That photograph was taken around 1983 in the kitchen of Haddlesey House where I lived at that time. The Dalmation is Wallis. She was a wonderful dog with a good pedigree, bought as a puppy from Harrods pet department in London.
Incidentally, the shirt I'm wearing once belonged to my father who bought it when we were on holiday in the mid 1950s. I still have it though it's too small for me now I'm afraid. 😕
The high waisted trousers were by Kathrine Hamnett whose clothes I often wore back then. The pine table under the tablecloth in front of me is actually here in my studio right now...it holds my computer and printer and various other things. One of the few objects I've managed to hang on to since those days.
Seems Katharine E. Hamnett clothes led the pack in 1979 as being an ethical clothing line, politically active clothing line, or at least I didn’t notice such concepts until the early ‘80s.
The shirt I'm wearing in the photo' with Wallis is indeed the same shirt as the one in the Red Noise album photographs. I still have that shirt which, as I said, was originally my father's. And it is still in very good condition.
Was wondering about the mention of Captain Kangaroo in the lyrics of 'King of The Cowboys'. Did you watch some of our 'Captain Kangaroo' programme whilst BBD was touring the states?
... or ...
Was the television programme 'Captain Kangaroo' aired in Britain at the time?
... or ...
Is this a different Captain Kangaroo referred to here :
The song called'The Point of No Return'- Nu Shooz (1986) has always reminded me of 'Hope For The Heartbeat' - Bill Nelson (1982) combined with 'The Message' - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (1982). Three tracks with completely different moods.
The above photograph was taken when I had the band 'Flagship'. This was prior to the recording of 'Northern Dream.' The guy at the back with the beard is Gareth Eillege who was the bands bass player. He also played bass on a Northern Dream track if I remember correctly. The guy in the red/orange t-shirt is Richard Harby, a friend of mine from the art school days. I'm on the right of the photo in the the yellow t-shirt. Two of the three girls were girlfriends of Gareth and Richard and the third was possibly Gareth's sister or drummer Mick Fitzpatrick's girlfriend. My memory is vague. The photo's were taken byMick Fitzpatrick. There is another photo' of me taken after a 'Flagship' gig at a pub in Hemsworth. I'm just pulling on a jumper. I've tried to sharpen these two photo's up a little. Here they are:
Bill at 'The Kings Head', Hemsworth, after a gig with 'Flagship.' Note the black n' white cover of the Holy Ground album 'Astral Navigations' in the left hand side background of this photo'.
Bill, Gareth Eilledge, Richard Harby and girls, photo' possibly taken at 'The King's Head' pub in Hemsworth. Date is probably 1969 or early 1970.
Thanks for the link to the Kings Head pub, Alec. It doesn't look any different from what it did over 40 years ago! Looking at the photo' of it I can remember it like only yesterday.
This was taken in 'The Echo Observatory' at Haddlesey House in the early 1980s. The drum machine I'm holding the sticks over was one developed by, (I think) a company called AHB who made my mixing desk back then. I'm not sure if it was a prototype or a production model but it had pads which you could hit with the sticks to trigger drum sounds which then could be sequenced..
This Bill Nelson Micellaney thread is fun and I'll try to add to it myself from time to time. Here's an obscure photograph of me in The Midnite Kreepers playing on a balcony above the foyer of the ABC Regal Cinema in Wakefield in the 1960s. We played as people came into the cinema to see the new film of 'Dr Who and The Daleks', starring Peter Cushing as Dr Who..
I'm on the right of the photo; in dark glasses and polka dot shirt. The drummer for this gig was Barry Houghingly, a very talented drummer who went on to have a career playing and singing on cruise ships. The rhythm guitarist is Ron Oldroyd who, for this gig, was made up like a Frankenstein monster with ripped shirt and bolts drawn on his neck. Not entirely sure what Frankenstein had to do with Dr Who though!
I actually still have that poster for the Dr Who movie that you can see behind us in the photo'. The cinema manager used to let me have the posters when the film's run ended and I used the blank backs of them to draw ads for my bands on. Unfortunately, I drew on the back of that one with felt marker pens which bled through to the other side, thus ruining the original Dr Who poster. I don't know which would be worth more these days, the Dr Who poster or my drawing on the reverse!
I played at the Regal Cinema several times, with The Cosmonauts', (my school band,) 'Group 66', 'The Midnite Kreepers' and 'The Gibson Trio' and 'Gibson Four.'
'The Midnite Kreepers' at The Regal Cinema, Wakefield, mid 1960s.
I've probably posted this photo' in an old diary entry but here it is again. This is a photograph of R. Broughton and Son's shop on Waterloo Road, in Hunslet, Leeds, taken in 1973, just before the shop was demolished, along with the entire street. My father, Walter Nelson, worked as manager of the shop in the 1950s and '60s and the shop's owner, Harry Broughton, (the son referred to in the shop's title,) who had taken over the business from his late father, became a friend of our family. Harry more or less left the running of the shop entirely to my father.
As a kid, I can remember travelling to Leeds on Saturdays with my mother to do some shopping, then at the end of the afternoon going to Waterloo Road to meet my father when he finished the day's work at Broughton and Son's shop.
Waterloo Road at that time. was thriving, with shops on both sides of the road. The Leeds red and cream trams rattled up and down the street between them.
Broughton and Sons' shop sold electrical goods, radios, televisions, etc, but also stocked Dinky Toys and Hornby Dublo Trains and Meccano sets. It had a dark, dusty interior with old wooden counters but was a treasure trove of stuff. My father would bring me a Dinky toy home every weekend and Christmas would see gifts of train sets and Mecanno sets magically displayed on our living room carpet on Christmas mornings.
A little further down the street was a small newsagents shop where my father would buy magazines for mum and himself and comics for me, every Friday evening. He would read car magazines such as 'Autocar' and 'Do It Yourself' magazines plus 'Practical Wireless', a radio and electronics publication that contained circuit diagrams for various electronic projects. Mum would get 'Woman' magazine and 'Woman's Own' magazine, to 'Woman's Weekly.' I would be given an entire raft of comics, Beano, Dandy, Hotspur, Topper, Eagle, Beezer, Lion, Radio Fun, TV Comic, Film Fun, etc, etc. I looked forward to reading them every weekend, they were a welcome escape from the week's school work.
When this photograph was taken in 1973, my father had retired due to ill health and the shop and the street had fallen into decline and was set for demolition. In the photo' you can see the sorry state the shop was in, no longer occupied or trading but boarded up. But the yellow and dark red 'Broughton And Son' sign is still visible, as is some of the descriptions of what the shop sold. (The yellow and red livery was also used on the shop's pencils, one of which I am fortunate to still have from my father's time there.)
The area is unrecognisable now apart from an old pub, ('The Garden Gate,') which was saved and now enjoys listed building status. The rest of the area has been converted to a housing estate and bears little resemblance to how it once was. /such is the passage of time...
R. Broughton And Son's old shop in Waterloo Road, Hunslet, Leeds. Photo' from 1973, just prior to demolition.
In 1993, whilst living in Tokyo, I had to leave Japan for a while so that I could renew my visa. I'd lived there for six months, which was the maximum time I was allowed to stay without 'checking out' and then re-applying for another visa for a further six months. In that first six months I'd been living with Emi in her Tokyo apartment. So, we decided to take a brief holiday break in Bali, Indonesia for ten days so that I could then come back to Japan on a new visa and live in Tokyo for another six months.
The holiday in Bali was magical. A totally different culture which I loved. We stayed at a hotel called 'Tang Jung Sari' which was right on the beach and was not like a usual hotel but more like a compound consisting of individual bungalows surrounded by their own private gardens with high hedges. Monkeys cavorted in the trees overlooking our bungalow's garden and the bathroom shower was located out of doors where you could bathe naked with no-one to see but the monkeys!
The hotel had a Gamelan music foundation which taught Gamalan and traditional Balinese dancing to local children and we were able to listen and watch their lessons. During our stay we visited various sites on the island, including ancient temples which were truly breathtaking. The whole thing was like a dream, a totally unique experience. I actually got to 'jam' with some traditional Balinese musicians while I was there, which was a marvellous thing. Anyway, here's a photo' of Emi and I in Bali, looking very happy. I'll post more pics of that trip at a later date...
I’m such a fan of this story.
Such a happy photo’ and you’re blessed with Mediterranean melanin.
I was living for several months in Tokyo the same time you were and around that time I was in Malaysia staying for a while at a place called Tang Jung Bidara with white sands, monkeys, coconuts and hypnotic wind, waves, heat, humidity ....
It would’ve been so nice to have recorded the gamelan jam you had! To have sampled it and used it for later song creation. 🤔😊
Back in the early 1960s, there was an American magazine called 'Spacemen.' It was an offshoot of 'Famous Monsters Of Filmland' magazine, both titles being the brainchild of the late Forrest J. Ackerman, a supremely knowledgable man in the world of classic movie science fiction, fantasy and horror.
I was a young schoolboy when I read my first 'Famous Monsters' magazine. It sometimes carried articles about science fiction movies, but when 'Spacemen' magazine was launched, that was a real thrill.
The magazine only survived for 7 or 8 issues, but I had most of them and was amazed to find articles on Metroipolis, Forbidden Planet, Flash Gordon and King Of The Rocketmen inside, complete with rare production photo's. I was very disappointed when the magazine folded.
Anyway, I still have one issue in my possession today, kept from all those long years ago, (though the rest sadly got lost somewhere along the way.)
So, here is a selection of some of the covers from 'Spacemen' magazine. Hope you like them!
Neat stuff and nice to see there was a 1965 Yearbook for ‘Spacemen’ ... and now I know the likely source for the name of a band I liked in the late ‘80s, and still like, Spacemen 3.
Bill, All 8 issues of Spacemen, from 1961-1964, plus the 1965 Yearbook, are available as well-scanned and compiled pdf files from archive.org at https://archive.org/details/texts?and%5B%5D=spacemen&sin= . I didn't previously know of that particular magazine but archive.org contains whole runs of just that kind of pulp and fantasy magazines (Astounding, Weird Tales, Captain Future, etc.) My advice is don't go looking for that sort of thing unless you have the time to spare. There is just so much of it and it all looks so good when you find it!
I'm a (thoroughly unimportant) member of a group (called pulpscans) which scans and stores just that kind of thing (plus Western pulps and Romance pulps) so they are not lost completely as their flimsy pages decay. Some members spend hundreds of dollars on magazines that they then pull apart to get the best quality scans - which are then donated freely to the world via file sharing sites and archive.org
Continuing on a science fiction kick: One of the very first Sci-Fi characters, (along with Dan Dare and Flash Gordon,) that I liked in the early 1950s was 'Red Ray.' He appeared in 'TV Comic', one of the weekly comics my father bought for me from the newsagent's shop in Waterloo Road, Hunslet. (See my post further back in this thread.)
'Red Ray' was from the planet 'Teevida' and came to Earth to enlist the aid of two British kids to fight the bad guys. In TV Comic there was an advert for a Red Ray club kids could join: 'The Space Rayngers' club. You had to send off a postal order to the value of one shilling and six pence and in return you would get a membership kit which included a 'Red Ray' badge, magic space glasses, magic space pencils and a 'passport to space.'
I was five or six years old at the time, (around 65 years ago now,) and a pupil at my very first school, 'The Collegiate' in Wakefield, (affiliated with Wakefield Academy.') I'd persuaded my mum to send off the money required to join the 'Red Ray Space Raynger's' club and every day, when she came to collect me from the Collegiate school, (which was housed in the old Orangery in Back Lane,) I'd ask her if the membership pack had arrived in the post yet.
Several days went by with no luck, then one day she said, 'yes', it had arrived and she produced it from her handbag and handed it to me outside the school gates. Magic!
I've never forgotten the thrill of that moment and fondly remember 'Red Ray' to this day. Here's the ad that appeared in TV Comic back then, along with a photo' of the tin and enamel club badges.
The Red Ray Space Raynger's club membership application form.
Another Sci-Fi character I loved back in the 1950s was 'Jack Flash, The Flying Boy From Mercury.' Jack appeared every week in the Beano comic. The strip started in 1949 but continued to run into the 1960s.
Jack wore a distinctive costume, almost Peter Pan like, but had a 'flash' emblazoned on the front of his tunic. He had four tiny wings emerging from his ankle boots which gave him the ability to fly. A sort of cross between Peter Pan and Hermes, both of which which I'm sure were an influence on the character, (Mercury especially being another name for Hermes.)
Jack had become stranded on Earth when his rocket ship crashed. He later befriended a group of school kids and together they foiled many a crook in their continuing adventures together. Kids foiling crooks' plans was a big thing in the 1950s!
I remember, when I was about six, making copies of Jack's ankle wings from paper and sticking them to the sides of my shoes. I'd then run around the room, leaping on and off the sofa, pretending that I was flying, much to the amusement and sometimes consternation of my parents!
Anyway, here's a couple of examples of Jack Flash:
The above is the very first Jack Flash strip from 1949. Drawn by Dudley D Watkins.
This page is from one of the Beano annuals of the 1950s. I actually still have the annual, (which I owned as a child back then,) and I've scanned this page from it. You can see that Jack's costume has changed a little from the original 1949 debut, as has the artist illustrating the strip. This one is drawn by Fred Sturrock.
More miscellany: Whilst thinking about the science-fi comics and pulp paperbacks I read in the 1950s and '60s, I was reminded of childhood holidays spent at my parent's wooden chalet on the 'Golden Sands Chalet Park' in Withernsea, on the east coast of Yorkshire.
In more recent times Withernsea has become somewhat dilapidated but back in the '50s and '60s it was a pleasant enough place and we'd travel most weekends in the summer to spend time at the family chalet which was at the top of the chalet park, overlooking the sea. We would also take a two weeks holiday there in the middle of summer.
Whilst staying at the chalet, I would visit the park's shop which, at that time, was run by the Mathewman family from Wakefield. I'd been to school with their son before they'd relocated to Withernsea. Their shop stocked the usual seaside bits and pieces: buckets and spades, little paper flags, inflatable swimming rings, picture postcards, etc. Plus various domestic sundries such as milk, eggs, sweets and ice cream.
They also had a couple of rotating metal magazine racks filled with all kinds of interesting publications, including science-fiction pulp magazines such as 'Amazing Stories.' They also stocked 'Famous Monsters' magazine, 'Mad' magazine, 'Cracked' magazine and a couple of American custom car and hot rod magazines. Also a number of DC Comic titles such as 'The Flash' and 'Green Arrow.' I'd buy copies of all of these with my pocket money and they helped while the time away in the evenings, especially as there initially wasn't a television in the chalet.
But in the afternoons, we'd walk into Withernsea along the clifftop from the chalet park, to visit The Sun Lounge', a sort of old style cafe with a glass roof. It backed onto the sea and was a bit 'palm court' like inside.The attraction for me was that they had bands play in there during the summer season and one such band was
who actually were very good. Their lead guitarist played a Gibson ES 345 Stereo guitar and this was the first time I'd ever seen such a guitar 'in the flesh.'
At that time, I still had my inexpensive Antoria solid body guitar but was dreaming of owning a Fender Stratocaster like Hank Marvin's or a Gretsch 6120 like Chet Atkins played. Whilst sitting watching Alan Sean And His Problems perform in the Sun Lounge one afternoon, my dad leaned over and said "That's the guitar you should play..." And of course, a Gibson 345 was the guitar he eventually purchased for me and that I still own to this day!
The entrance to the chalet park with the shop visible on the right.
The Sun Lounge exterior.
Interior of The Sun Lounge. The sea would be just behind the wall on the right. Mum and Dad and I would sit up on the balcony on the left of the photo. The band would play on a little, low stage towards the rear of the lower level.
A postcard showing Withersea promenade.
A view of Golden Sands Chalet Park's 'clubhouse.' My parent's chalet was located over towards the left of the photograph, behind that far line of chalets, on the cliff top next to the sea.
In my 1950s childhood, the most popular 'pop-culture' thing for kids was cowboys. Like the other kids in my neighbourhood, I watched Western serials on tv and had a cowboy outfit complete with gun holsters and pistols and a silver Sherrif's star. Unlike most of the kids I knew, I was also into science-fiction heroes, much more so than the cowboy craze. Nevertheless, I joined the Hoppalong Cassidy Club and the Roy Rogers Club and had their pictures on my bedroom wall and wore the club members badge on my jacket.
Another craze back then was centred around Zorro and I had a plastic Zorro sword which you could attach, (at the tip of the blade,) a small piece of white chalk to make the 'Z' mark on a wall. The sword came complete with a Zorro mask too.
The Lone Ranger was another cowboy hero of mine and I think I joined his club too. Here are some images of these guys...
As mentioned in one of my posts above, I had a Hornby Dublo Train set in the 1950s and a few Ian Allan 'Loco Spotter' books to do a bit of train spotting. So, here's a picture of a Loco steaming out of Wakefield's Westgate station in the '50s, heading towards Leeds. The building behind the engine is the Unitarian Chapel/church which was just across the road from my first school, the Collegiate, which was housed in the old Orangery in Back lane. The engine is just about to go over the bridge above Back Lane and the Orangery is just out of sight to the left of the photo. Wakefield town hall clock tower visible on the right of the picture. It was possible for us little kids to see trains steaming out of Westgatee station as they passed by the school's front grounds on the bridge above Back Lane.
Don't think that's the Unitarian Chapel behind the steam loco. It's more likely the goods depot building further up the track which was replaced by the Express Dairies building in later years. You wouldn't be able to see the chapel because the station buildings would be in the way.
Connecting with the above post, (a train of thought,) here's a modern day photo' of the actual Orangery that housed the Wakefield Collegiate School in the 1950s. The large window in the centre is the hall where I had my ballet dancing lessons. (Yes, a real life Billy Elliot!). Ballet was on the school's curriculum and I quite enjoyed it.
In later years I filmed part of the video for 'Flaming Desire' in that hall as a nod to my childhood ballet dancing lessons. The tall lamppost on the left of the photo is actually on the platform of Westgate Station and this is where I would see steam trains coming out of the station and passing by the school, back in the early '50s...
The second image is a scan of a receipt for the fee my father paid for a whole term's tuition at the school. The grand price of six pounds! Dad's wage back then would have been around eight pounds per week. The receipt is dated September 1954, so, on that date, I would be five years old, and three months away from my sixth birthday.
The receipt is signed by 'GB Shaw' who owned and ran the school. You can see that the word 'Academy' has been crossed out and 'Collegiate'; written above it. This is because the Collegiate was the infant branch of the Academy. I guess they hadn't got separate receipts printed for the Collegiate and just used the Academy ones. I don't know where the Academy was located though. It wan't part of the Orangery.
You can also see that 'examination fee' is crossed out and 'Dancing' written in. Examinatiions were not on the curriculum for kids of that age so, again, that would be more the territory of the Academy. The dancing, of course, was the ballet lessons I took. I still have the actual receipt in my archives. It's a bit fragile now after 65 years but it's a wonderful connection with my first school, my father and my infancy.
The Orangery which housed the Wakefield Collegiate School in the early 1950s.
The receipt for a term at the Collegiate School, given to my father after he paid the £6 fee for my tuition there.
I like that photograph of the Orangery.
Just watched the “Flaming Desire” promo film and I see the Orangery is in it quite a bit.
Don’t know where I’d assumed those sequences were filmed but maybe at Haddlesey and other locations somewhere else in Selby and of course some of it is at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Very few videos come close to it.
Watching it this time might be the first time I noticed a sequence that reminds me of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Alphaville”
Can’t imagine where the graffiti that almost match the lyrics was shot.
The Orangery reminds me of bones and has a religious-cult sense to it but that’s not quite what I mean.
It has a special look to it with the possibility of mirroring photographed sections of it and rearranging them, something like what was done on “Shining Reflector”.
I remember dance lessons at school where I was the only boy there but that doesn’t seem to be the case for your ballet classes as they were required.
Thinking back to my infancy, I can remember playing in the back yard of Marriot's Buildings with a couple of the neighbours children. The yard was flanked by a printer's factory on one side and we'd peek through the factory windows and see the printing presses whirring away..
Marriot's Buildings stood at the back of the yard and the side of the yard opposite the print works contained a row of outside toilets, the 'privy's' as they were called in those days.The house had no central heating, no bathroom, no indoor toilet, no electricity and no hot water. I lived there until I was four.
The house belonged to my great grandparents and I can remember my great grandfather, John Henry Griffiths, (who had been employed as a Wakefield Lamplighter,) quite clearly. 'The Last Lamplighter' track is dedicated to him.
John Henry died whilst I was still very young but I can remember going upstairs to visit him in his bedroom at Marriot's Buildings when I was an infant. His last years were spent mostly in his bed but he was always pleased to see me.
Sadly,I never met my great grandmother, Jane Griffiths, as she had passed away before I was born. My mother tells me she was a lovely, kind lady and my mother was extremely fond of her.
I don't have any old photo's of Marriot's Buildings back yard, (which emerged onto Lawefield Lane,) only a couple of photo's of the front of the building which faced Westgate End. But the backyard was where I spent much of my time as an infant. Mum and I used to go from the exit at the end of the yard out onto Lawefield Lane and down to the nearby park. I would be sitting in my pushchair and I vividly remember being wheeled along the lane to the park. Lawfield Lane was a quiet, unsurfaced road back then, like a real country lane. It actually had a farm at the park end where we could buy milk and eggs.
I do have some modern day photo's of Marriot's Buildings back yard, or at least what is left of it. Marriot's Buildings itself was demolished in the 1960s and where it once stood is now a more modern building used by a tile company. The yard itself still remains though, along with the print factory building, (though no longer a print factory.)
Here's a photo' of me standing at the entrance to the yard. I'm facing out towards Lawefield Lane. The modern building at the back of the photo' (where the car is,) is built on the very spot where Marriot's buildings once stood.' The brick building on the right is the old print works which is all that remains from my childhood there. But that's where I used to play, and the spot where I was born.
MARRIOT'S BUILDINGS BACK YARD WITH THE OLD PRINT WORKS BUILDING ON THE RIGHT. Photo' by Martin Bostock.
My great grandfather, John Henry Griffiths who lived at Marriot's Buildings and worked as a lamplighter.
My great grandmother, Jane Griffiths, who also lived at Marriot's Buildings.
More personal nostalgia. Here are photographs showing 28 Conistone Crescent, Eastmoor, where I lived after leaving Marriot's Buildings. No 28 was a ground floor flat, the floor above was occupied by the Jackson family, (no, not that Jackson family!) Bronwyne Jackson was a playmate of mine, a wee bit older than me but we were great pals. Bronwyne was a bit of a tomboy and would happily join in games of Cowboys and Indians with the local boys.
I lived at No 28 from four years old until around 13 or 14. We were the first family to move into the flat which was brand new at the time. It still exists today, although the original art deco windows and doors have been changed and the front garden has a short drive/car park space where the lawn used to be. Here is a photo' which Martin Bostock took of me standing in front of the flat a couple of years ago. It shows the position of my bedroom where I used to practice my guitar playing when I first started. It also shows the Jackson's upstairs flat.
I feel out-of-the-loop with regards to this rather large and rather cool Dalmatian .
Name ?
Anecdotes ?
That photograph was taken around 1983 in the kitchen of Haddlesey House where I lived at that time. The Dalmation is Wallis. She was a wonderful dog with a good pedigree, bought as a puppy from Harrods pet department in London.
Incidentally, the shirt I'm wearing once belonged to my father who bought it when we were on holiday in the mid 1950s. I still have it though it's too small for me now I'm afraid. 😕
The high waisted trousers were by Kathrine Hamnett whose clothes I often wore back then. The pine table under the tablecloth in front of me is actually here in my studio right now...it holds my computer and printer and various other things. One of the few objects I've managed to hang on to since those days.
The name Wallis reminds me of the very controversial Duchess of Windsor, the Wallis clothing line and Cornwallis.
I can see now the photo' has a time stamp of '83 - 9 - 25 .
Found an interesting Dalmatian photo' on Harrods Twitter:
https://twitter.com/harrods/status/493820771479732224
Seems Katharine E. Hamnett clothes led the pack in 1979 as being an ethical clothing line, politically active clothing line, or at least I didn’t notice such concepts until the early ‘80s.
Katharine Hamnett from her Wikipedia entry ...
Is it the striped shirt that was originally your father's the Sound On Sound shirt?
Always looks brand-new in the photographs. 😶
From: https://www.mylifeinthemoshofghosts.com/2019/01/19/untitled/ ...
Thank you for an interesting read.
👍
Great picture . Looks like an Alembic but it's not , Ebow is there though something I've written to Santa for .
Was wondering about the mention of Captain Kangaroo in the lyrics of 'King of The Cowboys'. Did you watch some of our 'Captain Kangaroo' programme whilst BBD was touring the states?
... or ...
Was the television programme 'Captain Kangaroo' aired in Britain at the time?
... or ...
Is this a different Captain Kangaroo referred to here :
Here comes Champagne Charlie
Here comes Captain Kangaroo
Sliding in and out of corners
Twisting at each turn of the screw
We didn't get Captain Kangaroo over here, Alec. But I think I'd heard the name used somewhere.
The song called 'The Point of No Return' - Nu Shooz (1986) has always reminded me of 'Hope For The Heartbeat' - Bill Nelson (1982) combined with 'The Message' - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (1982). Three tracks with completely different moods.
Now I have the Summertime Blues.
The above photograph was taken when I had the band 'Flagship'. This was prior to the recording of 'Northern Dream.' The guy at the back with the beard is Gareth Eillege who was the bands bass player. He also played bass on a Northern Dream track if I remember correctly. The guy in the red/orange t-shirt is Richard Harby, a friend of mine from the art school days. I'm on the right of the photo in the the yellow t-shirt. Two of the three girls were girlfriends of Gareth and Richard and the third was possibly Gareth's sister or drummer Mick Fitzpatrick's girlfriend. My memory is vague. The photo's were taken byMick Fitzpatrick. There is another photo' of me taken after a 'Flagship' gig at a pub in Hemsworth. I'm just pulling on a jumper. I've tried to sharpen these two photo's up a little. Here they are:
Bill at 'The Kings Head', Hemsworth, after a gig with 'Flagship.' Note the black n' white cover of the Holy Ground album 'Astral Navigations' in the left hand side background of this photo'.
Bill, Gareth Eilledge, Richard Harby and girls, photo' possibly taken at 'The King's Head' pub in Hemsworth. Date is probably 1969 or early 1970.
Great photographs and information. Thanks, Bill. It appears that Kings Head Pub is still standing. https://whatpub.com/pubs/WAK/000374/kings-head-hemsworth Interesting that the first image seen at the Kings Head Facebook is a bookcase with plenty of books. https://m.facebook.com/HemsworthKingsHead/?__tn__=%2Cg
This was taken in 'The Echo Observatory' at Haddlesey House in the early 1980s. The drum machine I'm holding the sticks over was one developed by, (I think) a company called AHB who made my mixing desk back then. I'm not sure if it was a prototype or a production model but it had pads which you could hit with the sticks to trigger drum sounds which then could be sequenced..
This Bill Nelson Micellaney thread is fun and I'll try to add to it myself from time to time. Here's an obscure photograph of me in The Midnite Kreepers playing on a balcony above the foyer of the ABC Regal Cinema in Wakefield in the 1960s. We played as people came into the cinema to see the new film of 'Dr Who and The Daleks', starring Peter Cushing as Dr Who..
I'm on the right of the photo; in dark glasses and polka dot shirt. The drummer for this gig was Barry Houghingly, a very talented drummer who went on to have a career playing and singing on cruise ships. The rhythm guitarist is Ron Oldroyd who, for this gig, was made up like a Frankenstein monster with ripped shirt and bolts drawn on his neck. Not entirely sure what Frankenstein had to do with Dr Who though!
I actually still have that poster for the Dr Who movie that you can see behind us in the photo'. The cinema manager used to let me have the posters when the film's run ended and I used the blank backs of them to draw ads for my bands on. Unfortunately, I drew on the back of that one with felt marker pens which bled through to the other side, thus ruining the original Dr Who poster. I don't know which would be worth more these days, the Dr Who poster or my drawing on the reverse!
I played at the Regal Cinema several times, with The Cosmonauts', (my school band,) 'Group 66', 'The Midnite Kreepers' and 'The Gibson Trio' and 'Gibson Four.'
'The Midnite Kreepers' at The Regal Cinema, Wakefield, mid 1960s.
It’s a photo that could be from sometime between 1978 and 1988. I look at it and I think of Thomas Leer, Cabaret Voltaire and Spacemen 3.
I've probably posted this photo' in an old diary entry but here it is again. This is a photograph of R. Broughton and Son's shop on Waterloo Road, in Hunslet, Leeds, taken in 1973, just before the shop was demolished, along with the entire street. My father, Walter Nelson, worked as manager of the shop in the 1950s and '60s and the shop's owner, Harry Broughton, (the son referred to in the shop's title,) who had taken over the business from his late father, became a friend of our family. Harry more or less left the running of the shop entirely to my father.
As a kid, I can remember travelling to Leeds on Saturdays with my mother to do some shopping, then at the end of the afternoon going to Waterloo Road to meet my father when he finished the day's work at Broughton and Son's shop.
Waterloo Road at that time. was thriving, with shops on both sides of the road. The Leeds red and cream trams rattled up and down the street between them.
Broughton and Sons' shop sold electrical goods, radios, televisions, etc, but also stocked Dinky Toys and Hornby Dublo Trains and Meccano sets. It had a dark, dusty interior with old wooden counters but was a treasure trove of stuff. My father would bring me a Dinky toy home every weekend and Christmas would see gifts of train sets and Mecanno sets magically displayed on our living room carpet on Christmas mornings.
A little further down the street was a small newsagents shop where my father would buy magazines for mum and himself and comics for me, every Friday evening. He would read car magazines such as 'Autocar' and 'Do It Yourself' magazines plus 'Practical Wireless', a radio and electronics publication that contained circuit diagrams for various electronic projects. Mum would get 'Woman' magazine and 'Woman's Own' magazine, to 'Woman's Weekly.' I would be given an entire raft of comics, Beano, Dandy, Hotspur, Topper, Eagle, Beezer, Lion, Radio Fun, TV Comic, Film Fun, etc, etc. I looked forward to reading them every weekend, they were a welcome escape from the week's school work.
When this photograph was taken in 1973, my father had retired due to ill health and the shop and the street had fallen into decline and was set for demolition. In the photo' you can see the sorry state the shop was in, no longer occupied or trading but boarded up. But the yellow and dark red 'Broughton And Son' sign is still visible, as is some of the descriptions of what the shop sold. (The yellow and red livery was also used on the shop's pencils, one of which I am fortunate to still have from my father's time there.)
The area is unrecognisable now apart from an old pub, ('The Garden Gate,') which was saved and now enjoys listed building status. The rest of the area has been converted to a housing estate and bears little resemblance to how it once was. /such is the passage of time...
R. Broughton And Son's old shop in Waterloo Road, Hunslet, Leeds. Photo' from 1973, just prior to demolition.
I feel like I should add Walter Nelson to the Grafton Saxophone Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafton_saxophone
In 1993, whilst living in Tokyo, I had to leave Japan for a while so that I could renew my visa. I'd lived there for six months, which was the maximum time I was allowed to stay without 'checking out' and then re-applying for another visa for a further six months. In that first six months I'd been living with Emi in her Tokyo apartment. So, we decided to take a brief holiday break in Bali, Indonesia for ten days so that I could then come back to Japan on a new visa and live in Tokyo for another six months.
The holiday in Bali was magical. A totally different culture which I loved. We stayed at a hotel called 'Tang Jung Sari' which was right on the beach and was not like a usual hotel but more like a compound consisting of individual bungalows surrounded by their own private gardens with high hedges. Monkeys cavorted in the trees overlooking our bungalow's garden and the bathroom shower was located out of doors where you could bathe naked with no-one to see but the monkeys!
The hotel had a Gamelan music foundation which taught Gamalan and traditional Balinese dancing to local children and we were able to listen and watch their lessons. During our stay we visited various sites on the island, including ancient temples which were truly breathtaking. The whole thing was like a dream, a totally unique experience. I actually got to 'jam' with some traditional Balinese musicians while I was there, which was a marvellous thing. Anyway, here's a photo' of Emi and I in Bali, looking very happy. I'll post more pics of that trip at a later date...
I’m such a fan of this story. Such a happy photo’ and you’re blessed with Mediterranean melanin. I was living for several months in Tokyo the same time you were and around that time I was in Malaysia staying for a while at a place called Tang Jung Bidara with white sands, monkeys, coconuts and hypnotic wind, waves, heat, humidity .... It would’ve been so nice to have recorded the gamelan jam you had! To have sampled it and used it for later song creation. 🤔😊
Back in the early 1960s, there was an American magazine called 'Spacemen.' It was an offshoot of 'Famous Monsters Of Filmland' magazine, both titles being the brainchild of the late Forrest J. Ackerman, a supremely knowledgable man in the world of classic movie science fiction, fantasy and horror.
I was a young schoolboy when I read my first 'Famous Monsters' magazine. It sometimes carried articles about science fiction movies, but when 'Spacemen' magazine was launched, that was a real thrill.
The magazine only survived for 7 or 8 issues, but I had most of them and was amazed to find articles on Metroipolis, Forbidden Planet, Flash Gordon and King Of The Rocketmen inside, complete with rare production photo's. I was very disappointed when the magazine folded.
Anyway, I still have one issue in my possession today, kept from all those long years ago, (though the rest sadly got lost somewhere along the way.)
So, here is a selection of some of the covers from 'Spacemen' magazine. Hope you like them!
Neat stuff and nice to see there was a 1965 Yearbook for ‘Spacemen’ ... and now I know the likely source for the name of a band I liked in the late ‘80s, and still like, Spacemen 3.
Bill, All 8 issues of Spacemen, from 1961-1964, plus the 1965 Yearbook, are available as well-scanned and compiled pdf files from archive.org at https://archive.org/details/texts?and%5B%5D=spacemen&sin= . I didn't previously know of that particular magazine but archive.org contains whole runs of just that kind of pulp and fantasy magazines (Astounding, Weird Tales, Captain Future, etc.) My advice is don't go looking for that sort of thing unless you have the time to spare. There is just so much of it and it all looks so good when you find it!
I'm a (thoroughly unimportant) member of a group (called pulpscans) which scans and stores just that kind of thing (plus Western pulps and Romance pulps) so they are not lost completely as their flimsy pages decay. Some members spend hundreds of dollars on magazines that they then pull apart to get the best quality scans - which are then donated freely to the world via file sharing sites and archive.org
Continuing on a science fiction kick: One of the very first Sci-Fi characters, (along with Dan Dare and Flash Gordon,) that I liked in the early 1950s was 'Red Ray.' He appeared in 'TV Comic', one of the weekly comics my father bought for me from the newsagent's shop in Waterloo Road, Hunslet. (See my post further back in this thread.)
'Red Ray' was from the planet 'Teevida' and came to Earth to enlist the aid of two British kids to fight the bad guys. In TV Comic there was an advert for a Red Ray club kids could join: 'The Space Rayngers' club. You had to send off a postal order to the value of one shilling and six pence and in return you would get a membership kit which included a 'Red Ray' badge, magic space glasses, magic space pencils and a 'passport to space.'
I was five or six years old at the time, (around 65 years ago now,) and a pupil at my very first school, 'The Collegiate' in Wakefield, (affiliated with Wakefield Academy.') I'd persuaded my mum to send off the money required to join the 'Red Ray Space Raynger's' club and every day, when she came to collect me from the Collegiate school, (which was housed in the old Orangery in Back Lane,) I'd ask her if the membership pack had arrived in the post yet.
Several days went by with no luck, then one day she said, 'yes', it had arrived and she produced it from her handbag and handed it to me outside the school gates. Magic!
I've never forgotten the thrill of that moment and fondly remember 'Red Ray' to this day. Here's the ad that appeared in TV Comic back then, along with a photo' of the tin and enamel club badges.
The Red Ray Space Raynger's club membership application form.
Two enamel Red Ray club badges.
The Red Ray Space Raynger badges are so cool and so are the Magic Space Glasses
Another Sci-Fi character I loved back in the 1950s was 'Jack Flash, The Flying Boy From Mercury.' Jack appeared every week in the Beano comic. The strip started in 1949 but continued to run into the 1960s.
Jack wore a distinctive costume, almost Peter Pan like, but had a 'flash' emblazoned on the front of his tunic. He had four tiny wings emerging from his ankle boots which gave him the ability to fly. A sort of cross between Peter Pan and Hermes, both of which which I'm sure were an influence on the character, (Mercury especially being another name for Hermes.)
Jack had become stranded on Earth when his rocket ship crashed. He later befriended a group of school kids and together they foiled many a crook in their continuing adventures together. Kids foiling crooks' plans was a big thing in the 1950s!
I remember, when I was about six, making copies of Jack's ankle wings from paper and sticking them to the sides of my shoes. I'd then run around the room, leaping on and off the sofa, pretending that I was flying, much to the amusement and sometimes consternation of my parents!
Anyway, here's a couple of examples of Jack Flash:
The above is the very first Jack Flash strip from 1949. Drawn by Dudley D Watkins.
This page is from one of the Beano annuals of the 1950s. I actually still have the annual, (which I owned as a child back then,) and I've scanned this page from it. You can see that Jack's costume has changed a little from the original 1949 debut, as has the artist illustrating the strip. This one is drawn by Fred Sturrock.
More miscellany: Whilst thinking about the science-fi comics and pulp paperbacks I read in the 1950s and '60s, I was reminded of childhood holidays spent at my parent's wooden chalet on the 'Golden Sands Chalet Park' in Withernsea, on the east coast of Yorkshire.
In more recent times Withernsea has become somewhat dilapidated but back in the '50s and '60s it was a pleasant enough place and we'd travel most weekends in the summer to spend time at the family chalet which was at the top of the chalet park, overlooking the sea. We would also take a two weeks holiday there in the middle of summer.
Whilst staying at the chalet, I would visit the park's shop which, at that time, was run by the Mathewman family from Wakefield. I'd been to school with their son before they'd relocated to Withernsea. Their shop stocked the usual seaside bits and pieces: buckets and spades, little paper flags, inflatable swimming rings, picture postcards, etc. Plus various domestic sundries such as milk, eggs, sweets and ice cream.
They also had a couple of rotating metal magazine racks filled with all kinds of interesting publications, including science-fiction pulp magazines such as 'Amazing Stories.' They also stocked 'Famous Monsters' magazine, 'Mad' magazine, 'Cracked' magazine and a couple of American custom car and hot rod magazines. Also a number of DC Comic titles such as 'The Flash' and 'Green Arrow.' I'd buy copies of all of these with my pocket money and they helped while the time away in the evenings, especially as there initially wasn't a television in the chalet.
But in the afternoons, we'd walk into Withernsea along the clifftop from the chalet park, to visit The Sun Lounge', a sort of old style cafe with a glass roof. It backed onto the sea and was a bit 'palm court' like inside.The attraction for me was that they had bands play in there during the summer season and one such band was
who actually were very good. Their lead guitarist played a Gibson ES 345 Stereo guitar and this was the first time I'd ever seen such a guitar 'in the flesh.'
At that time, I still had my inexpensive Antoria solid body guitar but was dreaming of owning a Fender Stratocaster like Hank Marvin's or a Gretsch 6120 like Chet Atkins played. Whilst sitting watching Alan Sean And His Problems perform in the Sun Lounge one afternoon, my dad leaned over and said "That's the guitar you should play..." And of course, a Gibson 345 was the guitar he eventually purchased for me and that I still own to this day!
The entrance to the chalet park with the shop visible on the right.
The Sun Lounge exterior.
Interior of The Sun Lounge. The sea would be just behind the wall on the right. Mum and Dad and I would sit up on the balcony on the left of the photo. The band would play on a little, low stage towards the rear of the lower level.
A postcard showing Withersea promenade.
A view of Golden Sands Chalet Park's 'clubhouse.' My parent's chalet was located over towards the left of the photograph, behind that far line of chalets, on the cliff top next to the sea.
In my 1950s childhood, the most popular 'pop-culture' thing for kids was cowboys. Like the other kids in my neighbourhood, I watched Western serials on tv and had a cowboy outfit complete with gun holsters and pistols and a silver Sherrif's star. Unlike most of the kids I knew, I was also into science-fiction heroes, much more so than the cowboy craze. Nevertheless, I joined the Hoppalong Cassidy Club and the Roy Rogers Club and had their pictures on my bedroom wall and wore the club members badge on my jacket.
Another craze back then was centred around Zorro and I had a plastic Zorro sword which you could attach, (at the tip of the blade,) a small piece of white chalk to make the 'Z' mark on a wall. The sword came complete with a Zorro mask too.
The Lone Ranger was another cowboy hero of mine and I think I joined his club too. Here are some images of these guys...
ROY ROGERS (and a very nice Gibson guitar!)
HOPPALONG CASSIDY. (AKA William Boyd.)
ZORRO!
THE LONE RANGER. (With Superman!)
As mentioned in one of my posts above, I had a Hornby Dublo Train set in the 1950s and a few Ian Allan 'Loco Spotter' books to do a bit of train spotting. So, here's a picture of a Loco steaming out of Wakefield's Westgate station in the '50s, heading towards Leeds. The building behind the engine is the Unitarian Chapel/church which was just across the road from my first school, the Collegiate, which was housed in the old Orangery in Back lane. The engine is just about to go over the bridge above Back Lane and the Orangery is just out of sight to the left of the photo. Wakefield town hall clock tower visible on the right of the picture. It was possible for us little kids to see trains steaming out of Westgatee station as they passed by the school's front grounds on the bridge above Back Lane.
Don't think that's the Unitarian Chapel behind the steam loco. It's more likely the goods depot building further up the track which was replaced by the Express Dairies building in later years. You wouldn't be able to see the chapel because the station buildings would be in the way.
Connecting with the above post, (a train of thought,) here's a modern day photo' of the actual Orangery that housed the Wakefield Collegiate School in the 1950s. The large window in the centre is the hall where I had my ballet dancing lessons. (Yes, a real life Billy Elliot!). Ballet was on the school's curriculum and I quite enjoyed it.
In later years I filmed part of the video for 'Flaming Desire' in that hall as a nod to my childhood ballet dancing lessons. The tall lamppost on the left of the photo is actually on the platform of Westgate Station and this is where I would see steam trains coming out of the station and passing by the school, back in the early '50s...
The second image is a scan of a receipt for the fee my father paid for a whole term's tuition at the school. The grand price of six pounds! Dad's wage back then would have been around eight pounds per week. The receipt is dated September 1954, so, on that date, I would be five years old, and three months away from my sixth birthday.
The receipt is signed by 'GB Shaw' who owned and ran the school. You can see that the word 'Academy' has been crossed out and 'Collegiate'; written above it. This is because the Collegiate was the infant branch of the Academy. I guess they hadn't got separate receipts printed for the Collegiate and just used the Academy ones. I don't know where the Academy was located though. It wan't part of the Orangery.
You can also see that 'examination fee' is crossed out and 'Dancing' written in. Examinatiions were not on the curriculum for kids of that age so, again, that would be more the territory of the Academy. The dancing, of course, was the ballet lessons I took. I still have the actual receipt in my archives. It's a bit fragile now after 65 years but it's a wonderful connection with my first school, my father and my infancy.
The Orangery which housed the Wakefield Collegiate School in the early 1950s.
The receipt for a term at the Collegiate School, given to my father after he paid the £6 fee for my tuition there.
I like that photograph of the Orangery. Just watched the “Flaming Desire” promo film and I see the Orangery is in it quite a bit. Don’t know where I’d assumed those sequences were filmed but maybe at Haddlesey and other locations somewhere else in Selby and of course some of it is at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Very few videos come close to it. Watching it this time might be the first time I noticed a sequence that reminds me of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Alphaville” Can’t imagine where the graffiti that almost match the lyrics was shot. The Orangery reminds me of bones and has a religious-cult sense to it but that’s not quite what I mean. It has a special look to it with the possibility of mirroring photographed sections of it and rearranging them, something like what was done on “Shining Reflector”. I remember dance lessons at school where I was the only boy there but that doesn’t seem to be the case for your ballet classes as they were required.
Thinking back to my infancy, I can remember playing in the back yard of Marriot's Buildings with a couple of the neighbours children. The yard was flanked by a printer's factory on one side and we'd peek through the factory windows and see the printing presses whirring away..
Marriot's Buildings stood at the back of the yard and the side of the yard opposite the print works contained a row of outside toilets, the 'privy's' as they were called in those days.The house had no central heating, no bathroom, no indoor toilet, no electricity and no hot water. I lived there until I was four.
The house belonged to my great grandparents and I can remember my great grandfather, John Henry Griffiths, (who had been employed as a Wakefield Lamplighter,) quite clearly. 'The Last Lamplighter' track is dedicated to him.
John Henry died whilst I was still very young but I can remember going upstairs to visit him in his bedroom at Marriot's Buildings when I was an infant. His last years were spent mostly in his bed but he was always pleased to see me.
Sadly,I never met my great grandmother, Jane Griffiths, as she had passed away before I was born. My mother tells me she was a lovely, kind lady and my mother was extremely fond of her.
I don't have any old photo's of Marriot's Buildings back yard, (which emerged onto Lawefield Lane,) only a couple of photo's of the front of the building which faced Westgate End. But the backyard was where I spent much of my time as an infant. Mum and I used to go from the exit at the end of the yard out onto Lawefield Lane and down to the nearby park. I would be sitting in my pushchair and I vividly remember being wheeled along the lane to the park. Lawfield Lane was a quiet, unsurfaced road back then, like a real country lane. It actually had a farm at the park end where we could buy milk and eggs.
I do have some modern day photo's of Marriot's Buildings back yard, or at least what is left of it. Marriot's Buildings itself was demolished in the 1960s and where it once stood is now a more modern building used by a tile company. The yard itself still remains though, along with the print factory building, (though no longer a print factory.)
Here's a photo' of me standing at the entrance to the yard. I'm facing out towards Lawefield Lane. The modern building at the back of the photo' (where the car is,) is built on the very spot where Marriot's buildings once stood.' The brick building on the right is the old print works which is all that remains from my childhood there. But that's where I used to play, and the spot where I was born.
MARRIOT'S BUILDINGS BACK YARD WITH THE OLD PRINT WORKS BUILDING ON THE RIGHT. Photo' by Martin Bostock.
My great grandfather, John Henry Griffiths who lived at Marriot's Buildings and worked as a lamplighter.
My great grandmother, Jane Griffiths, who also lived at Marriot's Buildings.
More personal nostalgia. Here are photographs showing 28 Conistone Crescent, Eastmoor, where I lived after leaving Marriot's Buildings. No 28 was a ground floor flat, the floor above was occupied by the Jackson family, (no, not that Jackson family!) Bronwyne Jackson was a playmate of mine, a wee bit older than me but we were great pals. Bronwyne was a bit of a tomboy and would happily join in games of Cowboys and Indians with the local boys.
I lived at No 28 from four years old until around 13 or 14. We were the first family to move into the flat which was brand new at the time. It still exists today, although the original art deco windows and doors have been changed and the front garden has a short drive/car park space where the lawn used to be. Here is a photo' which Martin Bostock took of me standing in front of the flat a couple of years ago. It shows the position of my bedroom where I used to practice my guitar playing when I first started. It also shows the Jackson's upstairs flat.