All language subtitles for BBC Oil City Confidential - Dr.Feelgood

Contains very strong language.

So, I come

here and prop it up like that.

And then, skilfully, I come
across... keep a low profile. There.

Here's my telescope.

what we've got around us here in this neighbourhood
is a settlement of humans, right, there'd probably

been a spaceship crash, or something like that,
and this small town has arisen.

And we're waiting to be rescued.

My terrible job is to stay up all night
scanning the heavens for the rescue ships.

And that's how I while away
the weary hours.

where in the world
is Dr Feelgood very big?

In Canvey Island.

Canvey Island.

♫ I got a girl

♫ A man's best friend

♫ I'd have her now

♫ If she'd just come back again

♫ But she left me in the fog

♫ Told me that I treat her
like a dog

♫ I bought a brand-new motor

♫ And I'm waiting for a loan

♫ So I can fill her up and start her

♫ Then I'm going back home

♫ Oh, yeah

♫ I wanna live the way I like

♫ Sleep all the morning

♫ And get my fun at night

♫ Things ain't like that here

♫ working just
to keep my payments clear... ♫

I was born here, which means
I was born below sea level.

I think this affects
the consciousness profoundly.

It's kind of submarine
consciousness, I think.

And um,

I live up on top of the hill now.

Cos of the flood, you see, 1953.

People used to use this flood

as a kind of a historical
reference point, like the war.

Oh, was that before
the war or after the war?

Here, of course, it's was that
before the flood or after the flood?

Biblical stuff.

Yeah, 1953, I opened my bedroom
curtains, I was at the age of six.

I saw a rowing boat going by,
which I thought was a tad odd.

Our neighbour was screaming
at us through the walls,

and we realised at that time
that we had been flooded.

I would have been born
at home but because of the flood,

I was born in Romford Hospital.

Our house fell down.
we had to get another house.

I knew that there was something
wrong. I was a perceptive child.

There was a girl
in our class at school.

Unfortunately, her parents had died and she was
found floating in her carry cot, like a Moses basket.

A lot of people were forced to spend the night on the roof,
which was freezing, freezing temperatures.

A lot of people just
died from exposure.

About a hundred people were killed.

we were evacuated from
Canvey Island to a school.

Of course, as a kid,
it was a big adventure.

There was a big tea chest full of Dinky toys,
which we could all help ourselves to.

On the radio, there was this
character called Wilfred Pickles.

How do? How are you?

And he was down at this school,
interviewing the refugees from the flood.

And he was asking anybody if
they wanted to sing a song,

so we could have a sing song,
cheering everybody's spirits up.

My mum thrust me forward
and said, ‘Yeah, he can.

‘what are you gonna sing?‘

And that's Johnny, Big Figure,
right? Little Johnny Martin.

And he sung Me and My Teddy Bear.

when we eventually got back onto the island
I was inundated with teddy bears from all over the country.

He was the first Feelgood to
actually make it onto the media.

Right, good morning, ladies and
gentlemen. welcome to Canvey Island.

This is the birthplace
of Dr Feelgood.

This is where our adventure
all started out in the early '70s.

The walk will be about two hours, so if you're not feeling up to it,
you had too much to drink last night, at

any point a taxi can be organised to come and get you,
because we're going round the perimeter of the island.

we'll make a start, OK?

Onwards and upwards.

All sorts of people are getting
fascinated by Canvey Island.

It gets to you. I think
I'm going to move back here.

Canvey Island is a great place,
really, but it's strange, even today.

It is a very unique place,

and there's nowhere I've ever been
in the world quite like Canvey.

There's this mud flat rescued from the sea
by Dutch engineers in the 17th century.

In the last hundred years, because
of the railway coming to Southend,

it's become a popular haunt of Eastenders,
people coming down from London and weekend bungalows.

It also has that end of the line feeling
about it, because you step off the

end of the creek in Canvey Island, and if you just keep
going along the waterline, your next stop's Belgium.

And that's a fact.

It feels like a million miles
from anywhere.

Also it's not really
an island, it's a peninsula.

It still is an island. we can
go right round Canvey by boat.

well, maybe it is an island.

You must edit that out,
I'll take that out.

People were quite proud to come
from Canvey and liked that it was

an island and there was something
unique and different about it.

To us Southenders, you had to
cross a bridge to get there.

So even though the bridge was only
30 yards, it was almost like a

different country, going to Canvey.

People are somewhat suspicious
of Canvey Islanders.

They have a fear, because
of the East End links, they

think it's a bit of a rough place,
full of East End rough people.

which, to a point, there's something
to be said for that, you know!

People take the Mick out
of Canvey, like, you know,

people on Canvey have got webbed
feet cos it's always flooded.

Canvey's Canvey, and it's a little bit like
the old East End of London used to be.

Before they all moved to Canvey!

we tend to close ranks
a little bit and defend the place

to outsiders, although we're
constantly knocking it ourselves!

You could look across the river
there, there you see Kent.

It's like a sort of promised land, Kent, you know,
it's the Garden of England over there, and you think,

I wonder what's over that hill?

You don't need to leave Canvey,
everything is delivered here,

and if you're happy with being here 365 days a year,
then why would you want to leave?

when I was a little tiny lad,

they were building the refinery at
Shell Haven, just across the water.

And you all day long you could hear these pile drivers,
driving piles deep down this mud.

Boom, boom, all the time.

Steam hammers,

you know. And gradually this
thing rose up over the horizon.

It's the catalytic cracker plant.
My mum told me it's a cat cracker!

Cracking cats.

They have these big chimney stacks
with flames coming out of the top.

And you get the flames at night time, you know,
flickering underneath the clouds, you know.

Very Miltonic.

‘Yet from those flames, no light, but rather darkness
visible served only to discover sites of woe. '

It was where my father worked,
he was there on security.

And they used to come up on
the seawall at Canvey to watch

the Spitfire pilots attempt to tip the wings
of the V1s, you know, the flying bombs,

to stop them reaching London.

The Germans were always trying to bomb
the oil terminal to light their way up into London.

I remember my dad used to work on these jetties
over here, and he'd bring me up here when I was a kid.

And he bribed the captain of one of
the small oil tankers to take us to

London once, which was quite a good
journey for a little kid to make.

One of these tankers would go by,
you'd get a big wash from it.

It'd come washing up, very exciting.

Bit of surf.

we'd sit here and waiting for the wash from a tanker,
watching these red sails go by, and...

paradise.

Canvey Island was the nearest beach
to the East End of London.

There was the Thorny Bay Holiday Camp,
which was, well, weekend holidays for Londoners, really.

They all had an old-fashioned
'50s caravan, wasn't it?

Come down, most of the time was spent over
the casino eating whelks and eating candy floss.

Not a great site for a caravan park,
cos you've got these oil tanks there.

But they solved this problem, they used
to sell postcards of the caravan site, and they'd

actually painted the oil tanks
away with blue paint, you know.

And it looked
like a nice caravan site.

It had a bit of a bawdy reputation.

People would go there for
a dirty weekend.

If you said you came
from Canvey Island, people

would raise their eyebrows,
as if questioning your parentage.

we laugh about it now and make jokes
about the funny hats and the sticks of rock and

everything, but that was a large
part of the income of this town.

Perhaps we were all in show
business.

This is a map of Canvey Island.

As I would understand it, I mean,
the bands all come from somewhere.

But this is quite a tight area to
have pulled in four band personnel.

we lived there.

Sparko lived there.

Figure lived there.

And Wilko lived there.

'Hi, there, this is Radio Canvey...’
Hello, how are you? Not bad, not bad.

what can I do for you today?

just a very short trim, please.

Literally my oldest friend.

we were born in close proximity
to each other on Canvey Island.

Four doors away. Four doors away.

I had to go to Wilko's to watch
BBC television for children.

That's how deprived we were.

Hello, everyone. Hey, Muffin.

Don't be in such a hurry. Say hello.

when I did go to
the grammar school in Southend,

you were looked on slightly askance,
coming from Canvey Island.

My first year, there was this
English teacher and he used

to get me to stand in front in the
class and go, go on, say 'bottle'.

I can't even say it, 'bottle', and I'd go 'bottle',
'little', and all that, to show them how not to speak.

You see, my glottal stops. But of course,
I loved it. 'Bottle', 'little', you know.

I knew Chris, who became
the manager of the Feelgoods.

we were in the local
Cub troupe together.

And Spark and I were in the same
patrol, in the Squirrel Patrol.

Lee was a different deal, because
Lee, he was born in South Africa.

He had spoken, allegedly, Zulu,
because he had had a Zulu nanny.

Nanny Rosie.

Yes, she was a Zulu girl,
lovely person.

He spoke Zulu
when he couldn't even speak English.

But I think he was back in the UK
fully by the time he was five.

First of all, his grandparents
had lived on Canvey Island.

He used to come at weekends,
it was a slow transition.

He loved it at Canvey.

He liked it so much
that on Friday I'd get home from

work and there was a note on the
table, ‘Dear Mum, gone to Nan's.'

And he'd gone for the weekend.

It got so dreadful, we never saw the
boy. So we all moved down there.

He was an only child,
he had no brothers and sisters.

we became neighbourhood mates,
because we lived five rows from one another.

Because we lived right on the sea wall,
you would swim over in the creek.

You would play mud larks,
and that would be great fun.

just sort of buggering
about in the mud.

That's Lower Horse Island.

And Lee and I had our rowing boats,

and we used to row out to the
island in the middle, and this was

our real pirate's playground. This,
that you see here, is all our garden.

Chris would row the boat,

and Lee would do all the talking.

And Lee would make up all these
stories about monsters and things.

This boat, he called it the Corsair.

He put up the skull and crossbones,
and there he was. Pirate Lee.

To us it was a magical island,
Treasure Island,

wind in the willows, general
Boy's Own adventure books.

when I was 15, 16 and that, I was a right
rebel at school, but I was deliberately a philistine.

And I took it in my head, I fancied myself with a guitar.
You think you're gonna get all the girls.

Probably the first people I saw on the television
actually using guitars were the Shadows.

Those great twangy sounds, those instrumentals
played on the Fender Stratocasters.

Wilko bought himself a very cheap
guitar from the Exchange and Mart,

and he suggested I get myself a very basic drum kit,
so we could start play and emulate the Shadows.

Some Shadows’ stuff.

I do not use a plectrum,

and this is my excuse.
I'm left-handed.

And, um, the first guitar I got
was left-handed,

like this, see, you play

it this way round. is this the way,
isn’t it? That's it, this way around.

Is it this way or that way?

I think it's this way round, yeah.

So anyway, I got a right-handed
guitar and started learning again.

I couldn't keep hold
of the plectrum.

So I just did without it.

Strummed like fury.

Red scratch plate.
So the men won't see the blood.

This is my group,
this is about 1964.

There's me with my Watkins Rapier guitar,
and there's Figure, again, that's him very sensible.

Not at all a clown.

Oh, man, the Stones, the Stones.

They just looked so outlandish, and here was a band
you knew your parents wouldn't like.

You see, Keith Richards,
I've got it, ain't I? Look.

There we are in Irene's back garden,
and you can tell it's the early '60s by the clothes she's wearing.

Irene, I mean we were
going together when we were 16.

I remember the first time I kissed her. There were a bunch
of us all walking back from the youth club,

we got to a gate, and I kissed her,
and I'm telling you it shook me, it just shook me.

Lee, he was a clever boy.

He was far more intelligent
than I was.

There was no way I passed
the 11 plus or anything like that.

Lee looked different and he came over
different from anybody else in the school.

we had what you could
basically call a gang.

we called it the weasel Club.

It was modelled very heavily on
Harry Flashman from Tom Brown's

Schooldays, and we all sported
waistcoats and pocket watches.

I thought he was a prefect,

because he was carrying
himself like a prefect.

well, well, well.

Hello, Flashman.

He was obviously
the sort of leader of his gang.

He just had that aura about him.

Lee was extremely good with words,
very persuasive,

and he could be
virtually an intellectual.

Pierre by Collie

The end.

He had a tremendous sense
of outrage.

If he felt the headmaster
was unfair on him,

he'd urinate on the
headmaster's, er, door.

Like most kids, I always liked music,
pop music and all the rest of it, it wasn't until I heard Blues

that I really started to become obsessive about it,
I wanted to collect Blues records,

and used to subscribe to Blues Unlimited magazine,
and became quite,

probably to all my friends,
a complete bore about it all.

♫ Oh, the train I ride... ♫

You know, he was
evangelical about the music.

♫ ..Oh, they shine like gold... ♫

Howling wolf, when I saw
him perform live in Romford,

at a pub called the King's Head,
he was absolutely superb.

I thought he looked the business.

You know, he was the King.

He came out on stage, there was
an old man. And he just rocked.

A Hohner harmonica in one hand and a
microphone and you couldn't see it.

It was just a big fella.
He was like a bear more than a wolf.

The first guitar that I got obsessed
with was one of these things - a Fender Telecaster.

And one day I was at home, and I'm
walking across the room, like that.

And err, and somebody goes this is
Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, right?

♫ Shaking all over. ..♫

I went...

And there's, there's this guitar.

I discovered the music
of Mick Green, who played

for Johnny Kidd and the Pirates,
and he used a Fender Telecaster.

But usually in bands you had two
guitar players, one playing rhythm.

And, another one playing
what they call lead.

well, Mick Green was doing
both these things at once.

I thought, I want
to be just like him,

and I started finding all
the records I could find,

Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.

I listened to them,
you played them at 33 and a third.

♫ They call me the doctor... ♫

So it's slow.

♫ I'm really hard to please

♫ well, you talk about... ♫

How's he doing that?
How's he doing... I can't...

so I tried and tried and tried, got it completely
wrong, and ended up with my own style.

Like that.

Me and my brother, we used

to come up here with our jug band,
and we'd stand outside the Monaco.

we used to play down there.

we'd just stand here, kind of rather embarrassed,
with our tea-chest bass and our banjos and things.

And, and hang out, wait till it was half past 10
or whenever closing time was over there.

And people would stagger out
in a sentimental mood.

"Can you play a sad one?‘

♫ You are my sunshine

♫ My only sunshine

♫ You make me... ♫

Get out! And stay out!

♫ ..You'll never know, dear

♫ How much I love you

♫ Please don't take
my sunshine away... ♫

And they'd give you a 10 bob note,
and you could buy a hamburger.

Wilko was a couple of years older
than us. I remember when we were

quite young teenagers,
seeing Wilko and his brother,

err, playing in what they call a jug band,
which is a kind of a skiffle group, really.

And I remember this,
being most taken with this idea.

Lee was the one I remembered, and he was very,
very interested in what we were doing, this music.

And it made a powerful impression
on me, just that he was so kind

of eager. So it didn't surprise me when a year
or so later he'd got a jug band of his own going,

and they were rather good, but...

Yeah, I well remember
talking to him.

I don't think any of us could play a chord, but Lee,
it was something that he, he aspired to desperately,

so he couldn't play guitar
chords, he learned banjo chords.

Lee was definitely
the driving force.

He carried people along
in his wake, really.

Lee and Sparko were the core rhythm section.
They're the ones who could play.

This was a schoolboy thing, and this was weekends
and youth clubs. Quite lucrative, actually.

I remember when we used to busk
outside the Monaco, and we won

a talent competition at
our local holiday camp.

He would start off at the
Admiral Jellicoe and busk outside.

well, then we started getting small
amplifiers, we couldn't carry them,

so we used to have to make
barrows out of pram wheels and stuff.

Then we would move across
the road to the Canvey Club.

we always took the hat around, so we,
we had plenty of pocket money for 14 year olds.

Then move on to the original
Oysterfleet pub.

And we would do a full set there that would
probably take us through till 12.30, midnight.

And although we weren't 18, the governor
always used to buy us a pint, and err, it was great fun.

Figure, he left school
when he was about 15.

His dad had a lock-up shed on Canvey
where he used to do panel beating and spraying.

He hated Ford cars, you see,

so this is his way of
being satirical about Ford cars.

Well, Wilko found a couple of friends
over in westcliff, we just started playing R&B.

After a couple of years I joined another
band over on Canvey called the Essex Five,

earning a reasonable living.

Coming home after three gigs with 50 quid
in my pocket, which wasn't bad in 1968/1969.

This is the last years of the '60s.

Revolution.

LSD.

when I eventually tried it,
it was it...

Beyond anything.

Beyond anything I'd ever. ..

imagined or been told.

I had a fascinating
LSD experience here.

Me and my brother walked all the way
along the wall from the other end of

the island, right, gradually getting
more and more involved.

I remember one point here,
it used to be a shelter.

And it just involved a kind of
ritually jewelled palace room,

like something out of
the Arabian Nights.

And then it all suddenly turned into
pink plastic knives and forks.

just about then I was, in fact,
about to go up to Newcastle,

to the university there,
where I was studying English.

Check out the opening lines of,
err, Piers Plowman.

It's... it's good.

‘I was weary for wandering, and went me to rest
under a broad bank by a bourne's side.

‘And as I lay and leaned
and looked in the waters,

‘I slumbered in a sleeping,
it swathed so merry.‘

I also, I had some ambition
to be a writer myself.

I remember saying to Irene,
I said if I get to the age of 21 and

find out I'm not a great poet,
I'm going to cut my throat.

And I think the first real time I focussed on Wilko
is when our jug band was playing in Canvey Carnival.

I would come back to Canvey
in the summertime, during the vacation.

I would see them playing,
in the Carnival. Look at these guys.

And there was one point Wilko came
up with his brother, and said,

‘Hello boys,‘ and ‘Oh, great,
what a great jug band.‘

After I'd, err, graduated,
travelled overland to India.

India! My father actually was a soldier in the Raj.
He was on the north-west frontier.

Sometimes I'd heard him say stuff about India,
so I had this thing about India in my mind.

I was so scared, I'd never been out of England
before, I was sure I was going to die.

I had 50 quid stuffed down me Y-fronts
when I set off, and um, that sufficed.

we went through Turkey and Iran,

Tehran, Mashad and then through
to Herat, Kandahar, Kabul,

and then through the Khyber Pass.

And we'd got a room in this Bahar
Hotel, which was completely empty.

we went out to the shops that day

and we bought some
opium and some eggs.

This is my room I had in Kathmandu.

And in the morning, you see, you'd open
these shutters, and it would be all misty.

And then slowly the mist would lift
and you'd start the see the temples,

the pagodas, coming out of the mist.

And then the mist would lift further
and you would see the Himalayas.

Actually, I don't
normally like mountains.

Maybe that's because I come from
flat Canvey Island, I don't know.

Lee was still on Canvey, and had a
very Canvey-centric view of things.

There's Canvey Island
in the middle of the world,

and it's surrounded by the Black Sea

and the River Crouch drains from the
Black Sea to the Loch Ness Ocean.

♫ And I been to the East
And I been to the west

♫ I been this whole world wide

♫ I been to the river
and I been baptised

♫ Now lead me to my buried ground

♫ Lead me to my buried ground. ♫

when I came back from India, I
decided I wanted to be a painter.

Yeah, I'm very fond of the
old cumulus clouds in the

summertime, and you just look at it,
there's all sorts of stuff in there.

There's my brother playing the lute.

And there he is looking after me one night,
and in the background there's Irene.

I knew that we were
marrying very young, and

people would say we shouldn't do it,
but I knew absolutely that there was

nobody in the world like her for me,

I knew that I wanted
to be with her forever.

To be in a jug band 14, 15,

is acceptable as a gag.

To be in a jug band at sort of 17, 18,
all of a sudden this lot's a bit weird.

It's about time you were in a
band and did a bit of rock'n'roll.

when it was being talked about that the band
should go electric, Chris was a bit miffed, really.

He was a not so sure
about me giving up the jug.

what could be my role, so Lee said
to him, well get yourself a van

and you can cart us around, and we'll cut you
in as the fifth member, and that's how it stayed.

If I was home at the weekend then I'd,
I'd go along and help with the gear,

and I went with them on one of
the first real, long haul gigs,

it was exit 27
off the M1 at Nottingham.

we played the Silk Top Hat Club,
which is a big working man's club.

This was the real thing. And Lee came out
with some gloves on for the show,

and his denim jacket, and threw
a great little rock'n'roll gig.

He just did, and I remember the local D]
there had kind of seen it all.

He said, ‘You've got a star
on your hands there, mate.‘

Fucking right, I tell you what,
it take the shiver down my back.

I'd given up playing, and I'm back on
Canvey Island and then bumped into Lee.

He was a solicitor's
clerk at the time.

I think he was about 18 or 19 then.

He's got a pinstripe suit on, three piece suit,
fucking looked really mean, you know, really good.

I worked in a law office, yeah, serving writs
on people, that was my job.

And, err, he was saying, ‘we've got
this rock'n'roll band,‘ and err,

the guitar player had left,
and I was thinking, ‘Ooh.

‘I've still got my
guitar under the bed.

‘Is he going to ask me?‘

But he didn't.

He was too shy to suggest
that I should join his band.

And so we had a long talk in
the street and parted company,

and I thought, ‘Oh, man, I could have,
you know, I haven't played for a long time and.

And then of course, later that evening,
Sparko came knocking at the door.

He'd come round and, later
on he's at my door going,

‘Look, do you want to do a band?‘
And I went, 'Yes.'

we were quite in some awe of Wilko,
you know, as a musician, also as a character.

And, err, absolutely delighted when he agreed,
condescended, you know, to join our little band.

I was happy to be his guitar player.

we learned some pop songs
so we can get work.

we went around someone's house and
had a rehearsal, and I think Lee,

we got, Lee put this, err, record
on, it was, err, Little Walter.

I said, ‘Fuck this pop music, let's
just play this, let's do this!‘

How many rhythm and blues fans does
it take to change a light bulb then?

Well... it's one, you know, and ten to say
it's not as good as the original.

Wilko on board made a big difference.

We became fast friends,
and he was very welcoming of you.

You could always go round his house
and have a cup of tea and a joint.

We used to go round your place and
have very good sessions, didn't we?

A complete laugh, right.

I thought this guy's cool, right, it was like
your first guru that you'd come across.

He'd been on lots of
political rallies and things.

Look, I'm a revolutionary, I'd got this
donkey jacket on, and boots and that.

We demonstrated when a new road was
opened on Canvey Island because we

felt that it was done purely to have
a lot more oil refineries put in.

But it felt a laugh to go along
and say, ‘No more oil on Canvey!‘

No more oil on Canvey soil!

No more oil on Canvey soil!

The Pit of Canvey, pretty browned
off about the idea really,

I mean, we didn't want
another oil refinery on Canvey.

Will you stand up?

This whole debate so far seems to
me, err, to be taking the shape

of people who are considering
economic interests,

they're considering fire risks
and things like this,

as though the refinery is coming,
whether we want it or not.

We're not rich people,
we're not millionaires,

so you can stick it on our doorstep,
you won't stick it on anyone else's.

That's the economics behind citing
it here, because we don't care.

They did actually shelve the oil refineries
being built on Canvey Island.

When we started the band, and we got
this idea about this is where, this is Oil City.

Canvey Island doesn't sound very
American, let's call it Oil City.

The blues, the sound of the blues. Mucker Joe,
he called this, yes, this is Thames Delta.

If you close your eyes on a sunny day
it could be the Mississippi Delta,

it could be some strange place, not
really anywhere, not part of England.

I used to love all these little shacks,
and the balconies on the front and everything.

My first record advance, I went and
bought one of them, it was my first house!

'Hello, is that Mr Dean Kennedy?’

I, err, I see them when
they used to play on Canvey.

I was about 13, 14.

And it was in the time
of sort of like,

skinheads and football hooligans,

and yeah, there was a lot of anger
on Canvey in those days.

It was a bit of a lawless
society down there.

And they were just ordinary street kids,
and they just brought that to the stage.

♫ Well I'm a hot for you baby

♫ I can't get enough of your love

♫ I'm a hot for you baby

♫ Can't get enough of your love

♫ When I go to sleep at night

♫ Girl, you're the one
I'm dreamin' of. ♫

So we started playing in pubs and clubs
and roller-skating rinks in Southend,

and a dodgy pub called
the Railway in Pitsea,

otherwise known as the Flying Bottle.

All the usual kind of like, rough
houses and places where musicians go.

This is the Monaco Pub, and we used to play
there to the local Feelgood crowd every Wednesday night.

It was 30 pence door money.

If you can win a crowd on Canvey,
you can win a crowd anywhere.

I think Canvey to the rest of us

felt like something that was
dressed up but bound to sink.

We all had this awareness
that it was going to drown.

There was an underlying sense
of violence.

And there was a lot of alcohol
on Canvey, big drinking culture.

The drummer we had been using,

he wanted to go back in the army,

and I said, ‘Well, I know
a good drummer.‘ Figure.

Wilko come knocking on my door
one night with Chris and Lee.

and asked if I'd join their band
temporarily to go to Holland

which I jumped at,
never been abroad before.

I remember going to
Wilko's house one night.

Instead of opening the door, he pushed out
a poster that had our pictures and names,

and that was really exciting, to
see something was actually happening,

rather than just playing
at the local bingo hall.

We played these youth club places,
which were really cool,

like hippy kind of vibe places,
and we would play twice a day.

It was the first time we'd played

to that kind of actual
rock'n'roll audience,

and I really liked it.

You know, so you get all the girls.

Very nice girls. Somewhere or
other I thought we'd got something.

I think it was largely
to do with Lee.

If he went into a room,
he would attract attention.

Because we were always trying
to get some sort of reaction,

Lee would jump out
the window of the pub

or start singing in the car park.
It had a unique sound to it.

There was something about it

that was very spiteful and knocked you about.

Passionate R&B, played with venom.

♫ Down in Louisiana
close to New Orleans... ♫

We're nowhere near New Orleans,
but we are in the Thames Delta.

I don't think we were very
highly regarded round here.

All the local bands and that,
they were into wearing frocks

and singing about flying
to Mars, you know.

So, you know, we were just
completely un-hip.

And this is Pilgrim's Progress.

Everybody else was doing progressive
rock, with long hair and greatcoats.

Pink Floyd, King Crimson
and all that stuff.

The Feelgoods looked very much like
they were out of the '60s

and they were playing R&B.

Nobody was doing that. It was so
different to what was happening.

Crusade is the right word.

You're trying to impose
something different on people.

It was time that the
balloon was burst.

Wilko, at that time,
was my schoolteacher.

'He was teaching English
to secondary school kids.'

I really enjoyed teaching.
I loved it.

He weren't a very orthodox schoolteacher,
I could tell you that.

We really liked him.

He'd sit cross legged on
the table, chewing his hair,

telling us stories
of walking across India.

Oh, dear, er...

You should not have seen this.

I really am a schoolteacher there.

And this is fifth years, right,

and they've got a super 8 camera,
and they're making a film.

They come into me and
they're going, listen,

we want you to cane jill.

And, I go 'Huh?'

And this girl, I liked this girl.

You know... You mustn't, you know,
look at them or anything,

but I did like this girl.

Lovely girl.

Then jill says, she goes, 'I'm
wearing some frilly knickers.‘

And I'm going, ‘Now look,
hold it right there.‘

I said, 'I'm not doing
anything of the kind,

‘I'll be arrested‘

And then I sort of blew it out
and merely struck this pose,

which could still go
on many a website.

Then I've got to go
and see the headmaster.

Come in.

So I go in there,
and say, ‘All right?‘

He said, 'I'm gonna have to say
something to you

‘that I've never had to say
to a teacher in 20 years.‘

He says, ‘You've got to do
something about your appearance. '

How dare you come in here
looking like that, boy!

Slammed his hand on the desk and said, ‘Damn it boy, people think you're a student!‘

I said, 'Don't you call me boy.
I ain't a boy.‘

I said, ‘I've travelled further,
geographically and intellectually

‘than most of your f. . .staff.
Don't call me boy.‘

‘When do you want me to leave?‘

Right now, you've been a bloody disgrace to this school! I was well out of there.

When I was leaving, I was saying, 'I'm gonna be in a rock'n'roll band.‘

I said, ‘I'll be back, I'll be back in a golden Cadillac full of paintings, then you'll be sorry.‘

Well, the one bit of artwork I did
was actually the Dr Feelgood logo,

which even now people have actually
got tattooed on them.

So, a little bit of an achievement.

In those days, we used to sometimes get gigs backing this character called Heinz.

There was this big hit
record called Telstar.

So, here's the Tornadoes.

Heinz was the bass
player in the band, right.

And this was produced by joe Meek,
who took a close interest in Heinz.

He was sort of a blonde,
Aryan-looking young chap.

♫ ..and love today... ♫

He had a German mother, didn't he?

Actually his surname was German, so
I suspect him of being 100% German.

♫ Heinz bakes the meanest beans... ♫

He was still going out doing Teddy Boy gigs and he needed a backing band.

♫ Woo, I love to rock'n'roll... ♫

He got a spot on this Wembley
rock'n'roll show in 1972,

when they had Chuck Berry,

Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard,
Bo Diddley, and then there's Heinzy.

There's me. Red and black shirt.

I'm thinking, ‘This is all right!‘

I quite like this, I was
a schoolteacher last week.

♫ I love to rock'n'roll... ♫

Ironically, he died
a few years back.

I don't know if you can guess
what age he was?

57!

The band, the style,
we were playing in the band

and your barnet's getting
in your face, things like that.

It come the time to
cut my hair, so I cut it.

One day, he just got in the van,
he had the short back and sides, which shocked us all.

There was a point where
the Feelgoods became characters.

The problem was that there were
three Johns in the band.

There were three...
four. . .three Johns!

In fact, Lee's middle name was John.

So we go, ‘All right, John?
‘Yeah, John.‘

There was John Martin the drummer.

Wilko and Lee christened me the Big Figure,
but it was more a title than a name.

This is the Big Figure.

Will Birch, I think, first,
suggested the name of Wilko Johnson.

Wilko is John Wilkinson.

Someone suggested Sparko for me.

Lee Collinson became Lee Brilleaux.

Brilleaux come from his hairstyle,
which he claimed looked like a Brillo pad.

He liked the, er, New Orleans
aspect of the word Brilleaux.

B-R-O-L-L-E-A-U-X.

I remember standing
in the pub with Wilko,

dreaming about becoming rock stars.

We were saying, wouldn't it be great to have
the limos, the roadies, the groupies and the drugs.

I think the other three thought

that, well,
this is part-time, bit of fun.

We used to think, wouldn't it be nice
if we could earn enough money out of playing music

that we wouldn't
have to go to work?

Little did we know, of course.

And that was about, certainly
in my case, as far as the dream went.

Once we got to London, all right, the
game became serious, quite honestly.

London is a hub.

You needed to operate out there
to do the gigs,

to get the buzz going initially.

So what's the plan, eh?
I'm coming to that.

It was impossible to get gigs, unless
you had a record deal and an agent.

You couldn't get an agent unless you
had a record deal, it was catch 22.

All that changed with
the pub rock circuit in London,

around about 1972.

Suddenly it was possible to play to small audiences,
100-200 people in a room, minimal equipment.

That was the scene that
suited the Feelgoods.

We took an expeditional journey
to London in the Big Figure's Rover.

Went to this pub and saw a
band called Duck's Deluxe.

We thought, yeah. Not a million
miles away from what we're doing.

I'm gonna go through it once more
to make sure there are no slip-ups.

I would have the van.
Pick Lee up, drive, pick Sparko up.

Figure, Wilko,
off the A13, and off to London.

Go up like a little
strike force there.

Do your show,
turn around, and come home.

I said to this friend of mine,
there's this group in Southend.

You really ought to see them.
They look and sound like nothing else.

And he said,
‘Oh, OK, we'll put them on.‘

And magically, out of the blue,
Duck's Deluxe had cancelled.

13th july 1973, your mates,
Dr Feelgood, can come and do it.

♫ I saw you the out other night

♫ I saw somebody hold you tight

♫ Roxette

♫ I wonder who it could be... ♫

♫ It was so dark I couldn't see

♫ But I know it wasn't me

♫ When I tell you it ain't right

♫ I know you've got to agree

♫ And now you're gonna pay... ♫

They did their show, it was OK.

They didn't set the place
on fire by any means.

Bearing in mind what was around
at the time, Sweet, bands like Sweet.

♫ We just haven't got
a clue what to do... ♫

We must have stood
out like sore thumbs.

Who's this lot, was the kind of
feel as we mounted the stage.

We had to get to work the next morning.
So, we were basically getting our stuff back in the van.

Picking up a Chinese on the way home,
or a curry. That was it, back to bed.

I think the bank raid, the smash and grab approach,
was probably what was on their minds at the time.

I suppose audiences thought they might be
watching four guys who'd just done a bank job

and, oh, and in their spare
time they play R&B.

People up in London weren't
quite sure about Canvey Island.

They'd heard about it, and
it had a bit of a reputation.

We quite consciously exploited that

with a load of Herberts from Canvey,

and turn up in big motors
and things.

I prefer the morose attitude, you know,
just try to look and feel mean.

It seemed inappropriate somehow to
look like you were enjoying yourself.

With your little smile...

I don't know, what were we?
Some kind of gang.

I used to go up to London on the pub gigs
after bunking half a day off school.

You'd think there was a riot going on
in the pub, you know what I mean?

The places were small and they were just
giving it as much stick as they could.

Us lot started jumping about and
climbing up the curtains and things.

It really did bring the house down.

People found us a bit startling, not the sort
of thing you're supposed to see in a pub. All this energy.

Obviously if you're taking people
by surprise, you see the reaction, you know?

They were just out
of the Essex Estuary

and just kicking off.

They'd been sitting around
for the last five years

listening to stupid synthesisers
and things, you know, and it's...

Rock'n'roll's not about the Hobbit
and things like that.

That's for girls, you know?

Children's music.

This is for people who
want to have a good time.

A lot of it was
actually quite tedious.

Dr Feelgood, when they appeared,

the first time I saw them,
they had a buzz.

They have short hair,
they have suits on, they have ties.

Lee Brilleaux looks like
a used car salesman.

He looks as though he should have
cigarettes nailed to his lips.

I was still working on a building
site. I'd come home from work

and the van would be waiting for me
outside my house,

and I would just have time to get
changed and jump in the van.

We basically went up to town
in our working gear.

Lee works in a solicitor's,
so he had a suit on.

A white suit, once white,
as though it's been kind of

rolled on the floor several times,
as though someone's thrown up on it.

Lee's white suit was actually
quite famous.

It featured on the back of the
NME at Christmas time one year.

He lived in that suit.

There wasn't time to
go to the cleaners.

Well, I always gone for the
black suit, this is 15 quid in Asda.

Wilko wears a black suit,
day in, day out.

Get up in it, go to bed in it.
Lee'd have his white one on.

He'd be the one under the bonnet
when the Transit blows up,

so that's all full of crap, isn’t it?

The other two, John B Sparks and Big Figure,
they kind of look more like Irish nawies.

They were like small-town hoodlums
who'd lucked out on getting a job with this outfit.

The one you'd really see would be John B Sparks
in a wedding suit, with big wide lapels.

Pretty broad, flared trousers,
stack-heel boots.

It's what you call a bastard suit!

Couldn't have been a less
glamorous rhythm section.

That first time
that I went to the Kensington,

it was absolutely heaving, and beer
flying all over the place.

There's this one guy who was
really moving around

and kind of dancing and knocking people over,
and he turned out to be Jake Riviera.

I can remember they were tremendous.

Everyone was interested,
because the word was out.

There's this bunch of kids
from Canvey Island

who were really red hot.

Most of what we played
was cover stuff.

They realised they had to write their own material
to take it to another stage.

There was a song called She Does
It Right. It had this riff, er...

♫ Well, if there's
something that I like

♫ It's the way that woman walk

♫ If there's something I like better

♫ Is the way she baby talks

♫ She does it right

♫ She does it right

♫ She works hard every night
just to make me feel all right

♫ She told me not to worry
Cos there ain't a single trouble in sight

♫ You ought to see her jerk

♫ You ought to see her walk
on the floor

♫ And when she gets back to her seat

♫ All the people cry for more

♫ She does it right

♫ She does it right

♫ She works hard every night
just to make me feel all right

♫ She told me not to worry
Cos there ain't a single trouble in sight. ♫

I would write songs, definitely
kind of imagining Lee's voice.

They were written for him.

Couldn't have, er, too much
poetry or anything like that.

I don't really like poetry.

Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!

Lee would be quite happy
just to sing an old classic.

He weren't into art, was he?
Scorn not the sonnet, critic.

What we're singing about is bad luck,
a lot of the time, but I think most blues singers

have got their tongue very
firmly placed in their cheek.

They're almost saying,
‘All right, this is a lousy deal,

‘but it'll be all right
at the end of the day.

'Let's have a good time anyway,
get drunk and forget it.

In those days, and up until. .
early middle age, I was very strictly teetotal.

The very word pub has
bad associations for me.

We shouldn't forget that although Wilko
doesn't drink, Lee really consumes huge amounts.

When you see Lee sweating on stage,
you realise there's beer coming out of him!

Wilko would just seem
to look into the eyes

of every single person in the audience,
and almost hypnotise them.

A lot of the time, actually, I'm just gazing
into middle distance, I don't actually see anybody.

If you gaze into middle distance,
everybody thinks you've looked at them.

A little trick I learned when I was
a schoolteacher. just go like that.

They all think you're looking
at them, but you're not.

That stare was quite frightening.

Wilko's eyes were a very important
factor of Dr Feelgood. Were they big?

Yeah, they're extremely big.

It was scary, and I think
that scariness is what appealed

to a young audience, and
out of that young audience

came a shit load of punk groups.

You can see that bands would
come and check us out.

They put on a show. It didn't look like
they was acting, they just went for it.

Got the hairs on the
back of your neck going.

We met Johnny Rotten and people
like that. Yeah, they were fans.

joe Strummer goes along
to the Windsor Castle.

He looks in the window,
and he is riveted by what he sees.

Dr Feelgood were just like a machine
of intense proportion.

Few groups have ever rivalled
Dr Feelgood at their most intense.

It's an epiphany for him.

He goes out and buys the same
guitar for when he forms The 101'ers.

He'd seen us, what we were doing, and I think
it galvanised his ideas about what he was trying to do.

No attempt to try and dress
themselves up as celebrities

and enjoying some kind of privileged
lifestyle. In fact, quite the opposite.

Had anybody done that before?
I'm not sure if they had.

They were punk before punk,
weren't they?

The pub rock scene was very
small, sweaty clubs,

lots of people drinking and smoking fags,
and it was free, most places.

And each different pub had its own
group of people.

They would be a bunch of bricklaying
gangs that were in there,

who were absolutely riveted.
Faces were in the crowd.

There was a buzz going on.

This taxi pulls up,
and people getting out of the taxi.

I'm thinking, ‘Bloody hell, man, people who can afford
to ride in taxis are coming to see us!‘

You know, so we're
making it, you know!

Lady Diana was a regular. She would come to
the Feelgood shows when we played the Kensington,

with her three flatmates who
had a place around the corner.

And all of a sudden someone would say,
‘You know, that bloke who's here, that's John Mortimer.‘

I didn't know
who John Mortimer was.

After the seventh week
I said to this landlord,

‘Are you happy enough
with everything?‘

And he said,

‘I want Dr Feelgood
playing at this venue

‘until such time as
they are out in the big field.

‘Cos I know this band
is going places.‘

We were on our way.

The sort of lower part
of the sky was the limit.

And the NME put Dr Feelgood on the
cover before they'd even got a deal.

This caused a tremendous
furore in the music business.

How can you put a group on the cover
of the NME who haven't got a deal?!

The Feelgoods were made
for the music papers.

They got acres and acres of press.
Which was soon to become the darlings of the press.

Editors of NME and Melody Maker,
scuttling all around London

trying to find the seediest pub with
the seediest band playing in it.

They started saying, ‘Where are you from?‘
‘Canvey Island.‘ 'Where's that?‘

‘This funny little place
in the Thames Estuary.‘

We brought a journalist from the NME
down and he'd say, ‘Look, here it is.‘

The wow factor would
be very strong on that.

It had a certain romance to it.
We saw that was a worker, and we used it.

And we used to say that there was
this great oil scene going on here,

and it's an ugly existence,
and that's what's making us

want to crawl out and make
our way in the world.

We went down to Canvey Island,
because that's where they were from.

We thought it would be
a lost island of rhythm and blues.

It was a lost island - a lost
island of gasometers, and wasteland.

I think we did a good PR exercise.

Thousands of tourists flood here
from the four corners of the earth.

This is Canvey Heights behind us,
which used to be Canvey refuge tip.

I love it, because all of a sudden we've
got a bit of altitude on Canvey Island.

We've now got a 15 metre
hill to climb up.

There's very much a sense of
them coming from Canvey Island.

I think it's quite
important to their mythology.

It is the sort of perfect
backdrop for them.

It's almost a seaside town, but it's
so completely busted and broken.

Wilko's very good at painting
pictures of Canvey

being like the Mississippi Delta.

The Thames Delta, that's it!

Yeah, you thought you were
going to Mississippi or somewhere.

He would liken the mud flats
and the little inlets and the creeks

to the sort of place where maybe
somebody like Muddy Waters had played.

When you get this thing Oil City,

you see the flame burning down
there, the stacks, the towers.

I always used to think of it as Babylon.
I babble on about Babylon frequently.

You see this beautiful oil refinery in the night time,
you see the flame burning, all the lights.

In the morning you would look across
the room and you'd see the refinery there,

and a kind of blue, misty light.
It looked wonderful.

You were standing there and looking across
to this sort of celestial city... Shell haven, really.

♫ Stand and watch the towers
burning at the break of day

♫ Steadily slowing down
On my feet since yesterday

♫ Gotta get a move on
to try to find a man I know

♫ Money in my pocket
Looking for a place to go

♫ That's what I've been doing baby

♫ I've been searching
all through the city

♫ See you in the morning
down by the jetty... ♫

Everything looked good. Our form was
good, and our pedigrees were good

but we couldn't get a deal,
not that easily.

And then all of a sudden
we were signed up.

Andrew Lauder from
United Artists Records signed us.

I've got a heart!

We were given completely free reign
and allowed to make our own mistakes.

♫ I've been searching
all through the city

♫ See you in the morning
down by the jetty

I've got this Muddy Waters album.

He's coming down a wooden step. I love this picture,
and thought, I want a picture like that,

that we could have a picture
on the sea wall there.

When we come and take the pictures,
we'd done a gig in London that night

and we all come to Canvey
in the van,

and we were all soaking wet
still from the gig

and we come up to the lobster smack,
where these jetties are.

Four o'clock in the morning, and Lee
fell asleep, just about there.

I think I... What was it, 1974,

I think I slept about
three times that year.

And this photographer, he took a
couple of black and white ones,

and then we started posing around and
he's got these lovely colour prints, didn't he?

But these black and white ones were
all like... They were the ones.

They were the kiddies.
They turned up the studio,

he's got these
beautiful colour prints.

He comes in, he said, ‘Look at these,‘
and you spilt coffee right on them, didn't you?

A cooler cafe!

The main tour in the UK which broke
us was the Naughty Rhythms tour.

It was a 40-odd day concert tour,
right around the country.

There was no looking back
for the Feelgoods after that.

Keep going. Keep going!

Record companies signing bands,
they think, they work in clubs,

what will they be like
when they're on a big stage?

We couldn't wait for that.
We want room to move.

Lee was the nucleus, he was this
solidity in the centre of the stage,

who provided a kind of
gravitational force for Wilko,

who'd move about the
stage quite frenetically,

sometimes being drawn towards Lee,
sometimes shooting off.

It was like two planets
that would occasionally collide.

It was a very good rapport between Wilko and I.
I think we were a good foils for each other.

Like bullfighting, you know,
it's just that, peacocking,

putting their chests out and dancing
for each other. Come on, take me on.

Lee Brilleaux's presence, the way that
he wore a suit and jutted his jaw,

for boys that wanted a hard-on
and couldn't admit to it,

that'd be Lee Brilleaux
doing it for them.

I really don't understand any of it.

The way Wilko moves
around stage is phenomenal.

I could never figure
how he did those moves.

The original amphetamine kid.

Skittering across stage.
Scuttling all around London.

Whizzling around on these
psychedelic tram lines,

scattering across in front of Lee,
who took no notice of him.

The charisma of that,
you cannot buy in shops.

Who invented that term, skittering?

Skittering?
You'll find it in the OED,

I believe the
first recorded example...

It's in William Langland's
Piers Plowman,

when the character of Gluttony is said
to skitter across the pasture looking for food.

Skitter.

It... Well, it says here
"Diarrhoea."

'Looseness or laxity
of the bowels. '

There's another one.

‘A light skipping movement
or the sound caused by this.‘

I was just trying to express myself
and I realised it looked a bit deranged.

In Wilko's stage persona there was
an element of possible psychosis.

He was almost in a kind of angry
revolt against his own life.

You felt that this man,
in his struggle with these demons,

was entitled to be on the edge of madness
because he was engaged in such an epic struggle,

and it was a perfect parallel to
somebody working in a small town job

that they are
completely frustrated by.

Is it an expression of urban
angst or something? Maybe.

But I don't think you necessarily
have to see anything like that in it.

And there was a big groundswell
of fervour around the Feelgoods.

1975, I think,
being their breakthrough year.

Mr Brilleaux, Melody Maker has you
on the 18 Best Names to Watch.

How do you feel about that?

Well, they're right, I hope.

It probably means we're not a name
to watch now it's in the Melody Maker!

Do you have something to say
about it? No, it's been said.

You realise you've
actually got a following.

You're going out in front of bigger audiences,
realising that all these people,

They're wearing a nice black suit.

They feel like part of it and you
start to feel like a star.

Shhhhh!

And it's a pretty good feeling.

Back to the studio again for Dr Feelgood.
This is great, this is Keep It Out Of Sight.

♫ You movin' up

♫ Man, the place is getting hot, yeah

♫ You just can't lose, baby

♫ With all that stuff that you got

♫ You know the people understand
you got a reputation

♫ You don't wanna argue,
fuss and fight

♫ Keep it out of sight, yeah

♫ You keep it out of sight... ♫

Wilko thought when we do
the second album we could have a go

at doing it ourselves, which we did,
and we think Malpractice is quite a good album.

♫ I wanna live

♫ The way I like

♫ Sleep all the morning

♫ Go and get my fun at night

♫ Things ain't like that here

♫ Working just to keep
my payments clear

♫ Bought a brand new motor

♫ And I'm waiting for a loan

♫ So I can fill her up and start her

♫ And I go back home... ♫

Sometime in '75 I went
to the UK for the first time,

saw Dr Feelgood.

I bought back the second
album, Malpractice.

We were having a party at our rehearsal
loft over here on the Bowery.

Everyone that was involved in the whole New York
rock scene was at the party, pretty much,

whether it be Johnny Thunders, the Ramones,
or Blondie, Richard Hell, all the bands.

We put on that Malpractice record,
and it never really left the turntable the whole night.

Everyone went nuts for that record.

We were pretty big all over.

France, Germany, Spain,
Switzerland, all of Scandinavia.

The most magnificent gig I think we
played was in Orange, in France.

We'd flown in
by private aircraft.

It was our first time
in a chartered plane,

and we were flying to Orange in France
to play in a Roman amphitheatre.

We were in this plane,
all very excited,

and Wilko decided
he was going to fly the plane.

It's a four-engine plane,
it's a Handley Page Heron.

The next thing we know
he's in the cockpit.

I'd just taken it off from Avignon.

I was just about
at the top of my trajectory.

And I knew he was out of his brains.

And the pilot lets him fly.

I'd just got a camera, so I went in and tapped him
on the shoulder and I took this picture of him.

I started mugging to the camera.
Still flying, right.

Do you want that person flying
you round the world? You don't.

We were all cramming in vodka and tonics
cos he thought it was funny to sort of fly around.

Rock'n'roll!

Yeah. Oh, you're gonna loop
the loop, are you? Not with me in it.

We made a statement to the pilot,
and said ‘Enough of this.‘

Let's strap him in his chair. Do you
have any straight jackets on board?

I know what I'm doing, you see!

We were alight that night.

We hit the stage and everything sounded fantastic,
the drums sounded like canons.

And the sun was just going down,
the light was just perfect.

That was the best
I'd ever heard the band.

And that cracked us in France.

♫ I'm going back down

♫ Back to Oil City soon

♫ I'll bring back my second cousin

♫ Let her join the conker room

♫ I'm a man

♫ I spell M...

♫A...

♫N...

♫Man...♫

If you'd been dreaming about becoming
a pop star, or a footballer, or anything,

all your youth and teenage years,
it's almost impossible for it not to have an effect.

Lee lived very modestly.

I'm sure he enjoyed the fame
and all that came with it,

but he kept a level head, I think.

I think Wilko really enjoyed it,

and he was gonna enjoy it,
and he did enjoy it.

We had a lot of difficult times with him.
He was different from us in his social habits.

He was spending a lot
of his time off of Canvey,

more so than the rest of us. We
did tend to see less of him, yeah.

What happens invariably
is one member of the group

meets girl in London, and that
group member starts living in London.

In the case of the Feelgoods,
Wilko was the guy who has taken off.

We didn't set out to be stars,
but when that started happening,

you walk into a place
and everybody's looking.

I mean, that feels good.

You just walk along,
you keep very cool.

You know. But all the time, of
course, you're really on stage.

You can't go out for the evening and
be one of the chaps, you're posing away there.

When I've seen the stars and they're
complaining about the paparazzi -

leave us alone and all that - it's
just bollocks, man, you love it.

I actually started working
with them.

I must have been about 16, I think.

We were very, very rock'n'roll.

Whatever we could
get hold of, we'd do.

After gigs we'd all come back to
hotels, we'd end up in one room and

just jolly up, and didn't really
seem to worry about the next day.

What's your name? Jan, who are you?

I'm the doctor, Doctor Eager.

How do you feel? I feel good.

Oh, doesn't she do it well?

That sounds just like
the title of the group.

Dr Feelgood. And here they are
with their brand new single,

called Back In The Night.

♫ Back in the night

♫ We laid down by the fireside

♫ Back in the night

♫ You shook me like a landslide

♫ I nearly missed the early shift

♫ Dreaming in the morning
about the things that we did

♫ Back in the night... ♫

It's like a roller coaster
that runs out of control.

We weren't in control
of what was happening.

It was just all happening so fast.
Put the brakes on.

♫ Back in the night

♫ Back in the night

♫ Back in the night

♫ Back in the night

♫ Beneath your love light... ♫

The idea that you've got to
live in some ivory tower

and can't go out
without a bodyguard,

people bothering you in the street,

that's something I wouldn't
be interested in at all.

I'd rather quit than go through that,
I don't know how other people stand it.

Do I want to go to String fellows?

I'd rather go to a
dog meeting or something.

We're in the Grand Public House
in Leigh on Sea.

And this is where Lee Brilleaux
used to drink.

Nobody bothers me in the town I live in,
I'm accepted, not as somebody who is well known

round the rest of the world or
anything like that,

I'm accepted purely as me.

The vast majority think, that's
that bloke in a rock'n'roll band.

just as if I was working in
the garage around the corner.

I remember once when Lee
came into the bar here,

he'd been on tour, and the
Transit was stopped at the door

and he'd come in for
a drink before he went home.

And he came in one day
and asked for a gin and tonic.

And they didn't have any ice.

So he called for a taxi,
he sent a taxi

down to the supermarket,
come back with a bag of ice.

And he slammed it on the bar
and said,

'There's your fucking ice,
now give me a gin and tonic.‘

He could throw a shape.
He had a temper.

Especially if there was
no ice in the dressing room.

Despite Lee's look of confidence,

inside there, there was
a lack of confidence.

We all get over that in our own way
and Lee's way

was to show off incredibly on stage.

Lee was a kind of
Dickensian gentleman.

If there were ladies in the shop,
he would stand back

and allow the ladies to
go first if they so wished.

He was a complete gentleman

when you were out talking to him
in the pub of an evening,

but on stage he
was completely opposite,

like a lunatic, a madman.

I don't know if I'd
have even recognised him.

He wasn't really angry,
I mean, it was all an act.

It seemed to go over
all right, didn't it?

Who are you, who are you,
who is the real Lee?

I like to think that part of the real me
is the part speaking to you now.

There is another me, which is the one
that gets up on the stage and performs.

When I'm up on the stage
I become something different,

something more aggressive, maybe.

If I carried on like that in a restaurant
or a supermarket I'd soon be arrested.

It's a little bit like going
to a wrestling match.

You know the wrestler
is not really a monster.

He's not really going to hurt the
other man. That's part of the fun.

The Feelgoods went to America.

They were signed over there
to what was then CBS.

And they had a convention
in San Diego.

We had a fantastic time!

It was cocktails by the pool.
And we did a few little gigs.

We found a bar and we met a
couple of dancers in there.

And we were having a good time, and
one of the girls, her name was Suds,

and I said,
‘That's an interesting name,

‘Suds, why are you called Suds?‘

She said, ‘Cos I like
to get men in a lather.‘

Not something I'm really
enamoured of, that nickname,

but yeah, people called me that.

And she became Mrs Brilleaux.

And I'll never forget it because
I glanced up at this guy,

and he had the most intense
gaze I can remember ever seeing.

I was slightly frightened.

We all ended up getting
quite inebriated

and when it came time to leave
we went out and got in the car,

and as we were about to drive
away we realised that Lee

had climbed into the car with us

and he was kind of all contorted
behind the seats.

We had to ask him to get out,
please, and ride back with the band.

I went with Lee to
Canvey Island after dark

and then the next day,
when it was broad daylight,

it was kind of
quite surprising really.

It was flat and bleak.

The parallel that I saw was
that it looked so much like

southern Louisiana, kind of up
river from New Orleans,

there's a refinery town
called Norco.

I thought it looked
a lot like Norco.

It wasn't really what I was hoping.

We were under pressure
after the Malpractice album

to come up with more products.

Record companies are always
pushing their acts for that.

Wilko was finding it more and
more difficult to come up with the material.

When it came to the third album,
which everybody knew

was going to go mental, cos they were
so huge live, what have you got?

Nothing.

So it was decided by the record company
with our agreement that we do a live album.

We had a very intense
touring programme.

So to actually do a live recording
was a kind of easy way out.

♫ I can tell
I can tell

♫ I know you don't
love me no more... ♫

I didn't really have any rucks
with the company or anything

until we came to do Stupidity.

I found out when they record a live
concert they have their microphone

up against everything,
the way they do in a studio.

Also what they have
is two microphones

up in the middle of
the hall somewhere.

I wanted to use that sound.

♫ I know pretty baby
that you put me down... ♫

But the A&R guy at the company
didn't like this idea.

He wanted us to do overdubs on it
and clean it all up.

And I said, ‘No,
if you're making a live record

‘that's the way it should be.

‘If you want to make a smooth
record, you do it in a studio.‘

Jam it!

It got really eyeball to eyeball
with me and this A&R guy

but I didn't waiver.

He's a very powerful person. He's
got means of getting his own way.

And the guy who was an engineer,
he said to me,

‘We're gotta let Wilko
have his way on this

‘and this record is gonna die a
death, then he'll do as he's told.‘

So we put the record out and
it went straight to number one.

He didn't know whether to laugh or
cry. But I felt pretty clever.

That night we had a huge celebration

in the Trust House Forte Hotel
at Southampton.

We got so drunk

that we demanded to have all the
tropical fish out of the tank,

trying to eat them and
all this sort of thing.

The manager was going,
‘Please don't eat my fish!‘

I had no idea that
the band was so huge.

I was astounded when I got
to London

and there were posters
of them everywhere.

It was all about Dr Feelgood
at the time. It was fantastic!

We went to the Odeon Hammersmith,
my husband was going crazy.

He was as bad as all the youngsters.

We was so exhilarated.

We never went to bed all night.

We couldn't,
we couldn't stop talking about it.

That show was like nothing
I'd ever seen before.

All these kids just packed
in there, it was sold out.

They had kind of rushed the stage

and were just jumping up and
down and punching the air

and singing along with the lyrics
and punching each other,

there was beer flying everywhere.

I didn't know if I was
gonna get beaten up,

it was pure theatre to Lee

and he would perform songs
like Cell Block Number 9.

That used to be a
real show-stopping song.

♫ October 2nd 1953

♫ I was serving time

♫ For armed robbery

♫ 4 o'clock in the morning
I was sleeping in my cell

♫ I heard a whistle blow
and I heard somebody yell

♫ There's a riot going on... ♫

At that time Wilko was doing
extraordinary things on stage

with the guitar, like a machine gun.

He was effectively acting out
the mowing down of the audience.

You would kind of
laugh when he did it,

but it was a kind of
a nervous laugh.

It was his catch phrase,
'It's a gun.‘

You used to get wrapped up in it.

I used to look on Lee,
Lee's there, right.

He's like the leader, the gang
leader and I'm, I don't know,

I'm the guy with the machine gun.

I'd do whatever he says.

♫ There's a riot going on

♫ There's a riot going on

♫ Up in cell block number 9... ♫

The atmosphere
was completely electric.

It was an amazing experience.

And it was completely trashed,
all the seats had been ripped up

and destroyed and it looked
like it had been hit by a bomb.

Dr Feelgood were the biggest group
in England by the summer of 1976.

But they didn't know what
was just around the corner.

We were too busy enjoying ourselves
to worry about the future too much.

But of course at the back of our
mind niggling away,

was, what's going to
happen with the next album?

Wilko didn't drink.
The other guys in the group

did develop a drinks. . .culture.

Legendary-

We had a reputation
of being big drinkers.

From where I was standing,
I think

that was a big divide
between us and Wilko.

There was a big,
big split in that band.

Some people were smoking weed,
some people were taking speed.

Dave used to like a drink

and I used to like to slope
off to my room and...

Smoked hashish?

I also remember being
in Wilko's room

and him snorting a lot of speed

and then saying,
right, I'm going to bed now.

What a rogue and peasant slave am I?

After going to America
on the first tour

I think we really discovered
alcohol in a big way then.

The Americans didn't really know
what to make of it.

The only town that liked
them was New York.

You go down Fifth Avenue
in a big stretch limo

and there's this ton of guys
with you, and you think,

‘Bloody hell, this is mad,
we come from Canvey Island.‘

But then again, we can
look New York in the face.

We'd done the Bottom Line
in New York

with the Ramones
opening the show for us.

We all went because it was sort
of a big step up for the Ramones.

The Feelgoods had this buzz about
them like the next big thing,

with a number one record in England.

Wilko really looked psycho.

That was another attractive thing.

The air of danger he exuded

was something that we could all
relate to here in New York.

They did seem like thugs,
like gangsters.

Maybe they really were,
I don't know!

Even though Lee Brilleaux had an
incredible presence on stage,

it was sort of Wilko that was
stealing the limelight

with his manic guitar stage moves
and zipping all around.

I remember we tried to talk to Wilko.
We were telling them how great they were,

but he wasn't interested in
hearing how great he was.

You'd get very sleepy,
and you just. ..

Oh, then you've gotta go on stage,
and you just want to curl up

and go to sleep, and I wish
everyone would leave me alone.

He was very stand-offish, I don't
remember there being much, if any,

interaction between Lee and Wilko.

And I do have a series of
photographs I took of Wilko

sitting in the bar
at the Gramersea Hotel,

looking extremely moody, gazing
out the window away from everyone.

And while we were trying to immerse
ourselves in American culture,

Wilko would stay in his room,
ostensibly to write songs.

Doing what in reality?

Taking speed, or complaining,
or on the phone to someone, I think.

I don't know, I wasn't there.
I tried not to be there.

He'd often get very depressed
about something, and say,

‘Oh, I don't want to do it,
the whole thing's a load of shit,

‘this whole business stinks.‘

And he's perfectly right.

My philosophy is to laugh at it,
but his is different.

He'd be all right for five minutes

and then he'd just disappear and
become very distant and sulky,

throwing wobblers, and didn't really
seem like the person I used to know.

T'is not alone, my inky cloak,
good mother.

I did have the misery a lot
of the time,

and I have to take a lot
of blame for that.

I'm not. ..not easy to
get on with, I suppose.

Another thing about success is that it's bad
for your personality in a lot of ways,

because you're suddenly
surrounded by people,

and all you've got to do is stamp
your foot and throw a tantrum,

and you get anything you want.

That's terrible!

I was insufferable. Yeah, I know,
it's embarrassing to me really.

There was bad feeling between
me and Lee and it got heavy.

I mean we couldn't be in the same
room together.

Looking at it now, why,
I do not know, I do not know.

But it just got
out of all proportion.

Lee talked about Wilko a lot.

They'd been friends but,

I mean, Lee was almost like
a band member scorned.

Wilko?

He was sort of, well,
troubled sort of person really.

They never knew
where they were with him,

he walked off the stage
one night and left Lee to it.

He run off into the broom cupboard,
cried,

and frankly I was ready
to go and beat him up!

I hadn't actually heard that story!

But I can believe it.

That was probably due
to my own over-indulgence,

but, I wasn't doing it to make
any point, I was terrified,

I didn't know where I was.

I came back and I finished the show.

I can't really even tell you
how bad it was, it was awful.

Lee became so wrapped up in how
much he disliked Wilko

that it was difficult
for him, really,

to concentrate on anything else.

Lee was racking his brains

to whether they had capital
punishment in the States,

that they would perform on him,

because he thought he'd
go off the stage and kill him.

It seemed with Wilko that
there was always this paranoia,

kind of, in the background, this faint sense
of thinking that people were out to get him.

♫ My mind's in neutral... ♫

I guess the perception
was that he had become

a little bit of a prima donna.

I mean the bloke is a genius,

you gotta take him as he was,
good and bad.

There was a lot of good
and bad things about him.

He could be a right
cunt when he wanted to be.

Sometimes I get this bad feeling come
on me and make me feel very lonely.

Like you'd be in a restaurant
or something, having a meal,

and there's all the
record company people and that,

and suddenly you get
this loneliness comes on you,

and you just don't want to be there.

All you want to do is try and say
to people, ‘Look, I just feel bad.‘

But because you, you know, maybe
you're not that close any more

because you've antagonised
each other and things,

so you can't say anything at all.

So you sit there and you don't say
nothing, and you're aware

that all around people are going,
‘What's the matter with him?

'He's not speaking,
he's getting heavy.‘

You look around and you realise
there's a big scowl on your face.

And it builds up, it builds up,
you think, just keep cool,

you're looking at the plate and
it starts swimming around in front of you,

and you think, ‘I've got to go.‘

But there are people on either side
of you and you can't squeeze out.

And so you just smash your hand down

and push everybody out the way.

And you know, there is
another psychopath story,

and you end up walking down the
street thinking all that,

just cos I can't turn to anyone and
say, 'I'm feeling a bit bad today!‘

By this point they had been
working together for six years,

and with Feelgoods we'd always
been an intense touring band,

so probably over that period
we'd made over 1,000 shows.

I think the highest amount was,
I think 330 gigs one year.

It was incredible.
Enough to kill anybody.

That in itself is difficult enough

without having to try
and write songs in-between gigs.

Where the Feelgoods fell
was when Wilko stopped writing songs,

or didn't evolve into
a great songwriter,

like Jagger and Richards did.

And if you don't have your
own material, you're fucked.

I also think, as well,

he didn't always want anyone
else to write the songs.

Not that we were any
good at it anyway.

Songwriting,
that always affects, I suppose,

a lot of musicians, doesn't it?

Cos one of them starts
making money and one don't.

I was always
encouraging them to write,

but they didn't, and I think
that they used to think

I'd turn up and go,
‘Oh, I've got this song.‘

I always thought
Lee should have written

because he was very funny,
very witty.

That always puzzled me,
why he didn't,

and why he couldn't, even.

I found myself writing some.

I've always been a little bit frightened
that what I'd write wasn't up to scratch.

I was always a little overawed
by Wilko's talent for it.

What he said was,
‘I ain't fucking Shakespeare.

‘I sing them, I don't write them.‘

The fourth album's coming up,
and the songs had started coming,

writing the songs, and I thought
'It's gonna be fine.‘

And then it just all...
it wasn't fine.

Then the final row came

while we were making the
recording of Sneaking Suspicion.

We were at Rockfield Studio
in Wales.

And you kind of stayed there,
you know?

Like we'd go into the studio
in the afternoon and work through

till the early evening,
then they would go off to the pub.

And I would stay up for two or three
days at a time, I was writing songs.

Then when we come back
to the recording,

Wilko weren't at the recording,
there was a session musician called Tim Hinkley.

He was playing the guitar parts.

It just became sort of very apparent

that there was going to
be a lot of aggro amongst them.

I think we were all kind
of cranked up pretty tight.

Lee and Sparko and Chris,
particularly,

had an aversion
to the song Paradise.

Before the album I'm walking along
in the rain on Canvey Island,

and I'm getting this repetitive
riff in my mind, like this.

I wrote this song called Paradise,

and then suddenly a name,

for the first time ever, came
into it, which was the name Irene.

It was all about. ..us.

♫ Well I went out walking

♫ I recall

♫ Me and my best girl

♫ Along the wall

♫ In the long grass

♫ Side by side

♫ Where the big ships

♫ Go gliding by

♫ Go gliding by... ♫

And it was a song that Wilko had
written exclaiming his love

for two women,
and not being ashamed of that.

And it just kind of
went against the grain

of everything that Lee
felt the Feelgoods stood for.

It got the straight-laced
horrors about my...

..concubine!

You know, it was the rule that,

no wives or girlfriends, and Wilko's
girlfriend and Irene were there!

Which, you know, kind of put paid

to the rules they were
attempting to set for the band.

None of their business, really.

I can't tell lies to anybody,

I can't go in for subterfuge
and everybody knows the score.

♫ I love two girls

♫ I ain't ashamed

♫ I ain't ashamed... ♫

And one of the things
they was throwing at me was

that it was a fucking ego trip,
and I'm going...

'It's not! It's not.‘

♫ Thinking about what might have been

♫ I love you still, Irene, Irene... ♫

So I said, we've gotta finish the
album, if you don't write the songs,

we're gonna come up with them.

And there was this song
that Lew Lewis had given them.

From the day we were going to the
recording studio,

Lew came to my house
and just handed me a song

that was scribbled on a bit of
paper, called Lucky Seven.

They had gone into the studio
and bashed out a song.

Now, I didn't like it.

Right, I've got to say,
I didn't like it.

He said it wasn't Dr Feelgood.

I do remember thinking to myself,

'He ain't the only one that's got a right
to define what Dr Feelgood is about. '

They thought that Lucky Seven was a better song,
and Wilko stood his guns, ‘I want my song.‘

And there was a big split about these
songs, which one is going on the LP.

It was night, I was about to crash
out and they turn up from the pub.

Figure wasn't there.

Figure never once set any trouble.

Sparko's an easy going guy.

So it was me and Lee.

So you're saying that
when an irresistible force

meets an immovable object,
something's got to give?

Maybe I was cutting off my nose to
spite my face, but I was thinking,

'It's sink or swim, you've got to
make a stand once in a while.‘

They were taking it one-by-one
to argue with me.

But they were talking about
things they didn't like,

and it got to some point, I'm going,
‘While you're talking about things we don't like,

‘I don't like that
fucking song you've done!‘

just suddenly it all went bang.

Terrible.

Devastation.

In Canvey Island.

And a bit of Benfleet too, probably.

And he more or less said,

‘Well if you want to do it
this way, I'm gonna leave.‘

And we said,
‘Well, OK, old chum, go.‘

And the morning come,

and the band had broken up, you
know, and er. . .that was that.

In a very stupid moment he left
and we let him leave, you know,

I think it was a great pity.

Wilko maintains that he was given
the push and they say that he left.

Now I just leave it at that.

I think that what really happened,
we'd run our course with Wilko.

I look back now,
and if we were all a bit older

and we'd acted a bit more sensibly,

we probably could have
sat down and discussed it.

It didn't do either side any good
splitting up. I thought Dr Feelgood

was going to be my one thing I can't
imagine doing anything outside of.

And I thought,
‘What am I going to do?‘

And I realise I was kind of trapped
by that, I just had to keep playing.

And I was very confused,

and I think I immediately started
making all the wrong decisions.

Obviously it was a great loss,
because there was this bloke

who's got this
incredible stage presence,

skitting about all over the stage,
that's what people wanted to see.

We thought it would end, and one day
Lee and I said, ‘Well, let's give it a go.‘

Now if my memory serves me right,
jippy had already been lined up.

So it was pretty much
a case of one out, one in.

It's a bit like a football
team that loses a star player.

You've gotta get a replacement,
you've gotta keep going.

I think quite a few people lost interest
in the band after Wilko had gone,

who'd probably been Wilko Johnson
fans rather than Dr Feelgood fans.

It was never the same after Wilko
was gone, it just wasn't.

I didn't see the
band after Wilko left.

I never saw them after that.

I mean, I like the original
line-ups of things.

It'd be like if Keith quit
the Rolling Stones.

There would still be
some Mick supporters,

but it's not really gonna work.

What was rather nice is we were able
to prove a lot of people wrong

because we had chart success
with a song called Milk and Alcohol.

♫ We got him on milk and alcohol! ♫

♫ White boy, in town

♫ Big black, blue sound

♫ Night club, I paid in

♫ I got a stamp on my skin

♫ Main attraction dead on his feet

♫ Black man rhythm
with a white boy beat

♫ They got him on milk and alcohol

♫ They got him on
milk and alcohol... ♫

Lee was a bit of a gourmet.
He really liked good quality food.

Fortunately, that's what we provide.

He came in here and
he was entertaining

his friends and relatives,
to select the finest meat,

so that he could make
the finest meals.

Often I would come home and find

a menu tacked to the front door
of the house, and Lee would have

prepared an entire meal for us
with the accompanying wines,

the dessert, the cheese course.

He loved doing things like that,
and he loved being at home,

just as long as it wasn't
for very long.

It was his idea to arrange a tour

around the Egon Ronay Guide
and the Good Beer Guide.

By the time that Sparko and Figure
left, we'd been kind of 10 years.

And in both their cases, they'd
really had enough of touring.

But touring was what
it was all about.

Lee was happy
to do that volume of work,

it became in his blood to do that.

I don't think we could
have remained together

if he hadn't been away
as often as he was.

In the nicest possible way,
of course,

but Lee was not the easiest
person to live with.

He was a very intense guy
and I think the fact that he

was away travelling a lot of the
time is what saved our marriage.

I don't think he could exist
outside the band kind of lifestyle.

You'd miss it if you
were told to stop doing it,

like smoking,
it's an addiction almost, actually.

As long as there's life in the old
dog I'll keep doing it, you know.

You've all done very well, you're on the last leg,
folks, you'll be able to smell lager shortly.

It was just before Christmas 1992.

Last night of what had been
quite a long UK tour,

and Lee had, had an appointment

with the specialist in London
that afternoon.

Essentially he'd been
given a death sentence

by any other way of putting it.

He went on stage that night at a
club in South London,

as if nothing was happening.

Lee just gets on and,
gets on stage and delivers just,

just a fantastic show, and you're
thinking, how do you do that?

In the last year of Lee's life
we started getting close again,

and used to talk about

the days of the jug band,
and we spoke about recreating

the jug band, which never actually
happened in the end, unfortunately.

He came to me in January,

and he was really looking
bad now, he was very thin.

He'd had lots of
courses of chemotherapy.

And he said, I want to record
a show at the Feelgood Music Bar.

I said, ‘When would you like to do
it?‘ He said, ‘Within two weeks.‘

I said, ‘Why don't
you leave it a few weeks,

‘you might feel better.‘

He said, ‘No, I might feel worse as well,
I want it in two weeks time.‘

I'm not gonna do any histrionics,
just one name for you, ladies and gentleman.

Lee Brilleaux, Dr Feelgood!

Lee actually glowed after that gig,

I mean, it was almost like
he could step out of it.

But sadly, 12 weeks later, he died.

Thank you very much and God
bless you all. Thank you.

I suppose sometimes Lee must have
missed me, I certainly missed him.

He was the star. It felt very
powerful to be on stage with him.

He was a really hard act to follow.

And I miss him very much.

You never get over it,
and he was the only child I got.

If there's one thing I can console
myself about his early death,

he really did have a magical life.

He was doing what he loved,

and I can't picture him
having done it any other way.

He thought of himself
as the Road Runner.

You know, that junior Walker song?

We actually played
that at his funeral.

I think he used to really relate to that song,
because when we had dinner parties

and we'd had a few, you know,

he'd always get up and
put it on, and like, dance to it.

It's sad but you,
you can feel that Lee

is spread over the spirit of
the Essex Marshes here.

It is a kind of a pilgrimage,
because people do

have to make a decision
and an effort to come here.

This is the 13th memorial
show we've had since Lee's died.

It's a celebration
of a great, great guy.

We were just empowered by what
we did, I still feel it now,

when I play now, I've got
all the energy in the world for it.

It still makes the hairs of the
back of my neck tingle,

when I'm standing at a show.

I'm just very proud to
have been part of it.

Since my wife died

I've been very...

..sad about that, and really...

that's what I'm thinking
about most of the time.

And I'm sad, and I miss her.
Except that when I actually get

onto the stage, there's something
that lifts that heartbreak.

I mean I'm still thinking about
her then, but it's all right,

and I'm playing, and you're
getting a reaction from people.

And for that hour, or hour and
a half, or whatever it is, I...

I get some relief, you know?
And I'm doomed to carry on doing it!

The Feelgoods kind of
don't get the credit

that I think that they deserve,
really, for just coming out

and being so different at a time
when it was all so dull.

Throughout history of music
there are many bands that

should have made it and for
X number of reasons why they didn't.

Maybe their record
company guy wasn't paid

the right payola, given the right
drugs to get behind the band.

We slipped through a
gasoline crack in history!

It's good standing here,

and seeing that.

Yeah, I think it's a very
fitting backdrop to the band, yeah.

It's stirring up complex emotions.

Who would have thought we'd
end up on the oil tanks?

When we were about 15, Lee and I
used to just walk through this area

to the other end of Canvey, with our
dream of what a band would be like.

And when it actually happened to us,
it went beyond

our original dreams of what
we could achieve.

We had a fantastic time.

We were in love with each other.

When I look back on Dr Feelgood, I'm
proud of what we did, it was, er...

the four of us, or the five
of us, with Chris.

You know, we come from Canvey
Island, and we did that, and we...

we played a part in the story.

And, yes, I'm proud of that.

I don't know if I wasted my life.

But probably not.

All the very best to all of you.

This is from Lee, Dr Feelgood.
Thanks very much, bye bye.

I live on my own now. I've
recently got this wonderful

computer programme
called Starry Night,

which is an astronomy programme.

So I've got this big telly,
and it faces that way,

so I'm lying back down here, and,
and I'm looking down, looking at it.

Then I think,
‘Well, I'm in my spaceship.‘

Cos if I had a spaceship,
it would probably look a little bit like this,

books flying around everywhere, all
clothes on the floor and all that.

You can fly round the moon,
and you can fly around Saturn.

You can go right out the galaxy.

We're going at
3,238 million light-years a second.

That's pretty good, pretty fast.

Defeating time.

An unimaginable distance
from everything, everything.

Oh, what a feeling!
You are light-years away.

Nobody will ever get that far away.

While we've been talking, we've
actually left the universe behind.

When you get right out here,
where it's black, right,

there's nothing here,
it don't say anything any more,

it just says, ‘Outside time.‘

But it's fairly boring
outside of time, as you see,

you've just got this white dot.