A STRANGE WORLD INDEED

At Sandown the other day the television presenter, handing over to the commentator for the final race, mentioned that ‘Ginger Baker’ would be performing afterwards. ‘No, me neither,’ came the response.

I have no problem with that. If ‘Ginger Baker’ appeared in the racecard he (or they) might well have been a tribute band with a talented drummer. The real Ginger Baker was a fiery character who, together with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, formed Cream in the mid-Sixties. He died in 2019.

As heavy rockers, Cream lit up many an undergraduate party in those days but the fact is that they burned brightly and briefly and there was certainly no good reason why the Sandown duo would have heard of them. No one hums White Room these days but even a teenager might recognise tracks from the Beachboys’ seminal album Pet Sounds because they turn up on television now and then. They might recognise the songs without making the connection with Brian Wilson, who wrote them and died recently.

Some songs are so famous that they inspire jokes.

‘Doctor, I don’t know why but I can’t stop singing or whistling Delilah, The Green Grass of Home and Help Yourself.

‘Ah, that’s what we call Tom Jones Syndrome.

It affects other people as well, then?

Oh yes. It’s not unusual.’

A Tom Jones record is quite possibly playing in some American club or diner even as I write these words, though few of the customers could tell you what he looked like because they weren’t around when he first became famous. (No problem here. I was at a youth club in Southampton, putting up with a lot of stick for being a grammar school boy.)

I don’t know where Anthony Newley fits in but in my SIS days I wandered up City Road towards Islington. The Eagle pub is still there, so too a pawn shop nearby. People can still quote from Pop Goes The Weasel (pawning or popping your ‘whistle and flute’  —  suit  –  was sometimes necessary after a hard night on the tiles). In many cases the words reappear as if by magic from the mind’s long-neglected footpaths. I’ve no idea how I managed to conjure up the words to the child’s nursery rhyme Lavender’s Blue after a horse of that name had won at Goodwood for Amanda Perrett a few years ago.

‘Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green;

When you are King, dilly dilly, I’ll be your Queen.’

Does the man on the overworked Clapham omnibus remember Anthony Newley better than Ginger Baker? Hmm. Hard to say but yes, he probably does. Newley, who married Joan Collins, was the Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart’s Oliver! and wrote (and recorded) What Kind Of Fool Am I, which features in the musical Stop The World  –  I Want To Get Off.

‘What kind of man is this, an empty shell?

A lonely cell in which an empty heart may dwell?’

I think Leslie Bricusse was responsible for the lyrics, the like of which you will never see or hear today. Now it’s all about the beat, the sound, and the drama with the actual words of little relevance, let alone importance. They may even be contrived rubbish, as I mentioned with regard to Bohemian Rhapsody the other day.

Anyway, I was reading Be Mine, the final part of Richard Ford’s five-novel series about the thoroughly decent Frank Bascombe, who starts as a sports writer mourning the death of his elder son in volume one, then works hard as a highly professional real estate salesman later on. Leaving two failed marriages behind  –  though neither woman is ever far from his thoughts  –  he cares for his younger son Paul (47), who has ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Be Mine sees them on a trip to Mount Rushmore, which Frank feels Paul should see before the end comes, though the latter is truculent and understandably bitter about the cards he’s been dealt and takes his frustration out on his father with some cutting jibes. Frank handles all of this while monitoring America’s alarming fall from grace. He is hard on himself and even harder on those who call the shots.

Amazingly, given the circumstances and geographical location far from London town, Paul enjoys Anthony Newley and Frank can hear Newley’s voice coming out of the headset. Anthony Newley only a few miles from the Little Big Horn! It’s hard to piece it together but I do know that Ford, a great writer, spends time in the British Isles to relax between times, though I thought his place was on the west coast of Ireland.

Of course, a racing man cannot think of Newley without Wincanton crossing his mind. Later in his career the show-business star tried for something different and found a bizarre answer in the shape of The Strange World of Gurney Slade, a minor television series which (and this is a kind assessment) proved too surreal for the times (and would actually seem too surreal now, as well).

He’d passed through Gurney Slade, a small Somerset village, one day and that was how the title came about. I tip my invisible hat to acknowledge him as I head for the course and at last I’m there, with a steady stream of lorries appearing from all directions  –  a lorry spotter’s paradise. I want to know if the Portuguese cafe is still there, the one which really is Portuguese  –  you can check on YouTube  –  and the English language is still a problem.

How did the family end up here? Is there a Portuguese crooner in the background with some of the old songs from the alto Douro? Is there a crafty bottle of Albarinho under the counter for regular customers or are they still on the Mateus Rose? The attractive Mateus bottle was much in evidence when tourists returned from early package holidays in the Sixties and wanted something similar at home. If memory serves, they soon needed something rather stronger.

And so did Ginger Baker.

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