One of the highlights of this particular afternoon was an appearance by Bruce Foxton, the ex bass player from The Jam who had formed a new band and was on to promote their latest single. I had no idea who he was at the time and thought his new song was poor to say the least, but I cheered as loud as anyone—that was the deal.
Before I could catch my breath and take it all in, the show and the fastest two hours of my life thus far was over, the crowd had begun to disperse and Timmy was clambering down the stairs of the bus in what looked a bit like an Adam Ant outfit.
All afternoon there had been kids hanging about at the back of the bus behind the barriers who were wearing Piccadilly T-shirts. It turned out these were Timmy’s ‘helpers’, the tallest of whom was a sharp-looking guy who had been stood by Timmy’s side throughout the whole show wearing impressive-looking headphones. Whoever this guy was he had Timmy’s ear and now he had ours—those of us who were still hanging around to catch a closer glimpse of The Mallett Man were eager to hear what he had to say.
‘Timmy is coming down and he will sign as many autographs as he can but he doesn’t have much time as he has to leave soon,’ said the tall kid.
I waited to see Timmy up close and hear how he talked ‘in real life’, which I did but after five minutes of doing so I felt a strange urge.
What I did next was another one of those instances which I can’t really explain: something inside me just said it was the right thing to do. Without thinking about it, I felt compelled to run back to my car as quickly as I could. Once there I jumped in and turned on the engine. I was going to follow Timmy home.
I drove back to the bus and waited. Even the most diehard fans were calling it a day now and soon Timmy was done with the signing. After exchanging a few words with some of his helpers he wandered off over to a small car park right opposite the main entrance of Old Trafford.
What car had my hero chosen as his trusty steed?
All superstars have great cars, I thought. It comes with the territory. If I was a star, the first thing I’d do is buy a swish car.
Not so the boy Mallett. As he fumbled for his car keys I could see he was stood next to…a red Renault 5! Could this really be his? Were these really his wheels? The guy is wearing whacky glasses along with an Adam Ant top, he has dyed red hair and yet he drives a Renault 5. I was learning maybe more than I both needed or wanted to know.
Though I had decided to find out the location of the real Timmy Towers I had never followed another car before and yet here I was only two weeks after passing my test now giving it the full private dick treatment. I had no idea where I was and even less idea where I was going but I was on an adventure and that was enough—until a few moments into my pursuit, disaster struck.
Suddenly my little car was not happy, it started to want to steer into the kerb. I had no idea what was happening but it was obvious this car was not a car that was enjoying the thrill of the chase. Whatever the problem was it was becoming exponentially worse by the second until I was eventually forced to stop. My little baby lurched to a halt with a worrying grinding noise, and as it did so I saw Timmy tootle off into the distance, no doubt blissfully unaware his pursuer had been thwarted.
I jumped out of my Mini to investigate what on earth had happened—only to discover my first-ever puncture.
‘Damn and blast and blast again.’ Not only did this herald the premature end to my now unsuccessful mission, it also meant that I was faced with something I had no idea how to do—namely, the deployment of a spare wheel.
After finally locating the jack, it wasn’t long before I was sweating and cursing. I have never been the world’s best when it comes to manual tasks and this latest challenge was proving to be no exception. I grunted and groaned and panted my way through the process and after several false starts, like jacking the car up before attempting to loosen the wheel nuts and having to lower it and start all over again, the spare wheel was, in a fashion, now on the car.
After manoeuvring the punctured wheel back into the spare-wheel cavity, nearly removing several fingers on my right hand in the process, it was time to refocus.
Right, where was I? Oh yes I was excited and following a red Renault 5. By now the best part of an hour had passed and Timmy had long gone. ‘Never mind,’ I thought (‘never mind’ is a phrase that has featured heavily in my life—‘never mind’ is the phrase of tryers not quitters and I was not about to quit again)—it wasn’t yet dark, I’d never been to Manchester before. Why didn’t I take a detour into the city centre and at least drive past Piccadilly Radio? Other people drive past things they’re interested in—why couldn’t I do the same?
Of course I had to find it first, but this was a small mountain to climb and one that shouldn’t have been a problem as Piccadilly Radio took great pride in shouting out its location several hundred times a week over the airwaves. In fact you would have to be deaf not to know where it was:
‘Live from Piccadilly Plaza in Manchester…Piccadilly 261.’
This was the type of phrase, I would come to discover, that lots of stations used but often employed huge doses of poetic licence as they did so. When I moved to London my favourite by far was: ‘Live from the top of the Euston Tower…Capital 95.8.’
That sounded mightily impressive but what they really meant was that the transmitter may have been live from the top of the Euston Tower but Chris Tarrant and his buddies were in little danger of a nosebleed as they were just one flight up from the reception on the ground floor.
Piccadilly, to my good fortune, had not been quite so creative with the truth and they were indeed in Piccadilly Plaza, which itself was equally helpfully located in Piccadilly Gardens smack bang in the middle of the city centre.
If a passer-by was still in any doubt as to the exact home of ‘Piccadilly magic’ all they had to do was look up, for plastered in the windows of the plaza itself were seven enormous posters of Piccadilly Radio’s mainline DJs. I looked up open-mouthed.
‘Wow…’ I was transfixed. They were like gods, larger than life, looking down upon us mere mortals. But then—
Hang on a sec!…None of them looked anything like they sounded.
Again, I hadn’t before imagined so much what they would look like, all I knew is that they shouldn’t look like this.
I began to feel disappointed. Here I was, early on a Sunday evening, almost on my own in the heart of a huge city that was spookily quiet, faced with the very people who kept my dreams alive every day, the same people who inspired those dreams in the first place and what was I confronted with? Seven of the cheesiest smiles I’d ever seen. These guys had the coolest voices and funniest shows on the radio but suddenly they all looked like hairdressers—except Timmy who looked more like a whacky teacher, which in many ways is what he was.
A voice is a picture in itself and maybe it should stay that way. Since working in radio I have discovered that the ‘on-air turns’ have a real dilemma with their self-image: they’ve spent so many years cultivating their on-air persona they’ve left their real personality behind. What most of them tend to do is end up dressing how they think their listeners see them, which is usually a lifetime away from who they really are.
So there I was, full of wonder and woe, but I really cannot overemphasise how much I could not believe that these guys thought it was all right to look like that, especially when their faces were ten feet tall and five feet wide. Not for the first time that day I realised show business might not be exactly what I thought.
My disappointment was curtailed, however, as my attention was diverted from the