The Things I Did for Money

By Dave Clemo

Dave has always been a bit of a scribbler, writing songs for his 1960s and 70s bands. He stepped up a gear in the 1990s, writing songs, poems, sermons and articles. Progress was slow, mainly down to his awful handwriting, but all that changed when he got his first word processor. A few years later he discovered the joys of blogging and much of this book began life in blog form. He is blessed (some may say cursed) with a memory that collects facts and anecdotes like a magnet attracts iron filings.
After he was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2009 he began writing his life story. He had so many blogs, notes and articles to draw from that it was clear that it needed to be split into several parts.
Dave's first three books cover his music story. The first was published in May 2018 and is called ‘Too Young for Rock and Roll’. It covers his early life and ends in 1974. The second volume 'Too Old for Punk' followed in October 2018 and covers the period from 1974-84. The third volume 'Forever Changing' brings the up to date.
All his musical adventures were funded by doing jobs he mostly hated. That’s why the book is called ‘The Things I Did for Money’. His life story may be poor in terms of wealth and fame but rich in events and anecdotes. It paints a vivid picture of the changing nature of the world of work in the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21 Centuries.
Dave writes:
‘It seems to me that there are only two or three ways to approach your working life. I’ve heard of people who leave school and go to work in the same job in the same place and do exactly the same job until they retire. That would be my idea of hell. A variant of that is to do the same thing in different places. One of my friends has spent his entire working life as a company auditor, originally in the UK but based in New Zealand for the last 40 years. I’m sure you know many people who have done the same job in different places or for different firms. My career in the bank lasted just over two years. The prospect of doing that job for the rest of my life filled me with despair. What was the alternative? It wasn’t a conscious decision, but looking back I see that instead of doing the same thing in different places I did different things while living in the same place.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Clemo
• Release date: May 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463915158

Dave Clemo

Dave was born almost exactly halfway through the last century. His first home was a beach chalet in Cornwall, England. The plain wooden shack had none of the things we take for granted like electricity, sewage or running water. Cornwall in the 1950s had no TV and only two BBC radio stations, so he had very limited exposure to popular music. He was seven when Elvis and Cliff Richard hit the charts. His family moved to West London in 1962. He was given a guitar for Christmas and spent the next few years trying to play it.In 1967 the area around Ladbroke Grove was the epicentre of the underground music scene that shook the music business like an earthquake. During that late 60s and early 70s he went to a host of gigs and saw groups like Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Who, Jethro Tull and Genesis in their earliest incarnations before they became global superstars.He also spent the next few years trying to emulate his heroes using clapped out and home made guitars and amplifiers before moving to Northampton in 1974. For the next ten years he played in two of the most successful local bands. He wrote his first songs in the late sixties but his writing took off when he became a Christian in 1990. Since then he has had over 100 songs published, has contributed articles for magazines, written and delivered dozens of sermons and was a regular contributor to a 'one minute thought for today' on local radio. He has recorded and released over ten albums of mostly self penned songs, played pubs, concerts and festivals across the UK on guitar, mandolin and bass.From 2009 a series of health issues has meant that Dave was unable to play at the same frequency as before so he has used the time to turn his writings and research into a series of autobiographical books.The first volume ‘Too Young for Rock and Roll’ was published in June 2018.‘A highly recommended read not only for fans of grass roots music but also for those wishing to experience a flavour of those times.’ Pulse Alternative Magazine.

Book preview

THE THINGS I DID FOR MONEY

My sixty year journey through the world of work.

Dave Clemo

Text Copyright © Dave Clemo 2019

Dave Clemo has asserted his right in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be lent, resold, hired out or reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author and publisher. All rights reserved.

Published by Dave Clemo on Smashwords.

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorised retailer.

Thank you for your support.

Dedication

For Sue, my life partner for much of this journey, and without whom it wouldn’t have been as much fun!

For Andy & Caroline at 3P Publishing for their help and encouragement.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

About the Author

Dave's other books

INTRODUCTION

In the early 90s I started writing songs, poems, sermons and articles. Progress was slow, mainly down to my awful handwriting, but when I got my first word processor I was off and running. A few years later I discovered the joys of blogging and much of this book began life in blog form.

I began writing my life story soon after I was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2009. By the time I’d ‘finished’ I’d written so many words covering my music, my work, my family history and my spiritual journey that the book would have been as thick as a house brick.

The only way forward was to split it into separate parts. The first three books are about my music story. The first was published in May 2018 and is called ‘Too Young for Rock and Roll’. It covers my early life and ends in 1974. The second volume followed in October 2018 and covers the period from 1974-84. It's called ‘Too Old for Punk’. The third volume will bring my story up to date. It’s called ‘Forever Changing’ and I hope to publish it in the near future.

All my musical adventures were funded by doing jobs I mostly hated. That’s why the book is called ‘The Things I Did for Money’. I hope you enjoy it!

‘I believe that the journey is as important as the destination and every wrong turning, cul-de-sac or breakdown contributes to the well of experience. There’s a great freedom in setting off on a journey without a timetable or deadline, as long as you learn something from the journey’. DC.

Back

CHAPTER 1

‘Money doesn’t talk- it swears.’

Bob Dylan.

Money. Everybody needs it- or so they tell me. According to the song in the film ‘Cabaret,’ money makes the world go round. Abba thought it must be funny living in a rich man’s world. The funny thing was when they wrote the song their music company was one of Sweden’s biggest exporters, with a turnover of a gazillion of whatever they call their currency per year.

Monty Python once sang that ‘There is nothing quite as wonderful as money', and 'It’s accountancy that makes the world go round.’

So how much money do we need? J D Rockefeller is considered to have been one of the richest men in modern history. When a reporter asked him ‘How much money is enough?’ he responded, ‘Just a little bit more.’ But then he also said ‘If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.’

I like Spike Milligan’s oft quoted remark- ‘Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.'

The Gershwins wrote the musical ‘Porgy & Bess’ which includes the song ‘I got plenty of nothing’. The lyric reminds us that ‘folks with plenty of something have a lock on their door’. They make a good point. People will tell you that nobody needed to lock their doors back in the good old days (whenever they were).

Early days and early lessons. I was born a few years after the war ended. Rationing continued until the early 50s. At the risk of sounding like one of the Four Yorkshiremen let me just say that money was tight. My father was a fireman on the railway and worked strange shifts. When he wasn’t shovelling coal on the footplate he was labouring on a farm a few miles away. I am the eldest of four. Holidays were always spent at home except for rare days out. We travelled everywhere on foot or by train. If we couldn’t take the train, we didn't go there.

I remember a couple of early incidents that shaped my morality and how to live one’s life. Despite the fact that my parents were from poor backgrounds they would never steal. It had been drummed into them from a very early age. Soon after they married and when money was very scarce, my father went into a farmer’s field and stole a cabbage. No cabbage ever tasted so bitter. I’m told my father ate it while dreading a knock on the door from the irate farmer, and my parents swore that from that day onwards, no matter how poor they were, they would never steal again.

In the late fifties brightly coloured plastic toys became the rage. They were light, bright and shiny compared to the old tinplate toys. One of the boys on the estate had a plastic water bottle with a strap so he could hang it around his neck when we played Cowboys and Indians. My mother refused to buy one for me, so I stole the bottle from my friend who went home crying. I had the bottle I craved, but there was no way I could use it without questions being asked. I threw it away and trudged home to take my punishment.

Life was simple. But that did not stop me from coveting other boy’s toys. What did stop me was the sting from a well aimed slap from my mother when I got caught stealing. Any pleasure I got from my ill-gotten gains was far outweighed by the sense of guilt and shame from acquiring them dishonestly.

Pocket money? What was that? Any pennies that came my way were spent on sweets from the shop across the road. Until the end of 1960 the farthing was still legal tender. The only thing you could buy with one was a single Blackjack or Fruit Salad sweet. After the farthing was withdrawn they were four for a penny. Sometimes my budget stretched to a tube of Refreshers or Love Hearts, Polo mints or Spangles.

As I get older and increasingly grumpier, I sound just like my old man, but with one notable difference. He left school at 14 and started work the next day delivering coal, carrying 56lb sacks on his back. As soon as he was old enough he got a job on the Great Western Railway, just prior to nationalisation. He stayed with the railway all his working life, progressing from cleaner to fireman and then to engine driver. He was driving High Speed Trains when he contracted cancer. He died in 1983. His story, where a man would join a company and stay there throughout his working life was typical of the times. Not today. Not anymore. And certainly not in my case!

I can remember a familiar question asked of me when I was a boy. ‘And what are you going to be when you grow up?’ I didn’t know. I never did figure that out. I didn’t feel grown up until my late twenties.

I can still remember my first paid job- picking potatoes. I was about nine or ten years old and my mother and some neighbours had a day’s work lifting potatoes for the local farmer. I went along to help (and for my mother to keep an eye on me). The farmer drove his grey Fordson Major tractor down the rows of potatoes and a spinning attachment on the back of the tractor lifted the potatoes to the surface. Once the tractor had passed by we picked the potatoes up and put them into boxes. We had to be quick as the tractor soon returned to lift the next row. My friends soon tired of this and resorted to throwing potatoes at each other, but I persevered and was rewarded with a shiny half crown at the end of the day. Two shillings and sixpence! Twelve and a half new pence! My first ever payday!

I had to give all it to my mother. As I said, times were hard and money was tight. I was the oldest of four children and was expected to set an example. When we were on holiday recently we drove past that field. It’s covered with houses. They all look the same. It could be anywhere.

One of my more enterprising efforts to get some money involved jumping over the wall of one of the town’s pubs and stealing empty pop bottles, then taking the empties to another shop to claim the deposit. I opened a Post Office account with the proceeds. A couple of days later we went over the wall again and were caught red handed. I was in big trouble. The pub landlord knew my father. I had to go home and confess all to my mother. That got me a slap across my legs. My dad was working in London and wasn’t due back for a couple of weeks but I knew I was in for another chastisement when he came home. I closed my Post Office account and gave the money to the pub landlord. This was a tough lesson to learn. Crime did not pay. No matter how impecunious I was- I would never resort to stealing.

Anyone lucky enough to have had a primary school education prior to 1970 had the best possible start in life. There were no calculators, and no extra subjects to cram into the curriculum at the expense of the basics. The teachers had time to teach you how to read. You showed how well you could read by standing up in class and reading from a book. The teachers also had time to teach you how to spell. Our fourth year teacher Mr Luke would hold spelling competitions that were fiercely fought. I recall as a ten year old standing up in class to spell words like ‘encyclopaedia’. It was competitive, and surprisingly- it was fun.

Those old time teachers taught us arithmetic. We had to learn our tables off by heart up to and including the twelve times table. My dad said I had it easy. There was even less pressure on the curriculum in the 1930s, so he had to learn up to the twenty times table. In Primary School we were taught fractions. We were also taught mental arithmetic. Calculators hadn't been invented.

My headmaster at Penpol Primary School in Hayle was a Mr Mitchell. He was a grown up so didn’t have a first name. I’ve seen a picture of the school staff from the mid 1930s and he was working there even then. In the mid fifties he taught the fifth year, and got us prepared for the eleven plus exam. Out of a class of about thirty, and without classroom assistants, five or six of us passed the eleven plus and went to the grammar school in Penzance. Competition for places was tough. There were less than 200 places available for the whole of West Cornwall. Selection was on merit, on how well you did in your exam. You got into grammar school because you were the best. As he coached his pupils all through that final year at primary school his motto, his mantra was ‘speed and accuracy’. But he stressed accuracy first, because without accuracy, speed is useless.

Dressing up and hand me downs. We moved to London in the summer of 1962. I turned 13 in December and was given my first guitar that Christmas. I was almost 17 before my fingers were strong enough to hold the strings down.

I applied and was successful in getting into St Clement Danes Grammar School. The uniform was a distinctive shade of green and could only be bought from D H Evans in Oxford St. They were outrageously expensive. My mother chose my blazer for me. It was several sizes too big and she turned the sleeves up before I could wear it. Many of the other boys had a new uniform every September but I had to wear mine for two or three years. By the time we trooped up to Oxford St to buy a new blazer my old one was threadbare and several sizes too small. The next jacket was also several sizes too big and lasted me until I left in 1967- when it too was threadbare and too small.

As far as I was concerned clothes were purely utilitarian. They were also very expensive. I couldn’t afford the latest clothes so could this be why I was never a dedicated follower of fashion? I was neither a mod nor a rocker. I used to say that I was a mocker!

It’s amazing how little money you need if you ignore the fashions, the trends, and the must haves. Old habits die hard and when I eventually had money to spend rarely spent it on clothes. Guitars? Yes. But clothes? No.

I have absolutely no interest in fashion. As far as I’m concerned, clothes should keep me warm or cool according to the season, and be reasonably comfortable. End of. Part of this is down to my upbringing and the times that I grew up in. My mother chose my clothes. They had to be hardwearing and functional. I was the oldest, so I never wore my sibling’s cast-offs but I did however wear other people’s hand me downs if they fit me. I have a brother seven years younger than me and I suspect he may have worn some of my old clothes. Hand me down shoes were hard to break in because the leather had moulded itself to the shape of the previous owner’s feet, but needs must. Money was tight and we rarely wore clothes out. We just outgrew them and handed them on.

Back in the fifties in our small seaside town there were no launderettes and few washing machines. Clothes had to be washed in the sink by hand and wrung out using an antediluvian mangle. When I went to grammar school I had one grey school shirt. I wore it all week and it would be washed at the weekend ready to be worn again the next week. When the collar wore out from all the scrubbing, it was either unpicked and turned over and resewn, or a patch was sewn over the frayed material. Clothes were basic and functional and certainly not fashionable. My mother insisted in kitting me out in corduroy jerkins and shorts. I wore shorts until my legs got too hairy. It was the norm.

Clothes were expensive compared to how much I earned. A cheap shirt cost fifteen shillings (75p), a good one was a guinea