The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Cat:
in Search of the Real Procol Harum

Marcus Gray for BtP • Part 3

[Do read Part One and Part Two of this excellent story before proceeding]

Polly Rubery e-mails me back almost immediately, and takes me completely by surprise by giving me the former Elisabeth Coombs’s current married name and a fairly recent home address. She also tells me I’ve been chasing yet another false lead with regard to Elisabeth’s former partner: the man listed as David Rhys-Rowberry on the 1965 electoral roll is actually David Robert Rowberry … known as Bob. Bob, again. This looks promising … I have no idea how or why Polly knows all this, and don’t feel I can ask because she already feels short-changed when – with an instinctive protectiveness towards my ‘scoop’ that I recognise as faintly ludicrous even while I’m exhibiting it – I offer my apologies, but refuse to go into any further detail at this stage about the reason for my research into the owners of a pedigree cat …

Bob the Hook
Hang on, didn’t I just 'phone the house of a David Robert Rowberry? Could that have been the right bloke after all? Apparently not. Polly has provided me with a link to Hardcore Carvers, an arts and crafts website via which the David Robert aka Bob Rowberry I want promotes his highly inventive garden furniture, sculptures, ornaments and jewellery made from scrap metal and other recycled materials. Known as ‘Bob the Hook’ after his signature piece – yes, it’s a hook – he does the rounds of the summer festivals selling his work and conducting workshops. There’s a picture on the site of Bob looking grey haired, rustic and capable, and an e-mail contact for John Nethercott & Co of Hereford, who act as his agents for internet and 'phone orders.

I e-mail Nethercott & Co, explaining that I’m researching a piece about Procol Harum and saying that I’ve heard Bob used to hang around with the band in the mid to late Sixties. Could they put me in touch? Annie Nethercott comes straight back with Bob’s mobile number. And, in her PS, asks me if I know that the band were named after Bob’s pedigree cat … is there anyone along this trail who doesn’t know more than I do?

Again, apparently not. Ian Marchant e-mails the same day to say the character he referred to as Ash in his book was someone he used to see around from time to time whose real name was … Bob Rowberry. ‘I must admit, he actually told me the story years ago, and I just popped it into our conversation in the book.’ Which is why the version of the tale in The Longest Crawl is just a little on the approximate side.

Anonymous
Roland Clare forwards an unexpected message from Keith Reid: ‘I don’t mind answering a few questions concerning the cat.’ It’s a one-shot deal. I have a choice: play dumb and hope for unprecedented spontaneous revelation; or say what I’ve learned so far at the risk of prompting a total shutdown. I go with the latter option … and get pretty much the latter result. ‘Much as I appreciate your interest in Procol Harum’s cat, unfortunately it was all a long time ago,’ replies Reid. ‘What I can tell you with absolute certainty is that we never considered calling ourselves the Pinewoods. I didn’t know Mafalda Hall’s cat was named Pandora, or even that she had a cat. I hope that’s helpful.’

Keith Reid, 2007

Well, only up to a point, Keith, but thanks, anyway. Bob’s former line of work is probably the main reason Reid and Brooker didn’t name him in the months immediately after they formed Procol Harum, or later, and is certainly why Ian Marchant invented a pseudonym for him. Members of the Rolling Stones were involved in high-profile drug busts in 1967. Guy Stevens – a friend of the Stones’ Brian Jones – was also busted that same year, then again in 1968, leading to a custodial sentence. Neither the band nor Bob needed that kind of attention at the time. And more recently … well, people in their sixties tend to have different values and responsibilities than people in their twenties.

The Naming
I decide not to go into such potentially problematic areas when I 'phone Bob in case he Keiths me. But he turns out to be both open and affable. He says he lives a traveller’s life these days, keeping his overheads low and enjoying his work. Guy Stevens was indeed his main point of contact with the band that became Procol Harum: he was friendly with Keith Reid, too, but met him through Guy. ‘I knew Guy well. We hung around on the same scene. We used to go clubbing together, and we shared the same vices, shall we say. I also knew his wife, Diane. In fact, she came down here to visit about five years or so ago to ask me about all this stuff herself, but I never heard anymore about it.’ Yet another detective on the trail … which perhaps explains why Diane didn’t return my call.

The arrow shows Claude's new place, approximately

By 1966, Bob tells me, he and Elisabeth Coombs – known as Liz – had moved from Worsley Road to Belsize Square, also in Hampstead, and even closer to Guy’s flat. ‘Guy was round one day saying he really had to find a name for this band, really going on about it. The pedigree papers for the cat happened to be on the table, and he was looking at them while he was talking to me. And then he stopped and said, “That’s it! That’s the name!”’ How did Bob feel when the band went on to have such a massive hit? ‘Amused! You would be if the pedigree name of your pet cat went on to become a household name.’

Claude
In day-to-day life, Harun was actually known as Claude. [confirmed in a recently-discovered clipping from June 1967, right] ‘He was a posh cat, so we gave him a posh, poncey name.’ What happened to him? ‘We moved down to Wiltshire a year or so later. I left the cat with Liz while I drove over to Afghanistan, because I used to go over there in those days ... And when I got back she told me he’d just run off one day. Never saw him again.’

Did Claude ever breed, or had he been neutered? ‘I wouldn’t have had it done,’ says Bob. ‘I mean, he was a tom. He still had balls. As to whether and where he put it about, I don’t know.’ I ask if there are any photographs of the cat with his owners. ‘What, a nice little family group shot of all three of us together smiling at the camera?’ he laughs. ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath. I’m not the type to keep photos. Liz might have something.’ They’ve been separated for many years, but are still in contact. Bob offers to ask her, but when I 'phone back as arranged he says there aren’t any photos.

Liz
I’ve already decided I need to contact Liz directly. Bob is happy to talk about their famous cat, but he wasn’t Procul Harun’s official owner, and I get the impression he wasn’t really that much of a cat person. Following up Polly Rubery’s lead, I find a number for Elisabeth Rice, formerly Coombs, and she responds to the introductory explanation of my quest with both surprise and amusement. I don’t mention Bob, and neither does she.

Liz confirms that she first saw Procul Harun at Olympia, and then went down to Abingdon to pick him up from Mrs Vogt-Chapman. Also that the cat was indeed known as Claude. She tells the same story about the pedigree papers being on the table when Guy Stevens came to visit, but she is adamant that this happened after the move to Wiltshire. ‘It was a cottage in Westcourt, in the village of Burbage,’ she says. ‘It was called Half House, because half of it was thatched and really old and the other half wasn’t and had obviously been added much later.’

Burbage: click map to explore

As Guy Stevens spent some time in the early part of 1967 visiting Traffic at their cottage in the village of Aston Tirrold, then in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) just 25 or so miles from Burbage, this is quite likely. And the remoteness of the location would explain why Procol Harum needed to be told their new name over the 'phone, and why it proved so difficult for their new management, New Breed, to trace the real cat a few months later.