When Israel was on shift, he was the King of the telly. He was the boss, so he'd choose the channel. His favourite programme was Coronation Street. I hated the programme. My mum used to watch it and it seemed to simply be old people talking about nothing. The only time I had any interest at all, was when Suzy Birchall was in it, played by Cheryl Murray. I fancied the pants off her, so it almost made it watchable. Her character was a bubbly with a bit of sauce. Apart from that, I thought it dull as dishwater. However, when I worked with Israel, I was given a masterclass in why it was the best programme on TV. The first thing Israel taught me was that it was not a normal soap opera, it was more of a comedy. I'd just never seen the comedic elements. Characters like Hilda and Stan Ogden, Eddie Yeats and Annie Walker were pure comedy gold. Hilda's wonky flying ducks, the berating of Stan for his 'bit on the side in Inkerman St' and Eddie's laziness. The writing was far sharper than I'd ever appreciated. But the real thing that Israel appreciated was that they transformed a mundane situation, where nothing much happened into compelling TV. The characters were believeable, like the people we knew. Israel hated Easteneders, as people were nasty and the plots ridiculous. By and large, in Coronation St they were nice (apart from when Suzy Birchall tried to seduce her mate Gail's husband Brian!). They were just normal people. Israel's view of life was that you go to work, do your job and try and enjoy yourself. You make work work for you. He liked working at Prestel as he got paid handsomely to watch Coronation St most of the time. He was kind and decent, but made sure all of the jobs got done. His shift was a lot more laid back than the others.
When I first met Israel, I underestimated him. He was always happy to impart some life experience. This wasn't always wanted, but in hindsight it was hugely insightful. I wasn't on his shift, I was brought in to set up a new system for BT, running the Link ATM network. I had to work with the ops team to set up the procedures. I asked Israel to run an eye over the checklists and operational task rotas I'd set up. He tore them to shreds. I was looking at the job from a geeky, computer nerd perspective. Israel was looking at it from the point of view of an experienced computer operations professional. He demanded everything was simplified and made fool proof. To Israel, every task should be binary. Has it worked? If it has tick a box, if it hasn't call support. Make all of the tasks as simple as possible, that way there is less to go wrong. It changed the way I viewed life. Israel was right. The simpler you make things, the less there is to go wrong and the more time you can spend watching Coronation St. His input meant that the ops team ran the system without a glitch for the time I worked there.
Israel also imparted the importance of buying the right brand of tea, the right brand of biscuits and why certain newspapers should not be entertained. I came to realise that if I needed advice, I'd ask him first. Why? Because he'd tell me the truth. He had a very West Indian humour, that I was the butt of, as often as he could find a good reason to wind me up. Coming from a large family, I was used to this. Not everyone was. But I realised that he was not being cruel, he was keeping us all on our toes. Whilst I was working at BT, my father died unexpectedly. I was completely devastated. Israel took time to speak to me. He was one of the only people there who did. He asked me all about my Dad, as a fellow citizen of the Commonwealth, he was intrigued about my Dad's early life in Australia. He gave me some very sound advice. He said that I had to count myself lucky that I had a father who I would miss. He cautioned that not everyone has the same feelings for their parents and that I should thank God for the time we had. This was a barbed reference to our boss, who had chastised me for taking time off to grieve. She had told me "when my father died, I took half a day off for the funeral". This was said in front of the team. Many were none too impressed with the statement. Israel didn't say anything at the time, but made his views known privately to me.
I left BT shortly after that comment. A conversation with Israel made my mind up for me. He advised me that work wasn't worth it if you were not happy. He said that he'd made BT work for him, but he was at a different stage in life. He gave me some excellent advice for dealing with difficult bosses. He said that there is no point arguing or confronting bad bosses as you won't win. He said that all you can do is make sure that you've got yourself in order, so that if they try and screw you, you have your story straight. He said that if you are unhappy, life is too short to put up with it, unless you have no choice. I had a choice, I bided my time and got a better job.
Once I had handed my notice in, I felt liberated. The last chat I had with Israel was about music. He had similar tastes to many older West Indian people. He liked cheerful happy music of the caribbean and also a bit of country and western. He told me that the sort of punk rock I liked wasn't really his cup of tea "Can't be doin all that shoutin' and complainin'". Then he said "But I do like that song by Elvis Costello, What so funny bout Peace Love and Understanding". We had a great conversation about the links between Ireland and the Carribean. Many of the earliest slaves were actually Irish, as were many slave owners. When slaves started to be imported from Africa, they were seen as harder working, easier to control and easier to keep an eye on than the Irish, but for a period there were both and many of the Irish traditions were passed on. One of the traditions was the musical one, with Irish music combining with African ones, to form a new type of music that eventually evolved into Calyspso, Ska and Reggae. I hadn't realised that some of the protest music that the likes of Marley wrote had it's early roots in Irish ballads. Israel explained that what he especially liked about Whats so funny is that it's message is so simple yet so true. He said the lyrics really chimed with him.
He said "Imagine a reggae beat, forget the tune and imagine Bob Marley or John Holt singing the first verse"
… As I walk through this wicked worldSearchin' for light in the darkness of insanityI ask myself, is all hope lost?Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?
Whenever I hear the song, I always think of Israel. The song was actually written by Nick Lowe and Nick ended up marrying Carlene Carter, the step daughter of Johnny Cash. In later years Nick has drifted more towards country music. I think Israel would approve! He taught me a really important lesson, where some people see a fence, he saw the gaps between the panels, where you could see the promised land beyond. Throughout my life I learned that the more you listen and the less you speak, the more you learn. I am glad that I spent some time listening to Israel Watts. Have a listen, it's a great song!
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