![]() That night a hysterical Charlotte phoned Zep tour manager and all-round fixer Richard Cole in London, begging him to do something to get everyone home. The process was painfully slow, with only one doctor on duty at the cockroach-ridden Greek hospital. Maureen had lost a lot of blood, and because she had a rare type could only take Shirley’s blood for immediate transfusion. Scarlet was the only one to escape with just a few cuts and bruises. Karac had also broken a leg, while Carmen had broken her wrist. There it was discovered that Maureen had suffered a fractured skull and broken her pelvis and her leg. Fortunately, Charlotte and Shirley, in the next car, were there to summon help, but it was still several hours before the family could be taken – on the back of a nearby fruit farmer’s flatbed truck – to the local hospital. Looking at Maureen, who was bleeding and unconscious, he thought she was dead. When Robert had landed on top of Maureen, the impact shattered his right ankle and elbow and snapped several bones in his right leg. Just that the car Maureen Plant was driving skidded and spun off the road, nose-diving over a precipice and into a tree. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and Peter Grant attending the premiere for The Song Remains The Same in London on Novem(Image credit: Chris Walters)Īfterwards, nobody who was there could remember exactly what happened or why. And nothing would ever be the same again. Unstoppable, unbreachable, invulnerable, nothing could go wrong. This was Led Zeppelin at the very top of the mountain, able to look down on nearest rivals such as the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd from a considerable height. Most of the ensuing period would be taken up touring the world, it was decided, affording the band unusual opportunities to travel to territories they had never been able to before – South America was seriously discussed, as was India, Africa and other previously thought out-of-the-way stops on the rock’n’roll map. There was also the fact that they were now obliged to become tax exiles, unable to return to the UK for more than 30 days until April 1976. Their most recent US tour had only ended in March, but with combined album sales and tour receipts estimated to have topped $40 million (more than $185m in today’s money) they were keen to keep momentum flowing. The plan was to all meet up again in Paris a couple of days later where they would begin rehearsals for Zeppelin’s next US tour, scheduled to begin with two shows, already sold-out, on August 23 and 24 at the 90,000-capacity Oakland Coliseum in San Francisco. On August 3, Jimmy left the party briefly to fly to Sicily to visit Aleister Crowley’s old Abbey of Thelema, which occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger had told him so much about and that he was now considering buying. ![]()
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