Longtime Ago People
In a world where family connections shape us, stories bridge generations. Many of us carry cherished memories of those who touched our lives, which I think deserve to be shared.
Each episode I hope will feature guests recounting touching, funny, and inspiring memories, celebrating the impact these individuals had on their lives. I aim to beautifully remember loved ones, offering listeners nostalgia, warmth, and connection.
I am looking for people to reflect on the impact of these relationships.
Longtime Ago People
A Life in Motion: Diving Deep, Travelling Far, Playing Loud
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Lee 1951
grandson/sailor/traveller/DJ/adviser/musician
A quiet corner of Sussex opens the door to one of the most wide‑ranging life stories I’ve ever recorded. Sitting with Lee, we begin in 1950s Great Yarmouth, where summers meant guest houses, seaside theatres, and helping his nan run a busy holiday season. His dad worked the beachfront with a camera, and Lee’s first taste of performing came early — a singing competition in 1957 that he won before he even knew what a stage really was. Boarding school followed, and with it a fiercely independent streak that would shape everything that came next.
That independence carried him into the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, where engineering skills led unexpectedly to diving. Lee talks about the cold, the darkness, the pressure, and the discipline of ship’s diver training — and the extraordinary moment he became one of the early divers on what’s believed to be the Mary Rose, long before the world watched her rise from the Solent.
From there, his story widens again: driving a Bedford truck across Africa with twenty passengers, months on the hippie trail through India and Sri Lanka, and then four surreal, electric years in Montreux as a full‑time DJ. He crossed paths with rock royalty, worked with Queen, and even narrated a film for HR Giger about the making of Alien. Later came the hard lesson of losing his home to soaring interest rates — and the decision to become a financial adviser so others wouldn’t fall through the same cracks. Eventually, he sold his business and spent a decade touring the UK as ‘Robert Plant’ in a Led Zeppelin tribute band.
If you enjoy personal history, Royal Navy stories, Mary Rose diving, overland travel, Montreux nightlife, and the art of reinvention, this one’s for you. Press play, share it with a friend, and tell me which chapter of Lee’s journey you’d have said yes to.
The wreck of the Mary Rose was located in 1971 and was raised on 11 October 1982
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Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.
Memory is Fragile
"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."
Southwick Setting And Hidden History
SPEAKER_01Today I am in Southwick. Is it Southwick? Yeah. Southwick. Now would you say this is Brighton or Worthing or where or is it just Southwick?
SPEAKER_00Well we like to say it's Southwick. Of course Brighton keeps trying to steal it and call it Brighton. Call it Brighton. It's not, it's Southwick.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so is Southwick a is it a village, a town, or a community?
SPEAKER_00It's a village, yeah, very much a village. We've got a green in the centre of it, we've got a cricket, you know, I saw the green, driving. That's it. And uh it's got a bit of a history because there's a a a stream that runs down that used to run down under that cricket green and everything else, and uh there's a little cottage down there, and supposedly uh that's where King Charles II hid away at night before escaping down an estuary and out into Portsmouth Harbour to sail over to France, you know, when uh the the Protestants were after him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Of course he ended up he ended up on the Isle of Wight.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He didn't it was it was in Caris Burcast, he was in prison there.
Great Yarmouth Summers And Music Roots
SPEAKER_00Ah yeah, okay. Well, because there is a cottage down there just on the green called King Charles Cottage, and uh so that apparently that's where he uh that's where he hid out.
SPEAKER_01Riley, we got uh we got a lot to talk about today. I'm just gonna sort of like go back to your your early summers in in Great Yarmouth and uh a guest house, the beach, and your dad, uh his camera. So what memories tell me a little bit about that, your your your memories of that.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so uh this was back in the 50s, of course. Uh and then um Great Yarmouth was very much a holiday, a seasonal holiday town. Families used to go there year after year, and the place would get absolutely packed. Um they had a big wide promenade, sandy beach, you know, there's a couple of piers there, there's a big fun fair, a big pleasure beach. Uh and they have lots and lots of theatres. So uh we used to mum and I, we were living in Hoven, and uh Mum and I used to drive up, she had a a little Austin ten, I think it was, that you had to start by hand. And uh we used to drive up, I think it took us about, I don't know, ten hours or something to get to Norfolk because we only do about 40 miles an hour. And there wasn't any motorways in there. No, that's right. That's go through the centre of uh London and uh and we had to stop occasionally because you know uh the brakes were overheating or whatever, whatever. But um we used to go up there every summer and um and then help Nan uh during the season. So uh mum uh would sort of help with the waiting obviously, but uh we would we used to clean the rooms and uh you know the guest rooms because in those days it was bed and breakfast and uh the whole road was guest houses. People would have their breakfast, but then they would disappear for the day, and then you didn't see them until they came in for their evening meal. So during that time, you know, we would clean everything up and changeover day used to be on a Saturday, and uh which was great, you know, because we used to stand there, say goodbye to everybody, and they say, Oh, we'll see you next year, and of course they used to give me pocket money, yeah. So I quite liked that at the age that I was. Uh but uh one of the key things that I remember was that my mum and I used to sing all the time, and uh she taught me to harmonise, and so whilst we were doing the cleaning, that's you know, that's when we did the singing and stuff. Um my nan was very much into the theatre and musicals, and so was my mum. So whenever we could, we used to go to the shows in Yarmouth to see all sorts of people. Uh I'm one of the few people I know that, for example, actually been to a George Formby gig. Right. You know, uh it's always a bit of a prize when people say, What's the earliest gig you've been to? George Formby, you know? Line. Yeah, exactly. So all of that kind of stuff we grew up with. Now, whilst we were doing that, Dad, uh of course in those days people didn't didn't have cameras. And Dad was a beachfront photographer, and he used to have uh a like you know, a a liker, which I've still got. Oh, wow. Nice camera then. Yeah, yeah. Uh it's a bit beaten up now, but um he used to that's they look great beaten up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, true.
SPEAKER_00So this is the one camera that looks good if it's beaten up. Yeah, well, you know, this one he's he he had a lot of well it used to work with it all the time. Yeah. He he his one of I mean he he'd go anywhere where there were people. Basically groups of people. People hanging around, tourists, you know, and his thing was he had a ring on his finger. Now in those days, of course, you didn't have digital photography. You had uh, you know, ca uh uh film was expensive, blah blah. So he used to his his the way he worked was he'd see a couple coming towards him or a group or whatever, and he'd go, Oh, hold it and and hold the camera up. And the theory was that if the people kind of went, oh, and kind of stopped, then you knew that psychologically they were potential customers. Yeah, they wanted the photo. And so he'd whack his ring on the side of the camera, and then he'd go up and spoke to them and say, Oh, that's gonna be a lovely photo. And then he'd give them the pitch. I think it used to be half a crown, so like twelve and a half P or something now. He would take the photo, take their name and address, and post it to them for when they got back off holiday, you know. If if people went for it, he'd take all the and then he'd say to them, Right, let's just make sure we get a really lovely photo. And that would be the photo that would be the one, yeah. Yeah, the other one was just to see whether they had an interest. Because if they kinda went, Oh no, no, way there has a way, you know, he's So they just thought that was the kick of the camera. Yes, yeah, yeah. So that that that was the idea. And uh he used to hang out at um you know, the fun fair in in Great Yarmouth, big pleasure beach there was one of his favourite pictures. And uh there was he and a couple of other guys, there was a whole team of them, about six or seven, they used to go all over the country to in during the summer season that's where he'd work in Yarmouth. He met Mum there, I think, because one of the reasons was he he'd just come out of the Merchant Navy. No, I think he was in the Merchant Navy, and because he was going across to New York, he was on the CUNARD line, and uh it was just after the war, and ladies couldn't get nylons. So he used to bring suitcases full of nylons back. And of course, as soon as the word was in town, oh Jack's in town with the nylons, you know, the women would go to him and he'd flog all these nylons, yeah. And uh so that was he was a bit of a little bit of a wide boy, I suppose, really. But uh he was he was a Londoner, born in London, and um entrepreneur by the sound, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think yeah, just sort of turn his hand to anything. So uh Yeah, so that was kind of the summer seasons and went to some great shows there and uh Yarmouth in the winter is something else. It just closes up, it's bleak, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, you you're like it's the seaside town they forgot to close down, as uh Morrissey would say. And I'm only saying that because the only time I've ever been to Great Yarmouth was to see Morrissey on Great Yarmouth Pier. Oh, really? So that's the only time I've been there. So there we are. And I actually saw him before the gig and I shouted at him, I said, Morrissey! And he just waved at me, which I thought was amazing. So there we are.
SPEAKER_00Well Mum Mum worked on the pier, that was another person. She used to work on the pier as well. She in those days people had lots of jobs, you know, to make ends meet. She worked on the pier. Uh there was a guy who had a weighing machine on there, and uh he uh she would be, you know, the blonde standing near the wearing machine to attract people to come and get weighed, you know, because you know, whatever it was, just tell them how much they weigh. Because things like scales and all that kind of stuff, people don't have all that.
SPEAKER_01Well, all I can say that when I did go see Morris there, the drive there just seemed to go on forever. So I can't imagine what it was like in the nineteen fifties. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Matt, it just took ages and ages and ages. There were no public loss, you know. So uh no, it was it was yeah, but it was a good time. We used to go up there all the time, and uh and as I said, uh that was my grounding for music. And then um so in 1957, uh and I I found that when I cleared out my dad's estate. July the 5th, 1957. Yeah. I was in a competition on Yama Seafront in the they had like a marina there. Yeah. And there's about 200 people, and it's a singing competition. And I came out and my mum said, uh we'd been practicing the song, and uh she said, uh, they'll want to play the piano with you. She said, But tell me we don't want that. Just just sing on your own, just just you know, do it a cappella. So I sang um on the street where you live from my fair lady. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was what, six, and uh and I won the competitions. And you won it. It kind of set me off, I think.
Boarding School And Early Independence
SPEAKER_01Fantastically, I'll come we'll come on to that in a minute. Okay, so at the age of seven, you had a big shift, you went to boarding school. Um so what do those years teach you about your independence or life?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I well absolutely uh it's a bit of a shock, isn't it? I do remember being quite tearful when mum, you know, mum and dad said I had to go. But equally so I can remember being in tears when they said I had to come back. Right. Because, you know, it was such a good place for a young uh young boy. It was right next to a farm, and the farmer was great, so we could we uh we could go on and see all the animals. There was some uh and it's a lovely part, it's just above Peversy Marshes, just literally half a mile from uh Hosmatur Castle and uh and the Royal Observatory and all that. So lots of open space, big trees to climb. Uh so it was lovely, you know. I ended up having a great time. And um and of course in those days y you just went you just disappeared. You know, you could go out on your bicycle, nobody worried. You know, you went off on your bike, did your thing, I'd go fishing down in the marshes in Pennsee, or we'd cycle across to Castle at Pevensy and climb around there and uh That was great. So yeah, I I guess probably did set the grounds for being pretty independent. I didn't have any brothers or sisters or anything, so kind of you know, you went up growing on your own and making your own thing.
SPEAKER_01So you you then went into the Royal Navy, was that straight from school or was there a bit of a gap or uh a very slight gap.
SPEAKER_00Um I I actually when I left uh you know senior boarding school, I always I always wanted to travel. My mum always used to say to me, you know, if I was a boy, I'd be travelling everywhere. The only thing she the only reason she didn't was because she was a woman. She said, But you, she says you can go anywhere you like and be anything. So I and I I had this thing that I wanted to go to New Zealand because it was a long way away, I think. It just appealed. We can't go any further again, you're not. Well, exactly. Yeah, and I so it just attracted me. In my naive schoolboy kind of way, I thought, well, if I joined the New Zealand Chimney Company, I might end up in New Zealand, you know. Well, my dad was in the merchant navy, my granddad was in the Royal Navy, he was in Scapa Flow and all that. So I thought, well, I so I I I applied to join the New Zealand Chimney Company. And I went down to Southampton, I did my initiative test, my medical, all that kind of stuff. And they said, yeah, everything looks good. And I thought, great, you know, and then they said, but we're not taking people at the moment, um, so we'll give you a bell, you know, when we do. So I had to hang around, and by that time, mum and my stepfather uh were living in Hassox. And and so, of course, I was a what, you know, I was like 16-year-old, mod with my scooter, you know, uh out every night back at four o'clock in the morning. Um I worked at a petrol station, you know, just around the corner, but we were always out every night, you know, clubbing it. And of course, my stepdad had to get up, go to work every day into Brighton. He was a ladies' hairdresser. And I guess all the time I was at school, Bringham and I wasn't his son, and he was great, he taught me a lot. I think probably just having me around all the time started to rub the ends a bit. And uh and one day we I can't remember what it was, but Mum wasn't there, but one day he and I had a bust up in the kitchen. And uh for whatever reason it was, he shouted at me or whatever, whatever, and it upset me so much, you know. I I like burst into tears, and I I ended up leaving the house and I thought I was get on a train and going to Brighton. And uh when I went into Brighton in those days and you come out of the station, just literally like fifty yards down on the left hand side, there used to be the Royal Navy recruiting office. Right, wow. And I was just in that mood, you know, and I just walked down there and I saw this recruitment and I just turned left.
SPEAKER_01That's incredible.
SPEAKER_00And then when I walked in, of course the guy did a sales job on me, come in to sit down.
SPEAKER_01Sit down, you were just Yeah, he looked at my you know, looked at my GC. Prime candidate.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, engineering drawing, metal work at O level, you know, English language, English literature, blah, blah, blah. He said, now how would you like to fix, you know, jet air fighters and all that? And they all sounded, you know, you know, maybe six weeks later I was in the Navy. So it was it.
SPEAKER_01Rewind for a second, just tell me a little bit what it was like being a mod in this part of the world in Brighton, because that fascinates me.
SPEAKER_00It was it was the place to be a modern.
SPEAKER_01Definitely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, totally. And uh you know, everywhere else was all around us, you know, Little Hampton, Worthing, blah, blah, blah. It was all rockers, you know. Yeah, bikers everywhere. But Brighton, you know, we were on our scooter. So we used to meet up, you know, obviously we had jobs, day jobs, and but we used to meet up religiously on a Saturday, and we used to hang out just uh just up from the club tower in Brighton. Yeah, I know you mean yeah. Just at the beginning of Dyke Road, and on the left hand side there there was a a big shop called Blabers and uh it was all um, you know, scooter accessories and all that kind of stuff. So we used to hang out there, you know, on our bikes, we had megaphone silences, we'd all be sitting there going, Wh like this, like you do, talking whatever rubbish, and then um and then we used to go up to um Kemptown. There's a coffee bar up there. Yeah. It was the only one at the time. And the Kemptown uh the coffee bar had a uh proper jukebox with things like the Who and all that kind of stuff on there, and the small faces and everything else. So that became the place. They had like pinball in there and um you know, one of those football games, and so we used to hang out there. I do remember once that there were so many of us there making so much row that this uh woman obviously got completely fed up with us all and she lent out of one of the flats at the top and threw a bucket of water over one of the guys and said, you know, told us to clear off because of the noise we were making. And then we used to hack off down to, I don't know, Little Hampton or wherever, just go out on odd mod rides. We used to hang out in Brighton on the beach all the time. I never got involved in any of the in any of the fights or anything. Yeah, exactly. As laid out in films like Quadrifinia and all those little places in Quadrafinia I I'm completely familiar with. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01In fact, they call that quad uh Quadrafini Alley. Yes, that's right. Uh where uh obviously Phil uh Daniels and Leslie Ash went. That's right. And we leave it at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh no, I just sorry, I just needed to touch, you know, I just latched onto that. Yeah, yeah. Big, big, big fan of the whole era. But what about the music then? Was it and it's quite interesting because you you're slightly a rocker now, but yeah, um what was the music like in in that particular moment?
SPEAKER_00Well, no, I loved it. I mean I totally loved it, but I I didn't I I'd always enjoyed singing, yeah. Bearing in mind, um, you know, I'd just come for boarding school. Now, in a way, my musical stuff suffered at boarding school because I wasn't able to go to the gigs that all my friends did, yeah, you know, where where they'd be going out in Brighton to all the different clubs seeing all the different bands. I only came home on holidays and we weren't allowed radios or anything at school. The only radio we had, Saturday or a Sunday afternoon, in our respective houses. So we had boys' houses, you know, like common rooms if you like. And they had a a little radio in there, but we had no choice of you know what we listened to. But they did allow us to listen to I think it was either Pick of the Pops or Top of the Pops. And the DJ was Fluff Freeman, you know, Alan Freeman, yeah. Something like that. Alan Freeman, that's right. And so we were all religiously used to go in there and listen to that. Uh but that was my only exposure really uh to pop music. Uh, the rest of the time, um I remember building a little crystal radio set and some earphones, and so in the dormitory at night we'd tuck them under the pillow and try and listen to Radio Caroline or Luxembourg. And the signal would be disappearing, you know, in and out. Just when it got to your favourite bit, it would go uh, you know. I I I suffered really, so when I came to Brighton i it was to come down, I I wasn't involved in bands or anything because I just didn't really didn't have that background. And then I wasn't around for long because then I went off to the navy.
Navy Diver Training And Mary Rose
SPEAKER_01You went off the navy, which we'll we'll come back to. So you went into the Navy as a uh an aircraft engineer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01How did you end up being a diver?
SPEAKER_00On the Merry Rose.
SPEAKER_01On the Merry Rose.
SPEAKER_00It's a bit bizarre really. Um I'd always enjoyed diving. I took a scuba diving course with what was then the British Sabaca Club when we lived in Hove. So this is going back early 60s or whatever. And I did my training in the King Alfred, what was then the King Alfred swimming baths, and I remember picking up a book by a guy called uh Jacques Cousteau. Jacques Cousteau, yeah. And I read it from cover to cover about ten times, you know. It it it so excited me. So I got into that. So there was always that interest. Once I was in the Navy, there's all these various things, I guess like any military service, you can do all these other things if you want to do them. And uh being a ship's diver was one of them. Uh ship's diver was a working diver, so you learn the basics of assisting, you know, when you're at sea. You're not a proper clearance diver. You know, that's a different thing altogether. Ship's divers, you know, so you'd be over the side if there was, you know, to clear cables away from a propeller or whatever, whatever, you know, that was your thing. I requested to go on that course, did it okay, and uh it's a month-long course. I did it in I think it was November, and it was just like there was ice on the puddles, it was freezing cold. And they do everything to break you, you know. Um everything everything to make you pack up, you know, a bit like I don't know, commando training or something. I had that in the fire brigade, to be fair. There you go. So, you know, they're coming in shouting at you all the time, it's lots of blah blah blah. And then they'd you know, they'd uh we had dry suits, but they leaked. We had no gloves, no gloves in November. And so and we used to have to sit under the water, you couldn't see anything. This was down in Plymouth, and the visibility was so poor, you know, I kid you not, you could put your hand onto your face mask and you can't see your hand. So it's just like being in a complete blackout. And they give you a chisel and a hammer, and we know that in the mud somewhere down there is an anvil, and they send you over the side and you have to chip a link off of the chisel. So you can't see it and only hear. Ding and when you get a ding then you know you fit the chisel fit. But you don't actually know if the chains underneath it. And if it goes thud, you know you fit your thumb. So we all all are came up with our split thumbs. Yeah, so they give you a hard time. By the end of my first week, uh, we'd started off there were 19 in the class, and we were down to like seven or eight. People just couldn't make it, packed up. So it was very hard. Uh and you know, they come in in the middle of the night, two o'clock in the morning, switch on all the mess lights, banging dustbin lids, and you have to be out and running down, get into your suit, they take you out into the harbour, and then we had to dive over the side of a a cruiser that had been laid up since the war, and bearing eye got no gloves, it's dark at night, and we used to do bottom searches. So the way that works is they'd string six or seven divers together, 'cause you can't see where you are. One diver goes under the water and follows the keel line with his hand, he has to physically run his hand. The other diver the other end of the string stays on the surface, just at the surface. So the rest are all spread down the side of the hull. And the idea is you go right the way down, you know, one side of the ship, around the back end or the front end, and then back the other way, feeling for these mines that they'd put down there, you know, to the wheat which we had to find. But 'cause I've been in there since the war, and you know, underneath it was just like hanging in horrible grolies and things, you know, and you're running your hands through all of these things in the dark. And then while and not knowing whether you're up or down or sideways. And then while you're doing it, the the GIs used to wrap bits of lead around uh thunder flashes, light them and drop them over the side. So you'd be in this complete pitch black and then suddenly bang a blinding flash, you can you just didn't know where you were. So a lot of people just didn't make it. But uh I just revelled in it. Do you think that was on purpose?
SPEAKER_01They Totally. They just spent time breaking it down. Did they then spend any time building what who was left up?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, very much. So once you once you you know they they they were just they just wanted to separate the people who I mean to be fair, a lot of people left because they just couldn't clear their ears or they got a cold or whatever, whatever. But anything, and you were out. And you were out you know. Um so and I think we we ended up, I think it's probably uh yeah, well, I think they joined us up with a few people left from the course before. So there was only like maybe ten of us on the whole month that had completed the course. I passed out top. And uh I think because of my engineering background, so a lot when we got to the technical stuff just rolled off my tongue. I was you know, whereas with the other guys they had no experience of that. So what was the link to the Mary Rose then? So because I because of m passing out top and being around, when they discovered the Mary Rose, uh Commander Baldwin and uh you know from the place where I was had uh asked me if I wanted to come and do some diving. One of the things you had to do was to keep up your diving minutes. So once you've qualified as a diver, you're a bit like flying, you know. So uh he said, you know, we've we've discovered something which we think might be the Mary Rose. So I went out and did some some diving on that. I I I could show you the log when we got to the house. So very early days, literally just a few planks poking up above the mud, just you know, hardly anything. But it's such a difficult place to dive because the the current around the Isle of Wight is just brutal, you know. Um so we had to kind of dive, you know, half an hour either side of slack tide in order to be able to stay in one position, you know. But that was mad.
SPEAKER_01So but thoroughly enjoyable and um It must have been amazing l later on to see it come back to the surface and say, well, I've I've been down there, I'll touch that.
SPEAKER_00A few weekends ago I decided to go down and do the whole Portsmouth Dockyard exhibition. Yeah. You know, there there's lots of different things that can go down there, and one of which was the Mary Rose. So I thought, I'll go down and do the Mary Rose exhibition. Now the schools were not on holiday, so it was quiet. The weather was atrocious, so there's hardly anybody there. Great for me. So I was able just to wander around. And I happened to mention to one of the guys there that I did some diving on the Mary Rose.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And suddenly after that, everybody that was there were coming up and saying, Well, you know, you'd you'd like this bit, come and see this bit, you know. We've got this tucked away here and all that kind of stuff. He he took me out uh the one of the guys took me up and showed me a film, which normally they got a little cinema there, I don't know if you've been there, and normally they they just do certain showings of this film when they get enough people in, I guess. But they flashed up the cinema just for me. Yeah. And they said, Go and sit there. And that was so emotional because although it was animation, you know, um, they showed exactly what I saw. Yeah. Those those first few timbers from that period. And I was just sitting there going, Wow, you know, it was just He brought it all back. Oh mate, totally. I I couldn't believe it. I came out with a grin from ear to ear.
SPEAKER_01I think it was one of those moments where the whole of the UK stopped and watched that time when they were bringing it up. It was absolutely incredible. We were all just gripped by it.
SPEAKER_00Totally, yeah. And of course I'd moved on from it by then, you know. Me was just very early days. I had nothing to see. I think I might have found a clay pipe. There was a few odd bits and pieces, but you know, next to nothing. But um when I left the Mary Rose exhibition, the guy there who's now the boss said to me, he took my name and address and he said, Oh, you know, Mr. Pryor, blah blah blah. He said, We have these meetings every however many years it is, of all the divers that have been involved on this. Can I take your details? I'll get in touch with you next time. Come down and tell us what you you know, tell us about your experience and bring your divers look. So uh I will do it at some point.
Overland Africa And Learning Fast
SPEAKER_01But after you left the Navy, your life reads like an adventure novel. What I mean by that is you obviously went to Africa, India, Sri Lanka. Yeah. What were you searching for?
SPEAKER_00I just um I don't know, just adventure. Yeah, totally adventure. I just um just travel, I wanted to meet people one of the things that I didn't like about being in the Navy, you know, and I wanted to travel, and of course I did. I I was in Hermes, I was in the aircraft carrying, for example. Yeah. The downside of being in the Navy and travelling is that everywhere you go, you're a sailor. You turn up with all the other hundred of people that look just like you. You know, you can't really go anywhere. You you tend to not go anywhere much further than the dockyard and uh and the and the local town and wherever. You know, all the prices go up because they know, you know, they can see your ship anchored off. It's a bit like being on a modern-day cruise line. Yeah, yeah, same thing. Yes, it must be. So everybody knows, you know, who exactly you are. And I wanted to experience I wanted to experience what it was like to be amongst people and not be known, if you know what I mean. I don't know. So there was just an adventure. But I I I was working in London at the time. I think I said I I when I left the Navy, I moved up because my girlfriend had moved up there. Yeah. I got a job initially working in Cecil G's in King's Road in a boutique, but it wasn't for me. They were, you know, folding shirts and all that kind of stuff. And then I met this guy who was a friend of a friend, and he said he was a croupier. And he said he worked in the casinos, and that all sounded very glamorous. So I thought, oh yeah, I'll do that. You know, I was kind of open to anything. So I went along to uh Crockford's, which was the casino and still is, I think, in London, and said that I'd like to be a croupier. Do you ever take on people? Well, yes, we do, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, cut a long story short, I became a croupier. Right. And I learned how to do blackjack and roulette and all that kind of stuff. And it was all very glamorous. And at the time we had the oil boom, we had the uh Scottish uh oil guys coming down off the rigs, and they had stacks of hundred pound notes. So you've you've never seen a hundred pound note? No, no, no, no, and I haven't seen one since, but they had stacks of hundred pound notes. You know, the Arabs at the time they were making some of the guys were making a million pounds a day at home, so they couldn't spend it quick enough. So to be in the casinos when they were playing with all this stuff and be in control of it was was great. A bit a bit like a gig, really. So I'd be running a a French uh uh an American roulette table, and you're totally in control of the game, and it's all talk, it's all showmanship, which I enjoy. And you you know, you got all this money coming down at one point, I knew all the numbers on the wheel, left, right. So if somebody said to me, you know, give me da-da, I'd be able to go, you know, put all the stuff on. So it's very exciting. However, the downside was that the gaming board decided to stop tips for croupiers. Okay. And so suddenly it wasn't so glamorous. And then you're faced with people blowing cigar smoke in your face. And I just thought this is not working for me. And I I had split up with my girlfriend by then, and there used to be a magazine called uh Encounter Overland in London. I used to look in the back of that, and on the back pages there were all these trips, they used to advertise trips, you know, overland to Africa and India and Nepal and whatever. And I thought, well, I'd love to do something like that, but it was like seven or eight hundred pounds ago. Well, I didn't have that kind of money, you know, in those days. And uh but then I thought to myself, well, they must need like couriers or drivers or mechanics or something. And of course, being an aircraft engineer, I was, you know, your oyster. Yeah. And of course, at that time we we used to fix our own cars anyway. I I sat down one Sunday afternoon and uh rang them all up, all these companies, and uh two of them said, Well, yeah, we do need people from time to time, why don't you come in for an interview, blah, blah, blah. So I did. Uh, one of the companies uh was probably one of the biggest ones in court, it actually called Encounter Overland. And they said, Well, yes, we could use you, but you need to come and hang out for six months at our workshops in Bedford and learn how to to maintain these trucks and look after them. And I basically I was at that stage in my life where I said, Look, if you give me the workshop manual and a set of tools, I can take that to pieces and put it together again. It's not a problem, you know. No, no, you've got to do the six months, but I wanted to go then, you know. Very impatient. The other company was in Bond Street, and uh the address was in Bond Street, and it was one of those little obscure doors that are in between all those big stores you see. Yeah, I know them well. You ring a bell and then you go up these stairs and you go up more stairs and more stairs and more stairs. You get right to the top, you know. And there was a company out there called Playmates Travel, run by an Australian guy. And when I walked in, he said, Oh, good eye, mate, you know, come in, sit down, and uh and he had all these photos around the wall of this truck in Africa and everything else, and uh he asked me what I did, asked me if I could fix a uh a truck and everything else, and I said to him, Yeah, no problem. And uh he said, Well, when can you go, mate? You know, he said, uh, we've got a truck leaving in like six weeks or something, you know. He said, Can you do that? I said, Pretty right. Uh so uh I handed him my notice at work, went out and got my jabs for like whatever it was, yellow fever, cholera, all those kind of things. And uh suddenly I turned up on the uh on on Bond Street, eight o'clock one morning, and there was this Bedford truck, and they had taken they'd converted uh you know the back of the truck and bolted in uh 20 old coach seats. Uh those are the people sitting on them. So they were the people were paying, you know, like seven, eight hundred pounds for the trip. Uh and I just turned up, you know, met them all for the first time, and they were all they were all there ready to go, and he said, Right, well, this is Lee, this is your driver, you know. Uh and he handed me like uh a carnet and some insurance papers and stacks of visas and you know a couple of grand in Swiss francs and dollars and burr duh duh duh all this stuff, and he basically, well, have a good trip, mate, you know. When you get down to Joe Book, you know, blah blah blah blah blah. So uh I couldn't believe it, you know, and you know I was sitting up and I could see these people looking, and I'd got kitted out with like boots and putties, and I had a rucksack, and I thought, I looked like I knew what I was doing, you know. The the crazy thing, when I look back on it, I'd never driven a Barefoot truck before. They didn't have synchronised gears in those days, so like I'd be going up Bond Street going, you know, with the gears to get going. But mad, yeah, so lots of stories on the on the trip. But yeah, synchronized. And you just drove? Just drove down, drove down to the ferry at uh Dover, drove across to you know the other side, and um and then just drove down through France. Well, it was cold, um, so I just wanted to get down to like North. Yeah, north northern Morocco, because there was no heating in the and everybody was camping, you know, all tents and stuff. I had a one-ton trailer on the back with a lot of gear in. So I just drove you know, like bonkers really, all the way down through France, uh, you know, overnight, over the uh mountains, down through Spain, and then we got down to Algeciras, which is on the Spanish coast, and uh we were hanging out. It was the first night really where we were able to hang out. It was warm enough to hang out on the beach, and so we had a little bonfire there and uh sitting around drinking a few beers waiting to get the ferry across to Ceuta, which is on the Moroccan side. And I remember we got a visit from the police uh because you know they have a lot of trouble. Yeah, just immigrants and whatever. And uh but you know, the girls I had of the twenty people there's roughly half and half. Uh they were mostly Aussies and Kiwis. There were a few. So you had enough money from the guy to to go all the way and well I they didn't pay me at all. No.
SPEAKER_01I I just did it for the chip. But but yeah, but you had to all could you have to drive it and you have to pay for things on the way, like the ferries and that.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely, yes. I had all the money to do all that, you know, and uh I was in charge of the finances to do all that, to buy the diesel and everything else. Uh but we uh and then I and we picked up another driver who'd made his way back. He'd done a trip previously. Oh, okay. So I met him. Yeah. So I met him in Spain, and then there were the two of us then doing it. So he'd done it before, and so he had some knowledge of what to do. And where to go. And where to go. This is long before Sat Howard got that. Yeah, yeah, it was all maps, you know. Um so we so we went across to Souter. I remember in Souter we had to change to get the local money, and we went up to see this guy, and it was like going to some gangster thing. This bloke, you know, opened a safe and it was just like stuffed with notes. And we exchanged our dollars for, you know, or whatever it was, we bought some of that stuff. They gave us something to drink. Well, what decade are we in now?
SPEAKER_01What or what year?
SPEAKER_00So this would be 1970. So I came out 74, 70, what, 75, something like that? Ah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They uh they also sold us, we bought a crate of whiskey, Johnny Walker whiskey, I remember. You know, because suitors, although it's in Morocco, it's in Spain. Alright, whatever. And I think he said this will be useful. So we said, oh, fair enough. And the other thing uh that we did was um we bought a whole stack of penthouse, Louis, all the all the magazines, you know, all the all the girly mags. And uh he said this this will help us on the way. So I thought, oh okay, fair enough. Better than currency. Exactly. Well exactly. So we left Morocco, went through Algeria. Now when we got to Algeria, it all became things. So we got to the Moroccan-Algerian border, so we start to get into Africa proper. He said, Right, he said we leave the whiskey there, we leave the magazines there, just don't hide them, stick them on the back. And of course they came out, passport control, went to look at everybody's passports, went round the back of the truck, lifted up the canvas. And I was standing to one side with this guy, and you could see these two guys, they didn't know whether to look pay more attention to the whiskey or to the magazines, you know. We found the juiciest picture we could find to stick on the top. It was hilarious. And so, in that instant, um, I can't remember, I think his name was Nick. The other guy suddenly said, Oh, yeah, we we bought the magazines for for you guys, because the last time we were here, your colleague said, Oh, if we got any magazines, can we bring them? Oh, really? Oh, messie, monsieur. Before we know it, all our passports were switched. Stamped. They they weren't bothered with the whiskey because they knew we were gonna be away for Christmas and New Year. Yeah, yeah. So and we drink because we're Europeans, and off we went and drove across the Sahara and so on. So mad.
SPEAKER_01Later on, you you end up going to Switzerland, and that sounds like a completely different uh world, and working in a uh club in Montreux. Yeah. Okay. I mentioned the other day that I've I've done an episode about David Bowie. You then said to me, Oh, I met him. Tell me a little first of all, tell me about that. Okay. And then tell me about being a DJ in this nightclub.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so so uh I was running this club as the DJ. So in those days, DJ it was a full-time job, yeah, you know, and um you didn't have lots of people coming in and doing a sketch. You did like I used to go to work at six o'clock in the evening, they would feed you. I'd go home, have a shower, get changed, come back and open up about eight o'clock. Uh so in the club, it was almost a bit like a a restaurant and a club together. So people would come in and sit in the restaurant, so it's like from eight until ten. I used to play background music, and of course Montreux's big for jazz. So you know, I used to pick things that were just mellow they could listen to. Ten o'clock uh was when the club officially started. By that time people used to start coming in, and then we used to go through till two in the morning. But you did that six days a week. Yeah. You know, you you that that was your full-time job. Because if you look up the history of Montreux as such a musical place, for example, Deep Purple, you know, Smoke on the Water, that was all based around Montreux. Queen, when they came out, bought the studio. So I remember that. That's it. So all these big musicians used to come in. I I remember bumping into George Benson, for example, you know, uh I had I was playing one of his albums, his album's called Breezing. Yeah. I've actually got it, I've got a picture on here, somewhere, but it's signed. In the club, but there was no indoor loo. Yeah. And so I had to find a track that was long enough for because it was all vinyl in those days, to be able to put on a record, run out, find the loo, have a pee, back, you know, before the record ended. And this picture of George Benson was right there, and so I've been looking at it, and uh so as I walked, walked out the door, George Benson was coming in the door. Yeah. And so I just went, George Benson, and he went, Yeah. I said, Don't move. I went running back and got the album, he signed it. He was there to do an interview for Radio Swiss Murrahland, who'd set up in a little room above the club. So that kind of thing happened. So one night I'm in there and I'm playing uh some Bowie and um David Bowie came in and uh he he came up and said, Oh, you know, hey do whatever, blah blah. And uh he said, Oh, give us your give us your album cover. He said, I'll sign it for you, you know. And uh so I had to grab a wa a pen off a waiter and uh and he signed the album and uh I'll show you a picture. Show me later. But it's basically Philippe, and that was in 1976. He ended up coming in the club quite a few times, but equally so, you know, yeah, so George Benson, Brian Ferry, Emerson Lake and Palmer, yes, um George Duke, uh r Richard T. I mean just loads and loads of jazz names used to come in, rock names used to come in. Queen came out, I actually I ended up working for Queen for about three months. And um uh because the the club finally went into administration and uh so it was a you know it was a crazy, crazy time really. Um the owner of the club decided to he had he and a partner had a restaurant in Geneva or Zurich or somewhere. They decided to burn it down and claim the insurance money. And uh but apparently they'd taken all the antiques out first. Oops. And uh so I went to work one day and the chef was there, said, He's gone. I don't know where Wolfram is, he's disappeared, the club's closed, you're out of a job, just like that. But I was hanging around, and then I because I used to go into the studio all the time, everybody knew me, it's a small town, you're an expat, and because of my love of music, and they said, Oh, you know, we uh uh we we we were talking about you, you know, Queen are coming out to do a an album, you know. And Freddie said he's looking for a driver who's like, you know, male, about twenty-something, yeah, discreet, blah blah blah. And we all thought of you, Oh yeah, fine, I'll do that, you know. I was just I was just do anything, you know.
SPEAKER_01But that's an incredible time though, in the in that part in in the in in the late 70s. I mean, all those names you mentioned, especially Queenie, but they're in that they're in their moment, weren't they? So it was huge. It was huge, absolutely huge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, so it was just a crazy time. The the the thing about the album, by the way, just touching on that, was I just recently sold it at an auction. Oh, did you? Yeah. Only because I'm kind of reaching that age where I'm thinking, well, my kids don't want the vinyl, then they then would it. And I'm thinking, and I've got like, I don't know, eight hundred albums up there, and I'm thinking, well.
SPEAKER_01I don't know, my my son's 35, but he's now got he's really into vinyl. It's like having a bit of a uh comeback, I suppose. But uh even stores like HMV who obviously lost their way of coming back with these bespoke stores all over the place. But uh I I like it, I like to see, and uh it always interests me, even even modern artists like Taylor Swift put all her records out as records, as now put on vinyl and and make a big thing about the cover and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00So there we are.
Debt Lessons And Financial Services
SPEAKER_01So that was okay. Let's just let's just jump forward a bit. I mean, I I met you um when you're in financial services. That came later on. Just tell me briefly about that.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I got into financial services because I got into financial problems. Right, okay. And uh at the time I had such bad mortgage advice, I had no financial advice for me. And also interest rates in the UK at the time went to 15%. Yeah. If you remember. I do remember. And I just couldn't hang on to my floor. I couldn't make enough money. And at the time I was doing a job as a painter and a decorator. But people weren't paying the bills, so they're now they're saying, Oh wow, fantastic jobs, the best we've ever seen, blah blah blah. But then they'd keep you waiting three months to be paid, and I just couldn't survive. And in the end, you know, I just had to give it up. And I got repossessed, uh, ended up thousands and thousands of pounds in debt and my credit history ruined. And I it just made me stop and think. I thought, you know, I had such bad advice. I saw an advert for you know for uh Dunbar and uh I thought, well, I need to learn how to do this stuff because it's part of life, you know. And I thought, well, if I can learn how to do it, I can help people to avoid the mistakes I made. You know, so that was the theory behind that. And uh yeah, just got involved there and uh did well and um got you know, paid all my debt off and everything else. But uh hugely down to Fran. She became my PA. I was very disorganised, she was completely the opposite, sorted out all my mounds of stuff that was on my desk, made the appointments for me, you know. Good. She she she saved me and uh yeah, we became business partners, and then of course later on life partners. Yeah.
Living The Dream As Robert Plant
SPEAKER_01You sort of like sold your business and then you spent a decade touring the UK as Robert Plant. Yeah. Obviously, apart from the appearance.
SPEAKER_00Well, I got I didn't really have the appearance then.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you definitely got it now.
SPEAKER_00I had shorter hair, of course, you know, in Dunbar uh and and in financial services. But I always had that interest in music because I'd been working as a DJ in Switzerland all those years, and I was certainly into Zeppelin, but uh I just enjoyed performing. I've always been a performer. And um so uh this opportunity to go and audition for uh the Zeppelin tribute band, uh they were the original one, you know, nobody thought of it before they did. They needed a new vocalist, and uh they were based up in Gloucestershire. We had the office in the house then, you know, still in financial services. And an email came in offering me this opportunity to go for an audition. Because I had previously sent an email about 18 months before saying, I know all this stuff, I love it, I love singing. If ever your singer gets poorly or can't make a gig, I could stand in for you, you know, that kind of thing, very naive. But I never heard anything back. And then um, yeah, this email turned up and I kind of went, Oh, and Fran from the other side of the room said, What's up? And I said, Well, I won't say anything. I'll go make us a cup of tea, you read the email, and then tell me, because I wanted to see what her reaction was. And when I came in, she just said, What do you got to do? So it's your dream, isn't it? Because you couldn't do something like that unless you had total support from your partner. I went for the audition up in Gloucestershire, and uh and they said, Yeah, when can you join? And um, of course that made me stop and think. Then there was this kind of weird situation in my life. I had just had my best ever year at uh TP. Yeah, in financial services, yes. And and I think I got a bonus of 35, 40 grand, something like that, that they were you know they were doing at the time. My mum died, and so obviously, being an only child, um I would have inherited her flat. And then I was going to a breakfast meeting and I'm sitting in the car with this chap, we were sharing a car, and he was fifteen years younger than me, and he was saying he was very much into it, he'd just taken on another Royal FA, he was looking to expand, and he's he sort of said, I'm looking to buy somebody else's business, and I my ears pricked up and I thought, oh. So we had a chat about that. So it was like this weird thing where like three things all happened at once, dink dink dink, and I thought, you know what, if I don't do it now, never will. You never will. Yeah, so I did, so I sold the business to him. 2012 um went on the road with um with the Zenberg. A whole lot of head. And uh Did you go literally all over the UK? All over the UK, yeah, top to toe, up on MS, down to you know, Penzance, whatever, uh everywhere. And uh but of course you couldn't do that without support of your wife and Fran, bless us, she was wonderful. Because I was away. You know, we're doing like a hundred shows a year, you know. And I'm away a lot. Uh but she was she was really supportive. You know, I didn't because I didn't have to worry about financial services or anything like that, you know, and uh it it enabled me just to yeah, live my dream, really, I suppose. And I loved it so much. But then, you know, we we're we're all like over 70, and uh the bass player was having some health problems and uh he was one of the founder members. He's the one, for example, who designed all the posters that you see. He was a graphic designer as well as a bass player. And he was such a pivotal part of the band, and he had to retire through ill health, and and we kind of soldiered on while we said, well, we'll we'll honor because we used to book gigs about two years in advance, and we'll we'll do all the shows that we've got booked with other bass players. But none of us really wanted to carry on without him, so uh we all kind of thought, well, now's the time. So December 22 that was when we did our our final final gig. Final gig. Your farewell gig. Yeah, it's mad. And the crazy thing is, uh you know, I go all over the place, and people, even now, somebody sometimes in a motorway place will be you you you in you know, yeah. Not just you. Not just me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People I would bump into people and they go, Oh, you know, it's just mad. I I went to see Robert Plant in um in C at the Roundhouse a few years back. Yeah, a great venue at the roundhouse. Brilliant. Robert Plant has sensational space shifters. And um and when I got there, I was trying to work my way down the side. I'd got on the guest list, luckily, uh, because I'd met their promoter, which is another story. And I'm walking down the side, I kind of got somewhere near the front, and then this guy turned around and meant, Oh, oh, it's it's uh it's you. He said, We saw you in uh and then all these people started turning around and you go, you know, oh mate, you weren't you know, or they were full of it. And people were standing back thinking, oh, we must be famous. And the crowd just sort of parted, and I ended up standing right in front of the stage, you know. It was just like amazing and incredible gig. So I do. I bump into these people all the time that just say, Oh, yeah, I remember you, we saw you at blah blah blah. It was a lot of fun.
Family Influence And Closing Thoughts
SPEAKER_01A lot of fun. Go going right back to the beginning of our conversation today, you spoke about your mum. I mean, what would your mum say about? I mean, your life, the the fact you've been in the navy, you've travelled, the music.
SPEAKER_00What would your mum say? I think she'd love it. I think she'd totally understand. She knew that I was a wild card when I was young. Uh, you know, I I just used to go where the wind blew, you know. I was an adventurer. But she wanted that for you. She did, I think, you know. She said you can do anything you want, you know. She always encouraged me. I think she might have been disappointed that I left the Navy so early.
SPEAKER_01What did your granddad say about you being a navy? Was he was he aware of it?
SPEAKER_00No, he was he was long gone by that time, yeah. That's a shame. But uh because I mean at one point I I became a petty officer in just the short time I was there, which is kind of unusual. And at the time I was the youngest petty officer in the fleet air on. So I think my mum had high hopes that I would rise to whatever. But it just wasn't for me. It was too I wanted the individuality. I was too much of a I still am, always were, a bit of a soul trader, you know. I I Maverick. Well, I don't know what the term is, but I just I wanted adventure and I just wasn't getting it and you know, in the Navy. I at that time they'd given up the idea of aircraft carriers and fixed wing aircraft. So there wasn't much sea time and I wanted to go to sea and travel, so I ended up basically working in a big garage, getting covered in hydraulic fluid every day, and I just it just wasn't it wasn't rocking my boat and uh favourite decade of music? That's a tough one. It's such a tough one. I mean I I think it's probably got to be the 70s. Yeah. Yeah, the 70s, but more so because my direction went jazz and jazz funk. That's I I mean I I love rock, don't get me wrong. I love singing the pop from the 60s. Yeah but I got so into jazz in when I was in Switzerland. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the bands that was late 70s, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the bands I saw out there were just fantastic. And I I went to the jazz festival every year for about four years, and uh so and I and that still does it for me, you know. Uh so probably that. Yeah. But a tough question because it's always a tough question. I love it from one end to the other, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, m more wife or I have this conversation about the eighties and the seventies and all the time. Oh no, yeah. She's 70s, I'm probably 80s, but yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_00And I mean I hear stuff from the eighties now, you know, and I I think, oh, that's a great tune. I love that. Hey.
SPEAKER_01Well Lee, thank you very much for your time. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I talked too much time. No, no, it's all good. It's all good. I that's what I need. I want people to talk to me about people in their lives and um things that have happened to them and the events that they had. I think that these moments are are worth cherishing and sharing and talking about. Good stuff. So thank you again for your time. Cool.
