I Drove It My Way Read Free Page A

together. There are signs on the bridge requesting troops from the nearby Chelsea Barracks to break their marching step. Can you imagine those troops bringing down this bridge with pure vibration? I am sure it would take at least two or three platoons banging their big heavy boots down on the road surface to do that. The bridge still has the original toll booths, although they are no longer in use.

Chapter 7
    Back on my imagined taxi journey I have arrived in Ebury Street, where there is a house with a brown plaque commemorating one of the most famous of all composers and a favourite of mine: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Brown plaques were used exclusively for famous foreign people whereas the blue ones were for well-known British people. The story goes that a member of the Mozart family was seriously ill, so to receive the proper treatment the family came to London and rented the house in Ebury Street. It was here that the young Amadeus wrote his first symphony. Mozart was one of the greatest child prodigies that ever lived and was only 35 when the grim reaper gave him the call. He died a penniless pauper in Vienna in 1791. I wonder what great classical works he would have produced if he had been given just a few more years to live? There is a full-size statue of Mozart at one end of Ebury Street in a small triangular area dividing two roads, lovingly known as Mozart Square. It depicts him as a young boy playing a violin, in dancing mode, dressed in the correct period clothes. It is worth a visit.
    They say that a certain composer in Vienna called Antonio Salieri stole or plagiarised some of Mozart’s compositions. It was never proved but about twenty years ago sheet music was found in Salieri’s loft, which, when played, sounded surprisingly like the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I once picked up Simon Callow and asked him was he in the film Amadeus . His reply was, ‘Perhaps’. Well, I have seen the movie and I know he had a good part, so there was no ‘perhaps’ about it. How modest can one be?
    Continuing our journey, we arrive at swankily expensive and affluent Eaton Square. Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees rented a house here in the late sixties. For a time, I was his private television engineer and I remember him saying he was addicted to his television and could not be without it at any time. That meant he paid me well to be on the phone when he needed me. He was such a handsome devil that I was quite jealous of his looks and his money.
    One evening at about nine p.m. the phone rang and my first wife picked up the receiver. After a short time she slammed down the phone, so I asked who the caller was. She said it was some crank caller pretending to be Barry Gibb. Was she surprised when I told her that it really was him! I had forgotten to tell her I was working for him. Luckily he rang back and got a big apology. Then off I went into the night to repair the superstar’s television set. He was one of the nicest high profile people I have ever met.
    The late Kenny Everett used the Bee Gees’ hit song ‘Massachusetts’ on his crazy funny show. With forty or fifty sets of false teeth on a table, Everett sang ‘Mass of Chew Sets’ to the same air as the original tune, which was hilarious. I went to Kenny Everett’s house once – it was in the Holland Park area. The comedian was sitting on top of a very large colour television set with his usual mad look. ‘I expect it’s full of gremlins,’ he said, and, you know, I really think he meant it. Unfortunately, Kenny Everett died in 1995 at the age of 50. How sad is that.

Chapter 8
    The day, the month, the year will never be forgotten. 9/11, 2001. Nothing was ever achieved by that crazy act. We must never forget the thousands of innocent people that were killed and all those loved ones that were left behind to mourn their passing.
    That day I knew a Eurostar train was due to arrive from Paris, so I swung my cab into