FAME & FORTUNE
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Neil Anthony Hodder has been extraordinarily lucky, to generalise, in his professional and artistic life to date: fortunate is an understatement. So, I've just invigilated a Year 11 Mathematics GCSE Mock (on agency assignment) and I'm ingesting my daily caffeine allowance in one go in the staff social room of a school. Who should enter but a real life famous actor (employed temporarily in the Humanities Department as a cover teacher). Social room is suddenly full, to the top line, with the sound of KAH:"Mr Hodder (!)" - not only an actor but a top publicist. As the decibel level subsides, I reply tauntingly to the actor "I'm struggling to recall your surname squire": it's KEVIN ANTHONY HAYES, a star of the screen, snug as the proverbial bug in IMDB/ registered agency supply teacher (just the 5th bod to attempt a timetable at the school we inhabit currently). Kev recalls a radio documentary from yesterday purportedly: "decent actors are actually working in factories: luckily I made it in Poland having learnt the language. This country is too harsh on the arts!"
This past year, I've had some supply teaching work but actually not enough (around the fifty percentile). ONE IN FIVE young people (that excludes wrinklies like yours truly) are out of work in this country according, again, to a top radio source (KAH and I both like to cite R4) : its arguably a tough fiscal time historically: indeed Arts historically. Inflation is lowering but elevated to be polite. My index linked retirement fund is a Godsend: a GMP, however, really is minimalism monetarily: the Art of Survival is an essential area to upskill in: if you've fame or relative obscurity so it would seem. I'll expand a bit.
Kevin invites me to collaborate: "IN SHORT SUPPLY" his proposed one man show for YouTube or potentially for the stage per se. "We could work on some scripting over a few bottles of wine!". KAH, unashamedly, brands all Supply Teaching Agencies as rogues on his web site and IN SHORT would be an accurate end of their jugulars. Neil is ethical and although the agencies are not perfect with their tax and payroll glitches and their ill fitting jobs, at times, they are not that imperfect either: one is remunerating me currently on an extended break between exam duties. KAH is famous: NAH isn't.
KAH is not however as famous as the late legend Richard Attenborough who attended my Five at Five ways exhibition at the late 80s Brighton Arts festival. Gallery involvement has come to the fore again in the Summer of 2025 when I attended the private view of Rob Conway's retrospective - the late Rob. His entire extended family was, seemingly, at this gathering in Hedy Sadoc's new Gallery in Rochford. I turned up dressed as, of all things, an LP cover: New Beginnings by Rob's band Primary Purpose. It featured Rob on lead vocals and guitar and he was taking me under his wing to record with him and Mark Elliot in his studio in Hadleigh - that was definitely in the offing but Rob died of alcohol amongst other things. Hence the retrospective organised by Hedy and his extended tribe. Hedy ushered me out the back of the gallery during the gathering to her small but impressive studio (mine as and when) and literally offered me a spare key to the gallery before I left the private view (in order to co-manage the premises - another gallery go). The pragmatist in me declined her offer: my estate agent alter ego whispered in the 30 degrees of heat inside the unheated gallery in the Winter: "location, location, location".
So, I'm an artist lucky enough to say NO, provisionally, to two prominent denizens of the world of art and literature. As Picasso reportedly asserted, Art is essentially what you choose to leave out of a composition:)
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| One of my favourite Sadoc's currently |
HS asked me to pen a few words about the late Conway which I rolled out to her fairly rapidly, much to her delight and eulogy, for the retrospective and in support of Rob's now scheduled show in the People's Gallery (Forum Library Southend) : "Rob the polymath" I titled my contribution - the chancer that persuaded me to become involved with a gallery Rowena Lawfield described as "a money pit". Exhibiting ought not amount to an insufferable expense to the artist - dead or alive.
Writing Haikus is a new facet of my life in what is ostensibly now a retirement phase. For example:
Put your phones away - any digital cheat sheets - out of pockets now!
These ditties get recorded in my newly installed home recording studio as well as published here in posh Blogger form. The format is addictive: a literary "pipe". The Foundation course continues approaching 60 years of age. The NHS instructs people online re "pipe" usage - no sharing (!)
THEN, a precocious flourishing band is currently with us in 2026 (maybe larger than it has ever manifested itself): people. The talent pool within it is phenomenal. I'm actually a more prominent member of the group now that the crucifying weight of educational life is partially elevated above my back - DIY remasters; "auditing"* sound droids "orchestrated"* in some quantity this past year.
Yes, AI* is yet another valuable member of this band. It wants to know and, despite it's accident proneness, it is admittedly becoming a BFF: human! Medlet's tale has now been augmented with a bolt on post containing a live remaster of Minuet No.27, first created in the year 2000, as well as a 12 inch vinyl spoof of one of my favourite self penned tunes from a quarter of a century ago: shiny new cuts to CDR/MP3 for web sharing. Why? Well why fricking not? Lasse (MD of Musicaa) thanked me for sharing "That thin" in MP3 form: a tasteful and inspirational Danish musicologist! My niece was also "overwhelmed" by the same recording which was heavily influenced by the Adlerian literature she furnished me with Christmas 2025 (Courage to be disliked). My trusty Greek critic Vas: "brilliant" recording Neil.
Talking of music, now, I'm currently sitting in close proximity to several prominent faces in the performing arts because LEE HODGSON has just joined KEVIN HAYES and I in the Lift maltings Staff Social Room. One of those epiphanic moments in life has occurred - maybe fifty years too late.
What then does fame actually amount to ? Our CVs are all pitiful are they? We all consent to be here in obscurity for our agency rate. The industry, real, purchases our "morass of anonymity" to quote Derek Dick. An Actor and a Musician (both with considerable reputations) have apparently been superbly side-lined as riff raff on the supply circuit. My fortune is my anonymity: evidently fame is to be avoided.
The Iagoesque opportunist in me wants to know Mr Hodgson better (post a quick online search). He'd set his stall out yesterday in the exam room (pre-test I hasten to add): a "professional guitarist". The social room was a more apt setting for a phatic excursion:
NAH: It's a shame that all the guitar shops in this city seem to be vanishing.
LH: Yi(!) my favourites were.... There's still a good one near to Chalkwell Park run by Jimmy Green.
The PMT boys banked - one of them used to have a villa on a Greek Island.
NAH: Oh? Which brands do you deem to be the very best buy?
LH: Fender and Gibson are the two iconic labels I'd say; Wilkinson is a close third and Squier instruments can be AOK (around the £299 mark). When I interviewed Hank Marvin I got to strum a really rare Fender Strat - I've written for a lot of guitar mags.
NAH: Any record Company interest in you at all?
LH: Nowt that fancy! Suffice to state that my Apple Mac LOGIC software is about a thousand times more powerful than early Beatles experimentation. I've recorded a lot in a local studio for burning onto my DVD available online.
NAH: Enough said Lee!
LEE HODGSON is an impressive character who copies me like a Year 2 Phonics lesson: graphemes, full words - the whole kaboosh! He is reticently enthusiastic and speaks quietly (we were at work): "I could talk all day about guitar - went straight to work after I finished invigilating here yesterday to do a one hour gig at a care home in Chorley Wood"
So, here I am rubbing shoulders with real famous faces on supply teaching assignment thanks, I have to concede, to one of my trusty agencies. Rich and famous? Who in hell knows?
