Dispatches From a Dilettante (12 page)

However when things actually got under way and Ron Fawcett was hanging from the highest point of the wall by what appeared to by just one finger, Jimmy Greaves was finding the going tough. The weather had suddenly turned and hail was making the climbing surface wet and genuinely challenging. Out of audio range, and probably because he was understandably nervous, Jimmy Greaves was effing and blinding at the two instructors to pull him up in double quick time as he was effing soaking his effing arse off. As the word ‘please’ didn’t feature in these rants Vinnie and Dave decided to invent a technical problem which necessitated Jimmy being put on hold in a crevice half way up. This of course made for great TV ‘drama’ and was thus edited for maximum effect by the time the programme went out. Vinnie and Dave displayed and used hitherto undiscovered thespian qualities as they realised this and hammed it up even more.

Maximising the delay while they sorted the non existing rope ‘problem’ meant by the time a thoroughly cold and soaking Jimmy Greaves got to the top he ripped the scissors from Ron Fawcett’s hands and cut the ribbon without a word. All that did was make his abseil to the ground a very bumpy ride courtesy of Vinnie and Dave who had already become the stars of the piece. Ron Fawcett may have free climbed up the Verdun Gorge but I doubt that he ever had a more bizarre experience than the day he opened the outdoor climbing structure at the Ackers Trust.

A sense of momentum in any project is, once achieved, a major breakthrough. Self belief in staff breeds confidence and then emerging personalities are able to use their strengths to full effect, confident that they are part of a team with a shared sense of purpose and direction.

To bond a team that now had eight members I arranged a residential few days in the Lake District. I had employed an administrator/PA who was slightly overweight, prone to use too much make up and regarded the four metre stroll from the car park to the office as her major form of exercise for the day. The four metres often took twenty minutes to enable a last cigarette to be puffed en route. Jackie Johnson pouted and sulked and made it quite clear that she had no intention of going to the Lake District and further informed me that even if she had wanted to go, her husband would not let her. I was very clear that it was essential that we all went and so phoned her husband. He, rather too quickly I felt, said that it would be great and give him some a chance to go drinking with his mates. They divorced shortly afterwards. Having had a major obstacle removed and with a huge persuasive effort from everyone Jackie finally relented. Days later, we set off for the Ullswater Outward Bound Centre in the Lake District.

To set the tone for adventure and togetherness I had arranged for us to meet one of the Outward Bound Instructors at a cave in the Lakes. We would drive to the cave before reaching the centre and we would spend our first night there, although I had omitted to mention this to any of the group.

It was a big cave, but nonetheless a cave. Just before we left the M6 I broke the news to them. As it dawned on Jackie that caves tended not to have central heating, toilets, TVs or beds she became hysterical. Ceebert looked up from his bible and clearly felt that, as God worked in mysterious ways, he would go with the flow. Vinnie and Dave whooped with excitement and the others were shocked into silence. On the radio the DJ announced that the next record would be ‘Road to Nowhere’ by Talking Heads and we parked by the cave to the sound of David Byrne’s voice and Jackie Johnson’s quiet sobbing.

The Outward Bound man Steve Brown had brought food, something to cook it on, a few bottles of beer and wine and some candles. Once people has bowed to the inevitable spirits rose, jobs were allocated and everyone spent as good an evening as it is possible to have in a candlelit underground cavern. The result of Ceebert’s praying manifested itself in fantastic weather, or so he constantly reminded us, and a terrific, enjoyable and productive time was the result. So much so that when at the end of a long walk on the final day we came to the remotest part of the lake at Ullswater and I announced we were sleeping out on the pebbled lakeside, hardly a murmur of discontent was heard. After a night watching the stars Ceebert almost converted a couple of the group.

In the morning the early mist had cleared by the time we were up and a beautiful autumn day was in prospect. Steve Brown had hidden a large rowing boat nearby and so, to the beat provided by Ceebert thumping his bible, we rowed united in purpose and spirit across the lake for a champagne breakfast to round off our stay. It really was that good and did so much to keep us together in the tough next few months back in Sparkbrook.

Years later I briefly met Jackie Johnson in Birmingham at a conference. She was with a colleague who had been talking about her exploits on a recent holiday in Spain. Time is a great healer and Jackie cheerfully asserted that she and her husband always holidayed in the Lake District near to Ullswater. A representative of the Lakeland Tourist Board could not have done a better selling job although despite her waxing lyrical, there was no mention of caves in her paean to the Lakes.

When I left the Ackers Trust a year later, Vinnie had a girlfriend and looked to be settling down but there was to be a further nod to that memorable trip twenty years down the line. Inevitably as time goes by some friends drop away, new friendships are forged, simply because of different agendas, priorities, emerging relationships and new geographical locations.

On returning from a speaking engagement in Madrid, an email popped up asking if I was the same Paul Rowson who had been the Director of the Ackers Trust. It was from Vinnie and we immediately started an email correspondence which quickly illustrated that his life had taken in some spectacular and unimaginable changes.

Shortly after I had left the West Midlands Vinnie, who came from a large and close Catholic family, felt that he had a vocation and almost overnight finished with his girlfriend and relocated to a Spanish seminary. At the time he spoke not a word of Spanish and so was put through an eight week crash course after which he was thrown into the lectures with the other Spanish seminarians. There he remained for eight years. As his ordination to the priesthood drew closer he began to have doubts and occasionally nipped over the seminary walls to have a contemplative beer. There he met Ester and they fell in love.

Initially it was a tortured love and Vinnie went home to Birmingham to receive counselling from the bishop. Returning to the seminary he tried to shut Ester out of his mind but failed to do so. Eventually Ester, a beautiful and feisty woman, made it very clear that any more contemplation or procrastination would result in her departure. Vinnie renounced his vocation and they were married.

By the time he contacted me the tale had taken a further twist. After the wedding, things were tough. There was had no money and Vinnie had no job. They moved to a small town near Cadiz to be near Ester’s family and, with his now fluent Spanish, Vinnie started work as a language teacher. A chance came up to buy the language school and, taking a considerable risk, they took the plunge. Fast forward a few years and he now owns two very successful language schools in Chiclana de la Frontera, has two teenage boys and is a pillar of the local community.

When I visited him recently there was a picture in the lounge of a smiling young man hanging upside down from a roof beam at the Ullswater Outward Bound Centre.

Gradually and at first almost imperceptibly the old drinking den of the BSA Club was changing into a first class social centre and resource. Huge physical upgrades enabled classes to start and therefore bar income produced steady revenue. I hope it does not seem too immodest for me to claim to be the person who introduced quiche to Sparkbrook as part of the revamped lunchtime menu. When this was first mooted, the reaction was one of shock and disbelief. Had I announced that I was an alien from the planet Zog there would have been less fuss. I forced it through but with the concession was that chips stayed on. For all this light hearted stuff there was a daily grind of battling with the Council on trivial petty and counter-productive issues which continually threatened to derail our large ambitions.

Political support for us was growing, but often in a rather haphazard fashion. As the financial year end drew close, we pitched for some ‘under spend’ with more than a hint of desperation. In the public sector it is unheard of for a department to return unspent money. They know that it would not be added to their following year’s allocation and so would be ‘lost’. Of course whether or not it could be spent more productively elsewhere is rarely, if ever, a consideration. The result is the financing of hastily cobbled together schemes to ensure every last departmental penny is kept ‘in house’ and spent before the end of March.

Naturally I hastily cobbled together a scheme to take a councillor to a fantastic local curry house in Sparkbrook to plead the case for additional funds, believing he had some sway in the Department of Recreation and Leisure. A week later on the thirty first of March a motor bike despatch rider pulled into the newly constructed car park at the Ackers Trust. The rider was from a private delivery company and he got me to sign a receipt before handing over an envelope, inside which was a council cheque for £75,000. On one level this was brilliant news which enabled the work on the canoe lodge to continue. On another it was a deeply disturbing example of the ad hoc decision making in local government at year end. It was only after we had received and cashed the cheque that some notional performance indicators were cobbled together. I did however leave a large tip on my next visit to the curry house.

Single skull rowing requires more than a little skill. I was sitting in one and working up a sweat on the river near Pershore in Worcestershire, figuring that if I could master the delicate balancing required both to prevent capsizing, and yet move forward anyone could. If all went well the idea was to purchase these expensive items for the ‘Ackers’ in a deal which came with free training. Weeks later a trailer arrived at the Ackers Canoe Basin with two single skulls on it for the ‘trials’ on the canal as a prelude to a final agreement.

A row downriver on a perfect day in the country had more appeal than what was now being offered on a freezing morning on the canal in water that had somehow passed the pollution tests. Sensing an escape route I stopped a passing guy on a mountain bike and asked if he wanted a go in the sleek looking skulls. Mountain bikes had only just begun to be seen in public and this was evidently a top of the range model. I also noticed when the man dismounted that he has wearing a very expensive watch. As he was getting instructions on how to row I asked what he did and received what, in hindsight was a very modest answer. “I play in a band”. He proved to be a natural rower, and after he had performed with consummate ease for about half an hour he got out of the water and back on his bike. “What’s your band called?” I half shouted as he began to ride away. “UB40” he replied, and was off. Top of the Pops that week featured a new single from Chrissie Hynde with UB40, and our rower was the bass player.

The canoe basin, the climbing wall and the foundations for the ski slope together with the now well used social centre meant that the Ackers Trust was getting a profile in the area. Sparkbrook had heavy unemployment together with all the challenges one normally associates with inner city wards and so security was initially a big issue. We didn’t want it to be prison like but with expensive equipment and top range indoor facilities we had to be vigilant in a non oppressive way. There was an attack on the building by members of the Ethiopian Welfare Association who claimed wrongly to have been excluded from it. This was repelled with courage, dignity and no little bravery by Vinnie who calmly stood at the entrance to the building and talked down some very agitated and armed young men.

The climbing hut which housed all the equipment was stoned at a time when both instructors were trapped inside it. A keep fit class for Asian women was something we had initiated and during sessions we had to cover windows for cultural sensitivity. However chaos ensued when local youths playing snooker next door broke in to ogle. Those who hold the stereotypical view that Asian women are quiet, reserved and undemonstrative should have been there as they set about the snooker players.

All of the above happened in one week and was fairly typical at first. Over a relatively short period of time though, these incidents then decreased and almost disappeared. Theorists would say it because locals were included, recognised the investment in them and therefore bought in to what was on offer. This is too simplistic a rationale although it was partly the case. The truth is more about pragmatism and practicality. When the Ackers Trust developments were new they stood out and were a target. When the attempts to plunder resources were rebuffed trouble makers moved elsewhere. We did employ local people wherever possible and this of course helped.

An outdoor dry ski slope in an inner city area with poor housing, poor educational achievement and huge unemployment had never been a consideration in the UK in 1986. When mooted it provoked divided opinion and was an easy target for journalists and of course tub-thumping councillors. For anybody who was seriously interested in getting past clichéd arguments, there was in fact a robust business plan and outside financing from the Sports Council.

Why should skiing be the preserve of the moneyed classes anyway? The opening of the slope was to be my last stand in Birmingham as I was about to transport my uncomplaining and well travelled family to a castle on the coast in Wales. The launch day was a noisy and joyful occasion with locals and big wigs falling down together, and with kids from Sparkbrook skiing with uniformed girls from a school in Lichfield. There were turbanned Sikhs skiing with Rastas, and the local paper ran the story under the headline ‘Austrian Alps come to the Ackers’. After a twenty year gap I have had occasion recently to drive past the Ackers Trust a few times and the fact that it is still there makes me wistfully happy – but the past is better left alone.