Stuart Boreman photographed by Darren Gerrish.

Jeff, Martin and Robin were sad to hear that Stuart Boreman had died this week. I certainly hadn’t seen him for a bit but for a while there, back in the Frith Street days, we’d see him often. Good bloke. Very funny.

We asked his old pal Jim if he’d care to share some thoughts and he very kindly agreed. Here they are below. One thing to add from me – he’s not wrong about Boy Wonder. It’s pretty mad but it’s pretty great too, definitely one to check.

•••

Oh look at the sun, it’s all a-glow 

Slow burning star, sinking low 

Heaven knows where you go

Out of sight, out of minds eye, no

 Aw such a shame, you must leave 

All day long you were a friend to me 

Still, the moon’s company

Sunset – Roxy Music

When you’re born in 1961 and your formative teenage years are the 1970s, by default you get fed a kind of tinned, processed vision of the 1950s: American Graffiti, Sha Na Na, Happy Days, Showaddywaddy, Grease; That’ll Be the Day, and its sequel, Stardust. Those two films starring David Essex tell a story of a kid’s rise from nowhere, through the funfairs and holiday camps of England, on to global pop stardom.

Stuart Boreman grew up in the seaside town of Bridlington on the North Yorkshire coast. He was familiar with the workings of the British holiday camp system and its duty to entertain the tourists. I think he even worked in one. This was a place where the local teens would wear t-shirts that said ‘I Am A Brid Kid’ to differentiate themselves from the tourists.

On reflection there has always been something 50s / waltzers / dodgems / rock ‘n’ roll about Stu — and not just because of his taste for rockabilly. Just like the character in those films, there was glamour to it all that was in his DNA.

It’s fair to say that cinema would play a huge part in the life and times of Stuart Boreman, but he once told me that though he thought Star Wars wasn’t a bad film, “there were so many better things to do in 1977 than go to the cinema, Jim”.

He saw the SPOTS (Sex Pistols on tour) in Scarborough that same year, and like for the rest of us mid-70s teenagers, punk rock was a massive wake up call. Not that Stuart was ever one to sit around; always driven, enterprising and seeking adventure. Our stories would join up when we both moved to Sheffield, him to enrol at Psalter Lane art school to study film. One particularly dull New Year’s Eve, everything seemed closed, or we were just uninvited, but somehow, we all met up. We stayed up all night at his flat on West Street playing country and western, The Serendipity Singers and Johnny Cash.

Photo by Klive Humberstone

In the Steel City and with plenty of dole time on our hands, me and my flatmate Gordon King believed we were the only people in Sheffield who could recite the entire script from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning starring Albert Finney, but we were wrong. Stuart had got there first — he even had the Arthur Seaton quiff and grin — and from then on Gordon and I had really found a kindred spirit. Now we’d broken through those bold lines and divisions between clandestine groups in early 80s Sheffield, we could be friends for life.

We both became part of the poster racket that operated out of Sheffield in ’83/’84. This would involve travelling to university unions selling music posters to students across the UK, and could be quite lucrative. When the whole operation would expand to the USA, I was sent to Boston, MA. Stu took on Philadelphia with his mate Patty.

After a few weeks’ graft and pockets crammed full of dollars, we all met in mid-Manhattan for what now was one of the greatest nights out of my life. I’m not quite sure what happened to the rest of them, but after Danceteria, The Palladium and Area, we ended up in a dive bar. As the day broke on Sunday morning, we were being asked to leave because Stu was provocatively lighting cigarettes with $50 notes, and the locals thought he was being disrespectful to the USA.

He would disappear to California for a few years on the poster trail and we lost touch for a while, but we would all regroup in west London, moving there one after another.

It was around this time that Stu insisted we all read the ridiculously camp, absurdly insane Boy Wonder by James Robert Baker. This book tells the story of a boy from nowhere named Shark Trager who takes on the film world via film school, art house movies and sleeping in projection rooms to become the most sought after, revered and feared film director of all time, outselling Spielberg, Hitchcock and all the rest. The similarities between the fictitious Shark Trager and the very real Stuart Boreman were starting to show now he was running cinemas in west London, and had big plans.

About then, a group of us including Stu, Nick Sanderson and Rob Marche talked about getting a band together, and after an evening at Stu’s flat, just down from my place on Brondesbury Road NW6, we played ‘Return of the Farmer’s Son’ by Thin Lizzy, ‘Open Up’ by Mungo Jerry and ‘Gudbuy T’Jane’ by Slade. Then Stu bravely proclaimed that we must “come out stomping”. The song we recorded a few days later was called ‘Fuck Off’ by Mortgage, and was soon renamed ‘Life’s Too Long’ by Earl Brutus.

Stu’s dry Yorkshire spoken voice worked well in Earl Brutus. His “ON ME NOT IN ME” refrain can be heard on the track of the same name, and a few years later Alan Vega from the New York band Suicide would cover the same song and keep Stuart’s voice; a duet of sorts. They sounded like a team.

Unlike Alan Vega, I’m not sure Stu was ever built for the stage, but to his credit he gave it a go at the Café de Paris in Leicester Square, at the band’s one-song live debut. Once over the nerves, we were all triumphant, but just as Earl Brutus were getting underway for real, Stu got an offer for the kind of position in the film industry he’d always had his eye on, and headed north to Manchester with his wife Sian.

Personally, I was gutted at the time that he wasn’t around for the stage lineup of Earl Brutus. However, there was no cause for concern as he took on a parallel role as a kind of spiritual advisor to the band. He would be around for some recordings and rehearsals, and his surrealist sleeve notes could be found on our first single — but most importantly, he was along for the ride and could be often seen down the front in the audience, helping things “come to a boil”.

He loved his music — both the deeply obscure and the hugely commercial — and most of all he loved Roxy Music, especially the first 4 albums. It was as if he had wilfully wished them into existence, like a facet of his own imagination: they were his band, and like Stu, the glamorously aspirational Bryan Ferry saw much of the world through a cinematic prism. He loved the Birthday Party and Nick Cave’s visceral delivery. He loved deep dub reggae, and he loved Joy Division, but I think his favourite pop record of all time was Rock On by David Essex. He also loved dirty dirty Leeds FC (I suppose there’s a bit of c**t in all of us).

In recent times I wanted Stu to come along and play some tracks on my Boogaloo Radio slot; I needed about one hour’s worth of tunes from him. Stu wasn’t up to coming on the show — I think his health was in decline — but instead he sent me about 13 hours of his favourite tracks. I’m still working my way through them.

His musical taste could be both sublime and ridiculous. He once spent an evening trying to convince me that trash act Dread Zeppelin were the actual future of rock ‘n’ roll, and by the end of the night I nearly believed him. He could be very persuasive. Much later on, after we lost Nick Sanderson and the whole idea of bands was over for me, he spent the weekend of Scott King’s 40th, at the Pelirocco Hotel in Brighton, persuading me that we must form another band. We formed another band. Within weeks we were on stage at Glastonbury.

But outside of work and music, Stu was a collector: antique shops, junk shops and car boot sales. Stu and Sian’s homes were always beautifully eclectic: Odeon signs from 1960s cinemas, retro caravans, rare film posters, a bubble car. He even wired up a school (or holiday camp) tannoy system in his kitchen so we could listen to ‘Rat In The Centre’ by Archie & Lyn one afternoon.

Once he cut out and framed pages from the Jeff Koons handbook on the wall. One just said THE PRE NEW.

Photographer Unknown

Stu, like all the best people, was a paradox: he smoked cigarettes, yet his diet was that of a super healthy vegan. His obsession with nature and the natural world shone through, and he loved open space, even though he lived in the city. When he lived in Manchester, classic northern cinema would actually collide with reality when he became the owner of his own kestrel. This would involve having to feed live meat to keep the bird of prey in good condition — a tough thing for a vegan to deal with, and again a massive paradox.

When his imagination ran riot, Stu’s world was pure fantasy, but he could also be very grounded and decisive, even stubborn when he needed to be. These are essential and key ingredients when you’re in a band. We got to see a few places around the world together: Berlin, Italy, USA and Canada. A few years ago, we were all near Toronto for another Stuart (Wheldon’s) wedding. We were waiting for the Boreman to arrive and had a WhatsApp chat group on all our phones. A message was shared that simply said ‘The Kestrel Has Landed’.

For all the madness and daft nights out, the endless theorising about the greatest records and the greatest bands, Stu was ultimately a family man, and he loved the home he built with the ever-radiant, ever-calm Sian. He loved and was loved in shiploads by her and their lovely daughters Issy and Iris, and always will be.

Stu, like all good mates, had the ability to push you into new ideas and plans, get you out of your comfort zone a bit, and as a result, as we all grew up and older, we never seemed to get bored.

There was no question that he was a forward-thinking, modern man in a modern world, but he carried that streak of 1950s rock ‘n’ roll funfair stardust into everything he touched. He achieved a great deal, but he was a product of a Northern British seaside town, and will forever be a ‘Brid Kid’.

Words by Jim Fry, August 2025.