Chapter 4 High Noone

Time Waits for No One

By Peter Noone

Age is inconsequential.

Until you are 23.

Everyone under 23 thinks that Alduous Huxley is a guru.

Brave New World is a great book until you are 25.

Ask The Rolling Stones.

They freely quoted from it, and the theme that anyone over 30 years of age was obsolete, was to me, at age 15, a quite brilliant theme, except maybe my Mum and Dad and a couple of my nice Aunties, and one groovy Uncle.

Just those chosen few should be allowed to stick around to watch the mayhem.

Just in case.

I mean not many 15-year-old schoolboys could operate a lawn mower, and ironing was, and still is a complete mystery to all my school chums.

So, in my brave new world I had planned on keeping the over 30s around until some of the lads could be trained to do the ironing. The lawns mowing could be done on sunny afternoons by the same plebeians, or we would never get a decent wicket for the cricket season.

Of course girls would not have to do anything except go with us to movies, or the fairgrounds, so we could show how unafraid we were of movies like Psycho , or fairground rides called Upsidedowner, which were operated by wife beaters, Huns, and men called Thor, which everyone was, after the Upthide downing!

I was just 16 when I met Andrew Loog- Oldham and he was the Stones manager and record producer.

He has a new book out called “Stoned”.

It is a very funny book, especially for all of the people who are in it.

I am in it a little, because I always thought that Andrew, along with Tony Calder and Andy Wickham were the really bright sparks, during the most interesting bright sparks era of the last 40 years.

Andrew was responsible for the Stones angry image, when everyone knew that they were really “English Grammar School Twits” and The Beatles were the real “Angry Young Men”.

I felt an affinity with the Stones, because I too was an English Grammar School Twit.

I felt an affinity with the Beatles too, because I was an “Angry Young Man” whenever my sister Denise couldn’t remember her Trigonometry and I had to do my homework like a normal person.

Andrew was important to that exhilarating 1964 London Scene.

He was directing the Rolling Stones.

He produced all those fabulous records.

He is the one who created their image as being the “Naughty Boys of Rock”.

I found the whole create an image thing to be amusing, thinking that it would be very hard work to have to act all day, so I decided that Herman would be the very same person as Peter Noone.

This was an important decision, and I think I made the right one.

Herman’s Hermits were sort of set up by Andrew to be the opposite of the naughty Stones.

Andrew wanted Herman’s Hermits to be the opposites of the Stones and we were.

Herman’s Hermits were really “nice” people.

It was not an act.

Of course I wanted to be naughty like the Stones, but I was sort of stuck with the realization that I just wasn’t that good at being naughty.

Not now I had left school anyway.

I thought being naughty was childish, especially if you got caught.

I loved to get rides with the Stones back to London, because they were so much more fun and naughty than the Hermits who usually went north on the M1 to their Mum’s house in Manchester.

There was a Sunday Television Show in Birmingham, called Thank Your Lucky Stars, and I would meet all the other bands and sort of ask for a lift back to London.

I was a free man. Oops boy!

The Stones had an American car.

It was huge a huge Chevrolet, and they had this mad bloke called Reg King who drove them around and terrorized all the other drivers on the road with a hammer.

He was able to drive the car with one hand (it was a left hand drive) and lean out of the window and smash the wing mirror off a slow moving vehicle, to our great amusement.

Of course I wanted to choose who would be driving along the motorway and have their side mirror explode too, but I was too young and just sat in the back of the car thinking, “Wow the Stones are fun”.

Andrew was always there on these trips and he was always the instigator and the most fun of the whole bunch.

Brian was quiet and somewhat detached as always.

Maybe Stoned?

Of course the fact that they were “Stoned” in the early Herman days, escaped me completely, as I was as they say in England “Up for the Cup” which is a derogatory expression for anyone who is not from London and think that it is Up, (it is down) and we Northerners only ever went to London to see a Football Cup Final.

Hence “Up for the Cup”.

I was definitely “Up for the Cup” at the time.

Although I had traveled all over Europe with my parents on business, I really had no idea how I was supposed to act around cool people.

As a member of Herman’s Hermits, sharing a hotel room with 5 or 6 strangers from other groups from up north seemed sort of normal.

We would stay on Sussex Gardens at a hotel called The Sussex (I think) and we would all pay one pound ($1.46) each to share a room with multiple beds, and multiple bands, and multiple lunatics.

The landlady liked having musicians stay with her, and I felt comfortable sleeping there, as my Mum had given me my own towel and I knew how to go and buy a toothbrush all by myself.

It was here at the Sussex Gardens in Padding ton that we made friends with the members of what was to be known as The British Invasion.

At the time we were all called Beat Groups and sometimes in the dark you could hear why.

This was a glorious moment for British Music. The camaraderie amongst these groups was unusual and we all felt the exhilaration of our newly found uniqueness.

Every day was a brave new day in 1964.

Herman’s Hermits were top of the charts with I’m Into Something Good , and the world was learning all about Swinging London, Miniskirts, and Bobbies on bicycles , and so was I.

My parents loved all my newfound fame and independence, and rarely saw me as I took on the world with all my 16 years of knowledge to carry me through all the danger.

If they didn’t hear for me for a few days, or a month or so, they ere confident that I was safe, as they could watch my career on the telly, as Herman’s Hermits were now part of the big scene.

There were no cell phones back then.

My Dad labeled my missingness “Disappearing tricks”, as I would magically disappear and suddenly appear at their front door with my washing.

After one of my disappearing tricks , my parents moved houses. I arrived at their new house in Huyton, and I recall today that they lived at 9 Chestnut Avenue.

However on the night I arrived in their sleepy little Lancashire Street, I couldn’t quite remember the number of the house and laundry that they had shared with me.

Undeterred by such a small setback as not having the exact address, I decided to look for their house.

Yes it was late (2am).

Yes it was dark as usual for that time of the morning.

Of course as the son and heir to the Noone Family Fourtunes, I felt confident that I would spot at least some little thing, so knick knack, a plaster poodle with pink diamante eyes, a Wedgewood plate, something, anything, that would me give me a clue to their whereabouts. Much to my surprise, as I was peering through the gap in the curtains of the 5th little house on Chestnut Avenue, I was tapped on the shoulder by a mysterious man in blue.

He was a constable.

He arrested me.

I explained.

“Sir. I am looking for my Mum’s house”.

“I am Herman of Herman’s Hermits not a burglar”.

“Tell that to the magistrate in the morning”.

Huyton has a nice police station.

The police are very nice blokes.

Some of their guests are not.

One of the especially bad things about jails is the people who go there.

After a few minutes of trying to explain my identity, one of the arriving drunks asked me for an autograph.

This saved me from falling back upon my greatest tool.

This tool had been passed down through the Noone family for generations and always worked.

I can recommend it for whenever you are in serious trouble or in jail in a room with one toilet for 16 men.

CRY

It is necessary to produce tears. The police can tell if you are faking.

It is one of the things they teach them at Police Academies.

Suddenly, I am a hero and the police are offering me a cup of tea and laughing at my arrest.

Herman arrested breaking into his own Mum’s house was the title in the Liverpool Echo, which was a downright lie, because I never got to Number 9 Chestnut Avenue.

There I would have spotted all the clues to my parent’s identity.

The picture on their mantelpiece would be of Joe and Dolly Blair.

He in his Manchester Regiment uniform, and she in her white wedding dress.

And those poodles with the pink diamante eyes.

Wait. Blue diamante eyes?

That was my last trip to jail.

Do NOT try it, even for fun.

Get your Mum’s address.

Memorize it.

Just in case your cellphone’s battery goes flat.

Chapter 4 High Noone

Time Waits for No One

—Peter Noone

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