extraordinary LIVES
GORDON had a lifelong passion for music. He grew up in Newcastle, the son of a steel erector, and by 15 was playing the washboard in a skiffle band, performing at the local church youth club. He left Heaton Grammar School at 16 for a job at the Post Office. When he did his National Service in Cyprus, he played guitar in an Army band. There was an exciting music scene on Tyneside in the early 1960s and after returning home from National Service, Gordon joined his friends Bryan ‘Chas’ Chandler and Alan Price in a group called the Kon Tors, playing lead guitar. I met him in 1962 when they were performing at a local club. Chas’s dad Jimmy would drive the boys to their gigs in a converted ambulance. There were no roadies, so their mates would help with the equipment. A big bunch had crowded into the ambulance one night and as they were crossing the Tyne from North to South Shields they were stopped by policemen searching for stolen turkeys. Loud ‘Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!’ sounds came from the back of the ambulance. When the policemen flung open the doors, the boys burst into laughter. The Kon Tors
recorded an album at Newcastle’s famous Mortonsound studio. Only six copies were made and one is in a local museum. The band later developed into The Animals, Tyneside’s most famous rock ’n’ roll band, with Eric Burdon on vocals, Alan on keyboards and Chas on bass guitar. By 1964, when The Animals left Newcastle for London, Gordon had taken a different path. We had married, he’d settled into a good job at the Post Office and our first son Gary was born that year. Neal came along five years later. Gordon carried on playing the guitar. He’d been one of the first guitarists in Newcastle to acquire a Fender Stratocaster from the U.S. and ended up owning five guitars of various kinds. After he retired from British Telecom aged 53, we moved to a village on the Northumberland coast, where he taught himself to play the piano and started writing songs. He kept up his close friendship with Chas, who, after leaving The Animals, discovered
Jimi Hendrix and became his manager. Gordon loved travelling and whenever we went to far-flung places, he’d always bring blank sheet music paper so he could carry on composing. And he was a good cook, with exotic tastes and hundreds of cookbooks. His death is a great loss to the whole family, including our teenage grandson Joe, a promising footballer, and to Gordon’s many friends.