Tom Hennessey, one of the three children of Dave Tomlin, sent to the Guardian a obituary about his great dad. You can read the original Web page at this link: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2025/feb/13/dave-tomlin-obituary
Dave Tomlin obituary
"My dad, Dave Tomlin, who has died aged 90, was a
musician, writer and figure of the British counterculture underground
from the 1960s.
In 1976, he was one of those who took over the unoccupied former Cambodian embassy in London
and established a community of artists, musicians, poets, artisans and
radical metaphysicians who called themselves the Guild of Transcultural
Studies.
Over
the years, the guild became established as an opulent venue for musical
and cultural events, hosting refugees from as far afield as Chile and
China and holding concerts by musicians from Morocco and India, with
attenders often having no idea that their elegant surroundings were a
squat. A long-running court case finally forced the guild to close its
doors after 15 years in 1991, ending Dave’s dream of handing the
building back to a new Cambodian government.
Born in Plaistow, east London (then in Essex), to Stan Tomlin, a
packing-case maker, and Louisa (nee Goodsell), Dave escaped a future in
factory work by joining the King’s Guard, where he learned the bugle to
accompany the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. This was the
beginning of a life of music. He became a jazz musician in the 1950s,
playing clarinet and saxophone in Bob Wallis’s Storyville Jazz Band and
touring with Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
In the late 1960s he joined the hippy movement,
travelling nomadically around the countryside in a horse and cart,
playing in experimental folk groups, including the Third Ear Band, and
performing at the UFO Club in London, where he would go on at 4am: “Only
when the dancers are completely exhausted will they be in a fit state
to hear what we have for them."
He became part
of the London Free School in Notting Hill, a centre of radical adult
education, where he taught free-form jazz. While there, Dave led annual
musical processions down Portobello Road that would develop with other
events into the Notting Hill carnival.
Other adventures included becoming stranded,
penniless, on the island of Fernando Po (now Bioko) in Equatorial Guinea
and gaining passage back by pretending, unconvincingly, to be an
experienced cook and deckhand. He supported his frugal lifestyle with
gardening and working as a handyman.
In his
later years, Dave spent his time writing about his experiences (Tales
From the Embassy was published in 2017), practising Chinese brush
painting and learning to recite the alphabet backwards.
He is survived by three children from different relationships – Lee, Maya and me – and by his brother, Tony."
Very kindly, Tom wrote me: "I could not hope to do justice to him in the limited space available but I think it gives a good flavour of who he was.
I am very grateful to you for your friendship with Dave, it was greatly appreciated by him. He mentioned you to me a number of times. Also for your tributes to him on your blog (which was helpful to me in writing this obituary!).
We are hoping to have an event in London to remember him and we will let you know in case you are able to make the journey.
Best wishes,
Tom"
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