The Dance Band Era
NextBackWhile my mother and Mrs. Canavan chatted I would be standing by the stage watching the drummer, a tall red haired man with an RAF style handlebar moustache playing a white pearl nineteen thirties vintage drum kit. I still remember Mum singing, "I was walkin along, mindin my business, when out of an orange coloured sky, Wham, bam alakazam, wonderful you passed by". Painted on the Bass drum was a young nubile girl dancing sylphe-like in front of palm trees and inside the bass drum was a light bulb fitted to some kind of an interrupter switch so that each time he struck the drum with his foot pedal it flashed. Each Saturday night I stood at the side of the stage utterly mesmerised by this aural and visual spectacle. One Saturday night the red headed drummer did not turn up, and letting my ego override my usual shyness I asked the pianist if I could play in his place. It seems that I made an impression because shortly afterwards, the pianist Billy Halfpenny called at my house to ask if I would be interested in playing with him, my heart soared then plummeted. I had no drum kit. Somehow my mother got to hear of a drum kit for sale in Perry Bar and the two of us set off immediately by bus. The kit was a monstrosity, comprising an abnormally huge bass drum which I found out later was ex Salvation army, and a home made bass drum pedal so cumbersome one nearly had to jump on it to activate it. The top skin of the three inch deep snare drum had been repaired with red inner tube rubber and the cymbal on a gooseneck stand was cracked. The asking price was Six pounds and ten shillings, and money immediately changed hands. In spite of its shortcomings, to me it was a thing of beauty and clutching the bass drum I stepped proudly on to the bus and immediately stepped off it again, "Your not getting on here with that thing said the conductor, "its over regulation packet size". Totally deflated, my mother and I made our way to the train station where more money changed hands. The bass drum was not allowed in the carriage and I would not let it out of my sight so my mother and I travelled back to Redditch in the guard’s van.
