THE YEAR OF THE MUSICIAN, WOULD-BE PRIEST AND RATHER-NOT-BE LAWYER

which was 1991.

This is really – will turn out to be – another chapter in my continuing story of BOBBY WELLINS but I’m going to set this episode in the context of my life, or perhaps I should say lives, at the time.

I was 45 years old. I was gigging as much as I could, juggling music with a full time day job as an in-house lawyer with a bank.

But there was now a third dimension – I had “got” religion (or more accurately “recovered” it  from my boyhood days as a cathedral chorister) three or four years before and now started to feel a vocation to the priesthood.  So 1991 was the year when I seriously set about getting the church to agree with me.

First I had to convince the Vicar of my parish and get him to back me.  I remember nervously blurting out  I have this crazy idea that I should be a priest but I’m lazy, unsociable and have a rather dark sense of humour. I know, he replied. A bit like me. I think you’d make an excellent priest.

Having thus to my amazement cleared the first hurdle without ifs or buts, I faced a process of formal interviews to see if the wider church thought I was suitable.

Fate struck at its most ironic in a meeting on October 24th. That day will live in hilarity.

The “examining chaplain” facing me turned out to be the very priest I had, in my atheistic days, told to  f… off when he had rung my doorbell 8 years earlier to welcome me to the neighbourhood. Had he forgotten? Didn’t he recognize me? Or was he a skilled poker player?

After the interrogation, I couldn’t resist referring to the incident. He had forgotten but now remembered and roared with laughter. I understand he gave me a glowing report and later “dined out” on the story.

I soon realised that I couldn’t combine priesthood with the cutthroat commercial ethos of the bank and fortunately I was able to take early retirement from the post of legal adviser as soon as I was ordained at age 50. But for the time being I had to stick it out commuting to the legal department while I simultaneously embarked on training for the church.

What I was most determined to do, whatever other balls were in the air, was to keep playing the drums.

My diary for 1991 shows gigs, mainly on the South cost or in London, with people like Teddy Edwards, Charles McPherson, Warren Vache, Danny Moss, Joe Temperley, Alan Skidmore, Peter King and Geoff Simkins.

My first commitment however was, as always, to my guru BOBBY WELLINS.

He had established his monthly Saturday night slot at the 606 Club and I was able to do these dates that year.

Who else? BOBBY WELLINS painted by Alan Luff

(From 1996 on, when I was taking an 8am communion service every Sunday in Brighton, the timetable defeated me. In those days,  Saturday nights at the 606 didn’t finish until 2am and I wasn’t back home until 4am so I eventually had to bow out of the Fulham gig. Bobby got that excellent drummer the late Dave Wickins instead  for this monthly fixture, along with Dave’s colleague the very original pianist Liam Noble.)

Bobby’s regular quartet was meanwhile playing venues such as the 100 club, the Tenor Clef (Peter Ind’s place in Hoxton Sq.), Warwick, Bury St.Edmonds, Portsmouth and Brighton.

1991 was the year when the personnel changed. Bobby and our long-standing pianist Pete Jacobson went their separate ways. I don’t know exactly why. Ken Baldock was replaced on bass by Chris Laurence or Thad Kelly and the new pianist was the superb Jonathan Gee.

Jon Gee and Thad would be on the album NOMAD which we recorded in Soho in April 1992 featuring a highly talented young vocalist Claire Martin on three tracks, including the title song.

And there had been some great gigs in 1991, a few of which I was able to record on cassette on my ghetto-blaster. I’ve put three examples at the top of the playlist this week on the Music page.

Although the final quartet with Mark Edwards and Andy Cleyndert, which lasted until Bobby’s death, was undoubtedly our apogee, the line-up with Jon Gee and Chris Laurence was very exciting, as I hope you’ll agree when you hear it…………………..