YORKSHIRE CLUB SCENE

We lived and worked in Yorkshire and played at most of the working men’s clubs & miners welfares there for around 8 years, we were always treated as foreigners we were "The Cockneys from down south". Yorkshire folk are fiercely proud of their heritage and way of life, although they are generally much more gregarious than the southerner, they will strike up a conversation on a bus, train, shop any public place even though they may not know you, and you would be more likely to get an invite back to their home after just one meeting.

In their clubs they were very different they used to have a committee, up to 12 members who would vote on issues concerning all aspects of running the club including the entertainment (if their bosses had treated them like they treated the acts they would have gone out on strike), one of the twelve was a concert chairman, he was in charge of the nights entertainment, they always gave you the impression that they thought musicians, comedians and entertainers generally were a bunch of layabouts who never worked for their money, and singing & playing a musical instrument couldn't be work, it looked too easy.

It was a bone of contention with them when you asked for V.A.T. on your money and some refused outright to pay it whilst others made some noise but coughed up in the end. They would always have three games of Bingo, the prizes would be an average of £20 or a joint of raw meat that had been basking in the nicotine filled atmosphere ( they wouldn't use the air conditioning "people drank more if the room was full of smoke" one concert chairman told me). The bingo was between the 3 x 45 minute spots allotted for the entertainment. You could hear a pin drop during the bingo and nothing but noise & chatter when the "turn" (they called all the entertainers the "turn") was on.

There was usually an organist & drummer who would accompany acts and play them on and off stage, 10% of these were good musicians the rest were pretty awful and you'd have to struggle through the best you could, most acts played the same songs as each other, the ones they were sure the organist could play, most drummers couldn't read music and were normally paid to clean the club windows or be pot man and play drums as an after thought.

The charm of one concert chairman remains a strong memory even today, whilst introducing a young woman who was about to sing he shouted " coom on na give poor cow a chance" their introduction would always commence with " Na lets have best of order for" whoever the hapless act would be.

They would all say the same thing to you " we want three spots, while 'afe past eight, while 'afe past nine, while 'afe past ten and keep one back for t' end" (an encore).

During your efforts at entertaining them they would act as if you weren't there continuing to shout play dominoes, drink, read the paper, for the entire 3 x 45 mins spots, at the end of which they would suddenly acknowledge your presence and clap and shout for more, of course by then you were really fed up with the whole place and just wanted to go home.

For us to get work we used to play at the concert secretaries auditions where several concert chairman would gather in one club to see new faces and if they liked them they would book them there & then for the coming year, all the acts who auditioned did it for free, they would normally have one paid act on the bill just to ensure some "quality" entertainment for that evening.

There were quite a lot of agents too who would look after selected acts for around 15% commission. we too had agents a Johnnie Peller agency took care of our book for a while (he used to look after Marty Caine a female comedienne, and many others not so well known).The best and most honorable of this bread was Stanley Joseph who's agency office was at the City Varieties Theatre in Leeds, he and his brother Mike took good care of us.

It was at this time Yorkshire was undergoing big changes, the steel industry and mines were being closed down, it was when Margaret Thatcher came to power.