The death of my father
thrust me into the role of breadwinner at the early age of fifteen and
the only musical instruments that I could afford at that time were mouthorgan,
ukelele and a cheap drum, none of which had the wage earning potential
to help support the family.
As
a regular income was required urgently I took a job on a greengrocery
stall in Nottingham’s Sneinton Market. This didn’t last very long and
I joined the workforce of the cigarette maker John Player and Sons, this
being regarded as a "good steady job" in those parts.
At that time we
were able to listen to the short-wave broadcasts from America and I soon
became hooked on the Benny Goodman sound.
With my weekly wage
of twenty five shillings(£1.05 new money) I went along to Jack Brentnall’s
music shop and bought my first clarinet, also costing twenty five shillings.
A local clarinet teacher had been recommended to me and he took one look
at my prized possession and send me straight back to the shop, informing
me that it was "high pitch simple system" and not at all what
I needed. My clarinet was put down as deposit on a Buisson Boehm system
costing £5, the rest to be paid off at 1/6p a week (15p to younger readers).
My pals and I thought
it would be a smart idea to join the local territorial army unit and get
the benefit of the 2 weeks camp each year.
We went on our first
camp in August 1939 and returned home well pleased with ourselves, only
to find a couple of days later that we were full time mobilised soldiers,
war having been declared. Needless to say, this had not been part of our
original plan………
As it happened, the
army decided that we needed a lot more training before using us as gun
fodder, so in the meantime I was able to keep up with the music studies
.
Our unit (150th
Regt South Notts Hussars Yeomanry - 25pounder guns) was despatched to
Northern Ireland for a long spell and we were able to form a Regimental
dance band, doing regular local hops and regimental "do’s".
What was to prove important for me was that the regimental barber, Eugene
Palmieri (Ali to his friends) was a good guitarrist and patiently taught
me the chord progressions to all the standards and a good insight into
harmonic sequences.
My appetite had been
whetted and after we had landed in Normandy in June, 1944, I enrolled
in a postal course on arranging run by the talented George Evans, who
was resting from playing as a result of a bout of TB. He conscientiously
marked and commented on every exercise I sent to him, returning the next
lesson to me wherever I was in the field during the whole Normandy campaign.
In hindsight it seems bizarre, sitting in dugouts and completing scores
by the light of a Tilley lamp, but the effort was to pay dividends after
the war.
Prior to demob from
the army I was transferred to Army Welfare Services in Hamburg, initially
to assist in preparing the music for a show at the Savoy Theatre (Hamburg).
Whilst there I got to know musicians who were playing at a club (The Crusader
club, I believe), amongst whom were Jackie Armstrong and Rusty Hurren,
who I was to meet up with again two years later in Lou Praeger’s band.
In Hamburg we had access to the AFN studios, where there were some of
those marvellous V-discs from the States, and we would crowd into the
studio and listen in disbelief to the likes of Woody Herman’s "Goosey
Gander" and others.
After my demob in
1946 I obtained my first pro job with Jimmy Honeyman at Nottingham’s Victoria
Ballroom - helped by the fact that I was to do arrangements for the band;
my tenor playing still left something to be desired, I imagine. I gleaned
more useful tips from the veteran tenor player there called Les Cripwell
(still around at 97 years).
Early in 1947, my
earlier contact with George Evans paid off and I joined his fantastic
ten saxophone orchestra, playing outstanding arrangements. Being a co-operative
band, no-one got paid much and as we could not afford to stay in digs
when on the road, George equipped a massive pantechnicon with bunks for
us to use between gigs.
Next came a short
spell with Teddy Foster, the personnel including Cecil Pressling, Dave
Ede, Albert Hall, Ronnie and Derek Price, all great players. The lasting
memories of that tour are firstly, trying to get from Nottingham to Manchester
in the blizzard of 1947 for my first gig, ending up in a snow drift, where
I had to abandon my car, and catching what turned out to be that last
train to Manchester for 6 weeks.
I still imagined
that the "show must go on "and it did not occur to me NOT to
get to the gig. The second memory is of travelling over the Yorkshire
moors in a coach with windows missing and no heating while Teddy drove
by in his limo en route to the gig. Six weeks elapsed before I was able
to return to where I had left the car, and I was not surprised to find
that it was no longer there – however my enquiries led me to a farmhouse
where I found my old Hillman Minx all thawed out in a barn, where the
farmer had stored it for my return. Would
that happen in this day and age I ask myself? I doubt it.
I joined Billy Merrin
who was reforming his Commanders to re-open a ballroom in Nottingham until
February 1948,when I thought it was time to try my luck "in the smoke"
i.e. London. I came down to start a job in Fischer's restaurant in the
West End, only to learn on my first night that the band had received two
weeks notice!
Things were looking
desperate when Ken Mackintosh phoned to say that he was forming a band
to go to Nottingham (knowing that it was my home town). Having just left
the place I wasn’t keen to go back so soon, but I learned that a tenor
player from Lou Praeger’s band was joining Ken, so I nipped smartly along
and became his replacement.
The personnel included
George Hunter, Duncan Campbell, Don Lusher and the band was pretty good
at times. Most enjoyable was playing in the Palais football team which
included Johnny Gray, whose knee cap slipped out of place every now and
again, needing us to clamber on his back while he jumped up and down to
get it back into place.
After
18 months with Lou I joined Paul Fenhoulet for about a year alongside
Bob Efford, Jimmy Wilson, and Ted Brennan. The
most useful tip I picked up from Paul was how to fold up a dinner jacket
without creasing the lapels. Roy Plummer was used on guitar instead of
a piano, which was unusual in those days. A short spell with the Harry
Parry Swing Club sextet followed and with hindsight, I believe this concluded
the first phase of my career.
The
decision of some members of the Squadronaires Dance Band to leave opened
up an opportunity
for me which changed a whole load of things. For the very first time,
non-RAF musicians were recruited into the band and I replaced Jimmy Durrant,
Don Lusher and Ric Kennedy replaced George Chisholm and Eric Breeze. Don
Honeywill came in on baritone when Cliff Townshend moved up to play lead
alto.
I moved house to
Hayes, Middlesex as it soon became clear that no matter where the gig
was, the band coach ALWAYS came back via Uxbridge where Tommy McQuater,
Jock Cummings and Andy McDevitt lived.
Arranging for this
band was a real pleasure – I remember one special feature I scored for
Eric Delaney called "Showcase for Drums" which allowed Eric
to demonstrate his skill around the kit, which I understand he is still
doing 50 years later. What stamina! Eric
also formed a jazz group with Don Lusher, Jimmy Watson, Don Honeywell,
myself, Dennis Wilson and Charlie Short to do some jazz clubs.
I also fitted in
the job of staff arranger for the publishers Bradbury Wood, which entailed
scoring for all types of groups and styles. Serious
study was put in to improve my writing for strings to avoid nasty remarks
from the "gypsies", as we liked to call them.
In October 1951 the
Squads decided to do a season in the Isle of Man and having built up a
free-lance connection in London, I was reluctant to go away and, with
some regret, left the band.
It was about this
time that I made the trip to New York as part of "Geraldo's Navy" as the
ships' orchestras were called. We were just holiday deps for the regular
guys and were a motley crew. The second alto player wore a rather cumbersome
hearing aid with a wire leading to a body-worn receiver and this used
to become disconnected occasionally so that he could not hear what was
going on. I never figured out if this was accidental or deliberate.
On arrival in New
York, I found my way to a bar which was known to be a hang-out for musicians
and got chatting to a record company A & R man. Learning that it was
my first trip to NY, he insisted on showing me around all the legendary
clubs and locations, especially 52nd Street, so that I could
see and hear my heroes of the jazz scene. A very generous man and a memorable
experience.
Sydney Lipton at
the Grosvenor House, Park Lane was the next step and the hours suited
the cultivation of freelance work and we broadcast quite frequently from
the hotel. Some excellent players passed through the band - Bill McGuffie,
George Latham, Johnny Shakespeare and trumpeter Freddy Clayton. Freddy
spent his breaks in the bandroom writing his book on "How to play jazz"
and another bandroom entertainer was the eccentric pianist Billy Penrose
whose party piece was chewing glass tumblers.
During the 4 years
spent with Syd my teaching connection had been building and I decided
to form a Student Orchestra (one of the earliest in the country) to give
the students experience of section work and eventually to make a disc
so that they could hear themselves. It
is gratifying to think that some of the members still keep in touch to
this day.
An interesting sideline
during this fairly hectic period was fixing musicians to appear in films
made at Pinewood studios to "dummy" on screen to the music that had been
pre-recorded in the studio. Apart
from the pleasure of appearing in films involving Marlon Brando, Sophia
Loren, Charles Chaplin and the odd Bond movie, a couple of episodes stand
out. One was the sight of Muir Mathieson trying to synchronise the bowing
action of my "dummy" violinists with the recorded symphonic music. In
those days the fellows booked did not always play the instruments they
were holding – some had never held a violin before in their life. After
this fiasco we always tried to book chaps who actually played the instruments
they were holding.
The other epic was
"Caesar & Cleopatra" where the chaps had to climb up on to pillars
and high steps with fanfare trumpets wearing only togas to cover their
embarrassment. This was being filmed in October and although I demanded
" cold money" for the boys, several went down with colds and flu, having
worked in clubs etc. until the early hours and they were not in any fit
state to withstand that chill wind whistling up their togas. The final
straw was that Elizabeth Taylor was ill and the whole lot was scrapped
and moved to Italy.
I then spent an enjoyable
2 years with Felix King at the Colony restaurant in Berkeley Square, continuing
with the session work such as Take it from Here, Round the Horne, Ray's
a Laugh and others for the BBC.
It so happened that
Jack Emblow (of jazz accordion fame) lived down the road from me in Hayes,
Middx. He was also working in the West End at the Berkeley Hotel. Jack
finished work a little earlier than I and his transport was a Ford eight
car which was not too reliable. I lost count of the number of times I
came across Jack waiting for me along the Bayswater Rd leaning against
his "non-functioning" jalopy waiting for a lift home. Jack repaid the
favour by booking me to play clarinet on his broadcasts on numerous occasions.
A long spell of theatre
work followed with some excellent shows such as "How to Succeed in Business",
"Hello Dolly" under the batons of Alyn Ainsworth and Burt Rhodes and the
11pm finishes meant that I could go and dep in clubs until the early hours.
Hardly a healthy lifestyle but it paid the mortgage.
A very enjoyable
show was "One over the Eight" with Sheila Hancock, Kenneth Williams and
Kenneth Connor. A sextet led by ex-Ted Heath pianist Frank Horrox provided
the music. The line up was Frank, Don Lawson, drums), Geoff Southcott,
bass, Chick Norton, trumpet, myself on reeds and a guitar player. The
Duke of Yorks was an intimate theatre and the band were very close to
the audience and Frank used to make his entrance after we were all seated
and the audience was waiting in quiet anticipation. After Frank had taken
his bow, Don would often slip a "whoopee" cushion on to his piano stool.
When he sat down the show would get off to a rip-roaring start, much to
the delight of the crowd. Being the lovely man that he was Frank would
give an embarrassed little smile and get on with the music.
What I regard to
be the third phase of my career overtook me when, as a result of my war
service in the artillery, my hearing went for a burton, and after many
sessions with specialists I was advised to seek another way to earn a
living. I was, of course, completely shattered by this turn of events,
and after sitting at home feeling very sorry for myself for a couple of
weeks, I went and had a chat with my friend the woodwind genius Edward
Planas at his home in Iver Heath, Bucks. Ted took me under his wing and
gave me a crash course in Woodwind repairing and I took to it pretty well.
I had not heard of disability benefits at that time and it never occurred
to me that anyone would give me money for not working.
I set up my workshop
in the garage at home and some good friends entrusted me with their instruments
which said something for their blind faith in human nature. My first tenor
overhaul involved strip down, tighten mechanism, clean and buff polish,
degrease and re-lacquer, re-pad and reassemble - a whole week’s work for
£18.00! Betty my wife had to muck in and help with the polishing etc.
to get us up and running. The word slowly reached the RAF Central Band
at Uxbridge, and orders to sort out their instruments began to arrive.
The supplies of repair
materials such as pads, springs and cork were a constant problem and eventually
I went over to France and arranged to get my orders direct from the manufacturer.
However there were still delays in the arrival of the goods and I had
to order far more than I needed to make sure a steady flow of the necessary
bits were to hand. I was soon in a position to pass some of the extra
parts on to other repairers – thus the firm that was to develop into WINDCRAFT
Ltd was created.
A similar sequence
of events happened regarding the supply of instruments – as teachers came
for advice on the selection of suitable instruments for their pupils and
subsequently asked me to supply them, some dealers got upset – I was still
working from home which in their eyes was not playing the game. My son
Lindsay was by now helping me in the workshop, so we opened our first
shop in Uxbridge, which by coincidence was opposite the RAF Central Band
Headquarters.
Steady expansion
of the business has taken place over the years and now occupies extensive
premises in Maidenhead, Berkshire, housing wholesale, mail order, retail
and repair departments all under one roof. We employ eight qualified repairers
and all sales staff are skilled musicians, many with degrees. As a result,
all our customers have confidence that the people they are dealing with
know what they are talking about.
My son Lindsay is
now in control of the business and he has built up an enviable reputation
in the music trade with his world wide contacts, his frequent visits to
various factories giving him a knowledge of manufacturers’ products second
to none. Two of Lindsay’s sons are now involved in the business so it
looks as though I can round off Phase 3 and retire from the scene gracefully.
Copyright
© Jack Dawkes, 2002
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