WINNIE AND THE RAJAHS

Jon Hayton’s worsening arthritis meant that he could no longer carry his guitar and amp without incurring a great deal of pain. This was the perfect gig for Jon to have a roadie to take care of everything, leaving him free to concentrate on playing the show. The week before Jon started, Winnie and Lew invited us all, including Diamond Jim and Mara, around for dinner at their beachfront unit at Narrabeen.

Michael gave his usual frown of disapproval as he sat in one of the Edwardian antique chairs from Broken Hill. Lew was a great cook and his specialty, of course, was English roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and horseradish sauce. The beef had to be almost burnt on the outside with a bright pink centre. While Lew opened a bottle of Chateau Neuf du Pape, Diamond Jim gave Jon a few tips on what to look out for while he was with Winnie, and we all had a good laugh.

“Always beware of the black look,” whispered Jim.

Jim told us that he was excited about starting up his own band and calling it ‘Ayers Rock’. “What a wonderful Australian name for the band,” said Winnie. “It’s not that good,” said Lew, “I nearly had a heart attack trying to climb that bloody rock with Mr. Muckle.”

The dinner was excellent and Lew pulled out a couple of home movies. Jon and his wife Wendy were made to feel welcome on the new venture. It was like having the Rajahs back together once again. Jim was ceremoniously stripped of his poof-front and piano cuff links, and Michael gave one last disparaging look at the lounge suite as we left.

AUGUST 1, 1973: Jon had his first taste of the Winifred Atwell show when we flew down to play the Canberra Civic Theatre. Tony Braddock compered the two sold-out shows, and a couple of friends of ours, Frankie Davidson and Judy Stone, were the support acts. The Civic Theatre was a perfect venue for Winnie. The stage and the seating was first class and the nine-foot Steinway sounded brilliant.

Jon looked immaculate in his dinner suit and poof-front. The only thing that let him down was his shoes. Jon’s arthritis made it painful for him to wear shoes, so he wore his daggy old slippers. Winnie and Lew were horrified, so we hid him behind the grand piano.

While we were waiting in the fog-bound Canberra airport to fly home, a message came over the intercom. “Could Mr. Hayton please report to the front desk?” When Jon limped up to the front desk the lady said, “There’s an important message here from the Prime Minister.” Jon stood there, looking puzzled. When the desk lady looked up at Jon’s long flaming red hair and bib-and-brace jeans she said “Wait a minute! You’re not the Treasurer are you?”

“No,” said Jon, “but I’d like to be.” Just then, Bill Hayden walked up beside Jon and said, politely, “Aah, I think that message must be for me.” To add insult to injury, when we arrived at Sydney Airport Jon was also mistaken for a bank robber. The police questioned him when they noticed that he fitted the description of a notorious bank robber who was caught on video wearing the same farmer-type jeans and chequered flannelette shirt as Jon.

Jon had only recently bought a small farm at Wallabadah and his new farmer-type appearance prompted Dig Richards to re-name him, FARMER JOHN. Jon also did a great Walter Brennan impression that really clinched it. “One of these days I’m gonna climb that mountain, Luke,” said Jon with his characteristic limp.

A few more Winifred Atwell rehearsals at my place and Farmer Jon was ready to hit the road with a new pair of black slippers purchased by Lew. It was a time for more short tours. No one wanted to be away from the family for too long, so the shorter the better. A whirlwind of shows and feudic suppers followed in Melbourne, Sydney, and a week on the Queensland coast. Jon fitted in like a glove. It was the same thing that the three of us had done back in the sixties with Dig. Only this time we travelled first class.

We picked up a new roadie called Colin while we were in Melbourne. Lew first auditioned Colin for the job in Perth and Colin took his job very seriously. He added a few extras, like laying out our clothes and making sure that everybody was ready on time. He even ran the shower for us if he thought we were going to be late.

Jon thought Colin had a face like one of Snow White’s dwarfs, and Col wasn’t at all perturbed when Jon christened him ‘the Dwarf’. Colin was very efficient, although a few times we found him posing as the manager, which was very annoying. Jon wanted to court-martial the Dwarf for impersonating an officer and a gentleman.

Colin loved to be on tour and he would invariably get one of us to take boring pictures of him standing next to various scenic spots. While one of us took his picture, the other two would sneak into the background and flash a bare arse from behind a tree or rock. Jon also took great delight in seizing the Dwarf’s camera to take pictures of naked girls in the motel room. When Colin showed the slides to his family and fiance on his return from tour, he had a terrible time trying to convince his girlfriend that they weren’t really his photos. Jon always made sure that the naked bodies were standing next to Colin’s suitcase when he took the shots.

EVEN MORE BANANAS

While we were in Cairns, we were invited out on a big-game fishing boat for the day. Lew was in his element sitting in one of the marlin chairs drinking his Gin and Tonic while Mr. Muckle pulled in a nice big mackerel for our feudic supper back at the Trade Winds Motel. The next day Lew’s face was the colour of a beetroot while Winnie always remained the same shade of black. Winnie and I would often spend the afternoons playing Scrabble. She loved to win and her suspect two-letter words made her a formidable opponent. No one would ever dare accuse Winifred of cheating. “Just look at Lew’s red face,” said Winnie as she won yet another game, “He’s just like a baby. I’ve got to look after him all the time.”

The next tour in September was a deja vu experience for Jon, Michael and me. We played all the same outback Queensland towns that we played with Dig Richards & the R’Jays on our ill-fated tour back in 1961. The only difference was that this time we started the tour in a Bush Airways Cessna and avoided most of the horror stretches that we experienced 12 years earlier. From Mount Isa we crossed to Winton and travelled south through Longreach, Barcaldine, Blackall, Charleville, Roma, Miles, Dalby, and finally finished our tour in the scenic mountains of Toowoomba.

The concerts were packed with adoring fans, and while the towns remained the same, we were pleased to see that they now had air-conditioned motels. Winnie was also delighted to find that some of the town halls had beautiful old Steinway pianos locked away in the back rooms. No one had ever been allowed to play them for years. At least not until the Queen of the Keyboard arrived, and then they were ceremoniously wheeled out for the concert.

Lew was having trouble breathing at high altitude in the small plane and during one of the flights he started gasping for air. The pilot came out and released the oxygen masks as we started to dive down to a lower altitude. While we commenced our dive he shouted out, “Don’t light a cigarette or we’re all going to blow up!”

Mr. Muckle was peacefully sleeping in his seat during all this drama and he woke up when he noticed that the plane had gone into a steep dive. Unfortunately, Michael only caught the last part of the pilot’s frantic message, “…WE’RE ALL GOING TO BLOW UP!” Michael leapt out of his seat and started screaming “We’re gonna blow up?” The sight of Lew turning blue and sucking on his mask didn’t alleviate the situation, either, and it took a while to calm Mr. Muckle down as the plane finally levelled out. After that frightening episode we continued the rest of the tour by car.

With Pee Wee and Brian now well ensconced on their farm in Eungai on the North Coast, the Delltones were now officially defunct and I played my first gig with the remaining duo, Martin & Pierse at Newtown RSL in late September. Sep and Bob sounded pretty good and they were well received, but it was going to be a long struggle to raise the group’s profile. With all my touring with Winnie they would also need a permanent MD drummer and Ian Bloxsom (Blocko) from SCRA agreed to replace me and take on the job. Most of the players in SCRA had now gone their own way and singers, Mickey Leyton and Sheryl Blake were now doing more work than they could handle singing radio and TV commercials.

I’M ALRIGHT JACK

Our trip to Tasmania in November was a pleasant departure from flying. We travelled down to Devonport on a ship called the Australian Trader. We were then picked up and taken to Hobart for two shows at the Granada Hotel. Lew showed us how to play roulette at the Hobart Casino and he was more than pleased when I won him $700. It’s easy to be reckless when you are using some one else’s money.

Because we were playing in town halls and theatres it was sometimes difficult to find a place for a feudic supper after the show. Not to be deterred, Lew made a trip to the local delicatessen and picked up a load of cold buffet, which included smoked salmon, smoked oysters, ham and chicken, as well as one of his favourites, Spam. He told us that he used to eat it during the war when he was driving a truck in Egypt. It was all wonderful fare, with a good bottle of wine, and we made our own little parties back at the motel.

When we reached Launceston, one of the promoters for the show was also a wine merchant. Along with Lew, we were taken to his warehouse to sample some of his rare vintage wine. Lew wanted the Wine-oceros to select a few vintages for his private cellar at Narrabeen. During the tasting our host told us that he had made arrangements for a party in our honour. It was to be held at his house after our show that night at the Launceston Princes Theatre.

We left Lew at the wine warehouse and walked up to the Metropole Hotel where we ran into JACK MUNDEY. We hit it off with Jack and his friend straight away. Jack was an interesting down-to-earth trade unionist who was dedicated to the preservation of the historical Rocks Area in Sydney. Jack was trying to prevent the State Government and greedy developers from bulldozing Australia’s heritage, and replacing it with high-rise buildings. After a few beers with Jack we invited him to come and see our show at the Launceston Princes Theatre that night. We added that if he missed us at the show he could always catch up with us at the party afterwards.

Our second Launceston concert was another huge success and the party that followed turned out to be much more grandiose than we expected. We were taken to a large mansion and greeted at the door by a butler who was dressed better than we were! Our opulent host and his wife were dedicated Winifred Atwell fans and they had taken great pains to impress us with their hospitality.

During our formal feudic supper with the crème of Launcestonian society, the butler came to the table and addressed our host. “Excuse me, sir. There is a man at the door called Jack Mundey and he says that he has been invited to the party.”

Our host leapt to his feet in a sudden rage. “JACK MUNDEY! He’s a communist! Throw him out immediately. I’ll not have a communist in my house,” he shouted. The butler’s deadpan expression remained the same. “Very good, sir,” he nodded.

“Who on earth would have invited Jack Mundey to our house?” said our puzzled hostess. We all shook our heads. “I can’t imagine,” said Winnie and Lew as the rest of us tried to look shocked and surprised. By the time we managed to sneak out to the front gate, Jack and his friend were gone, and we never got the chance to apologise to poor Jack for our inconsiderate capitalist associates.

Our trip back to Melbourne on the Empress of Australia was a little less salubrious, but we were glad to get back to our usual accommodation at the Chateau Commodore. We always referred to the hotel as the Chateau D’iff. Jimmy Doyle told us that according to Spike Milligan, the Chateau D’iff was the famous island prison in France where the prisoners tried to tunnel their way out and drowned. Our Chateau was by no means a prison. The gold taps in the hotel were yet another reminder of our decadent capitalist ways. Jon Hayton was enjoying every moment of it. Sometimes it’s good to be the king.

To Chapter 29 Return Of Digby Richards

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