Page 24 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

I did OK at school, and if I had been motivated I might have
done quite well. The school was streamed, with the name of each
stream starting with one of the letters in FOREST, with F being
the top and T being the bottom. I was put into F stream in the
First Year (now called Year 7, I think), which made my parents
happy, and I basically did whatever I needed to do to stay in F
stream, but no more than the minimum. I also played in the school
football and cricket teams, which I enjoyed.
In the early 1970s there was only one bike you wanted to be
seen riding, and that was a Chopper, the sort with outsized
handlebars. All my friends had one, and naturally I wanted one,
too, but when I asked my parents if I could have one they said no.
My dad was still saving up for his return to Pakistan, and that was
the kind of expense he didn’t see the sense in.
‘If you really want it,’ he told me, ‘you’ll find a way of getting
it yourself.’
‘How?’
‘Save your pocket money.’
‘But that’ll take for ever.’
I think it was my mum who suggested getting a paper round.
One of my friends had one, so I asked him how much he got for
it. I seem to remember it was almost exactly what I was getting in
pocket money – which wasn’t very much, maybe £2 or something
like that – but with the paper round I figured I could have the bike
twice as fast.
I would get up at 5.30 a.m., go to the newsagent, deliver the
papers and then go home for breakfast. By the time I’d finished
school I was exhausted, so as soon as I had enough money to buy
the bike I packed it in. It helped that I’d found a much better way
of making a bit of extra cash.
My dad still had a workshop at home where he made bespoke
clothes for some of his clients. The bulk of his business had now
changed from manufacturing garments himself to supplying clients

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