First Lady Page 6

  ‘Shit, that’s only an hour away!’ With the half-hour travel to her leafy suburb, that didn’t leave much time.

  ‘Well, darling, just do a good “day” job — lip gloss, blusher and one of your ladylike suits. I’ll send a cab for you and pay when you get here.’ Then slam! The phone went down and she was gone.

  With no idea at all what the request was about, I put the necessary look together in the back of a London taxi and was greeted in the foyer of Miss Reid’s house by the seven Pekinese. Behind me the doorbell sounded. In came a man in a suit, carrying a briefcase and three boxes. He nodded to me, then left the room.

  ‘Elizabeth, his name is Tossie,’ Miss Reid said. ‘Just sit back, smile and try to look entertained.’

  ‘Tossie’ re-entered the room after a while with the largest box, from which he took a vinyl album and placed it on the record player. Bingo! A ballet performance right there in the drawing room.

  Choking back a laugh, Miss Reid applauded wildly.

  ‘Oh Tossie, that was beautiful, wasn’t it Liz? You are so clever, and what fabulous legs!’

  Tossie bowed left the room and re-entered dressed as a Trojan soldier. He fell dramatically at Miss Reid’s feet and she spanked his bottom enthusiastically, shouting, ‘You’re a naughty boy, Tossie!’

  Another box was opened and out came a jar of baby powder, which Miss Reid dusted onto Tossie, admonishing him all the while. In what was apparently his pièce de résistance, he masturbated, finishing the deed by ejaculating all over moi. I sat astonished on the sofa, in a suit that would certainly never see the light of day again.

  There was a silence, then Miss Reid looked at me, pressed her index finger to her mouth, and left the room with Tossie in tow. She came back with a tea tray, and Tossie opened the final box to reveal a selection of yummy cakes for our tea break.

  That was my first glance into my friend’s manner of making a living. Another day I went to Miss Reid’s to fit some clothes for her, only to find her at the clothesline hosing down a rubber nun’s habit recently used by another of her clients. Sadly she passed away, I think due to the damage from her recreational drug habit. They found her body once again at the clothesline. I always imagined she had just finished servicing a client. It was winter, and her beloved furry friends were huddled close to her.

  Miss Reid had once told Derek Redcarr that I was ‘another Trudi’. Redcarr hated Trudi — and me, of course — but Miss Reid meant that Trudi was another who sewed, did hair and make-up, and was from the Antipodes (Australia in Trudi’s case.) Many years later I worked with Trudi on the stage production of the Peter Allen musical The Boy From Oz. We only knew of each other, and you can imagine the wonderful, gossipy catch-up we had as two people who had never met but knew a great deal about each other. Trudi’s opening words to me were: ‘Liz! Miss Redcarr hated me as well!’

  It brought home what a bitchy lot the drag queens are right across the world, although I do admit there are a sprinkling of nice ones, too.

  9

  THE WHIRL OF THE FASHION WORLD

  We had a lot of very posh clients at Salon Rikki, this being Kensington, and many of them took an interest in our lives. One client, Lady Scarman, was in the chair on the day in question complaining she was going to the Lord Mayor’s Ball, and had nothing to wear.

  ‘I’ll make you something!’ I said. Big mouth I had.

  I made her a ball gown and she was very pleased indeed, spreading the word of my talents among her friends. That gown was the start of a new career for me really — I had no sewing background other than what my mother had taught me, but I was creative, knew how to handle fabrics and was passionate about design. Eventually I was making one-off couture garments to my clients’ specifications, one of whom was a journalist, Margret Scott. Short, tubby and red-haired with a grating South London accent, Margret would come to the salon three times a week to have her hair done. I was always a little wary of her; there was something about her I just didn’t feel comfortable with.

  She invited me to lunch one day, and halfway through the meal told me her son wanted to promote me.

  I was astonished. ‘As what?’

  ‘As a couturier.’

  ‘But I’ve got no background! I don’t know enough about it.’

  ‘I can organise that.’

  She seemed very determined, and after a lot of toing and froing I met Marshall Scott and his girlfriend (Sheila, owner of a poodle parlour in Penge). They talked me into designing a collection, so I gave up hairdressing and went to live in their house in Dulwich.

  South of London, Dulwich is often considered a quintessential English village and the Scotts’ house was a great example of English country living. Large and two-storeyed, it had a very pretty English garden, with a table and chairs at one end surrounded by honeysuckle, hollyhocks and rose bushes. We ate at the table on weekends and I would often eat lunch there when everyone was out, sitting among the flowers to the sound of buzzing bees and tiny chirping birds.

  I never did discover what Marshall Scott did for a living, in fact in the seven weeks I stayed there I saw him only four times.

  I had a massive room upstairs where I made the clothes. Sheila proved handy and would come upstairs in the evening to press the suits, dresses and gowns as I finished hand sewing them. About four weeks in, Margret came to the house to talk about a name for the fashion label. After a bit of back and forth we agreed to drop the second ‘r’ from my Christian name and combine our surnames; and so the label became Gary Scott Roberts.

  She had also organised a lot of press, responsibility for which was originally to be shared, but Margret told me her son was not coping very well with the thought of all the publicity. Therefore I became a one-person creative team and found myself working from five in the morning until midnight, seven days a week. There were sessions with photographers, then an interview with a journalist called David Wigg, who gave me an incredible write-up.

  Despite his reluctance to help with the day-to-day practicalities, Marshall certainly kept a beady eye on his ‘investment’, badgering me for lists of the clients I had made clothes for and belly-aching about whether he would ‘come out on top’.

  There were no wages to pay for the workroom (as it was only me) and no rent; Margret appeared to be the fabric buyer and would visit all my favourite wholesalers, instructing them to ‘charge it’. All the suppliers were most kind, despite the fact that Margret only ever purchased enough fabric, beads and trimmings to complete a sample outfit.

  Although I’d supplied Beaths in Christchurch with some pieces years before, this was my first ever foray into couture on a professional scale. The collection was to be shown at the Women’s Press Club in Carey Street in London (which was known as Bankruptcy Row, though I didn’t know that at the time). I’d spent weeks by then, day and night, designing, cutting patterns and sewing, but the work had been worth it. There were forty-three ‘looks’, most of them evening wear in chiffon and silks, with a couple of suits and sportswear pieces.

  The room at the Press Club was beautifully prepared and the invited guests plied with food and wine. The collection was very well received and at the end I came out to acknowledge the applause and to take a quick bow, hurried back into my suit jacket and began the rounds of introductions to clients and buyers. There were representatives from Harrods and Selfridges, and the parade was covered by Reuters so the stories about the boy from Christchurch who made beautiful clothes went worldwide. And, yet, all the way through this most successful of days, I had a terrible feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

  After the show, when the congratulations and sales pitches were over, the Scotts wanted to celebrate, but I told Margret I was exhausted after weeks of working and needed to sleep.

  ‘Why don’t you go away for the weekend to recuperate?’ she suggested.

  ‘Where would I go? I have no money, an
d I don’t know anyone.’

  ‘I know where to put you,’ she gave me a sly smile and sent me off to stay with a friend of hers, a Mrs Anne Ottey, in Wimbledon. I had a wonderful, restful weekend and came back to the Scotts’ house in Dulwich on the Monday feeling quite refreshed.

  When I walked into the house, there was nothing there. At all. The entire place was empty, apart from my suitcase and sewing machine in the upstairs room. Fortunately the phone was still on so I called Anne Ottey in Wimbledon in a panic and stammered out my news — they’ve gone! What am I going to do?

  ‘Come back here.’

  ‘I can’t, I have no money for a cab, or even the bus.’

  ‘Get in a taxi, and I’ll pay for it when you arrive.’

  I did as she said, wondering how on earth I was going to pay her back.

  Anne was a publicist for Harris Tweed, the renowned Scottish cloth manufacturer. She suggested I make her a couple of suits while I stayed with her, and even wanted to pay me for them, but I refused to accept the money.

  I knew there were many orders placed at the show that had to be filled, but the list of names of those who’d attended the show had disappeared. I had no idea where to start, nor what had happened to the Scotts and all the samples. It turns out as soon as I’d left for Wimbledon, they’d gathered everything up and driven to Manchester, to a clothing manufacturer who was to unpick it all and copy the pieces in bulk to cover the orders. A fine plan, but there was a problem they hadn’t counted on. All the clothes had been hand-draped and embroidered, and replicating them en masse was impossible. Chiffon, for example, doesn’t hold a shape, so when the seams were unpicked the dresses simply sprang apart and couldn’t be put back together.

  They must have been desperate at that point, as they wrote a letter to my mother and father in Christchurch telling them I’d stolen everything and had left them with the bills and the orders, and what were they prepared to do about it? This did nothing for my relationship with my parents. My mother was so horrified she wrote and told me never to come home again; I was disowned. I tried to explain that it was the Scotts who’d taken off, but you couldn’t tell my mother anything once she’d made up her mind.

  I realised I couldn’t stay with Anne for long, so I went back to the salon in Kensington and begged for my job back, got a little flat nearby, and started again. This time, though, it was to be by me, and for me.

  In a stroke of luck, when I approached the Press Club some weeks later, they still had the names of the parade attendees in their files. I started through the list, contacting those who’d ordered and picking up some clients. One of them, the tiny American Hazel Guggenheim, was very keen indeed. I remembered her from the parade, where she’d held court in an ugly gingham suit with an inch-square diamond flashing on her wrinkled hand.

  ‘Honey, make me one of everything!’

  I did make quite a number of outfits for her and would deliver them to her whole-floor apartment behind Harrods. Hazel never, ever touched money and would get her butler to bring her handbag and hold her wallet open for me.

  ‘Take whatever you want honey!’ she’d yell.

  The rumour at the time was that Hazel had fled New York for London after pushing her husband out of their Manhattan apartment window. The truth was very different and terribly sad — as a young mother she’d lost her two little sons, aged four and fourteen months, when they fell from the roof of the Surrey apartment building on the Upper East Side.

  I still had connections through the salon also, and began making clothes for a couple of ladies I’d met there. Lola Craig Ranger was from the De Beers diamond family in South Africa — tall, blonde and very posh, and despite all the family money, easily bored. To amuse herself she’d worked as an air hostess, and then a model for a couturier called John Cavanagh. She had a little dog called Tiffany who always sported a diamond collar.

  Lola had me make something for her almost every week, and take it to her at her house in Hans Place in Chelsea, right by Harrods. She lived there with a Lady Margaret Mostyn, of the famous Mostyn family, in a beautiful basement garden flat that stretched the length of two houses. On the floor above was Lady Mostyn’s own home (Margaret’s mother), but Lola and Margaret lived together quite openly and happily. I didn’t catch on for quite a while that many of my lady clients were gay, but it certainly wouldn’t have mattered to me anyhow.

  Strangely none of them appeared to think that I was that way inclined. One night a model from the show at the Press Club, a very beautiful girl called Christine, turned up on my doorstep in Onslow Gardens in a fur coat. She told me she’d been in the area and thought she’d pop in to say hello, walking into the lounge and throwing off the coat. Underneath she was stark naked. After a moment I said, ‘Darling, I think we’re both wasting our time,’ made her a cup of tea, and we had a laugh about it. But I was actually rather flattered.

  London in the mid 1960s was everything you’d imagine, an almost mythical place with an incredible energy, and I was mixing with some fascinating people. Lola-from-De-Beers remained a friend and would often take me to the most la-di-dah posh places, in order to show me off to the other ladies (who also liked to be seen with young men).

  La Popote was a favourite lunch haunt of ours, and I recall her checking my manners before our first visit there.

  ‘Gahry,’ she said in her upper class drawl, ‘do you know hah to eat peas?’

  ‘Peas?’

  ‘Yahrs, peas. You turn your fork ovah, and squish them on the back of it, then you put it in your mouth.’

  She plainly wanted to make sure that I would not disgrace myself, nor her by association. Once she’d established the peas rule, we had a lot of fun (and to this day I’ve never neglected my pea etiquette).

  I had started living half the time as a man and half as a woman by then, and although I always dressed as a man at work in the salon, I would often go out at night in drag. One of the girls in the flat in Onslow Gardens was a Kiwi, Colleen, who had been a bunny at the Playboy Club and was then waitressing at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. I clearly remember the first time I went there dressed as a woman, in a purple velvet jumpsuit, very fitting and beautifully cut, adorned with feathers and a low slung jewelled belt.

  Most of the clothes I wore were from the men’s boutiques on the Kings Road. There were a couple of good menswear shops, where if you were canny you could pick up trousers and a jacket for about £10. I spent all the money I had on clothes, getting something new every week.

  The Kings Road at the time was fast becoming the centre of the fashion world. I met Mary Quant through a milliner friend of mine, although at the time she was Mary Plunket Green. Very preppy girl, with that big straight fringe. Plunket Green was her husband’s name, and they had a restaurant underneath her shop on the Kings Road. She was already quite well known for the clothes that made her famous, and she told me I should come and work for her.

  I thought, ‘Yeah, like hell I will.’

  I must admit I didn’t really like her designs, although she was making quite a stir with them at the time, and Yves Saint Laurent had just released his famous Mondrian collection of similar styles. I didn’t wear that style as I really don’t like knees, never have — they’re not a particularly attractive part of the female body, if you ask me. The ladies I sewed for were looking for something a bit more formal, too: evening wear, fully constructed suits and the like. Lola used to look at my designs and give me advice: ‘Gahry, if you drop that hemline at the back just ah little, it would suit the older ladies, you know.’

  It was very sound advice — skirts should always be a half an inch longer at the back hem — and something I still use to this day.

  The work I’d started by making dresses for Beaths in Christchurch years ago began to live up to its promise, culminating in a small collection which held pride of place at one moment in time, in the corner window at Harrods. I’ll
admit, I was very proud of that.

  Lola Craig Ranger came to my rescue again after seeing the letter the missing Margret Scott had written to my parents. She kindly contacted my mother and father, assuring them both that the accusations were unfounded, which was just as well — it wouldn’t be too long before I’d find myself unexpectedly back in Christchurch and on their doorstep.

  10

  LEAVING LONDON

  Couture wasn’t the only skill I developed while in London. A flatmate of mine at the time, around 1966, was the make-up artist at the hair and make-up salon owned by the people that made Eylure eyelashes. She knew I was a fairly good hairdresser and she told me they needed someone to style all the beautiful wigs they had. Would I come to work for them? I told her I would, if they would teach me make-up.

  The brothers who owned Eylure, Eric and David Aylott, were top of the range film make-up artists. Not just run of the mill cosmetic make-up either; proper make-up to correct flaws and balance the client’s face.

  I was still wearing men’s clothes at that time, and I went one day to meet them for an interview. Sitting in front of these posh English gentlemen, all I could ask was, ‘How do you make men up?’ That was all I really wanted to know.

  ‘I’ve got make-up on now,’ David told me. I looked closely at his face and saw it was true. Just a touch here and there for contour and balance.

  I worked at their salon in Bond Street for about a year. It was a massive place run by the fabulous Pauline Ramsay, with me and two other girls as hair and make-up artists. I was living in Wimbledon and transitioning from male to female at that stage, and would travel with Pauline in a cab to Bond Street each day, all of us doing our make-up as we taxied through the suburban streets into town.

  I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Eylure thanks mostly to the wonderful people I worked with, and of course the constant stream of famous people who came through the doors. It was right in the middle of the so-called Swinging Sixties and the big stars were the models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy, both of whom came to us at the Eylure salon before photo shoots. Quite often we would go to the photographer David Bailey’s studio in the basement of his house, sitting in the kitchen while he worked his magic behind the camera. I remember Pauline and I looking up one day as the most beautiful person appeared at the kitchen door. It was Catherine Deneuve, hair in a towel and with not a scrap of make-up on. She was absolutely stunning.