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Phil Knapper 1952-2000

This page is a tribute to my older brother Phil who sadly passed away on the 12^th of August 2000. I was moved to do this after discovering a tribute to him by his friend and fellow musician Trevor Teasdel on the Hobo-Coventry Music Magazine Blog.
 

I guess a little family history is the place to start: Phil Knapper was born on July the 30^th 1952 in County Durham and was one of four brothers and a sister, Michael, Ann, David, Phil and me: Stuart. Our Dad, who was originally from Burslam in Stoke on Trent, was a miner in the Durham coalfields having married my mum during the war in Coventry and moving back to my mum’s home town after the war. Consequently the eldest of the five children, Michael, was born in Coventry and the remaining four offspring in Durham. However, during the sixties the mining industry in the

north east hit on hard times and many of the mines were closing, forcing much of the workforce to seek work in the rich coal fields of the Midlands area. My Dad opted for Newdigate Colliery in Bedworth on the outskirts of Coventry. However, he chose to live in Binley Village in Coventry, a small pit village who’s pit had been closed for some years. A strange choice as it involved a fair amount of travel time too and from work. So in 1963 myself, David, and Phil made the long journey south. I was three years old and Phil would have been ten or eleven. My eldest brother Michael was in the Army and my sister Ann was still sitting her nursing exams and living in nursing accommodation in Durham so neither made the move.

My earliest memories of Phil are therefore after we moved to Binley. At that time his love of music was evident but his first love was football and both he and Dave quickly became avid Coventry City fans following the Sky Blues the length and breadth of the country during the glorious Jimmy Hill period of the sixties. They even persuaded dad to buy a Sky Blue Hillman Imp as the family car. One of Phil’s proudest moments was being splashed by Jimmy Hill’s celebration champagne on the day that the city won promotion to the old first division against Wolves. A lot of Phil’s friends wouldn’t know this but he had a fantastic collection of football programmes and autographs, and he avidly collected “Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly” throughout the sixties. However, music soon became his muse and he stopped going to Highfield road and got himself an acoustic guitar. I also remember my Uncle Albert making him a snare drum and bringing it down to Coventry from Spennymoor for him. Phil always had a penchant for the drums and I am sure that if he had chosen the drums over the guitar he would have been as talented a drummer as he was a talented guitar player. It was always apparent that whatever Phil did he did it wholeheartedly and was never half hearted in his approach. At this time the house was beginning to resonate with the sounds of the Beatles, the Stones, The Kinks, and The Who as Phil entered his Mod stage not only musically but in his fashion sense. I remember numerous pairs of ten-pin bowling shoes appearing in the house as Phil and

his Mod mates “borrowed” them from the nearby bowling alley. Phil’s best mate was Alex “spud” Murphy a lad from Willenhall, the neighbouring village, who shared a similar taste in music and craziness as Phil. I can remember the time when the Crazy World of Arthur Brown where in the charts with “Fire”. Phil and Alex were determined to perform as Arthur at the local youth club held in Binley Church opposite the “Craven Arms.” The problem was how to create the fire headgear the Arthur sported on “Top Of The Pops.” If my memory is correct a wire coat hanger, a candle and some of my mum’s Christmas tinsel were the main ingredients for this particular prop. I don’t know if they ever pulled it off but it was a lot of fun watching them. Alex and Phil at that time seemed inseparable as they were either at each others house or rocking at gigs in the city centre. I can’t name all of the bands that they saw through this period but I know that they saw the Kinks, The Small Faces, The Walker Brothers and The Herd. A legendary story that Phil would tell was Alex, in a frenzy, had tried to kick in the Kinks dressing room door in at the Coventry Theatre in an effort to get their autographs. If you knew Alex it’s a very believable story. Phil and Alex would also have the unenviable task of looking after me on a Saturday night if mum and dad had gone out to the local working mans club. A couple of memories stick out for me around this time: the first was the pair of them playing a Ginger Baker 15 minute drum solo over and over and trying to get me to buy into the idea that is was the most amazing thing ever. Even as a pre-punk ten year old I knew that it was a boring load of old shit and all I wanted to do was watch “The Man From U.N.C.L.E” in peace.  On another occasion they had been into town and bought the “Moody Blues” album “In Search of the Lost Chord” and played it continuously throughout the evening. As a result, even to this day I can’t stand the “Moody Blues.”  By now Bob Dylan had entered the music worlds psyche and without doubt Phil embraced this new musical phenomenon with a passion. The mod jackets, bowling shoes and well tailored trousers were cast aside in favour of flares, desert boots and long hair. Phil Knapper the hippy had arrived!!

After leaving school Phil had taken an apprenticeship at Montgomery Plating in Coventry. I am pretty sure that he

hated it. It was during his apprenticeship years that he decided to take a trip around Europe with Alex Murphy, John Gravenor and Neil O’Connor. I remember he came home from work one Friday night around 1971-72, packed a small bag of clothes, his guitar and his wages of £14 for the week and announced that he was going hitch hiking around Europe. Suddenly he was gone!! Over the next 8-9 months my mum would receive an odd postcard or a letter from France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Finland. From what I can gather the guys busked, washed dishes and anything else they could in order to eke out a way of living. I am sure that they all ended up in tents somewhere in Finland playing in bars and café’s to earn money to survive. Perhaps Neil or John could elaborate on the trip at some stage. I also have a memory of the same bunch of guys taking their guitars to a remote cottage in Wales for a week. For some reason they decided to this in fancy dress. Again perhaps someone can elaborate on this adventure at a later date. In between these trips had been trips to Brighton staying with someone from Coventry who owned a houseboat in Shoreham. I can’t remember any more than that about those particular times. That I am afraid is my last memory of Alex Murphy. Phil always maintained that he joined the Moonies and was never seen again. I genuinely hope that Alex is still out there somewhere alive and well. He was a very good friend to my brother and I am sure that they both helped to enrich each others lives. On his return from Europe Phil raised the bar with regards to his guitar playing, he now studied classical guitar and was having regular lessons and could read and write musical annotation. I have to admit that I had never really listened or been interested in classical guitar before but some of the pieces that Phil performed were stunning. As Trevor Teasdel points out Phil had started to fuse his new found learning into both his rock and folk compositions. Sadly only Trevor’s tapes survive as a showcase for Phil’s talents.