Part 2 (1966-1979) - 1972-1974 Berkeley Square – Teenager to Adult

1972-1974

Berkeley Square – A Penthouse

Teenager to Adult

Some more details.......

Joining the Oval Theatre Club - Run by “Joan Mills”

How Peter discovered Joan Mills and the Theatre Club at Oval House escapes me. Joan Mills – was engaged by the Royal Court Theatre to encourage youngsters to participate and become involve with the Theatre's work; directing and commissioning new work for young people; leading weekly theatre workshops for young people; directing Summer Projects; originating and developing a writing competition into the Young Writer's Festival from 1972 onwards.

Joan Mills

The Oval House Theatre!!!!! It was just a ‘place’ to us – but we had little idea that it was a place that played a key part in supporting the experimental theatre companies of the '60s and '70s. Later it would see the emergence of gay, lesbian and women's theatre in the 1970's and 80's and the development of new Black and Asian writing in the '90s and into the next millennium.

All I remember is turning up with him and a handful of others in its shabby cafeteria, where we smoked and laughed. And then there was Joan’s workshops, every Wednesday evening, in the plain and basic theatre room with its small stage. A dozen (or so) young people laughing as we improvised simple activities – where we learnt the basic principles of “Acting”.

IT’S A DOG – IT’S A CAT ?? 
“What?” I hear you say. It was a game that Joan taught us, a simple enough psychomotor skill game that involved passing an imaginary cat and dog in different directions around a group of us all sat in a circle. It is difficult to describe in writing. But suffice it to say it has us, a group of young 15 year-olds howling with laughter. 40 Years later I would teach the same game to qualified and experienced Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics – and watch them laugh as they learnt that even simple psychomotor skills can be difficult to master.

And Joan Mills – The Young Youthful Director of the Young People's Theatre Scheme, The Royal Court Theatre (1972 – 1976). To us she became a mentor, a role model, a wise friend and confidant. In short we idolised her.....

Acting in a Play at the Royal Court

And so at the age of 15 in 1971 I would take a lead role in a short play on the main stage at the Royal Court. A curious cryptic little play directed by Joan – it ran for just two nights but was a howling success as far as the droves of parents and friends who attended.

Mandy, Yolanda, Alison Steadman, future actresses

Inevitably our acting interests via Joan brought us into contact with aspiring actors.  We met  and made friends with Yolanda Palfrey, Alison Steadman and Amanda Wise. 

A Young Yolanda

A Young Alison

A young Mandy and Steve

Steve went on to become a Costume Designer at the Royal Opera House 

(his dream job)  

Sadly he died in the Mid 1980s - AIDS

And in all that glitterati we flirted, and affairs were had and soon completed. It was Peters delight to recall the evening that Mandy ran across Victoria Bus station to beat me with her handbag, screaming abuse, as I had “split up with her”. It was delight to recall how he and Steve had collapsed in hysterics as they observed this.

A New Musical – A Life Changing Moment

In August 1973 Peter arrived at School one day breathless with excitement. He had been to see a new musical at the 230 seat Chelsea Classic Cinema on the Kings Road. He insisted that we all had to go and see it – and so later that week Wendy House booked in for an evening performance of the Rocky Horror show. It was a beginning of a life long love of the outrageous. We loved it, adored it, we Time Warped on the Circle Line and danced Sweet Transvestite across Hyde Park. We went twice a week until the cast knew us in person. Later that year it transferred to the King's Road Theatre (another cinema house) even further down Kings Road and still we attended – we were 17 years old, and we were having fun, such allot of fun.

Thirty nine years later in Golders Green Crematorium, in 2012, I sat in emotional silence, tears flowing, as I stared at Peters coffin, whilst listening to the music and lyrics of the Rocky Horror Show - “'Cause I've seen blue skies, Through the tears in my eyes, And I realize I'm going home”. 

Other Music

We were teenagers of our time. Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Hawkwind, the Pink Fairies and Moody Blues. We saw them all - live at venues around London. Some at grand Hyde Park Concerts with audiences in their tens of thousands, others in murky small college venues, crowded and smoky. And Peter and I sat and listened to our treasured Long Players (LPs - Vinyl's) on our even more treasured record players, we grew to adulthood together.

1974 My Family

Sue had grown to be a beautiful young woman and had boyfriends in abundance. This caused my parents some real anxiety as she launched into all busy London social life. She would meet a Welsh man called Charles, fall in love and marry him. Sue flew the coup for a flat on the Edgware Road. Finally, after sailing the world with Charles, an officer on Merchant Ships, she would settle in the beautiful village of Ferryside near Carmarthen. Ferryside would become a very special meaning to me in later life – the burial place of my parents and Sue herself in the quite ancient church of St Ishmaels.

Sue on the roof of Berkeley Sq House

Sue and Charles Wedding Day

My Mother and Father were getting older – and in the following years they were to both be afflicted by serious illnesses.

Mother in the Downstairs Flat Berkeley Square

My Father on the Beach at Ferryside around 1976

Drugs, Alcohol and Girls (Wine, Women and Song)

By 1974 I was a tall young man, and perhaps good looking. Happily I was mostly unaware of this and focused a great deal of my time focused on drinking and experimenting with recreational drugs. Ganja, Speed and occasional Acid formed a background to parts of my social life. And of course Girls – much time was devoted to female company and I had already had several girlfriends. This fondness for a party life style led to me dismally failing my 3 ALevels, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. Then I left School and went to South Bank Polytechnic (as was then) to resit them.

Me outside the Charles Lane - St Johns Wood Flat around 1976

It was at College that I would meet Sophie – and everything would change, and I would leave home....... And nothing would be ever the same again...

The Spanish Mountains outside Benidorm around 1976

Part 2 (1966-1979) - 1969-1972 - Berkeley Square – Child to Teenager

1969-1972

Berkeley Square – A Penthouse

Child to Teenager

13 Years Old to 16 Years Old - Some Details

The years transitioning from child, to adolescence and then young adult are packed with detail and experience. This was no less true for me than for any other. But, as I have explained earlier, the purpose of this dialogue is to capture those events in perpetuity, but not necessarily in grinding detail.  This notion of writing an autobiography was prompted by the dawning realisation later in my life that I had never asked my parents to tell me in detail of their lives and that they had never recorded it.  

I have in my previous narrative set the scene – its 1969 and I am now 13 years old and living in a Penthouse in Berkeley Square in London. My Father is 49 years old, my Mother 46 years old, and my Sister 17 years old. I am attending a large all boys north London Comprehensive. At 13yrs I am a little overweight for my age, shy, and just a little alternative. By 16 I was a good looking young man, no longer shy, but still "different". 

The secondary school that I attend, Quintin Kynaston, features large in my memories. It was cut from the mould of the large secondary moderns of that time. 

Two thousand boys from all possible backgrounds, representing the diversity of the central and north London population. There was strict discipline; I remember being caned across the hand and bottom on more than one occasion for minor transgressions.  There were memorable teachers, some fearsome, others timid. There were lessons, and homework, and playtime. And journeys too and from school and home. There were friendships that came and went. It was a time of great discovery, music, literature, sex, love. Good gracious I even learnt to smoke at the tender age of 15 – well everyone else did....!!!

The world was SO exciting – there were Hippies, and Music the such of like had never been heard of before. There was a youth revolution, and we were sure the world was going to be so different for our generation. There was new technology that was going to transform our world we hoped. There were exciting new rebellions, we would try the new wave drugs (so we believed) that we would experiment with in our brave new world – hash, speed, blues and mescaline. 

With the benefit of hindsight we were young and stupid – but we were no different from the generations that came before or after us. We just believed that we were going to be different – as all youth always believes – because they are the FUTURE.

Meet Peter and understand true friendship

Peter Searle – the son of a Senior Police officer – living in Hyde Park Police Station. I met Peter in our second year of secondary school. We were in the same Form Group – sat next to each other, and discovered we were the best of friends. We thought the same, had the same sense of slightly offbeat humour, and we could talk for hours about the things that boys of that age talk about. We travelled to School together and back for 5 years. We grew up together, shared our imagined failures and successes. We gathered about us a group of like minded friends of our age, boys and girls. We shared our secrets, our love of music and Theatre, we swam together in the Serpentine Lido, we matured, gossiped, laughed – we were in every sense brothers. And of course Peter would come out as a gay man, dramatically at a party - and we laughed "Yes Pete - we had kinda guessed that already". It mattered not at all – if anything it strengthened that platonic bond.  

I have narrated elsewhere the antics of Wendy House – Pete’s brilliant alternative to the “School Fraternity Houses”. We, the mottley random boys and girls of Wendy House laughed and camped our way through Central London, through Soho and Mayfair, outraging the imagined establishment in our minds. We put on School Plays (brave in a rough North London Boys Comprehensive), we went to Theatre Clubs, watched free Rock concerts in Hyde Park, we dreamed together, sang together.  We lost our innocence together, we discovered adulthood together. Peter was loved by my parents, by my sister. He became the 3^rd child, entering my family with an easy grace. Peter – my brother.....

Baltic and Mediterranean cruise

The School arranged annual Educational Cruises, around the Baltic and / or Mediterranean. I was to go on two of these Cruises, each for the sum of £49. This was a small fortune to my parents, but each week over the requisite number I would take a predetermined sum to the School in a small brown envelope.

I remember these cruises vividly. I was 13 and 14 years old. The first, the Baltic cruise had us sail from Tilbury on the soviet cruise ship Baltika. We visited Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Leningrad (as it was then), and Copenhagen. The teacher escort allowed us freedoms to roam the ships decks, and spend hours watching the sea and great ports that we sailed in and out of. Leningrad was fascinating, still the USSR, and the Winter Palace was resplendent.

The Mediterranean was cruise followed a year later. A train across Europe and we sailed on the Cruise ship Caribia. From Genoa we visited Capri (and were in awe of the Blur Grotto), Palermo, Barcelona, Tunis, Palma. Our visit to Palma beach, in blazing sunshine, with a warm blue sea, lasted for hours. The only downside to this was a night in the ships hospital with some of the worst sunburn I have ever had.

The immortal creation of Wendy House

I have to note, acknowledge, indulge and inwardly smile at the activity of “Wendy House” - and explain how it began, and how it led to a group of young men and women camping their way across central London.

http://bartontd.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/peter.html

My School (Quintin Kynaston) had the predictable "House" structure (Churchill House, Armstrong House etc ad nauseam) into which we were all supposed to devote our enthusiasms to gain points and get school awards. In a moment of brilliance Peter introduced a new House - Wendy House! The membership of Wendy House was exclusive and the very mention of its name outraged the Teachers with less than liberal attitudes. 

Learn the meaning of ‘Camp’ - Loved it

Camp is a social, cultural, and aesthetic style and sensibility based on deliberate and self-acknowledged theatricality.

Let’s face it – you either “get” Camp or you don’t. Your either delighted by Lilly Savage (Paul OGrady), Danny La Rue, John Inman (I’m Free) – or you don’t understand why it’s so gloriously funny.  My long term partner, my second wife (Janet) gets it... The members of Wendy House instinctively understood “Camp” and revelled in it unapologetically – often outraging those around us.  Curiously, my parents sort of “got” it – and with credit to their everlasting understanding and love knew that their son was just a little “eccentric”.

Develop a lifelong love of Musicals and Old Movies

For example, I loved Hollywood Musicals. On endless Sundays my parents would dose in the late afternoon in front of the TV whilst I watched, entranced, by South Pacific, Singing in the Rain, Calamity Jane – the list could go on forever.... It’s a Wonderful Life captivated me and the African Queen was simply perfect. It was this media that defined my developing adult personality.

I Discover and Obsess over Sex

Well didn’t we all! You hardly need to know the details of my sexual awakening, but I like everyone had one. And this was at the time of a great sexual revolution. Contraception had liberated women, promiscuity was increasingly tolerated, and homosexuality was not only actually acknowledged, but also legalised.  It was into this culture and social order that I and my friends would emerge as young sexually active adults. I have no intention of indulging all the minor “affairs”, hearts broke, and love won and lost at that time – suffice it to say that it was all very complicated, frivolous and superficial.

Physically Bisexual, Emotionally Heterosexual, Personally Eccentric

I must be true and honest to my Life Diary - this is after all the story of my life - I have nothing to hide. It was clear from my maturing that I was in many ways a complex young adult. The description that follows is one that has only been fully reconciled after many years of reflection.  It was clear that from a simple physical perspective I was Bisexual, or if you prefer relatively indifferent as to whom I was sexually active with. I admit entirely to losing my virginity to a man who picked me up one night in Piccadilly Circus! 

However, I was to discover quickly that I was emotionally heterosexual. Emotional relationships and attachments were something I could only engage with women. In other words I could not “love” a man in a physical relationship.  This personal eccentricity of desires led to the strong bond I would form in life with many friends and partners. 

I am now 16 years old.... And there is still so much more to come.

Part 2 (1966-1979) - 1969-1974 - Berkeley Square – A Penthouse

1969-1974

Berkeley Square – A Penthouse

A Room with a View

 Berkeley Square House

From Downstairs to Upstairs

Yes it’s true – we moved from our rather dark and dingy 2^nd floor flat into a brand new state of the art penthouse in Berkeley Square. The owners of the Berkeley Square House had decided to build new 5 Star offices on some of the buildings flat roof areas. And in their wisdom (or madness) one of these new builds would be given to the property manager as his accommodation. 

The Penthouse Flat was fitted out with the very best of kitchen, bathroom facilities. There was a large sitting room looking out over a vast panoramic view west over the rooftops of Mayfair, the Hilton Hotel standing tall and the tree tops of Hyde Park in the distance. There were 3 spacious bedrooms – mine looking south to Green Park, Piccadilly, the Ritz and St James Park.

I remember the excitement as it was built. We would 'visit' it from our 2nd Floor Flat, admire its development. And in due course it was finished and we moved in with a flourish.

This was to be the place of my adolescence
LONDON in the 1970s

A time of huge personal change

Moving from child to adult

An invisible momentous evolution

A Rite of Passage

From 12 to 15 Years

Over the next 5 years I would:

Meet Peter and understand true friendship

Listened to the Beatles rooftop concert in 1969

Discover and Obsess over Sex

Learn the meaning of ‘Camp’

Browse Hamelys

Develop a lifelong disinterest in competitive sport

But Peter & I did like swimming - Marshal Street Baths Soho

Hours wandering through Carnaby Street

Develop a lifelong love of Musicals and Old Movies

Read Lord of the Rings at least 20 times

Join the Oval Theatre Club

Run by Joan Mills

Act in a Play at the Royal Court

Experience the immortal creation of Wendy House

Do well at my O’Levels

Go to the Rocky Horror Show dozens of times

Do badly at my A’Levels

Drink too much too often

Experiment with Drugs

See Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Hawkwind, the Pink Fairies  - all live

Obsess over Girls, fall in love and have my heart broken – albeit briefly.

Frequently watch Classical music from a Box at the Royal Albert Hall

And Laugh – I laughed a lot in those busy 5 years between 1969 to 1974

Of all these events I shall say more in due course

Part 2 (1966-1979) - 1968-1969 Berkeley Square – A New Beginning

Berkeley Square – A New Beginning

 Berkeley Square House

London W1J 6BR 

 It is 1968 – and my already complex young life, living in a myriad of unusual settings, would now take a further strange and eccentric turn. My father gained a new position, as the senior property manager of Berkeley Square House. At the age of 12 years I would find myself living with my family in one of the most imposing buildings in central London that could be imagined.

Located in the heart of Mayfair on the eastern side of Berkeley Square, Berkeley Square House was built in the 1930’s and is thought to be the first fully framed reinforced concrete building in London. The building comprised of approximately 500,000 square feet spread over fourteen floors. Those floors included a sub-basement, basement, a two tiered underground car park, ground floor, nine tenant occupied floors and two service areas. At the time that we moved there the grand main entrance had a restaurant, shop and porters lodge. 

Into this vast building, housing some of the most prestigious international companies, I was to grow from childhood to young adulthood. Every day I would pass through the grand entrance, and take the high speed lifts to the second floor where we lived. At the end of a artificially lit corridor there was an inconspicuous door with a Yale lock, and on the other side of that door a small flat with windows that overlooked the rear of the building and the then “Two Coachman” pub. 

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

Three bedrooms, a kitchen, sitting room and bathroom, it was nothing out of the ordinary in an extraordinary setting. 

 The 2nd Floor Flat - Sitting Room - My Reflective Mother - complicated times

The 2nd Floor Flat Kitchen 

The 2nd Floor Flat - Sitting Room - Sue at 16 Years

The box in the corner is the TV!

A school boy in uniform walked out of this building every day, past the Rolls Royce showroom full of glittering cars, across the grand old London square and down to Selfridges on Oxford Street to take a bus. 

Snow in Berkeley Square - The one & only Snow Man of Berkeley Square  

The strange thing is I saw nothing strange in it. As I became a teenager, and started going out with my emerging young friendship group, it was the streets of Mayfair and Soho that we roamed.   

Taking the lift to the very top floor of the building, and climbing some steep iron stairs unseen by the buildings wealthy business tenants, brought you to a flat roof bordered by a brick wall. From this extraordinary vantage point you beheld a panorama of the central London Skyline. In this tarred walled secret yard in the sky my mother kept a few flower pots that she tended. I remember her and my father on sunny days stretched out on deck chairs they bought and kept in a small store room on the roof. And at night, the city twinkled around you, polluting the night sky with light, but nevertheless the stars shone down. When my father bought me a small telescope (that I have to this day) i would stand at the top of Berkeley Square House, all alone, cocooned by the surrounding rooftops whilst peering at the moon and wondering that we were had conquered that distance.  It was in the small sitting room of the flat that I sat late into the night with my father, watching our precious 1^st colour TV, and we heard the words “One Small Step for a Man”.  

My mother left Selfridges and started a job at the Nat West Bank in Holborn. Here she sat in a little airless and windowless office, franking (stamping) countless letters to the Banks customers.  And I started to ride the Underground – meeting her after her tedious work, keeping her company on the return Tube journey from Holborn to Bond Street.

Music! My parents had always listened music, this ranging from the classics through to the Big Bands and Crooners. My mother adored the ballads of Nat King Cole and the Louise Armstrong growl. I had listened my Sisters music through my bedroom walls, the Beatles, Tamala Motown. And now music began to have its influence on me. We had a large Gramophone, and ornate piece of wooden furniture that held the wonders of a turntable and built in speakers inside its doors. Pink Floyd, Yes, Jethro Tull, the Moody Blues - all these represented the primacy of the “progressive” genre of music that would grip me as a young adult and then throughout my life. Peter – my best friend – of who you will hear more of later = would sit with me in front of this Gramophone, and the 2 of us would listen dreamily, with fascination and excitement to our music for countless hours.    

Peter? The Brother I never had. We met in school, and his gentle eccentricity appealed to me. We became friends. Peter, the son of the Chief Inspector for Police at Hyde Park Police Station. Peter, my friend, confidant, mate. We instantly understood each other. We moved from Boy to Man together. Peter, smiling, chatting to my parents. Peter - Crying with my parents as he tortuously "came out". Peter and I - camping it up outrageously, growing up together, discovering sex, girls, boys - pushing the boundaries. Going swimming at the Serpentine Lido on hot sunny days. Walking across Hyde Park - brothers hand in hand - wildly singing "In the Summer Time". We didn't "fit" Peter and I - and we didn't care.  Of this I have written already - and I will write more....

PETER - ADRELLA

And what of my parents. Now middle aged life was not always easy for them. Despite living in such a grand setting money remained tight. We did not want for the basics, food, clothing - but there was little in the way of luxuries. And their relationship could be stormy, my Father had a tendency to drink to much of an evening, a regular to the all to convenient Two Coachmen. I remember some vicious and ugly verbal exchanges followed by tears and days of sulking silence. For all that I believe they loved each other, and peace and forgiveness would always eventually return. I also believe they had been emotionally scarred by their fall from wealth and grace. And there was never any question of their devotion to their two children. The overall sense I have of them at this time was turmoil, mixed emotion, and love. 

My Sister was becoming a woman. Four years older than me, Sue discovered men, and parties, alcohol - and fun - it was after all "Swinging London". That this resulted in some tensions between her and my parents somewhat understates the issue. And so it was that the Berkeley Square House Flat was a place of growth, of love, of turmoil, of discovery, of tension, anger, extreme emotion, and evolution. 

For me it all seemed so very normal, I knew no other life. I was growing up in an extraordinary place in an ordinary family but who had extraordinary circumstances.  

And then - we moved upstairs!!!!!!