Chapter 4, 1977 – 1983
In August 1977, I had a psychotic episode, which the doctor called a ‘brainstorm’. It only lasted a day or two and may have been related to my stresses in life, or to the self-improvement workshop I was attending with a bunch of hippies who may have put psychedelics in the tea urn. It certainly gave my brain a radical shake-up, and possibly improved my songwriting.
In September 1977 I went to an evening class on electronic music, where I met Gillian Wills. She was a music teacher, and she asked if I would like to write some songs for a 1950’s musical at her school in Islington. It was based on the story of Orpheus and Euridice and included Fun City, Hey, Little Girl, Don’t look back, Euridice, I’m a dreamer, Rock And Roll, King of the Styx, One Two Three, We’re Mean We’re Green, and Set Me Free. These were typical 1950’s style songs, but the musicians had a good laugh with a song called Growl, which they played in the style of 1977 punk rock. The musicians included guitarists Ken Goodfellow and Brian Hollett from the Cherry-Tones, Gillian Wills on piano, and a drummer. Gillian was thinking of producing another musical based on the 1960’s, and I wrote one or two songs in preparation, including Read Between The Lines, about the Maharishi and The Beatles.
In January 1978, my girlfriend Sylvia saw there was a song competition in the Islington Gazette. Sunshine Lady won it, and it was performed at Islington town hall by myself, Chris Alexander and a girl singer whom we had advertised for in the Islington Gazette.
In 1977-78, I restarted Flair, with Chris Alexander, who had left Co-Co, and Taffy and Jan. Taffy was a bass player and his girlfriend Jan was a singer. They were keen to get started so Flair became a band with a drummer, and we copied the songs in the charts. The idea was to eventually pick our best numbers and upgrade from a band to a cabaret harmony act. We auditioned with Mecca and got a six weeks residency in April 1978 at Daddy’s Disco in Copenhagen, after which we were offered an American tour. I bowed out at that point because I didn’t want to do any more copying of chart hits.
In the 1970’s I had a few people in a sort of songwriting club, including Nigel Hanson, who helped me with Sunshine Lady, Graham Lee, who was a film buff and wrote the lyrics for Fellini, Debbie and Sunday, and Sylvia Lassman my girlfriend who wrote the lyrics for All Or Nothing, and Child Of Mine. She and I did the lyrics for Sunshine Lady. After our songwriting sessions, we used to go to a vegetarian restaurant called Manna near Primrose Hill. We walked up the hill afterwards. Graham Lee wrote some song lyrics about Primrose Hill but they went missing, so in 1984 I wrote Primrose Hill with my own lyrics, incorporating the only words I could remember of Graham’s: “Tiny moons of white.” In the 1970’s there was a time when nearly all the chart songs contained the word “Boogie”, so I started on a satirical song called Boogie Dance, which I finished and recorded 10 years later.
In 1979 I started a “Lonely Hearts” club for non-smokers, with parties held at the members’ houses and flats. One of the parties was at my flat in Dalston, next to the police station, and the police asked us to turn the music down, as we had big loudspeakers in the front garden playing Rock And Roll, and blaring out “Wake Up Little Susie” – so we moved back inside. It doesn’t do to fall out with your neighbours especially if they are the police! One of our members was Patricia Hodge and some of us went to see her Ulysses monologue at the King’s Head in Islington. The actress Stacey Gregg was also a member, and we watched her in the West End in ‘The Importance Of Being Earnest.’ Stacey was the daughter of Hubert Gregg, who wrote the song “Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner.” I called my club “Night Out” because I used the lonely hearts columns of Time Out to recruit members. This led me into a relationship with a French girl. She liked Sha La La, and she used to ask me why did I love her, which led to the song Love Doesn’t Need Any Reason.
In 1983, I left her and went to South Germany doing voluntary work. I did carpentry, concreting, and general jobs at a large pottery, in a hamlet called Aiglekofen near Frontenhausen. Some years later, when I sang at a school in Glasgow, the Pottery Song was voted the favourite (It has also been used by a You-tube contributor).
The potter was Ingrid, and her husband Alexander Angelsberger dealt with the business side, transport and installation of ceramic stoves. They had a 1-year-old son called Sebastian. I had to work more quietly when he was having his afternoon sleep. In the song Sebastian , I portrayed him as an energetic little rascal with “dirty hands, dirty knees, scrumping apples from the trees.” I also had him building castles out of chairs, which is one of the activities I made up for him. This was quite a co-incidence because six years later when I paid a visit to the pottery, as soon as I walked in the door and saw Sebastian, he was emerging from under a pile of wooden chairs.
One of my jobs at the pottery was to help tile the new roof and put in dormer windows. On the ninth of October 1983, I fell off the roof. It was about 5 metres drop, and I landed on grass, with a jolt, standing up. I knew that in accidents they advise to check for broken bones, but I had always had a picture of accidents where the person is down on the ground. I was standing up. So I just walked away – or tried to. I was taken to the nearest hospital at Dingolfing, where my broken shin bone was repaired – it was a jigsaw puzzle to screw everything back together. If I hadn’t walked on it, it would probably have been a hairline crack. One evening I was given an extra strong painkiller injection (which I didn’t need!). This led to another “brainstorm”, and I was taken to a mental hospital. The doctors made a joke of asking each other what was this patient being admitted for? Answer…. (wait for it!) … broken leg! After 2 or 3 days I was back in a normal hospital for another operation because my wound had an infection, staphylococcus aureus, which turned out to be a superbug.
Alexander took me to a specialist (who put me on a 3 month waiting list for a long-term hospital in Murnau, near the Austrian Alps)
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