Is This The Real Life? Read Online Free PDF

Later on, Ithink they were auctioned as Freddie’s collection, but I always remember them being his father’s.’
    Fred also opened up to Patrick Connolly about his background: ‘He told me what luxuries his family had in Zanzibar, how he’d lived in a house with an ivory-white piano. I think there were times when he missed the life they’d had.’ There was also a darker side to the memories. ‘After the revolution, Fred said his father was under threat and was told that if he didn’t leave, the rebels would cut his father’s head off.’
    Undeterred, Freddie was eager to socialise outside of the college (‘Dances, clubs, parties, as many as possible,’ recalls Alan Hill), although this sometimes meant falling foul of his parents. His sister Kashmira Cooke later remembered her brother and mother ‘arguing about it constantly, but he was determined to do what he wanted. There was quite a lot of door slamming.’
    ‘A friend of mine remembers us picking Freddie up from his house in my friend’s car to go to a gig,’ says Morrish. ‘His parents took a very dim view of the idea, and he stormed out of the house.’
    To fund his social life, Freddie found part-time work through Alan Hill. ‘I used to design the artwork for the National Boys’ Club magazine,’ he says. ‘Fred wanted to earn a bit of money, so because I had the contacts I got him some work, doing layouts.’ However, Patrick Connolly is less sure about how suited he was to the job: ‘To be honest, Fred was no great artist. He didn’t have a clue. The thing about Isleworth Polytechnic was that you didn’t have to be very good, you just had to show an interest in the subject. Art was never his thing. Fred’s thing was always music and singing and being onstage.’
    Through 1964 and 1965, The Crown folk club in Twickenham staged performances from the likes of Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Duster Bennett. The Eel Pie Island Hotel had once been known for its jazz and big-band acts, but now played host to the fledgling Rolling Stones and Yardbirds, The Tridents (featuring the young guitarist Jeff Beck), Howlin’ Wolf and the Butterfield Blues Band. Once an ornate building, now crumbling into disrepair (George Melly once likened it to ‘something from a Tennessee Williams novel’), it was situated on an isle on a stretch of the River Thamesin Twickenham, accessible only by a footbridge. The hotel was a short trip from Isleworth, and became an occasional haunt for Freddie’s crowd on Sunday evenings.
    ‘Fred joined us at Eel Pie a couple of times,’ says Brian Fanning. ‘We went to see Rod Stewart, Long John Baldry and tap-dancing one-man band Jesse Fuller. But even then Fred left early and sober … or comparatively sober.’ Also at Eel Pie that night was a friend from outside the college, Ray Pearl. ‘Fred left Eel Pie early as he wanted to practise his piano,’ recalls Pearl now. ‘In my memory, he was quiet and retiring and culturally very different from his college mates.’ Ray Pearl’s diary from 1965 offers a tiny glimpse into Freddie Bulsara’s social life that year: ‘It’s all stuff like: “Went with Bri, Ade and Fred etc to the National Gallery and saw a great exhibition” and “Saw The Knack [film] in Hounslow with Ade, Shelagh [another Isleworth student] and Fred. Had a laff!”’
    Although he was still compliant enough to appease his mother and go home early for music practice, by drinking in pubs, watching groups and frequenting college parties, Freddie was being, as Brian Fanning puts it, ‘a curious sponge soaking up all the influences’. ‘Fred was never at the centre of things in terms of drawing attention to himself,’ elaborates Fanning. ‘But he was trying to pick up as much as he could on the new culture that he was so desperate to become a part of.’ Freddie was similarly eager to see something of England beyond his tiny corner of suburban West London. On the Easter weekend of 1965, Fanning, Morrish