Evening at The Wolseley With Mr and Mrs Tony Hatch and Penny Horner
Tony Hatch was such an important factor in the story of The Searchers. Not only is he a wonderful composer with successes as Downtown, Don`t Sleep In The Subway Darling, The Other Man’s Grass etc (Petula Clark), Tell Him (Bobby Rydell), Call Me (Frank Sinatra), Joanna (Scot Walker) and so many others he produced every hit we had while he was a house producer at PYE Records. And of course Sugar And Spice, a bespoke song by Tony for The Searchers, was the perfect follow up record to Sweets For My Sweet.
And so it is always such a pleasure and privilege to catch up with him when he and his wife Maggie are in London. These days home for the Hatch’s is Menorca on top of which they spend a lot of time in their one-time adopted land of Australia where some of his extended family, children and grandchildren are premanent residents.
Joined by my chum Penny Horner we met up at our favourite restaurant, The Wolseley which is on Piccadilly with its interior of Chinoiserie and magnificent vaulted ceilings. It’s not cheap by any means so if you ever pay a visit do make sure your bank balance is up to scratch. And unlike the miniscule “paintings on a plate” that today’s renowned chefs seem to be obsessed by, food at The Wolseley is presented in a more understated way while the quality ingredients are left to speak for themselves. And on a lucky night you might spot Joan Collins across the room or, as I did a couple of months back, run into that old rocker pal Ronnie Wood.
Anyway, we all had a superb evening with the conversation so interesting that we didn’t realise until the room had virtually cleared that we had actually spent an astonishing four hours together. That says something. I can’t wait till the next time.
By the way, if you zoom into the picture to where my arm is draped around Maggie Hatch’s shoulder you might spot some plasters around my fingers. I managed to fall over a blip in the pavement while walking home from an evening out and when I pulled myself up I noticed that the third finger of my left hand was leaning to one side at a very strange angle.
I decided to forget about it until the next day when I figured it would be wise to get it checked out at the A&E in Hillingdon Hospital. Just as well because I had actually dislocated the finger. I have to tell you that the sight of the x-ray showing the bones in two clearly separate places was a rather scary experience. Anyway the efficient NHS worker sorted the problem in record time.
I think the plasters have to stay on for a few weeks, but I`ll live (I hope).
