51. A last gasp session then off to England

To set the record straight the Chequers did play one more session...a last gasp, death rattle of a gig at a private party in Salisbury. The band who had been booked had pulled out and we’d been asked if we could cobble something together, which we did. If I remember rightly there was Ernie Mindrey on bass, Jack sung, Duncan Harvey our original guitarist was on lead and Lea and I, on drums and rhythm guitar. But that’s all I remember about it...though I believe there’s  a couple of photos knocking about somewhere of us playing. (Found photo below...what happened to the long hair!!!)

        'The Chequers last stand' - rhetorically speaking.

In South Africa Lea and I had tasted success with The Chequers. Maybe tasted isn't the right word. Tasted implies greater success than we actually achieved. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say we had 'sniffed' success with The Chequers. After all photos of the band had appeared in the teen magazine ‘Debonair’, we had played a live set on S.A.B.C. radio and in a crowning moment performed to seated audiences at Cape Town's Alhambra Theatre...very prestigious... and at a cinema in Sea Point before the movie, “Gonks go Crazy”...not quite so prestigious.

Yes, I think it is fair to say we had definitely sniffed success in South Africa and I guess we liked the aroma and hankered after more.  And where better to achieve success than the land that in the first few years of the 60's had given the world The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers, Herman and his Hermits, to name but a few...England. 

Yes, England, the land of our birth, was where it was happening. With the advent of the Beatles the epicentre of the music universe had shifted from America to England. England was where it was at and where we were going. We sold all our instruments; drums, guitar and amp, the Meazzi sound system, mics, mic stands, we even sold our trusty old VW Combi and booked two one-way tickets to England. Jack had decided to stay in Rhodesia after all.

Lea, Neil, Charlie and me a few days before Lea and I  left for the UK

Within a month of us driving up from Cape Town we were on the move again...hanging out the window of a Rhodesian Railway carriage waving a sad goodbye to family and friends as the train pulled out of Salisbury Station on its way to Lourenco Marques in Portuguese East Africa. 

In Lourenco Marques we caught a Swiss Air charter flight to Amsterdam – a bus to the Hook of Holland - and a ferry across the channel. 

It was a cold, dank unwelcoming January morning in 1966 when Lea and I stepped back onto English soil at Harwich... 

...thirteen years after we had sailed out of Southampton with Mum, Neil and Tina aboard the P& O liner, The Winchester Castle.

In Rhodesia we had become the proverbial biggish fish in a small pond. 

In England, to continue with the aquatic analogy, we found ourselves in an ocean of talent. Rock groups and singers abounded. Every London pub we went into had a group playing and most were pretty damn good. 

                                    Trafalgar Square soon after we arrived

                     Tottenham Court Road Tube 1966

Bedsit land, Penywern Road, Earls Court - we lived on the top floor

So there we were in Earls Court - a bedsit in Penywern Road... around the corner from the Overseas Visitor's Club -  if not actually floundering then treading water in this sea of rock talent, hoping against hope that somehow we would get ourselves a record contract. But why would record producer sign Lea and I, two guys from Rhodesia when they had so much talent to choose from. Well, as hard as it is to believe that’s what happened. Lea and I got lost and wandered past EMI House in Manchester Square. Parlophone the label the Beatles recorded on was part of EMI, so we thought we'd try our luck. We walked in and asked the receptionist if we could speak with a record producer. The receptionist wanted to know if we had an appointment. When we said we hadn't we were told to sling our hook. But on the way out we noticed a board listing A & R men (Artiste and Repertoire) the fancy title for record producers. For some reason the name Tony Palmer jumped out. We waited a week or so and then returned to EMI House clutching our guitars. Hurrying in we rushed up to receptionist and told her we were late for an appointment with Tony Palmer. She immediately directed up to his office on the 2nd floor. We knocked on the door. It opened by a guy who asked who we were and what we wanted. We told him we were "Split Image", a name we had thought of that very morning, and that we were a singing duo and had come to see Tony Palmer about signing us and making a record ...adding we were quite big in South Africa...well, Rhodesia...Okay, well we were quite big in Salisbury. It turned out the guy was Tony Palmer and thought we were party to some kind of  departmental wind up, a joke concocted by his mates. We assured him we were no joke (that's debatable) and came clean as to how we came to be there. Tony Palmer thought it hilarious and to his credit didn't sling us out but instead took us downstairs to an audition room in the basement and auditioned us there and then. He liked what he heard and signed us to Columbia...a month later we were in Abbey Road studios in a vocal booth singing our hearts out to an Aurther Greenslade arrangement of a Cook and Greenway song backed by the Ladybirds singing group and a thirty piece orchestra. ...oh, yeah, and The Beatles were recording in the next studio ...what a crazy turn around. Lea and I looked at each other...'this stardom malarkey's a breeze, a total breeze'. Then from the speaker Tony Palmer's voice rang out obliterating our self-satisfied smugness in an instant, "Oi, you two down there! You're singing as flat as arse-holes!" We came down to earth with a bang.

When I decided to try and record for prosperity the rise and fall of a little known sixties Rhodesian rock band, The Chequers, I thought I’d struggle to fill a single blog...but as soon as I put finger to computer keyboard it was like I started a game of memory pinball. 

One memory lit up another and another and and another and before I knew it I had written down 50 odd blogs.

Much has been left out so if anyone's interested I will start adding stuff and filling in the gaps.