NextBack"Just you watch my foot" instructed Billy Halfpenny, as I began my first gig with him at the Abbeydale club and with that launched Immediately into a quickstep. Billy was not a master of subtlety, his little fat fingers pounded away at the keys like choreographed sausages creating such a seismic intensity that the empty and half filled glasses on top of the piano trembled and slowly inched their way towards him as his foot thumped out the beat. Meanwhile, struggling manfully with my reluctant foot pedal I tried to keep up with him and with pulsating calf muscles I heaved a sigh of relief when the break came. At the end of each set of dances he shouted " Come eer son, eers a shilling, goo and gerus a pint", which he demolished with no perceptible movement of his Adams apple. Billy was a rotund Pickwickian character and the pints of mild ale he consumed filled him with gas, I always knew when he was going to fart, he would cleverly disguise these miniature explosions by playing fortissimo. As we commenced the second half of my first evening Billy shouted at me "Try and keep yer eye on me foot lad" and immediately launched into a 'tempo DE clappers' version of a samba, 'La Caracul'. Not having the remotest idea how to play a samba I reverted to the security of 'Raggadaggadumr' but somehow it just did not seem to fit.
By now I was sweating profusely vainly trying to keep up with Billy and to make matters worse in the middle of this rhythmic conflict an apparition whirled on to the stage, Mavis Somebody with her tap dance and juggling routine. She was fourteen years old and weighed about fifteen stone and gyrated round the stage in a short green sequined dress like a frenzied baby elephant. In spite of watching Billy's foot the tempo slowly began to unravel Mavis's dancing and juggling became less and less co-
