Sir Clive Sinclair – what a card he is.
I dealt with Sir Clive (then plain Clive) and his company Sinclair Research in the mid-1980s while toiling in the computer – as it was then called – press. They were heady days too. The British home computing boom was in full swing and barely a week passed without the launch of another home computer which gave the impression that the UK was a world leader in microcomputers.
This mirage vanished once IBM launched its first personal computer running an operating system developed by a Mr W Gates and Mr P Allen. Still, before those two spoilsports came along, Clive was pretty much the poster boy of the computer industry.
Not a conventionally handsome man, it nevertheless became clear that Clive had something of a penchant for the ladies, especially young and pretty ones. There was no shortage of attractive young women at a Sinclair Research press event.
Clive also always made sure members of the press were given one of his computers to take away. I took a Sinclair QL, which stood for Quantum Leap. When I got home and turned it upside down some of the keys fell off. But hey, it was a new frontier.
He split from his wife at about the time his microcomputers began selling faster than you can say Acorn. It was the microcomputer maker headed by ex Sinclair research boffin Chris Curry that won the BBC micro contract so coveted by Clive. This rivalry and the spirit of the times was captured nicely in a recent BBC docudrama called Micro men. If you missed it, watch it.
Anyway it appears that money and fame, and of course a mega-mind, helped Clive attract very pretty young women and he seems to be better known these days for his womanising than his products.
It was in the mid-1980s that my then editor told me to call Clive to ask about a liaison with a brainy young beauty whose name escapes me. It was a call I didn’t want to make but nevertheless did. The great man told me to “eff off” in no uncertain terms. My admiration for him grew from that day on, and I’d say that was, in terms of an outstanding moment, a highlight of my journalistic career. After all it’s not every day a knight of the realm tells you to enjoy sex and travel.
Now I read he’s married former lap dancer Angie Bowness – a mere 36 years his junior – in a Las Vegas civil court. He met her at Stringfellows, apparently.
Well, I can’t say I’m surprised as old habits die hard. I wish the old boy well – what are 36 years between lovers in this modern age? – and hope that he still has an invention up his sleeve to capture a few more headlines. I doubt it though.
Ralph Savage
Tim Evershed
