{"id":636575,"date":"2026-06-13T11:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636575\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T11:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:39:10","slug":"a-snapshot-of-life-in-chiswick-in-the-sixties-partying-with-the-rolling-stones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636575\/","title":{"rendered":"A snapshot of life in Chiswick in the Sixties – partying with the Rolling Stones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rolling <\/a> <\/p>\n

Hansons auctioneers show off letters written by Terry Wainwright\u2019s aunt Sylvia to his mother Lynn<\/p>\n

Blackpool man finds his aunt\u2019s letters to his mother which she kept for more than 60 years<\/p>\n

A collection of letters belonging to a woman who dated one of the Rolling Stones when she was young and living in Chiswick has been discovered, giving a little peek into what their lives were like in the \u2018Swinging Sixties\u2019, when they were famous, but before they became megastars, and what it was like for those caught up in their slipstream.<\/p>\n

Terry Wainwright from Thornton-Cleveleys near Blackpool was sorting through his late mother Lynn\u2019s personal effects after her death when he came across the remarkable find at the back of a drawer.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany years ago, my mum told me how in the early sixties she and her sister had briefly been dating Mick Jagger and Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones\u201d, he said. \u201cBut I never fully believed her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile working through her stuff, I\u2019ve found personal letters with messages from the band and signatures. I did my research too and all of it adds up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terry\u2019s aunt Sylvia was living in a rented flat in Chiswick and working in a clothes shop, having applied to study dress design at the Royal Academy of Art, when she started hanging out with the band in 1964.<\/p>\n

When his mum died earlier this year, aged 78, Terry found the letters which Sylvia had written to her at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were hidden at the back of a display cabinet, so were obviously long treasured by my mum\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Rolling <\/a> \"brian <\/a> <\/p>\n

One of Sylvia\u2019s letters to her sister; Brian Jones and Mick Jagger at the Marquee Club, photograph Young<\/p>\n

That party at Mick\u2019s was an absolute WOW!<\/p>\n

The cache included personal letters and one note signed by Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards.<\/p>\n

In one letter Sylvia wrote she hadn\u2019t got to bed until 5.00 am:<\/p>\n

\u201cThat party at Mick\u2019s was an absolute WOW! Everybody was there and I mean everybody. It would take me all night to write down all the names, so I won\u2019t start\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cOh Lynn, I wish you could have been there. You would have been in a dead feint when you saw all the pop stars there\u201d.<\/p>\n

She goes on that she and Keith Relf from the Yarbirds invented a little dance together:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a laugh we had. We do it to the song called \u2018Do the Crocodile\u2019, but as yet, it is a nameless dance and strictly between use two\u201d.<\/p>\n

Since 1962 The Stones had been playing regularly at the Ealing Blues Club \u2013 where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards first met Brian Jones \u2013 and the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO: Celebrating the Rock heritage of SW London<\/a><\/p>\n

They made their debut as the \u2018Rollin\u2019 Stones\u2019 at the Marquee Club in July 1962. They were back in Chiswick last year recording their 25th record album at the Metropolis Studios.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO: Rolling Stones record their 25th album in Chiswick<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Rolling <\/a> <\/p>\n

Letter signed by Brian Jones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll never guess who I\u2019ve got in the flat with me at the moment\u201d<\/p>\n

Sylvia also writes of plans for the Stones\u2019 American tour:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll never guess who I\u2019ve got in the flat with me at the moment? Three of that disreputable group called the Stones. They are busy making plans for their tour in America in April.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, she mentions \u201cJeff from the Yardbirds\u201d, references model Jean Shrimpton\u2019s sister Christine, and describes social gatherings in Chiswick packed with musicians and \u201cloads of boys\u201d.<\/p>\n

The letters give the impression of a romance with Brian Jones, the band\u2019s founder member who, a few years after the letters were written, would be found dead from an overdose at the age of just 27.<\/p>\n

One of the letters is signed:<\/p>\n

\u201cHi love! Brian here. How are you? Pity I wasn\u2019t here to see you when you come next week. Never mind \u2013 maybe someday. Lots of love, Brian.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the note which carries the signatures of Brian Jones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Sylvia comments:<\/p>\n

\u201cBrian is reading over my shoulder now. The little devil has just given me a dig for writing that. Excuse the slips [a long pen mark] but I jumped\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Crawdaddy <\/a> <\/p>\n

The Crawdaddy Club in Richmond; photograph Jeremy Fletcher\/ Redferns<\/p>\n

\u201cThe landlord will be away all weekend, so we are having a party\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Jones had a famously turbulent romantic life with high-profile girlfriends including models, actresses and musicians, including the German-Italian model Anita Pallenberg, who left Jones for his bandmate Keith Richards; and the German singer Nico, whom he introduced to Andy Warhol, which led to her role in The Velvet Underground.<\/p>\n

By the time he knew Sylvia in Chiswick he already had four children by different women. In the summer of 1964 Linda Lawrence gave birth to his fifth child. Linda later married the singer Donovan, who adopted the child.<\/p>\n

Despite the charmingly \u2018boy next door\u2019 impression Sylvia gives of him in her letters \u2013 the thoughtful boyfriend who dropped off 1,000-piece jigsaws at the flat \u2013 he did nothing to support or build relationships with his children and by October another occasional girlfriend Dawn Molloy was pregnant with his sixth.<\/p>\n

He died in 1969, found drowned in a swimming pool, his liver and heart affected by past drug and alcohol abuse.<\/p>\n

Aside from the references to the Stones and their rock & roll mates, Sylvia\u2019s letters are a snapshot of an ordinary young person experiencing swinging London \u2013 hangovers and aspirin, hopes of attending the Royal College of Art to study dress design, rented rooms in Chiswick where: \u201cthe landlord will be away all weekend, so we are having a party\u201d.<\/p>\n

The letters are now with auctioneers Hansons in Derbyshire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hansons auctioneers show off letters written by Terry Wainwright\u2019s aunt Sylvia to his mother Lynn Blackpool man finds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-636575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}