One of our favourite bands, while attending the Iron Door club, was called the Four Clefs. They played the music of Buddy Holly which we both liked. We followed them around a bit to different venues, one of which was the Orrell Park Ballroom or OPB as it was then known. We were warned on stating our intention of going there that they were all woolly backs in Bootle and still sported coifs which had been in fashion in the Fifties, Teddy Boy style, and which were well out of fashion by 1963. The OPB was always heavily advertised by the local press and so we had great expectations but only to have them dashed. The room where they were to play was over a row of shops. When we got there, the place was half empty to our disgust, although it was mid-Summer, and the only saving grace (and the only men without coifs) was the Four Clefs.

Lowlands was one of my favourites. It was a large house in West Derby Village where I attended Garden Parties as a child. It was just up the road from the Casbah Club. Inside, a sweeping flight of stairs took you to the cloakroom which was situated off the decorative landing like a gallery which extended around the four walls of the hall. The club was in the basement. We went there first to see the Rattles, but the Beatles had played there before they became famous. I was to go many more times because it was so convenient for me, it had a great atmosphere and because I loved the idea of going up those steps and through that front door to such a wonderful old country house of a bygone age, it was as though you were an invited guest. (I've always had a vivid imagination!)

At that time, as a young man, you were nobody if you weren't in a group. Tommy (my husband) was no exception. Despite buying an electric guitar and Bert Weedon tutorial he found that he couldn't play and blamed his short fingers for the fact that he couldn't play chords. Even so he was in a band called the Alaskans and they claimed to have had their one and only gig at Barnabus Hall! Joy and I attended Barnabus Hall in Penny Lane (which is now called Dovedale Towers) but thank goodness the Alaskans weren't on! At the time it was a church hall but had obviously also been a large house. When we went there it was very run down and I remember that in the cloakroom, the only mirror was a broken sliver propped up on the mantelpiece of a fireplace. The building had once been architecturally aesthetic with a wonderful stained glass atrium, which still survives.

Reeces in Clayton Square was renowned for its dinner dances and so in our opinion was only for 'squares'. However, the management began to appreciate that there was a younger market out there and so catered for it with local bands playing at weekends. When I met Tommy (and so became a bit of a 'square' myself) we occasionally attended their dances as a change to going to the cinema or more usually sitting in the parlour of each other's houses listening to records. We no longer attended the clubs which had lost their appeal for us. We thought it was the clubs that had changed, but looking back it was probably us growing up. Then the priority lay in saving up for what was the next step in life, which was marriage. How times change! But I wouldn't swap any of it to be young now. To have been a teenager in the 'innocent' (compared to now) age of the 1960's, despite being deprived of a car, phone (mobile or otherwise), designer clothes, OC and Play Station was truly wonderful.

Tommy's Story
Like most fifteen-year-old boys in 1961, I was just becoming aware of the music scene in Liverpool. I had started work as an apprentice painter and decorator and along with some friends, from the Scout group we were in, decided to form our own group. One of the lads had an acoustic guitar, one had a bass guitar and another had a very small drum kit. Due to the fact that I was the only one working I decided to buy an electric guitar. I couldn't play it but the lads said it was easy and they would teach me, and so the Alaskans were formed.

We got together after Scouts to try and play some rock and roll stuff, but try as I may, I was useless on the guitar. I was not bad singing so the lads said you pretend to play and just sing. Well, anything for a chance to be famous! We only ever played two 'official' gigs. The first was at the Wellington Road Mission in Wavertree after a Scout presentation evening and the second at a talent contest at Barnabus Hall in Dovedale Road. I realized at that point in my life that I was not going to make it as a musician.

I did however start to frequent Barnabus Hall and the Holyoake just around the corner. I had been taught to jive by two girls in the next street to us but somehow it just wasn't the dance for me. While I was at a dance in Barnabus Hall and had stumbled through a jive with a girl who I had asked to dance with, she asked me if I had been to the Cavern club. I told her I hadn't and she said it was the place to be and did I want to go with her. I thought, why not, and so started my association with the Cavern where my whole life took off.

I remember the membership card, it was like the old driving license and I think it was a shilling to join. The atmosphere was electric with band after band blasting out their sounds. From what I can remember they all played the same numbers, including 'Some Other Guy.'

The Big Three were my favourite. They wore black polo neck jumpers or shirts with black trousers. I finally learnt a dance that I was good at, the Cavern Stomp, you just held the girl's hand and moved them from side to side. We all must have been mad as we sweated out dance after dance. I can remember moving on to a Beatle style collarless jacket with suede insets. Boy, did I feel like Jack the Lad in that!

In February 1964 I met Pam at a weekend dance at the Cavern. Pam and her friend Joy were dancing in the far side of the Cavern and my best friend Alan Hurst said he had seen two girls worth asking to stay up with. I went over to take a look first and thought: not bad, let's give it a go. Well, she did stay up and after a few years of an on and off relationship, I finally asked her to marry me. We were married in 1967 and are still together.

We have two boys, Philip (35) who lives in America and Richard (34) who is a musician and, ironically, when he was 15 played on the new Cavern with his jazz band called Juvenile Jazz. They say that life goes around in circles and for us, seeing Richard on stage in the Cavern, it certainly had. On a recent visit to Phil, who lives just outside Detroit, he took us to Hitsville, the home of Motown. Once again our thoughts went back to our Cavern days as many of the songs recorded there were sung by the local bands in the Cavern, and so with all these memories, if I were a bar of rock, I would have Mersey Sound running right through me.

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