7.98°C Colchester has always been part of Blur’s story, from school halls and local pubs to the Arts Centre stage. As drummer Dave Rowntree releases his new book No One You Know and returns to Red Lion Books on Colchester High Street for a special Q&A, the city’s role in shaping the band steps back into the spotlight.
The book gathers hundreds of Rowntree’s own photographs from the band’s earliest years, capturing Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and himself in rehearsal rooms, on tour buses, backstage and in hotel corridors. Alongside the images are fragments of memory from a time when everything was still new. Seen through Rowntree’s lens, those beginnings are a reminder that Blur’s roots ran through Colchester first: Stanway School musicals, nights at The Cups on Trinity Street, gigs at Colchester Arts Centre on Church Street, and a first show in a railway shed at Chappel.
Stanway schooldays
Stanway Comprehensive School, now The Stanway School, is where Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon first met. Both had arrived in Colchester with their families in the late 1970s. They sang together in the school choir and threw themselves into productions under the direction of music teacher Nigel Hildreth, who encouraged them to perform.
Albarn later said: “We were incredibly lucky: we had a fantastic music teacher, Mr Hildreth. We did Orpheus, Oh! What A Lovely War – fantastic. We did The Boy Friend – not so fantastic. We did Guys & Dolls – incredible. And we did a bit of West Side Story as well.”
Hildreth has often reflected that Stanway was “a remarkable place for creative young people,” and he spotted Damon and Graham’s talent early.
Nights out in Colchester
Colchester in the 1980s could be rough for anyone who didn’t blend in. Coxon remembered: “You really had to be careful about which pub you went into… There were a few pubs that only people like me could go in, and ALL the alternative people would be in there – art students, the hardcore punks, the goths, anyone who wasn’t mainstream.”
One of those pubs was The Cups at 2 Trinity Street. Coxon recalled Damon’s scrapes there: “Every time I went there with Damon, he’d go to the bog and he’d have his beating up.”
These nights around Colchester’s pubs and small music circles brought Rowntree into the mix. Born at Colchester Maternity Hospital in 1964, he worked as a computer programmer for Colchester Borough Council while playing drums in local bands. He and Coxon crossed paths before Graham introduced him to Albarn.
The Colchester Arts Centre spark
Coxon first took Rowntree to see Albarn perform at Colchester Arts Centre, the converted St Mary-at-the-Walls church on Church Street. What struck Rowntree was simple: Damon had songs. In a scene full of energy but little structure, that mattered.
The Arts Centre has stayed part of the Blur story. It was the first stage where Rowntree saw Albarn, and decades later, in May 2023, Blur played an intimate warm-up gig there before their Wembley shows.
From Circus to Seymour
Before they became Blur, the band went through other names. In 1988, while studying at Goldsmiths College in London, Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon briefly performed under the name Circus. When bassist Alex James joined later that year, the name changed to Seymour, inspired by J.D. Salinger’s novella Seymour: An Introduction.
It was as Seymour that the band played their first live gig in summer 1989, in the goods shed at the East Anglian Railway Museum in Chappel & Wakes Colne, just outside Colchester. That night marked the true beginning of what would soon become Blur.
When Food Records showed interest in signing them, the label rejected the name Seymour and handed over a shortlist of alternatives. The band chose Blur, officially adopting the name in March 1990.
The A12 grind
By this point, Rowntree was fully on board. He packed his kit into a battered brown Cortina and made the weekly trips down the A12 for rehearsals and early London shows. That back-and-forth became the rhythm of their first years together.
Local legends
Colchester still has its Blur folklore. One story says Tony Smith, a local designer, was the one who suggested “Blur.” The official record credits Food Records, but Tony’s version is still told here, and it’s my preferred version.
Rowntree once called Coxon “the hub of the Blur wheel” – Damon’s old schoolmate, Alex James’s neighbour at Goldsmiths, and the reason Rowntree, the Colchester drummer, joined the band. “All of us except Alex… have some kind of connection to Colchester,” he said in 1996. “It wasn’t really Colchester that brought us together… still, it’s a connection that binds us all.”
Parklife rumours
Some have suggested that Parklife might secretly be about Colchester’s Castle Park in a nod to Damon and Graham’s schooldays here. In reality, Albarn has said the song was inspired by everyday characters in London parks, not this city. Still, the rumour lingers.
Colchester in the songs
Back in 1990, NME sneered: “From terribly un-rock ’n’ roll Colchester come bright sparks Blur, cocky groovers with a promising single ‘She’s So High’.”
Albarn himself has said the city left its mark: “When I moved to Colchester back then, it was still a pretty quiet little town… Much of the inspiration for my songs comes from the idea of characters living in this environment.”
Back to where it began
Rowntree’s return to Colchester for the launch of No One You Know feels like a homecoming. He’ll appear at Red Lion Books on Colchester High Street at 6pm for an intimate in-store Q&A and signing, a world away from Blur’s usual arenas and festival stages.
Event organiser Jo Coldwell of Red Lion Books said: “We are excited to host this intimate event with an artist and performer who is used to huge venues. He specifically asked that the event be at Red Lion Books, which is the bookshop he used as a child.”
Proudly independent since 1978, when the Donaldsons first set up shop, Red Lion Books sits on Colchester High Street at the heart of the city. Behind its unassuming shopfront lies a treasure trove for book lovers: a wide-ranging stock, overnight order service, regular author events, signings and book clubs. The shop has built its reputation on local loyalty, knowledge and friendly service – the perfect setting for Rowntree’s return.
Tickets for the author event are priced at £45, which includes entry to the Q&A and a signed hardback copy of the book. Space is limited, so don’t delay. Tickets are available here.
For a band that once played its first gig in a railway shed just up the road, it’s a fitting way to reconnect with the city that helped shape their beginnings.
The book
No One You Know by Dave Rowntree (edited by Miranda Sawyer)
Hardback, 204pp (ISBN 9781917163279
Includes hundreds of previously unseen photos of Blur’s early years with Rowntree’s commentary
