Wish I had been the first to find the real David Watts

Oakham's Big Pop Flop

say the headlines. And:

Organisers blame fantastic rumours of a rowdy and dangerous evening for failure

This is the Stamford Mercury for Friday 26 August 1966, reporting events the previous weekend:

The much publicised big beat show on Saturday night Oakham proved to be very much off-beat. With The Kinks as the star attraction, supported by three other well-known "pop" groups, the promoters hoped for a crowd of between five and six thousand on the agriculturkl show ground, but only just over 2,000 turned up.

"It was a financial failure and we're bitterly disappointed. We had hoped to raise a considerable sum for Langham village charities, Mr Tony Ruddle, one of the organisers, told the Mercury.

Special trains were put on, including one calling at Market Harborough, but they not enough to override the bad advance publicity, at least as the organisers told it.

Now, to anyone who knows their pop history, the conjunction of the Kinks and Rutland will ring a loud bell. Here's Ray Davies talking about the genesis of the song David Watts:

As Ray Davies confirmed in The Kinks: The Official Biography by Savage, "David Watts is a real person. He was a concert promoter in Rutland." He goes on to relate how the real Watts was gay and demonstrated an obvious romantic interest in his brother Dave Davies. In this light, lines such as "he is so gay and fancy free" and "all the girls in the neighbourhood try to go out with David Watts... but can't succeed" provide a second level of interpretation based on this ironic in-joke.

The band members were invited back to Watts' home for a drink one night after a concert. Ray Davies recalled to Q magazine in a 2016 interview: "My brother, Dave, was in a flamboyant mood and I could see that David Watts had a crush on him. So I tried to persuade Dave to marry David Watts because he was connected with Rutland brewery. See, that's how stupid my brain was."

If we're talking about the Kinks meeting a Rutland pop promoter, it must surely have been at the failed Oakham event.

So I searched the local papers for the name David Watts and came up with nothing - the organisers mentioned were all members of the Ruddle family. (Ruddle's beers had a vogue in the Eighties, so much so that they became easier to find in London than Rutland. Then the Ruddle family sold out to Watney's and their brewery at Langham was closed and demolished.)

There was one tantalising glimpse of a David Watts though. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, the dart players of Oakham competed for the David Watts Trophy. 

And then I found an online obituary for a Major David Watts.

David Watts, who died on 16 September 1990, joined the 3rd Hussars at Sarafand in Palestine in 1946, having recovered from being severely wounded while serving with the 1st Royal Tank Regiment in Normandy.

He was one of those men of whom it is true to say that he was devoted to his Regiment.

Although he carried out two appointments on the staff with competence and flair, he was first and foremost a Regimental soldier with the 3rd Hussars, The Queen’s Own Hussars and very happy and successful as Training Major with the Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry.

And so on until you reach:

After retiring, he lived in Rutland and worked in the brewing industry for a short time before going back to Devonshire where his family have lived for many years.

I don't know how much truth there is in Ray Davies's recollections, but this Major must be our man.

For a few days I felt very pleased with myself, then I discovered that a Kinks Facebook page had got there three years before me. I knew how Captain Scott felt when he reached the South Pole only to find Amundsen's Norwegian flag flying.

I am just going outside and may be some time, so I'll leave you with the Kinks.