[Mod Suits]

Been away for a while. Nice new Grandson born .(Our first) and a bit of a wobble for me with another slight stroke. Dead Arm/Hand for a few days , otherwise OK.

Loved 'Jeff's'. IIRC, there was 'Jeff's for the more workaday stuff' 'Lord Jeffrey' and Miss Jeffrey' for the more mod stuff. I recall buying a pair of 'Lee' jeans there for 55s, when 'mere' Levis were 52s&6p

TBH, I could never decide what I was back then. I loved motorbikes, but wasn't a 'greaser'. I liked the Mod style but thought scoooters were dangerous things. I wore Levis, Wrangler jackets and all sorts of stuff from the Army Stores.

I was a bit of a hippy type, but not all flower power. Smoked a few spliffs, did a few pills, dropped a bit of acid, but mostly just drank. Despite it all I had an MRI scan last week which apparently showed that my brain is in better shape than many my age. I was more of a 'beat', as we used to say..... sort of semi-hippy. At odds with society, but not all dippy and hippy. Musically, I was DJ ing Soul, Stax, Motown etc., at the 360 Club, then going home and listening to Dylan, Cohen, classical stuff etc.. And I wandered about a lot, which is why I am now in Lancashire.

Worked out OK though. I have 2 daughters. One is Reg. blind but has just produced Grandson No.1. The other is a fashion designer. I am very proud of both.

Got myself trapped here in Lancashire and have to stay for my kids, but give me half an excuse and I'll be back in Nottm like a shot.

Col

[The Penguin Cafe]

Turbo Twin! Completely forgot that. I don't think it sold well and I don't recall ever seeing one. I couldn't agree more about the Jubilee. On 1 level it looked quite nice, but that's about all.

Frankly, most Brit bikes, especially smaller ones were hopelessly underpowered, overweight and unreliable cf the Japanese stuff, but it took the Japs a few years to get around to producing really nice looking bikes.

[The Penguin Cafe]

Thanks Col

That took me back to my first and only experience with biking. A Honda 250 Superdream around 1980.

As a fairly regular visitor to L.A. I still love to hear the Harleys on the freeways over there.

I have vague memories of British bikes sounding sommat like that?

The Yamahas were all two strokes as I recall, hence the high pitched 'Yeeeeeeiiiinnng' sound as they passed.

The Harleys would sound deep and a bit ploddy, similar to many British bikes from the classic era.

I'd have thought your 250 Dream would sound somewhere between, pretty much like any lightweight twin four stroke 250..

Generally, UK manufacturers would stick to a single cylinder for 250 CC, although Norton did the 'Jubilee', which was a 250CC Four Stroke twin, and Villiers produced a 250cc 2 stroke twin which appeared in a Royal Enfield bike and I think (memory....fading fast...) a Greeves, or Cotton trials bike of the early-mid 1960s.

The Japs introduced the concept of multi cylinder small capacity motors. E,g. Honda once had a 3, or possibly four cylinder 50cc bike at the TT. Memory fades. but it looked amazing. Italy went that route to some extent too. I remember lusting after a Benelli 'Quattro' four cylinder four stroke 250, on looks alone, about 1982.

Col

[The Penguin Cafe]

sprayed more than one with similar jam jar gun connected to outlet of a vacumn cleaner, did you (like us) think a genuine Rocket Gold Star had to have a goldie frame? remember more than once occasions where such a bike was classed a fake as it didn't have the "kink frame"! lol remember laughing at the likes of the square headlamp, sheet metal C72 and C92 Benly, even the CB72 was "odd" with it's funny kickstart and rev counter that went wrong way, "they'll never catch on" also said same re the CB750 when that came on scene

Hello Ashley,

You have me on the 'kink' frame. That's a detail too far...

On the Jap machines. I reckon they were originally designed to suit the 'Mericun' market, with the square lamps and generally 'heavy' look. Still, the first 125 Benly I saw was scarily quick. It wasn't long before the Japanese cottoned on to the European 'style' and started putting on their own rather tacky versions of round mudguards and lamps, racing style tanks etc. Not quite the genuine article, but you couldn't really argue with the performance and VFM of the jap bikes.. My first was much later. A Honda CB125 T of around 1981/2 vintage. Last year before the restriction to 12BHP at the rear wheel. Mine had a massive claimed 15BHP!

Made an excellent commuter while I was a mature student at Manchester Poly and a fun machine for the occasional solo ride back home to Nottm over the Peaks, though I was a bit saddle sore after 100 miles... It red lined at 12000rpm as I recall and wouldn't be phased by a missed gear change and a whizz up to about 15000rpm. All this is making me hanker after a bike, but I never passed my test and maybe 62 years old with a dodgy ticker etc., isn't the time to start.....

Col

[The Penguin Cafe]

Good stuff!

It was all about self reliance back then.

My mate Dave Cartwright bought an ex-police black A10. It still had the recess in the tank where the radio useter go. One night, whilst he was 'competing' ( Not racing you understand.... that wouldn't be legal.. ) with a Triumph Trophy, a car pulled out from a side street, somewhere along by the Lido. He hit the car and sailed over it, rolled a bit and got away with a stiff ankle and a couple of bruises.

The Police later estimated his speed at 60+, but couldn't prove it and in any case found against the car driver for pulling out without due care.

The car and bike were both written off, and the insurers paid out to Dave and left him with the remains of his A10! Front wheel, forks, frame exhausts and tank were all useless. So. enter a very old B31 bought almost for scrap price. B31 frame pretty much identical to A10 frame.

Here's the clever bit. How to respray old B31 frame? Spraying kit wasn't easily had back then.

Solution? 'Jam Jar spray gun with nozzle fitted on top and a few tins of Belco Black cellulose etc.

Next.. how to get hold of a compressor?

Solution. Washing machine motor, mounted on a plank, driving old B31 motor.. At first we used inlet and outlet valves but it was all a bit much for the 'leccy' motor. Eventually after a bit of pratting about, we reset the valve timing, removed the pushrod from the exhaust valve and removed the main spring from the inlet, leaving just the thin inner spring. Basically got it 'two stroking'. Inlet through inlet valve and outlet through plug hole, using an old plug, drilled out and fitted with a brazed in copper pipe. Leccy motor had no trouble driving that!

A pressure vessel was obtained. It was a box shaped cast iron former back boiler from a coal fire..... That made me very nervous, as it wasn't designed to take any pressure...... We hid it in a corner, piled old sacks an stuff all over it and prayed fervently. With that set-up we got a steady spraying pressure. 70psi springs to mind as a figure but I can't really remember

So, quickly, old bike was rebuilt around new/old B31 frame. New ally sports tank, new pipes, Goldie front brake etc., and 'new' A10 was back on the road. A bit of skulduggery around frame numbers I think, but still.. A better bike than before. Result!

Dave and cousin Pete went on to respray and generally restore an Ariel 600 Twin bought by some chap for £25. Turned it into a real beauty.

Also. My first encounter with a 'Jap' bike.

Around 1965/6. Toddling along towards Cadwell park with my mate Rob. He on his C11g, me on my Enfield. We are passed by a big twin.. Bonny or summat. Fair enough. Next, another big twin... Norton or summat. OK. Then, this Orange thing... Yeeeeeeiiinnngg!!!. We looked at each other. WTF was that?

Next stop.. a Service Station/Cafe. Parked up, a Bonny, a big Norton, and a Yamaha. 250cc? YS2? Don't know now, but Jeesus H Christ it was quick.

The beginning of the end.

Col

['favourite Motown tracks of the day']

Got it in the collection Terry, to my mind though, it isnt the best that ive heard the Supes do. Heres one, Baby I got it, by Jimmy Ruffin, b side of "Broken Hearted"

Oh yes! Always one of my faves. It is Motown in spades!

Col

[Pits Around Nottingham.]

. It's that sort of 'gallows' humour that I remember. The miners, like a lot of other traditional industrial groups, would rip the p1$$ out of you without mercy, but if you really needed help, they'd be there.

[Hucknall pit]

Rather belatedly Stu...

The line of buildings on the left side at the entrance were the Colliery Offices, where I'd regularly walk up from Area HQ to have an 'exchange of views' with Chief Clerk Bill Mayes! IIRC, the buildings opposite were the colliers changing areas...beyond which were the Pit Head Baths, with onward access to the headstocks etc.

Cheers

Robt P.

In the late 50s and early 60s I spent many a happy hour in the living quarters of the Bestwood Hotel, which was run my my Grandparents, Arthur and Doris Berresford.

I was only 11 in 1960 and my memory is fading, but:

Between the pub and the pit buildings was an alley way. Along it and to the right, behind the pub, was the canteen. We used to sometimes get sent down there to buy ice cream.

On the other side of the alley, at its entrance was, I believe an entrance to the pit baths. I remember it as a curved building, or at least having a 30s style curved entrance. Near it was also a bus shelter, where we would wait to catch the 'Macko's' bus to Bulwell.

The view from the upstairs living room of the pub was terrific. There was a side window looking over the alley, but at the back was a superb view of the colliery yard. I would watch the little steam engines for hours. I remember in particular a pannier tank type, painted green. There would be piles of timber props an all sorts of stuff I didn't understand.

Somewhere in that view would also have been the site of the old Ironworks, but I never knowingly saw it. I'd love to know what, if any evidence is left of that.

Col

[Pits Around Nottingham.]

We were taken down the Hucknall training pit by a wiry cantankerous little old git. You may remember him! He used to say things like .Yer'll gerrabaff fter bein' dahn 'ere else ahl giyya a toe cap an' six lace 'oles up yer arse! He had a way with words...

One of the lads in our group was from Hucknall Watnall area and was called Fowler, or maybe Fowles. When the old git asked if any of us had relatives in the mines most of us had. This lad said his Dad had died in a roof fall. The old git asked him where. "Here". Said the lad.

The old git took us to a place where there was a clearly bricked up gate. Your "Dad's in there lad", he said. That was a strange moment.

The centre manager at the time was a Mr Shaw. I hated him and I thought he felt the same about me, but he was sharp enough to notice I wasn't happy there. When I told him I really wanted to be a scientist, he arranged for me to go to the Labs at Cinderhill for an interview and I got the job.

Col

[Nottingham clubs in the 60s - 80s]

welcome DJ360, i left Merseyside to live in Nottingham and was at most of the gigs you have mentioned above !

Thanks! I think you were the one who moved in the right direction...

Col

[Pits Around Nottingham.]

I joined the No 6 Area as an apprentice fitter in 1965. Went to Arnold and Carlton College and the Training Centre at Hucknall. Was assigned to Linby and did surface stints there but never got as far as working underground. Moved into the Coal Board Labs at Cinderhill instead.

Did a visit down Ormonde before I left school. Only other pit I went down was the Hucknall Training Pit and much more recently I went down Parsonage Colliery near Leigh in Lancs. Part of the Parsonage/Bickershaw Golborne complex. Bloody deep and bloody hot. Lifting roadways and buckling rings everywhere.

My Dad, Grandad, Great Grandad and Great, Great Grandad all lived in Bestwood Colliery and all worked in the pit from around the time it opened in the 1860s. Great Great Grandad Samuel is still firmly planted in St Marks Churchyard. Died 1898. Makes you think.

Grandad later had the Bestwood Hotel in Bestwood Colliery Village.

Dad later worked at Linby before retiring with 'the dust'.

Brother worked at Linby and various others as the pits dwindled and is now a painter and decorator.

Uncle, Harry Johns was some sort of manager at Linby. Another uncle Frank Radford was a rope splicer.

Last time I was 'home', the refurb job on the Bestwood Headstocks was looking great, but the Bestwood Hotel was looking very sad.

It's a funny thing. Back in the 50s and 60s, there was such a sense of life about the area. Collieries and steam railways everywhere. I lived very close to Bulwell Common Station. Now, although the whole area is much more built up and the roads especially are much busier, it's just not the same. It feels empty and dead.

Col

[360 Club Bulwell]

I DJ'd there in the 60s

We were called 'The Magic Roundabout Disc Show! ( posh eh?)

I was the handsome one.... !rotfl!

There was Dave Pickering ('Manager') Dave Cartwright, and yours truly (DJ's) Also Tony Hay. Still in touch with both of them but 'Picko' seems to have dropped off the radar.

A lad called 'Patch' Prewit (Sp?) from Hucknall also used to guest DJ. Sadly, I'm told he passed away some time ago.

The Manager of the 360 at the time was called Don Cleaver.

We useter book in many of the local bands too. Sometimes we would have up to three bands on in one night.

We also did stints at Robinson's Hill Social Club and the Carlton Hotel, as well as the usual '1 off' bookings.

Some of the best days of my life and I really miss those times.

[Aahhdooo]

Thanks folkss!

Did a search for 360 last night but couldn't find it so I started a new thread.

[Hi-Fi old and new]

I'm currently (no pun intended) using a pretty much all valve set-up, but modern .

I have a Linn Lp 12 turntable with a Linn Lingo Power supply. (It provides a clean power supply to the motor for accurate and smooth running. Also allows for electronic speed change.)

An Esoteric Audio Research all valve phono stage.

A Papworth Audio Technology PPA6 pre amp.

A pair of Papworth M100 all valve mono power amps.

and a pair of Rogers Studio 3 Speakers.

Also use a TEAC P-30 CD Transport, with a Benchmark DAC 1 Digital to analogue converter.

I used to have a Rogers Cadet 3. With the right speakers it is a little gem.

When I was DJ ing at the 360 club, we used a pair of Leak 50 mono valve amps in 'dual mono' configuration.

The best of the old hi-fi can easily compete with modern stuff. The Garrard 301/401 and Thorens TD150 and TD124 decks. Leak TL12, Stereo 20, etc., amps. Quad II amps etc. Tannoy 'Dual Concentric' speaker units also superb.

Little known fact: The run of 'Quad II Celebration' amps marketed in the late 90s, were in fact manufactured by Papworth of Cambridge whose products I useter distribute. Some were manufactured in Gold Plate finish, and fitted with Solid Silver ameplates. They were supplied in Red Velvet Bags, inside substantial boxes.

Very nice.. if you had £6k..

Col

[Carl's Fables]

Coming back on topic.....

We useter book Carl's Fables into the 360 Club Bulwell regularly. In fact at one point, probably about 1969/70, they had a regular Sunday night spot. They had a fan who followed them about and would get up and sing Sam Cooke's 'Another Saturday Night', and also 'Blue Suede Shoes'.

As I recall, Carl was originally from Birkenhead.

Last time I saw them , I wandered into the Rose at Strelley, with my girlfriend. (Also from Merseyside. We've now been married for 38 years..)

Carl made a bit of a show of me!

I'll get him back one day.

Col

[The Penguin Cafe]

I used to hang around the Penguin Cafe in the early/mid 60's I knew the name Elijah Day, but he was more of a legend and belonged more to the 50s than the 60s I believe. I was 16 in 1965 and hung around there on my not so special Royal Enfield Crusader. Names I remember from that time are Everett Kirk ( Another great name!) who ISTR had a C12 and later an A10. My still very good friend Dave Cartwright who rode a 350 Ajay and then an A10. (Now riding a very posh Harley) Johnny Mills ( Now passed on I believe), who was famous for laying his Ariel 'Golden Arrow' so low around the market place that he left a white stripe from his fairing.

There was a deaf mute chap who used to turn up on a very smart Velocette. Viper? Venom? I forget the difference.

Somebody had a Square Four and another guy had an Ariel 600 Twin.

Our friend Roy Hardy used to ride to work on a BSA 150 Bantam Major, with a home made seat and expansion box and the biggest SU carb you've ever seen. Roy bought a luvverly Red 250 Dot and went scrambling on weekends. (I think the youngsters call it 'Moto Cross' now...) I have some pictures of him somewhere, racing at Teversal

My second cousin Pete Chambers, whose parents had a grocer's shop opposite the Black Horse (closed down even then) on the Coventry Road/Hempshill Lane junction, used to ride a stripped down Beeza with a ZB32 Goldie engine on the old Sankey Tip. We had great fun being dragged by Pete's bike, up the concrete pad in an old tin bath.

One of the saddest and funniest things I saw: Two chaps who I knew only by sight. One rode, I think, a C15 and the other a Tiger Cub. C15 guy passes test and buys a beautiful Super Road Rocket. Tiger Cub chap 'mithers' him all night for a ride. Road Rocket man eventually gives in but with strict instructions to 'take it easy'. Tiger cub man takes Road Rocket, with its owner on pillion slowly from the Penguin Cafe to the Youth Club, turns round and is heading back when inexplicably he winds it up, totally fails to negotiate the slight dogleg coming back to the market place and takes out a couple of bollards. In less than a minute all wreckage is hidden up the alley at the side of the Penguin, two very shaken bikers are sitting on the step trying to look casual and the police, who only live yards away on Highbury Vale are asking questions about who broke the bollards. They never found out.

I have many other memories of that area and those times.

Col

[cafes and pubs for old Rockers]

Brian Exton had his own Motorcycle shop on Coventry Rd Bulwell and later moved to Carey Rd/St Albans Rd next door to the railway crossing, he has had many a pound note off me in the past. He also built an all alloy/chrome BSA 500cc Gold Star and sold it to a Johnny Harback who wrecked it not long after, best looking Goldie I have ever seen!!

Hi!

I remember Brian Exton well, both his shop in Coventry Road and the later one in Carey Road. I bought various bit off him for my Royal Enfield Crusader Sport.

I well remember the Goldie. Everything that wasn't either rubber or leather was polished alloy or chrome. I lusted after that machine but since I only had a prov license and no money it was all a bit pointless. The story I heard was that it was built for show purposes (though not, as I understood it, by Brian.) I was told he acquired it and was selling it on, but wouldn't swear to that.

What I would swear to though is that it was a 350 goldie, not a 500. I know it was damaged in an accident shortly afterwards. The story I heard was that he was pulling out of a sidestreet and parked delivery wagon or summat reversed over him/it.

Col

[360 Club Bulwell]

Surely somebody here must remember the great nights at the 360 in the late 60s/early 70s?

I was one of the DJs with the Magic Roundabout Disc Show. We did weekends and a couple of week nights at the upstairs room at the 360. Dave Cartwright also DJd and Dave Pickering was our 'Business Manager' . Dave ran a few 360 reunions at Bestwood Miner's Welfare in the late 90s. We also used to book in lots of local bands like The Clockwork Toys, Sons and Lovers, Nerve, Carl's Fables, Whichwhat and many more, including the curiously named 'Lambs of the World' who included Mick Vaughan, later famous in Paper Lace.

Also bands from further afield, Like Mickey's Monkeys (Sheffield?) Tiny Davis Soul's A Go Go and Samson, from Darn Sarf...

We even had Root n Jenny Jackson once, but we lost a fortune because nobody believed we'd got them and very few turned up.

Love to hear from anyone who remembers those days and would be delighted if anyone has photo's.

Col

[Aahhdooo]

New 'ere mesen!

Dragged up on Bestwood Est. Went to High Pavement as a near contemporary of Fred Shipman. Worked at Coal Board Labs Cinderhill, Whitely Read, various bulding sites and factories. Also DJ with the world renowned ( ) Magic Roundabout Disco in the late 60s with residencies at the 360 Club Bulwell, Robinson's Hill Social Club, Carlton Hotel etc. Great days...

[Nottingham clubs in the 60s - 80s]

Hello folks! I'm new here, but I'm an ex-pat Nottinghamian living in Merseyside for the last 30+ years.

Well remember the Belvedere Club, the Three Boat Clubs and the Beachcomber. Saw loads of bands including: Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull Jeff Beck Band feat. Rod Stewart, Cliff Bennet and the Rebel Rousers, Long John Baldry, Cream (At the former Nottm. Tech) Jr Walker and Geno Washington, both at the Palais. Pentangle at the Albert Hall and most memorably Ray Charles at the Odeon when I was about 13.

Worked briefly with Alvin Lee's Dad. He was a site engineer of some sort on tunnelling projects putting in sewers around Bestwood/Bulwell.