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

Wine And Punishment

The fetish world has shaken off its sleazy image and emerged from its heavily fortified closet into the public domain with club nights and fashion shows for the masses. Trussed up in rubber, Gareth Mason went to the ball looking to get hot under his dog collar....

Cross-dressed in rubber clergy-wear is no way to go through life. No way to go through Brixton High Street on a Saturday night either. And is every occupant of those grid-locked cars staring at me? Paranoid? Possibly. But perhaps that’s due to the dog-collar protruding from my overcoat and the car lights reflecting off my shiny spray-on strides. Tonight, the French maid to my right agreed, the best part of the journey was arriving.

The venue is Mass, in south London’s St Matthew’s Church, for The Torture Garden (TG) Rubber Ball. This is the climax of a series of Halloween events and the regulars here just don’t fit in with the crowd from The Dog and Parrot. Once safely inside, we joined a lengthy queue snaking to the cloakroom where we shed our cloaks of respectability and emerged like contestants from some Hell-based Stars in your Eyes.

We met several other couples. Each friendly, middle class and a little nervous – all first timers. Downstairs, the entertainment centred on a couple of dim-lit rooms where large screens flashed surreal images, flanked on either side by bars, which looked down over the dance floor. Here the manic threw themselves about with sensual abandon in a sea of latex and rubber like a horny version of a sinking Titanic. Drum & Bass was the musical backdrop and I was soon persuaded that requesting something from Donna Summer’s erotic back catalogue would fall on heavily-pierced deaf ears. Break beats and hard house were the other main musical themes while the dungeon room was set to a more fitting ritualistic, tribal and experimental vibe.

The entertainment included a fashion display from the House of Harlot, a fire-eating show from Lucifire and a lower gut wrenching display of penile dexterity from Paul and Rough-A-Yella displaying unusual ways of lifting weights while inserting nails into less than obvious places. After the show, the crowd cruised back and forth like sharks seeking prey, but there were few easy pickings.

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Frustrated by the lack of action, we found our way to the dungeon in the bowels of the building. Here, one man was being flagellated rather half-heartedly by a middle-aged woman in scarlet leathers. A non-committal crowd mused close by. The man in the opposite corner had far better prospects. Big-boned and sparse on top, he was being caressed by a bevy of women – blindfolded either to heighten the erotic impact or delude himself they were the nubile beauties of his dreams. Good work for a fat, bald man. But his pleasure seemed to embarrass the audience who felt more comfortable gazing with curiosity at the streaked buttocks of the man being whipped.

My companion, a follower of the old school who we’ll call Mistress X, told me lurid tales from equivalent events a dozen years ago. ‘It was more underground then. People did more than parade themselves – they were up for a bit of action. They weren’t so passive,’ said Mistress X, ‘I remember a man in a cage shuddering with pleasure when I threw my drink in his face. At my first event, I was followed by a man dressed head to foot in rubber who could have been my grandfather. The guy with me told me to tell the rubber man to buy me a drink which he did for the rest of the evening whenever I summoned him.’

There were few inhibitions on these nights. ‘People would bunch into these booths and get up to all sorts of things. And I remember these ‘pony’ girls and boys who’d walk around on all fours dragging a cart behind them – I think they had their own club in the country. Generally, there was a lot more active role-playing, slaves being dragged around by chains – that kind of thing.’ Her abiding memory was the stentorian command of a well-spoken middle-aged man who’d noticed his wife flinch as he caned her with undisguised glee. ‘Stick it out Susan! Stick it out!’ he bellowed. We can only presume Susan bent back over and thought of England.

Many in Brixton were there to observe, lurking the dimmed corridors, seeking something not found in Battersea wine bars. Among the heavily-tattooed, androgynous and pierced which make up the hard core are people that look like...well, my estate agent or those more suited to the local rugby club drink and belch ball. Guys with regular haircuts wearing token leather cross straps on their otherwise bare chests thrust their heavily worked out pecs in our faces. Like me, I suppose, with my almost publicly wearable rubber trousers which could pass as a poor man’s leather if you could cancel the sexual undertones with, say, a big woolly jumper from Tibet.

But clearly, I was there for professional reasons and these guys weren’t selling any houses. Mistress X spoke to a 30-something Berliner – an enthusiast keen to experience a British take on erotica. He was disappointed by the lack of role-play. She spoke with him pleasantly for several minutes before curtly telling him to go away. He left without a word, grateful that someone knew the rules of the game. I was befuddled by such behaviour. Mistress X was unaccountably cold and dismissive for most of the evening before I realised she was revelling in her dominatrix role. The next day, I found out a trio of women had asked how ‘her slave’ performed. ‘What slave was that?’ I asked with genuine innocence. I almost choked on my Frosties when she told me.

In the mind of every casual new visitor is one burning question – what really goes on? There is an expectation that your £15 ticket has bought you a licence for untold thrills or at least watch other people having them. Is this the place where fantasies become reality? The hungry look in some of the prowling men seemed to be asking that question, but dress codes, which vary from drag body mutation and cybersex oriental to fantasy fetish and new flesh, tend to keep the lone predators away. If many of the men wore a mask of frustrated ambition, if not latex, the women appeared more at ease.

I’d perused the small ads in that worthy tome Skin Two – London’s Free Fetish Newspaper. There were 38 ads for men seeking women and four from women looking for men. Of the women, two were looking for dinner partners while the other pair had, politically, travelled several light years from being manacled to the kitchen sink. ‘Dominant 32-year-old blonde enjoys chaining and masking her slave who she wants to be submissive, silk-clad and able to take pain and punishment while serving her well.’ While the ‘29-year-old rubber vixen’ next down the column was after a compliant, leather-clad male to pander to her every whim.’ The men were dominant only in numbers. Typical was the ‘attractive male seeking an intelligent, stiletto-wearing woman to worship and use him as a doormat’ or the ‘well-dressed 45-year-old into corporal punishment, restraint, chains, whips and being dominated.’ You get the picture. In economic terms, it’s a beaters market.

I spotted a few snarling dominatrixes winding regally through the rubbery masses but there were far more Indians than chiefs. But clearly the floor was not about to turn into a writhing copulating mass so I asked a TG spokesman if Torture Garden was moving into mainstream respectability. He explained its ethos: ‘To us it hasn’t changed much in the last four years. We don’t do house music or sex shows. We’re not looking to attract a trendy club crowd. We are more art and show-based. Other organisations cater more for the bored suburban couples – we’re more alternative. For instance, we made a conscious attempt to incorporate body art into our dress code.’

Talking of which, my rubber trousers are safely back in the wardrobe hanging like some giant reusable condom. And if the club circuit starts to feel a little staid and conventional, I’ll know there’s an alternative where you can leave your taboos at the cloakroom. Here people of all ages, sizes and types can wallow in a highly charged sexual atmosphere which brings sensuality and exhibitionism swaggering out of the closet. What goes on afterwards is in your own hands or the small ads of mags like Skin Two. Publicly, British prurience may keep us behind our continental cousins in the sex stakes but in the dim-lit corridors of such clubs we’re staying in touch with every stiletto-shod step.

Women’s Health 1999

Stuck In The Twilight Zone

Nobody sings ‘Oh what a beautiful morning’ when they’ve spent the last four hours watching dawn approach. Gareth Mason certainly doesn’t...

Staring at your bedroom ceiling at 4am while the world around you snores contentedly can be one of life’s most frustrating routines. An instinct for some can be painfully elusive to others. One in three adults suffers with sleeping problems at some stage while most peoples’ daytime lives require an energy and alertness not well served by counting battalions of leaping ewes.

We’re not all so fortunate to have compliant minds. For me, the sprightly lambs soon metamorphose into mythical cross-breeds, with the heads of ex-girlfriends and a tendency for barrack room banter. Interesting but hardly restful. No two people share the same sleep pattern and needs. Some claim to need 10 hours of uninterrupted slumber to get them through the day while others survive on a handful. Margaret Thatcher was famous for only needing a few hours before setting off for her day job. Look what she did. OK, bad example.

But our needs differ. We don’t know much about how the body falls sleep and what it does within. We do know sleep consists of two distinct phases. One is rapid eye movement (REM), where the eyes move under closed lids, the heart rate quickens and body processes speed up. These are the dream-zones which last around 20 minutes and occur up to four or five times a night. These alternate with periods of longer non-REM sleep – usually four stages – the last two being the deepest. Insomnia involves problems falling sleep, frequent waking with difficulty returning to sleep, waking too early or feeling unrefreshed afterwards.

And it’s not how long you sleep but the quality that counts. Tiredness, apathy, irritability and poor concentration are chief culprits among insomnia’s symptoms. Extreme cases result in damage to the immune system which can lead to more serious problems. Some are more prone than others. Older people usually sleep more lightly and fitfully, often missing the stage 4 of non-REM sleep altogether. Women, particularly in late pregnancy, are also more prone as are those suffering from depression. Physical problems such as arthritis or a weak bladder are common causes as are mental stresses such as those with chronic asthma who believe they will struggle to breathe when asleep.

Many of these circumstances are unavoidable and treatment is either difficult or specific to individual needs. But many others can ease or overcome the symptoms. Common aggravating factors can combine to cause sleeplessness and with a little planning and effort are within your control. Chronic suffering may have a serious and highly individual root, often several. Your GP can help pinpoint the problem with the aid of a sleep and pre-sleep diary, but often the solutions can be found yourself. Often, the doctor merely reassures the patient that the symptoms can be relieved. A more serious physical or mental problem is sometimes responsible. Physical symptoms could include heart failure, asthma, kidney disease, Parkinson’s disease and hyperthyroidism.

It’s better to get checked than paranoid. Anxiety is a more common cause. The trails of everyday life are not easy to wish away, but if you can identify them you are half-way to overcoming them. A sensible change in routine can help greatly. One final warning. While sleeping pills may help sufferers sleep in the short-term they are not usually best for longer treatment. Apart from possible side-effects, reliance can, paradoxically, encourage sleeplessness. Sleep patterns can become inverted with drowsy mornings followed by sleepy days and wakeful nights. Fine for vampires, inconvenient for ordinary mortals.

Women’s’ Health 1999

Cruising The Pennine Way

Working the Rochdale Canal one summer some 15 years ago offered Gareth Mason a glimpse into another age…

Hebden Bridge, a picturesque small town in West Yorkshire nestling up to the Pennines, gave me my first taste of canal life. Recently returned from overseas, I moved to the dales for a while where several friends of mine had happily settled away from the London smoke. Studying part-time, working the barges wasn’t really on my radar, but I was open to interesting offers.

My last experience handling a boat had been inauspicious. Our family motor-cruiser snagged a fishing net in a squall in Holland’s Zuyder Zee and we spent an hour signalling for help to the passing traffic as the sea battered us from side to side. All waved back cheerily till some more logical seafarer realised we weren’t just eccentrics happy to be caught in the eye of storm. After that, my family’s sailing life ground to a halt.

Into the valley

Fifteen years later, Calder Valley Cruising promised me a more peaceful return to the water. CVC ran trips for tourists along a stretch of the Rochdale Canal between its eastern end at Sowerby Bridge to Todmorden roughly 10 miles away, just over the Lancashire border.

The trips varied according to which of the company’s three boats were booked from the horse-drawn narrow boat, Sarah Siddons, to the 12-berth motorised Gracie and the diminutive tug-boat Oliver. Gracie was named after Gracie Fields, one of the region’s most famed daughters – the singer and entertainer whose working life began in a Rochdale cotton mill.

Oliver chugged between the locks bracketing the Marina in the heart of the town offering a brief tour between them. The larger boats travelled through the locks. Our ‘captain’ gave a commentary pointing out which local buildings had been connected with the industry – those that had once crammed in scores of workers and now housed a comfortable nuclear family. We also explained how the locks worked, the words ‘It’s like a giant bathtub…’ remain with me. I witnessed a similar tour in Panama last year though the scale of the Central American version allowed for oil tankers to be squeezed into the available space.

Oliver’s 20-minute journey passed by one of the old cotton mills, its canal-side steps reaching down to the water where goods were once loaded directly onto the barges. Rusting barbeques and childrens’ toys now fill these spaces.

Hebden Bridge’s reputation as a clothing manufacturer was encapsulated by its nickname, Trouser Town, as its water-powered weaving mills harnessed the one natural resource never likely to dry up. In the town and half-hidden in the dense woods surrounding it lie the ruins of old mills – their crumbling smokeless chimneys poking through the treelines of the surrounding valleys. Along with cotton and wool, coal, limestone, timber and salt also moved sedately through the valley before rising up and over the Pennines. In 1890, 50 barges used the Rochdale Canal daily carrying an estimated 700,000 tonnes of goods.

After thriving in the industrial revolution, Hebden Bridge fell into a long and gradual decline. But it was the canal, and later the railway, that created the town we still see. The canal carved into the boggy valley floor tamed the River Hebden though it still floods the surrounding fields as a grumpy reminder of what it could once do. But 300 years ago, the population were stranded high, if not entirely dry, on the steep hills sides of the valley through which the original pack horse route wend its way between Halifax and Burnley.

The bridge, after which the town was named, was part of this first incursion into inhospitable territory. The distinctive top and bottom houses that characterise the town were due to this limited living space with two households occupying one five-storey house, the top two floors usually facing uphill, the bottom three facing down to the valley. Looking down on all of this is the striking 400-year-old hill top village of Heptonstall, an ever-popular haunt for visitors. Aside from the vehicles passing through the town centre, the pace of life hasn’t noticeably increased for the 5,000 or so population with neither the weekend walkers nor the canal traffic exceeding the 4-mile an hour speed limit.

My Victorian past

The town’s regeneration from the 1970s has brought well-to-do commuters from Leeds and Manchester, along with a tradition for attracting a bohemian and motely crowd as likely to hail from the antipodes as the Calder Valley. My Home Counties accent identified me as part of that influx as I gave my pre-trip talk to the assembled boat passengers. If that didn’t spoil the illusion that I wasn’t really a Victorian bargeman with my ‘authentic’ waistcoat, neckscarf, and the lock key hanging from my belt, then the adidas trainers that stood in for the clogs that I usually forgot, probably did.

My default position as ‘tugman’ piloting Oliver was possibly earned by my lack of polished technique elsewhere. As the ropeman on Sarah Siddons, I consistently blotted my copybook. It seemed simple enough to flick a rope around a bollard to ease the boat to a smooth stop within the lock gates. But I had an unfortunate talent for snagging the rope on some hidden protusion of the boat. That extra few metres of rope caused the boat to slide remorsely towards the gates as if in a slow-motion scene in a horror film. It was no way to stop 50 pensioners enjoying an afternoon tea cruise. Spilled tea and scones were the least of it – one painful memory involved an octoganerian granny being catapulted through the boat’s lavatory doors with her knickers around her ankles.

Legging through the tunnel was a better bet. I could be trusted to slowly stroll upside down through the 100m stretch before hurling the rope back towards the owner of the horse without mishap. During my brief boating career, we used a giant shaggy-hoofed 17-hand Shire horse called William to tow Sarah Siddons. It could hardly be described as skittish and was bigger than ideal. One day it clopped lugubriously through the tunnel and rather than following the curve of the path continued unstoppably forward into the canal. After crashing heavily into the water, it plodded rythmically on towards the marina and into its horsebox without once breaking its metronomic stride. A model professional.  

Occasionally, I’d have an unexpected day off due to the effective absence of a canal, which for one day only morphed into a long damp damp channel after someone misunderstood the logic of keeping one gate closed when moving through the locks.  

Renaissance

The standard cruise stopped at Walkleys Clog factory, which has now moved to new premises nearby. It still provides the footware of boatmen for miles around let alone hundreds of businesses around Europe including many that have never trod a boat deck in anger. It even sells to the Dutch.

Craftsmen and women still pack the honeycombed units of the old factory selling clothes that protect their wearers from the harsh Yorkshire winter, along with hand-worked goods made from leather and glass, to jewellery and knick-knacks that are pure 21st century.

Beyond the old clog factory, the longer tours continued to Mytholmroyd and usually took place at night under the theme of dinner or world beer cruises. Private parties took place too – hen nights proving a nerve-wracking study of the Yorkshire woman at play for us callow boatmen. The forlon hired guitarrist bore the brunt of their inebriated enthusiasm. With both hands full he had little chance to defend himself as the guests swarmed around him drowning first his music and later his cries for assistance. To our shame, we turned blind eyes and deaf ears and went about our business guiltily aware that but for the grace of god…

On calmer days, the signs of life returning to the waterways were all about us, whether it was the scowling fisherman whose tranquil waters we stirred, the bad-tempered geese that guarded a section of the towpath or the growing number of narrow boats that moved their homes about the canal as their whims dictated.

Two of my friends even made the journey south to West London carrying a cargo of pumpkins for Halloween. Too bad the stock had gone rotten before they got there – it offered them a tranquil view of the English countryside unseen on the tarmac bustle of the motorway.

Several of my colleagues lived on their own boats and from time to time we travelled upstream to parties gathering revellers as we went while trying to slip past the lock-keeper as quietly as we could lest we received a lecture for breaking a myriad of canal bylaws. We arrived in style from the waterfront if some time behind the guests who came by car, bus, train, or foot.

We even developed our own boatman’s dance – a kind of twisted take on a Morris dancing. Sticks and hankerchiefs were replaced by windlasses, and white smocks gave way to leather clogs and woollen waistcoats, with our movements dictated by shakey sea legs and doses of rum. The dance, like my brief career on the canals has not been repeated in the intervening years, but I look back fondly on a summer that let me glimpse a world I thought was gone.  

One Track Mind

Gareth Mason found his cross-country habit hard to kick. But running isn’t just for schoolboys – it’s one of the best, and most accessible of sports for women too. Pull on your trainers and join him…

I became a runner through my magnificent failures elsewhere. My school liked rugby best while football was sniffily accepted as an alternative for the less fortunate. But psychotic gym teachers and mindless drills soon took their toll – let alone the kid with the crazy look in his eye every time he got the ball. My quest for schoolboy glory required fresher fields.

The leftovers, misfits and smokers were left to contest for the dubious honour of a place in the cross-country squad. The three-mile trial was an eye-opener. If my hobbies had involved more mental and physical abuse and less Subbuteo, it might have been less painful. But when staggering aimlessly from the finish line, I was informed I’d made the team.

My diminutive 12-year-old frame, and lack of ball skills, had not endeared me to the gatekeepers of the major teams. But I was surprised with the ease my hitherto rejected physique had pulled ahead of the sweaty pack. The mediocrity of our fledgling team became the key to my success. A modicum of training was enough to hurtle me up the rankings. I even managed to twist my lack of a sense of direction to my advantage. Straying from my familiar training grounds I consistently ran double the distance I’d planned. Beaches, fields, woodlands, country roads and rustic bogs were all witness to my misdirected footfalls.

After four years, I’d got lost so frequently that I ran myself blindly into the county team. Going faster required running further or harder than you did last week. Not the gentle, lolloping trot of the jogger, but rather the joys of hill training, 400m sprint intervals and the quaintly named fartlek (Swedish for fast-slow). The racing experience was an odd one. It lacked the excitement of my minor triumphs in the lower leagues of other sports. Tripping over the try line or slicing the ball into a completely different part of the net than I’d aimed at were the occasional highs to light up the otherwise low-skill tedium. Running gave you something altogether more consistent and reliable. It gave you pain.

We found many cunning and ingenious forms of experimenting with our chosen poison. An annual charity run required four foolish people to be tethered by the waist using a small stretch of rope. Somebody, whether the well-connected organisers or some meteorological deity, even provided several hours of torrential rainfall every year I competed. Being only the third fastest of the quartet it was a time of great suffering. It was a very hilly park and it went on for 24 miles. The quiet moans of the slowest still remain with me. I returned the following year. But I had grown wiser. I chose three slower companions.

Once I climbed weakly out of bed midway through a particularly virulent dose of flu to run a half-marathon. Exhausted after 400m, I scared hundreds with my haggard, crazed gurning as the metres and miles ticked away with agonising tedium. While this time I had thousands to witness my struggle, it was a rarity for interest to filter down to the finish post. Most of my greatest triumphs were accompanied by silence – and it wasn’t an awed one.

I gave up competitive running when I left school mainly because my name stopped appearing on a team sheet every Saturday morning. And I’d never got to watch Tiswas before. It may also have been due to a phenomenon I’d noticed over the past year – people kept beating me. I celebrated by going to college and taking up smoking and drinking heavily. After two years of this unhealthy living, I’d contrived to lose a stone off my already spare frame and the useful ability to run up and down the same hill for hours on end. Chastened by this decline, I shocked my body with several near-death running experiences and regained the habit of putting one foot in front of the other with vague fluency. Now dabbling with a healthy diet, I achieved the unlikely by putting some weight back on. Despite the odd hiatus, for the last five years I’ve been jogging three or four miles a few times a week. While this may be a healthy riposte to my less salubrious weekends, it’s still a working compromise.

My physical prime is likely to remain in my increasingly distant adolescence but I regularly feel the benefits over many of my more sedentary peers. Whether it’s staving off illness, requiring less sleep or surviving three floors of stairs, a little exercise really does go a long way. From the desk-bound to the flabby-thighed to those not won over by the bright lights and artificial atmosphere of the gym – all can benefit. Age is no barrier. Witness the pigeon-stepping progress of the octogenarians in the London marathon. Over half the population of our industrialised nations have sedentary lifestyles. Many would be surprised how much latent energy is pent up in those slouched office-bound bodies.

Such passive existence deludes the body into feeling tired. Exercising regularly doesn’t exhaust but invigorates. Improving your fitness by running requires a balance of restraint and persistence. Many feel that submitting your body to a Dantean hell round the park will purge your damned body of all the ills of a decadent life. Such running careers are usually brief. A little and often is the key. As your fitness improves you’ll start to get experience the strangest addiction of all. You’ll feel physically frustrated if you don’t exercise. The only real effort is slipping on a pair of running shoes. Do this a few times a week and you’ll be surprised at how far you can go.

The jogger can always be a hero in their own park. It doesn’t matter what strip of grass or road you choose to lay your trainered feet. In your dreams, you can still be entering the Olympic stadium in front of 80,000 screaming fans and in the fading light, the fat guy just ahead almost looks like Steve Ovett.

Women's Health 1998

No Pain, Stay Sane

Not everyone likes hanging out in gyms. Don’t despair says Gareth Mason, there are better (and cheaper) ways to get fit...

One of the features of Western society is its creation of successful institutions that serve little useful purpose. McDonalds, the stock exchange, public relations, young Tories, reality TV and toilet attendants, all fit this bill. In recent years, the gymnasium too has carved a lucrative niche in modern life. But is it worth building up your arms and legs if membership costs you one of them?

For many of us owning a gymnasium would be a better investment than joining one so rarely would we visit it. If our exercise bikes had meters fitted, measuring pence per revolution, we would soon break our moorings and ride straight out the door.

The secret to the gym’s brainwashing is the appropriation of perfectly natural, healthy activities such as running, walking and cycling minus the quaint old-fashioned part in which you arrive somewhere at the end of your journey. Just look at the regulars. The men range from braying, jelly-brained jocks bench-pressing PBs to the guy that hangs around the shallow end flexing his pecs for an age before swimming one length of front crawl really, really fast.

And you’re missing little in the changing rooms. Men with superfluous muscles glance contemptuously at less sculpted peers while preening themselves in the mirror lovingly. Just one sign that a healthy body does not necessarily lead to a healthy mind. The women may be subtler in manner, but if you look carefully, you can catch the obsessive glint in her eye as she gags at the sight of someone else’s cellulite. Much of all this exercise is directed towards complementing stomachs with boob-tubes, and bums with barstools, rather than making oneself feel any better. So, what’s the thinking person’s alternative to a healthier life?

A sporting chance

Why shouldn’t you enjoy getting fit? You can, of course, with a little imagination. Sport tops the list. Few people spend their leisure time playing badminton, football or hockey because they feel obliged. It makes them happy and a by-product, a mere symptom of this, is that they get fit too. Genius!

As a child, cross-country running made me fit, but it lacked the thrills and spills of the sports I really liked which usually involved hitting a ball with myriad forms of wood. As adults, we can make that choice and banish the memories of all that pain in the rain under the gimlet eye of a sadistic sports teacher. You could be taking up martial arts to just say no to muggers, touching your toes through yoga, or combining your divided love of self-defence and dancing with Capoeira.

Running may seem a drastic Route 1 to fitness but before you dismiss it cast out the images of joggers staggering red-faced through the park. A little and often is the key – swimming is even better without the stress on the joints. Ironically, exercise, like drink and drugs, can be addictive, and it’s not recommended to overdose on your first week. Entering a 10km run on January 1st may not kill you, but it may create the kind of phobia for running that you would get for whiskey, if downing a half-bottle was your first drinking experience.

Building up exercise slowly increases fitness relatively painlessly if your body isn’t pushed too far too soon. Setting small achievable goals makes it all seem worthwhile as you can see regular progress. Even Paula Radcliffe gets through her gruelling mileage by working on one small aspect of her running such as stride length, or varying the speed or distance she runs. You could try running for a certain time rather than over a certain distance. And you don’t even have to go the extra mile. Walking a few hundred metres to the next bus-stop would do for starters. And in your lunch hour, the scenery and people-watching in the park make a more colourful backdrop to the calorie crunching than the space above your boss’s head. If you’re too shy of exercise to look it straight in the eye, fine, there’s always fitness by stealth. Little changes to your routine can, by degrees, transform your physical life without feeling you’ve sold out to the sanctimonious health freaks.

And it’s much easier to kid your inner slob into an active life if mix up your new sporty habits. Try listing and losing all those 21st century labour-saving devices that have gained you time to nurture your belly in front of the telly. Why not take the stairs instead of the lift to your office? A couple of weeks on and the idea of preserving your legs before you sit down for nine hours will seem absurd.

Health through hedonism

Finally, for those rejecting all forms of organised physical activity we’re left with the ‘accidental’ kind like walking home from the pub instead of getting a cab or going to the shops instead of perusing a catalogue or surfing the internet from your armchair.

Dancing is the ideal form of accidental exercise, like sport, but with less rules. If you still want some structure to your efforts, you can always learn to Salsa, Jive or Tango first and free-form it later. Alternatively, just head for somewhere that plays the music you like and go with it. You’re getting fit with a smile on your face, not a rictus of pain! And finally, don’t worry how you shape up on the dance-floor next to the gym-addicts. They will be home with their mirrors by midnight...

Women’s Health magazine 2004

Mine Is Yours

When east meets west, just occasionally, the twain do meet…

A slap-up meal at Little Chef followed by a great night’s kip at a Travel Inn might be your idea of relaxation. If so, you’re a very lucky person. Financially speaking, that is. But if you’re not blighted by dodgy taste or the inconvenience of an average income, you may want to upgrade to a MYHotel. While the name may lack a certain exclusive grandeur – step inside and you’ll soon realise that this isn’t a brand for the masses.

Thus far, there’s only one MyHotel. So where better put it than on the bones of an old hotel (with a little design input from Conran and Partners) in Bayley Street, Bloomsbury, shadowed by the nearby Telecom Tower, within a stone’s throw of the fleshpots of Soho. Comfort and shelter may be the basic roles of a hotel, but here a virtue is made from necessity. Guests are encouraged to set the tone. Your visit, from cosy cradle to quiet grave, is in your own hands. Tipping is discouraged and all your requests are theoretically dealt with by one person. I thoughtfully resisted testing the theory at 5am.

Unsurprisingly, MYHotel’s New Age luxury perfectly matches the needs of the modern rock star. Here, an unmasked Eminem has stood out only as a model guest while the abbreviated J Lo has used her time in the Jinja room brainstorming for a suitable song for the Queen’s annual knees-up. There are 78 rooms – from the standard £150 single to the £1,000 combined studio apartment, or the top floor as it might otherwise be called.

A bar and cafe is open 24/7 for guests, and open to outsiders for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A selection of sushi starters followed by a beefsteak for lunch confirmed the kitchen as capable of knocking out first-rate dishes well beyond the sandwiches also available. Later, as a bar, it was pleasantly low key and relaxing, the staff friendly and sensitive when wanted, otherwise leaving you in peace. Yo!Sushi, the highly-rated offshoot from the original in nearby Poland Street, is a healthy ground-floor diversion boasting 150 dishes.

There are also private rooms for parties, launches and whatever else might constitute your business life. For those that think laptop, when others think fun, there’s computer and internet access in the always-open library. And if you ‘work out’ for laughs, you can hang out in the gym on one of the fancy rowing machines, treadmills or bikes – ideal indeed for agoraphobic celebs who only like the ‘idea’ of bikes or boats.

One thing you won’t get in nearby Hyde or Regent Park, is a Manuka honey wrap. Come to think of it, the odds would be long on getting a salt scrub, or even the disquieting threat of a Jinja signature. But these are pleasures, not privations, of the flesh. Jinja is the name given to a wide range of treatments running from express facials and eyebrow tints to deluxe pedicures and half-leg waxings (that’s what it says). Prices range between £12- £150.

Aside from the Bloomsbury MYHotel, which opened in March ‘99, two other branches are getting the ‘MY’ treatment in the capital with a third planned for Glasgow. Just don’t expect them to be vying for the 2010 midrange hotel chain of the year. Philosophy is one idea which crops up throughout the company literature, as is Feng Shui, both integral to its pervasive east-west theme.

The man who puts the My in this Hotel is Greek owner Andrew Thrasyvoulou, who recruited ‘world expert’ in Feng Shui, William Spear, to help charm the chi. The east, MYHotel literature tells us, is strong on ‘observant, graceful and respectful service standards’ which combine here with our local western strengths in ‘style, culture and technological drive.’ The hotel also claims to have a ‘heart’. In the old Cointreau ad, the ice of an Englishwomen melted when confronted by the calorific charms of a smooth Frenchman. Would this east-west double melt mine? Only a night within its soft-edged walls would tell.

At reception, my preferences, if not my reputation, had preceded me. These included my choice of music on CD as well as a favoured scent. In my room, a pleasant enough odour came from somewhere beyond my stuffed-up nose’s capabilities and a jazz CD sat obediently alongside the player. It seemed an adequate response to my aural and olfactory needs. My uncultured, if underperforming, snout was in fact picking up the air freshener sprayed earlier to add fragrance to my presence. It seemed I’d wrongly filled out a form for guests staying in the penthouse, which having visited briefly, I knew was a preference belittling all others.

Perched within the cityscape, you can work on a PC, watch a DVD, or lounge in a couple-sized bath, possibly all at once. You could invite Madonna around for a barbecue on the terrace. She might come. Still, further down to earth in my £330ish suite, I had few complaints. If the room sizes might marginally disappoint an oversized American, they might still provoke a Japanese visitor into an impromptu jig. A bed with pillows the size of pack horses, and a shower whose water power was only matched by the brainpower needed to use it were physical highlights.

Others might cite the safe, multichannel TV or trouser-press, or extol the calming virtues of its simple understated decor. Amid the chi-friendly, cream-coloured spaces, simple wooden furniture was offset by things chosen purely for their aesthetic role. In my room, I had not only an attractive earthenware jug, but a picture of one to boot. Otherwise, its calm low-lit corridors were only threatened by the unexpected burst of a fire alarm which had me scurrying guiltily to the window before realising that my karma was uncompromised by the cigarette in my hand. It was a smoking room, which was lucky as I couldn’t open the sash window more than two inches anyway.

Planning to rise at a respectable hour to consciously appreciate my surroundings a little longer, I was somewhat surprised to see the clock hands clustered around midday. A quick phone call and a calm, unphased voice assured me I would not be denied my coffee and power shower. You’ll have a job getting the telly out of the window but you might find out what Sting and his rockstar buddies dreams about.

Fashionline magazine 2002

Market Leader

South American street food, reasonable prices and willing smiles – Gareth Mason is still looking for the catch...

When Richard Bigg went backpacking around South America, he liked the food so much he brought it home with him. Figuratively, of course, a fact embodied in Market Place, a West End bar specialising in Latin American street food.  

Open since the new year, Market Place is the third venture for Bigg and co-owner Nigel Foster who also run the musically-infused Shoreditch-based bar restaurants Cantaloupe and Cargo. It’s found just off Oxford Street on two floors of an Edwardian building constructed with large expanses of glass and wood.

Though busy on our midweek visit, there was room to breathe, if not sit down. This is one element of street food transported too literally but after brief bar-leaning duty, a table duly emerged. The smaller upstairs bar is ideal for dropping-in – more committed visitors find their way through big, swinging wooden doors to the basement.

Here a scattering of small tables leads to a couple of low-arched alcoves at the far end with the bar running between that and the DJ’s decks. As upstairs, the decor’s best remembered for its floorboards, slatted wood walls and banquette benches. Low-lit bulbs and wall-mounted candles fit the below stairs feel. 

The crowd was fairly 18-30 but looking more for fun than their reflections. Customers came in groups of all shapes and sizes, a point extravagantly made by the brief appearance of three exceptionally small men in suits and a man at the bar so large he appeared, literally, to be propping it up.

Our evening’s soundtrack unfolded from an opening rumble of reggae through to jazz, soul, world and ambient. Music is an integral part of any Cantaloupe production and Market Place looks like a friendly pre-club venue. With slightly longer hours here, you could do worse than skip the club altogether.

With friends, Maria and Emma, we ordered from a menu numbering 26 dishes from 10 countries averaging around £4 each. The Latin theme extends beyond South America to Portugal, Spain, Cuba and Mexico. An appetite guide even translates hunger into dishes: ‘lightly peckish’ recommends one to two dishes while ‘plain greedy’ would demand five to eight.

We had fried crisp-like slices of plaintain from Brazil, chargrilled swordfish with a mango and avocado salsa and mixed salad from Cuba, chicken peri-peri from Portugal, and baked stuffed quesadillas (tortillas) from Mexico. Pumpkin soup, pork meatballs, steamed mussels and chargrilled sardines went, I regret, untested.

By its nature, food like this shouldn’t be long in the making though most stall-holders in Latin America don’t have the distraction of 200 thirsty Londoners demanding fine wines and strong beer. So we were impressed to be served in under ten minutes.

Some might miss the dribbles of excess fat down their chins, or that surplus handful of fine-sliced cabbage festooning your shirt, but here you get a sanitised version of what you might find on the streets of Lima and Medellin without the worry of whether your lily-livered western stomach could deal with it.

All things of the flesh were crisp and succulent while the dips were piquant and complementary without dominating the dish’s flavour. The mango and avocado salsa with the swordfish was a fine example.

Emma, our designated vegetarian, was happily upbeat about the coriander and cream which she spied with her quesadilla let alone the inclusion of melon, peanuts and olives in a fresh and colourful mixed salad. Fans of green salad – stay in your pastures. 

We moved into the ‘bar’ phase of the review with none of the usual ‘last orders’ frenzy of our lager in a cold climate culture. Open from 11–1am from Monday to Saturday and noon to 10.30pm on Sundays, there’s a latin appreciation of quantity, as well as quality, drinking time.
Market Place has 20-odd wines on offer from a £10 Cuvee du Baron in red and white to a £24 Pino Nero. Most are available by the glass (from £2.60) like the ‘big, fat and aromatic’ Viognier Les Jamelles or a ‘youthful and abundant Spaniard’ in the form of Vina Rey Tempranillo.

A lonely trio of draft beers contrasts a Budvar, Guinness and Weissbier while the geographical boundaries are extended yet further with Tiger and Cruzcampo bottled beers with a chilled Sake found propping up the menu.

Good measures in the cocktails (50ml for £5.50) covered half a dozen varieties, from that dangerous Brazilian seducer Caipirinha, to Raspberry Daiquiri. Only Rude Cosmo made the barest effort to sound like a sexual act.

But there was something about the evening which suggested a rum line of attack and with a barman eager for me to experiment it was hard to turn back. Maria, a veteran of South America, became misty-eyed at the mere sight of the Cuba Libre put before her.

Which brings us to service. Asking for a rum here may be as vague a question as ordering a Scotch in the highlands. But rather than provoking contempt my ignorance merely set off the cheery barman’s enthusiasm to spread the spiritual word.

And he wasn’t a rogue smiler. All evening, tell-tale flashing teeth could be glimpsed across the faces of fast-moving staff as they made sense of the surrounding chaos. And it wasn’t the psychotically polite mien of a New York waiter, it seemed quite genuine. I only just resisted a Sally Field: ‘You really like me,’ moment.

Recently, I failed to get a pub lunch in central London because I couldn’t get an answer on how long it would take to make. ‘How long is a piece of string?’ was the closest I got to useful response. He was so pleased with his philosophical wit that he repeated it with empty-headed smugness each time I patiently rephrased my question. Justice will perhaps be done in people voting with their shoes.

This should make the path to market Place a well trod one. We can only hope it continues to dare to be different.

Fashionline 2002

For Whom The Bell Tolls

Encased in a metal cage and winched slowly down into the bowels of Belgo Centraal, you could be entering a scene from Bladerunner.

The lift plants you opposite the open, steaming kitchen off which are two large rooms. On the right is a beerhall that serves snacks with the main dining room to the left. Here, stone floors and exposed brick ceilings enclose diners otherwise divided by glass, wood and steel much like an open-plan office dedicated to the good life.

The ambience is noisy and boisterous and the staff laid-back, friendly, and occasionally dressed in monk’s habits. We began with asparagus, served warm with a hollandaise sauce (£6.95) along with toasted goat’s cheese on croutons with a Roquette salad (£5.95). The asparagus was suitably delicate and the salad and its dressing more compulsively edible than green things should be. The goat’s cheese had such a rich full flavour I almost lied to Maria, my dining partner, that it was finished.

Otherwise, most starters had a seafood slant from fishcakes to Gravadlax and Lobster bisque. This being the season for lobster, we followed with a whole grilled one served with garlic butter (£15.95) for our main course along with Saucisses de sanglier et chimay (£8.95). While the lobster was good, it did little to dispel the notion that it contributes as much to good taste as a Rolls Royce ie very little, unless you ask the people that buy them. No such cynicism applies to the bangers and mash. The sausages were deliciously rich and earthy – the accompanying berry jus offered an ideal complementary tang along with the firm, whipped mash.

Mussels are prominent on the menu in platter or pots along with spit-roasted chicken variations and dishes from tuna and snapper to steak and beef. A theme runs for strong, bright flavours and the smallest excuse to cook the ingredients in beer. Talking of which, our feeble attempt to make inroads into an 80-strong beer menu began with a Delirium Tremens golden beer before touring about varieties from pale and double dark to Belgian and Trappist. While these might not render you speechless, combining them with more than a score of wines split evenly across a £10-22 band might, particularly if you helped them down with a fruity schnapps stick. This didn’t stop us delving into a Kriek sorbet – a cherry beer sorbet that answered the dubious question it asked.

We could have dabbled into Tarte au Chocolat, Brussel’s-style waffles or homemade ice-creams for between £3-4. The toilets were more Ally Macbeal than Bladerunner. While I resent paying to make nature’s call I was, at least, entertained by my treatment. This involved a man shutting me in a metallic enclosure, activating a circular fountain-style container and wafting over several airborne paper towels to me with the flourish of an artiste. All in all, Belgos makes for a memorable Belgian creation – now that is something.

E2 magazine 2001

Entering The Spirit

The first rapper may have been a New Yorker, but he wasn’t from Harlem, and he couldn’t sing. Our own witchfinder general, Gareth Mason, investigates…

‘I sense there’s a lot of red tape in your life which needs to be sorted out.’
I hadn’t expected her to be that accurate. After all, I’d spent the last ten minutes aiming my mini tape-recorder in her direction while trying to cover up the red record light. But let’s start at the beginning...

The psychic fair season not yet underway, I was deflected from my quest of exploring the weirder worlds inhabited by some of society’s more ‘inquiring minds’. Spiritualism caught my interest with the idea of communicating with the spirit world, enlightened Christian thinking and embracing of other religions. Spiritualism also preaches personal responsibility, divine judgment and immortality of the soul. It rejects Jesus as the son of god, but reveres him as a healer.

Christianity, meanwhile, warns of demons answering the medium’s call and sees its methods as heresy. If historically, the Christian churches can be blamed for profiteering from its customers, little evidence exists that the 400 churches of the Spiritualists’ National Union (SNU) are accumulating vast stores of wealth from its 20,000 UK members. Nonetheless, charlatans of the clairvoyancy world have inevitably fuelled scepticism that have made the bereaved ripe targets for abuse.  

When my copy of Psychic News popped onto my doorstep, I thought the surrealism which peppered its pages could sit happily alongside the editorial of any rural English local paper. Fundraisers for church roofs and local hospices were spliced with historical pieces and nostalgic readers’ letters. The parish-pump tone doesn’t change on closer inspection – just the nuances of the treatment. No death notices – people instead pass to the spirit realm while letters don’t bemoan cell-phone thefts – they complain that the frequencies are jamming our contact with the other side. The adverts give most away. Psychic artists offer to paint your spirit guide, regression therapy rewinds beyond the cradle to previous lives, and telephone readings can be paid for by Amex.

The movement began in 1848 at the cottage of the Fox family in the hamlet of Hydesville, New York State following a strange persistent rapping was heard. The wiliest Fox proved to be 12-year-old Kate, who forged a literal rapport with the spirit, after challenging it to rap in time to her clicking fingers. The phenomenon impressed sufficiently to attract a crowd of several hundred neighbours presumably not all there for cups of sugar. Using an alphabet system, the spirit claimed to be a pedlar murdered for his money five years earlier. It guided them to human remains buried in the cellar. A complete skeleton was later found in the walls. A religion was born.

My first visit was to a spiritualist church in north London – one of a score or so in the capital. I figured its weekly healing service was most likely to deliver some spiritual fireworks. The pews faced a flower-strewn altar and among the pamphlets sat a serenely smiling receptionist. No bibles and no pulpit for a right, most or even vaguely reverent-type of minister. As I was not consciously ill, the receptionist suggested a general physical check-up – a kind of corporeal 10,000-mile service. I was put on a waiting list to see one of three healers plying their trade on couches at the rear end of a hall notable only for its protestant simplicity.

Ten minutes later, I was lying back to the gentle sounds of Enya-esque music accompanied by light touch to my head, hip or foot. The gentle, silent demeanour of my healer contrasted with the cheerful, gossiping manner of his Irish female counterpart a few feet away. After half an hour, I was blessed and approved without any worrying damage to report. I felt indulged, but my world didn’t move nor were walls to others broached.

My next stop was the plush quarters of an organisation operating outside the SNU. It was suggested by a medium, but more for the questions it raised than answered. She laughed when she told me about it – clearly feeling it exemplified the less reputable end of the market. Around ten of us handed over £4 and settled in a room more closely resembling a business seminar than a church.

The medium bore a passing resemblance to the one featured in the movie Poltergeist. She wasted no time launching into a stream of messages from the other side. The flow filled the allotted hour before sweeping to a graceful, perfectly-paced finale. Each of us was called upon, which was fortunate, as spirits are only meant to speak when it suits them. The crowd, a mix of men and women, young and old, seemed convinced that the quick-fire names, situations and questions we were bombarded with were words from loved ones.

Many references were vague, others more pertinent. Many could have been applied to myself. The eyes of one girl widened in disbelief when told that her beloved Alsatian was sitting next to her. Her invisible dead Alsatian. I couldn’t help feeling that in England this immortal-pet angle could gain the movement a new generation of followers. A trio sat in front of me exchanged knowing, impressed glances as they sheepishly admitted: ‘Yes, I AM stubborn... I HAVE been worried... I AM going on a journey.’ The over-riding theme was that everything was going to get better and soon. I was told that ‘happiness would soon come back into my life’. It was passed by ‘a young man, a cheeky chappy with a word for everyone, late 20s, early 30s... does the name Vincent mean anything?’

Apart from winter, there’s been little wrong in my recent life. And I know no Vincents, dead or alive. Another guy, asked if he knew a George, had a different problem: ’Yes, I know several.’
But I do remember my Grandad. For it was he, she alleged, developing the reference to my red tape that was saying my paperwork problems would soon be over. With a fistful of unpaid invoices, I had indeed been banking on this. ‘He’s standing behind you,’ she added, ‘a little taller than yourself.’ I was more convinced when she looked towards me once more and asked if I was learning a foreign language. I remembered with genuine surprise the oft-carried Spanish phrasebook I’d been thumbing through on the tube. ‘Yes, I AM learning Spanish!’ But the voice was not mine. It was the turn of the girl sitting next to me.

They used to kill those accused of speaking with the dead. But since the repeal of the 1951 Witchcraft Act, working conditions for those engaged with the spirit world have improved immeasurably. Yet while the charlatans can practice with impunity, a large bunch of people also exist who believe we can speak with the dead and should be considerably nicer to each other. While my brief experiences brought no epiphany, the underlying message evoked more comfort than harm.

Fashionline 2002

How Customers Fuelled The Aviva Rebrand

Norwich Union has come a long way since it numbered Isaac Newton and Walter Scott among its customers. With a major rebrand to communicate to 50 million customers, it turned to its greatest resource for help. Gareth Mason explains…

Back in 1797, Seth Wallace, New Buckenham’s blacksmith, took out insurance against fire for his house and premises. Norwich Union’s first customer was supported by the £27 of capital raised by its founder Thomas Bignold, but two centuries later, it is the largest insurance group in the UK and the fifth largest in the world handling £359 billions of funds. With this expansion, Norwich Union was too parochial a moniker for a firm operating in 27 countries so in 2008 the company became Aviva – the name already adopted by 17 of its affiliates overseas.

Norwich Union moulded its message with the help of a research method called Customer Councils. Its partner was Branding Science a London-based research agency, which had first developed the method in the pharmaceutical industry.

Working with Aventis, which was testing a drug for treating osteoporosis, Branding Science had brought doctors and pharma staff together to build trust and understanding between two groups that often circled each other with suspicion. Peter Caley, the Branding Science managing director, who first come up with the idea for the councils felt that bringing such groups closer could only result in a win-win situation for all – a process he describes as ‘value innovation.’

Doctors were divided into four groups depending on their attitude towards diabetes treatment. Each group included a member of the Aventis marketing team. The first council was held at RAF Cosworth with the follow-up held three months later at the Royal Agricultural Hall. The results significantly influenced the direction of Aventis’s marketing.  Wanting a closer engagement with its customers, Norwich Union was attracted to this method when it met up with Branding Science at a trade fair. Initially, Customer Councils were used to communicate changes in policy for a mainly older range of customers.

Helping customers help themselves

Nigel Spencer, Head of Marketing Insight, Aviva UK picks up the story. ‘We first tested the concept in our equity release business. It’s a product aimed at retired homeowners. We found the over-70s difficult to research through traditional focus groups and telephone interviews.

‘They didn’t like the formality of a focus group and struggled to deal with complex telephone surveys. Customer Councils allowed this audience to be relaxed, comfortable, and engaged enough to talk about sensitive matters of health, inheritance, family, and money. We then used the format with IFAs specialising in equity release, showed them footage and findings from customer research and then worked with the advisers to construct products and processes to make it easier for customers to decide whether to take it up.’

The success of the program persuaded Norwich Union to use Customers Councils for its Aviva rebrand. Two waves of councils were held in London, Manchester and Newcastle between May and October in 2008. They were held respectively at Craven Cottage and City of Manchester football stadiums, and an opera house. Tours of the locations and a full meal were included.

‘The sessions were light on prompts,’ says Spencer, ‘and really facilitated discussions built around a question such as “What advice would you give to Aviva in making this change?” Later, we presented the communications plan and asked for feedback, or present TV scripts for comment, or show internal communications video. It can be summed up as a one question, 30-minute discussion with a facilitator and some Aviva people. This always included at least two senior directors such the group CEO, UK general insurance CEO, brand director, or marketing director from our main UK businesses.’

The breakdown

The councils consisted of 30 customers, 20 from Norwich Union, the rest from competitors. Each session lasted three and a half hours, alternating between whole group discussions and smaller groups. A DVD was made and circulated among Aviva’s top brass featuring highlights of the group discussion and individual customer interviews.

Spencer continues: ‘Early engagement is one big advantage and having senior decision makers sitting with customers. The councils work best when you’re not really clear of the solution yourself and want input to shape your thinking. For example, when briefing 30 customers on the rebranding to Aviva you get to test your answer when they question your reasoning. And customers very quickly see through corporate rubbish.’

The findings informed the company’s unfolding publicity.
‘On the equity release side, we ended up redesigning our product, our marketing material and our sales processes to make it more human, less threatening. This was three or four years ago and we remain the number one provider of these products by market share.

‘For the rebrand work, we built the customer feedback into our communications programme and strategy. We asked the council members to write the messages and while our marketing teams crafted it, Aviva customers wrote the heart of our communications.’

Aviva, not España

‘We wrote to all of our customers – around seven million – explaining what we were doing and why. We addressed concerns such as whether Norwich Union had failed, or been taken over by a Spanish company. This was December 2008 – soon after several big trusted financial services brands had failed. We wrote to them before our advertising campaign, directing them to a website with previews of our adverts. We had never shared information that previously would have been considered confidential.

‘We changed our approach to evolving our logo including the shift from “Norwich Union soon to be Aviva” moving to “Aviva, the new name for Norwich Union”.’

The company’s advertising drew attention to other favourable name changes such as Leningrad changing back to St Petersburg, Arpanet to Internet, and Brosnan to Craig.

‘Our TV advertising focused on the name change – establishing it in our customer minds, before explaining what Aviva stood for. Having filmed and direct customer engagement helped our PR work inside and out. We shared the insights with our business partners, brokers, and intermediaries, reassuring them the change to Aviva would help build rather than damage their business. Four months after the rebrand, recognition and awareness for Aviva matched those of the long-established Norwich Union brand and it was all underpinned by the councils’ voice.

‘The customers involved became real advocates. A man in Newcastle was so keen to contribute to a London session that he took a day’s holiday to travel down and then set off home again at 4am because his boss wouldn’t give him two days off!

‘Another thing that came out was seeing people’s confidence and sense of well-being impacted so greatly by the credit crunch. As we had got to know them as individuals you could see how much their attitude and behaviour changed. We built this change into our 2009 messaging because we saw it happen.’

It’s all in the name

Kay Martin, director of marketing services at Aviva commented on the results. ‘The TV ads that have aired since late 2008 and early 2009 were shaped around the feedback from the councils. Customers wanted to hear that the change of name was exactly that – just a name change. Our brand tracker shows that spontaneous awareness for Aviva increased to 14 per cent in January 2009 from 4 per cent in December and consideration also increased significantly up to 25 per cent from 11 per cent in December. For Norwich Union, this was a great success.’

John Kitson has the final word. He is the sales and marketing director for Aviva UK General Insurance and an enthusiastic advocate of the councils.

‘Of all the research I’ve done, probably none is more important, comprehensive or free flowing than this. We started when the rebrand was in its infancy before the recession bit hard. And then we listened to those customers while their world changed. Tracking those changes in attitude was incredibly valuable and the nuances we picked up shaped the communications strategy 100 per cent. The research insights were the foundation stones of everything we did. I've never before been involved in something so comprehensive and scientific and yet intuitive. It’s a remarkable success completely fuelled by research. That doesn’t often happen in Financial Services!’

Mike Pepp of Branding Science ran the customer councils on the Aviva rebrand. He explains their value as a marketing tool: Usually in market research, the researcher is intimately involved with the marketers having a relatively limited role. At the conclusion, the researcher gives a debriefing that summarises the key findings. The marketers miss out on the customer experience. With customer councils, they take away a much better understanding of the customer group. It is a very different encountering an angry customer than to be told that customers respond angrily to an initiative!

‘Because the marketers and customers are in the same room, the councils are an opportunity for exchange of ideas. It also transforms the moderator role to one of facilitating an encounter between a marketer and their target customers. The moderator is no longer the voice of the company, but an intermediary allowing them to access and directly inform senior members of the client company.

‘The difference in outcome from normal research is the immediacy with which marketers understand their audience. They come to have personal experience of the audience, their attitudes, and ways of expressing themselves. It’s like the difference between glancing at an A-Z of central London and spending an afternoon walking around the streets.

‘I don’t think there are any pitfalls so long as everyone is prepared to encounter customers as equals and genuinely share with them. Councils will not be productive if there is little intention to take customer opinions into account.’

Research Magazine 2010

Winter Warmers

Why moan about winter when its arrival is the best excuse for a holiday?

Us Brits, being creatures of habit, like to holiday in the middle of summer. Wary of mixing seasons, some are even encouraged by the long, cold nights to head to the ski-slopes, the one place even more wintry than what we’ve left behind.

But the ‘warm’ winter break has steadily gained currency. And not just for the well-heeled who take holidays like the rest of us drop Anadins. Why go away the one time the rain eases off enough to see our green and pleasant land without sporting a sou’wester and wellies? A week away at the end of January, for example, gives you something to look forward to while all around are contemplating the futility and blackness of their existence. And by the time your suntan’s faded it’s almost spring! Favourable deals for flights and accommodation off-season can be easily found though find out why first: monsoons and coup d’etats can become tedious and unsatisfying.

As September 11 may have scared many off travelling, bargains are likely to appear so you can help keep the tourist industry afloat as well as your finances. Holidaying on the hoof has its advantages. While it’s comforting to have a room booked when you’re new in town, you may want a little variety in terms of place, price and atmosphere. So why commit yourself  now when you might find attractive alternatives there? Local places not only offer the character ruthlessly scrubbed out of most hotel chains – they also tend to charge local rather than international prices.

And talking of such places – where better than an island which hasn’t, so far, let anyone build a single one of these cold, anonymous clones...

Lost Souls in Zanzibar

If anywhere is worth visiting for its name, it’s got to be Zanzibar. And if you are that impulsive you’ll be far better rewarded here than from that surprisingly cheap weekend away in Ulan Batur.

I first heard of Zanzibar when a character in a play I was reading claimed he’d sold his soul to the Devil there. I grabbed my atlas and was too, soon sold. To find it on a map you’ll have to look very carefully for a couple of small dots off the coast of Tanzania. Less than 100km long and a third that in width is Unguja or Zanzibar Island. Along with the smaller, and less visited, Pemba, the pair are technically part of Tanzania though largely independent, politically and culturally. 

Zanzibar is found by boat or plane across the 35km channel from the Tanzanian capital Dar-es-Salaam. It can also be reached by the same means from Mombassa in Kenya. Dire Slum, as one of my travelling companions affectionately called it, has less to recommend itself than Zanzibar. But it’s a good base for travelling onto some of Africa’s best safari parks such as the Serengeti or trekking up Africa’s biggest mountain, the snowcapped Mount Kilimanjaro.

After disembarking at Zanzibar town and getting that glamourous stamp in your passport, its Islamic culture is soon evident in Stonetown – the oldest part of town whose ancient labyrinthine quarters are now a world heritage site. Architecture built and influenced by the myriad of European and Arab traders is lent colour by the calls to prayer from the town’s minarets. The harbour bustles noisily and colourfully day and night – its modern traders dealing in carvings, artwork and fruits of the seas, their quayside stalls illuminated by the flames of the cooks’ grills.

The island’s history marks it out as more than just a pretty place. Two trades: spices and human, elevated the territory to a major market between east and west. Slaves were captured from east Africa to work on the island’s plantations or sold to Arab traders.
The arab influence was consolidated by the rule of the Sultan of Oman from the 1800s whose descendants were not overthrown until 1964.

Nowadays, the turquoise warmth of the Indian Ocean, the white sparsely populated beaches and its warm temperate climate makes it a genuine island paradise. The lack of established Western hotels makes it a destination suited to those interested in the place they are travelling to rather than the inside of a resort. That’s not to say luxury lodgings can’t be found – they just happen to complement the surroundings. But otherwise it’s difficult to bankrupt yourself.

People are generally honest and friendly. The hassle is relatively light though the tourist dollars attract some unwanted attention around the food and art stalls about the quayside and backstreets. Once out of town, the island has various idyllic settlements with basic, cheap apartments to rent. And once you’ve strolled along some of its pristine beaches you’ll realise how irrelevant the decor of your room is. Unsurprisingly, it’s excellent for diving and snorkelling though concern is mounting over reef damage.

Most people use Zanzibar town as a base for staying at one of the island’s beachside settlements or taking trips such as a spice tour or visit to one of the small nearby islands.  While the culture is clearly muslim, it’s one which exists in harmony with the Western visitors who are the island’s largest source of income. You can drink alcohol, it’s just that the locals, like most sober people, might not appreciate your frolicking drunk and naked in the town fountain, however wittily it’s done.

While there’s plenty of beachside entertainment, the emphasis is on relaxation. Sipping cocktails against a tropical sunset while waiting for another succulent mystery fish to do its turn on the barbecue can be repeated surprisingly often. A fish supper in Bermondsey struggles by comparison.

For good or worse, the world is shrinking in inverse proportion to the travel industry’s ever widening net. Zanzibar still retains a large slice of old world exoticism. And while it may capture your soul, you no longer have to sell it.

The Sorrows of Kilimanjaro

People don’t always go on holiday to relax. If they did, there would be little tourist industry around Mount Kilimanjaro. So what happens when you head for the hills with the minimum of preparation. Gareth Mason explains…

Few people climb Mount Kilimanjaro and then keep the story to themselves. Some, wordless but proud, wear the T-shirts. Others warn you not to take its challenge lightly, the grave nodding of their heads interrupted by a psychotic twitch which speaks more than words. Up to 80 per cent of trekkers don’t make it to the top, they tell you. Scary words like ‘death’, ‘training’ and ‘preparation’ were thrown at me while I stubbed out my cigarette and finished my beer the night before I went...    

I was careful not to sound over confident about my alpine adventure. I said the right things like: ‘If I reach the summit’ and, ‘well, of course altitude sickness can strike down any of us.’
But deep down, I thought differently. Had I not sprung with goat-like enthusiasm up the Andean heights to Machu Picchu? And much of my adolescence was spent running up hill and down dale in bleak English mid-winters. I’d even run a ‘team’ 24-mile crosscounty race in which I’d been tied by the waist to three other runners. It was awful. And then I did it again. So five days to climb a mountain and back? Surely no problem.

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Know thy mountain

Preparation is not my middle name and for good reason. It’s James, and to me, planning has always got in the way of a good idea.

So when I turned up at the gate to Kilimanjaro National Park, I was sure that the contents of my midi-sized rucksack would cover my needs. At first, I declined the offer to rent some gloves, a woolly hat and ski-pole. ‘I’m warm-blooded,’ I breezily told my girlfriend while the man in the kitstore looked at me with the narrowed eyes he reserved for idiots.

With commendable commonsense, my girlfriend told me that warm-blooded creatures are adapted to warm climates not cold ones, before shoving a balaclava on my head. She had decided not to join me on the basis that after the stories she had heard, she didn’t want to climb any mountain ‘that much’. Later, I realised she was onto something.

Booted and suitably equipped, I hauled on my rucksack – a harmless seeming action which caused an immediate ripple of amusement among the gathered porters and guides. My mistake? I didn’t even have to carry it! ‘Easy life!’ I rejoiced inwardly, my confidence now dangerously inflated.

Easy does it

The gentle walk up to the Mandara hut was a pleasant morning’s work. We strolled slowly onwards and up along the winding paths leading through the rainforest which hugs the lower slopes. Tramping over the root-strewn path, we passed close to where coffee was grown, orchids popped up and waterfalls gently flowed.

My mind was free to wander about life’s more trivial matters interrupted only by the odd monkey, either Colobus or Blue, and the odd group of daytrippers. These could be identified by their small daybags, large cameras and air of happy innocence. ‘Part-timers,’ I thought, inflated by the self-importance of my own mission. They were not to be confused with another species whose clumping rhythmic footsteps was usually heard some time before their bodies followed. These dirty, worn-out people with faces devoid of expression were less like a blank canvas than one which has lost meaning through being painted on too much. Near-silent walking machines, their movements were economical, simple and repetitive, mere shells of once enthusiastic tourists. 

I might have asked: What happened to these people? Where do they come from? But my guide Dismas’ understanding of English was different to mine and I would, no doubt, find out soon enough.

Three hours and seven kilometres later, climbing from just below 2000m to around 2700m, we arrived at Mandara Hut. The only pain I’d felt thus far was guilt at the sight of my staggering guide wearing my rucksack round his head like some kind of bizarre fashion accessory. Personally, I’d barely broken sweat and considered suggesting we carry on to the next stage. Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut and instead went off to read my book in the pleasant mid-summer sunshine.

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Despite failing to convince myself that 8pm was a normal time to go to bed, sleeping pills aided a surprisingly restful night in my shared bunk hut. My only problem had been finding the right bunk in the right hut when, last to bed, I crept in like a thief in a night, under a blanket of darkness.

Over a leisurely breakfast, I watched the other 100 or so walkers set off before our team of three followed. We were now supplemented by a cook, Tomasari. His enthusiasm to over-feed me improved my Swahili no end as I struggled to find new ways of explaining why I couldn’t finish the mounds of pasta and chips accompanying my many-coursed meals.

The second day took us 14km out of the forest and into open scrubland from which life sprang in bright bursts of colour in the form of exotic plantlife. Fire and rain has sculpted the landscape. Wide black swathes of burnt heather gave way to head-shaped clumps of mud – topped with mohican-like tufts of grass. Rising now for sharper, longer stretches, our route stretched into a visible far distance. Out of which rose the black and white peaks of Kilimanjaro: Mawenzi and Kibo.

It was around now, where the temperature drops to zero, that an unusual sensation crept up on my left knee. Mildly irritating at first, I walked with the leg completely straightened for the last two hours as we climbed the boulder-strewn path up into the clouds. When bent, it felt as if the surrounding ligaments had been stretched tight before receiving hundreds of tiny electric shocks. Apparently, it was my blood thickening – something I’m quite happy to have discovered later. Nobody commented on why half my body was engaged on a silly walk.

Head in the clouds

After five hours, we reached Horombo hut, perched on a hillside above a yawning empty space filled only by the cloud which swept past our faces. At 3700m, it was for me an all-time high, and explained my shorter breaths and the slower motion activity around me.

That night, a fellow trekker sensibly advised me that the slower you ascend, the longer your body  acclimatises. So our headlong progress ahead of the pack wasn’t so clever then? What’s more, everyone else seemed to be taking a day’s rest to adjust to the altitude. My bunkmates asked me whether I’d taken a course of Diamox for altitude sickness or done any training. I had to laugh, of course, but afterwards felt a little glum. Later a trained nurse, saw the burn on my neck left by the day’s raw, high sun. She winced like she was back in the accident and emergency ward.  

By the morning, my left knee seemed to have regained its ability to work as a joint at the expense of both my thighs. It seemed a fair trade.

At breakfast, I’d met two Australian girls on their way down from the summit. Both had been badly ill, one crawling her way up to Kibo Peak while swallowing dangerous handfuls of paracetemol and Diamox between regular bouts of vomiting. With this dubious medical advice, they gave me the few pills they had left over. Dropping one ‘D’, I booted up gingerly and set off for the dread Kibo hut. I had perused the guide book the night before and it made grim reading. A lot of walking, a lot less oxygen and 48 hours away from my next night’s sleep. I had nothing to do but walk and get used to the idea.

By day three, there is little to distract you from your task. Here, neither animal, vegetable or mineral live in any abundance – the big black crow-like birds are lords of the barren, rock-strewn wilderness they survey. The path stretches thirteen kilometres ahead to The Saddle which bisects the two looming peaks. Our bodies now faced the twin assault of the cold and a high, unblinking sun.  

I made a renewed attempt to pace myself. Previously, my intentionally half-speed moonsteps had still swept me past my fellow walkers. I’d even heard a mutter of ‘He ain’t so pole-pole’ levelled at me as I passed. It means ‘slow’ in Swahili and appears to be repeated for emphasis. So I figured my survival depended on adapting my stride to more pigeon-sized moon steps. It lasted about five minutes – the effort of deliberately walking so slowly was more of a strain than the ravages of altitude sickness.

The rise was more gradual now and physical effort became more laboured as we slowly reeled in the clusters of large boulders which monopolised the landscape. A sign stating starkly ‘Last Water’ summed up the desolation while the young guy who passed us had little positive to say from his stretcher. By the time we reached Kibo Hut, my head was pulsing with increasing urgency and I needed my arms to help lift my legs.

We weren’t here to stay the night, but I was assigned a dorm to lie back before our midnight assault on the summit. Photogenic sunrises apart, it’s said that leaving in darkest night stops people from giving up before they start by keeping them ignorant of what’s ahead.

My dormitory resembled a Great War casualty ward. The only words spoken were uttered in subdued muffled tones amid the bodies strewn about the beds. Several, huddled tight and shaking in their sleeping bags, lay with their faces turned to the wall, alone with their ugly symptoms. One was spoonfed by his porter, presumably before a priest came to administer the last rites.

By now, my brain felt as if it was roughly pinioned in a vice while being steadily pounded with a small wooden hammer. Over the next four hours, it got worse.

I pushed away my dinner and retired to my bed  to try and shut out the reality. Slipping in and out of sleep, I felt like I’d woken up on my kitchen floor after downing a large bottle of Tequila. But while Tequila abusers can counter its symptoms with water and sleep, climbing the summit now would be like getting off the kitchen floor and attaching myself to a moonshine whiskey drip.

Fortunately, by late evening the pain had eased enough to lessen the odds of my skull exploding. I didn’t need the alarm call to wake me a little before midnight. Like zombies, we rose silently from our private torment, as one.

Trouble at top

I took half a Diamox before setting off. I’d been told that it wasn’t recommended for youngish hearts but figured my head needed some kind of bribe before ascending new heights. A near full moon illuminated little to cheer us. The dark scree making up the final climb is broken only now and then by rocky enclaves. Some way up, reaching high into the moonlit sky, could be glimpsed a ridge. I assumed it was simply the end of one stretch of slope. It was actually the summit. Suffice to say, the distance was deceptive.

Our feet slipped through this loose surface making progress slow, inefficient and tiring – the thin air no longer an efficient fuel. The alternative was to walk so slowly it looked like you’d need a timelapse camera to record your movements. And with the cold plummeting further, I opted for what I knew best – getting it done as quickly as possible. As my heart threatened to crash through my rib cage, I was forced to rest every half dozen steps or so setting off again as soon as it calmed to a pounding thump. The contest between premature heart failure and frostbite was finely balanced.

We reached Hans Meyer’s Cave – a lonely rocky overhang which had offered refuge to the first explorer to reach the top. It looked like a good place to die.

This was when preparation began to mean something significant. With walking boots, gloves and balaclava a feeble barrier to the subzero temperatures, my corduroy trousers, extra jumper and thin waterproof top were proving a little lightweight. All I needed was a tweed jacket, monocle and pipe and I could have been a Victorian gentleman explorer.

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The 225 minutes of climbing were not what I would describe as ‘quality’ minutes though perhaps ‘character building’. To save me repeating myself, simply keep re-reading these last few paragraphs for the best part of four hours while sitting naked on an exercise bike in an icerink and peddling very hard. It was a bit like that, though the pain and views were far greater.

I welcomed the rocky snow-patched section which followed the scree as it indicated some kind of visual proof of progress. But this proved even harder work to traverse and itself seemed to stretch into infinity. My attempt to switch off all senses than those needed for walking caused an internal rebellion. Muttering aloud, I cursed the mountain and sun alternately, one for being there, the other for its absence.

But all of a sudden, totally unexpected, I stumbled onto one of life’s better surprises. Scrambling over a stack of boulders at what I had assumed was the top of the endless ridge, I  was confronted by a sign which read: ‘You are now at Gilman’s Point 5,680m. Tanzania. Welcome and Congratulations’. The shock would have numbed me it the cold hadn’t got there first. I had done it.

In an instant, all the demons which had whispered thoughts of failure over the last three days dissolved into the very thin air. But this sudden flush of elation disappeared after a couple of minutes of inactivity let the cold tighten its icy grip.

As sunrise was still 90 minutes off – far longer than I reckoned was needed to kill me – I almost went straight back down. The icy path to the opposite and higher end of the summit at Uhuru Peak looked precarious. With no light, and my relief at reaching this summit, I had little motivation to find another. Only when I realised that I’d have to go back down the hellish scree slope in the dark did I decide to go on.

We made steady progress to Uhuru Peak once I was half-sure I wouldn’t slip off the side of the path to my death in the crater beneath it. The sun finally answered my exhortations to rise as we staggered up to its flattish top, all 5,896m of it. Several other people popped up from different routes. Most looked confused.

Despite the beauty of this African sunrise, a few photos taken with my gloves off told me that this panorama would be best appreciated in an atmosphere less conducive to hyperthermia. Turning hastily to the four corners of the world, I took some final shots with shaky, re-gloved hands and entrusted the rest of the scene to memory. Here, on the crown of Africa, the only way was down.

It's all over now

The 2,200m 14km descent we made an hour after returning to Kibo Hut was not my idea of a celebration. But success and oxygen lent an extra spring to my step and a smugness which I failed to suppress.

I met, on the way down, those friends who had delayed for a rest day and survived thus far. I felt transformed now into the wise man of the mountain, dispensing sound advice which could be distilled into: ‘Don’t do anything I did.’ As I met the 30th such person, it occurred to me how less pleasant this would be if I’d instead become the inspiration for a parable of ‘the boy who went too fast’.

The rapid downhill walk home over the next day and a half rendered my stair-climbing muscles impotent for the next 24 hours. And I found out just how many layers of skin my parched lips had lost when I closed them upon a heavily-spiced chicken drumstick on my first evening back. More than I’d realised, my screams suggested.

But if the memories fade and the snapshots reel  me back into some similar enterprise, I will dust down my diary and remind myself of the horrors many of us put ourselves through for the sake of an ‘experience’. Then I’ll pull on on my tweed jacket, don my cap at a jaunty angle and just maybe... pack an extra pair of socks.

African Travel magazine 2001