Having written odd bits and pieces about my early forays
into music, I thought I would collect them into their own
page.
This is it…
Having written odd bits and pieces about my early forays
into music, I thought I would collect them into their own
page.
This is it…
How did all this music stuff get started? I was in the third or fourth form at school in Muswell Hill. In the Public Library, I came across a volume called "Shining Trumpets", written by an American critic named Rudy Blesh. Mr Blesh was a fundamentalist, preaching the gospel of New Orleans jazz, in that peculiarly po-faced way that fundie Xians employ to excoriate evolution. He told many fascinating stories that were new to me, at the age of fourteen — the closing of the Storeyville red-light district in 1917 and the resultant exodus of musicians (and, presumably, hookers) northward to Chicago — the un-recorded Buddy Bolden, who was the first trumpet star in New Orleans, and his habit of playing through a hole in the fence, so that he cold be heard many miles away, For some reason this was known as "calling his children home". I was a born-again jazzer — what was later known in UK as a "Mouldie Fygge". I had all the answers! I knew it all! What my mother and father had called jazz was nothing of the kind, I thundered. The saxophone has no place in the jazz ensemble, I asserted, and as for the guitar…! Words failed me. What a load of cobblers…
These daft ideas were all part of the revivalist movement which was in full, if you'll pardon the expression, swing at the time. Ken Collyer was the High Priest in England, having actually been to New Orleans, and — wow! — been in jail briefly there. His band eschewed the solo in favour of one of Mr Blesh's shibboleths, Collective Improvisation. Jazz of any kind was in short supply in the early '50s: there was perhaps one jazz record a month issued, and one weekly radio programme — Mark White's Radio Rhythm Club, which I think metamorphosed into Jazz Club, on the BBC. I bought my first jazz record. It featured a band recorded in someone's garage on portable equipment, or if not it certainly sounded that way. The label bore the Jazz Man imprint, and the title was “Weary Blues”, featuring William Geary 'Bunk' Johnson.
Bunk Johnson was a link with the past, if an unreliable one owing to his penchant for telling whoppers. His musical career in New Orleans was thirty years behind him, and he was keeping body and soul together driving a tractor in the Louisiana rice fields of New Iberia. Discovered there by enthusiasts, he was handed a trumpet and a set of false teeth, and let loose with other old New Orleanians of a similar vintage, and recordings were made. Poor old Bunk's chops would give out about halfway through a three-minute side, and the clarinet player, George Lewis, would come to the fore. I copied Lewis note for note, which wasn't that difficult because he stuck pretty close to the notes of the basic chords of the tune and everything was in easy keys.
The nearest source of live jazz music for me was Wood Green, in North London. Run by a couple, Art and Viv Saunders, who seemed permanently wreathed in cigarette smoke, the Wood Green Jazz Club sessions took place in a hall attached to a pub, the Fishmongers Arms (today an "Irish" pub, so-called)*. On my very first visit I heard the Geoff Kemp Jazz Band — whatever happened to them? — featuring a banjo player who sang hill-billy songs. His name? Lonnie Donnegan… I was more impressed by the number of rubber bands it took to keep the clarinet player's instrument working. Some months later I plucked up courage to ask if I could sit in. The band on that occasion was run by Terry Lightfoot, and he was good enough to say yes. “What do you know?” I appeared to consider this question before selecting “Weary Blues” from my extensive repertoire of one tune. I have no idea how it sounded to the listener — but I loved it! I had lost my jazz virginity!
*Well, it was an Irish pub when I last saw it. Apparently it now houses Police offices on the ground floor, and flats above. The Bourn Hall, where the Jazz Club held sway, has been demolished—no blue plaque…
Eventually and gradually I shed the purism, having realised that Traditional had become Trad, and was now a commercial proposition, with bands in uniforms and, of all things, funny hats. The stolid clanging of the ubiquitous, and mandatory, banjo was getting me down, too. By the way, my picture shows me with the old simple system clarinet drooping a little, and a band, not one of whose names I can recall! I was probably sixteen or seventeen at that time.
My record collection, all 78s of course, was small but growing, and now included Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and even Buddy de Franco. I still couldn't hack bebop. Actually I remember mentioning Benny Goodman in the presence of a Trad clarinet player who spat on the floor in disgust. When I went to the Empire Pool, Wembley** to see the great Louis Armstrong on the first tour of an American jazz artist permitted by the Musicians' Union and the AFM, there were bearded blokes in sandals shouting “Play jazz!”, presumably because Louis had had the effrontery to develop from what he had been playing in 1926…
**In George Melly's book Owning Up he says this show was at the Empress Hall, Earls Court - and I think he was right! It was certainly the same show I attended, complete with the one-legged tap dancer, and the large Velma Middleton in voluminous pink frock. Memories fade...
In the years I spent playing saxophones and sundry other things, I only ever collected one autograph. Well, two to be precise, but they were both on the same page.
The occasion was the end of the woefully short London run of a musical produced by Ned Sherrin and entitled "Only In America". The score was made up from songs by the legendary Lieber & Stoller, composers of Hound Dog, Spanish Harlem, I(Who Have Nothing), Is That All There Is? - the list goes on and on... The musical director was a chum, Geoff Westley, and he roped me in to re-create the King Curtis saxophone solos on such arias as Charlie Brown and Yakkety-Yak. As time became very short before the opening, I also took on some of the orchestration. The band was a first-class collection of experienced younger studio musicians, and a good time was had by all! Mike and Jerry signed copies of a book about their careers for each member of the orchestra - and you can see what they wrote in mine.
In case you are wondering, "Chicken-scratch" refers to that style (!) of tenor saxophone playing heard on the recordings of Duane Eddy, The Coasters, Junior Walker and Boots Randolph - I have no idea why... But I'm still very proud of that autograph.
The worst thing to happen to my hopes and aspirations as a musician (such as they were) was the advent of the dreaded Rock 'n' Roll (as it was all too often spelled). By the time it arrived on the shores of this sceptered isle I was 17 — the ideal target you might think. Ah, but, by that time I had already happily mis-spent much of my early teen years in smoky jazz clubs, playing on my father's old simple-system clarinet, and this new stuff sounded far too tame… later, when I was playing dance-band gigs with the MEAF Band in Cyprus and East Africa, it mostly came down to making a lot of noise, squealing and honking, while doing silly things, like riding on the shoulders of another saxophone player — I have no idea why, but it seemed popular with the punters, so… Music as such didn't have a great deal to do with it.
After de-mob from the RAF Music Service, I found myself in a pro dance-band, as mentioned elsewhere in these pages. After about a year of it, half of which was spent in provincial Mecca halls, I got the hump, partly with the job and partly with myself, and decided to 'get a proper job' back in London. And I did… but then came a telephone call, from a chap who was managing a group. He happened to mention that said group had secured a DECCA recording contract, which sounded interesting. So I went along and had a blow with them at his home. The manager was one Frank Maher, and you will most likely have seen him, without necessarily knowing it, if you have watched The Prisoner, or perhaps The Avengers, among other shows. Frank was a stunt performer and arranger, and was Patrick McGoohan's favourite double.
The group was called The Cannons. Why? Who knows… Somehow a set of matching Fender guitars was procured; only the second, I believe, to arrive in the UK. Some outfit called The Shadows got the first (and I think most of the available strings, too). I was still doing the day job, although it wasn't working out too well. The idea had been that I would chase up export orders on the factory, but instead I spent my days writing conciliatory letters to the poor sods of agents waiting for goods in the far-flung outposts. I wasn't allowed to harrass the factory, who were six months behind with the orders, in order not to cause industrial unrest… So when it was decided that The Cannons were to go pro., it wasn't too much of a wrench to relinquish respectability and lob in my notice.
Perry Stanton, Dave Devon (gtrs), Bob Burnard (dr), Me,
Wally Garrett (bs)
The first pro gig was… wait for it… a week each in two parks in Birmingham! We were to back Johnny Worth, a songwriting singer who had written hits for Adam Faith, and play our own set. Also appearing, were a double act called Christmas and King, and The Dagenham Girl Pipers!
That DECCA contract I mentioned earlier saw one record released: An old Andrews Sisters hit, 'I Didn't Know The Gun Was Loaded', backed with 'My Guy's Come Back' written by Benny Goodman, Ray McKinley and Mel Powell. Class material… Decca's Studios in West Hampstead had recently acquired an Ampex four-track tape recorder, and a control desk lashed up from Dexion and gaffer tape, which was all pretty new to the engineers. This was several years before EMI at Abbey Road moved on to multi-track. The picture, sent to me by Bob Burnard, shows the famous five coming to grips with the early 60s technology of Decca's No. 2 Studio.
One critic wrote 'Good sound, good beat, good chance for the charts', which just showed how much he knew about it. After one or two plays on Radio Luxemburg it rocketed into obscurity. Later we played an audition of sorts, in Norrie Paramor's office, and subsequently made 'Bush Fire' written by our two guitarists. Someone knew a chap from Bahrain, named Mizra Alsherif (I think!) who played industrial strength bongoes on the session, giving it a fair head of steam. A few years ago I heard it on Brian Matthews's “Sounds of the Sixties”, and it didn't sound all that terrible. Still, the sheet music was published, which must have meant somebody thought it worthwhile. That someone was bandleader Denny Boyce, and when I worked for him later I wrote an arrangement of Bush Fire for his band.
We began a weary routine of schlepping out to USAF bases at RAF Bentwaters, RAF Woodbridge, and all the other US enclaves, where we played four hour sessions in enlisted (I originally typed "enlusted" which was pretty apt) men's clubs. It was at one of those gigs that we opened with Duane Eddie's 'Dixie' — and the club erupted. Whites on one side of the room, blacks on the other and knives drawn… we had no idea that there was bad racial tension on the station… it was the only number we played that night, which suited us, as we stilll got paid! We tried it at the next club gig, but it didn't work. Obvously things were more harmonious there, and we had to play the whole evening.
A welcome break in all this was a three-day stint on a film set. The film was a run-of-the-mill police v. racketeers would-be film noir, called 'The Frightened City', and was partly set in a night club managed by Alfred Marks, who gave, I thought, by far the best perfomance in the flick. The club band's numbers had been recorded using Fender guitars, a sort of pseudo-Shadows sound, and we had those matching Fenders — so we were hired to be the band seen on screen. There was no sax on the track, so they rented a vibraphone, and yours truly mimed on that! At eleven quid a day, as 'special extras' we made more than we made in a month on the US bases, and we got to rub shoulders wih Alfred Marks, Olive McFarland, Herbert Lom and a young hopeful called Sean Connery. Wardrobe gave us hawaiian shirts, made, I noticed, from the same material as the knickers the show dancers were wearing! It was worth getting up in the middle of the night to get to Shepperton, and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The bells, the flashing lights, the cries of 'Action!', the poker games going on behind every part of the scenery, the evening-dress extras playing nightclub customers, dancing in their socks and stockings, because two of the stars were recording dialogue on the dance floor — all very exciting and a bit of a giggle for us.
We were sent on a tour of US bases in Germany, under the auspices of the fearsome Gisele Gunther (Himmler in corsets) Kunstleragentur. Every act had to demonstrate what they did before a panel of service judges, before being despatched to various clubs. It was then we discovered that we had been sold as a comedy act. Since we obviously weren't, Gisele cut our money! In order to comply with the contract, I hastily cobbled together several gag routines, with the generous help of one or two of the comics who suggested material, and we went down very well, in Kassel, Bayreuth (where we stayed in what had been the Gestapo HQ), Mainz and Nancy (yes I know it's not in Germany!). Our money, cash being deliverable by postman, followed us around, and for three days at one point, we starved…
I confess I had never wanted to go to Germany. Brought up during WWII, I had been subject to all the usual propaganda, and I had a mental picture of beefy great frauleins in blonde plaits and dirndl skirts… so it came as a great shock to see how elegant and frankly tasty the local girls were! Frankly they were streets ahead of what we saw at, say, the dreaded Rink ballroom, in Nelson, Lancs. I began to warm to the place right away… As we travelled around I marvelled at the beauty of the country, with its valleys and forests. And birds…
Frankfurt-am-Main still showed the traces of conflict. The imposing main line passenger railway station was pitted with bullet and shell marks (all of which had been filled in when I next went there in the early 1980s). We stayed at the Münchner Hof, a small hotel out at the end of the No 1 tram route, on the Ginnheimer Landstraße. Each night artists would return from various engagements and make straight for the bar, which seemed to be open at all hours. Show talk and gags flowed, as did the falling-down water, and a convivial time was had by all…
We also spent a week based in Kassel and another in Bayreuth. The Bayreuth accomodation was in what had been the Gestapo HQ, just behind the Festspielhaus. Our room had been the billiards room and you could still see where the players had chalked their cues, in the whitewash on the ceiling. Outside the window was a blood-stained, bullet pocked wall. It was the time of the Wagner festival, and we could easily hear the rehearsals from outside the opera house, which was a fascinating experience for me, although I don't know about the others.
After our month in Germany it was back to the US bases at home. We learned 10-pin bowling, poker and craps from GIs we got to know, and after playing snooker, we found their little pool tables pretty easy going. One troop in particular used to bum a lift to London with us, and we had some great card games with him in the back of the bus — I just remember him as 'Bart'.
We played several Rock-and-Roll tours, backing visiting performers from the US — these included Del Shannon, Dion (late of The Belmonts), Freddie Cannon, and Gene Vincent. Our vocalist, Dave Devon, took to doing 'Be-Bop-a-Lula' on our own gigs, as an impression of Gene, who was one of the original medallion men — Dave accomplished this aspect by suspending a dustbin-lid on a chain around his neck! Our first show with Del Shannon was at the Albert Hall, of all places. I had a recording session, and couldn't make the rehearsal, which put Del into a bit of a spin… I had the solo, originally recorded using a small organ, in 'Runaway' — and the relief on his face was almost funny when I breezed through it. He wasn't used to working with sight-readers! Del was a nice guy, as was Dion di Mucci. There were some spirited sing-songs on the tour coach — in particular a trio version of 'Money', a song that was new to us, belted out by Del, Dion and Buzz Clifford. Dion and his girlfriend liked to imitate the Hanna-Barbera cartoons (which hadn't reached here as yet) featuring a camp lion called Snagglepuss. As they got off the coach at night Dion would declaim 'Farewell! Exit left!' and she would lisp 'So long, even!' I suppose you had to be there…
In the early 1960s, groups didn't wander on stage dressed up in the sort of clothes that they might have lifted from a scarecrow, as is now de rigeur — oh dear me, no. Matching whistles-and-flutes were the order of the day. The Cannons started out with five slightly sparkly dinner jacket outfits, supplied by Morris Angel, the theatrical costumiers.
I don't know what production they had been made for, but I do remember that mine had the name 'Anton Diffring' on the label. Diffring was a blue-eyed, blonde German, actor, very handsome, who played an awful lot of Nazi bastards in various films and TV shows. Ironic to think that he had fled Germany to get away from the blighters… The trousers led me to think that they had been made for a dance routine, since there was no fly, but a zip at the side, on the hip so to speak.
These served us well for a while, and then we were sent to visit a tailor in Streatham, who would make a set of suits for us, and these turned out to be pale grey mohair, very tasty! We wore them with maroon bow ties that went under the shirt collar. Sprauncy!
The group was being booked by the Tito Burns agency, and they came up with an idea I wasn't keen on. The 'Twist' was breaking in New York, and they wanted us to back an American dancer who sang a bit, a chap called Peppi Borza. Pep was from a circus family, and had until recently had an act with his sister, working with Sammy Davis Jr. The plot was, we were to pose as 'Peppi and the New York Twisters', and I think it was the dumb name that put me off. Still, work was work, and for a while we alternated as The New York Twisters and The Cannons. As the former, we played some rather nice stage shows, and also appeared at somewhere completely unknown to us, in Liverpool — The Cavern.
The Cavern is now the stuff of legend. In reality it was a ghastly hole, with condensation running down the brick walls. As we unloaded our equipment, now all impressively rack-mounted by Ken Bran, our roadie, later a leading light at Marshall Amps., clusters of girls quizzed us; what did we think of the beetles? Frankly we had no idea what they were on about. Later that evening we discovered theat one of the local groups was wittily entitled 'The Beatles', and they were on to finish the evening. I must say that there were several local groups playing that night, and they were all good and all different. While the rest of the country was still trying to play 'Apache' and sound like the Shadows here was a variety of different sounds, styles and approaches. I think it a pity that it was only the Beatles that really came to fame.
As usual, Peppi got a girl up on stage and showed her how to do the Twist. Years later, on a recording session at EMI, Cilla Black told me it had been she… I remember the little band room at the right hand side of the stage (left hand if you were looking at the stage) there was quite a press of people, including Bob Woolley, the MC, the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, and the lads themselves. I remember chatting with their bass player, and his pointing out their new drummer, a diffident individual with a lot of rings on his fingers which he twisted nervously. Apart from that all I remember of the evening was after our set, we took those soaking mohair suits off — they were now dark grey — and dropped them on the floor with a resounding 'splosh'! Ken had to find a dry cleaner for them, first thing next morning, as we had sweated through every inch of the fabric!
Given a decent sized stage, Peppi could put his circus background to use, as he would return to take his call in a succession of somersaults and cartwheels, which shook everybody rigid. Where he is today I have no idea — I remember spotting him on a Two Ronnies show as one of a comic troupe of Morris dancers, but that's all I have seen of him in all the years since then.
One day I had a telephone call from a certain Tony Meehan. It seems he had heard the asthmatic saxophone noises I had contributed to The Cannons' record for EMI, and he asked if I would be interested in joining an endeavour he was putting together "to make records". This sounded more promising than the plans The Cannons had, which took them off to Israel , from which at least one of them never returned! Calm yourselves, my children, he wasn't brown bread, but had become rather well off, as the result of studying electronics and founding a company to make and supply amplifiers. He later built his own recording studio in Tel Aviv… and today lives in Florida with his trophy wife… lucky sod!
The first task resulted in the only record on which I ever worked that reached the Number One slot. A tune composed by Jerry Lordan, who was famous for the Shadows' 'Apache' (did you know he wrote that for Bert Weedon originally?) was to feature Tony's ex-Shadows colleague, Jet Harris, and was to be called, simply 'Diamonds'. As I recall it we recorded it at IBC Studios in Portland Place, London. The middle section was where I was to do my stuff, along with a small brass section. The honking and growling completed, I wandered around to the other side of a screen, where the Mike Sammes singers were stationed. One, a pleasant blonde lady, looked up from her knittng and smiled. 'Hello!' she said brightly 'was that you making that awful noise?' I agreed that, yes, yes it was… Tony asked me to dub on some piano chords, arpeggioso and I did that, so I was on that record twice! Even dafter, on the 'B' side, a very forgettable 'Footstomp' credited to Mr Meehan, I played Glockenspiel…
Promoting the record had its moments, not least of which was my brief membership of the Billy Cotton band! The Cotton band was famous through its BBC Sunday 'Wakey-wa-a-a-key!' programmes, and for the TV spectaculars, replete with wallopers in feathers and sequins. On the occasion of Jet and Tony's appearance, I was there to do my chicken-scratch stuff, and the wardrobe kitted me out with a jacket to match those of the band. I was to play on one of the existing saxophone section microphones — fine, but the previous band number was to segue (continue without a break) into 'Diamonds', so how was I to get on mic? I suggested I play the previous number as one of the sax section, as there was plenty of time before that to take my place. I replaced Eddie Spiegel, who doubled tenor sax with character comedy on the radio shows. They were all rather surprised that this honking, squealing rock-and-roll reprobate could fit into a section and sight-read — it was nothing new for me, after several years of doing just that, from Cyprus to London, Belfast and Nottingham… Bill Cotton peered at me: 'Where's Spiegel? On 'oliday?' and he wandered off…
The next thing was to put together the stage group, for touring purposes. I knocked out some small group arrangements, and we met up at The Roebuck, in Tottenham Court Road to rehearse in their upstairs function room. A fine baritone sax player, Glenn Hughes, guitarist Joe Moretti and bass player John Baldwin completed the ensemble. Glenn and I got on famously, and dubbed ourselves The Hughes Sisters… strictly for grins. Joe had a great deal of experience and technical ability and John… well he was and is, just brilliant. You may know him better as Led Zeppelin's co-founder and fearsome bass player John Paul Jones, but then he was a quiet, seventeen-year-old potential monster.
Stage outfits had to be procured. We went to Dougie Millings, who later became famous (and fashionable and expensive) for the Nehru styled outfits he made for The Beatles. He made suits for us in black mohair — and I took the opportunity to have a couple of 'civvy' outfits made as he had the measurements. One of our final rehearsals took place on the stage of the Metropolitan Music Hall in the Edgware Road, where a lighting plot was finalised. I was most impressed, both by the venerable theatre, designed by the great Frank Matcham, and by this professional attention to detail. Shortly after, the place was demolished, but I'm pretty sure we had nothing to do with that…
Our general factotum was to be the redoubtable Sam Curtis, who had been roadie for the Shadows. He designed the lighting among other things, such as humping equipment, driving the band bus, and generally looking after us like a mother hen. Sam had started out in life as Schmuel Gurvitz, but found that, inexplicably, people were happy to do business with Sam C. while avoiding Schmuel G. Sam's son Adrian later formed the successful Baker Gurvitz Army, with ace drummer Ginger Baker. Anyway, suddenly it was back to the Rock and Roll touring shows, although now I was with an act that finished the first half and someone else backed the other acts. A bit of a leg up, I suppose…
The Rock and Roll touring shows were arduous affairs, particularly when you played three of them, back-to-back, as we did at one point — that meant six weeks without a day off, hurtling from one end of the country to another. Bookers have absolutely no sense of geography.
The coach call would be at Allsopp Place, a back street that connects Marylebone Road, by Madame Tussauds, with the northern end of Baker Street. It was the location for a London Transport canteen, which somehow we were permitted to use. Sometimes there would be as many as three coaches lined up, each carrying a different show. Somehow we usually managed to get on the right one…
The bill was roughly the same format on each show: a group (like the Cannons), there to back a variety of solo acts, and to play their own short set, a comedian to act as MC, a girl singer, or occasionally a girl duo or trio, several lip-curling, Presley-slouching male singers, and maybe an American star to close the show. Since little of what was played or sung could be heard, owing to the high-pitched squealing of the pre-pubescent female audience, it hardly mattered…
One bill of which I have a record, from October 1963, was:
I have a feeling that was the tour on which, arriving in Bristol to play the Colston Hall, we discovered that a visiting conference had taken every last bed in the town, and we had to sleep in the coach, parked in a lay-by. Lovely…
Duffy Power was one of the best of the Larry Parnes mob, really a blues singer. Cilla was the 'bird' on the bill — I wonder what happened to her? She had not had a big hit at that point, and was promoting her first record, 'Love of the Loved'. Other young ladies who filled the 'bird' spot included Patti Brooke, Billy Davis, Helen Shapiro and Suzy Cope.
Bryan Burdon was our compere on that bill. Bryan was from a show-business family, and had been part of his father's hilarious knock-about comedy magic act, Albert Burdon and Company. He was an accomplished tumbler, and I have an odd memory of him showing me how he could fall off the top of a wardrobe in our digs, the resultant racket scaring the landlady witless in the process! Most of the comics who took on these tours tried a hip, ring-a-ding, hi-there-guys-and-gals approach, all very sophisticated and mid-Atlantic, but Bryan realised that the audiences were too young and naïve to respond to that, and stuck to childish, Crackerjack style jokes, and so was actually able to get the kids laughing. One I recall concerned the Oomeboomboom bird, so-called because it had very short legs,and when it came in to land would shoutl 'Ooh! Me bum-bum!' Seriously — they lapped it up.
Another, earlier bill featured:
Buzz Clifford was known for Baby Sittin' Boogie but not, I think, much else. A bit of a bruiser, he had a punch-up on the coach with one of the double act, Wallace & Duval, as we travelled homewards on the last night of that tour. As a result we all spent a fair portion of the night finding a hospital to clean up the face of the loser — which wasn't Buzz.
The Allisons were a couple of chaps with very little experience of the business. They had come second in the 1961 Eurovision Song Contest, with a song called Are You Sure. The Allison who would count the band in had an unfortunate tendency to go cross-eyed as he concentrated on the tempo, which inevitably set us off giggling, I'm afraid. Nice lads, but very green, although they did cop a gold disc for a million sales of Are You Sure, their only hit.
The venues were mostly cinemas, not designed to make communication with an audience easy, but as I said above, with the racket the kids kicked up it hardly mattered. More enjoyable were places like the Opera House, Blackpool and the Palace, Manchester. Some of those old theatres smelt a bit funny backstage, but were much easier to play.
Newly demobbed from the Royal Air Force, after three years in the RAF Music Service, I fell into my first professional music job. Nat Allen, the bandleader at the Streatham Locarno ballroom took me on to play clarinet and alto sax - although he was actually in need of a tenor sax player, having sacked his lead tenor sax player the previous night. The lead alto player, Tommy Plunkett, said he was in the process of buying a tenor, and I could borrow it until I could buy one for myself. Great! I had always wanted to play tenor, so I jumped at the opportunity. He brought the instrument in, a Selmer 'Cigar Cutter' model, and I embarked on trying to learn how to play it in tune — playing in a section of a dozen or so clarinets in a military band as I had been doing, tuning discrepancies got buried: playing with three or four other saxes was a different matter.
A scant week later, I was on my first BBC broadcast. Music While You Work had started up during World War II, for the workers in factories. The original brief called for "as little variation of tempo as possible, the ideal being to maintain the same beat throughout the whole programme. Artistic value must NOT be considered. The aim is to produce something which is monotonous and repetitive. Subtlety of any kind is out of place." — I've just realised that Radio One is still following those instructions! Anyway, they were to some extent ignored, but the programme was live non-stop music and so was quite hard work.
At the time when I did it, in the early 60s, the morning session was thirty minutes, played by a small combination. Most of these were night-club bands, and had been working until the small hours. They then had to be in the studio for a 7.00 am rehearsal, followed by an 11 o'clock broadcast, before dragging themselves home to bed. The afternoon programme was three-quarters of an hour long, non-stop, and featured a full band. So there I was, with an unfamiliar instrument, all set to churn through a cavalcade of crap for 45 minutes. My very first note in the signature tune, Calling All Workers (Eric Coates) was at the bottom of the instrument, a low 'C', followed by a low 'B ' — that part of the saxophone can be very temperamental, and I remember I dropped a cigarette lighter down the bell, to deaden the vibrations a bit and stop the note jumping up an octave, or 'wolfing' — producing a highly undesirable loud squeak! (In my RAF days, recording for FBS in Cyprus I had had the solo in Dvorak's Humoresque, and my very first note was a horrible squeak. Every time they broadcast that tape, the squeak seemed to get louder and nastier!)
At the end of each tune, the pianist would play a bridge, changing the key, leading into the next number. Meantime we would quietly pull the part we had just played onto the floor, revealing the music for the next arrangement, and off we would go again. At one point I remember alto player Joe McCleer pulling the part off, and dumping four more on the floor with it. He couldn't stop to pick them up of course — he did look funny, with his head bent over, reading the next number from the floor…
All in all, it was a bit of a 'roast-up', and we were all glad to get it over with. 'Music While You Work' was treated as a 'second class' broadcast, listed separately in the Melody Maker from other 'real' band broadcasts — it was paid at a lower rate, too! Still, it wasn't a bad apprenticeship. What the factory workers made of it I don't know.
In one of the articlettes above, I wrote about Peppi Borza, seen here underneath sister Nita, in the days of their youthful double act, with whom the Cannons had been paired, and packaged as 'Peppi and the New York Twisters'. I said that apart from spotting him as a Morris dancer in a Two Ronnies sketch, I had heard nothing of him since the New York Twisters (and how!) days.
Well, I dug and delved and discovered a few nuggets. In 1973, Pep had had a part as a Muleteer in the film version of Man of La Mancha although I'm pretty sure he would not have Sung the Unsingable Song, and Reached the Unreachable Note…
He is credited in 1979 on the original Broadway cast recording of Evita, and was one of the comedy vocal policemen “with cat-like tread”, in the 1983 film of Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.
1986 cast lists for Doctor Who: The Trial Of a Timelord, episodes 11 & 12, have Peppi as First Vervoid — sounds like an amalgamation of vermin and a hemorrhoid, but I wouldn't bank on it…
In the meantime, he had participated in the composition of four songs with Dusty's brother, Tom Springfield: No Tears for Johnny, Chain Gang Blues, O Holy Child (which Dusty recorded) and The Skip, which I imagine would have been a dance novelty rather than a receptacle for rubble and old mattresses.
And finally I was reliably informed that he had died sometime in the later 1980s. Not the brightest outcome to a quest, but at least now I know… I shall always remember his bafflement with English accents, as when he had accosted a bucolic local to ask for directions. He returned with a very puzzled expression. 'The guy says we should turn right at The Ploo. What the f---'s a ploo?' We explained that that was how West Country folk pronounced things, and set off to look for a pub called 'The Plough', where we duly turned right…
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. (John Gaule)
It occurs to me that in my musical meanderings here I have been mentioning such arcane matters as the type of clarinet I was using at various different periods, referring to 'Boehm system' or 'Simple system', but not explaining the difference. Now there is no reason why you should give even the smallest toss about it, but I really should clarify the matter. So I will — it'll make me feel better, really…
'System' refers to the
arrangement of keys and holes which the player uses to
produce different notes. The 'Albert' system (left), known
in the UK as the 'Simple system' was the standard
instrument for many players in the 19th Century and early
20th Century. It is still in use in some Eastern European
musical forms, including Klezmer and Bulgarian music, and
with some players of earlier forms of jazz. It is
emphatically not an inferior instrument, and was
the choice of, among others, our own Sid Phillips, Sydney
Bechet, Barney Bigard, Johnnie Dodds, Jimmie Noone, Larry
Shields, Omer Simeon and Woody Allen. However, it poses
technical difficulties for the player, some which were
eliminated by the invention of what is known as the 'Boehm'
system (right).
It's called the Boehm system not because Theobald Boehm had anything to do with it — he didn't. Boehm had invented a system for the flute, which is a very different instrument indeed, and certain mechanical principles used in that system were adopted by Hyacinthe Klosé and Auguste Buffet (jun.) in the mid 1800s, as they developed their clarinet system. In simple terms, the idea was that pressing a key could operate several other keys on a shared axle. The Boehm clarinet was laid out differently, so that the player's fingers were less stretched to cover holes, and 'cross-fingered' notes were ditched altogether (meaning notes like the low-register B flat, with two holes closed and one open between them, thus: + 0 +).
As can be seen from the two illustrations (neither being of typical specimens I'm afraid) there are many more keys on the Boehm instrument, offering the player a choice of fingerings, the alternatives making the awkward 'break' between the registers easier to negociate at speed. Usually on a Boehm clarinet you do not see a wrap-around speaker key at the top of the instrument, as on the one here, and the Albert A and A-flat keys are usually separate, the A key not passing under the A-flat.
Next time you see a German or Austrian orchestra, take a look at the clarinets — neither Albert nor Boehm, they use a development from the Albert clarinet, known as the Oehler system.
And you thought they were all just 'the old licorice stick'!
Like most blokes, in 1956 I received the dreaded call-up papers. I knew they would arrive eventually, of course but still it was a barrier that had to be surmounted, and it created a trench running right across one's life, cutting off what had been, and putting what was to come at a distance across a dark void…
My father had been concerned that, concentrating as I had been on early jazz I had not acquired much facility for reading music. He must have had a friend who was involved with a Territorial Army band — most probably the Bandmaster, although I don't know that for sure. Anyway, I was enrolled as a 'Boy Entrant' in the TA band of the Royal Fusiliers, and attended weekly rehearsals — at The Tower of London, no less. We had a bandroom in the Flint Tower, and I settled down to playing 'straight'. The only two titles I can remember are the Barcarolle, from The Tales of Hoffman, and the March from Handel's Scipio, but it did bring my reading on, which was just as well.
The first task, approaching full time service was the medical examination. It was just like the scenes you have seen in Carry On films, without Hattie Jacques but with the additional bonus of a dose of crab lice, picked up probably from a recently lain on blanket. You got all sorts…
I explained to someone that I would much rather join the RAF than an Army Regiment, blue being much more my colour, dear, despite my having been an ornament of the TA, and they put me down as a clerk, which could have been worse I suppose. On the appointed morning I showed up to become an AC2, and there I met someone who told me that the Music Service was desperately short of clarinet players, and was taking them on a three-year contract, I figured that an extra year, at twice the pay throughout doing something I liked might be a pretty good idea. The desk sergeant telephoned Uxbridge, and it was arranged that I should show up next day to be auditioned… and I had another night at home. My father muttered comments like 'what is this, a part-time job?', while I feverishly brushed up on the odd minor scale.
At the audition I managed to flannel my way through it, playing when requested, the A-minor scale I had learnt the night before… and I was in! They said they couldn't provide me with an instrument like the old Simple System one I was playing, and I told them I was keen to change onto the Boehm system anyway, so that was OK.
I reported again, and this time was processed through the sausage machine, and after three days getting kitted out at RAF Cardington found myself at RAF Padgate, which is now under a housing estate near Warrington. On the call of 'anyone play a musical instrument?' I crossed my fingers that they weren't looking for volunteers to shift a NAAFI piano, and put my hand up — and was put into Band Flight, the station Voluntary Band. And guess what? They sent me home again to pick up the old clarinet! More paternal mutterings…
Although we did all the marching drill, plus band drill on the square, with and without rifles, we had an easier time of it than those in the regular intake Flights. For one thing, since we arrived and later passed out in ones and twos, there was never a mass exodus, and so the billets were never trashed. This was done usually to give the incoming Flight members something to do… consequently our lino had a mirror-like finish. By the door there was a pile of blanket squares, and when you came in, you skated around on a pair of them, to save tearing up the surface. Even so, 'Bull Nights', officially known as 'domestic evenings'were pretty tiring, after a day on the square — I distinctly remember going to the Astra Cinema, to see the opening titles and the end credits of "Bad Day At Black Rock" and sleeping through everything else!
Easter cropped up while I was at Padgate, and that meant leave, with a Travel Warrant to get home. I was feeling under the weather, but was determined not to miss out on this. The journey was something of a nightmare, with me feeling worse all the time. I finally reached home and collapsed on the front doorstep. It turned out I had pharyngitis. After a shot of penicillin administered with a sawn-off drainpipe, and a 'tonic' of strychnine and iron that remains the most repellent thing I have ever tasted, and some welcome bed-rest, I rejoined the RAF, and after passing out was able to put up my LAC propellor on my sleeve - I was a Musician II!
RAF Uxbridge was the home of the Music Service and the Central Band, until very recently. This was good, because it was on the same Underground Line as my home! I sat around, practising on my newly issued Boehm System clarinet, until it was time to discuss posting. There were more established RAF bands in those days, including the WRAF band and one in Germany, one in Singapore and one in Cyprus. Singapore were OK for clarinets, and I didn't fancy German winters, so I opted for Cyprus. This did not go down well at home… There was the odd bullet flying around on the island, courtesy of Col. Grivas and his EOKA buddies, and it could be a dangerous place. Being eighteen years old, I was invulnerable, I thought, so to hell with it…
A nine-day voyage, from Liverpool to Famagusta, taking in stops at Gibraltar and Malta was a nice warm-up (although the storms in the Bay of Biscay were memorable!). The ship was the SS Nevasa, built in the previous year. After we left Malta, the fresh-water plant broke down, and eventually, having made a fatuous attempt to make tea with salt water, they brought up crates of oranges from the refrigerated hold — and we slaked our very real thirst with gob-fuls of those, a wonderful sensation!
Finally a sort of landing craft dumped us all ashore at Famagusta, and we Musicians found a bus to take us to our base, at Episkopi.
Episkopi was, and for all I know still is, the Headquarters of Middle East Land Forces, Middle East Air Forces, and the Royal Navy, Middle East… The whole sprawling conurbation, or 'cantonment' in service speak,. was set above the cliffs on the southern coast of Cyprus. The MEAF Band was accomodated in tents, which was fine by us — well, you really can't 'bull up' a tent, can you? So we resisted any suggestion of moving into the newly-built barrack blocks. The tents were more solid than you might think, with concrete floors, an electrical supply in the centre, and a framework of large pipes, to which the tenty bits were lashed. During the summer, we rolled back the front and sides, and had a cooling sea breeze, which was pleasant.
Our 'bandroom' was a rather tatty marquee, to comply with the general canvas theme. We did have corrugated iron structures that housed the showers, and also the deep, noisome pit that functioned as a latrine. All very cosy.We were also handily placed for the AKC Cinema (Army Kinema Corporation , in case you wondered). It was here that visiting Combined Service Entertainment shows were staged. Not long before I arrived, Jimmy Edwards had been the star of one such show. In my time we had Jimmy Wheeler, Jon Pertwee (with Yana), Nat Jackley and The Buddy Featherstonhaugh group, with Bill Eyden on drums and Bobby Wellins on tenor sax, in addition to Buddy himself on baritone. There was an open-air cinema elsewhere on the base that made for a good night out in the summer months, particularly when there were flares going up out at sea, adding to the spectacle.
We made ourselves quite comfortable, as you can see from this Christmas-time shot of me and several other chaps, complete with cats (which we had to hide when it was inspection time). We scrounged some furniture which had been declared no longer up to scratch for the married quarters, and used the wardrobes to create personal 'rooms'.
We rehearsed in the morning, after completing a bomb search of our area, and relaxed in the afternoons, when the heat was at its fiercest. The bomb search was necessitated by the activities of EOKA, under the leadership of Colonel Grivas, which were all very boring. On one occasion I was walking towards a building that exploded… it transpired that a civilian worker had been coerced into bringing explosives onto the base, and had done his best to minimize their effect by stuffing them into the insulation of a refrigerator. My favourite story was that of a civvy who was searched one day, and it was found that his sandwiches were filled with plastic explosive…
As the Autumn arrived, we were told to prepare to move temporarily to Nairobi, about which more…
The journey to Nairobi was less than simple… For some reason best known to our Director of Music, F/O Wagner, I was given charge of the rump of the band left when the main aircraft was full. There were six of us, and I carried all the documentation. While the rest of the band flew gaily on, we were left, stuck at Khormaksar, in Aden. I can't remember the whys and wherefores of it, but it meant that we six, we unhappy six, suffered a fortnight of Aden's horrible humidity and heat, including quite an impressive sand storm.
The reason for the band's moving to East Africa, was the impending visit of HRH Princess Margaret. They needed a band for the ceremonial events, and also for the socializing and schmoozing that would ensue. After two weeks in Aden I plucked up courage (I was only a lowly Leading Aircraftsman after all) and marched into Air Movements, and requested a flight, 'Priority 2". That made them laugh a bit, but it was true — Priority 2 was 'Royal Commitments'. I filled out the forms, and we were on our way…
What that Air Movements Authority provided was a Percival Pembroke, a twin engined high wing monoplane, with room for eight passengers. Seven really, because the navigator sat in the cabin. That same aircraft is, I believe, the one at RAF Duxford today, shown in my picture. I was asked to do two things on the flight: 1) Since the undercarriage my side was a bit lacking in the oleo department, it took quite a long time to extend fully after take off. I was to nip into the cockpit and tell the captain he could now retract it. 2) The navigator was tired, and asked me to watch out for a road (which gives you some idea of the terrain we were flying over) and wake him up when we crossed it. We landed twice for fuel, at places that I wouldn't want to go near in today's political climate, Port Sudan in what was then Italian Somaliland, and Hargeisa.
Finally we landed at RAF Eastleigh, which was then also the civilian airport for Nairobi. As we walked away from our Pembroke, I looked back and it was standing at a very odd angle, owing to that flat oleo…
The band had been given accommodation well away from the rest of the camp. Whether this was for our benefit or for the rest of the camp was never decided. We had a long wooden 'hutment', with four-man rooms on both sides of a corridor, a huge washroom (indoors!) and at one end a large band room. After Aden the climate was a treat — so much so that I didn't see any need for a mosquito net, until I woke in the early hours being dive-bombed by the blighters. This was, of course, malaria country, so I made sure of my net every night after that! Nairobi is on a plateau, somewhere about 6,000 feet (1795m) above sea-level, and we had to re-mark all the breathing places in our parts to allow for the thinner air. Brass players were given an ointment by the MO, designed to prevent cracked lips.
It was all very much more civilized than our life in Cyprus had been, with no need to carry weapons when leaving the camp, a small but delightful city at hand and very friendly people — among them a lovely character who was our bearer, Jonas s/o Were. (s/o = son of). He did laundry tasks, and generally kept the place habitable. On pay-days, which were once a fortnight, you could see a line of taxis tracking across the veldt to our home from home, to take parties of us into Nairobi: the destination, The New Stanley Hotel, on the corner of Kimathi Street and Princess Elizabeth Way, (nowadays Kenyatta Avenue). The attraction was the dining room…
The New Stanley dining room (not the up-market Grill Room) boasted a 7 shilling lunch menu. On the card were seven courses, which I suppose you were meant to make a choice from. Not so our lot — we went through the card, including several trips to the enormous buffet table, and finishing with an elegant savoury before trooping out into the lobby for coffee (all included). The food was wonderful, with enormous rich steak and kidney pies, fillets of lake fish flown in daily from Lake Victoria… and it cost us almost nothing. So — big question — why was the food on camp so poor? In fact, before we arrived there had been a strike over it, with even the Service Police blokes taking to their beds rather than work. There was still a large 'Saint' haloed match stick man painted on the mess roof. I later met someone who had been there who confirmed to me that it had all happened. That was Don Hunt, music director to the stars…
We had a Christmas at Eastleigh, and chose to patronize the New Stanley for lunch and dinner: twelve courses and thirteen courses respectively, for which the total damage was 25/-! Then out to the foyer for more drinkies — "Nataka Tusker Lager moja, baridi sana!" And they even made their own crisps, in the ovens with the roasts, and they arrived still warm! Nirvana…
We went to the cinema in the afternoon. It was some flick about nurses — The Feminine Touch was the title. "The Bedside Manners and Morals of Those Wonderful Girls in White!" with Delphi Lawrence and Adrienne Corri, and it got quite gloomy in places. I remember looking along the row at all these blokes still wearing silly paper hats, staring in a lip-trembling, lacrimose way at the screen. It really did look very funny!
Kenya in the late 1950s was the best of all the places the RAF took me to. The Mau-Mau emergency was at an end — they stopped the campaign medal about three days before I qualified for one — and the parts of the country I saw were beautiful. It occurred to me that there was so much LIFE all around, I wouldn't have been surprised if an ear to the ground didn't hear a heart-beat… Everything, flowers, insects all larger than life!
My memories are kaleidoscopic now: An evening in town where I fell in with a couple of Kenya Trackers — these guys were bush cops, who arrived in town every so often with six months' accumulated salary to spend… one said that everybody knew his face, so why didn't I have his Warrant Card… which I did, and the three of us had access to every club in the city! I drank Tom Collinses, quite a few of them… I remember sitting in on congas with the band at the Equator Club… and I remember riding back to camp — on the bonnet of a taxi!
We visited the Bata Shoe factory — I have no recollection as to how or why, but we did. It was self-contained, with its own tannery, and the cowhides arrived a one end and shoes came out at the other. They made very light shoes, because many of their customers would be more accustomed to goimg barefoot, and they were keen to grow the market. And it must have worked: fifty years later it seems Bata are still active in Kenya.
Jacaranda trees planted down the centre strip of Princess Elizabeth Way, the ground around them carpeted with luminous blue/lavender blossoms…
Sunday morning jazz at one of the hotels on P E Way, with our chaps sitting in with a quartet from Goa, led by one Olavo Vaz, on tenor. We fixed it for Olav to sit in on our Military Band rehearsals on clarinet, as he wanted to improve his sight reading… It must have helped because he later came to the UK and became a respected session player. I found myself conducting him as a member of a 'big' band at a concert at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon some thirty years later.
'Civvy' gigs were possible, which was a handy boost to the bank balance. I remember going all the way down to Arusha in Tanganyika (now Tanzania of course) to play at a Greek wedding. The band was led by a trumpet player called Cyril, who had been with Billy Ternent's orchestra before coming to Kenya and setting up an insurance business. I can't remember his surname… we piled into his big station wagon, and set off down the red dust road. It was like a trip through one enormous safari park - Zebra, Giraffes, Tommys (Thomson's Gazelles) all over the shop. We narrowly missed one zebra that hurtled across the road from behind a rock. Then we spotted a large something trotting down the road in the distance — could it be a rhino? That would have been worrying, but it turned out to be an enormous wild boar of some kind. A chain of monkeys swung themselves across the road. It was on this trip that I snapped this handsome lad, a Masai cattle-boy.
When we reached Tanganyika, we were suddenly driving on tarmac… I noticed that the locals were subservient here, as if they would have touched their forelocks if they had forelocks, on seeing the white man. The penny dropped as I realised that Tanganyika used to be German East Africa…
On the camp at Eastleigh, seeing a bush of some kind full of brilliantly coloured birds. They turned out to be starlings, but not the comparatively drab chaps we see here. These rejoiced in the name Superb Starling, and had black heads, vivid orange bellies and bright, iridescent blue backs. Unbelievably gorgeous!
Our billet was one of a pair of huts (and thus a 'hutment') the other having been used as a club house at some time. We refurbished it so that we had our own club, and threw parties to which we invited young nurses — people behaved themselves in general and a good time was had. Some of the girls were employed at the Lady Northey Home. I was there on New Years Eve, with the only nurse left in the place — the others having swanned off in jeeps, with guys from the Kenya Police — and she and I ended up doing a midnight feed for all the babies in the place, going around with the bottles. I heard the place was closed down not long after that… The picture above has only just come to light, and shows your humble and obedient, downing something stimulating, while chatting to the young lady he's sitting with. My campaign was unsuccessful…
About six months later, we got the news that we were to return to Cyprus. I recall that we were told to travel in civilian clothes - something to do with flying through dodgy air-space somewhere — possibly over Israel or Lebanon, I really can't remember. Somewhat hung over, we climbed aboard a Handley Page Hastings, crewed by officers who had also been on the town the night before. One of them arrived with a souvenir under his arm — the fascia board from a Nairobi Laundry.
In those days, RAF Transport Command aeroplanes were fairly spartan inside. No cosmetic cladding — you had the skin of the plane and the stringers and various pipes to look at. Catering took the form of a cardboard box, containing (always) ham, and a hard boiled egg, along with other dubious items, and wooden cutlery! To drink there was always 'lemonade' in an urn, made from lemonade crystals. On that Nairobi—Cyprus journey I sat for many hours in a draught, from an ill-fitting window… I know we landed at Khartoum at one point, and I think that was the only break in the journey. At last we landed at Nicosia, and as the door was opened we smelled again the piney scent of the island. We were back, and it was Springtime.
The MEAF Band travelled all over the Middle East Command, playing for Parades and for entertainment of course. From Habbaniyah in Iraq, Amman in Jordan to El Adem (Libya), Aden and Bahrain we were ferried by RAF Transport Command. I have already mentioned the Hastings, but there were a couple of other types that played their part.
Number One is the Pig — a nickname fondly bestowed on it because of its generally perky porcine shape. I have seen it described as a 'VIP Transport', but the writer obviously hadn't travelled as I sometimes did, sitting on our crates of instruments. Warned of an impending landing (or take-off) I would sit on the floor with my back to a bulkhead: no seats and so no lap-straps. At other times, of course, the plane would be configured for passengers with all the usual spartan fittings. It's real name, by the way, was the Vickers Valetta. There was a civilian version of Porky, the Vickers Viking, which some may remember. There's one in BEA livery at Brooklands museum…
The other bus was rather a different matter. It had only come into service in the year before I joined and was at that time the largest toy in the RAF play-box. This was the Blackburn Beverley, a flying pantechnicon with impressive short runway take-off and landing capabilities, but the aesthetic appeal of a winged thunder-box. We mere humans climbed up the stringers at the side of the freight compartment, through a trap into the fuselage, where the passenger seating was to be found. I remember being amazed at the acceleration on the runway — it really got going. although once in the air it was no sprinter. This was a huge machine, and was only finally seen off by the arrival of the massive Hercules which does the heavy lifting today. I have no idea how many hours I spent in these various 'kites', the Hastings, Pembroke, Valetta and Beverley: I became so accustomed to sleeping the miles away that on at least one occasion I was asleep before the wheels left the tarmac…
One disappointment. There was an occasion when the boss said that there was a Canberra going to the same destination as our transport, and would I like to fly in the bomb-aimer's station, in the nose. Would I! The Canberra was our main jet bomber, developed as a replacement for the wonderful Mosquito of WWII and after, and I had never ridden in a jet. Sadly, it was soon realised that I had never been through the necessary decompression testing, and so I had to fly in the every-day prop-driven Hastings with the others. How mundane. For a minute there I had been a very happy chappie!
What did we play? Apart from parade jobs, where it was Marches, Troops (little waltz-time ditties played while big brass-hatted Bwana inspected the parade) and the General Salute, played as the parade advanced on said ossifer in line abreast and then presented arms in salute, we had quite a varied selection.
The Dam Busters ("Bum Dusters") March was common to many a programme, of course. Then there were overtures, by Beethoven, Rossini, Mozart, von Suppé, Auber and others. I rather enjoyed those. There was a very tasty selection of numbers by the great Robert Farnon (Portrait of a Flirt, Westminster Waltz, Peanut Polka, A Star is Born and the like — I later met him, in Guernsey. Lovely bloke). Then there were the ITMA arrangements.In the days of the wireless show, ITMA, the orchestra, under Charles Shadwell or Rae Jenkins, would play a new arrangement each week, usually of a well-known (and presumably out of copyright) tune, something like Little Brown Jug, Ten Green Bottles or Camptown Races. The arranger would lead the tune a merry dance through various musical styles and tempi. All very clever and very listenable, and fun to play… They were later published in various versions, including a Military Band arrangement.
Ballet Suites ranged from Slaughter on Tenth Avenue to Pineapple Poll via the Polovtsian Dances (Borodin), and on really important concerts we would essay Beethoven's 5th Symphony, or Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (which we finally got right on a concert in Nairobi for the first time!)
Show selections like South Pacific, The Water Gypsies, and My Fair Lady were popular, all round. There was the music from Things To Come — once again, in Nairobi there was a Stage Manager named Benny Goodman (no relation) who did a lovely job of lighting us for Things to Come, the colours changing to suit the mood of the section; Massing of the Forces of Evil in savage reds and greens, and the hymn-like Epilogue fading into golden glows… looked a treat as we were wearing white uniforms for that part of the show. Much of the music for the film (the first to have a specially commissioned score) was by Arthur Bliss, and he arranged the suite, which was then transcribed for Military Band.
Some of the music in our library was pretty old. There was a piece I hated, real Victorian pseudo-Scots it was, called The Wee McGreegor (sic). Some of the parts had messages from the publishers printed on them — I was amused by one advising 'clarionet' players that it had been decided that you could no longer try reeds at the warehouse, and just buy the ones you liked (the rejects going back into stock) on hygenic grounds — I should ruddy well think not! Yecchh…
Parades were the pits, really. At Padgate, when I was in the Voluntary Band, we played passing-out parades with frozen fingers, and cornet valves frozen solid. In Amman, handing over the base to the locals, we stood in the desert sun for an hour while the local big shot made a speech in Arabic, with enthusiastic responses from the crowd, then marched off, doing our best with dehydrated reeds and mouthpieces too hot to touch, straight up the steps and onto our Hastings, so that we could leave before the shooting started! In Malta, with me for some reason on cymbals we marched through Valetta, and as we did so, the leather handle on my right-hand cymbal unknotted itself, and I finished up balancing it and hitting it with the other one, horizontal. And somewhere, probably Nicosia, we marched off, and found a telephone cable drooping at about chest height across the road. Our Drum Major, Julian Ford, gave the unique order 'Band ...... DUCK!' as we marched bravely onward. Nice one, Ju!
I had no ambition whatsoever to become a member of the Armed Forces, but I didn't really have much say in the matter. In mid-1955 I celebrated my eighteenth birthday, knowing that I was now liable to receive an invitation to come and play soldiers for a couple of years. It took a while, but the buff envelope finally arrived in early 1956, and we were off and running. As explained elsewhere, I elected to serve as a 'Regular' for three years, in the Royal Air Force Music Service.
Induction was a matter of a somewhat dizzying three days at RAF Cardington. Today the camp has disappeared under a housing estate, but the landscape is still dominated by the two enormous airship hangers, built for the R100 and R101. Your hair was cut, your photo taken and an identity card, known as your 'Twelve-Fifty' was issued. You were kitted out with two uniforms, Working Blue and Best Blue, both of which were actually pretty shoddy blue, and reassured that if they fitted, you were probably deformed. Among other appurtenances were your 'hussif' (housewife) or mending kit, brushes (for shoe cleaning, and a metal metal mug and 'irons', your knife fork and spoon. You were then marched to the mess, left hand behind your back clutching said mug and gobbling rods, for every meal. Many of these items were stamped with your Service Number. They told us that we would remember this number for the rest of our lives, and they were right — Look! 4180229.
RAF shirts came with three detachable collars, and the requisite collar studs. Many of my new companions had never had to manipulate these, and so those of us who were skilled in the art of inserting them went round and helped them — this was a first stab at esprit-de-corps, and we started to get to know one-another. For many, hearing people speak with unfamiliar accents seemed to be a traumatic experience. Television performers mostly spoke broad RADA, and regional accents were nothing like as commonplace as they became later.
We had bed-cards filled in with details of name and number (4180229) and, for some reason, religion. I said 'Congregational' in the hope that the clerk wouldn't be able to spell it. He couldn't. You had to have a religion; atheist or agnostic wouldn't be accepted. They even issued us all with pocket New Testaments, with the RAF badge embossed into the cover. What they were for was not explained. We were sworn in, religiously again, no affirmation being permitted. We signed the Official Secrets Act and we were ready to be shipped off to Basic Training, known throughout the services as 'square-bashing'.
I was posted to RAF Padgate, one of the five camps dedicated to the basic training of recruits, and sometimes referred to as 'Dartmoor, with blanco'. We arrived at a station (Warrington?) well after dark, to be met by lorries and loud Drill Instructors, who seemed to be in a hell of a hurry for some reason. The general effect of the barking and hustling was that of being harried by hounds. I heard a call of 'Any musicians here?' Normally I would have kept schtum, knowing better than to volunteer for anything, but this was promising, and I stepped forward. I was taken to see the Bandmaster of the Station Voluntary Band. I told him I was destined for the Music Service after Basic, and that my instrument was clarinet. He pulled a face, and explained that it was a brass band, but said I could be in it anyway, and I moved into one of the two Band Flight huts.
My life as a member of Band Flight at Padgate in 1956 was in some ways less taxing than that of the general run of recruits. For one thing, they arrived and departed as an intake, as a group that lived and drilled together for their eight weeks course. Band Flight was a floating population, with people arriving and others passing out all the time. We were all subject to inspections all the time, and 'Bull Nights' or in more official-speak, 'Domestic Evenings' were thick on the ground. Our billets, two huts for Band Flight, were pretty shiny in terms of lino, buffed to a mirror-like sheen with polish and something called a 'bumper', which took a fair amount of muscle-power to wield. Inside the inner door was a pile of blanket squares, and on entering you took two of these and skated on them to your bed-space, so as not to scar the floor with your ammo boots. Doubtless the other billets took the same precautions, BUT… As each flight passed out, and got ready to leave they were instructed by their Corporals (Squarebashing translation: 'Corporal' = 'God') to wreck the place, just so that the incoming bunch would have lots to occupy them in getting the place up to scratch. I remember a visit from a lad from one of those billets, who almost fainted when he saw our gleaming lino! The best they could hope for was a sort of matt finish with a sheen of polish on it.
Heating took the form of a pair of coke stoves. These used to be stoked until the centre sections were glowing red, and then after lights-out, the guys would sit around them in pyjamas, greatcoats and sweaters, and make toast, with sliced bread on the end of a bayonet — our bayonets were spikes, rather then the knife-blade type. Where the bread, butter (or was it margarine?) and jam came from I have no idea — probably filched from the mess, I suppose! All very 'midnight feast in the dorm at St Camiknicks', and why not? They were the good times, just a bunch of young blokes, sharing a grueling existence, and hanging out together. I remember on one occasion I went to the Camp Cinema, and was so exhausted I slept through everything between the opening titles and 'The End' of Bad Day at Black Rock.
The harder side of our life was the fact that we had two kinds of drill to learn, instead of just one: in addition to marching, saluting, sloping arms, presenting arms and so on, we did Band Drill, in ranks of five. This meant that a Left Wheel, say, was fraught with possibilities for cock-up, as the left-most man in each rank had to more or less march on the spot while the rest of the rank wheeled round him, the right-most guy, on the outside of the wheel, almost running to keep the rank straight. Meantime all the other left-most guys were piling up behind your chap until the wheel was complete and your rank marching forward again. Then there was counter-marching, which bands do when taking up their static position for a parade. All this while reading a small printed or hand-written card with the music on it… As well as all that, time had to be found for band music rehearsals, as well as fun things like training on the firing range, when we sprayed the countryside with bullets from the Lee-Enfield .303 rifle and the Bren Light Machine Gun — so we were kept reasonable well occupied.
As always, there was one poor bloke who had co-ordination problems. Nick-named 'Charlie Chaplin', this chap tended to swing the right arm along with the right leg, and the more he was shouted at the harder it became for him. He'd be out there alone in the twilight on the square with the Drill Instructor after the rest of us had fallen out, doing his clockwork walk up and down. He is one of the chaps in my group picture, and I wonder what became of him. Any old how, suddenly I was doing my last Passing Out Parade, and collecting a pass and a Railway Warrant and heading south again, no longer an AC2, but a Leading Aircraftsman (as I already had my trade qualification - in other words I had passed my audition at Uxbridge) and swapping the Voluntary Band lyre badge for the crowned lyre badges of the Music Service. Something else to be polished…
In June 1967, I reluctantly abandoned my attempt to live in Cornwall, as well as a marriage that had ruptured competely (although I was never told why), and headed back to London, to try to get back on my musical feet. My sainted mother gave me a room and fed me until I was established enough to strike out on my own again, for which I am forever grateful. She also put up with her dining room table being pressed into service to support mounds of manuscript paper—not to mention the cigarette smoke and ash from my Gauloises.
Before leaving, I had called Tony Meehan and told him what my plan was. He said he had a session I could play on next day, and I was on my way back to the smoke. It turned out to be quite a day.
I don't remember now how I travelled to London, or
indeed anything about that session, but I do recall that
Tony took me afterwards to a flat in the Hampstead area,
and introduced me to a young lady, who was very keen to
play us a newly released record she had just acquired. It
was 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' and it made
quite an impression on me, having been away with the
piskeys, and playing nothing but church hall socials. The
lady in question was the lovely Lesley Duncan, a singer and
songwriter of some note, who sadly died only last year
(2010).
After we left Lesley, we went
along to yet another Hampstead flat, wherein dwelt the bass
player who had featured with Jet and Tony, young John
Baldwin. You may know him better as Led Zeppelin's John
Paul Jones, but all that was yet to come. John and his wife
Mo (the longevity of whose marriage seems miraculous to me,
who never managed to make one last longer than about seven
years) had a new baby, and that baby was comfortably
ensconced on the hip of someone who became very important
to me later, when I travelled with her as Musical
Director—one Madeline Bell. I loved every minute of
working with Bell. For one thing, the pick of musicians
were queueing up to play for her, which made my job that
much easier—she was, and is, much loved. A hell of a
singer, too!
So that was quite a day, a day of re-introduction to the music business. Of course, the fact that I had been away for a couple of years made a big difference—you don't get to just walk back in and pick up where you left off, and besides, things had moved on...