Bodyguard (32 page)

I told him I was not spending thousands of pounds on a casket that was going to be burned – that was a waste of money and Dad wouldn’t want that. He showed me the urns on the back page. The parents of those poor kids in Ciudad Juárez would have been through this. Drug money, though, would have paid for their send-off.

‘Take me to the front page with the cheapest coffin.’ I didn’t want to waste any time or money.

He took me to page two. ‘You know what, Mr. Summers, there’s no point spending that much. You are correct. I could sit here like a salesman but that’s wrong,’ the undertaker said.

I told him I wanted to spend
£
75 and take the ashes home. It was holiday in the UK and I wanted it over as soon as possible. We settled on the Tuesday evening at 5 p.m.

‘Would you like to see your dad?’ he asked. I said I would.

The undertaker was supremely professional. He didn’t mention money, and was efficient, thorough and had integrity. I aspired to be the same in my line of work. I respected that. 

And it took me back into operational mode. I told Mum that we had to leave messages on answer phones in the morning. You heard horror stories of people getting fleeced because they had been slow to record loved ones’ deaths. I said I would ring BT, the army, the Pensions, everyone. If it meant speaking into a voicemail, so be it. It was on the record that my dad had died at this time and on this day. There would be no doubt.

At 7 p.m., I drove Mum to the chapel to see Dad for the last time. The undertaker was there on schedule. Even though we had a lot in common professionally, I could never have done his job, despite having done those duties several times over. I offered him a down payment straightaway, even though he was ushering me in. In all it came in at 3,500 euros.

Then it was time to see Dad. The chapel where he lay would be the same for the service. Two young Spanish lads hustled out and said it was ready. It was all so very strange, as though the king was summoning us. Mum went in first – she hadn’t seen him since he had passed away. She went in briefly but came out too upset.

Then it was my turn. I’m not religious in any way, but the stained-glass window behind the altar was stunning. It felt perfect. Then I saw the coffin and felt I had done Dad an injustice. It looked cheap. As I got closer, he looked good, absolutely brilliant – like the Dad I remembered. They had done a really good job on him.

I leant over, said very little, almost nothing, just staring at him, and walked back out. It couldn’t have been ninety seconds. Despite the number of bodies that I had seen, I didn’t know what to say or how to behave. In my mind, I was thinking, I’ll be seeing you Dad, but I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

Did it change my attitude to Banda Aceh, to Stuart, to Kaveh, to Kate and to all the others? I don’t know. It reminded me of all those clichés about one life and all that. The difference still remained that in all those stories, I was on a job and that was what the job was. For 
work, there was a dead body. In real life, there was a dead body that was part of me.

The funeral was Tuesday 6 April. My daughters and Sue were over – they went straight to see Dad before they sealed the coffin. The Spaniards often leave the lid off or open but that wasn’t for me. Kate went in first but came out bawling. Walking down the aisle, Charlotte said she didn’t think she could do it either.

‘Don’t worry about it; you can,’ I consoled her. ‘You just have to remember Dad as he was. He doesn’t look any different. Just come with me.’

I held her, walking forward to the coffin. She looked inside, saw him, and turned around in tears. ‘I can’t do it, Dad,’ she cried.

That just left me to say goodbye for the last time. I didn’t linger. I couldn’t. In some ways it was easier to leave this time, because the girls needed me outside. That gave me the reason not to spend any more time than I needed to. One thing remained consistent with all the bodies that I had seen, even though this was different. There was nothing more to say. Nothing was bringing him back. I said farewell, then followed the girls out.

I didn’t know how to behave – death was all about organisation, filing a report and putting recommendations for next time. I had never seen it as something close to home.

Kate wrote a poem that she wanted to read with Charlotte, I somehow composed a eulogy that I didn’t realise I was capable of, and between us, we all figured out Dad would only want to go out to the sound of Johnny Mathis. Different generation!

I got talking to Mum’s brother, Graham – a decent, salt of the earth guy who once had trials with Wolves. He looked up to my dad – we filled the void chatting, and he told me more than Dad ever did really, explaining how Mum and Dad got together, even recalling their first date. It took me back to how Sue and I met while I was on leave from Ireland, in the Nelson pub in Poole, Dorset. 

There was time to kill before the funeral. Fifty locals of similar age to Dad were coming. I sorted the money behind the bar. I needed it over. I decided to go for a run to get it out of my system, loading up the Springsteen to clear my head. It was an odd thing to do, but I was so unused to a funeral in a personal capacity.

Dad wouldn’t have wanted suits, so I insisted on smart casual and took the lead. Outside the church, dozens of friends of his, who had made up Little England along the Spanish coastline, all came to pay respects. I recognised many from the bar. They probably knew that this day would be theirs soon enough but it told me he was well liked and that made me happy. To make the move out here so late in life and then for Dad’s life to have been unhappy was no way to go. I hoped he would have called these the best years of his life.

It was a strange conveyor belt process. A Spanish family were in an adjacent chapel at the same time burying their own. Sue sat with Mum on the front row. Misty was playing in the background. After a few words from the resident English vicar, it was my turn to deliver the eulogy. I didn’t do this kind of thing. I delivered safety
briefings
and shouted a lot in tense situations. I wasn’t the kind of guy to whisper gentle thoughts. Out of my comfort zone, all I cared about was not letting Dad down.

Kate and Charlotte followed, each reading half a poem. I was relieved it was over and took my place back in the front row. I was on a different sort of auto pilot to normal, wanting it finished but desperate to do it justice. I glossed over the prayers – those were for Dad and meant nothing to me. I may have changed my perspective on death, but I had seen too much for Dad’s passing to show me the door to an afterlife or a religious re-birth. That was all nonsense to me.

Before I knew it, ‘Time to say Goodbye’ was on and it was the moment to leave. There would be another one along in a minute. That was how it was. We all filed out, leaving the coffin behind, then with great relief hit the bar. I said a few more words, thanked everyone for coming, and toasted my dad.

I was knackered, and didn’t want to go through that again soon. Almost as light relief, we found Arsenal getting hammered by Barcelona in the Champions League on a TV in the next room. I asked Mum if she minded if we watched. Most of the blokes followed, and the woman stayed as one. You can justify
everything
by saying it’s what Dad would have wanted, but if he had been there he would have had the game on. Of course, it took our minds 
off things. By half one in the morning, we called time on a long day. Tomorrow was another day.

I took Sue and the girls to the airport and spent the next
twenty-four
hours sorting out more paperwork, returning home on the Friday. It had been an exhausting, expensive few days.

And I knew I hadn’t mourned properly. On my wall at home I hung his medals. Every picture that I would never normally glance at stared back at me. What were once passing thoughts dominated my mind. If Dad were still alive, I should have said a few things – after I split from my first wife I felt that they had taken her side. I regretted that now and wished I could put that right. I loved him more in death than in life, but then don’t we all? If I had my time again, I would have found a way to love him in life, too.

I
tried to throw myself back in to work. It wasn’t right though. Normally, I would be relishing a major football tournament
overseas
. The loss of Dad and Big Brother watching me at work had taken the gloss of things and by the time the departure day of 3 June came, Sue’s and my prediction about both our dads had come true. Sue’s dad passed away the night before.

Two in two months.

He was a typical no-nonsense working-class man, the father of nine. Life was pit, pub, dinner and sleep, taking Sue’s mum out once a week. That was how it was. I got on very well with him – probably because I saw a lot of my dad in him. My relationship with them was also so much better than with my first wife’s parents – they always felt she could do better than me.

Sue spent the last days with him. It was obvious the end was near, and so strange that both men went at the same time.

‘I genuinely want you to go,’ Sue said to me as she broke the news while I was packing for South Africa. She was upset, but it was his time. He was eighty-seven. I never really know with Sue if she means stuff like that or if she wants me to drop everything and head up to Mansfield.

‘I will be back for the funeral,’ I promised. So I told work that I would have to make several trips, and headed the next day to Heathrow to fly to Cape Town. At Terminal Five, things went from 
bad to worse – of all the days to find I was in Economy! There were so many of us flying out that day that the plane was packed. In total, the BBC flew nearly 300 people to South Africa. With my Gold Card, I had managed to pick my seat, though. The only way to do this, I thought, was more leg room at the bulk head seat and a few drinks all the way to South Africa. Grim, but beyond my control.

I had passed through immigration when my phone rang. It was the floor manager from
Match of the Day
. ‘Where are you, Craig?’ Chris White asked. ‘We’re in Wetherspoons – come and join us.’ I found him there with a couple of the assistant producers. Everyone seemed to be thinking the same – down a few to knock you out for the flight.

‘Why don’t we use my lounge access and have a few freebies in the Business Lounge?’ I warmed to the theme. We were flying out of B gate – I knew there was a lounge up there. We chewed the fat, waiting to be called, and sunk our pints. Whitey had six weeks at the World Cup, then was flying straight on to Scotland for the Open. Finally, they called us – I was dreading the eleven hours in Economy. We decided to down one final beer. I didn’t do Economy.

‘Help me, help me,’ I suddenly heard as I was coming down the stairs out of the bar area.

Down below was a BA employee with his mouth jammed tightly. It looked straightaway like he was having an epileptic fit. I handed Whitey my bag and rushed to help. ‘Have you called for
paramedics
?’ I asked the other BA staff. ‘We need to stop him swallowing his tongue or biting it off. I need something to prize his mouth open.’

The BA girl handed me a plastic fork. ‘This is no good,’ I looked at her unimpressed. That was the summit of her first-aid training.

‘Final call for BA flight …’

Chris picked up the tannoy among the commotion.

‘Look, we’re both on that,’ I alerted them.

‘Don’t worry,’ the BA staffer said. ‘We’ll let them know you’re going to be slightly late.’ 

The epileptic began to respond a little once I loosened his uniform. I asked him if he was on any medication – they were in his jacket. Then he began to shake, just as the paramedic was arriving on his bike, and that was my cue to go. We were way late now.

‘Thank you so much; you’ve saved his life,’ said the BA manager who’d come over to thank me. I told them that was nonsense.

‘Yeah, yeah, you saved his life,’ Whitey agreed.

‘I just stabilised him,’ I said, calming them all down. ‘We’ve got to board now.’

As we walked over to Boarding, I was asked if we had the tickets. ‘Yeah, we’re in Economy,’ I replied, handing them over.

‘Don’t worry about that; I’ll sort that,’ the steward replied. I winked at Whitey.

We were the last two to board. The in-flight supervisor approached us. ‘I would just like to say thank you for looking after our colleague. Come with me,’ she said.

There were two Business Class seats left. We looked at each other. ‘This is a great start,’ he said.

‘Would you like some champagne?’ the stewardess offered.

‘Why not?’ I replied. It was the least I could do!

The rest of the BBC crew had been waiting for us back beyond the curtains. Whitey did the decent thing and popped down to tell them the story! I was shattered again, after another whirlwind twenty-four hours. In less than a week, I would have to make this trip back for the funeral. I didn’t bother to ask any more questions about the BA guy back at Heathrow and temporarily parked Sue’s dad in my head. I had got my seat and was heading back into the zone.

Knocking back my drinks, I ate everything they threw at me and got my head down – lights out all the way to Cape Town. I only woke as we were landing. It had been a great beginning, but it didn’t feel the same. I was living every boy’s dream, to be out there at a major
sporting
event, looking after some of my sporting heroes. Alan Hansen and Shearer, Gary Lineker, Roy Hodgson, Lee Dixon, Jürgen Klinsmann 
and Clarence Seedorf, among others, were all on my watch. It was a jolly for six weeks, and I knew it.

I was determined to milk it. Things had moved on so much since I filmed undercover at Euro 2000 and again at Germany 2006; my life was changing at a pace even in just the past two months, and dark forces were definitely operating within my department. This time, there was no need for undercover filming: South Africa 2010 didn’t attract the scum element of the English soccer fan. Those who were there mostly had money and tickets; they went for the football – not the afters. That meant I was just a chaperone to the stars, in a country where you still needed your wits about you. Mindful of the fact that Sue was having a tough week at home, I was determined to make the most of it, in case for one reason or another it didn’t happen again.

I had met many of the ex-players before in some capacity. They had all been invited to a special briefing the week before at Television Centre. I loved that. When I walked in, they had all stared at me. Those who didn’t know me must have been thinking, ‘Who the fuck is he?’ I was that in awe that I needed a drink of water to avoid
clamming
up. I told them a bit about myself … how I normally went with News but this time was responsible for Sport. This was new to me – I was a bombs and bullets guy. In front of me, I had pupils Hansen, Shearer and Lawrenson in my own classroom! Gary wasn’t there for some reason – golf, or a crisp advert, or something … I can’t recall. They lasted about three-quarters of an hour. I’m sure this meeting was an irritation to them but they tolerated me! Millionaire ex-pros wanted to talk football on the telly, play golf, and not do much else.

My main message had been common sense. There was petty theft out here, and a little street crime. They needed to be careful in bars and be aware that credit card cloning was now rife in Cape Town – when punching in your number, make sure there was nobody at your shoulder, and don’t let the waiter take the card. Use a real wallet and a fake wallet with some out of date credit cards. If you need to hand anything over at gunpoint, you hand the fake one over and you’ve lost 
nothing; if you are stopped, don’t argue for a second, just give them what they want. Watch yourself in your own hotel room, too. On their salaries, the cleaners would think nothing of pinching anything. By the time they had got home and moved your stuff on, it would be long gone. I gave them each a flier with key numbers and venue info on them. We would see in time who would throw them away the minute the class was over!

Mark Bright and I chatted a lot as we had a mutual friend; Shearer asked about safes in the hotel; Hansen never said a word and Lawro chipped in with the odd camp comment, before calling time on my session and directing everyone to the bar. I would soon find out why Shearer was so bothered about the safes.

The first job in Cape Town was to pick up my accreditation and meet Ernie, whose company was to look after the main security for our roof studio. It had just been a shell when I was last out in January. Now this old morgue was to become the BBC compound. Before we had even gone on air there had already been an attempted break-in to steal a couple of air-conditioning units, of all things. I ordered sensors for the roof. The studio itself was getting a lot of stick in the press at home. We had built it on the top of Somerset Hospital, in the shadow of the new Cape Town Stadium, and had installed a lift and a walkway on the end of the building. Of course, they said we were wasting huge amounts of public money – or in fact, were we just trying to get the best backdrop to the
Match of the Day
studio? Predictably, the
Daily Mail
twisted the knife, implying that Shearer and Hansen couldn’t face three flights of stairs, nor did they want to mingle with gunshot and stabbing victims, a ward where forty per cent of the children were in intensive care, or another were many of the neo-natal intake were HIV positive. Our only concerns were Gary and the lift. He had the odd vertigo issue.

It was the usual bullshit. We got it at most tournaments. The essentials were that access in and around the complex was safe, that footage of Table Mountain would be cracking, and that we didn’t get 
in the way of the hospital. In fact, we agreed afterwards that they could take whatever they needed that the BBC didn’t want and before we went live every doctor and nurse was invited in to look around.

Immediately, the atmosphere was unlike any other tournament. I would get the BBC bus in and file situation reports back to London, while still cracking on with other paperwork, waiting to see if any of my stars wandered into trouble. I wasn’t singing ‘No Surrender to the IRA’ this time or avoiding vomit in the back of a Stuttgart police van. I was waiting for nothing to happen.

At night, I felt a little bit of a spare part. I was on a per diem allowance of £33 from the BBC. My guess was that Lee Dixon hadn’t even bothered to see what expenses the BBC would offer him. It rapidly became Dicko’s job to pick the wine – but only after he had consulted his iPhone to peruse the list that Heston Blumenthal had pre-selected him. There was no hovering around the £15 per bottle mark now; Lee went straight to the £200 range. Oh, and several bottles, too. When the bill came, we would all chip in. Lee or one of the other ex-pros would invariably pick up the tab for the vino, much to my relief. It was a different world. The funny thing is, I hated him as a player, being a Hammer. In the real world, he was a top bloke.

On my second day in Cape Town, I was given my toughest assignment yet. Probably worse than Friendly Fire, or hanging on for Košice, tougher than mixing it with gangs on the Czech border or protecting three legends through Surobi, more action-packed than Juárez or more discreet than Zim, this was what I was paid to do. I had to find the lads a safe bar to retreat to after the live
Match of the Day
shows.

This was important stuff. I joke, of course, but it is one of those situations where if Alan Shearer or Gary Lineker wanted to have a drink in private after the game, and they ran into a swaying mob of drunk St Georges or petty crooks, then I’d get it in the neck big time if Lineker couldn’t go on air because he was too shaken or physically marked – or worse. As much as you laugh, this was my job. 

So, in total, I visited three bars. At each, Whitey and I would sit at the counter, knocking them back, watching for trouble. Twankey’s was the favourite, and often the boys wouldn’t pile out of there before 01.30. There was another on the corner by a hotel, and the third was too far into town to be safe, and we didn’t want to be walking there. If you like, I was a body double for Shearer’s right arm that would hold his pint. But security on a petty level was key.

At the same time, I got a call from the guy I had charged with security for the Johannesburg end. Already the fun and games had begun. A BBC engineer in the suburb of Melville had been robbed of his wallet containing $200 and his iPod. Back at our studios, I felt it wasn’t secure enough. Unbelievably, the security hut had been plonked at the wrong end of the compound. I had to get that moved. The next day – the Sunday – one of the engineers came up to me to say that he’d had money stolen from his hotel room on Mandela Road and that one of the girls had had an attempted break-in on her suitcase. Her loose change had been plundered. It was always the engineers.

Lots of minor time-consuming irritations were starting and we had only been here a couple of days. There was an undercurrent of opportunism – the BBC was a good target. It was time to see the head of security at the hotel, Thys Van Der Meer. He came back swiftly and refunded the money, whether or not he had the evidence. It emerged that he had a float and at the start of six weeks of the Beeb in house, he didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I would be back and forth to see him two to three times a week. Things were bubbling.

The next day, the big guns started flying in. If my staff were being targeted in the run-up to the tournament, the whole thing was surely about to change when the millionaire household names rocked up.

On the Monday, Philip Bernie, the deputy head of Sport called me. Emmanuel Adebayor needed round the clock protection. In the January, his Tonga team bus had come under attack at the African Nations Cup in Angola – three were killed and nine injured. 

‘I can arrange security but what does he need it for?’ I said. ‘Does he really want it? Has anybody actually spoken to him or is it his agent bigging him up? And who’s going to pay for it?’

Philip gave me the number of his representative.

‘I’m looking after Gary and all the others here. I’ll meet you at the airport and bring you to the hotel. It’s safe here. If he wants to go out in the evening and wants security, we can arrange that: it will cost about $500 per day,’ I broke it gently to him.