The PM & the postcard

LONDON'S debt-ridden Cavern Club closed in February 1966. This was taken very seriously by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who engineered a publicity campaign to have the hallowed hall re-opened.

Actually, it wasn't Wilson but his very own Alastair Campbell, Marcia Williams.

Williams - one of the most important and underestimated British politicians of the last 50 years - was a '60s chick. It is believed that she also pushed Wilson to legislate for the opening of Britain's first dedicated pop music station, BBC Radio 1.

The Williams/Wilson campaign paid off and, five months later, the Cavern reopened. The PM cut the tape on the day and was rather imaginatively presented with a pipe (he was an inveterate pipe smoker) which had been crafted from wood from the original stage.

In 1967 BBC Radio 1 started broadcasting. As every pop quizzer knows, the first song played was The Move's Flowers in the Rain. This was a big deal for the band, and manager Tony Secunda had spent the previous month bombarding the music press with promotional material for the song. Secunda used a promotional postcard which depicted a naked Harold Wilson with - and this is how it was reported at the time - "a woman who is not his wife".

The postcard alluded to gossip that Wilson and Marcia Williams were having an affair. This story got a fresh push when, on his mysterious resignation in 1976, Wilson elevated Williams to the title Lady Falkender. The rumoured affair was not reported on at the time - there was still a deference shown to the office by the tabloids back then. Hence the fact that Williams's name was never mentioned when Wilson took The Move to court.

It was very peculiar that a prime minister would instigate a libel action against a pop group over some facile promotional material. The Move were thrilled silly by the nationwide publicity. The reports of the day state that they did not arrive at the High Court in time for the proceedings but when they did they "appeared to be in high spirits". "We've no faith in any political sides at all" they told reporters outside the court. "We'd vote for people like Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, you know."

The court found against Secunda and The Move. The judgement remains one of the strangest-ever legal/musical episodes: the judge made The Move devote all royalties from the record in perpetuity to charities of Wilson's choice.

At the time of the case, about 200,000 copies of Flowers in the Rain had already been sold. Wilson nominated the Spastics Society and the Amenity Funds of Stoke Mandeville Hospital as his charities of choice. To this day, the royalties still go to these charities. It's thought to be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Having once embraced popular music, Wilson had seen the other side of the business with The Move's postcard. Once a hugely popular politician, his sudden 1976 resignation stunned the nation. There were rumours that Wilson was a KGB agent. Others believed it had something to do with The Move court case as an expose about an affair was about to published. Either way, remember that whenever you hear Flowers in the Rain being played, money is being made for causes.

The BBC claims to be shedding "fresh light" on the real reasons for Wilson's dramatic resignation in a drama series called The Lavender List, which will be broadcast next Wednesday on BBC4. Wonder if they're using Flowers in the Rain over the credits.

bboyd@irish-times.ie

REVOLVER

Brian Boyd