This is a much copied image. The article mentions some other bands which have created their own versions for album covers.
For locals it is also a source of frustration as they are held up by lots of tourists recreating the scene for a picture. Caveat: I've done that myself...
Abbey Road is my son's favourite Beatles album. We listened to it recently while on a Kent road trip.
Matt shared the story of meeting Brian May and Roger Taylor at an event at the Royal Albert Hall when he was still at school.
Matt finishes the series by bringing the story up to date.
In the subsequent years, I have seen a few reincarnations of Queen with both Paul Rodgers, and more lately Adam Lambert.
In fact, my wife and I feature briefly on the live Queen Return of the Champions DVD filmed at the Sheffield Arena in 2005. Watch out for Matt holding up a camera at 2'10" and 2'30" (the days before smartphones when you could enjoy the gig more).
I have seen Roger and Brian perform smaller solo gigs around the UK but was born too late to ever witness Freddie and the boys do their stuff.
More recently the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' movie took the band to even greater heights and interest in everything Freddie Mercury and Queen related has reached levels never seen before.
Here's Remi Malik and the others recreating that classic Live Aid set that Matt mentioned in Part 1 in the film 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
Thanks very much to Matt for these memories.
Thanks to Carl Lee, Brendan Conway and Sandra Patterson who have also shared guest posts. Please think about a contribution of your own memories of a particular place and time linked to music.
Matt Podbury is a Geography teacher with nearly a quarter of a century of classroom experience, and he has been teaching at the International School of Toulouse for the last 17 years. Matt authors www.geographypods.com and www.ibgeographypods.org and also works for the IBO. He can be found on Discogs with the user name podders79 and adds a few extra vinyl records to his collection every month.
Matt's favourite magazine 'Record Collector' jumped on the photos too, and included them in their March 1996 edition! Good to see Ian Anderson in standard pose on the front cover as well.
Matt takes up the story:
All went quiet for a few months and then one evening I received an excited phone call from Dave. “Matthew” he said, “how would you like to go down to London with Paul and Chris for the opening night of the Freddie Mercury Photographic Exhibition at the Albert Hall?"
"Paul’s photos have been chosen to be displayed, and he has a spare ticket and thinks you should go, given that you started all this off”.
I didn’t take any convincing at all, although it was on a Friday night, and I had to be back by the next morning for my 8am shift at the butchers in Conwy!
I left Aberconwy School early on 22 November 1996 and took the train down to London's Euston station, then made my way close to the Royal Albert Hall where Paul and Chris had said they would meet me.
Ten minutes went by and they hadn’t arrived. I could see a queue of fans outside the Hall waiting for the rest of the band and other dignitaries to arrive. I found a payphone and phoned Dave – he didn’t know where they were and just as I was giving up any hope of getting in, they both appeared after an obvious extended session down the pub and were well ‘oiled up’ in true rock ‘n roll fashion!
I remember walking down a red carpet and flashing the visitor passes to the security guards.
This was all too weird for a normal lad from Conwy who six hours earlier had been sat in his A-level geography class!
When we got into the venue, the first person I spotted was Brian May – he is huge and obviously stands out. I couldn’t believe it!
A bit further on was Freddie’s good friend Dave Clark (from the Dave Clark 5), and his onetime girlfriend, Mary Austin!
Paul & Chris headed off to the free bar and so I went off for a wander to have a look at the photos. I had brought a Queen record with me and had purchased a silver marker pen just in case I summoned up the courage to ask anyone for their autograph.
As I was walking up the stairs admiring the photos, Roger Taylor was coming down with his wife. Without thinking, I reached out my hand to shake his hand and said how much I had loved his recent solo album. He grinned, said thanks and then signed my record. His hands were massive – that’s all I remember.
A few moments later, a girl about the same age as me came up and asked which school I went to in London. I was still wearing my Aberconwy uniform and told her that I had come down from Wales because I was with Paul Humberstone who had taken some old photos displayed. She followed me round for a while and was talking about some of the photos and how much she liked them. I told her that I had just met Roger and showed her my signed record. She didn’t seem too impressed and said that we should go and meet her dad as he would be wondering where she was. We walked into the main reception area and she walked me straight up to her dad - Brian May - and introduced me as the kid who had come all the way from Wales.
He said something nice to me; I can’t remember what as I was far too star-struck (and he’s massive) and then he duly signed my record. Two down. Before we interrupted him, he had been speaking to Chris and had apparently remembered him straight away from their Smile days.
At that point, I thought my life was pretty much complete.
I had to keep an eye on the time as I had to get the last train back to Holyhead and that meant that I only had another 30 minutes or so before I had to leave. There were some free food and drinks on offer and so I wandered over to the table to fill up before the journey back.
As I stood there on my own with my plate, a lovely elderly lady beckoned me over and asked if I wanted to sit down with them. She was a bit worried that I was on my own and had spotted the school uniform.
“Come and have a cup of tea with us” she said kindly and took me over to her husband and daughter. “I’m Jer and this is my husband Bomi” she said. And this is our daughter Kash”. I looked at Kash and pretty much realised who she was before being told “We’re Freddie’s mum and dad, and Kash is his sister”.
You can see them in the video at the top of the post, with one of Paul's photos on the wall.
I hope I said something suitable – but I can’t really recall. I remember shaking their hands and talking about Conwy as they had been there on holiday, as well as how much I loved their son’s music (how strange to be saying that). The moment was almost too weird to contemplate: here I was at the Albert Hall in London having tea and sandwiches with Freddie Mercury’s mum, dad and sister. I remember that his dad had very soft hands, and his mum reminded me of my grandma. His sister was the spitting image of her brother.
Soon, the party was over and I was heading back on the train ready for my morning shift at Edwards of Conwy, probably making burgers or washing dishes.
I didn’t talk much to the lads in the butchers the next day about it as they weren’t really Queen fans but I remember being on cloud nine for many days after.
My signed record stayed with me for a few years until I sold it to Piccadilly Records in Manchester in 2002 when I had no money after finishing my degree. I sold it for about £100. I should have sold a kidney instead!
So, the best day of my music life came about because of my Uncle Dave, a shared love of collecting, days spent in a rubbish dump, and his London connections.
“Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy” – that pretty much sums up the 22nd of November 1996 for me!
In the final post in this series, Matt shares his continuing love of Queen.
Matt Podbury is a Geography teacher with nearly a quarter of a century of classroom experience, and he has been teaching at the International School of Toulouse for the last 17 years. Matt authors www.geographypods.com and www.ibgeographypods.org and also works for the IBO. He can be found on Discogs with the user name podders79 and adds a few extra vinyl records to his collection every month.
I have been a big Queen fan for as long as I can remember, and over the years I have built up a large collection of memorabilia. I also collect vinyl records in particular that today numbers into the thousands.
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
I have everything from Air to ZZ Top in the collection and have always enjoyed sifting through the 45s, 12"s & LPs in record shops in any city that I visit.
However, the really valuable stuff, the stuff that is in protective covers, and the stuff that my kids can sell off for a small fortune when I pop my clogs is by Queen and their varied associated solo projects.
The reasons for this were brought back to me recently when I was invited by Russel Tarr – my friend and history teaching colleague at the International School of Toulouse – to be the next guest on a series of 'Desert Island Discs' secondary assemblies.
I recounted how I played the piano from a young age and so I have naturally been attracted to music involving the piano and piano players. Early on, I remember hearing ABBA playing at Christmas parties at my grandparents’ house in Yorkshire and listening to Stevie Wonder in amazement at how fast and talented these artists were at playing live and in the studio.
I explained to Russ how my Uncle Dave introduced me to the world of collecting as we used to go ‘bottling’ in the old Victorian dumps around Harrogate in the early to mid-1980’s.
We used to come back with all sorts of treasures including marble bottles and porcelain marmalade jars! Whilst uncovering hidden treasures, I used to love listening to his stories about travelling around Europe in the 60’s and 70’s following bands and living an amazing footloose existence.
I particularly remember Dave’s story about him and his brother - my Uncle Brian, heading down to Wembley Stadium to watch a collective of artists perform at a charity concert for Ethiopia in 1985 – Live Aid.
He originally went down to watch ‘The Quo’ but was so taken aback by Freddie and the boys that day, that later in July of 1986 he headed back down to Wembley with Uncle Bri for one of the two dates that Queen was performing with ‘The Quo’ in support. Incidentally, when they arrived back at Leeds train station after Live Aid, his Ford Escort had had its windscreen bricked in and so they had to drive back up to Harrogate with the wind blowing through their hair! Rock ‘n roll!
Uncle Dave and his Live Aid ticket - these are now worth quite a bit of money - image courtesy of Matt Podbury.
That story and many others he recounted made visiting W.H. Smith’s a must and I spent hours and hours thumbing through music books and magazines trying to find out everything I could about Queen and their secretive singer.
I have early memories of listening to and buying the Queen Album ‘A Kind of Magic’. However, Dave told me that ‘the’ song to listen out for was from way back and was called 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
A visit to Woolworths later and I had managed to secure Queen’s Greatest Hits 1 on cassette with my Christmas money, and I didn’t get much past track 1.
What a song!
What a bit of piano work!
What a genius!
In fact, for my Desert Island Discs, I didn’t choose 'Bo Rhap' but went in with a deep cut track that clearly showed Freddie building up to writing this opus. The track that I chose is called 'The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke' and I recounted how I used to listen to the 1974 album containing that track (Queen II) at a time when everyone else at school was listening to Guns N Roses and Ice Cube! Give it a listen – it is truly bonkers, and I have no idea how you even start to write and record something like that on your second album! The piano work is magnificent.
Fast forward a few years to around about 1993, and on one visit up to Harrogate I remember Dave talking about his mate named Paul who he had lived with in London, and back in his Ealing Art School days happened to know and hang out with a certain Freddie Bulsara (as he was then known) and had taken some photos of him during his pre-Queen days as a student.
Sadly, by 1993 Freddie had died and Queen were working on what would be their last album containing vocals left behind by their singer. There was peak interest in the band and at the start of ‘93 some relatively unknown Freddie solo songs had been remixed and released to great commercial success.
Freddie’s solo work with Montserrat Caballe had also been played extensively the year before as the soundtrack to the Barcelona 1992 Olympics.
I said to Dave that he really should tell Paul to dig out the photos and see what they were like, as there was bound to be huge interest in anything Freddie related, particularly from this time period where there were no photos in circulation.
I was sure that my favourite monthly magazine, Record Collector would be more than keen to have a look.
About a year later, I got a lovely surprise when Dave posted me a birthday card with a very cool black and white image of a guy playing a guitar in a room with a Jimi Hendrix poster on the wall behind him.
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
Dave was a brilliant graphic designer and always used to come up with something special for birthday cards!
I didn’t register who the guitar player was and opened it to find a birthday note from him with an additional section telling me that he hoped I enjoyed this never-before published photo of Freddie on the front!
Bloody hell!
It was him too, and Paul had finally located the old albums and found some real gems! Paul also lived about five doors down from Dave in Harrogate and so a conversation started about what he should do with them.
Tim left Smile to be replaced by Freddie, and Chris left to be later replaced by John Deacon.
Paul knew Chris from years back, and had been in contact with him after talking to Dave. They had set off down to London to go and visit Queen's HQ and some auction houses with the photos.
You can read a copy of the letter below that Dave sent me in late 1995 with the details of what happened that day, and how they bumped into Brian May while they were there...
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
Paul managed to make some decent money from the pics, and they began to appear in other music publications and even on the 1996 Freddie Mercury Solo collection – a lavish box set that cost me a small fortune back in the day!
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
What happened next?
Come back in a few days to find out more!
Matt Podbury is a Geography teacher with nearly a quarter of a century of classroom experience, and he has been teaching at the International School of Toulouse for the last 17 years. Matt authors www.geographypods.com and www.ibgeographypods.org and also works for the IBO. He can be found on Discogs with the user name podders79 and adds a few extra vinyl records to his collection every month.
