The upshot was that some time later, John had to go to court over in Wales somewhere for pinching the flowers. He was fined 30 bob and told to behave himself in future. It may have upset him, but what upset him a darn sight more was the fact that in order to appear respectful – and respectable - he had to wear regular clothes, which I think he had to borrow, but the ultimate indignity, as far as John was concerned, was that he had to shave off his lovingly tended sideburns, so he wouldn’t look like a villainous teddy boy. 

After my sojourn with Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes, I worked for a couple of bands for very short periods, until I was approached by a gang called Lee Castle and the Barons. They were a very well organized band, with regular bookings in elegant and salubrious places like The Kensington Ice Rink, but the downside was that they were Cliff and the Shadows clones. 

We traveled down to London at one time and visited the (once) famous 2 I s café in Soho, meeting Tommy Steele’s younger brother Colin Hicks. He was a really nice fella, and he invited us to join him and play at a gig he was doing that night somewhere outside London. Of course the lads jumped at it, and off we popped. Possibly because Cliff was so popular, the band went down rather well, but for me, I’m afraid I was rather spoilt after working for The Dominoes, probably one of the best bands that ever came out of Liverpool. 

The band was made up of Ronnie (Lee Castle), Frank (Knight) McGrath, Tommy Sideburns and Killer. I’m afraid I don’t recollect their proper names. Ronnie (Lee) and Tommy sideburns were nice guys; Killer was a sort of shy-ish person, quite self effacing really, but Frank was very much the man in charge. He was also a selfish, self-opinionated so and so, who always had to be right – and better than anyone else. When we were in London – a completely new experience for all of us, by the way, including him, except possibly for a holiday sometime earlier, he took charge of the map, and directed us to wherever we were going, with constant comments like ‘Know your London’, and ‘Aren’t you glad I’m here, or we’d all be lost.’ 

He met a delightful girl called Lesley, whom he eventually married. She was a lovely girl; really sweet, but the minute he started going out with her, in his opinion, all other girls were sluts, and lower class, and not good enough to clean Lesley’s shoes. He actually said these things in front of the other band member’s girls, and girls the boys may have been chatting to, but not while Lesley was there. I’m sure Lesley was not aware of this attitude, as if she had been, she would have been at least, intensely embarrassed. 

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