Tell Him Billy Fry Sent You - A scene from 'Blue Lynx' my novel (work in progress)

I like to write in scenes. It's always the connecting narrative that is hard work.   

 Protagonist Manda Bailey is trying to organise her four friends, who are an aspiring rock band, into actually recording an album. 

                                                        ____________________

Chapter 7 - Tell him Billy Fry sent you 

The next day I got the 136 bus to Lewisham, to see Billy Fry at the Garage Studio. It had been good enough for our first single, so why not for an album? Yes it was a garage, but the studio equipment was reasonably good, or at least Matt and Dibs thought so, although the building was ramshackle, its acoustics were poor according to Andy. Rick hadn’t said much and I soon found out why. I thought all I had to do was talk nicely to Billy Fry to get round him.

         I was a bit shocked by how he looked, he had always been quite solid and cheerful, but I hadn’t seen him for a few months and he’d lost weight, he looked about twenty years older. I’d never realised he was ill, he probably had been for a while. He coughed as he smoked and I did remember that he’d always had a cough. When he offered me a cigarette, I said no thanks.

Billy Fry told me he was thinking of closing the studio down, he didn’t have the stamina to run the place anymore and probably needed to sell some kit to pay debts. That made me angry when I thought how the guys hadn’t paid him for using the place for band practice, maybe they hadn’t even coughed up for the single. I didn’t ask him in case he expected me to find the money, I just said something vague but sympathetic. We drank instant coffee while he told me about his illness, in a bit more detail than I wanted. He dug out some biscuits, custard creams, and he nattered on about music, telling me he was a jazz saxophonist although he didn’t play anymore because of his lungs. He’d accompanied a lot of bands in the sixties. I asked who and he dropped a few names, rock bands and soul singers as well as jazz. Then he came out with something that encouraged me.

‘Your lot, Blue Lynx, stupid name that, sounds like aftershave! But you know something gal, they’re quite good. They got potential!’

I was amazed. We’d all known Billy was into jazz and I never thought he’d listened to our rock band while we were mucking about in his studio, he wasn’t even there very often, or not when we were. Rick had somehow got hold of a key.

‘We just finished a tour,’ I told Billy. ‘It went all right, Blue Lynx are great live.’

‘That don’t surprise me, gal, there’s talent there. Wish I were twenty years younger, I might come along one night.’

‘Thanks, Billy, that’s great. I’ll tell them you said that.’

‘Don’t do that, gal! You’ll give that Rick Brandon ideas. He already thinks he’s Jeff bloody Beck and he bloody well ain’t, pardon my French!’

               ‘Well, I think they’re great,’ I said and he snorted. ‘Billy, listen! I know you’ve got the experience, you worked with so many great artists. What you think of them is more important than what I think.’

‘Anyways, I didn’t say they’re great,’ he lit a cigarette from his previous stub, ‘what I said were, there’s talent. Dibs is quite something and that guy Andy. He don’t say so much as his bleeding brother, but when he does his ideas are spot on and he understands the music.’

‘What about Matt?’

‘He’s a drummer, what can I say,’ he shrugged. ‘They got their own thing. I know you been going out with him gal, but he’s a bit average. He could improve I expect, but he don’t work hard enough. Drummers need to work hard.’

‘I’m going to finish with Matt anyway,’ I said, not quite sure why I was telling him. Matt always claimed he did work hard.

‘That’d be a shame,’ Billy looked sideways at me, or rather at my chest.

‘Why do you say that?’ I hoped he’d get my defiant tone, I was feeling uncomfortable, on my own here with this old bloke almost leering at me.

‘That band needs you!’ He said, surprising me again. ‘They do!’ He nodded. ‘I’ve watched you gal, they needs you to sort them out.’

I swallowed the creepy feeling and I said, ‘That’s why I’m here Billy. They need you more than me. They’ve actually all agreed, the next thing to do is make an album.’

‘They have, have they.’ It wasn’t a question, I could see him thinking. He was sitting in a tatty armchair, I was perched on a drum stool, but he hauled himself up.

‘Just you stay there, gal, I won’t be a mo,’ he brushed past me, a bit too close, then he disappeared into the tiny back room that was his office. He came back a few minutes later with two bits of paper.

‘Give that to Ricky bloody Blackmore or whoever he thinks he is this week,’ he handed me the first paper, ‘Seeing as how he imagines he’s the band leader.’ I read, astonished. It was a bill for the use of the Garage Studio.

‘They owe you four grand?’ I said.

‘I may have rounded it up a bit,’ he wobbled his hand sideways, ‘That’s interest, you know. You can get them to pay me when the album charts. Or pay my missus if I’ve copped it.’

I bit my lip, feeling guilty.

‘And this one’s for you, gal.’ He gave me the second bit of paper. ‘There’s three studios there. They’d all do you better for recording a decent album than this old dump.’ He tapped the paper with a tobacco-stained finger. ‘I’d start with Mushroom Studios if was you.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll give that to Rick too.’

‘No don’t do that,’ Billy shook his head impatiently, he was staring at me again. ‘I said it’s for you, get it? That Rick’s so full of himself, he’s a bleedin’ twat. He won’t get in the door at Mushroom and you can tell him he won’t get through my door neither, not with that key he half-inched, I changed the bloody lock.’

‘Rick actually stole a key?’ I could believe it but it still made me fume.

‘Not your problem, gal,’ he said, ‘But someone needs to sort that band out and you got the nous for that job. Now you gotta find your gumption, I reckon you got some. Just you put on a pretty frock and go talk to Bernie Coulter at Mushroom. He looks like the most tattiest roadie you ever met but he’s got his head screwed on, like you have. He’s a good producer an’ all, and that’s what your band needs. Talk to Bernie, tell him Billy Fry sent you.’ 

When I left Billy Fry to lock up his studio, I felt a bit sorry for him but I was amazed at what he’d said, that I had nous and gumption and the band needed me. But I didn’t have the gumption to just hand that bill to Rick. The first chance I got, I shoved it in his guitar case under some sheet music and hoped he wouldn’t realise how it got there. 

Reading Habits 2025

 

Sue's Reviews > None of This Is True

None of This Is True
by 

Lisa Jewell (Goodreads Author)

Sue's review 

Crikey! Unputdownable, I read it in twelve hours, with a few hours of sleep in the somewhere. What happened? I still don't quite know... Five stars anyway.

*****

For Earth Day 22 April 2025 - a poem

 Passenger Pigeon

You dwelt in the vastness of the sky

with no fear of the hungry eagle

he couldn’t harm you in your millions.

 

You swarmed across the wild prairies

with no fear of the mighty bison

those couldn’t harm you in your millions.

 

You  soared over the Rocky Mountains

with no fear of the grey wolf packs

they couldn’t harm you in your millions.

 

You  nested in the red oak trees

with no fear of the long-legged bobcat,

she couldn’t harm you in your millions.

 

You  flapped above people’s villages

with no fear of the families in their tepees,

these couldn’t harm you in your millions.

 

You  flocked above the steaming railroads

with no fear of the well-armed hunter

he destroyed you, all of your millions.

*

The Passenger pigeon was once thought to be the most numerous bird on earth. The last one of their species died in Cincinnati Zoo in 1912.  Humans had named her Martha.

All About the Dogs - my latest short story

 (set on't moors, with a hint of Royston Vasey)

Eight years being the time since my partner, Geoffrey, vanished, I’ve decided to have him declared dead. I’m told you can do it, as nobody’s heard from him for more than seven years.

Three weeks after his vanishing, I’d been to police and reported him missing, because I were worried. I weren’t actually much worried about Geoffrey. I were more concerned for the dogs, all three being a bit under the weather after something they’d eaten up on the moor and I weren’t sure how much the vet’s bill would be.

Me and Geoffrey had chosen the three dogs for their wild looks. Mackeson's a brownish border collier crossed with god knows what, he's powerful jaws for a collie. Spitz is a big boy, looking like a huge, grey, shaggy bear with great long legs and a curling tail. Geoffrey said he could be a shih tzu great Dane cross, but I think he were joking. I always reckoned that would be physically impossible, Spitz must be something like a wolfhound and mountain dog cross. The third dog, Delilah, has massive black curls and fetches half the moorland home tangled in them. She's possibly a giant cockapoo, if you look at her through squinting eyes.

They were all rescues, of course, Spitz being the oldest. The vet reckons he’s now about eleven, which he says is a good age for such a large dog. The others were half-grown pups when we got them a year or so before Geoffrey's disappearance. We’d agreed Spitz needed company especially as we were both out working, he’d been a bit destructive, demolishing shoes, doors, two sofas and a stray cat, we’d found that half eaten in the front garden. Of course Geoffrey were soft on dogs, he insisted on blaming foxes. Some people might have believed him, but I knew who’d come in with cat’s tail in his mouth.

Geoffrey loved to walk with all three dogs on his free days. Summer or winter, they’d all ramble for miles on the moors and if we were lucky, Geoffrey would come home with a few rabbits or game birds in his kitbag. Once he arrived with a lamb in the bag, he said Spitz had only spooked it and made it run, he wasn’t deliberately hunting it. Geoffrey was in denial.

The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse

 

The Taxidermist's Daughter
by 

Kate Mosse

Sue's review on Goodreads

bookshelves: mystery, novels, thrillers, whodunnit

This is  a beautifully written historic mystery in a Gothic style, although the word Gothic has been so much abused and mixed with slasher/zombie/vampire tales that it almost demeans the quality of this story. 

I loved it, gripping storytelling, great characters and hugely atmospheric. The Taxidermist's Daughter kept me busy, calm and suitably distracted during a very long and tense day sitting in hospital waiting rooms. For that reason, as well as the great writing, it deserves five stars.

I've not read anything by Kate Mosse before, possibly due to an unconscious and obviously irrelevant association with the fashion industry. I stopped being interested in the fashion industry when I was about 17. I will read more books by Kare Mosse.

My Inheritance Tracks

On BBC Radio four every weekend is a one-hour show named Saturday Live. It's basically a live chat show with content suitable for an intelligent daytime audience, with one or two pre-recorded slots. One of these is Inheritance Tracks, where somebody you may, or may not have heard of, gets a few moments to talk about a musical track that they cherish from early in their lives and another track that they would like to pass on to future generations. So far so simple.

But when it comes to choosing my own inheritance tracks, so much harder. Not that I've been invited onto Radio 4 yet, but in the unlikely event that I am, I will be ready!

When I was small, I listened to the radio and the LP records my parents played on the radiogram. Some of their records were by smooth solo singers like Sinatra and Nat King Cole, which bored me. They were also into musicals and often went to see the newest movie or the occasional West End show. Some shows they had records of are now quite obscure, Irma la Douce and Kismet for example. 

Kismet had the most dramatic and. to my very young mind the scariest cover. The tunes were beautiful, remarkable and I always notice when I hear a snatch of them, not surprising when you know they were by Borodin. I didn't when I was seven.

But it wasn't a show tune or a great classical track that made the most impression on me. When we lived in England we had a big radiogram but sometimes we weren't in the UK. Father was a British Army doctor so we moved home a lot, the most far-flung place we lived was Aden. There we had a smaller portable record player. Some records came with us and we accumulated more, from the NAAFI, from Bhicajee Cowasgee which was the biggest department store in town and from passing ships, which included American warships. Aden was a very important international harbour in those days.

One day in Aden my dad came home with ‘Big Bill’s Blues’, an album of Big Bill Broonzy’s songs. I wasn't aware of the blues before, but Big Bill's rhythmic guitar playing and his straight forward lyrics, along with the great tunes appealed to me. One song stood out and I was just about old enough to understand. It was the beginning of my awareness of what was happening in the world outside my own nine-year-old bubble, and not just in my surroundings in Aden, but also across the world. 

‘Black, Brown and White’ is Big Bill Broonzy singing, in a very deliberately calm, laid back way, about his experience of racism;

"They says if you was white, should be all right,

If you was brown, stick around,

But as you're black, m-mm brother, get back get back get back."

                            *

I've never forgotten those lyrics or the impact they had on me. Big Bill Broonzy's Black, Brown and White'  (or Get Back, as it's also known) is my first inheritance track, it changed my view of life. I became aware that things weren't fair, even out there in the world of the grown-ups. 

Black, Brown and White has to be my first Inheritance Track and I'm in no doubt that my second has to be another song with a powerful message. I've always thought the words are more important than the tune, it's why I'm a writer. Much as I can enjoy music, I've never been musical. 

I've been thinking a lot about my favourite singers, bands and songs. The Beatles also have a song called Get Back, but that's a story rather than a specific message. The Rolling Stones' Satisfaction is a message of defiance, so is Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac's Oh Well. Leonard Cohen has wonderful, meaningful lyrics which feel too intimate, too personal to pass on as my choice. Bob Dylan has plenty of messages, but somehow songs like Masters of War and Blowin' in the Wind are too pessimistic for me to want to pass them on. 

Then I realised I was going back to where I was, when I began choosing my own music. Not the Beatles but to John Lennon and his song, Imagine. Yes this song has been derided, even despised for its idealistic, hippie message, but the lyric is more concise and powerful than the Beatles biggest message, All You Need is Love, which was always, to me, a bit simplistic, 

"Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too."

  *

Those lines resonate more as the 21st century progresses and the human race doesn't. 

Imagine says things that I believe. 

So yes, I'm an old hippie, is that a bad thing? 

*

Kismet Album Cover art by Al Hirschfeld

Broonzy photo from Frank Driggs Collection/© Archive Photos. Photographer unnamed.

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band Imagine cover by Apple

Hastings Book Festival, my Prizewinning short story

 I entered two stories in the Hastings Book Festival short story competition. My story, 'Once Upon a Time in Bulverhythe' came third in the overall competition, and won the Sussex Prize for stories by local writers. I'm very chuffed, it's the first time I've won anything for my fiction. My story is set on Bulverhythe beach where I often walk.

The judging was very kind and very flattering, I was told my story was, 'beautifully crafted with brilliant characterisation and a real sense of place. We fell in love with both Ted the dog and Ted the man.'  Lovely to have such praise. Link to the event -  Facebook

I want to say thank you so much to the short story judge VG Lee, the Book Festival organisers and to New Writing South for collaborating to create the Sussex Prize. 

The story is in my post below.