Paul Ingham, Middleton

Paul was our first booker I used to go to school with him – I’m sure he was the same age as me. We did all those clubs in the early days, we kept good company didn’t we?

I passed Paul’s house a few months ago, he lived across the road from Peter Cowap’s hardware shop on Alkrington. I remember calling to his house on many occasions to drop off his 10%, but we soon got fed up of that and gave him a real hard time. Paul would tell the promoters not to give us the money and would collect it himself later in the night to get his commission. Of course we then refused to go on until we got paid and for a time we had a stand off.

Paul then called us with a gig to try and make up as friends again. The gig was Platts Social Club!!!!!! We were an out and out mod band something like the small faces..... Platts was a ROCKER club. When the curtains went back and we saw all the bikers we shit ourselves. We did a couple of numbers and a big greasy bugger came up and asked for an Elvis song, we played Heartbreak Hotel about fifteen times that night but to no avail, we had to have a police escort to get out of the building and even then the kicked hell out of the van.

We put out a contract on Paul but there were no takers for the £20. Good old days! I'd love to hear from Paul again. Boy were we a pain in the arse!

Danny Hardman