Wylding Hall

Chapter 11

Ashton

Tom was an incredibly innovative producer. He didn’t just manage his bands — he produced their albums as well. He was one of the first who had a mobile recording unit, which meant a band didn’t have to go into London to lay down tracks in a studio. The studio could come to you. It was an old delivery lorry that he’d gutted and tricked up with recording decks, tape players, and playback machines and amplifiers. It was absolutely state-of-the-art for the time. Richard Branson had one as well — he’d just bought Shipton Manor and was setting up what became the Virgin Records studio. He got the idea for all of that from us and Tom.

Now, of course, everyone has his own mobile unit, in your laptop or iPhone or whatever. But in those days you were tied to a studio, unless you were fortunate enough to have someone like Tom Haring, who could drive the rig down to Hampshire. And thank god he did, because otherwise there would have been no Wylding Hall album, no record whatsoever of what we did that summer.

See, those were never intended to be anything but rough cuts. Tom came down on a lark; he’d just finished kitting out the lorry, and he wanted to show it off. Give it a test drive, on the road and with all of us. Course it wasn’t on the road much. I think it got about ten miles to the gallon.

I’m not sure who had the idea that we should record outdoors. Jonno? That was the day Billy Thomas was there with his camera, so maybe it was him. Whoever it was, it turned out to be a brilliant idea. We dragged all our instruments out into what used to be the garden. It was all overgrown: flowers everywhere, roses twining up the stone walls and trees covered with wisteria, a carpet of yellow cowslips. Flowers out of season, Lesley said, but they looked wonderful. It all smelled of roses and hashish — Julian broke out his magic box. Grass knee-high and butterflies and grasshoppers dancing through the air. Birds swooping back and forth, and a goshawk circling overhead. It was heaven.

So that’s where we set up — in a little English country wilderness. Tom drove the lorry right into the middle of it. Plugged into the house and trailed the electric cords through the grass so we could mike the instruments.

I can’t recall how it came about that Billy was there, but however it was, Billy helped with the equipment. We laughed and told him he could sign on as our roadie. I didn’t even realize he owned a camera till that afternoon.

Of course, the sound quality wasn’t anywhere close to what you’d get in a proper studio. But again, we assumed we’d just do that at the end of the summer. This was only for fun, a chance to show off for Tom and give the mobile unit a trial run. You can hear on the album that we were outdoors — the wind in the long grass, bees humming, wrens hopping about. At one point, you can hear a plane flying by overhead.

It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. It was all live, pretty much a single take. No overdubs. Julian did do an extra take for “Windhover Morn.” He was always such a perfectionist.

It was a perfect day, in every way. Weather, happiness. The songs were new and we couldn’t get enough of playing them. Tom was flush; he had a hit that summer with “Girl on a String” by the Bullfrogs. One hit wonder, they turned out to be. He rang us that morning and said we weren’t to leave; he’d be arriving around noon with a surprise. And so he did, and so it was.

Lesley

That was a magical day. I was having a smoke with Julian when Jonno gave us the news.

“Tom just rang and said he’ll be here in a few hours with a surprise. So don’t go wandering off, Julian. Keep an eye on him, will you, Les?”

After he went off to tell the others, I turned to Julian. “What do you think the surprise is?”

He shrugged. “Drugs?”

I laughed. There was no way it would be anything like drugs, not with Tom. Never in a million years. He might smoke a bit now and then, and I know he dropped acid at least once, ’cause I was with him. But he was nervous about anything stronger than that, and he was absolutely terrified of any scandal having to do with drugs. There wasn’t really a heavy drug scene with folk music, except up in Scotland. Glasgow, that was a tough place. Careers got killed that way — even a few tokes could get you put away in prison for a year. It was still early days for Tom as a producer, and he couldn’t afford to lose one of his musicians, especially after the tragedy with Arianna. That was enough scandal to last all of us for a while.

So, that was wishful thinking on Julian’s part. He had his own little stash of hash in a little enameled silver box. A beautiful thing — I have no idea where he got it — about as big as the palm of your hand; it looked like something you’d find in a medieval castle. He kept a block of hash inside and would shave away at it with a penknife. The box’s lid was amazing. There was a tree painted on it, in the most remarkable detail — tiny oak leaves, gold and green and yellow, on golden branches no bigger than a blade of grass. The bluest sky you ever saw, peeking through the leaves.

What was most extraordinary was a tiny jeweled bird perched in the tree, no bigger than your pinkie nail. Yet you could see every feather, tiny flecks of emerald and ruby and gold, and a wee little golden beak.

And sapphire eyes — you could only see one eye, its head was cocked, but that eye was a sapphire, I’m sure of it. When it caught the light, it winked at you.

It must have been worth a pretty penny, that box. More than any of us earned in a year, all put together. Whenever I asked Julian where it came from, he was always very evasive.

“Someone gave it to me,” he said once, but he wouldn’t tell me who. “I forgot,” he said.

Like you would ever forget whoever gave you a gift like that. Another time, he told me he inherited it. I asked his mother once, and she just gave me a blank look.

“A jeweled box? I don’t think so. I would have remembered it. Wherever would he have come by something like that?”

Ashton

I remember that box. He kept pills in it. Mandrax, whatever he had. Pot. I looked it up online once. That kind of enamel work, it dates from the fourteenth century. I always assumed he’d found it at Wylding Hall and nicked it.

We used to joke about discovering treasure, the odd golden mace or grail. Never did, though. We looked once or twice: me and Jonno got lost wandering through the old wing. There was a passage on the second floor, I think it was a priest-hole. We found it when we pushed aside a wardrobe in one of the bedrooms. I don’t think anyone had stepped in that room in two hundred years. We must have walked for ten minutes in the dark — we had a torch, but the battery was going. Jonno got spooked and we turned back. I wanted to keep on, but he was dead set against being lost in the dark.

Later, I tried to find that passage again, but I never could. I couldn’t remember what room it was. None of them ever looked right.

Jonno

After I told Les and Julian, I found the others. None of us had any idea what Tom had in store, so when Julian pulled out his hash, we all tucked in. Will made breakfast, and we all sat together at that big trestle table in the kitchen and ate. Usually we weren’t all up at the same time, so we didn’t eat together. But that day we did and it was lovely. Everyone laughing and joking, the windows open so the sun came in and warmed the flagstones. I was always barefoot, so I remember that detail.

I also remember when the lorry pulled up. A Ford transit box van; it looked like a milk truck. Tom hopped out, and then this boy. Sturdy lad, dark hair and ruddy face, wearing a work shirt and dungarees.

Well, aren’t you nice, I thought. He was a few years younger than me, sixteen. Silas Thomas’s grandson. Tom had brought him to help with lugging the sound equipment, which was especially fortuitous when we ended up recording outside. It was fortuitous for me, too, though for a different reason.

Billy Thomas, photographer

Silas Thomas was my grandfather. My family owns the farm next to his. Actually, it’s all one farm since he died. I don’t live there now, but my partner and I have a cottage not too far off, so we can visit my mum. My father died about ten years ago.

I can’t remember exactly when Silas died. I’d left home by then. Maybe five or six years after? Maybe longer. I should remember; I was broke up about it. But I don’t.

He told me about the hippies living at Wylding Hall. They hired him to bring them groceries every week. He liked them, as far as I knew. He thought they were harmless. Only thing he worried about was one of them went off into the woods by himself, up to the rath. That’s what he called the hill fort. It’s an Irish word; his mother was Irish, and when she married my great-grandfather and moved here in the eighteen hundreds, that’s what she called it.

So my grandfather said, anyway. He was very superstitious. So was everyone else in the village. None of us was ever supposed to go off playing on our own in the woods, especially not anywhere near the rath. If you did, you’d get a hiding when your folks found out. Julian Blake was the one used to go up there.

The old ways, no one remembers them today. The Wren’s a gastropub now; Barry and me quite like it.

I’d heard about the commune in the old manor from my granddad. Someone told me they were musicians, a rock group. Of course, I’d never seen a rock group. I didn’t even have a phonograph. We had a radio, so I’d listen to BBC’s Radio 1 and John Peel on Saturday nights. That was my connection to the outside world.

I had no thought whatsoever about becoming a rock photographer. I didn’t know such a thing existed. I did have a camera, an Instamatic I saved for and bought earlier that summer. I was very proud of it. There was a camera club at my secondary school and I wanted to join. So, of course, I needed a camera.

I didn’t go to Wylding Hall that day with any thought of snapping photographs. Tom Haring rang up my grandfather and asked if he knew someone could help carry boxes back and forth from the lorry. Cables, things like that. My grandfather volunteered me.

“Make sure you get paid,” he said, but I didn’t care about that. I was excited to go to Wylding Hall and to see the hippies.

At the last minute, I thought of bringing my camera along. I’d bought a roll of film and loaded it, but hadn’t taken any pictures yet. I must have thought this would be a good opportunity to take some photographs. It was, and then some.

Tom Haring came by the house and picked me up. He was very nice, very professional. Introduced himself to my mother — my father was out in the field.

Then we drove on to Wylding Hall. He asked me if I’d ever heard of Windhollow Faire. I lied and said yes. I had no idea who they were. We got there and he introduced me around to everyone. Ashton Moorehouse was the only one really looked like a proper rock and roller — he had a beard and long hair and the full hippie regalia, high boots and pirate shirt.

The others had long hair but they seemed normal. Just a few years older than me, very friendly and ordinary. Which was reassuring, but a bit of a disappointment. Lesley Stansall, the girl singer, she seemed a bit larger than life. Loud voice and always waving her hands around, making a lot of noise. But friendly.

The only one seemed a bit peculiar was Julian Blake. To me he seemed snobbish, though probably he was just stoned.

And I was intimidated by how good-looking he was. I was all mixed up about boys and girls — I was attracted to boys, but that was such a horrible thing I couldn’t even think it. I’d never heard the word “homosexual,” and every other word that described it was awful.

So, when Julian came shambling into the kitchen and said, “Hi,” I just mumbled and stared at the floor. The place had a funny smell, like church incense. It wasn’t until that night, with Jonathan, that I found out it was hashish. I was such an innocent.

Lesley

I was the one who suggested we record outdoors. It just seemed so obvious to me, although Ashton and Will thought we should do it inside, in the rehearsal room. Which was also an obvious choice. I always thought the rehearsal room was the one space that didn’t feel like it had a history attached to it. There wasn’t this weird sense that we were intruding there, like I got in other parts of Wylding Hall. Whatever history that room had, it was our history. We laid it down, made our mark upon the place. I hope it stayed there.

But it was such a gorgeous day, it seemed a shame to be indoors. The garden was in full bloom — such a magical spot that was! Like something out of a book. Old apple trees and blossoming cherry, stock, and delphiniums and primroses. Even some narcissus, and they were long out of season. The garden seemed to have its own climate. Things bloomed whenever they wanted, I think. There was a low brick wall around it, very old; the bricks had crumbled so that the back opened out onto the lawn, which was even more overgrown than the garden. Ashton and Will found old-fashioned scythes in one of the outbuildings, and they cut away some of the tall grass so we could put our instruments out there, and the microphones. They looked like they’d stepped out of the middle ages. I wish we had photographs of that.

Ashton

It took a few hours to get everything set up in the garden. First, we had to hack away at the brush. Then we had to bring in all the cables and power cords and amplifiers and microphones, all of us tripping over brambles and rosebushes. Chairs from the kitchen and the piano stool for Julian. We were all stoned out of our minds, which didn’t help matters. But finally, it was all done, and we settled down and played.

I won’t go into it again — you have the album. But it was like an enchantment, that one afternoon. We played till the sun was low in the sky, but it was still daylight, golden light. Magic hour, film people call it. Tom had brought a teenager from the village, a boy named Billy Thomas. I didn’t know he had a camera until he got it from the lorry and came running back through the grass. He shot an entire roll of film, mostly after we’d finished playing and were goofing about or standing around doing nothing.

Those were the photos made it onto the album cover and gatefold. He didn’t get them developed until autumn, so we didn’t see any of them for quite some time. Quite good photos for a kid, I thought. Not what I’d call technically polished, but that’s part of their charm, isn’t it? The girl, well, I can’t account for that. I don’t think anyone can.

Billy Thomas

I lay there on the grass in the sun and listened while they played. Julian Blake, he offered me a hash pipe, which was the first time I ever smoked. I went into a trance, almost. I wasn’t thinking about taking photos. I wasn’t thinking about anything, except I liked watching the drummer, Jonathan. He was funny, bit of a clown. I remember he took out two ping-pong paddles and started keeping time by slapping them against his thighs. Everyone cracked up, you can hear it if you listen, they didn’t edit that out.

Jon didn’t seem any older than me. He was short, which might be why I thought he was young. I thought he looked like Michael Palin. He kept peering at me from behind his kit; he wanted to see if I was laughing at his jokes. I was — we all were. When they finished up, it was about four or five in the afternoon. Ashton and Will began tossing around a soccer ball. Don’t know where that came from. Lesley went into the house and came out with gallon bottles of cheap wine. Pure rotgut. Julian seemed cheerful; he was quieter than the rest, but not what I’d call withdrawn. A bit shy, maybe, but very nice.

I helped Tom Haring roll up the cables back into the lorry, and then he sent me off so I could be with the others. He wanted to check what he’d recorded, make sure everything had worked correctly.

I looked out and saw them cavorting in the garden. It looked like a painting. They all looked very old-fashioned — their clothes were old-fashioned. That was the style. What you see on the album cover, that’s how they dressed the entire time they were playing. Lesley in her long peasant dress. Ashton dressed like a pirate. Will looked a bit like my grandfather when he was young, in his wedding photograph. Julian had on a corduroy jacket and stovepipe trousers and Cuban boots, everything well worn.

Jonno was the only one looked like he was in the right century, jeans and a t-shirt, except that he was wearing a fool’s cap with bells on it. I didn’t make a big deal that I was taking pictures, but I wasn’t secretive. It was just a lark. I wasn’t thinking much about it at all. There were twenty frames on that roll, and I’d already taken three of my mum and dad.

About halfway through, a great flock of birds came across the sky. I don’t know what kind they were — little birds. But such a crowd of them that, for a moment, they blotted out the sun. It was shocking, after all that brilliant sunlight.

That’s when everyone turned to look up at the sky, and I snapped that. You can see the manor house in the background, the Elizabethan towers and old chimneys, and the higgledy-piggledy garden with everyone looking up at the sky. To one side, the woods that lead to the rath. The first of those pictures was in shadow, because of the birds, but after that they flew off over the trees and the sun shone down again.

It’s amazing those photos came out at all. I really had no idea what I was doing.

Jonno

It was evening by the time we’d finished packing up. Tom decided not to drive back to London, so we had an impromptu party. Billy Thomas stayed as well. He and I, we spent the night together. Quite innocently, we both were pissed as newts, with Julian’s hash on top of that. And the sheer exhilaration of what we’d done that day! I’ve never seen Tom that happy, before or since.

Billy and I got to talking; he was a real babe in the woods, very innocent. A true country lad. I asked him up to my room to listen to some albums. He was raving about Lindisfarne and “Fog on the Tyne,” which I thought was utter crap. That was the year folk-rock made the charts, Steeleye Span and the rest of them. We all hated that we’d get lumped in with them whenever anyone talked about Windhollow Faire.

I had recently heard about Transformer, and Tom brought it down from London for me. That’s what me and Billy listened to. “Andy’s Chest” and “Perfect Day.” We started out on the floor, but ended up lying side by side in my bed. I kissed him and we snogged, but that was all. Fell asleep that way.

When I woke up in the morning, he wasn’t there — he’d caught a ride back to the village with Tom. In the autumn, I saw the photographs he’d taken, but I didn’t see Billy again for about ten years. We’re good mates now.

Tom

I thought we had accomplished something breathtaking with that session, and I believed it was a harbinger of great things to come. The beginning of something wonderful for Windhollow Faire, when in fact it was the opposite.