Paul Avron Jeffreys
February 13, 1952 – December 21, 1988
Paul Jeffreys is best remembered as the bassist for British rock band, Cockney Rebel. Formed by Steve Harley in 1972, the band hired Jeffreys once they heard him audition the following year. The band soon signed to EMI Records and released two influential albums with Jeffreys. After leaving Cockney Rebel, Jeffreys played with such bands as Be Bop Deluxe and the Electric Eels. On December 21, 1988, Paul Jeffreys and his new bride, Rachel Jones, died along with 270 others on Pan Am flight 103. The ill-fated plane exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, due to a bomb placed on board. Jeffreys was 36 when he died.
Every time I hear a Cockney Rebel track I thinks of Paul. He was (I think) in the next year up at East Ham Grammar School for Boys in the days when superlative education was available for ordinary working class families at no extra financial cost. I sometimes walked to school with Paul about 2 miles with a friend of his in the same year, Ian Fellows, from Ladysmith Avenue. I seem to remember that Vera Lynn once lived in Ladysmith Ave. Thanks Paul, maybe one day I’ll come up and make you smile.