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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book would not have been commissioned if the multi-award-winning BBC TV drama Marvellous, based on Neil’s life, had not been such an outstanding success. To adapt a line from Marvellous: ‘Acknowledgements, I wouldn’t know where to start.’ Or indeed to finish. But I’ll try.

  We thank the writer and executive director, Peter Bowker, for his brilliantly perceptive and funny script, which truly captured Neil’s spirit, so outstandingly portrayed on screen by Toby Jones, without which there would have been no film.

  His fellow executive director, Patrick Spence, managing director of Fifty Fathoms, part of the Tiger Aspect group, had the wisdom to see the potential of the film, and sell it to the BBC. He managed the whole process with sensitive professionalism. Patrick was the figurehead and representation of a brilliant directing, production, acting and publicity team, who have gained the professional recognition they so richly deserve, and who had Neil’s best interests at the heart of all their work. It seems invidious to selectively name and praise individuals here. Thank you all, guys, for a job superbly well done.

  Marvellous itself would not have been conceived and made without the article written about Neil in The Guardian in 2010 by our longstanding friend, Francis Beckett. But Francis’s contribution certainly did not end there. He conducted some of the interviews for the book, edited the whole text and drew upon his extensive experience as an author and journalist to provide invaluable advice on structure and content, and provided an introduction and afterword. Thank you so much, Francis.

  The book tells Neil’s extraordinary story, of which I have been privileged to be a part. But I have been only one of many. Over the years, Neil has had hundreds, nay thousands, of friends across the main domains of his life: his family; the church; Keele University; the circus world; Stoke City FC and the wider football world, and the Cambridge University Boat Club. Some of them have contributed directly to the book, and we thank them for their time and co-operation. Many others, only a few of whom are identified in the text, have helped and supported Neil, and he has equally enriched their lives. We extend our thanks to all who have done so, whether or not they are named in the book. You have all been important players in Neil’s story.

  The editor, Chris Mitchell of John Blake Publishing, and Andy Armitage, the copy editor, have provided invaluably professional input. Sheila Hayward turned my audio tapes into script with remarkable speed and accuracy. John Easom read and provided helpful comments on a draft of the book. Judge Nick Warren allowed me time off from my Information Tribunal duties to work on the book. Thanks to you all, and to anyone else I have inadvertently omitted.

  MALCOLM CLARKE

  To Dorothy ‘Mary’ Baldwin

  1922–2003

  A loving mother whose wisdom, courage and foresight were truly remarkable.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  FOREWORD BY FRANCIS BECKETT

  CHAPTER 1: NEIL’S FIRST CELEBRITY: THE ENGLAND FOOTBALLER WHO SIGNED HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE

  CHAPTER 2: NEIL IN THE SIXTIES: A TIME TO SOW

  CHAPTER 3: NEIL IN THE SEVENTIES: POLITICS, FOOTBALL AND THE BOAT RACE

  CHAPTER 4: NELLO THE CIRCUS CLOWN

  CHAPTER 5: THE STOKE CITY KIT MAN

  CHAPTER 6: MORE TIME TO SPEND AT KEELE AND LOOKING AFTER MUM

  CHAPTER 7: NEIL LEARNS TO LIVE ON HIS OWN

  CHAPTER 8: NEIL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: A TIME TO REAP

  CHAPTER 9: NEIL: THE BIOPIC

  CHAPTER 10: NEIL BALDWIN, CELEBRITY

  CHAPTER 11: THE PILGRIMS

  AFTERWORD BY FRANCIS BECKETT

  Plates

  Copyright

  FOREWORD

  By Francis Beckett

  It was one of those occasions the British film industry does well: a glittering preview at the National Film Theatre on the South Bank. Famous actors, footballers and politicians mingled with the crowds, and watched the new film for the very first time before applauding the stars as they walked on stage.

  Television presenter Samira Ahmed, who has fronted PM, The World Tonight and Sunday Morning Live, led the way, followed by the stars themselves: Toby Jones, Gemma Jones, Tony Curran, Greg McHugh, with writer Peter Bowker and director Julian Farino. They started to talk, but there was still a sense of expectation. Something was missing.

  Then a short, stout, late-middle-aged man walked on stage, using a walking stick because of a recent hip operation. His round face was covered by the widest and happiest smile we had seen for a while, and he spoke in a gravelly and curiously flat voice with a strong Potteries accent.

  He was wearing a dinner jacket, in stark contrast to the elaborately casual clothes of the metropolitan elite around him, but clearly didn’t feel at all overdressed. In fact, everyone else suddenly felt a bit underdressed, and Samira Ahmed said, ‘You’re the only person here who’s dressed properly.’

  His name was Neil Baldwin, and the film was a fictionalised version of his life.

  It’s a name everyone now feels they know, but can’t quite pin down. Is he Neil Baldwin the cabinet minister, or Neil Baldwin the famous writer, or the actor or the talk-show host or the footballer, or the latest winner of Celebrity Big Brother?

  It has been like that for more than half a century. When eighteen-year-old Malcolm Clarke arrived for his first day at Keele University in 1964, a short, stout young man wearing a clerical collar came up to him and said, ‘Welcome to Keele. I’m Neil Baldwin.’ Fifty years later, Malcolm wrote, ‘I appreciated his warm welcome, but just who was he? As always with Neil, his exact status seemed uncertain.’

  It was still like that in 2010, when I profiled him for The Guardian. The profile inspired the film Marvellous, which was broadcast in 2014.

  So who is Neil Baldwin, and why does he matter? To understand that, you have to understand his singular life, and in this book Neil and Malcolm, with a little help from me, guide you through it. Maybe, when you come to the end, you will feel you understand; and maybe not. But you will feel more optimistic, because that’s what exposure to Neil does.

  CHAPTER ONE

  NEIL’S FIRST CELEBRITY: THE ENGLAND FOOTBALLER WHO SIGNED HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE

  NEIL

  There’s two things I want to tell you at the start. First, I like to remember the happy things. I put nasty things behind me. And, second, you can get things by asking for them. I always do.

  I was born on 15 March 1946. Mum and Dad were both big Stoke City – or Potters – supporters, so they named me after Neil Franklin, who was the Stoke City centre-half in 1946. He was quite a player, Neil Franklin. He played for England twenty-seven times in a row and, if he hadn’t been silly enough to go to Colombia, he would have been the first player to get a hundred England caps. The day after I was born, Franklin turned out for Stoke City in an away game at Grimsby Town, which we won 2–0. I’ve been a winner ever since.

  My mum and dad even got him to write a message on the back of my birth certificate, too. It says, ‘With very best wishes from Neil Franklin, Stoke City FC and England.’ I’m very proud of that. Of course, I’ve got to know a lot more famous people since then.

  MALCOLM

  Neil was the only child of Mary and Harry Baldwin who were married in October 1944, when Harry, an engineering fitter, was thirty-one, and Mary was a few days short of her twenty-second birthday. They settled in a prefabricated bungalow in Chesterton, a working-class suburb of Newcastle-under-Lyme, the so-called ‘Loyal and Ancient Borough’ next to the city of Stoke-on-Trent.

  Mary didn’t have an easy pregnancy. One family story has it that, because of a fear that she might miscarry, she was given an injection she shouldn’t have had, which caused
the ‘learning difficulties’ or ‘special needs’ that Neil was once labelled as having.

  We’ll never know for certain. But, if a clinical mistake was responsible for Neil’s total lack of the embarrassment, self-consciousness and fear of artificial social niceties that often hold most of us back from doing the things we want to do, then it’s not such a bad thing, is it?

  NEIL

  I don’t know anything about an injection, but I’m not worried about that. All I know is that I came out OK and I’ve had a great life and I’ve always been very happy. I’ve become a film star. Not many people have a film made about their life, do they? And I’ve got an honorary degree, which not many people have.

  MALCOLM

  Harry Baldwin, who was born in Wolstanton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, came from a North Staffordshire working-class family. His mother died when he was five. His father, Neil’s grandfather, Thomas Baldwin, was a miner who died when Neil was eleven. He lived just down the road from Neil in Chesterton, as did Neil’s great-uncle, Dan Johnson, his wife, Lilian, and his son, also called Dan.

  Uncle Dan recalls the family and Neil’s childhood:

  Harry was a fine chap but was very quiet. He was a singer in the local church choir, as was Neil. Neil’s always been a good singer.

  Some ignorant people in the area didn’t have much to do with Neil because they said he was slow. He was always polite and very respectful, which he got from Mary. If Neil ever crossed the line, Mary would firmly say, ‘Neil – that will do. No more.’

  He didn’t ask for anything, but somehow before he left the room he would always get what he wanted, and that has carried on through his life – look at the autographs he’s got and the famous people he’s met.

  NEIL

  When I was about six, the teachers sent me to a speech therapist because my voice wasn’t working properly. I had to go to the hospital every week to learn how to speak. There was someone asking me questions and I’d have to answer. They wanted to get me to speak right.

  I went for about two years and then it was all right and I didn’t have to go any more. There was no problem with reading. I was a great reader.

  I went to the local primary school in Chesterton. It was in a very old building. I quite liked it. There was a teacher called Mr Dowler who was always very nice to me. Some of them weren’t nice to me, and I got into trouble sometimes.

  They decided not to bother to sit me for the eleven-plus, and I went to Broad Meadow, the local secondary modern school. Uncle Dan still calls it the ‘college of knowledge’. Yes, of course there was a bit of bullying there, but I was all right, I stood up for myself.

  MALCOLM

  Neil was a friend of the late Gilbert Bartels, who was also regarded as having special needs. Gilbert’s brother Paul recalls:

  Gilbert and Neil were like each other in many ways. Both of them always saw the best in people, even if they weren’t treated right. Because they were seen as being limited, they were picked on by the school bullies and had the mickey taken out of them by the local kids. It was quite a tough area to grow up in, but it didn’t seem to faze Neil.

  I liked Neil because he always did what he wanted to do once he set his mind on something. Sometimes his mum had difficulty in stopping him if there was something he really wanted to do.

  He was very involved with the local church even as a young boy. He used to wear a large wooden cross about five inches by three inches round his neck, which was a very unusual thing to do.

  NEIL

  You should never be afraid to proclaim your faith. Christ died on the cross for us.

  MALCOLM

  David Kelsall was a student teacher at Broadmeadow in 1959–60. He recalls:

  The school had four streams, A, B, C and D. Neil was in D stream, and academically probably at the bottom of that. Their class teacher was Ron Cauldwell, who taught every subject. Ron was an inspirational teacher who had a really good personality for teaching, and a real commitment to help the less academically able kids. The school could be quite brutal but Ron didn’t use the cane like other teachers. Neil couldn’t have been in better hands.

  Before I took the class, I remember Ron telling me, ‘Don’t worry about Neil. He’ll do his best and do what he can. He won’t cause you any problems.’ I just remember Neil as a really nice pleasant lad who was always smiling. He was always smart with a tie on and he often wore a green jacket.

  NEIL

  I remember David. He was very nice. Ron Cauldwell was a great teacher who looked after me. He taught our class for two or three years. Mr Toms was the head teacher and he was a nice man.

  MALCOLM

  David Leech, another local contemporary, who eventually went on to be the leader of the local council, also remembers the strength of Neil’s religious commitment. ‘Neil always walked round the village with a large Bible under his arm,’ he told me. Bert Proctor, three years Neil’s senior, also remembers Neil’s Bible and comments:

  He would give you the impression that he had an official role with the church, but that was really due to innocent simplicity, not an attempt to deceive you. The clergy had no choice but to get to know Neil, because, once Neil had decided that it was worth getting in with somebody, he was always confident enough to do so. That came from his mum. It’s interesting that I remember her well but not his dad.

  Neil knew everybody in Chesterton and everybody knew him. He was uncomplicated, with no hidden agendas and didn’t take offence. He became interested in and visited the churches and the university, whereas Gilbert did the same in the hospital. Today’s society with its concerns about security and other things wouldn’t be so accommodating. I worked in a butcher’s shop after I left school and Neil was also very interested in that.

  Uncle Dan also recalls Neil’s early self-confidence:

  He once asked me to phone Sandhurst to get him some application forms to join the military academy, which of course I did and he got the forms, but he became a clown instead.

  His son, Young Dan, thirteen years Neil’s junior, recalls being taken to Stoke City as a young child by Neil:

  We hung around for ages after the game getting players’ autographs. Neil coached me how to ask for autographs. He had no fear. Once, he just walked into the players’ bar. I was embarrassed and just wanted to get out but Neil wasn’t bothered at all.

  Uncle Dan recalls family trips to West Midlands Safari Park at Bewdley in Mary’s car, when Neil was in his twenties and Young Dan was a teenager, but his boldness caused them worry: ‘Neil was always winding down the window in the lions’ enclosure, which frightened us all. He was obsessed with animals.’

  Young Dan recalls that Mary’s driving added to the concern:

  We were always scared Mary would stall the car whilst we were in a dangerous-animal enclosure and Neil would open the door. She had trouble finding the gears in her Renault 5. She wasn’t a very good driver. We used to go to the country, to Dovedale. I remember Neil just climbing right up the rocks with ordinary shoes on. He was fearless and had an amazing amount of energy.

  NEIL

  We Baldwins were a very close family. I used to see Uncle Dan and his family a lot because they lived just round the corner but for a long time I used to call him ‘Mr Johnson’ because no one realised until much later that my grandmother, who had died, was the sister of Uncle Dan’s father. Mum and Dad always taught me to be very polite to the neighbours. As well as Uncle Dan’s family, my granddad lived just down the road from us in Chesterton as well as my uncle Eddie, who was also very good to me. Everyone lived nearby and I had a very happy childhood. I have always loved the trips to the safari park and the country. They were marvellous.

  I had some good friends. I wasn’t bullied at school and I never used to worry about what some of the other kids in Chesterton said to me. I took no notice. That happens to everyone. I was very happy and I still am and have always been proud to be a Christian.

  MALCOLM

  Mary had been born in Oct
ober 1922 in Birkenhead. Her mother, Sarah, died in 1929, aged thirty-four, after giving birth to five children in five years, one of whom died in childbirth. Mary, the second of four surviving children, was only seven. So both Neil’s parents had suffered the loss of their mothers at a very early age.

  NEIL

  Because he was in the navy my granddad couldn’t cope with looking after my mum and her two sisters and one brother and the family was split up.

  MALCOLM

  Mary’s sister Iris and Iris’s twin brother Dennis were sent to an orphanage, where they suffered some cruel treatment. Dennis eventually became an alcoholic and moved away. When he did return, on one occasion around 1970, Neil’s granddad disowned him and wouldn’t even tell him where his sisters were living. Iris named her daughter, Denise, Neil’s cousin, after Dennis, and, despite Iris’s lifelong attempts to find her twin brother, his sisters never saw him again. In 2012, after Iris and Mary had both died, a company of heir hunters who were trying to find the beneficiaries of Dennis’s estate tracked down Denise, who learned that Dennis had died in a hostel in Darlington in 2006.

  Mary had a much better deal than the twins: she was sent to live with well-off relatives, first in a posh part of Birmingham and then at Prees in Shropshire, and had private schooling. Perhaps this partly explains the self-confidence she had in dealing with people from a variety of backgrounds, and her resilience, both of which qualities she certainly passed on to Neil.