I remember the incident and all that preceded it, mainly because at that time, I had the most horrendous abscess in my front right canine tooth, and as we were in Liverpool at the time, had visited my dentist in Bootle. He had taken one look, prescribed penicillin, and told me to come back when the swelling had gone down. That afternoon, I drove the band up to Newcastle, where we had just the one show, and then we were to go back down to London. By the time we reached the north east, the right side of my face was something like the size of a football, and the pain was awful. I set up my gear, and then vanished into the relative quiet of the dressing room. 

One of the people who just happened to be in the audience that night was our ubiquitous television producer: how on earth does he manage to be everywhere we are – and more to the point – why?

Anyway, during the evening, he discovers that we are planning to travel to London: that we have a day off: and that he would be quite happy to take Faron as a passenger with him on his homeward journey. Of course Faron accepted the offer with alacrity – for himself and the rest of the band. Having made the offer, the poor guy couldn’t very well squirm out of it, so events turning out the way they did – to almost everybody’s satisfaction – mine particularly, (if not our tame TV producer’s), as I suddenly discovered that I had a night and a day off, and that I didn’t need to be in London until two days later. I happily headed for God’s country, arriving home somewhere about five a.m. and heading straight for my lady’s house in Roby. I’m afraid our friend’s plans for Faron – whatever they may have been – failed to reach fruition. Take my word for it, there’s nothing more off-putting to a romantic interlude than a gang of raucous musies. 

I said a rather reluctant farewell to my lady, and drove back down to London late the following day. I was in absolute agony with said abscess, so much so, that first thing the next morning, I headed for St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, famous birth-place of the Queen’s sprogs, and went directly into Dental. The dentist was a lady, in more ways than one. She took one look, sat me down in her space-ship seat, opened my mouth and sprayed – well – like an air spray onto the offending tooth and gum. Two minutes later, she had removed the abscess and told me to come back first thing in the morning for her to remove the tooth.

There I stood, about 10 or 11 a.m. the following day, waiting for the lady who, in two minutes, had removed a pain that I had suffered for nearly a week. ‘Sit’ she said, so I sat. Mask on, go to sleep, wake sometime later feeling sick as the proverbial parrot and with a space where my tooth used to be. I asked her why this could not have been done by my own dentist in Liverpool, and she told me that there were dentists – and dental surgeons. She, being of the latter, was able to remove the pain and the problem in two installments.

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