“We’re on stage t’night,” said Albie, “our very first live performance, and the start of a glittering career – I hope!”

www.albiestales.co.uk part four

JANUARY 1964 began as uncertain as ever. Named Januarius after the Roman god Janus, possessor of two faces, the month seemed unsure of itself not knowing whether to laugh or cry, snow or shine. The grey days merged with inky-black nights. However, for Albie everything was sunny and bright. His life had taken on a completely new meaning and, filled with the joy and expectation of happier days ahead, the rose-tinted landscape beckoned. For him, he told himself, there were nothing but blue skies from now on!

AVING SHRUGGED OFF his recent mistakes of the feminine kind and confining them to the past where they belonged, Albie vowed, never again, to be ensnared by a pretty young face, determined to put his music before everything else. Since he had joined Chubby and The Checkers, a local ‘pop’ group, he had been brimming over with enthusiasm for the music of the day – his kind of music – and he was looking forward to playing with the band in public for the very first time. The group’s manager, John, at the Gatehouse Café in Sheringham, had told them before Christmas they were almost ready to ‘go on stage’, but had said nothing since. Was he having cold feet? Or was he having second thoughts? How Albie hoped not.

A NEW LOOK

On the evening of Saturday, 4 January, Albie joined Chubby and The Checkers at the Gatehouse Café to practise a new song by the Dave Clark Five they had recently seen perform on television. Originally written the year before, Glad All Over was played by the group from Tottenham on Top Of The Pops, screened for the first time ever on Wednesday, New Year’s day!

“It is rather noisy!” John, their manager, told them, coming down the cellar stairs to listen to them practising. “Quite frantic too, isn’t it? Where on earth did you dig that one up, Kenny?”

Putting down his guitar and switching off the amplifier, Kenny – aka Chubby – replied: “That was on telly – the Beeb – on Wednesday night. Some bloke called Jimmy Saville, puffin’ on his cigar, reckun that’ll go far...”

“The further away the better, if you ask me,” John replied. “Does nothing at all for me – just a lot of chanting and stamping of feet...”

“Anyway,” he continued, “I really came downstairs to talk about your first booking – it’s in a week or two, by the way – but first there’s something I really must insist upon...!”

The boys in the group began looking from one to another. Surely John wasn’t about to dictate to them which songs to sing; after all, they all knew where that would lead – with the likes of ‘golden oldies’: Summertime, Tiptoe Through the Tulips and the like. How boring!

“Now, if tha’s about our music,” Chubby blurted out, accompanied by cries of agreement from his backing band, “we en’t gonna be forced t’play any old rubbish, we en’t...”

John held up his hand to quell the disturbance. “No! No. Your music’s fine – well; perhaps you could do with some quieter numbers of course... No, it’s just... how shall I put it... your general appearance...”

“I would like to see some sort of corporate image,” he explained. Though, from the looks on their faces, they had little idea what he meant. “Let me try to explain,” he continued, “perhaps you could dress like... well, the Shadows for example... you know, try to all look alike.”

“Can’t see myself in a suit, can you?” replied Chubby, sticking out his chest almost as far as his stomach, but not quite!

“We could all hev shirts the same,” said Albie, remembering having seen some nice blue ones in the Magdalen Street Woolworth’s just before Christmas, “I wuz in there buyin’ some smellies for me Mum, and some socks for Dad, when I saw those lacy hankies for me Gran and humbugs for Granddad to get his wind up...”

“Get to the point, Albie,” John replied, “shirts, you say – but what were they like?”

“Blue – in a nice checkered pattern,” Albie continued, “bit like a lumberjack’s – I hed an uncle once, who lived in Australia, he sent one o’ them shirts at Christmas. That wuz really for me granddad, but he coon’t get into it, so I hed it...”

“That’d do well for our corprit picture, that would – bein’s we’re Checkers – them shirts in Woollies, not me granddad’s, ’corse I hen’t got that no more – that wore up....”

“Sounds good!” replied John, the manager, reaching inside his jacket pocket for his wallet. “Here, Albie, this should cover it – here’s a tenner – see if you can get everyone a blue-checked shirt before next weekend, will you? And make sure you bring back the change!”

“And another thing...” he continued, as Albie swiftly pocketed the money, “isn’t it about time you got your hair cut?”

ALBIE GOES SHOPPING...

On Monday, 6 January, Albie went shopping during his lunch hour. Crossing the busy road near Whitefriars bridge – dodging the many cyclists heading towards St Paul’s Plain at the end of the road – Albie made his way up Fishergate, entering a small yard and towards the back door of F W Woolworth, with its main entrance in Magdalen Street.

Opening the back door into Little Woollies, as it was known locally, he went inside and made his way to where, just before Christmas, he had seen the blue-checkered shirts. And there, between the scarves and gloves, and vest and pants, was a pile of shirts. There were red shirts, green shirts, some patterned some plain; there were black shirts, white shirts, some plain, some with polka dots in a contrasting colour. There were even, would you believe, yellow and green striped shirts. All colours under the sun, including a nice warm orangey-red – but none in blue!

Attracting the attention of an assistant, Albie asked if there were any of the blue-checked shirts left.

“I wuz in here afore Christmas,” he told her, “arter some smellies for Mum, an’ socks for Dad – when I saw some blue-checked shirts – but I got suffin’ for Granddad’s wind and some hankies for me Gran and ... hev they all gone?”

“Did you want lacy or plain, or them with an embroidered initial?” the puzzled sales girl asked, trying to be helpful. “If so, they’re there, next to the stockin’s and s’spenders...”

“No – not them!” replied Albie, shaking his head at the girl. “SHIRTS – checked shirts – like them there blue ones you had afore Christmas...”

“If there en’t none there, we hen’t got none,” the girl replied, taking a bottle of bright-red varnish out of her pocket and painting her fingernails. “All sold, more like – but we hev gotta some red an’ a few yeller ’n’ green uns, in Norwich City cullers...”

“Now, look you here!” fumed Albie, becoming increasingly impatient, “I don’t want red, an’ I certainly dun’t want yellow an’ green... it just hatta be BLUE. And, if you hen’t got none, I’ll go elsewhere!”

“Is there a problem, Miss Smith?” asked the lady supervisor, walking from the far side of the shop. “Perhaps I may help, Sir?”

“This mawther reck’n she hen’t got none o’ these here checked shirts in blue,” Albie told her, pointing at the red-faced salesgirl. “Tha’s a shame, ’corse I wanted five onnem, I did! But, as I told her, if you hen’t got none, I’ll hatta go elsewhere...”

“Let’s not be too hasty,” the supervisor told him, looking under the counter. “No blue-checked shirts here, I’m afraid, but, excuse me a moment, and I’ll just check in our storeroom!” With that, she disappeared through a door marked ‘private’.

After a few minutes, the door opened again and the supervisor emerged with nothing but an armful of apologies.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, “but it seems we’re completely out of stock. However, I have taken the liberty of telephoning our main store in Rampant Horse Street and they assure me they still have quite a few left...”

With that , Albie thanked the lady and quickly made his way up Magdalen Street, in the direction of Tombland, and along Castle Meadow, passing Curls on Orford Place, before crossing over the road to Woolworth’s main store in Rampant Horse Street.

Going in through the large swing doors he soon found his way to the clothing counter and began rummaging through row upon row of shirts – coloured, patterned and plain – until he found some in a nice blue check.

“May I help you, Sir?” asked the salesgirl standing behind the counter. “Would you be lookin’ for anything in partic’lar?”

Albie looked up at the sound of the girl’s voice.

“Why, it’s Marlene! ”he replied, never one to forget a pretty face, “but, what are you doin’ here?” What indeed! Only the month before she had been working the filing department at Jarrold’s, although that was the last time he had seen her. “Couldn’t hit it off with Miss Lake? Or is the money better here?”

Miss Lake, an agèd spinster, had been in charge of the filing room for more years than Albie could remember. She wasn’t the easiest person to get along with as she had her way of doing things, which Albie had discovered early in his career when he’d helped himself to a file without signing for it!

“Anyway, I hatta say, you’re lookin’ hoolly well,” he told Marlene, eyeing her up and down. “Putting on a bit of weight though – but I reck’n it suits you, it does!”

Then the penny dropped, as he caught sight of Marlene’s burgeoning waistline, with the reason for her swift departure from her filing duties becoming clear to him.

“It could have happened to anyone,” had been Miss Lake’s comment at the time. “But not you, Miss Lake!” one of the other filing clerks murmured under her breath!

“I’m... lookin’ for a shirt... like this blue one,” Albie stammered, quickly changing the subject. “Have you got one in my size please, fourteen-and-a-half?”

“Tha’s medium,” Marlene told him, looking at the label.

“That’ll do – but what about one for an extra big tum?” he asked, holding out his hands to indicate an extremely corpulent waist size. “I mean, one for a much larger person...”

“We do have an extra large,” Marlene told him, sorting through the blue-checked shirts, eventually holding up a massive shirt which looked more like a bell tent. “Will that be big enough for you?”

Albie nodded that it would. “I’ll have four medium an’ one extra large, please,” he said, handing her the ten pound note John had given him. “And, in case you’re wonderin’,” he continued as she began packing them in a large red and white Woolworth’s bag, “they’re for my band, Chubby and The Checkers – we’re all gotta hev corpus dentures, or suffin’!”

With the bag of blue-check shirts under his arm, he pocketed his change, and said good-bye to the Marlene.

“...And, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” he laughed, then, realising his advice was a bit too late, quickly left Woolworth’s!

... AND HAS A HAIRCUT

Pausing outside ‘Roma’, the Italian hair stylists’ in St Benedicts Street, Albie looked through the window to see three other young men patiently awaiting their turn with the stylists.

He had heard about Roma from a friend at work, Tony Mullins, who, whenever they were in the ‘boys room’ at the same time, always seemed to be preening himself in the mirror.

“I wonder which style Tony has,” he said to himself, looking at the photographs of famous personalities on the wall. “I seem to recall he said he asks for a ‘Tony Curtis’, or was that a ‘Dean Martin’?

Albie opened the door and went inside.

“Ciao!” said the swarthy-looking stylist nearest the door, “buono giorno.” Then he pointed to the other customers waiting for their turn in the chair. “Seet, OK?”

Albie sat down and began glancing at his watch. He hoped he wouldn’t have to wait too long as he was due back at work at a quarter-past-two. All he wanted was a quick trim.

Looking round at the stylists – three in total, none of whom seemed to be giving their clients anything quite so simple as ‘a short back and sides’– Albie began to have second thoughts. Was this really the place for him? After all, he only wanted a quick trim, a tidy up, not a complete new look. Despite his initial misgivings, he remained seated and decided to ‘give it a go’, after all, he told himself, as lead guitarist in Chubby and The Checkers he needed to look the part and a smart haircut would make all the difference – would it not?

To wile away the time, he began listening in to the various conversations between the stylists and their clients, trying to familiarise himself with the names of those busily snipping away.

From what Albie gathered working the first chair just inside the door was Luigi. Well-built and confident, definitely a man-about-town type, Luigi was giving his client a rigorous scalp massage following a shampoo and wet cut. Then he began with a blow dry, back combing as he went, stopping, every now and again, to admire his handiwork. A perfectionist, thought Albie, but just hoped the others were a bit quicker as his lunch hour was fast running out.

The hairdresser at the second chair was wielding a sharp pair of scissors like an expert swordsman. Running his comb through his client’s hair, he jabbed and snipped the uneven ends with little sharp thrusts. A Dino if ever he saw one, thought Albie!

At the far end of the salon, the third and final stylist was applying the finishing touches to a straight-across-the-back, Boston-style haircut. And very smart it looked too! Brushing away loose hair from his client’s collar, he held a large mirror behind his neck, angling it this way then that for his customer to see.

“Very nice, Mario,” he said, expressing his satisfaction, and got up from his chair.

By now it must have been about a quarter-to-two, and Albie was extremely anxious as the end of his lunchtime was in sight but there were still two customers awaiting their turn.

Having taken the money from ‘Mr Boston’, accompanied by a ‘little something’ dropped into the palm of his hand, Mario returned to his chair and smiled to those waiting.

The young man on Albie’s left shook his head, said nothing, but pointed to Luigi. Mario then turned his attention to the other man, on Albie’s right, who, looking over horn-rimmed glasses, shook his head then indicated Dino.

Albie looked from one to another – what on earth was this all about? Did they want there hair cut or not? Then Mario looked at him.

“You come? Fretta!” he said, stepping forward, comb and scissors in hand, pointing to his empty chair. “Mia madre – lei inglesi!”

Looking at his wristwatch, Albie sat himself down, then replied: “Pronto, amigo... splendido!”

BACK AT WORK

Albie was a quarter-of-an-hour late getting back to work. Gone was his chance of slipping in unnoticed, and, as the door leading into the Design department swung open, all eyes turned in his direction.

“You’re late!” his boss told him, “what time do you call this?”

“What have you got there?” Mike, the senior designer asked, pointing to the large Woolworth’s bag containing five blue-check shirts. “Been wasting your money again, have you?”

Then, the other members of his department noticed his haircut!

“What have you done now?” laughed Tony, as he caught sight of Albie’s new hairstyle. “Didn’t they have a pudding basin big enough?”

ALBIE LOOKS THE PART!

“Well, I think it looks nice – real cool,” Albie replied, patting down his well-lacquered hair. “I saw that Mario. He wanted to give me a Tony Curtis, but I said no way, bein’s I wuz in a band, tha’s gotta be a Beatle cut – like Lennon and MacCartney’s!”

“Where will it all end!” exclaimed Mike, looking aghast at Albie’s tonsorial topping. “When I was your age a nice short back and sides was good enough for me!”

The other designers looked up from their work and had a good laugh at his expense, likening his appearance to that of a monk, from the medieval Whitefriars Monastery, even going as far as asking if he had taken vows of celibacy!

However, Ann-Marie and Tessa thought he looked ‘quite cute’. “They’re only teasing,” Ann-Marie told him, “pay no attention to them – all you need now is a collarless jacket, preferably black, and a white roll-neck sweater and you’ll certainly look the part...”

But, as usual, it was left to Felix – Albie’s travelling companion – to have the last word. “Whatever will your mother say when you get home?” What indeed?

WHAT A LET DOWN FOR ALBIE!

Chubby and his Checkers did look smart in their new clothes! All dressed alike, in blue-check shirts and charcoal-grey trousers, they met at the Gatehouse Café on the evening of Saturday 11 January ready for their very first appearance in public. Already John, their manager, was loading all the equipment into his 1959 Rover 90, with the drum kit, guitars and amplifiers filling the boot, whilst the group members – all five of them – were expected to squeeze into the car as best they could.

“I hatta travel in the front,” Chubby told them, opening the passenger door and clambering in, “on account of me bein’ car sick!”

“Oh – great!” thought Albie, joining Buster, Roger and Dave in the back of the car. “Now he tells us!”

“Wind the window down and get some fresh air,” John told Chubby, starting the car’s engine.

Then, turning round on the shingle drive beside the Gatehouse Café, he edged the Rover out into the street and, after a hundred yards, took a right-turn into Melbourne Road.

None of the group knew where they were going, as John had kept their first live performance a close-guarded secret. “Where’re we goin’, John?” Chubby asked him, taking deep breaths of fresh, sea air through the open window. “I hope that en’t far, ’cos I’m feelin’ a bit queasy already...”

“It’s only a couple of minutes,” John laughed, driving down Barford Road before turning up a narrow driveway, which Albie recognised immediately.

“What on earth are we doing here, John?” he asked, looking at the little corrugated-tin hut used as a canteen by the Sheringham Primary School. “This here’s where the infants hev their dinners, en’t it?”

“Come on – get out, you lot!” John told them, parking his car next to the building.“Time to get started, you’re the star turn! Oh, didn’t I tell you? they’re having a kiddies party here!”

What a left down, thought Albie – fat chance of meeting any eligible young ladies!

WILL THEY BE GLAD ALL OVER?

Whilst Chubby and his Checkers were busily setting up all their equipment – trying to ward off a group of sticky-fingered teenyboppers– John, the group’s manager, began discussing the proposed evening’s entertainment with some of the parents.

“Nothing too noisy,” said one, a rather horsey-looking woman, tweedily-dressed, and brandishing an air of authority like a traffic-policeman on point duty. “And none of this modern rubbish, if you please! Most unsuitable for tender little ears, as I’m sure you will agree... and, another thing, we must be finished by nine o’clock at the latest. We only have the hall until then. Do I make myself clear?”

“Don’t go on so, Candice-Marie,” a jolly-looking man, with a party hat balanced on the top of his head, told her. “Do try to let your hair down, if only for the children’s sake – I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly going to – and I’m quite sure Chubby and his fellow-me-lads will play something to our liking.. what!”

“Oh, I really don’t know, Gerald,” she replied, looking over her shoulder and down her nose at the group, resplendent in their blue-checked shirts. “In mean, they do look frightfully common, don’t they? I mean, do you think they can play those things? Let alone know anything suitable for our children...!”

Overhearing the conversation, Chubby took the other members of his group to one side. “We’ll start with our version of Mocking Bird Hill,” he told them, “then, better try Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey...”

“Oh Gawd! Do we have to?” complained his brother Roger, tuning his base guitar.

“Tha’s naff!” agreed Dave on the drums, picking up his drumsticks.

“I don’t know all the words,” added Buster, twirling the microphone around by its cord.

Even Albie wasn’t at all pleased; saying nothing he just adjusted the volume on his amplifier to its loudest setting.

“You heard the lady!” continued Chubby, beginning to strum his guitar. “Then we’ll do one we like, shall we?” he said, giving Albie a sly wink. Thus began the first-ever live performance of Chubby and The Checkers, albeit in the rather uninspiring tin hut on Barford Road.

“Tra-la-la, tiddly-wee-wee, it gives me a thrill,” sang Chubby, making a few minor adjustments to the lyrics. “To wake up in the morning on Bee-ees-ton Hill...”

It seemed to go all right at first with the little boys and girls dancing, if you could call it that, in time to the music. Even Candice-Marie thought Mocking Bird Hill was rather good – especially with the local lyrics – but when Chubby and The Checkers began their next number, Mairzy Doats...

“Boring, boring...!” screamed the little girls, tugging at each other’s pigtails, the starting a chorus of slow hand-clapping, which put Chubby on the rhythm guitar off his rhythm.

“What a load o’ rubbish...!” shouted the little boys, fighting amongst themselves and stamping on the wooden floorboards, making Albie’s amplifier reverberate like thunder.

“STOP IT, CHILDREN, PLEASE DO!” wailed Candice-Marie, running about and waving her hands in a most distraught manner.

“SETTLE DOWN, EVERYONE!” pleaded Gerald, looking all hot and flustered with his party hat over his eyes. But still the screaming, slow-hand-clapping and stamping continued.

Seizing the moment to their advantage, the Checkers, with a cue from Chubby, burst into life with the most suitable song they could think of: Glad All Over.

“You say that you love me...” sang Buster, leaping from foot to foot “All of the time...”

This seemed to have done the trick; the shouting was silenced, the hand-clapping changed its tempo, and the children began bopping and hopping again.

“You say that you need me...” Buster, the singer from Shipden Avenue, continued, “You’ll always be mine...”

Then, the real fun began. When it came to the chorus after each verse of the song, Chubby and The Checkers began stamping in time to the music, joined by the eager teenyboppers, with even all the parents joining in!

“I’m feelin’ [stamp, stamp!] glad all over...

Yes I’m [stamp, stamp!] glad all over...

Baby I’m [stamp, stamp!] glad all over,
So glad you’re mine.”

Chubby and The Checkers, on a crescendo of success, went on to perform all their favourites that evening, including Roll Over Beethoven, which Candice-Marie thought was a ‘classic’. The group finished with Johnny B Goode, which Gerald said was: “Jolly ‘B’ good!”

On this occasion, however, Albie refrained from sliding across the floor on his knees, not wishing to ruin his pair of new trousers thoughtfully purchased by his mother, earlier in the day, from the Co-op drapery.

“That was a great success, boys, well done!” John told them as they packed up for the night, a little after nine o’clock that Saturday evening. “And I’ve another planned for you next month, if you’re interested.”

“Interested? Of course we’re interested!” replied Chubby excitedly, climbing into the front of John’s Rover for the short drive up Station Road. “Where’s that, then?”

“Valentine’s Day Dance,” John replied, as the others climbed in, slamming the car doors behind them. “At Cromer Secondary Modern!”

At least the girls might be a bit older, thought Albie!

NEXT: There’s no going back for Chubby and The Checkers now, with their popularity increasing with every performance. One fan only has eyes for the lead guitarist – but will he notice? Find out in Wanna Know A Secret?

SOME OF ALBIE’S FAVOURITE WEBSITES A Norfolk Entertainer A Moment in Time Enjoy North Norfolk Enjoy Norwich Flint Holiday Cottages Norfolk Churches Norfolk Dialect Norfolk Village Signs Norwich City Hall and the Lions Picture Norfolk Remember Norfolk Sid Kipper

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