Well I suppose I have had a pretty exciting life in my way, it doesn’t seem it to me but let’s see what you think...so let’s start with...
JOHN LENNON….now back in the early 60s I was a young dress designer. I had flowers in my hair AND I went to IBZIA most weekends! My showroom was in Margaret Street in the centre of the ‘rag trade.’ My clothes were for sale worldwide. The magazines were always full of photographs of my collections.
I would insist upon going to all the Vogue photo shoots to see that my designs were being displayed properly. So of course, I met many of the famous photographers like Bailey, John French, Helmut Newton, and Cecil Beaton. Perhaps at the time it was just work but now I think about it…wow!
Now you must understand that I am a ‘workaholic,’ long story, for another time. So I would start work about 8 in the morning and finish about 10 or 11pm most nights…and sometimes I worked throughout the night. If I was trying to finish a collection for America or it was British Fashion week.
My motto then was...’sleep! Who needs sleep!’
At the time I was going out with a well-known hairdresser and he, like me, worked long hours but Friday nights was ‘our night!’ We both lived in the Kensington Church Street area. We were quite happy with our relationship; we were not in love, but we had fun together. Every Friday, about 9pm we would meet at Tattoo, a very trendy Italian restaurant just off Ken High Street. We sat in the same seat every Friday and at the end of the meal the waiter would bring me a plate of Cape Gooseberries covered in pink icing sugar…to win my heart!!!
Then, several Whiskies later, before breathalysers, we drove to our favourite night club….the AD LIB in Charles Street not far from Piccadilly Circus. The club was on the top floor. This was not just a club; this was a club that only accepted what nowadays would be called ‘A list’ members.
Get in the lift, press the button, and leave your brain behind! When the doors opened at the top the music was deadening, the smoke filled your lungs, and it would take a few minutes before your eyes adjusted to the darkness. This was where you went if you didn’t want to be seen, where the pop stars brought their latest ‘lay,’ or where you would hang around hoping to get to chat to Mick, from the Stones, or Paul, from the Beatles. We were always greeted by lovely Brian Morris, and he would usher us to OUR table, that was either beside the Beatles table, if they were in that night, or their table if they were on tour.
A bottle of Whiskey arrived on the table without ordering and then Eddie and I would take to the floor. We both loved dancing, he often danced with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth which in those days was quite a turn on! We danced for about half an hour and then, if the music was just right, I would generally end up dancing on the table. I often danced with Marylin Rickard, they say she had an affair with Peter Sellers, but who knows, but she loved dancing on tables too…don’t ask me why we did it!
That evening Vidal Sassoon was in the club, and he came to our table to have a chat with Eddie. A few years before Vidal, Eddie and Gerald Austen, all Barbers from the East End, decided to come ‘up West’ to work in woman’s hairdressing. All three were very successful, all of them had great followers. Vidal asked to dance with me and afterwards said to Eddie. “ You do realise you have the sexiest woman in the whole club!” What me?!
We danced a bit more and were laughing at Ringo’s dancing effort. He danced like a boxer; I don’t think it ever caught on!
Anyway one evening having had rather a lot of Whiskey and sitting beside Ringo and his girlfriend, I think her name was Maureen, someone shouted THE CONGA. Everybody jumped up and started to do the Conga. We were all rather drunk, but we were having fun. Someone pinched my bottom and said, ”pass it on’” so I did….to a rather nice bottom I thought at the time, so I did it again. THEN, the man turned around ….it was JOHN LENNON! He was laughing so much, and he kept saying “again, again!” So we went up and around the club with me pinching away. At last the music stopped and John and I collapsed into chairs still laughing. John called over the waiter and ordered something then asked me what I wanted. I looked at the menu but as it was so dark I couldn’t see it, so John handed me a pair of his horn-rimmed glasses. We chatted a bit and then I noticed Eddie was looking daggers at John, so we parted. Later I asked Ringo where John was, and he said he had ‘gone on!’ Perhaps to the ‘Crazy E’ or another club but I still had John’s glasses. I asked Ringo to return them to him and he just said, “keep them, he has dozens of them”
So I did! I had those glasses for 30 years in my top drawer, my knicker drawer. Only a couple of years ago I decided to put them up for auction along with my AD LIB membership card and the menu with all the Beatles' signatures.
Silly really, I wish I hadn’t sold them, but I suppose one must move on…
