My Travels with Hot Cross John

By Rory Finnimore

A book with a difference, My Travels with Hot Cross John is a hoot of a read. It comprises of never a dull moment photographic shoots undertaken in five glorious locations overseas. With two of adlands favourite progenies.
Photographer John Cross was one of London's foremost names in the business of photogenic euphoria and glamour. Creative adman Rory Finnimore founded his own highly successful boutique advertising agency in Soho. Add to the two of them, beautiful models and nutty stylists and you get the mix.
Apart from the fifty-two stunning photographs, a jovial background narrative is included. Written and produced by adman Rory, he has created a very entertaining tome. Totaling 41,000 words, it amounts to some 140 plus pages of rip roaring fun. Each telling the animated tales of their excursions abroad. Enjoy the trip and share in the happenings experienced by two extrovert characters, living the moment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rory Finnimore
• Release date: Nov 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370942688

Book preview

My Travels with Hot Cross John

By Rory Finnimore

Copyright 2018 Rory Finnimore

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrievable system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.

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My Travels with Hot Cross John

Contents

OPENING GAMBIT

A SHORT PRELUDE BEFORE WE TRAVEL

A CONSUMMATE FORETASTE OF MY COMPADRE

TO ANTIBES, COTE D’AZURE

TO VENICE

TO THE AUVERGNE

TO THE ISOLA DEL GIGLIO

TO RHODES

RHODES – PART TWO

NOTE TO FINISH . . .

FOR RELATED INTERESTS OF MY TRAVELS

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My Travels with Hot Cross John

Opening gambit

B . . . A . . . S . . . T . . . A . . . R . . . I think he’s upset. My calm words to the Teleprinter operator at Dover Hovercraft operations office, as the message came through. But I could not control the mischievous sparkle in my eye or the laughter creases that began to weave their way across my face.

I had left John Cross, John X, JX or Hot Cross John very cross in the customs office at Calais Hovercraft operations office just one hour previously. And I was wetting myself.

As was Gloria, the very pleasant operator. Once I had clarified how and why she had received the stark expletive dictated word letter by letter from the non-English speaking operator in France.

To explain. I have to go back to our last few hours spent in the country just twenty two miles away across the Channel. John and I were returning from a super and highly successful photographic trip to the Cote d’ Azure in the south of France.

We had set out from Antibes extremely early that morning in order to ensure we did not have to make an overnight stay on the way. The reason being we were carrying the precious film resulting from the shoot. For us, that was priceless.

After a trouble-free ride, we were heading north on the almost deserted A1 motorway in France. Bearing in mind that the world and its wife were travelling south for Le Weekend summer sabbatical.

We had even got around the infamous Périphérique circling Paris in record time. Feeling buoyant with the adrenaline rush we were experiencing that came from a fantastic shoot littered with many hilarious and fond memories.

Left to travel a relatively small number of kilometres to Calais, the weather was closing in with what seemed a rain leaden, dark clouded storm approaching. Cars with caravans and luggage laden roof racks were coming the opposite way.

They were not en route for their holiday but heading, as directed, for the ferry away from the Hovercraft port. Against our better judgement and against the advisory signs, we carried on to see if there was still a chance of Hovering our way back to the UK before the storm really set in . . .

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A short prelude before we travel

A morsel re my good self

Phew! 1962. What a year. The year I was born again. Into my new life . . . At a few months passed my sixteenth birthday in nineteen sixty two, I found myself sat at a desk in one of the largest advertising agencies in the West-End of London.

I had just fruitfully secured the position of junior visualiser after being forwarded for the job by my illustrious art master at school.

The art stream at my alma mater was the fantastic concept conceived by the immense brain wizardry of one Ossie Frampton. Those who were creatively gifted or minded, were afforded the chance of joining the course at age fourteen, year three that coincided with the metamorphic body changing experience that is adolescence.

We were more than fortunate that we had Ossie to guide and encourage us during those three transient years spent under his direction. He was brilliant not only at art but commercial design that formed part of the curriculum.

Ossie taught and nurtured us as to the finer points of graphic creativity. His forte was explaining succinctly the ins and outs of commercial advertising. And understanding how it was shaping up for its exciting future.

The reputation that Ossie had carved out for the art stream went on before him. Companies, mainly based in that incredible metropolis that is London, each clamoured to recruit one or two of his flock. For myself, I had successfully attended the job interview at John Haddon and Company. An ad agency of some four hundred and fifty odd souls.

My new home was in one of its six creative groups, situated on the fifth floor of the agency. A four man team, headed up by Alan Greenfield. At Charlotte Street in beautiful Fitzrovia, London W1. I made five.

A few years down the line, from that illustrious start and via a few stop-offs on the way, I successfully co-founded a new wave boutique ad agency in the heartland of London’s West End. That would be nineteen sixty seven. And what a time to do it. Back in the days of pre-computer, pre-mobile phone, pre-social media, pre Twitter, Facebook. Where every ad, mag and poster campaign was lovingly put together like a work of art. And won awards for doing so. Before the decimation of colourful characters. When no two people were alike. Then, two or more appeared once in a blue moon – now, two-a-penny. In other words, in one syllable – bliss.

Back in the days when every laugh was a belly laugh. Where each person was a true individual. Where the backdrop is the swinging sixties, moving onto the scintillating seventies, the new romantic eighties.

Television, beginning to make its mark. ‘ancocks Half Hour, ‘Til Death Do Us Part, Steptoe & Son, That Was the Week that Was (TW3), Ready Steady Go, Top of the Pops, Pete ‘n’ Dud, Monty Python, Kenny Everett, Only Fools and Horses and many, many more side-splitting shows.

Cinema - the same. Great films. Great directors. David Lean, Ken Russell, Stanley Kubrick; Dr. Zivago, Lawrence of Arabia. 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Carry On films. The James Bond phenomenon.

Writers of the highest ilk. Len Deighton, John Sullivan, John le Carré, Arthur C. Clarke, Frederick Forsythe, Ian Fleming.

New actors. Michael Caine, Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Sean Connery, Glenda Jackson. Julie Christie, Judi Dench, Rita Tushingham etc etc.

Music to die for. The Stones, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Phil Spector, The Beatles, Wings, Yardbirds, Genesis, The Who and masses more. Venues such as The Marquee, Ad Lib, The Richmond Jazz Festival and Eel Pie Island to see and hear them. Plus jazz legends at iconic Ronnie Scott’s. The best jazz club in the world.

A man on the moon just sixty years after man learnt to fly. Just incredible.

The overhanging threat of the Third and final World War did nothing to obliterate our being. Khrushchev banging away with his shoe at the United Nations was seen as a highlight of the year.

Even my son, an extremely successful businessman in his twenties says, You know Pop, I am so envious of your years back then. It’s true. And this is from someone who, for half his working existence, travels the world. Even in these times, moving at four times the speed of light, those days past still leave their mark. Maybe that is what life is missing now; time to enjoy it. By that, I mean living life to the full and beyond.

So, I’m thinking to myself, this age of change merits a book. A tome or two that demonstrates life as it was then. A time to record all for posterity and tell it like it was way back when, in those heady, adrenaline fuelled fun packed days.

Being a creative humanoid, what platform can I utilise that can set the scene then? When Alan Parker was a photographer; David Puttnam, a photographer’s rep; Charlie Sattchi, part of a two-man creative team; Maurice Sattchi, nestling with Michael Hesaltine at Haymarket Press; Branson launching Virgin. When the pill was inline with mini skirts, mini cars, mini everything and hotpants. Online hadn’t conquered the world. And all the world was an ongoing crazy stage.

Then, I had it. Not to write a lengthy, yawn inducing publication. But to break the whole into a series of cameo littered short editions of connecting foibles. This particular journal provides a series of sketches relating to some of my overseas trips spent in the company of John Cross. Photographer extraordinaire, soothsayer and master of many side-splitting, diverse occurrences. Perchance, we were destined to become friends, muckers. However, before meeting him, I would like to provide a little more background, including a furtherance of mine, in order to set out the scenario back then.

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A short prelude before we travel

A consummate foretaste of my compadre

John Cross, John X, JX, Hot Cross John. All one of the same person. I wouldn’t say mad as a hatter but near enough. I met the personable being who is instrumental in the creation of this particular journal during 1968.

He was a member of the radical anti-establishment collection of photographers emanating from the UK. Instrumental in part due to the solicitous guidance of John French, the accepted doyen of this new dawn in photographic excellence.

Spawning amongst the notables of that time was Donovan, David Bailey, Peter Dean, Terry O’Neill and JX plus half a dozen others.

John’s studio was located in a beautiful mews house in Connaught Mews just behind Marble Arch and site of the Tiburn hanging tree. His studio was in the integral garage when needed and when not, it housed his wonderful 1957 Rolls Royce. Above this, lay two floors of living accommodation.

His immediate family consisted of the most aggressive, moody, sullen, independent huge black cat that was my pleasure to meet. Christened Enoch, named after the political hot potato of the day, Enoch Powell.

JX and I hit it off immediately. He was / is a photographer extraordinaire and I really enjoyed his portfolio. Mainly working in fashion, he applied his own inimitable style to his photography.

He had his own individual particular taste in other areas, plenty of it. This was reflected in the way the interior design of his quarters was fashioned. Evocative of the time. Very nineteen sixties. Antiques mixed with Biba geometrics. Cork on the walls. Not a spare space on the picture laden walls, including the toilet. We also shared the same taste in music with Pink Floyd Meddle and Echoes top of the list.

In appearance, there was a resemblance to Dudley Moore. He had the wit of John Bird; the dryness of Richard Ingram of Private Eye fame. It was always a laugh a minute. He had the knack.

This is now a good time to begin my association with JX in more explanatory terms. Apart from his photographic prowess, JX has always been a character of note. Being a mite off the old block myself, meant that we bounced off each other almost from square one. This is emphasised as the years pass by. We may not meet regularly but when we do, it’s as though there was no gap in our communication. Within moments, we are back in the warm glow of kinship.

When planning one of our trips one evening, I will always remember John driving around Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s statue in front of Buck House. Not once, not twice but three times the wrong way round in his ’57 Roller. We had a stylist and maybe a couple of models on board but I cannot remember for sure. All I know is that all of us had tears rolling down our legs as we trundled back toward Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square.

Another time, Pavilion Road comes to mind. This runs in parallel to Sloane Street to give you an idea of the geography. Piss-elegant Sloan Ranger country.

It