By now you will realise, that, like Star Wars the beginning is in the middle, there are sequels and prequels, to keep you on your toes, pay attention questions will be asked later.
As my suits stay in the wardrobe, I still apply for gissajobs I can do that, but as my age increases my opportunities decrease.
It seems to me that what I have achieved in the past counts for little today with prospective employers. I would like to become involved with combating climate change. Unlike Trading Standards and Consumer Protection where I hold a seemingly worthless Government Qualification, I have no pedigree in climate change, only that I have added to it along with the rest of us and I made TV programmes about it almost 20 years ago. A situation that has not changed much since, except worsened hence my desire to get involved once again. Apparently one can get a degree in climate change these days. I guess that qualifies someone to sit behind a desk top and do too little before it’s too late. If only it was never too late.
It was oh so different once. 42 is not only the answer to the universe, I think for me it was my Everest. Circa 42 I was head hunted by Science at the BBC to bring an element of Current Affairs into a new series called Life on 1. Prime Time BBC1, Thursday evenings 8pm. Science made Horizon and Tomorrow’s World, but for a new programme that addressed environment issues, I was asked to transfer from Watchdog to help produce it. My role was in charge of the film team, whilst others produced the live locations each week.
Exciting times. I had my own office in Kensington House. I had and earned the respect of a great Editor David Patterson. One day back in 1991 (those were the days still my friend) I said to him, “do you remember going back to school after the summer holidays?” He was my age, a bit older, and he always smirked when I asked him a question, I guess he did not know what was coming next. It was interesting though being unpredictable, it still is. I said when I was going to Grammar School in September 1960’s I walked through Roundwood Park Willesden (about 5 miles from Kensington House due north west). As a 12 year old I trudged through all the autumn leaves in the park, leaves that had fallen off the trees by September, Plane Trees, Horse Chestnut Trees, Oak Trees, Sycamore Trees. I said to him looking out of the window, “now the trees are in leaf till November, the seasons are changing, shifting.” He said “you are right.” Patterson was a great thinker, a very clever man, we got on well, we spoke the same language and shared the same ideals and principles. He was old guard BBC, a true programme maker, who wanted to make the viewer think to make the viewer realise.
So, he gave me a reporter, a researcher , a production assistant and said prove it. If you prove it we can base one of the series of programmes on it. So I set about my task in the days before the internet, when you had to find written articles and telephone bash the world to find experts.One expert would lead you on to another expert. Then there would be the feasibility of travelling to interview them in their setting.
However it was not the only concept I had to juggle with.......................
At the beginning of the time with Science I still played football for BBC every Saturday. One such afternoon in Tooting the normally strong resilient centre half who took no prisoners as well as the ball in the crunching tackle of the day, tried to do something completely different. As well as Mr Dependable, “they won’t get past Allan”, I liked to think I had a degree of skill when kicking the ball. At least I could kick the ball with either foot, unlike most of today’s professional prima donnas. So when the right winger came bearing down on our penalty area with the goalkeeper at his mercy, I came from his left straight across him and Franz Beckenbauer style took the ball from him with my left as I glided past, only for him to shoot at my trailing right leg, which then spun round like the whizzing hands of a clock. Down I went. I could not believe it. Even the Red Coat referees at Butlins had told me in their football competitions, take it easy these players are on holiday they don’t want to go home with a broken leg. Now after all these years and famous local newspaper back page headlines like the pitch battle of Ruislip Manor 1974, there I was on the grass with my fibula and tibia sticking through my metal shin pads and black woollen socks. “You alright Allan?” Harry said. “No my leg’s broken Harry”, “you’ll be alright, stand up and run it off”. Yes that is what we all did with knocks. “Harry my bones are sticking through my sock”, “oh blimey , yes it does look bad”.
Good old Harry , he brought 4 bottles of beer to my hospital bedside a week later just before I was due to try out crutches for the first time in my life with the physio nurse. I sailed up and down those stairs!!!
HOWEVER. A new role at the Beeb, a new girlfriend Hazel Graham, a beautiful long hair, long legged production assistant on Watchdog, and now a broken leg. So the Beeb hired me a converted Austin Allegro from Hertz in Edgware Road, Marble Arch. As I sat in the car with my right leg out straight in plaster up to my groin, I had an accelerator and brake on my right hand by the steering wheel. Of course I had to undergo the sods law initiative test, as I drove out of their alleyway a white transit van tried to write off the vehicle. But…………….. I managed to swerve and avoid the lunatic, in my first 30 seconds of disabled driving.
So, I would be there on the cliffs of Sunderland in a 70mph gale, on my 2 crutches under my armpits, directing a film crew about the pollution on the otherwise picturesque beaches there, shame about the weather. I looked like a parrot on a perch in a draught swinging backwards and forwards and trying not to go over the cliff.
Yes Life on 1 had to go on like any show and it was life as I knew it. The crutches always fell to the tarmac as I got out of the car. Young girls would run across the road to pick them up for me. Men would slam the door shut in front of me along corridors or at entrances. Yes equal opportunities as a sharp lesson for this Sharpe.
But, by the time I flew to Colorado and California, my plaster was cut down to size. I was still able to get caught by the Highway Patrol (Denver Branch). We had a plane to catch, it was getting there by the skin on our teeth time, once again. Fortunately the Highway Patrolman was one of those that loved our British Accents, I had 3 giggling, friendly , fluttering eyelash, BBC females in the Pontiac. He detained us no longer so we could catch the flight. I guess he finally gave up when my production assistant flung the large unfolded map (yes before sat nav) at him through her window asking for the quickest route to the airport, and he managed to catch the paper missile in the breeze and screw it up to shove back to her and wish us a nice day. Well done Linda!!
Now when I made a programme for the BBC I became a rapid mini expert in whatever subject the film was about. I had to know what I was talking about, have the facts at my fingertips, my finger on the pulse, else you guys the viewers would see there was no substance. And, substance there was. In fact that film in 1991 with interviews and computer projections from the world’s leading climatologist Professor Schneider of Colorado University predicted our weather today almost 20 years later. Extreme weather. Events that when they happen, whether the weather is hot, cold, dry or wet, it is an all time record “since records began”. Even though my brother in law, Mick, is one of the many sceptics, we have borrowed this earth for our children and our children’s children, as the Red Indians believed. Climate change is man made, the evidence is all around us, like the leaves on the trees, or on a park path in Willesden as they used to be.
20 years on. the electric cars, hydrogen cars, natural gas buses I drove then, are still to emerge in the showroom. When have you ever been in a pub with double glazing and the lights are not switched on, even on a sunny day.
I filmed these alternative fuel vehicles in California. They even converted 2nd hand Ford Fiestas in Islington London N1 by taking out the engine and fitting banks of batteries and electric motors to the front wheels 20 years ago.
But where is the infrastructure in “Great” Britain? I drive for miles these days. Yes I have seen a dump of an LPG filling depot for converted cars run by Polish Workers, one of whom speaks English. But, are the Seven Sisters preventing change while there still is oil to drill under our ocean floors? Do all governments lead or follow. California made legislation for change. They still lead the world, because their land suffered from air pollution even when the Spanish Conquistadores first discovered the angel coast line, due to climatic and geographical coincidences.
Amory Lovins was, and probably still is, a leading energy scientist. He lived 10,000 feet up in the Rockies outside Aspen. His house used electricity but even surrounded by snow, his meter tricked round, whereas ours resemble a helicopter rotor blades. He had 10 fold glazing and copper water piping circulating behind the glass and walls oh his home. He used heat extraction when cooking on his Aga, His washing water never went below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. They could have called him Mr Fahrenheit, he was travelling at the speed of light as Freddy Mercury would sing . He grew indoor banana plants behind the window panes, 10,000 feet up in the Rockies.
Dennis Weaver, who used to be Chester in Dodge City to Gunsmoke’s Mr Dillon played by James Arness, lived in Malibu. He had a home constructed out of old rubber tyres and empty drinks cans. The rubber kept the heat in and the cold out, helped by the air contained in the aluminium cans. It was also a great use of recycling. His Duel, as in the film he stared in against a crazy lorry driver, was with Climate Change. Now he is dead, alas, like so many great names and great people of nostalgia.Little did the wooden legged Chester who run up the Dodge City Street shouting for help from "Mr Dillon, Mr Dillon" on my black and white TV set in Willesden, realise how much I was glued to his performance as a 10 year old, in the good old days.
And, when I recount these tales of yesteryear. When others ask me, how did you make a programme then, I have to explain about the days, weeks, months phone bashing, planning, organising, researching, then filming the interviews. Filming the scenes, the location, the action scenes that would be needed to voice commentary over when we got back to base and started editing the film. Putting all the best bits and clips together to make sense and compose the argument, in the time we had allocated to us. The story we were telling and the story we believed in.
Those were the days my friend, yes we thought they would never end, but end they did. Patterson and others like him left the BBC as it changed and followed the lesser, cheaper standards of ITV. I would soon leave too. Now I watch little television. Programme schedules that incorporate free talent or free reality offer little to my intellect. Entertainment they might be for some that want to emulate the couch vegetable. Infotainment they are not, and I will always hold the record viewing figures for Watchdog at over 10 million up against Coronation Street, because now we have more channels, more choice, but not better programming.
Yes generations have at first been glued to Top of the Pops then subsequently sat at the back of the room irritated and not recognising any of the so called performers. But, they don’t make them like they used to. They call it progress. Me, I beg to differ.
Until the next time, stay tuned to this channel……..after all one day even this channel will end !!!
Post Script:
Remembering Chester, I even used to hobble as a kid emulating his performance on those wooden sidewalks of Dodge City in the Wild West.
I made a Sport Video for the retail market under the Sharper Image Banner in the mid 90's, my own TV Production Company. It featured Jimmy Greaves and Tommy Docherty with ad lib links to film clips of incidents on the fever pitch. My son Ian was working, learning, with me in those days. In the West End studio whilst I was in the gallery, and Jimmy Greaves was on the studio floor, Ian confessed to him "you were my dad's hero when he was a boy, he saw you play for Spurs every game, and when my brother and I grew up and watched Spurs with him he would tell us about the goals you scored as if he was still there".
What a confession to make huh!! Blush.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Life as we know it chapter 3 Costa Almeria
I used to be a somebody and now apparently I am a nobody. And who cares? Well actually I do.
And………. I am still the same person, I am still Allan Sharpe. I must admit when the decade changed to the 2010’s my first thought was, will I live to see the end of it, I would like to see Spurs win the League again, the European Cup before I die (Harry get a move on) and I would like to see England win the World Cup again, and not miss out on penalty shoot outs. I would like to see my off spring progress for as long as I can stay around.
BUT………I have not changed, Mr Somebody has not changed, except I am older, and maybe because I believed in certain things and held onto certain principles and values, that life has and is passing me by…....now.
It is not only, but also......... There is a lot of self interest, not only, in the workplace, maybe even in society. It does not matter what is happening outside your front door, don’t get involved, look after number one, sod the rest. Maybe that is why society relies on authorities to clean up the mess we see regularly on 24 hour news channels, instead of looking out of their window and doing something about what is going on. Maybe people have lost faith in the authorities and we are becoming more like Mad Max and survival of the fittest.
Nostalgia is bitter sweet, and I do get bitter and twisted about changes I see all around me, and changes that have happened to me. Don’t tell me you make your own luck, because I will smack that straight back at you on the half volley.
I spent most of my life trying to make the world a better place for some. I got thousands of people millions of pounds back in just refunds, when they were David against Goliath, I took hundreds of con men to the dock and put hundreds on the tv screen, my version of the village stocks and rotten tomatoes.
One of the best things I ever did was pick up a BBC TV telephone on my Watchdog desk to take a call from an old age pensioner telephoning from Spain, the Costa Almeria. The winter of 1988, Bert told me there were about 65 of them paying for an extended winter break to avoid the winter fuel bills at home, and the travel company had put them in a dump next to a building site. Of course I had to validate his story, and the BBC had stringers (researchers) all over the world to call on. So when the stringer phoned me back from Madrid to tell me the story was true and it was horrendous, the holiday from hell, I put the wheels in motion. Mike Embley and I flew out with a Spanish speaking cameraman and film crew on the Friday and we were filming that night and Saturday morning. We decided to make a send up of the holiday brochure. Our camera had seen the mould on the walls, the newspapers used as draught excluders, the refrigerators that did not work, the green water swimming pool with floating rubbish, the closed restaurant “where there is dancing every evening”. In fact the only dancing would be by mad men on their hats in frustration because the restaurant was part demolished. So Mike read the glossy brochure and then told the reality in front of the camera and we interviewed the poor old pensioners who the travel company ignored... "me I'm sick of it, up to here me, my wife on her hands and knees cleaning this stinking place up, that's not right, it's not a holiday , it's a nightmare"……….. until.
The camera always seemed to concentrate minds on problems. It was our style , my style, the doorstep kings’s style, big Al’s style, to take some of the unhappy viewers along to meet Goliath and get them an audience. So it was in the Costa Almeria, and when , with the camera rolling, we entered the local Airtours travel office, instant panic set in, a phone call to Head Office in Lancashire: “there is a BBC film crew here, from a programme called Watchdog”, “WHAT!!! What are they doing there?” “its about that block of apartments”, “GET THEM OUT OF THOSE APARTMENTS, do what it takes”.
And so it came to pass…………….. the coaches lined up within hours and what had taken 6 weeks before of ignoring the problem , suddenly became priority uno, mucho grazias. Yes and you guessed it, the pensioners were put up in the biggest 5 star hotel in town for the remainder of their holiday at no extra expense. When we filmed their champagne breakfast that Sunday morning before we flew back to Blighty, I had never had my hand shaken so much. It was a wonderful moment of the power of the media to obtain justice and redress.
The film was edited that following week with Mike and I and a film editor, it was a great film, showed the Monday after BBC1 7.30pm, maybe you were watching Coronation Street, I wasn’t.
TV was fun. It was hard , dedicated work, long hours. It was creative. We told a story in an infotainment way, with interesting pictures. Biased I am, but boring it was not. I hold the record viewing figures 10 million viewers for the Holiday Programme we broadcast live from Gatwick Airport. BBCTV in those days had the gear, the staff to deploy. It has suffered greatly since. Followed the decline of ITV, and will never be the same again as it was. Comedy, Drama, Current Affairs, the BBC set the standards. Now viewers who watch what they are served up, find other things to entertain them, like DVD,s computer games, and social networking. Viewing figures are in decline, advertisers know it, broadcasters are powerless to do anything about it. It's all because we have priced ourselves out of existence.
Greg Dyke used to say, there are no rules in TV, if your Mum likes it and understands it, you have done your job. We used to work on the basis of “the gosh factor” now we have an X Factor, instead. I think we pushed the infotainment boundary then by ridiculing the patently misleading and false brochure description of holiday accommodation that was uninhabitable. It still makes me smile and giggle to this day when I think about it, I guess that is the sweet part of nostalgia. Shame those days have to end my friend, shame no one else has picked up the baton and carried the torch on. Shame our priorities have changed, well for some at least and shame the accountants run things now.
It did not have to be like it was, we showed it could be done better.
And………. I am still the same person, I am still Allan Sharpe. I must admit when the decade changed to the 2010’s my first thought was, will I live to see the end of it, I would like to see Spurs win the League again, the European Cup before I die (Harry get a move on) and I would like to see England win the World Cup again, and not miss out on penalty shoot outs. I would like to see my off spring progress for as long as I can stay around.
BUT………I have not changed, Mr Somebody has not changed, except I am older, and maybe because I believed in certain things and held onto certain principles and values, that life has and is passing me by…....now.
It is not only, but also......... There is a lot of self interest, not only, in the workplace, maybe even in society. It does not matter what is happening outside your front door, don’t get involved, look after number one, sod the rest. Maybe that is why society relies on authorities to clean up the mess we see regularly on 24 hour news channels, instead of looking out of their window and doing something about what is going on. Maybe people have lost faith in the authorities and we are becoming more like Mad Max and survival of the fittest.
Nostalgia is bitter sweet, and I do get bitter and twisted about changes I see all around me, and changes that have happened to me. Don’t tell me you make your own luck, because I will smack that straight back at you on the half volley.
I spent most of my life trying to make the world a better place for some. I got thousands of people millions of pounds back in just refunds, when they were David against Goliath, I took hundreds of con men to the dock and put hundreds on the tv screen, my version of the village stocks and rotten tomatoes.
One of the best things I ever did was pick up a BBC TV telephone on my Watchdog desk to take a call from an old age pensioner telephoning from Spain, the Costa Almeria. The winter of 1988, Bert told me there were about 65 of them paying for an extended winter break to avoid the winter fuel bills at home, and the travel company had put them in a dump next to a building site. Of course I had to validate his story, and the BBC had stringers (researchers) all over the world to call on. So when the stringer phoned me back from Madrid to tell me the story was true and it was horrendous, the holiday from hell, I put the wheels in motion. Mike Embley and I flew out with a Spanish speaking cameraman and film crew on the Friday and we were filming that night and Saturday morning. We decided to make a send up of the holiday brochure. Our camera had seen the mould on the walls, the newspapers used as draught excluders, the refrigerators that did not work, the green water swimming pool with floating rubbish, the closed restaurant “where there is dancing every evening”. In fact the only dancing would be by mad men on their hats in frustration because the restaurant was part demolished. So Mike read the glossy brochure and then told the reality in front of the camera and we interviewed the poor old pensioners who the travel company ignored... "me I'm sick of it, up to here me, my wife on her hands and knees cleaning this stinking place up, that's not right, it's not a holiday , it's a nightmare"……….. until.
The camera always seemed to concentrate minds on problems. It was our style , my style, the doorstep kings’s style, big Al’s style, to take some of the unhappy viewers along to meet Goliath and get them an audience. So it was in the Costa Almeria, and when , with the camera rolling, we entered the local Airtours travel office, instant panic set in, a phone call to Head Office in Lancashire: “there is a BBC film crew here, from a programme called Watchdog”, “WHAT!!! What are they doing there?” “its about that block of apartments”, “GET THEM OUT OF THOSE APARTMENTS, do what it takes”.
And so it came to pass…………….. the coaches lined up within hours and what had taken 6 weeks before of ignoring the problem , suddenly became priority uno, mucho grazias. Yes and you guessed it, the pensioners were put up in the biggest 5 star hotel in town for the remainder of their holiday at no extra expense. When we filmed their champagne breakfast that Sunday morning before we flew back to Blighty, I had never had my hand shaken so much. It was a wonderful moment of the power of the media to obtain justice and redress.
The film was edited that following week with Mike and I and a film editor, it was a great film, showed the Monday after BBC1 7.30pm, maybe you were watching Coronation Street, I wasn’t.
TV was fun. It was hard , dedicated work, long hours. It was creative. We told a story in an infotainment way, with interesting pictures. Biased I am, but boring it was not. I hold the record viewing figures 10 million viewers for the Holiday Programme we broadcast live from Gatwick Airport. BBCTV in those days had the gear, the staff to deploy. It has suffered greatly since. Followed the decline of ITV, and will never be the same again as it was. Comedy, Drama, Current Affairs, the BBC set the standards. Now viewers who watch what they are served up, find other things to entertain them, like DVD,s computer games, and social networking. Viewing figures are in decline, advertisers know it, broadcasters are powerless to do anything about it. It's all because we have priced ourselves out of existence.
Greg Dyke used to say, there are no rules in TV, if your Mum likes it and understands it, you have done your job. We used to work on the basis of “the gosh factor” now we have an X Factor, instead. I think we pushed the infotainment boundary then by ridiculing the patently misleading and false brochure description of holiday accommodation that was uninhabitable. It still makes me smile and giggle to this day when I think about it, I guess that is the sweet part of nostalgia. Shame those days have to end my friend, shame no one else has picked up the baton and carried the torch on. Shame our priorities have changed, well for some at least and shame the accountants run things now.
It did not have to be like it was, we showed it could be done better.
Life as we know it Chapter 2 Thermastor
And now for something completely different.
In 1991 Thermastor, was Britain’s’ 2nd largest double glazing company. Margaret Thatcher was on TV being shown the Peterborough factory by one of her captain’s of industry Johnny Morris. Then in the late spring at my BBCTV Watchdog desk I read a small paragraph in the financial pages stating they had gone bust for £21m. It smelt dodgy to me, and I started making telephone calls. I met the receivers, who chose to come clean and announce their concerns. Where had the money gone?
I was at this stage personna non grata at the consumer series BBCTV Watchdog Office. Demoted from Deputy Editor after the Petrol storm which is yet another tale for those sitting comfortably suffice to say that it had been an Ides of March experience.
So this story about Thermastor was to be my epitaph. For 2 years the new editor Sarah Caplin, who was Esther Ranzen's cousin and I had engaged in a war of words and scripts. I had been the incumbent Deputy Editor. Her getting the job was a 6th floor management stitch up. She knew nothing about consumerism or compassion for the underdog and the vulnerable. Her's was a silver spoon existence in a lavish home in Notting Hill, shared with her husband Nick Ross. She was very good however at pointing the finger of blame, accepting no responsibility and making the young researchers cry. Yes a bully.
I had been at Aunty Beeb since 1985, and it will become clear, that a Television career as an investigative journalist and factual TV programme maker, was sandwiched between two slices of Trading Standards Law enforcement work. Which is why I said at the beginning, I am a rather unique individual. Many asked how I did it. Well in TV you had no legal powers, no warrant, but you did have the power of persuasion, to make people stand up and be counted for what was right. Also, in my opinion, the TV name and shame stories we exposed in those years was more powerful than any court case, shame to say.
Standing up against their former boss were 2 administration girls who were left manning the telephone at the derelict old factory. They gave me the keys to Johnny Morris’s office. His filing cabinet was like an Aladdin’s cave full of incriminating evidence.
Now at this stage no law enforcement was looking into this major industrial collapse.
Morris had written to all his customers asking for the balances on installation to be paid up front even up to and including the day he went into liquidation. That is fraudulent trading. He also had no hope of making the windows as his suppliers had not been paid and had foreclosed on delivering materials. He had also used company funds to add to the splendour of his Oxshott Surrey mansion. He also had paperwork for a phoenix company to arise from the ashes of Thermastor to carry on, even a cold calling telephone script to contact potential customers in the new business name. .
It was easy to find and film interview countless customers who had lost their life savings, double glazing does not come cheap. There were also a queue of supplier creditors including the printing firm that had worked on the new phoenix company paperwork. These unpaid suppliers were now in danger of going to the wall too, after the collapse of Thermastor for £21m.
Morris was doorstepped by me and a film crew, with a group of his customers as he arrived for the creditor’s meeting.
In the interests of balance, he was given ample opportunity to state his case, and he did try to bluff his way out of it on camera. Doorstepping was my hallmark and expertise. Much like search warrants we had to hope luck was on our side despite all the preparation. It was an adrenaline rush to get the "crook" on camera by laying in wait.
After the half hour expose, on peak time BBC1, the files were handed over to the Serious Fraud Office, for a court case. However the money had all gone all spent on the helicopter, Aston Martin. claret, carpets and chandeliers. Let me entertain you!!
So catching crooks to put them in the dock or the TV screen was my forte.
Those were the days my friend we thought they would never end.
But they do.
Now I spend my time writing about what I achieved, which was a lot. Memories from the corners of my mind. I think it is a waste of all that money invested in me to train me, pass examinations, further refresher seminars, years of experience. Also the waste of skills, not a lot of people are born with.
But this is the English Way, the British way, to chuck people on the scrap heap. To make the same mistakes, because there are no old heads able to tell young up and coming heads. History then repeats.
The Government recently conducted a survey. Our survey said that people started to lose their brain ability at 40. I am , still under retirement age, but given up trying to get a job through the age discrimination barrier. However what the Government survey did not headline was the survey was completed by civil servants. So exactly, their brain power diminishes, because they like robots or sheep have to put one foot in front of the other when told to do so. "You are not paid to think, just to do what I tell you". Yes I was classified as a Maverick, a loose cannon, purely because I did what the public wanted and needed in my professional opinion and in response to individual complaints. I knew exactly where the sights on my cannon were aimed at, the incompetents in my office who tried to interfered and got in my way and the crooks in the high street.
In TV I was given freedom. I was appreciated for a time till , like the answer to the universe, I peaked at 42, then plateaued, then came across an abyss. I was unique. I was a square peg in a round hole. I found my own stories. I did not have to be fed.
But managers get worried. Certainly local government managers almost wet themselves.
The words of Ken my oldest dearest friend from Willesden County Grammar School: "Since we met, all those years ago our lives have moved in quite different directions and out journeys have been different too. I have always admired your independence, determined to be your own man. I know it has brought you highs and lows, but for me it brought great memories. Glad we are still pals long may it last".
In 1991 Thermastor, was Britain’s’ 2nd largest double glazing company. Margaret Thatcher was on TV being shown the Peterborough factory by one of her captain’s of industry Johnny Morris. Then in the late spring at my BBCTV Watchdog desk I read a small paragraph in the financial pages stating they had gone bust for £21m. It smelt dodgy to me, and I started making telephone calls. I met the receivers, who chose to come clean and announce their concerns. Where had the money gone?
I was at this stage personna non grata at the consumer series BBCTV Watchdog Office. Demoted from Deputy Editor after the Petrol storm which is yet another tale for those sitting comfortably suffice to say that it had been an Ides of March experience.
So this story about Thermastor was to be my epitaph. For 2 years the new editor Sarah Caplin, who was Esther Ranzen's cousin and I had engaged in a war of words and scripts. I had been the incumbent Deputy Editor. Her getting the job was a 6th floor management stitch up. She knew nothing about consumerism or compassion for the underdog and the vulnerable. Her's was a silver spoon existence in a lavish home in Notting Hill, shared with her husband Nick Ross. She was very good however at pointing the finger of blame, accepting no responsibility and making the young researchers cry. Yes a bully.
I had been at Aunty Beeb since 1985, and it will become clear, that a Television career as an investigative journalist and factual TV programme maker, was sandwiched between two slices of Trading Standards Law enforcement work. Which is why I said at the beginning, I am a rather unique individual. Many asked how I did it. Well in TV you had no legal powers, no warrant, but you did have the power of persuasion, to make people stand up and be counted for what was right. Also, in my opinion, the TV name and shame stories we exposed in those years was more powerful than any court case, shame to say.
Standing up against their former boss were 2 administration girls who were left manning the telephone at the derelict old factory. They gave me the keys to Johnny Morris’s office. His filing cabinet was like an Aladdin’s cave full of incriminating evidence.
Now at this stage no law enforcement was looking into this major industrial collapse.
Morris had written to all his customers asking for the balances on installation to be paid up front even up to and including the day he went into liquidation. That is fraudulent trading. He also had no hope of making the windows as his suppliers had not been paid and had foreclosed on delivering materials. He had also used company funds to add to the splendour of his Oxshott Surrey mansion. He also had paperwork for a phoenix company to arise from the ashes of Thermastor to carry on, even a cold calling telephone script to contact potential customers in the new business name. .
It was easy to find and film interview countless customers who had lost their life savings, double glazing does not come cheap. There were also a queue of supplier creditors including the printing firm that had worked on the new phoenix company paperwork. These unpaid suppliers were now in danger of going to the wall too, after the collapse of Thermastor for £21m.
Morris was doorstepped by me and a film crew, with a group of his customers as he arrived for the creditor’s meeting.
In the interests of balance, he was given ample opportunity to state his case, and he did try to bluff his way out of it on camera. Doorstepping was my hallmark and expertise. Much like search warrants we had to hope luck was on our side despite all the preparation. It was an adrenaline rush to get the "crook" on camera by laying in wait.
After the half hour expose, on peak time BBC1, the files were handed over to the Serious Fraud Office, for a court case. However the money had all gone all spent on the helicopter, Aston Martin. claret, carpets and chandeliers. Let me entertain you!!
So catching crooks to put them in the dock or the TV screen was my forte.
Those were the days my friend we thought they would never end.
But they do.
Now I spend my time writing about what I achieved, which was a lot. Memories from the corners of my mind. I think it is a waste of all that money invested in me to train me, pass examinations, further refresher seminars, years of experience. Also the waste of skills, not a lot of people are born with.
But this is the English Way, the British way, to chuck people on the scrap heap. To make the same mistakes, because there are no old heads able to tell young up and coming heads. History then repeats.
The Government recently conducted a survey. Our survey said that people started to lose their brain ability at 40. I am , still under retirement age, but given up trying to get a job through the age discrimination barrier. However what the Government survey did not headline was the survey was completed by civil servants. So exactly, their brain power diminishes, because they like robots or sheep have to put one foot in front of the other when told to do so. "You are not paid to think, just to do what I tell you". Yes I was classified as a Maverick, a loose cannon, purely because I did what the public wanted and needed in my professional opinion and in response to individual complaints. I knew exactly where the sights on my cannon were aimed at, the incompetents in my office who tried to interfered and got in my way and the crooks in the high street.
In TV I was given freedom. I was appreciated for a time till , like the answer to the universe, I peaked at 42, then plateaued, then came across an abyss. I was unique. I was a square peg in a round hole. I found my own stories. I did not have to be fed.
But managers get worried. Certainly local government managers almost wet themselves.
The words of Ken my oldest dearest friend from Willesden County Grammar School: "Since we met, all those years ago our lives have moved in quite different directions and out journeys have been different too. I have always admired your independence, determined to be your own man. I know it has brought you highs and lows, but for me it brought great memories. Glad we are still pals long may it last".
Monday, 16 January 2012
It's Life as we know it.... Chapter 1 Del Boy
Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of being a king
And then became one
Well, except for the names and a few other changes
If you talk about me, the story's the same one...............
I am said I, I did it my way, after all I did not get where I am today by not being me.
Me??? Well, the only person in the world to have put con men in the dock and on the TV screen in two successful careers, now at a premature end.
Now that sounds a tall tale. No ..... An Englishman, a Londoner, who when he left school joined Trading Standards, Government Consumer Law Enforcement. After 4 years of exams qualified, then a decade or so later was politically run out of town and became an investigative journalist, then a TV Producer, and no one else has ever done that. Impressed much huh huh ah huh, you might be, at the age equivalent to the answer to the Universe (42) I was near the top, only to topple, always 2nd, never quite first, but still survived Ides of March several times to tell this tale.
So this is the unique story of someone who has been there done that. How he did it, why he did what he had to do and what happened to him, when no one wanted him anymore, except probably the public, the community which he served.
One of the cases made front page News:
And then became one
Well, except for the names and a few other changes
If you talk about me, the story's the same one...............
I am said I, I did it my way, after all I did not get where I am today by not being me.
Me??? Well, the only person in the world to have put con men in the dock and on the TV screen in two successful careers, now at a premature end.
Now that sounds a tall tale. No ..... An Englishman, a Londoner, who when he left school joined Trading Standards, Government Consumer Law Enforcement. After 4 years of exams qualified, then a decade or so later was politically run out of town and became an investigative journalist, then a TV Producer, and no one else has ever done that. Impressed much huh huh ah huh, you might be, at the age equivalent to the answer to the Universe (42) I was near the top, only to topple, always 2nd, never quite first, but still survived Ides of March several times to tell this tale.
So this is the unique story of someone who has been there done that. How he did it, why he did what he had to do and what happened to him, when no one wanted him anymore, except probably the public, the community which he served.
"The one and only person to have put con men in the dock and on the TV screen. I have pioneered new legislation, innovated techniques, worked at home and abroad, and got to the dizzy heights of Deputy Editor of Watchdog BBCTV.
I have obtained hundreds of thousands of pounds back for victims of crime and proceeds of crime for the state. I have taken over 600 court cases at every level of the judiciary and made 250 expose TV films."
One of the cases made front page News:
Fine for jailed Del Boy
3:25pm Thursday 12th December 2002 i
WALTHAM Forest Trading Standards has won a record payout from a conman who became Britain's biggest counterfeiter.
Derrick 'Del Boy' Davies made millions from a highly sophisticated operation mass producing fake designer clothes, perfume, watches, and champagne.
Police and trading standards officers raided his Leyton warehouse in December 1998 and found 100,000 labels and packaging for 52 different designer brands.
Officers seized goods worth £500,000.
Davies, 39, is already serving a four year jail term for the counterfeiting business. But at a hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday, he was ordered by a judge to hand over £91,000 in costs to trading standards the biggest order of its kind.
Davies must also stump up £354,530 proceeds from his life of crime.
If he does not pay, he faces an extra four years in prison.
During the hearing, Davies had claimed the money was all gone on gambling, drinking, and his family's plush lifestyle.
He arranged a hasty sham divorce from his wife Susan Cook before the trial, putting his two homes in her name, in a bid to try and hang on to his cash.
But Judge Inigo Bing ordered him to pay up. He said: "The defendant said he had frittered it (his millions) away. He described it as a champagne lifestyle and I can say it must have been Premier Cru."
Trading standards officer Alan Sharpe, who led the investigation, said after the hearing: "This is the most that anyone has ever lost in a confiscation order for counterfeiting.
"This is the biggest haul that has ever come before the British courts. It was a very slick counterfeiting operation designed to dupe the public.
"He told the court he lived for the day and spent for the day well now he's lost it. He gave us a real run for our money but he didn't get away with it."
He added that his divorce was a "tissue of lies."
Davies fled to Spain after his first court appearance, but he was captured by the National Crime Squad eight months later.
He made £1million profit in the first 18 months of trading, for which he received a four year jail term in January this year.
John Anderson, director general of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, said: "Derrick Davies is typical of many organised criminals who trade illegally in counterfeit goods as a means of funding a lavish lifestyle.
"He thought he was above the law absconding to Spain. However, he now faces four years in prison. The message is clear, counterfeiting crime does not pay."Trading standards officers load some of the counterfeit goods into their van |(c)s=10WALTHAM Forest Trading Standards has won a record payout from a conman who became Britain's biggest counterfeiter.o
Derrick 'Del Boy' Davies made millions from a highly sophisticated operation mass producing fake designer clothes, perfume, watches and champagne.
Police and trading standards officers raided his Leyton warehouse in December 1998 and found 100,000 labels and packaging for 52 different designer brands.
Officers seized goods worth £500,000.
Davies, 39, is already serving a four-year jail term for the counterfeiting business. But at a hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday, he was ordered to hand over £91,000 in costs to trading standards the biggest order of its kind.
Davies must also stump up £354,530 proceeds from his life of crime.
If he does not pay, he faces an extra four years in prison.
During the hearing, Davies had claimed the money had all gone on gambling, drinking, and his family's plush lifestyle.
He arranged a hasty sham divorce from his wife Susan Cook before the trial, putting his two homes in her name, in a bid to try and hang on to his cash.
But Judge Inigo Bing ordered him to pay up. He said: "The defendant said he had frittered it (his millions) away. He described it as a champagne lifestyle and I can say it must have been Premier Cru."
Trading standards officer Alan Sharpe, who led the investigation, said after the hearing: "This is the most that anyone has ever lost in a confiscation order for counterfeiting.
"This is the biggest haul that has ever come before the British courts. It was a very slick counterfeiting operation designed to dupe the public.
"He told the court he lived for the day and spent for the day well now he's lost it. He gave us a real run for our money but he didn't get away with it."
He added that his divorce was a "tissue of lies."
Davies fled to Spain after his first court appearance, but he was captured by the National Crime Squad eight months later.
He made £1million profit in the first 18 months of trading, for which he received a four year jail term in January this year.
John Anderson, director general of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, said: "Derrick Davies is typical of many organised criminals who trade illegally in counterfeit goods as a means of funding a lavish lifestyle.
"He thought he was above the law absconding to Spain. However, he now faces four years in prison. The message is clear, counterfeiting crime does not pay."
How that all happened:
Christmas time 1998, I take a telephone call from Leyton Police CID. They have an informant saying that a local warehouse is holding counterfeit products like videos. It was new ground to them and the DC wanted to know what I, as Team Leader in Trading Standards could do. The first thing I did was to discretely drive around the address a unit in a large industrial estate, and I did not wear a suit.
We then applied for a search warrant at the local magistrates court with reason to believe offences were being committed . In other instances further surveillance is possible, but there is always the danger of spooking the target or being spotted by "friendly" neighbours. People like rogues, they don't like officials. So surveillance has to be timed for maximum impact minimal fuss, minimal intrusion. Even so with the best intelligence gathering, it is more or less impossible to know what is behind that door, if the public at large do not have access and one cannot pose as a mystery shopper - agent provocateur - to see the lay out behind those doors.
Every raid is mounted at dawn or a time when the target will be busy. There can be no guarantees the target will be there, off for a cup of tea or getting his teeth drilled and filled at the dentist. Vehicles can be identified parked outside , but luck has to be on the side of law enforcement. The best laid plans………….
Also these raids are multi-agency. Police and Trading Standards combined. Police have the power to arrest, Trading Standards the expertise in this instance. So field teams have to be briefed as to the building, their stations, individual responsibilities and what we anticipate. Also there is a question of logistics and manpower.
At 11 am 8th December 1998, two teams approached the warehouse. We had rendezvoused at Leyton nick, London E10, set off in 2 vans, fingers crossed. We had search gear, paperwork, a video camera, evidence bags, all plain clothes. One team went to the back door, down an alleyway and one to the front entrance. I led the front door charge with a video camera recording and holding the warrant. I had 3 officers, the Police had 5 plain clothes detectives.
As I opened the front door there were the inevitable shouts from the occupants, as I announced our identities and our mission our purpose, to look for counterfeit goods.
The scene we met was totally unexpected and unprepared for. We had stumbled on the biggest production of counterfeit designer wear this country had known. There were computerised sewing machines embroidering 52 brands onto garments. Any name you could imagine, Addidas, Nike, Versace, Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfigger, Ralph Lauren, the list was endless. So was the stock. Hundreds of thousands of garments in production and in store. Downstairs was the showroom, shelves bedecked with counterfeit goods all pristinely wrapped ready to go, even perfume and champagne. Upstairs were the women at the machines and conveyor belts. Who was in charge? Well, no body of course. All the staff remained silent. All were arrested and taken to Leyton Police Station in another conveyor belt, this time of white Transit vans. That occupied all the cells at that Police Station.
Most importantly Derrick was arrested running out the back door as we came in the front. Derrick was the most aggressive swearing individual I have ever met. Subsequent enquiries revealed his family were connected to the Kray Twins, his uncle rode shot gun for them. Derrick professed to being just the delivery driver he delivered boxes , just boxes. But in his haste Derrick left vital clues. A brief case, a mobile phone, an address book full of contacts for “badges”, “tshirts”, “booze”, “buttons”. He also left handwriting, notes, calculations, an iou book. This was to prove his downfall later in court as forensic hand writing analysis proved that his documents in his name, were written by the same person as these business documents.
Derrick when interviewed would have none of it. All the official records of renting the warehouse were in false names and addresses, as was the telephone. 500,000 garments and 10 machines were confiscated and vans had to be hired as well as another warehouse to carry and store this vast haul of stock for analysis by the true brand owners. Derrick was a cash merchant, so he left no money trail. Any credit cards he took out, he would use for short periods either to withdraw cash balances and then not repay , on trips toLas Vegas
Trouble is when the likes of Derrick live a lifestyle like this, they will rub someone up the wrong way, queer his pitch, and then get grassed on, hence the informant.
The Crown Court Case lasted 2 weeks. Derrick was charged with the Common Law offence of conspiracy, to defraud brand owners. I spent 4 days in the witness box, 3 of them under cross examination doing verbal battle with his silk. However that was not until Derrick had skipped bail from the first court date and took the first Easy Jet flight fromLuton Airport to his Villa in Majorca . I then had to liaise with Interpol to ask the Spanish Police to extradite him. But Derrick was on the run and 2 years after his initial arrest he was arrested again in Essex by Regional Crime Squad in a sting operation for importation of drugs. So Derrick was now in custody.
Interestingly enough he got off the drugs case, saying he was just the driver delivering boxes !
In 2003 he was given the longest sentence for any brand counterfeiter 5 years. Though Derrick spent his money on a champagne life style, he lost his Mansion in Essex, cars & vans and a Villa inSpain
The happy ending to this story is that there are charities that take these seized garments and machinery after the court case. They de logo the offending marks and are able to clothe the needy.
Christmas time 1998, I take a telephone call from Leyton Police CID. They have an informant saying that a local warehouse is holding counterfeit products like videos. It was new ground to them and the DC wanted to know what I, as Team Leader in Trading Standards could do. The first thing I did was to discretely drive around the address a unit in a large industrial estate, and I did not wear a suit.
We then applied for a search warrant at the local magistrates court with reason to believe offences were being committed . In other instances further surveillance is possible, but there is always the danger of spooking the target or being spotted by "friendly" neighbours. People like rogues, they don't like officials. So surveillance has to be timed for maximum impact minimal fuss, minimal intrusion. Even so with the best intelligence gathering, it is more or less impossible to know what is behind that door, if the public at large do not have access and one cannot pose as a mystery shopper - agent provocateur - to see the lay out behind those doors.
Every raid is mounted at dawn or a time when the target will be busy. There can be no guarantees the target will be there, off for a cup of tea or getting his teeth drilled and filled at the dentist. Vehicles can be identified parked outside , but luck has to be on the side of law enforcement. The best laid plans………….
Also these raids are multi-agency. Police and Trading Standards combined. Police have the power to arrest, Trading Standards the expertise in this instance. So field teams have to be briefed as to the building, their stations, individual responsibilities and what we anticipate. Also there is a question of logistics and manpower.
At 11 am 8th December 1998, two teams approached the warehouse. We had rendezvoused at Leyton nick, London E10, set off in 2 vans, fingers crossed. We had search gear, paperwork, a video camera, evidence bags, all plain clothes. One team went to the back door, down an alleyway and one to the front entrance. I led the front door charge with a video camera recording and holding the warrant. I had 3 officers, the Police had 5 plain clothes detectives.
As I opened the front door there were the inevitable shouts from the occupants, as I announced our identities and our mission our purpose, to look for counterfeit goods.
The scene we met was totally unexpected and unprepared for. We had stumbled on the biggest production of counterfeit designer wear this country had known. There were computerised sewing machines embroidering 52 brands onto garments. Any name you could imagine, Addidas, Nike, Versace, Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfigger, Ralph Lauren, the list was endless. So was the stock. Hundreds of thousands of garments in production and in store. Downstairs was the showroom, shelves bedecked with counterfeit goods all pristinely wrapped ready to go, even perfume and champagne. Upstairs were the women at the machines and conveyor belts. Who was in charge? Well, no body of course. All the staff remained silent. All were arrested and taken to Leyton Police Station in another conveyor belt, this time of white Transit vans. That occupied all the cells at that Police Station.
Most importantly Derrick was arrested running out the back door as we came in the front. Derrick was the most aggressive swearing individual I have ever met. Subsequent enquiries revealed his family were connected to the Kray Twins, his uncle rode shot gun for them. Derrick professed to being just the delivery driver he delivered boxes , just boxes. But in his haste Derrick left vital clues. A brief case, a mobile phone, an address book full of contacts for “badges”, “tshirts”, “booze”, “buttons”. He also left handwriting, notes, calculations, an iou book. This was to prove his downfall later in court as forensic hand writing analysis proved that his documents in his name, were written by the same person as these business documents.
Derrick when interviewed would have none of it. All the official records of renting the warehouse were in false names and addresses, as was the telephone. 500,000 garments and 10 machines were confiscated and vans had to be hired as well as another warehouse to carry and store this vast haul of stock for analysis by the true brand owners. Derrick was a cash merchant, so he left no money trail. Any credit cards he took out, he would use for short periods either to withdraw cash balances and then not repay , on trips to
Trouble is when the likes of Derrick live a lifestyle like this, they will rub someone up the wrong way, queer his pitch, and then get grassed on, hence the informant.
The Crown Court Case lasted 2 weeks. Derrick was charged with the Common Law offence of conspiracy, to defraud brand owners. I spent 4 days in the witness box, 3 of them under cross examination doing verbal battle with his silk. However that was not until Derrick had skipped bail from the first court date and took the first Easy Jet flight from
Interestingly enough he got off the drugs case, saying he was just the driver delivering boxes !
In 2003 he was given the longest sentence for any brand counterfeiter 5 years. Though Derrick spent his money on a champagne life style, he lost his Mansion in Essex, cars & vans and a Villa in
The happy ending to this story is that there are charities that take these seized garments and machinery after the court case. They de logo the offending marks and are able to clothe the needy.
But these cases cost a fortune. Take many man hours preparing the case. This was the biggest haul of it's kind. I always thought that these crooks were so clever, that if only they put their mind to legal activity, the world would be a better place and the tax payer better off. All Derrick knew was a life of crime, all his family knew was a life of crime. Before Derrick's case, his father got off a Custom and Excise case for money laundering. Every day they would take carrier bags full of ten pound notes to the Bureau de Change in Victoria and change thenm for large denomination Dutch Guildas. The reason. They could get more larger notes in a suitcase to take to their properties in Spain on the plane. Anyway Derrick's dad got off the charge convincing the jury he got lucky on the gee gees - horse racing to you and me. £250,000, well some people have all the luck huh. That's why Derrick was regarded as the black sheep of the family. "Do you know who I am, I am Derrick Davies, you can't get me, your just a f***ing Trading Standards Officer" I great line from the interview tape played to the court.
Fact File:
What's the big deal about counterfeiting?
Fact File:
What's the big deal about counterfeiting?
- Counterfeiters buy cheap raw materials, add a famous brand and charge 10 times what they outlayed, so that's why they do it. Black Market , all cash, no taxes, 10 times profit.
- Shoddy cheap goods , damage the reputation of the true brand owners.
- Damaged reputations lead to reductions in genuine sales and consequent real job losses for ordinary workers.
- Meanwhile the crooks profits are ploughed into more crime, drugs and even terrorism. FACT.
I felt sorry for his QC Barrister. We were in early during day 3 of the trial drinking coffee in the canteen. The previous day as case officer and chief witness for the prosecution I had just started to be cross examined and some of the exchanges were priceless, made the silk go purple faced with rage. So I said to the Family silk as he came through the canteen doors, "I bet you wish Customs and Excise were taking this case don't you, much easier", with a rye grin. He passed in complete silence, Our table all smirked. You see, barristers always ask you a line of questions leading you into their trap. They know your answer in advance. So like a chess game, I used to answer what they wanted to hear for say 4 or 5 questions simle yes or no, then when they went for the kill, I would lead off into a long, but reasoned counter answer. Sometimes the judges frowned, but most of the time it saved my barrister recovering the point on re examination. So my rebuff, my retort and the defence barristers' purple face , with steam coming from his ears and papers being flung on his desk was a great sight. Who won that exchange then huh.
Our Barrister was brilliant. You will read on that it is obvious I don't suffer fools at all yet alone gladly. I don't get impressed much either. But David Groome, our barrister was the most skilled professional I had ever met. His knowledge and reasoning was profound, and, dare I say it we made a good team.
You may think public purse organisations should have layers of man management for these mega cases. You would think wrong. We won this case because of the evidence gathering, made watertight , bomb proof, by the astuteness of our barrister. In law there are many pitfalls along the way to prove beyond all reasonable doubt. All the defence team have to do is prod away at the prosecution, find a weakness, put up a smoke screen. So all the prosecution work has to prove, that a crime in law was committed, committed by the defendant, and that all the evidence procedures were accurate, recorded and accountable for scrutiny. One thing wrong, there is your domino effect...case dismissed.
I only lost 2 cases out of those 600 I took, both on points of law. I loved the job, I served the public who after all paid my wages and asked me for help. But my political masters never liked that. They wanted me to do what they wanted. I just wanted to get on with the job, get results. I did not need their phoney targets. I made headline news, and they got jealous. I used to say I fought management in the office and crooks in the high street, if only management did not try to interfere. Sounds big headed, but true. If a so called senior, superior officer comes out with a plan that will not ever work, makes cuts in vital front line services, all because he sits in front of a computer all day, does not see the outside real world with real people and has no finger on the pulse, then he will be called a "f***ing wan*er" by me in front of the rest of the staff. His face will go purple too with the steam emissions from the ears, literally, much to the delight of the more enlightened team of officers that this incompetent idiot is paid a fortune to manage.
A great opportunity was lost by officers nationwide who did not appreciate the big picture. Derrick had a contacts book of phone numbers, that I traced. The Mr Big in Manchester, or Leeds, or Bristol etc. My team won an award from the Anti Counterfeiting Group set up by manufacturers of brand names. We won the award for our efforts. But there was no one interested in eclipsing these regional Mr Bigs. There was no national unit, national strategy only local. Small teams with their own agendas, their own priorities. Though I hit a few of these addresses from London, the intelligence fell on stony ground, and a great opportunity to reduce counterfeiting in this country was lost. There were too many blind eyes, even though it was laid on a plate.
Too much hard work for some. There is an easier life, put the kettle on. Trading Standards service was in decline and still is. Mismanaged, poorly funded, always the poor man of any local service. Crooks breath easier, consumers pay more. Successive Politicians able to run rings round heads of service who saw their staff depleted.
In 6 years between 1998 to 2005 I saw half my team made redundant from the original 12, till they finally got rid of me too.
A great opportunity was lost by officers nationwide who did not appreciate the big picture. Derrick had a contacts book of phone numbers, that I traced. The Mr Big in Manchester, or Leeds, or Bristol etc. My team won an award from the Anti Counterfeiting Group set up by manufacturers of brand names. We won the award for our efforts. But there was no one interested in eclipsing these regional Mr Bigs. There was no national unit, national strategy only local. Small teams with their own agendas, their own priorities. Though I hit a few of these addresses from London, the intelligence fell on stony ground, and a great opportunity to reduce counterfeiting in this country was lost. There were too many blind eyes, even though it was laid on a plate.
Too much hard work for some. There is an easier life, put the kettle on. Trading Standards service was in decline and still is. Mismanaged, poorly funded, always the poor man of any local service. Crooks breath easier, consumers pay more. Successive Politicians able to run rings round heads of service who saw their staff depleted.
In 6 years between 1998 to 2005 I saw half my team made redundant from the original 12, till they finally got rid of me too.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
That was Then this is Now
So how are you Allan, how’s life as you know it ?
I’m OK it’s the others. Actually I am just ok. I could do with more money, could do with a job, but at least Susan and I,after 5 months, are building a nest with her 3 dogs, who not exactly fetch twigs as construction workers. Is that life as we should know it?
Maybe it is.
I was born in Willesden London NW10, born into poverty a single parent mum, who did 3 jobs a day to keep my sister and me. I only saw her when she fell asleep in front of the television. She’s been dead 19 years now, wore herself out for others…….
Me I went to the Grammar School, only kid for miles around to pass the 11+ and to wear a uniform. My dog saved me once when the local gang of jealous yobs ran after me with sticks only to confronted by the big brown hairy Chum and beat a hasty retreat as Chum set about them and their mass melay.
When I left school I obtained a Government Legal Qualification to protect the public. It was all exams in those days. I never failed them. I have a photographic memory and can just rewrite what I had revised a few hours before. Handy that !!
In those days I just thought you had to be good at the job and get results. Seemed logical to me. I made the headlines I made the news. I was seen to be doing my bit, actually much more than my fair share. Christ I won awards and commendations for the jobs I pulled off.
But, there were others who had the talk talk gift of the gab. Smooth talking bastards. They were qualified relatives of merchant bankers fluent in bull shit. I have never really made many male friends. This Martian was better with Venusians , much better. Martians saw me as a rival as a threat. With the exception of those loyal that worked for me, the rest might as well have been opponents on the football field or cricket pitch. If you make a name for yourself, there will be those that will plot against you, stab you in the back.
So I have known my own Ides of March. In that career, in love, and even in another career when I joined Aunty Beeb, reaching the giddy heights of Deputy Editor, again only to fail the politics not the job, and failed to watch my back.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance for ever and I day. We picked a life that was full, we’d fight and never lose, those were the days oh yes those were the days…………….. until I lost.
Now, I sit here at my lap top, in temporary rented accommodation with my possessions and my memories around me, gathered from my travels, my successes of a past.
My real home is up for sale, occupied by the sitting wicked witch, nicknamed "Black Widow" by her own brethren . This recession is the worst I have known in my life as I know it. No jobs, no opportunities, no chance. No sales of houses. I survive on monies paid from my glory years, monies that soften the anguish and unjustness, of a brain left out to pasture.
Maybe Britain would be Great again if old heads were put on young shoulders. There are lessons to be learned from experience and the thousands of pounds spent on training people. Putting the old heads on the scrap heap just means history will repeat itself anf mistakes made again and again.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
ARGOS IT
And wait and wait and wait and wait……..Argos telephone service customer enquiries, need a degree in Maths to listen to all the alternatives, press 1, 2, 3,4 ,5 ,6 ,7 8, 9, 10,,, then start again 12345678910
Then disappear up your own Argos Vacuum cleaner no help just automated information, dead loss, then they say goodbye, waste of money phoning them. They also take 48 hours to answer and email, but when they want their money oh they phone me, and they want it there and then,,,,,,,,,,,,wasters.
Then when you get that Eureka
Watch this space ………………
Thursday, 11 August 2011
The Wrong Signals - England City Centre Riots Summer 2011
The Wrong Signals
IF mindless yob and their gang mates watch Tottenham High Street burn, watch Police stand and watch, just like Nero on his balcony ( minus violin).
IF they see profit from mayhem, looting and destruction, go unchecked, then they will want a piece of that action on their patch whether its Wolverhampton , Manchester Liverpool , Bristol
It certainly is doom & gloom Breaking News, 24 hr Courts, 800 arrests in London, Riots, Looting & Arson, wanton vandalism in our shopping city centres, inept policing who worry more about risk assessment and health & safety than saving lives and property.
Result we have murder as well as robbery, lost businesses and insurance claims.
WE have a so called coalition government , Politicians and Policemen who are out of touch with communities. WE have abdication of parental responsibility. WE have mindless moronic no hope youths (criminals).
Even football matches postponed or cancelled.
Economic decline , cuts in public services = increase crime wave.
No hopers, cut the waiting out of wait, by smashing shop windows with their social network smoke signal gang members. They have no fear of detection, of arrest and punishment. They think they will get away with it. They have seen others get away with TV sets under their arms on TV and the Internet. Now it’s their turn. There is seemingly no deterrent. There is little reactive policing reported yet alone proactive policing preventing these horrendous crimes on all of us.
The mass unemployed they are led like sheep to a criminal benefit culture. Where are their parents when little Johnny has a petrol bomb in his hand kicking out a plate glass shop window late at night ? They get away with it at school, now in school holidays they get away with it in the shopping centres. Society has lost the virtues of responsibility and respect. These yobs know no discipline.
Economic cuts in public services as stock markets crash world wide. The forthcoming Olympics a stone’s throw from the riot torn streets of London England
It is sickening.
David Cameron, you are losing the plot. Tottenham Riots should have been prevented, if not nipped in the bud. It was not, now many are paying the price for incompetence.
The 5th column by Allan Sharpe, Peterbrough.
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