Better Late Than Never Read online

  It was coming up to my birthday and I asked Mum if I could have some money to buy my Mod clothes, although I didn't actually mention to her that they were Mod clothes.

  'How much do you need?'

  'About £25.'

  'How much?' said Mum, obviously not quite believing what she was hearing.

  'Well, I could get by with 20 quid at a push,' said I, not wishing to put her off the idea altogether.

  'Well, Len, I know you think I'm a bank, but I think I need something in return.' The something was helping her every Friday evening after I got home from work with the orders that needed to be delivered. The deal having been agreed, the money was handed over a few weeks later. First port of call was Moray Marks where I bought my Levi's; although buying them was just the start. The trouble was they were stiff like cardboard and your first task was to loosen them up and the best way to do that was to kick them around. I took them out the bag and kicked them all the way up Whitechapel High Street – one of the Kidbrooke four had given me this vital tip. As soon as I got my Levi's home it was straight in the washing machine with them.

  Next stop was Terry's of Homerton; this was the shop that made the short points. It was the start of a pain that persists until today. Here I was told to take off my shoe so they could draw around my foot to create a template for the shoemaker. No one had tipped me off to this important point of detail and I had a hole in my right sock, which meant I could only take off my left shoe – my smaller foot. This resulted in my right shoe being half a size too small, which gave me a corn that still gives me gyp. But never mind the pain, the shoes were just beautiful. They were green leather with a fabulous lace that went up the side. These laces had to be tied so that the bow was at the bottom, don't ask me why, all I can tell you is that it was part of the Mods' dress code. Then it was Harry Lee, the tailor, on Plumstead Bridge where I had a jacket made in tweed: it was cut away, with one button, and a half belt at the back. I also had an overcoat made that came to my ankles; it was topped, or rather bottomed off, with a two-inch vent.

  Vital to being a real Mod was being able to walk like one. For this you had to put both hands in the pockets of your Levi's, which then held your overcoat back and open – it was essential in creating that all-important look. God help you if you had to blow your nose and your coat fell shut!

  I was now a Mod, I was in with the in-crowd and I went where the in-crowd went, which created a whole new set of unwritten rules to be learned and obeyed. Not quite right, I was almost a Mod; I just needed one more thing. A lad, who was slightly older than us, who I knew as 'Knackers', was so named because when going down to Torquay with a group of other Mods on their scooters he wore only shorts. The wind had blown up his shorts the whole way to the West Country and burnt his testicles. Somehow the cold air had anaesthetised him but on arrival he found he had third-degree burns on his bollocks. I heard Knackers was selling his Vespa for 75 quid and after pestering and promising to do anything she wanted, my mum gave in and I became a fully fledged Mod.

  Being a Mod was truly great from Easter to August bank holiday; most Saturday mornings we left Kent for our base at the Skylark, a pub just off Brighton beach. We had a bell tent which Bert the landlord stored for us and we used to go and camp up on Black Rock – I loved it. Up the road from the Skylark was the Fortune of War, which was the Rockers' pub – we had our pub and they had their pub. It was in the Skylark that I first heard the Beatles on their jukebox; it stopped me in my tracks. From that day on I became a fan, although I never did get to see them. I'd seen Buddy Holly at the Granada, Woolwich, Ray Charles at the Gaumont, Lewisham, Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde at the Granada, Dartford – but never the Beatles.

  The only downside of being a Mod were Rockers; if a Mod was caught by 'them' you knew you were going to get a good hiding, a punch up the bracket at the very least. Nearly every Saturday someone or another would be in fight; either a Rocker would come too near our pub, or one of us would go too near theirs. Strangely I can never remember it raining; we used to lie on the beach all day topping up our tan. Tommy had a special concoction of olive oil and vinegar – and it was Sarsons, not the Eldridge own make – he assured us was the perfect tanning agent. You needed to lie stretched out because you would burn quicker that way, although lying on those bloody pebbles nearly killed you.

  Every Saturday night it was off to the Montpelier Club, and then it was back to sleep in the bell tent – anything up to 12 guys and girls. Sun, sex and NSU we called it; we all got nonspecific urethritis at one time or another. To keep us up and going we took Purple Hearts, which were uppers or pep pills. Such was our lack of real knowledge of these drugs that no one gave it a second's thought of what they might do to us. I was lucky that it led to nothing more serious or potentially damaging. I had a Brighton girlfriend called Sunny. She and her sister Nikki were Swedish and Nikki ended up going out with my mate, Tommy.

  One time when we were all in the tent we had a bit of a run-in with the law. It all started because we'd been using the ladies' lavatory to get ready before we went out on the Saturday night. Some of the others were using the gents' loo and so Tommy, Tony and I were in the ladies' while Kenny was supposed to be standing guard. Just as Tommy was giving his old gentleman a bit of a wash a woman walked in and immediately let out a scream and rushed out – 'There's a man in the ladies' ablutions!' Next thing, her husband came in and gave us all a bit of a mouthful before he too cleared off. We thought no more about it and went off down the Montpelier Club for our usual night out.

  We arrived back at the tent at some ungodly hour, me with Sunny, and some of the other guys had girls along with them. We were totally unaware that the police had been staking out the tent after the distraught woman's husband had complained. Ray had the wind and a discussion started about lightning farts, which prompted Ray and Kenny to leave the tent in order to see if it was possible. We were all in the tent, listening to the sound of endless matches being struck as Ray farted, when suddenly there was the sound of voices.

  'And what do you think you're doing?' said a voice none of us recognised; it was the police. We were told to pack up and leave for disturbing the peace, and the police car followed us for five or six miles until we were out of the centre of Brighton. After driving a little further we stopped at a nice open area and had the tent erected in minutes, despite it being pitch black. A few hours later we were woken again by the police for erecting a tent on a pitch and putt course near Rottingdean. On every other occasion we kept out of trouble and spent an idyllic summer. For a 19-year-old it was like a dream come true. The following summer was very different.

  Perhaps it was because a year at that age makes a lot of difference in how you see things, but it could also have something to do with the fact that Brighton, the police and the authorities in general were none too keen on the reputation that the Mods and the Rockers were now getting. On our first trip to Brighton early in the summer of '64 we found that the police had set up roadblocks on the A23 near to the two stone columns that signified the entry to the resort. Anyone on a scooter or motorbike was turned away. It was no good trying to sneak in via Worthing or anywhere else along the coast as they had that covered too. We went to Eastbourne instead, but that proved less than exciting. One of my mates said it was like the place where elephants went to die!

  The following week I came up with a cunning plan, one which involved my mum's delivery van. I borrowed it for the weekend and, with all my mates crammed in the back, we headed for the coast. However, we didn't get too far before the police stopped us again and escorted us back out of Brighton with police motorbikes at the front and rear. That finished me off with Brighton and scooters; from then on I didn't ride it any more and ended up selling it. Pete and I went back to playing football on a Saturday and enjoying ourselves around home. We went to Tommy's wedding – he married a girl named Joan – and that was the last time that I saw them until 2005. I had an email from Joan after she had seen me on Strictly Come Dancin
g, and I managed to get tickets for ten people – all my old mates from the Brighton days came to see the show. I hadn't seen any of them for 40 years, and we all met up after the show, laughing and reminiscing about when we were Mods.

  Chapter Five

  Going Up in the World

  My dad's philosophy on life was simple: 'Len, we are all just like a leaf in a stream, with little or no control over where we go. It's the flow and the eddies of the stream that take us in one or another direction.' Way before it became popular to say it, Dad's idea was to 'go with the flow.'

  That philosophy certainly summed me up in the five or six years after I left school. Work was something I did but didn't enjoy very much. Going out with my mates or sometimes taking a girl to the pictures, a night at the pub, or going dancing was just about having a laugh. There was also football. I hadn't stopped playing just because I'd left school. I was football crazy and played as often as I could. I was in a five-a-side team, a Saturday side and a Sunday side. I also used to train three times a week so my life was going to work, playing football and a Saturday and Sunday out with a girl.

  Now, I did enjoy dancing, but it was the having-a-laugh kind of dancing. More than that it was about meeting girls. Then again, maybe some of my love of dancing was genetic. My mum and dad were very keen ballroom dancers before the war, but then so were many people. People have always loved dancing – it's probably man's earliest form of entertainment. I'm fairly sure that in the 1930s and 1940s many more people went dancing on a regular basis than they do now; there was far less choice of alternative forms of entertainment. It was the same with football. Many more people went to watch football on a Saturday in the 1930s than they do now. In those days every town, every village, every church hall had dancing going on; in London and the big cities there were huge places to go dancing, like the Hammersmith Palais, the Locarno in Streatham and the Royal in Tottenham, where thousands danced nearly every night of the week. Hammersmith Palais, which recently closed down, was a huge draw for dancers. In its heyday it could accommodate several thousand on the dance floor; now it's going to be an office and shopping complex.

  People were encouraged to go dancing by the BBC broadcasting live shows practically every night of the week from a dance hall somewhere around the country.

  Dancing in the pre-TV days was how many people met their future husband or wife. When my mum and dad went dancing before they were married they invariably entered the competitions that took place most nights of the week. Apparently they often got to the final dance-off and either won or came pretty close to winning. Once I came along all that went out of the window, but when I was a little older they told me what it was like to go up the Palais. Once Mum and Dad had split up, Mum was not the sort to go dancing; she was far too busy running the shop. For my dad and stepmum that wasn't quite the case and they used to go ballroom dancing at Erith.

  Dad continued to pester me about going back to the Erith Dance Studio with them. 'You'd like it, Len, I know you would. Why don't you come?'

  'Oh, shut up, Dad. I don't fancy it. Once was enough.'

  One Monday evening I was on my way home from work when I met a mate I used to knock around with. After we'd been chatting for a while, I asked, 'Do you fancy going down the pub tomorrow night?'

  'No, I can't, Len. I go out on a Tuesday.'

  'That's bloody queer, you're always out on a Tuesday night. Where do you go?' I asked.

  'Well, to be honest with you, Len, and I'll bloody kill you if you let the others know, I go ballroom dancing.'

  'You what?'

  'No, Len, it's bloody great. Hardly any blokes go at all.'

  'I'm not bloody surprised! I'd feel a right bloody pillock,' I said.

  'Yeah, but loads of girls go. You can dance with whoever you want. Because so few blokes go they all think you're a hero. It's brilliant.'

  'Where do you go?' I asked.

  'I go to a dance school in Erith.'

  I thought to myself that must be the same place Dad goes to, the one I'd been to once to see Billy and Bobbie Irvine dance. It put me off until I remembered that they went on a Saturday night. Although despite the attraction of meeting girls, ballroom dancing didn't really appeal.

  It was shortly after this that disaster struck. I broke a metatarsal bone in my foot – the same one that Wayne Rooney broke a few years back. I was playing for Slade Green United on Hackney Marshes when it happened. I kicked the ball north while at the same time the biggest centre half in the world – well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it – tried to kick the ball south. The outcome was my foot went west and I was in agony for weeks. It was not only black and blue and nasty-looking, but was also the size of a Chinese wrestler's crotch. All the doctor said was, 'Try to keep off of it as much as possible.' This was ludicrous, as I still had to go to work at the docks. I spent my life hobbling around which certainly put paid to any thoughts of going dancing.

  The foot was incredibly slow to heal and I went back to my doctor to see what else I could do; I was anxious to get back to playing football. My usual doctor wasn't there and the locum was an old Scottish doctor. He told me in no uncertain terms that I could put football right out of my mind.

  'You'll need to build your foot up a lot more before you can play again. Why not go swimming?' he suggested.

  Well, that wasn't really an option as the nearest pool was outdoors at Danson Park where I'd cut myself ten years earlier, added to which it was February.

  'Well, laddie, you could try dancing.'

  'Dancing?' I couldn't believe it.

  'Aye Lad, you need to keep that foot working, you need to exercise it and so dancing is my recommendation.'

  Despite my interest in possibly meeting some other girls, at the time I was going out with a girl named Linda Baker and later that evening I told her of what the doctor had said. I also told her what my mate had told me a few weeks earlier, although I was careful to leave out the bit about how many unattached girls there were at the dance school.

  'Well, Len, it might help your foot, so it's worth a try. You said your dad and stepmum go and they're always on at you about going. So why not?' Linda said this as she drove me home from the doctor; my foot was too swollen to drive.

  'Linda, I'd feel like a plonker going ballroom dancing.'

  As a cure-all for this great big fat foot it seemed like a bloody silly idea to me.

  However, later that day Linda drove me round to my dad's place and told them what the doctor had said.

  'That's lucky, there's a new beginners' class starting next Tuesday,' said Dad.

  I just thought how was that lucky?

  'Not on your bleedin' Nellie. I'm not going.'

  I should have been quicker to realise that when Linda offered to pick me up and take me to the pub the following Tuesday, she had other plans. We stopped in Pier Road, which led down to the River Thames, parked, and it wasn't until I'd got out of the car and begun walking along the road that I suddenly twigged, helped by seeing the sign – Erith Dance Studio.

  'We're going dancing,' said Linda

  'We're not,' I replied.

  After we spent ten minutes arguing on the steps of the studio, while people negotiated their way around us so they could go dancing, I finally gave in, as much for a quiet life as for any other reason. I made my way up the stairs to the studio where everyone was sitting around waiting for it to start. I sat there trying to melt into the wallpaper. We looked like we were waiting to see a doctor, not waiting to have fun. I had a face like a slapped arse and it didn't help either my image or my confidence in that on my left foot I had a winkle-picker and on my right foot I had one of my dad's carpet slippers. We were the youngest couple and not by just a little bit. The expectant dancers all seemed ancient; the men in suits, the ladies in dresses and me in a pair of jeans, a Fred Perry shirt and my odd footwear.

  As we sat there everyone seemed to be eyeing each other up. Talk was in whispers, with just the odd cough to break the silence
. Suddenly I felt a bead of perspiration on my forehead: I was gripped with a sudden fear and an overpowering urge to use the toilet. Maybe I could make my escape through the window – then I remembered that climbing through a window in a winkle-picker and a slipper might cause me to break my good foot. I was shaken from my thoughts when suddenly all hell broke loose as a smartly dressed lady and a girl burst into the room.

  'Now then, everyone, up on your feet and gather round. We're going to learn to dance!'

  With that, the 30 or so of us got to our feet and stood there waiting for what was to happen next; my slippered foot was throbbing.

  'I'm Miss Tolhurst and this is my assistant Pauline and we're here to teach you.'

  I found out later that Joy Tolhurst was a former world champion, although if anyone had told me at this point I'm sure I'd have been underwhelmed. As we all stood around them in a circle all I could think was – fat chance. Linda kept looking at me as if to say, please don't embarrass us, Len.