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LENNIE BUSH

Lennie's Lotus

A Gentleman of Jazz
Lennie's Lotus

Ron Simmonds remembers

While I was working in Munich during the 1960s I often returned to London for the odd session. On one of the trips I went to visit the Parnell band. The ATV job had finally shifted from the old Empire cinema in Wood Green to the Elstree film studios. As soon as I got there Lennie Bush took me for a ride in his new Lotus. Lennie wore a heavy surgical boot on his right foot which he used to crash down now and again when he got carried away on the bass. Now he was using it on the accelerator pedal. He just rested it there and the car tore away and did 200 mph at once.

In the old days Lennie, Bob Adams, Dave Goldberg, and I used to go the Odeon, Leicester Square at the end of the motor racing year to see the RAC films of all the events. Dave always fell asleep during the show, but he never missed the occasion, which was put on at midnight. I knew Lennie to be a race fan, but didn’t know he was this much of a devotee.

Lennie drove the Lotus around the film lots on the assumption that no one else in the world was going to be casually crossing the road at any time, using the entire area as his own personal Formula One racetrack. I hung on like grim death while we belted through an amazing panorama of scenes ancient and modern, most of which I vaguely remembered from some film or other in the past. At one moment we were tearing through a quiet English village, the next along a shot-up, deserted Dunkirk street, with hastily vacated cafes, abandoned vehicles, and a burned-out tank. Then through a steaming jungle, to emerge right under the pyramids, cross the desert and dive straight back again through a Hong Kong market. Lennie kept his boot rammed down on the floor at all times, eschewing the use of brakes. We did the lap record for the circuit a couple of times and then we went into the studio.

Laddy Busby greeted me inside. I was still shaking. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘Have you had a ride in Lennie’s Lotus?’

‘Not any more,’ said Laddy.

Ron Simmonds

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