 Before success in the music and film industries, Dick worked as an architectural draughtsman, a clerk, a busker, a cab driver, a construction worker, a farm labourer, a motorcycle messenger, a salesman, a waiter, and served a spell in the Sewage Division of the Anglian Water Authority.He began his career in the record business working at Stiff Records, where he stayed for five years working as a Press Officer with Madness, Ian Dury, Lene Lovich, and the Plasmatics.In the early 1980s he moved to Phonogram Records, and while there directed the original Band Aid video "Do They Know It's Christmas?