Julius Holley

Post date: 18-Apr-2020 17:14:41

Gabi Weissman introduced Julius Holley to the Witches crowd early 1960s. He knew Julius from his school Quintin Grammar school, a new school built on bomb sites beside the Finchley Road - on the west side between Swiss Cottage and St Johns Wood. It was on a site next door to George Eliot primary school which Gabi and many others of us attended. Kynaston Technical Schoo was on the same site between George Eliot and Quintin GS.

Gabi said "Hey I met this kid who is a gang leader from Acton, a tough guy, who also writes poetry". That's how Jules entered the Witches scene. Julius was a very intense guy, very smart and creative, but with quite a lot of anger about him. He had a weakness for speed and many is the night I stayed up talking with him about art, philosophy, poetry, girls, our friends, music, the mod scene and he knew a lot of people at clubs like the Marquee and 100 Club.

Jules had a great gift for the gab. One night he had let himself out of my parents house in Inglewood Road, West Hampstead to buy cigarettes from a machine. He was creeping back up the stairs to my room at 4:30 am when he bumped into my father coming out of the bedroom in his pyjamas for a pee. Ernie, my father, barked at him "What are you doing creeping around my house at this hour?" Julius apologised profusely offered to leave immediately and started to jaw, jaw, talking 19 to the dozen for 10 minutes. By the end of the 10 minutes Ernie patted him of the shoulder told him not to worry and to please stay.

On another occasion I was caught by Rudy Nassaeur stealing from his wine cellar. He was in the wine trade and had 1000s of bottles in a big array of racks in the cellar. I think it was his daughter Sharon whose party it was and who invited a bunch of her friends from the Witches including me. It was in Broadhust or Compayne Gardens near Finchley Road station around 1963. As the party gathered pace. I located the wine cellar and stole 2 bottles that we drank in a communal garden nearby. I was just heading back for more and had grabbed some when I was hauled out of the cellar by my collar and jacket tails. I turned to see the angry face of Rudy, a pretty terrifying sight, shouting "What the hell are you doing in my wine cellar?" With that he shook me violently and a bottleof wine slipped out from under my jacket and smashed on the stone floor! This incensed him further and he shook me even more violetly. This dislodged the other bottle of wine which fell out and also smashed on the floor. He went wild and slapped the glasses off my face and said he was going to call the police. I was gibbering drunkenly as I crawled across the floor searching for my glasses. Up steps Jules who starts talking, talking, talking! I don't recall much but the story involved me being vulnerable, a diagosed schizophrenic out on day release from a mental hospital to which i was returning that night. I think the story included all the terrible abuse and misfortunes that had befallen me in my childhood to drive me insane. By the end of the talking Rudy was patting Jules on the shoulder and telling him to take good care of me!

One time around 1963 a guy, let's call him John, ripped me off for some grass. He promised me a pound for £30, and with some smooth talking got me to pay in advance. Too good to be true. Literally. After 4 missed meets he finally turned up and gave me a large packet containing an elaborately wrapped ounce. This was worth £7 but I managed to recoup £12. So I went around to his house in Fleet Road picking up Dave Young and Jules as backup from the Witches. John answered the door,and sussed out the situation. "If you've come 'round to get heavy with me I'll take all three of you on!" he said belligerently. Dave and I, both softies, looked askance at each other, rather taken aback. Jules said "No, its awright mate, just take me on." He stood there on one foot, chewing gum and with a smile on his face, the other leg swinging back and forth a litte, ready to kick John to Kingdom Come. John's face crumpled and he said, "not here mate ,let's talk 'round the corner, my mum's inside". We walked around the corner towards the Playhouse, when suddenly he recognised four guys in a mini diving by. He rushed up and shouted, "help me, they're going to do me over!". The car stopped and four likely lads walked over to us. Their leader, Martin Rasini said "Awright Paul, is John here giving you grief? Want any help wiv 'im?" John went meek as a lamb. He did pay me some back including £2 in the post from Jersey, when I sent him a stiff letter. I never got my £30 back in full, but I'm sure there's a lesson to be learnt here!

Julius was not only gifted with the spoken word (and street fighting) - he also had a real talent for writing poetry. To my kowledge he has never been published, yet writing and English were his passions. He was not workshy, but usually held menial jobs like cook in KFC. There was often some scam involved. He did have a tendency to be light fingered and more than once, one or more of us would be treated to breakfast by Julius in a local greasy spoon. It seemed a bit odd that he paid with a big pile of rusty shillings until one got home where he had been staying to find that the gasmeter had been smashed open! He was sort of the Witches answer to Jean Genet, a criminal writer. However I don't recall him ever getting banged up!

Julius left school after A levels - at least I think he took his exams. By then he'd written two long poems, Rivers of Blood (or Steel) and Caves of Flesh. To write more he went to stay with an older friend, a writer, in Alicante. They were walking home one night when a drunken driver lost control and smashed them into a shopfront. Julius was virtually unharmed but his friend lost both his legs and was hospitalised and may not have survived. Julius was hugely upset and deeply affected by this horrible accident, and came back home.

Julius circulated among a wide array of friends and acquainances and would turn up every now and then. He would bring presents. Books, records, things he thought worthwhile. Sometimes he would come back 3 months later and ask for them back (I usually declined). Among the books he gave me are Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar, an experimental novel, and the works of Edward Lear in a lovely collector's edition. He introduced me to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy around 1965 and said he would reread the whole thing over the course of a weekend, when he needed to clear his mind. The poets he most admired at the time were Charles Olsen and Robert Duncan, and these influenced his own poetry. He was always leaving stashes of his writings among friends. Alan Green had some, Adrian Peters, a friend from Wales had some, I have some and there are doubtless many further stashes. (Let me know if you've got some!)

He married a girl from the London Greek community and had a son before that relationship broke up. The traditional Greek wedding involves pinning money all over the bride and groom, and Jules hatched a plan where a motor cyclist would wait outside and he would rush out with all the money and speed off. More of a fantasy than a plan. The morning of my wedding to Jill, 29 July 1972, he turned up, as invited, and offered me some speed to boost my confidence. Depite my nerves (about the upcoming ceremony, not about the bride!) I declined.

When I lived in Jamaica 1982-84 he wrote me that he was studying English at Reading University. He finished his BA degree successfully and started a PhD critically examining the works of Thomas Hood. He gave me my first taste of poststructuralism and postmodern critical theory quoting Derrida, Paul de Man, and others, in a long letter full of quotes. He gave me a nice edition of Hood's works that still sits on our shelf. He was staying in a house full of West Indians in Reading and it sounded like there was "Too much Party!". I don't think he completed his doctorate

I didn't hear from him for a while. I last saw him Summer 1986 when I attended a conference in London and stayed at Inglewood Road West, Hampstead (in my mother's house, although she had decamped to Spain). We arranged for him to come over at 8 pm on Wednesday. He turned up drunk exactly 24 hours later and proceeded to ransack the kitchen cupboards until he found and drank the cooking sherry. After some chat we went back to his flat Lane around the corner in Mill Lane. There I met his charming Australian girfriend. After a while they started to have a terrible drunken row and physical fight and around midnight I snuck out of the flat, unnoticed. That was the last time I ever saw him although we had a few phone conversations.

Hanging out with Jules, was not easy. He was noisy, demanding, attention seeking. But he was intense, fully engaged with you and was interesting, imaginative, funny and very likeable. When he was drunk he could be volatile, switching between vows of undying love, crys of despair with the odd threat of violence and suicide thrown in. Above all he needed to be loved and his provocations were designed to test your love for him. Many of us, me included, found it impossible not to love him (but did not always wish to affirm it on deman, day or night! )

He was in touch with Sue Ernest in the late 80s and early 90s, and indeed visited Sue in Sweden - but has not been heard of since. Hopefully he will turn up one day!

If you look at the photos of Jules in the Gallery he aged faster and harder than anyone else. Decades of experience and life separate the photos of the sweet innocant youth of the early 60s and the decadent roue' of the mid to late 60s. He lived very hard, with lots of booze, speed, fights, regularly fleeing from one milieu to the next. He inhabited more social scenes than we will ever know. The centre of his world was always his mother: first in Acton, then Oxford and finally in Wales. He would stay with her and then be off again. He once met his father in the late 60s or was it early 70s? The meeting ended with Julius threatening to give him a good kicking! He truly practised Rimbaud's injunction that a poet must engage in a disordering of the senses. (PE)

Jules enjoying woods south Wales late 1980s - last known pics of Jules (from Adrian Peters)

Jules enjoying woods south Wales late 1980s - last known pics of Jules (from Adrian Peters)

Jules and Emma at Southerndown cliffs late 1980s

Jules and Emma at Southerndown late 1980s

The amazing geneaolgy site https://www.familysearch.org/en/ run by the mormons to save all our souls (thank you!) reveals that Julius W Holley was born in the May-June quarter of 1945 in Liverpool North to a mother with the maiden name of Holley. He was married in the first quarter of 1969 to Maria Behiri, with the marriage registered in Hendon, Middlesex. Extensive internet searches have turned up nothing else about him. There is no indication that his poetry has ever been published!

Someone who knew Julius then responded to my sniffing after his scent, a bloodhound on a detective trail in April 2020:

Hello Paul, I knew Jules in the 80s but haven’t seen him since then. He was a good friend of my ex-husband who now lives in Australia. He also went out with my mother Gloria for a while (now deceased). Is he still alive? X

I’m afraid I haven’t seen Jules since the 80s, but Adrian Peters was in touch with him for many years after that. I’m afraid that Jules took too much amphetamines and took my husband on a drinking binge every time he visited when my daughter was a baby so I did not keep in touch when my marriage ended. He was loud and aggressive, and there was no love lost. So sorry I can’t help. X

I feeel a bit humbled reading that because he could cut a swathe through people's lives and although I cared a lot for him in the 60s after that when I gave up drink and drugs it was almosti mpossible to be together because he was so extreme. I'm trading on nostalgia here. I wish you and yours all the best and a good safe life! Paul

My message to Adrian

JUL 20, 2017

Julius Holley by Adrian Peters

I attach a couple of pictures of Jules down on the beach at Southerndown in south Wales taken some time in the late 80s I guess. My sister Emma was with us and may have a better memory of the date! Also pictures of Jules in the woods at Rudry just north of Cardiff. Again I date these in the late 80s or early 90s. I probably have more but need to go rummaging in the loft. Jules had a good friend, Julie Shackson who named her daughter Rhiannan Holley after Jules back in about 1985. I've messaged her on Facebook to see if she has any news about him.

Hi Paul - fascinating glimpse into the 60s and good to see some pictures of Jules. He painted a picture of him living on the edge in the 60s in London - big cars, gangsters, carrying a gun - which he showed me. I found a collection of poems he wrote from 5/11/92 - 12/11/92 at a time when he was very troubled. His mum died on black Wednesday 16/9/92 and Jules was in pieces. I helped through the first month but couldn’t spend all my time with him. He had trouble with youth around his mum’s flat where he was living and was attacked in early November. He spent a week in the Heath hospital and started writing these poems there and continued in an intense period in his new flat. He was rehoused to a flat in Llanishen and gave me these to look after as he was out of control. I gave him the originals back about a year later but took a photocopy. Feel I need to get better facismile copies - these are photos.

Here are some of the poems Jules left with Adrian. They have a large leading margin as this thumbnail shows

Such margins have been trimmed for legibility on this site

For Susan

Willy's Melancholia

At the North Gate

Dreaming it to Make it Happen

Plan Zero

The Others

The Bird King

Here's a piece I wrote about Jules - thinly disguised - an extract of a longer piece.

...Time for a new hero figure.

Conceive of Ruby the LEAF.

Too much.

The greatest poet I know.

He'll talk to you, he'll caress the recesses of your psyche with tendrils of communication, so that your mind comes -- a silent thud in the darkened auditorium.

And then he'll steal everything of yours that isn't hot or nailed down.

(Alienation, Sussex Outlook 28, Nov, 1968, p. 4)