Carol Drinkwater

The day I caught the train with David Bowie

  • From Spectator Life
David Bowie (Image: Getty)

Not long after being diagnosed with cancer, David Bowie reportedly made a secret trip to London to say his farewells. One of his stops was No. 4 Plaistow Grove, a modest terraced house in the heart of suburbia where he grew up, having moved there in 1955. I knew the house well. It was five minutes down the road from our home, which stood in a private lane alongside the golf course, in the village of Sundridge Park. Here, Davy lived with his mum Peggy and dad John.

Back in the early sixties, heady rock and rolls days even in Bromley, it was clear that Bowie – or Davy Jones, as he was then – was hell-bent on stardom. I saw Davy often on Bromley High Street; he was a well-known figure, hanging out outside the Wimpy Bar or one of the coffee bars where teenagers gathered, eschewing the upmarket Coffee Importers where mums met for cups of ground coffee after shopping at Marks and Spencers.

Jones’s mum was a regular visitor to my father’s theatrical agency, which stood one street over from Sundridge Park’s Plaistow Grove. In fact, she popped in so frequently that my mother suspected she and my father were having an affair.My dad, a handsome exuberant man, debonair and charming, played ukulele, banjo and double bass in his own very successful dance band, The Gay Knights. Mr Jones was interested in these instruments for his son. ‘Davy’s mad keen on music,’ he told my father.

It didn’t take long before Davy Jones’s career, at least on the local scene, was taking off. By 1962, he was playing with a group, The Konrads, formed that year. Davy’s mate, George Underwood, was a member of the band. They performed at youth gigs and weddings. Well before Bowie became internationally famous, he was being booked to play the top venues on the south London music scene, Chislehurst Caves and the Bromley Court Hotel.

I first crossed paths with him one Saturday lunchtime at the local train station

As for me, my childhood was somewhat less glamorous.

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