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ALO: Now, all of my money, save what I gave to mother out of respect, was going on music and clothes. Each day I would spring forth new, soundtrack intact, wardrobe mistress to my own ethical grooming, with God handling my lighting, backed up by schlapp. Broadcloth blue, tabbed collar shirt, jet black wool tie, three-piece suit complete with cuffs on jacket and trousers, flair-waisted jacket á la Bunny Roger with inverted vent, spit and polished side-laced black booties: a smorgasbord of crossed cultures to fit the mood the day required. One enjoyed both the charm of Harvey’s Johnny Jackson and good spark of Tony Curtis’ Sydney Falco in The Sweet Smell of Success. Better yet, I was free as a bird with no J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) to be kow-towed to. |
| ALO: I made deliveries back and forth to the Hardy
Amies house on Savile Row. Every visit I ran into the incredible looking
Amies director, Bunny Roger. If I thought I had nerve, this apparition
made mockery of the mere thought.
His idol was author and cartoonist, Max Beerbohm. Bunny was unapproachably aloof but I learnt enough from him by just looking. He paid meticulous attention to every detail of his appearance. Everything he did was a piss-take and a celebration. He looked almost sixty but he used to prance about in the most amazing three-piece chalk-striped suits. His jackets were so tightly waisted that they flared out like a skirt. The trousers were tighter than drainpipes and his shirts had high, rounded, stiff starched collars. His lips were permanently pursed, and he always wore a grey bowler hat, pearl tiepin, make-up, eyeliner and a carnation.
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ALO: At the Granada
Theatre in Bedford, I stood at the back of the stalls beside Brian Epstein
. There was a tangible sense of mad hysteria rising all over the theatre,
and with the arrival of the Beatles on stage it rose to a frenzy and took
on a life of its own.
The kids broke all the backstage windows. It was pandemonium. On stage, you could not hear the Beatles for the roar of the crowd, and the roar I heard was the roar of the whole world. The audience that evening expressed something beyond repressed adolescent sexuality. The noise they made was the sound of the future. Even though I hadn’t seen the world, I heard the whole world screaming. When I looked at Brian, he had the same lump in his throat and tear in his eye as |
