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There was a very warm and friendly gathering of people in The Kinks Room at The Clissold Arms, to celebrate the publishing of Pete Quaife's book "Veritas". A long-time friend of Pete's from Canada, Igor Babailov, who painted the gorgeous portrait of Pete on the inside back cover of the book, was there, as was Alan Fitzgerald, who was the original bass player of The Elmores featured in the book. Nobby and Val Dalton made the trip up and so did Debi Doss and her partner Malcolm.
Adrianne Roy, who produced the book gave a short speech which was followed by another from Dave Quaife. Together with two young actors from my drama group, I gave a dramatised reading of an incident in the book. Three tracks which Pete had written and recorded in Canada with Steve Ollerenshaw were played throughout the afternoon.
Video (by Simon van den Bergh, courtesy of the Dutch Kinks Preservation Society) of Pete joining in with the Kast Off Kinks during the Dutch Fanclub Konvention in 2004 was shown on the big screen, and then a Kinks sing-song was led by Geoff Lewis on keyboards, ably assisted by Anne-France Legris on guitar and Chris Griffiths on electronic drums. We also had intermittent guitar help from Josh, the friendly lad from the Clissold Bar. We sang along to many classic Kinks songs, including "Days" which we dedicated to Denise MacQueen and Bruce and the family.
Elisabeth Bilbo, Pete's girlfriend, was presented with a lovely framed photo of Pete from the Dutch Kinks Preservation Society.
We were also treated to wine and orange juice and dainty snacks (some of which were accompanied by a rather lethal chili sauce!)
Books were on sale of course and it was gratifying to see so many people clutching their little white paper carrier bags with the precious Veritas inside.
Veritas is a great read, and I'll post a review later.
Olga Ruocco
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