Diary of a TEDDY BOY
A Memoir of the Long Sixties
Mim Scala
'The "Long Sixties", as it is best called, embraces a period from the chronological mid-Fifties to 1979, when on 3 May the party came so abruptly to its end ...'
Jonathan Green, All Dressed Up: The Sixties and the Counterculture (1988).
Copyright © 2000 Mim Scala
This 2009 edition published by Mim Scala (www.mimscala.co.uk).
ISBN (978-0-9561497-0-1}
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher.
Interior formatting, proofreading and cover design by LOTONtech (www.lotontech.com). Cover photographs provided by Mim Scala.
For FRED and JANIE
The purpose of this book, if there is one, is my attempt to enlighten the reader about the atmosphere, and attitudes that allowed the creative explosion that was the Sixties to happen. I have tried to paint a picture of life in London and my world from the end of the war to the end of the Seventies. There are many names in this book; they are not here for the sake of a name drop; they are all characters, some big some small, all of them important to me. It has been my absolute pleasure and privilege to have interacted with them all on my journey – it is my hope that you will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed living it.
One Love,
Mim Scala
This book is also dedicated to the songs and tunes of my childhood and life and to the many talented and inspired musicians who wrote, sang, played and recorded them. They put a special kind of joy into my existence.
'Because You're Mine,' Mario Lanza. 'Jambalaya,' Jo Stafford. 'Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes,' Perry Como. 'How Much Is that Doggie in the Window?' Pattie Page. 'Green Door,' 'High Noon,' 'I Believe,' 'There Must Be a Reason,' Frankie Lane. 'Oh Mine Papa,' Eddie Calvert. 'That's Amore,' Dean Martin. 'Such a Night,' Johnny Ray. 'Three Coins in a Fountain,' Frank Sinatra. 'Rock Around the Clock,' 'See You Later Alligator,' 'Shake Rattle and Roll,' Bill Haley and the Comets. 'Earth Angel,' Crew Cuts. 'Stranger in Paradise,' Tony Bennett. 'Hey There,' Sammy Davis Jnr. 'Ain't That a Shame,' Pat Boone. 'Sixteen Tons,' Tennessee Ernie Ford. 'Cumberland Gap,' 'Rock Island Line,' Lonnie Donegan. 'Only You,' 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,' 'The Great Pretender,' The Platters. 'Chain Gang,' 'Unchained Melody,' Jimmy Young. 'Blue Suede Shoes,' Carl Perkins. 'Be-Bop-A-Lula,' 'Blue Jean Bop,' Gene Vincent. 'Bad Penny Blues,' Humphrey Lyttleton. 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love?' Frankie Lyman. 'Giddy Up A Ding Dong,' Freddie Bell. 'All Shook Up,' 'Blue Moon,' 'Heartbreak Hotel,' 'Hound Dog,' 'I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine,' 'Return to Sender,' Elvis Presley. 'Ain't That a Shame?' 'Blueberry Hill,' 'I'm Walking,' Fats Domino. 'Baby Face,' 'Long Tall Sally,' 'She's Got It,' Little Richard. 'Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O,' The Vipers. 'Cry Me a River,' Julie London. 'Tenderly,' 'When I Fall in Love,' Nat King Cole. 'Freight Train,' Chase McDevitt & Nancy Whisky. 'Lucille,' Little Richard. 'Bye Bye Love,' 'Wake Up Little Suzie,' The Everly Brothers. 'Good Golly Miss Molly,' 'Great Balls of Fire,' 'Whole Lotta Shaking Going On,' Jerry Lee Lewis. 'That'll Be the Day,' Buddy Holly. 'Reet Petite,' Jackie Wilson. 'Chantilly Lace,' The Big Bopper. 'Stagger Lee," Llovd Price. 'Guitar Boogie Shuffle,' Bert Weedon. 'Endlessly,' Brook Benton. 'Lonely Boy,' Paul Anka. 'Only Sixteen,' Sam Cooke. 'Willie and the Hand Jive,' Cliff Richard. 'I'm Sorry,' Brenda Lee. 'Shaking All Over,' Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. 'Only the Lonely,' Roy Orbison. 'Georgia On My Mind,' 'Hit the Road Jack,' 'Your Cheating Heart,' Ray Charles. 'Stand By Me,' Ben E. King. 'Take Five,' Dave Brubeck. 'Moon River,' Andy Williams. 'Let's Twist Again,' Chubby Checker. 'Wimoweh,' Karl Denver. 'Jezebel,' Marty Wilde. 'My Funny Valentine,' Chet Baker. 'The Locomotion,' Little Eva. 'Desfinado,' Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd. 'Da Doo Ron Ron,' The Crystals. 'A Hard Day's Night,' 'Can't Buy Me Love,' 'Help,' 'Hey Jude,' 'Please Please Me,' 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' 'Twist and Shout,' The Beatles. 'Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa,' Gene Pitney. 'Anyone Who Had a Heart,' Cilla Black. 'Honky Tonk Woman,' 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction,' 'It's All Over Now,' 'Little Red Rooster,' 'Not Fade Away,' 'Sympathy for the Devil,' The Rolling Stones. 'Hi- Heel Sneakers,' Tommy Tucker. 'Johnny B. Goode,' 'No Particular Place to Go,' Chuck Berry. 'My Guy,' Mary Wells. 'Shout,' Lulu. 'Tobacco Road,' The Nashville Teens. 'The Girl from Ipanema,' Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto. 'House of the Rising Sun,' 'We've Got to Get Out of This Place,' The Animals. 'As Tears Go By,' Marianne Faithfull. 'Parchment Farm,' Mose Allison. 'Go Now,' The Moody Blues. 'Leader of the Pack,' The Shangri-Las. 'I'm Losing You,' Dusty Springfield. 'Baby Please Don't Go,' Them. 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling,' The Righteous Brothers. 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood,' Nina Simone. 'The Times They Are a-Changin',' 'Subterranean Homesick Blues,' Bob Dylan. 'Help Me Rhonda,' The Beach Boys. 'My Generation,' The Who. 'Keep On Running,' Spencer Davis Group. 'My Girl,' Otis Redding. 'I Heard It through the Grapevine,' Marvin Gaye. 'It's a Man's World,' James Brown. 'How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You,' Junior Walker and the All Stars. 'If I Were a Carpenter,' Tim Hardin. 'Hey Joe,' Jimi Hendrix. 'A Whiter Shade of Pale,' Procul Harum. 'Dedicated to the One I Love,' The Mamas and the Papas. 'Forty Thousand Headmen,' Traffic. 'Ode to Billy Joe,' Bobbie Gentry. 'There Is a Mountain,' Donovan. 'Grazing in the Grass,' Hugh Masakela. 'On the Road Again,' Canned Heat. 'Give Peace a Chance,' John Lennon and Yoko Ono. 'Lionel Hampton Live at Carnegie Hall.' 'Kinda Blue' Miles Davis.
Everything played at the All-Nighter. All of Blind Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Alexis Korner, Graham Bond and Georgie Fame, John Coltrane, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Louis Prima, Keely Smith, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, Billie Holiday, Elmore James, Leadbelly, Little Walter and the Dukes, Dizzy Gillespie, Bob Marley, Minnie Ripperton, Elton John, JJ Cale, Led Zeppelin, Carlos Santana, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Quincy Jones, Jimmy Cliff, The Wailers, Sly and the Family Stone, Taj Mahal, Tina Turner, Richie Havens, and the Gnaoua of Tangiers.
Chapter 1
The Scalas were just one of a large number of immigrant families in Britain, eking a living from fish-and-chip, ice-cream, and barber shops. The Italian community in Britain at this time lagged behind its American counterpart. London did not have organized Mafia gangs. There were, of course, important Italians who had the traditional role of godfather, but somehow the greed and violence of the Al Capone era had not penetrated the lives of English immigrants. Emilio and Nazarena, my grandparents, were hard-working and poor. Then, on 28 March 1931, Emilio went to watch a race at Aintree with the stub of a ticket in his pocket for the second Irish Hospitals Sweepstake. The white flag came down, the tapes went up, the 95th Grand National got under way. It took 9 minutes 32.8 seconds for the tough little steeplechase jockey Bob Lyle to coax the tired but game Grakle past the winning-post. The enormous crowd went wild. They knew they had a winner in their midst. The first prize was for £354,724 12s 4d, and Emilio Scala won it and became an instant celebrity – he was, after all, the luckiest man in the world.
Emilio and Nazarena had one daughter, Virginia, and three sons, Josepi, Geofredo and Mimi. As teenagers they all lived at Hamilton Lodge, Honour Oak Road, Forest Hill. Hamilton Lodge was a mansion built on top of the highest hill in southeast London, with panoramic views from its Adams drawing room of the Crystal Palace and the city to the south. Emilio had acquired the house with his new-found wealth, saying goodbye forever to the family's two rooms above the Battersea ice-cream shop.
As family folklore had it, Emilio had worked his way to England, leaving Isola del Liri, his home town in southern Italy, in the 1890s to follow the circus. This took him to Rome where, as a teenager, he busked a living with other urchins. He would walk up and down the Spanish Steps on his hands. This muscular youth caught the eye of a painter called Mantegna, after the fifteenth-century master. He took Emilio off the streets and employed him as a model. When Emilio had enough money saved, he made his way to London where he became an artist's model at the Slade. Then he sent for his childhood sweetheart, Nazarena Varilone, and they started a small ice-cream business, selling their gelato from a tricycle in the then-fashionable Battersea Park. To this life my father, Geofredo Scala, was born.
As young men in the 1930s, Emilio's sons, Joe and Geofredo, cut quite a dash in the Italian community of London (Mimi had died young of bronchial pneumonia). My mother had fallen hook, line and sinker for Geofredo, with his dapper suits and good looks. They married in an extravagant ceremony in St George's Cathedral, Southwark. Granddad Emilio spared nothing, going so far as to import Swiss Guards from the Vatican for good luck. The wedding feast was documented in the English and Italian newspapers. The newlyweds moved in with the Scala family at Hamilton Lodge, which could easily contain all Emilio's offspring and their families.
I was born into this atmosphere on 13 July 1940. My earliest recollection of the house is of the enormous kitchen with its huge Victorian cast-iron range where all the Scala women and kids spent most of their lives. The kitchen was for cooking and ironing, and for pets and children. Chickens would wander in from the garden while fresh ricotta cheese dripped from small wicker baskets in the scullery and drying pasta hung from rods on the ceiling. The smell was a delicious combination of fresh coffee, baking bread, ragout and freshly ironed laundry. My dad was the young master of a classical Victorian billiard-room, where I used to love to hide under the table listening to the soft clink of the balls. Dad was good – a Borough-and-Watts finalist several times and a London amateur champion – at both billiards and snooker. The rest of the house was Granddad's domain.
In September 1939 Britain had gone to war. Granddad was interned on the Isle of Man with his friend Charlie Forte, because, as Italians, they were potential collaborators. He had sent Mussolini a telegram when he won the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake, telling him that there was an Italian in London who was also doing rather well. His sons, however, were drafted into the British army, leaving my grandmother, mother and Auntie Millie behind to run the ice-cream parlour on the North End Road which Emilio had bought for his children in the mid 1930s. Dad's education at Pitman's College stood him in good stead and he joined the Royal Engineers. Although he was not officer material, being just five foot two, he soon earned the distinction of becoming the shortest sergeant-major in England. My grandmother was in bits, with her two remaining sons fighting the war and her husband a prisoner of the country that they were fighting for. Then the bombs came. The parlour took a direct hit. Forest Hill and Peckham were pasted. Granny Scala, my mother and Auntie Millie whisked us all off to a house in Rotherglen on the outskirts of Glasgow, where we stayed until the end of the war.
By this time Mum wanted her independence and was fed up living with her in-laws. The three of us – Mum, my little brother Bernard and I - returned to London and a bombed-out business. Mum chose to move from the luxury of Hamilton Lodge to a dinky little prefab in Hammersmith.
The prefabs were designed and built as temporary accommodation. Our prefab was one of eight on a plot of cleared land that sloped down to a wharf on the River Thames. Only a few years earlier it had been a neat little row of two-up two-down houses, occupied by the workers at the Mambury and Garton sugar factory and distillery. A German doodlebug had flattened the block. The women workers clattered to their jobs at the factory in wooden clogs past eight little gardens with eight little rectangular, single-storey, two-bedroom dwellings made of sheet asbestos. They were hi-tech contraptions, with Bakelite and Formica fittings. Everything in the British prefab – ironing-boards and tables included – folded away. They were, however, warm and cosy. Each had a plot of land, an asbestos shed and a mound of topsoil to make into a garden.
Sitting on the precarious roof of the bombed-out factory at the end of Distillery Lane with my brother and a gaggle of other kids, we held our fingers in our ears as the entire remaining British Air Force, Spitfires, Lancasters and B-52s, flew low in victory over London, so low we felt that we could touch them. We waved, convinced that our dad was in one of the planes, and we were right. Dad returned in his grey demobilization suit with a kitbag. He was back from Burma – with jaundice and malaria, but happy to be home. He recovered soon enough and set about rebuilding his bombed-out ice-cream parlour.
The war was over, people were cheerful, Dad was earning money. I knew this because a Ford motorcar appeared. It was square and black with a thin red line decorating the side of its shining bodywork, and it had seats of dark green leather that smelled of polish. My brother and I would sit in it for hours, parked in our postage stamp of a garden.
Our first outing in this marvellous machine came on my birthday in July 1946, my pockets jingling with sixpences and shillings – presents from various visitors. I climbed into the crowded back seat with my brother Bernard and my cousin Laura and onto the laps of Laura's mum and dad, Freddie and Laura Varilone. Mum sat proudly in the front seat as Dad drove the overfilled little Ford into the night. This is the first journey I remember making with my dad, bouncing about on Uncle Freddie's and Auntie Laura's laps, squealing with excitement as the little car drove sedately through Hammersmith Broadway and towards a different world, cruising at what we thought was great speed through Kensington High Street. Mum and Auntie Laura ooh'd and aah'd as we passed the big stores, C&A and Barkers, their windows dressed and illuminated for our benefit. As we passed the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial, I remember asking if the memorial was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The women wanted to drive by Harrods. Dad made the appropriate manoeuvres and we drove slowly past the greatest store in the world. The women talked about it in such reverent tones that for years I thought God must have lived there. More ecstatic mumblings came as we passed Harvey Nichols with its windows crammed full of bolts of material and overdressed tailors' dummies. We slowed down at Hyde Park Corner so that Dad could point out the bronze figure of a naked warrior. 'Your granddad modelled for that statue.'
We drove around Boadicea's Arch twice more so that we could see the effigy of our very own granddad, and then continued our journey along Piccadilly. The pavements were teeming with American soldiers, some in immaculate uniforms, others in their civvies. Mum and Auntie Laura seemed very interested in the clothes worn by the women talking to the soldiers. They all looked very pretty to me. Dad said that they were 'brass'. I didn't understand what he meant or why my uncle was laughing.
Suddenly through the misty windows I saw the most magical thing: a whole row of buildings covered in electric lights that moved round and round and up and down, flashing and sparkling, lighting up the street in greens, blues, yellows and reds. In the middle of the street on a beautiful bronze pedestal was a naked boy standing on one leg, firing a bow and arrow. We pressed our noses to the windows to drink in Piccadilly Circus. 'Can we see the animals and the clowns?' my little brother asked.
We drove into Shaftesbury Avenue and turned off into Windmill Street. The pavement was packed with soldiers, GIs and Tommys, standing in groups, smoking cigarettes and talking to the pretty girls. Everybody seemed to be laughing. Dad parked the car in what I now know as Ham Yard and we all bundled out. I put my young feet on the cobbles and took my first step into the marvellous and mysterious world of Soho.
Our first stop was the Regent Ice-Cream Parlour. My parents, uncle and auntie were welcomed with open arms by the padrone, who was related to a distant cousin. His face was familiar to us from weddings and funerals. We kids were given window seats and were soon devouring ice-cream sundaes while the grown-ups talked and drank coffee.
Through the glass that reflected flashing neon lights I watched in wonder the throng of buskers, soldiers and girls on the pavement. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw a black man in a duck-egg blue zoot suit, flashing white teeth from a huge mouth as he laughed. We were soon ushered back onto the street by Mum in her printed floral frock. She led us through the neon entrance of the Windmill Newsreel Theatre with its wall-to-wall posters of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny and pictures of a raft falling down a waterfall. In we went. Dad bought tickets, which a uniformed man tore in half, and we followed a beam of torchlight into plush red seats.
We had come in halfway through the film. I was spellbound. I slid into my seat clutching a bag of popcorn and watched in amazement as the voice of the narrator took me over the rapids of a river in the Yukon. I could feel the spray as the crazy craft reared and dipped in the wild, white water. When it was over, the lights in the theatre came on briefly, and then dimmed again. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny all appeared on the screen, and then a Pathé Newsreel of the Derby at Epsom. The grand finale showed pictures of the Royal Air Force and all the British and American planes flying over London.
My head reeling from the magic of the cinema, I stepped back onto the streets of Soho. We walked through the crowds to Uncle Victor's amusement arcade in Old Compton Street. My grandmother's brother's arcade was shabby but exciting. It had bare floorboards, a row of pinball tables and lots of machines on the walls with spring-loaded silver hammers, which you flicked to send steel balls around a sort of maze. When they reached the top, the silver balls tumbled down through a battery of small nails, bouncing and tumbling until they finally disappeared through a hole with a number on it. If you were lucky a few pennies sometimes dropped into a tray. Uncle Victor, his hands green from handling thousands of copper pennies, gave us kids a stack each and let us loose on the machines. I spent my money trying to pick up a weighted-down, silver-looking wrist-watch. The chromium-plated, crane-like contraption would never quite grip the watch, although for a moment I watched the steel claws close on the prize. I held my breath in anticipation. Of course, the watch would slip back into its nest. All I ever won was the odd jellybean. I got to know that watch very well over the next few years. It was an Omega with see-in-the-dark numbers.
While the grown-ups sat in the back room where they drank coffee and laughed and talked, we kids ran between the legs of GIs and their girls. I was amazed at the way they could smoke cigarettes and chew gum at the same time. The GIs were very generous, and I finished up with a lump of gum the size of a golf ball in my mouth. My mother noticed and made me spit it out, saying that if I swallowed it, the gum would wind itself around my heart and I'd die. I stopped chewing gum for a while after that. Soon, three very sleepy children were dozing in the back of the car. I drew Mickey Mouse with my finger on the steamed-up back window, then fell asleep dreaming of Donald Duck. These monthly visits to Soho were to continue for several years.
Sometimes Dad would take my brother and me, leaving Mum at home. On these occasions he'd play cards with Uncle Victor, leaving us to explore. Bernie and I would sit on the steps of a place that had exciting music floating up from its basement, listening and wondering at what went on in the dark room at the bottom of the El Macambo staircase.
It was to be seven or eight years before I'd find out.
Chapter 2
My first school was a Marist Convent in the Fulham Road. My memories of this school are not good. Being a wilful youngster, I was whacked with a strap, a spoon, and by the tongue of the sadistic Sister Seraphina. The white angel wings she wore for a headdress did a lot to disguise a basic child-abusing monster. Thankfully, I was taken out of there and at the age of eight I went to a delightful little school in Brook Green. Now that I could cycle home through the back streets of Hammersmith, my independence grew.
Distillery Lane backed onto the Thames between Hammersmith and Putney Bridge, and I was soon familiar with all the mysteries that a big river and its towpath could provide. Before I was ten I knew every nook and cranny of the river from Putney to Barnes. My brother and I, with a few of the more adventurous kids from the prefabs, would cross Hammersmith Bridge to the derelict estate of the late Lord Ranelagh. Its vast gardens ran from the Harrod's Depository by the bridge to the Star and Garter in Putney. Once over the wall, we were in wonderland. The ruins consisted of the huge main house, several cottages, and a stable-yard with stone-built loose boxes. In the overgrown gardens were lakes and ponds full of large ornamental fish which we could catch at our leisure. There were territories in the grounds that we had gang wars over, and tree houses shared with kids from Barnes, Putney and Hammersmith. Usually we were chased off by the police or grown-ups until the next holiday or weekend when we would be back.
Our other secret place was more dangerous, inhabited by bigger, more aggressive boys who would hurt us if they were crossed. This was the Chinese garden that used to exist beside the White City Stadium. Derelict and overgrown, this oriental folly on several acres was a magical place to play in for any boy brave enough to venture over its barbed wire and jagged glass-topped wall.
Dad was still busy rebuilding the shop, which had taken a hammering during the Blitz. Slowly it took shape until one day in 1952 he piled us all into the car to see our new home in the North End Road, and we moved into the flat above.
Dad and Uncle Joe ran the family business, Scala's Ice-Cream Parlour, 387 North End Road, Fulham. Granddad would show up once a week in his Lancia sedan, an astrakhan collar on his overcoat and a Homburg on his head. Although a millionaire by today’s standards, once at the shop, he would exchange these clothes for his white coat and white Wellington boots, to make the week's supply of ice-cream.
Scala's Ice-Cream Parlour was state-of-the-art, with pale blue, yellow and black Vitrolux mirror tiles. The lighting was of course neon, and three Deco ceiling chandeliers of multicoloured neon strips illuminated the place and its terrazzo mosaic floor. The counter, in yellow and black glass, finished in stainless steel, was gorgeous. The soda fountain and coffee-machines were chromium. At the front of the shop, facing the Market, was the ice-cream kiosk, a vast slab of stainless steel with six lids set into it. Underneath, the ice-cream was mixed and stored in five-gallon drums, which floated in a tank of freezing brine, ready to serve the endless queues that formed every day. Scala's ice-cream was the best in London.
I instantly fell in love with the Market. In the early Fifties the Market was worked by costermonger families who had been associated with it since the early eighteenth century (the Kings, Gads, Lees, Frosts and Hurrens). I loved its routine and its atmosphere. We were one large, organic, friendly family. The Market awoke early, particularly on a Saturday. The regular stall-holders would pull their stalls to their pitches while the lorries went to Covent Garden to score the day's fresh fruit and veg. The lorries returned at seven, and then the dressing of the stalls began. The carefully loaded fruit-and-veg stalls, the rows of polished apples, the stylized price-cards with their numerals drawn in chalk, were things of beauty. While this was happening the secondary traders would arrive to set up. By eight-thirty the first shoppers were on their way down the half-mile-long Market.
Dad's ice-cream parlour was bang in the middle, with the enticing smell of Gaggia coffee wafting over the pavement. More than a hundred thousand shoppers must have hustled and bustled their way past our door by the end of the day. In summer most of them would queue for ice-cream.
By six o'clock it was all over. Great piles of market detritus littered the empty street. The bigger the piles, the more successful the day had been. Late evening was for the scavengers to pick their way through the leftovers. Clever women would leave with a pram full of slightly soiled fruit and veg. Next came the cleaners, a cheerful bunch and very much part of the Market family. By eight o'clock the road was as clean as a country high street. The Market pubs were full, the pianos rocking, and the mild ale and bitter cascading like Niagara Falls.
I remember my fourteenth birthday. It was a Saturday in 1954, in the middle of a July heat wave. The ice-cream queue had formed at half past seven in the morning and was still snaking down Anselm Road at lunchtime. I kept hoping that my dad would suddenly say 'Happy Birthday' and give me my present. We were so busy that no one took a lunch break, with four of us – Uncle Gerald, Uncle Freddie, Auntie Tina and myself – whacking out handmade wafers and cornets.
In the late afternoon Dad sent me on an errand to Lilly Road to collect his billiard cue, which was being re-tipped. I strolled through the Market on my errand and went to the address I had been given, walking into the workshop of master craftsman and racing-bike builder, Mr H.E. Green. He and Mr Charles Holdsworth of Putney built the best bespoke racing bikes in London. These bikes had made-to-measure frames and imported Italian aluminium fittings, with beautiful Gothic curls on the frame lugs and lightweight wheels. They were works of art.
'You’re Fred’s boy. Let's have you then, son,' said Mr Green. 'Sit on this one, and I'll measure you up.'
My hand-built H.E. Green racing bike took a month to make. When it was delivered, I felt like the king of the world. Soon I was kitted up and racing. By now I had graduated to St Edmund's secondary school in St Dunstan’s Road, Hammersmith. Naturally I rode my best bike to school until, just before the Christmas holidays, it was stolen.
The loss of that bike changed my world. I started spending more time on street corners. Stand on one long enough and you will see and understand all the mysteries of life. A good street corner has no prejudice. We learned about sex, crime, society, sport. In Fulham the street corner, not school or our mum's kitchen, became the centre of our universe. This was where we learned everything. The street corner was our Internet.
I hung around with the big boys and their girls. I fell in heart-thumping love with every beautiful girl who talked to me. A good crush could last for weeks and would dominate all actions. At the end of the day you either had It or you didn't and I wanted whatever It was.
It was 1956 and I was almost sixteen and dyslexic. I could not read, write or spell. I was hopeless at football, fair at cricket, a fanatical fisherman and a racing cyclist. My only academic achievement was that I had won the school prize for art. A painting I had made of the Crucifixion was hanging in the palace of a Cardinal Minsenti. Three of my paintings and a plaster-of-Paris mosaic had been accepted for the Royal Academy's Children's Art Exhibition. My best friend Howard Bond won the gold medal at the exhibition; I got the bronze, and two highly commended certificates dished out by Sir Hugh Casson. This was heady stuff for two Cockney boys from Fulham. We had to go to Piccadilly to receive our prizes.
After the presentation we were taken for a walk through Soho to St Martin's College of Art in Tottenham Court Road. As a special treat we were given a guided tour of this real art school by a beautiful senior student, with long raven hair and paint-covered jeans. As she showed us around the various departments, and we rubbed shoulders with these cool bohemian art students, Howard and I suddenly became deeply ashamed of our school blazers. Tight trousers, baggy sweaters and sandals seemed to be the standard uniform at St Martin's. Once we were shown the street we found ourselves following a bunch of students along Tottenham Court Road until they disappeared into a place with a sign proclaiming itself The Gyre and Gimble Coffee House. We followed them inside. This was it. This was where the real world began: candles in wine bottles, dark corners with earnest young men spouting poetry, a beautiful, barefoot girl singing folk songs. We both became instant bohemians by turning our school blazers inside-out to reveal the striped lining. Thus attired, we sat self-consciously in a corner nursing a single cup of cappuccino.
To our amazement, Tina, our student guide, came in and went from table to table with a folder full of drawings for sale. Howard drew a brilliant portrait of her on the menu. Suddenly she came over to our table, said hello and sat down. We could not believe our luck. Tina loved Howard's portrait and swapped one of her drawings for it. I attempted one of her on the tablecloth with a biro. It didn't impress her, but it did impress the manager of the Gyre and Gimble, who promptly threw us out. Incredibly, Tina came with us, and we spent the next couple of hours wandering around Soho visiting numerous coffee bars, by which time I had conceded that Tina was hopelessly in love with Howard.
He had the same impression, until, on a corner of Old Compton Street, outside the 2i’s, Tina announced that she had to go and jumped onto the pillion of a Vespa motor-scooter driven by a big handsome beatnik with a beret. She disappeared into the traffic, leaving two love-struck schoolboys on the pavement with far more than their school blazers turned inside-out. Reversing our jackets, we caught the number 14 bus home to Fulham, and reality.
Chapter 3
Two weeks later Howard won a scholarship to the Slade; I did not. I went to work full-time for my father. Scala's had become the most famous ice-cream in West London, and my dad's parlour was the next best thing to an American drugstore. All American films seemed to have soda fountains with stainless-steel counters, mirrored walls, jukeboxes and, above all, wise-cracking guys in smart white coats serving up sundaes and sodas in long thin glasses to hordes of pretty bobby-soxers, to the sound of Jukebox Rock. I could be just like those soda jerks, right here in the North End Road. I began to grow my schoolboy haircut into a fully fledged Teddy Boy haircut with a Duck's Arse at the back, the DA.
To go with this new image, I commissioned Mr Tobias of 200 North End Road, a tailor respected by the discerning Fulham Teddy Boys, to make me my first suit.
The dimensions of a novice Teddy Boy's suit were usually governed by the novice Teddy Boy's parents. If his parents were lenient and shameless, Tobias would have a free hand to build one of his more spectacular efforts. Shoulder pads, constructed to project eighteen inches outwards from each side of the neck, would be covered by a suitable material, black for the hard boys, duck-egg blue if you were into Johnny Ray, or a wonderful shiny silver herring-bone cloth, as favoured by the Walham Green gang. The collar of the coat was critical: a narrow strip of velvet had to curve gently just below the DA hairline. The ideal suit tapered from the extended shoulders to the trouser turn-ups, an inch and a half in depth and seven inches wide. The jacket was then cut to the fingertips ('the fingertip drape'); if your parents allowed it, it had flapped pockets, one breast, one ticket, and two for the hands to go into when lounging around the British Home Stores. In Fulham the buttons on a Ted suit were special: seven of them ran from the tiny lapel down the front of the jacket, the last one level with the cuff.
Tobias excelled himself: my first silver herring-bone was brilliant. I picked it up on my tea-break on a Saturday afternoon. It was a hot July day. The queue for ice-cream stretched down the Market for fifty yards. I worked away for the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening as the Market closed down, the cleaners moved in and the persistent queue slowly vanished. All I could think of was my first night out as an official Teddy Boy with the Walham Green gang. I was going to be late for my initiation.
As soon as the 'CLOSED' sign was hung on the door, the family began the counting of the cash. I bribed my brother to help Dad, Uncle Joe and Cousin Julio count the money, which on a summer Saturday would fill a dozen or so foot-square biscuit tins with halfpennies, pennies, threepenny bits, sixpences, shillings, two-bobs and half-crowns.
I ran upstairs. I had no time for a bath, so, still smelling of vanilla essence, I changed into a white shirt with a flyaway collar, and a bootlace tie with a cow-skull toggle. Its red glass eyes were shining at me as I undid the box and took out my silver suit. I adjusted the braces of my trousers and put on the yellow socks. Then from under the bed I took out the Dolcis box that contained my blinding new pair of Jeff Chandlers: inch-thick crepe, crinkly soles, topped with black suede and finely decorated with thin strips of black patent leather, cleverly woven into patterns around the seams. Finally I climbed into the jacket, twisting my skinny frame to adjust the gigantic Mr Tobias shoulders. After posing for a while in the bathroom mirror, and adding a final squirt of Brylcreem, a liberal splash of Old Spice and one final comb of the hair, I stood transformed. The DA was flying, the suit was magnificent.
My one problem was how to get out of the flat. Over the past few weeks Teddy Boys had stabbed several people to death on Clapham Common and staged numerous gang fights all over London. They were about as popular with parents as head lice. The only exit was through the shop, where my dad, my brother, Uncle Joe and Cousin Julio sat counting money at one of the tables. I could hear the clink as I stood on the iron fire escape that ran down the back of the building. I opened the door and walked with the swagger of a fully fledged Ted towards the exit. My crepes crept across the terrazzo floor of the café. My reflection in the pink mirrors enhanced by the neon ceiling lighting was a vision I'd dreamed about. I looked the business. As I drew level with the concentrating money-counters, one of them looked up. It was my dad.
'Where the fuck do you think you're going looking like that? Get back upstairs and take that monkey suit off now.'
I made an instant decision. The traction of crepe soles on terrazzo flooring was brilliant. I began my sprint to the door. Dad jumped up, giving the counting table a hefty thump with his knee. As I fled through the door of the shop, all I could hear was the tinkling cascade of hard-earned coins bouncing and rolling behind me. A Teddy Boy running is a strange sight. The shoes weighed a pound apiece; the thick soles slapped the pavement, compressed, expanded and propelled me forward as if I were running on a trampoline. I did not stop to look back. I did, however, catch my reflection in numerous shop windows. (Teddy Boys were really narcissistic. I mean Masai-warrior, Beau-Brummel, Bertie-Wooster narcissistic.) Slowing down as I reached the Fulham Baths, I ducked into the doorway of Radio Rentals to rearrange the outfit. Mr Tobias's shoulder pads were not designed for sprinting. I combed the Tony Curtis haircut, taking special care with the DA, and made my way to the corner of Munster Road and the Star Café. This place was the original greasy spoon, so crummy that the Greek owner actually welcomed the Teds – something that my dad did not do at Scala's.
I sauntered in and ordered a cup of tea and a cheese roll. The chieftain of the Fulham Teds went by the name of Korky, as he bore a striking resemblance to the cat of that name in the Dandy comic. Korky was six feet tall, as thin as a pin and decked out in a magnificent black Toby. His very prominent Adam's apple bobbed above a plastic silver skull toggle, from which dangled a black ribbon tie. He was probably twenty to my sixteen. Next to Korky lounged Dumb-Dumb, a ginger mute reputed to be the hardest Ted in Fulham. I wandered over to the shelf that they were leaning on, put down my tea and roll, and checked myself in the Bovril mirror.
'Nice whistle, Scala. It's a Toby innit?'
'Yes,' I replied proudly, sliding my hands into the jacket pockets.
Dumb-Dumb sucked in a lot of air and made a string of sounds deep down in the back of his throat. He then produced a cut-throat razor from his inside pocket and neatly cut the bottom button off my jacket.
'He finks yer coat's got too many buttons,' Korky said, sipping his tea.
'Yeah, I fought so too,' said I, hoping that this was as violent as my initiation would get.
I waited in silence for the next move, nonchalantly sipping my tea. The silence was shattered by the spring bell on the café door. Scatter, Duck Lips, and Alfie Bates swaggered in. Alfie was a friend who worked on a stall in the Market, a few yards from my ice-cream counter.
'Tasty whistle, Mim,' said Alfie. 'Coming down the Bricklayers? There are some bints in there from Putney.'
At the mention of bints everyone started combing their hair. Korky commandeered the Bovril mirror, combed his hair straight back on his head and then pushed it forward with the palm of his hand until a suitable quiff appeared over his forehead. Slicking back the sides, he ran his finger down the DA for definition, and we were on the street.
Although there were only six of us at this stage, it felt as if I was moving with an army. It was amazing the way pedestrians crossed the road or moved out of the way. We swaggered into the Bricklayers' Arms, had a whip-round and ordered lager and limes. The girls were in a large booth, their bouffant hair sprayed solid with lacquer, lipstick trowelled on, eyelashes stuck on. In the snug booth they nonchalantly drank Snowballs as they cackled in pencil skirts with wide elastic belts pinching in their waists, and pretended not to notice the Walham Green gang. Snowballs were sent over the bar and were accepted by the bints with a sort of indefinite smile. The Teds, however, made no acknowledgment of the fact that they had bought the girls drinks.
The gang, glowing from the lager and limes and undercover flirtations, hit the street, pushed to the front of the queue at the Red Hall Cinema and bought tickets. A discreet look over one shoulder pad revealed that the bints were following; a look over the other shoulder pad revealed that outside the Fulham Baths was a collection of Teds from across the river. The Putney gang had followed their bints to Fulham.
Soon we were inside the cosy cinema, chanting for the fire-screen to go up, and ignoring the fact that the Putney bints had clambered into the row directly behind us.
The gang whistled and stomped until the manager wisely pulled back the curtains, wound up the asbestos fire-screen and brought down the house lights. The gang hissed through an advertisement from a bookmaker: 'You win when you lose with Margolis and Ridley.' Next came the framed announcement that Blackboard Jungle had been passed by the British film censor.
What happened next changed my life. The overpowering and unforgettable sound of rock and roll hit me between the ears. After twelve bars the words 'One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock' came belting into the cinema. Blackboard Jungle had begun and Bill Haley and his Comets had indelibly stamped my soul. The incredible thing was that anyone who heard the song once immediately knew the first forty-three words. I don't know any other song lyric that contagious. I sat there in the Red Hall stunned at the behaviour of the Blackboard Jungle delinquents, my suede shoes tapping to the compulsive soundtrack.
Out of the darkness the silhouette of a Teddy Boy flashed down the aisle, immediately followed by several others. Alfie Bates, sitting in the aisle seat next to me, screamed 'Bastard!' and jumped from his seat. Korky leapt across two rows of seats in pursuit. He ran down the aisle, jumped onto the stage and wrestled with a Ted who had run along in front of the screen with a razor. The bottom of the screen sagged open like a giant mouth. The cinema erupted into chaos as seats were ripped out and slashed: it was the Putney Teds versus the Walham Green gang. The film kept on running, the slashed screen giving it a surreal quality. The projectionist was in the pub next door – he always went for a pint between reels, as he told me when he next bought an ice-cream. The manager turned on the lights and called the police. Now at least we could see whom we were fighting. The bints were screaming and the regular punters had run for cover.
Soon I was out the exit with Alfie and running. At the corner of Farm Lane Alfie fell down and I helped him up. Blood was pumping in thin squirts from the vicinity of his ear. We ran down Farm Lane to his mum's house, leaving the chaos behind us. We finally stopped running at his front door. Back on the North End Road we could hear the sounds of the brawl, the echo of windows smashing and the sirens of police cars and ambulances. Mrs Bates opened the door and promptly fainted. Alfie's elder brother Charley pulled us both into the scullery.
I stood there, my heart beating like a drum. The silver suit was ripped and hung open like a battle standard, covered in blood. None of it was mine, miraculously. Alfie had a razor slash across his right ear and cheek; it must have missed his jugular by a zit. His mum pulled herself together and sent one of her daughters around to get my dad. The next thing I knew, my mum and dad were in the scullery. Mum was in a state of panic, biting her knuckles with worry. 'Are you all right, son?' asked my dad.
'I'm okay,' I said.
Bang. He clouted me round the ear so hard that I flew off the chair and onto the floor, my head ringing like Big Ben, with my mother leaning over me saying, 'Your father is really upset.' Doctor Hubbard came around and sewed up Alfie's face, and then I was taken home.
Chapter 4
Disenchanted with the violence of the Walham Green gang, I soon found a new bunch of heroes to associate with, the bohemian art students on the King's Road in Chelsea. Some frequented a coffee shop in Earl's Court. The Troubadour was, and still is, a magical place, the ceiling hung with all sorts of paraphernalia and musical instruments. After I delivered some ice-cream to the owner one day he asked me to give him a hand helping to arrange a stage in the basement. I plugged a microphone into a Fender amp and helped with the trestle seating.
The coffee house began to fill up. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, two conservatively dressed black men, arrived and walked directly onto the stage. This was my first blues attack: I could not believe what I was hearing. The harmonica wailed and screamed with a gut-wrenching tone. It had the same effect on me as Bill Haley had had a few weeks before. I would now always be hooked on the blues. The Troubadour lived up to its name. It became the local centre for Skiffle. It seemed that anyone with a washboard or a tea chest could make music. I made a tea chest base and dutifully took it up to the Troubadour to await my turn. In the nightly sessions usually headed by the incomparable Davy Graham, anyone could sit in and I did at every opportunity, until it became obvious that I was no Jack Bruce.
My life was becoming schizophrenic. I was still working for Dad but I had a social life in the King's Road. As a student I was eligible to go to the Chelsea Arts Ball, held annually in the Albert Hall, the last decadent fancy dress party of the Fifties. Toffs had private boxes filled with champagne and food, while below in the auditorium the students went wild on Merrydown cider.
One of the models in the life class was a buxom girl called Lulu. She took a shine to me and one day asked me to come to Soho with her. She took me to Jimmy the Greek’s, a basement at the foot of Greek Street. Here she fed me estifado, olives, chillies, baklava, and two bottles of Greek wine. I had never felt so good, or so in love.
Lulu dropped me off at the 2i's coffee bar in Old Compton Street saying that she had a bit of business to attend to. The 2i's was famous as the heart of English rock and roll. Tommy Steel, Billy Fury and Terry Dean all performed there. Between sets they worked behind the counter dispensing orange juice and cappuccino.
Inside, Lulu introduced me to her friends; one of them was a dark curly-haired young man in the latest Cecil Gee sweater. 'This is Lionel,' she said. 'He writes songs.' Lionel knew everyone, and all the dives and bars. Over the next few weeks Lionel Bart introduced me to the Soho Music scene, Tommy Steel, and Wee Willie Harris, an outrageous cross between a circus clown and Bill Haley. Lionel was about to become one of Tin Pan Alley's hottest properties, writing pop songs for the English revolution. Down the road were the cool jazzers with Gerry Mulligan haircuts, Italian shoes from the Regent shoe-shop in Wardour Street, bum-freezer jackets and short raglan-shouldered overcoats. The really cool ones had Vespa scooters. These were to become the notorious Mods.
When Lulu got me back to her room in Meard Street, I promptly passed out on her bed. I was dreaming this beautiful dream, lying in the Greek sunshine, when it started to rain; I could feel it splashing down on me, splashing so hard that it woke me up. I opened my eyes to find that I wasn't on a Greek beach but in a strange little room in Soho, with a man in a camel-hair coat and a spick moustache pissing on me.
'Where's that cow Lulu?' he croaked. 'Now fuck off before I cut your cock off.'
I left very quickly, took a taxi back to Fulham and threw stones at my brother's bedroom window until he let me in. 'Pissed on in Meard Street.' The phrase has stayed with me like a paperback title.
Several months later a Fulham villain called Charley Thomas introduced me to the fine art of gambling, and to his gang of cronies. I knew them because I had sold them ice-cream since I was a kid. They were the big boys. But I was occasionally allowed to hang out with them at the dog tracks, White City, Stanford Bridge, Wimbledon and Wembley.
The restaurant at White City Dogs had a style all of its own. The major players had regular tables that were always reserved for them. The king gambler was Al Burnett. He owned the Stork Room and the Pigalle, the two hottest night spots in Piccadilly. Resplendent with his camel-hair overcoat and cigar, he had henchmen who would put on his huge bets while he sat at his table drinking champagne with various celebrities. Al tipped us a dog in the fifth race and I put a tenner on it. A tenner was a week's wages – my usual bet was two shillings each way – so it was with mixed feelings that I watched the dogs being loaded into the traps. The lid flew up and the dogs shot out. Our dog won by three lengths at five to one. The table went crazy, and champagne flowed.
After the races I was taken by the big boys to a gambling den. The spieler was run by a Russian Jew who went by the name of Martin Sachs. To my surprise the beautiful Lulu was dealing at the blackjack table. The main game in the room was chemin de fer. Charley explained the rules as I wandered about drinking in the atmosphere. Lulu had a break and came and asked me if I was all right. She said that she had been worried about me. I hadn't seen her since I had been pissed on by her Maltese pimp. She looked fantastic in her smart little croupier's cocktail dress. I fell in love all over again. She had to go back to deal and suggested that I give the blackjack a try. An hour later I had won eighty quid. Charley pulled me away and suggested that I put my eighty quid with eighty of his so that we could take a seat at the chemin de fer table. This we did, Charley took the seat and I watched him play. It was quite simple, really. If you were dealt an eight or a nine you doubled your money. The real trick seemed to be something they called running a bank. Charley did this a couple of times, which turned our stake into three hundred and fifty quid. 'Your turn,' he said getting up from the table. I sat down, palms sweating. This was a very exciting moment. I took it easy at first, calling a few small bets. Eventually the shoe was passed to me. This meant that I had to put some money in the bank. The last bank had been fifty pounds, so I thought that was the amount that I had to put in. I did, and Charley gave me a funny look. The croupier dealt the cards. The bet was covered and I turned up an ace and an eight. 'Neuf à la banque,' the croupier cried.
Before I realized what was happening I'd won four tricks in a row, and was staring at eight hundred pounds. Charley whispered in my ear, 'Garage. Garage.' I thought he meant for me to meet him where we had parked his car, so I let the bet ride.
'Fait accompli,' pronounced the croupier.
I turned my cards. The nine and ten of spades looked up at me from the table.
'Sixteen hundred pounds in the bank.'
'Faites les jeux, messieurs et mesdames.'
Charley put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed very hard as he bent down and told me in my ear to take out a thousand pounds and leave six in the bank. By this time a large crowd had gathered around the table. I was seventeen and the centre of attention. Charley leaned down again and whispered, 'Do you feel lucky, son?'
I did feel lucky, and told him so. Charley said, 'Leave it in once more.'
I did, and won. I got up from the table with three thousand two hundred pounds, less the five per cent that the croupier had deducted every time I had won. I proudly carried the chips over to a desk where the manager Martin Sachs sat, his nicotine-stained fingers gripping a cigarette.
'I'll have to give you a cheque,' said Martin in a thick Russian accent. Charley leaned over and said, 'Cash will do, Mr Sachs.'
Mr Sachs patted his pockets and produced various bundles of cash. 'If you prefer, Mr Thomas.'
The Russian walked us to the door and took out a large key with which to let us out. 'Do you mind if I have a word with you? Mim, isn't it? If you know anyone who likes to play cards, bring them along. If they are good punters I will make it worth your while.'
In the car Charley Thomas told me I was a lucky bastard. We shared out our winnings over breakfast in the Jermyn Street Turkish Baths, took some steam and lounged in the oriental atmosphere contemplating our good fortune. Charley dropped me off in the North End Road. I waved as his Jaguar disappeared into the early morning.
It was 5.30 a.m. Just as I was considering the thirty-foot climb up the drainpipe I remembered that the telephone was now in my brother's room. I walked over to Marks and Spencer, where there was a telephone box. Oh. No coins. Just a wad of notes stuffed in my pocket. I picked up the receiver and did what every Fulham lad knew how to do. I tapped out the number on the black Bakelite receiver rest to make a free call. The phone rang twice and a sleepy-voiced Bernard answered.
'It's me. Come down quietly and let me in. I'll be there in two minutes.'
I put down the phone and strolled back to the shop, standing beneath the glow of the giant neon ice-cream cornet that advertised our wares. I heard the lock click. There he was, the little beauty. At that moment I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning, I saw a uniformed policeman.
'Did you just receive a telephone call from this person?' he said to my kid brother.
'Yes,' said Bernie.
'Good,' said the copper. 'I'm nicking him for stealing electricity; tell your dad we will have him at Fulham Police Station.'
At the station things got worse when my wad of cash was discovered. Not wanting to grass Charley or Sachs up I stuck to my story. 'I won it at the White City.' The policeman didn’t believe me; he was convinced that I had stolen it. Eventually Dad arrived; he too wanted to know where the money had come from. I was in deep trouble. As having cash was not a crime, Dad got me out and took me home, where the truth came out. I told him about my luck with Charley. He didn’t seem to mind, but he confiscated the cash and put it in the bank for me.
The next morning I appeared at West London Magistrates Court in front of Magistrate Barroclough.
'Read out the charge,' he roared, as grumpy as hell.
My copper piped up, 'Stealing electricity, your honour.'
Barroclough looked at him. 'How much electricity?'
The copper looked embarrassed. 'Tuppence worth, sir.'
Barroclough looked at me. 'Did you, now?' his eyes twinkled.
He looked at my policeman. 'How did he do that?'
The policeman cleared his throat. 'He tapped a telephone call, sir.'
'Did you?' asked the magistrate.
'Yes sir,' I said, hands sweating in the dock. He looked at me over his glasses.
'How did you do that?'
'I tapped it, sir.'
'Show me how you did it,' he said, all nice-like.
I asked the usher for a pencil and showed him. 'One tap for the number one, two taps for the number two and so on, that is unless the number you're dialling has a nought in it, in which case you have to make ten taps for each nought, sir.'
'That's it?' Barroclough picked up a pencil. 'So,' he said, 'if I wish to dial 999, all I have to do is walk into a telephone box, pick up the receiver and tap nine, three times?'
'Yes sir, except 999 calls are free anyway.'
There was a titter in the court. Barroclough looked up and smiled reluctantly.
'Well, well. You learn something new every day. I discharge this person on the condition that he pays tuppence over to the arresting officer, who will, I trust see to it that the cash is returned to its rightful, and I am sure grateful, owner. Case dismissed.'