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Developing the right image

Posted by barneyspender on October 23, 2013
Posted in: Culture, Pangbourne College. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments
Pangbourne College: the imposing Devitt Housewas home to Harbinger and a young Angus Thomas

Pangbourne College: the imposing Devitt Housewas home to Harbinger and a young Angus Thomas

I had no idea at the time. None at all. I’m not sure any of us did. Not least Richard and Angus. When they marched out of Pangbourne in the long, hot summer of 1981, all they had in common, or so it seems from this distance, was a shared interest in the Boat Club.

But beneath that they both possessed a passion for the camera which was to lead each of them on different but fascinating paths.

We were just schoolboys, of course, interested in rugby, music and girls (not necessarily in that order) but preoccupied with avoiding ackers, laying your hands on a decent cure for acne and perfecting the art of spit ‘n polish. Those number one shoes, kept back during the week, had to be sparkling for Sunday parade.

Nadia Comaneci swept all before her in the 1976 Olympics including our schoolboy hearts

Nadia Comaneci swept all before her in the 1976 Olympics including our schoolboy hearts

Actually, we were preoccupied with girls as well – from Debbie Harry and Olivia Newton John to Charlie’s Angels, Nastasja Kinski and Nadia Comineci. I know she was only 14 when she swept the board at the 1976 Olympics but we were kids, for heavens’ sake. Nothing wrong with having a crush on a girl of our own age.

I should explain. We were at Pangbourne College, a private school in Berkshire founded in 1917 by the Devitt & Moore shipping line as a merchant navy equivalent of Dartmouth.

Along the way it switched allegiance to the Royal Navy and it has retained its traditions although these days parades in full officer cadet uniform are no longer held every Sunday. And when they are held, girls take a full part. Oh yes, things have sure changed since our day when the nearest we got to girls was roping in a few from Canford House, St Helen’s and Theale Green to play the female parts in our plays.

Does ackers still exist? Not sure. This was a punishment handed out by the duty Cadet Officer (prefect in any other public school world) usually for feeble infringements such as beating up a mush – third former – after Lights Out or, to borrow from our contemporary Not the Nine O’Clock News, “looking at me in a funny way”.

Ackers involved an early start for the villain, a run down to Illawarra, another Division (House) about a mile away from the main part of the school where we were.

Once there he would report to that day’s duty CO. As this generally involved waking him up, the offender was usually rewarded with a box around the ears before the CO would sign his card.

"Bravely and faithfully"

“Bravely and faithfully”

The offender would then have to run back up to his own Division, wake up his own CO, receive another box around the ears and then clamber into a five-minute cold shower. Not funny at the best of times; miserable in mid-January.

There were other punishments such as Extra Parades – another early morning favourite – and CP. Not corporal punishment but corrective punishment. This was an RRPA – right royal pain in the arse.

It involved reporting to the duty CCC (Chief Cadet Captain or Head of House) and getting him to sign an attendance card about five times during the day. Each time he would inspect you taking special notice of your shoes which had to be gleaming.

Often, offenders would use their number ones – the only problem being that other boys could be pretty careless what they did with their feet. And vindictive.

The final inspection would involve reporting in full number one uniform to your own CCC prior to turning in. Shoes, stiff collar, lanyard, cap cover, all would be checked with an attention to detail that would bring a lump to the throat of any self-respecting, humanity-loathing Chief Petty Officer. A fail on any inspection during the day would result in an extra day’s CP.

Yes it was tough but you quickly learned it was better to stay on the side of the law. Alternatively if you were going to pick up a punishment, make sure it was for something worthwhile, not for minor acts of petulance.

AN INTERVIEW WITH HELMUT NEWTON

Richard Morrell at Pangbourne in the summer of 1980

Richard Morrell at Pangbourne in the summer of 1980

Richard Morrell was in my division, Hesperus. As in “The Wreck of…”

For five years we were on good terms. Never buddy-buddy close but always friendly. I certainly never tried to pick a fight with him although that may have been because he was twice my size.

My cousin James gave him the nickname Raymond. I suspect it was in honour of another Yorkie, Ray Illingworth, who had until recently been captain of the England cricket team, but I cannot be sure.

Richard was the strong, silent Heathcliff-type from Yorkshire that all of us soft southerners were just a little bit wary of. He sweated hard in the Boat Club, reported for second row duty on the rugby field and generally mucked in.

He may have had a few punishments along the way but I always had the impression that he steered a pretty sensible course.

The 1981 Pangbourne College First VIII: Angus Thomas is kneeling secnd from left next to James Witter who would go on to win a Blue for Cambridge

The 1981 Pangbourne College First VIII: Angus Thomas is kneeling secnd from left next to James Witter who would go on to win a Blue for Cambridge

The same goes for Angus Thomas. He was a Harbinger lad which obviously made him a bit suspect – the only hint of homosexuality at Pangbourne during my five years there involved two Harbinger lads who were allegedly caught in flagrante in a broom cupboard – although us very butch, manly, 100 per cent heterosexual Hesperus men were happy to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Angus was a fine musician – he was drum major in the excellent college military band – and, like Richard, fell in love with rowing which was the sport in which Pangbourne took most pride.

Angus would finish his time as Captain of Boats and represented GB in the junior world championship of 1981.

Good lads the pair of them but none of us had any idea of their hidden depths. We had no idea they would both develop, if you will excuse the pun, into seriously good photographers.

Peas from a pod, you might say, although they took very different routes to realise their potential behind the lens.

“I wasn’t exactly into photography at Pangbourne,” admits Richard.

“But it always fascinated me, the preparation and care that went into the college photos. Getting everyone to pay attention and smile at the correct time. Quite a feat in itself.”

Stacked Office Chairs --- Image by © Richard Morrell/Corbis

Stacked Office Chairs — Image by © Richard Morrell/Corbis

Richard chose to study photography and then headed to the US to learn his craft. That involved an internship at Playboy and a little bit of glamour work for Penthouse.

‘Yes I started in Hollywood, photographing models for agencies and wannabe actors.

“Being English and turning on the charm, I used to talk my way into using famous locations as backdrops to the models for nothing,” says Richard who is now a sensibly married man with one young daughter.

“I have always had a particular interest in film noir and art deco. California is full of it. So I built up a portfolio around these architectural gems.”

In between times, there was also a job interview with the great Helmut Newton at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood.

“It was to be his first assistant, which is basically running his studio and doing everything from lighting sets to camerawork. He had seen some of my work and was impressed enough to ask me down.

Helmut Newton's study of Margaret Thatcher

Helmut Newton’s study of Margaret Thatcher

“He was extremely pleasant but firm. One felt very much in his presence. He was a truly great photographer.

“I can see how he commanded attention. Photographing Margaret Thatcher, for example, requires a definite authority. Many people don’t actually like to be photographed.

“I have since looked at her portrait in the National Portrait Gallery and Helmut managed to capture a true sense of power but also a vulnerability and humility in her face.

“I think that is a truly great photographer, being able to break down those barriers of your subject. It’s a very special feeling being able to develop a trust with a complete stranger in a few moments and get the best from them photographically.”

The interview, though, was slightly bizarre in that Newton conducted it wearing nothing more than his underpants.

“I don’t know why,” says Richard who still seems a bit shell-shocked by the experience. “I guess we will never know.”

Richard, who sadly didn’t get the job with the legend that was Newton, found his niche with the agency Corbis in studio-based digital imagery, much of which you will see illustrating brochures, ads, book covers and so on. On the side, he also channelled his artistic side into setting up a card design company Sophie Morrell, named after his daughter.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

He remains adamant that the 20th century was the heyday of photography as a craft and an art form.

“It really was a time of smoke and mirrors,” says Richard who specialises in stylised corporate work from his Stone Studio in Yorkshire.

“Today you have only to go on YouTube, learn a few techniques with your £500 camera and you’re up and running as a wedding photographer. If you click the shutter enough times, you will get one in focus.”

The snapper snapped: Angus Thomas at the end of a shoot (photo: Benchmark furniture)

The snapper snapped: Angus Thomas at the end of a shoot (photo: Benchmark furniture)

Which in a way is what Angus Thomas did.

“Everything I know about photography I know from YouTube videos, websites and terrifying experience,” he admits.

“My heart sinks when I hear youngsters going to university or college to study photography. What they need to study is business because artistic endeavour has very little to do with putting food on the table to most photographers.”

Angus admits he was not particularly academic at Pangbourne; his proudest achievement remains a B in O Level Navigation.*

However, he ploughed on to achieve a place at Oxford Poly where he picked up a degree in Estate Management.

A career in retail warehouse development followed before he moved into property with his father’s company Thomas Homes. This brought its own demons.

“In 2000 I finally conceded that I was a hopeless valium addict and after long spells of poor mental health checked myself into the Priory Clinic in London.

“From there I went into a 12-step fellowship to which I still stick very close and thanks to the love and support of my first wife during those horrendous early days I am 13 years sober of any mind or mood-altering substance.”

Harbinger can have that effect.

One of Angus’ many subjects: Dave Aldrich of Whitesnake (copyright Angus Thomas Photography)

Six years ago, Angus made the move into photography.

“It was so liberating. I was a square peg in a round hole and at last I found my vocation.

“This was quite an impulsive move following a comment from a photographer friend in Australia to the effect that he thought I was quite good. Luckily I had turned a profit on my last property scheme and was able to set myself up in a new career.”

Angus specialises in portraiture, lit photography and finds plenty of corporate work to put bread on the table. He has also braved the mosh pit to go rock ‘n roll; in the last couple of years he has shot many of his childhood heroes including Walter Trout, Whitesnake, Def Leppard and Slash.

Happily remarried to Tanya, with whom he has set up a magazine business, he now claims three children and two step-children, not to mention a bit of smoke, one or two mirrors and a high speed internet connection to YouTube.

Richard and Angus have yet to work together on a project although with the centenary of Pangbourne College coming up in 2017, don’t count against it.

© Barney Spender 2013

*For the youngsters out there O (for Ordinary) levels were the precursor of the GCSE, taken around the age of 15 or 16 after which kids would go on and take A (for advanced) levels.

A version of this story appeared in the 2013 edition of the Old Pangbournian

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When we were Kids

Posted by barneyspender on May 19, 2013
Posted in: Books, Culture, Greece, Music. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

Patti Smith has been rattling around my birdcage for a few years now. Last week I read her book Just Kids, which deals with her long friendship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and was reminded yet again of what an enduring talent she is and what a remarkable person.

As I say, we go back a long way. We first made our acquaintance when I was a blinkered 15-year-old and her hairy armpit leapt out at me from the cover of her 1978 album Easter.

The armpits didn’t work for me but the music did. Much of it was too mature for my pea-brain but I was hooked on Because the Night, the single she borrowed from Bruce Springsteen. It was a bit more poppy than the rest of the album which is probably why it appealed to my sachinerined musical tooth.

Since then I have gone back over the Patti catalogue and added many other favourites but, even now, Because the Night conjures up wet afternoons in the fourth form cabins at Pangbourne, Jonny Hanscombe, Gordon Arthur, James Cookson and myself discussing England’s chances against Pakistan and which out of Debbie Harry and Kate Bush we would rather have as a girlfriend. Wishful and unrequited thinking on all our parts.

Patti didn’t figure largely in these conversations. Posters of her never adorned our walls in the way that Debbie and Kate did. Or that perfect crime-fighting trio of Kelly, Jill and Sabrina. Maybe it was her armpits or maybe it was because she never joined the ‘music as sex trade’ game. Patti was serious. And clever. A bit too much for the boys we were.

Fast forward 27 years – a long time for both of us – and our paths finally met in the concourse of Athens International Radio.

The station was sponsoring a gig that she was playing at Lykabettus, a wonderful open air arena carved into the side of the largest mountain in central Athens. As a part of the deal, she came to the station the night before – on July 12, 2005 to be exact – to do a short unplugged session and sip a few glasses of wine with the great unwashed.

My colleague Theo Ioannou had the best of it that night. His show of music and chat ran from 10pm to midnight and Patti agreed to step into the studio to do an unscheduled live interview. Here was no brash pop star high on her own publicity but a measured, thoughtful human being, aware of the world around her and her own small place within it.

In her own handwriting: "People have the power."

In her own handwriting: “People have the power.”

Her daughter Jesse hovered in the background, a gentle unobtrusive minder. My own kids were just three and two at the time and buzzing around like whirling dervishes. Jesse stopped to chat and then Patti also came across to talk kids and family, intrigued like many others to find someone who had made their home in a foreign clime.

She signed a book for me, not one of hers but a 1937 publication History Through ‘The Times’ – a collection of leader articles from the Thunderer since 1800. It sounds odd, I know, but it is a habit I have picked up over the years of asking people to sign whatever book I happen to be reading when we meet.She admired the mottled, dog-eared book.

“It is so important to understand history and learn from it,” she said before producing her fountain pen and inscribing the book. I discovered from Just Kids that she had taught herself calligraphy during those early years she shared knocking around New York with Mapplethorpe and it shows in her hand.

We only chatted a few minutes. She certainly wouldn’t remember it. And even I cannot recall the exact words apart from that one phrase about history. But I caught the impression of this mother figure a quietly spoken little lady with long greying hair. She is 59, I was thinking; fragile. I wondered at the back of my mind whether she was up to performing the following night.

Oh foolishness.

Twenty-four hours on, Patti was up on stage. Or was she? The gentle old lady was gone. In her place was a snarling, barefoot rock chick, chewing her guitar and spitting it out across the groundlings. The atmosphere was electric. Athens is always on the brink of one revolution or another; Patti was like the great preacher as the mountainside roared along to People Have the Power.

And when she sang Because the Night I thought back to those fourth form days with Debbie, Kate and all of Charlie’s Angels with a tear of nostalgia in my eye.

It was a memorable night; I felt as audiences in another century must have felt when they watched Mozart or Beethoven in the flesh. Tingling excitement. Breathless stimulation. Aware they had witnessed and experienced something way beyond the ordinary.

©Barney Spender 2013

Goodbye, Mr Chaps

Posted by barneyspender on September 24, 2012
Posted in: Olympics, Pangbourne College, Sport. Tagged: , , , , . 5 Comments

Richard Norris, wearing his Oxford University jersey, already a GB international

There may have been a small corner in the Obits pages of one of the nationals or a few lines, perhaps, in the sports pages. But I don’t live in Britain any more, or in South Africa, so I may have missed them.But it would be a profound shame if, in this year of Olympic and Paralympic nirvana, the nationals do not give over some space for Richard Norris who died at the end of August in Pretoria at the age of 80.

Not because he was my housemaster when I was a cadet at Pangbourne College – delightful though that thought may be – but because he was one of Britain’s finest post-war athletes, a member of the Great Britain hockey team  that won the bronze medal at the Helsinki Olympics of 1952. He also played for England and Natal with considerable success.

Not that we knew any of this. We always knew him as “Chaps” which I thought one of the kinder nicknames the cadets gave to the teachers, one which suggested decency and a team ethic, both of which were very much in Norris’ make-up. To us he was a housemaster, a teacher of mathematics and a bloody good hockey coach.

We knew about his medal from Helsinki but he never talked about it; nor did he carry on about the other elements of his sparkling hockey career. And it wasn’t just us.

“He was very modest about this and I did not know he even had an Olympic medal until I found it in a drawer when I was about 11 or 12,” says his daughter Claire.

“He never spoke about it much and in fact he gave away his competitor’s medal (this was a medal given to everyone who competed), although it was returned to him many years later.”

Richard Owen Alfred Norris, to give him his full beam, was born in Bombay in 1931 and grew up in India, something which according to his old Great Britain teammate Neil Nugent came in handy in the Olympics when Britain played both India and Pakistan.

“He spoke Urdu/Hindi quite fluently,” says Neil.  “This helped during the matches against India and Pakistan because they were saying what they intended to do next in these languages and he would pass it on!”

His father was an army man but died when Norris was just four. He later returned to England to attend King’s School Canterbury which is really where he made his name as a sportsman, representing Kent Schools in rugby, hockey and cricket as well as the Kent men’s hockey team. For good measure, he also found time to make an appearance at Junior Wimbledon.

HELSINKI 1952

Moving to Trinity College, Oxford, where took a degree in engineering, Norris continued to excel on the hockey field winning a Blue every year he was there. Aged just 20, and before he had even played for England he was selected for Great Britain.

He had an outstanding debut, scoring a hat-trick in a 5-4 victory over Netherlands in Amsterdam. He was the youngest member of the side that travelled to Helsinki for the 1952 Olympics.

“The rest of us were working men so he was the kid of the side,” says Nugent. “But he was a perfect teammate. He was a very nice guy with a charming smile. It was a very happy team.”

Norris also happened to be a very good centre-forward.

“He was a splendidly built, chunky athlete; one or two people felt he was more like a rugby player,” says Nugent who was moved from centre-forward to inside forward to accommodate Norris.

“He had this wonderful burst of speed and great control, the kind of stickwork that gives defenders nightmares. He was so strong down the middle and he had this tremendously powerful shot.

GB beat Belgium thanks to a goal from Nugent before coming up against India, who had won gold at every Games since 1932, in the semi-final.

“Unfortunately, we had two mishaps in the first ten minutes,” says Nugent.

“We let in a rather silly goal and then I got hit by the ball just above the knee. I was unconscious for a moment and when I woke I was pretty incapable. There were no substitutes so I was shipped out to the wing but we were effectively playing that game with ten men.”

Norris scored GB’s only goal in a 3-1 defeat but they went on to beat Pakistan in the play-off for the bronze medal.

Norris played five times in all for GB, missing the 1956 Games because of a cartilage operation. He also played for England between 1953 and 1959, scoring in his first six internationals and finishing with 18 goals from 17 matches – a record that bears comparison with the best in the world.

His stickwork was helped perhaps by the fact he was ambidextrous, something that helped him in other sports as well.

“He had an extraordinary ability to bowl left arm nippies almost as well as he did right arm,” says Ian Busby who taught alongside him at Millfied and Pangbourne.

“I’d never come across anyone having an ambidextrous ability to that extent: batting yes, tennis yes but bowling is something else,”

PANGBOURNE COLLEGE

Norris with Richards Dodds, captain of the GB side that won Olympic gold in Seoul in 1988. Norris was amused some years later to discover that the orthopedic surgeon who fixed his knee was none other than Dodds.

After completing his national service in the Royal Artillery – during which he was accidentally shot in the leg with a gun that his unwitting assailant did not think was loaded – he joined the Nautical College, Pangbourne, as it was then known, in 1957 as maths teacher and hockey coach.It was to be a short stay. An England hockey tour to South Africa brought him into contact with Hilton College just outside Pietermaritzburg. Recently married to Mary, he accepted their offer and moved continents.

He produced a number of South African hockey internationals but perhaps his most celebrated charge was a boy called Mike Procter who went on to achieve a modicum of success as a cricketer…

Norris continued playing for Natal inspiring them each year between 1960 and 1964 to win the South African Interprovincial tournament. That led to an invitation to play for South Africa but the English federation became rather sticky on the idea and insisted that as he had already played for England and GB, he would not be allowed to do so. He made a final appearance for Natal just before he left South Africa in 1971, at the age of 39.

Next stop was Millfied in Somerset where he came into contact for the first time with Ian Busby.

“I remember vividly one game against Weston, a side which then comprised half the Somerset team, when Rich bullied off, showed the ball to at least three defenders, drew the goalkeeper and ran the ball into the goal,” laughs the bearded Buzzers, no mean hockey coach himself.

“No one touched it and it was all over in half a minute. I just followed behind. He must have been nearly 40 then.”

In 1972, he returned to Pangbourne.

“He appealed in so many ways,” says Peter Points, the headmaster at the time.

“We had a shortage of experienced maths teachers, his games record went without saying and he also had a very sociable style which went down well with the cadets and with the parents. He was also a very cultivated man who loved music and the theatre.”

And a decent bottle of wine. Time for a small confession here I am afraid. As Hesperus boys we were not always the best behaved and took the notion of the wreck quite seriously. And when lights went out it was not unusual to hear the whisper of “creep” going around the dormitory.

Creeps took on many forms from a simple midnight swim to carefully planned Italian Job style heists. On a couple of occasions our creep involved entering the housemaster’s wine cellar and borrowing a couple of bottles. I say borrowed because I am sure we always had the intention of replacing them although, ahem, we never did. Sorry about that.

Norris was a tremendous mentor. He was amusing and forgiving but never a pushover. The boys knew where the line was and, by and large, respected it. No one complained if they were caught crossing that line.

I also came into contact with him on the hockey field. I was a half decent grunter in midfield but I was not alone in being a little awestruck by Norris when he set aside his inhibitions to show us how something should be done. His stickwork was clean and rapid, his shooting power from a corner little short of nuclear. He would rattle the backboards in the blink of an eye.

Needless to say, our own stickwork and finishing could be frustrating.

“I can teach them how to score goals but I can’t bloody well do it for them!” was the frequent slightly high-pitched lament.

Richard Norris; a fine hockey player, an excellent man

After retiring from Pangbourne in 1992, he continued to teach privately and had a mathematics textbook published by Cambridge Press before returning to South Africa in 2008 to be near Claire and their grandchildren.

He returned regularly to the UK. This summer he was in Britain to hook up with some of his old teaching comrades for a reunion with the surviving members of that 1952 Olympic side. Together they attended the Olympic hockey at the Riverbank Arena on August 1st when, perhaps fittingly for Norris, Great Britain drew with South Africa.

He is survived by his wife Mary and their two children Hugh, who was educated at Pangbourne, and Claire, and four grandchildren.

Richard Norris born Bombay 10 December 1931; died Pretoria 25 August 2012

©Barney Spender 2012

INTERNATIONAL PLAYING RECORD

England, 17 caps, 18 goals

1 – 11 April 1953 v Scotland (Guildford)     1 goal
2 – 18 April 1953 v Ireland (Dublin)     1
3 – 25 April 1953 v Netherlands (Trent Bridge)     1
4 – 27 March 1954 v Wales (Reading)     3
5 – 10 April 1954 v Ireland (Blackpool)     2
6 – 17 April 1954 v Denmark (Folkestone)     3
7 – 25 March 1956 v Wales (Guildford)
8 – 29 March 1958 v Wales (Bristol)     1
9 – 19 April 1958 v Ireland (Hove)     1
10 – 26 April 1958 v Scotland (Graingemouth)
11 – 16 August 1958 v South Africa (Port Elizabeth)
12 – 30 August 1958 v South Africa (Durban)
13 – 6 September 1958 v South Africa (Johannesburg)
14 – 13 September 1958 v South Africa (Salisbury)
15 – 20 September 1958 v Kenya (Nairobi)     3
16 – 21 March 1959 v Wales (Wrexham)     2
17 – 4 April 1959 v Scotland (Sunderland)

Great Britain, 5 caps, 4 goals

1 – 4 May 1952 v Netherlands (Amstelveen)     3 goals
2 – 18 July 1952 v Belgium (Helsinki)
3 – 20 July 1952 v India (Helsinki)     1
4 – 22 July 1952 v Pakistan (Helsinki)
5 – 24 October 1953 v Belgium (Bristol)

Tragedy spurs Price to write

Posted by barneyspender on July 4, 2012
Posted in: Books, Culture, Pangbourne College. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

The Beauty Contest at the Zoo has now sold over 10,000 copies and is into a third print run

Pangbourne College is not a place for the feint-hearted. Or, at least it didn’t use to be. Set up as a training academy for the British merchant navy in 1917 by the shipping line Devitt and Moore, it was for many years known as the Nautical College, Pangbourne.

That had changed before I went there but even in 1976 Pangbourne was still steeped in naval tradition and thriving on a philosophy of hard work and discipline.

Parades every morning, a military band, guard of honour, punishments such as extra drills on the parade ground and ackers – an early morning run and cold shower – were all building bricks in our education.

For most it worked, for others it didn’t.

Not everyone battled through to the sixth form, leaving in a blaze of cap-flinging glory one sunny July afternoon. Some simply did not adapt so well to the strictures of the college and preferred to sling their hook two years earlier, after what used to be called O Levels, nowadays GCSEs.

Kevin Price, the author of The Beauty Contest at the Zoo and The Silly Solar System, was one of those, departing at 16 with 2 A/O Levels and 5 O Levels.

“I’m not at my best with a disciplined regime,” he says by way of explanation.

He was a couple of years younger than me so we didn’t use to hang around much together. When we both left in the summer of 1981 we went our separate ways – until 2011 when I received an encouragingly rude message from him on Facebook.

“My last memory of you was when we were whiling away time playing Space Invaders at Reading station with a local yob,” he wrote.

“If I remember correctly he took a bit of a dislike to you for some reason. Was glad when the train came. Do you remember that?”

Pangbourne College 1st XI, 1981: Kevin Price is standing second from left, Barney Spender is seated second from left while the unfortunate Jonny Hanscombe is standing third from right.

Actually, no, although the mention of Space Invaders gave me a shiver of nostalgic glee. However, I did remember Kevin as an extremely handy fast bowler who made the 1st XI in the fifth form when he had only just turned 16.

Occasionally one would slip and fly into the knee caps of a sleeping Jonny Hanscombe at second slip but in general he was a more than handy opening bowler. Had he stayed he would surely have plundered a shedload of wickets.

As it was he left – and found himself on a twisting path of career highs and lows and personal tragedy, before landing on his feet in the world of children’s books.

“After leaving Pangbourne at 16, I went to Swindon sixth form college,” he says.

“That lasted all of a term as I discovered beer and women, not necessarily in that order. By 19 I was married with a son and working in the construction industry in builders’ merchant sales.”

The marriage did not last as Kevin took himself off to Warrington, then Nottingham – where he met his current partner Andrea with whom he had two children – and finally Norwich in 2002 where he was managing director of Althon Ltd, a company manufacturing and distributing construction products throughout the UK.

At this point, life was rosy. A beautiful family and a job that brought in a six-figure salary.

“Then in October 2009, disaster struck,” says Kevin.

“My daughter Maisie, who was eight at the time, woke up feeling poorly on a Monday morning. By evening we had watched her slip away at the hospital.

“It turned out that she had swine flu and her immune system had over-reacted, causing damage to her heart. It was, as they say, a life-changing moment, although I didn’t know it at the time.”

Kevin started writing poetry as a way of expressing his grief.

“Nothing can describe the pain of losing a child,” he says.

“But Andrea had been visiting a friend who is a gifted artist and this friend was amusing herself by doing some paintings to go with a children’s story that she’d written. Andrea suggested that I should have a go at writing a children’s story as i’m ‘quite good at rhyme’.

Kevin Price reading and signing his books at Waterstone’s, Canterbury

“A couple of weeks later I had written The Beauty Contest at the Zoo and then followed an outpouring of material.

“As I had made Maisie the central character of Beauty Contest, I wanted to get it published. It soon became apparent that I would need to do this myself as I could then keep control of the artwork.

“I commissioned Vicky Fieldhouse to do the artwork and by November had published, having set up KAMA Publishing as the vehicle to bring it to market.”
KAMA incidentally named after the four members of the family – Kevin, Andrea, Maisie and Albert.

“I found that I enjoyed the process so much that I was spending ever-increasing amounts of time doing the marketing and so on. I also found that I wasn’t enjoying my job so I decided to chuck in the six figure salary and big car to scratch a living being an author and publisher.

“I can’t pretend that, for the moment anyway, I don’t miss the money.

Obviously if we hadn’t faced the catastrophe we did then I would still be there and the thought of being a children’s author wouldn’t have entered my head.”

Zoo, as he affectionately calls it, was published in November 2010 and immediately hit a nerve with parents looking for fun and educational books for their kids.

“This entertaining rhyming story features an array of unique animals brought beautifully to life by the illustrations of Vicky Fieldhouse and it is a real book to treasure,” trumpeted a review at Fantasy Book Review.

A part of the proceeds of each book, incidentally, goes towards the World Land Trust. It had sold over 10,000 by the end of June 2012, prompting a third print run.

Instead of building sites, Kevin now found himself slogging around the country to visit bookshops and zoos where his books went on sale.

The Silly Solar System saw the start of Price’s collaboration with Robin Carter

The Silly Solar System – a kid’s guide in verse to the planets and stars with artwork by Robin Carter – was published in September 2011. It was equally well-received and a third installment is already in process.

The next book was called Crazy Creepy Crawlies. It’s a collection of 12 short poems about…..well…..creepy crawlies – spiders, flies, dung beetles and so on. It will be aimed at an age group from 4-7. Artwork is again by Robin Carter.

As if that wasn’t enough, he has also written poems for More Crazy Creepy Crawlies and has new Zoo stories as well.

Sadly, the success of the new venture has come at a price, so to speak. After years of terrorising village batsmen around the country, Kevin now finds himself too busy at the weekends to pound in from the Duck Pond End. Disappointing for many, although second slip can rest a little easier.

©Barney Spender 2012