Dire Straits Story How Dire Straits the band was started

I honestly didn’t want to watch this interview with John Illsley with the guy called the Captain, it was Andertons back drop of musical instruments that caught my eye, there in the centre position was a Marshall Amp, and the signature was practically the same as the one I’d left on the piece of paper Illsley had me sign for any further contact regarding the lyrics I’d written. And if you watch Illsley’s facial expression when he see’s it at the beginning of the interview, he remembered it too, and exactly the same thought as he had went into my head, am I being set up. It reminded me of a Columbo movie when the villain recognizes the camera he took the photo’s of the crime on, and blows his cover, and that was the scenario throughout Illsley’s hour on Andertons show, whether it was a set up or not, Illsley’s eyes were continually being drawn to the one thing that could expose him, the name and signature on the Amp. He even had to put his plectrum on the table the Amp was on, and he did that without looking at the Amp, and picked it up the same way, as if Columbo had him sussed, and was just waiting to pounce. ” I come from a middle class family,” he told the Captain, “We wanted for nothing,” he boasted, I take it he meant monetary things, for all I’ve learned about his character is that he’s a back stabber lacking in honesty, and a compulsive liar who needs to finish the course with his shrink, for he makes other people join in on his skulduggery, like making out that Pick Withers came up with the name Dire Straits, because of their lack of prosperity, see John Edward Illsley you’ve just made a liar out of yourself again, perhaps you don’t have any morals, but believe me there are a few of us who have. And its just a shame the Captain wasn’t Setting You Up and get you to tell the truth, but when I wrote the lyrics, I knew you were not to be trusted but I put my hopes on Dirk, ( Mark Knopfler ) and still do. Robert Marshal

So Mark Knopfler has decided to get involved in this horrific attack on a free nation by Russia and giving some sort of donation to the Red Cross, if he’d been a soldier and actually wrote those lyrics that went onto the Brothers in Arms album, he’d have reformed Dire straits and made a attempt to stop this madness that was written in the lyrics, but he never wrote them, and was never in the military so he gets involved by giving again my monies he owes me to the Red cross. When I wrote the lyrics there were wars in Israel and Ireland, and a lot of my friends lay down their arms rather than fight in Ireland where many Scots had family. I was a soldier and I thought at that time if my capabilities were needed I would not have gone blindly into a war without having my own thoughts of the situation, and that seems to be the situation of the Russian troops, they were ordered in and they obeyed, now that they know what they have done it’s time to Ride Across the river to the Otherside, for its their Brothers in Arms they are fighting.

Ive never seen the Russian’s as my enemy in fact their bravery in the second world war was the reason we managed to fight and win against Hitler and a army that seemed unstopable, but they are fighting now against their own brothers and Kiev could become another Stalingrad, and if president Putin cannot see this future and is only determind to allow brother to kill brother, he will only fail in his mission to subdue his own. He has a plan to get back the countries that left the U.S.S.R. I was one of the people who said they should give up Communism and join the Capitlist world and they were given the cold shoulder by us. But they were welcomed into the western society and the Russian people were allowed into the so called free society, where they could see we in the West were not so free, and our jails were filled by people hoping by the same corruption as our leaders could rob and steal the monies to sit in the best restuarants and live in the luxury hotels their betters could.

I do not think that is what your thinking about when the bombs are falling round your head, and all you have is a rifle, if Putin is threatening us with a Nuclear war, get on with it, Ukraine is the way forward, its a natural opening for our troops, a no fly zone will stop or start what is about to come.

I sent John Illsley a email when I heard he was writing a book about Dire Straits, and warned him there would be problems in the future if the truth was swept under the carpet, for there will come a time when he and Mark wont be able to hide fact from fiction, with just a limp wave of the hand, or a bored stare when asked about my part in setting up Dire Straits. And in the real world what difference would it have mattered, apart from Illsley’s reasons for wanting to start a conspiracy that in his head, could perhaps impinge on his hold over Mark Knopfler, a secret that kept their friendship as close as being glued together with super glue for three or four decades, and the reason my meeting with Mark Knopfler in a council house in London, where the writing of the lyrics and the naming of the band took place, and the whole event wouldn’t have taken up a line in a book or caused a ripple in the Dire Straits history book, but it would have been the truth and being reduced in Tesco’s from £11 to £6, I’m sure that had he given the Dire Straits fans the real story, he could have had a best seller.

And the idea of Illsley writing a book any book was fictional in itself, I found Illsley to be lacking in imagination, and relied on gleaning ideas from those who did have some, and that actually happened when I was talking to him in Deptford, I told him I was hoping to have a future as a painter, but that took money for the oil paints and of course a studio. “What else would you do if you did get the money,” he asked, I didn’t have to think hard about that, “I’d buy a Inn a pub come bed and breakfast,” ? I told him. So is it just a coincidence to find he opened a studio for painting, and a pub in Hampshire and a hotel, and probably expected to get the same buzz I’d have got if they had been mine, so I’d put him in the category as a dream thief. Something he probably learned at his posh school, where he’d have someone bullied into doing his homework, like the person who he got to write the book of fiction for him who obviously didn’t do his homework either. We the band Dire Straits learned our trade in seedy pubs with sawdust on the floors, spittoons and sawdust went out of the pub scene before Illsley and Knopfler were legally allowed to drink a pint from a copper pot, and I’d really be interested to know where these pub gigs were held, for its all fiction until they released Sultans of Swing, and then they had to do a few pub gigs in Islington, but not a hint of sawdust on the floor, though there would be a few grains of Hashish mingling with the Roaches on the deck.

So why has John Edward Illsley concocted this stupid conspiracy that has probably ruined Mark Knopfler’s status in the music industry, and then he continues to harp on about their binding friendship, would a real friend do that to you, and as I said if this scheme has come from his head that must rattle like a tin with a solitary ball bearing in it, then his album “I never told a soul,” and then “Toe the line,” just doesn’t make sense unless he thought it up himself, for through his stupidity it has backfired into something that hinges on fraudulency and one lie after another. What was wrong with the truth, “I met this guy in a coffee shop in the West End of London, we went back to my house in Deptford, where I introduced him to Mark and the group Dire Straits was born, and the lyrics of the Dire Straits album written,” and the truth would have been told, and I’m sure that not one fan would have thought anything less of Mark. It just starts to get out of hand if its all to do with money, if someone has 100million pounds and owes 5million, and need the 100million, then they make a Dire Straits record and pay of the 5million owed and still have a 100million with a few pounds extra, and nobody needs to write a book of fiction.

You can actually go back to when all this nonsense first happened, I came back on the scene, and Illsley went to Mark Knopfler with a suggestion of reforming Dire Straits, his first and only claim to having a good idea, but for some reason Mark turned him down, and this pantomime started where everything but punches have been thrown, but its been close. And now there are three books of fiction written about Dire Straits the band, and that takes me back to when I began to realise my two so called friends were not going to open their cheque books and pay their dues, I got in touch with Paul Crockford and made the suggestion of me writing a book about Dire Straits, and that would close the issue about monies owed, he seemed to think that was funny and said, “But that would be fiction,” no Paul any book without the truth is fiction, my story would have been the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as you will find when your having trouble trying to sell seats for the Mark Knopfler shows, and that ain’t fiction just bad managerial skills, and not knowing fact from fiction.

The few that have remained faithful to Mark Knopfler on the Amarkintime blog, after finding he didn’t write the lyrics on the first Dire Straits album had a poll on the blog to find which of the D.S. albums was the best, and the first album won. I’d like to think Mark reads or takes notice of what his fans think, for when I made the suggestion of starting a band called Dire Straits and writing the lyrics for that said band, I didn’t do it to forward one person’s career or their ego, it was to form a rock band that could be as one no matter where they were placed in the line up, and for a while that was what happened, and though the lyrics on the other albums didn’t give the same message as to what I’d written, for a time that possibility was always on the books, until the demise of David Knopfler and Pick David Withers.

And if there was any messages within the new band members, it was to grab as much money as possible, every album with the next line up was dictated like a sweet shop, to make the mouth water, but never to get the taste that was advertised, that would come with the next product, and until the Brothers in Arms album, with most of the lyrics written by me, that satisfaction was finally reached, but Knopfler and Illsley had used up their private stock the cupboard like old Mr Hubbard was bare, and even if it could be filled from the archives of the deep cellars of the P.R.S. vaults, the ingredients that brought the success my lyrics were missing. And since Mark was not going to lose face by calling me back into the game, as his own lyrics had not reached the peak that mine had, he used his get out of jail card, and went solo. The music business is a jealous game, but committing suicide when there is a way out to me doesn’t make sense, he’s a great guitarist and as I said at the beginning, it was a group thing, the ladder upwards was for them all, and the first album where they all gave their all proved that, and that was why it won the poll.

I seem to have upset the I LOVE MARK KNOPFLER members of amarkintime the few remaining stalwarts who keep that blog running, like a club that lost its values years ago, and hide their true identity by using pen names, just in case they have to go back to being a normal person rather than a obsessed fan. At first when I started my blog they claimed Knopflers lawyers would have a field day with this guy who claims he wrote the lyrics of the Dire Straits album, and worse gave the band its name, and what happened nothing because what was written was the truth, but did that change their minds no, now its a mental health problem or that I’m living on a different planet, and that is coming from people who allow themselves to deny that most of the comments on the blog come from one person who uses various names. I’d have thought the first thing any fan of of Dire Straits would have wanted to know was, did this guy really write the lyrics for the D.S. album, and why is he being denied his rights like a victim of a conspiracy of a fraud, but we are talking about Mark Knopfler fans who think its marvellous that their hero has donated some of his many guitars to something like Reprieve, when in reality he has given nothing to any charities other than from the money he has swindled from me, so where are the Lawyers you thought would discredit me, probably laughing all the way from the bank of Mark Knopfler.

And right on queue the person with to many identities on the amarkintime blog who likes to comment and answer his own questions, and has two many guitars comes on the scene, Chris Finucane barred from Facebook for identity theft, and a lot of other blogs, who has hounded and trolled a Brownie pack leader, and still does, and brought fear to a woman with three children, and uses their names to annoy me when he sticks his vile comments on this blog, and says he got the police to me for threatening him, the only contact the police have had with me was to report him for his vicious and degrading emails that go directly to them. I also reported him to his work place in Tadley, for I couldn’t believe a person of his character was being left in charge of children with mental impairments, they told me he was a good worker and what he did in his own time, sending vile emails had nothing to do with them, so I told them Fred West was a good worker and if someone had reported him for what he was doing in his own time, perhaps a few of the woman he murdered might have been saved. And usually people who have numerous email addresses like he has on amarkintime is for gaining access into porn sites, and as he quoted on his first attack on me, ” I was searching through the web looking for porn, and came across this blog,” so he grassed himself of and his credibility is zero, and through his numerous pen names on amarkintime, its credibility is zero for still allowing him to comment. And if any of the so called fans of Mark Knopfler had been at the plaque unveiling in Deptford they’d have seen me speaking to their hero, and also refusing to be photographed with him and Illsley due to Illsley’s behaviour when |I met him at St James where he was selling a painting for charity. This blog was started to show Knopfler and Illsley, that due to the internet they can run but not hide, there has been over two million hits on this blog, and apart from people like Finucane, what I’ve said has been taken for gospel and it’s up to Knopfler and Illsley to respond, and since the law in this country does not accept silence from the accused as a sign of being not guilty, it verifies my case against them and I will take this blog down if they eventually come clean about my part in Dire Straits. I don’t know the reason why they have chosen to go with this silence, as it has only hurt their reputations, if Illsey had corresponded with my lawyers in a normal manner instead of trying to twist the truth, that has bounced back at him, I know this state of affairs would never have happened. Robert Marshal

Be aware when you make a Gentleman’s Agreement with someone, that they are a Gentleman and they wont stab you in the back when you ask for whatever was agreed on to be returned in full. For even the hardened Mark Knopfler die hard are starting to get the gist of why their hero has turned away from being a nice guy into a miserable bread head, that wants to get every penny due to him from the Dire Straits Legacy, and like his best friend Illsley wont even invite the guy who named the band, and wrote the lyrics of the hit songs of the original Dire Straits, into their company for a cup of tea?

And the die hard are right, when I met Knopfler and Illsley money wasn’t the problem, that came when it flooded in from the Dire Straits album, the heads swelled and they began to believe the could have anything they wanted, and they did there best to prove they could. First came the flash cars, then the houses, then for some reason marriages to woman that wanted the best, and they’d make sure they got it. And with it the old story you take it with one hand, and give it back with the other, and Knopfler married again, could he afford another debit card, only if he fiddled the books and in Robert Allan, photo above, he had the best twister in the Law business, and he didn’t come cheap, and he was there to do a hatchet job, just like Beeching did for the railways, any trains lying idle in the siding’s would be scrapped and any line not making a profit axed, and he did such a good job he was thanked on the Dire Straits album.

The album with all my lyrics on it, I still don’t know if his name was put on the album for me to get in touch with him to claim my share of the monies, as that was when I could have made a move before the Limitations Act of six years was yet to expire. But and its a big but, I had a Gentleman’s agreement with Knopfler and Illsley, and that expiry date was when Dire Straits were no more, and they kept reforming, every time the river money dried up. And I take it that Robert Allan was fed up looking at the cheque with my name on it, just gathering dust in a drawer, and after all Marks marriages, the mansions, the cars the children were all costing money, and the six years had passed so I’d have trouble proving my case, and I’d doubt if my former cohorts of Knopfler and Illsley, would have taken my corner, they were living in the world of Money for Nothing, when Robert Allan erased the name of Robert Marshal from the Dire Straits log book, and anyway it was just a Gentleman’s Agreement, so beware Gentlemen if you are a Gentleman.

You may get some kind of inspiration from reading a book, but a Poet or lyricist seeks the truth through experience, and that is the difference in what is seen through the eyes of a observer studying a painting, and the artist who painted it.

And that is why the fans of Mark Knopfler who still presume that he wrote the lyrics of the Dire Straits album, keep fumbling about in the dark when they try to join the dots of Knopfler’s life to the story within the lyrics, Deptford is near the docks so he got his inspiration for “Down to the Waterline,” from there, or perhaps Newcastle having the river Tyne gave him the picture to construct what is a good lyric.

Absolute rubbish when I came out the Army, I trained on the SS Vindicatrix in Sharpness as a deckhand in the hope of joining the Merchant Navy, I also sailed on the Fishery Cruisers from Greenock to Iceland, and did a trip on a Fishing Trawler from Leith Docks, so if Mark Knopfler watched the boats sailing by, I was on the deck of them, and Dog Leap Stairways was the only part of the lyric he suggested, and he changed Fire Flies to Pilot lights.

I also squatted in a multi storey in Limehouse another dockland area, I was on the the eighth floor over-looking the Thames, and the boats with their coloured lights were hypnotic sailing up the river in the darkness, so I really feel for the fans that are still hunting through the scraps of information to solve the puzzle that Mark has kindly given them, however until they start believing that it wasn’t Mark Knopfler who wrote the lyrics to the Dire Straits album, this is one crossword they will never finish, but if they want the truth, its all here for Mark was the musician and I was the lyricist. Robert

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Age causes lots of problems and one of them is forgetfulness, but when your being irresponsible with the truth and saying it on a televised show, then that is just being totally stupid, so for God’s sake Mark don’t relate a fictitious story that can be dissected like the alien autopsy. I’ve listened and watched closely since the Dire Straits album was released the way you have played Sultans of Swing, at first you put your all into the words and music, then it become boring probably due to the fact you couldn’t get a song with the lyrics you’d written to be as popular, so you just went through the motions including words of your own to break the monotony, something that would never have happened if the work was written by you, for a artist would never take the piss out of their own creation.

Another mistake you made was so obvious it actually made me wonder if you do research the lyrics you claim you have written, or have someone do it for you, for I know the P.R.S. archives are full of lyrics whose writers have passed on years ago, and I’m saying that because you definitely haven’t a clue about Creole music, and I’ll quote the line, “And the Sultans played creole,” Creole Mark is a French and Black form of music from Louisiana in America, and the instruments they play are a Mouth Box, Cigar box Fiddle, Vest Washboard fiddle, Mandolin and Accordion and Bass Guitar, I’d not only say hearing a band playing Creole in this country is as rare as a Dragons tooth, but I’d have thought a privilege to hear. Almost as hard to find as someone wearing Brown Baggies in the London scene, unless they’d travelled down from Manchester, eh Mark.?

Brian Johnston isn’t a Andrew Neil and swallowed the guff you spouted like a English breakfast after fasting on toast for a week, “I was in a pub in Deptford, there was a band playing Creole a couple of guys were at the pool table, I had a couple of pints, then a guy went on stage and said something like, now its time to go home, thank you the Sultans of swing, oh and there was a Saxophonist, they weren’t very good,”..

Come on Mark if your just making up story’s to justify why your claiming the royalties for lyrics you didn’t write, make sure what you’ve said cannot be found out to be what it was a load of bullshit, I’ve had two million hits on my blog, and Dire straits have sold perhaps two hundred million records if not more, plus they are one of the most well known bands in the world. So before you came out with that feeble delivery on how the lyrics of Sultans of Swing were formed, didn’t you think if there was a group called Sultans they’d have a genuine claim for using their name, and the barman who served you the two pints, he’d remember you and them, for they obviously had a contract, then there was the pool players, and I take it the groups friends, and perhaps a couple of locals, they would all have remembered that night in Deptford, just like you did, especially after you made them all famous by telling that story, and it really is just a story Mark, for you were there when I wrote the lyrics, and the only time I was in a pub in Deptford was after you allowed John Illsley to embarrass me after the plaque unveiling. So lets see if you remember this quote you made?

I don’t like definitions but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it to change it rather than have it imposed upon you. You cannot really ask for more. I’m sorry Mark the way I see it and I’m sure a lot of Dire Straits fans do as well reckon you have already lost control and we are not wanting fables, or you becoming a Boris Johnston of spin, we gave you respect so we are entitled to the same, or do you believe for some reason its just a one way street only for Mark Knopfler. Robert Marshal

People have been asking why mark Knopfler, who introduced himself as Dirk to me when we first met, suddenly after sending me a link to his email address and for some reason still calling himself Dirk and after many emails mostly from me, suddenly went silent?

At first I thought he thought I was going to send him lyrics, that could have been true for when I met John Illsley, he said, ” He didn’t know why I’d got in touch,” so I do think they were expecting something from me, and as I have already said, you may be a super star, but your a human being first, and Illsley wont speak to anyone who knew him before the Dire Straits era, and if you go to one of his gigs you will find that is true. And the way he has treated me he must have forgotten that because of me he’d still be staring out of a cafe window, wondering how to live of a State Pension.

Anyway back to Marks reason for stopping our correspondence on the Web, I was going through the emails I’d sent him, and found what I think may have challenged his ego, and caused the silence, the computer I had at the time was not recognising the name Dirk, so every email I’d sent him was to a Dick, and that may have got his heckles up, so I apologise for that, but over the years I’ve called him and Illsley worse than that, but being a Dick may have struck the six blade knife syndrome. Robert Marshal

When you eventually get someone from the start of the Dire Straits era to discuss their part in the bands history, the six blade knife comes out, “He’s a weirdo” the guy who discussed on amarkintime about getting my blog hacked and removed from the internet said, others say Pick has developed a deliberate forgetfulness about songs they believe rehearsed and were hidden away in Mark Knopflers cuboard, maybe the same drawer he produced my lyrics from to fill the Brother in Arms album.

However I can say without hesitation Sacred Loving was never sent as part of the Dire Straits album to be reviewed by Charlie Gillet, for the one part of the agreement Mark did keep was the only lyrics that were to be on the D.S. were mine, and if you have listened to any of the songs he and David wrote singly or together before the band was formed, where would they have fitted in, I’ve listened to them and its like chalk and cheese they don’t mix, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t try it, and found it didn’t work, that was why the album Communique was released like a dog out of the traps to get his own songs and lyrics onto vinyl.

Picks hesitancy to discuss the deeper questions are not down to duplicity, its because he and David were not in the know about my lyrics, and why should he be, in the book of Mark he was just the drummer, just like David was just his younger brother, it was Illsley and Mark who were pulling the strings, and to make it work Pick was made to sign a clause where the monies like Royalties would compensate in case any disagreement about trivia like Plagiarism arose, something he had never experienced in all his time in the business, but it worked, but again Pick was the drummer and a good one not a conspirator. So be thankful the bloke agreed to the interview and seems to have given us more information about his time with the band, good and bad, than Illsley seems to have given the writer of the book of fiction about dire Straits, yes the same one who run to Illsley to do something like write a book about himself, something the editor said would be full of puns, if he thinks getting ripped of is funny it will be hilarious. And heres another one Bob Dylan has just sold the rights to his songs lyrics and music to Universal, Mark Knopfler sold the lyrics of everything I wrote years ago. If Picks gig gets going in the new year I will be making a determined effort to attend, so I hope you will make it too and watch a master at work. Robert marshal

So the post-mortem of Mark Knopflers musical abilities has been started by the die hard few at Amarkintime, who due to the lack of news from the Knopfler press core, have had time to dissect and scrutinize the music the guitarist has played on his solo albums. And like Vultures that need fed after the feasting has left their belly’s empty, their hunger is so strong that they look for some kind of satisfaction gnawing on the bones of the silent victim, who if by some miracle rose from the grave and plucked a D note from his red guitar would scatter his underfed fans back into the music stores to buy his new album, whether it had the semblances of Clapton Pink Floyd, Bill Hayley or Bob Dylan, within the chord structure, and when you have so little notes to work with, your obviously going to trespass into some other musicians music, that did the same to another’s work style.

What I resented of this attack on Knopfler, was that some of those who made comments on What Song Would You Skip, were being asked to make a judgement on Mark’s songs since he went solo, and since he’s written more songs than he ever did with Dire straits, there was plenty to choose from, and since most of those who did comment were the ones who made it clear they didn’t and probably still don’t believe I wrote the lyrics on the D.S. album, their loyalty to M.K. is as thin on a water dish left out in winter for the birds. One of them wrote a book about M.K. and Dire Straits, and said he got a interview with John Illsley, if that was the case he’d have included my part in Dire Straits, for if I’m not in it, then its fiction and not fact. Of course he was the person who suggested that they should get a hacker to erase my blog from the Web, and his co conspirator was a person who has numerous accounts on Amarkintime, that he appears with a new one and no one seems to notice, even though he answers and questions himself. So if Mark is slumbering like a old grandfather on the couch and its his red guitar that slides to the floor, lets be thankful that its not a joint for the house we want him to burn down is the Albert Hall, and though he’s seventy bringing the real Dire Straits together again, would be the finale that the real fans are waiting for, and the sham dissectors could put away their scalpels, and listen to the four musicians that started a band that doesn’t want the Vultures coming down from the trees. Robert Marshal