My Arm Around a Rolling Stone
I used to spend my Saturday afternoons with my arm around a Rolling Stone. Yes it is true. Then later we would strip naked and indulge in a hot bath before imbibing copious amounts of beer.
This was my early life as a hooker.
I used to play rugby. I was good at it. I not only played for my school first team for three years but I was picked to play for Esher Schoolboys. We went on tour and played Saracens, Wasps, Rosslyn Park, Richmond and London Irish. They were tough competitive matches. I played against the England Schoolboy’s hooker.
But for fun, when I was seventeen, I played for a local club called The University Vandals. The emphasis was more on enjoyment rather than winning. We were the rebel club that had broken away from the posh oiks. The games were hard and competitive but there was not the slickness or win-at-all-costs attitude that had pissed me off with Esher. The after match beer was as important as the match.
I was ideal as a hooker. I was small, nippy and quick. I could strike quickly and win that ball. I wasn’t afraid.
To give me the base to work from I needed two sturdy, burly props. They had to be big, solid and build like brick shit-houses. I was lucky. I had two. Ian and Bill. They were as tough as they come and their job was to give me the platform to strike for that ball. They took it seriously. They were twice my size and they looked after me.
Ian had another life. He was an exceptional pianist.
Where his craggy looks and large squat frame did not look the image for Pop Stardom they were ideal as a rugby union prop forward.
Ian Stewart was the pianist with the Rolling Stones. Andrew Loog Oldham had taken one look at him and decided that, with his craggy jaw and short hair, there was no way the teenage girls were going to want to rip his clothes off. He might be a brilliant pianist but he did not suit the image. He was dropped. Except he wasn’t. He did not appear in the credits. He was not officially part of the band, he was not mentioned or photographed with the long-hair, surly crew. The albums were devoid of his image or name. Yet Ian played on those albums. He even accompanied the band, acting as a driver and roadie and playing piano invisibly from the wings.
Perhaps that was just the way he liked it? He was anonymous. He was able to play the music he loved without all the restrictions of fame. He would never have been able to play rugby on Saturday afternoon if he was ‘one of the boys’.
I drifted off to college and left my rugby in my past.
I no longer spent my Saturday afternoons being in a tight clinch with a Rolling Stone.
It wasn’t until a good twenty years later that I noticed that Ian had formed his own band. He was touring and playing the R&B music that he loved. The band were called Rocket 88. They played in Hull and I was going to see them. Not only were they playing that great R&B music I loved but I had hopes of seeing Stu and having a natter about the days of the vandals.
Something came up and I missed it. But that was OK. I’d catch him next time.
Except that sometimes there is no next time. Stu died prematurely of a heart attack. I never got to have that talk and share another beer.
Stu was a great cheerful man with a warm heart. I have fond memories. It is a shame I did not get to see him again.
One lesson to be learnt is that we should always seize our opportunities while we can. We might not get them again.