March 1967, London
While I’m in the glow of the Stax/Volt show from earlier in the week, I know that dealing with Franklin, my first boyfriend is taking a toll. In the weeks before, we’d been to a party at the same house where we first met. He had ignored me for most of the evening until I started chatting with a handsome Peruvian doctor named Tony… Afterwards, Tony and I hang out together (during which time I tell him of my love for soul music and, no lie, he says a friend of his in California has been working with a female singer named….Lorraine Ellison, I kid you not!). Matters worsen when one Saturday morning, I’m at Franklin’s flat and a man he says is his ‘cousin’ arrives. Franklin leaves the two of us together and when he returns shortly thereafter, the title of a Jerry Butler record from 1964 takes on a different meaning when wrongfully ‘I Stand Accused’ by Franklin of cheating with his cousin! I leave only to find that I’ve been literally robbed by said cousin who has taken £7 out of my jacket pocket in all the furore. Time to split from Franklin…but how do I break up with him? It’s Friday night, March 30, I’m at Franklin’s place. ‘I have something to say to you and I’m going to let this record say it for me…’ Diana, Mary & Florence, The Supremes: ‘Set me free why don’t you babe, get out my life, why don’t you babe, cause you don’t really love me, you just keep me hangin’ on…’. Franklin is furious: ‘Are you breaking up with me?’ An hour later after much heat, I leave in tears and head over to my dear friend Enid’s flat close by for consolation and understanding…
