Americans,Aristocrtats  and a deringer

 I ended up selling my Sumban Ikats to Somerset Maugham's grand son, Jonathon Hope 3rd Baron of Glendevon, thanks to an introduction by Noelle Simpson. I had shown the collection to some interior designers - Anne Greville - Bell, who thought they were hideous!! I explained that they were ceremonial shrouds that sometimes are used for wrapping the dead.Jonathon as it happened was collector and knew them for what they were, and I sold them for what I paid - so my time as a trader in East indo artifacts turned out a waste of time, considering the amount spent presenting them to galleries in Paris and Amsterdam.

I had rallied some of Charles Osborne's' American friends in London due to my efforts to help him get off the booze, which didn't last long.Peter Bennett being one and Peter Morton another who had just opened the Hard Rock Cafe in Mayfair.

Peter Bennett asked me to move into his house he was renting in Ebury Street , Belgravia, which was around the corner from Victoria Railway Station,nice and handy to the London Tube.The house was owned by Charles Worthington - Worthington Breweries and related to the Noel Cowards song ; ( Don't put your daughter on stage) Mrs Worthington.

 Charles W had inherited this house when he turned 21 and had not done much to the house, which was a three level, brick, free standing, town house, built back in the seventeen hundreds, the basement used to be the servants quarters, had been converted into a self contained one bedroom apartment and the other levels into living and sleeping quarters.

 In the back garden, which was long and narrow, he had built a folly; it was a large purpose designed party room, about 200sm,constructed and designed in the Palladium style.Ffteen foot ceilings,  Italian Carrera Columns and white marble floors, two fireplaces on opposite sides of the room, several giant beige velvet sofas scattered throughout the room and  the latest  B & O sound system. Water feature at the entrance and a spiral staircase leading up to a roof garden,

This 'Folly' that Charles W had built was designed to be 'party central' unfortunately Peter was in no party mood when I met with him and decided to move in. His wife Sara had recently left him for a wealthy Arab and taken both their children Oliver and Susan.
Peter was a tall angular guy about six three,he was fair in complexion with scars from acney on his face from when he was a kid.Very outgoing and confident he came from San Francisco after graduating from Yale and became the brightest and youngest stockbroker in San Francisco. Where he met Sara, became married, had Susan and Oliver and then they moved to London when the kids became school age.

Peter joined up with rmerchant banker with Merrill Lynch in charge of aircraft financing  and he was 'hurting big time' and in all sorts of therapy to help cope with the separation,when I moved into Ebury Street. In the ensuing months I would become exposed to more of  the therapies and counselling that Peter was being instructed  about and using to unburden his hurt and mend his soul. This was countered on the other side with Charles Osborne,who, reverting back, to his old ways of ' just getting pissed' or off his face with what drug happence to be around at the time.  With me bookended between the two, some sort of collision was meant to happen.

I had my own quarters consisting of bedroom, sitting room and bathroom on the ground floor, Peter lived in the two upper levels and Ennis Montague, another colourful 'knock a bout' also moved in, and took over the basement . Ennis was English, through and through, the illegitimate son of Lord Montague of Beaulieu and his mother was the Queen of the Pearlie's (cockney aristocracy!!) and he had a car yard in Lambeth and knew everyone from the Royals to East End Gangsters. Ennis was about six foot two and reminded me of a big shambling bear, he was bent over at the shoulders and had a big smiling face with long unkempt black wavy hair.

So the two of us used to take over the "Folly" with an assortment of Ennis's aristocratic girlfriends, like; Anne Lambton, daughter of the Earl of Durham and Katie Windsor - Lewis and  a Russian Princess called Valentina Seminyenko and my my colonial mates who were often flying in and out. Occasionally Peter would take us to his club "Wedgies" on Fulham Road or we would meet up with friends at "Tramps" or "Annabelle's" which were the three most popular clubs in London at this time and from where we would return with a retinue of 'randoms' and party to the early hours.

Charles O would visit often, on one such time he asked if I could help, by accompanying him to a lady friends apartment who had been beaten up by her ex. She was trying to get her  ex Arab boyfriend to move out, as he was of violent behaviour and had recently belted her up which was responsible for their splitting up, and she was scared that he would be like that when he came to get his belongings. So she asked Charles if he would be present when her ex, Sargon, turned up.

Charles had a pre Civil War Derringer on his desk which he used as a paper weight and was a family heirloom, probably used as a duelling pistol.He decided to take this when we went to help this damsel in distress, much to my dismay!! When we got to her apartment I hid the derringer in a waste paper bin  and we waited for Sargon to appear. After time, he arrived and off course Charles had to be a hero and tried to fight the guy, which in turn, I had to break up as Charles was in no fit shape to blow out a candle. As I pulled Charles from underneath him, as the two of them were wrestling on the stairs,Sargon the Arab, vanished out the front door.
After we got our breath and sorted the place out. I decided to take the derringer off the premises and as I was walking out the front door with the derringer in my jacket pocket. The door bell rang and when I opened the door Sargon was there with the Police who immediately asked "what did I have in my pocket "- to which I replied "a gun".Which I handed over and they asked who was the owner to which I replied "Charles Osborne" and explained that it was not loaded and I was tacking it off premises, back to where it came from. They asked "Did I have a license to carry a firearm", No officer - more police arriving, and we were  taken down to Belgravia Police Station and charged with possession of a firearm.

Peter came down and bailed us out and this started another saga that lasted for twelve months of legals, weekly appearances at Belgravia Police Station and court appearances.To be eventually  acquitted, as  it was proven the Derringer could not be fired and was not an offensive weapon. 

So over that period, I used to go to Dolphin Square in the mornings, Dolphin Square was a deluxe complex of apartments with a twenty five meter, six lane, indoor pool, where I would do laps,train and keep myself fit.Harrods was around the corner,and I often would wander through on my way over to see Charles who had his apartment in Pont Street.Charles was always hatching up schemes and ideas which often had merit but always required finance and he was finding that no one would finance him because of his heavy drinking and reliance on alchohol.Besides always trying to think of a scheme to obtain possession of the Bali Hotel, another idea which we spent months on researching and time in preparation of presentations and flow charts; was to supply video content for the CCTV circuitry installed in to the Hilton Group in the Emirates of which there were about seven properties in the group. For this we brought in one of Charles acquaintances Dennis Scuse who was the director of programming for the BBCTV. But like everything Charles tried, the dreaded booze got in the way and I was always the one to pull him out of the shit so as Christmas 1980 was looming I decided to fly home and see my parents and catch up with what was happening in Australia.

Meeting Charles Osborne - ex Kayu Aya

After finding a room in Knightsbridge and settling in I contacted friends, as I wanted to offload the Ikats as they were becoming a "pain in the bum" having to cart them around, I felt like Gurdjieff in his 'Meetings with remarkable men'.

Noelle Simpson rang to invite me to a dinner party at her place, which was at Kensington for about fifteen people, most whom I knew, except for the person sitting opposite, who was a tall, loud mouthed American, and as he became drunker, he became louder until I asked him to 'cool the farm'.Some where during the  table conversation, it came up that I had been living in Bali, when the American heard this, he took some interest in me - lo and behold, who should he turn out to be, non other than Charles Osborne - the American who built the Kayu Aya Resort, Bali.

Initially I did not like the man he was bombastic and self opinionated and loud, so loud that i left the table and exchanged telephone numbers as i wanted to catch up with him but not that night as he was to pissed.

When I next contacted him he was very bitter over what had happened in Bali and his world was in major disarray,Charles was an alcoholic and in a depressed state,he was divorced from his wife Katinka who had remarried  the former  Californian Senator John Tunney.His business Euromedico, which built turnkey hospitals in Africa,was no longer operational and his source of income was dependent on friends who also were diminishing.

Over the years Charles had lived in Paris and was a high flier , who counted amongst his friends the German Playboy, Gunter Sachs who was married to Brigitte Bardot amongst others, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre who both co authored the book ' Is Paris Burning'. They all used to ski together at St Moritz and ' do the Cresta Run' - a ice racing toboggan track for the wealthy. Charles wife as mentioned before, was the niece of Carl Gustaf - King of Sweden, so he used to hang in exalted company.

Not so much now, Charles was intent on trying to retrieve his interest in Bali and was trying to resurrect other business ideas, and over the weeks we spent more time together and he endeavoured to get himself on track, but the booze had him in its grips. I would come around in the mornings to his apartment in Pont Street, which was around the corner from Harrods and would smell booze on his breadth about 9.am. He drank vodka with Carlsberg Elephant beer chasers, and by mid morning he would be off his face, and nearly incoherent. We at this stage were trying to launch a video courier service to the Hilton Group in the United Emirates where Charles had contacts and all was being jeopardised by his drinking.

We decided to confront this devil drink, and I took Charles to see an Australian Psychologist in Harley Street, about admitting Charles in to a detox clinic and he suggested Bethlehem Royal Hospital.Bethlehem (Bedlam) has been part of London since 1247 and recognised as the worlds first and oldest institute to specialise in mental illnesses.I signed  Charles in and he was shitting himself, as I was the one who had total authority on his release. Charles used to call me " digger", when I dropped him off for his twelve day detox programme, he said to me after being admitted in his deep Southern American drawl " Digger, for fucks sake don't forget that I 'm in here."

I visited Charles most days, after he was in there for a week, we were in the visitors lounge talking, I mentioned to him how quite the atmosphere was through out the hospital and he said I've saved you a present, and handed me two pills, with the instruction on taking them to be close by a couch. Later I remembered the pills when I was back in his apartment and took the pills as he instructed next to a large sofa, no sooner had I swallowed both, in about one minute I was off in La La land to awake about six hours later- no wonder the hospital was so quite, they just drugged the shit out of everyone and thus no disturbance.

Paris Amsterdam London

I had not been to Europe since 1964 when I travelled with some friends on the Fairstar and arrived in Southampton, now thirteen years later I was arriving in Paris, this time on my own and a much more travelled and street wise person. I had been to Paris before, during a fleeting six week tour of France Spain Holland and Belgium, there was little recollection.

I was not into sightseeing, my mission was to offload the collection of Ikats that I lugged from one gallery to the next. My memory is pretty vague on the galleries, most i visited were medium size on the left bank I got a perception they were not to interested in Indonesian art/ artifacts, except I remember passing a trendy looking bar in one of the backstreets and hearing Peter Frampton's new song belting out, I had not heard him before so I went into the bar and asked who it was singing - the song was  'Show me the Way' and when I hear it, I remember that bar in Paris.

I didn't sell one item in Paris,Amsterdam was not much better, I sold some artefacts to a couple of  galleries near the university, I knew Holland would be hard as they have been over endowed in Indonesian art  and artefacts over many years and was a bit like, 'coals to Newcastle' - still I had to try.

Next was London, which was a disaster from the time of arrival to the time of departure twelve months later. On arriving at London airport I got busted for bringing in two small blocks of Hashish, that I had stretched out - by warming it , to fit between my toes on both of my feet.

I was wearing a full length Chamois Coat, embroidered with coloured stitching's and as I was talking to a customs officer, bending over to get my passport out from my wallet  a gold twenty Shrang Tibetan coin attached to a gold chain around my neck,fell out , dangling in front of the female officer. She noticed  the coin and cupped it in her hands, and remarked on what a beautiful coin, asking ' where it was from', when I told her it was from Tibet ,she asked had I been there and replied that , 'no, I had swapped it for a portable stereo, in Bhoddna, Nepal'.

She then asked me to come this way and took me into an office where we were joined by another male officer who asked me where I had been, and to open my bags, then searched through the contents, which were numerous, and then they did a full body search and found the Hashish between my toes, which amounted to fuck all. 

This was then put on the table as evidence and the guy then went through my wallet and found my "Grape Escape"  business cards.He then asked if owned the Grape Escape and I replied I was the owner operator, he then said he used to go there for lunch and used to work at Eric Porter's Film Studio as an animator and then he remembered me, and I asked ' why are you busting me for such a piddling amount of Hash'. He said they thought I was someone else, who was a big time dope smuggler and apologised - with that I lent over and grabbed one of the pieces of hash and swallowed it, which pissed him off, as half his evidence diminished in front of him, down my throat.

That night I ended up in Heathrow Gaol, stoned off my head with an IRA Irish cell mate who abused the police all night to my amusement. Fortunately I had friends in London who came and bailed me out, after pleading guilty to possession of two grams of hashish, I was back in England for the second time after 13 years.

More Of the Himalayan Hill Stations

More buses, more valleys, more mountains, raging rivers crossed and more of the most exotic scenery coupled with the most amazing tapestry of life, cultures, smells and diversification's of sounds and colours all becoming an overload for the senses. The trip across to Simla, on my way to meet up with the Tibetan Dance and Ballet Group in Dharmsala was even more fascinating than the bus trip to Manali.As now I was traversing across the lower mountain roads across the Himalayas, with scenery ever changing around every bend of the road.

Simla  was the summer capitol of the British Raj in the mid eighteen hundreds.  There was still plenty of remnants scattered around in the form of colonial architecture,Simla was   famed for its Victorian  Architecture with most of the houses built from timber ( oak).

From Simla I continued to Mcleod Ganj (ganj being the Hindi word for neighbourhood) which is where the Tibetan Government in exile is headquartered. This is further up the mountain from Dharmsala where the Dalai Lama official residence is and where I intended to stay for awhile. 
I booked into a funky old guest house which are prolific, they look good on the outside but when you get to your room they don't stand up to any scrutiny,  I moved out  the next day as they did not have hot water. . I wanted to stay for about a week. On a notice board in a coffee shop, I spotted a current, well written ad, for a room with mountain  views and garden which I tracked down, inspected, and moved in. It was owned by an Anglo Indian Lady who was a gem. I had my own bathroom and a hot shower which I was hanging out for, I had been living rough for about ten days and was desperate for a hot shower, shave, shampoo and clean set of clothes and was able to wash my dirty stuff and re establish my orientation and just stop and relish where I was.

I met up with the blokes in the TD&BC who showed me around the Tibetan Precinct which is large and becoming very established with the help of the Indian Government. Mcleod Ganj is a preferable place to Dharmsala to live as it is higher and not as crowded and closer to the high range of mountains.I went trekking several times following paths that must be centuries old into valleys and peaks, the air so clean - trekking, it is a bit like going for a surf, its a solo spiritual activity that invigorates  all the senses, lifts the spirits and the fitter you are the more enjoyable the activity.

I was now feeling totally rejuvenated and  sufficiently healthy, that I was able to eat from selected sidewalk food stalls without getting 'Asian Belly,' which is a good barometer on the state of your health. I had been on the road for the past three months. In Nepal and India, and felt I had seen and achieved enough for this trip,India would beckon again.  I still had Paris and Amsterdam to go, as i had my collection of Sumban Ikats to sell.

With this in mind I left the hill stations  of India and caught a bus back to Delhi and picked up my belongings from the Oberoi Hotel's cloakroom and proceeded to organize my booking to Paris, Amsterdam and London.

Himalayan Hill Stations- Manali

I stayed at the Oberoi Delhi and met up with Bicky Oberoi informing him of the opportunity of management rights for the Kayu Aya, Bali. Which subsequently happened and the Oberoi still have the management rights to the hotel to this day of writing, thirty four years later, as I visited the hotel in February 2012.

From Delhi I planned my assault on the Himalayan Hill Stations that i wanted to visit ; Manali, Simla, Dharmsala, Mcleod Gang. Wanting to travel light  and well organised for the cold nights, the first bag to go into the Oberoi cloakroom, was my canvas suitcase with the Sumban Ikats, which were to heavy to lug around. 

I had bought a ceremonial antique shawl from Bhutan in Kathmandu made from raw silk the size of a small blanket, which was light yet very warm in sensational colours of orange,saffron, maroon and red. I had a pair of suede rust coloured calf high hiking boots made in Delhi whilst there. Minimised my pack down to, two pairs of jeans, three t shirts, one flannel overshirt, three pairs sox and u pants camera books passport and money packed into a canvas overnight bag and i was off.

A cab took me out to the general  bus terminal which was huge, chaotic and difficult to find my way around, after what seemed innumerable enquiries on where to find the Manali bus and as many misleading directions. I eventually found the bus to Manali which was nearly choka block already. I secured my seat next to the driver, as my instructions had been that was the spot to secure, the reason was ; that if they went off the road into a a ravine on the mountain roads, as you were closest to the door, you could get out the bus, pronto!!

It was fourteen hours to Manali by public bus, about 500 kms, I purposely wanted this experience,not  by coach, I wanted to travel cheap and in the raw with 'India no frills' I wanted the real picture show, kaleidoscope of  people and the cornucopia of colours, smells, animals in cages. The trip was every bit the exercise in being out of my comfort zone, integrate with the locals on the the buses, an the junctions where they got on and off, eating from the sidewalk hawkers, after my bloodletting in Bali I was well conditioned to Asian food. 

There were the Sikhs with their turbans, so warrior like,the women with their babies slung to their backs in sensational coloured fabrics draped in unusual and different methods around their bodies.The smells, oh ! so overpowering and constantly wafting, from sidewalk cooking to toxic fumes of diesel and the ever constant smell of human shit, to the fragrances of herbs spices and human sweat, which was more prevalent as we drove higher into the mountains as it got colder, and the windows and doors became shut to keep out the cold draughts.

Manali was at the end of the road of Himachal Pradesh the state which shared borders with Kashmir, Tibet, China, renowned for the best hashish in the world and the best ski field in India. What a trip, once we hit the mountains i was so glad to have my door side position, we weaved through valley after valley following huge rivers, one minute high up then the next right beside raging rapids with traffic constant ,with room for only one vehicle to pass.

One scene that has always stayed in my mind - we were at the top of one of the passes, around 10,000 feet, surrounded by peaks and mountain tops with the road only one lane wide, sheer cliff face on one side and a void of hundreds of feet on the other, out in the middle of 'no - where'. Perched on a solitary peak, which appeared straight up from the depths,as the crow flies 100 feet from the road, totally visible, was this Sadu. A holy man, sitting bolt upright, in the freezing cold,  seeming oblivious to all the surrounds, with only a light garment covering one shoulder,most of his body exposed to the elements - in deep meditation. There was no time for stopping, no one to ask questions, we just kept on going though he did cause a stir within the collective audience of the bus. I wonder in amazement at what goes on in his mind,I have heard of these Sadus living to ages of over 
220 years, you say bullshit!! but there is obviously substance to these stories as they are prevalent.                      

I arrived in Manali about midnight, as I got of the bus a young boy about fourteen came up to me and said " welcome to Manali" and held out his hand as if to shake, and handed me a big lump of hashish the size of  half a small fist, then he showed me to a guest house which was a colonial two level building with a veranda around the top level. I stayed there a week trekking into the mountains and through the forests of oaks, fir trees and rhodendrums. Besides hashish and tourism, agriculture is also a big crop, there are many orchards off Apples, Pears and Plums. 

I was walking one of the lane ways after breakfast and i heard this very British female voice from behind a stone wall so I peaked over to be spotted by an elderly lady, who saw me and asked "can I help you" I commenced a conversation and she invited me in for a cup of tea to find out she was a missionary looking after orphans and with that she found me a task and for the rest of the day she had me chopping wood for the winter ahead.I decided I better get out of that task otherwise I would be chopping wood for all winter, so off I headed for Dharmsala and the Tibetans.

Nepal

My first task after my recovery was to get back on my bike to regain my confidence,so decide to ride into Kuta. I had only ridden out of the grounds of the resort and riding through Seminyak village when a dog jumped in front of me. In that split second i had to decide do I drive straight over the top or swerve and end up on the side walk and possibly side swipe  some obstacle. I accelerated the bike, and hit the dog dead centre in his rib cage with the front wheel of the bike, keeping the handle bars firm I rode over him with a bump, landing on the other side I turned the bike around and drove the bike back to the Kayu Aya,  I have never  got on a motor bike since.

I had been negotiating with some Australians to buy a collection of antique ceremonial Ikats from the island of Sumba,  I  purchased fifteen, of varying sizes for twelve hundred dollars, my intentions was to sell them to galleries specialising in Indonesian art and artifacts, in Paris or Amsterdam.

Then I organised my trip, flying to Kathmandu, then to Delhi,Paris Amsterdam and London.Kathmandu was like a medieval time warp the buildings ancient and dilapidated, the streets dusty, dirty and treeless, the air thin and toxic from ancient motor vehicles and motor bikes. I had a contact to stay with, Kevin Denlay who lived twenty miles east from Kathmandu in a town called Boddha.Here I stayed for a week, Kevin and family lived in a rented compound which was my base for trekking through the surrounding foothills and visiting Boudhanath which was the largest spherical stupa in Nepal.  This stupa has been for centuries the most important landmark along the Tibetan - Katmandu trade route and was my first contact with the Tibetans.

The stupa was a mecca for pilgrims who do circumambulations of the stupa and is a Buddhist practise done morning and afternoon. Some prostrating themselves on the the ground, getting up walking a pace, and doing the same again, others running their hands over the hundreds of prayer wheels at the base of the stupa, murmuring the prayers simultaneously.

The Tibetans pilgrims who visited Boudhanath fascinated my curiosity they were a striking lot, both men and women. They had a very independent air of "don't mess with me" and yet they were not unfriendly, they stood out  from everyone else due to the way they dressed.  Maroon shawls and  thigh high yak skin hide boots and the ubiquitous strings of silver,coral and turquoise beads around their necks, prominent against their dark weathered skins.They looked as if they belonged,comfortable in their environment, their smiling moon shaped faces, the women carrying the young  babies on sling around their backs.They had a presence, though not tall in stature they stood out from the rest with a resolute calm , not dissimilar to the Masai of Kenya.

The "Chung Houses" of Boddha are worth a mention, these are our equivalents of a bar or pub.The structure is a high eight foot circular  mud wall, with a basic iron roof anchored into the perimeter of the the wall. The centre  is open to the heavens, in the middle is a fire to keep all warm,  around the edge of the circular structure on the ground is a raised mound like a gutter that your squat on.

A women brings you a stone cup about half the size of a tea cup and on her back she has a large pottery urn which she fills your stone cup with "Chung" .Chung is a mix of rice wine and  herbs, milky in appearance and nearly tasteless,with a kick of a mule, similar to Kava - what the Fijians drink. The locals sip it, the westerners throw it down like a shot glass. Once your finished you put the stone cup in front of you and the women fills it again, if you don't want anymore you hold onto it.

The fun starts when someone falls of their perch and they go straight back onto their back, this generates great mirth, especially as the westerners are the first to go, as the evening progresses, the locals start to go which brings more laughter.By this time the place is full to bursting point and people are falling all over the place, everyone is cacking themselves laughing,others have passed out where they have fallen over, the moon is on its descent and it's time to go home.