I'd wanted to visit the Isle of Wight for years and in February 1994, after the disappointment
of several aborted trips, I was going to go. This time nothing was going to stop me. It was
my last chance to go before the heavy-duty exam season kicked in and I had a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity waiting for me in Binstead.
My friend Polly came along with me. Although she's not really a Hanoi fan she was willing to
provide moral support. We only had two full days on Wight and the first was spent in general
exploration.
The next day, Sunday, was the big one. I was finally going to Binstead, the place where Razzle grew up and was laid to rest. It was a long walk from our B&B in Ryde, and mainly uphill in
blazing sunshine. We made a detour to check out Razzle's old school - Ryde High. It's an imposing modern but typical British high school, set in a quiet bit of town. We'd have liked to get a
better look around, but it was clear from security signs that casual visitors weren't welcome.
We made it to Binstead where the first stop was the Fleming Arms, the pub which probably would have been Razzle's local. It is a lovely old stone building but the inside was a let down, typical shabby pub decor. It seems that management changes and renovations in recent years mean it isn't as it used to be. We moved on and headed for the Church of the Holy Cross. At the bottom of one of the roads leading to it there is a grassy playing area where I could easily visualise the young Nick Dingley kicking a football around with his mates.
We got to the church via a pleasant residential side road which seemed to wind on for ages. The stone is fairly easy to find: go to the smaller of the two gates at the end of the wall and you'll find a little path which goes down between the cremation markers. Razzle's is at the end, near an older tomb. The white writing on his stone stands out clearly but I wasn't prepared for the stone to be so small. According to an elderly lady, who was there visiting her husband's grave, it's the councils fault - regulations about the size of the stones. I felt kind of cheated, it's such a non-descript little memorial. Even though the churchyard isn't the focus of memories of Razzle it is still the one place friends and fans can go to pay their respects. There were some plastic flowers on his stone and nearby we discovered Henry Dingley's grave. Mr Dingley Senior passed away in 1988. Razzle's mum is still on the island, according to the vicar, but she doesn't visit the church as often as he would have hoped. He, along with many other locals, remembers the funeral. It was a big event in such a small village - a couple of hundred people, we were told, many of them "famous in the pop world", as he put it. After the ceremony they nearly all went back to the Dingley home, and it was that home which was my real goal.
Due to good fortune I had discovered where the Dingley's former house is and I had contacted the current owner, who had generously agreed to let me look around. I was very nervous but I arrived to a friendly welcome. I was apparently the only fan the owner had allowed inside and it was pretty clear he wouldn't be making a habit of it. I have to respect his privacy so I won't give details of him or exactly where he lives.
The owner was a local lad and, like most local lads, knew Razzle distantly. In a small village like Binstead guys like Razzle stood out from the crowd. The owner had bought the house from Razzle's parents in the mid-eighties. It's a nice house, rather modern and fairly spacious. The Dingleys built it themselves on a patch of ground near their original house, sometime in the early 1970s. Obviously the place has changed but garden and the room layout are the same. As I was shown around the owner pointed out Razzle's old bedroom, a small square room which he had at one time painted black or purple. It's now just an ordinary spare room.
The owner had mentioned in his letters that there was some junk in the attic that the Dingleys had left behind when they moved. It included a number of old bottles which Razzle had collected on expeditions to ancient rubbish tips in the area. The owner's younger brother, who went to school with Razzle, had joined him on some of these trips. He offered to let me look around the attic and it was hard to conceal my excitement when I got up there. We did indeed find several of those old bottles but what interested me more were the books and boxes. Several of the books had obviously belonged to Razzle. I found one, a children's encyclopaedia, with N.Dingley written in heavy blue biro on the inside cover. The boxes were mainly full of junk, car parts and model aeroplane boxes, but I did find some 'treasure'. Young Nick had been a Boy Scout and the first thing I came upon was his woggle (used to fasten the neck scarf), closely followed by a selection of scouting badges. The owner discovered a hand-made and painted wooden boat which Razzle had likely been the maker of some time in his boyhood. It's hardly a masterpiece but I could see the effort that went into it and it was lovely to have such a personal, albeit bizarre, momento. Having taken some more bottles out of boxes I started investigating some scraps of paper stuffed around them. It was mainly rubbish but then I noticed two little squares wedged at the bottom. When I turned them over there he was, he couldn't have been more than 12 years old but the face was unmistakable. It was a fairly emotional moment, finding such tangible evidence of young Nick in his old home, after all these years.
He looks adorable, giving a thumbs-up and cheeky grin for the camera. He's wearing the typical '70s English schoolboy uniform, grey jumper, fake-fur trimmed anorak and white shirt with large, pointy collar. Those photos were amongst the things the owner let me keep and they now have pride of place in my Razzle collection. He spoke to me about what he knew about Razzle and showed me a photo of him playing in a band called Thin Red Line, who he played with before he took the plunge and moved to London at the start of the eighties. It's a rather classic photo, he's pounding away at his drumkit, wearing a 'Never Mind The Bollocks' T-shirt and sporting a rather fetching Keith Moon haircut.
All too soon my visit was over, and I had to leave for home the next morning. The trip meant a great deal to me, it made me feel closer to Razzle, in the sense that I now know more about him as a person - the real bloke rather than the public image. It can be tough for fans who feel strongly about musicians, or any kind of celebrity, especially when that person is dead. Other people often think you're stupid for bothering to care and sometimes it's even hard to justify it to yourself but that doesn't stop the hurt. I've spoken to many people who knew Razzle, almost everything they have to say is positive and that makes it harder to come to terms with him being gone and 'get over it', as is so often suggested. I didn't know about the band at the time of his death so I've never really had to deal with losing him, to me he's always been gone. But that doesn't mean we have to forget, or that those who never knew him can't still admire him and be glad he was around to brighten our lives, whether alive or not, with the legacy of his music and reputation. We fans all feel the grief over an unfair death, one which affected so many people in such devastating ways. I respect Hanoi Rocks but it's always been Razzle I related to the most. I've met Michael, Sam and Nasty and despite how much I value those memories I'd exchange every second of them just to let Razzle come back, even for a short while.