Every week, thousands of commuters make their way from the Hertfordshire city of St Albans to the Big Smoke, while at the weekends visitors flock the area’s quaint streets and bustling market for days out.
Although St Albans was recently crowned as the best commuter town in England, it’s also known for its eye-watering house prices and staggering costs of train tickets.
Before the area became known for its affluence, it was known for its wealth of creative talent. In 1970, the small city’s music scene was at its zenith. The Zombies had formed there in 1961 and were on the fast track to stardom. A teenage Maddy Prior, before she went on to join folk-rock band Steeleye Span, was busy making a name for herself in local pubs. And Britain’s answer to Bob Dylan, Donovan, cut his musical teeth in the folk clubs across Hertfordshire after his family moved down from Scotland.
As these musical legends performed in venues across the area, between them walked a man who would go on to become a folk hero: Ginger Mills.
Living on the very edges of society, Ginger was originally born in Barnet in 1937, where he was abandoned by his mother and brought up by nuns in Worcestershire. He eventually ran away and joined Bertram Mills Circus where he learned bare-knuckle boxing and worked with elephants. It is thought this may be where he adopted the surname ‘Mills.’ His forename meanwhile, was likely inspired by his halo of bright orange hair.
By 1968, Ginger had wound up in St Albans where he frequented pubs popular with beatniks, singers and, later down the line, hippies. He’d stroll from his old camper van to the city centre dressed in a leather waistcoat, a cowboy-style hat, a pair of jeans and several studded leather belts.
Covered in tattoos and often carrying a ten-inch-knife which he used for his leatherwork, Ginger stood out amid the quaint streets of St Albans – but his craft was so respected that one of his belts was bought by the American singer Marsha Hunt.
‘He did a bit of buying and selling, and off jobs,’ local Jenny Robinson, whose family had supported Ginger financially, told the St Albans Review in 2008. She added: ‘Somehow he always kept his head above water. Lots of people would help him out. He was involved with hundreds of residents for one reason or another. People were always more than generous.
‘Even though he did not read or write, he knew all sorts of things. He would talk about what was going on in the world, and what was going wrong with the country. He loved walking in the countryside, and always knew what was going on in it.’
Aged 70, Ginger died from a heart attack in 2008. Nearly 100 people attended his funeral at Pershore Abbey, where his coffin adorned with a wooly hat and flowers morphed into the shape of an ace of diamonds.
Years on from his death, Ginger is still frequently debated among locals on social media and written about in local newspapers. What made the ‘gentle giant’ so iconic?
‘He’s seen as a folk hero to some people,’ Catherine Newley, audience development manager at St Albans Museums, tells Metro. The museum has exhibited several of Ginger’s belongings, such as his iconic belt, in the past. As she speaks, Catherine references a spread of archival newspaper articles spread out in front of her.
‘Icon of St Albans,’ reads the headline of one article, ‘city legend’ proclaims another.
Catherine points to one newspaper image of Ginger, where he poses in his leather hat in front of his battered campervan and looks directly into the camera. ‘I think this photo is pretty iconic,’ she says. ‘Before the Christopher Place Shopping Centre in St Albans, there was a place called Gentle’s Yard which was named after a local family. Ginger used to park up there, that’s where you could often find him.
‘It’s amazing how much people remember him. I did a 1970s exhibition about life in St Albans and his name was mentioned again and again. Locals bring him up all the time and tell us their memories. He was seen as quite a cool, older person to a lot of teenagers. We don’t have a huge amount of facts about Ginger, but I think that’s due to the nature of how he lived. He didn’t have a fixed address or a fixed job.’
Ginger was also controversial to some, Catherine adds. Some adults took umbrage with his presence in the area while others kept their distance.
In a letter to the Hertfordshire Advertiser in 2008, former St Albans resident Lindsay Seagrim-Trinder recalled: ‘To mention the name of Ginger Mills during mealtimes around the dining-table in my middle-class family home would send my parents into paroxysms for they, like many parents of teenage girls at the time, considered him most undesirable to know, as he seemed regularly to feature in the columns of the Herts Advertiser following some misdemeanour.’
On April 16, 1969, friends and music fanatics Pete Frame and Rod Yallop launched rock magazine ZigZag from the village of Caddington, between Harpenden and Luton. The publication was noted for its interviews, articles and innovative ‘rock family trees.’ While it went on to feature big names like the Sex Pistols and Blondie, the very first edition of ZigZag included a section on Ginger Mills, alongside a poem by his friend Jeff Cloves. Part of it read: ‘The town abounds in fantastic legends of your deeds and everybody knows you and has a tale to add…’
Speaking to Metro, the poet explains: ‘Ginge was a natural con artist and an instinctive dealer, like gypsies he never kept anything long. I bought him a silver skull’s head ring for his birthday which he sold a month later.
‘He always used to say to me, “Jeffrees I’ll be f**** famous one day.” The character played by Mark Rylance in Jez Butterworth’s play “Jerusalem” is inspired by Ginger and so, in a way, his forecast was right. Jez went to St Albans School and used to see Ginger walking through the market.’
The outsider often rubbed shoulders with the musical talent which breezed through the city, too. He became a close friend of the Edgar Broughton Band and was taken under the wing of several artists.
Folk singer Mac Macleod, who was a part of the Hertfordshire folk and blues scene from 1959, brought Ginger with him to the Isle of Wight festival in 1969 when Bob Dylan performed. There, Ginger ‘spent much of his time in the press enclosure haranguing guest John Lennon to give him his autograph.’ He is suspected to have sold the autograph from the famous Beatle when he returned to St Albans.
Wearing a leather-studded jacket, Ginger can be spotted behind John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in this photo.
For Catherine, who lives in a village outside St Albans with her family, stories like Ginger’s help unpick the middle-class stereotype of the city, with its population of 82,000, has come to have.
‘I still remember the first time I came to the area for my job interview,’ she recalls. ‘I thought it was quite twee, quite upmarket. I’d heard it was a little like York or Winchester. What I’ve learned since then is that generalisations are not always true. You’ve got a whole range of people here who love to live and work in the district, and not everyone can afford a £3 million house.
‘In a city where there is a lot of wealth, it’s nice to know there was a person like Ginger Mills standing out. He was someone working class who achieved this legendary status.
‘Some seem suspicious about the way he lived his life, and that’s something we see with current attitudes towards people who don’t conform to what society sees as “normal.” Meanwhile other locals feel a strong sense of endearment towards Ginger and enjoy thinking about him. I think he teaches us that you can’t judge a book by its cover.’
Uncover more of St Albans’s history by visiting one of the city’s museums, click here to find out more
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