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Iggy was part Inuit (or Eskimo to use the vernacular of the day). According to Duggie Fields she wasn't considered a girlfriend of Syd (Barrett) although he says she probably slept with Syd on more than one occasion. He goes on to say 'We didn't want her living with us at the time but she was so beguiling that it was a difficult situation'. She was a former girlfriend of Anthony Stern (Movie Director, writer and cinematographer who was a friend of Syd in the 60's (he lived on Eden Street in Cambridge in the 60's) and he was a flatmate of and film asssistant to Peter Whitehead [Tonite Let's All Make Love In London]). Apparently she was destitute when she arrived at Wetherby Mansions had no money, no job and few possessions. According to Duggie Fields she never wore underwear (when she was wearing anything at all!) and he recalls her getting off a bus wearing a scarf as a skirt!

Iggy apparently 'vanished as quickly as she had come' and a hippie couple Rusty and Greta (two casual friends of Syd) decided to move in and lived in the hallway for a while. Later there was Gilly Staples (who Syd apparently threw across the room on one occasion) and a girl called Lesley (who sometimes Syd would see and other times would leave her outside banging on his door to come in). After that Gayla Pinion moved in around late '69 and subsequently became engaged to Syd on October 1 1970 but they never married.

According to Duggie Fields after Iggy left Syd she apparently went off with some 'rich guy from Chelsea and lived a very straight life'.

Written by acidmandala at The Syd Barrett Archives.

Note: this was the Church's first blog post, basically to test how things would look in good old, and now depreciated, html 3.2.
Update January 2017: as of January 2017, the website has been refurbished and upgraded towards html5.

Several Floydian sources publish a scan of a NME (New Musical Express) article from November 1966, featuring Iggy, dancing on a party. Most of the time the date is cited as Wednesday the 16th of November, but the scan of the magazine shows a different date that of Saturday the 26th of November. As NME appeared every Friday the article probably appeared in issue 1037 (of Friday the 25th of November). Of course there is always the chance that the actual pictures were taken on Wednesday the 16th.

Here is the full text that accompanies the pictures:

(On sale Friday, week ending November 26, 1966 - NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS)
DOWNSTAIRS...
On the small, intimate dimly lit dance floor in the basement, it's all happening, PATRICK KERR, dancer from RSG, and his girls demonstrate the bend dance.
Above: Three pop personalities (l to r) ADRIANNE POSTA, FRANK ALLEN (of Searchers) and TWINKLE try the Bend, watched by Cromwellian publicist SIMON HAYES.
Left: Another Bender - model IGGY, who is half-Eskimo.
Below: CHRIS FARLOWE dancing in sheepskin jacket.

The party in question was held at The Cromwellian (3 Cromwell Rd, London SW7). The Crom, as it was generally nicknamed, opened in 1965 in Earls Court, was a three-floor cocktail bar and discotheque and one of the posher (and more expensive) places to be. It was also one of the places for a would-be star to be discovered (or at least they believed it).

The basement described itself as ‘England’s Famous Discotheque (and restaurant)’ where pirate station DJs and well-known bands as Georgie Fame and Zoot Money performed. The ground floor had ‘Harry’s International Bar (and restaurant)’, promising the ‘greatest atmosphere in town’. Upstairs was a gambling area, an ‘Elegant Casino’, where you could try your luck at dice – roulette – black jack – pontoon and poker. Successful musicians, photographers, fashion designers, artists, television personalities (and the odd East End gangster) would hang out at The Crom, where the new m’as-tu-vu elite could enjoy a glass of champagne without being disturbed by obsessive and pushy fans. Ray Davies remembers it as the ideal place to ‘observe the almost endless supply of dolly girls parading in mini-skirts’. Probably the fact that there was ‘free entrance for girls’ helped as well.

Simon Hayes, publicist for The Crom is remembered by pirate radio DJ (and ex-roommate) Phil Martin: “Simon ran a pop PR agency called Ace Public Relations and he and his business (it seemed to me then) were at the absolute epicentre of the Swinging Sixties scene in London at the time.” (Taken from Offshore Radio)

No wonder that The Crom was chosen by Patrick Kerr, one of the choreographers of the Ready Steady Go! TV show to present the new dance of the week: the Bend. (Probably he already knew that the RSG! show would end a couple of weeks later.) The Bend was named after the risqué Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich hitsingle Bend It! that had been released in September. According to NME a new version with a different set of words had to be recorded for the US market.
Update July 2010: the story behind the Bend craze can be found in the following article: Rod Harrod remembers The Crom.
Update October 2012: the Bend link at Sixties City seems to be broken, so here is an alternative: the Bend.

Other prominent guests at the party were (according to NME):
Adrienne (with an E) Posta (or Poster). An actress (and singer) who would have a prominent role in the forthcoming movie Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967). In the next decade her sheepdog would become world-famous, posing for a Dulux paint advertisement campaign. This also led to the single ‘Dog Song’, written by her husband rockstar Graham Bonnett (The Marbles, Rainbow, Alkatrazz).
Frank Allen who joined The Searchers in 1964 and is still with them today.
Twinkle (Lynn Annette Ripley), the first British female singer / songwriter to score in the rock era. Her debut single Terry (1964) had catapulted her into the top3 and was followed by Golden Lights, Tommy, Poor Old Johnny, but with degrading success. (Update: as Simon Hayes and Twinkle were an item it is logical that she was present at the club. See also: Rod Harrod remembers The Crom.)
Chris Farlowe, one of Britain’s earliest exponents of R & B, had been struggling until his 1966 version of Think (Jagger & Richards) made it into the top 20. His following single Out Of Time (also a Rolling Stones tune) became number 1 and Farlowe was voted Best New Singer for 1966, although he had been performing since 1957.

Well so far for the small story, but what really matters is:

What was Iggy doing at The Cromwellian when Patrick Kerr demonstrated the Bend?
Who invited her to the spectacle (knowing that the press was also invited)?
Was she somehow connected to the RSG show (as a dancer, a model or a figurant)?
Was she somehow connected to The Cromwellian?
Was she somehow connected to Simon Hayes and/or his PR company?
What about singer/actress Adrienne Posta, one hit wonder Twinkle and superstar Chris Farlowe?
Was her aim to be discovered by a RSG! talent scout (perhaps not knowing that these were the last weeks of the show)?

The Holy Church Of Iggy the Inuit will continue to investigate this.

Update April the 1st, 2010. A new gallery has been uploaded containing the complete Come with NME for a pic-visit to THE CROMWELLIAN article and pictures from New Musical Express 1037, 25 November 1966. Photographs by Napier Russell & Barry Peake. Words by Norrie Drummond. (Just another world exclusive from the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.)

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Bacon, Tony: London Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 74-75.
McAleer, Dave, Beatboom!, Hamlyn, London, 1994, p. 93-94 & p. 126-127.
Platt, John: London’s Rock Routes, Fourth Estate, London, 1985, p.137-139.
Tobler, John (editor): NME Rock ‘N’ Roll Years, Hamlyn, London, 1992, p.163.

Tailor John Pearse, graphic artist Nigel Waymouth (and girlfriend Shelagh York) opened Granny Takes A Trip in 1965. At the entrance was some lettering reading ‘one should either be a work of art or wear a work of art’. Granny Takes A Trip was the first multisex boutique selling miniskirts, op art shirts, garments in loud florals and paisleys… Perhaps more of importance were the second hand ornaments: flapper dresses, Victorian bustles, Boer War helmets, antique military jacquets, Chicago gangster suits, fezzes, turbans and other ‘cleaned and darned exotica’.

Nigel Waymouth: "I was with this girl at the time and she used to collect old clothes. We thought that it might be a good idea to open a shop with all these things. (…) Of course it was terribly vain."

The Granny T-a-T boutique was known for its outrageous decoration. The entrance of the shop changed a few times: in the early days it had a mural of a North American Indian, in 1966 (probably) it was replaced by a pop art picture of Jean Harlow and at a later stage a real Dodge (well, part of it) was pop-artistically glued to the wall.

Granny was expensive, elitist and wasn’t afraid of saying so. Journalist and critic Jonathan Meades once tried to get in dressed in a casual black suit and tie: “I remember Nigel Waymouth sneering at me, you could hardly see his face by through this mass of afro hair. (…) He obviously thought I was a jerk. (…) and wanted me moved out of the way because I was an extremely bad advertisement for his shop.”

"The underground was exactly the same as everything else: there were rich people and there were poor people. It was class ridden. There was no working class in the underground because nobody did any work." (Cheryll Park, art-student).

"The underground had a star system exactly as did pop music and films and everything else." (Andrew Bailey, journalist Variety, Rolling Stone UK).

The press that cherished Swinging London reported vividly about the so-called mundane settings (shops, bars and restaurants) visited by working class heroes such as Michael Caine and Twiggy. The sudden press attention made the flower power movement mushroom and disappear in a couple of months time.

Look At Life was a series of short documentaries about British life, made by Rank Organisation and shown in the Odeon and Gaumont movie theatres. Between 1959 and 1969 over 500 tongue-in-cheek episodes were made. One particular episode from 1967, called IN Gear, narrated by Michael Ingrams, deals with several Swinging London shops and clubs.

It's the swinging London fashion scene on parade and features an eye-candy array of dazzling & colourful mod fashions! Suits, shirts, pants, shoes, boots, jackets, dresses, belts, bags, hats, caps, ties, skirts, blouses, scarves, dickies, and more! Mary Quant shows off her latest collection! The viewer is taken to King's Road, SOHO, and Carnaby Street.

Some of the shops visited are: "Granny Takes a Trip," "Hung on You," "The Antiques Supermarket," "I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet," and "Gear."

The narrator tells us that, "A year or two ago fashion originated in the haute couture's of Paris, then spread downward through society in ever cheapening copies; now these shops which would have interpreted the mould, originate today's fashion, owing nothing to Paris or anyone else."

Next, it's off to the discotheque club scene where the "in" gear is worn. Clubs include: "Tiles," "Bag of Nails" (the Beatles used to hang out here), "Samantha's," "Georges" and "the Saddle Room." Groovy pop music soundtrack! (Taken from Videobeat.)

When Late Night member dollyrocker watched this particular episode on YouTube she recognised a familiar face at 1:43. The girl who visits the Granny Takes A Trip shop is none other than Iggy the Eskimo. This probably means that she was hired by the makers of the documentary as an actor for the movie and further proof indeed that she was a professional model.

Unfortunately the credits have been cut of from the YouTube video and I’m not sure if they appear on the Swinging London DVD it was taken from (unfortunately the DVD is out of print and its editor DD Home Entertainment is out of business).

We don’t know exactly when the documentary was made but as another shop, Biba, moved somewhere between March and September 1966 to Kensington Church Street, and that location is shown in the movie, one can deduct that the movie dates from summer 1966 - spring 1967.

So far for the small story. But what really matters is:

Who hired Iggy for the documentary?
What agency did she belong to?
If she was a professional model there must still be promo shots or fashion photo shoots available in the darker corners of this world…

A gallery with screenshots of the movie can be visited here.

Sources (other than the above internet links)
Green, Jonathon: All Dressed Up, Pimlico, London, 1999, p. 80-81.
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p.187-190., p. 218-220
Levy, Shawn: Ready Steady Go!, Broadway Books, New York, 2003, p.190-191.

The most famous Iggy picture, and without this one this blog would probably not even exist, can be found on the back side of Syd Barrett’s solo album The Madcap Laughs (top left pic).

There is a bit of a confusion who made these pictures. Hipgnosis designed the sleeve and Storm Thorgerson writes in his volume Mind Over Matter:

My only decision was to use a 35mm camera and upgraded colour transparency, partly because of the low level light conditions and partly for the grainy effect. (…) Friend and photographer Mick Rock, later famous for his Bowie photos amongst many others also came on the photo session, but I cant remember why. (p.204 of the 2003 edition, p. 234 in the 2007 edition although the index still assumes it is on p. 204).

Dark Globe, member of the Late Night discussion forum, had a quick chat with Storm in July:

There was the chance to see the cover of 'The Madcap Laughs' displayed at a larger size on excellent quality paper. This famous photo was taken by Storm himself for the cover of the album - and not by Mick Rock as some assume. (…) I was lucky enough to talk to Storm himself and tell him how much I admired his work. I also took the opportunity to ask him about the 'Madcap' photo session and enquired whether we would ever see any of his outtakes from that session appear in some form in the future. Unfortunately this doesn't seem likely as he informed me that his photos from that session were now lost.

Hipgnosis was probably commissioned by the record company (Harvest, EMI) to make the record sleeve. Syd Barrett however had another idea and asked his friend Mick Rock, an aspiring would-be photographer, to organise the shooting for the forthcoming album. The result was that the two photographers were present on the same day.

A lot has been written about these sessions, not in the least by Mick Rock who devoted two three books to the subject:

• Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs - The Mick Rock Photo-Sessions (U.F.O. Books, 1993), a book that was bundled with the album in a limited edition. The introduction of this (sold out and deleted) book can be found on various places on the net. Update 2012: the Geocities link to this page seems to be dead, but luckily there is an archived version: Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs - The Mick Rock Photo-Sessions.

and

• Psychedelic Renegades - Photographs of Syd Barrett by Mick Rock. Genesis Publications published the first limited edition in 2002 with 320 copies autographed by Roger Barrett & Mick Rock and 630 copies signed by Mick Rock alone (sold out). In 2005, before Barrett passed away, the Deluxe copies already had a collector’s value of 2400 £. In 2007 the book was finally published in a regular version, by Plexus (London) and Gingko (USA).

and (Update January 2012)

• Syd Barrett - The Photography Of Mick Rock. Tin box, including 128 pages high print quality [Mick Rock's words, not ours, FA] booklet and exclusive 7 inch single 'Octopus' b/w 'Golden Hair'. The rather exaggerated blurb continues: "The booklet features a full introduction, new insights and captions by Mick and quotes from Syd." (EMI Records Ltd & Palazzo Editions Ltd, Bath, 2010).

Mick Rock remembers the day as follows:

The actual session turned out to be a collaboration really because Storm also took some pictures. I remember Storm asking me whether to credit the image, ‘Hipgnosis and Mick Rock’ and I said, ‘No just credit it Hipgnosis’.

Psychedelic Renegades however does not include the sleeve pictures of The Madcap Laughs so in the end it was probably Storm who decided to use only his own material (according to Mick Rock one photo would later surface – uncredited - on Barrett’s second album). Because both sessions were made on the same day the pictures are obviously very similar (some Mick Rock pictures were also used on the Syd Barrett compilation album).

Update August 2017: In the 2017 documentary Shot! Mick Rock hints that he was behind the cover shot anyway, indirectly implying that it was not Storm Thorgerson's picture to begin with. For years there have been rumours in anoraky Floydian circles that Thorgerson and Rock sued (or threatened to sue) each other for the ownership of these pictures. Perhaps a deal was made - a bit like the one between Roger Waters and Pink Floyd over The Wall - that The Madcap Laughs front and back sleeve pictures officially belong to Hipgnosis (Storm Thorgerson) but the outtakes to Mick Rock. Syd Barrett related excerpt from Shot!: The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock.

More about the Mick Rock - Storm Thorgerson controversy:
Storm Rock Pictures 
and the ultimate Iggy photoshoot fun quiz
The Iggy IQ Quiz 

Moviemaker Anthony Stern, who knew Iggy before she met Syd, has confirmed that the person at the Granny Takes A Trip boutique on the IN Gear movie is indeed her. On his turn he will present a home movie called Iggy, Eskimo Girl at The City Wakes festival in Cambridge. A short teaser can be found on YouTube.

According to Mick Rock Syd was touched when she left him:

Once I’d developed the film (from The Madcap Laughs photo session, note by FA), I went round to show Syd the pictures. He took this one opposite (page 21 in the PR-book, note by FA) and scratched some lines and his name onto it. I think there was a bit of negativity directed at Iggy. He just started scratching the print, with a big grin on his face. (Taken from Psychedelic Renegades.)

It could be that the scratches on the picture were destined at Iggy, but why did Syd Barrett scratch (more or less) around her figure? Not (and I hope my shrink will never read this) her face or body, in my garbled opinion the logical thing to do if one would try to express negative or revengeful feelings on a photograph. Syd’s body and face is far more scratched than Iggy’s and Barrett also cut the letters SYD on the picture... Perhaps he was just trying to make clear to Mick Rock that he wanted to get rid of his pop-life alter ego.

Mick Rock writes further that he heard from Duggie Fields, the painter who was Syd Barrett’s roommate and who still lives in the same apartment today, that ‘she later went off with some rich guy in Chelsea and lived a very straight life’.

On an old and abandoned blog (and also on the Late Night forum) I wrote that none of the Pink Floyd biographers have been really looking for Iggy. Mark Blake, author of Pigs Might Fly, responded: “I can't speak for all the PF or SB biographers, but I certainly tried.”

The only bit of new info I found was that there was a chance 'Iggy' may have gone to school in the South London area, as she was known as one of the regular teenage girls at the dancehalls around Purley and Caterham. This would have been around 1965. Duggie Fields recalls seeing her some time after the Madcap Laughs photo session and she was looking a lot more "sloaney". Most of the people I spoke to who knew her believe Iggy married a rich businessman and doesn't now want to be 'found'. (Taken from The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit on Late Night.)

Although scarce the above information is about the most relevant we have had from a biographer in about 30 years.

The most famous dancehall in Purley was the Orchid Ballroom where The Who, The Troggs and The Hollies gigged a couple of times. It started as a regular dance hall (and concert and sporting events hall) in the Fifties and had a local house band The Jackpots in 1963 and 64.

In the mid Sixties (1964 – 1966) the Orchid Ballroom was the meeting place for the Croydon mods who would assemble every Monday night. Witnesses remember Mike (?) Morton, Tony Crane, Jeff Dexter and Sammy Samwell spinning the records. Pete Sanders and Mickey Finn used to be part of the crowd.

Not all these names ring a bell. I could not trace back Mike Morton, but Lionel Morton was the singer and lead guitarist from the Four Pennies who had a hit in 1963 – 1964 with Juliet. Tony Crane was a member of The Mavericks, a band that became famous when they changed the name to The Merseybeats, later The Merseys (David Bowie would cover their Sorrow on his Pin-Ups album, a tune they had borrowed from The McCoys). Mickey Finn could be the man who was the drummer of T. Rex and who also played on the record made by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, the people who were behind the Granny Takes A Trip boutique.

Elizabeth Colclough used to work at the bar in 1968: "It was the place to go to meet friends old and new, weekday evenings and also at the weekend. We saw some great bands, some who are still going strong today.”

Another witness recalls how Cathy (Mc Gowan), the queen of the mods and presenter of the ever popular Ready Steady Go! Show, came to the Orchid Ballroom to spot for dancers to appear in her show. Seen the fact that Iggy was present at an RSG!-party, organised by the show's main choreographer, it is not improbable that she may have been present at some RSG! television-shows as well, as a dancer or as a pretty face in the public.

A book about the history of the Orchid Ballroom has been made and the Church will try to contact its author, there is the (very small) chance that Iggy is mentioned in it.

Update August 2009: Brian Roote, who studied the history of The Orchid confirmed later to the Church: 'I have no knowledge of this girl whatsoever'.

An image gallery with stills of the Iggy, Eskimo Girl movie.

Sources (other than the above internet links):
McAleer, Dave: Beatboom!, Hamlyn, London, 1994, p. 57-59.
Rock, Mick: Psychedelic Renegades, Plexus, London, 2007, p. 20.

On September the 17th the Croydon Guardian, a weekly free local newspaper covering South London, devoted an article to Iggy after the Church had revealed that Iggy had probably been a regular visitor at the Purley dancehall The Orchid. The article was brought to my attention by Matthew Taylor from Escape Artists who was so kind to point me to a scan of the article, neatly hidden in a dark corner from the (long deleted) City Wakes website.

It all started with a remark on the Late Night forum why no one had ever tried to locate Iggy. Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake promptly denied this and added some extra titbits to the Iggy enigma. He had found out that she was probably a South Londoner who used to go dancing in dancehalls in or around Purley. More about the Church’s quest to locate Iggy’s dancing habits can be found on a previous entry on this blog: Shaken not stirred.

This ended with the promise that the Church would try to find some more information about the place and the people who visited it. A mail was send to a historian of the Bourne Society but without success. The same message however to a journalist of the Croydon Guardian was immediately replied. Some initial information was exchanged and journalist Kirsty Walley did an excellent job by getting testimonies, not only from Anthony Stern, but also from a DJ who used to spin records at the Orchid, Jeff Dexter, and who still remembers Iggy.

So, where did she go to, our lovely?
By Kirsty Whalley

In the Swinging 60s she was an iconic model who broke the heart of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett. Known only as Iggy she is thought to have lived in Thornton Heath and was a regular at the Orchid Ballroom in Purley between 1963 and 1967. Then she vanished and for the past three decades the former 60's in-crowd has wondered where she went?

Former friends, director and artist Anthony Stern and DJ Jeff Dexter, are both searching for the enigmatic model, who featured naked on the cover of Barrett's solo album Madcap Laughs. She was nicknamed "the Eskimo" because it was thought that she was part Inuit. DJ Jeff Dexter, who regularly played at the Orchid, vividly remembers the beautiful girl who used to talk to him while he played his set. He first noticed her in 1963. He said: “Iggy was part of a group of very wonderful looking south London girls. She was unusual because she did not look like anyone else at the time. Since she disappeared, she has become a bit of an enigma.”

Dexter says that he met the director and artist Anthony Stern in 1967 and that Iggy became involved with him at about the same time. Anthony took many pictures of the model and also made a film of her, which will be shown for the first time at the City Wakes festival this October in Cambridge. Stern said: “Iggy was my muse. I met her at a Hendrix gig at the Speakeasy. She was a lovely inspiration and free spirit. I never knew her real name.” “We used to hang out together, occasionally dropping acid, staying up all night, going for walks at dawn in Battersea Park.” The artist said he recently discovered photographs that he took of Iggy on a houseboat near Lots Road in Chelsea. “She entirely captures the spirit of the Sixties, living for the moment, completely carefree.”

Photographer Mick Rock remembers turning up at Barrett’s to take photographs for his solo album cover. At an interview in 199 he said: “Syd was still in his underpants when he opened the door. He’d totally forgotten about the session and fell about laughing. Iggy the Eskimo was naked in the kitchen making coffee. She didn’t mind either. They both laughed a lot and it was a magical session.” The most iconic images of her appear on the album, where she poses naked in the background.

After she broke up with Barrett she disappeared. Felix Atagong, who has set up a website in her honour, said: “According to the painter Duggie Fields, she got married to a rich guy from Chelsea and led a ‘decent’ life after that.”

Anthony and Jeff both admit they have spent time looking for her. “the truth is, if she has not come forward by now, she probably doesn’t want to be found,” said Anthony.

(picture insert: It-crowd icon: Iggy the Eskimo). An online version of the article can be found here.

An entirely new and previously unreleased picture of Iggy accompanies the newspaper article. This comes out of the personal collection of Anthony Stern. It is believed that more pictures from his collection may be unearthed on a later date.

Sammy Samwell

Delving deeper into the history of the The Orchid Ballroom (Purley) one cannot go around two musical partners in crime: Jeff Dexter and Sammy Samwell.

Ian ‘Sammy’ Samwell had been a member of The Drifters, the backup band for Harry Webb. They would become a wee bit more successful when Harry changed his name to Cliff Richard (it was Samwell’s idea to cut the final S from Richards to give the pseudonym extra spice). At the same time the backup band was renamed to The Shadows (as there was already an American band call The Drifters). When Hank Marvin joined the band Ian Samwell stepped aside and concentrated on composing hits, producing and disk jockeying.

Samwell was probably the first to acquire a star status as a DJ, before that the DJ had always been the invisible nobody who turned a few singles when the bands on stage were switching places. For the first time in history people came to The Lyceum to see the DJ at work instead of the house band.

As a producer Ian worked with Aynsley Dunbar, Georgie Fame, John Mayall, The Small Faces and he would also be known as the man 'who discovered America'. Ian 'Sammy' Samwell passed away March 13, 2003.

Jeff Dexter

As a youngster Jeff Dexter wasn’t into pop music at all, but dancing with girls was, so he simply gave in. At The Lyceum (1961-ish) he met DJ Sammy Samwell and they soon became friends. Not long after that Jeff made quite a name because he was barred from the dance floor for making an attempt at The Twist, originally a Hank Ballard B-side. When a few weeks later The Twist became a Chubby Checker superhit The Lyceum hired the mod they had banned before. He became a professional dancer and had to instruct the dance crazy public the moves of the week.

Around 1962 – 1963 Jeff moved to The Orchid Ballroom, the biggest ballroom in Europe with four different bars.

Chicken & Chicks, as they called it. Fish bar. Chicken bar. They had this big ice igloo where they sold ice cream sodas. They had an upstairs bar. And they had a roundabout which was another bar, a revolving bar, all in this wonderful huge building. (Taken from DJHistory.)

Jeff Dexter noticed Iggy in 1963.

Iggy was part of a group of very wonderful looking south London girls. She was unusual because she did not look like anyone else at the time. Since she disappeared, she has become a bit of an enigma. (taken from the Croydon Guardian.)

While Ian Samwell was the main DJ at The Orchid Jeff worked as a dancer and singer of the house band and as an occasional DJ. This would become his prime profession and later on he would also spin records at Tiles, UFO and Middle Earth (where John Peel was another DJ).

As a member of the Underground in-crowd, (the index of Days In The Life gives him 20 entries), he would witness the raise and fall of the movement that wasn’t a movement to begin with and the hostile reaction of the powers that be.

Middle Earth closed after the horrible scenes of the police raid. We had had a private party that night and somebody had brought along their children. The police raided, found the children and told the Covent Garden porters we were crucifying children in there. So they smashed the place to pieces. (…) Jenny Fabian and I were locked in the box office while they wrecked the place.

In Jenny Fabian’s semi-auto-biographical account of her Groupie days Jeff Dexter appears as Len although Dexter maintains: “I was the only one she didn’t fuck”.

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Bacon, Tony: London Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 101.
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p.222, p. 283.

Some of Anthony Stern's pictures are somewhat reminiscent of the IN Gear mirror shots that were taken in the Granny Takes A Trip boutique. The Church could finally get hold of the Look at Life Swingin’ London DVD and managed to extract a lot of screenshots. The previous low quality gallery from the IN Gear documentary has now been upgraded with the DVD shots that have a slightly better quality.

Iggy's appearance in the Look At Life documentary has been uploaded on YouTube.

For those that want to watch the complete documentary, don't miss Iggy. She arrives at 1 minute 13 seconds and disappears, with the world's most beautiful smile on her face, at 1 minute and 45 seconds.

A gallery with screenshots of the movie can be visited here.

The Church is still trying to find more information about the documentary in question but apparently the Rank Organistation archives are a bit quirky. They have been put somewhere, but nobody seems to remember the exact location. Until the moment arrives that the Church will unearth more gruesome details we bid you, dear sistren and brethren, to live long and prosper and to not do do anything that Iggy wouldn’t have done.

Update April 2017: replaced invalid 2008 YouTube link with a more modern one.

Did I already mention that the people of the Late Night forum are a bunch of fantastic people? Probably yes, but I will keep on repeating it. Eternal Isolation found a lecture by Anthony Stern, held at La Cinémathèque in Paris in June 2008. Here is how our fellow Europeans describe him:

Anthony Stern était l'un des secrets les mieux gardés de la cinématographie anglaise. La Cinémathèque française lui offre sa première rétrospective. Camarade de classe de Syd Barrett et de David Gilmour, assistant de Peter Whitehead, Anthony Stern a réalisé certains des plus beaux poèmes documentaires des années 60 et 70, à la fois sensuels, endiablés et railleurs. Taken from La Cinémathèque.

(Translation) Anthony Stern is one of England's cinematographic best-kept secrets. The French Cinémathèque offers him his first retrospective. Friend from Syd Barrett and David Gilmour, assistant of Peter Whitehead, Anthony Stern has realised several of the most poetic, sensual, boisterous and mocking documentaries of the 60’s and 70’s.

The lecture, videotaped by a member of the audience, has been issued on YouTube in three consecutive parts, but part 3 is the most interesting for Iggy fans. After the tiresome lecture, due to the fact that Anthony’s English explanation is translated into French and back, a copy is shown of his 1969 movie Wheel, followed by Iggy, Eskimo Girl. Unfortunately only snippets of the different movies have made it onto the web, but any additional material from our goddess is appreciated.

An image gallery with stills of the movie can be found at the gallery.

Update: the Church made a compilation of Anthony Stern's lecture at La Cinématèque (removing the French translation parts). You can watch it here: Anthony Stern Movie Talk.

Update April 2017: replaced invalid YouTube link (2008) with a new one.

Ranting is normally destined for the main site of this domain, Unfinished Projects, thank you for visiting once and so often… but rules are to be broken, even Church rules…That horrible blasphemy of a browser, truly a work of the devil and its main representative here on earth, Mr. Bill Gates, messed up the Holy Church’s website the last couple of weeks… but only if you browsed the Holy Church with the dreadful Internet Explorer.

The Reverend found out that the objects that broke the layout were the recently added YouTube movies. It took his holiness hours of his precious time and a couple of Guinness beers to repair the damage done but he appears to have miraculously accomplished this gargantuan chore.

The fact that not one single congregant spotted the mistake fills his Reverend’s heart with joy. Apparently none of you uses Satan’s little browser. But of course it could also be that none of you actually visits this blog or gives a damn about it. In that case the Reverend can only give you Father Jack Hackett’s advice: feck off!

But let us forget and forgive and lead you through the narrow path that leads to all things Iggy. Anthony Stern’s movies are distributed by Chimera Arts and this is what they have to say about our favourite subject:

Iggy The Eskimo Girl
UK/2008/4’/16mm/stereo
Produced by Sadia (2008) and Anthony Stern (1968) • Directed by Stern • Edited by Tayler/Sadia/Stickley
Based on footage originally shot in 1968, this is a portrait of Syd Barrett’s girlfriend Iggy, referred to ubiquitously and affectionately by those who knew her in the late 1960’s as ‘Iggy The Eskimo Girl’. Taken from: Chimera Arts New Films.

The text is accompanied by 5 stills of the movie that have now been added to the gallery.

Update 2019 07 30: This post is no longer valid and is kept for archival purposes only. It has been replaced by Si les cochons pourraient voler... 

A rather long post about Mark Blake's Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly has been published on Felix Atagong's (that's me) Unfinished Projects. It contains some bits and pieces about Iggy as well.

Update 2010: as Unfinished Projects is a thing from the past this review has been added to the Holy Church blog: Si les cochons pourraient voler… 

(I don't want to go to) Chelsea

Speaking about Iggy, Anthony Stern's Iggy, Eskimo Girl movie was shown at The City Wakes festival during the first weekend. Unfortunately one of the technicians mistakenly gave the film back to Anthony Stern. As the absence of the film wasn't noticed until just before the next screening it was too late to retrieve the DVD.

After the (first) presentation there was a Q&A round with Anthony. One member of the audience maintained that Iggy is currently living in Chelsea. The Church will try to investigate further into this matter.

Update 2016: this rumour was false, BTW.

On 30 June 1990 Pink Floyd played a short – albeit not very sharp - set at the Knebworth Festival. It has to be said that it was not the band’s sole responsibility that the gig was, how shall we call it, mediocre by Floydian standards. On this disastrous occasion, and this occasion alone, a 20 minutes promo film was shown at the beginning of the show, with a short appearance of none other than Iggy the Eskimo, somewhere between the 4 and 5 minutes mark.

The movie consisted of a retrospective of the Floyd’s history and included (parts of) several early songs (together with the predecessor of the promo clip): Arnold Layne, See Emily Play, Point Me At The Sky, It Would Be So Nice and others… Since it started with the first single, the movie had to end with the last one as well. Storm Thorgerson's visual rendition of the coke-euphoric-bring-on-the-digital-sound-effects Learning to Fly from the welcome to the drum machine album A Momentary Lapse of Reason ended the documentary.

In between the vintage scenes, Langley Iddens, who was then caretaker of the Astoria, David Gilmour’s houseboat studio, sits at a table contemplating the band’s past.

Langley Iddens (see top-left picture of this post) was a prominent face on the Momentary Lapse of Reason campaign. He is the man on the cover of the album but also acted in several promo and concert videos. He can be seen as a boat rower (Signs of Life), in flight gear (Learning To Fly) and in a hospital bed (On The Run). As Storm Thorgerson directed these backdrop movies it is logical to assume that also the Knebworth pre-show documentary was made by him.

There are however rumours that Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason was involved in the movie as well. Besides several promo clips of the Sixties the movie also shows pictures, newspaper articles, posters and flyers from the Floyd’s psychedelic past. It is a well-known fact that Mason has always been the archivist of the band, culminating in his personal account of the history of the band, Inside Out. That book, however, doesn’t reveal anything about Mason’s involvement on the Knebworth movie.

A short snippet of the Knebworth teaser, showing a happy Syd Barrett frolicking in a park with Iggy, made a collector’s career under the name Lost In The Woods or Syd Barrett Home Movie. This excerpt can be found several times on YouTube. Those cuts, however, are in a different order than on the original Knebworth feature. The Church has restored the initial flow and presents you hereafter two different versions of the so-called Lost In The Woods video.

Knebworth '90 Special Edition (DVD]

The first is taken from the DVD bootleg Knebworth '90 Special Edition on Psychedelic Closet Records. It is shared around the world amongst fans and it contains the complete concert plus some additional material, like MTV documentaries and interviews with the band.

It's a complete, stereo, recording from the original pay-per-view broadcast of Pink Floyd's appearance at the Knebworth '90 festival. The concert featured seven songs. Only five of these were broadcast. Two of the five were included on the official LD, VHS, and DVD releases. The other three songs haven't been seen since the original broadcast.

According to its maker, the pre-concert-documentary comes from a collector in England who had a first of second gen copy of the tape.

White Label [VHS]

Because the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit firmly believes in abundance, we have added a second version of the same movie, coming from a different source. The uploaded copy has been taken from a coverless VHS tape labelled Pink Floyd film, found at an open air market stall in London, and donated to the Church, in order to repent for his many sins, by Dark Globe.

Dark Globe took it upon him to further analyse the clip, it is obvious that it consists of different movies from different people at different places, and he even went so far as harassing, although the Church prefers the word investigating, some of the people who act in it. But the results of that enquiry will be highlighted in the next post in a couple of weeks.

Enjoy and don’t do anything that Iggy wouldn’t have done.

An image gallery with stills of the Lost In The Woods home movies can be found at the gallery.

Update April 2017: 2008 YouTube links have been replaced with their 2017 counterparts.

(This is the first part of the Love In The Woods topic. The second part can be found here: Love In The Woods (Pt. 2))

To all followers of the cult of Iggy: a happy new year!

The Church received a nice mail from Anthony Stern last week:

I see that you have continued to update your website and that the cult of Iggy is snowballing. Although my Iggy photos were shown on City Wakes website nobody was interested in buying the framed prints.

If you are still looking for a belated Xmas present: Anthony’s Iggy pictures are on sale, signed, numbered and framed: £225 for the Triptychs, individual pictures for £175 (plus postage). For more info please contact Anthony Stern Glass. (The Church is not affiliated with or endorsed by this company.)

Another message came from Mark Blake, author of the Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly:

Good luck with the Iggy hunt. I spoke to Ant Stern and Jeff Dexter again last week. They're no nearer to finding her than they were before. I think it's funny that nobody even knew her real name.

For that matter we don’t even know if she was Eskimaux or not.

My good old encyclopaedia Brittanica divides the people that we commonly describe as Eskimo in two categories: Eurasian and Western Arctic people. The Western Arctic people are the Eskimo (including Inuit and Yupiit) and the Aleuts who originate from North America, Greenland and part of Siberia. Amongst the Eurasian arctic people are the Sami (or Lapps) from northern Fennoscandia and several other cultures dispersed over the Ural Mountains and Siberia.

According to the Narwhal Inuit Art Education Foundation there are no Inuit currently living in England (confirmed to the Church by mail). Is it more logical to believe that Iggy’s roots originate from Europe rather than America or Siberia? In that case Iggy, the Eskimo really had to be nicknamed Iggy, the Lapp by her contemporaries.

Translating these into politically correct terms The Church of Iggy the Inuit really had to be baptised the Holy Church of Iggy the Sami to begin with.

As Mark Blake stated above, we don’t know if Iggy was her real name. Iggy could be an alias or perhaps an anglisized version of a foreign name.

If she has Sami roots her name could be Ing, originally meaning progenitor, ancestor, leader – which of course she is for the Church – Ingegerd or one of the many variants such as Inge, Ingine, Yngva, Ingar, Iŋgir… The more popular Ingrid also has its roots in the Nordic countries and this could have easily been shortened to Iggy by her relatives or friends.

The problem is that not a lot of Sami people have the so-called Inuit look Iggy is famous for. There is however a part of Europe (although geographically it belongs to North America) that was originally populated by Inuit people and was later on colonised by Iceland, Norway and Denmark. The Church is of course referring to Greenland.

The Inuit are believed to have crossed from North America to northwest Greenland, the world's largest island, between 4000 B.C. and A.D. 1000. Greenland was colonized in 985–986 by Eric the Red. The Norse settlements declined in the 14th century, however, mainly as a result of a cooling in Greenland's climate, and in the 15th century they became extinct. In 1721, Greenland was recolonized by the Royal Greenland Trading Company of Denmark. (taken from Infoplease)

In November of last year 3 out of 4 Greenlandic voted yes on a referendum that could eventually lead to the complete independence of the country. About 88% of the Greenland population has Inuit(-mixed) roots. The following link shows a (slow-loading) picture of premier Hans Enoksen voting for Self-Governance in Greenland with 5 year old Pipaluk Petersen (added here to show the Inuit characteristics).

So Iggy’s ancestors could have come from Greenland.

Well perhaps... at least one other Iggy enthusiast believes she is not Inuit at all, but (partly) Japanese, probably belonging to the Ainu people of Hokkaidō (who had their own language and were maybe the first settlers on America). Iggy could then be a nickname for Igumi.

And aside from that there might be a very slim chance that Iggy hides behind the Philippine Maria Ignacia as another author from a Floydian biography has whispered in the Church's confessional box.

Update: the above post is somewhat redundant as Iggy Rose's mother came from the Himalayas: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea 
Update March 2018: Iggy's mother did not live in the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range in Mizoram and Tripura, India.

Hello, I would like to try and clarify a couple of things about Ig.
She was a girlfriend of mine.

The above message reached the Reverend a couple of weeks ago. It was written by JenS, a Cambridge friend of Roger Keith Barrett. She is the one who introduced Iggy to the Pink Floyd founder exactly 40 years ago.

What follows is her rendition, as told exclusively to The Church of Iggy the Inuit, and now published for the first time. Her rememberings are only slightly edited here and there and re-arranged a bit per subject. Some explanatory notes have been added.

Meeting Iggy

I first met Ig in the summer of 1966. I saw her again in spring 1967 at Biba. She admired a dress I was wearing and invited me to a party that night. From then on we used to go clubbing. She was a lovely, sweet, funny girl and was always on the scene at gigs and events.

Biba, where Iggy first met JenS, was without doubt the single most important boutique of London. The shop features in the IN Gear documentary that also has Iggy.

The first really important customer to favour Biba was Cathy McGowan, the Ready Steady Go! presenter who (…) quickly made a new Biba dress a staple of her weekly wardrobe for the show.

This meant that every Saturday morning ‘teenage girls from all over the London area would race over to Abingdon Road and the piles of new, inexpensive clothes that awaited them’.

Ig was not known as Iggy the Eskimo.

She was simply Ig or Iggy and probably picked up the nickname along the way at school or something. I think she was a Londoner.

She was quite a lot older than us and had been around a while on the London Club scene. She invited me once to a party with Dusty Springfield and crew. Later she started hanging out at Granny’s (Granny Takes A Trip, FA) and turning up at UFO.

Update 2011: It was revealed in March 2011 that Iggy is born in December 1947, making her a bit younger than Syd Barrett. See The Mighty Queen.

One important player in Dusty Springfield’s crew was Vicki Heather Wickman, who managed Dusty and co-wrote You don’t have to say you love me that became a number one hit in 1966. Vicky had been a booker-writer-editor-producer of the weekly Ready Steady Go! shows for many years. Dusty Springfield herself had been a (part-time) presenter of the RSG!-show and that is probably where she met her future manager (Update: not quite true - they knew each other from 1962 and even shared a flat together, see also From Dusty till Dawn).

Wickham and her team ‘scoured the trendiest clubs looking for good dancers and stylish dressers to showcase’. The Church has a hunch feeling that Iggy may have been – during a certain period at least – a regular at the RSG! Show, especially as she was spotted, in November 1966, at an RSG!-party by New Musical Express (cfr. article: Bend It!).

It will be a ginormous work but the Church is planning to scrutinise several Ready Steady Go! tapes from that period to see if Iggy can be found in the public or amongst the dancers.

Iggy’s Parents

After our hypothesis that Iggy was probably not Inuit (cfr. article: Eskimono), the Church received several mails trying to string Iggy’s features to a certain culture. One of the countries that keep on popping up is Singapore that was a British colony between 1824 and 1959. Here is what JenS has to say about Iggy's heritage:

I have no idea about who her parents were. She was a war baby and may have been Chinese. There was a large Chinese community in London at the time. Of course Ig the Eskimo is an easy assumption to make. Anyway, I don't think I can help any further as I never discussed it with her.

Meeting Syd

Iggy became a Floydian icon when she posed on Syd Barrett's first solo album The Madcap Laughs, but most witnesses only describe her as one of Syd's two-week-girlfriends. JenS acknowledges this:

I took Ig to Wetherby Mansions in January or February 1969 where she met Syd Barrett. He was 22 and she must have been about 24, 25 years old.

The point is she was never Syd's girlfriend as in a ‘relationship’ with him. She was only at Wetherby Mansons very briefly, a matter of two or three weeks max.

I've not seen her since but often wondered where she is.

Syd’s Appartement

Syd painted the floor of his flat in blue and orange before The Madcap Laughs photo shoot, but did he do that especially for the photo shoot?

I was staying with Syd between the New Year and March '69. I hadn’t seen much of him since the summer of 1968 'til then.

Anyway, at that time, the floor was already painted blue and orange and I remember thinking how good it looked on the Madcap album cover later on when the album was released. I didn’t see Syd again though until 1971, so it stands to reason the floor was already done when I left.

Mick Rock wrote: "Soon after Syd moved in he painted alternating floor boards orange and turquoise." This doesn’t imply that it was especially done for the photo session.

In an interview for the BBC Omnibus documentary Crazy Diamond (November 2001) painter Duggie Fields said that Syd painted the floor soon after he occupied the flat, not that it was done on purpose for the photo shoot.

MP3 link: Duggie Fields.

The Madcap Laughs Photo Shoot

It has been assumed by Mick Rock that The Madcap Laughs photo shoot was held in the autumn of 1969 (cfr. article:Love In The Woods)

The floor (of Syd’s flat) was not painted prior to, or especially for, the Madcap photo shoot, which took place in March or April of 1969 and not October as has been suggested.

I left for the States in March 1969 and Iggy stayed on at the flat with Syd and Duggie (Fields) and there seemed to be other dropouts around from time to time.

Ig happened to be there still when the shoot came about, which was great because we have such a good record of her.

and:

I introduced Iggy to Syd shortly before I left, and she was around when I left. She wasn’t there for long and generally moved around a lot to different friends. It’s very doubtful she was still there in October or November 1969. She just happened to be there for Mick’s photo shoot, which is great because she was lovely girl.

This is apparently in contradiction with Malcolm Jones who wrote in The Making Of The Madcap Laughs:

One day in October or November I had cause to drop in at Syd's flat on my way home to leave him a tape of the album, and what I saw gave me quite a start. In anticipation of the photographic session for the sleeve, Syd had painted the bare floorboards of his room orange and purple.

JenS further comments:

I remember reading this once before and being puzzled. It would seem he’s talking about 1969. But which tape was he leaving? The 1968 sessions or the recuts (from 1969, FA)? It would seem he’s talking about the recut. It’s a bit confusing especially to me as the floor was painted, definitely before Christmas 1968.

The Madcap Laughs photo session had to be in the spring of 1969, probably it occurred the first week in March. Storm and Mick say they can only come up with the dates of August, or even October, November. This may have been when they came together to look at the shots for the cover, in other words when it was known the album would definitely be released and decisions on the cover had to be made.

Part 2 of JenS's chronicle will further delve into the legendary Madcap Laughs photo sessions, pinpointing the date somewhere in April 1969.

Sources (other than above internet links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2007, p. 141.
Jones, Malcolm: The Making Of The Madcap Laughs, Brain Damage, 2003, p. 13.
Levy, Shawn: Ready Steady Go!, Broadway Books, New York, 2003, p. 112, p.194-195.
Rock, Mick: Psychedelic Renegades, Plexus, London, 2007, p. 23, p. 58.

Our thanks go to Barrett alumni Stumbling... (aka Beate S.) and Lost In The Woods (aka Julian Palacios) from the Syd Barrett Research Society who made this encounter possible... and to JenS for her invaluable testimony about what really happened in those early days of 1969.

Last week the Reverend revealed two new Iggy pictures appearing at the Chimera Arts website that distributes the Iggy Eskimo Girl movie in various parts of the world (alas, not those parts of the world the Reverend is familiar with).

Anthony Stern who, should you not know, shot the movie in question recently updated several pages on his site and for those that want to dive into Stern’s work there is an interesting essay about his work as well.

Iggy the Eskimo Girl (1966/2008)

Update 2016: Anthony Stern's main website has been updated and all relevant movie links have disappeared. He has a Film Archive website as well but at the time of writing (November 2016) not much can be found there.

The (now deleted) filmography page has got the following to say about the movie:

Iggy was a model and the girlfriend of Syd Barrett, and appeared on the cover of his album The Madcap Laughs (1970). She was terrific fun to be with and to photograph. I made a short film of her dancing in Russell Square, which portrays her as the ultimate flower child of the 1960s.

That particular page also has a (now deleted) filmstrip dedicated to Iggy showing some screenshots that have never been shown before.

Stern did not only film Iggy, he also made some pictures of her that were premiered after 40 years on The City Wakes Syd Barrett Festival (a glimpse of those can be found in the catalogue of The Other Room). A (then also unpublished) black and white picture of Iggy also accompanied the ‘Where did she go?’ article that appeared in a (free) London newspaper and that was published after some mild excruciating techniques administered by the Church.

An (updated) image gallery with stills of the movie Iggy, Eskimo Girl can be found at the gallery section of the Church

Iggy 'The Eskimo Girl' Triptychs

Stern’s pictures form the so-called Iggy Triptychs, 5 in total. His website has to say the following about these:

I re-discovered these photographs in my cellar in an old suitcase. All the optical effects were obtained in-camera. The colour images of Iggy were taken on a houseboat at Chelsea Reach. In the background you can see Lots Road Power Station. The distortions were achieved using a flexible mirror material called Malinex, as well as a magnifying fresnel screen. I have presented these images at the Ruskin Gallery as triptychs, because they remind me of Francis Bacon images in the same format. (Taken from iggyphotos - link no longer available)

Every triptych also has a page of its own and on these the following titbit can be found:

Iggy was terrific fun to be with and to photograph. I knew her before she was introduced to Syd by JenS, and I remember walking through Battersea Park in the early mornings together.

Here are the individual triptych pages: all pictures © Anthony Stern.

Page 1: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip1.htm (link no longer active)
Page 2: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip2.htm (link no longer active)
Page 3: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip3.htm (link no longer active)
Page 4: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip4.htm (link no longer active)
Page 5: http://www.anthonysternglass.com/iggytrip5.htm (link no longer active)

The photographs on Stern's website are were for sale, signed, framed and numbered, either as triptychs or single images.
(Note: prices in 2009 were £175 for single images and £225 for the triptychs, not including postage).

No Church without some triptychs from our blessed saint and these can be admired in a new image gallery

Although Iggy is the prototype of the vanishing girl we know quite a lot of her through the bits and pieces that have survived that big black hole also knows as the Sixties.

In November 1966, when she was (about) 21 or 22 years old she appeared at The Bend party that was affiliated with the television show Ready Steady Go!

And there was of course her apparition in a 1967-ish documentary, called IN Gear, hinting that Iggy was seeking fame and fortune as a model or an actress. Unfortunately enough it seems impossible (or at least improbable) that the production sheets will ever surface, nobody seems to know where the archives of the Look At Life-series, that ran for a decade between 1959 and 1969 and added up to more than 500 episodes, physically are, if these still exist.

The Reverend has been re-reading some older posts at this funny little place aptly called the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and some need updating.

Lost in the Woods

There is a home movie floating around with Syd and Ig walking in a park, together with – what has been called – a mysterious brunette. Mick Rock probably made the movie around the same period, and with period the Reverend literally means days, The Madcap Laughs photos were made. Iggy is wearing the same clothes on both occasions (and the same necklace), but Syd Barrett not. The mysterious brunette may have been Mick Rock’s girlfriend, one of the (many, according to Duggie Fields) passing female visitors of Syd’s place or, a theory nobody has ever wondered about before, a friend of Ig.

Thanks to the testimony of JenS it is now pretty sure that the photo shoot took place in April 1969, probably in the week between the 14th and the 21st, but not on the 17th as Syd was the whole afternoon in Studio 2, recording the eerie No Man’s Land and the ditty Here I Go. Here is what Malcolm Jones had to say about it:

The following Thursday, as planned, I called a cab and went to collect Syd. We dropped in at Dave Gilmour's flat round the corner to borrow an amplifier, and set off for Abbey Road. At the studio we met up with Jerry Shirley and 'Willie' Wilson, the musicians Syd had invited along. The session was to be done 'live' i.e. everyone recording their parts at the same time, including Syd's vocal and guitar parts.

This session was the last happy and shiny one although nobody would know that beforehand of course. The next session had the motorbike overdubs on the legendary Rhamadan, legendary because Barrett fans know it has been lying in the vaults of EMI for over 40 years now and have been praying and begging to release it ever since.

Update (October 2010): Rhamadan has finally been released as a part of the An Introduction To... Syd Barrett compilation: Gravy Train To Cambridge 

The making of the track Rhamadan is one of those occasions lazy journalists use to prove that Barrett was as mad as a hatter. The track, an 18 to 20 minutes free-form-jam-session between Barrett, Steve Took and some other (unidentified) session players had been recorded the previous year, and in April 1969 Syd found that he still could do something useful with the demo.

Of course all he wanted to do was to put some motorbike overdubs on the track, a failed experiment as found out at the end of the day, but not quite as mad as those lazy journalists want us to believe. Pink Floyd would overdub motorbike sounds on Atom Heart Mother the next year and no one has put them in straitjackets because of that.

The intrinsic value of the track is less legendary tells someone who knows. Random Precision author David Parker is probably the only person in the world who has a full and legit copy of the Rhamadan track in his collection:

Of the 15-20mins that this runs for I reckon Syd plays on about 5 minutes worth. Imagine a longer and looser version of 'Lanky Pt 1' with a lot less guitar on it. (Taken from the Syd Barrett Research Society. Forum no longer active.)

In a, now deleted, post at SBRS Parker explained further that...

…I had to give my word to various people at EMI and Abbey Road, and sign a scarily draconian declaration, not to give out copies…

The April sessions of 1969 had Barrett in an excellent form and Malcolm Jones wanted to get the record done as quickly as possible. Not only he must have been aware of Syd’s mood changes but his bosses had also instructed him to get a move on. So it is absolutely plausible that the order for the cover-shoot was given right after the first session.

Update (October 2010): The Church's opinion has somewhat changed on this subject: The Case of the Painted Floorboards 

Driving Mr Sloane

The Church has written quite a few things about Syd’s blue Pontiac in the past and an error sneaked in at the second When Syd met Iggy...  posting. Originally it read:

Before Syd (and Mickey Finn) got the car it was used in the 1970 British movie Entertaining Mr Sloane. The car, with its cream red and silver interior, is featured prominently throughout the movie. The movie is not great but the pink Pontiac gives a great performance.

The above was not correct as this information was based upon the general belief that The Madcap Laughs photo shoot was held in the autumn of 1969 and not in April. The British Film Institute pinpoints the making of the movie between mid August and beginning of October 1969, four months after Syd gave the car away to someone who admired it. If the car that can be seen in the movie is indeed Syd’s, it was sold, given or lend to the movie crew by its new owner.

1969 Calendar

Because the Reverend thought it might be a good idea and because a lot of work went into coding and debugging The Holy Church of Inuit presents you... a calendar of the year 1969. It puts some dates right, can be generally considered as eye-candy and may be completely ignored...

Notes (other than internet links mentioned above):

Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 129-158.
Jones, Malcolm: The Making Of The Madcap Laughs, Brain Damage, 2003, p. 7.

Calendar idea grabbed from http://www.flicklives.com.

Brethren Dan5482 visited the several Church locations (see underneath) that can be found on the World Wide Web and confessed the following to the Reverend:

Despite all that collective amnesia I think that Iggy can still be found. There are journalists, detectives... who have found more difficult "targets".

However, an intense and widespread interest for her is a necessary condition. Your Church is a source of hope in this sense. It lets many people know that once such a mysterious woman existed.

It occurs to me that many people simply don’t want to know who or where Iggy is. Imagine finding a 70-year old woman and to find out that her words about that period are as simple and disappointing as "I don't like to remember that period. I was out of my mind..." That could be the end of a romantic dream.

Besides the fact that Iggy herself is an extremely intriguing figure, there is also the possibility of obtaining a new narrative and facts surrounding Syd Barrett's life in that fabled year of 1969.

Wise words from a wise man.

If JenS’ assumption that Ig was born at the end of World War II is true she is 64 or 65 years old at the moment (provided she is still amongst us). True believers know the following story for sure… in April, or early May of 1970, Ig closed the door behind her at Wetherby Mansions and was never seen back…
Update: obviously this was written before Ig, or Emily, was traced back by Mojo magazine.

Mick Rock has apparently stated that he heard from Duggie Fields, the painter who was Syd Barrett’s roommate, that Iggy ‘went off with some rich guy in Chelsea and lived a very straight life’ afterwards.

However Mark Blake squeezed a slightly different story out of him:

I have no idea who Iggy was or even what her real name was. She was never Syd’s girlfriend. They just got together from time to time. (…) I saw her not long after Syd left the flat and she was looking more like a Sloane Ranger. I heard she’d become involved with one of the voguish religious cults at the time.

Mark had some extra comments to give at the Late Night discussion forum:

Nobody knew her real first name, never mind her surname, or if they did, they weren't telling. Duggie Fields recalls seeing her some time after the Madcap Laughs photo session and she was looking a lot more "sloaney". Most of the people I spoke to who knew her believe Iggy married a rich businessman and doesn't now want to be 'found'.

The Cinderella story may be a case of confabulation. One witness supposes that Ig married rich and over the years this story infiltrates the memories of other people who, decades later, believe this is really how it all happened. This is not done on purpose; our memory likes to fill in the gaps and if we need to borrow memories of other people we will subconsciously do that. Pink Floyd history contains several anecdotes like that and in the several biographies and articles Floydian insiders have told about situations that were originally witnessed by others.

Update 2016: After Syd, Iggy met a rich banker who was a witness of Jehovah, so the rumours were at least based upon some facts. The relationship didn't last though and Iggy didn't marry 'rich'.

In February of this year Mark Blake reported to the Church:

I spoke to Emo a couple of weeks back and asked about Iggy and he immediately said he remembered hearing she had gone back to the Far East/Asia. But, as I have learned since doing the book, everyone has conflicting memories about these things. (mail to the Reverend on 23/02/2009)

At The City Wakes festival in October and November of 1988 Anthony Stern’s Eskimo Girl movie was shown to the public and during the Q&A afterwards a member of the audience told the director that Iggy was living in Chelsea. Nobody knows who this person is but if (s)he attended the festival (s)he must have been a fan of Barrett or one of the members of the Cambridge or London Underground gang who took this opportunity to meet again after three decades. The Church would like to invite this person to come forward and to contact the Reverend.

On the 7th of October 2006 the SydBarrett.net forum got the following message from a certain YoungForEternity.

Does anyone know roughly how old Iggy would be? There's a woman who works at a supermarket in my local town who claims to be "the" Iggy and I don't know whether to believe her or not...I'd appreciate any pointers or recognisable features? Her name is definitely Iggy, and I've been studying images but it's difficult to tell... (Taken from whatever happened to iggy the eskimo?)

The forum in question is no longer active and the messenger only posted this single item. In 2006 Ig was (probably) 61 or 62 years old so theoretically she should no longer have been working, as the State Pension age for women born before 1950 is 60 (in the UK). But of course there are always exceptions. To qualify for a full basic State Pension she needed to have built up 39 years of National Insurance payments and perhaps that may not have been the case. The Church would also like the author of this post to come forward and to contact the Reverend.

Update 2016: YoungForEternity was probably closer to the truth than we all expected. Iggy has indeed been working at a local supermarket.

Next week, sistren and brethren, the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit will celebrate its first birthday and a small and delicate special treat will be offered. Till then. And remember; don’t do anything that Ig wouldn’t have done…

Sources (other than internet links mentioned above):

Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press, London, 2007, p.141.

Many thanks go to young 3D artist Arthur Fratzen who lend me a copy of his WIP Iggy 64.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit can be found at: http://atagong.com/iggy. Authorised subsidiaries can be found at:

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Youtube channel
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Facebook Fanpage

The Reverend's MySpace page
The Reverend's Facebook page and last but not least
The Reverend's Unfinished Projects blog.

When JenS, who may well have been the person who introduced Iggy to Syd Barrett, told the Church that they both went to a Dusty Springfield party the Reverend was absolutely certain that he had found a solid path to unravel more about Iggy’s past (see: When Syd met Iggy).

Iggy was a bit older than the Cantabrigian underground gang and had already been active in the London club scene for a couple of years.
Update: this is not true, as we would find out later.

DJ Jeff Dexter had already noticed Ig in 1963 in The Orchid at Purley, where she used to go clubbing until 1967. Kathy McGowan and her RSG!-team raided the place to ‘spot for dancers to appear in her show’ (see: Where did she go?).

In 1966 Iggy was spotted on a party at The Cromwellian that was (partly) organised by the main choreographer of the RSG!-show. We will not go further into that as this story has already been told on this blog before (see: Bend It!).

Dusty Springfield started her solo career in 1963 and was voted the Top British Female Artist in the New Musical Express reader's poll in 1964, 1965, and 1968. She appeared a couple of times at the RSG!-show as presenter and would, in total, appear 24 times on the show. In 1965 Springfield hosted a special Motown edition of the RSG!-show and some while later she had her own Dusty show at the BBC.

The Church found it relevant to investigate if there really had been an Iggy – Dusty – RSG! connection somewhere and if some witnesses still remembered her.

The first person to get in touch with the Church was Douggie Reece, bass player (and singer) of The Echoes, Dusty Springfield’s backing band (watch him singing Mockingbird with Dusty). It was Reece who contacted the Reverend after the Church had asked amongst fan-circles if anyone could remember Ig being in and around the Dusty Springfield scene.

I don't remember her at all.
Or the Dusty Springfield scene.
I spent most of the 60's with Dusty maybe I went out to get some cigarettes or something and missed the whole occasion!!!
LOL
Douggie xx

Although it was suggested that it would be a nice name for a tribute band there has apparently never been a Dusty Springfield scene to begin with as far as Douggie Reece remembers, if Ig did ever meet Dusty it may have been purely coincidental.

Another Dusty connoisseur advised the Church to contact Vicki Wickham. Vicki and Dusty had been friends since 1962 and even shared a flat at London's Westbourne Grove. After a brief stint on the radio (as a secretary) Vicki was hired by Ready Steady Go! as talent manager and producer. When Dusty told her friend she had heard a nice Italian song at the SanRemo festival Wickham (co-)translated the tune into English and named it You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me. It would become Dusty’s first number one hit (1966) and was covered quite a few times by other artists, including Elvis Presley (1970, #1 at Billboard Country & Western and #11 at Billboard Top 100) and Guys’n Dolls (#5, UK, 1976). In total more than 80 million copies of the song have been sold worldwide.

After her RSG!-days Wickham moved to America and although she didn’t have a clue how to do it she successfully managed Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendrix, Marc Almond, Morrissey, Holly Johnson and of course, her long-life-friend Dusty Springfield.

It took the Church quite a while to trace Vicki Wickham, and after a trail of bounced faxes and mails, the Reverend wrote a letter in the good old-fashioned way. It pleases the Church a great deal that Vicki Wickham cared to reply:

I am the last person to ask about anything from the 60s 'cos mostly I don't remember!
But definitely do not remember this girl.
Can't help.
Best.
Vicki Wickham

At least we can now say with a certain certitude that Iggy did not belong to the inner circle of Ready Steady Go! but this does not mean that she never has been at the show. The crew of RSG! visited dance halls to recruit good looking youngsters for the audience and organised dance and singing contests where the participants could win ‘passports’ to the show. In the few years that the show existed thousands of people passed through the temple of the mods and Ig may well have been one of them.

Authorised subsidiaries:

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Youtube channel
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Facebook Fanpage
The Holy Chuch of Iggy the Inuit on Twitter

As if the world has suddenly been hit by a temporal rift in spacetime the March 2010 issue of Mojo music magazine has inundated the stores bearing a big (slightly photoshopped) portrait of a mister Syd Barrett. The well-written and rather accurate cover article, by Pat Gilbert, ranges from page 70 to 81 and tells the story of The Madcap Laughs, Syd Barrett’s first solo album.

Two other articles are of particular interest to the Church as they describe the mythical presence of a ‘girl whose naked body graced the back cover of The Madcap Laughs’.

Who’s That Girl (page 76 insert) is written by Mark Blake, author of the Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly, and an occasional visitor (and contributor) of the Church. Out of courtesy (and for copyright reasons) the Church will not publish the article as long as the magazine is for sale in the shops.
Update: Direct link to the article: Mojo March 2010 (hosted at the Church as the article was removed from the official Barrett website in 2016).

People reading magazines with binoculars will find an odd reference to the Church as the Croydon Guardian article from the 17th September 2008 has been reproduced as well, however in such small print that one needs to xerox it in blow-up mode to distinguish individual letters. The article in full can be consulted at the Church (Where did she go?) but is also still present on the archives of the Croydon Guardian (Where did she go to our lovely?).

Mark Blake writes in Mojo:

In 2008, (Jeff) Dexter and (Anthony) Stern tried to trace the elusive Iggy, and were interviewed in the Croydon Guardian for leads to the whereabouts of the “carefree girl who captured the spirit of the ‘60s”.

Actually the motor behind this article were not Dexter and Stern but the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, after - truth has to be acknowledged – Mark Blake had revealed earlier that Iggy ‘was known as one of the regular teenage girls at the dancehalls around Purley and Caterham’ (see also: Shaken not stirred ).

Researching The Orchid dancehall in Purley, the Reverend found two articles that had appeared in the Croydon Guardian: In dance hall days (9th August 2006) and We remember the Orchid (29th August 2006).

The Church tried to contact Brian Roote in September 2008, an amateur historian writing a book about the Purley dancehall, but this resulted more than a year later in the simple comment: ‘I have no knowledge of this girl whatsoever'.

The Reverend had more chance with journalist Kerry McQueeney author of the two Orchid articles, but no longer working for the Croydon Guardian. He passed the story to Kirsty Whalley who was now editor of the Heritage pages of the newspaper. On the 3rd September of 2008 she replied:

We would like to feature this story in the newspaper next week and hopefully it will prompt a few people to call in.

In the same mail she also asked if the Church could give some leads and amongst the people to contact the Reverend mentioned the names of Mick Rock and Anthony Stern. Kirsty Whalley did an excellent job and did not only interview both men, but also Jeff Dexter who had been a DJ at The Orchid.

The next sermon at the Church will cover the second Iggy-related article from Mojo 196. In My Room, written by Paul Drummond, contains interviews with Duggie Fields, Mick Rock, Storm Thorgerson and Jenny Spires.

The Madcap Laughs Again (Mojo Tribute CD)

Mojo 196 comes with a Madcap Laughs cover CD as interpreted by (amongst others): R.E.M., Captain Sensible, Hawkwind, Jennifer Gentle, Marc Almond and Robyn Hitchcock. Reviews of this CD can be found at Late Night: The Madcap Laughs Again, including the one written by the Reverend.

The Mojo website contains a Syd Barrett top 20 jukebox and three YouTube links to Syd's legendary unreleased material. One of those fan-made videos (Lucy Leave) has been created by limpidgreen aka dollyrocker, a much appreciated Late Night forum member. Way to go, dollyrocker! (All links dead, we're afraid.)

(This is part two of our Mojo magazine review, for part one, click here).

As if the world has suddenly been hit by a temporal rift in spacetime the March 2010 issue of Mojo music magazine has inundated the stores bearing a big (slightly photoshopped) portrait of a mister Syd Barrett. The well-written and rather accurate cover article, by Pat Gilbert, ranges from page 70 to 81 and tells the story of The Madcap Laughs, Syd Barrett’s first solo album.

Two other articles are of particular interest to the Church as they describe the mythical presence of a ‘girl whose naked body graced the back cover of The Madcap Laughs’.

Last week we discussed the Who’s That Girl article written by Mark Blake, and this week the Church will scrutinize Paul Drummond’s In My Room (Mojo 196, p. 82 - 84). Out of courtesy (and for copyright reasons) the Reverend has decided not to publish the articles as long as the magazine is for sale in the shops.
Update: Direct link to the article: Mojo March 2010. (hosted at the Church as the article was removed from the official Barrett website in 2016).

The article, about The Madcap Laughs photo sessions, has interviews with Duggie Fields, Mick Rock and - so it seems - Jenny Spires. But although she was interviewed by email for the main article by Pat Gilbert, she has told the Church she wasn’t really questioned about Iggy.

I guessed, when I saw it, they must have looked at your site (re Daffodils and photo shoot etc…), as I was not asked about this or about Iggy.
(JenS, 10th of February 2010, mail to the Church)

The Reverend could do no other thing than to summon the Holy Igquisition to stick in a few comments as the In The Room article clearly breathes the holy air of the Church but neglects to mention its existence in its columns.

Ig and Jenny Spires meeting each other for the first time

Mojo 196 reports:

Jenny Spires first met Iggy in January 1969 and introduced her to Syd and he let her stay. (p. 83)

The Holy Igquisition wants to set this straight:
According to the Church’s archives JenS first met Ig in summer 1966 (cfr. When Syd met Iggy). The year thereafter (1967) they met again and from then one they went on clubbing together. This has once again been confirmed by Jens this week:

I was surprised they had mistakenly printed that I met her in 1969. This annoys me really because of its inaccuracy.

The date of The Madcap Laughs photo shoot

Mojo 196 reports:

Iggy’s involvement appears to date the shoot as spring ’69 as she was long gone by autumn. (p. 83)

The Holy Igquisition wants to set straight:
JenS has situated the photo shoot in spring 1969 (March or April) (cfr. When Syd met Iggy 1).
Further investigations by the Church have pinpointed a possible date in April 1969 (cfr. When Syd met Iggy 2).

Daffodils

Mojo 196 reports:

It’s more likely Syd picked them (the daffodils found on the cover of the album) while in the park with Iggy, as captured on Super-8 film. (p.83)

The Holy Igquisition wants to set straight:
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit has discussed the lost In The Woods movie at great extent (cfr. Anoraks and Pontiacs). However the theory that the Lost in The Woods video was shot before the photo shoot is new and quite intriguing. However the idea that Iggy, Mick and Syd picked the daffodils is, according to JenS, quite silly.

Pontiac

Mojo 196 writes:

When the photo shoot was over, Rock continued outside using Syd’s blue Pontiac Parisienne as a prop. (…) The life of this inanimate object (registration: VYP74) helps confirm that the shoot wasn’t in the autumn. (p. 84)

The Holy Igquisition wans to set straight:
The story of Syd Barrett’s car has been the object of different posts at the Church (cfr. When Syd met Iggy 2), but the initial quest for the car was done at the Late Night forum by Dark Globe, Sean Beaver and others… they found out that the car appeared in the movie Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Unlike Mojo magazine, the Church does like to give credit to the people who deserve it.

The Holy Igquisition concludes:

It is clear that Mojo magazine has extensively browsed through the pages of the Holy Church of Inuit but has somehow forgotten to mention this in its articles. The Holy Igquisition has therefore sent the following objurgation at Mojo:

It was nice to see that the many theories of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit have been reproduced in The Madcap Laughs photo shoot article, albeit without mentioning where these originally came from.

However the Holy Igquisiton knows that any true believer will find the Church, so every Iggy publication will be beneficiary in the end. Ig’s story as published in the March issue of Mojo may be the butterfly effect that will cause the storm at the other side of the world. So perhaps, thanks to Mojo, the Church will be one day able to fulfil its quest.

Rather than to start an endless polemical discussion the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit would like to end this post with Duggie Fields’s magnificent description of our skyclad sistren (p. 82):

I remember being at a 31 bus stop and seeing her coming down the stairs very elegantly in this gold lame 1940s dress that had bell sleeves that buttoned to a train but with no underwear and completely exposed…

Not a care in the world.

Lo and behold brethren and sistren, and don't do anything that Ig wouldn't have done.

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!

Tranquillity is slowly descending upon the Holy Church of Inuit like smog upon Victorian London. Several brethren and sistren of the Church, and one-time visitors who entered through the front gate to study its baroque interior, have passed some valid information to the Reverend and these will be further investigated in the future. The Reverend also wants to apologise to the people that have been contacted (and interviewed) last year, especially those associated with The Cromwellian club. The articles about The Crom have been postponed due to the unexpected result the Mojo Syd Barrett article created, but they will - one day - hopefully appear.

To all our readers: please keep on going on giving the Church information, how futile it may be, but remember that the Reverend will not break its own rules that stay unchanged even now that Iggy (Evelyn) has been found. Especially now that Iggy (Evelyn) has been found.

The Reverend is not a souvenir collector who will ring at her bell like all those so-called (and in the Reverend's eyes: messed up) true fans used to do at Syd Barrett’s door. Evelyn's wish to be left in peace is and will be unconditionally granted. The same goes for other witnesses of the Barrett era, the Church will send them a nice note from time to time, as a reminder of its presence, but will not break their privacy. Some will call this bad journalism but the Church is not dependent from sold issues and follows a strict deontological code.

Croydon Guardian

On the thirteenth of February of this year The Croydon Guardian published a short, hastily noted down, interview with (a quite reluctant) Iggy, titled: Croydon Guardian tracks down elusive rock star muse. Here it is in full (with some comments from the Reverend):

Croydon Guardian tracks down elusive rock star muse
By Kirsty Whalley

An iconic model who stole Syd Barrett’s heart in the 1960s has been found after three decades of anonymity. Known only as Iggy, the enigmatic woman was immortalised posing naked for the Pink Floyd star’s solo album, Madcap Laughs. She disappeared in the late 1970s and has been living in West Sussex, oblivious to her iconic status. In September 2008, the Croydon Guardian appealed for information about the model and, more than a year later, we managed to track her down.

The story of how the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit convinced The Croydon Guardian to assign some place in its columns for the Iggy enigma can be found at Where did she go? and (I've got my) Mojo (working...).

She inspired artist Anthony Stern, who filmed her dancing in Battersea Park and also took striking photographs of her on a houseboat in Chelsea. They were released at the City Wakes festival – a tribute to Syd Barrett – in October 2008, in Cambridge.

The above has of course been extendedly covered by the Church as well: Anthony Stern.

Mr Stern said: “Iggy was my muse. I met her at a Hendrix gig at the Speakeasy. She entirely captures the spirit of the Sixties, living for the moment, carefree.”

Jimi Hendrix gigged quite a few times at The Speakeasy and was spotted there on other occasions as well, for instance on the 22nd of February when he attended a press conference for The Soft Machine.

Jimi Hendrix

The club has been described in the (excellent) London Live book from Tony Bacon as follows (most information about the club has been taken from that book).

When The Speakeasy was opened by Roy Flynn around the end of 1966 in Margaret Street, just north of Soho, the rock elite soon discovered a handy new watering hole, a prime early-hours jamming post, and an altogether useful hanging-out kind of place.

By May 1967 the club was part of the London spot-the-celebrity circle next to - amongst others - the Scotch (of St. James) and of course the Crom. On a good night you could having a drink next to The Bee Gees, Jeff Beck or The Who, although, keeping up his avant-garde experimental jazz appearance, Robert Wyatt from The Soft Machine couldn't care less: "Rock groups meeting in expensive clubs that are difficult to get into? What's all that crap?"

On the 19th of January 1967 Jimi Hendrix gave the first of 3 concerts at The Speak. On top of that he would also jam a few times with other people on stage, including Jose Feliciano and Georgie Fame. That night in January he tried to get into Marianne Faithfull's pants with the seductive remark: "What are you doing with this jerk, anyway?" The jerk in question was of course Mick Jagger who wanted to check out the new kid in town.

Yes-fans will know the club for its owner Roy Flynn. When, on the 13th of December 1968, Sly And The Family Stone didn't show up for their gig an impromptu band was found to take their place. When Roy Flynn saw Yes's performance he was so thrilled that he became their manager for a while. The band eagerly agreed, not because he had some managerial skills but because the restaurant at The Speak had an excellent reputation:

Roy had never managed a band before and he kind of took us on and then the whole world of the Speakeasy opened up (laugh). It was a great club, I mean, it was a wonderful club, it used to close at 4 AM and we would not only rehearse there, we would play there some nights, and of course after a gig if we were playing within, let's say 150 miles from London, we would rush and go to the Speakeasy and eat there, and most of the meals were completely free. So for about a year I ate pretty good. Most of the evenings I ate there. Because that was the life style, we would be in the Speakeasy after 3 AM and the kitchen still would be opened and the food was not fantastic but thanks to Roy Flynn we would get free food and quite a lot of few drinks as well. (Peter Banks, who invented the band's name and left the group in 1970)

The extensive Jimi Hendrix gig database located at Rich Dickinson only mentions 3 genuine Jimi Hendrix performances in 1967: the aforementioned gig on the 19th of January 1967 and two more in March: 8th March 1967 and 21st March 1967. So Iggy (and Anthony Stern) must have attended one of these. For the completists amongst us the Church gives now the complete list of Hendrix sightings at the Speakeasy (1967):
67-01-19: Gig.
67-02-22: Press reception for the Soft Machine.
67-03-08: Gig.
67-03-16: Launching party for Track records (Jimi gives three interviews).
67-03-21: Gig.
67-04-17: Jam (on bass) with Georgie Fame (on organ) and Ben E. King (drums).
67-05-08: Brian Auger Trinity Concert.
67-06-04: Jose Feliciano concert and onstage jam.
67-12-06: Party for The Foundations.
67-12-22: Musicians from Christmas on Earth and Hendrix jam until the morning hours.
67-12-31: New Year's Eve Party where Jimi plays a thirty minute 'Auld Lang Syne'.

London Live

There is quite an intriguing picture on page 103 of the London Live book, showing co-managers Roy Flynn and Mike Carey, sitting at the Speakeasy bar, accompanied by two ladies. According to CowleyMod one of the women undoubtedly is Ig. Although most of the members of the Church do not think it is her the Church wants to give Cowleymod the benefit of the doubt and the visitors of the Church the chance to make up their own mind (click here to see the full picture).
Update (November 2010): it has been confirmed to the Church that the person on the picture is NOT Iggy / Evelyn.

Iggy said: “I cannot believe there is a film of me, that there are photos of me.”
 
Iggy spent a brief part of the 60s living in Croydon with DJ Jeff Dexter, who used to play at the Orchid Ballroom. She said: “The Orchid Ballroom was the place to be, the atmosphere was fantastic. I loved going there, I loved to dance. Jeff wanted to turn me and two other lovely girls into the English version of the Supremes, but that never happened.”
 
She does not like to talk much about Syd Barrett, but admits she lived with him in Chelsea in the late 1960s. She said: “Syd was so beautiful looking. We had a relationship, I lived with him for a while.”

Although the Reverend is aware of at least four witnesses who have confirmed in different biographies (and directly to the Church) that Iggy and Syd weren't an item this is now contradicted by Evelyn herself.

It was at that time she became known as Iggy the Eskimo. She said: “In part I made up the nickname. The rest was the photographer Mick Rock, who asked where I was from. I said ‘my mother is from the Himalayas’ and he said ‘we will call you Iggy the Eskimo’.”

Update March 2018: Iggy's mother, so was confirmed to us, didn't live near the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range in Mizoram, Mizoram, situated at the North-East of India, sharing borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The Church will not deny that Mick Rock may have thrown around the 'Iggy the Eskimo' nickname to describe the mysterious girl on his pictures but the epithet dates from much earlier. It was first spotted in the NME magazine from the 25th of November 1966 (more than 2 years earlier) where Evelyn was described as 'Another Bender - model IGGY, who is half-Eskimo': Bend It! 

Mick Rock took the pictures for Madcap Laughs. Iggy said: “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. In the pictures my hair looks quite funny, I remember hiding my face behind it because I did not want my mum and dad to see it."

Again other witnesses tell other stories. They claim that Syd (with a little help from Iggy) painted the floor boards early in the year, certainly before April 1969. As Syd only started recording mid-April it is a bit weird that he painted the boards especially for the album cover, unless - of course - he (and with him Mick Rock) already had the cover in mind before the recording sessions started. A theory that is not implausible.

She broke up with Syd Barrett shortly after the photo shoot and moved to Brighton. She said: “I have just been living very quietly, I left London in the 70s and I got married in 1978. I met so many people in the 60s – the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart. I was a free spirit. I have left that life behind me now.”

The Church would gladly accept to publish her memoires though. But until that happens, my dear sistren and brethren, don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't have done…

A new gallery has been uploaded containing the complete Come with NME for a pic-visit to THE CROMWELLIAN article and pictures from New Musical Express 1037, 25 November 1966. Photographs by Napier Russel & Barry Peake. Words by Norrie Drummond. (Just another world exclusive from the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.)

---

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Bacon, Tony: London Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 101-104.

In The Purloined Letter (1845) from Edgar Allan Poe dozens of intelligence officers search a room to recuperate some blackmailing material but they fail to locate it. Enters C. Auguste Dupin, probably the very first detective in fiction, who simply picks the letter from a card-rack. It had never been concealed but as the policemen had been looking for a hidden object they never cared to check the paper, lying out in the open.

Paintbox

When the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit started its mission it was generally believed that The Madcap Laughs photo shoot had taken place in the autumn of 1969.

Why?

Mainly because every Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett related book said so and - for over 30 years of time - nobody had ever cared to check the facts. (Also Rob Chapman's A Very Irregular Head biography, that has just appeared a couple of days ago, situates the floor paint job and thus the photo shoot somewhere between August and November 1969.)

Of course the witnesses saying that the shoot had taken place in the last quarter of 1969 were quite privileged authorities on the life and works of Barrett and thus their testimonies have never been questioned (and as we will reveal later, their comments may be - partly - true).

Malcolm Jones was the Harvest manager who partly produced Barrett's first solo album and who wrote an acclaimed (for Syd fans anyway) book about these sessions.

One day in October or November (1969, FA) I had cause to drop in at Syd's flat on my way home to leave him a tape of the album, and what I saw gave me quite a start. In anticipation of the photographic session for the sleeve, Syd had painted the bare floorboards of his room orange and purple. (…) Syd was well pleased with his days work and I must say it made a fine setting for the session due to take place.

And in his Psychedelic Renegades book Mick Rock writes:

We shot The Madcap Laughs in the autumn of 1969 and I don’t think that Syd and Duggie Fields had been living in the flat that long. (…) Soon after Syd moved in he painted alternating floor boards orange and turquoise.

The above contains a contradiction, although Mick Rock probably isn't (wasn't) aware of that. Syd Barrett, Duggie Fields and a third tenant called Jules moved in the apartment in January 1969 (perhaps December 1968) and certainly not later. A while later Jules was kicked out because he didn't pay the rent.

Duggie Fields recalls in The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story that the floorboards were painted 'quite quickly' after they had moved in and said in the Mojo Madcap issue:

When Jules left Iggy came soon after and she wasn't there for long. Jenny Spires (Syd's ex) brought her round. Iggy was just around, she didn't officially live here.

JenS has indeed confirmed to the Church: "I took her (Iggy) to Wetherby Mansions in January 1969." (Did the Reverend ever tell that it was thanks to biographer Julian Palacios that the Church got in contact with her?)

It is hard to remember things after 40 years, and even harder to pinpoint an exact date for certain events, but JenS certainly wasn't in England anymore in April as she had left for America, and by then the floor boards had already been painted. "When Syd and Gretta et al went to The Isle of Wight Trina - Gretta's sister - and I were in America and heading for the Woodstock Rock Festival."

Also Iggy (or Evelyn, in her interview with the Croydon Guardian) and Margaretta Barclay (in her interview with the Church) remember the painted floorboards. But opinions differ whether the floor boards were painted with a photo session in mind or not.

Gunsmoke

Just like several (tiny) details in the pictures have given away the possible shooting date, the answer may lie in the pictures themselves. What most people, including the Reverend, have neglected to do for the last 40 years was to look for the obvious. Not so for Late Night member and Syd Barrett collector Dark Globe:

After reading Jenny Spires's claim that the floorboards were painted when Syd moved into the flat, long before the Madcap photo session, I had another look at some of the photos. (…)

The 'smoking gun' for me is the can of paint and paintbrush which appears in one of the Madcap session photos: this would imply that the floorboards had only been painted recently.

Of course, it could be that he was only 'topping them up' but it certainly looks like he (and maybe Iggy) had done some painting close to the session.

The photographic evidence is there. The Mick Rock pictures from Syd Barrett's room not only reveal that parts of the floor had not been painted yet but also show that a can of (blue) paint and a big paintbrush are hiding next to Syd's mattress, together with a coffee mug and an empty wine glass.

At least two Storm Thorgerson pictures from that spring day show the paint can as well. The booklet of the Crazy Diamond Syd Barrett box shows the (partly cut off) can at the left side of the picture and the print of the so-called toy plane picture that was sold on eBay in November last year has it in full. It is a pity that only a very small image of this print exists and that its owner, if (s)he is aware of its existence, still hasn't donated some hi-res scans to the Syd Barrett community.

Dancing Barefoot

Whilst Mick Rock was at it he also took some 'nude study' pictures from Iggy but this time the Reverend will not get exited over her churrigueresque features but over her dirty feet. Her feet are black (or should that be: blue?) and probably she had been walking barefoot over the wet paint.

Stating the obvious is difficult when one is too concentrated on a subject. Church member Banjer and Sax found a simple explanation why painting a floor in two different colours will take several days or even weeks:

Maybe it took several days to complete the job, more than two days, and they would not necessarily have to have been consecutive days. So maybe days passed or even months passed between different phases of floor painting. It seems like it could have been difficult to do both colours at the same time.

The logical thing to do is indeed wait for the first colour to dry before starting the second colour. But the mystery of The Madcap Laughs photo shoot only gets bigger and, as usual, archbishop Dark Globe is to blame:

There was more than one photo shoot though. A second photo shoot (not by Mick Rock, but by Storm Thorgerson, FA) shows Syd doing yoga and posing in front of one of his paintings. The floorboards are painted in these photos so they were probably taken sometime after the session with Iggy. Syd's hair is a noticeably longer in these photos too.

These pictures were used by Hipgnosis for the cover of the vinyl compilation Syd Barrett. It is obvious that they were taken on a later date: the floor seems to be completely painted, but also the room has been reorganised. While the far left corner on the daffodil session pictures is empty it suddenly contains some canvas and paint during the yoga session pictures.

The Church already hinted in a previous post:

Perhaps Storm took some photos later in the year and maybe this is how the legend came into place that The Madcap Laughs photo session was made after summer.

This is not as far-fetched as it seems.

Autumn Photo Session

Mick Rock states: "This '69 session was specifically done for Syd's first solo album, The Madcap Laughs" and Storm Thorgerson more or less claims that Hipgnosis had been summoned by record company Harvest to do the cover.

But if the daffodil photo shoot really took place, as proposed by the Church between the 14th and 21st of April 1969, Syd Barrett had only been at two, maximum three, recording sessions for the album. (If only we could find out the date of the newspaper lying next to Barrett's bed?)

It is hard to believe that Harvest would approach Hipgnosis after three studio sessions, especially as Syd Barrett was still regarded as a liability. Between May and July of the previous year Barrett had wasted eight recording sessions and basically EMI had given up. Peter Jenner:

It was chaos…. (…) There were always these tantalising glimpses and that was what kept you going. (…) I think we just came to the conclusion that we weren't getting anywhere.

So although the April 10 and 11 sessions of 1969 had been very promising (and the one on the 17th as well) it is unlikely that the managing director of Harvest was already thinking he had chart material. And quite rightly so, because the fourth session was disastrous and has been used in books and articles to emphasize Syd's lunatic behaviour. And it wasn't getting better...

Different people tell different stories but the bottom line is that less than a month after the first (April 1969) recording session Malcolm Jones simply gave up. David Gilmour, who took over the producer seat in June, maintains until today that he was asked to salvage the sessions from the dustbin, although Malcolm Jones has tried to minimise this and claimed that the Madcap project had not really been shelved.

It was already August 1969 when the Cantabrigian Pink Floyd members started (stereo-)mixing the tapes, and as the band had a busy schedule and wanted to have some holidays as well, it would take until October for the master tapes to be ready. Now here is what the Reverend calls an appropriate moment for the record company to commission a sleeve.

Summer 1969. Harvest hotshots ask Hipgnosis to design a sleeve for the album that is in its final mix. Storm Thorgerson goes to Syd's flat to take the so-called yoga-shots, but decides later, for whatever reason, to use the (Mick Rock influenced) daffodil-shots instead. (Probably when Thorgerson presented the sleeve to Harvest, he didn't tell that the pictures came really from a photo shoot earlier in the year. That's how we know Storm.)

A legend is born.

We leave the last word to JenS who was so friendly to contact us again:

It's truly astonishing about the floor! All I can say is the floor had already been painted when I arrived. (January 1969, FA) There were parts of the room unfinished in the bay window and to the right hand corner of the room and fireplace where Syd's bed was originally and where Iggy is poised on the stool. I guess they must have had to paint these remaining bits before the shoot. They may also of course given it a second, more refreshing coat for the shoot. Interesting, bit by bit a more accurate picture is emerging.

To accompany this article a new gallery has been uploaded: Paintbox.

A sequel to this article created a great rift in Syd Barrett-land: The Case of the Painted Floorboards (v 2.012)

Many thanks to: Dark Globe, Banjer and Sax, JenS.

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 235.
Drummond, Paul: In My Room, Mojo 196, March 2010, p. 82. Direct link to the scanned pdf document (hosted at the Church).
Fields, Duggie interview in: The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story, DVD UK Ltd 2005.
Jones, Malcolm: The Making Of The Madcap Laughs, Brain Damage, 2003, p. 13.
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 136, p. 138.
Rock, Mick: Psychedelic Renegades, Plexus, London, 2007, p. 18-19, p. 58. The paint can pictures can be found at pages 72, 76, 83 and 84. Iggy's dirty feet on page 69.

Syd meets Meic

A couple of weeks ago this blog published excerpts from Meic Stevens' autobiography Hunangofiant y Brawd Houdini (in Welsh, but awesomely translated by Prydwyn) describing how the Cymry bard encountered Syd Barrett in the late Sixties.

These meetings, as far as the Church is aware, have never been mentioned before, not in any of the four main Syd Barrett biographies and not on any website, blog or forum dedicated to the Pink Floyd frontman. It is a bit weird, seen the fact that the biography already appeared in 2003.

Normally Syd related news, regardless of its triviality, is immediately divulged through the digital spider web tying Syd anoraks together. The Church does not want to take credit for this find, it is thanks to Prydwyn, who contacted the Church, that we now have this information, and we hope that it will slowly seep into the muddy waters of the web. (Strange enough the Church post was almost immediately detected by (Welsh) folk music blogs but completely ignored by the Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett communities. Is the rumour true that there is a general Syd Barrett fatigue going on?)

The psychedelic London Underground was not unlike the rapid transit system that listens to the same name. The counterculture wasn't really an organised movement, but constituted of many, independent stations with tubes going from one station to the other. Some persons travelled a lot, switching from line to line using intersecting stations as apparently Syd Barrett's Wetherby Mansions flat was one, much to the dismal of Duggie Fields who wanted to produce his art in peace.

Syd meets Spike Hawkins

In a YouTube interview Rob Chapman, author of the Syd Barrett biography A Very Irregular Head, recalls how he found out that beatnik and poet Spike Hawkins was an acquaintance of Syd Barrett. He was interviewing Pete Brown for his book and when the interview was over he remarked that some Barrett lyrics had a distinct Spike Hawkins style. At that point Pete Brown remarked: "I think Spike Hawkins knew Syd Barrett." Without that lucky ad hoc comment we would (probably) never have known that the two artists not only knew, but also met, each other at different occassions, although it was probably more a Mandrax haze that tied them rather than the urge to produce some art together.

Syd meets Dominique

The Church already mentioned the names of Meic Stevens, Jenny Spires, Trina Barclay, Margaretta Barclay and her friend, painter and musician Rusty Burnhill (who used to jam with Barrett), Iggy (or Evelyn, who is rather reluctant to talk about the past) and the French Dominique A., who was - at a certain moment - rather close to Barrett.

Dominique is, like they say in French, un cas à part. Unfortunately nobody seems to know what happened to her, but if the six degrees of separation theory is accurate it might not be too difficult to find her. The problem is that nobody remembers if she stayed in Great Britain or returned to France. But if you read this and have a granny, listening to the name Dominique A., who smiles mysteriously whenever you mention the name Pink Floyd, give us a call.

Update May 2011: thanks to its many informants, the Church has traced the whereabouts of Dominique. She currently lives in a small village, close to Bayonne, near the Bay of Biscay (French: Golfe de Gascogne). Unfortunately she doesn't want to talk about the past.

Update June 2018: Iain Moore, aka Emo, uploaded a picture, taken in the mid-Seventies. From left to right: Dominique, Gala (Gaylor?) Pinion, Lyndsay Corner.

Syd meets Carmel

Church member Dark Globe compared the English version of Meic Stevens' biography Solva Blues (2004) with the excerpts of the Welsh version we published at Meic meets Syd and found a few differences. Apart from the fact that Meic Stevens also had an Uncle Syd who appears quite frequently in the book there are some minor additions in the English version, absent from the original Welsh.

The Welsh version notes fore instance that 'Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd came to see us in Caerforiog':

Syd Barrett o Pink Floyd fydde’n dod i’n gweld ni yng Nghaerforiog.

The English version adds a small, but in the life of a Barrett anorak, rather important detail. It reads:

Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd who used to visit us at Caerforiog with his girlfriend Carmel.

It is the first time the Church (and Dark Globe) hears from this lady, and she is probably one of those two-week (or even two-day) girlfriends Mick Rock and Duggie Fields have been talking about.

(Warning Label: The picture just above has been taken from the Mick Rock movie Lost In The Woods, nobody knows for sure who is the mysterious brunette. This blog does not imply she is Dominique A. or Carmel, for that matter.)

Drug problem

The second reference (about Syd visiting the Outlander sessions) also has one addition in the English version. Solva Blues adds the line:

I wouldn't have thought he had a drug problem - no more than most people on the scene.

If there is one returning constant about the underground days it is its general tunnel vision. In the brave new psychedelic world every move, the crazier the better, was considered cool and there was a general consensus to deny any (drug related) problem that could and would occur. Rob Chapman is right when he, in his rather tempestuous style, writes:

What do you do if your lead guitarist is becoming erratic / unstable / unhinged?
Simple.
You send him off round the UK on a package tour (…) with two shows a night for sixteen nights.

Nick Mason acknowledges this illogical (not to use another term) behaviour:

If proof was needed that we were in denial about Syd's state of mind, this was it.
Why we thought a transatlantic flight immediately followed by yet more dates would help (Syd) is beyond believe.

Syd almost meets R.D. Laing

Of course looking for professional psychiatric help in those crazy days wasn't that simple either. Bluntly said: you could choose between the traditional cold shower - electroshock therapy or go for anti-psychiatry.

Although it is impossible to turn back the clock it still is the question if experimental anti-psychiatry would have helped Barrett. In a previous post we have given the example how an experimental therapist administered LSD to a Cantabrigian friend of Syd as an alternative way of therapy and R.D. 'I like black people but I could never stand their smell' Laing was no exception to that.

Pink Floyd's manager Peter Jenner made an appointment for Syd with R.D. Laing, but Syd refused to go on with it, but this didn't withhold Laing to make the following observations as noted down by Nick Mason:

Syd might be disturbed, or even mad. But maybe it was the rest of us (Pink Floyd, note by FA) who were causing the problem, by pursuing our desire to succeed, and forcing Syd to go along with our ambitions.

This is the main theory that is overzealously, but not always successfully, adhered by Chapman in his Syd Barrett biography. R.D. Laing ended his Barrett diagnosis, who he never met, by saying:

Maybe Syd was actually surrounded by mad people.

Although some biographers may think, and there they are probably right, that the other Pink Floyd members may have been an ambitious gravy train inspired gang, there was also the small matter of a 17,000 British Pounds debt that the architectural inspired band members still had to pay off after the split. They didn't burden Syd Barrett, nor Peter Jenner and Andrew King with that. Now that is what the Church calls accountancy.

We now know that giving Syd Barrett the time and space, outside the band, to meddle at his own pace with his own affairs and music was not entirely fruitful either. In the early to mid Seventies Syd Barrett entered a lost weekend that would almost take a decade and that is a blank chapter in every biography, apart from the odd Mad Syd anecdote.

Mini Cooper (based upon a remark from Dark Globe)

It is also interesting that Meic Stevens mentions Syd's Mini Cooper:

He was a very good-looking boy, always with a beautiful girl on his arm when he was out or driving his Mini Cooper.

Presumably this is the same car Syd drove all over England in, following the band, when he was freshly thrown out of the Floyd.

Syd swapped this Mini Cooper for a Pontiac Parisienne (and not a Buick as car fanatic Nick Mason writes, although Buick and Pontiac were of course closely related brands) with T-Rex percussionist Mickey Finn in the beginning of 1969, which would date the first meetings between Stevens and Barrett prior to the Mick Rock photo sessions.

But that photo session has been discussed here ad nauseum already so we won't get further into that. So, my sistren and brethren, bye, bye, till the next time, and don't do anything Iggy wouldn't have done. Especially at this warm weather.

(This article is a (partial) update from this one: Meic meets Syd)

Many thanks go to: Dark Globe for checking the English version of Meic Stevens' autobiography. Prydwyn for checking and translating the Welsh version of Meic Stevens' autobiography.

Sources: (other than internet links mentioned above):

Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 201, p. 227.
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p. 210. (R.D. Laing quote)
Mason, Nick: Inside Out: A personal history of Pink Floyd, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2004, p. 87-88, p. 95, p. 129.
Stevens, Meic: Hunangofiant y Brawd Houdini, Y Lolfa, Talybont, 2009, p. 190-191, p. 202.
Stevens, Meic, Solva Blues, Talybont, 2004 (English, slightly updated, translation of the above).

Rob Chapman's An Irregular Head biography has been reviewed at: The Big Barrett Conspiracy Theory

On Friday, the fifth of November, an entrepreneurial rock journalist of the best music magazine in the world, who happens to have written - en passant - the most accurate Pink Floyd biography in ages, met a mysterious Asian looking lady. Although this was meant to be kept secret the news had leaked to the headquarters of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit before the meeting even took place. Thus are the hidden special forces of the Holy Igquisition.

We can now say it is official. The Mojo issue of January, the 1st, 2011 will have an Iggy / Evelyn interview by Mark Blake. It will have a recent picture of her and - perhaps - an unpublished photograph from the Seventies.

Update December 2010: the January issue of Mojo (nr. 206) doesn't have the Iggy interview (yet), although Mark Blake is omnipresent with a 13-pages in-depth article about Freddie Mercury and Queen. (If you are still looking for a Xmas present: Mark Blake has just written a pretty Queen biography: Is This The Real Life? The Untold Story Of Queen, Arum books).

For the rest the Reverend is as anxious as you to read the interview, dear followers of the Church who not only visit us from the United Kingdom and the States (the mythical place Tarzana comes to mind), but also from the northern chilly depths of Oslo, the accordion larded ruelles of Montmartre and several unspeakable places in Russia and the rest of the world.

And late last night when the Reverend was contemplating his inner musings he was interrupted by the tantalising ping of an incoming mail. It read as follows:

Hello Felix.
I am truly overwhelmed by your interest in me.

And ended with:

Yours truly and eternally.
Iggy.

The bit in between shall remain a mystery for now, but hopefully 2011 shall start with a bang. Have some patience, brethren and sistren, and remember...don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes to thank Mark Blake, Natasha M. and of course... Iggy / Evelyn.

P.S. We have from a quite reliable source that the picture taken at the Speakeasy club isn't Evelyn at all. The Church apologises for the inconvenience: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea.

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.)

The Reverend was silently contemplating the long cold winter, sitting in his rocking chair, reading in Glenn Povey's Pink Floyd bible Echoes, woollen socks tightly stuck to the wood stove, a pipe in the mouth and a glass of flaming Italian Sambuca with 3 coffee beans in his immediate reach when his laptop went ping. A minute or so later his HTC smart-phone went ping as well. Thirty seconds later his iTouch went ping. This meant serious business, probably instigated by the Holy Igquisition.

At the forum of a well-known Pink Floyd website somebody had posted a scan of the latest Iggy interview, done by Mark Blake, and published in Mojo 207 (February 2011 issue). Last week, the Church had promised that the interview would not be published here as long as the issue is for sale in the shops but extraordinary occurrences demand for extraordinary measures. So here it is. Enjoy!

IGGY THE ESKIMO PHONES HOME
SYD BARRETT'S ENIGMATIC COVER COMPANION CLEARS UP SOME QUERIES
BY MARK BLAKE

In March 2010, MOJO 196's cover story on Syd Barrett's The Madcap Laughs pondered the whereabouts of 'Iggy The Eskimo', the naked girl on the LP sleeve. It came as a shock to the object of Syd obsessives' fascination; who contacted MOJO after reading the magazine for the first time last summer. “I knew nothing about any of this,” says Iggy (real name: Evelyn) who married in 1978 and lives near the English South Coast. “I went to a boot sale with my husband to find The Madcap Laughs. When I saw the cover I thought, Oh, yes, that is my bottom.”

Iggy (she gave 'the Eskimo' name to an NME photographer as a joke) grew up in the Far East. Her father was an English army officer, while her mother came from “a remote village in the Himalayas”. After moving to England Iggy was briefly an art student, a Brighton mod and London scenester, dancing on Ready Steady Go! and hanging out with Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and the Stones.

Update March 2017: Iggy's mother, so was confirmed to us, wasn't from the Himalayas. She probably lived near the The Lushai Hills (or Mizo Hills), a mountain range in Mizoram, situated at the North-East of India, sharing borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar.

But in 1969, she ended up at the Earls Court flat Barrett shared with the painter Duggie Fields. She and Syd became an item.

“I didn't know Syd had been a pop star,” she insists, though she'd seen Pink Floyd at the UFO club and Alexandra Palace. “Duggie and I were into soul music, and Syd used to laugh at me dancing to Motown.”

One day after Iggy had been messing around on Syd's guitar he took the instrument from her and began playing.

“It was the first time I'd heard or seen him to do this, and my mouth just dropped. He had this reel-to-reel tape recorder and he played me these songs he'd written. The one that stood out went, “I really love you and I mean you' [Terrapin] and I remember telling him, That's very catchy,” she laughs.

Barrett then told Iggy someone at EMI wants me to make a record, how would you feel about having a rock star boyfriend?”

Later photographer Mick Rock and designer Storm Thorgerson would call to take the album sleeve image. At Syd's suggestion Iggy was naked: “It was his wicked sense of humour,” she says. “People talk about Syd's madness and his dark side but I never saw it. We had a wonderful giggly time.”

“I put the Kohl around his eyes that day and tousled his hair: Come on Syd, give us a smile, moody, moody, moody! But he knew exactly what he was doing.”

After a few months Iggy moved on. Returning to the flat later she was told by Duggie Fields, “Syd's gone back to Cambridge, don't bother trying to find him.”

Contrary to mythology, she never joined a religious cult or married a banker. “I heard on the radio that Syd died, and I felt sad but it was so long ago,” she reflects. It wasn't until I went online for the first time and read these things that I realised anyone remembered me. I'm incredibly flattered.”

A while ago Mark Blake also had the following to say to the Church:

I have a wealth of other interview material with Iggy. Mojo are interested in running this additional stuff on their website: there are also pics of her from early 60s and late 70s. The extra interview material contains some good stuff for the Syd obsessives, including stuff about the Madcap photo shoot.

And today he added at the Fleeting Glimpse forum:

Just a little more Iggy info for anyone interested: there's a chance that MOJO will run some additional interview material on their website www.mojo4music.com. Iggy also talked about a trip to the Speakeasy with Syd Barrett and had plenty more to say about the photo-shoot for the album cover. There are also some more photos of Iggy from back in the day.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit wishes to thank Mark Blake and Mojo for their authorisation to publish this interview. In the next couple of weeks the Church will probably add some comments, reflections and musings.

And for those new believers, here is a quick overview of the Iggy events of past year:

January 2010:
The Mojo articles that started it all
(I've got my) Mojo (working...) and
Goofer Dust [(I've got my) Mojo (working)... Part 2] 

February 2010:
The Church reveals that Iggy has been found (by a Mojo reader):
World Exclusive: Ig has been found! and
All about Evelyn 
The Croydon Guardian tracks down and interviews Iggy:
Iggy’s first interview in 40 years and
Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea  

November 2010:
The Church finds out that attemps have been made to interview Evelyn: 2011

January 2011:
Mojo publishes Iggy's second interview: Iggy’s second interview in 40 years  

This is it for this week, and my dear sistren and brethren, don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't have done!

Still looking for a Xmas present: Mark Blake has just written a pretty decent 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.)

Despite the sad news of a couple of days ago (see: RIP Paul Lincoln) the Church has to look forward. If anyone would understand this it would surely be Paul Lincoln. As a wrestling promoter he bloody well knew that each knockout was followed by another match in the ring. Unfortunately no one will leave the final round unharmed, not even Dr Death himself.

Kurt Vonnegut once wrote: "So it goes."

To all Iggy pilgrims around the world our most solemn greetings. 2011 started with a bigger bang propelling shock-waves into all known dimensions of our universe. Not only our heart was shattered by all the reverberating news but also Evelyn's.

Past week she confessed to Mark Blake that "she is delighted and a bit shocked by all the interest". As was expected the recent Mojo interview raised more new questions than answers. But asking for more is of course the core business of Syd-anoraks and Iggy-fans alike.

If Ig had never done an interview before, it is not because she avoided the publicity but simply because nobody had ever asked. Mark Blake explains that there is no 'big mystery'. Evelyn went on with her life and didn't read music magazines or looked herself up on the Internet. "Simple as that." Mark Blake and Iggy did talk about a lot more than what has been printed on page 18 of the latest Mojo magazine: “More questions will be covered in the extended version of the interview due for Mojo's website.”

Once the complete interview is published the Church will of course further comment on it. So what follows is not an in-depth analysis of the Mojo interview but just a few quick points the Reverend would like to make.

After moving to England Iggy was briefly an art student, a Brighton mod and London scenester, dancing on Ready Steady Go! and hanging out with Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and the Stones.

This single sentence contains enough information to provide the Church with at least an entire trimester of articles.

Mod

Was Evelyn, as a mod, present at the seaside riots of May 1964? Wikipedia and the BBC write that over the Whitsun weekend (May 18 and 19, 1964), thousands of mods descended upon Margate, Broadstairs and Brighton to find that an inordinately large number of rockers had made the same holiday plans. The worst violence took place at Brighton, where fights lasted two days and moved along the coast to Hastings and back.

RSG!

This news made the Reverend's turned up nose turn up a bit more wanting to shout to the world: told you so! The Church has been hinting since day one that Ig had been dancing at RSG! but proof had never surfaced, until now.

Hanging out

Not only did Iggy meet Clapton, Hendrix and the Stones but according to her first interview (see: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea) she also encountered the Beatles, the Who and Rod Stewart.

Syd, the pop star

“I didn't know Syd had been a pop star,” she insists, though she'd seen Pink Floyd at the UFO club and Alexandra Palace. One day after Iggy had been messing around on Syd's guitar he took the instrument from her and began playing. “It was the first time I'd heard or seen him to do this, and my mouth just dropped.”

This is not as contradictory as it seems. Mark Blake, who spoke to Iggy this week, further explains:

She asked me to clarify a couple of things: Iggy didn't make the connection between Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd because she saw so many groups, went to so many clubs, and knew so many musicians.

It was the '60s and these people were busy living their lives, with no idea that 40 years on a music magazine would be asking them such detailed questions about it. This is why it was a shock to her when he started playing the guitar at the flat.

Sometimes, it is tempting for people - including writers - to read too much into all this. Years later, when she watched the Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story documentary, she saw the footage of Syd "in his kaftan, chanting" (on Pow R Toc H [actually on Astronomy Domine, note by FA]) and remembered seeing him doing this at UFO. The memories came back. But she hadn't thought about all this for many many years.

Over the next few weeks the Church will of course try to reveal more about Iggy's flamboyant past and here are already some tidbits you can chew on for now.

Mick Rock pictures

Iggy doesn't have any snapshots of her and Syd, or any of his possessions. Unfortunately, she no longer has the photo she had of the two of them, which he tore in half.

We know for sure that Syd tore and/or scratched a few photos when Iggy left him, but not that she was aware of that. There is the scratched picture that Mick Rock published in his Psychedelic Renegades photo-book (see: When Syd met Iggy... (Pt. 3)) and a 'half-picture' is in the possession of Margaretta Barclay, published at the Church about a year ago: “This picture of Iggy was given to me by Syd but for some unknown reason she had been torn off it.” (see: Gretta Speaks (Pt. 2)).

Gigs & festivals

Iggy was at the Technicolour Dream "all 14 hours of it!" - and tried, but couldn't spot herself in the documentary DVD. Iggy was also at the Isle Of Wight festival in 1970, where she went with Twink of the Pink Fairies. She also attended the first Glastonbury Fayre (1971).

A new picture

And for those loyal fans who have been reading this article till the end, a small surprise. Apparently Evelyn isn't too happy with the picture that could be found in the latest Mojo. So she asked if we had any objections in publishing a new one. You bet we don't. Here it is.

The model

Just another rumour to end this post with. Recently Iggy did a photo-shoot with a photography student she knows, and if all goes well one of these shots could be used for the Mojo website interview as well.

The Church wishes to thank: Mark Blake, Mojo, Amy-Louise, Kieren and of course... ♥ Iggy ♥.

Sources: all news in this post is nicked from Mojo magazine and Mark Blake, including:
Late Night forum: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit
Late Night forum: Questions for Iggy
A Fleeting Glimpse forum: Syd's Iggy Found!

Mark Blake's interview with Iggy can be found at: Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home 

Words: Mark Blake.
Pictures: Storm Thorgerson, Iggy Rose, Rank Organisation.
Date: 20 January 2011.
Previously published on mojo.com.

If there is one image of Syd Barrett that never ceases to fascinate it's the back cover of his debut album, The Madcap Laughs. The reason: the mysterious naked woman perched on a stool with her head thrown back and face obscured by swathes of long dark hair. Syd's companion was known only as "Iggy The Eskimo". But as Barrett fans have been wondering since 1970 - who was Iggy and where did she go?

Photographer Mick Rock believed that his cover girl had "married a rich guy and moved off the scene". Barrett's old flatmate, the artist Duggie Fields, heard that "Iggy had become involved with one of the voguish religious cults of the time", before adding to the mythology with a story of once seeing her disembarking from a Number 31 bus in Kensington, wearing a 1940s-era gold lamé dress, and very little else.

In 2002, Mick's coffee-table book Psychedelic Renegades featured more shots of Syd and Iggy posing outside the Earls Court mansion block, alongside Barrett's abandoned Pontiac. Rock's photos found their way onto most Pink Floyd fansites, where Iggy had acquired cult status. Before long, The Holy Church Of Iggy The Inuit, a fansite in her honour, had appeared, its webmaster, Felix Atagong, sifting through ever scrap of information gleaned from MOJO and elsewhere with a forensic scientist's attention to detail. Among Felix's discoveries was a November 1966 issue of NME which featured a photo of "Iggy who is half eskimo" dancing at South Kensington's Cromwellian club.

While researching my Pink Floyd biography (2007's Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story Of Pink Floyd) I quizzed everyone about Iggy's whereabouts. Anthony Stern, formerly a schoolmate of David Gilmour's, told me he had met her at a Hendrix gig and had just discovered photos he had taken of her on a houseboat in Chelsea; Anthony had also filmed Iggy dancing in Russell Square. Meanwhile, former Middle Earth club DJ Jeff Dexter recalled meeting "the mysterious-looking" Iggy in 1963, when she was a "part of a group of very wonderful looking South London girls" that danced at The Orchid Ballroom in Purley. Jeff even hatched a plan with his friend, the late DJ and Shadows songwriter Ian "Sammy" Samwell, to turn Iggy and two of her friends into "a British version of The Supremes. We booked a studio but unfortunately none of them could sing." Believing that Iggy may have gone to school in Thornton Heath, Jeff and Anthony contacted The Croydon Guardian, who ran an article - So Where Did She Go To, My Lovely - enquiring after the whereabouts of the girl "who entirely captured the spirit of the '60s".

Then, in March 2010, MOJO received a letter from ex-Cambridge mod Pete Brown, who had "shared some wild nights on the town with Iggy in the 1970s". Pete informed us that Iggy had been last heard of in the '80s "working at a racing stables... and has since been keeping her whereabouts quiet." Pete sent a copy of the letter to The Croydon Guardian, whose reporter traced Iggy through the stables and phoned her out of the blue. Their subsequent article included a handful of quotes from its reluctant subject, including the words: "I have now left that life behind me." Which is why it came as a surprise when my mobile rang late one Saturday night. "It's Iggy!" declared the voice at the other end, as if I would have known that already. "I've been reading what you wrote about me in MOJO... about the pictures of my bottom."

The local newspaper's call had prompted Iggy to borrow a neighbour's computer and go online for the first time. She was amazed to discover MOJO, the fansites, the photos, and the wild speculation and misinformation about her time with Syd Barrett. Which is why, in October 2010, I found myself stepping off a train at an otherwise deserted Sussex railway station to be met by the woman that had once graced the cover of The Madcap Laughs. Three hours in a local gastro-pub and countless phone calls later, Iggy pieced together her story. Some of it was printed in MOJO 207, the rest is here...

Firstly, why Iggy? "My real name is Evelyn," she explains. "But when I was a child, my neighbour's young daughter could never pronounce Evelyn, and always called me Iggy. Now everyone calls me as Iggy. But 'The Eskimo' nickname was a joke. That was something I told the photographer from the NME when he took my picture at The Cromwellian." Iggy's father was a British army officer, who served alongside Louis Mountbatten, and attended the official handover ceremony from Great Britain to India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharial Nehru in 1947. "My father also knew all about Mountbatten's wife's affair with Nehru," she adds mischievously. During a spell of leave, he had travelled to a remote village in the Himalayas "where he met the woman that would become my mother." Iggy was born in Pakistan, and attended army schools in India and Aden, before the family moved to England. But not, as believed, Thornton Heath. "I grew up by the seaside," she reveals. "I went to art school. I became a mod in Brighton, and saw the fights with the rockers, and I met The Who when they were on Ready Steady Go! I loved soul music, loved The Righteous Brothers, and I loved dancing, so I used to go to all the clubs - The Orchid Ballroom in Purley, where I met lovely Jeff Dexter, The Cromwellian, The Flamingo, The Roaring Twenties..."

It was at The Cromwellian that Iggy encountered Eric Clapton. "I didn't know who he was at first," she insists. "He took me to meet Lionel Bart and to a party at Brian Epstein's place..." By the mid-'60s Iggy had become a Zelig-like presence on the capital's music scene, sometimes in the company of Keith Moon, Brian Jones, Keith Richards.... She saw Hendrix make his UK debut at the Bag O' Nails in November '66, and in February '67, narrowly avoided the police raid at Richards' country pile, in West Wittering: "The night before, I decided not to go, thank God." A year later, still in the Stones' orbit, she found herself watching the recording sessions for what became Sympathy For The Devil.

By then, Iggy had made her film debut. In 1967, IN Gear was a short documentary screened as a supporting film in cinemas around the country. Its theme was Swinging London, including the chic Kings Road clothes shop Granny Takes A Trip, a place, according to the breathless narrator that "conforms to the non-conformist image of the !" A mini-skirted Iggy can be seen in one silent clip, sifting through a rack of clothes and chatting with Granny's co-owner Nigel Waymouth.

By 1967, pop music had changed. The summer before, Iggy had met Syd Barrett's girlfriend Jenny Spires, and drifted into the Floyd's social clique, showing up at the UFO club nights where Pink Floyd played regularly: "When I recently watched that Syd Barrett documentary [The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett & Story] and saw Syd in the kaftan, chanting [on Pow R Toc H], the memories came rushing back," she explains. "I'd been there. I'd seen that." In April '67, Iggy joined the counter-culture throng in Alexandra Palace for The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream - "all 14 hours of it!" - where Floyd played a hypnotic set at dawn.

By early 1968, though Barrett had been replaced by David Gilmour, and, according to many, was on a drug-fuelled downward spiral. Towards the end of the year, he moved into a new place with his level-headed friend, the would-be artist Duggie Fields. The pair took over a two-bedroom flat at 29 Wetherby Mansions in Earls Court. Around January '69, at Jenny Spires' suggestion, Iggy, needing a place to stay, moved in. She hooked up with Barrett, but shared a musical bond with Fields: "Duggie and I were into soul music, and Syd used to laugh at me dancing around to Motown."

As Iggy told MOJO 207: "I didn't know Syd had been a pop star." Elaborating further, "I didn't make the connection between him and the person I had seen at UFO. I knew he was beautiful looking and he had real presence, but that was all." Once, when she picked up his acoustic guitar, fooling around, he took it off her and started playing properly. "I was overwhelmed. The way he played the guitar, the way he moved. He said, 'Do you think I look good?'," she laughs. "I said, 'You look amazing. Wow!' He then said, 'Would you listen to this?' And he bought out this big, old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder, and said, 'Tell me what you think'." Syd then played her the songs that would end up on The Madcap Laughs. One track, Terrapin, made an immediate impression. "I said, 'That's quite catchy', and, of course, I don't think Syd was really into catchy...It was a long tape, and he didn't demand any opinion, but just asked if I thought it was OK. At the end he said 'Someone at EMI - I cannot remember the name - wants me to make a record. How would you feel about having a rock star boyfriend?'"

Click here for Part 2

Previously published on mojo.com. Many thanks to Mark Blake for allowing us to host this article.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Since yesterday, Mark Blake's 'director cut edition' of his Iggy interview can be found on the Mojo website. For those that are not 'in' let's recapitulate a bit.

Update August 2013: The articles are no longer on the Mojo website. Mark Blake allowed us to host them at the Church.

Somewhere in November 2010 the Church of Iggy the Inuit prophesied that a lucubrated (second) Iggy interview was in the make and that after other attempts had not always been successful. Basically Iggy had been scared off when she had been questioned – out of the blue - by a journalist, early 2010. Imagine that you have been living a quiet life for a couple of decades and suddenly someone pokes you in the stomach and urges you to start digging in a very far past, asking what you did on a particular April night in 1969. Then you find out that there is a lunatic on the cybergrass who has written over sixty articles about you. It would scare the hell out of this Reverend, I can assure you that.

Contradictory to yours truly, Mark Blake is reliable, loyal and, above all, discreet. He managed to regain Ig's confidence and they agreed to do an interview on her terms. Mojo 207 (February 2011 issue) had indeed the promised Iggy article on page 18, but... - let's not beat around the bush - we Iggy aluminati were a bit disappointed with its scarce content.

Once again the Church (accurately) predicted that the printed piece in Mojo was but a mere teaser for an expatiated article that would soon appear in cyberspace. And what an article that is! It contains some pretty unseen pictures and enough material to keep on adding comments on this blog for many, many months to come. The interview – the Reverend guarantees you - will be research material for all Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd biographies to come, not that the Church is really asking for new biographies, but that is entirely besides the point.

As is the habit with the Church the interview will only be commented upon after it has been around for a while, but it already needs to be said that Ig's words smash several of the Church's axioms to pieces. Normally a Church doesn't like to see its dogmas destroyed but here is what we call divine intervention.

To end this sermon, my loyal brethren and sistren, the Reverend ordains you to immediately leave the Church and not to come back until you have thoroughly consulted Mark Blake's The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo. The Church does not want to prejudice you. Read it first and we'll talk about it afterwards.

Oh and another thing... the above picture is an unpublished photograph of Iggy in the Seventies. The Reverend wishes to thank Iggy for her trust and confidence in us.

The Mark Blake Iggy tapes can be found at:
Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home (Mojo 207 article - hosted at the Church)
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo - part 1 (hosted at the Mojo website Church, update August 2013)
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo - part 2 (hosted at the Mojo website Church, update August 2013)

A very recent Iggy mug shot, exclusive for the Church: Iggy 2011 

The most recent Iggy articles are being discussed at:
Late Night forum: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit
Late Night forum: Questions for Iggy
A Fleeting Glimpse forum: Syd's Iggy Found!

Many thanks go to: Mark Blake, Mojo, Kieren and all those supportive Barrett friends at Late Night (more about them later, in a new post).

Mark Blake has just written a decent Queen biography: Is This The Real Life? The Untold Story Of Queen, Aurum Press Ltd - ISBN: 9781845135973. Of course you still check out his much acclaimed Pink Floyd biography, although it lacks a bit in the Iggy department [insert sardonic smiley here]: Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story Of Pink Floyd, Aurum Press Ltd - ISBN-10: 1845132610 / ISBN-13: 978-1845132613. (The Church is not affiliated with or endorsed by this company.)

Prologue

Let's start with what you are all waiting for. At the left you find another unpublished picture, from the mid Seventies, Iggy was so friendly to mail us. The recent interviews at Mojo, probably the best music magazine in the world, by Mark Blake, probably the best music journalist in the world, has triggered a gentle snowfall of friendly reactions all over the web.

At night, before going to sleep, you notice but a few snowflakes falling down and you think: is this all? But the next morning the garden has been transformed in a peaceful white blanket only disturbed by the parallel stepping marks of a passing Lucifer Sam.

The Church has gathered some of these heartwarming reactions. Let's start with one from the city of light:

I’ve just read Mark Blake’s article and I am extremely moved to read Iggy’s words about those months with Syd in 1969 and extremely moved to see her on a brand new photo. She looks like an attractive lady.

Some elements are quite interesting : the fact that Syd wanted Iggy to be naked on the photos and the fact he decided not to smile on the photos are a great new perspective on that shooting.

Also the fact that she confirms she and him were together (which some people seemed to doubt about these latest years) is a lovely confirmation. And when she says he wasn't a dark-minded man and used to laugh a lot with her, this is so cute...

By the way, the article ends with Iggy saying she’s very flattered to discover she hasn’t been forgotten by everyone: what a pity we have no (mail) address to write a small message to her, to tell her that not only many of us hadn’t forgotten her at all but, on the contrary, her photos and especially the album sleeve have been part of our lives. (Taken from: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit @ Late Night.)

Questions for Iggy

The past year several questions have been submitted to be asked to Iggy, for the then unlikely event an interview would take place. Some of those have been asked by Mark Blake and were (partially) answered in the Mojo extended interviews:

I would just ask her what she remembers about Syd...
Dear Iggy, do you have anything of Syd's that I can have?
Did you think there was anything wrong with Syd mentally?
Do any particular discussions stand out for you... were they deep and philosophical, did you discuss current events or just what you needed at the market...
In his song "Dark Globe" Syd Barrett says: "I'm only a person with Eskimo chain". Do you think that is/could be a reference to you?
Maybe you have some personal photos/snapshots of Syd.
Was Syd violent towards you like he was with others girlfriends?
Were you at the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream at the Alexandra Palace? If yes could you tell us your impressions about that?
What do you think happened to Syd in 1967/1968?
What happened to you after you last saw Syd?
Would you prefer to be called Iggy or Evelyn?

Mark Blake added to this:

Off the top of my head, (…) Iggy doesn't have any snapshots of her and Syd, or any of his possessions (unfortunately, she no longer has the photo she had of the two of them, which he tore in half, mentioned in some of the books). She was at the Technicolour Dream '"all 14 hours of it!" - and tried but couldn't spot herself in the documentary DVD. She was also at the Isle Of Wight festival in 1970 (went with Twink of the Pink Fairies) and the first Glastonbury Fayre. (Taken from Questions for Iggy @ Late Night.)

People and places

The recent interviews show that Iggy met a lot of people and visited lots of places in Swingin' London. The Croydon Guardian and Mojo articles mention Brian Epstein, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart & other assorted Beatles, Who and Rolling Stones. Oh yeah, and of course also a bloke named Syd Barrett.

The clubs she visited did not only include the Cromwellian, the Flamingo, the Orchid Ballroom, the Roaring Twenties and the Speakeasy, but in a mail to the Church Iggy also remembers other places like the Alexandra & Crystal Palace, Annabel's, Bag O'Nails, Embassy, Garrick & Hurlingham private clubs, Roundhouse (Chalk Farm), UFO, Marquee, Middle Earth, Tramps (Tramp Club?) and generally everything that was located in or around Carnaby Street. Needless to say that we try to look further into that for the next couple of months.

But after the many pages the Church and Mojo have dedicated to Evelyn, it is perhaps better to let Ig speak for herself. She send a long mail to the Church and we hope she doesn't mind that we will publish some of its heartwarming highlights here. Ig doesn't have an Internet account so the mail was written and send by a friend. The Church took the liberty of omitting some names and places.

Iggy wishes to express her thrill and excitement for putting this factual and honest portrayal of her and is enchanted by your unwavering interest. She is utterly flabbergasted of the magnitude of it all.

Many thanks to Mark Blake, for his perseverance and the genuine way he has cared for and protected Iggy.

Many thanks go to Ig's wonderful husband and to her most trusted and loyal friends [some deletions here by the Church] and Z., who was there for us right at the beginning by printing hundreds of pages on her computer.

But some old friends from the past haven't been forgotten either:

Iggy also feels the need to mention the charismatic Jeff Dexter, who has given so much of his precious time by always welcoming and receiving all her calls at all hours day and night.

Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock, who created such amazingly beautiful images. To debonair Nigel Waymouth and the extraordinary couple Pete and Sue.

Many thanks and good love for the wonderfully exquisite description of Iggy. She is totally overwhelmed and humbled by the delightful memories of her.

Much love,
Iggy

Vintage groupies

Reading the pages that a good friend had printed for her, Iggy got hold of the Vintage Groupies website that also dedicated some space to her. She asked the Church:

Felix, would you do me a really big favour and contact vintage groupies (little queenies) to express my gratitude to all the lovely people who left all the nice comments about me.

Love from Iggy.

Immediately after it had been published several reactions arrived:

Wow, thanks so much Felix for the message, please tell to Iggy thanks so much from Little Queenies :)
This is so great, she is so kind to think about us :)
Warm regards to her and to you Felix
Elia & Violeta, Barcelona, Spain

Its wonderful, to hear from her.
Dancas

So amazing! Thank you so much for not only sharing the interviews but relaying the message to us here at Vintage groupies! So fantastic.
Lynxolita

Iggy the Eskimo 2011 photo shoot
by Chris Lanaway

The Mojo article had a recent Iggy picture, taken by Chris Lanaway. A second picture has recently turned up at his Tumblr account. Chris writes:

Here is a teaser from a recent series which will be viewable soon: Iggy the Eskimo.

A hi-res version of the picture in question can be found here.

This article has nearly ended, and we pass the word to Anne from Paris who passed us a letter for Evelyn:

Dear Iggy,

Because you told Mark (Blake) that you were surprised and flattered to discover that so many persons were interested in you (and I'd even say that they're your fans!), I want to tell you that many of us have got a great tenderness for you; you've been part of our lives during decades and were at the same time a magnificent mystery and a flesh and blood woman in Syd's life, two good reasons not to be able to forget you!

Of course, the fact that in these latest years, a great deal of beautiful photos of you appeared just increased the admiration and fascination about you.

I hope that the affection, admiration and fascination that many of us have been feeling towards you warm you up and that you'll stay in touch with us in any way you want ("us" means Felix, Mark, Syd's fans and even maybe, one day, the organization around Syd's memory in Cambridge).

Needless to say that not only was it a great relief and a great joy that you were found again last year, but it's also a great joy now to see new photos of you.

Friendly regards.
Anne (Paris, France)
(I've got the "Madcap laughs" since 1988, I was 17 then)

From an entirely different continent comes the following:

It was really nice to know that you are around and OK. My happiness is enormous! I’ve just loved your recent interviews and pictures. You are indeed a beautiful person! I hope you share with us some of your views and stories on those fabled years that influenced the cultural paradigms in so many ways and in so many countries. I wish you the best with all my heart.

Peace and Love,
Dan, Ottawa, Canada

And...

HI. My name is Griselda. I just wanted to say I am a big fan of Iggy. When I saw on your website that she was going to be on Mojo Magazine, I was so excited. I can't imagine how you felt!

You may find it strange that a 19 year old girl is so interested in Evelyn, but I really think she was a wonderful model. The pictures taken by Anthony Stern are really beautiful. She was such a free spirit, living in the moment. I think most models today are so polished up, their too skinny, or try to change their looks as much as possible to look like Barbies or something. That's why I love Iggy so much because she was a natural beauty, and she didn't have to try hard to look wonderful in pictures.

Take Care.
Griselda, USA

Space girl

The Mojo (extended) interview ends with an excited Iggy who phones Mark Blake out of the blue.

Last week, Iggy called to tell me she had found a poem online written about her by a professor at a university in Missouri. "And it's in French," she said, sounding astonished. "'Iggy l’Esquimo, Fille de l’espace.'...it goes. I never believed anyone would ever write a poem for me."

Although the professor actually lives in Manitoba, Canada, where the temperature descended to a blistering minus 41 degrees in January, the news arrived to him. Probably by sledge-dog express, driven by – who else? – an Eskimo.

In the summer of 2006 Denis Combet wrote a collection of poems as a tribute to the musician and painter Roger Keith Barrett who passed away in Cambridge on the 7th of July 2006. The poems highlight the life of the young artist as a nonconformist who preferred – or was forced – to withdraw from the music world for a more humble existence. They were published (in an English translation) in the online magazine Ecclectica of February 2007.

The Church got the permission to pick an Iggy dedicated poem out of the collection, not only in English, but also the original French version, that had never been published before: From Quetesh to Bastet / De Quétesh à Bastet .

Unfortunately these poems never went into print, because of the high cost involved for publishing poetry, that often sells no more than a few dozen of copies. But miracles sometimes do happen and hopefully we might read more from Denis Combet in the near future.

Epilogue

In the next post the Church will probably give a detailed analysis of the latest Iggy interviews, until then, sistren and brethren. We leave the last word to Anne from Paris:

I don’t think Iggy's mystery will be over from now on;
I do think the mystery that comes out of her photos in the 60’s just cannot die.

The Church wishes to thank: Anne, Dan, Dancas, Denis, Ela & Violetta (Little Queenies), Griselda, Jenny, Kieren, Lynxolita, Mark, Zoe, Late Night, Mojo magazine & Vintage Groupies and all others who commented and contributed.

Last but not least: ♥ Iggy ♥ and her loyal friends who pass her messages to and fro.

The Mark Blake Iggy tapes can be found at:
Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home (Mojo 207 article - hosted at the Church)
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo - part 1 (hosted at the Mojo website Church, update August 2013)
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo - part 2 (hosted at the Mojo website Church, update August 2013)

The Church of Iggy the Inuit may not have as many adherers as, let's say: the Lady Gaga fanclub, but we're quite happy with it. Iggy (Evelyn) has earned a place in our hearts and that not only for that COD (Crusty Old Dinosaur) of a Reverend. It constantly amazes us that - even today - young people still discover Ig's beauty and joyfulness, as proven in the following letter:

Dear Iggy,

Thank you for the wonderful interview and for the lovely new photos you shared with us. It was really endearing of you to talk about your relationship with Syd. It was nice to hear you guys had a wonderful time together. It was really nice on your part to also share your experiences during those days; the people you met and the places and festivals you attended.

I would also like to say you still and always will be a beautiful model to me. I love all your beautiful pictures, (you look like a beautiful princess with the white dress) and the short film clips we have of you on the web. You truly are a fun and lovely person.

Thanks again for opening your heart to us and I wish you the best in life

Griselda, California, USA

When the lady smiles

Yesterday the Reverend came across her unforgettable smile again that has been immortalised in a Look At Life documentary from 1967 called: IN Gear. An unconfirmed story goes that Granada Television burned about 500 Look At Life originals (and negatives) at a certain point in history. Luckily several (restored) movies have been issued on DVD recently, although it could be that some documentaries have been lost forever. Nobody really knows really. But the IN Gear movie is still available on the Swingin' London DVD, while the stock lasts, as the company that distributed them did the indecent thing of going bankrupt. (More to read at: Iggy Goes Shopping.)

Not only the Reverend is susceptible to her laugh, also a kid named Syd Barrett kinda liked her. One spring-day in 1969 Mick Rock and Storm Thorgerson knocked at Syd's door to take the pictures that would later adorn The Madcap Laughs. A lot has been said about this photo-shoot, also at the Church, and it is the Reverend's impression that the truth still hasn't fully emerged, mainly due to the fact that both photographers have slightly different memories about it all and are, still after all these years, arguing like young boys to make out who has the biggest one. (It was then that the Pink Floyd composed their track: Careful with that Pentax, Eugene). But be cognisant, brethren and sistren, that no storm will stop the Church and that the Reverend will leave no rock unturned. (More to read at: Storm Rock Pictures.)

Enough dilly-dallying Syd Barrett thought that day, let's take those pictures and let's get on with it. Iggy, feet still dirty from the freshly painted floor, was there to help him:

I put the Kohl around his eyes that day and tousled his hair: Come on Syd, give us a smile, moody, moody, moody! But he knew exactly what he was doing.

Indeed, Syd Barrett put himself into Arthur Rimbaud mood and refused to smile on the pictures. With hindsight one could link that to the title of his first solo-album, only that album didn't have a title yet and most of the tracks still had to be canned. After a while the action was moved to the outside, probably at Mick Rock's demand. Several of these pictures, with Syd and Ig, have appeared in Rock's Psychedelic Renegades book and some can be consulted at our Street Life gallery, although it needs to be said that the Church has done its utmost best to remove that Syd Barrett character from the pictures and to put Iggy at its focal point.

It is also believed that Storm Thorgerson joined the lot and that he took the few colour pictures that have survived us into the third millennium. In a previous post the Church discussed these (and all other) pictures of The Madcap Laughs: A Bay of Hope (2009, already!)

Gentle ladies take Polaroids

One of the outside colour pictures (to be found on some versions of the vinyl compilation A Nice Pair) show Syd Barrett with a broad smile as if his serious mask had finally been shattered to pieces. Who or what had penetrated his defence barrier?

When this picture was discussed a while ago at the Late Night forum Dominae suggested:

I'm almost certain it is from a Polaroid. I wonder if Iggy took it? It's so rare to see a broad smile. (Taken from Photo Upgrade at Late Night.)

But this proposition was almost immediately abandoned as being a lot of rubbish, until on Valentine Day of this year, Iggy told the Church through Mark Blake:

Yes, it was me that took the picture of Syd smiling in the street.

Two days later she added some further explanations:

Well spotted Dominae. I was the one who took the picture. I think Mick Rock handed me the Polaroid. I remember squealing with delight when the photo appeared. It was the first time I had seen a Polaroid.

Also her encouragements towards Syd to finally break into a smile ("Come on Syd, give us a smile, moody, moody, moody!") was probably uttered on the street with the Polaroid in her hand and not above in the flat, as she previously told Mark Blake. Her softly spoken magic spells had finally laser-beamed through Syd's defence shield and Mick Rock turned the magical moment into some portraits where the mad-cat really laughed (see Psychedelic Renegades, page 33) .

But this still doesn't account for the fact how on earth this photo ended up at the Hipgnosis archives (together with quite a few Mick Rock prints). Perhaps the Polaroid belonged to Storm Thorgerson as Mick Rock only had a second-hand 35mm camera that he had bought from Po (Aubrey Powell). Nothing to get worried about now, but it might be a sweet revenge to know that for decades, people thought they had been looking at Syd Barrett: taken by Storm, while it really was: Syd Barrett, taken by Iggy.

Update 2011 02 21: the quite exquisite (but hyper-expensive) Barrett coffee-table book will have some Storm Thorgerson outtakes of The Madcap Laughs photo-shoot as well. Dark Globe already had an exclusive preview of this work and commented:

This [solo years, note by FA] section starts with a brace of very rare photos from the 'Madcap Laughs' session taken by Storm Thorgerson. These were taken at the same session which is documented in Mick Rock's 'Psychedelic Renegades' book and most of them haven't been seen before. Perhaps the best of the lot is the one of Syd sitting on the painted floorboards and smiling broadly (perhaps at Iggy?) (Taken from: The 'Barrett' book - a preview.)

Stand by me

Before we end our sermon, dear sistren and brethren, just another thing. Last year the Church suggested that Iggy could possibly be found on a John Lennon portrait that was taken during a party at the Cromwellian in January 1967. To know the outcome, please follow the guide and head your browsers towards the following path: Dr Death and other assorted figures...

And for the meantime, don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

The Church wishes to thank:
Mark Blake, Dark Globe, Dominae, Griselda and the beautiful people at Late Night.
♥ Iggy ♥

In January of this year Mojo published a (way too short) Mark Blake article about Iggy, who – in the Sixties - was metonymically but erroneously described as an Eskimo. There is a realistic chance that this blog, politically correct named the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, would never have seen the light of day if Iggy had been nicknamed something else.

Titled SYD BARRETT'S ENIGMATIC COVER COMPANION CLEARS UP SOME QUERIES the article actually added to the mystery, although Mark Blake is, of course, not to blame: Iggy is just mysterious by nature. And the more we find out, the more mysterious it gets.

The Church was erected for just that, to reveal the enigma behind an enigmatic woman but now that Evelyn has stepped into Mark Zuckerberg's limelight the Church has made a deliberate step backwards. Let it be known that the Church will be discreet about present Evelyn. She is not Truman Burbank and it is none of our business what she had for breakfast this morning anyway (bacon butties and a steaming hot cup of tea, if you wanna know, and the Reverend had some croissants and a cup of coffee).

Mark Blake also published an extended 'director's cut' of his interview and now the time for the Church has come to comment, amend or append on some of his poignant paragraphs. We will be cruel and ruthless although the reader should realise that above every line a virtual 'Well done, Mark Blake!' Church sign is blinking. A bit like this:

NME 1037

Before long, The Holy Church Of Iggy The Inuit, a fansite in her honour, had appeared, its webmaster, Felix Atagong, sifting through ever scrap of information gleaned from MOJO and elsewhere with a forensic scientist's attention to detail. Among Felix's discoveries was a November 1966 issue of NME which featured a photo of "Iggy who is half eskimo" dancing at South Kensington's Cromwellian club. (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 3)

Mark gives the Reverend too many credits here. The Church mainly rips other people's ideas (not an uncommon practice with Churches, although they mostly prefer to rip other people's wallets) and the November 26, 1966 New Musical Express Iggy picture was not discovered by the Church. The scan was already floating around on the web. Neptune Pink Floyd, for instance, published it in November 2006, two years before the Church started.

However the Church did trace a copy of that particular NME, hoping there would be some extra news about Evelyn, but to our regret Iggy is not mentioned at all in the accompanying text (several scans of NME 1037 can be found in our gallery).

The Croydon Guardian

Believing that Iggy may have gone to school in Thornton Heath, Jeff and Anthony contacted The Croydon Guardian, who ran an article - So Where Did She Go To, My Lovely - enquiring after the whereabouts of the girl "who entirely captured the spirit of the '60s". (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 4)

Time to pull the plug of that 'Well done, Mark Blake!' sign above we're afraid, as The Croydon Guardian was informed by none other than the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

After the Church was informed that Iggy had been a regular visitor of The Orchid in Purley the Reverend googled and found two Croydon Guardian articles about the dance hall: In dance hall days (9th August 2006) and We remember the Orchid (29th August 2006).

The Church contacted Brian Roote, a historian from the Bourne Society who had been researching the history of the Orchid, but without success. Journalist Kerry McQueeney, author of the Orchid articles, passed the Church mail to Kirsty Whalley, editor of the Croydon Guardian Heritage pages. She replied the Church on the third September of 2008:

We would like to feature this story in the newspaper next week and hopefully it will prompt a few people to call in.

Kirsty Whalley also asked the Church for a decent Iggy picture and here is what the Reverend answered:

Probably the best way to get an (unpublished) picture of Iggy is to contact Anthony Stern (former boyfriend of Iggy in 1966) who made a movie with her that will be shown on The City Wakes festival in Cambridge, so more than 40 years after it was filmed. (Taken from: Visitor at Orchid Ballroom - 1965 – 1967, mail to Kirsty Whalley, 3 September 2008 22:04.)

Kirsty Whalley took the information, given by the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, to heart (probably the first time in the Reverend’s entire career that a woman actually listened to his advice) and interviewed Anthony Stern who also donated a previous unpublished picture of Evelyn, just like the Church had predicted. She then did an excellent job by contacting Jeff Dexter (or perhaps Jeff Dexter contacted her after having spoken to Anthony Stern) and wrote a damn fine article: Where did she go? 

It took over a year for someone to 'call in', because in February 2010 Kirsty Whalley published the very first Iggy interview in 40 years that even took the Church by surprise (see: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea). What the Reverend doesn't understand though is why the Croydon Guardian journalist doesn't like to be reminded that it was the Church who gave her the scoop. So no pretty blinking Church sign for you, Kirsty!

From Dieppe to Delhi

Iggy's father was a British army officer, who served alongside Louis Mountbatten, and attended the official handover ceremony from Great Britain to India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharial Nehru in 1947. (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 7)

Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, born in 1900 and killed by an IRA bomb in 1979, was destined to pursue a glorious military career. Like so many of his aristocratic peers this career was not per se based on actual military performances but on the amount of names he had been given at birth. After a military débâcle at Dieppe in 1942, where 3,623 out of 6,086 soldiers, mostly Canadians, were either killed, wounded, or captured by the Germans, Mountbatten was given a new military playground as Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command. The Dieppe raid (unauthorised by the general staff) provoked a schism between the Canadian and British army leaders during the second world war and the mistrust would linger on for decades to come.

In 1947 Mountbatten was nominated Viceroy and Governor-General of India and his principal task was to lead India (separated from Pakistan) in a peaceful way towards independence. This lead to one of the bloodiest massacres the subcontinent has ever seen. Muslims fled from India to Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan to India and about 500,000 people lost their lives in the process (death toll numbers vary from 200,000 to a million).

Up the Khyber

"My father also knew all about Mountbatten's wife's affair with Nehru," she adds mischievously. During a spell of leave, he had travelled to a remote village in the Himalayas "where he met the woman that would become my mother." Iggy was born in Pakistan, and attended army schools in India and Aden, before the family moved to England. (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 7)

In the night of 14 to 15 August 1947 India and Pakistan officially separated from London and because this had been supervised so well by Mountbatten, he was entitled to another promotion. From now on he could add the title of Governor-General of India on his business card. In other words: Mountbatten was now the de facto monarch of the new state.

Lucky there was still his wife, Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten. Her part-time job was to visit the refugee camps her husband was so kind to fill up and to hump India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, although there are some biographers who maintain that their relationship was purely platonic.

But enough politics. Around that time Iggy's father, posted in Pakistan, went for an evening stroll in the Himalaya's where his spell of leave soon developed in a spell of love. It is believed that in March 1947 the couple did exchange something more than friendly kisses. The Church always believed that Iggy was somewhat older than Syd Barrett (see: When Syd met Iggy), but this new evidence shows she is nearly two years younger than him (and, should this be of any interest to anyone, both Syd and Ig were born on a Sunday).

If Ig attended school in Pakistan, the family must have been there until early 1950. Although the country was independent several hundred of British officers stayed in Pakistan until the Pakistan army had enough officers to take care of its own. There was a 1st Battalion Wiltshire Regiment at Rawalpindi (Pakistan), with Indian bases at Amritsar, Calcutta, Jhansi, Jullunder (Jalandhar) and Lahore (Pakistan) but the Church's research couldn't link Ig's father to this battalion. The Wiltshire Regiment left the Indias in October 1947, but her father stayed in Pakistan for a couple of years longer.

Update March 2018: 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. Probably that is where Iggy was born and went to school. The 'evening stroll' of Iggy's dad did not take place in the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range in Mizoram and Tripura, India.

The garden of Aden

It is not that weird either that the family was dispatched to Aden. Before 1937 Aden was an (overseas) part of British India and after that it became a separate British Crown colony, much to the enjoyment of philatelists from all over the world. It would stay under British reign until 1963 and in 1967 it was absorbed by the People's Republic of South Yemen.

Kids could go to the Khormaksar primary and secondary school (close to the RAF airport base), but there was the (Roman-Catholic) Good Shepherd Convent School for girls as well, the Isthmus School and the Selim Girl's School that was badly damaged in the anti-Semitic pogroms from 1947.

There are quite a few blogs and forums about Aden with hundreds of pictures of the fifties and sixties, but the Reverend couldn't find Iggy back, yet. The Mojo article has a picture from Ig at Worthing Beach, in the early Sixties, so around 1963 they may have returned to England.

London Underground

In January 1969 Iggy met Syd, thanks to their common friend Jenny Spires. The outside world didn't always realise that Ig and Syd became an item. Ig was unaware that Syd had been a pop star, but then one day:

He [Syd] then said, 'Would you listen to this?' And he bought out this big, old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder, and said, 'Tell me what you think'." Syd then played her the songs that would end up on The Madcap Laughs. One track, Terrapin, made an immediate impression. "I said, 'That's quite catchy', and, of course, I don't think Syd was really into catchy...It was a long tape, and he didn't demand any opinion, but just asked if I thought it was OK. At the end he said 'Someone at EMI - I cannot remember the name - wants me to make a record. How would you feel about having a rock star boyfriend?'" (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 1, paragraph 12)

This may have happened in the weekend of 12 and 13 April 1969 after Malcolm Jones and Syd had started working on the new album:

During the tea break we discussed going back to some of the songs started the previous year, in particular 'Golden Hair', and perhaps 'Late Night' although the original version of that had been destroyed, it seemed. We returned to the studio and started work on another new song, 'Terrapin'. In one take Syd laid down a guitar and vocal track that was to be the master! At my suggestion Syd double tracked his vocal part, and that was it!

One day Syd Barrett disappeared from the flat and Iggy, in a jealous mood, fearing he was seeing another woman, tracked down her friend in David Gilmour's appartment, just a few blocks away.

"I went in, shouting, 'OK, where is she?' thinking there was a woman hiding in one of the rooms. But, of course, the meeting had been with Dave about the record they were making together." Barrett left Iggy with Gilmour, but rather the worse for wear, she knocked the stylus on his record player accidentally scratching his copy of Pink Floyd's brand new album. "I have no idea what album it was, only that it was their new album," Iggy sighs. (The likely candidate seems to be Soundtrack From The Film More) "So Dave threw me out..." (The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2, paragraph 3)

Here is again an excellent opportunity to grab the Church's copies of Glenn Povey's 'Echoes' and David Parker's 'Random Precision'. According to David Parker Barrett had his last recording session with Malcolm Jones on the 3rd and 4th of May, while the David Gilmour sessions started a month later (see our 1969 calendar). On the 6th of May however 'a set of rough mixes' of the album was made, presumably to be handed over to Gilmour (and Waters), who had promised to finalise the album (it is significant that on that tape Opel, Swan Lee and Rhamadan are still present).

But probably Barrett, Jones, Gilmour and Waters had been discussing about all this before. The Church has always believed that Iggy left Syd somewhere in April and up till now Ig's visit to Gilmour's apartment fits nicely into that scheme.

Mark Blake wisely deducts the scratched record has to be 'More'. More was released on Friday, the 13th of June 1969, but of course Gilmour may have had a copy some weeks before. Another, but more unlikely, candidate is 'Ummagumma'. Although only released in November the Floyd had already been recording some pieces for this album in January and February, together with the 'More' sessions, so perhaps Gilmour and Barrett could've listened to an acetate instead. And of course the live tracks of that album must have been circulating amongst the band members as well.

But there is still another possibility. Margaretta Barclay told the Church she has a postcard sent to her and Ig at Wetherby Mansions in June 1969 so perhaps Ig's departure took place after More had been officially released (see: Gretta Speaks 2).

Notes (other than internet links mentioned above):
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 139-158.
Jones, Malcolm: The Making Of The Madcap Laughs, Brain Damage, 2003, p. 7.
Povey, Glenn: Echoes, the complete history of Pink Floyd, 3C Publishing, 2008, p. 104-112.

The Church wishes to thank: Adenairways.com, Mark Blake, Jenny Spires, Natashaa' and the beautiful people at Late Night.
♥ Iggy ♥

Those that have been living on planet Magrathea for the past couple of months may not have been aware that Thursday, 17th of March 2011 was a great day in the life for a Barrett-fan.

The long awaited book 'Barrett', apparently nobody attempts to use a combination of Madcap or Crazy Diamond any more, which is a good thing, was launched with a mega-party and exhibition at Idea Generation, London.

The Church will review the definitive visual companion to the life of Syd Barrett in the weeks to come so for the moment you have to content yourself with the message that it is a splendiferous (and heavy... and pricey) work of art... and love.

Attending the launch were Anthony Stern, Aubrey "Po" Powell, Captain Sensible, Dark Globe, David Gale, Duggie Fields, Graham Coxon, Ian Barrett, Irene Winsby, Jenny Spires, John 'Hoppy' Hopkins, Libby Gausden, Mark Blake, Miles, Philip James, Rosemary Breen, Vic Singh, Warren Dosanjh and many others... enough to make a Pink Floyd aficionado drool...

But for the Church (and not only for the Church) the star of the evening undoubtedly was a woman of international mystery... and here are some pictures of her:

Iggy

Libby Gausden and Iggy

John "Hoppy" Hopkins and Iggy

Iggy and Andy Rose

Ian Barrett, Iggy and Captain Sensible

Duggie Fields and Iggy

Brian Wernham and Iggy

Iggy having some fun with the paparazzi

Where is Iggy?
and who else can you recognise on this picture?

Some answers:
Antonio Jesús: "The tall guy in brown is Warren Dosanjh."
Mark Jones: "Duggie Fields."
Jenny Spires: "Nigel Gordon and Jimmie Mickelson, Will Shutes and Viv's nephew, Kieren and his partner..."
Libby Gausden Chisman: "Roe Barrett and her husband Paul Breen, Buster and his partner who used to come swimming with Dave Gilmour and me at Jesus Green swimming pool in Cambridge."

One of our brethren told the Reverend afterwards:

I saw Iggy at the launch yesterday. She did very well, considering it was her first public appearance. She had a legion of female admirers so she was happy, and people were thrilled to meet her.

It was a night of Happy Talk indeed.

The Church wishes to thank: Antonio Jesús, Mark Blake, Libby Gausden Chisman, Dark Globe, Paul Drummond, Jimmie James, Mark Jones, Jenny Spires, Brian Wernham and the beautiful people at Late Night and Facebook.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

What a strange few weeks it has been. A new Barrett book was launched with a big Syd exhibition in London, attended by the crème de la crème of the Cambridge mafia, freewheeling dharma buns, madcap mad cats, Sydney fans, look-alikes and collectors, Late Night friends, the odd blurry rock star, unfortunately no Reverend and at least one thief, but more of that later.

Syd Barrett | Art and Letters

The Barrett book, that the Church still has to savor in detail, but like Romeo thought he ought to do with Julia, the Reverend is waiting till the time is ripe, is indebted to (amongst others) eternal goddesses Libby Gausden and Jenny Spires, whose presence radiated through the vernissage.

Mount Olympus is a place filled with many splendors. For many it was an unsurpassed surprise when Iggy appeared, like Ayesha out a pillar of fire, leaving a trail of buzzed excitement wherever she went. She said: "Captain?" and he sensibly said: "Wot!" dragging Ian Barrett over to have their picture taken. Red carpet paparazzi asked her to do the famous Iggy pose and fans wanted her to autograph the Barrett book although she has, strictly speaking, nothing to do with the book at all. (Several pictures of Iggy at the IG (!) Gallery can be found at the appropriately titled post: Iggy at the Exhibition.)

Barrett, the book

There isn't really a trace of Iggy in the Barrett book, apart from the well known Madcap back cover shot that has been reproduced on page 178, but pages 114 to 121 contain a few outtakes of The Madcap Laughs photo sessions, wrongly dated as Beecher & Shutes maintain they were taken in autumn 1969. Probably autumn 1969 was when a second photo session by Storm Thorgerson took place, the so-called yoga shots that have already been discussed extensively on this place before (see, for instance: The Case of the Painted Floorboards).

Iggy revealed to Mark Blake that, on the same day, there was an alternative photo session as well:

I don't think Storm and Mick were very impressed by them. If you've ever seen the cover of the Rod Stewart album, Blondes Have More Fun, they were a bit like that... Of me and Syd. There were others of me and Syd, as well, which remind me of the picture of John and Yoko [on Two Virgins] which came out later. I'd love to see those pictures now. (Taken from: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2)

But despite some discrete investigations nothing so far nothing has been unearthed, yet.

La Gazza Ladra

That not all Syd Barrett fans are trustworthy holy men proves the following story.

Last Saturday, 9th of April, a self-portrait of the artist as a young man (page 187 in the Barrett book) was stolen from the Idea Generation Gallery between 2:15 and 3 PM. It belonged to Libby Gausden since 1962, who had received the painting as a present from her boyfriend Syd and who had lend it to the exhibition to commemorate the Barrett book-launch.

In a short press release Libby stated that she was devastated: “I am very upset at the theft of the painting, it has huge personal value to me and I am appealing for its safe return.”

For once the Barrett and Pink Floyd community reacted unisono, fans and foes all alike condemned the theft and promised to be on the lookout for the painting and to return it immediately to Libby if it would show up.

And the improbable did happen. On Tuesday, the 12th, the painting was brought back to the gallery which provoked the following dry comment from Libby (once she had finished jumping up and down in the air): “'I'd give it to you if I could - but I 'borrowed' it.”

Miracles do happen from time to time.

Iggy Fandom

Iggy has been a source of inspiration through the ages: Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock... and it will never change. The fantastic drawing at the top of this post has been made by Dolly Rocker from Buenos Aires, proving that we are all Eskimos in our hearts. Thanks Gaby!

Beecher, Russell & Shutes, Will: Barrett, Essential Works Ltd, London, 2011.
The Church wishes to thank: Mark Blake, Libby Gausden Chisman, Dolly Rocker, Jenny Spires and the beautiful people at Late Night and Facebook.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

The Holy Igquisition has got a little black book with Roger Waters' interesting quotes in. Needless to say that this is a very thin book, with lots of white space, but here is a phrase from the Pink Floyd's creative genius (his words, not ours) this article would like to begin with.

There are no simple facts. We will all invent a history that suits us and is comfortable for us, and we may absolutely believe our version to be the truth. (…) The brain will invent stuff, move stuff around, and so from 30 years ago (…) there's no way any of us can actually get at the truth.

The Reverend would – however – first want to ask one fundamental question, of which our readers may not be quite aware of the significance of it... If Roger Waters is such a creative genius writing poignant one-liners criticizing his fellow rock colleagues:

Did you understand the music Yoko?
Or was it all in vain?
(5.01 AM, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking)

and,

Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff.
Runs for years and years and years. (…)
Then the piano lid comes down.
And breaks his fucking fingers.
(It's A Miracle, Amused To Death),

...why then does he agree to release hyper-priced Immersion boxes containing a scarf, some marbles, carton toasters, playing cards, other debris and, oh yeah, incidentally some music as well? One can only conclude it's a miracle. Let's just hope he doesn't get near a piano for the next couple of years.

But probably we are too harsh in our criticism, Roger Waters has told the press before that he is simply outvoted by the other Pink Floyd members. This is a situation that used to be different in the past when he reigned over the band as the sun king, but like he will remember from his Ça Ira days, these are the pros and cons of capitalist democracy.

Remembering Games

A typical Floydian example of false memory syndrome is the visit of Syd Barrett in the Abbey Road studios on the 5th of June 1975. It is a mystery to us why EMI didn't ask for entrance money that day as a complete soccer team, including the four Pink Floyd members David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Rick Wright, claim they have seen, met and spoken to Syd Barrett.

Roadie (and guitar technician) Phil Taylor remembers he had a drink in the mess with Syd and David. Stormtrooper Thorgerson has had his say about it all but if one would give him the opportunity he would argue – probably in yet another book rehashing the same old material – that he started the band Pink Floyd at the first place. Other 'reliable' witnesses that day include (alphabetically sorted):
Venetta Fields, backing singer and member of The Blackberries
John Leckie, EMI engineer and producer (but not on Wish You Were Here)
Nick Sedgwick, friend of Roger Waters and 'official' biographer of Pink Floyd
Jerry Shirley, Humble Pie drummer and friend of David Gilmour
Carlena Williams, backing singer and member of The Blackberries

Some say that Barrett visited the studio for two or three days in a row and three people, including his former managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King, claim they spoke to Syd Barrett about a month later on David Gilmour's wedding while the bridegroom himself claims that Syd Barrett never showed up. To quote Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake: “...not two people in Pink Floyd's world have matching stories...”, and neither do two biographies...

(A more detailed article about Barrett's visits during the Wish You Were Here sessions, with pictures!, can be found at: Shady Diamond.)

Amnesydelicate Matters

In his most recent, but probably not his last, picture book about Syd Barrett Mick Rock writes the following:

He (Syd Barrett, FA) asked me to take photos for the sleeve of his first solo album The Madcap Laughs that autumn. At the time he was living with yet another very pretty young lady known only as Iggy the Eskimo. She wasn't really his girlfriend although clearly they had a sexual relationship. But of course her presence in some of the photos we took that day added an important element that enhanced their magical durability.

Most biographies (all but one, Julian Palacios' Dark Globe, in fact) put the date of The Madcap Laughs photo shoot in the autumn of 1969 and this thanks to testimonies of Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock and, most of all, Malcolm Jones. The Church, however, beliefs there is a 'misinformation effect' in play. Researchers have found out that people will automatically fill in the blanks in their memory if a so-called reliable witness comes with an acceptable story. This would not be the first time this happens in Pink Floyd history. And probably there have been 'cover picture' meetings after summer between Harvest and Hipgnosis, perhaps even leading to an alternative Storm Thorgerson photo shoot (the so-called yoga pictures). But in the end it was decided to use the daffodils session from spring.

JenS convinced the Church that the Madcap photo shoot took place in the first quarter of the year 1969. Most is dispersed on several articles throughout the years but the following posts give a digest of what probably happened: When Syd met Iggy... (Pt. 2), Rock - Paper - Scissors, The Case of the Painted Floorboards.

That the Church's theory (with the help of JenS) wasn't that far-fetched was proven in March 2010 when the rock magazine Mojo consecrated a three pages long article to pinpoint the date of the shooting of The Madcap Laughs, with testimonies from Duggie Fields, Mick Rock, Jenny Spires and Storm Thorgerson. The article and the Church's comments can be found at Goofer Dust [(I've got my) Mojo (working)... Part 2].

We know from JenS, Duggie Fields and Gretta Barclay that Iggy arrived early 1969, and helped painting the floor, but the only person who didn't comment on this was Iggy Rose herself. So one freezing winter day The Holy Church asked her if she could have been around at Wetherby Mansion, after the summer of 1969...

Iggy Rose: "I don't think it was that late, but I have to admit it was almost 45 years ago. I remember I was cold, and they had a one-bar-heater to try and keep me warm. I stayed a week here and there and I never gave that photo shoot another thought. Later I found out when Mick Rock came back for the second shoot he was disappointed I wasn't there."

JenS (When Syd met Iggy (Pt. 1)): "I took Ig to Wetherby Mansions in January or February 1969 where she met Syd Barrett. (…) I introduced Iggy to Syd shortly before I left (to America, FA), and she was around when I left. She wasn’t there for long and generally moved around a lot to different friends."

Iggy Rose: "I had absolutely no idea how mammoth he was. Syd never came on to me as the Big I Am. In fact when he played his rough tracks of The Madcap Laughs he was so endearingly sweet and appealing... Even asking me whether it was good enough to take to some bloke at EMI to record..."

Margaretta Barclay (Gretta Speaks (Pt. 2)): "Iggy moved about and stayed with all sorts of people in all sorts of places without declaring her intention to do so. To my knowledge there was no ‘when Iggy left Syd’ moment. We were all free spirits then, who moved whenever and wherever a whim took us."

Iggy Rose: "I wasn't even aware of who Syd Barrett really was. Of course I knew of Pink Floyd. I must have seen them perform at Crystal Palace but they were to me an obscure avant-garde underground band, who played way-out music I couldn't dance to."

Jenny Spires (public conversation at Iggy Roses' Facebook page): "Ig, Syd painted the floor boards as soon as he moved in Christmas 68. When I moved in with him in January there were still patches not done, by the door, in the window under the mattress where we slept, in top right hand corner of the room. When he painted it initially, he didn't wash the floor first. He just painted straight onto all the dust etc... Dave (Gilmour) also painted his floor red..."

Duggie Fields (Mojo): "It was pretty primitive, two-bar electric fire, concreted-up fireplaces... it was an area in decline. I don't think there was anything, no cooker, bare floorboards..."

Mate (alleged visitor at Wetherby Mansions, FA): "The three rooms all faced the street. On entering the house, the first room was Fields', the second and largest, I guess about 25 square meters, Barrett's. The third and smallest room was a communal room or a bedroom for guests. Gala (Pinion, FA) stayed there. In the corridor were some closets stuffed with clothes.

Then the floor bended to a small bathroom, I think it was completely at the inside without a window. At the back was the kitchen with a window to the garden. It was not very big and looked exactly like in the Fifties. The bathroom was also rather simple, I mean, still with a small tub. I don't remember how the bathroom floor looked like though."

Update 2016: 'Mate' is an anonymous witness who claims to have been an amorous friend of Syd Barrett, visiting him several times in London and Cambridge between 1970 and 1980. However, later investigations from the Church have found out that this person probably never met Syd and is a case of pseudologia fantastica. This person, however, has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of Syd Barrett and early Pink Floyd and probably the above description of Syd's flat is pretty accurate.

JenS (Addenda and Errata with Gala and Gretta): "Gala was not there (early 1969, FA). She moved in later hooking up with Syd in May or June."

Iggy Rose: "I think Gala had the small room, Duggie the second and Syd the largest. She had a lot of perfumes and soaps and gave me a nice bubbly bath once... ...and tampons." (Launches one of her legendary roaring laughs provoking a temporarily hearing loss with the Reverend.)

Any colour you like

Ian Barrett: "The stereo in the picture ended up at my house, and I am pretty sure I had the record player in my bedroom for a good few years. God knows where it is now though..."

Iggy Rose: "I wonder what happened to the old heavy tape recorder with the giant spools. I remember Syd carrying it over for me to listen to his rough cut of The Madcap Laughs."

Malcolm Jones (The Making Of The Madcap Laughs): "In anticipation of the photographic session for the sleeve, Syd had painted the bare floorboards of his room orange and purple."

Mick Rock (Psychedelic Renegades): "Soon after Syd moved in he painted alternating floor boards orange and turquoise."

JenS: "I was staying with Syd between the New Year and March '69. (…) Anyway, at that time, the floor was already painted blue and orange and I remember thinking how good it looked on the Madcap album cover later on when the album was released."

Iggy Rose (The Croydon Guardian): "When Mick (Rock, FA) 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."

Mick Rock (Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs - The Mick Rock Photo-Sessions): "There had been no discussion about money at all. Later on I did get a very minor payment but it couldn't have been more than 50£ and I don't know if it came from Syd or EMI."

Margaretta Barclay (Gretta Speaks): "I remember that Iggy was involved with the floor painting project and that she had paint all over her during the floor painting time but I was not involved with the painting of the floor."

Iggy Rose (Mojo): "He jumped off the mattress and said, 'Quick, grab a paint brush.' He did one stripe and I did another. If you look at Mick Rock's pictures, I have paint on the soles of my feet."

Duggie Fields (The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story): "I think he painted the floor boards, sort of quite quickly. He didn't prepare the floor, I don't think he swept the floor actually. (…) And he hadn't planned his route out of the bed that was over there. He painted around the bed and I think there was a little problem getting out of the room. (…) He painted himself in."

MP3 link: Duggie Fields.

Jenny Fabian (Days In The Life):: "He'd painted every other floor board alternate colours red and green."

Iggy Rose: "I remember the mattress being against the wall......Soooooo either we ran out of paint, or waited till the paint dried, so poor Syd was marooned in the middle of the floor. (…) The floorboards were painted red and blue. I do remember, as the paint was on my feet and bottom. Did you know that Syd wanted to take the colours right up the wall?"

Mate: "The planks were painted in a bright fiery-red, perhaps with a slight tendency towards orange, and dark blue with a shadow of violet. Iggy is absolutely right: this was no orange's orange. The curtains were dark green velvet." (This witness may be a mythomaniac, see above.)

Mick Rock: "They were long exposures because of the low light and they were push-developed which means that you give the film more time in the processing fluid. You can tell because the colour changes and the film starts to break up which causes that grainy effect."

Libby Gausden: "I always thought it was orange paint, not red."
Iggy Rose: "Careful Libs darling! People will start to analyse that, the way they did with the dead daffodils."
Libby Gausden: "Well they had faded from red to orange when I got there."

Jenny Spires (public conversation at Iggy Roses' Facebook page): "The floor was painted long before you arrived Ig and was blue and orange. You and Syd might have given it another lick of paint and covered up some of the patchiness and bare floorboard that was under the mattress before the Rock/Thorgersen shoot. Perhaps, he only had red paint for that, but it was blue and orange."

Mate: "Even in 1970 there were still unpainted parts in the room, hidden under a worn rug. I suppose the floor had been beige-white before Syd and Iggy painted it in dark blue with a shadow of violet and bright orangy red . The floor boards had not been carefully painted and were lying under a thick shiny coat. The original pitch-pine wood didn't shine through.

In my impression it was an old paint-job and I didn't realise that Syd had done it all by himself the year before. I never spoke with him about the floor as I couldn't predict that it would become world-famous one day. It is also weird that nearly nobody seems to remember the third room..." (This witness may be a mythomaniac, see above.)

Mick Rock: "I actually went back a couple of weeks later. We still didn't know what the LP was going to be called and we thought we might need something different for the inner sleeve or some publicity shots."

Iggy Rose: "I did go back afterwards and maybe Syd mentioned this to someone. I wasn't bothered and I didn't know Syd was some big pop star. He never lived like one and certainly didn't behave like."

When Iggy disappeared it wasn't to marry a rich banker or to go to Asia. As a matter of fact she was only a few blocks away from the already crumbling underground scene. One day she returned to the flat and heard that Barrett had returned to Cambridge. She would never see Syd again and wasn't aware of the fact that her portrait was on one of the most mythical records of all time.

Update 2016: The above text, although meant to be tongue in cheek, created a rift between the Reverend and one of the cited witnesses, that still hasn't been resolved 4 years later. All that over a paint job from nearly 50 years ago.

Many thanks to: Margaretta Barclay, Duggie Fields, Libby Gausden, Mate, Iggy Rose, JenS & all of you @ NML & TBtCiIiY...

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2007, p. 231-232.
Clerk, Carol: If I'm honest, my idea was that we should go our separate ways, Roger Waters interview in Uncut June 2004, reprinted in: The Ultimate Music Guide Issue 6 (from the makers of Uncut): Pink Floyd, 2011, p. 111.
Gladstone, Shane: The Dark Star, Clash 63, July 2011, p. 53 (Mick Rock picture outtakes).
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p.168.
Jones, Malcolm: The Making Of The Madcap Laughs, Brain Damage, 2003, p. 13.
Mason, Nick: Inside Out, Orion Books, London, 2011 reissue, p. 206-208.
Rock, Mick: Psychedelic Renegades, Plexus, London, 2007, p. 18-19,
Rock, Mick: Syd Barrett - The Photography Of Mick Rock, EMI Records Ltd, London & Palazzo Editions Ltd, Bath, 2010, p. 10-11.
Spires, Jenny: Facebook conversation with Iggy Rose, July 2011.

You have been reading a sequel of The Case of the Painted Floorboards. Two new - previously unpublished - Mick Rock pictures have been added to the Bare Flat gallery.

♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

The inhabitants of the distant planet Tralfamadore have a phrase, the laity equivalent of the earthly inshallah that goes like this: So it goes. The saying is a combination of fatalism, stoicism and acceptance, usually for when a bad thing happens, without giving a moral or religious judgement to the incident itself.

One night, drunk, we were having a race with a friend who owned a car. A famous roundabout outside Cambridge at the end of the Hauxton half-mile, ten miles out of town. We gave this guy a big start. Then Syd and I climbed on my old Norton motorcycle. I drove as fast as I could to this roundabout and back. As we drove into the front drive of his mother’s house, as he was getting off the back tire went bang! A puncture, a big split in the rear tyre. Only by a hair’s breadth did Pink Floyd ever exist at all. Syd and I could so easily have been killed. (Roger Waters, Bogotá, 2007)

So it goes.

The most ardent Syd Barrett fans will probably be very angry (again!) at Roger Waters for nearly killing Syd, not realizing that if Roger had succeeded in finishing off his friend (and probably himself as well in the process) there would have been no Syd Barrett, nor Pink Floyd, fans to begin with. On the other hand, we would never have had the Roger Waters album Amused To Death, nor any other of his solo stinkers, so here is valid proof that there is some sense of a meta-physical equilibrium in the universe.

The 1967 National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival

In August 1967 a three days music festival took place at the Royal Windsor Racecourse, also known among the locals as the Balloon Meadow. In 1961 the festival had been called National Jazz Festival, but the organisation kept on adding music genres to the title to reflect the musical changes that took place in Britain. Four years later the festival was named the National Jazz and Blues Festival and the 1967 edition listened to the slightly overinflated National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival. Frankly, for this reason alone, it's a good thing the festival never survived into the nineties or they would have needed 99-cm-long tickets.

In 1967 jazz had become a small part of the bill with afternoon gigs only and in the evening the festival had become a de-facto popular music jukebox with a rather impressive list of groovy bands who got between 20 to 30 minutes to present their case, the only exception the top act who got an abundant 45 minutes. Not that weird, because the director of the NJPB&B festival was none other than Harold Pendleton, owner of the legendary Marquee club and director of the National Jazz Federation. Bands that were considered hot and had shown their popularity in the club came on the short-list for the festival and one example is the Belgian power-trio Adam's Recital who only gave us one excellent single and then disappeared.

As such it was no surprise that The Pink Floyd had conquered the second best place on the line-up of Saturday 12 August, leaving the top of the bill to Paul Jones of Manfred Mann fame (who was booed off the stage), but beating Zoot Money, Arthur Brown, Amen Corner and 10 Years After in the race.

The festival was not entirely unbespoken, as usual there were the traditional jazz lovers who moaned that their jazz festival wasn't a real jazz festival any more and had sold out to those dreadful pop-bands. But the blues and rock fans also complained about the 1000 Watts experimental WEM hi-fi installation that fell out during several concerts and was inadequate to give the rock fans the volume they needed. On top of that the posh neighbours of the Balloon Meadow had issued a complaint, leading to the arrest of Charlie Watkins of WEM (Watkins Electric Music), and in order to continue with the festival the volume had to be turned down, despite the crappy PA system.

A host of guitarists like Peter Green, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and David O'List, had their sound reduced to a near pathetic level. (Melody Maker)

The Lovely Ones

For many visitors from the country this was their first encounter with hippies who could only be found in their London ghetto. One photographer commented:

All those lovely, beautiful people. With their John Lennon spectacles and Scott McKenzie moustaches. And their garlands of flowers; their cowbells; and their joss sticks. So lovely... dressed in mum's tablecloth and the front room curtains. So lovely with their talk of peace... and their skip-like walk over the grass. This was not a love-in, or particularly a gathering of hippies, though they were there in their hundreds.

And amongst the flower girls one particular specimen stood out, she was (and still is) a true goddess of psychedelia and Pink Floyd fans amicably know her as Iggy the Eskimo.

Iggy the Eskimo Pocahontas

Last year Iggy Rose confided to the Holy Church that there were still some unseen pictures of her, hidden in music magazine archives, waiting to be unearthed:

You should get in touch with the archive department of Melody Maker to track down those 2 photographers. I am pretty sure they where acquainted with my wonderful guardian angel who was freelancing for all the top music papers.

He fled his native motherland when Communist Russia invaded it with the blessing of America and what was once Great Britain.

Anyway he lived in Earls Court, at the gay end. I didn’t had a clue and who cares. He was my protector and provider and took thousands of the most stunning pics. He introduced me to top agents, Ready Steady Go and took me to the first Glastonbury festival and the Isle of Wight. He would always take pictures of me as well. I wish I could remember which festival or what music paper where he had got me on the front page, but I do remember I had plaits and a band round my forehead... I looked like Pocahontas, the red Indian squaw. Later on he introduced me to top modelling agencies and trendy photographers. I even got to meet the great David Puttman for a Camay soap TV-ad where I was lying in a bath with lots of bubbles. We spent ages in his office giggling and laughing while he tried to apologise. I was the wrong type as the soap company was looking for big blue-eyed blondes like Twiggy or Jean [Shrimpton].

Unfortunately most of the Iggy Rose pictures have disappeared through the years, including those that were in her property. S, a rock star she was hanging out with at the time, 'was one of the many people who destroyed hundreds of my photos' and in an unfortunate freaky incident a suitcase with her personal belongings was tossed over the railings of a ship crossing the North Sea. One of the mythical lost photo sessions are an intimate set from her with Syd Barrett, perhaps taken by a photographer other than Mick Rock and Storm Thorgerson, around the time that also The Madcap Laughs cover-shoot took place.

So it goes.

And the chance that the picture of Iggy as Pocahontas would ever show up was close to zero.

Then a miracle happened that could only take place in our global village.

The Phi Factor

On the 25th of August the Church received a message from PhiPhi Chavana (Hong Kong) that she had found a new Iggy pic in a 1967 magazine that was auctioned on eBay. The Music Maker magazine of October 1967 belonged to retro68special from Sydney (Australia) who was selling his wide collection of sixties and seventies film, video, vinyl, books, zines, comics, memorabilia and ephemera...

Retro68special had scanned 16 out of the 52 pages magazine, including a big centrefold of a flower power girl who looked unmistakably like Iggy. Discreet investigations were undertaken to see if the girl on the picture was Ig and on the first of September we received confirmation it was her indeed: "...those beads left great big dents in my forehead ;)".

Musik Maker

Music Maker was a short-lived music magazine that ran from September 1966 till December 1967. As a monthly offshoot from the Melody Maker stable it was edited by Jack Hutton and Bob Houston and more interested in jazz, folk and serious popular music than in those weird psychedelic fiddlings. It clearly used a more adult style than its weekly counterparts, giving full credits to the authors of the articles, but alas, not to the people who took the pictures.

The October 1967 issue that was on sale has in-depth interview with and articles about: Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, Brian Epstein, Hank, Thad & Elvin Jones, Stan Kenton, Lulu, Frank Zappa and a photo-journalistic impression of the National Jazz and Blues Festival, with a text written by Chris Welch.

Update March 2020: It is possible that the photographer of Iggy's picture was freelancer Feri Lukas, who was working for the Dezo Hoffmann studios. More to read at: Amateur Photographer: New Iggy Picture Found! 

WINDSOR-A NEW LOOK IN FESTIVALS (Chris Welch)

Flower Power hit this year’s National ]azz and Blues Festival at Windsor in August like a reinforced concrete daisy.

Hippies completely replaced the familiar beatniks of yesteryear. Beads and bells ousted duffle coats and cider jugs.

Both groups and audience alike adopted colourful, inventive clothes-kaftans, scarves and brilliantly hued trousers and jackets.

As hippies seek free expression in music and general activities, so they seek freedom of dress, and only the dullards of society can feel resentment at their massive break with convention.

“But they are being conventional-they all dress the same”, one can almost hear the dullards whining.

Not true. While businessmen desperately trail the hippies to their lairs to cash in on whatever trend may be showing on the surface, your real hippy is always one jump ahead and trying to be original and creative.

Many of the groups at Windsor were still playing the old soul and Carnaby Street groove, but there were several representatives of the “new wave” in pop which have been drastically altering the scene in a matter of weeks. Pop has never moved at such a fast pace.

There was Tomorrow in action, a fantastic new group featuring “Teenage Opera” man Keith West. There was Dantalian’s Chariot, Eric Burdon and the New Animals, the Nice and many other happy happenings.

Whereas the soul bands seemed happy in the past to play “Knock On Wood” and “Sweet Soul Music” all night, and inviting the audience to “clap their hands”, the new groups use as much original material as possible or at least obscure American songs which make good vehicles for instrumental and vocal expression.

The Nice, for example, who caused a minor sensation by releasing doves of peace during their act, play numbers from the “Cosmic Sounds”, Electra album, film themes and strange originals.

Beautiful maidens abounded at the festival, collectively referred to as “Creamcheese”, which stems from the Mothers Of Invention’s famous Suzie. Most of the girls now wear Eric Clapton hairstyles or affect American Indian garb. Or is it Indian Indian? Geography has gone to pot.

Musically the finest contributions to the Festival were by Clapton, Tens Years After, Tomorrow, Pat Arnold and the Nice, John Mayall, Peter Green, Donovan and Denny Laine.

They all point to a happy, creative pop future - if only people will leave them alone. - CHRIS WELCH

And here finally is the picture we have been looking for, for all these months, and before we forget: "Just another world exclusive of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit."

A bigger version and a (partial) scan of the magazine can be found in our latest gallery: Music Maker Magazine.

Incarceration of a Flower Child

After PhiPhi Chavana warned the Reverend about the new Iggy Rose picture the scan from the seller was examined by some Church alumni who all agreed that the image had a serious distorted view at chin level, a carnival mirror effect if you like, due to the bending of the pages in the middle.

So it was absolutely essential that the Church got hold of the magazine. The first thing the Church did when it arrived was to cut it into little pieces and make a flat hi-res scan of the two pages that made the Pocahontas picture.

Unfortunately, this only worsened the case, as the upper and lower piece of the scan did not stitch together and a big crack was visible between the two parts. Lucky for us that wicked tribe of Iggy Rose fans has nothing but nice people amongst it ranks and Brooke Steytler came to the rescue using his magical inpainting skills.

Serendipity & more to come

All this makes us think.

What if retro68special had not put up his collection for sale?
What if he had not scanned the page with Iggy?
What if PhiPhi Chavana had not seen it on eBay?
What if PhiPhi Chavana had not recognised Iggy and had not been aware of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit?
What if Brooke Steytler had not proposed to use his photoshopping superpowers?

That's a lot of knots and we can only conclude that the Church is protected by a special guardian angel, but we all know who she is, don't we?

So it goes.

As Music Maker was a spin-off of Melody Maker it is not impossible that the weekly magazine may have Iggy related pictures as well, the same goes for Disc and Music Echo, another weekly magazine from the same stable. And while we're at it, why not have a go at NME 1075 that had an article by Keith Altham and Norrie Drummond about the festival. The hunt continues.

P.S. The Pink Floyd didn't play the National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival after all, this was the summer that Syd Barrett suffered from extreme exhaustion and went to Formentera with his gynaecologist (!) to get some rest. The Nice replaced the Floyd's spot and did in fact play twice on the festival. More about Syd at Formentera: Formentera Lady.

Many thanks to: Dylan Mills, Brooke Steytler, PhiPhi Chavana, retro68special.
♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (other than the above internet links):
Arthur Brown - Windsor 1967 Interview, 7 and a half minute BBC report of the festival (mostly about Arthur Brown)
Palacios, Julian: Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, Plexus, London, 2010, p. 30. The original transcript of the Radio Bogotá interview can be found at A Fleeting Glimpse.
Rose, Iggy: chat with Felix Atagong, 16 October 2011.
7th National Jazz & Blues Festival @ The Marquee Club
The Seventh National Jazz and Blues Festival @ UK Rock Festivals
The Lovely Ones picture (text on back), courtesy of Carl Guderian

Visit the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Facebook page for discussions, comments and other pictures.

The Holy Church's secret service, also know as the Igquisition, has sent over its latest trimester report about all things Iggy. Underneath the smooth surface of our blog and Facebook page a maelstrom of facts and rumours are reinforcing and contradicting each other, making the Church's hidden agenda to inundate the Barrett world with false and gratuitous information so much harder to achieve. So let us immediately open this can of worms and have a meditative look at what the (2013) future may bring (or not).

1. Photo shoot

Recently Iggy was the subject of a photo shoot by a Canadian journalist / photographer and we are pretty sure these pictures will eventually find their way into a magazine or to the different Iggy Rose pages on the web.

Update December 2016: nothing has ever been heard of this photo project.

2. Rolling Stones

Iggy was also contacted by a renowned journalist and biographer who wanted to know if she would be willing to share some memories about her days with the Rolling Stones, to appear in a new biographical article or even a book about the band. Iggy Rose has told the Church and Mojo a few anecdotes about her different encounters with the Stones before, but it would be nice to see these all bundled into one publication.

Iggy met Syd Barrett in the spring of 1969 but before she had been spotted in Rolling Stones circles, as has already been revealed in the Mark Blake's Mojo article from 2011.

In February '67, [Iggy] narrowly avoided the police raid at Richards' country pile, in West Wittering: "The night before, I decided not to go, thank God." A year later, still in the Stones' orbit, she found herself watching the recording sessions for what became Sympathy For The Devil. where she was present at several studio sessions.

Iggy 'rolled' into the Stones through Stash (Prince Klossowski de Rola) who presented her to Brian Jones. There is a picture of Iggy, taken by Bruce Fleming, standing close to John Lennon, at the party of Georgie Fame's girlfriend Carmen Jimenez at the Crom (January 1967) and Iggy still remembers eating Carmen's delicious paella at Brian's apartment just around the corner.

After some time she befriended Keith Richards although one thing she says she will ever regret is turning down 'Hot Rod' Stewart in favour of Keith. Photos of her with the Stones should exist, but those in her property have all been stolen, lost or destroyed (see also: Iggy - a new look in festivals).

Having met Keith Richards she also befriended Anita Pallenberg and went with her to the set of Performance where most of the action did not take place in front of the camera. Iggy told the Church:

They used real magic mushrooms... I was at the house [Powis Square, Notting Hill, FA] when they where getting ready to shoot the bedroom scene, the lady in charge was getting shrooms for the cast and offered me some as well.

At the set she met Donald Cammell, the co-director of the movie and his 'beautiful dusky' girlfriend (probably Myriam Gibril). Unfortunately this is not the time nor place to start writing about Iggy's adventures in movie land but we certainly hope someone will some day.

Donald Cammell would only make half a dozen of movies in 30 years, being burned after the Performance débâcle (the movie only gained notoriety decades later), and one of these, White Of The Eye (1987), is known by Pink Floyd fans for its soundtrack by Nick Mason & Rick Fenn.

More about the movie at the excellent Another Nickle In the Machine blog: Donald Cammell’s Performance at Powis Square.

3. Cambridge Summer Meeting 2013

On the 15th of June 2013 the first annual Birdie Hop meeting will take place in Cambridge. It will be a small, exclusive and informal encounter between about 20 fans from all over the world and those that still carry Syd Barrett deep in their heart. Although an agenda has not been set yet there will probably be a guided Cambridge Pink Floyd Walking Tour and some drinks in The Anchor (or another relevant pub) afterwards. The only official demand to make this fan meeting possible was that the Church would not be present and in his infinite goodness the Reverend has agreed.

4. The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit next Big Thing

The weirdest rumour, with echoes arriving only this week, is that the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is preparing a Big Thing for 2013. Unfortunately nobody seems to know what this big thing is going to be and when asked, the Reverend didn't have a clue what it was all about, so you might as well just forget about that. On the other hand, this blog publishes nothing but big things, so keep on checking once in a while.

Many thanks to: Alexander P. HB.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Somewhere mid December we were informed by Iggy that she had been asked some questions by the British Jimi Hendrix magazine: Jimpress.

Jimpress started in July 1991 and is currently at its 100th issue and obviously no other issue than this centenary one was suited to welcome Iggy Rose. Pages 9 to 17 have the article Mr Love, where author Tim Greenhall examines several events from Brook Street 23 in London.

Mr Love, The Jimi Hendrix London Experience, Tim Greenhall examines events in Brook Street

The article starts with the memories of Doug Kaye, who used to work in his brother's restaurant in Brook Street. Above the Mr Love restaurant was a flat where a certain Jimi Hendrix and Kathy Etchingham set up residence. Doug first met Jimi at the cigarettes machine and they started talking about blues music. Doug lend Jimi two blues albums that he never saw back but that are now part of the Jimi Hendrix exposition at the EMP museum in Seattle.

Doug Kaye started the secret Mr Love Facebook group (later renamed to Echoes) that unfortunately has been declared terra incognita for the Reverend but that accommodates quite a few Sixties celebrities among its members (and many of those are friends of Iggy Rose as well).

One of them, mentioned in the article, is Robert Orbach who owned I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet and who sold Jimi Hendrix his trademark cavalry jacket. The Hussars tunic dated from 1850 and was the personal property of Robert who wore it in his shop. Jimi Hendrix first proposed to buy it for 20£ but Orbach told the item was not for sale. Over the next few days Hendrix and his manager would drop by with higher bids and at the end the uniform changed owner for the tenfold of the originally proposed price. To modern 2013 standards Hendrix must have paid the equivalent of about 2000£ (or 2320€ or 3100$), but as it became one of the most renown jackets in the world of rock that price was probably a fair one.

Jeff Dexter probably doesn't need to be introduced to Iggy Rose fans, he tried to make a record with her but this miserably failed when he found out at the studio that non of the girls he had chosen for his Motown-like act actually could sing. Dexter met Hendrix on different occasions.

Introducing John Altman would take us at least three Church blog posts, so we will just say he is a (film & ad) composer, music arranger, orchestrator, conductor, an occasional contributor to Monty Python and that he has more anecdotes up his sleeve than the Reverend has ever got hangovers in his entire life. John Altham talked most about jazz with Jimi and Hendrix confided him he wanted to take some guitar lessons from John McLaughlin.

Iggy Rose @ Jimpress

And then it is finally time to attribute some lines to our goddess:

One of the group's most colourful ladies is the lovely “Iggy Rose”. Iggy was Syd Barrett's girlfriend and met Jimi on a few occasions. She is probably best known for being the model on the cover of Barrett's album The Madcap Laughs, however she has been seen in many a sixties nostalgia film, most notably Granny Takes A Trip which you can find on YouTube no doubt. Iggy also worked in the store of the same name.

Note: as far as we know Iggy did not work at Granny's. The article from Tim Greenhall continues:

I asked Iggy what she remembered about Jimi in that time ?

I never really spent much time chatting but was in his presence. I met Kathy Etchingham on a couple of occasions. I knew Noel Redding quite well. I remember seeing him at The Bag o'Nails where he blew everyone away. I just feel very fortunate to have met him and will always be grateful for that.

...the article ends with a thank you note to Iggy:

I would particularly like to thank Iggy for putting me in contact with Jeff Dexter, Robert Orbach and John Altman.

Hendrix at the Church

The Church has destined a few articles to the Iggy Rose - Jimi Hendrix connection before.

Anthony Stern, who immortalised her in his movies and pictures, first met Iggy at a Hendrix concert at the Speakeasy, this was told in the different press articles Kirsty Whalley wrote about Iggy Rose: Where did she go? and Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea.

In 2010 the Church interviewed Rod Harris, who has been described as the man who launched Jimi Hendrix in the UK: Rod Harrod remembers The Crom. Co-owner from The Cromwellian club Bob Archer told the Church he was the first to book Jimi Hendrix:

True fact is the first place Jimi [Hendrix] played in London was The Crom. He sat in with Brian Auger. Chas [Chandler] brought him in the first night he arrived. Kathy [Etchingham] worked a bit for me. Taken from: The Wrestling Beatle.

And in his 2011 Mojo article Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake revealed that Iggy saw Hendrix make his UK debut at the Bag O' Nails in November '66: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo.

A few years ago the Church asked Iggy what she did remember of that Hendrix gig and here is what she confided to the Church (unpublished before):

I think the first mind-blowing experience I had of watching Jimi Hendrix's explosive performance was at the Bag 'O Nails on November the 25th, 1966.

I actually sat on the edge of its tiny stage waiting for the gig to start.

The so-called super cool blasé London in-crowd didn't realise what hit them. From the very first stupendous chord this felt like a typhoon blasting away all sense and reason, reducing everyone in the public into a quivering state of amazement. This phenomenally unique sound provoked a spontaneous eruption in the crowd. Suddenly everyone leapt to their feet with a roar, clamouring to get near the stage to absorb the extraordinary.

And as if that wasn't enough, as soon as Jimi dropped to his knees and started to play the electric guitar with his tongue the roomful of trendy clubbers went ballistic and then he hadn't set his guitar on fire yet. For me it looked like he continued through the night producing spectacular feats of unparalleled works of genius.

Then of course his electrifying voice that touched and melted the most vital. This was oozing raw scalding sex, a river of molten lava erupting from a volcano. Hendrix created an uncontrollable sensation of having multiple orgasms.

Unfortunately the pictures that were in her possession from Jimi Hendrix (with her?) have been lost through the years, as well as those with Eric Clapton, Roger Daltrey, George Harrison, Brian Jones, Anita Pallenberg, 'Keef' Richards and 'lovely' Keith Moon... (and then there is still a hidden, but rather naughty, but rather arty, Syd & Iggy Madcap Laughs photo session that is in ultra safe hands somewhere).

But not all is lost, the Church also heard that some people want to contact Iggy for a new Rolling Stones related project. The Reverend is pretty sure that somewhere there must be pictures, probably in private hands: Iggy & the Stones.

Many thanks to Tim Greenhall from Jimpress and to all contributors from previous articles mentioned here: Bob Archer, Mark Blake, Rod Harris, Kirsty Whalley...
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Jimpress can be contacted (and bought) at http://www.jimpress.co.uk/
Jimpress is on Facebook as well.

Sources:
Rose, Iggy: Jimi Hendrix at Bag 'O Nails, chat / phone conversation(s) with Felix Atagong somewhere in 2011.

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit lives by the grace of its visitors. Some of them have become friends for life, others see in the Church the coming of the anti-Syd and would like to see it and its Reverend destroyed. Such is life.

But it's always a joy when sudden, out of the blue, a message arrives from someone unknown, that contains a ray of hope, a glimpse of things to come...

From Kathmandu to London

So when the Church's Facebook page received a message from Christopher Farmer, near Kathmandu, Nepal, that there was a possibility that Iggy Rose could be seen on a picture taken in London in 1970 the Reverend's heart skipped a beat or two.

We immediately thought of a repetition of the 'Pocahontas' photo at the National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival in 1967 (see: Iggy - a new look in festivals). Iggy had asked us before if we had seen this picture but as long as nobody could tell us the issue, year or even name of the magazine it had been published in this was like looking for a needle in a large field of haystacks. But it was miraculously found by PhiPhi Chavana (aka Chang Yat Fei) in Hong Kong and that made the Church and Iggy Rose, who hadn't seen this picture in over 45 years, tremendously happy. We are pretty sure that there is a realistic chance to find at least one other Iggy picture if someone would have the courage to browse through all issues of Disc and Music Echo, Melody Maker, Music Maker and NME from the years 1965 to 1968. Still a couple of haystacks, but slightly smaller ones.

This new picture, so told us Christopher Farmer, was taken on King's Road in 1970 by John Hendy and depicts a barefoot Asian flower girl with an uncanny resemblance to the person we all know. Immediately the Reverend's mind went on overdrive as all the parts of the puzzle seemed to match.

Although several people claim that Iggy Rose had vanished in the middle of 1969, even going so far as saying she had returned to Asia or had married a rich banker, she was careening through life (to use a Barrett related idiom) less than 2 miles away. The rumour about the banker wasn't that far-fetched as a matter of fact, but due to the Reverend's seal of confession we have to keep this mystery intact.

In our article Syd meets... a lot of people we have compared the underground with the London rapid transit system that listens to the same name:

The counter culture wasn't really an organised movement, but constituted of many, independent stations with tubes going from one station to the other.

From London to Cadaqués

And like the commuter who takes the same station day after day and year after year, without realising that there could be something interesting going on in a station nearby Iggy disappeared from the Floydian underground ghetto and was not traced back for nearly 40 years. She was, however, spotted (or better said: not spotted until the Church poked with a few sticks) a bit later in the bohemian avant-garde art-house movie world, hanging out with people like John Myers who played one of the Von Meck twins in Ken Russell's controversial biopic The Music Lovers.

Some years later, John Myers, and his brother Dennis, were among the artists and the eccentrics who used to visit Salvador Dalí's villa in Cadaqués, Spain. When the twins arrived at Cadaqués, Dalí immediately adopted them and gave them a distinguished place in his group, baptising them as 'Castor and Pollux'. Since then, for over 35 years, they live in the same village in Spain where they have an olive tree farm.

From King's Road to Earl's Court Square and back

Iggy did attempt to visit Wetherby Mansions some months later. The door was opened by Duggie Fields who said that Syd had returned to Cambridge. In a few months time the Floydian free-for-all oasis had vaporised. Those who had their things together programmed their future by marrying, raising kids, finding regular jobs and living the once despised bourgeois square life. Those who didn't have their things together and were still squatting in Syd's room were ordered by Barrett, by phone from his Cambridge parental house, through Duggie Fields, to pack their bags and leave...

But, to finally get back to topic, it was clear that a picture of Iggy Rose walking on King's Road in the early Seventies was not something that would particularly shock the Reverend. When questioned about his father's photography Simon Hendy told the Church the following:

My dad (John Hendy) was just an amateur photographer. He lived in Northampton and simply visited Kings Road once or twice a year from 1967 to 1975 to take photos. Strangely, it's pretty much the only street photography he did. You may notice a certain emphasis on photos of young ladies, and I think this was the primary reason for the photos! (Mail from Simon Handy to the Reverend, 9 February 2013.)

The pictures of John Hendy can be found on several places, but they were originally published on a blog called My Dad's Photos – John Hendy photography. On the top bar there is a King's Road menu and the third picture of the 1970 's album is the one we are looking for.

At first sight we understood why several people think this is Iggy and for the very first moments we were fooled as well, but at second glance there was something that made us doubt. Obviously the best person to judge was Iggy Rose herself and she immediately denied that it was her. So the case is closed: this is NOT Iggy.

But this doesn't take away that the series of King's Road pictures, taken between 1967 to 1975, is a superb collection and that it shows us a pattern-card of the hip birds that roamed London in the Sixties, it is pretty fun to watch the distinct change in clothes and styles over this period.

Bentleys & Pontiacs

We know this sounds contradictory, but several (black & white) pictures of the 1968 series show a multicoloured 1958 Bentley S1 that belonged to Apple, the Beatles' company. There is an excellent website, dedicated to this car alone, and John Hendy's pictures are also featured there.

Speaking about cars, the John Hendy collection has also been spotted by the Proud Gallery in Chelsea who used some of the pictures in their March 2013 exhibition “Ossie Clark: The King of the King’s Road Reigns Again”.

Visitors of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit may know Ossie Clark from the Pontiac Parisienne that can be seen on the famous Madcap pictures that were taken in April 1969 by Mick Rock (for the purists among us we repeat once again that the pictures on the actual The Madcap Laughs album have been taken or are at least licensed to Storm Thorgerson). The darkblue car that was parked in front of Syd's apartment was given away in a raffle on the 19th of December 1968 in the Royal Albert Hall, one day after the famous Alchemical Wedding from John & Yoko in the same venue.

Duggie Fields has named it the Ossie Clark's New Year's Eve party on his website but the actual show could have been announced with a different title. There is hardly any information about this event, apart from the fact that Yes played a gig and that Amanda Lear was present as well, but she was probably there as a fashion model and not as a singer / performer.

Breaking free of traditional fashion shows, with their calm, measured presentation, Ossie Clark turned his shows into theatrical events. They were held at venues like the Albert Hall and Dingwalls dance hall in Camden. In attendance were rock stars and artists, the rich and the fashionable. (Taken from: V&A.)

And of course everybody knows that Amanda Lear was a muse and protégé of Salvador Dali as well, that she knew the Myers twins in London and Spain and that, perhaps, she has met Iggy Rose as well.

But that is another story we need to be discrete about...

Many thanks to Euryale, Christopher Farmer, Simon Hendy.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Links & Things
Christopher Farmer, who lead us to the Iggy lookalike picture, has a website with photos, taken by his father in 1947 in Palestina: Palestine 1947
Simon Hendy, has different websites with his dad's pictures:
My Dad's Photos – John Hendy photography
John Hendy Photography
My Dad's Photos on Facebook

Further Reading
Pontiac Parisienne: When Syd met Iggy... (Pt. 2) 
Myers Twin Interview: Dalí sigue vivo en la memoria (thanks to Euryale for pointing this article out to the Church and translating it to English!)
Ossie Clark, the King Of The Kings Road in Holland Park

Be careful what you post on the Internet they say.
Everything you publish on the Internet will stay there forever, they say.
But when the Reverend, a couple of days ago, wanted to check the (excellent) Mark Blake article about Iggy Rose, that was published on the Mojo blog, way back in January 2011, he couldn't find it. Vanished.

Mojo's big spring cleaning

Apparently Mojo, that still is the world's best music magazine, no doubt about that, has refurbished its website and with refurbish we really mean that they threw a few year's worth of articles in the dustbin. These are the days when publishers are more interested in selling printed paper than in maintaining their archives. So be it. It's a stupid joke, we know it, but apparently the magazine seems to have lost its mojo.

Luckily the Holy Igquisition still had a copy somewhere and Mark Blake was so cool to allow us to stick it on our memo board in our cyberkitchen where it will stay until eternity or until we are too old to renew our domain. So if you can all step a little closer you can, from now on, read it here:

1. EXCLUSIVE: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo (hosted at the Church)
2. The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2 (hosted at the Church)
3. The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo (hosted, since January 2016, at Mark Blake's blog)

Stella by Artois

Similar thoughts came over the Reverend a couple of weeks ago when he remarked that the Louvain Stella Artois brewery, whose history goes back to 1366, keeps on weeding in its beers now that it has become the biggest concern in the world. In its social responsibility program that has been called Better World there is no place for local tradition. Gone are the 56 Louvain brewers, each with their own brands, tastes and flavours. Peeterman from brewery De Eendracht, in the 18th century the most popular beer in Louvain and surroundings, disappeared after Stella Artois bought its competitor.

Tumblr & Twitter

But this is called progress, we guess, so The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit gladly joins internationalisation. To conquer the world we have now, next to a Facebook and a Twitter division, a Tumblr blog as well. We are not really sure what the point is of having a Tumblr blog other than having it, but surely something will come out of it some day. Or not. The future will bring what the future will bring.

Keep on visiting the Church, sistren and brethren, and certainly don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do.

Many thanks to Mark Blake.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit can also be found on:
Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr

Notes:
O tempora o mores! (Oh the times! Oh the customs!) is an exclamation from a speech by Marcus Tullius Cicero in 63 BC.
Peeterman (from brewery De Eendracht) may not be confused with Peeterman Artois that was put on the English market a couple of years ago (and that also has disappeared). Brewery De Eendracht started in 1901 but Peeterman beer was already mentioned in a dictionary from 1773.

One

There is a story how Iggy the Eskimo, Syd Barrett and a bunch of other musicians gatecrashed a Speakeasy gig from a band that would become rather famous in prog, rock, jazz and even techno circles. It is a hilarious anecdote, with rumours of mandrax-champagne cocktails and a lot of twist and shouts. We can imagine how Iggy's roaring laugh echoed through the club, once you have heard that laugh, it is imprinted in your memory forever.

The Church is still trying to get some information, tie some loose ends, interview some people, especially as this happened in the mid-summer of 1969, when everyone thought Iggy had disappeared from Syd's life. Perhaps she did, perhaps they just met by accident that day. But that is for later.

Little things that matter.

Two

Birdie Hopper Manzano Meza Cota posted a Mick Rock picture a couple of days ago, it is a new one of Syd and Iggy, which makes us think that this old geezer still has got some hidden gems in his archive.

Three

In a couple of hours it will be Iggy's birthday. As usual we were too late posting our card as we only did it this afternoon...

Should you not know it by now, it is Iggy's birthday! So this is the time and place to shout:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

Four

LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of visual extravaganza that comes straight out of the hidden vaults of the Church. Swedish band Men On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from their latest album Jumpstart. Thanks guys, you rock!

Men On The Border
Let's Party (yeah yeah)
Jumpstart © 2013

Five

And now for the classics:

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card (2011) contains a few seconds from a super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy Birthday Iggy Rose! or YouTube:

Crystal Blue Postcards

An electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, by Denis Combet, with a little help from his friends Constance Cartmill and Allison Star. Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon and some tinkering from Felix Atagong (more about Denis Combet and his Iggy poem(s): Catwoman).

Crystal Blue Postcards (Flash pageFlip presentation, 2011).

Guitars and Dust Dancing by Rescue Rangers

Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers donated the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars and Dust Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at iTunes: Guitars and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the smashing artwork from Jean Vouillon.

WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's personal page as well.

Let's make this a birthday to remember, brethren and sistren and don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't do!

The Church wishes to thank Men On The Border (Phil Etheridge & Goeran Nystroem), Bruce Fleming, Mick Rock, Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson, Iggy Rose, unknown & anonymous..., Denis Combet, Pascal Mascheroni (Rescue Rangers), Manzano Meza Cota, Christopher Farmer & the nice people at Birdie Hop, Late Night and all the others that we seem to have forgotten...

Men On The Border
http://menontheborder.com/
http://www.facebook.com/MenOnTheBorder

Birdie Hop
http://www.facebook.com/groups/birdiehop

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

You might or might not know that Iggy Rose was once Anthony Stern's muse, she posed before his camera and featured in one of his avant-garde movies, that – unforgivably – has only been shown about a dozen of times for the past 47 years. The situation didn't really sky-rocket when Chimera Arts took over the publishing rights, they were sitting harder on it than the CIA does on a torture report. Nothing new, as a matter of fact, as we already wrote this a couple of years ago (2009) in one of our magnificent articles. It is rumoured that the last festival Eskimo Girl was billed on was held in a staircase closet somewhere in the Philippines, but we might be slightly exaggerating.

But all this is soon to change. Anthony Stern started a brand new blog Anthony Stern Films that is promising us a book and a DVD.

Update 2016: in October 2016 the movie was premiered during the Cambridge Syd Barrett movie festival. A couple of weeks earlier a shortened version was shown at the BBC. No news from a book or DVD though. More information:
Lost Weekends 
Memory Marbles (2016): new Iggy pictures found! 

Update 13 February 2022: RIP Ant, 1944-2022.

Auntie Stern

Get all from that ant? (as the movie will be named, it appears) will be an 80 minutes portrait of London 1963-1970, in still pictures, film and video, by Anthony Stern who lived, loved and worked at the core of the pop culture genesis. Countless reels of 16mm film and thousands of photographic negatives from his archives have been viewed and digitalised. Sophia Satchell-Baeza had a look at an early cut:

Although at the moment unfinished, it’s an incredible, semi-autobiographical portrait of Cambridge / London / San Francisco in the 1960s, shot by the artist and film-maker who was there to see it all unfold. Some major highlights include lost (and recently found) archive footage of Syd Barrett performing with Pink Floyd, and unseen footage of Eric Clapton, but the film is full of beautiful moments. (Taken from: A subterranean afterworld of future dreams.)

There will be footage from Syd Barrett with Pink Floyd, the UFO club and their liquid light projections, footage of The Rolling Stones, the voice of John Lennon. But something that makes the Reverend infinitely happy is that the picture highlighting this release depicts none other than Iggy, dancing in a park. So there might be a pretty cool chance that her movie, or at least a part of it, will be on the DVD as well.

Magnetism

The project consists of a DVD and a book that will not only show the past. Anthony Stern had the idea to 'unite all Barrett heads'. He took a movie still of Syd playing at UFO and turned it into a magnet, the Sydge. You can get one or free, as long as there are copies left and provided you sent him back a picture of your fridge door (or wherever you have stuck the magnet):

The fridge door can be a platform and a message board for images of yourself, family, your favourite icons, pin-ups, newspaper cuttings, poems, memoranda, shopping lists, favourite witticisms, jokes, puns, tickets and the detritus of day-to-day life, and of course any form of homage to Syd Barrett. (Taken from: The Sydge magnet, well he was a very magnetic chap.)

Some of the results that have been sent in can already be seen here and here. One Birdie Hop member made it her vocation to distribute several of these magnets over the States, turning the Sydge into a symbol that will unite fans all over the globe.

And who knows, if enough people put some imagination and madcappery into the photos it may grow into a completely different project than it was intended for, so someone has whispered in our ears. Of course the Church has already send in its pictures and you can watch these at the Church's presence on Facebook.

Anthony's book will also have a chapter called: Syd & Iggy: A Psychedelic Love Story, yes there is our girl again!, and for this purpose he is looking for Syd and Iggy lookalikes who can send in their pictures... Those who want to face fame and glory can have a look at Audition.

To immortalise this demand the blog adds something that can be considered as being the purest, clearest and biggest movie still we have seen from the Iggy, the Eskimo Girl movie ever. Here she is, holding that weird device that inconspicuously looks like a smartphone, but only... the picture dates from 1968. Was Iggy really a time traveller? Click to see the picture in full resolution: Iggy.

Anthony Qui?

In June 2008 Anthony Stern gave an introduction to several of his movies at the Cinemathèque Française in Paris. A video was shot of the event by Lionel Soukaz. We took the liberty of removing the French translations and to upload it again. Antony does mention Syd Barrett and Iggy Rose, but not to spoil the fun we don't tell you where exactly.

And for those who don't know what Iggy, the Eskimo Girl is all about. Here is the only known 'free-floating' version on the web, an audience recording taken from that same lecture in Paris.

We just can't wait for that DVD to appear, but for the moment we (and you) have to be content with our image gallery that has some (old) stills of the movie. It will be (silently) updated when new pictures will appear on the Anthony Stern Film blog, so be sure to check it out once and a while.

For our other articles about Stern's magic, please check: Anthony Stern. Now if only that Storm Thorgerson movie would see the light of day.

Many thanks to: Lisa Newman, Anthony Stern.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥ Birdie Hop ♥

A 'family album' has been added to our Holy Church Facebook page, check it here.

Birdie Hop is not the biggest Syd Barrett (Facebook) group around, it isn't the oldest Syd Barrett (Facebook) group around, but it surely is the friendliest Syd Barrett group around. Don't take my word for it, visit it for yourself one day.

It is a place were you can meet and greet with at least two dozen people who have met the man in person, as a (hometown) friend, fellow student, colleague, musician or even lover (but just like in the Cromwellian heydays it isn't considered cool to bother these people too much). It is a place were you don't need to expose your poster collection or your latest Spotify playlist to attract some attention. With the exception of one particular Reverend, all the administrators are friendly and don't switch into screaming Roger Waters mode whenever they have something to say.

The group is lead by Alex, who we call Papa Smurf but only when he is not there, and who has a myriad of psychedelic stories to tell if only he wouldn't be so bashful. About a year ago, Alex invited some international Hoppers for a trip in and around Cambridge and it still is a meeting people talk about. You can read more about it here: Wasn't it the most amazing meeting? 

Two weeks ago his busy agenda lead him again into the UK where he visited Libby Gausden at the south-west coast and headed for Cambridge where the usual bunch of shady characters were expecting him. But in between he took a slight detour to a small village in Sussex to have a drink. And guess who was accidentally having a drink at the same place?

So for all people doubting about Iggy's existence, she's alive and kicking all-right.

This is part one of Alexander's adventures in the UK, for part two, go here: Boogie Wonderland 

Many thanks to: Alexander P. HB.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

In April the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit reported about the Sydge that was part of Anthony Stern's new project that can more or less be followed on his Anthony Stern Films blog. Something will, hopefully sooner than later, be compiled on a DVD that will contain an overview of Stern's career. In September there was a screening of his movies at BFI that was immediately sold out and was described it as follows:

In the most swinging of decades Anthony Stern was friends with ‘Pink Floyd,’ worked closely with cult director Peter Whitehead and also shot a series of his own vibrant, playful 16mm titles. Infused with the spirit of the psychedelic lightshow and the French New Wave, they paint a joyous, celebratory picture of the 1960s counter culture as it came into full dizzy bloom. In Iggy the Eskimo Girl (1966. 4min), red double-deckers whizz by while Syd Barrett’s then-girlfriend cavorts joyously in the bright London sun; and in Nothing To Do With Me (1968. 35min) Stern’s mentor Peter Whitehead – arguably at the peak of his own creative powers – opens his mind and riffs on the themes of alienation and his relationship with the camera. Also included in the programme is the mind-bending, truly psychedelic San Francisco (1968. 15min), which features an unreleased version of the Floyd’s ‘Interstellar Overdrive,’ alongside never-before-seen footage of the USA in 1968.

The DVD is not out yet, but there is something else you can get from Ant. Those who didn't get a Sydge (Syd Barrett fridge magnet) in the past (see: Magnets & Miracles), can now buy a limited set from him, containing two magnets: one with Syd Barrett and the other one with Iggy, taken from one of the triptychs Ant made from her in 1967. We'll let Stern speak for himself:

The Sydge & The Iggnet have landed!
Get your Sydge Magnet and Iggy Iggnet here!
£15 for both (excl. postage)
Please email anthony@anthonysternglass.com

An early bird told us these limited collectibles will have a numbered card of authenticity, signed by Anthony Stern and perhaps... someone else. So get yours now, as your life will otherwise be empty! You can take it horse riding or swimming... You can give it to the ones you care for. Don't leave your house without a Sydge or Iggnet.

Many thanks to: Anthony Stern. (The Church is not affiliated with or endorsed by this company.)
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Could 2015 start any better, we ask you?

Friday evening, the second of January, the Reverend was happily chatting with Iggy Rose when John Cavanagh (musician and author of the 33 1/3 book The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, see also Antonio Jesús’ interview at: John Cavanagh, so much to do, so little time) send the following post to Facebook:

Dear Iggy, with happy new year wishes for 2015 comes a question. I've had this album since the early 2000s and I wonder, is you I see on the cover?

The picture in question was from a CD-compilation called Ripples Volume 4 - Uptown Girls And Big City Boys, issued by Sequel Records in 1999 (NEMCD 455) and since long out of print. The eight Ripples compilations on the Castle / Sequel label were all issued between 1999 and 2000 and contain mostly rare items of British ‘sunshine’ pop and mod. In 2007 the label dissolved when Sanctuary, who had bought them in 2000, became part of Universal Music Group.

While the Reverend was hesitant at first it was Iggy who confirmed it was indeed her.

Iggy Rose: Felix, I was always at that club... look at my dress... same as the black and white picture of me dancing.
The Reverend: I didn't recognise you.
Iggy Rose: It does look odd, LOL... but it’s my button nose, my eyes and baby face...

Iggy was of course referring at the black & white picture that we published on the very first day of the Church (see: Bend It!). There was no mistake possible, this was Iggy in the same silver dress.

The conversation at Facebook then turned to the time and place where this picture was taken. Not Tiles, like someone suggested, but The Cromwellian. The diagonal wooden ornaments on the wall, behind the crowd, are the same as on the pictures that can be found in NME 1037 (see triangle.jpg at our NME Cromwellian gallery). It also seems this picture was taken at the same November 1966 night of the postiche British Bend dance-craze competition. Iggy is posing next to Patrick Kerr, choreographer of the Ready Steady Go! show, who had been hired by the managers of Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich to devise a Bend It novelty dance to avoid an obscenity ban (see Bend It (2013)).

In the background, behind Iggy, is standing another celebrity, as was pointed out by Astro Mocker. It is none other than Chris Farlowe, whose Stones’ cover Out Of Time hit number one in July of that year. The single had been produced by Mick Jagger, who also can be heard on backing vocals (and on acoustic guitar was Jimmy Page, by the way). From the eleven singles Farlowe recorded as a solo artist for the Immediate label five contained Stones covers. Paint It Black and Out Of Time would also surface, next to a shortened version of Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive, on the 1968 soundtrack of Tonight Let’s All Make Love In London.

The NME pic-visit to The Cromwellian has a picture that was taken just before or after the one with Iggy. It shows Farlowe looking at the photographer (either Napier Russell or Barry Peake) with Patrick Kerr at the right side: Farlowe.jpg.

John Cavanagh found out that the copyrights of the picture belong to Pictorial Press Ltd (yeah, this one: Pictorial Press selling fake Pink Floyd pictures!) and a search on their public database finds some other pictures of the same night, all without Iggy though. The nice thing is that they are in colour, so we will contact them to ask what pictures they still have hidden in their closet as they logically must have all shots of that night. Fingers crossed.

But, do you know what this actually wants to say?
That Iggy can now be found on two record covers.
Or to quote her once again:

It is meeeeeeeee.
WHOOOOOOHOOOOOO.
WOWEEEEE.

We just couldn't say it better.

Many thanks to: John Cavanagh, Sean Cowell, Joe Foster, Lori Haines, Antonio Jesús, Astro Mocker, Iggy Rose.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

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.

Update 2023: There is the possibility this picture was taken by Feri Lukas. See: Feri Lukas, photographer.

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).

June had the second (and if rumours are correct: last) Birdie Hop meeting in Cambridge with Syd Barrett fans having an informal drink with some of the early-sixties Cambridge beatniks we know and love so dearly: Jenny Spires, Libby Gausden, Mick Brown, Peter Gilmour, Sandra Blickem, Vic Singh, Warren Dosanjh and others...

Special guest star was none other than Iggy Rose who left, if we may believe the natives, an everlasting impression. You can read all about it at: Iggy Rose in Cambridge.

Men On The Border came especially over from the northern parts of Europe, leaving their igloo, so to speak, to gig at the Rathmore Club where they not only jammed with other Syd-aficionados, but also with Redcaps frontman Dave Parker. (For the history of those sixties Cambridge bands check the excellent: The Music Scene of 1960s Cambridge.)

The night before however, on Friday June 12th, Men On The Border played the legendary Prince Albert (that name always make us chuckle) music pub in Brighton. This gig was recorded and is now the third album of Men On The Border, after ShinE! (2012) that consisted of Barrett covers and Jumpstart (2013) that mainly had original songs but with a slightly concealed madcap theme.

This live release shows that Men On The Border is a tight band and that they can play their material without having to revert to digitally wizardry. In a previous review we already remarked that:

...some of the influences of MOTB lay in the pub-rock from Graham Parker & The Rumour, Rockpile (with Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds) and the cruelly under-appreciated The Motors...

This live album certainly proves that. The versions are pretty close to the recorded versions and singer Göran Nystrom manages once again to give us goosebumps on Late Night and their own Warm From You that is a pretty ingenious song if you ask us (with a sly nod to Jimi Hendrix)...

So give them a warm hand of applause and make them feel welcome in this mad cat world of random precision.
 

Tracklist:

01 Terrapin (Jumpstart)
02 No Good Trying (ShinE!)

03 Scream Thy Last Scream (2015 single)
04 Long Gone (ShinE!)

05 Gigolo Aunt (ShinE!)
06 Late Night (ShinE!)

07 Octopus (ShinE!)

08 Warm From You (Jumpstart)
09 Baby Lemonade (ShinE!)

Digital release only, people don't buy plastic any more, unfortunately.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017WFLEH8/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/6MStF6YtxCYNY7FTIoeNzq

Many thanks: Göran Nystrom, Vic Singh.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Lost for words. That is what we are this year, with only a few hours left to celebrate Iggy’s birthday, on the fourteenth of December. Next to a legend, she is also a good personal friend and an incorrigible prankster. Today as well she managed to confuse us with one of her practical jokes that made us shake our head in disbelief. She’s a real sweetie, our Ig.

So, dear sistren and brethren, followers of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, let us raise our glasses high to the Eskimo, because without her this earth would be quite a dreary place.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

And because traditions are traditions, and meant to be kept alive, we will continue with our annual sing-along and poetry reading that turn this birthday into a real birthday bash.

Partytime Iggy

LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of tracks that have been made the past few years to celebrate our goddess. Swedish band Men On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from their latest (studio) album Jumpstart. Thanks guys, you rock!

Men On The Border
Let's Party (yeah yeah)
Jumpstart © 2013

Reverends & Eskimos

In 2013 Rich hall made a concept album that has this fine pearl... (click on the image below for the hi-res Flash version)

For those who haven't got a Flash-enabled webbrowser, let's try it another way. Here is a, somewhat downgraded, version on Youtube, but don't let that spoil the fun.

Rich Hall
The Reverend
Birdie Hop © 2013.

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card (2011) contains a few seconds from a super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy Birthday Iggy Rose! or YouTube:

Crystal Blue Postcards

An electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, by Denis Combet, with a little help from his friends Constance Cartmill and Allison Star. Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon and some tinkering from Felix Atagong (more about Denis Combet and his Iggy poem(s): Catwoman).

Link: Crystal Blue Postcards (Flash pageFlip presentation, 2011).

Guitars and Dust Dancing by Rescue Rangers

In 2011, Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers donated the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars and Dust Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at iTunes: Guitars and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the smashing artwork from Jean Vouillon.

WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's personal page as well.

The Church wishes to thank Constance Cartmill, Denis Combet, Phil Etheridge, Amy Funstar, Rich Hall, Pascal Mascheroni, MAY, Goeran Nystroem, Allison Star, Anthony Stern, Jean Vouillon, Brett Wilson and all the others that we seem to have forgotten...
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

When, a couple of years ago, a Brian Jones Facebook group wanted to know if any members had ever met him, Iggy Rose chimed in, in her usual diplomatic style, stating that she still remembered some of the musician’s anatomical details. As Facebook groups tend to harbour the bottom layer of human intelligence she wasn’t believed. Perhaps for the better.

After six decades, Iggy still believes in the interconnected goodness of people and things, something that was already present in her as a toddler when she wanted to stroke the cat in the garden and her parents realised, just in time, that it actually was a tiger. Obviously that was before they relocated to the UK as there are not so many loose tigers running around in Brighton. Predators in good old England were mostly of the human kind and playing rock ’n' roll.

Lost weekends 1967 - 1968

How exactly Iggy met The Rolling Stones has been shrouded in a cloak of mystery. Probably she met them through psychedelic nobleman Stash (Stash Klossowski de Rola) who was in their inner circle. It suffices to say that one day she met them and that they and some of their girlfriends liked to have her around.

She was present, Zelig-like as Mark Blake later wrote in his Iggy article The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo, during the Sympathy For The Devil recording sessions, early June 1968, although there isn't a trace of her in the Jean-Luc Godard movie with the same name. Talking about a missed opportunity...

That Iggy had an eerie timing of turning completely invisible had already been proven a year and a half before when she was invited to Keith's 15th century country house, Redlands, in West Withering. In the early evening of 12 February 1967 police officers raided the place and arrested Keith, Mick and the mysterious Miss X, who was only wearing a fur rug, but she was not Iggy.

Other guests present in the house that day were:
Nicky Kramer, a dandy dope head, who was unfortunately repeatedly beaten up by some of Mick’s rougher associates because they suspected him to be the informant who gave the Stones away;
art dealer Robert ‘groovy Bob’ Fraser and his manservant Mohammed Jajaj;
Christopher Gibbs, a friend of Mick;
photographer Michael Cooper, and last but not least:
David Schneiderman, Sniderman aka David Jove, the ‘acid king’ whose portable drug cabinet with LSD and dope was never confiscated and who may have been the real snitch, working for British intelligence and/or The News Of The World newspaper.

Not present any more were George Harrison and Patti Boyd. They left the mansion before the bust. Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg had an argument in London so they never arrived, much to the disappointment of the police who raided Jones' house later.

And Iggy the Eskimo was nowhere to be seen because… she got lost on her way to the doomed place.

I had a lucky escape cause I lost my way after all the directions Keef gave me.
(Birdie Hop, 02 June 2015.)

Photographic Evidence

Michael Cooper has made some 70000 pictures of the Rolling Stones, yet, the first one with Iggy still has to surface. We know they are there, somewhere…

Literary hundreds of pictures have been lost. Me and Eric Clapton, Roger Daltrey, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon… I had quite a few snapshots with Keef, Brian and Anita…

A great loss happened when Iggy’s suitcase, that contained all her possessions, was tossed overboard, in the North Sea, after a row with an abusive friend musician. One picture that has survived however shows her, Zelig-like indeed, standing next to John Lennon on Carmen Jiménez’s birthday party, January 1967 at The Cromwellian.

Georgie Fame had a gorgeous girlfriend, Carmen, and she took me under her wings when he was touring. Just around the corner of The Cromwellian Brian Jones has an incredible pad and we all had a scrumptious paella there, cooked by her. After Brian I rolled into Keef who had a palatial place at the Chelsea embankment.

Performance

In July 1968 Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg and their entourage could be found in a London house that was easier to find for Iggy. It was the set for a Donald Cammell movie that would get cult status: Performance. This film was one of the rare occasions where there was no real difference between what happened before and behind the camera, between fiction and reality... Iggy told us:

They used real magic mushrooms... I was at the house [Powis Square, Notting Hill, FA] when they where getting ready to shoot the bedroom scene, the lady in charge was getting shrooms for the cast and offered me some as well.

Iggy was also proposed a part in the movie for a bedroom scene, but she politely declined. It didn't stop her though to be friendly with Anita Pallenberg and with Donald Cammell's 'beautiful dusky' lady, Myriam Gibril...

(A great article on the movie can be found at: Donald Cammell’s Performance at Powis Square.)

Lost Weekend 2016

On the weekend from the 23rd to the 25th September 2016 BBC4 handed over its schedule to Keith Richards (and Julien Temple) in what was called Keith Richards' Lost Weekend. Apparently all programs were hand-picked by Keith, ranging from a Hitchcock movie, cartoons and comedy, documentaries, interviews and obviously some music.

On Sunday morning, starting at 1:25 AM, some Syd Barrett fans did not only see the object of their adoration on the screen, but Iggy the Eskimo as well, dancing in a park.

The 45 minutes documentary was called Lost and Found: The Memory Marbles of Anthony Stern and is unfortunately the only piece of the Richards weekend that can't be found on the BBC4's iPlayer. We have already established before that Anthony Stern has seriously lost his marbles when it comes to copyrights: Iggy The Eskimo Girl (full movie).

Probably the documentary was a condensed version of Stern's autobiographical movie Get All That, Ant that will be premiered at the Cambridge Syd Barrett movie festival on October the 21st 2016, and that has The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and, of course, Iggy Rose amongst its contributors.

You can read a tad more about the movie, that will hopefully be released on DVD, on Stern's new website that looks remarkably like a vintage eighties web-creation: Anthony Stern Film Archive.

Miss Rose

Obviously we had Iggy on the phone about this documentary that she saw through half-open eyes as she was falling asleep by then. But she did catch herself in the white dress though...

The fact that Keith Richards, Keith Richards!, hand-picked Anthony Stern's movie about me is thrilling after all these years.

Must be that he still remembers you, Iggy. Those 'not fit for publication' scenes happening on the backseat of his Rolls Royce must have left an unforgettable impression on his scruffy brain, even after 48 years...

This article is an updated version of Iggy & the Stones (October 2012). Many thanks to: Lisa Newman, Anthony Stern, Yeeshkul.
♥ 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 ♥

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

And because traditions are traditions, and meant to be kept alive, we will continue with our annual sing-along and poetry reading that turn this birthday into a real birthday bash.

Partytime Iggy

LET'S PARTY!!! Please enjoy this mix of tracks that have been made the past few years to celebrate our goddess. Swedish band Men On The Border were so kind to let us use one of their songs from their latest (studio) album Jumpstart. Thanks guys, you rock!

Men On The Border
Let's Party (yeah yeah)
Jumpstart © 2013

Reverends & Eskimos

In 2013 Rich hall made a concept album that has this fine pearl... (click on the image below for the hi-res Flash version)

For those who haven't got a Flash-enabled webbrowser, let's try it another way. Here is a, somewhat downgraded, version on Youtube, but don't let that spoil the fun.

Rich Hall
The Reverend
Birdie Hop © 2013.

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card (2011) contains a few seconds from a super-secret mid-Seventies home movie (and we added a nice tune as well). Flash link (warning: 5 MB!): Happy Birthday Iggy Rose! or YouTube:

Crystal Blue Postcards

An electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, by Denis Combet, with a little help from his friends Constance Cartmill and Allison Star. Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon and some tinkering from Felix Atagong (more about Denis Combet and his Iggy poem(s): Catwoman).

Crystal Blue Postcards (Flash pageFlip presentation, 2011).

Guitars and Dust Dancing by Rescue Rangers

In 2011, Pascal Mascheroni, from the stoner power trio Rescue Rangers donated the haunting (& slightly psychedelic) power ballad Guitars and Dust Dancing from the album with the same name (buy your copy at iTunes: Guitars and Dust Dancing). In the meanwhile enjoy this Youtube clip with the smashing artwork from Jean Vouillon.

WHY DON'T YOU WISH IGGY A HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

Instead of reading and watching all this you should be heading at Facebook where you can leave your messages, poems, songs and images at: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and of course on Iggy's personal page as well.

The Church wishes to thank Constance Cartmill, Denis Combet, Phil Etheridge, Amy Funstar, Rich Hall, Pascal Mascheroni, MAY, Goeran Nystroem, Allison Star, Anthony Stern, Jean Vouillon, Brett Wilson and all the others that we seem to have forgotten...
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

We wish you a very happy 2017, sistren and brethren of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Last year was a pretty active one, on the Iggy, Syd and Pink Floyd front, although that didn't always show on the site you are currently reading.

Luckily there is a Tumblr micro-blog that we daily update, with coloured photographs!, a Facebook timeline and a Twitter account.

A short and sweet 2016 Tumblr overview

The Church wishes to thank: Mick Brown, Mary Cosco, Rich Hall, Lisa Newman, Göran Nyström, Anthony Stern, Perse pigs, County cunts and Cambridge spies.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

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, Laldawngliani, 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.

A tale of two Henrietta's

A follow-up article has been published in 2020 with additional information: A Tale of Two Henriettas 

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, Sophie Partridge, Antonio Jesús Reyes, The Iggy Rose Archives, Mim Scala, Greg Selby, 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.

Then

In September 2017 the Church was contacted by Robert Treadway who informed us that he was involved in a movie project for which Paula Christy and Marsha Allen had written a script.

That last name was the only one that rang a bell, Marsha Allen is a long time member of the Birdie Hop group and we may (or may not) have virtually encountered before on other Barrett meeting places, like the now pretty comatose Late Night. She also happens to be one of Iggy’s (many) followers.

By then Iggy had disappeared from the net for reasons we couldn’t divulge, but we passed her a message from the movie makers. We know for certain she was aware of it, that she was thrilled about the project and that she was even willing to advise them.

Unfortunately, time ran short and communication between Iggy and the movie team was lost forever on that dreary December day.

Now

Robert Treadway, after hearing the sad news of Iggy's passing, confirmed us that they would move forward with the project and now, nearly a year later, a teaser has been released for Pinked – a Syd Barrett Film, on YouTube.

The movie makers enlisted the help of Jim Prues, of Panoptic Media, who directed a number of campaign videos for Bernie Sanders and others. The initial plan was to make a short promo movie to generate financial backing and that is the version that was released now.

The actors were, according to our inside source, incredible, rising above the material. Anthony Dain and Samantha Roman studied Syd and Iggy in depth before starting their scenes. The lighting director tried to get the feel and colour of The Madcap Laughs cover shoot.

And, obviously, the floorboards had to be recreated as well.

Filmed in July 2018 it seems that an ‘angel investor’ hasn’t showed up yet. The plan to turn the 8 minutes trailer into a twenty to thirty minutes short has, we fear, been postponed although there are rumours that they would like to start a crowdfunding campaign.

Pinked

Pinked - A Syd Barrett Film, Panoptic Media, 2018. Directed by Jim Prues.

Anthony Dain: Syd Barrett
Samantha Roman: Iggy the Eskimo

Paula Christy: screenplay, executive producer
Marsha Allen : screenplay, executive producer

Length: 8 minutes 33 seconds.

Hear it and see it first and we'll talk about it afterwards...

Update:2018 12 08: the movie has been removed from YouTube to correct the 'David Gilmore' error in the introduction, so we were informed.

Introduction

An off-screen voice telling us that Syd Barrett, co-founder of Pink Floyd, has left the band and is planning to make a solo album. A fake newspaper article shows us how a certain David Gilmore (sic) has replaced Syd. We’re not certain if this error has been put in deliberately or not, although newspapers (and record sleeves) have misspelled his name before.

Scene 1a

A jealous Iggy complains that she saw Syd over at Gilmour’s den. Syd explains that he was there because David (and Roger Waters) will produce his first solo album. This scene is based upon Iggy’s story that she once had a row with Syd at Gilmour’s flat, ruining the new Pink Floyd album that was playing on a turntable. Notice the use of some of Barrett’s lyrics in the dialogue.

Scene 1b

Syd gets angry at the fact that his band doesn’t want him any more and that he has to go solo. Iggy seems to be unaware of the fact that Syd started The Pink Floyd.

Scene 2

Syd painting and explaining to Iggy he can see colour and sound.

Scene 3

Syd proposing to paint on Iggy and wishing to make a child with her (a true story, based upon the Mark Blake article about Iggy: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2).

Reception

Initial reactions from the fans are quite negative to say the least:

The bad script. The bad acting. The fact that Ig looks like a two-bit Bollywood starlet. A lot of bad can be packed into 8 minutes.

What bothers most Sydiots is that the actors don’t move, talk and act like their real-life counterparts.

Well, perhaps that is because it is a movie and a movie is the joined vision of the director, the authors and the actors. And in true Floydian tradition these visions may sometimes clash, compromises will have to be made, budget problems will arise, etcetera... etcetera...

The Reverend's Idea

Time for the Reverend to leave his pulpit and descend to the masses.

As one of those few privileged people who have spoken to Iggy (for dozens of hours) I immediately remarked that the girl who plays her doesn’t speak, doesn’t articulate, doesn’t react like the real Iggy does/did. But that is not the point, this is not a documentary.

The plan is to make a movie about a Syd and an Iggy and that is all that counts, even if it isn’t perfect and doesn’t fit with the image we have from them.

I can vividly imagine how an excited Iggy would have reacted, in that loud voice of her that could render any train horn useless.

“FELIX, THEY’RE MAKING A MOVIE ABOUT ME!”

And that’s all that matters.

Our Tumblr page has got some 30+ pictures, some slightly NSFW: Pinked.

Many thanks to: Marsha Allen, Pasquale Muzzupappa, Psych62, Antonio Jesús Reyes, Robert Treadway, The Iggy Rose Archives. All pictures: © Marsha Allen / Panoptic Media, 2018.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Last year we didn’t wish Iggy a happy birthday, for reasons that are well known, but why stop with a fine tradition that has been going on for many years?

We don’t mean to be disrespectful and obviously we think about the tragedy that happened just before midnight on the thirteenth of December 2017, but to us and to many others Iggy will always be the personification of life and joy and happiness. So here we go:

Iggy Rose’s Fantastic Birthday Bash

Iggy’s online birthday festivities started in 2011 as Iggy Rose's Fantastic Birthday Bash! Its instigator was not the Church, but – and we quote – "artist and general troublemaker Jenni Fiire who promised an online celebration to show Iggy Rose how much we love and appreciate her on her birthday. A groovy electronic party!"

The result was that literally hundreds of messages reached Iggy Rose that day. Whatever happened to Jenni Fiire, we sometimes wonder? She disappeared without a trace.

Something to watch: Iggy's Electronic Birthday Card

An electronic birthday card that we made in 2011 featured a home-movie of Iggy and the wishes at the end show the bumpy ride that history often makes. Does anyone remember the Facebook groups Clowns & Jugglers and No Man’s Land? Supposedly this was even before Birdie Hop was created and many of its members are still around.

Hi-res link (Flash enabled): Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!
YouTube link: Happy Birthday Iggy Rose!

Blah F. Blah. Anyone? All these memories coming back, by browsing old Church posts.

Crystal Blue Postcards

Also in 2011 an electronic book of poems and art, dedicated to Syd and his muses, was published at the Holy Church. These poems were written by Denis Combet (with some help from Constance Cartmill and Allison Star). Digital artwork by Jean Vouillon, image tinkering and book design: Felix Atagong.

Crystal Blue Postcards (Flash pageFlip presentation, 2011).
Crystal Blue Postcards (PDF flipbook presentation, 2018.)

This booklet includes From Quetesh To Bastet, dedicated to Iggy. For more information about this release (and the 'original' French version of the Iggy poem De Quétesh à Bastet), check: Catwoman.

In Iggy We Trust, Rich Hall & Porthos

Last year Rich Hall brought an acoustic rendition of his mulit-million dollars selling hit In Iggy We Trust (aka The Reverend), with some valuable assistance from his dog Porthos. It was meant to be included in our annual Iggy Birthday post, but it became a fitting eulogy instead.

YouTube link: In Iggy We Trust

Suddenly there’s a tear in my eyes. Those dust devils, n’est-ce pas?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

We've got from a very good source that Brian, Jimi, George and Syd are preparing a surprise party. There will be a helluva time in heaven, we guarantee you that.

The Church wishes to thank Constance Cartmill , Denis Combet, Jenni Fiire, Rich Hall, Porthos, Allison Star, Jean Vouillon and all the others that we seem to have forgotten...
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Happy New Year, sistren and brethren of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. Past year was not entirely uneventful.

January had Iggy’s fan-base still mourning about her passing. We have always been discreet about it, but may we thank the many people who have supported Iggy, also financially, over the years? This in shrill contrast with those extraordinary gifted sixties ‘I’m a good friend of Syd’ photographers who immortalised Iggy in their endless collection of coffee table books but always refused to give her one single penny. Nuff said.

Truth is that Syd Barrett is a pretty small, but nicely cultivated, niche market in the great Pink Floyd ocean and that Iggy fandom is an even smaller part of that. The Syd Barrett legacy has been artificially hyped in the past, not that we complain about that, but it seems to have lost some of its value recently.

While the Holy Church blog only publishes articles at an irregular basis, most of the time due to the Reverend’s continuous state of procrastination, its micro-blog counterpart at Tumblr thrives pretty well, with daily submissions. That is because the iggyinuit.tumblr.com page mostly reblogs content from others, which is nice and easy and also very unimaginative, resulting in continuous repetition of the same songs and pictures. But sometimes something interesting sees the light of day and that is what we will present you hereafter.

Tumblrrefugee

A last (and serious) word before the fun starts. Except when you have been living in a micro-bubble, you may have heard that Tumblr recently deleted thousands of blogs, because they contained female nipples (and other physical attributes), for heaven’s sake. This is not the time nor the place to discuss Tumblr’s incompetence (and - frankly - unwillingness) to delete illegal content for the past decade, but we may not stay silent either.

Tumblr's panic reaction consisted of throwing out the baby with the bathwater (pun certainly not intended). December 2018 gave us a new word, a new hashtag, that can now be found on social media that are still - more or less - progressive minded: #Tumblrrefugee. (But even those websites are pretty reluctant, Ello silently adjusted (read: tightened) their community guidelines anti-dating the addendum to make us believe it was changed mid-2017.)

Tumblr's censoring machine however went into frantic overdrive and deleted many pictures that weren't 'porn', not even in their ludicrous definition of that term. Mairabarrett, whose wonderful Tumblr-blog we have shamelessly plundered for the last few months, not only had the above pictures from Syd Barrett at Formentera deleted, but also pictures of her... cat.

It’s a sign of the times but it is weird and confusing that publishing the top middle picture of the Pink Floyd album ‘A Nice Pair’, other than censored, may now be a thing of the past. O tempora, o mores!

Tumblr Overview 2018

Here is a wink and a nod at good old 2018.

The Church wishes to thank: Marsha Allen, Azerty, Charles Beterams, Birdie Hop, Constance Cartmill, Mary Cosco, CCE338, Denis Combet, Jeff Dexter, Ebronte, Seamus Enright, Eternal Isolation, Jenni Fiire, Libby Gausden, Gid Giddoni, Stanislav G. Grigorev, Rich Hall, Hallucalation, Alex Peter Hoffmann, Jay Jeer, Penny Hyrons, Mark Jones, Clay Jordan, London in the 60s & 70s, Mairabarrett, Maggie Matthews, Paul McCann, Iain 'Emo' Moore, Pasquale Muzzupappa, Neonknight, The Nest, Nullrecord, Göran Nyström, David Parker, Peudent, Psych62, Rare Pink Floyd, Porthos (he's the dog), Antonio Jesús Reyes, The Iggy Rose Archives, Mim Scala, Mark Schofield, Allison Star, Swanlee, Robert Treadway, Jean Vouillon, Elizabeth Refna Warner, Nigel Young, Zoe...

The Church was founded ten years ago and the following people helped and inspired us with that: Alien Brain, Astral Piper, Sean Beaver, Bell That Rings, Mark Blake, Charley, Dani, Dark Globe, Bea Day, DollyRocker, Dolly Rocker, Ebronte, Eternal Isolation, Gnome, Juliian Indica (aka Julian Palacios), Kim Kastekniv, Little Minute Gong, Madcap Syd, Metal Mickey, Music Bailey, Mystic Shining, Psych62, Silks (नियत), Stanislav, Stars Can Frighten, Syd Barrett's Mandolin, Anthony Stern, The Syd Barrett Sound...

How could we forget all the others we have forgotten...

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥ Paula ♥

Last year we celebrated the first decade of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit that officially started on the 8 August of 2008. You can reread that story in two parts at:
10 Mind-blowing facts you didn't know about the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit and
Bang A Gong (10 Years of Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit) 

We ended the first season on a low note because it seemed that the entire Iggy story had been told in a handful of articles. It seemed that she had disappeared and that she would not be found back.

How wrong we were, but we were not the only ones. Duggie Fields (to Mark Blake):

I have no idea who Iggy was or even what her real name was. (…)
I saw her not long after Syd left the flat and she was looking more like a Sloane Ranger.
I heard she’d become involved with one of the voguish religious cults at the time.

(As a matter of fact, this was not that far from the truth, but of course we didn’t know that in 2009. For a while Iggy was signaled in Scientology circles, one of those incredible stories we might tell you one day.)

Here is an overview of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit’s tumultuous second season (August 2009 -July 2010).

Fille de l’espace

We celebrated our first birthday with the publication of a brilliant poem written by Dr. Denis Combet, professor at Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada, who specialises in French literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, but he has also written lyrics for the pretty awesome stoner rock band Rescue Rangers. In 2006 – 2007 he published a Syd Barrett inspired multimedia project under the title Guitars and Dust Dancing (that is unfortunately no longer online, but archive.org has a partially saved backup: Guitars and Dust Dancing).

The Church could exclusively issue the French version of the poem ‘De Quétesh à Bastet’, dedicated to Iggy the Eskimo, and would later publish Crystal Blue Postcards, a digital booklet with (mostly) new poems, dedicated to Syd and Iggy. It can still be found here:

Iggy was moved to tears when she found out that someone in Canada had written a poem for her and she kept on repeating that on our weekly phone-calls. Thanks Denis!

Original article (2009): Catwoman 

Cromwellian Shenanigans

The Iggy story, so we thought, was a dead end street or at least a slow lane. In absence of our subject of adoration we started a series about the legendary Cromwellian club, bar and casino. We also looked deeper into The Bend dance craze, a clever marketing scheme started to twist a Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich single into a genre.

You don’t have to believe us but we think these are still the best articles about this nightclub on the web, with several interviews from people who were there.
The complete Cromwellian & The Bend series (running from 2008 till 2015): The Cromwellian 

The Madcap’s Mojo

2010 started with a bang. Rock magazine Mojo had a Madcap Laughs 40 years anniversary special, annex tribute CD, and it was undoubtedly clear that some writers had found inspiration at the Church, but without mentioning where they had found the information. (It needs to be said that our secret informant in those days, Mark Blake, who also wrote for the special, was not amongst those.)

We ended our review of the Mojo special with the prophetic words:

Ig’s story as published in Mojo may be the butterfly effect that will cause the storm at the other side of the world.
So perhaps, thanks to Mojo, the Church will be one day able to fulfil its quest.

Original articles (2009):
(I've got my) Mojo (working...) 
Goofer Dust [(I've got my) Mojo (working)... Part 2] 
The Mojo March 2010 special can be consulted here: The Madcap Laughs.

Iggy!

On the fifth of February 2010 Mark Blake informed us that Iggy was alive and well and living in a small village in Southern England. The Church were the first to publish this news on this entire planet. World Exclusive: Ig has been found! 

Initially Iggy wanted to anonymously live her life in her little village in South-England, but her cover was blown by The Croydon Guardian. (Here was another journalist suffering from amnesia. She didn’t find it necessary to give a nod to the Church, although it was us who had informed her about Iggy.)

Iggy's first interview (with our comments): Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea 

Gretta & Rusty

Timing couldn’t have been better. Iggy was found just when we were going to publish an interview with Gretta Barclay, who – with her friend Rusty Burnhill – was a regular visitor at Wetherby Mansions in 1969.

A decade later this is still Margaretta’s one and only interview in the Barrett-sphere.

We also tracked down Rusty Burnhill, living in a small town in Northern Germany and sent him a polite letter where we asked if we could ask him some questions. To our amazement he called us a few months later, started swearing and shouting, threatened to call the police and smashed down the phone. Needless to say that we didn’t pursue our plans to have him interviewed.

The Gretta Barclay interview:
Gretta Speaks 
Gretta Speaks (Pt. 2) 

Floorboards

Iggy had been located (by a few journalists) but wasn’t communicating to the outer world (yet). A decision we obviously accepted. The Church has never been into trophy hunting.

The Holy Church had already published the intriguing theory that the painted floorboards at Syd’s flat didn’t date from autumn 1969, but from spring 1969. This was contradicting all witness reports and all biographies and obviously it was clear evidence that the Holy Church was lead by a raving lunatic.

But our anonymous witness JenS had said so, Gretta Barclay and Iggy confirmed it and more ‘proof’ for this was found by Barrett enthusiast Dark Globe, a member of the Late Night Syd Barrett forum and one of the people helping the Church with valid information.

Rob Chapman didn’t update this information in his Syd Barrett biography, but Julian Palacios did, just before the printing deadline, making him one of the believers. What was a wacky theory at first, laughed at by several people, has now become the gospel.

Original article (2010): The Case of the Painted Floorboards 

Rob Chapman

Our review of Rob Chapman’s Syd Barrett biography A Very Irregular Head was quite polemic (and made us persona non grata in top level Barrett circles). We did conclude it was one of the better biographies around but there was of course the Octopus – Clowns & Jugglers controversy.

Rather than stirring up a dying fire and prejudicing you we suggest you read the review first and we’ll talk about it afterwards.

Original article (2010): The Big Barrett Conspiracy Theory 

Meic Stevens 2010

An intriguing anecdote was told to us by Gretta Barclay. One that also couldn’t be found in any biography. Syd Barrett and his Welsh counterpart Meic Stevens, who also suffered from a few psychological drawbacks, met each other at different occasions.

Prydwyn read Steven’s autobiograpy (in Welsh) and translated the relevant bits into English for generations to come. One pretty exiting bit is that the two musicians were filmed by a BBC camera-team, but apparently the movie has been destroyed, unless it still is hiding in a BBC archive somewhere.

Original articles (2010):
Meic meets Syd 
Syd meets... a lot of people 

Meic Stevens 2019

2019 sees Meic Stevens gigging again in Britain (although he immediately started with some controversial statements). Men On The Border singer Göran Nyström published an excellent follow-up to our Solva Blues article just a few days ago, with a few new discoveries. Or how an article from a decade ago inspires people today to further investigate in all matters Syd.

Summer of 69 (Facebook-links)

Part 1: Moon Landing
Part 2: Kevin Whitney & Formentera
Part 3: Isle of Wight
Part 4: Syd & Meic Stevens
Part 5: Geraint Jarman and his song about Barrett
Part 6 (final): Syd's studio vérité session

See ya next year!

The Church wishes to thank all of those who helped us 10 years ago. Unfortunately, many of them have already left the scene. : Anonymous, Banjer and Sax, Margaretta Barclay, Paul Belbin, Mark Blake, Rusty Burnhill, Constance Cartmill, Rob Chapman, Denis Combet, Duggie Fields, Dark Globe, Rod Harrod, JenS, Pascal Mascheroni, Kerry McQueeney, David Moore, Julian Palacios, Paro नियत, Prydwyn, Douggie Reece, Lynn Annette Ripley (Twinkle), Brian Roote, Beate S., Jenny Spires, Allison Star, Jean Vouillon, Kirsty Whalley, Vicky Wickham and the Dutch Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich fan community (not online any more)… (Sorry to those we have forgotten to mention.)
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Iggy always had a certain flair for pomp and circumstance and as such it never surprised us that she went out - with a bang - minutes before her birthday. And although there is sadness in our hearts we - as the Reverend of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit - think that celebration is better than mourning. So move those chairs and tables and join us for our annual whoopee! But first:

An Ongoing Tradition

Iggy’s online birthday festivities started in 2011 when there were those mythical groups around like Clowns & Jugglers, No Man's Land, Birdie Hop and other swoon rooms. It was artist and general pain-in-the-arse Jenni Fiire who organised the first Iggy Birthday Bash to show 'how much we love and appreciate her'. Hundreds of messages reached Iggy Rose that day.

2013 had multi-instrumentalist Rich Hall create a song about that wacky Church and its even wackier followers. Originally titled The Reverend, the song pretty well sums up what Iggy stood - and still stands - for, because In Iggy We Trust.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

The Church wishes to thank Jenni Fiire, Rich Hall and everybody still reading this.
Catch Rich Hall's latest record at Bandcamp: In the summer, the sun never sets.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

This is a follow-up article to Paint Your Wagon: Iggy movie unearthed!
To watch the BFI movie: Hippies St Germans (geoblocked outside Great Britain).
To watch some excerpts on the Felix Atagong YouTube channel: Iggy at Port Eliot (1968).
 

Zeliggy

A talented journalist will write great lines. Mark Blake was spot on when he described Iggy the Eskimo as a Zelig-like presence on the capital's music scene of the mid-sixties.

For those who aren't familiar with 20th century symbolism, Zelig is a 1983 bittersweet satire, from Woody Allen, about a somewhat colourless man who inexplicably appears on cinema newsreels of the twenties and thirties (the nineteen-hundred twenties and thirties, obviously).

The same goes for Iggy although ‘colourless’ is about the last adjective we think of to describe her. The Brighton Mod & Rockers War: Iggy was there. Hendrix’s first concert in London: Iggy was there, sitting on the stage. The Sympathy For The Devil sessions: Iggy was there, but she is nowhere to be found in the Jean-Luc Godard movie. Performance: Iggy was there, refusing a role as an extra. Pictures of her ‘backstage’ still have to emerge and if we may believe her own words there must have been photographic evidence with Eric Clapton, Roger Daltrey, George Harrison, Brian Jones, Anita Pallenberg, 'Keef' Richards and 'lovely' Keith Moon...

Iggy’s most Zelig-like presence is on a picture taken by Bruce Fleming on a party on the 8th of January 1967, attended by three different Beatles. Carmen Jimenez was Georgie Fame’s girlfriend and for her 21st birthday a fancy dress event was organised at The Cromwellian. The picture has Carmen playing peek-a-boo behind John Lennon, who is dressed like a priest, but at the right hand side of the picture a glimpse of Iggy can be spotted.

And, my dear sistren and brethren, let us not forget, she was one of the first persons to listen to the early tapes of The Madcap Laughs. She was there, with Syd Barrett, Zelig-like, seamlessly blending in the background, while Storm Thorgerson and Mick Rock took their legendary pictures.

Unfortunately another rock star, probably Steve Peregrin Took (or Tookie, as Iggy used to say) from Tyrannosaurus Rex fame, tossed her suitcase overboard containing most of her pictures when crossing the Channel, heading for (or returning from) Spain. Iggy’s relationships have always been somewhat tumultuous and she went through some rough times with some less disciplined rockers.

Henrietta Moraes

In a previous article (Paint Your Wagon) we wrote how Iggy joined a bunch of aristocratic would-be hippies who were looking for the Holy Grail, travelling in a horse-drawn wagon, following ley lines and UFO sightings all over Devon and Wales. They were caught in a documentary at the Port Eliot castle, where they could stay from Peregrine Eliot, 10th Earl of St Germans.

Iggy told the Church that the notorious junkie muse Henrietta Moraes was one of the people joining the Port Eliot convoy. In 1968 she was already 37 years old, Iggy only 21, but she was still an underground society figure to be reckoned with.

Perhaps they felt they had something in common. Henrietta (real name: Audrey Wendy Abbott) was born in India – just like Iggy – and their fathers had been military men. Moraes’ had been a free spirit in the fifties, roaming through the Soho subculture and being a model for Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

When the Sixties hit the streets Henrietta traded Soho for the psychedelic underground, taking every drug imaginable and continuing her eccentric and promiscuous lifestyle.

Henrietta Moraes can not be seen in the Port Eliot documentary, but in her autobiography Henrietta, that appeared in 1994, she describes her life on the road with Mark Palmer. There isn’t a single trace of Iggy in that book, which seems weird at first, but there could be a logical explanation.

Henrietta Garnett

Recently a new person was identified on the Port Eliot film. One of the horse carriage hippies is Henrietta Garnett, an acclaimed author who published several biographies and a novel.

Henrietta Garnett (1945 – 2019) was a third generation member of the Bloomsbury Group, a loose assembly of artists, intellectuals, philosophers and writers, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes and E.M. Forster. Her father, David Garnett, was an author and publisher. Her mother Angelica was a writer, painter and artist.

It has been said from the Bloomsbury’s that ‘they were living in squares, painting in circles and loving in triangles’.

Henrietta’s mother – for instance – Angelica Bell, was not the daughter of her legal father, but the product of some extramarital gymnastics with painter Duncan Grant. Her father was a bi-sexual serial libertine, who once had a gay fling with that same man.

At 17 a pregnant Henrietta married Lytton Burgo Partridge, author of A History of Orgies, but she was almost immediately widowed when he died three weeks after the birth of their daughter.

Henrietta, obviously shocked, opted out raising her daughter and fled into the London underground, living the gypsy life and enjoying the swinging sixties at full extent. Five years later, in 1968, she joined the band of aristocratic dropouts who visited Port Eliot, together with Iggy the Eskimo.

Although she followed the travelling aristos, she wasn’t really impressed with them, calling them ‘chequebook hippies’. Something she had in common with Iggy, who only found out later that the people she had joined were hippie millionaires.

But not all travellers were as we will now see in a not so short detour.

Vashti Bunyan

In Rob Young’s excellent ‘Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music’ he describes how a fifty years old Austin ran out of fuel, somewhere in 1967.

Three people (and a dog, Blue) were in the vehicle. Robert Lewis and folk musician John James started to push the vehicle, towards the next village and petrol station, while Vashti Bunyan took the steering wheel. It was then they saw an old baker’s delivery cart, belonging to a Romany, who sold them the caravan and its horse, Bess.

Vashti had already released a couple of singles, some under the guidance of Andrew Loog Oldham, but the plan to make her a second Marianne Faithfull had failed. Robert Lewis and Vashti were a couple, living the hippie life in the woods of Chislehurt, until they were evicted by the police.

The money to buy the cart was lent to them by Donovan Philips Leitch, who was some kind of a guru and benefactor of the hippie movement. With the money of his first three albums (and one compilation) Donovan had bought three Scottish islands where he wanted to set up an idyllic hippie commune. That is were Vashti and her boyfriend were now heading to. Their plan was to (slowly) drive from Kent to the Scottish Highlands, along the mythical ley lines, a journey that would take them a year and a half.

The rural communities of England were not known for its hospitality towards strangers. The plan of earning some pounds by singing songs at market places and other events was often interrupted by the police, who chased them away. In several villages people were afraid that the Lewis-Bunyan couple would kidnap children or steal chickens, whatever came first. But somehow they managed to survive, often by harvesting scrap metal and selling it, and luckily there were other travellers around willing to help the couple on the road.

While the horse and carriage was parked in the Lake District, during the winter of 1968-69, Vashti made a small tour around pubs and bars in the Netherlands and Belgium. Above a bar in Ghent she met American folk player Derroll Adams, who was a friend of Donovan as well, and he encouraged her to record the songs she had written on her journey so far. She contacted Joe Boyd, who had already tried to record her when she was under contract with Andrew Loog Oldham, and plans were made for an album, although her (far from) idyllic trek through England and Scotland still came at first place.

In summer 1969 they finally reached Skye, but Donovan had permanently left rainy Scotland for Los Angeles, leaving the commune on its own. Some hippies were still there, others had already left and newcomers were not encouraged to stay.

Vashti and friend settled on the island of Berneray, where they were not welcome by the local population either, with the exception of an eighty-three-year-old neighbour, who could sing old Gaelic folk songs.

Vashti finally booked some recording sessions at Sound Techniques and in November 1969 Christopher Sykes picked her (and Robert) up for the long drive to London. It took her three days to record the fourteen songs of Just Another Diamond Day. They are incredibly frail and intimate, lullabies for the unborn child she was carrying. Christopher Sykes and John James, who also painted the sleeve, helped her out. Joe Boyd added extra musicians from The Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Nick Drake's backing band, which was - at the time - not appreciated by Bunyan at all.

Just Another Diamond Day finally came out in December 1970, a year after it had been recorded. By then Vashti had to take care of her baby and a rock’n’roll style of life – promoting, touring and recording – was out of the question.

Settling down in Berneray had failed as well. After a brief stay in London and at the farm of The Incredible String Band the couple left for Ireland, still on a wagon and with their horse Bess.

We kept travelling by horse and wagon, which was entirely stupid. By the time we got there, of course, the price would go up beyond our reach. That kept happening. We walked across Ireland. We stayed there a year, with a bigger wagon that did have a stove in it.

Only a couple hundred Vashti Bunyan records survived (the cheapest copies sell for around £1500) and it became a cult-record in the last decade of the past century, thanks to the power of the internet and bootleg versions of the album. In 2000 the album was officially released on CD.

Since then it has been described as one of the finest British folk albums ever. Vashti Bunyan briefly re-entered the music business after a 35-years hiatus, releasing a second album in 2005.

Mark Palmer’s Convoy

Henrietta Moraes, who had been a dropout in the mid-fifties, was already 35 when she tumbled in the upper-class psychedelic underground where she met Christopher Sykes, an English author, musician, BBC Radio collaborator and a friend of Vashti Bunyan. Other alternative minds of the psychedelic cultural elite were antique dealer Christopher Gibbs, interior decorator David ‘Monster’ Mlinaric, Michael Rainey & Jane (née: Ormsby-Gore), Victor & Julian Ormsby-Gore, Beatrix, Rose & Anne Lambton, Catherine Tennant and of course: Mark Palmer. It was a fairly small world, inhabited by mostly well to do people.

Mark Palmer sat in Hyde Park with Martin Wilkinson and Maldwyn Thomas. (…) An idea came. Why don’t we drop out? Why don’t we leave London and go to the country? Why don’t we buy a horse and cart and travel all over the place, all over England in fact, like gypsies and be free? So that is what they did, and they travelled down to Port Eliot in Cornwall.

Martin Wilkinson and Maldwyn Thomas were English Boy models, the company owned by Mark Palmer. Thomas was (or would be) married to Jenny Fabian one day.

Henrietta Moraes places this event after the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park, on the fifth of July 1969, while the BFI claims the documentary made at Port Eliot (with Iggy and Henrietta Garnett) dates from the year before. According to Moraes a gypsy barrel-top wagon was bought, together with Rizla, a brown and white-coloured horse and Fly, a brindled lurcher dog.

Henrietta joined the band of wanderers a couple of months later, around Easter of 1970.

Dating problems.

It is practically 100% certain that Iggy was living with Syd Barrett in April 1969, so either she went on her wagon trip the year before (1968 is the date given by BFI) or the year after (1970 is the date given by Henrietta Moraes).

Probably Mark Palmer organised different treks over the years, a first one to Port Eliot with Iggy and Henrietta Garnett in 1968 and a second one with Henrietta Moraes in 1970, and that is the one that would take him 4 years to reach his destination. This explains the absence of Henrietta Moraes in the BFI documentary and the absence of Iggy (and Henrietta Garnett) in the Moraes autobiography.

The confusing thing is that Iggy claimed to have visited Port Eliot, with Henrietta Moraes, to celebrate Mayday where ‘Peregrine's beautiful ladies were sitting astride the horses that were adorned with flower garlands, dressed as dames from King Arthur's Court.’ Perhaps she mistook the one Henrietta for the other. Perhaps, as we have suggested before, she visited Port Eliot more than once.

In her memoirs Henrietta Moraes remembers riding Sagittarius, an Arab stallion, bareback as the aristo-hippie guru didn’t believe in saddles. Not believing in saddles is one thing, but Mark Palmer was also convinced that real travellers and people on the road didn’t need baths either, as he pointed out to Henrietta Moraes one day.

Maldwyn Thomas had about the same to say:

Somebody said quite innocently, “Would you like to have a bath?” and without thinking I said, “It’s alright. I had one two months ago.”

Mark Palmer may have been an aristocrat but he really was very serious about living the alternative life. On the first leg of their journey the travellers passed through Hungerford, Frome, Trecarrel Mill and Launceston, where they caused a huge stir. Henrietta Moraes:

A lot of people taught we were the circus and tried to buy tickets from us.

John Michell

Visits were made to Arthurian places like Boscastle, Camelot and Tintagel. It was at one of those they allegedly spotted a flying saucer. It only convinced them even more they were on the good path for whatever they were looking for.

One of the travellers was none other than John Michell, who was jokingly (and not so jokingly) described as the counter-culture new Merlin. He was an esotericist involved in the London Free School and had written the book 'The Flying Saucer Vision: The Holy Grail Restored'. He firmly believed that UFOs were somehow connected to ancient British myths like those of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, although (according to his critics) he could never explain exactly how.

For Michell flying saucers were not necessarily alien. They could be seen as 'emanations of the human psyche, archetypes in Jungian terms, observed at sites with ancient religious significance'. UFOs were not alien, but earthly machines - from Atlantis perhaps - intimately intertwined with forces derived from the alignment of the British landscape. There are those ley lines again! He as well, was convinced of the importance of the times they were living in:

The strange lights and other phenomena of the post-war period were portents of a radical change in human consciousness coinciding with the dawn of the Aquarian Age.

Michell witnessed strange lights in the sky, experienced new 'psychedelic' music, took a lot of LSD and was convinced that 'the world was about to flip over on its axis so that heresy would become orthodoxy and an entirely new world order would shortly be revealed'.

Psychedelic Pilgrims

According to Henrietta Moraes eight persons could travel in the horse-driven cart. But the caravan was also accompanied by cars and motorcycles, especially at the weekends when would-be hippies travelled from London to wherever the convoy was. It's not that they were moving very fast.

When they left London the band of travellers included a fine batch of (pretty well-doing) alternative thinkers and a little yellow mongrel bitch, Chloe. Moraes identifies the following beautiful people:

Derek Fitzgerald, member of London’s flower power intelligentsia and a friend of Nick Drake.
Greg Ridley, bass player, member of Spooky Tooth and Humble Pie.
John Michell, esotericist, author of ‘The Flying Saucer Vision’ and International Times contributor.
John Pearse, tailor and Granny Takes A Trip collaborator.
Kelvin Webb, English Boy model agency co-owner.
Maldwyn Thomas, English Boy model and boyfriend, later husband, of Jenny Fabian.
Nicky Kramer (or Cramer), the Kings Road Flower Child, a dandy dope head who was regarded by the aristos as a penniless ‘hanger on’. (Read more about him at the Redlands Bust blog.)
Nigel Waymouth, designer, partner in Granny Takes a Trip and co-artist in Hapshash and the Coloured Coat.

You have to admit the above list reads like a who-is-who of Swingin' London. On the road they met other travellers with wagons and sometimes they decided to go the same way. There was Penny Cuthberson and her coloured mare, Lily. Angus Wood, aka The Colonel, his wife Debora and a horse called Jacob joined them as well, later on.

From Stargroves to Mill Hill farm

Their first winter was spent at Stargroves in Berkshire, an estate belonging to Mick Jagger (sold to him by John Michell), where Mark Palmer had to be medically treated, malnourished as he was from living an unbalanced macrobiotic life. He first refused to see a doctor though, as he was convinced his body was just getting rid of the poison of modern life. Like we told before, he was taking this trip through England and Wales as a real Arthurian quest.

Mark Palmer and friends wandered around the country for about four years, at an average speed of 4 miles a day. After having roamed around Wales, staying at places like Hay-On-Wye, Llandysul, Welshpool and Montgomery they went up further north to Wiseton (Doncaster) and Retford (Nottinghamshire).

Henrietta Moraes left the convoy after a couple of years to become Marianne Faithfull’s secretary. Mark Palmer finally settled on Mill Hill farm at Sherborne, Gloucestershire, where he specialised in the horse-breeding business.

Hippie or not that farm (and its surroundings) is now estimated at over 3 million pounds. Seems that he found that Holy Grail after all.

The Church wishes to thank Emma Peel Pants, Sophie Partridge.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (other than the above mentioned links):
Artlark: The Model-Mistress-Muse Paradigm: Henrietta Moraes, Artlark, 22 May 2019.
Beechey, James: Henrietta Garnett obituary, The Guardian, 19 September 2019.
Boyd, Joe: White Bicycles, Serpent's Tail, London, 2009, p. 358 (eBook version).
Green, Jonathon: Days In The Life, Pimlico, London, 1998, p. 216.
Higham, Nick: Meet the Author: Henrietta Garnett, BBC, 30 Augustus 2012.
Martin, Douglas: John Michell, Counterculture Author Who Cherished Idiosyncrasy, Dies at 76, New York Times, 2 May 2009.
Moraes, Henrietta: Henrietta, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1994, p. 97, 101, 105, 108 - 109, 111.
Nicholson, Virginia: HENRIETTA GARNETT (1945-2019), Charleston, (no date).
Telegraph Obituaries: Henrietta Garnett, scion of the Bloomsbury set who overcame a troubled childhood to become an acclaimed biographer, The Telegraph, 20 September 2019 (paywalled).
Telegraph Obituaries: John Michell, The Telegraph, 8 May 2009.
Williamson Marcus: John Michell: Expert on ancient knowledge and pioneer of the New Age, The Independent, 21 May 2009.
Young, Rob: Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music, Faber And Faber, London, 2010 (ePub version, chapter: The Inward Exodus, no page numbers).

We have written this before. Just when you think that there will be no more Iggy the Eskimo news, she hits you hard, surprising the fans, posthumously reaching from those Elysian Fields where there is a special psychedelic corner for free spirits who are not square, we are sure of that. It is her way of telling us: don’t you forget about me.

Be assured, Iggy, we won’t.

Undercover Agents

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is a cabinet of curiosities, situated in Belgium, and its most precious objects have been brought in by an international network of Iggy admirers.

Before the Church started in 2008, all that was known about Iggy – with the exception of the Madcap photo sessions – was that she could be found in an NME article of November 1966. (See: Bend It!)

2008. DollyRocker, from the USA, recognised Iggy in a Rank Organisation documentary. This more or less triggered the start of this blog. (See: IN Gear)

2012. PhiPhi Chavana, from Hong Kong, found a picture of Iggy in a Music Maker magazine, belonging to a collector in Sydney (Australia). (See: Iggy - a new look in festivals)

2015. John Cavanagh, from Glasgow, Scotland, came across a CD compilation with Iggy on its cover. (See: Bend It (2015): New Iggy Picture Found)

2015. Jacinta Start, Australia, was pleasantly surprised to be confronted with Iggy’s picture, originally from the Holmes-Lebel archives in France. (See: Iggy - another festival, another look)

2018. We were almost simultaneously warned by Nigel Young (GB), Antonio Jesùs (Spain) and Alex Hoffmann (Germany) that Iggy was in a documentary, with an alternative bunch of aristocratic hippies, travelling in a horse-carriage from London to Port Eliot, St. Germans. (See: Paint Your Wagon: Iggy movie unearthed!)

2020. On the first spring day of 2020 a message arrived from Rostov-On-Don, Russia, to inform the Church that an unknown Iggy picture had mysteriously appeared on a Russian social network.

Here is the story… so far.

Remember Russia

On the 21st of March the Reverend received an incoming message from Vita Fillipova, who is a charming acquaintance since the Late Night Syd Barrett Discussion Room Forum days, where she was known as (Green Eyed) Betsy.

On the social network VK (short for Vkontakte), the number one site in Russia, she had found a post of user CBGB with a more than intriguing picture attached. “Could it be Iggy?” she asked us.

The post had been there since the first of March 2019 and Google searches initially led to nothing. Lucky there are several other search engines around and Yandex, not coincidentally a Russian one as well, found the picture on three different Tumblr blogs and, good for us, in a better quality. From there it could be traced back to its original uploader: Always Retro, who posted it somewhere in 2018.

Tumbling Down

Unfortunately, since the big porn breakdown from end 2018 Tumblr has become a shadow of its former self. If a Tumblr blog has been defined as ‘sensitive’, whatever that means, it becomes virtually impossible to explore it. Although certainly not NSFW Always Retro could only be opened in private mode, which means that looking for a specific date or tag was made impossible. Searching for the picture was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

It took some extra digging and quite some luck and finally the source could be found in a gallery on ImageVenue, an anonymous image-sharing website.

Amateur Photographer

Amateur Photographer, as the name suggests, is a British photography magazine that exists since 1884, one year before Kodak marketed the film roll. It still exists today focusing on digital and analogue photography.

Issue 142 of the fifth of August 1970 had an article about 'Glamour On The Beach' which has always been a pretext to have some mild eroticism. The cover girl could possibly be actress Ann Sidney, aka Miss World 1964. She was pictured by Ken Howard who worked for several photo magazines. For the article itself, pictures of Raquel Welch and Alexandra Bastedo were used. (Although the magazine is called Amateur Photographer most of the pictures inside are made by professionals.)

Starting on page 28 is an article with the title 'London Salon 1970 – the Top Print'. It has a picture of minor celebrity Dania Faber (Montez). She was a pin-up model from Bombay who looked for fame and fortune in London, trying to become an actress. About a dozen pictures have survived from her and in the mid-seventies she disappeared completely from the radar. It was thanks to her picture (and to a collector's forum) that we could trace the person who owns and scanned the Amateur Photographer magazine.

And, as you have probably guessed by now, one of those scans contains a picture of a woman who looks uncannily like Iggy the Eskimo, taken by the photographer Feri Lukas.

Feri Lukas

Not much is known of Feri Lukas, other than that he was a photo journalist for the music magazine Record Mirror, under the wings of the world famous photographer Dezo Hoffmann, who began working for the magazine in 1955. Lukas certainly worked for Record Mirror in 1966 as he is mentioned in a Sonny & Cher article 'You Lucky People' from the third of September.

An internet search for Lukas only results in a couple of pictures. A few of mods and punks in the seventies, one of Muhammad Ali and one of an old man sitting on a bench that can be found on several religious inspired blogs. That is all there is to find. Dezo Hoffmann’s studio had different (rock) photographers who became famous afterwards, but Feri unfortunately isn’t one of them.

Birdie Hop

It doesn’t need to be said that the slightly fantastical Facebook group Birdie Hop (if you look up who started it you’ll understand why) was immediately buzzing with dozens of reactions from Syd Barrett and Iggy fans. (Several über-cool members also warned the Church about the picture.)

As always reactions were divided between believers and non-believers.

“The lips and eyes are off.” said one. “Their proportions may look similar at first glance, but there are differences as well. I don't think it is her.”

But others had the following to say, after they compared the ‘Pocahontas’ picture with this one: “She has the same makeup under the eyes. (…) The face shape is round like hers, and the eyes look the same to me. (…) It’s so hard to say but I'm gonna guess yes.”

And: “This just convinced me more! The mouth, the slight overbite, the round nose, the round face. Exactly the same (to me).”

But what does the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit has to say about this all?

Well, we are convinced this is Iggy, but up till now there is no proof and any evidence is – like American lawyers love to say – circumstantial. But as usual, Iggy will have the last word.

The Iggy Archives

The Reverend delved into his archive that contains transcripts of conversations with Iggy. One day, in 2011, we started talking about her modelling career and the people who shot her. Iggy Rose:

You should get in touch with the archive department of Melody Maker to track down those 2 photographers. I am pretty sure they were acquainted with my wonderful guardian angel who was freelancing for all the top music papers.

At the time this sentence was a mystery to us, but now it’s starting to get clear. According to Iggy there were three different photographers who took her pictures for different (music) magazines. Could it be that Feri Lukas was one of those, perhaps even the man she described as her ‘guardian angel’?

East vs West

Here is what she had to say about him.

He fled his native motherland when Communist Russia invaded it with the blessing of America and what was once Great Britain.

The above sentence is rather important for our investigation, as it describes the photographer as someone with East-European roots.

At the Yalta Conference in 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA), Winston Churchill (GB) and Joseph Stalin (Russia) divided Europe in a (mostly democratic) western and (communist) eastern part.

Later on there were different uprisings in the east. Iggy could be referring to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 that was stopped when the Soviet army invaded Budapest. Approximatively 200 000 Hungarians fled as refugees. Other uprisings took place in East Germany (1953), Poland (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968, but by then Feri Lukas was already in Great Britain).

Roots

Feri, short for Ferenc, is a name from Hungary. Although it roots can also be found in Croatia and (old) Germany.

Lukas (or Lúkas, Lukaš, Lukáš...) is pretty well established in Hungary. The surname can also be found in Czechia, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia,... These countries (minus one: West Germany) were put under Russian hegemony after the second world war.

We can be pretty sure that Feri Lukas was Hungarian, or at least from the part of Europe that was behind the iron curtain.

(It may, or may not, be a coincidence but Feri Lukas’ boss Dezo Hoffmann was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, in a region that later became Czechoslovakia and that is now Slovakia.)

Conclusion

It is time to put two and two together.

• In a chat from 2011, Iggy talked about a freelancing music magazine photographer with East European roots
• In a photo magazine from 1970 a picture of a woman who looks exactly like Iggy is found.
• The picture is from a photographer, with an obvious East European name, who happened to be a photographer for a music magazine in the late sixties.

Needless to say this is enough circumstantial evidence to convince us. The girl in the picture must be Iggy.

More from Iggy

Once Iggy started talking there was no way stopping her. So it is no wonder she had more things to say about Feri Lukas, during that chat in 2011.

Anyway he lived in Earls Court, at the gay end. I didn’t have a clue and who cares. He was my protector and provider and took thousands of the most stunning pics. He introduced me to top agents, Ready Steady Go and took me to the first Glastonbury festival and the Isle of Wight.

He would always take pictures of me as well. I wish I could remember which festival or what music paper where he had got me on the front page, but I do remember I had plaits and a band round my forehead... I looked like Pocahontas, the red Indian squaw.

That is the picture that was taken at the 1967 National Jazz, Pop, Ballads and Blues Festival at Windsor. (See: Iggy - a new look in festivals)

Later on he introduced me to top modelling agencies and trendy photographers. I even got to meet the great David Puttman for a Camay soap TV-ad where I was lying in a bath with lots of bubbles. We spent ages in his office giggling and laughing while he tried to apologise. I was the wrong type as the soap company was looking for big blue-eyed blondes like Twiggy or Jean [Shrimpton].

So there we have it. Not only a new Iggy picture has been unearthed, but we may also have found who was behind Iggy’s legendary Pocahontas picture.

A last word from Iggy

Iggy also remembered that a good friend of Feri Lukas (if she was still talking about the same man) was ‘the singer of the musical Hair’, Murray Head. Just another celebrity she encountered.

To access the photographer’s studio you had to climb on a ladder, something Iggy did multiple times. Probably that studio was just below the roof of the house. Bit by bit that place was converted into a huge Iggy shrine.

I remember one photographer who had covered a whole studio wall with pics of me. There was a whole batch of rather naughty ones. I hope they will never be discovered.

Please excuse us, dear Iggy, but we would like to hope the opposite. For historic research, obviously.

The Church wishes to thank: Bafupo, CBGB, Drosophila, Vita Filippova, Sara Harp, Alexander Peter Hoffmann, Elizabeth J., Lisa Newman, Old Man Peace, Joe Perry, Brynn Petty, Catherine Provenzano and the many contributors at Birdie Hop.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Feri Lukas @ The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit:
Iggy - a new look in festivals 
Iggy - another festival, another look 
Amateur Photographer: New Iggy Picture Found! 
Feri Lukas, photographer 
Viennese Iggy Treasure Found! 

Some hi-res pictures can be found at our Tumblr page with the Feri Lukas tag.

The church started as a jokey blog in August 2008, but we had to get serious when, only a year later, Iggy was found back, thanks to Mark Blake, from Pigs Might Fly fame. She lived in a village in West-Sussex, 52 miles from central London in the north and 14 miles from the south coast, with a population of approximately 5,000.

Those and other stories you can read in the overview of the first two seasons of The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, a name that Iggy thoroughly hated, by the way.

10 Mind-blowing facts you didn't know about the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit 
Bang A Gong (10 Years of Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit) 
10 years ago - season 2 (2009-2010) 

The Third Season

In season three the Church had acquired some maturity and because Iggymania hit us hard there were over 30 articles that year. Here is what happened a decade ago, a condensed overview of our third season, in a reader’s digest way.

Metallic Spheres

Somewhere in the early nineties, the Reverend got aware of the band The Orb, basically because some lazy journalists had baptised them the Pink Floyd of ambient house. It has been a love/hate relationship ever since because The Orb used to spit out songs and or remixes by the bucket-load, often from uneven quality. (Check their 2020 sixteenth or seventeenth studio album Abolition of the Royal Familia, that is really good.)

In August of 2010, the official David Gilmour blog (that no longer exists) finally confirmed the rumours that a Floydian Orb partnership was going to take place. You can find all juicy (and wacky) details in two articles but those aren’t amongst the Reverend’s bests.

Metallic Spheres
The Relic Samples 

Introduction

For those fans who might think, what does The Orb has to do with Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett or Iggy the Eskimo, there was news about Syd Barrett compilation number 6 that saw the light of day in October 2010. An Introduction To Syd Barrett was the first compilation combining solo and Pink Floyd songs on one single album.

Before you say ‘what the fuck’ this compilation did have some extra bits and pieces for the Syd Barrett anoraky collector. Four songs had been remixed, plus one partially re-recorded, by David Gilmour and for the first time in history, the 20 minutes version of Rhamadan was offered as a downloadable extra track (for a limited period only).

Gravy Train To Cambridge

Dark Globe

About a year and a half after Rob Chapman’s An Irregular Head Julian Palacios’ retaliated with Dark Globe, a complete re-write of his previous Barrett and early Pink Floyd biography Lost In The Woods.

Somewhat hermetic and not always the easiest prose to read it still is the Syd Barrett authoritative biography around, giving credit where credit is due, a department where Chapman lacked somewhat. Palacios is the kind of biographer who will give you the brand of the coffee machine that was used in a bar in Cambridge where Syd used to have an espresso and who is a bit cross he couldn’t trace back its actual serial number. We have you warned.

Mojo

The Mojo edition of February 2011 (#207) put on its cover that Iggy the Eskimo had been found and surprised us with a (small) article. Mark Blake promised us a more in-depth article later on while Iggy was learning how to type the right syllables on her portable phone, leaving a bunch of quasi undecipherable messages at the Mojo website (for the first time published here, see underneath).

Meanwhile, the Reverend and Iggy tried to connect, de tâtonnement en tâtonnement as the French so beautifully say, figuring out what the future should bring if there was a mutual future, to begin with.

The Strange Tale of Iggy the Eskimo was Mark Blake’s full article that appeared as a Mojo Exclusive on its website. Unfortunately, it was deleted a couple of years later. It is not even sure any more if it is still around on Mark Blake’s own website, but a copy has been saved for eternity at the Holy Church.

Obviously, the Church had quite a few articles about Iggy's reappearance in season three:

Iggy’s second interview in 40 years 
Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home 
Iggy The Eskimo Phones Home (2) 
EXCLUSIVE: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo 
Mojo Exclusive: The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo 
The Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo Pt. 2 
Reaction time 
Give birth to a smile... 
The Mighty Queen 

False Claims

In January 2011 somebody who appeared to be close to the Barrett epicentre tried to sell a handwritten poem by Syd Barrett. Only, the handwriting was not Syd’s, but by Barrett collector Bernard White, who had published the poem in the fanzine Terrapin. When the Church tried to investigate we were warned not to dig too deep, for reasons still unknown, a decade later.

Anno 2020 there is a Syd Barrett lyrics book in the making. Perhaps it will finally clear the fog around ‘A Rooftop Song In A Thunderstorm Row Missing The Point’.

Fakes come in all sizes and colours. A Pink Floyd acetate containing Scream Thy Last Scream and Vegetable Man was analysed by the Yeeshkul community and proven to be a forgery. It's value dropped from ten thousand dollars to about zero. Beware for the (many) fake records and autographed items out there, people!

Bonhams Sells Fake Barrett Poem 
Scream Thy False Scream 
EMI blackmails Pink Floyd fans! 

¡Entrevista!

Fake as well, was an interview with the proprietor and mentor behind the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, the famous and agile Reverend Felix Atagong. Originally issued – in Spanish! - on the fantastico Solo En Las Nubes Barrett blog, it gave away all its dirty secrets. Ay caramba! The English version appeared some while later at the Church. It truly is an article of epic proportions.

Felix Atagong: an honest man 

Idea Generation

Iggy’s first public appearance in about half a century took place at the Idea Generation exposition on the 17th of March 2011. A lot of people were invited and Iggy was pleasantly surprised that she was asked, by about everyone (minus one), for autographs and pictures.

That she was the star of the evening not only surprised her. Unfortunately, it also led to a jealous outbreak from someone whom we will call X. That person had always been high on the Syd Barrett pecking order and was afraid to lose that spot. Iggy and X would be frenemies for the rest of their lives, en passant adding the Reverend to the war zone who was hit by friendly (and less friendly) fire.

Iggy at the Exhibition 
Barrett: come on you painter! 

The Cromwellian

In our third season, we also continued our Cromwellian nightclub series with articles about professional wrestlers Paul Lincoln, Bob 'Anthony' Archer, Judo Al Hayes and Rebel Ray Hunter who co-owned The Crom and other clubs in the sixties.

Dr Death and other assorted figures... 
RIP Paul Lincoln 
The Wrestling Beatle 
Cromwellian blog launched! 

2020

Meanwhile, David Gilmour and Roger Waters are fighting an online battle to get the most attention of the fans, by releasing home recordings of Barrett, Floyd and solo songs. Nick Mason (with his Saucerful band) is – obviously – still the coolest guy around.

See you next year, sistren and brethren!

Many thanks to all collaborators who helped us a decade ago and who are still helping us today. RIP to those who are no longer around.: Adenairways, Amy-Louise, Anne, Bob Archer, Emily Archer, Russell Beecher, Paul Belbin, Mark Blake, Libby Gausden Chisman, Dallasman, Dan, Dan5482, Dancas, Denis Combet, Dominae & Ela & Violetta (Little Queenies), Paul Drummond, The Embassy of God, Emmapeelfan, Felixstrange, Babylemonade Flowers, Gianna, Dark Globe, Griselda, Rich Hall, Hallucalation, Rod Harrod, JenS, Jimmie James, Mark Jones, Kieren, Krackers, Lynxolita, Natasha M, Mojo, MOB, Moonwall, Motoriksymphonia, Natashaa', Giuliano Navarro, Neonknight, Göran Nyström, Julian Palacios, Alain Pire, PoC (Party of Clowns), Antonio Jesús Reyes, DollyRocker, Dolly Rocker, Jenny Spires, Vince666, Vintage Groupies, Brian Wernham, Wrestling Heritage, X, Xpkfloyd, Zag, Zoe and all the beautiful people at Late Night and Yeeshkul.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Guess what. When I was contacted by Iggy Rose, somewhere around 2011, I didn’t think it would be a never-ending story, with many laughs and now and then a tear. She was a remarkable woman with a touch of daft eccentricity that only seems to exist in England.

Obviously we are sad of what happened on the 13th of December 2017, a few minutes before midnight. But then, invariably, the gates of dawn open and we can celebrate her birthday. So, first, my annual wishes for her:

And then we have a dance and a laugh. A Church tradition that started in 2011 when Iggy roamed the Internet gangs of Clowns & Jugglers, No Man's Land and Birdie Hop (where a remembrance thread is praising this remarkable woman). And who can be better to start a dance than our and her buddies of Men On The Border?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IGGY ROSE!

We end with a quote of Anne M, dating from almost a decade ago:

I don’t think Iggy's mystery will be over from now on;
I do think the mystery that comes out of her photos in the 60’s just cannot die.

She's forever a legend. And as we know... legends live on.

The Church wishes to thank Jørgen Folmer Nergaard Larsen, Men On The Border and everybody still reading this.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Mojo 327

The most recent Mojo has, next to a John Lennon special, an eight pages article about the ongoing feud between Roger Waters and David Gilmour. It is titled Burning Bridges and has been written by Pink Floyd informant Mark Blake.

As usual, knowing the Mojo standards, it is a highly readable and informative article, but it’s all a bit of déjà vu, especially for members of the Pink Floyd obsessed dinosaur pack. We have been following that extraordinary band for about forty-five years and actually, we didn’t need to be reminded of something that happened thirty-five years ago.

The starting point of the article is the Roger Waters rant of May of last year (2020) where he was visibly annoyed that the official Pink Floyd website was actively plugging Polly Samson’s latest novel, but refused to mention the Roger Waters Us + Them live release. (For our review of that album or video, please consult: Them Secrets)

The Odd Couple

We will not get into the fruitless discussion who is right and who is wrong. There are pros and cons to both sides. Mark Blake quotes Polly Samson who once said that ‘Roger and David were like a bickering old divorced couple’. The only error in that quote is the use of the past tense, because, if the rumour mill is correct, the gap between the ‘genius’ and the ‘voice and guitar’ of Pink Floyd is still there and is – after a period of apparent reconciliation – again very wide and very deep.

Unfortunately, the Mojo article doesn’t mention the recent quarrels that have had consequences for the Pink Floyd fan and collector. But don’t worry, that’s where we – The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit: the thorn in the flesh of all things Pink – come in.

One of the juicier stories is that the advertised Early Years set (2016) was different than what finally could be found in the stores. 5.1 Mixes were promised of Meddle and Obscured By Clouds but had to be removed due to an ongoing copyrights war between the Waters and Gilmour camp. Much of the printed material had already been done and booklets were (allegedly) replaced at the last minute. (To read the full story: Supererog/Ation: skimming The Early Years.)

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others

The 5.1 remixing war is not a thing of the past. While a 5.1 version of The Wall is (apparently) in the pipeline, the 5.1 release of Animals is not, although it has been finished a while ago. All it is waiting for is Gilmour’s blessing. And that will not happen soon if our information is correct.

One reason could be that David Gilmour is still pissed about the fact that he only received one songwriting credit for his work on Dogs, while Roger Waters got four (not counting the copyrights for the lyrics). Waters added Pigs On The Wing (Part 1 and 2) at the last minute and got 1 extra credit for each part. David Gilmour didn't like, and may still not like, that his 17 minutes song was valued less than the 3 minutes Roger Waters throwaway.

Peace Be With You

In a 2019 interview Waters claimed that he offered a peace plan to Gilmour, but that it was rejected. Polly Samson, from her side, twittered that it was not her perfect lover boy who rejected the peace plan, but the bad guy. Us and them.

As usual Nick Mason is the coolest of them all. He once said that ”if our children behaved this way, we would have been very cross.” (Read more about the Pink Floyd wars at: Happy New Year 2020)

Probably inspired by the Mojo article Far Out magazine has published an online article covering the same ground: Why are Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Roger Waters feuding?

And now...

...for something completely different. Here is our yearly overview of what we have published on our Tumblr ‘sister’ page in 2020.

The Church wishes to thank: Ulrich Angersbach, Edgar Ascencio, Azerty, Bafupo, Charles Beterams, Birdie Hop, Mark Blake, Brainysod, British Music Archive, Juliet Butler, CBGB, Rob Chapman, Ron de Bruijn, David De Vries, Dr Doom, Drosophila, Ebronte, Vita Filippova, Friend of Squirrels, Ginger Gilmour, Goldenband, Graded Grains, John Gregory, Hadrian, Hallucalation, Gijsbert Hanekroot, Sara Harp, Hipgnosis Covers, Alexander Peter Hoffmann, Steve Hoffman Music Forums, Elizabeth Joyce, Jumaris, Rieks Korte, Mojo, Late Night, Bob Martin, Men On The Border, Modbeat66, Modboy1, Iain ‘Emo’ Moore, Neptune Pink Floyd, Lisa Newman, Jon Charles Newman, Göran Nyström, Old Man Peace, Julian Palacios, Emma Peel Pants, David Parker, Joe Perry, Brynn Petty, Borja Narganes Priego, Catherine Provenzano, Sophie Partridge. Punk Floyd, Antonio Jesús Reyes, Ewgeni Reingold, Shakesomeaction, Solo En Las Nubes, Mark Sturdy, Ken Sutera Jnr, Swanlee, Tomhinde, Wolfpack, Syd Wonder, Randall Yeager, Yeeshkul,

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

The first post that appeared on The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit (on 08-08-08) mentioned Duggie Fields in its second sentence (see that post here: Iggy). For years he was a privileged witness in the world of Sydiots.

In 1963 Duggie went to the Regent Street Polytechnic, where some of the Pink Floyd boys were studying at well.

I met Roger Waters in the same group. On Friday afternoon dances, I was Juliette’s [Gale] dancing partner.

Later he was one of the many people living at 101 Cromwell Road where he witnessed how the Cambridge gang were ‘real acid proselytisers’. Mick Rock:

Apart from Duggie’s room, the rest of the place was full of acid burn-outs.

Syd Barrett used to break into Duggie’s room to read the Dr Strange comic books Fields had imported from the States. Fields was a fan of comics creator Stan Lee. His bedroom wall was covered with Marvel comics. Unfortunately, people used to borrow those and never bring them back.

Around Christmas 1968 Duggie, Syd and a third tenant called Jules moved to Wetherby Mansions. Jules quickly disappeared. After the sessions for the Barrett album were completed ­ in July 1970 ­ Syd began to spend less time at Wetherby Mansions and by 1971 he was living full time in Cambridge. Duggie would live in the same apartment for the rest of his life, turning it into a colourful bric-a-brac museum of his art.

Duggie was about the most reliable witness about Iggy, who was known as the Eskimo girl, and the one who recognised Syd’s car, a Pontiac Parisienne, in the movie Entertaining Mr Sloane.

The car too has its own mythology. (...) I first saw it at Alice Pollock and Ossie Clark’s New Year’s Eve party at the Albert Hall – a memorable event itself where both Amanda Lear and Yes (separately) took to the stage for the first time. (Taken from: Duggie Fields)

Julian Palacios interviewed Duggie in 1996 for his Syd Barrett biography.

He was so cool. Reserved and wary at first, then about halfway through he became super raconteur.
(email to FA, 10 February 2010).

For the Mortal Remains exhibition, Duggie painted Syd Barrett leaning against a pink convertible. It’s a gripping image, loosely based upon one of Mick Rock’s photographs of the madcap. It shows a headless Syd who seems to be humming a tune, hence the musical note appearing behind him.

Although Fields had a great career of his own, painting in a post-modern pop-art comic-strip style, he was forever Syd Barrett’s room-mate which must have been tiring from time to time.

The legend goes that Duggie Fields used to play his records loud. One day he played some Motown and Iggy, in the other room, started to dance, much to the amusement of Syd. They’re all reunited now…

In 2011 Antonio Jesús Reyes from sister-blog Solo En Las Nubes had a self-interview (or autoentrevista) with Duggie Fields that was simultaneously published in Spanish and in English. For the Spanish version, go to: Autoentrevista - Duggie Fields - Mucho más que un compañero de piso. The English version can be consulted at: Duggie Fields, much more than a room-mate.

He was truly one on the last real English gentlemen and it was an honour to have known him.

We were also informed of the death of John Davies, one of the hip boys in Cambridge in the early sixties. As a friend of Syd, he used to trade guitar licks and hangout in El Patio. See also: The John Davies Collection

The Church wishes to thank: Antonio Jesús Reyes, Eleonora Siatoni, Julian Palacios, Rich Hall.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (others than the links above):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013, p. 81, 82.
Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010, p. 79.
Palacios, Julian: Darker Globe: Uncut and Unedited, private publication, 2021, p. 133, 484.

That the internet can be a dark dangerous place is something we all know all too well. But once in a while, it sends a positive message around, a message of love, to quote Rich Hall in the song 'The Reverend', a song he wrote about Iggy The Eskimo. This will probably be the most relevant post in our twelve years history and Syd Barrett will not be mentioned once.

Mizoram, India

There appears to be an active Mizo community on the internet. The state of Mizoram lies in the North-Eastern part of India, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh. It has about 1,100,000 citizens (2011 statistics).

After the independence from India (1947) it was not sure if the Lushai Hills would be annexed by Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India or even become an independent country, but in the end, it was incorporated in the union of India, which did not treat it respectfully, to put it euphemistically.

Mizo National Front uprising

For decades there were political and military troubles, with an armed uprising in 1966 and brutal countermeasures from India. Slowly some peaceful agreements were made and since 1987 Mizoram is a state of India, meaning it has its own government.

Iggy the Inuit Mizo

Probably by accident someone of the Mizo community stumbled upon a post of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. In our obituary for Iggy, we wrote that her ‘Indian’ roots were in Mizoram and not Pakistan as was generally believed.

This was shared on Mizo social networking groups where it was picked up by none other than Iggy’s relatives. It created quite a buzz, went viral and all of a sudden messages arrived on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, asking the Church for more information and pleading us to bring them in contact with Iggy’s siblings. Which obviously, we did.

Isolationism

Contact with Iggy’s parents was lost in February 1966 when Mizoram was plunged into an insurgency, also known as the Mizo National Front uprising. The central Indian government retaliated hard and restricted and censored all information coming in or going out of the district of Mizoram. All letters going through the national postal service were intercepted by the government and either censored or destroyed. As there was no digital communication in those days the Mizoram community was plunged into virtual isolation for nearly three decades.

Contact lost

When the situation normalised the Mizo family branch searched frantically for Iggy’s parents, going through Havant Council, Hampshire (where her parents used to live) and the UK's Ministry of Defence (as her father was in the military), but to no avail.

Four decades later, in 2021, the search was still going on, lead by Iggy's cousin Thana. His mother, now 93 years old, is Iggy’s aunt from his mother’s side.

Iggy’s mother, Angela (or Angelina) Chawngpuii married major Harry Charlton Joyce, a British army officer serving in India during and immediately after India’s independence. They had three children: Evelyn (better known as Iggy), Stephen and Elizabeth Anne.

Laldawngliani

In our obituary from 2017, we revealed Iggy’s indigenous name, but it seems we had it wrong. Iggy told us, years ago, that her name was Laldowliani, but as we couldn’t find any trace of that we simplified it to Laldingliani which seemed more common.

Many of Iggy’s family members have written to us that it is, in fact, Laldawngliani. If we have learned one thing through the ages, it is that one should never ever doubt Iggy. We can hear her roaring laugh, followed by: "I TOLD YOU SO, FELIX!"

Chaltlang

Iggy’s great-grandfather Thangphunga was the chieftain of three villages, including Chaltlang, now a suburb of Aizawl, Mizoram’s capital. The chieftainship was abolished by the Indian government when they annexed Mizoram, which had been an autonomous region before (but ruled by the British after the mid-nineteenth century).

As such Iggy’s family was held in great respect. Iggy’s great-grandmother, Thangpuilali was the daughter of another chieftain, Savunga Sailo.

Iggy’s relatives will have many more tales to tell, but these obviously have to stay in the family. What we can share, and we hope that nobody will mind, are some pictures that were unknown until now.

Most of them will also be published as well, in a better resolution, on our daily Tumblr using the Mizoram tag.

Pictures

All pictures courtesy of Iggy's family, in Mizoram and the UK.

Many thanks to Elizabeth Joyce, Hnamte Thanchungnunga, Noeeeayo (Rinnungi Pachuau), Racheliebe (Chha Dok Mi), Rosang Zuala, Tnama Hnamte, VL Zawni.
The Mizu online community: Ajay dep Thanga, Din Nyy, Elvee milai, Euisoo's left sock, Hmazil, Kima Sailo, Lalrin Liana, Lzi Dora Hmar, Mact mizoram, Mafela ralte, Panjee chhakchhuak, Park Yoongi, Ramtea Zote123, Rinapautu Pautu, Zolad… and all those we may have forgotten.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Part 6 of our Mizoram newspaper cuttings.

Last but not least: TOI. Wikipedia: The Times of India is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest selling English-language daily in the world.

It is the oldest English-language newspaper in India, and the second-oldest Indian newspaper still in circulation, with its first edition published in 1838. It is nicknamed as "The Old Lady of Bori Bunder", and is an Indian "newspaper of record".

Near the beginning of the 20th century, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, called The Times of India "the leading paper in Asia". In 1991, the BBC ranked The Times of India among the world's six best newspapers.

Chandrima Banerjee published Pink Floyd Muse Iggy 'the Inuit' had Mizo roots.

(Text version under the image.)

(Text version)

TOI+ Pink Floyd muse Iggy 'the Inuit' had Mizo roots
Chandrima Banerjee.

All contact lost during Mizo uprising, one line in fan blog reunites family after 60 years

Whenever Evelyn 'Iggy' Rose was asked about her origins, she would mysteriously refer to "the Himalayas", no more. She was muse to Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett, the naked cover girl of his debut album and his lover. Seen at Jimi Hendrix's UK debut, in an Anthony Stern film, and in a cult British magazine New Musical Express' (NME) feature, her world was one of musicians, artists and psychedelia. When her mixed-race appearance was exoticised in the London of the 'bos, she gave the name "Eskimo" to an NME photographer as a joke and another origin story stuck – Iggy "the Eskimo" or Iggy "the Inuit”. Now, four years after her death, the pieces of the puzzle have finally come together – the charming socialite of the Swinging London was actually from the hills of Mizoram.

"Iggy's Mizo name was Laldawngliani," Rosangzuala, 48, whose great grandmother and Iggy's grandmother were sisters, told TOI. “I had been looking for Iggy and our England family since 2008. I joined Facebook to look for them. But nothing turned up ... Days ago, I saw a post in a local Mizoram Facebook group which mentioned a blog which said Iggy 'the Inuit' might be a Mizo ... If not for Iggy's relationship with Syd Barrett, we might not have found them. I thank Pink Floyd fans for helping us reunite the family." Iggy's mother Chawngpuii and her sisters. One of them, Chawngmawii, is 93 and lives in Kolasib

What Rosangzuala and his family knew, and many did not, was this – Iggy's great-grandfather Thangphunga was a chieftain of three Mizoram villages now consolidated as Chaltlang, and her mother Chawngpuii (her English name was Angela) had married British Army officer Harry Charlton Joyce who was serving in India and had then left for Yemen, followed by England. "Her father was posted with the Royal Engineers," said Rosangzuala. "He was a Major when he married Chawngpuii."

Iggy's great-grandfather Thangphunga was a chieftain of three Mizoram villages

In 1966, what was then the Mizo district and would later become the state of Mizoram was caught in a struggle for autonomy. Letters coming into the state would be examined by the government and, many believe, destroyed. “The last time we received a letter from Iggy's father, he was a Brigadier. After that, all communication stopped."

Around this time, Iggy was attending art school, meeting Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Keith Moon, and attending counterculture concerts like the '14 Hour Technicolour Dream', headlined by Pink Floyd, says the first extensive profile of the socialite by British music journalist Mark Blake in 2011, before she started living with Syd Barrett.

Years passed, and though her family in Mizoram knew about her, they could not figure out how to get in touch with their relatives in England. "Iggy's younger aunt, Chawngmawii, is 93. She lives in Kolasib (along with two of Iggy's first cousins). Iggy's elder aunt used to visit us often but she died years ago. I had promised her I would find them some day," said Rosangzuala. The last place they knew Iggy's parents lived was Havant, so they contacted the Borough Council there. It didn't help. Then, they wrote to the UK's defence ministry, hoping the military ties might throw up a lead. It didn't.

The Facebook post Rosangzuala saw now finally established a trail. It was a single line in a 2017 obituary - she died a day before turning 70 – in a blog called The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit (which replaced “Inuit" with “Mizo" later) which had resurfaced on Facebook: "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."

Rosangzuala got in touch with the blog post's author. "He was called Felix. He helped us contact Iggy's family in England online," Rosangzuala said. "Iggy's cousin Thana has connected with her brother, Stephen. He has a Mizo name, too."

Many thanks to the Mizoram online community!
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Part 5 of our Mizoram newspaper cuttings.

The Nort-Eastern Chronicle (TNEC) is a Digital Media Agency headquartered in Guwahati, Assam. The Agency is a (NEWS) worthy bytes curator and storytelling medium for the region and the globe! They wrote: Pink Floyd Founding Member Syd Barrett had a relation with Mizoram; All you need to know.

(Text version under the image.)

(Text version)

Pink Floyd Founding Member Syd Barrett had a relation with Mizoram; All you need to know
by Editorial

The past holds many interesting stories, and one such tale brought a Mizo family in contact with their long-lost relative three years after her death. Surprisingly enough, the relative turned out to be Iggy the Eskimo - the Girl who captured the spirit of the '60s.

The one-time girlfriend of Syd Barrett, the founding member of Pink Floyd, happens to be born of a Mizo mother and a British father. She was born as Evelyn Joyce but was most commonly known as 'Iggy the Eskimo' and 'Iggy the Inuit'. Her long dark hair, lovely Asian features, button nose, and baby face captured the eyes of the London public.

As per reports, it has come to light that Iggy Rose had a Mizo mother named Chawngpuii, while Iggy was born somewhere in present-day Pakistan. She did her schooling in India and Aden before moving to England. Her entry into the spotlight was as abrupt as her disappearance from it. Only after the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit launched a mission to bring her back four decades later, they connected with the maternal side of her family in Mizoram.

Iggy's mother had lost contact with her family in 1966 during the Mizos' Uprising. Rosangliana, one of Iggy's relatives in Mizoram, said, "After Mizoram returned to normalcy following the 1986 peace accord, we resumed the search for Iggy's parents, going through Havant Council Hampshire and the UK's Ministry of Defence, but to no avail."

After they came across a post about Iggy on the internet, they managed to connect to her family in London. Her brother and sister were excited to have found the other half of their family. Iggy fan page was rechristened as Iggy the Mizo following the discovery.

Many thanks to the Mizoram online community!
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Part 4 of our Mizoram newspaper cuttings.

TIME8 is a digital news medium from Northeast India, ushering a revolution in terms of news collection, unbiased storytelling and fearless journalism powered by raw energy of youth with the tenacity of seasoned journalists. They offer an extensive newsfeed covering politics, policy, sports, entertainment, fashion, art and wellness and of course, web culture.

And what did they publish about Iggy? Surprise! Pink Floyd’s founding member Syd Barrett’s muse roots discovered in Mizoram.

(Text version under the image.)

(Text version)

Surprise! Pink floyd's founding member Syd Barrett's muse's roots discovered in Mizoram
The one-time girlfriend and love interest of Syd Barrett was born to a Mizo mother and a British father Image by Byron's Muse

Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb, Another Brick On The Wall! Do these ring a bell in your ears? If yes, you are right there! And if no, then well, let me reveal to you an astonishing story! These are one of the famous songs of the groundbreaking English rock band named 'Pink Floyd'! The songs that have the musical power to give you goosebumps! Now, let me unearth something for you all to know.

Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett was one of the founding members of the band that was formed in 1965. If you want to know more about this famous man, you can find a great amount of information in the world of the internet but one of the interesting sides of his life was his romantic life. Barrett had relationships with various women. Among them, one of the women named Evelyn "Iggy" Rose (aka "Iggy the Eskimo", "Iggy the Inuit") has a northeastern connection! Yes. You read it right! This is what the story is about.

The one-time girlfriend and love interest of Syd Barrett was born to a Mizo mother and a British father. She was born as Evelyn Joyce but most commonly referred as "Iggy the Eskimo", "Iggy the Inuit", owing to her alleged Inuit (a member of an indigenous people of northern Canada and parts of Greenland and Alaska) heritage.

She passed away at the age of 69 in London in 2017 and right three years after her death, her roots were discovered amidst the hills of Mizoram. How did the discovery happen and unfold? There happens to be a website dedicated to Iggy by her fans where someone from Mizoram stumbled upon a post in the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit website.

Iggy Rose's Mizo mother named Chawngpuii married a British army officer named Harry Joyce who was serving in the then British-ruled India. Iggy was born somewhere in present-day Pakistan. She was given a native name (Laldawngliani) as well by her mother which stands for 'Gift of Gods', in a language Iggy never spoke.

Before moving to England, she did her schooling in India and Aden. She had a mark in the spotlight. Just the way she made her debut appearance was the similar way she abruptly disappeared from the spotlight scene. It is only when the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit launched a mission to bring her back four decades later, they connected with the maternal side of her family in Mizoram.

In her teenage years, Iggy was known to be a mysterious figure in the 1960's London's music scene. She had remarkable Asian facial features which made her one of the most attractive women in the music industry. She was also known as a 'Flower Child', a synonym for Hippies and she dated the likes of Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones' Keith Richards and of course, as I mentioned, the most famous, Syd Barrett

Iggy also made a nude appearance on the cover of Syd Barett's solo album 'The Madcap Laughs which made her unforgettable. In April 1967, Iggy joined the counter-culture throng in Alexandra Palace for The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream-"all 14 hours of it!"-where Floyd played a hypnotic set at dawn.

In 1967, Iggy made her film debut in a short documentary titled IN Gear which was screened as a supporting film in cinemas around the country.

In the year 1966, Iggy's mother lost contacts with her family due to the Mizos' uprising. One of Iggy's relatives in Mizoram named Rosangliana said, "After Mizoram returned to normalcy following the 1986 peace accord, we resumed the search for Iggy's parents, going through Havant Council Hampshire and the UK's Ministry of Defence, but to no avail."

A post regarding Iggy was being updated on the internet and after that, her story came into light, they managed to connect to her family in London. Iggy's brother and sister were elated to have discover the other half of their family. Iggy's fan page is given a new name as Iggy the Mizo following the discovery.

Many thanks to the Mizoram online community!
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Part 3 of our Mizoram newspaper cuttings.

ThePrint (in one word) is an Indian online newspaper, based in New Delhi, launched in August 2017 by editor Shekhar Gupta. It is sharply focused on politics and policy, government and governance. Its leadership team includes India’s most experienced and respected journalists with proven track records in the finest news organisations.

Myithili Hazarika wrote: Pink Floyd muse Evelyn ‘Iggy’ Rose had Mizo roots – 4 yrs after her death, the families connect.

(Text version under the image.)

(Text version)

Pink Floyd muse Evelyn ‘Iggy’ Rose had Mizo roots – 4 yrs after her death, the families connect

Evelyn 'Iggy' Rose's mother was from Mizoram who married British Army officer Harry Joyce

New Delhi: A little over three years after her death in 2017, the family of Evelyn 'Iggy' Rosethe enigmatic girlfriend of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, who appeared on the cover of his album 'The Madcap Laughs' — was able to reconnect with her relatives in Mizoram recently.

Rose's mother was Chawngpuii, a Mizo woman, and her father a British army officer, Harry Joyce. The couple married in Aizawl in 1946. Rose, born a year later, had a Mizo middle name 'Laldawngliani'.

Also known as 'Iggy The Eskimo Girl' or 'Iggy The Innuit', Rose had achieved cult status in the 1960s Swinging London, with her long dark hair and Asian features. Such had been her popularity that there is a fan site in her honour called, 'The Holy Church of Iggy The Innuit (now renamed as 'The Holy Church of Iggy The Mizo').

In an interview to British journalist Mark Blake, Rose had recalled how her father travelled to a "remote village in the Himalayas" where "he met the woman that would become my mother".

But the two families lost touch in 1966 during the Mizo insurgency days.

Rosangliana, one of her relatives in Mizoram, told The Assam Tribune, "After Mizoram returned to normalcy following the 1986 peace accord, we resumed the search for Iggy's parents...but to no avail."

It was only weeks ago that someone from Mizoram stumbled upon a post on her fan site and alerted the family. "A few days later, a guy named Felix (who runs the fan site) gave us information about Iggy's siblings," Rosangliana said, and added: “We have contacted Iggy's brother Stephen and sister Elizabeth.”

Many thanks to the Mizoram online community!
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Part 2 of our Mizoram newspaper cuttings.

IndiaTimes (IT) is a portal that seems to be linked to the newspaper The Times of India (TOI), published by Times Internet Limited and powered by Indiatimes Lifestyle Network. It has an elaborate article titled: Pink Floyd’s Muse Iggy ‘The Inuit’ Was Reportedly From The Hills Of Mizoram, written by Basit Aijaz.

(Text version under the image.)

(Text version)

Pink Floyd’s Muse Iggy ‘The Inuit’ Was Reportedly From The Hills Of Mizoram
Basit Aijaz

Highlights

* Now, four years after her death, it has all come together the charming socialite was from the hills of Mizoram.

* It was reported that Iggy's great-grandfather Thangphunga was a chieftain of three Mizoram villages now consolidated as Chaltlang.

* It all, though, falls into place with this revelation - her mother Chawngpuii (her English name was Angela) had married British Army officer Harry Charlton Joyce who was serving in India and had then left for Yemen, followed by England.

Evelyn 'Iggy' Rose, a friend, a model and possible love interest of Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett graced the scene of his debut album in the 1960s.

Her figure has always engulfed in mystery and whenever Iggy was requested about her origins, she would mysteriously confer with "the Himalayas”. There has always been an interest in her origins.

While her looks attracted attention, it was her personality that charmed the London Scene. When her mixed-race appearance was exoticised in the London of the '60s, she gave the name "Eskimo" to a photographer as a joke and another origin story stuck, Iggy "the Inuit".

Now, four years after her death, it has all come together - the charming socialite was from the hills of Mizoram.

"Iggy's Mizo title was Laldawngliani,” Rosangzuala, 48, whose grandmother and Iggy's grandmother had been sisters, told The Times of India.

"I had been looking for Iggy and our England family since 2008. I joined Facebook to look for them. But nothing turned up... Days ago, I saw a post in a local Mizoram Facebook group which mentioned a blog which said Iggy 'the Inuit might be a Mizo ... If not for Iggy's relationship with Syd Barrett, we might not have found them. I thank Pink Floyd fans for helping us reunite the family," Rosangzuala said.

It was reported that Iggy's great-grandfather Thangphunga was a chieftain of three Mizoram villages now consolidated as Chaltlang.

It all, though, falls into place with this revelation - her mother Chawngpuii (her English name was Angela) had married British Army officer Harry Charlton Joyce who was serving in India and had then left for Yemen, followed by England.

"Her father was posted with the Royal Engineers. He was a Major when he married Chawngpuii," Rosangzuala added.

In 1966, what was then the Mizo district and would later become the state of Mizoram was caught in a struggle for autonomy. Letters coming into the state would be censored by the government and, many believe, destroyed.

"The last time we received a letter from Iggy's father, he was a Brigadier. After that, all communication stopped.” Around this time, Iggy was attending art school, meeting some iconic pop stars of the time - Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Keith Moon.

She was also attending counterculture concerts like the '14 Hour Technicolour Dream', headlined by Pink Floyd, says the first extensive profile of the socialite by British music journalist Mark Blake in 2011, before she started living with Syd Barrett.

While years passed and though her family in Mizoram knew about her, they could not figure out how to get in touch with their relatives in England.

It was only through the Facebook post that Rosangzuala saw that finally established a trail. It was a single line in a 2017 obituary - she died a day before turning 70 - in a blog called The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit (which replaced “Inuit” with “Mizo" later) which had resurfaced on Facebook

Many thanks to the Mizoram online community!
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

On the end of May 2021 the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit was consulted by a visitor from Mizoram who found it interesting enough to share on a Facebook group.

There it was picked up by an Indian relative of Iggy. The Mizo branch had lost contact with the English family members in the sixties, when there had been a military conflict between India and Mizoram freedom fighters.

In the aftermath of the conflict the Indian government censored all letters to and from Mizoram and communication was lost between Iggy’s mother and her family in north-east India.

So imagine the emotions from Iggy’s nephews and nieces when they found out that, perhaps, after a half-century gap they could get in contact again with their long-lost family, living in Great-Britain.

In Mizo circles the Holy Church went viral and the Reverend was contacted by quite a few people. You can read about it in Family Reunion.

Meanwhile the Indian press got hold of the news and in the next few posts we will highlight some of these articles.

The Northeast Today is a digital portal and they had a news snippet on Twitter. Unfortunately we couldn’t track down the article.

The Assam Tribune, so says Wikipedia, is an Indian English daily newspaper published from Guwahati and Dibrugarh, Assam. With over 700,000 copies of current circulation and a readership of over 3 million, it is the highest circulated English daily in northeastern India.

They published the article Iggy the Inuit found to have roots in Mizoram, written by Zodin Sanga.

(Text version under the image.)

(Text version)

Iggy the Inuit found to have roots in Mizoram
ZODIN SANGA

A Mizo family in Aizawl found their long lost relative, three years after her death, and she turned out to be Pink Floyd's founding member Syd Barrett's one-time girlfriend who achieved cult status in the 'Swinging London' during the late 1960s.

The woman with Mizo links is none other than Evelyn 'Iggy' Rose (born Evelyn Joyce), most commonly referred to as 'Iggy the Eskimo' and 'Iggy the Inuit', owing to her alleged Inuit heritage.

However, someone from Mizoram stumbled upon a post in the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit - a website dedicated to Iggy by her fans. The discovery came three years after Iggy died in London at the age of 69 in 2017.

Now, it has come to light that Iggy Rose had a Mizo mother named Chawngpuii, who had married British army officer Harry Joyce who was serving in the then British-ruled India. Chawngpuii gave her first child a Mizo middle name 'LaIdawngliani'.

Iggy's maternal greatgrandfather Thangphunga was the chieftain of three villages, including Chaltlang, now a part of Aizawl.

The marriage took place in Aizawl in 1946. Iggy was born a year later somewhere in present-day Pakistan.

She attended school in India and Aden, before moving to England. As a teenager, Iggy became a mysterious figure in the 1960s London's music scene. With her long dark hair and lovely Asian features, she became one of the most attractive Flower Children', synonym for Hippies, dating the likes of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards of Rolling Stones, and most famously Syd Barrett.

It was her nude appearance on the cover of Syd Barrett's solo album The Madcap Laughs that made her most memorable.

Iggy gained notoriety by appearing in a newsreel shot at Granny Takes a Trip and in Melody Maker, demonstrating a new dance. She then disappeared from the scene as abruptly as she appeared, believed to be married to a rich man and lived a reclusive life.

Almost four decades later, the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit launched a mission to find Iggy and bring her back to the spotlight. The mission was accomplised, and also helped Iggy's maternal relatives in Mizoram discover who they had been searching for.

Rosangliana, one of Iggy's relatives in Mizoram, said they lost contact with Iggy's mother in 1966 when Mizoram plunged into an insurgency, also known as the Mizos' Uprising.

The Government of India restricted and censored all information coming in or going out of Mizoram, then a district under Assam. All letters going through the national postal service were intercepted by the Government and either censored or destroyed.

"After Mizoram returned to normalcy following the 1986 peace accord, we resumed the search for Iggy's parents, going through Havant Council, Hampshire (where her parents used to live) and the UK's Ministry of Defence (as her father was in the military), but to no avail," Rosangliana said.

A few weeks back, the family was informed when someone came across this post about Iggy on the internet.

"We immediately wrote to the website seeking more details about Iggy and her family in London," Rosangliana said.

"A few days later, a guy from London named Felix got back to us, giving us information about Iggy's siblings - a brother and a sister who still live in England.

"We have contacted Iggy's brother Stephen and her sister Elizabeth. They were so excited to find us," he said.

Iggy's 93-year-old aunt Chawngmawii is still alive and lives with her children in Kolasib in northern Mizoram.

After the discovery of her Mizo roots, the fan page Iggy The Inuit was was rechristened as Iggy The Mizo.

Many thanks to the Mizoram online community!
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

The Times Of India, the oldest English-language newspaper in India, posted a follow-up article about Iggy’s Mizo roots. The first article was called Pink Floyd Muse Iggy 'the Inuit' had Mizo roots and can be found here: Iggy takes India by Storm #6.

For the follow-up journalist Chandrima Banerjee contacted Iggy's sister Elizabeth and none other than yours truly, the Reverend of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.

Elizabeth is planning to visit Mizoram and meet her family over there…

I’ve never been to India. I’m going to visit my relatives in Mizoram with my partner Rob next year, depending on the Covid-19 situation, obviously, I’m really buzzed about it.

Elizabeth also mentions a few things we didn’t know. Iggy was born in Rawalpindi (Pakistan), her brother Stephen in Dhaka (Bangladesh).

If you want to know what the Reverend had to say, you’ll need to consult Chandrima Banerjee’s article: Pink Floyd muse Iggy’s English & Mizo families to reunite after 60 years (URL: Times of India).

(Text version under the image.)

(Text version)

Floyd muse Iggy's English & Mizo families to reunite after 60 years

Her name, Laldawngliani, was known only to a chosen few. She had not seen her family in faraway Mizoram since she was a child. And the few memories she had of the time she spent there were, perhaps, coloured by distance and imagination - like the time a cat in her garden she wanted to pet turned out to be a tiger. Evelyn "Iggy" Rose, counterculture cover girl of the London of the '60s, had locked away her link to India for as long as she lived. But now, brought together by a blog post, the English and Mizo families of Iggy Rose, who had been sundered apart for six decades by the Mizo rebellion, will finally meet.

"I don't know how to adequately describe what it's like to reconnect with my Mizo family. It's an amazing experience. This is a very emotional time for me," Elizabeth Joyce, Iggy's sister, told TOI. "I've never been to India. I'm going to visit my relatives in Mizoram with my partner Rob next year, depending on the Covid-19 situation, obviously. I'm really buzzed about it."

Elizabeth is 62 now, having retired after years documenting artefacts in museums. "Our parents met at the end of the Second World War, when our father was in the army and stationed in Mizoram — then, the Lushai Hills. He was a Major at the time. They have happy memories of that period in their lives. Father said it was a very beautiful and fascinating region. He seemed to have been struck by the remoteness of the place," said Elizabeth. She was born at Worthing, Sussex, in England and does not have a Mizo name. "Evelyn Laldawngliani was born in Rawalpindi (Pakistan) on 12 December, 1947. (Our brother) Stephen Lalungmuana was born in Dhaka (Bangladesh) in January 1949."

For about three weeks now, Mizo social media groups have been bustling with the "discovery" that the muse to Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett had roots in the hill state. The blog from which this emerged, 'The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit', had posted a single line about it in 2017, which someone from Mizoram chanced upon, posted on local social media and it blew up. Someone got in touch with the blog's author and it turned out Iggy's mother, Chawngpuii, was Mizo.

"Basically, this was confirmed to me by a family member, after Iggy had passed away. During her life, we just said she was from the Himalayas or Pakistan as we didn't have a more accurate description. Iggy had always been very discreet about her roots... Apparently the family was attacked during one of the disturbances and they had to flee the country. I don't know where and when this happened. Iggy's father was a British army man and as such a symbol of the oppressor ... Iggy was of the opinion that this wasn't something that should be known to the outside world," Felix Atagong, 61, who runs the blog, told TOI. "Iggy only spoke scarcely about India, but that was perhaps because she was a toddler when living there. There is only the anecdote how she wanted to pet the cat in the garden that actually was a tiger. But I'm not certain how truthful that story is. It's typically Iggy though."

The two sides of the family lost touch in the '60s. "After the Mizoram disturbance, we lost contact with them. Due to the insurgency, there was a lot of problem," Rosangzuala, 48, an extended family member, told TOI. "Six decades later, because of the internet, we found them."

Just as mysterious as her origin story was the coda to Iggy's '60s life. "For decades, nothing was known about her, apart from the fact that she was nicknamed Iggy the Eskimo and that she had been living with Syd for about two weeks. After the sleeve picture (on Barrett's debut album, 'The Madcap Laughs') had been taken, she disappeared out of his life and nobody knew what had become of her, after 1970," Atagong, who started his blog in 2008 and had been in touch with Iggy since 2010, said. But she didn't exactly disappear. "There was no social media in the '60s, so it appeared that Iggy simply vanished while she was literally just a few blocks away, socialising with people from underground circles - musicians, actors, photographers, movie makers. Unfortunately, this mostly stayed undocumented," he added. "After a while, the psychedelic free ride' days were over and in the mid-'70s, she looked for a job on a horse farm where she met her husband. They moved to a little village where she lived for the rest of her life."

An IT manager who started the blog for a lark, Felix, too, is now deeply invested in this family reunion. "I'm a geek who takes his Pink Floyd-Syd Barrett-Iggy the Eskimo fandom too seriously.... Since I was eight, I wanted to be a writer or a journalist like Tintin and I feel a blog is the exact medium for that. And from time to time it is really worthwhile, like now with the reunion of the Iggy family," he said. “I care more for this family reunion than for a new Pink Floyd record. I regard this as the most important event that happened on my blog, next to the discovery' of Iggy herself."

Many thanks to: Chandrima Banerjee and the Mizoram online community!
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

As I get older, one day closer to death to quote the great bard, I see all my old chums and chumnettes getting less and less active on social media, which is a pity but also a bit understandable. At a certain age, you start to understand that life with a spouse, children and grandchildren is getting more important than a Facebook click.

It is nice that Syd Barrett still means something to youngsters and that the online communities keep on gaining young members, gradually replacing the old farts. New faces mean new ideas, new insights and new theories and that can only be encouraged. But that doesn’t want to say that the crusty old dinosaurs who have been roaming through Pink Floyd land for decades no longer have valid things to say.

I know the impatience of the young. I once was young myself although some people will seriously doubt that. But it is not because you discovered this sensational Pink Floyd singer a month ago that you have magically turned into a madcap/mad cat specialist.

Syd Sánchez

At the left, you can see one of the more famous Syd Barrett fakes. Actually, I don’t like the term fake. It is not fake, it is an example of meticulously crafted appropriation art. My good friend Stanislav, a digital artist, crafted these during a long and cold Siberian winter. They were published on his ironic blog ‘Far further than you could possibly imagine’ or on the once leading Syd Barrett forum ‘Late Night’. Not a single soul on there claimed these were real but they did trigger some heated discussions.

Unfortunately, the pictures started to lead their own life on the internet when they appeared on popular image sharing platforms like Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram. Nowadays it is nearly impossible to find the original picture from Mexican featherweight boxer Salvador Sánchez Narváez that inspired Stanislav to create his mashup. Over the years the copy has cannibalised the original. The same happens with all the digitally colourised Pink Floyd pictures that flood the net. They are already replacing the original black and whites and in a couple of years, fans will believe these are originals.

The impertinence of the young was shown in May 2021 when a cover of Have A Cigar was published on Facebook. A nice elderly gentleman, going by the name of Roy Harper, reacted that he had sung the original on the Wish You Were Here album. It didn’t take long before some self-proclaimed Pink Floyd specialist accused him of spreading fake news. That’s why it matters that some old-fashioned sources of information still exist, to keep the idiots away.

So whether it interests anybody or not, let’s get this overview of what happened ten years ago, on this ridiculous example of a blog, started.

2011-2012 - Selfinterview

The Holy Church’s fourth season started with a guest article from the Spanish Syd Barrett blog Solo En Las Nubes.

Webmaster Antonio Jesús managed to interview Warren Dosanjh for his Autoentrevista series and the Holy Church got the honour to publish the interview for the Anglo-Saxon world: Warren Dosanjh, Syd Barrett's first manager.

It’s no shame if you don’t know who Warren Dosanjh is, as we enter proto-Floyd territory here. See? That’s why it’s good there are still some old people around, remembering things.

Other interviews we nicked from Antonio’s blog that fourth (and fifth) season were:
Lee Wood, the man who knows everything
Duggie Fields, much more than a room-mate (who sadly passed away in 2021)
Antonio Jesús Reyes, a new career in a new town
Wondering and Dreaming (a self-interview with Ewgeni Reingold)
John Cavanagh, so much to do, so little time
Jose Ángel González, Spanishgrass & more
Men On The Border, Syd Swedish version

Money

Pink Floyd, believe it or not, is a great band, perhaps the greatest band in the world. The Pink Floyd company, however, is lead by a bunch of greedy bastards who give the record industry a bad name. If Pink Floyd (the band) could create a car it would be – on paper – the best car ever. If Pink Floyd (the company) could build it wheels would be falling off while driving at 120 km/h on the motorway.

2011 was the year some Immersion sets saw the light of day. These were deluxe box sets of the big three: Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. Soon horror stories were published on several music forums. The disks were not protected in the box and arrived scratched. Blu-ray disks were unplayable and Pink Floyd (the company) was very reluctant to replace those.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t a one time issue. Also, The Early Years (2016) and The Later Years (2019) have had these problems. A decade later people are still complaining on Steve Hoffman’s Music Corner that bit rot has invaded the disks they paid a small fortune for. That’s why The Church decided to take the piss out of Floyd in several satirical articles: Fuck all that, Pink Floyd Ltd. 

Floorboard Wars

On the most active (and knowledgeable) Syd Barrett forums (i.c. Late Night) and groups (i.c. Birdie Hop) there has always been some bickering about some minor details. One of these recurring discussions are the colours Syd and Iggy painted the floorboards in, in anticipation of the Storm Thorgerson and Mick Rock photoshoot, for The Madcap Laughs album. (That photoshoot in itself has created several threads about who took what, with Mick Rock recently suggesting he did it all by himself.)

In January 2012 I found it a good idea to assemble different testimonies about the floorboard colours in Syd’s (and Duggie’s) apartment, taken from recent interviews (some by myself) or quotes from magazine articles and books. A majority of the witnesses put the colours as orange (5 votes) and blue (3 votes), but also red (2 votes), purple, turquoise and green were mentioned: The Case of the Painted Floorboards (v 2.012).

What had to be a tongue in cheek article turned into something of a godzillanesque monster.

Jenny Spires and Iggy Rose had a big fight, fuelling their mutual hate for each other that would go on for ages. Unfortunately, the Holy Church, which had an excellent relationship with both of them, was the subject of some collateral damage. Tired of the constant pettifoggeries I left the Birdie Hop community where I had been one of the founding fathers.

Spanishgrass

The floorboard fiasco was one thing, Spanishgrass another.

A Mexican fan of the Holy Church asked me if I had ever heard of the Spanishgrass urban legend. During Syd Barrett’s lost weekend, which lasted for several decades, he allegedly visited a monastery in Spain, stayed there for several months and recorded some songs on a cheap portable cassette deck.

While this hoax did the rounds in the Spanish speaking hemisphere east and west from the Atlantic ocean it was virtually unknown in English speaking regions. At least I had never heard of it. In the first article (from a series that would take two years to complete) I searched for the origins of the hoax, with the help of Antonio Jesús of Solo En Las Nubes: Spanishgrass or Syd Barrett's lost Spanish record.

But there will be probably more on that next year, if we are still around.

Emily Plays

On French Bastille Day of 2012, The Church went into another investigation, this time about the very first Pink Floyd cover versions that have been put on record. I dug into the foggy history of sound-alike recordings that could be found on budget records from the sixties and seventies, recorded by anonymous artists and often released under different names.

The 1967-ish covers of See Emily Play are no exception. They exist in different versions, in different mixes and have been issued under different band names. The full (but still incomplete) story at:The Rape of Emily (three different ones).

See you next year!

The Holy Church has always been helped by a lot of people. Here is a list of those who participated to one of our articles of the fourth season, voluntarily or not: 2braindamage, Anton, Antonio Jesús Reyes, Babylemonade Flowers, Blah F. Blah, Bloco do Pink Floyd, Camilo Franco, Charlas Bronson, Chris Jones, Cicodelico, Clowns & Jugglers, Colleen Hart, Denis Combet, Duggie Fields, Ebronte, Eleonora Siatoni, Eric Burdon, Ewgeni Reingold, Freqazoidiac, Göran Nyström, Greeneyedbetsy, Helen Smith, Iggy Rose, I Spy In Cambridge, Jancy, Jenell Kesler, Jenni Fiire, Jenny Spires, JenS, Joe Perry, John Gordon, Julian Palacios, KenB, Kiloh Smith, Late Night, Lee Wood, Libby Gausden, Listener Klip, Little Turtle, Lord Drainlid, Margaretta Barclay, Mark Blake, Mark Jones, Mate, Matt, Michael Brown, Neptune Pink Floyd, Nina, Nipote, No Man's Land, Pascal Mascheroni, Rescue Rangers, Peter Gilmour, PF Chopper, Phil Etheridge, Ramjur, Rockin' Bee, Ron Mann, Simone Saibene, Streetmouse, Viv Brans, Warren Dosanjh and all those that we have forgotten!
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Rod Harrod

It passed by as a fait-divers. On the third of December Rod Harrod died in his home village of Dinas Powys in South Wales. Many people, especially those in Floydian spheres, will not recognise him.

In the early days of the Church, when we were still looking for Iggy, we had an agreeable conversation with Rod about the heydays of The Cromwellian and the other clubs Iggy used to frequent. Rod Harrod was the man who - more or less – discovered Jimi Hendrix and who gave him a first chance to play at the Scotch of St James Club in London. To read a bit more about Rod Harrod you can go to these early Church archives: Rod Harrod remembers The Crom and The Style Council.

Loudersound wrote an article about Jimi Hendrix’s first show, available here: The inside story of Jimi Hendrix's first UK show, by the man who made it happen.

Our condolences to the family, relatives and friends of Rod.

2021

Twenty twenty one was a lousy weird year, with – unfortunately – also a few deceases closer to the Floydian home. The Church also had a few good moments, even something we could call the highlight in our thirteen years existence.

All of these have been illustrated on our Tumblr sister blog … and here is our annual overview:

Anonymous, Ajay Dep Thanga, Antonio Jesús Reyes, APH, Asdf35, Barbara, Basit Aijaz, Chandrima Banerjee, Din Nyy, Eleonora Siatoni, Elizabeth Joyce, Elvee Milai, Euisoo's left sock, Göran Nyström, Gregory Taylor, Hallucalation, Hmazil, Hnamte Thanchungnunga, Julian Palacios, Kevin Arnold, Kima Sailo, Lalrin Liana, Lzi Dora Hmar, Mact Mizoram, Mafela Ralte, Mark Blake, Matthew Cheney, Mick Brown, Myithili Hazarika, Noeeeayo (Rinnungi Pachuau), Panjee Chhakchhuak, Park Yoongi, Psych62, Racheliebe (Chha Dok Mi), Ramtea Zote123, Rich Hall, Rinapautu Pautu, Rob Chapman, Rontoon, Rosang Zuala, Roy Alan Ethridge, Stash Klossowski de Rola, Stephen Coates, Swanlee, Syd Wonder, Tnama Hnamte, VL Zawni, Wolfpack, Younglight, Zodin Sanga, Zolad.

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Cambridge

Anthony Stern grew up in Cambridge, along with boyhood friends David Gilmour and Roger Barrett. He moved to London in the mid-sixties and worked as a photographer for the Immediate record label. As a film-maker, he worked with Peter Whitehead on several documentaries that captured the rebellious energy of a tumultuous decade, such as the documentary Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London (1967).

LSD-pioneer Stern had been a part of the Cambridge set in the mid-sixties, with beat poets, aspiring musicians and artists meeting at the local coffee-bar El Patio. Ant and his pal Syd had a mutual art exhibition, in the summer of 1964, above the Lion and Lamb pub in Milton. Just like Peter Whitehead, Storm Thorgerson and Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon he was an aspiring photographer and would-be movie maker. Around 1967 he and Syd discussed co-writing and -producing a movie 'The Rose Tinted Monocle' but the project never materialised.

Was there something in the water? (…) How come it happened that in Cambridge, nearly everybody you met was already a sort of proto-eccentric by the age of fourteen? If you weren’t doing some mad beat poetry, or jazz or playing the trumpet or something by the age of fifteen you’d better get a move on, ’cos everyone else is doing something wacky.” (Irregular Head)

In the autumn of 1967 things weren’t going smoothly for the Floyd. One day Anthony Stern ran into Peter Jenner in the Drum City music shop in London. He was offered a place in the band as second guitarist but he turned down the offer: “Oh, no, I’m a film director.”

Anthony Stern made a few Floyd-related movies. One of those, using the Floyd's hit-single 'See Emily Play', was the legendary 'Iggy Eskimo Girl' (1968), a relic that has mostly been hidden for five decades. The movie is, to quote Stern, a short little film poem about a girl who was on the scene in London.

Iggy was my muse. I met her at a Hendrix gig at the Speakeasy. She was a lovely inspiration and free spirit. I never knew her real name. We used to hang out together, occasionally dropping acid, staying up all night, going for walks at dawn in Battersea Park.

Stern took many pictures of Iggy and some were shown as ‘triptychs’ at The Other Room, one of the exhibitions during the Cambridge City Wakes festival in 2008.

I re-discovered these photographs in my cellar in an old suitcase. All the optical effects were obtained in-camera. The colour images of Iggy were taken on a houseboat at Chelsea Reach. In the background you can see Lots Road Power Station. The distortions were achieved using a flexible mirror material called Malinex, as well as a magnifying Fresnel screen.

Iggy was terrific fun to be with and to photograph. I knew her before she was introduced to Syd by Jennifer Spires, and I remember walking through Battersea Park in the early mornings together.

San Francisco

Even more famous than the Iggy movie is Stern’s San Francisco, (1968) where he ‘attempted to duplicate the Pink Floyd’s light show’ through cinematography. The soundtrack of that short is an early version of 'Interstellar Overdrive', dating from the 31st of October 1966. Stern used his camera as a ‘musical instrument’. San Francisco was seen by him as a ‘jazz music performance’ using still images as notes.

London

Syd Barrett used to crash in at Stern’s apartment, during and after his Pink Floyd period, but not all was well.

You’d see his mood declining as the evening wore on. (…) Then he’d disappear into the lavatory and come back and his mood had changed. (Pigs Might Fly)

According to Stern it was not cocaine Syd Barrett was taking, but heroin.

Dark Side Of The Rose Monocle

When 'Dark Side Of The Moon' came out Stern was duly impressed, just like millions of other fans. He proposed to make a movie based upon the 'The Rose Tinted Monocle' script that he had worked on with Syd Barrett. He borrowed a projector from David Gilmour and showed a rough version to all members of the band.

They knew that Syd had been involved with the roots of the film, and on a purely aesthetic and creative level they all gave it the thumbs up. They all said, “Of course you can use Dark Side of the Moon for this.” (…) Roger, despite his immense ego, was incredibly friendly, warm and enthusiastic about the idea of me using this music in such an abstract, non-commercial way. (Pigs Might Fly)

The band’s approval was buried by the band’s manager, Steve O’Rourke, and the movie was never made. Pink Floyd now belonged to the high-fidelity first-class travelling set and no longer to the avant-garde underground.

Dancing with Glass

Making avant-garde movies doesn’t bring bread on the table. Around 1978 Anthony Stern found a new way to express his talent in glass blowing. Film-making and glass-blowing culminated in a short movie Anthony made: 'Dancing With Glass' (2013). Direct link: Dancing With Glass.

Chimera Arts

With the turn of the century there was some renewed interest in Stern’s film making. He joined forces with Chimera Arts, the production company from installation artist Sadia Sadia and music producer, composer and sound designer Stephen W Tayler. They salvaged some material from Stern’s archives. 'The Noon Gun', shot by Stern in Afghanistan in 1971, was released by Chimera in 2004.

Other rediscovered films had a premiere at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, June 2008. Amongst them: 'The End Of The Party', from 1969 and 'Iggy Eskimo Girl', from 1968. Stern was present and gave some valuable information that has been hiding for years in one of the dark corners of the Internet. Direct Link: Anthony Stern.

The City Wakes festival in Cambridge (2008) created something of a Pink Floyd induced buzz, promoting Anthony’s pictures in The Other Room exhibition. Anthony Stern was also the subject of a 2008 documentary, shot by Sadia Sadia: 'Lit From Within'.

Get all that, Ant?

Stern was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and started revisiting his collection of photographs, 16mm film reels and Nagra sound tapes. A website was created in 2014, Anthony Stern Film Archive, that promised to release a book and a DVD containing Stern’s work: 'Get all from that Ant?' (later re-baptised to 'Get All That, Ant')

Although the 62 minutes documentary was shown on a Syd Barrett festival in October 2016 it never was released to the general public. Most of the relevant pages on the Anthony Stern Film Archive website have disappeared as well.

Memory Marbles

A condensed, 45 minutes, version was shown at BBC4 during Keith Richard’s Lost Weekend. 'Lost and Found: the Memory Marbles of Anthony Stern' made it on national television on Monday 26th of September 2016 at 01:25 in the morning. This documentary had some previously unpublished stills and snippets of Iggy and Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett.

Chimera Copyright Issues

No Church article without some controversy, some people say.

'Memory Marbles' – the condensed version of 'Get All That, Ant?' – was the only program from Keith Richard’s Lost Weekend that didn’t make it on the BBC iPlayer and couldn’t be seen ‘on demand’. Copyright issues, so it seems.

The 'Iggy Eskimo Girl' movie was never generally released and when a ‘bootleg’ version was found by none other than Iggy herself (in 2016) it took less than 24 hours for Chimera Arts to delete it from Dailymotion. (See: Iggy The Eskimo Girl (full movie).)

Over the years Chimera has been as protective over Stern’s movies as Pink Floyd over the Syd Barrett tap dancing video. They prefer to show his work on avant-garde film festivals rather than release it to the masses. (Anthony Stern did send an Eskimo Girl DVD to Iggy Rose though.)

As such it is quite ironical that the Anthony Stern retrospective at La Cinémathèque Française was organised after they found one of his movies… on YouTube.

Vanishing Point

Sadia Sadia’s YouTube channel contained a biographical movie about ‘her friend, the glass artist Anthony Stern’. 'Lit From Within' (2008) is a cute documentary that has a mid-sixties cameo from none other than Libby Gausden. A few days after Stern’s decease, the movie mysteriously disappeared from the channel. It's probably an avant-garde way of honouring a friend who just passed away.

Old Friends

Another mystery is why Ant’s two Pink Floyd related movies never made it on The Early Years set. The 'Interstellar Overdrive' demo of the 1st of October 1966, recorded at Thompson Private Recording Studios, Hemel Hempstead can’t be found in the box, an unforgivable oversight. It was later released on one-sided vinyl for Record Store Day.

It is rumoured that Pink Floyd used a low quality tape to press the record. It is also believed that the original reel of the track belonged to Anthony Stern, who used it for the San Francisco movie. Just like with the BBC sessions the Pink Floyd archivists used low quality copies instead of trying to obtain the originals.

RIP Anthony Stern (1944 - 2022)

Stern died somewhere in the first or second week of February 2022. With Anthony we lose another cogwheel from the Pink Floyd time machine. He used to play with light, first as a gifted avant-garde movie maker, later as a glass sculpturer. Let’s hope ‘Get All That, Ant’ will get a release soon and that it will not stay in copyright hell like Storm Thorgerson’s ‘Have You Got It Yet’.

We are the Fishes

An Anthony Stern movie from 2014. Direct link: We are the Fishes.

Many thanks to: Iain 'Emo' Moore, Lisa Newman, Göran Nyström.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Links & Things:
Anthony Stern: Anthony Stern Glass.
Anthony Stern: BFI (incomplete).
Anthony Stern: Film Archive.
Anthony Stern: Film Archive (Wixsite).
Anthony Stern: IMDB (incomplete).
Anthony Stern: YouTube.

Chimera Arts: FILMS and INSTALLATIONS MENU - (hidden) movie page, containing descriptions of several Stern (related) movies.
Chimera Arts: Iggy.
Chimera Arts: The End of the Party.
Chimera Arts: Lit from Within (documentary).
Chimera Arts: San Francisco Redux (art installation).
Chimera Arts: The Noon Gun.

Sadia Sadia: YouTube (contains no Anthony Stern material).

THCoItI: Anthony Stern related pages.
THCoItI: Eskimo Girl (screenshots).
THCoItI: Iggy Triptychs.
THCoItI: The Other Room (Anthony Stern exhibition).

Tumblr: Anthony Stern.
Tumblr: Chimera Arts.
Tumblr: Iggnet (Iggy magnet).
Tumblr: Iggy Triptychs.
Tumblr: Lion and Lamb.
Tumblr: Lost Weekend.
Tumblr: Memory Marbles.
Tumblr: Sydge (Syd Barrett magnet).
Tumblr: The Other Room.

Sources (other than the above mentioned links):
Blake, Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2013.
Chapman, Rob: A Very Irregular Head, Faber and Faber, London, 2010.
Palacios, Julian: Darker Globe: Uncut and Unedited, private publication, 2021.
Parker, David: Random Precision, Cherry Red Books, London, 2001, p. 7-8.

Pink Floydz, better known as A Fleeting Glimpse is one of the top 3 Pink Floyd fan sites around. Created in June 1998 by Col Turner it has had millions of visitors ever since.

In 2017 Col gave the keys of this house of trust to Liam Creedon who updated the portal and made it more accessible for our modern times.

A Fleeting Glimpse has been endorsed by many band associates and Pink Floyd scholars and we are proud to announce The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is now one of them.

Asked by Liam to add an Iggy Rose entry we didn’t have to think a long time to agree, but as usual, our ongoing habit to procrastinate lasted 3 months before we finally put something on paper.

But now it has been finalised and here it is: A Fleeting Glimpse Announce ‘Iggy The Eskimo’ Exhibit.

A Fleeting Glimpse is proud to announce the Iggy the Eskimo exhibit.

In collaboration with The Holy Church of Iggy The Inuit social media page, we have set up a brand new exhibit highlighting the cult status of Iggy the Eskimo.

Iggy was one of Syd Barrett‘s girlfriends in 1969. Who is most famous for being the model for the Syd Barrett album The Madcap Laughs. It was rumoured that Iggy the Eskimo, was part Inuit. With that statement in mind and the fact that she used to be a (former) girlfriend of movie maker Anthony Stern, that was about all that was publicly known.

In the early 1970s, she simply disappeared from Syd’s life and the public eye without a trace, only to later reappear in the public eye after 40 years out of the limelight.

Having taken to social media again and interacting with fans all over the world, she firmly reacquainted herself with her cult status and continued to engage with her following until her saddened death in 2017.

In this brand new exhibit, you can read the back story of who actually took the photographs used for Syd’s Madcap Laughs album, discover more about her relationship with Eric Clapton, and hear the story of when she thought Syd Barrett was cheating on her, which subsequently turned out to be him visiting David Gilmour.

The Iggy Rose exhibition can be visited here:
https://www.pinkfloydz.com/other-exhibits/iggy-the-eskimo/

Many thanks to: Liam Creedon, Elizabeth Joyce.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit was created on the eighth of August 2008 and is one of the very few Syd Barrett fansites around that are still alive.

More than a fansite that simply repeats what Gilmour and Mason dictate the Holy Church tries to have a critical look at all things Floyd. We can understand that Mr Waters and Mr Mason have got their shows to do. We can understand that Mr Gilmour has got his chickens to attend to. But the Pink Floyd company should hire professionals to take care of their catalogue and not the nincompoops who put the wrong sound on the wrong video and who bake Blu-rays that turn into bitrot after six months.

Instead of listening to the fans, the Pink Floyd management likes to keep things secret and as such, they make mistake after mistake. One example is the BBC tapes Floyd put on The Early Years set. Despite pleas from top collectors who have first or second-generation tapes of these concerts, Pink Floyd decided to issue low-quality copies instead. These are even missing (parts of) songs. Either the Pink Floyd archivists are completely useless or nobody cares as long as the fans open their wallets.

There is an excellent book by Ian Preston and Phil Salathé called Pink Floyd BBC Radio 1967-1971. Unfortunately, it is lying on top of my unread Pink Floyd books and I fear it will stay there forever. So don't expect a review soon.

But enough complaining, 10 years ago we started the Church's fifth season and here is an overview of what happened then.

Pocahontas

August 1967 had the Windsor Jazz & Blues festival but to attract more people they added some ‘Pop and Ballads’ acts as well. Pink Floyd was put on the list, but as Syd Barrett was officially overtired they skipped the gig.

The magazine ‘Music Maker’ had an article about the ‘Flower Power’ that invaded the festival and published a picture of none other than Iggy The Eskimo. The article showed the unbelievable teamwork from Iggy fans all over the world.

The picture was found by PhiPhi Chavana from Hong Kong. A copy was sent to Belgium from Sydney (Australia). Brooke Steytler from the USA restored the picture in its original glory. Since then the picture has been published by fans all over the world and has become truly iconic.

Article: Iggy - a new look in festivals 

Spanishgrass

Something slightly less iconic is the Spanishgrass Syd Barrett myth. To cut a long story short, in 1984 a Spanish underground magazine published a satirical article about Syd Barrett having a contemplative stay in a Spanish monastery. It was 'confirmed' that Barrett recorded some acoustic songs on a portable cassette player, issued on a very limited vinyl bootleg. Nothing of this was true, but the rumour persisted in Spanish-speaking countries on both sides of the Atlantic ocean.

Spanish Barrett anorak Antonio Jesus dug deeper and traced back the original author of the article, interviewing him. The Church was invited to publish the interview for the English-speaking world. That is exactly what we did.

Articles :
Spanishgrass, one year later 
Jose Ángel González, Spanishgrass & more 
Spanishgrass, the hoax revealed... 

Birdie Hop

June 2013 had the first Birdie Hop meeting in Cambridge, that unfortunately couldn't be attended by the Reverend. A lot of beautiful people were there to meet and greet people who did know Syd Barrett. Jenny Spires was there, Libby Gausden, Viv Brans, Warren Dosanjh, Peter Gilmour, Vic Singh and the unforgettable Mick Brown, who sadly passed away in 2022.

Article: Birdie Hop: wasn't it the most amazing meeting? 

The Church wishes to thank: Alexander P. HB, Amy Funstar, Antonio Jesús, Babylemonade Aleph, Bill's Blah Blah Blah, Birdie Hop, Bob Archer, Brett Wilson, Brooke Steytler, Christopher Farmer, Dark Globe, Denis Combet, Dylan Mills, Euryale, Eva Wijkniet, Jimpress, John Cavanagh, Jose Ángel González, Kirsty Whalley, Libby Gausden, Lori Haines, M. Soledad Fernandez Arana, Mark Blake, MAY, Pascal Mascheroni, PhiPhi Chavana, Psych, Rescue Rangers, Retro68special, Rich Hall, Rod Harris, Sharmanka Kinetic Gallery, Simon Hendy, Solo en las Nubes, Stanislav, Tim Greenhall, Vic Sing and all the beautiful people we have forgotten.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Divide and Conquer

The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is not here to divide, quite the contrary. We are not that squabbling lot that goes by the names of Roger Waters and David Gilmour. Perhaps more about that arthritic gang in a later post, because frankly, they bore us with their childlike games.

This blog is of such a specialised nature that it is only visited by a dozen unique visitors a day. We’re quite happy with that. We operate in something that is euphemistically called a niche market, despite a bucket-load of world exclusives that we have revealed over the years.

Autonomous and free – that is what we want to be. The Church sometimes has a foul mouth, and this is by design. We deliberately want to be the Lego block under Pink Floyd's foot. Take, for instance, the recent Pink Floyd row, initiated by a tweet from Polly ‘Ono’ Samson. The three big, so-called independent, Floydian websites didn’t write about it, not a single word. There is also silence about Roger Waters’ speech for the United Nations, except for Brain Damage, which casually mentions it. These websites are nothing but good dogs, leashed by Paul Loasby, who uses an electric shock collar.

Mizoram

The Church likes to write about connections that aren’t necessarily linked to the Floyd. If you ask us for our most precious achievement, it is the one that happened in June 2021 when Iggy’s family members from Mizoram (India) found back their long-lost relatives in England, after nearly half a century. (See: Mizoram.) 

Iggy’s dream was to become a model, a film star, or both. That’s probably why she was hanging around with actors, musicians, photographers, and moviemakers until the mid-seventies. Unfortunately, she wasn’t ambitious and assertive enough to push herself to the fore. There were opportunities, but Iggy’s many phobias made her back out. She could have modelled for Quorum and English Boy and even refused to be an extra in Performance. Even when she was allegedly asked by Storm Thorgerson for an interview for his Have You Got It Yet documentary, she declined at the last minute.

Despite her shyness, several pictures made it into the (music) magazines. Some of these were taken by Feri Lukas. (See: Amateur Photographer: New Iggy Picture Found! from March 2020.)

Feri Lukas

Not a lot is known about Lukas. He was a Hungarian refugee who obtained asylum in England and who worked for photographer Dezo Hoffmann, and that’s about it.

A while ago we were contacted by Feri’s nephew, ‘Georgie Boy’ Lukàc, whose father, Emil, was Feri’s older brother. Here is what he told the Church.

Feri Lukas was born in Budapest, (Hungary) in 1926. He grew up in a small town called Jàszapàti, a town in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county, in the Northern Great Plain region of central Hungary. He had an older brother, Emil.

Feri studied pharmacy in university but was kicked out in the late 40s by the communists. His parents were too ‘bourgeois’ and the regime only wanted sons of labourers to get to university.

In 1956, there was a popular uprising against the communist dictatorship. The rebels managed to open the border with Austria. Thousands of Hungarians crossed the border. Among them was Ferenc Lukàcs, who stayed in an Austrian refugee camp.

Hungarian Revolution

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic.

It began on October 23, 1956, in Budapest, when university students protested against the USSR's geopolitical dominance of Hungary through the Stalinist government of Mátyás Rákosi. Policemen from the ÁVH (State Protection Authority) shot and killed several of the protesters.

Hungarians organized revolutionary militias to fight against the ÁVH. Communist leaders and ÁVH policemen were captured, killed, or lynched. Political prisoners were released and armed. A new government disbanded the ÁVH and declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.

The USSR repressed the Hungarian Revolution on November 4, 1956. The repression of the Hungarian Uprising killed 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet Army soldiers and compelled 200,000 Hungarians to seek political refuge abroad. (Source: Wikipedia.)

London, 1957

In 1957, Lukas received political asylum in Britain, where he changed his name to Feri Lukas. Feri is a nickname for the Hungarian Ferenc, the English Francis.

He started to work as a photographer with Dezső Hoffmann, aka Dezo Hoffmann, a famous photographer who was Hungarian as well. Feri was single all his life and lived in London until 1994. He decided to move back to Hungary, where he died in 2005.

Unfortunately, all his pictures got lost because the people who were asked to conserve his archive sold his photos at a flea market in Budapest. 

Georgie Boy:

This is his biography in short. I am very happy someone remembers him after so many years! 

Glamour

A couple of years after our initial article, browsing the internet reveals some photographs that have been sold at online auction houses. It seems that Lukas, after his stint with Dezo Hoffmann, went into glamour and fashion photography, as is shown in the picture below from 1991.

So that’s it for now. Not a lot, I hear you say, but perhaps some more news will get to us one of these...

Hereafter some extra pictures from Feri Lukas, stolen from various auction sites on the web. Warning: there are some naked b⊚⊚bs which may result in temporary blindness for minors.

The Church wishes to thank: ‘Georgie Boy’ Lukàc, Jackie Orme Ward. All pictures: Feri Lukas.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Feri Lukas @ The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit:
Iggy - a new look in festivals 
Iggy - another festival, another look 
Amateur Photographer: New Iggy Picture Found! 
Feri Lukas, photographer 
Viennese Iggy Treasure Found! 

A couple of weeks ago, we received a pretty cryptic message from Iggy’s Mizo branch.

Thank you so much once again, the unthinkable has indeed become a reality.

For those not in the know, a short reminder.

Iggy was always vague about the roots on her mother’s side. It was believed that her Asian relatives were from Pakistan. It was revealed shortly after her death that her mother was from Mizoram, a state in the North Eastern Region of India.

In the late 1950s, a famine (also known as Mautâm) broke out. It was badly followed up by the Indian government. This led to the 1966 Mizo National Front uprising with a declaration of independence. The Indian air force retaliated with airstrikes, and the armed conflict was soon over. However, it took two decades before the 1986 Mizoram Peace Accord was signed.

The Indian government isolated Mizoram during the insurgency by intercepting all communication with the outside world. Letters were censored and/or destroyed.

When communication was finally restored, Iggy’s parents had moved, and the Mizoram branch couldn’t locate them any more.

Fast-forward to June 2021, when an article from The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit (or one of its counterparts on Tumblr, Facebook, or Instagram) was intercepted by someone in the Mizoram internet community.

Family relations were restored, but, due to the pandemic, visits were not possible. Until now... Thana Hnamte messaged us the following.

A family reunion did take place right in the hills of Mizoram. My cousin Stephen and his wife visited us on a journey of discovery from 26 February to 9 March. We had a wonderful yet emotional family get-together, made possible by your innocuous Facebook post.

Here is a picture of that family reunion.

Iggy is probably watching them from the heavens.

Many thanks to: Thana Hnamte and the family members from Mizoram and England. Pictures: Mimi Hnamte.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

So mystic and soulful

Photographer and artist Kevin Geronimo Brandtner is a collector of all things beautiful and curious, from Vienna, Austria. On one of his discovery expeditions, end of June 2023, he entered a second-hand shop and… Well, why don’t we let him tell about it?

I happened to be in a second-hand shop today. As I work in the darkroom myself, this contact print was interesting. When I got home I realised it was Iggy Rose (Iggy the Eskimo/Inuit) the muse of former Pink Floyd guitarist Syd Barrett. The pictures seem to be unknown because I can't find them anywhere. (.../...)
So many questions. The photographer seems to have been Lukas Feri. Little is known about him either. The print is original from the 70s with markings.

A man in the dark in a picture frame

In the right side corner, Feri’s name can be seen with the year 1974. This messes up Iggy’s timeline as far as we know it. We always thought that her pictures, taken by Lukas, dated from the end of the sixties.

Of course, there is a chance that Lukas developed the negatives years later, but perhaps it is safer to conclude that Iggy frequented the photographer for several years.

Alone in the night as the daylight brings

The contact sheet has 32 pictures in total, numbered from 1 to 35. (Two pictures are black, and one – number 11 – has been cut out.) And while some pictures can make you doubt, others have the typical Iggy characteristics we all like: her eternal cigarette, a glass of wine and obviously that mischievous smile. None of these pictures have been seen before.

We are not going to repeat the Feri Lukas story here, we have done that already in two Sherlock-Holmes-like features: Amateur Photographer: New Iggy Picture Found! And Feri Lukas, photographer, co-written by one of Lukas’ nephews. It appears that Lukas’ photo archive was sold on a Hungarian flea market after he died, and this contact print travelled in mysterious ways from Budapest to Vienna.

Enough blah-blah-blah, you are all here to watch the pictures, aren’t you? They will also be posted on Tumblr in a slightly bigger format, with the tags Iggy the Eskimo, Feri Lukas and KGB (from Kevin Geronimo Brandtner).

The warmth of your hand

Nice to see you are still reading this. When it was confirmed that the pictures were indeed of Iggy, Kevin returned to the same shop a few days later.

He searched through the same carton box and found some of Feri’s city shots, fashion and nude photographs, including two Iggy large-format darkroom prints that he had missed before. Here they are.

Haunting notes, pizzicato strings

A great, great thank you to Kevin Geronimo Brandtner. He adds a new country to our growing list of Iggy contributors. We have had valuable discoveries from Australia, England, France, Hong Kong, Russia, the USA, and now from Austria.

While some people think I’m undoubtedly mad I am not the guy to fall for a simple superstition. But isn’t it weird that whenever I think that my Iggy adventures are over there is a new discovery falling from the skies?

It is as if Iggy wants to say to all of us: ‘Don’t forget me’. Be sure, Iggy, we won’t.

Many thanks to: Kevin Geronimo Brandtner.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥

Kevin Geronimo Brandtner has several Facebookpages, including:
Mail art archive Vienna - MAAV
Papiergedanken - Collage Art

Feri Lukas @ The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit:
Iggy - a new look in festivals 
Iggy - another festival, another look 
Amateur Photographer: New Iggy Picture Found! 
Feri Lukas, photographer 
Viennese Iggy Treasure Found! 

Iain Emo Moore

We don’t have to introduce Emo to vintage Pink Floyd scholars. Apart from an incredible memory, he seems to have an almost infinite Floydian picture archive. At regular intervals, he posts these on one of his (many) Facebook pages.

New Iggy Picture Found?

In December 2023, Emo posted a (censored) picture of a topless woman sitting next to a man in a garden, claiming this is Iggy in the early seventies.

The picture is cracked in many places and has faded after all these years. It shows a skinny woman looking at a man on her left. At first sight, one can doubt that this is Iggy. 

Iggy look-alikes

Over the years, we have received pictures of people thought to be Iggy. For instance, the pictures of Sheila Rock that were shot by her then-husband, Mick Rock, in Syd’s garden, were once believed to be Iggy. (See: Rock around the Blog, 2009.)

Other examples are a woman walking on King’s Road, taken by John Hendy (see: King's Road Chic(k), 2013) or a famous picture, taken at the Speakeasy (see: Little old lady from London-by-the-Sea, 2010). Not Iggy.

Pros and cons

We have had the ‘Iggy or not’ discussion with almost every new Iggy picture that has been found in the past.

The new picture shows a pretty skinny woman, and this isn’t really how we remember Iggy from other images from that era. But pictures can deceive. The quality is such that the woman’s face is partially rendered invisible by some shadowy patches.

The story

What makes us believe this is Iggy is the background story told by Emo. According to him, the picture dates from the early 1970s and was taken in Brighton. The man sitting next to Iggy is a certain Geoffrey, whom we know nothing about. Emo explains:

I can’t remember Geoffrey’s second name. There are other pictures in the garden. I’m going to look for them. There are a couple of friends, a sister and brother, John and Sally...

Pete Brown got some in Spain, I think; that’s where he is now. And he has got some of Syd as well, in Wetherby Mansions. He’s going to try and find them. He’s got some of Syd, I think, on the market square in Cambridge, which would be 1964. He took them when he was fifteen and Syd was eighteen. Syd was sitting on the fountain.

But he does have several of Iggy, walking through the garden. And a couple of her laughing, if we can find them. She looks really thin here, doesn’t she? Let’s see how many people will tell, that’s not Iggy! If you zoom in on her face you’ll be able to see her features.

At this point, Emo added some details about Iggy that we won’t publish. These details (known to us) make his testimony more than believable. In a chat from many years ago, Iggy remembered having met Pete Brown in Brighton.

Someone described me as a loose cannon, never knowing what might come out of my big mouth or when I might explode, like a dormant volcano. That was from Pete Brown, whom I met in Brighton, where I went after London. He used to hang out with Syd and the Cambridge set.

Mark Palmer

Back to Emo:

It's the early seventies, and she looks as if she has lost a lot of weight. Not how chubby she was when she was at that hippy farm, with Henrietta [Garnett], a real go-getter, and Sir Mark Palmer, with his horses. I know about most of her life; Jenny Spires told me most things, and I heard bits from Syd [Barrett] and Duggie [Fields] as well. She got really thin by the time she was with Syd.

Emo is referring to aristocrat Mark Palmer, who organised a horse and wagon quest to Port Eliot in St. Germans, searching for UFOs and mythical Arthurian places along the way. Iggy, who hung around the English Boy agency at that time, joined the caravan and can be seen in a documentary from that time.

Next to Iggy, there were a lot of underground celebrities participating in the wacky adventure. Emo Moore further explains:

Henrietta [Garnett] was incredibly beautiful in the sixties, an upper-class English lady. She died a couple of years ago [2019]. Mark Palmer was a really sweet guy; he was so gentle, a true hippie. He made my stomach go funny because he was so laid back, and I started to go laid back. 1967, 68, 69. Because I was always in Chelsea, so was he in that period.

When I worked for Ossie Clark, I saw him all the time. He passed through to go to English Boy. He was still involved, but he wasn’t as involved as when he started it.

English Boy

Sir Charles Mark Palmer opened the English Boy modelling agency in 1965. It was located above the Quorum store, owned by Ossie Clark and Alice Pollock. They asked Iggy to model for them, but she refused. Although a loudmouth, she was very shy. But she kept hanging around the English Boy agency. Iggy explains why:

I had such a crush on Mark Palmer, lovely Denzil, and all the pretty boys and girls from the English Boy agency. Denzil was THE Ultimate Cool. He was an unrivalled leader. The sharpest dresser in hand-made Italian silk suits and the finest Italian shoes. Denzil epitomized style and elegance. He was the dandiest of the dandies. He made Beau Brummell look shabby.

It’s still a mystery to us who this Denzil character was, but here is a sample of the fine specimen that English Boy contained.

Hippie world

The 1960s were a wonderful time, if we may believe Emo:

It was a bit hippie-jive. All these groovy places. Groovy pubs and clubs and rock ‘n’ roll dance places. Bookshops and all these clothing shops and underground meeting centres. Lots of things were going on, and normal people wouldn’t have known what happened in a lot of the bookshops. The films were in the basements and the backrooms, sometimes in the main shop when it was a big movie with a lot of people.

It started in 1964 when I was passing across these amazing, unique places with ‘Hey man, what’s up, man’ [Emo imitating Neil from The Young Ones]. That type of vibe...

Henrietta Moraes

Henrietta Moraes was a muse of the London art (and drugs) scene in the fifties. Known for her hedonistic lifestyle she effortlessly entered the kippie underground of the sixties, where she hung around with Mark Palmer and his crazy followers. She wrote a book 'Henrietta' where she describes Palmer's quest through England and Wales. Although Iggy claimed they knew each other, there is no trace of Iggy in these memoirs, but neither is there of the other Henrietta (Partridge).

This probably proves that Mark Palmer organised different caravan quests in different years and with different people. One that was documented in the 'Hippies at the Port Eliot Estate in St Germans' documentary, with Iggy and Henrietta Partridge. Another one (probably) without Iggy, but with author Henrietta Moraes taking notes to appear in her autobiography. Emo:

I don’t know the other Henrietta [Moraes]. I have never seen her. If I had seen her, I would have recognised her. It sounds like it would’ve been a wonderful place where they were all hanging out with Mark Palmer. He had a couple of those gipsy caravans. I think he was riding around one in London when he was going to court or something.

Mark Palmer (2)

Palmer was once arrested for cannabis possession and showed the judges he was a real British aristocrat, with a flair of eccentricity...

Palmer left the courthouse in a horse-drawn cart bedecked in chrysanthemums; ‘the metamorphosis,’ said somebody who knew him as a somewhat straighter fellow, ‘was so complete as to transcend mere affectation.’

In the book ‘Ready Steady Go!’, author Shawn Levy describes these aristocratic upper-class hippies:

Some of the most high-born among the Stones’ new pals would soon take on new lives as caravaners, travelling through the countryside in horse-drawn carts, dressed in hippie-gipsy gear, smoking dope, practising free love in the fields, and attempting to make contact with UFOs, which they believed still followed ancient ley lines - magnetic landing strips, in effect, built into the landscape but lost to centuries of ignorant civilisation.

The youthful Sir Mark Palmer, who had attended Eton and Oxford and served as a page at Queen Elizabeth’s 1953 coronation (his mother was a lady-in-waiting), was the most celebrated of the lot. Although he ran a modelling agency - English Boy Ltd. - from his home in Radnor Walk, Chelsea, he joined up with a posse of itinerant rich folks who eschewed baths and roofs and responsibility for a life of giddy freedom, caravaning about the countryside in a movable commune of like-minded spirits.

Mark Palmer and his friends started different journeys around England. According to Henrietta Moraes, he travelled for four years before settling down and starting a horse farm. By then, Iggy had long left the hippie brigade, for reasons she explained in her typical style:

I’ve done the Hippy commune with the lentils and mantra, bongo bashing, and tuneless flute playing. There were lots of plonk and unspiritual drugs. I just craved the bloodiest steak. I’m not a diabetic!

Sally, Emo, Syd and Iggy

Emo Moore:

I only met Iggy twice. She looked really cute, though. At Syd's during those two weeks. Once with Sally and Syd, and another time with myself and Syd. Syd looked completely somewhere else, and I didn’t get introduced to her. Otherwise, I would’ve spoken to her. Because they were both deadly silent, sitting apart in Syd’s room, I left after ten minutes, both times, I think.

Iggy, deadly silent? Now that’s a weird behaviour for her. Both must have been pretty high that day, silently floating above that bi-coloured floorboard.

Other Mark Palmer & English Boy articles on this blog:
Paint Your Wagon: Iggy movie unearthed! 
A Tale of Two Henriettas 

The Church wishes to thank: Iain Emo Moore, Iggy Rose, Miss Peelpants.
♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Sources (other than the above-mentioned URLs):
Levy, Shawn: Ready Steady Go!, Broadway Books, New York, 2003, p. 235-237.
Moraes, Henrietta: Henrietta, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1994.

Any colour you like

In 2012, that’s over a decade ago!, the Holy Church published an article titled: The Case of the Painted Floorboards (v 2.012). In it, we compared the different testimonies about the true colours of the floorboards in Syd’s apartment. Over the years, people have attributed different colours, and it seemed funny to list these, once and for all. Boy, were we wrong!

These colours ranged from blue (Iggy Rose, Jennifer Spires) to green (Jenny Fabian) to turquoise (Mick Rock), and from orange (Libby Gausden, Malcolm Jones, Mick Rock, Jennifer Spires) to purple (Malcolm Jones) to red (Jenny Fabian, Iggy Rose).

What was meant to be a quirky footnote in the life and works of Syd Barrett suddenly erupted into a floorboard colour war, that was fought openly on social media and privately in chat and mail.

Mourning wood

From time to time people asked if the painted floorboards were still present in Duggie’s flat, hidden under the linoleum floor.

And apparently, it was… The new owner of the Duggie Fields apartment did some renovations and found the intact wooden planks.

And these are now up for a Vinyl and Memorabilia Showcase auction at Omega Auctions, on the 2nd of July, 2024 at 10:00 AM.

PINK FLOYD/SYD BARRETT INTEREST - THE ORIGINAL PAINTED WOODEN FLOORBOARDS FROM MADCAP LAUGHS ALBUM COVER.

An incredible chance to own the painted orange and blue wooden floor, famously depicted on the cover of Syd Barrett's seminal solo LP 'The Madcap Laughs' (1970). The vendor purchased the flat in London used by Syd for the album cover shoot and removed the boards during renovations. Approx 70 planks in total, most in 3m lengths. Please contact us for transportation options.

Estimate
£5,000 - £10,000
Buyer's premium: 28.80% inc VAT

URL: https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/auction/lot/293-pink-floydsyd-barrett-interest---the-original-painted-wooden-floorboards-from-madcap-laughs-album-cover/?lot=55480

This article will be updated after the auction has taken place or when more information is available.

Update 2024 07 02

As confirmed on X, and later on the Omega Auctions website, the floorboards have been sold for a whopping £28,500 (approx. €33,645 or $36,142). This is without the added fees and taxes of 28.80% inc VAT. An amendment was made in the goods description as the planks are roughly around 270 cm instead of 300 cm.

Auction Result

Update 2024 08 25: The Piper

It was rumoured some weeks ago, but it has now been confirmed in an article of the Sussex Express. written by Andy Hemsley.

The new owners of the boards are a consortium of Syd fans who pooled their own resources to rescue this unique piece of rock memorabilia. Rather than being whisked overseas or hidden in a private collection, the colourful planks are set to be loaned to and displayed at The Piper, a south coast grass roots music venue in St Leonards, Hastings, named after the 1967 debut album by Pink Floyd, ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’.

The complete article can be found here: Unique piece of Pink Floyd memorabilia to go on show at Sussex pub.

Some pictures

Some Extra Pictures

The Church wishes to thank: Beata Kruczkowska, Duggie Fields, Gretta Barclay, Iggy Rose, Jenny Fabian, Jenny Spires, Libby Gausden, Malcolm Jones, Mick Rock, Omega Auctions, Pink Floyd Collectors, Richard Blank, Rob Chapman, Stephanie Hawkins and all those we might have forgotten.

Wooden Floor Pictures by Mick Rock, The Piper and Omega Auctions. Indoor The Piper photography: Beata Kruczkowska.

Previous articles about Syd's floor can be found at:
2010: The Case of the Painted Floorboards 
2012: The Case of the Painted Floorboards (v 2.012) 

♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥

Shine on You crazy Diamond

Review and comparison of the 2001 documentary ‘The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story’ and the 2023 film ‘Have You Got It Yet?’

Beware: this is a pretty long article and not always written in a coherent way. Some pictures are fanart products.

2001: The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story

‘The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story’ is a praised 2001 documentary made by John Edginton (Otmoor Productions) for BBC Omnibus. In true Pink Floyd tradition, it has been issued several times. The Church has it in three different releases, culminating in a 2-DVD set with lots of extras. As usual, we never watched those, so we haven’t gotten a clue what secrets are hidden in there.

Starting with — how original — Shine On You Crazy Diamond, we see Syd performing in slow motion, wearing his favourite Freddy Krueger shirt. Roger Waters acknowledges the song is ‘absolutely about him’ and Nick Mason gives a short account of the legendary 1975 Wish You Were Here encounter.

Cambridge

Over at Cambridge, in black and white, with the first few notes of King Bee. David Gilmour admits that a lot of people, himself included, were a bit jealous of the ‘bright light’ Barrett was in those days. Libby Gausden says ‘Syd the Beat’ wore very tight jeans, giving the documentary a sudden (and probably unwanted) Rutles vibe.

London

In London, Syd joins his old friends Roger Waters and Bob Klose, who are already in a band. Mike Leonard will become their landlord, light wizard and keyboard player for a while. Pink Floyd records Lucy Leave, and Bob Klose leaves the band shortly after that. There simply is no future for an R&B band.

The Pink Floyd join the London Underground clubs and find managers in Peter Jenner and Andrew King. They contact Joe Boyd, and that leads to the recording of Arnold Layne and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

LSD

LSD was seen as a quasi-religious method to change the world and end the Vietnam War, so we are told, but it merely changed Syd’s mind and behaviour. David Gilmour: “Syd was a changed person.”

Rick Wright remembers Syd’s lost weekend: “Something happened to Syd. (…) He took too much and was gone. He was still looking the same, but he was somewhere else.”

Getting Syd to play on stage is becoming difficult. It doesn’t make him popular with the gang. Nick Mason: “Shall I roll with laughter or shall I try to kill him?”

The English way to deal with the Syd situation is to ignore it until it leads to the point where they ignore picking him up.

Wetherby Mansions

Duggie Fields, who shared a flat with Syd, remembers how Barrett painted the floor in two different colours, but he actually painted himself in. There is no word about Iggy, though, who was there with him that day.

Sessions

Jerry Shirley remembers that Syd sometimes faked his eccentric nuttiness when he didn’t want to cope with reality. This is also a theory Rosemary Breen has put forward. She has claimed that Syd was actually just joking, while people around him were thinking he was bonkers.

Procrastination

Duggie Fields has a kind of philosophical explanation of Syd’s incapability of doing anything — laying in bed all day long.

While he lay there, he had the possibility of doing anything in the world that he chose. But the minute he made a choice, he was limiting his possibilities, so he lay there as long as he could.

Stars

Syd, after his failed solo career, returns to Cambridge, where he joins the band Stars with Twink and Jack Monk: “You were witnessing the breakdown of someone in performance.”

1975: Wish You Were Here

The spectre of Syd, as David Gilmour calls it, haunts Pink Floyd for years, culminating in Wish You Were Here.

The last four or five minutes of the documentary are used to describe Syd’s visit(s) at Abbey Road in 1975 (without specifying a date). Wright remembers Syd jumping up and down, brushing his teeth, which has been largely debunked by Nick Sedgwick’s testimony, noted down by Mark Blake. (Nick Sedgwick describing Syd's visit at: Roger is always right)

Conclusion

This is an excellent documentary, catch it while you can.

2023: Have You Got It Yet?

The story of how Storm Thorgerson’s and Roddy Bogawa’s documentary came into place can be read in an earlier post: Incarceration of a Flower Child. Let’s just say it took an awful long time to see the finished product. We can only guess if Pink Floyd, the company, is to blame for that. They like to have their hands in the till. The movie made a world tour in cinemas around the globe, meaning that it mainly toured Great Britain and the USA.

While initial reviews were exhilarating and enthusiastic, later comments toned down a bit, as we shall see.

Opal

The film opens with a quote from Don DeLillo’s novel Great Jones Street. This novel is about a rock star who leaves his band and escapes to an unfurnished flat, where he takes a drug that incapacitates his speech.

While surreal scenes play in his brain, people keep harassing him. Fans knock on his door; record label executives want him to release a ‘lost’ album.

Last but not least, he has a girlfriend named Opel. Sounds familiar, huh?

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

The quote from the Don DeLillo novel segues into a Syd Barrett interview where he says that he will take a break from pop music in order to do some more painting.

Before someone can say Several Species Of Small Furry Animals (etc…) the mourning tones of Shine On You Crazy Diamond start. A Storm Thorgerson Mister Screen movie starts, and these snippets will intersect the documentary at regular intervals. Not all viewers like this, but it needs to be said that this film was initially Thorgerson’s baby.

Cut to an interview with Roger Waters, dating from over a decade ago. All conversations from Storm with the old Cambridge mafia date (obviously) from before his death in 2013.

A Syd

Peter Jenner remembers that there was almost religious acid-taking in the 1960s and that Syd was one of the saints of that underground cult. ”Syd was the perfect god, and gods must be killed and eaten,” adds Peter Whitehead. “But then you must be reborn.”

That’s a lot of pseudo-philosophical cackle even before the documentary has well started. To add insult to injury, we have a glimpse of a boy carrying an orange, a plum, and a box of matches just before disappearing through a magical door, guarded by some dogs. Welcome to cuckooland.

Cambridge

We teleport to Cambridge, where it all started. We learn that Roger Keith is nicknamed Syd after a local jazz musician. That story may or may not be exactly true, as there is anecdotal evidence that Syd’s nickname came from his love for Carry On actor Sid James. But that is anorak territory and not fit for the average viewer.

Old Cambridge friends remember Syd as a talented, flamboyant, and sympathetic youngster. Syd joins Geoff Mott & The Mottoes and is part of the ‘crowd’. He already looks like he is going to go places and is the star of the gang. There is not a word about the drugs and sex experiments in the group. These grandmas and grandpas don’t want their grandchildren to know how groovy they were, swallowing pills, smoking dope, and having a regular dose of ummagumma.

London Lodgers

In 1964, Syd goes to London, where he joins his old buddy Roger Waters. He also meets Nick Mason and Rick Wright. For a while, they are Leonard’s Lodgers. Syd has to choose between a career as a painter or as a rock musician. The money is simply too good, and he takes a sabbatical from the academy.

The counterculture blossoms in 1966 with lots of drugs. Syd dives willingly into that world and comes up with Interstellar Overdrive, a track that Pete Townshend describes as psychedelic heavy metal.

LSD

David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist for fuck’s sake, explains that LSD stimulates a specific serotonin receptor in the brain, interrupting the traditional way in which the brain is organised.

In other words, Syd’s brain may have been categorically miswired after one trip too many.

Psychiatrist Mark Collins puts it this way: “The right brain has got nothing left, and the left brain has got nothing right.”

Change Returns Success

Pink Floyd makes it big with Arnold Layne, See Emily Play and The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. That is the moment when Syd realises he doesn’t want to be a pop star any more. Unfortunately, he doesn’t ventilate his feelings to the rest of the band and retreats into an impregnable inner space.

The American tour, as we all know, is disastrous, and Syd becomes a problem — a very big problem.

Mad Jock and Sue

The rumour that Syd was spiked with LSD every morning is once again denied by Sue Kingsford. As Storm puts it, it is quite ‘good’ if your hero is flawed by someone else rather than by himself.

Pink Floyd and Syd break up, and Barrett begins a solo career. Po (Aubrey Powell) tells the story of how Storm and Mick Rock go to Syd’s place to take some pictures (a thing that has been minimised by Storm for ages). Mick Rock mentions Iggy, ‘who was never really his girlfriend, because these were hippie times’.

Storm erroneously believes she was an Eskimo ‘who liked to run around naked’. So far for research. Iggy occasionally liked to stroll in the altogether (but she wasn't an Eskimo).

Gala Pinion

Gala gets into Syd’s life. She testifies how he suddenly buys canvasses, pots of paint, and brushes. Syd locks himself up and paints day and night, destroying or overpainting the works of the day before. They move to Cambridge, where they live in a cellar.

There is the tomato soup incident, the engagement is stopped, and Syd returns to London.

Poor Syd

There is no such thing as poor Syd claims Mick Rock, saying that he earned millions of pounds. But, as some people have suggested, Roger probably never cashed the checks that were destined for Syd. His family, helped by Pink Floyd, had to run after the money.

Wishing (if I had a photograph of you)

Half an hour before the end of the documentary, we get to the weird encounter during the Shine On You Crazy Diamond sessions. There is no precise date, nor is the marriage of David Gilmour mentioned. We will get to that a bit later.

During the occasion, Phil Taylor takes some pictures, and these haven’t been shown before. Syd is in a white Fred Perry shirt, sitting next to Roger Waters, who plays an acoustic guitar. Another shot shows Syd with the Martin D-35, but he never played it, apparently.

London – Cambridge – London – Cambridge

Syd disappears completely from the radar. Around 1981, he is practically bankrupt. He returns to Cambridge, where he will stay for the rest of his life.

There is a huge In Memoriam section, at the end of the documentary, remembering those people who aren’t here any more: Duggie, Nigel, John, Hoppy, Peter, Anthony, Iggy, Mick, Luke, Storm, Rick, and, of course, Syd. Our old pal Mick Brown isn’t on the list, but he always distanced himself from those ‘old toffs stuck in a lava lamp’ anyway.

Interlude

I’m going to kick in an open door by saying that although there is a two-decade gap between both documentaries, there isn’t that much difference. Although biographers and documentary makers claim to have created the ultimate Barrett story, there is the black hole that is Barrett’s London life between the mid-seventies and the early eighties. And then there are the Cambridge days when Syd’s privacy, now Roger Keith's, was better protected than the 13th chapter of the Necronomicon. The Barrett family was pretty protective of their brother and had all the right to be that way.

There are some scarce anecdotes that are not always in ‘Have You Got It Yet?’ In 1977, Barrett invited Gala Pinion to his apartment for some tea. She accepted but fled when he insulted her in a very rude way.

The Office

Barrett was no stranger to the office, whatever the office was. In 1980, he entered Blackhill and, just like in 1975, wasn’t recognised at first. Syd had an administrative problem with his passport and wanted Peter Jenner to solve it. The question is what he was planning to do with a passport anyway, other than undertake a pilgrimage to an