Ginger Baker chat by Mick Curtis

ginger baker

Mick Curtis…. About 30 years ago my wife Vanda was an air stewardess with British Caledonian. Ginger Baker was travelling in First Class to Buenos Aires, Vanda worked in First Class, and asked him to sign a menu card. He asked what her name was. “Vanda”. To he wrote “To Banda, love Ginger Baker”. She said “My name is spelled with a V”. So he changed it to “Banva”. I’ll find the evidence today and post a picture on here. He was apparently very proud of his new snakeskin boots that had been hand-made for him in LA. Enjoyed a drink or 30, she seems to remember.

Mick O’Dowd… Sounds about right.

Richard J Porter… LOL, good old Ginger, a friend of ours, still playing and with his son sometimes

Geoff Peckham…. My Ginger Baker story: I once worked with this lovely prudish Oxbridge educated teacher called Annie. On noticing a picture of GB in a magazine I was reading Annie told me she’d met him. Intrigued, I asked how. She said at a May Ball at Cambridge where Cream were playing, she was in the Ladies’ washing her hands. Suddenly, the door burst open and a red-haired man dashed in and threw up in the basin next to her. When she was told he was Ginger Baker, Annie still wasn’t impressed!

Read more