Formed by Tig Woollard and Peter Hatcher, Cascade Avenue occupied the folk-pop cranny of the late ‘60’s ‘Swinging London’ scene. Woollard was a former member of novelty nursery-folk trio, Tig, Bev and Woody, while Hatcher was a practising Pagan with a keen interest in witchcraft and had been initiated, at a young age, into a Muswell Hill coven by a family friend. On paper it was a partnership that should never have worked and, with their debut single being their only success, this proved to be the case.

The single in question, ‘The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire’, was a throwaway piece of folk whimsy, originally written by Woollard as a bedtime song for his two young children. Despite some alarming lyrical contributions from Hatcher, it gave the band a minor chart hit and subsequently became a regular feature on ‘Junior Choice’, the Radio 2 children’s request show helmed by the genial Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart. Although Woollard was happy as long as the royalty cheques kept coming in, Hatcher was disgusted by the band’s young fan-base, regarding their ‘infant demographic’ as being at odds with his more spiritual and esoteric concerns.

These concerns led to friction within the band and tensions grew when Hatcher, through the work of Aleister Crowley and other English occultists, chanced upon the writings of a self-styled ‘spirit magician’ and mystic from the South London suburbs known simply as Graeme of Morden. Immersing himself in his subject he even rented Graeme’s former South London semi, ‘The Laurels’. While no one knows for sure what went on here, there were rumours of foul odours and strange incantations, with one eyewitness claiming to have peered through the net curtains to see Hatcher ‘dancing with a chicken’.

The band’s 1969 tour of Sussex seaside resorts proved to be their last after Hatcher was involved in a regrettable incident inside a Punch and Judy tent. His subsequent arrest and the court’s insistence that he attend his local police station three times a week put an end to any meaningful touring career and Cascade Avenue briefly withdrew to the studio. Matters came to a head, as Tig Woollard recalls: “We were in rehearsal…things weren’t going well as usual. So I said to him, ‘if this magic stuff of yours is so great, why don’t you cast your runes or whatever it is you do and make a spell to get us a number one single.’ He just looked at me, shook his head, took his pentagram up off the floor and walked out. I never saw him again.”

According to Peter Hatcher, the break-up was inevitable:

There are things in this world, things we can’t see or hear. Or feel. Things that might not even exist but they’re somehow…there. And when you have the gift like I do, you can tap into that. Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, who knows? Call it what you like…the Third eye, sixth sense…but I definitely had the feeling I was in the wrong band”.

Woollard went on to forge a career as a childrenswear designer while Hatcher recorded a poorly received solo album, ‘O Come, Let Us Tweak the Whiskers of the Beast’, before going on to run a caravan site in the Scottish Isles. He remains bitter about his time in Cascade Avenue; reserving particular resentment for their ‘Junior Choice’ success. Indeed, he once claimed to have put a curse on Ed Stewart and while such claims should be taken with a pinch of salt, one source at the BBC asserts that whenever Stewart bought milk in for the Radio 2 fridge, it would curdle within the hour.

Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire
We climb with thoughts of sleep
My fair and golden child
You shall float in slumber deep
On fluffy clouds of dreaming
You’ll be bathed in pale moonlight,
And so up the wooden hill we go
Sleep tight, my child, sleep tight.

The foul, hot breath of the Beast
Is upon you
A daemonibus stimulare
The mark of the cursed and the dead
Will adorn you
Sanguis bebimus
The power and the will of the dark one
Impels you
Ave Satani
Ave Satani
Sleep tight, my child, sleep tight.

From ‘The Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire’, Cascade Avenue

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