as it is now, an excellent charity that provides for disadvantaged and sick children through glamorous events where donors rub shoulders with British stars. In the 1960s its patrons were a Who’s Who of the showbiz establishment with a big Jewish contingent. I found out via a contact at the charity that Sefton was seriously stagestruck. So I knocked up a letter.
Throughout life I have found that the best way to get something you want from people is not to dangle your real carrot in front of their nose. Lob it into the mix in passing whilst pushing something else. That way, if you get a nibble, you can act all coy and say it’s not really up for discussion. It also saves you embarrassment on the 99% of occasions when your semi-hidden bait gets zero response. So I wrote to Sefton asking if he would back a museum of pop memorabilia and help find a property for it. Actually time has proved it was a good idea, except I would have been useless at running it. But I also enclosed the Joseph album and a few choice reviews. Two days later I got a letter telling me to call him and arrange a meeting.
We met at his offices in Charles Street, Mayfair, bang opposite the now sadly shadow of its former self Mark’s Club. There was another man at the meeting who remained silent throughout and was introduced as Myers’s show business advisor. His name was David Land. With hindsight this must be the only meeting ever when David Land remained silent. It went as I had hoped. There was no interest in my pop museum. But what was the story behind this Joseph album? Sefton’s show business pal David had been given it to check out and he had loved it. And who was this Tim Rice who had written the words? I made out that he was a cutting-edge record executive with Norrie Paramor and that I was busy on multiple musicals all destined for the West End. Sefton asked if I could come back for a second meeting in a few days’ time.
If you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor, next week the bacon came home to roost. Sefton offered me a management contract with a guaranteed three year income and an option to continue the arrangement for ten years, £2000 a year rising by £500 annually as an advance against a commission of 25% of our earnings. It was a whopping commission but £2000 per year was a lot of money in those days (today approximately £32,000). Furthermore there were no strings attached to what I could write. David Land was rather more vocal at this meeting pronouncing, “My boy, these are serious ackers you can’t refuse.”
There was just one condition. Tim had to agree to sign up too. I needed no persuading. This offer would provide me with three years of secure income and prove to my family that I hadn’t left Oxford in vain. But how best to persuade Tim to chuck up a seemingly safe career path with Norrie Paramor? It would be a tough ask. Tim didn’t seem a natural risk taker. This wouldn’t be easy and, boy, didn’t I know it.
1. Tim and I now own 100% of Joseph as a result of my company being offered the chance to buy the publishing rights years later.
10 “Did Judas Iscariot Have God on His Side?”
Of course Tim took loads of convincing. After all he was more than three years older than me and, non-existent as that age gap feels now, then it seemed massive and thoughts of a secure future pressed even heavier on him than me. Tim admits to never having been as passionate about musicals as I am and the thought of giving up a seemingly much safer career path in the then all-powerful record industry must have been agonizing. I believe Tim even tried to persuade Norrie Paramor to take me in-house, but Norrie was having no truck with the long-haired troublemaker who had committed the mortal sin of loving Cabaret and burbled on about Hal Prince. We acquired a lawyer called Ian Rossdale, who negotiated that we each got a £500 advance and that our guaranteed weekly money was definitely non-returnable. (Today £7,950.) I think this was a real carrot for Tim. But most importantly I believe his parents advised him to take the plunge and if that’s true I owe a big posthumous hug to Hugh and Joan Rice. Tim signed the deal and handed in his notice to a less than ecstatic Norrie Paramor.
OMG! Three secure years ahead. I could write anything I liked. But with the contract under my belt, writing took equal billing with another top priority, moving out of Harrington Court. Granny had set up a trust fund with about £4000 in it that was mine when I was 25. (Today £63,600.) I persuaded her to advance half to let me buy a flat. I found a basement in a house in Gledhow Gardens near Earl’s Court. It had one big room and backed onto a large garden so it was blissfully quiet. But it was £6500 and to buy this I had to get a mortgage. (Today £103,350.)
When Joseph was rehearsing in St Paul’s Cathedral, Tim and I had just for a laugh popped into the local branch of the highly exclusive bank Coutts and Company, top client HM The Queen. In those days it redefined pomposity. Every member of staff from bank manager to humblest clerk wore Fred Astaire-like white tie and tails – and, no, you didn’t expect them to launch into a tap dance routine on the marble staircase. A visit to Coutts was designed to inspire awe and trepidation in the chosen few of the great and good allowed into its echelons.
Fully expecting to be shown the tradesman’s entrance quicker than promptly, Tim and I marched in and demanded to open an account. We were ushered into the deathly silent office of the assistant manager, a frock-coated character called Tom Slater. He seemed to know about Joseph in St Paul’s which we took as a definitive negative, especially in this hush-toned realm that only needed incense to make it religious. To our astonishment he proffered the forms to open an account and a week later we joined the Queen in entrusting our worldly wealth to Britain’s most exclusive bank. Although I got to know Tom well over the next few years, he never told me why on earth he admitted us. Had he got a score to settle with his bosses that day? Anyway it was to Tom I turned for my first mortgage and buoyed by my new contract I got a loan for £2500. At last I could move away from the dreaded Harrington Court.
My new flat meant that belatedly I began to be confident enough to build a social life. For the very first time I felt secure about inviting home girls. I needed someone to help me pay the mortgage and so I persuaded my school friend David Harington to rent the bedroom and I installed a cunningly concealed Murphy bed in the big room for myself. We turned a sort of garden shed into a tiny psychedelically decorated dining room, uprated the kitchen with a dishwasher of which I was hugely proud and lit the blue touchpaper for a series of Auntie Vi recipe inspired dinner soirées. I became very friendly with two girls, Sally Morgan and Lottie Gray via some Oxford friends, thereby unwittingly brushing with the uppermost echelons of British spy families. It was not long before Sally and Lottie introduced me to a girl who changed my life. I also now had a room where I could install a decent sound system. Along with the dishwasher I bought a 15 ips reel-to-reel tape recorder. I figured that a guy with a three year writing contract absolutely needed one of those.
Sefton Myers laid out the red carpet. Tim and I were installed on the second floor of his Mayfair office. Not only were we given a line manager/minder called Don Norman who also managed jazz singer Annie Ross, but we also acquired a girl called Jane who wore the shortest miniskirts ever and a gopher/publicist called Mike Read who went on to become a top Radio 1 DJ. Mike is a charming bloke who became a firm friend of Tim’s as well as writing and starring in two legendary West End disasters about Oscar Wilde and Norrie’s protégé Cliff Richard.
Then there was David Land. The only way I can describe David is were you to phone Central Casting seeking a caricature warm-hearted, gag a minute, East End Jewish show business manager, they could turn up no one better than David Land. One day a plaque boasting Hope and Glory Ltd appeared outside David’s door. I asked him what on earth this company did. David said it was so he could answer phone calls with “Land of Hope and Glory.” When I asked how he came by his surname he explained that when his father fled Eastern Europe the immigration office thought “Poland” stood for “P.O. Land.” I grew to truly love this man.
A minor problem was that nobody in the business seemed to know much about David other than that he managed the Dagenham Girl Pipers. The Pipers are a sort of community outfit hailing from the sprawling
