
Lineup mid-1962
We turned pro mid-62 for our first summer season at Butlins Clacton in the ‘Rock and Twist Ballroom’ as it was called, but Vic did not want to turn pro (he was a local estate agent and went on to run his own Estate Agent business in Clacton), so we found a another local drummer – Roy Williams – who had played on cruise liners and previous seasons at the Imperial Hotel, Torquay with the Billy Munn Band – and so our line-up then was Dave, Jack, Barry, Roy and myself.
Our agents were Starlite Artistes, who also managed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, Marmalade, Long John Baldry and other well-known acts.
That season, in the South Seas Bar below the ballroom where we worked, was Manfred Mann (before they made it big). I can remember Manfred as a brilliant pianist with a wicked sense of musical humour – he would sit down alone at the piano in the afternoon session and play a concerto version of Lets Twist Again, and the punters really thought it was a classical piece…
After the season Roy left (he had a contract to go back on the boats) so we found a new drummer – a guy called Tim. We had a month’s contract at the Savoy Club in Hannover, with the new line-up, in October 63.
Just before we were due to go, I had a bike accident and ending up in hospital with concussion and stitches. We were due to depart the next day so Dave and Barry came to pick me up, I discharged myself from hospital and had the stitches removed later at a clinic in Germany!
We as yet had no decent van, and travelled by ferry/train with all the kit. We got thrown off the train at the Dutch/German border – a little border village called Bentheim – for not having the work permits that our agents should have arranged! Our German agent/owner of the Savoy Club came and sorted it out – and all except Jack then went the rest of the way in Joe’s car – Jack staying with the kit on the train! (The agent – Joe Girscher – was married to Gudrun Becker, who I believe was something of a TV celebrity at the time in Germany. Sadly they were both killed in an auto accident in November 1964, while returning to Hannover from a gig)
The Savoy Club was at the rear of a cinema complex in the middle of Hannover, and we lived above in a small flat provided by the club, overlooking a busy intersection. I cannot remember what we fed ourselves on, but there was a coffee and cake shop around the corner (only 20 pfennigs for a cup and slice of cake as I remember, and exchange was then around 4 Deutchmarks to the £, so it was a great breakfast deal) and also a roast chicken automat across the road!
We worked evenings from 8pm to around midnight, with a short break every hour, and Sundays off. There was a ‘staff’ bar at the rear of the club where we could have a quick cigarette and a drink during our break. A favourite drink was Escorial – a strong (56%) liqueur similar to and which was often ignited before drinking like Sambuca.
The club had a dome roof, and during the intervals it opened up to let the smoke and sweat out. When it was closed, if you stood directly underneath it and snapped your fingers the echo was amazing, Great acoustics! After the first month we did 2 or 3 one-nighters arranged by Joe in Southern Germany, then returned to UK, when as memory serves we replaced Tim (whose ability to hold a tempo was rubbish) with Roy Williams again on drums, who by then had finished his stint on the boats. Jack remembers Tim as having the smelliest feet ever – he reckons we filled his shoes with disinfectant but he never took the hint – and maybe that was really why we sacked him after the first month and not his playing!
December saw us back to the Savoy Club. We alternated the months with Grant Tracy and the Sunsets, so on handover night the punters got two bands playing for the price of one. (Grant Tracy were a reasonably successful UK band, although never making the big time, and they released a single – in German – whilst they were there – “Ein Männlein Steht Im Wald Auf Einem Bein” – a rock version of an old German nursery rhyme. (Roughly translates as ‘a little man stands in the forest on one leg’)
The Savoy was actually two clubs – a rock club and a jazz club. On our second stint, Papa Bue and his Viking Jazz Band (Danish trombonist as I remember) were our opposite number in the jazz club. Their drummer was Viv Prince, who allegedly had been thrown out of Holland for being objectionable, so he came to the Savoy with the jazz band.
Jack’s recollection of Viv is of him regularly crashing out in our flat, on one occasion having being beaten up by locals for shouting “who won the war then” whilst paddling in the local fountain! He was a bit of an idiot when drunk. Back in the UK he became the drummer for the Pretty Things and was with them for a long time. He also did some recordings under his name.
The name of the jazz club escapes me – just ‘Jazz Salon’ maybe. I just have vague memories of going into the Jazz Club most evenings after we had finished playing for their final set for a few drinks and the expression ‘sleepy time in jazz salon’ comes to mind!
Jack changed his guitar to a silver glitter Eko bought while we were in Germany, on the second stint. He was worried about bringing it back to the UK and any liability for import duty so he dirtied the case to make it look well used. As it happened, we were turned over by Customs on our return (no doubt looking for drugs etc.) and Roy even had to remove the skins from his bass drum for them to check. Jack’s new guitar sailed through in full sight without even a glance! Its life was short-lived as we all bought Fenders – a ‘must have’ for many bands then and probably among the best guitars around at that time – on our return to the UK, together with some decent Vox amplifiers.
Between Christmas and New Year we went from Hannover by train to Berlin and the Tabu Club. It was so cold! I can recollect that – when the train (final destination Poland) went through East Germany – armed guards joined the train and all the heating was switched off. There was snow in the corridors and even the mirrors froze over!
I remember the Tabu Club (which is now a ‘kik’ Textile supermarket) – somewhere close to Checkpoint Charlie and the eastern zone – as being quite seedy, and with real guns being fired into the ceiling for New Year! Berlin was very iffy at that period – it was after the Cuban ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion and the later US/Russian confrontation, so the Cold War was at its height. I recollect using the U Bahn in Berlin too – the tube trains still ran under parts of the eastern sector but could no longer stop at the then ‘ghost’ stations which were patrolled by armed guards, and all the tunnels were lit up!
A DIVIDED BERLIN – AROUND THE TIME WE WERE THERE
(Page last updated on 9th December 2022)