This full-page advert in London’s Evening Standard newspaper was to lead to the writing of the novel Children of the Empire. I had been searching for a way to start and to develop myself as Scott whilst acting as the narrator of his story at the self-same time - and this full page, reverse-type advertisement in the Standard provided the answer.

A stilted French-and-something-else voice answered my telephone call. I have an appointment at Number Five Hasker Street in Chelsea at three o’clock this afternoon. The narrator transforms into Scott who looks up the street in an A-Z of London. It’s by Draycott Avenue, down Walton Street on the right-hand side. Right near where Scott’s Uncle Frank and Auntie Vi, his Godmother, used to have a flat when he was a small boy. Just never knew the name of the street that’s all.

Sat in a small, crowded, outer room with four other hopefuls. Nobody talks. No direct eye contact. Scott is reading Albert Camus’ The Plague and the Children of the Empire is born. Four o’clock passes and Scott eventually gets ushered into the inner sanctum. Nothing on the walls, not even a clock, just fading white paint. Two men greet him from behind a large black desk. The one he takes to be Christophe has a mass of bushy black hair and a thick moustache, next to Christophe, the other appears less substantial. Sharp features and shorter black hair plastered to his head, with just a long piece curling down over his jacket collar. They introduce themselves respectively as Christophe and Ali, all suitably suited and booted. They interrogate Scott. His degree from Durham University in Film and Television Studies. His background. Ambitions. All the time observing him. He can feel them looking at his hands and nails as he talks. Sizing him up … they'll let Scott know. They tell him the company is called Advanced Art, we specialise in experimental art forms using velvet. They sell directly to the general public … Scott is giving them an address and telephone number in Clapham, Mandalay Road. They shake hands … passing out through the now crowded outer office and nobody looks directly at Scott.

It’s a false address. You can't be too careful can you! These guys, Christophe and Ali, seem pleasant enough. But hell, they could be contract killers out of Marseille for all Scott knows. They may come across as French but Scott’s guess is they're probably half Algerian and something very Middle Eastern … Scott can stay over in Mandalay Road. Melanie always welcomes him. Can't wait to tell her about the development of Scott and the narrator, and the commencing of the Children of the Empire, all very exciting. Lied about the degree. Scott was accepted by Durham University for the course in Film and Television Studies but never showed up. Sensing they will offer Scott the job. They said they were looking for four graduates. Said they’d been inundated with replies but would take the first four they deemed suitable rather than interview every person that contacted them. It'll be Eastertime in a week or so. If they saw everybody that replied to their advert they could still be interviewing come Whitsuntide. It seems everyone wants to be a success. Be rich and famous in these New Age times. So, nothing really changes then. Funny how people who speak English as a second and third language are so correct and stiff in pronunciation and use slightly outdated phrases that you might hear from a BBC newsreader on the six o’clock news broadcast on Radio Four. English seems a language, when spoken naturally, of excessive idioms, vernacular and slang imported through the Empire days.

Sure enough, the next late afternoon at Melanie’s in Mandalay Road the phone rings. Christophe in that thick, deep accent which Scott now knows to be French-Algerian.

‘We would like you to start next Tuesday. You accept?’

‘Why yes’ grins Scott.

‘Meet us outside the office in Hasker Street at eleven o’ clock sharp…Yes?’

‘Yes - yes Christophe, no problem’

Already too eager. Click. That was it. A man of a few well-chosen … Melanie should be back from her teaching job shortly and Scott’s going to treat her to a meal …

The Advanced Art office turns out to be in Hollywood Road, right opposite St. Stephen’s Hospital … virtually the last house on the right going down from the Fulham Road. Past an attractive looking restaurant called Keaton’s … We are all introduced to the Office Manager, Dom Patel, who will be our controller. Christophe and Ali don't hang around long and are soon gone. The other graduates are a mixed bunch. Nicky is tall, lean, dark and very handsome. Twenty-fourish. Possessed of a winning smile and manner. Success written all over him. Larry is an American from New York we think. We’re not quite sure. Tall with lank, dark brown hair. Perpetual black shades, a long black leather jacket well creased at the elbows, and brown suede shoes. He doesn't say a lot. Has a sarcastic air of superiority about him. Or maybe that is just Scott’s imagination. Definitely something to hide. But Scott can talk. Besides the address and degree, he lied about his age and said he was twenty-four, when in fact he is just twenty-three. Thinks that extra year will make him more commanding. James is the only one who looks like a graduate. Fresh down from Cambridge. A degree in Modern History. Fluffy blond hair, black horn-rimmed glasses, white shirt, blue jeans, black shiny shoes. Just what the hell he is doing here among this motley crew, Scott has no idea. Maybe he got lost.

Dom Patel doesn't waste time on unnecessary introductions. He supplies each graduate with a red portfolio-folder with black edging. Ten large paintings on velvet and five small. The graduates are being taken out to sell immediately that night. In at the deep end. Where and why are not questions to be asked. Dom Patel has decided to take the group all the way out to Canvey Island. Dom Patel is okay but not overly friendly. He goes through the pitch on the drive: Painting on Velvet^®, is a new, experimental art form. Produced in an artists’ commune in West London. In this New Age era, re-introducing art to the masses. All the dealers and galleries rejecting the commune’s work. Dom provides them with certain key phrases like ‘These paintings are a synthesis of change and permanence’. His advice is to avoid conversations about art and artists. You can end up talking for an hour, getting nowhere except out of your depth and sell nothing. In the end keep it simple. Stress the collective commune of young artists. Dom is quite cynical, ‘In the end it’s like taking money from blind beggars!’ He could well be in the markets in Bombay. Is Dom Patel taking the piss? Perhaps resenting these graduates being employed with a view to replacing him. At a distinct educational disadvantage.

Canvey Island always seems like a dislocated place, with many lost souls sporting East Ham and Romford accents, inhabiting the Island. Dom Patel finds some fairly fresh estate of semi-detached houses. Scott finds himself in the late sunlight of a mid-April Tuesday evening, walking down a street on his own at seven-thirty. An art folder wedged under his left arm. He's having to go and knock on doors. Soul destroying. Everybody else is at home in the warmth, inside. Family life and the late pleasures of the day clustered around television sets. Yet Scott is no stranger to this. Having to confess to selling encyclopaedias door-to-door in the Greater Bristol area for Robert Maxwell’s Pergamon Press. Not something to shout about.

Scott easily gets inside the house of a young couple, having pushed back that desire not to do it. Go back to the car and Dom Patel and resign straight away? If necessary hitch-hike back to London from Canvey Island … but hell, what makes a salesman is desperation and nowhere else to go. Once inside the house an entire different personality takes over. Scott is suddenly a young, hungry artist. The newly married couple even remark upon his artistic hands. He sells a large painting on velvet that he calls The Audience, and a small The Peasant Girl. He gets twelve pounds for the pair. That’s enough. Scott slinks back to the warmth of the car and Dom Patel. He gives Dom the hand-in money of nine pounds. Dom laughs and passes him a joint. The other three graduates are nowhere to be seen.

The following day, Christophe takes all four 'trainee managers' along to Kennings Car Hire in Kensington. Before they start off they are introduced to the company accountant Bernard. French with a lovely warm smile and handshake, and Jean-Paul, Christophe’s attractive younger brother. He is in charge of the production side of the velvet paintings. Scott is curious to see the operation at first-hand but is immediately rebuffed by a cobra-eyed Christophe. They don't want us to see the human hands working the dummy.

At Kennings Car Hire, the choice is simple. All the graduates show their driving licences and are given Morris Eleven Hundreds in blue or brown. That is the choice. Some problems with Larry and his licence. He is smoulderingly sarcastic regarding Europeans accepting American driving licences. Christophe smooths things over. The problem is shunted away. Scott knows that these Morris Eleven Hundreds will be too small. Too cramped for five people all day and evening long, six days a week. Finding out about the extra charge he will have to pay for renting out one of those good-looking, new Cortinas. Wait a few days, see how it all pans out. The extra space is essential for close harmony, Scott knows this only too well from his days of selling encyclopaedias for Robert Maxwell. Plus of course the added bonus that, at a pinch, you can squeeze six-up. Get another body out on the streets. Already starting to think in Advanced Art mode.

Back in Hollywood Road with the four Eleven Hundreds all parked new and shiny outside. The office is of course a large basement split into three rooms with a long dark hallway and an obligatory toilet. Dom Patel’s office is in the middle of this gloomy passageway, right opposite the steep stairs as you come sharply down them. Sat with Dom talking and smoking. Dom rubbing his hands together vigorously,
‘Right, we need a lot of people quickly. The right types. So, you guys had better come up with an advert we can run daily in the Standard. Any ideas?‘ … Nicky ventures a thirty-something word advert which is far too long-winded and expensive. Larry leans back against the wall by the door. Front chair legs tilted upwards. Blue cigarette smoke curling above his sinister black shades, with his hands dug deep in his leather jacket pockets …
‘Well, how about, 'fake young artists needed to cold-sell door-to-door to the public en masse!’ Laughs. He seems to think this whole scheme is some kind of joke …

You, Scott, have an idea. Maybe unsure how to voice it. Might well get laughed at. Rejected. But nobody else has come up with something. Dom is on the telephone with someone now. Sounds like it’s the landlord of this basement and some problem to do with the keys … The telephone clicks back on its cradle.
‘Well, any ideas, grads? You bright boys should be able to come up with something!’ Dom stares hard at them and the blank silence. Scott shuffles his feet. Well here goes then. Making a fool of yourself yet again.
‘How about 'Bread for Heads?’ Silence. Nobody looks in Scott’s direction.
‘That is brilliant!’ declares Dom Patel. ‘That is exactly it! Right on the money!’ Dom doesn’t even bother to consult with anyone else. Gets right onto the newspaper's advertising department. Books the ad for every working day for a month. Haggles, with menaces, for a paltry discount price. The advert will start running from tomorrow. In reverse-type, so as to stand out.

That afternoon, the graduates practice in the salesroom bordering the street. It’s large, say forty by thirty feet. Nicky is eager and active, takes charge. There is a record player there, and some speakers. Easy to rig up the speakers in the salesroom. James is sent out to a second-hand furniture store in Fulham called Bentalls, to order some twenty-five stackable, armless chairs to be delivered tomorrow morning. Then back down the Fulham Road to Raven Records, almost opposite St. Stephen's Hospital. He is to buy five albums: Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane; LA Woman by The Doors; Hot Rats by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention; Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, and Abraxas by Santana …

The walls of the salesroom are bare. Nicky and Scott argue back and forth with Dom Patel about hanging some paintings on velvet on the walls. Good idea. Would make the room seem less bare and functional. Also, the expected new sales force would keep looking without being wholly aware, at some of the paintings they are going to sell.

It all sounds so obvious. Dom Patel won’t release any paintings from the stockroom at the back of the basement. Guarding the stock zealously is an issue here. Telephone conversations back and forth with Ali. Eventually a compromise is reached, much to the hilarious delight of Larry, whose cynicism is being rewarded. The graduates can have four paintings, just four, two large and two small, which they can hang on the salesroom walls. If any are lost, stolen or damaged, the four of them will bear the cost equally. Dom seems half-satisfied with that, but still grumbles to himself. The afternoon is slipping by, caught up in a minor squabble, and still they have yet to get to the main part. Dom Patel is not going to help them.
‘You are smart graduates, trainee office managers, you can work it out for yourselves!’ Dom goes and sits in his office all by himself and does what? Nobody knows. There are a couple of easels and a table and some chairs which Nicky and Scott can organize to set up a sales demonstration. They have already worked out how to sell the paintings in pairs, as Scott discovered on Canvey Island last night. Nicky setting up The Audience and The Greek Mask on easels.

Having the story of a commune of young experimental artists is not enough. It will only get you so far, but it won’t make for a sale. You can’t just sit there and let people flick through your art folder making comments. There may well be a child crying. A dog barking. The telephone rings. Maybe the couple were having a heated disagreement and you’ve suspended their argument for the moment. The television set is on in the corner of the room. All of this you have to contend with. You have to take control. You may well be a young artist from a West London commune, but for now you have to be an entertainer. Set yourself up in front of the television. Make the couple smile or laugh in some way. Refuse any offers of food or drink, only goes to confuse matters and displace time. This is your moment, and you have to use it well, to the best of your ability. A neighbour may knock on the front door at any moment to borrow a bowl of sugar, return a terror-stricken cat or impart some terrible news. You have to be an entertainer …

The Audience is just many red touches of faces and eyes all in the dark. The image intended is that the observer is really on stage looking out at an audience he or she cannot see, just all these vague glimpses of the whites of eyes. The use of velvet is ideal for this effect. Enhances the blackness, highlights the colour.

Nicky and Scott are grinning at one another. They’ve just discovered that they are naturals together. Like-minded when it comes to sales. Larry sits at the back of the room throwing in the odd, sharp comment along the way. Some useful, most are wayward and off kilter. James comes back clutching the albums with a report of the twenty-five chairs coming later that same afternoon … My life so quick ...

Soon Nicky and Scott are developing their cross-patter sales talk and ideas to the background voicings of the Airplane's Grace Slick and White Rabbit. The ‘Greek Mask’ lends itself to pair off with The Audience. Theatre. A black mask on a green velvet background. The origins of western theatre in Greece. Athens. Over two and a half thousand years ago. We were all in the audience. The Greek chorus all chanting from behind masks. You’ve got the full attention of your young couple by now. You display the paintings, move them about. Position them around the room. You’ve already managed to get the television set switched off. You have their full attention before the interruptions of life invade in some way. In exactly the same manner, you will capture the attention of the watching embryonic sales force. Encourage play-acting, theatre and interaction with the new sales folk …

‘Bread for Heads’ is a huge success. New Age types are turning up in their droves. Long-haired, unkempt, drug addled, broke, clothes of many colours. Young, beautiful, black and white. A mass of outsiders, male and female, descending on the basement office in Hollywood Road. The Lost Children of the Empire are out in force this week.

The sales talk is scheduled to start at twelve o’clock. All the second-hand chairs are laid out in rows, filling the room. The four velvet paintings look lonely on the sparse walls; but hey, you can’t do everything at once. You have to let it come together in its own time and energy. Nicky and Scott conduct the sales talk. Larry watches from the back of the room, while James moves back and forth, adding little touches. Dom Patel mainly stays out of the way. Just popping his head around the salesroom door at about a quarter-to-one to check on the numbers present. If there are spare bodies left over after four crews are full up, then he will have to take one out himself. Something he seems more and more loath to do. Guessing that once you get out of the habit, it’s the last thing you ever want to do again.

Scott gets an adrenalin rush every time. All these hopeful faces looking at you and Nicky. Waiting for the magic formula to be imparted. Normally Scott is quite shy. But now standing in front of this chattering, laughing, chewing, smoking, expectant mass, it’s as if he’s stripped himself naked in front of these twenty-or-so people and doesn’t care. You can’t hold back. It’s not like selling directly in houses. Here, before this live young audience of hippies, freaks, heads, dropouts, undesirables, runaways, outsiders, the broken-hearted, new to the city and on the loose. It’s a case of just letting go.
‘How do you get inside a house?’
‘You’re an artist. You’re broke. You know what that feels like don’t you!’ Just a murmur to Scott’s response.
‘Come on! If you can’t respond to me right now, what earthly chance are you going to have on the doorstep? You have to engage. Communicate’ … Silence ...
‘Well goodbye, and we wish you well in whatever you do in the future!’ … Genuine reaction this time. A couple of 'trainees' have got up, scraped their second-hand, stackable chairs on the floor and have left the room.
‘Well that got a response from you. Are you all still half asleep! Wake-up!’ Scott claps his hands loudly …
‘You’re a hungry artist from a commune in West London. Never say where. Keep it vague and loose. Don’t get tied down. Sooner or later someone will take pity and let you in, if you knock on enough doors. Little things help to get you into a house. I don’t care if you’ve got hair down to your knees, a long bushy beard, or you’re a bearded lady looking for work until the circus reconvenes come September. Be clean and washed - clean nails. You can look scruffy, unkempt, a Joseph or a Josephine of many shapes and colours, but don’t stink! Sounds obvious. These receptive couples will want their young artists to conform in some small matters that are acceptable to them! You have to fit their idea of a bohemian artist. You are not tramps or itinerant gypsies selling pegs and heather! With that, I’m going to catch my breath and give my voice a break … Nicky …’

They have developed stories around the paintings. They match them up. How to present them. Trial and error. Whatever works, stick to it. Sure, there is pain and fear, but try and enjoy it. Get the punters to talk about themselves. Relate to them. Folks secretly like to speak about themselves. Tell the stories they love to tell, over and over again. The way we live our lives. Endlessly telling ourselves the same events, happenings, good fortune, bad luck. The unexpected. The brilliant achievements. How I met my wife. The day my child was born. The stray cat we took in. How we bought this house. The lucky car in the garage that just keeps going. How I decided to become a rocket scientist. Last years’ holiday. They produce pictures. Snaps. This was when she was a baby. How they secretly wished to be artists, writers, actors, doctors, lawyers, poets, acrobats, dancers, cricketers, footballers, tennis players, instructors, teachers, psychologists. In fact, anything but …

The sales talk is over for today. The room was starting to fidget after fifty or so minutes. Like school children anticipating the playtime bell. Concentration lapses. A couple of others walked out about halfway through, muttering. It happens every day. Not everybody’s cup of tea, advanced art … Nicky and Scott get their pick of the hopefuls. Larry selects for himself. Going for the weirdest and the straightest he can find and mixing them up in some macabre type fun. James gets the three that are left, and Dom Patel is relieved he doesn’t have to go out.

Scott on the pavement outside the office, loading the art folders into the boot of the Morris Eleven Hundred. Wistfully glancing over at Keaton’s Restaurant. It exudes a friendly allure that makes him want to go in and drink real coffee and eat a slice of chocolate cake. He hasn’t the time and anyway it’s too early in the game. Have to get settled into a rhythm before you can indulge in treats. Underneath what appears to be haphazard chaos, you have to have a defined rhythm that gets you through the day, or else all will be lost to chance and inevitable disaster.

After the second day out, after dropping each of the crew at their different destinations, Scott heads over to Milner Square in Islington. Off Upper Street, just across the way from the more famous Barnsbury Square. Scott was introduced to Patricia by dealer friend Ricky at the Elgin Avenue, Maida Vale, squat last night. She seems to be in charge of Number Seven Milner Square. More out of the way and quieter. Squatting at Elgin Avenue right now would be like trying to exist in the eye of a storm. Milner Square seems semi-deserted. A scrub-green patch left in the middle and a few parked cars dotted around. Scott knocks loudly and waits for a moment ... a handsome, Japanese-looking guy lets him in. Says Patricia and Sheila, wherever she is, are out. Patricia said the second floor. Pushing the door. One room with a mattress on the floor. A chair and a table. A note from Patricia tacked to the table, ‘Welcome Scott,’ with a smiley face. There is a small kitchen off the room with a grubby seeming cooker. A wash basin. A toilet outside on the stairs. Filthy, but it flushes. Miracle of miracles! The electricity and the gas both work … Scott has brought a couple of blankets with him from Melanie’s in Mandalay Road, plus a small pillow. Also, a one-hundred-watt light bulb which he bayonets into the dangling light socket standing on the rickety chair. Can’t really ask for more …

Very quiet. No bath or shower. No matter. Patricia mentioned this last night and offered hers. Be careful there! Definitely the predatory type. Scott may find himself in deeper water than he would like if he goes upstairs for a bath. Keep your distance must be his motto. Putting the A4 paper pads on the shaky table with pens and Albert Camus’ ‘The Plague’. The top pad marked ‘Children of the Empire’ … Washing won’t be a problem. Not that far from the Public Baths in Ironmonger Row, near Old Street, as the crow flies. Drop in there say three mornings a week and have a swim and a shower. Scott laying down on the mattress with the dangling light bulb switched off. Lights coming through the bare window.

Suddenly having the strongest of sensations arriving from out of the black, inky night dotted by city lights. Scott senses he was a scribe in the heart of a busy capital city in a previous reincarnation. Taking down the words and thoughts on a stone tablet of those who cannot read or write, and desperately wishing to be a creative writer, amid the din and dirt of a busy and dangerous metropolis thoroughfare … sounds absolutely ridiculous doesn’t it. Maybe we just long to have been here before. Prolonging our life spans across ages and time … Falling slowly to sleep, it’s rather strange, and exciting, as if lost and found in the same breath without reason … But then laughing. It isn’t any weirder than relying on an advert in the Evening Standard inventing ‘Bread for Heads’, to bring reward and success …

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