Читать книгу Martin Shaw - The Biography - Stafford Hildred - Страница 7

‘I enjoyed the experience so much I wouldn’t leave the stage’

Martin Shaw on his first stage appearance at the age of 3

The Birmingham suburb of Erdington was briefly mentioned in the Domesday Book under its earlier name of Hardintone, but it never seemed to really come into its own until the engineering industry arrived in the city in the nineteenth century. Then the giant Fort Dunlop building came to dominate the local skyline and became Britain’s largest poster site, just as the production of the motor car drove the local economy.

Famous residents are distinctly thin on the ground, according to the average Yentonian (as Erdington residents are known), though the controversial newspaper columnist Richard Littlejohn once lived there. Erdington does have its own abbey, which is an outstanding example of Gothic Revival architecture. Also, from 1968 to 1971, Erdington was home to the famous rock music venue, Mothers, where Traffic appropriately made their world debut and bands like The Who, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple performed. As the late John Peel once said: ‘People are amazed to hear that for a few years the best club in Britain was in Erdington!’ And, most noticeably, the district is now bordered by the astonishing road junction that was christened the Gravelly Hill Multi-Level Interchange – better known as Spaghetti Junction.

However, so far as we, the authors, could detect there is as yet no shiny blue plaque to mark the site of the house on Lovesey Street, Erdington where Martin Shaw lived with his family for the first 11 years of his life after first coming into the world on 21 January 1945. It was a grim time, with the last battles of World War II still being fought out. Birmingham was a city of shortages and damaged buildings; young Martin arrived in a world desperately weary of conflict, but fortunately for him he came into a warm and loving family. His father Frank was a sales engineer in the heating business and his mother Jo was a champion ballroom dancer who was vivacious and beautiful, and always looked very young for her age. More than once in the years to come, much to her delight, she was mistaken for Martin’s sister.

He got the acting bug very early. ‘My parents were both artistically inclined and they were very keen on amateur dramatics. When I was 3 they took part in a revue and I made my first stage appearance in it. I wore a straw boater and spectacles with a pipe in my mouth and held a carrier bag. I was told to walk across the stage, look at the audience, wait until they laughed and then drop the pipe out of my mouth into the carrier bag. I didn’t understand anything about it, of course, but it brought the house down. I enjoyed the experience so much I wouldn’t leave the stage. I loved the applause but I hadn’t learned anything about entrances and exits and finally I had to be lifted bodily over the footlights by my father.’ A little later the whole family got involved in a street party and Frank played Al Jolson, Martin’s grandmother Agnes was Al’s Mammy and Martin himself took off Arthur English’s popular spiv act, offering nylons for sale to all the girls. All three of them won prizes.

Money was frequently short in those post-war years but Martin’s parents somehow always managed to provide a holiday for the family. When Martin was 4½ for instance, they spent a blissful week in a caravan at Golden Sands at Rhyl.

The famous Spitfire factory was just down the road in Castle Bromwich and even as a very young boy Martin was always totally fascinated by aircraft. It was a passion he must have inherited from his father that became one of the many strong bonds between the two of them. Father and son spent hours locked together by their love of aeroplanes. ‘I’ve been a real aircraft nut as for long as I can remember,’ said Martin. ‘Anything to do with aircraft that I could read, or buy, or make… I would. My dad loved aeroplanes as well so I’m sure it came from him. We used to make Airfix models and go to airshows together.’ But Frank helped encourage his son’s interest in all sorts of subjects, as Martin once said: ‘… From astrology to zoology. And it is his knowledge and interest and endlessly enquiring mind that has helped me throughout my life.’

There was never too much money about in those heavily rationed and restricted post-war days and Martin’s parents had to work hard to provide for the family. But they shared a belief that entertainment and education were important aspects of life and they were both determined to stimulate and inspire their young son. Martin’s younger brother Jeremy, who was forever known as Jem, came along when Martin was 7.

Girls entered Shaw’s life in a big way somewhat later on but, he recalled, not too seriously: ‘My first love was a girl at primary school. Her name was Marie. She was very tall for a 10-year-old, with very blonde hair and very blue eyes. I was totally smitten. There were smiles and blushes but it never went any further.’

On another occasion he spotted a pretty girl who was playing on the top of an old baker’s van. Young Martin climbed up to join her to try to chat her up and the girl’s twin brother arrived and threatened him: ‘If you don’t come down from there I’ll knock you off!’ With the sort of fearless disregard for his own safety that has landed him in trouble more than once in his life, Martin refused to back down. ‘I said, “You and whose army?” And he climbed up and knocked me off! Just like that. It’s funny how you meet your friends, because he became one of my best mates and I used to see him every time I went home.’

‘We lived in Erdington until I was 11,’ Martin said. ‘My parents and myself – and later my brother – shared a World War I council house with my maternal grandparents. My grandmother was like a second mother to me. She had an enormous influence on me. She was a wonderfully imposing figure. She didn’t have bosoms, instead she had a kind of bolster like a sort of mobile hanging shelf. It was an Edwardian shape that you don’t really seem to see these days. The house had a range with an open fire and we still had gas mantles. My grandfather’s bedroom was lit by a gas mantle, which he kept going all night. God knows what that did to his breathing! My mother’s passion was ballroom dancing and she used to win competitions in Warwickshire and Birmingham. She absolutely adored it and she could do all the flowing head turns and the incredibly intricate steps.’

There was a real warmth and openness about family life and Martin recalls there were always challenging arguments going on about the issues of the day and even a young voice was able to find an audience. ‘Of course I took my parents and grandparents completely for granted,’ said Martin. ‘Who doesn’t? But later I knew how fortunate I had been with my upbringing. Times probably were pretty hard for them when I was little but I must have been very well protected from that. Laughter and happy voices are my main memories of growing up and I know now that makes me a very lucky guy.’

A happy upbringing does not necessarily mean a dull one. Martin recalls handling guns from being a very small boy. His grandfather was a gunsmith in Birmingham. ‘My grandfather used to work in a shed at the bottom of the garden,’ he said. ‘He would never allow anyone in while he was working but I used to peep through a hole and watch. It was like an Aladdin’s cave in there to me. There was my grandfather tapping away with a little copper hammer at the stock of a sporting gun, hammering in bits of silver chasing. It was a rare occasion indeed for me to be allowed to hold one of these works of art, because that is what they were.’

Then, when Martin was leaving primary school, his parents managed to buy a house in Streetly, Sutton Coldfield, which was a huge step. It was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream for Martin’s father Frank. He had always wanted a place of his own, preferably further out of the busy city and within reach of some countryside. ‘Nowadays people’s impossible dream seems to be to win the Lottery,’ says Martin. ‘Ours was to simply buy a house and a car. It seemed out of reach for a long time so to have achieved both aims felt amazing.’

When Martin was growing up as a teenager, Sutton Coldfield was on the edge of farmland. But although he had put a little distance between himself and Birmingham he retained a strong Brummie accent and a great affection for his birthplace. For many years afterwards his parents remained living in the same small semi-detached house which meant so much to them. It was a real family home. ‘It might not have been very big at all, but it felt like a mansion,’ he recalls fondly.

In his early teens, Martin joined the local Sea Scouts. He was a keen member for a while, until playing make-believe sailors landed him in trouble, thanks to his acute sense of humour. Martin’s natural sense of fun would bubble over into giggles when they were required to ‘pipe’ people aboard ship, which was just the top half of an old boat planted on the grass in a local park. He was thrown out for not playing the game!

At secondary school he struggled to make any sort of mark for quite a while. He loved playing football and quickly made friends, but in the classroom he spent most of his days dreaming about aircraft or waiting impatiently for the lesson to be over. By his own account he was inclined to be untidy, absent-minded, clumsy, fragile, over-sensitive and a popular target for bullying.

‘I was a bit of a whimperer, I suppose,’ says Martin, with his own brand of brutal honesty. ‘But I do remember a few useful lessons from my childhood. Dad used to say, “Bullies are always scared. If you stand up to them, they’ll back down.” But for a long time I was always too scared to put that theory to the test. There was one particular bully at our school and he was being such a nightmare that it got to the point where I thought, “I’ve got nothing to lose if I end up having his fist halfway down my throat.” It couldn’t be any worse than I was already going through. He kept on and on, and one of the techniques to make the weakly kids miserable was to say, “I’m going to get you tonight outside school.” You had the whole day to suffer. So one day, as he was pushing me around, he said, “I’m going to be waiting outside school and I’ll get you.” I thought, “This is insane. I’m going to get hit anyway so let him just do it and get it over with.” So I planted my feet apart and put my fists up and said, “Don’t wait for tonight, do it now.” The look on his face was extraordinary. I said, “Come on, I’m ready.” I looked him right in the eyes and I saw that he was frightened. Also there were a lot of other kids around saying, “Go on then, do it.” He started to back away and said, “No.” That changed my attitude a bit. I was never bullied again. And I knew then that you don’t have to be timid.’

Martin was always very keen to get behind the wheel of a car and learn to drive. ‘My dad used to let me drive whenever we were off public roads so I knew the basics from about the age of 12 onwards,’ he said. ‘When I had lessons to take my test, years later, I found I only needed six and passed first time, but I was very nervous. At one point the examiner asked me what the speed limit was. I said, “30” and he said, “Yes, that means you can actually reach that speed.” I had been driving at about 18 mph.’

Martin’s mental strength is one of his most remarkable facets and perhaps the root of that extraordinary stillness and self-confidence goes back to his formative years. ‘I had unusual parents in that they were spiritually agnostic,’ he says. ‘They were also extremely open-minded. If a Jehovah’s Witness came to the door he would not be turned away. The man’s opinions might not get across but he would always be invited to state his case. I grew up in awe of my father’s quest for truth. We were always having intense discussions of all faiths; he would never accept any kind of dogma. The house was always filled with brilliant, but sometimes heated discussions. Ministers and vicars loved him but there was a time when they would shake their heads and, “Oh, but Frank, you really must conform to the scriptures you know.” … My father followed no religion at all but he believed in God. He was a Christian in the broadest sense, that he always espoused the Christian ideals of love and kindness. Where he would sometimes become unpopular is that he would say a flower had as much soul as you or I.’ But the heated discussions were simply an integral part of family life to Shaw and nothing was out of bounds.

Sometimes the family even took part in a kind of séance. Martin explained: ‘We would put our fingers on the glass and it would go shooting round the table. The greatest thing is doing it with your own family because you know no one is cheating. You put letters of the alphabet round the table and the touch on the glass is so light.’

He found these experiences deeply life-enhancing and he tried to always keep an open mind, particularly when others are jumping to more obvious conclusions. ‘What I have learned,’ he said, ‘is that mind is not limited to the head or to people who are alive. At the moment it is not possible to see or photograph a thought. A hundred years ago we had not learned how to use electricity which has always been there.’

One experience of moving the glass around the letters left a deep impression on him. ‘My grandfather was a very dry person,’ he recalled. ‘He would not say much for a whole afternoon and then only a few words. A few years after his death we had a whole conversation lasting over an hour – so much his character, even the energy in which he talked. At one point he said, “Suck the broth.” My father, Jem and myself thought, “What’s this?” But my mother said it was something he said if you fell over or something. Just an expression, “Oh, never mind, suck the broth.”’

Not that all conversations were mystical, highbrow or pretentious in the Shaw household by any means. Martin also recalls that for long periods he nursed rather more mundane fantasies about the future involving him working as a vet and later as a train driver. He also developed an early interest in music. Elvis Presley was one of his early heroes. At one point he was quite fanatical in his enthusiasm at and was determined to copy the highly distinctive Presley hairstyle. ‘I used to envy Elvis because he could grease his hair back,’ says Martin. ‘But I’ve got a double crown and my hair grows in opposite directions. I used to dip my comb in Brylcreem and run it through my hair trying to make it look like Elvis’s and it never seemed to look right. My mother even permed it for me when I was 14 and desperate.’

There is an intense and stubborn side to his character that can upset people. ‘I suppose it started at school,’ he said. ‘I refused to conform and believe that exams were an important part of evaluating someone’s intelligence. It may sound big-headed but I thought I was too bright to pass exams. I was even beaten because I wouldn’t learn everything parrot fashion.’

In many lessons Martin floundered and he had no real clue what sort of a career he might choose. ‘I don’t think acting was ever thought about,’ he said. ‘The only thing I was any good at was English Language and I certainly enjoyed poetry. Everything else I was equally bad at and when the careers officer came along the only thing they could come up with was librarian and I thought, “Oh God!” The prospect of living your life in hushed tones clearly did not appeal.

The most significant moment of Shaw’s schooldays was the first time his class were asked to read Shakespeare. ‘For the very first time I got to feel like other people felt in maths classes,’ he smiled many years later. Even then he admitted that the mention of ‘double maths’ was enough to send a shiver down his spine. ‘In maths it seemed as if everyone knew what was going on while I hadn’t got a clue. Suddenly the situation was reversed. Nobody knew what the play was about except me. And I couldn’t understand why nobody understood it; it was just so clear to me. The first thing we read out loud was Julius Caesar and I found that in playing Brutus and Cassius – the teacher would change the parts around – I really got into it and could understand what was going on. The next play we read was Macbeth and it was on the GCE syllabus that year and they did it as a school play, and I played Macduff and I realised acting was something I could do.’

An inspirational drama teacher called Tom Knowles suggested an alternative to the proposed career as a librarian by getting Martin into the school drama club. His first reaction was not promising. ‘“No! That’s cissy,” I thought,’ says Martin. But the dedicated Mr Knowles was a fierce defender of drama and would always leap to the attack if anyone wrote off his subject as a ‘pansy’ option (in the phrase of the day). ‘But then it occurred to me that here was a chance to be good at something, instead of being the person who was always spoken of in terms of “Guess who came bottom again?”’

Drama was the only thing that fired him at school. ‘Tom Knowles was an incredible teacher who would get us into the school hall, play some Bach and tell us to dance. We would say, “Don’t be so stupid.” He’d clip someone round the ear and we would start to dance. It was amazing, all these rough, football-playing Birmingham kids flitting round in a free-expression ballet. But it gave me my first interest in acting.’

He was delighted that at last he had found something he was good at. In 1961, aged 16, as he left school he was offered a scholarship to drama school but his parents felt that he was too young. Instead he went to work in the sales office of a company that manufactured a metal-finishing machine called the Lachromatic Vibrator. Martin was not impressed by the company’s standard sales letter and, with the sublime confidence of youth, he wrote a new one of his own! It could of course have landed him the sack but in fact his boss was quick to note the improvement and immediately promoted him to a more senior position in the Direct Sales department, complete with his own secretary, no less. But by then he was beginning to realise that acting was more than just something he was good at; it was becoming something he simply had to do. And his sales success had brought out a side of him that he did not like. ‘I was arrogant,’ he admits. ‘I pushed people about so much I couldn’t keep a secretary for more than a few weeks.’ Martin’s growing self-awareness told him that he was approaching a major turning point in his life.

But he did not put quite all of his energies into the day job. The influential Tom Knowles had by then formed a semi-professional drama group called The Pied Piper Players and Martin was swiftly recruited. The Pied Pipers were a commedia dell’arte group who got together twice a week to decide what show to put on, rehearse and practise on their instruments for the musical side of the show. Then they went out and put on a show every Sunday. They would use all sorts of venues from the streets to any one of the many Birmingham bomb sites. He explained: ‘Sometimes we would hire the school hall and decide on a scenario, either using traditional stories like The Sleeping Beauty or making up a play of our own. We never learned our words or anything, and the spectators sometimes determined which way the action would go. They would get so carried away with it that we would occasionally have to restrain them. “Right kids,” we said once, “we need six hefty policemen to come and beat up the wicked man!” and the poor actor got so bruised and knocked about that we had to cut that scene.’

Martin loved it. ‘Sometimes it was just brilliant when the kids would follow us until we found some open land,’ he said. ‘Then we would set up shop and give a performance. It really was like being a Pied Piper, a fantastic experience. The children were our sternest critics but they loved the company.’ He even began to look like an actor. Sloppy-Joe sweaters, tight jeans and sandals were his usual mode of dress and he made several trips to nearby Stratford-upon-Avon to, as he put it, ‘eat up the Shakespeare’ – more than once with his girlfriend at the time, who was his first real love. She was quite a character and Martin said later: ‘She would embarrass me when we would haunt the actors’ pubs afterwards by wearing a green bowler hat. I think she must have been the first genuine eccentric I had ever met – she was quite a girl.’ The strong theatrical influences combined to give him the increased momentum to want to try to make acting his career.

‘I auditioned for some London drama schools and got into LAMDA [the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art],’ says Martin, ‘which was more than a little lucky because in 1963 it was the best in the world – I didn’t know that at the time, of course.’

It must be said that in his late teens Martin Shaw was not at all the clean-living, non-drinking, non-smoking picture of health that theatre and television audiences have come to know and love over the years. He says: ‘I started drinking halves of bitter when I was 14. I always had quite a weak frame as a younger boy, but at 15 I started to fill out and when I was 18 or 19 I got really bulky, thanks partly to the beer I suppose. As soon as I got my freedom to go to places on my own I started to frequent jazz clubs and for a while I became a beatnik. I also started to drink even more heavily which is probably why I kept putting on weight.’