Nick Down the Years
Excerpt : Nick Harper: The Wilderness Years Paperback
Nick Down the Years
I first met Nick in the summer of 1968. I was a young idealist at college in London living the Sixties idyll. I had just met a mad musician called Roy Harper who invited me back to his flat in Kilburn. I did not quite know what to expect.
I rang the bell and went up the stairs.
Walking into the living room of the flat was like entering wonderland – Indian bedspreads over seats, a live chameleon on the lampshade, a picture of Mao on the chest of drawers. It was the bohemian dream.
I looked around with amazement. It was slightly different to the sparse squalor of the student bedsit I shared with my mate Pete.
Roy welcomed me with a grin and a handshake, and then sat himself on the settee next to Mocy, his wife, who gave me the warmest welcoming smile and instantly made me feel at home. She looked beautiful in an Indian print skirt. There was a relaxed atmosphere in the room.
Before I’d even sat down a small child with long fair hair came bounding across the room, flung himself wildly up into me, threw his arms around my neck and planted a great big kiss right on my lips.
Nick Harper had just introduced himself to me.
‘As for the flat in Kilburn – I left when I was four and a half – so not a lot of memories. I remember sitting in the garden downstairs where Eddy Fisher still lives. He’s been coming down to our house in Wiltshire since 1969 every Christmas and some summers and he still does. Sitting in his garden watching an aeroplane go across the sky leaving a vapour trail – for some reason that’s in my head. That’s either ‘Big Fat Silver Aeroplane’ or ‘Aeroplane’.’
‘I can remember bending down in the front garden. I was obviously very small and as I bent down there was a shard of metal from a rusty pram sticking up and I sliced my knee on it. Ran up the red vinyl stairs to Mum (who took me to hospital) and I had stitches in my leg while I watched a mobile spin above me of a donkey and a carrot. Then the nurse offered me what seemed to be a huge bucket of Dolly Mixtures, from which I was allowed to take one.’
Nick Harper: The Wilderness Years: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781678850661: Books