Wylding Hall

Chapter 17

Will

Oh yeah — Windhollow Faire, the missing years. None of us actually disappeared, you know, except for Julian. Me and Nancy split up a year after Wylding Hall. Les was still living with us in Brixton and something was bound to happen. I mean, Les was seventeen and at the height of her beauty. Who could resist her?

We all handled it in relatively civilized fashion. Nancy moved out and Les stayed on. After the first year or two, the dust settled. We’d see each other at parties or gigs and it seemed kind of futile to pretend we didn’t know each other. Far too much water under the bridge for that. We’re closer now than we were then — Nancy is like a sister to me and Les.

It was a bit more sketchy with the others, Ashton in particular. He couldn’t forgive us for not performing as Windhollow Faire, especially when Les and I formed Greenleaves and had a hit with “Copredy Carnival.” He went on to do a lot of session work, a lot of jazz recordings. Good bassists are scant on the ground. We made it up eventually, and we’re all good friends now, but there were years we didn’t speak to each other.

Jonno struck off on his own and joined the Blazing Hammers. Got back to his rock and roll roots. They’ve kept him busy ever since, still draw a crowd in some places — they’re big in Brazil.

Nance moved to Florida years ago, to a tiny village called Cassadaga. A spiritualist community, psychics and witches and what-have-you. Mediums. She makes a good living from it, and I say more power to her. Les and I have visited several times and it’s lovely. Palm trees, not too far from Daytona Beach. She does readings online and over the phone; you should check out her website — oakenashes.com

Jonno

Billy and I stayed in touch over the years. He comes up to London whenever the Hammers play, saw us overseas when he was on holiday. He’s an estate agent in the village now. It’s become a big place for retirees and second homes. He’s done quite well. He knows the area like the back of his hand, knows everyone in town.

The photos were just a flash in the pan. He never pursued it, far as I know. It would be an expensive hobby for a farm boy. When Barry and I started looking for a place outside of London, we called him up and ended up getting our house through him. So, now we see him and his boyfriend quite often. I was down in the spring, and that’s when he told me about the construction at Wylding Hall.

Billy

Wylding Hall has absentee owners now; they live in Dubai. I keep an eye on the place for them. They want to put plumbing in the old wing, but they needed to get permission from the local council before they started tearing up the grounds. Some of the old-timers don’t like the idea. I know my granddad wouldn’t have approved.

Tom

I worked out a deal with Billy Thomas. I paid him outright for fair use of his photograph on the album cover, a quite decent sum for an amateur. Then I paid him another thousand quid to hand over the negatives and the original prints. He asked me what I was going to do with them. I said I’d keep them, all except for the last two. Those I intended to destroy.

He didn’t put up any argument. He’d seen the pictures — for all I knew, he might have known something about that girl. Local knowledge. Whatever his reasons, he had no objection to the terms of our deal. A thousand pounds was a huge amount of money in 1972. I hadn’t exactly set him up for life, but the money gave him a stake for whatever he wanted to do after school.

He didn’t seem like the uni type, so I suggested he take some of it and travel once he’d graduated. He did — knocked around Europe for a while on a Eurail pass; I think he went down to Tangier at one point. Settled in London for a few years, then decamped back to his hometown and hung out a shingle as an estate agent.

I destroyed the photos — but only the last two. Set them on fire that afternoon in the Moonthunder office, right after the others left. Burned them in the waste bin. A terrible stink they made, too.

There’s no chance I’ll forget what they looked like. That girl’s face is burned into my mind’s eye like a hot spark. I could see her clear as yesterday if I closed my eyes and thought about it. But you couldn’t pay me enough money to do that, ever.