3. Parallel Lines
Lesley’s concerns for Yog were understandable, but given the Panayiotous’ determined attitude, the chances of her son coming off the rails were slim. His dad, Jack, was a positive role model: a grafter and a self-made man. His real name was Kyriacos Panayiotou and he’d moved to Britain during the 1950s when tensions between the Turkish and Greek populations in north-east Cyprus had boiled over into bloody violence. After escaping to London, Kyriacos used the anglicized version of his Christian name and shortened his surname to Panos; then he displayed a work ethic that would define his life. He worked all hours to make ends meet.
When Jack later married Lesley, whom he’d met in London, he went on to open his own restaurant in Edgware. Jack was still working incredibly hard when I first came to meet Yog. He was rarely at home, but his presence was always felt whenever he could spend time with the family. Although he was a man of few words, on the occasions that Jack did speak to me he was gruff and to the point; at times bordering on the intimidating. He also considered me a negative influence on his son. When Yog’s dad was in the house I usually tried not to be too conspicuous, but I later grew to be very fond of Lesley, despite any reservations she might have had about her son’s friendship with me. She was a lovely woman.
There was at least one similarity between Yog’s background and mine. Both of us were kids of immigrant fathers. My dad was born Albert Mario Zacharia in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1933, where he was the son of an Italian mother and an Egyptian father of Yemeni descent. Egypt was under British rule at the time and Alexandria was a cultural melting pot. My father grew up speaking a number of languages. English was no problem, as that was the language he spoke at home with his brother, and so he settled in easily at the British Boys’ School in Alexandria. Passing his exams, he eventually became a student teacher at the same school. However, trouble was brewing. When the Suez Crisis erupted in 1956, my father’s family was expelled from Egypt amid a surge of nationalism and they relocated to Essex. Like Jack, Dad’s family had been forced to leave their home during a time of conflict. In the mid 1950s, National Service was still mandatory. After discovering Dad was fluent in a number of languages, the RAF sent him to St Andrew’s University in Scotland to read Russian and German in anticipation of a role with the RAF in Cold War Berlin.
The discrimination experienced by his family in Egypt was so unpleasant that my father became keen to integrate into his new home. Before being sent to St Andrew’s with the RAF, he was on the bus when he saw on a street sign Ridgeley Gardens. That’s a very English-sounding name, he thought. And Zacharia might put me at a disadvantage, so . . . The name stuck and Albert Ridgeley, who was fluent in Arabic, German, Russian, French and Italian, followed St Andrew’s with the Joint Services School for Linguists, before being posted to Berlin as an interpreter in Air Force intelligence. Despite his multicultural roots, however, Dad felt immediately British – as did I. While I was growing up, it was obvious to me that I was a little darker-skinned than most of my friends, while being part of the same culture: as English as Wimbledon’s Tennis Championships, or bacon and eggs; whereas Yog’s family seemed more attached to their Cypriot history. Unlike my dad, who sounded thoroughly English, Jack’s accent was still very strong.
My parents met when Dad eventually left the RAF in 1960, taking a job in a camera shop, which he enjoyed given he was also a keen amateur photographer. He met my mum, Jennifer Dunlop, when she was just eighteen and still at school. Despite her age, she was strong-willed and independent and they fell in love. When she became pregnant Dad married her out of a sense of honour and duty. I – the cause of their hastily arranged wedding – arrived in January 1963 and Paul Ridgeley came along in February 1964, but it was only on the day of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary that I realised Mum had been three months pregnant when she’d tied the knot with Dad in 1962. A mini-scandal had been averted.
What a jolly little fellow!
Shotgun wedding, Home Counties style. Albert Ridgeley and his new wife Jennifer, circa summer 1962.
My grandpa, John Frederick Dunlop, and an infant Andrew Ridgeley. A wonderful, loving man. And he always made me laugh – lots!
On holiday in Devon, circa 1972. When the sun always shone in the summer!
Life for the Ridgeley family was initially played out in a small house in a suburban council estate in Egham. The modest home was filled with the voices of Mum, Dad and two small boys, plus my paternal grandfather who, at times, seemed to have been transported from another world entirely. My brother and I were oblivious to his life and the traumas inflicted upon him during the Second World War and called him ‘Drac’ because of his unsmiling demeanour and resemblance to Count Dracula. Granddad drank can after can of Coca-Cola and smoked like a chimney. In 1968 we moved to a 1930s semi-detached house at 40 Ashfield Avenue in Bushey, but Granddad stayed behind in Egham until, a few years later, the cigarettes finally finished him off.
Once Paul and I had both started at infants’ school, Mum had the opportunity to pursue a career and she enrolled at Wall Hall Teacher Training College. The old neo-Gothic building had an outdoor swimming pool and Mum used to take us there every now and again on warm days. I loved messing about in the water. But as I grew into my teens and was allowed to hang around at the down-at-heel King George V Recreation Ground in Bushey, it soon became the main focus for my social life, thanks mainly to its football pitch, tennis courts and café. But the pool there proved to be its biggest draw. After school I’d hurry home, grab my Speedos and dash to the Rec, which to my mind became an aquatic wonder-world. I spent hours perfecting different types of bombs, a type of jump into the water, designed to create a massive splash, giving them names like the Preacher, the Can Opener and the Nutcracker, each one executed in order to soak the sunbathing girls nearby. Between Wall Hall and the Rec, the seventies felt like a succession of endless summers.
As primary school kids, both Paul and I understood we’d better play nicely, or else. Mum was quite handy with a wooden spoon and when her patience had been stretched to breaking point would chase us around the garden whacking our backsides as she went. I don’t recall being a particularly naughty boy, but I was certainly a little wayward at times and very inquisitive. So, when my parents hosted a party one weekend, I got up early the next morning, hoping to discover exactly what the grown-ups had been up to during the night before. I was only seven years old, and with my parents enjoying a rare Sunday lie-in I coerced my little brother into joining me. The pair of us crept downstairs to explore.
First we came across an open tin of Watney’s Party Seven beer, a prerequisite of any 1970s gathering. We each took a swig before spitting it straight back out because it was so disgusting. Undeterred, we then opened Mum’s hand-carved wooden box, which was always filled with cigarettes and used only on special occasions. Grabbing a ciggy each and a box of matches, we snuck into the back yard and lit up, puffing away like the grown-ups, while coughing and spluttering. We immediately gave up on our adventure, hiding the evidence in a dustbin.
But we had been spotted.
Mr Smith, our nosy-parker neighbour, had seen it all and took great pleasure telling Mum, who delivered the ultimate sanction: Wait ’til your father gets home. The next few hours were spent in fear awaiting the inevitable punishment. When the time arrived, we were called downstairs and given the mother and father of all tongue-lashings. Dad then spanked us all the way to bed without any tea. I’m not sure the punishment fitted the crime, but it certainly worked. I’ve never let a Watney’s beer pass my lips since.
Part of my father’s upbringing influenced me greatly when I was little. Given his military background, Dad was fascinated by the Second World War and collected a series of magazines detailing its history. Whenever they arrived in the post I’d read them from cover to cover and I can still identify fighter planes from that era simply from their silhouettes. My interest later extended to making Airfix model kits, and as a twelve-year-old I often blew my entire paper-round wages on model planes, tanks and ships, plus the all-important glue and paint.
A de Havilland DH 106 Comet, a Hawker Hurricane, and two small boys.
Albert Ridgeley, lead side drummer. Somewhere in Germany, late 1950s.
I was lucky to have any money, as I was probably the world’s worst paperboy: indolent, feckless and prone to loitering. I was so easily distracted that, at weekends, the papers were usually delivered around lunchtime. Customers complained. People left their houses to search for me. They had every right to be ticked off, especially the lady who found me drinking the Babycham she’d left in her garage one Sunday morning. I was caught red-handed and sent away in shame. Unsurprisingly enough, I later got the sack.
Dad’s other big influence was much more significant – music.
Dad had been the lead side drummer in an RAF military band and he and Mum were keen that we boys learn an instrument so I took keyboard lessons from the age of seven. We had a stand-up piano I practised on at home. I soon realised that as well as playing the pieces from the instruction books my teacher had given me, I loved composing music. In fact, I enjoyed coming up with my own melodies more than playing. I just saw the piano as a tool for the job. Perhaps it’s no surprise that I later gave up the lessons. I only went back to the instrument in my teens when, fuelled by a new passion for music, I wanted to write songs again. Those early lessons must have paid off, though.
Dad’s pride and joy was a stereo in our dining room and he preferred to listen to records using a pair of expensive Sennheiser headphones. During those rare, quiet moments in a house overrun with two young boys, he’d put on his headphones and sit back, close his eyes and lose himself in the music. But during Sunday evenings the whole family gathered round the speakers for the Top 40 countdown. There was no joking, dancing or messing around, though. We perched on the vinyl-covered sofa with our tea, listening to the likes of Sweet, Slade and Alvin Stardust in a weekly ritual that shaped my love for pop and rock’n’roll and planted the idea of music as a life-affirming force.
While our record collection might have been limited, it was certainly influential. I flicked through my mum and dad’s LPs over and over, playing records by the Beatles, the Everly Brothers and a Rolling Stones compilation called Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) which featured all the early singles like ‘Paint It Black’, ‘It’s All Over Now’, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ and ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’. The Stones sounded raw, visceral; everything about them was exhilarating, but they struggled for my affections against personal favourites like the Beatles’ Help! and a compilation called Twenty-Five Rock’n’Roll Greats, which featured songs like Little Richard’s ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Rock Around The Clock’ by Bill Haley and the Comets and ‘Hound Dog’ by Elvis. With the volume turned up, I’d twist and jive around the front room, but only if I was sure nobody else was home. When I heard the front door slam, I’d leap for the record player, then sit down quickly while pretending not to be out of breath. The embarrassment of being discovered mid twist would have been crushing.
I can’t recall the first single or album picked up for my collection, but looking through racks of vinyl in search of something to spend my pocket money on soon became an adventure. Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was one of my first memorable discoveries. I’d bought it after it was played non-stop by our coach driver on his cutting-edge eight track tape player for the duration of a school trip journey to the Wye valley, and its cover made it even more special. It arrived as a gatefold, and each set of song lyrics printed inside was accompanied by an illustration. The pictures were brilliant: Marilyn Monroe for ‘Candle In The Wind’, a pistol for ‘Roy Rogers’ and a dragon accompanying ‘Grey Seal’. Elton’s Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy was even more lavish and included three or four pullouts, one of which was a lyric booklet, and another a cartoon picture book. I later learned that one version of the cover even had a pop-up design.
Yog and I often went record shopping together and I have a distinct memory of the pair of us poring over the sleeve of the Electric Light Orchestra’s 1977 album Out Of The Blue, which included their big hit ‘Mr Blue Sky’, while waiting for a train at Golders Green station. As kids, he and I were both really into the design of record sleeves and I spent ages studying incredible covers, such as Tales From Topographic Oceans by prog rock band Yes. While I never bought any albums purely because of their design, it was possible to appreciate the surreal art whether you liked the music or not. Luckily some of my favourite bands combined visual flair with great songs, and when I became a fan of Genesis – through either The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC Two, or my friend Roy, who had pretty esoteric music tastes: Gong, Genesis and Captain Beefheart were among his favourites. I was delighted when Genesis’ Wind And Wuthering album was released in 1976 with an embossed logo on the card front, an effect that gave the sleeve an unusual texture. The music inside was just as good.
It wasn’t long before I was seeing my favourite bands for real, and my first gig proved unforgettable. When Queen played Earls Court in 1977 I went with Roy who had tickets and was blown away by Freddie Mercury, despite being about as far away from the stage as was possible. I was lucky enough to see them again at Alexandra Palace two years later when Yog and I bought tickets. I was transfixed by Freddie Mercury. He had dressed for the occasion in a harlequin catsuit. The band played through their big hits – ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘Bicycle Race’ – and while Brian May’s unique guitar-playing sounded incredible, Freddie dominated the performance with an energy I’ve never seen in a singer since, not even Prince.
Genesis were just as good and I went to see them with Yog at Earls Court in 1977, turning up on the night to buy tickets at the door. Amazingly, our seats were only three rows from the front and the stage looked spectacular. Glowing vari-lights, which were a new development back then, hung from the ceiling to create a series of ethereal white stalactites. This was another transitional period for Genesis and their style was becoming more mainstream. With Peter Gabriel’s departure they’d become noticeably less left-field, and they were now, with albums like A Trick Of The Tail and Wind And Wuthering, developing into something we both found more appealing. I loved watching Phil Collins perform; to drum with the energy and style that he did while singing at the same time was unbelievable. The following year, we went to see them again, this time at Knebworth. It was a great show, but we were stuck 400 metres away from the stage and it couldn’t hope to match the intensity of that memorable night at Earls Court.
Whenever I played my Genesis or Queen records at home, I always took great care. Dad’s stereo was a treasured possession every bit as valuable as the car, or Mum’s wedding ring. Money was always tight. We rarely redecorated the house and costly holidays were a luxury that was beyond us, but the stereo was Dad’s big-ticket item and one of the few possessions in the house that was very much his. It was a real privilege for us to use it. As my own musical tastes evolved we were still gathering around it to listen to the Top 40. That pleasure, though, paled in comparison to Thursday evenings. At seven thirty, it seemed as if the whole nation gathered around their TVs to watch Top of the Pops. BBC One’s flagship music show was a must-see event for anyone with a passing interest in pop during the 1970s and would be for a few decades to come. Both the Ridgeley and Panayiotou families watched the show avidly.
For Top of the Pops’s viewers, the likes of T. Rex, the New Seekers and ABBA were big draws. Queen grabbed me with their Top of the Pops performance of ‘Killer Queen’, but Blondie grabbed everybody on a damp February evening in 1978, thanks to the appearance of lead singer Debbie Harry, who was a riot of sexuality in nothing more than an oversized red shirt and thigh-length boots. The next morning in school, Blondie was the only topic worth discussing. And Debbie Harry represented a subject that was going to loom large in my youth. I was beginning to understand the power of the Pop Star.