Roy and Nick Harper on 58 Fordwych Road.
The flat 58 Fordwych Road was where Roy lived back in the sixties. It was a meeting place for all the bohemian folkies of the sixties. Everyone used to gather, artists, singer-songwriters and friends. We’d sit around, casually, usually on the floor, sharing a jay, talking, playing music, sharing stories, laughing about things. The kind of thing that everyone did back in the day. Talking about the things that interested us from music, beat poetry to reality and life. A relaxed, friendly atmosphere. People would drop in, stay for a while and toodle off. Sometimes Roy would have a Kodak slide carousel projecting photos he’d taken on the wall. They were of birds and nature. He was always keen on birds and nature. I was at college and most of the people there were, like Roy, a few years older than me. They’d travelled and done things. They’d read the poetry and seen the world, heard the music and achieved things. I spent a lot of time listening and gobbling up the tales. There was a lot of laughter. Good times.
Roy lived in that flat with Mocy and Nick. Nick was only a toddler. If I went round in the daytime he was there and would always greet me with a big hug. In the evening he’d be safe and snug in the bedroom while the gatherings took place.
Nick shared some of his memories with me:
Extract from Nick Harper: The Wilderness Years
‘I was told I used to lie on the floor in front of the speakers from the hi-fi with the music blaring out, lying on the carpet with the various clouds of nefarious substances blowing around the room. I know that the great and good of the folk scene were there quite often but I don’t remember them. It was said that Paul Simon looked in at me while I was in my cot at one point. Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Jackson C Frank and Davey Graham were there quite a lot. So they all knew me from the year dot. I don’t remember them. I’ve met them all since.’
‘I remember the animals though. There was this chameleon that used to sit on a bare light bulb in the middle of the living room and flick its tongue at passing flies. There was a spider monkey that was a mad thing that used to run around the flat. It shouldn’t have been there really. We had two Chinese robins that used to sing this tune that Dad would whistle and sit on the tap when they wanted to drink. You turned on the tap and they’d drink from it. It is a strange thing. Nowadays when I go to put food on the bird-table I always whistle that same tune….. I thought Dad had made it up but it’s a thing from the fifties – ‘Watch it boys here comes a copper’. My daughter is convinced that a mistle thrush (stormcock) sings that song in the garden. It’s a weird feeling to think that that little tune has found its way from London in the Sixties to Wiltshire in 2015! But they were strange Bohemian times.’
Nick Harper: The Wilderness Years: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781678850661: Books