The sound of make shift drumsticks could be heard tapping, high above the roof tops of “Richard Garretts” the local engineering works, in the sleepy little Suffolk Village of Leiston.
The tapping sounds was being made by Ben and Terry, two building maintenance workers who were tapping out the beat of the latest the pop song “Midnight Hour” by Wilson Picket. While sitting in the gutter of two very large sloping roof tops forty feet up, and not being visible from the ground. They should have been working replacing the broken slates on the roof, but boys being boys and being out of site of watching eyes. They would take every opportunity as it arose, to lay back and have a long smoking break, and also to have a practice with their new playthings, the drumsticks. These were old welding rods with the outer casing of flux removed and shined up. So it was easier to twirl the rods around and around and through their fingers, in lightning fast time, in a flash demonstration of drumstick control. Infact this twirling looked a lot more impressive than the tapping sounded.
Ben and Terry had both been sent on the very same day, by the local labour exchange to the Leiston Engineering Works for a job. A very famous factory, with a long distinguished history of manufacturing steam engines, First World War Aircraft. Locomotives, buses and guns during the Second World War. It was 8am Monday morning January 16th 1966, they both walked into the bottom factory’s tally house together to report for work They had met up earlier outside and introduced themselves, exchanging names while awaiting the local town hall clock across the road to strike the hour of 8am.
Mr. Bill Ellis the foreman of the building maintenance department greeted them. Bill asked them their names and then asked if they could climb a ladder. He then took them outside where a ladder was perched up against the roof of the maintenance garage. He asked the boys to climb to the top; Bill took a keen interest in watching to see if they had any fear of heights.
The task successfully undertaken they were told they had a job, and were taken to the building maintenance shed, where they were introduced to the other members of the department. There was Percy Keeble, Peter Cady, George Ringwood, Ernie somebody and another young chap from Beccles also named George.
Their job was to keep the buildings in good repair, a hard thing to do as the factory was built over 100 years ago, and since the Second World War not a lot of money had been spent on there upkeep. So it was a loosing battle, usually just a patch up job, and a slate here, a brick there or sometimes they had to concrete a section of the factory floor, ready for the positioning of a new machine or the moving of an old one onto a reinforced bed.
They worked hard when the occasion arose but there were always plenty of slack periods, with lots of time to kill. So they would sit and chat about the good times passed or of the expected good times to come. The whole gang enjoyed a good laugh and played lots of tricks and practical jokes on one another and also on other member’s of the factory. They became known as the “dirty tricks department” somebody to watch out for, and not to turn your back on.
Like the time Ben, Terry, Percy and Peter were working on the roof above the fabrication shop. It was a very cold frosty morning, but deep down below inside the building, the workers would always light up the coke burning donkey stoves before they started their daily work. To light these fires was an art and usually left to those who knew how. The chimneystack was about forty-foot high, and if they were damp the smoke would not rise inside the stack very easily to the top, and out up above the roof area. So the people lighting the fires would have their secret bag of tricks to accomplish this.
On this particular day Ben was looking down through a crack in the roof watching as the smoke started to appear out of the chimney next to him. Terry placed a slate on top of the stack stopping the smoke from escaping. They all spent a few seconds looking down through the cracks watching. By now, very thick smoke was pouring into the factory area at an alarming rate
The people below inside the factory started coughing and spluttering, finally moving away from the fire. Suddenly one of these, so called experts arrived claiming that he would have no trouble establishing a good fire, and without the smoke in the room. After watching this, so called expert thrust a poker into the fire a few times, then rattle the damper, Terry removed the offending slate from the top of the stack. Immediately the smoke poured out of the chimney into the atmosphere, while down below the smoke had ceased coming out from the front of the fire? The expert was by now strutting around proclaiming himself to anybody who would listern, that he was the expert, and that what he had done was all it had needed
Terry gave him a few more minutes to soak up the praise from all his fellow workers that he truly was the expert in this field. Then as he walked away from the fire Terry replaced the slate once again on top of the chimney, immediately the smoke poured back into the factory. The expert ran back saying, “What are you doing? Look I’ll show you”, once again he poked the fire and rattled the damper. After this Terry again removed the slate. Down below with the fire burning well, and with no smoke getting into the room. The expert turned to everybody standing around and said, “look that’s how you do it, now leave it alone and it will be alright”. Terry let him walk away once again then replaced the slate. They had that expert running about for nearly two hours that day. He never did know that he had been made a fool of in front of all his work mates.
Every now and again a consignment of bricks or cement would arrive, and the whole gang would be required to take part in the unloading. Terry had teamed up with old George, (Ringwood) as they named him, while Ben was with young George and Percy was with Peter. The task this particular day was to unload about ten-ton of house bricks, one guy on the truck passing down to his partner anything up to eight bricks a time. As you can guess a small amount of rivalry sometimes existed between the partnerships, and ever-increasing amounts of bricks were passed down. On one occasion as Terry was handing down to George about a dozen, one slipped out of his grasp and dropped right onto old George’s foot. George lets out one very large scream, and then started claiming that Terry had thrown it at him on purpose. Everybody stopped working to see what all the trouble was about, plus it was a good excuse to have a cigarette break. George’s shouting got louder and his claims got wilder and wilder, and with the others all joining in and egging him on, it soon developed into a bit of a scene. Terry had the final say by calling George a silly old fool, and that if he had wanted to hit him with a brick, he would have dropped it straight on his bloody head, and there was no way that he would have missed it, being such a big one.
Terry and Ben’s favourite pastime was to use a line from one of the classic Beatles songs, “You got to hide your love away”. While walking behind a group of people they would shout out very loudly, “HEY”, and when the people in front all turned around to see what was going on, Terry and Ben would carry on singing, “You got to hide your love away”. Just casually looking around making sure that they did not make eye contact with anybody in front. They very quickly established themselves as the gang’s practical jokers, as the pranks got larger and better than the one before, but the other gang members were always willing to join in. Terry became the king of the one liner jokes and catcalls. Another one of the favourites he used on the girls was to call out, “Hey dream boat” and when the poor unsuspecting girl turned around Terry would shout out, “Not you shipwreck”.
The gang members loved to go up on the roof. Being forty feet up it was the one place that nobody could see them. So they could usually do whatever they pleased, which usually consisted of lying back, just taking it easy, smoking, talking or falling asleep. The only person they had to be vigilant for was Bill the foreman; occasionally he would climb the ladder to see how the work was progressing. As an early warning system the boys would place a broom up against the ladder where it laid against the gutter. The ladder being extended twenty five to thirty feet up had a bit of a whip in it when it was being climbed, so it would shake the broom off and drop with a bang in the gutter awaking anybody who had fallen asleep. Many fine hours were spent in this way talking about old times, and sometimes planning the future. Peter was always trying to talk Terry and Ben in to joining him, in enrolling in a Painter and Decorators course at the Lowestoft College. It was always the topic of conversation but some how it just never materialised.
One day while up on the roof, Percy told the other members of the gang of an incident that he was involved in when he was an apprentice bricklayer many years earlier. There was this particular bricklayer that Percy did not like, who kept belittling him whenever he could. Percy being the apprentice had to make the tea for all the bricklayers ready for the tea break. On this particular day Percy and a friend shot a Blackbird with an Air Gun, and then plucked it. They then went into this particular bricklayer lunch box knowing that everyday he brought for his lunch a large pork pie. They very neatly cut and removed the lid from the pork pie, removed the pork and replaced it with the dead Un-gutted blackbird. Neatly folding over the wings and legs so that it all fitted inside the pie and placed the lid back on top showing no signs of having been tampered with. Then it was a case of just sitting back, to await the muck hitting the fan. That was an under statement. The bricklayer picked up his very large pie with both hands and like an animal took a large bit into his long awaited lunch break meal. He tore off a large chunk and was left with a bit of a wing hanging from his mouth. It was like everything was in slow motion at first. The guy didn’t known what was happening, he knew something was wrong because he could see all the smiles on the faces of his fellow workers. It was like a Volcano, first his face stated to change colour to a very deep red then to scarlet, and at any moment the other guys in the hut expected his face to burst open. As he slowly pulled out from his mouth the large piece of blackbird, he erupted into the most violent of rages. Percy and his friend were long gone, when they left his face was still a white colour. The bricklayer called after them with every conceivable threat, and bad language that came to him. Percy never did go back to that tea hut, infact he had to get his employers to send him to another job. Most people agreed that the bricklayer would have carried out his threats in full, if he were ever able to catch Percy. Percy never did regret the trick he played on the guy, said it was justice and that he had got back at the guy, even though he was walking on thin ice.
Both Terry and Ben were very interested in music and most days one or other of them would bring a radio to work so they could keep up with the latest pop music of the day. Terry had always liked the sound that the Bass guitar made, and always imagining himself playing bass with all the bands that they listened to on the radio. While Ben had always liked the sound of the Drums, and imagined himself playing all the fancy long drum solos that was popular in those days.
Ben used to tap with anything that he could get his hands on, sticks, pencils pieces of this, pieces of that, anything was fair game to be clouted by these objects. One day he was told that working in the factory was a real live drummer, one who played with the local and very successful band, the “Wild Oats”. So finding out who he was and where he could be found Ben went to see him. It turned out to be Brian “Styx” Scarlett, and he started to show Ben a few basic rudiments, and what to do with the sticks. He also gave him two old drumsticks so it would be easier to tap out the exercise beats that he had shown him.
On the days when there was not a lot of work to be undertaken Ben would be heard tapping out his exercises. It wasn’t long before Terry, also with nothing to do started to copy Ben and join in with the tapping. So a little bit of rivalry soon started to creep in, and this was good for both of them, because it made them play better and faster. By this time Terry was also going with Ben to see, Styx Scarlett as they called him, and they were both getting good. It wasn’t long before they were being taught to twirl the sticks around their fingers, looking very flash and proficient.
“Styx” Scarlett was known as a sever practical joker, a man not to be tangled with or if you did, you would have to expect the worse scenario, in a return practical joke by him. Once in a retaliation joke on one of his fellow factory workers he tied the workers pushbike up into the roof area forty feet up. And went home leaving the poor unsuspecting worker wandering around the bicycle shed looking for his bike and with no means of transport to get home. It was so well done that nobody knew how “Styx” accomplished this feat, and a forklift was required the next day to cut the bike down.
Terry and Ben got on well together, so much so that they became very close friends. They started to meet each other socially at weekends. On Friday and Saturday nights they would meet and under take a tour of the local Pubs and Hotels meeting most of Ben’s friend’s and acquaintance. The order of the night was always the same, to drink as much as you could, have a good game of darts or pool if there was a table in the house. Listen to the Rock n Roll music blaring from the jukebox in the corner, eye up and chat to the pretty girls, and generally have a good time. Meeting most of Ben’s friends was good for Terry as he was new to the area, having only just moved there about a couple of months before. Being new to an area is always hard to fit in, especially in a small Suffolk Village where everybody knows everybody, and usually strangers are looked at with suspicion and not accepted very easily, in some cases it could be many years. Being with Ben made Terry more acceptable, it was a case of, and if he’s a friend of Ben’s then he must be okay.
Back at work on a Monday mornings the conversation of the new week was always what had happened during the weekend, and what they had got up to. Usually some of the details were a little clouded by the large amounts of alcohol that had been consumed during their nights out. But they enjoyed reliving it all over again, getting a good laugh while telling other members of the gang what they had got up to.
One night a week Ben would take Terry along with his brother in-law, Tubby and Allister the publican from the Theberton Red Lion Pub, to the newly opened indoor swimming pool at Thorpeness. On one occasion Terry was following Ben in his car not knowing the way. Just before they reached the Aldringham Parrot Public House turn off, Ben stopped by the side of the road to talk to a pretty young girl he had seen walking, so Terry pulled in behind Ben’s car. After a few moments Ben came back to tell Terry that he was going to give the girl, he called Emily a lift home to Aldeburgh, and that he would meet Terry at the swimming pool. Terry was not too sure of the way so he just said that he would follow Ben. As they sped off towards Aldeburgh Terry started to think that maybe he was intruding on Ben’s privacy, it was more than likely that Ben was possibly trying to make a date with the girl. She was a new face for Terry he could not remember seeing her at anytime, he did notice that she was good-looking, but only at a glance not wanting to stare at her. Ben dropped Emily off like he had said at Aldeburgh, now was the time that Terry felt like he was playing gooseberry as he called it, with his car parked behind Ben’s he was watching everything that was happening in the car ahead. Ben felt obliged not to keep Terry waiting to long, so he just dropped Emily off and with a little wave to her he drove off. Terry followed close behind him just giving Emily a slight glance; he didn’t want to tread on Ben’s toes, in case he was making a play for her. While at the swimming pool a young guy turned up and went over to Ben claiming that his sister Emily, who he had just given a lift home, had left her purse in his car. So Ben along with Jack that was his name went out to the car to retrieve it. Terry didn’t know it but this small incident involving Emily, would lead to a major change in his life, a couple of years later.
George Ringwood was always good for a laugh, because he would leave himself wide open with whatever he said, usually with a very funny answer, and usually by Terry or Ben. One morning George came into work in his little Austin Mini car parking it near the workshop. He then got the members of the gang to go and have a look at the car engine asking where do you put the engine oil. Most of the gang members started chuckling, while one of them pointed to a cap on top of the engine. George then said that his friend had mistakenly filled that cap up with water, but that he had drained it out before refilling it up with oil. He then asked if it would do any damage to the engine. By this time most of the guys were curled up laughing, they knew that it was George who had put the water in by mistake. It had to be George or his wife, because George didn’t have that many friends. From then on whenever cars or engines came up in the conversation, somehow somebody would manage to drop into that conversation, the fact that you should not let George near your car engine because he’ll fill the engine up with water.
George came into work one morning asking if anybody had heard on the news that an insurance company had gone broke over night. Most members had not got a clue what he was talking about. George went onto say that his friend had invested a lot of his hard earn savings in the “Fire Auto and Marine Insurance Company”, and that they had gone bust overnight. His friend had lost every penny he had invested, and what made it worse was that the, Insurance Company was owned by an Indian businessman, something he didn’t know, (and usually the brunt of jokes in those days). Once again the gang members knew that it was George and not his friend that had lost his savings. Somebody would usually drop into the conversation about not putting your savings into Insurance Companies, or don’t use George for any financial advice. If a Coloured guy’s name came up well, you can imagine the one liner jokes that came from that, and if he was an Indian, well the mind boggles. The laughs would come thick and furious for a long time to come.
Terry arrived for work one morning at 8am, forgetting that he should have been there at 7am to do a special job. Peter was there to greet him and inform him that everything was okay and that he had clocked him on at 7am. Unknown to Terry the tally house gatekeeper had made a note of the time that Terry arrived on site. So when he went to collect the clocking on cards to take to the pay office, he noticed that the card had been clocked on at 7am. The tally house gatekeeper was a Bob Wisby and he had never liked Terry, maybe it was because he was not a local lad, he was an interloper not to be trusted. So he reported the incident to the Engineering Manager, who within an hour had Terry standing in front of his desk asking for an explanation. Terry had to think fast for a credible answer, as he did not want to get Peter in trouble, with his brain ticking over at breakneck speed, he suddenly came out with. That Bob Wisby, you know he hates me, when I came in this morning I noticed that my card had been clocked on at 7am. I was going to tell you but until now I haven’t had the time. You know I bet it was that Bob Wisby guy who clocked me on, and then went and reported me, that guy trying to get me the sack you know. He has never liked me since I set foot on Richard Garretts. Terry walked out of the office with a big smile on his face, as he walked through the workshop most of the other workers were all standing around expecting him to be sacked, as word had spread of the incident. Terry just raised his thumb to them all and said, “Yes I beat that Bob Wisby”. Never to hear another word from anybody on the subject, but Terry felt a little disappointed that Bob Wisby was not sacked over the incident.
A regular job the gang had was to unload the cement a truck. During their daily work they would use a lot of cement, so every couple of months or so, a ten-ton load in bags would arrive. The truck would be parked near the area where the cement was to be stored and each member of the gang would pick up, usually on his shoulder one bag and carry it to the shed where he would have to stack it. These bags would still be very hot, having only been made a few hours before delivery. One particular consignment was unloaded in a large building that was being converted into the new foundry by the gang. After the completion of this particular unload, the gang sat around having a rest and dusting them self’s down, usually complaining about how hot there shoulders had been with the heat from the bags. The foreman Bill informed them that five bags were required at the other end of the factory and had to be taken to their gang hut. It was decided that Terry, Ben, Young George, Peter and Percy would carry the bags on their shoulders a distance of about a quarter of a mile. Terry let most of the boys pick up their bags and put them on their shoulders. Without anybody seeing what he was doing Terry put a small slit with a knife into the back corner of the cement bags on young George and Peter’s bags. He then picked up his own bag and off they went heading for the gang hut. Because of the revelry amongst them, a race soon developed, with most of the guys getting into a trot, trying to be first at the shed. This meant that the bags were now being shook around on their shoulders. It wasn’t long before young George’s and Peter’s bags split right open, completely covering both boys with one hundred weight of cement dust. What a sight all that could be seem was the whites of their eyes, everybody stopped to have a good laugh, unfortunately no photos were taken that day. Most of the other guys were just doubled up with laughter and lucky for Terry, nobody saw him do his dirty deed, everybody was left thinking that it was a natural happening. But knowing the track record of these guys it’s a wonder that somebody did not smell a rat.
While re-bricking out an oven in the old foundry on the bottom works, Terry and Peter were helping Percy with the laying of the firebricks. These ovens were very large but had a very small opening to get inside and pass in all the bricks and equipment, the opening was so small that it was always a very tight squeeze and if you were a little over weight it would have been almost impossible. On this particular occasion both Terry and Peter were inside, stacking all the bricks and setting up the compo (fireproof cement) boards. It was getting very hot, as the air was getting used up, most of their movement had to be undertaken in a lying on your side position. Terry is claustrophobic so he was getting a little anxious. Peter was nearest the opening so he was going to have to squeeze through first. This he started to do but suddenly he could feel himself getting stuck and the more he wriggled and struggled the more he seemed to get stuck. It’s a known fact that if you panic your body does swell up. Well Peter was panicking and blowing up like a balloon and by now he was stuck fast. While all this was going on Terry was also starting to panic with his claustrophobia, no way did he want to stay inside the oven, but with Peter filling up the only escape hole, this meant that no air could get in for Terry to breath. In the end Terry panicked so much that he started kicking Peter up the backside harder and harder, Peter was already in pain from being stuck in the opening now he was feeling pain in his backside. What was going on he thought, he could not hear Terry’s shouting the only thing for him to do was somehow wiggle out. The kicks up his backside were getting more violent by now, so the pain from his stomach wedged in the opening now became only secondary. Then suddenly like a pop from a lemonade cork being removed from its bottle, he was suddenly free, the pain had subsided from his backside, just as Terry’s head popped out for a breath of fresh air. Terry was always very nervous from then on, and would usually find some sort of excuse for not going inside these ovens.
One Friday night, Ben along with his mates Ginger and David took Terry with them for a night out on the town, to the coastal summer resort town of Great Yarmouth. A great deal of beer was drunk, so it turned in to a big party night. Ending up at the Tower Ballroom to see some live music. They were all interested in music, so they wanted to see the Bands, and maybe even have a dance if they were lucky and found a partner. During the following week at work, they knew that they had had a good time, but because of the alcohol that they had consumed that night, neither Terry nor Ben could remember much about the Bands they had seen. And that was niggling because they wanted something to talk about in the music line during the working hours. They had infact been to see “Peter Jay and the Jayhawkers”, at that time Peter Jays father actually owned the Tower Ballroom, so he was playing there regularly as the support act.
On other Friday nights, after a night of working they’re way around most of Leistons public houses, and after a skin full of drink. They would make there way down to the International Club, where they knew that they could obtain a late night drink, plus there was usually a live band playing. So it was a great way to end up a goodnight. The International Club had been opened by a German named Walter to accommodate the American Airmen stationed at the nearby RAF Bentwaters Airbase. This venture had been very successful until the sudden influx of workers that had invaded the sleepy little town of Leiston during the construction of a nuclear power station at the nearby coastal village of Sizewell, about six years earlier. There had been hundreds of them, and of course with them, had come a lot of the usual problems that a large group of male workers bring. The club developed a bad reputation, as there were usually, a couple of fights there every night between the workers and the US Servicemen. This kept a lot of the locals away from the place. But now that the power station had been completed, most of the workers had moved onto the next large construction site that would employ them. So the locals had started to return the club in large numbers on Friday and Saturday nights, using the club as a meeting place or to see a live band, something that was very rare, in this out of the way place. But the American Servicemen never returned in the numbers that had been there during the clubs early days. The club was also open during the week but because most of the young people in Leiston had a lack of cash, the club would usually be only about one quarter full, where as during the weekends it was always full.
Pete Ginger got his old bomb of a car on the road; it resembled an Austin A10 or could have been an A12 what ever. The name A.S.P would have been more correct as it stood for, “All Spare Parts”. For a test run he talked Terry, Ben and David into a trip one Friday night to Lowestoft. So it was a good excuse for a drink and a wander around the local haunts (pubs). After what had been a good drinking night, Ginger picked up a couple of girls who he was trying to date. In his haste to impress them he offered them a lift home in his new sports car, or that’s how he described it to the two unsuspecting young girls he was about to pounce on. On finding out that they both lived a long way out of Lowestoft and in the opposite direction to the one that the boys would be heading home, a look of disbelieve came on to the boys faces. Out in the car park trying to fit six people into Ginger’s car was becoming a bit of a nightmare. Terry asked a passer by if he had a shoehorn he could borrow, to help ease the larger of the two girls into the back seat. Terry, David and the other girl were also expected to fit into that same seat. Ginger had planned for the good-looking girl to get into the front seat with him. But it didn’t end up like that, instead Ben sat in the front, Terry, David and the two girls had to get into the back seat. After a lot of laughter and playing about some how they all managed to fit in, even if a couple of them were on each other’s laps. As Ginger pulled out of the pub car park Terry leaned out of the window to ask a young couple if they had a tin opener, so when they got home someone could let them out, (it felt like a sardine can). Ten minuets into the journey it started to rain very heavy and Ginger had neglected to tell the boys that he had not finished putting the floor back into the car. Suddenly the car was full of a damp mist, and then it turned into a heavy rainstorm inside the car. Ben shouted out that we would be dryer if we got out and walked. He then had to put his feet up onto the dashboard to try and keep his feet dry, this left his knees propping up his chin, leaving him in a very uncomfortable position, and his voice seemed to go up a couple of notes as well. Terry shouted out that he was drowning and only just had his head up above the high water level. Then one of the girls remarked that something was going up her dress. Terry answered it isn’t him because he couldn't move his hands. No she said she was all wet between the legs. Everybody started laughing, and together they said, “its not me”. The girls complained so much that Ginger was forced to pullover and let the girls out, and that was the end of his chance of a future date with them.
During the alterations at Richard Garretts to convert one of the old buildings into the new foundry, all the maintenance gangs were involved. The building was forty feet high with an asbestos roof and all the sides had been removed, you could see right through the building area. There was a lot of rubbish to be got rid of, so it was decided to burn most of it, a fire was lit inside the building. There didn’t seem to be any problems as there was usually a wind blowing through the building with all the sides removed, so the smoke would quite easily blow away. It was left to Terry, Ben and young George to carry out the burning, boys being boys it was something that they all enjoyed doing. After a short time it became boring just throwing items into the flames and it wasn’t long before the skylarking started. Earlier some paint cans had been opened and stood amongst the flames, these were now well alight and blazing away merrily. Terry picked up a shovel with some dirt on it, and slopped the dirt into the by now very hot burning liquid paint. Whoosh a sheet of flame shot up to the roof forty feet above. Then almost as suddenly the whole inside of the building was blacked out by dense smoke. Working with the gang and on loan from the factory to them as a welder was David Barber who was also a member of the local part time Fire Brigade. He was on call, day or night and would drop what ever he was doing to attend a fire whenever the local alarm rang. When he saw the flames, he just panicked and started to run for his bicycle, intending on racing down to the local Fire station to catch the fire engine and return to attend the fire. Until Ben started shouting at him, stay here you’re already at the fire, you’ll most likely get a bonus for being first at the scene anyway. Everybody in the gang was cracked up by this remark, plus the flames had by now started to die down, so there didn’t seem to be a problem. Terry had at first been a little worried, as had a few other members of the gang. The sight of those flames and all that black smoke swirling around had scared them, Terry began to think that this time maybe he had gone a little too far. But then just as suddenly as it had first appeared, it all died down and the smoke gradually drifted away. Seeing that it would not do any damage, other members started to throw more dirt on to the still blazing very hot liquid paint. After an hour, it was all getting out of hand and by this time half the town of Leiston was covered by a thick ball of smoke, somebody had reported what was happening to Bill the foreman, who rushed up and put a stop to it. Only seeing Peter putting on a shovel full of dirt, so as you can imagine it was Peter who took all the blame for what had been happening. This hurt poor old Bill as Peter was his favourite and he didn’t think that he would get up to these sort of tricks, in future Bill would not be able to trust Peter just like he could not trust Terry and Ben.
One morning when it was a little quiet and not much work to be undertaken, Terry and Ben took a walk through the factory, something they did whenever they got the chance. Stopping to talk to anybody just for a conversation. One of Ben’s friends George, who was working at a lathe, was their first stop. During the conversation George asked Ben what they were doing, Terry butted in and said that they were checking the serial numbers from the electrical motors, on the overhead cranes and lifts in the roof area, at least thirty to thirty five feet above them. With this Terry took out of his pocket a piece of paper and a pencil, and looking up into the roof area at a motor that was only just visible to the naked eye. He read out an imaginary number and proceeded to write it down on his piece of paper. This task was completely impossible to achieve, when you take into consideration the distance of thirty feet that the motor was away. Plus the motor nameplate which would have only been about two Inches Square and more than likely it would have been unreadable and coated in oily dirt and grease. Ben cottoned on to what Terry was doing and very quickly joined in with the joke on George saying to Terry “have you got it? Okay George will see you later. With this Terry and Ben walked away leaving George with his mouth wide open in disbelief. How ever could he read it at that distance he thought? After walking about fifty feet, they looked behind them to see George over by another lathe telling his fellow worker that these two guys can read things at long distances, where as other workers would require a ladder to do the same task. They never did tell George the truth they left him thinking that they had incredible sight, infact they played this joke more than once with other factory worker.
Terry’s wife was a Leiston girl and one of her uncle’s; Bill Bailey was the Blacksmith at Richard Garretts. Terry would go along to him whenever he needed a cold chisel sharpened or sometimes to get a new one made up. Usually from a piece of specially sprung steel, that he had acquired from Percy, one of the Bricklayers in the gang. Because of the relationship between Terry and Dick the Blacksmith, Dick would always do a good job for him, putting a very hard tip on the chisel that would last for months and months. Dick was very highly skilled and in using his eye and all the experience that he had gained over the years, was highly respected in his trade. But Dick did not like Percy, so upon a suggestion from Terry, he would go out of his way to sabotage Percy’s chisels, whenever he was asked to sharpen and toughen them. He would do the opposite, and he would soften them. Poor old Percy when he went to use it after only one hard hit the end of the chisel would bend round and look at him. Upon which everybody standing around would burst out laughing, because most of the gang knew what was going on. Percy would always persist, taking the chisel back to Dick to do it all again, and again and again But these attempts all had the same results. Terry then started bragging that he had a chisel that could cut through anything, so very cunningly Percy asked Terry to show him, to which he was delighted to do, especially in front of all the other gang members. The end result was that Terry always ended up doing all the chisel work. Something Percy delighted in, he could take it easy while Terry did all the sweating and cursing. This was one time that Terry wasn’t as good as he thought, and had been caught at his own game, in future he would think twice before he jumped in with his big feet.
The winter times were always good for a laugh, even though it was always very cold. Whenever it snowed the maintenance gang was always employed to clear away the snow from around the factory, and from the public footpaths. This was always a good time, because it would take as long as they wanted it to, plus they would be able to talk to anybody who might walk by, and boys being boys there was always the usual snowball fights. Occasionally the snow would have to be removed from the roof areas or from the gutters, to relieve the weight. On one such day Terry, Ben, Percy and Peter Cady were up on the roof of the bottom factory, where it over hung the main street. It wasn’t long before Terry was dropping small snowballs on to unsuspecting passers by walking along the footpath below them. He would drop the snowball trying to hit them right on top of the head, pulling back out of sight as it began its freefall on to the target below. The other members of the gang seeing the success that Terry was having in hitting his targets all started to join in. The problem was that the snowballs started to get larger and larger, then they started to include ice inside the snowballs. The poor unsuspecting people being hit down below had no idea that they were being targeted from above. They just thought that it was normal snow melting and falling naturally from the rooftops. Finally Terry and Ben built up a very large heap of snow on the edge of the roof to await the next victim, who wasn’t to long in appearing. Just before he arrived directly below them they both pushed their very, very large heap of snow over the edge. At the time they had planned the drop, it was all a big laugh. But now the snow was on its way down, suddenly they started to realise, just how big their heap of snow really was. They both pulled their heads back not wanting to be seen, and then they suddenly heard the guy down below cursing and shouting at the top of his voice. Percy panicked and ordered everybody off the roof; well he was in charge that day. Just before Terry and Ben went to the ladder to go down they both took a quick peek over the edge to see what all the noise was about. There was this guy looking up at them shaking his fist and shouting. They never even waited to see who it was, they were down off the roof in ten seconds flat, where they all made their way to the tea hut, and await developments. They didn’t have to wait to long as the poor guy who’d received the direct hit, with what he described as a ton of snow, made his way to the tally house and made a complaint. Fifteen minutes later Bill Ellis was entering the tea hut, telling them that they were “bloody fools”, they might have killed the poor bloke. Percy tried to explain to Bill with a little white lie that it was not them it was just some loose snow that had come adrift, and that they had nothing to do with the fall. After this incident things quietened down, but only for a week. After the next big fall of snow, it was all back to normal, and full on. Only this time they had to make sure that nobody was seen dropping the snow. They had learnt from their mistakes, and the next time they would not get caught.
David Bridges mentioned to Terry that he was teaching himself to play the guitar. This awoke an old desire within Terry that maybe now was the time that he should have another try at learning the guitar himself. So Terry went over to David’s house in Theberton where they spent a couple of hours together, mainly with David showing Terry everything that he knew. But David was limited and at that time there were not many people around who you could go to for lessons. David had ground to a halt and did not seem to be able to progress any further.
Back at Richard Garretts while Terry and Ben was visiting Styx Scarlett one morning, it was mentioned about David trying to learn to play the guitar, Styx was asked if any members of his band the Wild Oats would be able to help David and Terry. So a meeting was arranged for David, Terry and Ben at Styx’s house, along with all the other members of the Wild Oats. It was all very helpful with a lot of useful information being passed on to the boys about guitars and their amplifiers. But it was out of the question for one of them to help in the teaching of the guitar, mainly because they were so busy and did not have the time it would require. But it was a very successful evening and a lot of valuable advice had been passed on.
A few weeks later while on another visit to see Styx, he had some very good news for them. He had learnt that there was a boy in the newly completed foundry, in the moulding shop, who was also learning to play the guitar, and was supposed to be very good, he was also looking for other musicians to practice with. It took Ben and Terry just five minutes to find him. His name was Ray Callahan and he was the same age as Ben. Because he was working and his foreman was watching what Terry and Ben were up to, a hastily arranged meeting was decided on for that evening at Ray’s house.
That evening, the boys including David all turned up at 8 Prospect Place in Leiston. It all started out with Ray just showing David a few chords, with Terry and Ben looking on, and listening to everything that was being said. The night was a great success and went on to the very late hours, listening to a selection of records, of artists that Ray liked and wanted to play, one thing lead to another and time was forgotten. As they departed other meetings were arranged for later in the week, it seemed like they were all in a hurry.
After several of these meetings everybody seemed to be getting on with each other’s company, and David was making good headway with the lessons that Ray was giving him. Terry and Ben would also come along to all of these meetings just sitting around listening to what was being said and enjoying the night out. Ray would always accompany David on whatever piece of music he was playing, always saying that it would sound so much better if a bass guitar were playing along with them. Ray would even show them what the bass would have been playing, he was good so good that he was also teaching himself to play the Electric Organ and was doing a great job at that as well.
After a few evenings at Ray’s house, Terry was starting to feel out of it and was getting a little bored, mainly because he never had a guitar to practice on. He had always liked the sound of the bass guitar, from right back in the days when he went along and saw Cliff Richard and the Drifters, (later to become the Shadows), at the Ipswich Gaumont Theatre way back in 1959. When at that time Jet Harris had played the bass guitar in the Band. Terry liked the deep sounding thump, thump that it made. He was also in the process of getting the money together to buy a guitar, but not knowing what sort to buy. So a conversation developed between Ray and Terry on what to look for and even where to go to buy one, the best shops etc. Terry thinking about the bass suddenly asked Ray that if he bought a bass could Ray teach him. Of course he could it was no trouble, Ray then picked up his guitar and started to plonk away some bass riffs. This was good enough for Terry. Okay Ray I’ll get myself a bass as long as you teach me what to do we it.
Ben had been sitting near them listening to their conversation, and suddenly joined in and said. “Hey I’m not going to sit around here listening to you lot enjoying yourselves, I want to be apart of it and join in. I’m gonna buy myself a Drum Kit. If I do Ray, can I still come round and join in with you? Everybody started talking at once. Hey that would mean that we now have a full band line-up. We would now be able to practice like a normal band. The air was full of excitement, on what this could all lead to.