Band On The Run

As we progress with this story you’ll see that I had little option but to go with the title that I chose. For my generation and many around it the cover of the album is iconic and as I had decided to use it for this piece I thought I should find out where it was shot.

Band on the Run’s cover photo was shot at Osterley Park, a Georgian estate in West London, against one of the brick walls in the grounds. The story I’m keen for you to hear was itself set in West London, is musical and has the same theme, only the Dramatis personae, although musicians, are very very different.

Let me take you to Latimer Road in Notting Hill and back to 1926. Then Latimer Road was the home of a Mr Thomas Murphy who was described in reports as an Amusement Caterer. Now this is a difficult thing to clarify, but I did a bit of digging and found that he was the owner of Charlton Stadium and that he owned numerous fairground stalls and slot machines and bred racing Greyhounds. As a sideline he was an empresario in the theatrical world, who handled novelty acts. Whatever he was, he owned a building at 158 Latimer Road that had a modest yard at it’s back.

The story starts off with the details a bit muddy, but what I can surmise is that Mr Murphy had a fenced off enclosure in his yard, similar to a chicken run with a mesh roof to stop foxes, although I’d be surprised back then if there was a fox within twenty miles of urban London. Now for the story to progress you have to take on board that a small gang of petty theives had decided that Mr Murphy’s chicken run in his back yard held precisely that, chickens.

Under cover of darkness the brigands made there way into the yard, sacks in hand for the purpose of making off with the purloined poultry. By the dim flicker of a lighted match they managed to crowbar off the padlock and made their way inside the enclosure ready to fill their sacks. It can only be imagined the horror that overtook them when instead of encountering a flock of dozing Dorking’s and snoozing Sussex’s they were set upon by a band of rather savage monkeys!

So great was the shock that the theives turned and as one fled into the night leaving the troupe of thirteen monkeys to also make their escape.

And that brings us back to one of Mr Murphy’s many occupations, for these thirteen escapees made up a novelty act, Mr Murphy’s Simian Jazz Band.

After the escape we’re on a surer footing, for the monkeys then proceeded to reek havoc on the good citizens of Latimer Road and it’s environs, as you can imagine the press had a field day.

Having the sense to realise that capture was more likely if they remained together, the band split up and went seperatish ways. Three quickly made their way to Latimer Road underground station and proceeded to dig themselves burrows beneath the up and down platforms, they were accompanied by a fourth but more of him later. Despite all efforts to dig them out the monkeys remained for several days. The authorities thinking was “they’ll come out when they get hungry”, and they did just that, mounting a daring daylight raid on a local Greengrocer, returning to their burrows with enough food to last a week.

One member was quickly captured after reeking havoc in the local sweetshop causing the proprieteress, Mrs Agnes Kendall to quickly vacte the premises. When she returned with help her shop had been ransacked and the monkey seemed to be in something of a sugar coma making his capture easy.

Two of the band seemed to develop cruriosity for chimneys. One obviously happier at rooftop level was seen to climb a chimney stack and dissapear inside. When persuers scaled ladders onto the roof, they found the monkey sitting next to the chimney looking rather dejected and covered in soot, he gave up without a struggle.

The other entered the house of a middle aged couple via an open back door and positioned himself in a passageway between the kitchen and front parlour. As the lady of the house was making her way along the passage with a tea tray for her husband, the monkey jumped out, causing the startled woman to drop the tray and fall to the floor in a faint. Her husband rushing in to find out what all the commotion was, saw the back view of a monkey clutching his sandwiches and cake dissapearing through the hearth and up the chimney. Having disposed of his afternoon repast the culprit surrendered himself into custody.

A day after the escape one band member was seen sitting on a horse belonging to the local milkman. As his capters approached they were met with a hail of bananas and nut shells before throwing a net over the escapee. Soon after another of his comrades was captured, newspapers dramatically report that the monkey was brandishing a hammer which he waved with “threatening intent”.

Counting the reports so far, eight of the band members are now captured, with five unaccounted for. Of those five, two stories stand out, if the first eight weren’t incredible enough. They relate to the bands leader, Franko and the drummer, Bimbo. Sadly it is thought that three of the band succomed to exposure due to the harsh November weather that the south of England was having at the time.

Franko lies low for 24 hours and then as darkness falls on the second day of freedom makes his way through the Notting Hill streets for the two and a half mile journey to neighbouring Paddington, where he enters the station and boards a train. Newspaper reports speak of sightings as far apart as Ealing, Bixton and Brentford. He was later captured inside a public house in what the papers called a “fruit trap”.

However, the best story of the lot is reserved for Bimbo. He goes further than his leader Franco and makes his way to Euston, some four miles away. He enters the station during mid morning and esconses himself in the compartment of a waiting train. In typically British fashion nobody seemed perturbed or willing to do anything about it and the train including the fare dodging Bimbo pulled away on time. Ninety minutes later, Bimbo decides he’s had enough travelling and alights at the next station, Rugby in Warwickshire. This time he is chased and decides to make his last stand in a local woodyard, where by all accounts he caused a large amount of damage before being captured.

The ten survivors are later returned to Mr Murphy and a week or so later play to a capacity crowd at the Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington.

After the drama had died down no further mention is to be found of the Simian musicians. Thomas Murphy dies in 1932 and seems to have lead an eventful life, so I’ll possibly look at him in another post. So our troupe fade into history, that is until 2014 when the London Transport Museum run a competition to design station posters under the theme “London Stories”. The winner was artist Gill Bradley with a piece called “Monkey Band at Large in Notting Hill 1927“