the people they made medics had either
got university degrees or were quite
intelligent. There was this huge Asian flu
epidemic in the late 50s and as I was in
the Air Force where a lot of young people
were together. It was rampant and I had
people dying on me. Combined with
seeing plane crashes and goodness
knows what else, I grew up there and it
made me think about my future.
As I had always had this thing about
writing, I decided I wanted to go into
advertising. I had met a guy in the Air
Force, who became a pal of mine and he
worked in advertising in a big London ad
agency.
LE: Was this with J Walter Thompson?
DK: Yeah I came back to Brighton and
worked at General Accident Insurance in
West Street…. which is where I met my
12
first wife. So something good came out
of that. I wasn’t cut out for insurance,
that’s for sure; my first job was to be the
telephone operator and I used to have
to call the branch manager. I didn’t call
him Sir as everyone else did, I called
him Mr Bell and one day his secretary
rang down to ask me to call this number
in Perth and get the person on the line
for Mr Bell. I thought he wants to phone
Australia, so with me not knowing where
the head office was, I got through, had
them on hold and after about ten to
fifteen minutes she came down and said
“…what the hell Knight, what’s happened
to Mr Bell’s call to head office..?” I said
“what do you mean head office?” Then
I realised that it was Perth in Scotland I
should have called! By this time I had
got through to Bombay Exchange and
in those days they used to ring through
so the cost of this phone call must have
been astronomical! The funny thing about
it was Mr Bell saw this independent streak
in me and quite liked it, so he called
me for this meeting. Everyone thought I
was going to get sacked or admonished
severely, but instead he told me that he
didn’t think I was really cut out for the
insurance business. I agreed and said I
really I want to be a writer. He said he
thought I should pursue that career but
was happy for me to stay there as long
as I wanted. He ended up always smiling
over towards me every time he came
in the office but careful not to say hello
because he didn’t want to do that in front
of all his minions in case people saw it as
a sign of weakness. He just looked at me
as if I was a lost cause. So my career in
insurance was short and sweet.
LE: You then became a successful ad
man?