Saturday 4 December 2010

The Theft of Cliff Townshend's Name

In the late 1950s and early 60s I was living in a boarding house in Westfield Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham. The landlord called himself Cliff Townshend and told me that he had been a saxophonist in the RAF dance band known as the Squadronaires. He once played to me on his saxophone. During the period that I knew him his wife told me that they were both aged 50. She had once been one of a pair of sisters in a music-hall double act. They were childless. They moved away from Birmingham rather suddenly in the early 60s.
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Many years later I obtained an LP of the Squadronaires which has a photograph of the members of the band on the sleeve. My old landlord is clearly visible, though looking younger than when I had known him. Here is the part of the photograph showing him.

The Squadronaires had been a famous band so when the Internet became available I did a search for Cliff Townshend. I found a biography of a person with that name but he was not my landlord. He had certainly been a saxophonist with the Squadronaires but he was several years younger than my landlord and he had had children, one of them being born at the time when my landlord and his wife were in Birmingham.

This called for a further search and I found a site containing a copy of the photograph on the LP sleeve. Underneath the photograph the names of the bandsmen are listed in order. My landlord is named as Monty Levy and the name Cliff Townshend corresponds to another person. However, the names had been listed long after the photograph had been taken. Some names were omitted and there may have been errors due to forgetfulness. Thus other websites include one with a photograph showing Monty Levy as a different person and another stating that he was Scottish, which my landlord almost certainly was not.
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The lower photograph is from the LP sleeve. The listing in the website names the subject as Cliff Townshend. The listing was done by by Les Johnstone, a friend of Cliff, so this is almost certainly the real Cliff Townshend.
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Squadronaire saxophonists named on the LP sleeve are Bradbury, Lewis, Durrant, McDevitt, Levy, Townshend, Grey, Moss and Honeywell.

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It is clear that my landlord was not the real Cliff Townshend but he must have been known by that name quite generally in Birmingham. His bank account must have been in that name, for that is the name that I used on my rental cheques. I remember how at first I had to remember to include that unexpected letter h in the name.
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Who then was he? Why did he leave Birmingham quite suddenly and what happened to him? Did his identity theft lead to any legal action?
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Another strange thing is that he told me that before the war he had played in the band of the generously endowed xylophonist Teddy Brown, 1900-46. But Brown is well covered by websites and it appears that he was a bandleader only from 1926-8 when my landlord was quite young. So is it just a coincidence that W. Townsend (no h), tenor saxophone, joined Brown's band in 1927?

Any answers please!

7 comments:

  1. Cliff Townshend is the father of Pete Townshend (born in 1945 if it helps you chronologically) who is the guitarist of a band called THE WHO (maybe you have heard of them). he has two more children, Paul and Simon (1957, 1960).
    I know that Cliff played the saxophone in the Squadronaires.
    the picture you showed looks like the person in the other few picture of Cliff Townshend that I saw.

    I hope this information helps you to get to some conclusions.

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  2. Thanks "shaked." Cliff Townshend's youngest son was born when I was living at the home of the false Townshend and his wife in Birmingham. They were then aged about 50. I have added a picture of what is almost certainly the real Cliff Townshend to the blog.

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  3. Oh I see. I saw the name Cliff Townshend and I said hey I know that's name, it's Pete's father so I wrote what I know about him. :)
    This story you tell is very strange and interesting, I can't think of a reason why anyone will still Cliff Townshend's identity..
    but I thought about something, do you remember the name of that man's wife? I know that the name of the real Cliff Townshend wife is betty, and I'm doubt that the wife would also change her name...

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  4. A couple of further photos that might be of interest:

    http://www.jazzprofessional.com/profiles/SquadsSaxes.htm

    http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/85094659

    This one is another of the Squadronaires showing both Cliff Townshend and Monty Levy, though again there is the possibilty of names being mixed up.

    The second one is of Cliff and Pete Townshend, so there's little room for any misattribution.

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  5. yeah, I've seen these pictures. in the first one the one in the middle is definitely Cliff Townshend, but is the person who is named as Monty Levy is your landlord?

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  6. Why should I say that he was if he was not? The hairline and square jaw of the man standing on his left in the main photo show that this was almost certainly the Monty Levy in the other photo.

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  7. now I'm really curious. I can't think of any idea why will someone do such a thing, of course I can't know because I don't know him or his story and the number of details I know about him is close to nothing. The problem is that I can't come up with any idea how to find out, except from the internet which clearly don't have much information about it.

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