CHAPTER 3   THE TEDDY BOY YEARS July 1958 - April 1962   July 1958 saw the end of my wasted school career and of my launch into the world of the employed. In those days there was no such thing as unemployment, if you wanted to work there was always plenty to go around. In fact the Stowmarket Secondary Modern School gave me a choice of five local company's, who were all looking for employees. The hardest decision I had to make was to choose just one. I’ve often wondered how my life would have panned out if I had chosen a completely different line of employment.  This was a big impressionable time in my life and I was in a hurry to join the ranks of the employed and the perks it would bring. The staying out late at nights and all the single girls that were awaiting my launch amongst them brought the goose bumps down the middle of my back. It also meant that I would be receiving a regular wage, so that I could pay my own way in the world and purchase what I wanted. Unfortunately at that time, I did not realise that you could only stretch it to far. It did not matter how much we earnt, somehow it was never enough. The more we received the more we wanted, the seeds of greed where being sown. It was a time when the whole country was becoming a material world, and it would slowly rule our lives. I'm sure we could have survived quite adequately on only a quarter of what was up for offer, and still have enjoy a high standard of living. What I do know, is that at that time we seemed to be a lot happier, with bulging bank accounts to show for our hard work. However, we could not help our selves and spent it at every opportunity. Many of us were never able to save for that rainy day our parents kept reminding us about. However, before I go any further I would like to use that wonderful tool we all have in-built within us and known as hindsight, to say a little something about the education system that I was about to leave. I do not consider that they achieved their goal, as far as my education was concerned. To me I had been placed into the too hard basket years earlier. Whenever I had a problem there was nobody to turn too for help. In fact I’ll go as far as to say that nobody wanted to know anyway. Problems can and should be picked up very early during our education, if not, the longer the problem exists the more the student try’s to cover it up. By the time you reach the age of twelve, it becomes embarrassing to acknowledge to those around you that you have a problem. To them you are just dumb, leaving you with a deep inner feeling of fear that fellow students will make fun of you. Unfortunately, the problems then tend to multiply and you are left struggling, falling further and further behind in your education. When I finally left school, I was way behind other students in the subjects that mattered, like reading, writing and arithmetic. In fact I could not even write a letter with out a little help from a friend. At the moment I am very proud of the fact that later in life I taught myself to read and write, although I have to admit that I still have a lot more to learn. I would also like to add that if it had not been for the computer, then this book would never have been written. I can honestly say that not one teacher left their mark on my life, during those tortuous ten years of my so-called education. By that I mean mentally, because on the physical side I’m sure Mr Howell left a couple of marks on my back side. I can go further by saying that I have learnt almost everything I now know since leaving and pride myself in what I have achieved. If you want to know who did leave an impression on my life, just go back to the beginning and read the Foreword. Where you will find a few people I’ve listed, who deserve a mentioned. Over the years it became apparent that I actually suffered quite badly from word blindness, a condition that later became known as dyslexia. Although it was not picked up by the schools I attended. This was around the same time that the minority, politically correct people started hi-jacking our way of life. I cannot believe that so few people can rule the live of so many. I always thought that we lived in a democratic society and that the majority voted to have their say. WRONG! This line of thought turned out to be one of my first big mistakes. If I had my way I would stick all of these power hungry politically correct cranks on a desert island somewhere so they could bore the pants of a couple of sea turtles. However, I guess the RSPCA would then be after us for cruelty to animals. In those days most young people wanted to grow up fast, so they could become of age as it was called. They would then be allowed to enter a Public house to be able to drink a glass of beer, without the fear of a Policeman placing his hand on the shoulder. At that time you had to be eighteen years old to drink in a pub and to vote. Unfortunately once you were eighteen you wished you were not, as you were then eligible to be called up as it was known, for National Service military training. Its funny but I find it hard to remember everything that has happened to me over the years. However, when it comes to the good things, somehow they seem to stand out in the front of my memory. Unfortunately or should I say fortunately which ever way you look at it. I can not remember many of the so-called bad times. The best way for me to bring back most of the memories is by remembering the pop music of the day. Even now when I hear an old song, I can remember exactly what I was doing at that particular time or of whom I was going out with, it’s known as Total Recall. That seems to ring a bell where have I heard that saying before. Unfortunately, when it comes to the question of sex that is quite different, to me the subject is in the too hard basket. I really do not want to mention it, but I guess I have to say something as it plays a large part of our becoming adults. Other wise I will be criticised for not being honest through out the book. Something I am trying very hard to achieve. Let’s just say that I am not comfortable with the subject while in the company of strangers. But will give you a little idea as to how it was approached. To learn about it was very hard, because nobody told us anything. It was a subject that was never discussed by our elders, or at least not while we were around. I seem to remember a quote in the Bible where it says something like and Abraham begat so and so and another which read and David begat somebody else. I really had no idea what all this be-gating was about. Where as your older mates told you a total different and weird version, so who would you want to believe. I often wondered where my friends got their version from. All I do know is that if you saw a picture of a girl who was scantily dressed it certainly gave you an inner feeling, but I was not quite sure why. Some of our earlier learning’s came from the School play ground and boy have they got a lot to answer for. However, upon leaving school it became a whole new ball game, of weird and wonderful rumours that you learnt from male group meetings in the local café’s. Whenever I was lucky enough to go to the cinema with a girl friend and wanted to place my arm around her shoulder. That arm had to travel the longest journey of its life and that was only after I had spent a considerable amount of time just trying to pluck up the courage to make the move. I laugh about it now, but boy, it was a big step to take in those days and I was always very nervous about making the first move. I do not know if it was my fear of doing the wrong thing or of rejection. However it did feel good when your advances were accepted and she snuggled up closer to you. What was it the first man on the moon said as he stepped onto the Luna surface, its one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind, well that is just about how I felt, during my first few encounters. Of the five choices of employment I had been offered, I was very lucky and struck gold with my very first interview. I went to work for the E. R. Howard’s 3 in 1 works which was located at the bottom of Creeting Road hill. The company was American owned and made household products like disinfectants, light oils, furniture and car polishes. The work force consisted of around a dozen men and one hundred women. My ex-neighbour Mr John Taylor, (David and Neville's Father) ran the maintenance workshop and had been present during my interview with the manager Mr Pierce. I have always credited him with helping me secure the job. Mr Pierce asked Mr Taylor what he thought of me and replied, "Well he's always in my damn shed with my two boys building track racing bikes". I like to think that on the strength of the remark I was successful in obtaining the job. The job entailed maintaining the many machines that filled bottles and cans with product, placing caps and labels on them and then packed them into boxes. Ray Taylor (no relation to the foreman) was the other young apprentice who was already employed by the company in the workshop. He was two years older than me, but I knew him as the big bass drum player in the Boys Brigade band. Derek Farrow was a fitter and Ennis Fenner was the electrician. This turned out to be a good job and I enjoyed working for the company. I always reckoned that most of my growing up took place at that factory, especially amongst all these women and young girls.  The first girl to spring to mind has to be Brenda Rolf, who I liked very much. I would spend as much time as possible talking to her, hoping that eventually I might pluck up the courage to ask her out. Most of the other girls knew what was happening and would do their utmost to push us together. If I remember correctly, it was during a dinner break while I was sitting with her in the warehouse having our lunch, when I took one of the biggest gambles in my life and stole a kiss. Lucky for me at that very same moment the factory siren blew informing us that lunch was over and that we had to return to work. The kiss was just a hen peck but to me it was heaven and I could not wait to steal the next one. An action I dreamt of many times during the coming months   One day an oil tanker driver, who usually delivered product to the factory, came into the canteen to have a tea break with us. He was invited to sit at the maintenance staff table. Somehow, the conversation got around to the question of joining the Army and then someone who had been reading a magazine found an Army recruiting leaflet.  Just for a laugh, Ennis Fenner started to fill in the form, while asking me questions. Somehow, I did not connect that he was entering the information onto the form, I Just thought he was pretending. He even conned me into signing the form at the bottom. Ennis then suggested to everybody that he was going to post it on the way home. I suddenly thought that I was going to have to join up and fought hard to try to wrestle the form from him. For some unknown reason, I believed that just posting to form meant that I would have to join up. I became very upset until it was pointed out to me that Ennis was only having a joke and that even if the form was sent, I could just ignore any correspondence that the Army might send me. The tanker driver also had a side line that helped supplement his wage. He was the guy who could sell you anything and I mean anything. Whatever you wanted he could get it and would bring it for you on his next trip. I did purchase a so called gold watch from him. I believe it cost me about £2-10s. It was also the first time that I had ever seen a self winding watch. The in joke at the time was that he’d acquired it after it had fell off the back of a lorry. Sadly, it only lasted a few months before it started playing up and was finally thrown to the back of my dressing table draw. I’ve often wondered if it did actually fall from the back of a lorry, because I’m sure it was broken from the very first day I acquired it. The driver also used to bring a small box with him that was secretly handed over to the men in the mixing department. What ever it contained was then re-sold amongst the men working at the factory. However, it was always kept from Ray and myself what it contained, it being secret men’s business we were told. A couple of years later we eventually learnt that the box actually contained condoms. All the girls in the production area came under the supervision of Mrs May. It was her daughter who I had met a couple of years earlier when I first went to the Secondary Modern School, when she had become my very first serious girl friend. My Aunty Stella also worked at the factory. Stella had married my Mothers brother Michael, or Mick, as I knew him. She was employed as the second in command over the female staff and was the person who usually metered out the jobs and saw to it that everything was working correctly. It was also her job to insure that on the hour everybody moved to the job on their right. This insured that all of the workers moved onto a completely different job. Being repetitious work, it insured that there were no favourites when it came to dishing out the work. During the weekends, I use to visit the Warming Pan café, meeting up with Gerry (from Haughley) and Terry Mayes a member of the Valley View mob who I used to hang out with during my school days. They both worked together as apprentice mechanics at Barnard’s Garage located near the Stowmarket Railway Station. At one time we made arrangements to holiday at the Butlin’s Holiday Camp in Skegness. We became quite excited at the prospect of holidaying on our own away from our parents. It was arranged for July 1959 the following year. Giving us plenty of time to hopefully save a few pennies in readiness for the trip. Gerry owned an AJS 350cc motorbike and started to give me lifts around the area. Although he was constantly being plagued by everybody, who were after free rides. Not many people at that time had their own wheels, most had to use public transport to get to their destinations. Alternatively, they could hitch hike, which is what a lot of them choose to do and that included me at times. I used to feel quite honoured that Gerry usually choose me to take with him. It saved me hitch hiking, it also saved me money and most of all I got to visit places my friend could not. I might add that at that time we did not have to wear a crash helmet, and that there was no restriction on how big a bike you could ride, although I do believe that we had to take a driving test. One Sunday Gerry and I went to a Bury St Edmunds cinema, because at that time there was still no Sunday cinema in Stowmarket. It was all very interesting and during the interval between the first and major film. A guy came onto the stage, acting like a D.J and played three top records of the day and did he get a terrific response. One of the three songs that has always stuck in my memory was “Along Came Jones” by the Coasters. The audience just went wild and I am sure half of them were only there for the interval music. As a footnote, the only cinema in Ipswich that opened on a Sunday at that time was the ABC near the Corn Hill area, although it did not have a musical attraction like the Bury St Edmunds cinema.            It was becoming quite evident that the young people of the day were parting very easily with their hard earnt wages, unlike their parents. It was also a time when they wanted to go out on a Sunday. Up until that time everything was shut down because it was the Sabbath. If you didn’t go to church then you either took a walk to see another family member or you just stayed in doors and listened to the radio. However, times were a changing because now they wanted to be able to visit the local Cinema on a Sunday and not have to travel to neighbouring towns. It did not take long for the local council to realise that some big money could be made if they obliged. So Stowmarket finally conceded and opened the Regal Cinema at 6.30pm on Sundays, (Ipswich and Bury being 4.30pm), however they did not add the interval music attraction to its agenda. The only music they played to the audience was as you walked in before the film started, and that was not rock n roll. It was organ or piano music and not even popular tunes of the day. Most of it was at least ten years old, the kind of music our parents had grown up to. The nearest it got too being rocky was Winifred Attwell playing Honky Tonk Piano. One particular Saturday night Gerry took me to the Finborough village hall. That was the first time I saw a live local band, Keith Armstrong and the Rocking Horses. As usual I can only remember one of the songs, a Shadows number “Stars Fell On Stockton”. I thought these guys were just great. I really did enjoy their music and it only enhanced my urge to one-day play in a band. My interest in music is not confined to just pop music or should I say rock music. Given the right moods I can listen to anything, even chamber music. However, I believe there is a time and a place and a mood for everything. While my real love is rock n roll, I also enjoy some African or jazz music, even orchestral stuff, but I did not like what I called sloppy ballads. Around this time the Suffolk Iron Foundry started holding regular dances in their social club on a Saturday night. In the early days they used to hire live bands, but that was before I started attending. On the few occasions I did attend they had been reduced to using just a Disc Jockey. During one such dance, a fight developed and a knife was produced wounding somebody. It was very serious and the victim almost died. Later somebody was charged for the crime and was awarded a stint in Norwich prison. This brought a sudden halt to the dances and so ended whatever chance I had of seeing future bands at that venue. Because of this incident, it was thought that most young people would keep away from any future attractions and so it just died a slow painful death. Occasionally on a Sunday afternoon Gerry, Terry and myself used to visit Barnard’s social club. This was an old house in Church Walk, by the main church in the center of Stowmarket. The house had been stripped of all its furniture. In its place a couple of table tennis tables had been installed along with and old Radio. We spent many hours playing or just sitting around talking. In a way it became our gang hut and we were never disturbed. For some unknown reason nobody else wanted to use the facility’s. Some Sunday afternoons there would be as many as twelve of us indulging in its privacy, while listening to the radio or swapping stories of our latest conquests. One of the hit tunes of that time was, “Last Train To San Fernando” by Johnny Duncan and the Blue Grass Boys, a long running hit left over from the previous summer. While on the occasional trip to Great Yarmouth, this was the only tune that you would hear blaring out from the Jukeboxes coming from the many open fronted cafes that were scattered along the promenade. Another one was “Wake Up Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers which came out around December 1957. Even the British group the King Brothers had a hit with that one, at one time both hits were in the hit parade at the same time. This phenomenon happened on a regular basis. As the British acts tried to cash in on the phenomenal success of the American artists. In those days, most of the hit tunes were being written in the USA.  However, all that was about to change in a big way. I believe that one of the best rock n roll hits of all time came out in October that year. It being “Move It”, by Cliff Richard and the Drifters. I could not believe that a British singer could bring out a song that would better anything that was coming out of American at that time. Something I still subscribe too, to this day. Not only was it sung by a British artist but it was penned by British song writer Sammy Samwells, who just happened to also be a guitarist with the Drifters at that time. I went along to the Gaumont Theatre in Ipswich to see Cliff perform this hit. It was the first big show I had ever attended and what a noise the girls made, yes they even screamed at their pop idols in those days. I remember rolling up a program and hitting the girls on the head, who were jumping up and down in front of me. I cannot remember very much about the support acts although Lord Rockingham’s X1 was one of them and that Joe Brown was playing lead guitar for them at the time. Later they had a big hit called "Hoots Mon". What I do remember is Cliff Richard prancing around on stage wearing the brightest pink jacket I had ever seen. It was also this show that confirmed my love of the Bass Guitar. I just loved that loud boom, boom sound that it made. To me the Bass was holding the whole group together while driving it along. The Bass Guitar at that time was being played by Jet Harris, who was so timid that he hid behind the piano the whole time he was on stage. It reminded me of my very first appearance on the stage while at school, when I hid in the background, with my head held low, to scared to even look at the audience. Jet Harris is credited with being the very first English person to play a bass guitar to a live audience in the UK. Although an American group known as the "Treniers", while on tour throughout the UK are credited with using the very first bass guitar on stage in this country. A couple of years later Shirley Douglas is credited with being the first female to play one. Shirley used to play with the Chas McDevitt Skiffle group and had a big hit with "Freight Train". She helped start the bass player bandwagon rolling forward, by bringing out a book on how to play the new musical discovery known as the bass guitar. Both Jet and Shirley acquired their new instruments from the USA in the late fifties. Jet had been a very successful double bass jazz player up until then and had changed over, unlike most of the guys of his day. Who had all subscribed to the notion that the bass guitar was just a novelty and that it would not be around in a couple of years time. This meant that a complete new breed of player had to take up the challenge and learn to play the bass guitar. They had to learn and invent ways of playing the instrument, as it handles, plays and sounds totally different to the double bass, a process that is still going on to this day.    Cliff’s group at that time was known as the Drifters, later they were forced into changing their name to the Shadows. It seems that the American band the Drifters threatened them with legal action, if they did not change it. They were worried that it might reflect upon their reputation, because they had achieved several hits, on both sides of the Atlantic around the same time. One of their biggest hits that came later was "Under The Boardwalk". Most weekends, we would all meet at the Warming Pan Café, but never during the midweek because we could not afford it. My wages at the 3 in 1 factory at that time was £3-1s-6p and out of that I had to contribute £1-10s towards my Mother’s house keeping money. In befriending Gerry it allowed me to stretch my wages just that little bit further than most of my friends. Another song that came out in October of that year was “Red River Rock ” by Johnny and the Hurricanes. This song hung around for a few weeks in the hit parade and was enjoyed by most young people. You had a little idea of the songs popularity by counting how many times it would be played on the Jukebox. Once again the cafes along the sea front at Great Yarmouth picked up on this tune and flogged it to death. Great Yarmouth was where I first became aware that there were a few dishonest people in the world. When I had my photo taken by who I thought was a street photographer, anyway after giving him a half a crown (2 shillings and 6 pence) I awaited the delivery of my photo by post, fifty years later and I'm still waiting. At the bottom of Creeting Road Hill, just down from my Nana’s house was the Stramit Boards factory, next to E R Howard’s where I was employed. The Stramit Board had a very large barn full of straw, the framework of which was made up of the Coronation Arch’s, which I've mentioned earlier. Late one Sunday afternoon this barn caught fire and it was a massive blaze, that could be seen for miles. I went to have a look, as I knew it was right next door to my works. My boss Mr Pierce was there, being very worried that it might spread to our factory. I agreed to stay over night and to keep an eye on the place just in case a spark blew over and started something. At the height of the blaze hundreds of people came to watch the spectacle, although only two fire tenders attended. The boss gave me the use of his office, tea and coffee for the night. I felt like I had been entrusted with the crown jewels and along with the big task of saving the factory. Anyway the fire was contained within the barn area and I did not have much to do as it died down. During the night when only a few people remained on site, some of us placed potatoes in the ashes and had a feed with the tea and coffee my boss had left for me. The embers went on to smoulder for a couple of days. This was the second time that a large fire had broken out in this part of the Stramit Board factory. Back in 1947 the same thing had happened, this I had also witnessed from my Nana’s house as we were living with her at the time. After this second fire the company replaced the barn with a very large flat roofed aircraft hanger. It will be ironical if that one also burns down in the not to distant future, they say things go in three’s. Back at work, all seemed to be going well with Brenda as I finally managed to pluck up the courage and asked her out. When she finally agreed I was on cloud nine, I could not believe it. I think we went to the Regal cinema on a Saturday night, I’m not sure what the film was called, as I was more interested in Brenda. Although somewhere in the back of my mind the film “Seven Brides For Seven Brothers” seems to ring a bell. I do know that we saw the film together and that it was a film she had always wanted to watch. Our relationship was to last on and off for the next four years, I guess you could call it our on off courtship, until she finally gave me the old heave ho when I left town and joined the Royal Marines. I liked Brenda very much, sometimes I still think about her and wonder whatever happened to her. Anyway, we went to the cinemas and dances together on a regular basis during those earlier years, but it never went any further than that. Not once in all that time did I ever regret one moment of our time together, its just a shame that I treat her so badly. Hindsites a wonderful tool we all have, such a shame we cant rewind back the clock to put things right, or at least have a little idea of what we are doing wrong, so we don't make those silly stupid mistakes in life. I do remember one thing about working for E R Howard’s. While working amongst all those women and girls, some of them would try their hardest to embarrass me. They would talk amongst them selves in front of me, mentioning what their husbands had been up to the night before. This is where I learnt a lot about the Birds and Bees, I would have been about fifteen and a half years old at the time. The kids learn a lot earlier nowadays, helped on by a schooling system that even teaches sex in the primary schools. No wonder the children are indulging at an earlier age than we did in the late 50’s. A funny instance I recall at E R Howard’s involved Mrs May the supervisor. We used to have thousands of caps to place on to the bottled product. Amongst them you would usually find a few strange ones from other manufacturers. So I started to collect them and everybody knew this. One day Jim from the mixing room told me that Mrs May had a Dutch cap and that if I went and saw her she might give it to me for my collection. Well I went straight up to her and asked if I could see her Dutch cap. To give her credit she never let on, but her mouth dropped wide open and she came out with some story about her leaving it at home. It was a couple of years later before I actually found out what a Dutch cap was, and if at that time, I doubt very much whether I would have been able to look her straight in the eyes again. Upon reflection, I think she handled that situation very well. I made very good friends with Johnny Jones, who worked in the dispatch department, where he was the forklift and truck driver. On the odd occasions, I would travel with Johnny as he delivered the company's product all over England as a lorry drivers mate. Like the time we went up north to Hartlepool, not being able to find decent accommodation we had to stay the night in a doss house. We had to sleep in a dormitory style room, sharing it with about ten other guys whom were coughing, spluttering and spitting all night. As I was green and still a little wet behind the ears as they say, Johnny warned me not to trust anybody. He also explained to me how to roll my money up in my handkerchief and to place it under my pillow and sleep on it. While at the same time to be very careful what I said, as most of the other inmates were all drunk and might take offence very easy. Well I was careful what I said and I kept my eyes on every single bloke that night. The end result was that I never managed a wink of sleep all night and what little money I had, I held it tight in my hand all night. I held it so tight in fact that it’s a wonder it didn’t melt. Johnny was like a Father to me and treated me well, in fact he was about Dad’s age. Another time we went to Snetterton motor racing track to erect our company product banners for a race meeting, advertising our 3 in 1 oil and Autobrite car polish. We even had special passes which allowed us into the pit area on race day. I became very excited, because having this pass meant that I would be able to meet one of my idols at that time. Archie Scott Moore was one of the driving legends of the decade. He had won almost everything in the racing world that was possible at that time and coupled to this he only had one arm. It was even rumoured that he sometimes smoked while racing, although I find that hard to believe. How can you steer, change gear and smoke all at the same time is beyond me. Unfortunately and sadly for me, he missed the race meeting, being confined to bed with of all things the common cold. Snetterton race track was the location where Johnny taught me how to drive using the company Bedford Doormobile van. I had it speeding up to 100mph within my first fifteen minutes of tuition and I thought it was great. However, judging by the look on Johnny’s face, I do not think he enjoyed the ride too much. Johnny always had a smile on his face, and an infectious laugh that made for great company. Like I have said earlier, we both got on very well together and I enjoyed his company. He lived in a very long caravan that was parked at the rear of the Pickerel public house, near the Stowmarket railway station. He was Welsh and his family were all fairground people going back a couple of generations. Johnny was keeping up the family tradition, but only as a part time job, as he was still managing to work for E R Howard’s. He introduced me to his wife Maude, who wore the trousers in the house as they say and controlled the family as well as the business. Her pet hate was people calling her husband Johnny instead of John. More then once I caught a lashing from her tongue as I forgot what had become rule number one in the Jones household. However, like her Husband, she took me under her wing and I got on very well with them both. Sometimes I would help them move their equipment to different fair ground sites around the area and to then re-erect the side shows stalls and swinging boats. If I could not get home that night, I would muck in with them and sleep in the caravan. Maude would even move her children out of their bunk beds so I could sleep in one, while they had to sleep on the floor. Some weekends I would assist them to run the side shows and take the money after loading the punters into the swinging boats. I had a good time and I enjoyed the work, the lifestyle and most of all the friendship I enjoyed from Johnny and Maude. I often wonder whether they are still alive or working sideshow alley in that big fair ground high in the sky. During the winter months, most of the fairground, people would park their vans behind the Pickerel pub and I would visit them in the pub for a drink during the evenings.  On the occasions that I worked Saturday mornings for E R Howard, I would undertake a maintenance program that also included tidying up the factory. While all this was going on we would have the factory radio on. As we worked we would usually listening to a program called Saturday Club. This was one of the first non-stop pop music programs that the BBC broadcast and it ran from10 am to 12 Noon. I believe that this was one of the first programs that helped kick-start the music craze in to what it has become today. It became the musical bible for most young people of that day, and its music was always a topic of conversation. There was also another radio station in the evenings known as Radio Luxembourg that played Pop music from 7pm, unfortunately if you were in what was known as a bad area and because of interference, you could not always receive the signal clearly. Most radios in those days had to have an Ariel and the higher you could place it, then the clearer the signal became. One of my friends who had a tall tree in his back garden managed to climbed to the top and fix the Ariel wire to its highest point and in doing so enjoyed one of the best receptions in our area. This was also required for the new televisions sets that had just started to arrive on the scene. Unfortunately, most people did not have the luxury of a high tree in their back gardens and so the TV Ariel’s were usually limited to the height of the house chimney pot to which they were attacked. With the help of a little Saturday morning overtime, the extra cash was flowing, so I dropped into a steady routine of visiting the local cinema on a regularly basis with Brenda. However, there were two cinemas in Stowmarket, the Regal, which was relatively new and flashy and then there was the Flea Pit, as we called it, although its real name was The Palladium. The Flea Pit name described it well, but funnily enough, it showed most of the better films. There were always a few funny stories going around at the time, about the Flea Pit. One that comes to mind was that you were always advised by your friends to lift your feet up while you were watching the film, so that you did not feel the rats running around your feet. Or if you kept your feet on the floor, when the film was over, the rats would carry you out. It was also easier to get in free through the back exit doors Each cinema showed two different films per week, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was one film and then, Thursday, Friday and Saturday was another. So you can see that we had a choice of four different films per week. Then in early 1959 when the Regal started showing another completely different film on a Sunday, it increased our choice to five per week. July saw my first holiday away from home on my own, with the prearranged trip to Butlin’s Holiday Camp at Skegness. We never had cars in those days so Gerry, Terry and myself went by train, transferring to a bus for the final leg of the journey. This holiday turned into a revelation for me, I could not believe what you could get up to once you were a way from your parents. The boys went to pick up the girls and the girls went to be picked up by the boys. The camp consisted of rows and rows of chalets all numbered, with and odd number facing an even number. All boys were placed in odd rows, while all girls were in even rows. During the evening, a security force known as blue coats patrolled the whole area. Their sole task was to prevent the boys from getting into the girls chalets and so sleeping with them. What a job, mission impossible I called it and a total failure especially if you could afford a bribe. To prove it, you only had to walk out side of your chalet and listen, as the whole camp seemed to rattle like a Latin American dance festival for most of the night. The camp was positioned by the sea and completely fenced in, everything we required was within.  Food halls, pubs one had half a mile of bar space, swimming pools in doors and out, games room and three dance halls. It was in one of these dance halls that I saw and danced along to Rory Storm and the Hurricanes who at that time featured Ringo Starr on drums. The facilities were so good that the local young people would break in at night to enjoy the free entertainment. I befriended Jeanne Hilton from Bolton, who was staying in the chalet just in front of mine. That was on the Monday and I chased her for the entire week. Most other people had a different girl friend every night, working on the theory that you would never see each other again, so why get serious. Playing the field as they say. This brings me back to Brenda she had not been happy with the idea that I was going away on holiday with the older boys, knowing full well what boys can get up to while on their own. Unfortunately her parents would not let he go and so reluctantly she had to sit on the sidelines and watch me leave on my own. With so many females around it was just too easy for a first time away from home lad to drop his guard, as the temptations became so over powering that I succumbed quite easily. Looking back I can see why we are known as the weaker sex. If the positions had been reversed, I’m sure that I would have moved heaven and earth to go with Brenda to watch out for her. From that statement I can only deduct that us males are very possessive and hypocritical. To repeat the words of a well known song, “A woman is a woman and a man aint nothing but a male”. I had a great time, visiting the pubs and dancing the nights away. Jeanne had two girls friends staying with her, so I got to know them all quite well. One day one of them was horsing around with a bucket of water threatening to throw it over me. By a freak of nature, some of the water landed on me, I just picked her up and carted her to the nearest swimming pool and threw her in, clothes and all. As I turned to walk away laughing a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said hey mate look she can’t swim. To my horror she was thrashing about, so I had to go in, clothes and all to get her out. I think that gave her the last laugh. I’ve often wondered if indeed she couldn’t swim, maybe the laugh really was on me. During that same week Cliff Richard had a mammoth hit with, “Living Doll”. Every Jukebox in the camp was pumping it out and I was adding to its phenomenon by constantly playing it for Jeanne. I still enjoy listening to the song today but only as a reminder of Butlin’s. For some unknown reason it does not remind me of her, but then it was only a one week affair as they say. I hardly had time to know her. On the Friday our last night in the camp, I got dead drunk and ended up in the main outdoor swimming pool fully clothed giving a supreme display of diving and water bombing from the high diving boards. While soaking as many of the large crowd of people that had gathered to witness my spectacular drunken dives. A spectacular ending to a great holiday. Dad bought his first car a Triumph Herald and it turned out to be one of the first sold in Suffolk. It was a complete new design that turned a few heads. It was one of the first cars that could turn completely around in the middle of the road without undertaking a three-point turn. He must have liked that old car because later he swapped it for a later model. I do not think I ever drove it, but a photo exists of me sitting behind the wheel. We were coming up in the world, not many families owned cars and certainly not new ones. I think that the only other people in that area to have a car was my foreman Mr Taylor, and Terry Mayes Father who worked for a Bucks a local building firm. There were times when we used to help Terry clean it, as it was a weekly chore for him, being an apprentice mechanic.   Craig Douglas’s hit song “She Was Only Sixteen”, sticks in the back of my mind mainly because of Brenda. We were still seeing each other occasionally in the evenings but mostly at the weekends. Brenda was sixteen at the time so I could not help making a comparison with her and the song, as I still do today. Come to think of it, I was only sixteen years old myself, although at times I felt like I was twenty. While I guess some of my old school chums would say I acted more like a 12 year old. I never came clean and told Brenda of my exploits at Butlin’s, knowing full well that she would have walked away from me. So it was placed in the back of my head never to be revealed. I also made sure that she never met up with Terry and Gerry, in case she heard their first hand version of events. It was around this time that I suddenly changed the pattern of my social life, when I started visiting Ipswich on the occasional Saturday afternoon, having teamed up with Michael Peachment. Mick was two years older than me and a handsome critter who could always attract and charm the girls. I would tag along with him in the vain hope that they had a mate. I used to tell everybody that I was just hanging around to pick up the crumbs. We used to travel to Ipswich by any means possible, which included bus, train and even the good old magic thumb as I called it. For some reason I had finally broken away from all my old circle of school friends in Stowmarket and started to make a complete new set of friends in Ipswich. I guess it could be better described as the grass seems to always look greener in the next field. Even my friendship with Brenda started to wain as our meetings started to drop off dramatically. I’ve often wondered what Brenda thought of me, only going out with her on a fortnightly basis. At one point I believe the only time I was seeing her was during work. Although I must also add that we were always on good speaking terms. Mick and I used to frequent the Continental Café near the Ritz cinema in Ipswich. It was located in a side street, three stories up above a Chinese food store. The Continental became a meeting point for many young people who came into the town center. Unfortunately, where there are lots of boys and many girls, a complete recipe for disaster. Almost every time we visited the café, we witnessed a fight. Being strangers from a neighbouring town, we had to watch very carefully what we said. It was almost as if there was a pecking order. As we came from Stowmarket we were relegated to the bottom of the order. You might say we were only allowed to approach the left over’s. Even then you would have to be sure of your self, before you tried to pick up a girl friend for the night. Other wise you would be accused of stealing their girls. The place was always packed to the rafters. I used to describe it to my work mates that it was so packed that you could not raise your bottle of Coke up to your lips. The Elvis song “Its Now or Never” always remind me of the times I visited the Continental, as it was played continually. A local guy from the Gainsborough estate named Dave, used to look and dress just like Elvis in blue denim jeans and jacket. He was always there and judging by the crowd of girls that was always gathered around him, I would say he certainly looked the part and enjoyed the adulation that his looks attracted. To this day I still believe he was the best Elvis impersonator I have ever seen. Needless to say, he was also known as “Elvis”. To the shock of most music loving people, the radio and press announced that Buddy Holly had died in a tragic plane crash in the USA. Everybody who understood pop music in one way or the other was stunned. During his brief career he had performed at the Gaumont Picture House in Ipswich, unfortunately I never saw him. It’s always been known as “The Day The Music Died”. A line from the song “American Pie” by Don McLean. In those days I use to day dreamed a lot, using the power of my wild and vivid imagination. I dreamed of having a very small watch size Jukebox strapped to my wrist. Something that I could listen too every day and be able to select the records whenever I felt like it. Now looking back over the past 50 years I've watched technology grow from radios, to Jukeboxes to pirate radio stations, to very small hand held radios, to pocket size cassette players, to small CD players to a very small mini disc players and finally to mobile phones and Ipods. You can now even record and produce your own CD’s on the home computer. Boy all of a sudden big brother is amongst us. I like to think that I foresaw the way technology would develop in the music industry and although it’s taken 50 years its finally arrived. Now instead of wearing a mini Jukebox strapped to my wrist, I have a very small Ipod hanging around my neck connected to two very small ear pieces speakers blaring out my choice of music. The whole thing is only six inches by three inches and holds 20,000 songs. And there was I saying that we did not need all of the material things that technology was throwing at us. However, back then I just wished that I could have had my very own mini Jukebox. So I could hear the hit tunes of the day and to be able to choose whatever and whenever I wanted. I may have been ahead of my time, but who is going to believe me now, they will all say I now have the assistance of hindsight. Which I do, unfortunately it does not allow me to change anything. Most films have a musical sound track playing in the back ground, no matter what is up on the screen and if you go back a little further they even used a piano player. So I used to imaging a musical sound tracks in my head whenever I was doing something. Mind you I’d make sure that I was on my own, not wanting the little men in white coats to turn up and deliver me to Melton. During the festive season the American owner of E R Howard’s used to lay on a large Christmas party for all his workers at the Spa Pavilion in Felixstowe (sadly now demolished). Boy what a party, food, beer, plenty of girls and all for free. The company organisation also had an office located in Ipswich where it employed a further seventy girls, so you can imagine the fun that was had by everybody. At one party, they held a Hula-Hoop Competition. I won the boys section and as a reward I received a kiss from the boss’s wife. Then I was presented to the boss himself and I asked him if he was going to give me a kiss. Somebody pulled me away before I made a bigger fool of myself. I've always been told I had a twisted sense of humour, perhaps this is where it all started. At the end of the evening, we were all treated to a free bus ride home. I arrived home about 4am, to Mum and Dads disapproval. They had spent the whole night sitting up worrying and waited for me to return and here I was dead drunk and leaning on the front door. Not only that I was giggling, singing and generally waking up the whole neighbourhood. As Dad opened the door I just fell in and ended up lying spread eagled on the door mat in the hallway. Can’t remember if they left me there or if I managed to get up stairs to bed. What I do know is that they were not happy with the state I had arrived home in. January 1960 saw Michael Holidays hit “Starry Eyed” reach number one in the hit parade.  Then there was Cliff Richard’s “Voice in the Wilderness”, which just missing out on a first spot, by only making it to number two. One night while watching the television news I saw an article on Dr Barbara Moore, a Russian born Dietician who had walked from Edinburgh to Marble Arch, a distance of 395 miles. Completing the task in seven days and twelve hours, to claim some sought of record, while surviving on her specially prepared vegetarian diet. A challenge was then offered by a garage owner in Staffordshire to beat her time. Anyway, it was all big news in those days and everybody was talking about it. Later that same evening I went along to the Cosy Café in town, having changed its name from Warming Pan. Meeting up with Harry Powell who was in the RAF at the time and stationed at RAF Wattisham. Harry had also seen the news report on the television and was very interested in the subject. A conversation developed between us and we both agreed that we could beat Dr Moore’s time. By Wednesday that week, we had made up our minds and decided to have a crack at the record, so I got some details from the newspapers and made a few arrangements. My employer gave me two weeks holiday, I then had to scrape some money together to assist our challenge. Mind you there was a rather large carrot being dangled in front of us in the form of a £1000 prize. All my work mates at the factory started laying bets against me. Cecil Goymer in the mixing room bet me £1 that I would not even go to Edinburgh. His actual wording was I bet you don’t even get on the train. Jimmy bet me £1 I would not start that race, while Ken their boss bet me £1 that I would not make it out of Scotland and so on. I think there were about twelve bets in total. Harry and I eventually left Stowmarket railway station on the Friday night at about 6.30pm, being seen off on our folly by a host of local dignitary's which included the Stowmarket Mayor Mr Weston Howard and Brenda. Well at least the first £1 was already secure in my pocket, for once in my life I was one up. We traveled all night arriving in Edinburgh by about 6am the following morning, to utter chaos. There was no organisation, nobody to tell us were to go or even were to start. Further more I was disappointed that there was nobody giving away numbers so we could be identified. However, after a time, we did managed to find a local newspaper office that helped us with most of the details and after interviewing us, took us to where other contestants were starting the race. Then after extracting a few final details from us about our attempt, another journalists and a photographer saw us off on our long trek South. By this time it was exactly 12 midday on the Saturday morning. To us it all seemed uneventful really, all we did was to walk for as long as our legs would carry us. Something like sixteen to eighteen hours a day. Our route was to take us out of Scotland and over the Carter Bar, [the Scottish Border] and straight down the Great North Road heading South towards London. Which in those days was the main arterial road that ran up the center of England from London and know as the A1. Up until them we had not trained for the event. To me walking was walking and wasn't that something we all did every single day of our lives, wasn't it supposed to come naturally to us. As we slowly made our way south, there were constant reminders and signs that many other walkers had been along the road ahead of us. Quite a few of these other attempts had attracted big followings and sponsors and included large entourages of vehicles. As we continued our walk, we passed some of them by the side of the road, with the occupants nursing their competitors feet and later withdrawing them from the race. Gradually these vehicles became fewer and fewer, the further we walked south of Edinburgh. Then on the Sunday, a reporter who was chasing up a story caught up with us. He then proceeded to tell us that somebody had been caught cheating, by taking a ride. He went on to tell us that we were going to need some sort of proof that we had actually walked the whole way unaided. This was devastating to us and for a time, we stopped to discuss our situation further with the reporter by the side of the road. Although it did not take us long to make up our minds up that there was no way we were going to return to Edinburgh and to re-start the race all over again. Even if we did, we had no idea how we could prove that we had actually walked the full distance anyway. Finally we decided that we would get prominent people in each town that we past through, people like a Police officer or a bank manager, or maybe a vicar, to sign a pieces of paper for us. Stating who they were and at what time we had past through their town. With that, we said goodbye to the reporter and headed south for Marble Arch in London. Sadly later we were to learn that this would not be enough proof to satisfy the guy who had offered the challenge. One of the biggest thrills for us was to watch the steady stream of contestants dropping out of the race the more miles we covered. As we passed through each town or village, the locals would tell us how many walkers had been through a head of us. The further south we reached the fewer walkers were reported passing through ahead of us and it felt good because the numbers were dwindled rapidly. The other thing that gave us a big thrill was the fact that most of the other walkers had car loads of gear and food to assist them. Some even had beds built into the back of a vehicle. While all Harry and I had was a small shoulder bag, containing just a few basics to survive on, namely a bottle of Lucozade (energy drink) and a couple of bars of chocolate. We didn’t know what a tooth brush or a bar of soap was. During the week leading up to our trip to Edinburgh, I had received a vast amount of advice from everybody that even included the factory cat. The Boys in the mixing department were the worst offenders, usually most of their advice bordered on simply poking fun at me. I like to think this was all done to try to get me to call off the escapade, so that they could collect on their bets. Which amounted to four weeks wages. I always remember Cecil telling me that before I go I should soak my feet in vinegar so the skin would pickle and become tough. Don’t know where he got that one from, but I wasn’t trying anything like that. However, there was one piece of advice I took very seriously and that was to purchase a pair of new boots. This sounded a good idea and made sense that I should try and protect my only means of propulsion. So along I trotted to Gordon Ince, a gentlemen’s outfitting shop in the middle of town to purchase a brand new pair of bright shiny size 11 Army boots. Mr Ince who served me, had already heard of what I was intending to do, so he deducted a few shillings off the price for me. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that they would have to be broken in. The only boots you could purchase in those days were what we called Ex Army Navy stock and they were hard as old boots as we say and very uncomfortable to wear. Usually they would cause very large blisters on your feet, until they had been worn for short periods of time, over a couple of weeks. Not like today, as they are all nice, soft and ready to wear straight from the shelf, with no braking in period required. Anyway, the day we started the walk, they only lasted three hours on my feet. Even after trying another of Cecil’s bright ideas of bandaging up my feet. They made my feet so painful that I had to tie their laces together and hang them around my neck and to revert back to wearing the black suede boots that I had traveled to Edinburgh in. These I wore for the remainder of the walk. By the time I reached London the soles had long since come off and I arrived at Marble Arch walking on the inner part of the shoe base and wearing large holes in my socks. However, because of their weight and the swinging motion around my neck I eventually dumped them by the side of the road. We did not meet too many people by the road side as we slowly advanced towards London, which was good because we did not want to waste too much time stopping and talking with them. Then just as we were about to leave Scotland we stopped at the Strawbridge Hotel in Strawbridge. Where Harry met up with a young girl who was working at the hotel kitchen. Here we did allow our selves a short break so Harry could chat her up. Although I used the time to grab a couple of winks of much needed sleep. We were only carrying a small amount of money with us, a Shoestring attempt is not quite the word I would use, to me we were almost completely broke. Therefore, we were forced to rely solely on fish and chips, Lucozade drinks and the occasional hand out. While sleeping rough in anything we could find. Like haystacks, a telephone box and once just north of London, a manure heap so we could enjoy the heat it was giving off. I somehow seem to remember that we had read that Dr Barbara Moore had done the very same thing, and so that's where we got that idea. Remembering that this walk was taking place in early January. When I say sleep, I do not know if two hours qualify as sleep, because that is all we were allowing ourselves. Washing became a luxury because I do not think we washed for whole week, boy we must have been a little high on the nose when we finally arrived in London. An interesting observation was that while in Scotland, the people were very friendly and helped us whenever possible. It seemed no effort for them to feed us and allow us to sleep rough in their barns. However, once we were in England, things changed nobody wanted to know what we were up to. For some unknown reason they did not want to get involved. At one stage, we were even chased out of a haystack by an irate English farmer. While walking on the English side of the border, we approached a local farmer who was tending his herd of cows. He must have seen us coming and made his way to the gate by the road, arriving just as we got to the same spot. The minute he said morning to us, I knew we were going to have trouble trying to understand his accent. In the distance was a small town so I asked him in my broad Suffolk accent if there were any Café’s. He turned around looking at his herd of cows that had by now gathered behind him. After a couple of seconds he looked back at us and said no mate there all Cows. We walked away laughing to our selves over the incident, as I still do today. I like to think he thought I said Calves. Mind you I’m still not sure maybe the joke was on me, but for the life of me I’m blowed if I know why. A high point for us was when we caught up with an old guy who was walking a head of us. He was also on the challenge, being sponsored by his village. He only had to finish to become a local hero, I believe he was about sixty-five years old. He tagged along with us for about a day, making us laugh with all of his jokes and great sense of humour. Then not being able to keep up with our pace, he finally bid us a tearful farewell and gave Harry his spare pom pom hat for luck. It’s the same one you can see in the photos. One night about 100 miles North of London we came upon a large section of the road that had been closed off by safety barriers and cones because of road works that were taking place. In the darkness, somehow we became lost and ended up on the wrong side of the barriers, not realising until it was too late. We then found our selves trying to walk on a very thick layer of sticky tar. Once we had realised our mistake we tried to get off the section of road, but in the darkness, it was hard to see where the treated section ended. In a vain effort we had to walk a considerable distance on the tar, at times it felt so sticky that we were having a job to lift our feet up in order to walk. When we did finally make it to safety, it felt like we had just added two inches of material to the bottoms of our shoes. It then took us a further 50 miles to wear it off. Mind you by that time the soles on our shoes were getting a little thin so in a way if was like having an instant re-tread applied the bottom of the shoes. Then came the good news we had been waiting for, as we went through St Neots just North of London. We were informed that we were the first walkers to go through the town. Hearing this good news made us quicken our pace, for the first time we were thinking that we might actually win this race. Up until now it had only been a big joke between us, we were doing it just for the laughs and to see if two ordinary working class country lads from Suffolk could achieve something on this scale. We felt good, as far as we were concerned we were the kings of the road. You know the old Suffolk saying “You Wont Hurry Me I’m From Silly Suffolk”. I think today the term would be a couple of "Silly Tractor Boys". Just North of London we were both feeling very hungry, unfortunately we had no money it having been spent a couple of days earlier. By an amazing twist of fate I picked up a two shilling piece from the side of the road. Within minutes we were sitting in a local transport café where I ordered a plate of chips and two forks. My Father who was driving his brand new car found us twenty miles North of London somewhere near Hatfield, as we were walking by the side of the road. We stopped and spent some time chatting and eating some welcome food that my parents had brought with them. Dad also gave Harry a nip of whisky, but stopped short of offering me one, according to him I was too still too young to drink.  By the time, we reached Marble Arch it was dark, it being 7.30pm in the evening. Along with my parents, there was also a few of my fellow work mates that had made the trip. I must admit that it was a surprise because up till then I had always thought that most of the factory were just making fun of me. I always supposed that most of them never thought I was serious about the challenge. There was Raymond Taylor, Evelyn his girl friend, Ennis Fenner and his wife, my Mother and Father all waiting for us. Dad then spent almost an hour running around looking for a policeman to record our arrival time. I suggested we break a window and then the whole police force would turn up. Finally a policeman did arrive and he recorded our arrival time as seven days eight and quarter hours and that included the three quarters of an hour it took for Dad to find him. During the trip home the weather broke and a large amount of snow fell in just a short period of time. At times, it became very dangerous to continue driving through the storm. However, our the little convoy of two cars slowly pressed on and we finally all arrived home safe and sound about three o’clock in the morning. It turned out that the snow fall was so heavy that it was one of the worse winters for about ten years. It was also felt that if we had not completed the walk, then the weather would have forced us to abandoned it and being so close to London that would have been heart breaking. Harry and I spent most of Sunday morning sleeping, but by midday we were up and feeling right as rain. Then most of Sunday afternoon was taken up undertaking newspaper interviews, as the news of our achievement had traveled fast. We had actually woken up to a couple of journalist already in the bedroom taking photos of us. Bright and early Monday morning it was back to work to pick up all those bets. Even my Boss was surprise to see me at work, expecting me to take the second week off to get over the walk. It was a big surprise for me when he gave me the second weeks wage as a prize. I think I came out of the whole deal about even, but we never did receive the £1000 bet from the challenger. My Mother phoned and wrote to the guy who had offered the prize, in order that we might stake our claim but it was all to no avail. He simply refused to pay us, saying we did not have enough proof, proving that we had completed the walk within the seven days twelve hours. Later there was a story doing the rounds that he had never intended to honour the challenge in the first place. Further more he did not even have the money, all he wanted out of this stunt was the publicity. Well he received plenty of that, only it was all bad. As a couple of the national newspapers ran the story on him not paying. I believe that it helped tip the scales so in the end he went broke. The whole episode did not bother me, I just put it all down to experience. I’d had a good time and for me it was time to move on. To start looking around for the next hair brain scheme, or that’s what my Mother used to call all my exploits. I was just hyperactive and always had to be doing something, as is still the case today. I had a change of friends and for my trips to Ipswich I teamed up with Rodney Mayes and he accompanied me on a regular basis. We would visit a coffee bar just opposite the Baths Hall, I cannot remember the name and sadly the developer’s bulldozers have long since leveled it. We started to make new friends and meet new girls in that area, one particular girl I tried to become friendly with was Marilyn, many many years later she actual married Rodney. Songs of the time were “Stagger Lee” by Lloyd Price who later had hits with, “Personality” and, “Gonna Get Married”.  On a Sunday trip to the Gaumont cinema we sat behind a group of girls who used to visit the cafe including Marilyn. I got talking to one of them and she asked my name I told her it was Johnny, all rock stars in those days were called Johnny. So over night in Ipswich I became known as Johnny.  To me the name just sounded right, it suited me at the time. In the song “Gonna Get Married” by Lloyd Price, there’s a line that goes “Johnny you’re too young, but I’m Gonna get Married” this was constantly being sung to me by the local girls. I didn’t mind because it helped me get into the inner sanctum of the local gang. Once everybody knew you for some reason you were accepted and just became one of them. About this time we also made friends with a group of boys from the Claydon area, who also frequented the café. Sadly I can only remember a couple of names, Roy somebody and Mick Harding. Mick turned me into a Ray Charles and Chuck Berry fan and sold me my very first record player to replace the old wooden box my parents had bought me. This had long since been broken, along with most of the old seventy-eight records, that I had used for target practice with my catapult. So with my new second hand Dansette record player safely at home, I then purchased my first LP record, Ray Charles “In Person” and later, “Yes Indeed”. Mike also sold me a Chuck Berry LP which I believe was called “One Dozen Berry's ”. I would play these records repeatedly at home until I knew every single track backwards, forwards, upside down and inside out, and to this day I still know all the words to these track off by heart. This was a change over period for the record industry, all of a sudden our old 78 records were out of fashion, as we were introduced to the new technology of the 45-rpm record. We were buying records like, “Johnny Remember Me” by John Leyton. This record was played constantly on the Jukeboxes by most of the girls in the coffee bars that we frequented, as a dig at me. All because they thought my real name was Johnny, sounds silly now, but I enjoyed all of the fuss and attention at the time. I think I was finally getting over the stigma of the scar on my upper lip, that I had always thought made me look ugly. Upon reflection, I believe that over the years it had started to become invisible to on lookers. It was only my imagination that was telling me that it still stood out like a sore thumb. The first suit that I ever purchased was from a shop in Ipswich known as Burtons. I do not know why I picked these tailors, because I was never very happy with the results of their workmanship. The material was very rough, as I have said earlier I cannot tolerate rough material against my skin. In addition, I wanted tight trouser bottoms, at least 14inch the Teddy Boy style of the day. Because Burtons were still at that time known as high class tailors, and were not into that style of work. They would not do what I asked, so I had to settle for 16inch bottoms. The suit was black with a stripped appearance in the weave. The jacket was quite long, but not fingertip length as is the Teddy Boy style. I believe I was with Rodney and Terry Mayes at the time and we all purchased one to the tune of around £16 each, almost 5 weeks wages. I did eventually get my Teddy Boy suit a couple of years later. It was light blue, with 14 inch trouser bottoms. In addition, the finger length jacket also included a black velvet collar and pocket flaps.  I believe I bought it from Hepworth’s in the Ipswich High Street, but I’m not sure of the price. This was just a jacket, because by this time most of the guys were wearing them with tight bottomed blue denim jeans with very large turn ups. The Teddy Boy style of the late 50's early 60's consisted of tight trouser bottoms and long finger tip length jackets. Thick crepe soled, suede shoes known as brothel creepers and a black bootlace tie. Our hair cut was called a Tony Curtis, short on top and swept back along the sides in what was known as a DA at the back (standing for Ducks Arse) and we all used Brylcream to hold the hair in position. This style of dress was not new, it was just a copy of a style that had been around in the late 1800 to early 1900. When it had been labeled the Edwardian Style after King Edward the something or other. Who had favoured this particular style of dress and would always be seen prancing around the high spots of London showing it off. As with all fashions they do tend to come around after an absence of a few years. Therefore, we were no different in those days as the youngsters are to day. The latest craze to hit the country was the motor scooter and over a short period of time, quite a few of these machines suddenly started appearing around the area. Most of us did not have the money to purchase a car or even a motorbike, but a scooter now that was another kettle of fish, as they say. I used to watch Brian Southgate (Slashes brother) driving around Stowmarket on his Lambretta TV 175. Boy I loved that bike and would have given my right arm to have owned one like it, but I never did, I just never seemed to be able to save the money. I think it cost around £175 at that time. I guess I was having such a good time spending all my money in Ipswich which left nothing to save. I never did own a Lambretta, but a couple of years later I did get a second-hand motorbike for £25, a Frances Barnett 197cc that I purchased from Ricky Sparkes. I could never understand why my parents were always worried about me whenever I took it out. After all I knew what I was doing and it was safe as houses. Mind you I never told them of the minor crashes and times I fell off. Mike Harding arranged a dance at the Claydon Town Hall just by the main bus stop. It was in aid of the local Youth Club and turned into a great night being well attended by most of the local youngsters. Many young people also came from the cafe’s we used to frequent in Ipswich. Therefore, everybody knew each other. A local DJ supplied the music and most people spent some time enjoying the dancing. For a stronger drink, a few of us went over the road to the local Public house. Unfortunately, I got a little the worse for wear while tasting the local Cobbles ale. The pub also had its own attraction to rival the dance and that was a Jukebox. As the songs were blaring out the alcohol started to kick in, I got onto the tables to dance, of cause all the while being egged on by most of my friends. There was so many of us in the pub that the owner could not push through the crowd in order to throw me out. Then while I was dancing to one of the songs I slipped and fell backwards onto a wall, my right shoulder blade hitting a nail protruding from the wall. This tore a large hole in the back of my precious Teddy Boy jacket. Unfortunately I did not know this at the time, so I continued dancing, being the main attraction in the bar. Closing time came and I was so drunk I did not know who I was or where I was, in fact from then on everything is a bit of a blur. However, I was told later that a passing police car picked me up from outside of the pub. They knew I was a Stowmarket boy and as they were going my way, I guess they thought they were doing me a favour. Somehow they managed to get me into the back seat of the car. The next thing I can remember is being sick. The car suddenly came to an abrupt halt and I was bundled out of the car and dumped under the hedge by the side of the road. I can still remember them swearing at me as they drove off. I believe it was somewhere near the old Burlington Garage on the Ipswich side of Needham Market. Anyway I slept it off in the hedge and walked home in the morning just as the sun broke the horizon. Needless to say after a five-mile walk I was sober by the time I arrived home. Once again I changed some of my friends and I befriended Ricky Sparkes. By now I was going to Ipswich almost every night. This was a great time for the both of us and I must confess it was the best time I’d had to date in Ipswich. Ricky and I hit it off really well and it seemed like we were both on the same wave length. Everybody knew us, the local gang accepted us and we scored with the girls. There was not an estate in the Ipswich area that we could not visit safely and find somebody we knew. If after a good nights drinking we needed a bed for the night, there was always somebody who would help us. By now there were many times when I did not go home at night. We would just freshen up somewhere in the morning and away we would go again. On other occasions we would make our way out to the Flamingo Café near Martlesham. This place was open all night and was frequented by American service men from RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge air bases. Because of the servicemen it was full of action and there was usually free booze being past around under the tables. Especially if you were known to them. It was also where I was introduced to Country music it being the choice of the American servicemen on the Jukebox. On many occasions Ricky and I went home with some of these guys and had a great time with them, being wined and dined and given a bed for the remainder of the night. Then in the morning after freshen up and a good hearty American breakfast they usually gave us a lift back to town.  All the Ipswich estates had a Teddy Boy gang, while the center of town had a gang made up from all the estates, which included Ricky and Slash Southgate, Nobby Clarke (a different Nobby from the one who was add school with me) and myself from Stowmarket. The city center gang could go anywhere, no questions were asked and most of the estates even feared us. At full strength the gang consisted of about forty very rough, tough guys and we ruled the center of Ipswich with an iron-fist. When strangers turned up in the center of the town pubs and we took a dislike to them, we would move them on their merry way, with force if need be. Knocking about with the gangs in Ipswich really amounted to a kind of ritual. Rick and I would thumb or catch a bus up to town as we called it, so we could meet up with the gang in the Cricketers Hotel. It faced a large car park, an area known as the Electric House. However, later it was converted into a local green bus terminal, next to the Odeon Picture House. Which I never visited, the Odeon was too bright inside to take your girl friend. Once everybody had arrived, most of the gang would have already been quite merry with drink as we set off on a pub-crawl. I cannot remember all of the pub names now and I guess by now most have long since been bulldozed. The ones I do remember are the Barley Mow, the Mita, the Halibut, and the Tankard. It would be one big drinking binge that included fighting with the locals and trying to steal their girls. The last bus returning to Stowmarket usually left the red bus station at 10.35pm while the pubs shut at 10.30pm.  Most Fridays we would miss the bus and if we were not staying in town we would have to walk and thumb a lift home, a distance of twelve miles. Once while walking home a police car pulled up and asked us where we were going, I told him we was going home. The policeman then asked why we were walking and I told him that I had to shoot my horse because it went mad, a reference to many old American western movies. With that, the police officer went crazy threatening me with everything but the kitchen sink. We were then searched and for some reason a few weeks earlier I had placed in my top jacket pocket the tax seal from the top of an American packet of cigarettes. Anyway the police officer found it and thought he'd struck gold. He wanted to arrest us right there and then as a bunch of big time tax evading cigarette smugglers. It being a major crime in those days to get your hands on American service personnel cigarettes. They just happened to be very cheap at the time because the Americans did not have to pay our high tax on them. However, we were lucky and the officer let us go. I guess he had to, having the piece of paper in my pocket did not necessary mean we had ever had the cigarettes in the first place, I could have picked it up from the side of the road, but if I was to admit to that, then I would be lying. To make matters worse when he let us go he did not even consider giving us a lift home, maybe he did not want me being sick in his car again, maybe my reputation had gone before me. Once while on board a Double Decker bus I counted 63 pubs that could be seen from the window, from the Whitton Maypole through the town to the red bus station in the center of Ipswich. I wouldn’t mind betting that most of them are now long gone due to town council planning. The last I heard was that they wanted to keep the people on their estates. In this way they were hoping that the inner part of the town would not become over crowded. That would certainly be the case if there were no Pubs to visit. On the nights we stayed in Ipswich, we would usually stay at a friend’s house or would go down to the docks area seeking out other friends who worked on the sailing barges. We would play cards until 2 am in the morning before trying to get some sleep. Sometimes the girls we had picked up during the evening would stay with us. I do not know what stories they told their parents when they eventual arrived home, because in those days young people did not stay out all night and there was no such thing as a defacto relationships. If a girl became pregnant, you were forced into marry them soon as possible, hence the saying, a shotgun wedding. Up until my generation there were not many divorces in fact it was not even considered. It was usually a case of till death us do part as they say. However, I noticed that some people are now blaming the large number of divorces and broken marriages that occur today, on the baby bombers generation and to our changing attitudes towards marriage. I guess we were the first generation to have an opportunity to do something about it. Especially after witnessing are parents going through hell just staying together for the sake of the children, even if they hated each other. In stead my generation called it a day, trying to find a partner whose company we could enjoy. I can’t under stand how somebody can stay together fighting in front of their children. Because I believe that destroys them just as much as when the couple are separated. Like I've just said in those days there was no such thing as a defacto relationships, to us it was known as living in sin. Gee I hate that word Defacto, I much prefer the word sin. I might add that most of my generation usually made a much better job of their second marriage. Especially after living together for a couple of years, and to then getting married because they loved each other and were not being forced into a relationship you did not want. Saturdays were pretty much the same routine, the only difference being that at lunchtime as well as drinking, a card session took place in the back room of the Cricketers. From 10am until 2 pm closing time. Then we would all meet up again as the pubs re-opened at 5pm. Ricky and I would usually kill the afternoon at the cinema, either the Ritz or the Gaumont. Many times we went with girl friends but would usually fall asleep during the film. By the way, the Gaumont was the darkest cinema to take your girl friend. Saturday night would be much like a Friday night, another drunken binge with lots of fights, booze and girl chasing. After the pubs shut on a Saturday, there was usually a party to go to somewhere. Ricky and I would always crash out in a corner somewhere. Some of our friends, who I can remember were, Shirty-Jay, Little George, Malcolm, Butch, Kelly, Dek, Terry, Gary and Duncan to name but a few, who would usually loan us a razors, soap and even clothes etc. Sunday morning we would smell a little high on the nose, but after a clean up and some after shave we would smell as good as the next guys. When I say aftershave its worth noteing that it had only just become accepted by the young males of that era. Up until then it had always been shunned and classed as a ladies product, and something that only woman wore. The only guys who wore the stuff would have been those with feminine tendencies. However, very slowly the average guy started using it, although many used to tell you they were only covering up that manly morning body odours. On Sundays once again it was card playing at the Cricketers, from 12pm to 2pm, followed by a visit to the Cinema at 4.30pm with the full gang. It became a ritual to go to the Ritz Picture House. The girls would arrive early and queue up and as soon as the doors opened, our gang of boys standing on the other side of the road, including myself. Would just cross over the road and push in with the girls, to get in early and so get the pick of the seats. Then once in side all we did was make a lot of noise while other people were trying to enjoy the film. Because the gang consisted of the hardest villains in Ipswich, nobody and I mean nobody resisted us. At 7pm it was back to The Cricketers (opening time) or when the film finished if it was a good one. Once again it was card playing in the back room with the inner gang while washing down the days dust with a couple of beers. Sunday night’s Ricky and I would go home by bus at 10.25pm, because the pubs shut at 10pm on a Sunday so there were no excuses to miss the bus. Anyway, we had to go to work on Monday morning and needed a little sleep to get us through the Monday. One thing I have just remembered, is that occasionally on a Saturday night we would some times visit the Arlington dance hall, a great place to go if you were into Jiving [dancing], the boys went for the girls and the girls went for the boys. A few beers, a few fights, a few girls, a recipe for a really good night out. I might add that at times it became very violent around the pubs of Ipswich, so you had be careful what you said to some people. Unless you had the muscle to back your self up in any fight that would undoubtedly come your way. One night in the Cricketers pub while we were all playing cards for money. Gary’s brother Terry was caught doing something that looked a little suspicious. The table was flung aside and he had a beer glass thrust straight into his face. It turned into one of the biggest fights that the pub had ever seen. Even with Terry lying on the floor loosing a lot of blood, the fight carried on around him. After a brief stay in hospital, he gradually got over the attack, but he had a long scare on the side of his face to remind him of the incident. Not to mention the time when one of the bar staff at the Barley Mow pub, an American Serviceman stationed at the near by Bentwaters Air force base, was killed by one of the patron.             Then there were the outings that were always being organised by some of the young people out on the estates. One such trip was organised by two identical twin girls who lived in Kesgrave. Lucky for me I had already become very close and friendly with them. They got together a coach trip to visit the Southend Kurrsal Amusements Fair ground. Frankie, Duncan and myself teamed up with the twins and we all embarked on the two and a half hour trip to a fantastic weekend. Mind you, we had to be careful and not to be too pushy, because Southend was the stomping ground for most of the East London gangs. Being just the three of us, we would have been no match against that lot.             A couple of month’s later Duncan surprised us all when he joined the British Army for nine years. Perhaps he felt bad that he had not ended up with one of the twins. As the photo shows they could usually be found hanging on to my arms, sorry Duncan. It was about this time that I had a short relationship with an Ipswich girl namely Ann, I nicknamed her Twinkle. I gave her this nickname after a song by Twinkle called “Terry”, that was always being played on the Jukeboxes at the time. We spent about a 6 months together, a record for me. On Saturday nights we used to stay at her sisters on the Gainsbough Estate. Her Father, a keen pigeon fancier kept trying to marry us off. It seems he was in a bit of a hurry, but I am glad he never succeeded. One day he was talking to me as we were having a meal together and he asked me what would I do if Ann came up to me and said that she was pregnant. I thought for a few moments and told him that I would check if it was mine first and if it was, then I would marry her. He then got all excited and told me that if I had not been there in the first place I could have just walked away from her. It is strange that eventually I did walk away from this relationship, because for a while I thought I loved her very much. I had even changed my usual routines, having put a partial end to going around with the lads and drinking heavily. I do remember one incident that happened in the Cricketers pub. One night I walked on to a drunken Dek, one of the gang leaders with his arm around Twinkle trying to give her a kiss. I must admit that when I saw them she was trying to push him off. Anyway I pulled him off and a big fight developed between us. Dek was a lot bigger than me and he was getting the upper hand, when the Landlord pulled him off of me. An even bigger fight then developed between them. Anyway Dek was finally dragged of by the police and taken to the police station and charged. This caused a frosty relationship between us, but we never had another fight. Although I do believe both of us became weary of the other. One of the Ipswich gang members George Gooderham got more than he bargained for one night. He had been eyeing up Twinkle and making passes at her for a couple of weeks, finally one night I'd had enough. At the time we were in the car park opposite the Cricketers Hotel. A ding-dong of a fight took place, being egged on by fellow gang members. George was so drunk it made my task very easy. He walked onto everything I threw at him, his face was looking a bit of a mess. Not having laid a single punch on me. Then in desperation he took a run at me, I just stepped to one side and punched him in the side of the face as he flew past me. He landed out in the road just in front of a passing bus. Somehow, it managed an emergency stop, pulling up just as it hit him. While George was okay, it was more than could be said for two little old ladies on board the bus, who had to go to hospital with slight injuries. George ended up with a broken nose, compliments to my so-called right hook. Every time we met from then on, he would point to his bent and crooked nose while tell everybody I did it. He never tangled with me again and he kept his distance from Twinkle. However something must have changed because my feelings towards her began to wain, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it was. Although reading what I have just written it seems to me that she was a very popular person, as most of my friends seemed to have wanted some of the action at some time or other. Maybe I did not want to keep fighting just to hang on to her. Anyway I made the break and got back into the old routines with my friends. That was when one of Rick's Brothers Colin moved it and tried to pick her up Ricky and I used to go to the Ipswich Speedway meets on Thursday nights, when “Tell Laura I love Her” by Ricky Valance became a big hit. The song was about a guy committing suicide while driving a stock car over a break up with his girl friend. This made an impression on many teenagers and received a lot of airplay. Especially after some guy in the country actually took the words of the song to heart and actually committed suicide over his lost love of a girl. Strange how losing a girl friend can really tear your heart out. One of my forman's later told me that love would draw you further than gunpowder can blow you. Going into a pub one night I had a laugh at Ricky's expense, Ricky was about nineteen or twenty at the time and I was only seventeen, English law at the time meant you could not drink in a pub until you were eighteen years old. It was that key to the door, coming of age, age of consent, age to vote and all that sort of thing. Ricky looked very young and I might add very good looking. Anyway he went to get us a couple of pints of beer at the bar and the land lord refused to serve him, said he was too young. The twist was, the landlord served me and I was under age. With Rick's good looks plus his chat he always managed to pick up a girl for the night, he always knew how to charm them around his little finger. In those days all the girls went around in pairs, so it was a forgone conclusion that he would get the good looking one of the pair. This meant that I would end up with the ugly one, or as we called them in those days, the doggo one. There was an in joke going around at the time that somebody might come up with plums, but that's another story, and I'll leave that to your imagination, although its not bad, it was just a joke amongst the gang.. Mind you there were a few times when Ricky choose the wrong one, but by the time he had realised his mistake, it was too late. I would hang on like a limpet mine to the one I had ended up with. There was no way that I was going to let go of a good-looking one, after all they did not come my way to often. Looking back at that weekend routine, I did enjoy the life, the mates, the beer and the girls and especially Rick's friendship. There were times when he treated me like a brother and his Mother treated me like one of the family.. Ricky and I would also thumb up to Ipswich during the midweek, but this was purely for courting the girls we had picked up at the weekends. We would meet them midweek to go to the cinema, or if it were a serious relationship, I would go home with the girls so it looked like we were doing the right thing. That is how it was done in those days, funny I took home very few girls to meet my parents. I bet I could count them all on one hand, but then I was never very serious with too many girls. Just thinking about it I would think there was only about three serious ones, Brenda and Twinkle and for the life of me I cant remember the third one. I also believed in being on time, many's the time I arranged to meet somebody and if they were just a couple of minutes late I would walk away and head for the nearest pub. Only in later years did it ever enter my head that their transport might have been late or let them down. Its also got me thinking of what might have been if only they had been on time or I'd have hung around a little longer. One of my girl friends, whose name I cannot remember, was a very petite little thing. However, she always wore a scarf on her head completely covering her hair. Now in those days, it was fashionable to wear head scarves, but this little girl was paranoid about never removing it. So much so, it became a big joke amongst my mates, who always tried to pull it off. I might add that to my knowledge nobody ever succeeded. The boys would try to grab the scarf whenever they could. By just grabbing at it as she passed, but that was as far as it went. Then the horrible jokes and rumours started, like she was bald, she only has a few tufts of hair, she is deformed, or she has a decease. That was quite cruel because she was a beautiful looking girl who always managed a smile for everybody. Unfortunately, she would always be following me around, in fact a few of the boys nicknamed her the shadow. At times, they would sing a couple of bars from the hit tune “Me and My Shadow”, as I walked past. Finally, after constantly looking over my shoulder and seeing her, I gave in and she became my regular girl friend. Looking back though, if she had not persisted in chasing me, she would not have been put through all that ridicule. So upon reflection she must have thought a lot of me, it is a pity that I did not repay that type of loyalty towards her. I did not really bother too much with her, she was just there when I needed her and in other words, I just strung her along. I feel quite bad about it all these years later, occasionally I still get a lump in my throat when I see somebody wearing a silk head scarfe. However it took me over forty years to solve the mystery of the head scarf. Because I now believe that she was probably a Moslem girl. Living in Australia, I have become more involved in understanding multiculturalism. In Australia you have to, because the whole country is made up of people from all around the world. It came to me one day while watching the Moslem ladies walking around the supermarkets with their silk scarves on their heads. She just had to have come from a Moslem family and the more I think about it the more I am convinced that I’m right. I never did see any member of her family. At that time, there was a bad stigma attached to being an immigrant in England. During the 50s and 60s, they copped a lot of dissension from vicious tongues and troublemakers. It would have been an every day occurrence in other working class towns to see gangs of boys beating up immigrant youths. Therefore, in one respect she played her cards close to her chest as we say and nobody ever found out her little secret. Sadly, I never did see her without that lovely silk scarf on. I also wish I could remember her name, as she had such a young, beautiful face with a very infectious smile. The opening of the Savoy café around the back of the Savoy dance hall was greeted with joy. It extended our meeting places for the gang to assemble. The dance hall and the café became great meeting places for a boy to meet girl environment and for a good fight later in the evening. Monday night was dance night, while the café was open through the whole week. I once played a trick on Ricky in the dance hall when I place a pair of ladies undee's in his jacket pocket. Later in the evening when he was feeling hot he took them out of his pocket believing them to be his handkerchief and proceeded to wipe his brow. At the time he was leaning over the balcony watching me dancing on the floor below with a girl. Next we heard him shouting very loud towards me, "I believe these are yours", he then threw them at me. Sadly the girl I was dancing with thought he was talking to her and ran off crying, leaving me standing all on my own, and with no female company for the reminder of the night. Then there was the time when Shirty-Jay went walking around the dance floor with a chemical fire extinguisher spaying everybody he came across. This had a bad ending as most of the girls had their dresses ruined that night, being unable to wash the chemical stains from their clothes. I am not sure but I seem to remember the Savoy dance hall was originally known as the Ipswich Hippodrome. Somehow, I seem to remember that during one of the ICI Christmas parties we were all taken on a bus ride to the Ipswich Hippodrome. Where we were treated to a show, something like Jack and the Beanstalk I seem to remember. “Runaway” by Del Shannon was a very big hit around that time, with many young people identifying with the words of the song. As quite a few people were starting to rebel the hard line that their parents were taking, by leaving home, in order that they might be able to make it on their own. Then in 1961, I change my job, being fed up with the poor money being paid me at E R Howard’s. By that time I was still only earning about £4 a week, so I went labouring for the Eastern Electricity Board laying power cables. My first week’s wages was a staggering £18 and for the same hours, I could not believe it. Imagine what I could do with that amount of money in my pocket wandering the streets of Ipswich. I made some good friends on the power board, when I joined a team led by Felix Ball from Claydon, apparently he was slightly related to me via my cousin Ivan. There were about a dozen of us on Felix’s lorry and he ruled us with an iron fist. We would meet at the Stowmarket Market Place at 7am in the morning, then drive to the stores along Needham Road and load up with whatever materials we would require during the day. We would eventually head off to a job that was at least fifty miles away from the base, so we would arrive on site by about 9.30am. Breakfast was at 10am, dinner at 12 to 12.30pm.  We would then leave for home by about 2.30am. Arriving back at the depot yard by 4.15pm and then home by 4.30pm, so you can see it was easy money. I can remember a few of the guys in the gang, Michael Wilding, Bob Frost, Lofty Alexandra, Roy Proctor, Alfonse, old Wally from Needham Market and Tim the driver. I should add that in those days there was no automation and that all of the power cables were laid under ground. The only way to achieve this was to dig the trenches by hand. To be truthful at times it was a hard slog, but somehow you got through it all and anyway we were all friends and helped each other out. Felix or Lofty would pace out the trench with five walking paces per person, you just took which ever section he allotted you and away you would go with your spade. If you were unlucky and got a hard dig, usually somebody would help you out. At the end of the day I would have to say that it was not a bad job and if I sweated while digging, well that was why they were paying me the big wage. “Big Bad John” by Jimmy Dean was one of my nicknames, while “Rubber Ball” by Bobby Vee, was one of my all time favourites, I still like to hear this song whenever possible. Both these two were the hits of the time coupled along with the “Twist” by Chubby Checker. The Twist was a new dance craze that had hit the shores of jolly old England, from our allies across the Atlantic. We all took to it like a duck to water, within weeks, almost every person was dancing it and anyway it was not a bad way to keep fit. The only trouble was you had no contact with your partner. Whatever happened to the Smooche!! The gang started to get its self into a lot of trouble, one way or another. Gradually some of its members were disappearing into the services, in order to stop the courts sending them down, for a short spell in prison. Several years earlier Ricky had taken some money from an uncle to purchase a Teddy Boy suit. For this offence he was sentenced to a short spell in a Borstal institution, as his uncle had insisted that the law press charges against him. Hence, my parents dislike of me going around with him. Years later Ricky confided in me that my Mother had once taken him aside and practically threatened him, that if he got me into trouble She would be after him. Poor old Mum if only she knew, that half the time it was me getting Ricky into trouble.      One Saturday night we all went to a dance at Little Blakenham, at the end of the night after many fights with the locals we all wanted to get back to Ipswich. The leaders of the gang tore down branches from apple trees belonging to the locals and laid them in the road, forcing a lorry to stop. They then forced the driver to take the whole gang back into Ipswich. This would have been about midnight so you can imagine the horror on the face of the driver. Another time Phil who is now a bookie in Ipswich, drove us all into Woodbridge in his lorry. After many fights in a couple of the pubs with the locals, the police finally escorted us all in the lorry to the town boundary and saw us on our merry way. I thought enough was enough, maybe I should look at getting out of this rut myself and maybe I should join the services. I remember a couple of years earlier saying to somebody back at Howard’s that you would never catch me joining up. After all I had beaten the National Service call up trap, as it had finally been scrapped just I became eligible. Most young people had hated it, so why should I go and volunteer now. In fact, I was told several times by my friends that I was crazy to even think about it. To duck some of the trouble that was occurring in Ipswich Ricky and I decided to drop out of sight for a time, so we went to Diss in Norfolk by train for a couple of months. Boy what a place that turned out to be, eight girls to every boy. The local coffee bar known as the Rendezvous became the meeting place. We also went to some great dances that were held in the Village hall at Banham. I was always dead drunk by the end of the night. This made it hard to thumb a lift home, a distance of about forty miles. Although we always managed it, even if it meant sleeping rough under a hedge and continuing once the sun came up. Thumbing was very easy in those days, because most drivers would pull over to pick you up. A lot of people even took their holidays thumbing, it was a simple, cheap way of getting around. It was also a way of meeting up with people. However, all this was to change in the early sixties after the infamous A6 murder. When a hitch hiker was given a lift in a red mini car. He killed the driver and assaulted Valerie Stories the female passenger. I believe his name was Hanratty and he was later hanged for the crime. Anyway from that day on, lifts became very few and far between. Most people just gave up and relied completely on the public transport system. Just as a footnote, 40 years later and Hanrraty's family are still trying to clear his name for that crime. While at the Rendezvous one night we were told that the night before Jackie Calam took on a bet to ride nude on the front of Roy Bartrums car, after being told that it would be driven very slowly. Once Jackie was on the car and his clothes all neatly folded and placed on the back seat, they sped off like a bat out of hell. It is crazy to think about it now, but the speed at which they drove off, coupled with a cold night, it is just amazing that no one got hurt. After driving several miles, they finally let him off, but would not open the car so he could get his clothes. They finally had to let him in after seeing the size of the goose bumps on his body. Jackie was shivering for hours after that and as a footnote, no they never paid him the bet. Once while we were attending a dance at Banham, we picked up two sisters and spent most of the evening dancing together. Once the dance was over Ricky, the girls and I all boarded the free bus that was to take them home to their parents farm. Unfortunately, by this time I was very drunk. When the bus eventually stopped for us to all get off, I fell into a ditch. Being to drunk and out for the count Ricky decided to leave me where I was and carried on up the farm drive with both the girls. Next thing I remember is Ricky waking me up at day break. As we thumbed home he kept rubbing it in what an opportunity I had missed. Anyway to cut the story short after eventually arriving home and picking up our swimming gear we both went to the Stowmarket swimming pool, where I fell over trying to dive into the water and broke on of my big toes. A bad ending to what could have been a good day out. On another occasion while in the Rendezvous cafe, Ricky and I picked up 2 girls and spent the afternoon together in one of the local park areas as we awaited the pubs opening at 5.30pm. We were just playing around and having a good time in general. Anyway during the two hour we spent there we both confided to each other that we were not happy with our girl friends, so we devised a plan to swap partners which worked successfully, and even the girls were happy with the out come. That's how close Ricky and I were, just like brothers we shared what little we had. I gave up my job working for the Eastern Electricity Board so that Ricky and I could work together, I believe at that time Rick was at the Combs Tannery that was just across the road from where he lived. He's family were on good terms with the factory, and it was always where he returned whenever he could not find work else where. Our first job together found us working at the Muntons and Fisons factory along the Needham Road, by a coincidence, just opposite the Eastern Electric Boards main depot from which I had just left. Well we turned up for work at 8 am and was on the dole by midday. Apparently we had arrived at the precise moment a strike was being called and led by Trevor Morley one of my old nieghbours when I lived in Thorny View. In trying to talk to the management about more money, Trevor who was the shop steward had forced his way into the bosses office knocking him to the ground and injuring him. From that we were all ordered off the site. However, Ricky and I had the last laugh, because we had only been on site for four hours we were entitled to a tax rebate. We ended up earning almost a weeks wages for those four hours. To be honest I never even worked a single minute the whole time I was on the property. Everybody who was sacked ended up at the Dukes Head pub near the Regal cinema to celebrate our wind fall. Later that week Rick's next bright idea that was going to make us both very very rich found us strawberry picking on a farm at Damsden on the Ipswich side of Needham Market. We arrived at the farm along side the main A45 road after taking a bus ride from Stowmarket to be confronted by about 100 young scantily dressed women, as we were experiencing a hot spell at the time. And thank god for that as it made the trip well worth while. Not a lot of work was had from us that day, but we did enjoy the sights, the fun and especial half a hundred weigh of strawberry's that we consumed. The truth is we never even earnt enough money to pay our bus fair home. At this rate it was going to take us forever to become millionaires, although we did have a good time. After several months visiting the local haunts of Diss, Ricky and I moved on, this time, we tried our luck in Norwich. We visited most of the local pubs around the Market and City Center, settling on the Bricklayers Arms. After a couple of visits we were accepted by the locals and bar staff. Usually we would stay for about an hour and then move on to try another pub. However, we made a name for ourselves playing darts, not many locals beat us. Ricky was one of the best players around at that time and usually carried me along for the ride, but together we made a good team. Ricky usually got the double onto the board and raced ahead leaving myself to get the double out, that formula worked for us most nights. It was always my opinion that if Ricky had entered the News of the World Darts Championship, eventual he would have won. One night we were in a pub that was crowded with local boys and girls. We were trying to join in with them, but were not having much success. Anyway after a couple of hours everybody was feeling very merry and in a good party mood. The landlord refused to serve one guy with a drink, so somebody threw a glass at him and it smashed against a wall just by his head. The landlord then announced that he would not serve anybody any more drinks. Suddenly the crash of broken glass rang around the room. I could not believe what I was witnessing as a dozen glasses, some full of beer rained down onto the guy. Immediately there was chaos and confusion as all the young people made a dash for the door. Can you imagine nearly thirty people all trying to get through one small door at the same time. With the landlord screaming I am getting the Police. I looked at Ricky and said Police, with that we both said time to go, they would never believe we had nothing to do with this. Within seconds we had joined the crush trying to squeezing through the door. We just ran with the crowd and ended up in another pub with them. Where we were given a drink by one of the local boys. That night they finally accepted us into the gang. On one occasion Ricky was dating a lovely looking petite blonde girl. After a few dates with her she suddenly told him that she was expecting a child. Like a gust of wind Ricky took off, he did not want to know her, although she had told him he was not Father. A couple of days later we were in a pub with her and some friends, I was absolutely plastered. Ricky told me the next day that I had offered to marry her to give the unborn child a Father. Thinking back, I am glad the blonde never took me up on another of my stupid drunken offers. Another time, two young girls invited us to a game of darts at the Bricklayers Arms.  Making us an offer that if they won, we would have to take them out for the night. Well you guessed it, we lost the game very easily. Well how could we let a chance like that slip bye, it being handed to us on a plate. Funny to think about it now, but the lady who owned the Bricklayers Arms public house tried to dissuade us from going with the girls. By constantly telling us that they were up to no good and that we would get ourselves into trouble. Anyway, we took the girls out even if it was just to another pub around the corner. Unfortunately, the police caught us with these two girls, who just happened to