Upon hearing a scurrilous piece of gossip, our Rural Mythbuster Angus Young dons his mirrored hat and commits a wanton act of journalism. Get down and get curious!
There we were, leaning on a gate gazing at a flock of grazing sheep in a large field a few miles south of Beverley. “Do you know who owns all this?” asked my companion, gesturing to the open countryside in front of us. I shook my head. “Noddy Holder and Slade,” he said with a note of triumph in his voice. My jaw nearly hit the floor. Suddenly I had visions of the ‘70s glam rockers appearing over a hill on a glitter-covered tractor dressed in tweed and wearing stack-heeled wellies.
I knew guitarist Dave Hill had a local connection as he once posed for some promotional photographs for Dolphin double glazing shop on Holderness Road, which had ties to his sister. But this was something else.
How had Noddy and the lads ended up owning vast swathes of rural East Yorkshire? “I reckon they must have invested some of the royalties from that Christmas song. It still gets played every year,“ said my companion. A tenant farmer, he insisted it was all true. An accountant had shown him the evidence in a recently-filed document on the Companies House website.
Armed with the firm’s name, I decided to do some online digging myself. Sure enough, the company in question – Perseverance Ltd – not only exists but is jointly owned by Noddy, bass player Jim Mrs and drummer Don Powell. Dave Hill was a director until resigning two years ago. Incorporated in 1980, it’s been filing annual accounts ever since while its listed Nature of Business states: “Other service activities not elsewhere classified.”
A secret landholding investment in East Yorkshire, perhaps? The accounts themselves suggested otherwise. The company’s assets are only listed at just over £90,000 and all of the boys’ other companies are involved in music and publishing.
So I turned to the other company mentioned by my farming chum – Albanwise Farming Ltd.which farms over 12,000 hectares in Norfolk and Yorkshire. The latest Companies House filing on July 31 this year for Albanwise features an official notification of Perseverance Ltd. becoming “a person with significant control” of the company.
Was this finally proof that Slade – or at least three-quarters of the band – had swapped rock and roll for growing cereals and seed potatoes?
Sadly not. Further investigation revealed this particular Perseverance Ltd is a completely different entity altogether, registered in tax-free Gibraltar and ultimately owned by an Italian count and property magnate who also happens to be one of Britain’s biggest landowners.
For now at least, Noddy and Co. are still rockers while I’ve got to work out how to break the news to my farming pal.
Angus Young