Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (9 page)

“Freddie didn’t want to come across as a . . . dimwit, compared with the other members of Queen who had achieved so much,” commented Jim Jenkins, official Queen biographer and coauthor of
As It Began
. Perhaps that’s why he said he had passed O-levels which he hadn’t really. It is understandable in the circumstances.”

Freddie’s maternal aunt Sheroo Khory spoke to me about her beloved nephew from her home in Bombay’s Dadar Parsee colony. Bombay became Mumbai in 1995, when the former name was declared to be an unwanted legacy of British colonial rule.

“Even when Freddie would stay with Jer, he would always come to me after breakfast, and would spend entire days with me. He was very good at drawing, and I encouraged him. When he was eight, he drew an
excellent picture of two horses in a storm, which was signed ‘Farrokh.’ It used to hang in his mother’s house. I don’t know if she still has it.”

But once Freddie was in England, “That was it,” she said. “He never wanted to come back to India. He called himself British, he liked the more civilized lifestyle there, and most of all he liked the justice system—especially in comparison to all the corruption here in India. But he did keep in touch with me regularly. He even sent me money for an eye operation which I badly needed, and wanted to take me on a tour of Europe. He never forgot his old auntie.”

Years later, Sheroo revealed, she fell into regular correspondence with her nephew’s former girlfriend Mary Austin, trading photographs of Freddie in boyhood and Freddie the famous rock star. She also touched on the subject of Freddie’s “enemies” in England, and how she used to fear for his safety. Discussion about religion upset her, she said, especially rumors that Freddie had converted to Christianity shortly before his death.

“The whole family was extremely distressed by this news,” she said.

“It was a great blow. We were all fed up with so many heartbreaking things being said about our Freddie, all the lies being told, particularly things about him becoming a Christian. Which I am sure that he did not. Certainly not to my knowledge, and I’m sure I would have known.”

Despite reports to the contrary, Freddie returned to Zanzibar in 1963, and completed the final two years of his education at the Roman Catholic St. Joseph’s Convent School. Bonzo Fernandez, a former Zanzibar policeman who later worked as a taxi driver, knew Freddie well at this school.

“I remember he had a very good relationship with his family and had a good sister. Freddie was very well brought up. They were good, well-mannered people. We used to play hockey and cricket together. He was especially good at cricket,” he said.

“I knew that he had been away at school in India, but he never spoke about his years there. Sometimes after school we used to jump out of the window and swim in the sea, which Freddie loved to do. We also
used to swim at the Starhe Club on Shangani Street, which had a very clean beach. We’d cycle to Fumba in the south, Mungapwani in the northwest, the site of the old slave caves, or to Chwaka on the far southeastern peninsular. Sometimes a whole group of us would go. We’d swim, eat snacks, climb coconut trees. We were mischievous, but not bad. No alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes, not in our day.

“I can still see that slim and happy young boy in his short blue pants and white shirt. He was always smartly dressed, especially for cricket, when his immaculate whites would always seem whiter than everyone else’s.

“After the revolution we all departed from the island. I never knew where Freddie went, nor what became of him. Only later did I find out that we were living in the UK at the same time. Only after his death did I discover that my former classmate and close friend had become that world-famous rock singer.”

Gita Choksi’s experience was similar.

“Years later, when I found out who he became, I bought some of his recordings and enjoyed his music immensely,” she said.

“I never saw him perform live, however. I have always been disappointed about that. Another of our good school chums did go once to a Queen concert, and tried to go backstage to see Bucky. But when he managed to put himself face-to-face with him, Freddie just looked right through this poor fellow and said to him, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I just don’t know who you are.”

“That was when we all knew for sure that he wanted nothing more to do with us. The past was something he was determined to leave behind.”

4

I’m a city person. I’m not into all this country air and cow dung.

Freddie Mercury

Many people are drawn to London because of the relative anonymity. You can lose yourself in a crowd, meet large numbers of like-minded people. There’s a critical mass. London was swinging in those days. Zanzibar would have been constraining to a personality like Freddie’s, to someone with a restless spirit.

Cosmo Hallstrom, consultant psychiatrist

T
he fifties
saw a marked rise in nationalist advances against British rule. Britannia’s loss of India and Pakistan in 1947, the independence of Burma and Ceylon in 1948, and China’s social revolution of 1949 all impacted strongly on nationalist struggles in North, Northeast, and East Africa. Zanzibar was not immune. Trade unions there had begun to reinvent themselves as political parties in order to effect change. The Zanzibar National Party, founded in 1956 by the minority Arabs and Shirazi, was succeeded by the Afro-Shirazi Party, its leadership mainly of African mainland origin. Labor militancy was on the increase, and strikes were disabling many industries. Pro-Arab election results, and frustratingly poor clove and coconut harvests, incited
the masses to riot. Although independence was achieved in December 1963, imbalances in electoral representation infuriated the black African majority, and their anger flared in a radical left-wing coup. The violent Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 saw the new Sultan Jamshid bin Abdulla deposed, and Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume, president of the Afro-Shirazi Party, installed as first president of Zanzibar. Thousands were slaughtered in bloody street battles. The Bulsaras and many like them ran for their lives. Leaving Zanzibar with a few suitcases between them, Freddie’s family headed for England, where relatives had offered them refuge. They never looked back.

“That was that, as far as our family relationship was concerned,” remembers Freddie’s cousin Perviz, sadly.

“When I heard, much later on, that Freddie had become a famous musician, I was very happy that we had such a genius in the family. How proud we were of him. But he did not communicate with any of us. He never even sent us a cassette.”

Following the revolution, Zanzibar agreed to a union with Tanganyika in April 1964 in which it would remain semi-autonomous under the new name Tanzania. Zanzibaris today are laid-back, peaceful, and tolerant people—with the exception of their almost universal abhorrence of homosexuality.

*   *   *

The Bulsaras were not prepared for the culture shock when they arrived in Feltham in the London borough of Hounslow, a nondescript town about thirteen miles southwest of the capital and a couple of miles from Heathrow Airport.

“My dad had a British passport,” explained Kashmira, “so it seemed the obvious choice to come to England.”

“Freddie was so excited,” remembered his mother, Jer. “ ‘England’s the place we ought to go to, Mum,’ ” he said. “But it was very hard.”

The dull, gray orderliness of flight-path suburbia, not to mention the cold climate, were in stark contrast to what they had known in Zanzibar and Bombay. In London, they found themselves without status, salary,
servants, or mansion. Despite his government connections and track record, no official accountancy job awaited Freddie’s father. Bomi eventually found employment as a cashier with the Forte catering group, while his mother took a job as an assistant at a local branch of Marks & Spencer. Even after her son found fame, she stuck with the job for some time.

“I was struck by how conspicuous we were,” recalled Kash, who was then about twelve years old.

“Freddie was very fastidious about his appearance. Whereas he looked neat and tidy, and his hair swept back, everyone else wore their hair long and looked scruffy. I used to walk behind him because I didn’t want people to think I was with him.

“But he changed his appearance very quickly,” she went on. “He always used to take hours in front of the mirror looking after his locks.”

At eighteen, Freddie found himself in a quandary. Although anxious to spread his wings, he was still financially dependent on his parents, and therefore obliged to live at home. Well aware of all that the metropolis had to offer, remaining trapped under their roof cramped his style.

“People in small towns find it difficult to accept anything or anyone who differs from the norm,” observes James Saez, producer, writer, multi-instrumentalist, and former engineer at Record Plant, Los Angeles.

“There’s a lot of Jesus and guns in West Virginia. Growing up in Zanzibar and India, Freddie knew all about that. If you come from such places, and you’re this whole other person inside who might not find acceptance, you have
got
to get to the city. Lucky Freddie for having to move to London when he did.”

While many his age were already out there earning their own money and leading independent lives, Freddie’s parents were keen for him to continue with his education. No career in law or accountancy for their son, however. By his own admission, Freddie was simply “not clever enough” for academic pursuits. Opting instead to develop his artistic talents, he attended Isleworth College in 1966 to obtain an A level in art, moving to Ealing College of Art that autumn to embark on
a course in graphic design and illustration. He would graduate in the summer of 1969, aged twenty-three, with a diploma in Graphic Art and Design. Far from being “the equivalent of a degree,” it failed to match the scholarly brilliance achieved by his future fellow band members.

“I went to art school with the intention of getting my diploma, which I did,” Freddie said, “and then becoming an illustrator—hoping to earn my keep as a freelance.”

“He’d go out a lot, too,” remembered Kashmira, “and stay out all night. My mum and he used to argue about it constantly. And she was always going on at him to make sure he got a degree, but he was determined to do what he wanted. There was quite a lot of door slamming. But when Freddie made it, Mum was very proud.

“I only really got to know him during this period,” she added. “He would help me with my homework, and I’d pose for him when he was doing his sketches.”

During college holidays, Freddie earned pocket money in Heathrow Airport’s catering department, and also worked in a container warehouse on the Feltham trading estate. Dismissing jibes from his coworkers, who teased him for his “feminine hands and camp, flamboyant ways,” he retorted that he was really a musician, marking time.

London, the mecca of youth culture, was by now in full swing. With the pop boom on the turn, the singles market was beginning to fade in favor of LPs. Ballroom managers, finding that rock ’n’ roll “beat” nights no longer drew the crowds, began switching to straight dancing sessions. The Beatles were still the most popular group in the world, with chart competition from the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Manfred Mann, and Georgie Fame. Tom Jones, a beefy singer from the Welsh valleys, was the latest pop discovery. Sandie Shaw and Petula Clark were Britain’s most popular girl singers, and the folk boom of the previous year was on the rise. Joan Baez and Bob Dylan weighed in with political messages about Vietnam. Donovan befriended Dylan. Elvis Presley, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Byrds, the Righteous Brothers, and Sonny and Cher and other Americans, held their own in the British hit parade.
Television was taking hold, its pop programming dominated by Cathy McGowan on
Ready, Steady, Go!

Fashion, too, was booming. Mary Quant and Angela Cash ruled the design scene, while John Stephen became the “King of Carnaby Street,” at that time the Mod center of the world. Young fashion had acquired its own voices. The Who popularized Op Art designs, wearing T-shirts adorned with bull’s-eyes and Union Jacks. John Lennon did the same for the tweed peaked cap, while Dave Clark, of the Dave Clark Five and later a close friend of Freddie’s, made white Levi jeans a must-have. A lean and snake-hipped Freddie favored tight hipster trousers in crushed velvet and cord. Leather and suede jackets, satin, silk and floral shirts, and ankle boots completed the look.