You got to know the Bernsteins in Golden Square. Did you keep contact with them later on at all? Did you come across them?
No. I got to know them. We knew each other but we weren’t that close, myself being a mail boy, callboy. It was just through frequency of working with them and seeing them that you became friends. Well, I say friends, that you became knowledgeable about each other. I did mix with them quite a bit though. Prior to coming to Manchester I lived three miles north of Heathrow and I came to Manchester at weekends. Used to come to see friends and parents etc. and the girls on the travel desk at Manchester were very kind to me and looked after me and used to arrange on a Friday night to make sure that there was a seat going on Granada’s plane which was a Dove which from memory it’s 4-seater, a 4 to 6-seater, I think it was 4, the pilot and co-pilot. So often I was picked up in a chauffeur-driven car and/or a taxi and taken from Granada Manchester to Manchester airport about 5.30 and straight up to the plane and flew down to Heathrow which a) didn’t cost me anything and b) was a super trip. Luckily if it was me or Cecil or whoever else was on the plane you couldn’t talk much because the engines were so loud, you know you just beckoned to each another, you know whether it’s a coffee flask or tea flask and a little wave to say thank you. But that was very convenient, the trips, and occasionally the chauffeur at Heathrow who was picking up Sidney or Cecil (I knew the chauffeurs from when I worked in London) and they insisted on giving me a lift which was north of Heathrow and they were going towards London or Kent and I had to sit in the car with Sidney and Cecil whilst one of the chauffeurs dropped me off at my house which was hilarious at the time because, you know, I was still a bit nervous!
What did the neighbours think of that?!
Well I think they would just have seen this big black limousine, you know, Austin Princess or whatever it was, pull up and me get out with me bag and go indoors and they were away. It really was quite a comedy at the time. But it was good so that I could commute backwards and forwards at weekends and I got a standby flight on the Sunday night, 5 or 6 o’ clock. I think 6 o’ clock was the last flight, BEA, got a standby flight which was cheaper and it got me back to Manchester and Chorlton where I was living at the time off the airport bus or whatever.
