Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Remember, always, in every empty moment, to call upon the Gods not to forget thee, for they are forgetful and very far away. — The Necronomicon

For a brief time I really hoped Babe was my type. It was 1966 and I was on the fringes of a pretty weird scene in South London. That’s how I first met Babe Rainbow. Her real name was Lucy Malony. It was a couple of years before Peter Blake did that picture. It’s a really good painting, or print or whatever, but it’s not the real Babe, not the Babe I knew, anyway. She said Blake got her to wear those ‘dippy’ bits ‘n’ pieces because that was what he wanted and that was that.

     As I said, I was only on the fringes of the scene in South London, and I didn’t get into half the things that Babe was into - she was a bit strange, you know. She lived in Tooting for a bit and knew lots of people like Hes Smith, Brad, Paula Shrapnel, Stella Vendice, Charlie Fogden and Vince. I never met Vince, but Babe did because she was close to his girlfriend, Paula (that’s Paula Shrapnel). Babe, Paula and Paula’s sister Rita called themselves ‘the club’ - all for one and one for all, something like The Three Musketeers. They got up to all kinds of stuff that I only found out about later. Then there was Fred Leggett who worked for Ulrich Zell and published odd magazines.

     I remember one long, hot summer afternoon by the Thames down in Richmond. It was a day out and Babe liked Richmond because she used to go ice skating when she was a kid. It was one of those Summer things. It just happened. She said, “I’m the polar bear’s pyjamas,” which is a line from some song, and she was in my arms. We ended up back at her bedsit, a largish room with a small cooker in the corner and a narrow unmade bed under the window. There were clothes all over the place and Gallery Fives and a White Bicycle on the wall to cover the paper which she loathed. She had a grumpy landlord who said she wasn’t allowed to redecorate.

     I thought the night would never end.

     At one point, in the small hours, she put some records on, saying “Do you like dancing? Do you go dancing?”

     I wished I could impress her, but she soon realized I was out of my depth. Despite her girlish manner she was more 'experienced' than me and used to older boyfriends. Blokes with cash and trendy clothes, Arty types mostly, who she picked up at the RCA. That’s how she met Blake.

     We met several more times. Then, finally, one evening, after Ubu at the Royal Court, she gently kissed the tip of my nose and whispered “Goodbye, darling,” so I knew it was all over.

     Next time I saw her it was at a party somewhere in Ladbroke Grove. She was with Fred Leggett, holding his arm, laughing and very drunk. She saw me and waved across the room. Not wishing to appear downhearted I waved back. I saw her again, fleetingly, but never alone. She was always surrounded by those weird types. Someone said she appeared nude in one of Ulrich Zell’s ‘happenings’ at the Edinburgh Festival in ‘67.

     It was quite a few years later when I found she had committed suicide. It was Brad who told me.

     Apparently Babe had been taken ill, seriously ill, with a rare blood disorder. She knew it could only get worse, even though no-one would tell her the facts. Brad said the blood disorder was not the whole story. Her system was 'completely wrecked' (that was his phrase) - it was drugs, it was everything. It had been ‘too much’.

     So, after a couple of months of depression she finally did it on Hungerford Bridge. She jumped into the Waterloo sunset and was gone.