Part 70
In early 2013, while still in Johannesburg, I was contacted by Harry Lyons the author of the definitive book on my ancestor Dr. Christopher Dresser, The People’s Designer. As the head of the Dresser family that originated in England in 1352 with the arrival of Christopher Dresser, a Danish sea captain, Harry invited me to attend the inaugural meeting of the Dresser Society in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire. The Society was formed to honor and revive an interest in Dresser’s remarkable life as the most prolific industrial designer of the 19th Century. I fully intended to return home in three weeks. I spent three wonderful days in Middlesbrough where the Society was hosted by the University of Tyne and Tees, with input from the nearby Dorman Museum. One of Dresser’s many accomplishments was the founding of Linthorpe Potteries in Middlesbrough; hence the city’s interest in hosting the Society.
Then as planned, I travelled to Manchester to meet up with Kevin, a person who regularly travelled between Johannesburg and Manchester in the process of setting up the funding of a major solar power company for the remote rural areas of Southern Africa. He had also become excited about a screenplay I had written on the real reason why the liner Titanic was deliberately sunk for insurance purposes. My screenplay was based on the research and books written by Robin Gardiner in Oxford, which presented a compelling argument about the deliberate sinking that went horribly wrong with the loss of 1,500 lives.
Kevin assured me that he had arranged the funding of the picture in addition to his solar energy project and that he expected monies to be put into the bank within the next couple of weeks. I became increasingly restless when the money failed to arrive. Kevin tried to keep up my spirits, but I finally began to doubt whether the picture would ever be funded through Kevin’s financial sources. He then suggested that I fly over to Ireland where my youngest son Greg lived with his wife Louise and three young children, Erin, Kai and Ryan. Greg works with Dell Computers. I could wait there until the money came through. It seemed like a good idea and I had no other projects back in South Africa at that time, so I went to stay in Wicklow Town with Greg and his family.
A further six weeks went by. Kevin even had one of his investors speak to me on the phone to assure me that it was now only a matter of days before they would make at least a development fund available for the movie. I had put forward my return flight to Johannesburg but, as the weeks dragged on, I became increasingly sceptical about Kevin’s ability to put the funding in place. My son Greg, who has always been very supportive of my movie projects, finally suggested that I should face reality and move on.
The trouble was that I had already invested months in researching and writing the Titanic screenplay which I fully believed, and still believe, to be a potential winner. The South African film industry was going through a lean patch and the three highly successful television series I had written, had now been handed over to black writers as part of the BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) policy, which endeavored to create job opportunities for the previously disadvantaged under the new democratic government initially headed by Nelson Mandela from 1994. I had voted for the change from the Apartheid regime to the African National Congress (ANC)-led government, so I suppose I had no cause to complain. However, it was tough and my hope for the funding of the Titanic movie was my best chance of making the transition to the writing and production of international feature films.
It was one of the low points of my life. What was I to do? There were no sensible options back in South Africa and I had no idea how it would be possible to re-establish myself in the UK, or Ireland for that matter, at the age of 77.
Out of the blue, I was contacted by friends in East Grinstead, West Sussex who encouraged me to spend some time with them while I sorted out what I should do. My main concern was my wife Hero who was still in Johannesburg and was expecting me back. The calls from my friends were a catalyst for my decision-making and the clincher happened when one kind soul sent me an air ticket to get there. I had virtually run out of money after extending my stay in Britain and Ireland.
I made the firm decision to ignore Kevin’s never-ending assurances that the money would be forthcoming shortly. I thanked Greg and his family for their kindness and support over this period and made the short flight to Gatwick airport just a few miles from East Grinstead.
Two of my old friends from South Africa, Frank and Pixie Stacey, invited me to stay with them until I was back on my feet again. Much as I hated the idea, I figured that I should apply for a pension but quickly discovered that, because my wife was still in a house owned by her in South Africa, I could not claim the type of pension I was otherwise entitled to, because we still had an asset in South Africa. This was despite the fact that we had purchased the house at the height of the market boom, then taken out loans against the asset during my worst period of trying to get one or more movies funded. If we sold our house, it would now be at a loss. This cut no ice with the pension people in the UK, so my only alternative was to find a job and find it fast.
I applied to a couple of small film and video production companies in the area but, despite my experience, the thought of a nearly 80-year-old joining them was ludicrous. Determined not to give up, I asked around in the town of East Grinstead and was offered a job as waiter/dishwasher in a small cafe on the High Street. I consoled myself by remembering that ,after school in South Africa, I had returned to the UK with 5 British pounds in my pocket and made a success of things. Now, I was back in the UK again 54 year later, with four times as much, 20 British pounds to be exact. What could possibly go wrong!
My first couple of weeks were hell. The owner made me do all the washing up and very little waiting on tables. He then got me to be a cleaner as well and told me to completely clean out a storeroom and office in the basement. I have never in my life seen such a collection of “stuff” in one room; unused aprons, gloves, cooking utensils, even spare parts for motor cars, and a whole lot of rubbish made it almost impossible to get into the room.
It took me two weeks fulltime to tidy up the place and I was pretty exhausted. Even the owner recognised that at my age he was pushing me too hard, but I was desperate to keep the job while I continued to put out feelers in the movie industry. He suddenly came up with an amazing idea. He had wanted to find something that young, out-of-work youths could do, while waiting for a job, instead of playing video games or drinking or doing drugs. He wanted to produce a musical and use the youngsters as the cast. He then proposed that I should write a musical and he would continue to pay me the same wage until I finished it. Extraordinary! I had never written a musical before, but I felt I could handle the challenge.
So, from dishwasher and cleaner back to being a writer – overnight! I jumped at the chance and wrote the “book’”of the musical over the next few weeks. It was subsequently read and praised by Sir Richard Stilgoe, a song writer, lyricist and musician who had written the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Starlight Express” and “Phantom of the Opera.” However, he added that I needed to get the music and lyrics written before I could hope to sell it.
The cafe owner tried without success to get funding for a composer and possibly lyricist as well as money with which to produce the show with local youths. He then lost interest in the project and I was back to square one. Fortunately, my children got Hero to sell the house at a loss, sell her antique furniture and jewelry and put her on a plane to join me in England. It was a shattering experience for Hero, as she had no intention of living in Britain but, being the special person she is, she recognized that it was the only realistic option at the time. Shortly after her arrival ,we were able to qualify for a type of pension and housing benefits. Coming from a five-bedroom house and swimming pool in Johannesburg to a studio flat (one room with adjoining kitchen and bathroom) was a drastic adjustment for Hero in particular but, bless her, we’ve made a reasonably good life here in the UK in the seven years since then.
I have subsequently done some video work, gotten a trilogy of novels accepted by a publisher, with the first one on Amazon/Kindle and a hard copy version available any day now. The movie prospects have gone up and down like a yoyo but, best of all, another friend and fellow poet, Alan Douglas, introduced me to ExoTech and Peter Warren. This has led to my involvement as a writer and filmmaker in the exciting new development of a system that will literally shake the world of computers to the core and, like my own rather extraordinary life, the future prospects are brilliant!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.