Article by Michael 'Chips' Raftery. MT 38 June 2000

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We moved the Amethyst Club to the Black Horse in Upper Bond Street for a final fling that lasted until December. The trio folded about the same time. Pete and I did a couple of gigs together (one of them at Steve Cartwright's Doll's House Club in Shilton) before he went off to Canterbury Art College. It was while he was there he met and joined the rock band Caravan, playing electric voila, and he toured the world and made three albums before they disbanded. Since then he has played with The Penguin Café Orchestra (which ceased before Christmas last due to the death of their guitarist - Ed). In my opinion Geoff Richardson is the best rock musician to emerge from Hinckley.

I was at University in London between 1969 and 1972. In the summer break of 1971 I teamed up briefly with Steve Cartwright's Chicago Cottage. We did a session for Radio Leicester in the old cattle market studios. I don't remember what I played on, but I do recall sitting in the Radio Leicester outside broadcast van parked in the yard listening to Steven and the girls (with some double-tracking) doing a great version of Chinese White, the Incredible String Band number.

After university I met up with Steve again and I was immensely impressed with what he had achieved in the meantime. He had written songs. He had a studio. He had a rock band, Wellington, which sounded terrific. I was a fan, I went to all their gigs. Then their lead guitarist, Keith Krykant, left and Steve invited me to step in. This, frankly, was a bad move on his part.

I was a folk guitarist. I had never played electric guitar in my life and this was the age of the guitar hero. Wellington needed someone like Brian May and it got me instead. I have to say this of Steve: in the matter of music he has often put heart before head and has not always chosen the best people for the job. I have known him play with people who couldn't play at all, just because he felt right with them. For me, Wellington was an enjoyable mistake, but in spite of the fact that the mix in the band was wrong, we were popular and got plenty of work, doing Steve's original material on the college circuit and covers in the clubs.