The 1961 Landscape

[Limehouse]

Hi Limehouse

Yes, a very nice version. Grieg's music for the Woodentops was good too.

Stephen, that record kept T Rex off the top of the charts in 1971.

Lovely Robert. And of course - Mrs Scrubbit was a great inspiration to me. Her and Eric Arthur Blair.

[Stephen Thomas]

Stephen, that record kept T Rex off the top of the charts in 1971.

Robert

Between you and me, I played piano in a group in 1965/66 led by Steve Curry who was a genius musician who later became the T Rex bassist. One time we were supporting a Manchester group called Herman and the Hermits and we weren't much impressed by them but the next week they went to America and became bigger than The Beatles.

[Robert]

Ah, Steve Curry. Bolan was a bit mean with money, wasn't he - I don't imagine he earned much from T Rex.

I was a bit young for protest marches but I did make the odd attempt to be hip e.g. sticking my comb in the back pocket of my jeans. But after I sat down, the comb became all bent and warped because it was a plastic one. So I bought a steel one but that was a pain - when I sat on it the teeth dug into my backside and I had pimples there for a while afterwards.

[The Grave Maurice]

Perhaps more information than we needed, Robert.

[Limehouse]

Robert

Between you and me, I played piano in a group in 1965/66 led by Steve Curry who was a genius musician who later became the T Rex bassist. One time we were supporting a Manchester group called Herman and the Hermits and we weren't much impressed by them but the next week they went to America and became bigger than The Beatles.

Hi Stephen

Herman (Peter Noon) was very pretty but I thought they were a bit soft. You did well to support them though because they were hugely successful.

I never appreciated T Rex in my teens. I Liked their music but could not tolerate their daft lyrics. I took my music very seriously in those days! Now - with hindsite - I can see how clever they were. They can't touch Bowie for talent and innovation thouigh.

[Robert]

I found just trying to make out what the T Rex lyrics were, was an impossible challenge. I think that the first time Tony Visconti heard Bolan sing, he thought he was singing in a foreign language, and I'm not surprised. Now with the aid of the internet I can find out what these words actually were.

I used to think that Bolan was singing "She hangs on a winch and I love the way she twitch." I knew it was strange, but what else could it be?

Bowie's lyrics were all printed on the inner sleeve, until Diamond Dogs. There are still parts of that where I don't know what on earth he's going on about.

[Natalie Severn]

The other 1961 "MAN IN a MASK"

On the other thread I was discussing the scandal of the century that finally broke in 1963.However this huge scandal that rocked the entire nation had been the subject of press gossip as early as 1961.It began with rumours about Cabinet ministers in Macmillan"s government cavorting about at parties-one of them alleged to have become very famous--or infamous, for attending them entirely in the buff-- save for a mask covering his entire face.Headlines started to appear asking who the "man in the mask" might be!
The subject of the mystery man"s identity however, became subsumed by the real scandal of the century ,the one that brought down even the Prime Minister Macmillan and his War Minister ,Profumo because Profumo had rather foolishly "lied in Parliament" about his relationship with Christine Keeler his young and beautiful "playmate" at the wild parties .The problem was that Christine was simultaneously having an affair with a Russian Spy [ as well as a Soho gangster] while her pal Mandy Rice Davies was having a scene with the notorious landlord and racketeer--also a habitue of the Soho nightclub scene, Rachman.
Returning to the identity of the mystery man,the old rumours resurfaced in plentiful supply after Macmillan"s fall from grace,that the "man in the mask",party goer and man in the buff, was Rab Butler,the then Home Secretary no less.The man whose refusal of a reprieve for James Hanratty caused an outcry and added significantly to the growing and powerful movement to abolish hanging.
However some years later Lord Denning conducted an inquiry into the Profumo scandal as it became known and apparently he interviewed various cabinet ministers some of whose heads had already rolled along with Profumo"s and the Prime Minister"s.He concluded that the "man in the mask" was not a cabinet minister and therefore, by implication, it was not Rab Butler.Nevertheless the stress of having been fingered so viciously by press gossip must surely have impacted on his reputation over the two years it had been circulating,at least internally, and possibly on the full attention he was able to give to his job in February/March 1962, as a "reprieve" was, in fact, expected to be on the cards for Hanratty.The rumour about the then Home Secretary was possibly a deliberate attempt to prevent him from becoming Prime Minister when Macmillan fell from power ---spread perhaps by the opposing camp who wanted Lord Home to become PM.
But whoever the "man in the Mask" was,he did arrive at those parties and nobody ever saw his face---and nobody has ever found out who he was!

[Robert]

Of course, Profumo went on to do a lot of social work. You might say that he was more use to society out of office than in.

[Natalie Severn]

That is true Robert-particulary his charity work at Toynbee Hall -which stands at the junction of Whitechapel High Street and Commercial Street.

[moste]

On the other thread I was discussing the scandal of the century that finally broke in 1963.However this huge scandal that rocked the entire nation had been the subject of press gossip as early as 1961.It began with rumours about Cabinet ministers in Macmillan"s government cavorting about at parties-one of them alleged to have become very famous--or infamous, for attending them entirely in the buff-- save for a mask covering his entire face.Headlines started to appear asking who the "man in the mask" might be!
The subject of the mystery man"s identity however, became subsumed by the real scandal of the century ,the one that brought down even the Prime Minister Macmillan and his War Minister ,Profumo because Profumo had rather foolishly "lied in Parliament" about his relationship with Christine Keeler his young and beautiful "playmate" at the wild parties .The problem was that Christine was simultaneously having an affair with a Russian Spy [ as well as a Soho gangster] while her pal Mandy Rice Davies was having a scene with the notorious landlord and racketeer--also a habitue of the Soho nightclub scene, Rachman.
Returning to the identity of the mystery man,the old rumours resurfaced in plentiful supply after Macmillan"s fall from grace,that the "man in the mask",party goer and man in the buff, was Rab Butler,the then Home Secretary no less.The man whose refusal of a reprieve for James Hanratty caused an outcry and added significantly to the growing and powerful movement to abolish hanging.
However some years later Lord Denning conducted an inquiry into the Profumo scandal as it became known and apparently he interviewed various cabinet ministers some of whose heads had already rolled along with Profumo"s and the Prime Minister"s.He concluded that the "man in the mask" was not a cabinet minister and therefore, by implication, it was not Rab Butler.Nevertheless the stress of having been fingered so viciously by press gossip must surely have impacted on his reputation over the two years it had been circulating,at least internally, and possibly on the full attention he was able to give to his job in February/March 1962, as a "reprieve" was, in fact, expected to be on the cards for Hanratty.The rumour about the then Home Secretary was possibly a deliberate attempt to prevent him from becoming Prime Minister when Macmillan fell from power ---spread perhaps by the opposing camp who wanted Lord Home to become PM.
But whoever the "man in the Mask" was,he did arrive at those parties and nobody ever saw his face---and nobody has ever found out who he was!

Is this thread still active?

[Robert]

Of course, Moste. Post away.

[MrBarnett]

Before we get too serious , I'd just like to say that in our family ADH was known as 'Flicker Dick'.

[Rosella]

Various people have been stated to be the Man in the Mask. Stephen Ward apparently joked (and the rumours got around) that it was the Transport Minister of the time, Marples, who was distraught about the rumours. Other people said it was film director Anthony Asquith. The people who knew the real identity of the Man are probably now all dead. The Profumo affair was certainly an extraordinary scandal, and much of it remains secret even today.

[moste]

Has anyone every given any consideration to there being a connection between "The Profumo affair. and the "James Hanratty affair"?

[moste]

Ernest Marples in "question time" (as transport minister) often referred to his interaction with the road research laboratory.
Michael Gregston was killed using the classic method of assassination known as the double tap method.
If you continue on with this line of thinking though you first have to free yourself of the concept that everything VS said after she had been exposed to superintendent Basil was etched in granite!