Third and final part!
BASIL: “Colonel Alexander asked me to come down to London to talk to Davy and make him see the tremendous chance that he was throwing away. I agreed, but I said that if I thought that if Davy had completely made up his mind, I wouldn’t persuade him too hard, I would just take him back to Newmarket with me. So, I arranged to be at the agent’s office near Piccadilly Circus at the same time as Davy.”
DAVY: “Yes, I thought it was a coincidence. You worked it very well and I’m glad you did because if you hadn’t, then the Monkees would probably have never been created or, anyway, I wouldn’t have been part of them. I think the argument that most impressed me was when Basil said, ‘Don’t be a mug. Why work with other peoples horses, when you can go to America, make a lot of money and buy your own.’”
BASIL: “The arguments had gone on for some time. I didn’t really push Davy too hard because I didn’t want to force him into doing something he didn’t really want to do. But when I said that bit about the horses, he turned round to me and said, ‘Is that what you really want me to do, Governor?’, and I said as firmly as I could, ‘Yes’.”
DAVY: “So, once again I packed my bags, but this time, instead of taking a train for a few hundred miles, I had to cross three thousand miles of ocean and the thought of all that distance between New York and my home, did upset me quite a bit. One thing that helped a lot was knowing the other people in the show. A lot of them went to America as well, so it wasn’t as though I was suddenly landed with a bunch of complete strangers.”
BASIL: “I did have quite a few qualms of conscience after he had gone. I thought to myself, supposing he runs into trouble, or has an accident, or is just unsuccessful, although I didn’t think that possible. But you know how you worry once you have persuaded somebody to do something.
“But, fortunately, it all turned out very well.”
DAVY: “It wasn’t all smooth. We had a great time when ‘Oliver’ was hitting the headlines in New York, but after I left the show things were a bit tough and I couldn’t see where I was going next. I wanted to talk things over with my father and friends in England and, in fact, I did come back to England just before the Monkees started.”
BASIL: “He stayed with me for six weeks and we often went to the Sands at Redcar with the horses. I remember on one of the journeys home, Davy turned to me and said, ‘Governor, does your offer still stand to come back?’ I told him it did, but I thought that he ought to wait because I am sure that everything would turn out alright. He then told me that he was going back to do the Monkees show.”
DAVY: “Yes, If the show had flopped, I would probably have packed show-business in, but luckily, it wasn’t or I wouldn’t be talking to you today.”
BASIL: “You might have gone back to the stables for a time, Davy, but I don’t think you would have stayed. I believe that you have got show-business in your blood and that you would have come out on top some way or other.”
