Sonic Assassin

By Paul Hayles

Paul Hayles biography is a fast moving story deeply embedded in the music and entertainment business. With some very famous friends, bands and tours, Paul takes us through what it was like working with the greats and living to tell the tale. Paul Hayles never wanted to be in a cult rock band like Hawkwind and yet there he was, the shy father of two setting out on a journey that would take him away from his young family and make his wildest dreams come true. Paul knew Lemmy Kilmister from way back, both had auditioned for the same band back before Hawkwind came together. Lemmy had just left Hawkwind to form Motorhead, so the band was in a changing phase and so was Paul. Playing in bands had been something Paul chose to do as a hobby to begin with - in addition to his day job of teaching children with behaviour problems. He played in a local band, Ark, and thought it was just his weekly night out away from the restraints of his daily life. But, suddenly, out of the blue, there he was playing in Sonic Assassins, Hawkwind and then on tour in the USA with the Kings of Space Rock. He made the most of it in the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. They traversed America, meeting and hanging out with other bands such as Van Halen and the Blockheads, and even eating and chatting with one of his heroes, David Bowie. His life was far from what he had ever imagined. All things come to and end and Paul moved his family to France, where they rented a small farm and tried the self-sufficiency life before returning to teaching. He continued playing in bands, now with the confidence to compose and sing, and used the Hawkwind connection to get All Area Access entry to concerts by bands such as Pink Floyd and U2 and even got to play with the Topper Headon Band (ex-Clash). So his musical ambitions, although put aside for the sake of his beloved family, were still there under the surface. In the 90's, back in the UK, he returned to the world of boarding schools for extremely difficult youngsters but still played music, even touring with folk-meets-rave band The Cropdusters. But he was good at his day job and was soon promoted to Head Teacher having three such posts before a bout of cancer meant stopping this difficult work. Meantime he worked on an album with Jalal Nurinda of the Last Poets, seminal rap band, and brought out an EP with some top Bristol musicians including Roni Size's drummer, Clive Deamer. Then, out of the blue again, nearly 30 years on, he received an invitation to support Hawkwind on their 2006 British tour. Back on the road, more adventures, more chance meetings, such as Peter Hook of New Order, and would this be the end or another new beginning? Pauls band Lastwind release their new album High on Life with Flicknife Records (SHARPCD19108) on March 29th 2019.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Haven Publishing Ltd
• Release date: May 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463341445

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Sonic Assassin

Paul Hayles

Published 2019

New Haven Publishing

www.newhavenpublishingltd.com

[e-mail]

All Rights Reserved

The rights of Paul Hayles, as the author of this work, have been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

No part of this book may be re-printed or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now unknown or hereafter invented, including photocopying, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the Author and Publisher.

Cover design ©Sam Hayles (DoseProd)

Ink portrait by Bruno Cheyval

Copyright © 2019 Paul Hayles

All rights reserved

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: My Age of Total Innocence*

Chapter 2: Fractured Innocence*

Chapter 3: A Teenager in Sidmouth: Innocence Lost*

Chapter 4: London: The End of My Adolescence*

Chapter 5: Music, Acid and a Real Relationship*

Chapter 6: Life as a Couple in Bristol*

Chapter 7: A Move to North Devon and Back to College *

Chapter 8: Family, Teaching and Transport *

Chapter 9: Ark and Another Birth *

Chapter 10: Disheartened with School, Happy With Music and Family Life*

Chapter 11: Sonic Assassins *

Chapter 12: Off to the USA *

Chapter 13: Touring the Mid-West *

Chapter 14: East Coast to West Coast *

Chapter 15: California Dreaming *

Chapter 16: Off to a New Life in France *

Chapter 17: Life on the Up *

Chapter 18: Back to the UK With My Tail Between My Legs*

Chapter 19: A Successful Career With Some Music on the Side*

Chapter 20: Management, No Music and Ill Health*

Chapter 21: Lastwind Emerges*

Chapter 22: Supporting Hawkwind*

Chapter 23: Postscript*

About the Author

Chapter 1

*My Age of Total Innocence*

You are going to witness a life, one with many twists and turns. Those of you who know me a little, and only because of the musical parts, may be surprised by my background and some of the other things I have done. But, in order for the whole to make sense, I decided that all the key elements that have made me what I am and have been, must be included. So forgive me if I do not start with a bang, there’ll be plenty of those later. I have to start at the beginning so you can understand the very different world I came from.

My father, Steve, was born on Michaelmas Day, September 1922, in Manchester, where his mother was staying with her family. Soon after, she returned to be with her husband, a postman on the Isle of Wight. Steve did well for a working class lad and won a place at the Newport Grammar School but left at sixteen to take up a mechanic’s apprenticeship in a local garage and, with his sister on piano, he played violin in a jazz/dance band at night. Their gigs were mainly in the pubs and guest houses along the Parkhurst Straight, where families who were visiting loved ones in one or other of the Island’s three prisons enjoyed a knees-up before catching the ferry back to the mainland.

Two things happened to change my father’s life for ever: war was declared and he got religion. He applied to join the RAF but was too young and had to wait another year before they would accept him. It was during that time he met my mother, Gwen. Having survived rheumatic fever that left her with a chronic heart condition, my mother was convalescing on the Island. My parents’ time together was brief; before too long my father was in the RAF and found himself in Egypt supervising Italian prisoners as they worked on our damaged planes. There was only one other devout Christian in my father’s squadron and the two teetotallers would spend quiet evenings in their tent writing to their girlfriends. Then one night my dad offered to post both their letters only to discover that they were writing to the same address: they were writing to sisters!

The war continued but there was still time for leave and fortunately for Dad it meant a visit to the Holy Land, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, in what was still Palestine, an experience that made a lasting impression on him. Meanwhile my mother had been invalided out of nursing and took up an administrative job with the Ministry of Defence. One day, on arriving at work, she found her office had been bombed to bits over the weekend. My mother’s father, Jack Thorne, was also in London during the Blitz. A printer by trade in Fleet Street, he worked all through the night so was right in the centre during the whole bombing campaign. This was Jack’s second war and it did nothing to help his already ragged nerves.

Jack grew up on the Old Kent Road, and was one of eleven surviving children. His father used to sing for his supper in the pubs of Millwall, but having become a skilled printer Jack managed to take his family out into the suburbs. Beckenham has kept its white-collar status till today and must have been quite heavenly after the Old Kent Road. However, the gassing he had been exposed to during the Great War left its mark. He became very irritable, had a rather quick temper and ruled over his roost with a rod of iron. Grandma Thorne was a dear who spent her time trying to compensate for the prickliness of her husband. But she was unable to persuade Jack to let the girls, who had both won places, attend the local grammar school. Jack wasn’t going to have two daughters ‘wasting’ their time studying. Doris, the elder, was allowed to continue at grammar school but my mum was sent off to become a trainee nurse; training interrupted by her bout of rheumatic fever.

All good wars must come to an end and Dad found himself, along with a couple of million other blokes, demobbed and looking for fairly scarce work. Mum was still employed at the Ministry dealing with ration cards and Dad stayed in London to be near her. One day, he spotted a large poster offering jobs in the Metropolitan Police. So he signed up and after some training was posted to Penge, a working class suburb just down the road from Beckenham where Mum lived. Married officers were being offered accommodation and on December 13th 1947 they got married. I arrived eleven months later on November 15th, four hours after Prince Charles.

Photos of the couple from back then show a very nervous, innocent and average looking bloke with a quite stunning and shapely young lady; he was punching above his weight. As for his time in the police, he never really got used to it. Sergeant Dark, his shift boss, was always complaining that he didn’t make enough arrests. Dad would always tend to give people a warning and a second chance, an attitude which the sergeant saw as woolly at best. But he felt trapped, as the house went with the job, and with a young child he couldn’t afford to move, particularly as Mum had had a difficult time having me and had not returned to work.

Their fortune changed when Dad heard about the London City Mission, which brought the Gospel to the poorer, working-class neighbourhoods, places the main denominations didn’t touch. The pay was not great, quite the contrary, but each married couple was provided with a house, usually quite close to the mission they ran. Although both Mum and Dad came from non-church families they shared a fervent belief in God and Jesus and faithfully accepted the Holy Bible as God’s sole message to man. After a short theological course my father became a missionary. His allotted mission was in Gillette Road, in Thornton Heath, north of Croydon. My parents were given a flat in an old building and, shortly after moving, my mother fell pregnant with my sister Linda. She spent most of her pregnancy in Guy’s Hospital but Linda (Lou as she was later to be known) was safely delivered on 14th March 1950.

I have no visual memories of this time but two events of importance happened which I have been told about and the results of which are still evident. Firstly, I used to have a wooden horse, and I could ride it around the flat, holding the reins in my two hands. Running around makes an animal thirsty, particularly in a hot kitchen. So where could I find water to quench its thirst? I looked everywhere but the sink taps were out of reach. Then I spied a metal container which was always full of water. It was on the stove and by stretching I could just about put the horse’s head in it. But then I slipped, the horse caught on the rim and I pulled it off the stove, spilling water everywhere. It contained not only water but the tea towels my mother had been boiling clean. Luckily, most of it had missed me but some hadn’t and I screamed as the scalding water permeated my pyjama top. My dad hurried into the room and tore off my pyjamas. This was his first mistake as a layer of skin came off with the top. He rushed me to the doctor’s surgery and sat in the waiting room anxiously waiting his turn. This was his second mistake and he received a dressing down from the doctor when I finally got to be treated. I have a burn scar to this day. This was my first experience of my father’s refusal to put himself first; his willingness to let others take priority.

The second incident was really quite dramatic. Clothes would be hung to dry around the flat. Mum was deep-frying some chips on the stove, and the fat overflowed, caught fire and set light to the washing drying all around the kitchen. Luckily the fire station was just down the road and they arrived quickly, so there was very little damage apart from the kitchen, which was a write-off. It was years before I made the connection between the fire and my fear of being in a kitchen with boiling fat. This was particularly difficult when I was given the chore of ‘watching the chips’, a job I was always given because I was a good apprentice. My sister learnt early on that ineptitude was an important skill because, as I heard my mother say, ‘It’s easier to get Paul to do it than to try and teach Linda.’

With scalding water and boiling fat behind us, we moved from Beverly Road to Saxon Road, a working-class street in Thornton Heath where we could hear the trains rattling along between East Croydon and London Victoria. Our house was a semi-detached ‘two up, two down’, separated from the house on the right by a communal alley. The back garden was long and narrow, room enough for my father to grow vegetables and a grassy area for playing. There was a cold, damp toilet and bathroom attached to the house. On cold winter days washing and other activities were executed as quickly as possible.

Downstairs, to the left of the front door was the sitting room. It had our best bits of furniture including a china cabinet and a piano. This room was for receiving visitors or, for us children, practising the piano. We were both started on the musical path very young, at first attending lessons at Mather’s School of Music, at the far end of Thornton Heath High Street. Until quite recently I still had a framed copy of my Grade 2, Royal School of Music piano certificate, which I was awarded in 1954 when I would have been just six years old. We always knew if a visitor was someone important because we all sat in the front room and Mum would bring in a pot of tea and some biscuits on a tray. If it was someone who had come to talk to Dad about work we were told to play quietly in the living room, which was exactly that, a multi-purpose room where we all spent most of our time. We played there, we ate there, Mum cooked there and we even bathed there in the winter.

We soon came to realise that not all visitors were allowed in the front room. For instance, we had quite a lot of one-off visits from ‘ordinary’ guests; uncle this and uncle that. They would turn up and tea would be made and out would come a packet of biscuits, or if they were lucky maybe homemade sponge, but always in the living room. They would hang around till my father came home and then disappear with Dad never to be seen again. It was many years later that I discovered that all these men had just been released from Brixton prison, where my dad was a part-time volunteer chaplain. My dad, in his goodness, would give his prisoners his home address in case they needed help, so, of course, they would turn up hoping for a handout or maybe just a slice of sponge. Dad would then take them round to the Memorial Hall, his second back street mission, and talk with them about their hopes and possibilities, and no doubt give them some small change so they could get to their next destination, which my mum said would be the Whitehorse Arms, the pub opposite the mission hall.

Back then, church life and family life were almost one and the same. Outside of that the other important thing to feature in my life was school. Most of my friends were also part of the church. Sunday was the key day of the week, different in so many ways. For a start we wore our best clothes, which we only wore on the Sabbath. Playing in our Sunday clothes was not allowed, not that there was much time left after all the hours we spent in church. The day started with Sunday School at Spurgeon’s Baptist Tabernacle, a huge building in West Croydon, where my dad was the minister’s assistant. It was by far the biggest building I had ever seen, let alone entered, and our lessons were held in rooms under the church. At eleven we would be marched into the main church where we sat in the gallery for the first half of the service. Unless you were of secondary school age, you were allowed to leave during the third hymn and before the sermon was delivered by the Reverend Geoffrey King, a tall man with glasses who seemed closer to God than the rest of us. Most of the children went straight home but my sister and I had to wait until the service had finished and my mother was ready to leave. Then it was home by bus with Mum to get Sunday lunch ready for Dad when he got home on his motorbike. But after lunch there was my dad’s own little Memorial Hall to attend. Sunday School, again, this time from three till four, then the evening service from six thirty till seven forty-five. Dad often had things to do so we usually stayed in the Hall for tea. As the minister’s children we were always spoilt a bit, but at the same time expected to set a good example. I was pleased to comply and proud of my dad’s status in the community. I certainly didn’t question this way of spending every Sunday.

I started school at four. I could already read and I was quick to learn my times-tables so most of my memories of Whitehorse Road School were good if vague. But I can still picture Ann Hyde, a sweet little girl with a ginger pageboy cut and thousands of freckles. I already knew her from church and I thought she was gorgeous. Apparently, I would run into class every morning and kiss her, until my teacher told me that such behaviour could not continue. Strangely, I can’t remember any of my teachers’ names at that school.

I do have some memories of street life, not that we spent a lot of time outside; it was considered rather ‘rough’ and better parents kept their children indoors. There was a line of shops at the end of the road including a butcher’s, a sweet shop, grocer’s, haberdashery and chemist’s. I can remember that certain items were still rationed and Mum very carefully using her ration cards. And I remember clearly that on Saturdays we would be given a few coppers to spend at the sweet shop, back in the day when most sweets could be bought individually, and plastic looking shrimps and pear drops were favourites.

Many items were still sold door-to-door. There were even French onion sellers on their bikes, but we never bought anything from them, they were too exotic. Then there were the potato lorries that delivered potatoes by the half-hundredweight sack; we always bought those. I suppose as I got a bit older, seven or eight, I was given a bit more freedom, but there were only certain children I was allowed to play with. One such boy was called Roger Swaris, who was Indian and the only dark-skinned immigrant in our street. There were a few Polish families in the area, who settled in the UK after serving alongside the Allies during the war. I recall roller skating with a Polish boy who took me to a Polish delicatessen. The food was so unfamiliar; the aroma so strange. We would have never dreamt of eating such fare. Our diet was very bland: stews and roasts with very little meat. Once rationing was over I can remember bread and dripping lunch being replaced by lettuce and sugar sandwiches.

When older, I would be sent shopping by myself and one of these trips remains clearly in my memory. I was on an errand to buy some ketchup only to find the nearest grocer’s was shut. So I made my way to a corner shop in a rough neighbourhood where council flats had been built on what had been a bomb site. I was set upon by some boys who frightened me so much I dropped the ketchup bottle, which broke, and the change fell out of my hand and rolled away into the gutter. I got into trouble, but it made me realise that money was short and had to be spent wisely and looked after.

There was very little traffic. That isn’t to say there weren’t accidents. One day a car almost disappeared down a hole in the road. Our street was built over the river Wandle and during heavy rain it had risen and caused a crack big enough to swallow up the passing vehicle. My dad didn’t escape the odd accident. He had a motorbike which he used to get around his parish and once he came home with his arm in a sling because his stirrups had got caught in a tramline and sent him flying through the air. Then there was the fog. I can remember the weather conditions being so bad one day we were all sent home from school at lunchtime because the fog was so thick you could hardly see your hand in front of your face.

I can’t remember being unhappy at all. I had nothing else to compare it with so our life seemed normal and fine. I had no worries, no big fears, God was in his heaven and life went on. Then when I was eight something happened to change all this. It was off to hospital and for quite a long time.

Chapter 2

*Fractured Innocence*

Sex didn’t exist in our family. If it did, I was totally unaware of it at this time. I knew I had a willy, which I peed out of, though I can’t ever remember having seen another one, and then there was the bum which I shat out of. Now shitting was much worse than peeing. This was knowledge I had picked up from somewhere or other and, of course, I had never seen another bum either. To show the level at which I understood these things, I remember we had a visit from some girls from the church. They were teenagers, and I was just finishing my bath, which happened in the kitchen. Mum handed me a small towel to cover my nakedness and I used it to hide my bum, standing unashamedly displaying my willy. Even when I was told to turn round I refused. What, and let them see my bum! No way.

I remember being taken to the doctor and having a very intimate check-up, centred on what I came to know as my balls. The doctor confirmed that I had non-descended testicles. This is usually dealt with soon after birth but because it had been left so long they seemed to be strangling parts of my digestive system, and I urgently needed to be operated on to put them where they should be. The only part of all this that I really understood was that I had to go into hospital. So shortly after I found myself on a children’s ward in Mayday Road Hospital, Croydon. It was a large room with at least a dozen beds all around the edge and a dining table in the middle. We were met by a nurse who went to Dad’s church, all smiles and welcoming gestures as she showed me my bed and bedside locker, got me into pyjamas and put me to bed. Of course, as a new arrival, I was the centre of attention, but it was very quiet, no calling out or running around and, as I knew the nurse, I was quite happy for my parents to leave.

At tea-time the children who were awake and well enough began getting up and sitting at the table. The nurse asked me in a loud voice if I wanted to have tea at the table or be served in bed and when I replied in bed she said to all and sundry that the new boy was a lazy fellow who expected to be waited on, and she ordered me to come to the table. I was horrified to have been tricked into looking like a lazy fool. The other children thought this was hilarious, while I burned red with embarrassment for the first but not the last time. The hurt I suffered on the ward was much worse than the hurt of the operation. I discovered things I had never seen or heard before. Everybody was quiet and well-behaved when the nurses or other adults were present but once alone they behaved like a pack of little animals. As soon as they found out why I was in there, they nicknamed me ‘No Balls’ and, even worse, they teased me about my dad being a church minister. I was shocked to discover there was only one other child on the ward who went to church.

At school, where discipline was tight, there was no teasing or name-calling, so life in Mayday Hospital was a tough learning curve for me. And for the first time in my life I was taught to lie. Boiled eggs were a common breakfast dish and they were sometimes so watery I couldn’t eat them. There was some team