Lemmy Kilmister 1945-2015

Prelude

 I fell in love with Lemmy long before the world fell in love with him. Lemmy belongs to the world and he touched the lives of millions of people, but I have my own personal history with Lemmy, such as it is, and  at his demise I had an intuitive sense that it was time to share my story with the world. I don’t presume that my relationship to him was more special than anyone else, but it was very special to me. My love for him was completely unconditional and stood on its own regardless of how he may have felt about me. To quote my daughter Sylvie, he was “the man of my dreams, daydreams, actual love of my life. Perhaps a somewhat one-sided romance, but still very powerful”.

I’ll start at the beginning in 1968 when I met Lemmy in London at the tender age of 16, and he was 22. This is a true story with no embellishment. I remember so much, even his very words, because he was so important to me. These are memories I have cherished.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has a story to tell of their experiences with Lemmy. You can reach me at:  motorheadgirl@hotmail.com.

With love, Cyn

Chapter 1
In the beginning…

 

 London 1968

It was a warm summer’s day for London in August of 1968. I had spent the day alone at St Paul’s Cathedral, in awe of that resplendent church. As a young aspiring dancer at the Royal Ballet School, I had taken part in an elaborate Christmas pageant at St Paul’s on Christmas Eve. Now I sat, in contemplation, enchanted by the mystery of the Whispering Gallery in the lofty place under the dome of the church. Whispering from one side of the sphere, your words can be heard clearly on the other side, 30m away.

“This would be a romantic way to tell someone you love them”, I thought. In a place like this, how could I not reflect on the grandeur and the mystery of life.  I was sixteen years old and I was floating through my life, as if on the waves of the ocean. As I peered over the edge of the railing at the compass inlaid on the mosaic floor below, I parted from my reverie with a sigh and headed down the  steps of the spiraling staircase and into the streets of London. I never  imagined it but my life was about to change forever that very afternoon.

I went back to Earls Court, where I lived, being the only student in my flat spending the summer in London, while everyone else was visiting their family during the summer break. Wearing my new little flowery mini-dress, and sandals that laced up to my knees, I had just come out of Earls Court tube station onto the always bustling  Earls Court Road when I saw Lemmy in the distance walking towards me.  He reminded me of Donovan, my favorite singer/songwriter at the time. His hair was shoulder length, and flowing as he walked, the same walk we have all come to know and love. He had wispy facial hair, and almost a mustache. He was wearing a brown Edwardian suit with a velvet collar, and dark pink flip-flops. I have a vivid impression of Lemmy’s face amidst  the crowd even now, 48 years later. It was love at first sight. As he came nearer, I noticed that I was near the “magic mirror”, as I called it, a door covered with a garish fun house mirror for no apparent reason, which I liked to imagine had magical properties, and it was right there that we crossed paths. I smiled and nodded to him shyly, and he returned the nod as we passed each other. I walked on slowly feeling flustered and not sure what to do. I had let him walk right past and now he was gone. At the corner of Earls Court Road and Trebovir Road, the street I lived on, I slowed and turned, and came to a sudden resolve to turn back to look for him. How could I possibly let him disappear and maybe never see him again? Walking back the half block that I had covered, amazingly, there he was again coming towards me, now with cigarettes in hand and the “Melody Maker” newspaper tucked under his arm, and again we were together in front of the magic mirror. This time, though, we both stopped and gazed at each other momentarily. I don’t remember having a single thought. I just stood there, kind of mesmerized. Lemmy said nothing, but took my hand and walked away with me, and I willingly went with him. I walked with him and he turned onto Trebovir Road. We said nothing till we had nearly reached the end of the street and walking past my flat, I finally spoke and said “That’s where I live”, and he pointed ahead to Warwick Road and said “Oh I live right there across the road on Philbeach Gardens!” We continued walking silently. He just took me with him, without question, to the house he lived in. He opened the wrought iron gate and lead me down the stairs to a basement flat. We walked through a tiny kitchen and into a room with four bunk-beds. He invited me to climb up onto one of the top bunks, he climbing up after me and sitting close next to me. Our legs were stretched out in front of us, with our feet sticking out over the side of the bed, suspended in the air.  We talked for a bit, exchanging names and telling each other a bit about ourselves, him showing me his artwork rather proudly.  He soon leaned over and kissed me, a long sensual, soulful kiss. It felt so perfect and right. And we kissed, and kissed and kissed some more.

Eventually I had to leave, being expected home for dinner. He took my phone number and I went home as if in a dream.

Many years later, when I reminded Lemmy of this story he said” Aw Cyn, that’s a good story! Even if it wasn’t me it’s a good story…”

And you know, I think that mirror was magic.

Chapter 2
Richmond Park

The next day Lemmy called asking me to go out that afternoon. I can’t even tell you how happy and excited I was…

He came to my door to take me out on a proper date.  He was very gentlemanly, but Mrs. Johnston, the owner of the flat who took in students from the Royal Ballet School was skeptical when she saw him with his long hair, Edwardian suit, and small pink rectangular granny sunglasses perched on the end of his nose, but not so much that she stopped me from going out with him.   She was a self appointed guardian for me and the other girls I went to school with.  She had prohibited me from going to an anti Vietnam war rally earlier that summer, perhaps a good thing, since later that evening on the telly I saw my friend, whom I would have been with, in the midst of a violent confrontation with the police.

Lemmy and I walked to the Warwick Road entrance to Earl’s Court station and took the train to Richmond Park. As we wandered around the park holding hands I have little memory of what we saw that day.  I only remember him. He did all the talking. I nervously answered his many questions about myself and my life as a dancer at the Royal Ballet School, working hard to appear cool and aloof. Lemmy was very respectful of my shyness and gentle with my innocence.  He looked into my eyes and was genuinely interested in what I had to say. I was mesmerized by everything he said.

He guided us off the paths into a wooded area of the park, talking about the bracken rustling in the breeze, the leaves crunching beneath our feet. As we came into a clearing, a field of long wispy grass where Lemmy suggested we sit for a bit, the English sun shown down on us. We were soon stretched out on the ground at his suggestion, looking up at the sky. The yellow grasses swished around my head as I lay back ankles crossed, hands under my head. We lay there silently for some time watching the clouds. I may have seemed relaxed, but I was not. I wanted so much for him to like me and I wondered what he was thinking about me. Here I was, alone with a man I hardly knew who was clearly something special, and I felt breathless with anticipation.  Now Lemmy was over me looking intently into my eyes and like the day before he was kissing, and kissing, and kissing me more. It was so gentle, so romantic, so dreamlike.  Later that summer Lemmy wrote a song that described a day just like this:

“Once on a green day, I was in long grass, and you came rustling silently by. I caught your long hand, fingers of satin, and in the long grass together we lie. What are you thinking kissing me softly, where does your mind go when you are here? “It’s nothing really” your only answer, or does your mind’s eye shed lonely tears?”

And I had said exactly that, on that beautiful day, in response to Lemmy wondering about the distant look in my eyes. “It’s nothing really”.

I was already hopelessly in love. I fell in love with him the moment I laid eyes on him the day before on Earl’s Court Road.

Philbeach Gardens

Chapter 3  Lemmy at Home

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes.
Because for those who love with heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation.”  ~Rumi

Thinking about those early days with Lemmy Willis, as he was back then, I know it reads like a diary of a teenage girl, and I suppose it’s silly with all the kissing but that’s how it was. This is, after all, the story of the romance of the 16 year old girl that I once was. And it was romantic! I never thought of him as my “boyfriend” and our relationship could never be described as “dating”. It was not defined and we didn’t speak of it.
I had a pure, unconditional love for him, which he clearly felt, and he had a way of making me feel loved and appreciated without saying anything. I was very careful to not have any unrealistic expectations of him because I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle any kind of rejection from him.

I would go around to his flat, showing up unexpectedly, and he was always happy to see me, and graciously inviting. He was always alone, and even though he had roommates, I never met any of them.  The kitchen was usually messy, dirty even, with unwashed dishes on the counter and filling the sink. The one big room was always fairly dark, nondescript, and nothing decorative about it except a mirror in the corner that had been painted around the edges with poetic words I can no longer recall,  with a filmy cobweb like cloth draping one corner of the glass. I have a vivid memory of him standing sideways to the mirror, assessing  himself in his new bell bottomed trousers. “What do you think?” he asked. “I love em” I said, from the top of the bunk bed. “But do I look good in them?” he wanted to know. “You do!” I answered enthusiastically. The hip hugging trousers were tight around his thighs and calves flaring stylishly at his feet. He had great legs…

The floor of the room was always littered with papers, drawings, photographs, cigarette boxes and the like. The beds were unkempt, just jumbles of seemingly unwashed blankets and linens. This was a quintessential “hippy pad”. It smelled of cigarette smoke, as did Lemmy. The smell a cigarettes on people’s clothing still puts me into a dreamy state recalling poignant, wistful feeling memories of him.
I loved being there with him. We would sit together on the top bunk, not speaking much, just together. I loved how comfortable it was to just “be” with him.  He was usually drawing intently in pen and ink, mostly fanciful creatures and scenes.

I know he enjoyed my presence, not minding that I had little to say. He would try to draw me into conversation, but I was not very talkative.  Lemmy was reading  “Lord of the Rings”, his favorite book at that moment, and his drawings reflected that. He spoke of it glowingly, suggesting that I read it.

I imagine he may have been speeding, or possibly tripping, but he never said as much. He was sometimes smoking hash, but I never joined him because he rolled it into his cigarettes.  I wasn’t a smoker and didn’t want to be. I suppose we all have our drugs of choice and mine has always been chocolate!

(By the way, I love the milk commercial recently released in Norway in honor of Lemmy!)

Interlude

I’ve brought myself back to the present here. This is a surreal day.   I just can’t quite grasp what is happening today…

Watching Lemmy’s memorial wasn’t easy. As my thoughts went back to the beginning, I struggled to reconcile the unassuming, youthful musician I met the summer of 1968 with the famous heavy metal icon he had become.  Here he is, revered by so many, a staggering 300,000 people watching.  The memory of who Lemmy  was, and the times I spent with him in our youth have crystallized as one of the most meaningful experiences in my life. I had grieved over the loss of Lemmy as he was then, in spite of the happy memories.  Now I was sorrowfully saying goodbye to the man he had become. “To only see you…”, Lemmy’s lyrics in “Yesterlove”, a song he wrote that summer about his own first love have echoed in my mind for 47 years.

Chapter 4

Hyde Park

When I first met him I wasn’t aware that he was actually writing songs. All that summer he was working on an album to be called “Escalator” with Sam Gopal.  He never talked about it at all, but  I’d show up at his door and he’d pull me into the room, guitar in hand.  “Listen to this”, he’d say. “What do you think?”  We’d climb up onto his bed and I’d listen to him play. I’d quietly pick up his acoustic guitar with no strings and pretend to play it. God, I was so young and silly, but it was just the kind of thing a hippy flower girl would do and he seemed amused by it. He gave me that guitar.

Lemmy had taken me to Sam’s flat one August evening.  I didn’t realize it then, but the group was named after him. I liked Sam a lot. He was handsome and had beautiful long, thick, black hair. I was in awe of the hippy atmosphere of his home.  Colorful Indian prints were draped on the rose colored walls, incense burned, bells tinkled.  His very beautiful young girlfriend, who’s name I can no longer recall, was lounging on a leather hassock on the Persian rug, smoking hashish from a hookah on the low round wooden table and the smells of exotic, Indian food wafted through the air. The lighting was soft and had a golden hue. I had come from a suburban home in Massachusetts and was studying ballet at the prestigious Royal Ballet School. I had never seen anything like this before.  I liked this lifestyle…

Lemmy wanted to show me everything he did, his artwork, his music, his writing. When I had to get home, because I had a curfew, he’d always stop me at the kitchen door playing something for me, trying to keep me there.  “Listen to this” again he’d say.  “How does this sound?”  Or, “What musicians do you like besides the Beatles?” (because of course I would like the Beatles best, that was a given).  “Donovan”, I said.  I was pleased to see, many months later, that the only cover on “Escalator” was Donovan’s “Season of the Witch”, a song about the hobbits in “Lord of the Rings”  That summer he wrote in a song:

“If you are going, go very swiftly.  Don’t linger saying tender goodbyes. My lips are moving.  I’m only speaking to try and make you stay with me here”

And that’s how it felt whenever I was leaving.

Lemmy called and asked me to go with him to see “Traffic” with Stevie Winwood in Hyde Park.  This was my first rock concert, so it was exciting for me!   (I still love that I can say I went to my first rock concert with Lemmy!)

We strode into the park towards the music.  I have a vivid image in my mind, as if we were shooting a scene from a movie.  We are passing the camera focused up from the grass, the camera lens seeing the stage and the ocean of hippies sitting on the grass through our legs as we walk past  hand in hand.  I was wearing a new dress bought in Earl’s Court at “Lady Cynthia’s Boutique”.  It was an empire waist dress with wide flowing sleeves,  made of a blue/purple Indian print, and  I wore those sandals that laced up to the knees.  Lemmy was wearing his Edwardian suit with pink flip flops as usual… I’m not sure I ever saw him wear anything else that summer, not even the new trousers!  He wore a hat with a colorful scarf tied around the brim and a feather floating on one side.  One time, in his flat, I was looking at the photos strewn across the floor,  proofs from a photo shoot, and he said I could have one if I liked.  I chose one of him wearing that hat and smiling a broad smile.  Sadly, that photo was lost, but is etched in my mind.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a mercilessly hot and sunny August day.  We were in London, after all.  It was pleasant and breezy, and the overcast English sky was perfect with just a hint of sun from time to time.

Brian Auger and the Trinity and Julie Driscoll, “Jools” opened the show.  They were the latest group everyone was talking about in London.  Jools was as cool as can be, and Brian Augers’ organ music was powerful and impressive.

But we had come to see Stevie Winwood and “Traffic”. “Dear Mr Fantasy” will forever bring me back to that afternoon.  And my favorite Traffic song, “Forty Thousand Headmen”, I heard for the first time that day.  I see myself sitting there on the grass, sun glinting in my eyes just enough to put a sparkle on the scene, my long straight hair brushing across my face in the slight breeze. I could hardly believe I was here.  We were happy.
That particular moment in time,  the late 60’s,  was a time like no other before or since.  If I could go back in time, 1968 would be the year I would choose to re-live again.  There was something in the air, and we all knew it, though it was unspoken.  The times were changing,  we were a part of it, and the world would never be the same again.

Chapter 5

In the Dark

I wanted to go to Lemmy’s all the time. He was all I could think about.  But I was careful not to,  fearing that I might be imposing. I think I’d just have withered away on the doorstep if he ever turned me a way at the door, or if I found him with another girl.  Thankfully, that never happened.

I was back at school now, in my third year at the Royal Ballet School.  Sometimes, when I was at Lemmy’s, while  he was drawing or writing, I’d do barre work, holding onto the side of the bunk bed where he sat.  This is what I did; I was a dancer. I went through plies, tendu’s, rond de jambe en l’air, and finally an adage’, tracing up the side of my leg with my pointed foot and unfolding my leg in the air in front of me, my calf at the level of my eyes, then slowly bringing it to my side and to the back into an arabesque, and bending forward into a ponche’, with my foot pointed straight up to the ceiling.  Adage’ was my forte’ in dancing, the ever so slow movements, gracefully and smoothly shifting from one pose to another.  It requires a great deal of strength. I wanted to show him what I could do.  He watched but never commented.

I was reading “Lord of the Rings” at Lemmy’s suggestion, and I was completely entranced with it, reading it ever so slowly because I never wanted to come to the end of it. I wanted to savor it.  It was always with me and I’d be reading up until the last minute before class in the mornings.  He was on to reading “I, Claudius”.  We sat together reading sometimes.

One evening I went round and there were actually people there.  That was the one and only time. He took my hand and led me through, and out the door at the back of the room. He didn’t introduce me to anyone there. We were in an unfinished, cold, and brightly lit hallway.  He opened another door and invited me to enter.  As the light from the hallway filtered in I saw it was the bathroom. He walked in behind me and closed the door. It was pitch black. We sunk down to the floor.

I had no sense of fear, being alone with him in the dark, though I wondered what he had in mind. There I was, laying on the floor, with Lemmy on top of me, kissing me. It soon seemed clear to me that he was making no suggestion of going further onto more sexual pursuits, which allowed me to completely sink into the sensuousness of his kisses. We were completely in the moment and it was the most sensuous moment in time I’ve ever experienced before or since. We didn’t speak. Not at all. He just kissed me, voraciously now, passionately.

Many years later, when he expressed a jealousy about someone I was with, I said to him ” Don’t you know that you’re the only one?  That every man in my life has been jealous of you?  You know that quote in  the movie ” Hearts of Atlantis”?   “It will be the kiss by which all others in your life will be judged… and found wanting”  Well, that’s how it is, and everyone knows it.”   Lemmy thought it was a Shakespeare quote, but I don’t think it actually is.  (I’ll return to this story later in the Motorhead Years) Anyway, I didn’t say that to him talking literally about his kiss, but more his place in my life. I realize now that it was, in fact, his kisses as well.

He may have felt that with my being so much younger it would have been taking advantage of my innocence, or he may have thought I was afraid.  He always gently guided me, but not beyond where he thought I was willing to go. I’ve wondered if he wasn’t tripping that night and just got lost in kissing…

He wrote in “Grass”:

“I can break walls down if you will help me, if I can reach you, help you to see, all of the good things that I can give you if you will take them, take them from me. Please will you trust me?  Maybe I’ll hurt you, but I can heal it, soon as it’s done.  Give me your hand and allow me to lead you, out of the long grass and into the sun.”

I think that spoke to his thoughts about me, at only sixteen years old.  He respected my innocence, but he knew he had something to offer.

When I left him that night my lips were actually swollen.  At home I was shocked to see my bright red lips and flushed face in the mirror.  I was in a daze, I was entranced. I was so in love with him.

1967 On my way to Covent Garden for the Royal Gala

premiering a new ballet, “Paradise Lost”

with Rudolph Nureyev and Dame Margot Fonteyn

Chapter 6
Earls Court

My relationship with Lemmy took place almost entirely at his flat.  But we would go to movies together.  He took me to see “Barbarella”, with Jane Fonda, a wild 60‘s movie, so typical of the times.  It was a sexy, beautiful, romantic, adventurer in space!  I loved it and so did Lemmy.  It was so perfect seeing that with him.  I remember leaving the cinema smiling and feeling energized, fairly floating down the street, my hand in his.

One Sunday afternoon on the way to the cinema, across the wide road, (was it sunny Goodge Street?) we saw Eartha Kit as she walked, alone and singing powerfully.  Her hands were waving in the air; she was singing to the sky.  Lemmy was taking me to see “Prudence and the Pill”, with David Niven and Deborah Kerr, an obscure film, I’d say, and a strange choice on his part, but there you have it!

Those two movies, juxtaposed, illustrate well the changes that were happening in our culture at that time.  It was a hip scene going on in London in 1966-67 where going to a nightclub, the DJ playing Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdink and dancing to the bossa nova in those cute little patent leather shoes,  and velvet dresses just above the knee was very cool.  Then it shifted to long flowing Indian dresses, or white boots and flowing sleeves, Nehru collars or very much shorter dresses of the Mary Quant look, which transversed the two scenes.  Now the music was electric, strange, exciting, and like nothing else we’d ever heard. Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Brown, Incredible String Band, and so many other wild and brilliant bands.

And yet there was still an innocence in these times. The Beatles were still happily together, and singing about love. I felt so lucky to be where it was all happening in “Swinging London”.  It was vibrant and exhilarating.  The saying was “London swings while England rots”.  Not that I knew anything of the political or economic situation in the UK.  Revolution was brewing, and the roots of the punk scene were afoot, but I was unaware, only noticing the fashions and the social/cultural revolution happening around me.

One crisp autumn evening I went down to Earls Court Road with my best friend and roommate Anita. My thoughts were all of Lemmy and I was yearning, (yes, yearning!) for him. I often walked around the crescent of Philbeach Gardens.  I just wanted to be near him walking down “the street where he lived” like in “My Fair Lady”!  Anita and I were having coffee at a restaurant with other girls from the Royal Ballet School.  It was an American chain restaurant of some sort, red and white stripes, and wooden booths…something to do with Kentucky.  There were some really cool cafe’s near Earls Court, with folk music, like the Troubadour on Old Brompton Road, and Cafe” des Artistes in Fulham.  I can’t imagine why we chose to go to this insipid place. We were all feeling a bit bored talking about school and boys. I never talked about Lemmy with any of them except Anita, but even she knew little about him.  None of my friends from school ever met Lemmy.  I was watching the time, in mind of our curfew, because I had a nagging thought of stopping by Lemmy’s just for a moment, just to see him before it got too late, or even just walking past his door. I was distant with my friends saying little, and not very involved in the conversation.  Anita noticing my wistful longing, looked at me questioningly.  I gave her my usual aloof answer “It’s nothing really”

Finally, I excused myself, saying I wanted to walk around a bit by myself before having to go home.  Just as I walked out the door, along came Lemmy, with his mates Roger and Sam. I could hardly believe it! I felt as if I had drawn him to me, magically. I had been thinking of him and wishing to see him all evening and there he was.  And, he was wearing a long shocking pink cape with a hood!  Yes… I’m not kidding.
His friends kept walking, while he stopped and greeted me with a smile as he swooped the cape around my shoulders and swept me along with him as smoothly as can be.  We walked and talked and my uneasiness dissolved. They were heading to a rehearsal, he said. It was beginning to dawn on me that he was actually playing with a band.

We crossed Earls Court Road and walked up Nevern Place towards Warwick Road, and onto Philbeach Gardens.  Eventually we came to the church off the crescent, Saint Cuthberts’, with its wrought iron gates leading into the cobblestone courtyard.  I had walked by this place many times, but had never thought to go in. Lemmy stopped just inside of the gates, and turning towards me, both of us still wrapped in the cape, he said “I need to take leave of you here”.  He kissed me gently and released me to the chill of the night air, disappearing through the beautiful wooden doors of the church. I drifted home in a romantic dreamlike trance.

Speaking of dreams, I recently had one wherein Lemmy was flying in the night sky.  He swooped down to me and enveloped me in his arms, which were more like wings, and flew off with me, protected in his loving embrace.  It felt just like being wrapped in his embrace with that pink cape around us both. 

Saint Cuthberts, Earls Court

Chapter 7
Autumn Into Winter

And so it went… Lemmy was busy making an album with Sam and Roger.  He hadn’t talked about it, except through intimation, but being the oblivious girl that I was, it didn’t really sink in.  Now I knew he was rehearsing with them and that they were a band.

Having discovered St Cuthbert’s through Lemmy, I would go now to explore the church.  Compared to the  magnificence of Saint Paul’s Cathedral which I had visited on the day Lemmy and I met, I saw Saint Cuthbert’s as a quaint  church, but in spite of being a good deal smaller than St Paul’s, it is an majestic work of art, known as “much the grandest church to have been built in western Kensington”.

At sunset I’d walk into the church, loving the ominous echo of my footsteps on the marbled floor.  I sat on the small wooden chairs, reflecting on the depth of my feelings for Lemmy.  I always found myself alone, I never saw a soul there. I breathed in the solemnity of that hallowed place.

There were alcoves on the sides of the church, Gothic arches looming overhead, where parishioners could light candles for loved ones and ask for prayers.  A little school notebook sat on the old wooden table in which to write your requests, with the pencil provided, attached to the book with string.  In my carefully written, child like handwriting, I asked for prayers that Lemmy would have everything he wanted in life, that he would succeed in achieving his desires.  I wonder if they save those notebooks forever?

Loving Lemmy was all that mattered to me. Somehow he had connected me to my spirituality, maybe through my unconditional love for him.  This is not something I was aware of then, this is what I see now. In spite of my youthful immaturity I knew this was the way it had to be.  I could not have any expectations of him.  It was bittersweet and sad, but I felt a graceful peace and acceptance of who he was, and what our relationship was.

On All Hallows Eve I went to the church with a portable record player which I placed on the lavish ancient alter. I wanted to hear Donovan’s voice infuse the air with “A Gift From a Flower to a Garden.”,   “Catch the Wind”, and Celeste”. (As I sat here revisiting that evening, that majestic song,  forgotten in my subconscious,  welled up in me and escaped my lips).  These enchanting sweet songs informed my life.

But “Catch the Wind” would be my favorite, the theme song of my life.  When I hear it I drift back to Lemmy Willis, the boy I knew way back then:

In the chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty,
I want to be in the warm hold of your loving mind.
To feel you all around me,
And to take your hand along the sand,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

When sundown pales the sky,
I want to hide a while behind your smile,
And everywhere I look your eyes I find.
For me to love you now, would be the sweetest thing,
T’would make me sing,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

When rain has hung the leaves with tears,
I want you near, to kill my fears,
To help me to leave all my blues behind.
Standing in your heart is where I want to be
And long to be,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

The serenity of that church had become something of a  sanctuary for me to feel my aloneness.  I was not unhappy. I was loving being in love, whether lamenting the poignant sadness or inspired by the delicious spirituality of love.

Lemmy had written: “Make up your own mind, give me a reason, why you are running small and alone.  No one is lonely if they are ready to live for living and living alone.”

Maybe I had created the reality of my life and Lemmy sensed it … maybe he knew me better than I knew myself.

Reproductions of both the original spectacles and of the ones I made myself, made properly by a Hawaiian artist I met on the streets of Northampton.

Chapter 8
The End of the Beginning

“Looking through crystal spectacles, I can see you had your fun”      Epistle to Dippy – Donovan

I was just coming off the platform at Earls Court Road one day, and as I ran up the stairs to the Warwick Street entrance I saw Lemmy and his friend Leo. I stopped and joined the conversation. Leo struck me as a wild, wired guy.  He looked a little like Philthy Animal Tayor, Motorhead’s drummer before Mickey Dee, similar energy.  He was a speed freak, very friendly, and I liked him.  After just a few minutes, Leo took his leave, and we watched him bounding up the stairs, waving goodbye as he went. When he was nearly out of site Lemmy turned to me and said “ Leo called me Motorhead…isn’t that cool?” I had no idea what that meant, but agreed that it was.  So many times over the years Lemmy would say things that I wondered about, and that was one of them.  I should have asked “Well, what does that mean exactly?” “Why is it cool?”
I’d never heard that word before, and wouldn’t hear it again till twenty years later, but it was the key to finding Lemmy again.

“We’ve moved”, Lemmy said happily and with an excited air about him, “over to Nevern Square.  Come on, I’ll show you”, and he grabbed my hand and pulled me along.  It was only a few blocks away, still in our neighborhood.  As we walked he told me that they had recorded an album and he couldn’t wait to show me.

“What?… Wow!”, I exclaimed. This was a big deal, and a complete surprise to me.  In those days, recording was a complicated and expensive endeavor, involving a contract with a studio, not like it is today, with recording options so much more accessible.

This new place was a room in the front of the house with a big three sided window that bowed out, very light and airy, with high ceilings.  Lemmy had a bed right in the alcove of the window overlooking the square, the large garden guarded by a tall wrought iron fence. These squares are private, only for residents surrounding them, who have keys. It was a lovely street, and a stately townhouse. Going back to London forty years later to reminisce, I couldn’t be sure exactly which townhouse it was.

The room was large and white, with crown molding around the edges of the ceiling and artful details gracing the walls, giving it a formal feeling character.  This room was built to be an elegant parlor or dining room, and now it had been reduced to a flat for wild rock and rollers.  There were four disheveled beds arranged around the room.  Like the last flat, it was rather dull and nondescript. It was so much more light and airy, but it had a cozy, lived in feeling about it, a nest, and was a definite upgrade from the last place on Philbeach Gardens.  Noticeably, there were several guitars about the room.  Roger was living there too, one of his band mates whom I had met briefly, and two other musicians I would never meet.
I sat down on his bed, taking in the room. He had a little bedside table, strewn with stuff, cigarettes and lighters, rolling paper and the like. On top of the pile was a pair of unusual eye glasses which immediately drew my eye. They were spectacular  Two oval, many faceted crystals were the “glass”, one blue, and one a turquoise green. The frames were clearly hand fashioned of copper, holding the crystals in place with a swirling design at the sides and circling around the ear. I immediately picked them up and put them on.  It was like looking through a kaleidoscope. Everything I looked at was multiplied, and moved as I moved my head, and any light was lined with a rainbows of color. “ Aren’t they incredible?”, Lemmy asked coming from the kitchen offering me cocktail franks, in cellophane packages, slices of ham, and cheese, the kind of food he’s always liked!  “They’re psychedelic spectacles, meant to wear when your tripping”, he said, “ I drove all the way to Newcastle wearing those!” I nodded incredulously, as I scanned the room, especially focusing on the twilight sun streaming in the windows onto Lemmy’s bed.

The original album I got in New York City in 1969

“Look at this!” he said as he picked up the album on the bed and handed it to me. It was a black textured album cover with large yellow letters saying “Sam Gopal” over a portrait of Lemmy with his band mates, Sam, Roger, and Phil.  It was called “Escalator.”  I was speechless and I was impressed.  I just looked at him and smiled.
As I was looking it over, Lemmy said “ Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ve got to meet Roger.”  He took the album out of my hands, pulled the record out of the cover, put it on the record player. “Stay and listen to it” he said with a twinkle of pride in his eye. He kissed me lightly on the cheek and left.

I sat there alone in the darkening room as evening came on, and listened to the whole album.  I loved it. It was psychedelic, electric, sound effects conjuring haunting images along with the music, like the Beatle’s “Sargent Pepper” album.  Sam Gopal played tablas throughout giving it an unusual sound for a rock and roll album, coupled with Lemmy’s distinct voice, soft and romantic in some songs, and driven and passionate in others. This was the first time I really heard him sing. This was incredible.

I had had an overwhelming desire to wear the eye glasses outside in the sunlight. I knew Lemmy wouldn’t mind if I borrowed them.  As I walked home in a psychedelic haze wearing the crystal spectacles, Donovan’s song, “Epistle to Dippy” in my mind.

I wore them to school the next day. Later that evening Lemmy was at my door. “Do you have my spectacles?” he asked anxiously, sounding out of breath and slightly panicked. “Yes,” I said, “ I didn’t think you would mind if I borrowed them”.  With a look and a sigh of relief he said “Oh no, that’s alright, “I was just worried about them disappearing.”  I got the spectacles from my room and handed them to him. “Gotta run, he said, we’re off to Newcastle again!”  With a quick smile he ran up the stairs.

 I wouldn’t see him again for twenty years.

Trouble was brewing at home unbeknownst to me, and I would be leaving London rather suddenly later that week while Lemmy was away…                                                                                                                            Over the years I was always on the look out for crystals like those in Lemmy’s glasses, with the intention of making some just like them.