Summer 1989

In the midst of my landlord reneging on an agreement to let the flat to a friend of mine (who was also going to take all the furniture), I drove up to Hamburg with Stefan in his Triumph TR6. It was his pride and joy, despite being draughty and rather noisy. We met C...after the show, who immediately told me the company was looking for a keyboard player and conductor. Would I be interested? Of course I would, but I'd never done that kind of music, before. I was briefly introduced to Klaus, the chief conductor and vague intentions to set up an audition were pronounced.

I needn't have worried, Klaus was as good as his word. Admittedly, he was difficult to get hold of in those pre-mobile phone days, but from my vantage point back in Koblenz after a very enjoyable couple of days in the north I was able to organise an audition for a few days hence. Stefan had also decided he wanted to spend a year in England to learn the language before embarking on his studies. I offered to help him out by putting him up at my Mum's place and started phoning some people who might have work for him in preparation for our arrival, late August.

The next thing to do was go to Hamburg. I don't know whether I thought I'd have a chance, but I was looking for work and Cats had a vacancy. Klaus was charming and positive, but I didn't really feel I'd cut the mustard. Pretty depressed, I phoned a female friend in Koblenz, poured my heart out a bit and got on the train back south. In my mind there was no doubt my time in Germany had come to an end, so I phoned my old agent in London to line up some cocktail piano work for late August.

Stefan had decided to drive to England, so I booked the passage Dunkirk - Dover (I think) and told him we'd need about five hours minimum to get there. I had previous with these routes, but Stefan insisted on leaving later, saying there'd be no problem, the car was fast etc. Blah blah blah as it turned out; the car overheated and broke down in France, fortunately very close to a petrol station. The man in front of me in the queue turned out to be the mayor of the town, so things then went very quickly and efficiently, the car has hauled up onto a trailer and we were ceremoniously deposited in front of the ferry. A later one, of course, as we'd clearly missed our scheduled crossing. We arrived in Dover at 4am and were taken apart by customs. Unsurprising, really: two men in their twenties arrive at 4am, pushing a rather old but seemingly well-maintained sports car. They were very nice about it. We were towed to a nearby Ford garage on whose forecourt we then tried to get a couple of hours' sleep before seeking out a mechanic and a rental car to tide us over until the Triumph was fixed. Stefan's insurance covered everything, so things weren't too bad.

Somewhere around lunchtime we arrived in Norfolk. Stefan settled in quickly and I drove back down to London the following day to start work and sort out Stefan's flat (I'd had some good leads). Everything had to be finished in a week as we had to give the rental car back but even I had no idea how quickly some things could happen...