The Prince, The Pub and Portobello Road
The Night I Put a Future Earl Behind the Decks
London has a funny way of putting people together.

You can spend years walking the same streets, passing the same pubs, knowing the same faces, then one night somebody walks into your life and leaves you with a story you'll still be telling twenty-three years later.

This one started in Clapham.

Not at some smart dinner.

Not in a private members' club.

Not behind the gates of some country estate.

In rehab.

At the time, I was living near Portobello Road and managing David Caplin from a band called NRG FLY.

David was in a rehabilitation facility in Clapham, and I was spending time there.

That's where I met Nick.

Nicholas Knatchbull.

He didn't look like somebody born into one of Britain's most extraordinary families.

He just looked like a young bloke who'd had a hard time of it.

Quiet.

Polite.

A little lost.

There was something about him I liked.

Maybe because underneath everything he'd been born into, he seemed to be trying to work something out for himself.

Who the fuck am I?

What do I want?

Where do I fit?

Most of us ask those questions.

Nick just happened to have a rather more complicated background.

His father is Norton Knatchbull, the 3rd Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

His family is directly tied to the Mountbatten dynasty.

King Charles III is his godfather.

Broadlands, the family's Hampshire estate, has hosted some extraordinary chapters of British royal history.

But none of that meant much in Clapham.

No Earl Mountbatten was sitting in the corner.

No royal carriage waiting outside.

Just a group of people trying to get through the day.

Nick was simply Nick.

And that's how I remember him.

He Loved Electronic Music
Nick had a thing for electronic music.

Not background music.

Not something you put on while having a quiet drink.

He was into it properly.

Dark stuff.

Heavy stuff.

The sort of music that makes the walls vibrate and gives your kidneys a good seeing to.

I was working in music.

I knew clubs.

I knew pubs.

I knew promoters.

And I thought I'd give him a chance.

So when he got out, I brought him into my world.

Portobello Road.

West London.

The Mau Mau Bar.

If you've never been to the Mau Mau, imagine everything that polite London isn't.

It had character.

It had attitude.

It had musicians, drinkers, tourists, locals and enough strange people to keep the place interesting.

It was the sort of pub where nobody cared much about your background.

You paid for your drink.

You found somewhere to stand.

And you got on with it.

So I booked Nick behind the decks.

What could go wrong?

Quite A Lot, As It Turned Out
Nick arrived with his vinyl.

He looked ready.

I gave him the nod.

The music started.

And it was fucking heavy.

Proper trance.

Dark.

Driving.

Relentless.

Nick was loving it.

The problem was that nobody else was.

I watched the room.

One bloke finished his drink and left.

Then another.

Then a couple disappeared through the door.

Within twenty minutes, the Mau Mau was beginning to resemble a pub five minutes before closing time.

I looked at Swan.

Swan looked at me.

You know that look.

You don't need words.

Then he came over.

"Get him off."

The music was hammering away.

Nick was completely lost in it.

I tried to defend him.

"Swan, go easy on him, mate. He's royalty."

Swan looked at me.

"I don't give a fuck who he is. Get him off."

And that was that.

Royal blood.

Eton.

Mountbatten.

King Charles.

None of it counted for shit.

The punters were leaving.

Nick was coming off.

Portobello Road had spoken.

Back To My Flat
We packed up his records and headed back towards my place.

I don't remember there being any great drama about it.

That's another thing I remember about Nick.

He took it.

No tantrum.

No royal fucking meltdown.

We laughed about it.

Opened a few drinks.

And carried on talking.

The night got later.

Then later still.

Eventually the conversation moved away from music.

That's when you sometimes learn the most about somebody.

Not when they're performing.

When they're sitting in a room at three in the morning with the bullshit stripped away.

Nick talked about his upbringing.

Eton.

The family.

The expectations.

The strange world he'd been born into.

I don't remember him boasting about any of it.

Quite the opposite.

If anything, I got the impression that privilege could become its own kind of prison.

Everybody knows your name.

Everybody knows your family.

Everybody already has an opinion about who you should become.

But what happens when you don't want to become that person?

The Thing About Money
People who haven't grown up around wealth sometimes imagine it solves everything.

It doesn't.

It solves plenty.

Let's not bullshit ourselves.

Money gives you opportunities most people never get.

But it doesn't tell you who you are.

It doesn't stop you fucking things up.

It doesn't make you immune to loneliness.

And it certainly doesn't stop you from having a bad night.

Nick was trying to find something that belonged to him.

Music seemed to be one of those things.

When you're behind a pair of decks, nobody cares who your grandfather was.

The record either works or it doesn't.

The crowd either stays or it leaves.

And at the Mau Mau, they left.

Twenty-Three Years Disappear Quickly
Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since that night.

I've lived a few different lives since then.

So has Nick.

He's now married to Ambre Pouzet.

They have two children.

He's back at Broadlands and is his father's heir apparent to the Mountbatten title.

The estate carries a history that sounds almost made up.

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip spent their honeymoon there in 1947.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana began their honeymoon there in 1981.

And somewhere in that enormous family story sits the young bloke I knew from Clapham.

That's the bit I find fascinating.

Not the title.

Not the money.

The distance travelled.

From Clapham To Broadlands
When I met Nick, he was trying to get his life back together.

Today he has a family of his own.

He's involved with Broadlands and has taken on responsibilities connected with the estate.

His life has moved a long way from that rehabilitation centre.

And I think that's worth remembering.

People get written off too easily.

Especially when they've made mistakes.

Especially when they're born into a famous family.

People see the money and assume they've got nothing to complain about.

Or they see the problems and decide somebody is finished.

Life isn't that simple.

People can fuck up.

People can lose their way.

People can find it again.

Sometimes it takes years.

Sometimes it takes a lifetime.

I Still See The Emptying Pub
When I think about Nick, I don't see Broadlands.

I see the Mau Mau.

I see him behind the decks.

I hear that bloody trance music.

I see people heading towards the door.

And I see Swan coming towards me.

"Get him off."

I try the royal card.

"He's royalty."

Swan doesn't even hesitate.

"I don't give a fuck who he is."

Beautiful.

That was the Mau Mau.

No bullshit.

No deference.

No special treatment.

You could have been the King of England.

If you emptied the pub, you were coming off.

And Nick did.

We packed up the records and went home.

Later, sitting in my flat, the whole thing became funny.

Maybe it was funny because it was so ordinary.

A young bloke trying to make it as a DJ.

A pub owner trying to keep his customers.

A music promoter trying to keep everybody happy.

Nothing particularly royal about any of it.

The Strange Thing About Life
Twenty-three years later, Nick is living a completely different life.

Husband.

Father.

Heir to one of Britain's most famous aristocratic families.

Broadlands.

Mountbatten.

Royal connections.

The whole fucking lot.

But whenever I think about him, I remember the young man sitting in Clapham.

Not the title.

The person.

That's what travelling through life does to you.

You meet people in strange places.

You share a few hours.

Sometimes you share a few drinks.

Then everybody goes their separate ways.

You don't know what the future holds for them.

You certainly don't imagine you'll be sitting twent three years later writing about them.

And you never imagine that the young bloke sitting beside you in rehab might one day be living at Broadlands.

Life has a strange sense of humour.

And Somewhere, Swan Is Still Right
I don't know whether Nick remembers that night.

I hope he does.

Because I'd like to think he can laugh about it now.

The future Earl of Mountbatten.

King Charles's godson.

Born into one of Britain's most famous families.

Standing behind the decks at the Mau Mau.

Playing music that emptied the room.

And getting the royal treatment from Swan.

"Get him off."

That's London.

That's Portobello.

And that's life.

Sometimes you can have the right surname, the right connections and the right blood running through your veins.

But if nobody likes your music, nobody gives a shit.

And maybe that's not such a bad lesson after all.

Because for one night in West London, Nick wasn't an Earl.

He wasn't a godson.

He wasn't a Mountbatten.

He was just a young bloke trying to play some fucking good music.

Unfortunately for him, he picked the wrong bar.