I came across a tweet the other day that suggested the actor David Hemmings had lived briefly in Shrewsbury High Street. That is hard to reconcile with what I know of his life, but it did lead me to this record.
The Stains were a Shrewsbury punk band whose original vocalist was Dom Estos. And Dom Estos was Dominic Hemmings, the adopted son of David Hemmings.
His mother was Genista Ouvry, who acted under the name Jenny Lewes. Dominic had already been born when Hemmings met her during a two-week repertory engagement in Leicester in 1960 and they fell in love. They married shortly afterwards and Hemmings adopted Dominic, but the marriage did not last.
A few more snippets...
The band turn up in a letter to the Guardian by Mark Webb in 2010:
I was amazed to read of Kevin Rowland's antipathy towards ironed creases in jeans ... In the 70s, playing drums in Dom Estos And The Stains, we got a gig supporting Dexys Midnight Runners at Shrewsbury Music Hall. Dexys got the bigger dressing room, but we had the electric socket. A knock on the door and Mr Rowland appears: "Hello, lads. Can I plug in my iron to do my trousers?"Dom Estos appears still to be making music, under the name Dominic Ouvry, as part of Liquid Vision.
And a little googling suggests Genista Ouvry used the name Jenny Lewes because Lewes was her mother's maiden name.
Not only that: it suggests she was a direct descendant of George Henry Lewes, Victorian man of letters and partner of George Eliot (or Mary Ann Evans).
