One afternoon in late November 1979 we had a meeting at the Havas house to decide on a name for the band. Graham and Nick’s family lived up in the village about a mile from us in a modern house at the end of a lane that looked out over a builders yard. Rising up behind this yard was a group of tall trees at the top of which was a large and often quite riotous rookery and hidden just beyond the trees was The old bull inn, the church, the village green and the main road to Worcester. So on this typical, grey November afternoon we stood around the dining table and wrote out a list of possible names on a sheet of paper.
I don’t remember them all but one was ‘The Urchins’ which I think was linked to remarks aimed at Justin and I when we were growing up. We were very skilled at avoiding haircuts and were the only boys in our schools with long hair. We caused quite a stir and many comments, overwhelmingly derogatory, from students, teachers and the general public alike. Our favourite one was when we heard the voice of a woman from a car that had ventured down our lane saying “Oh Look! … wild children” as we disappeared into the undergrowth.
‘The frozen ones’ was another, after an ‘Ultravox!’ song… then there was ‘The white lines’ - a pretty desperate idea I had whilst walking home after the pub with Graham late one night. It was a reference to the road markings not Cocaine or ‘sulph’ as such degenerate practices were unknown to us at that time. The only other one I remember was ‘The silent onlookers’ which wasn’t too bad.
Anyway, to make the event a bit more dramatic we all wrote our preferred name on a strip of paper and put it in a bowl. Of course the unanimous winner was the title of our song that went “ Green is the sea… etc”.