28Oct
Robyn is a mate of mine and we met when he bought Plevna House in Yarmouth from his family friends the Darlings back in the late 80s or early 90s. I lived next door with my second wife, the fashion-designer Debbie Bury, in the Old Chapel, South Street. One evening, we had the record-company execs Graham Fletcher and Chris Smith round for drinks - an old mate, Fletch had a house in Yarmouth too, and was Promotions Manager for Polygram, Chris an A&R manager (and a keen ornithologist!) on a related label. Then we had a knock on the front door, and it was a handsome chap saying "hi I'm Robyn your next-door neighbor, and I just wanted to say hello". Cutting to the chase, I asked him what he did and he delighted us all by saying 'I'm a Cult Figure' I knew we'd be friends then, and it turned out that we knew his manager/producer Peter Jenner (of Blackhill Enterprises and Free Concerts in the Park fame - the first manager of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett), and his label-boss...
Robyn punctuated our lives really from then on and was our neighbour in Yarmouth and at Freshwater Bay. Robyn was full of stories, fantasies and initiatives - including the Jimi Hendrix Anniversary Show at Yarmouth Raileway Station (above). It was Robyn who first suggested a Freshwater Festival back in the 1990s, so I'm glad to add to his idea now in the 2020s...
More recently it was a pleasure and an honour to meet his girlfriend (and now wife) the Australian singer/songwriter Emma Swift:
Robyn and Emma at supper with us in Redoubt House c2010.
Emma Swift - a lefty like me - found her true voice in her 2020 album Blonde on the Tracks. where she produces delightful takes on some of Dylan's enigmatic love songs..
"Blonde on the Tracks is the debut studio album by Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift and was released August 14, 2020 by Tiny Ghost Records. The album consists of Bob Dylan covers and was recorded between 2017 and 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee, the album was produced by Wilco's Pat Sansone and featured a number of well-known Nashville musicians as Swift's backing band, including British guitarist Robyn Hitchcock, Swift's partner"
They arrived in time for a cold English winter, and the flat above us that they rented had no central-heating at that time, so Emma fresh from Australia, was feezing and they spent a lot of time shivering over an electric fire.
But the point about Robyn's memoir 1967 is that he was born in 1953, so his real coming-of-age - his piper at the gates of dawn moment, was a few years later than mine (born November 1945) - so my own glimpse of potential perpetual bliss was in the period 1963-1965..These cultural 'coming of age' or 'enlightenment' periods are when your first expressions of 'taste', your political stance, your character, your likely breadth of interests, your personal style - when all these aspects of yourself are 'firmed-up' for young adulthood - its the time that shapes your life...
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