One of the saddest occasions in Corby's history occurred in the Spring, the axe finally falling on the town's Railway Station to bring an end to nearly one hundred years of rail transport. Last ditch efforts by the local MP, Sir Geoffrey De Freitas to convince his companions in the House of Commons that Corby should retain its’ connections with Thomas the Tank were all in vain. The closure assumed almost bereavement proportions with train buffs who had remained ever hopeful that Dr. Beeching’s verdict in 1963 that the station wasn’t a viable proposition would be proved wrong and overturned. Alas, it wasn’t to be and the old village would never again hear the lonesome whistle of the midnight express whizzing past the steelworks to Edinburgh Waverly, or the clattering of the ‘Gretton Grannie’ as it chugged along from Kettering to Oakham every afternoon. Never again would it bear witness to hundreds of screaming school kids being shunted off to the East Coast on a ‘Seaside Special’. Posters promising sunny times at ‘Scintillating Skegness’, ‘Marvellous Mablethorpe’ and ‘Captivating Cromer’ were consigned to the dustbin along with dusty old timetables and red fire buckets. The lingering stench of burnt and damp wood engraved into the walls of the platform waiting rooms, that clung to the nostrils as an eternal memory of the ‘steam age’, was all that enthusiasts would retain as a souvenir. It was the end of the line. Train spotter John Sandy spoke for all as he watched the last Multiple Unit pull out of Corby Station from the Cottingham Road bridge, “It’s enough to make a glass eye weep.”
Catching the Last Train To San Fernando out of Corby this year was Carl Shirley, manager of the Strathclyde Hotel, doubtless having had enough of ‘a pint of heavy pal!’ during his tenure between February and December, Joe Nuttridge, Entertainment’s Manager of the Civic Centre, whose enthusiasm must have been stretched to the limit with the apathy received for his efforts, and Harold Sturgess, manager of the Town Centre Record Rendezvous shop and erstwhile local entrepreneur to boot. Harold, who combined his business interests with his dabble into pop management, guiding the Size Seven, Ray and Ann Brett and lately, new solo singer Gidian, into the heady world of show biz, insisted he would be able to continue to mastermind the careers of the said artists from his new home of Teignmouth in Devon, despite his intention of concentrating on his new venture of sea fishing. “I don’t foresee any problems, it’s only a few hours down the road” he said, counting his worms in preparation for an attack on the shark population of Torbay.
Also embarking on a new adventure was schoolteacher and jazzmaster Keith Diggle of Corby Grammar School. Keith had come to prominence with the inauguration of the Grammar School Jazz Club and attracting such eminent performers as Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes and Stan Tracey to the town. His latest promotion was the return of American singer Mark Murphy for the much maligned Civic Centre in March. Keith had decided to take up an offer to become full time director and business manager of the Midland Sinfonia Orchestra, which was based in Nottingham, teaming up again with old friend Neville Dilkes who had trodden the same path to become the Sinfonia’s conductor back in 62’.
Last but not least of the celebrities departing for pastures new was athletics ace, Olympic runner Bill McKim, moving to Stafford with a scathing attack on the lack of facilities he was leaving behind. Few could argue. For years the only tracks athletes had for their use was the West Glebe Park and the old ‘dusty’, a cycle path which ran parallel with the railway line at the bottom of Pen Green Lane and was a shortcut to the Gretton Brook Road. These were both used by the Corby Boy’s School as Cross Country circuits and had plenty of scope for the less interested to dodge behind bushes and scrubland for a quick fag.
Not heading for San Fernando but whom many wished he would, was the manager of the Corby Bowl, Norman Littlehales. Norman extracted the wrath of many when he announced in January that a charge of 3/6d was to be introduced in an effort to deter the non playing public from using the bowl’s facilities solely as a venue for a ‘coffee, smoke and a chat’. “This is essentially a Ten Pin Bowling Centre - not a snack bar!” he whined.
John Sandy, keen bowler and member of the crack Railroaders team agreed with the entrance fee as a deterrent against the tea and coffee brigade, “You get your money back if you’re playing for starters, so there’s no problem there, and these people with nothing else better to do than mingling with the balls and spilling their Nescafe and fag ash everywhere, have been getting a nuisance, Norman had the balls to do it and good show, I say.”
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| The 'Football Special' heading for Plymouth |
Ten Pin Bowling had really taken off in the town, dozens of teams competed against each other every week, the results and leagues becoming essential reading in the weekly newspaper. The ‘Steelmen’ of Corby Town F.C. were hogging the back pages in January though when they were tackling the might of the ‘Pilgrims’ of Plymouth Argyll in the F.A. Cup Third Round in Devon. The tie caught the imagination of the town and thousands trekked south for the weekend, by car, bus, plane and even a ‘Football Special’, which gave many the last opportunity to sample the delights of an excursion from the Corby Railway Station. The weekend turned out to be exceptional, despite the scoreline of 6-0 to the hosts which was almost expected. Supporters were intent on enjoying themselves whatever the scoreline was going to be. There was a carnival atmosphere as the train left Corby at half six on the Saturday morning, ‘Party Sevens’ were being pierced before the train reached Kettering, which was ritualised with the usual Corby agricultural fanfare. Daily Express football cards, postcards with a picture of the triumphant Steelmen team who had dispensed of Luton Town in the previous round were gaily flung out of the windows at each passing station. It wasn’t all merriment however, Clive Smith became an innocent victim when an old chap, arguing with a crowd about opening and closing a window, ‘Who’s train is it anyway? Do you own the train? etc etc’, finally snapped and belted him right on his coupon, "all I was doing was laughing" Clive pleaded. It was that kind of day. Another Corby fan was head butted by a sailor for unwise remarks about his persuasion as his gang marched across a Plymouth park before the game. Night time was equally chaotic, revelry became too enthusiastic and van loads of baton waving sailors appeared from nowhere to persuade the invaders to behave themselves. The train for home left Plymouth at 9.30 pm and eventually hauled itself back into Corby at 6 am the following morning, a scene of carnage. Celebrations had gone on all through the night, carriages were strewn with rubbish, pee and bodies in the most inconceivable places. Toilets had become unusable as they swilled with bottles, stale beer and spew, not to mention the odd body lolling around in the mixture, and
A Steelman For Me was still being aired as the human flotsam spilled out of the train on platform one.
‘A braw time was had by all!’, by all accounts. Shame about the score.
As fate would have it, the day of the F.A. Cup tie, January 21st, coincided with the closure of the Bessemer Steelmaking Plant in the ‘Works’, which was a landmark of sorts in the town’s history, the end of an era apparently. Though why there was an air of solemnity about the closure mystified me. The place was my idea of hell, a cacophony of noise, smell, heat and dust. Hot molten metal spilled from ladles, red hot clouds of smoke engulfed the place when one of the gigantic converters was having a ‘blow’, a siren giving a one minute warning for everyone to get out of the way, or be incinerated. You would have thought the men would be jumping for joy, not weeping!
Those less interested in the demise of the Bessemer, or the football team, might have been waiting with keen anticipation for the release of the latest record from one of the town’s leading rock and roll groups, the Size Seven. Released on the 21st, In Time, perversely, proved to be something of an anachronism, as the timing couldn’t have been worse! It was unfortunate for the Size Seven that the public’s attention should be focused on the ‘last blow’ of the Bessemer Converters, and the football team’s history making trip to Devon, as publicity had been stepped up, and their new disc gained a very favourable review in the local press.
‘The Seven pull no punches, it’s all systems go.’ music critic Alex Gordon promised, ‘The record kicks off with the voice of Brian Dowell and a strumming guitar and soon develops into a rave up when the rest of the group comes in. The hefty bass and drums sound gives it a real meaty flavour and it is right in the current vogue with some intriguing harmony and key changes, and Jack Stewart really flips his lid with a clever guitar technique in the middle eight. The song was written by Gidian and some of his earthy and edgy talent seems to have rubbed off in his material. We hear a more natural big Seven sound on the flip, Walking Proud which is a happy little belter from the Goffin / King songwriting team’.
Sadly, the Size Seven’s fourth attempt at breaking into the big time stumbled again, despite an appearance on the BBC Midlands Radio ‘One Night Stand’ show on March 2nd. A dejected Harold Sturgess, talking from his Teignmouth home, surmised that if the record company wasn’t willing to put some beef behind the promotion, the record had little chance. And so it seemed.
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| Size Seven bid farewell to Ian Murray |
The band was in turmoil again when drummer Ian Murray resigned his seat to take up residence with a Northampton based rhythm and blues outfit called Big Bob’s Rock and Roll Circus, with a tour of Germany already lined up. “It’s an opportunity to fulfil my ambition” Ian argued as a somewhat despondent Alan Black spoke of the news, “We’re right in the middle of preparing our next number, possibly our next record, so it’s a big blow.” Cascade Bobby Mathieson eventually took over the ‘hot seat’ in September to become the Size Seven’s fourth drummer in nine years.
Harold Sturgess, plainly disillusioned with the repeated failure of the Size Seven to progress, appeared to switch more of his attentions to his latest recruit, Gidian, alias Jim Pollock, who since going solo from the Freemen had been receiving accolades from all kinds of sources, including the comedian Ken Dodd.
Gidian’s career was on an upward spiral and Harold signed him up with the top London Agent Tito Burns who was responsible for Cliff Richard, Dusty Springfield and the Searchers amongst many others. Being based in London also enabled Gidian to gain bookings at clubs like the Marquee in Wardour Street. His self penned debut single, There Isn’t Anything was released on February 4th and given a massive boost with a ‘plug’ on the BBC’s prestigious ‘Juke Box Jury’ TV show. When the panel of celebrities voted the song to be a ‘Hit’, which compere David Jacobs endorsed by clanging his bell, the watching Alex Gordon went into overdrive again.
‘Gidian looks like hitting the big time with an almighty thump, he rockets onto the scene with his first disc, which positively sizzles. It opens with a snarling horn before the rest of the brass section blazes in with a big hammering crescendo of sound. Gidian makes his entrance bending the listener’s ears back with a stylish and carefully controlled forceful full vocal, reminiscent of Tom Jones and Frankie Vaughan’.
Listening in on Radio Luxembourg one night and ‘knocked out’ when There Isn’t Anything was given an airing between the Keynasham and Tiffin commercials, was the Squire of Knotty Ash himself, the Right Honourable Ken Dodd. Gidian was fortunate to meet the King of the Diddymen, and left a very warm impression on him as Ken was later to say ; “Gidian isn’t only an excellent singer, but an extremely intelligent young chap, with just the right sort of personality to do well.”
Though reputedly selling over 2,000 copies, There Isn’t Anything failed to puncture a hit parade still dominated by the Beatles and all the other established artists. With no disrespect to Gidian or the Size Seven intended, or the Formula Five for that matter, it had to be something special or even gimmicky to break down the barriers for a new artist to get in, which was no better illustrated this year than with three of the biggest selling singles all came from newcomers. Whistling Jack Smith’s I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman, the absurdly named Engelbert Humperdinck who had previously failed time and again as plain Gerry Dorsey, with Release Me, and then the most ludicrously named of them all, Napoleon XIV with They’re Coming To Take Me Away Ha Ha. It’s hard to imagine that any of these records would have made an impact if they had been tagged with a handle of Joe Jones or Bob Box or something, but there you have it, it was the old thing about image again.
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| The B and Threes |
While Gidian was serenading in the capitol, his old band, the Freemen, were re-emerging as the B and Three’s under the direction of Basil Barnard. Bobby Leroy, Pete Galloway, Brian Stanners and John Fenton were introduced to the public in January by BJ, as he preferred to be known, and optimism was high with Basil enthusing about the prospects of a ‘new group with a big sound’, once he tied up a trumpeter and a sax player to the band. “It will have the punch of Tom Jones’s Squires, and the gutty sounds of Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames and the Alan Price Set” he trumpeted. When Bobby Leroy, the former Elvis of Scotland then decided to quit to concentrate on songwriting only a month into the venture, “I’ve written some songs which I reckon could perhaps be very commercial if placed in the right hands”, Basil had to redraw his blueprint.
Bobby Leroy’s shock decision sent the local scene into a spin again, his replacement Ricky Loak leaving the highly rated Cascades to succeed him and leaving Dennis Priddy who had built the group up to a huge following across the Midlands, in such a state of disillusionment, that he disbanded the Cascades less than a month later. “The biggest shock in years” is how Alex Gordon greeted the news.
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| The Cascades |
Dennis would come back into the scene later when he was asked to back a singing duo called Tony and Valda Cheetham at a gig organised by local businessman, Colin Goodman. If nothing else, it did instigate Dennis to form his own duo with friend and fellow ex Cascade, Geoff Williams, and together as Alias Smith and Jones, they became hugely popular all around the country, playing the cabaret circuits for the next sixteen years, finally calling it a day after their ‘final gig at the Lancaster Club in Yaxley’ in December 1983. Dennis : “We got into country rock which was gaining a lot of airplay thanks to the work of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash. We were also the first to use a drum machine which apart from anything else, enabled us to make even more money! I made more in one year with Geoff than I did in all the time I was in the Size Seven.”
The B and Three’s meantime had the advantage of taking over the Freemen’s ‘snob value’ bookings at high class hotels and clubs, which as Basil Barnard assured, “were barred but to a few select groups.”
With the immediate future looking promising, they were then dealt a blow when guitarist Pete Galloway departed in August to take the university trail. It was enough to scuttle the band who had struggled to get off the ground despite all the hard work of manager Basil Barnard. In a tone of resignation, Alex Gordon reported the news with the simple statement, ‘B and Three’s bite the dust’.
Basil was undeterred in his quest to continue on the entrepreneurial bandwagon and duly announced his latest acquisition, five young lads calling themselves The Bent Society. Bip Wetherell, Bob Grimley, Damien Tracey, Jack Murphy and Jim O’Brien were soon on the treadmill of gigs taking them to venues including the Nuneaton Co-op Hall, The Boston Glyderdrome, Ramsey and Grantham. Basil had them playing on average around three nights a week, paying them £3 a week each. “He was the first con man I ever knew” Bip Wetherell recalled in fits of laughter, “He taught me everything!” It was possibly this early insight into the entrepreneurial world, ‘according to Basil’, that set Bip on his path to become a Band leader, Disc Jockey, pub landlord, nightclub owner, helicopter pilot, Tornado (as in Telstar) and then latterly, an author.
Bip, then plain Billy or when he was on the football field, Billy Whizz, began his ‘pop’ career with Weldon group the Pacifics. Comprising of four Corby Boys School lads, Colin Waddops, Graham Henderson, David Fellows and John Woodward, they asked him to have a go at the vocals as none of them had the balls to do it. The audition was held in the village hall and Bip impressed them all with his lung bursting rendition of Mustang Sally.
Rehearsals entailed the Corby section of the band, having to lug their equipment with the aid of ‘pushbikes’, all the way past the steelworks to Weldon. Colin Waddops later suggested that Bip could play an organ, in the Alan Price mode, on the strength that he could partly play the piano, and it would enhance the band’s sound. Mastering it sufficiently to pass the critical St. Columba Church Hall crowd, the well worn path of church hall gigs and fetes was then taken. The Columba Hall, under the guidance of Youth Leader Fred Jelly became a regular gig for the younger bands, ideal as a step on the ladder to bigger venues. Fred, who had contacted Nellie Connaughty to sound her out for her opinion on a rival dance to her ‘Bin’, was given her blessing to go ahead, “this town is big enough for the two of us” she informed Fred. A highlight of Fred’s dances would be a competition to draw the punters in. Most popular, though considered a tad risqué' by the vicar was the mini-skirt contest where the skirts were measured from the knee up by the organisers. Fred recalls Jenny Reynolds, the first winner of the contest, receiving free admission to the next dance as her prize.
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| The Pacifics |
The Pacifics, regular performers at the Columba, played the usual repertoire of chart records and they lasted a couple of years, giving the members a good grounding for future adventures. One of their ‘most memorable’ gigs was backing a girl group calling themselves the Veltones at the Civic Centre. The trio of local girls, Marilyn Watt, Sheila Allen and Jeanette Whiteley modelled themselves in the mould of the Supremes and Cathy and the Crystaltones, and performed admiral renditions of the Crystals hits, Da Do Ron Ron and Then He Kisssed Me, receiving rapturous applause for their efforts.
Bip Wetherell was ready to move on however and his place in the Pacifics was taken by Jimmy Cave, a ‘Geordie’ who moved to the town in 65’.
Jim would later move on to the cabaret circuit where he played for years in various bands, including a collaboration with Gretton’s Zeros, Ginger Smith and Geoff Stanger in a folk influenced combo called the Kirbys. Graham Henderson and John Woodward would both team up again with Bip in the Rhubarb Tree before they both decided to sail on to greener pastures on the other side of the globe, Graham to the land of Oz and ‘Woody’ to South Africa, where they remain to this day.
Before this though guitarist Bob Grimley and bassist Jack Murphy ‘knocked on Bip’s door’ to ask him to join a band they were putting together to be the called Bent Society.
The Pacifics and the Bent Society were part of the ‘new wave’ of bands emerging from the undergrowth of Corby’s rich scrubland of talent. Some struggled to get past the Church Hall or even the West Glebe Hut while most of them vanished after a good publicity shot in the local press had sent them on their way. The year had kicked off in fact with the manager of yet another outfit called the Chi-Rhos, Tommy Cox, boldly predicting; ‘These boys are going all the way to the top’.
Formed by members of the Beanfield Youth Club, Tommy Borland, Ian Eccles, Jim O’Brien and Damien Tracey, the line up soon went into transitional mode with O’Brien and Tracey teaming up with Bob Grimley and Jack Murphy in the Bent Society, and being replaced at various times by aspiring ‘musos’ Dave Sheldon, Andy Brown and Dougie Wilson. Rehearsals were often conducted in chaos and even the boys would have admitted that Tommy Cox’s prediction was blind optimism by any standard, the road to the top was a long way off.
Dave Sheldon, arguably the most volatile and competent guitarist on show regularly blew his top as the others strived to get the right chords and beat. Their story would be typical of many aspiring young bands then and now. The Chi-Rhos were destined to follow the Contrasts, Hangmen, Triple X and Astronauts amongst others who tried and failed to launch a career. Many would put the experience to good effect and try again. Ian Eccles had a fine voice and persevered to perform for a number of years in bands before concentrating his efforts on the burgeoning new ‘Disco’ scene. Dougie Wilson followed Ian’s example, changed his name to Dougie Martell and his career took off in extraordinary style. Competing in a Disc jockey contest while on holiday in Bournemouth he won the first prize which was a month long engagement in the United States. He then returned to take his own Discotheque into Europe where he ended up meeting his wife Jonna in Denmark, and remained there for a number of years. Dougie’s close friend, Ian Eccles, worked for a number of years as manager of nightclubs around the country and is still in the business in downtown Milton Keynes.
Following the aborted attempt of the Chi-Rhos, Ian, Dave Sheldon and Andy Brown formed the appropriately named Sensitive Set along with Sean Cummings, Terry Dunn and Bobby Williamson to take another stab at the business. Their zenith was reached when appearing in an open air concert at the town’s Civic Centre in August, performing to a crowd estimated to be over 500, along with the Rising Sons, Bent Society and the Pacifics.
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| The Rising Sons |
The Rising Sons, by far the pick of the bunch, left a considerable impression on those who witnessed the event. Bip Wetherell recalled the event on Corby Radio in 1998; ‘they were brilliant’ adding ‘they peed me off!’ The Sons were a harmony based group and covered Beatles and Beach Boys stuff with astounding ease. Excelling with the ‘pop’ stuff did tend to overshadow their preference of soul music and to their dismay, their covers of Impressions and Curtis Mayfield material often went over the heads of the Corby audience, prompting an outburst of ‘don’t describe us a pop group!’ during an Alex Gordon interview. They were probably better received and appreciated when they played out of town at the air bases and in the provinces. Their biggest thrill had to be when they supported the immortal Otis Redding at Boston Glyderdrome, all the more poignant because of the megastar’s fatal air crash less than a year later. Drummer Pete Buckby purred when recalling those heady days supporting icons like Otis and Chris Farlowe at Boston, the Yardbirds at Peterborough Corn Exchange, the Kinks at Grantham. “The Glyderdrome was a fantastic venue, the revolving stage, the sky high ceiling with thousands of fairy lights, and all the big names that played there, Otis Redding was brilliant, just magic, so was Jeff Beck with the Yardbirds. I was only sixteen or seventeen at the time and playing with these people who I was a big fan of was unbelievable.”
Lead guitarist John Hemmings caused a dilemma in September when he departed to go to university, but the band played on with Eddie Dobbins an able replacement. As time would tell though, the differing ambitions of band members would ultimately simmer to a head and eventually cause their demise. All of them were academically minded apart from Pete Buckby who’s lifetime ambition had solely been to be a full time professional musician. “I remember a schoolmaster asking me what I wanted to do when I left school, ‘I want to be a drummer’ I said to which he replied in that most patronising tone that school teachers have, ‘you can’t be a drummer, there’s no jobs like that’, intimating that I should consider a career in the steelworks or something, like everyone else.”
As 66’ rolled on, the Rising Sons were fast becoming the benchmark for new local bands to aspire to if they wanted to make any sort of progress. Only the Size Seven, the Formula and the Invaders were left from the early bands and they were all in varying degrees of transition or dilemmas.
The Bent Society were probably the best of the newcomers, covering rousing material from The Who’s debut album, the Stones and Tamla Motown. The Who’s A Legal Matter, Substitute and The Kids Are Alright were big favourites with their fans. The Temptations’ My Girl and Lee Dorsey’s Holy Cow also. The vocals department was enhanced when Bob Grimley’s sister Lillian joined up, having had a taste of the footlights with Bob and Jack Murphy in the Contrasts, a school band who had made their bow at Corby’s Odeon Cinema.
