by Tot Taylor
Tomorrow magazine. 1 May 1966: ‘London - a Swinging Scene’
‘Okay, everyone, just get on a plane and go to London, do it right now!’
Special report by Marvin Sandberg
US News Today, June 1966: ‘London - the City Swings’
‘And so these are the Swinging Londoners, with their mix of Edwardian, Victorian and Regency outfits. They should look ridiculous but of course, being British, they don’t.
They look “fab”, “groovy”, “swinging”… ‘
A London diary by Sandy Weitzman
John JCE had done good. Just one phone call to an ex-girlfriend was all it had taken to secure this five-page spread in the fabbest magazine going. When John Nightly walked into Diana Waterbottom’s office at the bottom of Wardour Street it took her approximately 2.5 seconds to figure out that standing right there before her this gawky, fidgety, clumsy, uncomfortable-looking, fresh-complexioned, moderate, self-deprecating, nervy boy; this potential employee – Risk Factor 9 – with his straw hair and staring eyes and skeletal bone structure and very fine, very exaggerated, very old-fashioned manners, was going to be… the Face of the Year.
But John Nightly doesn’t look like that anymore.
As John stands before me now, he is a very tired-looking sixty-year-old. A weary old fellow. A wobbly-necked, crusty-skinned, broken-lipped, wispy-haired, grey… old… git. John Nightly doesn’t look sixty. He looks ninety. He looks like he hasn’t seen an orange or a vitamin pill, a ray of sunshine or even a breath of fresh air for at least fifty summers. Though he has of course. John Nightly’s poor old worn-out wreck of a body is the receptacle of the very best and most life-enhancing organic natural produce that record royalties can buy.
Heavy crates of the juiciest Tangier oranges, lemons and limes from Sicily and Sardinia, boxes of lush watercress and wheatgerm along with jars of vitamins and minerals and all manner of ludicrously expensive nutrients and supplements are delivered to Trewin Farm every month as part of a carefully controlled waste of money prescribed by John RCN. John Nightly walks five miles a day around the perimeter of his coastal plot – usually with his dog Alexandre. The old boy starts out and just keeps going. Round and round they go until somehow he knows when he’s completed the course. And sometimes, nowadays with John RCN by his side, he’ll venture out along the coast path itself, until – soaked in rain, mist and drizzle, and wary of their susceptibility to such as bronchitis and pneumonia – the pair of them decide to venture back.
But well, the beautiful face is gone. And as there has been no communication, no daily chats, no talking about the weather or pollution or how things are getting really bad in this country again, there is no longer any life in the face. No laughs, no agreement or disagreement, because there has been no one to agree or disagree with. No one to ask about anything and certainly no answers coming back. No one and no thing to get ready for. Nobody to either impress or account to.
All that shows in John Nightly’s face is strain. Pure strain. The strain of life. Of existing. Of… being him. The strain of promise unfulfilled, of ability unrecognised, potential unrealised.
And, as the recipient of a truly divine gift, there is the immense underlying strain of not being able to do anything more with it. And of course the strain of not being in the same position, at the same elevated and revered level as his peers and rivals. His fellow travellers. Those who seem to spend their time bathed in eternal light. The strain of not being Michael Philip Jagger or Reginald Kenneth Dwight.
Over the years so many people had tried to contact John. To ‘bring him back’. Even Iona. The ingénue who once arranged her long tanned legs around his in GIRL. And who, after their over-extended, sexually-dependent love affair had attempted suicide herself, and had been rescued and brought back to life by John, his fast-thinking actions saving her. Iona, now Lady St John Firmin, had visited John Nightly many times at Porthcreek. But she’d never seen him. Except one Friday morning, when he left the house to turn on the massive, electricity-guzzling winter heaters in the largest sunlounge, the one closest to the main road and therefore just about visible from the wire fence. But then, as she shouted out…
‘John, it’s… it’s Iona… Darling… … … …’
All she’d gotten back was…
‘No…’
Before John disappeared through a sliding glass door with his greenfly sprays, lime measurers and misters.
Even Eric, Eric Clapton – God – had come to Porthcreek, unannounced, probably at Iona’s request, in the summer of ’85; and, because of who he was, John RCN (Royal College of Nursing) had let Eric in and sat him down. God sat in the old farmhouse kitchen with John and John and a cup of PG Tips and a biscuit and told the old git how much he missed his music and how much he admired him and the fact that he was now ‘back’.
Eric said he wanted to take John Nightly into the studio to record a new album, believing that this would be the one thing that would really ‘bring him back’. John listened patiently and even blinked his eyes and appeared to tap his foot when Eric said that Pete Townshend wanted to come and play on the sessions; but, after Eric had left, the old boy just turned to his nurse and said, ‘what did he want?’
So many people had, over the years, in so many different ways, tried to bring John Nightly back. For very different reasons. Some wanted to bring him back so that they could sell his precious catalogue just one more time and use one of John’s songs on a TV commercial for Orange or Apple, Motorola or Toyota. One of the ‘good’ ads. Others wanted to bring him back so they could hear all of the music he’d written in the intervening years. Would it be as weird and wonderful as his old albums? Would it have absorbed anything from the multitude of genres and subgenres that had come and gone since? A bit of New Age here, a bit of Techno there, subtle elements of Ambient, Rave, Grunge or Electronica. Would Hip-Hop loops and Nu-Folk musings be flavouring the mix? Or would it just be a ’60s throwback?
Others wanted to bring him back so they could stare at him. At some highly touted VIP gig with full orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall or somewhere. Invited audience only. Barclaycard-sponsored, MTV-transmitted, digitally ‘improved’. Somewhere they could get up close, have a good stare, and see just how bad he really looked.
John was afraid of all of them. John was more interested in making the short journey from his bungalow outhouse to his washing line than he was in walking onstage again. That was a much more fulfilling journey for him. Although John did have all of the necessary equipment at his disposal, should he ever feel inclined to use it.
When he first moved to Porthcreek, Jo-Ann Locke, his most recent short-term ex now married to million-selling record producer Rik Locke, had had Rik come in with his people and install the latest easy-peasy-to-use, makes-everything-sound-great recording gear. Rik set it up all ready to go.
‘There you are, John… It’s all wired in and ready to go, man… You’ve got your screen and your monitors here… And your console and all your other bits and pieces over there’. The mixmeister of the West Coast power ballad stretched out his hands at least as wide as Malibu Beach. ‘All you gotta do is turn it on…’
And when Eric came he brought John a present of the Martin D-45 acoustic John had always coveted, the one he’d borrowed from God to record ‘Peachfruit Love Parchment #1’, everyone’s favourite song from the Ape Box Metal set. The seventh-biggest-selling record in North America in 1970, after Abbey Road and Bridge Over Troubled Water. John said it was the most beautiful-sounding guitar he’d ever held.
‘It’s yours, John.’
Eric opened the case and played an E major – ‘Hey, look! It works!’ -type chord – before almost forcing it into the hands of his old rival. ‘Anyway… y’know… Get it out and play it – for God’s sake…’ Eric had said – ‘It’ll make you feel better…’ – holding out the guitar for John for a second or two more before giving in and carefully placing it back in its purple, velvet-lined case.
�
�I’ll phone ya…’
But the custom-built case would never be opened again. And Eric couldn’t phone as John didn’t have one. We weren’t in Year 9 yet and BT hadn’t been.
‘Easier said than done
Write your number on my doorstep
To take one more step
It’s easier said than done’
Unfinished demo, ‘Easier Said than Done’, from Grantchester Love Chronicle, summer 1965
No one had any idea when John Nightly had last laughed. In a normal way, that is. John RCN remembered reading his employer his bank statement, all of the ins and outs, one evening sometime around summer 1987 after Star Castle had covered ‘Peachfruit Love Parchment’ on their We Are Rock & Roll multi-platinum monster. The recording had delivered a total of $3,400,084 into the account as the result of first-year sales, airplay and mechanical royalties. This at least brought a faint smile to the face of the legendary songwriter. But two weeks later, when Star Castle’s record label in Los Angeles sent John a gold disc in a frame and RCN took it out and played it to him, John laughed.
He laughed and laughed. He rocked with laughter to the inner depths of his despair. John Nightly never imagined that anyone would ever be crass enough to turn his wistful teenage madrigal into a bombastic rock’n’roll ballbreaker. Ever since then, if John was away from his plants, which was rare, or was just very far gone into his own inner gloom, RCN would get the record out and use Star Castle’s epic monstrosity to ‘bring him back’. It always worked.
item: ‘Dorotheanthus bellidiformis’, Reader’s Digest Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants and Flowers, 1973.
M. criniflorum, South Africa. Height 6 inches, planting distance 12 inches. A genus of 1,000 species of succulent plants. The colourful daisy-like flowers open only in bright sunshine. Although usually grown as a half-hardy annual, this plant is quite hardy. It has a low-spreading habit, with narrow, almost cylindrical, light-green leaves which have a glistening, sugary appearance. Given adequate sunshine it carries a mass of brightly coloured and zoned flowers, one inch across, from June to August. A wide colour range: white, crimson to pink, and orange-gold to buff. Cultivation: these plants require a position in full sun and thrive on light sandy soils. Propagation: sow the seeds under glass in March at a temperature of 15°C (59°F). Prick out the seedlings into boxes and harden off before planting out in May. Alternatively, sow directly in the flowering site in April, thinning out the seedlings to the required distance.
Trinity College, Cambridge. Friday, 1 February 1782.
John Pond walked out of his rooms at Trinity College, gathered up his tailcoat, adjusted his bicorn hat to shield his eyes from the noonday sun and made his progress along Trinity Street towards King’s Parade. His destination was the new observation platform constructed by John Carr of York, which he had been allowed to build on the vaulted roof of the stables behind the nearby Senate House. Walking through King’s Arch and the huge Welsh-oak gate, the astronomer was greeted by Dr John Hilton, Keeper of the Keys of the Cambridge Astronomical Society, who, using a flickering lantern to light the way, led him up to the fourth landing and out onto the open deck, where he would spend the next eighteen hours writing in his journal and observing the trajectories of three fixed stars: Castor, Spica and Aldebaran.
Grantchester, Cambridge. Friday, 1 February 1966.
John was back in Meadow Road for the weekend. Back with his mother – the mercurial Frieda, a former university lab technician from Oslo who’d arrived in Cambridge as a war worker after the German occupation of her country – and his father – the impossibly tolerant John Snr, who put up with the volatile, fast-changing moods of his beautiful wife simply because she was so very beautiful and the intense near-autism of their only child, the first boy to be born in Meadow Road for more than a hundred years, because he was obviously so very gifted. Prodigiously gifted but uneasy with the world outside – because of his mother’s overbearing love, the overprotection of her most treasured possession and their unnaturally close, almost telepathic relationship.
In the Nightly household it was always ‘Frieda and John’, ‘John and Frieda’, ‘Frieda, John… and John’ – meaning, generally, Frieda and the boy. The wife’s relationship with John the father coming second to Frieda’s altogether more spontaneous and somehow more absolute partnership with John the son.
Friday night, and the teenager had caught the bus up to Trumpington to pick up Jana, the ‘love of his life’ already immortalised by the fledgling songwriter in a handful of songs, particularly the little folk-song suite Grantchester Love Chronicle*, most of which had been composed the previous summer.
John and Jana were off to see Wardour Street regulars, the Pretty Things, one of Jana’s favourite groups, at the Dorothy Ballroom – the Dot – in Hobson Street in the centre of town. Jana couldn’t wait to hear all about John’s adventures in London. A three-day whirlwind during which he’d managed to get himself a manager and a major recording contract, sign a publishing agreement for all of the songs he would write over the next 25 years, and even appear as a male model in a five-page spread in GIRL – a publication that leaped off the shelves within minutes of its appearance on the university bookstands of King’s Parade.
‘But why are you letting her sit on your lap?’ Jana asked, as John remained silent and a stray, unannounced tear fell onto the two Polaroids John JCE had given the boy as souvenirs.
‘And the way she’s looking at you in this one. She’s got her hand on your knee… and you… you don’t exactly look unhappy about it!’
‘Don’t be silly, Jan… that’s just what happens’, her boyfriend replied, ‘or just… whatever happened on the day, that’s all. It’s not planned or anything. The photographer tells you where to sit, and positions you so you fit in with the overall picture. It’s all… “Turn your head this way” or “Twist yourself that”… “Walk up and down on the ceiling”. It’s not serious or anything.’
The boy, seeking to allay the fears of his sweetheart, may have overdone it slightly. ‘He shoots a couple. You take a look, he moves you around a bit and shoots a few more.’ John threw his scarf across his shoulder and put on a dumb face. ‘That’s all it is,’ he shrugged. ‘All there is to it. No one takes it at all seriously.’ He indicated they move on.
‘He shoots a couple! Well, there we are then!’ Jana’s voice became unsteady as she thrust the photographs back into her boyfriend’s hand. ‘Suddenly you’re all world-weary and nonchalant, John. You’re a man of the world now…’ The girl turned away and searched her purse for change for the bus.
‘Jan… c’mon’, the boy replied. ‘The only reason they wanted me to do it in the first place is it gets publicity… which helps them get me a bigger contract so I can make an LP instead of just a single. And I got paid for it; four hundred pounds! You know how handy that comes in…’ John plunged his hands deep into his pockets, not feeling it necessary to explain or justify himself any further. ‘Doesn’t mean anything at all… apart from that.’
But the convent girl was unconvinced. ‘I don’t like it, though, John. Don’t you see? It doesn’t make me feel right.’ The injured party rubbed her eye with the back of her cuff, pretending not to brush away another unwelcome tear.
‘No… well… Mother didn’t like it either.’
The boy, having no experience whatsoever in dealing with the feelings of others, spoke abruptly as he pulled up his collar. A familiar back wind howled its way along the High Street.
‘I shouldn’t think she did’, the girl sniffed. ‘But John… these things are stupid. You know they are. These… magazine things are superficial things. You haven’t even got started yet.’ Jana reached for her handkerchief. ‘You haven’t even got your record out. So I’m… amazed that you let yourself be used like this.’ Jana dried her eyes. ‘You’re an artist, John, a real artist. Sometimes I don’t think you realise what you’ve actually got – your gift. You need to be serious about what you’re doing. Not…
lolling about in girls’ magazines.’
‘I’m certainly not “lolling about” – thanks very much.’ The boy didn’t deserve that. He rubbed hard on his forehead and wiped his hand backwards and forwards across his mouth, showing his frustration. ‘I’m working… And anyway, surely I don’t need to be serious all the time?’ John tied his scarf tight around his neck, making a reasonable job of feigning injury. ‘Surely once or twice, every now and then, once or twice a year maybe, if I’m lucky… I can have a little break from being serious?’
The boy walked out into the road and stared back at his girlfriend stranded on the pavement. ‘I don’t think… Stravinsky was serious all the time. Or… Schoenberg, was he? Not from what we know about them, I don’t think. I don’t get the impression that those people were always very “serious” – not about everything they did. In everyday life, surely not. Not from books, or from just… looking at them; their faces… their atmospheres. Not even from the things they created.’
John made his point as he balanced nervously on the edge of the kerb, bouncing up and down on his newly whitewashed plimsolls.
‘I don’t know about those people, John. To be honest, I don’t give a damn what they get up to. But I do know that the people – composers – we both like; those people are… or were, very serious people. You know they were. You have to take yourself and your work – the things you create, as you say – completely seriously.’
Jana had pulled herself together and was now totally composed, able to present a clear case. ‘Because you have this special gift – you know you do – a “knack” for music.’ She stared at the defendant. ‘I know that seems easy for you. Too easy probably. You probably don’t even get it yourself. When people find out what a talent you have – and they will find out – they’ll be envious. Envious… and jealous. And that envy might not be good for you. It might be bad… turn bad… might not do you a lot of good.’ Jana looked up and down the road in both directions, hoping for a bus or at least for the wind and drizzle to abate for a moment. ‘You even look happy in the pictures. Unusually happy, for you.’
