by PaulK » Tue Jan 04, 2011 1:43 am
Interesting although I think some of this might be made up.
At the end of a great evening, we all had a few drinks with Solly, plus a couple of other members of Freddy Mack’s band including Ged Peck, who had continued to impress me with his amazing speed and precise technique. As we said our farewells and made for the exit, Solly and I bumped into a couple of familiar figures in he form of two Glasgow lads who had also been working in Jersey in 1965. They had come to the show and were surprised to see us, and we reminisced for 15 minutes before leaving.
Tired but happy, I piloted the creaky old Austin van away from the Kelvin Hall. Mick and I were also rather hungry, so we asked the first pedestrian we saw, where we could eat. The man directed us to the clock tower in Sauchiehall Street, where we would find a pie stall. As we pulled up, it was obvious that John Kerrison and John Carroll were fast asleep, so Mick Stewart and I made our way through the crowd of rather dubious looking characters until we reached the stall. “Give us two pies with chips please guvnor” said Mick in his best West London accent. At that, the crowd fell silent in a manner reminiscent of the scene in a dozen cowboy movies where the bad guy enters the saloon. Suddenly a huge bearded man resplendent in a kilt, lurched forward, uttering the memorable phrase, “Yer f…ing English bastards!”. Sensing the ugly atmosphere I whispered in Mick’s ear, as loudly as I dared, “Run like hell!”. As we reached the van, which unhappily bore the legend Matador Car Hire, Hanwell, London, England, the two Johns awoke from their slumber to the sound of the rear windows shattering under a bombardment of various missiles! Somehow my shaking hand managed to get they key into the ignition, and we roared off at high speed, thankful that only the van was damaged.
On reaching our hotel, we discovered that it was next door to a hospital. A quick word with sympathetic night staff found us a parking space near the ambulances, safely out of sight of any marauding vandals who might take exception to the writing on the side. The following two shows at the Kelvin Hall passed successfully without incident. The pie stall attack had taken us completely by surprise. For years there had been rumours of Scotland being a no-go area for English bands, with several reports of experiences such as ours. I had always felt immune from that sort of thing, owing to the fact that Johnny Kidd and the Pirates had always been welcomed and respected everywhere, due in no small measure to their tough image, but, of course, the drunks at the pie stall had no idea of our identity. However, they were only a tiny minority, and we generally found the Scots to be warm and friendly folk. Our three shows had been well received, and we were pretty pleased with ourselves as we headed south for home.
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