We were orphans when I first got to know Charlie Watts, thrown together in a grand, expensive orphanage. Before my time at the facility, some of the older kids had chosen The Stones as our band, their songs as our battle cries, our hymns, and prayers. It suited me. I swapped tender messages with my fellow orphans on the day Charlie died.
Martin Armiger, a member of The Sports, told me he went to a London club one night to watch Charlie’s current jazz ensemble. After the show, he was asked if he’d like to meet Charlie. A Rolling Stone? Hell, yes! He was taken to a room backstage and guided over to Charlie. “Charlie, this is the Australian musician Martin Armiger. Martin this is …”
As Martin put his hand out to shake Charlie’s, the drummer leant back against the wall and slid down into an unconscious heap on the floor. At that moment, a woman in jodhpurs and a riding jacket appeared at the top of the stairs leading down into the room. She looked at Martin and began to scream. “You f—ing arsehole. You prick. You scheming, pale-faced little turd. You unconscionable worm. You couldn’t leave him alone, could you? You had to give him the stuff.”
The woman was Charlie’s wife, Shirley. She’d been trying to get Charlie off heroin and mistaken Martin for a dealer, or enabler, some fan with a pocketful. So Martin never, quite, got to meet Charlie. But he did get to meet his wife. And what a wife. We should all have a partner in jodhpurs riding shotgun on our lives. Between them, they got him off heroin.