A person with a watch knows the time. A person with two watches can never sure what the time is.
But the “two diaries” bit seems to work out OK in this instance, with the old diary showing my Christmas activities and the new one showing that I started my “work during Twixtmas” tradition long ago.
25 December 1988: Ma Pa and G Jenny for tea, Benjamins for dinner. Stayed Ma and Pas.
Thinking about the logistics of all this – I think mum and dad must have picked up Grandma Jenny in Surbiton, brought her to my flat for tea (possibly the first time they saw Clanricarde Gardens and in Grandma Jenny’s case quite possibly the only time). At Doreen and Stanley Benjamin’s in Putney we were possibly joined by Jane and Lisa and one or both of their respective beau’s/future husbands if they were around at that time. Also Doreen’s mum, Jessie Jackson, would have been there if she was still with us in 1988.
26 December 1988: Lunch at Ma and Pas returned home early evening
No record in either diary of what I did on the bank holiday Tuesday nor the Wednesday. Perhaps I was so knackered by the activities of the preceding few weeks that i simply took the opportunity to work soft and play soft.
The diary marking SCF for 29 and 30 December shows that I went to Save The Children Fund in Camberwell those two days.
If you simply go by my diary notes, I spent the ten days in the run up to Christmas eating and drinking that year. What’s changed/who knew?
I’m going to be a bit light on details with several of these:
Thursday 15 December: Went over to Bobbies for dinner
I’ll guess that there were other people involved, but the diaries are silent on the matter, beyond the above information
Friday 16 December: Went to Ma and Pa for dinner
One thing I do remember about this visit was me gently but firmly letting mum know that, now that I’d moved to Notting Hill, I wasn’t suddenly going to be making Friday evening visits for family dinner a regular thing.
Saturday 17 December: Driving lesson. Annalisa came over for meal in evening
That was my second driving lesson in Notting Hill (I’d had one the previous Saturday). I think that meal I cooked for Annalisa that evening might well have been the first time I cooked for someone other than myself at Clanricarde Gardens. No idea what I cooked for her. There are some Thai recipes on my jotter but I can see, from the context of the other notes, that those were jotted after Christmas, probably after I discovered Tawana.
Monday 19 December: Driving lesson in evening.
My instructor in Notting Hill Gate was a gentle fellow. I remember his girlfriend (or wife) was an orchestra musician from East Germany and he spent much of our chatting time railing against the Honecker regime, little knowing how close we were to its demise.
Tuesday 20 December: Bobbie came over for meal in evening
This might well have been the first time I cooked for Bobbie at Clanricarde. This will have been a meatier affair than cooking for Annalisa and/but probably a simpler meal being an after work job rather than a weekend job.
Wednesday 21 December: Radius lunch in afternoon. BHMC [Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants] & drinks after work
I cannot remember exactly who Radius were, but I am guessing that they were a software supplier. That week, and the week before, I had switched away from Save The Children Fund (who wanted me to return to do most of my assignment in the new year, after their massive Christmas Appeal surge was over), so I joined colleague/mentor Lars Schiphorst at Holland & Holland. My guess is that I was brought in at that place to look at the financial/accounting systems aspects of a project long since forgotten by all involved.
Thinking about Lars, who, despite having to tolerate teaming with me on that assignment and others, went on to be a good friend for several years at Binders before he emigrated to Australia…I wondered if it would be possible to trace Lars 30 years later.
Lars Schiphorst – ludicrously still recognisable/barely changed all these years later.
Friday 23 December: Pub lunch with BHMC mob – little work after
The thing I remember most about that lunch was chatting with Geoffrey Rutland, RIP, who was especially friendly, welcoming and helpful with advice. He also turned out, strangely, like myself, to have been a former scholarship boy at Alleyn’s – although in his case a few years earlier.
Actually I remember everyone at Binders being friendly and welcoming that December – I felt quite at home in that firm quite rapidly, despite the fact that I knew I had been recruited as canon fodder in a turf war between a handful of partners.
The headline captures the text from that Wednesday and that one sentence tells much of the tale.
The so-called lunch was at The Bleeding Heart that year. It is still a top notch place. Writing 30 years later, although I don’t go there all that often I have been quite recently:
Michael Mainelli had clearly made a special point of locating me near to his place. He conducted a rather unsubtle sort-of interview over the hours of the event. I had been hired despite Michael, not by him nor under his auspices, but while he was away on holiday for a week, somewhat in contravention of his request to the other partners not to hire anyone while he was away. So he was checking me out big time those first few months. History suggests I passed the test.
I do also remember Peter Flory (who was my mentor on the Save The Children Fund project) “going off on one” afterwards, because he thought it inappropriate for Michael to grill me in that way at a staff party. It is my first proper memory of meeting Michael, although he is pretty sure we had a quick chat a couple of weeks earlier, when I first arrived at Binders.
I think I might have endeared myself to William Casey at that event too, by recognising and praising his choice of wine, Chateau Musar, which one or two less knowledgeable folk had been sniffy about, imagining “cheap Lebanese wine”. Oh no, this is (and was then) top notch stuff and a good food match too.
It clearly was a very lengthy and boozy affair. I remember little else about it. I would love to hear from others who might remember some factoids about hat particular occasion. We lunched at the Bleeding Heart for Christmas several times.
For those with limited ability to read clear, plain handwriting:
Monday 5 December: Started at SCF [Save The Children Fund] today.
Went to HCJA [High Court Journalists Association] dinner with B [Bobbie] in evening
I recall that HCJA dinner being rather good. I think we heard Joshua Rozenberg speak on that occasion.
M&P [Ma & Pa] return
Went to Mum & Dad for dinner (Italian)
There is a notebook page that is somewhat of a confession, or perhaps even incriminating evidence about that evening:
Well, I’m pretty sure that mother would have WANTED to be relieved of some tea towels rather than have me do without. I’m 99% sure mum voluntarily gave me the towels and that she declined to have me replace them.
Anyway, let’s not cast blame around here, but I did eat mussels that evening (perhaps a mistake) and I was tripping out on tiredness after several weeks of relentlessly pushing myself.
Wednesday 7 December: Laid up with chronic food poisoning
Thursday 8 December: Stayed off work again today
Thus, the bloke who had only previously taken time off work sick once, when he was grounded for letting flu turn to bronchitis, was now off sick in his first full week of a new job.
The end of 1988 was a momentous time for me. I’ll have quite a lot to write about those weeks on Ogblog.
The brace of events I am recalling in this piece, reflecting briefly on that time thirty years later, are the core happenings. I changed job and moved house within the space of a couple of weeks.
Clanricarde Gardens
A few doors down, picture linked from (and clickable to) Philip Wilkinson’s wonderful blog piece about our street
I shall write up my flat hunting experience on a separate piece in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say here that my Clanricarde Gardens flat was the first place I saw and that I liked it straight away.
It was only the fact that I had nothing with which to compare it that kept me flat hunting for several more days. I have some interesting yarns to tell about some of the other places I saw. I asked to take a second look at Clanricarde Gardens on the Thursday and took Bobbie Scully with me to help me decide. “What are you waiting for? Just take it,” is a reasonable paraphrase of her sound judgement.
By way of context, I should explain that I was renting, not buying in late 1988. Some friends at that time thought I was bonkers by not jumping on the home ownership bandwagon “before it is too late”. But then some friends suffered some serious negative equity for several years after jumping on that bandwagon when it peaked back then.
Unusually, when I decided it was time for me to buy, in 1999, it was also an opportune time for the owners to sell, so I was able to buy the flat I had been renting for over 10 years. Try before you buy.
From Newman Harris To Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants (BHMC)
Again, I shall write more in separate pieces about these events over the coming weeks.
With the benefit of hindsight, taking just eight working days off between jobs with a view to:
finding a flat to rent;
moving into that flat;
learning to drive;
seeing friends and family in relatively large quantity;
going to plenty of theatre & stuff;
doing exam marking for Financial Training to help pay for all that…
…was a little ambitious, to say the least.
I rather like my only diary note on the day I started at BHMC:
Started at BHMC today – drink at lunchtime
Frankly, I probably needed a drink after that fortnight. But what a very 1980’s tradition for a new joiner at a City firm – the drink at lunchtime.
At Binder Hamlyn (BDOC) c1992
BHMC soon changed its name to BDO Consulting (BDOC). Five-and-a-half years after I joined the firm, Binder Hamlyn “merged” with Arthur Andersen (AA) and I concluded that the latter firm would not like my hairstyle. Michael Mainelli, who had not recruited me to BHMC but with whom I was mostly working by then, felt similarly about not wanting to persevere in Andersens, although not for hairstyle reasons…
…and thus Z/Yen was born.
I don’t remember meeting Michael on that first day or two at Binders – my memory of meeting him really starts at the Christmas lunch on 14 December. But Michael is pretty sure that he at the very least spent a few minutes saying “hi & bye” to me (probably to check that I didn’t have two heads or something) before packing me off the following week on a tough assignment with Save The Children Fund…from which the rest is history.
Reflecting On Those Weeks And Events
Further, when I look at my diaries and see what else I did during those momentous weeks, I still see many familiar names and activities.
Here are just two examples.
I went to Jacquie and Len’s place for dinner with Caroline on 30 November 1988. Janie and I are going to dinner at Jacquie’s tonight (1 December 2018) and only a couple of days ago, Caroline got in touch to arrange a get together.
27 November 1988, had John, Mandy, Ali, Valerie and Bobbie to lunch
I’m still in touch with most of them and am seeing John on Monday.
Those two momentous things I did in late 1988 have in essence been sustained for thirty years and still going. Also many of the people who were central to my being back then are still there too.
So I shall soon write up the many and various events of those frantic weeks.
Some of the tales will be about characters who entered my life only fleetingly – such as Larry the Drummer, the larger-than-life character I met through the Streatham Hill Driving School people, who became Larry the Man With A Van to help me move.
But some stories will benefit from the reflections of those people with whom I am still very much in touch.
And although, if I recall correctly, Michael Mainelli and I didn’t actually meet until I had been at the firm for a couple of weeks…
…1 December 1988 was, technically speaking, the date we started working together. So happy thirtieth anniversary, Michael.
…yet still I cooked dinner that evening for six of us: me, Bobbie, Vivian Robinson, Andrew (her beau), Neil Infield and Michelle Epstein (soon to be Infield). All of those people were living in the vicinity of Woodfield Avenue at that time, so I guess it was a sort-of goodbye to friends in that neighbourhood.
No idea what I cooked – I hope for my own sake that I tried to keep it simple – I probably did. If anyone who was there can remember details of that particular evening, I’d love to hear about it from someone else’s perspective.
The Wednesday was also a pretty packed day. Here’s my page of notes for that day.
That page doesn’t even mention the two driving lessons – one at 9:00, the other at 11:00.
Nor does it mention the ordering of a washing machine (perhaps I had already done that the previous day, as Pratts (Streatham’s John Lewis store) was specifically mentioned that day. I wrote copious notes, too detailed even for me and Ogblog, listing various makes, specs and prices of washing machine. I settled on Zanussi and the thing was delivered to Clanricarde Gardens on the Saturday.
A weird quirk of that era; a purportedly fully-furnished flat did not come with a washing machine and I recall that Tony Shaw said at that time that he was happy for me to have one there but that I would have to pay for it and own it. These days, unfurnished flats are the thing but a washing machine is seen as a standard utility item in an unfurnished flat.
I have also retained my shopping list from that Wednesday, which reads like something The Flight Of The Conchords might include in one of their lyrics. Cereal, coffee and wine – what else does a bachelor flat need?:
That page of notes also includes a note of Jackie and Len’s address for that evening (redacted in green on the above picture) plus a note to remind myself to take my Newman Harris P45 with me for Binders the next morning – good thinking.
I know I also left a chirpy note for mum and dad to find when they returned from their holiday on 6th December. Words to the effect of:
Have moved out, as promised.
If you are lucky, I’ll call and let you know where I’ve gone. Hope you had a great holiday.
Lots of love
Sonny Boy.
So, then on to dinner at Jacquie and Len’s place, joined by Caroline Freeman. How can I be so sure? Here”s the diary page:
I wonder whether Caroline remembers this particular evening? I cannot remember what we had for dinner but I don’t think it would have been a herring fest. More likely poultry was involved – for sure it will have been a splendid meal whatever we ate. This much later picture does show the actual table, although not the precise contents:
One thing I do remember about that evening is that Len, on the matter of me having qualified as a Chartered Accountant and then immediately having moved away from that profession (his), seemed decidedly less perturbed than some. I remember him saying repeatedly:
The world is your lobster. Not just your oyster. Your lobster.
I was watching very little television by that time, so it was many years later that I discovered that this cute phrase was not Len’s own, but is an Arthur Daleyism. Not a very kosher metaphor, that oyster/lobster one. But “the world is your pickled herring” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?:
..but the reality was, I had taken on rather too much. I had a swathe of driving lessons booked (five lessons in three days, to use up my purchased block of 10), had agreed to do several stacks of exam marking for Financial Training and had arranged activities on several evenings…
…and was due to start work at Binder Hamlyn on Thursday 1 December…before which I was determined to move my stuff from Woodfield Avenue to Clanricarde Gardens.
My friends at the Hiway Driving School suggested that their friend Larry, who was a drummer and who had a drum-kit-sized van and liked to make a bit of extra dosh during drumming down time, might be willing to help me with the move. Larry stopped by to meet me (I think one day the preceding week). I gave Larry an approximate size of load, Larry seemed confident that we could manage that much in one van journey, so we agreed a fee and that Tuesday afternoon was a suitable slot for both of us.
Here is my note book page for that Tuesday:
Ambitious.
1.15 Schlep
Returning ASAP
The imperative for returning was because I had arranged to cook dinner for several of my South London-based friends at Woodfield Avenue that evening. I must have been out of my mind.
Transporting my stuff in Larry’s van proved to be a bigger logistical problem than either of us had bargained for. Specifically, once we started stacking boxes and crates of my worldly goods into the van, it became apparent very rapidly that it would be a snug fit to get the job done in two loads, let alone one.
I was convinced that we would need to do the second load on another day, as we both had evening engagements, but Larry was confident that we could do two circuits and still be back in good time. Larry was right.
One of the elements that made Larry right was his monumental strength and stamina at the schlepping element of the job. Especially at the Clanricarde Gardens end, where there are two flights of high-ceiling-house staircase to navigate. I lost count of the number of times Larry lapped me carrying stuff up the stairs. My guess is that he came close to managing two armfuls for every one I managed…and his tended to be heavier armfuls too.
Too big a job for Dumbo, even too big for his Chelsea Tractor friend in the street
He was a very nice, friendly fellow. Larry told me about his drumming during those few hours we spent together. I especially remember him saying that he had drummed with the Joe Jackson Band. So, on researching this piece, 30 years later, I surmise that Larry is most probably Larry Tolfree, who was the drummer with the band when I saw Joe Jackson at Keele in 1982:
Here is a track from Jumping Jive in which the drummer (whom I suspect is Larry Tolfree at that time) displays his considerable talents as a drummer:
I recall we did the full two rounds of removals in the space of four hours, allowing Larry plenty of time to get to his evening gig and me enough time to prepare dinner for six.
The other thing I recall was Larry’s extreme unwillingness to take more money than we had originally agreed. I wanted to give him double the money because it really had turned out to be double the job he originally bargained for. Larry insisted that it was his own fault that he had overestimated the size of his van. I insisted that it was my fault that I had underestimated (or not comprehensively stated) the size of the load. In the end, I think I persuaded him (reluctantly) to split the difference and take some extra money, but not double money.
Thirty years later, I’m finding it hard to imagine quite such a hyper-active day. I hope I had planned a relatively easy meal to cook…
…I’ll report on that and my actual transfer to Clanricarde Gardens in the next piece.
Celebrated clinching the deal for the flat with Bobbie on the Friday evening, starting with an early evening visit to the National Theatre to see a platform talk about Kenneth Tynan. I think those Platform things were a new idea that autumn…an idea that is now more than 30 years old. Our first one had been Tony Sher some weeks earlier.
This Kenneth Tynan one was in the Cottesloe and was a really interesting, varied panel: Adrian Mitchell, Jonathan Miller, Edward Petherbridge, Kathleen Tynan and Irving Wardle.
As the diary says (if you can read it) we went on to the Archduke afterwards for dinner.
On the Saturday I collected the keys to Clanricarde Gardens and did some shopping. I remember spending more than a few bob in Tylers (which was up on Westbourne Grove back then) – I probably still have one or two of the items I bought that day – I’m pretty sure I am still on my first clothes horse, for example.
I also bought food for the Sunday, but the crowd that visited that day – John, Mandy, Ali Dabbs, Valerie and Bobbie would all have traipsed to Woodfield Avenue for that meal – I must have shlepped the grub from Notting Hill to Streatham Hill on the Saturday evening – the new flat was not yet fit for habitation.
What did I cook that day? Can’t remember. Bound to have been Chinese and/or South-East Asian food though…just possibly Southern Asian for that crowd. It would have been good, whatever it was, though I say so myself. I must have been knackered by the Sunday, though. What a week it had been.
I’m not 100% sure it was in fact the first place I viewed. I have copious notes on some other places, most of which I have no recollection seeing. Here are those notes for those who like trying to decode expertly crafted ciphers:
So, judging by those pages of notes, I must have seen the place in Quebec Street and the Netley Street property before I saw Clanricarde Gardens.
Discerning decipher-folk night surmise that I was not overly impressed by New Quebec Street. Actually, the truth is, it made a real impression on me, but not in a good way.
The flat was above an Indian restaurant, on the junction of New Quebec Street and Seymour Street. I think the letting of it was the responsibility of the restaurant manager. That restaurant is (at the time of writing, late 2018) still an Indian restaurant, Zayna, a more up-market looking place now. I remember it was a bit of a red flock wallpaper sort of Indian restaurant back in November 1988 and the red look had been continued into the flat, which also smelt strongly of scent.
Frankly, I suspected that it might have been used as a knocking shop from the colour scheme, general decor and smell…not that I have ever personally been acquainted with the inside of a Marylebone knocking shop, you understand.
I also remember looking at the outside of the building and noticing a large crack in the outside wall of the flat; I wondered whether the strong smell of scent was intended to cover a smell of damp which seemed, to my inexpert eyes, inevitable given the size of the crack.
I don’t remember Netley Street – I think I gave it a very quick look ahead of Clanricarde Gardens that Wednesday as I’m pretty sure that Pam Russell at About Town in Holland Park had suggested that Clanricarde Gardens was a flat she thought would tick all of my boxes. I jotted Pam’s details at the top of the first page of my notes and I am sure that it was indeed she who found me my flat.
I do also recall seeing several others, as I felt I should have some other viewings by which to compare. I also felt that I needed to keep other irons in the fire, even though I had spoken with and sensed that Tony Shaw, the Clanricarde landlord was an honourable fellow who meant it when he said he would hold the flat for me for 36 hours.
I especially remember seeing a very utilitarian new build flat in Holborn and a couple of flats on Gloucester Terrace, one of which had a sort of mezzanine thing that I think had been used as a student digs for several people all packed in.
Actually Clanricarde Gardens was occupied by a trio of architecture students before me.
Diary says I met Caroline for lunch on that Thursday and that I went to Bramley Road to pick up some exam marking before seeing those Gloucester Terrace flats and I think also the Holborn one. I also arranged a second viewing of Clanricarde Gardens, for which Bobbie agreed to join me as a wise second opinion.
On my first visit I had spotted a pub just around the corner from Clanricarde, on the corner of Bayswater Road and Ossington Street, The Champion, so I arranged to meet Bobbie in there. I figured I’d get there first (she is always late) and that I could get some exam marking done while I waited for her.
While I was waiting and marking, on several occasions I was approached by one of the locals, asking me what I was doing around there and (when I told them my purpose) welcoming me and wishing me well. I decided that it was a very friendly neighbourhood with pleasant, welcoming people.
A few week’s later, when Ashley Fletcher visited me at Clanricarde Gardens for the first time, I discovered that The Champion was, at that time, one of the best-known gay pick-up pubs in London. The kindness of strangers, at least partially explained.
Anyway, Bobbie took one look at the place and said, “what are you waiting for? It’s a super flat – just take it.”
So the next morning I signed and sealed the deal with Pam in that pokey lettings agency on Holland Park Avenue, above Tootsies (now, as I write in 2018, Giraffe).
That Clanricarde Gardens decision was a good decision.
A few doors down, picture linked from (and clickable to) Philip Wilkinson’s wonderful blog piece about our street
One factor that nearly prevented me from getting my new job with Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants was the fact that I did not drive. As part of my “deal”, I promised to take driving lessons and try to qualify as a driver as soon as possible.
So, the Monday after leaving Newman Harris, I enrolled at the Hiway Driving School in Streatham Hill and commenced my lessons. 11.15 on 21 November was the first time I ever took the wheel of a real car.
I’d love to report some tales of derring do and/or some scrapes and/or some near misses, but I’m afraid that my transformation from non-motorist to motorist was pretty much an anecdote-free affair.
That week I had a lesson every morning before going on to do something else. Most of that something else was a combination of exam marking for Financial Training and flat hunting. In the matter of flat hunting, I was advised, at that time, to study the classified ads in the London Evening Standard as soon after publication as possible, in order to track what was going on and to jump in to see a place or two if I saw anything I fancied.
Hence, I imagine, the driving lessons mid morning, enabling me to pick up the paper early lunchtime, after my lesson.
On the Tuesday evening, Jilly came over for dinner after work. 6:30ish is the only timing indication in the appointment diary. I cannot remember where she worked at that time (was it already the Barbican Centre by then?) but my diary helps me to recall that she lived in a flat in Nether Street, Finchley. I remember us finding that street name funny.
Nor do I recall what I cooked for Jilly that evening, but I’ll guess it will have been one of my Chinese and/or South-East Asian specials. I do remember that Jilly was full of useful advice for the flat hunting and that her advice was timely, as I had pretty much drawn blanks from my classified trawls those first two days.
I think her advice included “ringing up some agents in the areas I fancied and asking them to get on the case for me” – in other words, to look at agent ads as well as the classifieds. I labour this point because, I’m pretty sure, that is the method that got me to Clanricarde Gardens (and some other places) the next day.
Thanks, Jilly.
Jilly Visiting me At Keele, c1984
Update – Jilly responds:
I found [your diary entry] a little hard to read; when it talked about “dinner” with Jilly, I had to read it three times before it (dinner) stopped looking like “I am vinyl”, but eventually, I realised what I was reading about.
Gosh, that was a long time ago, and yes, I remember living in Nether Street, when, I think, I was working at Green Moon PR Agency.
I must admit, I can’t remember much about the flat hunting advice, except that I probably would have told you to be very quick about going to see something that you liked the look of, especially in those days before mobiles, email, and the like.
So, on the Wednesday, through an agency whose name has escaped me, but I recall it was located above Tootsies Restaurant on Holland Park Avenue, I saw Clanricarde Gardens for the first time and was so taken with it I thought I had probably found what I was looking for first dips. It was only the fact that I hadn’t yet seen anywhere else, combined with the fact that other agents were on my case now and leaving me messages at Woodfield Avenue, that kept me viewing for the rest of that day and the next day.
I shall write a piece about some of the strange places I saw, once I have dug out some more notes, as I am sure I have a note pad on this topic as well as my diaries.
