Hugh Rainey

Hugh when did you first get interested in music?

 

In the early 50's I was a pupil at Plaistow Grammar School in East London. Several of us in the fifth form picked up on Traditional Jazz, which was beginning to boom. I went to hear my first jazz band live in 1953 which was the Eric Silk Band at the Red Lion, Leytonstone and that was a thrill. The next year we started following the bands around, particularly the Ken Colyer Jazz Band. Ken was then with Chris Barber, Monty Sunshine and Lonnie Donegan, as you remember.

 

What a line up!

 

What a line up indeed. Soon after, in 1954 I heard the Barber band live at the Royal Festival Hall which was wonderful, and that was that! Then from school I went to university and by that time I'd started to play the banjo. That came about because at school half a dozen of us used to visit in turn each others' houses, driving our mothers mad playing piles of recently released 78 records. It wasn't long before, in a childish way, we started saying " Well, let's form our own band, bags I that...". Nobody had bagged the banjo. I didn't know much about jazz banjo at the time. I liked George Formby and Billy "Uke" Scott and I liked the highly rhythmic sound of that, so I took up the banjo. I often wonder what would have happened if I'd plumped for another instrument, whether I would have made out on it. I studied at Queen Mary College, London University - and graduated with a BA Honours in English. And of course every college had its own Trad jazz band in those days, so I soon developed my playing there.

 

When would this have been?

 

This was from 1953 to 1957, and during that time in my first year I joined the college jazz band.The college jazz club hired Chris Barber's band in 1955 for the students' annual jazz band ball. I remember that we played in the interval. Chris and Monty sat in and were very encouraging. We had Ken Colyer come to give an informal lecture. He was very helpful and sat in with the band, which was great. This was 1955. Later I started to run the band myself. I got my first semi-pro job while I was still at university with Steve Lane's Southern Stompers. Steve's still around.

 

Where were they from?

 

Steve was based in outer West London, somewhere near Rickmansworth I believe. At that time I was living in East London so I used to make the trip by tube train nearly to the end of the line for rehearsals and gigs. The following year I became absorbed with purist New Orleans jazz. I still love the vibrant New Orleans Jazz of George Lewis and Bunk Johnson. Wonderful stuff. I left Steve and together with Pete Gresham and John Mortimer, formed a band called the Storyville Jazz Band. This was in 1956-1957.Trumpet player Bob Wallis joined us and he proved to know more about jazz than the rest of us did. We recorded on Doug Dobell's 77 label, which was received well. Willis Canover played a track on his Voice of America radio programme.

 

The famous record shop.

 

That's right. They did a lot of now quite famous limited release editions. It captured a range of British jazz of the day. Also visiting Americans too; important music captured by Doug and his staff there. In my band at the time, incidentally, besides Bob Wallis playing wonderful hot New Orleans trumpet, was a young kid in the rhythm section named Ginger Baker!

 

Really? Ginger Baker?

 

Who went on to become the only one of us who ever became a millionaire. Not through jazz, of course. As you know, he worked with Eric Clapton and Air Force, and Cream, and became a world famous rock drummer. In 1957 my band disbanded. We were going our different ways and a couple of the guys had gone into the forces. I was due for National Service but before this I was offered a job with Terry Lightfoot and I joined him in the summer of 1957. I was only with him for six weeks or so then unfortunately I had to leave to do my National Service from 1957-1959. Trad Jazz now really took off. I managed to get a posting back to south- east London, Sidcup, in the Royal Army Pay Corps. By that time I was married and had a living out pass. Bob Wallis, who'd been around

Europe and toured with Acker and so on, was free again, and a pianist, Pete Gresham, a wonderful jazz pianist, who like me was also in the army and posted at Reading. To cut a long story short we re-formed the Storyville Band under Bob's name and leadership, which we were all very happy to-do. Bob was a popular figure and a good leader out front, with a charismatic stage personality, and

a strong trumpet lead. He was from Bridlington up in Yorkshire. We became very successful semi-pro from 1959 through to 1963. We made LP's and singles for Top Rank and Pye, did lots of radio and television shows and concert tours, festivals, river boat shuffles and all the major jazz clubs nationwide. We were also in a couple of films.

 

What films were you in?

 

We were in "It's Trad Dad" which was important for reflecting the popularity of traditional jazz. We were also briefly in a film called "Two Left Feet" with Michael Crawford. In one scene in a jazz club we were the band playing. We recorded some sound track music for " The L-Shaped Room" with Lesley Caron, but we weren't seen in that, just recorded. We did lots of television shows, including The Lonnie Donegan Show and a series on the history of jazz for the Five o'clock Club, a popular children's programme. Eventually we were booked for the London Palladium in 1963 for the whole summer season. They were still staging variety shows in those days. We had a smallish spot on the bill but it still seemed big time to us. We thought we'd made it to the top, and we were there for about six months from May '63 through to December when the show closed for the pantomime season. Unfortunately what we hadn't foreseen, it was precisely at that time that the Beatles weighed in like a ton of bricks and took off really big. It was ironical in a way because they 

used to play the interval spots at the Cavern in Liverpool when bands like ours were playing the jazz sessions there. They never actually did one when I was there with Bob Wallis but we had a group that used to play intervals with us called The Swinging Blue Jeans. They became very well known and successful too. When we came out of the Palladium in December '63, we found to our dismay that dozens of the major jazz clubs had folded and of course we'd got out of touch with them because we'd been at the Palladium. Only a handful of bands survived that. Trad Jazz took a real body punch then. All the smaller bands died out quite rapidly and a lot of the smaller clubs.

The big named bands like the 3B's, Barber, Ball and Bilk carried on, as did some of the bands that weren't so closely identified with popular Trad, like the wonderful Alex Welsh and Sandy Brown Bands, and Humphrey Lyttelton, of course, who continued but not with such a high commercial profile as before. And come January '64 Bob had to disband the band on any kind of professional basis. Bob subsequently went on to work a lot abroad and became very popular and established with a resident band at the Casa Bar in Zurich in Switzerland. Getting back to my part of the story, I was married with a family and a house now to maintain. I couldn't get by on the few gigs we had so had to abandon a fully professional musical life.

 

Why did you move down here to Essex?

 

I was born and brought up in Plaistow in East London and I felt most at home in the Essex area. I lived quite a while south of the river, but it never felt quite the same for me. So we looked for a house in Essex after Val and I were married, sticking close to the railway line because I didn't drive in those days. I was still active musically, so I followed the railway line out from London, and I'd reached Wickford before the prices had dropped enough for us to be able to afford a house! We came to Wickford in 1962. I used to commute to the Palladium but when Bob disbanded I was able to use my degree as a teaching qualification, and started teaching at Wickford Junior School. I was a junior school teacher, teaching all subjects - except music, oddly enough. However, in 1965 I became a professional musician again and left teaching, having qualified for a year. I joined Monty Sunshine and was with him for over a year. we toured in Scandinavia, made quite a few recordings, and performed regularly at concerts and jazz clubs throughout Britain. Then the work thinned out again even for Monty and he couldn't keep the full regular wages going, so I went back to school again and just worked with Monty semi-pro for a while. Then he began to to get a lot of work abroad which I couldn't do, so we parted company. So, that was that...jazz-wise...this was the mid -60's now- I was pretty much in the Doldrums. I wasn't playing very much at all. Typically, a jazz club in the earlier boom days would be like a hall or annex often attached to a pub. There would be a local promoter who would advertise, take the money at the door and pay the band a percentage, and so on. As that dropped away during the sixties jazz moved into the pubs more with bands tending to manage the thing for themselves, taking what money they could on a co-operative basis.

 

And that's all types of Jazz really?

 

I suppose so, but I'm thinking mainly of Traditional Jazz. Of course, many big names managed to survive through agents with cabaret work and private functions, civic hall concerts and that sort of thing. But the high general popularity of Trad Jazz, that subsided considerably from the point of view of commercial status.

 

You had hit records didn't you?

 

Well, a few of our singles got into the charts, which helped to create work. Everyone was trying to do that. Kenny Ball who died recently, managed a string of 14 singles in the top 50 during his day and "Midnight in Moscow" reached No.2 in the States and Britain.

 

In the States as well?

 

And Number 1 in other countries. Kenny was booked for tours of America and in fact, world wide through this. So yes, getting back to Bob, we made some records that sold very well, The only one that got in the Top 25 or something like that was a tune called " Come Along Please" which had been composed by a sports writer for the Daily Mirror, I think, called Pat Doncaster. It was Bob who was introduced to him via the agency, and of course it was good publicity for us. The record sold well, though was never a top hit say like " Petite Fleur", Midnight In Moscow" or "Stranger on the Shore". Our LP albums sold well too.

 

In the early 60's when you had that semi-hit record, as you say Kenny Ball was riding high in the charts at the same time, so Trad Jazz was very much a sound that had crossed over into mainstream popular music, wasn't it?

 

Oh yes, I mean the bands who did well were the ones who were able to exploit the situation with good stage presentation, publicity and effective business management. Wearing special band uniforms came about via Acker's band at the time. I think it was Dennis Preston who had the idea of Acker dressed up in pseudo cod-Edwardian apparel with the bowler hat and striped waist coat. It was just stage gear, you know; the band played great jazz. And the same with Bob. We sometimes dressed up as Mississippi gamblers, so of course some of the more straight-laced critics turned their noses up at this! But we got a lot of work out of it, and we only wore these uniforms on special occasions and we never ever wore them in jazz clubs...and we played exactly the same in them as out. It was all part of the feel-good fun of the early 60's. We were all young and having a ball, and so were the crowds at that time. It was very happy, lively music.

 

Yes, of course it was very accessible to everyone really. Was jazz being played much leading up to the boom?

 

In our part of the country, in the immediate post war years, after 1945, say up to about 1950, I think jazz was buzzing quite a bit around the Ilford, Dagenham and Leytonstone area. That's where Kenny Ball started playing in the late '40's, and Charlie Galbraith, and round about that time there was...

 

Alan Wickham was in a lot of those bands....

 

Alan Wickham, absolutely. A powerful and talented trumpeter. And Denny Croker, a fine, disciplined trombonist used to play with a band called Freddy Mirfield and the Garbage Men, around 1944/45, and later with Freddy Randall. Freddy was a very fine Dixieland trumpet player and bandleader, who recorded for Parlophone and toured America. Denny Croker remembered a real youngster begging to sit in on clarinet named Johnny Dankworth! Of course, there was Cy Laurie, a very big name in British jazz, East London based at first, but then Essex based for most of his career. Later,there were many other jazz clubs throughout Essex and many local bands during the boom. I know there were various jazz clubs in Southend that booked bands, and of course, Colchester Jazz Club which is still going.

 

Opened in '56 didn't it?

 

That's right. And there was a jazz club at Elm Park, The Elm Park Hotel, which used to book pro bands at the time during the trad boom. Dunmow Jazz Club was run by Derek Watson who used to book all the top bands. He had the Dutch Swing College there once. I played there several times when I was with Bob and I remember Derek telling me the story that Bob had asked him whether he could excuse him from a booking there because we were now at the Palladium, which Derek readily did. Derek's still running jazz sessions at Wickham Bishops.There were many other jazz clubs and local bands throughout Essex. Now teaching full time again after leaving Monty, I started to play more locally.My first regular job was at a pub The Plough and Tractor in Basildon. I was there leading a band on Wednesday nights from 1967 to 1974. During that time I was on banjo, with a bass player called Pete Thornett and a drummer called Donny Bishop. This was our house rhythm section.

 

Were they local as well?

 

They were from the Hornchuch area. I'd met them through the pianist in the Bob Wallis band, Pete Gresham, who also lived in Hornchurch. After leaving Bob he was doing little gigs at the local Romford United Services Club with his trio, him and Donny and Pete, so I borrowed them for my rhythm section. In the front line for a lot of that time we had Cy Laurie and Eggy Ley.

 

Wow, what a line up! 

 

It was great.

 

What was the name? 

 

I think it was just the Hugh Rainey Jazz Band. By 1968 I was working with Cy, who'd made a come back and was working in London and various established clubs. Lake records recently issued a tape from 1968 of Cy's band playing in Nottingham at the Dancing Slipper. I was working regularly now with Cy who'd come out of retirement and re-formed his band with Essex musicians. He'd played for me at the Basildon venues and teamed up with soprano saxophonist Eggy Ley, an Essex player, who was well known locally and who had also played abroad a lot. He was very popular in Germany especially. Eggy became the musical director of the British Overseas Broadcasting programme for troops.

 

Was that for the World service or something?

 

World Service, yes. So that was our basic line up but it varied over the seven years and we also had quite a lot of well known star guests. These included, of course, Digby Fairweather, who's always been a close friend of mine, and who was technically brilliant even in those early days. Freddie Randall came and did some sessions. Also John Chilton, who later lead the Feetwarmers, backing George Melly, and Alan Gresty, who was Monty Sunshine's trumpet player for many years. I also booked Bob Wallis and Forrie Cairns, who had been with the Clyde Valley Stompers but by now was working with Bob out in Zurich. We also had Terry Pitts and Denny Croker, both fine trombonists and many other great guest stars. I was very happy working with all of them.

 

Who was running the Plough and Tractor?

 

When it started, it was a retired police officer turned landlord called Larry, who stood puffing happily on his pipe and loving the music. I'd started there actually in a basic way; I'd met a local clarinet player who was Dutch, Gerard Van Waesberg, and was working for Basildon Council as a landscape architect and we played together. Later Gerard went home and Eggy and Cy and all these great guests came in. The sessions ran very successfully with a change of landlords over the years, until eventually around 1980, with the arrival of a new disinterested landlord, Eggy and Cy established a different scene of their own, which they ran at The Esplanade in Southend. It was extremely successful. That was from, I suppose, about'79/'80. I'm not sure when it closed but it must have run for a good ten years. I was on banjo much of the time with an excellent bass player Brian Prudence, who used to work with Kenny Ball and Sandy Brown in the old days, and Martin Guy, the drummer.

 

Are they Essex based Musicians?

 

Yes, Brian, yes. He's from around Romford. Martin, I'm not sure, more Hertfordshire. Regular Essex guests were of course, Digby and Terry Pitts, a wonderful trombonist, who lived in Felsted. He'd been a member of the National Youth Orchestra. A fine player, witty raconteur and a real character. He was a mainstay in the Cy Laurie Band. Then Paul Sealy an excellent banjo/guitarist, who'd backed a lot of American guests and worked with many fine bands, came as a special guest and then joined the band. Paul and I recorded a session at the Esplanade that Eggy had set up called " Banjo Summit" where we had two banjos in duet. That was great fun. Another guest at times was Tom Collins, a tasteful trumpeter who ran a very fine band in the Colchester area; a popular man, very modest and quiet with a wonderful East Anglian sense of humour. Keith Nichols, whom I'm sure you know about, was often there. Eggy occasionally pulled in a really star guest like the American veteran Benny Waters. Now Benny was in his 70's or 80's seven then, and he lived to be well into his 90's. He had actually recorded with King Oliver in the early days, who was Louis Armstrong's mentor. So when I found myself backing Benny Waters at The Esplanade I thought, "My God, this is nearly the whole history of jazz represented in this man. Here I am playing with a man who recorded with King Oliver" I couldn't believe it. Another guest star was Al Casey, who was the guitarist with Fats Waller.

 

Yes, it's amazing, isn't it? Benny Waters and Al Casey.

 

It was a thrill, you know, with Benny being really striking, quite short and very broad. He walked into the place, this elderly negro with a huge wonderful Hawaiian shirt on. His personality seemed to fill the place, and when he played, oh boy, he really stomped and wailed!

 

That's interesting about Keith Nicholls as well.

 

Oh Keith. Yes indeed. What a very talented and creative musician, and always so professional.

 

So you started up at the Plough and Tractor in the late 60's. What else were you up to?

 

In the late sixties I played with the Marylanders in an east London pub called The Ironbridge Tavern, near the Blackwall Tunnel and later we moved to the White Hart in Upminster.That was a good fun band, playing happy Trad music. Before I joined the band had appeared in a scene in "Alfie" with Michael Caine, where he goes into a music pub and a fight starts.

 

When did you take up the trumpet?

 

I suppose I'd been rather spoilt by having had the privilege of playing with professional musicians in the past and I realised that I needed a challenge that local gigs on banjo couldn't provide if I was to develop as a musician.

 

Yes, you needed stimulation.

 

 I had thought of playing a front-line instrument before I went into the army. I'd messed about with a soprano saxophone because I admired Sidney Bechet, but one day the bass player in the band, Pete Thornett, arrived with a battered old cornet and stuck it in my hand saying in his homely cockney way ,"'Ere you are, 'ave a go at that" and so really it happened as casually as that, almost just random chance as with the banjo! It looked deceptively simple with just three valves. I had no idea trumpet could be so tough! This would be around 1969-1970. So I started to play trumpet and formed what I then called my learner band and we started to play at the Red Lion, Margaretting. More of that later. On banjo, I'd been known at the Plough and Tractor from about '67-'74 and then moved to the Essex Arms at Brentwood. I was running sessions there from '74 till certainly 1980. I used the same rhythm section team of Pete Thornett and Donny Bishop, with front line guests which would include Tom Collins, Alan Gresty, Ken Sims(who was with Acker), Digby, of course,Terry Pitts, Denny Croker, Dave Eley, a lovely clarinet player who had played in the Trad boom days with a well known band called the Dauphin Street Six, and Gerry Turnham another excellent clarinettist, who worked with Ken Colyer. Cy would come on occasionally too. All wonderful guests. We had a very successful Wednesday night jazz scene there while it lasted. 

 

Did a lot of these musicians travel from out of the area or were they based in Essex?

 

Several were from out of the area but most lived in Essex.

 

What other local names can you think of?

 

Well, Ron Spack and John Lancaster ran popular Dixie/swing groups. Also in more modern style, Ken and Toni Baxter performed very regularly. Purist, Dave Claridge was a die-hard New Orleans style clarinettist who played strict early New Orleans Jazz. The Frog Island Jazz Band, still playing, have always specialised in classic 20's jazz. Bill jenkins' Down Home Jazz band played, and still do, entertaining Trad with a New Orleans spin. There was also Vic Woods, a fine trumpet player, who was prominent in the Southend jazz scene.

 

Dave Claridge would have hated Trad then or anything Chicago.

 

Yes, it was very much the purist New Orleans stuff harking back to the Bunk Johnson and George Lewis revival days in the 40's. Then there was Mike Mills, brother of Dave Mills who used to run the Temperance Seven. Mike was a doctor, a specialist in rare blood diseases. He also loved the banjo and playing jazz. He lead a band called the Thameside Stompers. They played at Rochford, but I guested with them once on a memorable gig and broadcast in Spain. Neville Scrimshaw was a well known guitarist from very early days who had played with Humph and Cy Laurie. 

 

Interesting stuff.

 

Other venues at the time included the Elms Hotel at Leigh and the Cliff's Pavilion, Westcliff where sessions were run by Peter Morris who gave himself the nickname of Ponjo, and called his band the Ponjo Stompers. They played popular Trad. I worked with them for a while at the Elms on Saturday lunchtimes. He often booked special guests. Over at the Blue Boar, Prittlewell, Dennis Field ran sessions. He was an excellent hot cornet player from Hornchurch who'd played with Eric Silk and Cy Laurie. Sessions were on Tuesday nights.At one time there was jazz going on every night of the week in Southend. One band called themselves the Jerriatrics and another was the Liberty Hall Stompers playing purist New Orleans Jazz. There was also Ray Catlin, who led a Django Reinhardt style group with swing fiddle-I think in the Grand Hotel, Leigh.

 

Was this the sixties we're now talking about?

 

No, I'm talking about '80's and '90's really. While I was playing at the Essex Arms Brentwood, in the mid '70's, somebody turned up who was on the committee of the Hot Club of Vancouver, Canada. He invited us to go there to play. I didn't expect anything to come of it but I said " Well, set it up and we'll come. Cover our air fares and accommodation and it's on." We actually went to Vancouver and played in 1977, '78, '79 and '81. 

 

Fantastic!

 

In the band were Dennis Field, Terry Pitts, Gerry Turnham a clarinettist who'd been with Ken Colyer, and Laurie Chescoe on drums, who'd played with Monty, Bob Wallis and Alex Welsh. He leads his own band these days. Arthur Bird was on bass and from the Brentwood area, and had also played with Ken and I was on banjo. The band went down extremely well and Dave Jones ( ex Kenny Ball) replaced Gerry after Gerry's tragic early death. Another special situation for me, in the mid '70's I think, was working with Judith Durham of Seekers' fame. She's originally been a jazz singer in Oz, and was becoming bored with the blandness of The Seekers' act when she met and fell in love with the pianist with the John Barry Seven, Ron Edgeworth. They went to America, sat in with the Turk Murphy Jazz Band in San Francisco and loved it, making a recording with American musicians she named " The Hottest Band In Town ", before returning to England. Looking for an English base, they recruited a band which included Dennis Field, Terry Pitts and Sammy Rimmington, who were then playing in George Webb's Dixieland Band. Judith and Ron borrowed this front line, who recommended me for the banjo chair. Ron on piano, drummer Phil Franklin and bassist Bob Taylor completed the rhythm section. We recorded an album, did a concert tour of Britain, and various TV shows, including Sunday Night At The London Palladium, The Benny Hill Show and The Golden Shot.We toured Australia early in 1975 playing in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. Though she sang excellently, Judith unfortunately fell between two stools as her old Seekers' fans still wanted her old Seekers' hits, while some jazz fans couldn't quite accept her as a jazz singer because she'd sung with the Seekers. It was great fun while it lasted and a special musical experience. Other Essex venues at that time included Brentwood Football Club where the Cy Laurie Band used to play. Clacton ran jazz festivals from 1990 onwards, and booked top names in the theatre and featured other bands in venues along the sea front, including Tom Collins and my own band.

 

Yes, I see.

 

The Red Lion Margaretting, now that was an interesting place. It was a little pub run by Gordon Worthy and his wife, Hazel. He'd been working in earlier days in civil aviation. He was a large man with a keen sense of humour, came from quite a wealthy upper class background, and had, since his Cambridge undergraduate days, always loved jazz. He had so many stories to tell. When he was a youngster he'd been having afternoon tea with his family in the Savoy, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra was there! and Gordon said "Of course, I was star struck, this must have been I suppose about 1933 or some-thing like that. I wandered across and started talking to them. My mother called me back and said" Gordon, what on earth are you doing talking to those blackamoors?" Can you imagine? How "wince worthy" that sounds now! But he was also tremendously proud of the fact that Ben Webster and famous bands occasionally passing through, had dropped in at the pub. Apparently the Count Basie Band, no less, had done this on the way to a concert at Aldburgh. Ruby Braff, too, at one time. They once had a big framed photo of Ben Webster signed to them on the wall, and they called their dog Ben! They featured local jazz there, two or three different bands playing in a cycle, more or less a labour of love. I started playing there when I took up trumpet in 1969/70,with my "learner" band. I think we used to get a slice of gala pork pie and a coffee at the end of the night and that was that. Later, a couple of free drinks.There was no money in it but it was a joy. Digby played there in the early days before I did. So did another well known Essex band called the Washboard Syncopators, led by Humphrey Weston. Now it's 2013 and I'm still playing Tuesday nights with my bandin Essex. These days we play at The Lodge in Battlesbridge, but we were at the Red Lion for many years before we then moved to the Spread Eagle, a pub also in Margaretting. Also in the 70's I led a band on banjo in The King's Arms in Moulsham Street in Chelmsford, which included Tom Collins, Terry Pitts and Gerry Turnham again so it was a really good band. That was on banjo.I don't play banjo so often these days, usually just a regular session at the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch every Sunday lunchtime. Now these Sunday sessions started

in 1976 with Dennis Field, Gerry Turnham and Terry Pitts in the band. Peter Corrigan, a very strong stomping bass player still leads the band. We still play in the foyer, a bit open like a mini airport lounge, serving as the annexe to the theatre. Over the years Pete's also organised some concerts in the main hall. We've played with some really prestigious people there, for example, Kenny Baker and Don Lusher, two of the great stars of the Ted Heath orchestra, and also Kenny Ball and Harry Gold. We had Bob Wilber, a veteran American star who was taught by Sidney Bechet; Marty Grosz who also played in the Bob Wilber Band, on guitar and banjo. A special thrill for me was playing alongside Duke Ellington's drummer, Sam Woodyard, a visiting guest. By then he'd come to terms with and was controlling alcohol problems. A Dutch musician used to drive him around and look after him. And sitting in....ah, did he swing! He was wonderful. Sam Woodyard is on the great

American Duke Ellington records. Also from Britain of course, we featured Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball and often Maxine Daniels...

 

The lovely Maxine. I knew her. Kenny Lynch's sister. She lived on Grays.

 

She was from East London originally, with an unmistakeable cockney accent. She would walk on to the stage looking like an Egyptian goddess with her copper toned skin, and her tightly brushed back hair. She looked so elegant and distinguished.

 

A very attractive woman.

 

Then she'd turn around to the band and mutter, " Cor, my bleedin' bunions are killin' me!". Humph told the story of calling her on to the stage from her dressing room and on she rushed in all her stage gear. Unfortunately, she still had her carpet slippers on! She had a warm and mischievous sense of humour. She used to sing in a little restaurant called The Black Rose in Leigh. One night somebody asked " Excuse me, are you the Black Rose?" which amused her greatly. She was such a talented singer and looked so graceful, but she always had a little glint of mischief in her eyes.! A very special event at the Queens Theatre was not long ago, when the Queen herself paid a visit

because apparently a local youngster had written in to Buckingham Palace saying it's called The Queen's Theatre, why hasn't the Queen ever been there? So they arranged it! Security checked nearby houses near the entrance. The royals arrived by helicopter, landed in a nearby field and were brought to the theatre in a limousine. We were playing outside to greet them, next to the steps where she entered. Prince Philip showed interest and came over and chatted to us for a while.

 

That's incredible Hugh. I was also going to ask you; Helen Shapiro moved to Rochford, didn't she?

 

I didn't realise that. I met her on the set of "It's Trad Dad" and she was then a friendly youngster with a big beehive hairdo and a deep strong voice. She wandered over so nonchalantly- although she was a much bigger star than we were even in those early days - and started looking at my banjo. "My dad used to play one of those" she said!

 

She lived in Rochford for some years until recently and was singing around with some Jazz groups.

 

I didn't know that but she did tour and record with Humph Lyttelton.

 

Thanks very much for all your input there Hugh.

 

It was a pleasure, Mark. Many happy memories there!