuff speeches that people love so much and that often steal the show—I don’t think so. They have been thought about and rehearsed for hours beforehand. Only a dimwit tries to wing it when there’s a scriptwriter available. Not that there’s anything wrong with departing from a script once it’s written, but there has to be some sense of where we’re coming from and where we’re going to just so we all feel comfortable. Magical mystery tours are fine as long as the driver knows the route.

I once witnessed a guy win three awards in the same night. He’d spent his whole life waiting for this night but it was obvious he hadn’t given an ounce of thought as to what he might say if he won. The end result was not pretty. He ended up swearing overtly the first time, slagging off his current employer the second time and then slurring most of his words the third time, as he was now so drunk. It’s no surprise he hasn’t even been nominated for an award since.

It takes a lifetime of hard work and endeavour to build up a reputation but only one ill-judged moment to bring it crashing down—another lesson I would come to learn through first-hand experience.

10 Friends

  9 Family

  8 Money

  7 Religion

  6 Drugs

  5 Illness

  4 Exes

  3 The elderly

  2 Dogs

  1 Cats

American Beauty
—a perfect film in my opinion,
and while we’re at it the best mid-life riposte to my favourite film of all time,
The Graduate
—opens with a scene where Lester Burnham, the main character, played sublimely by Kevin Spacey, wakes up on what is to be the last day of his life. He has no idea it’s the last day of his life—why should he? He’s still relatively young, he’s fitter than he’s been for years and having recently split up from his godawful wife, for the first time in as long as he can remember, he has a renewed libido and everything to live for.

But then—
pow!

Along comes his next-door neighbour, supposedly homophobic but really latently homosexual (‘a lot of them are, dear’), who suspects Lester of having an affair with his son, which he isn’t but this, coupled with the fact that the neighbour also secretly lusts after Lester himself and is having to suppress this, along with the rest of his emotions to protect his legacy as a war hero, drives him—via a heady cocktail of anger, bitterness, jealousy and sadness—to blow poor old Lester away.

D’oh, don’t you just hate that? Right at the moment when you think you’ve got life where you want it, along comes the bogeyman.

This was my Lester Burnham day.

It was 1988 and I could not have been happier. I was writing some material for the current drivetime show that I was filling in on. The
drivetime show on any radio station is a big deal, the mirror to the breakfast show and often a stomping ground for future breakfast DJs.

With each different show would come a different daily routine. For drivetime I would: get up in the morning and listen to the guy on breakfast; dip in to hear what he was up to; take a quick look at the telly and then nip out for the papers and start to have a good old mooch as to what was going on in the world.

Anything was potential material but I would have to stay away from any subjects that had already been talked about on the other shows in the day—the safest way of doing this was by focusing my attention on the early evening papers and mainly, because of its importance locally, the all-encompassing
Manchester Evening News.

No one tells you ‘this is the day you’re going to die’, furthermore no one tells you that you’re going to read a story about a little old lady ordering a birthday cake for her cat in the morning, talk about it on the radio in the afternoon and a few hours later be out of work.

This is what happened to me. The cat in question was nineteen, which in human years, so the story claimed, was 133 apparently. I went on the air and said that this was clearly a dodgy conversion rate of cat years to people years as no human to my knowledge had ever come anywhere close to reaching such a grand old age.

I urged the cat world to revisit this generally accepted but highly inaccurate formula for converting cat ‘years’ to human ‘years’ and to please come up with a more realistic one. I then went on to say that this was probably why other nutty cat owners ended up leaving hundreds of thousands of pounds to their cats when they died because they obviously had no concept of numbers and what they meant.

I then for some stupid reason added another line which was so bad and unfunny it still makes me cringe today, I said:

‘However there is a good side to cats—that’s the left-hand side, cooked medium rare with a garlic sauce.’

After this last line the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree, but for all the wrong reasons.

Never ever mess with the emotions of owners and their pets—another one for the memory bank, especially cat owners, they are to be given the widest of all berths. Jeremy Clarkson can say what he likes about lorry
drivers, prime ministers and old people’s homes, but I swear if he ever took on the cat lovers of this sceptred isle he would be toast before he had time to say, ‘Vroom vroom feel the torque on that, Mrs.’

The show finished at six o’clock and by five past I was out of the door and out of work—silly, silly boy.

I was now an ex DJ. I was in total shock, what on earth had I done? What a complete and utter idiot. That night I went to bed and I had the opposite experience of what it feels like to wake up after a nightmare—you know, when you experience the relief of thinking something terrible has happened and then realise that it hasn’t. Well, I woke up and it still had.

It was the third week in the month so I had close to no money in the bank, being now used to spending more or less what I earned every month. I had technically broken my contract so had no chance of being paid. Not only that but the next day the garage rang up to ask for their car back so I had to say goodbye to my beloved sponsored Skoda. Within twenty-four hours I was both broke and car-less and had just flunked the job I had hankered after since being a small boy.