Sharpe by name and sharp by nature.
English surnames were derived in the medieval years from nicknames that described the person's character, so that other people in the town or village would recognise who you were talking about. Hitherto, people just had first names. But before the plagues that wiped out a third of the population in England, poulation was growing and there were too many Jacks and Jills, hence the introduction of surnames, family trait names. Smith for the blacksmith, Carpenter, Brown for the colour hair, and Sharpe for being keen, cunning and witty. Sharpe was a very popular name. The first one recorded in London 1273 as William le Sharpe (Anglo Saxons were still under Norman Invasion influence).
So Sharpe by name and sharp by nature ( a welsh saying) has stuck. Even Allan in Celt North Wales can be seen over every door. It means "exit". So the name fits the bill, as there has been many an exit for me, when others were not on my wavelength and did not appreciate my wit, especially as an answer, ha ha.
What follows are the Ides of March in my life. Loyalty, yes that is a two way thing, but often people expect it but don't show it, demonstrate it. One way traffic, leading to a no through road cul de sac (more Norman influence! Thank goodness I was in the Saxon House at Grammar School, not Norman, they were red, we were green, hate green, except in gardens !!)
The Case of the Seven Sisters, the BBC and the Monopoly Commission.
When I was at the BBC, the TV screen emblem was the globe turning. I think the BBC reached its peak in the '80's the time I started there. BBC did cover world events world news, we brought stories to the TV screens of Britain from around the world. Even I made films in Spain, Portugal, Canada, America.
The BBC was all powerful, tremendous resources, skilled manpower built up since the birth of broadcasting in the 1930's. BBC employees felt that power. The power to influence. We dined with Parliamentarians, we influenced changes in the law, by bringing causes for concern to the attention of the authorities.
In the 90's petrol in Britain was expensive, as it is now. Heavily taxed, taxes on taxes, because it had two types of tax attached, customs duty and value added tax. 70% of the price of petrol was tax.
However in the 90's the supermarkets started to increase the competition with the main petrol suppliers. In America in the 20's the cartels had been broken up after it was found the petrol companies were consulting with each other fixing prices. Hence the name Seven Sisters.
Petrol is sold through a system called vertical integration. The Petrol Company owns it , drills for it, refines it, sells it. The supermarkets started to compete. They built their own pumps and forecourts and undercut the petrol companies prices by 10p a gallon. It was the only competition the petrol companies had ever had since 1900.
Now the petrol companies say the price of world crude is dictated by the markets, and they have no influence. They don't make much profit from selling petrol and diesel. So they say.
Today the price at the pumps is higher because of inflation, but the petrol companies sell at more or less the same price as the supermarkets, 20 years on from my programme.
20 years ago, my programme, told you the viewer, that petrol was petrol, there were only 7 refineries, and that the different brand tankers filled up at whatever refinery was near. BP in Hindenburg, Jet in Hull, Shell in Chester, Esso in Essex and so on. So BP Shell and Esso tankers as well as ASDA Tesco and Sainsburys supermarket tankers would fill up wherever. In Scotland, regardless of the brand owning the forecourt, you got BP petrol, because that was the refinery that supplied Scottish tankers. Welsh mainly had Texaco from Milford Haven.
The programme also stated that the oil companies could sell their petrol at the undercut supermarket price if they wanted to but they did not want to. Remember 10 years later they changed their minds.
Now I had been given the interim Monopolies commission report into petrol selling. I had it delivered to me in a brown paper envelope, exclusively.
The Government Monopolies Commission ahd the year before looked into the pub and beer industry and decided to make radical and decisive changes to the vertical integration in that business. No longer would brewers be allowed to brew and sell beer. They could chose to own breweries or pubs, not both.
The iterim report was equally as damning on the petrol companies.
My programme went out the month before the main report was published to beat the news and our broadcasting rivals. I was sure of my ground, of my stance.
After the programme Shell went ballistic, with 87 points of criticism, 84 of which I could counter. 3 of which I had to wait for the government report to be published.
Looking back, I was naive to think, little old Allan Sharpe, the boy from Willesden, London NW!0 could take on the Multinational Oil Conglomerates.
The Monopoly Commission report when published had wholesales pages ripped out of the interim copy. Civil Servants got at, back tracking ?? Well the rug was pulled from under my feet. Never mind what happens today, and some may say I was proved right in time. Those 3 points I had to concede that were in the programme script and the final report no longer supported me.
All programmes are vetted by BBC lawyers, Journalist have to back up their claims, all t's crossed all i's dotted. That interim report was my reliance. But The Monopoly Commission rewrote the final draft. Did a complete u turn. Took no action like with the pubs, and said all was fair in the petrol world. Well money talks huh. Money has power and influence. My position was untenable as Deputy Editor. I was demoted back to Senior Producer and had one year left at Watchdog. No allies, just deserters of a sinking ship. Except I am not the Titanic. I might list, I might get holed, but I go into dry dock, lick my wounds and come out again guns blazing.
I remember as a child , reading the story of HMS Hood. 1941 in the Second World War. I read encyclopaedias as a child. Fact not fiction apart from comics, the Beano and Dennis the Menace.
HMS Hood was Britain's biggest and most powerful battleship, the pride of the navy. Along with the battleship Prince of Wales it engaged Bismarck off the coast of Iceland. Bismarck was German and bigger. A threat to the Atlantic convoy lifeline to the British Isles . It had to be stopped, but at such a cost. 1300 crew were blown out of the sea, when a salvo from Bismarck hit the magazine weapons room on Hood and blew the ship up. there were 3 survivors. It was another devastating blow to Winston Churchill Britain's war Prime Minister. BUT, just before the Hood exploded, she fired one last salvo at Bismarck crippling it's steering. Prince of Wales had to retire badly damaged. However the British fleet was able to hunt the Bismark down and sink her eventually because of Hood's final salvo.
That taught me a lessons as a child. If you are going to go down, go down guns blazing and take as many of the bastards with you.
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Monday, 6 February 2012
Life as we know it chapter 13 Write Off
You’ve either got it or ain’t got it.
You can learn about procedures, pass exams about law and
technology. But you can’t learn “how to be an investigator”. You either have it
or don’t have it.
My conclusion after years of experience and working with
other people, officers, other agencies including the Police and CID.
Now the man on the Clapham Omnibus is renowned in law for
his opinion as to what is right and what is wrong, though interestingly enough
not what is legal or illegal. Now if we conducted a survey of men and women for
that matter on Clapham Omnibus’s or any bus for that matter, I think our survey
would say, most people would chose a policeman for an investigator’s job. Not
so however, at least it should not be.
Most people, certainly most Officers in any government or
non government organisation, rely on orders, red tape, officialdom,
procedures…..in other words they do what they are told, left foot in front of
right foot. Robots who obey commands from on high.
Initiative, wow, there is a naughty word. Certainly, gets
noticed, since Margaret Thatcher’s reign of terror, gets frowned upon. Cold
water baths to stifle it. Never mind results, never mind the public, the
community. Do it by the book. In fact since Margaret Tatcher, there are now targets
set to meet. Once met, you can put your feet up for the rest of the period and
eat a cheese roll with a cup, of coffee.
So artificial are these targets and set my management who are judged on them,
so they set them at achievable levels. Its not that difficult to figure out.
It’s called cover your backside , lick others and go for the easy life.
I guess that is what always set me apart and why I had
confrontation not only with the crooks in the outside world, but also with my
bosses in the office. Instead of being enlightened and jumping on a band wagon
of glory, they tried to apply a handbrake, because their little minds could not
appreciate the bigger picture.
Katie Frost for instance. She paid £5,000 cash for a 2nd
hand Ford Fiesta car for her teanage daughter. The Frost Family were just
ordinary folk, mum dad both worked, to bring up 2 daughters in a semi detached
house in Chingford London E4, suburbia.
The car leaked as soon as it rained, and the car dealer who
was Turkish and part of the bunting brigade of forecourts was not interested
now he had his cash. So Kate Frost called our office and I took the call. As
soon as I saw this car, to the trained eye, I was suspicious about it’s true
history. It was shiny and blue, but under the bonnet there was blow paint,
meaning it had been cheaply resprayed. So why? Checks on the VIN number of the
car revealed it had been hitherto, involved in a head on collision in Lincolnshire
10 years ago, most of the bunting brigade car delaers in the
East End of London sold unroadworthy cars. So much so, that I joined forces
with VOSA, the Government’s vehicle inspectorate. We had powers of entry at all
reasonable times onto trade premises as Trading Standards Officers. It was na
offence of obstruction to try to stop us. We just turned up and the trader,
shop keeper, manufacturer, retailer, whoever had to drop everything and let us
“inspect and examine, goods and records. More power than the Police. We only
needed search warrants when we anticipated that normal visits would defeat the
object and we needed to be accompanied
by force because we believed offences were being committed.
So after 4 years of these impromptu, unannounced visits
where VOSA engineers would jack up and examine these for sale forecourt cars
whilst I checked the paperwork, we cleaned up 80% of the car dealers. Their
problem was, they did not want to spend money repairing a car till it was sold
and till their was a comeback. The law stated their cars had to be fit to pass
an MOT vehicle condition test while there was a price sticker in the
windscreen. So cars with faulty brakes, steering, bald tyres, were given a
prohibition notice, and the car dealer was taken to the Magistrates
Court
That sort of work was proactive, to try to stop sales to the
likes of Kate Frost. That sort of work was conducted , set up, and carried out,
on MY OWN initiative. There were no edicts from on high. Why I hear you ask in
amazement? Why? Because the powers at be, wanted targets met, so that quarterly
and annual reports looked good and met the false criteria. These people earned
their super salaries by sitting in front of a computer, making bar charts and
filling in excel spread sheets, They never looked out of the window at the real
world.
Kate Frost lived in the real world. £5,000 was real money.
Paid for a lump of metal, road taxed, insured and on the public highway as they
had no garage. The car could not be driven. I put the fear of god up the
Turkish Car Dealer, when he refuse to give Mrs Frost her money back and take the car back. He closed down and did
a runner.
I summonsed him to court, I served the summonses on him
personally. Yes I tracked hi down. In fact he never showed up at court. A
warrant was issued for his arrest the 3rd time he failed to show. I
served that accompanied by local Police. Trading Standards do not have power of
arrest. They have powers to track down offenders, even bank accounts, more
powers again than the police requiring information from officialdom, but not
arrest. It took 18 months to get Alkan to court, by which time the Magistrates,
who are generally, lay, unpaid pillars of the community, had realised this
crook was never going to own up for his misdeeds. They threatened him with
custody unless he paid compensation to Mrs Frost. Even that was a legal argument
with the Clerk of the Court as I had to show the court chapter and verse in law
as to why Mrs Frost was so entitled. So Alkan , hey presto , dug into his deep
pockets and pulled out the readies, yes 5 grand in £20 notes.
Now the moral of this story. I never gave up. Why? Because
someone had to do something about what
was going on and when I looked round there was no one else but me. Alkan was not going to get away with
it, Alkan was not going to tell his mates he got away with it. There has to be
a detterent, it has to be clearly visible, despite the system, depite no
encouragement from on high, no instructions, no assistance. If anything only
interference and obstruction, not in
just this case, but in many others and often behind my back.
Called a “Maverick” ,
a loose cannon, I knew exactly where my barrel was pointing, and it was at
anyone who got in my way. Hence now I write about it, instead of doing it. Once
I was a “somebody” now I am a “nobody”…. Just me, because even I could not
fight them all and win all the battles.
Investigators have it. They have hunches. They have a
natural way of thinking. They think like the criminal, but they are on the
other side. They side of right against wrong. They cannot be taught. They have
a mentality.
I could step out of a van outside a greengrocers and spot
that all his strawberries were not 8
ounces . I could stumble across the pub overcharging by
3p per drink, the butcher charging £2 extra for every Christmas Turkey in his
window. The Sale
I was called a trouble maker. When the press heralded the
results, management viewed on with envious eyes. They could not do it. They did
not know how. Maybe they should have, but getting results was not part of their
interview when appointed, just arse licking. I was not a trouble maker. I just
did not turn a blind eye. I had the biggest workload. I managed my own team.
They followed me anywhere. It was fun. We liked our work, dull it was not.
Courageous it was. I led by example they followed, again to the dismay of those
in charge. I was not a trouble maker.
I was a trouble dealer.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
life as we know it chapter 12 Hall of Fame Interlude
Allan Sharpe’s Hall of Fame;
What have you done today to make you feel proud. I have always been a proud person, some say arrogant, some say obstinate, I say determined, principled. I was always proud of my achievements, even scoring a goal from the half way line for Brent at the Welsh Harp, or the winner for BBC against British Gas, a curler free kick from 25 yards out and Andy jumping on my back shouting "What a f......g goal Allan"
I have always been proud of my 2 sons Ian & Graeme too and their ability, intelligence and progess. Just like my Mum worried about me till her death, so I worry about them, and when bad times come their way it hits me too as if it has happened to me. Parental responsibility I guess.
some of over 250 films, and 600 court cases that made the headlines
Court Cases
- 1972. The first was the largest department store in the area, Debenhams Harrow, and a lunch time stroll revealed all sorts of price discrepancies in their Sale, when I spoke to the manager he could not justify them. I had just qualified, the week before, the boss had sent me out on weighbridge inspections, I came back late with a van full of promotion signs, products and a case that made front page headline news.
- 1998. Derrick James Davies made £1m benefit from the manufacture of counterfeit clothing – 52 brands – he also sold fake champagne, perfume and cigarettes. DJD got 4+ years and lost his mansion in Essex, Villa in
- 1999. Johnnie Green was a very similar operation, smaller scale he got 18 months.
- 2004. Dino Simm and Sid Austin got 4 years each in 2004 and had to repay £2m in forfeiture of assets for conspiracy. They had imported pirate DVDs from
- 2004.China Industrial Group, 25,000 counterfeit mobile phone accessories and components seized, major importers from
- 2004. Nadia Traders, another large fake mobile phone importer. 2 years prison, £1m asset forfeiture.
- 2002. Steven Levy major importer from Thailand of Louis Vuitton fakes - 6 months.
- 1976. Charring Cross. Chef & Brewer, on a routine inspection noticed the price tags on the bar equipment were 3p more than on price list. Phoned office so that test purchases could be made while I stayed testing the 6 fl oz unjust beer meters. In all 63 charges.
- 1975 – 1982. Petrol Fraud in the
- 1975 – 1982. Short measure drinks in exclusive
- Plus car clocking, unroadworthy cars, cut & shuts. Kate Frost and her £4000 Fiesta for her daughter , which was really a write off making a comeback as an unroadworthy 2nd hand vehicle. It took 18 months to get her compensation through the courts as the traders absconded, and I tracked them down.
- 2004. Danny Clelland, t/a Imperial Construction, charged with Theft of £21,000 from 4 families. Danny was a con man better at destruction than construction.
- 1999. Plumbfast and director Steven Baker £21,000 fines for systematic overcharging of their customers.
TV Programmes
- 1995. Channel 4 half hour expose of Virginia Bottomley’s handling of NHS which led to her removal from office.
- 1993. BBC2 half hour Expose of Andy Norman, corrupt king of British Athletics who fixed races and drug tests. Norman, an ex Police Officer, resigned after broadcast.
- 1996.Channel 4 expose of how the police dupe sposes into thinking they hired hit men to kill their other half in orderto secure convictions and how the entrapment was flawed, rough justice.
- 1991. BBC TV Life on 1, live broadcast of environmental series from
- 1985 BBC TV Watchdog Ron Aylward the Northern entrepreneur in home improvements whose only home improved was his own.
- 1983. TVAM Shell and short measure petrol memo to pump maintenance. Winner of Consumer Journalist Award.
- 1986. BBCTV Watchdog: Priceslasher and Thermastore, both huge companies that folded leaving customers and creditors high and dry. TV exposure resulted in evidence handed over to Serious Fraud Office for conviction of directors. 1992. Johnnie Morris of Thermastore was one of Margaret Thatcher’s Captains of Industry who tried to run off with £21m.
- 1988. BBC TV Half hour Holiday Nightmare Special, including the relocation of 67 OAPs in
- Pollution, first TV programme to address traffic pollution and cures, also dirty beaches, dirty skies, dirty river, climate change first forecasted 1991………
- 1991.Petrol Pricing…………..led to the 7 Sisters coming into line with Supermarket prices.
- 1985.BSM: conned the Dept of Transport to get away with unqualified driving instructors.
- 1994.Hooligans- why football? why violence? Margaret Thatcher’s greatest export, Video got to number 2 in the charts, beaten by Walt Disney’s Snow White release.
What have you done today to make you feel proud. I have always been a proud person, some say arrogant, some say obstinate, I say determined, principled. I was always proud of my achievements, even scoring a goal from the half way line for Brent at the Welsh Harp, or the winner for BBC against British Gas, a curler free kick from 25 yards out and Andy jumping on my back shouting "What a f......g goal Allan"
I have always been proud of my 2 sons Ian & Graeme too and their ability, intelligence and progess. Just like my Mum worried about me till her death, so I worry about them, and when bad times come their way it hits me too as if it has happened to me. Parental responsibility I guess.
life as we know it chapter 11 Then and Now
Most of my working life was spent trying to get fairness and justice for others. Ordinary people who were in a David and Goliath struggle. In these last few years it is now me in that David sling shot position.
I tried to right wrongs, and today in England's green and not so pleasant land, there are a lot of things wrong, like litter, energy waste, a tardiness to incorporate alternative energy sources, and a great waste of experience and education by this country. Strong stuff, but it is no wonder people just rely on the state and drift along. Why should they bother when the country, government and society does not bother about it's citizens. The Government pump billions of pounds into a black hole of banking institutions and watch from the balcony playing a fiddle as countless companies go bankrupt with no support from government or the banks. So the unemployed swell in numbers me included.
Today I go to Job Centre Minus to sign on again. £73 a week. They will say have you worked - No, are you looking for work - yes, I will say have you got any jobs , they will say no. I have argued 3 times about sending me on a Career Development Course which places the individual in a job at the end, by fine tuning skills that are transferable. All this funded by EU grants. I am waiting to hear, after trying all manner of routes to by pass Job Centre Minus who are an obstacle to progression. I even wrote to my MP, but that was a waste of time too. At the Government's Job Centre Minus they fail to put people back to work, as I sit there my bum hardly makes an impression in the seat, my question and answer period with an officer laughingly called an advisor, last for about 60 seconds. This is what is has come to after a couple of yearss working through private employment agancies as a lorry driver, apart from the year I worked fixed term to introduce the smoking controls in public places. So to resort to being a Job Centre Minus statistic is a true last resort.
I have sort advice from other non government organisations like Next Step and Jobsmaites. They have warned me about age discimination, so on my CV 30 years plus of dealing with the public, is not a selling point - delete 30 years. So sad.
It is a far cry from when I left school. I was still working at my Friday night Saturday job in Woolworths Harlesden on the delicatessen counter. I had a Lambretta TV175, £££, no tax as a student, and a job which was a source of girlfreinds too. I was ok. BUT, the Youth Employment Bureau thought otherwise. They told me off in their Pound Lane Offices. I told them I looked in the newspapers and applied for jobs, I had 3 A levels and 11 O levels. Not good enough. Go for these 6 jobs. OK.
Well the highest paid was in what was to become Trading Standards but in those days was still Weights & Measures, working for a local council but run by the Board of Trade. £19 a week, trainee assistant, checking up on factories and shops, sounded good to me.
It was a mile and a half to work. I started by going on the bus. I even made a girlfriend at the bus stop, a hairdresser, very pretty, lasted a week.
I had to drive a van when we checked petrol forecourts and factories, One inspector 2 assistants. Sometimes I drove the inspectors cars when just 2 went to check retailers. I still lived with Mum in Essex Road, but we worked in Ealing, Brent and Harrow, so we travelled to the edge of London and the countryside like Elstree and Stanmore. It was interetsing stuff. One of the best jobs was acting like a customer. I would go into a shop and buy something, then we would check it for correct weight and price back at the car parked round the corner. I often caught the shops. I had some knack of pretence innocence. So much so that Harry Stanton said once " Bloody hell, every time you go into a shop I get another case". Good old red faced, grey haired Harry, he never got promoted. He looked like an old Colonel Blimp, a Knight of St Columbus, got drunk every lunch time, so to keep death off the roads the assistant would drive in the afternoon. Else if he drove we would be swerving in a silver grey Singer Vogue Estate with the rotund Harry clutching the steering wheel but leaning on the curves with the wheel, TT Isle of Man style, pass the roseary beads Harry !!!
We had ex Kenya inspectors too. They were ex British Colonials, fluent in Swahili which came in handy in Southall, as the African Asians were being booted out of Africa to land at Heathrow Airport.
The Trade Descriptions Act November 14th 1968 changed the job overnight. Lots of people telephoned to complain for the first time. The car had broken down, the artist impression hotel in the holiday brochure had not been built in time, the special offers were over priced. The Harold Wilson Labour Government tried to protect the consumer, whereas today it is left to Brussels. We had counter inflation measures to stop traders making instant profit as they did in 1971 with decimalisation. Then a pint of Watneys Red Barrel went up overnight from one shilling and ten pence to twelve and a half p = to 2 shillings and sixpence in old money. Old Money that had served the anglo saxons well, so it was an excuse to profit and inflate prices. Lessons were learned and I was so good at getting prices down, I took over all the counter inflation complaints in 1973. One extremely camp gay ladies hairdresser in Ealing said to me after I had taken the red pen to his price list on the introduction of VAT.......... *Oooooooooo you are ruthless, you have taken me to the cleaners".
I was qualified by now, it took 4 years to pass a Government Professional series of exams on law and technology. I used to get lots of stories that I could dine out on. Only because I seemed to have a knack of finding trouble. My jealous counterparts would say I was a trouble maker, a maverick, a loose canon. I would counter and say I knew exactly where I was aiming. I did not need artificial targets. I did not want to tick boxes. My self motivation was about deterrence, and making the place fairer for all, a level playing field , where cheats did not prosper. Hard sometimes when you are in your early twenties and the only thing younger than you is a Page 3 girl in the Sun.
Coal men were always on the fiddle. We would roam the streets in residential areas in a specially equipped van with a big sliding scale in the back. Sacks of coal would be weighed and often they were well short of the cwt. So the lorry would be escorted back to the yard it had come from and the whole load reweighed.
One day in Northolt, I was still a trainee with John Taylor who had just passed. We used to go to day release college together. He had married his child hood sweet heart. He went on to be the Chief Officer in later years, never working outside Brent. We got on professionally, but I cannnot say we liked each other. So one day Mr Burns the coal man is in Carr Road Northolt delivering, his bags turn out to be light. Taylor tells him to go back to Charringtons in Neasden by that bridge I walked over after my tonsils were removed 17 years before. Burns tries to make a run for it, he drives a huge detour up through Harrow, even Stanmore, with me in a Comma Van at the wheel pinned behind him, even when he goes through red lights, even crossing the North Circular. Then in the yard after this chase, he stops on the weighbridge, goes into revers and before I can select reverse he has rammed us. The whole front of the cab is now in bits all around me. The steering column saved me, Taylor had leeped over the passenger seat into the back. The van was a write off, no windsreen, no doors, no grill. Burns sped off, the engine was still running on the Comma because the passengers sat on it, so I sped off after him, Sweaney eat your heart out. Bits of metal and glass fell off as I drove with the wind in my face. Burns jumped up on the back of his lorry tipping the sacks destroying the evidence. I drove back to the offices to get Masters the manager, he sat in the remnants of a passenger seat, and barked at Burns that he was fired Alan Sugar style.
In truth cases like this were unusual but the outcome was always the same, crime paid, the offender walked away from court laughing, the do gooder Magistrates were hopelessly out of touch. It was also safe not risk. If the first offender was fined £25 then the rest, all that day were fined the same, regardless of what they did.
For those sort of reasons, when I found myself on the front pages or the TV screen because of my job, I generally told it as it was, popular with some but deeply and jealously unpopular with others. Later I would make the transition and become an investigative journalist and the outcome would be more significant than the law of our land. Public shame would achieve more than judicial sentencing, alas.
Cynical yes, the life made you like it. I would catch all the west end hotels for short measure drinks and overcharging. I would catch all the petrol attendants in the west end for fraud. In certain trades conning the customer was trade practice. Management never wondered why their lowly paid staff would turn up for work in a brand new sports car !!!
One Fine Fare manager in Northwood Hills, had the old prices on the shelves and the special offers in the window and in the Daily Mirror advertisement. The result, the sales till staff overcharged everyone. He was petrified when I turned up, sometimes the job had that effect when they had something more to hide than their brown underwear. I think I got 3 cases that day on just routine visits, no complaints from the unknowing public that I was duty bound to protect. I got out of the van with Dave Smith and thought those punnets of strawberries were never 8 ozs. Guess what they weren't. One Greengrocer Case. Next Fine Fare, where the manager later had a heart attack (3 weeks later) and died. The Supermarket bosses were cruel to their staff if Trading Standards caught them out. Next a car dealer turning the mileage and therefore the history of the vehicle back on the odometer. One Christmas time, a Butcher's turkeys in the window were all £2 over priced. Because of the scale of the problem, a queue developed of his customers even queuing down the road. One customer mouthed off at me, saying leave the butcher alone, he had been a customer for 25 years it was the butcher down the road I should be checking up on. I could not tell this guy the truth. The Butcher, under caution, his excuse was "trade practice".
That was the day in the life of...........not every day, but not an untypical day. It was rare to find no trouble to deal with, not to make , but to deal with.
Of course all the troubles had to be written up. At least we had typists in those days to write up our reports, at least we had a team to go out with and do the job. Nowadays like most jobs its one man bands, no help, no corroboration. In fact if I knew at 18, what I know now, I would have never joined the service. Since the Thatcher years it has been decimated. More statutes given by Parliament to police and less manpower and financial budgets. Consumer protection these days is caveat emptor, buyer beware, and self assistance for the majority of the time. That is ok as quality of the product has improved, but the standard of service and the desire to make a fast buck remains the same as it always was. Other things like education and social work takes presidence, and the consumer has to watch out for himself more and more, but still pay his taxes.
I tried to right wrongs, and today in England's green and not so pleasant land, there are a lot of things wrong, like litter, energy waste, a tardiness to incorporate alternative energy sources, and a great waste of experience and education by this country. Strong stuff, but it is no wonder people just rely on the state and drift along. Why should they bother when the country, government and society does not bother about it's citizens. The Government pump billions of pounds into a black hole of banking institutions and watch from the balcony playing a fiddle as countless companies go bankrupt with no support from government or the banks. So the unemployed swell in numbers me included.
Today I go to Job Centre Minus to sign on again. £73 a week. They will say have you worked - No, are you looking for work - yes, I will say have you got any jobs , they will say no. I have argued 3 times about sending me on a Career Development Course which places the individual in a job at the end, by fine tuning skills that are transferable. All this funded by EU grants. I am waiting to hear, after trying all manner of routes to by pass Job Centre Minus who are an obstacle to progression. I even wrote to my MP, but that was a waste of time too. At the Government's Job Centre Minus they fail to put people back to work, as I sit there my bum hardly makes an impression in the seat, my question and answer period with an officer laughingly called an advisor, last for about 60 seconds. This is what is has come to after a couple of yearss working through private employment agancies as a lorry driver, apart from the year I worked fixed term to introduce the smoking controls in public places. So to resort to being a Job Centre Minus statistic is a true last resort.
I have sort advice from other non government organisations like Next Step and Jobsmaites. They have warned me about age discimination, so on my CV 30 years plus of dealing with the public, is not a selling point - delete 30 years. So sad.
It is a far cry from when I left school. I was still working at my Friday night Saturday job in Woolworths Harlesden on the delicatessen counter. I had a Lambretta TV175, £££, no tax as a student, and a job which was a source of girlfreinds too. I was ok. BUT, the Youth Employment Bureau thought otherwise. They told me off in their Pound Lane Offices. I told them I looked in the newspapers and applied for jobs, I had 3 A levels and 11 O levels. Not good enough. Go for these 6 jobs. OK.
Well the highest paid was in what was to become Trading Standards but in those days was still Weights & Measures, working for a local council but run by the Board of Trade. £19 a week, trainee assistant, checking up on factories and shops, sounded good to me.
It was a mile and a half to work. I started by going on the bus. I even made a girlfriend at the bus stop, a hairdresser, very pretty, lasted a week.
I had to drive a van when we checked petrol forecourts and factories, One inspector 2 assistants. Sometimes I drove the inspectors cars when just 2 went to check retailers. I still lived with Mum in Essex Road, but we worked in Ealing, Brent and Harrow, so we travelled to the edge of London and the countryside like Elstree and Stanmore. It was interetsing stuff. One of the best jobs was acting like a customer. I would go into a shop and buy something, then we would check it for correct weight and price back at the car parked round the corner. I often caught the shops. I had some knack of pretence innocence. So much so that Harry Stanton said once " Bloody hell, every time you go into a shop I get another case". Good old red faced, grey haired Harry, he never got promoted. He looked like an old Colonel Blimp, a Knight of St Columbus, got drunk every lunch time, so to keep death off the roads the assistant would drive in the afternoon. Else if he drove we would be swerving in a silver grey Singer Vogue Estate with the rotund Harry clutching the steering wheel but leaning on the curves with the wheel, TT Isle of Man style, pass the roseary beads Harry !!!
We had ex Kenya inspectors too. They were ex British Colonials, fluent in Swahili which came in handy in Southall, as the African Asians were being booted out of Africa to land at Heathrow Airport.
The Trade Descriptions Act November 14th 1968 changed the job overnight. Lots of people telephoned to complain for the first time. The car had broken down, the artist impression hotel in the holiday brochure had not been built in time, the special offers were over priced. The Harold Wilson Labour Government tried to protect the consumer, whereas today it is left to Brussels. We had counter inflation measures to stop traders making instant profit as they did in 1971 with decimalisation. Then a pint of Watneys Red Barrel went up overnight from one shilling and ten pence to twelve and a half p = to 2 shillings and sixpence in old money. Old Money that had served the anglo saxons well, so it was an excuse to profit and inflate prices. Lessons were learned and I was so good at getting prices down, I took over all the counter inflation complaints in 1973. One extremely camp gay ladies hairdresser in Ealing said to me after I had taken the red pen to his price list on the introduction of VAT.......... *Oooooooooo you are ruthless, you have taken me to the cleaners".
I was qualified by now, it took 4 years to pass a Government Professional series of exams on law and technology. I used to get lots of stories that I could dine out on. Only because I seemed to have a knack of finding trouble. My jealous counterparts would say I was a trouble maker, a maverick, a loose canon. I would counter and say I knew exactly where I was aiming. I did not need artificial targets. I did not want to tick boxes. My self motivation was about deterrence, and making the place fairer for all, a level playing field , where cheats did not prosper. Hard sometimes when you are in your early twenties and the only thing younger than you is a Page 3 girl in the Sun.
Coal men were always on the fiddle. We would roam the streets in residential areas in a specially equipped van with a big sliding scale in the back. Sacks of coal would be weighed and often they were well short of the cwt. So the lorry would be escorted back to the yard it had come from and the whole load reweighed.
One day in Northolt, I was still a trainee with John Taylor who had just passed. We used to go to day release college together. He had married his child hood sweet heart. He went on to be the Chief Officer in later years, never working outside Brent. We got on professionally, but I cannnot say we liked each other. So one day Mr Burns the coal man is in Carr Road Northolt delivering, his bags turn out to be light. Taylor tells him to go back to Charringtons in Neasden by that bridge I walked over after my tonsils were removed 17 years before. Burns tries to make a run for it, he drives a huge detour up through Harrow, even Stanmore, with me in a Comma Van at the wheel pinned behind him, even when he goes through red lights, even crossing the North Circular. Then in the yard after this chase, he stops on the weighbridge, goes into revers and before I can select reverse he has rammed us. The whole front of the cab is now in bits all around me. The steering column saved me, Taylor had leeped over the passenger seat into the back. The van was a write off, no windsreen, no doors, no grill. Burns sped off, the engine was still running on the Comma because the passengers sat on it, so I sped off after him, Sweaney eat your heart out. Bits of metal and glass fell off as I drove with the wind in my face. Burns jumped up on the back of his lorry tipping the sacks destroying the evidence. I drove back to the offices to get Masters the manager, he sat in the remnants of a passenger seat, and barked at Burns that he was fired Alan Sugar style.
In truth cases like this were unusual but the outcome was always the same, crime paid, the offender walked away from court laughing, the do gooder Magistrates were hopelessly out of touch. It was also safe not risk. If the first offender was fined £25 then the rest, all that day were fined the same, regardless of what they did.
For those sort of reasons, when I found myself on the front pages or the TV screen because of my job, I generally told it as it was, popular with some but deeply and jealously unpopular with others. Later I would make the transition and become an investigative journalist and the outcome would be more significant than the law of our land. Public shame would achieve more than judicial sentencing, alas.
Cynical yes, the life made you like it. I would catch all the west end hotels for short measure drinks and overcharging. I would catch all the petrol attendants in the west end for fraud. In certain trades conning the customer was trade practice. Management never wondered why their lowly paid staff would turn up for work in a brand new sports car !!!
One Fine Fare manager in Northwood Hills, had the old prices on the shelves and the special offers in the window and in the Daily Mirror advertisement. The result, the sales till staff overcharged everyone. He was petrified when I turned up, sometimes the job had that effect when they had something more to hide than their brown underwear. I think I got 3 cases that day on just routine visits, no complaints from the unknowing public that I was duty bound to protect. I got out of the van with Dave Smith and thought those punnets of strawberries were never 8 ozs. Guess what they weren't. One Greengrocer Case. Next Fine Fare, where the manager later had a heart attack (3 weeks later) and died. The Supermarket bosses were cruel to their staff if Trading Standards caught them out. Next a car dealer turning the mileage and therefore the history of the vehicle back on the odometer. One Christmas time, a Butcher's turkeys in the window were all £2 over priced. Because of the scale of the problem, a queue developed of his customers even queuing down the road. One customer mouthed off at me, saying leave the butcher alone, he had been a customer for 25 years it was the butcher down the road I should be checking up on. I could not tell this guy the truth. The Butcher, under caution, his excuse was "trade practice".
That was the day in the life of...........not every day, but not an untypical day. It was rare to find no trouble to deal with, not to make , but to deal with.
Of course all the troubles had to be written up. At least we had typists in those days to write up our reports, at least we had a team to go out with and do the job. Nowadays like most jobs its one man bands, no help, no corroboration. In fact if I knew at 18, what I know now, I would have never joined the service. Since the Thatcher years it has been decimated. More statutes given by Parliament to police and less manpower and financial budgets. Consumer protection these days is caveat emptor, buyer beware, and self assistance for the majority of the time. That is ok as quality of the product has improved, but the standard of service and the desire to make a fast buck remains the same as it always was. Other things like education and social work takes presidence, and the consumer has to watch out for himself more and more, but still pay his taxes.
life as we know it chapter 10 Bon Jovi
Stabbed in the back and your to blame, you gave the job a bad name.
Betrayal
All good stories have their essential ingredients to ensure the reader is on the edge of their seat and not sitting comfortably. Those ingredients include:- wit, intrigue, romance and betrayal.
People often view Allan Sharpe as a hard nosed, thick skinned character, who can mix it with the best of them. To a certain extent that is true, like the planet I stand on, I have an outer crust that can take abuse hurled at it. However I also have a liquid centre and an Achilles heel. Not many are allowed to see the inner sanctum, because of that vulnerability, deflector shields on maximum.
I was at Next Step again last week. I make her laugh with my life as I have known it. Like the compliment I got from Mohammad at Waltham Forest in about 2003, who said "Allan, you are the most politically incorrect person I have ever met".
I guess politics is the ultimate betrayal game. I always supported my staff, my team , often to consequences as the guns were re aimed at me as a result. Like when the Evil Woman, Nick Ross's wife, Sarah Caplan became editor of Watchdog and made the young girl reseachers cry if things went wrong...."its your finger pointing fault". But one has to do what's right. I am no angel, but as I have said before, I try to support good against evil. Another laugh from Mrs Next Step, was when I told her what the Doctor heard when he asked me about a prescription and was I allergic to anything, my retort was "yes incompetent management".
I have known the Ides of March at least 3 times at work, and at rest & play. So much for the theory of Rhino hide and off the duck's back. I didn't get where I am today by arse licking. In fact I can count on one hand people I have worked for that commanded my respect. The rest were ok, if they left me alone, did not interfere with their inadequate assessment of the situation and left me to get on with it and get results.
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/search/254965.Fine_for_jailed_Del_Boy/
Like my brother in law who wanted to create a garage business so that his son's Neil and Barry could take it on in later years, and it never quite made it,I have regrets. Some like my brother in law. I created Sharper Image TV & Video Productions Ltd. In 1994 My back was still healing after the knives attack at BBCTV, and I thought I could start an acorn for my sons Ian & Graeme. Alas it lasted just 4 years. Really a one man band, it did start Ian in a career though, but I had thrown in the towel before I could help Graeme make a start. In its hay day Sharper Image had a No 2 in the charts only to be pipped on the shelves by Walt Disney. But in truth that said it all. Sharper Image could not compete globally with multinationals, who remembers 2nd, only me (and Ian).
The biggest act of betrayal, getting back to the plot of this chapter, was in September 2004. LB of Waltham Forest was a poor area. Poor people are less well educated in general. I was poor as a kid, and well educated, so there are exceptions. However Walthamstow & Chingford and Leyton were depressing areas to work in, yet alone live in, which I did not have to fortunately. However I did have to serve the community and make their life better and fairer. The Council was one of the worse performers too, a fact named and shamed by the Audit Commission. Managers like the Environmental Health Officer Garry Seal, sat in his Arsenal festooned memorabilia, sat in front of his computer on his big fat arse. He knew little of what was going on in the streets outside his window. He only came out of his closed door office to go home, go to a meeting, go for a wee, go for a cup of coffee. One day in the kitchen I sellotaped a pound coin to his Arsenal mug, and said "that was the closest his team would going to get to win a trophy" haha said the Spurs supporter. His ugly face was a picture, even redder like their shirts, than when later I was to call him a "wanker" in front of the rest of the staff who cheered. All he cared about was his saving his big fat arse. I lost 50% of my staff over the 6 years I was there trying to do the reverse of what management did. All that time we had more statutes to enforce, and more demands from the public. Garry Nero Seal rose up the ranks of incompetency , I mean Peter's principle of management, and I had to suffer the Billy Bunter look a like for 10 months. He was aided and abetted by Linda Wacey, as Head of the Department. A people hater, spinster, poodle lover, and plastic smile perfectionist. Both were not on the planet High St Walthamstow. They were on the planet, budgets and saving bacon. Everyone else could get stuffed as far as they were concerned.
Now silly naive me thought I had a Liberal Democrat Councillor Allie in Barry Smith. But as with Dame Shirley Porter in Westminster 1982, I became a political pawn, and there are no winners, just losers and I lost. The build up was Seal's interference. He even pulled the plug on a crown court case, that had taken me 2 years to investigate. We were in Snaresbrook when he said we can no longer afford to proceed. So this business that had lost half a million pounds to some fraudulent ex members of staff, were left hung out to dry. The directors actually spoke to the slimmy Seal, actually that was their description, and later complained to the inefffectual Ombudsman. However worse was to follow. I used to say it was hard enough catching con men outside the office, but the worse thing was trying to undo the knots the inside office management tied me up in.
Our Price Windows had a customer non service since computer records began in 1992. I had represented complainants at the small claims court. I and they had won. Still no redress often about poor workmanship, it was their track record, along with phoenix companies rising from the ashes and receptionists made into directors as the bosses were banned by the Department of Trade & Industry. Yes really good to do business with huh !!! Not the sort of thing you admit to on your newspaper advertising.
When I turned Trading Standards Officer into Investigative Journalist in 1982, I had realised before, that the best consumer champion was not the courts but the media. So my old friend Lynn Faulds Wood was trying to resurrect a consumer slot on GMTV. I telephoned all the outstanding Our Price Window complainants to give them Lynn's telephone number. There was a successfull programme. The bosses were shown up on camera, they paid up people that had been in dispute for over 5 years.
The Labour Leader of the council wanted to know why Trading Standards was NOT mentioned and was Allan Sharpe behind all this. Got it in one, he was, that's why there was no mention. Waltham Forest council were scared of the press, they had every reason to be, they were inept, incompetent, and thay had all that and more to hide. A success story like this was not down to them to feature in any glory, it was a success story despite them. They had long disciplined me for talking to the media and tried to shut me up. Funny thing was in the summer of 1998, my first job was to track down the Good Restaurant Guide. I was temping and I got the job because the previous management hoped I could catch a guy that had been at it for 6 months. He had every Thompsons telephone directory in the country and wrote a letter to every restaurant listed. "Congratulations, our inspectors have visited you site as customers and you got 94% for service and quality of food" "Please pay £19 for a certificate, your name will be published in our guide in 3 months". He made £500,000. Alistair Leslie Woods was the Good Restaurant guide. The Police and Trading Standards had searched for him for 6 months. In the mean time he was busy. There were no inspectors or inspections. The restuarants who fell for the scam, got a worthless computer print out certificate that resembled my 100 yards breast stroke certificate that I never got at school. So I found ALW in 3 days, yes not 182 and a half days , 3 days. ALW was arrested all his directories , letters printers computers seized. The Newspapers ran the story. The boss congratulated me in front of the assembled staff for a glass of water and a turned up at the edges sarny, very nice. I worked with the Press Office and my team would feature regularly on local and national news. It was good for morale, and showed the community that something was being done, it is called banging the drum.
The new mangement were jealous, their testicals had no ego, they tried to put a lid on me. Eventually in September 2004 at the 3rd attempt, they sacked me, after all those people finally got their rights from the crooked Our Price Windows.
I did take the Council to the Employment Bureau. But employment law is not on the side of an employee who is just good at his job, rather it is on the side of employers who are not good at their job, but make the rules up as they go along, move goal posts and hold all the computer recorded evidence. At least it took a week the trial, at least I cost them £10,000 employing a barrister. At least I had 8 witnesses who supported my stand, they had 3 trumped up establishment. At least Terry Brady my old mate from Westminster turned up and gave evidence, and we went to the pub after, came home on the train and had a good laugh at old times. Those were the days.........ah yes, Life on Mars.
David lost to Goliath that day, since then he has been sent into exile, branded as a maverick , a trouble maker. Maybe one day he will return, like Dirty Harry.... yesterday is history, today is a gift, tomorrow.......well that is just a mystery..
People often view Allan Sharpe as a hard nosed, thick skinned character, who can mix it with the best of them. To a certain extent that is true, like the planet I stand on, I have an outer crust that can take abuse hurled at it. However I also have a liquid centre and an Achilles heel. Not many are allowed to see the inner sanctum, because of that vulnerability, deflector shields on maximum.
I was at Next Step again last week. I make her laugh with my life as I have known it. Like the compliment I got from Mohammad at Waltham Forest in about 2003, who said "Allan, you are the most politically incorrect person I have ever met".
I guess politics is the ultimate betrayal game. I always supported my staff, my team , often to consequences as the guns were re aimed at me as a result. Like when the Evil Woman, Nick Ross's wife, Sarah Caplan became editor of Watchdog and made the young girl reseachers cry if things went wrong...."its your finger pointing fault". But one has to do what's right. I am no angel, but as I have said before, I try to support good against evil. Another laugh from Mrs Next Step, was when I told her what the Doctor heard when he asked me about a prescription and was I allergic to anything, my retort was "yes incompetent management".
I have known the Ides of March at least 3 times at work, and at rest & play. So much for the theory of Rhino hide and off the duck's back. I didn't get where I am today by arse licking. In fact I can count on one hand people I have worked for that commanded my respect. The rest were ok, if they left me alone, did not interfere with their inadequate assessment of the situation and left me to get on with it and get results.
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/search/254965.Fine_for_jailed_Del_Boy/
Like my brother in law who wanted to create a garage business so that his son's Neil and Barry could take it on in later years, and it never quite made it,I have regrets. Some like my brother in law. I created Sharper Image TV & Video Productions Ltd. In 1994 My back was still healing after the knives attack at BBCTV, and I thought I could start an acorn for my sons Ian & Graeme. Alas it lasted just 4 years. Really a one man band, it did start Ian in a career though, but I had thrown in the towel before I could help Graeme make a start. In its hay day Sharper Image had a No 2 in the charts only to be pipped on the shelves by Walt Disney. But in truth that said it all. Sharper Image could not compete globally with multinationals, who remembers 2nd, only me (and Ian).
The biggest act of betrayal, getting back to the plot of this chapter, was in September 2004. LB of Waltham Forest was a poor area. Poor people are less well educated in general. I was poor as a kid, and well educated, so there are exceptions. However Walthamstow & Chingford and Leyton were depressing areas to work in, yet alone live in, which I did not have to fortunately. However I did have to serve the community and make their life better and fairer. The Council was one of the worse performers too, a fact named and shamed by the Audit Commission. Managers like the Environmental Health Officer Garry Seal, sat in his Arsenal festooned memorabilia, sat in front of his computer on his big fat arse. He knew little of what was going on in the streets outside his window. He only came out of his closed door office to go home, go to a meeting, go for a wee, go for a cup of coffee. One day in the kitchen I sellotaped a pound coin to his Arsenal mug, and said "that was the closest his team would going to get to win a trophy" haha said the Spurs supporter. His ugly face was a picture, even redder like their shirts, than when later I was to call him a "wanker" in front of the rest of the staff who cheered. All he cared about was his saving his big fat arse. I lost 50% of my staff over the 6 years I was there trying to do the reverse of what management did. All that time we had more statutes to enforce, and more demands from the public. Garry Nero Seal rose up the ranks of incompetency , I mean Peter's principle of management, and I had to suffer the Billy Bunter look a like for 10 months. He was aided and abetted by Linda Wacey, as Head of the Department. A people hater, spinster, poodle lover, and plastic smile perfectionist. Both were not on the planet High St Walthamstow. They were on the planet, budgets and saving bacon. Everyone else could get stuffed as far as they were concerned.
Now silly naive me thought I had a Liberal Democrat Councillor Allie in Barry Smith. But as with Dame Shirley Porter in Westminster 1982, I became a political pawn, and there are no winners, just losers and I lost. The build up was Seal's interference. He even pulled the plug on a crown court case, that had taken me 2 years to investigate. We were in Snaresbrook when he said we can no longer afford to proceed. So this business that had lost half a million pounds to some fraudulent ex members of staff, were left hung out to dry. The directors actually spoke to the slimmy Seal, actually that was their description, and later complained to the inefffectual Ombudsman. However worse was to follow. I used to say it was hard enough catching con men outside the office, but the worse thing was trying to undo the knots the inside office management tied me up in.
Our Price Windows had a customer non service since computer records began in 1992. I had represented complainants at the small claims court. I and they had won. Still no redress often about poor workmanship, it was their track record, along with phoenix companies rising from the ashes and receptionists made into directors as the bosses were banned by the Department of Trade & Industry. Yes really good to do business with huh !!! Not the sort of thing you admit to on your newspaper advertising.
When I turned Trading Standards Officer into Investigative Journalist in 1982, I had realised before, that the best consumer champion was not the courts but the media. So my old friend Lynn Faulds Wood was trying to resurrect a consumer slot on GMTV. I telephoned all the outstanding Our Price Window complainants to give them Lynn's telephone number. There was a successfull programme. The bosses were shown up on camera, they paid up people that had been in dispute for over 5 years.
The Labour Leader of the council wanted to know why Trading Standards was NOT mentioned and was Allan Sharpe behind all this. Got it in one, he was, that's why there was no mention. Waltham Forest council were scared of the press, they had every reason to be, they were inept, incompetent, and thay had all that and more to hide. A success story like this was not down to them to feature in any glory, it was a success story despite them. They had long disciplined me for talking to the media and tried to shut me up. Funny thing was in the summer of 1998, my first job was to track down the Good Restaurant Guide. I was temping and I got the job because the previous management hoped I could catch a guy that had been at it for 6 months. He had every Thompsons telephone directory in the country and wrote a letter to every restaurant listed. "Congratulations, our inspectors have visited you site as customers and you got 94% for service and quality of food" "Please pay £19 for a certificate, your name will be published in our guide in 3 months". He made £500,000. Alistair Leslie Woods was the Good Restaurant guide. The Police and Trading Standards had searched for him for 6 months. In the mean time he was busy. There were no inspectors or inspections. The restuarants who fell for the scam, got a worthless computer print out certificate that resembled my 100 yards breast stroke certificate that I never got at school. So I found ALW in 3 days, yes not 182 and a half days , 3 days. ALW was arrested all his directories , letters printers computers seized. The Newspapers ran the story. The boss congratulated me in front of the assembled staff for a glass of water and a turned up at the edges sarny, very nice. I worked with the Press Office and my team would feature regularly on local and national news. It was good for morale, and showed the community that something was being done, it is called banging the drum.
The new mangement were jealous, their testicals had no ego, they tried to put a lid on me. Eventually in September 2004 at the 3rd attempt, they sacked me, after all those people finally got their rights from the crooked Our Price Windows.
I did take the Council to the Employment Bureau. But employment law is not on the side of an employee who is just good at his job, rather it is on the side of employers who are not good at their job, but make the rules up as they go along, move goal posts and hold all the computer recorded evidence. At least it took a week the trial, at least I cost them £10,000 employing a barrister. At least I had 8 witnesses who supported my stand, they had 3 trumped up establishment. At least Terry Brady my old mate from Westminster turned up and gave evidence, and we went to the pub after, came home on the train and had a good laugh at old times. Those were the days.........ah yes, Life on Mars.
David lost to Goliath that day, since then he has been sent into exile, branded as a maverick , a trouble maker. Maybe one day he will return, like Dirty Harry.... yesterday is history, today is a gift, tomorrow.......well that is just a mystery..
life as we know it chapter 9 This is the BBC
This is the BBC
I said before my happiest days were at the BBC. I felt I could influence things. In Trading Standards as an officer you dealt with local and national issues. Sometimes they made the newspapers, but often no one else knew what was going on and court cases took ages. True I gave the press a lot of stories, I appeared on TV as a Trading Standards Officer in the middle of things, even filmed during a "discussion" with a "don't point that camera at me sonny, I'll shove it down your throat" video pirate in Harrow Road Paddington. Yes nice chap not exactly membership potential for the round table. It was stories I could tell to journalist that helped sell their papers, and in the end I jumped the Trading Standards ship for investigative journalism.
Why, because it was obvious to me that naming and shaming had more impact than the courts of the land. I sad indictment, but true,
So life at Lime Grove Shepherds Bush in the mid 80's in the days of Breakfast TV and Thats Life. Room 601 right at the top, overcrowded but what harmony amongst a team all wanting to do well, all wanting Watchdog to be a success. A fantastic camaraderie, Watchdog had been a slot in Nationwide and when I joined it was beginning a life on its own, a programme in it's own right against the wishes of Esther Ranzen on That's Life, consumer competition.
I remember Kevin Sutcliffe joining. Nick Hayes. the editor, used to ask me to look after the new recruits. So Kevein was under my wing for a while. Lovely lad, from Blackpool so he spoke funny, and always dressed as a rocker, but had no motorbike and no crash helmet, so was past the sell by date by 20 years for no real reason of transport, he used the bus and the tube.
Kevin walked with me to a bakers in Goldhawk Road Shepherds Bush one lunch time, and asked the lady behind the counter for barn cakes, do what she said, I was in hysterics as Kevin tried to explain, so I acted as translator for my colleague, excuse him luv I said, he's from Blackpool. On the way back munching his jam doughnut I explained to Kevin that barn cakes in London meant you were mad. loopy, as opposed to a kind of oat biscuit. A nation divided by a common language. But Kev took it well. We were soon driving up to Manchester to make some enquiries about a story and as we passed Watford Gap Services on the M1 Kev said to me "Right from now on I do the talking, 'cos they won't bloody understand you".
Which is not untrue. I remember Steve Rose coming up to a Birmingham Pub once where I had tracked down some roofers who preyed on the elderly. You know the sort that drive round, look for a house that has all the signs of an old person living in. Then knocking on the door and frightening the old folk into parting with £150 to fix a loose roof tile which was not loose in the first place. Of course the old trusted the con artist and had to take his word for it, and could not see for themselves. "Better get it fixed luv quick , if it falls and hits someone you will be liable, and it is leaking now, haven't you noticed it". Some of these cowboy builders would even rin the old dear down to the Post Office to cash the giro.
Anyway on the basis of 3 letters of a number plate I found a roofers van matching a description parked in a Pub Car Park. So I then traced where the driver lived and the film crew would turn up the next morning to doorstep the Roofer and his boss. But during our observations in the pub, surveillance and blending in with the customers, some young girl came up to Steve and said "I know you , you're from the Cup Shop", Steve's face contorted as he could not understand a word she was saying, and again I was in hysterics, knowing that the girl thought the pub was going to be raided for under age drinking by the force from the cop shop.
The doorstep, well after a night in the Holiday Inn, no expense spared on these productions, it was snowing. So I said to Lynn Faulds Wood, put a scarf on to hide her hair knock on the roofer's front door and pretend she was new in the neighbourhood, but the snow has caused a collapse of a section of her roof. Meanwhile the film crew and I hid behind a hedge in some one's front garden. Why people don't come out and say oi amazes me, must be everyday they have a film crew squatting in their front garden. So matey buys hook line and sinker the damsel in distress story and as he and Lynn walk past the garden, up pops a cameraman and a sound man like a jack in a box and Lynn whips off her scarf to confront the rogue.
Wow, we used to laugh. We were the good guys and when you saw the eyes of the bad guys and their jaw hit the deck, well that was justice and comeback for their misdeeds. It gave me a real buzz. I had 3 priorities, we had to capture on camera the villains face, if he spoke that was better, if he engaged in an interview even better. But numero uno was his face on camera. The tricks we used to get up to to get them out of their houses or lay in wait at their offices. Of course the viewer never saw what the camera crew were up to laying in wait to turn the tables on the villain. All they saw was a street interview confrontation and the villain legging it slip sliding in the snow. Nor could we laugh until it was all over, so it was bite the lip, but it still makes me burst out laughing today when I think of what we did. The film crews loved it, they knew all the background work had been done, that a plan had been made and that justice was on their side. Those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end, we did sing and dance for ever and a day.
John form Kingston was a freelance stills cameraman that I often employed, for these tricky confrontations, he could take stills as back up for the moving camera. We did a lot together, even a couple of car chases in East London and up the M11. He was there when the customers of a cheap furniture retailer went bust, a group of them came up to me and said get your cameras rolling and watch this..... and they stormed the stage at the creditors meeting and beat up the delinquent directors.
But the best one was when we asked a road sweeper to borrow his donkey jacket and his road sweeping lorry in exchange for a cup of tea and egg on toast in the corner cafe. The plan then was for John with LB of Hounslow Donkey Jacket to knock on the door and say "Is that your car mate, we are doing road sweeping, with a mechanical road sweeper, can you move your car for a minute. Of course the crook comes out to move the brand new black Mercedes and hey presto guess whose on the road sweeping machine, its the BBC film crew, by jove, and you sir are a crook and a swindler.
Scuffles there were, mainly the cameraman got the attention 1st. Part of my Producer Director job was to protect him and the rest of the crew. hence I got the nick name Big Al. There was one job, a Mock Auction, where I asked for volunteers to film the event. I took a late call that this auction was happening that evening. It's illegal, but it's the sort of sale where the auctioneer shows something really good, they have stooges in the audience who pretend to but it. Everyone else ums and ars and wants a slice of the action and of course they get boxed and wrapped up tatty junk for their money. I was in the auction using a hidden camera and sound equipment and on my cue the film crew and Sarah the reporter were to come into the hall to confront the gang. So at the end of the sale I spoke into my microphone and in came the crew and suddenly their was a pitched battle. I had bullet proof Stevens as the cameraman, he had filmed in Vietnam hence the nickname and he was a big lad. 26 seconds he had hold of his camera, before it went airborne all filmed on my hidden camera in a bag, which I had to hand over to another crew member, so as I could wade into the gang attacking my crew, meanwhile Sarah who for vanity reasons never wore her glasses when filming, walked up to the auctioneer in bliss full ignorance of all hell letting loose in her wake. So the commentary went as such "The man in the black leather jacket squaring up and engaging in fisty cuffs with the gang is in fact our producer protecting the crew, and he uses himself as a barrier to stop the gang from shutting the doors as he shouts out and calls to me, so I can run and make my escape before the doors slam shut...bang".
It does bring a whole new meaning to "as seen on television". Those were the days and nights my friend, we thought they would never end.
Most of the time the crooks who were caught out let off steam, rant and swear, just occasionally it got really nasty. Lynn got 5 yards away from me once. We were at Ron Aylwards Cheshire mansion. He was the home improvement entrepreneur, whose Sunday Times Magazine glossy advertisements offered much, solar panels, the answer to flat roof leaks, a new prestigious driveway, luxurious central heating. Trouble was with Ron Aylward the only home he improved was his own. Every time the game was up, he would fold the latest venture and a phoenix operation would rise from the ashes fo the last. For instance his central heating was a series of electric fires plugged into a hole made in partition walls. Anyway Lynn got 5 yards away from me and Mrs Aylward lashed out with a dog chain right round Lynn's face as the camera rolled.
Another time 28 stone Mick was a transport manager of dangerous muck away lorries near the Blackwall Tunnel. I drove the Transit up to his portacabin door and from the van's side door the crew and Lynn could walk straight into his office. By the time I got in, the sound man was flying round the room as Mick grabbed the camera after throwing a pint of milk then a cup of tea at the cameraman, who now looked like the android in Aliens, covered in white milk. The sound man was still connected to the camera by the umbilical cord hence revolving around the room like a scene from the Exorcist. So I extracted the £25,000 camera from the guiness enhanced gut of the transport manager and gave it back to the besodden cameraman with the red recording light still illuminated. Mick then locked us IN his office as he waddled down the yard to get his drivers. Discretion now being the better part of valour, I kicked the door out and we all jumped into the Transit only for 2 lorries to bear down on us. Fortunately I can drive, fast and nippy. In fact I drove all the time because we always had to get somewhere in no time at all. Like Inverness airport 40 miles away in 40 minutes to catch the plane... and we did. So foot down I headed straight for the oncoming truck just as the one from the side missed us by inches in my acceleration, then at the last second I swung the transit hard left and then hard right and swerved round the oncoming truck, like a warship evades an Exocet missile, phew. So while the others stayed in a corner cafe, the cameraman came in my car and stood through the sunshine roof as we returned to the yard in a hired XR3i, a bit nippier to deal with any nasty lorry drivers, just to get some more footage and Mick shaking his fist through his office window. Those were the days my friend, they don't make them like they used to you know, when it was trouble up mill and tough at the bottom.
Last but not least for this chapter, I must narrate something slightly different but its not time for something completely different you will be glad to know.
Mike Embley was the reporter, the vegetarian that kept 450 passengers including me waiting on a Boston Runway in a 747 because he could not find any plums to eat for the flight.
Why, because it was obvious to me that naming and shaming had more impact than the courts of the land. I sad indictment, but true,
So life at Lime Grove Shepherds Bush in the mid 80's in the days of Breakfast TV and Thats Life. Room 601 right at the top, overcrowded but what harmony amongst a team all wanting to do well, all wanting Watchdog to be a success. A fantastic camaraderie, Watchdog had been a slot in Nationwide and when I joined it was beginning a life on its own, a programme in it's own right against the wishes of Esther Ranzen on That's Life, consumer competition.
I remember Kevin Sutcliffe joining. Nick Hayes. the editor, used to ask me to look after the new recruits. So Kevein was under my wing for a while. Lovely lad, from Blackpool so he spoke funny, and always dressed as a rocker, but had no motorbike and no crash helmet, so was past the sell by date by 20 years for no real reason of transport, he used the bus and the tube.
Kevin walked with me to a bakers in Goldhawk Road Shepherds Bush one lunch time, and asked the lady behind the counter for barn cakes, do what she said, I was in hysterics as Kevin tried to explain, so I acted as translator for my colleague, excuse him luv I said, he's from Blackpool. On the way back munching his jam doughnut I explained to Kevin that barn cakes in London meant you were mad. loopy, as opposed to a kind of oat biscuit. A nation divided by a common language. But Kev took it well. We were soon driving up to Manchester to make some enquiries about a story and as we passed Watford Gap Services on the M1 Kev said to me "Right from now on I do the talking, 'cos they won't bloody understand you".
Which is not untrue. I remember Steve Rose coming up to a Birmingham Pub once where I had tracked down some roofers who preyed on the elderly. You know the sort that drive round, look for a house that has all the signs of an old person living in. Then knocking on the door and frightening the old folk into parting with £150 to fix a loose roof tile which was not loose in the first place. Of course the old trusted the con artist and had to take his word for it, and could not see for themselves. "Better get it fixed luv quick , if it falls and hits someone you will be liable, and it is leaking now, haven't you noticed it". Some of these cowboy builders would even rin the old dear down to the Post Office to cash the giro.
Anyway on the basis of 3 letters of a number plate I found a roofers van matching a description parked in a Pub Car Park. So I then traced where the driver lived and the film crew would turn up the next morning to doorstep the Roofer and his boss. But during our observations in the pub, surveillance and blending in with the customers, some young girl came up to Steve and said "I know you , you're from the Cup Shop", Steve's face contorted as he could not understand a word she was saying, and again I was in hysterics, knowing that the girl thought the pub was going to be raided for under age drinking by the force from the cop shop.
The doorstep, well after a night in the Holiday Inn, no expense spared on these productions, it was snowing. So I said to Lynn Faulds Wood, put a scarf on to hide her hair knock on the roofer's front door and pretend she was new in the neighbourhood, but the snow has caused a collapse of a section of her roof. Meanwhile the film crew and I hid behind a hedge in some one's front garden. Why people don't come out and say oi amazes me, must be everyday they have a film crew squatting in their front garden. So matey buys hook line and sinker the damsel in distress story and as he and Lynn walk past the garden, up pops a cameraman and a sound man like a jack in a box and Lynn whips off her scarf to confront the rogue.
Wow, we used to laugh. We were the good guys and when you saw the eyes of the bad guys and their jaw hit the deck, well that was justice and comeback for their misdeeds. It gave me a real buzz. I had 3 priorities, we had to capture on camera the villains face, if he spoke that was better, if he engaged in an interview even better. But numero uno was his face on camera. The tricks we used to get up to to get them out of their houses or lay in wait at their offices. Of course the viewer never saw what the camera crew were up to laying in wait to turn the tables on the villain. All they saw was a street interview confrontation and the villain legging it slip sliding in the snow. Nor could we laugh until it was all over, so it was bite the lip, but it still makes me burst out laughing today when I think of what we did. The film crews loved it, they knew all the background work had been done, that a plan had been made and that justice was on their side. Those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end, we did sing and dance for ever and a day.
John form Kingston was a freelance stills cameraman that I often employed, for these tricky confrontations, he could take stills as back up for the moving camera. We did a lot together, even a couple of car chases in East London and up the M11. He was there when the customers of a cheap furniture retailer went bust, a group of them came up to me and said get your cameras rolling and watch this..... and they stormed the stage at the creditors meeting and beat up the delinquent directors.
But the best one was when we asked a road sweeper to borrow his donkey jacket and his road sweeping lorry in exchange for a cup of tea and egg on toast in the corner cafe. The plan then was for John with LB of Hounslow Donkey Jacket to knock on the door and say "Is that your car mate, we are doing road sweeping, with a mechanical road sweeper, can you move your car for a minute. Of course the crook comes out to move the brand new black Mercedes and hey presto guess whose on the road sweeping machine, its the BBC film crew, by jove, and you sir are a crook and a swindler.
Scuffles there were, mainly the cameraman got the attention 1st. Part of my Producer Director job was to protect him and the rest of the crew. hence I got the nick name Big Al. There was one job, a Mock Auction, where I asked for volunteers to film the event. I took a late call that this auction was happening that evening. It's illegal, but it's the sort of sale where the auctioneer shows something really good, they have stooges in the audience who pretend to but it. Everyone else ums and ars and wants a slice of the action and of course they get boxed and wrapped up tatty junk for their money. I was in the auction using a hidden camera and sound equipment and on my cue the film crew and Sarah the reporter were to come into the hall to confront the gang. So at the end of the sale I spoke into my microphone and in came the crew and suddenly their was a pitched battle. I had bullet proof Stevens as the cameraman, he had filmed in Vietnam hence the nickname and he was a big lad. 26 seconds he had hold of his camera, before it went airborne all filmed on my hidden camera in a bag, which I had to hand over to another crew member, so as I could wade into the gang attacking my crew, meanwhile Sarah who for vanity reasons never wore her glasses when filming, walked up to the auctioneer in bliss full ignorance of all hell letting loose in her wake. So the commentary went as such "The man in the black leather jacket squaring up and engaging in fisty cuffs with the gang is in fact our producer protecting the crew, and he uses himself as a barrier to stop the gang from shutting the doors as he shouts out and calls to me, so I can run and make my escape before the doors slam shut...bang".
It does bring a whole new meaning to "as seen on television". Those were the days and nights my friend, we thought they would never end.
Most of the time the crooks who were caught out let off steam, rant and swear, just occasionally it got really nasty. Lynn got 5 yards away from me once. We were at Ron Aylwards Cheshire mansion. He was the home improvement entrepreneur, whose Sunday Times Magazine glossy advertisements offered much, solar panels, the answer to flat roof leaks, a new prestigious driveway, luxurious central heating. Trouble was with Ron Aylward the only home he improved was his own. Every time the game was up, he would fold the latest venture and a phoenix operation would rise from the ashes fo the last. For instance his central heating was a series of electric fires plugged into a hole made in partition walls. Anyway Lynn got 5 yards away from me and Mrs Aylward lashed out with a dog chain right round Lynn's face as the camera rolled.
Another time 28 stone Mick was a transport manager of dangerous muck away lorries near the Blackwall Tunnel. I drove the Transit up to his portacabin door and from the van's side door the crew and Lynn could walk straight into his office. By the time I got in, the sound man was flying round the room as Mick grabbed the camera after throwing a pint of milk then a cup of tea at the cameraman, who now looked like the android in Aliens, covered in white milk. The sound man was still connected to the camera by the umbilical cord hence revolving around the room like a scene from the Exorcist. So I extracted the £25,000 camera from the guiness enhanced gut of the transport manager and gave it back to the besodden cameraman with the red recording light still illuminated. Mick then locked us IN his office as he waddled down the yard to get his drivers. Discretion now being the better part of valour, I kicked the door out and we all jumped into the Transit only for 2 lorries to bear down on us. Fortunately I can drive, fast and nippy. In fact I drove all the time because we always had to get somewhere in no time at all. Like Inverness airport 40 miles away in 40 minutes to catch the plane... and we did. So foot down I headed straight for the oncoming truck just as the one from the side missed us by inches in my acceleration, then at the last second I swung the transit hard left and then hard right and swerved round the oncoming truck, like a warship evades an Exocet missile, phew. So while the others stayed in a corner cafe, the cameraman came in my car and stood through the sunshine roof as we returned to the yard in a hired XR3i, a bit nippier to deal with any nasty lorry drivers, just to get some more footage and Mick shaking his fist through his office window. Those were the days my friend, they don't make them like they used to you know, when it was trouble up mill and tough at the bottom.
Last but not least for this chapter, I must narrate something slightly different but its not time for something completely different you will be glad to know.
Mike Embley was the reporter, the vegetarian that kept 450 passengers including me waiting on a Boston Runway in a 747 because he could not find any plums to eat for the flight.
life as we know it chapter 8 BSM
I got into the BBC because I had contacts as a former Trading Standards Officer and Investigative techniques. BBC does not really employ investigators so I was a unique animal. The change from having a team of officers to being on my jack jones took some getting used to. Also I no longer had a warrant card or statutory powers. But I soon learned that people would tell me things anyway. Sometimes it was in a brown paper envelope, other times they would be interviewed, even on camera. Of course everything had to be substantiated, else on the balance of probabilities I and Aunty Beeb could get sued for libel. But we had to show balance and did not have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt. Some stories came direct from the victim, others through the authorities who had drawn a blank. When you are in law enforcement, some things are wrong but not illegal, but the public don’t understand. When you are in TV the wrong things that are not illegal should be and hence the story.
One story I did about BSM was put on hold for a week after the BBC lawyers said I had to talk to more than 25 ex instructors. The following week we met and they asked me how many, I said 600 is that enough. They grinned. Those were the days my friend, BSM were very hostile, refused an interview, and were taking full page ads in the Telegraph, Times and Guardian about me and the Beeb saying it was all lies lies and more damn lies. The Editor David Lloyd and I went to stage our own Press conferences to counter the BSM propaganda. Lloydy was very happy, he had never had such a high profile. The ex public school boy with the same haircut was full or pomp and circumstance.
I even made his cricket team, that was the Beeb in those days, cucumber sandwiches, Pimms and Cricket, though they could not get me out, and I had to retire to let someone else bat, that was not cricket old chap to stay in for hours !!! It’s not the winning it’s the taking part, sod that for a game of soldiers even cricketers. When we fielded once the Deputy Editor hit me for six once, so next ball I charged down and put every ounce of effort in the delivery, and caught and bowled him to me great obvious delight. Now now Allan.
I remember a summer party at Frank Bough's house, we had a proper cricket match on his garden, yes it was that big on the banks of the river Thames. And when the cricket was over Sue Nix and I sat by the river, I always called her Sue no Knicks, she was beautiful.
What had BSM done I here you bib and sound your horn. Well the law allows driving instructors to learn their trade while they teach their pupils to drive. But they have to be supervised by qualified tutors. BSM in the mid eighties were masters at deception. They fooled Dept of Transport Inspectors into thinking dead instructors were still alive and not only kicking but driving.... out on a lesson, also instructors who had emigrated to Canada were still on the books and conducting lessons in Chiswick London W4 according to BSM. Well I have heard of commuting and getting on yer bike for a job, but really transatlantic flights for a one hour lesson, I don’t think so, never mind the jet lag sitting behind the dashboard of a Metro.
So for the 3 days before transmission I worked 22 hours a day, then the 6th Floor came to view the film that was making all, the headlines before it had been seen. The 6th Floor were the big BBC bosses and we all had to stand to attention. So the programme went out, and so did Jacobs the Chairman , who was also treasurer of the Liberal Party, whose Peers had blocked new legislation that BSM did not like. So BSM now closed down branches and became a franchise, and, oh the laws they were blocking got passed.
Pooped , yes I was, but adrenaline keeps you going.
Too pooped to party though, but the BBC did have some wonderful memorable parties where we would all sing Hey Jude for the final 30 minutes at some exotic location. I normally did the music which helped, as far as I was concerned, but these events were tremendous for loyalty, morale and camaraderie.
A film was always made for the Christmas party. These days I spend Christmas parties on my own with left hand pulling the cracker with my right hand. But at the Beeb, one film I made was about the Editor Nick Hayes on Watchdog. He was still a hippy in the 80s, curly hair that had not seen a brush since he was born and he was now 30 something. Beard too, floppy jumper and corduroy trousers and trainers.
So for the film I donned a wig a floppy jumper trainers and corduroys. I became Nick Hayes his double.
Now Nick had justgot his driving licence, late in life and to everyone’s astonishment he bought his first car and what was it…………..
that’s right a Porsche !! We went to Scarborough once, not for a fair but a conference. I felt every cat’s eye on the Motorway as passenger in the Porsche on its maiden voyage, bought with the proceeds from the divorce settlement. Not as bad as Sarah Spiller driving though, the wipers would be on double speed, and the SUN WAS SHINING. Lovely Sarah she used to put the wipers on to demist the windscreen, she didn’t realise they WERE ON THE OUTSIDE !!! You can see why I normally drove now can’t you. Another Spiller story she parks the hire car overnight in an NCP car park in Birmingham. Next morning at the hotel, “where is the car Sarah”. “Oh it’s at the NCP car park”, “Which one”, the multi-story one”, “they are all multi-story”. So for the next hour we wander around Birmingham City centre looking for a car park with a “twirly bit to get in”, then “what floor” “errrrrrr”, so 6 floors later we find it. Now you know why I generally drove !!!
So back to the plot………..Christmas time filming for the party premiere , the Nick double at the bus stop hand request goes out bus zooms passed, as they do.
But the funniest thing was we took his keys one day, drove his light blue Porsche with 87 learners plates stuck all over it, and in one scene Nick is watching this film at the party completely oblivious to what the film was about, and he sees a car like his, going through frame backwards then forwards, then backwards again, then kangaroo style, hazard lights on then indicating right and turning left. It was sooooooooooooo funny seeing his face , smiling at first then he saw the number plate, and he realised IT WAS HIS CAR, he he ha ha.
2 years later I still had my job, and he made me Deputy Editor, he he ha ha………..party time.
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