Martin Power - No Quarter: The Three Lives of Jimmy Page

Copyright 2016 Omnibus Press

This edition 2016 Omnibus Press

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Source ISBN: 9781783058211

Ebook Edition OCTOBER 2016 ISBN: 9781783235360

Version: 2016-10-14

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Music is the one thing that has been consistently there for me. Its never let me down

Jimmy Page

J ames Patrick Page was born on January 9, 1944 at the Grove Nursing Home in Heston, a small but verdant suburb of the London borough of Hounslow, neatly situated about ten miles from Big Ben and the political centre of Englands capital city. Owned by King Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth in the 1500s, by the time of Pages arrival, Heston was perhaps best known for the aerodrome that sat imposingly on the outskirts of town, expansion of which from a small airfield to a major international airport began the year of Jimmys birth. Originally called London Airport but renamed Heathrow in 1966, it was still known as Heston Aerodrome when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich in September 1938 for appeasement talks with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Some two weeks later, Chamberlain returned to Heston clutching a piece of paper in his hand that declared Peace in our time. He was being a tad optimistic. Within a year, the Nazis invaded Poland and Great Britain was at war with Germany for the second time in as many decades. Soon, the rest of the world was involved too.

The war was still raging when Jimmy was taken from Grove Nursing Home to his parents house at 26 Bulstrode Road in central Hounslow a day or so after his birth. Though the awful, nightly bombing raids that defined The Blitz of 1941 had receded somewhat, London was still a very dangerous place to be as German V1 and V2 rockets soon took up where Luftwaffe planes had left off, the new doodlebugs targeting the city and its citizens with ruthless efficiency and deadly accuracy. Difficult times then, especially for those raising a newborn. Thankfully, the Page family seemed to have matters in hand.

Jimmys father, James Page from whom Jimmy took his name was in his mid-twenties when his son came home. Born in 1917, James could easily trace his own family history back to his paternal great-grandfather, Thomas Page, whose thriving carpentry business had employed seven men in Banbury, Oxfordshire during the 1870s. And it was in Banbury that James own father, Herbert Miller Page, was born in 1879. A nurseryman by trade, Herbert had his fair share of ups and downs to contend with early in life. Soon after the Page clan moved north from Banbury to Bottesford, Nottinghamshire, Herbert lost the sight of one eye when he was struck by a rebounding air gun pellet fired by his brother John. A horrible thing to befall anyone, Herberts bad luck was reported in the local paper at the time. Such a distressing accident has evoked much sympathy for the young Mr. Page and his family. It didnt hold Herbert back either romantically or socially. Marrying Florence Wilson three years his junior and originally from Southampton, Hampshire the couple had three children, Gladys, Norman, and then after a ten-year gap, Jimmys own father, James.

Jimmys mother, Patricia whose epithet provided the inspiration for his second name, Patrick had an equally interesting family background. Born in Croydon in 1925, Patricias own parents were John and Edith Gaffikin, though as her fathers Gaelic-sounding surname suggested, there was northern Irish blood in her veins. Indeed, tracing the Gaffikins history back a generation or two, Patricias father, John, two of his four brothers and his own mother, Jeanie, were born in Belfast and Donaghendry, County Tyrone, respectively.

A young couple by todays standards (though certainly not at the time), James and Patricia Elizabeth Page had been married nearly three years when Jimmy came along. They had prepared admirably well for his arrival. Like Patricias father, John who sadly died before his daughter wed on April 22, 1941 the studious James had found a promising office job in the local aircraft industry, working as a wages clerk. Soon, he would rise to the position of Industrial Personnel Manager, again an extremely respectable role. After a youthful start in the catering trade, Patricia too put her skills to excellent use, becoming a doctors secretary after Jimmy reached school age.

Though central Hounslow was a comfortable enough spot to put down roots, proximity to family and possible work connections may have played a hand in the Pages decision to leave the town and move further south to Feltham while James Jr. was an infant. Still nominally in the borough of Hounslow if now on the other side of its rangy heath Feltham was in essence much the same as Heston where Jimmy was born: similar transport links to central London, similar look, similar village feel and, again, once owned by King Henry VIII. But perhaps of greater importance was the fact that Feltham was a good deal closer to James and Patricias relatives who lived near the town, thus creating a stronger support network for all concerned. Additionally, Feltham was the base of Menzies Aviation, which like fellow employer The Heston Aircraft Company, may well have been useful to James Page when considering his long-term career prospects.

Another plausible reason for the Pages move to Feltham was the fact that the Nazis had stopped bombing it, as they had indeed stopped bombing most everywhere else by the spring of 1945. The site of Britains second largest railway marshalling and freight yard, Feltham had been the target of repeated air strikes but now as throughout the rest of Europe its residents could sleep soundly in their beds once again. Nevertheless, like the rest of Europe, the onus was very much on picking up the pieces. After years of conflict and the death of millions, towns, cities and countries had to dust themselves off, clean up the rubble and start again. For Feltham, London, England and Great Britain as a whole, this meant a decade or so of avoiding falling masonry or plunging into craters left by bombs and rockets while the process of slow re-building took place. In this oppressive, grey post-war atmosphere, money was tight and food rationing abounded. Prosperity would eventually return, but Jimmy Page was unlikely to get his first proper chocolate bar for another eight years.

It could have been worse. While Page had to wait a while to discover the joys of the cocoa bean, he at least wouldnt have it snatched away by fellow siblings, as he was to remain an only child. The subject of much psychobabble, only children are meant to be many things, quite a few of them negative: slow to share, excessively private, over-protected, unduly sensitive and, sometimes, just plain odd. On the upside, however, such children were also said to have fine, positive traits including high levels of independence and academic achievement, good organisational skills and strong attention to detail. They also mature faster. In later life, Jimmy would display some, if not quite all of these. But like all only children, the biggest hurdle for him to overcome at the time was socialising with other kids.