{"id":4024,"date":"2015-06-16T11:49:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T10:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=4024"},"modified":"2018-02-09T21:21:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T21:21:04","slug":"in-conversation-with-jenny-spires-by-michelle-coomber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/in-conversation-with-jenny-spires-by-michelle-coomber\/","title":{"rendered":"In Conversation with Jenny Spires by Michelle Coomber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle Coomber hosts a rare and exclusive interview with Jenny Spires<\/em>, ex-girlfriend and lifelong friend of Syd Barrett<\/em>. Jenny talks of her life with Syd and hanging out with Pink Floyd, her experiences with the in-crowd and watching the moon landing with Jerry Garcia! She shares her memories of those she holds dear and the iconic places she frequented during iconic times. Jennifer Gentle<\/em>, the beautiful lady with a true rocking soul.<\/p>\n

Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born in Jamaica but grew up in Cambridge. My childhood was very free, if a little solitary. I had two older brothers; one of them used to read all the time and the other was into sport and played a lot of football. Occasionally, I was allowed to tag along but not often. There were few girls of my age living nearby, but we all went to different schools, so we didn\u2019t really get to know each other until I started to ride. This brought me into contact with local girls going to Pony Club camps and Gymkhanas.<\/p>\n

I was a restless child; I had a bike and was allowed to go out and about, so I would go off for the day. Turning right took me towards the village, I used love going to the Blacksmiths and often hung around there or I\u2019d cross the railway tracks to the chalk hills of The Nine Wells and The Beech Woods. Turning left took me into Grantchester, past Byron\u2019s Pool and on to the Grantchester Meadows. It was a fabulous playground for any child with very little traffic and open countryside to wander. I had started to take ballet classes on my arrival in England and continued with this until I left Cambridge at seventeen, so that was a big part of my life over the years, too.<\/p>\n

Were you the archetype \u2018Wild Child\u2019?
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I wasn\u2019t at all. Having older brothers brought me into contact with some very cool music. Rock & Roll, Blues and Folk. But it took forever for my Mother to allow me to wear pedal pushers, for example, or jeans, come to that. Though, by the time I was eight, my brother had tuned me in to Elvis, The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Richie Valens, Lonnie Donegan, Huddie Ledbetter, T-bone Walker, the Platters, Fats Domino, James Brown, Woody Guthrie, Jessie Fuller etc. Coming to Dylan and the sixties\u2019 rock scene was a natural progression.<\/p>\n

We had to write news books at school and I\u2019d regularly write things like \u201cLast night I listened to Bony Maronie\u201d, or some such thing. Then my book would be returned with \u201cSee me\u201d on the bottom of the page and I would have to explain all this to my teacher. I think she assumed I lived in a wild place, but it was a very regulated and orderly home. My father worked for The MRC and my parents were just normal, but I was getting turned on to Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekala. Later, when my brother was boarding at school, my dance studio was above the best and only record shop in town. After classes, I would head on down to the basement to the listening booths and get the Stones, the Kinks, Them, the Pretty Things, the Beatles, the Animals, The Who, Small Faces etc.<\/p>\n

When did you start going to music venues?
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Gradually, I began to go the youth club and local dances, but it was always about the music for me. I quickly learned the dance of the day, but I was totally disinterested in boys<\/em> and found it disconcerting when they asked me to dance. I preferred to dance on my own because I thought they couldn\u2019t dance. I found these kinds of dances didn\u2019t give me the Drifters or Charles and Inez Foxx, though.<\/p>\n

Cambridge had a few music venues. The Corn Exchange was a skating rink and sometimes put on local bands. There was a thriving bands scene in Cambridge.  The early sixties was a very creative time. Somehow, I had acquired a taste for Atlantic Soul and Motown, so I\u2019d go to London to find this music. I started to try to and see these artists when they came to the UK, but I was still pretty young and they never came to Cambridge, so I would go with girlfriends to Stevenage Mecca, where I saw Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding etc and the mod boys could certainly dance there!<\/p>\n

When I was fourteen, I saw the fourteen year old Stevie Wonder in Bishops Stortford performing \u2018Finger Tips\u2019, fabulous! These live performances really got to me. I started going to London clubs with a couple of girlfriends. We\u2019d say we were staying over at each other\u2019s homes but we went to London to hear Georgie Fame at The Flamingo or Long John Baldry at The Scene and take in The Yardbirds at the The Marquee. I did this for quite a time and my parents didn\u2019t catch on at all. I wasn\u2019t a wild child, though. Quite a lot of my friends were doing the same thing and more. <\/strong><\/p>\n

You became Syd Barrett\u2019s girlfriend in the sixties and remained a lifelong friend. How did you both meet?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My middle brother was at Cambridge Tech and friends with people from the art school and he was really good mates with Steve Pyle. They were \u2018beats\u2019 and drank in pubs a lot. One very cold December night in 1964, we went to The CSU Cellars to see an art school band called Those Without<\/em>. Steve was drumming and Syd was playing bass. During sets, he sat down and introduced himself.  He told me he was at art school in London and played in a band which had just changed its name from the Tea Set<\/em> to the Pink Floyd<\/em>. An odd name, I thought, but he went on to tell me they were just making some demo tapes hoping this would get them a residency in London. I was fifteen and a half.<\/p>\n

Those Without<\/em> wasn\u2019t great. Probably, a typical art school type of shuffle. Syd asked to meet up and go for coffee and he rang me a few days later and we arranged to meet at a cafe called The Guild but he was a little put out that I\u2019d brought a friend along. She soon went off, however, and we walked back to his mum\u2019s house in Hills Road where he was staying for the Christmas holidays. He showed me his paintings and I was fascinated by him. I saw him again before he went back to college. He played at the Victoria Ballroom and I was there with friends but I didn\u2019t really speak to him.<\/p>\n

Unbeknown to me, he\u2019d sketched me at the Union Cellar, and a couple of days after New Year, this beautiful pink tissue-wrapped letter arrived with a sketch of me and his address in London, asking me to write to him. I did, and then he was home at the weekend. He came home every weekend except for when he was playing. And mostly, if he was playing, I went to London with him.<\/p>\n

How did your life change after meeting Syd?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was strange really, because suddenly my life changed from full on clubbing to having a boyfriend at art school in London who used to write to me all the time saying he loved me and telling me about his life at college and his band. My parents really liked him, and he could drive, and I saw him every weekend. He would phone and we\u2019d chat and he\u2019d come to get me and we\u2019d do some cool stuff. He was lucky enough to have kept his room at home where he had canvasses, a guitar, amp and all his painting paraphernalia.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, I wanted to go out with my friends and he was fine about that, but mostly we\u2019d listen to music and chat about college and have fun going to the cinema and all those things, really. We were very close, he wanted photos of me and sent me photos of himself, but I soon realised that he\u2019d had another girlfriend before me, he was nineteen and she was older and still living nearby. Libby and he were still friends and I gathered that she was quite upset that they\u2019d split up, but she had another boyfriend by then. Well, things did pan out with Syd and I wasn\u2019t bothered at all by their friendship. Syd and I carried on going out until just before the summer. It was very loving and very intense. We discussed all things in the universe and under the sun; marriage, children, love, sex, books, literature, the world, philosophy, art, music, poetry. It was a lovely, cosy time.<\/p>\n

What were your personal thoughts on having a steady relationship at this particular time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was thinking about my situation and realised that having a steady boyfriend wasn\u2019t best for me at the time and it was too intense, I had my O levels and it was all getting too much. I wanted to leave school and go to Lucie Clayton. I saw modelling as an extension of my dance training for some reason. I auditioned and got in but my father wouldn\u2019t let me go. He said I was too young and I had to go back to school, it was difficult. I was going away in the holidays and decided I wanted to take some time out. Syd was upset but I was determined, so we just drifted apart but he was my first boyfriend and that always seemed to draw us back together over the years.<\/p>\n

He played at my sixteenth birthday in July and when he went back at college he was still writing to me and phoning, he would say how he was missing me. We carried on writing right up to Easter of 1966 and we still went out but not all the time. He was very patient, when I think about it!<\/p>\n

I think he was going out with Lindsay by now and they were moving into Earlham Street together. I was in London by the late summer of 1966, my father having relented and let me go to Lucie Clayton. I was visiting Syd and Lindsay and other friends from Cambridge and hanging out at 101. The Pink Floyd was gigging quite a lot and Syd was inviting me along to some of the shows. This continued to 1967, so I was around all the time until he left the band. During 1968, I didn\u2019t see much of him on a regular basis until he took the lease on the flat at Wetherby Mansions.<\/p>\n

Syd refers to you as \u201cJennifer Gentle\u201d in his song \u2018Lucifer Sam\u2019, how did you feel when you first heard it and what is your favourite song by Syd?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, when I heard \u2018Lucifer Sam\u2019, I didn\u2019t really think much about it. Of course, I think it\u2019s a wonderful song; I love it. It seems to have one foot in the past, musically, and one in the future.  I was so used to hearing him sing and write songs and he had sent me poems and written songs to me in his letters, previously.  Also, I knew the story of \u2018Lucifer Sam\u2019 and wasn\u2019t surprised by it. He often said to me \u201cYou\u2019re so gentle and I love talking to you\u201d, so it seemed normal, really. It is such well-known song now.<\/p>\n

You worked for the same model agency as Kari-Ann Muller, who was Roxy Music\u2019s first LP cover model. Who did you model for and what fashion style appealed to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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