Des OReilly.com (A Musical Life)
Make new Friends But Keep The Old :One Is Like Silver The Other Like Gold
Chapter One :The Early Years
Hi everyone, or as they say over here in
These days , I live in beautiful
I sent Ray an Email to introduce myself, and it turns out that Ray was well aware of the Puppets, and of their association with
Aged 8 
1952 Age 65 
2009
But if I am going to write about my experiences, it probably pays to start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
I was born on 28 May 1944, at
They took a liking to my sister Pam and I, and Mr. B made me my very own wooden steps so that I could reach and play billiards with him on a full size table he had in the front room. For years and years after, both Pam and I received Birthday and Xmas cards, always with money in them. They were just like what I imagine grandparents [I never met mine] to be. I remember I liked them both a lot.
Still in the Army we are on the move again, this time back to
Two things stick out for me at this time, the local corner shop in
I went to St. Ignatius primary school where I met a teacher called Tommy Tootall, who every day, usually for the last lesson, [sometimes for the last two lessons if we were lucky!], would absolutely enthral us with stories and tales, and would read books to us. He was brilliant! No-one could tell the tale of ‘The Snow Queen of the Ice’ like he could. I didn’t realise it at the time but I was having a fabulous close up demonstration of how to handle, and keep the interest of, a group of people all at once.
Another couple of things stick out for me around this time. My Mum used to take me to the Hippodrome Theatre in
It’s no wonder I’ve loved variety all my life bless you Mum, you were the ‘BEST’
The other was passing the 11 plus exam and getting a scholarship to attend 
which I did from 1955.
Now when a boy starts to attend Grammar school for the very first time, lots and lots of things begin to change. Until this point, primary school kids, my peers, have lived a life of comparative ease and innocence – naïve if you like, not at all like the street smart primary school kids of the new millennium! All of a sudden you’re introduced to a whole bunch of new stuff that you’ve never had to contend with before, like catching two or three buses to get to school – uniforms – big boys – bullies – prefects – lines 100 or 200 for ‘ misdemeanours’. The line you had to write was always the same, ‘Patience is a virtue to be practised and praised‘.
And whilst all this was going on 
But my initial foray into music was as a guitar player. In 1960 a bunch of us went to Butlins Holiday Camp for a week’s holiday, and whilst there we entered the People National Talent competition and won the heat!! The prize was a free weeks holiday and entry into the next round of the competition, We didn’t win that round, but I had a taste!! As far as I can recall the personnel was Ted Flanagan, Jimmy Lee and myself.
You know it’s great doing this exercise because it leads me to think of all sorts of remembrances, like I remember the first time I ever sang on a microphone in public. There was a TV show called ‘The Top Town Tournament’ where two towns would play off against each other – each town providing say a comic, a female singer, a male singer, a speciality act etc. They were auditioning for the show at Saul St. Baths and I went along.
I told the guy I wanted to sing
There was a guy, Ian Thompson, who lived in Peel Hall St. Ian was a couple of years older than me and he had a fabulous collection of Rock‘n’Roll records so, of course, we used to congregate at Ian’s all the time. One of the things we used to do was to place two books flat down on the table with about six inches between them, then, with a pair of drumsticks, hit the book directly in front using alternate sticks. Then on every fourth stroke we’d strike the book on the right, keeping up the continuity of the alternate strokes while progressively getting faster. We used to count the right hand book strikes and see how many times we could strike it in one minute.
For some reason I seemed to be able to do this better than the others and Ian said I should consider being a drummer, because he thought I could do it. He then arranged for me to go and meet a cousin of his who happened to be a real drummer. Ian and I went to this house and his cousin, who had this magnificent, full, pearly white, gleaming, ‘Premier’ drum kit, which was set up in the front room. It totally filled the room!! He played along with a record, ‘Skin Deep’ I think it was. You can imagine the level of noise in that tiny front room. Another lesson in how to get attention—play drums!!
I’m sure it was that visit that propelled me to the life I have led, and am still living…
I pestered my Mum to buy me a drum kit and she did. I became the proud owner of a ‘Gigster’ drum kit, comprising a small bass drum, a snare drum, two tom-toms, [but with only a skin on the top of them], and a tiny 9 inch Cymbal----- Are we ready to Rock and Roll or what???
Chapter Two :The Start Of The Ride
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As far as I can recall the first group I was in was 'The Rebels'
RegWelch Reg Welch on guitar and Derek Pearson on Bass. Sadly I have to report to you that Reg passed away in March 06, he was a good guitar player, Reg went on to play with Freddie Starr and the Midnighters. We used to play regularly at St. Maria
and I made it a goal to join them, which I did… Bob Johnson was fantastic, a bit older than me, I was the kid, so imagine me turning up for the gigs in Bob’s motor, a fire engine red big American Job, Lots of gigs, stacks of experience with the best band around, then all of a sudden Bob was gone and we started playing at the ‘Catacombs’ Cellar Club six nights a week, from 8.00pm till 2.00am, and Sundays off . We moved into ‘62 and were offered a contract to play American Bases in We recruited We were booked through a guy called Ted Easton, to start at a base called ‘Capsieux’, which was near St. Germain en Laye, on July 1st. 1962. This was our first contact with the Americans who liked our music, and we made some instant friends. Times for young bands were tough, we barely had enough money to actually get there! Starving, sleeping in the van, we hunted for ages for the source of a very bad smell, it turned out to be one of the band member’s socks.!! On the trip from
Reg caught one of the chickens and prepared it, he then disappeared into the field and returned with his top hat full to the brim of potatoes. We then built a fire and had a very tasty meal indeed, of Roast Chicken and jacket potatoes… Luxury, we hadn’t eaten for a couple of days, it was delicious!! Just a couple of days later it’s July 4th, American Independence day from the British. After the show we went out in the van with some GIs on board to celebrate this auspicious occasion. We went to many bars, and got well pissed, in fact I passed out in the back of the van! The next thing that happened was, I was awakened by some sort of noise, I opened one eye, and saw this little black dot which turned out to be the front end of a gun that was being pointed at me by a Gendarme,!!!! a French policeman, was pointing a gun at me and shouting at me “Allez Allez”!! It’s funny how under conditions like that , one seems to sober up instantly. What had happened? Why was the Gendarme in the back of the van? What had gone wrong? How come I was able to understand him? I don’t speak French !!! Well… Apparently, we, that is the van, had run out of petrol. I am still passed out in the back of the van don’t forget, when two of the band members, I don’t think it would be right to name names, left the van to see if they could get some petrol. They didn’t have all night petrol stations back then, so they took with them a can and a piece of rubber tubing which we always kept in the van for just these sorts of emergencies. Off they went, they found a vehicle and one of them syphoned off the petrol into the can, by sucking it through the tube, then spitting it out. He filled the can then put his finger over the end of the tube and said to the other one “I’ll keep my finger over the end of the tube, so as I don’t have to suck it through again, you take the can back to the van, put the petrol in, then bring the can back and we can have some more.” It’s all going well at this point don’t you think?? On the way back, the one carrying the can, for whatever reason, decided to try to gain access to other vehicles too. When he appeared back in the street where the van was, he had a blanket over his shoulder containing all sorts of items that he had taken from several cars he had broken into. The French Police arrive, it’s the middle of the night and they were not happy! In fact ‘Les Miserable’ they took us back to the police station and had us drive right inside the compound at the back. It was only then that I woke up, to the sounds of the very irate French Gendarme who was pointing his gun at me, shouting “Allez Allez”! What would you do? I ‘allezed‘ really quickly. There was about a dozen of us altogether, the band and friends, and some GIs. They put us in this cell, which was really strange. It smelt damp, but even tho’ the room itself was a normal size room, there was just enough room for the door to open. You see, inside the room was a wooden platform covering the whole of the floorspace, and the platform was on a slope. At the door end it was about two feet off the floor, and by the time it reached the far wall, it would have been about four feet off the floor. So we were all made to lay down on the board so to speak, and this big Gendarme kept coming in and hitting us on the soles of our feet with his big French truncheon! Weird? I thought so as well. Incidentally, we found out what French Gendarmes put in their sandwiches? Truncheon Meat – Voila!! In the morning we were shown upstairs, and told to sit. There were two rows of chairs facing each other, about six feet apart. This one particular Gendarme, who incidentally looked exactly like what you would expect a Gendarme to look like, with a pencil thin moustache, bulging eyes and a pot of Yoplait in his hand!, OK I lied about the Yoplait, probably wasn’t even invented then, but I’m sure you get the picture, kept walking up and down between us twirling his truncheon in an exaggerated fashion. Then he would spin on his heels and do the same the other way, over and over again. It was the sort of thing that you would imagine, Peter Sellers would do whilst taking the mickey out of the French !! It was really hilarious. We then got shown into an office where we received a huge verbal bollicking from this guy, magistrate I think. I then remember him telling us we had twenty four hours to get out of France – ”Or Else” – he pulled his extended first finger across his throat - “The Bastille”, he said! We were taken out of the room and along the passageway which came to an end at a window. The Gendarme behind us, the one with the gun, was motioning us to climb through the window! “Allez Allez”! Oh no, he’s off again! Well we climbed through the window onto a flat roof, the guy at the back is still ‘Allezing” loudly, so we fanned out across the roof as a single line. Hey, we are on a flat roof and slowly walking towards the edge – wondering things like – what’s going to happen? Is this guy going to shoot us or maybe force us to jump off the roof to be dashed on the street below?? My mum wouldn’t like what was happening to me at all. Oh no, not at all. All of a sudden a voice shouted “Arret” [stop]. We turned to look and saw another Gendarme with a camera motioning to us to ‘smile’ and he took our photograph!! Funny people the French. We high-tailed it, or was that low-tailed it, back to the base and hotel, packed up all the gear, and set off to drive the 300 odd kilometres to Calais to catch the ferry back to England. By the time we got there the last ferry had gone for the day, Oh No! No more ‘till tomorrow – But they told us … they said if they catch us… they would throw us in jail!! So we found a forest [as you do] and drove deep inside, got out of the van and covered it with tree branches and the like, so as no-one would know we were there. The following day we caught the first ferry back to One thing that does stick out for me regards the French adventure is the game of Sept, Quatorze, Vingt te Un, I think that’s how you spell it I still don’t speak French. Seven, Fourteen, Twenty-one, played in French bars. A circular leather tray with a raised rounded edge – a leather cup and two dice, willing players and your off!! The first player throws the two dice from the cup to the tray, each time a six or an ’ace’ as it was called, was thrown, it was recorded. If you threw an ace in your throw, you threw again until you didn’t throw an ace, then you passed the cup on to the next player. The person who rolls the seventh ace orders any drink from behind the bar. Now along with all the regular alcoholic drinks available, French bars also served Tea, Café au Lait, chocolate, milk shakes… all kinds of things. So as the game progressed you can imagine the concoctions that were ordered, often very strange indeed. The player who rolls the fourteenth ‘ace‘ has to drink it, and the one who rolls the twenty first ‘ace‘ has to pay for it. A crazy crazy game we played and enjoyed often.
The Yanks told us if we had been in the army we would have been charged with negligence –for getting sunburnt. !! and let’s not forget the Cuban crisis, October ‘62 from memory, Gee folks the yanks were hyped, ready to go, full battle dress at all times, for about a week. You could cut the tension in the air that week. Come to think of it not much changes does it? It’s now 2007 and they are still hyped up, and full of tension. Scary stuff at the time though !!! .................................................................. To Be Continued |
Early Bobcats pic
Anne Marie,A singer from 
ld , sadly no longer with us, was known to the Yanks as JC and had those very initials on the front of his top hat which he often wore! I can’t let this account go without a few words about Reg, a man I’m glad I met, an extremely funny man and one of those guys that could do just about anything, and just about did! How’s
ThisChapter Three :'London Calling'
As early as 1961, our town, Preston in
It would have been early ’61. Top of the bill was Emile Ford and the Checkmates, who had the hit with ‘What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For’? and it was also the first time I saw Billy Fury, little realising at the time we would work together and become friends. It was also the first time I saw The Big Three, they wore canary yellow suits and boots, Wow, how cool is that? And they played simply excellent Rock and Roll!
Billy Fury 
was incredible, the crowd was unbelievable, and Billy had them right in the palm of his hand… Such charisma! All the girls wanted to be with him and all the guys wanted to be him. Amazing!
The Big Three 
used to play at the ‘Catacombs’ on Sunday nights and along with many other Liverpool bands, their influence showed heavily in the way that our music was going. Even though Sundays was our one night off, we still went there every Sunday to listen and watch the
When we finally returned from
The place was full and the support band, which was another
I was offered a spot with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in 
It was late ‘62, and Ringo had left Rory to join ‘The Beatles’ in August.
Another 
Keef Hartley, who went on to do great things, also had a stint with Rory. Must be something about drummers from
It was a good gig, Rory used to do 2, 3 and sometimes 4 jobs a night and with the pay being around a couple of Pounds per job to me, It was very lucrative indeed, we’re talking 1962 here, wages were about 5 or 6 Pounds a week as I remember. However, when Dave Millen, the Guitarist I was with in the Bobcats, and Jim Whittle the bass player from The Thunderbeats approached me to join them in a trio, the timing was right. I was 18, I didn’t drive and I was catching the bus to and from Liverpool about 30 miles, to do the gigs with Rory each week, usually staying at Rory’s house from Thurs to Sundays,
So when Dave and Jim asked me to join them not only was the timing right, but I had already worked with Dave in the Bobcats and knew him to be an excellent guitar player, and that I could work with him really well, so I said “yes”. When we first got together we spent 9 straight days and nights rehearsing in a place called the Club Regan, a strip joint that was being refurbished. It didn’t take long to work out stuff with Jim and we became a tight rhythm section indeed, we came out of that rehearsal, a full working band with an enormous repertoire.
to record Robb’s songs, and whilst at the studio we also did a couple of numbers ourselves. I remember we did a version of ‘Little Bitty Pretty One’ which showed off our harmonies very well indeed.
Robb wasn’t the best voice around, and he wasn’t exactly the pop star look either. So it came as no surprise when a couple of weeks later we received a phone call from Joe himself and he told us that he didn’t like the singer but that he wanted to sign the band up, and become our Personal and our Recording Manager. In unison we chorused, “what singer?”
Loyalty has always been big in Rock and Roll!!
Seriously though, we didn’t owe any loyalty to Robb, we only agreed to back him on the songs he wanted Joe to hear, 
which we did.
Well you could have knocked us down with a feather.
Joe Meek wanted us! That’s how we originally got in with Joe and it was Joe who renamed us ‘The Puppets’.
It’s worth looking up the history of Joe Meek. He engineered many, many hits indeed. It was Joe who was responsible for Lonnie Donegan’s hits and I think, well, without Lonnie I honestly don’t think Rock’n’Roll would have happened in England in quite the same way.
Vince
Lonnie 
To Be Continued.................
