Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

his classroom and even encouraged his young son
to fraternize with them. Young Frampton was already
an accomplished guitarist and was soon a friend of
both boys. Twenty years later, he’d come alive, of
course, but at the time, he was simply Professor
Frampton’s child. His group the Little Ravens
performed alongside George and the Dragons at
campus fetes and once at a school-wide talent
competition.
Although Peter Frampton and David would remain
friends and move in and out of each other’s lives as
both became pop stars (Frampton, ironically, would
beat David Bowie to stardom as a guitarist with the
Herd and Humble Pie in the late sixties), Frampton
would not stay long at Bromley Tech. Owen
Frampton’s charisma and approach to education
cast a long shadow for his son.
“I was only there a year because I found it difficult
being at the same school as my father,” Frampton
has said. “A few kids, shall we say the one half
percent who didn’t get on too well with my father,
made my life rather like a living hell.” Frampton
would soon transfer out of Bromley.
The newly Beat David Jones was a magnet for the
young girls from local Bromley High School and
Bromley Grammar, and even some fellow students
at the all-boys Bromley Tech. It was around this time,
he claimed to have lost both his hetero and
homosexual virginity.
“When I was fourteen, sex suddenly became allimportant
to me,” he told Cameron Crowe in their