who are we?

Frank - part two

more of the same

I suppose, normally one would apologise for acting as I did at the end of 'part one'. I could easily have deleted or modified it and readers would never know, but I believe in honesty and have no shame in showing my feelings. Whilst appearing to be strong and capable, which I am, I am also an emotional person, and now I am describing my life, then it's only right I should tell it the way it was, and is.
Many people have said I should write my autobiography, but I never felt I became famous enough for people to want to read it. My life's pendulum has swung to the max in both directions. I have experienced a lot of extreme sadness. My Dad suffered with a duodenal ulcer for years, came to the point of retirement and decided to have the operation. He went into hospital on a Monday, something went wrong, he developed peritonitis, and died on Friday.

Losing the baby, my Mum going the way she did, and then Pauline; I think I have had more than my fair share of experiencing death first hand.

But I have also experienced a lot of good times. I often think back over all the things I have done and achieved, far more than I shall describe here, and wonder how one person could possibly have done all that. But I did, and everything I relate is factual.

Pauline was just 44 years old when she died. I had lost the greatest love of my life. The two children went to their grandmother. The house we lived in was Council owned, and I had no entitlement, so I moved in with Phil, by then living in a flat in Egham. That started the next episode.

Across from his flat was a pub we frequented, The Victoria. Behind the bar worked a busty blue-eyed blonde, Lynnette, the sort of girl every man with hormones lusts after, me included.

You has a lot of hormones.

Quite probably, and fortunately they are not yet on the wane.

She was 17 years my junior, and living with a young guy who was quite violent towards her. One night she turned up at our door severely beaten up, and stayed the night. Now, I have always had a penchant for B.B.E.B.s, and she claimed to prefer older men - father figures.

Well, as you can probably guess, we got together and soon married. Wife number four, and another big mistake. I wasn't really that much in love with her. It was more of a rooster-booster situation.

We moved to a residential hotel in Bournemouth. There I worked for the owner, doing maintenance work and behind the bar. He had other business interests including being a wrestling promoter, I DJ'd and MC'd these events in the hotel function suite, along with other venues. I didn't do much DJ work other than for a chap, John Stephenson, who had a mobile roller disco circuit. I had resigned as TVDJA Secretary, but continued to write much of the magazine, although someone else took over the publishing.

Anecdote. John's primary business was security - supplying door staff, night porters and suchlike. He himself was the personal bodyguard for Tina Turner whenever she came to England. On one of these occasions he asked if I wanted to go with him, and meet Tina. Obviously I jumped at the opportunity. We were provided with a hotel suite next to hers. In the evening we all went out to dinner (along with others of Tina's friends).

The following evening she phoned our room and asked if I would like to join her for a drink and chat in the hotel lounge. That turned into a couple of hours in the company of a beautiful person, in all senses of the word. Someone whom I had admired before meeting her, and even more so since.

Although I was not earning all that much, life was interesting enough, but I worked late hours, and Lynnette got easily bored on her own, and started frequenting a bar in town where one of the hotel residents worked. It didn't take very many vodkas and orange for him to get her knees apart. She wasn't a girl with the highest of morals.

When she admitted to me what had transpired, I felt partially responsible, for leaving her to her own devices for many hours at a time, and forgave her the transgression. It happened a second time, and although I felt less inclined to, forgave her again, regarding this time that Cliff was extracting the urine, so went to his room to confront him, the upshot being we had a fight, and he came off very much worse. I am not by nature a violent person, but there are times.......

We were requested to leave the hotel, and I found a job as a school caretaker in New Milton, Hampshire. It was OK, hardly an ambition, but a house went with it, and we got life back together again. Lynnette became pregnant and prospects took on a new slant.

It was whilst working at the school I got into computing - it having a computer room equipped with BBC 'B'  and 'Master' machines. This was where I taught myself the rudiments, during non-working hours whilst the school was officially closed.
The next recount is back-tracking a bit to when I was between third and fourth marriage.

In 1983, Tony Prince long-term radio presenter with pirate stations and Radio Luxemburg called me to say he was forming Disco Mix Club and would I be interested in becoming involved in promoting it. At the time I was living in Egham and still running TVDJA.

Working on a freelance basis, I became the first editor (and primary writer and photographer) of Mix Max, then, simply the club magazine - a 16-page monochrome publication.

As the Club grew, Mix Mag became bigger, went to full colour, and 64 pages. I travelled all over the country attending industry functions, taking pictures, compèring major events. It was undoubtedly a very interesting time.
Anecdote. For a couple of years, DMC sponsored the National Miss Wet Tee Shirt competition. Naturally I was the official photographer. We gave each competitor as much booze as they wished to consume, a DMC tee shirt, and a pair of scissors. Need I say more?

It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.
Tony was very well known, as was I to a lesser degree, but it gave me the opportunity to meet many major names, not that being a star automatically makes you a nice person. I have met some real arseholes.

Tony was enthused with the concept of mixing. DMC became synonymous with the genre, and I feel privileged to have been there at the start. He initiated the World Mixing Championships in 1985, which is still a major international annual event.

If you are interested in mixing, and would like to read about the history of the DMC Championships, click the link at the end

I think, nay, I know, this is my fondest memory in my career in the music business, although there are many others.
Tony kept badgering me to give up my job and go to work for him full time. The financial carrot kept increasing, and in the end I succumbed. I bought a house in Cippenham, not far from where DMC then had their prestigious new headquarters, with offices, warehouse and three fully equipped mixing studios. My position was as International Manager, developing a network of overseas branches, and supplying them their monthly music mixes and merchandise.

So that I could take work home when required, Tony bought me a computer system identical to the Master system I had at my house. When he saw what I was able to do with this new technology, he equipped all the offices with expensive IBM PCs, but the staff could never achieve the type of results that I could produce on my, as Tony described it, Micky Mouse BBC system.

It ain't wot you has, it's the way you use it.

Exactly right Tom.

DJing work was picking up again, and now that I was working for DMC, this had the spin-off that I began getting gigs for the 'stars'. I still did a lot of photography work, and thoroughly enjoyed being back in the business I loved.
At home, the baby was born - another son, and a few months later Lynnette wanted to visit her parents for a couple of weeks, of course taking the offspring with her to parade around her family. When she returned, I knew immediately she had been up to her old ways, and simply said "OK, what's his name?" "Vince" she replied. "That's us finished then." She packed her belongings and her father came to collect her.

I sent her maintenance money each month, continued living in the house, and got on with my life.

OK, being blase about it, it was just another gig, but what a gig! Eric Clapton, Sting, Phil Collins, and so on, and of course Freddie Mercury. The guest list ran to hundreds of similar luminaries.

I got to speak with many of them. Quite a few I already knew, or whom I had met before. At the end, a lot were going swimming in the large covered pool. I was invited to join them, but declined.

You remembers it well then?

Indeed I do.

She's a big girl. A lot of boob to put in a toob.

Exactly, and I had a 'ring-side' view. The said garment was fighting constantly with attached bits, and often winning.

You was getting a good eyeful?

Absolutely, almost in more ways than one. It certainly brightened up the already outstanding night.
Still, enough of all this. I could ramble on for hours with remembrances.

Although I did a few more gigs after this, before leaving Britain, this was the significant one to go out on, and will be something else I shall never forget.