14. Edwin and Rachelle...Auditions for their TV show at the George Hotel.

A couple who were big in Salisbury in the early 60’s, in more ways than one, were Edwin and Rachelle, a talented husband and wife team who appeared in guests spots on R.T.V. (Rhodesian Television) playing twin grand pianos... and on occasions a single piano. 

The couple's repertoire was eclectic, ranging from honky-tonk numbers through to show tunes and the classics. 

Edwin and Rachelle proved so popular with Rhodesian audiences they were given their own television show with the inspired title, “The Edwin and Rachelle Show”.  

Rachelle was definitely the hostess with mostest, Rhodesia’s answer to Jayne Mansfield and wore extremely low cut dresses which showcased her assets. Rachelle was also singularly responsible for the sudden and inexplicable interest in pianoforte music among the teenage youth of Rhodesian - correction, the male section of Rhodesia's teenage youth. 

This cultural phenomenon manifested itself once a week and lasted for precisely thirty minutes... and seemed to coincide with “The Edwin & Rachelle Show”. Adolescent boys would stop whatever they were doing and gather around the TV and – well –oggle the goggle box. 

The reason I have included Edwin and Rachelle in my reminiscences is not because of Rachelle’s prodigious, gravity defying bust which I dare say is reason enough, but because the couple directly impacted on the Chequers. 

Incidentally it was just prior to this that we had settled on "The Chequers" as the band name - spelt with a "Q" so as not to be confused with Chubby Checker and the Checkmates of "Let's do the Twist" and "Let's Twist Again", fame. 

Anyway, Edwin and Rachelle were looking for ‘acts’ to appear live on their TV show and an ad was placed in the Rhodesia Herald announcing that auditions were going to be held at the George Hotel in Avondale on such and such a date. 

The such and such a date duly arrived and found us at the George Hotel hauling our gear up to a large 'audition' room on the second floor where seemingly half the population of Salisbury had congregated – a slight exaggeration but the place was packed with the usual suspects, singers, jugglers, magicians, tap-dancers, a ventriloquist and rock bands.

The auditions proved a big disappointment. Not because we didn't get picked for the show, we did, much to our surprise, but because we came face to face with Rachelle in the flesh so to speak...and well, without the make-up, false spider-like eyelashes, the glitzy low-cut dress and stiletto high heel...she was wearing a big floppy jersey, baggy trousers and flip-flops at the auditions... she looked...well, not to put too fine a point on it, nothing special.

Shortly afterwards a letter arrived from Rhodesian Broadcasting Company informing ‘The Chequers Rock Combo’ that we would be required for rehearsal purposes at 4:30 p.m. on a specific date at the RTV studios in Borrowdale - the show would be transmitted later the same evening.

Wow! We were actually going to be on TV.

RTV  HOUSE BORROWDALE

The day of the show finally came round. We arrived at the studio ridiculously early and after hanging around for ages we were ushered in. 

The rehearsal was for the benefit of the cameramen to work out the camera positions. We played through each of our numbers  “Drifting” and “Jet Black” a couple of times while they pushed their cameras into Close-Ups and angled shots. But when it came to transmission, all that went by the wayside, the cameramen locked off the cameras in static position and left them like that for both numbers. I guess the director must have just cut between the two. Not that I blame the cameramen, the cameras were a big unwieldy affairs which resembled the Darlexs in Dr. Who .

As the video recorder had yet to be invented it was hard for us to judge our performance, but by all accounts it couldn’t have gone better. We were terrific, absolutely fantastic, a total triumph... well according to Mum, Dad, brothers Neil and Charlie, that is.