When I was a kid my father took me and my eldest sister on a trip to London, Paris and Ireland. It was an unforgettable experience-- one that left me with an enduring love for travel and new places.
In London we did the usual things, including a visit to Trafalgar Square, where I let flying rats crawl and flap all over me. That's me in the orange shirt. My father's the white haired man. And if you look behind him in the lower photo you can see that there's a crowd in the distance.
We went to investigate and found a rock band filming an early music "video." I remember that I sort of knew the band, that they'd had a hit, and I think I remember that I'd already heard the record they were pretending to play on the radio once or twice-- but that particular tidbit of memory might be a figment of my imagination.
Anyway, here's a picture of the band-- or part of it. The golden brown hair is mine. Was mine, anyway. You can see the fountain in the background, and the big lion.
Anyway, one evening recently I thought I'd try to figure out who we saw. The only thing I remembered-- or thought I remembered-- was that the group's name started with a "T." So I began searching. I figured the trip was in the fall of 1969. I googled "British pop hits 1969" and almost immediately found a list of hit songs that broke it down month by month. In November I found my group: The Tremeloes!
It took some verification. Were they a one hit group, at least from my perspective in The States? Pretty much. I learned pretty fast that they were responsible for "Silence is Golden."
But then it struck me. We live in a Youtube universe. So I went to Youtube and searched for the Tremeloes. And bango! There they were! Near the fountain!
The sad thing: no Peter. No Daddy. No Rooney. No Rich. In fact, you'll notice that the camera never points in our direction. Most shots are taken from close to where I was standing. Or maybe we were off feeding pigeons when the money shots were taken.
Ah well. Invisibility is golden. Memories, too.
2 comments:
A great testimoniance, a beautiful video and great photos. You saw one of the greatest band from the 60's, the Tremeloes, on Trafalgar Square. I would liked to be here me to on November 1969. Did you remember the exact day of the month?
Thanks for reading! I don't remember the date- sorry. In fact, what interested me was the funny idea that my memory (and our photos) were real. Lots of what we "remember" probably isn't! But I'm sad that the video doesn't show us anywhere in the background. I'd have loved to see my younger self and my long gone father bouncing around the square in the background. Peter
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