Leo

So often these days I read of pop stars and other celebrities, many of whom I have never heard, being surrounded by their security staff or minders and I wonder what they are being protected from. Or is it that we are being protected from them?

Over quite a long lifetime I have known and met in various circumstances any number of celebrities, many who have been household names in their times, and never once have I seen these real celebrities with minders. I recall back in the late fifties, I lived on a large council estate in West London, close to the Loftus Road ground of Queens Park Rangers football club. Back then a collection of celebrities did their bit for a number of charities by playing a sort of football as the Showbiz Eleven. I say sort of football since one member of the team, Billy Cotton (senior) who was then in his eighties as I recall, played for this team for as long as his stamina allowed. The whole thing was designed as a bit of fun and for raising money for deserving causes. The stars of the day who played or in the case of some of the female stars were team mascots didnt come to Loftus Road by limousine. They came on the underground to Shepherds Bush, and walked from the station to the ground, somewhere around three quarters of a mile.

My mate at that time, Spanish Ernie as he was known, and I would often be found walking along and chatting to big name stars such as Tommy Steele (remember him?), singer Marion Ryan and her two sons Paul and Barry, who later went on to be a recording duo, and Michael Holliday, who sadly died at quite a young age, but might well have gone on to become the British Sinatra. All these and many more too walked along the streets, often chatting with Ernie and I. They behaved just as ordinary people out to raise a few pounds for charity or to practice with the then QPR team. They didnt need minders.

Some years later, in the early seventies, my girlfriend of the time and I would often go to recordings of BBC radio shows in the theatre near Piccadilly Circus. Alfred Marks was a regular in My Music as well as various other shows, and oddly Alfred lived quite near us in North London. It was not unknown for him to ask us if we had brought the car, so he could scrounge a lift home. Minders? I didnt see any. Even in the eighties, when we were working on a charity open day at a British Rail engine shed, Trevor Brooking (West Ham and England) was just one of the lads there, working in the same office as we were, and one of the friendliest people you could wish to meet. And still no minders to be seen.

What has become so dangerous these days, I wonder, that footballers, singers and other so called celebrities feel threatened.

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