DOUG - PART 1

Select a quiet place where you will not be disturbed for half an hour or so.
Dim the lights
Fill a large clear glass (no ridges or patterns) with water and put it on the table in front of you.
Ensure that no light or reflections fall on the glass of water.
Sit comfortably in front of it
In a relaxed state GAZE (do not stare and tire the eyes) into the water
Whisper that you want to see your first scene
Try not to fidget or give yourself eyestrain. Continue to gaze into the water
Eventually the water will seem to cloud over and then little by little the scene will appear (called up from your subconscious and projected)
Look at it in detail, try not to blink much or move at this stage. Keep looking at it until it vanishes.

Then my Consiglierie, you have your first scene, free of intellectual planning. Be patient and it will come. When I used to use it for information that involved figures, sometimes they would step out of the glass and walk on the table.

🍷💪 Corleone (Doug Ashcroft)

He called me consigliere, though it was really the other way round. 'Corleone', or Mr Ashcroft as I first knew him, was yet another one of life's great eccentrics who I had the good fortune of knowing personally.

An ego the size of Napoleon, a belly almost as big with a face that resembled a cross between Mr Pringle and James Cagney, this Lancastrian "healer" just happened to be my history teacher back at school when I was a teenager.

When he wasn't teaching us about the "troubles" in Northern Ireland, he would offer to re-charge our Walkman batteries with his 'magnetic hands' after lessons just to prove he truly did possess magical properties.

If ever there was a perfect candidate for the role of Defence Against The Dark Arts at Hogwarts, it was Doug.

"I never prepared any lessons at Archway School. I called up the 'Inner Man' to give me both the material and the style of presentation. When I was invited to teach in the History Department of the new University of Gloucester. I placed my hands on the students' essays and called up the 'Inner Man' to give me the marks and the remarks I should make on each essay. Suffice it to say that mine were the only marks that the Academic Board did not adjust."

A more bolshy, cruder version of Mr Keating from Dead Poets Society, Doug was as disruptive to the one size fits all National Curriculum at the time as Robin Williams's character was to Welton Academy, that New England preparatory school in Peter Weir's 1989 film. Mr Ashcroft taught his lessons verbatim, shooting from the hip. Unwilling to be compromised, he resembled a great actor adept at improvisation. With his own inimitable and mesmerising conviction he managed to turn previously humdrum lessons into the must see events of the year, like tickets to an exclusive West End theatre production. Suddenly, fellow students of mine would rush to class and afterwards exchange breathless reviews of Mr Ashcroft's lessons as they hurried out of his classroom and down the endless staircases in rapture at this educational maverick.

Whether much history was truly learned under his tutelage is open to debate, but no-one could deny the sheer exuberance and enthusiasm with regard to the magnetic energy of his lessons.

"When a Student asked me for the details of a specific area of Henry VIII reign, I sat in silence in my room relaxed right down and whispered what I wanted to know. Then I WAITED. Before long the whole scene appeared in my room. I HEARD Henry and his minister, Cromwell, discuss the matter and WATCHED what happened. To cut a long story short, the details were bang on and my student got an A Grade."

Eventually, after reports of his unconventional teaching style found their way back to the education authorities, the "Inner Man" was observed with great scrutiny by school inspectors and Mr Ashcroft was soon demoted from the history department and sent to teach drama instead. Perhaps he was simply too rogue for the powers that be.

Nevertheless, he continued to be just as adept at holding all of our attention teaching drama as he was at history, though it might be said equally unconventional in practice.

"Many years later, I have forgotten who it was, a girl wrote to me. She had been awarded a scholarship at Drama School. She said it was all down to the Drama Lessons I had taken with her class."

One thing was for certain, if he believed you possessed even the minutest iota of talent, he would become a loyal champion of yours and urge you to honour it, what ever it was.

"Although I left school without any qualifications, no G.C.E s etc. nevertheless, the suicide of my mother triggered something within me. I came to KNOW somehow that at deeper unconscious levels another 'person' lived, a part of me much more intelligent than the normal everyday me operating by means of the Cerebral Cortex."

Sounding there a bit like Doc Ock from Spiderman, there was certainly megalomaniac tendencies lurking beneath the seemingly benign surface of the man, but for the most part he appeared to be at the service of others.

One such example of this was when he became an important friend to fashion icon Isabella Blow who often called Doug in times of crisis, especially when she was experiencing terrible anxiety before her fashion shows. The thought of these two vastly different characters striking a formidable bond still fascinates me to this day and is something I will elaborate on in future instalments.

He also happened to be the step father of singer/songwriter Richard Ashcroft of The Verve, who he claimed he assisted in the writing of his most famous album "Urban Hymns".

"OK my Consiglierie, here goes on my work with Richard. He came to me one day and said he did not wish to do his A Levels. Rather he wanted to have a Band and be a singer. I listened to his run of the mill, mediocre stuff. Then I said I would support him and make him a star IF he fulfilled certain conditions. Richard was familiar with my working with Mystical Forces so had confidence that if I worked with him he would achieve stardom. So, I said that the material would be DRAWN out of his subconscious and that he MUST NOT edit it, but play it, received lyrics and all, record it with his pals then send it in on spec. Interestingly, and you can check it, in his breakthrough material (after six months of our work and recording) the Music Magazines reported his work with me and what was so different about his music was the MYSTICAL quality that came over and which propelled him upwards. So I stated that he would hit the top of the charts and perform in Madison Square Garden, which he did.

Before we began I laid out certain conditions which he MUST fulfill or else the powers would be withdrawn, his band would break up and he would sink back among the rest of the also rans. These latter points I am sure you are aware of.
The conditions I laid out were based on the need to return the energy in some way (not to me) to restore the balance.

The conditions were these to be fulfilled when he made it:

He must buy his mother a house and improve her living standards
He must make a donation to some worthwhile Charity
He must NOT get involved in any way either on drugs or in the drug scene
He must show by EXAMPLE to the teenagers who would avidly follow him that such behaviour and arrogance was to be avoided.
He must never use his platform to berate or villify others

Richard agreed wholeheartedly and we began. He drew the material from deep within and as you know climbed rapidly. However, with his rising fame and mixing with others such as the Gallaghers an arrogance and inflated ego emerged.

He never fulfilled his promises to me. No need to go into detail on such, suffice it to say that I SUMMONED him and gave him a warning. First that the powers would be withdrawn, second that his band would break up, third his health would suffer and his domestic situation would be in trouble. Whilst I went through this he became emotional, but I could feel a resistance emerging.

Richard carried on, ignoring the promises he had made. Within a short time after my warning the forces were withdrawn, his band broke up etc. You I am sure know the rest of his behavioural saga. I cut contact with him and this is the situation to this day.

It seems from his account that there was some sort of Mephistophelian pact made between them, akin to that of Robert Johnson with the Devil at the crossroads, though Doug's demands here hardly appear satanic.

The two things I'll personally always remember about Doug were his incredible enthusiasm and innate theatricality. He had a way of talking that commanded focus from us students. I could almost imagine him on battlefields from centuries past, rallying troops against the approaching enemy. I suspect he secretly wanted to be a general of some sort, with his love of chess and extensive knowledge of military history.

Our friendship continued long after I'd left school and although we had a few rocky moments, disagreeing strongly on certain things, he'll always remain a significant figure in my life.

For it was because of teachers like Doug that school became infinitely more interesting to me, which was certainly no mean feat. I'll now always look back at that time at secondary school with fondness because of characters like him. They provided the magic lacking in the more moribund lessons we students endured regularly in our school timetables.

Learning of his death recently prompted me to retrieve some of our conversations I'd reserved for future reference. Hopefully, now I've introduced him to you all, I will delve a little deeper in subsequent chapters on the man and our strange, but loyal, bond.

Looking back at his inimitable words on the page now, I find it's as if he has now stepped out of the glass and appeared before me.

Perhaps there was a method to his madness after all.

"It would be one of the GREATEST thrills of my life if YOU wrote an epic. I am SURE you could write scenes equal to Sorkin If, if, if, if.:

Bollocks to the structure INITIALLY
Harvest the deep rich resources of your subconscious.
Trim off the branches LATER into a structure.
Avoid dispersing your efforts into too much diverse stuff.
Concentrate on your forte the Mafia project
Follow the suggestions I have given you at length to draw out the subconscious fruit, to live with your character/s, see and hear him/them walking around the room/s, conjure up the visionary and auditory scene/s.

I repeat: give the subconscious FREE REIN, the STRUCTURE will come LATER.

I sensed when I was privileged to teach you at school that I also had encountered a rarified mind. Therefore, I KNOW that you CAN (not necessarily will) write a masterpiece. You DO have the mental and emotional equipment to do so. BUT your work needs careful SENSUAL crafting.

Hence already regarding your proposed project you are cracking out TOO MANY ideas. I do NOT want to see such a work swimming around with mediocrities.

I want it to hit us between the eyes, stir the gut, and release emotion.

At your best you could be UNBEATABLE."

🍷💪 Corleone