Maurice Bacon was still a schoolboy when he shot to the top of the charts as drummer with the pop group, Love Affair. He now balances his commitments in music management with organising events on his own land in Loxwood, including a hugely popular mediaeval festival. Here, Maurice describes his journey so far…

My uncle Max Bacon was an entertainer and played drums for Ambrose and his Orchestra. My cousin Victor Feldman was also a successful jazz musician, recording with the likes of Benny Goodman and Miles Davis. He was a child prodigy and even from a young age was drumming at the 100 Club, which his family founded (initially as Feldman Swing Club). My father, Sidney, was also a drummer and met my mother while touring in Ireland. Music was always in the family and I grew up playing drums. 

My grandfather ran a successful company and when he passed away, my father (the youngest of three brothers) decided to stop playing drums to focus on the business. But he maintained a passion for music and formed a band for me in 1966, when I was only 14. He placed an advert in Melody Maker appealing for musicians, and hired John Cockell to help manage us. 

We initially called ourselves the Soul Survivors. Steve Ellis was a great vocalist and we also had a fantastic keyboard player, Morgan Fisher, who was later in Mott the Hoople. When I was 15, I played regularly at London clubs like The Speakeasy and The Marquee. I would get home at 2am and have to get up for school, where I’d often doze off or tap the table constantly to a drum beat! I was eight weeks away from being allowed to leave school, but my teacher said I could go early with the permission of my parents. As my father was my manager, that wasn’t a problem! 

The band changed its name to Love Affair and our first single, a cover of ‘She Smiled Sweetly’ by The Rolling Stones, was released by Decca in February 1967. It was produced by Mike Vernon, who later worked with Fleetwood Mac, but failed to break into the Top 40. 

After I left school, we became a professional band and hit the road. This was a time before discos and even village halls would regularly host live music from successful bands and orchestras. We were mostly playing covers and were big fans of The Small Faces (we were on the bill when they headlined an Aberfan charity concert at the Albert Hall) and loved to play songs like ‘Itchycoo Park’. We were still in the midst of Beatlemania and girls would scream at you. I still meet people now who once had pictures of me on their bedroom wall!

Once we were gigging regularly, we built momentum and nine months after our first single, we released a cover of ‘Everlasting Love’. I was 15 when it first charted and by the week of my 16th birthday, it was at number one. It was strange, as we were still playing tiny venues for £35 a night, because we’d been booked three months in advance. We could have sold out 10 times over!

We went on Top of the Pops five times to play ‘Everlasting Love’, twice as it rose up the charts and then for three successive weeks at the top. The problem was that I was 16 and members of most other bands were in their early twenties. Even the other guys in Love Affair were a couple of years older than me. They were still young, but I was a child who still lived with his parents, so I wasn't exactly living the rock 'n' roll life. I wish I’d been a little bit older when I experienced this success, as I would have had much more fun. 

We enjoyed great success over a two year spell ‘(Rainbow Valley’, ‘A Day Without Love’ and ‘Bringing on Back the Good Times’ all reached the Top 10) and we starting playing 2,000 capacity venues. However, we grew increasingly frustrated by the sound quality, which is one of the reasons why The Beatles stopped touring. PA systems weren’t good enough and when you had a room full of screaming girls, you couldn’t hear yourself play.  

by 1970, underground rock acts like Yes and King Crimson were emerging and the teenyboppers were fading away. I left Love Affair to join a prog rock band called Morgan, named after our keyboard player. We considered ourselves to be “proper” musicians, not teen idols, and were on a mission to prove it. We signed a deal with RCA but missed a trick by failing to make the songs commercial and sales were disappointing. There has been a prog rock revival and over the last decade we’ve sold more records than we did when they were first released, although it’s still a niche audience. 

Shortly after Morgan disbanded, my father passed away and it hit me hard. He was like a guru to me and I loved him dearly. I was only 21 but he’d been my guiding light and without him I wandered aimlessly for a few years. I then started playing drums for John Otway and later became his manager. I started learning about the business side of the industry: recording, publishing and booking venues. 

I was also involved in music video production. I met Derek Burbidge, a pioneer of promotional videos who worked with The Police and Queen. We became friends and I helped him produce a programme to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Marquee. This led to a long period producing videos of tours and concerts around the world with artists including Chaka Khan, Eurythmics and Jimmy Page. I also worked on TV shows including Swank and Scoff, both starring Dawn French. 

By the 1990s, I was managing a French artist, Guesch Patti, (best known for her 1987 hit ‘Etienne’) and had a catalogue of music. I was heavily into management at this point but then I met Andrew Winters, an A&R rep, and formed an independent label, Ultimate Records. We were a successful label with bands like The Belltower and Senser, who sold 100,000 copies of their 1994 debut, Stacked Up. This helped us establish a sub-label called Planet Dog, which released electronic music by the likes of Banco de Gaia and Eat Static. 

Unfortunately, Andrew became unwell and I moved back into management, which has included Kula Shaker for 14 years and the Mediaeval Baebes for 25 years. Towards the end of the 1990s, the Mediaeval Baebes were performing at renaissance festivals in America, where they create stunning Tudor villages. Some of these events were hugely popular, which made me think about doing something similar over here. 

I hired Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. The idea was to stage battle re-enactments and jousting with mediaeval music. It turned out to be more popular than I imagined and over the first weekend, 7,000 people turned up. We continued to host it annually, attracting 24,000 people over two weekends at its peak. But then in 2007, there was extensive flooding in Gloucestershire which affected the site, so I made a decision to move and buy my own land.
I bought Loxwood Meadow and woodland and remember lying in bed thinking, “What do I do now?”

At Berkeley, the estate staff did everything and all we had to do was turn up and run the event. Now, I had a 30-acre site that needed managing and I had no idea what to do! But over the years, we’ve learned how to look after the land by grazing sheep in the winter and taking a crop of hay in the summer. We produce Loxwood Meadow Honey from beehives and together with Cabin Pressure Spirits (a Horsham-based gin company) we use the sloes from the land to make Loxwood Meadow Sloe Gin. My son Danny has a mead company too, which produces Loxwood Meadow Mead. We’re a family business and it’s great working with him. The meadow is a magical place too and in the Enchanted Woodland, when the sun shines through the canopy, it’s amazing.

The first Loxwood Joust was in 2012 and it has grown organically since, mainly by word of mouth. We have battle re-enactments, jousting and the Living History Village and we’ve added interactive activities including a blacksmith and a sword school. There is also a fantastic banquet with its own entertainment and food by award-winning Garlic Wood chefs. 

In 2019, we started another event with Simon Bates from Loxwood Jazz Club called Jazz, Gin & Blues, which has been very successful. The event is a chilled Sunday in the woodland with music and gin. We also host other events including the Country Brocante Fair and in 2020 we put on drive-in movies. A few screenings included an introduction from a special guest with a connection to the film, with the lovely Julie Walters joining us for Mamma Mia.

There was a time when I didn’t like talking about Love Affair. I wanted to be taken seriously as a manager or a record label boss, yet people always asked me about that period of my life. Now, I’m more chilled about it. I’m still in touch with other members of the band and recorded a track with bassist Mick Jackson recently. ‘Everlasting Love’ was featured in the movie Belfast and returned to the download chart 55 years after its release. I was 15 when it came out and if you’d told me then that I’d still be receiving royalties from it when I was 70, I’d have thought you were crazy! 

For tickets and information visit www.loxwoodjoust.co.uk