A Great turn out for our 60th SMART coffee meet and among the newbies this time were Rod Stapley, Mike Raxworthy and Lea Mason. Rod was chatting about when he was singing with The Silver Songstars one of the first boy bands with 12 in the group. Coming from a musical family, his dad was a drummer in a dance band. Mike was talking about his busy schedule of events coming up on The Stade which include Midsummer Fish Fest on the 25th & 26th June, 8th July Eddie & The Hot Rods, 9th July Big Band event, 10th July six groups playing and the nearly on the beach event is booked for the 30th & 31st July. Lea was talking about his happy memories when he was a dj for Mecca at The Lyceum, The Tottenham Royal and at The Locarno Ballroom in London. Dave Jenkins had a photo album of the Jimi Hendrix museum in London and remembers seeing him at The Upper Cut Club in Forest Gate on the 26th December 1966 and this is where Hendrix wrote Purple Haze. Mo Elms had with her an autograph book which included autographs of Junior Campbell, Miki Anthony, the actors from Please Sir and also business cards from Free Radio Association 1970 and Broadside Free Radio Movement. Pete Prescott had a bundle of albums including a rare ‘Free Story’ Canadian edition, also interesting photos albums with some of when he worked for Collins & Hayes. Merv Kennard had a massive collection of pirate radio station albums and radio books. Colin Tapp had a pile of tickets and cards of The Humperdinks and The Mix-Sirs. David Muriel had with him the invite card for his 21st birthday party which was held at The Pam Dor in Hastings and the band that performed was The Preachers which featured Peter Frampton and original drummer of The Rolling Stones Tony Chapman. He also had publicity info from the book he wrote with Bruce Veness ‘Gridlock Spumes And The Case With No Name’ which is a spoof on Sherlock Holmes. Among his photo albums were photos of his dad John Muriel when he acted in Treasure Island with The Hastleons. John ran a chiropodist surgery in Wellington Square. General chat was about the sad loss of Ray Fenwick and Martin Stringer, The Pier, Eurovision, happy memories of the white rock baths and our aches and pains! This is just a small bit of what I remember, if you had anything interesting you were talking about then please feel free to add.
Lucy Pappas… I think I missed a good one! xx
Lance Collins… Sorry to miss it. Will catch you next month.
Stephen Moran… Thank you so much for hosting yesterday’s SMART coffee meet Alan. It’s something I always look forward to.
Claire Lonsdale… As usual, I really enjoyed it , chatting to like-minded people and look forward to the next one. Thanks Alan for organising it. X
David Jenkins… Had a great time, so good to see new people . Thanks Alan, you are doing a fantastic job , looking forward to the next one. Dave.
Mick O’Dowd… Wow what a turn out & it didn’t, unfortunately, bring me any bags of sherbert lemons (see ad for Meet online). Loved the collection of pirate radio albums as it contained an album that I was always after on Jumbo Records & Tapes label about Caroline. Interesting
chats with Colin Bell & Stephen Moran among others. Great to see so many newbies coming along and against many would be newbies fears, they are all still alive! A great deal of credit must go to our leader, Alan Esdaile/Johnny Mason for his sterling efforts and hard work in putting this all together for us. THANKS ALAN!
Merv Kennard… Hi Mick, if you want the Caroline story on vinyl look on ebay, I’ve just seen several copies for sale.
Stuart Moir… I must make the effort and get there to reminisce as there are many memories that are interesting to remember.
Keith Veness… Will get there one day
Merv & Cris Kennard… Really enjoyed the gathering this month, I hadn’t seen Paul Hugget since his day’s of commentating at Lydden Hill rally x. And the last time I saw Eric Harmer was 1968 when I left school.