I confess
Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 13:11 I was talking to Chris Snowdon in Birmingham this week when the subject of Jimmy Savile came up.
"I interviewed him once," I said. "Actually, make that twice."
But that's not what I want to confess. What I divulged to Chris, in confidence, is far, far worse.
It all began in 1983 when I left my job in public relations to re-launch a magazine I had edited at Aberdeen University.
The plan was to create a Private Eye style national student magazine. (We were going to call it White Lie until someone said it sounded racist.)
Our business model was Student, a magazine founded in 1970 by Richard Branson. Branson developed a network of distributors who received 50 per cent of the cover price for every copy they sold. (The Big Issue operates in a similar way, I believe.)
We tried it for 18 months but it just didn't work. Students ran off with the money or didn't bother selling their allocation of magazines. (It didn't help that the magazine was banned by 40 student unions who didn't like the anti-union tone, but that's another story.)
Campus did however open several doors. One was the Media Monitoring Unit, which I ran for five years.
Another was an offer to edit an in-house magazine for a well-known society founded in Oxford in 1946. I wasn't a member but that didn't matter to Madsen Pirie, who was a member of the committee.
Madsen is the founder and current president of the Adam Smith Institute. I first met him shortly after I left university in 1980. He introduced me to Michael Forsyth (now Lord Forsyth of Drumlean) who gave me my first job.
Now Madsen was helping me again. He urged his fellow committee members, chaired by his friend, the inventor Sir Clive Sinclair, to make me their first 'professional' editor.
I was parachuted in despite rumblings of discontent from a handful of active members who were appalled at the thought of a non-member producing the only thing that every member received in return for their annual subscription.
In fact, there was method in Madsen's madness. The society had always been divided by internal politics and it was argued that the appointment of an external editor would de-politicise the magazine, if not the organisation.
Anyway, to cut a very long story short, I edited the magazine for 15 years, redesigning and relaunching it several times before I was happy with it.
I edited other magazines during that period but this was my bread and butter. And I really enjoyed it.
I met and interviewed many members, some of them household names like Clive Sinclair, Carol Vorderman and, yes, Jimmy Savile.
I interviewed others who weren't well known but had interesting jobs or vocations. Broadcaster John Hosken, artist Tony Lawrence, children's television presenter Angela Lamont, Greek musician Elena Konstantinou, mind mapping guru Tony Buzan. And many more.
One of the nicest was TV presenter and continuity announcer Paul Coia whose voice was the first heard on Channel 4 when it was launched in 1982. I interviewed him in a cafe in Wimbledon village, close to his home.
TV critic Garry Bushell was another. I interviewed him at his home in south east London. He was very friendly and great fun.
Less well known but equally colourful was "foul-mouthed entertainer" Phil Barrett, one third of a Mancunian band called Three Fat Bastards.
Labour MP Don Touhig was a member. Likewise Conservative MP and one-time party chairman Jeremy Hanley. I interviewed them too.
It was a remarkably diverse group of people. I shall never forget meeting Cindy Jackson. Born in Ohio, she told me:
"An abdominal lipectomy is where a long, hollow tube needle is stuck in your navel and the little fat pad on your tummy is literally sucked away.
"When the bandages are removed there's a little fan shape from all the bruises where the tube has plunged in and out. It's quite pretty, really."
Fifteen years later the Independent described her as "Britain's most surgically enhanced woman".
I discovered that one member was serving a life sentence for murder. He had been in jail for 18 years when I visited him at a Category D open prison in Gloucestershire. He told me:
"I was devastated by having killed somebody. It was totally out of character. I am not inherently a violent person and the shock of having done it left me an emotional wreck for quite a while."
In 1993 I launched a programme of special events. It included concerts and shows featuring members who were musicians, singers or general entertainers.
For concerts I hired the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in London. For the shows I booked the BBC Concert Hall at Broadcasting House, the Players Theatre (London) and the Library Theatre (Manchester).
Producing a concert or show was great fun. I worked with some genuinely talented people – jazz pianist Mike Hatchard, actor Guy Masterson, singer Ernie Thorn (who now presents the Opera Hour on Manx Radio), cellist Oliver Gledhill, concert pianist Richard Deering, solo soprano Rachel Bennett (a finalist in the BBC's Choirgirl of the Year competition), singer songwriter Andy Leek who played with Dexy's Midnight Runners and later had a solo album produced by George Martin, and many more.
Our first show, at the BBC Concert Hall, was recorded by BBC engineers and I still have a CD of the event. Our first concert, at the Royal Academy of Music, featured a genuine prodigy, six-year-old violinist Chloe Hanslip. Chloe is still performing today, as you will see from from these recent reviews.
Arguably the best show was in 1996. The organisation was celebrating its 50th anniversary with a three-day 'gathering' in London. With 1000 members in town, including a significant number from America, it was a unique opportunity to do something a bit special.
I booked – for one night only – Wyndham's Theatre in the West End. More important, I recruited BBC light entertainment producer Roger Ordish (another member) to direct the show, and it was a great success – a full house and a very entertaining bill that included a real American diva whose name I can't remember but she had a hit record in the States in 1964!!
When I left a few years later to join Forest internal politics had raised its ugly head again. Madsen was no longer on the committee. Clive Sinclair had stepped down as chairman. The chief executive had committed suicide. It was time to go.
You may have guessed the name of the society but you won't find it on my CV. I'm a little embarrassed, I suppose.
So here's my confession. For 15 years from 1985 to 1999 I was editor (gulp) of the monthly Mensa Magazine.
There, I've said it.
Simon Clark
Let me explain.
Part of my embarrassment comes from the fact that I would never claim to have a high IQ (far from it!) and even if I did I can't imagine wanting to join a society whose membership is based on that sort of criteria.
Also, while I enjoyed working for Mensa and met some very nice and interesting people, I also had to deal with some real oddballs, some of whom were benign, others more malevolent.
If those 15 years taught me anything it's this: IQ may help determine someone's intelligence but it's just one of many factors. Unfortunately some members overlook this and fool themselves that they are on a different level to the rest of us.
I don't think any of the people I mention above come into this category. Most members (95 per cent of whom are inactive within the society), take the test out of curiosity. When they pass and are offered membership they join but don't take it too seriously.
Clive Sinclair told me that he joined Mensa because, when he was young, he spent a lot of time abroad on business. Stuck in a hotel room on his own in Chicago or wherever, he would check whether the local group had a meeting that night and, if it did, he would pop along and join in whatever they were doing. (Drinking, mostly.)
For Clive, a naturally shy man, Mensa is quite simply a social club with a network of members in towns and cities throughout the world. Nothing more, nothing less.
I'm still not going to put it on my CV, though!
PS. My successor Brian Page, an award-winning professional journalist, still edits the Mensa Magazine. He's a non-member too. He is (or was) a smoker and many years ago I persuaded him to write an article for the Forest magazine Free Choice.
It was very funny. If I can find a copy I'll post it here.
Reader Comments (3)
MENSA has been described as a society for people you would never guess were intelligent until you knew they were members. Just like the Institute of Advanced Motorists has been described as a society for people you would never guess were good drivers ;-)
Touché. At risk of being pedantic, however, you have made the mistake of thinking that the word 'Mensa' is an acronym. It's not. It's Latin for 'table'. The founders intended to call the society Mens (Latin for 'mind') but there was already an adult magazine called Mens so that idea was quickly dropped!
I've never bothered to take the test, but two of my siblings have, and are 'members'. I don't think either of them ever took it seriously. Did the test, passed it and then forgot about it.
I've always thought that IQ tests were pretty meaningless. Some people are good at that type of puzzle (I always was) and some aren't, but as a measure of intelligence I think they fail completely.