Little Arrows that Hit You
(They hurt a little bit)
Life in London in the summer of 1966 for me revolved around an unfamiliar block of apartments called Chesil Court.
This was where my best mate’s best mates lived.
At the time, I took no notice of this building on Chelsea Manor Street – even when I first walked into the rare1930s Art Deco glass-enclosed lobby.
Or even when I was invited onto the semi-circular balcony above the entrance, and leaned against the patterned steel balustrade looking over what was then called “Old Chelsea” ... a short stroll to the Kings Road and Sloane Square.
In 1966 Chesil Court was home to the new artistic milieu of “Swinging London” – pop stars, actors, playwrights, photographers.
One of these residents was popular Cockney TV star Harry Fowler – “H” to his friends.
Another resident was Harry Fowler’s good mate, the pop singer Kenny Lynch, who bought into Chesil Court after his song Up on the Roof became a British smash hit in 1962.
Their close friend was my best mate from a rented house at 524 Ipswich Road, Annerley Junction, Brisbane: Ken Fletcher.
Leapy Lee also became one of this Chesil Court push, once his song Little Arrows took flight around the globe.
I was learning in London, aged 25, that celebrities congregate together … no matter how diverse their backgrounds.
Harry had become so close to Fletch during his visits to Wimbledon every year since 1961 that by now he travelled with Fletch to watch him play in Germany and France.
Fletch had always measured his friendships in fractions (a half, two-thirds, three-quarters, nine-tenths) – and perhaps in H he had found a whole number.
After Fletch won the 1966 German Hardcourt title, he told me he played much better with Harry Fowler courtside making remarks which made him laugh and relax.
Fletch loved Harry’s quick, irreverent Cockney humour … I suppose developed when H was a paper boy during World War II.
Paper boys in London wrote their own posters every day on their allocated street corner … and the more entertaining these were, the more papers they sold (so the more money they made).
H told us he once wrote a poster reading AMBASSADOR CASTRATED because of a headline in that day’s paper: “Ambassador’s second Ball comes off tonight”.
“I made a motza that day,” he said.
“One time, during the Blitz, I’m just out of the helter-skelter setting up me barra again after the all-clear … and along comes this sharp-looking geezer. And this geezer’s in a trench coat.
“He’s blimping me and I’m thinking, ’ello, this bloke should buy a paper or hit the frog and toad!
“I should say so … he produces a microphone and wants to record me. And I says, ‘old on a mo, I’m only earning eight bob a week: where’s the bees and honey?’
“Next thing I know I’m getting paid in deep sea divers [fivers or five pound notes] for pulling faces in front of a camera!”
That was when I realised I’d already seen H and his mouse eyes in a movie at the Metro in Brisbane in 1962, one of the best ever, Lawrence of Arabia.
Playing Cockney Corporal William Potter, Harry (appropriately) delivers a newspaper – and four lines – to Lawrence (Peter O’Toole).
We’d all meet up at Chesil Court and then walk to one of the Chelsea restaurants for a late dinner: Harry and his wife Kay, Fletch, me, Kenny Lynch and whoever else was around.
I was surprised to find that the fidgety H, who said he was a former pick-pocket, assiduously worked on a stamp collection in his lounge room, which seemed out of place.
H said it relaxed him.
One afternoon Ken’s Aussie mate from Cairns, Billy Lee Long, was lying on the floor in Harry’s lounge room when a pigeon walked in from the tiny balcony which overlooked the Chesil Court garden.
The pigeon made itself at home on top of Billy’s taut tennis player’s stomach.
Fletch, who hated feathers since he was a child, shivered and said crossly: “Don’t let that bloody bird walk all over you Billy!”
Billy replied enigmatically: “It takes all kinds to make a world, Fletch.”
While Harry said: “’old on a mo! Who’s the Fletcher here! You Fletchers put the feathers in the arrows in King Arthur’s Court!”
It was this Jack-the-Lad mischief and joy that endeared H to Fletch.
And I suppose it was Ken’s charm – and his fame on the tennis court – which gave him entrée to the Chesil Court set.
Wimbledon often allocated Fletch the Centre Court because he was “the first tennis player to give himself to the crowd”. So much so that soon he needed a police guard when he left a court … to keep fans at bay.
Ken had been seeded Number 3 at Wimbledon, and had also won the first (and still only) Grand Slam of Mixed Doubles with the most famous sportswoman in the UK at that time, Australia’s Margaret Smith.
By 1968 I had left London and Margaret Smith returned to Wimbledon – this time as Margaret Court – after taking a year off to get married.
Fletch was offended that Wimbledon had seeded them Number 4 … because the professionals had, for the first time, been allowed back in to play.
“They’ve slotted some of the pros above us: Laver and Gonzales,” Fletch told me. “Laver’s always wanted to do well at doubles but he isn’t a very good doubles player. He’s too much of an individual … he wants to whack ’em, WHACK!”
Despite Margaret’s year off, and the return of the professionals, she and Fletch won the Wimbledon Mixed Doubles title on Centre Court for the fourth time.
That final went until well after 9 pm, but it was so exciting that the BBC suspended all other programming to stay with the match. (Wimbledon crowds used to get much more excited during doubles matches than singles when all the champions played.)
Afterwards Ken proudly told reporters: “In five years Margaret and I have been beaten only once.”
It was Ken’s sixth successive Wimbledon Mixed Doubles final on Centre Court, causing tennis author Paul Metzler to write:
A few may have thought that anyone could win a Grand Slam title with Margaret Court, but Fletcher showed how it was done … 10 times! And their 1963 Grand Slam of Mixed came seven years before Margaret’s Singles Grand Slam!
Metzler added:
Margaret could have chosen as a partner anyone she liked. But she chose to play with Fletcher.
Metzler could have added that Margaret and Ken would have won many more titles had Ken not stopped playing the US Open after 1963 … and the Australian Open after 1964.
(In fact, the only two Australian Mixed titles that Margaret Court ever won … were both with Fletch.)
Asked about his amazing doubles record, Fletch would always answer: “In doubles, the secret is to have a good partner.”
But he was underplaying his hand.
In the 1960s Ken Fletcher played 10 Wimbledon doubles finals on Centre Court with five different partners! (No wonder the BBC’s Voice of Wimbledon, John Barrett, told viewers: “In the 1960s Ken Fletcher made the Wimbledon Centre Court his own.”)
Interestingly, long after he retired, Ken told me Margaret Court was “the greatest tennis player ever — man or woman.”
“Margaret won all those titles without any confidence in herself. If you’ve got confidence, you have the power of the brain to be uninhibited and unrestrained and go for the shot … and not care if it doesn’t come off!
“But Margaret wanted to be told. She needed direction. I’d tell her: Don’t try to beat the man; put it down the sheila’s neck! Go down the line and keep him honest. Whack it at that Commie bastard on the net! Don’t let the so-and-so Yanks beat you. We’ll beat them hollow. Thump it straight at that bloody Hun sheila!’
“If she was getting nervous and missing returns, I’d say: Marg, just shut your eyes and belt shit out of it! … If it goes out it doesn’t matter.”
How did Margaret react to this talk?
“I don’t know what she thought,” Ken told me. “She never said anything. But she’d do it alright.”
That year of 1968 Ken lost to his fourth Wimbledon singles champion in a row, Alex Olmedo, in four sets, but by then he had trouble even making it onto the court.
He told me that every time he played singles in 1968, he worried he might have a heart attack: though he was only 28.
Ken’s friend, Brisbane medico Dr Glen Sheil (a top tennis player himself), told me: “When you get nervous it multiplies on you.
“Ken felt under more pressure because he had nothing else to back him up, no other qualification … and so was extremely reliant on tennis. This gave him a feeling of insecurity: he needed someone with him to take the pressure off and to give good advice.
“Ken would have done better if, instead of rebelling, he had remained one of what we used to call ‘Harry Hopman’s Chickens’ because Fletch responded very well in that situation. But Ken left the coop.”
A large part of Ken’s fragility that year was that his closest friendship had come to a humiliating end.
The Cockney actor Harry Fowler, whose humour on tour had got Fletch over so many obstacles, was no longer there to support him.
They fell out … because it was not in the nature of either of them to back down.
I’d witnessed a previous rift in a casino while they were playing blackjack at the same table.
Harry was the last player on the dealer’s right, and Ken was next to him. Ken decided to take another card, but Harry, who needed a 10 to win, said: “Don’t take that card, Ken, I need it. I should say so!”
Fletch fired up: “Don’t be ridiculous H, the card is still in the shoe. No one knows what it is!”
Harry responded knowingly: “Be shrewd Fletch, nudge, nudge, wink, wink … say no more.”
But Ken insisted on taking the card, believing Harry couldn’t possibly know what it was.
“’ang about Fletch,” Harry said. “What’s the caper ’ere?”
“Don’t be bloody silly,” Ken said, “it’s my call, not yours!”
“With the hook up! You’re barmy!” Harry warned in threatening Cockney lingo.
I guess it’s the sort of argument that only happens in a London basement gambling den at 4 o’clock in the morning, but still it seemed irrational.
Ken took the card, despite what his best friend urged … and it was the 10 that H had wanted, and Ken didn’t.
They both lost: in more ways than one.
Things were patched up by their mutual friend, Kenny Lynch: but the scar remained.
Later, in 1968, Harry invited Ken to Chesil Court to meet the pop singer, Leapy Lee, who’d just had a worldwide smash hit: Little Arrows.
That inspired song made number one, despite being up against The Beatles, and Mary Hopkin’s Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance forever and a day … words which were to turn out to be only too true for Fletch.
Ken was always urging friends — including Kenny Lynch and Harry and Kay Fowler — to migrate to Australia … because it was such a bountiful, wonderful country.
He would list Australia’s attributes with all the nostalgia and abundant joy of a long-time exile … who doesn’t actually live there.
Fletch told me what happened next:
“One afternoon, we were all lounging around in Chesil Court and Harry got me to say how good Australia was — got me to skite all about Australia. Naturally, I got excited and was telling Leapy Lee everything breathtaking … until I twigged that they were all laughing at me behind my back.
“They got me good and proper.”
No doubt Harry was just being his usual comic self, but Ken particularly hated skites and was feeling vulnerable … so he accused Harry, Lynchy, and Leapy of setting him up for cheap laughs.
Fletch felt betrayed … and he was someone who put loyalty at the top of the list of virtues.
He stormed out through the beautiful glass foyer of Chesil Court … never to return.
The others were mystified, but as Leapy Lee’s Little Arrows observed:
“It’s hard to tell until you’re hit …
“Some folks put on armour, but the arrows go straight through”.
[For another Harry Fowler story, see London High Life ]
[For other Fletch and Billy Lee Long stories, see The Unexpected Guests and The Girl with the Golden Racquet ]
Fantastic Hugh! There’s some wonderful reminiscences there. Funny how celebrities hang together.... How amazing were Kenny and Margaret on doubles. Great stuff!
Thank you so much Hugh for another great story! I really enjoyed reading more about Ken and Margaret's amazing doubles tennis successes. A pity about the falling out between Ken and Harry. Being born Australian and not British, might have made it difficult at times for Ken while he was living in London perhaps. The tennis fans certainly loved watching Ken in action at Wimbledon.