Class of '87

I’ll get there early and sit in the corner of the Nellie Dean near Soho Square, my old local, or should I say ‘ours’ because that’s where the creative department used to go at lunchtimes, circa 1987. Admittedly, the Bathhouse was another favourite, and the Pillars of Hercules, but the Nellie was closest, and sometimes word would come in that Max Henry, our Creative Director, known (un)affectionately as ‘Max the Axe’ was looking for his creative teams. Then it was a quick jog back to the agency, feeling the slosh of the pint you just sculled in your stomach, as you also remembered how he got that nickname. Max fired creatives on Fridays like hot dinners, especially if they weren’t back in the office when he returned from one of his long lunches at Escargot.

I never did get fired by Max, but a few others weren’t so lucky. Some of them will be arriving soon, faces I haven’t seen in nearly 40 years. Terry, Sean, Earnie, maybe even the art director whose name escapes me, but who collected guns and was livid when the government banned AK47’s after that guy went nuts with one in Hungerford, West Berkshire. The things I remember from back then. His face was puce with rage as I’d reminded him about the 15 people the nutter had killed with a military rifle.

‘That’s not the point. It’s the bloody Tories telling us how to live our flippin’ lives.’

Good guy, never married though, which is hardly surprising when he spent all his time at shooting ranges.

I hope Terry comes too. Tel had a house in Majorca with a fireplace, over which was inscribed onto a large bronze plate Donated by: before it listed all the ad agencies he’d freelanced at, and there were many. We were all staff, but Tel was a born and bred freelancer. He played the game, paid less tax, knew every expenses trick in the book, and was easily the canniest art director of the lot. Tel would knock out a layout in a few minutes, then slide it inside his A3 drawing pad before starting a new one, slow-ly. Account service guys would rush in, asking, ‘How’s my layout Tel, c’mon, client’s here soon mate.’

‘Alright, alright,’ Tel would say, ‘keep your ‘air on.’

But in the last minute before it was due, and with client service freaking out, old Terry would slide out the finished one and say something to the ‘suit’ like: ‘I’ve done my bit now go sell it!’

Genius. He was a bloody legend old Terry.

The there was Earnie, another artist who made his living in advertising because it ‘pays the bills Rick.’

Everyone called me that, and I was never too sure why. Aged 25, that was who I was in London, and still am to a whole load of people. But Earnie was special because he knew the guy who’d invented Spot the Dog, and every day Earnie was dreaming up a character who might do as well. There was a tortoise I recall, drawn in a myriad of poses, and so I can’t help but wonder if he’d cracked it in the end. 36 years is a long time. I’d love it if he did. I’d like nothing more than to see Earnie pull up in a Rolls Royce with a license plate ‘Tortis’ and walk into the Nellie with his trademark smile bursting forth from his big bushy beard.

Anyway, I’ll get there early and sit in the corner and find out. I’ll nurse a pint of lager and look out the window at Soho streaming by. It’ll be hot, there’s a heatwave on, short sleeves and pretty dresses will flow past, but the faces I’ll be looking for won’t be the young ones, they’ll be old: whiskery, craggy, flushed possibly, from having been crammed into the Underground with a million others. Thirsty too. Those boys could drink, and at two quid a pint it didn’t blow the budget. Well, not Tel’s budget anyway.

‘Freelancers eh, absolutely rolling in it,’ Sean would say, in his thick East Ender accent, forged on the streets within the sound of Bow bells. I wonder what happened to him too. I heard he scored a big agency job in ‘89, around about the time I was in Afghanistan (ironically surrounded by AK-47s), masquerading as a BBC journalist and trying not to get shot by the Russians. I actually hope he arrives in a Roller too. The Cockney geezer, done good. Earnie the artist, done good. Tel, done even better my son!

Won’t be long now. Not if I get there early.

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