You can all stand easy as, thankfully, last
night was an insult and threat free zone. But it was as I found myself sat sitting
there, oiling my shotgun that it occurred to me that any sane and normal person
would probably regard their life as being blighted if they had to have any sort
of connection with Clancey whereas Clancey had probably been put in to my life
on purpose. Having to admit that I knew
him was probably a test the double top secret cabal had put me through, and
still put me through, because Clancey, like a bad smell, is very difficult to
get rid of. I wonder how many others
among you have been put in place for a specific reason.
I often wondered if Murphy had been put in
place to just annoy me for he was doing a fine job of it. I actually managed to catch him on the
telephone and have it out with him. Using
language that would be more common among dockers or miners, I spoke very
plainly and told him exactly what I thought of him. I actually seemed to get through and connect
with him. He apologised for having
messed me about so much, agreed that he had read the first two Lily Savage novels
and that he approved them and that he would try to hurry the publishers
up. I asked that he contact Jeffrey and
give him the details of the publisher.
Murphy again agreed and we finished the conversation with me feeling that
I had actually managed to achieve something.
I had written all that had been requested of me
and had sent it off to the producer at Tiger Aspect, for the Lily Savage
television show. I was nervous as even
though I had short stories broadcast on the radio this was my first serious
foray into the big bad world of television.
I had met a fellow through the local writer’s circle who was writing for
Brookside, a television soap opera set in Liverpool. Whereas I had followed what I considered to be
an established almost classic approach to becoming a writer he had won a
competition. He told me that he had seen
a writing competition advertised in a newspaper he was reading, on a train, on
his way back to the university he was attending. An idea sprung into his mind for the writing
competition the moment he saw the advert and he began writing when he got back
to his rooms.
He won the competition, which got him an agent,
who then got him a job as a scriptwriter on this soap opera. He said he liked to write in freehand and
would have a motorcycle courier collect his finished script, drive them across
Liverpool to his father, who would type them up on his word processor and then
have them couriered back. Do you think
they were trying to make me jealous? He
had even been given two episodes of a new detective series to write. It was about two British, retired, detectives
living on a boat in Spain. He told me
that he got a telephone call, one Friday lunchtime, asking him to fly to Spain
as there was a problem with his script.
So by early evening he finds himself flying out to Spain from Manchester
airport.
Once in Spain he is taken directly on to the
set where the problem with the script is addressed. It was only one scene so, taking guidance
from the director, he goes off and writes a new scene, but the director has written
a scene and the two main actors have also written a scene. He tells me that the two actors then act out
all three scenes and ‘quelle surprise,’ the scene that the two actors have
written is considered to be the best, so is kept in the programme. This angered my friend for not only was he
flown back to Manchester the following morning, the two actors were now given
writing credits for the show that he had written ninety nine per cent of.
So I was aware that writing for television
could be full of shenanigans, even when at Lumb Bank, John Harvey had recounted
a tale where he had written a four part television script for one of his novels
for a television company. The company now
decided that they didn’t want to proceed with the project so it was
shelved. John Harvey found another company
but they wanted it in three parts not four, so he had to re write the whole
thing only to be turned down again. I
suppose I had already had my own experience of this with having to write the
ghost stories for Frank Bruno three times before having the whole project scrapped.
So although it was exciting I was well aware that nothing was really agreed or
finalised until the money was in my bank account.
I saw that Lily Savage was appearing on a
television show, a morning magazine show with a husband and wife team presenting
it. If I wanted to be nasty I should say
an alcoholic and a shop lifter presented the show, but I’m far too nice to
swing a punch at such a fine pair of media professionals. I was still using the old double video recorder
and waited with my thumb hovering over the record button for Savage to come on
screen. He came on his usual self, joking and cracking away. He was certainly on form and I secretly hoped
he might at least mention the books, but he didn’t. Instead he began to speak about his new
television show. He then went on to say that
he had fired all the writers connected with the television show as they were
all Oxford and Cambridge types with their heads so far up their own arses they
knew absolutely nothing about Liverpool, the working classes or humour. He was now going to write the television show
himself.
I don’t think anyone in their right mind would
describe me as an Oxford of Cambridge type, so I hoped that O Grady was treating
me as a ghost writer, which I didn’t really want to be for television
work. It’s the sort of medium where you
need your name to be out and about so that people who like your work will ask
you to do more. I telephoned Tiger Aspect and got a hold of the show’s producer,
the fellow who had spent forty five minutes giving me detailed instruction of
what he wanted. He couldn’t apologise
enough, claiming that he thought he had contacted everyone involved, but yes it
was true O Grady was claiming that he was going to write the whole series
himself. It was certainly a bit of a
blow as that sort of writing is quite demanding and difficult.
I telephoned Jeffrey and explained what had happened
and he commiserated with me, in fact he said that it was a pity the two books I
had already written for O Grady were so good as the pair of them, O Grady and
Murphy, were certainly toxic. Jeffrey
then suggested that as they had telephoned me and given me a specific writing
task I should bill them for the work I had produced. It made sense so with the help of the Writers
and Artists year book I was able to work out exactly how much I should have
been paid for the television work and sent a bill off to Tiger Aspect. I know that I had pushed for a three book
deal with Murphy and O Grady but I wasn’t in the mood for them at all, in fact
I wanted nothing to do with them anymore.
I felt bad that my work would help build his status as a comedian and
like Jeffrey wished I had never had the idea in the first place. It was sickening watching him appear on television
pretending that he was a lovely, harmless, homosexual, who wouldn’t harm a fly,
when in fact he was proving himself, as was his boyfriend Murphy, to be quite a
nasty piece of work.
Paul O Grady wasn’t the only person being an
arse, Chris Eubank was proving that he had perhaps suffered too may blows to
the head during his boxing career and was making all sorts of daft suggestions. He may have been the perfect showman and
someone who could front a book but with the experience I was getting of other
celebrities I knew that perhaps it was better to pull away from him early
rather than drag the whole thing out to infinity. I had found a couple of new clients anyway so
was busy researching and thinking up more crazy storylines. I had spent an enjoyable afternoon with one
of Irene’s uncles who had been employed as a docker on Liverpool docks during its
heyday. He told such great and funny
stories about life on the docks, about stuff going missing, by the truckload
sometimes, but what got me the most was the names they had for certain
jobs. If a crate was being lifted off a
ship then the man who was responsible for placing it on a truck or on the dock
was known as The Landerman. And so an
idea came about for a book for the Liverpool comedian, Freddie Starr, a rip
roaring comedy set in the Liverpool docks and the title, yep, you’ve guessed
it, The Landerman. All we needed now was
for him to stop biting the heads off hamsters.
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