7. Salisbury - Rhodesia - Youth Club Talent Contest

The coach carrying the Greendale Youth Club contingent pulled up outside the Athenaeum Hall where the Teen Talent Contest was being held. With a sinking feeling I stepped down from the coach clutching my guitar. The sense of misgiving I had felt at the start of the short drive into town had escalated into sheer terror. This was it. There could be no turning back.

In the foyer a large handwritten sign carried the information: “CONTESTANTS MUST REPORT TO MR. – I can't remember his name but for arguments sake I'll call him – MR. OFFICIAL – AT BACK OF THE HALL”. 

We joined the queue of contestants outside the stage door where ‘Mr. Official’ ticked off the 'acts' from a list and allocated each a number in the running order. We were number 20, second from the end. Contestant  21 was a contortionist, a pretty girl in her early teens. The reason I remember her was because of the impact she'd have on the night’s events. 

Years later at The Punch Bowl Hotel we played mood music whilst the same contortionist, by that time an extremely supple young woman, performed her cabaret act which consisted of squeezing herself into ever decreasing sized boxes. 

Mr. Official had everything planned out like a military exercise. To prevent the back stage area from becoming congested we were told we should all wait in the hall until two contestant before us in the running order - in our case number 18 - was introduced to the audience. Then, and only then, were we to leave the auditorium ‘quietly’ - he emphasized ‘quietly’- and make our way back to the stage door. When contestant 18 had finished, we would be escorted into the wings and wait ‘quietly’ for our turn... best laid plans and all that. 

Before trooping back to the auditorium we asked if there was somewhere we could leave our instruments. After much deliberation Mr. Official guided us to a small office and told us to leave them there.

By the time we took our seats there must have been about two hundred in the audience. For someone who had only ever played his guitar to an audience of one, me, myself, I, in front of a mirror, the prospect of performing to all those people was pretty daunting. However, by the time contestant number 10 took the stage the fear and doubt had been replaced by a quiet confidence. The reason? Simple. The first two contestants had been pretty dire. One recited “The Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge possibly all one hundred and forty-three verses it seemed to drag on that long and the other tap danced. Well the girl in question wore tap shoes which is where any reference to tap dancing ended. She walked haplessly around the stage flicking her toes every now and then to make the metal plate click. 

Unbelievable as this may sound from then on it went downhill. I cannot recollect all the acts, hardly surprising after fifty odds years, but a couple have stuck in my mind simply because of the scale of their ineptitude. 

Firstly there was a young escapologist, least he claimed to be an escapologist, who invited audience members onstage and asked them to tie him up in a sack, which they duly did with some relish I might add. 

The young escapologist then spent the next five minutes threshing ineffectually around on the floor like some wretched maggot trying, without success, to extradite himself from a canvas cocoon. 

Then there was a juggler who can only be described as ham-fisted...not a good description for a juggler.

The white tennis balls he juggled with (tennis balls were white in those days, not yellow) kept spilling out of his hands and rolling into the audience who, despite ham-fisted juggler’s pleas, refused to throw them back. After a couple of minutes he had nothing to juggle with so accompanied by cries of derision he exited sheepishly. 

As we sat through one duff act after another a warm burst of confidence washed over me..."The Beatnix" had it in the bag.  

But as fate would have it, our chances were stymied. ‘The Curse of the Competition’ raised its obstructive head. 

Mr. Official’s system which up to that point had been working like clockwork unraveled. Contestant 17 had taken his bow and left the stage. Contestant 18 was our cue to go back stage. We hovered half out our seats awaiting her appearance...but the stage remained disconcertingly empty. So we sat down again.

Here's what happened. Contestant 18, a young Irish girl who was to perform an Irish jig, had caught contestant number 19, an accordion player and also her boy friend, snogging contestant 20, the female contortionist. The Irish girl reacted badly and flew at  her Lothario accordion playing boyfriend catching him with a hefty blow to the nose, causing the appendage to bleed all over his pristine white shirt. Screaming, “look what you made me do!” she grabbed the contortionist by her hair and proceeded to try and shake the poor girl’s head off her shoulders. 

The upshot was there was no contestant number 18 or 19 for that matter. One of Mr. Official’s flunkies came on stage and mumbled something to that effect. We at once legged it round the back where we found Mr. Official in a total flap. He told us to go straight on stage and do our number. We told him we would as soon as we had collected our musical instruments. We ran to the office where we had left them only to find the door was locked. Mr. Official had given the key to his assistant who also happened to be the brother of the Irish girl. After failing to rip off the contortionists head the Irish girl had run off in a flood of tears and her brother had gone looking for her. 

Finally, after about five minutes, someone appeared with a crowbar and jimmied the lock. We dashed into the office, grabbed our stuff and ran on stage. Mac dragged a chair on with him. We looked at each other - Mac, foot perched on the chair, guitar on knee, Nicky's drumsticks were raised - we were ready - this was it - our time had arrived. Lea counted us in...and we started singing. 

“She’s nearly always here. Digs all the modern gear. Cool like a lager beer – Beat Girl”!

I peeked round. All the guitars were facing towards the audience...so far so good!

“Tries anything for kicks. Lose her with the swinging hips. Makes with the pretty lips –  Beat Girl”.

 It was going better than I dare hoped. There had been no mistakes, well no glaringly obvious ones...the contest was in the bag.

We continued singing.

For those who have never appeared on a stage you have to understand something or what follows will not make any sense at all. Because the auditorium is in darkness and the stage is brightly lit,  it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to see beyond the footlights.

“Drives in an old sedan. Tries all the way she can. Jives like the crazy man”...and then with a final shout of “Beat Girl” the number ended.  

We had done it. The overwhelming sense of relief was almost palatable. We stood on the Athenaeum stage, smiling broadly, if not smugly, waiting for the inevitable roar off appreciation from the assembled youth clubbers. Silence. Not a sound. No applause. No whistling...no hissing or booing. Nothing. Just silence. Cold, deafening, unadulterated silence. 

Our smug expectant smiles turned to nervous frowns of doubt. Okay maybe we hadn't been great but for sure we’d been better than most of the acts - way better than the escapologist or the ham-fisted juggler... and they at least received polite applause . 

The house lights came up and all was revealed.The audience was persona non grata - the hall was completely empty. 

While we had been waiting for the office door to be jimmied open, unbeknownst to us and to Mr. Official, some bright spark, possibly, Mr. Cousins, had decided to call it a night.

It was the first of many set backs that awaited us on our quest for stardom.