S10 Ep1 - Rock 'n Roll and RG10, The Beatles, Bowie, Led Zeppelin etc

There are a small group of places that are synonymous with history of rock and roll. Woodstock, Glastonbury, Strawberry Fields - and, of course, RG10. 

In this episode we uncover Twyford, Wargrave and Sonning’s links to the royalty of rock and roll. Here are just a few of the names that come up:

Paul McCartney and The Beatles
David Bowie
Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page
Frank. Sinatra
The Beach Boys
Cliff Richard
Nat ‘King’ Cole
Cliff Richard
The Shadows
Mark Bolan
Sparks
Thin Lizzy
Boomtown Rats
The Moody Blues
Elaine Page - 
Iggy Pop
The Stranglers
Adam Ant
Marc Almond

Morrissey
Manic street Preachers
Mary Hopkin
Tony Visconti

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Transcript

[00:00:00] I have on my smartphone a photo of an old man doing his supermarket shop in Twyford. He looks a little bit creaky and someone else is carrying his shopping. He's got long straggly hair, which to be quite frank, doesn't look particularly dignified on someone of his age. He's 79, you see. So who is this mystery man with the unkempt barnet and why have I given him the paparazzi treatment?

[00:00:30] Well, he is none other than Jimmy Page. Guitar hero, founding member of Led Zeppelin, scourge of hotel rooms across the world and Waitrose aisle botherer Jimmy lives in Sonning in a place called Deanery Garden. You've probably stared at its walls as you wait in the inevitable traffic jam from Sonic over the River Thames.

[00:00:53] The grade one listed house was designed by a chap called Edward Lutyens, the turn of the [00:01:00] 20th century, who's been described as, “surely the greatest British architect of the 20th or of any other century” the gardens were created by Gertrude Jekyll, the Alan Titchmarsh of her day. And yes, her family name was borrowed by Robert Louis Stevenson when he wrote, The strange case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Now Lutyens and Jekyll often worked together and like Jimmy Page, they were both big fans of a Gibson Les Paul Guitar and a Marshall amplifier. Now that last bit is not true of course, but it is necessary to get back to what is the real point of this episode, which is. RG10 and its rock and roll pedigree.

[00:01:47] Now, if you thought such a thing was simply limited to great bands, such as Big Audio Twynamite, killing it at the Twyford  Beer Festival, then think again. I will shortly reveal a [00:02:00] connection to perhaps the biggest star in the pop music firmament. But first, a name that you probably won't have heard of.

[00:02:08] Colin Southgate was born in 1938, son of an old Covent Garden fruit merchant. By 1989, he was chairman of Thorne EMI. E M I. The EMI records. part of the company was home to The Hollies, The Shadows. The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Cliff Richard, Nat King Cole, and a bunch of chancers from Liverpool called The Beatles.

[00:02:34] Colin was knighted in 1992, and he also went on to become chair of the Royal Opera House. But perhaps the most significant part of his background, and strangely missing from his Wikipedia page is the fact that he used to live in Ruscombe at a place called Northberry Farm. It actually went up for sale in 2020 and was described by the estate agent as a [00:03:00] “historic grade two listed 16th century tudor manor house set in the middle of well established formal gardens and surrounding parkland grounds that extend in total to 9.23 acres.

[00:03:12] The house has been sympathetically extended and renovated by the current owners and offers a wealth of character with elegant living rooms with timbered beams and open fireplaces. Ideal for everyday family life, as well as entertaining, as well as the well laid out ground floor living accommodation.

[00:03:31] The first floor comprises four bedroom suites, a fifth bedroom, and. family bathroom leading from an open galleried landing outside, as well as the impressive listed tithe barn and listed granary. There is an extensive range of outbuildings as well as two separate cottages, gardeners, cottage, and stable cottage, both offering two bedrooms each.

[00:03:53] ideal for guests extended family or staff. The formal gardens are a mixture of stone [00:04:00] terraces, rose gardens, herbaceous, and shrub gardens, as well as compromising a pond and lake with the extended grounds home to fine tree specimens. There is also a hard tennis court tucked away. within the grounds outbuildings provide garaging storage and workshop areas”

[00:04:17] In short, it's pretty big. So guess how much it was up for folks? 4.95 million pounds, but property, website, Zoopla shows that it actually went for 3 million. You could have got yourself a bargain. Anyway, back to the pop. And finally, in Wargrave we have Tony Visconti and Mary Hopkin. A couple whose music industry contacts book would've read like a who's who of rock and roll regends from the sixties onwards.

[00:04:50] Let's start with Tony, a three time Grammy winning record producer originally from New York. Here's a list of just some of the artists he's worked [00:05:00] with, Mark Bolan. Sparks, Thin  Lizzy,  Boomtown Rats, the Moody Blues. Elaine Page, Iggy Pop, The Stranglers, Adam Ant, Mark Almond Morrissey, and The Manic Street preachers.

[00:05:16] But most famously, he was a longtime collaborator with David Bowie, which gives me an excuse to imagine this wonderful scenario of Dave coming to visit Tony at home. 

Tony:Hey, who's that at the door? 

David: It's me, David 

Tony: Gee, David, what are you doing here in Wargrave? This historic village and civil parish in Berkshire, England based primarily on the River Thames, but also along the confluence of the River Loddon lying on the border with southern Oxfordshire.

[00:05:51] David: OhTony, have you been reading Wikipedia again? I'm here to say hello of course, and ask if you had come with me to Berlin [00:06:00] to produce my latest album ,Heroes. 

Tony: Hell yeah, but let me just tell my wife, Mary Hopkin, you may know her from such sixties hits as ‘Those were the days. my friends’ 

David: Of course I know her, Tony, I've met her on many occasions.

[00:06:17] You are behaving in a particularly strange manner today. Now, whilst you speak to Mary, I'm off to The Bull public house for a lovely roast dinner and a pint of real ale.

 That was David Bowie and Tony Visconti there, and a big thanks to them for taking part in the podcast. As Tony mentioned in the 1970s when that exchange took place, he was married to welsh songstress Mary Hopkins.

[00:06:45] She and Tony lived in Wargrave from the seventies. Until their divorce in 1981, but she stayed in the area after that. And for a few years in the late sixties and early seventies, Mary was quite the hot [00:07:00] showbiz ticket. And the story behind her rise to stardom is terrific. In 1968, she took part in Opportunity Knocks where she was spotted by.

[00:07:11] Paul McCartney. Yes. Him from the Beatles. She won the competition and the following Monday, received a telegram asking her to call Apple Records who were, of course run by the Beatles. She did, and she spoke to Macca, who asked her to come up to London the next day for an audition. Mary recorded eight songs that day.

[00:07:32] and was offered a recording contract on the spot. ‘Those were the days’ was chosen as her first single and it was a hit. She was just 18 years old. A couple of years later, she grabbed a second place in the Eurovision Song Contest, finishing behind island's Dana and her hardcore heavy metal anthem. ‘All kinds of everything.’

[00:07:54] And Mary even had her own TV series called ‘Mary Hopkins in the Land of’ [00:08:00] but perhaps the highlight of her career is a moment that I've not been able to totally pin down. I've uncovered some evidence of Ms. Hopkin judging a local knobbly knees competition in the Wargrave area. I'm not sure when or where it was or indeed who won.

[00:08:19] But somebody somewhere must know. Please come forward and show yourself. Have your moment in the spotlight because we can draw a direct line between your protruding patellas and the writer of the Frog Chorus. That is something for the whole of the RG10 area to be proud of. So long pop pickers.