We were robbed!

Articles from the launch issues of Blitz magazine in 1980 written and illustrated by Kevin

MOTORHEAD

GIRLSCHOOL

NEW WAVE OF BRITISH HEAVY METAL

Excerpts from the, as yet unpublished, rock memoir by Kevin Duncan

WE WERE ROBBED!

The adolescent adventures of a failed guitar hero

Kevin Duncan is obsessed with the rock n roll dream. Always has been. “Congratulations Mrs. Duncan, it’s a lead guitarist!” But his way of pursuing it is much smarter than the usual route of ignoring your education, donning some daft clothes, and hoping to be picked up by a record label. His plan was always to make the money first, and then use it to fund the dream. Aged nine he was refusing to join the school choir and buying a guitar instead. After scenes of near-riot at the boarders’ feast where he aired his first Telecaster miming to Slade, he left to form Fixed Dice, a totally amateur bunch of hairy teenagers playing Lynyrd Skynyrd and Status Quo – loudly and badly.

His succession of obscure bands has wrought a trail of rock n roll havoc over the years, and no few anecdotes. In 1978 Radio Ferret became notorious for encouraging a fan onstage to sing with them who promptly had an epileptic fit. At the height of punk, The Disease came very close to destroying the Merchant Taylors’ old boys club when they encored with Anarchy in Moor Park. In The Polite Assassins in 1983 he was widely ridiculed at a Battle of the Bands competition for wielding a deeply unfashionable Flying V – an axe he still proudly owns to this day. And the smoke bombs detonated at the Half Moon in Putney led to the fire brigade being called out to rescue Nice n Tight and their fans.

In 1990, Q magazine described his Murder by Handshake ensemble as “relentlessly average with an urgent desire to be like every other rock band”, and suggested that their crowd-pleasing classic Living Today was “a rigorous analysis of how to launch a women’s magazine”. The talent scout at Virgin, on hearing one of their power pop songs burst into a trombone solo, dismissed them as “too quirky”.

Unperturbed, he has ploughed relentlessly on, forming dozens of bands, writing over 500 songs and religiously going to over 300 gigs in 30 years. His bands have variously supported the Stranglers, Elvis Costello, Steve Gibbons and Mungo Jerry. He has bunked off school to see the Sex Pistols, interviewed Motorhead, and been on a blues pilgrimage down the Mississippi. You name them, he’s seen them: the classic Thin Lizzy line up in 1976, blues greats Chuck Berry, BB King and Homesick James, punk grit from The Ruts and The Damned, and heavy metal stalwarts Saxon, Iron Maiden, UFO and Van Halen.

He loves it all so much that he has even kept every ticket and set list from every gig, and his house is a temple to the rock n roll gods – bristling with gear and memorabilia. Now aged 44, he still can’t help himself. He owns 25 guitars, has a recording studio in his cellar and is still releasing CDs at a prolific rate.

Businessman by day and rock god by night, he has already commissioned the world’s first rock n roll wheelchair, complete with leopard skin upholstery, built-in silver glitter Gibson SG, and a sidecar for his roadie. The story ends with the author picturing his own demise onstage at the Twilight Home for Retired Rock Stars, where he has organised one grand finale….

 

CHAPTERS

1. Cissy choir boy or rampaging rock star? The summer of 69

Boarding school insubordination, Alice Cooper rocks the system, and the birth of a closet rock god

2. Gone electric: Telecasters are go!

Dodgy school reports and pandemonium at the boarder’s feast 

3. Conversion on the road to Hammersmith

Thin Lizzy and Lynyrd Skynyrd inspire the launch of Legend and Fixed Dice

4. Confused of Watford: punk meets Judas Priest

That famous Pistols gig and the “truly extraordinary” Radio Ferret

5. Anarchy in Moor Park

The Disease fans attempt to destroy the old boys’ social club

6. Green strides and Flying Vs

Maelstrom take Rickmansworth civic centre by storm riding the New Wave of  Suburban Heavy Metal

7. The college years

The Inrage go power pop, Straight, no chaser! grace the dinner jacket era, and interviewing Lemmy

8. Goodnight Wandsworth!

The Polite Assassins, Murder by Handshake and the record company trawl

 

CHAPTER 1. Cissy choir boy or rampaging rock star? The summer of 69

I knew the day was coming. Actually I’d known it for a while. And then it happened. A large hand appeared on my shoulder and the gruff voice delivered the dreaded words, “Duncan, we want you in the school choir.”

This was boarding school at the end of the sixties – a potentially very scary place for an eight-year-old streak of piss. This was Bruce Clarke, the Head of Music, a Basil Fawlty-like character with a fanatical devotion to close harmony singing and chorister cleanliness, and a ferocious temper. When this guy blew his top, the screams echoed around the Great Hall where he dragooned generations of young boys into pews and forced them to sing soprano until their balls ached. I knew what it was like in there. The kids usually came out in tears, with varying degrees of injury to their hands and arses, depending on the supposed severity of the crime. These would range from having a crumpled hassock to failing to hit a top B at forty paces during a Handel fugue. It was truly horrible stuff, and there was no way I was going to be part of it.

But there were two problems. Number one, rules were rules, and no one in the history of the school had ever before refused conscription to the choir. Number two, I had a bloody good singing voice and everybody knew it. The fact that I was usually belting out Alice Cooper or T.Rex was hardly the point. A note is a note, and if you can hit one, you can hit one. My brother was already Head Chorister for Christ’s sake. And Head Boy. So the powers that be reckoned the pattern was set. Don’t make me laugh, I thought. I had other ideas. I was about to pioneer the future of rock n roll in a traditional boarding school somewhere in deepest Hertfordshire. The rock n roll dream was mine, all mine. Basil Fawlty stirred me from my reverie.

“Report to the choir room at 7.30 am tomorrow, Duncan.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir.”

This was treason. Saying no to any master was tantamount to asking for a good beating. Saying no to this tyrant was like wandering into a tiger’s cage and poking him with a large stick whilst blowing raspberries and calling him a chicken. But I had a cunning plan. Or so I thought. Actually it wasn’t that cunning at all, but it sure was ballsy. There were a couple of seconds of incredulous silence, then, sure enough, Fawlty hit the roof.

“You’ll do what you’re told young man, like it or not!”

“Er, no sir, I have already discussed this in detail with my parents and they agree with me – I won’t be joining the choir”.

“You have what?!”

“That’s right sir. I knew I’d be asked, and I don’t want to. I asked my parents to back me up, and they have. I’ve got a letter….”

He was turning purple and twitching in a catatonic rage, interspersed with occasional gasps of incredulity. How could a whippersnapper whose parents were so many miles away have had such a crucial summit meeting to flummox his desires? This level of insubordination had never happened before. And it clearly wasn’t an instinctive reaction. This boy had planned his response long ago. He had been outthought. Outwitted by an eight year old! How would he save face in the common room? This was my first example of advance planning in action. My father was a world expert on it.

“Remember son”, he would intone whilst puffing on a pipe and nonchalantly completing the Daily Telegraph crossword in a couple of minutes, “efficiency is a sophisticated form of laziness.”

“What do you mean, dad?”

“Spend a bit of time working out what is most likely to happen, plan your response in advance, and the rest is a breeze.”

The man was a genius.

Fawlty was so apoplectic that he didn’t even have the presence of mind to summon me for a ceremonial beating or consign me to a hefty run in detention. Instead he stumbled off to the staff room cursing under his breath, clearly stumped for a clever response. And I was as good as my word. On further cross-examination, I triumphantly produced the letter from my father, and they couldn’t deny it. Further chaos ensued. Could they countermand the wishes of a parent? What would their line of argument be? This had never happened before, and they were woefully under prepared. Round one to the small man, but it was never going to be the end of the matter.

After a file of correspondence that would have made the SALT* talks look modest, the forces of darkness agreed on a compromise. I was duly summoned to the study.

“Right Duncan, sit down.”

Fawlty and the Head were there, and this was the intimidating Star Chamber effect they liked to create when passing judgment on matters of high import. I had clearly struck right at the heart of all that authority stood for. These guys had a serious dilemma. I was the youngest of three boys. Both my elder brothers had been Head Boy – models of quality and overachievement in all aspects of school life – sports, music, academia and behaviour. My father was a respected officer in the Royal Air Force, who paid the fees. They had always thought I was a cocky little shit, and they had desperately wanted to nail my arse to the wall ever since I arrived, but parents of multiple children, and the forces establishment, were important people that they couldn’t afford to piss off. They were trying frantically to manoeuvre themselves out of a tight spot without losing face. I clambered up into one of the massive chairs. My skinny white legs dangled out of my grey shorts, and failed to touch the ground.

“We have decided how to resolve this unfortunate matter concerning your refusal to join the choir. Our ruling is that you need not join the choir as your parents recommend, but instead you must learn a musical instrument. That will be the end of the matter. Inform Mr. Clarke when you have decided which instrument. That will be all.”

This was going well. So far I had successfully avoided joining the shrieking cherubs in the choir, and not been beaten black and blue for my refusal to do so. I went back to my dormitory to dust down part two of my plan. These were extraordinary places. Think air hangar with forty beds in them. Drafty, massive, and impersonal. A photograph of one of these in the paper today would cause nationwide consternation. What prison was this? What regime could keep its inmates in this sort of environment? But to us it was the norm. I contemplated my position. The plan was going well. I had known all along that I would have to agree to one instrument or other, and I had worked out the answer. I had drawn up great lists of instruments and crossed them out one by one Anything orchestral was out. Strings? Too screechy. Woodwind? Er, no. Brass? Quite funky, but no one round here was going to understand jazz. Piano? A great instrument, but I would undoubtedly be strapped to a stool and forced to grind out Sonatas in G until my head exploded. No, what I needed was something much more counter-cultural, much more revolutionary, and certainly something for which they had no rules. Oh yes indeed – the guitar! I would become Hertfordshire’s youngest Rock God.

They hadn’t seen it coming. If I had asked to learn the guitar in the first place, my request would have been rejected on the grounds that no one had ever done it before and it was too inconvenient. But this way round it was they who were insisting that I learn an instrument, and having made their mighty decree from on high, there was no way they could write back to my parents and say that Duncan wanted to the learn the wrong type of instrument. The embarrassment would have been too great. So the conditions were ideal. No one had ever been taught the guitar at the school before. They would have to get an outsider in, and they would have no yardstick against which to judge my efforts. Perfect. Within a week I was duly escorted to the St. Albans Music Centre (it’s still there, on Holywell Hill, last time I went past) to select my first axe. Well, it was an axe to me. Actually it was a Spanish guitar that cost £13, but all budding rock heroes have to start somewhere.

It was the end of the decade, the end of the swinging sixties, and 1970 was about to launch my rock star career. The kid would be alright!

“Duncan, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to music practice, sir.”

“And what are those, exactly?”

I had been caught armed suspiciously with an armful of albums and cassettes, a portable record player, and a tape machine, purportedly on the way to rehearse Mozart’s ‘Cantata in B flat for ponces in sports jackets’ (I forget the exact title). Music practice was hilarious. Most of the kids used to hate it – locked in an empty classroom for an hour to blast away on a trumpet or bassoon. But not me. I would hot-foot it to the furthest away room, and take a knackered Phillips cassette recorder with odds and sods that I had taped direct from the television. Direct from the TV? Now there’s an idea for the modern age! I used to sit in a classroom with a dodgy old Redifusion black and white television every Thursday night. As soon as Top of the Pops came on, all the other kids were barged out of the way, I turned the volume up to 11, and when Quo or Bowie came on, hit the record button. Not exactly hi-fidelity, but it was enough to get the rough shape of the songs. It was Alice Cooper, Slade and T. Rex, and I was soaking it up at a rate of knots. The results of these questionable recording efforts were lapped up nightly, and I was undoubtedly the only musician in the school to volunteer for extra music practice. This was my hideaway time – no other boys taking the piss, parents in another country, just me and my guitar. It was a pattern that I would follow for the rest of my life.

Learning a few basic chords is not the big problem when you learn the guitar. It’s moving from one chord to the other that causes the trouble. A learner can sound quite competent when chugging away on E for twenty minutes. There’s then a 3 second break while he gets his act together and forms the A shape that can be excruciating for the listener. Assistants in guitar shops the world over have cringed at this phenomenon for years when the kids come in with their rich dad’s trying to persuade them to part with £1,000 for their first Les Paul. The clever thing is, the dads believe that it’s the “going rate” for a starter guitar, and hand over the banknotes while the staff nod sagely and wink at the kid – it’s a conspiracy that’s been going on for decades.

Tuning is the other big challenge for a learner. These days you can buy all manner of machines to tell you whether the string is flat or sharp, but this was long before any such machines had been invented. Instead, you listened for the rough key, and tuned the thing as close as you could. I later learned I was not alone in this. I read years later that the legendary blues guitarist Robert Cray had the same problem. He learnt a whole range of classics on his cheap electric, including all the stretches in the solos, often to find that he was playing in a key below. He still hit the notes, which may well explain why he is king of the stretches to this day. To overcome the speed of chord change problem, I spent hours tuning the whole guitar to E so that I could just whack my finger across the neck for the classic lazy bar chord. Eventually, after a lot of blisters and blood, that proved unnecessary.

All the while, the classical nightmare continued. There was a price to pay for being a rock star in your own practice room. Classical lessons. Arpeggios. Allegro! Lento! Performances in front of parents in relentlessly bad clothing. Typically the programme would read: Kevin Duncan. Guitar. Solo waltz. Mmm. This was not very rock. And there were grade exams to be taken. Sight tests to be confronted. They were the worst. The set pieces I could learn off by heart, go into the exam, set up the sheet music, and pretend that I was reading along with it. The sight-reading tests blew my cover every time. I knew it and the examiners always knew it. The usual pattern for my results was 9 out of 10 for the prepared pieces and 1 or 2 out of 10 for sight-reading. Fair point. General questions were usually deemed to have been given “fair answers but needs more study.” True indeed. What would I know about Handel when I could be investigating the life and times of Noddy Holder? 73 out of 100, a pass, but no merit. Fuck it. Who cares? Rock stars don’t sit around with a music stand and a bunch of crotchets and quavers, so why the hell should I?

My class singing report that term read, “He sings well and enthusiastically despite his alleged reticence,” This sort of veiled sniping became a running theme. I was apparently “a not unwilling boy who shows that he is capable of good work. However, a more sustained effort would bring more favourable results.” The authorities were rarely happy, and I had the whole world of rock n roll to explore in my spare time, not a bunch of old wrinklies writing sonatas and fugues.

Eventually, by the summer of 71, now aged nine, I managed my first reasonable accolade for guitar: “Kevin has made an encouraging start and should produce good results.” By the autumn of that year I roared with laughter when I was given that term’s report. My guitar teacher hadn’t been present to fill it in, so Fawlty had to write in what he had said. It must have made him spit venom to have to write: “Guitar: an apt and willing boy who works well on the pieces set.” The campaign of attrition continued.

A year later and, hey presto, when Status Quo released Mean Girl, I knew how to play it! 1971 was a brilliant year for singles. Marc Bolan’s T.Rex were on fire: Get it On, Jeepster, and Hot Love. Slade were just beginning to get the hang of it with Coz I luv you and Get down and get with it. And Alice Cooper was terrorising teacher’s values with Under my Wheels and Be my Lover from the Killer album. It took us a while, but we soon learned the value and power of a good rock song. The nastiest ones could aggravate a teacher for an entire term if you got the frequency and the volume right. The radio and the TV fed us the diluted, palatable stuff so that Tony Blackburn and Jimmy Young could give us their cheesy smiles and introduce the songs without saying arse. But the dirty, offensive material was always hidden on the albums, and for those you needed to embark on extensive trips to record shops in the major towns. That was if you could afford them at £1.99. There it would be – on side B of Alice Cooper’s Killer: Dead Babies! Christ alive, now there was something to spook the authorities. These gems would be smuggled back into school in brown paper bags and put to work at all the wrong times. There was a stereogram about the size of a rhinoceros in the common room, ostensibly for listening to the news and playing the odd Christmas carol, and if you were clever you could nip in when the teachers weren’t paying attention and whack some of this subversive material on. It caused mayhem.

“What in god’s name is going on here? Who put this filth on?”

“Duncan did, sir.”

I had tried to explain to my supposed mates that sneaking was a really poor show, but the spoilt little bastards didn’t give a shit. They would talk a good game in the playground – tough as nails – and then, when push came to shove, they squealed like a good ‘un in a nanosecond.

“Right Duncan, come to my study, and bring that godforsaken thing you call a record with you!”

A couple of minutes later I was facing the Spanish Inquisition.

“Show me the offending item, Duncan”

I duly handed over one vinyl copy of Killer by Alice Cooper.

“Who is this woman, Alice what’s her name?”

“It’s a man, sir.”

“Don’t play with me boy. Who ever heard of a man called Alice?”

“I agree it is a girl’s name sir, but he is a he.”

“You’re skating on very thin ice here, Duncan.”

He picked up the LP disdainfully and scanned the cover like a buzzard eyeing its territory for unsuspecting prey.

“What’s this adder doing on the front?”

“It’s a python sir.”

“Don’t split hairs with me Duncan. Answer the question. What is this python doing on the front?”

“It’s smelling, sir.”

“Don’t be facetious boy.”

“It must be sir, it has its tongue out, and that’s how snakes smell.”

This was not going particularly well, but I’d survived it before, and I would again.

“Where was it photographed?”

“I don’t know sir.”

“It must have been near fire if the background’s red.”

“I don’t think so sir. I think it’s a photocomposition.”

“A what?”

“A photocomposition sir. The shadow on the snake is purple, and they’ve stuck that on the red background for dramatic effect.”

“I see…now what was the awful racket?

He turned the LP over and scrutinised the track list.

Be my Lover? Halo of Flies? You drive me nervous? Dead Babies!!”

His jaw dropped lower the more he read, and his face was now approximately the colour of the album cover.

Needless to say, the offending item was confiscated until the end of term. It wasn’t the only time. Daft rules abounded in 1970s boarding schools. On one occasion I was beaten for having my plimsolls in the dormitory. This was clearly a heinous crime, and I was frogmarched down to see the Housemaster, the unusually named Mr. Seth-Ward, who beat the shit out of me with a sports shoe bigger than my weedy little arse. The deal was, under no circumstances could you be seen to be crying when you came out. Kids would emerge with crimson faces (and doubtless behinds, although we didn’t get to see those bits), smile lamely at the gathered gang of voyeurs, puff their chests out, and leg it down the corridor to bawl their eyes out in some private corner. The beaten boys were able to claim that they didn’t cry and the rest all got to gloat – until it was their turn. Dignity was retained on all sides. A term later, I was being caned by the headmaster, Jack Higgs.

“Right Duncan, you’ve been found guilty of the crime, and you know the punishment.”

“Er, I think so sir.”

I have no idea what I did, or indeed whether I had actually done it. It was common to be punished for something you hadn’t done. Some you won, some you lost.

“You think so? Don’t josh with me boy. What do you think this is?”

He was posing one of those pointless rhetorical questions as he wielded a wooden cane about four-foot long. He flexed it sadistically and, in a moment of inexplicable madness driven by the imminent prospect of unspeakable pain, I remember wondering whether it was made of ash or birch. How irrelevant is that?

“This will hurt me more than it’ll hurt you, you know Duncan.”

Fuck off and get on with it, I thought.

The first blow hit hard. So did the second. The third he fluffed a bit.

“That one doesn’t count,” he announced matter-of-factly, like a sports commentator.

“But sir!”

“Shut up, Duncan. You know the rule – the more you squeal, the more you get!”

The bastard was enjoying this. I braced myself for the fourth, the big one, and big it was. I swear he took a run up. Whatever the technique, I could just about see upside down through my legs the man in the black cape coming for me. He was going to put all his efforts into this one, and he whacked me so hard I lost my footing and shot straight across the room, chinning myself on the edge of his desk.

After I left the school, the only other time I met Mr. Higgs was when I was clad in a studded leather jacket, smoking a fag, and about to watch Judas Priest at Dunstable Civic Hall in 1978. One of his end of term reports on me was a convoluted analogy about running with the hounds and something about a hare. I never really understood what he meant, although I thought it might have been a typo, and that he thought my hair was too long. One master who certainly thought so was Mr. White, a small Scottish guy with a ferocious temper, who taught PE. His rule was that your hair mustn’t cover your eyes, even wet, and to prove it one way or another, he would frogmarch you to the outdoor, unheated swimming pool, and throw you in. When you came up, you weren’t allowed to shake your head. If it covered your eyes, you were off to the barbers. On one occasion, I had to crack the ice on the pool before getting in. My enduring memory of this bloke is a fantastic tirade he launched on the whole school one evening while we were having dinner. He thundered up and down for a good fifteen minutes ranting on about how he had never been so shocked in all his life. We didn’t have a clue what he was on about until he insisted on inspecting every boy’s swimming trunks personally (that was hundreds of pairs).

We eventually worked it out. Someone had laid a turd in the pool.

As the guitar obsession developed, so did the record collection. 1972 was a top year for classic albums. My Pye foldaway record player, a sort of plastic crimson suitcase that turned on when you put the needle on the record, was taking a bit of a hammering.  The first thing ever played on it was The Best of Val Doonican, which went unceremoniously in the bin when I picked up Status Quo’s Piledriver. This was vinyl dynamite. Three hairy guys on the front doing the full-tilt boogie. Massive fuzz guitars in the middle eight of Don’t waste my time. Big Fat Mama! And the dirty, sleazy Roadhouse Blues that promised of sex on some dusty American highway.

“At the back of the roadhouse I got someone to love….”

This was the proper stuff. I went searching the record bins for more. I had  heard My Brother Jake and Little Bit of Love by Free on the television, and was immediately hooked. “Just listen to the tone that Kossoff gets out of that Les Paul!” I would exclaim to my bewildered mates.

The classic Wishbone Ash Argus album introduced us to the delights of twin lead guitars, and then I discovered Led Zep. What the hell had I been doing with my time? They had already released their first four albums by 1971 – how on earth had I not heard about this? The Stones’ Sticky Fingers! Hendrix with his Strat on fire?! And Sabbath’s Paranoid? This was the dirty, filthy, ballsy stuff I sometimes heard on my brother’s tape player at home in the holidays. I was making up for lost time by laboriously learning the riff to  Led Zep’s Rock n Roll on my increasingly battered Spanish guitar. The singles thundered along that year too. Slade thumped out Mama weer all crazee now and Gudbuy t’ Jane, T. Rex launched Metal Guru and of course I fancied myself as one of the Children of the Revolution, and then Alice Cooper blew the doors off with School’s Out . This was every pocket revolutionary’s dream. I taped the massive school bell at the end and stuck it on my cassette player. Whenever we were bored with a lesson, I would turn the volume up to full, hit play, and a massive long bell would ring, bringing the lesson to a halt amidst grateful cheers. Off to the headmaster’s study for another beating….

If by now it sounds as though I was a right pain in the backside, you may be half right. Nevertheless, I managed to keep the authorities at bay with some decent academic grades and a few demur classical guitar concert performances from time to time, always in front of the crusties from Hemel Hempstead and St. Albans, with the odd foreign dignitary occasionally thrown in for good measure. But there was no disguising the rock demon within, and the trusty Spanish guitar that had launched my career was beginning to reach the end of its useful life. A Spanish guitar is not built for riffing, and certainly isn’t built to withstand the amateur bashing it was receiving from this obsessed eleven year old.

Without a doubt, it was time to go electric.

*SALT talks. For those not in the know, the SALT acronym stands for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks or Treaty. At the time, the Russians and the Americans were taking a long time chatting to decide whether they were going to kill each other properly or not.

 

 

CHAPTER 2. Gone electric: Telecasters are go!

The kitty for the electric guitar had been growing for some time as I gradually accumulated Christmas donations from relations I barely ever saw, and it now stood at the princely sum of £60. Now that’s enough to set off on the road to stardom in anyone’s book, so I timed my run in the school holidays and persuaded my mum to give me a lift into Watford, where there was a music shop called Hammonds. The place was paradise to a budding rock star – chock-full of gleaming electric guitars, and amps with their power lights winking in the shadows. I can still remember walking in on that day in 1972, and the thrill still remains. Any guitarist will tell you – you can’t beat the sensation of a wall full of Strats and Teles, gleaming in the murky gloom of a guitar shop. You are immediately transported onto some massive stage somewhere, new axe in hand, surrounded by dry ice, belting out a rip-roaring solo in front of thousands of adoring fans, usually improbably attractive women with little else to do apart from drool over your every action. But I digress. It’s 1972, and it’s Watford of all places. Hardly the home of rock, but the closest urban enclave with anything like the scale necessary to host a guitar shop in those days. It was also near enough to our house in Rickmansworth to persuade my mum to make the trip. We jumped into her Mini and sped off. The electric age was about to kick off.

Standing slack-jawed in front of the wall of guitars, I was off in dreamland as usual, slavering over the possible choices. A sunburst Les Paul? A gold Strat? A Flying V??! And, of course, a Marshall four-by-twelve stack to blast them all away with. In fact, I had no choice at all. I had sixty quid all up, and that would have to get me the amp, a strap to pose in front of the mirror with, some strings and a couple of picks. I tentatively began negotiations.

“Er, hi, what can I get for £60?”

“Not a lot mate.”

“I need an electric guitar.”

“You won’t get much for that.”

“It’s all I’ve got. Have you got anything?”

The guy in the ponytail shuffled on his stool disinterestedly. This transaction was not exactly going to boost his commission for the day.

“Fussy about what type?”

“Er, I don’t think I can be, can I? So long as it works and it sounds alright. Have you got anything suitable?”

He took pity on me and sidled off round the back. I noticed with some dismay that he walked straight past all the good stuff hanging on the wall, and he was certainly not heading for the window where the prime pieces were. No, he was going for the crap they lobbed unceremoniously round the back because no one else would dream of buying it. Much to my astonishment, he returned with an absolute beauty. It was love at first sight. A Telecaster! Cream body, maple neck, white scratch plate. Immaculate. I thought he was taking the piss.

“It looks great. How much?”

I braced myself for the worst.

“Thirty-two quid.”

This was too good to be true. I looked at the logo on the headstock. I knew it wasn’t a Fender of course. It said Sumbro. Never heard of it. Who cares? It looked great. Minutes later I was plugged in to the practice amp murdering Behind Blue Eyes and Won’t get fooled again at a volume that no one else in the shop seemed to appreciate. I had recently bought The Who’s Who’s next, and was completely hooked. My mum stood by patiently and let me do the honours. She always had this great knack of respecting what I was up to. “I’m not sure I know what he’s doing, but he certainly seems to, so let him get on with it,” she would say to anyone daft enough to express an opinion. The Tele copy played well to my untrained ear, and I decided to have it straightaway, but what on earth could I play it through? I scanned the amps. Marshall stacks. Yes please, but somewhat over budget for an 11 year-old on his first outing. I eventually settled on a WEM Clubman for £26. It looked like a fat black briefcase, with a carry handle on the top. It had two knobs (one said tone, the other volume) and two jack inputs (one said INST., the other said ALT.). That was it. I guessed that meant you plugged your instrument into INST., but I never really worked out the ALT. input. It made exactly the same noise as the other one when you used it, so I was none the wiser. No matter. I eagerly handed over my £58 and we drove home, me cock-a-hoop about the prospect of sounding like Jimi Hendrix, preferably by teatime.

My new electric rig opened up a world of new possibilities. Instead of hacking away on a Spanish guitar and pretending it sounded like the real thing, now I could actually try to work out how the real noises were made. My trusty WEM was put through its paces daily. The clean tone sounded less sexy at first but then you realise how exposed your playing is with no distortion. I must have played Wishbone Ash’s Argus fifty times in a row to get the hang of that. Track 1, side 1, is Time Was, which is nine minutes and forty seconds long – plenty of time to rehearse a riff again and again, and work through any problems. But what about the big distorted noises? Sabbath’s Paranoid? How the hell did they do that? I turned the volume up full. Whoa! It was only twenty watts, but in my six-foot square bedroom it blew the roof off. This was more like it. I would lock myself away for hours. My mother would secure the ornaments, and the suburbs reverberated to the sound of a pre-pubescent boy discovering his life’s passion.

Every hour of the Christmas and spring holidays I practiced my electric skills without harassment at home. Things weren’t going so well at school. I took my guitar and amp into school for the summer term. I managed to smuggle them into a back room on the first day without being spotted, but it was never going to last. They were too big to hide properly, and school life was riddled with random inspections of cupboards, drawers and lockers. It’s not as though recreational drugs had yet reached deepest rural Hertfordshire. They were more concerned with adherence to the petty school rules. Ruler in your games locker? Detention. French notebook scribbled on? Detention. Swimming trunks in your desk? Detention. You get the idea. Rulemaking gone mad. Electric guitar in your classroom? Oh fuck.

“Duncan, what in god’s name is this?” An overwhelming sense of déjà vu swept over me. Here we go again. More idiotic rhetorical questions when they know perfectly well what it was. Don’t grin, but do bear it, I kept thinking. Come on mate, you can do it. I adopted my “I’m taking this very seriously sir” tone.

“It’s an electric guitar, sir.”

“Electric?” On reflection it was possible that he really didn’t know what it was.

“Yes sir, an electric guitar. I play the guitar, sir, you’ve seen me in the school concerts.”

“Yes Duncan, but that was the classical guitar, and very pleasing to the ear it was.”

“Thank you sir.” They always emphasised the classical bit, just to reassure themselves that it wasn’t a subversive weapon of mass destruction.

“But this. What is this monstrosity?”

“It’s an electric guitar sir.” You got used to the repetition when being questioned for a crime, or even an alleged one. They never seemed to be able to assimilate the facts based on one simple answer.

“You’ll have us all electrocuted, Duncan!”

He strode triumphantly up the corridor, seemingly pleased with his limp attempt at a joke. In the event, I was allowed to keep the guitar at school, so long as it was never accompanied by the amp which was clearly regarded as far too subversive for the system. I practiced unamplified anyway.

Regular exchanges with the authorities led me to the belief that they were all dim, and it started to show in my reports. That summer Jack Higgs, the headmaster, wrote “I look forward to teaching him next term and shall get to know him better. I must say however that at present my dominant impression of him is that he is unhappily complacent. If he could be self-assured without being self-satisfied, his talents and accomplishments would receive my unqualified approbation, and I should be delighted.”

There was always a rider on the reports that read:

Note to parents

This report is confidential to you. If you wish your son to know what it says, please consider whether different wording might convey the meaning more appropriately to his understanding.

My dad used to show me the whole lot, warts and all. “If you’re old enough to read, you’re old enough to take it son,” he would aver, handing the complete dossier to me after every term. The battle with the authorities continued unabated. My work and achievements were good, and my attitude wasn’t. It drove them mad. They wanted to say that I was pain in the arse, and look at his lousy results! But the results were good, and they could never forge a link between the two. I got maximum punishment all term, then decent academic reports. They just couldn’t get me on the work, because I was always first or second in the class. But at the end of each term, they could never resist a dig in writing.

Basil Fawlty was still smarting from my refusal to join his beloved choir two years before: “I was fairly impressed with his guitar playing at the concert in Berkhamsted. His immature attitude re. the choir and the general musical life of the school will, I feel sure, be regretted later.”

 

He just couldn’t let it go. But then something very weird happened. He decided to learn the guitar. This was extraordinary. My arch enemy was following my lead. One-nil to the little man! I was absolutely gobsmacked. This was a climb-down of massive proportions. Thinly veiled as the right of the Head of Music to understand the workings of as many musical instruments as possible, my main detractor was taking up my instrument. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I had won, no doubt, in one sense, but now he was able to position himself as a comrade-in-arms of sorts. Oh shit. Now that would really blow the rock n roll credibility. The whole point was to be counter-cultural, and now the bloody Head of Music was in on the act. This would need some serious thought, and a completely new plan of attack.

It took weeks of severe contemplation, but eventually I alighted on a strategy that I thought might work. I would be as helpful as possible to Mr. Clarke, so long as he was as helpful as possible to me. We embarked on an uneasy truce (I dubbed it privately the Truce with Bruce. Publicly that would have been out the question – masters were always referred to by their surnames, with a politely deferential  “mister” in front). I would teach him the finer points of the guitar, try to be a decent bloke, and play in all his supposedly vital classical concerts. And in return I would get to practice my rock music, complete with electric guitar and amp, unharassed by the authorities, so long as he didn’t have to hear it or get any embarrassing complaints that put him in an awkward position. It sort of worked for a while, and my reports started improving a bit.

Jack Higgs, autumn 1972:  “He has the strength and the weakness of independence, but I do not wish to press criticism when there is so much to commend.”

Bruce Clarke, summer 72: “His class music is perfectly satisfactory.”

(I never knew whether this was sarcastic or not. It sounded like damning with faint praise to me, but understanding these subtleties when you are young isn’t the easiest thing, and I didn’t really give a toss anyway because my parents knew that the choir issue was always lurking just below the surface, and they ignored it.)

By the spring of 1973, he was positively effusive: “He has worked well and his attitude has been more pleasant.” This was high praise indeed.

The guitar reports were improving too: “Good steady progress. Is now gaining a greater fluency.”

Little did my teacher know that the new-found fluency was courtesy of Jimmy Page and Francis Rossi, not his own tuition. A peace of sorts had broken out, but it didn’t last that long. It was the summer of 73, and Led Zep had just released Houses of the Holy. The cover alone, covered as it was with naked nubile children, was enough to get you thirty days in the hole – well, detention anyway. The Stones released Goat’s Head Soup. I remember driving with my mum and dad to Blackheath to visit some cousins when Angie came on the radio.

“This is pretty mild for the Rolling Stones,” suggested my dad, impressively knowledgeable for a classical enthusiast.

“It sounds as though they are repenting for taking all those drugs, “ I offered, in a worldly-wise sort of way, trying to affect the insouciance of a mature rock critic.

“Maybe you’re right son.”

He always called me his Mystery Man, and he never talked down to me. He said he liked to promote a broad church, which he certainly did, even though he delighted in describing himself as a self-confessed pagan. He never criticised an interest, just wanted to know more about it. He was an excellent pianist, trained in a completely different way to me as a musician. He could sight-read beautifully, and played with a really light touch. He basically taught me light and shade in music. He was Mozart, I was Slade, but he never said I was on the wrong side of the fence. The classical training, however, had one strange bi-product: if you took the sheet music away from him, he couldn’t play a note. It was the weirdest thing. Just by removing a bit of paper you could reduce a musical genius into a novice who couldn’t knock up chopsticks. We discussed it at length. I thought he was a genius for being able to stare at a bunch of seemingly random printed tadpoles and make them into beautiful flowing music. He marvelled at my ability to mimic any record, or make something up on the spot. It was deep respect, and watching his predicament I vowed never to become dependent on written music. The last time I looked at a piece of sheet music and vaguely understood it would have been in 1974. Since then I have written over five hundred songs, and I can still tell you how they all go just from the words and chords in my trusty song books, with not a quaver or semibreve in sight.

The summer term drifted on. A little-known band from Colorado produced what is still one of the best rock albums of all time. Montrose. Space Station No. Five has one of the biggest heavy riffs in E you’ll ever hear, and the levels of distortion these guys were getting out of their guitars defied all known laws of physics at the time. This, along with Marc Bolan’s grinding intro to 20th Century Boy and Davy Johnstone’s distorted guitar on Saturday night’s alright for fighting, dominated the turntable on the common room stereogram. I was always being asked to turn it down. Sometimes by the teachers, sometimes by my classmates. We all had monogrammed tuck boxes for our personal possessions. These were constantly being broken into so people could steal your sweets and chocolate. No matter how many padlocks you conjured up, they just jemmied them open and left the hinge hanging. Eventually, you didn’t bother to lock up because there was nothing to lock. My vinyl LPs wouldn’t fit into my box, so I had a proper record case with a lock, and I made it quite clear what the boundaries were with this.

“Look guys, have as much tuck as you like, alright, but don’t touch my records, okay?”

“Ooh, get you. Duncan’s touchy about his precious records, isn’t he boys?!”

“Yes he is, and if he catches you at them, he’ll smash your fucking brains out.”

There was a pregnant pause. I had worked out how to defend myself very early on in my boarding career. Arriving as a skinny seven year-old, I looked like fair game for the beefy boys, who immediately tried to beat the crap out of me. I was sallow, callow, and willowy. I looked like I would blow over in a light breeze, and when I was forced to go swimming, I cut a sorrowful figure that made Biafran documentaries look like easy viewing. The first beating I took as it came, but on reflection I thought, this is bollocks, I’m not having five years of this. So I worked out my response for the next time. Sure enough, a few days later there they were, boxing me into a corner in the playground, preparing me for a good walloping. This time I knew what to do. The first one came in for the kill. Like McFly in Back to the Future, I smacked him straight in the face. He reeled back in shock, blood pouring out of his mouth, with an incredulous expression on his face. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Duncan was a streak of piss, and besides, boys were only supposed to punch in the stomach. That was the rule.

“And you can tell the rest of them,” I snarled defiantly, “Duncan punches in the face.” My reputation had the desired effect. My album collection remained mercifully in tact. In this environment, as long as you didn’t cry wolf, you only had to make your point once. Establish your reputation. Always follow through on what you threaten. If you say you’re going to smack their face in, then do it properly. Then you won’t have to do it again, and they won’t bother you any more. And I was a frail kid! Welcome to boarding school in the seventies.

My increasingly erratic behaviour was earning mixed plaudits. In June I picked up a merit in my guitar Grade 2 in the glamorous environs of some dodgy school hall in Luton. In July, my guitar solo Adagio by Mertz went down a storm at the summer concert. By now the whole school was getting the guitar bug. Fawlty’s enthusiasm to embrace the cause had spawned a whole new generation of budding guitar players, so much so that I was even able to perform in a trio at the same event. Our guitar trio minuet by Lully, generated enthusiastic applause. But they still couldn’t resist a dig about my subversive behaviour even though a part of the musical rift had been patched over. That summer my House Tutor, Mr. Allaby, summed up his take on 1973 so far. “This has been a successful year for him in most respects. The only problem seems to be a slight tendency towards self-satisfaction which, if not checked, might prevent him from reaching his full potential.”

Didn’t they understand? To be a rock star, you had to have attitude.

By the autumn, they were pushing much harder. Mr. Allaby couldn’t resist another pop. “Another good all-round performance. Without wishing to be unduly critical I must add that there have been occasions when his behaviour has not come up to the standard we may reasonably expect.”

The Headmaster, Jack Higgs, had a lot of fun joining in. “His work is excellent. His football very useful this term. Art and music no real complaint. As a boy in authority: I have no doubt he is responsible enough to wish to hunt with the hounds. From lack of confidence perhaps rather than too much of it, he is not quite able to resist also running with the hare.”

 

It was another one of those bloody hound and hare analogies. I swear they wrote this stuff to prove to the parents that they had a good grasp of the English Language. They never expected me to be shown these comments. Or did they? I asked my dad what the hell it meant.

“It means you’re very good at everything and an irritating little bugger.”

“What’s wrong with that?

“Nothing. Because you excel at most things they can’t get you.”

“Do you think I’m irritating, dad?”

“No son.”

“So why do they?

“Because they see you as a threat to their authority.”

“A threat?” This was encouraging. “What type of threat?”

“You break the rules, and they don’t like it because if the other boys are brave enough, they’ll do it too. Then there’ll be chaos.”

“But it doesn’t bother you dad?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Can I ask why?”

“They call it insubordination. I call it character.”

This was parenting of the highest calibre. My parents weren’t remotely impressed by authority. Dad was a Wing Commander in the RAF by his thirties, and screaming through the ranks to the extent that he was earmarked as a future Air Vice Marshall. He was awarded the MBE, and then the OBE. Here, clearly, was a man of the highest calibre. But despite his extraordinary talents, he never did get beyond the rank of Wing Commander. One day I asked him why.

“I thought they were all a bunch of wankers,” he replied with characteristic frankness. “And I made the slight mistake of mentioning it about once a week.”

By the summer of 73 I had broken most of the strings on my prized Tele, and it was time to go back to Hammonds for a refit. Mum gave me a lift again, and although I was learning some of the ways of the rock musician, I still didn’t really have a clue what I was doing. I had snaffled a variety of Spanish guitar strings as replacements. They were all the wrong widths and I didn’t have any pliers so there were bits of surplus length curling all round the headstock. Not very rock n roll. I strolled up to the guy at the counter.

“Er, I think I need a new set of strings.”

After he’d finished pissing himself laughing, he called a mate over.

“Get a load of this. Chuck Berry here needs new strings.”

“Reeeeaaally?”, said his mate in that sarcastic way that often fools a novice into thinking that they really care. “I believe you do. What type would you like?”

“Uhm. I don’t know. Electric ones?”

There were further hoots of merriment from behind the counter.

“Right. We’ve got bass, acoustic, electric standard, slinky, super slinky, short gauge, long gauge, short scale, long scale and country and western. What do you fancy?”

“A set of slinky please.” I was getting fed up with this. I had read somewhere that Ernie Ball Slinkies were the thing, nice and stretchy, so I’d have those for my blistering solos. “Could you help me put them on?” This was not proper rock etiquette at all, but there was no way I could do this on my own. I’d fuck it up and get the tuning all wrong. He relented, and took the guitar to unbundle the bastard collection that was currently on there. His hand reached for the top E tuning key when he suddenly looked up at me incredulously.

“What the fuck are these, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“He puts them on for show,” offered my mum, not entirely helpfully. There, on the top three tuning keys, I had tied chunks of anorak chord, dangling like navy blues tassels. This was either going to turn into the ultimate humiliation, or I’d have to dig in a bit.

“Dave Hill in Slade does it, “ I replied defiantly.

“Yeah but he doesn’t cut them off his anorak, does he?”

It was a very fair point, and one that I took to heart for careful consideration. Dave Hill had gold, wet look platforms. So did I. But I had cut corners with the tassels. His were silver and glittery. Mine were bits of blue string. The man was right. If you’re going to play rock n roll, then you shouldn’t play at it. You had to go the whole hog. The Full Monty. Live the life. Buy the gear. Don’t fuck about at the margin. Get the guitars. Get the accessories. Get the girls! Write the songs! Live the dream!

I could have walked away from the whole experience deeply humiliated, but strangely I didn’t. It deepened my resolve to do the whole thing properly. I wrote my first song, called Come away with me, but it was bollocks, so I threw it away and pledged to myself to do better. I would have to learn to play better before I could compose something properly. I stepped up my practicing, rock and classical, and in December I was shipped out to a hall in nearby Berkhamsted, where I achieved distinction in my Grade 3 exam. Despite the top grade, playing at sight, par for the course, was judged to be “fairly accurate, but slow.” It was to be the last piece of sheet music I ever read.

Relations with Bruce Clarke were proceeding reasonably. He was thoroughly into learning my instrument of choice, and starting suggesting that he was now as good as me. Short of having a play off, with crowd participation, this was hard to prove one way or other. To keep him on his toes, I started learning more and more complicated classical pieces. Every time I got the hang of one, I would hand the piece over to him and challenge him to master it. He hated it. For him it must have been a bit like climbing a volcano when the person in front of you is faster. As soon as you arrive at the next resting point, they have beaten you to it and are ready to move on, refreshed. You get a fraction of the time out, and it’s hard to keep up. That’s how it was with him and the guitar. He had embarked on it to prove he could do what I could, and now I was pushing him further. I swear it drove him nuts. One night it was after lights out and I was just drifting off to sleep, when he burst into the dormitory. If a master stormed in at night, it usually meant that the boys had been having pillow fights or some other type of violent disruption that needed remedial action. But this was nothing of the sort. All was quiet. He had been practicing a particularly vicious adagio, and couldn’t get it right. He’d become so frustrated, and he had to know, right now. I was the only person in the building who could show him, and he knew it. So, against all the rules, I was ushered in my pyjamas and dressing gown into his room, where I had to show him the finger positions and shapes on the thirteenth fret, and play it over and over again until he could get the hang of it. It was a truly great moment. The school that originally had no guitar, had just asked the miscreant for advice on how to play it! I slept well that night, with a very big smile on my face – a rare thing at boarding school in those days.

The Truce with Bruce was always an uneasy one, and I had one more card to play as a parting shot. A new boy had arrived at the school and I thought he was great. He was called Charlie O’Kane, and that sounded very rock n roll to me. I think he was half-American, which was even better – his mum certainly sounded American to me. Anyway, we became good mates – a friendship that would last longer when by chance we were both sent to the same next school. But for the moment we were just doing all the usual stuff and railing against the system. Charlie fancied himself as a singer, which was fine by me, because I would be the axe man. We hatched a plan for the boarder’s feast – the end-of-term show where everyone could do a turn. This would be the grand finale to blow the doors off comprehensively before we were unceremoniously escorted from the premises once and for all. We would perform Slade’s Gudbuy t’ Jane at full throttle! This would need some careful planning and no few negotiation skills. My performances at these events had become mildly legendary when, as a diminutive 8 year-old, I brought the house down with an Irish-accented version of Denny O’Rafferty’s Motor Car. We had also managed to get the powers-that-be to accept that guitar playing was an acceptable group activity, so we would position the whole exercise as a “four-guitar ensemble”. That would help a bit, but we couldn’t do it on our own, so we decided to enlist the help of two masters. Mr. Allaby would record it for us to mime to, and Mr. Seth-Ward would authorise the performance. Given some of the comments that these guys had made about me in my reports, and the various beatings that I had received, any degree of collusion was likely to be something of a miracle, but to their credit, they agreed to help.

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry recalling this extraordinary event. To me it was an epiphany. The rock press would undoubtedly have called it “seminal”, I thought. It was supposed to be rock n roll subversion, but it would have to be billed as bland enough to get past the censors. The day came. Mr. Allaby still hadn’t recorded the track, which was driving us nuts and preventing us from rehearsing properly. I wanted to plug my amp in. They wouldn’t let me. Mine was the only electric guitar in the place, which happily I was allowed to wield even if it was unplugged. Charlie and I enlisted the services of two other mates, Murray Ashton, and Gerard “G” Freeman (he insisted on being called G, just the letter, which I thought was very rock). Then Mr. Seth-Ward intervened on the art direction, and it all went wrong. Bereft of any knowledge concerning the instrumental make-up of any self-respecting rock band, he insisted that we all play guitar. No drums, no bass, just guitars. It would be like an acoustic Lynyrd Skynyrd without the rhythm section! So there was me on electric, and the other three brandishing Spanish guitars. I was also the only one with a strap, so they couldn’t even mime proper chord shapes because they were too busy holding the damn things. This was not shaping up quite how I had in mind. I managed to purloin a microphone stand that they used for announcing events on speech days to add a bit of rock cred to my vocals, and was just on the point of thinking it would be passable, when Mr. Seth-Ward issued his coup de grace.

“Right boys, now for the dance routine.”

Oh fucking hell. He had watched us rehearse, and he wasn’t impressed. I had stamped my foot a bit like Noddy Holder, but not left the mike, and Murray, G and Charlie had just stood there like the sultry teenagers they aspired to be. Seth-Ward pursued the choreography theme.

“Right, Murray, you and O’Kane strut back and forth down each side of the stage, like this.”

Murray was a Monitor, one of the top prefects, so he was indulged by being called by his Christian name. The rest of us were surnamed proles. He grabbed a guitar and did a passable but embarrassing turkey trot up the left-hand side. He was a very tall man and he made the guitar look like a ukelele.

“Then Gerard, you get in rhythm with Duncan, and sway back and forth like this.”

He looked like a cross between Hank Marvin and the Bay City Rollers, and had a grin like Rod Hull. It was truly horrible stuff, but we had no choice. Or so they thought. After this cringeworthy run-through, I called a team huddle with the boys.

“This is shit.”

“Too right, but what can we do?” Charlie was as anguished as I was.

“I’ve got an idea. It’s not that clever, but it might just do the trick if you’re all game.” I’d had enough. The truce with the teachers made some things easier, but there were limits. In the words of Alice Cooper, this was a case of No more Mr. Nice Guy. That evening, the festivities commenced, and after all the usual end of term guff about fabulous achievements, the festivities got underway. There were poor comedians, a couple of clowns, and some lame sketches mildly lampooning various masters and school rules – nothing too offensive. Then on came “Alternative Slade”, with their latest hit Gudbuy t’Jane. Unbeknown to the assembled masters, we had crawled under the stage and doubled the volume of the backing track. I had smuggled my amp to the back of the stage and plugged the Tele in, along with the microphone. The first two A and D chords blared out, the bass came in, and then I snarled out the first verse venomously.

“Gudbuy t’Jane, Gudbuy t’Jane

She’s a dark horse see if she can

Gudbuy t’Jane, Gudbuy t’Jane

Painted up like a fancy young man

 

She’s a queen

Can’t you see what I mean?

She’s a queen

See, see, she’s a queen

And I know she’s alright, alright, alright, alright, alright!”

 

The place went spastic. A hundred pre-pubescent kids who had been adhering to teacher’s rules all year burst out of the corral and hurled their Hula Hoops in the air. This was it, this was revolution. The teachers huffed and puffed, but they couldn’t stop it. Where was the switch? Where was the tape machine? Where was that amplified vocal coming from? They didn’t know. All the gear was carefully secreted under the stage and behind curtains. The boys were up on their feet by now. Fuck detention! Fuck the teachers! Fuck ‘em all! There were just too many of them for the teachers to put them down. This was proper people power. By the chorus, it was chaos. I was the man.

“I say you’re so young, you’re so young!

I say you’re so young, you’re so young!

She’s alright, alright, alright, alright, alright!’

We had three minutes and thirty-one seconds of unadulterated rock n roll fame. Bruce Clarke collared me when I came off stage muttering something about “useless crap”. It was the summer of 74, and it was time to leave Beechwood Park. According to my report, I was 12.6 years old.

76 comments

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    • John MacDiarmid on March 2, 2012 at 5:39 pm
    • Reply

    Hi Kevin,

    I really enjoyed chapter two. I’m not into rock in any way at all, but I was at Beechwood from 1967 to 1972 and a boarder from 1970, so the memories of Bruce Clark, Higgs, Seth-Ward etc came flooding back.

    I was in the choir – and I can tell you, I wish I had thought of the same way of getting out of it that you had!

    Can you imagine if teahcers carrie on th same way today?

    I don’t remember you and I’m sure you don’t rmember me, but Beechwood gives us some kind of bond.

    All the best

    John

    1. Good to hear from you. It was a long time ago when it was fine to beat the pupils, which happened often! I was there 69-74, and spent most of my guitar practice time playing Status Quo and Slade….

    • Andrew McIldowie on June 15, 2012 at 2:16 pm
    • Reply

    Brilliant memory trip Kevin! I was there 76-81, and was not clever enough to escape BJC’s choir! He also told me that I could not learn guitar as they already had one player in the orchestra!

    Not many people today would believe quite how deranged those teachers were. I was always on the wrong end of Monsieur Jowett, Hausermann, Murdo White and Clarke for playing the likes of The Damned on the common room dansette at max vol.

    1. Aha. Great to hear from you. You are clearly not the only one – see the trail below! I just about got out alive. I played Slade’s Gudbuy To Jane at the boarder’s feast and Bruce blew a fuse, particularly when he saw my Noddy Holder gold patent stacks. Quo’s Paper Plane blew the record player in the common room apart when I turned it up full, and I spent all my music practice time playing T-Rex and Sweet when I was supposed to be studying classical arpeggios.

      Happy days actually – we won!!

      • Jerry Knight-Smith on June 16, 2020 at 10:09 am
      • Reply

      Mac! This is a full 8 yrs since your post and 40 years on but simply to say I just found that copy of The Damned’s Black Album in my collection that you, me and Paul used to crank up in said common room…
      Jerry Knight-Smith

    • Thompson on November 27, 2012 at 9:31 am
    • Reply

    Bruce Clarke was a nasty vicious shit, I hated him with a vengeance. I was never selected and yet.. I used to go and stand as close as I could behind his back at the piano in the great hall and sing damn good counterpoint in half-mocking falsetto and watch his shoulders hunch and the hairs go up on the back of his neck -. He’d turn, know it was me, and I’d carry on croaking like the other guys.
    Mr Allaby was nice – had a 250cc Honda Super Dream that ran very sweetly, and, he said, would overtake a Bonnie on the A5 by Friar’s Wash. ‘Bandy’ Cope the physics teacher was downright weird – remeber the smell of that lab?, Mr Hausmann the French teacher was a closet Vichy sadist and deserves to be hung drawn and quartered, Mr ‘Woffler’ Walker “when I was in the navy…” a nice old duffer, and so on. The guys I liked best were Colin and Derek in the woodwork shed round the back. Quiet men in brown workcoats who taught us how to saw straight, and clamp tight and who were too shy and retiring to go the end of term show. They had been through the first world war, Jack Higgs had fought his way up through Italy.. Woffler had been on the Atlantic convoys, and the likes of Seth Ward were just arriviste slimebags who hadn’t even done National Service.
    Bloch – really nice jewish kid from North london – played pained and ironic guitar, and then died in a motorbike accident in 1976?

    1. Isn’t it fascinating how all this works? Times have moved on and the majority of the “educational practices” we experienced would be illegal today. I remember vividly being caned for leaving my plimsolls in the dormitory. Sadly, I did hear that Howard Bloch had died in a bike accident, which I assume was true. I think also his brother Steve had a skiing accident but survived. If anyone knows for sure, do chip in.

      • Andrew Jackson on June 20, 2018 at 2:30 am
      • Reply

      A very quick question & years out of date – is this Jamie Thompson?

      • Greg on August 29, 2023 at 7:23 pm
      • Reply

      I was there 67 to 72, Clarke was a monster, Seth Ward a useless item and Walker a pompous and boring snob. Agree with your comment about Hausmann. Have to say that school messed me up.

    • William Rouse on January 13, 2014 at 5:45 pm
    • Reply

    Hello
    very entertaining
    I too was at Beechwood 1971 – 1980
    Clarke was a very nasty piece of work – just a horrid man. What makes these people teachers I can’t imagine.
    Woffler was funny – harmless head of boarders.
    Jowett was a very peculiar individual who i know committed suicide about three years ago after photograps of children were found on his computer.

    I have been back to the school recently to talk in the library – which i’m glad to report is just the same!

    1. Thanks for commenting. That is extraordinary news about Jowett. You never know do you? Comparing that education to what goes on these days it seems light years ago….

    • Andrew Jackson on February 4, 2014 at 9:35 pm
    • Reply

    I was at Beechwood at the same time as William (greetings Willie). I too had the misfortune of being in the Choir – indeed 1 of the Beechwood 8 who appeared in the finals of ITV’s Fanfare. Some reading this story may think this musings from a private school for boys aged 6-14.

    It is not sadly. It is the story of a child abuser named Bruce Clarke. A man who took delight in beating children with rulers until they broke. A man who punched 12 year olds. A man who in the Great Hall in front of the whole choir & several Adult musicians picked a 13 year old child up & threw him some 6 feet into a wall. Those adults did nothing.

    It is the story of a man who ‘befriended’ some young boys allowing them to keep their tuck in a drawer in his room. This sort of behaviour is used regularly by adults who groom young children. As with all abusers & bullies when boys returned to the School having left he was notable for his absence.

    Abuse and abusers do not have a place in musing about childhood. This man should now be sought out prosecuted & placed in prison as other teachers from this era are. This man was a danger to children & remains so until his death.

      • Tom Hooper on April 20, 2021 at 12:01 pm
      • Reply

      I remember you Andew and I agree with you. I think you and your brother were both in the choir….with someone called Sean (nickname Rufus) and Jason Le Vescomte…and others. I left the choir after a year and am still traumatised by these experiences 40 years later. I watched Whiplash recently on iplayer; he was exactly like the character played by JK Simmons. This has come up again for me recently as really painful. I remember Jowett too, Very peculiar man; but also the horrific behaviour and beatings of the headmaster. What a fucking place.

    • James Selby (Saxby) on February 13, 2014 at 11:36 am
    • Reply

    Gents,

    Quite how I tripped into this I do not know……but fascinating reading, bringing back memories of childhood times. I too was pressganged into the choir by Juicey Brucey, Wayne Twigg, (Twigg died in Goa in 84 from a drugs overdose) challenged him with that name and got a hiding for it….I remember also getting whacked with either a ruler or carpet underlay for not providing proof for taking a Vitamin C tablet everyday or providing a pencil at choir practice. I did enjoy the Choirboys option day, whereupon parents could be present, we sung at queens Royal Chapel, picniced at Runnymeade and my family got pissed and we had a good time, that Clarke could not unleash his self promoted discipline and violence on us…. interesting news around Jowett, he reminded me of the weirdness of the keyboard player in the Sparkes, but more of him wondering around with a teddy bear at lights out time, all very weird. I miss Mr Richards, with his MG and living a fantasy of almost an ex world war 2 fighter pilot era, with stories and a passion for Cricket. Being a member of Sebright house, and house master GWW (George Walker) Navy tales etc. in E109 class is also a great memory! The final term was a blast, queuing up to kiss the headmasters daughter…. letting bullets off (well the gelignite extracted in the model room) in the tunnels under the school that were dug up from the icehouse, climbing the roof, fighting the Gaddesden row village yobbos at the bottom of the woods…..I concur there were some very weird teachers there in today’s world would definitely be inside under Her Majesty’s Pleasure, but also some good people, Seth-Ward regularly crashing his model plane, John Hunns nice fella (who lost his wife in a car crash) David Kerr, various french matrons, madame Bouvere….I guess 5 years of boarding set me well in life. But these writings have been enjoyable. I wish all contributors well. James

    • Andy on March 24, 2014 at 6:19 pm
    • Reply

    I too add myself to the list of ‘how did I come across this?’, but I’m very glad I did. Just the kind of thing to get me fired up to finally want to track down Bruce Clarke and press charges. My life has been ruined enough. In the light of Operation Yewtree, Savile et al, I finally feel ready to do so and thanks to some of your comments, feel strong enough to face it. As for Jowett ? May he rot in hell…

    Ax

    Beechwood (’76 to ’82)

      • Andy on March 24, 2014 at 6:30 pm
      • Reply

      Just want to add that I totally agree with Andrew Jackson’s well written observations. For those interested or who remember, Clarke was only one cog in the wheel. There was his creepy organ playing ‘friend’ Alan Vening from Aldenham, who used to spend half the week at BP, mostly after 7pm, behind closed doors with BJC and some ‘favourites’. Kevin, as this gets perhaps deeper and darker, and you wander what kind of Pandora’s Box your prose has perhaps opened, I would sincerely ask you to not take all this down. It might be a last shot for some of the abused and used to make legal headway and have BJC and others brought to justice. God, I hope he’s still alive…

      1. Time for me to comment perhaps. This blog is a celebration of rock music!

        What should have been some mildly amusing reminiscences about schooldays has indeed unleashed something of an outpouring – all from people that I have never met. I have however, in the spirit of openness on a blog, approved the comments, and as you say, they have become somewhat darker over time. I will continue to allow comments within reason so long as they are reasonably measured, but I would ask anyone wishing to pursue anything more specific or wanting to escalate the conversation any further to do it somewhere other than this site.

        Anything excessive, or that tries to use the sight to stir anything up, and I’ll simply trash it. Rock on.

      • Christopher Gravestock on November 18, 2020 at 9:58 pm
      • Reply

      Andy, I know this is some time after, but could you contact me on chrisgravestock@icloud.com ?

    • Ken on May 9, 2014 at 10:06 am
    • Reply

    Great read ! Most amusing…musically I followed (audience, not performer) the same glam, prog, punk, metal (a tiny bit) path – nowhere near to your degree though, but did manage to see – amongst many others – the Jam 5 times (once in a secret pub gig) and was at Reading 79 when the mix of heavy metal and post-punk line ups caused the watneys party sevens to fly most of the weekend – sadly this was my only attempt to see Thin Lizzy (my main reason for going) but they cancelled at the last minute to be replaced by the Scorpions, who were / are not my cup of tea ! Damn.

    I went to Beechwood for a couple of years 70 -72 – I recall many of the teachers names you mention, but even then I knew to steer well clear of the weirdo, Clarke. Many happy memories but it certainly was a different time with all those beatings. I was mates with Charlie O’Kane’s younger brother Ben, whose American mum bought me my first ever taste of pizza ! Do you remember the twins who struck fame by getting a cameo role in a tv play around 71 ? I reckon they must have been in your year….

    1. Good to hear from you. I am jealous you saw The Jam – I never managed it for some reason, but I saw Weller subsequently and he was fairly dull.

      On twins, I knew the West twins well – Hilary and Julian – but have lost touch now. Was it them? If not, there was an older pair who I think were called Jenkins?

      Charlie’s Mum was great fun. He turned up later at Merchant Taylors too, and we briefly formed a dreadful band there called Metal Clad Warrior. Oh dear!

        • Ken on May 9, 2014 at 11:35 am
        • Reply

        That’s them ! Thanks. They were on my bus (Radlett) in the mornings. I remember the Jenkins twins too – one wore elbow patches so folks could tell them apart. Charlie was a cool guy – I remember him nearly punching out some hated older bus monitor (someone Bailey ?) who seemed to have an axe to grind and way too much responsibility for a 12 yo.

        Just went through your categories – lots of overlaps on bands – Dr Feelgood, Stranglers, Boomtown Rats, Beat, Cure, Jo Jackson, Thomson Twins, Simple Minds, Motorhead – and probably quite a few more if I read all the support acts – but no overlaps on dates so far.

          • Ken on May 10, 2014 at 1:26 pm
          • Reply

          OK Kevin – I’ve been through the lot now and racked my memory cells – I’m seriously impressed by your commitment to both music and record keeping.

          In addition to the bands mentioned in my earlier post above, I also overlapped with your list by seeing at various times: AC/DC, Pistols, Stones, Pretenders, Eagles, Clapton, INXS, Santana, Who, Whitesnake, Wilko, Climax Blues, Gabriel, Yachts, Members

          Re: Weller – yes, I lost interest after the Jam split up and he joined forces with the Merton Parkas keyboard player re: the Style Council – but recently – rather belatedly – I really got into his Wildwood album which I think is excellent – so I must be mellowing,,,,,

          No date overlaps to report at all so I imagine we were last at the same venue in an end of term assembly in the Great Hall in June 1972 🙂

          Thought we had seen the Stones together – but I beat you by 8 years at Wembley stadium by going in ’82 !

          Thanks – the whole exercise has been a great memory jogger for me re: some brilliant (and some not so brilliant) gigs.

          Anyway, pleased I came across your site and I reckon you should try and get another gig at the Beechwood 50th Party !!

          Finally, some other notable bands that I also saw (from memory so not exhaustive): Yes, Nazareth, Police, Frank Zappa, Iggy Pop, Eurythmics, Chords, UK Subs, VIPs, Brian Ferry, Dubliners

    • Ken on May 10, 2014 at 1:43 pm
    • Reply

    I nearly forgot: the Kinks, at the Apollo Victoria 80 – a great gig !

    1. Brilliant to hear all your news. For some reason i wasn’t getting the updates.

      Many great overlaps – rock on.

    • Joe Worrall on May 24, 2014 at 4:48 pm
    • Reply

    I was at Beechwood 82-87. Bruce Clarke (“Juicy Brucie”) was still there. I was never a member of the Choir, but if I remember correctly, there was a rumour (sometime after I had left) that his teaching career had ended under a cloud, indeed that he had got too close to some of his pupils. I also (just about) remember his friend, Mr Venning. I have a feeling they were “close”…

    My great sin (in Brucie’s eyes) was not making the most of my talents: I was never much of a star pupil, but the school used to run a “Mastermind” general knowledge competition one evening in the summer term every year. They had a big “Mastermind” Chair and everything…

    I won it in 1986 (when I was still 7th (?) form, and therefore one year younger than most of the Top-Form participants).

    “Worrall, you’ve shown your true colours now!” fumed Clarke the next morning in the newly build music school (it would have been the gym in your day). “You’re just too lazy to be bothered with school work! You’ve got the brains, but you’re idle.”

    Actually, now I come to think of it, the fucker had a point. But he was still a vicious sod.

    The other unfortunate thing is that, despite being a nasty human being, Clarke introduced me to classical music – and I have retained that interest for the rest of my life. We used to have classes where he would play us stuff and tell us what it was.

    I well remember him him playing us “The four seasons” – he claimed Vivaldi was the greatest composer of all time.

    I also remember him showing us his watch – a Hunter half-skeleton pocket watch.

    “Now…A a few weeks from now” he said, “None of you will remember that this is a Hunter half-skeleton pocket-watch.”

    And (of course) I have never been able to forget it.

    I also used to annoy him by playing Electro on my stereo. Especially when we had cocoa, before bed.

    Murdo White used to like to let us swim in the pool on warm summer nights (ahem) without trunks… He had (Greek?) statues of naked men in sporting poses in his bedroom…

    Hausmann was just a bully. Loved to threaten, and occasionally beat us. When he left (I was back for an alumni thing – 1989) He gave a speech and said. “Ya. I am sorry if I treated you rather harshly. I just wanted to give your parents their money’s worth…”

    Mr Cope used to have a chip on his sholder about colour blindness. “I’m colour blind…they say one in every five men is…”

    I though it was Jowett’s family that had died in a car crash.

    Then there was the (occasionally) drunken Irish Matron. Mrs Kenny.

    And Mr Higgs – who I can’t imagine going to a Judas Priest concert in a million years.

    I am sorry for those that were abused. I was not good looking (or musical enough) to warrant anyone’s attentions. But for much of the last decade or so I have been devoted to various political causes aimed at spreading political freedom, and thinking back, it is clear where I developed my hatred of authoritarianism….

    Please let me know if he is still alive, and what happens.

    1. Interesting. Thanks for chipping in. I am happy to publish your stuff because you have kept a nice balance of comment, even though the subject matter remains horribly dark.

      For the record, and ensuring we remain on a musical footing here, Jack Higgs never intentionally purchased a ticket to a Judas Priest gig – he just happened to be meeting someone in the Dunstable sports centre bar where the heavy metal titans were playing!

      • Christopher Gravestock on July 15, 2023 at 9:27 pm
      • Reply

      Apparently he died in 2021: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3103647643216560&set=pb.100057161031905.-2207520000.

    • Joe Worrall on May 24, 2014 at 4:54 pm
    • Reply

    Jowett appears to have gone a bit mad, before drowning himself.

    http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/UCAS-worker-s-child-porn-shame/story-11920996-detail/story.html

      • Christopher Gravestock on November 18, 2020 at 9:59 pm
      • Reply

      I’m actually a bit sad to hear this. Looking back I thought he was a decent chap.

    • Joe Worrall on November 9, 2014 at 2:44 pm
    • Reply

    For those interested I have heard a rumour that Bruce Clarke is still alive, in his late 70’s, and living in Haddenham in Oxfordshire.

    • Joe Worrall on November 9, 2014 at 2:52 pm
    • Reply

    Opps, it’s in Cambridgeshire.

    • Ian on April 13, 2016 at 4:55 pm
    • Reply

    Kevin, I remember working out Status Quo songs when we were supposed to be practising classical guitar!

    • Andrew Makins on May 7, 2018 at 10:51 am
    • Reply

    Great read, even though I’ve only just finished ch.2. I was a boarder at Beechwood for a few years between ’72 – ’74.

    I remember you mainly hanging about with Hilary and Julian West and someone with the surname Floyd, but I can’t remember his first name.

    Didn’t you used to support Liverpool? I’m certain I remember you often wearing a Liverpool shirt and I remember you also really being into Quo.

    I also remember your Slade act at Christmas. I was really into Slade and thought it was great. I first saw Slade on 18 May 1974 (my first of 18 Slade gigs) and brought the souvenir programme into school when I returned on the Sunday evening, with everyone in the dormitory (or most people, anyway) crowding around to have a look at it. Most of the boys of my age seemed to be into either Slade, Sweet or T. Rex when I was there and I remember us playing whatever records we had on a really big, old record player in the Common Room – so old that it had a 16rpm setting on the dial!

    The Christmas act that featured a piss take on some of the teachers ended up with the performers making fun of Mr Jowet and yelling ‘Yoghurt!’ at him, which was his nickname. Although he was a bit strange, I’d never have guessed he was a perv.

    Likening Bruce Clarke to Basil Fawlty made me laugh. I’d never thought of him like that before but yes, you’re right, we WAS like Fawlty when he used to get mad. I remember Clarke’s bullying but never encountered any tales of sexual abuse there regarding any of the teachers, although strangely, around 1999 I received a letter from Herts. Police asking me to contact them as they wanted to hear from anyone who went to Beechwood around the time I was there. When I contacted them they wouldn’t tell me who or what they were investigating, but asked me if there was anything untoward going on there that I needed to tell them about. I mentioned that the music teacher was a bully, but also stressed that in no way, according to my knowledge, was he a paedophile. Having read some of the comments on here, I sincerely hope I haven’t denied anyone justice from what I told the police.

    I always found Mr. White to be a decent bloke. One weekend when I was not on exiat, he let the few of us who were there watch the Rugby League Cup Final on the colour TV in his room (St. Helens v Leeds, so it would have been 1972). He asked us if we liked picnics. I thought he meant going out on picnics, but he meant the chocolate bars and went and got us all one from the tuc shop. Maybe there’d be a few raised eyebrows today, but it was all perfectly innocent and I’m sure I’d have felt uncomfortable if I suspected he was up to anything, even at the age of 9.

    ‘Bandy’ Cope always used to tell us a stupid joke if he was the teacher doing ‘lights out’… ‘Waffler’ Walker was always putting me on Cautionary Report, but I always managed to avoid Special Report… Seth always managed to time his whacks with the Dunlop Green Flash just right, so there’d always be a few seconds between each whack for the pain to sink in, so by the third one, you’d really be feeling the pain… A couple of the boys held a seance in C109 (remember the stories of ‘the grey lady’ and how she was meant to haunt the place?) and something happened with one of them really freaking out. The next morning Seth came round all the dorms warning us against doing anything like that.

    Looking at Beechwood’s web site, things have changed quite a bit, most noticably the boarding arrangements. No more dorms with 15 – 20 kids, but individual rooms with boarding only 4 nights per week. So no one staying there over the weekend anymore, if their parents can’t have them / don’t want them!

    1. Hi Andrew. Thanks for your lengthy and well-balanced comment!

      As you probably saw, this started as a music blog with a throwaway add-on of school reminiscences, and somewhat snowballed because people had some very strong views. Yours is the first contribution for a few years so I am glad that has settled down.

      I reckon it was Mark Floyd, and I last saw the West twins about 30 years ago in the Wandsworth area of London.

      I did indeed love Quo, and still do. RIP Rick Parfitt.

      And I really loved Liverpool at that time – Keegan and Toshack taught me everything about the sport and gave me a lifetime of football pleasure.

      The Slade thing was hilarious – Gudbuy To Jane I believe – and I was wearing gold wet look boots!

      And the seance… my memory is that it was Charlie Gutkind fiddling about with a ouija board, but I may be wrong.

      Interesting times – certainly the corporal punishment would cause outrage today, but we must roll with the times I think.

      All the best.

    • Ed Balfour on June 19, 2018 at 1:31 pm
    • Reply

    Dear Contributors,

    I have read the comments above and am understandably very concerned by aspects of the content.

    If any of you would like to discuss any of these matters further, please do get in contact with me. It is important that we address these issues.

    Please feel free to contact me on my personal email below or on 01582 840656

    Thank you.

    Ed Balfour
    Headmaster
    Beechwood Park School
    e.balfour@beechwoodpark.com

    1. A note to everyone…

      This is a music blog designed purely for fun and to record gig attendance over the years.

      It was years ago that some comments about schooldays snowballed and I had to step in.

      For some reason, we now have a comment from the current headmaster of the school, providing his details.

      After careful consideration, I have decided to approve his comment on the blog.

      I should stress I have no interest in discussing the matter at all, and if anyone starts using this blog to discuss it again, I will remove the entire section without hesitation, immediately.

      Thanks for your understanding.

        • ANdy on June 25, 2018 at 11:54 am
        • Reply

        Hi Kevin – just posted a missive in response to the current head’s message. I really hope you’ll find it fit to post. Sorry for wandering off topic but I really think it’s of upmost importance to the many who need to be able to move on. Your blog, sadly, has been the only portal to encourage a very important debate that needs to be addressed. Hopefully, Ed Balfour’s message will unclutter the dark stuff on your excellent and fun missives ! Talks to me as I’ve been (un) lucky to have made a career as a musician/producer and now as a label boss/music publisher (40+ & fat now !). Keep up the good work ! Regards, Andy.

    • J J Green on June 20, 2018 at 5:23 am
    • Reply

    Thank you to all who have contributed and of course to the host and owner of the site. I was at BP between 76-79 and a tutee of BJC. Ironically I think I was put in his group as my father was a jazz musician. We hated each other from the off – I recall being caught banging out the opening bars of Bat Out Of Hell in 1979 to be screamed at by a quivering and possibly on reflection tumnescent Clarke “I’d rather you played nothing than this rubbish.” I would agree with all the comments above. I have been in contact with the current Head and warmly invited to chat about what occurred during my time there. I would urge any others who feel compelled to take this route. Rock on. J x

  1. Hello Kevin & thanks again for your very amusing/well written blog ! I completely understand that you are not here to run a chat forum for the ‘darker’ subjects that many (myself included) have brought up over the past few years on here. But I can only applaud your choice to have decided to leave Ed Balfour’s (the current BP Headmaster) kind post up. I had the pleasure of speaking to him at length by phone last week thanks to you here and can only agree with JJ Green’s previous post urging anybody who feels it necessary/helpful to contact him by email or telephone. He is fully aware of many of the serious abuse issues that have affected ex-BP pupils during the 70s/80s and is determined to make sure that he can be of assistance where possible. Murdo White was apparently successfully convicted and has already served jail time some years back and although I do not have the detail & of course ‘innocent until proven guilty’, it was made clear to me that a certain ex-head of music is currently under investigation. Even though (thankfully) BP is a zillion miles in 2018 from the dark ages – both my nephews went there in the mid-90s and had a lovely time – Mr Balfour and his colleagues are determined to help in any way possible to those who feel that they might need assistance. For my part, one phone call with somebody directly connected to present day BP and who is aware & understanding of the dark past and the legal situations that have since followed blew the cobwebs out of years of therapy & soul-searching/distress. I’ll stop here – thanks again for the hook up. Vive le Flying V ! Andy

    1. Nicely phrased. Thanks. I am happy with that. Vive le Flying V indeed!

      • Ed Balfour on December 27, 2019 at 12:01 pm
      • Reply

      Dear Andy,

      Always happy to chat.Thank you for your exceedingly kind comments.

      Have a very happy 2020.

      Ed Balfour
      Headmaster.

    • Jon on December 8, 2019 at 12:33 pm
    • Reply

    Well that was an interesting read Kevin thank you. I was at Beechwood from ’69 to ’75 as a day boy (although it seemed longer), my cousin was also there for a couple of years too. Funny how parallel paths develop, the stories resonate deeply with me, partly because of the shared experience and also because I also didn’t make it as a rock star. I played bass on an album late 80’s, early 90’s, with a North London band that ultimately never quite made it. I am still playing and recording original stuff and gigging for fun. It sounds like I am in good company.

    People who know me are surprised that with my experience of Mr Clarke I still enjoy playing music. I am probably mildly dyslexic, something which was diagnosed by Mrs Quarry in the 2nd form, and this was something unheard of back then. I wasn’t told about it at the time. I have vivid memories of terrifying music lessons with Clarke, and being shouted at for not being able to tell the difference between a viola and violin on a classical record, or being unable to transcribe his piano playing correctly on to music manuscript. Early years were a bit easier, with Mrs Baines being very encouraging, Miss Welsford was slightly scary, especially is you were caught talking at lunch during silence. I can still remember being made to stand up on a bench in the dining hall for this. I am still unable to eat fish after being force fed it every Friday for lunch.

    Loads of memories flood in back, some bad, some good, the cricket shed was apparently left over from the film set of “The Dirty Dozen”, and Seth Ward’s Mustang crashing in the woods one day, and there being a reward to find it. The smell of dope (not that sort) coming out of the model room, which I wasn’t allowed in as a day boy. I remember I was made to swim in the nude by White when I forgot my trunks, which is slightly chilling. For a few years I held the back stroke record for the school in back stroke and the crawl. I also managed to do quite well in diving, which was a constant surprise to me. I think I managed to get colours for swimming and rugby!

    1. Thanks Jon. Good to hear from you. Yup, pretty much all that resonates. Actually, I don’t think about it much these days. As a boarder you had to be pretty resilient and move on. I certainly remember they had to crack the ice on the swimming pool before throwing you in. Many of the practices carried out would of course now be deemed illegal. Thanks for your balanced comment on all of this. When I initially posted this many years ago there was a flurry of hatred from many who were clearly harbouring bad memories. It looks like you and I turned it into something positive that we do on the musical front. Music has given me a lifetime of enjoyment – rock and blues that is. I now just fiddle about with guitars on Logic X and produce about an album a year. If you want to hear any of my stuff, click the Kevin Duncan tab at the top and try on itunes. Cheers.

      • Christopher Gravestock on November 3, 2020 at 8:28 pm
      • Reply

      Hi Jon, we were there at the same time. Were you from Watford?

        • Jon on January 21, 2023 at 11:27 am
        • Reply

        Hi Chris, sorry I missed this from pretty much 2 years ago! I remember your name, though sadly not much else I am afraid. I came in on the bus from Luton / Harpenden everyday through Redborn on the Tates Bus.

        Like you, he failed to put me off music. I still can’t tell the difference on a record between a violin and viola, or a sackbut from a french horn. If a potential beating depends on telling the difference, yep it mattered, but now I know that was important only to an individual who really should never have been in charge of children. I am now doing some work helping young bands develop, not to a point where stardom beckons, but to where they enjoy what they are doing and hopefully experience to positive side of making music.

        I found it fairly helpful to set some words about my experiences to a solo bass performance, it’s on YouTube somewhere, set adrift to be ignored, but it helped get some of the poison out of my system after I started getting PTSD style flashbacks. This blog also helped – thanks Kevin.

        I only occasionally check in to see if anyone else has emerged from the fog of the past, and what, if anything is new. I see BC has passed away, I wonder if he was ever aware of the misery he has inflicted on so many. I suppose we will never know the answer to that, but I doubt it. I wish everybody that reads this page all the best.

      • Christopher Gravestock on November 3, 2020 at 9:50 pm
      • Reply

      It’s funny isn’t it. BJC did his level best to put me off music. I still play drums in a jazz band and in a ‘cult Manchester post punk’ band to this day. So, in a sense, he failed.

      1. I Love the fact that he failed. Hoorah.

    • Jon F on December 10, 2019 at 2:53 pm
    • Reply

    Checked out the link out, rock and roll! I have various stuff littered over YouTube, which spans 35 years of playing bass on different projects, even some solo stuff. Music is a therapy for all sorts of ills. I am told anyone who plays a Flying Vee needs to be saluted for persevering with the ergonomics.

    In terms of bands I was into, two were 9 Below Zero and The Undertones both of which I saw at St Albans Town Hall. Also some local bands in St Albans, like The Toys and another band with some of my school mates whose lead singer was Tracy Thorn. She would originally only sing at rehearsal from inside a wardrobe as she was too embarrassed to sing in front of others.

    I went on to play at The Dublin Castle in Camden, where Clapton played in the 60’s and it was second home to Madness. The Mean Fiddler in Harlesden, where McCartney and Deacon Blue did warm up gigs before their tours apparently (now closed). Also the Rock Garden in Covent Garden where U2 had gigged when they first arrived in the UK.

    Some strange gigs did included a Festival in Chobham which was supposed to be headlined by Phil Collins and Eric Clapton originally, but the promoter absconded with the money apparently and the headline act ended up being The Sweet. In later life I managed an engineer on my team who toured with them as a guitarist, and we exchanged stories about how weird Brian Connolly was. We were opened the festival playing to an almost empty field with a “crowd” of about 10 of our followers, and the security team. They arrived in a mini bus and I assumed they were a Ska band, as they mostly looked like Alexi Sayle or Buster Blood Vessel.

    I also have vivid memories of playing another club, something like The Powerhaus 2, somewhere in London. As I was carrying my bass cab out through the crowd after our set I found my path blocked by a very tall lady dressed in leather and thigh boots. She was very “striking”. When I came back in for the rest of my gear the band after us were playing, mostly wearing similar garb. Years later at a band re-union I found out they were transvestites. Loads of memories from that era. Like you I have started writing memoirs but not got too far with it.

    In terms of the darker stuff mentioned, like the pit of anxiety I felt in my stomach as I heard Clarke coming down the corridor to the old flagstone floored music room, I had come to assume it was sort of normal. Of course it wasn’t, or shouldn’t have been. It has probably affected me through my life, but I am sure I didn’t experience the worst of it, as I escaped home every night.

    This blog has been useful for me in terms of understanding some of the subsequent happenings, and that my feelings at the time were shared by others even if we had been taught in that typically British way to put up with it and muddle on. I am glad you didn’t delete all of the posts – they have been helpful to me personally.

    Keep rocking – if you ever decide to return to Beechwood to recreate the rock and roll uprising, I could stand in on bass!

    1. Wow. Hilarious recollections. Yup, I went on to all sorts of bands but always kept the day job. Playing a Flying V is indeed a knack. When you’re sitting down you have to tuck it in between your legs. On stage you have to balance it right, or hunch right down in the full throttle rock position. I still have my original from 1979, and now a new Dean Michael Schenker one. You can see a picture of that in my Flying Vs hall of fame!

      Nine below Zero – yup, love them. Have seen them 5 times including last month. New album Avalanche is an interesting development. I have also been to the Mean Fiddler and Dublin Castle years ago – messy little venues! Next week I am seeing Sweet again too. Never heard of the Powerhaus 2. If you are bored, go to the “select a category” function top right, and the drop down menu will show you every band and venue I have ever been to. It’s good to know that the blog provides a bit of help for old Beechwood people. I never knew it would. It’s just rock n roll to me .:)

    • rm on September 19, 2020 at 12:19 pm
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    its uncanny – everything you describe about the teachers, and also whats written in the comments, sounds so familiar and true. I went there from 80-88, and the main protagonists were almost identical, even their nicknames survived- higgs, bruce, haussy, murdo, bandy, noodle kerr, jowett, allaby, baines, wesley, richards etc. Though higgs had a penchant for the slipper by then, not the birch. Haussman’s speciality was the un, deux, trois with the ruler on your outstretched hand if you didn’t do your homework. I think they all left by late 80s after long reigns of terror, and hopefully that culture of violence and worse disappeared too. Being of mixed race, there was also lots of nasty racism too.
    I wish I’d been into the rock music like you were, though I ‘d suggest the mid 80s were somewhat poorer compared to early seventies, which I got into much later as a teenager. I was also in the choir, even got one of the blue medals, and am still into classical music, ironically a legacy of BC, as Jo in one of the comments above also mentions.

    • Robin St Clair Jones on October 3, 2020 at 5:36 pm
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    What a great read, I loved the music stuff but just as important are the comments about BP. I had no truck with Mr Clarke, I could not sing and he knew it. My first school report (I was there from ’67-’70) was ” Robin sings like a bird….a duck”. End of music career. But god there were some awful teachers in those days, I, literally, still bear the scars of Mr Huasmann’s “Un, Deux ,Trois” edge of the ruler across the hand then back up over the knuckles. What is interesting for me was how much I had blocked out and how many memories this has re-awakened. I guess that is good, time will tell. So thank you, for the music and the therapy!

    • Chris on November 5, 2020 at 9:04 pm
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    Kevin, I think I knew your brother slightly or, at least, knew of him. I wish I’d met your Dad though. He sounds like an eminently sensible chap. This blog resonated for two reasons. Firstly, as a failed rock star, I laughed out loud at these reminiscences. My problem, of course, was that I was heavily into Soft Machine, Hatfield and the North, free jazz and Gong. At the time the whole country was in thrall to punk. I do still play (covid permitting) in a jazz band and in cult Manchester post-punk band Dislocation Dance (cult, as I am sure you know, means lots have people have heard of you but no-one buys your records). Secondly, I was delighted by your undermining of authority. I did this in my own way towards the end by refusing to take anything seriously. In the end, though, I was bullied out, at least in part by certain teachers. My memories of the place are not happy ones.

    1. Sorry for the slow reply. I don’t check the blog that often. Some great memories there and I am glad you went on to make music too. My efforts in recent times are on the Kevin Duncan tab on the blog, or you can search me on itunes and spotify. But don’t confuse me with the other Kevin Duncan, who does gospel piano stuff!

    • Christopher Gravestock on November 18, 2020 at 10:16 pm
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    Kevin, I want to hear your gospel piano and electric guitar album! Will it be like Derek Bailey’s Guitar Drum and Bass LP?

    • Stephen Allen on January 25, 2021 at 7:54 pm
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    Hello Kevin

    What a great blog – and so much to comment on.

    You’ll remember me from sitting opposite you in the dining-room at Beechwood when you used to humour my requests to perform Val Doonican novelty numbers – I bet you still know the words to Patrick McGinty’s Goat. Then there was the post BP moment when we worked together in Rickmansworth and when you went out with my sister. I’m going back 42 years or so – it’s a bit hazy.

    Let’s start with the music. Gigs have been a recurrent theme in my life but I’m less organised than you and I’ve lost count of the hundreds of bands I’ve seen – from 1975 to present day – well up to 2019, thanks to Covid – all I have for 2020 is a bunch of dates that have now been rescheduled more than once. I had a fallow period for gigs when work took over, stretching from the post punk years after the early 80s until the mid-noughties – when I started going again more regularly – in particular to summer festivals.

    In the late 70s we may have been in the same sweaty space more than once. I was a regular at the Marquee – and certainly saw The Ruts, The Skids and The Members at The Marquee around the time you saw them there. My most memorable gig there was probably Eddie and The Hot Rods in the summer of 77 or Adam and the Ants who we saw possibly 5 or 6 times before their commercial “sell out”, adding a second “Burundi” drummer and the TOTP friendly pantomime wardrobe – Price Charming was a long way from Beat my Guest!

    A few of my most memorable gigs: The Clash, Xray Spex and TRB Rocking Against Racism in Victoria Park, Joy Division at the Electric Ballroom stood alongside Joe Strummer. Grace Jones at Bestival, Graham Parker and The Clash at The Rainbow, Genesis in Vienna, Muse in Rome, The Stones, Macca and Neil Young at The Isle of Wight, Bowie and The Prodigy at MK Bowl, The Pistols in Finsbury Park, Crystal Palace, Brixton and the IOW – but sadly never in their prime. The Flaming Lips at Glastonbury and the Foals in Southampton on the night of The Bataclan massacre. God I’m looking forward to getting back to some gigs.

    And then there’s all this Beechwood stuff – both your well written blog and in the comments here. Some of the pupil names on here I recognise – a few I can picture. All the stuff about ghosts, seances, terrible food, the weird and wonderful staff. David Cope was a gem, doing the lights-out rounds with his rechargeable torch – who had heard of such a thing? And his shaggy dog stories – borrowed from the R1 Tony Blackburn show, I believe. All the other stories – about all the other names are so familiar – they are part of me. As are the beatings – my claim to fame was being beaten four times in four days by Seth and Haussy. The thing is, I wasn’t even a remotely naughty child – talking after lights out – whole dorm beaten (Seth-Ward), running in the corridor (Haussy) – perhaps I deserved it for forging a grade on my Cautionary Report (Haussy again) – and I don’t even recall what the fourth misdemeanour was. But we took it in our stride, wore it as a badge of honour and of course never told our parents.

    In 1998/9 I went back to Beechwood as a prospective parent – living in Amersham I knew we were out of catchment and so did the head, he told me so as soon as we got there – but I wanted the current Mrs Allen to see what a proper prep school looked like. They humoured me and wheeled our David Kerr – amazing, he even professed to remembering me (a little, perhaps). Bless him he did get me through Confirmation and while the spiritual side may have gone, I’d like to think he made a mark on my moral compass.

    Did someone mention morals? I can see this ground has been well trodden and further trampling is less than welcome. So I’ll leave it at this – the mention above that Murdo White had been convicted sent shivers down my spine – that was close. As for the choir, I was never picked, although my mother often told me she felt I was pretty enough. She was a Copper’s daughter and far from naïve – but they were different times. Weren’t they just?

    Anyway – thanks for an interesting catch up and thanks to all the contributors above – including the current Head. All the best and keep on rocking!

    1. Hi Stephen. Yes of course I remember you. I even spent some time working in your dad’s stamp dealers. This blog is a funny thing. The main point was just a cataloguing exercise for all the gigs. I added the memoir thing as a bit of fun and that must have been 15-20 years ago. There was then a flurry of school people commenting as you have seen. Fun stuff, although I had to stop some people going over the top with their remarks. I too have a list of gigs that were all postponed including Crowded House, Thunder, Bryan Adams, Drive By Truckers, Sting, Aerosmith and tons more. We’ll get out there again eventually. Good to hear from you!

    • Ken on September 5, 2021 at 9:08 am
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    This is probably well known to you Kevin, but I was listening to Odyssey and Oracle by the Zombies recently and came across this track, which I was amazed to subsequently discover was actually written about the old place. Apparently, they hailed from the area.

    It rekindles some of the happier memories from my time at Beechwood; summer term – cricket, speech day / sports day parents visiting classrooms and occasionally going to the school swimming pool to meet other families during the summer holidays.

    Beechwood Park by The Zombies. https://www.shazam.com/track/500462/beechwood-park?referrer=share

    1. You’re right. Apparently it was. Good sleuthing. 🙂

    • Matthew Stephen on May 23, 2022 at 10:10 am
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    I was a pupil at Beechwood Park from ’70 to ’75. Reading this blog post has been a revelation and an education. I wasn’t in the choir, I played first trumpet in the brass ensemble. Nevertheless, I suffered from the same torment and violent physical punishment metered out by Bruce Clark as previously described by others on this thread. However, I can’t demonise BC in the same way, if at all.
    Whilst I can’t deny, certainly by today’s standards, he inflicted physical abuse, but in my experience there was never anything remotely sexual in his behaviour. And so I have to contest the notion that BC deserves being put in a bracket characterised by Jimmy Savile and alike. What I experienced was the unconstrained frustration and anger of a perfectionist and if there is such a thing, a psychopathic perfectionist – one who can’t tolerate, or possibly can’t comprehend, those who don’t appear to share the same desire and drive for perfection.
    I think it quite possible BC’s tantrums could be characterised by what we now consider to be autistic in nature. I’m no expert, so I wont pin this opinion onto a mast, but I can safely say I never experienced anything remotely sexual in his behaviour.
    Reading this thread has been a revelation, I’ve learned that what I experienced was something I survived and gained strength from, for others the experience was scaring. Interestingly, if I had known how much others were suffering, it may well have weakened my resolve to survive.
    But there is another side to my story, having survived BC’s violent outbursts, I went on to achieve a level of success I very much doubt I would have attained had I not been driven by an all-consuming fear of failure in the early days of my musical career at Beechwood Park. In the later days of this career, I was able to accompany the (most excellent) choir as they sung their complicated arrangements at the daily assembly. The choir (who were all boarders) would rehearse for an hour before assembly, but as a day pupil arriving on the school bus, I’d truck up with little or no time to rehearse and play almost from sight.
    Almost without noticing, I past a turning point that separated me from a boy that played his trumpet with fear to a boy that played his trumpet with joy and pride. After that turning point BC never slapped me again. To this day, when I listen to the great Christmas Carols, I can hear the trumpet I played as a 12 year old sing out the descants along with those angelic choristers. It’s enough, some 46 years later, to bring tears to my eyes.
    So here’s the thing. There is no way I can condone his behaviour, but equally there’s no way I would have reached the standard I achieved without it, because, as he believed, I would have let my laziness stunt my potential and in that I know he would have been right.

    1. Happy to publish this since you write so eloquently and with balance. This was always a music blog that took a different twist and eventually I had to shut down this part. Thank you for your thoughts. I am about to post my first of 4 gigs this week…

    • Prefer not to say, it is a police matter on September 5, 2022 at 11:18 pm
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    Hi Kevin, I have recently been directed to this blog and realise there are some sensitivities. I thank you for your balanced approach, but this must be said.

    There are some lovely stories that made me smile and laugh. There are others more sinister that made me break down, I thought I had erased it from memory.

    BJC, Brucie, Basil Fawlty, Bruce Clarke died at the end of October 2021. I speak from both personal and observed experience, the man was an horrendous, vicious bully, and and in my instance, a sexual predator. He beat young boys, myself included, in front of others. In music lessons he’d press himself up against the rears of those that were busy scribbling notes on the piano as they knelt on chairs, I will never forget that feeling, we all just rolled our eyes at the time.

    For me, it went further. I hated every day at Beechwood Park School, at night, I could not wait to go to sleep, only to wake in the same nightmare. Bruce John Clarke repetitively sexually assaulted me for several years, on almost a daily basis. I was too scared to say anything back then and even to this day, disgraced and too embarrassed.

    I have contacted the Headmaster, Ed Balfour who has been helpful and I would encourage others that may have had similar or unhappy experiences to speak out also.

    There have been others that may have similar experiences and if they are happy to, please reach out and maybe we can find a way to connect.

    I am sorry to raise this here Kevin but without this blog, I would not have had to courage. I hope others might too.

    Thank you.

      • Michael Lea on October 10, 2022 at 9:14 pm
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      Hi Kevin and ‘Prefer not to say’

      Kevin – great blog. It is a real shame that you didn’t make it as a rock god. The quality of narrative was really good and though I suspect that you didn’t intend for this to be the case – it has been excellent vehicle for flushing out some historic injustices and some atrocious behaviour by adults in position of trust. An amazing feat.

      I would like to connect and reach out to those who were affected by the darker side of what happened. It still scars me. I was there from 87-92 – same year as Joe Worral.

      The most galling thing for me was that I strongly suspect that other teachers knew and I certainly told my parents that stuff that was happening. From the level of inactivity and lack of sanction, I am others just assumed that is what a results orientated school was like. It shouldn’t have been that way.

      1. I was there such a long time ago – 1969-74!

      • Phil on February 11, 2023 at 5:14 pm
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      Thank you for sharing your story, it takes a lot of courage and may bring comfort to others to know they were not alone.

      I remember Clarke being a vicious bully and Murdo White being innapropriate with children, running skinny dipping etc (early 1990s). I reported this to my parents and this was ignored. I wonder how many other people did?

      I hope Clarke was brought to justice for what he did to you, and no doubt others. While I don’t believe in God in a traditional sense, I do hope he is burning in hell for what he did to all those little boys.

        • Phil on February 11, 2023 at 5:17 pm
        • Reply

        p.s. Thank you Kevin for maintaining this blog and the comments. I hope you know how valuable it will be to the alumni of Beechwood of this era.

      • Joe Worrall on August 26, 2023 at 10:46 am
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      I would be pleased to know of the results of any police investigations. Best, Joe Worrall – josephlloydworrall@gmail.com

      1. Just repeating this is a music blog. The person you are referring to is dead, so there is no such thing as an investigation. This is the last time I will reply on this topic.

    • Sikander Visram on December 16, 2022 at 6:24 pm
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    I was at Beechwood Parkfrom 1966 to 1970. I remember, Bruce Clarke, Mr. Alabby, Mr. Houseman ,Seth Ward, Alan Mould and David Kerr

    Seth Ward was a real sadist and he terrorized us all. He also married a house matron by the name of Pamela.

    Does anyone know what happened to them and whether they are alive or dead?

    1. Do you have a younger brother called Anil? If so, he was in my class. I have no information but by all means look though the other comments.

      • Chris Gravestock on October 5, 2023 at 9:41 pm
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      I remember Seth-Ward – a supposedly devout Christian and an absolute bully. He is apparently still with us.

      I left early and went to a boy standard comprehensive. In the 4th year (now year 10) I got in with a group of gorgeous fifth form girls who smoked behind the bike shed. One of them was his niece.

      1. I have approved this but without the url. The comment is fine but this is a music blog, not a search and destroy platform. 🙂

    • James on April 24, 2023 at 10:54 pm
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    I do not know how I have found this trail of comments but there must be a reason. I was at BPS from 78/9 to 84. I have many fond memories of my time there but…. in retrospect there were some very dark times. I started boarding at 7 or 8 and had a happy time until I was selected for the choir. Then things changed. Bruce Clarke decided to take me “under his wing” and for some reason he decided to become a mentor and a scary one at that.

    Every evening I had to report to the choir room after everyone had gone to bed and present my prep and then do 30 mins of piano practice. For the record he never assaulted me sexually but was violent most days. He was a big man with a rage that would terrify all.

    I became head boy, chief chorister and captain of all three sports but I never shook off my fear of Bruce. He was a bully, a very aggressive man.. Weirdly I think he wanted the best for me but… his violence was inexcusable.

    • John on August 1, 2023 at 3:25 pm
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    First, I should say that I was at Beechwood Park from (I think) 1976 to (I’m pretty sure) 1984. This means my time overlaps with some of you who’ve written above. (A fair amount of time has passed I know, but I will address some of you on the off-chance that you may from time to time revisit the page.) “Joe Worrall” as a name rings clearly but, as we were in different age groups, we may not have spoken much or at all.

    Kevin, whether you do or do not publish the memoirs, thank you for writing them and sharing them on the blog. They are a great resource for reading the stories of journeymen professionals. It’s hard sometimes to understand just what being a musician means – the ones I know are more in the classical world, who might get to play with Sigur Rós, but your stories of the first steps and gigs are fascinating. The closest in absurdity with me might be watching The Prodigy at the main square in Sibiu (Transylvania), being alone with my wife in cheering after the compere shouted “And now, all the way from Romford…”. It sounds like some of you have had more interesting lives.

    Thank you too for allowing this thread to run and run. As you’ve noted, it’s served a role. Perhaps you should have seen it coming: once you told the story of a music teacher competing with you to learn the guitar, it was bound to evoke emotions of all sorts. I’m really happy that you and Jon (as in “Jon on January 21, 2023 at 11:27 am”) have kept with music-making. The world needs you!

    Not being musical at school I’d best say how many things I liked about Beechwood Park; its beautiful setting and the history there – the building, Capability Brown landscape, ha-ha and the flat area of land which had been used as a landing strip in the Second World War. I remember when Dulux repainted the main façade for an advert and how stunning it looked. If you read the entry on the place in John Julius Norwich’s “The Architecture of Southern England”, you’ll agree with his account of the joy of seeing the building emerge as you make the turn in the entry lane.

    Some of you have mentioned teachers who were really kind: Mr Richards, with his crisp turn of phrase that made one remember everything he said; Mr Cope (yes, “Bandy”, because of his bow legs), who had a rather downbeat tone but was really rather gentle. Reading all your stories of punishments I realise how easy-going he was when I exploded a test tube in a class experiment. Mr Kerr seemed kind, although I saw less of him and consider myself a victim of mistaken identity when he recounted a story of placing brass tacks pins upwards on his daughter’s chair. However, I do feel the pupils were part of what I liked too. I remember dislikes but not really bullying, and the comments from you in this thread have never been critical of any former pupil either. There were very many moments which seem fleeting but, added together, meant I enjoyed a huge amount.

    M. Haussmann’s steel ruler was unforgettable, although I don’t think I suffered from it myself. But, if Robin St Clair Jones literally still bears the scars, my having learned the phrase “il était une fois” doesn’t really make up for that, does it? That alone is a pretty unanswerable case against corporal punishment. It was a shock to learn of the stories about Mr Jowett and Mr White after my time at school. I recall Mr Jowett crouching over his desk from time to time, with his thumb and digit holding the bridge of his nose, or his lobbing a blackboard cleaner or chalk at a pupil who was deemed to be at fault. But it was stunning to read from William Rouse about how things ended with him (Joe, the link to the Gloucester Citizen page you kindly posted seems to have expired). The “skinny dipping” randomly demanded by Murdo White I remember well. Even then it felt inexplicable. If matters turned darker, as Andy says (as in “Andy on June 25, 2018 at 11:40 am”) I hope that wasn’t on more than one occasion rather than again and again.

    However the reason I wrote is Bruce Clarke. I’m very much in the same world as Stephen Allen. Mr Clarke was a person whose classes I attended diligently but we were always at a distance. At the time I picked up that he seemed to have favourites, and that looks were part of the selection process. I do remember his illustrating percussion by making a pupil sit on his lap facing downwards, drumming on the child’s buttocks. I cannot remember who that was and may have scrubbed it from my memory because I knew it must have been a humiliation and didn’t want to have it to mind in being colleagues going onwards. I think all of you have it right. He was a perfectionist, but he was a bully well beyond the point that anyone would accept now or should have accepted then.

    I wouldn’t have posted this but for the posts “James on April 24, 2023 at 10:54 pm” and “Prefer not to say, it is a police matter on September 5, 2022 at 11:18 pm”. James, our times precisely overlap, so you’ll know my surname, just as I know yours. You may remember I rang you sometime after we left school – I think, before we would have left our next schools. If you asked me why I was ringing, I wouldn’t have been able to explain, just as I would not have been able to explain it to myself. I realise now that I rang because I had felt at school that there was something “wrong” in the way Mr Clarke was with you and, after leaving, realised this might mean he had done something wrong to you. But I didn’t know how to say that and, when I asked if you had pursued music after leaving and you, very firmly, said “no”, I read that as a warning not to say more. That may have been my mistake, for which I am sorry. People respected you very much: all those achievements merited it. You and I did not speak often, but with greater empathy or imagination, it should have been possible to realise the stress you must have felt and ask about it. I’m sorry for having let you down and not enabling you to express it.

    “Prefer not to say”, what you describe is I suppose what I sensed James might tell me had happened to him. You don’t say when you were a pupil and I won’t pry. If you were a contemporary of mine, or came later, I am very sorry to you too. It felt that something was wrong, and a failure not to have known how to say something which might make a difference for people then or later.

    I’m sorry this a longish post. Perhaps I’ve taken longer because I have less to say. Thank you again Kevin, for keeping the blog, thread and, above all, your love for music alive.

    1. A long and well balanced reflection on the whole era. It is now over 10 years since these comments started. During which time I have been to another 300 gigs. Although some of these posts are no fun to review, I am glad that it has been an outlet for many who suffered more than me, even though writing the original piece was never intended to elicit such a response.

  2. I’d love to know who served you in Hammonds. I took up drums in about 1975 and became a frequent visitor to Hammonds. I especially remember the American guitarist Pete Bombar and Rob Hambling – both were in an ace band called Nexus. Later on there was a guy called John in charge of the drum dept when Pete was the manager. I was in one day when a rep came in and asked for the manager. Beth called over to John ‘Where’s Pete?’. ‘I think he’s up the back passage’ said John. There was a slight pause and then ‘Funny shop this’. Dear John agreed to swap my stupidly oversized Slingerland drum kit (bought from Sparky’s shop in Queens Road) for a gorgeous Sonor Phonic rosewood veneer bop kit. I still have that. Danny and Lee also worked there. They were in a band called 13th Tee which Rob Hambling, ace keyboardist Walter Goodger (now Fabek) and my brother, Tim, later joined. Watford had some great bands. At the top of the tree (and before my time) was 25 Views of Worthing. The next generation, of course, had 64 Spoons. Their guitarist saw King Crimson in 71 and decided that was what he wanted to do. In 2013 he became the second guitarist and vocalist in King Crimson.

    1. Good rock history. I have no idea who it was in Hammonds. I doubt if I was in there more than once.

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