Category Archives: Bio

‘To us it seems that Hermes’ speech is to the point.
What he commands to you is to relax from your
self-will and seek the wisdom that’s in good advice.
Do as he says, since wrong is shameful in the wise.’
Prometheus Bound

Laid flat-out in an ambulance, speeding toward hospital, spouting leads like the Hydra and uncertain data pinging its way to Mission Control is surreal. Like Major Tom, I’m in a tin can and there’s’ something wrong.

The kindly cardiologist, somehow redolent of Atticus Finch, leans in and mashes a Xmas platitude with diagnosis. ‘Season’s greetings you’ve had a heart attack.’ And now Billy T tells me, ‘We’re gonna anaethis…anesthize…emphas…we’re gonna make your wrist numb and put in a coupla stents. All right bro?’

I nod gratefully as I’ve found the wisdom that’s in good advice. My self-will has never been so relaxed. I wonder if the surgeon’s name is Victor and he has an assistant, Igor. And are they having a James Whale of a time?

Yes. I’ve seen that movie too. But never thought I’d be starring in it. It is surreal. It still is. Luis Buñuel directs Shortland Street perhaps. I don’t have a bolt through my neck and a forehead like Kelsey Grammer but I am made of clay – especially my feet. Prometheus saw to that.

Are you a catholic?

It had been a time from hell. My life had changed in ways I could never have imagined possible only six months earlier. I was adrift and now, supposedly, recovering from the figurative and physical surgery of recent weeks.
The afternoon, autumn sun filled the hospital day room and I shielded my eyes so as to lend features to the silhouetted figure stood before me now.

Are you a catholic?

It was the young priest I’d seen a few times before. Thin, pale and nervous, he reminded me of David Warner as Master Blifil in ‘Tom Jones’. I wondered if his piety, like Blifil’s, was a cover for a more secular purpose. Used to rejection, he adopted a defensive crouch and continued.

Are you a catholic? Because if you are, I’d very much like to talk to you. May I sit next to you?
Well educated then. ‘May I’ and not ‘Can I’

Sit down Father. Be my guest. I’m Alan Stuart.
I offered my hand which he accepted gratefully and then sat on the bentwood chair next to mine. His timid smile somehow implied my knowledge of – and complicity in – his awkwardness. I leaned toward his smile and raised an eyebrow in query.

I’m Father Byrne. I’m attached to Catholic Social Services at present. We visit hospitals, rest homes and the like. Make contact with those of the faith….give comfort, support – mostly spiritual you understand….some material assistance too…I have…

Father, I should tell you that I’m not a church-goer. Not a worshipper. I was raised in the church, yes, but the best you could say is that I’m lapsed, apostate. The worst, well, the worst….. the worst would require a confessional and that would be a paradox, wouldn’t it?

The conspiratorial smile again. He knew I was testing him. Probably figured that I was at odds with the world too. Professionally sentient. And my cynicism was infinitely preferable to the open hostility he frequently met. I remembered watching him try to get the thin end of his wedge under Pat – who was in the neighbouring bed back in the ward. Pat was in his 60s and had quite a history. He’d run off to France in his early teens and joined the French Foreign Legion. But he was no Beau Geste. He’d fought the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. He’d avoided capture and lived in the jungle, existing on rats, snakes and dogs for a month before making his way to Laos and back to France. Pat had suffered malaria, dysentery and god knows what else – and for the last few years had had his head down a bottle. He was capable of philosophy but, like many professional soldiers, he had no faith and he gave Father Byrne a well-seasoned serving of soldierly invective. And the fingers.

Paradox. Yes. Very droll. But you still consider penitence as an option, yes?

If I get married, have children that need baptizing or need absolution when I’m moving on, I imagine that the church will be pragmatic enough to see the sincerity of my penitence. I returned his we both know how this goes smile.

He blinked at me and then contemplated his shoes for a few moments. Maybe he was considering Pat to be a more likely option after all.
Well, as I was about to say – we can offer material support too. Do you smoke? I have some cigarettes I can give you. Would you like some cigarettes?

Yes I do. I pointed to where Pat was sitting, playing cards. But he’d appreciate a hand out more than me I think. He’s on the bones of his arse, so a packet of Freemans would come in handy.

I can’t do that I’m afraid. He’s not a catholic. I can only offer assistance to catholics. I can only give these cigarettes to catholics. You’re a catholic.

I took the proffered cigarettes from him and put them in my pocket. I resisted the urge to walk across the room and give Pat the cigarettes there and then. I shook Father Byrne’s hand and asked him if he would bring a bottle of Black Label next time. The smile again –  but leavened with a little ruefulness this time I fancied.
Yes. I’m a catholic.

It was an odd decision
Still reeling and spinning from a messy relationship break-up, the antabuse and the disappearance of Paul the supplier, I needed to find my way back into the world.
A friend, Alex, had seen the ad in the local paper.  The Casino in town wanted someone to manage their security and reception.
So here I am, waiting in reception.  Listening to ‘Nights in White Satin’ on the PA, waiting to be interviewed by Mr York-Danvers, the manager. As I’m sat there, two croupiers saunter by and glance my way. They look like an ad for ‘Twins of Horror’ –  the jet black Rod Stewart hair-dos, the deathly pale skin and the skeletal, articulated fingers that extend from their plum red velvet sleeves. Their immeasurably knowing smiles seem far too great a burden for their 9 stone frames.
But then there’s double-barrelled. He shakes my hand in an arcane, possibly masonic, way and we stride off to his inner sanctum.
Unbelievably, there’s a signed photograph of George Raft behind the imposing Edwardian desk. Double-barrelled tells me he likes to be addressed as ‘sir’ on all occasions. He asks if I can handle myself ‘in a tight corner’ and whether I’ve ever been detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. I tell him the usual lies and then we discuss duties, salary, hours and clothes and – yes – I can start on the weekend.
An odd decision

A black velvet suit, a poorly ventilated, crowded gaming room and an unusually warm summer present  a particular challenge to personal freshness. I have a friendly chat on the subject with the two reception/security staff – ‘bouncers’ to you – doing the late shift. They enquire about which Ballet Academy I attended and voice opinions, to which they are not entitled, about my sexual orientation.
Before I can ponder on how best to deal with my first staff problem, a bunch of lads – drunk and noisy – arrive in reception and demand admittance. My colleagues smile and fold their arms. I place myself between the lads and the gaming room, look at them calmly and advise them that sobriety and a correctly completed membership form is all that stands between them  and a wonderful evening’s entertainment. I hold the tempered steel chain we use to secure the front door in my left hand as a means of underscoring my determination in this matter. Sensibly, maybe even luckily, they see that discretion is the better part of wotsit and leave muttering terrible oaths.
‘Bigger poofs than you’, suggests Terry the bouncer. He’ll keep.

Double-barrelled is asking me about my accommodation. Do I have a spare bedroom? My frown is picked up by his scanner and he laughs. ‘Nothing like that’, he declares, ‘a new man arriving soon – needs somewhere to stay.’ The new man is connected. The Casino owner, a former professional boxer, has a sister who is in a ‘relationship’ with this guy – also a former professional boxer. Funny old world. As it happens, I know about Ray McEvoy. The McEvoys are one of those East End dynastic families. Successive generations of prize-fighters and villains. Ray is a former ABA finalist and ranked middleweight. I know he was working in a West End Casino where my cousin, Michael, is a croupier. I wonder why he’s schlepping around the provinces. Anyway, yes, I have a spare bedroom at the flat and I’m intrigued enough to offer it up.
An odd decision.

Ray is charming, handsome and light on his feet. ‘And there’s no one home’, offers Rob, the other tenant. ‘Cold as, mate. Dead eyes, cold hands. Did you shake his hand? Like ice.’ We’d met Ray earlier. He’d brought a few possessions, changed and gone straight off to the early shift. Rob is jumpy and thinks that I’ve made an odd decision.
Over the next few weeks, Ray more than justifies Rob’s anxiety. Any difficult customers at the door are offered violence – or the threat of it – and visits from Old Bill are becoming regular. One punter who Ray has ‘given a bit of a slap’ comes back with some hoods from a local drinking club and the result is a brawl that ends with your correspondent rendered hors de combat, bowed and bloody.
And now cousin Michael is on the phone telling us that our new flat-mate is on the run, having used an iron bar on a customer at ‘The Golden Nugget’ in London. This complements nicely the incident from the previous week when a pissed-off punter, playing poker upstairs, pulls a gun on the two sharks who had scammed him for several thou and wanted to leave the school early without allowing him the opportunity to retrieve his losses. Breach of protocol = Bullet in the head.

So, Casino life was dangerous and sleazy but rarely dull. We had all sorts happen in my short tenure there; The crew from up north who worked the roulette table by having a blonde with a spectacular cleavage bend over the baize as the steel ball nestled in its numbered slot. As the entire congregation waited on her every quiver, her associates moved the chips to advantage. Benny Hill criminals.
The airline crews, plying the Southend – Rotterdam route, turning up at odd hours, round the back, delivering God-knows-what.
The DI from Southend who felt sure that I had failing eyesight and couldn’t possibly have witnessed a particular incident outside the Casino.
And finally, Russian Max, the Pit Boss pressing me to also turn a blind eye to some profit liberation. This, and the constant menace of the sociopathic Ray McEvoy, persuaded me to pack up my belongings, pay up the lease on the flat and – with the help of some friends and an old Combi – return to London at the dead of night.
A better decision than some I’d made recently and, most surprisingly, I’d stayed dry and clean in the midst of these fleshpots.

Author’s Note
In order to protect the guilty, I’ve changed the names of the players. As ever, I’ve used some licence around time frames and sequence of events. But all this, and more, happened in 1972. And, to confirm the more recent stereotype, it all happened in Essex.