the potential for danger, with fights breaking out during sets, but I used to sneak in the back of the town hall and climb into an old lighting box to watch the bands on Friday nights, usually fibbing to my folks that I was visiting my grandparents. I saw Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages – at a time when there was with the real possibility that Ritchie Blackmore was playing guitar – Joe Brown and the Bruvvers, maybe Neil Christian and the Crusaders with Jimmy Page on guitar, Freddy ‘Fingers’ Lee, Mike Sarne and Bert Weedon. I was bitten by the excitement, alone up there, with the hall full to bursting.
I was in Steeple Claydon hall one Saturday night in 1964 to see the Primitives, and I thought they were fabulous. I got as close to the stage as I could. I had never seen men with such long hair – I was more than impressed. They made two singles for Pye Records and Jimmy Page played on both of them, I’m told. They came from Oxford but their home could have been Jupiter as far as I was concerned. I had seen them on the TV, and now I was a few feet away from them. I was captivated.
I used to see a guitarist from nearby Winslow when I was 14. Nipper – his real name was Gerald Rogers – had quite a reputation and often played weddings. His group was the Originals – Les Castle, Snowy Jeffs, Nipper and either Keith Fenables or Maurice Cracknell singing. Nipper played guitar. One night at the Verney Arms I heard them do Muddy Waters’s ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’. It was a revelation to hear local guys play this, and play it well.
My cousin Keith Aston had somehow got a guitar but I was under strict instructions not to touch it. I did, of course. I found it a hugely pleasurable experience, just holding it and touching the neck. I didn’t really understand the feeling, it just felt right. I had to have my very own guitar and I bugged my folks until they caved in. Finally I had a very old and very used acoustic Spanish guitar. It wasn’t particularly good, I knew that even then, cheap and hard to play, especially for a beginner. It was almost impossible to hold one or two notes down, let alone a chord. I persevered until my fingers bled, skin coming off the tips. My hand ached beyond description and became such a painful claw that Mum asked me why my fingers were such a mess. She was genuinely concerned. I practised every single day for months on end and, gradually, the pain subsided, although the worn-out instrument remained extremely difficult to play. This was how I learnt my craft, and what a miracle that I, and countless others all over the country, were prepared to go through this pain barrier.
I astonished my folks one evening when I was able to play along with the theme tunes from Coronation Street and Dixon of Dock Green. They were both very enthusiastic but I told them that, even though I had improved, the guitar was holding me back. I thought my heavy hint was a bit of a long shot but to my delight they agreed. Thank you, TV theme writers!
I saved every penny from my paper round, and had been saving all my birthday and Christmas money for a couple of years. I had enough money for a deposit! Dad said he would help me out as much as he could. ‘How do we get an electric guitar?’ he said. I knew exactly where. I had been there before.
3.
When I was 13 I spent a few days in at my aunt Doreen’s house in Hampstead, London. I was allowed to make a bus trip on my own after promising I would see the town but not get off the bus.
I boarded the no. 24 from Hampstead to Pimlico, a round trip of about three hours. It remains a great way to see central London. I sat in the prime seat – front, upstairs – and went to Camden Town, Marylebone Road, Gower Street, Trafalgar Square into Whitehall. Sitting there all alone I saw Nelson’s Column, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and more, all sights I had only seen in pictures or TV. It was very exciting.
On the return leg I glanced up at 114 Charing Cross Road, the Selmer Music Store – the UK’s sole importer of American guitars. It was a life-changing moment. I had promised not to leave the bus, but what could I do? I had seen Selmer’s window, full of Fender, Gibson, and Epiphone guitars. It was fate. If I had been sitting on the left-hand side of that bus, I would never have noticed. I was down those bus stairs and off the footplate without thinking.
There were bass guitars, amplifiers, and custom-coloured Strats that I’d only ever seen in catalogues. The archtop Gibsons in the store were almost two hundred pounds, an unreal amount of money. One side of the store stocked brass instruments with the famous Selmer badge on them, all very well but of no interest to me, really, the guitars had me totally spellbound. Selmer’s was a magic kingdom. The Beatles had been in this very store, as had the Hollies and the Applejacks.
I spent over two hours in the shop but it took me an hour before I actually plucked up the courage to touch one. The assistants were very nice and I took a Fender Stratocaster down from the wall and dared to ask how much it was. The answer was 140 guineas, the equivalent of around £165. This was an incredible amount of money. That very same model today would be worth £30,000 or more.
It eventually dawned that my aunt and uncle would be wondering where the hell I was as I’d been gone for three hours longer than expected – oops. I apologised, told them where I had been and promised not to do it again.
The next day I was on the twenty-four again, this time getting off at Cambridge Circus. I walked up Charing Cross Road and to my delight I discovered many more guitar shops – Macari’s, Pan Music. I returned to Selmer’s where I heard a famous band were also browsing – could it be John, Paul, or George, or maybe Tony Hicks or Graham Nash? No, it was just the Bachelors, brothers Con and Dec Cluskey buying new Gibson acoustics. The Bachelors were one of my mum’s favourites.
It wasn’t until later visits that I met the Merseybeats, also Chris Curtis, the drummer with the Searchers. I had taken a guitar from the wall, totally out of my price range, of course, and was playing it quietly. Curtis said I was a very good player and invited me to his flat in Chelsea. I accepted his invitation – he was a pop star, after all, and had a chauffeur-driven car. I still don’t believe it, but I got in the car with a man I had just met. With hindsight, that could have been a terrible scenario.
He said that he would cook at the flat. Jon Lord later told me that he was probably elsewhere in the flat at the time – Jon was ten years older than me and was just then starting the project with Chris that would later become Deep Purple. As it turned out, there were only Cornflakes in Chelsea and so that was the meal. I did feel a little strange, eating cereal with Mr Curtis, and wondering why I was there. I should also say that Chris was very nice to me, and nothing whatsoever questionable happened. Maybe he had in mind that I could have been the guitarist for Roundabout, but I was only a young teenager. Jon would later pull my leg about that day, especially at breakfast in a hotel on the road where there were Cornflakes around.
I got to know Denmark Street’s shops well and when my dad asked me where we could get an electric guitar, I was ready. Dad was the guarantor for the hire purchase agreement. Selmer had a special offer on the Colorama 2 by the German company Hofner, whose guitars were very popular, reasonably priced and good quality. It was the one for me. The monthly repayments were quite high, but I really didn’t care: and I had my first electric guitar!
I held the green plastic case tightly as we went home. I thought the guitar was beautiful. It was finished in a cream colour, had twin pickups and a tremolo arm. I took it everywhere – my mum often said that I was chained to it. I couldn’t believe how much easier it was to play than my Spanish acoustic. There was just one more thing …
‘You never said anything about a bloody amplifier!’ said my dad.
I pleaded with him and we acquired a five-watt Dallas amp from Butler’s furniture shop in Buckingham. I practised daily and our next-door neighbour, Tom Tranter, who worked nights, soon had his own name for my setup. He called it ‘That bloody electric thing.’
