Month: May 2019

Who Used To Have A CB Radio?

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photo supplied by Josie Lawson

Tim Moose Bruce… Breaker one four. This is Spiny Norman.

Josie Lawson… Hello Spiny Norman.Dont remember name.Do you remember mine from way back?

Tim Moose Bruce… I was on am from 81 to 85. My handle, Spiny Norman went on to be my nickname.

Josie Lawson… Tim Moose Bruce My handle was as I mentioned in the paper article. When I moved back to Hastings where I was born the computer took over. I have always been a communicater but hardly ever face to face except for the occasional times. I suppose that’s why I write. But I do miss my open ‘mic’ poetry readings. Even then I was shy…I tended to look above the heads. Was given this advice from someone else.Did you ever have a shoulder CB..tended to be used for 10.33 times

Tim Moose Bruce…  I wanted a handheld rig but never got around to getting one. Had a Jaws 2 AM rig. Quite compact and a pa socket which got me in trouble with police a couple of times with the pa speaker under the car bonnet!

Josie Lawson…. Tim Moose Bruce I can remember a gigantic aerial on the side of my house. We used to go up on Ditchling Beacon to have meet ups… Here is a picture of me up there one day with the handheld CB on my shoulder

Josie Lawson… Ah! I wasn’t in AM -I was in FM

Chris Meachen… One four for a copy…

Tim Moose Bruce… Copy Golden Arrow..

Mick O’Dowd… That’s a copy Rubber Duck!

Roy Penfold… AM only for me – Garden Gnome…wonder why?

Sarah Harvey… I was (still am) a G4 licenced Radio Amateur FB OM …. 73s and 88s 🙂

Joe Knight… Great portland st and radio at the Ashdown club now gone

Tom Hodkin… Breaker 19 for a copy .. blue devil here . Eyeballing the Smokies…

Chris van Rock… I was gun runner !! Lol

Joe Knight… G8mwf

Sarah Harvey… G4NVQ

Dave Nattress… For a few years from about 1980 living in Bexhill but travelling every mile of every motorway in the UK with my job, week after week, just about everywhere, the CB radio a friend suggested I put in the cars of the time, was great fun.  It might only have had a range of 10 miles or so, but great entertainment, left on the trucker’s channel – 19 was it?  Also, one did get warnings of where accidents and bears were.  Great fun. There were some amazing characters broadcasting, really helped the journeys along.

Peter Houghton… I used to be called voodoo man and a couple of others

Jobcentre Rejects NWOBHM compilation featuring Die Laughing you got the power

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Side A

1. Baseline – Suspended Animation
2. Predatur – Seen You Here
3. Spider – Children Of The Street
4. Stray – This One’s For You
5. Overdrive – On The Run
6. Frenzy – Thanx For Nothing

Side B
1. Die Laughing – You Got The Power
2. Speed – Down The Road
3. Energy – Don’t Show Your Face
4. The Next Band – Never On A Win
5. Static – Voice On The Line
6. Metal Mirror – (Living On) English Booze

A really thoroughly researched compilation documenting the NWOBHM phenomenon’s rarer out reaches. Twelve tracks licensed from rare and hard to find New Wave Of British Heavy Metal-singles originally released in England 1978-1982.

More details…

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/music/various-jobcentre-rejects-ultra-rare-nwobhm-1978-1982

Mick Mepham…The album featuring Die Laughing is apparently selling fairly well globally!! If you haven’t heard of it, it’s called Jobcentre Rejects and features loads of NWOBHM bands including us, yippeeee!!! Also, I have a track being played on Sunday evening during the Tony Davis show, 7 – 9, named Face In The Crowd
Peter Houghton… Got the cd the other day and it’s brilliant

Mars – featuring Mick Mepham Prom-In-Aid 1986

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photos by Neil Cartwright

Michael Mepham….Wa-heyyyyyy, pix of me that I didn’t have before!!!! Top is Paul Tanner/guitar, Next are, from left, Liane Carroll – keys, Robin Heggie – bass and yours truly – guitar. Next l to r me, Garry Blakely and Steve Cooke – violins and Robin Heggie during the finale, Hands Across The Water. Next – me, Bottom, the late, lamented Michael Bettel – drums and percussion. Lovely chap and a great drummer. Died way too young.

Michael Mepham….Mullets a-gogo! Garry and Steve stepped in to play the string parts as cellist Ian couldn’t make it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t filmed or recorded, as far as I know, as the camera ran out of film before the track. The whole audience sang the chorus and we thought that maybe they’d be able to hear it in Africa. Great gig. Also, as I remember it, the event raised £3000 in the day. Fantastic for Hastings in 1986! Ian Dobson presented most of the bands and Joe Macilvenny not only sang with Better Days but also organized most or all of it. Marvellous memories of that gig.

Liane Carroll….awww….memories!!! x

Alan Esdaile….The photo at the top looks like the mike stand is going through Paul Tanner’s stomach.

Mick Mepham…..A bit like the church lightning rod that falls off the top of the church in the Omen and transfixes the priest ……

Spyke and Jinks at Scalliwags 1975

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supplied by Kevin Burchett Scalliwags and sober judge Facebook page.

Kevin Burchett… SPYKE PLAYED AT SCALLYS THE FIRST WEDNESDAY AFTER OPENING SOON AFTER THEY REFORMED TO BECOME JINKS

John Storer… Aah! …. those halcyon days of crimpolene flares! 🙂

Peter Millington… We didn’t reform, we just added Rod Trowell to our line-up and changed our name from SPYKE to JINKS. That change happened after 28th May 1975 and before our return to Scalliwags on 11th July that same year. Thanks for posting Kevin – my “style cred” has just hit the buffers!

Peter Gladwish… Just noticed my band, ‘Vogue’ were on this advert. We were regulars at Scallywags for quite a while.

Pete Prescott… I still have the Jinks album on cassette (light blue cover )

 

How much were you earning in 1969?

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supplied by Pete Fisher original source unknown

Pete Fisher… What one agency charged for bands back in 1969…how much the bands saw of the fee is another matter…average weekly wage in the UK would have been around thirty pounds…correct me if I’m way off…

Alan Esdaile… not sure about the adult average wages then but looking at the year I was on £6. 6shillings a week with £2 of this going to my parents for keep.

Chris Meachen… I was on £4.10s part time.. First full time job a couple of years later paid £7.10 in new money…

Harry Randall… Joined the Army in 68 on about £8.25 a week

Terry Corder… KB (ITT) paid me £10 a week to turn up and make tvs for them in 1968/9.

Pete Fisher… Average wage is pretty meaningless – most people earn a lot less. Interesting to hear what everyone was earning back then, and that puts the band fees into perspective. Not a bad living if you had enough gigs and your agent/management wasn’t too greedy.

Tim Mosse Bruce… Scroll on to 1976. My 1st Job, aged not quite 16 was as a trainee maintanence engineer at Buss Foods on £20 a week basic wage.

Andre Martin…. Worked in the Civil Service as an EO at the time and my pay was something like £60.00 per month, GROSS so take off Tax, Insurance, I was lucky to clear £50.00 – so going out and doing a disco and picking up perhaps £8.00 was good money, even after paying for records etc . But as you say taken as a figure this is really difficult to compare, because you have to get back into the time frame of what were your average costs – food, fuel, transport, clothing etc. We managed and were no doubt happier, not the pressure of today.

Dave Nattress… Really interesting to see the list of rates for the bands! I started working in an Architects and Surveyors office in Bexhill for £5.00 a week in August 1969. I carried on doing a daily paper round for about another £1.50 a week for a few months. But…my Father being a builder with lots of builder friends was fortunate. Not only did he get me the job in the Architects office but as soon as you learn a bit more about construction/planning/building regs. you get asked to do drawings/plans for extensions/porches/loft conversions/garages/flats conversions – and getting planning permission and building regulations approvals even improvement grant stuff back then for builders and customers, you name it. After a few months I was working most nights doing PJ’s – private jobs, at home in my bedroom listening to rock music or overtime in the office when we were busy which was quite lucrative. I was never rich but never out of money and paid for my “keep” at home. Never didn’t have dosh for records/gigs/clothes/car – good days looking back, really good!! Of course I paid tax on the PJ’s!!

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The Lost Boys reunion – The Carlisle Hastings. Saturday 25th May 2019

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and from 1996…

Ernest Ballard… Crickey. The mature boys !

Andy James Long… Since it’s a reunion, after a fair while, would it be fair to to say you were now the found men?

Pete Prescott… Nah ! Lost the plot !

Ernest Ballard… I’m gutted to miss this gig as I’ll be at Goodwood Race course. Hope to see some video later and pics