The Smell of the Greasepaint and the Sound of John Peel: Equus: Linda Jardim

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John Peel was one week away from finally completing the Little Richard cover search which he had spent the past two years working through his collection of singles to try and find. Having got to the letter N, he rediscovered this 1980 curio which had been commissioned by the Northampton Development Corporation to try and promote the town as a place where businesses and families may want to move operations to or work in, during the period in which it was earmarked for regeneration as a new town.

Starting out as a jingle, 60 Miles by Road or Rail was expanded into a song so that it would have greater reach to promote the town, while also raising money towards the target of £100,000,000 which the NDC had to raise in profit for the sale of homes and workspace it had built in the area. This became necessary when, in the late 1970s, both major UK parliamentary parties moved away from the concept of building more new towns, and those that were being built up at the time had to pay their own way, in Northampton’s case by the end of 1984.

Conscious of the fact that no one would want to play a record which seriously set out opportunities for commercial expansion, composer Rod Thomson tried to meet NDC’s brief by playing up one of the major benefits of Northampton - its 60 mile proximity to London - by writing a song in which the heroine, voiced by former Buggles backing vocalist, Linda Jardim, excitedly sang about travelling to meet her lover and begin a new life, brimming with romance and excitement in the town. Jardim has previously lived her life vicariously through magazine stories and trashy TV, but now real life and real opportunity awaits her (and all those relocating businesses in Northampton.)

But that was then, my time’s been changed.

I find my life’s been rearranged.

My magazines have finally all come true

Baby, since I met you.

Had I heard this in March 1993, I’d have had it on a mixtape as an example of one of those quirky tunes that occasionally turn up on a John Peel playlist, but in future years, I too would find myself making journeys from Cornwall, of considerably more than 60 miles, to be with my lovers in places like Lampeter, Uxbridge, Runfold and Henly-in-Arden. None of these places, on their own terms, were anything special but they were mini-Paradises to be travelled to with love in my heart and desire in my loins for the girls I loved who studied and worked there. It is to the man I was who used to travel those distances between 1996 and 2004 that this song earns its place on the metaphorical mixtape.

I currently live about an hour away from Northampton, but my only visit there took place in February 2013. A friend of mine was living there at the time and had written a one-act play based on her experiences working as an exotic dancer in the town, which was being staged as part of a double bill at a small venue in Northampton. My wife and I decided to go up and offer our support, we booked a room at a Premier Inn so we could make an evening of it. However, we started our journey of 60-ish miles from Orpington in low spirits after receiving a phone call that morning from my wife’s mother telling us that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Happily, she was successfully treated over the course of that year, but as you can imagine, the initial phonecall didn’t do much to set up the mood for a rip-roaring night at the theatre.

Our spirits were not improved when we got to Northampton itself, which was one of the most unattractive looking places either of us had ever seen. After booking into the Premier Inn and having some dinner, we set out to find the venue. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. “You have reached your destination” bleated the sat nav, but none of the buildings we saw had anything on them to indicate that they were theatres. We asked at a nearby pub, but they hadn’t heard of the place we were looking for. We rounded a corner and saw a community hall building with lights on. “That could be the place,” we said hopefully and walked in confidently, only to be greeted by the sight of a pair of imams tidying away a PA set and cushions from a prayer meeting. However, they were pleased to see us and crucially, they had heard of the venue we were looking for. The plays were being staged in an upstairs theatre, the sign for which was no bigger than your average Harley Street brass plate and to our great relief, our friend’s play was wonderfully written, marvellously acted and very funny. We were both glad to see her and the play, but neither of us has rushed back to Northampton in the subsequent decade.

What’s curious about Peel’s play of 60 Miles by Road or Rail is that, based on a look at the John Peel wiki back in the spring and early summer of 1980, he tended to play the other side of the single, Energy in Northampton. To the same musical backing, this saw Linda Jardim sing a kind of War of the Worlds meets Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft tale about aliens driven from their home planet by war and struggling across the galaxy in a disintegrating set of spaceships, who find the new home they have been looking for in Northampton. All of it delivered without tongue in cheek and tying into the single’s promotional tagline that a love affair with Northampton is a journey into space. I wonder whether Peel played 60 Miles by Road or Rail in error given that he quoted the tagline after playing it, which made no sense in the context of what his listeners would have just heard.

Finally, I must direct you towards the 60 Miles project, which gathers together the stories of the new town projects to produce documentary and theatre shows reflecting Northampton’s development and expansion and the effects it had on the town. The 2021 show 60 Miles by Road or Rail can be viewed on the website with the conception and recording of the Linda Jardim record taking up most of the second half of the play. I found it not just invaluable as a source of information for this blogpost, but a terrific show in its own right. Not only did it bring history alive, it also brilliantly reflected why new town projects stalled and the ongoing issues that rage when bringing together established communities and transplanted ones, even if the transplants have only travelled 60 miles.

At the recording session for 60 Miles by Road or Rail. That’s great, Linda. Just try another one for safety.