Kurganshead

 

Kurganshead is the official internet name of Cliff Schafer.

Cliff, it is told, was born rather than created in the wonderful 60's year of number 4. This was the year that West Ham first won the FA Cup but Cliff's birth was more to do with the horrendous winter of 1963!

The early years of Cliff's life were spent in a house, with his two brothers Anthony & Paul, which was situated in the Plaistow area of the, then, borough of West Ham (there seems to be a theme occurring here). Whether it was the birth of Cliff or the political will of the elected but the following year, 1965, the borough merged with East Ham and became known as Newham.

It was during these early years that Cliff found a 'posse' of mates who were to be the biggest influence on his life at this time and to give him direction into his adolescent years. These mates consisted of Micheal Gwynne, Mark Anness, Martin 'bomber' Anness, Albert Daly, Danny Daly, Phillip & Susie Sands and the sisters, Susan & Debbie Ramsey. It was Debbie Ramsey, with whom Cliff was so enhammered with, that during a New Years Day playtime, chasing Debbie, he put his hand through the Ramsey's plate glass front door and lacerated his wrist! At the hospital the only doctor available had been to a New Years Eve party and was 'slightly the worse for wear'! The doctors decision to sew up the laceration, on an eight year old Cliff, without anesthetic may not have been one of his greatest idea's and his skill at attaching thread to skin was obviously impaired by the quantity of alcohol that had been passed through his body the night before. For obvious reasons this has left Cliff scarred ever since!

This was only one of many mishaps/accidents that befell Cliff during his early years, others include A) aged 4 being run over by a car (Wolseley) completely run over B) being left inside a trunk for a local gang to kick around, then kicking Cliff all the way home C) being run over whilst playing in goal in a street football match D) being shot, by his own brother, in the leg whilst sitting in the front room watching TV D) age 7, cautioned for smashing a window in the local factory E)  age 10, ejected from the North Bank, Upton Park for swearing at Chelsea fans in the South Bank, Upton Park! F) being run over by a motorbike whilst walking home from school and G) being used as a 'Guy' on November 5th and someone giving the 'posse' 10 pence and then carrying Cliff off!! Luckily the person let him go before he was put onto a bonfire!!!

The friends of this phase of Cliff's life were also instrumental in the direction of Cliff's and, probably, the others mindset with the forming of the 'I-Spy Gang'. The gang was named after the booklets of the same name produced around this time which showed & highlighted activities that gave Cliff and, probably, the gang an understanding of the interaction between them and their surroundings.

Many a time the gang played and laughed as well as cried and bantered but that was all part of childhood during the late 60s and early 70s which was still a time of carefree abandon and innocence.

Cliff attended, thankfully for his mother, the local primary & junior school known as New City Road and then moved onto Brampton Manor Comprehensive. It was during his time at Brampton that Cliff discovered himself, a whole host of friends and his love of music, not playing but listening... very loudly! Cliff was very soon friends with such noted people as Micheal Salmon,  Mark Turner, Mark Tellis, Diana Gimber, Arlene Baxter, Pauline Vyse, Andrew Bird, Andrew Lane, Gary Howell, Susan Thompson & Carole Pain. It was also at this school that Cliff met his lifetime friends Debbie Norris as well as his West Ham buddy, with whom he still watches the Hammers with, and Godfather to Cliff's eldest daughter, Frank Bruce. There was also the sextet that Cliff became a part of which included lifelong friends Jane Whebell, Tracy (Micki) Bull, Susan Boad along with Lesley Toulson & Steve Brown. This sextet were often seen at the Golden Fleece public house on Wanstead Flats and many a summer night was mixed with laughter, alcohol and real silliness on the flats. It was during this phase in his life that Cliff realised that HIS friends, and friends/acquaintances generally, were very important to him and became protective of everyone he considered to be close.

Some of the happening during these days are really what made Cliff have such a 'happy' outlook on all that was going on and allowed him to be so open to the world that even today he would have no hesitation in returning to those days and freezing them in a 'time loop' of his own, such was the impact that the events and reactions with his friends and the world in general had on him.

During Cliff's 'sixth form years' he become such an extrovert that whilst playing 'Air Guitar' he was photographed during a lunch break giving the teachers in their 'lounge' a free 'air' show to the music of Queen, Quo and Iron Maiden! Cliff happily gave himself freely to do anything that anyone asked of him (As long as it was legal, of course!!) and ensured that everyone in his circle was in good spirits whenever he was around. It was also this extrovertness that caused trouble with a history teacher who, during some one way banter about political preferences (Cliff called the teacher a 'Commie'....... repeatedly!!), pulled Cliff across a classroom and out onto the landing to berate him whilst holding Cliff up against a wall. Cliff's reaction was to say nothing and not risk worse punishment (Yep, Cliff was a tad scared of the teacher!!) but managed to get his own back when the teacher needed Cliff to 'do a favour' for him which was never done and resulted in an argument between the teacher & his teacher girlfriend!! (Ooops did you not realise who it was, Sir??) Cliff would call it 'karma' nowadays!!

It as been rumoured that Cliff was an early pioneer of, what would now be known as iPod or a walkman as, whilst at Brampton, he was constantly walking around with a cassette recorder playing in his bag an obscure range of music, well Queen & Status Quo are fairly obscure when everyone else is into either Gilbert O'sullivan, David Essex, punk or reggae.It was during a school trip to the Natural History Museum when Cliff introduced his classmates to a tape his cousin, Micheal Gwynne, had 'illegally' recorded for him of Queen's latest album, A Night At The Opera, which he played all the way from South Kensington to East Ham station and is probably why London Underground now ban loud music ON their trains. This album was to be a catalyst for Cliff who left no stone unturned in attempting to enjoy his life. From this point in 1976 through to his wedding and onto the present day of creating this site, Queen would be the soundtrack to Cliff's life.

Parties, nights out, concerts and football games were predominant activities for Cliff during his teen period and into his twenties, even when he married his "one & only girlfriend", Mary, in the summer of 1987 the fun times continued with friends, football & music. Unfortunately  Cliff was unprepared for his down turn in his emotional state following the facts that came to light, surrounding his birth, during his latter school years & the statements that were mentioned from several family members. And, like many others, was unaware of the turn of events that would change his life and that of his favourite band. The news of  Freddie Mercury's death left many in a state of shock and Cliff was totally unprepared for the feelings that came forward from both of these incidents.

Cliff calls this period his 'darkest time' whereby he lost touch with friends and began to introvert his thoughts and feelings to the point of depression and lost the spark that had grown since his first incident with the Wolseley car! Although only his truest friends remained in 'the circle' (such as Frank Bruce & Debbie Norris) even they had no understanding of just how far down the slope of darkness Cliff had descended. Even his work colleagues, Mick Lake, Donna Cole, Keith Sumption, Winston Hope, Shirley Pearce, Barry Hughes, Fatima Ahmed, Terry Nash, Quentin Beddall, Ray Mansour, Kathy Parker, Steve Hooper, Jimmy Lague, Sylvia Peake and Jo-anne Doodes had not realised just how quiet and introverted Cliff had become and how his wife, Mary, never realised just how bad this darkness was.  Such were his 'acting skills' that even his own maternal family have yet to fathom just how bad it got and even some of the closest people in Cliff's life will never fully understand just what he had to go through and how far down Cliff got.

The birth of his two daughter's, Zoe in 1992 & Abbie in 1995, were extremely proud moments during this 'dark' time and are still considered as the reason that he managed to overcome that darkness and along with Freddie's 10th anniversary gig in Hackney & finding his old friends again (Friends Reunited has a lot to answer for!!), Cliff has finally began to find the semblance of the spark that evades him regularly.

This spark gave Cliff the confidence to follow one of his (thought to be) long lost dreams where he went 'on tour' with Queen + Paul Rodgers in 2008, following them all over England & Wales on the 'Cosmos Rocks' tour. This was all due to the fact that following Queen's last concert at Knebworth, Cliff promised himself that he would do "a tour" next time Queen did one, but unfortunately it was not too be until 2005 when the Q+PR band wagon took off but due to work commitments Cliff could not make this tour and it would be another 3 years, thankfully, before Cliff got his chance to realise that dream!!

Even now Cliff still falls back into his introverted ways and only manages to get past the 'block in his brain' when he intuitively feels that he has an 'affinity' with the person he is trying to converse with. This still causes moments of embarrassment when Cliff meets new people and recently, it has been noted, that this was a tendency that  his hero, Freddie Mercury, had a similar problem with. This came to light when Cliff attended his first Queen Fan club convention where Peter Freestone explained about Freddie's 'shyness' and, although his own shyness came back to the fore again, he had a great time listening & watching his favourite music and seeing others enjoy the legacy that is Queen. He even had a question asked by the head of the Fan Club, Jacky Smith, to Queen drummer Roger Taylor which really made the last day that bit more special, but Cliff still remained in the background during a whole weekend of events. Cliff's plans are already in place for the next convention in 2011.

Cliff's career choices have not always been the best but immaterial of the downside of most work he has undertaken, Cliff has always tried to do his best or to do what he considered to be right. Peerless Foils was his first real job, actually doing four weeks at the Houndsditch Warehouse was his first paid job but it was so short lived he doesn't consider it as work!, and from working in the packing dept at Peerless Cliff managed to clamber up the 'corporate' ladder and then back down again until the company was swallowed up by its bigger sister company in Scotland in 1998. Within a month of leaving Peeerlss, where the workforce grew up together and were connected by weddings and births of sons & daughters, Cliff began working for London Underground as a station assistant, having remembered his pre-walkman days Cliff could often be found making loud announcements via the platform tannoy to illuminate the travellers whilst they waited for the trains. Unfortunately, the darkness was never too far from Cliff's mind and this made for an uneasy workplace where union strength and order was overly apparent and Cliff's sensibility that the customer deserved better caused friction between himself and his colleagues. Following the Millennium all dayer on the underground at Monument/Bank station Cliff left for Knightsbridge to do just platform work but an unusual incident whereby Cliff's knee collided with a solid suitcase, inflamed an old football injury, forced him to quit the underground.

Ridley Quiney was a packaging company local to Cliff's home in Elm Park and were advertising several jobs which Cliff applied for and managed to become stock controller for the organisation. At RQ Cliff became the 'self appointed' social secretary and began to organise nights out and Christmas events for the other employee's who included characters such as Ron Taylforth, Galahad Jones, Jackie Evans, Nicole Pace, Sue Bennett, Jeanette Parke, Tony Hoare, Kim Reiger, Annette Ratford and Colin Searl. Following a mix up, to which Cliff takes the blame these days, on some labelling he was moved to the logistics dept to assist in getting the stock to the customers in the UK. It was only the intervention of Cliff's brother Paul (yes, the one that shot him!!) that led him to become manager of Newham Community Recycling in the borough of his birth, Newham.

This is the job that Cliff now continues to move forward with and, with the network that Paul has created, is the one job that Cliff gets most satisfaction from as he can see, everyday, how the work that he & his staff do makes a difference to the lives of the residents of his home borough, even when the residents don't notice these changes. Cliff claims that the highlights of this work outweigh the negative of any obstacle that is thrown at the organisation and he claims that it has actually made him mentally tougher to cope with such obstacles and the darkness that has been within him for so long. During his time with Newham Community Recycling Cliff has met prime ministers, football chairmen, MP's and celebrities that other careers would not give him the chance to meet and he is ever thankful to his brother for shooting him in the first place thus feeling guilty enough to give Cliff the chances to do what he does.

The organisation that Cliff now runs is at a precipice. The planetary experts cannot agree what is actually happening to the planet nor how to change the effects that the human race is having on its only home in the galaxy! Yet, this simple and small company of men (and women) can claim that they are making substantial waves by direct action and leading others into action to fight the tide of apathy in the world of recycling and carbon footprints and emissions that are now so heavily prophesied as the problems facing the world today. Issues such as waste-to-energy, food waste compost, third world agricultural & energy growth and global land remediation are being brought forward by the organisation and its network to a world market and audience and yet, in spite of all of this, its projects and future direction is uncertain due to the restraints of funding. Cliff deliberately takes this personally so that he can draw on the experience and passion that he has and channel it to continue the work of the employee's of Newham Community Recycling.

What does the future hold for Cliff? Well....

Following on from the internet channel created in 2009, Newham Community Channel or NCC, which had shows from a wide range of personnel such as  Sebastian White, Steve Khan & American 'legend' Mary Wust, Cliff is about to relaunch a internet based radio station with massive assistance and general direction from Lol Gellor & Kevin Magee and hopes to be able to contribute, vocally, with a show of his own.

The market recycling that Roy Wayre & Tim Woolven have been piloting with the aid of Newham Community Recycling is getting high praise & publicity from the likes of DEFRA and BREW as well as the BBC and other journalistic media.

The EM (Effective Micro-organism) food waste schools project is fast becoming something that councils will want to do in households as Fran Box, and her husband Jens, promote a sustainable co-existence of all things in the UK which is being taken seriously following years of promotion and evidential actions.

The community centre that Cliff runs under the Wombles banner is starting to get footfall that will, hopefully, allow for a longer lease and allow the inhabitants to create more innovative ideas across the media, arts and community themes it is representing at this time.

For Cliff the future will always contain, West Ham, Queen (in whatever form Brian & Roger create) listening to loud music and being with friends. Cliff can never see how his life can continue without  love of his children, Zoe & Abbie and his wife as, after all, it is many of those named above that have allowed Cliff to be the person he has become!