Читать книгу Still Got It, Never Lost It!: The Hilarious Autobiography from the Star of TV’s Pineapple Dance Studios and Dancing on Ice - Louie Spence - Страница 8

As we all know, and we’ve all done at some point, we agree to things for love that we wouldn’t normally even consider. I say ‘agree’: I actually offered my services for free at John’s Tyres and Exhausts – yes, you have read it right. Me – working at a tyre depot.

I had decided to give up my Saturday morning dance classes to prove how much I wanted this; if my parents and family were prepared to make sacrifices, I knew I had to do the same. I would face this challenge full-on.

It was called John’s Tyres and Exhausts because it was my dad’s, John’s – well there were a couple of partners, I don’t really know, I was only a kid. When Dad accepted my offer, the enormity of what I had suggested to him hit me like a Louboutin over the head.

Shit!

You see, the thing is, I had never really spent much time with Dad. One, because he was always working and he just wasn’t the kind of dad who would take us swimming or playing football. Not that I wanted to play football! I was more than happy in my Lycra, thank you very much. And it wasn’t just with me, he was also like that with my sisters. It was just the kind of dad he was.

We never felt for a second unloved by him; he is, and was the kindest, funniest man you could wish to meet. Everyone seemed to fall in love with him because he could always crack a joke and make you smile. I suppose I get my sense of humour from him, but with a lot more camp.

The thought of having to spend a whole day with my dad – what was I going to talk about? At 12 I had already discovered masturbation and I knocked my first one out in the downstairs loo. But I didn’t really want to discuss that with him, especially when it was about Mr Whippy!

At that point I couldn’t have told you the difference between a remould tyre, a back box or whether your tracking needed doing. Not that I didn’t find out! I’ll give you my tyre and exhaust knowledge later on – I think you’ll be surprised.

I suppose what I’m trying to say, at 41 years old, is that I love my dad.

Even at the age of 12 I knew I was gay, and I was very comfortable with who I was. My family didn’t treat me any differently for being a high-kicking, backflipping, Lycra-wearing gay but there were certain situations when I felt uncomfortable with Dad. Now, I was never bullied – I was called poof, fairy, whatever, but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. The only time it would have bothered me is when I would have been with Dad.

I know that he would have wanted to protect me and would have stood up for me in such a situation, and I didn’t want him to be put in that situation because of me. Because it truly, truly did not bother me. I suppose that’s why, if there were situations that arose when Dad asked me to do something with him, I would always say no, just in case somebody did make a comment about me and my lisp, or my knowledge of women’s fashion and make-up. That’s only because Mum used to sell Oriflame, which was a brand of make-up. And I wouldn’t miss a Wednesday going down to the market with her, helping her choose a dress for a night out at the Windmill Club with the girls, in Copford, near Colchester.

So, how was I going to cope with a whole day down at the tyre depot, with mechanics in grease-stained overalls smelling of man sweat? Well, if you offered me the chance now, I’d be more than happy: I’d jump at it and fix a puncture.

Back then, I didn’t know if I would be able to cope with being a tea-boy and having to work in a filthy kitchen. I say kitchen, it was a piece of MDF and some dirty mugs, next to the toilet – I’m sure it wouldn’t pass Health and Safety these days. But I had offered my services for my love of dance and it had to be followed through, and so it was.

SATURDAY MORNING, 6.30 rise. Tea and toast with Dad. Now the day had only just started and already this felt awkward. We didn’t have much to talk about over tea and toast, and I had a whole day to get through, not only with Dad but with all the other men who worked at the tyre depot, one of them being Uncle Glen, who would constantly take the piss out of me.

I knew that none of them would be interested in the disco flip, or rib isolations; maybe a pelvic thrust would have been interesting. Women always tell me they like a man with a good pelvic thrust. But this wouldn’t do. Football? Shit, I didn’t have a clue. Page 3. There you go! That’s what I would do, I would concentrate on Page 3.

There we were in the car, it was only a 10-minute drive. Still nothing to talk about: I didn’t want to exhaust my Page 3 conversation with Dad, it had to get me through the morning with five of them.

Dad always arrived first because he would open up and as soon as the door was open, quicker than you could say ‘gay’, I had the marigolds on with my hands down the toilet, trying to scrub the brown-stained bowl. I just couldn’t help it, even though I’d told myself, ‘butch, butch, butch’ – it was just instinctive. Well, it’s not all my fault actually: I’m sorry, I was just following what Mum did. And yes, the mugs were being soaked in bleach and I’d nicked a bit of Shake’n’Vac from home, which I sprinkled on the carpet tiles on my way in.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised: all the boys were very happy to come in to a clean toilet, a fresh-smelling reception area with tiled surfaces shiny enough to reflect your face. They were more than happy to have someone with a feminine touch around them. And for me, I can look back on it as a really happy time bonding with my dad and not feeling uncomfortable with who I was around his work colleagues and friends. In fact, believe it or not, I really looked forward to Saturday mornings at the depot. I was promoted from tea-boy to puncture boy, but that didn’t mean that I used to get punched all day. When customers brought their punctured tyres in, I would take the tyres from them, ‘thank you very much, sir’. I would blow them up with the air gun and place it in the water butt, which was like a big paddling pool full of water. It was very dirty water: it didn’t get changed every day, so I always had my marigolds in my overall pocket. Yes, I was also wearing a pair of blue, grease-stained overalls at this point.

Obviously I would always work a look with it. I would have the top rolled down with the arms wrapped around twice, with the bow featuring on the side. At that age, I had a 23-inch waist.

While the tyre was in the water butt you had to check to see where the bubbles were coming from to indicate escaping air. Then you would take a piece of yellow chalk from your pocket and mark the spot with an X. Don’t ask me why it was yellow, but it was. You would then roll the tyre over to the breaking-down machine. I don’t know if that is the correct name for it, but you would remove the tyre from the wheel rim and see if it was repairable.

If it was repairable, you would put a rubber patch on it (after putting glue on), and get a roller and roll over the patch until it was sealed, put the tyre back on the wheel rim and hopefully, Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt and it’s fixed. Now, if this didn’t work, you had a second option: you could just stick an inner tube in because a lot of tyres were tubeless, you see. Are you following me, or have I lost you with my immense knowledge of puncture repair?

I’m not going to bore you with tracking, or holes in your back box (you could just fill it up with a bit of gum or weld it). It would be cheaper than buying a new exhaust.

Surprised? Yes, I thought you would be. I did have my moments. But this was all for a reason, and the reason had arrived.

CRASH, BANG, wallop, there it was! On the porch floor, my letter from Italia Conti. Oh, before I get to that – yes, we had a porch. Not only did we have a porch, we had patio doors at the back: we were fully double-glazed with a picture window at the front, brick wall at the front and a wrought-iron gate.

There weren’t many houses like that on the Goldingham; this was part of the problem, you see. Pat and John, Mum and Dad, had bought their council house in 1978. Well, you can imagine Mum – as soon as she got a mortgage, not only did she have her tits done, which she thought we all didn’t notice when she came back from her ‘holiday’ in Billericay. For some reason she couldn’t lift her arms and she suddenly had tits. I mean, really, for someone who used to shop for all her dresses with her, I knew something had changed but I just went with it, I wasn’t about to kick up a fuss.

The fact was that she looked truly amazing in her tube dresses: out at the front, in at the waist and out at the back. She really did turn heads, so those tits were worth every penny of the mortgage money. As were all the improvements that she made to the house – the only problem was all this money was spent before Italia Conti was even mentioned and my wage from John’s Tyres and Exhaust wouldn’t have even paid for the school cap.

Mum showing off her new boobs in one of her backless dresses; no bra needed!

So, here was the moment that I had been waiting for after two months, there in front of me. I wanted to rip it open, but it was not addressed to me. On the other hand, I didn’t want to know what was inside, in case it was not ‘yes’. Dad had already gone to work, so it was down to Mum to open it and let me know my fate, but at the end of the day it was not my choice, it would be down to Mum and Dad.

I watched Mum’s face intently as she opened the letter and started to read it. There was no expression, no sudden cry of ‘You’ve got in! I can’t believe it’. Nor were there tears for me, her expression remained blank. Finally, she told me that I had been accepted and at this point you think I would high kick, back flip and scream, but I didn’t.

I could tell from Mum’s face, even though it was a ‘yes’, there was a big chance/probability of me not going. Dad’s business was not going so well and they had just taken out a huge mortgage on the house – and Mum had already spent the first term’s fee on her tits.

As you can imagine, it was a bittersweet moment. It was all now dependent on Dad, as he was the main breadwinner. I knew I had proved to him how much I wanted this by giving up my dance classes on Saturdays to go and work with him at the tyre depot, but as he had made very clear to me, money did not grow on trees and times were hard. It might just not be possible to find another few thousand pounds each term, but Dad did the most incredible thing for me.

He put his house and business at risk by taking out a second mortgage to pay for my school fees for the next four years. It was at that moment that I understood that when you love someone unconditionally, you will do anything for them if you can. Although, as I said, Dad wasn’t someone who took us to the park to play on the swings and all of those things, he would work every hour of the day to make sure all of his children were happy and were given the best opportunities in life. If it wasn’t for him doing that for me, I would not have experienced and be living the most amazing life that I have.

Saying ‘I love you’ can sometimes be meaningless when they are only words, but what he has done for me no words can fully express: it is beyond love. Right, that’s it, I can feel a tear welling up. Yes, you’ve all just witnessed me telling my dad how much I love him, which I don’t do. But it’s done: so, thanks for that, Dad! That’s if he reads this! He’s never read a book in his life. Maybe they’ll serialise it in the Sun – that’s as much as he’ll read.

IF YOU haven’t worked it out, I got in to Italia Conti and my life truly began.

There are so many things I can remember really clearly, but my first day at Italia Conti – I can’t recall a bloody thing! I was so filled with nerves and excitement that it is all of a blur. Things were so different at Italia Conti compared to school. In the morning, we would do what was called ‘school rooms’: English, Maths, French, etc. In the afternoon, you would do your singing, your dancing, your acting. It was just amazing and I loved it.

I say I loved it; I didn’t love it all. I still didn’t like the academic side of it, but it was more interesting than at a normal comprehensive school. Everyone was theatrical, so there was always a drama going on somewhere in class. Someone had just got a part in Grange Hill, someone else didn’t get the commercial they went for. You see, there was an agency at the school and casting agents would get in contact with the agency and tell them exactly what they were looking for. Whenever you came out of class, you would always check to see if your name was up on the board, calling you to a casting at the agency.

It was amazing. One of my first jobs was as an extra on Grange Hill – it was so surreal. To think one minute I was watching it, and the next I was on the set. Camera, lights, action! Everyone at stage school seemed so much more grown-up – talking about work, and how much they were earning for this, how much they got paid for that. Some of those kids were earning a lot of money at 13 or 14, especially the regular parts. We had a few regulars in Grange Hill at Italia Conti. Don’t ask me what the character names were.

Naomi Campbell was in the year below me at Italia Conti; when she did her campaign for Hyper Hyper, a popular clothing store, her face was everywhere. Kids would say, ‘Have you seen Naomi?’ You couldn’t miss her, she was all over every tube station. She didn’t do too badly, did she? I find it really funny when I read stories about her – I remember her as a shy, timid, lovely girl. She was only 14. We all change, don’t we?

Another job I got when I was at Conti’s was on the Hot Shoe Show, which was a massive dance show on TV, on Saturday or Sunday night. It starred Wayne Sleep and Bonnie Langford and Cherry Gillespie, who was in Pan’s People or Hot Gossip, or both, I can’t remember. Anyway, it was an amazing show. Arlene Phillips was a choreographer on the show, although she didn’t choreograph my number. I did a tap dance along with about eight other boys and Wayne Sleep. There was a height requirement on the job, none of us could be taller than Wayne, so we must all have been around five foot two at that time.

And you know who else did it with me? John Partridge from EastEnders – he plays the gay character, Christian. You see, we’ve all been at it a long time. We rehearsed for about a week and I can remember the professionals, like Bonnie, rehearsing in the studio next door. I would think, that’s what I want to do, I want to dance like that. They were doing all the things I wanted to do, but with a lot more precision, obviously. Beautiful, lyrical combinations, high-kicking and pirouetting (pirouettes are when you see dancers turn on one leg), and making it look all so easy.

I never would have thought then that a few years later (quite a few years later) I would have been in class with these dancers at Pineapple, dancing alongside them and may I add, giving them a run for their money.

And then there was the biggest job I did as a child – biggest job because it was a West End show. When you are a child, you can only work a certain number of days per year. I think it was about three months.

I was called to the agency to go for an audition for Bugsy Malone the musical. Obviously, I had seen the film – what theatrical child would not want to be in a show like Bugsy Malone? You can imagine, every boy in school wanted to go up for it, but only about 10 of us got chosen to audition. We were told that you had to be able to tap-dance well, which was fine, thanks to Doreen Cliff. Even though Italia Conti was amazing, their classical ballet was not up to much. But, thank goodness, their tap classes were amazing. We had a lovely tap teacher named Ms Swivel. She was really quite strict, but she guaranteed we never missed a beat. So that box was ticked, but that was true for every other boy who was chosen to audition because of the high standard of tap teaching at the school. But then came my trump card! They wanted to know if anyone could do acrobatics!

Now, as well as being trampoline champion, I was also a pretty mean tumbler, thanks to the local farmers. When they cut the hay in the fields, we would do backflips and summersaults on the hay stacks. Being a natural, I graduated from hay to grass, and from grass to concrete – I had no fear.

I knew this job could be mine and then we were narrowed down to four boys. We were all similar tap dancers, so it was down to our tricks to separate us. Breakdancing was very big at the time, but it wasn’t what they were looking for in a 1930s musical, so now it was down to three.

I mean, really, a hand spring? I was doing that aged three. So, now it’s down to two.

A one-handed cartwheel? Really? I knew the job was mine, but I hadn’t quite finished yet. I wasn’t just going to get this job, I was going to get it with flying colours.

When they said to me, ‘And what can you do, Louie?’ I could feel my heart pumping with adrenaline. I took myself to the corner of the rehearsal room, where I proceeded to do Arab spring, five backflips, open-layout summersault, landing in splits. There are some jobs you just know you have won and at this point, with the panel on their feet applauding and the other boys looking very dejected, I realised this was one of those jobs.

Mum and Dad were pleased and relieved when I started to earn money from dancing. They used to give me 10 pounds every now and then, and did whatever they could on top of paying for my fees. This job was a great support and help for them, as the money I earned helped to pay for things I would need at Italia Conti, such as uniforms, which were very expensive, and my dance clothes.

And what a job it was. We rehearsed at Pineapple Studios and at the theatre, Her Majesty’s, in Haymarket. We also got to stay in a hotel for three months, which was great fun, sharing with two other boys in the show.

I remember one evening looking out of the window to the hotel opposite and I saw a couple having sex. He was a lot older than her and even at that age, we figured out that she must have been a prostitute. For some reason he was wearing a 10-gallon hat. By the time they finished, we had the entire cast of Bugsy Malone watching. When our chaperone on the show realised what we were watching, she nearly had a cardiac, bless her! She was a sweet little Irish lady, but she never really looked after us. As soon as we got back to the hotel she went straight to her room, feet up. Not that we needed looking after – showbiz kids are always older than their age. In fact, I think we used to look after her.

The first night of the show was amazing. I had a coach trip come up from Braintree – sisters, aunties, friends – to support me. When I met Mum and Dad after the show, I could see how proud they were. I think it was at that point when they realised they had done the right thing in sending me to Italia Conti.

I certainly knew it was the right thing: everything about the place just felt so right. Everyone was so much older in the way they conducted themselves, so aware of who they were and also what they wanted. We all knew we wanted a career in showbusiness, whether it was as a dancer, actor or singer. Everyone had an incredible creative energy, the whole place felt as though it was buzzing. Even though I used to dread getting up in the morning at 5.30, especially in the winter when it was cold and dark outside, when no-one else was awake in the house, just me creeping around having a cup of tea and marmite on toast, before a 20-minute walk to the station, before an hour and 40-minute train ride to school. That’s if there wasn’t snow, or leaves on the track – but whatever, it was so worth it.

As soon as I walked through the school doors it was showtime – every day was a performance. Someone was always working towards something, for an audition or a film, or just practising what they had done the day before. I can’t remember any negativity – everyone was encouraging and if you were down, you could guarantee in five minutes you would be laughing – there were so many wonderful characters. See, I am one of those people who is not very good with names but I never forget a face, but the group of people I can remember included a girl called Janine, who used to sit next to me in class. We were as bad as each other: we hated academic work and would sit laughing in class before being kicked out, when we would laugh even more.

Then there was Vanessa, whose sister also attended Italia Conti – I don’t know how her parents did it. And then there was Tina Foley – her first and last name seemed to go together, so I remember hers. She had really big boobs as well.

Gary had a Sta-Sof-Fro hairdo, which used to drip on to his collar jacket. Absolutely beautiful, and would give Naomi a run – now he’s Sade, and I mean completely Sade. The complete lot gone, the big chop – he makes a stunning lady.

ONE DAY we bunked off school – me, Gary and John (who I’ll tell you about later) – and went to Julia Sawalha’s house – you may know her as Saffy, the long-suffering daughter in Absolutely Fabulous and one of the stars of Lark Rise to Candleford. We got the tube to Brixton, which was my first time there. All I had ever heard of it was the riots, so I expected a war zone but it was nothing like that at all. It was quite nice – we had a walk around Morleys, which was like a really cheap version of Selfridges, and bought a few provisions for our day of bunking off. Then we were met by one of Julia’s older sisters (Nadia or possibly Dina; if she wasn’t Nadia, she looked like her). She was beautiful, with long brown-blonde hair and lovely skin.

Julia was the same, she was very beautiful. She had lovely feet as well – I haven’t got a foot fetish, I mean lovely for dancing. She had a naturally beautiful arch, or instep. So even though we were bunking off, it was very well-arranged. Her parents were away and her sister came to pick us up – we went to visit her in South Norwood, I think. The house was lovely, big and looked expensive. We had a very nice council house with all the trimmings, but this house was something else. Their furniture wasn’t from MFI and there wasn’t a bit of Artex or wood panelling inside.

When Artex came out, our house was done top to bottom, swirl and dry. The only problem was if you walked past and fell into it, you’d be stabbed by the prickly bits that stuck out, where Dad had got a really good pull on the swirl. I’d wake up some mornings and look as if I’d been dragged backwards through a hedge.

No, all the furniture in their house was solid and real. The dining-room table was proper wood – you could see it had been a tree. It was not for convenience and it didn’t have an easy-wipe surface: the table would definitely have needed a French polish.

Even though it would really piss my parents off to know that I was bunking off after all the sacrifices they had made, it was the first time I had done it. It didn’t feel like I was bunking off because it was all so well-arranged, but I am so glad I did. It wasn’t like we were hiding up in the farmer’s fields, or in some dirty garage, with a mouldy old sofa and a wet mattress. Because that was how they used to bunk off in Braintree, in my dad’s old garage that he never used, all sitting around on that smelly sofa smoking their Rothman Royals. No, not me, I was doing the VIP bunking off.

Julia’s sister was cooking us lunch while we popped off down to the video shop to get ourselves a couple of films for the day. I’m sure we must have got something like The Sound of Music or Annie. But I remember perfectly the third video we got. It was included free with the other two and was called I Want to Be a Woman. I can’t remember who chose it, but it wasn’t me; it must have been on the top shelf and there’s no way I could have reached that. (I only reached up to the Disney films at five foot two and a bit; looking back now, I think it might have been Gary/Sade.)

I Want to Be a Woman was a very detailed, step-by-step docufilm about a man who wanted to become a woman. Now I know you can now see that kind of thing on Channel 4 after the watershed, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you saw on the telly back then. (In fact, as this was around 1982, Channel 4 had only just started.) All I can say is, I couldn’t bear to eat a banana for years after – I couldn’t peel the skin, because that’s exactly what it was like. They just took the inside of the banana out, and wham, bam, alacazam, you are no longer a man!

But the end-product was amazing: it was very neat and tidy. I think transsexuals had the first designer vaginas. See, once again, we always lead the way in everything. And after that, I remember having my first moussaka. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it, because I hadn’t been introduced to foreign food.

I poked at it for a bit, then said to John, who was sitting beside me, ‘What’s this purple thing?’

He replied, ‘I think it’s beetroot.’

Now, that was a surprise to me – I had only ever had beetroot in a salad. I didn’t know that you could cook it in an oven. Of course, it was not beetroot. I know now that it was aubergine.

I could not see any meat in the dish and although it did not have potatoes on the top, I thought it might be a posh shepherd’s pie.

Coming from a traditional-ish British family, fish wasn’t fish to me if it didn’t have breadcrumbs on it. The nearest we got to foreign food was pasta, which wasn’t really pasta but spaghetti hoops – well, it had spaghetti in the title, didn’t it? I later found out that spaghetti came with many things, but the one thing it didn’t come in was a tin: it was normally in a packet that you put in water with a bit of salt.

I said to Julia, ‘Is there meat in this?’

She said, ‘No, it’s vegetarian.’

I didn’t have a clue what she meant. Vegetarian? She might as well have said ‘homosexual’, as if I knew. You don’t get many of those in Braintree, vegetarians that is.

There was a water jug on the table, which surprised me. Why would you have water on the table when you could get it out of the tap? There was never room on our table at home for water, alongside the ketchup and brown sauce, and the salt and vinegar.

One of the chairs alone in Julia’s kitchen would have filled our kitchen back in Braintree. They were large and made out of real wood. I thought everything looked real, none of it was fake. It was like seeing the actual furniture that ours at home was copied from. I didn’t know that tables could have wooden legs – I thought they all had metal legs. And I was frightened that I was going to mark a piece of the furniture, but it all seemed so natural to Julia.

See, this is my point: bunking off school isn’t always a negative thing. I learned a lot that day. For one, I learned even though I may have been camper than the average kid on the block, I quite liked my banana as it was. And, two, just because something has a foreign name like moussaka, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a go, because I did – and I loved it.

And I also learned a new word that day: couscous. Because I could, and because I can, because I did! It was also, on that day, I planned – along with John – another first. I say planned, but it was John, because he had already done it. Oh, what? I hear you ask, ‘Oh what, oh what, oh what?’

Going to my first gay club. We were going to Heaven.