We saw this person signing a CD for the owner of the Courtyard Cafe (I may have mentioned this cafe on a few occasions - good food and good prices).
So we asked him who it was just after she left. "That was Dana Gillespie," he replied. That name immediately rang a bell for me. It might just ring a bell for you as well if you were a child of the 50s, 60s or 70s.
Dana Gillespie was extremely well known as a member of "the British scene", girlfriend of David Bowie, friend of Bob Dylan and just about every other rock star of the time. A singer of what is known as risque blues. That's Blues music with slightly risque lyrics, she has recorded over 45 CDs and still tours.
Strangely enough I downloaded a compilation album not so long ago which opened with her version of Bowie's "Andy Warhol." The original comes from my favourite Bowie album "Hunky Dory". Apparently the song was written for Dana Gillespie although it's difficult to work how that is as it's about American artist Andy Warhol. Surely if it was for Dana (apparently pronounced Dayna and not Darna as I thought) it would have been called Dana?
Dana Gillespie's full name is (get this) Richenda Antoinette de Winterstein Gillespie. She is now 72 and I want to be kind here by just saying perhaps she hasn't weathered quite as well as some. Not to put too fine a point on it, in her youth Dana was beyond stunning which is probably how she made such a mark with the cognoscenti of the rock world.
I started to watch an interview with her from a couple of years ago and the Norfolk link soon came out. She mentioned that she is descended from the Gurney and Fry families and they are very famous families in Norfolk and much further afield as bankers and reformers with Elizabeth Fry so famous that she made it onto a £5 note several years ago and is renowned for her part in prison reform.
So I listened to a few of Dana Gillespie's songs. I would describe her voice as "sultry" which is just as well when you know the name of some of her tracks which include "Big 10 inch record," "Snatch and Grab It," "Horizontal Boogie," "Come On (If You're Coming)," "Love Machine," and "Fat Sam From Birmingham" to name but a few. I think Dana really is "sex, drugs and rock n roll."
Next time I see her in Wymondham I will pluck up the courage to speak to her. If you want to see what she looked like then and now just Google her images.