Only 364 shopping days 'till Christmas!

Hey Ho!

Delta Lady – RIP

I make no excuses for dedicating this entry to one of the best British rock and blues singers who, sadly, passed away yesterday.

John Robert "Joe" Cocker OBE was born on 20 May 1944 in Sheffield.

On leaving school he became become an apprentice gasfitter while simultaneously pursuing a career in music.

Under the name of Vance Arnold and the Avengers he began his singing career in the pubs and clubs of Sheffield in the 1960s performing mainly covers of Chuck Berry and Ray Charles songs.

He was propelled to fame when his version of With A Little Help From My Friends reached number one in 1968.

The musician performed the song at the famous Woodstock Festival in New York state a year later and was also well-known for his Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour of 1970, which visited 48 cities across the US.

In 1982 Cocker recorded the duet "Up Where We Belong" with Jennifer Warnes for the soundtrack of the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman. The song was an international hit, reaching number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and winning a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo. The duet also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and Cocker and Warnes performed the song at the awards ceremony.

In 1992, Joe Cocker teamed with Canadian rocker Sass Jordan to sing "Trust in Me", which was featured on The Bodyguard soundtrack.

On 3 June 2002, Cocker performed "With A Little Help from My Friends" accompanied by Phil Collins on drums and Queen guitarist Brian May at the Party at the Palace concert in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

Cocker was awarded an OBE in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list for services to music.

Last year, his arena tour across Europe saw him achieve a number one album in Germany and give what was to be his final concert in Hammersmith, London, in June.

Cocker, who recorded 23 studio albums and some 90 or so singles, lived on The Mad Dog Ranch in Colorado, in the US.

With his unique voice and style, whether in the studio or live,  he was consistently able to produce cover versions of classic hits, including those written and performed by Lennon & McCartney, John Sebastian and Bob Dylan, that were equally as good as, if not better than the original recording.

Unfortunately I never had the pleasure to see him live in concert but will leave you with a selection of my favourite Joe Cocker songs.







Finally, if any of you are as big a fan as me and have 2 hours to spare, do yourself a favour and connect your laptop to your big screen TV and surround sound system and “get some of this” from Cologne in 2013:



Absolutely wonderful Joe - you will be sorely missed but your music will live on.

She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow – Buona Sera Moody Guy

November has been an eventful month!

Our three weeks in Cyprus was most enjoyable, as always. We spent two weeks in the Helios Apartment Hotel in Chlorakas and had some fun nights in Bar Costa Rica.

It’s also been an expensive month!

Firstly I had to buy a new mobile phone as my trusty Blackberry stopped working while in Cyprus. Then, on my return, my laptop gave up the ghost so I had to buy a replacement. Finally whilst walking across the garden of The Fox last week my glasses frame snapped forcing me to crawl around the wet grass in the dark and pouring rain to try and retrieve the lens.

Sadly, for three stalwarts of the UK popular music scene, the month of November 2014 was there last.

John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce was born in 1943 in Bishopbriggs, Lanarkshire. He began playing the jazz bass in his teens and won a scholarship to study cello and musical composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and in order to support himself he played in Jim McHarg's Scotsville Jazzband. The academy disapproved of its students playing jazz and Bruce was given an ultimatum – stop playing in the band or leave the Academy. He left to seek his fortune in the world of jazz and blues.

In 1962 Bruce became a member of the London-based band Blues Incorporated, led by Alexis Korner, in which he played the upright bass. The band also included organist Graham Bond, saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer Ginger Baker. In 1963 the group broke up and Bruce went on to form the Graham Bond Quartet with Bond, Baker and guitarist John McLaughlin. Soon Bruce switched to electric bass and McLaughlin was replaced by Heckstall-Smith on saxophone and the band became The Graham Bond Organisation.

During the time that Bruce and Baker played with the Graham Bond Organisation, they were known for their hostility towards each other. Relations grew so bad between the two that Bruce left the group in August 1965.

For a brief time Bruce played with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, which featured guitarist Eric Clapton.

After the Bluesbreakers, Bruce had his first commercial success as a member of Manfred Mann in 1966, including "Pretty Flamingo" which reached number one in the UK singles chart (one of two number one records of his career - the other being an un-credited bass part on The Scaffold's "Lily the Pink").

In July 1966 Bruce reunited with Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker and founded the rock trio Cream, which gained international recognition playing blues-rock and jazz-inflected rock music. Bruce sang most of the lead vocals, with Clapton backing him up and eventually assuming some leads himself.

With his Gibson EB-3 electric bass, Bruce became one of the most famous and influential bassists in rock, winning musicians' polls and influencing the next generation of bassists. Bruce co-wrote most of Cream's single releases with lyricist Pete Brown, including the hits "Sunshine of Your Love", "White Room", "I Feel Free" and this track from the album Disraeli Gears :

Cream broke up in 1968 and Bruce continued playing until shortly before his death.

Bernard William Jewry was born in 1942 in Muswell Hill, North London.  In the early 60’s an unknown teenage band called Shane Fenton and the Fentones recorded a demo tape and mailed it in to the BBC with the hope of being selected to appear on television. While awaiting a reply from the BBC, the band's 17-year-old singer Shane Fenton (whose real name was Johnny Theakston) died from rheumatic fever.

The band decided to break up, but after receiving a letter from the BBC inviting them to come to London to audition in person for the programme they were persuaded to stay together and keep their name by Theakston’s mother, in honour of her son's memory.

Bernard William Jewry, who was a roadie with the group at the time, was asked to join the band and take over the mantle Shane Fenton. The band went on to have a few minor hits during the 1960’s including this one in the style of Cliff Richard and the Shadows:

The band subsequently broke up and Jewry disappeared from the spotlight for a decade. With the onset of the Glam Rock in the early 70’s Jewry took over the mantle of Alvin Stardust from singer songwriter Peter Shelley and went to number two in the charts with with “My Coo Ca Choo”.

Jewry was married three times. He met his second wife, actress Liza Goddard, when both were involved in a This Is Your Life for Michael Aspel and they married in 1981.

They divorced six years later with Goddard blaming religion after “Bern”, as she always called him, discovered God on a train to London Waterloo.

The Jewrys, Alvin, Shane and Bern,

Collectively, were quite a turn:

They never hit the dizzy heights,

But saw their various names in lights.

One married Liza, lucky sod,

Then, on a train, discovered God…

Now Bernard, Alvin, Bern and Shane

Are set to be reborn again!

                                                                        (Evans 2014|)

In total, “Bern” amassed seven Top Ten entries, in a chart span lasting almost 25 years and had just finished a new album weeks before he died.

Another Bernard, Bernard Stanley "Acker" Bilk MBE was born in Pensford, Somerset, in 1929. He earned the nickname "Acker" from the Somerset slang for "friend" or "mate". His parents tried to teach him the piano, but, as a boy, Bilk found it restricted his love of outdoor activities, including football. He lost two front teeth in a school fight and half a finger in a sledging accident, both of which he claimed affected his eventual clarinet style.

While serving national service with the Royal Engineers in the Suez Canal Zone, his sapper friend, John A. Britten, gave him a clarinet he had bought at a bazaar for which he had no use. The clarinet had no reed, so Britten fashioned a makeshift one for the instrument out of some scrap wood. Bilk later borrowed a better instrument from the British Army and kept it after he was demobbed.

Bilk played with friends on the Bristol jazz circuit and in 1951 moved to London to play with Ken Colyer's jazz band. Bilk disliked London, so returned west and formed his own band in Pensford called the Chew Valley Jazzmen, which was renamed the Bristol Paramount Jazz Band when he moved back to London. Their agent then booked them for a six-month gig in Düsseldorf, Germany, playing in a beer bar seven hours a night, seven nights a week. It was during this time that Bilk and the band developed their distinctive style and appearance, complete with striped-waistcoats and bowler hats.

After returning from Germany, Bilk became based in Plaistow, London, and his band became part of the boom in traditional jazz in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s. In 1960, their single "Summer Set" reached number five on the UK Singles Chart, and began a run of 11 chart hit singles. In 1961 "Acker Bilk and His Paramount Jazz Band" appeared at the Royal Variety Performance.

Bilk was not an internationally known musician until 1962, when the experimental use of a string ensemble on one of his albums and the inclusion of a composition of his own as its keynote piece won him an audience outside the UK. He had composed a melody, entitled "Jenny" after his daughter, but was asked to change the title to "Stranger on the Shore" for use in a British television series. He went on to record it as the title track of a new album in which his deep and quavering clarinet was backed by the Leon Young String Chorale.

The single was not only a big hit in the United Kingdom, where it reached no 2 and stayed in the charts for 55 weeks, but also topped the American charts.  As a result, Bilk was only the second British artist to have a single in the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart - Vera Lynn being the first, with "Auf Wiedersein Sweetheart" in 1952. "Stranger on the Shore" sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. It was later used in the soundtrack to Sweet Dreams, the film biography of country music singer Patsy Cline.

Bilk continued to tour with his Paramount Jazz Band, as well as performing concerts with his two contemporaries, Chris Barber and Kenny Ball as the 3Bs.

In 2005 he was awarded the BBC Jazz Awards' "Gold Award".

RIP Jack, Alvin and Acker – thank you for the music.

The Great English Football Robbery

One might have hoped that the Football Leagues £3.1bn windfall from television rights would have resulted in a drop in ticket prices for supporters but entrance costs continue to rise. The average price of the cheapest tickets across English football has increased by 13% since 2011. That's almost double the 6.8% increase in the rate of the cost of living for the same period.

Year-on-year it is up 4.4%, more than treble the 1.2% rate of inflation.

The worst culprits are Arsenal whose cheapest season ticket (£1014) is almost double the average, rising 3.97% from last season. It is by far the highest in the league and more than double the amount that 17 Premier League clubs charge for their most expensive one.

Arsenal's most expensive season ticket is a massive £2013 compared to Charlton Athletic's £150, the cheapest in the top four divisions and less than many Conference South/North teams including local club Farnborough.

Arsenal also have the most expensive match-day ticket in the Premier League costing a colossal £97 more than double the most expensive match-day ticket at seven other top-flight clubs.

Manchester City on the other hand have the Premier League's cheapest season ticket costing a mere £299 which is cheaper than 15 Championship clubs, 10 clubs in League One, 4 in League Two and even one, Halifax Town, in the Conference Premier. In fact it is the same as local Conference side Aldershot!

So how does this compare to the rest of Europe?

NOT favourably!

A season ticket at giants Barcelona is a snip at £103 whilst £70.36 will get you season ticket at Benfica  and  £57.73 at Sporting Lisbon!

Turnstile prices are also considerably cheaper.

The average lowest price ticket for the four major European Leagues are:

Bundesliga        £10.33

Serie A             £14.15

La Liga             £24.68

Premiership      £28.30

Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke - all charge less than £13 for their cheapest match-day ticket, the same price as Farnborough and you can watch a game at Barcelona or Real Madrid for £17, the same price as Aldershot.

Nor has the English Football match day experience improved.

Top of the Football League Triple "P" index (Programme, Pie and a Pint) is Fulham of the Championship at £11.60 - comprising programme £3.50, pie £3.90 and pint £4.20.

Kidderminster of the Conference Premier boast the most expensive meat pie in English football at a staggering £4.50 whilst a cup of tea at Southampton, Liverpool and Man. United will cost you £2.50!

Think of it this way - buying a meat pie at every home match at Kidderminster would have bought you a season ticket at Barcelona.

I rest my case!

To find out how much you will spend supporting your team this season use this BBC Price of Football Calculator.

Frightening isn't it!

To cheer you up here's the presentation photos from Rushmoor in Bloom 2014 with my Silver Gilt and my mate Boney's commendable first year Bronze.



I'll leave you with this version of The Shadows classic hit "Apache" performed by Domingos Caetano and his students at Bar o'Farol, fuzeta last Wednesday and recorded on my mobile:



Hey Ho!

Paths are Made by Walking

Once again we are in Fuzeta, in the Eastern Algarve, a fishing village that we have come to love over the last three years.

It is 6.30 am and I am sitting on the balcony of our apartment watching the sun come up over the Ria Formosa Nature Park.

I am at peace with the world.

The fishing boats have already sailed out to the ocean in their daily quest to fill their nets and the only sounds are the low roar of the Atlantic Ocean rolling on to the shores of the Ilha da Armona and the calls of the various wading birds as they forage in the muddy pools in search of their breakfast.

It is low tide, but soon the waters will start gently flowing in, past the lagoon beach, the clam farms and salt beds, slowly flooding this small part of the 18,000 acre Ria Formosa which, protected from the Atlantic Ocean by five barrier islands, stretches 60km westwards from Villa Real San Antonia, on the border with Spain, to Faro.

In just over two hours time the ferry will make its first 10 minute journey carrying a handful of visitors from the quay to the Ilha Armona, a return trip that will be repeated all day until 6pm.

The fishing boats will return to the quay and their catch will soon be on sale in the indoor fish market.

Later in the afternoon, as the tide starts to recede again, small groups of welly clad locals armed with buckets and trowels will wade out into the shallow waters in search of clams and mussels returning just before dusk with the rewards of their labours.

By 7.00 pm the sun will start to set, lighting up the sea and sky before disappearing from the horizon for another day.

Life goes on in Fuzeta, as it has been for the past 100 years or more - slowly and quietly.

The Ria Formosa wetlands are of vital importance as a habitat for many aquatic bird species. Located on the migratory pathway of the Eastern Atlantic, they also provide food and shelter for the 30,000 birds that stop off here on their long journey between Europe and Africa. As an important breeding ground for many coastal birds such as Oystercatchers, Ibis, Cranes, Egrets and Flamingos the Ria Formosa has also traditionally been an area of oyster and salt farming as well as fishing and shellfish harvesting. The saltpans of the Algarve are centuries-old environments built by man where salt is extracted in a traditional and sustainable way and is prized worldwide for its quality among top chefs.

It is hard to imagine a more relaxing and peaceful part of the world, a perfect setting for me to read "Paths are Made by Walking" by Jennifer and Ian Hartley - the story of their campaign for a nuclear free world and their life in a caravan, "Halcyon Spirit", outside RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire to witness against the siting of a cruise missile site in the 1985. The book recounts the events of their daily life and the dialogue they had with MPs, the military, police, peace campaigners, the local community and the church.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Ian and I were born 6 weeks and 5 doors apart in a typical middle class, pre-war housing estate in 1946.

We played and fought together, were both in the "Pottonoski Gang" and went to primary and grammar school together, living through those heady days of church youth clubs, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones during the early sixties. Shortly after we went our own diverse ways - Ian continuing with his education and young, headstrong me walking away from the sixth form and the opportunity of a University degree in an attempt to find success, money and all the material things that are supposed to come with it.

In 1970, with Janice and baby Lorna, we moved away from Ipswich for good and didn't meet up with Ian and Jennifer until a brief visit to their old house in Arthur Street in 1983.

30 years later, on our recent trip back to Ipswich we met up again and talked over old times.

As we were leaving, Ian very kindly presented us with a copy of their excellent book which I enjoyed immensely and has left me with a much greater appreciation of why they decided to do what they did and the necessity and power of non-violent protest.

They both expressed an interested in visiting Fuseta, so, as a thank you for the book, I have written this blog entry for Jennifer and Ian and leave them with this wonderful rendition of Parce Mihi Domine (Spare me Lord) by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble.


Hey Ho!

In Hastings you’ll never go wrong!

Thank goodness the Scottish debate is over!

The Welsh Bard summed it up admirably:

North of the Forth and the Clyde,
Scotland was asked to decide ....
Now with this answer, Salmond the Chancer,
Finds all of his dreams are denied.

And I'm one of many who hails
The news that the Yes campaign fails
As many have figured a Yes might have triggered
Some similar nonsense in Wales!

The Rushmoor in Bloom awards were held last week and I was again rewarded with a Silver Gilt. Considering the number of weeks I have spent away from Farnborough this year I thought I did rather well!

Last weekend we visited the Hastings Seafood and Wine Festival - well mostly the beer and music tent!

The weekend is best described by the Welsh Bard in his latest ode:

In Hastings, it pays to be choosy

When you’re in search of a pub…

Better to find a Jacuzzi,

And spend the weekend in the tub!

And when you’re out pulling the birds,

Beware of examples like this!

And the wi-fi is only for nerds,

Much better to stay on the piss!

 

Then, when you’ve exhausted the barrel,

In need of a bop and a song,

Who better than lovely Miss Carroll…

In Hastings you’ll never go wrong!

We first met Liane Carroll 20 years ago when we bought our first caravan in Hastings. After performing at Pissaro's Jazz Bar one Sunday lunchtime, she joined us at the bar. Janice and Liane drank champagne all afternoon getting very drunk. At around 6pm Roger, her husband, walked in to collect her and drive to London where she was playing at the 606 club!

Since those early days she has become one of the leading UK jazz vocalists and plays regularly at Ronnie Scotts and the 606 club and at Jazz Festivals all over the world.

Here she is playing where she likes to most, in her home town of Hastings.

Off to Fuzeta on Tuesday - Hey Ho!

Sir Gerald Rides Again

My old mate Sir Gerald is at it again! 

get HAMPSHIRE 

Sep 03, 2014 10:47

By Pete Bryant 

Aldershot MP Sir Gerald Howarth said he worked "to protect the constituency from Joanna Lumley's ill-conceived campaign".

Sir Gerald Howarth

Aldershot's MP has said he stands "firmly and squarely" behind controversial comments regarding immigration that he made to a constituent.

Sir Gerald Howarth was reported to have said in an email that he believed Enoch Powell, the late author of a notoriously anti-immigration speech from 1968, was correct in his views. 

Many of his constituents have benefited from immigration, with ex-Gurkhas and their families being allowed to settle in the UK in 2009 following a campaign led by Joanna Lumley. 

Despite this, the MP this week told the News & Mail that he would continue to voice his thoughts on the issue and that it was "pretty disgraceful" to suggest that he should stop for fear of causing offence.

Despite his office having received some "pretty unpleasant calls from people without British accents" in the aftermath of his comments, he said: "Someone has got to stand up and say something. I work really hard to protect the constituency from Joanna Lumley's ill-conceived campaign. There are a large number of my constituents that are offended that their country has been changed in a way they have not been consulted on."

Powell's speech, delivered in Birmingham, warned of violence and "rivers of blood" if non-white immigrants were not deported.

It has been described as a low point in race relations in the latter half of the 20th century, and Powell was immediately sacked from the Conservative shadow cabinet.

'Massive immigration concern' 

Sir Gerald's leaked comments were regarding the recent revelations about the governing boards of schools in Birmingham being infiltrated by Islamic extremists - something he described as a "tragedy" and a "betrayal by the state".

Sir Gerald's constituency of Aldershot has one of the highest rates of immigrants in the UK. The 2011 Census showed that 7.8% of the population in Aldershot were Nepalese and 5.4% in Farnborough.

Last week it was revealed that net immigration into the UK had increased, despite government targets to reduce it.

The proportion of children born to foreign-born mothers in Rushmoor also rose from 27.5% to 29.1% from 2012 to 2013.

The rate is higher than in neighbouring local authorities Surrey Heath (21.5%), Hart (6.7%), Guildford (26.6%) and Waverley (17.7%).

Asked if he felt that representing constituents who may feel they are the subject of his condemnation meant he should tone down his comments, Sir Gerald said: "Most of them don't speak English so they wouldn't understand them anyway.

I have excellent relations with the ex-Gurkha organisations. The young ex-Gurkhas are not the problem. The problem is the elderly who do not speak English and do not understand our customs. It's not fair on them. It's not in their interests that immigration should continue to be such a cause for concern.

I stand firmly and squarely behind what I said. There is massive concern in the country about immigration.

We've a crowded island. Look at the traffic jams everywhere and the demand for property.

These are serious issues that deserve serious discussion."

Say what you mean, Sir Gerald! 

Here's  what Sir Douglas thinks:



Hey Ho!

Another one bites the dust!

"Long time, no blog", but with the relatively good summer most of our time has been spent at Selsey relaxing in the sun and generally doing not much at all!

I have however spent a lot of time researching the history of The Fox Inn and surrounding area for thefoxfarnborough.co.uk which will be related in due course. 

But, with another birthday fast approaching and the big Seven-Oh looming ever closer, I felt the urge to put fingers to keyboard once again.

Any plans that I might have been hatching for staging a big 70th birthday celebration at the same venue as my last big party have already been shattered.

The Old Courthouse in Cove, scene of my 50th birthday party some 18 years ago has been acquired by the Fred Cohen organisation and turned into a Tesco Express.

Originally called The Anchor, it had The Alma immediately next to it and The Tradesman Arms opposite.

In those days a pub crawl in Cove could be successfully completed by covering less than 50 yards - a few pints warm up in The Tradesmans, followed by a 25 yard stumble across the main road to the Alma for 3 or 4 more and finally a 20 yard crawl to The Anchor until throwing out time. The Alma was demolished to make way for the car park of the Old Courthouse.

Like it or not inns and public houses are part of the English heritage and it is such a shame that so many of these historic buildings are disappearing from our cities, towns and villages.

It would appear that many old inns and pubs are not listed buildings giving the breweries carte blanche to carry out tasteless "re-modelling" of the interiors and the addition of hideously ugly appendages, whenever the mood takes them thus totally destroying the character of the building. And, when the novelty wears off and the local customers have been driven away by the ridiculous hike in the price of a pint, the building is sold off for redevelopment.

The price of a pint is a subject close to my heart - why should there be such a huge variance in price between one pub and another in the same area? The Welsh Bard and I often exchange texts on the subject of where we are and a particularly low or high pint price.

On the Oldies last trip to Oxford we graced three new establishments with our presence, one of which was The Head of the River in which the price of a pint of bitter (London Pride) was £3.95. Fortunately it was John G's round and he was not amused!

We were constantly hassled for a food order so drank up swiftly, walked a few hundred yards up the road towards the city centre and entered The Honey Pot where I paid nearly a pound less a pint. Once again, John G was not amused. 

I suppose at the end of the day "you pay your money and you take your chance" and if a landlord/brewery just wants to milk the tourists and have no local or return trade it's their choice.

Personally I don't like getting ripped off and, in The Head of River, had I been on my own, would have left the pint on the bar and gone somewhere else without paying!

However, the public house is not the only English institution in decline.

Manchester United, for so long at the top of British soccer is in total disarray. Invincible at home in the Premiership and rarely dropping a point away under Sir Alex Ferguson, things started to go rapidly downhill with the brief appearance of David Moyes and have reached an all time low since the arrival of the Louis van Gaal.

Here's what The Welsh Bard had to say about their last defeat:

Schadenfreude, moi?

In Milton Keynes there's crazy scenes -
The locals are excited:

Four nil their team has whipped the ‘cream’,
And Donned the damned United

Though Milton Keynes is full of beans,
Van Gaal feels so deflated:
The Glazers know he’ll have to go
And Moyes must be elated.

The honeymoon must end quite soon -
Success was so elusive
They’ve scarcely scored, the fans are bored,
And more and more abusive.

But here they’re mad, it’s looking bad,
They’re more and more splenetic…
So nurse, the screens, to Milton Keynes
Deliver anaesthetic.

A few weeks ago we returned to "God's Own County" and spent a most enjoyable weekend in Ipswich. We stayed in the Stoke area of Ipswich which is where my mother used to live as a child. I spent many days during the school holidays at my grandmother's house in Felaw Street which we got to by taking a rowing boat ferry across the water to avoid having to get a bus into town and another one to get out to the house.

Stoke is the old area of Ipswich close to the docks and is well described in this article my good friend (and best man) David Kindred:

www.kindred-spirit.co.uk/blog/life-over-stoke-in-ipswich

It was a weekend of nostalgia and reminiscing. As well as walking around the area and the docklands, we met up with David and his wife Anne and with my oldest chum Ian and his wife Jennifer who I had not seen for many years. I was born five doors away from and six weeks after Ian. We grew up and went to primary & grammar school together, although he was a year above me because of the cut off dates.

Together with Pete Talman, our performances of The Beatle's songs, accompanied by Dave Spiller on piano, were infamous around the Methodist Church youth club scene in the sixties!

My grandmother's house, long demolished and now a grassed play area, was next to The Steamboat Tavern which was on the waterfront. It originally also housed the ticket office for the riverboat to Felixstowe and it was here, nearly 60 years earlier, that my step granddad, Thomas Bruce, had given me my first mouthful of beer.

Tommy, you have got a lot to answer for!

Amazingly the pub has survived and whilst talking to the landlady about my family background and looking at the old pictures on the wall I discovered a photo of what appears to be celebration or an outing, possibly VE day. On further investigation I spotted Thomas Bruce in the front row (Seated far left) and my uncle Sid standing at the back. The landlady kindly gave me a copy of the photo. 

Apart from the landlady it was a mans pub in those days and heaven forbid if you went out without a shirt, tie, button hole and a hat!

The dockland area is no longer a working dock and has been cleaned up, redeveloped and renamed "The Waterfront Complex" with trendy bars and restaurants. Sadly all that remains to remind you of the old days are the railway lines and the empty, deteriorating mills and grain stores, although the character of most of the original buildings like the chandlers stores and the Customs House, has been retained.

It was to the Docks, sorry The Waterfront Complex, that we had to stumble in search of somewhere to eat on the Sunday evening, having been seriously over-served in the Steamboat Tavern. The only place open was the Pizza Express where I was charged nearly £7 for a bottle of warm Peroni.

DON'T START ME OFF!

Here's the other Tommy Bruce from 1960:


Good Grief ! I bought that single.

Hey Ho!