Fixing Sixty Six
Contents
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Author's Note
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
FIXING SIXTY SIX
Tim Flower is a former lawyer who has rehabilitated himself as a writer. His first play, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, was described by the Fringe Review as, “a well researched, passionate, eloquently written and serious piece of political theatre”. This is his first novel.
According to author Ian Barker:
“[Its] premise is original enough that it will keep you turning the pages even though you know who wins in the end... An entertaining portrait of sixties Britain with cultural references that will resonate with readers of a certain age. There are also some striking parallels with modern life and politics.”
In the light of the Tory’s 2019 General Election mantra, the reviewer John Rhodes thinks the novel:
“could be called ‘Get the World Cup done’. The dark arts of election politics are not new. A meticulously researched
mix of nostalgic fact and - but is it really? - fiction.
A crackingly convincing read.”
Other readers have said, “it moves along like a Robert Harris novel” and called it, “An intriguing political thriller laced throughout with gentle humour”; “A very good read”; and a “funny book… I am still not convinced it is not all true”.
Tim’s other relevant claim to fame is that he scored a hat-trick at Wembley Stadium in 1966. Admittedly, he was only ten years old at the time and had sneaked into the stadium with a school friend when the ground staff were having a tea break.
Tim lives with his wife and rescue greyhound in Surrey and the Isle of Wight. He may be contacted at TimFlower66@gmail.com and you will find him, on Twitter @TimFlower66, and at TalkAboutProductions.uk
FIXING SIXTY SIX
Tim Flower
“Talk About Productions”
Revised edition 2020
Copyright © 2019 Tim Flower
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-9162825-0-6
Cover designed and produced by
Good Cover Design
Published by “Talk About Productions”
TalkAboutProductionsuk@gmail.com
For
Frances, Emma, Alice & Will
with love
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jemma Kennedy for facilitating my second life as a writer. Her coaching during the early stages of this project was invaluable.
I am also grateful to Jacqueline Abromeit for working with me so creatively and patiently in designing and producing the cover, and to the Burtons for their support and enthusiasm throughout.
And I offer a special thanks to my wife, Frances, for her considerable help in getting this novel published and for her constant encouragement, patience and belief.
Author’s Note
Whilst Fixing Sixty Six is a work of fiction, it is firmly rooted in fact. The World Cup-related incidents described are part of documented history, as are the political and economic circumstances referred to. Where I have occasionally supplemented the facts as known, I have endeavoured to ensure that my embellishments are reasonable and consistent with those facts.
All the principal characters, however, are fictional (any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental). In particular, I gave birth to the Liverpudlian Harry Mullaly aka “Harry Miller”; he is not the Londoner “Harry Miller” who joined The Daily Mirror in the 1960s from the Stratford Express.
Some of the subsidiary characters are real-life historical or public figures. Whilst I have endeavoured to respect their true appearance, personality and behaviour as recorded in published works, everything they say and do in this novel is fictitious and entirely the product of my imagination.
Tim Flower
November 2019
CHAPTER ONE
Tuesday, 5th April 2016
After visiting my demented mother in her Leeds care home, I had originally planned to head back to London and, on the way, take out my grief on David Cameron in Birmingham.
But then I received a typewritten letter from a “Harry Mullaly”. In it, he claimed that, as a Daily Mirror football reporter in the 1960s, he had witnessed “lies, corruption and deceit at Number 10” that would “dispel the nation’s 1966 World Cup delusions”. When I read this, followed by his offer to sell me the story, I did wonder whether he would prove to be as deranged as Mum. Could a football reporter really have been privy to such governmental goings on? If, in fact, that was what he used to be: a search in the Mirror archives had not produced anything written by “Harry Mullaly”.
Since resigning as a deputy political editor and becoming a freelance investigative reporter, I had made my living from following leads like this. Whilst mostly they came to nothing, the occasional one had developed into a sellable story. It was the remote prospect of a meeting with Mulally leading to, not just a sellable story, but a sensational one, that had me crawling west, in heavy traffic, towards the Waterloo district of Liverpool.
When I eventually arrived at 31 West Street, I discovered it was a Victorian terraced cottage, just a few hundred yards from Crosby beach. As I approached the faux-Georgian front door, I consoled myself that, if Mullaly proved to be a timewaster, I could walk to “Another Place” and vent my feelings to Antony Gormley’s iron men. Taped to the door’s letter plate was a neat, typewritten notice dismissing “Hawkers, Canvassers and Circulars”. Unless there were two elderly writers living in proximity, I had got the right house. So I gave the knocker underneath a couple of confident raps.
I expected to be greeted by a rickety man with a rosacea complexion, bloated belly and the Brylcreemed remnants of a comb-over: the scars of a career spent as a Fleet Street football writer. But the figure at the door could have starred in a Saga commercial. He was trim, tidily dressed in a twill shirt, leather buttoned cardigan and grey slacks and had a full head of short white hair.
‘Mr Mullaly?’
‘Can’t you read’, he barked, pointing a shaky forefinger at his letter plate notice. ‘It says, no canvassers. And that includes Baptist bible-bashers - or whatever you are.’
When I was still a deputy political editor, and one of only two b
lack female lobby members, I wore my hair short, with a grey suit from the “M&S Collection” and the lowest heels that qualified as “smart shoes”. Then men often mistook me for a secretary. In a male-dominated environment like Westminster, it seemed to be the only way they could make sense of me being there. But after I resigned - not only from those roles, but also as exotic wife to a white junior minister - I changed my look entirely. Now, as a free women and freelance reporter, it was more Whoopi Goldberg than Michelle Obama, complete with long braids, flat shoes and bright, loose-fitting clothes. I couldn’t imagine, therefore, why Mullaly thought I was Baptist missionary.
‘I’m Jay Phillips. You wrote to me.’
His grey-blue eyes narrowed in confusion. Clearly, I had no more conformed to his assumptions than he had to mine. As a female journalist, it is often advantageous to have a gender-neutral byline. But it does mean that, at first meetings, I often surprise, if not disappoint, interviewees - particularly male ones.
‘I was expecting you to… you know… ’
‘Be a man?’
‘No, I was expecting you tomorrow, 5th April.’
‘But it’s 5th April today.’
He hitched up the sleeve of his thick cardigan, I assumed to check the date on his watch. But all he revealed were some liver-spots. ‘What’s the time then? I seem to have misplaced my… my whatsitsname.’ He scrunched up his face and tapped his wrist.
‘It’s eleven twenty-five.’
‘Then you’re late. You said eleven o’clock.’ He said it as if this entirely vindicated his error over the day.
‘I did, I know. I’ve come from Leeds. The traffic on the M62 was dreadful. I am sorry.’
His offhand attitude and defective memory didn’t bode well. I decided that if he didn’t show solid signs of exposing Prime Ministerial corruption and dispelling a 1966 delusion within the hour, I would make my excuses and retire to “Another Place”.
‘Anyway, now you’re here, you’d better come in,’ he said, opening the door only just wide enough for me to squeeze my size fourteen body over the threshold and directly into his functionally furnished living room.
The atmosphere was reminiscent of the British Rail smoking carriages I hated sitting in as a child. So I wasn’t surprised to see, on a small Formica table next to the only armchair, a large glass ashtray containing a pipe and related paraphernalia. With the prospect of conducting the interview in smog, I shortened my self-imposed deadline to forty-five minutes.
Close to the tired Dralon-covered armchair, a coal-effect electric fire glowed deceptively: for, although the room could have done with it, the heater wasn’t on. Opposite it was a battered, drop-leaf table and raffia dining chair. On the only table leaf that was up, sat a 1950’s style Imperial typewriter displaying the Royal coat of arms, and a fat buff folder. Harry dragged the dining chair to beside the cold fire and invited me to sit.
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘No thanks, Mr Mulally. It is Mulally, isn’t it?’
‘I prefer, “Harry”.’
‘Good. I prefer “Jay”. I asked because I looked in the Mirror archives and couldn’t find your byline anywhere.’
‘No, you wouldn’t. I was “Harry Miller” there.’
‘You had a pseudonym?’
‘They were worried the readers would think I was Irish,’ he explained casually. ‘In those days it was “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish”.’
Although I knew about British apartheid, I still found Harry’s blunt articulation of it sickening. And I must have shown it.
‘I’m not saying it was right. That’s just how it was. Employment, housing ads… ’
‘I know, Harry,’ I said mournfully. The irony was, had I been a journalist then, I wouldn’t have had a problem. Not that problem, anyway. Newspaper readers wouldn’t have known that “Jay Phillips” was black.
Harry hovered unsteadily near the door to what, as far as I could see, was a long galley kitchen. ‘Do you take sugar?’
‘I won’t have tea thanks, Harry. But a glass of water would be good.’
He nodded and disappeared.
I surveyed the room. The elderly often have a gallery of photographs that, as a minimum, can serve as ice-breakers. But Harry had only one, in pride of place on his mantelpiece. It was a monochrome image in a silver frame, behind cracked and dusty glass. It was of two men in their prime holding a large trophy and grinning manically. One of the men was clearly Harry himself. Although his lush hair was dark, not white, he had the same deep-set eyes, Greek nose and round chin. The other was a tad shorter, good looking with a strong jaw and fair hair.
As he shuffled back in with our drinks, Harry caught me examining it. ‘Do you know who that is?’ he said, passing me my glass of water with a trembling hand.
‘With you? It is you, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, aged twenty-nine. The high point of my career, that was.’ For the first time he sounded enthusiastic.
He took a large mouthful of tea and set his mug down heavily on the table beside his chair. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he continued, wiping up the spill with his cotton hankie, ‘nothing has beaten it in my whole life. And I’m now ninety-seven.’
I must have looked incredulous.
‘I mean…seventy-nine. I don’t look it, do I?’ He winked and lowered himself into in his chair.
I dislike men winking at me. Not that it had happened for several years. As a woman, it is one of the benefits of middle age: you become invisible to most men.
I shortened the deadline to thirty minutes and, attempting to hide my irritation, replied, ‘No, you don’t look it.’ This was true. Aside from the occasional clumsiness and confusion, he could have passed for mid-sixties.
‘You write about football: you must know the other guy,’ he said, pointing at the photograph.
‘I’m a political, not a sports, journalist.’
‘You had enough football knowledge to write about Albert Johanneson.’
I didn’t instantly recognise the name, because the story to which I subsequently realised he was referring was actually about a Nigerian vagrant, Harry Oluwale. Having stowed away on a ship carrying the Nigerian football team on its first overseas tour, Oluwale had died in police custody in Leeds.
The other Harry sensed my uncertainty. He hoisted himself out of his armchair and picked the buff folder off the small, teak table. ‘I’ve got the piece here, if you give me a mo.’
Harry had done his research. He showed me an article I had written for The Guardian in which I compared his namesake’s experience to the black South African footballer, Johanneson, who had signed for Leeds United in 1961. But that didn’t make me a football writer.
‘That piece contains almost the full extent of my football knowledge. And most of that I learnt from my dad. He’s a staunch Leeds United and England supporter.’ I was going to add that he had christened me “Jackie Charlton Phillips”, after the Leeds and England, World Cup winning centre-half, but thought better of it.
‘We all have our crosses to bear,’ he said and picked up the framed photograph and held it fondly. ‘Then I’ll tell you who the good looking one is. It’s Roger Hunt. In my family we called him “Our Rog”. He played for Liverpool in the sixties. Is still their highest ever goalscorer in the league.’
The name Roger Hunt was familiar to me from having to listened to my father’s many, interminable eulogies to the 1966 England team. ‘When was it taken?’
‘1st May 1965. They’d just won the FA Cup. Beat Leeds 2-1, after extra time.’
Fortunately, there seemed nothing wrong with Harry’s longer-term memory.
He carefully placed the photograph back on the mantelpiece and returned to his chair. ‘It was all downhill after that.’
‘Not for Hunt, surely. He was a World Cup winner the following year,’ I said, showing Harry that, even though I didn’t recognise Hunt, I knew who he was.
‘I didn’t celebrate that.’
‘Wi
th him, you mean?’
‘At all.’
‘Why was that? Are you actually Irish?’ I added, light-heartedly.
Straight-faced, Harry replied, ‘No. I’m more English than the Queen.’
‘Then I don’t understand.’
‘You will,’ he said, and lit his straight stemmed pipe, like the one Tony Benn used to smoke.
If his reply was meant to be a hook, it didn’t work. ‘I’m getting the impression you weren’t expecting someone like me: a fifty year old woman of colour, with very little knowledge of football. If you’d rather find a more suitable journalist, I won’t be offended.’
He looked me in the eye and exhaled a sweet-smelling smog. ‘You’re right. I wasn’t expecting a woman - white or coloured. But that doesn’t mean you’re unsuitable.’
‘But you thought I was a football writer.’
‘I knew you had written a feature involving football. I also knew you weren’t a football writer.’
‘And that isn’t a problem?’
‘Although what I have to tell does concern the World Cup in England, it isn’t a football story. Everyone knows what happened in ‘66. But what nobody knows but me is why it happened.’
‘Why England won the World Cup, you mean?’
Harry nodded sombrely.
‘And that involved corruption at Number 10?’
‘In comparison, the current FIFA officials will seem like saints.’
This did pique my interest. The FIFA corruption case had been headline news. It had threatened to destroy the governing body of world football. Even I knew that. ‘Really? Who at Number 10? What did they do?’
Harry leaned back in his chair, drew slowly on his pipe and glanced at a shabby wooden and gold coloured clock ticking softly on the mantelpiece. ‘It’s time for my stroll. If we don’t go now, the tide will be too high. We can talk as we walk.’