Simon Geler

I first noticed Keith at Broxbourne School. I guess we both gravitated towards the long-haired, unconventional side of things. Over time we got to be good pals. Keith’s talent at art soon became apparent and was encouraged by the excellent art department that the school had at the time. 

I remember a few adventures we had at the time - we certainly had our first encounters with girls at that time. We went to a party somewhere in North London and ended up being the last people there along with a girl who had taken a shine to the both of us. The people throwing the party kindly allowed us to stay over and went to bed. I’ll draw a veil over what happened later. We ended up hitchhiking home about 6 in the morning and got a lift with a vicar who was concerned about our moral well being. Perhaps he was right. 

I turned up once at Keith’s house and his cousin Laurence was there who had cycled down from North London with his trousers rolled up. I thought that was very cool. We did quite a few bike rides around the Lea Valley. - the river towpaths were a lot narrower and more treacherous than they are today. Neither of us drove. I abysmally failed my driving test and didn’t get one until I was 30, I don’t think Keith ever tried. So we relied on cadging lifts, hitch hiking, walking, the sparse local bus service or riding bikes. The trains weren’t so good in those days either - if you went up to London for a concert you would inevitably have to leave before the encore. The bike obsession that started with Keith and I has stayed with me all my life - that’s my spiritual salvation.

We would often set off for a pub somewhere. - Hertford or somewhere in the country - end up talking to people, chatting up some girls, miss the last bus or train home and end up walking back. Arriving home at 3 wasn’t unusual and sometimes we just didn’t go to bed. That would also mean being stopped by the police at some point although they never offered us a lift home.

We’d stay up all night listening to those great albums of the time  - The Dead’s Anthem of the Sun, Quicksilver's Happy Trails, Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland.

We were always able to find deeper meanings in the lyrics than were perhaps intended (although the great songwriters will tell you that what a song means to you is most important, not what they meant to say) and we were looking for those songs that related most closely to our experience of life. 

Another time I remember walking in the woods (we spent a lot of time in Broxbourne Woods) it bucketed down and we ended up, soaked, back at my house. I remember the expression on my dad’s face when we came in like two drowned rats. 

Alcohol didn’t really mean so much to us although the social scene was down the pub so that was where we went. Some publicans were willing to overlook it if we were underage. The scene in Hoddesdon was like this: The longhairs went to the Golden Lion while the skinheads went to the Bell. Eventually the stay-prest, button down shirts and crops were replaced with mullets and wide-lapel jackets Rod Stewart style. (We liked Rod’s early records, Every Picture Tells a Story, Gasoline Alley and Maggie May and he united the clans to some extent.)

A couple of friends lived just outside Hertford and their parents were airline workers so they were away a lot. There were some mighty parties in their big house with extensive grounds. 

We devoured the alternative musical culture of the day - Hendrix, the Dead, the Doors,(the way Morrison was combining singing with poetry appealed to me along with his political activism) Michael Nesmith were our heroes. Keith knew a lot more about art than me but I think I wouldn’t have been so interested in art in my later life if it hadn’t been for him. Books were important as well  - Hermann Hesse Siddhartha I think was a strong influence, no doubt many others. I think that if Keith had survived he would have got into the spiritual side of life more deeply.

The opportunity to rent a house nearby came up but I declined - it didn’t seem the right thing for me. Keith and Ian moved in together along with a batch of young guys. Rostgaard was the electronics wizard of the house. He had massive speakers and was always designing some new gizmo. Graham was a gentle soul. How the neighbours tolerated all this is a mystery to me - those Georgian houses must have had very thick walls. There were always some half-rebuilt motorbikes either outside the house or in the kitchen as well. There was a jukebox in the kitchen which Rostgaard kept stocked up with the hot tunes of the time

We spent a lot of time playing frisbee on the recreation ground outside the house. In my memory it was always summer and we were outside walking or cycling, going to pubs, eating spam sandwiches  with crisps in the Welcome Cafe by Broxbourne Station.- the gourmet food of the time. The  Welcome also had a youth club but if you went you had to be ready in case the Hunt turned up (skinheads from Cheshunt)  . I think Keith and myself tried to keep our feet in both camps, but there was certainly a bit of  a Cultural Revolution going on. Hair got shorter, clothes less outlandish. (We were never punks!)

For a while there we were the golden group who did everything together. Inevitably though, we got kicked out of the garden of Eden we had created for ourselves. People moved elsewhere, I went to college in Sheffield to study Communications - some educators had the foresight to see what was coming in the world of IT and media and wanted to prepare people for it. Keith went to Goldsmiths but he wasn’t ready for that and ended up back in Broxbourne. He never stopped painting though and you can see so much of his mental and spiritual state through his works. He was still young. My impression though was Keith was starting to move on in his life. He had a new girlfriend and was helping out more with his family - he was always devoted to his family. 

The day I heard of Keith’s death I had been on the first of my long bike rides, cycling to the coast near Cleethorpes and camping out. I couldn’t believe it of course. We were the immortal children, nothing really bad was going to happen to us even though we had been through some difficult times. In a way I feel I was inoculated against grief by Keith’s death. I’ve lost several friends since then but none of them has touched me like Keith’s death did.