The Origin of the Species

Gus The Cameraman? Well, that's not my real name obviously. On my birth certificate it has my forenames as John and Paul. John is a family name for the males, my Dad was called John and his Dad was called John. Presumably his Dad was called John too. It now seems unlikely that I will father any children, so the family name of John will probably die out with me. The problem with John as a family name was that there were too many Johns around. (Too Many Johns - sounds like a US sitcom about a toilet cleaner) If my Mum (Mrs Gus) shouted 'John' we never knew if she wanted my Dad or me so my family have always called me Paul.

I was born on 12th February 1964 at the height of Beatlemania. That day The Beatles played at Carnegie Hall in New York. It was the second concert on their first ever trip to America and it was 3 days after their famous first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I already had the John (Lennon) so my middle name was Paul after Paul McCartney.

In 1997 I went to work at Butlins in Pwllheli in North Wales and this is where the name Gus comes from. I went there to work on a twice daily live TV show called Up In The Attic. It was broadcast via cable to all the chalets and caravans on the camp. The programme was done by just the presenter Rob McNally and me. We wrote the programme between us, Rob presented it and I did the camerawork and the sound and vision mixing. The shows were an hour long and we switched between the live studio and pre recorded stuff on tape. The show consisted of cartoons, adverts for the bars and shops on the camp that we filmed, pre recorded interviews by Rob with the various celebrities that appeared on the camp like Alvin Stardust, Bobby Davro etc, live in the studio interviews with Redcoats and camp entertainers (No, they weren't gay they worked for Butlins!) and some spoof weather reports from Gayle Force, who was Rob in drag. In the Gayle Force segments Gayle was a grumpy, alcoholic Weather woman who was always arguing with her cameraman who was called Gus The Cameraman and voiced by me. The character of Gus was expanded because when we did not have a live guest in the studio Rob wanted to talk to someone and as I was the only other person in the studio, he had to talk to Gus The Cameraman. With me doing the camera work and the sound and vision mixing I obviously could not appear in front of the camera, so we told the viewers that I was too ugly to be seen. The show 'Up In The Attic' was supposedly done from Rob's Mum's attic and Gus was kept permanently chained up in there. The studio which was tiny and used to be a stock room was brilliant. Rob's desk was the water tank, you could see the ladder up to the attic and behind him was a brick wall with all cracks. So all I did was work as Gus on the show and I was never seen. People would see me every day around the camp and knew I worked there but they would never see me working. When Redcoats etc appeared on the show they found out what I actually did. When anyone asked them 'Who's that weirdo who we always see around' they would reply 'Oh that's Gus The Cameraman' so everyone only knew me as Gus The Cameraman. Everyone who has met me for the first time in the last 9 years knows me as Gus. I quite like the name Gus because everyone remembers it. It is unusual and whereas most people know other Johns and Pauls they rarely know another Gus.