The Book
(based on a true story)
I started writing my book a while ago, stopped then tried to start again.
I found I couldn’t or (didn’t want to)? Whatever it was I was unable to pick up where I had left it.
Then came lock down.
After nearly 40 years of working in the Hospitality industry I had so many memories but felt to try and relive
from the beginning in order was a task too hard for this weary soul.
Along the way came many firsts and many lasts; was I ready to revisit certain times in my life
which would bring up not so good life experiences, crazy crazy times and lots of WTF moments!
I decided to write based on my career, amazing and not so amazing,
then later on join up by date and then add the in between bits.
As the book is unfinshed you will be on its Journey with me with regular snippets
and anecdotes from nearly 40 years of serving and working in the Hospitality
and Entertainment industry.
The people I met along the way that shaped me into who I am today, the friendships
that have lasted to the betrayals that cut deep,
highs and lows, moments of
despair and anguish to never before elation and totally loving my Job!
In parts certain names and places will be changed.
As well as loving Hospitality after all that hard work you have to let it all go some
how and boy I loved to dance!
It was like living in three different worlds ; where I was living at that time and
normality to dancing on podiums as high as I could get on in gay clubs all over
London to serving High Society and Uber rich and being in a totally fantasy world to my own reality!
Always at work on time wherever it was I loved my Job more than anything and knew I couldn’t go out clubbing if I didn’t work!
*2024 update
It has been a strange couple of years since we came out of Lockdowns and it has taken me a while to pick up pen and paper so to speak as often as i would have liked.
with a deadline by August 6th 2025 I intend to add more snippets and more often !
“Be the best you can be”
PROLOGUE
Born in 1965
Woodstock hadn’t happened yet (69) the pill was still new (61) and the Beatles were no.1, my earliest memory is my mum putting on her beehive every morning, 10p was on the shelf in the kitchen for the electric meter and we had a pig bin out the back for all the veg waste and scraps. Growing up on a rough council estate in (Royal) Berkshire, the youngest of seven, we were poor due to a father who drank a lot and never worked but our mum kept us fed and clothed, taught us to say please and thank you, never swear in front of our parents or elders and if we hadn’t got the money for something then we couldn’t have it oh and to get in quick around food! I thought about this later in life and realised I was always skinny until I left school and got a job, I could buy things. These days when friends or peers talk about their favourite sweets in childhood I can’t really say as we only had them rarely, so any sweet when it came our way was devoured rather quickly! I was always creative, quiet and spoke properly, whilst around me were families like ours surviving anyway they can, I went to my room and wrote poems, drew pictures, sang some songs.. I always tried to do the right thing and stay out of trouble, that’s not to say I avoided it!
CHAPTER ONE
I WAS FREE
Leaving school in 1981 could not have come too soon for me.
I had had enough of the bullying (one of the reasons I could not wear a mask during this pandemic- more later on about this) fighting and lectures from teachers that knew what was best for me.
After spending the last year in the bottom classes as had hardly been to school (my best friend and I bunked off – we had the time of our lives!) I eventually got moved from all the top classes to the bottom classes, I knew it was time to go out in the world and find my place, whatever that was meant to be, I had no clue but all I knew was I was a free spirit.
I did not want an apprenticeship that was certain, my other best friend had suggested coming with her to work at the local racecourse with her mum and aunt and I knew I could sing and act which appealed to me though how I was going to earn a living from it I had no clue whatsoever!
It was our school that got Kenneth Brannagh into RADA and I knew there was no chance of that kind of thing happening again (plus you needed qualifications too)
As long as I got a job to pay my share of the rent I could do whatever I wanted to!
I was free at last.
Girls did not interest me and I knew I was different but in my mind if I didn’t do anything with anyone at all no one could call me those nasty names any more.
Also if I just didn’t think about it, it couldn’t affect me.
This tactic worked up until a point and later on in my career I found out the hard way this wasn’t true but more of that later.
Short and slim with wavy light brown hair (I had a cow-lick on my hairline) blue eyes, I was always described as handsome though I could not see it at all.
In fact I blocked out any kind of sexual notion or awareness which became my coat of armour that just may have saved my life!
Having never met any one who was Gay (well apart from a couple of bullies from school who I now realised must have been) and the emergence of Aids, I was in no rush to explore a side of my life that, back then was seen as something bad or wrong.
So, leaving it well alone with my coat of armour, two fists for the bullies and a well spoken soft voice, I set out at 15 ½ to take on the world!
page 1.
*here is a snippet from later on in my book.
Royal Windsor Horse Show
1996
After having worked for this company at the Brit Awards in Earls Court Exhibition Centre in February, as I was freelance they asked me to work at the prestigious Royal Windsor Horse Show that May!
Excited as I was I was a bit worried as to where they were going to put me.
I had met a manager at the Brits, and mentioned if could work with him, the Ops manager said yes OK!
Off I went to the Presidents Marquee where HM The Queen would be coming in one day for lunch and all the dignitaries Lords and Ladies etc. and (little did I know) met who was to become my best friend outside of my life long friends.
“Hi I,m Stevie” the Manager extended his hand to shake mine.
“Hello I,m Nick” I said, as we shook hands he said “Oh hi, we met at the Brits didn’t we? I need to go and meet my partner who has just arrived, can I leave you to finish the tables and I will be back in a bit”
“Of course I can” I replied, thinking he would be 5 minutes.
There were 6 round tables, all clothed and waiting to be set for lunch.
I stood there for a minute and took it all in..here I was at 31, just met a queen for the second time and that week would be serving the real Queen for lunch!
Also thankful to my Grandparents who always laid the table!
I also met the barman who was setting the bar up doing the wines.
I finished ironing the table clothes and continued to set the tables, ensuring all the silver was polished and shining and the glasses were crystal clear, the napkins were pristine. The tables were set and before I knew it the Ops Manager came back to see how I was getting on.
I was putting out the place cards.
“Where’s Stevie?” he asked us.
We had an hour and a half still till guests arrived.
I piped up “oh he’s just nipped to the loo” but was interrupted by the Barman “He’s been gone for ages, told him he was meeting his boyfriend” I looked at the Ops Manager then the Barman and said “Well he hasn’t been that long and every-things ready”
The Ops Manager smiled and left and a little while later later Stevie came back, looked at the Barman and said “I was called to the office and know what was said!”
He looked at me and smiled
“I can see we are going to get along, would you like a cup of tea and a fag dear?”
to be continued…
*here is a snippet from later on in my book.
The Day Hollywood Called!
Part 1.
Brighton. 2017 (Hove actually!)
The day I moved in I met the caretaker who told me that the flat I was moving into, Imran Khan had lived there when he played cricket for (I think) Hove? It was literally on the corner of the whole cricket ground; I would turn left out the front door of the block past the pub and left into the front entrance! This information made me stop and think for a second, hang on I thought, in the mid-nineties I served at his wedding when he married Jemima Goldsmith when I was a butler living in London, who would have thought I would end up years later in his old bachelor pad!
A year later there I was waiting on a skype video call with a casting agent who were based in Hollywood.
Hollywood! 53 years old and Hollywood was calling!
Let me explain…. I had been back and forth to Ibiza since 2016 helping a friend out with Weddings in amazing villas on the beautiful place they call the “The White Island” which I had only been to once for 24 hours around 2006?
The club I went to then had https://misskellymarie.com/
I then went there for my 50th on my own in 2015.
Fast forward to 2018 in Hove and I hit the answer button….
All I could think about was just don’t look at yourself in the corner camera, pretend he is here in the room, just do not f**k up!
They were putting an idea together for a Reality Show he went on to tell me, on three famous islands and Ibiza was one of them and were looking for a Head Butler to lead a team of, well, gorgeous staff (starlets and gods gifts!) that would keep me very busy managing such a mix, which would make a great show, along with a professional Head Chef.
Apparently, he was gorgeous too but professional.
My name had been put forward when they were researching the show and was I interested?
Was I interested?
They said that the Producer would like to make a Skype appointment and she would then use that interview and the others for the showcase video short they would make to show the broadcasting channels.
Was I interested?
I tried to casually say yes and then bid goodbye, speak soon etc. I hit the stop button.
My first ever call from Hollywood was over…I started to worry and doubt myself, was it my last?
Would they change their minds after this? I calmed myself down, put the kettle on and thanked The Universe.
