In the 1970/80s I used to run a most popular Bingo & Social Club Majestic in Newcastle upon Tyne. To promote the business we would use television personalities to make ‘Personal Appearances’ paying them a respectable fee to visit the Bingo Club during the sessions. Ena Sharples, Dennis Tanner, Elsie Tanner and several other well known stars from Corry Street paid their visits to the applause and appreciation of our Bingo players. I did a deal to present Len Fairclough to a sell out crowd of 1800 bingo players. A chauffeur arrived in the afternoon to say he had brought Peter Adamson and I invited the driver to bring him to my office. The driver apologised that he could not manage to bring Adamson as he was absolutely ‘pissed out of his mind’ I went down to the car to see Fairclough slumped over the back seat of the car drunk!

His wife apologised for the state he was in and I suggested that he should sleep in my office until his ‘personal appearance’ at 7.30pm. We left him locked in the office with a jug of black coffee to sleep off his drunken state. On the advice of the driver I had hid a couple of bottles of spirits in the filing cabinets to prevent Fairclough drinking further, he took over the office to ‘sleep it off’ and I returned to him one hour before his stage appearance to check on his state, I was stunned and shocked to see him still paralytic with drink! It seems he had searched my desk & filing cabinets looking for drink where he found and drank a full bottle of Smirnoff Vodka, to complete his drunken act he urinated on my office furniture despite toilet facilities being available. His dear wife who was crippled with arthritis broke into tears when she saw him and staff comforted her while I dealt with the situation of presenting him to the Geordie public.

At 7.30pm I went on stage to announce Fairclough saying “I promised to bring Len Fairclough to you tonight and I am sorry about the state he is in Ladies & Gentleman Len Fairclough-Peter Adamson” The doors at the back of the Bingo Hall opened with two security men bringing Fairclough to the stage almost ‘frogmarching’ him to a round of polite applause through the masses of Bingo players. He stumbled upstage, I handed him the mike and he started slurring half sentences and words which the Geordie crowd could not understand. In Newcastle, they are a hard crowd but once I had won their respect I was treated with great love respect and friendship over many years from multi thousands of Bingo players, the crowd could see the humiliation and started stamping their feet and booing as I instructed for Fairclough to be taken away back to the office.
Some of the most loyal threatened him as he was escorted away however he was eventually ushered to the front of house (without payment) and departed the Majestic with the message soundly ringing in his ears that he would never work for my company again. To complete his act of self humiliation to all concerned he vomited as soon as he got into the back of the Mercedes chauffeur driven limousine. In the early 1980s Fairclough brought shame on Corry Street with a case against him of child abuse at a swimming pool. Peter Adamson alias Len Fairclough died recently a penniless recluse he showed no respect to his wife his public his fellow workers and children were not safe in his company!
Good riddance!
Geoff