16
JO’K AND THE
MARCHING GIRLS
“I hope you guys are in Actors’ Equity,” grumbled one of the more
militant professional dancers. “Sure,” said Jon, “
Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees was still peeved at us being referred
to as
After a lot of laughs in the Preview Room watching a replay of what we all just did on the show, JO’K invited us up to the 729 Club, a favourite hangout for people who worked in the television industry. Just for a gag, along with JO’K, Paul Wayne and Turps, we all wore our Hawaiian sarongs but nobody even batted an eyelid. It seemed as though they were quite used to anything that JO’K was liable to do and probably considered it normal behaviour for the 729 Club. Regular, Brian Henderson didn’t think we looked unusual at all. He just continued to hammer away at his poker machine, completely oblivious to the unlikely looking band of bogus Hawaiians. The only positive reaction we got all night was when Michael did a wonderful “trick-knee” at the bar. This was always followed by a great commotion as Michael lay on his back and we pretended to straighten his leg out.
While I took a
hair-raising ride home in Jok’s Mark 10 Jag, Jon and Paul left early to go up
to Surf City at the Cross and check out a couple of hot new bands that had just
emerged on the scene – Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs and Ray Brown & the
Whispers. Thorpie’s Poison Ivy had hit No 1 on the Top Forty while we
were away and now the Beatles had just
arrived in
It was time to go back
into the studio and record something else while there was still a glimmer of
interest in the Rajahs. We put down four tracks the following month, so we would
have something to choose from. Everybody seemed to like our version of the
Everly Brother’s classic, Cathy’s Clown but that would have to wait. In
the meantime, Festival released another Rajahs’ EP, which was doing pretty
well.
On July 10 1964, I had
the rather dubious honour of riding with Nosmo in his green 1959 Wolseley 4/44,
which he had just bought the day before. We drove to
“What do you mean?” I
replied with a slight note of panic. “The brakes have gone. What do you want me
to do? Go for the hill and hope the lights are green at the bottom, or do a
sharp left into somebody’s house?” I looked at the steep hill that confronted
us. By the time we hit the bottom we would be doing about a 100 miles per hour.
“TURN LEFT!” I screamed, vainly trying to remain as calm as Nosmo seemed to be.
Nosmo’s Wolseley almost turned over as we swerved to the left and crashed
through some poor guy’s fence and mounted the front garden. The owner wasn’t
too impressed when he saw Nosmo’s car in his front yard with one of the front
wheels still spinning amongst a bed of crushed flowers. The police arrived on
the scene a little while later and somehow Nosmo seemed to talk his way out of
this embarrassing situation. We eventually ended up at The Can just in time to
start playing.
“Next time I think
I’ll buy an MG,” said Noz thoughtfully. “I think that would be more my style.”
Nothing seemed to faze Nosmo. “Make sure you get one with brakes this time,” I
added sarcastically.
Johnny O’Keefe arrived
at The Can later that night and was very excited about an up-and-coming tour to
JO’K didn’t like anything to be mediocre. He would take great delight in adding a little touch of class, even when he quoted for the band. It was never £300; it was always 300 guineas (£315) and the confirmation was always made on embossed paper with JO’K gold lettering. O’Keefe always liked to be just that little bit better. He once said to me, “If you keep telling people how great you are, it’s bound to rub off on someone.”
Jok had chosen the
Cilla Black hit ballad You’re My World for Marlene Atcheson to sing on
the show. During the first rehearsal, Marlene protested, “It’s too high for me,
John, I can’t reach the top notes.” “Too high?” Jok screamed, “I’ll give you
‘too fuckin’ high!’ Put it up a tone!” While poor Marlene sang the chorus up a
tone, Jok screeched along with her as she tried to reach the high notes. “You
can do it. Sing it louder! You’re my wo-or-ld… squawk!” Jok proved to be right
as this ended up as one of Marlene’s strongest numbers in the show.
Pusillanimous performances were prohibited!
Another extra touch of
class was introduced when Milton Saunders was brought in to augment the band on
piano. “Milty” was the musical co-ordinator for Sing, Sing, Sing and had
been the resident pianist for ATN Channel 7 ever since it started way back in
1957 with the Captain Fortune Show. He was also on the early Romper
Room shows, where he was known as “Mister Music”. Uncle Milty was the consummate musician and
could play just about anything. He loved the idea of touring with a big
rock’n’roll show – and this one was going to be a beauty!
All we needed now was
a tour manager and Jok wanted somebody he could trust implicitly, someone who
could look after the tour arrangements and mayoral receptions; and most
important of all, count the ticket sales to see that we weren’t being ripped
off. The perfect choice was made – Johnny O’Keefe’s cousin and part-time long
distance swimmer, Des Renford. This was before Des went on to swim the
Jok decided that the
Rajahs needed some flash new black dinner suits to fit his new conservative
image, so we went off to our favourite rock’n’roll tailor, Andy Ellis, for a
last minute fitting. “We’ve got to show the Westies that we’re not just loud
rock’n’rollers,” said Jok, trying to put on his best serious face, “The Lion’s
Club has arranged a mayoral reception in every place we’re playing.” They were
paying a lot of money for this tour and the profits were going to
underprivileged children, so Jok wanted to show them that they were getting
more than their money’s worth.
Sure enough, as we
boarded the plane for
The Rajahs opened the
show to an incredible reception from the locals. It was almost as good as the
first time we played there with Dig Richards & the R’Jays back in 1960,
only this time we were a little more sophisticated and so was the crowd!
“Guitar megaphones were turned up for maximum thrust” and the decibels still
bounced off the walls!
The rest of the acts
were a little nervous on the first show except for George Karren whose
experience shone through. His easy, relaxed manner won them over in no time at
all. Needless to say, by the end of the show when JO’K came on, they all went
completely berserk. This was a promise of things to come and a great start to
the tour. “If you thought that the reception was good in
As we boarded our own
private DC3, we were told that there were more than 4,000 people waiting for us
at
The DC3 lifted off and
climbed very slowly up into the white clouds and headed for
“Fuck the marching
girls!” said
The wind was blowing
so fiercely that the aircraft was still shuddering after we came to a halt.
Everyone was so stunned we all gave the captain a round of applause for saving
our lives. “Where are we?” said Jok looking like a stunned mullet as he stood
up and steadied himself on Des Renford’s sleeve. We had landed at a little
airport called Cunderdin, which was about 100 miles from
The first brave pair
to leave the plane and run for the waiting car was Milton and Paul Wayne who
were blown off their feet in the process. Instead of running in a straight
line, the wind forced them into a wide arc from which they only just recovered.
There was much confusion as everyone prepared themselves for the perilous dash
to the car. “Come on Jon, we’ve got to make a run for it!” I said. But I looked
across at Jon and he wasn’t moving. He was a horrible shade of GREEN!
JON: GREEN?! Green with a touch of grey! I felt
like Buddy Holly when he asked for a window seat. I was feeling dreadful. I had
never been airsick before and I never wanted to be again. Thank God, Marlene
wasn’t sitting next to me. I was starting to get to the handholding stage with
her after dinner in
The
Johnny O’Keefe travelling circus was supposed to land at
The local football team very kindly drove
us into
Fortunately,
we didn’t have a show that night and were allowed to relax at the Charles until
the next day when we would travel south to Bunbury. That night I sat in the
lounge and stared into Marlene’s brown eyes. I don’t know what the attraction
was. I think I was mostly feeling protective of her since the You’re My
World debacle at the Beach House rehearsals back in
THE
The
Rajahs killed them that night. It was a good show all round and the place was packed.
Who else could pack out a theatre in Bunbury on a Monday night but The Wild
One, himself? “I don’t feel like The Wild One wearing this dinner suit on
stage, Jon,” O’Keefe said to me after the show. “No, more like The Mild One,” I
replied, “But as long as you still act wild on stage, that’s all that matters.”
JO’K
was going through his respectability period. He had to prove to the
establishment that he was not merely one of those illiterate, gross
rock’n’rollers. Gone was the leopard skin and the ‘rooting’ of the microphone
stand. It was replaced by an immaculate dinner suit and the upright,
hands-behind-the-back stance. The fetish even went as far as our clothes. We
had to purchase some very expensive (and very classy, I might add) dinner suits
to wear on stage during O'Keefe's spot. Also, a new musical fetish had entered
his brain.
“Every
song must end with a long major chord,” he said to us at rehearsals.
“What?
No ninths, sixths, sevenths, thirteenths? How boring. What do you mean by every
song? Some of them end with a dead stop!” I complained.
“Well, they don’t now, and I don’t want any of those jazz chords! After every song, I will say the last word of the song, then you guys will play a long MAJOR chord when I bow… got it?”
“You
mean at the end of She Wears My Ring, you’re going to bow and say, ‘My
Ring’ and we all play a chord?” piped up Nosmo.
“Exactly!”
said the ‘mild’ Wild One, not quite grasping the significance of Nosmo’s
comment. Well, we all fell about laughing over this one but, as usual, he was
right. You see, a long chord is a positive signal to an audience that the song
is finished and it’s time to applaud. A dead stop confuses them and they are
then tentative about their applause – and John did not like tentative
applause. Although he had the new image with the dinner suit, he still had the
audience in the palm of his hand. He could have told them all to fart in unison
and I’m sure they would have!
Once,
earlier in his career, he had a rather hostile audience who were throwing eggs
and heckling. He said to them, “you may throw things and you may boo me but you
all pay your money to come and see me because YOU ALL LOVE ME!” “Hooray!”
screamed the audience as one. He had won them over again. He surely was
Okay,
back in the old DC3 and off to Geraldton Civic Centre for a mayoral reception
and a bit of a nosh-up on some cold collations out in the hallway. John was
giving his address to the local dignitaries and a small number of press people.
“Where are the other people in your show?” asked one of the female journos,
interrupting Jok’s speech. “Oh, they’re all braffing out in the hall,” answered
Jok. “Oh, how nice!” replied the journo, probably dying to get at all the free
food and drink. “Braffing” was the current word for farting and hearing our
lord and master say this to the locals had us spitting food and guffawing
loudly out in the hallway. He then continued his speech.
“I
don’t think I’ve seen a finer Civic Centre since I have been in your fair state.”
He’d been in W.A. at least three days and hadn’t seen any civic centres! They
loved him; he should have gone into politics!
On
to Shepherds Hotel with no time for a rest before dinner. “John, I feel awful,”
I said to Jok. “Have you got any of those purple hearts?”
“Sure, here you go!” said Jok,
giving me a large handful. “How many do I take?” I asked. “As many as you
like,” he said. I took six. Well, I was flying! Speeding out of my brain,
faster than a speeding bullet, able to jump girl singers in a single bound!
Might give a
Purple
hearts were actually Drinimal, a very strong amphetamine, prescribed for John
after his last nervous breakdown along with all the downers to put him to sleep
and calm his nerves. He was not a raving drug addict, as some people seemed to
think. I never saw him smoke a joint on the tour. All he had were his
prescribed drugs. He just sometimes used to take more than required. I’m also
sure that all his nervous breakdowns were caused by his car accident. The poor
bugger really had some nasty head injuries.
After
the show at Geraldton Radio Theatre that night, I was beginning to come down
from the purple hearts, so I took the rest, - about twelve of them! JO’K
suggested we stay up all night because we had to leave in the DC3 at 5am. This
suited me fine. Who could sleep? I figured that I could catch forty winks on
the plane. I was wrong.
As
soon as I got in my seat and we reached the top of the climb, I tried to doze
off. I started having the most frightening involuntary jumps, almost like
convulsions. I can tell you sports fans; it scared the shit out of me! No more
than six hearts from then on.
On
arrival in Albany, we were greeted with a round of applause at the airport and
it was straight to the Town Hall where there was another mayoral reception and
we were each presented with a whale’s tooth stuck to a piece of wood. If you
think that was crook, we were later taken to the whaling station to witness the
flensing of some whales. It all seemed quite barbaric and the stench was
abominable!
The
next night was a very important affair at the
“How come you guys get all the attention?
You’re no better than us,” he wailed interrupting a very deep and meaningful
conversation between Michael and the Lord Mayor and even spilling some of his
champagne on the Mayor himself! “Who is this man?” spluttered the Mayor. Half a
dozen or so waiters, who were quite adept at ejecting fools when the Charles
was running on the full eight cylinders, ushered the offending bass player out
and then kicked him down the stairs!
“What
a strange person,” said the Mayor as he resumed his conversation with Michael.
“Dickhead of the year,” whispered Jok in my ear. “Never mind, tomorrow is
another day.” I mused over this one but I knew that the “mild” Wild One had
something up his sleeve.
The
next afternoon at the Capitol Theatre, there was an audition to see which local
band would be supporting The Johnny O’Keefe Show – Johnny & the Strangers
or (you guessed it) The Nomads.
The Nomads had played about two bars
of their first song when O’Keefe abruptly stood up and yelled, “Stop the music!
You’re all playing different songs. GET OFF!” They looked like the proverbial
trap-door had opened underneath them. It had! The other band, Johnny & the
Strangers played well and of course, became our local support act.
The “Johnny” was none
other than John De Jong, better known as our beloved JOHNNY YOUNG, who went on
to become a minor pop idol and inspire, guide and nurture into show business
some of our finest entertainers on his TV show, Young Talent Time.
That
night, the show at the Capitol was a raging, stage-storming, screaming success.
Des counted the tickets for a packed house and everyone went over well. Jok
structured the show from start to finish, running around like a man possessed,
fixing sound, lighting etc. for everybody’s act. The Johnny O’Keefe Show meant
exactly that. All acts had to be perfect as well as him because it was his arse
that was on the line. He also knew the importance of having an act on before
him that wouldn’t upstage him, having done just that himself to American acts
at the Stadium, particularly the Ricky Nelson show. Marlene was a safe bet, so
she went on before John. At the end of her performance someone yelled from the
wings “Johnny’s not ready yet. You’ll have to do another song.”
Marlene
was panic-stricken! She didn’t have another song. We all looked at each other
with silly looks on our faces while a hush fell over the audience. Finally, Noz
yelled out the name of some song that everyone knew, even Marlene. The show
went on, as it always must. The audience didn’t suspect anything was wrong and
John came on and fractured them as usual.
That
night there was a party back at the
Jok’s
loud reply in front of all the
The
next day being a Saturday, we had three shows at the Capitol. All were sold out
and were really raging shows with Marlene doing the originally prescribed
amount of songs! JO’K was definitely the King of Perth. After being given the
key to the city by the Lord Mayor when we first arrived in a fleet of Jaguars,
there were no more awards for Jok to collect, except for the mandatory gold
record presentation at the local TV station.
Sunday
night we had a farewell party at Joe’s place (who’s Joe? It’s in the Crazy
Book!?). We said our goodbyes to all the people who had treated us so well,
including the crew of the DC3. I think Jok may have received another award from
Val, the hostess of said aircraft, but of course this was just hearsay!
MONDAY, AUGUST 3: We took the long flight back to
I
couldn’t put my finger on it but there was something strange about Val’s
behaviour at the airport. When I suggested we go back to her place, she said,
“Oh darling, I’m very tired from waiting here all this time (the plane was late
as usual). Come over tomorrow.” So the airport welcome was sort of “Hi there,
bye there!” Well I wasn’t going to buy that one. That night I fired up the
Chrysler and went to Val’s. ‘Surprise, surprise!’ as Gomer Pyle would say. Val
had a visitor. None other than Kevin Wilson, a waiter from The Can. “Oh
darling, Kevin was just passing and decided to drop in.” Kevin lived at Manly
and Val at Gladesville! I was about to say “drop off” to Kevin when I
remembered that he was a gun freak and, although a seemingly nice bloke had
been noticed getting great pleasure out of kicking ejected patrons’ heads in,
outside The Can. Being a lover, not a fighter, I said nothing and merely left.
I had never fought over a woman and wasn’t about to start with gun-toting
Kevin! This cut me deeply, being the first cut. No woman had ever drawn blood
from me. What was happening? The Chrysler became the ‘Cry-sler’ on the way home
to Strathfield and Mum. I resisted the temptation to cry on her shoulder. After
all, I was twenty-two and supposed to be a man. It was time to trace the
whereabouts of my old flame Irene.
Without
having to look up the phonebook under ‘Prostitutes’, I finally found her
through some mutual friends. She was no longer a common street-girl. Oh no! Now
she was a high-priced call-girl – phone only! She was living in a nice
apartment at Edgecliff with three other high-priced call-girls and I was
invited to spend as much time there as I liked. For free! Although this was of
course, morally unacceptable to me… I forced myself. So much so, that I was
soon part of the furniture. The other girls were Christine, an early
acquaintance of Irene and mine and a right raver, along with Robyn and Helen.
Irene
didn’t seem to mind me helping myself to the other girls’ wares while she was
out on a call to some rich Jewish, Hungarian or what-ever-type businessman from
It
was a strange kind of relationship with Irene, a sort of “ships-in-the-night”
thing. I guess we loved each other but it was a very open-ended sort of affair.
She didn’t mind me having a good time with the other girls, sometimes all of us
together, and I didn’t seem to mind her being screwed by her clients because
that’s all they were – clients. Strictly business as far as she was concerned.
It was the same with all of the girls, except maybe Chris. I think she enjoyed
every bit of every encounter and would still come home and get off on the
vibrator!
For
a confirmed but acquitted ‘sex fiend’, this situation was heaven. The weeks
rolled along merrily with the four girls and the happy sex-fiend having a
wonderful time. I even found time to take Irene and Robyn on a little weekend
holiday down to Narooma in Robyn’s Batwing Chevrolet. I spent the whole weekend
hopping from bed to bed in the Narooma Motel.
One
Saturday night I brought the Rajahs back from The Can for a little party. I
guess you could call it a little orgy! Being fans of the band, the girls were
very hospitable, catering to everyone’s desires in a most professional manner.
They performed lesbian exhibitions for us and everybody swapped around until
the male members went limp. This was commonly known as the “dead munka
syndrome”. It seemed that the girls had a much larger sexual appetite than the
band. Maybe we needed a bigger band!
Robyn fancied the Drummer and Christine seemed to develop a liking for Nosmo. Noz cornered me in the kitchen at one stage during the night and said, “So, this is what you’ve been up to eh?” “Yeah about time you started sharing with the boys,” said Michael interjecting through the kitchen door. “Okay you guys, enjoy yourselves,” I replied, “But nobody screws Irene, got it?” Everyone agreed. This may seem to be a strange chauvinistic quirk of mine. It was okay for Irene to do it with the clients and it was okay for me to play around with the other girls but I wouldn’t allow Irene to do it for anyone for free except me. She was happy to go along with this. Most prostitutes differentiate very strongly between ‘clients’ and ‘boyfriends’. When they love you, they are more faithful than most women. Irene and I were even considering getting married. Well, I didn’t have to worry about her past; I already knew the worst.
We
were still working at The Can with the occasional guest artists. JO’K had started coming over to do the
floorshow with us. He loved working live with the band and, although he was
making quite enough money with Sing, Sing, Sing, and lots of record
royalties, he really enjoyed singing with us at The Can for nothing.
Irene
and the girls had started coming to The Can and frequently embarrassing us by
being very obvious and giving £10 tips to the waiters. One night after we got
home, Helen said, “I really fancy that O’Keefe. Why don’t you bring him over one
night with the boys?”
“I’ll see what I can do Helen but I can’t
promise anything,” I said, thinking to myself, “I reckon he’d jump at it!”
One
memorable Sing, Sing, Sing, around this time was yet another “Battle Of
The Bands”, which had us pitted against three other up-and-coming bands. They
were Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, Ray Columbus & the Invaders (Both
nodding furiously) and Ray Hoff & the Off Beats. Ray Hoff was now in his
“Rolling Stones” period: “Sing the blues, man and try to look as scungy as
possible!” He succeeded! Unfortunately for
Jok
said to us after the show, “What are all these orgies you guys have been
talking about?” “Oh, Jon’s living with a hooker at Edgecliff and she’s got
three horny girlfriends,” said
“Okay, I just might
take you up on that one,” said Jok. “I’ll have to finish up some business here
first. Will around midnight be too late?”
“Mate, we go all
night. Don’t worry!” I said.
When
we got back to Irene’s flat, I told the girls The Wild One might come around.
Much panic! Much doing of hair! All amidst us trying to start the orgy straight
away. I think they were trying to preen themselves for the fabulous J.O.K.
“Have you got any KY jelly, Chris?” “No Robyn, I haven’t.” “I’ve got a spare
tube!” yelled Irene from our room. Just like a bunch of randy old hens!
Jok
arrived, still with TV make-up on and dinner suit, bearing two bottles of
vintage champagne. When he partied, he partied! He was surprised to find that
everybody else was in the nude! “Let’s put some records on and have a good
time, eh girls?” said The Wild One nervously. “Fuck the records,” said Helen.
She had his zipper down and her mouth on him before he could speak again. After
that, he didn’t speak much anymore. Actions speak louder than words!
The
orgy careered on through the night as usual. Mike and Nosmo had left earlier
with cancelled leave-passes and dead munkas, so it was left to Leon, Jok and I
to keep the girls satisfied. Chris definitely had a thing about Nosmo. One of
my last memories of this night was Chris lying on the lounge room floor,
getting off with a lighted candle, while we yelled out “Nosmo, Nosmo!” to help
get her off.
The
last memory was, after Irene and I had retired to the half-demolished master
bedroom at dawn. We looked out the window and noticed the Mark 10 Jag, still
sitting in the carpark. Over the soft whirring of Christine’s vibrator and a
few muffled cries of, “Nosmo, Nosmo” another voice was coming from the lounge
room phone. The voice said, “I’ll be home soon darling, there was a late night
Board of Director’s meeting at Channel 7.” A party at Irene’s was thereafter
referred to as A BOARD OF DIRECTOR’S MEETING.
Business
was booming with the Board of Directors. The girls had loads of work and I was
either left at home by myself or chucked out when a client came to the flat.
Irene’s pissing dog, her neurotic cat and the continual knocking on the door
was starting to bug me no end! The clients were now mostly Chinese. The girls
liked them ‘cause they had little dicks and big wallets. I was beginning to
feel like a doorman. Life in the fast lane was getting too fast for me. I
wanted to pull over to the kerb and re-assess my life. Irene kept telling me
about guys who wanted to muscle in on her business; in other words,
professional pimps who wanted protection money. The straw that broke the
proverbial camel’s back happened one night when Irene and I were safely tucked
in bed.
There was a knock at
the door. Irene went out into the lounge room and shouted, “Who’s that?” “You know
who it is, you little slut!” came the reply. Irene ran back into the bedroom.
“What will I do?” she wailed. “I don’t know, honey. This is your business. I
don’t want to know about this guy.” I was not about to don my Elliot Ness hat
and mess with the gangsters. Still a lover, not a fighter!
Just
at that moment, the guy started firing his gun off outside the door. We didn’t
know what to do. Fortunately, the pimp went away after emptying his gun into
the bottom of the door. After a sleepless night, Irene went out to a client in
the morning. I rang Nosmo.
“Have
you got room for me at your place?” I said after telling him the story. “Sure,”
said Noz. “We’ve got another room here, no worries.”
Noz
lived in a semi-detached house in Pacific Parade, Manly, along with Kevin
Wilson (with his suitcase full of guns) and the Many Mayor’s son, Terry
Nicholas. They both worked as waiters at The Can. It was quite a happy little
household. Noz had his Scalectrix slot-car track set up on the lounge room
floor, running under tables and chairs. One had to be very careful not to step
on things. This was Boy’s Town, a real bachelor pad. The atmosphere was laid
back, not high drama like it was with the girls. We still had girls around,
brought back from The Can, but they were usually gone by morning. There was no
room here for permanent shielas.
Kevin
had been forgiven for stealing Val. She’d dropped him after two weeks, anyway.
He was more in his element cleaning, stripping and reassembling a 9mm Luger on
the kitchen table. Kevin was killed a few years later when he made an
unsuccessful attempt to rob a gun shop. Sadly, the owner blew Kevin’s head off
with a sawn-off shotgun.
Terry
was, at the time, going through the pangs of divorce from his wife, Wendy. One
night he took about half a bottle of sleeping pills. Not enough to kill
himself, mind you, but sufficient to make him drowsy enough to scare the shit
out of us! He had conveniently left the half-empty bottle on the kitchen table
for all of us to see. Kevin, putting on his paramedic’s hat, and another mate
of ours ‘Trad’ took him to
Next
day, I was sitting alone in the kitchen when Wendy Nicholas and two-year old
Paul came in the back door. “Where’s Terry?” she asked. Then I had the
unenviable task of telling her about Terry’s attempted suicide. With a
frightened and worried look on her face she flew out the door, dragging the
protesting Paul behind her. That was the first time I met Wendy, I could
understand now why Terry was so upset. Even from that brief encounter with
Wendy I could tell that she was a really nice, well-brought-up, decent girl –
and Terry had lost her. I think it was his drinking that caused the separation.
It was an occupational hazard with most of the waiters at The Can.
After
that initial drama, life rolled on smoothly at Pacific Parade. At The Can we
were still playing the hits of the time – all Mersey-side stuff plus Rolling
Stones, Animals, and our own records as well. The after-work hangout was often
Ray
Columbus & the Invaders came over from
Girls
came and went and it was a while before I saw Wendy again. I had somehow
developed a slight obsession about her. She came down to The Can one night with
a girlfriend. Noz sat on her knee and farted. Lovely introduction to the Rajahs
I must say! She was pretty horrified. I was actually going after the
girlfriend, as I knew Wendy was still officially married to Terry. Anyway, I
ended up at the girlfriend’s flat, which was in the same block as Wendy’s.
Things weren’t going too well with the girlfriend and Wendy came down from her
flat to make us some supper. It was then I noticed that she could cook as well.
None of the other girls I had ever known before could cook to save themselves,
especially The Board of Directors. So endeth the second meeting.
The
third was a housewarming for her little basement flat in
The
next meeting was at The Can again. She was sitting with Lonnie Lee’s sister,
Liz, and a couple of Max Merrit’s Meteors, who were now in
“Jeez,
this thing’s got some guts,” observed the Dick as I burned some fool off the
lights in
We
all had a pleasant night with Max and the boys, who followed Ron Fabri, his
accordion and ‘Orchestra de Wog’. I took Wendy home and we were just getting
into some light petting in the front seat when she saw someone watching us. She
said “goodnight”, leapt out the door and flew inside. This was going to be a
tough nut to crack. But I had the feeling it was going to be worth it.
Mum
was beginning to hassle me about coming home to Strathfield. So I did. She had
been very lonely while I was in W.A. and at Irene’s. She had gone maybe a
little “zip-a-de-doodah” while I was away. The house was in a mess and the yard
was a jungle. I guess if I had been a good son, I would have fixed it all up
for her but most young sons are more interested in having a good time and I was
no exception.
While
I was at home, my pride and joy, the Chrysler, was re-possessed. At first I
thought it had been stolen and rang the police. But then the finance company
rang to tell me how much I still owed them. Bloody hide! I now had no transport
to get to The Can and had to move back to the Manly area. With much weeping and
wailing from Mum, I left and moved into
After
a couple of weeks of being jolted around in Nosmo’s MG-TC, I bought a 1948
Rover 75, a very interesting car. It had a free-wheeling (no clutch) gismo, reserve fuel tank,
interior jacking system, full tool kit, black duco and chrome free-standing
headlights and a photo of the Queen on the dashboard! All for £60, it was a
good car.
I
hadn’t seen Wendy for a couple of months but I’d been thinking of her. One day
she arrived at Albert gardens. “Here, see if this fits,” she said, holding up an
enormous jumper. “It’s perfect,” I lied, trying to stop it from falling down to
my knees. No girl had ever knitted me a jumper before. This was a real lady!
She
invited me back for dinner at her flat, a couple of dingy little rooms in the
back of a house art
“That’s
‘Sucksh’,” said Wendy, pointing to the grubby pillow. “I’m not allowed to wash
it. He takes it everywhere.” She cooked dinner for me and we watched TV for a
while until Paul went to bed. “Ni-night, Fred,” he waved, still sucking his
thumb and clutching the grubby ‘Sucksh’. I stayed the night.
Wendy worked at the doctor’s surgery next to where the old Brookvale Theatre had been. She was their receptionist. After a few of these wonderful nights, Paul had lost his fear of me so I was allowed to baby-sit while Wendy went to work.
One
morning, Paul and I were watching The Magic Circle Club on TV, when Paul
pointed at me and said, “Fred Bear – that’s it! You’re Fred Bear!” From teenage
idol to a common bear, what a come down! When Wendy came home from work I told
her about Fred Bear and said, “If I’m going to be a bear, then, because of your
rabbity little nose, you’re going to be a rabbit!” From that day on she was my
“Rabbit”.
8,039
*******
To Chapter 17 Break Downs
and Break Ups