Drinking Clubs of Yesteryear.

[Wilky]

I was resident Saturday night drummer at the Carstairs Club for about 6 months after the Teenbeats packed up. It was a really strange place to play. The entrance took you straight into the bar area but there was another room where the music was played. Both rooms were very small and there was hardly any seating in the music room. This meant that everyone stayed in the bar unless they wanted to dance, when they would pop into the music room. Because of this, you played about half the night to no-one. I played there with Derek Huson (spelling?) on piano and the guy on string bass, who used to play with Robin Grace and Bill Muir at the Glenpark Club. I can't remember his name. Although it was very small, the club attracted a very nice clientel and it was always a pleasant place to play. The main trouble was parking and getting the drums in and out of the place. Talking of Billy Edge, BlackdogMick, he played at my engagement party at the old Chessman club in Ainsdale and I also booked him to play in a trio at my wedding reception at the Queens Hotel. We had Dave Yarwood on bass (sadly deceased) and Bill Moreton on drums, who I believe is now in very poor health.

Happy days.

[Chas King]

I remember we used to go in the Continental in the Scarisbrick circa 1969 before venturing off to the Somewhere Else. There was a band that played in there who were quite entertaining but I forget their name. They always used to play a Doors number.

The Continental was the large bar to the rear which was accessed via the the main entrance through the cocktail bar. All these bars have been since replaced.

[blackdog-mick]

I don't remember Dave Yarwood, but Bill Moreton rings a bell. Did he play at the Volly in the early / mid '70s, or am I mixing him up with someone else?
One Moreton I do remember was Alec, he played with Bill at the Top Hat & was the 1st drum teacher I ever had. Alec was a friend of ours & when I was driving my dad barmy (bashing on everything available, but rhythmically [see...spelling is important]), he wanted to learn to drive, so they came to an agreement - one drum lesson in return for one driving lesson. Life seemed so simple then.
Unfortunately my mum received a phone call recently to inform us of Alec's death a sad moment but he will be fondly remembered) and next time I come home I am going to get SOOO PI*S#ed in the Guest house!

[Wilky]

Alec and Bill Moreton were the best of friends although not related. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Bill taught Alec to play. I'm really surprised you didn't know Bill because he was a friend of Billy Edge's and played with him quite a bit. Dave Yarwood was also well known around the town as a bass player. Bill Moreton lived in Heathfield Rd with his mother until she died. He worked in the Borough Treasurer's Dept at Southport Corporation. I think when the Borough disbanded he went to work in Bootle for Sefton Council as did many of the people employed by the former Borough. I too worked in the Treasurer's Dept in Southport, but only for about two and a half years. Billy was a very tasteful drummer and very popular with the jazz fraternity in the town. I can remember spending time with him and Billy Edge at the Franklin Hotel when the great man lived there. Unfortunately, Bill Moreton has been in very poor health for about 3 years now or so I am told. I did read the piece in the visiter recently about Alec being found dead, I believe, in his back garden. Very sad. There's not a lot good about growing old I'm afraid, but generally speaking, it beats the alternative.

[smithy99]

Christmas '61 there was a bit of a crisis at this club as the resident pianist unfortunately had to be hospitalized a few days before Christmas. No piano player! All the town's pianists had been booked.

So my dad asked me if I would sit in with drummer Ernie Howard (Ivy St.) and play for seven straight nights (except Christmas Day). Apart from a few memorable stints with the illustrious Rebel Rousers I'd never played publicly before so I was a terrified 18 yr. old.

My dad gave me a long list of 'crowd pleaser' songs to practise and coached me through waltzes and quick steps. "Carolina Moon" , "Now is the Hour", "Who's Sorry Now". etc.

There was no real amplification except a cheap mike which the emcee just chucked into the piano when he'd finished yapping.
Ernie Howard did a lot of lengthy drum solos to give me time to find out where I'd got lost in a few songs.

This club taught me how people's behaviour was related to the amount they had drunk. The shy guy at 7:30 pm became 'Frank Sinatra' stumbling on the stage at 11:30pm demanding to sing "The Tender Trap" I was paid very, very well and offered my dad all the money to reimburse him for all the piano lessons but he would not take it.

Although it wasn't exactly my 'scene' I loved the club because of all the down-to-earth working-class characters with teeth like crooked tombstones and Butts Lane complexions.

Caz, you may have jammed with Ernie Howard. He used to play with a great pianist, Maurice (?) Hulme from Crossens. Did the Rebs ever do a stint at The Railway Club?

[blackdog-mick]

Wilky, memories coming back.
I think I didn't know Bill Moreton well because I would be under age at this time (1973ish). I was already a regular @ the T H by the time I was 16, but this priveledge didn't extend to (quite) every hostelry in Southport.

I do remember going to the Volly one night to watch him play & listen to this cymbal he had that Alec used to rave about. It was an old Zildjian K and sounded amazing even though it was on it's last legs. Result is that now, I use Zildjians ( mostly Ks).

Another ambition of Alec's was to own a Premier "Royal Ace" snare drum. In about 1986 I walked into a music shop in Leeds and saw some guy playing a snare, he didn't like it, but I did, & when he put it back I went for a look. It eventually cost me two really useless drums in exchange and is a 4" piccollo version of the "Royal Ace" - Alec was very proud of me when I told him.

As far as the Top Hat is concerned I have an old Grundig reel to reel tape recorder that belonged to my dad & it comes complete with some tapes recorded at the club with Alec on drums, Bill on piano and various others, including one Don Gee on bass. I need to look for other names.

Julies cat had kittens about this time & my dad baggied one, my sister christened it Cheeky and she lived until she was 21 (Cheeky that is, my sisters 42 now
)
Happy days!

I think you're right about Bill teaching Alec a few things but Alec's main tutor was Mike Bird & as far as I know Mike is still a regular in the Guest House.

Mick.

[CazCarey]

Smithy - I don't remember the Rebel Rousers playing at the Railway Club but I depped for the bass player there a couple of times. The first time I walked in with bass guitar and amplifier and they asked me what it was! As a result I had to play the double bass instead and got the most wonderful blister on my plucking finger. I have to say though that the numbers were reasonably straight forward and it was added experience for an old rocker! I was a bit dwarfed by the double bass though!

[davlianw]

Ofcourse the Marine Club, hosted by Joe and Eileen Rowain, out lasted all the drinking establishments. Infamous but facinatiing, where all the usual suspects could be found, featured live music and cabaret for almost forty years, open seven days a week including Christmas day, and always after hours drinking till the early hours. Ronnie Hancock and Gary Robinson were the resident organ duo for years, backing stars like Bernie Flint, Tony the muscle man, Ken Dodd and many others.

Alf Prestburg I remember well as a true character of Southport, famous as the man who made a million and lost a million.

Billy Edge was my first jazz piano teacher when I was a mere fifteen years old. He suddenly disappeared from Southport and was never seen again. He was a true master of the Jazz keyboard.

I can affirm John Wilkie's statement that Billy Moreton taught Alec Moreton drums.

[smithy99]

Being an 18yr old, three-chord rock n' roll piano player I was in complete awe of the Southport jazz pianists who could improvise/ ex tempo rize 'Three Blind Mice ' without the music. To the extent I hitch-hiked down the A5 to London to sit for hours in the Ronnie Scott Jazz Club in Soho hoping that I would 'get it' by osmosis. Didn't get it.

[Phil Mitchell]

Donald Gee used to live next door to me in Railway St. I remember seeing him play at the Zoo & the Railway Club. Didn't he win on the lottery shortly before he died?
Phil

[Nell]

Was that the same Don Gee who worked on the Railway?
One of my brothers used to have a flat in Portland Street,this
was about 24 years ago,his neighbour was a Don Gee.
I think Don had a daughter Julie.

[blackdog-mick]

Same chap Nell. Any idea what happened to him?

[Wilky]

I was resident drummer at the Railway Club for nine years! This, of course, was after the piano went out and they bought a Hammond. The first guy I played with couldn't keep very good time and they fired him. Later it was found he had a thrombosis in his leg and had to have it amputated. I think he died shortly after that. Ben Haslam then had the job for many years followed by Terry Cooper. I left while Terry was still there but I did return for another year later on when the guy who had loads of cats played there. To my shame I can't remember his name, a real nice old guy though. He's probably still there! Doris, the great jazzer, used to come along and sing with us on ocassions. The club was probably the best attended working-man's club in the whole town at that time. I walked in about a year after I finished playing there and who should be on the organ but Dave Williams. I got up and played a couple of numbers with him and we later played together at La Tava for about two years and Samantha's night club in Preston which was previously called Club Royalle. I used to go and watch Robin Grace there in the late sixties. He had a great drummer from Preston called Danny Callahan. I heard recently that Danny is now in a wheelchair but I don't know how true that is. Robin Grace, of course, died many years ago, a great loss to the musical fraternity in Southport.

[smithy99]

Yeah Wilky. I remember the Hammond. Was it a B3 model as played by Stevie Winwood? Anyway, on visits to Southport from Canada I always used to drop in the Railway Club with my dad. There was an MC. A short funny guy, black wavy hair with glasses like the bottoms of empty Coke bottles. Forget his name.

Les Crossley was on the door at the Sussex Rd entrance and he used to sing Burl Ives "Little Bit of Tear let Me Down" (You probably accompanied him lots of time) Tragically Les died in a fire in his home, probably started by a dropped cigarette into his armchair.

Peter Mentha is another regular that comes to mind. And a stocky red-headed bar-maid who lived down either Byrom St. or Bright St. Some old geyzers used to play Dominos across from the bar in one corner.

It was a great club and as you may remember Wilky the dance floor was never empty once the band started up.

[Wilky]

The MC was Danny Kirkbride. He looked a bit like Arthur Askey. He was/is a really good guy. I haven't seen him for many years, I don't even know if he is still alive. His hair never went grey. You may find it hard to believe but the man was in his late seventies when he gave the up the MC's job.

Yeah, Les Crossley and the dreaded 'Little bit o' tear.' He used to get up and sing a lot of songs. He really couldn't sing! He was the driving force behind the success of the Railway Club, there is no doubt about that, but he and I never got along, and on the two ocassions I jacked it in, both were after arguments with Les.

I remember Peter Mentha of course and most of the other regulars who used to attend every week. I would think most of them have passed away by now, I was just about the youngest person in the club when I played there.

On a Sunday night, the punters had to be there and stand in line an hour before the doors opened if they wanted their regular seats in the 'concert room.' I agree, for the type of club it was, it was excellent with very reasonable subscriptions and inexpensive drinks at the bar. Dominoes, darts, cards and snooker for those who wanted them and very, very seldom any trouble.

I remember the barmaid, (Barbara???), not sure, but she worked at Frank Wilson's in Manor Rd for many years.

Can't remember the model of Hammond, but it had the full set of "f@rting" bass pedals like the C3. If Dave Williams reads this, he will be able to tell us which model it was.