Johnny Squires - Rookie DJ Initiation Ceremonies

There is one story back in the early 80s, where several of us DJs were working in Harstad, North Norway. There were at least four DJs living in town and I think three of us lived at this house that was owned by Jan Høiland, a famous Norwegian pop singer in the 60s, and his wife, I’ve forgotten her name but she was rather a large lady. She used to run the house - it was a boarding house - and she lived in the first floor flat. The house was on three floors plus the attic. A big house. And, we were shoved in the attic. There were some rooms up there and we were in it. I’d been there several times and I got on quite well with her actually. She liked me because I kept my room tidy. The other guys didn’t look after theirs. So, if there were any DJ parties we would always have them in one of the DJ’s rooms. Not my room, obviously. It was smoky in there and I didn’t want the stink of beer in my room.

We had this young lad who had just come over from the UK and I think it was his first booking in Norway. We quickly realised how unfamiliar he was with working in Norway when he asked us where the Police Station was. Well, we said it is the same place you took your passport and contract to. I haven’t been yet, he said. Why not, we countered, you are supposed to go there within two or three working days. I’ll go tomorrow he said. We sensed a little wind up coming especially as it was his first time in Norway. So we said ‘Have you done your fire escape drill yet?’ ‘No, why, what’s that?’ he said. ‘Well, all these houses are made of wood, you know and it’s law that you have to know what to do in case of fire’ And, I knew there was a rope and harness stacked in the cupboard because I had had that room before. I said it is probably one of these cupboards here. Oh here it is, I said, dragged it out. He said ‘What’s that then?’ ‘It’s a rope and harness. If there is a fire you’ve gotta get in here and lower yourself out of the window. People upstairs will then pull the harness back, get in it and lower themselves down and get out of the building.’

I said have you got your paperwork with you? He replied what paperwork? To give to the Police.

It was all in Norwegian so he wouldn’t understand a word that was written down. It’s got to be signed by two people who know how to do the drill. He said well can you just sign it? We all said no no no. After that we said if you don’t know how to do it and we get found out we will get into trouble.

He said OK, What do I have to do? We said you have to get into the harness and we have to lower you down. And, then you can come back in again upstairs and then we can sign the papers and say you have done the drill.

We are all pissed by the way. There were cases of beer everywhere it was shocking.

It was blowing a gale outside because it was winter. Snow and windy - Harstad is a very cold place in winter. We lowered him out the window and let him go halfway down.when we stopped the pulley so he didn’t go down anymore. H shouted up to us ‘It’s not going down, lads? What’s happening’

We said ‘Don’t make too much noise people are trying to go to sleep’ so we shut the window and left him hanging there. No surprise he started to get really angry like most people would so he starts banging on the nearest window which happens to be Mrs Høilands - in the middle of the night.

She shouts at him ‘What are you doing?’ He shouts back ‘I’m doing my fire escape drill!’ ‘WHAT??’

So we’ve all legged it out of the room and gone into my room and I’ve jumped into bed and pulled the covers over me and I think the other lads stood by the door. The landlady thumped up the stairs like a hippo swearing and cursing all the way. She throws the door open and came into my room and I jump up saying ‘What’s going on? WHAT’s going on?’ ‘I said I’ve been trying to get to sleep all night but there was bloody noise coming from that other room…’

‘I’m so sorry, Johnny’ she said ‘There’s something wrong with this guy’

I said in surprise’ What has he done now?”

‘He’s jumped out of the window and he’s hanging on a rope!’

I said ‘Is he alright?’

So she undid the rope to let him down.

There’s all hell to pay because he wouldn’t speak to me and he was really pissed off with everybody. He was well and truly set up for that one. That was a good one, that was. We’ve got loads of stories like that.

Peter Brown - Be careful what you eat

(And, the rumour he had turned ‘religious’)

I will tell you the story behind that. I worked at club 58 in Geneva. There was a band called Standing Ovation working at the club for one of the months I was there. They were born again Christians and experimented with chemicals...one day at their hotel after a few hours of intense dabbling… they got vocally religious and asked me to look for the lighter and ( hard to still believe it) a great light appeared in front of my eyes... true. the power of auto suggestion I am sure but for a few weeks after that I was a nice person… all my perversions stopped. My Lebanese dancer girl friend at the time thought I must have a twin… once my system cleaned up and a new girl band arrived I reversed back into my old ways…

Tales of my past

Risør near Arendal Norway

Played one month at this club, basic set up, holiday area and one day a week we had a dance for young people with broad mental issues, in this time every one was viewed the same as far as a group of people so you had those who had injuries that gave them mental issue, those with serious learning disorders and Downs Syndrome.

We had a bucket of water and a sponge in case of any fits and the orderlies were constantly getting involved trying to prevent too much amorous activities as they had no concerns with being viewed.

The nightmare with this was you had to play Mississippi by Pussycat, Smokie ‘Living next door to Alice’ and Dr Hook ‘Sylvias Mother’ to fill the floor, if you played them one after the other you had a full dance floor all night. After 1 hour it was enough but after 4 hours you almost felt like part of the crowd. After this the accommodation there was not great, there was a tree that had been cut down going through the middle of the floor in the bedroom lounge area. The tree stump was quite wide and although cut was still alive. On warmer evenings insects would come through the trunk and the floor became alive.

Finally, here the food, what ever the staff had the day before the DJ got the next day as a lapsaus,was ok not great, on my last day, the owner offered a steak which I gratefully accepted, not a large steak but hammered flat and so thin it cooked fast, he put it on a plate and his dog jumped up in the Kitchen and started to eat it, he shouted at the dog who dropped it and washed the meat put it back in the frying pan a few minutes put it back on the plate added some fries and salad and gave it to me as a thank you for my month there,

Never wanted to go back there again.

Tromsø, Hawk Club. I did this in the month of February, cold to say the least.

On arriving here, I went straight to the club as the flight in was late and I needed to work straight away. Nice club, after my first night I was told where the DJ accommodation was and I walked there, on arriving the room was a mess empty bottles rubbish every where the door was open but the upside was there was a girl in the bed asleep. Things looked pretty good. Door would not lock there was no shower that I could find and to make it worse there was a number of window panes missing in the window it was freezing. Me being dumb I jumped into bed got close to the girl to keep warm who responded in kind.

About 2 hours later the door crashes in and 3 Italian guys are shouting in Italian and the girl wakes up and every one gets agitated, it would seem that the Italians were part of a group and she was one of their followers, she had had an argument with one of the men and as my room was open went to bed after having a few drinks and some smoke, the odd va fungoo was thrown at me and catzo the girl then started to throw up in the bed as we were discussing her. So the band members then left she stayed a little longer, apologising for her mess, but in fairness it did nothing to make the room worse, just added some colour.

That morning I went to the club for lunch where I was told that to have a shower I needed to use the washing spray heads in the kitchen in the morning before the kitchen staff came in later in the day, the room had a WC but no bathroom. I was told to go meet the DJ at the SAS as most DJs used the bathroom in the hotel.

So that evening I went over to the SAS and met my buddy to be Dick Shepherd who assisted me with utilising the hotels washing facilities, along with providing useful addresses for the clinic and some lovely ladies to assist with washing ironing and massage,

P.S.

Also I need to make sure others are ok me writing about some of the stories as they are married now and may not have discussed all their deeds, from sharing women and then one getting a dose only for me to laugh then realising we exchanged partners so mine was coming soon.

Carl Kingston - The Radio Caroline Years

Enjoy Alan’s Interview with Carl Kingston - The Radio Caroline Years.

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Hi Carl, what I’m doing is a follow up book to GREAT IDEA with a sequel called THAT’S HOW IT WAS, and following the stories of many International DJs like yourself and your passionate love of music taking you right through your whole career. Now with you, you have done the Swiss Clubs mainly and you’ve done an awful lot of radio but just I’m doing a feature article about Radio Caroline and wish to interview some of the DJs I worked with to hear your experience of working on it. Which ship were you on? I Understand there were five ships used?

No, there were only two ships originally, then later there was the ROSS REVENGE the ship that I was on so three in all.

When were you there?

I went to the relaunch of Caroline which was in the mid eighties onto the biggest Caroline Ship ever and anchored in the North Sea.

I was working at the Casino in Montreux if you remember, in Switzerland when I put an advert in Billboard magazine, as my second child was about to be born and I wanted to return back to England. And, I also thought about trying to get work in America so I put an advert in Billboard.

I didn't get any response from the advert whatsoever except a phone call from a guy called Peter Tait, who is sadly no longer with us and he called me, he was from Croydon, and, one of his friends, the late Dale Winton had been offered radio on Radio Caroline. So, Peter was chatting with me and he said “Looks like I’ll be going to Caroline, would you like to join me?” So, I said, yes, of course I would. To cut a long story short I had to fast track making a demo for Radio Caroline and I had to send it to a lady called Annie Challis, who was Rod Stewart’s manager and who was helping Ronan O’Rahilly run Radio Caroline station. I sent the tape recorded delivery to Peter who in turn gave it to Annie who contacted me and asked if I would like to go out to Caroline. So , I took that opportunity.

I cancelled all my gigs, and Dougal (Peter Allen), God rest his soul, came to live with us and he did all my gigs whilst I was on Caroline. Later, Dougal also, I got him on Caroline. It was probably the best experience of my life. It was just amazing. Earlier I did some work for the Dutch service of Caroline, Radio Mi Amigo, with pop music reports, but I didn’t get to work for Caroline itself. When Caroline sank, with Stevie Gordon on board, everyone thought well that was that, Caroline wouldn’t come back again. But, lo and behold it did, in the form of this incredible ship, the most powerful one of all with so many former famous Radio Caroline DJs from the 60’s and then new names as well.

Incredible because in those days, we didn’t have internet, we didn’t have telephones and things like that so,you would get mail from LosAngeles and it was unbelievable, mail from everywhere. I kept a small portion of the mail because I thought it’ll be interesting to retain all that adulation and feedback from all over the world. Just to feel the response from the audience about everything we were doing and it elevated my career. When I got back on shore leave to get back to doing some gigs and also did some voice overs, and commercial radio stations around the uk, they would recognise my name. So got better known that way too which increased my voice over work.

What I want to ask you, did you meet Ronan? And ,if so, how did you get on with him and what was he like to work with?

Yes, of course. I got on with him fine, he was quite a character. When he came to pay you, it was quite strange, he would put his hand into his left breast side of his suit jacket and he’d pull out Dutch Guilders, then he’d put his hand into his back trouser pocket and there were dollars!. Then, he’d put his hand into his right hand side breast pocket and he’d have Sterling. It was very funny how you got paid. I was very lucky because when I went I said to Annie Challis I am married, I have two kids, I can’t afford to be going and working somewhere for absolutely nothing and Annie Challis looked after me completely. I mean, I got paid!

You mean some of them didn’t get paid?

Possibly, well, everybody got paid but it was varying amounts. I still have the recorded delivery envelopes that Annie sent to my wife, Sue. There would be a letter inside saying there was more coming.

Was it always cash, Carl?

Always cash. And, always in multiple currencies. With Annie Challis it was always pounds to Sue.

As a DJ onboard were you free to play anything you wanted or did you have to comply with playlists?

I was free to play what I wanted. They had an enormous record library and I could listen to what I wanted. I could hear all the new albums. We had total freedom.

Just one more thing about Ronan, what was his style of management?

It was very much you were on the ship with the rest of the broadcast team. Yeah he was into the love and hippie thing, but you were allowed to do what you did within a guideline. I always observed to take care of the points each station wanted you to take care of.

How long were you on the ship for?

I did a number of stints but I don’t remember how many in total. You could be onboard six weeks and we always went out from the UK coast. It was a myth that we went out from Holland. We went out from Brightlingsea and places like that in little boats. That was the worse thing actually having to climb those ropes to get on board because I don’t swim at all.

Were you not allowed to be seen? Did it all have to be on the quiet..?

Yes, nothing was ever supposed to be delivered to the Radio Caroline ship. It was cloak and dagger.

Another thing is that Carl Kingston is my real name. When I started they said Carl Kingston is not your real name is it? I replied yes it is. I am not having my career known under another name. I am building a career I am not going to destroy it by becoming Fred Smith for a period of my career.

It was such an amazing experience, almost surreal I remember all those boats with listeners coming out from the UK being invited out to the ship under cover of darkness. You felt like you were a God but you are just an ordinary person doing the thing that you love.

It was quite incredible the adulation you got, the out pouring of love for Caroline, and the concept for free commercial radio. The only reason I left was that I was hoping to go to Viking Radio which was just about to start up. And, then when I was on shore leave from Caroline, I got a call from the BBC and asked if I was interested in a daily show, I said well I will lay my cards on the table I was waiting for another offer. But this was a proper contract and salary. I asked what was going to happen because Viking weren’t sure what their broadcast hours would be. They suggested if I had a concrete offer from the BBC I should take it because they couldn’t guaranteed anything at that time. In the meantime I went back to Caroline for another tour of duty, and then joined the BBC for about a year when I heard from the BBC they had a needle time cutback. So I left the BBC, Humberside on a Friday and started with Viking on the Saturday which was quite funny because they took me straightaway.

Where are you now by the way?

I’m in Basel. I have a flat here, retired now with a Swiss pension. With all the contracts you gave me I paid it into the Swiss system

Thanks Carl, some wonderful insight to life on board there, thank you.

Did you speak to Steve Gordon? He was on the Mi Amigo when it sank. His was the last voice on Radio Caroline!

Middle of the Road

Once you achieved chart status, you could command a much higher fee and people took notice of you. This practice was rampant in the 60’s. The Danes had a much simpler system, they had a panel of judges from within Radio and TV and simply voted which song they liked the most. It had nothing to do with sales.

In 1971, one of our first English dj's to come over to Europe was Tony London, and I remember contracting him to a venue in Italy. One day, whilst he was there he called me up to ask if I would take a popular English band to Denmark who happen to be playing at his venue. I said I wasnt interested. Then the lead guitarist grabbed the phone and talked to me directly begging me, I said I had never heard of them. But he stammered we are number four in the Danish Charts! So what, I said, it meant nothing to me. Finally, they kept on until I succombed to booking them for my standard 15 % commission.

I took their material to Tivoli who agreed to book them for Dkr 2000 (around £200 at the time), and 3 other places for a similar fee. I was on good terms with Ema Telstar the large entertainment agency in Stockholm who agreed to tour them in Sweden, All on a similar fee as none of us had ever heard of this band.

And, that was how MIDDLE OF THE ROAD came to Denmark.

Between April of 71, and July they charted to number one in virtually all european countries, and the danish panel voted the same. This was the new Beatles and Alan Lawrie had nailed them for a Scandinavian tour. I had Danmark’s Radio calling me for an interview, national television plus all the national newspapers. I never felt so embarrassed.

They played at Tivoli gardens which made an absolute killing on the deal. I was there backstage long after the standing ovation subsided when the lead guitarist came searching for me, his face black as thunder. He pinned me to the wall, grabbed by the throat and demanded to know where the rest of the money was.

They had gone from £200 per night booking to over £20000 in less than three months. The band refused to play another gig until the whole tour had been renegotiated without me - Ema Telstar rescued the Swedish end. I had no experience in dealing with high end concert bookings and massive egos and their riders.

Either Way, they were signed up on an Idea Contract- all correct and legal with a commission to the agency for arranging it all. How quickly people turn.

Snivelling little one hit wonders!

Chris Trowell - From Alcatraz to Hollywood

An interview with Chris Day.

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Chris how come that you went to Neuquén province which lies in the Northern end of Patagonia in the West of Argentina? And then went on to build one of the biggest night clubs they ever had, and you spoke poor Spanish? How did that happen and why did you do it?

It was worse than that, my partner was Irish and he hardly spoke English! (laughter)

How it all happened? We had a restaurant in Chile called Lanson’s and he was a client working for an Irish company called Keenan’s that made massive machines for feeding cows. He was a regular client and one weekend - (I used to change and sit at the tables once I’d finished cooking) - he came up and said to me ‘I’ve just been to Argentina to a town called Neuquén, there are three of four discotheques that are absolutely rubbish but they are all full. You need to come across as you’ve worked so many clubs. I agreed and went over for a weekend, he was absolutely right, all the discotheques were packed out, all rubbish. So, to cut a long story short, I sold the restaurant at a great loss, but prior to selling the restaurant we went back to Argentina where I found buildings that used to be a DIY builder’s merchants which consisted of two - in Spanish ‘Galpons’ - warehouses connected together also a great big parking space surrounded by walls. We could park forty, fifty cars inside. So, we looked at it and I drew it up, saying we can do this, knock the two warehouses into one, build different dance floor levels, metal arms high up with glass floor cages for the club dancing team to use and because it was walled in, we decided to call it ALCATRAZ and put towers on it and, of course, searchlights.,

It just looked like Alcatraz. A massive neon Sign over it, in purple.

Pat, the Irishman, rented the site. There was no contract between us, he spat on his hand, shook my hand and said ‘I am an Irishman this is better than any contract’ I lived to regret that, I shall come to that in a second. Off we went. Gabby stayed in Chile because she was pregnant. We drove across, rented a place and we managed to get hold of about forty Argentinians to do the building work. I did all the drawings and managed the builders. We were very lucky because Pat’s new wife - a Chilean - had a cousin who was a welder. We took him in from Chile with us and created all the cells and everything in metal. There was a lot of metalwork. It ended up a fabulous discotheque. We spent so much that we couldn’t afford to buy a laser system. So, I flew to Buenos Aires to make a contract with a Company who used to come down and operate the laser show for us every weekend but keeping the equipment there. It all went remarkably well except for my partner, Pat Connor’s wife, she was a real bitch who hated Gabriella, my wife. Always arguing and constantly trying to push me out. The club held 1500 – 1600. We only traded weekends, Friday and Saturday nights from Midnight until 8 or 9 in the morning, that’s how they partied.

I ended up with five days free of doing nothing from Sunday until Friday so I sat down and actually wrote a film - and, that’s a long, long story, - the club did remarkably well on the two nights but my partner was grabbing all of the money. At the end of the trading each morning we’d sit in the office over a great big table with all of the money piled up, a massive pile. He would pass me the equivalent of $50 and expect us to last for a week!

This was way before credit cards then? Which year was this, Chris?

Oh yeah, before credit cards. We started in the summer of ’97 and it took us eleven weeks to build it as we rushed to get it open for Christmas. in ’97. Which was fine, but by the time it reached June of ’98 we were living on virtually nothing as he was grabbing all the money to pay for all the post dated cheques he had written. I was very worried because he had used the system in South America where you pay everything with cheques. But you can post date the cheques. Everybody works that way. God knows how many cheques he had written and for how much!

May I stop you there, why did you let that happen? Why couldn’t you force the issue?

Because he had the bank account in his name. He was very cute; I didn’t understand it at the time. When we started off, I was so busy building because I can build you know, I was running the forty lads, and everything seemed right, but behind the scenes without me realising it, his wife was pushing him to get me out.

That’s terrible.

During this time, I was bored out of my brains, so I used that time, I wrote a film which was a true story about a friend of mine whom I had worked with at one point, who took the Hang Seng Bank for over a million pounds and got away with it. So, on the back of that I included all the scams I had seen throughout the world. I came up with a title, ‘The Juggler.’ 5 or 6 people read it in Argentina and all thought it was brilliant. The club was going well but he was grabbing all the money, Gabby and I were struggling.

We had put a lot of money and time into it. Gabby had the baby and she went back to Chile to stay with her mother. I’m stuck there not very happy, but I’ve got a film script which is wonderful. I phoned Gabby up to explain what I was about to do and contact her brother who was living in Los Angeles. Phoned my parents up and asked them to lend me some money. Why? they asked, I said ‘Well, I am going to Hollywood to sell a film’. My father, a retired tax inspector who was so used to this kind of fantasy, said ‘Oh no, what are you up to now? Oh, not again”. Anyway, I am diversifying …

No, we can come back to this, how was Alcatraz funded?

I put so much of it in and likewise Pat put in the remainder, a lot of money. A big club, absolutely fabulous. He put in more than I did, but I didn’t realise he was investing with post-dated cheques….

Oh no, oh dear.

Yes, which you can do this, because that is the system over there in South America. I flew out to Hollywood, telling him I was going for a few weeks and I would be back. I’m in Los Angeles for about three weeks, when Gabby phoned me and explained emphatically to get on a flight. She said ‘I have just had a phone call from friends in Neuquén who said that Alcatraz is closed, and he has disappeared. So, because of the investment I flew straight back, arrived in Chile and drove to Argentina. I went to see our friends and sure enough what he had done was very cute. He had managed to get 180.000 which was a lot of money still out on postdated cheques (the equivalent in pounds Sterling) also because Alcatraz was behind walls, he sold everything in the club and he stripped all of the cells of metal, all of the sound and lighting - Everything! All the furniture too - the lot. And he vanished. The only plus part for me was that the bank account was in his name so they couldn’t touch me. They put Interpol onto him, although I don’t think they ever caught him. He ended up, I believe in Australia. I lost absolutely everything. Plus, we had a Ford Bronco that I had shipped over there, which caught fire. So, I’m stuck in Argentina with no money, no car, my wife back in Chile with a new baby and that was it. Alcatraz gone. I left with a small suitcase and a plane ticket bought by her mother, penniless and back to Chile. But it was the birth of the film.

I had a meeting in Hollywood but to get to it from where I was staying would mean busses and trains taking over two hours and I was fast running out of money. I arranged this meeting through a contact in Chile who introduced me to their friend in Hollywood who worked as an actor, apparently with massive connections. He arranged a meeting at an infamous place called ‘Jerry’s Famous Delhi’. I arrived early and sat outside with a cigarette and a coke. The guy turned up and I introduced myself and we had a brief chat. He talked about everything under the sun for twenty minutes or so and I felt like…but I sent you the script!? This is why you are meeting me, what do you think?

Eventually, I challenged him ‘What do you think of The Juggler’? He opened his briefcase, slid a book over to me and said what you need to do is watch “The Grifters” twice, watch “The Sting” twice when you’ve done that read this book back to front, ‘Linda Seager, how to make a good script. Great’ then you will know what to do with your re-write.

I looked at him puzzled ‘Rewrite?’

He said ‘Well yeah”

I said again ‘Rewrite? - You’ve lost me, this is the first thing I’ve written’

He replied, ‘God, you are going to have to rewrite, rewrite until you get it absolutely perfect.

He said, I will tell you a story. “Back to the Future” took around eleven years to sell it. It was turned down by everybody. But it was rewritten about sixty odd times. That’s what you’ve got to do. And was he SO right… Thank God he paid for the drinks and sandwich. Funds were really tight!

We came back eventually back to England and ended up on the Isle of Man, me working as a Head Chef (I did Catering when I left college) We ended up with a pub ‘The Anchor’ on a beautiful private beach. One day at lunchtime, I could overhear a group of women talking about a working with Julie Andrews on a film. At that point a lot of films were being made on the Isle of Man for tax reasons. This was around 2000. I said, ‘Excuse me but I couldn’t help but overhear you’re working on a film with Julie Andrews? I said I have got a film script would you read it?’ She agreed and I gave her a copy. She came back to me two weeks later ‘We love it, also Julie Andrews has read it’. I couldn’t believe it. She continued, ‘what we want to do is put it on to our Producers for Midsummer Films and see if they like it’. Again, cutting a long story short, it became an option with Midsummer films. I still have the two framed letters: The Option and The Offer. That was in year 2000. So, it was scheduled to be filmed in 2001 and they were offering me three-million-pound filming budget and twelve-million-pound deferred payments. Deferred payments you use to get key actors.

It’s happening - what a high. An absolute high. The only thing I wanted in life was to see it in a cinema and also have the money. And, then three weeks later we had 9/11. The whole of the film industry stopped and, then the British Government withdrew the tax allowances.

So, all of the money they were using at Midsummer Films was investments. It was coming from Footballers, who rather than pay their massive tax bills were investing into films. For a percentage. So that was it - collapsed! That’s when the film sat on the shelf for twenty years.

I remember I came to see you up in Southport around 2009 and you showed me your Juggler script then and I thought it was pretty amazing. And later told me you had to change the script twenty times already.

Rewrites Alan…forever rewriting! Now probably 100+

And, you’ve had a lot of help with this through your Danish connection, haven’t you?

My son kept saying you need to rewrite it. I said I haven’t got time.

I was at a Disc Jockey Reunion in Bournemouth when I overheard one of the jocks talking ‘I’ve stopped my sound studio, I’m now working a lot in film doing the sound’ his name was Rod Wilkins. I grabbed Rod afterwards for a quick word. Explaining that I have a script, ‘Will you read it?’ Such a quick response, ‘send it to me, probably won’t read it, but I have a guy who is a brilliant script writer in Denmark who will read it’. That was sent. He read it. He loved it.

The next phone call I had off Rod was asking if I minded sending it on to a very famous Danish actor called Magnus Bruun. I said no, not at all, send it to him. He sent it, sure enough two weeks later Magnus phoned out of the blue, I couldn’t believe it such a fabulous guy. He said, ‘I’ve read it, loved it BUT….it needs to be brought up to date’. The Juggler originally was about the old credit card scandal using the old credit card slide machine which wouldn’t work in this day and age. So, the re-writes began. I was sending it back and forward to Magnus in scenes and we re-wrote and tightened the film. We’ve worked together on it for the last fifteen months, going back and forwards. Now at the final stage called the polish. It’s absolutely there and reads like a dream.

Earlier this year I looked to see if Midsummer was still operating, found the phone number, phoned them up in London and asked for the owner Chris Milburn. They explained that Chris was still the owner but they are also trading under ‘Illustrious Media’ What’s it concerning?’ I told them the story; he said ‘I love it, send me the script’. The hardest thing being a script writer is getting the script in front of the right person to read it. They sent it out to (which I didn’t know) to professional readers. Weeks later I had an email thanking me for the script and explaining the brilliant report which was they attached. With a professional reader they do everything. Eight pages of notes, then they summarise everything and a final rating.

With script writing only 20% of films are ever completed. So, to actually complete a film script is a massive plus. Of the ones that are finished only 2% will ever get a ‘recommend’. A recommend is when a professional reader looks at it, reads it and thinks, “God, If I had the money, I’d do this myself”. Real head on the block stuff. I got the recommend. It’s like - impossible.

When did this happen?

Just a few months ago.

Incidentally, doing the rewrites I had been over to Denmark several times to visit Magnus in Copenhagen at great expense going through the script.

I went down to London for a meeting with ‘Illustrious’ who said we will take it straightaway as it is, but it will sit on a shelf for 12 - 18 months because we are so busy. We’ve got so many projects lined up. He explained ‘Don’t worry”. It’s very good. I asked, ‘What’s the best route?’ He answered ‘you need a director, once you’ve a director he will bring the Producers onboard. We have got great studio connections in Romania and the UK.’

The next point, he said, was ‘Do your final polish’ (which we’re doing now). When that’s finished, it’s called the Production Polish. If you can’t get a director, we will help and get one for you. I’ve spoken to them since, they’ve just finished last summer a film call ‘Protégé’ This is with Samuel Jackson, Max Keaton, and the Director is a man called Martin Campbell who is 78 but a great history. He did two James Bond films. Massive! I’ve gone back to Illustrious pushing my luck and said ‘Right, I want Martin Campbell’. He said ‘Remember our conversation in London? Regarding what?’ He went on to say’ I told you the budget would be about 25 million. If you get Martin Campbell, that’s what it will be. Because obviously he will go for key actors.’

Now, as a script writer, I could have approached NETFLIX, Scandinavia, because we have a connection through Magnus Bruun. The problem is that if you sell to NETFLIX they buy the concept, they buy the film and I’d get 80 thousand pounds or ninety. Maybe a hundred, but that’s it. They take it, lock, stock and barrel and that’s it, you get no more money. If you go the other route on normal production, which is shown in cinemas. I’d get close on 100.000, but the big plus is that I’d get a percentage. Probably 4%. Let’s say they make the film for 25 million pounds, and it does 35 million in the box office, then I’d get 4% of ten million which is really nice…Plus the purchase fee

A nice boost for your pension!

I just want to walk in that cinema, and see my name on the credits. This is surely the ultimate buzz and achievement to end my days when it comes!! Into the oven faster than a Kentucky fried chicken !! but with a BIG smile.

Chris I can’t wait to see your name in credits. Will you be Chris Day or Christopher Trowell?

Chris Trowell