Honestly, that is completely true: she was Ronnie’s girl, for heavens sake. The problem was, when we got back, it caused us to be late for the next gig, which just happened to be our regular booking at the classy Kensington Ice Rink. 

Frank was furious, and I got a dressing down. After that incident, I’m afraid I decided that my time with Lee Castle and the Barons should come to an end.

I was offered a job with Faron’s Flamingos and must admit the time I was with them was eminently enjoyable – for more reasons than I can explain. The Flamingos personnel at that time were Faron of course, Nicky Crouch, Trevor Morais and Paddy Chambers. I think being thrown into close companionship as we were either causes a lot of discomfort, or an abiding friendship. We were lucky at that time, as we got on like the proverbial house on fire. 

Soon after I started with them, we played at a dancing school in Tarbock Road in the Roby area of Liverpool. While the lads were on stage, I just happened to notice a rather pretty girl in the audience. I must admit, even then and there, I saw that she occasioned at least a second – if not a third glance. She was quite tiny, some five feet tall, with a short page-boy hair style. But the thing which really struck me was her eyes. They were shaped like almonds: almost Asian, but not quite. She had probably the most perfect features I had ever seen; the kind of face in fact, that seemed to light up the room.

I made a bee-line towards her within minutes of seeing her in the crowd. I’m afraid I was neither use nor ornament that night: sound checks went by the board: my interest in the stuff the band was playing vanished. All I was interested in was this unbelievable doll-like creature who seemed as if she was enjoying my company too.

No objection was made by any band member when I placed her on the front passenger seat, effectively ousting poor Faron into the back, and dropping her off at home, just around the corner, after eliciting her promise that I should be able to see her again.

I was nineteen and she had just turned sixteen: David Jason in ‘Darling Buds of May’ described it just so: “Perfick”. Her name was Joyce, (Joy) and she was a Joy to behold. We became pretty well inseparable during my time with Faron, and the Big Three, and last, but far from least, The Mojos, and we actually managed to get engaged somewhere in between. Sadly, the relationship only lasted until I was 22. Long after we parted, I was once asked if I hated her, to which I replied, ‘I don’t think anyone could possibly hate something as perfect as that. There may have been times when I disliked her, but you can’t love someone that much and then hate them’.

I was told some years ago that she had married a famous TV football commentator, but again, I was told by someone else that the guy in question had certain proclivities which rather precluded the possibility of marrying a woman. I’m not a sports fan, so I know nothing except the guy’s name. I couldn’t even pick him out of a line-up. So: true or not: speculation or conjecture: I don’t know. 

Faron once said, (in jest, I might add) ‘Hey, hang on, I’m the star, you’re my road manager, and you get the most gorgeous girl’. To which I replied, ‘Ah, but you must realize, I’m far, far prettier than you’.

We traveled down south quite a lot, doing gigs as far apart as Brighton and Cornwall, from the east coast across to Bath and Kidderminster, down into the New Forest and so on. One time we were heading down through the New Forest; we’d traveled down from Liverpool and were driving through the forest just after dawn. Beautiful sight: deer and New Forest ponies strolling nonchalantly across the roads without a care; birds tweeting rather than the coughing of sparrows that we had come to know and love in London; the sun rising through the trees, sunbeams streaming through the early morning mist, slanting across the road, lending an almost ethereal feel to the view through the windscreen. We parked up for a short time, mainly for me to have a doze, I think.

Just as the mist began to burn off, there, standing in the middle of the road, was a rather cheeky looking red squirrel, looking directly at us and chewing its nuts, or whatever squirrels do. Trevor and I looked at each other, and in a moment of terminal early morning daftness, jumped out of the van, chasing the squirrel down the empty road. About fifty yards further on, the squirrel obviously decided that being chased was not part of its idea of morning exercise, so it turned and promptly began chasing us. We must have looked a right pair of nutters, running up that road just after dawn, waving our arms about and yelling on the top of our voices, being pursued by a rampant squirrel.

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