(THE 27 CLUB)

        Our resident writer ERIC LASTICK digs among the dead

JIMI HENDRIX MOON DRIFTS & AMPLIFIERS OF GUITAR DREAM: In base level dark, the moon’s pages of stones of the 3rd rock—-then to pebbled embers—out of the red, comes the yellow to gold tuned alchemy strides—as it rises the bronze glows—right out of the stratus and stars. Gusts and chemicals flavor the pickup strums of a Jimi guitar. Ancients out of hides and mythology appear so inspired…coated in long trench blue—seems so put-up the sky! Red wing chopper an airplane look-a-like,yet of streams and wisdom few would know. The engine calm of nightmare, bare of black tea for everyone to it’s show. Orange twists is a party…back at Jimi, Noel and Mitch at base bottom jam. A new home of the sub particle fore-riders bend with the slingshot rounded the sun. The earth sit still through these vast cures of cutting loose the board pained new ages and heartaches, the base bottom…beneath a cob web of sound…though it appears so unreal…as the vale doors open.Then close. Then re-open once more! Timing out of a psychedelic 3rd rock, white light sun. Although, how could anyone live there? Jimi sings and he sings, yet the basement trio of 3 views all empty! Then the naked eye needs a new adjustment. A balancing beam of the cured and what seems of empty space. Noise is to the eye of the beholder. Now let Jimi step in.

        ( THE 27 CLUB #2 )

TAILS & SLIPS OF THE TWENTY SEVEN’S. DEAR, DEAR, JANIS JOPLIN, GONE ON HER OWN: Joins of the 27’s club…meets and greets in Sidney Australia. Check in by nightfall gig loft rest-a-round. Call up the hotel front desk manager of all nighters. Fur long the wild…and of it’s nights…it’s burning bridges all along the holdings and less accompaniments of such…next-ed a solo career and life of a girl rock ‘n’ roller…Journey the plows and iron oar voice…vocalize her drinking, her splashing whiskey sounds—too the spheres. No holes bared. Blasted of the past few years to an admiral singing and breathe of lone star beer…notes and hops on deck—too land—called sea of sad on her own. Junky rail and carries of coat tails, as the music divine own  you. Janis steps in attempts over needle point stitching’s of cold tight veined nightmares; she just cannot avoid. Hair held the beauticians who she’ll never see. Dry strands and alcohol hair lift to the hardened tracks of addiction….Rock ‘n’ Roll sadness as a crime. Cigarette tar sends the streets, the avenues of one’s mind. Smoke bend lonely travels. The bus loads of sullen faces. Janis singing those blues. High executives laugh of only money bags…and grabs off of her—-too riches; and at the same bank roll—tempers glared like a gully of sin of unwashed places and stages exiting out for good. A girl’s thumb hitchhike drum bang…It’s tempo hits the skids at 27. Ride a horse…a needle all the way home until her last breath. In the club of 27 is the number. Mightily it fills.

      (THE 27 CLUB #3)

THE ROLLING STONES FORMER LATE MEMBER, BRIAN JONES: Bill Wyman kettle cookin percussion themed…out of Brian Jones pick up sticks, match-booked at 27. Hole in one’s soul—seamstresses of rock agents sew on’s shirts of the 27 club…and it’s returns the earth, as of a birthmark. Clues of the unexpected often unexplained, yet real as the rest, to attest of the twenty seven’s. The (A) proffer reads clear as day. Hits over your head the antidote bigger than the rock curses of drug overdo and lowly avenues that have sun; and soon much to dark a river taken in a bloody bath—out of a Rolling Stone. Lit go the matched clues of Jagger-naughts …Keith Richards guitar—-out of the exiles of a mad-home on Main st. Drug addles and holds. Don’t blame thos of highs…the lows of real near 27. A curse or a course pre-written? Brian’s genius is as clear as a lone bloke lost in the spaces and squares of this mean mad old earth practices! Holy hell’s reads the rock ‘n’ roll brake pass of the insane. No one yet has done it. Glue holds tight the 27’s.

BEGOTTEN THROUGH THE UNDERPASS AND UNDERWORLD WHICH SETS THE STAGE…THE TICKET AND PASS TO THE NEXT PHASES OF LIFE IS GOOD, YET FOR MOST OUT OF THESE INJUSTICES READS OF A HELL-STORM, NO WAY HOME: Heavy prints on every paper weighted doorstep. Those infamously light years to Mars. Sad vocal sings of the drowning swims where Brian Jones sunk so unexpectedly…just at the levels of sitar actors, as if a cartwheel of the eastern indie sparks of love.No higher, no brighter than the sunken eyes of a lost comrade corporal fall…water and lengths…heavens gates. Survivors current back to base one. The band never whole, yet still strong…as the freeze and sail of sullen and shock. Life goes on. Loaded are the wordplay on stamp, these stones do roll on. Young devils beat but of their own very heat…and soul creatures of the night. Bill Wyman drum rolls the forever  eve…Mick Taylor serves up a cool play guitar…Richards of the splendors as midnight rambler’s confessions the night. The conceives of the heaviest of rock stoning pleasures. Ballad be of Ms. Maryanne Faithful…The time has come for a great rock to invade proper the American swing…The lady liberty grand old rumble in the streets…and street fightin man. Shelter on the hill of the horrors at Altamont…Angels of deep dark flights. Smells of dead fish…lights out, the part of the 1960’s is over…yet the strength of stones stick with strength and carry on’s. Brian, the jelly fish dies over the eyes of a hardened bike rider. He who a different name…and same lamb. The show must be over, yet the fest must go on. No argument that the Rolling of these Stones will share it off and continue to prove better…just give me shelter…ride of the wild horses…take th to the next level…and the next…and next; and keep this rolling thunder on and on, the decades long. Another joined at the 27’s

       ( THE 27 CLUB #4 )

CURT COBAIN: Seattle bus city vibes of amplified grunge pickups and suit-sized torn blue jeans, rockin the house down…Fan frenzy mad romp Cobain off the next stop…and manifest the next painful broach of agonizing vocals, as cures for what waits at it’s ends. Still no answer in LA. Seattle grunge here to stay. Gold haired though not the golden boy…but of the estranged; from the simple…the Poole hall cues chalk powders—pass the pipes, not of dreams…and of new lit herbs like a vision. A death hall for the pronounced next gig…though of it’s last mystery unfolds. Manicured lawns and household watched. Set in the Nirvana. Lifelong on the short edged stick ….guns stock and shotgun shell last nights creature feature of the surreal…A next one to the club of the 27’s.

      (THE 27 CLUB #5 & ROUNDED 6)

PAST A TRICkLE HAND OF DIRT AND GRASS OF THE MYSTERY OF ROCK’S CLUB OF THE 27’S,AMY WINE-HOUSE AND JIM MORRISON: In cold sweat dream where fantasies go to die…nightmare read the clock on the backstage wall of the fulfilled rounded voice of Amy Wine-house, in 20th century foxy fashioned fandom…seemingly having the night of night’s. Candle lit a picture of Jim Morrison at another fine whiskey a-go-go. One last ”Wait of the sun” and of the counterparts of the 27 clubs dive in and out of time—with non to spare—at the wake of the hour. The bang of the last beat…and the roll of life’s drum. So, in this vivid nighttime train wreck, oh’ how one sleep, yet two lazy eyed souls as one—fire-up some more of their known blatant madness viewed at the very storefront of an old window display of the famous album cover of the Morrison Hotel. Wine-house on the a bout’s of 27…and what appears to be her dance partner, Jim. Glows and cascaded on a cosmic swing—while rubbing eyes and pajamas of the worn of to too many drinks. Love Leeds …infallible drug chemical highs lost in the grayer areas surrounds, of a final fest at the whiskey bar. A spiraled endless staircase all go down…as i couldn’t reach to see the time on my watch—yet i knew it had to do with number 27.

Shane MacGowan has died after an eight-year battle with failing health.

The Pogues front man was a potent mix of Irishman, Baudelairian mythology and rock ‘n’ roll toxicity.

And like all good poets he wrote magical works, in his case mainly songs like Fairytale and Brown Eyes… he was brittle, edgy, drunk, wasted, teeth missing, a gypsy-type.

Shane MacGowan was beautiful in his own way, and there’s not much more you can take from life is there?

He had been diagnosed with viral encephalitis – a serious condition which leads to brain swelling – passed away at 3am this morning.

Shane’s wife Victoria shared a heartbreaking statement:

Victoria said he was “the start and end of everything that I hold dear”.

She said: “I don’t know how to say this so I am just going to say it.

“Shane who will always be the light that I hold before me and the measure of my dreams and the love of my life and the most beautiful soul and beautiful angel and the sun and the moon and the start and end of everything that I hold dear has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese.

“I am blessed beyond words to have met him and to have loved him and to have been so endlessly and unconditionally loved by him and to have had so many years of life and love and joy and fun and laughter and so many adventures.”

GOOD ON YA SHANE!

BY OUR RESIDENT WRITER, ERIC LASTICK...

1965 thrusts thru—the whole hippie movements, revolution and the volunteers of ”Flower Power” Like brigades of free love, not war. Utopian celebratory—aid and it’s puller’s towards the Haight street avenues of peace…the feeds of circuses  and dresser drummed-up images of peace-nicks in Edwardian wardrobes…and funny wrapped smokey tyesticks—up and down the roadside show of long haired hippie freaks; as the straight world of it’s collective society had referred and called of them. Family types as tourists board on bus and famous San Franciscan trolly cars for a nominal fee—as the holiday grouped guided speaker who they entrust to witness first hand of the life and eventual fall of ”The Hippie”

(PSYCHEDELIC ART AS A WELL-SPRING IN 60’S CULTURE)

Allegory reads a color packed fancy poster sign…designed of acid laced pictures of current rock bands—as if the actual pictures presents of an ”eye opening’ movement in bizarre collages of tranquil colors—-bursts right before you;and draw the artist’s work—right directly off the pages in dreams. Local Charlatans and old west coasters dive-bomb in a vat of psychedelics.Hazy Hit-Masters, the local scene…as the straight and narrow circles of inquisitive review and acknowledge: ”The Seeds”  ”The Fever Tree”  ”Arthur Lee’s, Love” & Scott McKenzie’s ”Are You Going To San Francisco with Flowers in Your hair”. Written by his hip-writer’s pal, Papa John Philips. One can feel the tones and vibrant scene of the beauty in the voice of Mama Cass Elliott. The Byrds Mcguinn, art-thou-Roger…and anew from Jim—spill of the mescaline on the Coltrane tracks—8 miles high…and never look-in’ back!

(GOLDEN GATE PARK…AND THE GOLDEN BRIDGE’S OF THOSE TIMES)

San Francisco hindsight …intercom of remnants out of ”a ghost in the machine”. High line and high lighted spoke the observer…see it of the concerts at Golden Gate Park. The heavy of ”Haight”. The revolution  of Hippies form unison of beliefs and crazy zany headdress…woman loose and barely clothed…drapes a little like fawns and raw hides scarfs reveals of true body and shapes. Holding signs in protests of the Vietnam involvement…and Lyndon Johnson’s heavy hand in small percentage winners…deaths of innocents…soldiers dares in the streets to face horrible cruel setbacks…labels of baby killers…army riggers clear dust bombs carpeted of created death and destruction—while leaving the actual heroes like scatters of gunfire and psychological holes in one’s head…Metaphorical as it was real. Jerry Garcia grand old movement…and father of the hippie—and all the players in the band— & as too these remnants and revolves of so–heavy a time. A riff and a charmed genre to it’s fulfilled: ‘HERE STAND THE GRATEFUL DEAD’S EVOLUTION!’

From warlock pages of pasts…motorcycle driving of musical bends too the chords and roads. Courage stops at sleazy dines and that new developmental of the Golden Roads of age old Utopia.

BRIDE’S MARRIER OF THE GOLDEN ROADS OF UNCLE JOHN’S BAND: Space jam fine flowered and earth bedded sole wonder-er, compressed of such earthiest clothed hippie woman of the 60’s anew…and new fangled life’s run with the sunshine—so very to it’s color of Orange…Jerry-mandering Garcia; a certain fill of earth father to the dead of it all…and the Tibetan book’s girth and challenges of early worth and time peddler of depths of mystical know-how and of it’s structures…was a male witch— branching thru—psychedelics of the 1965’s, the cranium natural; although soon after…and in the terrace and of where acid dreams; proclaimed a new founded band out of San Francisco…given the heart-ed rightful name of ”The Grateful Dead” Star liner grant me a son named Weir. Bob, a teenage bloke seemingly a hundred year in waiting…dead drawn humor out of psychos sciences of the young! The new incarnate, a guitar style reveals to join in this working man dead; and now, so drawn-in to the concept of acid runs…trails so vivid…look into the eyes of the beholder. Jerry a guide maid…all out of gander; and so clear the four way…a pained glass find- ‘as bassist Phil Lesh discovery of ”The Pigpen United” There extrudenior and keyboard splendor—go the lucky 7’s of our rare earth’s. The journey just begun. Play-in’ in the band, forever more…and even after death…and greatful. This is what makes of ”The Dead” Love um or lump um… one must sooner or later confess of the brilliance in the maze. The space cases hooting and hollering like over zealous nut jobs! NO, this is a real concept of good music.Unique even. Robert Hunter a wordsmith traveling with the band, whether in check of all the roadies…bus riders…good acid laced fun. NO, Robert to his living quarters, writing the lyrics so splendidly good. Purple micro dot and blues makeup draw so large to the actual effects of lyrical music making. The Dead had it all. Fan-base huge in your socks…you’re traveling shines. Followers as natural body lovers in the in of taking of the day trip  to months thrust-ed thru years…as it was an institution out of the sunshine madness of LSD trips. Group in large pairs all along the highway…coast to holy coast. The law of the land was ”Dead’ & much greatful for it!  The avenues were systemic of culture…follows as if a movement…a surge much more than music…and that of fun. A love-in to conquer all. Mona, i’ll be home soon. The Dead has taken places of love i cannot receive anywhere else, like family…and new place of birth! I have found home here on the road…The trip of a lifetime with Jerry Garcia. And so Greatful alongside it’s dead.

TICKER TAPE, TICKER TAPE: On a Sunday, within the peripheral vision of Britain’s lost heroes,  there were riots, racism and arrests …  

TICKER TAPE, TICKER TAPE: More children have died in Gaza in three weeks than have died in wars across the world in the last five years …

TICKER TAPE, TICKER TAPE: The UN reveals up to 2000 children have been obliterated in the ‘forgotten’ Ukraine war…

Don’t worry though, death on the telly is like a night bus going by, ringin’ them bells, flashing them lights… and anyway, not to worry, Coronation Street will be along next, then Judge Judy.

And The Simpsons!  

TICKER TAPE, TICKER TAPE: The family pic above was taken on a

Friday afternoon by dad Ahmed al-Naouq.

Now, most of the children in it are dead.

An air strike on their home a month ago killed 21 of Ahmed’s family including his father, three sisters, two brothers and 14 of their children.

Like many Palestinians, Ahmed’s brothers had built their family homes above their father’s – a tradition which means generations are being wiped out in one fell swoop.

Do you know, Elvis shot the telly out and was treated like a madman in a skinny, pot-bellied jump suit … but all these political world leaders, leaders in murder, mutilation and mayhem, they wear grey two-piece suits, symbolically-coloured neckties and shiny shoes… they get someone else to shoot out hospitals and markets and homes… they can’t be madmen too, can they?

DEATH AT THE BUS STOP

https://open.substack.com/pub/leighgbanks/p/death-at-the-bus-stop-the-intimacy?r=drr6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Another stunning piece by our resident writer ERIC LASTICK

In the wicked know-ed of claws and carriers…dance along ‘ ROCKER’ of rocking chair nightmare. Awake of a dream to the vocals of ”The Oz”. Seethe of stormy castle haunts—as there is this calling of Sabbath streaming & dreaming…as if an Edger Alan Poe endeavor to the black. A disbursement of a flicker…and then light—while bats and rats bounce off one another…in and out of haunted house. The diminished notes, rhythms of the unkind, yet most necessary. The ending of a beating heart! Next, in drum roll, a terror…screams…sways of energetic white electric sparks in theater—-too the grows of nigh-times… images! Enigmatic dismemberment of mind—as claws coming our way…& on attack. Menace ghosts reach the stage of sounds. All mingle as one. There is no escape, but to remain in the very jams of ”Paranoid’ War pig juncture often a linger to the ‘head’ of who’s abused…as right out of the Mekong Delta and ho chi mien trail become amplified…and as if forever! Vietnamese see-through figures…and of these lessons and their drops back on all of thee. Beyond death, the ghost cloth refugees. Their boats gather in a sense— through the surrealist’s of Texas fisheries.Galveston bridges & it’s large scale fishes ever larger than life. Set and placed in this haunted castle of burnt bridges; as Ozzy sings it to death! This bitten bat of all know-eds. Horrible reproach of the ”payback night”. The UN-lackey and all of the drunk’ past bedtime. Mad Englishman in Paranoid state. Yet still, the buzzards continue to rave and carry further of the baddest of trips and falls. Black Sabbath played on. The people remain standing room as if a dance hall with ghostly calls. Trip outs…gang of thieves taken’ of the sane mind! The deception of the blue demon. The article leers as the strands of magical nightfall. The fare and wily can know longer move…as it takes a heavy swordsman, a knight just strong enough to bypass all the fires of this menacingly surrealistic place. Ozzy see’s of the Castle—pasted dark humor and olde Ale salutes—as Vietnamese scatter of light and robed ghost fed fedora, the hatted mads and glass house of payback. 

Call it a dream. A nightmare…and free to drop-kick past the mindset one chooses to ensue. Better letter a four way street-er…and any avenue out!

An abroubt jolt… Castle’s doors spreader now, wide opened. Sent are the gifts of a universal kind. Yet for only a minute or so. ”Better run”. Haven’t a count but one will be sorely missed if unable to escape. Even so, as to take this story as far as the graveyard folly. Ozzy beckon call: ”May there be one believer to this misfit and mayhem.” But what a night…and what a rollicking concert show by Black Sabbath! ”See you soon, Oz. All may wonder though, how you jumped through hoops on the 11th day…11th hour. Darken knights, early morning light. Another day, but those night times, nightmares prevailing.

A SECOND NIGHT’S ACT…WAR PIGS RESPONSE…

Ozzie’s monster billed event…swinger laden woman of ‘all’ covens. Black cloths…little satin laced young daughter darker; dances the rhythms of 0zzie’s smash hits. Shared as cat-like of their combined make-up and made-ups too the howls of the moon. The rain. Yet really all in fun. Tricks of the mind and treats for the youngish spirited, this coming Halloween of the October’s. Sabbath band mates and circle jerks honor the convenience of just plain fun…as uptight and not so bright security ”Buckman” & police Sally, bulge of an eye and pointed ears—as such are the pins on the favorite Donkeys. Although, these are the very party and privy of political hate…and the purveyors of nearly every drawn wars.

WAR PIGS  ON THE LOOSE

Politician man clouds in all the raves and hand gestures…it’s very signs of evil, although he, ticketed at center stage with son…and his own ignorance of political framing—while fire claws and anguish proceed him. Now his own begotten son—rush the stage. Fuels of the inner fires. The injustices and sore sport. Fowl play. The guard and rule—-order the boy out. Rid of the mayhem; as next, the politician tight in the crowd, skids his blemishes and tarnished scuffs. His three piece suit at days done. The audience of aisles and arena, trampled in a frenzied full of Ozzie headsets. Blood donate and stumble on the nick knack’s of remains of Sabbath bloody SABBATH—along with shreds of meister brew leggings…foreign blend of a stately man—who frantically tried to leave this auditorium! War Pigs reprise and on the loose… & so innate driven in the corner of a silent majority eye. Greed a happen-place… & on the back-full. Digs of one’s own eventual covered & sad three cornered rap of the military flag. 

Roadshow need not know of a lackey. Ozzie has a class bus cross tour, which continues to go—ever so right-sided…backwards tilts the bus but never upside down. Could be considered a booze bin at celebratory times, yet could never compete with the horrors of the politician and their attempts of proving our young of the wrongs of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Mister Oz has righted our own answers of the likes of those who keep the name of war…and the real Pigs that embrace it. 

Anne Hartley-Bull was my favourite cousin. People used to say we were very much alike, a bit wild and a bit drunk.

And they were right, we were 80s party animals … both of us could cause a party in an empty house and people like George Best would come knocking on the door. So would Brendan Mullen, the English godfather of punk who died in New York. Very often we’d take the party to Blighty’s or George’s doomed Slack Alice’s, two of Manchester’s trendiest clubs.

Anne was small and fragile and a bit scared about things. But she dressed to kill and was noisier than a rock band in a garage.

She went round the world and finally landed in Australia. Me? I went round the bend and landed in the middle of nowhere.

Things got better for me then …

But I’d lost touch with my favourite cousin. Forty years had gone by without a word.

Funnily enough one thing I’ve kept throughout all these years is a vinyl long player, Close to the Edge by Yes, it’s battered and unplayable now but it’s always had a massive place in my heart because Anne had turned up out-of-the-blue one rainy night at my awful bedsit in Manchester to present it to me with love.

Anne died, more than a decade ago and as far as I know continued partying with style and panache almost to the end.

“Close to the edge now that it’s all over and done …” – Jon Anderson

All the best to Ryan her son and to Jean her sister.

Well, it happened. A few years ago His Royal Bobness supplied an 11 line poem to be read publicly at at the Isle of Wight’s major convention to mark his appearance there fifty years ago.

And this is despite the fact the Isle of Wight wasn’t one of Bob’s most memorable hours – and some would say it was a part of his career many would like to forget.

Not only was it his first real live performance since 1966, it was supposed to be an inspirational family holiday to the heart of Tennyson country, a midnight outing for his new crooning country voice and a public revaluing of his once incendiary, but now fizzling, career.

Sadly, very little went right … his son, Jesse, was taken ill on the cruise from the US and Dylan and his wife, Sara, were advised to get him to hospital, as soon as possible.

At the same time America was spooked because their wayward son had dumped them for a field in a farm in a place called Wootton. Bob had basically crapped on his own doorstep in Woodstock…

But Dylan appears to have good memories of it… However, none of them came out in the poem, apparently.

It was in fact called Echo of the North Country and talked about Dylan’s teenage sweetheart Echo Helstrom.

Echo Helstrom Casey, from Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing, is said to have been Bob’s first real girlfriend viewed as the inspiration for his 1963 song Girl From the North Country. She died in California aged 75 in 2018.

Maybe he had chosen the Isle of Wight-remembered Million Dollar Bash event to eulogise her.

But like anything to do with the grand master of pop, folk, blues, rock and country convolutions, Dylan’s gift has sparked a strange reaction. This one bordering on paranoia as organisers – who say they had the right to read the poem at the event – now claim to be worried about copyright and fear they might get in trouble if they make it public.

The Society was expecting to get an exclusive preview of the words but it was cancelled as these doubts set in.

All that has been released are these partial lines, “hard ‘n tuff old land…like folks who live there” and one describing Echo as “sweet as celandine flower” – in other words, like a buttercup.

Now we have been sent this hand-written transcript of the poem by a reader.

#bobpoem #girlfromthenorth #isleofwight #tennyson #haunting

The final resting place for Mohamed Al Fayed is a burial chamber next to that of his son in a mausoleum metaphorically guarded by statues of lions and sphinxes. It stands close to his home on his 226-acre Surrey estate.

The mausoleum is a simple wooden pergola with 12 wooden supporting pillars and a stone floor. It stands across a stream a few minutes’ walk from the 17th Century family home.

Four continuous candles surround the grave of Dodi, who was killed alongside Princess Diana in a Paris car crash 26 years ago. Al Fayed, who never managed to capture the hearts of the UK’s ruling classes was 94 when he died and was buried two days later.  

The former owner of Harrods passed away on the eve of the anniversary of Dodi and Princess Diana’s death.

There was not a single dignitary at his funeral, not even the Egyptian ambassador.

#diana #princessdiana #ladydiana #dodi #paris #alfayed #harrods

5am and the radio told me Diana was dead… – The Leigh G Banks Preservation Society

Dylan’s stately Highlands home is caught in Britain’s financial crisis, putting his £3m asking price in jeopardy.

The historic estate with landscaped grounds has been his and his brother’s for more than a decade and was described as a bolt hole. 

It isn’t, it is a beautiful part of Highlands history set against forest, mountains and lakes. Aultmore House is an Edwardian Country manor in the village of Nethy Bridge in the Cairngorm National Park.

Bob bought it in 2006 with his younger brother, David, for £2.2 million ($2.8 million).

Sadly, the pandemic kept them both away from the magnificent mansion for a long time.

Tom Stewart-Moore of Knight Frank, which is handling the sale, said: “Up until about pre-Covid times, Bob and his brother would normally go there for a few weeks a year.They bought it because it’s stunningly beautiful and most importantly, very, very private.” 

You get to the house by a tree-lined driveway and it has16 bedrooms with garden views,11 bathrooms, four reception rooms, music room. 

The Zimmerman brothers did the place up too, rewiring, putting in new heating and water systems – but they kept loads of period details, including an entry hall with a limestone staircase with a wrought iron and wooden balustrade. 

Surrounding the home are 25 acres of gardens dotted with statues, fountains, and stone gazebos. And there are three cottages. 

Magnificent house like Bob’s usually survive in a housing crisis, but the knock-on  of  money becoming more expensive, local taxes rise and just the general running day-to-day slow things down.

UK house prices have fallen 5.3 per cent in the last year, according to Nationwide’s August house price index – the biggest drop reported since 2009.