The trip to Cornwall finally happened. On Friday April 27 th Sulky and I spent a rainy day in Cornwall, checking out where Elvis first rehearsed with The Attractions. We went back and forth between two locations, found what we were looking for and then, unexpectedly, spent time having an online discussion about it with Bruce Thomas.
With Sulky at the wheel we arrived at 10.30 or so at the Davidstow Moor RAF memorial museum. After buying tickets we wandered around the various buildings, full of the all kinds of memorabilia from World War Two.
Precisely which building was the hall where Elvis and co. rehearsed wasn’t clear. None of the courteous staff knew. The rain and cold wind eventually decided us to just make do with having been in the vicinity and move on to Camelford , three miles away, where the musicians had been accommodated.
The accommodation had been provided by a Sue Barber, a friend of Elvis’s manager Jake Riviera. I had posted on Facebook pages related to Camelford , asking if anyone knew anything about her. Elvis & The Attractions had played at her wedding reception in the town the following January as thanks for the accommodation. I found out the venue for the reception , via a F/book response , but no contact details for Ms Barber or any details of her whereabouts.
I had written to the town’s museum – it didn’t seem to have an email address -so we went there.
http://www.bodminmoor.co.uk/ncmg/index.html
Keith there remembered my letter and suggested we go talk to Bonnie in the nearby hardware store, as she had memories of Elvis in the town. On the way back there, we stopped into the venue of the wedding reception.
http://www.camelford.org/public/darpage.php
It has changed hands a few times of the years, had been damaged by a fire and is now under new management. Arriving in there just after noon, we were the only patrons. Alice behind the bar served us drinks. After a lot of chit chat about local matters - horse riding, proposed pedestrianisation of the traffic clogged streets etc. - Sulky told her about our reason for visiting. The 1970s were clearly way before her time but she did know that the dining area in the bar was where there used to be a bar area where bands played. So that was most likely where Elvis and co. played in January 1978.
By the time we got to the hardware Bonnie had gone on lunch. Stephanie had heard about the Elvis Costello fans coming to town – clearly Keith’s enquiries had been memorable. She had some information about the hall in Davidstow , saying it was just after the museum. Someone had bought it recently and was converting it into units. We went off to have a fish ‘n chip lunch from the excellent chipper and drove back to the airfield, intending to check back, if necessary, later with Bonnie.
Back at the airfield, there was still very little evidence of a hall or even any kind of buildings that might make up a town, village or whatever. Driving on through the rain we found ourselves crisis crossing the landing strips. Reckoning there was little more we could find I got out and posed for silly photos of me ‘looking’ for the bloody place.
Circling back to the museum area, we noticed a turn to the right after it, leading to a building with cars in front of it. We turned there, intending to ask permission to park and have a last look. A man getting into a car asked if we needed help. Sulky explained and, incredibly, he said he remembered it well. As a teenager he remembered the band rehearsing – ‘making a fucking racket’ were his exact words. He pointed back to where we had turned and said that was the hall on the corner, side by side with museum buildings. He remembered seeing a van and cars , transport for the band. We were allowed park and, as the man drove away, we walked back to the hall.
There was new looking fencing around it but a gate was open. A tow truck was loading a car. The driver said the building wasn’t his but he would be there for about five minutes and we could look around while he was there. There was no way in, lots of new locks and panelling. I took photos and we left, the truck driver chaining and locking up. Such luck – five, ten minutes later we would have missed both men.
We drove back to Camelford to see Bonnie in the hardware. She remembered being a teenager at the wedding reception. Looking at my photos of the present-day bar, she pointed out where the band had played, the area now being a filled in chimney area and fitted with tables.
Sulky chatted with her about mutual friends and so on. Having a local with me proved invaluable , making people more willing to talk. She then brought up the elusive Sue Barber. Without going into specifics, she said she has been reliable informed that Ms Barber is now in Canada.
Leaving Camelford we went on then to see the location of the studio where Elvis and co. most likely recorded for a day after the week of rehearsals.
https://ianduryauthor.wordpress.com/201 ... ecordings/
We found it and knocked on the door, wanting to ask permission to photograph and see around a barn that was most likely the studio area. The lady who answered politely denied permission. Sulky again used his local charm to get her chatting. It turned out that she is involved in what sounds like a tricky situation as regards possible sale of the premises. She had bad memories of the studio operators. Her father had always found it difficult to get payment of rent and the place had been in left in awful condition. The barn, where recording happened, is now used for chickens and fowl. She reckoned there was nothing worth seeing in there as regards any studio fittings etc. .
Just before arriving at that location I had posted two photos on Instagram, of me in the middle of a runway ‘looking’ for the hall and of me outside the hall, with a caption saying I was ‘looking for and finding the aircraft hangar where Elvis etc. had rehearsed in 1977. That had also appeared on my Facebook page. Driving away from studio location I noticed there were notifications. Among them were ones from
Bruce Thomas, who follows me on f/book. He corrected my description of the rehearsal location, saying it wasn’t an aircraft hangar, but a hall. He attached a page, which I already had, of his log of band activities in July 1977. I accepted the correction and commented on the location of the wedding reception in Comerford. As we drove on, he, and others, commented on aspects of our findings.
Bruce posted the sleeve of
(I Don't Want To Go To ) Chelsea , saying the group shot on the cover had been taken by
Chris Gabrin in a room upstairs from the venue for wedding reception.
He posted a photo, also by Gabrin, of Elvis and the Attractions in what he called a quarry near Camelford, asking if we had found it. I responded that we hadn’t .
- which is probably the same location as the photo on the back 'Chelsea sleeve -
It was the perfect, all the more for it being so unexpected, end to our day of investigations.
Those are the basic details of the trip. I will add more when I get time and I daresay Sulky will chip in at some point.