His MI6 file says he’s difficult to control

Your Time Machine piece [MOJO 331] referred to “thrusting young record executive” Richard Branson and was a reminder that Branson’s success with Mike Oldfield’s opus was, effectively, the launch pad of his Virgin empire and billionaire status.

In the 1990s, while working at BBC Radio Derby, I interviewed Derby-born Kevin Coyne and we eventually touched on his early years at Virgin. Kevin told me that shortly after being signed by Virgin, he was asked to meet Branson on his house-boat. He told Kevin that he had concerns about the Tubular

Bells recordings going on at Oxford Manor. “He was worried about the fact that it was an all-instrumental album,” recalled Kevin. “He said ‘I don’t think this is going to work’, and so he asked me to go up to the Manor to see if I could put some lyrics to it. So I trooped off to Oxford to meet this Oldfield fellow and to listen to his album. I hated it. I walked away thinking, I want nothing to do with this. Good job, really. Look how Tubular Bells turned out.” Kevin always struck me as a guy of utter sincerity. Maybe Mike Oldfield recalls this episode? Ashley Franklin, Milford, Derbyshire