Introduction No one has ever lived a life like Joe Meek. Surrounded by intrigue and controversy, he was Britain's first truly independent pop producer and set the ball rolling for the hundreds who envelop the scene today. He was the man who against all the odds produced hit after hit in his flat in London's busy Holloway Road. In the pre-Beatles era when the British music industry was being run by the likes of EMI and Decca, and Britain was lying stranded in a sea of tepid cover versions of American teen idols, he decided to go it alone and battle it out with the giants. From an Aladdin's Cave of dusty wires and ropey old spinning tape machines he developed a unique sound which made his records instantly recognizable. It gave them an exciting, spiritual feel which is still to this day so attractive that his discs are collectors' items and sell for very high prices. He even has a fan club! Working from two bedrooms, his fine-fingered electronics wizardry was a wonder to behold, and the incredible sounds he created could make your hair stand on end. Like an eccentric scientist he worked all hours bending every rule in the book, turning music inside out and reconstructing it. He was the master of cramming everything onto one single track and for years was so advanced that no one in Britain could touch him.

However, behind all the success lurked personal problems and an ever shadier private life. Early in 1967, under mysterious circumstances, he was found dead. He was 37. Joe was an enigma. His volcanic temperament and strange behaviour were never fully understood and were simply regarded as the trappings of genius. An intensely secretive man, no one really knew him or was even aware of half his peculiar story. Consequently, researching his life has taken far longer than I expected, luring me along from one riddle to another. Gathering facts has also been hampered in other ways. From time to time people have withheld information for fear of divulging how closely involved they were with him. Friendly smiles hide serious anxieties that sadly will always be with them. In a few instances I have even been given deliberate misinformation; to this day there are still singers and musicians harbouring grudges against Joe and against each other. Through constant verification of facts I am satisfied that any such false statements have been eliminated.

So, with this in mind, it will come as no surprise that this little volume is the result of four years' work, including more than 150 taped interviews and 500 hours of telephone conversations. This is a chance to say thank you again to everyone who has contributed. Whether by answering my phone calls, replying to my letters or allowing me and my tape recorder into their homes and offices, they have helped make it all enjoyable and rewarding. I would have liked to acknowledge everyone but their names would fill two pages. I can mention just a few: Eric and Arthur for their wealth of memories and warm hospitality; Ena Shippam; Gerald Beachus; Allen Stagg; Adrian Kerridge; Jimmy Lock; Lonnie Donegan; Anne Shelton; Humphrey Lyttelton; Chris Barber; George Melly; Frankie Vaughan; Peter Cozens; William Barrington-Coupe; Marcel Rodd; Norman Shine; Lester Banks; Stanley Souter; Bob Kingston; Geoff Goddard; Robbie Duke; Terry O'Neil; Gary Hartnell and his mum of Polygram and Pye; James Deveraux of EMI; Pc James Ainsworth; E. M. Solomons; Ken Howard; Sir Joseph Lockwood; John Leyton; Michael Cox; Mike Berry; Clem Cattini; Heinz; Lord Sutch; Chas Hodges; Joy and Dave Adams; Pete Holder; Dave Dee; Lional Howard; Tony Grinham; Barry Lazell; Paul Pelletier; Brian Matthew and Radio One; New Musical Express; Melody Maker; Record Mirror; Music Echo; Disc; Pop Weekly; Billboard; Cashbox; Daily Express; Evening News; Evening Standard; Psychic News; Nigel Hunter of Music Week; West Hampstead Cemetery; Chris Charlesworth for his professional advice; Keith Waller for his internet assistance; David Pearce for allowing me access to the Meek Estate files; John Beecher and the Buddy Holly Appreciation Society; the RGM Appreciation Group's Alan Blackburn, Laurence Brown, Hinton Sheryn, Rockin' Tom Casey for playing me the music; Chris Knight for his reams of letters and the 30 interviews he had conducted with Jim Blake eight years before I started, and the latter who set me on the trail. A final thank you goes to the man himself for being such a bewitching subject; he would not have liked having his secrets revealed, but I think he would have appreciated his long overdue credit.

John Repsch

Prologue
February 2 1967. Evening. 304 Holloway Road.

Meek's final hours, described by his office assistant, Patrick Pink: 'He looked clearly sort of sick. He wasn't talking ­ writing things down. In the evening we watched some TV and had something to eat. That would be about 7 o'clock. I think I cooked it. He was writing on bits of paper; he was afraid the place was bugged and that he was being listened in to. He suddenly asked me after dinner, 'Let's go up, let's make your record. You're more or less up to standards now.' I'd only recorded demos before but this particular one was promised to come out in March, my own. I have a feeling he had it planned. That was the night. After all those years I'd been with him and I'd stayed sometimes the night ­ and that particular night: 'Come on, let's see if we can get a record out of you now'. 'About 9 o'clock we went up into the studio. He had some tracks already made up: the backing tracks. I just did a couple of old ones he had stored away and I'd learnt the words from the acetates ­ very quick attempts: about an hour. Then I did another one which I'd learnt. It was a backing that was laid down for Heinz; he had already voiced it and the voice had been taken off of it. Heinz had sung it years ago: 'There goes my baby ­ look at the way she walks'. Joe wrote it. Went on the radio once ­ Heinz did it 'live'. Nothing had been put out on record, and Joe said I could have it and get it released. 'Then all of a sudden he went really weird and told me to start miming to my own recording ­ said, 'Just stand there and mime ­ they're watching us through the walls. They're watching and listening'. I've no idea who these people were. Possibly EMI, because days previously he'd pointed out to me people in cars sitting down the road, possibly with listening devices, had his place bugged, and they were watching him every time he came in and out and following him everywhere.

He got worse then and it started to play on his mind. It might well have been true and he wasn't nuts completely. I genuinely believe, even though he was going off his rocker, that there were people bugging his place. I genuinely believe it now; or whether it was the police watching his place, I've no idea. Maybe the police had it bugged; might have been the Drug Squad. 'I was recording the same song over and over and over and over again. I don't think he knew what he wasdoing at all. He was putting on a show basically for the benefit of earholes, people listening in. On the bits of paper he was writing: 'Sing it again', 'More coffee'. I had to keep going down to make coffee. The session would have been about three hours. I went to bed at midnight absolutely shagged out. 'I was in bed when he came up to get the gun. It was a single-barrel shotgun. He kept it under the bed for protection. He said, 'I'm taking this downstairs'. I never gave it a thought. 'At 8 o'clock in the morning he was still working, running tapes and things. I got up. 9 o'clock I made toast for breakfast and called him down from the studio: 'Breakfast'. He came down, drank the coffee. I don't think he ate the toast ­ pretty sure he didn't eat at all. He wouldn't talk at all. He wrote little notes, passed them over and burnt them after he'd wrote them. After he'd drunk his coffee he went out in the kitchen and had a burn-up.

First of all he was burning a lot of documents, letters and things in the kitchen; it was in a small tin dustbin. He had a bonfire in that. Angry about something ­ no idea what; he was very angry. The previous day he had just been dazed. Now he'd changed. I think he had his senses ­ I'm bloody sure he had. He was absolutely paranoid but tense and angry. He wrote two or three messages: 'They're not getting this'. 'They're not getting these'. He went mad and he wrote: 'They aren't going to f­­­­ get this', and he started to burn that painting on the wall: the one with the little black boys dancing naked round a fire. He put the painting on top of a fire ­ the two-bar fire ­ which scorched it all up. I thought it was strange but I didn't think it was coming to what happened. I thought at the time he was going out of his head and I was going to call Dr. Crispe and he stopped me. He was down for about half an hour. Then he disappeared upstairs to the studio for a little while. I thought, 'Crikey, I'll be safer to stay down here.' So I stayed downstairs. And he came back down to the living room. I think it was about quarter to ten. Give me a little note saying: 'I'm going now. Goodbye'. And I didn't know what it meant. I laughed. I thought, 'Where?' The note got burnt and upstairs he went. I thought,'Well everything's OK then.' 'Cause he was upstairs playing tapes ­ my stuff from the night before. That went on for ten to fifteen minutes. 'Then Michael arrives. Michael and Dennis ­ they'd just left school and they were looking for work, and Joe'd give them a job stacking tapes for a few days for a few quid.

There was no set hours with them or whatever; they came and they were told to piss off ­ they went; that was the arrangement. One came, just Michael. I went up the stairs to tell Joe. Michael stayed at the door. I think he sensed there was something wrong straight away. Whether he'd been there the day before when I'd not been around, I don't know. Whether he knew there was something going on, I don't know, but he knew there was something wrong straight away. He said, 'Is it all right?' I went up to the landing and said, 'Michael's here.' I didn't actually see Joe at that point; he was in the control room. He called out: 'Tell him to f­­­­ off ­ get rid of him', but I'd already started coming downstairs having told him that Michael was here. Then he came to the top of the landing and looked down on me, and said, 'Get Mrs. Shenton up here.' I in turn said to Michael, 'Joe don't want you today. Do us a favour, tell Mrs. Shenton to come up for me'. 'She came up and she came to me. I was in the room before the office, the waiting room, more or less at the bottom of the stairs. She said, 'What's up?' I said, 'I don't know. Joe wants you'. I took her two or three steps up. She said, 'Oh, hold this for me a minute. I don't like to smoke up there.' I took her cigarette off her, she went on her way upstairs and I went in the office. I think she said, 'Hallo Joe, how are you?' and all the usual rubbish 'cause she did ask me what sort of mood he's in. I said, 'He's in a bad mood again'. I thought everything's going to be OK now; she'll calm him down.

Within about half a minute there was a lot of shouting. It was after I put the cigarette out. I was walking back in the living room when I heard him say, 'Have you got the book?' God knows what it was: probably the rent book or rates book or lease or something. He shouted it very sternly. They weren't both shouting, just him. I think she said, 'I haven't got it with me; I'll bring it in tomorrow', and asked him if he'd like to come down for a cup of tea and a chat. The shouting went on for a couple of minutes, I think. It was all him; he was getting frantic. I was trying to eavesdrop on the conversation, being the nosy kind of person that I am, walking to and fro, but I didn't hear very much. 'I was in the office when I heard a big bang. I didn't know what it was. It was such a f­­­­ big bang, I was stunned. I rushed out and she was falling downstairs and I sort of grabbed her as she came to the bottom, and felt her. I was sitting on the stairs with her flapped over me. I wondered what it was for a minute. Then I saw the blood pouring out of these little holes in her back. And she died in my arms ­ I'm bloody positive she went still. I had quite a bit of blood over me. Her back was just smoking. He must have been close range, he must have been right at her back. I held her in my arms; clearly there was nothing I could do.

She was dead as far as I was concerned and I sort of pushed her over and I shouted out, 'She's dead'. Joe was leaning over the landing banister and I thought I was next. He just had a stony-faced cold look. 'A few moments later I rushed halfway upstairs and looked across the landing and caught sight of Joe outside the control room and I think he was reloading, and before I could get at him he'd pulled the trigger on himself, and there was Joe's body with his head like a burnt candle. Blood everywhere, including over me as well; I was treading in blood . . .' 1 Bumpy Beginnings Newent is a small country town. It lies midway between Gloucester and Ross-on-Wye on the edge of the famous Forest of Dean. Nowadays it is more of a tourist trap than anything else, offering holidaymakers a bit of history and ample rambles, one of which climbs to the top of nearby May Hill where you can view ten counties. Quaint, twisting streets with mellowed brick houses lead to the Market Square and Newent's prize attraction and symbol of the past: a 16th century Market Hall on oaken 'stilts'. In spite of its name Newent is old, dating back at least to pre-Saxon times, and during the Middle Ages it rose to fame as one of the main Market Towns in North-west Gloucestershire; Welsh farmers used it regularly as the next stop after Ross-on-Wye on their trek to the Gloucester cattle market.

But that is all a long time ago, and apart from a few skirmishes in the Civil War and the church roof falling in soon after a service in 1674, not much has happened since. It has lost most of its former glory as a Market Town and, though the farming tradition continues, the town's revenue now depends on sightseers passing through rather than sheep. The present population has swelled to 6,000 but the Newent of 1929 had less than half that and everyone knew everyone. At No.1 Market Square on April 5 that year Robert George Meek was born. He was the second son of Alfred George Meek, better known as George, and Evelyn Mary, better known as Biddy. They were living in a rented 3-storey terraced house with George's mother. George was running a fish and chip shop but had aspirations towards owning property; although the Meek family had been settled in the area for the past 100 years they had never been landowners, and he had plans to change all that. His three brothers had been killed during World War I, whilst he himself had been invalided out a month before Armistice Day with shrapnel wounds and suffering from shellshock. His £400 disability grant had given him independence and paid for four acres of pasture-land and some cows; the milk he had driven around the village with a horse and cart, ladling it out of a bucket. This was to be the first of a long string of jobs for George. After a while he had grown bored with it, so decided to hang up his ladle and run a taxi service instead.

Then it was in 1927 at the age of 30 that he had met his bride-to-be at a local dance. Biddy Birt had been a 24 year old teacher from a large family in Huntley, in the Forest of Dean, and she had taught all subjects and played the piano in the primary school there. They made an unlikely pair: George, a tallish, stout fellow of 15 stone; Biddy, a frail 5'1'. He was a typical farming type, outspoken and free with his fists, whereas she was quiet and persevering. When she gave up her teaching career to marry him she could not have picked a more appropriate name for herself. They set up home in Huntley with Biddy's father, whom she was nursing through the last months of a terminal illness. Then when he died, George brought her home to live with his mother at the Market Square. It was at this time that they had had their first child, Arthur, who was named after one of the sons George's mother had lost during the War. A year later their next child Robert was born. He in turn was nicknamed by George's mother after another son she had lost: Joe. The name stuck. As is the case with many mothers whose first child is a son, Biddy had set her heart on a daughter next. So when Joe arrived she tempered her disappointment by treating him as one. He was given dolls to play with, his hair grew long and he was kept mainly in dresses till starting school at 4. His mother had intended sending him as a girl but when he realized certain irregularities his protests to her got him into shorts just in time. The first few years for the blue-eyed, brown-haired boy were marked by a series of moves as his father slipped ever hopefully from one job to the next.

From postman to bookie to fish and chip merchant to butcher, he went on to move the family over to Bussage on the other side of Gloucester where he had five lorries hauling sheep flock up to London, and rags back down to the paper mill at Stroud. Then they moved to nearby Churchdown, and there was just enough time for Joe to start school at the primary before the family were whisked back to Newent for another round of fish and chips. By this time they had added two more children to the fold: Eric in 1932 and Pamela in 1934. But for Joe, 1934 was more significant as the year he first showed an interest in music. Although the Meeks were hardly a musical family (in spite of Biddy's talent for playing the piano, the twin devils of no piano to play and no time to play it anyway had effectively put paid to that), Joe had heard enough on the wireless to warrant his clamouring for a gramophone, and mentioned it on a private recording of his life story several years later: 'It was one of those toy gramophones with a celluloid soundbox and a key to wind it up. And I remember I'd seen it in a shop window and asked for it for Christmas; and as quite often happens my wish came true and I got this gramophone for Christmas with some children's records. I used to play this all the time, and it was quite obvious to my parents that this fascinated me, and when I was 7 years old they bought me a proper gramophone: a portable type that used to be very popular about twenty years ago.

At this time I used to be fascinated with making things out of shoe boxes like puppet shows and slot machines and all sorts of things, and I used to try and experiment with my gramophone, and I discovered if you played the record at the end on the run-out groove you could shout down the sound chamber and the sound would be imprinted in the grooves. And I thought that I'd discovered something marvellous, and of course I was really doing just what Edison had discovered years before.' The following year his passion for messing around with bits and pieces brought him his first electrical success when he and a school-friend, Gerald Beachus, rigged up a light in his grandmother's garden shed. Over the years, Granny Meek's house at the Market Square had often been a handy refuge in between moves, and they were now living with her on a permanent basis. She had given Joe the shed, a converted cowshed at the bottom of the garden, and whenever time allowed he would be hidden away in there wiring and rewiring. But at the age of 8 he thought of something that would put him right in the limelight. From watching the local amateur dramatics he hit on the idea of staging his own Saturday afternoon shows for children in Newent.

His only previous stage experience had been a fleeting appearance with Arthur, two years before, as a pixie: during an evening of singing and recitals at the Churchdown Mission Room they had been in a sketch called 'Daffodils and Pixies' in which they danced around some mushrooms. Now it was Joe who was calling the tune and he encouraged other children to bring along fancy clothes to the shed, where they would enact scenes from the plays they had seen or anything he had thought up. A neighbour of theirs, Mrs. Gladys Dallow, recalls: 'He was always with girls, and whenever possible he'd be always dressing up in a woman's clothes. Sometimes his mother wouldn't allow him to have hers but his old granny would say, 'Don't you worry Joe, you can have mine.' He loved dressing up and having an audience, and he used to look quite nice. He looked like a girl and he used to prance about with a theatrical touch and flowing skirts.' They often staged shows close by in the old cattle market, but with other youngsters around like John Bisco, who was certainly not a member of their guild of players, it could be a risky business: 'He was always dressing up as a girl, pratting about, and we played hell with him. We'd try to mess everything up and pull his leg and chase him.' If there were rehearsals before the performance, everyone would be sworn to secrecy so neither the audience nor the John Bisco's would know what to expect.

To compensate for the colossal entrance fee of a halfpenny, a large notice was placed outside advertising the main attraction: Free Refreshments. In the interval Joe would get out his wind-up gramophone and play records. There was also a magician's act for which he would wear a tall black hat and perform conjuring tricks, and there were plays that he would make up as they went along, usually in the style of Murder In The Red Barn. Anything with a bit of stabbing in was especially popular; indeed, his two favourite subjects were mystery and witches, and he did not have to look far for inspiration. It was a highly superstitious area, particularly in the huge Forest of Dean with its thousands of acres of woodland where witchcraft was rife. Perhaps due to the forest's relative isolation some parts have barely altered during the past 150 years, and in nearby Lassington Wood witches' covens are reputed to be around to this day. Witching in the Middle Ages was punishable by death, and there are said to have been hangings and burnings in the area ­ some as close by as Newent Market Square where Joe was now living. Stories of mystery proliferated, mainly of ghosts still keeping up regular appearances ever since the Civil War: the man in the old Tan Yard who was seen walking around without his head; the woman in white who caused a car crash on Ross Road; of nearby Conigree Court, where 'all sorts of things have been seen'. Besides those, there were also the more current goings-on such as the gypsy who had recently been found hanging in Highnam Wood and the headless torso that had been fished out of the river at Haw Bridge. And of course, there was the most famous story of all: that of Dick Whittington, three times Lord Mayor of London, who in 1371 had set off on his travels from up the road at Pauntley.

Joe lapped it all up and it provided him with a rich source of material. It was quite clear by now to whom he owed certain aspects of his character. Although he had inherited a singlemindedness from his father, as well as the fiery temper ­ 'with a fuse so short it was nearly non-existent' ­ his father was nonetheless easygoing, whereas Joe would launch into each new activity with a passion bordering on obsession. And in contrast to his father he was shy and had a strong instinct towards being on his own; after school he would race home, not to play with friends as his brothers did, but to tinker and tamper alone in the shed. Even his mother who was a very hardworking woman lacked Joe's dedication, but it was to her that he felt closest. Unlike his brothers he was not turning out to be the robust son his father expected of him, and it was to her that he looked for love and affection. But he could not monopolize her time. There were three other children, a husband and an aging mother-in-law besides Joe, plus all the responsibilities that being a wife and mother entailed. And there was something else. The £400 grant George received for his disability was little consolation for the suffering he and his family would have to endure as a result of his injuries.

The horrors he had undergone whilst serving in the Royal Field Artillery in Belgium's bloodbath at Passchendaele, culminating in a terrifying experience when his horse was blown up beneath him while transporting a field gun, had profound effects which would stay with him for life. After the War, it was to be a full five years before he left military hospital to return to his mother, and then again he had to acclimatize. Violent outbursts of rage in which he would smash anything that came to hand were only gradually overcome by his mother's firmly tolerant understanding. Helping him out with his milk round and generally shielding him from life's trials she had been able to ease his anguish. And she was no stranger to such frowns of fortune. Her husband Charlie had emigrated to Canada just before George was born, leaving her behind with nine children and sixpence to feed them on. He had promised to send for her as soon as he had bettered himself as a lumberjack. He never did, but sent money instead. Bringing up the children alone as well as she did earned her the accolade of 'a better woman never walked in a pair of shoes'. She had hoped that when George got married he would stay in good health, and for a while he did, but he found he had to avoid jobs which entailed taking orders. It might have been a direct result of his other bitter experience in the War when shortly before receiving his injuries he had been ordered to step up and replace his dying brother on the field gun.

More significantly, as the pressures of family life grew, so once again did his problem. Joe's schoolfriend and confidant Gerald Beachus would sometimes hear about it from Joe: 'Every now and again things would set him off. Maybe a door would bang and that would take him back to the Somme, and he'd go a little bit crazy ­ shouting and raving. Joe's mother would get the brunt of that. I think she was like in fear of him because she didn't want to upset him to start him off. Either she'd manage to get him shut in the bedroom and everyone would get out of the way and leave him to calm down or the doctor would turn up and give him a pill or a shot in the arm. He could be violent. But he would never touch the old granny, his mother; the old granny could talk to him as her son and she could get him to do what she wanted him to do. Then if he didn't calm down within a certain period the doctor would come, who knew of course all about him. Sometimes he would be in this state for a week or ten days. Then once he'd come round he'd be perfectly back to normal. But it only took that little thing to set him off. I wasn't allowed to knock at the door in case it brought on another attack. Instead Joe would call round to me or we'd arrange a time for me to be outside his door.

He used to say, 'You mustn't tell anybody because they'll think he's mad.' But it was virtually a war injury, so they called it 'shell-shocked'.''1 On the other hand, unless he was crossed George was one of the most generous men around, handing out money to anyone in need or giving fruit away to children. But at home he was very much in charge. As one of their neighbours puts it: 'He was the dominant lord and master; he'd speak and she'd jump.' George's symptoms were not continuous but they did occur with sufficient frequency to warrant caution from the family. Although Biddy understood him and worshipped the ground he walked on, the children were often frightened of him. Their young, impressionable minds could obviously be affected in many ways: for Arthur and Eric, both hardy, down-to-earth lads, it served to toughen them up; Joe was softened. It alienated him from his father and pushed him nearer his mother. And very subtly he absorbed some more of the Meek temper. He was a strange mixture of jovial Joe and melancholy Meek. When he was happy there was no one around who could laugh more.

As one of his schoolfellows explains: 'Joe found things funny. He had a great sense of humour and was quite a giggler. We would laugh at him rather than with him, but he'd take it in good heart.' This feeling of being different, coupled with his determination to follow his own controversial pursuits, could not help but distance him from other boys of his age. If he wanted to play-act a wizard in his shed or parade in front of an audience, then all around him had a good time, but others said it was girlish and called him a cissie; if 1 Refers to surplus detail in the Appendix, which would otherwise hold up the story. he spent spare time pottering about alone in the shed, then he felt better occupied than playing marbles outside or running about with the boys, but this was deemed unnatural and labelled him an 'outer'. And even when he did make the effort to join them, perhaps for swimming, he would sometimes get scragged by other boys removing his swimming trunks and covering him in mud, baiting and baiting him till he blew his top. Of course, all this teasing, along with the obvious contrast between himself and his brothers, served to underline for him a fact he was becoming only too aware of: that he was the odd one out at home and one of the odd ones out in the town.

Being called a cissie naturally upset him, and for a sensitive home-loving mother's boy it presented all sorts of difficulties. He would go to his mother for comfort but could not always depend upon getting it. His mother was a sweet woman with a special fondness for him, but he sometimes put her in a tricky position. She had to exercise discretion when she gave him affection and soothing words, for should she be seen doing so in George's presence, this would be looked upon as namby pambying him, making him even more unmanly, and George wanted his sons men. Added to this, Joe was a little spoilt by her and though he was generally as good as gold and, unlike his naughty brothers, never caned in his life he sometimes behaved in a spoilt manner. Arthur would not always tolerate this behaviour, and being a strong, hardy youngster and the kind of country lad who walked around with a ferret in his coat pocket, was in a position to make his opinions felt. For this reason Joe did not usually get on well with him, and although Arthur got him out of many a scrape at school, he was just as likely to send him home crying to his mother. By the same token she could not take sides with Joe against Arthur in the presence of her husband for fear of upsetting him.

In Arthur the firstborn, George saw himself, so Arthur was his favourite. Pam, being the only girl, was spoilt by everyone. So, if Biddy played the devil's advocate and her judgment swung in favour of Arthur, Joe would feel betrayed. He was becoming frightfully sensitive and would withdraw into himself and seek solace amongst his wires and batteries. He had only two good friends and even them he saw little. Jean Trig, for a while his childhood sweetheart, and Gerald Beachus both shared an interest in his electrics and dramatics, and sometimes Gerald, another loner, would manage to get him out for more regular boyish exploits such as climbing trees and building dens in the woods, swimming and catching sticklebacks. In spite of George's dark cloud hanging ominously over them the family were happy together.

However, work was the order of the day, and for Biddy in particular life was one long slog. Family outings in the Buick to Weston-super-Mare were few and far between and happy times together stemmed mainly from working together, and now they were all hard at it in George's newly acquired orchards. George's itchy feet had walked him out of his fish and chip shop and into the fruit trade. From the farmers he had started buying up fruit crops in orchards sometimes 20­30 miles away, and employed half a dozen pickers to harvest apples, cherries, pears and plums, all of which he sold to wholesalers at Gloucester market. This took him through the summer, while the remaining months were spent competing with other locals in brewing and selling cider, and buying and selling at auctions, where he would pick up anything from farm implements and bric-à-brac to entire libraries. Such wondrous enterprise would have been highly commended by Winston Churchill's Conservative Party but did tend to worry Biddy who was less optimistic about her husband's varied venture

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