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Yesterday (5th of February 2010) Mark Blake (Pigs Might Fly, Mojo Magazine) messaged the Reverend with the following cryptic message:

We've received a very interesting letter about the elusive Iggy.
Wanted you to be the first to know!
More news to follow.

Of course the Church immediately contacted the journalist and this is what the Church is allowed to disclose today:

An old acquaintance of Iggy's emailed (Mojo magazine) and shared some info.
She is alive and well and living in southern England.
She has chosen to remain anonymous all these years.

More information will probably be published in the next issue(s) of Mojo and, of course, the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

(Many thanks to Mark Blake who we are eternally thankful for breaking the news to the Church.)

Last week The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit published the incredible news that Iggy had been traced back. This was a world exclusive as no other news medium had reported this before.

The news that Iggy had been found was, unfortunately, also all there was to say. Although discreet investigations were done it was soon made clear that she wanted to stay anonymous and that she didn’t want to blow her cover. A short interview was out of the question, even for Mojo magazine and Mark Blake who triggered these latest events.

The Reverend is by all means not a souvenir collector who wanted to ring at her bell like all those true fans used to do at Syd Barrett’s door and her wish to be left in peace was immediately and unconditionally granted.

In September 2008 The Croydon Guardian published an article about Iggy after the Church had contacted the newspaper to get more information about The Orchid dancehall in Purley: Where did she go?  This article unearthed some unpublished pictures by Anthony Stern that were later shown at The City Wakes festival in Cambridge and was also mentioned in the March issue of Mojo.

Kirsty Whalley, the journalist who brought us the first Iggy article in The Croydon Guardian, has now managed to interview Iggy, an interview that can be found in today’s issue of this newspaper.

When Mick turned up to take the photos I helped paint the floor boards for the shoot, I was covered in paint, I still remember the smell of it.

The Church will not publish the entire interview in its columns - for at least a week - as it can be consulted at the following websites:
Croydon Guardian Tracks Down Elusive Rock Star Muse (The Croydon Guardian)
Croydon Guardian Tracks Down Elusive Rock Star Muse (This Local London)

In the next weeks however the Church will scrutinize the interview, and comments will be added where appropriate. For the moment all we wish to say is hip hip hurray to Kirsty Whalley!

Nothing is so stupid as New Year resolutions, especially when you read them when the katzenjammer is over. On the second of January of 2010 the Reverend uttered the fear that the Church would soon disappear by lack of Iggy. If this meant one single thing it is that the Reverend is by no means a reliable prophet.

The March edition of the music magazine Mojo, that mysteriously appeared in January 2010, had a 14 pages cover story about the Syd Barrett album The Madcap Laughs that was finally released in January 1970 after nearly twenty months of tinkering. Its main article I'm Not Here (Pat Gilbert) gave the portrait of the artist as a young man and his struggle to get his first solo album done. A small insert Who's That Girl (Mark Blake) tried to reveal some of the mysteries around Iggy The Eskimo, but to no avail (more questions were raised then answered, see: (I've got my) Mojo (working...). Last, but not least, In My Room (Paul Drummond) gave some background information about The Madcap Laughs photo shoot, interviewing Duggie Fields, Storm Thorgerson, inevitably Mick Rock and en passant citing Jenny Spires and the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit (but not in so many words, see Goofer Dust [(I've got my) Mojo (working)... Part 2] .

(For your information: the complete Mojo article can could be downloaded quite legally and for free at the official Syd Barrett website: direct link to the scanned pdf document, hosted since 2016 at the Church.)

It needs to be said that the Mojo article achieved in two week time what the Church couldn't achieve in two years: finding Iggy. On the 6th of February 2010 it was revealed that she was alive and well and living in southern England and although this news was covered by the Church the scoop arrived, noblesse oblige, at the Mojo offices in a letter from an acquaintance of her: Peter Brown (not the Pete[r] Brown from Cream and Piblokto fame).

Part of this letter has been published in issue 197 (April) and goes like this:

One woman,
with many faces

Re Iggy’s whereabouts, I can enlighten you a little on her post-Madcap life. I first met Iggy - her real name was Evelyn - in the early ’70s, when she arrived from the King’s Road to the house where I lived in Brighton with a miscellany of artists and eccentrics.

I spent a lot of time with Iggy including nights ‘on the town’. She was a loose cannon, absolutely stunning, and fab company I soon discovered that it was none other than Iggy gracing my copy of The Madcap Laughs, and told her that Syd had been a peer of mine in Cambridge. I also knew Jenny Spires (who introduced Iggy to Syd), and saw Pink Floyd at various venues. I spent an evening with Syd once and we walked back together to our respective homes near Cherry Hinton in stoned stupor.

In the mid ’80s I learned that Iggy was living in Sussex and working at a racing stables, where she married a farmhand. She’s since kept her whereabouts quiet, though a friend at the stables, who I spoke to recently informs me of Iggy’s low-key flamboyance in the area. There are a wealth of other stories, but brevity forbids!

Next to Brown aka Thongman, Jenny Spires decided to comment as well:

I struggle,
you collaborate

I’ve read your Syd article and there are two or three things to correct. First, I met Iggy [the Eskimo] in 1966, not 1969 as stated. Also, the floor was painted as soon as Syd moved into Wetherby Mansions, and was already done when I was there. Part of it, under the bed, wasn’t finished, but was done by the time I left in early 1969. I don’t think it was painted with a photoshoot in mind. Also, in the larger photo, the daffodils look quite fresh, but in the photo used for the cover they are dead. This seems to suggest that that photo was done a couple of weeks later?

With reference to Mandrax - there were no Mandrax in the flat at this stage. These came later, around early summer. This is not to say Syd had never had Mandrax, but they weren’t readily available to him at that time.

It seems now that there is enough material left for the Church to go on with its mission for the next lustrum. So keep watching this space and remember, don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't have done.

The Reverend wants to thank Mojo for donating a copy of the April issue to the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Thanks guys!

Happy New Year, children of the revolution! What a long strange trip 2010 has been. The first half of it showed the Church's biggest parade, with plenty of clowns and jugglers and a couple of anoraky world exclusive Barrett-scattering things.

Our solar, solitary, solstice, soloist star, fallen from the black sky (to paraphrase French historian and poet Dr. Denis Combet) was discovered by the team of Mojo magazine early 2010. The Church retaliated with Gretta Barclay's first (and only) interview in 4 decades, an extensive study of Welsh folk legend Meic Stevens' meetings with Syd Barrett in the early Seventies and a couple of articles about The Cromwellian club and casino, including some anecdotes from Rod Harrod, the man who practically launched Jimi Hendrix's career.

Those exhilarating things inevitably lead to the Church's petite mort, a period of melancholy and transcendence, for the second half of 2010. But this was just a temporarily breakdown. Several findings of the Church were quoted in the most recent Syd Barrett biography by Julian Palacios, the Reverend has just been granted his first interview (to appear [hopefully] on a Spanish Barrett blog) and in November agent provocateur Mark Blake let the Church know that Evelyn (Iggy) had agreed on an interview for Mojo magazine. On top of that Ig, our Ig, send the Church a lovely note that mellowed the Reverend’s heart. 2011 promises to be great.

The February issue from Mojo (# 207) - OUT NOW – contains Mark Blake's much expected Iggy interview. As is our habit the Church will not publish the article as long as the magazine is for sale in the shops. So why are you still reading this blog then? Open those Xmas and New Year envelopes, jump on that bike with the basket and the bell that rings, and hurry up to the shop!

Only after you have bought, borrowed or stolen (the Reverend will forgive but not visit you in prison!) Mojo 207 and read the article you are allowed to come back at the Church where additional bits and pieces may (or may not) be revealed the following weeks. According to someone who knows there is 'a wealth of other interview material' that didn't make it into printed matter but that might see the light of day on several places of the metaverse. Some day. Perhaps.

PS: The Mojo website has got a strange anonymous cryptic comment, posted the 2nd of January at 04:46PM. It goes 'love you mark blake thank you for being [actually: bèing] so real hang in there felix atagong'.

The Church may happen to believe to know from whom it has arrived.

Still looking for a Xmas present: Mark Blake has just written a pretty good Queen biography: Is This The Real Life? The Untold Story Of Queen, Aurum Press Ltd.
ISBN: 9781845135973
(The Church is not affiliated with or endorsed by this company.)

Iggy Rose enters the pantheon of Jenny Spires and Libby Gausden!

An Iggy Rose radio interview was diffused on Monday night, the 25th of May at 10 PM EST at Nikki Palomino's (talk) radio show Dazed Radio on Whatever 68. As for UK based people it was already Tuesday 26th at 3 o’clock in the morning, and 4 AM for those in Western Europe, we had to wait for an archived version.

The complete radio show, one hour and a half, with several guests has been hosted at Nikki Palomino's Mixcloud page: Dazed Radio Show Recorded Live 5.25.15.

A condensed version (37 minutes) with only the Iggy parts has been hosted on the Reverend's Soundcloud spot:

Direct link for troubled browsers: Dazed Radio Show (condensed) 5.25.15.

Quoting one of the listener's who told the Church:

Iggy sounds great, her voice is so warm, not at all what I expected her to sound like, for some reason. I can imagine a conversation with her would be such fun.

We can only say it is.

Many thanks to: Nikki Palomino.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

The second weekend of June has the second Cambridge biennial Birdie Hop meeting, with special guest stars: Viv Brans, Vic Singh, Peter Gilmour, Men On The Border, Jenny Spires, Warren Dosanjh, Libby Gausden, Dave 'Dean' Parker & Iggy Rose (and some more).

Unfortunately the Facebook group for this event has been closed for prying eyes, but some pictures and videos have already leaked out.

Pictures and videos will be regularly uploaded to the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Tumblr page, as soon as the Holy Igquisiton gets hold of them.

For the latest (public) pictures and videos of the 2015 Birdie Hop event, please check: http://iggyinuit.tumblr.com/tagged/june-2015.
Our review of the first Birdie Hop meeting in 2013: Birdie Hop: wasn't it the most amazing meeting? 

Many thanks to: Sandra Blickem, Mick Brown, Warren Dosanjh, Vanessa Flores, Tim Greenhall, Alex Hoffmann, Antonio Jesus (Solo En Las Nubes), Douglas Milne, Göran Nyström (Men On The Border), Vic Singh, Abigail Thomson-Smith, Eva Wijkniet...
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

The Church closed its door at the end of March 2015, but promised to keep an eye open for all things relatively Syd-and-Iggy-related. Obviously serendipity meant that, from that moment on, Syd-and-Iggy related matters would regularly smash against the Church's closed windows at the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow, making this one of our busier seasons.

Iggy Rose was a guest on American Dazed (talk) Radio, her first radio-interview ever. The condensed version still is 47 minutes but what an intense 47 minutes they are: Iggy Rose Radio Interview.

In June Iggy was invited to the biennial, second and probably last Birdie Hop Cambridge meeting where she met with Libby Gausden, Jenny Spires and a bunch of Barrett-fans: Iggy Rose in Cambridge.

And then, when you're least expecting it, there is a brand new Iggy picture that make our hormone levels go crazy.

This article follows the same steps as that other one of 2012 that published the discovery of Iggy's 'Pocahontas' picture, that has been an inspiration for so many Iggy fans and their fanart creations: Iggy - a new look in festivals.

The 1967 Festival of the Flower Children

Two weeks after Iggy had visited the National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival at the Royal Windsor Racecourse, where she had her picture taken for Music Maker magazine (see: Iggy - a new look in festivals), there was the first Woburn festival with an equally appealing title: Festival of the Flower Children. Wanting to cash in on the Summer of Love (and the Bank Holiday Weekend of 26-28 August) it tried to be a direct competitor for the first one that was already well established and in its seventh edition. Flower Children also went on for three days but its bill was less abundant, less adventurous and clearly directed at the general public or 'weekend' hippies, rather than the underground elite. The host, the Duke of Bedford, one of those examples the French invented the guillotine for and the living proof that the posh establishment will temporarily adhere an alternative lifestyle if there is a buck to earn, sneered:

Only flower children are allowed in. They are nice peaceful young people who like beat music and coloured lights. They are very different from hippies who take drugs and make trouble. Hippies will definitely be barred.

The Duke of Bedford apparently grabbed 10% of the entrance money estimated at £50.000, according to an article in The Australian Women's Weekly, but the promoters, the Seller brothers, apparently weren't that happy and the financial debacle may have quickened the demise of their mod nightclub Tiles, where Jeff Dexter was the house DJ. The Daily Telegraph, however, wrote that the festival made the nice profit of £20.000. (Much of the information and some of the pictures in this article come from the excellent UK Rock Festivals.) For snobbish left-elitist underground circles and their affiliated magazines is was all a sell-out. Peter Jenner:

Gradually all sorts of dubious people began to get involved. The music business began to take over. (…) There were things like the Festival of the Flower Children.

That the Seller brothers were thinking more in the terms of profit than music or mod culture was perhaps proven by their nightclub Tiles that was described by Tom Wolfe as the 'Noonday Underground'. In the middle of the day, during lunch hour, the club opened and was visited by 'office boys, office girls, department store clerks' and teenagers who had left school at fifteen, for their daily dose of mod music and a Coca-Cola. Tiles aimed for an easy-going public and although it lacked style and personality it did have a proper bar, a good dance floor, a fancy stage and an excellent sound system.

The Flower Children festival aimed at the masses as well, and not to the hardcore underground, promising bands and artists as Jeff Beck, The Bee Gees, Eric Burdon & The New Animals, The Kinks (not confirmed), Denny Laine (from The Moody Blues), Marmalade, Zoot Money & The Big Roll Band, The Move (not confirmed), The Alan Price Set, The Small Faces, Al Stewart, The Syn (a precursor of Yes) and less known bands as Blossom Toes, Breakthru, The Dream (some claim an early incarnation of Tangerine Dream?), The Gass (not confirmed), Tintern Abbey and Tangerine Peel (not confirmed and perhaps this is where the Tangerine Dream rumour comes from).

With the exception of perhaps Dantalian's Chariot (another band led by Zoot Money) and Tomorrow (with drummer Twink) the bill wasn't really underground, nor psychedelic. Pink Floyd was never considered to appear at the festival, although Rob Chapman pretends the opposite in his immaculate biography. Not that the band would've come as they had already cancelled the Windsor Racecourse gig due to Barrett's erratic behaviour.

For the press the festival was gefundenes fressen and news photographers seemed to outnumber groovers. And now we let you guess, who can be found on one of those pictures, you think?

Inside heroes

On the 21st of September the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit was asked the following by Jacinta Storten:

Hi there, do you know if Iggy attended the Festival of the Flower Children love-in at Woburn Abbey in 1967? I have some photos of attendees and one of them looks just like her, on the other hand the photo could be from the Woburn Festival that Fleetwood Mac headlined which I think Pink Floyd were also billed from memory it was 67 or 68. [Note from FA: for the record, at the 1968 version of the Woburn Abbey festival, Fleetwood Mac never showed up, although they were billed. Pink Floyd never played the festival either as they were touring North America on that day.]

Such a mail obviously has the same effect on the Church as a red rag to a bull. We immediately contacted Iggy Rose who wasn't aware of ever being at the festival, but you know the saying 'if you remember the sixties, you weren't there'. We wrote back to Jacinta, asking for a copy of the picture so that we could send it over to Iggy, but due to the quirky way Facebook messaging works sometimes (or should we say: not works) that was ignored. (We have that effect on many people.)

Luckily on the fifth of November the picture appeared on the HeroInSight Tumblr blog:

'Iggy ”The Eskimo” Rose at Festival of the Flower Children Love-in, Woburn Abbey UK, 1967.

As soon as we got hold of the picture we send it to Iggy who confirmed it was indeed her:

My goodness, where did you find that?
I look stoned.
Haha. I can't even remember being there. Lol xxx.

An internet search revealed that the picture is currently hosted at Photo Inventory France, that seems to be owned by an Ebay seller called Photo Vintage France. The picture (30 x 19.5 cm) was put several times on sale before, between June 2012 and August 2015, for the price of 159 Euro, but apparently no buyer has ever been found. Lucky for us, otherwise the picture had perhaps never been found.

We contacted the owner of the Ebay shop, Bruno Tartarin, asking if he could give us more information about this picture. We got a reply pretty fast, but it didn't really give us info we didn't know already:

Cette image vient des archives Holmes-Lebel.
Flower Children, Hippies Rally, Woburn Abbey, Angleterre, circa 1967. RE2173
Tirage argentique d'époque tamponnée.

Translation:
This image comes from the Holmes-Lebel archives.
Flower Children, Hippies Rally, Woburn Abbey, Angleterre, circa 1967. RE2173
Authentic gelatin-silver photography, stamped.

Internet searches for the Holmes-Lebel company didn't lead to anything substantial apart from the fact that they created / sold pictures for advertisements, movie posters, record and book covers and magazines in the sixties. Also the photographer who took Iggy's picture is a mystery as the agency had several internationally renowned people working for them like Rona Jutka, Raymond Voinquel, Inge Morath, Christian Simonpietri...

Update 2015 12 22: Meanwhile the picture has mysteriously landed at Atagong Mansion, and for once, the Reverend isn't interested in the front of the picture, but wants to study the different marks on the back. There are four in total:
1. a blue stamp of the Holmes-Lebel company with the remark that the document has to be returned after publication: 'document à rendre'.
2. another stamp with the warning that four times the copyright amount will be asked if the document gets lost or damaged: 'en cas de perte ou détérioration des documents il sera perçu quatre fois le prix de cession des droits'.
3. a sticker describing the picture in English:

HIPPIES RALLY (THE FLOWER CHILDREN), WOBURN ABBEY, ENGLAND
Hippy girl dressed in the Indian way.
Copyright HOLMES-LEBEL/I.M.F. n) 3008

4. a remark written in pencil, reading 'woodstook'.

Scans of the stamps, stickers and marks on the back can be found on our Iggy Tumblr page: Hippy Girl.

Porn and the Englishman

A photographer who certainly was present at the Flower Children festival was Londoner Jean Straker whose photo studio was in Soho and who was interviewed in the 6th issue of Oz because his pictures were considered pornographic in the prude interpretation of the English law.

In 1951 he founded the Visual Arts Club where he gave lectures, sold his pictures and where he would have 'photographers, amateur and professional, studying the female nude'. Straker's pictures were considered pornography under the Obscene Publications Act and in 1961 over 1600 of his negatives and 233 of his prints were confiscated. While Straker claimed his pictures were of artistic value the judge didn't follow this explanation. In appeal, Straker got many of his negatives back, but this was forced on a technicality, using a loophole in the law, and the official interpretation was still that his pictures were obscene.

This situation lingered on with Straker trying to fight censorship and in 1967 Jean Straker noted (in Oz 6):

Now, as most lawyers know, I been through all this jazz before; apart from a few thousand motorists, and a few hundred barrow boys, I must be the most prosecuted non-criminal in town.

Jean Straker also visited the Festival of the Flower Children were he might have taken over 220 pictures. Harper's Books currently sells a (partial) archive of 39 different 5 x 8 inch black and white photographs. However, at 3.000 USD for this collection, it is a bit expensive just to find out if the Iggy picture is part of it.

At 165 Euro the Holmes-Lebel piece is almost a bargain.

The who, the what and the where?

There is a big chance we will never know who took Iggy's picture at the festival of the Flower Children. It could've been one of Iggy's froody friends, as we know she knew quite a few free-lance photographers, including the one who took her picture two weeks earlier at the National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival. If only she could remember his name! At the other hand, she could've been invited to the festival by Jeff Dexter, who had developed some interest in her and tried to record her in the studio.

It is possible that the picture was bought by the Holmes-Lebel agency in order to publish it in a French magazine. It would be nice to find that article back, if there ever has been one.

But the good news is that a new Iggy picture has been unearthed and that is was found – again – by one of her many fans. For that the Church (and Iggy Rose) will be eternally grateful to Jacinta 'HeroInSight' Storten...

The quest continues... good hunting my sistren and brethren... and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do...

Many thanks to: HeroInSight, Jacinta Storten, Iggy Rose, Bruno Tartarin, UK Rock Festivals.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Some pictures and articles, used for this post, will be published at the Holy Church's Tumblr blog under the Festival of the Flower Children-tag.

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 179.
Green, Jonathon: All Dressed Up, Pimlico, London, 1999, p. 43, 221.
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p. 112.
Palacios, Julian: Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, Plexus, London, 2010, p. 246.
Photo Inventory France: http://photoinventory.fr/photos/RE2173.png
Pullen, Bob: Photography and Censorship: The Photographs and Ideals of Jean Straker, Photography and Culture, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2008 (online pdf version).

Update 2016 04 03: After the movie was 'found' on Facebook, it took less than 24 hours before it was deleted from Dailymotion. We hope that the original uploader will not get into trouble. We are currently trying to get a reaction from Anthony Stern and Chimera Arts. (More info: afterword.)

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, that wacky blog with an even wackier Reverend vehemently tries to catalogue all things Iggy Rose, and although several pictures and movies have been unearthed since then, one important and most reverential piece was still missing in our collection.

Shot in 1968 by Anthony Stern, 'iggy the eskimo girl' (all in lowercase) showed Iggy Rose dancing barefoot through London, annoying the square folk who had to go to work, creating kerfuffle wherever she put her lovely feet and using something that resembles a smartphone, 30 years before these were invented. The movie with its Pink Floyd soundtrack, restored in 2008 by Sadia Sadia from Chimera Arts, was shown at the legendary The City Wakes in Cambridge and would now and then resurface on avant-garde film festivals all over the world.

The movie never made it to the 'big' public though and several demands of the Church to obtain a copy were politely refused. A one minute 27 seconds audience recording, taken at a Paris movie festival, was the longest version we had (Iggy, Eskimo Girl), next to a teaser from City Wakes (Syd Barrett - Iggy).

Cut to 2014 when Anthony Stern launched a new website 'Anthony Stern Films' with the promise to publish a DVD 'Get All From That Ant' containing his complete filmography (see: Magnets & Miracles). However the project came to a standstill and some spin-offs, like an Iggy The Eskimo magnet never came off the ground either (see: The perfect Xmas gift: put Iggy on your fridge!).

Since then it was awfully quiet around the movie maker / glass artist and frankly, the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit had given up hope to ever see the 'iggy the eskimo girl' movie in full.

Until today.

This morning we were informed by an enthusiastic Iggy that a full version of the movie can be found on Dailymotion, where it had already been uploaded at the end of the previous year by someone who is internationally recognised as a Pink Floyd buff. Quality isn't too bad, although it isn't really spectacular either. This is due to the fact that it is an audience recording as well, taken from a 2010 film festival in Lille. Some cropping and editing had to be done and the audio was re-sampled. But as far as we can judge, this is the most complete version and the closest to the original.

In the same breath Iggy also mentioned that she, with a couple of friends, had some more tricks up her sleeve, but alas as the Reverend of the Iggy's Church we had to take a vow of silence. But watch this space if you want to be kept informed.

So for now, sistren and brethren, here is 'iggy the eskimo girl'. Enjoy and don't do anything Iggy wouldn't do.

If you dig deeper into the reason you get the message: The above video has been deleted after a copyright claim.

Afterword

After the movie was 'found' and published on the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, it took less than 24 hours before it was deleted. Uploaded at the end of past year it led a calm life at Dailymotion until it was found by a Birdie Hop group member, if our information is correct. From there it quietly expanded to other groups and on other people's timelines, including the one of Iggy Rose. Reactions were generally ecstatic, except for one.

It didn't take long for Stephen W. Tayler to claim that this was a copyright infringement. He is a mixer, music producer, composer and sound designer who has worked on hundreds of projects, including Kate Bush, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel and Howard Jones. As a partner in Chimera Arts he helped restoring eight Anthony Stern movies in 2008, including 'iggy the eskimo girl'.

Neither Anthony Stern, Sadia Sadia, nor Anthony W. Tayler wanted to give comments. (Back to top of the article.)

Iggy the Eskimo Girl at Anthony Stern Glass.
Iggy the Eskimo Girl at Chimera Arts.

Many thanks to: Marc-Olivier Becks, Rich Hall.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

In our previous post (Lost Weekends) we told how Keith Richards (with some help from Julian Temple) took over the BBC4 broadcasting schedule on the weekend from the 23rd to the 25th September 2016.

One of the documentaries shown was called Lost and Found: The Memory Marbles of Anthony Stern. Unfortunately it was the only original piece that couldn't be re-watched on the BBC4 iPlayer, probably due to copyright restrictions.

The Birdie Hop group, that has a soft spot for Iggy Rose, looked for people who had a copy, but could only find some pictures and snippets, taken with mobile phones, from TV screens. Quality wasn't excellent, but it was all we had.

Then professional Syd Barrett movie collector Hallucalation chimed in. This man has already unearthed 'lost' Pink Floyd reels earlier and again he did the impossible and traced back a digital copy of the Anthony Stern BBC4 documentary. (A 2012 self-Interview with this remarkable man, taken from Solo En Las Nubes, can be found at Wondering and Dreaming (a self-interview with Ewgeni Reingold).)

Even if your heart isn't necessary with Pink Floyd, nor with Iggy the Eskimo, it is an excellent documentary, not only of the swinging sixties, but of life in that decade in general. If the documentary was a shortened version of Take All That From Ant, that has its premiere today in Cambridge, by the way, then that movie is going to be a killer.

Several entirely new pictures of Iggy have been unearthed, several 'better' screenshots of the Iggy, the Eskimo movie have been grabbed and these can be seen on our Tumblr Memory Marbles page. For your amusement we have of course also added some Pink Floyd at UFO shots.

Enjoy.

This article is an update from Lost Weekends. Many thanks to: Hallucalation, Antonio Jesús, Lisa Newman, Anthony Stern, Yeeshkul.

The Iggy the Eskimo Memory Marbles photo series on Tumblr.
Yeeshkul: Film and Photography by Anthony Stern.

♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

More Blues

Iain Owen Moore, nicknamed Emo (or Imo), is a legendary figure of the Cambridge Mafia that circled in and around the early Floyd. Actually he was already something of a legend before The Abdabs or The Tea Set became The Pink Floyd Sound. Barrett & Waters liked to have him around for old time's sake, but at the other hand David Gilmour also helped Emo out of trouble a couple of times.

Emo was also an inspiration for the band. The phrase 'I've got a little black book with my poems in' could be his, but it is certain that 'ummagumma' was one of his favourite expressions (and pastimes). Needless to say that Pink Floyd later named one of their albums 'Ummagumma' and that – in true Floydian greedy tradition – Emo didn't get any recognition for that. That's how we know our boys, laughing all the way to the bank, blaming capitalism.

Later Emo also turned up on several Hipgnosis sleeves. He is on A Nice Pair and on AC DC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, if our memory still is correct after all these years. When the Church was formed, nearly a decade ago, we were told that Emo was hard to reach as he didn't believe in all that digital tomfoolery, but he recently discovered Facebook and has been revealing many anecdotes and memories to fans over the world.

Memory Sticks

Not only does Emo has a good memory, he also has an incredible archive with many unseen Floydian pictures. He has uploaded private pictures of Floyd and their friends such as Ginger Gilmour, Lyndsay Korner and Gaylor Pinion (aka Gala or Gayla). And, since a couple of hours... three unseen pictures of Iggy the Eskimo, probably taken at Wetherby Mansion, in 1969.

Rumours & Facts

The Holy Church didn't find these pictures, but was warned by one of its many friends, who also chatted with Emo about this. We do have his authorisation though, to publish them here. The pictures are not of supreme quality and may look a bit deformed, they are photographs of the originals and not scans. Iain Moore:

Naughty Iggy. I only met her twice in 1969 but didn't speak to her. It was during the two weeks she was at Syd's place. Syd (Barrett), Dave (Gilmour) and Sam, my then girlfriend, all lived around the corner, so it was 1969.

Iggy probably frequented Syd a lot longer than these 'two' weeks. Margaretta Barclay, in her interview with the Church, told us that she has a postcard, addressed to her and Iggy (at Wetherby Mansions) from June 1969 (see: Gretta Speaks). There is Twink's testimony that Iggy, Syd, Mick Farren, Steve Peregrin Took and him crashed the launch party of King Crimson's first album, high on Champagne and mandrax (see: Syd's Last Stand). That was at the Speakeasy on the 5th of August 1969. At the other hand, Iggy didn't join Syd on his Formentera trip that year, where he met Emo and Aubrey 'Po' Powell, amongst others (see: Formentera Lady).

Actually these pictures do not belong to Emo. They are in the private hands of a Cambridge collector whose house is nearly a Syd Barrett and early Floyd museum, so told us a visitor. We have been in contact with this person for about a decade and as (s)he never told us about these unknown Iggy portraits we can (hopefully) deduct that these portraits only surfaced recently.

Update December 2017: According to Roddy Bogawa, these pictures date from 1968 and were taken by a certain 'Gabi'.

The Third Man

Iggy, in her interview with Mark Blake (see: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo), has claimed there is a set of 'intimate' pictures of her and Syd, taken during The Madcap Laughs sessions. And in one of her many conversations with the Reverend she revealed that there could've been a third photographer around, next to Mick Rock and Storm Thorgerson.

But she also told us, with tears in her eyes, that a suitcase with personal belongings was tossed overboard by a rock star, when they crossed the channel. In that suitcase were probably a hundred different pictures, now lost forever. But the good news is: we have found three, thanks to Iain Owen Moor.

We can only hope that the owner of these pictures will allow us to publish a scanned hi-res version and would be so nice to explain when and where and by whom they were taken.

Meanwhile, the Church will assure that prints of these portraits will be send to Iggy Rose, who has left social media since the beginning of this year and with whom we have sporadic contact.

Many thanks to: Petra Eder, Libby Gausden, Paula Hilton, Iain Owen Moore, Anna Musial, Jenny Spires.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Bigger versions of these three pictures will be published on our Tumblr blog, using the Emo Moore tag.

Update December 2017: Iggy - as you probably know - died on the 13th of December 2017, about half an hour before her seventieth birthday. However, we are still accepting donations that will be used for her funeral and to help her husband Andy in this difficult period.

Original post:

A message from Libby Gausden, Birdie Hop & The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

Soon Iggy will celebrate her seventieth birthday. Unfortunately she is not doing well and she needs expensive medicine.

You can help by donating some money. Everything helps.

We guarantee that the money will get to her.

The Iggy Bank are: Libby Gausden (GB), Paula (GB), Lisa (CA), Alex (DE), Felix (BE) and the old bunch. Thanks to Brett for starting this way back in 2012 and all our friends for supporting us.

Now get that money rollin’

The Iggy Bank

A word from the Reverend

Over the years people from around the globe have given Iggy some support, not bragging about it to the outer world. That is why it hurts to see that a Syd Barrett Facebook group posted the following about The Iggy Bank and its plea to raise some money for Iggy Rose.

Him and his blog, in fact anything he's involved in, is everything that's wrong with being a fan of Syd Barrett. (...) I sure wouldn't give him any money for some "cause". (...) Paying Felix is maybe just giving him drinking money.

The Iggy bank (it's a lame name, I agree) was started in January 2012 when some friends wanted to do something for her. Unlike some underground heroes Iggy Rose didn't leave the sixties rich and famous. Iggy lead a simple life, unaware of the fact that her iconic presence helped business hippies selling coffee table books about record sleeves.

This is what we had to say way back in 2012:

The Iggy Bank is and will probably never be something official, we are just a bunch of Internet friends who believe they are real people rather than avatars. We give our word that all proceedings will go to Iggy. Besides, if something would go wrong Libby Gausden has already promised she will kick our butts.

The Iggy Bank Paypal funds are visible and fully open to the people organising it, and it was actually Libby Gausden and Alex from Birdie Hop who asked to resuscitate the 5 years old PayPal account.

Many thanks to all our donators and to the old and new friends who are helping us.

♥ Iggy ♥ Libby Gausden (GB) ♥ Alexander (DE) ♥ Amy (US) ♥ Antonio (ES) ♥ Eva (NL) ♥ Lisa (CA).

Thanks Brett for having the idea in 2012.

♥ RIP Bill ♥

From Quetesh to Bastet

Quetesh,
Majestic.

Iggy the Eskimo,
Girl of space.

Often very alone,
But always a friend.

Star fallen from the black sky:
Solar, solitary, solstice, soloist.

Pale blue crystal dawn, pearl wine dusk.
A mauve Venus, disrobed on the silk orange milky way.

Magical music, medieval Median, magnetic:
Even in worlds where love is impossible.

Transcended, transparent, translucent, transitory:
Life together unconditionally and forever.

And that black cat caressing him with a glance, the night.
The malefic vision of Lucifer Sam.

© Denis Combet, English translation by Constance Cartmill (2007). Previously published at: Guitars and Dust Dancing.

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥ Paula ♥

You could find many weird folk running around in London in the sixties, but there was only one Eskimo. On the 13th of December 2017, just a couple of minutes before her seventieth birthday, Iggy Rose, aka Iggy the Eskimo, peacefully died.

Crumbling Land

She was born in the Himalayas, on the fourteenth of December 1947, in a country she has always refused to name, but it was probably that part of India that became Pakistan, after a particular bloody separation, with its death toll running into the hundreds of thousands. Her father was an officer in the British army who married a local beauty. Their first child was Evelyn, but for one reason or another she would be known as Iggy. Her mother gave her an indigenous name as well, Laldingliani, meaning gift of the gods, in a language Iggy never spoke.

Update December 2017: Iggy's mother, so was confirmed to us, wasn't from Pakistan, but from Mizoram, situated at the North-East of India, sharing borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Iggy grew up as any normal child, although she already had the special gift of running into trouble. There is the family anecdote of the cat Iggy wanted to pet in the garden, until her parents, or the servants, found out it really was a hungry tiger on the loose.

For a while all went well, with Iggy and family living a luxurious and protected life in one of the British enclaves, politely ignoring that a civil war was raging around them. One day a mob invaded their house, burned it down and, if Iggy’s recitation of the events is accurate, they narrowly escaped a lynching party.

Next stop: Aden, Yemen. Another melting pot of colonial and religious problems. This was only a temporary solution as the family returned to England where they lived the upstairs life. Iggy always stayed vague about her family ties, but there might have been some railway money in the family, from the time that railways were still a great money-making thing.

Wild Thing

Iggy hit puberty, running away from home at fourteen, discovering boys, girls, booze, and speed. These were the days when young adults refused to lead the life of their grey parents, refused to listen to that boring BBC and refused to agree with the après-guerre nuclear warmongering. There may also have been some family turmoil, at times Iggy alluded to that, other times she just blamed her exit from home upon her temperamental character.

Iggy danced through life, her pretty looks and free spirit mostly assured her some food and a place to stay. Through a well-known DJ she turned from mods to rockers and Brighton was changed for London.

Enter Brian and Keith and others, for what could be called a groupie career, although she never was a groupie pur sang. In contrast to some flower power beauties who have made a fortune by talking out of bed, Iggy stayed discrete about the people she met, from Beatles to Yardbirds. There is the story how she was at a Rolling Stones party, went 'home' in the evening, slept on the stairs of a house portal, returning the next day as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Probably for Iggy, it was. She never was a trophy hunter, nor a fortune seeker.

Iggy and Jenny Spires met at Biba and they went to a Dusty Springfield après-event. Jenny returned the favour and introduced her to Syd Barrett who had left Pink Floyd, a band Iggy wasn’t particularly fond of. Iggy had always been more of a Motown girl. She stayed for a couple of weeks at Wetherby Mansions and she visited Barrett over the period of a few months, until – one day – Duggie Fields told her that Syd didn’t live there any more.

The legend that Iggy vanished all of a sudden isn’t true, she just wasn’t traceable on the Floydian radar any more. In those days it was enough to move a couple of blocks where she frequented other, equally alternative and underground, circles. There were painters, musicians, actors, movie directors...

Rose Tinted

In coffee table books, invariably written by men, we read how beautiful and carefree British psychedelic underground was. It wasn't always for those who didn't make a fortune out of it. The summer of love wasn't particularly women friendly either. Bad things happened to Iggy. Luckily, many good things as well.

In the mid-seventies psychedelic tomfoolery was over and Iggy had to look for a job. She worked on a horse-farm for a while and met her husband there. They got married in 1978 and relocated to a small village in the Horsham district of West Sussex where she worked in a local supermarket. Even there she was the stuff legends are made of. In a (long defunct) Facebook group people remembered how she would throw groceries at those clients who didn't treat her with respect. The management had to get rid of her before she could injure someone.

The Cambridge City Wakes festival (2008) triggered something of an Iggy the Eskimo revival but Iggy's public life really started when Mark Blake, from Pigs Might Fly fame, wrote about her in a Syd Barrett Mojo Special (2010). One reader actually knew her and her quiet life was suddenly interrupted. She was interviewed for Mojo and she learned there was some kind of Iggy fandom on the world wide web. Contrary to general belief it wasn't The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit who found her. Mark Blake did.

Iggy discovered Facebook and made many, many, many friends.

A rose is a rose is a rose

Iggy was Iggy, nothing less, nothing more. Loud-mouthed, obnoxious, loyal, sweet and with the greatest heart you have ever seen. Talking to Iggy on the phone would mean a constant battering of your eardrums while she rattled a hundred and twenty words a minute. Her emotions could change from joy to anger to uncontrolled sobbing in less than a minute. If she was mad her vocabulary was lively enough to make a sailor blush. Iggy didn't wear masks. Iggy was the truest and most direct and brutally honest person I have ever seen.

The last time when I spoke to her, I asked: “ Iggy, is it good that I call you from time to time?”
“Why?” she answered. “To check if I am not dead yet?”

I'm gonna miss those comments of her.

Face- and other books

Iggy always had big dreams. If Kathy Etcham, Jenny Fabian and Uschi Obermaier could write books about rock stars, so could she. Unfortunately Iggy's unstoppable enthusiasm for literally everything around her made every attempt to interview her an impossible task. One day she told me that her book needed pictures of unicorns to thank all her lovely Facebook friends for their friendship and love. She was not joking. Iggy was always incredibly happy with the support from her Facebook friends. This was enormously important to her. She was always thankful for that.

It was an honour to have known you, gal.

Sincere condolences to Andy and her family. Many thanks to everyone supporting her.

Dream

If you ever go to heaven there is a rainbow garden where an Eskimo girl is dancing, there are friendly tigers and gentle unicorns. Birds are singing and circling around her like in a Disney movie. Brian is jamming on a sitar. Syd is strumming some chords. It is a happy place.

---

Many thanks to all who have helped Iggy all these years, her husband, neighbours, friends and caregivers... fans and freaks at birdie hop, clowns & jugglers, late night, no man's land...
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥ Paula ♥

Dark Globe

It is the darkest period of the year, literally and figuratively. Today, the 27th of December 2017, Iggy's funeral takes place at Worthing Crematorium. We can only wish for strength for Iggy's husband, her family, her friends... A big thank you for the Birdies and Nesters who have supported Iggy all these years...

Catharsis

After most funerals, people sit together and commemorate the deceased, and slowly the tears are being replaced with laughter, when funny remembrances and anecdotes fill the atmosphere... It is a necessary part of the grieving process and we are pretty sure that people can go on for hours recalling Iggy's funnier moments.

Sydiots

A couple of years ago, 2013 already!, multi-instrumentalist and Barrett-buff Rich Hall recorded an album called Birdie Hop & the Sydiots. Its concept was to catalogue the wacky aspects of Barrett fandom, including cosmic brides, silly reverends and goofing administrators of various Syd Barrett Facebook groups.

One of the highlights of the album was a track called The Reverend, clearly a reverie about the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and its main obsession: Iggy the Eskimo. For Iggy's seventieth birthday Rich, with some help of his dog Porthos, recorded an acoustic version of the song. Unfortunately Iggy never heard it and as such the song has now become a fitting tribute. From Rich to Iggy, from Porthos to Doogle, we present you Iggy's message that is love.

Gigolo aunts & uncles

Back in better days, June 2015, Iggy was invited to Cambridge at the second Birdie Hop meeting. Men On The Border joined as well, giving an exclusive concert at the Rathmore Club. After the gig there was some time for an acoustic sing-a-long with the band, fans, Cantabrigian mafia rockers and a pretty unstoppable Iggy. Revive it here... original videos from Göran Nyström and Solo En Las Nubes blogger Antonio Jesús Reyes.

Happy belated birthday Iggy. Hundreds of fans will never forget you.

Many thanks to: Rich Hall, Men On The Border, Göran Nystrom, Antonio Jesús Reyes.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥ Paula ♥

Rich Hall: Birdie Hop and The Sydiots
Göran Nystrom: Men On The Border
Anotnio Jesús Reyes : Solo En Las Nubes

David Stanford:

It was so sad to be at the funeral. I can advise that her life was celebrated in the manner I am sure she would have approved of. RIP sweet Iggy Rose. ♥ ♥ ♥

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥ Paula ♥

Great news for these desolate autumn times. On Tuesday, 23 October 2018, Nigel Young found a 1968 documentary, featuring none other than Iggy the Eskimo. He was so friendly to warn the Church about his discovery. Simultaneously Alex Hoffmann (from Birdie Hop) and Antonio Jesús Reyes (from Solo En Las Nubes) also informed the Reverend of this pretty spectacular find. Let's have a closer look, shall we?

Hippies St Germans

“Hippies at the Port Eliot Estate in St Germans explain a happy hippy way of life and are welcomed by the Earl.”

The full movie can be watched (for free) at the BFI archives, but unfortunately it has been geo-blocked for users outside Great Britain, but as these are the days of the interweb means and methods exist to circumvent that: Hippies St Germans. A short excerpt with only the Iggy bits and pieces (direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tHaIiZFiNA).

Here is how the movie is described by BFI:

Peregrine Eliot aka from 1988 the tenth Earl of St Germans has opened his estate to a community of hippies who seek an alternative way of life. This dreamy film sees news reporter Dale Le Vack meet members of the community and attempts to explore aspirations for centring and pooling resources including giving up traditional living in the pursuit of harmony, freedom, self-sufficiency and vegetarianism.

This sounds all very idyllic, but the hippies in the movie, although unwashed, weren't really hippies to begin with. Except the one we call a rose, obviously.

Class struggle

It has been stated before that the psychedelic in-crowd of the mid-sixties were not a part of the proletariat, although they liked to mingle with ordinary work-folk like – let's say – Mick Jagger, to show that they were not snobby. It even was mentioned in a 1965 Daily Express column from William Hickey:

There's no harm these days in knowing a Rolling Stone... And pop people do not seem to mind who they mix with. Some of their best friends, in fact, are fledglings from the upper classes.

Ordinary men – despite the social, cultural and sexual revolution this was still mainly a patriarchal clique – who managed to throw their working class shackles away and entered the progressive ranks of society were embraced in aristocratic circles as a long lost brother returning from a spiritual voyage to Shangri-La. Actor Terence Stamp, originally a working-class boy, 'gleefully expressed his delight that'...

...some yobbo like me could get into the Saddle Room [a hip nightclub] and dance with the Duchess of Bedford's daughter, and get hold of her, and get taken down to Woburn Abbey to hang out for a long weekend and have dinner in the Canaletto Room.(Taken from the very relevant and informative The wild Sloanes who made the Sixties happen, by John Walsh.)

Jeff Dexter

“By the mid-'60s Iggy had become a Zelig-like presence on the capital's music scene.”, wrote music journalist Mark Blake in his Iggy Rose interview (see: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo). She knew DJ Jeff Dexter from her Orchid Ballroom days and (probably) through Prince Stash Klossowski De Rola she got in contact with Brian Jones and Keith Richards.

“Dexter loved the attention of the 'aristos'.”, Iggy told the Church. He entered the posh social circles by befriending the Ormsby-Gore sisters, Jane, Victoria and Alice (aka the Harlechs) and David Mlinaric, the British-Austro-Hungarian interior designer who had, among his clients, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Lord Rotschild. Jeff Dexter:

The people around Granny's were rich kids, beautiful people, but that was no barrier for me. They were just people making things happen. Though they had the advantage that they could get a shop together and set up businesses. (DITL, P221)

Barry Miles had about the same opinion:

The music business was the main way in which the working class became involved. The people who were involved with fashion or art tended to be much more upper class. (DITL, P92)

Baghdad House

One place to meet, during the day, was the Baghdad House (or BDH) on Fulham Road where you sat on cushions and could drink a yoghurt with honey and smoke some hash downstairs. Barry Miles notes that the place was difficult to raid because of its many important visitors: Beatles, Stones and their aristocratic friends.

Iggy, to her own account, never was a part of the London elite in-crowd, but mingled with them at different occasions. This came naturally to her, Iggy originated from a well-to-do upper middle-class family who tried to raise her as a well-mannered ladylike debutante. As a child she had several private tutors who taught her the piano, violin, harp, flute and classical guitar. She had a voice coach learning her how to sing. She took ballet classes with a 'madame who was a sadist throwback from the Gestapo', as Iggy once vividly described to us. All these lessons were to no avail as she was a bratty stubborn kid with a mind of her own. Iggy wanted freedom and if that meant running away from home at 14, so be it. She could easily have entered the elite to live a protected and secure life, she certainly had the manners and – frankly – the looks for it, but freedom was much more important to her than having a full stomach and a bed to sleep in, trapped in a golden cage.

Melting Pot

Before we get to the travelling would-be hippies, let's have some extra name-dropping.

Sir Charles Mark Palmer, 5th Baronet (whatever that means), whose godmother happened to be queen Elizabeth II, opened the English Boy modelling agency in 1965. It was located above the Quorum store, from Ossie Clark and Alice Pollock, who asked Iggy to model some clothes on the catwalk. (She probably was too insecure and refused.)

On another floor of the same building lived Brian Jones with his girlfriend (and model) Melanie Susan 'Suki' Potier (often written as Poitier). But that didn't stop him from inviting Iggy Rose from time to time for some quality entertainment.

Michael Rainey originally was a designer for Quorum, but he opened his own shop Hung On You in 1965. Iggy wasn't the only one who found him an Adonis. Anita Pallenberg:

Michael was just so wonderful and so handsome. I think everybody I knew had a crush on him in those days. (RSG, P192)

English Boy

Rainey was married to Jane Teresa Denyse Ormsby-Gore, the Lady Jane from the Rolling Stones song and daughter of David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech, a conservative politician and diplomat. Iggy Rose knew the couple pretty welll:

Michael Rainey owned a men's clothes shop, and there was a modelling agency called English Boy. I mixed with that set. The models at that agency were out of this world.

For some pictures of the English Boy models you can go to this page and it is no wonder that Iggy felt at ease with so many beauties around her.

Tears in Heaven

Jane's younger sister was the 'tragically beautiful' Alice Ormsby-Gore, but she and Iggy didn't get along as they had been dating the same guitar player for some time. One night - in 1968 - at The Speakeasy Iggy was on the dance floor, 'lost in music and totally entranced', when Eric Clapton arrived with 17 year old Alice Ormsby-Gore by his side.

Almost four decades later, when Iggy told this anecdote to the Church, she was still not proud of her behaviour that night.

She threw one of her legendary temper tantrums and had to be removed from the nightclub. At first another guitarist hugged her and tried to calm her down by softly chanting hare krishna. But Iggy was too angry and refused to leave the Speak with him. A baffled George Harrison could only shake his head at so many stubbornness. At last one of the managers (Roy Flynn or Mike Carey, probably) escorted Iggy to his office where she cooled down with a hot cup of tea, sitting on the floor sobbing.

Bad Love

Through our conversations with Iggy we learned that she had quite a crush for the alleged lady-killer. After their breakup he denied that it had ever happened and we wonder if this has ever been described in one of the many Clapton biographies.

Perhaps it was all for the better. It is rumoured that Eric Clapton did not treat his fiancé well during their five year relationship and after the breakup he said he had never loved her. Alice followed Eric in his heroin addiction and while Clapton could recover Alice died of an overdose in 1995.

Lambton

Other friends of Iggy, through Jeff Dexter, were the eldest Lambton sisters: “Beatrice took care of me for a while.” Iggy probably meant Lady Beatrix Nevill (née: Lambton, 1949) who had four sisters: Lucinda (1943), Rose Diana (1952), Anne Mary (1954) and Isabella (1958). Their father was Lord Antony Claud Frederick Lambton, an MP who was caught in 1973 in a (minor) political scandal after he was found in bed with two prostitutes and some drugs.

Iggy probably only knew the two older sisters Beatrix and Lucinda, as the others were far too young. There is not a lot more that can be said as they apparently stayed out the gossip pages, at least in the sixties.

Lucinda wrote several books, was a photographer and an acclaimed TV broadcaster. Her younger sister Anne Lambton was a confidantes of Andy Warhol and starred in the Sex Pistols biography Sid and Nancy. In 2013 the family sued each other over the £12 million estate of their deceased father.

Port Eliot

The age of Aquarius was one were many youngsters were looking for an alternative lifestyle, an alternative philosophy, an alternative religion. In some cases this meant throwing those restraining British Christian traditions overboard, replacing these with equally restricting oriental ones and paradoxically claiming this new set of standards was liberating. Some aristocrats sought it closer to home. Keith Richards, in his autobiography, Life, remembers:

There were a lot of Pre-Raphaelites running around in velvet with scarves tied to their knees, like the Ormsby-Gores, looking for the Holy Grail, the Lost Court of King Arthur, UFOs and ley lines.

Iggy Rose visited the castle at Port Eliot (St Germans, Cornwall) with Michael Rainey and some other people of the smart set. Among them Henrietta Moraes (née: Audrey Wendy Abbott) who had been an equally free-spirited woman and junkie, although a decade and a half before. She was the muse and inspiration for many artists of the Soho subculture, including Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Maggi Hambling. Iggy the Eskimo:

There's a place in Cornwall called Port Elliot. A bloke I knew called Peregrine has a castle there. For the May Day celebrations a party of his friends would gather round the village, which upset the Morris dancers. Peregrine's beautiful ladies were sitting astride the horses that were adorned with flower garlands, dressed as dames from King Arthur's Court.

The above probably means that Iggy visited the castle more than once, as she was there with Michael Rainey and - later - with Mark Palmer's gypsy caravan.

Master and Servants

The master of the estate (as he is so accurately described by his grovelling interviewer) was Peregrine Eliot, 10th Earl of St Germans. He was a partner in Seltaeb, the Beatles merchandising company from the sixties. He was married to Jacquetta Jean Frederika Lampson, a daughter of a well known British diplomat. Jacquetta had been a model for Lucian Freud and performed in the 1967 movie Echoes of Silence. Also present in the documentary is her sister Roxana 'Bunty' Rose Catherine Naila Lampson. She was married to Ian Ross, who co-founded Radio Caroline.

Peregrine Eliot later hosted several festivals on his estate. The Elephant Fayre in the eighties and the Port Eliot Lit Fest from 2010 and later.

Aristo-Gypsies

The summer of love was slowly coming to an end and fun days were over. John Walsh in The wild Sloanes who made the Sixties happen:

As the summer of 1967 slid into autumn, things paled. Hippie and flower-child fashions became a high-street style rather than a statement of individualism. Sporting flowers in your hair or marigolds drawn in biro on your cheeks became passé. Many boutiques closed down. Michael Rainey and Jane Ormsby-Gore embarked on a spiritual quest. 'We were seriously into soul-seeking and going on fasts and meditating,' she said later. 'We left London, sold everything, gave away everything, and went to live in Gozo [Malta, FA].'

Another aristocrat had a different idea. Sir Mark Palmer seriously wanted to find the Holy Grail. He dressed as the archetypal druid from the Asterix cartoons and travelled through Britain in a horse-drawn gypsy caravan, taking with him some like-minded souls like musician Dave Tomlin from the guerrilla underground band The Giant Sun Trolley who played at the legendary '14th Hour Technicolor Dream' (later they evolved into The Third Ear Band).

Maldwyn Thomas, an English Boy model, was there as well from the start:

I was round at Mark's flat in Radnor Walk and he said, 'I'm going to drop out, do you want to come?' (…) It wasn't luxurious travelling in a caravan. Quite the opposite. (…) We bought a dung-cart, a sort of tipper cart. We put a tilt on it and wrapped it in canvas and it was very, very primitive. Mark bought this horse, a huge black and white mare. That was the start – and we set off. (DITL, P216)

The caravan was far from luxurious, but – for some reason or another – the idea appealed to many people, although some just visited the traveller's band for a weekend, like Brian Jones and his girlfriend Suki.

Aristo-copy-cats

Mark Palmer wasn't the only one to roam through England in a horse-driven caravan. Barry Miles took over the lease of the Michael and Jane Rainey house when they decided to move. Its living room had a yellow carpet and that (allegedly) inspired Donovan to write Mellow Yellow. Before they relocated to Malta they also went on a Holy Grail quest.

They were into ley lines and flying saucers and that sort of cuts across all sorts of class barriers; When Jane and Michael left London they went in a sort of gypsy caravan travelling along ley lines to Wales with motorcycle out-riders. This is a sort of eccentricity you've always had among English aristocrats. They're famous for being very cuckoo, a lot of them. (RSG, P237)

And Iggy

A bunch of aristocrat hippies, travelling along the ley lines looking for UFOs and celebrating unsolicited sex. Who could refuse such an offer? Certainly not Iggy:

There was a glorious summer where I travelled around in a beautifully painted real-life gypsy caravan, pulled by a magnificent cart horse. At first I did not realise who Mark Palmer was. I thought he and his gang were hippies like me. Mark was my knight in shining armour, who took me under his wings.

Mark Palmer continued his quest till the mid-seventies. He and his gang of rich libertine new-age followers overwintered at Stargroves, a manor house at East Woodhay (Hampshire), owned by Mick Jagger.

So there you have it, the story of Iggy and her summer trip on a gypsy caravan, as documented by news reporter Dale Le Vack.

A last word...

It is not sure why Iggy left the commune, probably after the summer of 1968, but maybe her aversion of vegetarianism had something to do with it.

I have done the hippy commune... with the lentils and mantra and bongo bashing and tuneless flute playing. There was lots of plonk and unspiritual drugs... I'm not a diabetic! I just craved for the bloodiest steak.

That's our Iggy like we know her. She never could stay long at one place.

Our Tumblr page has got some more pictures: Port Eliot. If you recognise some of the people portraited in the documentary, let us know!

Note: some sources claim it's Ormsby Gore, without the hyphen, but as Wikipedia puts it with one, i.c. Ormsby-Gore, that's the spelling we've used for this article.

Many thanks to: Jeff Dexter, Alex Peter Hoffmann, Jay Jeer, London in the 60s & 70s, Antonio Jesús Reyes, The Iggy Rose Archives, Mim Scala, Nigel Young.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p.187-190., p.92, 216, 221.
Levy, Shawn: Ready Steady Go!, Broadway Books, New York, 2003, p.192,237.
Miles, Barry: In The Sixties, Rocket 88, London, 2017 (updated version), p.298.
Miles, Barry: London Calling, Atlantic Books, London, 2010, p.213, 263.