STROLLING BONES AT STONES PARTY
PARTY guests saw a ghost at Sir Mick Jagger’s stately home.
Things went bump in the night during a Christmas Day bash he threw back in the Seventies.
His brother Chris, who helped plan the party at the rocker’s lavish Stargroves pile, said: “My parents had also invited two of their friends, and one of them told us that, as she was standing at the bottom of the stairs, she had the sensation of a woman’s ghost coming down the steps and passing her. “Of course, in such places ghosts come with the fixtures and fittings.”
Also there were a group of mystic minstrels called the Bauls of Bengal who had flown over from India to perform. Most of the partygoers were locals from the village in East Woodhay, Hampshire. They were invited in a bid to win them over in 1973 after the Rolling Stones frontman threw too many rowdy parties.
Chris said: “They arrived at the big house in their Sunday best, the men with clean-shaven ruddy faces and the ladies in their finest floral prints, stepping into a room the size of some of their cottages to be served by longhaired hippies and greeted by the Bauls.
“Many villagers had never seen Asian people, but before long everyone was mingling, some of the old boys removing their jackets and pushing up the stretchy armbands on their striped shirts to play on the snooker table, while others gazed at the colour TV – a novelty back then.
“As the sherry flowed and laughter rang round the hall, runners were dispatched to remove half-burned turkeys from ovens in various parts of the village.” In his new book Talking To Myself, Chris said that when he first set eyes on Sir Mick’s country house in 1971 he “immediately loved the place”. He added: ““According to Marianne [Faithfull], Mick had bought the manor while on an acid trip, but that might have been her exaggeration.”