The Need for Recognition.

Earlier in the week, I took a train to Oxford. Two trains, actually, with the need to change trains at Reading. This was one of those mid-week trips I often take, "to have lunch", as from time to time I go either to Reading or even to London to mull over my thoughts in a cafe, usually, the one inbuilt on the upper floor of a Marks & Spencer department store. Such is the life of one retired from paid work.

A life to be envied or pitied? That's a matter of each individual's opinion. But after a sumptuous meal, I wandered to a nearby shopping mall boasting a rooftop terrace. Among the city's soaring spires, I saw a phenomenon which, for a moment fooled me, until I looked at it more thoroughly.

It was a cloud formation just over the horizon. But the grey hue over a light background gave an impression of a distant estuary with a coastline backed by hilly terrain. It was so realistic, that indeed, for a moment, I was fooled into believing that the city of Oxford looked over a distant river estuary. 

The ghost estuary behind Oxford.

But by checking any map of the UK, it's obvious that the city is totally landlocked and located just south of the Midlands, although the River Thames does pass through it, making that stretch of the river popular with local canoeists and punters.

Afterwards, I found myself strolling along Broad Street along the south face of Balliol College, one of many institutions making up the University of Oxford. Just opposite its entrance, a shallow pothole in the road marks the exact site of the 1555 martyrdom of Anglican bishops Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer. For me personally, this was the most outstanding event in Church history, followed in 1556 by the death of Anglican archbishop Thomas Cranmer who was also the author of the Book of Common Prayer, read in English churches for centuries afterwards. All three were burned alive on the same site for testifying the truthfulness of the Bible.

Although I have always admired such believers who prefer to give their lives to the fire rather than renounce the Bible or deny its truthfulness and historicity, there are times I can feel overwhelmed. From the site of the pothole, I look directly up to the hazy-blue sky and called out to God, feeling somewhat ashamed of my own worries and daily problems that seem paltry by comparison, and I ask for the same level of courage should I ever have to face martyrdom.

As I walk along the historic streets of the city, I watch those passing by predominantly young men and assume that one day they will boast of their alumni at Oxford University. Even our present Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was once a student at Balliol College, as BBC foreign correspondent Mark Lowen, broadcasters Peter Snow and his son, Dan Snow, fellow broadcaster Robert Peston, Professor Richard Dawkins, and many others whose alumni served as the stepping stone to greatness.

I pause, look around and let out a sigh. Oh, how I wish that I succeded academically as these men did. How, from boyhood, have I longed to have made my late parents proud of me! Instead, what they did was to compare me with their neighbour's two sons who were both a little older and considerably brighter, and then to refer to me as an idiot, dim, and worst of all, those dreadful Italian words were directed at me by Mum - maledetto di Dio - cursed of God and destined for Hell. When told this every time I did or said something amiss or without proper forethought, sooner or later, I grew up to believe it to be all true. My sense of self-worth and self-esteem was rock bottom and I accepted all this as an indisputable fact, confirmed by my schoolmates, even our school teachers - to whom I was classed as below average - and later, by my work colleagues. Thus, it must be all true!

I wonder how many men think of themselves the same way I thought about myself? As author and BBC presenter, Simon Reeve wrote in his autobiography that the biggest killer in the UK amongst men is suicide. And he has the right to know. He wrote that as a late teenager, he stood on a footbridge spanning a busy motorway in West London, ready to jump. Just then, a passing truck honked a long blast - a sound that brought him to his senses as he pulled himself away from the edge. Reeve is one of a very rare species who eventually made his way to greatness without attending a Public School or University.

Have you ever had to stand in one long line, side by side, at the school football pitch at the start of the games session? Then the master picked out two team captains, and then it was left for the two boys to select their team players. I was always the last one remaining, and I had to join the team whose captain was unfortunate enough to watch me amber along to his side, whereafter I was invisible, totally ignored.

But sport as a whole I had never disliked. It's so fortunate that such activity covers a very wide range of disciplines, including contests against the clock. And in the early eighties, I put my version of a sport to practical use.

Exact spot of the martyrs' execution, Oxford.

Back in 1982, a friend invited me to a hospital radio studio, a small room tucked under the maternity ward building of Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, the town renowned for its royal racecourse. Hospital radio is a very British institution, normally run by the League of Friends, a charity that gives moral support to in-patients, especially those who are long-stays. Actually, it wasn't a radio in the proper sense, but a cable connection to each of the detachable cell phone-like devices set beside each bed. With each of these, the patient listens to the radio via their earphones.

I became a member of the Friday crew, at first, too many of us to fit into such a small room. Each one of us had just 35 minutes to sit at the console, nicknamed Alice - and he was free to air his voice into the microphone, to be heard by every patient across the whole hospital who had tuned in. Thus, the studio became a cauldron of heated egos, each one of us vying for recognition, a prelude to fame, as a radio presenter, usually mislabeled as disc jockeys, or simply jocks for short.

It was known that hospital radio was a pathway for presenting on national radio, whether it's the BBC or commercial radio. We had one chap who was so vaingloriously ambitious and wanted to broadcast on the BBC, that he made his own cassette recording of his presentation, and submitted it to both the BBC and commercial radio stations. However, he was rejected by all of them and he left our crew without ever returning. 

All this was in the days of the vinyl, long before CDs came into fashion, let alone the computer or the Internet. On one side of the console, there were two manual turntables. While the record on one of them was playing, the other one was cued, ready for the music to begin at the right moment. On one side of the room was the record library. a large cabinet of shelves holding hundreds of albums and singles. Thus, each turntable was twin-speed, 33 RPM for the albums and 45 RPM for the singles (I thought I give this info for the benefit of those born after the year 1995.)

Thus, a common mistake was forgetting to adjust the speed of the turntable after the music had begun. There were times when, even unaware of the presenter's attention, either a single churned out its tune too slowly or an album was whizzing its contents too quickly. Thus the term Roger the Bodger was coined by me, after the Beano comic character and became something of a laughable joke.

The record library gave a good insight into human psychology, even if unwittingly. The largest number of albums taking up the shelves were of solo male singers, such as Adam Faith, Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Rolf Harris, Val Doonican, Gene Pitney - to name a few. Fewer in numbers were male group vocals, such as Beatles, Rolling Stones, Tremeloes, Small Faces, Beach Boys, etc. Female vocals both solo and groups, were considerably fewer, along with the classical albums. All this is a good indication that the need for recognition is found more strongly among males.   

As this strong desire for recognition, especially among males, was reflected by the size of the record stack, so in the studio, the sense of competition was felt, with one teenage presenter, whose mother was a nurse at the hospital, preceded the rest of us. Thus, he referred to himself as the senior jockey, despite his young age. It was due to him that I unintentionally took on the role of detective, after watching him steal singles from the library after reports of records going missing throughout the preceding months.

Eventually, after my initial friend who invited me in the first place left the crew due to his job schedule, I was assigned the team leader by the charity chairman. I narrowed the number of presenters to just three, to cover the full three hours from 7.00-10.00 pm. That is a full hour at the microphone for each of us.

However, the charity eventually ran short of funding. Therefore, by collecting sponsors from both my window cleaning customers and from church friends, I ran the Bracknell Half Marathon to contribute towards rebalancing the charity's funds. Since several attempts had to be made, I ran the race three times, one event a year, to contribute to the restoration of the fund. I also ran a stall at a local fete to raise further funds to put the studio and the charity back on track.

Eventually, in 1985, I left Radio Heatherwood, with myself assigning the keys as team leader to my successor, a friend from church who had joined our crew and was trained up mainly by the two of us. Leaving him to take the reins, I moved on to join Thames Valley Triathletes, based in Reading, as a follow-up from the half marathons I completed.

At Radio Heatherwood studio, taken 1985.

My tale as a triathlete is another story, to which space won't allow me to detail here. Suffice to say, I enjoyed competing in the combined Swim-Cycle-Run events held across the country. Some of these events required an overnight stay at a hotel or even a backpacker's hostel. But not only had I found these events a challenge to my physical side but also to both mental and emotional integrity.

But our greatest achievement was accomplished by bringing the Triathlon into Bracknell, placing our hometown on the world triathlon map. Details on how that was accomplished have already been written in one of my older blogs, Alan Sugar at the Kerith? Thanks, Ascot Baptist. A direct link is given below.

If you see how my blog layout had evolved between 2011 and the present, that's another reason not to feel worthless. Perseverance is what I love doing - which is writing - will lead to such improvements.

Finally, doing everything for the glory of God is the underlying secret behind all issues concerning self-esteem. 

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*To extract the blog from the archives, Alan Sugar at the Kerith? Click here