Now that I was back in London, life was beginning to hold more promise and I moved to a flat near Cromwell Road where I would often bump into some old friends from Malta. Deirdre Hamilton Hill was one such friend. I often visited her and her husband, Corin Redgrave, in their apartment nearby and I remained friends with both of them for many years.
At work, I was getting to grips with this new and exciting career. For a short time after my arrival, I shared an office with Chris Long. We became friends and have remained so to this day.
Life in any advertising agency is never quiet but in JWT, it was life on overdrive, always fast-paced and hectic. There was no such thing as failure! On one occasion, a decision was made not to promote a particular U.S. product. They decided, at the last minute, that the market in Britain was not quite ready for it. A full campaign was about to start and slots had been booked for it on all the major TV stations. To cancel the advertising at this late hour meant losing millions of pounds. To replace them with other products at such short notice was going to be very tricky. both the senior managers were abroad at the same time and this was well within the eight week cancellation period and for prime time television. I got to work, and, with the help of four or five secretaries and all my contacts in the various TV companies, I managed it.
As can be expected at this time, I was drinking heavily as this non-ending round of entertaining clients and networking regularly with all the television contacts carried on after hours and well into the night.
If we were not meeting our contacts my colleagues and I used to meet every single day, talk business, drink and then go and relax at some private party.
Had God gone away? Had he entered my thoughts during this time? Vaguely I think, but I did not have any sense of deep religious belief (please explain further) If I had any thought at all about my promise to the Good Lord it was perhaps brought back to me by the visit of my Mother to London. It was now a year and ten months after that awful day of her stroke. She came to visit a specialist, unaccompanied by any nurse or helper. Her courage was amazing, her left leg was still limp and had to be dragged as she walked but she would hobble along with the aid of her walking stick, laughing and joking if, by chance, she stumbled. Her friends in Malta had recommended she visit Mr.Evans, a Harley street specialist, since he had a very good reputation and they felt sure he could help.
When she arrived in London, I went to see her at her hotel room and then accompanied her to Harley Street. At the clinic, I saw her safely into the doctor’s room and then turned to leave. But Mr. Evans had other ideas. He stopped me in my tracks and demanded I stay in the room as he examined her. I was astonished. Imagine the scene, my mother waiting and me being confronted by this strange doctor. I adamantly refused. But he was not going to give in. He looked straight at me and ordered me to stay.
“How old are you?” he asked. I did not answer but he carried on anyway. “Tell me,” he went on, “why are you not married?”
“Mind your own business,” I quipped back at him. His reply was unexpected. “You are leading a promiscuous life young man. Change your ways!” It would be an understatement to say that I was astonished and yet I remained quiet because I genuinely felt that this was a paternal person, that this was a person who cared. The examination carried on. When it was over he gave us the address of another specialist in Marleybone street and asked me to take my mother there immediately. He told us that the second doctor would examine her and give her the final diagnosis. So off we went with me trailing along, slightly at a loss.
The second doctor was decidedly more abrupt and asked me to tell my mother that if her left side was still paralysed after 22 months, there was no hope of recovery. No way was I going to tell my mother that! I told him so and said that he as a doctor should tell her this himself. He did and my mother replied, through gritted teeth, “we shall see!
The doctor could see that she was a true fighter. My mother’s determination had impressed him. As though inspired, he suddenly suggested she should see a physiotherapist in the London Clinic. Too late or not, he arranged for a therapy session there. Off we went, back to the hotel and my mother seemed really happy. “Why?” I asked her, “Why does suggesting a million to one solution mean so much to you?” She then told me the following story:
Sometime after her stroke. Her friend and neighbour who lived opposite us in Victoria Avenue, took a picture of my mother and went to see a Holy man called Frenċ, who lived in Gozo. Frenċ was known all over the islands. It was believed he had visions of our Lady and many people were healed after he had prayed for the intercession of the Mother of God. Frenċ looked at the photo, said he knew the person in question and suggested she needed physiotherapy. He also said that her healing would come about but someone in the family would suffer greatly. I listened quietly but began to understand that this simple Gozitan villager, who knew nothing about my mother, let alone her state of health, was probably speaking on behalf of a higher power. My mind, still wrapped up in my busy life, still failed to see that this had anything to do with my desperate prayer. God was at work, keeping His side of the bargain but was I?
A few days later I once again accompanied her as she went to see the physiotherapist at the London Clinic.
At her very first session the doctor was amazed to see her responding to treatment. Once she had learnt what she had to do, she returned home and carried on with the therapy in Malta. I regularly received news of her progress which told me that she was improving in leaps and bounds. She could now move about with relative ease. I was told she even joined a group who carried a statue of our Lady to various homes and prayed with them. More than this, I learnt that my parents were spending most of their time together and were once again truly united. My father had never lost his love for my mother.
You can imagine my reaction to all of this. There was now a growing belief that, however tragic, circumstances proved God was always there putting things right. Somewhere inside of me I was beginning to know God really was a saviour. However, I was not ready to change anything in my life. Things went back to ‘normal’ and I continued on my way, mixing with people who I was very fond of but who never talked about faith or God. I went back to the drinking, networking meetings and the late night parties were again in full swing. It was after one of these parties that God’s next reminder was delivered. This time it was from a long-time acquaintance who had been taught at the Benedictine college of Ampleforth. I was escorting my date back to her home at two in the morning. As we entered the door of her flat in Knightsbridge, there was Henry, her brother standing in the middle of the room. His look said it all and I withered a little at his angry stare. He did not let either of us say a word but launched into a vicious tirade, tearing me to shreds with every other word. I had heard about Henry, I knew about the tragic car accident he had been involved in, how someone had been killed and how the trauma had effected him for years. I had heard that, after the accident, he had been gripped by a religious fervour and made a habit of pointing out one’s faults without hesitation. H accused me of being immoral or amoral and showed his disgust at his sister being out with anyone so morally filthy and debauched. I listened in awe to the long litany of failings he placed at my feet but instead of feeling hurt or upset, I had a mysterious sense of being cleansed.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” his sister asked me, totally bemused by my silence.
“No,” I said, smiling “he is just telling the truth.”
Henry responded by picking up a book and throwing it at me. “Read this,” he said. I caught it and looked at the title; ‘Theresa of Avila’. I left the apartment without another word and took the book with me.
Back at work in JWT, things were beginning to sour. My friend Chris Long decided to leave and went to work with Robert Stigwood. At first I carried on but it was not the same and, quite honestly, not as much fun. Henry’s words were put on top of the ever mounting pile of ‘reminders’ that the Lord was now sending. I believe, despite her shortcomings, my mother’s prayers and those of her sister Connie, were being heard. One of my contacts in Tyne tees television was a jewess, called Maria Eckhart. She was one of my work contacts who tried to understand why I was becoming so fed up with life. She could see I was heading for self-destruction and tried to encourage me to stop and look at myself. We started going out together and she continued gently trying to talk some sense into me. For once I began to listen. Perhaps it got past my defences because it was coming to me from within that ‘other’ world I had so completely thrown myself into.
I decided to put my old friend Jean Leyris, forward for a job at JWT and, on my recommendation, they accepted him and he started soon after. Jean is a truly colourful character, intelligent, artistic, outgoing and has turned out as a very successful person. However, not at this job, he soon left and, once again, I felt lost in a sea of madness.
I eventually decided to read the book Henry had thrown at me and that too finally got through. I put it down and realised I had to do something about my life. Going for a walk near the office in Berkley Square, I discovered a church in Farm Street, an old Gothic style church which I entered and found that the confessional was open and a priest was waiting inside. I had no hesitation and went straight in and started unloading my soul’s saga onto the listening priest. When I had at last finished there was silence. I waited, “Have you murdered anyone?” asked the priest. “No,” I replied.
“Ah well, at least there is some good in you!” and laughed.
I heaved a sigh of relief – that was the beginning.