#maycury

Freddie Mercury and Brian May

"Well, I can tell you how [Freddie and I] didn't meet, first of all, 'cause it's very odd that Freddie spent his young childhood in Zanzibar but his family moved over here to Feltham, and I was in Walsham Road and he was in Boundaries Road, probably about 400 yards away, and we never met."

keywords: Walsham Road; Boundaries Road, 400 yards

being my very normal self thank you very much, i dug around the maps a bit

Many kisses for Antique Maps & Prints for aiding my shenanigans. The map is from 1965.

Walsham Road is circled in red and Boundaries Road in purple

Now for the enlightened, 400 yards is roughly 366m. And when you search on Google Maps, the distance from the two is around 1.2km. I walked the same distance to work pre-dawn many times but still, it's off, because obviously, 366m ≠ 1.2km

Then I search the address of Freddie's Feltham house and guess what, it's on Gladstone Avenue. And where is that?

Gladstone Avenue is circled in blue and Walsham Road in red

The distance between the two streets are roughly 500m. Now, this is closer to Brian's 366m estimation.

Conclusion: Brian got one road wrong but the distance correct-ish.

“At London’s Rainbow theatre on 31 March [0f 1974]. Norman Sheffield says: ‘Freddie was just being so pedantic, so Brian told him he was an old tart. He got really upset and stormed off. He went out to the van, I think. When it came to the soundcheck we couldn’t find him anywhere, so they turned up the volume on the mike and Brian started yelling “Freddiepoos, where are you?” He was livid, but it worked and he came flouncing back in, and the band just got on with it.’ “

Japan, 1976.