Jimmy

When I started studying at Norwich Tech in 1972, it took a while to start building a new circle of friends. I guess that should read "first" circle. With my strange childhood I had never really been able to form a circle, having been sent to UK boarding schools from the age of 8.

At Norwich Tech there was my class studying Hotel management but the majority of them came from other parts of the UK and lived in student accommodation and were away in holiday times. We did do quite a bit together, but it was sporadic, and I never fully integrated in their social scene.

The fellow students group did intersect with another source, the Students Union but that never amounted to much more than a group of about 10, almost all males and concentrated solely on the table football machine in the students' hall.

The best circle came from the Trowel & Hammer pub just a few hundred yards up from the college and on the city inner ring road. It was actually a pretty grubby place but cheap, cheap enough to afford a pint of beer, a plate of chips and a packet of ten No6 cigarettes at lunchtime. And it had a car park, so ideal as a meeting place for pre-dinner drinks (read driving off somewhere else for a night of fun)

The final and probably most important group who in part mixed with the Trowel & Hammer brigade were the friends of my 1974-6 girlfriend. One of these was Jimmy W. A wild character who is difficult to describe. Either broke or swimming in cash, no wheels or a superb sports car, a totally skit-y, forgetful chaotic person with more charm than Cary Grant & Dean Martin put together. I don't think many knew what he ever really did. I think he pretended to study at a university somewhere in northern England but was always more often than not to be found in Norfolk, his family home being at Horning near Norwich or in London.

My diary from the 1976 era shows some of the times he had me taxi-ing him around London - Berkeley Square, Annabel's Nightclub, Hard Rock, Barbarellas, Savoy, Old Caledonian.......I think at this time he had probably lost his driving licence or else he claimed to have done so, so as not to have to drive. He never seemed to have a girlfriend but was always "meeting" one in one of these establishments.

Both of us were up in Norwich this weekend. I had been working in the New Forest on Friday got away at 11:00am, London flat 14:00 and then drive to my parents by evening. Although we had "officially" broken up a month or so before, Annabel popped in. (We were regularly together for a while after).

On the Saturday took my car to the Saab dealer at Old Catton near Annabel's home at 8:00 - her mother was a Saab owner and had persuaded me to buy one. I think Annie must have picked me up, and we probably spent the day in Norwich shopping and met up with Jimmy for lunch. My diary then shows "Steve Wiles party at 21:00, meet Maids Head Hotel 20:00, Winterton(-on-Sea) Party and "!". I think "!" was my code for a great evening with Annie, but I don't remember a thing.!

And then today it shows I drove over to Jimmy's parents house with direct access to the river and moored motor yacht and I towed him in his sailing dinghy to Acle, several miles down the river. Heaven knows why. Probably he was selling it to make some capital free for another shady deal.

Would love to know what became of him - I did hear a rumour he may have fled to the USA. A land with enough space and new opportunities to keep this charming, lovable, scoundrel busy.

The Blip is of the Ferry Inn pub at Horning Ferry.