tag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:/blogs/birth?p=1Birth2023-02-27T17:00:00+00:00The Pieces of Mindfalsetag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/71612892023-02-27T09:57:12+00:002023-10-16T15:46:58+01:00Birth of Born at the Bosco<p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">In 2013, we started thinking of how we could ‘make a record’, something we had never achieved in the 60s. A few of us in the band had started writing their own songs, so we believed we had sufficient material to complete an album of originals.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Andy had been writing stuff since the 60s and both Adrian and myself had started writing. So, between the three of us and other members of the reunion band, we thought we should be fine. The next things to consider were ‘where, when and the most important, how much it would cost’. I then started looking at potential studios and possible dates that would suit our requirements. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">In the meantime, Adrian was spending time, in the days following our ‘Live at the Vault’ session, visiting friends in London. While there, he met up with an old friend, James Dean Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers. He happened to mention that the Pieces of Mind had reformed and were thinking of recording an album. James offered us the use of their recording studio in Cardiff and had also arranged for their engineer, Dave Eringa to work with us. Dave had recently finished working on ‘Going Back Home’, the Wilko Johnson/Roger Daltrey album and apparently liked working with ‘old men’. The Manic Street Preachers were starting a UK tour in the Spring of 2014, so their studio was free for a few days in March 2014. We could use their studio as long as we could make it the third week in March.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">This presented us with a dilemma. Yes, we were confident that we had sufficient material to produce an album of originals, but we were not sure that we could achieve this in the time. It was now coming up to Christmas 2013 and the choice and arrangement of nine or ten songs for the album would require many rehearsal sessions. Even if we could fit these in before the third week in March, we would almost certainly require more studio time than was available. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">So, I held several email conversations with mainly Adrian & Andy to come up with the nine or ten songs. We initially thought we should forget about originals and just do cover songs; however, we soon came around to thinking that a fifty/fifty split of covers and originals may be achievable in the time remaining. After much debate, we decided that, in the short time we had available, we would concentrate on four originals and fill the rest of the album with covers we usually played at gigs. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">It was relatively easy to decide on the covers and in a short time we came up with the following:</span></p><ul>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Hoochie Coochie Man</span></li>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">I Wish You Would</span></li>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Neighbour, Neighbour</span></li>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Night Time is the Right Time</span></li>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">You Don’t Love Me. </span></li>
</ul><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">We had been playing the first three songs since the 1960s; were all familiar with ‘You Don’t Love Me’ and had been experimenting with an old song that Ray Charles had sung, ‘Night Time is the Right Time’. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">That left the question of which originals we should include. Back in 1966, we used to play a song from Andy called ‘I Need Someone’. Andy had taken a fresh look at the lyrics and I came up with a different intro. We also changed the tempo so it was more of a rocker. Andy’s wife, Jane, referred to it as the ‘Gertcha’ song when she first heard it. Andy suggested we should have a go at another couple of his songs. ‘Judgement Day’ had been around since the 1980s when Andy used to play it in Moira and the Mice. The second one was relatively new called ‘Walking in the Shadow of Today’. Adrian had come up with a song called ‘Into the Light’, which he perceived being played as an acoustic number.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">So, we had 9 songs to try and record in the 3 days we could have access to the studio. No problem, the biggest task we would face would be sorting out who was playing what on each song. With the then 9 in the band, that was going to take some sorting.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Around this time, we received the shocking news that Phil Edwards had passed away suddenly from a heart attack, when returning home to Spain after a holiday. We had scheduled a few practice sessions in Wales and as we had been asked to play a song at his funeral, we decided to do an acoustic version of ‘Bring it on Home to Me’ with Andy, Vic and myself on acoustic and Adrian doing vocals. The funeral was held at Romsey Abbey, in Hampshire, on the 7<sup>th</sup> March 2014. Despite my messing up the start, we managed to get through it. A first for Romsey Abbey must have been the music played when the coffin was being taken out. The vicar, a lady, didn’t have a CD with the song that Phil loved, so we suggested they play something from the BRFM Live at the Vault session. The first track was ‘I Wish You Would’ which Phil had played on. It was amazing to hear the song blasting out in the Abbey. The song would also end up being the first track on the album. After the funeral, we had just over a week to rehearse and arrange the 9 songs. It was going to be tight, but we would give it our best shot. We decided to spend a few hours in a rehearsal studio located in Chepstow.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">On Monday 17<sup>th</sup> March 2014, we all headed for Faster Studios, which was situated in a courtyard not far from Cardiff Central station. We all managed to find it, fairly early in the morning, and also secure parking in the small courtyard. The next 2-3 hours were spent setting up and micing our equipment. James told Adrian we could use any of their equipment if we wanted. A full set of drums was already set up, however, Ted wanted to use his own, so that took the longest. I can understand people wanting to use their own equipment, however with hindsight, I should have persuaded Steve and Ted make do with the drums already set up. If they were good enough for Sean, who plays drums with the Manics, then I’m sure they would be fine for Steve and Ted. Perhaps just use their own stools and snare. Anyway, by the afternoon we were all set up and ready to start recording.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Over the next 3 days, we managed to record the 9 songs we had planned, working from early morning to well into the late evening. Myself, Adrian, Andy & Vic stayed in a local hotel, so we could walk to the studio, the rest travelled daily from the Newport area.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Most of the songs were done in 2-3 takes, with little or no overdubs. I obviously dubbed harp on ‘I Wish You Would’ and slide guitar on ‘Into the Light’. I don’t play slide, so after a few attempts of messing it up, Dave Eringa put some gaffa tape over 5 strings, leaving the ‘G’ string open. The slide, which is only in the choruses, just involved 3 notes, all played on the ‘G’ string. The problem I had was hitting adjacent strings. The gaffa tape helped a lot and after a couple more takes, it was in the can. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Andy added some rhythm guitar to ‘Judgement Day’ and ‘Walking in the Shadow of Today’ at the desk. Bob did most of his keyboard work in the booth with the band. I think he overdubbed his solo in ‘Neighbour Neighbour’, but the majority was done live. Ric played all of his sax stuff as overdubs inside the booth. Most of were done in 1 or 2 takes, however he did spend longer on the solo to ‘Into the Light’, which probably took him 5 or 6 takes. The rest of us, sat around the desk, loving every take, particularly the last 2-3 notes.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Adrian and Andy did tracking vocals inside the booth and then replaced them at the desk later. Backing vocals for ‘I Need Someone’ and ‘Night Time is the Right Time’ were done in the booth afterwards, often with much hilarity.</span></p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/127750/88829f51b435ed6ba7214b44566242ba5f48215d/original/studio-124.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span lang="EN-US"><strong>Night Time is the Right Time Backing Vocals</strong></span></p><p style="text-align:center;"><i><span lang="EN-US">Left to Right: Vic, Bob, Andy, Me</span></i></p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/127750/773092514dd9fe90c99d051af337255c32538db4/original/pom-botb-player-credits.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><i><span lang="EN-US">There were 9 of us in the studio at times, but not everyone played on each track. The players were: Adrian Williams, Ted Dyer, Andy Gibbon, Vic Johnson, Ric Lawton, Robert ‘Percy’ Price, Steve Strong, Bob Teague & me.</span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">After we finished the recording, the next few months were spent reviewing the mixes that Dave Eringa sent us. There was some delay due to Dave being on holiday, but the time allowed us to think about how we were going to get the album manufactured, released and distributed. We also had to decide on a title for the album.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Adrian had worked many years in the record industry and still had many contacts who could offer advice or help. He arranged for three of us to meet up with one of his old friends in London, who pointed us towards businesses that could manufacture and distribute the album.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Andy & I had met with Ron Rogers, of T’Pau, who owns the Up the Lane Recordings studio in Monmouth. This is the place that Andy’s other band, Times Up, record their albums. Ron recommended we use Pete Maher to do the mastering of the album. Pete had worked with numerous artistes, including the Rolling Stones, so we thought if he’s good enough for them, then he would be fine for us. I got in touch with Pete and arranged for him to master the album, once the final mixes were back from Dave Eringa. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">In the meantime, we had to quickly come up with a title for the album, so I asked the band members for proposals. I received 40 suggestions including such delights as:</span></p><ul>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Sod ‘em, we’re insane</span></li>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Bins and Inkwells</span></li>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">See You at the Next Funeral</span></li>
<li style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">An Answer to a Spinster’s Prayer</span></li>
</ul><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">As we had to come up with a title fairly quickly, for manufacturing, I decided it was better for just Adrian, Andy and myself to vote on a title. From the 40 choices, we each selected 4, to potentially go on to a second round of voting. As it turned out, all 3 of us chose one title ‘Born in the Bosco’, which eliminated a need for further voting. Adrian suggested a minor change, so the title became ‘Born at the Bosco’.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">The album was manufactured, distributed and released to various outlets, such as Amazon and iTunes in January 2015. It had taken us decades to ‘make a record’, but we had done it. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">We thank James, Nicky and Sean of the Manic Street Preachers for the use of their studio. It allowed us to do what we should have done 45 years earlier. Whatever happens in the future, the Pieces of Mind finally had a musical legacy.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US">Finally, we decided to dedicate the album to Phil Edwards who sadly passed away a few weeks before we went into the studio.</span></p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/127750/dbfb153745dcc81e4981f4662cb9aaf6559455c2/original/studio-87.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span lang="EN-US"><strong>The Band & Engineer</strong></span></p><p style="text-align:center;"><i><span lang="EN-US">We all managed to sit down for a pic, automatically taken by John Beardmore on front left. Sat on the sofas, left to right are: Me, Adrian Williams, Ted Dyer, Steve Strong, Dave Eringa & Andy Gibbon. In front is Ric Lawton with his sax. At the back left to right are: Vic Johnson, Bob Teague & Robert ‘Percy’ Price.</span></i></p><p> </p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/127750/1fbf3c0663e6bf9e75a1da34d78039bcdd52048e/original/pom-batb-cover.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p> </p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/127750/8f25f95a826fbdd3dada9cb5f81020bfc7d5ecab/original/pom-batb-credits.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p> </p><p> </p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/71306802022-12-31T14:22:19+00:002023-02-27T09:54:44+00:00The Toll of Life<p>As the end of 2022 is upon us in a few hours, I can't help but think of the band members and friends who have sadly left this world over the years.</p>
<p>May you all rest in peace. Hopefully, this list will not grow too soon.</p>
<ul> <li>Dave Martin</li> <li>Dave Sargent</li> <li>Phil Edwards</li> <li>Rob Evans</li> <li>Seb Sampson</li> <li>David Peace</li> <li>Steve Leman</li> <li>Glyn Williams</li> <li>Mickey Evans</li> <li>Gary Bishop</li> <li>David Kubinec</li> <li>Dennis Bird</li>
</ul>
<p>To be honest considering I spent 2 years in hospitals, in my childhood, I am amazed I have made it this far.</p>
<p>This little boy, of about 6 months, sat on his Aunty's lap, was quite a sickly little thing and not expected to survive into his teens, let alone see in 2023.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/f6c73ee81859a8a83d854f500eb0120116a37810/original/me-and-sheila-colorsai-result.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>In addition to the band members and close friends who have passed, sadly my younger brother Terry and older sister Judy, are no longer with us. Pictured below at a party, when I was in hospital</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/ffac091c30e2e8175c7d307f5482d3ac68c05ab3/original/terryandjudy.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Anyway, roll on 2023, when we will have our last fling of gigging. Take care.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2 style="text-align: center;"><strong><span class="font_large">Happy New Year to all</span></strong></h2>3:22The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/58714882019-08-27T16:21:52+01:002019-08-27T17:58:19+01:00Recollections of a Roadie<p>With the sad passing of Glyn Williams, I thought it's worth posting his contribution to 'Birth to Reunion'. </p>
<p>When I first read Glyn’s recollections, a few things struck me. Firstly we seemed to run out of fuel extremely often. Whether this was because we were forever broke, spending our gig money on curries, or just down to poor planning I am not sure.</p>
<p>The other thing is how our memories of particular incidents differ. I recollect that it was Phil who asked directions, very un-politely, in Birmingham and not me and also I believed Chippy’s van was a Commer Cob and not a Hillman Husky. The essence of our memories is usually correct, but it just goes to illustrate how difficult it is to get the details of things that happened nearly 50 years ago, correct. Still here's what he sent me:</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/920d7897f16d78509c7168699564a3b9d3916814/original/glyn1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Glyn Williams</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>1948 - 2019</strong></p>
<p><em><span style="color:null;">My brother Adrian had joined with a few other lads to form what was to become a pretty popular beat combo, to use the posh idiom, in truth they became a very competent R&B/Soul group, and they called themselves ‘The Pieces of Mind’. </span></em></p>
<p><em>I passed my driving test in May 1965 and acquired a 1960 Ford Anglia which I thought was the business, anyway I was prevailed upon by Adrian and his new friends to help transport some of the equipment for this burgeoning pop group. </em></p>
<p><em>This situation continued for a while; however it became apparent that what we needed was a van. We eventually bought a Commer mini bus in a kind of army green, the Commer was the preferred van of choice for most groups. Thus I stumbled into the position of driver/roadie. I must have driven the group thousands of miles in the few years I was driving for them; we mainly did Newport and the Valleys but also went further afield to Birmingham, Cardigan, Llanelli and Hereford. </em></p>
<p><em>There were many things that went on during that time although it’s hard to recall every one; I remember a gig at the Snakepit in Newport. The Four Tops had released ‘Reach out I’ll be there’ which was hugely popular with the people at the club. The group sat in the van during the break at the gig and practised the song, when they came back on for the second half and performed it the crowd went nuts. </em></p>
<p><em>After a gig somewhere we went for a curry in Pontypool, which was almost compulsory after a gig. I noticed a jam omelette on the menu for 2/6d, I asked the waiter what jam it was, meaning was it Strawberry or Raspberry and he replied Robertson’s. I had never had one before or since although it was OK. One of Phil Edwards more disgusting habits, and he had few, was to pick his nose in the curry house and he would rub his bogies in the fluffy wallpaper. </em></p>
<p><em>At many of the gigs around the valleys was this chap that everyone called ‘Mad Merv’. This chap’s party piece was to eat beer glasses. Anyway for some reason he seemed to take a shine to the boys and as such became the group’s resident minder around many gigs. If there was any trouble we would just mention it to Merv, and he would sort it. </em></p>
<p><em>I remember a gig in either Cwm or Abertillery in a school, the group was using a science lab as a dressing room and either Andy or Ducksy or possibly both did something pretty unpleasant in the inkwells and a waste paper bin. The group never got a repeat booking for some reason. </em></p>
<p><em>One night in Tredegar at The Miners Club I think, which was just opposite the clock tower in Tredegar, the band was tuning up and someone came over and said you’re too loud. The boys turned it down a bit and carried on tuning; over he comes again still complaining. In the end we all had enough of the moaning so we packed up and left and probably went for a curry. </em></p>
<p><em>Another miners club in Blackwood was fun one night; it was quite a big venue with a large dance floor and stage. The boys were on stage doing their thing when a fight started. Within seconds every boy in the place was fighting, and there seemed to be hundreds and all the girls were lined up around the perimeter egging them on. I could see the boys on stage looking at one another thinking what should they do. Adrian and Ducksy had grabbed mike stands ready to repel boarders but in the end it fizzled out and order was restored and the band got a cheer for carrying on in the face of adversity. </em></p>
<p><em>At some point the group decided they needed a keyboard player we ended up with this cockney sounding bloke called Dave Kubinec, who Ducksy had discovered playing a piano after a gig. In truth Dave turned out to be a top bloke, he was good musically and he was alright to have around, he had a few strange habits as well, notably his choice of smoking material. After he had been with us for a while he announced he had crabs. </em></p>
<p><em>Now the rest of us weren’t too sure what crabs was but nobody was very fussy on sitting next to Kubie. Obviously he couldn’t walk to the gigs so we decided he should sit by the back doors behind all the equipment in the hope that whatever it was he had they couldn’t jump very far. After a few weeks he got the all clear and he was allowed back into the real world. </em></p>
<p><em>We used to like to go to the Glen Ballroom in Llanelli; they had a revolving stage, which made it seem like the Palladium. Sometimes the Pieces were playing there and sometimes we saw a local group called ‘The Eyes of Blue’. These were an annoyingly good looking bunch of blokes but they were all OK to be around as well, they did a lot of Four Tops songs before anyone had really heard of the Four Tops. Today I think the Glen is Terry Griffiths’ snooker hall. </em></p>
<p><em>As the Pieces became more established they started to support major acts, I remember Manfred Mann at the British Nylon Spinners Club. The venue was huge and the dressing room had mirrors and basins and lights, it was a real proper job. Paul Jones of Manfred Mann walked in and in his posh voice said ‘hmm not quite what I’m used to but it’ll do’, he was only joking and he was a very approachable decent chap. </em></p>
<p><em>There used to be a chap we all called ginger Viv, he kept nagging on about coming and helping on a gig, eventually we agreed he could come with us one night to help. The gig was at the Afon Lido in Aberafon. We were unloading the gear and he was struggling with the effort, I don’t think he was used to work. Anyway he sidled up to me and offers me some pills. Apart from Kubie and Coco the band didn’t do drugs. What Viv didn’t know was that Adrian was in the van and had overheard him. He leapt out of the van and knocked Viv over and threatened him with more violence if he offered his little brother drugs. Viv never came with us again. </em></p>
<p><em>The really big support gig though was with The Who. This was a very special night and The Who didn’t disappoint. The equipment they had was superb, most groups, even well known ones used something like 30watt amplifiers such as the Vox AC 30, whereas The Who had 100watt Marshalls which looked brilliant and sounded amazing. Pete Townshend did the guitar smashing up thing. A lot of people used to think they glued old bits of guitar together to smash up later, but these were genuine Fenders, it must have cost a fortune in guitars and speaker cabinets. </em></p>
<p><em>Following The Who gig it was decided, probably by Ducksy who was the leader and could be a bit off the wall, that we should have similar speaker cabinets. Obviously we couldn’t afford anything like Marshall so we decided to build our own. So we bought several sheets of chipboard lots of screws and some sound deadening stuff and set about dismantling the existing speakers to fit into these monstrous boxes we had created; they must have been about 6feet tall by 4 feet wide and about 2 feet deep. When they were tried out they really sounded pretty good. The acid test was to come later. </em></p>
<p><em>The first gig they were used was at St. Julian’s High School in Newport. We struggled to carry these bloody great boxes into the school hall, and after the gig we carried the bloody things out again. After this experience we had the brainwave of fixing castors to them and rolling them where we could. An added problem was that they were so big we could only get these 2 great pieces of construction in the van, pretty much everything else had to be transported separately. </em></p>
<p><em>The next gig was in Abergavenny town hall; at the best of times it wasn’t an easy venue as the hall was on the first floor. However, undaunted, we heaved and grunted quite a lot and eventually reached the first floor, where we put the speakers down on their castors which immediately collapsed. Following this debacle it was decided that we would cut them in half to make them more manageable to convey to the various venues. This state of affairs continued for a while until sanity prevailed, or Ducksy was out voted, and we returned to the more conventional speaker cabinets. </em></p>
<p><em>Also at Abergavenny town hall they always insisted on us filling in a performing rights form, we always put the top 10 from the Hit Parade, as it was called back then, and it kept them happy. </em></p>
<p><em>For a while we had a drummer called Chippy Chapman, every one including his father called him Chippy. One day we were at his house and his mother said ‘would you like a cup of tea Garnett. Well we all looked at each other and burst out laughing, we all thought Garnett sounded a bit effeminate, but Chippy was certainly not a ‘girlie’. </em></p>
<p><em>One day Chippy rolled up to my house in his van, I think it was a Hillman Husky, a van with windows, he said they were going for a ride and did I want to go, there were two others in the van but I can’t remember who they were. Anyway I said to my mam I was going out for a ride with Chippy. We eventually found ourselves in the queue for the Beachley Ferry, as there was no Severn Bridge back then. It was near the Army camp where the Pieces had played with a support band that had a chap called David Jones in their group. Later on for some reason he changed his name to Bowie, I wonder what happened to him. </em></p>
<p><em>We decided to carry on across the river Severn and choose where to go, when we got to the other side. Eventually early the following morning we found ourselves in Newquay, in Cornwall, I’m ashamed to say we pinched milk off people’s doorsteps because we’d had nothing to eat for ages. We mooched around for a bit and I eventually got home three days later. My mam asked where I’d been and I said Cornwall and I think she said ‘oh’. </em></p>
<p><em>I hesitate to include this on the grounds of decency, but I’ll let you make up your own mind. One day Andy appeared thoughtful and when I asked him what was on his mind he replied ‘if I could have one wish I would like to be a girl for 24hrs’. When I asked him why he replied ‘so I would know what it’s like to be f*****d’. This gives some insight into the mind that is Andy Gibbon. </em></p>
<p><em><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/81a25a443e1946b1f62ffd68efe43d6fbb3f277f/original/andyvest.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Andy Gibbon in deep thought </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Who am I today, a girl or perhaps I should be Superman? </strong></p>
<p><em>A vague memory, although I’m sure it happened, involved Coco. One night we were driving back from a gig in Cardigan when a row broke out between Coco and everyone else, it was probably something to with some green and black pills he used to use. After a while Coco shouted to stop the van and he would get out, so I stopped and out he got complete with trumpet. I’m not sure where this was, but it was hell of a long way from home. I know he got home because I’ve seen him since and he seems to have forgiven everyone. </em></p>
<p><em>We used to go to Birmingham to do gigs fairly often. On one occasion we were going up the M5 when we got into a race with The Fortunes. They had a similar van to us but we won, probably because they had more gear to carry than us. </em></p>
<p><em>On another occasion we were going along the M50 when we heard a kind of a rattle seeming to come from the engine, which was located beneath the middle front seat. We stopped and opened the engine cover and noticed the exhaust manifold glowing red-hot; this was just below the carburetor full of petrol. On checking the radiator we found it had boiled dry. We were still about 15 miles from the services and we had no spare water with us. </em></p>
<p><em>We looked around and noticed some trees in the distance down a bit of a dip, so we thought there might be a river there; the only trouble was it was on the other side of the motorway. Luckily traffic was quite light in those days and there were no CCTV cameras, so we all gathered up any cups or bottles we had and legged it over multiple lanes of motorway; climbed over the fence, and eventually came to our river. We filled whatever we were carrying with water and very carefully took it back to the van. After a couple of trips like this we decided there was enough water to get us to the services where we could fill up properly. Happily we didn’t appear to have done any serious damage and we carried on our merry way. </em></p>
<p><em>Another vague memory involves a trip to Birmingham but again I’m sure it happened. We had stopped for a break at Strensham on the M5. Eventually we got in the van to carry on. I was driving down the slip road accelerating to join the carriageway when someone said ‘where’s Phil’. We looked around, but there was no sign of him. Someone called his name and there was a faint tapping coming from the roof. I pulled onto the hard shoulder and got out to have a look and Phil was spread-eagled hanging onto the roof. The daft bugger got in and we carried on. </em></p>
<p><em>On another trip to Birmingham our van broke down and we were compelled to sleep in the van. We had all taken a blanket in case of emergency so we settled down for the night. I don’t remember whether we’d been for a curry but it was quite a noisy and smelly night. I was sleeping on top of the gear and was about a couple of inches from the roof of the van. All night I had condensation dripping all over me. It wasn’t very comfortable. </em></p>
<p><em>In the morning we all went to the public baths where for a tanner (2 and a half pence today) you could get a lovely hot bath in those massive cast iron baths that seemed about three feet deep. We all felt refreshed and pretty good after that. I think we did the gig and had to arrange for a taxi to get us, and our gear, home to go to work. I think it cost £50, which was about a week’s wages for the cabbie in those days. </em></p>
<p><em>Another occasion in Birmingham we all thought we might not get out in one piece, we may really have been the pieces. We were lost in what seemed like one the hardest looking areas of the city that was predominantly black. I had stopped the van to try and work out where to go. Ducksy was sat in the passenger seat by the door and someone in the back shouts ‘Hey Ducksy ask that c*** the way’, incredibly Ducksy winds down the window and shouts hey c***, and this big black lad walks over. I had the van in gear ready for a quick getaway, or as quick as it would have got away. I don’t think he could have heard what Ducksy had said or he would have been dead. Anyway he was a really pleasant lad and put us on our way to the gig with no more troubles. </em></p>
<p><em>One night the Pieces weren’t gigging so I went to help out with another group called ‘The Four of a Kind’. We were all friendly with one another so I was happy to go and help. After the gig we were driving home; Stan Boucher was driving, I was sat in the middle and by the door was Dave Martin. The van these boys had chosen was an Austin J2, this had sliding doors in the front, we were trundling along some quiet country road when Dave gives me a nudge and indicates for me to be quiet. He gently opened his door on the pretext of having a fag and then slipped out through the door and crept around the front of the van on the front bumper by holding on to the windscreen wipers. </em></p>
<p><em>When he finally reached the other side of the van he opened the door and said ‘Hi Stan’. Stan nearly shit himself. He was absolutely terrified, but everyone else who by then had twigged what was going on thought it hilarious, although with hindsight a bit stupid. </em></p>
<p><em>One day our van caught fire. I had arranged to pick Phil up at his house and as I put the brakes on, at the end of his road, a can of petrol tipped over and some leaked out. It wasn’t much, probably less than an egg cup full. Anyway Phil decided to throw a match in it just to burn it off and not smell the van out. This turned out to be one of his poorer ideas, the inside of the van erupted in flame. Fortunately the gear was elsewhere. We had nothing handy to try and douse the flames and feared a pretty serious conflagration. </em></p>
<p><em>Just then this little old chap comes over with a little canister thing and asks if it would be of any use. It turned out to be a fire extinguisher and a couple of little squirts later, the flames were put out. Phil and I were pretty relieved that a disaster had been averted. All we had to show was a burnt patch on side of the van which we hand painted over with the nearest colour we could find though it wasn’t really a match, no pun intended. After that we made sure we had a fire extinguisher in the van at all times, although I don’t think we bought it. </em></p>
<p><em>The group also played support to ‘The Honeycombs’ a group with a couple of top 10 hits and a girl drummer called Honey Langtree. The gig was at The Ritz ballroom in Skewen, which is a small village near Neath, Port Talbot. </em></p>
<p><em>We had set up the gear ready for the night and gone over the road to a pub for some food and a drink. There were some girls in there who were going on to the gig; Phil was getting friendly with one of the girls who happened to be drinking cider. </em></p>
<p><em>Soon it was time to go back to the venue to get ready for the evening and as we were crossing the road, Phil tried to kiss his new friend and she threw up all over him. Maybe she didn’t really fancy him or it might have been the cider. </em></p>
<p><em>Before the gig Honey had asked if she could use Phil’s drums. This was agreed and the gig started. One of Phil’s cymbals had a crack in it and he had cut a chunk out of it to prevent the crack from travelling. When ‘The Honeycombs’ were playing, one of their songs was to finish with a big crash on the cymbal. When the moment came Honey managed to hit the bit with the chunk cut out. I think it quite spoilt the moment. </em></p>
<p><em>Another girl Phil had got friendly with lived in Preston in Lancashire. One night we had a gig in the Talgarth or Bronllys area. After the gig Phil said he wanted to go to Preston and asked if I would drive him to the M50 and he would thumb from there. I knew there wasn’t a great deal of fuel in the van so a group conference was held and it was agreed that I could take Phil while the others packed up the gear. </em></p>
<p><em>When I got back we loaded the van and set off home. We hadn’t gone very far when sure enough the van conked out; we had run out of petrol. It was about 2 a.m. and there wasn’t much open. The lads all got out and started pushing. Eventually we came to a slope and the van started rolling. I called for the lads to jump in but they said to just let it roll, so I carried on. The van kept rolling along for quite a long way. One mile went by and it kept going so I carried on and another mile went by. </em></p>
<p><em>Eventually the van rolled into Abergavenny and came to a stop. I had rolled the best part of 3 miles so I knew I had some time to kill before the lads caught me up. I started to think where I might be able to get some fuel. I went to the post office thinking they would be open all night getting ready for deliveries. I managed to get someone to open up and I explained my predicament, he said he couldn’t help me, as all the vehicles were diesel; I’d never thought of that. </em></p>
<p><em>Anyway I carried on trudging around the town looking for inspiration. I came across a petrol station with a house adjoining, however, it was all in darkness. I knocked the door anyway and after some time, someone appeared at an upstairs window. He didn’t sound too happy being woken up. I explained the problem but he wasn’t very helpful and told me to go away (that wasn’t his terminology). </em></p>
<p><em>By now I had run out of ideas so went back to van to wait for the lads. After some time they ambled into town. I told them what I had tried to do and there wasn’t much we could do until things started opening up so we decided we just had to hang around. After a while a fish lorry going through town stopped. We got talking to the driver who said he knew of a filling station in Pontypool, which opened at 6 am. He agreed to give a couple of the lads a lift to get a gallon of petrol so we jumped at the offer and a two of the lads set off. This driver turned out to be a good sort because he brought the lads back as well with a gallon of 4-star petrol. We eagerly poured the petrol in the van and carried on with the journey, at Pontypool we filled the tank and set off home to get some sleep. </em></p>
<p><em>One less pleasant memory for me was one night driving back from Cardigan; I was in my car for some reason. I had now progressed to a Ford Cortina Mk 1. I had Adrian, Rob & Mickey Evans with me. It was about 2 a.m. and we were at Cross Hands near Llanelli. I don’t know whether I nodded off, Rob thinks I did, but we hit another car and my car skidded what seemed like a very long way. My offside wing had come off, which we found about 100yds away, and the whole front of the car was pretty much destroyed. </em></p>
<p><em>We eventually got back to Rob’s house in Ebbw Vale early the next morning. I can’t remember how Adrian and I got home, but we were all very lucky to get out without a scratch on any one. When my car was brought to the garage I used in Newport it really was in a bad way and it was touch and go whether they would write it off. I was almost on my knees begging them to repair it instead, happily they agreed and about 6 weeks later I had my car back with a completely new front end.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/58562982019-08-15T09:24:04+01:002019-08-15T09:24:04+01:00Time Flies<p><strong>Thursday 15th Aug 2019</strong></p>
<p>Well it's been over a year since I posted here about gigging when you are band whose members live far apart from each other. Well what has happened since 15th June 2018?</p>
<p>Well we have played half a dozen gigs including three in England around where I live in Northants. We have another five planned taking us up to 29th February 2020 (yes it is a leap year) only one of which is in Wales, the other four are again around where I live in Northants.. </p>
<p>So did my last post dated 15th June 2018 encourage agents to book the band? Sadly no. All eleven gigs were obtained by myself using email, Facebook message, telephone and good old physical contact.</p>
<p>I have posted numerous times on those Facebook pages that are set up to assist bands in getting gigs, but not had a single 'bite'. I am not decrying the efforts of those who set up and maintain these pages or even agents who do have roles to play in the music business. I'm sure they both help in their own ways. It's more about pointing out the difficulties we face as a band whose members live in Spain, England and Wales.</p>
<p>Still stop moaning I tell myself. We had our time back in the 60s and at our ages, every day we wake up is a blessing and every time we play is a bonus.</p>
<p>I well remember that time six of us met up in the Celtic Manor on Thursday the 27th December 2012 to talk about the old days and have a drink. Little did we think that five of us would be playing some gigs or that three of us are still in the band nearly 7 years later contemplating playing into 2020 and hopefully beyond. Such a shame that Chippy hasn't managed to play with us.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/154c6274c1267be419410a162abf68fcc7a3ff8c/original/celtic-manor2.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>L:R Chippy, Percy, Adrian, Phil (RIP) Andy & Ducksy</strong></p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/52975612018-06-15T19:13:20+01:002018-06-15T19:14:58+01:00Fri, 15th June 2018 - Gigging?<p><span class="font_large">How do you get gigs when you are a band that has some people living far apart from each other? </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">Although</span> predominantly from South Wales, three of our seven members live in Southern Spain, Essex and Northants. This makes calendar planning quite difficult, but the real challenge is to actually get the gigs in the first place. </p>
<p>The band are relatively well known among people of our generation in South Wales, but less so in the rest of the UK. Venues in South Wales seem to be booked months and months ahead. Venues in the rest of the UK are similarly booked, but they have a tendency to book bands local to them and often unwilling to take a chance on a band they may have never heard of.</p>
<p>Being the 'leader' of the band, I have been the main person to try and get gigs. Having moved away from South Wales in the 1970s, any contact I make with a venue has to be in the form of a phone call or a digital format (email, Facebook message etc). Pubs and Clubs are extremely busy and often struggling to exist, so responses can be sparse. I also have lost touch with the South Wales music scene so not really aware of who has live music or not.</p>
<p>Getting gigs in and around where I live in Northants is just as problematic. I have a better view of the music scene local to where I live, however trying to persuade a band from South Wales to play in their pub or club is hard.</p>
<p><span class="font_large">So what do we do?</span></p>
<p>We are seven chaps that just love to play. We have minimal ties, being all retired from our 'day' jobs so can undertake periodic small tours anywhere in the UK or Europe.</p>
<p>Are there any agents out there willing to keep this lot happy?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="album" href="/album/150691/born-at-the-bosco" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/8608ced00afc7c0af6a17d95140e34c130c2df9e/original/globe-001.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">BTW Steve, our other drummer was off stage when pic taken</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/52889082018-06-11T17:08:23+01:002018-06-12T09:34:05+01:00Mon, 11th June 2018<p>Just about recovered from a couple of hectic days playing a gig with Rhod Gilbert, at the Globe in Cardiff. </p>
<p>Playing in part-time bands is always difficult, but when you do it in the twilight of your life, it's extremely difficult. Back in our 60s gigging years we had amps that were just as big, if not bigger, but had no issues in humping and dumping them from vans into venues. Yes we had one or two roadies to help but none of us found it a real burden.</p>
<p>Fifty plus years later and it takes two to three days for my body to recover. It's not the prancing around a stage carrying and playing a guitar that causes problems; it's mainly the packing up and loading a van after you have been prancing around for a couple of hours. </p>
<p>What we would give for a couple of strapping young roadies who would be prepared to work for nothing other than the genuine thanks of some old men.</p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/51195842018-03-09T14:02:37+00:002018-03-09T14:03:49+00:00Fri 9th March 2018<p>Well it's coming up to 6 months since we last played and there's been a few changes to the band lineup. </p>
<p>Andy, Bob & Phil have decided to call it a day and retire from gigging with the band. It's almost inevitable that people may want to spend what time they have left on this world, doing other things, so good luck to them. That means there will be seven of us for any future gigs, with usually six playing at any one time. </p>
<p>The band went through changes back in the 60 and carried on gigging, at least until 1969. With a bit of luck, we can carry on as long as our health does.</p>
<p>Hope to see you at the Bush and Caldicot FC in April and don't forget the night with Rhod Gilbert on the 8th June</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/18f8130b1633bf287c62d9d2c046faef44d20ab7/original/lineup-2018.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/49099992017-10-28T13:08:52+01:002017-10-28T13:17:18+01:00Sat 28th October 2017<p><strong>First gig at the Pen and Wig, Newport</strong></p>
<p>Last night's gig was great at a venue new to us. We hadn't played since the end of August and went straight into things as if we had only played a day or so ago. </p>
<p>We were a couple of members short, due to Vic recovering from his heart operation and Ric decided he wanted to go and see John Mayall, down in Cornwall</p>
<p>We even had some ladies, the 'Piecettes' as Andy lovingly refers to them, up on stage to provide backing vocals on the Night time is the Right Time. Clare, Alison, Sally, Alison and Jayne (out of pic) strutting their frenzied funky stuff making the Raelettes look rather lame.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/4df9899e8861a00e5870d71b24f1f7393bed7279/original/penandwig.jpg?1509192331" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/46545022017-04-01T15:44:43+01:002017-04-01T15:56:48+01:00Born at the Bosco Cover<strong>Sat, 1st April 2017</strong><br><br>When we recorded our first album in 2014, as well as selecting the songs we had to decide on the artwork. We had already decided to title the album 'Born at the Bosco' in recognition of the place that the band really came together in 1963.<br><br>St John Bosco Hall was, and still is a hall situated at the back of St Patrick's Church on Cromwell Road, Newport. Those running the place used to let the band practice in the hall and that's how we laid down the foundations for the type of music we play today.<br><br>I suggested that our long friend, John Beardmore take some images of the hall and use one of them, however as seen below the hall was never the most photogenic of places so we had to rethink.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/8a2a464f6685b814312c10da8e384893e260c562/original/dsc-1075.jpg?1491056508" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><br>I suggested to John that he take some images of the church instead so he came up with a few for us to pick from. We all thought that a black and white image would suit the band better, so John first added some clouds to make it look 'brooding'. But it still didn't look right, so John suggested adding a lightning strike as shown in the coloured shot below. We all agreed this was what we wanted, but in black and white as shown in the next image. <br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/faaae243935a2b58e893b84e5fd85523fb48a429/original/dsc-1055-brood-cloudbw.jpg?1491056896" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/726d34562a95354b264fdcc70fbd58ec6ca6d3d4/original/dsc-1055-colour-lightning.jpg?1491056906" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/c9e63d83f2481ac5360edf7bd0bb4391a7c91e7a/original/dsc-1055-bw-lightning.jpg?1491056902" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><br><br>The final stage was then to trim the above image to fit the size of a CD cover and add the album title and band name to end up with the final cover shown below.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/fa1bb7c77de6dd52480cdcb70ef1d58b49e73d74/original/batb-cover.jpg?1491057804" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p> </p>
<p> </p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/45585992017-01-21T10:50:51+00:002017-04-01T15:46:29+01:00Rob Evans Memorial<p><strong>Mon, 3rd Oct 2016 </strong></p>
<p>On Saturday, the 1st Oct, we played a memorial gig at the Ebbw Vale Catholic Hall, for Rob Evans who sadly succumbed to the big 'C' last year. </p>
<p>Rob played with the Pieces for a while back at the end of the 60s and he had a part in suggesting the meet up in 2013, which led to the reunion. Rob was too ill to play with us at the reunion or subsequent gigs, but he did manage to come to some. </p>
<p>The gig was almost a 50th Anniversary by itself. On Sunday 4th Dec 1966, we played Tredegar Workmen's Hall Cinema raising money for the Aberfan Disaster Fund which occurred on October 21st 1966. For those that are not aware of what happened that dreadful day, 144 people, including 116 children lost their lives when a waste tip slid down a mountainside into the mining village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. </p>
<p>The bands that played at the fund raising event in December 1966 were the Choice, which had a young Henry Spinetti on drums; Fusion which morphed into Now and Then and us </p>
<p>50 years later the Pieces & Now and Then re-united at the Catholic Hall Ebbw Vale for the CFA fund raiser in memory of Rob Evans. Rob was there at the Tredegar event back in 1966. We were luck that Henry Spinetti was available to come along as well </p>
<p>The video below is us playing the Freddie King song, Going Down with a guest drummer... our friend, Henry Spinetti. </p>
<p>Henry, as well as supporting us way back in 1966 had also played with Adrian in Judas Jump. </p>
<p>Henry has worked with Katie Melua, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Jones, Bill Wyman, Pete Townsend, Roger Daltry, Labi Siffri, Mike Batt, Joan Armatrading, Andy Fairweather -Low,The Herd, Leo Sayer, Gerry Rafferty, including the single 'Baker Street' and I'm sure many others.<br> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="jFgiWU7y8jw" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/jFgiWU7y8jw/0.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jFgiWU7y8jw?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="200" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/41523422016-04-25T15:00:45+01:002017-04-01T08:57:48+01:00Memories of Days Gone By<p><strong>Mon, 25th April 2016</strong><br><br>It's been a while since I posted something, but this morning I was thinking about the days when there were countless places for bands, or groups as we called them, to play in and around South Wales? I'm sure those in other parts of the World who are about our ages will have similar memories</p>
<p>Looking back through our 60s gig diary, we were getting bookings (gigs for the young ones) on every night of the week, in numerous venues from pubs to large dance halls and they were always packed. </p>
<p>These days, you are lucky if you play at the weekends, usually Friday or Saturday night and it's mainly pubs and clubs. Sometimes the pubs get a few in and the clubs are packed until they finish bingo. </p>
<p>A large proportion of the venues in our diary have disappeared, either demolished or they no longer have music. </p>
<p>As we in the band are coming to the sunset of our musical lives, I often wonder where the youth of today are going to be able to develop their musical talents. It can't just be in those music academies that seemed to have sprung up in the major cities. They need to be able to perform at the 'grassroots' level before getting booked for some blues/rock/jazz/indie/reggae/etc festival in Timbucktu.<br> </p>
<div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/42a312e7a7dd039e91e937d69ddd3068fc6e8337/original/westend-ballroom.jpg?1404647000" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>The West End Ballroom, Birmingham. Demolished to make way for the Bull Ring</strong><br><br><img class='size_l justify_center' src='//s3.amazonaws.com/content.sitezoogle.com/u/127750/e934fe8171dec5e8353066bdac4918bcf5eac392/original/pomtalent01.jpg?0'><br> <strong>Porthcawl</strong></p></div>
<p><br><br> </p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/37726502015-07-10T09:29:04+01:002017-02-05T02:00:26+00:00July 2015 Gigs<p>Many thanks to all those people, who came to the three gigs, to support a load of people in the twilight of their lives, doing the thing they used to 50 odd years ago.</p>
<p>Needless to say, all our bodies and throats are suffering a bit, but it was well worth the pain to see old and new friends again. We will be doing some more, hopefully later in the year.<br><br>Thanks to Dave Peace as well for making the journey and finding the lost recordings from 1968</p>
<p>In the meantime, if any of you enjoyed the music remember you can get the Born at the Bosco album on Amazon, iTunes and t<span class="text_exposed_show">hose other digital thingies like Spotify,<br>Thanks again.<br><br><a contents="Born at the Bosco on Amazon" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SJC9WP0/ref=dm_rogue_cd" target="_blank">Born at the Bosco on Amazon</a></span><br><br><a contents="The Pieces of Mind on ReverbNation" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.reverbnation.com/thepiecesofmind" target="_blank">The Pieces of Mind on ReverbNation</a><br><br> </p>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/35940662015-03-12T11:52:32+00:002015-03-12T11:52:32+00:00March 2015 GigsWe had a hectic 3 days at the beginning of the month. <br><br>On Friday 6th March, Adrian, Andy & Ducksy went to Swansea to join Michael Kennedy on his Welsh Connections show on <a contents="Oystermouth Radio" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.oystermouthradio.com/" target="_blank">Oystermouth Radio</a>. We spent a great couple of hours reminiscing about the 60s whilst playing tracks from our debut album, Born at the Bosco.<br><br>After spending the night in Swansea, we returned to our home town and the afternoon was spent getting ready for the gig at Pontypool Workingmen's club. The three of us were all suffering from upset stomachs. I blamed the chips the previous evening, but Adrian and Andy seemed to think the beer may have been the reason.<br><br>The gig in the evening seemed to go well, despite our initial fears that those playing bingo at the start wouldn't like us!!<br><br>On the Sunday, we returned to the Commercial Hotel in Abertillery where we had another great gig. With the number of us on stage these days, this venue is a bit tight for us to play, but we managed it. Crowd were really receptive and we are looking forward to the next one in July.<br><br>Now we are all taking a rest until the July gigs, well apart from trying to promote our album <a contents="Born at the Bosco" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SJC9WP0/ref=dm_rogue_cd" target="_blank">Born at the Bosco</a> <br><br> <div style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="tjim56zBizU" data-video-thumb-url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/tjim56zBizU/0.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tjim56zBizU?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="400" width="640" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div> <br> The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/35249392015-02-12T11:28:32+00:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00PhilIt's hard to believe it's almost a year since we lost our dear friend and great drummer, Phil Edwards. <br><br>There are pics and memories at <a contents="Phil Edwards" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.thepiecesofmind.com/phil-edwards">Phil Edwards</a> however my favourite is this one taken in October 1966 at the Westgate in Newport. The occasion was Andy's stag night and yes, we got slaughtered. We don't half look posh.<br><br>Phil, we all miss you.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/48809770af38a42af298a0e9abf3005772002afb/original/pomandystagnight.jpg?1423740345" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>L to R Andy, Ducksy, Adrian & Phil (RIP)</strong></p></div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/35162542015-02-09T09:18:16+00:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00Born at the Bosco released<strong>9th February 2015</strong><br>The album is finally released today.<br><br>It's been available as digital downloads on Amazon and iTunes for a couple of weeks but now people can get hold of a CD from <a contents="Amazon UK" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SJC9WP0/ref=dm_rogue_cd" target="_blank">Amazon UK</a><br><br>It's also available in Diverse Music, Charles Street, Newport<br><br><a contents="Diverse Music" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/diversemusicnewport" target="_blank">Diverse Music</a><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/136c3d0592fb30f5a23b07c1c09462820db205a4/original/diverse-music-logo-copy.jpg?1422459562" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><br><br> The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/34661582015-01-14T18:52:19+00:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00Born at the BoscoWe have been busy over the last few days, reviewing the Masters and then the artwork so, it's taken us over 50 years, but we are about to finally release our first album.<br><br>Back in the 60s we were too busy enjoying ourselves with girls, alcohol and other things so despite offers, we never went into a studio to record anything. The only recording we have is of a live gig back in 1966. It's terrible quality as it was taken using a small reel to reel at the back of a packed hall, but at least we have it.<br><br>Back in 2013 we had a reunion gig to celebrate our 50th Anniversary of the band. Since then we have been on local radio and TV and our stuff has been played on various stations around the World.<br><br>In 2014, the Manic Street Preachers gave us 3 days in their recording studio and also arranged for a top engineer, Dave Eringa, to produce us. Dave had just finished work on the Wilko/Daltrey album 'Going Back Home' and apparently liked working with old people. <img src="//www.vintagerocker.com/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /><br><br><br>So we are finally there. We are not expecting to sell millions; to be honest we are happy enough with just having done what we should have back in the 60s. <br><br>Now we are starting work on our next, which will be all originals rather than just the 4 on this one.<br><br> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:#FF0000;"><span class="font_xl"><strong>This one is for you Phil, </strong></span> <span class="font_xl"><strong>I hope you like it up there</strong></span></span></div>
<div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/3fe44a18a7a7ffbc5257e9cc338e3213ad603167/original/batb-cover.jpg?1421260818" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"> </p></div>
<div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/f8b34fc8eeb73a8a5350bdd57e7d5c39c485814a/original/batb-credits.jpg?1421260819" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"> BTW the Bosco is a hall at the back of the church on the cover. It's where we first started in 1963</p></div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/33040102014-11-19T15:16:38+00:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00Setup and Sound Check<div style="text-align: justify;">On Tuesday 23rd April, I started moving all of my equipment from where it was normally stored into our living room, to save a bit of time the next day. I would be picking up the vehicle from Banbury, which was about 10 miles away and wasn’t sure how long the pick-up process would take. The next morning Jackie took me into Banbury to collect the van. At this stage, I wasn’t sure what sort of van it would be; only that it was going to be a small one. When we got there, I was relieved to find out that it was a Volkswagen Caddy and not one of the Vauxhall Astra vans, which were not much bigger than our car.<br> <br>I drove back home, feeling a bit unsure, as it was a long time since I had driven a commercial type vehicle and certainly the first time I had driven a Caddy. I was surprised how much like a car it was to drive. The only real difference was the view from the rear-view mirror. The Caddy had a bulkhead grille that obscured the view, however, the large wing mirrors helped out a lot. When I arrived back at my house, it didn’t take too long to load up especially as I had brought all my equipment downstairs and piled it up in our living room. I was really glad to have hired the van, as it would have been very difficult to get everything into our car. Having loaded the van, I set off for Andy’s house in Pontypool, around midday. I decided to go via the M40, M5 and M50 for a change of scenery and just over 2 hours later, I reached Andy’s house.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> <br>Phil James had emailed me, the previous day, to say he had completed the stage riser and installed it in the CWMC, so Andy and I arranged to pop over to the club to take a look, with Phil and Steve Leman. It was huge and must have taken Phil and his workers a long time to build, so well done to them. It was certainly impressive and looked ideal for our needs. A couple of us tested that it could take our weight and it was certainly solid enough.<br> <br>Phil told me that when he installed the stage riser he had a chat to the steward who told him that the phone had not stopped ringing all day. He had well over 150 people after tickets. I was beginning to think that we should have done 2 shows on consecutive days; however, it was too late now.<br> <br>That evening, over 20 of us met in the Greenhouse pub for a meal. It was a great opportunity for us to meet family and friends of the various band members, especially as we would be extremely busy over the next couple of days. Vic had brought his wife and a few family and friends and it was strange, but nice to hear London accents in a pub full of Welsh voices. They were all very friendly and extremely keen to see this band that Vic had played with all those years ago, perform on stage.<br> <br>Throughout our meal, I could see a few people pointing to our tables and when I went up to the bar, I heard someone say ‘there’s one of them’, as I passed a group of people. I must admit it made me feel very happy, although I felt a little concern as to whether we would live up to expectations.<br> <br>During the evening, a young man came up to me and asked if I was ‘Ducksy’. I wasn’t sure whether to say yes or no, as he was quite tall and built like a Welsh rugby player, however, I said I was. He then said that his dad had told him to tell me that Graham Davies was a better guitarist than I was. I told him to tell his dad, that I agreed with him. I think this surprised him somewhat, however, he told me his dad was one of my friends on Facebook and he was just trying to wind me up. I managed to have a chat with Peter, his dad at the gig.<br> <br>The next morning Andy and I went to a cafe, just down from where he lives, to have breakfast. We decided that as we would be busy for most of the day, we would have a large meal of eggs, beans, bacon and black pudding. The breakfast was extremely greasy and perhaps not that healthy, however, it tasted great.<br> <br>The club was allowing us to set up the equipment the day before and though they had a bingo session on the Thursday evening, as long as we could leave room on the front of the stage, it was fine to leave everything overnight, ready for the gig, the next day. We planned to leave most of the equipment and just take guitars; microphones and cymbals back home with us.<br> <br>Steve Leman came round with his van around 11.30 to transport both his drums and Andy’s bass equipment. Unfortunately, Steve had hurt his back, so all the humping and dumping was down to Andy and me. I thought my amplifiers were fairly heavy; however, the weight of the bass amplifiers and cabinets really surprised me. Bruno was going to use the Phil Jones bass amp and cabinets that Andy owned. The amp only used 5-inch speakers; however, there were 18 of them in the 2 cabinets. Coupled with the amp and cabinets intended for Andy and Percy to use on bass, it took us a while to manhandle them into the van.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Once our vans were loaded, we made our way to the club, to meet the others and start setting up the equipment. It took us a couple of hours to get all the equipment installed up on the stage, the way I had planned. Even with the stage riser, it was going to be a tight squeeze, however, for a one-off gig, I was sure we would cope.<br> <br>The 2 sets of drums and the keyboards just about fitted on the stage riser. We put the right-handed set, for Steve and Ted on the left, as you looked at the stage; the left-handed set, for Phil was in the middle and the keyboards, for Bob, were placed at an angle on the far right. It was a squeeze for Phil and Bob to access their instruments, so once we started a set, they would have to stay where they were.<br> <br>It was awkward for Steve and Ted as well, as they were the ones that would be doing most of the changes. When one was playing the drums, the other had to stand near the entrance to the dressing room area. I tried to minimise the effect of the changes, as illustrated in the set list shown later, by having Phil play a song whilst they changed over, however, it was a challenge and, with hindsight, it might have been better for Steve and Ted to play a set each.<br> <br>We placed all the guitar amplifiers in a line, in front of the stage riser, starting on the left with my amp, Andy’s bass amp, a guitar amp for Andy and Percy when they played rhythm guitar, Vic’s amp and Bruno’s bass amp. I had to move my amp onto the wing of the stage, so the others could fit.<br> <br>The plan was that I would be on the left with Andy, Adrian, Percy, Vic, Bruno, Glyn, Coco and Rick going across the stage. However, due to the stairs on the right of the stage, we had to compromise a bit by having the brass section of Coco, Glyn and Rick slightly behind the rest of us. <br> <br>Ian Day couldn’t be there on the Thursday, with his PA system, so we had to manage with the one I had bought. We placed the PA mixer just next to the stairs on the right of the stage. Not knowing much about mixers, it proved to be quite difficult for me to get sound right for vocals. Luckily, when Bob Teague arrived, he just twiddled some knobs and it sounded great.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">We ran through various songs as both a sound check and practice, as our previous rehearsal time for the gig had been quite limited. At the time, I didn’t really appreciate how much of a challenge it was going to be to direct what was going on, particularly from where I was on the extreme left of the stage. With hindsight, I should have moved into the middle, probably where Vic was standing.<br> <br>As a sop to old age, I intended using electronic devices to display lyrics for both Adrian and Andy. I purchased an attachment that I could mount my iPad Mini onto a microphone stand and used a document application to display the lyrics. John Beardmore had another make of tablet that he managed to get a similar stand attachment and document application. I produced files, in set order, containing the lyrics of all the songs. It was relatively easy to scroll through the songs and have the lyrics there as a reminder, more than anything.<br> <br>We took a break from rehearsing to try and reproduce a couple of the photographs of the early band. The photograph used on the tickets was for publicity we had done early in 1964, when Andy joined. Will Lowe could not make the reunion, however, the other 5 were all present.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/c4bda2e3a814bd9f3f95906b80c0d7fe1ff7f498/original/graveyard1.jpg?1416409134" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>The Original Graveyard Photograph</strong><br> </p></div>
<div>
<em>Left to Right: Adrian Williams, Phil Edwards (RIP), John ‘Ducksy’ Reardon and Robert ‘Percy’ Price being carried. <br>This would have been taken sometime between August 1965 and February 1966. From the clothes we are wearing, I guess it’s more likely to be sometime in August or September 1965. I think the location was St Woolos cemetery. As mentioned earlier, this was the same version of the Pieces that supported The Who.</em><br> </div>
<br>We tried to reproduce the graveyard shot we had done in late 1965, which showed Adrian, Phil and I carrying Percy. Unfortunately this didn’t quite have the same impact as Percy had put on a little weight and we no longer had the strength we had in the 60s. Still it was fun trying.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/5863cedee62e8cf2fb72885368849ca3e26dad95/original/new-graveyard.jpg?1416409262" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>The Graveyard Photograph Attempt</strong><br> <em>Left to Right: Adrian Williams, Phil Edwards (RIP), John ‘Ducksy’ Reardon and Robert ‘Percy’ Price being carried. <br><em>This was taken at the set-up and sound check on the 25<sup>th</sup> April 2013. As you can see we struggled a bit to carry Percy and that’s not because he </em>has put a stone or two in weight, it’s more to do with the fact we are all old-age pensioners; still, it was not a bad attempt.</em><br><br><br><img class='size_l justify_center' src='//s3.amazonaws.com/content.sitezoogle.com/u/127750/e9cc51af12ddc30101e2ae33b982c1e5301bd52a/original/publicity.jpg?1416409404'><br> <strong>The Pieces of Mind in 1964</strong> <em>L to R front row: Will Lowe, Percy and Adrian Williams. Back Row: John ‘Ducksy’ Reardon, Steve Strong and Andy Gibbon. <br>I can’t remember the name of the studio, but the photograph was in Newport, for publicity. This photograph was also used for publicity and tickets for the 50<sup>th</sup> Anniversary Reunion in 2013.</em><br><br><img class='size_l justify_center' src='//s3.amazonaws.com/content.sitezoogle.com/u/127750/2224afff04f05d0046f7de66998ca4a55b9f6b25/original/original-pieces02.jpg?1416409744'><br><strong>The Pieces of Mind in 2013</strong> <br><br> <em>Left to Right, front row: Percy and Adrian Williams. Back Row: John Beardmore, John ‘Ducksy’ Reardon, Steve Strong and Andy Gibbon. <br>This was taken the day before the reunion gig in April 2013, with John Beardmore standing in for Will Lowe. We have all aged a little bit.</em> </p></div>
<div>
<br>Steve Cleaves had made a superb Pieces of Mind Sign for Ted’s bass drum and when both sets of drums were set up, side by side, it didn’t quite look right, with the drums Phil would be using having no sign. Coco arranged for someone to make a couple of copies of Steve’s sign; one for the drums Phil would be using and the other for the wall at the back of the stage.<br> <br>As we were about to run through a last couple of songs my Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue amp that Andy and Percy were using, when playing rhythm, stopped working. The power switches were at the back of the amp and I think Percy must have flicked them off too quick, ignoring the standby switch. It wasn’t too much of a calamity as I had a spare amp head that could drive the speaker in the Fender.<br> <br>When we finished, I took the amp back to Andy’s house, with the intention of seeing if we could fix it or even take it to a local music shop the next day. Andy got his tools out and soon determined that it was just a fuse that had blown. He had a supply of the correct fuses, so swiftly changed it and all was working fine.<br><br>On the day of the gig, we turned up at the club around noon for a sound check. When Ian Day arrived, he set up his PA system, alongside mine. Initially we had planned to put microphones on all the instruments; however we decided that it wasn’t necessary for the guitar amps so just used them on the bass drums. <br><br>To try and make it easier for the film crew, we used Ian’s mixer for all the vocal microphones and those for the brass section. The only instrument that went through mine was the keyboard output. With hindsight, this was probably a mistake. I think we should have definitely split the load between the mixers and not put so much a strain on Ian’s.<br> <br>We spent a couple of hours doing a sound check and then ran through a few songs for the last time before the gig. Whilst we were doing this, Glyn Williams and his wife, Wendy turned up. It was great that he could make the gig and wonderful to see him after such a long time.<br> <br>Sam Gummer arrived with a few colleagues to set up his equipment for filming the gig. He wanted to set up some tracking rails in front of the stage, to enable his cameras be operated remotely. However, when I saw how wide they were and how much they encroached into the dance floor space, I sadly had to tell him to remove them. Bearing in mind the age of the audience, they would have been a bit too dangerous when people were dancing.<br><br>Whilst we were doing the sound check, John Beardmore and Steve Leman were getting the tables organised and ready for both the Charity ladies who would be taking tickets and the people from Sticky Ink Studios who would be selling t-shirts. <br><br>Steve had produced numerous posters of the band that he placed on tables and the walls around the club. They also checked that we had sufficient chairs in the room for the 250 people we were expecting to attend. I asked them to go over the 250 just in case.<br> <br>With little else to do, we all left the club around 4 p.m. to go back to the various places we were staying and get ready for the evening. I asked everyone if they could be back at the club by 6:30, ready for when the doors would open at 7. <br> <br>We were now less than 4 hours from achieving my dream of playing with the Pieces of Mind again. <br> </div>
<div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/716940169d56011a90f011fa0931a2a72ab8fe39/original/setup01.jpg?1416410143" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>Ready for the 50th Anniversary Reunion Gig</strong><br> </p></div>
<div>
<em>We had all set up and sound checked. It was time to go back to hotels and homes to get ready to play a gig again for the first time in well over 4 decades. There was little time to get nervous, in fact we were all as excited as school children on a day trip to Barry Island. </em> <br> </div>
</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/32736362014-11-09T15:25:09+00:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00More Rehearsals and Planning<div style="text-align: justify;">I travelled down to Wales, early on the morning of Thursday the 4th April 2013. We had arranged to start the practice at 10 in the morning, so set off at 6.45 allowing plenty of time for traffic. After paying my £6.20 to a private company, for the privilege of entering my own country, I carried on into Wales. A few miles up the motorway, I stopped at the Magor Services for a short break, eventually arriving at the YMCA, on Mendalgief Road, at just gone 9.15.<br> <br>The route, coming from the M4 motorway, took me over a bridge, new to me, which appeared to be between the George Street Bridge and the Transporter Bridge. At least it saved me driving through the bombsite of central Newport. I believe those that determine these things have given it the enterprising name of New City Bridge.<br> <br>Surprisingly, I was the first to arrive; however Ted arrived shortly after, followed by the others. We quickly set up the amps and Andy, Percy and I warmed up playing a blues, whilst Ted and Steve got to know each other and sort out the drums. John Beardmore set up his cameras, ready to start taking photographs and videos.<br> <br>Steve quickly settled into playing songs he had played with us all that time ago, and, as with Ted, at the first practice, it was just as if we had never stopped playing together. We devoted most of the day to Steve, as he had missed out on previous rehearsals, so it meant Ted was hanging about for long periods. To make use of his time, he stood in for Adrian on many of the vocals.<br> <br>Phil James joined us mid-morning to check progress. Phil was going to play trumpet at the gig; however, the songs we were practicing were mainly Blues, so he joined in on tambourine or maracas. Steve Cleaves, an old friend from the 60s, also popped in to see how we were progressing.<br><br>Sam Gummer arrived around lunchtime. Unfortunately he had been at the Royal Gwent, most of the night, with one of his relatives, who had been taken ill (I found out later that the relative was his Grand Father who sadly passed away in 2014). He quickly set his cameras up and started filming. <br><br>By the end of the day, we had gone through all of the songs, deciding who, out of Steve and Ted would play drums. We were planning to have 2 sets of drums on stage; however, the awkward thing was that Phil Edwards was a left-handed player, whilst Steve and Ted were both right handed. This meant that it was only realistic for the right-handed people to change around; otherwise it would take too long to swap drummers.<br> <br>When considering the songs that Steve and Ted would play on, I had to juggle the order to minimise the drummer changes. In addition, I had to consider the 5 songs that Ted was due to sing. The set list was proving to be considerably more difficult to organise than I had imagined.<br> <br>The next day the 5 of us went to Bob Teague’s studio, where we joined Bob, Rick Lawton, Phil James, John Beardmore, Sam Gummer and Bob’s little dog. It was very cozy in the small studio, which is based in the loft above Bob’s place of work.<br><br>We spent some time bringing Bob and Rick up to speed on what we had been doing the previous day, before getting down to practice. We decided to spend some time on the instrumental ‘Because they’re Young’, which we were intending to open the first set. Bob and Rick had been getting to know the song in the 4 weeks since the main rehearsals at Dragon Bands, so it didn’t take too long before we had the instrumental sounding quite good. <br><br>I had earlier suggested we do a full version of the instrumental before introducing Johnnie Walker, and then go into I Wish You Would. Steve would give me a quick introduction on the drums, before I started playing the Duane Eddy riff 4 times, leading into the main melody. Bob had the idea that we should play the melody a few times, adding in various instruments each time we went through the melody.<br> <br>Finally we would finish with the riff, again played 12 times, before we stopped and I would introduce Johnnie. The instrumental would now last just under 3 minutes and probably be a shock to most of the audience, who were unaware that Johnnie Walker would be at the gig. They would be surprised that we were playing an instrumental, as it wasn’t the sort of thing we played with the Pieces back in the 1960s.<br> <br>We spent the rest of the session going over the existing songs on the set list tidying up starts and finishes. I was a bit conscious of the fact that we still hadn’t rehearsed a couple of the soul songs we were planning to do in the second set. I thought that Adrian’s voice should be able to handle ‘Down in the Valley’, however; I was concerned whether he could do justice to the beginning of ‘Ain’t too proud to Beg’. We intended to set up the day before and we were going to do a sound check in the afternoon of the gig, so I was hoping there would be time to cover these 2 songs.<br><br>After packing the gear into our cars, we decided to adjourn to a pub not far from Bob’s house to wind down before we made our way to our homes. It was nearly 10 p.m. before I completed the 125 miles to my house, where I went straight to bed, utterly shattered, yet again. <br><br>When I checked my emails, the next day, I was delighted to find that Glyn Williams and his wife, Wendy, were able to come to the gig and would be arriving in Cwmbran in the early afternoon of the day of the gig. We had planned to do a sound check at the club, so Glyn was going to pop in and see us all.<br> <br>This was great news that I had to let the others; particularly Adrian and Andy know, so sent off an email to Adrian and called Andy. We now had everyone coming that could come, apart from Roy Winston Davies.<br> <br>Exactly a week after the practice, Ted Dyer received an email, via St David’s Hospice Care, from a freelance TV producer who wanted to get in touch with the band and talk to us about our experiences of the Sixties. Ted forwarded the email to me and I called the producer to find out what she was doing.<br><br>She was working on a four part series for BBC Wales about Wales and the Sixties being produced by Testimony Films. She had been asked to find ordinary people with extraordinary stories relating to the sixties. BBC Wales had been very emphatic about the fact; they wanted 'real people' as opposed to the usual celebrities. They wanted touching, well-told stories that captured the detail of everyday life at the time and the difference between then and now. <br><br>She wanted to talk to one or two of the band members about their own memories of the sixties, especially in relation to the first programme, which was about the anti-chapel movement and the move towards more liberal attitudes, driven by a generation of Welsh pop stars and their fans, as well as a global hippie counter-culture.<br> <br>She also thought that we might have stories relevant to the third programme, which was about the transport revolution, brought about by better transport links such as the Severn Bridge. She suspected that we were on the road a lot, travelling to gigs, and wondered how the building of the bridge impacted on our lives. I explained that yes the Bridge did impact our lives, as it wasn’t built when we were at our height of playing in 1966. It did stop us doing gigs in the Bristol area, as it was too far to travel via Gloucester.<br> <br>I immediately contacted Sam Gummer to see if he knew anything of the series and ask his opinion. I didn’t want him to feel as if he was being replaced, especially as he had done a lot of work with us and it may be good for his career. Sam knew the lady; in fact she was one of the lecturers at his University. Sam had proposed the idea of our band reunion to her a while ago, so perhaps she had forgotten about it.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Over the following weeks she explored more detail with me and asked for photographs and whether I had any moving archive of us playing. I sent her photographs of the 4-piece band playing a gig at Tredegar Working Men’s Hall and a short 10-second silent movie that Don Jones had taken of Waterfield ISE. It wasn’t of the Pieces of Mind, but it did show Andy and me, along with Chris Sharley. <br><br>At the beginning of May 2013, after we had played the reunion gig, I was contacted by a lady from Testimony Films. She was very interested in the sexual revolution and wanted to know what impact, if any did the pill have on relationships. The lady sounded quite young and I must admit I was a little uncertain about having a chat about sex to a female, probably young enough to be my granddaughter, especially over the phone. I eventually said the pill or other contraceptives didn’t have much impact on men, as most of us didn't bother too much back then.<br> <br>I am not sure she wanted to hear that, however, she asked for contact details of Adrian and Andy and said she would be call them as soon as she could. None of us have heard anymore, so I can only assume that our stories were not what the Film Company wanted or perhaps we weren’t ‘real’ enough. I was not too disappointed as I was still concerned that it might have undermined what Sam Gummer was trying to achieve. However, I thought the film company or the lady from the BBC would have had the courtesy to say we weren’t what they wanted.<br><br>The series started on BBC Wales in November 2013 with Andy Fairweather Lowe talking about his time in the Sect Maniacs. They must have considered his experiences more interesting than ours. <br><br>It was now less than 2 weeks before we would be on stage in the Cwmbran Working Men’s Club. We had sold, or at least reserved places for well over 250 people, but would they actually turn up on the night. As yet, no money had actually been taken, so the whole evening could be a massive flop, with the charity receiving very little, and us having a lot of egg on our faces.<br> <br>I still had much to do in that 2-week period, answering emails, taking telephone calls and ensuring that the PA we were borrowing from Ian Day was both available and would supplement mine.<br> <br>Ian had confirmed with Andy that both he and his PA would be free for the gig; however, he was concerned at the number of microphones and DI channels we would need for the gig. Andy had shown him a copy of an email I had sent out to the band that detailed 19 channels would be needed if we put microphones on the amplifiers as well as those for vocals.<br> <br>Ian’s concerns were perfectly valid; however, he wasn’t aware that I had a PA system as well. I explained that having microphones on the guitar amps and drums were an ambition and not necessarily what we would end up as doing.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I explained that Sam Gummer would be filming the gig and he wanted to take the sound from the deck, and he mentioned it would be better to ‘mike’ up stuff. Whilst the guitars were not an issue, the drums would be, as we didn’t have microphones for them. The most we could hope for are a couple of bass drum microphones, not that I think we would need them as all the drummers were loud, particularly Phil Edwards, who always seemed to use tree stumps for drumsticks. <br><br>The minimum number of channels we would want is 11, which allowed us to have 6 vocal microphones, 4 microphones for brass and 1 for keys. We could, if necessary reduce that a bit by 2 of the brass sharing and 2 backing vocals sharing, so it could come down to 9. This would not involve any of the guitar amps having microphones.<br> <br>The maximum number of channels, assuming guitars & bass drums are miced, would be 19 and we could always use my 12 channels PA system as well. I was hoping of running most of the instruments through my mixer and leaving Ian’s PA system to handle the vocals, two saxophones and a flute, which would need a total of 9 channels. If Sam wanted to take feeds off for filming, then he would need to sort out his own requirements. The priority had to be the sound for the band on the night.<br> <br>Ian took all my comments on board and said we would all bring a bunch of stuff and figure it out as best we can at the set up and sound check on the afternoon of the gig. He warned that the microphones would suck power like crazy, so if our back line is going to be loud, which he was sure it would be with the number of people playing, hopefully there would be enough headroom to get the vocals and brass loud enough. <br><br>His rig was a compact pub rig, pretty pokey in normal conditions and he thought we were asking a lot of it. He also wanted us to think of things such as numerous microphone leads stretching across the stage, as he does not have a multicore stage box. In the end all we could do is just bring all we've got, and suck it and see. <br> <br>I asked everyone who was bringing equipment to check it all out before they brought it to the set up and sound check. I also bought a few rolls of ‘gaffa’ tape and labels for the microphone leads in an endeavour to bring some sort of normality to the chaos that I expected to happen.<br> <br>Ian’s point about having microphone leads stretching across the stage was in fact a perfectly valid one. Despite using gaffa tape to hold the leads down, they still got in the way. Since the gig, I have bought a multicore ‘snake’ that will greatly assist at any future gigs, even if the cable reel it’s on is rather large. <br> <br>I had a couple more Skype calls with Adrian to finalise the set list and let him know how the mini practice at Bob’s house had gone. It was our first and only practice with Steve Strong, so he was obviously interested in how he coped. I told him that he was very good and in fact much better than when he played with the Pieces. I also said he hadn’t changed much, just got fatter like many of us.<br> <br>One of the ladies coming to the gig, Anne Hambrook suggested we have a guest book for the night for people to sign, so I bought a faux leather covered journal for this purpose. She also suggested decorating the tables. Whilst we didn’t do this, the idea made us think of putting posters advertising the raffle and some that described the band on the tables.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">The final decision I had to make was the equipment I would be taking to the gig. Andy or Percy would be using one of my guitars, when they were not playing bass. I planned to take 6 guitars, with an additional one being delivered to me on the night. Apart from the Hamer Cruise bass, they were all Gibson. The Gibson Custom Shop guitars were a 335, 336, 1959 Historic Les Paul and a 1960 Historic Les Paul. I was also taking the Les Paul Special that was a raffle prize. <br><br>The guitar I was hoping would be delivered on the night was the Les Paul Standard that I had asked Mike Wright to install a 2TEK® bridge. It seemed a lot, but I was determined to enjoy my guitars on the night.<br> <br>My amplifier for the night would be my Blackstar Artisan 30w head driving an Artisan 2x12 cabinet; I would take an Orange Dual Terror as a spare. The final amplifier that Andy or Percy would be using to play rhythm guitar was my Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue.<br><br>Together with the Peavey PA system, PA Speakers and miscellaneous guitar and microphone stands, it was now getting to be a problem fitting it all in the car, so a couple of days before I set off for Wales and the gig, I decided to rent a small van. <br><br>The last bit of planning I did before setting off was to arrange for all of us, who would be in Wales on the Wednesday before the gig, to meet up for a meal. This was going to be a social occasion as well us playing. I knew that family and friends of Vic and Bruno were coming to the gig, so I thought it was a good opportunity for people to meet. I asked Phil James if he could recommend a pub and book tables and he arranged for us all to eat at the Greenhouse in Llantarnam.</div><br>There were a few last minute panics, such as running out of lanyards for the band backstage passes; sorting out what on stage monitors, if any, we would be using on the night and were there sufficient power outlets on or near the stage. All tested my patience, but were easily solved. <div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>After 17 extremely busy weeks of making and taking telephone calls, dealing with over 2000 emails, Internet and Facebook activity, arranging and giving interviews and band rehearsals, I was now ready to travel to Wales for this:</div><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/856c90436e184ba03ba23506678b6491719e6644/original/p-o-m-poster.bmp?1388780978" class="size_l justify_center border_" />The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/32636402014-11-03T14:18:06+00:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00More Planning<div style="text-align: justify;">The week after the rehearsals, I received a call from Percy. He had managed to get hold of a telephone number for Steve Strong, our original drummer who I had been trying to contact since the middle of January. Percy had asked an old friend of ours, back in January, to find the number, but wires had got crossed and he didn’t follow it up. I rang the number that evening and spoke to Jan, his wife as Steve was out playing darts. After explaining who I was, I told her that I had been trying to find him for a couple of months. She said that Steve had seen the publicity in the South Wales Argus and wondered why we hadn’t contacted him. <br><br>The next day, I rang Steve and said that I had been trying to get in touch with him, but nobody had his contact details. I explained what we were trying to do and he was very keen on taking part; we now had 3 drummers. The bad news was that Steve had missed the full rehearsals; however, the really good news was that he was playing in a gigging band and was match fit. A week later, and over 6 weeks since I had left a message with them, he was contacted by the Llantrisant Hotel and asked to contact me. At least it demonstrated that I had been trying to find him.<br><br>The gig was now just 6 weeks away, but we still had a lot to organise and get ready. The biggest concern that Andy and I faced was the absence of a definite PA system. Around this time, a member of the band that my son played in had left, along with the PA system, which he owned. I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone and bought a Peavey PA system that my son could use in his band and would also be there for use at our gig if we couldn’t get anything else. It had 12 channels and was rated at 1200 watts, so I was hoping it would be adequate for the gig.<br><br>That was one big worry off our minds, the only ones left were minor things; or at least I thought them minor at the time. Over the next few weeks, things began to happen that made me think it was getting a bit silly and over the top for what we had initially planned.<br><br>On the 18th March 2013, I received an email saying:<br> <br><em>Hi John,</em><br><em>My name is Sam Gummer and I am a born-and-bred Welshman from Newport, South Wales. I came across your story a few weeks ago and have been interested and intrigued by it and trying to track down more information ever since.</em><br><em>I am a filmmaker and avid music fan and would be interested in creating a short documentary about the band and your history, leading up to your reunion gig in April.</em><br><em>I feel your story has an inherent value and could serve to reminisce about the history, changes and music of the area, as well as your stories and memories from the time and your decision to reform the band for a reunion gig. I would greatly appreciate it if you could get in touch and we could discuss this further.</em><br><br>I contacted Sam and arranged to meet up at my house on the 28th March. After I spoke to him, I looked him up on the Internet and discovered he was a young student at the University of Wales in Newport. I must admit I had some worries as to how credible he was going to be, however, if he was prepared to travel to Northants from Newport I had to give him the benefit of my doubts.<br> <br>Sam visited me and spent the best part of 5 hours chatting to him about what he wanted to do. He is a young Independent Film Maker and has just about finished his University course. He makes films for people and also does documentaries that he releases in various areas. Whilst he couldn’t promise he would get it on National TV, he was going to try and get it into festivals and maybe even regional TV. He thought the human interest behind the reunion was almost unique. A few famous bands may have had reunions, but we were a popular local band that was reforming with most of the original members, after over 45 years, to play a gig for charity.<br><br>He wanted, as much access to the band as possible, so I agreed that he could come to our mini practices and the final setup and rehearsal, the day before the gig. As well as doing the documentary he could also film the gig and produce a DVD. For the documentary, he wanted to interview everyone, individually to get perspectives of the band and the reunion. He wanted me to produce potted histories of each band member and a timeline of the band. After he had left, I thought to myself that he was a very impressive young man who should do extremely well in his field.<br> <br>Phil James contacted me and asked if we wanted a riser, for the drums and keyboards, to be used on the stage. This would not only allow the drummers and keyboard player to be seen, it would also allow us to better position our guitar amplifiers, in other words, would give more room on stage. I thought it was a great idea, so said go ahead; never dreaming how big a job it was going to be. When I saw it, for the first time, on the day before we set up, it really looked impressive; Phil and his workers had done an excellent job.<br><br>Another good piece of news that came in was that the Cwmbran Working Men’s Club confirmed they would supply 2 doormen and that they would also pay for their services, thus saving us £80, which could go to the charity.<br> <br>This was excellent; within a period of 10 days my 3 major concerns had been solved, or at least partially solved. Andy and I still had some concerns as to whether my PA would be able to cope with the demands of 13 musicians. Ian Day, a friend of Andy’s, had offered to bring his PA equipment along and also to do sound at the gig. With my PA as well, we should be ok for the gig.<br> <br>A friend of mine contacted me and said he was ready to carry out some modifications to my Les Paul Standard guitar. I wanted a 2TEK® Bridge installed, to replace the normal Gibson Bridge and tailpiece. So what does this bridge do? As their website explains:<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<em>‘The performance enhancements of the 2TEK® Bridge comes from individual string isolation coupled with maximum interaction between it and the natural resonance of the instrument body and neck materials. Each string saddle sits on its own individual ‘tonal finger’, which separates each string from the rest.</em><br><br><em>The result is improved individual note articulation, especially in complex chords and playing techniques. This isolation also allows each string to vibrate for a greater length of time producing superior sustain.</em> <em>On a conventional bridge, all the saddles share the same bridge block or platform; as a consequence, when you strike a string the vibrations disperse in all directions. In fact, the adjacent saddles are typically in such close proximity that they allow vibrations to transmit to each another, often referred to as ‘crosstalk’, and this crosstalk is usually in conflict with the harmonic overtones of the originating string.</em> <br><br><em>With the 2TEK® Bridge, all strings are allowed to ring independently so clarity is enhanced because there is nothing to interfere with the true harmonic content and dynamic range of each note. This also allows the natural resonance of the guitar body and neck to come through which boosts tonal quality’. </em><br><br>Another friend of mine, Mike Hansen, was one of the owners of the 2TEK® company, and in 2006, he had sent me a 60th birthday present of a 2TEK® equipped Hamer Cruise Bass guitar. The 2TEK® Bridge certainly made the bass sound amazing and, having seen that Mike had fitted the bridge on various guitars, including a Gibson Les Paul, owned by a friend of his, the American singer guitarist, Vince Gill, I wanted to try it as well.<br><br>As Mike Hansen lived in the USA, the other friend, Mike Wright would carry out the bridge install in the UK. Mike had done a couple of his own guitars, so was ready to do mine. He said he would try and get it ready by the gig. As both people would be coming to the gig, I was really looking forward to playing the Les Paul and have Andy and Percy playing the Hamer bass. Having 2 guitars on stage in Wales that have been fitted with 2TEK® bridges must be a first, at least for Welsh old age pensioners.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/79e4ac9e49ee547dd30cbc0820c81024835f327b/original/165whacked.jpg?1415024061" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>My 2Tek Les Paul in action at the Reunion Gig</strong></p></div>
<br>We decided we would arrange a second mini practice for those band members living in Wales, at the beginning of April, where we would be able to introduce Steve Strong to the songs we were going to play and also tidy up starts and finishes. I was fairly confident that Steve would be able to fit in with the songs, as many of them were ones we played when he was in the band.The remaining things that needed to be completed were relatively minor. Steve Leman was designing back stage passes for the band and technicians. EnerSys, the company Andy’s wife worked at, donated the lanyards for the passes.<br><br>Andy liaised with the CWMC to determine the earliest time we could open the doors for the gig and what time we would have to finish. Bearing in mind both the maturity of the audience and the fact many had travelled long distances and required taxis back to their hotels, it was essential we told people when they could get into the club and what time the gig would close.<div> </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I wanted the night to be about the Pieces of Mind and any music that was going to be played was either by the band on the night or of recordings of the bands that people had played in after they left the Pieces. To this end, I loaded a selection of songs, on to my iPod, from the 1966 Pieces of Mind Rogerstone live recording, Judas Jump, David, David Kubinec, Moira and the Mice, Times Up, Albino Frogs, the Paranoid Puppets, Atacama, Rockit and the Attic Band. These were all past or current bands of the people who would be playing that night. My idea was to play this music until the band came on stage for their first set.<br><br>The set timings were relatively straightforward. I anticipated the band would start the first set at 8 p.m. and play until 9:15 p.m. We would then do the raffle and the band would come back on and play from 10-11 p.m., allowing 30 minutes for people to have a last drink and chat with friends.<br><br>I was still getting numerous emails from people trying to get tickets for the gig and it was dis-heartening at times to tell them that they had all gone. I was getting convinced that I didn’t really want to handle tickets for any future gigs we may do.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I wanted to double check with Adrian that Johnnie Walker was both coming and was prepared to introduce us. My thoughts were that we would play about a couple of minutes of ‘Because they’re Young’, and then Johnnie could come up on stage and introduce us. We had arranged to get a t-shirt made with a POM logo on the front and a photograph of Johnnie and Duane Eddy on the back, so we would give it to him at this point. Then we would go straight into Wish You Would to start the first set proper. I just needed to have an idea of how long or short he wanted to speak, so I could finalise the set-list.<br><br>We needed to check how many chairs were in the CWMC room and also where we would position the people taking ticket money and those selling t-shirts. I wanted to reserve tables for family of the band so asked Steve Leman if he could produce some ‘Reserved for Band’ labels I could place on the tables on the night. We agreed that this could be done at the setup, the day before the gig.<br><br>We arranged a second mini practice session to take place over 2 days, Thursday the 4<sup>th</sup> April and Friday 5<sup>th</sup> April. The first would be at the YMCA and the second at Bob Teague’s studio. These 2 days would be the only real opportunity for Steve Strong to practice the songs with us, so I was hoping he was going to be able to manage.</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/32297392014-10-13T15:04:14+01:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00Rehearsals<div style="text-align: justify;">On Wednesday 20th February 2013, which was the day before our first mini practice at the YMCA in Newport, I travelled down to South Wales. Andy had generously offered to put me up in his house in Pontypool for all the rehearsals and the gig. I am not sure how his cats took my presence, however Andy and Jayne, his wife, certainly made me welcome.<br><br>I arrived around midday and after lunch we made our way up to the radio station BRFM Lakeside Studios, in Nantyglo. BRFM are a Community Media Centre based in Blaenau Gwent South Wales. They transmit their Community Radio on 97.3fm and through their website worldwide. They also provide an Internet TV channel, Recording facilities and Practice area. With hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to arrange the rehearsals at BRFM; particularly as we would go on to do a radio session there in October 2013.<br><br>When we arrived, I saw 3 people talking outside the studio, one of which kept staring over to us in my car. As Andy got out, the person, who was staring, came over and shook his hand. When he spoke, I realised it was Ted Dyer. I had been emailing and speaking to him for a couple of months, but didn’t think of checking to see what he looked like. Last time I had seen him, he was a very young boy with long hair. He had changed a bit, but at least he still had his hair, although not as long as it used to be. Slightly embarrassed, I shook his hand and said hello.<br><br>We then walked over to meet Chris Philips, would be interviewing us. Chris gave us a tour of their facilities and a brief of how the interview would progress. The interview would actually be on his son’s request show, however, he said that he would hijack it and, in his own words, ‘stop him playing Green Day for the whole show’. The initial plan was to have a 15-minute chat at the start of the show. We would explain a bit of the history of the band and what we were doing, with the reunion.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/a41a360981cbea0d4ab86907bf1ce6b686716043/original/brfm-2-2.jpg?1413208421" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>Andy & Ted waiting in the BRFM 'Green Room'</strong></p></div>
<br>Chris introduced the show by playing ‘My Generation’ from The Who; quite an appropriate choice as they played it, when we supported them, back in 1966 in Coed Eva. After a brief introduction, he asked what each of us did in the ‘Pieces of Eight’ band. Andy did his best Long John Silver impression and Chris realising what he had just said, replied rather quickly that he was a pirate DJ. When I introduced us and got to my name, Andy wanted to know if there were sexual connotations behind my name of ‘Ducksy’. I said of course not and explained how I was given the name in school. I don’t think Andy or the others believed me, but honestly, it’s true. <br><br>We recalled numerous memories of the 3 of us; some good, some bad and some that can’t go into print. Chris was laughing so much, at times; he nearly missed his cues at the end of some music. We ended up staying on for the whole 1-hour show. What I thought was nice was the way he played music from the bands we had supported, such as Johnny Kidd and The Who. We would tell a story or two about that particular gig; then he would play a song from that band. At the end of the interview, he asked the 3 of us to request a song to be played.<br><br>Andy chose ‘Whatcha Gonna do About It’ from the Small Faces because it reminded him of the version of the band when there was just Adrian, Phil, him and me. I chose ‘Baker Street’ from Gerry Rafferty, because I want it to be played at my funeral, which hopefully would not be for a while. I explained that a young Welsh lad, Henry Spinetti, had played drums on the record as well and I also thought Henry had played in a band that supported us at the Aberfan charity gig in December 1966. Ted chose the Yardbirds version of a Billy Boy Arnold song called ‘I Wish You Would’. I’m glad Ted chose that as the song brought back fabulous memories of us playing in the West End Ball room in Birmingham. It’s a great opener for a set, and in fact we would play it as the real opener at the CWMC gig.<br><br>Towards the end of the hour, Chris asked if we were going to do more gigs, then perhaps we would come in and do a live session for them. We agreed and in fact plans were made to do a session in October 2013.<br><br>Later that evening the 3 of us met up with John Beardmore and Steve Leman, at the CWMC. We wanted to check out the room, we would be playing in, and see if the stage was big enough to take 2 sets of drums. Both the room and the stage looked ideal for our purposes. The stage, though it would be a little cramped, was just about big enough to accommodate us all. There was a great dressing room area to the left of the stage, where we could store cases and other gear not being used. We also met up with Paul Bowen, the entertainment secretary of the club, who allowed us to have a drink or two in the bar. Additionally, he kindly offered the services of a few of his colleagues to do the lighting for us at the gig.<br><br>The next morning Andy and I drove to Newport to attend the practice at the YMCA. Driving through Newport for the first time in over 30 years was a shock to me. The town centre I knew had gone to be replaced by what I could only term as a bombsite. My satnav didn’t like it either as it kept trying to direct me into what appeared to be the bus station. Perhaps it was telling me to leave my car and get the hell out of the town. Andy, seeing I was lost drove past me and indicated for me to follow. Even he got lost trying to find Mendalgief Road, where the YMCA was located.<br><br>We arrived 30 minutes late to find Ted and Percy anxiously waiting for us to arrive. After a few minutes chatting we brought our gear in to set up. The room was purpose designed for a traditional British brass band, called Newport Borough Brass. They rehearsed in the room every Thursday evening from 7 p.m., so we would have to vacate by 6 p.m. at the latest. Despite having numerous chairs and music stands, there was plenty of room for the 4 of us to set up our gear. Ted’s band Atacama used the room every Wednesday evening, so his drums were already set up, as well as his PA system.<br><br>Within 15 minutes, we were set up and ready to play together for the first time since we played in the Pieces of Mind. In fact, Ted and Percy had never played together in the Pieces, so it was a first for them. The plan was for Andy and Percy to rotate between playing bass and rhythm guitar, with me on lead and Ted, obviously on drums. Andy and Ted would be handling the vocals, either for songs they would be eventually singing or ones that Adrian would do. I had, with help from Adrian, Andy and Ted, already produced a list of potential songs, split into 2 sets. We warmed up for a few minutes, playing a blues, before we got down to the serious business of working through the songs.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/b124b920394b3a4fcc2a9781463dd3d7d814823b/original/practice1-009.jpg?1413208747" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>Back together after 45+ years</strong></p></div>After the few minutes of playing, I thought to myself that this was going to work. It was if we had still been playing together for years, instead of the decades apart. We all had that sense and feeling you get when musicians are really familiar with each other. I knew then that the gig would be good, even though we only had less than a quarter of the full band present. I wanted us to start the set with I Wish You Would; however Andy suggested doing a short introduction of the Duane Eddy instrumental, Peter Gunn before we started playing the Billy Boy Arnold song. Andy would play guitar and Percy would be on bass. Peter Gunn was in the key of ‘E’ and I Wish You Would was in ‘G’, so we had to segue from one to the other.<br><br>John Beardmore turned up, whilst we were working on this, and I think he wondered what the hell we were doing, as it didn’t sound very much like the Pieces of Mind. Having explained what we were doing and then playing I Wish You Would, he could see that indeed we still sounded like the Pieces, even though Adrian was missing.<br><br>Having spent sufficient time on the Peter Gunn/I Wish You Would segues, we started going through those songs that Andy and Ted would be singing. For each song, I recorded what role Andy and Percy would be doing, so I could construct a set that would minimise guitar changes at the gig. Whilst we were playing songs such as Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Gloria and I Ain’t Got You, I could see that John Beardmore was really enjoying what we were playing.<br><br>The morning quickly went and it was time for lunch. Whilst the others nipped out to get some food, I updated the potential set-lists I kept on my laptop. After lunch we cracked on and by the time we packed in, around 5.30, we had covered 11 songs in depth and a few others in brief. We nearly had enough for 1 set in just under 8 hours of practice. They certainly lacked polish, but the hard work had been put in and I thought some of what we had played sounded better than it did the first time we had done them all those years ago. In spite of our advanced years, the old energy and rawness we had when we had last played together, was still there. It was looking good.I packed up my car, said goodbye to the others and made my way back over the Severn Bridge to Northants. By the time I got home, I was completely shattered having travelled around 300 miles, given a radio interview, checked the venue and played for nearly 8 hours; all in less than 35 hours. <br><br>The first rehearsals for the full band were under 2 weeks away, so in that period, I had to check with those coming that they were still available, what gear they were bringing and whether they needed and had managed to find accommodation. The other things that concerned me were the PA, doormen for the night and getting someone to film the gig. We had booked the rehearsal rooms from 10-6 each day, allowing us up to 16 hours of practice, although in reality it would be around 12-14 hours once we took breaks for lunch and changeovers, so I wanted to ensure we made the most of the time.<br><br>Whilst Ted’s PA was fine for the practice, it was obvious it would not be good enough for the gig. Andy would investigate whether a friend of his could provide one for the night. CWMC could provide doormen for the gig at a cost of £40 per person and Andy would confirm availability with his friend at the club. He was also hoping to confirm that his grandson was free to film the gig. <br><br>As with the previous time, I travelled down to Wales the day before the rehearsals, on the 7/8 March, and stayed, once again, with Andy, his wife Jayne and their clowder of cats. That night, those who were free, met up for a meal in the Harvester pub in Cwmbran, with the aim of getting to know each other. The meal was very good in that it allowed the original band members to meet Bruno and Vic for the first time.<br> <br>The next morning I drove Andy to Dragon Bands, which was not too far from where he lived in Pontypool. Dragon Bands was formed in late 2001 and the project has grown from being run in a living room, to a large industrial unit in North Pontypool Industrial Park. It supports the local music scene by running workshops and giving young local talent the opportunity to perform in front of their peers. In addition to rehearsal rooms, they have recording facilities, hire out PA sound equipment hire, have their own record label and run a 24/7 Internet radio station, called Flame Radio. It’s a great facility for both experienced and aspiring young musicians to improve their skills. I wish we had places like this when we started in the 1960s.<br><br>When we got there we soon appreciated that the rehearsal room was not really big enough for all of us. It was great for bands of around 4-5 people, but we had 12 people trying to learn just under 30 songs. The initial plan was that Adrian, Vic and I would stay on all night and we would swap the rest of the instruments as and when required. This meant that the early band of, Andy, Percy & Phil would join us for the first set. In the second set, 5-6 songs would be played by what I was calling the Germany band, so Bruno & Ted would stand in on bass and drums and Dave Kubinec was going to play keyboards. Now that Dave could not play, we asked Bob Teague if he would play all night. Similarly, the other guest musician, Rick Lawton, was going to play all night on sax and flute. <br><br>On the first day, we worked our way through the songs we had practiced at the YMCA and also did a few more from the list of potential songs. We made a change from the Peter Gunn introduction to I Wish You Would, because Adrian had suggested that we do another Duane Eddy instrumental, ‘Because they’re Young’ as it was the theme tune of Johnnie Walker. He had confirmed that he and his wife would be attending the gig, so Adrian thought, quite rightly, that this would be a better instrumental to play than Peter Gunn. I thought we should play the whole instrumental and it would be better for the Welsh contingent and me to practice it on another day and not waste precious rehearsal time for the whole band.<br><br>When we went out for a meal on the Thursday night, I chatted to Vic and we both thought it would be nice if everyone could be involved all night, even if it meant doubling up on instruments such as bass and drums. Being as, at this time, the reunion was going to be a one-off event, we said we would raise it the next morning. It would mean having 2 drum sets on stage, but it looked as if it was big enough. <br><br>The next morning all agreed we would give it a go. In some ways, it would mean fewer changes, as both Phil and Ted would play all night and Bruno could play bass alongside Andy or Percy. At the time, I didn’t realise how difficult it would be trying to direct so many players on stage, particularly when some of them had never played together before. However, I still think we made the right decision for the gig. It was great seeing the pleasure on the faces of those who stayed up on stage all night, playing in front of their family and friends.<br> <br>Andy Rutherford, the reporter from the South Wales Argus arrived in the morning and spent an hour talking to us all. In between his fits of laughter, he managed to get enough material for a second article in the newspaper. He emailed me afterwards saying that he was worried that after he took the swear words out, there might not be a lot left; however, he really enjoyed it.<br><br>Around lunchtime on the second day, Flame Radio asked us if they could interview three of us, so Adrian, Percy and I went up to the studio, to be interviewed by James. The interview was as hilarious as the one at BRFM, with many stories being thankfully told off air. <br><br>After the interview, we went back to the rehearsal room to find the others were playing Green Onions, which wasn’t on our list of songs for the set. However, I just walked over to my guitar and joined in. It sounded quite good, so we decided to start the second set with the instrumental.<br> <br>By the end of the second day, we had covered almost all the songs on our potential set-list. We were planning to set up on the day before the club, so if necessary, we would be able to go over the last few songs then and also at the sound check on the day of the gig. The full rehearsals were over and we were as good as we would ever get or at least the full band would ever get. After loading our cars, we all left to make our way to our respective homes.<br> <br>John Beardmore had taken numerous photographs and videos of all the rehearsals, so within a few days of me getting home, he had loaded them onto Dropbox for me to review.<br> <br>I loaded all the photographs into Facebook, sorting them into albums. The videos offered me a chance to see what was working and what wasn’t. I watched all the videos and I thought a couple of the songs were a bit too slow and as I started them, made a note to start them faster next time.<br> <br>I noticed that Adrian’s voice was struggling a bit, particularly on the second day of rehearsals at Dragon Bands. It was not surprising, given the long time since he had last sung. <br> <br>I loaded a selection, of what I thought was the best, onto Facebook and YouTube. At this stage, I didn’t want to give too much away, wanting things to be a surprise to the people coming. However, the demand to know how we were getting on was so high, I felt obliged to at least give a glimpse of how we were progressing.<br> <br>The general reaction to the videos was extremely positive. There were some questions around the first mini practice, asking where Adrian and others in the band were. I had to explain a few times that not all people lived in South Wales; in fact 2 people lived in Spain.<br> <br>I then took a couple of days respite before I knuckled down to more planning.</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/32288102014-10-12T10:08:47+01:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00Early Planning 2<div style="text-align: justify;">I then switched my attention to Will Lowe. John Bentley, who I remembered from the 1960s, had contacted me and said that Will lived about 10 kilometres from his home in Australia. He said he would mention the reunion, and pass on my details, when he next saw Will. He also posted some photographs that included Will Lowe, one of which was taken at Bullmor Lido. Eventually Will, through his wife’s Facebook account, sent me a message that he had seen the photographs and they had brought back a lot of memories. Unfortunately he couldn’t make the reunion, but was hoping to come across in June 2013. Unfortunately, I found out a few weeks later, that Will had been taken ill and admitted to hospital. Will recovered and managed to come to Wales in June, for a few weeks, unfortunately, I was unable to meet up with him. However, John Beardmore bumped into him and told me that he was fine, just taking it easy for a while.<br><br>Another photograph posted by John Bentley, was taken of the crowd in Platform One. As well as a very young John Beardmore looking at the camera, in the foreground was Coco, who would join the band later. This photograph attracted a lot of comments, as people were trying to identify those in the crowd. An old friend of mine, Anton Roelands, asked if Coco was Phil James and perhaps he may be the same Phil James who owned a furniture business in Cwmbran. In the time we played with Coco in the band, the only name any of us knew him by was ‘Coco’, so I was unsure.<br><br>Back on Google, I came across a website for Phil James Upholstery that had a Cwmbran address. So I sent them an email asking if the Phil James who owned the business, was the same Phil James who went by the name of ‘Coco’ and played trumpet in a version of the Pieces of Mind. Within a day, I had an answer, saying that yes, he was that Coco. He gave me his telephone number, so I rang him up and told him about the reunion, asking if he was interested. He said that whilst he hadn’t played trumpet since the late 1960s, he was definitely interested in playing again. So whilst we had not been able to get Will Lowe, we had located another band member, who wasn’t even on my original list.<br><br>Rob Evans emailed me to say that he was in touch with most of the guys who went to Germany and could help with contact details. He gave me various email addresses, including one for a Glyn Whitcombe who had played lead guitar for a while. Glyn also played several other instruments, including sax, so it looked promising. I contacted Glyn and he confirmed he would be keen to play as well. One concerning thing in the email from Rob, was the fact that he had some sort of problem and needed to go into hospital, so there was a chance that he wouldn’t be able to play bass at the reunion.<br><br>I next tried to find Dave Sargent, the first bass player in the band. Andy thought that Dave had started a double-glazing business in or around Cwmbran. A quick Internet search found a Dave Sargent Windows company based near Pontypool. I completed a contact form enquiring whether the Dave Sargent was the same person and Andy also left a message on their telephone number. We had no response from either method. <br><br>Sadly I found out from one of my Facebook friends that Dave had unfortunately had an accident a couple of years earlier and was no longer alive. I can only assume that our messages were too much for a family perhaps still in grief and I apologise for that. It’s such a shame as Dave was a lovely man.<br><br>Another shock I received after hearing of Dave, was finding out that Dave Martin had also passed away. I am not sure of the details as to when and why, however, for the short time I knew him back in 1966 to 1967; he was ever such a nice person and it was a great a shame he had left us so young.<br><br>Some of the people I contacted in the email never responded to me, so I have to assume they either didn’t check email or they weren’t interested in having a reunion. It surprised me that Glyn Williams didn’t reply. Andy got hold of his telephone number and gave him a call and found out that he did read all the emails I sent but didn’t respond because he thought he wouldn’t be able to come, as his daughter was expecting a baby around the time of the gig. In the end, Glyn and his wife Wendy were able to come. It was great meeting up with him again, after all these years.<br><br>Finding people was not as difficult as I first thought. By the end of January, the only people I couldn’t track down were Steve Strong and Roy Winston Davies. I still had hopes of tracking down Steve, but didn’t hold out much hope for Roy. We had nearly 3 months to find both, assuming a gig was going to be towards the end of April.<br><br>The next priority for me was to try and get as many of the people together for a rehearsal, even though at this time, we didn’t have a gig. I knew that some people were still in bands and played regularly, however Adrian hadn’t sung for over 40 years and, as far as I knew, Phil hadn’t played drums for around 20 years. Could they still do what they did back in the Pieces? In addition, I had never met Bruno, Vic or Glyn Whitcombe so had no idea how good or bad they were. Any gig was going to be about playing together again and enjoying ourselves, however, if we were going to be in front of an audience, I wanted us to be as good as we could be.<br> <br>I spoke to Ted and asked him to link up with Percy and Andy to try and arrange a venue for a potential rehearsal in early March. Ted had a PA system, and as long as the others had their own equipment, we should be ok. Ted suggested that as the band evolved over the years it might be better to sort any songs into genres i.e. Blues and Rock/Soul. We could then sort out who played what. It sounded a good idea to me, especially as there were already 13 potential players. We agreed that the 7<sup>th</sup> and 8<sup>th</sup> March were good days to have the rehearsal; we just needed to find a suitable venue. I emailed Adrian and between us we produced a list of around 50 possible songs to play, classified into Blues and Rock/Soul. As Adrian was visiting UK in a week or so, he arranged to come to my house to narrow the song choices down to a sufficient number to play 2 sets, probably 30 songs. His visit would also give me an opportunity to see if he could still sing.<br> <br>We cut 10 songs from the initial list, which still left sufficient songs for the rest to discuss at the rehearsals. He also had a go at singing a few verses from various songs and I was surprised to find that yes, he could still sing and still in the same key of ‘G’ that most of his songs in the 1960s were. We both had doubts as to whether his voice would take the strain of singing a complete gig, after all these years; however, I wasn’t too concerned as I knew both Andy and Ted could sing as well. Ted had already sent me a set-list from his current band, Atacama, and we had provisionally selected 4-5 songs we could include in our set.<br> <br>Andy and I were both keen that any songs we played to an audience would be representative of what we did back then. We didn’t want to do more modern stuff as we thought that’s it’s not what our audience would have expected and certainly not what we both wanted to play. We had a few discussions with Adrian and Phil who wanted to include stuff we never played in the Pieces. We compromised on one song, but they agreed that the others we didn’t play should not be included.<br><br>Whilst Adrian was in the UK, he had a drink with Johnnie Walker MBE, the Radio 2 DJ. Johnnie and Adrian have been friends since the 1970s and when Adrian mentioned the possibility of a reunion gig, he said he would like to come and introduce us on stage. It was getting to be more serious now, so it was imperative we quickly found a place to play.<br><br>Ted Dyer suggested doing the gig for a local charity, called St David’s Hospice Care, who had an office near where he lived. I thought this a great idea and it was also one that gave a greater chance of us getting a venue. Ted spoke to the charity and they were very keen on the idea and offered help on the sale of tickets and advertising. <br><br>Andy had mentioned the possibility of playing the reunion gig at the Cwmbran Working Men’s Club (CWMC). He had played there before; it had excellent acoustics and held about 250 people, so in essence an ideal venue. He knew a friend who was on the committee and arranged to present a letter to the entertainment committee, requesting that we could do the gig on either Friday 26<sup>th</sup> April or the Friday 3<sup>rd</sup> May. The entertainment committee reviewed the request and confirmed that they were willing for us to have the 26<sup>th</sup> April date. Now we now had a venue and someone to play for, we only needed an audience.<br> <br>Whilst Andy was negotiating with the CWMC, I decided we needed some publicity. I contacted the South Wales Argus and mentioned what we were doing. Ted had done the same a few days after I had, both of us not realizing what the other had done. We had a reply saying that they would love to do something but they would have to wait until the band has an exact date and gig venue. They would love to include some pictures of the band as well.<br><br>A few days later I had a call from Andy Rutherford, one of the South Wales Argus reporters. He spoke to me for around 45 minutes getting background stuff for what he called a 'big' article that was going to go in the main paper as well as online. He wanted me to send him the clip of us playing in Rogerstone, back in 1966. I explained the quality was terrible, but he didn’t mind. He also wanted me to send him photographs, particularly of us playing, with details of who is on what. What he needed next was the date and venue of the gig. When Andy Gibbon had confirmed things with the CWMC, I emailed Andy Rutherford the details. <br><br>Andy Rutherford really liked the photographs and said they were hoping to have an article in the following Wednesday’s paper. He also wanted to know when and where we were going to rehearse, so he could arrange to interview us and take more photographs.<br> <br>A full-page article appeared in South Wales Argus on Wednesday 30<sup>th</sup> January. The article was titled ‘Golden years recalled as Sixties band re-group for charity gig’. The hard copy daily paper had more detail; however, the essence was the same. The reporter mentioned that Andy Gibbon had suggested St David’s Hospice Care as the charity, when in fact it was Ted Dyer. That was my fault and not the reporter. The Celtic Manor meet was in fact after Christmas and not before. Again that may have been my fault.<br><br>As soon as Andy Gibbon had confirmation from CWMC that Friday 26th April 2013 was booked, I sent an email to band members, saying that it was now getting serious and they needed to confirm whether they would be coming to the rehearsals on the 7/8 March; would they be coming to the gig on the 26<sup>th</sup> April and what gear they had. At the time, I was no too perturbed whether everyone could make the rehearsals, as long as a core band of Adrian, Andy, Chippy, Percy, Phil, Rob, Ted and myself was available, the others should be able to fit in at the gig.<br><br>I was a little uncertain whether we had sufficient gear to play a gig. Between us, we had plenty of guitars and amplifiers and, with Ted and the offer from Steve Leman; we had 2 sets of drums. Ted had a PA system, he used in his band however he had doubts whether it would be good enough to play a large gig. It was the small stuff, such as microphones and their stands; we might be a bit short on. I had 2 microphones and one stand, so bought another stand, just in case.<br> <br>I was beginning to have doubts as to whether Chippy, Dave Kubinec and Rob would be well enough to play the gig, so discussed it with Andy. He suggested inviting 2 guest musicians, Bob Teague, on keyboards and Rick Lawton on sax to help supplement the sound. Whilst both had never played with the Pieces of Mind, they were both excellent musicians that had played with Andy in a band that came after. Even if Dave could make the gig, he would probably only be able to play a few songs, so having Bob there would be extremely useful. If Chippy was too ill to play, then, at this time, we still had Phil and Ted to play drums. Similarly, if Rob couldn’t play, then Andy and Percy would cover bass guitar.<br><br>When the first article appeared in the South Wales Argus, on the 30th January 2013, it aroused a lot of interest from those who had followed the band back in the 1960s. One person, Lyndon Evans, contacted the newspaper, asking if they could pass his details on to me. Lyndon had played in a band, called Fusion that supported us at the Aberfan charity appeal gig in Tredegar, back in December 1966. His band had reformed, in 2009, and was now called ‘Now and Then’. Lyndon was extremely useful in confirming the location of some of the old photographs and also arranging for the band to appear in the ‘Your Memories’ section of the Gwent Gazette on Thursday 14<sup>th</sup> February 2013.<br><br>The section showed 2 photographs of us playing at the Tredegar Workman’s Hall and asked whether people knew whom the band were and did they have any memories. Lyndon also arranged for us to be interviewed by Chris Philips, on a Blaenau Gwent radio station, called BRFM. The plan was that Chris would do a telephone interview with me, however as I was coming down to Wales the following week, we decided on a face-to-face one. I asked Andy and Ted to meet up the day before an initial practice; we were planning in February, and go to the BRFM studios, to do the radio interview.<br><br>Next step was to arrange rehearsal rooms for the 7/8 March. I searched the Internet and saw there were several in the Newport and Cwmbran area. When I mentioned the names, Andy said that he had used the one called Dragon Bands, which was not far from where he lived in Pontypool. We both thought it was worth booking the two days there, as we needed to sort something out quickly. When we spoke to Ted, he had also used the place and agreed it was fine for our purposes. Andy visited them to confirm availability and booked one of their rehearsal rooms, for the 2 days in March. He also checked they had a room the day before the gig, Thursday 25th April, should we require it.<br> <br>Ted arranged a practice session for Andy, Percy himself and me, that was going to be held at the YMCA in Newport. They had a large room that his band, Atacama, used for a practice every week. This session was going to be on Thursday 21<sup>st</sup> February, and it was aimed at the 4 of us getting to know each other again, bearing in mind we hadn’t played together for a long time. We thought we could lay down a lot of the groundwork, with Andy & Ted standing in for Adrian on vocals. We also intended doing the BRFM interview the day before and visit the CWMC, to check out the room, that same evening.<br><br>By the beginning of February 2013, things were coming together; however, it was also getting very hectic. I remember emailing Steve Leman and saying that one night I had a 20-minute call with Andy, followed by a 60 minute call with Ted and then I had to sort numerous emails asking for tickets. It was really beginning to get serious. I thought to myself that it would be almost a relief when we get on stage and start playing. The one thing that was getting to me though, was the failure to locate Steve Strong. I had been the one to tell him that he was ‘sacked’ from the band, back in 1964 and I was beginning to wonder whether he held a grudge and didn’t want to be found. <br><br>Facebook activity was hectic, with people asking for tickets and wanting to know the information about hotels. Despite my posting several links to hotels on my Timeline, I still got emails asking for this information. It was infuriating at times, to be continually asked the same question, when the answer was easily available either on my account or an Internet search. Still I tried to keep calm and appreciate that not everyone was ‘IT’ aware as me.<br><br>We had decided to operate a digital ticket system, where people would reserve a place through me. Steve Leman had kindly designed the tickets and then sent me 250 individually numbered images. When people wanted a ticket, I would write their name against a numbered ticket, on my master list, and then send them the numbered ticket image. The digital ticket reserved a place for them, so all they had to do was print it off and then hand it in at the door, where their name would be checked against my master list. Finally, they would pay the entrance fee of £5. If for some reason, they couldn’t make it, they were to send the digital ticket back to me so I could free up the places. It sounds complex, and to be honest, it was. The whole procedure was very time consuming and demanding for me; things that a man of my age could really do without. <br> <br>Before the band had actually got together to rehearse, it was clear the tickets would all be sold out. I slightly over-booked the tickets, assuming that some people might drop out started maintaining a reserve list. In addition I kept a separate list for members of the band, which contained 29 people, even though the band only had 13 players. The CWMC kept asking for more tickets for their members, but unfortunately, I couldn’t meet their request. I was taking a risk of the club being too full; however, I was gambling on some people not turning up.<br><br>My evenings and most of the weekends were being dominated by this event. I was not a promoter; yet I was just about coping with the numerous emails, telephone calls, texts and Internet activity. I started having the occasional Skype call with Adrian to check on progress. It was very stressful, but at least I managed. There is no way I could have done it in the past, technology today is amazing.<br><br>Andy thought it would be a good idea to get t-shirts made, with images of one or more of the posters from bands we had supported. His brother-in-law owned a company called Sticky Ink Studios, based in Newport. They offered a range of services, from graphic design, web design through to vinyl and screen-printing products, including t-shirts. They kindly offered to produce the t-shirts, based on a design by Steve Leman, at cost price. We insisted that any price should be fair to them and we also suggested including a contribution, from each sale, to the charity.<br> <br>I decided that, being as the gig was going to be in aid of charity, it would be a good idea to have a raffle. We really needed a good first prize that ideally should be music related and being that I had a Gibson Les Paul Junior Special that I had never gigged, I decided to offer that up. I hoped that an audience containing many other musicians would spend a lot on tickets. <br><br>Andy said he would contribute one of the t-shirts as a raffle prize and would also buy some for the whole band. Phil James went round local businesses and persuaded the Priory Hotel Caerleon, Boleros Wine Bar Caerleon, Mon and Border Motor factors, the Star Inn Mamhilad and the Jockey Garage Pontypool to offer up prizes. Other prizes soon rolled in from Now and Then, Times Up, Diverse Music Newport, CY Benson, Bruno Sampson, Ted Dyer and John Hall. One other prize came in, but more about that later.<br> <br>Dave Kubinec proposed that the gig should be filmed and recorded by a professional engineer, with a view to selling it commercially. He was friendly with a sound engineer called Graham Bonnett, who had worked on the TV Series ‘Live from Abbey Road’ and thought he might be able to hire him. I admired the enthusiasm from Dave; however, I was a bit loath to take this on, as I already had too much to do, without trying to ensure that we had proper PA facilities to enable recording. After I spoke to Adrian, I told Dave that if he wanted to arrange the recording it was fine, otherwise it wouldn’t happen. Dave was going to go ahead and arrange for Graham to record the gig.<br><br>I started getting requests from friends offering their bands to support us at the gig. Whilst this offered a way of us having to rehearse fewer songs, I thought that as it was the first time we all have played together since the 60s and there were about a dozen of us wanting to play, it should just be about the Pieces of Mind. I wanted us to play the whole night, so decided not to have any other music, DJ or band, there on the night. I thanked those offering and told them, if the band changed their mind when we rehearse, I would come back. <br><br>Throughout the first couple of months of planning, I continually checked in with the 3 people, Chippy, Dave and Rob who were doubtful of playing the gig. On one call to Chippy, he told me that he had been to a regular check-up with his doctor that day and told him about the reunion, where he was hoping to play drums. The doctor told him he was mad, as his body would not take the strain, so unfortunately he would have to pull out. It was such a shame as Chippy had really been looking forward to playing with us again, as had we; however, it was fully understandable.<br><br>The next to drop out was Dave Kubinec. Like Chippy, he had been for his monthly check-up with his doctor and mentioned the gig. The doctor asked him if he was trying to commit suicide, as his body was definitely not up for it.<br><br>Rob, at the time, was still waiting to be diagnosed and treated, so I assumed the worst and discounted him from playing. <br><br>We had lost 2 players, with a third very doubtful, within a matter of days. Whilst we had sufficient coverage for the instruments they played, I was really sad that these 3 people would not be able to play or even not be involved on the night. Dave was too ill to travel; however, I hoped that Chippy and Rob would at least get to the gig. Coupled with the sad deaths of Dave Martin and Dave Sargent, it really struck home to me the fragility of our existence.<br><br>Most of my plans seemed to be coming together; in fact, apart from those who couldn’t make it things were exceeding my expectations. We had a venue booked and we appeared to have enough gear for the musicians to play a gig. The remaining questions was whether we still had the skills to play 2 sets in front of an audience that had last heard us play in the late 60s. <br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/5bd7f74e6d4245bce041a37b33a6ef0ea8c60b8b/original/01-pom.jpg?1413104166" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>Dave Sargent, on the left. RIP</strong></p></div>
<br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/32282372014-10-11T19:29:55+01:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00Early Planning 1<div style="text-align: justify;">I started thinking how I would go about planning the reunion more or less as soon as I got back home on the Friday after the Celtic Manor meeting. How would we find anywhere to play? Would anyone want to see us after nearly 50 years? There were 6 of us at the Celtic manor, but how do we find the other people who played in the various versions of the group? What songs would we play? What about rehearsals? These and many more questions were going through my brain, while I tried to enjoy the rest of the Christmas break with my family. <br><br>I decided to start in earnest on the Sunday before New Year’s Eve. I jotted down the things I would need to do. Firstly, I needed to compile a list of all those who had played or been involved in the Pieces of Mind, back in the 60s. Then I would have to try and track those people down, some of which I had never met and some I hadn’t seen for well over 45 years.<br><br>Assuming I even found people, I needed to confirm they wanted and could play somewhere. I had moved away from South Wales in 1971, so I needed to work out how to find a venue that would let us play and how much it would cost us. Then there was the issue of whether we would just play amongst ourselves or would we attempt to play a gig in front of an audience. <br><br>At this stage, I thought that there was not much point in trying to answer hypothetical questions of what songs we would play and whether we needed to rehearse, so I would try and find people first. I also began to think that the task I was presenting myself was too big for one person, so I would need help from somebody, but the question was who?<br> <br>I obviously had those who met at the Celtic Manor, but 2 lived in Spain, 3 lived in South Wales and I lived in Northamptonshire. It was going to be difficult, even with the power of the Internet and email in particular. Of the 5 other people I met with after Christmas, Adrian, Phil and Chippy were contactable direct by email. I had telephone numbers for Andy and Percy.<br><br>Andy was also contactable through his wife’s email and I had the email address of Ted Dyer. Ted had contacted me back in August 2010, when Chris Sharley had been communicating with Ted’s older brother Jim and passed on my email address. I had forgotten about Ted when arranging the Celtic Manor meeting and for this, I do apologise, as I’m sure he would have come along.<br><br>I decided that I would use Adrian as a point of contact for researching who played in the group after I had left and he could keep Phil informed as to what we were doing. Being as they were both retired, I thought that Andy and Ted would be good people to sort out the logistics for where and when we would play. <br><br>I also began to have thoughts as to how we could let people know what we were intending to do, if we decided to try and play a gig. A huge factor we have today, in 2013, is the power of communication. Technological advances have brought us mobile phones, email and the Internet. In the 1960s, our nearest telephone was about 100 yards away; these days it’s quite common to have multiple mobile phones in a house, as well as what’s become to be called land-lines. What took days, or longer, to contact people back then, can now be achieved in mere seconds.<br><br>I have had the www.johnreardon.com website for quite a few years and often received emails from people who remembered me. I also had a Facebook account, with around 40 friends, but the biggest issue was that both websites were about me and not really the Pieces of Mind. We also needed to attract attention of the media, such as the local newspaper, the South Wales Argus and local radio stations.<br> <br>So I thought I would create a new Facebook account that was about the group and not just me. First issue I encountered was that Facebook did not allow having 2 accounts with the same email address. Their solution to this was having ‘Pages’, however, I wanted to create an Account that covered the group and not just me. The solution was to create another Facebook account using a newly created Gmail email address and then add information and photographs about the Pieces of Mind. Whilst Facebook allowed me to have the Pieces of Mind, or at least ‘The.Pieces.of.Mind’ as a username, it still insisted on having a name for the account as well, so I put ‘John Reardon’.<br><br>I sent out invitations to my existing friends and received a message from Chris Sharley that I needed to include my nickname of ‘Ducksy’ as people would be more likely to remember me, so as Facebook permits you to update your name, I put ‘John Ducksy Reardon’. In the ‘About’ section I indicated that this Facebook account was going to be primarily about the Pieces of Mind and that we were contemplating getting together to play again. I soon began to receive more and more friend requests. Within a relatively short time, I went from 40 to over 100, and it became obvious to me that there was a lot of interest in seeing the Pieces of Mind playing again.<br><br>In addition, Steve Leman, who plays drums in a band with Andy, had been spreading the news around Newport of a potential Pieces of Mind reunion in 2013. He said there appeared to be a lot of interest, perhaps not as much as the Stones, but still people were interested. The talk at the Celtic Manor of playing a gig was starting to become more than a pipe dream; it was looking like it was a possibility.<br><br>By the 2<sup>nd</sup> January 2013, I had email addresses for Adrian Williams, Andy Gibbon (c/o his wife Jayne), Bruno Sampson, Chippy Chapman, Dave Kubinec, Glyn Williams, Mickey Evans, Phil Edwards, Rob Evans, Ted Dyer and Vic Johnson. In addition I had telephone contact details for Robert ‘Percy’ Price.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Adrian was keen on trying to play any gig at the end of the coming April, which was less than 4 months away. My first priority was to determine how many of the old group wanted and could play, so I sent an email to all 11 asking them if they were up for attending and playing at a possible reunion. I also asked them to let me know whether they still played and what equipment they had. The 11 possible players included 4 bass players, 3 drummers, 3 guitarists and a keyboard player, assuming of course that everyone wanted to participate and was fit enough. As there were still people I needed to try and find, I also asked them to let me know if they had any contact details for those missing.<br><br>Of the original group members, at this time, I still needed to locate Steve Strong, Will Lowe, Dave Sargent, John Beardmore and Roy Winston Davies. I had an idea that Will Lowe was still living in Australia, but had no idea of how to contact him, other than searching the Internet. A Google search revealed nearly 200 million results, including a professional bareback rider; however none seemed to be our old harmonica player.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/7034a544f96dd347f71d68d6b17dd63ea14e0c3e/original/very-young-pom.jpg?1400862696" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>The early Pieces of Mind. Only one missing is Dave Sargent (RIP)</strong></p></div>
<br><br>I then went on to try and find John Beardmore. Whilst speaking to my sister, who still lived in Newport, I mentioned that we were trying to have a reunion and wanted to find people including John Beardmore. She told me that she thought John had become a Vicar and operated out of a Church in Maindee, Newport. She had been to several funerals over the last few years and often the officiating vicar was a John Beardmore. She thought it was the same John Beardmore who had been our manager.<br><br>I must admit that I had serious doubts about John being at all religious; however, I looked at the Church in Wales’s web site and certainly found a Reverend J K Beardmore listed as an assistant curate in the Benefice of Maindee, Newport. The site gave his address and telephone number, but I didn’t want to bother someone, who may not be the John Beardmore I knew. The contacts listed on the Parish of Maindee website included an email address for a Reverend, who I assumed was in charge, so I sent an email, including my telephone number, asking if the John K Beardmore was the same person who managed the Pieces of Mind, back in the 60s.<br><br>A week or so later, John rang me up. It turned out that he hadn’t become religious after leaving the group; the John K Beardmore was in fact his cousin, who, when contacted by the reverend, passed on my details to our John Beardmore.<br><br>We were both overjoyed at finding each other again after all this time. John said he was only thinking about us, and wondering where we were, a few days before his cousin contacted him. He knew where Percy lived and often bumped into him, but the rest had more or less disappeared of the face of the earth. After chatting for almost an hour, I explained what we were trying to do and he was literally over the moon and wanted to be as involved as much as he could. He has certainly achieved this, as John has been heavily involved with the organisation of the reunion gig and what happens in the future. He has been invaluable.<br><br>John mentioned that he had numerous photographs and posters from when we were playing. This made me really happy as I had very few photographs and mementos from when I had been playing in the 60s. I wanted to see these straight away, however, I would have to wait a week or so whilst John arranged to scan them and get them to me. I suggested he use Dropbox, as I already had an account. It took a while; however, it was well worth the wait. John had well over 100 photographs of the group and miscellaneous posters of when we played various venues.<br><br>I downloaded all of them and briefly took a look at them. I was amazed to find that I had never ever seen the majority of photographs he had sent. After trawling through them again, I uploaded all of them to Facebook.<br><br>I decided to create Albums for the band members and also ones for those bands that people had played in after the Pieces of Mind. The observant amongst you will notice that I have now started using the modern term of band, as opposed to group. I am proud to be a Luddite; however, eventually I do give in and follow convention.<br><br>The photographs and posters I loaded began to attract a lot of interest amongst the 100 plus friends and before long; I began getting more and more friends; hitting the 150 mark and then just under 200. This number may not be large, compared to some Facebook accounts; however, the account was about a South Wales local band that played way back in the 1960s.<br><br>In early January Steve Leman had offered to help in any way he could. He has very good artistic skills and also said that Phil Edwards could use a set of his drums, to save bringing one across from Spain. Whilst the offer of the drum set was extremely generous and fantastic, for me, the biggest help he provided was utilizing his artistic skills. In the time leading up to and past the eventual gig, he has designed tickets, posters, t-Shirts, band passes, publicity material and generally provoked interest and comment with fabulous cartoons. The band and I could not have achieved what we did without his help; he was amazing.<br><br>When speaking to Percy in mid-January, he mentioned to me that Steve Strong played in a Newport band called the James Boys, but he didn’t know how to contact him. I did a Google search for them but came back with several hits for bands called the James Boys, none of which appeared to be relevant. I then added ‘Newport’ and came across a hit about Tributes being paid to a popular Newport musician, who played with the James Boys.<br><br>Fearing the worst, I started reading the article, which was from the South Wales Argus, but quickly found out it was a Glyn Woodman who had died. Glyn had played guitar with the James Boys for 16 years. Despite being close in age, playing guitar and attending the same St Julian’s School, I don’t think I knew Glyn.<br><br>I did an image search for ‘James Boys Newport’ and the first hit was a photograph of the James Boys playing at the Caldicot Festival, in 2009. On the extreme left, behind the guitarist, I saw a familiar, though a bit chubbier, face peering out, whilst holding some drumsticks. It certainly looked like Steve.<br><br>Further Internet searches revealed that the band were due to play at the Three Saints Hotel, in Llantrisant on Saturday the 26<sup>th</sup> January 2013. I phoned the hotel up a couple of days before the gig and asked a lady on reception if she could leave a message for the band. She agreed to do this and so I waited expecting a call sometime the next week. I heard nothing, so assumed that my message was not passed on and gave up hope.<br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/32247552014-10-09T15:39:29+01:002017-01-16T00:25:10+00:00Seeds are sown<div style="text-align: justify;">Sometime in early October 2012, Adrian Williams and Rob Evans were having a drink in a London Pub, when the news of the Rolling Stones having a 50th Anniversary tour was announced on TV. Adrian remarked to Rob that the 50<sup>th</sup> Anniversary of the Pieces of Mind forming was coming up in the next year and they should try and get as many of the band members together for a drink and perhaps a meal. Adrian sent me the following email on 15<sup>th</sup> October 2012:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> <br><em>Hey Ducksy, how you doing? I was in London last week with Rob Evans from Ebbw Vale. Naturally the conversation went back to the olden days and we thought how cool it might be to have a 50th anniversary meet of all the guys who ever played in the band, so we're talking Steve Strong, Dave Sargent, Chippy Chapman, Percy, Andy etc. Don't know what form it would take, probably just a piss up. Location would be another thing. Anyway before getting into it anymore, do you fancy it? Talk soon.</em><br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I answered saying I thought it was a great idea and perhaps we would be able to hire a club where we could have a back line for anyone who fancied a thrash and we could all get to play together for one last time. We could also have someone playing records from back in the day. <br><br>In the email that followed, he suggested advertising it in the local paper as a ‘Night of Nostalgia to celebrate the 50<sup>th</sup> Anniversary of the Pieces of Mind and the music you listened to then, or shall we all just go and get pissed’.<br> <br>In the same email, he listed a series of names of previous band members that we needed to contact. The majority of these people I had not seen or heard of since the late 1960s, so I could see it was going to be a bit of a challenge. I knew one person went to live in Australia, as I had bumped into him on a steamer cruise out of Minehead, when I was on leave from the RAF. Were the others still living in Wales or were they even still alive? Sadly, as I would find out later, a couple had passed away.<br><br>I started straight away, trying to track down various people. I had the telephone number of Andy Gibbon, who had been one of the bass players and also my best man, so gave him a call. He thought he could get contact details for Robert Price or Percy as we called him, and Dave Sargent.<br><br>He confirmed that Will Lowe had moved to Australia and the other bit of bad news he gave me was that he thought Chippy Chapman had died a while ago. Thankfully Chippy was resurrected when someone living in Sheffield contacted Andy through his band’s website, saying he had been a fan of the Pieces in the 60s. When Andy spoke to the chap, he mentioned that we were hoping to have a reunion of as many members as possible. When Andy said that Chippy had died, the chap said well ‘I spoke to him a few days ago and he was very much alive’ and then gave Andy the contact details for him. <br><br>Andy came back to me a few days later with Percy’s telephone number, so by the beginning of December 2012, in addition to Adrian, Andy and I, we knew how to contact Chippy, Phil Edwards, Percy, Dave Kubinec and Rob Evans. We still needed to find some more; however, I had already managed to track down Ted Dyer, so we were getting there. Andy also mentioned that one of his band-mates had been spreading the news around Newport and Cwmbran of a potential Pieces of Mind reunion next year. He said there seems to be a lot of interest, perhaps not as much as the Stones, but still people interested in seeing the old band perform again.<br><br>Adrian mentioned that he and Phil usually came to UK around Christmas, so we suggested that we meet in Newport either before or after, so we could discuss what we were going to do and when we would do it. After a few emails and telephone calls it was decided that the 6 of us would meet in the Celtic Manor on Thursday the 27th December 2012.<br> <br>So a couple of days after Christmas 2012, I had arranged to meet up with Adrian Williams, Phil Edwards, Chippy Chapman, Andy Gibbon and Robert ‘Percy’ Price in the Merlins bar at the Celtic Manor, Newport at just after 4 p.m.<br><br>I had a good idea of what Andy looked like, as I had visited the website of his band, Timesup. I also knew that Adrian had lost his golden locks, as I had viewed a clip of him when he appeared as a judge on a TV show, with Sharon Osbourne. However the only memories I had of the others was from around 45 years ago, so it was going to be interesting trying to find each other in a large bar. With hindsight, perhaps I should have suggested meeting in the reception area. <br><br>Being quite good at timekeeping I got into the bar dead on 4 p.m. and walked around to check if I could see any of the others. I waited and waited, until around 5 p.m., I heard someone say ‘Hello Ducksy’. I turned around and for a minute I thought who the hell this person was stood in front of me. It then dawned on me that it was Percy. He was the person I hadn’t seen for the longest time, probably 47 years ago. He easily recognised me, so despite losing my hair and putting the odd stone on in weight, I can’t have changed that much. At least that’s what I like to think.<br><br>We bought a drink, sat at a table and chatted for a while, about what each of us had been up to since we last met, before Andy came into the bar. There was still no sign of the others, so I decided to go to reception to check if Adrian and Phil had checked into the hotel, as like me, they were staying the night there. <br><br>The receptionist confirmed they had booked in and tried ringing their rooms, but there was no answer. On the way back to the table, I heard another ‘Hello Ducksy’ and turned to see a rather dapper looking Chippy, who despite a loss of hair and the adoption of a goatee beard had not changed much. When we got to the table, Adrian and Phil were sat there with Andy and Percy.<br> </div>
<div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/6bb3b5dbfae405849b653ff5bcc6abe2c0210ebe/original/celtic-manor2.jpg?1412865344" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>The Celtic Manor Meet</strong></p></div><em>Left to Right: Garnet ‘Chippy’ Chapman, Robert ‘Percy’ Price, Adrian Williams, Phil Edwards, Andy Gibbon and John ‘Ducksy’ Reardon.<br>The 6 of us were discussing a possible reunion, whilst consuming numerous bottles of wine, at the Celtic Manor on the 27<sup>th</sup> December 2012. First time I had really been drunk for several decades.</em>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>All of us had so much to tell each other with so little time to tell it, but we still tried. Adrian and Phil were living in Southern Spain, in fact as next-door neighbours. They also gave us a brief run-down of what they had done, both with the Pieces of Mind and other bands since we had all split up. <br><br>Andy and Chippy were living close to each other in Pontypool and Percy was living in Newport, fairly close to where we had first met all those years ago. When it was mine turn to say where I lived and also a little about myself, it turned out that Chippy had been living in Brampton village for a large portion of time I was stationed at RAF Brampton. Considering how small Brampton village was, it’s amazing we never bumped into each other.<br><br>After a couple of hours chatting and drinking, we still hadn’t got round to discussing what we had come here for. I was beginning to think that this was the reunion we had all been so excited about a couple of months earlier. Eventually someone asked what we were going to do about a reunion. Great, I thought, about time we got down to business. <br><br>By that point, the drinks round was bottles of wine and not beer, so we were slowly getting plastered, even more so because none of us had eaten. Chippy was the only person who was sober, as he no longer drank alcohol; however, he was just as exuberant as the rest of us.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">The 6 of us all wanted a reunion that involved us playing together, whether it was a case of hiring a room somewhere or even trying to do a gig. To be honest, at the time, the thought of us actually doing a gig was probably more the drink talking than a potential reality. The night sort of fizzled out, particularly as most of us were very drunk. Andy was being picked up by his wife and had arranged to take Percy home, although I found out later that they had lost Percy, who ended up walking the couple of miles home. Chippy was driving himself and the rest of us just had to find our rooms. I remember being sick in the toilets before I got to my room and then crashed out in my bed.<br><br>I hadn’t arranged to meet up with Adrian and Phil at breakfast; however, I bumped into them as I was waiting for my car to be brought to reception. I heard a shout of ‘Ducksy’ and the 2 of them were standing outside, whilst Phil was having a smoke. Adrian said that they had been laughing at the little red Ford Fiesta, with a private plate, and then realised it must have been mine, as it had my initials on. <br> <br>The 3 of us chatted for a while and all agreed that it had been a great night. The keenness to do something was still there, so it wasn’t just the alcohol talking the night before; they really wanted to further progress the idea of playing somewhere. I said I would get on the job as quickly as I could, probably starting in the New Year.<br> <br>The seeds were sown for a 50<sup>th</sup> Anniversary Reunion of the Pieces of Mind. <br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31729972014-09-05T16:09:40+01:002017-01-16T00:25:09+00:00A bit about me part 10 - Music Wilderness Years<div style="text-align: justify;">Within 2 years, I was back at RAF Brampton in Headquarters Support Command, this time working in IT. For the next 4 years, until I left the RAF in March 1993, my role was that of a system analyst, analysing and design computer systems for use within the Command. It was during this time that I was introduced to software from the Oracle Corporation who would eventually employ me. <br><br>In late 1988 or perhaps early 1989, my mother became ill and went into a coma. She was admitted to hospital and then released home after a week or so when she showed signs of recovery. My parents had then retired and were living in Malpas. When she came out of hospital, it was decided my mother would live for a while with my sister, in Morden Road, as she was better placed to look after her, than my father.<br> <br>In March 1989, my mother started getting worse and on the 28<sup>th</sup> March, she sadly passed away. The main cause of death was put down as Acute Bronchopneumonia, with Ischaemic Heart Disease being a contributory factor. I had managed to visit my mother, at my sister’s house, shortly before she died.<br> <br>My father, who had been a heavy smoker until he stopped in the mid-80s, suddenly started smoking heavily again. I am afraid to say, he also started drinking more than he should. His health was going downhill fairly rapidly and despite those of us who tried to show him what he was doing to his body; he carried on smoking and drinking. Eventually his health got worse and he was admitted to St Woolos Hospital. On the 8<sup>th</sup> July 1990, a mere 15 months after my mother had gone, my father passed away, without me having a chance to see him one last time. His cause of death was Bronchogenic Carcinoma or lung cancer.<br> <br>In less than 10 years, I had lost a brother and both of my parents. I was determined that I would never abuse my body the way my father had abused his. I had never smoked and didn’t really drink a lot; I just needed to improve my overall fitness. I became involved in the cross-country running team and spent many Wednesday afternoons running muddy races at various locations. I was never that fast, usually finishing a race well in the bottom quarter of competitors. I just enjoyed running and it had the side benefit of keeping me fit.<br> <br>I joined a running club in St. Neots, called the Riverside Runners and, during the winter months, started competing in weekly races, in a completion called the Frostbite series. I also ran numerous other races, including the 9<sup>th</sup> Great Eastern Run, in 1990 at Peterborough. This was a half marathon race and, for me, was to be the fastest time I ever achieved for that distance. I completed the 13.1 miles in just over 1 hour and 36 minutes, not bad for a 44-year old man. The race was a perfect one for me and I managed to knock 9 minutes off my previous best. And, no, I was not on drugs.<br> <br>Shortly after this race, several people in the club decided they wanted to enter the New York City Marathon, so we started saving up to fly to New York in 1995 and race the marathon. The Riverside Runners used to man the mile marker posts at the annual London Marathon event. As a reward for doing this, they used to be given a certain number of guaranteed places for those wishing to run the marathon. I managed to get a place, actually substituting for someone who was injured.<br> <br>According to my times in half marathons, I should have been able to finish the London in well under 4 hours; however, I only managed a time of 4 hours 10 minutes. I went on to run the London Marathon a further 3 occasions, with my times getting progressively longer. My official time in the 1993 London Marathon was 4 hours 50 minutes and 6 seconds, although it took me 15 minutes to cross the actual start line, so it should have been around 4 hours 35 minutes.<br> <br>I left the RAF on the 28 March 1993, having served a total of 22 years. In that time, I managed to miss all the major conflicts, such as Northern Ireland, the Falklands War and the first Gulf War. Missing these conflicts was not my choice, it was purely down to the fact my trade wasn’t required; however, I was very glad I had.<br><br>I immediately joined the American software company, Oracle Corporation. In fact, I had joined the company a couple of weeks earlier, so for a short period, the RAF and Oracle were paying me at the same time. As a leaving present to myself, I re-kindled my interest in music by buying a brand new Fender Stratocaster, which I still have. <br><br>When I joined Oracle, I was based in Bracknell, so we decided to sell our house in Offord Cluny and move to one in Bracknell. After a while, Oracle moved to Thames Valley Park, near Reading, and I had also switched to a Pre-Sales role, which meant I could be based in any of the offices. So we decided to up sticks and move again somewhere up the M40. We eventually chose to live in Brackley; an old market town situated about 10 miles from the M40 and not that far from where Mark and Emma were living. We have been there ever since.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> <br>Working in Oracle offered plenty of opportunities to travel. Within 18 months of me joining, a paper I had submitted to a User Group in Vail, Colorado was selected. My department arranged for me to visit the Oracle Headquarters, in Redwood Shores, near San Francisco, and work with our American colleagues for 5 days before I flew to Denver to present the paper at the 5 day Conference, in Vail.<br> <br>Whilst in San Francisco, I managed to attend a baseball game at the then named Candlestick Park. It was quite a hot day and despite the offer given to me by one of my American colleagues, I refused to wear a spare baseball cap he had brought. By the time the match finished, my face and the top of my head was severely sunburnt.<br> <br>The trip to Vail was interesting. I flew from San Francisco to Denver and my travel department had pre-booked a seat on the Colorado Mountain Express. I expected this to be a train, however, when I got to their offices in Denver Airport, I discovered it was just a large minibus.<br> <br>The journey to Vail took around 3 hours and despite my thoughts about the minibus, I must say it was fabulous. The scenery driving up through the Rocky Mountains was amazing and probably better seen in a minibus than a train.<br><br>On arrival at the hotel, the concierge gave us a little speech warning us to get used to the altitude before undertaking some things. Vail is over 8000 feet above sea level and the air is quite thin. I listened to this chap telling us to use the elevators, rather than the stairs and not to exercise or drink alcohol for a couple of days. <br><br>After I checked in, I saw there was a large queue for the elevator, so I climbed 2 flights of stairs to my room. I unpacked my bags and decided to go for a small run into the centre of Vail and back, a distance of just under 2 miles.<br> <br>On the way back to the hotel, it started snowing and I could hardly breathe. A couple of very attractive young American ladies stopped and asked me if I was ok. I told them, I was just taking a breather and started jogging again. They sped off in front of me and when they had turned the corner, I stopped and walked the rest of the way back to the hotel.<br> <br>As I entered the hotel, I saw the concierge shaking his head and muttering at me. This time I took the elevator to my room and crashed out on the bed. That night, I defied the third warning he had given us, and drank lots of alcohol. It took me several days to get over the lack of air, even when I got down to Denver, which was 3000 feet below Vail; I was still out of breath. <br> <br>When I had got to the hotel in Vail the skin on my forehead and nose were starting to peel and by the time I gave my 45-minute presentation, I was not a pretty sight. I think many in the front row of the audience were wondering why this British person, with what appeared to be third degree burns, was doing there when he should have been in hospital, or at least off work. Still, I managed to complete the presentation, with no problems. Afterwards, a few people came up to me asking what had happened and laughed when I told them.<br> <br>I spent 3 weeks working on a large project in Boston. Consultants from all over the World were helping develop an IT system for Nynex, which was a telephone company serving 5 New England States. There were many interesting characters on the project, including a Texan who insisted on bringing a gun to work, keeping it in his desk drawer during the day.<br> <br>My time there coincided with a graduation ceremony from Harvard and on that weekend, I was walking around the centre of Boston, near where Filene’s Basement was, when I heard a Welsh voice. I looked to where it was coming from and saw a woman talking to a policeman, mounted on a horse. When she finished talking, I asked her what part of God’s Country was she from, and it turned out she was living in Camrose Walk, Cwmbran, just a few doors from where we used to live. She was in Boston attending her daughter’s graduation ceremony from Harvard. It’s such a small World these days.<br> <br>I made another trip to San Francisco in the mid-90s, when one of our salesman and I escorted a group of senior Military personnel to Redwood Shores. As they were meeting with senior Oracle staff, we were given Oracle chauffer driven Limousines and entertained rather well. The salesman and I managed a day out driving up to the numerous Vineyards in the Napa Valley.<br> <br>Other trips I made in my time with Oracle were to Berlin a couple of times for an Oracle Open World and a training course and also Brussels for another course.<br> <br>In 1995 I flew to New York with several other members of the Riverside Runners, to run the New York City Marathon. The race that year was probably the coldest of all the New York Marathons. I had cycling type shorts and a vest, topped off with a bin liner to try and keep me warm. I also had a long sleeved vest that I intended to discard at the start; however, I had to keep it on for at least the first hour.<br> <br>The official statistics state that I finished the race in 5 hours, 10 minutes and 13 seconds. My overall position in the race was 22638 out of 26809 people that finished the event. I didn’t come last, but I could see that the marathon distance was, perhaps, too long for me. I suppose it didn’t help that I had run the London Marathon earlier in the year, and injured myself at the 15-mile stage. I should have pulled out of that race, but stupidly I didn’t.<br> <br>My lingering memories of that 5-day trip to New York are seeing the expression on people’s faces when I popped into a shop to buy a banana, round about the 6-7 mile mark of the race and also the trips some of us took, up the World Trade Centre towers and the Empire State building. The view from the observation floors was amazing. <br><br>Having moved away from the Huntingdon area, I decided to give up running races and just do a little to try and maintain fitness. For many years, going back to my Royal Air Force days, I had wanted to tackle the Coast-to-Coast walk; numerous reasons, or maybe excuses, stopped me having a go. One night in the summer of 1997, after a team meeting, I was in a restaurant in London and happened to mention my ambition of doing the walk. A few drinks later, a couple of colleagues expressed an interest and things developed from there.<br> <br>The following year, in May, I tackled the 190+ mile walk with 2 of my Oracle colleagues, Lynda Barnes and John Breedon. It took us 12 days to complete the walk, carrying all our gear with us and staying in Youth Hostels and Bed and Breakfast places.<br> <br>I lasted over 10 years in Oracle before the inevitable redundancy occurred. Again I was lucky in that before my redundancy period ended, I joined Capgemini, an IT consulting company. I stayed with them until they had a voluntary redundancy programme in 2007. I applied and was accepted in May 2007. Having reached the age of 61, I decided that this was the right time to retire.<br> <br>I then spent the next 6 months hanging about at home; with no real purpose in life, other than to get under my wife’s feet. During this time, I would receive the odd email or telephone call from recruitment agencies asking if I was interested in particular jobs. One such job sounded extremely interesting and also seemed to offer a lot of money. The recruiter was quite cagey about who or where it was until I forced him to answer. It was an IT role working for the military in Afghanistan. I politely declined.<br> <br>Eventually one agency said they had a 3-month contracting job, at Jaguar Land Rover near Coventry. This seemed ideal for me, and whilst Coventry was a bit further away from Brackley than I really wanted, the car commute, via the M40 and A46, was not too bad. So with a lot of encouragement from Jackie, I went for the interview, got the job and started work at Whitley, near Coventry, in November 2007. As an incentive, Jackie suggested I use some of the money I would earn to buy guitars and amplifiers. As I was still working until August 2013, I seem to have acquired a few of both since 2007.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/66128e84f9d6450ce86afc6b035224c95e99bd7a/original/ducksy2.jpg?1400871583" class="size_l justify_center border_" />
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>One of my Les Pauls in action</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> <br>Despite saying ‘never again’ at the end of the 1997 Coast-to-Coast walk, I did it again. Back in the summer of 2010, having already retired a couple of times, I promised myself I would eventually retire in 2011, when I reached 65. To celebrate my third and what I though would be my final retirement, I would repeat my walk across the North of England on my own. This I did in June of 2011, taking 14 days and having the luxury of my gear carried between overnight stops.<br> <br>Whilst writing this, in September 2013, I have just finally, I hope, retired for the last time. A couple of years earlier my job at Jaguar Land Rover had moved from Coventry to Gaydon, which is a lot nearer to where I live. Gaydon is one of the main engineering centres for Jaguar Land Rover and has a test track that is used by both Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin. It was quite interesting seeing the many prototype vehicles being driven around the site, however, at times, it seemed like a long 3 month contract I had signed.<br> <br>Since moving to Brackley, I have got more and more involved with music and playing guitar in particular. I started attending local jam sessions, often playing in the house band and also joined up with a couple of ladies playing a mix of electric folk material. We are all rather ‘mature’; however playing with them is great.<br> <br>Musetta, who plays violin, has an interesting musical background, in that she was one of the performers who played percussive instruments in the Quintessence rock band, back in the early 70s. Cynthia has a lovely voice and plays 12-string acoustic guitar, whilst I play one of my electrics. It might not be quite like playing in the Pieces of Mind, but at least it’s extremely enjoyable. Another violinist, called Ian and a chap who plays bass guitar called John, has recently joined us. John used to be with Mungo Jerry. All 4 of them are extremely accomplished players. Sadly John Godfrey, the ex Mungo Jerry bass player died suddenly in June 2014. We will all miss him.<br> <br>I joined a rock band in 2012 and have played a few gigs. We also recorded half a dozen songs, all covers, at Rockhopper studios, in Buckingham; so we could hand out CDs at potential venues. The recording package included a couple of professionally produced videos as well as the CDs.<br> <br>However, in May 2013, we parted company as I found their style of playing to be too robotic, not free flowing enough and most importantly, it was not fun for me. What playing in a group should be like was reinforced quite strongly to me when the Pieces of Mind played their 50<sup>th</sup> Anniversary Reunion gig in April 2013, but more about that later.<br> <br>Well into my 60s, I was now back doing what I loved doing in the 1960s; playing a guitar with friends of a similar ilk.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/586ea5b1dc0e1e03461674c1e53bcf01b938e458/original/studio92.jpg?1402482331" class="size_l justify_center border_" />
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Faster Studios March 2014</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Taking the mickey out of poor Johnny B who didn't know what we were doing</em></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31640142014-08-30T12:10:07+01:002017-01-16T00:25:09+00:00A bit about me part 9 - Music Wilderness years<div style="text-align: justify;">When my 3-year tour in Germany was over, I was posted to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire. I only spent 6 months there, working in the Stats and Records Investigation Flight, before I was promoted and posted to Headquarters Inspectorate of Recruiting, based in Stanmore, North London. <br><br>I ran a small section responsible for planning entrants into recruit training to enable a smooth and efficient flow into their subsequent trade training. My family joined me shortly after arrival, and moved into a house at RAF Stanmore Park.<br> <br>It was during this posting that I renewed contact with some members of the Pieces of Mind. On a shopping trip in London, I was perusing records in the HMV store in Oxford Street, when I saw a familiar face on an album cover. The album was called ‘Some Things Never Change’ and the familiar face was none other than Dave Kubinec. He was dressed as a bellhop carrying a tray with a bottle of wine into what looked like a trashed hotel room. I bought the record, which is great by the way, with the intention of contacting the record company, A&M to see if they would give me his contact details.<br> <br>Being the late 1970s, there was no email or Internet, so contact was done the old fashioned way of writing a letter. I then forgot about until I received a phone call at work from Dave, about 3 months after I had written the letter. He was in regular contact with Adrian, so the three of us arranged to meet in a London pub and had a great drunken night reminiscing.<br><br>Around the same time, I also met up with Andy Gibbon, who was in the Blonde on Blonde group with Les Hicks trying to get some material released. I thought the songs they had, particularly the reworked ones from the Rebirth album, were very good. Sadly, I don’t think they got very far. <br><br>Whilst at Stanmore, I worked with a colleague who was studying for a degree with the Open University (OU), which had been founded in 1969 and started taking students, on a distance learning basis, in 1971. His experiences made me think of the education I had forsaken to play in groups. I didn’t stay on in school and take ‘A’ Levels or go to University, despite being quite capable of doing both. I knew my mother had always been disappointed as I was the only one of our family who had gone to Grammar school.<br> <br>I wanted to prove to myself that I could attain a University degree and being as the RAF would pay part of the fees, I decided to enroll to start at the beginning of 1978. There were not that many course choices in the OU’s early days and to get a degree, you had to achieve 6 credits, of which 2 must be at Foundation level. The Foundation level courses available were Mathematics, Social Science, Technology and Arts. I elected to take Mathematics as my first course and followed this with Social Sciences the following year.<br><br>I soon discovered that undertaking part time education, whilst holding a full-time job, was difficult, especially a job such as the RAF that came with numerous other duties. I decided I would take my time and take a year off before continuing. <br><br>The courses I took were: Mathematics, Social Science, Statistics, Research Methods, Computing, Systems Behaviour and Economics. All of them, apart from Statistics and Computing were 1-credit courses; Statistics and Computing were half a credit each. I attended weeklong Summer School courses for the Mathematics, Social Science and Economics courses. I eventually finished the requisite number of credits and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1986. I had proved to myself I could get a degree, albeit the hard way.<br><br>During this posting I finally, or at least I thought at the time it was final, severed contact with guitars. I still had the Pre-CBS Fender Stratocaster I had bought from Mo Wight’s, back in the late 60s and I wanted to buy a Pioneer Hi-fi system. The guitar was not being used, so I decided to sell it in 1980. I managed to get £200 for the guitar, which at the time I thought was excellent. At the time, nobody anticipated the crazy prices that pre-CBS Stratocasters would achieve a couple of decades after I sold it. Still I enjoyed the Hi-fi system more than a guitar that was stored in a case, under a bed. I now had no guitar.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/b9649ed4ec88cf69da24e6be8ecbbe892020ff21/original/mark-strat01-colour.jpg?1409396368" class="size_l justify_center border_" />
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>My Pre- CBS Fender Stratocaster</strong><br><em>One of the few photographs I have of the guitar I sold in 1980 for £200. 20 years later, these guitars were attracting prices up to £25,000. Our son Mark is sat with the guitar on his lap. His friend Vincent sits next to him, whilst Emma is in the pram. The photograph was taken in our garden at Upwood, so would have been in the summer of 1972.</em>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>My next move occurred in September 1980, when I was posted to RAF Hereford. Within a week or so of this posting I received the sad news that my younger brother Terry had died suddenly at home. At the time, I was still waiting to be allocated a married quarter at Hereford, so my family were still living in Stanmore. This meant I was living in a barrack block during the week and travelling back to Stanmore on Friday evenings. <br><br>One weekend I had planned to visit and stay with my brother and his wife, who lived in Caldicot, however, something came up and I had to go back to Stanmore. Late on the evening of Saturday the 20<sup>th</sup> September we received a knock on the door from the orderly corporal. He told me I had to contact the orderly officer and gave me his address. At this stage, I knew someone in my family had died, but expected it to be my mother or grandmother.<br><br>When I went round to see the orderly officer at his house, he opened his door and the first words he spoke to me were ‘Your brother’s dead’. He then said I had to ring my uncle. I stood at the door shell-shocked, not believing what he had just told me.<br><br>I walked back to our house, in a bit of a state and told Jackie, who also couldn’t believe it. We didn’t have a telephone, so I had to use a call box to ring my uncle who confirmed that Terry had died. My parents were on holiday, hence the reason I had to call my uncle. His wife had returned home from shopping, late Saturday afternoon, to find him dead in a chair, in front of the television. <br><br>It took me a long time to get over the death of Terry. The callous way I had been informed of his death and the regret I had of changing my mind of visiting him that weekend preyed on my mind for months afterwards. I kept thinking that perhaps I could have prevented his death if I had been with him that weekend. In the end, I went to see one of the doctors in the RAF medical centre and discussed how Terry had died.<br> <br>When I showed him a copy of the death certificate, the doctor told me that there would have been nothing I could have done to save Terry. Essentially the disease he had, which was something to do with the pancreas, would have had to be diagnosed a long time before his death. This certainly allayed some of my worries, but I still feel bad that I never had the chance to see him one last time. There have been many occasions, usually when I have been on my own, that I have silently wept.<br><br>As for the way I was informed, whilst I can try and find excuses such as the military are over familiar with deaths or perhaps he thought my brother was severely ill, I still think the officer handled it extremely badly. He could have had least said he had some bad news for me or even shown me into his house to sit down. Life is hard; however I cannot forgive his action. <br><br>After Hereford, I moved back to RAF Brampton, which was now Headquarters Support Command. The job was similar to my first one in that I would be analysing training data with around a dozen other colleagues in Command Stats. The big difference was that I had been promoted to Sergeant on leaving Hereford. I stayed in this post for a couple of years until I was moved to another Inspectorate, this time the Flight Safety one at the Ministry of Defence in London, where I was to spend an enjoyable 4 and a half years working in civilian clothes.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">For the first 6 months I carried on living at RAF Brampton, making the daily commute from Huntingdon to London, by train. It was in London that I started working in Information Technology (IT) or Automated Data Processing, as we called it back then. The IT role came with an added benefit of a pay increase. <br><br>Eventually, RAF Brampton insisted that I move out of their married quarter to one at RAF Uxbridge. I took a trip to Uxbridge, along with my family, to look at the married quarter we had been allocated and also check out the local area. I am really glad we did this, as the quarter was awful. It was a terraced house with a huge radio mast overlooking the small back garden and Uxbridge was a large town, much larger than what we had been used to. This visit prompted us to buy a house, which we did in a small village, near RAF Brampton, called Offord Cluny. It was situated a few miles from St Neots Station, which meant I could manage the daily commute to my job in London.<br><br>In April 1987, I was posted to the Maintenance Analysis and Computing Establishment, at RAF Swanton Morley. This base was well about 75 miles from where I lived in Offord Cluny and there was no direct way of commuting by train, so I took a decision to make the daily 150 mile round trip by car. <br><br>The route, I took from Offord Cluny, was across the Fens via Chatteris, Downham Market, Swafham and Dereham before reaching Swanton Morley. Most of the time, the journey was quite pleasant and relatively traffic free. However as winter approached, you tended to get early morning fog combined with ice, which made the road conditions treacherous, particularly those stretches that ran along the many drains you get in the Fens. There were many instances of drivers skidding off the roads into the ditches and, sadly a few deaths have occurred.<br><br>My role there was analysing aircraft fatigue data and to be honest, it was the most boring job I ever had in the RAF; I hated almost every minute of it. The only good time I had was when I attended the annual Rifle Championships, held at Bisley in 1987. I had always been a reasonable ‘shot’, so when the chance came along to attend the Championships as part of the Swanton Morley team, I jumped at it. If nothing else, it would offer me a few days away from the boredom of work. <br><br>I can remember it being very hot whilst I was there, and it was quite uncomfortable sleeping in tents. I also damaged my Achilles tendon when taking part in a competition known as the Queen Mary. This involved firing a self-loading rifle (SLR) in various positions from 500 yards to 100 yards distance. Basically you fired a couple of shots at the target, then had to run 100 yards to the next distance and fire a couple more shots in a different position, until you reached the last 100 yard firing point. All of this in a fixed timescale of, I seem to remember, a minute for each 100 yard distance, whilst dressed in full camouflage uniform and military boots.<br> <br>I did fairly well, managing to get into the second round. I also beat a young chap next to me, who was in the RAF Regiment. I always remember his officer telling him off for being beat by an old man; I was 41.<br><br>The next day, I woke up in the tent and could hardly walk. I certainly couldn’t put my right boot on. I managed to limp to the medical tent and was told by an RAF Squadron Leader that I had come close to snapping my Achilles. He gave me some painkillers and also an excused boots note. He didn’t send me home though, so I was allowed to compete in the competitions that didn’t involve running. <br><br>One such competition was over long distances on the Stickledown range. Shooting at distances up to 1100 yards was quite an experience. I believe the targets were about 10 feet wide by 6 feet high, which seems a lot, but at those distances, you could hardly see them with the naked eye. Even with the telescopic sights we had, the targets looked very small. The art was getting your first shot on the target, and then it was relatively straightforward to adjust the sights and move the shot closer to the inner circle.<br> <br>I scored well enough to make a reserve place on the RAF Support Command team. I didn’t participate in the inter Service competition, but apparently achieving a reserve place was quite an honour, especially for someone on their first time at Bisley. <br><br>Despite enjoying myself at Bisley, I never attended again. I still have the occasional issue with my right Achilles, usually if I do any running, although it can ache when just walking. </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31579662014-08-27T09:45:19+01:002020-08-10T12:53:18+01:00A bit about me part 8 - Music Wilderness years<div style="text-align: justify;">Like many in the RAF, I found the idea of an overseas posting very attractive, so I had applied shortly after arriving at Brampton. At the end of 1972, I received the news that I would be posted to Germany at the end of the following March. At this time, I still held only a provisional licence, so I really needed to pass the driving test, before I went overseas. <br><br>I quickly arranged for a test in Peterborough and, despite the fact I had been driving for a few years, I failed. I arranged another one and failed again. I then decided that I should try to take the test in my hometown of Newport and also undertake some driving lessons. The driving instructor quickly identified my problem, saying it was a combination of not knowing the town and that my driving was in fact too good to pass the test. Within a few lessons, I managed to change my driving habits to those expected by examiners and finally passed the test with a week or two to spare before I was posted.<br><br>On the 29<sup>th</sup> March 1973, exactly 2 years to the day I joined the RAF, I arrived at RAF Wildenrath, in Germany, to join No 20 Squadron (Sqn), who were one of 3 Harrier Squadrons at the base. Jackie, Mark and Emma joined me about 4 weeks later to live in a flat near RAF Geilenkirchen, which was about 15 miles from Wildenrath and close to the border with the Netherlands. We lived for a year in the flat before moving to a bigger house on the Geilenkirchen base.<br><br>20 Sqn was one of the oldest and amongst the most decorated of RAF Squadrons. It had been based at RAF Tengah, Singapore until the RAF withdrew from the Far East in 1970. It moved to Germany, that same year, where it operated Harriers. The Sqn is currently (2013) disbanded.<br><br>I spent 3 years at Wildenrath and during that time, was deployed to various locations within Germany and also went to Denmark once and 3 times to Decimomannu air base in Sardinia. It was on one of the trips to Sardinia that I managed to get a trip in the back seat of a Harrier. Being a clerk or ‘shiny as they called us, on the Sqn, one of my tasks was to co-ordinate those people who had been allocated a flight in the back seat of the 2-seat training aircraft. At Decimomannu the flight would almost certainly be a sortie on the nearby bombing range. <br><br>One day I had someone drop out of their designated flight, so despite me being terrified of heights and having a fear of flying, I volunteered to go instead. After receiving a safety briefing, I donned flying overalls, including an anti-g suit, helmet and oxygen mask, walked out to the flight line and climbed into the back seat of XW272, which was a 2 seat training version of the Harrier.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/56f395f17e99686788eacda5a84a7b68bb629047/original/xw272.jpg?1409128335" class="size_orig justify_center border_" alt="" /><p class="caption"><strong>XW272</strong></p></div><br>For someone who was not aircrew, I found it quite frightening sitting on a live ejector seat, waiting to take off. We were the last of 4 aircraft that had a particular slot on the bombing range, so we flew around a bit before doing our designated passes of bombs, rockets and guns. Dropping bombs and shooting rockets was not as spectacular as I anticipated it would be, however, when we fired Aden 30 mm guns, I was really surprised to feel the whole aircraft vibrate. After the last pass, we joined up with the other 3 to make our way back to base. Flying through the dramatic mountain ranges, I could see shepherds with their sheep that appeared to be above the height we were. We were so close I could see all the oil stains on the belly of the aircraft above and in front of us. <br><br>On the last pass, I thought to myself that it was good that I hadn’t been airsick. As soon as the word sick entered my mind, I was of course sick. Luckily I had brought a large polythene bag with me and managed to get the oxygen mask off before stuff poured out of my mouth. One of the ground crew had warned me that in no way was I to foul the mask, as it was an awful job to clean and very expensive to replace if cleaning was useless. <br><br>Coming in to land at Decimomannu, it seemed to me that we were approaching the runway at an alarming rate. I could also feel something tugging on my left leg, but I assumed it was the anti-g suit. The pilot asked me if I was messing with anything and I said no. As we got nearer to the runway, he asked me again, quite forcibly, if I was messing with anything. This time I noticed my left leg restraint had got caught over the lever that operated the nozzles and it was this that was tugging on my leg. I removed the restraint from the lever and told the pilot, just as we landed quite heavily on the runway. He had been trying to do a short landing by swiveling the nozzles using his lever, which I assume was mechanically connected to my lever. The leg restraint was preventing him doing this.<br><br>As we taxied back to the flight line, I proudly held up the polythene bag, full of its grisly contents, to the awaiting ground crew. When we stopped the aircraft and got out, the pilot asked me who had strapped me in and went storming off to see the see the poor junior pilot who had checked all was correct when I had got into the cockpit before the flight. It wasn’t his entire fault though as shortly after the RAF made a modification to the length of the leg restraints.<br><br>XW272 was eventually upgraded from a T2 to T4a and switched to 4 Sqn, when 20 Sqn switched to Jaguar aircraft. On 29th June 1982, the aircraft took off with the flaps retracted from a grass strip on the Bergen Hohne Range, West Germany. It climbed no more than 30 feet and continued forward in a nose down attitude until it crashed into trees. The pilot, Wing Commander Keith Graham Holland AFC, did not eject and was unfortunately killed.<br><br>Another time I flew in a 2-seat aircraft was when the Sqn spent a couple of weeks with the Danish Air Force at Karup, in Denmark. Again, I was helping to co-ordinate flights in aircraft. At Karup most of the flights were either Danish pilots wanting to fly in a Harrier or RAF pilots wanting a trip in a Draaken. When the offer of a trip in a Chipmunk came from the Danish Air Force, none of our pilots wanted to bother. To save embarrassment I offered to go in the Chipmunk. The Danish pilot had to courier some documents to another base; I think it was Skrydstrup, which was about 90 miles south of Karup. <br><br>The pilot gave me a parachute, which I donned over my RAF uniform and then walked, bent over from the weight of the parachute, to the small aircraft. When I got into the back seat of the cockpit, the pilot gave me a safety brief that essentially consisted of telling me that if we got into trouble, he would slide the canopy back and I had to climb onto a wing and jump. When he saw a rather worried expression on my face, he laughed and said that he would just turn the aircraft upside down, after he had slid the canopy back, so I could fall out.<br><br>The trip itself was amazing, flying through beautiful scenery at what appeared to be just a few hundred feet. At one stage, the pilot started to circle a house and I could see a woman waving to him. He told me that he did this trip at the same time every day and it was his wife doing the waving, from their house. When we landed at Skrydstrup, he hardly stopped the aircraft and just handed the bag of documents to a Danish airman who was running alongside the Chipmunk. Documents handed over; he started taxying to the runway and took off for the trip back to Karup. On the return leg, he took me a slightly different route flying along a river valley. Luckily I did not have to climb out onto the wings. <br><br>Other memories of my time in Germany were of the field deployments. Being part of the ground crew, I was expected to sleep in one of the 12-man tents, along with 11 others. I did this once and then decided I would kit out the back of the 4-ton truck that was used to transport the tents and radios for Engineering Control. I was the designated driver of the truck, so before the next deployment I managed to scrounge a couple of bunk beds, lots of wood, hessian and a few large rolls of polythene. I lined the tarpaulin with polythene to keep the rain out and then put a lining of hessian over the polythene to try and make it a bit warmer. I built a counter out of the wood, so the ground crew could sign the various aircraft documentation and could also store the radio equipment underneath. The bunk beds just about managed to fit across the truck, behind the cab. I also put a little hessian curtain in front of the beds for privacy. <br><br>None of the modifications were permanent, so if the truck needed to be used in between deployments, I would remove them and store at the Sqn hangar. Luckily my truck, registration 24-AJ-76, was hardly used other than by me, during my 3 years. Before long, my modified truck was the envy of those who had to sleep in tents. Those in the other Squadrons also copied the idea. <br><br>It was whilst I was in Germany, I took up playing guitar again, for a short time, albeit just in a made up Sqn band. We had 2-3 other guitarists that could sing and a drummer but no bass guitar. We mainly took our instruments on deployments and, along with a band made up from the aircrew, used to put on shows to ‘entertain’ if that’s the right word, the rest of the Sqn.<br><br>The shows proved to be so popular that the wives wanted to see what we did, so I organised a one-off show that was held in November 1975. A made-up ground crew band of Bernie Harris on tambourine, Geoff Munson on guitar, Barry Hadley on guitar and vocals, Arthur Russell on drums, Ken Evans on vocals and I on guitar, entertained 300 people in the Harrier Club in Wildenrath. The aircrew band also performed, but obviously we out-played them.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/19ed29874fdbd43939219fc89d1b2e7b9f4fc13c/original/girls01.jpg?1409128714" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>The RAF Wildenrath Show, 1975</strong><br><em>Left to Right: Barry Hadley, John ‘Ducksy’ Reardon, Bernie Harris & Geoff Munson</em><br><em>Performing the Supremes song ‘Dirty Old Man’. Lovely legs we all had.</em>
</div>
<p><br><br>I wrote a short article for Zulu, the RAF Wildenrath magazine and it was published in the March 1976 issue. I concluded the article with the words ‘I hope I will be remembered as the best guitarist Eng. Control has ever had’. I was certainly the only one.<br><br>One of the wives had written an article for the same magazine, the month before. She recalled of the night, that the various ‘talents’ of the Sqn were to show the ladies what they did in the way of amusement whilst on deployments and detachments. She had no doubt that the show was toned down for the ladies, but they were there to be entertained and entertained they were.<br><br>We took the shows to Sardinia and Denmark, as well as various locations around Paderborn in Germany. Our amplifiers and other equipment were packed away in the flight cases; we called lacons, along with aircraft spares. I am not sure whether they were ever checked by Customs, but if they were, they must have wondered what sort of fighting force we were supposed to be.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Some random pics from the shows, courtesy of Steve Hurle</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/0f5daac1843d5dfe89cb6cc07bbd2e25c335df59/original/20sqn-deci-01.jpg" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/e44bf47b6a82182c586778803b70967444c51f10/original/20sqn-deci-03.jpg" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/bb82c30ffad35593f26d2c512de65ca8f6031e8c/original/20sqn-deci-22.jpg" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>20 Sqn Wildenrath 1973-1976</strong></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/6a758c7e835c70a235703e4d515567405541e6e4/original/20sqn-misc17.jpg" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/33c27fd079bb7862ae61f5def89c81fbebdef68e/original/20sqn-misc16.jpg" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31559962014-08-26T13:57:02+01:002017-01-16T00:25:09+00:00A bit about me part 7 - Music Wilderness years<div style="text-align: justify;">When I got back home I wanted to take a complete break from playing guitar in groups and I also needed a job, so I could support my family. I was approaching the age of 25 and the only qualifications I had were 4 GCE ‘O’ Levels. I also had a foot in plaster that did somewhat limit my employment choices.<br><br>I was reading the employment pages of the South Wales Argus one night in January 1971 and noticed an advert for Statisticians to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). I knew next to nothing of what people in the RAF did; I knew people flew airplanes and that was about it. The real thing that attracted me, at the time, was the thought that the discipline of a military life would take me away from playing in groups, a thing that would almost certainly wreck my marriage. <br><br>The advert gave the telephone number of the local Recruiting Office, which was in Clarence Place in Newport. I rang them and arranged an interview the next day. I was interviewed by a sergeant and an officer and had to undertake several intelligence tests. They told me I was suitable to join as a Statistician or Statistics Clerk as they called it and arranged for me to undertake Recruit training starting on the 29<sup>th</sup> March 1971, just over a week after my 25<sup>th</sup> birthday. <br><br>I had just over 2 months to wait before I was due to join the RAF, so decided I would go down to the Labour Exchange, or Jobcentre as they call it these days, and see if they had any temporary jobs and if not, I would sign on the dole. My foot was still in plaster but it was getting easier to walk and would not prevent me from doing work that wasn’t too manual. When I got to the front of the queue on my first ‘signing on’ day, the clerk insisted on me going to interviews for full time permanent jobs. I told him that I was waiting to go in the RAF but he said if I didn’t go to the interview I would not get any dole money.<br><br>The employers at the couple of interviews I did go to all said they would not employ me because I was going into the RAF and in fact, thought I was wasting their time. The next signing on day, I got the same clerk who again told me I had to undertake more job interviews, despite me telling him the results of the previous interviews. I noticed that the people in front of me in the queue were not given any interviews, so I asked him why they didn’t get any and he told me that they were ‘regulars’. I had to go to several more wasted interviews before the clerk accepted me as a regular.<br><br>That 2-month period is the only time in my life I have been unemployed and needed to claim benefits. I understand that people working behind the counters have a difficult time, however, the bureaucratic attitude adopted by that clerk and others caused me immense misery at a time I was just trying to get used to life without playing in a group. <br><br>I arrived at the RAF School of Recruit Training Swinderby on Monday the 29<sup>th</sup> March 1971 to commence 6 weeks of recruit training. RAF Swinderby was an old RAF Bomber Command airfield that was built in the 1930s and it became responsible for the basic training of all enlisted RAF personnel prior to their trade training, in 1964. It lay just off the A46 and was near the village of Swinderby, roughly halfway between Lincoln and Newark-on-Trent in Lincolnshire.<br><br>I had travelled, by train, from Newport to Newark where recruits would be picked up by RAF coach. Arriving at Newark, I noticed a military coach with a chap in uniform standing near the door. I walked up to the coach and he told me to stow my case in the luggage compartment and get on the coach, which was half full of other recruits. We waited for one more train to arrive before we set off to travel to Swinderby. Looking around at the others on the coach, I could see I was definitely one of the oldest, if not the oldest recruit on the coach. I was 25 and about to undergo 6 weeks of tough training with people a lot younger and fitter than I was.<br><br>Looking back at training that took place over 42 years ago, I have very few memories of the 6 weeks. The ones that do come to mind are talking to a few youngsters who had joined straight from school, and were extremely home-sick and crying at nights; myself being physically sick and nearly passing out after a heavy physical training session and the thing I will never forget, being called a ‘speckled lump of afterbirth’ by a drill instructor. The drill instructor wasn’t particularly picking on me; it was just my turn to be tested to see if I would break.<br><br>After recruit training, I had a few days leave before starting Trade Training at RAF Hereford. All recruits back then had to travel in uniform, so feeling very self-conscious, I set off by train to Newport, where my father-in-law would pick me up to take me to Rogerstone to see Jackie and son.<br> </div><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/81138d27a45d392e73140286aac6cd088b8cb58b/large/raf-bridge.jpg?1409056316" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Home on leave, thinner and fitter</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>During this leave, or it could have been after the Trade Training, I took the opportunity to see Judas Jump, in Newport. Judas Jump was formed out of members of Amen Corner, the Herd, and the Mindbenders together with Adrian Williams from the Pieces of Mind. Adrian maintains his last gig, with Judas Jump, was at the Isle of Wight festival in August 1970, however, I am positive I saw them play at either the Kensington Court club or Mount St Albans in Newport in April or May 1971. I remember chatting to Adrian, Alan Jones and Henry Spinetti in their break. Unfortunately no one seems to have kept records, so either I was dreaming or Adrian is wrong. <br><br>The Trade Training for Clerk Statistics only lasted 5 weeks, so it was not long before I received my first posting to the Headquarters Training Command at RAF Brampton, where I joined around a dozen other Statistics Clerks of various ranks analysing training data in Command Stats. Within a short period, I was allocated a married quarter at RAF Upwood, which was about 12 miles away. My family joined me sometime in June 1971 and we spent nearly 20 months meeting and making new friends, before I received my next posting. <br><br>Our second child, Emma Jane was born in January 1972. This time, the birth was planned to take place in the RAF Hospital at Ely in Cambridgeshire, which was nearly 25 miles away from where we lived, across the Fens. As the due date for the birth got close, Jackie’s mother came to stay with us, so she could help and also drive us to Ely, when the time came. Even though I had been driving for a few years, I had never actually taken a driving test and only had a provisional licence. Jackie had a full licence, so we owned a car, which was a magnificent Ice Blue Vauxhall Viva.<br><br>On Saturday the 22nd January, Jackie had been fairly quiet all day and then around 10:30 in the evening, she mentioned to her mother and me that she thought she was about to have the baby. We had already packed a bag ready for her and decided it would be quicker taking her to the hospital rather than wait for an ambulance to come all the way from Ely. So the three of us got into the car and I drove us through the dark roads to Ely.<br> <br>We got to the hospital just before midnight and were met at the ward by a very stern faced Princess Mary's Royal Air Force sister, who told me to go back home and telephone the hospital in the morning. So I drove Jackie’s mother, who had a full licence, back to Upwood.<br> <br>When I called in the morning, I found out that Jackie had given birth to Emma at around a quarter to one in the morning, just 45 minutes after we had dropped her off. She only had enough time to have a quick bath before the birth began. I was a bit annoyed that the hospital didn’t allow me to stay, however, it being an RAF hospital I decided it was probably best if I didn’t complain.<br> <br>In September 1972, when Emma was nearly 8 months old, I had some leave owing, so went back home to South Wales. I noticed an advert for a baby show in the South Wales Argus, which was the local paper. The show was being held on Saturday the 9<sup>th</sup> September in the grounds of the Church of Latter Day Saints at Croesyceiliog, so we decided to go and enter Emma.<br><br>More than 120 babies entered the contest and to win the championship, a baby had to first win their respective age group. Emma won her age group of 6-12 months and was put forward to the championship judging along with 2 other age group winners. The 6 judges were equally divided about the winner so they asked Jim Pope, who opened the show and fete to decide who would be the champion. He cast his vote for Emma. <br><br>Jackie should have really gone up for the presentation and photograph, but when her name was called out for the prize giving, I was so surprised that I took Emma out of her pushchair and went up to receive a cup and £25. <br> <br>I think it somewhat annoyed the locals that someone visiting, and not one of their babies, won the show. Most people didn’t know I was in fact from Newport and was home on leave from the RAF.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/5df3d1e6cce9a3713544f4203e3896a80329a4d8/original/emma-show01.jpg?1409057089" class="size_l justify_center border_" />
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>Champion of the Baby Show</strong><br>Left to Right: Jim Pope, Emma Jane Reardon, John ‘Ducksy’ Reardon and I think Mrs. Betty Evans.<br><em>Jim Pope was an HTV presenter who was there to open the baby show and fete and Mrs. Evans was one of the judges.</em><br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31540832014-08-25T16:27:35+01:002017-01-16T00:25:09+00:00A bit about me part 6 - After the Pieces<div style="text-align: justify;">When I left the Pieces of Mind, I played in a few groups until I eventually teamed up with some friends and founded a new group called Waterfield ISE. Don’t ask me why it’s ‘ISE’, I always thought it was ‘ICE’ until a few years ago, when Chris Sharley, the drummer, put me right on the spelling.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/0483330a7acc2e4b9109dee68b94f20e6c3f8005/original/waterfield02.jpg?1408979685" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>Chris, Andy & Me outside my house in Rogerstone</strong></p></div>As with the Pieces of Mind, there were a few versions of the band over the years. We differed from them in the style of music we played, concentrating more on blues. We started writing our own material and gigged in South Wales & occasionally ventured across the Severn Bridge into Bristol, which to us was a foreign country.<br><br>My father had started managing pubs sometime in 1967. His first pub was the Kings Head pub, in Newport. It was here that Terry and I were living, in the small private rooms upstairs. Judy had married and was living with her then husband.<br><br>A few months after I had left the Pieces of Mind, I got married in September 1967 to Jackie, the girl I had met whilst working at Standard Telephones and Cables, a couple of years earlier. Andy Gibbon, my old bass player, was my best man at the wedding, which was held at St John’s Church in Rogerstone, where I had played in the Church hall with the Pieces of Mind a few times.<br><br>The reception was held at the Rising Sun hotel, which was a short distance away. The hotel is still there in Rogerstone, although it has considerably changed. In July 2013, I stayed overnight at the hotel, whilst on a visit to Newport and I had a pleasant meal sitting at a table about 2 feet from where I had sat at the wedding reception. <br><br>Andy came to the Kings Head on the morning of the wedding and we had a couple of drinks each. As the time was approaching for us to go to the Church, we decided to forsake travelling in the wedding car, with my parents and Terry, and instead walked to the bus station and caught a bus to Rogerstone, which was just over 3 miles away. My excuse at the time was that it would calm my nerves.<br><br>We got there with plenty of time to spare before the guests and Jackie arrived. I can’t remember much about the service or the reception as the day seemed to go fairly quickly and before long we were ready to depart on our honeymoon. We went outside the hotel to find the car that Jackie’s father had planned to take us to the railway station, had been decorated with streamers, balloons and tin cans. Not wanting to make the drive in the decorated car, we switched and drove to Newport, so we could catch a train to London where we would depart for our honeymoon in Spain.<br><br>At the station, we went to get our suitcases and bags out of the car boot only to discover they were not there. They were still back at the Rising Sun in the boot of the heavily decorated car. Unperturbed, Jackie’s father drove back to Rogerstone and returned to the station with only a few minutes to go before our train departed. <br><br>The rest of our journey was relatively uneventful. We arrived at Paddington station and made our way to Victoria station where we would catch a coach to an airfield in Kent. We then took a short flight to Beauvais airport, just outside of Paris and caught a coach that would take us all the way to Tossa de Mar in Spain, a distance of some 700 miles. When I had booked the package holiday, I was asked which coach seats I wanted and because I had said I didn’t mind, was given seats 1 and 2. We spent our wedding night in seats right next to the driver and the passenger door.<br><br>Every time the coach stopped, people would get off and on, rather noisily, making any sort of sleep impossible. By the time we got to the hotel, funnily enough for someone into music, called Hotel California, we were shattered. Despite the nightmare travel, the 7-day package holiday was excellent. It was my first time abroad and it only cost us around £27 each.<br><br>On our return from honeymoon, we like many people spent a month or so living with my wife’s parents until we managed to get a council house in the new town of Cwmbran. The house was in Camrose Walk, on the then relatively new Greenmeadow estate. <br><br>Shortly after we moved into the house, I think it was around Christmas 1967, we held a party to celebrate moving in. I can’t remember exactly who came, but I know Adrian and Phil were back from Germany, so they came along with Glyn. In addition, my fellow band members from Waterfield ISE, Andy, Chris and Anton, were there. For some reason, I started drinking Martini out of a pint glass. After one or two of these, I popped into our new downstairs toilet and passed out on the floor. The toilet was quite small and my body was wedged so tight against the door, that when eventually people realised I was missing they had difficulty in opening it. They must have banged the door a few times against my shoulder as the next morning I woke up with a nasty bruise. That party would be the last time I saw Adrian until I saw Judas Jump in early 1971.<br><br>We lived in the Cwmbran house until we managed to get allocated a brand new council house in Rogerstone, where Jackie had lived.<br><br>We occasionally went on holiday with Jackie’s parents, who had a caravan. In September 1968, we went on a fortnight break, touring various campsites in South East England. One site was close enough to the centre of London, that Jackie and I decided to go and see Traffic, who was on at the Marquee in Wardour Street.<br> <div>When we got to the club, we found out that Traffic was not on and Joe Cocker and the Grease Band had replaced them. I’m not sure of the reason why Traffic was not playing; however, as they eventually broke up early in 1969, I suspect they were having troubles.</div>
<br>Joe Cocker and his band were excellent. His version of ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’, with Henry McCullough on guitar and Chris Stainton on keyboards, was superb. No wonder it went down a storm at Woodstock the following year. The support act was a band that had only formed a month or so before, called ‘Yes’. The members were the original lineup of Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Tony Kaye, Bill Bruford and Peter Banks. Whilst I didn’t really like the type of music they played, I could see they were very talented and would probably go far. Suffice to say, they did go far and in addition to the millions of records they have sold, they still play to sellout audiences, worldwide.<br><br>In 1969 we were expecting our first child. Back then it was not unusual for births to take place at home, in fact unless there were any medical reasons, home births were the norm. Jackie had no medical issues and, despite it being our first, it was going to be a birth at home. Jackie’s parents and her grandmother lived nearby and our prescribed midwife lived just up the road, so it was going to be easy, or so I thought. <br><br>The midwife had given us a list of things, including a container to burn the placenta that we had to have in the house for the birth. On Thursday the 19<sup>th</sup> June, Jackie woke me up around 1:30 a.m. to say she thought she was having the baby. I quickly dressed and went up the road to the midwife and knocked her door. She told me to go back to bed and she would come and check about breakfast time. The midwife certainly knew her stuff as the birth took quite a few hours. Eventually at around 5:30 in the evening, Jackie gave birth to our first child a son who we named Mark Dylan.<br><br>When the birth was about to happen, the midwife said she would only allow 2 people to be present in our bedroom. By then Jackie’s mother and grandmother were in the house. They both looked at me and told the midwife it would be them. Despite not being given much of a choice, I was in fact very grateful, as I was worried about passing out at the sight of blood.<br><br>Just over a month later, on the 21st July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. A day or so afterwards, we visited my parents who were keeping the Royal Oak pub on Chepstow Road. The TV was on in the living room, broadcasting news of the moon landing when I heard my mother remark ‘Look Den, he’s not moving’. Initially, I thought she was talking about the baby, but she was actually talking about what was on the TV. She thought it was a video, when in fact they were showing a series of still photographs of the astronauts.<br><br>The Waterfield ISE group was becoming almost as successful as the Pieces of Mind. I had found another talented young singer called Dave Tipton. Whilst Dave perhaps did not have the looks of Adrian, his voice certainly made up for it. We also found another guitarist to play a joint lead role with me, which I did until Andy left the group, when I switched to playing bass for a while until we got another bass player. <br><br>For a while, we used to practice in one of the outhouses attached to the Royal Oak. It had plenty of room and the absence of houses nearby meant we could play fairly loud, without complaints. It was at one of the practices that Dave Tipton had an accident whilst playing the Gibson guitar that Graham Davies played. I can’t remember why Graham wasn’t there, however somehow the headstock got broken. I don’t know how Dave explained the accident to Graham or exactly what happened to the guitar; although I believe an attempt was made to fix it using glue and screws. <br><br>At this time, I still had the Guild Slim Jim guitar I had in the Pieces of Mind. When I had bought the guitar new, it was a cherry colour. Many people back then made minor modifications to their guitar. I did what some may consider quite a major modification in that I used an electric sander to take the cherry paint off and then put a light coat of varnish over the natural wood. When I came to sell the guitar, the electric sander cost me heavy; I only managed to get £30 for it. The person who bought it got a great guitar at a bargain price.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/5a0132ad5a7a9a9fddc04d52a5d14f681e1e6fe6/original/waterfield06.jpg?1408979885" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>My Guild Slim Jim, playing through my Marshall 100w head + 8x10 Cabinet</strong></div>
<div>
<br>The replacement guitar I bought was a 1962 Salmon Pink Stratocaster, which was a hire purchase reclaim in Mo Wight’s shop. I paid £90 for it. I also improved my amp somewhat by buying a Marshall 100w head and a Marshall 8x10 speaker cabinet. I also owned a Carlsboro 100w PA amp and 2 PA columns, each containing 4x12 speakers. I played a few gigs going through both amps and a total of 16 speakers. It’s no wonder that today I suffer from tinnitus. </div>
<br>I have very few memories of gigs we played as Waterfield ISE. Like the Pieces of Mind before, we played quite a few schools, including Croesyceiliog and Duffryn as well as many clubs and pubs throughout the valleys. Along with other groups, we played an open air Blues and Folk festival held in Tredegar Park, Newport. We played on a stage that seemed to be made from planks of wood laid on top of scaffolding poles. We played our set in the evening and lighting was provided by headlamps of cars and vans. As the photograph shows, we even had a Tilley lamp on top of one of the PA columns and car lights were used to illuminate the area around the stage.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/60cef6d418cb16598401fcaa55404bc1faf4ad61/large/wise-tredegar-park.jpg?1408979647" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>WISE at Blues & Folk Festival in Tredegar Park </strong></div>
<br>We occasionally played places completely inappropriate for the type of group we were. One of these was at an Army barracks, near Crickhowell. The entertainment secretary requested a waltz for the Sergeant Major and his wife to lead off the first dance. We explained that we didn’t really do those types of tunes; however, he insisted we do a waltz. Someone in the band had a brainwave and mentioned we should do Manic Depression, by Jimi Hendrix, which was in 3/4 time, so could be interpreted as a Waltz. So we did the song a bit slower and the Sergeant Major and his wife danced. For some reason we never got another gig at that Army barracks. <br><br>We were playing a gig somewhere on the Saturday night of the Whitsun Bank Holiday weekend in 1970 and at the end of the gig, Graham Davies and I decided we would go to the festival at Plumpton Racecourse, being held that weekend. Judas Jump, the group Adrian was in, was on the bill, along with Ginger Baker's Air Force, Black Sabbath, Van Der Graaf Generator and many others.<br><br>The only transport we had was my Honda 50 moped and Plumpton was over 200 miles from where I lived in Rogerstone, bearing in mind that my moped was not allowed to go on motorways. So armed with just a small map, we set off just after midnight on the Saturday night, travelling two up on the small Honda 50. We took it in turns to share the steering and had to stop for a rest every 30-40 miles with very sore bottoms.<br><br>It took us about 12 hours to do the journey and I remember that when we arrived, I had to push my Honda 50 past rows of Hells Angels with their massive motorcycles. They looked on two individuals dressed in RAF greatcoats and berets with some bemusement to say the least; thankfully they didn't beat us up. The primary reason for me doing the trip, was to see Adrian and Judas Jump, however, I hadn’t realised they were playing on the Saturday night, so missed them. However, it was well worth the trip just to see Ginger Baker and his new band; I thought they were great. <br><br>When the festival finished, we started off on the long journey back home. By this time, we had gone well over 24 hours with no sleep, so after we had travelled a few miles, we decided to take a nap in a ditch for a couple of hours. Suitably refreshed, we continued, again stopping every 30-40 miles to take a rest and swap steering responsibilities.<br><br>The most interesting part of the trip was coming down the old Birdlip hill, near Gloucester, when Graham moved on the back. The movement nearly made me lose control and go over the edge. I had a footrest missing and he was using a piece of string as a stirrup to put his foot in. The string snapped, causing him to move and the bike to wobble. I still can’t believe that we managed to do that journey, without getting lost or being injured. There were no satnavs back then, and we had to navigate from South Wales to a festival held near a small village in East Sussex, without using motorways. I would find it difficult to do now in a car, without using my satnav.<br><br>It was riding that Honda 50 that I had my only accident on a motorbike, in fact the only accident I have ever had whilst in charge of a vehicle. At the time I was working at Monmouthshire Board Mills, which was situated down at the far end of Newport Docks, I think just past Alexandra Docks.<br><br>I was on my way to work one early morning. It must have been around 1969 as we were living in Rogerstone. It was quite a cold frosty morning and as I was going up East Way Road I skidded on a patch of ice. It was next to that small dock on the right before you reach the corner near Alexandra Docks, leading to the Board Mills.<br><br>Needless to say, I came off the moped and bounced along the road for a few yards coming to rest against a small raised kerb. I got up, quite shaken and feeling quite groggy my legs started to buckle and I fell against the railings adjoining the small dock. The railings were only around 3 feet high and I started to lean over them almost toppling into the dock. I heard a voice asking me if I was ok and a pair of hands pulled me away from the railings. A couple of chaps on their way to work had stopped their car and I am sure they prevented me from falling into the dock.<br><br>I had a crash helmet on, and this no doubt saved my head from getting too much of a bashing. Even so, my face was covered in blood and quite swollen. The bike was hardly damaged, just a few scratches along one side. One of the men rode the bike to my work and the other drove me, where they took me to the first aid room. <br><br>The nurse cleaned up my injuries, which were really only superficial and then made me lie down for a couple of hours, before allowing me home. She wanted me to be driven home by one of the workers, but I was determined to get back on the bike and ride myself home. I think I was worried that if I left it a couple of days, I might not want to ride it again.<br><br>I rode all the way home, probably at a speed no more than 20 miles per hour and even less on the East Way Road, although all the ice had gone by this time. The worst part was going up Belle Vue Lane, past the Royal Gwent. That road was quite narrow and windy, as well as being steep and I was still feeling a bit under the weather. I eventually got back home and gave Jackie a bit of a shock when she saw my swollen and bruised face under the crash helmet.<br><br>In 1970, a talent scout came down from London to look for a good blues band and heard us in a small club called The ‘In Place’, in Newport. The scout arranged and paid for us to record half a dozen original songs at the legendary Rockfield studios in Monmouth. We did this; however, nothing came of it. I didn’t even receive one of the acetate demos that were given to the band. I am not sure if the master tape still exists, but the stuff we did was great, even though I may be a bit biased. <br><br>Chris Sharley has told me that we had at some time changed our name to ‘Sonofabitch’. I have no recollection of us changing the name, but Chris has a copy of the acetate with the new name on it, so I suspect he must be right, however, it will always be Waterfield ISE to me.<br> <br>A move to London was the thing to do in those days, so we were all going to pack our day jobs in and turn professional, after the recording. Unfortunately two members of the group, the bass guitarist and other lead guitarist, informed us at the last moment they would not be going with us. In spite of this setback, we set off for London in the Thames 15cwt van owned by Chris Sharley, venting our anger, all the way, at the two people who had so badly let us down. I can understand why they made their decisions at the time, but I cannot understand why they had to be so secretive right up to the time they told us a day or so before we had planned to all leave.<br><br>Even though Chris owned the van, none of us actually had a full driving licence, so we decided to avoid the M4 motorway and take the A48 through to Gloucester and then head for London. Unfortunately the police going up Tutshill, outside Chepstow, pulled us over. The van had ‘L’ plates on and I suspect, they thought we looked a bit suspicious, as we had passed them. I won’t say who was driving, to protect the guilty, but someone claimed to be Andy, who did have a full licence that he had left at home. The police advised our ‘Andy’ that he would have to pop into a police station with his licence within a few days. As soon as we got to London, we contacted Andy and asked him to do us a favour.<br> <br>The scout had arranged for us to stay in a house, of a friend or member of his family, in West Croydon, whilst we replaced those who had dropped out. The plan was to try and get either a bass player, and I would continue as lead, or get a lead guitarist and I would switch to bass. We arranged auditions in a rehearsal studio in Victoria and eventually decided on someone who had been with a group from Newcastle, called Geordie, whose vocalist Brian Johnson went on to join AC/DC.<br><br>We spent time rehearsing whilst waiting for a record deal that never appeared. Weeks went by and finances were running out, so I eventually took a job. I can’t remember exactly where the job was, or who the employer was, but I do remember it involved packing things in brown paper. I remember the factory I worked in was a fair distance from where we were lodging in Croydon, so at times; I slept in the van outside the factory. In the morning I used to wash in the gents toilets.<br><br>Things were going from bad to worse. I had very little money coming in to support myself. I certainly had none to support Jackie and my son, who were living in South Wales. The lowest point of this time came when I had an accident in work. I dropped a roll of paper onto one of my feet and ended up breaking a toe that needed my foot covered in plaster of Paris.<br><br>Feeling extremely low, and with Christmas approaching, I informed the others that I had enough and was going to go back home to my wife and child. It didn’t take much persuasion for the others to join me, so we returned home in the van.<br><br>As we made the long journey back to Wales, I didn’t then realise that I was about to embark on an extremely long period away from playing guitar in groups.<br><br><br><br><br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31479572014-08-21T15:22:21+01:002015-02-07T08:25:47+00:00A bit about me part 5<div style="text-align: justify;">I started at St Julian's on the 9th September 1958 and joined Class 1S. I was aged 12 years and 9 months at the end of 1958 whereas the average age of the boys in the class was 11 years and 5 months. My Form Master, a Mr. J Newton stated that ‘John seems to have settled down quite well and is making satisfactory progress’. He marked me as achieving a term position of 12th out of 30 boys in the class.<br> <br>I found it a bit strange at first going from a mixed primary school to a boy’s only Grammar school. The girl’s school was actually next-door; however we were kept apart even in the play yard. I can’t recall if there was a wall or fence between the two yards but we were certainly kept apart from the girls. Despite being completely useless at it I loved Art because in the Art room you could look out over the girl’s yard and see the lovely Physical Education mistress putting the girls through various exercises.<br> <br>I was never that good at sports; however in primary school I played a bit of football usually as a goalkeeper. One inter-school game I was in goal and saved a shot from a cousin who attended the other school Lliswerry. He was a lot bigger than I was and came up and lifted the ball and me over the goal line with his foot. The referee who was not well placed to see blew his whistle and awarded a goal.<br><br>Unfortunately St Julian’s being a Welsh Grammar school did not allow football to be played on their sports fields; it was a rugby only school. Being of slight build and also having a terror of being hurt I tried to avoid playing this at times brutal sport. However in my first year I did represent my house, Tredegar at rugby in inter-house sport. In the following years I managed to play the far more gentle sport of cricket, again at inter-house level. <br><br>Discipline was strictly enforced and punishment regularly handed out to those who misbehaved. As well as the standard cane, teachers would often use training shoes or dappers as we called them back then. One teacher, who shall remain nameless, even used a length of 1-inch square wood to hit you with. The French teacher became so proficient with the shoe; he was given a nickname of Dapper Dan. He was fearsome in class but a very good teacher.<br> <br>Many years after I left school I met him in the Engineers Arms in Newport, which at the time was run by my father. He was a very charming man and nothing at all like the teacher we all dreaded. When I reminded him of what he used to do with the dapper, he just laughed and said it didn’t seem to have done me any harm. He was right; it taught me that you received punishment if you did wrong.<br> <br>Whilst at St Julian’s I started my own paper round, covering the Alway and Ringland estates. I worked out that the local Newspaper shop, which I think was on Lliswerry Road, was not paying the ‘paper’ boys a lot for what they had to do. Consequently the shop found it difficult to persuade boys to take on the job. So I canvassed most of the houses where I lived and asked them if they wanted the Argus delivered daily.<br> <br>Having collected about 50 names I contacted the South Wales Argus and persuaded them to sell me 50 copies each day at cost price. They would drop them off somewhere on Aberthaw Road for me around 5 pm each evening 6 days a week.<br><br>Before long I started getting more and more requests from houses both in Alway and Ringland and by the time the number reached 150 houses I had to get a school friend to help me. Eventually I sold the ‘round’ to the same local Newspaper shop that had failed to deliver to the houses. I had well over 200 houses on my books and I think they paid me £30. <br><br>For the next couple of years I worked hard in school managing to gain a 5<sup>th</sup> place in the spring examination of 1960. My Form Master, Mr. Carnuck wrote the following in my report ‘an excellent report. John must have worked hard to gain such a high position’. Even the headmaster, Mr. TH Martin, commented ‘A splendid advance apparent’ in the report. It was unusual for Mr. Martin to add comments in reports and this comment was the only one by him in my 5 years at St Julian's. I was doing well.<br><br><strong>Now See my previous post below called 'Getting a Guitar'<br><br>BTW </strong><br><br>I hate to advertise but if you find these notes interesting and want to read more accompanied by lots of photographs in glorious black and white, then the Birth to Reunion book is still available on Amazon.</div>
<div>
<br><a contents="Amazon UK" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Birth-Reunion-John-Ducksy-Reardon/dp/1291640096/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389111773&sr=1-1&keywords=birth+to+reunion" target="_blank">Amazon UK</a><br><br><a contents="Amazon.com" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Reunion-John-Ducksy-Reardon/dp/1291640096/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389111654&sr=1-1&keywords=Birth+to+Reunion" target="_blank">Amazon.com</a><br><br>It is also available in some bookshops.<br><br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31462462014-08-20T18:22:44+01:002015-02-07T01:57:58+00:00A bit about me part 4<div style="text-align: justify;">Wild horses used to graze the same fields and the braver of the children used to ride the horses bareback often at alarming speeds when playing Cowboys and Indians. I was not that brave and also quite terrified of horses. These fields were adjoining Ladyhill Road where the Alway Health Centre and a Jehovah’s Witness Church appear to be now. <br><br>It was at Alway that I was first introduced to having pets, particularly dogs, in the house. The first pet I can recall was a tabby cat called Billy. My parents had got it when I was away in hospital. I am not sure how old it was but it appeared fully-grown. I think my parents must have got it from someone else however within a year he was gone.<br><br>We had no cat flaps back then and the cat used to stay outside most nights. One morning after a very cold night in winter we found poor Billy stiff as a poker just inside our coal shed. I was distraught for quite a few weeks afterwards until my parents decided we would have a dog.<br> <br>My grandparents had a dog, called Prince, who had come to my rescue when I was attacked by another dog whilst playing outside their house. Prince fought the other dog off me but sadly received injuries to himself so bad he had to be put down.<br> <br>So I was quite excited when my father brought home a young puppy called Cymru. I am not sure what breed he was or whether he was just a mongrel, I just remember him as being very boisterous. He was a really lovely dog however one day he ended up biting a neighbour’s daughter. She had been teasing him with a stick and Cymru accidentally bit her hand when trying to get the stick off her. Our neighbour complained to the police and my father had to take the dog back to the farm in Usk where he had got him.<br><br>A few days after my father had taken Cymru back to the farm we were amazed to find him outside our house looking very bedraggled. He had made his way from the farm in Usk to our house a distance of nearly 15 miles. Of course I was very pleased; however he had to be taken back to the farm and this time never returned. <br><br>My love of pets has continued to this day. Since returning from Germany, in 1976, we have had several dogs and in the last few years, cats as well. The cats were an inheritance from my son when he moved back in with us. Sadly the last one a lovely little cat called Neaput died in June 2013. I shall miss his meowing.<br><br>I often read newspaper articles comparing violence and crime today against that of the 60s and whilst I appreciate it is problematic to compare and contrast things from different periods I really think many things are different today. Our lives were a lot simpler back then; we had no computers or mobile phones. In fact many people in the early 60s had no televisions or telephones in their houses. If we needed to telephone anyone we had to use the nearest call box. I was allowed to stay out and play with my friends after dark. We could walk to our youth club and return home, usually by 10 o’clock, in the dark. <br><br>We could leave our front door open all day even if we were out and the postman would come and put your post on the table. We could safely leave money there for the milkman, coalman and the tallyman who used to collect hire purchase payments.<br> <br>When we first had a television set, it was rented and we had a meter on the back that we used to put coins in to view. Every now and then the rental companies used to visit and empty the meter take their rental and leave the rest on the table for when you came home. I can’t imagine anyone doing the same in our ‘modern’ Britain.<br> <br>I really think the big difference between now and then is that in the 60s we had respect. Whilst we were certainly no angels, in general we respected the law and our elders. The deterrence of being punished for committing a crime certainly made me think twice before doing it. That respect appears to be missing from most of the youth today and any deterrence that exists does not frighten them.<br><br>If you did do something wrong then those in authority would often mete out immediate punishment whether it was a teacher caning you in school or a policeman giving you a clip round the ear. The clip around the ear was extremely popular back then; it certainly made me think about doing the wrong thing again. <br><br>Those that suffered the humiliation of being thrown into the cells for being drunk or other such crimes were literally thrown into the cells. There were many rumours that some were even given a beating by the police. I never experienced this directly but there were lots of stories at the time.<br> <br>The roads seemed to be safer back then probably due to less traffic and cars not being as powerful. I once cycled all the way to Barry Island with a couple of friends, a round trip of about 50 miles on the old A48. Not sure how old I was, but probably 12 or 13, so it was quite exciting to a young boy. It would perhaps be more terrifying than exciting if done today.<br><br>We also used to cycle and walk through the many lanes around Lliswerry, Nash and Whitson usually ending up in Goldcliff, which was the closest thing to being a seaside many of us would experience, until you went to Barry Island. The trips to Goldcliff were less frequent when they started building the steelworks at Llanwern in 1959. <br><br>The incessant stream of shale lorries, laden with waste from the coalmines, was used to fill the moorlands, so the steelworks could be built. The heavy traffic was too dangerous for anybody walking or cycling the lanes, especially young children. The drivers were paid by the load and were extremely keen to get to their destination as quickly as possible, so they could return for another load. Accidents were frequent and costly in terms of lives and injuries.<br> <br>In February 1961 the Member of Parliament for Abertillery, the Reverend Llywelyn Williams asked the Minister of Transport a question. He wanted the Minister to ‘state the number of reported accidents involving shale lorries proceeding to and from the Spencer Steelworks Project at Llanwern since the commencement of work at the site; and how many injuries and how many deaths were caused by such accidents’. The Minister for Transport, Ernest Marples replied ‘that <a name="S5CV0634P0_19610207_CWA_152"></a>in the course of this immense road transport operation 980 accidents have occurred since the work started on a large scale in January 1960. In 750 of these accidents no one was injured; in the remaining 230 accidents I am sorry to say 18 people died and 280 were injured’. (Hansard<sup>3</sup>).<br> <br>The transport revolution that occurred during the 1960s had a profound effect on my hometown of Newport. Approval had been given by Parliament to extend the M4 motorway well into Wales and the chosen route involved building a bridge over the River Usk to the North of the existing road and railway bridges and boring twin tunnels under Brynglas Hill.<br><br>It took nearly 5 years to build the 1200-foot tunnels and several houses on Brynglas Road had to be demolished as the tunneling weakened them. With hindsight it was probably bad planning to build only two lanes of traffic in each tunnel as they continue to cause traffic jams during peak times. Coming into Wales we have five lanes of motorways over the two Severn bridges and within 12 to 16 miles, depending on which bridge you use, you come across a tunnel at Brynglas with two lanes. If there is a bad accident in one of the tunnels such as the lorry fire in 2011 it can be utter chaos. <br><br>I believe that those who run our country are looking again at plans that were shelved in the late 1980s to build an M4 relief road. Despite any concerns that might be expressed by environmentalists this has to happen for the greater good. I just hope that those in power do not impose tolls yet again on transport infrastructure within Wales.<br><br>Another transport link came into being when the George Street Bridge was opened in in 1964. So within a relatively short period Newport went from having a single road bridge to having 3 by 1965. The George Street Bridge for me made a big difference with local traffic no longer having to traverse the busy junctions of Clarence Place and the one that used to be by the Castle to get to Cardiff Road and the Pill area. <br><br>Whilst talking bridges it would be remiss of me to fail to mention a landmark that can be seen for miles even from both sides of the Bristol Channel; the Transporter Bridge. This was opened in 1906 and is one of only six operational transporter bridges left worldwide from a total of twenty constructed. I believe it was the first of the 3 to be built in Britain. It was built because the River Usk has the second highest tidal range in the world and the highest of any city centre in the world. According to those who make movies it’s also quite a long bridge as in the film Tiger Bay you seem to get off in Cardiff Docks.<br> <br>The platform or gondola is suspended from the carriage, which is pulled from one side of the river to the other by means of a hauling cable. This is normally operated from a pagoda shaped control house situated on the side of the platform. My uncle took a part time job as an operator when he retired from Lysaght’s.<br> <br>The only tolls charged were if you wanted to climb up the towers and walk across the top platform. Not sure if you can still do this today but I remember paying a ‘tanner’ for this privilege along with some friends. I managed to get near to the top off the tower before I started suffering from vertigo. To the incessant taunts of my friends I turned back.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>Despite receiving a sort of schooling in hospital it was not as comprehensive as that I had been getting at Alway Junior. I still managed to get ‘A’s in Reading and Mental Arithmetic in my December 1956 school report. I attained a mix of ‘B’s and ‘C’s in the other subjects. The 11 plus examination, for me, was due to take place the next spring term however because of the amount of time I had spent in hospital it was decided to keep me for another year in class 4E. I would then take the 11 plus when I would be 12 in 1958.<br><br>My parents scrimped and saved to pay for private tuition from one of the teachers at Alway Junior School. He has almost certainly passed away by now but Mr. D Smith helped me considerably that year. My final Alway Junior School report for class 4E is all ‘A’s and ‘B’s. Miss James commented ‘John has made quite outstanding progress this year and has now more than caught up’. I was also a prefect and apparently played baseball. I was wondering whether to change the word ‘baseball to its proper name of ‘rounders’ as I am sure I will get the mickey taken by a certain American friend of mine.<br><br>The eventual result was a pass in the 11 plus examination in 1958 despite my scores being ‘age standardised’ as I was 12 when I took the exam. I won a place at St Julian's High School, a Grammar School in Newport.</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31439432014-08-19T12:05:49+01:002014-08-19T12:05:49+01:00A bit about me part 3<div style="text-align: justify;">In hospital we were allowed monthly visits however the distances involved and the fact my parents didn’t own a car meant that they were unable to visit me as often as they wished so I lost touch with all my school friends and even my brother and sister. I cannot be certain but I believe I had 3 visits in the 18 months I was in hospital. My parents borrowed a car from my grandfather to make the visits. I was so shy when I left hospital that it took me weeks before I would even speak to my sister. <br><br>Another thing that happened when I came out of hospital was that I developed a phobia for thunderstorms. I can’t be sure whether I would have been affected as badly as I did if I hadn’t have gone into hospital. However at the first clap of thunder I would seek the perceived safety of the cupboard under the stairs and stay there until the storm had passed by. Whilst I don’t get in the cupboard under our stairs now I still get scared. Our cupboard is full anyway. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>I was lucky in that the parents of a boy in the next bed lived a lot closer to the hospital and also had a car. They almost ‘adopted’ me and on visits would bring me presents as well as those for their son. Those people helped me a lot during the long absences from my own parents and it’s an eternal shame to me that I cannot recall their names or that of their son. I would have liked to thank them. <br><br>After 18 months I was well enough to return home and go back to school. I have my school report for the period ending December 1956, which states ‘John has settled down quite well considering his long absence’ so it looks like the month must have been around October or November.<br><br>On the first day I was back word was going around the school that John Reardon was back. At the time I didn’t understand what the fuss was about but I found out later that my best friend had stolen my girlfriend in my absence and the other children were expecting a fight. Of course girl friends at the age of 9 or 10 are perhaps not as important as ones you get in later years so my friendship didn’t really suffer.<br><br>A few years ago I made contact with my best friend having found him through Friends Reunited. His profile states he married his childhood sweetheart in 1966 however the name he gives for his wife was not that of my old girlfriend so I guess he moved onto someone else. <br><br>Shortly after I returned to the school I encountered bullying. One day when school had finished. I came out of school to walk back to Elgar Avenue. There used to be a gate somewhere around Parry Drive or Henry Wood Close however having looked at Google maps it no longer appears to be there.<br><br>As I came out of the gate, 6-8 boys were waiting there, demanding that younger boys give them their pocket money. I said to them that they shouldn’t do this and immediately a couple of the bigger boys started hitting me. The others all chipped in and within a few minutes I was lying on the ground with a pile of boys on top of me. I managed to hit one or two of them before a mother came along and stopped the fight saving me from a bad beating. She reported the fight to one of the teachers who no doubt told the headmistress.<br><br>The boys never came near me again because I had stuck up to them however the bullying of younger children continued after a short break, once the teachers had stopped policing the gate. Bullying in schools has gone on for decades and I suppose will always carry on happening. I often read articles by School Psychologists and others who give themselves fanciful names claiming to be experts on the subject. The one thing they all seem to do is disagree on the cause of bullying. I do not proclaim to have the answer; all I feel is that bullies are usually cowards; you stick up to them and they move on.<br><br>The move to Alway introduced me for the first time to the gang culture that often exists between children living in different areas. The Alway boys often had fights with those living in the new Ringland Estate. Various weapons including air guns and bows and arrows were used however we never carried knives. <br><br>There were lots of weapons around after the war most of which were brought back as souvenirs by returning soldiers. I had a Smith and Wesson revolver that my father had brought back. The revolver was just about unusable having bullet holes in the barrel and trigger mechanism. I sawed the barrel off at the place where the bullet had penetrated and used the gun when playing Cowboys and Indians with my friends many of which had similar weapons including Lugers and 303 rifles.<br><br>I even took the revolver to school one day when class friends didn’t believe that I had it. Eventually the revolver and other similar weapons my friends had were handed in to the police when they instigated an amnesty. It’s a bit frightening to think what we would have done if we had access to ammunition.<br><br>I can remember one fight when Ringland Estate was being built. The Ringland gang locked me in a wooden hut used by workmen to store fittings for the flats and houses. They hammered toilet chains across the windows and doors and then set fire to the hut. Luckily someone called the Emergency Services who put the fire out and rescued me. I received a clip around the ear from both a fireman and a policeman even though I was a mostly innocent victim.<br><br>I got my own back on the leader of the Ringland gang a couple of weeks later. A group of us from Alway came across him on his own waiting for someone on Ringland Circle near where the Church was. I’m ashamed to admit that at least 4 of us laid into him until he started crying. We then ran away; back up Dents Hill to the relative safety of where we lived. <br><br>The next day his father, who was known as a bit of a hard man himself, came round our estate with his son looking for the 4 little thugs who had beaten his son up. Luckily he never found us, and our fights with the Ringland gang became less frequent.<br><br>Another time I was playing Cowboys and Indians with my friends and one of them shot an arrow at me. It hit me just above my left eye and stuck in the flabby bit of flesh around your eyebrows. Blood spurted out and my friend’s mother fainted when she saw me thinking the arrow had hit me in the eye. As I pulled the arrow out the blood stopped and I started laughing at a washing line that I noticed in the garden of the next house. Their neighbour had a large family of 9 or 10 children and they had hung all the washing neatly by size order. Looking back I suppose I was extremely lucky not to lose an eye however the sight of that washing line stopped me crying.<br><br>At some stage I received an air pistol for either a birthday or Christmas present. Most of my friends either had air pistols or air rifles that they often used in our games not realising the damage they could cause. I found out what they can do when playing in the wood on the left side of Dents Hill. By the way I am sure we used to call it Dents Hill wood; however it appears to be called Ladyhill Wood these days.<br><br>I was searching for my friends with my loaded pistol in my hands when I heard a rustling in a bush. I turned and fired the pistol and to my utter horror hit and killed a bird that had just flown out of a nest. It was the first and only time I have ever killed another living being; at least something bigger than insects. I didn’t mean to kill the bird and it made me think of the harm that weapons even air pistols could inflict.<br><br>We also played games such as ‘knock-knock ginger’ where we would knock on someone’s front door and then run away before the door was opened. I am not sure whether those who had their doors knocked thought it was a game as many would chase after us and if they caught us we would receive a clip around the ear. As we got older we used to play a variation on this game but instead of knocking the door we would throw ‘bangers’ at the door or window hoping they would explode at the exact time they would hit.<br><br>Most of the time they would go out when thrown but occasionally they would explode with a big bang that echoed in those houses that had open porches on their front doors. One time a ‘banger’ thrown by a friend did hit a window, which spectacularly shattered. It must have frightened the poor people in the house; it certainly frightened us as we ran for our lives fearing we would get caught. We or at least I never did this again. <br><br>We would use fireworks for a couple of months before bonfire night and sometimes we would put fireworks, mainly bangers, under tin cans and then light them to see how far the can would shoot into the air. I stopped doing this when my cousin received severe burns to his hand. He had placed a Roman candle under a can and it didn’t appear to go off. When he lifted the can off he grabbed hold of the firework and it went off. The sudden rush of oxygen must have reignited the touch paper.<br><br>He then spent quite a few hours in the emergency department of the Royal Gwent hospital. Though it seemed severe and was very painful he was left with only mild scar tissue. A couple of weeks after he was burnt he was back playing with fireworks.<br><br>The actual Bonfire night, which back then was always on the 5th November regardless of which day of the week was another time we would all really enjoy. There was no or minimum concern about health and safety and some of the things we got up to would definitely be banned today. Whilst we did have large communal bonfires adults rarely controlled them. Children would collect old furniture and even chop down trees to build bonfires on local fields. This would be done over a period of many weeks so the bonfire would be huge by the time the 5<sup>th</sup> of November came. We would get hold of petrol and throw it over the wood on the night so it would easily burn when lit. We had no safety ropes around the bonfire so many of us suffered minor burns or our hair was singed.<br><br>In the weeks leading up to bonfire night we would make ‘guys’ out of straw and old clothes put them in old prams and wait outside bus stops asking people to spare ‘a penny for the guy’. One year we couldn’t be bothered to make a guy so my brother dressed up and put a mask on. As he was quite small he easily managed to fit into the pram. I think we got quite a bit of money over those weeks. I also received a few compliments for my guy being very realistic; I am sure some of the people realised it was a small child.<br><br>One particular bonfire night a couple of girls’ grabbed hold of my arms and a third girl tried to pull my trousers down. I struggled and kicked out at the third girl hitting her in her breasts knocking her down and severely winding her. I didn’t mean to do it and should you be reading this then I am extremely sorry.<br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31421992014-08-18T16:26:23+01:002014-08-18T16:42:38+01:00A bit about me part 2<div style="text-align: justify;">In the autumn of I think 1954; my father borrowed a car to take us to see the Illuminations in Blackpool. The car was a Ford Popular that my grandfather had bought a few months earlier and at just under £400 was the lowest priced car you could buy in Britain. It was black in colour and extremely basic compared to modern cars; however it did the job rarely breaking down. The weekend holiday was almost a family outing as my Aunty and Uncle also came along in their car. <br><br>We hadn’t booked into any accommodation, which was a huge mistake as we couldn’t find any and had to spend a couple of nights sleeping in the car. This would not be that comfortable for a family of 2 adults and 3 children in a modern car but in that pop up Ford it must have been horrendous. I have a distant memory of it being very cold each night.<br clear="all"><br>I can’t remember the family ever going away on holiday for a week or more. My father had a job driving buses for Newport Corporation, which was not that well paid so we just couldn’t afford the luxury of holidays. Most of the time we just went on day trips to Barry Island, Penarth or Porthcawl.<br><br>On a trip to Barry Island I can remember swimming in the outdoor pool, which used to be situated at one end of the beach. The pool was filled by seawater when the tide came in and was supposed to be a safe area for children to play when the tide was out. However the walls were made of concrete, which were usually covered by algae causing people to often slip and graze their lower limbs. In addition it was not that hygienic as one time I saw a piece of pooh bobbing up and down in front of me whilst I was trying to swim. I believe the pool is no longer there having been filled in probably for ‘health and safety’ reasons.<br><br>At Christmas many of our relatives used to spend a day or so in my Auntie Eva’s house in Magor Street where she lived almost next door to my Great Nana. Most of the parents would sleep downstairs in one or other of the houses by pushing armchairs together whilst the children would sleep top and tail in the beds upstairs. On Christmas Day or it may have been Boxing Day, we would wake to find stockings for each of us filled with apples, oranges and sweets as well as a few presents each.<br><br>Sometime in 1955 I collapsed in the street near our house whilst walking to school. It must have been before the end of the summer term, as I have no school report for July 1955. I can faintly recall being taken to hospital probably the Royal Gwent in Newport by ambulance. For some reason the doctors weighed me and told my parents I was only 3 stone 8 pounds far below what a boy of my age should weigh. They diagnosed me as having TB in the stomach, which was quite unusual at the time.<br><br>My parents were told that the reason the doctors didn’t discover the disease in my first spell in hospital was that they had X-Rayed my chest and not stomach. To be fair to the medical fraternity I have since found out that diagnosis of abdominal tuberculosis usually takes a long time and not always accurate. I thank them that they did find out what was wrong with me in the end and for eventually making me better. <br><br>Within a few days I was sent off to Kensington Hospital, which was a sanatorium near St Brides Bay in Pembrokeshire where I was to spend the next 18 months as one of the ‘balcony boys’.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Built in the 19th century as a grand country house for Lord and Lady Kensington it was originally known as St Brides Castle. It became a sanatorium in the 1920s when the Kensington family decided to move to a smaller home near Haverfordwest and then it became known as Kensington Hospital, specializing in TB cases. It stayed open until 1978 and treated children primarily from South and West Wales. <br><br>The hospital was over 120 miles from my home in Newport and in the days before the M4 motorway was built travel times by both car and train were long. I am not sure how I was taken to the hospital but I doubt it was by car, as my parents didn’t own one back then. I was probably taken to Haverfordwest by train and then transported the last 12 miles by ambulance or bus.<br><br>The main treatment for TB back then was the drug streptomycin. Initially I was given this as an injection in the morning and evening. My arms were so thin that after a couple of weeks they had to use my bottom. Eventually that became so sore they tried giving me it in tablet form. The tablets were roughly the size of the boxes containing the strips of caps you used to buy to fire in toy pistols. I could not swallow these large tablets so the nurses had to give me the medicine as a drink initially straight but then diluted with orange juice as the taste of streptomycin is one that really needs to be acquired.<br><br>My strongest memory was spending the best part of a day strapped to a bed in a strait jacket because I refused to eat tomatoes with my meal. Despite the horror stories that have recently emerged about the NHS imagine the outcry if that happened today. To this day I still have distaste for tomatoes and occasionally think back to the time I spent in that strait jacket. My granddaughters couldn’t believe that this happened to me when I told them; however Megan and Ceinwen I assure you it did.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Other recollections are of me singing a duet of ‘Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes’ at a Christmas party with a girl in an adjacent ward. As we were both confined to our beds at the time we could not see each other but we were still expected to sing. Back in those days I did have a good singing voice unlike today. <br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I am not sure how long I was confined to my bed but I know it was a matter of months rather than days or weeks. Even when I was allowed to get out of bed it was only for an hour or so before I had to get undressed and back to bed. When you were allowed to get out of bed for 2 or more periods in a day we would often pretend to get undressed but would in fact keep our clothes on under the blankets so we could get up quicker the next period. The nurses probably knew what we did but often didn’t tell us off for doing it.<br><br>The long time spent in bed meant many of us were bored and often thought up little games or pranks to play on the nurses. Stink bombs were often obtained and thrown into the nurses’ office or let off by the beds.<br> <br>Another game, if you could call it a game, was seeing how far people could projectile vomit. Being in hospital you would expect people to often be sick and vomit. We turned this into a game by holding a hand over your mouth and then let it go causing the messy vomit to spurt across the ward. Nurses were, to say the least, not very happy but it did relieve the boredom a little. <br><br>Another time a nurse told me that she watched me the previous night from her office window situated at the end of the ward. I sat up in bed and sang Calon Lân, a traditional Welsh song in perfect Welsh. I cannot speak Welsh today and I couldn’t back then. She had no reason to lie so I must believe what she told me. Perhaps it was the beginnings of my musical career.</div><br> The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/31421982014-08-18T16:21:29+01:002014-08-18T16:21:29+01:00A bit about me part 1<div style="text-align: justify;">I was born in Newport South Wales on the 21st March 1946, which apparently was a Thursday. I was the second of three children my parents had and was one of those born in the baby boom after the Second World War. My older sister Judy would have just been old enough to understand she now had a baby brother to play with and look after. <br><br>I was given the forenames of John William Patrick, which was and still is a bit of a mouthful however it could have been much worse. In spite of it not being shown on the marriage certificate my father had an additional middle name of Aloysius, which was apparently a traditional name along with Patrick for males in his family. I was supposed to have been given that name as well but my mother intervened and I was given a middle name of William instead. I thank her for her saving me from years of embarrassment.<br><br>My father’s family originally came from Southern Ireland; however I cannot confirm when they moved to Wales. The whole family was of the Catholic religion however I think my father must have fallen out with the Church as I was christened as Church of England.<br><br>The surname ‘Reardon’ according to the Internet is an interesting name of Medieval Irish origin and is an alternative form of Riordan, which in Irish Gaelic is O'Riordain. The earlier form O'Rioghbhardain reveals its derivation from 'Rioghbhard' meaning Royal bard with the 'O' denoting 'descendant of'. Perhaps my love of music originated from my family roots.<br><br>Because early scribes and church officials often spelled names as they sounded a person could have many various spellings of his name. Many variations of the surname can be found in archives. These include O’Riordan, Riordan, O’Rearden, Rearden and others. The name was first found in County Cork.<br><br>Newport is a city just over 12 miles east of Cardiff, which is the capital of Wales. In my childhood Cardiff was 16 miles away so either a mile has shrunk or more likely that roads have been re-routed. According to their official website the town of Newport was created after the Normans conquered Gwent in 1093. In the early 12th century they built a castle by a ford in the river Usk and soon a little town grew up by the castle.<br><br>Other records including ‘An Outline History of Medieval Newport’, (Trett, Bob<sup>1</sup>) state that Newport goes back even further to the 5<sup>th</sup> or 6<sup>th</sup> Century. Tradition states that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint" title="Saint">Saint</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynllyw" title="Gwynllyw">Gwynllyw</a> established a wooden Church on the top of Stow Hill, which in Saxon times was rebuilt in stone and became to be known as St Woolos.<br><br>The Newport of 2013 has changed a lot from the Newport I left in 1971. The Newport City Council web site states that Newport is undergoing major changes with many parts of the city being redeveloped to create a better environment for people to live, work and visit. The Newport I visited in March and April 2013 did not give me the impression of a better environment. Driving through the city the first time for well over 30 years it looked more like a bombsite. There is a lot of work left to turn what was once a great town-centre back to something better or at least similar.<br><br>My parents got married on the 7<sup>th</sup> of February 1944 at St Patrick’s Church in Cromwell Road Newport. The hall adjacent to this Church was to be a pivotal point in my musical career some 19 years later. My father’s profession on the certificate is listed as a motor van driver for a laundry and my mother was a packer at the same laundry. Their forenames as shown on their marriage certificate were Joseph and Doris however for some unknown reason my father was always called Dennis and my mother went under the name of Flo.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I have no idea what laundry my parents worked for or where it was. I guess it would have been in the Corporation Road area of Newport as my father lived in Vivian Road and my mother in Cromwell Road.<br> <br>My first real memories were living in one of the pre-fabricated buildings that were built after the war as temporary accommodation to house people affected by the bombing in the war. Our prefab in Bishpool Lane was still standing over 60 years later before being demolished in the last few years to make room for modern bungalows. Coincidentally I only found out whilst writing this book that John Beardmore lived a few doors away from us at that time. <br><br>I think our prefab had a coal fire as I have faint memories of having a weekly all over wash in a large tin bath in front of the fire. The water, which was heated up on the fire in a large cast iron kettle had to be shared amongst those washing. It’s a lot different to the daily showers I take now.<br><br>A couple of years after I was born my mother gave birth to a younger brother for me. I have always considered myself lucky in that I never really experienced the issues that most middle children seem to suffer from. I didn’t have to wear many hand-me-downs having a sister Judy as the older sibling certainly not as many as my younger brother did. I certainly never felt as if I was neglected in favour of my sister or brother.<br><br>Perhaps the only trait of the so-called middle child syndrome I think I have is that of being a bit of a loner. However I put this more down to having spent a large portion of my early childhood in hospitals rather than being a middle child. <br><br>Sometime before March 1952 my parents moved from our prefab in Bishpool Lane to a more modern terraced house in Elgar Avenue, Alway Estate. I am not sure of the exact date however the Record of Service for my father has the Elgar Avenue address shown against his release from the Army with a date of 18th March 1952 against it. The move meant I was a lot nearer to Alway Junior School and could easily walk to and from school.<br><br>The real strong memories are that I appeared to have had almost every childhood illness spending a large proportion of my early life in and out of hospitals. Pneumonia was followed by scarlet fever, mumps, measles, tonsillitis, thyroid problems, Osgood-Schlatter disease, broken arms (four times) and then the big one Tuberculosis (TB). <br><br>I saw my medical files on one hospital visit and there were at least 3 folders each of which was nearly 2 inches thick. When we were young I cannot recall my brother having similar medical issues and I can only remember my sister having a problem with one of her kidneys.<br><br>Like many children I suffered from tonsillitis and I ended up going into St Woolos hospital to have my tonsils taken out. I think I spent 2-3 days in hospital and I can remember being pushed on a trolley down to the operating theatre before I succumbed to the anesthetic. After the operation the food I was given included ice cream and burnt toast. I can understand the ice cream as my throat was tender but not sure why the toast however it must have had an effect on me as I love burnt toast to this day.<br><br>I spent over 2 years in a couple of hospitals that were for some unknown reason at opposite sides of the country. When I was 7 years old in 1953 I was sent to a hospital run by nuns in Essex. I think it was in Woodford Green. I am not sure of the exact date I was admitted as both the Christmas 1953 and July 1954 school reports from class 1S at Alway Junior School have comments mentioning I have worked hard despite a long absence. The July 1953 report also from class 1S just has the comment ‘John has worked hard this term’ so I assume I must have been admitted sometime after the start of the autumn term.<br><br>I also recall going round to my Great Nana Mitchell’s house in Magor Street to see the Coronation in June on her recently acquired television so I must have gone into hospital after then. I think she was one of the first in the street to get a television as most of the neighbours were sat around the living room. At the time the children wanted to watch the Cisco Kid or Hopalong Cassidy instead but the grown-ups all wanted to watch the Coronation. <br><br>I have very little recollections of my time at the hospital other than breaking my left arm on a climbing frame and the fact the nuns were very strict particularly when bathing the children. For some reason the one that bathed me insisted on scrubbing me with a hard bristle brush particularly around the really tender parts of my body.<br><br>My other memory is of my parents visiting me. I was let out of the hospital so they could take me on a trip into London and visit Trafalgar Square. I had a photograph taken feeding the pigeons and my mother cut a lock off my hair. I am not sure why she did this perhaps she thought I wasn’t going to get well and die in the hospital I really don’t know.<br><br>When I was young I had a mop of blond curly hair. My Nana Redmond was always telling me to eat my crusts on bread, as I wouldn’t get nice curly hair. To increase the chances of it being curly she often put those wavers that looked like massive bulldog clips into my hair after it had been washed. Everybody apart from me loved my blond curly hair. I just wanted it to be straight.<br><br clear="all">I cannot locate the Trafalgar Square photograph but I still have the lock of hair that was cut off that day. I regret not asking my mother before she died why she did this. I can’t remember anyone ever mentioning to me what illness I had been suffering from. I assume my parents or at least the doctors knew but nobody told me. With hindsight it must have been the early onset of TB.<br><br>I then had a relatively illness free year apart from breaking my right arm when playing with a football in my Nana’s garden in Cromwell Road. I was trying to dribble the ball whilst holding a jam sandwich in my hand and somehow fell over. I felt a lot of pain and looked at my hand to see a bit of bone sticking out. I immediately bawled my eyes out and started screaming.<br><br>My Nana who was a nurse picked me up and took me into her house where she put my arm in a sling. She then put her coat on; placed my coat over my shoulders and took me to the bus stop, which was just outside where she lived. She was taking me to our doctor who was in a surgery on Corporation Road near where the Coliseum Cinema was at Clarence Place. I think she thought it would be quicker to take me there rather than go to a call box to ring for an ambulance.<br><br>We sat on one of the side seats at the back of the bus near where you got on. I was still crying my eyes out and other passengers were quite shocked to see bits of my bone and blood peering out of my sling. I think the conductor must have had some sympathy for me as he told the driver not to stop at the 2-3 bus stops until we got to the one near the doctors. He also didn’t take our fares.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">At the surgery the receptionist took me straight in to see the doctor who took a look at my arm and said it was a bad greenstick fracture and I needed to go to the Royal Gwent Hospital to have it treated. Hours later, most of which was spent still crying we caught a bus back with my arm in Plaster of Paris.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Just over the road from the Coliseum cinema was the Odeon. This was a lovely Art Deco style of building, which opened just before the Second World War. This was my favourite cinema in Newport. I spent many a Saturday morning there singing ‘We are the Ovaltinies, Happy Girls’ and Boys’. I think those days are long gone.<br><br>The Odeon, which closed in 1981, has been given a council grant and is undergoing refurbishment. I am not sure when it is due to officially open or whether it will remain as a cinema but it is great that it hasn’t been demolished. John Beardmore spoke just before our reunion gig to one of the people working on the refurbishment and they said it’s going quite well.</div><br> The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30916182014-07-22T19:38:44+01:002017-01-16T00:25:09+00:00July 2014 gigs<div style="text-align: justify;">We played 3 consecutive gigs in July 2014, starting with the PILCS Club at Pontypool on Friday 11th. Only around 50 people turned up, which was a bit of a shame as the acoustics of the place are great and the beer is cheap. Still it was great for us getting back together again since we hadn't played since the end of March. We managed to play for around 3 hours in stifling heat.</div><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/e5c9adee4f7fa5ceb5f8895db4eaaf34ea0332ae/original/img-3109.jpg?1406053080" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>The next day, we played at the Cellar in Caldicot. We had a small band rehearsal there in 2013, however, this was the first time we played with the full band. There were more people there, probably around 80. It was nice to see Lynn and Jerry, who had traveled up from Southampton.<br><br>The stage was bit of an awkward layout and it took us a while to adjust to the acoustics. In addition Adrian's voice was beginning to suffer a bit from the exertions of the night before, so Andy, Bob & Ted sang more than they were supposed to. Ted also had to play all night as Steve couldn't make the gig.</div><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/93143cb9fe4c27714bdeecbb140adeaadd282f30/original/img-3189.jpg?1406053473" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/b56ccd97c2dae01241a16b116876a301e7d4e3b9/original/img-3197.jpg?1406053551" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>The final night was closing the Caerleon Arts Festival at the Bell Inn on the Sunday. It was an extremely long day for me as we had to setup in the morning and I decided to stay there all day as the rest of the entertainment were going to use my PA and I wanted to make sure everything was ok.<br><br>We eventually went on at around 9.20 p.m. and played until well gone 11. We were in a marquee in the car park of the Bell and whilst not sure exactly how many people turned up, the place was full at the end of the night and the grassy dance floor was packed with dancing bodies</div><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/5f5025df177afcbe1d2af999bb7bb7fefa8867ef/original/img-3255.jpg?1406053900" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/9545b630293b50fe4fde4509b1383afda9c2bedf/original/img-3259.jpg?1406053979" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>Adrian's voice was suffering again so Andy & Ted stood in. At the end of the night he even asked a couple of ladies to join in on the vocals!! Didn't get their names, but they did well</div><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/78a5b94758c81385db78076a526ccd27ffed3db7/original/img-3274.jpg?1406054111" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>So after playing the 3 gigs, we all went back to our respective homes on either the Sunday night or Monday morning. We had a great time, despite being extremely tired. Still, it's not bad for pensioners</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30594552014-07-06T12:58:47+01:002017-11-06T08:57:26+00:00Who were the Pieces of Mind?<div style="text-align: justify;">The Pieces of Mind underwent a few personnel changes in my time with the group and a few more after I left in 1967. It is difficult to come up with firm dates for when people joined or left the group, especially as the events happened up to 50 years ago. We are lucky that John Beardmore kept a gig diary for 1964 and 1965, but even that is probably not complete.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/7034a544f96dd347f71d68d6b17dd63ea14e0c3e/original/very-young-pom.jpg?1400862696" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption"><strong>1964 Publicity Pic</strong></p></div> <br>There are very few fixed milestones we can base events around. The Aberfan disaster on 21<sup>st</sup> October 1966 and Andy getting married the next day are 2 such dates that confirm that Andy and I were both playing with the Pieces of Mind at the time. We all have the same memories of the gig, such as running out of petrol and Andy not getting home until around breakfast time, on the day of his wedding. We even have photographs of Adrian, Andy, Phil Edwards and I celebrating his stag night.<br><br>As mentioned earlier, I played in a primarily instrumental group, from the time I got a guitar up until the day the Pieces of Mind were formed. I cannot remember the names of everyone I played with, however, the most important from the point of view of this story, was Robert ‘Percy’ Price. Robert lived in Ladyhill Road, not far from where I lived in Elgar Avenue, on the Alway Estate, Newport.<br> <br>Despite him being nearly a year younger than me, the time I spent in hospital meant we were both in the same class in Alway Junior School and we became friends. When we started playing in groups, it was the two of us who went on to form the Pieces of Mind, in the autumn of 1963. Percy would leave the group early in 1966, to spend more time with his girlfriend, who he would eventually marry. Percy still plays, standing in with various South Wales bands and at local jam sessions<br> <br>I met Adrian Williams, whilst working in the Costing office of Whitehead Iron and Steel. He had no musical background until I asked him to join the group. After joining, he was in all versions of the group until their demise in 1969.<br> <br>After leaving the Pieces, Adrian joined a German band called Almond Harvest. They were about to go into a recording studio when Alan Jones asked him if he wanted to join Judas Jump, the super group that was formed out of Amen Corner, the Herd, the Mindbenders and of course, the Pieces of Mind. When Judas Jump packed in, Adrian went on to have a career in the record industry, ending up as a boss with the music part of the Sony Corporation.<br><br>Dave Sargent was a gentle giant, who joined the group, to play bass guitar, shortly after Adrian. I believe he played with us until shortly after the talent contest in Porthcawl. I can’t remember why he left, although I gather he later started a double-glazing business, so it may have been to spend time developing the business. Sadly, I was to find out, when planning the reunion in 2013, that Dave had died a couple of years earlier. <br><br>Steve Strong played drums in the first version of the group. I can’t remember how we found him, but he played with us for around a year. He has continued playing and in 2013, he is in his 17<sup>th</sup> year with the James Boys, a band in Newport.<br> <br>Will Lowe joined us not long after Dave, mainly to play harmonica, although he also sang the occasional song. Like Dave, he played with us until around the time of the Porthcawl talent contest, perhaps a month or so later. I am not sure why he left, but I know he ended up moving to Australia, so perhaps that was the reason why. I think Will no longer plays in a band.<br> <br>When Dave left, Percy switched to playing bass guitar and a childhood friend of Adrian, joined us to play rhythm guitar. Andy Gibbon had gone to the same school as Adrian and had been playing guitar for a while. He would also leave the group sometime in 1965 and rejoin to play bass guitar when Percy left in 1966 and then finally leaving in January 1967. Andy has played throughout the decades and is currently in the Timesup band.<br><br>Garnett ‘Chippy’ Chapman joined us on drums, to replace Steve Strong, sometime in the autumn of 1964. Chippy played many gigs with us, eventually leaving around August 1965. He no longer plays, sadly for medical reasons.<br> <br>Phil Edwards replaced Chippy on drums, not long after Andy had left, so we then became a four-piece group for the first time. When Andy rejoined in 1966, we continued as a four piece. Without denigrating any previous or following members, it was this version of the group that I consider to be the classic Pieces of Mind. Perhaps the only addition would have been of my long-time friend, Percy, on rhythm or bass. Phil gave up playing in 1986, however since the reunion gig, he has started playing with people in Spain.<br><br>At the beginning of November 1966, I asked Dave Kubinec to join us playing organ. Whilst I only played, with Dave in the group for a few months, I could see he had a lot of talent. He also had a bit of a fiery personality and I can remember having the occasional argument with him once or twice on stage. Dave stayed with the group until the end of December 1967 and rejoined for a few months in 1969. Dave no longer plays with any band, but has been a prolific songwriter over the years. One of his songs, Rock and Roll, was used in the Croatian version of Britain’s Got Talent, back in 2010, by the eventual winner, Kim Verson.<br><br>It was around the time of Dave joining, that the group went through a lot of change. Phil had decided to leave the group, for some unknown reason. We held auditions, for a new drummer, at a gig we were playing at the Stow Hill Labour club, in Newport. There were 3 drummers at the audition and whilst all were good, the one that impressed us the most was called Stephen ‘Ted’ Dyer. He was very young just short of his 16<sup>th</sup> birthday. Glyn Williams, Adrian’s brother, had told Ted or his brother Jim, that Phil was leaving the group and they were holding auditions for a replacement at the gig.<br><br>Ted remembers that there were two other drummers there and both of these took turns to play a few numbers with the band. When his turn came, he played a bunch of Soul & Motown songs and after five or so numbers was told to stay on stage as he got the job and was to play the remainder of the gig. Co-incidentally, Ted’s Brother Jim was at the same gig and remembers having a go on the drums. I don’t think he was part of the official auditions he just wanted to play. Ted still plays with a band called Atacama.<br><br>Just after Ted joined, we added a brass section and the whole direction of the group changed. At times it appeared that we had around a dozen players on stage with us. It was definitely not my taste in music; however, the rest seemed to like what we were doing. Of the brass section, to be honest, the only ones I remember was a chap who went by the name of Coco, who played the trumpet and Dave Martin, who played the sax. I found decades later that the real name of Coco was Philip James, but in the 60s he was Coco to us. He no longer plays in any band, however he did join us for the reunion.<br><br>When Andy left, I believe Dave Martin took over on bass guitar, although some of the others didn’t think he had, all saying he just played sax. When I met his wife Rita, at the reunion, she confirmed that Dave could play bass guitar and she thought he had done so with us. Sadly Dave had passed away some years earlier.<br><br>I am told that Chris Armstrong also played sax with us, but I’m afraid I cannot remember whether he did or not.<br><br>When some of the group was talking about turning professional and going to London, I thought it was time for me to leave, as I was due to get married later that year. It was decided that 2 new members would be brought in to replace both Andy and myself. Mickey Evans was brought in to take over my role of lead guitar and Rob Evans, who was no relation, was brought in to play bass. I faintly remember playing one gig with them both as a sort of handover, but I cannot confirm whether this is correct.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/e5e9b653ba0cbb019cf0f2e08bb802752d9e87b8/large/pom050-germany-band.jpg?1388951486" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>The Band who went to Germany</strong></div>
<br>In August 1967, Adrian and Dave Kubinec wanted to turn professional and go to London. Adrian had asked his mother if Ted could join them, but she left the decision to Ted, who thought he wasn’t old enough at the time. The rest of the group didn’t want to do this, so Adrian got in touch with Phil to see if he would join them, and the 3 of them set off for London, where they met up with Vic Johnson and Bruno Sampson.<br><br>Vic was playing lead guitar, at the 100 Club, in Oxford St for a band called Winston G and The Wicked. At the end of their gig, Phil went up to Vic and said that they had been looking for him and would he fancy going to Germany. Vic said yes, and mentioned that Bruno, who was a friend of his group, could play bass. So after several auditions, Adrian, Dave, Phil and the 2 new members, Bruno and Vic, went off to play the nightclubs of Hamburg.<br><br>After 2-3 months of hectic playing at clubs such as the Top Ten, the Star and the Crazy Horse, the group had a falling out with Dave Kubinec. So when they came back to the UK in January 1968, they found another keyboard player. Phil Edwards believes his name was David Peace; however, all they can remember is that they bought him a keyboard so they could do some gigs in France. When they returned to the UK, around May 1968, both the player and the keyboard disappeared.<br><br>The group then fell apart and Adrian returned to South Wales, where he joined up with Mickey and Rob Evans and brought in a drummer called Cliff Burge. This version of the Pieces continued for almost a year, playing gigs throughout South Wales, until Adrian had the itch to go back to Germany. Dave Kubinec also rejoined for a while, mainly so they could take part in the European Beat group contest in Lugano, Switzerland. They came third and according to Dave, it was because the promoters were Italian so the Italian band won; it was in Switzerland so the Swiss band came second and the Pieces were the best so they came third. Reading what he said, reminded me so much of the talent contests in Porthcawl and Caerleon, where despite being the ‘best’, we came second. <br><br>This version of the group also played the Star club as the World of Oz, the group that Dave had joined after he had left in December 1967. At some time, Mickey Evans was apparently homesick so Glyn Whitcombe was brought in to replace him on lead guitar. I didn’t meet Glyn until he joined us on the reunion in April 2013, where he played sax, not guitar.<br><br>There were 2 other non-playing members of the group, who contributed a lot, particularly in the early years. John Beardmore, a work colleague at Whiteheads, was our manager from up until the end of 1965. As well as keeping a gig diary for those years, he also took many photographs and kept many gig posters.<br><br>Glyn Williams, the younger brother of Adrian, was our roadie and van driver up until the group went to Germany. Like John Beardmore, Glyn took many photographs and has many memories of our time gigging.<br><br>Looking back on my time with the Pieces, I am still amazed that we didn’t record anything or that we didn’t turn professional when we were young and in our prime. From the time we formed to the mid-60s we were extremely popular in all of the localities we played.<br><br>There was interest from both agencies and managers, but again and again, we told them no, we weren't interested. I think that as well as enjoying ourselves; we thought many of the agencies were crooks out trying to fleece you, so we were probably too wary. When you see what happened to bands like the Small Faces, perhaps our worries were justified, however, we should have done something. By the time we started talking about turning professional, two of us had met girls and were going to get married and subsequently left.<br><br>Even when the band when to Germany in 67/68, whilst they became one of the most popular bands doing the club circuits they never bothered to record, despite offers. It was only when they split up that individuals from the band started recording.<br> <br>Sometime in the summer of 1969, the Pieces of Mind eventually broke up for the last time or at least until April 2013.<br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30413762014-06-26T13:30:02+01:002017-01-16T00:25:09+00:00Getting a Guitar<div style="text-align: justify;">I am not sure of the exact date my parents first bought me a guitar, but from looking at remarks such as ‘too frivolous’ and ‘ very disappointing’ in my school reports, I would guess it was Christmas 1961. The Broadway Plectric 1922 guitar I appear to be using in early Pieces of Mind photographs came out in 1961 however, I have memories of having owned a Selmer Futurama III, which was released earlier so I probably started on that guitar and bought the Broadway afterwards.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/282c7758fb25a6ee4dc1a85424ab1f0e82789f58/original/pom029-bosco.jpg?1388953274" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><br><br>The Broadway Plectric solids were made by Guyatone, a Japanese company who were based near Tokyo and were modeled on the single-cutaway examples of guitars that Hank B. Marvin of The Shadows played at the time. American guitars such as those made by Fender, Gibson or Gretsch were not widely available and were also too expensive; hence many people like me started with East European or Japanese imports.<br><br>Like many in the early 60’s I wanted to join in the ‘new’ music emerging at the time. Some friends from near where I lived and I decided we would form a pop group. One of these friends was Robert Price who for some reason we called ‘Percy’. He and I would later go on to form the Pieces of Mind and would also play at the 50th Anniversary Reunion in 2013.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">We begged our parents to get us some electric guitars and my brother was going to be the drummer. My parents bought me a guitar, believed to be a Selmer Futurama III, on hire purchase and my brother got a snare drum. We started practicing and before long it became obvious that my brother was not really interested and also suffered from a complete absence of rhythm, so he gave up. We found a replacement drummer from the school I attended. <br><br>As did many guitarists back then I bought a copy of Bert Weedon’s ‘Play in a Day’. I think it cost me around 5 shillings in old money and, whilst playing in a day was perhaps a bit ambitious, it certainly laid down the foundations. The book showed me how to tune the guitar, play many chords and also gave tips on maintenance. The book is still popular today although it costs considerably more at just under £10 in 2013.<br><br>Back then we didn’t have the Internet and whilst tablature did exist it wasn’t widely available. We used the old fashioned way of listening to single records often by slowing down the play speed, which was 45 rpm to the speed of albums, which was 33<sup>1/3</sup> rpm.<br><br>In the 1960s we didn’t have the luxury of electronic tuners so I often used records, usually Apache, by the Shadows, to assist the tuning of my guitar. When we started gigging I bought a tuning fork that you tapped on a solid surface and it would resonate at 440Hz, which is the pitch of the ‘A’ note. I would tune my 5th or ‘A’ string to the tone of the fork and then the rest of my strings to the A string. Sometimes I would use a piano, if one were available in the venue we would be playing. Once I was in tune the other guitars tuned to me. <br><br>I have never taken music lessons and have preferred to use this method of playing by ear. As I have got older and my hearing suffered, I occasionally refer to guitar tablature on the Internet. This ability to play by ear has stood me in good stead and has meant that I can quite comfortably accompany people I have never played with before, playing tunes I have never heard before. Accompanying a singer guitarist friend of mine, who is left-handed and plays a right-handed strung guitar upside down, has been challenging at times. However I usually looked away from what he was playing and just used my ears to work out what I should be playing. <br><br>My first memories of playing live for money was at a local youth club run by St Teilo’s Church in Alway Newport, South Wales, playing instrumentals from groups such as The Shadows, The Ventures and The Dakotas. We played all the instrumentals that were popular such as: The Cruel Sea, Wipe Out, Apache, FBI and Walk Don’t Run. The club allowed us to practice and also paid us to play regularly at dances. I was about 15 and a half.<br><br>Percy and I spent some time in various groups formed with other friends in School and from where we lived. One of our drummers was Fred Harris later to star in Playschool and other TV programmes. Fred remembers he spent a chunk of the ’60s as the drummer in a shambolic Shadows-style instrumental outfit in his native Monmouthshire. He claimed the results were ‘so bad we had to change our name every week.’ Well I’m not sure about changing our name weekly, but he’s probably right about us as being shambolic.<br><br>Last I heard of Fred was that back in 2010 he was playing in a Jazz band with a band member of Sam Thomas, who used to play in Volume IV, another Newport group. Sam, who similar to me, has moved away from Wales, came to our reunion gig and also sang on the last song, but more of that later.<br><br>The more we played the better we became and before long we were getting more and more bookings, or gigs as they seem to be called these days. Most of these bookings were unpaid or for very little money, however, it was certainly better than practicing. We decided we really needed a singer so managed to convince a friend to sing a few songs such as Lucille and Roll over Beethoven. <br><br>We had no transport so had to rely on parents or even public transport. I used to catch one of the Newport Double Decker buses to take me to local venues. I would place my small amp in the little luggage space under the stairs and then sit on one of the seats nearby, carrying my guitar, wrapped in a couple of pillowcases my mother had sewn together as a case. The bus conductor would take a fare just for me and often helped me off the bus with my amp when I came to my stop. Even if buses had conductors today, not many if any would help you off the bus with your luggage, which you probably would have had to pay for.<br><br>We occasionally played in clubs where we weren’t old enough to enter. These were usually when we played as part of a Concert Party. The Concert Party would usually consist of a comedian, a magician, a female impersonator and a group. Sometimes one person would do comedy, magic and dress up as a woman. The female impersonator was a chap, who went by the name of Tommy Holloway and would often say ‘I’ll smack your legs’. My time playing with the Party certainly introduced me to playing live in front of Working Men’s Club audiences. <br><br>From reading ‘The Rock Scene Hits’, (Dyer, Jim<sup>4</sup>), Tommy may have been with the Concert Party run by a chap called Chris Banks who I believe lived in Bolt Street Pill, however, I cannot be sure as I believe Tommy had his own Concert Party. Jim gives an excellent description of what it was like with the Concert Parties.<br><br>Jim’s story about his experiences in the Chris Banks Concert Party reminds me so much of my time with Tommy and his show. The patter that Tommy used when introducing the evening’s entertainment were almost identical. There must have been a training course for Concert Party hosts, back in the late 50s and early 60s. <br><br>One of the other groups we encountered when we started playing gigs was called the Charles Kingsley combo containing two brothers called Charles and Kingsley Ward. When we played an event with them, I am sure one of them played accordion, however, I cannot remember which brother. Eventually the brothers, who were fed up of having to travel to London to find a recording studio, bought a farmhouse in Monmouth and built their own studio. This became the World’s first residential studio when it opened for business in 1965. The studio took a name, suggested by Dave Edmunds, which was Rockfield. The artists who have recorded at Rockfield are way too numerous to mention here, but suffice to say it has been prolific in creating hit records.<br><br>Waterfield ISE, the band I formed after the Pieces of Mind, recorded there in 1970, around the same time Black Sabbath were making the album ‘Paranoid’. Their recording topped the UK charts; ours was never released.<br><br>My education greatly suffered as a result of the time I was spending with the groups. Looking through my old St Julian’s High School report as I write this really enforces how my term reports deteriorated from when I got the guitar. My main interest, back then was playing guitar live in front of audiences. It’s the thing I most enjoy these days as well so it must be in my blood.<br><br>I left school with passes in only 4 GCE ‘O’ Levels out of a possible 8 I took in the examinations. These were English Language, French, Mathematics and Religious Knowledge. I am not surprised at getting good grades in the first 3; however, I was really surprised at passing Religious Knowledge, as I have forever been agnostic to religion.<br><br>In the GCE mock examinations the term before I received a mere 35%. I must admit I didn’t take the subject seriously and tried to update some of the parables including the parable of the 10 virgins. In my version, I made the virgins into prostitutes and sent the wise ones down to the Esso Blue dealer for some oil. My teacher was not impressed. <br><br>It was around this time that I was given a nickname, which would stay with me probably to my dying days. During lunch hours at St Julian's a few of us would walk down Heather Road, cross over into Oak Street and go and visit St Julian's pond, near Bank Street. Here we would feed the ducks with bread we brought to school. One of my classmates, who didn’t come down to the pond, thought it was funny and started calling me ‘Ducksy’, I think primarily to antagonise me. Apart from 22 years spent in the Royal Air Force, I have been called that by most of my 60s friends. I have even had to use the nickname as part of my Facebook name, so people would recognise me; also including it in my ‘author’ details for this book.<br><br>The time I should have been revising for the examinations was spent either practicing with the group or playing at a club or local youth club. I even played the nights before some of the examinations despite the advice of my parents.<br><br>During this period I also started going out with friends with the intention of meeting girls. I started attending Church for a period when I wanted to attend a youth club because a girl I liked went there. In those days, the clergy often ran youth clubs and a prerequisite of attending was to regularly go to Church. When I found out she had a boyfriend much bigger than me at the club, I stopped going to both the youth club and the Church. <br><br>As I got more and more into playing the guitar, my circle of friends got smaller. Before long my only friends were those who played in the band with me or in other bands. I became more interested in playing than going to parties and meeting girls. I know I had one or two girlfriends in my school years, but none lasted more than a week or so. There was a particular girl I really liked who attended the girl’s school at St Julian’s, but we only went out once or twice before sadly drifting apart. <br><br>On one of my rare nights out I went with a friend to watch another band, somewhere in Newport Town centre. We missed the last bus home so we had to walk the 3-4 miles back home to Alway Estate. Whilst crossing the bridge near the castle, the local hard man, whose name was also Tommy came up to me and decided that he wanted to strangle me. Tommy was well known around the town and loved having fights with anyone including the police. He was a big man and towered over me, a mere 5 foot 7. <br><br>My friend, who was considerably shorter than me, went right up to Tommy and asked him to stop as he was hurting me and he shouldn’t be doing that. Tommy was so surprised that someone that small, would confront him in such a way, he released me. At that point a couple of police men walked by on the other side of the road and one of them said to Tommy that he should be gentle with me. This seemed to calm him down and he told me to go. I don’t know what happened to Tommy but I certainly think my friend intervening spared my life.<br><br>After leaving school I managed to get a job working as a trainee in the Costing office at Whitehead Iron and Steel Company on Mendalgief Road in Newport. The company was a producer of various rolled steel products and a pioneer, in the UK, of continuous rolling of steel. They had been in Newport since the 1920s and were nationalised in the 1950s. I was one of about a hundred people employed in the office block near the entrance. One of my colleagues in the Costing office was John Beardmore, who would later become the manager of the Pieces of Mind.<br><br>It was here that I also met a young man who worked in the Sales team, who were always very well dressed and extremely confident in their manner. Within a short time of meeting, I would start him on a musical career that culminated in him playing at the Isle of Wight Festival of 1970, in front of a crowd that has been estimated of up to half a million.<br clear="all"><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/d1eab6dbfb93efa8567b3618f205ba4329d15a21/original/tredegar-ade.jpg?1404647392" class="size_l justify_center border_" />
</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30402642014-06-25T21:19:19+01:002014-06-25T21:21:19+01:00Holidays<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>Cornwall</strong><br>One Bank Holiday Chippy decided he wanted to go for a drive in his small van and asked if I wanted to go with him, along with Glyn and I think Andy. Glyn recounts the story a bit later, however, the one thing he misses out is when the police in Cornwall stopped us. We were on the A30, heading towards Bodmin, when they stopped us. As far as we were aware we hadn’t been doing anything wrong. The van was serviceable; Chippy had a full licence and had not been drinking.<br><br>We all got out of the van and were told, quite abruptly to get back in, turn around and follow them. They said they didn't want people with long hair like us in Cornwall and escorted back to the county border with Devon. It was the sort of thing you see in Hollywood movies, usually cowboy stories, however this was Britain in the 60’s. When we were back in Devon and the police had gone, we turned round and headed back to our eventual destination, Newquay, via minor roads.<br><br><strong>Jersey</strong><br>Another memorable holiday was when Andy and I went to Jersey, with a friend of the group, Wayne Coughlin and his girlfriend Janet. We both think it was in July or August 1965. We took a train down to Weymouth, where we would get on a ferry to Jersey. Being fairly broke at the time; we bought single instead of return tickets, a decision that would make us quite miserable 2 weeks later. We were intending to camp, so took a couple of 2 man tents along with an assortment of camping gear in our rucksacks.<br><br>The ferry seemed to be full of young kids, most of who were dressed in scout uniforms heading off for some sort of camping activity, as they were also carrying rucksacks. The crossing to Jersey took a long time across extremely choppy waters. Ferries today take just over 5 hours for the journey, but I am sure it took closer to 8 hours in 1965. I can remember we were standing near the rails on one side of the ship, looking out to sea and we could feel spray hitting us in our faces. It was only when Andy looked to one side that he realised that the spray hitting us was in fact sick. A long queue of young scouts was being sick over the side and the wind was blowing it back right into our faces.<br><br>We decided to visit the toilets, down a couple of decks, to wash the, by then, evil smelling muck off our faces. Every toilet we entered was awash with sick and other evil smelling stuff. The plumbing certainly could not cope with the countless visits of people being sick or using the facilities. I decided to use one of my handkerchiefs, rather than wade through the liquid on the floor.<br><br>By this time, I was feeling a bit under the weather myself, so I went into one of the bars, to sit down. This was a big mistake, as the place, which had no windows, seemed to be moving from side to side. I sat there for a few minutes, before I had to rush up the stairs to the deck to be violently sick over the side.<br><br>Eventually the ferry reached St Helier, in Jersey and we disembarked to find a campsite. Not being at all organised, we hadn’t even bothered to try and book a campsite. We couldn’t get in at the ones near St Helier, but eventually found a place near St Brelades, which was about 5 miles away.<br><br>We had a great 2 weeks, spending most of our money getting drunk in the bars within a comfortable walking distance. One night we stumbled drunkenly back to our tents in complete darkness, none of us having any torches. I can remember tripping over a tent peg and hurting my left shin. The next morning I awoke to find my leg was feeling quite sticky inside my sleeping bag. I got out and saw my whole left leg was covered in blood. I had fallen on top of another tent peg, the previous night and this had left a large gash in my shin. By the morning, it had stopped bleeding, so I gingerly washed it and put a plaster on the cut. I went to the doctors when I got home and he said I should have had a couple of stitches in the cut, but it was too late to do anything. I still have the scar nearly 50 years later.<br><br>At the end of the 2 weeks, we caught the ferry back to Weymouth. The journey back was not as choppy as the one to Jersey and nearly 8 hours later, we arrived at Weymouth. We soon discovered that none of us had enough money to buy a rail ticket back to Newport. We decided that we would try and hitchhike to Newport, which was 120 miles away. Hitchhiking is difficult at the best of times; however, with 4 people it was going to be a challenge, so Andy and I decided to split up from Janet and Wayne.<br><br>The 2 of us walked for miles before getting our first lift. The other two had waved to us from a car that picked them up not long after we had parted. It took us 24 hours to complete that 120-mile journey. Needless to say, we didn’t even have a map, just relying on our memories where the names on signposts were in relation to our destination.<br><br>We had to pitch the tent on the verge of a road when it got too dark to see where we were going. In the morning, the only food we had left was a tin of beans. Not bothering to cook them, we just shared the cold beans. We can remember having a lift in the back of a lorry carrying fish, so by the time we reached Newport, we were tired, dirty and smelling of fish. Janet and Wayne had managed to get home the previous day, so the rule of hitchhiking, at least back then, seemed to be that you should do it with a female as company.<br><br>I met Wayne again for the first time since the 60s at one of the gigs we did in September and October 2013. Janet was no longer with him.</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30402082014-06-25T21:05:36+01:002018-08-03T18:43:52+01:00Aberfan<div style="text-align: justify;">On Friday the 21st October 1966, there was a catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip in the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil. The spoil tip engulfed the local Junior School sadly killing 116 children and 28 adults. That night was also the night before Andy got married and the night we ran out of petrol when we were playing out Hereford way. When we eventually got the van going, I remember going across the roundabout, outside of Abergavenny, on the A40 where the Heads of the Valleys Road starts. The police were turning back a stream of people in vehicles trying to get to Aberfan to help, as they were hampering the rescue operation. The disaster shocked all of us; especially as it happened on the very day the school was breaking up for half term.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/96d0420f02a7b4ab47dd0713b5a91bc555e1458d/original/aberfan-cemetery.jpg?1404743474" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /><p class="caption">Memorial to those who died</p></div><br>We all jumped at the opportunity to play at a disaster appeal due to be held in Tredegar Working Men’s Hall cinema. The event took place in December 1966, with a few other groups taking part as well. One was called the Vikings and another was a young band called Fusion, who had a member called Lyndon Evans, who remembers listening to our brass section rehearsing in the dressing room. We would play again with the same band, which are now called ‘Now and Then’ in October 2013 at the Catholic Hall in Ebbw Vale.<br><br>I believe, but cannot be sure, that a very young Henry Spinetti also played, at the event, with a group called the Next of Kin; a group that had Rob Evans on bass, who would later go on to join the Pieces.<br><br>I cannot remember much of that night, other than the manager, apparently a Mr. White, came on stage and threatened to stop the show, unless the crowd, predominantly girls, calmed down. We had to have a police escort us out of the cinema and onto the road back home. </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30402042014-06-25T21:01:48+01:002017-01-16T00:25:08+00:00Kubie<div style="text-align: justify;">Later on in that year, around October we decided that we wanted to increase the size of the group and try to find a keyboard player and maybe some brass. We were playing one gig; not sure where but it was up the road from Risca, perhaps in Cross Keys. At the end of the night, as we were packing up, I heard someone playing a piano in the hall. I think it was some sort of rock and roll; however whatever it was, it sounded good. <br><br>I wandered over and saw this thin faced young chap who had a spikey sort of haircut. Before I even asked his name, I asked him if he had an organ, to which he said yes, a Vox Continental. I didn’t even want to check whether he could play it, I just asked him to join us on a gig the following week. Apparently he had been playing a piano at the end of various gigs for a few weeks, trying to attract interest and join a group.<br><br>The following week we played a place called Beaumont Hall, somewhere up the valleys, with the organ player, who was called David Kubinec. For some reason that I can’t remember, Dave didn’t use his Vox, he ended up playing a piano that was already on stage, using a microphone stuck inside to amplify the sound. It seemed to go well, so Dave joined the group.<br><br>Dave, or ‘Kubie’ as he was known, played with us for the rest of the time I was in the group and went to Germany with them in the late 60s. After he left the Pieces, he became a member of The World Of Oz which managed to achieve a hit single with one of his own compositions, ’The Muffin Man’ released on Decca’s underground label Deram. Dave then passed through the ranks of progressive rock band Mainhorse Airline and a band called the Rats. In 1978, Dave released a solo album called ‘Some Things Never Change’, the same album I found in the London HMV store some years later. <br><br>It was a big shame we didn’t exploit the writing skills of Dave. Perhaps they came after he left the Pieces; however, I like to think they were there, just waiting to be pulled out of his mind. He also started singing more when he left the band. I assume this was because he wanted to be the front man and not just the keyboard player.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/d542817ea6e1700210f1a14d04f660c7a5fe79af/original/germany-band001.jpg?1404646593" class="size_l justify_center border_" />
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>Kubie on the far right, next to Adrian</strong><br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Short version of the 40 minute interview in which Kubie talks to Jon Kirkman about his career. Think it was done in 2009.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="_kjFQlkxskg" data-video-thumb-url="http://img.youtube.com/vi/_kjFQlkxskg/0.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_kjFQlkxskg?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="200" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30395212014-06-25T17:27:22+01:002019-06-30T09:21:17+01:00Supporting the Who<div style="text-align: justify;">At the beginning of 1966, in fact on Monday the 31st January we supported the ‘Who’ when they played at the Coed Eva Community College in Cwmbran. This was another of the numerous promotions of Maurice Wight. The ‘Who’ were originally due to play in a Youth Centre in Newport, but the venue was changed, probably because Mo Wight thought the Newport venue too small.<br><br>The ‘Who Concert File’ by Joe McMichael and Irish Jack Lyons still mistakenly shows the venue as Newport. It wasn’t, as I was there on stage at Coed Eva playing with the Pieces of Mind and the Right of Man as the support acts. The singer of the Right of Man, Anton Roelands, would later join Andy and me in the Waterfield ISE group.<br><br>The version of the Pieces that played was Adrian, Phil, Percy and myself. I can’t remember much of the gig, other than I remember we played ‘My Generation’ just as members of The Who arrived at the side of the stage. They probably thought we were extremely cheeky to do this, but it was something we did quite often when supporting ‘name’ groups.<br> <div class="captioned justify_center"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/f49a9073a253318d74848b0c3132bb15b426461e/large/early-pieces001.jpg?1392466151" class="size_orig justify_center border_" alt="" /><p class="caption">The Who Support band</p></div><br>Obviously when they played it, our version was made to look quite amateurish, despite the fabulous bass solo from Percy. When we finished our set and went backstage to the dressing area, which I believe was the gymnasium; The Who seemed to be entertaining numerous girls, many of them within the toilets at the end of the room.<br> <br>Mo Wight had arranged to get a load of the My Generation album covers, and arranged for the group to sign the backs, so he could sell for 10 shillings, which was a lot of money, in fact just less than the ticket price of 12 shillings and 6 pence. My girlfriend Jackie, who came with me to the gig managed to get one and that’s the only personal memento I have of the gig.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/71900d105d062f73bcfed31116b7eb728935cc24/original/who2.jpg?1438352626" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><br><br>Adrian and John Beardmore both managed to get posters signed, however John gave his to Will Lowe, so it’s somewhere in Australia. Adrian brought his copy across from Spain, in June 2013, and John has managed for it to be copied, after a little restorative work. So I now have a good copy of the poster and in September 2013 we got t-shirts printed.<br><br>Many of those who attended the 50<sup>th</sup> Anniversary Reunion gig, held on the 26<sup>th</sup> April 2013, also attended the ‘Who’ gig in 1966. At the reunion, in April 2013, I heard many stories from people about the gig. Jerry, the 14 year old younger brother of our drummer Phil, was in the gymnasium and managed to speak to all 4 of the group, who he said were very friendly.<br><br>Susan Smith and her friends caught a bus from Newport to Cwmbran and once they got into the hall, they congregated to the left of the stage and then made a beeline for the centre when The Who came on. One of The Who threw out a guitar string and a plectrum, which was supposedly caught by her group, though none of them remember who had them or where they are now. <br><br>At one stage during the evening a fight broke out which included a boy, they knew from Cwmbran, who was a few years older than them. They missed the bus home and ended up having to walk all the way back to Newport and she was sure they didn't tell their parents that. For those who don’t know the area, that must have been 6-8 miles, depending on where in Newport they lived.<br><br>A really enterprising story was from Geoff Cartwright, who worked in a factory in Caerleon, called Brades, who made garden tools for Spear and Jackson. It was his first job after leaving school. At the time of the concert he was friendly with a person who played for a local band and who also worked with him in Brades. His friend mentioned that if you joined the local weight lifting class there was a good chance of being asked to assist with crowd control. Geoff weighed about 11 stone, soaking wet, and because he was a rugby player, he joined. His friend and he were picked and both went to the gig. He knew Coed Eva well as it was virtually the same as Croesyceiliog School, which he went to and they played each other at rugby.<br><br>The actual evening was a bit of a blur for him as they were positioned right in front of the stage. He said whilst they had the best view, they were supposed to be looking out to the audience. However his outstanding memories were of Keith Moon smashing his drums up and throwing them about the stage and Pete Townsend wrecking his guitar by banging it against the stage floor. He said the girls in the audience were going mad and he had never experienced anything like it. Afterwards they were guarding the dressing room and Keith came out in a fur coat and was quite chatty.<br><br>Geoff said for a 17 year old, who has been very lucky in life it is certainly one night he will never forget and was his first and last time as a bouncer. His children have difficulty believing that The Who would have played in such a small place as Cwmbran.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/58ef11cbb0abc53d96dcebb66a362fd7c35612f5/large/web-pom-who-poster-2.jpg?1389039159" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /><br>After The Who gig I decided that Andy, who had re-joined on bass when Percy left, and I should have speaker cabinets that looked more impressive than the ones we were using. I was still using a Vox AC30 and I think Andy had a Selmer bass amp. We went to a hardware shop and bought several sheets of ‘8x4’ chipboard in order to make a couple of cabinets to house Fane speakers in each.<br><br>Today, in 2013, Fane Speakers seemed to have acquired almost cult status amongst guitarists, but to be honest, in the 60s; we bought them because they were cheap, not for any supposed tonal qualities. I read similar stories, raving about equipment we used we used back then. Watkins Dominators were not great amps; in my opinion they sounded awful, but because they had an unorthodox shape and colour, people seem to think they must have been great.<br><br>Modern guitars and amplifiers are far better made than those we had access to. Would I like to still have the guitars and amplifiers I used in the 60s? Of course I would but it would be for sentimental or monetary reasons not for how well they sounded or played.<br><br>Anyway, back to building speaker cabinets. Glyn remembers them as being 6 foot tall, but I believe they were 8 foot purely because it would have saved us cutting the chipboard. The first versions were 8 foot tall, 4 foot wide and 2 foot deep and contained 4 speakers in each cabinet. I think we managed to get the speaker wiring correct for the, probably 16 ohm speakers we used. They were certainly all in phase as it was then that I learned the trick of attaching the speaker wires to a battery to check the polarity.<br><br>The cabinets were certainly unwieldy and a pain to transport as they nearly filled the van we were using. We tried fitting castors, but they kept breaking off, so we cut the cabinets in half, probably horizontally, however, it could just as well as been vertically. In the end, I sort of gave in and agreed that we should go back to more manageable cabinets.<br> </div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30394992014-06-25T17:21:08+01:002023-05-16T08:18:51+01:00Playing the West End Ballroom in Birmingham<div style="text-align:justify;"> In May 1965, we played the first of a few gigs at the West End Ballroom in Birmingham. The West End was a really old-fashioned ballroom, which was very active in the 1920s and, from old photographs; it looked like not much had changed by the time we played there.<br><br>Birmingham was just over 100 miles from Newport and, whilst we did have bits of the M50 and M5 motorways open, the roads weren’t as good as they are today. I remember the incident that Glyn refers to later was the first time we played the West End, when we only had Chippy’s small van, I believe a Commer Cob, and Glyn’s car to take us. I was in the van with Chippy and our equipment and the rest were probably in Glyn’s car.<br><br>On one of the motorways, I remember a van that had ‘The Fortunes’ written on the side passed us, with a couple of band members waving and laughing at us. I think that annoyed Chippy as he put his foot down and sped past their vehicle.<br><br>A few miles later, we heard a banging noise coming from the engine and shortly after the van lost all power and coasted to a stop on the hard shoulder. When Chippy opened the bonnet, the engine looked in a sad condition. There appeared to be a piston or big end, whatever they are called, sticking out that shouldn’t have been. We were stuck quite a few miles from the venue with all the band equipment.<br><br>There were no mobile phones back then, so we had to walk to the nearest telephone on the hard shoulder and found the number of a firm who would tow us to the West End Ballroom where we met up with the others, who were getting worried by then. We off-loaded the equipment and Chippy arranged for the van to be taken to a garage.<br><br>By the time we went on the stage, which was only a foot or so off the dance floor, I was in quite a state, preferring not to be too rushed and needed things to go right, whenever I went on stage. The Disk Jockey had been playing pop records, from people like Sandy Shaw, just before we went on and when we opened up with the first number, which was Smokestack Lightning, the large audience all appeared to move rather quickly towards us; the sprung dance floor exaggerating their movements. For a moment I thought they didn’t like us and wanted to tear us apart. However, it became obvious that they did like us a lot; it was just the first time that most of them had seen a group like us.<br> </div><div style="text-align:justify;">There was a similar reaction when we played I Wish You Would, which was a Billy Boy Arnold song, which was recorded by the Yardbirds. There is always something hypnotic about playing those two songs that have strong riffs and predominantly featuring a single chord. With a brilliant front man in Adrian and the raw energy of the rest of the band, we soon had the audience in the palm of our hands. It was a great night, with what appeared to be several hundred people in the audience, most of which were dancing. <br><br>At the end of the night, we had the issue of how we were going to transport all our band equipment back to Newport. As the Ballroom wanted to close their doors, we had to take all our equipment outside and stack it near the front doors. It was lucky it wasn’t raining as we didn’t have covers for the amplifiers and there was a lot of loose stuff, such as microphone stands and power extension leads. It looked as if we had been evicted from the place. I think I stayed behind to look after the stuff, whilst the others looked for someone to take the equipment home and us.<br><br>They eventually persuaded a chap driving a black taxi, to transport most of the equipment and 2 or 3 of us back to Newport, for what I thought was £25. Glyn remembers it as £50, but whichever it was; it was a small fortune and completely wiped out our fee for the gig. I remember being in the back seat with drums, cymbals and an amp all around me; the front passenger seat had the guitars, being held by someone, either Andy or Percy and the rest of the stuff in the boot. I think Glyn managed to get some of the equipment in his car, with the rest of the band. It was a long journey and I eventually got home about 7 a.m. with just enough time to have a cup of tea and get ready for work.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/127750/42a312e7a7dd039e91e937d69ddd3068fc6e8337/original/westend-ballroom.jpg?1404647000" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30394452014-06-25T16:53:40+01:002021-08-08T18:30:09+01:00Supporting the Mojos<div style="text-align: justify;">On Monday the 29th March 1965, we supported ‘The Mojos’ at Coed Eva Community College in Cwmbran, which was promoted by Maurice Wight, from the Newport Music Centre. They were best known at the time for a hit single, they had in1964, called ‘Everything’s Alright’.<br><br>Like many groups they went through a few personnel changes and by the time they played Coed Eva, the group included 2 people who would go on to greater fame. The drummer was Aynsley Dunbar who would go on to play with the likes of John Mayall, David Bowie & Frank Zappa. The bass guitarist was Lewis Collins who became an actor and went on to star as ‘Bodie’ in the Professionals with Martin Shaw and Gordon Jackson.<br><br>I believe Stu James, the vocalist, wanted to diverse into management, so when they were touring, he kept an eye out for groups he thought had potential to make it. Stu liked us a lot and we were invited up to a house in Golders Green that was owned by Bill Collins, who was the father of Lewis.<br><br>I was one of those who went and faintly remember that most of the day was spent trying to get us to sign a contract. I was just 19 and the others in the group were a year younger. We were having a whale of a time doing what we did in South Wales, so why should we take a chance on it all stopping. We all politely said no, and went back to enjoying gigging in South Wales.<br><br>Sometime later, a group called ‘The Iveys’ was persuaded to leave their homes in Swansea and live in the house in Golders Green. That group later changed their name to ‘Badfinger’. It contained the guitarist, singer songwriter Pete Ham, who tragically committed suicide in 1975.</div>The Pieces of Mindtag:thepiecesofmind.com,2005:Post/30393722014-06-25T16:23:03+01:002014-06-25T16:30:10+01:00Birth<div style="text-align: justify;">In the autumn of 1963 I grew tired of just messing about with a primarily instrumental group so put forward the idea to the rest of the group that we should get a vocalist and play a more varied set, with the hope we would get more bookings. Whilst working in Whiteheads I met Adrian Williams, a 'good looking' colleague who was working in the sales office. I asked him if he fancied singing in my group and despite his initial reticence, agreed to audition at the St John Bosco Hall, where we practiced.<br> <br>Adrian came along to our next practice and I asked him if he knew any songs. We went through several suggestions before he said he knew Lucille, by Little Richard. The next thing was to try and work out what was the best key for his voice. I asked him to just sing a couple of lines and thought that the key of ‘G’ would be ok. We then started playing the opening riff to the song until he came in. He was dreadful. As well as coming in at the wrong time he kept switching keys so I thought to myself, we have a challenge here.<br> <br>After a couple of attempts we decided to take a break. At this point, a couple of my colleagues had a word with me saying they didn’t think he was good enough to join the group and if he stayed, they would leave. I quickly, and not very politely, said goodbye to them.<br><br>When we practiced we often had a few people, including girls, watching us. I could see that, along with his good looks, Adrian had a personality that certainly attracted those of the female kind. Now all we had to do was to extract a singing voice out of him, which for a Welshman, should not be too difficult.<br> <br>Adrian improved with every practice and before long we were confident enough to play in front of a bigger audience. I am not sure where this was but it was likely to have been in the very place we practiced as they often ran dances. We had also brought in two players to replace those that had left. Dave Sargent joined on bass and Steve Strong on drums. At some stage we also added another good looking young man, called Will Lowe, who played the harmonica and who could sing one or two songs. We auditioned a couple of girls to assist on backing vocals but despite their good voices and very attractive looks, we decided it might be a distraction to the rest of us so never pursued the idea.<br><br>We had decided that we really needed a new name for this group, so with the help of Roy Winston Davies, who came up with the name, the Pieces of Mind were now ready to be unleashed on South Wales. Roy had somehow got himself involved with the earlier group; I am not sure whether it was through school, as I think he went to St Julian’s or whether it was through the Bosco Hall.<br><br>For a while Roy, who unfortunately suffered from epilepsy, was our manager. He took to using ‘Winston’ as a middle name when referring to himself because of Andrew Loog Oldham, the then Rolling Stones manager. He thought it was a cool name, so plain Roy Davies became Roy Winston Davies. I can’t remember why Roy stopped being involved, but eventually he did, so we needed to find someone else to become our manager. <br><br>John Beardmore, a colleague of ours at Whiteheads, had started coming to our practices at the Bosco hall, shortly after Adrian had joined and before long he took on the role of our manager. By the beginning of 1964, we started getting known around the pubs and clubs in South Wales. As with our previous group, the more we became known, the more gigs we got. We also started to be called the ‘Pieces’ and by the abbreviation ‘POM’ as well.<br><br>By this time, my parents had moved house from Elgar Avenue to Myrtle Grove, in Somerton. One Friday night in November I came home from work and was about to have my tea, before I went out. I was walking through our living room when there was a news flash on the television. John F Kennedy, the President of the United States had been assassinated. It was the 22<sup>nd</sup> November 1963 and yes, I can remember where I was on that dreadful day.<br><br>In July 1964, John Beardmore started to keep a diary of our gigs. The first he recorded was at the British Legion Hall in Rogerstone, on Thursday the 9<sup>th</sup> July 1964. I have no recollections of the particular gig; however, the crowd must have liked us as we often returned to the village. Just over 3 years later I would end up marrying a girl from the same village.<br> <br>At one gig in St John’s Church hall Rogerstone I won a raffle prize, which was a large tube of Smarties. A certain girl presented the prize, because she was the reigning Miss Rogerstone. Today my wife doesn’t recall when she gave me the tube of Smarties so memory loss doesn’t just afflict men. <br> <br>John Beardmore kept his diary for around 18 months, and in that time, we played nearly a 100 gigs. His diary stops at a gig at Trevethin on Friday the 5<sup>th</sup> November 1965, when he had decided to spend more time with a girlfriend and relinquished his post. We were as busy from that time right up to when I left the group sometime in the spring of 1967, but unfortunately no one kept a diary as John had done. I never dreamed that in 2013 I would be trying to recall things that happened in the years 1963 to 1967. <br><br>One particular visit to Rogerstone in 1966 was the only time the Pieces of Mind were ever recorded. My girlfriend, later to become my wife had a small portable Philips reel-to-reel recorder at the back of St Johns Church Hall. She held the small microphone up and managed to record 15 songs, probably just one set. The sound quality on the tape was not that good; the vocals were not that clear and noise from the audience was a bit excessive.<br><br>In addition Andy Gibbon, our bass player had a problem with his amp so he used my modified Vox AC30. I think I played through a spare amp head, probably a Selmer; however, it might have been through the PA. So they were not ideal circumstances for a live recording.</div>The Pieces of Mind