Out of the Cardboard Suitcase

First part of memoir spanning five decades.  Ivan Berg's wartime memories 1939-1945.  Evacuee, back in London for the Blitz - then sent away again, with father at war, mother in hospital, to a Kindertransport Hostel.  #theblitz #evacuation #kindsertransport #ww2 #worldwar2 #londonblitz #1939 #bipolar #evacuee #v1 #flyingbomb #v2rocket #ballisticmissile 

1945-1953. Peacetime. Life in a prefab, arrival of a baby brother, getting into Grammar School ... and bunking off. First business - as a teenage entrepreneur, and first, short-lived, jobs. 

1953 continued : more jobs, and Ivan signs up for sea school aged 16 - dreaming of exotic foreign travel. His parents are not happy. 

Ivan starts work as a saloon boy and steward, sailing to South Africa. Hard work, the waiter known as Mabel, and drag shows in the crew bar. 

Ivan sails to South Africa and South America ... a world away from Hackney and Austerity. There's an unfortunate incident involving Crepes Suzette.. and he meets "Esmerelda" a beautiful, rich young Brazilian girl ...

Adventures in South America: learning to ride a horse gaucho style ...and a slightly awkward visit to a bordello. Ivan is 18, gets his rating, a pay rise, a job on the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth and his first trip to New York ...

The perks of Cunard.  Ivan learns how to make serious money in tips - especially from first class American passengers. Now smart in Brooks Brothers style suits, he has to fight off a 'friend' of his gay uncle Monty in New York. London on leave is more promising - he meets writers and composers just starting out, amongst them Lionel Bart, who develops a taste for Ivan's mothers's Friday night ch...

Ivan settles in to the Caribbean cruises: picking up passengers in New York and sailing to the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, Curaçao, Jamaica, Antigua, Martinique, Barbados and St Thomas.  American passengers become friends, hosting him in their mansion in Great Neck LI, inviting him to glamorous parties. And he meets cheerful cockney and fellow crewman Tommy Hicks - helps him get a cushier job on boar...

Ivan introduces Tommy Hicks to his London friends...including Lionel Bart...and Britain’s “first rock’n’roll star” is born. No such success for Ivan’s first band however, specialising in “Spanish with Beat”. Life in the merchant navy begins to pall, despite regular trips to New York: being caught snoozing on watch is the last straw.

Ivan finds life can be tough outside the merchant navy, even when you’re working with Britain’s answer to Elvis Presley on a book and TV series. No development money! Hard up, missing the Cunard perks, he fails to dodge National Service in the RAF...but it’s not as bad as he thought! 

Ivan lands on his feet in the RAF. A comfortable posting in central London, allowed to live 'out', with plenty of time to write. He helps Renee and Sam with a short lived moneymaking venture - gets a literary agent and sells his own TV series. Perhaps it's down to the lucky RAF desk ?  

The ups and downs of a young writer's career. From being one of the best paid writers one year... to struggling the next.  The blurring of fact and fiction, in Fleet Street, and when interviewing Benny Hill. And a chance move to Hampstead that will change Ivan's life: though he doesn't realise at the time.  

In which Ivan falls in love with Inge... only to learn she has to return to Denmark, as her permission to stay is ending. He asks her to marry him, and to his surprise she agrees. They've known each other for a few months. The wedding is arranged so quickly noone remembers to bring a camera. But the new wife nearly becomes a widow when Ivan is rushed to hospital...

In which Ivan's business career takes inventive new directions ... he creates the 'Berg Box', designs and introduces the UK's first commercial slot car raceways, and more. He and Inge become parents, and on his first trip to Inge's homeland, he meets parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and cousins - none of whom speak English

 Ivan is fired again ... but undaunted moves into new ventures - the music and recording studio business and a partnership with one of the country’s most powerful newspapers.

Ivan Berg's podcast memoir Episode 16 : Too far ahead for The Times ? (and ATV too) Ivan and Inge's next round of business ventures: audio on demand, 1970s style - a brief foray into the world of art, and how Colonel Gaddafi saved the company. 

Ivan has fun recording ABBA in Hindi, is first in the field with home and educational software for Commodore Computers and is too early again, with 'Singing Birthday Cards'

The E-Bike is invented 35 years too early, Inge is in the News Of The World, and Mellie writes a Punk Rock hit. There's jazz at Pizza Express, Ivan records Xaviera Hollander (The Happy Hooker), and does a deal with Robert Maxwell ...

Next instalment of Ivan Berg’s podcast memoir: learning new skills, becoming Top Gear Magazine’s resident 'datadad' and creating the very first BBC website.