Not Fading Away - by Tim Bouquet

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Not Fading Away by Tim Bouquet

about the author

Tim Bouquet is a journalist and author. He started writing music profiles for The Guardian, NME and The Face, including the Rolling Stones, the Ramones, John Cale, ZZ Top and Joan Armatrading. He now writes investigative features for The Times Magazine, Daily Telegraph Magazine and Reader's Digest specialising in international organised crime. His work is syndicated in the USA, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. He is author of Cold Steel: Lakshmi Mittal and the Multi-Billion-Dollar Battle for a Global Empire. He also teaches creative writing and journalism.

Bringing together Keith Richards, our forces in Afghanistan and Vintage TV in one sentence might seem strange but the links are as strong as the five signature notes of ‘Satisfaction’ that according to Newsweek ‘shook the world’. In the same week in October that Keith’s long awaited autobiography Life, chronicling the rock and roll circus that is the Rolling Stones, was published I signed the contract for my next book. It is about 617 Squadron, better known as The Dambusters. It is not about Guy Gibson, the famous raid or the movie and its classic Eric Coates theme tune that everybody over a certain age can whistle at will. It is about today’s Dambusters, 140 men and women who deploy to Afghanistan in Tornado jets early next year. Between missions many of them will be hooked into their iPods; a musical touch of home to keep fear at bay. Maybe they will be listening to the Stones, just as many of our forces videos uploaded on to You Tube feature ‘Street Fighting Man’.

How do I know all this? I have already spent time with 617 Squadron and know their musical likes alongside their G-force flying expertise. I will be deploying to Afghanistan with them, iPod in hand to muffle the sound of fast jets screaming off the tarmac at hours of the night when rock stars are at their primal best.

I also know that there is only one rock star who is as passionately knowledgeable about all matters military as he is about Chuck Berry or BB King: Keith Richards. How do I know this? I started life as a rock journalist—a memorable journey in the company of various Ramones, Stranglers, Temptations and ZZ Tops—but a standout interview happened in a riverside suite at the Savoy Hotel in London with Mr Richards who along with Bob Dylan wrote the soundtrack to my musical life. Surprisingly he was just as interested in talking about how his library in Connecticut bristles with volumes of military history—“all read; none’s for show” —as the Stones’ new album/upcoming Wembley gig or the latest spats with Sir Mick. “American Civil War, World War II, medals are for people that earn them,” the Exile on Main Street told me, dismissing Jagger’s knighthood with the flick of a cigarette.

So the segue some years later of this rock writer turned military author to work on the launch and programming of Vintage TV was natural. As natural in fact as the vintage Videos that feature classic Stones and period documentary footage being given new life with the zip of contemporary editing. That’s the Vintage style and the Stones style: To be true to the roots but still here and still now.

Vanity says it’s nice to think of Keith curled up in front of Vintage TV’s programming, a copy of my book on his Connecticut shelves. Reality says that coming out of my iPod on Kandahar airbase will be a line that he wrote for all of us, one which our young aviators know only too well: ‘You can’t always get what you want, but you just might find you get what you need.’ More Vintage TV is what we need more of.