Dave Brooks was a talented and versatile musician (saxophone, flute and latterly bagpipes), and during the Tolmers years lived in an upstairs flat next to the Villabella Restaurant in North Gower Street, with Rachel Syers.

Dave and Rachel were tenants and pre-dated squatting in the area. Rachel became the co-ordinator of the Tolmers Village Association in the summer of 1974.

John Fleming’s obituary for Dave covers a lot of ground but skates over the time before he joined the alternative comedy troupe The Greatest Show on Legs in the late 1970s. In September 1966 Dave joined the Carl Douglas Set (Dave shown on left) on sax, gigging and touring with them, and the re-named Carl Douglas and the Big Stampede until April 1967, re-joining in December 1967 before leaving again in September 1968 for session work.

By a curious coincidence, Jamaican singer Carl Douglas went on to have a number 1 single ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ in 1974, often played in the benefit discos held in the Bank on the corner of Tolmers Square and Hampstead Road.

Dave was part of the late 60s and early 70s British blues scene and played with Graham Bond, Elkie Brooks and Manfred Mann to name but a few.

He was also a member of Tramp, along with Jo-Ann Kelly and her brother Dave, Mick Fleetwood, Danny Kirwin, Bob Brunning and Bob Hall, recording an album Put A Record On (1974). Dave’s distinctive tenor sound, reminiscent at times of Clifford Scott, can be heard on the album – especially Too Late For That Now:

Dave also briefly had a band called Blue Diamonds, with Steve York (ex Vinegar Joe) on bass and Charley Charles (Kilburn And The High Roads, Ian Dury and the Blockheads) on drums who played at events in Tolmers Square.

Brooksie could be very funny, with a quick witted and acerbic sense of humour, and sometimes cantankerous, as his son records in the obituary. He also had an innate sense of the absurd and surreal and would sometimes play Three Blind Mice on the stand to the bemusement of his fellow musicians.

Paul Nicholson, 2022