It's Not What You Think (10 page)

10 Radio Forth (22 May 1975)

  9 Radio City (21 October 1974)

  8 Radio Hallam (Sheffield) (1 October 1974)

  7 Swansea Sound (30 September 1974)

  6 Metro (15 July 1974)

  5 Piccadilly (2 April 1974)

  4 BRMB (19 December 1974)

  3 Clyde (31 December 1973)

  2 Capital (16 October 1973)

  1 LBC (London Broadcasting Company) (8 October 1973)

Where we lived commercial radio
took on the form of the magnificent Piccadilly Radio, broadcast live from Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. ‘Piccadilly 261…on the medium wave,’ sang the jingle. It was funky, it was new, it had adverts and a jazzy coloured logo, which you could send off for in carsticker form—something we all did even though most of us didn’t have a car and ended up sticking them on our bedroom windows.

This was a radio station where everything was groovier than anything that had been groovy before. It was our Sixties, it was all about the music and the people who played it. There were lots more records per hour, the voices weren’t as posh and plummy as on the BBC and there was more laughing. There were phone-ins where more people from around our area were able to get on the air. A girl from my class called Julia got to be on for a whole hour once, choosing her favourite records. I asked her to go out with me off the back of her appearance.

Piccadilly Radio knew exactly who it was and what it was about. It was a new voice for a new generation. It was about the North West and everyone who lived there. This deep-seated identity was its strength and one that the station would articulate whenever it could via hundreds of outside broadcasts.

I remember when I was still a snotty-nosed little kid and Piccadilly came to Warrington town centre and did a whole show from the window of Dixons electrical store one Saturday afternoon—nothing in particular
happened but to me it was amazing…it was the most exciting thing that Warrington had seen since Keith Chegwin had brought the
Swap Shop
Swaperama to the old market square. I’d never seen a rock star or been to a football match, but I had seen the DJ that I listened to on the radio in the mornings, live in the shop window on a Saturday afternoon. It was almost more than I could bear. These guys were the coolest cowboys in town and I wanted to be one of them.

From then on I was hooked.

Did I listen to the radio underneath the bedclothes at night? Yes I did, in fact one of the shows I listened to was called just that—
UTBC—Underneath The Bed Clothes
with Cuddly Dave.

Cuddly Dave was the late-night DJ who created a whole duvet-covered late-night world of intrigue and titillation throughout the bedrooms of the North West. He had the warmest of voices and a most alluring bedside manner. Never ‘pervy’, he somehow managed to attract what seemed like every single female who was listening to his show…while they were in bed! And on a weekday!! Till two o’clock in the morning!!! They couldn’t wait to talk to him. His show was huge, the girls listened because of Dave, and the boys listened because of the girls.

Dave also had a wing man that helped him out, a character called Naughty Neville. Neville would tour the areas of Greater Manchester during the show in his Love Mobile (all very Austin Powers). Dave would then encourage anyone listening to get up and out of bed and flash their bedroom lights just in case ‘Uncle Nev’ (this did sometimes get a bit worrying) was in your area. Watch out ladies.

The real excitement for me though was a show called
TOTT.
The acronym was a spoof on
TOTP—Top of the Pops. TOTT
stood for
Timmy On The Tranny.

Timmy On The Tranny
was an early evening show for school kids and students and was hosted by none other than Timmy Mallett! It was a nightly broadcast emanating from his fictional world of Timmy Towers.

It was Timmy, pre
Wacaday
, pre Mallett’s Mallett, pre ‘Blah’, pre ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’, and all the things most people know him for now.
TOTT
was for teenagers and students and we listened in
en masse
, glued to his every word.

Timmy was ‘the man’ and so compelling to listen to. His show was faster than a speeding bullet. No sooner had he announced a competition than somebody was on the air trying to win the prize; if they failed to do so, the prize would be doubled or tripled or quadrupled for the next time. He used to give away towers of records:

‘Tonight we are playing for 55 inches of singles and if the first caller doesn’t win—60 inches!’

Wow! With ten records making up an inch, this added up to over 500 singles!

Like Cuddly Dave and most of the DJs at the time, Timmy also had characters but lots of them and all over the place, really funny characters, like Steve Wright was doing in the afternoons on Radio 1, but Timmy’s characters were far more outrageous and naughty.

Timmy talked about
Smash Hits
and squeezing spots which he called zits and girlfriends and boyfriends. He took telephone calls in lightning quick succession, three, four, sometimes even five at a time. He would send the radio car out to somebody’s house which would often end up with them, along with most of their street, co-hosting the rest of the show from their kitchen, toilet or garden shed. If there was a band in town, Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet or Madness, you could be sure they would make an appearance on
TOTT.

I was addicted to this show. The energy that was coming out of my radio every night was electric. Who on earth was this guy? What did he look like? How could he juggle so many elements and make them all sound like they made sense? He was like a mad professor in a laboratory full of wonderment and endless possibilities. I had to meet him.

The problem was, he was in Manchester, I was in Warrington.

Mum, help!

10 Ferrari 599 F1 (my current car, the best car I have ever driven)

  9 Ferrari 250 Lusso (my wife’s 30th birthday pressie)

  8 Ferrari 250 California Spyder (the pride of my garage)

  7 Ferrari 360 Modena (the car I proposed to my second wife Billie with. I filled it with roses and sent it round to her apartment)

  6 Ford Mustang convertible (the car I drove when I lived in L.A.—I still have it)

  5 Bentley Brooklands (bought it on the spot for cash, my first-ever new car! It was close to £100k and after I paid for it I had about £1500 left to my name)

  4 Ferrari 246 GT Dino (my second ever Ferrari)

  3 Ferrari 328 GTS (my first ever Ferrari)

  2 Dad’s Vauxhall Victor (his pride and joy)

  1 1972 Mini reg. no. VJA 879K (the car that kick-started my dreams)

One of Mum’s many financial miracles
was managing to buy me the car placed at number one on my list of Top Ten Most Significant Cars.

Mum hated debt—she still does—but she was prepared to go into debt to get her youngest son on the road. She took out a £500 loan to buy me an orange Mini, actually the colour was officially listed as ‘blaze’—the car had loads of extras—registration VJA 879K. It was the nuts and it was to be my passport to Elysium.

Piccadilly Radio had announced a series of summer outside broadcasts, a whole bunch of what they called Funday Sundays. These were roadshows broadcast from the top deck of an open-top double-decker bus.

I had never been to one of these outside broadcasts before but a few days after I passed my driving test there was one scheduled to take place outside Old Trafford football stadium. Not only that but Timmy was hosting. I had to go.

I set off that Sunday morning on my own. It was easily the furthest I’d ventured thus far in my new mode of transport, and as I pulled off the
motorway at Salford and drove nearer to the ground I could hear the station output over the speakers in the distance cutting in and out with the wind. The traffic was getting heavier. I checked my watch—it was nearly time for the show. I decided to park my car and run the rest of the way.

I heard an almighty roar. The show had started and I was missing it. I now began to sprint, I turned a corner and there it was: to some people it may have been a tatty old orange Greater Manchester open-top bus with a rather pathetic cheap Funday Sunday banner hanging forlornly from the side of it, but to me and the rest of the crowd it was a magnificent sight to behold. For it was the chariot that bore our hero and there he was, Timmy ‘King of the Tranny’ Mallett—with the funny glasses.

In true radio style, Timmy was nothing like I imagined. He was small and pointy and he was young but old-looking. Nowadays he is the opposite. The truth was I hadn’t really thought too much about what he would look like, but I was pretty sure what he wouldn’t look like and as it turned out I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not that this mattered: he was still the top dog as far as I was concerned. He could have had two heads, seven eyes and tennis rackets for arms, I would have been just as thrilled to see him.

Timmy carried out his show for the next two hours with the irresistible zest and total and utter confidence that made his nightly show so exciting. Bearing in mind that from a visual point of view there was very little going on, especially when a record was being played, not that this mattered, we were captivated by his every move. We screamed when we were asked to, we laughed in all the right places and sang along to the songs. We were more than happy to be the supporting cast of a show that was going out live on the radio.

One of the highlights of this particular afternoon was an appearance by Bruce Foxton, the ex bass player from The Jam who had formed a new band and was on to promote their latest single. I had no idea who he was at the time and thought his new song was poor to say the least, but I cheered as loud as anyone—that was the deal.

Before I could catch my breath and take it all in, the show and the fastest two hours of my life thus far was over, the crowd had begun to disperse and Timmy was clambering down the stairs of the bus in what looked a bit like an Adam Ant outfit.

All afternoon there had been kids hanging about at the back of the bus behind the barriers who were wearing Piccadilly T-shirts. It turned out these were Timmy’s ‘helpers’, the tallest of whom was a sharp-looking guy who had been stood by Timmy’s side throughout the whole show wearing impressive-looking headphones. Whoever this guy was he had Timmy’s ear and now he had ours—those of us who were still hanging around to catch a closer glimpse of The Mallett Man were eager to hear what he had to say.

‘Timmy is coming down and he will sign as many autographs as he can but he doesn’t have much time as he has to leave soon,’ said the tall kid.

I waited to see Timmy up close and hear how he talked ‘in real life’, which I did but after five minutes of doing so I felt a strange urge.

What I did next was another one of those instances which I can’t really explain: something inside me just said it was the right thing to do. Without thinking about it, I felt compelled to run back to my car as quickly as I could. Once there I jumped in and turned on the engine. I was going to follow Timmy home.

I drove back to the bus and waited. Even the most diehard fans were calling it a day now and soon Timmy was done with the signing. After exchanging a few words with some of his helpers he wandered off over to a small car park right opposite the main entrance of Old Trafford.

What car had my hero chosen as his trusty steed?

All superstars have great cars, I thought. It comes with the territory. If I was a star, the first thing I’d do is buy a swish car.

Not so the boy Mallett. As he fumbled for his car keys I could see he was stood next to…a red Renault 5! Could this really be his? Were these really his wheels? The guy is wearing whacky glasses along with an Adam Ant top, he has dyed red hair and yet he drives a Renault 5. I was learning maybe more than I both needed or wanted to know.

Though I had decided to find out the location of the real Timmy Towers I had never followed another car before and yet here I was only two weeks after passing my test now giving it the full private dick treatment. I had no idea where I was and even less idea where I was going but I was on an adventure and that was enough—until a few moments into my pursuit, disaster struck.

Suddenly my little car was not happy, it started to want to steer into the kerb. I had no idea what was happening but it was obvious this car was not a car that was enjoying the thrill of the chase. Whatever the problem was it was becoming exponentially worse by the second until I was eventually forced to stop. My little baby lurched to a halt with a worrying grinding noise, and as it did so I saw Timmy tootle off into the distance, no doubt blissfully unaware his pursuer had been thwarted.

I jumped out of my Mini to investigate what on earth had happened—only to discover my first-ever puncture.

‘Damn and blast and blast again.’ Not only did this herald the premature end to my now unsuccessful mission, it also meant that I was faced with something I had no idea how to do—namely, the deployment of a spare wheel.

After finally locating the jack, it wasn’t long before I was sweating and cursing. I have never been the world’s best when it comes to manual tasks and this latest challenge was proving to be no exception. I grunted and groaned and panted my way through the process and after several false starts, like jacking the car up before attempting to loosen the wheel nuts and having to lower it and start all over again, the spare wheel was, in a fashion, now on the car.

After manoeuvring the punctured wheel back into the spare-wheel cavity, nearly removing several fingers on my right hand in the process, it was time to refocus.

Right, where was I? Oh yes I was excited and following a red Renault 5. By now the best part of an hour had passed and Timmy had long gone. ‘Never mind,’ I thought (‘never mind’ is a phrase that has featured heavily in my life—‘never mind’ is the phrase of tryers not quitters and I was not about to quit again)—it wasn’t yet dark, I’d never been to Manchester before. Why didn’t I take a detour into the city centre and at least drive past Piccadilly Radio? Other people drive past things they’re interested in—why couldn’t I do the same?

Of course I had to find it first, but this was a small mountain to climb and one that shouldn’t have been a problem as Piccadilly Radio took great pride in shouting out its location several hundred times a week over the airwaves. In fact you would have to be deaf not to know where it was:

‘Live from Piccadilly Plaza in Manchester…Piccadilly 261.’

This was the type of phrase, I would come to discover, that lots of stations used but often employed huge doses of poetic licence as they did so. When I moved to London my favourite by far was: ‘Live from the top of the Euston Tower…Capital 95.8.’

That sounded mightily impressive but what they really meant was that the transmitter may have been live from the top of the Euston Tower but Chris Tarrant and his buddies were in little danger of a nosebleed as they were just one flight up from the reception on the ground floor.

Piccadilly, to my good fortune, had not been quite so creative with the truth and they were indeed in Piccadilly Plaza, which itself was equally helpfully located in Piccadilly Gardens smack bang in the middle of the city centre.

If a passer-by was still in any doubt as to the exact home of ‘Piccadilly magic’ all they had to do was look up, for plastered in the windows of the plaza itself were seven enormous posters of Piccadilly Radio’s mainline DJs. I looked up open-mouthed.

‘Wow…’ I was transfixed. They were like gods, larger than life, looking down upon us mere mortals. But then—

Hang on a sec!…
None of them looked anything like they sounded.

Again, I hadn’t before imagined so much what they would look like, all I knew is that they shouldn’t look like this.

I began to feel disappointed. Here I was, early on a Sunday evening, almost on my own in the heart of a huge city that was spookily quiet, faced with the very people who kept my dreams alive every day, the same people who inspired those dreams in the first place and what was I confronted with? Seven of the cheesiest smiles I’d ever seen. These guys had the coolest voices and funniest shows on the radio but suddenly they all looked like hairdressers—except Timmy who looked more like a whacky teacher, which in many ways is what he was.

A voice is a picture in itself and maybe it should stay that way. Since working in radio I have discovered that the ‘on-air turns’ have a real dilemma with their self-image: they’ve spent so many years cultivating their on-air persona they’ve left their real personality behind. What most of them tend to do is end up dressing how they think their listeners see them, which is usually a lifetime away from who they really are.

So there I was, full of wonder and woe, but I really cannot overemphasise how much I could not believe that these guys thought it was all right to look like that, especially when their faces were ten feet tall and five feet wide. Not for the first time that day I realised show business might not be exactly what I thought.

My disappointment was curtailed, however, as my attention was diverted from the massive mug shots slung high above me by the violent but distant rattling of a door from somewhere down below. It sounded like someone was desperately trying to break free.

I looked to see two glass panes reflecting as they shook in the light. It was one of the glass doors that lead to the escalators inside the plaza. There was a small man on the inside almost fighting with the handle. I looked closer to see the man was wearing a strange outfit. He looked ‘a bit like Adam Ant’…no, it couldn’t have been…it was—it was Timmy and he was stuck…hurrah! This was my chance.

‘Oh my God, there he is. I have until he manages to get out of the door to decide what to do.’ I said to myself.

This turned out to be longer than I needed as the more Timmy struggled with the door the less likely it seemed to want to cooperate—when he did eventually escape to freedom, he was relieved and I was ready. At least I thought I was ready.

‘Hello Timmy, I’m sorry to bother you but I was at the show today. I thought you were brill, I’m a big fan and…’

Now here’s the thing. There was no ‘and’. The sentence should have ended on the word ‘brill’, not a great word I admit, but it was nevertheless a word and an acceptable word to end on but now I had said ‘and’, that usually means there is more to follow. Timmy was now waiting for whatever was after the ‘and’.

‘…and…’

He was still waiting and was beginning to look worried. I had to say something and I had to say it fast.

‘…and…would it be possible for me to interview you before your show one night…er…for hospital radio…?’

There, that would do—it would have to and I’d said it now anyway, it was too late, the horse had bolted the gate, the cat was out of the bag, the fat lady had sung—it’s all I had and I’d used it. The fact that I didn’t work
for hospital radio, although I had sat in on a couple of shows, didn’t matter. Nor did the fact that I didn’t even own a tape recorder on which to carry out said interview. On the face of it—things were maybe not quite as they seemed, but Timmy need not be aware of this—and besides, he was king of make-believe.

He paused before answering, I think I recall him looking me up and down and then he said, ‘Sure, why not, come before the show tomorrow, we’ll do it then.’

I may or may not have said thank you, I really can’t remember, my mind immediately jumping to the fact that I had less than twenty-four hours to book the afternoon off work, acquire a tape machine, think of some questions, dream up a plausible back story about my role at a fictitious hospital radio station and return to Manchester.