She wrangled Queen, Frost and the Rolling Stones – 50 years on Victoria Sturgess runs Black Pug Books with the same wit, grit and eye for a story
In Elstree Studios, music director Bruce Gowers is cadging ciggies (something he was renowned for) from his trusted production assistant and right-hand woman Victoria Sturgess, as she’s trying to make conversation with a shy, awkward man with striking cheekbones, slightly buck teeth and intense dark eyes. Four hours later, one of the world’s most iconic pop videos, Bohemian Rhapsody, is “in the can”. Victoria recalls that day 50 years ago: ‘For us it was just another day. We were slightly annoyed we didn’t finish in time for last orders at the pub!’
The video was ground-breaking, launching the career of Emmy award-winner Gowers and propelling Queen into the supergroup stratosphere. It kept Bohemian Rhapsody (all five minutes and 55 seconds of it) at number one in the music charts for nine weeks.
‘We had such fun with the special effects,’ says Victoria, explaining how the disembodied heads of Queen floating in halos were created simply with cameras and monitors. ‘It’s called a visual howlround. The camera looks at its own image on the monitor output’. The result – a four-way harmony shot that mirrors the cover of Queen II album.
That day was just one highlight in a career that reads like a roll call of entertainment legends, including comic pianist Victor Borge and Hollywood’s Ethel Merman (‘she knitted between takes’). Victoria worked on the first live pop concert in Hyde Park, filming supergroup Blind Faith with Ginger Baker, Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton, and later the Rolling Stones.
Film producer and impresario Robert Stigwood enlisted her for the Bee Gees’ cult film Cucumber Castle, in which Vincent Price, Lulu and Spike Milligan all made cameo appearances.
‘Thanks to Stiggy, I earned enough money that summer to buy a flash sportscar,’ she grins.
Fashion to Frost
Turning down university for “life experience,” her first job was at Vogue magazine, organising shoots for photographers David Bailey and Helmut Newton. ‘Demanding, but great fun,’ she says. ‘I had suffered 12 excruciating months at the London College of Secretaries in Regents Park to appease my father, but I did learn French shorthand. That’s what got me the job at Vogue, aged 18 – I could take dictation on the Paris collections straight from the French editors verbatim over the phone.’
From there she moved into television, rising quickly at Southern TV and then London Weekend Television (LWT), where she became a principal production assistant – one of the highest production roles in what was then a very male-dominated industry – while still only in her early twenties.
She travelled the world with journalist and interviewer David Frost, covering Nixon and the Watergate scandal, thriving on the adrenaline of live TV. ‘Bad for the heart, good for the bowels!’ she says.
It was the heyday of black and white television. ‘At that time, LWT had more than 2,000 staff! It was such a fantastic industry to be in, maybe because there were only three TV channels. The celebrities treated you with respect, because they needed you as much as you needed them. And we knew how to handle hellraisers like Ollie Reed. As a production assistant, I was the power behind the throne – PAs open lots of doors … or firmly close them!’
Victoria married on her 26th birthday in 1973, at Chelsea Registry Office. ‘Kate, my eldest, was swiftly born in 1974. I kept working, leaving LWT and freelancing, moving from London to Winchester.
‘Hannah was born in 79, and then Leo moved to America when we separated in 1982.
‘I was now a single parent and the sole breadwinner: I turned to freelancing again, including working for the first satellite TV company, before rejoining LWT. I was back on live broadcasts, elections, the Olympics … and had a stint with Saint (Ian St John) and Greavsie (Jimmy Greaves), which was great fun!’
Burnout made redundancy an easy decision in 1989, and after ‘a couple of months doing diddly squit’, Victoria carved out a new freelance life that took her from Scandinavia to Hong Kong, Jakarta, Spain, Dubai and Jamaica. ‘My last big event was the Manchester Commonwealth Games for the BBC, before I finally quit in 2005.’
With her girls now adults, Victoria seriously started researching her next move.
A new chapter
‘I’ve always been a voracious reader and longed to own a bookshop.
I soon realised I could either sit on my backside and talk about it or I could get off my backside and do it!
‘My father had a cottage in Swyre, and I’d always loved Dorset.’
In 2011 her search brought her to a stunning Georgian house in the heart of Wimborne Minster.
‘As soon as I stepped through the door, I knew this was my new home and my second-hand bookshop,’ she says.
Step through that same front door today, turn left and you’re greeted by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, groaning under the weight of autobiographies, fiction, non-fiction, poetry … every imaginable genre. Modern titles sit alongside first and rare editions. There are LPs and prints too. And of course that wonderful bibliosmia that is one of the joys of old books.
Turn right, and you’re into the other front room, where an antique apothecary cabinet holds maps, old newspapers and theatre programmes. ‘People love buying these as birthday gifts relating to the year the person was born’, she says.
There’s a permanent invitation to sit and browse your choices before buying. Coffee and tea are always at hand.
And why the name? ‘My partner’s black pug waddled in one day and was promptly sick all over the carpet. Black Pug Books sounded perfect!’
Victoria prides herself on being able to track down the rarest of titles. ‘I’ve got a network of independent booksellers across the country and we all help each other,’ says Victoria.
A ‘bookhound’ for the local museum, she sniffs out potentially rare books donated to their second-hand bookshop. A collectible copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which could have been sold for a few pounds, recently raised more than £800 for the museum. She also donates proceeds from her £2 paperbacks to charity – Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance and Margaret Green Animal Rescue.
Victoria’s business is resolutely non-digital. She hates Kindles, preferring the tactile pleasure of books. She refuses to sell online and has very little social media presence.
Outside, a vintage pram and washing tub filled with paperbacks lure people in. Once there, Victoria’s incredible knowledge and warm hospitality mean you rarely leave empty-handed. ‘Books become friends – they can stir memories, help you through tricky times and if you hold onto them, they’re always there for you to revisit. I simply couldn’t imagine life without books. There’s no soul in a home without books. To me, they are works of art.’
Her customers, who include celebrities, come from all over the country. Cricket commentator Henry Blofeld always pops in when he’s in town. Comedian David Baddiel couldn’t resist a peek when performing at the Tivoli Theatre (which is almost opposite Black Pug Books).
And if Victoria can’t find you a book, she can certainly tell you a great story. From Queen’s groundbreaking video to a cosy Wimborne bookshop, Victoria Sturgess has lived many fascinating chapters. Perhaps her next should be to write her own autobiography.
Find Black Pug Books opposite the Tivoli Theatre, at 24 West Borough, Wimborne Minster or call Victoria on 01202 889383
Open Thursday to Saturday 10am to 4pm
Quickfire questions for Victoria:
What sells best at Christmas?
MURDER! It’s a little bit odd, but no one seems able to resist a nice cosy seasonal crime story filled with death …
Book by your bedside?
My daughters always enquire ‘how are your teetering, piles mother?’ – it’s a family joke as I’ve so many books by
my bedside.
Teetering on the top currently is John Nichol’s ‘The Unknown Warrior’. Since I studied First World War poetry at school, I’ve found the stories from this time jaw-droppingly awful. I have a unique collection of First World War literature that I will never sell. It’s going to the Imperial War Museum when I die.
A-list dinner party guests?
David Frost – he’d get drunk so quickly! My Bohemian buddy Bruce Gowers, he was such a good friend. Actress Cate Blanchett, and comedians Graham Norton and Julie Walters – what a hoot! No egos … they’d probably even help with the washing up.
