1964

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My father had been in the Army during the war; he had worked his way up to Major. I had played brass instruments through school and fancied a career in music.  I  would  have  liked  to  go  on  to  music  college but  that  wasn’t  an  option  at  14  when  I  left  school.  I  said  to  my  father  I  wanted  to pursue  a  career in  professional  music.  He  told  me  the  only  way  I  could  do  that  was  to  join  the  Army,  which  I  did  whilst  still  14  years  old.  I  should  have  been  15 - that  was  the  school  leaving  age  but  my  birthday  is  in  August, the  school  holidays.  I  signed  on  still  and  had  to  sign  on  again  after my  birthday.  I  did  not  like  Army  life,  I  would  have  done  what  I  was  told  without  all  the  shouting!  My  initiation  by  the  older  boys  was  to  have  a  broom  passed  through  the  sleeves  of  my  battle  dress  tunic  and  I was  suspended  between  two  metal  cupboards,  my  trousers  taken  down,  my......area...shaved  none  too  gently,  the  articles  boot  blacked  with  cherry  blossom  and  then  I  was  put  under  the  floor  boards  for  the  evening.  They  thought  it  was  hilarious,  I  didn’t.  

The  NCOs  enjoyed  yelling  at  kids.    I  enjoyed  the  playing  all  day ,  everyday  and  must  have become  quite  good  on  my  cornet  because  I  gained  my  junior  corporal's  stripe  and  extra  pay  by  playing  ‘The  Carnival  of  Venice’  complete  with  cadenza. On  a  weekend  leave my  mother  and  I  were  shopping  in  Chelmsford  and  I  saw  a  Rossetti  ‘Lucky  Seven’  guitar  in  a  shop  window.  My  mother  forbade  me  to  buy  it  but  I  went  back  and  bought  it  with  a  soldiers  shilling!  That  was  the  start  of  my  guitar  career and  I  taught  myself  to  play  on  those  long  nights in  the  barrack  hut. Unfortunately  I  got  a  bad reaction  to  the  heavy  serge  battle  dress  we  had  to  wear  everyday  and  was  not  allowed  to  go  to  hot  countries.  My  band,  when  they  became  men  at  17 ,  were  being  sent  to  Hong  Kong  and  I  would  have  had  to  stay  in  Bury  St  Edmunds ,  Suffolk for 10  years  as  an  instructor and  I  wanted  to  play,  so  I  came  out  and  into  the  real world of  rough  and  tumble  music.  

 I  got  a  job  in  a  music  shop  called  ‘Bill  Lewingtons’  on  Shaftesbury  Avenue  in  London  and  had  to commute  from  the  East  coast of  Essex  to  London  everyday.  A  lot  of  the  time  I  would  stay  up  in  town  with  a  guitar playing friend  I  had  made  in  the  shop  and  we  would  take  our  guitars  out  and  play  the  folk  clubs  of  old  London  town. The Holy Ground, Bungees etc, Great  fun,  it  felt  so  risky  and  we  met  and played alongside some  amazing  people  who  went  on to  become  quite  famous .  I grew a little beard , smoked a long cherry wood pipe and called myself Rufus Boot.  I've never considered myself as daring, but thinking back, I suppose I did live on the edge a bit. I slept on many floors and woke up on a golf course once, if my parents had found out, I think that might have been the end of that career. I hung out with some great people, a few of whom are still alive.

 After Shane  Grey  and  The  Shaymen, I had to earn some money quickly, so I took a temporary job catching carboard of the end of a line for a carton maker, which is where I met my next Partner Gary Ambrose. He was doing the same, just trying to earn a little money with an idea of going professional. We hit it of, I was playing electric bass and he played guitar, we both loved the Everly Brothers, so Steve & Whizz Ambrose were born. Yes I nicknamed him too ??  We did really well for about 5 years, playing clubs, pubs up and down the country. One eveing we had two gigs in the same night, which was becoming normal for us as we played cabaret sets. A single hour set and on to the next gig. It was Gary's birthday and he had his mum, dad and new wife with him so he took his own car, I followed behind in the van with the sound system. They had all had a drink at the first gig, it was in the early 70's (not an excuse!) and we were rushing to the next gig. We had to go around the back of the venue to get in the stage door which opened straight on to the stage. We were late and in a rush, Gary cut the corner trying to get around the back quickly and ran straight in to a motorbike coming the other way. Luckily the guy was alright, dazed, but ok. We  left Gary's mum and dad looking after this poor guy on the roadside and proceeded to get into the club, get dressed and straight on stage. In the middle of our show, a policeman came through the same door at the back of the stage behind us and took Gary away, right in front of the audience. They were all laughing , thinking it was part of the act. That was when I swore I would buy another guitar and learn some more songs for such an occasion . I had to finish the show on my own as best I could with his guitar, there was only one big problem, he was left handed and I was not.

After   I’d won New Faces  and  had  had the  problem  with  management  that had  cut  short  my  singer/songwriter  career,  I  answered  an  advert in  the  Melody  Maker.  I  was  asked  to  join  the  hit  making  group  The  Settlers.  They  had  started  in   1964  and  had  had  a  few  chart  successes  with  things  like  ‘The  lightning  tree’  used  by  ATV  as  the  theme  to  ‘Folly  Foot’  the  kids series.  When  I  joined,  the  group was  in  a  state  of  renaissance and  I  took  over  from  John  Fyffe,  the  original  tenor  guitar  and  vocals  guy.  But  the  other  members would change quite rapidly. I seemed to be, apart from Mike Jones the founding father, the only constant. Mike wasn’t the easiest fish to swim with ! Before Patty ( my long term singing partner)  joined, there was a succession of female singers that would come in all bushy tailed and hopeful, only to leave quite quickly with their bushy tail between their legs ! We were very busy at that time and would pickup the lady vocalist on the way to the gig ! Yes, that was the first time we’d met her and we would rehearse in the back of the van, because the previous miss golden tonsils had quit the night before. Man, you don’t know the half of it !! I was rooting through the scrap books and found this photo of the Settlers when my new wife, who was quite boyish thanks to an ‘A la mode’ haircut, had to stand in for the guitarist who had left the night before. It kept me on my toes I can tell you.

This is the Settlers back in the day, recording a track for a new album. The female vocalist at that time was one of those girls I mentioned in the previous Story, we picked her up on the way to the gig, she had been with us a couple of weeks here. She had been recommended by a friend and we didn’t know her name. She got into the van and we went to the gig and it was, as usual, miles away, so we asked her name and she told us it was ‘Tarn Wiggler’. We’ll, call me old fashioned, but I smelt a rat !!  We said, ‘that can’t be your real name, we are going to have to introduce you to the audience’, but she insisted it was ‘Tarn Wiggler’..  We were playing the ‘Talk of the North’ in Workington for the week and staying, as usual, in what the business called, ‘Pro digs’ . We went straight to the club in the Afternoon and stayed there until we had finished the show at 1100 hrs. As usual, the key had been left somewhere safe and sandwiches and a flask of tea had been left out, so we didn’t see our hosts until breakfast the next morning. I was first down followed by Rodney the bass player ( in the picture, another story involving the police and sausage rolls another time) and then Tarn Wiggler. We were sat waiting for our eggs and bacon to arrive when in walks the husband of landlady carrying our food, when he stopped dead in his tracks with his mouth open.  We inquired as to his health and all he could say was  “Mother, get in here ! “. Mother duly entered, stood there and said, ‘Bloody hell ! , I didn’t think we’d see you again!’  This aimed at Our Tarn Wiggler. Apparently she’d been in the pop group Coco and they’d got so fed up with her, they paid the bill, snuck out in the middle of the night and left her there. She didn’t last long with us, I know it’s a difficult life and you must be strong, but I’m afraid she was just so annoying, but hey I’m just a singing guitarist right !  We used to do split shows with the New Seekers and we were working with  them in Scotland on a show and they told us she had gone to them, but got fired. Apparently she was stood at the side of the stage in a £2000 dress and as they were being introduced she had proceeded to rip the dress off her back.  She left them that night.  I’ll tell you about Rodney and sausage rolls another time.

The Tin Budgie

When I was in The Settlers in the 70’s and 80’s, we would tour the Middle East a lot, every three months or so. We would get taken to places were British guys and gals were working and hopefully brighten their day. Working out there was quite restrictive I was led to believe and the chaps working for the oil companies had to stay on the worksite in a compound and were not allowed out until it was time to go home. Sometimes some of the guys had been on camp for months, with little contact with the outside world and would go a little stir crazy.  If anybody caused trouble, they would have their contract terminated and they would be sent home the next morning on a Gulf Air 747. This was known as getting the ‘Tin Budgie’,

We were on one of our usual trips down the gulf. We would fly into Bahrain, play the Bahrain Hilton, the Intercontinental and the British club. The two hotels were always quite a Regal affair, but the British club could get quite rowdy. We had moved on down the gulf through various other stops and adventures and on to Dubai, were Shell had an oil compound. When we arrived, it was like something out of ‘It Ain’t Arf Hot’ from the TV. They had rigged up a makeshift stage with scaffolding and palm leaves by the pool. What you have to understand is, these guys lived in a compound, the workers were not allowed out, but to make them feel at home there was a bar. I know right, in the middle east !! a pool and squash courts. They had put stage lighting around the scaffolding, which was really from the lorry park. We were welcomed like long lost family, taken straight to the bar and plied with drinks after our flight from Abu Dhabi. The show was at 9 o’clock, everyone was well oiled before that. All the sound equipment had been set up before we went to the pool and the audience was roaring. We went down a storm. That’s when things started to get weird. They hadn’t told us about the sea mist that rolled in like a wall of fog up the beach, which is where the pool was in a fenced in area, exactly at 10 pm every night, which is why they’d put us on at 9 pm. They hadn't realised the crowd would want to keep us on stage for longer than an hour. The fog on the Tyne had nothing on this stuff, we couldn’t see the audience, the sound equipment was starting to spark and the stage lighting was taking on a strange glow as the sodium lamps failed. 

If you’ve got this far with this, you probably think that’s the story…..OH NO!  We all retired back to the bar, guitars in hand and continued to entertain the troops. We were taking a break, when we overheard one guy in the group next to us saying, “OK for £1000 sterling from each of you I’ll do it.”   ??? The all laughed and said OK you’re on.  He left the bar and returned a few minutes later, completely soaked to the skin, saying, “You lot owe me 5000 pounds. The whole bar emptied and we followed. This lunatic had driven his pickup truck through the 15-foot-high fence and into the swimming pool. All the electrics had obviously shorted out and all the lights were on, the windscreen wipers were flailing away under water and the hazard warning lights were flashing and just as a final embellishment, he had caused a tidal wave that finished what the sea mist had missed with our sound gear !

He got the ‘Tin Budgie’ in the morning.

Life on the road eh!

Rodney  was  a  fine  fellow.   I  had  joined  the  Settlers  in  a  period  of  change.  I  had  taken  over  from  John  Fife , the  previous  guitar/vocalist , who had decided he had had enough of show business and wanted to settle down and run his own pub. Cindy Kent the female vocalist was still there,  but was going into the church as a vicar. It was really just me and the founder member Mike Jones. The bass player,  as  before,  was  more  a  background  kind  of  guy.  I  was  also  a  bass  player,  but  Mike  wanted  me  up  front  with  him  to  share  the  patter.  We  worked  out  this  thing  where  I  would  stand  behind  him  and  play  the  left  hand  of  his  guitar  and  the  right  hand  of  his  fiddle  while  he  played  with  his  left  hand  on  his  fiddle  and.......well  you  get  the  idea.  It  looked  great,  but  I  can  only  imagine  what  it  really  sounded like.  

We were  looking  for  a  double  bass  player  and  Rodney  came  up,  he’d  played  with  a  few  big  people, Slim Whitman, Carl Denver,  so  we  thought  we’d  give  hime  a  go.  Well  Rodney  was  a  force  of  nature,  a  joke  every  second  of  the  day  and  he  didn’t  care  who  he  showed  his  bits  to.  Yes,  that’s  what I  said  !  We  were  staying  in  a  small  private  hotel  in  Bristol  when  Valery  Ann  was  the  lady  singer  for  a  short  while.  One  morning  we  were  at  breakfast  when  a  voice  came  bellowing  from  the  top  of  the  stairs,  ‘Hey  Valery,  came  and  look  at  my  new  stage  suit”  Valery  was  quite  prim  and  proper  and  Rodney  was  always  trying  to  surprise  her.  What  Rodney  couldn’t  have  known  was  that  Valery  had  taken  herself  off  to  the  loo  downstairs  and  it  was  only  Mike,  me  and  the  landlady.  We  were  all  instantly  interested,  so  got  up  from  the  table  and  walked  as  a  group  to  the  bottom  of  the  stairs.  When  we  looked  up,  Rodney  was  stood  there  in  cowboy  boots  and  a  leather  belt  around  his  waist....that’s  all.    Where  he  just  smiled  and  said,  “What  do  you  think  ?”    I  remember  the  landladies  nonchalant reply  to  this  day,  as  she  turned  calmly  to  go  back  to  the  breakfast  room,  “You  need  a  bigger  ounfit to make an impression dear !”      She  had  had  pro  entertainers  before  !

The Blue Boar services at Watford Gap on the M1 motorway was always the place to stop after a gig. It felt like we were nearly home and time for a cuppa and a musicians breakfast. Two eggs, thousands on a raft (beans on toast), red lead (tinned tomatoes), Jokeys  (Jokeys whips, chips) , and a widow or two (don’t ask !). All the bands would meet there at three or four in the morning after the long journey home. Rodney was, as usual, in high spirits and he would always flirt with the girls on the till.  There was always a big pile of something on the counter, like pies or buns for when the locusts arrived. Rodney would play this trick on the girls at the till, he would take a bite out of the pie right on the top and put it back on the pile. When he got to the till, he would say, “here look someone’s had a bite out of that one !”  He would then pay for it and take it. Everyone would laugh. This particular early morning,Rodney was parking the van and the rest of us were in first, we’d got our tea and bun and were sat by the rail just watching to see if any other bands were coming in, we would quite often meet Marty Wilde or Joe Brown. Rodney arrived and proceeded to shuffle along with the queue. He saw us and started to wave his arms indicating he was about to do the old ‘Bite out of the pie’ trick.  What he couldn’t see was that two policemen had come in for a cuppa and were three or four people behind him in the queue. We could see all of this and were trying to warn him without letting on to the police. In true Rodney style, the pie is picked up, a large bite is taken and the pie replaced. At this point the sharp eye of the law has clocked what is going on and so has Rodney. He only got away with it because the girl on the till recognised him and said , “ oh he always does that, then he buys it and buys me a cup of tea, don’t you dear !”  We laughed and so did the police. BUT that is not the whole story

After our Blue Boar break we were on our way again London bound, when we were pulled over by the police, not the same ones from the services, who asked us if we had any sausage rolls in the van. We said no, but we’ve got an old cheese sandwich if they were hungry. They told us a band had run into the Blue Boar and pinched a whole tray of sausage rolls,  making  off in a white Transit van like ours. They decided it wasn’t us that had done the evil deed and let us go. Not twenty minutes later a transit van came flying past us with someone mooning out a the passenger window and throwing sausage rolls at us. We put that one down as one of our stranger journeys home.

I've been meaning to tell you this story for a while. After the Settlers broke up, Patty and I went out as 'Somers & Co', we did a load of work backing American and British stars on BBC TV. We were always a 'good value' booking, because Patty would sing harmony with me and play percussion and trumpet, while I would sing harmony, play guitar, double bass, trumpet and harmonica and on one occasion, euphonium. But TV work wasn’t regular enough to keep us going and I had a wife and family, not to mention the mortgage. We had to get ourselves out as a cabaret act in our own right. At first Patty wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, so I started Somers & Co, which was basically anybody I could get to join me to make a show of it. Patty decided she would like to work with me and we had Pete the last and best bass player from the Settlers with us when we needed to be three. We would play all sort of weird and wonderful gigs. We were taking on tour by a major truck making company (I can’t remember the name ?? Dodge I think ?)  to help sell trucks to Transport companies. The show consisted of a darts challenge by famous TV darts players of the day, Jockey Wilson was a regular, and us as the musical distraction.  All the truckdrivers that worked for the transport companies were invited to a free booze up and a game of darts with the champions, what could go wrong? We did this on a weekly basis for a while and earnt good money, but some nights were hard.

Anyway, that is not the story, that is just how we got to be Somers & Co. We were booked into a social club in Kent for a ‘Cabaret night’.  I loved variety shows, you never knew who you would be working alongside. This particular night, there was the obligatory Comedian/compare, Somers & Co and a ‘Lady Magic Act’ called ‘Mystique’. She was tall, slim and bedecked in sequins, very glamorous. She did a few card tricks and things with birds like they do and then came the big finale. She got an innocent member of the audience to handcuff her, load her into a large hessian sack and tie the top together. She had instructed the audience to count down in seconds from 'ten to zero' as soon as the sack was tied. I should have told you ‘Mystique’ was the ‘Star Turn’ for the evening and by the time she got on, again the audience was ready for anything. Our innocent audient had duly manacled her wrists together and tied her in the sack. As she hit the floor, she started rolling around the stage like an angry cat in a bag, the audience where dutifully counting down from 10—9—8—Still flailing about on the floor 7==6==5. At this stage she seemed to be ..well levitating I think you might call it, the sack was leaping into the air and come down again with a crash, 4—3—2………I think there was serious anticipation in the whole room at this point, thinking that the tall and lovely ‘Mystique’ had planned the whole exciting build-up and would emerge ‘Cool, Calm and Triumphant’ on the count of ‘ONE’.

Unfortunately ‘One’ came and went, some folks were starting to laugh, some booed and just like some rowdy football crowd they seemed to descend into a collective repeated chant of…..’ONE’….ONE’…’ONE’ ,  It was a car crash, disaster, call it what you will. After some considerable time, that seemed like hours, ‘Mystique’ emerged from the sack with one wrist still manacled,  rather sweaty and looking slightly less than the Christian Dior perfume advert. We renamed her.        ’Mistake’

When  I  was  working  on  a  BBC2  TV  series  with  Pete  Sayers  called  ‘The  Electric  Music  Show’ ,  one  of  the  guests  was  American  singing  star  Diane  Solomon.  As  it  turned  out  she  lived  in  the  next  village  over  from  me  in  Suffolk.  I  was  invited  over  to  afternoon  tea  and  asked  if  I  would  bring  a  guitar.  I  met  her  husband/manager  David,  who  was  nice  and  had  been  a  famous  footballer.   After  a  song  or  two,  which  I  have  to  say  went  quite  well,  David  asked  me  if  I  would  join  the  band  as  Diane  needed  someone  who  could  play  bass,  guitar  and  sing,  the  trumpet  was  a  bonus.  We  went  all  over  the  place,  it  was  great,  five  star  luxury  where  ever  we  went.  People  loved  Diane,  we  would  fly  on  the  Ford  Motor  companies  private  jet  to  foreign  places  and  get  spoilt  rotten.  The  show  involved  six  guys  in  the  band,  plus ,  for  the  bigger  shows  like  the  Ford  corporate parties  worldwide,  the  band  of  the  Blackwatch  highland  pipers.  It  was  quite  a  spectacle.  The  encore  after  the  audience  had  thought  we’d finished  was  ‘Mull  of  Kintyre’ ,  we  would  play  the rousing  Chorus  and  audience  would  sing  at  the  top  of  their  voices  and  then  halfway  through  the  song,  a  cloud  of  smoke  and  in  came  the  Highland  pipes  and  drums.      The  song  before  the  encore  was  ‘Music  was  my  first  love’  originally by  John Miles.  I  need  to  tell  you  at  this  point  the  Reg  Webb  the  piano  player  was  blind  from  childhood.  He  was  an  absolutely  stunning  player,  very  Stevie  Wonder  like,  but  had  two  glass  eyes.  It  was  my  job  to  look  after  him.  We would  share  a  room  together  when  we  were  away,  that  sort  of  thing.  The  sound  crew  would  aways  take  care  of  the  gear  and  I  would  make  sure  Reg  was  with  me  and  at  the  right  place  at the  right  time.  We  were  playing  the  Casino  in  Monte  Carlo  for  the  end  of  season  bash.  The  management had  built  a  stage  on  the  back  of  the  terrace,  with  a  scaffolding extension  jutting  out  over  the  beach.  This  erection  was  fifteen  feet  above  the  beach.  We  had  gone  down  a  storm,  Diane  had  been  glamorous and  wonderful.  All  the  great  and  the  good  were  there  and  some  of  the  richest  people in town.  We  were  in  the  middle  of  our  final  song ,  the  afore  mentioned,  John  Miles  ‘Music  was  my  first  love’  which  has  a  really  rousing section  in it  where  the  band  gets  really  loud.  We  didn’t  know ,  but  there  was  a  plan  to  let  fireworks  off  from  the  beach  under  the  stage.  This  started  during  the  John Miles  song  in  the  quieter passages  and  when  it  got  to  the  crescendo.......’BANG’  !!!    They  let  a  thunder flash   off in  a  dustbin .  All  of  us  other  guys  in  the  band  did  not  know  this  was  going  to  happen,  but  we  had  an  eye  on  the  fireworks  going  up  before,  but  poor  Reg  was  completely oblivious to  this  and  when  the  thunderflash  went  off,  he  fell  clean  off  his  piano  stool and   a  terrible  noise  came  out  of  his piano.  We  kept  playing,  but  I  had  one  hand  trying  to  play  the  bass  and  one  hand  trying  to  lift  Reg  back  up  into  his  seat  so  we  could  finish  the  song   and  the  show.

Diane of course retained her composure throughout all of this mayhem, just like the star she is.

I’d like to dedicate this story to the memory of Reg

As the days pass now, more and more stories come flooding back. I think of my life like cabbages and kings. I was doing my Daily  show for the breakaway radio station from BBC radio Cambridgeshire When the Prime minister of Great Britain came into my Radio station in Peterborough.  JM had come in for an interview, he had agreed to it as chancellor of the exchequer, but was now Prime minister and he had honoured his commitment. He came in and did the interview, but on leaving he wanted to pop into the little room .  I was in the studio wrapping up things when all the fire alarms went off. Now I am senior producer and fire warden responsible for getting everyone one out of the building. We at the BBC take these things very seriously , so I would be last man to leave. I had got all the staff out of the the building, the fire brigade were stomping up the stairs with hoses and big boots, but the Prime Minister was still indisposed and refusing to come out . His detective, sworn to guard to premiere with his life, had not moved from outside the door, I was trying to pursued the country’s leader to evacuate the building, when the leading fire person got to the top of the stairs where we all where and discovered that the detective who was guarding the boss whilst in the loo , had been having a crafty cigarette right under a smoke detector!!  

A true story

 When the kids were young, it was neccessary to suppliment my musicians income, so in the early 80's when the Settlers broke up and before the next thing took me around the world, I worked for BBC Radio as a freelance Program presenter/producer and at times I was the only person in the radio station in Cambridge. This particular Saturday, being the only one left in the building,  I had to finish my Country music Program and switch the stations output over to BBC Radio 2 to join the live football coverage. I had never done this before, but was assured that it was an easy job, 'Whilst playing your last record, pre fade, off air, Radio 2 which is on one of the buttons on the sound desk iin front of you, press, say good bye and fade across to their output' .  Well what could be easier ?  In my usual fashion, I forgot to check or rehease this and when the time came, the record was playing, I looked for the button that said Radio 2............THERE WASN'T ONE !!  the nearest I could see was 2 LDS so I prefaded that and heard Mel Smith and Griff Reece thingy rattling on about the pitch and the players. That's it I thought, I made my TTFN's and cross faded to Mel and Griff. Locked up the shop and went home.  At 9.30 pm that night I got a call from the station program organiser who asked me if I knew what I'd done ???  'No ?, I said in all innocence.  He'd just had a call from the big Boss who had listened to the entire football match on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and didn't realise he was listening to 'TV SOUND ONLY' , including the action replays of fouls and goals etc., until the Pink Panther came on afterwards, which is only music, no talking. Apparently that was a first in the history of the BBC !  I later found out that the button I shoukd have pressed, was the one with the dirty piece of paper oon it, because everybody always presses that one !! How was I to know. There were to be other 'Firsts' for the BBC at my hands.