Lost at sea

In another e-mail, he wrote about Neil and Christine Hamilton, falsely accused of rape while being filmed by Louis Theroux, whom Jonathan sees as my great competitor in the humorous journalism market. He wrote, “Louis EVERYWHERE . . . but who on earth would want to cover the Hamiltons, famous for doing NOTHING. Still, I do hope The Real Jon Ronson will have the balls, courage and integrity to take up the crusade (whatever the outcome) that it is GROSSLY unfair for the accused person/people to be smeared all over the media. Over to you, Ronson (we don’t just want a Theroux treatment, do we?).”

Later, in court, some of the victims say that Jonathan had a trick of making them feel special, as if they could do anything, as if they could make it big in show business, just so long as they stuck with him (and didn’t tell anyone what had happened). Has King got legitimate grievances against the legal system, or is he simply trying to seduce me in the same way he seduced the boys?

His Jagger analogy was alluding to some covert homophobia at the heart of the case. But perhaps the real contrast lies somewhere else. Mick Jagger (or, indeed, Bill Wyman) wouldn’t have needed to pretend he was conducting market research into the tastes of young people. He wouldn’t have needed to have promised them sex with Colombian air hostesses. But Jonathan did not, intrinsically, have much pulling power, so he did need those extra little touches. Perhaps the real contrast, then, is one of aesthetics.

The Walton Hop closed down in 1990. There were complaints of noise from the neighbors. But the Hop’s home, the Playhouse, still stands. Jimmy Pursey, the lead singer of Sham 69, was one of the Hop’s most regular teenage attendees. He went dancing there every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday night throughout the seventies. One day, shortly before the trial began, Jimmy gave me a guided tour of the Playhouse.

“It’s so hard to explain to people who see in black-and-white the color that existed in this club,” he said. “The Playhouse was a theater for fringe plays and amateur dramatics. But on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays it would become paradise.”

Jimmy took me through the hall and toward the stage.

“It was inspirational,” said Jimmy. “This wasn’t table te

He leaped up onto the stage and took me to the wings, stage right. We stood behind the curtains.

“This is where the i

“Bolder and interesting in what way?” I asked.

“People like me,” said Jimmy. “If Deniz liked you, you’d be invited backstage and get a little bit of whisky added to your Coca-Cola. Backstage, you see. And you’d go, ‘Oh, I’m in with the big crowd now.’ That’s all there was to it with Deniz.”

“And Jonathan?” I asked.

“He’d drive into the Hop car park, and come backstage from the side,” he said. “And we’d all be going, ‘God! There’s a Rolls-Royce outside with a TV aerial coming from it! Ooh, it’s got a TV in the back and it’s a white Rolls-Royce!’ Because you’d never know if it was the Beatles.”

“But it wasn’t the Beatles,” I said.

“No,” said Jimmy. “It was Jonathan King.” He laughed. “A very big difference there!”

The Beatles lived on St. George’s Hill, in nearby Weybridge, and were often seen driving around Walton in their Rolls-Royces.

•   •   •

A DISPROPORTIONATE NUMBER of celebrities who are now convicted pedophiles hung around backstage at the Walton Hop during the seventies and eighties. There was Jonathan King’s friend Tam Paton, the manager of the Bay City Rollers, who was convicted of child-sex offenses in the early eighties. (It was Paton who first introduced Jonathan King to the Hop—they met when Jonathan was invited to produce the Rollers’ debut single, “Keep On Dancing.”)

Chris De

For Jimmy Pursey, the trick was to pick up the girls who were drawn to the Hop to see the Bay City Rollers while avoiding the attentions of the impresarios who orchestrated the night.

“It was fun with Deniz Corday,” said Jimmy. “Deniz would say, ‘Oh, Jimmy! Come here! I’d love to suck your fucking cock!’ Deniz was a silly, fluffy man. Then there was Tam Paton. I remember being back here having one of my whisky and Coca-Colas one night, and Tam turned to me and he said, ‘I like fucking lorry drivers.’ Chris De

“Would he make a grand entrance?” I asked.

“Oh no,” said Jimmy. “It was never, ‘Look at me!’ He never went out onto the dance floor at all. He was much happier hiding backstage up here, behind the curtains, in the i

Jimmy was referring to the countless pseudonymous novelty hits Jonathan had in the late sixties and seventies—the Piglets’ “Joh

One of King’s friends later suggests to me that it was his look—the big nose, the glasses, the weird, lopsided grin—that determined this career path, as if he somehow came to realize that it was his aesthetic destiny. He’s sold forty million records. He’s had a hand in almost every musical movement since the mid-sixties—psychedelic, novelty bubblegum pop, alternative pop, Eurovision, the Bay City Rollers, 10cc, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Genesis, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, the Brit Awards, and so on.

Within two years of leaving Cambridge, he was ru

“Genesis,” he once said, “would have become accountants and lawyers if I hadn’t heard their concealed and budding musical talent when they were fifteen years old.”

He is at once seen to be the quintessential Broadway Da