In late 1966 and early 1967, I spent some time in the Chichester area doing some long term contract work. For the duration, I moved down to the area, digger, Anglia van and three small dogs. These little mongrels went to work with me each day and stayed patiently on site until it was time to go home each evening. At night they’d take up residence in my van on the street because animals were not allowed at my lodgings which at the time was in a village called Street End, a few miles south of Chichester. It was the first week in January, dark, after six o’clock. I’d just gone back on the site after the xmas break and the I was making my way down the 2201 to my digs when around a particularly acute bend outside Donnington, I saw two figures leaping out from behind what looked like a Roller or Bentley. The one with the Sheepskin coat was singled for particular attention by my hounds in the back of the van, they saw a sheep’s body with a human head.

In any case, my first instinct was to put the boot down assuming that these were kids who had stolen the car and had let it run out of petrol. The bloke in the sheepskin was the most animated, gesticulating wildly for me to stop. The other chap, had a large, expensive looking camera around his neck and was smiling faintly as I pulled up. In fact, it was this fellow with the camera that prompted me to stop because I thought I recognised him from the site in Chichester. But it was the sheepskin clad fellow who stuck his head in the passenger window. He did so quite suddenly and was about to say something when my three hounds leaped into the passager seat in a tangle of tails and paws and started barking ferociously at him. He jolted back and I told him they were alright, and asked him what the problem was?

He told me he and Michael, he indicated to his photographer friend had been out "tooling around" (the first time I’d ever heard that phrase) and the car had over-heated and conked out. He told me he lived only a few miles away in West Wittering and just wanted a spin home and he’d collect his car with "Tom" tomorrow. I thought it odd that he’d leave such an expensive car there all night or not contact either the AA or the RAC. But he was adamant about it. "Nobody, will touch it". "What about the police, if they come on it?". He hesitated a bit. "Naw.." he replied. I suggested we get the car off the acute bend and push it a little further on into the grass margin. So, the three of us heaved this heavy bugger a few yards into the grass verge and the chap in the sheepskin jacket made doubly sure all the doors were locked.

I asked him was it his car. And He said something like, "it makes a bit of an impression alright, but it also gets up people’s noses, especially the bill". Michael, the photographer, said to me as we walked back to my van and the three mesmerised dogs, "this is Keith Richard, from the Rolling Stones". It didn’t register at all with me, I was thirty-two, about ten years older than them and knew nothing about the latest crop of musicians and had even less interest. But, that did explain the Bentley.

I whooshed the dogs off the front seats and into the back of the van and Keith folded down the front passenger seat and suggested that Michael sit in the back, telling me with a slightly glazed expression that I now figured wasn’t the result of a few sherberts, that "Mr. Cooper has now gone to the dogs. Better you than me in the back! They’ll probably still smell the original sheep who used to own this coat and worry me!" and he cackled.

We headed of in the direction of West Wittering and made small talk. He asked me what I did. I told him and said I was just following the work around the south-east. I scoffed that with the shennanigans that pop stars seemed to get up to that he must be just getting up when the rest of sensible population are going to bed. "Something like that", he said. "But we do work hard, touring is a killer, recording is okay if you can stay in one place for a while. I’m off to the Sates next week for a few days promotion".

"Fine for some", I said.

"Yeh, but by the time I’ll have adjusted, I’ll have to do the ten hour return journey. Ten hours back, to lose five. It messes you up".

"Oh, I bet", I said.

We pulled up at the entrance to chez Keith, I presumed it was in any case, and he jumped out. Michael rather unceremoniously stepped on the dog Scout who pierced the now frosty air with a shriek.

"Sorry, mate"

I suppose, if I’m honest, I was half expecting some little monetary reward for being the Good Samaritan not the unlikely "I’ll do the same for you sometime" that Keith yelled back as they disappeared up the drive-way.

The following morning as I went to my van to head to Chichester, I was very surprised to find a crisp white envelope under one of my windscreen wipers containing an equally crisp fiver with the message, "Many thanks, I figure this is safe here, since no-one is likely to take on your mutts. Keep on digging, Keith". I still have the note, the fiver is well gone though!