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Brian officially left the Pretty Things on Christmas Eve, 1966. His version of events is that he rang the band and told them he was leaving. The reasons he gave in his interview with Terry Coates were that he was exhausted mentally and physically by three years on the road, plus he was broke and was married with a child. He confirmed that he had suffered something of a breakdown.

However, there have been many other 'theories' about how Brian left and it has become one of rock's little mysteries, although Brian always denied most of the stories. The most enduring one is that the band got on a train to play a gig in Leeds and that when they reached their destination and got off the train Brian wasn't there. Brian totally denied this, although he did concede there was a bit of truth in what happened next...Dick Taylor and Pete Watts (the group's roadie) went to his flat and found it deserted with a broken guitar amongst other items left behind. Brian had always been very reticent with the other band members about his private life, never telling them he had got married, and Dick recalled how after a gig Brian would get them to drop him off somewhere in Clapham but never where he actually lived.

One night the others followed him and began knocking on the door saying “We know you're in there Brian!” - and Brian reacted to this intrusion in a very defensive manner; he would never allow anyone from the band to intrude upon his closely guarded private life with his wife and their baby son. It was probably not very long after this that he left the band.

Brian accepted that yes, they did go in his flat the day after he left and that there was a cheap guitar smashed up but seems to indicate this was because it was a rubbish guitar rather than for any other reason.

Another suggestion made to me is that Brian quit after fainting and falling off the stage during a gig; maybe this happened and prompted the version of events he described. If he was as exhausted as he suggested it is certainly feasilble, especially if he was also drinking heavily.

Revealingly Robert Stock, who would play guitar with Brian many years down the line, disclosed how one day he and Brian were in a record shop and they found a "best of" Pretty Things album which referred to how Brian had mysteriously 'disappeared' from the band. Robert recalls: "Brian laughed: "Disappeared? I told them for months that I was leaving but no-one believed me."

The only thing anyone can really be sure about is that we will never ever get to the bottom of the mystery, as the only person who really knew what happened was Brian himself.

after the pretties