Fame & Fortune finally comes knocking
Scootering continues its short series of scooter boy tales. If you’re inspired to reminisce on days of old, send us your 1000 word story to share with the readers…
Istarted my scootering days in Guildford, 1982. Being a few years younger than most of the Mods who were around at the time, myself and my close friends tended to do our own thing, including riding over to Carnaby Street on the odd Saturday. As such, we jumped at the chance to attend a Mods ‘rally’ to Buck House and an evening event hosted by Tony Class. I can’t remember how many of us rode up the A3 towards Carnaby Street, but I was on my PX125E, Jez was on his Li150 and Paul on his modded-up 50 Special with a 90 engine.
We spent a few hours in and around Carnaby Street but decided to give the mass ride to Buck House a miss. Instead, we grabbed a bite to eat then thought we would head off to somewhere called Tufnell Park. We did not know precisely where it was but we thought we knew the general direction (no Google Maps back then!). As we rode it got darker and darker and in the end we really didn’t know where we were. So when we came to the next set of lights I knocked on a car window and asked directions to Tufnell Park Tube (the venue was next door). The driver pointed to the other side of the junction!
We parked up and were approached by the very same driver. It turned out he worked for Julian Temple’s production company, and he needed a couple of Mods to help film a Kinks video in Brighton on the Monday. Would we be up for it? Err... yeah!
Sadly, Paul couldn’t make it, so having called in ‘sick’, Jez and I set off to Brighton on a foggy Monday morning. We arrived at the Palace Pier in sunshine to find a couple of local Mods on scooters, who were also involved. After introductions had been made we gained access to the pier and rode up and down for a while having a bit of fun. Are we the only people ever to have ridden scooters about on Palace Pier? Eventually the day’s ‘work’ began and we were introduced to the choreographer (an attractive French woman who was at the time Paul King’s girlfriend). As well as us four Mods, she also had to handle a load of local OAPs who had been drafted in from a nearby residential home and dressed up as youths (punks, goths, Boy George etc.)!
We quickly discovered that filming is lots of boredom interrupted by a few short periods of shooting the same scene about half a dozen times to get it right. We helped out with moving gear about and with the camera tracks that they were using to shoot walking/dancing scenes. We also got chatting with Ray Davies’ son, who was a young Mod. Filming the various scenes (which were mostly made
It’s amazing to think of that chance meeting with a complete stranger somewhere in London leading to Jez and I being involved with The Kinks
up on the spot by everyone involved) was good fun and the choreographer had great sense of humour and made us feel at ease.
After queuing up for the free lunch that was provided, we were involved in more filming in the afternoon. During a relatively quiet period, as the crew set everything up ready for another scene, we were stood at the side of the dodgems when Ray himself came over for a brief chat (unfortunately I missed the photo opportunity!). As the day ended we had been in numerous scenes with the OAPs. I don’t recall the scooters being used in much of the filming, but we did loads of stuff up and down the pier, ending up right at the end with the band on stage performing (sorry, miming) the song to a seated audience.
At one point during the umpteenth shoot, everyone was required to jump out of their seats and ‘lunge’ towards the band, our hands stretched out as if trying to touch our ‘heroes’ on stage. That basically ended the day. We were thanked, paid and told that following more filming at a London tube station, the single and the accompanying video would be out in a month or so. It was almost too much to bear, having to wait all that time, especially as one or two workmates didn’t believe me.
Eventually, a few months later, the completed music video was shown on The Whistle Test. It was a bit disappointing. Most of the video takes place in a tube station, with only the last third being made up of scenes in Brighton. Almost everything we had been involved in ended up on the cutting room floor. We are in there though: as the scene moves around the dodgems, you can just get a glimpse of the four of us chatting in the background outside, and the only bit I can be easily recognised in was at the end of The Pier where we all jumped up towards the band as Ray moves to the edge of the stage. It’s amazing to think of that chance meeting with a complete stranger at a set of traffic lights somewhere in London leading to Jez and I being involved with The Kinks. Despite (only just) appearing in a Kinks video, it was a really exciting day out for two young Mods. We got to see how music videos are made, we got fed and paid, and we got to meet Ray Davies to boot.
A while later, some other mates got involved with The Jam’s Beat Surrender video, filmed at Woking Football Club, and I narrowly missed out on the chance of being in Fine Young Cannibals’ Good Thing video too. But I am not bothered. I am proud to have (briefly) appeared in a Kinks video. Although we never did get a VHS copy as promised! Mike Collum