Appeal To Find Man’s Dad, Possible Link To A Guildford Record Shop

Published on: 21 Feb, 2019
Updated on: 23 Feb, 2019

By David Reading

It began with an email that arrived out of the blue. The sender hoped I could solve a mystery that had troubled him for most of his life.

Tam Henderson had read an article I’d written for The Guildford Dragon NEWS on the Guildford music scene in the 1960s and 70s and thought I might have information that would help him with his lifelong search.

Tam Henderson as a child, with his mother Sandy and his grandmother Denny.

Tam wants to trace the father he has never met and believes there is a strong Guildford connection to the mystery. It all centres on a record shop known as Bonaparte, later Head Sounds, in Phoenix Court in the 1970s-80s. One of its managers is thought to have been a part-American named David Evans.

Sandy Henderson as her friends in Guildford will remember her.

Tam’s mother was Sara Henderson – known as Sandy – whose family lived on the outskirts of Guildford. Sandy died in 1997 without revealing who Tam’s father was. Now 45 years old and living in Amsterdam, Tam is desperate to get any scrap of vital information.

Sandy Henderson.

When Tam wrote to me, he didn’t realise I knew Sandy well and in fact, back in the 1970s, I played a couple of informal gigs with her at the King’s Head in Quarry Street, with a guitarist friend named Dave Tarn. Sandy was better known as the flute player with the band House, fronted by Tony Backhurst. 

It was at a party in Guildford in the early 1990s, when Tam was a teenager, that he first heard the name, David Evans. A casual conversation led him to consider the probability that Evans was a friend of his mother during the early 1970s and it’s likely he knows the identity of Tam’s father. The problem is that David Evans left the area years ago. There are unconfirmed reports that he moved to Ireland.

Tam said in his email to me: “Not knowing your own father can be a very strange feeling after all these years. I know it was a long time ago, but if anything springs to mind please let me know because I would love to find out who he was. I don’t really have much to go on, just snippets of conversation here and there, mainly from a group of people who were my mum’s friends.”

Sandy was 18 when Tam was born and his real father was no longer on the scene. There is very little solid information to go on.

Tam has followed up numerous leads and everything keeps coming back to this part-American named David Evans, who lived in Guildford in the early 1970s and is thought to have managed the record store in Phoenix Court.

Tam believes it’s likely he holds the key pieces of information.

Tam Henderson in the recording studio, present day. He is singer and harmonica player with the Backyard Boys, who play country, bluegrass and gypsy jazz in their home city, Amsterdam.

Tam said: “My ultimate goal is really to find out who my father is and get a sense of what kind of person he was or is. I don’t want anything from him and wouldn’t want to get in the way of his life or any family he may have unless he said it was OK. It’s more about understanding who I am than anything else.”

If any readers have any memories that might provide vital information, please get in touch by leaving a reply in the box below. Do you remember Bonaparte, later Head Sounds? Did you know the manager or other staff members who worked there? Do you know where they are now?

There were, of course, other records shops in Guildford back in the early 1970s. They included: Harlequin in Tunsgate Square, Guildford Radio & TV in North Street, and Record Centre (later Wax Records) in Woodbridge Road, next to the cinema. Woolworths also had a record department at that time and so did Plummers (now Debenhams).

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