Elizabeth Hand - Wylding Hall

So that’s where we set up — in a little English country wilderness. Tom drove the lorry right into the middle of it. Plugged into the house and trailed the electric cords through the grass so we could mike the instruments.

I can’t recall how it came about that Billy was there, but however it was, Billy helped with the equipment. We laughed and told him he could sign on as our roadie. I didn’t even realize he owned a camera till that afternoon.

Of course, the sound quality wasn’t anywhere close to what you’d get in a proper studio. But again, we assumed we’d just do that at the end of the summer. This was only for fun, a chance to show off for Tom and give the mobile unit a trial run. You can hear on the album that we were outdoors — the wind in the long grass, bees humming, wrens hopping about. At one point, you can hear a plane flying by overhead.

It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. It was all live, pretty much a single take. No overdubs. Julian did do an extra take for “Windhover Morn.” He was always such a perfectionist.

It was a perfect day, in every way. Weather, happiness. The songs were new and we couldn’t get enough of playing them. Tom was flush; he had a hit that summer with “Girl on a String” by the Bullfrogs. One hit wonder, they turned out to be. He rang us that morning and said we weren’t to leave; he’d be arriving around noon with a surprise. And so he did, and so it was.

Lesley

That was a magical day. I was having a smoke with Julian when Jonno gave us the news.

“Tom just rang and said he’ll be here in a few hours with a surprise. So don’t go wandering off, Julian. Keep an eye on him, will you, Les?”

After he went off to tell the others, I turned to Julian. “What do you think the surprise is?”

He shrugged. “Drugs?”

I laughed. There was no way it would be anything like drugs, not with Tom. Never in a million years. He might smoke a bit now and then, and I know he dropped acid at least once, ’cause I was with him. But he was nervous about anything stronger than that, and he was absolutely terrified of any scandal having to do with drugs. There wasn’t really a heavy drug scene with folk music, except up in Scotland. Glasgow, that was a tough place. Careers got killed that way — even a few tokes could get you put away in prison for a year. It was still early days for Tom as a producer, and he couldn’t afford to lose one of his musicians, especially after the tragedy with Arianna. That was enough scandal to last all of us for a while.

So, that was wishful thinking on Julian’s part. He had his own little stash of hash in a little enameled silver box. A beautiful thing — I have no idea where he got it — about as big as the palm of your hand; it looked like something you’d find in a medieval castle. He kept a block of hash inside and would shave away at it with a penknife. The box’s lid was amazing. There was a tree painted on it, in the most remarkable detail — tiny oak leaves, gold and green and yellow, on golden branches no bigger than a blade of grass. The bluest sky you ever saw, peeking through the leaves.

What was most extraordinary was a tiny jeweled bird perched in the tree, no bigger than your pinkie nail. Yet you could see every feather, tiny flecks of emerald and ruby and gold, and a wee little golden beak.

And sapphire eyes — you could only see one eye, its head was cocked, but that eye was a sapphire, I’m sure of it. When it caught the light, it winked at you.

It must have been worth a pretty penny, that box. More than any of us earned in a year, all put together. Whenever I asked Julian where it came from, he was always very evasive.

“Someone gave it to me,” he said once, but he wouldn’t tell me who. “I forgot,” he said.

Like you would ever forget whoever gave you a gift like that. Another time, he told me he inherited it. I asked his mother once, and she just gave me a blank look.

“A jeweled box? I don’t think so. I would have remembered it. Wherever would he have come by something like that?”

Ashton

I remember that box. He kept pills in it. Mandrax, whatever he had. Pot. I looked it up online once. That kind of enamel work, it dates from the fourteenth century. I always assumed he’d found it at Wylding Hall and nicked it.

We used to joke about discovering treasure, the odd golden mace or grail. Never did, though. We looked once or twice: me and Jonno got lost wandering through the old wing. There was a passage on the second floor, I think it was a priest-hole. We found it when we pushed aside a wardrobe in one of the bedrooms. I don’t think anyone had stepped in that room in two hundred years. We must have walked for ten minutes in the dark — we had a torch, but the battery was going. Jonno got spooked and we turned back. I wanted to keep on, but he was dead set against being lost in the dark.

Later, I tried to find that passage again, but I never could. I couldn’t remember what room it was. None of them ever looked right.

Jonno

After I told Les and Julian, I found the others. None of us had any idea what Tom had in store, so when Julian pulled out his hash, we all tucked in. Will made breakfast, and we all sat together at that big trestle table in the kitchen and ate. Usually we weren’t all up at the same time, so we didn’t eat together. But that day we did and it was lovely. Everyone laughing and joking, the windows open so the sun came in and warmed the flagstones. I was always barefoot, so I remember that detail.

I also remember when the lorry pulled up. A Ford transit box van; it looked like a milk truck. Tom hopped out, and then this boy. Sturdy lad, dark hair and ruddy face, wearing a work shirt and dungarees.

Well, aren’t you nice , I thought. He was a few years younger than me, sixteen. Silas Thomas’s grandson. Tom had brought him to help with lugging the sound equipment, which was especially fortuitous when we ended up recording outside. It was fortuitous for me, too, though for a different reason.

Billy Thomas, photographer

Silas Thomas was my grandfather. My family owns the farm next to his. Actually, it’s all one farm since he died. I don’t live there now, but my partner and I have a cottage not too far off, so we can visit my mum. My father died about ten years ago.

I can’t remember exactly when Silas died. I’d left home by then. Maybe five or six years after? Maybe longer. I should remember; I was broke up about it. But I don’t.

He told me about the hippies living at Wylding Hall. They hired him to bring them groceries every week. He liked them, as far as I knew. He thought they were harmless. Only thing he worried about was one of them went off into the woods by himself, up to the rath. That’s what he called the hill fort. It’s an Irish word; his mother was Irish, and when she married my great-grandfather and moved here in the eighteen hundreds, that’s what she called it.

So my grandfather said, anyway. He was very superstitious. So was everyone else in the village. None of us was ever supposed to go off playing on our own in the woods, especially not anywhere near the rath. If you did, you’d get a hiding when your folks found out. Julian Blake was the one used to go up there.

The old ways, no one remembers them today. The Wren’s a gastropub now; Barry and me quite like it.

I’d heard about the commune in the old manor from my granddad. Someone told me they were musicians, a rock group. Of course, I’d never seen a rock group. I didn’t even have a phonograph. We had a radio, so I’d listen to BBC’s Radio 1 and John Peel on Saturday nights. That was my connection to the outside world.

I had no thought whatsoever about becoming a rock photographer. I didn’t know such a thing existed. I did have a camera, an Instamatic I saved for and bought earlier that summer. I was very proud of it. There was a camera club at my secondary school and I wanted to join. So, of course, I needed a camera.