Monty

Samantha took Simon to see Monty. His office was on Denmark Street….otherwise known as Tin Pan Alley. Simon told him about IT, OZ, Black dwarf etc. “Very good,” said Monty, “you’ve established your radical credentials. Do you want to make some real money?”

“Doing what?”

“Interviewing pop stars. Writing record reviews. You could do PR for the record companies.”

“Sell out you mean?”

“Well I wouldn’t call it selling out exactly. You can strike a balance.”

Monty was very generous. He paid well. Simon enjoyed meeting the movers and shakers, the music and the backstage gossip. Best of all he was guaranteed publication. When he finished an article there was no waiting around to see if it got used. And no problems about getting paid.

Still it was more Keith Altham than Nick Kent. Simon wasn’t intellectually satisfied. A chance meeting in a pub with Francis Bacon sparked a renewed interest in visual art. Simon started going to gallery openings which is how he got friendly with people like John Dunbar and Robert Fraser.

It turns out Samantha was no slouch herself when it came to getting in with the in crowd. She’d already been on Top of the Pops as a dancer. There was a chance of a spot on Juke Box Jury and she was doing quite a bit of modelling.

So I’m going to give Simon a couple more carefree bachelor years. He got a mortgage somehow on a dilapidated coach house in a Chelsea mews. The idea was to fix it up but things did not go totally smoothly with Samantha. They lived together for a while but it was on and off. Simon just couldn’t leave the girls alone. Samantha liked to play around a bit too. She wasn’t short of boyfriends. Me being one.

I’ll say one thing for Samantha…she was no snob. She would talk to anybody. Which is how I got to know her I suppose. Simon was writing something about punk and I was managing the Stench at the time. Him and Sam did an interview with me and the lads. I’d see her around the clubs and we would often have a chat. There must have been something about me that she liked. OK let’s be honest. I bonked her a few times but that’s how it was in those days. Nothing serious. People were fucking like rabbits.