Comments on: John Bignell and the celebrities: fame in the sixties http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/ Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:33:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: PG http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1497 Thu, 09 May 2013 15:33:01 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1497 Hi Dave
I’ve come belatedly to your excellent blog; this may be of interest – I featured Paul Whitehead’s house at 49 Stadium Street in my 2012 book Mr Freedom, about the much-missed and sometime World’s End character Tommy Roberts.
Tommy’s life-long friend “Smart Mart” Cole – who later worked with Ian Dury as did Tommy – lived at Paul W’s house from 1967 onwards so I can send him the photo to see if he can identify himself or anyone else in the photograph.
This was a much-celebrated place at the time, since Whitehead regularly changed the decoration of the frontage and also used it in his album art (you know he created sleeves for Genesis and Van der Graaf generator and is these days creating huge billboards in California). Apologies if I’ve missed something and am repeating info already posted.
All best

PG

]]> By: kympowellKym powell http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1381 Wed, 10 Apr 2013 06:49:16 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1381 Steve Coster was my grandfather so I’d love to see any photos you have of him on his stall. There was a front page article in the Kensington post when died in 1955.

]]> By: Dave Walker http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1293 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:54:57 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1293 Colin
Yes that would be our John Bignell. The WLP would be the West London Press, a local newspaper and the FLA short for Flaxman the name of the Chelsea telephone exchange as they used to be called. I think we have some Bignell pictures of the fruit stall and Mr Coster you might like to see. I’ll email you direct about those when I’m back at the library. Coincidentally the new post this week will feature pictures by JB. Watch out for it on Thursday morning.
Dave

]]> By: Colin Robinson http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1290 Tue, 26 Feb 2013 11:33:12 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1290 I have a newspaper clipping of my Grand Uncles funeral cortege passing the Worlds End Pub. He was Stephen Coster and had a fruit barrow outside the pub for many years. The photo is credited to ‘WLP John Bignell FLA 9277′ so I assume it is the same person.

]]> By: Chris Pain http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1024 Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:05:46 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1024 Oh Sweet Jane! Thanks for this link. I found the final version on the same (British Pathé) site, with audio this time. The Paul Whitehead footage is at 3:51. His ears will be burning! Amazing to think that of all the above photos, the one which has sparked the most comment is the one without any really famous people in it!

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/swinging-britain-print

]]> By: Sweet Jane http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1021 Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:28:58 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1021 There’s a great clip of Paul Whitehead outside number 49 in 1967 over on British Pathé, there’s also some brilliant footage of himself and another artist doing some psychedelic artwork on a car too, this is more than likely the outtakes from the ‘look at Life’ film that Sue mentioned in her comment.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/out-takes-cuts-from-cp-662-reel-2-of-3-swinging

]]> By: Chris Pain http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1018 Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:04:38 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1018 Sue, thanks for solving the mystery … so it was Paul Whitehead after all!
Please do tell us more, as you say, about the residents of Lots Road and Stadium Street.
If you’re on Facebook, check out the page I run all about the World’s End, Chelsea:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worlds-End-Chelsea/155768761107412?ref=hl
Thanks again!
Chris

]]> By: Sue Bremner http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1001 Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:17:29 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1001 No problem Dave, glad I could be of some help. It was nice to see a photo of the house after so many years!

]]> By: Sue Bremner http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-1000 Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:15:40 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-1000 That’s ok Tom, and how is Glynis by the way? Hope she’s well :)

]]> By: Dave Walker http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/john-bignell-and-the-celebrities-fame-in-the-sixties/#comment-998 Mon, 21 Jan 2013 09:45:14 +0000 http://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/?p=823#comment-998 Sue
Thanks for all this first hand information. I’ve always liked that photo but it was a bit of a mystery to me so I saw the opportunity to get some answers by putting it on the blog. There was this feeling it might have been a band but no-one here knew who, and it could have been set up by Bignell.
Unfortunately there are quite a few pictures in the Bignell collection where we don’t know the people in them or even the location, and in many case the nagging feeling that we should be able to figure it out.
Dave

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