Ain't Bad for a Pink (10 page)

My friend was also trying to break into corporate entertaining: we both had classic yachts with interesting histories and his business plan included me and
Sea Feather
. The Scottish Tourist Board had already granted a site for the two boats. The idea was to set up sailing holidays and trips for underprivileged kids from the area round the American submarine base at Dunoon.

Through a friend of Des, I was offered £10,000 as a start figure for what would probably have been the first makeover programme on television. The plan was to follow the steps in the regeneration of
Sea Feather.
When we went to
The Boat Show
people were falling over themselves to contribute, to help, to get a mention.

Unfortunately, the owner of
Huff of Arklow
scuppered the deal by interfering behind the scenes, trying to get his own yacht in on the action. He insisted that the first documentary should record
him
chainsawing off the near-perfect deck of
his
boat and replacing it with teak. Not exactly riveting TV and not surprisingly the film company withdrew the offer.

The renovation of
Sea Feather
took two years. Owing to the aborted makeover programme, I had to finance it all myself. I worked at weekends and could take time off from my business in Edleston Road because Plum was able to take over.
Sea Feather
was a classic yacht: beautiful, and more beautiful than
Arklow
.

Once seaworthy, I sailed
Sea Feather
past the Beaumaris boatyard, just to snub them. They had no faith it would go into water again. I sailed to Holyhead where I kept it for a while. Then I took it back to Northwich via the Manchester Ship Canal and Weaver navigation.

Interest in the Skunk Band waned for Whitty as well. His restlessness took him and his new partner Cathy off to live in Aberystwyth. His wife Pat had been unable to put up with his chaotic, unreliable and sometimes violent ways and had taken their three children to Australia. Without telling him.

He was an angel but when he was drunk he could be an animal. He was terrible to Pat – they had three kids and he used to spend all the money on drink. She decided to leave him and take the kids to Australia. We all knew but we kept the secret. My God, she was brave. She’s never regretted it; nor the kids.

Zoe Johnson.
(8)

Wayne Davies – Slim – worked for me from 1975 to 1979 doing various jobs, such as helping build cabinets and sound systems. He was into heavy rock and motorbikes and a lively social life. Like all my employees he worked on a fairly casual basis. At the end of the Seventies he took up a job with the MOD. Slim’s band was called Barracuda.

I got my first guitar off Pete. It was a Grant Stratocaster Copy: an imitation of a Fender Stratocaster. My music is heavy rock although I did sometimes get roped into playing with the Skunk Band; I think every musician round here did.

I used to have a lot to do with Gordon-Smith Guitars – still do. I get my paint and lacquer from them. They made guitars to order; they made me two guitars: a Flying V and an Explorer.

At that time Eddie Van Halen had just broken into the big time. His band was supporting Black Sabbath at the Vic in Hanley and Eddie had gone to Pete’s other shop in Hanley, so we got a ‘phone call in Crewe asking us if we’d got any valve amps. Someone brought him in. He played everything – every guitar and every amp in the shop. What Eddie was playing in the shop was pretty mind-blowing. He’s an amazing guitarist and one of the first to do “tapping” – you tap the strings instead of using a plectrum.

He bought my Explorer and about eight valve amps and offered Pete some tickets for the Hanley gig. “No thanks, I’ve already heard you!” was Pete’s reply. So I had the tickets. I had them because I wanted to hear Black Sabbath. Van Halen toured with Black Sabbath and became mega famous after that. They blew Black Sabbath away.

To get to the point of the story: it is alleged that the guitar solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” from the
Thriller
album is played by Eddie Van Halen using my Explorer.

Using my Explorer!

Wayne Davies (Slim).
(9)

Being in the shop was like living in a sitcom: dramas just walked in. I had a phone call from a lad whose car had been stolen. It had been stolen with one of my amps in it. The next day I had another phone call, this time from a bloke in a pub who said he had an amp and was I interested? I certainly was. I knew which amp it would be. “Fetch it in,” I said.

“I think we’re about to get someone in here returning one of ours,” I said to Slim.

I recognised the FAL: a Futuristic Age Limited amp immediately.

“How much will you give me for it?” this little skinny guy asked.

“Nothing. It’s already mine,” I said.

He went to pick it up. He had a nerve. As usual, the shop was full of blokes who worked with me and blokes – big broad biker types – visiting me.

“Leave it there!”

“But it’s me job!” I had to admire his amoral criminal logic.

“It’s my amp. You’ll have to fight me for it.”

At that he left. He was persistent but not totally stupid – or so I thought. That was the end of it as far as I was concerned.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The police prosecuted him for the theft of the car and the amp and I had to appear as a witness for the prosecution at Mold County Court. I was asked if I recognised him and of course I did. The farcical thing was that the skinny guy was conducting his own defence. “How did you recognise me?” he asked, leaning on the dock. “The heavily tattooed forearms are a bit of a giveaway,” I said, “- yes – the ones you’re trying to cover up now!” And sure enough that’s what he was ineptly trying to do.

He got sent down.

I’ve got used to incompetent criminals. A Welsh guy staying with John Darlington brought a guitar in to sell. I could tell at a glance that it was JD’s guitar but I let the drama unfold.

“It’s a guitar like JD’s – I’m selling it for a hundred quid.”

“That’s a good price,” I said. “Just a minute,” I said, “that
is
JD’s guitar.”

“Oh…I’ll take it to him,” he blustered.

“No,” I said, “JD comes in here often. It’ll be here for him when he comes.”

“No I’ll take it to him,” says Taff. I was hoping that the verbal wrestling would do the trick, without having to resort to something more physical.

“Do you want to go out wearing it?” I said. “Get out before I phone the police.”

So Taff goes.

Then JD arrives in tears. I let him go on for five minutes, then produce the Stratocaster from behind the piano.

But fancy bringing the stolen guitar to me – JD’s friend! I might not recognize people but I’m an expert when it comes to recognizing guitars.

Eric visited the Nantwich Road shop from time to time. He drove a series of trucks and then a Winnebago in which he travelled to the US to buy guitars. Each time he came I would buy up to six expensive guitars. He always used to ask to go upstairs to the office to do business. Then he’d spread out lines of cocaine for me and Whitty. I don’t know what became of Eric the Red: he’s either in the US, in jail or dead.

When we were making guitar cases Shep and Whitty used to argue who went upstairs to do the job. It was a glue thing.

Slim and I both remember Mick Wicklow – Lemmy’s double – from the old biking days. Mick used to drink a lot: he used to vomit into his glass and drink it back. Typical biker’s trick. There were never enough hours in the day for Mick. He had a gasket breaking business in Crewe and when he went bankrupt he went to London as a despatch rider. He just uproots and goes.

Mick lost his teeth in a motorcycle accident when he was sixteen so he had to wear false teeth. Never a good idea if you do a lot of throwing up. He once lost these teeth down the bog after a heavy drinking session and his wife had woken up wanting to know what was happening. Him coming in late and drunk was a bit of an issue and he didn’t want her to know about the puked-up teeth and shout at him. But his teeth were down the bog and he’d flushed the bog! Imagine the scene: armed with the clear logic of the drunk he went into the night street, carefully pulled up the manhole cover, shushing himself every time it made a noise, peered into the black hole, staggered back a bit then fumbled about, found his teeth, staggered a bit more, shushed a bit more and put them in his mouth. His teeth still had bits of toilet tissue sticking to them. And God knows what else.

But his wife had gone back to sleep.

There’s more where this came from: one day I was making love under a duvet in the room above the shop. Mick Wicklow came in and whipped the cover off. I was down to the short strokes. I grabbed him and thrust it in his ear. He went to the pub, proudly, with his hair sticking out like Biggles’s scarf.

I think Mick was even more basic than Ozzie.

There was certainly a lot going on – or rather coming off – in those Skunk Band days. I was once driving through Anglesey and couldn’t help but notice that the girl in the passenger seat was gradually taking her clothes off. It was hard…to concentrate. The moment she was naked, the traffic began to slow down almost to a halt. Had they twigged what was going on? Actually the traffic was slowing because we had hit carnival time. Although tempted to upstage all the other acts put together, she slowly slid down the seat.

But it was touch and go in more ways than one.

If your girlfriends all seem to have the same tendency to disrobe your mind doesn’t half become focused on it. One girl triumphed as a topless Winifred Atwell – a ludicrous idea in itself but adding extra rhythm to the proceedings – though at a private party, it has to be stressed. A couple of girls went publicly nude at a pub, to the great joy of the punters. Many of my girlfriends had sexy, erotic photographs taken of themselves, in some cases before they met me, in others after they had met me. Naturally I have thought a lot about this phenomenon! I came to the conclusion that although I enjoyed this nudity, I didn’t necessarily inspire it in them. It existed in them irrespective of others and I certainly upheld their right to express themselves in any way they wished. Perhaps there was an element of this behaviour directed at me – to tame the beast, as they say, but this wasn’t the whole picture by any means.

I’ve noticed that nudity doesn’t make a person more sexy. Nor does clothing. If a person is sexually neutral or frigid nowt can be done until this changes. Sexuality is something within the person and clothes or lack of clothes can only enhance what is there already.

And isn’t gross exhibitionism an intrusive annoyance?

I don’t want girls to be nude to the point of hairlessness. I like girls to be natural. In the Fifties and Sixties body hair was more acceptable than it is now. Continental women didn’t depilate and I liked to think that the most beautiful continental stars of the Fifties and Sixties: Sophia Loren and Gina Lollabrigida didn’t. Not in my fantasies, anyway.

But nudity was very much the thing in the Sixties and Seventies. There was a trend for wet T-shirt competitions where everyone would end up without a T-shirt on at all. There were nightclubs where you hung your clothes by the door! I think one was called Club 49 – or was it 69? This started in New York and was aimed at the rich and famous: a nudist night club. At the other end of the scale there were teenage parties where we would advance from Postman’s Knock to Postmistress’s Knockers – then to Dustman’s Knock which was a bit dirtier!

Whilst in Wales, Whitty continued to play music for pleasure, supplementing his benefit with casual work, as he always had. In the end, the isolation and the terminal illness of his sister drove Whitty and Cathy back to Crewe and the Skunk Band entered its third phase. During his absence the music had changed quite a bit. I had placed more of my own stamp on it and in this second phase the set had a jazz, jug band and blues bias put to rock ‘n’ roll. It was less pop-oriented; I could set the old songs with more humour, in a manner that would appeal to bikers.

Whitty continued to go on benders which left him extremely depressed. One Sunday morning I was contacted in Moston by Shep who was then living in relative squalor above the shop with my dog Rafe. Pete, who had been staying with him, had slit his wrists in the bath. Leaping into my new car I soon left leafy deep-carpeted suburbia behind, not knowing what I would find at the end of my journey to Crewe.

I screeched up to the Nantwich Road premises and ran up the stairs two at a time to the seedy bathroom. There was Whitty still in the bath. Still drunk. Drunk and giggling in a blood-splattered bath, his arms held aloft by Shep who was also splattered. Quickly taking in the nightmare I assessed that the amount of blood lost was not enough to kill him though things looked bad. Fortunately he hadn’t put any water in the bath – warm water would have drawn the blood out of him and he would have died. I know what they say about cries for help and this might well have been one rather than a real suicide attempt. Pete knew there was someone close at hand even though he did lock the door.

But I never have got on with the idea of suicide. It enrages me. I’ve seen too many people struggling for life to be impressed by anyone seeking death. “You selfish bastard – you’ve put every one of us in jeopardy!” I ranted whilst bandaging his wrists with rags. “You stupid selfish bastard!” – tying his wrists together above his head. “Drink this!” I fed him gallons of water – not something he was used to! It took about an hour for the bleeding – and the stupid drunken giggling – to stop completely. But I had no sympathy.