A packed White Rock Hotel and among the newbies this time were Joy Gilham, Keith Veness, Keith Forbes, Anne Wells and Pauline Hillier. Joy had great memories of the pier ballroom with the sprung floor and when lots of people were on it, it would bounce! Also remembering after dances, at the end of George Street they had a milk vending machine which they used, costing 6d and everyone called it the mechanical cow! Keith Veness arrived with some old tickets and membership cards from The Weeley Festival in 1971, YMCA sports centre, Fifty Eight Club Winchelsea beach and Aquarius George Street. Keith Forbes was talking about the success of the recent events at the Henry Ward Hall and looking forward to The Jonny Halifax Invocation who are there on Saturday 14th September. Anne was talking about The Pam Dor and had a couple of interesting photos of The Witch Doctor. Pauline had great memories of The Witch Doctor and remembers seeing John Wilde’s amazing dancing. Mick O’Dowd had with him massive folders of Hastings Pier photos and gig dates. Peter Ellingworth had a video of when he went for a ride on the Hastings Tramway trolleybus at the East Anglian Transport Museum in Lowestoft. Jackie Hersee was sharing some of her transport finds with Peter. One of the sheets was about ‘how to drive a trolleybus’ and referred to Hastings as ‘a rather upper middle-class community’ but then called Bohemia area ‘doubtfully named!’. Merv Kennard had with him northern soul dj Dave Evison signed book, plus cd’s of early pirate radio broadcasts from fort based stations, also Radio Sunk with Johnny Lewis, Radio Nova collection, Kenny Everett classics from 1979 Capital FM and Radio North Sea International close down record. Paul Mulry had a framed poster of RNI tune in turn on, which would have been 50 years to the day it closed down. He also had the wonderful record ‘Peace’ by ‘Peter’. Ian Marketis had his large collection of Marc Bolan and T. Rex 7”singles and a few LP’s. Good to see Phil Thornton and reminiscing about some of the groups he was in.Too many other people to mention and this is just a small bit of what I remember. If you had anything interesting you were talking about or anything I missed out or got wrong! then please feel free to add or correct.
Cris and Merv Kennard… Thanks Alan for organising the meeting today, it was good to catch up with you and others. We look forward to these gatherings.
Mick O’Dowd… Nice meeting up with old friends with interesting chat! Another enjoyable & interesting Meet. Well done Alan yet again you’ve excelled!
Stephen Moran… Thank you for the great report Alan, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there on this occasion, I’m currently away.
Andrew Freeman… Here’s a bit of trivia! The shop in the picture – A Green – is the shop that supplied the HSSB (Priory Road) tuck shop back in the 60’s