My life with the stars Part One

As everyone else is on the internet showing off about how great their lives are, I’m going to boast about my life with the stars. You are going to be fascinated as I tell the stories of my meetings, and near meetings, with the rich and powerful. Here, then, is my life with the stars. Part 1.

Bill Owen

Bill Owen was an actor who played a character called Compo in a BBC show called Last of the Summer Wine. The night before the General Election of 1983, I attended a public meeting arranged by the local Labour Party at Wick Road Junior School in Brislington, Bristol, in support of local MP Tony Benn. The special guest was Bill Owen.

The hall was packed as Benn did his usual stump speech which thrilled the couple of hundred people who had turned up. He was very proud of the manifesto he had been so central in creating as was Owen whose shouty speech ended with ‘And tomorrow, we’re gonna win’. There was a standing ovation as people looked at each other, all thinking the same thing: ‘no we’re not’. When Owen left the building, I said, ‘Goodnight, Bill.’ He replied, quick as a flash: ‘Goodnight.’

Sure enough, the next day Labour was humiliated with Margaret Thatcher winning a landslide victory, Gerald Kaufman having described the manifesto as ‘the longest suicide note in history’. Bill didn’t come to Bristol East again after that because Benn lost his seat.

Brian Wilson

I’ve met the Beach Boys’ genius three times over the years. I doubt that he remembers me, or even the fact he was playing these shows. He was very sweet though. Once backstage at the Bristol Colston Hall, I asked Brian to sign two programmes for me. ‘Only one,’ he replied. His manager told me to just go to the back of the queue and he wouldn’t notice it was me again. He didn’t.

Tony Blair

I met Tony, as I got to call him, at Cheltenham in around 1996 at the annual march and rally to restore trade unions rights at GCHQ. Once the speeches had finished, Tony was walking back to his car and I said, ‘Keep kicking the Trots!’ ‘Don’t worry,’ he replied. ‘We will.’

George Galloway

George was a guest speaker at a meeting  went to in Brighton in, I think, 1985. The speaker was Peter Heathfield, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers. George made a brilliant speech attacking Militant and other brands of Trotskyism and the more he got heckled the better he spoke.

When the meeting was over, I went up to him and said, ‘Great speech, George.’ ‘Thanks,’ he replied. How could I have known what a cunt he would become?

Rod Laver

I was on a flight from Amsterdam to London Heathrow with my mother in the early 1970s. A man got on the plane and I said, ‘Mum, that’s Rod Laver, the famous tennis player.’ She told me not to be ridiculous. He got up and left the plane, only to return with a bunch of tennis rackets. ‘I told you,’ I told my mum. When the flight was in the air, I got him to sign the in flight magazine.

Linzi Drew

Linzi was a barmaid at Ashton Gate, a cheerleader for the Bristol City football club and soon would be a topless model and influential figure in the adult film industry. And she was gorgeous.

One night, at a party in the 51 club, I asked her out because I had to know if she was secretly lusting after me. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. ‘I’ve already got a boyfriend, thank you,’ she smiled. At least when she became editor of Penthouse magazine, I didn’t have to think, ‘What if I had asked her out?’

More to come……