!"#$% &'()*+, Paul Blezard meets the outspoken citizen of Rochdale and the world; as fanatical about motorcycles as he is about music and travel !rst met Andy Kershaw during TT week in 1994 at the cottage he was sharing with John IPeel in Kirkmichael, right on the TT course itself. The Radio 1 presenters used to rent the cottage every year during the races and as I knew the late, great, JP a little bit, he’d invited me to drop by. I remember having a great chat with John, but that Andy seemed a bit subdued and spent much of the time I was there in the garden. It took me eighteen years to !nd out why. I now know that he’d only just got back from witnessing the almost unimaginable slaughter in Rwanda having barely escaped with his life. Andy’s had more than a few ups and downs since then. His whole life seems to have been a metaphorical rollercoaster and he’s already crammed more adventure and excitement into his 53 years than most people would if they were reincarnated several times over. His broad Rochdale tones are as distinctive as Peelie’s sub-Merseyside accent was and I shall forever be grateful to the pair of them for introducing a regular !xture says a lot about his enthusiasm me to the joyful, jangling sound of African ‘High for motorcycles, the TT and Mona’s Isle. In fact Life’ music through their respective shows on Andy was so enthusiastic about the place that Radio 1 in the 1980s. in 2006 he actually moved there lock, stock and barrel with his partner of seventeen years and I knew Andy was a keen biker before I met their two children; to the town of Peel on the him because he used to talk about his annual west side of the island. pilgrimage to the Isle of Man every June on his radio show. The fact that he’d managed to There’s a terrible irony in the fact that the place AK & Chas Mortimer persuade the non-biking Mr Peel to join him as he’d loved enough to relocate to became a 144 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 171 October 2012 145 Blez, AK & Fergal Keene known pub in Soho. Upon Wheen via him and then with Andy K via arrival I was asked who I was Francis W. When I discovered that AK and the major factor in his dramatic ‘fall from grace’, The resurrection of by Francis Wheen, the Eye’s other Paul Blezard were both going to be at the which saw him incarcerated several times and Andy Kershaw and a confusion deputy editor. When I told Hay-on-Wye literary festival I introduced them featured regularly in the UK tabloids in 2007 of Paul Blezards him he said, memorably, to each other remotely and when Andy came and 2008. Happily, these days, the !rst page of an AK “You’re not Paul Blezard, you don’t to the London Literature Festival to talk about Google search will be dominated by references look anything like him!” I pointed out that No O! Switch he invited both Paul Blezards to Su"ce it to say here that three sayings come to his autobiography, ‘No O! Switch’, which I’d been Paul Blezard for a lot longer than the join him. Sadly, my namesake couldn’t make to mind about this troubled time: ‘Hell hath has garnered the highest praise from the great bloke he was thinking of, a young ‘impostor’ it because he was occupied elsewhere in a no fury like a woman scorned’, ‘the demon and the good, from Stephen Fry to Fergal whose real name is Paul Blezard-Gymer and di$erent section of the Festival but I had the drink’ and ‘Act in haste, repent at leisure’. If you Keane. And it was ‘No O! Switch’ which led, in who is best known for his interviews with great pleasure of listening to Andy talk about want to know more, a quick Google for “Andy a roundabout way, to my second meeting with writers at literary festivals. I ended up having his life and his autobiography interviewed by Kershaw” will reveal many sad accounts of “The Mr Kershaw eighteen years after the !rst. A a most agreeable lunch and discovered, to my his friend and fellow foreign correspondent year my world fell apart” as The Independent very roundabout way. Pay attention, readers, surprise, that Francis Wheen is a good friend of Fergal Keane. headlined their exclusive interview with him because it’s a bizarre tale of mistaken identity, Andy Kershaw’s. when he was literally ‘on the run’ from the modern meedja and social networking. Brie#y, Sitting on the top #oor of the Royal Festival Isle of Man authorities and reported missing about three years ago, I was unexpectedly Fast forward a couple of years and through the Hall, with beautiful summertime evening by his own sister and fellow-broadcaster, invited to one of the famous monthly Private far-reaching tentacles of Facebook I became FB views across the capital we got an extremely Liz Kershaw. Eye lunches that take place above a well- friends with my namesake, then with Francis entertaining couple of hours, illustrated with 146 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 171 October 2012 147 some of the most striking photos in No O! The Perfect Biker’s Backpack... Switch and a musical interlude from Steve Tillets on acoustic guitar at half time. Pro-Sports 30Ltr £57.49 £57.49 Andy talked about his childhood in Rochdale, growing up as the son of a headmaster, his job G o$er from Motorcycle News before he even Roll-top 100% waterproof went to Leeds University and how his unpaid rucksack (Class 3) G Protects but fulltime job as Entertainments Secretary cost him his degree. How he put on Dire Straits Paul Blezard meets Paul Blezard contents from dust, sand, dirt and Ian Dury on successive nights and fell out and water G ‘High Frequency’ with Bob Geldof when he caught him tearing broadcaster in his own right. He also made it G down posters for the Clash. clear that he’s not embarrassed to be compared welded construction Internal (as he often has been) with John Noakes, the zip pocket G Two-way sealing legendary and fearless northern Blue Peter presenter from the 60s and 70s – and nor system (top or side) G Padded should he be! shoulder straps and lumbar After his ‘world music’ show was bumped support G Comfortable back o$ Radio 1, it was resurrected on Radio 3 panel with air-flow design G by popular demand and Andy re-invented himself as a foreign correspondent for Radio 4, Super reflective strips on the the World Service and the serious newspapers. bag and both shoulder straps G He specialised in visiting some of the most tyrannically ruled and dangerous places on Adjustable sternum strap and earth, from Haiti to North Korea and Angola waist belt G Large elasticated mesh to Zimbabwe, along with the aforementioned Rwanda. And all the time he was collecting side pocket and a top carry handle Ironically, in view of that little contretemps music from wherever he went. He’s visited G Large front mesh zip pocket with Saint Bob, the book starts with Andy’s half the countries on the planet and his record appearance at Live Aid, having had a meteoric collection weighs seven tons! rise in the music industry. He ended his time Full range of dry-bags, backpacks F at Uni helping to put on the Rolling Stones After the disastrous collapse of the relationship OF s 15% ader outdoor concert in Leeds and then rose from with the mother of his children, which resulted and waterproof cases for cameras, t re obscurity within the course of a single year, in him being forcibly separated from them for iges 12* r D 7/20 from being Billy Bragg’s roadie to getting his a long time, it was great to see his joy at having phones and iPads at fo 31/0 until own show on Radio 1, and co-presenting The them with him at the Festival Hall talk. It’s also www.overboard.com Old Grey Whistle Test. He was twenty-!ve, but great to see that he’s recently been working for Discount Code: looked about !fteen! the BBC again, on both radio and TV. OBRIDERSDIGEST05 Kershaw talked warmly about life in the BBC Still motorcycling after all *Full-priced items only. Code valid for one o"ce that he shared with John Peel and their these years purchase, including for multiple items. great Radio 1 producer John Walters, whom I remember seeing Andy test a Harley- I remember as an extremely entertaining Davidson on the original, pre-Clarkson Top 148 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 171 October 2012 149 T2T Flyer2:Layout 1 12/2/12 12:52 Page 2 OTHER ADVENTURE TRAVEL BOOKS COM BY SAM MANI Gear programme and I was amazed to discover the Saturday evening, arriving just as dusk 'A captivating book for all, 'Sam has the skills of the This is a great story which this is the story of an story teller and this book reads with the ease of a that he’s now owned the same XL 883 H-D for was falling and my friends on the Feet First enlightening, yet daunting easily transports you into novel. Distant Suns has it all: 22 years. There’s no accounting for taste! He’s stand were enjoying a barbecue.