Fee's First hand accounts of Marc Bolan concerts - 1976 & 1977 Fee's meeting with June Bolan Fee's friendship with Marc's parents Fee's meeting with Steve Peregrin Took Fee's visit to Marc's house in Hereforshire (near the Welsh Border)
 | HOW IT ALL BEGANFee first discovered Marc Bolan on Top of the Pops. Her parents wouldn't let her watch it so she used to go next door to watch it on Jan's TV. No real loss as they had a Colour Telly and Fee's dad refused to buy one as they were "too expense" so they only had Black and White! Left: The earliest Photo Fee could find - aged twelve. Wearing her Bolan Badge with pride! |  |
 | Left: Taken as the photo with Debbie above right. The pendant is the right way round this time! Fee is also sporting the very latest in shoulder bag assessories - A Marc Bolan Badge. This photo was taken around 1973 and by then Fee was pretty well the only Bolan fan she knew. Even Debbie had moved on. Right: Fee aged around sixteen. Still a Bolan Badge in evidence as she attempts to play guitar. Fee saw Marc Bolan and T-Rex live twice. Both in Birmingham: 1976 and 1977. Memories of those concerts will be included here in the future. |  |
EFFECT OF MARC BOLAN'S DEATHMarc Bolan sang "Our lives are merely trees of possibilities," and his death changed the trees of possibilities of many people, from relatives to fans. One fan who's life crumbled was devastated Fee. As a tribute Fee legally changed her name to 'Bolan' so that her children's birth cirtificates, marriage certificate and other legal documentation show Fee's maiden name as 'Bolan'. Although some people started calling themselves 'Bolan', as far as she knows she was the only one to make the change legally. Right: Fee wearing her 'obligitory' Bolan badge - even though it made her a frequent target for all the Marc Bolan/Tree jokes around at the time. |  |
Fee knew that anyone could apply for anyone's birth certificate. In fact while she was at School she went to 'St. Catherine's House' (Not Somerset House as many people think) in London and ordered two birth certificates. One was of Marc and was for her, the other was of a certain "Reginald Dwight" for a school friend. Reg is of course better known as 'Elton John'. Sadly Fee lost that 1974 copy when her father redecorated her room just one month before Marc died. So on March 16th 1978 while Fee was in London for Marc's Six Month Anniversary, she got a new copy of Marc's Birth Certificate and also the one for Rolan. She didn't get a copy of his death certificate because this seemed too morbid. Below: Fee's copy of Marc's Birth Certificate. 
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Below: Fee's copy of Rolan's Birth Certificate. 
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If you click on the images above you can see larger versions of both certificates. Because both were ordered on the same day, both are dated 16th March 1978 and both have the same 'Application Number' (2236A). Fee gave away B&W copies of both certificates to fellow Bolan fans. It was only later that she discovered that copies of these copies were actually being sold by some of the fans she had given copies to! If you see either of these certificates on the web - check the date they were issued and the Application Number'! |
Fee met Andy Ellison (from Bolan's brief stint in 'John's Children') when his band 'Radio Stars' played at Malvern Winter Gardens in 1978 intend of finding out about Marc. On the right is a backstage dressing room shot where Andy poses for the camera. The gig was poorly attended because, as Fee tactlessly told Andy: "Everyone I know's saving their money because Hawkwind are playing next week!" |  |
There was a need for Bolan fans to communicate with each other and to meet up and so it was only a matter of time before Bolan Conventions became an essential 'Must Go' for many Bolan fans. So After Marc died Fee started to go to Bolan conventions, and Marc Bolan became the foremost thing in her mind. She and her boyfriend broke up directly after and as a result of the Southport Marc Bolan Convention. |
 The first convention Fee attended was Dave & Dave's T-Rex Party/Convention in Southport held on the May 30th 1978. For Fee it was a chance to meet many of the Pen Friends she had built up in the eight months since Marc had died. As seemingly the only Bolan fan in Malvern & Worcester it was wonderful to be able to spend the day with like-minded people, even though Southport is a long journey. As the report on the right shows fans travelled from all over the UK. Many including Fee, couldn't afford a to book a hotel room for after the convention. There was no public transport by the time the convention ended. So they spent a very long, very cold night trying to get some sleep in the seaside 'shelters' along the 'prom'. That was a very, very long night! Above: Marc Bolan fans in Southport - Caron Willians (to be) in the centre. |  Above: Dave & Dave's Press Write Up of their Party / Convention. |
Fee started organising her own Marc Bolan Party which was held at Malvern Winter Gardens. As well as writing letters to her Bolan Pen Pals, Fee did the organisation for the Rexmas Marc Bolan Party at work too. One day she was called into her boss's office and her letter of dismissal cited "doing Marc Bolan and T.Rex work in company time". "Whoops!" thought Fee. She phoned her Mum, who went, not unexpectedly, mental at the news. Fee told her she's been sacked and that she shouldn't expect to see her for a while as she was off to London. ("Horray" thought Fee as she set off for London!)
Simon's flat was often full of Bolan fans including Ros Davis; Colm Jackson; (who had been in the process of setting up a T-Rex Fan Club in 1977 until Marc died); members of 'Swell Maps'; 'Stevie Treatment'; and Steve Burgess who filmed the 'Eat a Peach' video. At weekends it was full to bursting. For Marc's First Anniversary even more so, as Fee invited Judy from Bristol to come so they could visit The Tree. When in London there were times when Fee got the feeling Simon would rather her not be there, so she kept herself out of the way and stayed out most of the time. The Tree became a daily focus. A time to sit with her cassette recorder listening to Tyrannosaurus Rex. Musing on the unfairness that someone could die so young, when he was needed by so many. Then there was Ladbroke Grove Fee had 'discovered' Porabello Road & Ladbroke Grove around 1974 as her musical tastes had developed and generally taken an 'Undergound' direction. The reissue of the Tyrannosaurus Rex albums had brought Fee, as it did to many other Bolan fans into the heady world of 'Hippy Trippy' Marc. At first Fee found them difficult to listen to but over time she'd 'grown into' them and by 1974 her favourite album of that year was 'Beginning of Doves'. As a side note: At Reading Festival in August 1978 Fee took a Marc Bolan flag with flag poles tied to the side of her little motorbike and met Martin from Bristol whom she met again, with his wife at the Bristol Convention in February 2000!
The 'Kim' Phyllis Wrote of is named in the 'Bolan Exposed ...' newspaper article in relation to the substitution of Marc's famous purple trousers given to her for the raffle at the '1978 Midland Marc Bolan Party' in Ilkeston by Phyllis herself, while The Linda Phyllis refers to in the larger version of the letter (on the Marc's parents Page) was a wonderful girl, Linda Stamp from Nailsea who had a heart condition and died at the age of twenty one, only a couple of years after Phyllis wrote about her here. Linda's death was a great loss as she was a wonderfully kind hearted person. |
    
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Below Fee at Golders Green 16th September 1978.   Right: Fee still has the waistcoat pictured above. |
 
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 | As soon as Fee saw the 'Crimson Moon' poster she knew that it would make the perfect photo for a painting. Soon a piece of material, cut to fit the entire back panel of her jacket, had been painted and hand stitched in place. When the jacket worn-out the painted panel was removed and has been kept safely ever since. To give an idea of scale the two CD's which Fee has been involved with releasing* are shown with the painted panel. Everywhere Fee went that needed a thick jacket she wore her red one proudly! * Top: 'Blow It!!!' Bottom: There Was A Time There Was A Time was re-released in 2002, also on TAG's own label distributed by Voiceprint Records as a Special Marc's 25th Anniversary/Gig 35th Anniversary Issue. More Info Here |
Right: When her red jacket was no more, Fee used the 'latest technology' to transfer the image from a black & white photocopy to the back of her new jacket. When this one wore out, she cut the image off as she couldn't bear to throw it away. It went into the 'Special Bolan Box' along with the red painted jacket panel, letters from Marc's mum and the contact print sheets Phyllis had given Fee.
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 | Left: Fee in October 1978 sporting two Marc Bolan badges. Right: An Enlargement of the badge in the photo on the left. Fee wrote it and it was made into a badge for her. The text reads You are my love, my life, my everything! Come Back I need you. An interesting note is that this was the jacket Fee remembers wearing when she met Steve Took. Read Fee's memories of her encounter with Steve Took Here |  |
ON THING FEE DOES REMEMBER IS THE RAFFLEA Japanese fan won the raffle which was the famous pair of purple trousers Marc can be seen wearing in the 'eat a peach' film footage. Marc's parents donated them. They came out of the suitcase full of clothes Harry was able to recover from the burglary. Fee did have a photo of herself holding them proudly. Happy simply to have had an opportunity to hold them. UPDATESadly since writing this we have come across a press cutting from just after this convention. It seems the Convention Organisers kept the trousers given to them by Marc's Mum on the understanding a fan would win them. They substituted a pair of same make, same size, same colour trousers and it was this 'fake' pair the Japanese guy won (See newspaper scan Right).  Above: Fee unaware that she and all the convention goers had been 'duped' |  |
Malvern Winter Gardens was a venue used by all the leading bands of the time as a tour venue. Bands who played there included Thin Lizzy; Mott the Hoople; Dr. Feelgood; Siouxsie and the Banshees; Barclay James Harvest and Hawkwind to name but a few. It was an adventurous project for an eighteen year old to hire the entire Malvern Winter Gardens. THE IMPORTANCE OF MALVERN WINTER GARDENS RECOGNISED IN 2007The Importance of this Venue was recognised when Malvern Winter Gardens was, along with Marc's Rock Shrine, recognised by Discover England (formerly The English Tourist Board) as a Site of Rock 'n' Roll Significance in their New Guide "England Rocks", both in the Web Version (with 190 sights & in the Printed Version with just 113 sights listed. For More Information on this Guide Click Here. AN AMBITIOUS PROJECTIt was expensive because as well as the high venue hire charge, the management insisted that Fee employed and paid the wages for their security men to be 'on duty' at the event! As it was, the only thing the security guards had to do, as there was no trouble, was clear people off the stage periodically because fans were keen to 'tread' the same 'boards' as Marc. At the time probably no one did it because it's where Steve Took had also stood. And Fee certainly didn't give Tookie a thought at the time, even though later she would realise that two people were responsible for producing the Tyrannosaurus Rex 'sound' she so loved. If you notice she even cut Mickey off the Convention poster so she could make Marc's face bigger. |
Above: The 'Last Week' version of the Poster. Right: The 'Worcester Evening News' Feature on the Event. (Fee was known at the time by her full first name of Fiona). |  |
Unfortunately, in late 1978 when Fee contacted Golders Green Crematorium they rejected the proposal for a Memorial Plaque for Marc :-( Fee discussed this with Marc's parents Sid & Phyllis. At the time marc's parents didn't know when they would see their grandson Rolan again so with their agreement Fee donated the money to charity.
Sadly, Fee was so busy with the convention organising that she forgot to take a camera and has no photographs of the event, only the memories including a local friend 'Little Kev' running out of the men's toilets in a state of alarm saying repeatedly "There are men in the toilets putting on make-up!". (Malvern wasn't somewhere men did that!) At the Tree Site on September 16th 2003 a lady came up to Fee and said "I know You!" After a brief pause she exclaimed "Malvern!" She had recognised Fee twenty five years after the Convention!
 | Fee came back to Malvern for her Marc Bolan Party with the intention of returning to London in the New Year. Had she done so she would have continued to roam London searching for people who know Marc and continuing to hang out around The Grove. As it was, while in Malvern Fee met Kev and as they say "The Rest is History". Kev has always been to Fee what June was to Marc. A totally complimentary Yin & Yang. Fortunately for Fee, she was wise enough to know that anyone with a mercurial personality needs someone 'sensible' to set the boundaries. Perhaps subconciously she knew this from seeing what had happened to Marc after he had been allowed to indulge himself as much as he wanted in whatever he wanted. They married in 1979 and Kev insisted that Fee took his surname which she did reluctantly. |
While Fee was pregnant Kev refused to even consider the possibility of the name 'Marc' if the baby was a boy. Not even for a second name. But Fee had a cunning plan (to quote from 'Black Adder'). Literally the moment the midwife said "It's a Boy" Fee asked "And his middle name can be Marc can't it?" and so it was. After that Fee juggled being a wife and mum with being a 'closet' Bolan fan which Kev tolerated - to a point! But whenever Fee felt 'down' Marc was always there, even though at times Kev said that he felt that there were three people in the marriage. For that reason Fee didn't join the fan club, but did buy Marc's records as they arrived in the local record shop whose proprietor knew he had a regular customer for a copy of everything put out by Rarn Records, later Marc on Wax. These new 'treasures' were 'smuggled' into the house, hidden and listened to while Kev was at work. 'SMUGGLED' WREATHS
Only many years later after many 'smuggled' wreaths did Kev admit that as he had previously worked for the nursery which supplies many of the florists in Kidderminster when he'd bumped into the owner of the florist Fee used she had told him what Fee was up to so Kev'd known all along! |
 | Left: Kev and Fee's son Rohan Marc aged nine months at Golders Green Crematorium. |
 From left to Right: 1) Fee's wreath of white flowers and red roses/carnations. 2) Fee standing by her wreath and a lovely guitar. 3) Six year old Rohan Marc in the same place. |
 | By 1991 Fee had returned to education. First for a year of A-Levels before going on to take her degree. There, the students had 'pigeon-holes' for their mail. This could be 'internal' so that students who didn't live 'on campus' needed to check the relevent lettered 'pigeon-hole'. Imagine Fee's surprise when she discovered an A4 envelope addressed to another student which had "Tyrannosaurus Rex Appreciation Society" and an address printed on it! How could she not join this? So what the heck, she did. |
By now Kev and Fee had been married for over ten years and he'd relented a little. He'd been warned not to go out with Fee by his friends because they said she was "Bolan Mad" and he'd hoped she'd 'grow out of it' but obviously she never had! University meant computers and the small but expanding Internet. As a mature student Fee couldn't use the IT rooms because of children commitments and had to get a PC for home. Before she finished her degree she was on the Internet at home too. She was disappointed that she couldn't find the sort of UK Marc Bolan web site she wanted to find. Those that there were in those early days were limited and generally American. |
Fee set about teaching herself html. In those early days there weren't the 'what you see is what you get' programmes to write pages easily with little knowledge or experience. Fee printed off web pages and also opened up the 'source'; printed off the html 'code' and compared the two to see what code did what on the page. The code (below right) is just a little of what is 'behind' this page. |
Fee used the University scanner (they were still expensive at that time) to be able to include newspaper and magazine cuttings and to scan some of the 35mm photographs she'd taken while sitting one time, in the Essential Cinema in London in 1978. Fee teaching herself html while doing her degree didn't stop her from gaining a BSc First Class Honours, something only 3% of students at Worcester manage. In fact she came top in the Biological Science Degree students that year and beat off other applicants to go straight on to do research for a PhD. |  |
Fee's Marc Bolan & T-Rex Site was launched onto the World Wide Web and by the time of Marc's 20th Anniversary in 1997 the site had grown to be the biggest UK site on the web at the time. Her Site was given a BIG 'thumbs up' in an early review of 'Bolan on the Web'. See the scans below. |
Left two photos: Flowers at Golders Green Crematorium. Right two: The Tree in Barnes and Flowers at the newly unveiled Performing Right Society Memorial at the bottom of embankment in Barnes at The Tree site. Click the images to view larger versions. |
Added on the 3rd December, 2006
You can view a Photo Gallery from 16th September 1998 (including some lovely ones of Rolan), with two photos from October 1998 (One at The Tree plus One at Marc's Rose Bush at Golders Green) Here
This is covered in THE HISTORY OF THE TREE |
The Essential Cinema in Wardour Street, London were a Cinema who specialised in showing 'Classic Films' (Easyrider, Woodstock and the like). They showed 'Born to Boogie' initially monthly and then, due to demand every two weeks, on a Thursday night starting at 10:30 pm. Fee would finish work at 5:15 pm and ride her little Honda CD175 Motorcycle (the blue one shown in front of The Tree - below left) the 130 miles to London. 
Resource & Archive Centre Members - 
Fee alternated with stays in Bristol and times in London when she stopped at Simon Slider's flat in Fulham. "Off the King's Road we'ed say when really it was off the New King's Road which wasn't nearly such a good address!
Fee also got to know 
Just over a year after MARC Bolan's death Fee held a 'T-Rex Party' at the Malvern Winter Gardens in Worcestershire.