THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS - WEB · PDF fileTHE LAST OF THE MOHICANS copyright James F McDermott, 2015 5 to understand that afters for them is a matter of negotiation with the client

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

copyright James F McDermott, 2015 1





Harry Meadows? Did you say Harry Meadows? The Harry

Meadows? Yes, of course I knew Harry. But you didn’t, right?

That’s why you’re asking, right? I’ll tell you about Harry, but first

you’ve got to understand what it was like, because you weren’t

there were you, right? This is what you have to imagine.

You pull up at the bottom end of Bond Street where it turns

sharp left into Clifford Street. It’s one way so you stop on the

right, driver’s door to the kerb. One of the doormen leaps out

and opens the door. Good evening sir, he says. Good evening,

John you say. He’s parking the car as the cloakroom girl takes

your coat. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mitzi. More

politeness at the reception. They know you and take you through.

The waiter shows you to your table, the usual one in the corner.

Jack Nathan and his Orchestra are playing dinner jazz, smooth,

melodic. Orchestra? More of a band: sax, trumpet, trombone,

guitar, double bass, drums and me. Yes, I’m Billy Mack, the piano

player. A band, that’s what we are. And you? I’m watching you

even though you haven’t noticed me. You’re in the mood for

dancing. Smooch dancing, that is.

The maitre d’ comes over to the table, black tie,

immaculately groomed, satin reveres to the collar of his black

evening coat. He clicks his fingers at the commis waiters to show

you how important you are. He lights the candle on your table

himself. Good evening, Mr Jones, nice to have you back with us.

Good evening, Louis, nice to be back. Would you like a young

lady to join you? What a good idea, Louis, who would you

recommend? We have a number of new girls with us since you

were here last. Why don’t you choose for yourself?



You look through the little window into the room where the

girls wait, wait, waiting to be booked. They all look pretty,

mostly because they are young. What do any of them really look

like without the pancaked faces and ruby lips? It doesn’t matter.

They’re all tarty in an Essex way; the way men love women but

never dare tell their wives.

She joins you and tonight her name is Amber. How about a

drink? Love to. What would you like? What about something that

sparkles? Nothing else would be good enough, you say. Bottle of

Dom Perignon you ask of the sommelier.

During dinner you buy Amber some cigarettes from the

cigarette girl, and a cigar for yourself. The flower girl offers a

single red rose. How could you refuse Amber? She sets her heart

on a cuddly toy and some perfume. How could you refuse?

Jack’s band also backs the floorshow, a folies bergere style

show with more pretty girls, forty dancers and singers. Before

the show starts a dapper little chap in a double-breasted,

pinstriped Savile Row suit makes his way onto the stage.

Handlebar moustache, silk tie. He nods to Jack and Jack nods to

me. The tune changes. The man breaks out in a strong baritone

voice



Somewhere my love, there will be songs to sing

Everybody stops to listen

Although the snow, covers the hope of spring

As Lara’s Theme come to a climax everybody joins in

Till then my sweet, think of me now and then

Godspeed my love, till you are mine again!

There is cheering and clapping. The small, giant of a man

takes a bow and grins so wide that his face splits in half. This is

Harry Meadows, club proprietor, entrepreneur, West End host,

man of property, bon viveur. This is Churchill’s Night Club.

Jack has led the band at Churchill’s for eight years, but I’ve

been with him for three. There are no clocks and we play segue,

melding song into tune into song. It’s a timeless experience.

When the jazzers jazz, we can’t hear a call for a change of key

for the next piece, so there is a code. Jack signals the next key

with his fingers by the number of sharps or flats in it, up for the

sharps and down for the flats. We all like D major because it has

two sharps. Jack sticks two fingers in the air at the boys, and we

all wave two fingers back at him to show that we have

understood. Jack and Harry have a love hate relationship. He

sacks the band every night. Where are you working tomorrow, he

asks, you’re not working here. But Harry has taken a liking to me.

I’m young and this is my first job in a night club.

Imagine on. A couple of bottles of champagne later, you are

nightclub shuffling with Amber. I watch you as you stroke your

hand down her back, and run your thumb along her pantie line

through the silk dress. You’re testing the likelihood of a promise

for later. Amber tucks herself into you for a moment and smiles.

The girls are not allowed to leave the club before 2am. You have



to understand that afters for them is a matter of negotiation with

the client. Everything else goes on the bill, plus a hostess fee,

paid in full to the girl. Some girls go case, some don’t. Some do

when they feel like it or need the money. Some regular romances

flourish, even marriage. You don’t have to worry. Amber’s

boyfriend is a dopehead and he needs the money. He doesn’t

mind what Amber does to get it. Tonight is on.

Safe sex? Aids hasn’t been invented yet. Most of the girls

use a Harley Street clap-doctor called Hugh. Word of mouth. He

loves fiddling with the girls and is paid in cash or kind.

Harry always wanted to play the piano. He tries to get me

to give him lessons but I’m not a teacher. I don’t have the

patience. I didn’t realise it then but I was girl-crazy and too busy

chasing as many as I could. It just used to swell up in front of me

and wouldn’t settle down until it went somewhere. Anywhere. All

I could do was follow it. I couldn’t help myself. So I find Harry a

really pretty piano teacher, graduate of Trinity College of Music,

and send her round to Meadows House in Queen’s Street every

Wednesday afternoon. I pay her myself and he can’t believe she

doesn’t want anything. Not when he compares her to all the

Ambers who work for him. He showers her with gifts but it’s a

strictly business arrangement. She plonks his fingers on the right

keys and scolds him when he hasn’t practiced. Six months later

he comes to me in delight. I can play Moon River! I can play

Moon River!

The bass player lives with one of the dancers and I really

fancy her.



I kept this picture of her. If you look carefully you can see

she has a black eye under the full maquillage. Bass players are

all mad.

About that time I shared a bed with two bunny girls from

the Playboy Club. I watched them leave for work in the evening,

bosoms propped up with wire-lined bras, provocative fluffy tails

attached to their rears. Caked in makeup and red, red, ruby red

lips, just like Amber’s.

Later on, under the duvet together, stripped of the

pancake faces, they seemed younger and naïve again. But the

perfume lingered on the pillows even when they were not there.

We fiddled around and made love in the way that young people

do, experimenting and learning.

I suppose we were together for about six months, from the

autumn through the winter nights. In the spring we just went

separate ways. I can’t remember why or even which was our last

night together. But there must have been an unremarked

farewell. Life is like that. There was a day when you slipped from

your mother’s knee to discharge an important errand, never to

return. But you don’t remember it.



I never saw Julia or Yvonne again, but I did read, in the

social columns of the paper, that Julia married a baronet and

moved away to some pile in the country.

On Mondays I play for the open auditions at the Astor Club.

It’s worse than it sounds. Bertie Green advertises in The Stage

every Thursday, and those who don’t know what it’s about turn

up. The first act is a comedian who tries to make an empty room

laugh. It is excruciating. He dies a tortuous death until Bertie lets

him off. We’re looking for vocal acts this week, can you sing?

The next one is a soubrette from Murray’s Cabaret Club

who now thinks she has put some sort of an act of her own

together. She marches onto the stage and asks me: can you sight-

read? She shouldn’t have said that. I smile and prepare my

revenge. She picks her first song and says it’s in C. I lay down the

opening chord to bring her in but play C7. I emphasise the

seventh. If you are not experienced, this will bring you into the

song a fifth out. She isn’t experienced and within eight bars she’s

warbling hopelessly out of her register. She’s not Ella Fitzgerald

or Katerina Valente. She falters, collapses, grabs her music and

runs off the stage. Do you know any jokes, asks Bertie.

Whilst we’re waiting I tinkle on the piano and sing the

risqué version of Billy Holliday’s song to entertain them

The faint aroma of an old French letter

That I discarded when I knew you better

When I pee it stings

These foolish things

Remind me of you



They all laugh. What you don’t realise is that Bertie is

actually trying to recruit girls, young ingénues, as hostesses.

You go to Harry’s other establishment, The 21 Club in

Chesterfield Gardens, off Curzon Street. Car parked, same

welcome. Still imagine. You walk into the bar and Harry is sitting

at the far end of the room, with his back to the door. You think

he can’t see you. Glass of champagne for Mr Jones, he shouts. He

has mirrors all the way round and nobody can enter unnoticed.

His motto is: come as a stranger, leave as a friend. He flits

between the two clubs in his chauffeured limousine, registration

mark HM1.

You light your own cigar with matches, because that is part

of the ritual. Anyone wanting a cigarette can’t light it because a

waiter is there discreetly with a gold Cartier. No one is

neglected. See these book matches? The memories flood back.

Did you know that there were a few tasty merchants selling

a sort of insurance to the late night establishments in the West

End? One face boasts that he has enough muscle to close down

West End Central Police Station if someone wants it badly and

will pay him enough. I stood behind Harry when two low lifes

from the East End turned up at the doorstep of The 21. I really

don’t want them to see me or know who I am. Harry doesn’t

care. You can come in here, Harry tells them, but it will be over

my dead body. He means it. He tells them to go round the



corner to the Pipistrello. They’ll pay you, he says. He faces down

the Kray twins. They never try again. You have to know that

Harry is paying the best protection mob to look after him, the

Metropolitan Police itself. But remember, this turns out to be the

first nail.

The premises of the 21 Club was the home of the Cavalry

Club for a number of years. When Harry takes over he adopts the

maroon and navy silk stripe of the tie of the Brigade of Guards

and adds a small XXI embroidered appliqué for the Club tie. An

aging former guards officer spots Harry wearing the tie, takes

note of his diminutive stature, and accosts him. I say, sir, he

says, are you entitled to wear the Guards tie? Of course I am,

says Harry, waggling the tie. I’m a blackguard!

He runs the Club as a spieler until the Gaming Act of 1968

precludes the use of live entertainment in casinos. Overnight

fifteen hundred casinos in the country are reduced to one

hundred and fifty, located in predetermined sites in major cities.

Then Harry concentrates on the restaurant at The 21, the

American cocktail bar, and the residential facilities. There are

thirty en suite bedrooms. Take note, this is the second nail.

The management of West End establishments, as far as the

law is concerned, is vested in the plain-clothes branch of the

Metropolitan Police. There is also a uniformed branch, and they

hate one another. When Sir John Waldron retires as the

Metropolitan Police Commissioner, the first act of his successor is

to reverse the roles. Overnight the administration of Club activity

in the West End is transferred to the uniformed branch. A bobby

in a helmet will come in to check your licences. There are some

old scores to be settled. This is the third nail.



Some years after his first wife died, Harry takes up with

Maria, and marries her. Maria was born plain Mary, in County

Tipperary, and has made her way to London. The pinnacle of her

career advancement to date is cigarette girl at Churchill’s. She

upgrades plain Mary to Maria because it sounds more exotic. She

has red hair tumbling to her shoulders, and a red-hot temper to

match. But she is young and beautiful, catches Harry’s eye, and

turns his head. He actually marries her.

One of Harry’s great friends is Henry Zeisel, who owns the

Rheingold Club in Mayfair, just off Oxford Street. I deputise for

the pianist there sometimes on a Sunday night. Henry is a fine

musician himself. He says he played in the Vienna Philharmonic

before the war. He talks about his war record with the SEO.

What’s special about the Rheingold is that they give free

membership to the vast number of young au pairs working in

London. The boys flock to the Club like moths heading straight

for a candle flame.

Henry’s love of horses leads him to buy a thoroughbred to

put into training. He gets a two-year-old from two doctors in

Ireland for the modest sum of three thousand guineas, and puts

him in training with Barry Hills in his first season at Lambourne.

He names the colt after the club. Barry’s assistant, Duncan Sasse,

the son of a bigwig in Lloyds of London, spots the potential of the

horse. Rheingold is pipped a short head in the Epsom Derby, and

goes on the next year to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the

richest race in Europe. Lester Piggott up. Rheingold retires to

stud at Coolmore, the first stallion to stand at the lavish premises

created by John Magnier. You must know him: he’s the one who

owned most of Manchester United for a while. At that time he’s



courting Vincent O’Brien’s beautiful daughter, Susan, and when

they marry Henry plays Danny Boy on the violin in church.

Henry’s partner in the Rheingold is Kurt Mueller, a

schuplatter dancer mit der lederhosen. They met on a BBC

television show. As much as Henry is expansive and amusing, Kurt

is narrow and dull. An odd couple. Kurt is a Berliner and talks of

his membership of the Youth Movement before the war. He

comes out with some stunning observations. I am sick of people

criticising Germany, he says. In some ways, Hitler was not so

bad.

He is proud of his command of the English language. Better

than most natives, he says. Nevertheless he asks me to check the

advertising copy he writes for the club. The Rheingold is a gay

club in the heart of Mayfair, it starts. I’ve told you what a

honeypot it is. You can’t say that, Kurt, I tell him. It doesn’t

convey the image you wish. But Kurt is adamant. I have looked up

ze word in ze dictionary, he says. Gay means jolly.

Following the success of Rheingold the colt, Henry goes on

a spending spree for more racehorses. He inveigles Kurt into

taking shares in all of them. Kurt grumbles but agrees. They are

off to York to see a two-year-old run for the first time. I ask Kurt

if he enjoyed his day at the races. Well, my dear, he says, it

takes four hours to drive to York. The show lasts one minute. The

horse comes last. It takes four hours to drive home. Are you

beginning to see what he’s like? I tell him that it’s all the losers

that make the occasional winner exciting. They never find

another Rheingold.

Harry and Henry are inseparable. Henry, a great horseman,

gets Harry into the saddle and they ride daily into the sunset like



the proverbial cowboys on the range. They are both larger than

life characters. It takes one to know one. Nothing can come

between them until they fall out over Maria.

I’ll tell you the whole story later. Without picking at the

scabs, Maria ends up with a child by each of them. The last time I

saw them together they were scuffling around on the floor of

Churchill’s, two middle-aged men fighting over a girl that wasn’t

worth it. But love is blind.

With Maria off the books Harry takes up with one of the

girls, Rhona. His boyish sense of humour nicknames her his

Rhondda Valley. He’s full of jokes. You know Chopin? I’m his

brother, saucepan! I’m fluent in three languages: English, Yiddish

and Gibberish!

But this infantilism, like the singing and the piano playing,

masks his ability as a deal maker. Cast your bread on the water,

m’boy, he says to me, and it will come back a thousand fold.

You’ve heard of the Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi? Harry is

best friends with his wife, Soraya. Through her, with Adnan, he

does some spectacular deals. No aspect of commercial enterprise

is foreign to him. Property tycoons cement their deals over lunch

at The 21, through introductions made by Harry. He is the

moderator, the shmoozer, the go-between. He makes deals work

because both sides trust him. He takes the commission that they

are all grateful to pay.

Harry’s property mate is Ronnie Lyon. Apart from all the

commercial developments he builds, he’s broken the mould in

Majorca. On a rocky promontory a few miles west of Palma, the

far side to the airport, Ronnie builds Roca Marina, a development

of a hundred and twenty luxury apartments. Nothing like it will



ever be built again so close to the coast. Ronnie has the whole of

the top floor of one block, whilst Harry has the ground floor of

another. Between them they sell the flats to the London high

fliers. Have you ever had a bet with Victor Chandler? His family is

well represented. The owners of Walthamstow Dogs are there,

and Lady Docker’s son. There’s a Welsh-Jewish mafia, called the

taffia, and they all buy a number of holiday homes. Harry’s

apartment is a club away from club, with velvet, high-backed

chairs at the dining table, monogrammed HM on the back. Ronnie

and Harry vie with one another in providing the most generous,

spectacular hospitality to everyone.

Back in London, Rhona shares a flat in Baron’s Court with

one of the other hostesses. Fleur’s been around long enough to

hate men. She swigs green Chartreuse from a glass in one hand,

bottle in the other. She lines up jelly babies on the mantelshelf,

green, red, orange, yellow. She works her way down the line,

biting the head off each of them. I really, really hate men, she

says.

There’s a little club in Kingley Street called the Kandy Box

where everyone who works in the clubs goes when they finish. It

used to be the Bag o’Nails. It doesn’t open until 2am. All the

musos, dancers, singers, doormen and girls who haven’t been

booked go there to unwind. Have a look at this: this is their old

business card I found with the photographs. Look closely and you

can see the clubs named.

One night after the Kandy Box I went back with Rhona to

Baron’s Court when neither of us had anything better to do. Be as

dirty as you like, Rhona said. I hoped that Harry wouldn’t find

out. You’re a nice little fucker, she said afterwards. And I smiled,



first from the elevated source of the praise, and then from the

only literal use of the word I had ever heard.

Fleur comes to a sticky end. There’s a columnist with Night

Life in London who haunts the clubs. Writes up the shows and the

people in them. He’s in his late fifties and it’s not his fault that

he’s lost most of his hair and was born with a cleft palate. He

tries to hide it with a scruffy moustache, which only makes it

worse. The trouble is he likes girls. No one knows what actually

happened, but he ends up one Bank Holiday weekend with Fleur.

Lonely with lonely. She puts a stop to his amorous advances with

a kitchen knife. He’s dead on the floor and she’s put away for

eight years for manslaughter.

And so to the nails. I’ve told you that there are some old

scores to be settled in the Met. The new brooms consider charges

of living off immoral earnings. They look at the relationship

between Churchill’s and the 21 Club. Their case is that girls are

picked up at Churchill’s and retire to the bedrooms in

Chesterfield Gardens for the purposes of paid sex. Prostitution.

It’s a legal activity, but cast into the realms of crime when

supported by premises, introductions and any third party



involvement. I drive down Park Lane in the back of Charlie

Clore’s Rolls Royce just before midnight. He nods towards the

Hilton Hotel and observes: can you see it going up and down on

its foundations? In reality, who’s living off immoral earnings?

So then it happens. On a November night in 1977 the police

raid both Churchill’s and The 21. Everybody is arrested and taken

to Savile Row Police Station. I was kept until eight o’clock in the

morning, then released. Harry, his brother and his son, together

with two managers, are charged. It takes eighteen months to

come to court. Louis turns Queen’s evidence to try and save

himself. It’s a long wait. It cripples the business and Mr Jones,

who ever he really was, whatever his real name, slides away and

never returns. No malice. It’s just that discretion is everything,

you understand? The same with all the other Mr Joneses. They

don’t come back. It’s all over the papers.

I’ve told you about the Astor. There are other places in the

West End. Jimmy O’Brien and Helen Archer run the Eve Club in

Regent Street, next to the Edmundo Ros Club. It’s a joke that the

same showgirls there have blossomed, matured and over ripened

for more years than anyone can remember. It’s surprising what



low lights and alcohol can do for what people look like. The

Toleini Brothers have the Latin Quarter. John Aziz has the

Boulogne and the Celebrity, just round the corner from

Churchill’s, which he had bought from Paul Raymond, the

uncrowned king of Soho. Jacques Ammet has l’Hirondelle in

Swallow Street, next to the Stork Club. Tony and Mario have Le

Rififi in Hay Hill. Don’t forget Percival Murray’s Cabaret Club in

Beak Street. It’s where Christine Keeler met John Profumo.

There are some real dives that are not much more than

upholstered sewers.

In going for Churchill’s and The 21 they have gone for the

biggest and the best. You can imagine that convictions here will

send shivers throughout clubland. This is when Harry says to me:

it’s the end. We are the Last of the Mohicans. Night life in

London will never be the same. And he was right. Clubs that had

forty musicians, singers and dancers now have one sad girl

dancing to a tape. Harry gets David Napley, before he’s knighted

and made president of the Law Society, to lead the defence. He

lives next to one of the managers in Dolphin Square. He’s one of

the few solicitors having right of audience in the High Court. The

News of the World delights in stories told by staff, girls and

punters from the hostess clubs. That’s the way they sell

newspapers. In court the girls provide the humour. They’re used

to answering questions from all the Mr Joneses, and this is no

different. They give more than they get. Do you remember

Christine Keeler’s friend Mandy Rice-Davis saying: he would,

wouldn’t he? This is just as funny. The trial drags on and on but

in the end Harry and his acolytes are all acquitted. In his

summing up the judge says: there may be some takeaway



brothels in the West End, but Churchill’s is not one of them. Here

he is, that’s how I remember him.

So that’s some of it, that’s a bit about Harry Meadows. I’ve

told you about lots of people, and they were all characters, each

with a story to tell. There’s so much more. Who do you want to

know about next? Maria? Now there’s an interesting lady. How

long have you got?

∞

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THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS - WEB · PDF fileTHE LAST OF THE MOHICANS copyright James F McDermott, 2015 5 to understand that afters for them is a matter of negotiation with the client