One of Roger Taylor’s regular girlfriends was Jill Johnson. A former pupil at Truro’s County Grammar School for Girls, she spent a year with Roger and was part of the set which followed The Reaction around and hung-out at Truro’s coffee bars. Roger and Jill often teamed up with his neighbor Vaughan Hankins and his wife-to-be Gill Wilton. Vaughan’s father owned a garage so getting a car was never a problem. The four would have nights out together at Tregaye Country Club, Flo’s Bar in Devoran or at the Pandora Inn at Restronguet on the road to Falmouth.
Roger has described Jill Johnson as his first proper love when he was around 15–16 years old. They met at a club where Jill sang in a folk band and ended up dating for about four years, from approximately 1966 to 1969.
“My first real love was a girl called Jill,” he said in Queen in Cornwall book. “A mate and I went to a club and there was a folk group playing with a girl singer in it. My friend was older and had a car and we gave her a lift. As it turned out we all went to a nearby fair. Then, when I ran into her again, we ended up together for four years.
“She was small and wore short skirts, which were ‘in’ at the time. We had lots of rows but I think that was the reason why I liked her so much. She had a very strong mind and she knew what she wanted. I can’t stand dumb girls. I like girls who can take care of themselves. Things fizzled out for us at college: she joined another folk group, and went out with the guitarist, and that was the end of it. She was quiet in some ways, now that I think about it, but she had a lot of power in her.”
Jill Johnson was afterwards part of an all-girl trio called The Jay Jays or The Three Jays, and then lastly The Jayfolk. The other members were sisters Pat and Sue Johnstone. One of Roger’s first recording sessions was back-up musician to The Jay Jays. The girls, playing guitars and flutes, have been rehearsing with Roger on drums in premises next to the Barley Sheath pub in the centre of Truro.
They met Rod Wheatley, the owner of a Ferrograph tape recorder, and he offered to tape some of their songs, Rod was helped by his friend, Grenville Penhaligon, and they put down two songs on two-track tape.
“I remember Roger turning up with these three gorgeous girls with gorgeous voices,” Rod said. “The session wasn’t very long, an hour perhaps. The music was very, very good. They certainly had it all together.”
Jill Johnson incidentally, forged her own career in music, fronting the folk quartet, The Famous Jug Band, until they split in the early 1970s. They released two albums on Liberty Records, before Jill became ill with agoraphobia and later moved to Canada where her two elder twin sisters already lived.
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