The Ship, Wardour St (Click to enlarge)

Dateline 1979 (ish) and I was house producer at Impulse Studios, Wallsend, UK and producing for Neat Records. I had set up a sister company, Neat Music Publishing and had done a sub-publishing deal with Bruce Welsh of the Shadows. This took care of the Neat Catalogue but the arrangement also handled my own songs. Bruce’s partner, Brian Oliver became my mentor. On one of my trips to London, Brian and I were sitting in the notorious Ship on Wardour Street. He was giving me tips on  finding inspiration for songs. “Take this pub for instance”, he said, waving his hand around the room and pointing at a poster, “you could write a song called The Duke Of Wellington”. My eyes alighted on another  poster and I replied “No, I’m going to write a song called Paris By Air”, (as the poster declared). I then described what the story would be, a young girl trapped in a council estate living a hum drum life and longing to escape.

At the time I was working with a singer called Toni Haliday (later of CURVE) and I was shopping for a record deal for her. I needed to write stuff that matched her age and attitude. Toni had told me about her life and her dreams and I saw how Paris By Air could be a vehicle to express these things. Back home in Whitley Bay I put together the song.

“I walk down the street with time on my hands,
The signs on the walls show far-off lands,
But I don’t know a soul in this neighbourhood,
Can afford the fare, I’m stuck here for good.”

A week later  I laid the track down with Toni and a bunch of mates acting as session guys, one of whom was Andy Taylor (later of Duran Duran). I played the opening riff on a Rickenbacker 12 string.

Now, at this time I was living in a Whitley Bay house shared with various members of The Tygers of Pan Tang. I returned home one evening and John Sykes asked me what I’d done that day in the studio (as he often did). I played the guys a rough mix of Paris By Air. They all loved it, particularly Rocky. And so it came to pass that the Tygers recorded Paris By Air for their fourth album, “The Cage”. This necessitated some changes of lyrics to suit a male singer. “Paris” also came out as a single and was a hit.  The album was a huge success and went top 20.