Herbette Chapman - aged 15
11-20-2012, 10:14 PM
to work the West End every other weekend on Emergency standby. It was a cold, wet typical London Sunday evening and I'd parked up with a Maccy D and a coffee for a bit respite. Back then, even the West End still became very quiet on a Sunday Night (pubs still had to shut at 10.30).
Although I knew more I less where I was, as in close to Piccadilly Circus, I had just crept into a random sidestreet to munch down me burger. I was idly staring through the rain on my windscreen and the hairs on my feckin neck stood up. I was right there in the cover of "The Rise and Fall". I mean in exactly the right place. The light, the weather, the time of day were all perfect. The only thing missing were the cardboard boxes and the Thin White Duke himself.
I sheepishly got out of my van to look closer, like an explorer who'd stumbled into a painted cave, and found that the brickwork around the entrance to 21 had been carved with tributes to Bowie by people from all over the world. They were all datestamped and the first person to leave his mark just said "The Cracked Actor got here first 1978".
When I'd been in Germany I became friends with a brilliant drummer, Gaz Lincoln, who went on to become quite well known in that country. We had been Bowie afficianodos and had spent hours listening to the great man and musing over that album cover. This was in the days when we all looked for 'messages' on album sleeves and we were quite intrigued to note that K.WEST could be spoken as Quest. It had to mean something!
So when he came to visit me in 86 I decided to take him there without letting on what was afoot to give him the same view I had encountered. Sadly, some fúckwit had ripped down the big yellow K.WEST sign. We toyed with pinching the brass plaque but decided not to spoil it for anyone else making the pilgrimage.
Although I knew more I less where I was, as in close to Piccadilly Circus, I had just crept into a random sidestreet to munch down me burger. I was idly staring through the rain on my windscreen and the hairs on my feckin neck stood up. I was right there in the cover of "The Rise and Fall". I mean in exactly the right place. The light, the weather, the time of day were all perfect. The only thing missing were the cardboard boxes and the Thin White Duke himself.
I sheepishly got out of my van to look closer, like an explorer who'd stumbled into a painted cave, and found that the brickwork around the entrance to 21 had been carved with tributes to Bowie by people from all over the world. They were all datestamped and the first person to leave his mark just said "The Cracked Actor got here first 1978".
When I'd been in Germany I became friends with a brilliant drummer, Gaz Lincoln, who went on to become quite well known in that country. We had been Bowie afficianodos and had spent hours listening to the great man and musing over that album cover. This was in the days when we all looked for 'messages' on album sleeves and we were quite intrigued to note that K.WEST could be spoken as Quest. It had to mean something!
So when he came to visit me in 86 I decided to take him there without letting on what was afoot to give him the same view I had encountered. Sadly, some fúckwit had ripped down the big yellow K.WEST sign. We toyed with pinching the brass plaque but decided not to spoil it for anyone else making the pilgrimage.