Trading Places

Have you ever pondered what kind of person you’d be now if you’d taken a different turn at one of life’s crossroads? Gareth Mason talks to three women who chose to find out...

Life’s twists and turns are often dictated by the most banal of influences. A poor interview, an unpredictable relationship, bad advice, wrong place, wrong time... we could go on. We all have reasons to justify the gulf between what we are and what we always wanted to be. But whatever your excuses, real or imagined, it’s clear that sitting around and bemoaning your ill-fortune brings no greater consolation than, well, the supposed psychological benefits of sitting around and moaning.

So, what reasons can there be for letting go of your dreams? Do these sound familiar? ‘If I was 10 years younger’, ‘I wish I’d kept it up’, ‘I just don’t have the time these days’, or maybe ‘I've got a family now’. Valid they may be, but some people won’t be heard uttering them. Like the 88-year-old woman running the London marathon or the blind man who joins a football team to use his talents.

Retirement offers an opportunity to make up for lost time, but why should living your dreams be confined to your golden years? How many make excuses because they fear change let alone the prospect that reality’s bite may not taste as sweet as they imagined. Here’s three who chose life...

Not speaking my language

Nicky Vernon (33) lives with her husband Richard and two young daughters in one of the green and pleasant corners of Kent’s countryside. While her lawyer husband commutes to London, Nicky juggles with the fickle schedules of her young children around whom she fits in teaching French and German, her pupils ranging from toddlers to pensioners.

Five years ago, life was very different. Then she was an account manager with Saatchi and Saatchi’s and product of its graduate trainee scheme. She was also unmarried and living in the less salubrious setting of Camberwell in south-east London with her future husband. But success at work did not stifle other frustrations. Having graduated with a First joint honours in French and German, Nicky felt she was quickly ‘losing’ her languages. And the glamour of Adland was staring to wear thin.

Her first steps away from the media spotlight were tentative. ‘I asked to work on Pan-European accounts where I could use my languages, the first of which was a computer company. My previous clients in the drink and hotel industries were considered ‘sexy’ and prestigious. So, my colleagues thought I was barking.’ Now married, Nicky’s career tinkering reached a full epiphany. She decided teaching was her true vocation and applied to take a one-year PGCE at Kings College in central London.

She found the educational experience wholly different when revisited. ‘I was older and had my fun first time round so was more intense in my study.’ Finding a job at a secondary school in Kent, the family moved out of the city. A first child soon followed and she moved to part-time position. Nicky now teaches at all levels from one-to-one tuition to pre-school groups – most work coming by word of mouth.

Despite these changes, Nicky sees her future career expanding ever outwards. ‘When the children are a little older I’d like to approach businesses looking to expand across Europe and improve their language skills. And regrets? ‘Sometimes, when I see my peers running agencies or remember the glamour of corporate hospitality or the belated word of thanks for working through the night. But I don't miss the political games and it’s not a lifestyle which lets me have everything I have now. I like being my own boss and calling the shots. The people I work with now would be more receptive to my postponing a meeting because my daughter isn’t well. I wouldn’t change it for anything.’

Head towards the light

‘Sunshine is the best way to start your day.’ It’s a sentiment few experience much beyond an annual fortnight away. Confronted by another grey British morning, it’s natural to want to be somewhere brighter and bluer. Thirty-year-old Tania Vian-Smith and her boyfriend Darren saw their opportunity to escape when he was offered a job in Barcelona.

Tania resigned from her work as a teacher in Brentford and resolved to join her boyfriend despite not visiting the Catalan capital. It sounds like poor planning, but her logic is compelling.

‘A city on a beach within reach of ski-slopes was enough to convince me. It was very much spur of the moment but we wanted a complete life transplant.’

Tania found work teaching English as a foreign language. ‘I loved working with my pupils but there was far too much paper work and stress. On top, you get fed up with being criticised by the press and government – I’m too young to be getting old so quickly!’

Leaving London didn’t prove a bind. She has swapped her shared south London flat for a 3-bedroom flat in the lively and colourful Ramblas district. Her day begins on her sun-drenched balcony overlooking a pretty square just off the main street. Her rent is around half what she paid in London. Neither does she miss a social life which was characterised, as she remembers it, by ‘great expense and military-like operations dependent on legions of friends attempting to communicate via mobile phone.’

She remains blissfully non-committal about the future. ‘We'll stay another year, probably longer. Going by our English friends, it’s impossible to leave and ‘just one more year’ becomes an increasingly meaningless catchphrase. After that, I’ve no idea: travel around South America, move to California, kids in the Kentish countryside, write a 30-something novel...who knows?’
The logistics was made easier by friends who helped them find work and a flat. But despite arriving without a word of Spanish, let alone Catalan, the change in culture proved no barrier. ‘I've always been a bit mañana, mañana myself anyway.’

Missing her family and learning the language have proven the greatest burdens. But so far, she’s had few complaints from the friends and relatives one inexpensive hour’s flight away. Change has proven an epiphany. ‘It's the best decision I’ve ever made and made me realise anything is possible. If you don’t like it change it! And her one concern? ‘Moving back to England. I’ll always wonder why I did it!’

Sailing the seven seas

Ever wanted to hear the music of Cuba? Or visit the wildlife of the Galapagos, see the beauty of Capetown, or dance at Salvador’s carnival? And would you want to travel far and wide across the globe by the sweat of your own brow? Heather Collier thought ‘yes’ to all the above when she read a newspaper ad in her Yorkshire home inviting entrants for The Times Clipper 2000 round the world yacht race.

In recent years, the 41-year-old increasingly acted upon an impulse to travel, and the chance to sail on one of the 6-8 week legs proved irresistible. Sailing through the Panama Canal was appealing as was a 7,000-mile trek across the Atlantic. In fact, by the time she'd scanned the itinerary she realised drastic action was required. ‘I wanted to go everywhere so I signed up for the lot.’

She sold her house and car to raise the required sponsorship money and left her job at Manchester University. Soon she joined 14 strangers on a 60-foot yacht for a fortnight’s induction at sea to test the crew’s mettle. All bar the skipper were novice sailors, a mixture of retirees, gap-year students, escapists, adventurers, and the occasional accountant. But then again, they had the whole globe in which to learn their nautical skills.

Swapping academia for a role more redolent of life and death, she’s now in charge of ordering and storing food as the crew wend their way roughly 34,000 miles across the globe. That’s not to mention helping sail, clean and cook, work four-hour shifts and avoid falling off the side as they round the Cape of Good Hope. Asked what she plans for when her circumnavigation is complete, Heather is unspecific. ‘I'd know I’d like to be living in Portugal within ten years, in the meantime...’ When you read this, Heather Collier is somewhere half-way across the North Atlantic.

Women's Health magazine 2001

‘Innocent’ Irish Woman Sentenced To Eight Years

An Irish mother-of-two has been sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in Ecuador for possession of cocaine. ‘Angela’, 29, from Donegal was arrested at Quito airport last year after customs officers discovered 2.5kg of the drug in the lining of her bag.

She was about to board a flight to London. She claims she was set up by a drugs dealer, but a court in Ecuador has rejected this. Ireland's consul general has visited the freelance journalist in Quito’s women’s prison, the Carcel de Mujeres. Charles Richard Lacy said she was in good health, but there are concerns for her long-term well-being as she has only one kidney.

Angela went to Ecuador in February 2003 on a ten-day trip to assist a Nigerian friend get a visa. She had met the man in Africa where she ran a home for orphans and abused children, and they attended the same church in London. Angela says she left a new suitcase at her friend’s flat the day before her flight to London. After Angela’s arrest at the airport, the Nigerian has disappeared. Lacy believes the Donegal woman was naive. ‘We are pretty sure she was set up,’ the consul said. ‘I attended her trial, and it seemed fairly conducted. She was not able to offer sufficient evidence that this (Nigerian) man existed. ‘As such, there are currently no grounds for appeal. These drug dealers know how to protect themselves and are very clever and unscrupulous.’

Ecuador’s tough anti-drugs legislation has a philosophy of ‘guilty until proven innocent’, and Angela had to wait over 16 months for her case to go to trial. Judges have been fined in the past for letting drug traffickers walk free, while one judge had an application for a US visa refused after making what American authorities thought were inappropriate decisions.

The South American country is teeming with drug traffickers on the look-out out for travellers who can be bribed or tricked. Those ‘mules’ caught in possession of drugs have no legal defence and face mandatory minimum sentences. About 80 per cent of the 30 western women in Quito’s prison are doing time for drugs offences, with only Angela and an American prisoner continuing to protest their innocence.

Angela claims she has been treated badly in the prison. After her arrest, the Irish woman says she was held for four days in a cell with four men. It was three weeks before she able to alert her husband and her family in Donegal to her plight – and only then by paying a doctor $50 for the use of a mobile phone.

‘I tried to get a guard charged for attempted rape, but then he threatened to have me charged for assault after I slapped him,’ she said. A lawyer to whom her family paid $19,000 died last Christmas, and Angela said she had no translator or lawyer at her trial. She was represented by a public defender, who will not be paid until she is released.

Conditions in Ecuadorian prisons fall well below international standards. Inside the Carcel de Mujeres the atmosphere is closer to that of an over-crowded slum than what most westerners would regard as a prison. Inmates are free to wander about its crowded corridors. There are many small children who live inside with their incarcerated mothers, who must pay $15 a month for cells. Drugs are easily available and violence is not uncommon.

‘Foreigners are obvious targets because they are thought to have money,’ said Angela. ‘It helps if you keep the right people on your side.’

Last April, there were co-ordinated riots in Quito’s prisons in protest at conditions. Hundreds of hostages were taken, including TV news journalists.

‘The ringleaders were banging on the doors making sure everybody came downstairs from their cells,’ said Angela. ‘The place was chaotic for days – like a commune gone wild.’
The Donegal mother says her strong religious belief will see her through the remainder of the prison sentence.

‘God has given me strength, he will be my judge,’ she said. ‘I cope with the help of God, my family and my friends. I try to stay hopeful and keep a good attitude. I have only one kidney and it is not very good. The medical attention here is poor. I miss my family so much and the atmosphere in this place is frightening. There is fighting and evil, and always a lot of noise.’
Angela was living in London at the time of her arrest, and her pastor has been assisting her, as has the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas. A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said the Irish government was aware of the case and providing consular assistance.

The Sunday Times (Irish edition) 2004

South America Nightmare

Twenty-seven-year-old Irishwoman ‘Angela’ was arrested in February 2003 after drugs were found sewn into her bag at Quito airport in Ecuador. Despite overwhelming evidence that she was set up, she was sentenced to the full eight-year term…

‘When I was arrested, I was confused and scared, not knowing what was happening. It was horrible. When the customs officers stuck the knife in my bag and pulled it out covered in powder, my mind raced – 100 thoughts flying through my head. But I honestly thought I would be let go, that they would realise they had made a mistake. I fainted. It flashed through my mind that I would die here and my family would be alone.

‘They found several kilograms of cocaine sewn into my bag – the bag that my supposed “friend” Tony had in his flat the day before I was due to return home to my family in London. I didn’t speak Spanish and there was no interpreter. When waiting in custody for over five weeks, I thought my life was over. All I could do was get on my knees and pray. I had no contact with my family for two weeks. I just wanted to see my husband, mammy, and children to get strength from them. I always believed I would be let go the next day, and then the next. It was weeks before I paid a doctor to use her mobile phone so I could explain to my family why I hadn’t come home.

‘I was first held in an open, mixed cell before appearing in court. One of the guards there assaulted me but when I threatened to bring charges he just said he would just say that I’d attacked him first. At first, I didn’t think Tony, whom I'd gone to South America to help with his visa, could be involved. I had known him a long time. We went to the same church in London and he'd worked in an orphanage I’d set up in Africa. I thought he was my best friend. Now I know he has lied to me for most of my life. It hurts that I loved Tony like a brother, and trusted him. I am now scared to believe in people. Nobody has seen or heard from him since the day I was arrested.

‘My first lawyer took over £10,000 from my family but did nothing to help me. The next one did little either and I’m still hoping to find someone whom I can trust. It’s difficult as there is so much corruption and good lawyers don’t want to get involved in case they are suspected of being involved in illegal drug trafficking themselves. Because of the United States’ war against drugs the officials here fear the repercussions of investigating anyone’s innocence.

‘It’s terrible to be convicted for something I would never do but it’s made even more surreal when even the people that sent me here don't think I did it. Even the guy that arrested me said he didn’t think I was guilty and rings me regularly to see how I am coping. I have met many people who offer me support and have tried to help me but I’m still here. I know that my case has been discussed in the Irish parliament and even Oprah Winfrey wanted to interview me but the authorities wouldn’t give them permission to film inside.

‘I have learned God never allows us to be in a difficult situation without giving us the strength to deal with it. I also believe that he wants me here to learn and to know that his love is everywhere. I have gained patience, become wiser and grown up a lot. When I look around me I am worried what my children will grow up to be. But I also look at the world in a beautiful way. I realise that trees, flowers, rain, animals and the moon at night are all blessings from God. Not seeing these things makes me wonder how people can want to destroy a world that was created so beautiful. I just want to walk in the rain again and see the hustle in the mornings as people go to work. That world is now like another country, which I miss very much. I live here in prison, and the world outside doesn’t seem to care or notice.

‘I write a lot. I have written a book about my experiences but I’m struggling to get it published. I managed to get hold of an old computer that recently has been my best friend. Living here is frightening. People are always asking for money, clothes, and food. I also need to get medicine as I only have one kidney. Sometimes I give my food to some of the women who have their children living with them inside the prison and are penniless. The drug users also cause a lot of hassle and are always looking to steal from you.

‘To survive you have to get on with everyone and it helps to share what you have to avoid being picked on. As a Westerner, you have to be especially strong as other prisoners assume you have money. If you are seen as weak they will take advantage. Thankfully, God protects me. I’ve been nearly hurt many times, but his angels are always with me. The dreams I have and believe will come true are to hold my family members in my arms again, sit in a bubble bath or by a warm fire, walk in the rain, smell the flowers and see the trees blowing in the wind. I dream a lot of sitting and talking with my family, seeing the twinkle of Christmas lights. My mother and husband were very upset last year because they thought I’d be home for Christmas and they both felt useless that they couldn’t help me. My kids said all they wanted was for Santa to bring me home.

‘Sometimes I struggle to keep my belief and question why I am here – but my faith is the only thing that keeps me strong and fighting for my rights. My family has helped me with love and comfort. They send money so that I can buy myself food and gas to cook with. The food here tastes foul and even if you’re hungry it’s not worth eating as it invariably makes you sick. I also need cash so I can pay for a cramped shared cell. So, I do work such as cooking and decorating the cells of other inmates as nothing here is provided by the state except the four walls keeping us in.

‘My mammy is very sick and there are many things I want to tell her to her face. I want to get home to spend some time with her while it’s still possible. I am very close to my brother and am desperate for him to come and see me. It seems such a long time since I saw any of them. My husband tries to ring me every night. We cry sometimes, but we are more in love now since being apart. He has changed so much since I have been here and is now a better father, husband, and friend. He says beautiful things and makes me laugh. He told me that not only am I in prison, but without me by his side, he is too.

‘It took 16 months to sentence me although the Ecuadorian constitution says we can walk free if it doesn't happen within a year. But I’m still here. The authorities have told us that they will be deporting the foreigners to their home countries but they have been saying this for over six months and nothing ever happens. I just hope they will do it soon, as I don’t think I could last another Christmas here. But everything is backwards here – they make a decision one week and do the opposite the next. Since the president was recently deposed the uncertainty is even greater. But two years and five months later, I am still here hoping to leave all this pain in the past. The waiting is the worst part.

‘For the last three weeks, all the prisoners have been on strike to protest against the government failing to honour its promises. No food. No visitors. Even the guards don’t come in and we are left to fend for ourselves inside. It’s ironic that we are both in prison and yet in a place that lives outside the law. While there is solidarity between the prisoners, we are forced to go along with the protests.

‘I hope my children will never have pain like this in their lives. I want to go home and leave this place behind me. I have learned a lot here and I thank God sometimes for allowing me to be here because I have grown to be a wiser person. I pray for the laws to change, for a miracle. I am crying now as I write this. I pray that 2005 is going to be my year and that everything works out the way I want it.’

Reveal magazine 2005

The Good Fella

Martin Scorcese Filmography

It’s no bad thing Martin Marcantonio Luciano Scorsese didn’t follow his parents into the clothing business. Gareth Mason looks at what film gained…  

Born and bred in New York’s Garment District, the young Scorsese’s enthusiasm for the pictures has led to a glittering directorial career that’s spanned almost half a century. Often drawing heavily on his family’s uprooted Sicilian roots, he has now made over 40 movies along with earning multiple credits as a producer, screenwriter and actor. In 2007, Total Film magazine voted him the second greatest director of all time behind a Mr A Hitchcock.

Scorsese developed a style that draws on fast edits, eclectic music and initially, small budgets. His early influences ranged from low budget director Samuel Fuller, French New Wave Auteur Jean Luc Godard, and his friend actor-director John Cassavetes.

Along with the recurring backdrop of New York street life, his films often called upon favoured actors – none more so than Robert DeNiro.

DeNiro has played a string of struggling and disturbed Italian-American characters whose response to the slings and arrows of daily life tends to be a psychotic and disproportionate use of fists or firearms. These seminal roles have ranged from the self-destructive boxing champion Jake La Motta in Raging Bull (1980) to Travis Bickle, the eponymous anti-hero of Taxi Driver, who powerfully demonstrates why ‘having a nice day’ is not a given in the Big Apple. (We probably shouldn’t be surprised that it was DeNiro who was instrumental in helping Scorsese give up a life-threatening dependency on cocaine.)

Scorsese has also extracted great performances from actors such as Harvey Keitel, Daniel Day Lewis, and more recently, Leonardo DiCaprio. With DiCaprio, Scorsese made his most expensive film, Gangs of New York (2002), which cost over $100m, and the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004), which garnered the director 11 Oscar nominations. More recently, The Departed became not only his highest grossing film, but the one that earned him an overdue Academy Award for Best Director, along with three others including Best Picture.

Along with the familiar themes and settings of Italian-American life, Scorsese hasn’t shied away from less well-trod subjects. He was ahead of his time with his satire on celebrity and the entertainment industry with the King of Comedy (1983), while the highly controversial Last Temptation of Christ (1988), imagined the reality of the life of Christ. It also attracted worldwide criticism from placard waving religious conservatives mainly for a scene that few of them seemed to have waited two and a half hours to see. The repressed sexuality of 19th century society drama signalled another new departure in The Age of Innocence (1993), while the innovative biopic No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005), used a montage of actors and actresses to play the young singer.

Scorsese’s latest film Shutter Island is out now and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley. Based on the horror-thriller by Dennis Lehane, it’s set on an island nowhere near Manhattan, let alone the Bronx. It is however, teeming with brooding psychopathic men.

Home Cinema Choice 2009

Hackney People: Jim Campbell

This 83-year-old resident of Stoke Newington with memories of the Blitz, half a century of teaching and his part in Hitler’s downfall…

On February 19, 1942, Jim Campbell’s house took a direct hit from a German bomb. His mother, working nearby as head nurse at a local first aid post, received the dread communication – Direct Hit 70-74 Albion Road. Her family lived at number 72. Jim found himself unexpectedly thrown together with his brothers despite the fact they were playing upstairs seconds earlier. Also dazed but unharmed in the rubble of his former home was Jim’s father, dug out from beneath his bath and no doubt bemoaning the impossibility of finding a quiet, peaceful moment in wartime. The only inanimate object that survived the bomb was a Bible.

Most days in Stoke Newington proved more peaceful for Jim’s family. Neighbours donated clothes and the family was sheltered in emergency centres and temporary houses over the next few years. Once Jim found himself living across from his grandad’s junkshop selling everything and nothing before Woolworth’s cornered the market. The boys were later evacuated to Rugby to escape the worst of the Blitz. Even the new town hall – painted glossy white for its 1939 opening – had to be coloured over for camouflage. Ironically, for one who spent 50 years teaching, Jim left school at 13.

He celebrated his 17th birthday by joining the army in 1943 and on his 18th – as soon as he was legal to be dispatched overseas – he was sent to Germany. During the journey, the train, battered and holed through its front-line service pulled up to allow the troops a break for refreshments. Their tea-break was interrupted by a crackling announcement in a plummy accent over the tannoy. It announced that the war was officially over.

‘I never tired of telling my pupils that the day Hitler heard Jim Campbell was coming, he gave up!’ Jim recalled. Despite the end of hostilities, he worked in Germany for the Intelligence Corps and learnt to speak fluent German. Years later, he returned to the same area and taught in a local German secondary school for four years. Despite the obvious tensions expected in his role, he has nothing but fond memories of the people he met and taught during his time there.

Jim left the army in 1948 and studied to be a teacher in York. Not having attended a grammar school, he hadn’t been eligible for university, but his army work offered a loophole for entry. At Deal Street primary school in Whitechapel, he became the first male nursery school teacher to work in London.

‘I have very fond memories. Most of the students were Jewish and I was made to feel very welcome. Stoke Newington itself was influenced by the influx of immigrants from the Caribbean, Cyprus, and Africa. Jewish, Christian and now Muslim folk have lived relatively happily alongside each other for years. Sure, it’s had problems – we had gangs fighting here decades ago, but it’s just like any other inner city community – only more so.’ One of his early students was a certain Barbara Deekes – later Hackney stalwart Barbara Windsor, whom he described as ‘delightful’.

Jim continued to live in interesting times by joining the Merchant Navy in 1952 even taking part in the ill-starred Suez invasion. Jim’s wanderlust had been ignited by the sight of the passing sea trade while recuperating from an operation in Portsmouth. Over the next few years, he travelled the world gathering stories and materials that he would later pass on to his young charges in the classroom. On his return, he worked as a rank and file teacher and eventually head-teacher in primary schools around Stoke Newington. He finally retired a decade ago after many years working in a support role in the area.

While Jim has given up on reaching some far-flung shores, the lure of travel remains. He regularly visits Morocco and is planning to spend a few months with friends during the English winter’s darkest and coldest nights. His flat on the Woodberry Estate is adorned with souvenirs and pictures tracking his adventures through the decades and continents. Despite the attractions of kinder climates, Jim’s affection for Stoke Newington remains undimmed.

‘I remember it as a relatively peaceful place. Although the city grew out towards us – the Stoke Newington area was really a series of greens linked by one road. This was the area that Dick Turpin patrolled for stagecoach victims and before that where Henry V111 stored several of his myriad mistresses. People didn’t do a lot here – it was more of a place of rest before their next project. Edgar Alan Poe was pulled out of the gutter here drunk and then went to write his great works elsewhere!

‘There were no major markets or big stores but there was a strong community. I was born in Mathias Road, Newington Green, which was once described as “the most impoverished street in London.” As far as worldly possessions go – it’s true, but the community was full of love, and the local church, which then took a lot of responsibility for the poor, was wonderful.’

Most of Jim’s memories are fond but he still remembers with a shiver the old Pumping House where Green Lanes and Manor Road met and which he passed by on the way home from school with his siblings.

‘It was built like a castle, and through the windows we could see these huge dark shadows of the pistons pumping up and down and accompanied by this deep booming sound. We thought a giant lived there and ran across the park screaming for our lives!’

It was just another lucky escape in a most eventful life.

Hackney Today 2009

Hackney People: James Cook MBE

The former European middleweight boxing champion and youth worker in ‘Murder Mile’, Hackney, London talks to Gareth Mason... 

Fifteen years after retiring from a successful career as a professional boxer James Cook still pulls few punches. Gone is the Mexican moustache that earned him the fighting moniker The Bandit, but his tall lean frame still cuts a dash as he strolled up to me outside the Pedro Club with the relaxed and smiling demeanour that he rarely exhibited in the ring.

The former European super middleweight champion is now the easily recognised figurehead of The Pedro Club – a thriving centre for young people, which caters for those interested in everything from boxing to more gentle disciplines such as singing, dancing, and creating fashion and art.

Cook now works as an outreach worker for Rathbone, a national voluntary youth organisation. He has helped over 500 young people into full-time work since 2000 and received nationwide attention for his work turning young people away from gangs. Much of his time is spent in the Hackney streets. Here he has found many young people with nowhere to go and nothing to do and given them a place where they could channel their energies more positively. They also pick up some life skills that they have thus far lived without.

‘All I ask is that when they enter the club they follow the rules and show some respect. A lot of these kids don’t even know how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ because it’s just not part of their world. But if they want to come in here – they are going to have to learn that. I also want to teach them that they can’t win everything – losing is part of the learning process. After that, if you give me an hour, I figure I can get the kid with the biggest scowl to smile.’ 

Working with young people wasn’t a new experience. He had already spent more than a decade doing so before retiring from boxing. ‘People told me I needed my eight hours sleep but I’d often be working in youth clubs till midnight and then getting up at 4am for a 10-mile run!’

Born in Jamaica and brought up in Peckham, Cook moved up to North London as a child. He has been a Hackney resident for 27 years where he has lived with his three daughters and son. He believes that those who have achieved some measure of success in a community should give something back to it.

‘Whatever your field, it’s only right you go back and show people that if I can do it, so can you. I was doing some promotion work with [the boxer] Lloyd Honeyghan the other day and he started getting annoyed with people asking him for autographs. I told him – think about it man – these are the people who put you here!’

Although the club was established in 1929 and later revived with a donation from the actress Elizabeth Taylor, it was in a sorry state around the turn of the millennium when James set out to revitalise it by forming a new management committee with his many contacts in the sports world. It re-opened in 2003. The Eureka moment in the club’s revival came when he found the deeds to the building mouldering away undiscovered in an old safe in a back room.

In 2006, he re-emerged on the public stage in the Channel 4 show Secret Millionaire. The club received a much needed £20,000 boost to build a music studio and indirectly led to him getting married onscreen following a donation towards his wedding that featured in the show’s climax. In mitigation for his late proposal he says: ‘My fiancé and I had a 24-year engagement, but the time was never right while I was still boxing. Because the guy said I should get married in both London and over in Jamaica with my family, I ended up ringing home and saying “Dad, I’m going to need some more money for the wedding!” Sometimes now when I’m sitting watching a fight I hear someone whistling the Secret Millionaire theme tune from the row behind!’

A boxing career that extended into his mid 30s has provided him with a bulging contact book which has benefited many of the youths he has brought in from the cold, dark roads of Hackney’s so-called Murder Mile.

‘I’m still good friends with Frank Warren [the sports promoter] and he’s always happy to offer some of the boys tickets for a match or bring one of the sportsmen he promotes down for a chat.’

Cook was awarded an MBE for services to Youth Justice in Hackney in June 2007. He had ignored the letter announcing the honour for days assuming it was a hoax. ‘Talking to the Queen was one of the only times I got nervous!’ joked the man who had faced down British boxing greats from Errol Christie and Michael Watson, both of whom he beat, and Herol Graham.

‘I even offered her one of my vests,’ he laughed though he didn’t mention whether she took him up on the offer. While it seems unlikely that the Queen took to sparring on the lawns of Sandringham – if anyone could persuade HRH, Cook might with his grounded and unaffected charm. 

Talking of Herol Graham, I had planned to ask him how it felt to take on one of British boxing’s great stylists – a fighter considered by many to be the best home boxer never to be world champion. Graham’s ability to make top-class fighters look foolish was such that I didn’t want to risk spoiling Cook’s mood by asking him about this loss early on in the interview. I needn’t have worried. Cook brought it up himself laughing off the experience of trying to hit the bewilderingly elusive opponent and joking with little hint of rancour that the referee stopped it too early.

‘I knew I had a chance if the fight went to the late stages. I had worked really hard for it running up and down the stairs of the shopping centre at Elephant and Castle and racing the bus down there from my home in Hackney.’ Aside from frequenting legendary boxing clubs such as South London’s Thomas A’ Beckett, his Elephant and Castle base was his auntie’s flat where he often fled from less appealing chores elsewhere.  

He knew his time had come when he recognised the waning of his powers in one of his last fights in which he lost to a fellow British fighter – an event that he had always said would signal his retirement.
‘I knew that a few years ago I could have gone out and won it, but as I came out for the last rounds I knew it just wasn’t there any more.’

Cook concedes that his image as a youth work is lent a credibility by his skin colour, as well as his boxing past, which a social worker from a white, middle-class background would struggle to match. In Hackney, he has encouraged many to swap the temptations of drugs and violence for the honest endeavour of the boxing ring. And in these streets, few of the young black men he meets like to see themselves as soft touches.

‘A few of them look at me and say “One day you’re going to get old and then we can get you!”’ But his firm but fair stance, backed up my his reputation, let alone obstinate bravery, to go where the local police fear to tread has seen him through safely thus far. During our interview, the first two teenagers who banged on the door to be admitted were dealt short shrift. They quickly assumed a more humble aspect when greeted by the stern countenance that has faced down 36 opponents. While respectful, the boys joked with him, but with a cheekiness that betrayed affection beneath the bravado.

Macho posturing might be dangerous stance to take on Cook’s home ground. While the former pugilist posed patiently for photographs by the ring the young men kept a respectful distance. Beyond a few jokey comments as Cook narrowed his eyes at the lens into a fighter’s scowl for the upteenth time the photoshoot went interrupted. When we finished, he reminded a passing kid to pull up his belt on jeans drooping midway between waist and kneecap. The directive was accepted without a word of dissent.  

At 50, Cook still looks like he could make the 12-stone middleweight limit without missing his lunch. Bar for a few grey hairs around his sideburns, there is little evidence of physical decline. Respect is certainly due in streets where he carved out a career that involved sport and community work from his teenage years.

‘My daughters once told me that these guys hanging around a corner wouldn’t talk to them because the guys heard that they were James Cook’s girls. I said: “That’s good, isn’t it?” but they complained, saying “but we like them dad, we want to talk to them!”’

Despite the added recognition of an MBE and the 15 minutes of fame brought by his appearance on Secret Millionaire, Cook displays few of the trappings of wealth and fame as he makes me a mug of coffee in a cramped office crammed with files and trinkets of the paraphernalia of his career. He lives in a modest house nearby and shows little inclination towards a more materialistic lifestyle telling me that ‘money has never been that important to me.’ Help is still needed to keep the club running smoothly and it’s not just for people who can make a difference in the streets.

‘Some help in here would be useful,’ he says gesturing with distaste towards the piles of paperwork that stand high around the plate of biscuits he places between us. ‘I’m a people person – not a paper person!’

He makes no claims of hardship in his early life though it’s clear that his climb into the championship ring from humble inner city origins would have needed decades of disciplined hard graft. His immediate family life sounds close and harmonious as are his reflections on his upbringing where his only bad memories were the fear of a tongue lashing from his mum, which far outweighed the threat of his father’s wrath. He also retains a sense of perspective when viewing the demonisation of the infamous and feared hooded youths he works among.
‘A lot of them are just hanging around having a laugh with their friends. They haven’t got anywhere else to go and often they are not doing anything more than what you and I got up to when we were young. And for all the talk of murder mile, the violence isn’t new – it’s just the way it’s fought now with kids fighting each other over postcodes.’  

Before the interview, James was up at six training one of his stable of boxers. ‘We went about 10 miles, but today I sat in the car. I still do a lot of the training myself, but I’m not as young as I used to be and I’ve got a long day ahead!’

By the time we had finished an hour or so later than we had planned, a small group of young men from a mix of ethic backgrounds were shooting some pool, their ardour for the more demanding punch bag work now diminished. Cook chastised one for leaving equipment on the floor, but as he turned from them a small, suppressed smile emerged from behind the frown. Hiding his soft side beneath a stern demeanour may be his toughest daily challenge.    

Hackney Today 2009

Get Up Off That Thing

Using a wheelchair doesn't mean Sandy Eifion-Jones takes life sitting down. Gareth Mason tries to keep up...

Sandy has always been an active type. A regular swimmer and rider, her busy and varied life juggles family, voluntary work, novel writing, freelance journalism and for an added splash of colour, she’s a registered model. Sounds a bit like the semi-mythical ‘superwoman’ touted by lifestyle magazines over the last decade, the type of composite character born out of statistics and trends rather than the more conventional womb.

But while Sandy is real – the CV skips some information most would consider crucial. Fourteen years ago, she collapsed after the birth of her daughter. This left her needing to be bathed and dressed and virtually bed-ridden. At the time, she couldn’t even turn the pages of a book. While this cataclysmic event would transform life as we know it to the average able-bodied person, the focus of Sandy’s life is much as it was.

‘Previously, my main sporting interest was swimming – as a former county champion I was swimming 100 lengths a week,’ says Sandy. ‘And as a qualified beauty therapist, I ran my own salon.’

If Sandy defies the stereotype of the disabled as a victim, there are now plenty of high-profile examples. Superman actor, Christopher Reeve, battling to overcome paralysis; the academic success of Steven Hawkins; the sporting exploits of multiple medal winners like Tanni Grey-Thompson; and the glamour of ‘Beatle-bride’, Heather Mills, are all positive examples of success in the face of adversity.

Another is Natalie du Toit, an 18-year-old South African swimmer, who was named outstanding athlete of the Commonwealth games after winning gold medals in multi-disability competitions before reaching the final of an able-bodied event. She had lost a leg in a road accident just a year earlier. Straddling both these sporting worlds is rare. One example is the experience of an American ice-hockey player who enjoyed the shock on her opponent’s face when her prosthetic leg slid off and away after a hard tackle!

But otherwise, thousands of less visible people are living full lives without the media plaudits and attention. To regain the momentum of her life, Sandy had many hurdles to overcome. ‘There are many support structures nationally but you really have to find out about them yourself. I’ve met many people facing disability who have never heard of (the magazine) Disability Now or even know where to buy an electric wheelchair – it’s a case of asking, looking and stumbling upon things yourself.’

Several things helped Sandy get back on track. Her golden retriever, Raq, ‘rescued me from depressing housebound despair’ while horse-riding ‘let me forget the wheelchair giving me a feeling of normality and liberation. For once, you’re at a height way above everyone else!’ While Sandy rides independently, groups like Riding for Disabled can be found all over the country staffed almost entirely by volunteers.

Sheila Neale from the Diamond Riding Centre in Carshalton, Surrey, says the 400 or so rides that the centre organises weekly cater for all disabilities though clients need a doctor’s note. ‘We try and have as much variety as possible’, says Sheila. ‘We’ve had blind people doing dressage – even jumping. I once tried a round with my eyes shut – it was bizarre!’

Fear of litigation means instructors must now be trained and keep logbooks. Louise Dyson of Visible People, the model and acting agency for which Sandy works, says her employees are ‘The kind of highly motivated, cheerful, business-like, well-groomed and eminently ‘able’ people a client would expect to find on the books of a successful modelling and acting agency. ‘The very word ‘disabled’ and its implicit idea of ‘un-able’ is laughable in view of the number of Olympic gold medallists and successful business women and men on my books,’ says Louise. ‘The sooner we regard disability like any characteristic such as red hair colour or tanned skin, the better.’

As for Sandy, it’s attitude as much as activity which shapes her outlook. ‘Retain your personality,’ she advises. ‘Don’t feel you have to sink into some kind of expected role. Dress positively with style and bright colours – it’s easy to feel you should now look dull and drab. If you want to look sexy, do so. Be courteous, and give people a chance to understand. Help people to see you, not the chair.’ Lack of access to buildings and abuse of parking areas often head the list of frustrations for people with disabilities.

While these irritate Sandy, she is practiced at being positive throughout the constant challenges presented by meeting new people and situations. Sandy’s self-esteem was low when her focus was more on her wheelchair than herself. That’s now a thing of the past. And while she has the lifestyle to release everyday tensions, she’s not worried about losing her temper from time to time.

‘I make a point of not apologising but explaining why – that I just have normal emotions which are far healthier to release.’ The differences between us all make a mockery of that term ‘normality’. But to live a full and fulfilling life takes a lot more hard work for some people than others. Sandy is getting everything she can out of life. Are you?

Women’s Health magazine 2003

Alan McGee Interview

Music guru Alan McGee was dancing on the ceiling (alright, sofa) before talking to What MP3’s Gareth Mason. He came down to earth to tell us about the recent launch of Poptones...

Alan McGee is no ordinary fellow. His CV records peaks and troughs of Himalayan proportions including founding Creation Records, discovering Oasis, overcoming drug addiction, joining and walking out of New Labour’s arts task force, supporting Malcolm McLaren’s bid for the London mayoralty, and invariably, speaking his mind.

His latest re-incarnation sees him heading up a music internet company currently valued at £17 million. He lives in London with his wife who is expecting their first child in September. Born in in 1960 in Cathcart, Glasgow, he spent his first working years with British Rail before transferring to London in 1980.

Four years later, after his punk band the Laughing Apple failed to get signed, he founded Creation Records with partner Dick Green. In 1992, he sold 49 per cent of his shares to Sony before cutting ties with Creation last year. As Creation supremo, his first major success was with Primal Scream, whose album Screamadelica won the 1991 Mercury prize propelling Creation into the musical big-time. Other big signings were the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and Super Furry Animals.

WHAT MP3: What have you been up to?
AM: Dancing on the fxxxing couches till five in the morning drinking five tonnes of Red Bull at NME.com and dj-ing till the same time the night before. I think we’ve just replaced cocaine with Red Bull – I don't know which is worse.
WHAT MP3: Probably Red Bull.
AM: Yeah, that’s what Liam Gallagher tells me.
WHAT MP3: On a more professional note, what do you miss, if anything, about Creation?
AM: Nothing.
WHAT MP3: Is it a weight off your mind now?
AM: I don’t care. I very rarely keep any of my old records unless I really love them – I move on. Use it once, throw it away.
WHAT MP3: Poptones is worth around £17 million now – with that kind of value from a small operation, you seem to have made a canny business move. Was that as much a question of economics as personal?
AM: I just got fed up with Sony's dictatorial attitude – I wanted to move on. It was as if I was expected to be some kind of golden goose who’s just meant to produce another superstar for Sony.
WHAT MP3: How’s the Poptones website doing?
AM: It’s been going about a week now. We've got a digital radio programme up and running and the graphics are good. It has our own inimitable way of projecting attitude and fxxx-you-ness.
WHAT MP3: Is that what is going to differentiate you from your rivals?
AM: Yes, and it looks a lot better than most other people’s sites. But I don’t think many people know it’s up yet.
WHAT MP3: Where do you see MP3 a couple of years down the line?
AM: MP3 could grow into many different things. Transferring information in digital files is an on-going process which opens up all kinds of possibilities. If you had predicted seven years ago that you and I would be discussing sending songs down the phone and saying ‘what do you think of this one’ – I think you’d be well shocked. But nobody really knows where it’s going to lead.
WHAT MP3: Can you sympathise with bands such as Metallica and the hostile stance they’ve taken to MP3?
AM: I sympathise with the fact that they are Metallica, but I don’t sympathise with what they are doing. They’ve got a cheek. I mean they’ve made millions out of their music and they are taking the piss. I mean Knapster is the Michael Jackson of this year. The reason it’s huge is because it’s popular. It's an on-going process about the evolution of music. It’s inevitable that we’re moving towards a world of encrypted music. And as for MP3.com, it’s just buying everyone off anyway.
WHAT MP3: Given its penchant for control do you think the government on this side of the Atlantic is going to take any interest in MP3?
AM: I don’t think Tony Blair knows what an MP3 file is – so I don’t think we have to worry about that.
WHAT MP3: And do you think the stranglehold of the big record companies might be broken in the digital domain?
AM: I think it’s part of an on-going process moving towards a subscription-based model and I’m sure we’ll be part of that in a few years’ time perhaps aligned with some kind of service provider, who’s probably owned by some telecommunications company from which you’ll be able to download a number of Poptones tracks for a sum of money – I think it’s good that fans can go back to buying specific songs they like without a bunch of songs you don’t want.
WHAT MP3: Can MP3 take off without the support of the big record companies?
AM: I think the big companies are missing out. There is a real space for the independent labels. At Poptones we’re happy to run it on a small-scale. There’s only about six of us at the company and I don’t really want many more than that. Rather than another huge Oasis find which gets so big it changes your whole life, I’d rather have, say, two Primal Screams. I think some variety makes things more interesting. But obviously we’re not going to run away from success – if we get the biggest group in the world we would go for them. I don’t think you can hit the jackpot twice in a row, but I do have a talent for finding bands. In reality, I don’t think you’ll get another Oasis, but it’s feasible that we might find a few fairly major bands and that’s what Poptones is about – being culturally important.
WHAT MP3: Can you imagine working with the Gallagher boys again?
AM: They’re my friends but they’ve got their own thing and you’ve got to respect them for that.
WHAT MP3: Where do you think they are going to end up?
AM: In a place wherever they want to end up.
WHAT MP3: How would you compare working with Malcolm Mclaren and New Labour?
AM: Malcolm Mclaren is a genius and Peter Mandelsson is a would-be Malcolm Mclaren.
WHAT MP3: And what about London Live since it rose from the ashes of GLR?
AM: It’s actually not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Musically, I think it’s still okay to be honest. That was probably me getting over-excited over very little. It’s not as good as it was but I can still listen to it.
WHAT MP3: And what about the current music scene in the UK – do you think anyone is going to fill the shoes of those who were part of the Brit-pop phenomenon?
AM: Now it’s just instant gratification shite-pop music. I think people are getting fed up with that and they will want rock n’roll back soon. Long may that continue. And when I say rock n’roll – that could mean David Holmes or Primal Scream, but I don’t mean fxxxing Hooty and the Blowfish!

What MP3 1999