Well - Just thoughts and Happenings !

[G#Gill]

I've been sitting thinking about stuff I've done that may have caused other people upsets. I must have done plenty! Don't get me wrong, I probably deserve all the sh1t - it's just that I can't remember many specifics.

All in all, I've had a good life. Probably much much better than a lot of folks - at least I'm not too bad physically. I've found friends................................ and I've lost friends, which is probably my fault. Now I will think on about what I shall do.

The one thing I just cannot and will not allow, is non-relatives damaging my family in any way. My family is my life, and I will protect them to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, this time, I have failed them. These outsiders that we befriended some years ago have succeeded in damaging my little family, probably beyond repair, and maybe they are happy with this situation.

I vow that I will never get deeply involved with non-relatives ever again - I will never trust anybody like that. I will never allow myself to get that close to people, who are not blood related. We have been severely hurt, and it will no doubt last a lifetime.

At present, I am at my lowest ebb, so I apologise for this miserable post. I always told myself that I would never open a journal thread but something inside told me that it may help me a little if I put some words down, so I hope you will understand. As I said earlier, I have to consider very carefully what I will do now. With my family in pieces and my head all over the place, it would probably be a wise move to just try to get it together as best I can, try to chill if I can, and try to appear strong in front of my family.

My plans for moving into the country are on hold for the forseable future - my dreams consequently, are shattered - for the time being. But, hey, who's to say what lies ahead? There, I've started to be a little positive...................... so here's hoping !

The sad thing about all this, is that it has changed my 'happy-go-lucky' attitude to life. It will be a long time, if ever, that I can get back to that.................... and that, I regret deeply.

[G#Gill]

I thought I'd change the mood a bit. I've had a good moan, so I think I'll try to be a bit more positive. I was thinking, the other day, of the times I had when I was the member of a harmony/dance trio. We were semi professional, worked around Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Lincolnshire. We worked mostly Working Mens Clubs, Miners Welfares, quite a lot of private dinner dances, wedding receptions, birthdays, etc. etc. We really enjoyed playing in the band, and getting paid for enjoying ourselves

We used to play everything from rock-and-roll to old time dances and everything in between. As we played an awful lot of Working Mens Clubs where they had entertainment on Saturday night, Sunday lunchtime, and Sunday evenings, we had to have a terrific repertoire so that we could avoid repeating songs on the three visits to a club. It more often than not amounted to about 6 hours of playing, If you reckoned on 3 mins per song on average (mostly longer in reality), we had to have a repertoire of a minimum of 120 songs. We did quite a few medleys, so that would increase the number of songs, and then we would have to have quite a few extra songs in reserve. I think if I sat down and went through my music, and my various lists, I suppose we knew over 200 songs, particularly as we tried to keep up with the pop charts of the day.

It was quite hard work, with rehearsals, learning new songs all the time, and in my case, I used to either buy the record and sheet music or record songs off the radio, and write out the dots and work out the chords. There were reams of manuscripts that I'd written out from broadcast songs, and I wrote the appropriate chords on top of the treble clef lines, for me to read for my guitar. Brett on keyboards would have the music lying flat on the organ, and I would be in the middle, and if I needed to read the music I could glance over to Brett's copy. Our drummer John was the other side of me to my right. We all sang, solo and harmony, so there were always changes of lead vocals during our set. I was always mindful of having to listen to the same lead vocal all evening, could get a bit 'samey'.

I was very proud of the fact that we never had to get work through an agency. It was repeat business at the working mens' clubs, where we would take dates for the year ahead, and nearly all the private dances, and dinner dances etc. came through recommendations from people who had seen us at the clubs. The working mens' clubs were our 'bread and butter' gigs, and the private events were much more lucrative. Of course at the WMCs there was the inevitable pause for the 'sacred' bingo, but we didn't mind this as it gave us a sort of 'natural break'. We used to laugh because there would always be a hubub of chatter all through our set, then when bingo started, you could hear a flaming pin drop! I remember at one of these WMCs it came to bingo time and we took our break, going in a back room to have a cigarette and a shandy (we all had to drive to and from the clubs). After about 5 or so minutes the Entertainment Secretary came into the room, looking a little flustered - "Could you turn off the guitar amplifier, it's interrupting the caller with police radio calls coming through it !" I went up to the stage and sure enough there was this rather loud tinny voice busily giving a report about something to do with a vehicle check ! I turned my amp. off and the voice disappeared. Several people clapped their approval

I was a little curious and went outside into the carpark of the club and at the side of the road quite near to the club wall, was a police patrol car ! I knocked on the driver's window, and when the police officer wound the window down, I asked him how long he was likely to be there as his radio was bleeding over onto the amplification gear in the club, and everybody could hear everything that he said !
Needless to say, he moved off. A sort of roll reversal - a member of the public moving on a 'bobby'

I could write a book about the exploits and happenings to our band, some almost unbelievable ! They were great years, and I have very fond memories of all the fun we had, and of course the money we made.

Unfortunately we never did have the opportunity of getting a recording of any of our gigs, and we never made any studio recordings. That is the only regret I have about those days, because we were quite a good band and it would have been nice to have had an actual recording.

Well here's a couple of the songs we used to sing, done by the original artistes.


YouTube - Eurovision 1972 - The New Seekers - Beg, steal or borrow

YouTube - January - Pilot (remastered HQ audio)

YouTube - Roberta Flack - Killing me softly with his song.flv

YouTube - The first time (ever I saw your face) Roberta Flack

[G#Gill]

When I think that we only had 3 voices, and the New Seekers had 5 voices, we didn't do too badly singing stuff like this. Do you remember the Coca Cola advert?

YouTube - New Seekers - I'd Like ToTeach The World To Sing


I also enjoyed doing this one, even though they had more voices than us, we still made a passable rendition !


YouTube - Pussycat - Mississippi (Original Promo)