We traveled in an old Commer 10cwt van and eventually a THAMES 15cwt. we dreamed of the new fangled Ford Transit - but it was commercially out of the question. One night coming back from Speke in the smog (very common in those days) we hit something very hard in the road. We disembarked and stumbled about in some shrubbery for a while until we realized we were actually parked on a new-fangled roundabout - fancy putting an island in the middle of the road! Surely, this form of traffic management would never catch on?

I was always terrified of being arrested for being under age, especially at a regular gig the Blue Ball, a pub next to a police station. I remember one night there when Liverpool FC lost at home. Some twit stuck his head up and shouted E-V-E-R-T-O-N! at the top of his voice. Within seconds every soul in the place was involved in a full on fist-fight. People were hit over the heads with bar stools and bottles flew. I hid behind the bar with my precious drum kit 'till the 'rozzers' arrived.

The audiences in those days were a real mix. At youth clubs there were teenage girls with beehive 'hairdos', sticky out frocks and stockings. The guys mostly wore crap white nylon shirts from C&A Modes and terrible clip on ties - always with grey trousers and a vestige of a crease (the trousers stored overnight between mattress and divan to achieve this semblance of 'respectability'). Shoes were winkle pickers in black or black. 

Male fashion was for 'shirtlifters'. This all changed with 'mods' in the mid Sixties. On newsreels and 'Top of the Pops' we saw bands in Kings Road fashions and Carnaby Street flash. This stuff was not available in Liverpool. There were no 'boutiques' and the 'Gentleman's Outfitters' that did exist regarded the Ben Sherman shirt as the height of daring. The Ben Sherman came in risqué colours like green and pink! It was too expensive for most of us so we had to improvise. The post war culture was built on 'make do and mend', so resourceful Mums and enterprising sisters made 'mod' clothes from adapted clothing patterns. They bought the new Trend magazine and copied the clothes using 'remnants' bought at Paddy's Market. Soon we had jackets in pillar box red and drainpipe trousers in leftover felt. 

The girls made mini dresses for themselves in 'school cotton' ( until the invention of tights in the mid-Sixties), this meant a lot of flashing stocking tops. Tops and jumpers were knitted on antique treadle driven machines. 

We sometimes played the West Indian Social Club on Upper Parliament Street. Here everybody was black except the band who were all white and playing Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Nobody got the irony of this as nobody had ever seen Chuck Berry so he might just as well have been a redneck from Georgia.

My favourite gig was the Peppermint Lounge because it had proper lights and a real stage. The Kingsway Casino, Southport, was also very flash, but you shared the bill with Bert Weedon and Gerry Dorsey. Very good, but also very unhip! I also enjoyed the Royal Iris 'Mersey Cruises'. As you hit the Mersey Bar and the full force of the Irish Sea, the ferry would lurch to port and our heavy VOX AC30 amplifiers (conveniently on castors) would zoom down the dance floor flattening everyone on the way.

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