Well, I had various jobs where I lived in the south. My father who was a tool-maker at the BMI could see that going downhill so he persuaded me not to go into engineering and there were various jobs at London Airport (or Heathrow as it’s now known) and eventually my uncle, who used to be in the film business, was working for Granada and so it was suggested that I got in there and after an interview I joined the mailroom at Golden Square.
This was when?
- August I think. 1959
And your uncle must have been there long before then?
Well I think he’d been there from the ‘off’ of television. He’d gone from Pinewood to there, you know when Pinewood finished or went quiet. So I joined the mailroom straight from school at fifteen and a half and I was at Golden Square until about ’62.
1962?
Yep, 1962, having run around London along with others there in taxis and tubes and all the rest of it.
So what did you do in the mailroom?
Basically it was delivering post within Golden Square building and to 123 Regent Street, 149 Regent Street.
What was that?
123 Regent Street I think was theatres, coming under the title of theatres and 149 probably the same. I really can’t remember now. So it was that, it was backwards and forwards to Fleet Street, Soho, various film establishments, Regents Park too where Desmond Morris was filming. He did Zoo Time from there. And various other locations in sorting out conference rooms for Sidney, Cecil, the Board etc. and certain routines I had to go first thing in the morning to Sidney’s Mount Street flat and pick up the post.
His Mount Street flat? Where was that?
In Mayfair. And pick up the post with the intention of getting it there before his chauffeur picked him up and his secretary could sort it out, you know, as he arrived. It didn’t always work out.
What was his flat like?
Well it was very nice and so was his wife who used to come to the door in a negligee while she gathered the post and sent me on me way!!
You didn’t get invited in for a cup of tea?!
No! No, they wanted the post at Golden Square prior to him arriving. It’s various things like that, you know, general sort of running around.
