Читать книгу I Owe You Nothing - Luke Goss - Страница 11

CHAPTER FOUR

Try

My Mum, Tony and I walked up to the counter of the music shop in Fleet, near our Camberley home. The assistant said, ‘Hello, Mr Phillips, do you want it now?’ He pulled up from behind the counter an electronic drum kit. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I was so excited my legs were shaking. It was the best, the greatest, most wonderful present I have ever been given. My mum says I carried it to the car with such reverence, as if it were a crate of delicate china.

I was twelve years old, and they had scraped together the money to buy me a £400 kit, with eight pads. I had dreamed about owning a drum kit all my life, from when I was a toddler and drove Mum mad banging spoons against saucepan lids. I had been in trouble at school and at home for endlessly drumming rhythms with my fingers. I had fantasized about having my own kit, and now I did. It was a terrific gesture by Mum and Tony because they could ill-afford the money at that stage of our lives, after we had just returned from Cheddar. They had even been considering paying for it in instalments, but in the end had managed to put all the money down at once.

Matt had been given a saxophone, and lessons. He never progressed much beyond painstakingly picking his way through ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, although if you hear Mum talk you’d think he was orchestral standard. I’m glad he never persevered with the sax because he might have ended up concentrating on that and not singing, which would have been a great loss. He used the sax to great effect to impress girls, but when they asked him to play something he usually had an excuse ready.

One of the nicest things about the present was that it was not for Christmas or a birthday, it was simply an extra loving gesture, and I know that Tony was the main force behind it, so I owe him an enormous debt. Looking back, they must have been mad buying a drum kit for a twelve-year-old, especially if they wanted to stay on friendly terms with the neighbours. But because I was so desperate to play, and because I worked so hard at it, it was no time at all before I could do it properly. Our first neighbours, though, did take the soft option – they moved. After that we had a crowd of young people living next door and they did not seem to mind. Mum and Tony insisted that I never played late at night, so I don’t remember too much friction. Mum knew how desperate I had been to have drums, and she appreciated that I had to learn, so she was my defender. When she said ‘Not now, Luke’, I stopped, however itchy my fingers were.

‘If Luke is interested in something, it doesn’t take him long to master it,’ she says. ‘I don’t blame the neighbours for moving, I think I would have too if I’d had a choice! But within a couple of months he was making professional-sounding noises on his drums, and it just got better and better. The most irritating thing was not the noise, it was trying to get him to do anything else.’

It is hard to describe the pleasure I had from owning that kit. Every time I went into my bedroom, I forgot whatever else I was supposed to be doing and sat down at the drums. When I woke in the morning it was the first thing I looked at, because it was a huge kit that filled half the bedroom, and for a few weeks I had to keep reminding myself that it was really mine.

There were times in those first few months when I felt so frustrated by the limits of my ability; when I felt like stabbing the drum kit with a knife; when my aching ankles would not do what they were supposed to do and when I could hear in my head what I wanted it to sound like, but I simply did not have the muscle development to produce that sound. But I worked at it every day, until my arms ached, my fingers bled and my head span.

I had one drum lesson at school in a lunch break, but it was simply a matter of banging sticks on a desk, and I was able to teach myself much better at home. Learning any instrument comes down to practice, practice and more practice, and because I enjoyed it I never found that a struggle.

What is the first thing a boy who plays the drums does? He forms a band. There were a group of other kids at school who were keen on the idea, but I was the main force behind it. Matt and I met Craig Logan, who was a year younger than us, when we started at Collingwood School. He came round to our house and we gave him a lift home on the back of one of our bikes; he decided we were completely crazy because we cycled across people’s gardens. Craig’s family were resolutely middle class – big house, two cars on the drive, so clean that you felt you couldn’t stand on the carpet – and Craig had been brought up to be more conventional, less rebellious than we were.

Craig had a bass guitar. Another mate, Peter Kirtley, played the keyboards. He was always known as ‘Little Pete’, which is ironic because he is now over six feet tall. He still plays, and his band has just been signed by a record company. His father was a jazz musician, so there was no problem about rehearsing at his house.

We called the first band Caviar. We didn’t know what caviar was, but it sounded posh. We dressed like the early Duran Duran: long hair, frilly shirts, earrings. With hindsight, we probably looked and sounded dreadful, but at the time we thought we were fantastic.

My hair and my slavish interest in music did not do me any favours with the teaching staff at school, and neither did my refusal to conform. We’d had a fairly gypsy-like upbringing, travelling about and meeting lots of different people through Tony’s and Mum’s work. We had never been treated like children, and we found it hard to fit into a vast school of 2,000 pupils where there was no scope for any individuality. I didn’t like school, I felt too old to be there and I desperately wanted to get on with my life. It did little to prepare us for the harsh realities of life ahead: one simple lesson about the difference between gross and net might have saved Matt and me a small fortune.

No doubt there were some kids who got what they wanted from that school, who enjoyed it and did well there. But I felt let down and betrayed by the whole system.

I could not understand – then or now – why there had to be such a formal gulf between teachers and pupils. Teachers were not allowed to act like human beings any more than pupils were. There were a couple of teachers I liked, and once when one of them looked really upset I wanted to go up to her and put my arm around her, but of course that was out of the question. Apart from a formal ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon’, you were not supposed to have any social chat with the staff.

We joined the school a year after everyone else, because of our move from Cheddar, but it did not take us long to make friends. We soon became part of the school ‘in-crowd’, mainly because of our style and music. Craig was a ‘boff’ – one of the boffins who took school seriously.

Our school uniform was black trousers, jumper and shoes, a white shirt and a red, yellow and green striped tie. Small collars were fashionable at the time, and I would tie my tie with the thin side on top and the thick side tucked into my shirt. I was always very neat and clean, but I was in trouble because my hair was long. Mum and Tony went to see the headmaster about it, and Tony argued forcibly that because we were otherwise so tidy and clean, and our hair was freshly washed every day, they were making a fuss about nothing. His only concession was that he agreed we would tie it back during woodwork, when the school reckoned it was dangerous. As the rest of the boys of our age seemed to think it was cool to be scruffy, the headmaster took his point.

Clothes were a constant preoccupation. Mum gave us a clothing allowance from the age of eleven onwards. She gave us £20 a month, which was enough to keep us in the styles we enjoyed, because you could buy a good jacket for £30. By the time I was twelve or thirteen I had a couple of suits and loads of tops and trousers. I spent most of my spare time, when I wasn’t rehearsing with the band, working to earn more money.

Tony was running a property maintenance company again, and I used to do some work for him. I remember when I was thirteen spending a large chunk of my summer holiday plastering the Inland Revenue office at Victoria and then, because Tony was again having financial problems, never being paid. I had to lug huge bags of plaster up to the top floor. Granddad was helping as well, and he was never paid either: we still give Tony a hard time about it. When, in later years, the Inland Revenue began pursuing me for money I liked to think about how I gave them my services for nothing.

I also had a weekend job at a garden centre: hard, heavy work unloading paving stones for £5.75 a day. After cycling a few miles to get there at seven thirty in the morning and back again at six in the evening, I was completely exhausted, and the payment was sheer exploitation. Later on I had a Saturday job at a hairdressers. It was originally arranged by the school, for work experience, and I stayed on doing a couple of evenings and Saturdays after that. I put down ‘hairdressing’ as my work experience choice because I had visions of spending a week in a trendy London salon, running my fingers through the beautiful blonde locks of some real stunners. Instead I ended up in a village shop in Windlesham, shampooing the blue-rinsed hair of the elderly clients. It was a unisex salon, and I remember a weird experience washing the hair of a bald man, which I know is a contradiction in terms. I can remember my thumbs skidding across the frictionless surface of his bald crown, and him wriggling in his chair as if he were enjoying it. It must have been the shortest shampoo on record. But I managed to save enough money to trade in my electronic drum kit for an acoustic one.

By the time I was fourteen I knew that I was going to give the music business a very serious try when I left school. We were rehearsing five nights a week, and I’m afraid homework always took second place to drums. I thought that if I didn’t make it in the music world I could always study later. Needless to say, my school reports were littered with remarks like ‘could do better’ and ‘needs to try harder’.

I was happy enough to go to English lessons, but that was because the teacher was pretty. There was another teacher who was really tasty, the music teacher. I used to look at her and wish I was a few years older. It worried me though: fancying a teacher seemed a bit kinky, almost a perversion!

Matt – at this stage of his life everyone called him Matthew, except for me and I called him Maffy – and I were often in trouble for childish pranks, pathetic little rebellions against the mindless authority of the school regime. Years later, when we were famous, the school asked if we would go back there to perform: I wouldn’t go back there for any money. They did nothing to encourage me and I can actually remember a chemistry teacher laughing with contempt when someone said I wanted to make records when I left.

There was one thing about school I enjoyed, and that was running. I was county standard at cross country and 1,500 metres, and every afternoon after school I would change into my running gear and do an eight-mile run from Camberley to Frimley and Lightwater and then back home. I was ridiculously fit. Matt was more interested in athletics, and always did well at long jump, high jump and triple jump.

After Caviar I was invited to join another band called Hypnosis, with another couple of brothers. They were a class above us, but by this time I had a reputation as one of the best drummers around the area, for my age. I did a couple of gigs with them and they were keen that I should stay. I insisted that Matt also be allowed to join, as a singer. They agreed, and that was Matt’s first taste of singing in public. Everyone always assumes that Matt was the instigator of our career in music, but it was actually the other way round: at that age it was me who was paving the way for him.

Meanwhile, though, he was more interested in a career on the stage. He took drama as one of his optional subjects at school, and his teacher, a lovely lady called Jane Roberts – one of the few teachers you could really talk to – recognized his potential and gave him the starring role in the school production of Cabaret, in which he played the German Master of Ceremonies. He was brilliant: he got tremendous reviews. The actress June Whitfield was in the audience, and so were some senior members of the Royal School of Ballet, friends of the drama teacher. They all said that he had a real talent and should go to drama school.

All the family came to see the show. Mum was very proud, and even she admits she was surprised how good Matt was. Dad said he was bowled over: it took him a few minutes to realize it was his son up there speaking German and performing so brilliantly. I had a small one-line role as a sailor in the same production. I thought it would be good fun and I got to miss a few lessons for rehearsals.

After playing with Hypnosis Matt and I broke away and started rehearsing just with Craig. We didn’t really have a name, but we played a few gigs in clubs and discos, with club owners paying us in Cokes. We were happy to do it for the experience. We were writing our own songs, but they were not what the punters wanted to hear, unfortunately. I remember one evening we played at a working men’s club, and we’d run through lots of stuff before anyone even started tapping their feet. That was when we played ‘House of the Rising Sun’. I hate that song, but it always gets people going.

Afterwards the barman asked how old the drummer was, and said he thought I would go far. I have always put everything into my drumming, even in a place like that where they were definitely there for the beer, not the music. You see some drummers performing as though they are half dead, with a cigarette balanced on the edge of their kit and a cup of tea to hand. I can never play like that: for me, it’s all or nothing.

When I was twelve I met a whole new branch of my family. After Dad’s mother died he contacted the people in her address book, to let them know. One of the names was a sister of her first husband, Dad’s real father. There had been no contact between them since Dad was a baby, but the letter to his aunt triggered a feeling in her that Dad might like to meet that side of his family. He travelled up to St Anne’s, near Blackpool, and stayed with his father and a stepmother he had never met before, and also met two half-brothers and two half-sisters for the first time. He found the family very warm and welcoming, and after he had established a good relationship with them he took Matt and me to stay with them. It was a lovely experience, they were friendly and easy-going. My step-grandmother was gentle, homely and kind to us, and cooked us huge breakfasts in the mornings. Unfortunately, Dad’s wife Margaret was with us and, as had become her habit, she tried to impose her standards of behaviour on us. She insulted me by asking me if I had washed my hands after I had been to the toilet, as if I was a tiny child.

Dad enjoyed his new family for five years, until his marriage to Margaret broke up. Then, tragically, his father and stepmother decided to side with Margaret, who had told them a highly coloured version of the marriage breakdown. It was she who left Dad – not the other way round. Dad is philosophical about it. He still keeps in touch with his half-sisters although he has no contact with the rest of them. He says that his stepfather, Denis Weston, was the man who brought him up, and he is still very close to Denis, who he regards as nothing less than his father.

I have no sense of loss through not seeing them any more as they never figured in my childhood; but I do know how important my father has been in my life, and how vulnerable I am sometimes because of the times when I felt rejected by him, so I have a lot of sympathy for his difficulties with his own father.

Throughout my early teen years, my relationship with Mum, Tony and Dad was fraught at times – and with my stepmother Margaret I ceased to have any relationship. She objected to the way we dressed and did not want to be seen with us. It reached the stage where we only wanted to visit their house if we knew she was not going to be there. Dad admits that he wasn’t too keen on our taste in clothes (he says we both looked like the Thin White Duke, dressed all in white with long blond hair), but he took the line that we were well-behaved, polite and had never given him any serious cause for worry, so he was not going to make an issue over the way we dressed.

The first time that we came face to face with Margaret’s rejection of us was when we were going with Dad to a Divine concert at the Lyceum. It’s hard to know how to describe Divine: he was a fat, camp entertainer whose very bizarreness accounted in part for his success. Another large part of his success was that he was managed (until his death in 1988) by Bernard Jay.

Bernard has been a friend of Dad’s (and Mum’s) since Dad was first a bobby on the beat in the 1970s. Bernard was general manager of the Mermaid Theatre, and one day Dad popped into the theatre, in uniform, to get out of the rain. He was on duty escorting the Lord Mayor of London to the College of Arms, and was not needed again until it was time for the Lord Mayor to leave. Bernard took pity on him and plied him with coffee and brandy, and while chatting discovered how hard up Dad and Mum were. After that, he took the trouble to invite them to every first night party at the theatre.

They both appreciated it: it was a sparkling break from the routine of bringing up two small children on a tight budget, and the only problem they had was finding suitable things to wear. Everything else was laid on free for them.

Bernard has remained a fixture in our lives since then. We were never christened so we don’t officially have a godfather, but Bernard has always been like one to us. After he took over management of Divine he invited us to the show at the Lyceum, and we were thrilled to accept.

I was genuinely upset when Dad told us that Margaret had decided that she preferred not to go if we were going to be there. Although Matt and I did not get on with her, we were sad for Dad’s sake that this night out became a showdown, putting him more or less in a position of having to choose between us and her. I’m glad he stood up to her and chose us that night; it was a breakthrough, as though he were saying ‘She’s not going to stand between us any more, guys.’ I remember feeling so happy that he had made a move for us.

Dad thinks that we were feigning being upset at Margaret’s absence, but that is not so. We felt hurt at the rejection, even from someone who we knew did not like us. I always hoped, while Dad was still with Margaret, that for his sake she would try to rebuild a relationship with us, but she never did.