shared from: Liz Bourn https://www.facebook.com/groups/126379645971567/
Liz Bourn… A little assortment of Hastings stuff I have known!!!
regent hotel
Group Therapy – 1967
Anyone able to confirm names?
Chris Baker… No idea, sorry. Played there a few times. Stonking crowd! When the policeman came to complain about the noise they picked him up and chucked him in the sea!
Alan Esdaile… I think Mick O’Dowd mentioned before that Robin Farrant(of Farrant & Reid) was in the band????
Mick O’Dowd… Yes he was. Can’t see him in pic though.
Trevor Spears… Looks like Paul Burton at the front,i think robin Farrant and possibly Merfyn Ashdown! Think the drummers name was Bob Drewett?
Lloyd Johnson… It is Paul Burton…
Andre Martin… Yes Robin in the back, left hand side.
Pete Millington… Not sure whether Chris Sayer was in Group Therapy or not. Later in 1967 SPYKE were formed which included Chris Sayer, Paul Burton and me. The Sailing Club was also on our gig venues. Great times apart from the sewage coming up through the toilets at high tide.
Andre Martin… Now that really is a flash back Hastings Style – read into the advert the influence and choice of wording of one Mr Alan Jensen of The Disc Jockey Fame [and other activities]
Unabridged Telephone Directory – Regent Hotel Ad.
Andre Palfrey-Martin Collection
Josie Lawson… Regent Hotel, wasn’t that where the Reades lived, the Scalliwaggers
Kevin Burchett… his was before the Reades took over, Josie
Robert Searle… Great picture
Harry Randall… I’m So Glad, was one that always reminds me of them! Where are they now?
Lloyd Johnson… Dave Johnson ! Remember him well from Ore Youth Club!…he played with Kenny Comfort ,Melvyn & Lynn Grant for a while I think or it might have been The Redcoats …Dave had the newsagents in Westfield in later life I believe he died some time ago….
Pete Millington… Don’t remember Dave playing with The Redcoats Lloyd. Must have been Johnny Smith and the Chevs was really early. The first time I saw him he had his jean jacket draped over his floor to tom to deaden it. That was at the Market Hall.
Lloyd Johnson… Yes! You are right! I can remember him talking with Kenny and Melvyn a lot …Brian ‘Bonzo’ Redfern was Kenny and Melvyn’s drummer…I Loved The Market Hall it was so funny seeing Henry with his nose almost on the Chevs guitarist finger board saying things like “Oh! That’s how you do that” or “No! No! That’s not right” taking the piss and trying to put him off….all in a spirit of camaraderie. Is my memory right in thinking there would be The Talismen set up at one end of the hall and Johnny Smith and the Chevys at the other..I always think of it as a battle ground…’Battle of The Bands’ so to speak…Dave Bishop would get up with The Chevs and sing ‘it’s been nice’ a Marty Wilde ‘B’ side….really liked that song…silly teenage stuff trying to sound tough and grown up…
Pete Millington… Yes it was a feature of the MH to have 2 groups, one at each end, most groups had the pleasure of trying to outdo each other. We (The Confederates) had that pleasure.
Lloyd Johnson… I really liked the friendship and the good humoured pissing taking between the bands…didn’t Johnny Smith keep a milk bottle behind the amp for some reason.. Colin ‘Sid’ Tapp lived in my road…I made a guitar when I was a kid, tried to copy the Everly Brothers guitars, it was black with white binding.When it was built I painted it black and then varnished it…the vanished reacted with the paint and it ended up crackle finish…I sold it to Colin later .He told me it was his first guitar when we met up a year of so back….Barry Goodall and Pete Bailey and his twin brother were in my class at Priory road….
Dave Nattress… Great stories and some unbelievable band names in the last couple of weeks. As I’ve remarked before, there’s me thinking weird band names only really started in the 70’s, “A Teardrop Explodes” – “Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark” – etc. etc. How wrong was I? Where did the “Unabridged Telephone Directory” come from?
Colin Fox… they used to shorten their name to UTD, but it sounded like a sexual disease.
May 1968 Advert
Nigel Livermore… Good to see a photo of Dave Johnson: we were at West St.Leonards Primary School together, and then in the same year at HGS. Memories of New Year’s Eve pub crawl with him and Chris Jones (also ex-HGS, later on Obituaries at the BBC). A great character, skilled at writing crude verse, e.g. ‘Ode to a Bog’ which began ‘O to sit on a latrine………’ Toured Germany as a drummer around the same time as The Beatles, living on Currywurst (he said). Also worked on The Ridge as a lathe turner.
Harry Randall… Used to love watching these at “The Regent” gave me huge inspiration!
Jazz Caverners at The Regent Hotel
supplied by Brian Hills
Brian Hills… Here is pic of four of the Jazz Caverners taken at the Regent Club, Hastings showing l to r – Pete Kitcher, Trevor Richards, Brian Towers, and Ian Scriven. No date unfortunately.
John Gale… Fantastic photo. The Regent Hotel was another venue that my dad enjoyed playing drums in with his bands.
Alan Esdaile… I remember the wallpaper!
Paul Coleman… Never saw the Caverners but remember “The Unabridged Telephone Directory” with Roy Sanderson on bass. Saw them many times. Always packed & very loud. Great!
Trevor Spears… I thought our volume was tastefully balanced and gentle on the ears!
Robert Searle… Trevor, loved to have seen your group
Nick Prince… I’m sure that is the wall paper the Orion Cinema had going up it staircase to the foyer!
Mike Waghorne… Were’s Min ?
Regent Hotel Scalliwags Saddles Bar and folk group Beltane – May 1984
Pauline Richards… Had my 21st birthday there. Just a couple of years ago !!
Ted Crouch and his Band
photo supplied by Janine Anne Hemsley
all cuttings Andre Palfrey-martin collection
Janine Hemsley… Ted started working with Dance Bands from the late 50s onwards. He ran several of his own bands every night of the week at different venues. I started working with him in 1973 and we did tea dances ,private functions and the spectacular Easter Bonnet parade,for many years on Hastings Pier. Wonderful memories indeed.
Lynda Caine… Just came across this for my mum, remembering the tea dances and Easter Monday bonnet parade great memories Ted Crouch and his band on Hastings pier. Happy days when it was a pier,( Now called the plank ). Just so glad mum me my two sisters and brother have got great memories of the seventies and of Hastings pier.
Jaffa Peckham… My dad, Dave Peckham, played, possibly as a dep, with Ted Crouch’s Band several times on the Pier.
Janine Hemsley… Good days
Steve Vollrath… Think my dad Johnny Vollrath played with them a few times
Jaffa Peckham… Steve, yes, I remember my dad talking about Johnny Vollrath. They must have played together back in the day!
Jacqueline Marsh… He was a dear friend of my dad John/Jack Martin
Stuart Moir… Used to play the basement club with Centre Page 1, how I got my drum cases down those narrow stairs still defies logic 
but we did it all in the pursuit of music excellence 
well that’s my theory anyway .
Chris Baker… My Mum sang for them on occasions
Nicola Hiett… My dad Geoff Hiett was one of his band leaders – tenor and alto sax and clarinet. I am heartbroken to say he passed away recently age 95 I wish I had found all of this before he passed away. He would have loved to see this.
Emotion – The Regent Hotel Seafront Hastings late 1970
supplied by Barry French
Barry French… The name on the Bass drum is Emotion. (1st Emotion was added later when my Sister Jenny joined the band). Barry French on Guitar, Den Wootton on Drums and Clifford Wootton on Bass. At that time my Dad was the maintenance manager of the Regent Hotel & he pulled many strings to get us regular gigs there.
Mum & Dad would be on the door taking the admission, while we played a set of pop songs of the day to a mixture of foreign students & bikers. Looking at that picture makes me wonder where the years have gone, Cliff & I would have been 17 while Den was 15. (Makes you feel old!!!)
Yvonne Cleland… Wow! This takes me right back to the Lido days. We used to go to the Regent every single weekend in those days, and do biker dances to Emotion! I remember Barry’s mum was in charge. She was a friendly and kind lady. It was a great place to go to, Emotion would play all of our requests, and we loved it.
Cliff Wootton… Yeah this would have been a very early incarnation not long after we started and probably before Pete Cunningham from Mullet Smith Music offered to be our ‘Manager’. I think that’s a Jennings transistor amp behind me and maybe a Rosetti bass. We are probably singing Yellow River. A song that is indelibly etched on my mind. We were impressed with Baz because he had just bought all this new gear.
Lucy Pappas… That’s how I remember you Cliff and Den x
Cliff Wootton… I do look a bit different now. Something like a cross between James Robertson Justice, Long John Silver and one of the hairy bikers. 😉
Barry French… Thanks Yvonne for your kind words. Initially the owner of the Regent gave us a months trial. The first couple of weeks the place was pretty much empty and if you guys hadn’t turned up we would have lost the gig for sure. I remember lines of people doing the biker dances (A kind of forerunner to line dancing!!) Fun times.
Yvonne Cleland… Barry it was so nice to read that we meant as much to the band as they did to us! That we’re still talking about it all these years later says it all! xxxx
Cliff Wootton… Awesome! Very chuffed to find that people remember us from back then.
Yvonne Cleland… Lots of us weren’t old enough to legally drink hahahahaha
King Rod and Co every Thursday & Tony Stark & Colin Bell – Regent Discotheque & Bonitas 1970
supplied by Colin Bell
October 1969
Mick O’Dowd… Ah The Regent. Grand memories!
Peter Gladwish… FAB……and so cheap!
Andy Qunta… Yes, I remember seeing King Rod & Co at the Regent! Inspiring.
Rober Searle… Played there with Easy Street,remember seeing Shaft there with Dave Shaw on vocals.
Jan Warren… My ex-husband, Pete Watson used to do the Saturday night Disco there too, must have been 1973(ish) – remember the bands, especially Black Raven/Rubber Band who released the single “Moonwalker”! – good times!
The Humperdinks – Regent Hotel – Any photos?
supplied by Mick O’Dowd
Mick O’Dowd…Played The Regent as Dj quite a few times. Saw bands there such as Group Therapy (with Robin Farrant of Farrant & Reid wholesalers), Circuit Four, The Humperdinks and others. Didn’t Alan Jensen do regular nights here when you couldn’t get to the bar for bodies and your beer was passed over a human chain so that when it arrived it was only half a pint! That’s rock’n’ roll! T’was a great venue.
Pete Millington… I was a regular there and on many occasions struggled to get a beer. No chance of getting P****d in those days with 10:30 or 11:00 closing time. The Talismen, Spyke, Unabridged Telephone Directory come to mind as groups you can add to your memory banks.
Nigel Ford… Why “Don’t forget your Rolling Stones LP”?
Andre Martin… The reference to the Stones LP must have been because this is April 64 and the Stones had released their first Album about this time, so AJ not wishing to miss the chance for a plug, added to the advert.
Lloyd Johnson… Has anyone got any photos of ‘The Humperdinks’ playing The Regent Club below The Regent Hotel in the 60s ?…it was towards St.Leonards on the seafront, Kenny Comfort, Lynn Grant, Melvyn Grant and Brian’Bonzo’ Redfern were the members of the group/band.I think they had a few write ups in the local press at the time…
John Gale… I remember the Regents Hotel, nice little venue about halfway between the pier and Warrior Gardens , my dad use to drum there in the 70s regularly, mainly as a duo with a keyboard player, I remember he had some good nights there.
Pork Dagger with Roy Martin – Regent Hotel 1968
Andre Palfrey-martin collection
Andre Martin….I know that some groups come up with really strange names – but what about this from 1968
Geoff Peckham….Would this be the indefatigable Roy Martin who played banjo and sang with the Jazz Caverners?
Tony Qunta….Wow, I had forgotten about them!
Yvonne Cleland…..Who on earth thought that would be a good name?!
Chris Jolly… And they say it’s all in the name…
Terry Huggins… The Pork Dagger no less.
Pete Fisher… sounds like a Spinal Tap song title…
Andy Qunta… Thanks for reminding me about Roy Martin! What a character!