David Bowie (1947 - 2016): Remembering our local legend who died ten years ago
Ten years ago on 10th January 2016 the world received the sudden, unexpected and very sad news that David Bowie had passed away. Tributes poured in from around the globe. Radio stations interrupted their schedules to play selections of the numerous hit songs by a man eulogised by listeners as ‘star man ... game changer ... the soundtrack of our youth.’
Immediately in our local towns of Beckenham, Brixton, Bromley and Croydon people took to the streets in tribute to David Bowie. Songs were sung and shrines were erected. Born in Brixton in 1947, Robert David Jones alias David Bowie alias Ziggy Stardust essayed his early musical ventures in Beckenham and Bromley during and after his attendance at Bromley Technical School in Keston.
David Bowie is prominently featured in our Cray 150 local history book Sign Here! (2024). Our book describes how famous former residents of the London Borough of Bromley are commemorated by various blue plaques, monuments, murals and other forms of tribute. There are many locally situated reminders of David Bowie the international glam-rock superstar who dominated the pop music charts and major festivals throughout four decades.
There is also a David Bowie tribute featuring the fictional Inspector Gledd of Scotland Yard. How does David Bowie connect with a detective who uses the game of chess to help him solve crimes? The answer lies in the story enitled Absolute Beginners which also is the title of a David Bowie song. The story was published in the July 2025 monthly issue of CHESS magazine (Vol. 90 no. 4) but if you didn’t see that you now can read and enjoy our story on this page of the Cray 150 website!
Ten years ago on 10th January 2016 the world received the sudden, unexpected and very sad news that David Bowie had passed away. Tributes poured in from around the globe. Radio stations interrupted their schedules to play selections of the numerous hit songs by a man eulogised by listeners as ‘star man ... game changer ... the soundtrack of our youth.’
Immediately in our local towns of Beckenham, Brixton, Bromley and Croydon people took to the streets in tribute to David Bowie. Songs were sung and shrines were erected. Born in Brixton in 1947, Robert David Jones alias David Bowie alias Ziggy Stardust essayed his early musical ventures in Beckenham and Bromley during and after his attendance at Bromley Technical School in Keston.
David Bowie is prominently featured in our Cray 150 local history book Sign Here! (2024). Our book describes how famous former residents of the London Borough of Bromley are commemorated by various blue plaques, monuments, murals and other forms of tribute. There are many locally situated reminders of David Bowie the international glam-rock superstar who dominated the pop music charts and major festivals throughout four decades.
There is also a David Bowie tribute featuring the fictional Inspector Gledd of Scotland Yard. How does David Bowie connect with a detective who uses the game of chess to help him solve crimes? The answer lies in the story enitled Absolute Beginners which also is the title of a David Bowie song. The story was published in the July 2025 monthly issue of CHESS magazine (Vol. 90 no. 4) but if you didn’t see that you now can read and enjoy our story on this page of the Cray 150 website!
Inspector Gledd was glad to have Detective Sergeant Timmy Tuns for his new assistant at Scotland Yard. A long career from station to station in the Met had given Tuns abundant experience of the London underworld. Earlier in the year Gledd had been lumbered with two fresh-faced young assistants promoted via the fast-track graduate training scheme. ‘I can’t work with these two! I’m under pressure and they’re useless: they’re absolute beginners!’ Gledd had loudly complained. His superiors had agreed to add Timmy Tuns to his staff.
Tuns had a big redeeming feature: he could play chess. Gledd was an enthusiastic player too. They played on Gledd’s pocket set whenever they could. The murder of Michael Mars was a puzzle. The unfortunate youngster had been killed by a single gunshot to the back of his head. His body had been found in the narrow alleyway behind the row of terraced houses in Moonage Road where he was renting the downstairs flat at number nine. The alleyway was not a public thoroughfare: the only people likely to use it were residents for purpose of taking dustbins or garden waste to the front of the road on bin collection day. That most likely was what Michael Mars had been doing one Monday evening when he was shot by his killer, for his body was found on the Tuesday morning.
Gledd and Tuns had brainstormed the case but hadn’t found evidence of anything in Michael Mars’s private life, family life or work life to explain his dramatic demise. None of the neighbours recalled hearing any rumpus inside or outside Michael Mars’s flat. All of them agreed however that there had been a noise like a gunshot after darkness had fallen on the Monday night. Gledd’s young officers had reported that their search of the flat, the back garden and the alleyway had yielded no clues. They had described the alleyway as flyblown and filled with overgrown weeds and shrubs. The surface was dried mud with patches of unhealthy-looking grass gone brown. There had been no footprints near the body.
‘I have a horrible feeling about this case,’ Gledd had moaned.
‘You’ll solve it,’ Tuns insisted. You’re the star man at the Yard.’
'Hmm - well unless you’ve got any bright ideas, I’m checkmated.’
‘Me solve it, sir? Not likely. The golden years of Timmy Tuns are a thing of the past.’
Tuns turned the ignition key to start the squad car and return to Scotland Yard. There was a flat click. He tried again. The battery sounded flat. Tuns used his two way radio to contact the Yard. ‘They’ll send a mechanic as soon as they can, sir.’ ‘We might as well continue our game,’ decided Gledd, taking out his pocket chess set. He opened the lid and twisted the box round for Tuns to have the white pieces. ‘It was you to move.’
There was silence in the cabin as the two players concentrated on the chess board and each made a few moves. ‘Tell you what, sir,’ Tuns suddenly exulted. ‘The old brain might be slowing up nowadays but what do you reckon on THIS!’ And so saying he picked up a knight and planted it on a new square with a flamboyant thump. ‘Check!’ To his horror Gledd saw that he had carelessly left Tuns an opportunity to move knight to bishop six, forking Gledd’s king and queen. ‘You win the game,’ Gledd conceded. ‘I didn’t see that coming. I was having a daydream.’
ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ
The car mended, they had driven half a mile when Gledd suddenly shouted: ‘I’m an idiot!’ ‘Oh goodness, sir, it was only a game of chess,’ Tuns nearly said. But Gledd forestalled him. ‘Drive to Moonage Road,’ he commanded. ‘I need to look at that alleyway.’ ‘The knight fork!’ Gledd was feverishly repeating in his head. ‘Two things attacked at the same time ...’
ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ
Alighting from the car at the end corner of Moonage Road a determined-looking Gledd strode purposefully along the back alleyway. He counted the number of each house: ‘One – three – five – seven – nine: this is where Mars lived and his body fell to earth behind number seven.’ ‘They said this place was flyblown didn’t they?’ Gledd turned to face his colleague. ‘See anything?’
‘Spiders?’ Tuns ventured, having noticed several silvery webs draped across the bushes. ‘No, you dolt, look properly.’ Tuns swivelled his head back and forth, noting that there were flies buzzing and swooping. But as most of the residents kept their dustbins in their back gardens or in the alleyway, surely the hot weather would attract flies?
‘There,’ announced Gledd, pointing at a clump of heavy undergrowth behind house numbers three and five. Sure enough now that Tuns came to study it, the flies seemed to be homing in to that particular spot. Gledd pounced on an old broom lying against a garden gate. ‘Let’s have a poke around,’ he said taking the broom to the clump of bush that was interesting him. There was a strong smell: a mixture, Tuns thought, of rotting vegetation, animal excrement and the stale aroma from dustbins generally. But was there something more? His nostrils were starting to detect a smell that he reluctantly could identify.
It didn’t take long to cleave a sufficient gap into the shrubbery to reveal the remains of a human body lying inside. ‘Dumped there, wouldn’t you say, sir?’
‘The nincompoops!’ Gledd exploded. ‘The absolute beginners! They were supposed to have searched this alleyway!’ He was thinking of his two young officers.
‘Fancy there being space here for two murdered bodies, sir. What an oddity.’
‘Graduates!’ Gledd spat. ‘From the university of short-sighted clueless idiots, if you ask me.’
The body was identified as Larry Low, a petty crook turned informer. ‘Low was one of my best snouts,’ Gledd mused wistfully. ‘He helped me put the Blackstar gang away. Scary monsters, they were. They got five years.’
‘Looks like Low was executed after he grassed up the wrong guy,’ offered Tuns.
‘And of course young Michael Mars was unlucky,’ concluded Gledd. ‘He disturbed them when they were dumping Low’s body so they shot him dead.’
‘When you’ve traced the villains and they’re convicted of double murder it will all be hunky-dory,’ Tuns predicted.
Gledd was pleased with his inspired hunch that there might be a second victim to be found at the site of Michael Mars’s murder. But his vanity wouldn’t allow him to be pleased that it was the knight forking his king and queen that had given him the train of thought. Gledd would never say it publicly, but secretly he had hated Tuns beating him at chess.
‘I played like an absolute beginner!’ he hissed in disgust.
ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ
David Bowie had a string of hit singles and albums to his name. His career began at the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham, Kent. His backing group was the Spiders from Mars. His hit singles and albums included: Absolute Beginners - Under Pressure - Moonage Daydream - Golden Years - Space Oddity - Blackstar - Five Years - Station to Station - Life on Mars - Star Man - The Man who Fell to Earth - Low - Scary Monsters - Hunky-Dory.
This story was kindly accepted by CHESS magazine editor Richard Paliser for publication in the monthly issue Volume 90 No. 4, July 2025. Beneath the story and the David Bowie note Richard added a further note:: The fictional Inspector Gledd has appeared in the pages of CHESS magazine before. Two stories by the late E.C. Mortimer were printed in No. 34 (His Knight Off) and Nos. 82-83 (White to the Right) in 1942. So my new story Absolute Beginners is offered as a fond tribute to the Reverend Mortimer (1888 – 1975) who evidently was a strong chess player himself: there is a record of his competing in the Major Open subsidiary section of the British Championship in Harrogate and Buxton, in 1947 and 1950.
Tuns had a big redeeming feature: he could play chess. Gledd was an enthusiastic player too. They played on Gledd’s pocket set whenever they could. The murder of Michael Mars was a puzzle. The unfortunate youngster had been killed by a single gunshot to the back of his head. His body had been found in the narrow alleyway behind the row of terraced houses in Moonage Road where he was renting the downstairs flat at number nine. The alleyway was not a public thoroughfare: the only people likely to use it were residents for purpose of taking dustbins or garden waste to the front of the road on bin collection day. That most likely was what Michael Mars had been doing one Monday evening when he was shot by his killer, for his body was found on the Tuesday morning.
Gledd and Tuns had brainstormed the case but hadn’t found evidence of anything in Michael Mars’s private life, family life or work life to explain his dramatic demise. None of the neighbours recalled hearing any rumpus inside or outside Michael Mars’s flat. All of them agreed however that there had been a noise like a gunshot after darkness had fallen on the Monday night. Gledd’s young officers had reported that their search of the flat, the back garden and the alleyway had yielded no clues. They had described the alleyway as flyblown and filled with overgrown weeds and shrubs. The surface was dried mud with patches of unhealthy-looking grass gone brown. There had been no footprints near the body.
‘I have a horrible feeling about this case,’ Gledd had moaned.
‘You’ll solve it,’ Tuns insisted. You’re the star man at the Yard.’
'Hmm - well unless you’ve got any bright ideas, I’m checkmated.’
‘Me solve it, sir? Not likely. The golden years of Timmy Tuns are a thing of the past.’
Tuns turned the ignition key to start the squad car and return to Scotland Yard. There was a flat click. He tried again. The battery sounded flat. Tuns used his two way radio to contact the Yard. ‘They’ll send a mechanic as soon as they can, sir.’ ‘We might as well continue our game,’ decided Gledd, taking out his pocket chess set. He opened the lid and twisted the box round for Tuns to have the white pieces. ‘It was you to move.’
There was silence in the cabin as the two players concentrated on the chess board and each made a few moves. ‘Tell you what, sir,’ Tuns suddenly exulted. ‘The old brain might be slowing up nowadays but what do you reckon on THIS!’ And so saying he picked up a knight and planted it on a new square with a flamboyant thump. ‘Check!’ To his horror Gledd saw that he had carelessly left Tuns an opportunity to move knight to bishop six, forking Gledd’s king and queen. ‘You win the game,’ Gledd conceded. ‘I didn’t see that coming. I was having a daydream.’
ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ
The car mended, they had driven half a mile when Gledd suddenly shouted: ‘I’m an idiot!’ ‘Oh goodness, sir, it was only a game of chess,’ Tuns nearly said. But Gledd forestalled him. ‘Drive to Moonage Road,’ he commanded. ‘I need to look at that alleyway.’ ‘The knight fork!’ Gledd was feverishly repeating in his head. ‘Two things attacked at the same time ...’
ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ
Alighting from the car at the end corner of Moonage Road a determined-looking Gledd strode purposefully along the back alleyway. He counted the number of each house: ‘One – three – five – seven – nine: this is where Mars lived and his body fell to earth behind number seven.’ ‘They said this place was flyblown didn’t they?’ Gledd turned to face his colleague. ‘See anything?’
‘Spiders?’ Tuns ventured, having noticed several silvery webs draped across the bushes. ‘No, you dolt, look properly.’ Tuns swivelled his head back and forth, noting that there were flies buzzing and swooping. But as most of the residents kept their dustbins in their back gardens or in the alleyway, surely the hot weather would attract flies?
‘There,’ announced Gledd, pointing at a clump of heavy undergrowth behind house numbers three and five. Sure enough now that Tuns came to study it, the flies seemed to be homing in to that particular spot. Gledd pounced on an old broom lying against a garden gate. ‘Let’s have a poke around,’ he said taking the broom to the clump of bush that was interesting him. There was a strong smell: a mixture, Tuns thought, of rotting vegetation, animal excrement and the stale aroma from dustbins generally. But was there something more? His nostrils were starting to detect a smell that he reluctantly could identify.
It didn’t take long to cleave a sufficient gap into the shrubbery to reveal the remains of a human body lying inside. ‘Dumped there, wouldn’t you say, sir?’
‘The nincompoops!’ Gledd exploded. ‘The absolute beginners! They were supposed to have searched this alleyway!’ He was thinking of his two young officers.
‘Fancy there being space here for two murdered bodies, sir. What an oddity.’
‘Graduates!’ Gledd spat. ‘From the university of short-sighted clueless idiots, if you ask me.’
The body was identified as Larry Low, a petty crook turned informer. ‘Low was one of my best snouts,’ Gledd mused wistfully. ‘He helped me put the Blackstar gang away. Scary monsters, they were. They got five years.’
‘Looks like Low was executed after he grassed up the wrong guy,’ offered Tuns.
‘And of course young Michael Mars was unlucky,’ concluded Gledd. ‘He disturbed them when they were dumping Low’s body so they shot him dead.’
‘When you’ve traced the villains and they’re convicted of double murder it will all be hunky-dory,’ Tuns predicted.
Gledd was pleased with his inspired hunch that there might be a second victim to be found at the site of Michael Mars’s murder. But his vanity wouldn’t allow him to be pleased that it was the knight forking his king and queen that had given him the train of thought. Gledd would never say it publicly, but secretly he had hated Tuns beating him at chess.
‘I played like an absolute beginner!’ he hissed in disgust.
ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ ǂ
David Bowie had a string of hit singles and albums to his name. His career began at the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham, Kent. His backing group was the Spiders from Mars. His hit singles and albums included: Absolute Beginners - Under Pressure - Moonage Daydream - Golden Years - Space Oddity - Blackstar - Five Years - Station to Station - Life on Mars - Star Man - The Man who Fell to Earth - Low - Scary Monsters - Hunky-Dory.
This story was kindly accepted by CHESS magazine editor Richard Paliser for publication in the monthly issue Volume 90 No. 4, July 2025. Beneath the story and the David Bowie note Richard added a further note:: The fictional Inspector Gledd has appeared in the pages of CHESS magazine before. Two stories by the late E.C. Mortimer were printed in No. 34 (His Knight Off) and Nos. 82-83 (White to the Right) in 1942. So my new story Absolute Beginners is offered as a fond tribute to the Reverend Mortimer (1888 – 1975) who evidently was a strong chess player himself: there is a record of his competing in the Major Open subsidiary section of the British Championship in Harrogate and Buxton, in 1947 and 1950.
If you enjoyed reading our Absolute Beginners story featuring Inspector Gledd there are more stories in Problem Solved! published by Cray 150 in 2020.
A copy of the book [Price: £4.95] can be purchased via e-mail [email protected]
A copy of the book [Price: £4.95] can be purchased via e-mail [email protected]