G R I F F E N 2 0 2 3 | 2 1 released their first record, and rapidly became an art critic for Vogue magazine as well as an assistant at the Robert Fraser Gallery in Mayfair. Fraser was popularly known as “Groovy Bob”, the glamorous and well-dressed art dealer whose Duke Street gallery became one of the hippest locations in London, and the epicentre of London’s “Swinging Sixties” scene. Here, on any given day, you might encounter a stream of poets, footballers, pop stars, actors and artists, as well as one or two members of London’s criminal underworld. In such company, there was always a chance Fawcett would bump into The Beatles, and sure enough, one day in 1968, he found himself at a private view alongside John Lennon and his new partner, Yoko Ono. Soon afterwards, the couple invited him to work for them as an “Art Adviser” to help them develop a range of shared art projects. At this time, Ono was seeking to make her mark on the London art scene, and Lennon was keen to reinvent himself after wearying of life as a Beatle. Looking back, it seems everything to do with The Beatles moved at incredible speed, which is perhaps why, just a few weeks later, Fawcett became the Lennons’ personal assistant, a post he would hold from 1968 until the couple’s departure for New York towards the end of 1971. In 1976, Fawcett published One Day at a Time: a Personal Biography of the Seventies in which he described his experiences of those turbulent years in The Beatles’ lives. His book was one of very few biographies of Lennon to appear during his lifetime; Fawcett’s unique ringside seat allowed him to witness countless now-legendary moments, such as the infamous bed-ins for peace, and other episodes that marked the death throes of The Beatles. Fascinatingly, Fawcett also provides an account of Lennon’s delayed trauma following the demise of the group he’d initially been so keen to dismantle. on with our jobs. We had no ideas of breaking into the pop world.” The Master Singers’ first record for Martin saw them supplying backing vocals for a 1965 Peter Sellers parody of The Beatles’ song, Help! The following year, their newly recorded version of The Highway Code, produced by Martin, was released. Incredibly, it rose to number 25 in the charts, outstripping singles by The Kinks and Bob Dylan. Encouraged by their success, Martin, Parlophone and The Master Singers went on to issue musical versions of The Phone Directory and The Weather Forecast, the latter reaching number 50 in the UK singles chart. In further ventures, the group backed Cliff Richard for an unreleased album of Christmas carols, and appeared with comedian Ken Dodd in a number of television shows. All of this was accomplished alongside the group’s full-time teaching careers. Perhaps inevitably, it couldn’t last. Barry Montague moved to Australia and was replaced by another Abingdon teacher called Mike Warrington. John Horrex left Abingdon and moved to Glasgow Academy while Geoff Keating headed for Cheadle Hulme School in Cheshire. Despite this diaspora, The Master Singers’ TV appearances continued well into 1967 via a regular stint on an ITV variety show. This posed obvious challenges when it came to rehearsals. As Keating remembered, it was “nightmarish, because by that time we’d dispersed. In the end we heard one of the recordings that we’d done with no rehearsal which had been put together in two minutes. We didn’t like what we heard so we gave up doing it.” One of John Horrex’s students might just have been another Abingdonian with a startling connection to the Fab Four. Anthony Fawcett (1966) left Abingdon in the same year The Master Singers At this point in August 1962, The Beatles’ trip to London’s Abbey Road studios to record Love Me Do, their first hit record with producer George Martin, was only twelve days away, but as far as they were concerned, their collective futures hung in the balance. Brian Epstein felt he had done all he could to “break” them into the big time; if it didn’t work now, he told Grigsby, this was surely the end. “Imagine if we’d never had The Beatles,” Queen Elizabeth is reported to have said. Happily, we’ve never had to. In September, Martin was impressed, and on Friday October 5, Love Me Do was released, marking the start of their worldwide success. George Martin played a big part in Abingdon’s second link with The Beatles, and this one really is hard to credit. The story begins in 1963, an Annus Mirabilis not just for The Beatles, but for much of British society. As Philip Larkin put it: Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) - Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban And The Beatles’ first LP. It was a significant year for Abingdon too, as Headmaster James Cobban oversaw celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of the re-founding of the School by John Roysse, and the completion of a new library, opened by Princess Margaret, in whose honour a programme of entertainments was arranged. This included a version of The Highway Code, set to music in the style of a psalm chant by the School’s Head of Physics, John Horrex, and performed for Her Royal Highness by Horrex and his fellow teachers Geoff Keating, George Pratt and Barry Montague. Collectively, they called themselves The Master Singers. So far, perhaps, so unremarkable. What happened next certainly was not. At some point in 1963, a private recording of The Highway Code reached broadcaster and humourist Fritz Spiegl, who in turn passed it to the BBC, where – two years later – it appeared on a radio show called This Time of Day. The song went down well with listeners, prompting George Martin – who was not only The Beatles’ producer but also Head of Parlophone Records, the EMI subsidiary for whom The Beatles recorded – to offer The Master Singers a recording contract. For these stalwarts of the Abingdon Common Room, this must have seemed more than a little surreal. As Geoff Keating admitted, “The whole thing was just an enormous hoot for us. We were serious schoolmasters getting The Master Singers (left to right: Geoff Keating, George Pratt, John Horrex and Barry Montague, pictured with fellow teacher John Cullen) “Imagine if we’d never had The Beatles,” Queen Elizabeth is reported to have said. Happily, we’ve never had to.
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