The Rockhouse Project Chapter -1

 

 

I was working at Rolls Royce Raynesway Derby as a progress co ordinater in 1982 but I was fed up with going to work in a factory every day. Having bought my own property in Alvaston i decided to rent out  the ground floor to get some money in since I intended to leave the factory job.

On September 1st 1982 I handed in my notice to leave Rolls Royce, my contract kept me there for another 4 weeks. I had no idea what I was going to do when I left but it did not matter, I felt life was not about being stuck in a factory all day. The company tried to persuade me to stay, and I came very close to changing my mind.

 

October 1st arrived, I was so excited , it was an amazing feeling at the age of 22 I was about to retire. When I arrived at work for the last time the security guard asked me to wait in the gate house.

my manager came down to me and asked for my works pass and film badge. he told me I did not have to work the rest of the shift and that I was free to leave after 5 years of serving my apprenticeship.

 

I said goodbye and walked clean out of there, along the drive  without looking back.  I felt utterly free.

Over the next few days I planned a lifestyle change to survive on state benefits and rent from my ground floor. the dss came round and said I could keep the rental income on top of my dole. something you could not do now. I got most of my mortgage paid.  

 

It was not possible to afford to run a car so I gave my land rover away to my friend Stuart to drive whilst I was on the dole. On the Monday morning I got up and cycled to town to go to pots electrical on Babington lane. I listened to radio Caroline on the radio and wished we had a club in Derby that played rock music like cleos used to.

I rode my bike to have a nosey round the old Derby playhouse building on scheveral  street. I decided that it may be worth seeing if the building was up for rent, I had started without realizing it on the rockhouse project.

 

I traced the owner a mr Sha in Nottingham, he wanted 13k  a year rent but the building was in a right state, I met sally chambers there to look round it.

What a mess, I stepped in a turd left by a tramp on the stage. it had a sloping floor which would have to be leveled, the stage was half the size of the room.

 

I took the train to Nottingham and negotiated a draft lease with mr sha. Over the next few months plans were made to change the playhouse to a rock club. It was a good idea to keep the existing signage on the building but change the word play to rock making the rockhouse.

 

I had no phone, yet needed to get breweries interested in financing a major club project with someone with no track record in the licensed trade.

 

Several meetings were arranged using the phone box on brackens lane. Most of that year was wasted by breweries who strung me along but never actually coming up with the cash. Sally Chambers help me write the cash flow forecast that eventually got me 5000 quid from Mr. walker at Nat west alvaston, secured against my house.

 

I kept looking at potential sites in town and near derby. One on Babington lane, one on dewent street, one on st peters street. I even tried to get a Pentecostal church. A bunker near elvaston castle was even considered, but the farmer wanted 15k a year and it was half underground.

 

I got a draft lease on a site at derwent street because I felt that the playhouse needed too much work doing on it.

 

Bass breweries were the front runners to back the project to convert the playhouse, I met Graham Bladen at the site, almost a year after the first site visit. he had  bad news for me, he said he was not prepared to back the playhouse, and suggested  I got a years bar experience and come back to him when I new the licensed trade. I thought F8ck that and decided to continue with a new site and try the other breweries. I contacted Paul orange estate agents for the site on Babington lane above bridges discount electrical store.

The Rockhouse Project Chapter -1a

 

 

Exactly a year after leaving Rolls Royce I made the decision to go back to the building on Babington lane above bridges discount electrical store.

 

This place was laid out like the old Cleo's rock club on London Road next to the now Zanzibar nightclub. It was a first floor venue built in 1939 as a department store. Many Derby people will have been taken to see Santa in this shop during the 1970 s when it was the Whitehouse toy department.

 

 

I contacted the owners Castles holdings of Hull , I said I would be interested in this property if they would guarantee a rent of 9k and most importantly a rent free period of 6 months. They agreed and I signed a 23 year lease with them.

     I went back to court to apply for a liquor license, this was granted to me but with a catch IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A MEMBERS CLUB. And as part of the conditions of giving a complete novice a late license only members and there two guests would be allowed in and you could not attend the club until you have been a member for at least 2 days, i.e. you could not just walk in off the street.

 

 I invited graham Bladen from Bass to come back to see my new project, I asked him for 20k, he said I was determined and he would only give me the cash when the liquor license was made final, and all the work had been inspected by the licensing justices.

  Problem, how do I pay for the building works when Bass wont pay up till its done.

 

The way round this was to ask if my friends would work for free and get paid when the club opens. Clive Buxton, Stuart chambers, Steve Bancroft, Who died in July 1984 ,Chris Shaw and another bloke who's name escapes me but drives a army truck decided to help me.

 

We proceeded to board up the windows (mistake number one) and to build the stage with wood from Harlow brothers. On one trip from harlows, the ¾ ply for the stage ended up all over Bradshaw way.

 

The council said that the building must be made sound proof to prevent noise being heard in the street. I made the mistake of getting all the windows boarded up with chipboard. Whistler, Clive and Stewart worked over a weekend to do this, only to have all their handiwork ripped down the following Monday.

The council said chipboard would not give the right level of noise reduction, they insisted on high density building blocks instead.

We were pushed for time and fed up, I hired a builder called whozit.

 

He bricked the windows up with the blocks in a couple of days and I installed the fans and baffles. Whistler came in on his way from work, he said what a bodge, he has put the blocks on the timber window cills, which was against building regs.

 

I called whozit back. He came in , got a huge chisel and walked round the club chopping the overhanging 1930s window cills off. we were horrified but could not afford to rebuild the lot.

Whistler noticed that the whole blocks resting on the remains of the wooden cills were able to be moved just by pushing on them. I had to go to Harlows and order massive builders planks which we bolted to the wall to hold the blocks in. They are still there today as far as I know. This fiasco delayed our opening by 2 weeks.

 

    I set up an open plan office in the middle of the club and spent most of my time in the saw mill, near where the bar is, chopping up timber for Clive and Stuart.

 

 

 

The daily routine was, I used to procure the materials for the building team of Clive Stuart and Chris who came in after doing a days work to continues with the rockhouse project. They worked till 11 at night, I supplied them with McDonalds and beer from the sitwell tavern via the back stairs door.

I remember how bright that room was back in 1982, with all the light streaming in through all those windows and at night the bazaar site of the streetlamp lighting up the stage.

 

Baretts Shoe Shop window

 

Whilst work was continuing building the stage and bar I had to go into town to use the phone, in those days mobile phones were not invented.

I went to the eagle center, and rand up graham Bladen at bass breweries to see if my loan application had been accepted.

Getting hold of Mr. Bladen was almost impossible, when he picked up the phone I was surprised he was there.

 

We talked about his meeting with the financial department, just as he got to the punch line, the money ran out on the phone, I slammed the bloody thing down and ran over to the shoe shop to get some change.

Suddenly there was an almighty crash, I ended up on the floor, blood streaming down my head and face. I passed out and woke up in the shop with a lady wiping my face with a sponge. I had ran through the shop window, luckily it was 10mm laminated, causing 500 quids worth of damage. AS soon as I came round I got up and legged it out the shop back to the club. I was as white as a ghost  apparently and puked up with shock.

 

 

 

The Rockhouse Project Chapter 2

 

                                             The opening Night 

 

 

Work on fitting the Babington lane site started in October 1983. The building was an empty shell with a white roof and wooden floor.

I did not have the money to pay a building firm to come in and fit out the club so I asked around to see if friends were interested in helping, with the promise of money at a later date.

 

It was an exciting thing to be involved in, especially when you think that we were all in our early twenties.

I had to go to court and tell lies about how I was going to provide provision of substantial food in order to get the late license, this would prove to be a big problem because our budget would not stretch to making a kitchen.

 

We worked mostly in the evenings on fitting the room out, my job was to purchase building materials in the day ready for when the workers came in at about six in the evening. They all had day jobs and I was very lucky to get such help. I seemed to have a natural ability to manage this project, I was driven by the determination to succeed.

 

By March 1984 the club was as ready as it was going to be, so I proposed on opening on Sat 17 March St Patrick Night. I had to go to court to have the license granted final.

The magistrates imposed conditions on the license because I was new to the trade and also to appease the existing clubs in the town.

 

They insisted that it should be a private members club and that members must have their membership confirmed 48 hours before their first visit to the club.

 

Members must be over 18 and have a membership card to show on entry to the club.

This was an impossible condition to meet. But I had 1000 membership cards made and I went round town giving the things to anyone who wanted one without charging a fee.

I had shown the court that there was a demand for the club by presenting a 5000 signature petition so finding members should have been easy.

 

On Friday 16th March 1984 I had to make my final court appearance, the magistrates were not satisfied that I had complied fully and insisted the club was inspected again, this would mean that we could not open the following day, I insisted to the court that all the work would be completed by 5pm that day.

Surprisingly the court decided that they would send a court official to do the inspection at 5pm and if all the points outstanding were resolved then we could open on the Saturday night.

 

All that day we frantically fitted a hand basin behind the bar and laid a suitable floor covering in the gents toilet and got the emergency lights working.

 

The emergency lights were a triumph for the club, they came from an old cinema in Nottingham, it was a “maintained system” ie it was fed from one central battery bank rather than single lights with their own batteries. It was all done in pyro, which was a copper tube like cable with powder inside it. I installed most of the system which was inspected by the fire officer.

 

We were given a maximum capacity of 300 persons. This limit was set by the fire officer because of the number of fire exits in the room and a maximum evacuation time of 2 and a half minutes.

 

 chapter2a, the opening night Saturday 17 March 1984

 

I got up early and went to the club for the first time as manager, I had a word with old cleos staff to see if any wanted to work for me. I had a lady called Wendy and a Doorman called Alan Milward . The D.J. John Pountin had worked at Cleo's on London road and was well known in Derby.

 

The company Sigma Sound Enterprises of Nottingham Were still working on the lights that day, but the sound system was operational. It was a 3Kw studio master and 4 FRO cabinets suspended from the ceiling joists above the dance floor.

 

My bar manager Wendy told me that I needed some change for the bar, problem all the banks were closed, so I had to go round town in the afternoon buying things for ten and twenty pound notes. I remember buying about 15 derby telegraph newspapers that day.

 

My sister Isobel agreed to help with the bar because I had not a clue about bars. On the Saturday evening things were getting tense, The lighting people had not finished the Job, only two lights were operational. But the club looked nice with its new carpet and seated area, everything looked new.

 

Tempers were getting frayed as there was only an hour to go and there was a huge crowd outside the club.

The lighting company walked out leaving us with no power and no lights.

My friend Clive strapped out the phase that was not working in the old 1930s fuse box outside the gents bogs. After a massive bang and sparks everywhere we had power and were set to open.

 

I said that the first thing that the customers coming in should hear was Radio Caroline's Loving Awareness which I think was made from a beetles record. Then the Who and Baba O Riley at full volume 3000 watts.

 

New customers ran into the place greeting Alan Milward like he was an old friend. They could tell that this was going to be new era in derby because I had got one thing right, the sound was shit hot.

 

Within about half an hour we had hit the capacity figure of 300 yet the place looked empty, its at this point where I played roulette with public safety for the first time, we let a further 500 in then turned the rest away.

The place was rammed It was my first night in charge and I had already broken two rules, one over subscribing the venue and two letting non members in.

 

During that night we had two power failures we ran out of change and ended up giving most of the beer away, the sound went off 3 times, amps were over heating and shutting down due to thermal protection..

The makeshift staff worked well but I knew I had to advertise properly and make a team.

 

It was an amazing night, the first of many, being a biker type place made it different to anything in the area, I intended that it would be a club for the customers, a place they could call their own.

 

After the night was over I got a feeling of power and responsibility, I was to maintain this good feeling for nearly 20 years.

 

At the end of the night all the money was put in a red bucket which I took home in my car, I left it at the side of my bed in my pokey little house on brackens lane Alvaston.

On Sunday 18 March 1984 I got up and for the first time had that knackered feeling that would be ever present for many years. It took ages to get up and get the day started.

 

I went to the club to clean up the mess. I had no cleaners , it took ages to clear up the sick and mop the toilets out. Oh my god have I created a shit job for me, I cant do this I hate it. I must get some cleaners. My friend Richard went out with Della, she was well fit, she said she would do the cleaning for me.

 

That afternoon I took the red bucket round to my friend SPLODGE to count the money. We had to sort out all the change and notes because it was mixed up. We laid the money out in 100 pound piles. His floor was a wash with cash, 3800 quid in all.

 

I had been on the dole for two years and had a repossession order on my house so it was amazing to see such a great wad of cash.

 

I was able to start paying off my debt to those who had helped me set up the club.

 

 

 

         chapter3                       The Early Years

 

 

The new nightclub had survived its opening night. There was now a few days rest until it would be open again. This gave me time to put an advert in the paper and get some staff.

 

Most of those who helped me on the opening night were tempory and had jobs. The only one to stay was Alan Milward the door man. Before the club opened I was approached by a couple of local villains who were trying to get the door post but when they knew I had got Alan Milward they soon fucked off.

 

This was my first shrude  move in clubs, getting a doorman that nobody would mess with.

When Terry Christian from BBC radio Derby waltz straight into the club without paying, Alan Milward smacked him one and said you pay here mate. Terry Christian said I am From the BBC, Alan said I don’t give a fuck where you from you pay here or fuck off..

 

On the following Mondays nights program you can guess that Terry Christian gave us a right slagging off making out the club was rough and unsafe.

 

I had a few respondents to my add in the evening paper for staff. I got a new D.J. for Saturdays and a bar manager called Ron. Ron was a tall thin chap who was a traditional  pub landlord type. He got some staff to come with him.

 

 Della started work full time as our cleaner. The nightclub began to take shape. I got the lighting company back in to Finnish off the lighting rig.

Splodge agreed to D.J. on Friday nights until I could find someone. He played progressive rock mostly. On Saturday Rocking Reginald played what the bikes wanted.

 

Reginald was a RATTUS biker, Derby had two rival bike gangs Rattus and Lupus. This was going to prove a problem in the future because rival bikers fight.

 

It was Alan Milwards job to keep them apart, he got round this by hitting both of them whenever they caused trouble, and he made them all pay at the door. Rocking Reg used to have about 97 people on his guest list which was rather taking the piss.

 

Initially the nightclub opened on Fridays and Saturday nights only so this made it easy to run and gave me plenty of time to enjoy the week.

 

I used to work Mondays and Tuesdays take the rest of the week off and resume at the Rockhouse for what was called the Keg Hump which was on the Friday morning.

 

The beer cellar was at the top of the stairs so each beer barrel had to be carried up two flights. We took turns in a relay to get the beer kegs up, on Fridays Ron would clean the beer pipes and pull the product trough, he used to drink it to make sure it tasted ok.

 

I noticed that he was getting into the habit of drinking in the day time in the club, I decided to introduce a strict drinking ban on all staff during the day. They were not allowed to even taste the beer when cleaning the pipes. We measured how much product was needed to be drawn through and pulled extra half pint off just to be sure all cleaning water was out.

 

I allowed each member of staff two free drinks to have after their shift at night, but there was never enough time to sit and drink it so the staff took 2 cans each home. I had to lead by example so I stopped drinking whilst the club was open.

 

It’s a good job because I used to drink 2 pints during the night whilst I was managing the club, it must have looked very un-professional. These rules remained in place for the next 17 years.

 

Saturday nights were busy with about 400 punters every week, but Fridays were more difficult to fill. I decided to put bands on Fridays along with the rock disco . Splodge did not like the bands because it made his job hard. It was almost impossible to get anyone back on the dance floor after the band.

 

In order to keep him happy I decided to book his favorite band The Enid. These were a band fronted by Robert Godfrey from Barclay James Harvest. They were a self indulgent progressive rock outfit with a massive P.A. system.

 

At dinner time I noticed a fit girl waiting outside the club, she said she had come to see the band, I told her we were not open for 7 hours. I offered her lunch in the restaurant over the road and said she could come in free if she helped in with the equipment.

I liked her a lot, and I got the impression that my luck with women was changing.

 

 

The night was massive, 600 came to see them, Clive who helped make the stage played drums that night for the last song. We recorded the gig, 

The girl I met stayed at my house that night, the following morning I took her to the M1 j28 where she said she would flag a lift to Leeds. I arranged to see her again.

 

I drove to Leeds like a dick head on the Wednesday after the gig, When I got to the council flat where she lived, the walls were covered in nude glamour photos of her.

She told me she was in a band and would I take her to band practice 15 miles away.

 

I took her , she ignored me all night and was all over one of the band members. I left and never saw her again.

 

I carried on booking bands for Fridays, some had low turnouts but still demanded the full fee. I booked Magnum in October 1984 I think. They cost a massive 800 pounds plus P.A. and drinks rider.

 

I had lost money on the two previous gigs so I rang up the promoter who I think was Phil Macintyre to cancel Magnum. He said you signed a contract and you will pay the fee, end of story or your in court. The gig went ahead, it was the biggest band the club would have on in its history, 800 paying customers. Magnum were just emerging on the music scene , they were from Birmingham, It was nice to see they brought their mums with them. I think it was their biggest gig so far.

 

I carried on with bands on Fridays, But most were expensive and lost big money. Splodge felt it was disrupting his nights, some weeks it was busy, others it was empty and cold.

 

 

The first Christmas

 

The year so far had been ok, I learned that people would not automatically come to the club, you had to work hard to keep them in the place. They could choose from The Highwayman at Cheadle , Rock City in Nottingham, or J.Bs in Dudley.

 

I decided that the best way to deal with Christmas was to treat the greasy bikers like kids.

So I went to cash and carry and purchased as much shaving foam and party string as possible. The door staff were told to stuff as many custard pies into the faces of the customers as possible, we had water filled balloons and streamers, party hats and sweets. It went down a storm surprisingly.

 

New years eve, the first blunder.

 

I was young and from a white English poor ish background, TV was full of Monty python, I had been brought up watching Alf Garnet and I was full of myself.

 

There was no reason to change my outlook on life. On new years eve 1984  I arrived early, I put on the heater loaned to me from British Telecom (26 KW Load frame from Derby Telephone exchange) the phone rang.

 

A customer had seen the advert in the paper, and were asking about the music policy. I was asked this question, Do you let coloured people in, I gave an indiscrete reply ,he told me to fuck off, I quickly realised that I was actually talking to a person of colour. I tried to correct myself by saying “they don’t like our kind of music.

“

I realized I had been careless and a mistake had been made but forgot about it. I think the D.J. was Rockin Reg that night. At about midnight I heard banging and shouting at the main doors. The doorman were battling with a large crowd of colored people. They closed the doors which were the original shop doors to the building. They were chanting and making threats. Suddenly a lump of concrete came flying through the glass doors. They were shattered, police riot vans turned up I remember looking down Babington lane and seeing all the dark faces in all the doorways of the street. I realized I had caused this problem. But I see myself as a product of my environment and it was quite normal to have such prejudices in the 1980s. I rather suspect that the men that turned up and smashed the doors also had prejudices, but I accept I made a mistake and learned from it.

And in later years incorporated my tolerance into recruiting policy.

 

We took the doors off and boarded the club up after that night . when the builders opened after the holiday I had to have new doors and frames fitted !!!!

 

We took a week off after the new year then faced our first period of low trade.

When the club got going again I had my first major crisis to deal with.

 

This was a serious and difficult situation, but the way it was resolved was to characterise my handling of future difficulties and it proved that I had a grasp of the job that I had chosen for myself.

 

                                                       Biker Shit

 

As I said previously Derby had two motorbike gangs the Rattus and the Lupus.

My head Door man was Alan Milward , he was the head door man, he got me the massive safe which I called Cyril Smith.

 

Alan Milward was old school doorman, he did not take any shit, but he was completely loyal, and he never questioned what he was asked to do.

 

Working along side him was Tim Thornhill and another chap whose name escapes me, they were both Rattus.

 

They did not like Alan Milward and wanted him gone, so that they could establish themselves as in charge of the door. This would have been very useful to fellow Rattus members having them on the door, one slight problem how to get rid of Mr Milward.

 

An Incident took place involving Alan Milward I think it may have involved a female customer I cant exactly remember. The two other doorman asked me to get rid of him, I said no. Two weeks later and numbers at the club were falling I was presented with a petition signed by 800 customers, asking for Alan Milward to be removed or they will boycott the club.

 

This is where I had to think carefully and it was the most pivotal of moments in the clubs history, if handled wrong it could have meant a Gang takeover of the club.

 

I realised that 800 customers was a serious amount and that they had to get their way. I decided to get rid of all the door staff in one fail swoop. I went to Alan's Home to tell him to his face, I said that in my view he should stay but we were loosing trade, I told him that in view of the situation I would get rid off all the door staff and would not have any one bike gang dominating my door.

 

We shook hands , he said you are the first person to sack me in all my working life. I feel I was lucky to come out in one piece, but he had a brain and could see what I was aiming to do.

 

Word spread that Alan Milward had left, numbers went up again.

Problem.. I had no door staff everyone was asking what I was going to do about it. I asked Harley Graham. He was a Lupus I said I cant have One group on the door, he gave me a phone number of someone called Izzy.

 

Izzy lived in Burton upon Trent. I asked him if he would like to discuss the idea of managing my door and setting up an independent door team.

 

He came up with Deck and Steve. Izzy was, and is a straight talking down to earth chap who faces danger and gets on with the job.

 

Deck was a boxer who was placed highly in the boxing scene, Steve was a tyre fitting depot manager.

 

This team were the hardest door in the city, but they were polite and we mannered, but when shit hit the fan they were excellent. Several rattus had a go but our door held strong.

 

Customers felt safe, I could relate to Deck because of his socialist values. It was the time of the miners strike and Deck used to go and kick coppers on the picket line so I respected him.

We would often stand on the door taking about how we hated the police and the Thatcher government.

 

I felt confident having these people around and so did the customers. I often went to the door to give deck a cup of tea to find him arguing about marxism with someone.

He always used to go on about Mostredamus theory of the end of the world.

 

He used to say it would start in the middle east. I reccon he got that about right.

I was never quite sure about Steve I did not talk with him too much because he used to try to intimidate me a little.

The doorman were told that they must never throw anyone down the stairs, if they did they will walk that night. I would prepare their wages and they would be off, no questions.

 

The club was getting stupidly busy, Splodge was finding it hard to deal with the dick heads on Friday so he left. I asked Izzy If he knew a good D.J. he said yep try Pete Lawrence. Pete was older than our customer base, he worked at a pet shop.

Pete started work on Friday nights on the payroll ! unlike most of the staff.

In those days most people wanted the good old cash in hand.

 

Pete Lawrence started up his disco night on Fridays, It was like a bikers wedding disco every week , but he was getting 550 every week. We still had a few bands to put on that we had booked before he started.

 

                                          The PETER DARE crisis

 

When the band the Enid played a bloke in a white suit turned up, he was a villain but I did not know, he got in with Robert Godfrey the lead singer and agreed to manage them ( a big mistake)

                                                                                           

Ron and …….. his barman had left so I had to find a replacement. I interviewed Hilary later called Von Hillary in view of her strictness. I remember sitting next to Hillary in the club at a big table counting the money each week, she was given the keys to Cyril smith (our safe)

 

Some times I felt attracted to Hillary because she was quite fit, if not a little older than me.

At the Enid gig I did notice how well she got in with the man in white suite but I did not think anything of it.

                                                                                   

A couple of weeks later we were having a band practice at my house, a group of friends including Splodge, he was on the drums in my upstairs front room, I did not use downstairs because it was haunted by the ghost of Mrs Murgatroid, the neighbors said she was murdered in the downstairs room by her husband, not sure if that’s true.

 

Splodge said Paul why is Peter Dare outside your house with a fit woman. We all poked our heads round the curtain it was him. He was doing a recky of my home address.

 

He said your going to get done over mate, he is a right criminal, Splodge should know because he was in the Enid fan club and was always talking to Robert Godfrey on the phone..

  Splodge said you must report this to the police, so I went to Full Street and told them.

The pigs said what do you want us to do about it, I said put it in the station log that this has happened.

 

It was reading festival ,off I went for the weekend. It was great I felt that I was a part of this great business, I gave out flyers for the club.

 

When I came back home I nipped in the club to get some cash, I noticed the strong room door open, and even worse Cyril Smith was open, both his draws were pulled out. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that I had been done over and it looked like keys had been used.

 

I phone the pigs ,I hated them because every night they were on Thatcher's  bbc news arresting miners.

I went to the police they interviewed me nice cop , nasty cop, they kicked my chair but I did not fall off it cus I knew that’s what they did.

They said they had heard it all befor and I had arranged it as an insurance job. I called the officer a fucking pig to his face and said I have not got any insurance.

 They arrested von Hilary I told them it was not her and they should remember I reported peter Dare at my house two weeks before

 

They came to the club to interview the staff I felt they were just trying to find out how we work . Von Hilary was still in Clink. I was sure she would not do that . I said why don’t you interview peter dare , they said listen sunshine don’t tell us how to do our job. I came out with the famous one liner. I said  I don’t want the money back if it means wankers like you are going to find it.

 

The police stormed out making guarded threats against me probably about me holding the license. Von Hilary was released, I do not believe peter dare was ever interviewed. We lost 3800 pounds and had to pay V.A.T on it.

 

Two months later peter Dare was arrested and charged with the manufacture of class A drugs and was given 5 years in prison.

To this day I believe he was under surveillance at that time and to interview him about my money may have blown the police operation against him. Our cash was never recovered. I stood by Von hilary in my view she was obviously involved by letting Peter dare nick the keys from her house without breaking in.

I felt nieve in not seeing the truth. She left of her own Free will soon after. 

 

More Biker shit

 

 

It was the summer of 1985 I think, the lads went on a waterski holiday each year.

Normally to the south of france.

This meant that I was away from the club for a week or so. I left Von Hilary in charge whilst I was away. It was on a Friday night, we had been driving back all night and day. We took it in turn to drive.

The Rockhouse had two rival bike gangs that regularly met there, one was called the Rattus and the other was the Lupus, each group had about 20 or so members, they used to drink a lot so I did not mind having them in, provided they paid at the door and did not act like they owned the place.

 

We had had several incidents involving the odd fight but nothing compared what was to come.

The lads pulled up outside the club in clives red landrover with the boat towed behind. It was a shamozzle as we called it.

I invited them in for a beer, I felt proud to own this busy club, we had a beer and talked about the holiday, the lads did not stay long because they were tired and wanted to get home.

I stayed in the club, it was just past midnight. When I collected my thoughts I did notice a strange atmosphere in the club, there was a greasy bastard wearing a back patch. And motorcycle leathers.

Strategically placed around the club were more of these bikers. I was not in the mood for club management, I had been up for 24 hours and was a customer just having a beer.

I think the D.J. was Splodge.

 

Suddenly it kicked off, these bikers started battling with the Rattus and Lupus in the club.

Several people were injured, some with stab wounds. Bottles and glasses were smashed, someone got thrown over the bar just like in the movies. I ran to the office and rang the police. We only had two doorman on that night, I think it was Alan Milward and Tim Thornhill, not sure its too long ago.

 

It took ages for the police to arrive, the club shut early, one problem was the fact that there was supposed to be a record fair on the following morning . The cleaners came in at half nine, by that time the newspaper were on to the story, one of the barmen who was helping clean up gave an interview to the paper, against club policy. It made front page news. When I arrived at the club at half past ten members of the public were already in the building for the record fair, they had not finished clearing up the broken glass and smashed chairs.

There was blood all over the pay phone where a customer had tried to phone ambulance the night before.

I cleaned up the blood , it was foul. I never opened the club in the daytime again. I also vowed never to go in the place on the same day I came back from holiday.

I did break this promise later and paid the price.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hotter Case

 

 

By the summer of 1987 the Rockhouse had become established as on of the top rock venues in the midlands. It was a band venue and a so called rock disco club. It was open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturday nights. Tuesday was a cheap/ free entry rock night with the two Nicks , Smith and Swetman. This got about 200 punters in and was a way of paying the rent. We used to open early in order to show the young ones on the T.V. and we put the sound over the P.A, it was bazaar because all the customers used to sit on the floor glued to the tv watching Rick, Vivian, Neil and the other one making pricks of them selves. This program caught the mood of Thatcher's Britain and the students like it so it was important we put it out.

 

It was November 5 1987, a Saturday bonfire night, I had planned to go to Drum Hill firework display with friends.

Drum Hill is near Derby and is home to the local scout camp. The firework display and bonfire was their main fundraising event of the year although I always sneeked in through the woods to avoid paying the £2.00.

 

I asked Tessa if she would open the club up for me and I would come down later after we had been to the fireworks and maybe a beer in the Bell & Harp in Little Eaton.

 

I got to the club at about 11:45 , it was not as busy as usual but it was ok, I think the D.J. was Rocking Reginald.

 

I was completely unaware that a catastrophe had taken place, I did not stay long at the club because it was quiet.

 

A month later I brown envelope arrived in my office, It was from Tim's Solicitors who were on our street at the bottom of the hill. It detailed an accident involving their client Carol Hotter. It held us responsible for a fall she had in the club on 5th November 1987 at 11:05 and it asked me to pass this letter on to my insurers.

Carol was a fit biker tart of the type the club was set up for.

 

The following Friday night I asked my staff if the knew anything of this accident, no one did, apart from one of my door staff Pete M who said he saw it.

 

He said she was pissed and fel over the beer she had spilt and that here mates took her out of the club presumably home or to hospital. I decided she was just trying it on and that this would go away so I ripped up the letter and binned it.

 

More letters arrived and they got binned like the first one. Then came a recorded delivery letter, it said that she had been awarded damages by default because I did not attend court to defend the case. I was ordered to pay £500 legal costs and £1400 in damages.

 

At this moment it had become serious, I contacted my insurers to see if they would help. They said no because I had prejudiced the case by my late reporting to them in view of the fact a judgement had been made. They conceded on the telephone that if I got the judgement set aside they may look again at the case.

 

This was difficult for me because I knew that I was now embroiled in a legal  quagmire. I decided that I would appeal the decision but first I had to get the ruling set aside.

 

I wrote to a judge asking that the original judgement be set aside because I was on holiday at the time and did not receive the notification of the hearing date. This tactic worked surprisingly and the judgement was set aside. The matter would have to be heard now at the high court in front of a judge because I was contesting the case.

 

I went to leeds early on a spring morning with my papers to the insurance company arguing that I had got the original judgement set aside and asked if they could now help me defend the case.

They listened to my representations and said they would write to me with the outcome.

Predictably a letter arrived but it did not have the result intended, they said that they would not indemnify me due to late reporting and that this was final.

 

I had to take this case on alone, I was not prepared to pay the astronomical legal costs of about £10,000 to have the case handled by layers.

 

Suddenly I was preparing affidavits, applying to courts, preparing evidence, serving papers just like solicitors do.

 

My first task was to try to delay this case as long as possible in the hope that the plaintiff would give up.

So I tried to get the case heard out of Derby because I argued I would not get a fair hearing in this sleepy town where I was known and hated.

This delayed the case for a year but was not successful. It then took another 6 months to agree a trial date.

 

I prepared my case and then paid for a barrister to advise me on court procedure and look over the papers, his honest opinion based on similar cases at that time was very pessimistic he said it was not likely to succeed and I would be wasting my money asking him to take on the case.

He said he would if I wanted to, but reminded me that Sainsburys had a similar case and that at that time (not now ) once someone entered your premises you had a duty of care over them and that you had to demonstrate that systems were in place to deal with slippery floors. Basically the law was biased in favour of the claimant. I even tried to offer the defence that the material of her shoes may have contributed to the accident.

 

He advised me that this was a damage limitation exercise and maybe an out of court settlement could be achieved.

 

I went round to see the claimant in person at her home to make her an offer. I could not believe that this young woman customer could put me through all this, I was sure she had not been injured and was just trying to get money out of me. My dad says” its your own class that brings you down “ . Here was one of the very people who I set this club up for and she was jeopardising my future, I had not got the funds to pay her, it had gone too far. I offered her the original amount without prejudice in the hope she would settle. She rang up her solicitor at home at half seven at night which was strange. She refused my offer and later a transcript of my meeting was used against me in court.

 

Eventually after about 4 years of legal wrangling the case was listed at the high Court Queen bench Division in Derby, it was a hot July day I think.

 

Carols team presented the case against me, giving the impression that the club was dangerous and dirty and no effort was made to clean up any spillages. She had a whiteness statement from Doctor Fraser Moody of the accident and emergency department detailing her injury to her wrist. He claimed she would have problems for life, getting worse as she got older. I knew Fraser Moody , I had been photographed by the evening paper presenting has flying squad with money raised at the club, now here he was giving evidence against me.

I contested his statement with a witness statement of my own, I was raging when I wrote it, I ripped his evidence to shreds and stuck a white sticky lable on the bottom saying NOW FUCK OFF. The judge read it and laughed, it was funny, he asked me if I wrote this I said no it must be one of my staff having a joke, he said it looks like your writing.

 

I did mean it, I wanted the court to know how defenceless I was on this matter, I was not even there for god sake.

I kept on fireing questions at Carol Hotter, I think she cried in court, here friend stood up to me in court and answered the questions I put in a defiant manor.

 

The judge said “principles will cost you dearly mr Johnson “ as I said that I had resisted this claim from the beginning because I felt it was un just.

Everyone in the court knew I was up for the chop and that it was going to be big money.

 

They said that I never intended to pay the claim and would rather go bankrupt than pay it. This was interesting because I had told one of my doorman this. His name was Wal and it later came out the Carol was his friend.

 

The judge retired , it took him half an hour to consider the case. He ruled in her favour and ordered me to pay her legal costs of £6500 and I had to pay her £7500 my legal costs pre trial were about £1800 .

 

They were advised to prepare recovery action because I said I would not pay.

 

Weeks went by, I was still refusing to pay, they got an order to enter the club and remove assets to sell.

 

To recover nearly £15000 would have ended the club, all the staff were told that it would be over when the bailiffs came. This case caused stain at home , Liz and I walked in the country wondering what to do. I decided that maybe I would pay it and rip off the V.A.T. or something to get the money back. I was Bitter but had found a vehicle to maybe get my dignity back. I went to the fines office with the cash and paid it in full.

 

Carol Hotter got a new fitted kitchen and new bike leathers I think. I lost a lot of hair.

Three years later one of my staff John walker who used to go on demonstrations against poll tax with me, tried the same trick, he said he fell over in club. No one saw it but on this occasion I passed it on to the insurance, they paid him £3600, there is no evidence he was even in the club that night.

The law is a little different these days, it is by no means automatic that a claim will be paid . its more difficult to prove a public liability claim. When I was running the club the claimant need only prove the accident happened and they usually got the cash. I stood up to this and lost .The judge said principles will cost you dearly mr Johnson, I said fuck off.

 

 

 

 

Nineteen eighty seven and all that.

 

 

After the Peter Dare crisis mentioned earlier, I decided to re advertise for new staff. It was exciting having all these mostly young girls applying for jobs. It gave me quite a buzz interviewing them; it gave me a feeling of control but in a good sense.

 

One of the new applicants was Tessa; she had worked in browns club and knew about bars.

She was taken on to replace the disgraced Von Hilary; Tessa managed the bar and did the books and wages for me.

 

I also promoted Izzy the doorman to club manager. He helped me to focus on the job of getting punter's through the doors.

Izzy was a hard working grafter who took on challenges head on. His view was that if you give the scum an inch they will take a mile.

 

With his team of doorman ,the bikers were made to pay and were not allowed to intimidate customers in the way they used to.

 

I got the reputation for managing a difficult club, but I kept well away from any members of the trade. We had strict policies about not talking our business to other rival clubs.

 

This is where I learnt my first lesson that SUCCESS BRINGS FAILIER WITH CLUBS.

 

We were busy and making serious cash, I had already paid off in full the mortgage on my house and felt on top of the world.

 

I decided to go to the south of France  with my friends for a water ski camping holiday.

 

Just before I went there was the usual problem renewing the entertainment license, I posted the completed forms a little bit late.

 

The license lapsed and had to be re applied for, this seemed like a formality.

The council realised we were vulnerable and someone possibly councillor Maultby (labour) alerted local residents and organised them to object.

 

A date for the hearing was set, but I was due to be on holiday, so I asked Izzy to attend the hearing and ask for an adjournment saying I was Ill.

 

I would pick up the pieces when I got home, I did not realise that this was not within Izzys comfort Zone as they say these days.

 

He was worried, what if they did not accept his excuses, he agonised with Tessa about the position I had put him in.

Meanwhile I was waterskiing in the south of France with my mates. When I telephoned the club to find out how it went I got a shock. Tessa told me that Izzy did not attend the hearing and that the case went ahead and that the objectors won the day.

 

The club had to close now unless an application was made to appeal this decision.

 

I said to Tessa not to worry I had put Izzy in a bad position and that I would appeal.

 

On the following Saturday night a police office came to see me and told me the club could not open because it had lost its license. I said I will submit the appeal forms on Monday morning.

He said in that case I may open but it was technically illegal if I did not appeal.

 

When Decker the doorman came in he said, “YOU WONT SEE IZZY AGAIN “ he has left and gone to spain.

 

I had to attend court at an emergency sitting that Tuesday after normal court business to get the license transferred into my name again, and to lodge the formal appeal.

  

He was Ill and spent 2 weeks in bed. I told Deck that it was partly my fault that he was put in such a bad position and to tell him he could have his job back when he was ready.

 

I decided to fight hard to get the license back, and met With Izzy to plan the fight.

 

Nineteen eighty seven and all that, getting the license back.

 

 

With no entertainment  license the club could not open, but I had appealed  against the decision to close the Rockhouse. I had previously transfured the license into Izzys name because of alleged pirate radio activities upstairs in the building. Izzy was a clean skin, a more respectable figure than me.

 

Since his departure I had to get the liquor licence back in my name. This first phase was completed with ease but getting the entertainment license back was harder. There were strong objections from locals.

 

In those days the appeal of refusal to grant an entertainment license had to be heard in a magistrates court.

 

By this time I was getting street wise and understood how to play or not to play the game.

I worked out that my defence to this case would have to be kept as secret as possible.

 

In order to achieve this I got a solicitor in Burton upon Trent. and he got Roy wade QC in Birmingham to take on the case, his costs were 400 pounds per hour in court.

 

Statistical evidence about incidents involving all the clubs in town were gathered.

It showed quite clearly that our club was only a minor player when it came to noise and violence.

The council structure plan for the city showed that the old peoples flats were secondary users of the inner city, the primary users were retail, light industrial and entertainment.

 

The noise associated with clubs was part and parcel with living in the city centre.

 

If I had chosen to use a local firm of solicitors I am sure I would have lost the case, but nobody had heard of Roy Wade QC. I spent over an hour in the witness box, answering questions from both sides. I was well used to being in court and was not in the slightest bit intimidated by it.

We had had several meetings about it and had dummy runs at the case in the club.

Tessa would try to ask difficult questions of me in order that I got used to cross examination.

 

Roy Wade QC wiped the floor with them, ripping apart their flimsy case. Even the rich bastard that owned the street got a grilling. He said our club had caused an increase in damage to his car park, but could not offer any actual evidence. He wore a brown suit and white graph paper shirt. He looked an old fashioned dick completely behind the times.

 

The bench retired to consider the evidence. They came back into the room to announce that the application was successful . This case cost the council 11 thousand pounds apparently.

Despite objections from the police, the  council, locals business including the Eclipse nightclub and local residents I had won back the entertainment license. In the paper it said this case made legal history because it was the fist time an entertainment licence had been won back at appeal. I was never certain about this claim but it was to keep the council off my back for 15 years.

 

 

 

 

 

I promoted Tessa to the job of club manager and Izzy came back as senior door supervisor.

Janet who was a hard working bar cleaner and bar maid was given the job as bar manager. She worked with Kevin Clancy and had fun doing the job.

Sadly both of them died in early 2003.

 

During this time of turmoil there was some joy, on one night that Izzy was managing a female customer demanded to see the manager, she was objecting to a rude video being shown whilst Brian was D.J.ing, Izzy asked me to sort it, the customer said she was offended. I asked Brian to put a MTV video on instead. Brian foolishly left the video in the D.J box so I watched it later!

 

Izzy had an advert in the paper for bar staff and a cook. One applicant was the girl who had complained about the porno video. She was tall, shapely and looked like Della who was our cleaner.

 

He gave her the job as cook. When I came to the club on the following Thursday evening I waited to be picked up by the lads for the lads night out. It was clives turn to drive (cardboard cut-out as we called the driver who could not drink).

 

I said Clive come and have a look at this bird, we peeped through the window in the kitchen what had been partially blocked up by bin liner. We looked through the gap through the Georgian wired glass. She is fit I said, I am going to ask her out.

 

That Saturday night I took her home to north parade where she lived.  She was 19 and a photography student at Derby university. Her flat was the pits, the kitchen sink was full of pots and flies were going round and round the light but I liked her and she agreed to go out for a beer on the Tuesday night.

 

Tuesday at 7:30 I waited for her but she did not show up, I told Clive on the ham radio that I had been stood up again and I would see him down the pub.

 

It was a nice spring evening, the birds were singing, just then a Jag pulled up, driven by a famous painter who lectured at the uni. She got out his car, she was pissed and had lost her keys.

She had forgot about our date. I said I would break into her flat to let her in. I climbed up the front of the building like spider man, I forced open the sash window, it jammed, the window frame was weak.

 

I managed to roll my body over the frame knowing that if it gave way I would be cut badly. I got into the room and opened the door to let the flies out.

Liz came in and made me a cup of tea. She looked nice, in a dress. We went to the bluebell inn for a beer. I talked about me all night.

 

We went out again, and seemed to get on well. Eventually we got married and had a child who is Harvey.

 

Liz would go on to share the emotional burden of that club, but would be a great strength to me during what would be a very difficult 10 years. She got very little in return for her support which is regretful as I look back.

Live Aid

 

 

On Friday 12th July 1985 I saw and article on the 6 o clock BBC news, it showed the stage being setup for a concert the following day.

 

It looked quite interesting, but there were often gigs at Wembley Stadium so it was nothing out of the ordinary.

In the nightclub we had one TV it was in the food area of the club that we called the Alf Parrish Dining Suite named after the chief constable who got done for spending 25,000 on his luxurious office.

 

I came into the club about 11am on Sat 13 July 1985. I put the telly on to see this gig from Wembley.

From the build-up to the concert I suddenly realised this was going to be history in the making. I rang up Adamson TV and asked if they had any old telly's. I got a couple and also had some Redifusion standard sets upstairs. We also had a large projector that was the size of a piano.

 

I went down stairs to Bridges discount store and got a Sharp VHS video recorder. It cost 300 quid, it looked cheap and nasty but actually lasted for 16 years !

 

I frantically put up the TV sets on brackets from pots across the road. I wired the audio directly into the P.A system which was already 3000 watts active.

 

As Bonno walked onto the stage at one o clock , I had the concert on the P.A and two TV sets.

It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up so to speak, I knew that this was one of the most important musical events of the century and it was unfolding before my eyes and ears.

Up stairs we had an old grundig 9030 projector but it was big and the picture small.

It was a rear projection hood type, I removed the hood and took off the back panel so  that the tree guns could project onto a blanket hung from the ceiling.

One problem was that the image was upside down, so I had to invert the gun assemble, also each gun had 23,000 volts on it and the back would have to be left off.

 

That night Paddy was due to be D.J ing , I decided to ask him to run the live aid concert on the P.A. He said this is a load of Hippy Shit and it wont go down very well.

I was furious so I went onto the stage and put the thing on myself.

It was a busy night , some of the younger punters did not like it but Led Zeppelin went down well.

 

The Rockhouse was the first club to have large screen projection in Derby the first club to play compact disks and the first club to have an active P.A. system.

 

Ten years to the day from the live aid gig we had a live aid night, it was a Thursday, we ran the film from the original concert recorded on the sharp VHS I got from Bridges discount. The Tapes were kept in the safe for ten years. Live aid was not shown on the TV during the period so it was a nostalgia trip to see it

again.

 

 

 

The arrival of the 1990s

 

 

The club was open 3 nights a week Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Friday was Pate Lawrence which was a disco night interrupted by the vocational band ,  Saturday we had 3 D.Js who worked in rotation. Paddy, Tiptoe Tony and Brian. Tuesdays was a free night of rock stuff with D.J. Nick Smith.

 

During this time I had been able to Pay off my mortgage on my house in Alvaston and was looking to buy more properties, rather like most working class people did when they came into a little cash.

 

My girlfriend Liz was a student at the University of Derby her fellow students wanted to put on a party, I said they could have the club free but they must provide their own D.J.

 

It was a Thursday night and they got 200 in which was not bad. I was struck by the quality of the music played by the D.J. Mark Lesley. He played Ziggy Stardust by Bau Haus , This sounded good and a departure from the usual rock shit that was being played.

I approached him and stuck 5 quid in his hand, I said I will give you 5 quid for every good tune you play.

 

I think I ended up giving him 20 quid, I decided that with this D.J. I could try and break into the student market, so I offered him a regular Monday night. This was undoubtedly a pivotal moment for the club, we had got the reputation of being a greasy biker venue where you would get stabbed. This was not true but the media portrayed bikers in a bad light and we had to live with that.

 

Mark Lesley started his Monday night, it was massive, we got 300 in first night, we gave the students cheap beer, loud music played by a student who they knew.

 

I told Mark about the pirate radio we ran from the club, he thought this was good, he agreed to do a radio show calling himself Steve Wrong, it was on midday on Sundays.

He played all the new indie bands , he did not like rockers, police or Thatcher. On his radio show he would find anti police and Thatcher stories, he would publicise demonstrations and basically reflect the atmosphere of unease with the right wing government we had at that time.

 

Several of Marks friends started working at the club behind the bar, we were now getting 600 punters in on a Monday night, it was by far the biggest student night in the city.

 

The University of Derby Students union was run by Mat McGuiness, he was there from the Days before it got university status, he had found himself a cushy number as president of the S.U. he did not like the idea of students going to our student night and not his poxy events.

He got a team of disciples working for him to remove our advertising, we used to put up a massive banner on two radio masts with guys opposite the uni every Monday . It was put up the night before and picked it up late Monday night. This banner suddenly started falling down. At the time one of my barmen was an ex solider Gary who served in northern Ireland .he told us he often had to steak out remote farm housed for days on end and he would help us find out who was trashing our banner. He said he would dig himself into the stream nearby and wait for mat McGuiness to arrive. At about 11.30 a minibus arrived and Mat McGuiness and Bill Redhead got out, and cut through the guy ropes and removed the banner.

We got a photo of this and contacted the police and the local paper. The Telegraph put a photo of the banner in with details of its theft, you cold clearly read the advertising on it for the student night. This worked well because the police got it back for us.

I was now making serious money with the club, this gave me a renewed confidence, I felt I was the King of Derby, Everyone was going to the club, it was busy every night, and all the students were listening to the pirate radio. I went to the bank and borrowed some cash to buy two more house, both of which were on top of big hills in the town. I did them up ran the pirate radio from there and when they got busted by the D.T.I. I rented them out to staff and students.

These were the glory days of my time at the club, I was respected all over Derby for what I was doing. The club was run in such a way that the staff kept out of the way and we let the punters get on with enjoying the night, our door staff were polite funny but rock hard.

 

Our Monday night was now the biggest night of the week, Mark Lesley and His mate John Walker who worked behind the bar lived in one of my many houses in Derby.

It was a big Victorian property on Breedon  hill Road, also in the house was Kevin Clancy and My girlfriends college friend Mark.

 

My property portfolio was expanding, I got business development loans for two more houses, 111 Mill Hill Lane, and 82 Thorneywood Mount in Nottingham. Note all the houses were on to of hills in order to broadcast pirate radio from.

 

We all had one thing in common at the club apart from Tessa , we all hated Thatcher.

It was the time of the poll tax riots and the criminal justice and public order act, some of my staff went on the poll tax demos in London and recounted their experience on the pirate radio station.

 

The club was becoming more of a social institution than a rock club, I enjoyed every day because of the respect I had everywhere I went in Derby. Even my parents were coming round to the idea that opening a nightclub was good, my mum had wished I had stayed at Rolls Royce in a machine shop working on a lathe because it was a safer more secure future.

I did become a little self confident and arrogant during the mid nineties, but then I had good reason , everything was going right for me, by taking on Mark Leslie I had been able to re invent the club and move into the student market just as the rock thing was dieing.

Other clubs in Derby were seeing what we were doing on our Monday nights and wanted to cash in , we had a Mecca club just down the road it was called Ritzy, it was a trendy club, they had a dress code, they would not let you in with jeans or trainers on.

We had no dress code so we got a load of tee shirts printed with the words “I am a Ritzy Reject printed on them and gave them free to our customers if they said Ritzy had refused them entry.

 

Everyone wanted some of the student market when the college got university status.

The government wanted to get unemployment down so sticking the kids in uni was one way of achieving this.

 

My friend Paul Needham got a club for himself, I gave him a reference in order for him to get brewery finance, he courageously re fitted an old printing works into a 3 floor club called the warehouse.

 

Paul had an interest in Jazz and live music, his club was in the right part of town, nearer the student residences than my club.

He was also a creative giant, along with Artell black, Russell Davidson and me.

 

With 14,000 students in Derby everyone was in on the act, the diversity of entertainment available made Derby a cultural hotbed, customers were spoilt for choice, it was a rich time for anyone clubbing.

 

Derby was getting a reputation as being a good place to go for a night out. Unlike today where all people have is a few late café bars all on one street.

 

We used to put spies in all the other clubs and I was updated with information on how they were doing as the night progressed. I also collected their advertising materials and were made aware of any fire safety breaches in rivals clubs, just in case we it got dirty.

 

The police in Derby had to deploy more officers on Saturday nights to cope with the influx of students and out of towners.

They started s scheme called “Pub Watch “. This met monthly in a different club each time.

 

It was made up mostly of council police fire and representatives from the trade. I saw it as an opportunity for club owners to create a cosy relationship with the police to make their lives easier.

I objected to this and refused to host meetings in my club. They police demanded I put cctv in but I refused on cost grounds and argued my customers did not want to be spied on.

 

At that time we had a drug problem in the club, on our student night. I contacted the police and went to Cotton lane police station to see the head of the drug squad. I told him we had a problem, he said well its up to you to keep your house in order. The meeting ended abruptly.

Then later that evening a got a phone call from the police, can I come back to Cotton lane, I went back and was told that it was a misunderstanding and that the police would carry out an investigation on who was dealing drugs in the club, I knew it was a group of coloured lads. On the following Monday it was obvious we had the D.S. in the club, this had the effect of driving out the druggies and stopped our student night from being trashed.

 

At the following Pub Watch meeting there was an extra item on the agenda,  a few words from the head of the drug squad, he said the following in front of 80 members of the trade.

 

“following a recent operation in Derby we have decided to work more closely with the trade, if you have any problems with drugs in your club , or need advice, then come to us first, provided you work with us their will be no need for old style drugs busts in this town.

I knew that by reporting a drug problem too them it had forced their hand, and had I had not reported it we would have got busted.

It was a risky strategy but once again I did the right thing and that kept me going a few more years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entering the Dance market in the 1990s

 

 

We now had a successful student night running on Mondays, but we were known as the Rock House , unfortunately rock was getting a bad press in the media and the kids thought rockers looked out of date.

 

I decided that the club must move forward with the times and not stay stuck in a rut, there had been stories on the news about a new dance culture which was about to hit the uk, it was called Acid House. This music was new and usually played at raves in old warehouses but ravers took ecstasy tablets.

I wanted to show that the club was contempery and not stuck in the past , so I planned to put on a rave at the club on a Wednesday night. Posters were put up and an advert in the Derby Evening Telegraph. It was late October 1990 on a Monday when the phone rang, it was BBC midlands today, they wanted to do an interview about Acid House nights, I said I would give an interview outside the club, I did not want them inside because I expected they would depict the place as a dump !

 

The camera crew and interviewer arrived and set up in the street outside, I made sure I was wearing a poppy as it was near remembrance day, they asked me questions about why I wanted to put on a night that was so heavily linked to drug culture, I said that it was about freedom of expression through music and not drugs.

 

After the main part of the interview I tried to stress the good work we did raising money for the Hospital Flying Squad but they edited that bit out.

 

There had been raves in London but none in the midlands so that’s why the telly got interested , however they did not show balance and it was clear they hated the concept of raves.

 

The Wednesday night came, my staff started arriving at the club, there was an air of excitement, at five to nine the police turned up and said they were carrying out an inspection, they asked me what I was planning to do to stop drugs getting into the club, I said I would search everyone and that I had got extra staff on to help.

 

They said how can you do that if you have drug dealers working on your door, I replied that none of my staff do drugs and if they have any evidence they should arrest them now, the police wanted me to cancel the night, I said I am not having outsiders telling me what music I was playing and that we would prove to them we could handle this new scene. The officer had tried and failed to get me to cancel the night, but they did not give up that easily, at about ten o clock we had 200 ravers in the club, suddenly about 6 riot vans turned up and parked outside the club but we had a queue outside the place caused by us searching everyone. The police spoke to the door staff but it was clear we were doing what we said and that it was no big deal.

Derby county had been playing at home at the Baseball ground all the police had done was stop outside our place on their way back from the game to make a show of force.

The night went well due to the extra publicity we had, and we were there at the start of a new dance era that would last ten years. We ran the acid house night for about two months or so but the numbers started to drop.

It was important for the club because it made people aware that we were not just a rock venue but were interested in all music styles.

 

In 1992 I was approached by a D.J. I think his name was Fran, he said he wondered if we would put on an underground house night that he called SMOKESCREEN. They came from Nottingham and Sheffield, I said give me £150 and they can have a Thursday Night.

Fran said that he would bring his own P.A. this was good because I was fed up of people hiring the club and blowing up our speakers. Smokescreen arrived at 8pm on the Thursday night this was early since we did not open till ten. They had 8 bass scoops and several chunky mid tops.

The sound was superb and whilst they seemed a bit traveller like they were nice people and they got about 250 in which was good for a Thursday.

I said they could do once a month but if they got more than 300 in I may conceder giving them a Saturday night.

 

It was a late summer evening in 1992 I think, I got a phone call from a listener, he said you are going to get a drugs bust tonight. In the 1990s anyone with a scanner could listen to the police including the Drug Squad who had their Radios on 155.750 MHz in Derby.

I rand my Dad and asked him to Tune In. He said he was sure something was brewing and that maybe this was true.

 

That night when I arrived at the club to unlock the doors to let smokescreen in I noticed a white van with blacked out windows parked down the street opposite hunters.

I kept my mouth shut and allowed smokescreen to unload their P.A. into the club.

When it was in I told Tubby that we were going to get a drugs bust and that the  static opps vehicle that would be co-ordinating the raid was already in the street.

 

I said remove your van from outside the doors , drive round the block and park at the side door, this could not be seen by the police vehicle, I got smokescreen to load all the speakers back in the van and to leave without going back on Babington lane.

 

I said I would ring them in the week when I had decided what to do. When my bar staff arrived for work I sent them home with pay , I put a notice on the doors of the club apologising for the closure of the night due to a power failure.

 

I locked the place up and went for a beer at the Abbey pub feeling good that I had thwarted a police raid.

The following night was the rock with Pete Lawrence, it was rammed, Harley Graham came p to me and said why is your Fucking club full of drug squad, I told him about last night, he laughed and said that’s why then. The police knew we were tipped off but were not sure how we knew.

Having a keen interest in radio was useful, I had many friends who were listeners, if anything interesting was going off I usually got to hear about it.

Smokescreen were allowed back but told to clean up their act and spread the word that drugs were bad for the club but if they sorted it out I would give them a Saturday night.

This was one of my most unpopular decisions with the bikers because it meant that one Saturday in four would not be a rock night but deep house instead.

It took bloody ages to get rockers used to this and did not make me many friends but smokies were getting twice as much custom as a rock night, however I had to give them half the door money and they did not drink as much beer as rockers. I felt though that we were going in the right direction and that rock was dieing.

 

Trying to get that Elusive late License

 

 

The club was moving into a new era, the Manchester scene was exploding with new clubs like the hacienda  spelt wrong. This was the time of the great Tony Wilson who died last year. At last decent music was being played on radio one. Our pirate station was doing well.

I got my friend Phil Orton to convert the upstairs into two radio studios because I had an idea that I would try to get a legal radio station going in the future.

 

My competitors were putting on dance nights such as Progress, we had smokescreen running on the first Saturday of each month. Smokescreen was now the busiest night for us at weekends although our Monday night student night was rammed. We had the constant bickering of rockers saying that smokescreen was dance shit. I held firm and carried on with what we were doing. One problem was that Eclipse down the road had just applied and got a four am license, we ran till about 2 ish, but should really have closed at one.

I decided to apply to the council for a three o clock license for our smokescreen night.

Occasionally I would allow smokescreen to run late, three times a year we would do an illegal all nighter.

We would put an advert in the paper it would read SMOKESCREEN this Saturday, doors open 10pm till later. If it said later not late on the poster or advert it meant we were staying open all night.

 

We used to put staff in the street with radios and direct customers to enter via the side door on sitwell street. We set up a till at the bottom of the central stairs and kept the main door closed so it looked like we were shut . One slight problem that was the P.A. ran 10,000 watts so it could be heard all round the street.

 

We had a radio set up in the office tuned to the police on 452.650 UHF I got a call from Kevin Clancy he said one of the doorman at eclipse has just rang the police and told them we are doing an all nighter. I said I know I just heard a message go out to the police transit.

I had to decide weather to cancel the all nighter or call the bluff of the license inspector.

There had been a message to stand down one of the two police units and the other van was about to stand down. It occurred to me that the police did not have the recourses on to bust the night so I took the decision to carry on, a wise move because we did not get a raid.

 

Since Eclipse had got its late licence I applied for 3 am to the council. It went to the committee but was rejected on the grounds of complaints from the local in the old peoples home at the back on sitwell street.

How could these old fossils distinguish our customers from those of Eclipse, in fact their place was bigger and was open more nights than us, why should they have a four am license and we close at one.

 

I planned to take my revenge on those who objected to the license, I asked my friend Chris who had a recording studio to make me a tape up of war music.

He got the dam busters, colonel bogie, Glen Miller and some Burt Camfert orchestra.

Between each record I recorded propaganda messages, one said “ I bet you wander what all the noise is about, I will tell you its because you objected to our license well its time you had your life ruined like you are doing to ours.

 

After the rock night had finished I asked all the staff to carry the P.A. speakers up onto the roof , we pointed them at the old peoples home opposite.

I placed the cassette in the player and set the time switch to play in half an hour at 3am.

 

All the staff and some customers gathered in the car park I was with Caroline sat in her car in the Hardy Social club car park. The air raid siren started on the tape then colonel bogie, then me shouting propaganda at 3,000 watts.

 

I had phoned the telegraph and told them we were outraged about not getting the late license and said I intend to take direct action to revenge this but did not say what I was about to do.

 

Me and Caroline laughed in the car she said I was mad but eccentric. One by one the lights came on in the old peoples home, some came out in the street in dressing gowns, punters were laughing at them and shouting obscenities.

 

After 20 mins the music stopped, Caroline invited me back to her house for coffee, she normally did not do this, I had tried chatting her up in the past but failed, this time it was different, and it was the start of a small fling.

On the following Monday the council hand delivered to me a noise abatement notice but I also hand delivered to them an appeal against the refusal to grant the late license.

 

Apparently the P.A. protest was heard as far away as chaddesden about 4 miles from Babington Lane!

 

I went to the appeal everyone said I had lost the plot and was going mad. I prepared my evidence and went to the hearing fired up. The mayor was chair of the committee and I started my evidence, it took over an hour, the mayor had an important meeting at 12 but I kept on going with my onslaught. I won the case and we got a 3 am licence mainly because the objectors failed to turn up and substantiate their evidence.

 

This was an important victory for me and gave us the late licence that would be essential if we were to compete with progress.

 

 

 

Mid Nineties

 

By the mid nineties the club had re invented its self for the second time, previously we were a heavy rock venue, now the Rockhouse was a student venue that also did rock !.

 

I had plenty of money but did not waste it on flash cars, instead it went on properties, I had 7 in all including a delightful cottage in  Branscombe Devon .

 

It was great being able to escape from the stress of running one of the east midlands most successful clubs and walk on the pebble beach and take buttered scones in the tea room.

Change was about to take place in my personal life, I had been going out with Liz who worked part time in the kitchen and was a student at the university. She had graduated and moved to London to study at the Royal College of art. We stayed together and I went to see her when I had time.

When she came back to Derby I got a house on the hill in Allestree, this was another good radio site overlooking the city.

 

We used to go out to the Dial and to the Full Moon restaurant and to the tea room on Daley park.

 

We also went on two camping holidays in America, staying at the state parks each night.

During our trip to New York we camped on a building site near Wall St dosing in the back of the hire car and cooking on a stove in the street.

Liz would go shopping and I would go onto the roof of the world trade centre with my radio, it was amazing up there in the autumn.

 

Decision time had arrived, I had been against the idea of marriage and had put it off for as long as possible, I was now 36 Liz 28 we were at our cottage in Bran come on a walk over the fields.

 

As we crossed over the airstrip at the farm overlooking the village she said either we get married soon or its over.

She wanted kids, I did not see myself as a family man but she said she was wasting her life with me and it was time I showed some commitment.

 

This became known as the airfield ultimatum, I felt I was being pushed along by events but because I was weak I agreed and we got married in December 1994.

 

This to me was the start of what would be a slow demise that took ten years to reach its ultimate conclusion.

Previously life was fun and nothing was important now it was serious shit, Liz became pregnant and had a son called Harvey in the summer of 1995.

 

Our student night was still going but there were signs that it may be about to drop in numbers.

 

Thatcher came out with an idea to outlaw illegal raves and stop outdoor parties, Michael Howard was the home secretary he made a speech that was intended to wage war on the party people. In the criminal justice and public order act of 1994 it was proposed to make it an offence for 3 or more people to meet and it gave the police the power to break up gatherings of more than 3 people if the pig had reasonable grounds to suspect that a rave was about to take place. A rave was defined as a musical event which was predominantly characterised by regular beats.

 

The police could also cease sound equipment and charge the owners for its disposal.

I decided that we should fight this bill so we had a banner put above reliance shop door saying kill the bill demo Hyde park London and the date. All our flyers and posters had details of the demo and how to get there. It was during this time that I got my first taste of what would become a reoccurring theme. I was giving out flyers at the uni for our student night in the refectory; this was dangerous because if mat McGuiness were to catch me I would be thrown out. I handed a flyer to a youth he was tall and well dressed, he said not interested mate, I said you may not be interested in the student night but you may be in what's written on the back of flyer, he looked at the advert for a coach trip to London to protest about the criminal justice bill.

 

He threw the flyer on the floor and said gas the crusty bastards. I had not occurred to me that a student could be so right wing.

I am sure that this moment spelt the end of the glory days for me. A new generation of students were coming through the ranks who were not rebellious, in fact they liked the status quo and I don’t mean the band.

I wanted to tell him to fuck off but that would have been no way to talk to a potential customer.

 

This was the first moment that I realised that my way of doing things was no longer relevant to the younger generation.

It worried me because instead of the Rockhouse having a general appeal it was starting to have the reputation of a bit of a dive.

 

We went on the bus trip through bottles of piss at the police in downing st.

The police marched us round all day in the hot sun but made sure there were no shops open to get water and no toilets, in order to humiliate demonstrators.

 

I managed to get the police a kicking by allegedly directing with a megaphone a crowd to charge the short shield units on Hyde park. Police were stripped of their uniforms and dragged through the horse galloping sand at the edge of the park. They were chased off the park and it seemed like a small victory.

 

Took a load of photos.

 

After four years our student night was beginning to dwindle, Mark Lesley decided to leave, so I asked Will Hollinghead to D.J. instead , the numbers continued to drop , everyone was going to the Blue Note. I had made the mistake of allowing one of their D.J.s to work with Will but actually he was spreading roomers that the night was moving to the Blue Note.

It was a cold night just before Christmas, we only had about 80 people in and was freezing and no atmosphere.

 

From having 600 students in every week we were almost empty. Stan the doorman said mate this just aint working, I agreed, I went on the microphone at midnight and said with great sadness that I would be closing early. We rang up eclipse and said would you let our customers in free as we were shutting. They said yes. So everyone including the staff went down to eclipse.

I could of cried, the glory days had definitely ended. It was going to be a struggle from now on.

 

The staff said it was over and I had lost my relevance I said to them watch this, I guarantee I will put 600 in here in a week.

 

I decided on a mad promotion for the following Wednesday, 20p entry and 20p a pint all night.

I contacted the brewery to get some promotional beer but they only gave one barrel. I put posters and placards all over Derby. This act of desperation worked in so far as it rammed , we got 650 in but we were under staffed deliberately and it took too long to get served.

It created bad feeling so the week after when it was 50p all night we only got 150 in, we were loosing money debts were beginning to rack up.

 

By the start of 1996 we only had smokescreen that was doing any trade and we had to give them half the door. I felt the Rockhouse  club had run its course, students were going to Mat McGuiness union bars not our place.

 

We were in the shit big time and I had to do something quick or go back to Rolls Royce and work on a fucking lathe again.

 

I went on the ski holiday with my mates as usual and decided that I would apply for a radio licence to broadcast legally for a month then have a massive party and close down the rockhouse.

 

I applied to the Radio Authority for a license and was amased it was granted because of my alleged involvement in pirate radio.

I placed an advert in the local paper for presenters and engineers. This would be an expensive project but I wanted to at least try it before I was forced back into the real world.

 

 

 

 

Mats Go 1997

 

It’s getting difficult to remember the exact order in which things happened during those last few years of the club but I think it’s something like this.

Andy Palmer oversaw the refitting of the Future club, his new nights Free Style with Lindsey Scott and his friend, the official student night, and the rock night were not working too well.

I asked Mat Chell if he would like to be the new manager of the Future.

 

He accepted the gauntlet but he knew that we had serious problems financially and it would take a miracle to save the place. Like a dick head I sold Thorneywood Mount in Nottingham and sunk the cash into the shitty Future club. Liz appealed to me not to do this but I did not take her sound advice.

However mat managed to turn things around, he was unbelievably energetic, mat is a very clever person and has a nice girlfriend behind him. I don’t think Mat liked me particularly but he respected what I stood for so was prepared to give it a shot. He liked my son Harvey and always took the time to make Harvey smile. Mats energy re invigorated us burnt out staff. He worked tirelessly to turn the club around.

Marcus Shukla Greg and Chris Miles helped advertise the Future club. We had some busy nights and a bit of cash, so as you would expect I said Mat can I do the Radio again in April 1998  he said yes provided it did not starve the club of cash. Smokescreen Travelling without Moving and the rock nights were beginning to get busy.

Mat showed his resolve when on one Saturday night a group of coloured lads from Nottingham tried to storm the club and steel the takings, Mat managed to get the cash off the pay desk and move the girl on the desk to safety whilst a pitch battle raged in the entrance there were dreadlocks and gold chains all over the floor, then mat went trough the kitchen into the club and stood with his back against the swing doors preventing them from getting in. It also kept the punters from seeing that there was a scrap going on.

Our door team of Stan Deck Richard and his two lads beat off the attack with the pick axe handles that I managed to give them from out the kitchen. Fortunately there were too fully trained nurses in the club that night, and they were able to treat our casualties without anyone going to hospital, this incident was never reported to police. Threats were sent back from Nottingham but nothing came of it.

 

I gave our door staff a 200 pound bonus for taking them on and winning.

 

Things were looking brighter, we still had debts but because some of our nights were busy it gave us a bit of cash to play around with and made us feel more cheerful.

 

Andy Palmer said he would come back to the Future to help me with Radio Freedom RSL2 which was due on air in April 1998. He stayed at the house where his friend Marcus carter from the band scribble lived.

 

We started training sessions in the evenings in studio A; we had a few volunteers respond to an article in the Derby Evening Telegraph.

A lively woman called Karen said she would like to do a show with her friend, we got talking about advertising, She told me that we should try to get some sponsorship to help pay for it.

Mat liked this idea because he was concerned that my play thing could actually threaten the livelihood of all the staff working for the future. He remembered the struggle paying for the last radio freedom broadcast.

 

Karen started working in our sales office which was up stairs in studio B.

I remember it was freezing cold up there, a very depressing environment for generating sales.

We had a studio phone put in 361068 which were sorted out for us by Kev Clancy’s mate Clive who worked at BT. We were going to be on 106.8FM so it kind of rang true.

 

Mick usher who had designed the future logo and the amazing freestyle poster made some glossy promotional packs for us.

 

Karen was struggling however, maybe I did not give her the tools to do the job, and it became clear that it was costing too much money to persuade reluctant sponsors so I scrapped the idea of advertising.

This was a bad move because the radio would cost about 7 grand to put on. Mat was not happy about this, but I tried to persuade him that this would raise the profile of the club.

 

Radio Freedom RSL two began on 5th April 1998; it was opened by Tip Toe Tony just as we did in 1996.

Andy palmer Managed to get the council to allow us to do two road shows, one from Osnabruk square outside the Market hall, one in the market place.

 

We also broadcast live bands from the Vic Inn, Karen was the O/B presenter who introduced the bands. New D.Js like Richard Hyde and the tall bloke with ginger hair joined us.

 

We had got a new engineer his name was and is Al Cleminson, he is a true professional, and he made presenting easy for everyone, and was brilliant at patching trough outside broadcasts.

We used a talkback system to link back to our two on air studios A and B.

The radio was so intense I could not leave, so I slept on the floor in studio A for most of that month.

Liz would make my tea and bring it to the station. My son Harvey made us a jingle; he was only two and a half!

He left his toy magnetic sketch pad in the studio. From that day onwards it was used as the best way of passing messages to presenters whilst they were on air.

 

On the Friday night we put on a live concert from the loft nightclub on Friar Gate, I installed the equipment and linked up to the main studio, Mark Sheldon who worked on BBC Radio Derby asked me a question about the band, I had not got the first clue, I had to say, don’t ask me I am only the engineer, I felt stupid, but then again I think he knew I could not answer it.

I introduced the band and went home to get some kip; we were planning to put out the disco as well as the band so I could forget about it till 1am. Al was in studio B looking after the feed.

I was knackered and did not wake up till half two. I raced back to the loft to collect the equipment because we needed it in the morning for a road show in the market place.

 

Jazz the manager had gone home and locked the place up, he had his answer phone on, I had no choice but to use our spare O/B transmitter instead, this thing was crap and we only had one aerial for it and that was on a mast on the roof of the club.

 

I had to work all night alone taking the mast down and getting the aerial off the pole.

I set it up in the market place and awaited the arrival of Rob McSherry and Jason Malloy.

 

We could not start the broadcast on time because there was a buzzing noise on the feed, it took ten minutes to solve that and we started at ten past ten.

 

It was a great road show, lots of loud music for the shoppers. Most of the shops in the street went along with it; I think they thought we were RamFM.

We did several more outside broadcasts and had lots of new presenters.

Andy Palmer actually went on air from Chris beaches studio to make out to Lindsey Scot that he was on Concord flying back from the states, Chris provided all the aircraft sounds and Lindsey fell for it.

We continued with the Beaches basement rock show form Chris’s studio in Chello. He did this programme with Mick Usher; he had guests join him from time to time. It was a good programme, the music was better than that being played in the club. The show got quite a few requests and phone calls. Mick played Carbonate for my dad.

 

During Gordys breakfast show ENTER LINK TO AUDIO CLIP HERE we had a bailiff hit on the nightclub they broke into the studio and turned off the power, they were told the radio was not part of the club but they switched off the transmitter and started removing things. I got a phone call to my house; I said I would race down there and arrange payment.

 

I don’t think they were from the council I think it was none payment or performing rights for the rock house.

I tried the old excuse that we were not the Rock house and that this was a new club. It did not wash so they started removing All Andy Palmers new seating.

The club looked sparse and empty. Mat did not like this and I recon he was ready to quit.

We had to go down to booker’s cash and carry and buy some plastic garden furniture instead. This was an acute fire risk.

 

We limped on through this RSL but I was damaged. I went on air slagging off the bailiffs but looking back on this it was letting our enemies know I had problems. The radio station ended with the same party as we had for RSL one, I was suffering from the cash flow difficulties that the old Rock House had run up

 

Radio Freedom RSL 2 finished on 6th May 1998, as before we had the party in studio A, Rob McSherry hosted it and did the credits, he got completely pissed, and he played a few clips of what we had achieved. This was a good broadcast but Rob did get pissed but so what he deserved it.

Once again I walked the walk down the corridor to turn off the Radio. I had not the first clue when it would come back if ever.

 

Mat continued attempting to run the Future but it was difficult because just as we seemed to be turning the corner something else happened to ruin things.

 

We carried on for another year, with some successes, the club was by no means empty but it had such debts that it was getting harder to provide a safe environment for customers when we were loosing key things like furniture.

 

Ego Mania had about 150 in but Friday with Gordys Time Tunnel, a retro night was just getting rockers in so we canned that night and got Dudley Dave and Will Hollinghead took over.

We decided it was not worth trying to make the club something it clearly was not, the Rock house was engrained on the psyche of Derby so why try to fight it.

 

One again the change to a rock indie night worked well and numbers went up. Cash started to flow again, we had a good Christmas and new-year. Mat got on well with his team of staff, he began to develop the habit of getting all the staff together after the shift, they used to drink till all hours, I felt this was unhealthy and did not stay long.

The late nights were taking their toll on Mat.

In early 1999 I asked Mat what do you think about doing another RSL radio, he said no it’s a waste of money.

I disagreed

 

 

The application came back from the radio authority that we could do another RSL but they asked me not to use the radio as a promotional tool for the nightclub.

 

I told them that we would be doing many more outside broadcasts and that all the clubs in Derby could have their own D.Js on the radio and that we would do a live broadcast from each of our competitors venues.

 

This time I could not afford to pay for the radio myself so I decided to make it a commercial operation, we would carry advertising to pay for Radio Freedom.

My friend Bob and his wife Meesha were employed to get the advertising.

 

Meesha used to work in the sales department of the Derby Trader so she knew what sales was about.

 

Bob and Meesha got major sponsorships from the most unlikely areas, The National Blood Service, Royal Air Force, Royal Marines, Derby City councils New Normanton campaign. Royal Institute for the Blind and many more. However the new landlord Reliance Electrical hated us and would not advertise, nor would any of the local companies.

 

Bob found a company who would make professional adverts and jingles for us.

 

Things were looking up for once, I was still short of cash but I did not care because the radio was going to be back on.

 

This time I bought a good quality outside broadcast transmitter and went to reading to hire a receiver to go with.

Everyone who worked on Radio Freedom before wanted to come back, there were lots of new programmes and ideas to try out this time. Bob was a fiery strong willed chap and he did not like Andy Palmer, I had arguments about format with him but I did not let anyone deflect me from the task.

 

I contacted a local poet’s society and asked them if they would come in and read short poems about war and political strife. A succession of readers came in and we put them onto minidisks.

I told all the presenters that they must play at least one poem per show but they must not comment in any way about them. They should be played after each advert break.

I placed an advert in a radio mag for a news reader, this time I wanted our own news program which was to be called the Freedom News Report. It would be on each day at 5:30.

Two people applied one was Mark Stevens from Bristol and Curly Spencer who lived in Derby but worked on radio Caroline in the late 1980s.

 

This next radio Broadcast was to be bigger and better than the first two, we aimed to do at least one outside broadcast a day, we had been contracted to do a program from the assembly rooms for the national blood service, this would bring in 400 pounds in one go, I recruited two professional presenters from Doncaster for this type of work.

 

Radio Derby’s mark Sheldon and Mark Mason came back to work for me.

The stage was set for one hell of a month; all the thoughts of the club closing had gone. Whilst the place was not rammed every night it was ticking over.

 

No radio station in Derby has ever undertaken the scale of outside broadcasting that we did during this month. There were about 30 programs sent vial the O/B links. We sometimes did two or three in one day.

Every event and every club got the chance to go on air.

 

Here is a short list of a few of them, The National blood service from assembly rooms, several gigs from the Vic inn, Progress live from Time nightclub, several bands from the loft club, the tree protest from Bass Rec, Pak foods Normanton, The rock show from Sinfin, ASDA Spondon, Manor furnishings in Micleover Forum book shop Abbey St., Live music from the Flower Pot pub. And many more.

 

Radio Freedom RSL3 sounded much more professional than RSL2 we had got more presenters who had been on air before. The most famous O/B was the one we did from high up in the trees with the tree protesters; we took live phone calls from members of the public who wanted to save the park. All the equipment was hoisted high up into the tree houses whilst Mat Chell and Dexter Mixwith did the studio end of things.

The council hated this and they tried to get us shut down but they failed.

 

Mark Stevens had his own news room in the old cellar, he was a master’s degree in media and reported things in such detail, sometimes too much detail for our thicko listeners!

He and Curly Spencer alternated each story whilst a dance beet played in the background.

Once again we had our engineer Al Cleminson sorting things out at the studio end.

We used a talkback system to link back to our two on air studios A and B.

One of the best O/Bs we did was from Time nightclub on Mansfield road, they had one of Derby’s biggest dance nights, it was called Progress, and this was at the height of the dance music era.

 

I arrived at the venue at lunch time and put up the mast in the car park, the event was due to go out at ten pm till midnight , at nine o clock we had the Travelling without Moving radio show with Lee Whitehead and Marcus Shukla. They did not like Progress because they thought it was too safe and mainstream, but they were totally professional and gave Russell Davidson a big introduction,

 

The week before we sent out reporter Nick Smith to record interviews with punters, we got their customers to do shout outs for their friends back home, these clips were overlaid onto the live feed giving the impression that they were done live. This is a bit naughty but it sounded really good, we did tell the interviewees that it would be going out the next week.

 

Progress also had a radio show on Thursday evenings; it was called Big Beating around the Bush. It featured a posse of progress D.J.s who ran easy competitions giving out free tickets to big beating around the bush at Union One.

 

It was really good to be in control of a vehicle that drove the culture of Derby, all the clubs were represented, and old names like Steve Rouse appeared and worked on the afternoon show. It was a bit like radio Brannigans on the Wednesday and Friday afternoons. They did and afternoon show playing soul and motown, they went over the top promoting their club, everyone told me to stop them from doing this but, I said let em get on with it because none of our punters go there anyway.

 

Jason Malloy had a morning show; he got his dad to phone in every day to read the weather, it made good radio because his dad was a good laugh. I asked Jason if he would host a big outside broadcast from the spot outside the eagle shopping centre.

 

I contacted the council and asked them if this was ok. I was amassed when they said yes. They said meet Bruce Cowls at the site on the Friday and he will show me where the mains supply is and give me a key. Bruce Cowls is a Canadian sounding man but actually comes from New York. His name was to crop up later, he worked for the city centre manager’s office of Derby City Council.

Bruce told me the only way of getting the mains power out to the square below was to throw an extension lead out of the clock tower.

He gave me a key and told me to drop it off when I had finished.

The Saturday was warm and sunny, we delivered a 3000 watt P.A. system to the spot, this was well over the top, and it was near the club so we had no problems getting a signal back.

Jason Malloy  did a great job of entertaining the crowd of shoppers, you could hear the P.A. all the way back to the market place, we had people phoning in and did requests and competitions for the people sitting in the sun listening. Jason was a show man; he played at all the big clubs in the U.K. his type of club was the Pink Coconut.

 

On the Monday there was a letter in the paper from an old bag from the maltings at the back of my club complaining about the noise from the spot road show.

 

We got a phone call from David Best the city manager; I was rude to him on the phone because he accused us of being a pirate station. He was already fed up with the tree protest and decided to try to end our fun. I told him we had a licence and he should piss off, I am sure he got the woman to write to the paper. Derby city council did not like the fact that someone who was virtually unknown and not part of the establishment could appear on the scene and cause such a commotion.

 

Normally it was the BBC that were supposed to shine a light on Derby’s youth culture, yet they were failing to do this and we were showing them what was really happening in the town for the rest of this RSL we had to put up with the establishment sniping at us from all angles, my response was to fight back.

 

We did more amazing outside Broadcasts one from ASDA in Spondon, we set up just inside the entrance area, Jason Malloy once again delivered the goods and ASDA made us most welcome and went along with the party.

 

Manor Furnishings in Mick lover provided us with sponsorship, al their staff and managers listened and were always ringing in. They said we could do a broadcast outside the store, it went down really well we had lots of phone calls to our competitions. Jason Malloy played instant requests, if we did not have the tune Al would download it and play it from the studio.

The manager from the store came on air and thanked us for doing an excellent road show and offered our listeners big discounts at the store.

 

When it came to the end of the RSL we realised that we had captured the spirit of the first broadcast. I was sure the club had benefited by the exposure.

 

Meesha and Bob had done the impossible, they had pledges of about 5.000 in advertising, and I had made a deal to pay them a percentage of monies received and a basic flat rate.

 

Problem I forgot to write into the contract anything about credit control.

When the broadcast was over there was still about 1500 pounds still to be collected, I said I would pay the balance when the monies were received. Bob saw this departure from our original agreements. It kicked off big time. I had to pay up even thought not all revenues had been collected.

I paid up but our working relationship was damaged. Karen said she would come in and try to get the slow paying advertisers to cough up.

Once the radio was off this was difficult. It was costing me too much money to chase them. About 750 quid was never collected. However we did get about four thousand in advertising and that went a long way to paying for RSL3.

 

We had he farewell party on the Friday night in early May 1999. And as usual I went off to my cottage in Branscombe for a well earned Holiday with Liz and Harvey

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re Branding to Survive, Andy Palmers Refit

 

We had just completed the massively successful Radio Freedom RSL broadcast; I had taken time out to reflect on things. New arrival Andy Palmer said I should not close , but I should re launch with a new club aimed at the next generation of young people and students.

 

For the last 12 years I had provided a place for rockers and some crusties to go, the only problem was that rock was on a downer, the emerging dance scene and the sexist glam of  bands like  Bon Jovi  were not compatible.

 

There were new bands around and the heavy metal head banging stuff .had a following but it was in the minority in 1996.

 

Times were changing, the Rockhouse name and the interior were looking old and tarnished.

I met Andy Palmer after my holiday, we went with Jack the piano player who worked behind the bar to the Babington Arms Pub.

 

The decision to close down the Rockhouse for the summer was made, it was decided not to make a big deal about it, just to tell customers that we would be closed for a refit and would be back open in September.

 

The main difficulty was that I had no money to spend on this, the only way to do it would be to sell one or more of my properties.

Reluctantly I put Walter Street on the market. This was the start of the contraction process that would continue for ten years and ultimately leave me with nothing.

 

The house sold quickly and it gave Andy Palmer some working capital to use on the re fit.

Liz was against the selling of properties but liked Andy because he was a college boy and had studied art like she had.

 

We started work on the refit in July 1996, I felt this was the right thing to do but was nervous about weather it would get new people into the FUTURE club.

I liked the name Future, no one else did ! but it was appropriate at that time because the new millennium focused everyone on the future.

Maybe I was reading too much into this argument but it was the best name to be put forward so we stuck with it.

Andy Palmer said he would live in studio A on site, he was absolutely committed to the project, he worked 12 hour shifts each day to get the job done by September.

 

Mick Usher who worked with Chris on the rock show designed the posters for our new nights he made the Future logo set against a sunset sky, and several variants to use on our website.

Mat Chell joined the team and worked with Andy Palmer on the interior design , the most striking aspect was the re cladding of all the interior walls with MDF panels illuminated from behind, shapes were profile cut into the walls to give a soft glow.

The floor covering in front of the bar had to be removed, Andy wanted to make use of all the original features of the building as possible, we hired an industrial sanding machine and removed all the paint and old glue. We then used a hard wearing wood stain varnish to protect the new clean surface.

 

I made 30 grand available to Andy for the re fit, it did not take long before the cash ran out, the seating area in front of the kitchen could not be finished,  indeed in never did get done.

I also had debts from the rockhouse to pay, I owed council business rates of about 7,000 and also 5 grand to the tax man.

 

Andy palmer worked hard with Jack and Mat, he also had some D.J friends help, the place was looking new and fresh, there was a feeling of optimism in the air that this was going to work.

We had plenty of competition to think about, Jaz Rhy had taken over the Warehouse from Paul Needham, the students union had the Union bars on Cathedral Row, there was Time on Mansfield road the Pink Coconut, and our old friends Eclipse  down the road.

 

By the beginning of September we had completed the re decorating, the Future was ready to open .

 

Our Running order had D.J. Gordy with Time Tunnel on Fridays, Saturdays was a rotation of Travelling without moving deep house, Smokescreen deep house and the classic rock night.

Mondays was the official student night which was actually un official because the Students Union would not endorse it .

Thursdays we had a new night called Freestyle it was a skater/ indie music night . It was to have one of the best flyer designs that Mick Usher did for us .The night was hosted by Lindsey Scot and  what's his face.

 

The start of the Future was a bit of a flop, Time Tunnel was only half full, the student night was dead but the rock night and smokescreen were rammed. Travelling without moving was doing ok, it had about 300 in.

I got the impression that the Future was not going to work, and that we had not reversed the downward trend from early in the year. Our official student night was the first night to actually get no members of the public in at all.

 

We were in the shit big time, I asked the council if we could pay our business rates in unsettlements, luckily they agreed. I put two more houses up for sale 111 mill hill lane and 17 Breedon Hill Road.

 These took a while to sell and did not make much of a profit but I needed the money. The housing market was in slump, some people had negative equity..

Andy Palmer was still living in studio A whilst mat Chell helped with promoting. I think Julie was still working as manager sorting out bar staff and wages.

 

Tessa also worked with me for eleven years was now running her own a pub called the football tavern.

 

The Future club did look completely different to the old Rockhouse, there were new young vibrant staff about the place. In many respects the staff were keeping the place going.

 

 

1996 Radio Freedom RSL1

 

With the club on its knees negativity in the air bailiff actions against me it was time to wind up the operation. It had given me something useful to do for 12 years so I could not grumble.

 

I did not want to close the club but I could not see any way out. One thing that could be done was to run a radio station from the club and then close the place down when the radio finished.

I applied to the radio authority for a licence which was granted, it cost five grand but we had the studios and equipment already. An advert for presenters and technicians was put in the telegraph I held interviews for the mostly voluntary positions.

 

The station was due to go on air on the 5th April to 6th May. I ran training sessions on weekday nights in studio A. Several people from derby volunteered to work on the project.

I also recruited drum and bass E.G. from Sheffield to work on the station.

 

The station would be called Radio Freedom and it would be on the internet and on 105.8FM

I contacted virgin radio and was surprised to be put through to their chief executive who was Dave Campbell I think. He said that at night we could relay virgin radio. I also asked Independent Radio News IRN if we could take their news service, they agreed provided we also carried their adverts.

 

In order that the station had a credible sound I recruited some professional presenters, one was BBC Radio Derby’s Mark Sheldon and Mark Mason who worked as a news / traffic reporter.

 

We had a couple of  young engineers in training one was Buddy Holly as we called him and the other was a trainee from Hospital radio I forget his name.

 

We put up a big mast on top of the building with a co-linear antenna mounted as high as possible.

We got permission to carry out test broadcasts the Friday before we were due on the air, Jimmy the Greek came to the studio and played dance music whilst we played adverts and trailers for the new service which was to start at mid day.

 

The club was wired up so that we could broadcast live Bands from the stage; we also had a large room upstairs that could be used for live sessions.

 

I left on the Friday night at about 1am; I knew that the following day was going to be a milestone in my life.

 

I arrived  back at 11am on Saturday 5th April 1996 and switched on the transmitter, it was located in the upstairs corridor outside the toilet. I put on the Bert Campfert record and rang my Dad he said it was coming through crystal clear. Splodge had given me a load of crap 1950s and sixties light entertainment , easy listening records to play to fill the first hour, after each record we had recorded announcements saying that a new radio service called Radio Freedom would start at mid day. We wanted to play boring music in order no to upstage our first D.J. Tip Toe Tony. He arrived at about 11:45 I was getting nervous thinking he would not show up.

 

My friend Chris turned up to be there at the start. We had recorded the start sequence at his studio. I set up a radio downstairs in the club and wired it into the P.A.

 

The cleaners were in clearing up after the Friday night, at precisely 7 mins to twelve I asked Tony to fade out the easy listening music; I turned up the radio in the D.J. box. The rig was on but we deliberately ram a blank carrier with no audio for 7 minutes.

 

At precisely midday Tip Toe Tony launched the opening minidisk the start sequence began with thunderbird countdown then part of the 1812 overture with me proclaiming that this was about to be the beginning of a new era in radio broadcasting in Derby.

The trailer told listeners of what to expect over the next month, plugging the concept of Rock Indie, Dance and live music Radio for the city.

 

Chris and I listened in the middle of the dance floor at full volume over the P.A. it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and a shiver down my back, 7000 watts as all the sound effects of cheering crowds faded away Tip Toe Tony made his opening remarks welcoming listeners to this new service. He launched his first jingle but there was a deathly silence lasting a second but it seemed like forever. Then in cam REM Loosing my religion, we were off on the start of the most momentous radio broadcast in Derby’s history.

 

Two hundred people would be involved in some capacity to shine a light on Derby’s culture through Radio, It was to be the proudest moment of my life, and I doubt I will ever achieve anything of this stature again.

 

Having a radio station broadcasting from the club caused a renewed interest in the place, we had tee shirts printed advertising Radio Freedom, on the back it listed all the bands who would be playing live over the month, 26 in all.

 

Each evening we put on gigs either in RockHouse or in studio C upstairs, we allowed a small number of their fans and family to be part of the audience when they played in studio C because it was not part of the nightclub and public were not allowed up there normally.

 

The radio got loads of phone calls to every program, Kevin Clancy got his friend Rob McSherry to do the breakfast show with Any Raynor from the university of Derby.

 

Rob McSherry was a funny but professional broadcaster, and like many who worked on Freedom he should have took up radio full time.

His programme started at 7am, I was famous for not getting up in the morning but when the radio was on I had no problems getting up at 6am in order to let Rob Andy and Buddy Holly in the studio.

Due to the success of Radio Freedom the nightclub started getting busy again, I still intended to close the place when the radio finished ain may 1996.

I applied to the court for a late license for the last night, like an idiot I went to Flint Bishop and Barnet Solicitors to try to get the late ticket.

Flints said there was an unspoken rule in Derby that the licensing bench did not grant all night drinking. They refused to represent me because it would have put them in the position of upsetting their friends on the bench.

 

If flints had tried then when they were in front of the magistrates with a more affluent client than me they may get a shock and get applications turned down be cause they upset the status quo. That’s why they would not help.

 

I continued with the application my self. It was due to be heard at the court on Dewent Street, I went into court, then the clerk came up to me and said this case had been transferred to the smaller more poked court room on Bold Lane.

 

I knew that this was done to avoid the case being reported, the telegraph only sat in the main courts normally.

The case started half an hour later, and as you would expect, there were objections from the police, who listed problems they had to deal with at the venue..

Predictably the late ticket was refused. And I had to pay costs.

 

I walked back to the station and went on the air saying we lost the case, but the party would go ahead but not late.

 

One of my bar staff ========= played the piano at concert level, he said he had a friend called Andy Palmer who lived in Coventry, he had heard of the Rockhouse and was interested in seeing me to talk about its future.

 

The Radio station was taking care of its self Jason Malloy and Rob McSherry we getting big listenerships and could handle it on their own so I went to see Andy Palmer in the day time.

 

I went to his mums house, he was tall thin but healthy looking and well spoken. He was an arty sort of person. I could tell immediately that he was creative.

His advice was that the Rock House club was not dead and it should not close. He said it needed to be re invented, re branded to take account of the changes in music.

Rock was dead he said, the place needed a new name and a new image, he said the Radio was a positive move and that he wanted to see the place.

 

Andy Palmer was well educated, he had been brought up by his mum I believe, he had been to university and studied design.

 

He came back with me and ========= what's his name to see the club and the radio.

Andy Knew some of the bands in Derby and said he would stay at Scribbles house.

Scribble were a local band that also had a radio show on the station.

 

Radio freedom had another 10 days to go before it was off the air, Andy got to know the presenters and said he would help with the preparation of programmes.

During the afternoon shows we would have live acoustic sessions from local musicians and even got the buskers from St Peters street to play .

 

We had Smokescreen playing on the Saturday night so we could not use the studio at the club because the whole building would shake with the bass. We hired an outside broadcast transmitter and installed it at my friend Chris’s house in Chelleston. He had a full studio setup there, and he did Saturday nights rock show from his house with Mick Usher.

 

This was good because it made it possible to shut down the on air studio and use it as an editing suit because the rock show was an o/b.

 

The Rockhouse had Smokescreen , Travelling without moving Simon Bass line Smith Drum and Bass and a rock night running in rotation. The Rockers were getting sick of this but rock was dieing so it was ok. Friday nights were Will Hollingshead and Dudley Dave playing Rock and Indie.

 

I felt I had achieved everything I wanted with the nightclub and the station, we were entering the last week, by this time Andy Palmer was a part of the team and was trying his best to persuade me not to close  but to re brand it instead.

I was in debt, and could not afford to do a re fit.

 

On the last few days of the radio Rob McSherry was getting more adventurous with his breakfast show but I felt he was taking the piss out of Bubby Holly on air so I decided to split them up and bring in Chris as an engineer to try and shake things up.

 

Rob wanted to do an outside broadcast so Chris got a bloody great drum of cable and chucked it over the roof down into the street. Rob went out Into the Street whilst Andy Raynor stayed back in studio, Rob grabbed people in the street and got them to request songs and take part in crap competitions.

This worked really well he asked Chris if he could borrow the outside broadcast gear for the Thursday morning show. 

 

Andy palmer and I went to see Chris and got all the equipment and aerials, we decided that rob would do his show from Bold lane Just outside the car park.

 

I set up the equipment the night before and camped out to look after the gear. It was cold and damp.

We had a P.A. speaker turntables mics and the o/b transmitter and aerial mast.

At 7am the show started, music blaring all over the street at 7am.

Bubby Holly was the engineer, Rob was loving it, taking the piss out of passers by, doing interviews and generally having fun. It was freezing and the CDs were jumping because of the condensation.

At about ten to nine just as the live o/b was ending a pose bloke from the council walked passed on his way to work, he stopped and said have you got permission to do this , we ignored him and joked about this on air. He made some kind of threat as he walked away.

 

We were having the time of our lives, everyone was listening, even the BBC were tuned in.

It was our last day on air 6th May 1996 and it was due to be the last day of the club.

Andy Palmer had persuaded me to rethink the decision to close  until after the radio had finished and we had had time to take stock of the situation.

 

Friday 6th May 1996 was to be the best day of my life I am sure. Rob McSherry was getting into the idea of outside broadcasting from in the street, he asked if he could do his last show from Friargate. I said yes provided we got the engineers to help. Buddy Holly and his mate said yes so we got up early and set up again under Friar gate bridge. Friar gate was a busy commercial part of the town with loads of office workers walking to work.

We installed the mast and P.A. outside the cob shop, we put our generator round the corner. We had a link back to the studio and were able to take the news and live phone calls from Friargate. Chris stayed in the studio just in case things went wrong and we lost the link.

At the same time ten to nine , the police turned up along with David Romain from the environmental health department of the council. The policeman asked us to stop, I refused saying we finish at nine.

 

On this outside broadcast we used a good morning Vietnam microphone to pick up the street sounds and a hand mic for speech. Rob McSherry saw it  brewing and put on a tune about getting into trouble with the police.

 

After the song Mr Romain approached me, I grabbed the o/b mic and put him live on air, I argued with him at the roadside , I told him we were no more noisy than the cars and busses, just then the traffic lights changed and all hell let loose. Buddy Holly turned up the gain so the sound of the traffic was deafening to the listeners. I agreed to stop the broadcast, just then rob said we are going to have to end it but thanks for listening from Friargate Bridge its goodbye, as Chris started his first song Bon Jovi Living on a prayer you can just hear the policeman saying to me and where do you live.

 

Whilst we were packing up the equipment someone came running up to us and said we were listening and you can do the show from my garage. It was Steve Nightingale from Steve Nightingale Auto BMW.

 

Chris carried on paying music whilst we set up at the garage in the old railway arches on Friar Gate.

 

Andy Palmer turned up with Marcus Carter from Scribble and a load of tunes.

This was to be the best radio broadcast ever to be heard in Derby. Marcus Carter had been at the Blue Note till about 3am and was still pissed. He was young full of life and a very funny bloke.

When he got on the air the first thing he said was he wanted a fit bird to bring him his breakfast. Within about 5 mins a woman turned up with a bacon cob !

 

Steve Nightingale was working on his BMWs but today was different, there was a disco going on outside. It was a warm spring day the sun was burning off the morning mist.

Marcus said ok time for today's phone in competition, you have to ring in with rude names for car parts, someone rang in and said pistons, then wankle rotary engine and so on. We used Steve Nightingales phone as the main phone number.

When it came to news time Marcus said hold on my watch is wrong how will I know when it news time and how will I know when its finishes and we are back live on air.

 

A taxi pulled up and dropped someone off, he said ea up mate tune your radio to 105.8 so I can hear it. The driver tuned us in , Marcus could hear himself echoing around the place. It was about 30 seconds to news time he said Chris play us a jingle if you can hear us. Chris played a radfred jingle, Marcus said this is fun can you hear me Chris, they ended up talking over the air till the chap came on and said independent radio news its ten o'clock.

 

The taxi stayed there with its doors open till after the news was finishes and we were back live.

Several people including the local paper came down and were interviewed, Mat Chell and his band turned up and joined the fun. It was truly amazing that this broadcast came from nowhere. Marcus Carter ran another competition, the first one in the offices on friargate to pull a Moonie (bare there bum ) wins a prize.

Someone did and the people from the office came down and gave us an interview and joined the fun.

 

This was just brilliant fun to do and everyone involved was buzzing, we had such a good team of people, I was so proud to have put this together. I was getting so much praise for putting on the radio and paying for it out of my own pocket.

 

Liz was proud of me too. She was busy looking after my little lad Harvey but knew I was having the time of my life.

 

It came to the close down party hosted by the person who started the whole thing off, Tip Toe Tony, and Mark Sheldon. We passed rumours round town that the club would be open late, everyone was allowed upstairs into the studio. I said that no matter how long it took we would thank everyone personally for their help with the radio and we would say what they had done.

The list was 6 pages long, it had over 200 names on it. Tony went through it and played music between the credits. This took 2 hours, the studio was packed, and so was the nightclub. The station was a massive success, there has been nothing like it since and I doubt never again will anything unite the young people of Derby like that broadcast did. There have been some RSL stations but they seem to be more about promoting their ambitions rather than providing a service.

 

Ten seconds to go , the last jingle played, I had to walk the walk, from studio A down the corridor to the bog where the radio transmitter lived. I felt sad and I think I cried as I turned off the power.

I went onto the roof, you could still hear the cheering in studio A , the monitor radio had band noise hissing from it. I hate the sound of band noise, I thing there should be a station on every available channel but it don’t work like that in this country.

My dad rang me up and congratulated me on a very good station, he said it was sad to see it go off air.

 

Radio Freedom RSL one was the pinnacle of my life's achievements, it would come to haunt me in later life of what I could achieve if given the opportunity, but as more mundane problems grew this would become more and more unlikely to repeat.

 

We partied all night but I was unhappy, I did not like the quietness, it was time to come down to earth and work out how to pay the debts of the club.

 

The radio had got punters back into the Rock House  but it did not look sustainable.

Andy Palmer said lets take a break and resume in two weeks.

 

I took Liz and Harvey to our cottage in Branscombe. I walked over the hills and along the pebble beach wondering how I could recreate the fun I had just had.

 

When I got back from Branscombe, I met Andy Palmer to Discuss my future.. He persuaded me not to close, it should be re fitted and re named, he asked me to think of a name. It could not imply Rock it had to be a neutral sounding name.

 

I came up with the shit name The Future Club. I chose this because of it optimistic overtones, in 1996 everyone was looking towards the millennium and the future so that’s why I picked it.

Andy palmer said he would oversee the re fitting and re branding of the nightclub during the summer provided I got rid of my promotions manager Andy Sewell who he was sure did not support us.

I agreed and said I would close the place for the summer to give us time to re fit the building.

In the back of my mind I knew that if this worked then maybe we could do another radio station, so it was maybe worth a shot.

It was either that or shut down for good and me go and work at asda or be a folk truck driver.

 

 

 

 

         

 

 

 

 

Re Branding to Survive, Andy Palmers Refit

 

We had just completed the massively successful Radio Freedom RSL broadcast; I had taken time out to reflect on things. New arrival Andy Palmer said I should not close , but I should re launch with a new club aimed at the next generation of young people and students.

 

For the last 12 years I had provided a place for rockers and some crusties to go, the only problem was that rock was on a downer, the emerging dance scene and the sexist glam of  bands like  Bon Jovi  were not compatible.

 

There were new bands around and the heavy metal head banging stuff .had a following but it was in the minority in 1996.

 

Times were changing, the Rockhouse name and the interior were looking old and tarnished.

I met Andy Palmer after my holiday, we went with Jack the piano player who worked behind the bar to the Babington Arms Pub.

 

The decision to close down the Rockhouse for the summer was made, it was decided not to make a big deal about it, just to tell customers that we would be closed for a refit and would be back open in September.

 

The main difficulty was that I had no money to spend on this, the only way to do it would be to sell one or more of my properties.

Reluctantly I put Walter Street on the market. This was the start of the contraction process that would continue for ten years and ultimately leave me with nothing.

 

The house sold quickly and it gave Andy Palmer some working capital to use on the re fit.

Liz was against the selling of properties but liked Andy because he was a college boy and had studied art like she had.

 

We started work on the refit in July 1996, I felt this was the right thing to do but was nervous about weather it would get new people into the FUTURE club.

I liked the name Future, no one else did ! but it was appropriate at that time because the new millennium focused everyone on the future.

Maybe I was reading too much into this argument but it was the best name to be put forward so we stuck with it.

Andy Palmer said he would live in studio A on site, he was absolutely committed to the project, he worked 12 hour shifts each day to get the job done by September.

 

Mick Usher who worked with Chris on the rock show designed the posters for our new nights he made the Future logo set against a sunset sky, and several variants to use on our website.

Mat Chell joined the team and worked with Andy Palmer on the interior design , the most striking aspect was the re cladding of all the interior walls with MDF panels illuminated from behind, shapes were profile cut into the walls to give a soft glow.

The floor covering in front of the bar had to be removed, Andy wanted to make use of all the original features of the building as possible, we hired an industrial sanding machine and removed all the paint and old glue. We then used a hard wearing wood stain varnish to protect the new clean surface.

 

I made 30 grand available to Andy for the re fit, it did not take long before the cash ran out, the seating area in front of the kitchen could not be finished,  indeed in never did get done.

I also had debts from the rockhouse to pay, I owed council business rates of about 7,000 and also 5 grand to the tax man.

 

Andy palmer worked hard with Jack and Mat, he also had some D.J friends help, the place was looking new and fresh, there was a feeling of optimism in the air that this was going to work.

We had plenty of competition to think about, Jaz Rhy had taken over the Warehouse from Paul Needham, the students union had the Union bars on Cathedral Row, there was Time on Mansfield road the Pink Coconut, and our old friends Eclipse  down the road.

 

By the beginning of September we had completed the re decorating, the Future was ready to open .

 

Our Running order had D.J. Gordy with Time Tunnel on Fridays, Saturdays was a rotation of Travelling without moving deep house, Smokescreen deep house and the classic rock night.

Mondays was the official student night which was actually un official because the Students Union would not endorse it .

Thursdays we had a new night called Freestyle it was a skater/ indie music night . It was to have one of the best flyer designs that Mick Usher did for us .The night was hosted by Lindsey Scot and his face.

 

The start of the Future was a bit of a flop, Time Tunnel was only half full, the student night was dead but the rock night and smokescreen were rammed. Travelling without moving was doing ok, it had about 300 in.

I got the impression that the Future was not going to work, and that we had not reversed the downward trend from early in the year. Our official student night was the first night to actually get no members of the public in at all.

 

We were in the shit big time, I asked the council if we could pay our business rates in unsettlements, luckily they agreed. I put two more houses up for sale 111 mill hill lane and 17 Breedon Hill Road.

 These took a while to sell and did not make much of a profit but I needed the money. The housing market was in slump, some people had negative equity..

Andy Palmer was still living in studio A whilst mat Chell helped with promoting. I think Julie was still working as manager sorting out bar staff and wages.

 

Tessa also worked with me for eleven years was now running her own a pub called the football tavern.

 

The Future club did look completely different to the old Rockhouse, there were new young vibrant staff about the place. In many respects the staff were keeping the place going.

 

 

 

Yet another manager- Jazz 1999

 

We had just finished Radio Freedom RSL 3 in the spring of 1999, mat had done an excellent job of running the Future Club and doing his breakfast show with Chris Miles.

 

After the radio had finished there was always the characteristic depression, from being a busy bustling building it went to being quiet and still, back to the mundane business of trying to get the Kidz to come to our nightclub and not go to the union bars or eclipse.

 

I had pulled out of the pub watch scheme when the dial got busted by the drug squad a few years previous. I saw it as an act of betrayal by the police given the commitments that the drug squad had given to the trade, they said work with us and you wont get busted.

 

It implied that Artel had not been working with them when he got busted, he did however win his case but by that time he lost his license and the building was conveniently bought by the students union. It became the Union bars run by Mat McGuiness with his company five toes.

 

Jaz Rhy from the Loft (formally Paul Needhams Warehouse ) was a major contributor to the pub watch , he went to all the meetings and made sure he supported all the police initiatives. I got a tip off like I usually did when there was going to be a police raid, my contact told me that someone was going to get a bust and it could be me.

 

I could quite believe it because I operated outside the pub watch and had sent my resignation letter to the licensing inspector when Artel got raided.

 

Would you believe it, Jazz got the raid, his club was closed down. I was surprised because Jazz had a good relationship with the police , but his dance nights were doing well so maybe it was getting out of control.

 

Mat Chell was my manager, he made a massive F for future sign for the front of our building.

As I said before mat was beginning to drink at night after the club till all hours.

He also had a few problems at home, his girlfriend left him I think.

 

He became ill and was obviously unhappy, I think my shitty club took its toll on mat just as it did with Andy palmer.

He decided to leave and try to get his girlfriend back which he did successfully, they got married I think and had children. Mat got a proper job working in education. He will look back on his time at the club and view it as the dark, days but it was not, mat was creative and a talented articulate radio presenter.

 

I knew that my back was against the wall, it was getting difficult to keep staff because of the stresses of trying to run a club with no cash.

 

I was walking down the old railway test track path at Micklover with Liz and my son Harvey we were talking about mat and the drugs bust at the loft.

 

She said why not ring up Jazz and ask him to run the club. My management style was to find someone with ideas and help them turn them into reality. Maybe it showed a lack of confidence on my part to have a manager but that’s how it was.

 

Jazz did not really like me or the unorthodox way I did things. I took out my mobile and rang him. He said give me an hour to think about it.

 

When we were just finishing the walk Jazz called back, he said yes he would accept the job and would meet me to discuss it.

I don’t think Jazz like the way I knicked Gordys time tunnel from him the year before.

 

Jazz did not like rockers, he wanted to make the future trendy, He brought new staff with him, Juliette,  and some D.Js with him. He also wanted Andy Sewel to put some bands on Fridays again.

 

I had found out that Andy Sewel had been ordering posters for the loft and charging them to my account so I was not too happy with this.

 

Jazz tries a few ideas on the weekend nights but they did not work too well, he tried a night called root down drum and bass.

 

We kept Travelling without moving smokescreen and turned the rock night into classic rock once a month.

 

I knew that jaz was applying for Jobs he did not like working at the Future but it was a stepping stone for him.

 

Jazz only stayed for a few months before he left, I got a letter asking for a reference, he rang me and asked me to fill it in.

I gave him a good reference, he got the job, managing a big posh place in Nottingham.

 

When I left the industry 2 years later I could not find anyone that would give me a reference.

 

More bailiff actions against the nightclub during that summer left us without the basic to continue. No furniture, no tills the phone cut off and we were put on weekly payments of rent instead of quarterly. The tax man/ woman had put me on cash only payments delivered in person to their office in Chesterfield.

 

I was about to employ my last manager to help me. I had noticed how hard Marcus Shukla had worked on his night Travelling without Moving. He could see the position I was in but he was out of work and had the time.

 

 

I contacted Marcus and offered him the job of managing the Future and taking us into the new millennium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marcus – The struggle continues 1999

 

 

With Mat Chell and jaz gone I felt really alone, and I was running out of ideas to save the business, trade was so erratic , it had too many peaks and troughs.

Back in the 80s and 90s we took the same money each week. I looked back to the time that I sacked Paddy our long established rock D.J for only getting 343 in.

Now we struggled to get 80 in on any night, Jazs had tried threesome his dance night that had failed, I managed to persuade Ian Banks who worked on the radio to take over Fridays for a while but that was also a flop.

 

Travelling without moving was a deep house sound system, like smokescreen but from Derby. It featured some good D.Js lee whitehead, Scot from BPM records , Andy Macalister and Marcus Shukla.

 

Lee Whitehead designed the posters for the night, Marcus went out putting them everywhere.

You could not move in the town without seeing one or having a flyer stuffed in your hand.

Marcus would be outside every club handing them out and when Smokescreen was playing they would be standing outside inviting the punters back for their night.

 

I phoned Marcus up and talked about the managers job, he was well aware of my difficulties and knew that it was not going to be easy, clubs were having a bad time generally, some had already closed.

He accepted the job and started work on the following Tuesday.

 

Jazz had left us with some good staff Ann Marie and Juliette, were extremely hardworking and more importantly committed staff, Greg and Chris miles were still there, it looked like we had a bit of a team, mostly young people which is how it should be.

 

Word spread that I had employed Marcus, he was only 20 but he had one quality which would stand him in good stead and keep us going for another two years, he was not intimidated by anyone or anything.

 

I could see I was going to get on with him, I cant stand weak men, especially when there are difficult situations to deal with on a daily basis, with Marcus running the place with me it gave us the chance to work out how best to reverse the rend of low numbers.

 

We realised that if we were to survive we may have to break a few rules we would have to be much more aggressive on the advertising front.

 

Marcus saw Ian Banks involved in an incident outside, it may have involved a female, it was enough for him, we don’t need staff like that he said . Ian agreed to leave but said he would still do the radio if we needed him.

 

Marcus started a new Friday night , it was similar to what we used to do, it was called confusion LINK TO POSTER HERE     . D.J.s Lindsey, Dave, Emma and Will.

Having 4 D.J.s involved was interesting, they all had friends and were young, the last thing the kids want to see on their night out is D.J.s old enough to be their dads playing the music.

So although this sounds ageist it’s the truth about club life, within two months we were getting 400 in every Friday night.

Lindsey got a band called light-year to play a free gig, it was bloody rammed. We had now got a regular Friday night working, and actually managed to get BT to re connect the phone, I also paid the public liability insurance for once !

 

Saturdays began to get busy, smokescreen were still getting 600 in but they got half the door, travelling without moving about 300, Simon Baseline Smith Drum and Bass about 200 punters and the classic rock 450 so it was not looking too bad.

 

I still owed the council 8,000 quid in business rates but it had gone to court and I offered to pay 150 a week which was accepted.

 

Marcus said we must do better with the advertising, we went to Harlow's timber works and ordered 300 A2 sized hard boards.

 

I took Marcus, Greg, Kev Clancy all over the east midlands putting these things up, mostly advertising travelling, but it got our name out on the streets.

I came up with the idea that we should hit the big supermarkets, on the basis that on a Wednesday potential customers had not made their mind up about the weekend and were more open to suggestion.

When someone had already decided  to go to the blue note they would defend their choice, so you had to get them early before they had planned the weekend out.

 

Derby City council started to get heavy with the clubs, they employed an ex copper called Craig keen to carry out inspections and licence renewals.

He was given the title of liaison officer but in their literature he was referred to as an enforcement officer.

I mounted a campaign to have him removed, I was against the idea of surprise inspections during opening hours. Mainly because we would get shut down !

I argued that there were 143 different conditions that a licence must comply with, and to inspect these whilst the club was open would be a distraction.

 

I wrote to the council and told them that I would not co operate and would be following the protocol that I had drawn up, and that I would be asking other members of the trade to sign up to it also.

It was called the ENFORCEMENT OFFICER INSPECTION PROTOCOL, I circulated this to all members of the trade, it basically said that if their was an inspection during opening hours all management and staff would immediately stand down, leave their posts and go out side the building. It would then make the inspection impossible and give them the responsibility for the customers inside.

Basically the licence was responsible for customers but if someone from outside was going against this understanding then they took on the responsibility for public safety from that moment.

I made it clear in writing that this is how we would deal with such an inspection.

Jazz supported the police and council look where it got him, all my staff agree so I put up a staff notice telling them that if we get raided they must leave their post immediately and blend in with the punters.

This aggressive stance worked, we never got an inspection during club hours, good job because we were always rammed !

When Craig keen came to the club by appointment Marcus did not submit to his authority, he treated him like the failed ex pig that he was.

Yes he made us tidy up the wiring and get the hot water working in the gents bog but that’s about all he got out of us.

Something I found insulting about Craig keen is that he criticised our opening check routine, one every night that the club had been open I personally checked (by opening ) all our fire exits, right through to the street, I tested the emergency lights , fire extinguishers for tampering every single night.

This was done and signed for, and put in the safe, I had done that for nearly 20 years without ever forgetting, so that ex pig could not tell me what to do, he said we should use standard forms, I said I will continue to use my book which had been accepted by the fire officer.

We spread propaganda about Craig Keen and tried to make his job hard, sure enough he went and was replaced by another college boy.

This is why I liked Marcus because he stood up to the establishment, he took no shit of anyone, our door staff  Stan called him Ghandi in view of his race but Marcus was used to that.

When it came to challenging situations on the door Marcus backed up his staff if they were right and told them straight if they got it wrong.

He earned the respect of the door men, once again we had a little cash flow and the inevitable question of the radio came up, shall we apply for an RSL in the autumn.

 

We had got a few quid so why not, I wrote to the radio authority and got a licence for mid October lasting for a month.

Unfortunately I had fallen out with bob over money during the last broadcast, so there was no point asking him and meesha to get the advertising.

I said to Marcus we need the radio to keep punters interested in the club. Marcus was a long standing listener to freedom, he recons he listened to it when he was only ten so he was happy to do it, and it gave travelling without moving a platform on air.

 

On this broadcast I wanted to try a religious program so I put an advert in the paper and got a lovely African couple to present their show live on Sunday mornings at 7am till 9

 

RSL 4 began but Marcus insisted that we publicise our nights and back off from other clubs. We needed to get something from out of the radio so we persuaded all out D.J.s to do their own programmes, Fridays and Tuesdays had the Confusion radio show hosted by Dudley Dave Lindz and Emma, it went down well. Simon Bassline did a show called Root down, Travelling without Moving had their own program and even smokescreen did an all nighter. The only problem was that at 6:30 am the religious presenters would arrive, I would have to get rid of all the empty cans of Stella and joints, and get some fresh air in the studio, so I had to stay all night.

RSL 4 was ok , it cost the club 5 grand but it was worth it, we had bands playing and did stuff from the Vic , I had an advert on the radio advertising the club for sale, this was a mistake and it showed I was uncertain about my future, it cant have done staff moral any good, they deserved better because of how hard they were working. I tried to make out it was only for sale at the right price.

Its hard to remember much about this broadcast but I do remember the punk show as being very funny our old friends from Sheffield Sparky and Mule did Techno/ drum and bass, and we had a good program of folk music on Friday nights.

RSL 4 finished in November 1999, it did its job of bringing us together, it was not as exciting as the previous 3 but maybe it was because we were all used to doing them and it was becoming normal. I see radio and clubs as mutually beneficial and I would still recommend any nightclub have its own station, indeed I have always believed DERBY COUNTY should get a radio station of their own and kick out BBC radio Derby because all they do is slag the club off on air.

 

It was only one month to go till the start of the new millennium, after the radio finished there was a bit of a downturn in trade, which could not have come at a worse time because I had to pay the radio authority five thousand quid. The performing rights society sent us a big bill for 7 thousand and the council sent another demand for the next lot of business rates. This left me in a bit of a fix just before Christmas.

 

 

   

 

 

 

The final year 2000

 

 

Marcus had got us through the millennium night, we were stronger for it but still there were cash flow problems to resolve.

It was obvious that if we went to cash and carry again they would stop the account because of the rubber cheques issued before Christmas.

Marcus gave Stan his 500 quid back, good job because doormen are only your friends till you owe them money then it’s a completely different story.

 

Stan the man had worked for me for 8 years, I had an understanding that I would never sack him no matter how bad things got because he was the only one to come to my house and help fight off the bailiffs when I had a visit.

 

The police and bailiffs were at my house emptying the contents into a white van, I asked Stan if he could prevent them going upstairs.

 

He told the bailiffs in front of two coppers, look mate you don’t go up these stairs or I will twat you, do you get my drift.

The bailiffs stripped the downstairs but all my radio equipment upstairs was not touched.

Later that year Stan had the same problem, he owed money and had them round his house.

I wrote Stan a letter saying he could use the amplifiers and music, but he must return them in original condition and that they belonged to the nightclub.

 

That letter saved Stan loosing his entire record collection because I said it was club property.

I got put in a tricky position when Stan asked for a pay rise, right at the time when I was skint. I said look Stan where is the cash going to come from, we are empty most of the time.

Stan , Deck and Richard did not see it quite like that. Tempers were getting frayed on the Friday night in February 2000, our door staff saw it as me taking the piss, they were working till later and expected a higher rate after 2am.

 

It was Smokescreen the following night, we were well used to deck turning up an hour late, but Stan only lived up the road so it was alarming when he failed to show up.

 

Marcus said we will delay the opening till 11 and see what happens. We had and enormous queue outside but had no doormen, so me and Marcus let the punters in slowly.

 

Once we got them into the club I phoned up a doormen agency and got temporary staff.

This was the start of the doormen strike that was to last nearly a year.

 

I said I would pay the agency staff in cash on the night, however one of them got arsey, he said this place is bloody packed , how many does it hold, if you expect us to work over the fire limit we want more cash.

It was heaving, Smokescreen was the only night that filled the place, but it was not as good as it seemed because we had to split the door 50/50. I was left with the overheads.

 

I said I would not be using those staff again; I put advert in the paper but only had three applicants. One was a coloured chap, who had just come out of prison, will try to remember his name, and the other one was a chap who was very professional, he had finished his tour of duty in military police. A brilliant doorman but just not up to the stature of Stan deck and rich. The DLF football skinheads came in on the Friday night, they censed a weakness because Deck and crew were gone, it kicked off, and I think I had to call the police, this was un heard of.

 

I had to stand the military chap down but I apologised to him and said I had made a recruiting error and in no way must he think that it was his fault. I really wanted to keep him in post but I am sure I was exposing him to danger.

 

I kept the coloured chap because I wanted to show that giving someone a chance after prison was the right thing to do, he was a big bloke and could have been moulded into part of a team.

 

I asked Marcus if he new anyone who could help, he said I will ask Keith and maybe my brother may do it.

Keith and Marcus’s brother started work the following week,  and worked with the coloured chap whose name escapes me !

 

The thing about Keith was that he was Clever and studied law but came from the west end, I felt that he was always wanting to prove himself.

However whilst he worked for me he did not question my judgement, I rather think that in his early days he had some respect for me.

 

Keith would be there till the very end, he was someone to talk to when things turned to shit which they definitely did.

It was not long before our new team got a test, but they stood up well, it was again a smokescreen night, it was absolutely packed.

 

At about 12 ish I asked the doormen to do a full fire door inspection every 15 minutes.

I used to do this inspection if we were grossly overloaded, every 15 minutes the doormen would inspect the fire exits for obstruction and sign a sheet to say they did it and alert me or Marcus of any problems.

 

The idea behind this was if we had to evacuate the club then we would not get caught out by sabotage, in the past  parked cars and large steel bins moved into exit doors, you could not be complacent when dealing with customers lives.

We had done the one in one out thing but we needed the cash. By slowing the rate of entry to the club then at least the overload time could be minimised.

 

Chris Marcus’s Brother carried up a collapsed woman, she was in the bottom corridor of the central stairs.

Either her friends called an ambulance of we did , cant remember.

Bearing in mind that I had foiled a drug raid on smokescreen years previously, the old bill were aware of what smokescreen was about.

This was by far our biggest night, 700 punters we used to finish at about 2am.

Just as we were cleaning up the room after a busy night, the police turned up, we were told that this was a crime scene and we were to leave immediately.

 

Blue and white tape and a road block was placed outside on Babington lane.

During this time we were on bailiff alert so at the end of each night we would hide some sound equipment, and lock all the furniture in the cloakroom.

 

The police asked me for the keys to the nightclub. I gave them up, and never got them back.

At the road block we asked the police what this was all about. This is where they got clever, they said that a girl was fighting for her life in hospital, she had been injured by a sharp edge on a metal chair and it had punchered her lungs.

 

This was disturbing because I was aware we had stored amongst the furniture in the cloakroom was broken stools awaiting disposal or repair. They did not get put out in the club but we could not prove that because all the chairs were in there.

 

I see this as very sinister on the part of the police, in the space of an hour they had found a way of putting me in a almost un defaceable position.

The reason for doing this was to put us off the real cent, that was that this was a drugs overdose and I rather think they hoped she would die so they could stitch us up.

 

Me and Marcus knew the story of the chair was made up but never the less we had to listen to the local news like everyone else to see what cracked off.

 

It was found that she had taken a horse tranquiliser instead of an ecstasy tablet and survived.

The police decided to give advice on the radio derby about safe use of drugs, and we heard nothing about this again.

 

I did not get the keys back and had to get new ones cut.

It was a lesson that the police will find a vulnerability and exploit it, they are not stupid , this was done at a high level and it was a warning that they had woken up.

 

I remember taking the arty broken stool that was my souvenir from the dial to the tip, and throwing it over the wall, it was a metal tulip type thing made at the university.

 

This was our last involvement with the police , they did not come back again, but I was glad. This episode made them more of a threat if they were going to use noble cause corruption on us.

 

 

 

 

 

The Final Year Part Two

 

          At the beginning of the year we had a letter from the brewery telling us that we were not achieving targets for beer sales and that this was in violation of our trading agreement.

One of the main reasons for this as that we were getting most of our stock from cash and carry, we could not allow the brewery to pull out because of the substantial loan we had with them.

This loan was interest free whilst sales targets were being met ,but at 15 % interest if trade was too slow.

Typical capitalist situation, they sting you when you can least afford to pay. Marcus negotiated new terms with the rep, so for a few weeks we gave them nearly all the trade back, this was ok because we owed bookers cash and carry about a grand.

 

On our next visited to bookers I was asked to go to the managers office, he said the account will be closed unless we paid off the outstanding balance.

 

The manager was a decent chap, he said if he passed this onto head office we would have the account closed and recovery action against me. However because of our long trading record with them, the local branch would stand the debt, provided we start paying it off and pay all new purchases with good old cash.

 

It took about 3 months to completely pay them back but this arrangement worked, we had some respect for bookers for saving the millennium night.

 

During the summer of 2000 trade kept fluctuating, some nights were rammed and then the week after they would be dead.

 

Our door team were getting on ok, Ben, Keith, Chris and occasionally Richard who came back to spy on us and break the strike !!

 

Keith said he had seen David Romaine from environmental health department taking reading of the sound levels in the street.

I went to have a look, he was right, I said if you go and grab the device off him I will give you 200 quid.

Keith was not happy with this request, it was the only time he did not carry out my request.

As you would expect a letter arrived from the council saying that if the sound levels were over 80 dB at 4m from the boundary of the building they would issue a noise abatement notice. They said that you should clearly hear the bass.

I told the council I would not be making any changes to my sound system and took it as a complement that bass frequencies were audible, especially given it was a Drum and Bass night.

 

A few weeks later Mr Romain was back, he took his reading, I almost went out to him my self, I wish my doorman had gone out and smashed up his meter. But I knew that I did not have their support in doing what would have been common assault if he resisted.

 

In November a bundle of papers were hand delivered through the front doors, it was a noise abatement notice. If we violated this notice I could be fined up to 10,000 pounds and or 2 years imprisonment.

 

The irony was that we were making most noise when the club was only half full. The council took readings again during a smokescreen night, we were running the usual 10, 000 watts.

This issue seemed to go away, it looked like we had got away with it.

 

I wanted to run the radio again but could not afford it so I asked the radio authority if we could have our 28 day licence spit up into weekends, they said no.

Marcus would not allow me to blow the last few quid on another radio station. I asked the D.J.s if they would pay a little towards a 3 day ticket over the bank holiday.

 

It was only 250 quid so on we went, Travelling without Moving, Smokescreen and our Friday confusion presenters did shows.

This was to be Radio Freedom's last legal broadcast, it was good fun but no one listened apart from us lot. However it did not cost anything because the presenters paid to go on air.

 

I made another massive blunder which haunts me to this day, I decided to sell my first house 146 brackens lane, I bought this house in 1981 and owned it outright. It took ages to sell, the market was in a slump. The estate agent said Mr Johnson you have to be realistic, if you want to sell it then drop the price to 27,950 then it may sell.

Eventually it did but it did not really help the clubs finances.

 

Trade was ticking over, even Fridays were showing signs if trouble. Andy Sewel could see I was in the shit, he asked me if he could put a couple of bands on. I said ok. He asked for a Friday night, I agreed but this was a mistake because it would disrupt the indie night, and Andy charged about 8 quid to get in. I let him put on two gigs, one was called Less than Jake.

I had never heard of them. Andy put 650 punters in the place. During the on core Keith said to me he was sure the floor was going to give way, the P.A system came down into the crowd but Ben saved anyone from getting hurt. Keith told me that I had damaged the floor and we could not do that again.

 

I said to Andy Sewel he could only have 450 in to the next gig witch was on the following Friday.

He said he had already sold 600 tickets. A radio ham who worked as an engineer was at less than Jake, he came up to me and said ea up Paul I think your floor was moving too much, I was shitting myself, I half expected to end up in the shop.

I took this seriously so I called in a structural engineer to inspect the floor joists and steel supports.

The club was closed until the following Friday , Keith and what's his name who played footy at jjb, came in and began removing the floor boards as requested by the structural engineer.

 

We put a camera on a boom with a light and commenced the survey, SHOCK HORROR, all the joists under the dance floor were split for most of their length and there were evidence of rot and damage to the joist ends on the street side, possibly caused by cleaning or leaks seeping from the canopy outside.

 

His report suggested that the 7 inch joists were designed to fit into 5 inch steels with a slot cut into the ends to allow the extra 2 inches above.

He said that in his opinion the wood was not properly seasoned when the building was constructed in the 1930s, and it had shrunk over time, this resulted in the floor timbers hanging off the top 2 inches, instead of seating on the RSJ. The Dynamic load of customers jumping up and down rhythmically caused the wood to split. There was a real possibility of a structural failure of the floor. He advised putting steel packers under the bottom of each Joyce end to bring the load back onto the RSJ. We went to Egglestons brothers and got the steel and used sledge hammers to drive them into the gaps under the joists.

 

He carried out his inspection again to check on the work we had done. It was passed off, with the proviso that we reduced dynamic loads in front of the stage.

I was in a bloody fix because of Andy sewel, he had sold 600 tickets when he knew it was a 350 capacity venue, it was on my shoulders not his if it went tits up.

 

I had to either cancel his next gig or find a solution to our floor loading problem. As usual I hit on a compromise that he hated.

We would spread the load, by restricting the numbers of people on the dance floor, and moving the crowd back so as to keep them off the damaged timbers.

Marcus contacted the council and hired some crowed barriers, we put them in front of the stage but left a big gap. We made sure that the first 3 rows would be jumping up and down on a steel girder bit of the floor not a timber joist!

 

We got 20 people in yellow jackets to surround the dance floor linking arms like the police do at the match.

 

This was the most brilliantly stewarded event we had ever done, Keith, Marcus and has mate were professional in running this operation, they knew the gravity of the situation.

 

If we had not taken this action the floor may well have gone through. If it had we fully expected lives to be lost in the crush, and if there had been a fire in the shop below which was likely in this event then them that survived the fall would have been locked in because of the grills on reliance's windows and doors. It does not bare thinking about.

 

I cancelled all planned gigs from that day on, we decided to stick more closely to the fire limit. But that would no longer be an issue because of low numbers !!

 

 

 

 

The Final Year part Three.

 

It was November 2000 we had just done a radio broadcast over the bank holiday weekend in early September. Derby city council had issued a noise abatement notice so we had to be a little bit careful not to breach it unnecessarily; the floor was also in a bad way so it was prudent not to ram the place out.

 

There was only one night that was getting significant numbers and that was Smokescreen. They were getting 700 plus, but the crowd were getting more and more grungy, Tubby who was one of the D.J.s in smokies was beginning to get arsey with us. They wanted more of the door split but I would not agree to this.

Marcus and me did most of the advertising for this night because they were getting complacent, it took us ages to put up the placards in Derby Nottingham and sometimes Sheffield. We felt that we were doing all the running around for them and on the night our door staff were constantly trying to keep the drug thing down. Smokescreen were acting like they were bigger than the club and it was going to come to a head.

 

I was panicking about the state of the floor which had split floor joists, so I said we would not let more than 500 punters in there was a queue outside, it was about two am, I asked the doormen to do a one in one out, I stood at the top of the stairs to enforce it.

 

One of Tubbys mate’s was outside near the back of the queue he said go on let him in, I said no it will cause a riot because of the time the others had been standing in the cold. Tubby argued with me but I held my ground, he said right this nights over, and turned off the sound system. The P.A. went off, me and Marcus told the doormen to prepare to empty the club.

 

We decided that we would provide a refund to the customers paid out of Smokescreens money.

In the eyes of the law Tubby was no one but I held the responsibility for the safety of everyone in the building including the staff. If things went wrong I would be dragged over the coals not Tubby.

 

Customers started slow hand claps as we argued in the office, I said you have put me in an impossible position, he was asking me to let all them outside into the already rammed club.

 

I said to Keith that we would let a few in and say to the rest sorry we are not letting any more in tonight.

 

Tubby had put me in a no win situation, it was a despicable act and was the beginning of the end for Smokescreen and ultimately the future club.

 

Just before Christmas 2000 the council sent a summons detailing actual breaches of the noise abatement notice. The date for he hearing had not been set but would be in early 2001.

Our landlords were Reliance Electrical, they bought the building for 650,000 about ten years previous from Cattle's holdings in Hull. Five years before my rent should have gone up but reliance missed the rent review date, I kept quiet, why should I highlight their failings.

The next rent review date was December 2000, reliance were using Paul Orridge commercial estate agents I think. They said they would like to re value the building for the purpose of setting the new rent. This was going to be very serious because the rent had not gone up for ten years.

Reliance indicated that they would seek to have this rent backdated five years to the date when they missed the rent review and that I would have to pay the rental increase and interest at the HSBC current rate.

I checked on similar commercial property rates and found we were paying half of what others in the street were paying. I was advised it could go up to 36,000 a year from 17,500 and that council business rates were linked to my rent so they would also increase at next valuation.

 

I  sent a copy of the lease to a firm of specialist commercial property layers in Sheffield, usual trick , use out of town solicitors to prevent word seeping out on our business.

 

They studied the document and wrote their conclusions, they said that there was nothing in the lease that precluded the landlord from setting the rent at any time. Missing the rent review date was immaterial, and that they could see nothing in the lease to support my assertion that they could not backdate the increase.

 

Whilst I was contesting the rent review I prevented the landlord from entering the property, I also would not let the landlords surveyor into the building carry out his valuation.

 

Marcus contacted D.I.Y sound system and stated discussions with them to replace smokescreen just in case we had to replace them.

 

The next lot of business rates became payable, but we were two years in arrears , paying off the back duty on a court order of 150 a week.

Derby city council wrote and told us that they would be demanding all of our current liability in one payment, they would not accept it in instalments due to our debt with them.

 

Environmental health services wrote to us and said they would like to do a health and safety inspection.

 

The officer called and found a few problems which needed to be resolved , we were skint but Marcus,s dad came in to help  put things right.

 

All our nights apart from smokescreen were struggling. We expected to make up the shortfall over Christmas and new-year but it failed to materialise.

We tried to make Travelling without moving the dominant night to stop us being so reliant on smokescreen.

The Travelling Crowd were less into drugs and a better quality night. Marcus and Lee Whitehead booked Andy Weatherall. He had done sessions on radio one and was well respected. It was a good night and he said he enjoyed playing the future club.

 

We could still put on a good night and this encouraged us to keep fighting.

Reliance kept asking to let the surveyor in but we nailed up the letterbox to stop them serving papers on us. A simple trick but it worked. British telecom had already cut the phone off so it was getting hard to contact us. We used to send the cleaners down to pay the rent cus I was scared of the grief I would get if I went down stairs !

 

Another nasty letter from the council, it said that FOLLOWING A COMPLAINT from a member of the public it had come to their notice that we did not have planning permission for the future club sign that mat chell made.

 

I wrote back and told them that I had permission for the sign back in 1984, they said yes but that was for the Rockhouse sign not the Future sign.

 

A bundle of papers arrive, it was another summons for breach of control of advertising regulations 1994.

The date of the case was in towards the end of march at the court of injustice at Bold lane.

 

I prepared my papers and went to defend it without a solicitor as usual. I has noticed a discrepancy in their evidence, another letter said they discovered the sigh following a review, I asked, have you actually received a complaint or not. And if so present it to this court.

The council official went red and looked uncomfortable, she said we had not received a complaint, I said your letter here says you have, is it normal to you to tell lies to support your evidence.

I said that this case should be thrown out because of the conduct of this whiteness who had admitted to the court that the council letter about a complaint was wrong. The bench retired for a few moments, they came back after considering this point. They said that this lie did not materially alter the case.

That was an injustice and this told me that it was a stitch up. We all know what was going on, I was fighting a multi departmental effort from Derby city council to put me out of business. I asked why it had taken 4 years to dream up this case.

 

They won the day and I was ordered to pay 1800 and 650 costs. Another bill that would not get paid !.

 

Reliance served a section 146 notice on me for breaching the conditions of our lease by failing to let in the landlords surveyor. It gave me 7 days to comply or the lease between us would be terminated.

 

I went on the ski holiday with my friends, I knew I had a few problems to fix when I got back. Simon Baseline Smith said he was moving his night to the gatehouse. He had lost confidence with the future, Simon was shrude , he had no allegiance to us and would do what was best for his image.

 

Bassline going was a body blow for me and Marcus . it was deflating, we just could not think what we could do to end this slide.

Even the classic rock was only getting 80 people in. There were debts outstanding and court cases looming.

The noise abatement case would have cost thousands. I could not afford a solicitor.

Derby city council commenced recovery action for the whole of the business rates outstanding, this was 15 grand despite a court order that had not been breached.

 

Bailiffs made a few visits to the club but could not get in. When I got back from the ski holiday I met with Marcus and told him I intended to close the club. The last night would be on April 28th.

We talked about Marcus taking over and me leaving but being paid as a promoter.

John Morton who rented P.A. to us with Kevin Taft showed an interest in taking over the lease and had a meeting with reliance.

He was told that the rent could go up to about 32,000, they would not budge on this, John was also frightened by the debts I had run up.

 

My solicitors advised me that if I did not let the landlords surveyor in the building the lease would end, however the landlord would loose the right to charge me the new rent backdated and with interest. This would save me a potential 40,000. It would also remove the Burdon on me to pay the rent for the next 9 years of the lease remaining.

 

It was my responsibility under the lease to re assign it and collect the rent or pay it my self.

It was crucial that the lease ended.

The deadline passed I did not let the landlords surveyor into the building, the landlord terminated the lease their and then and served me 28 days to leave under section 146 of the landlord and tenant act 1926.

 

I advised the staff, that we were closing, deck Stan and Richard had come back in dribs and drabs after the strike. No hard feelings

I don’t think people actually believe that it would close after 17 years. I had not paid the mortgage on my house for 7 months, the building society had sent me a letter asking me to pay off the outstanding amounts or face repossession

 

Saturday the 28th April 2001 was advertised as the last night of the rockhouse/ future clubs.

Unfortunately Marcus would be on holiday that week so he missed the last night.

 

 

 

 

  The Last Night

 

 

Reliance Electrical our landlords served 28 days notice on me that I should vacate the building; there was a clause in the lease that said I had to put the building back as I found it.

We had bricked all the windows up and removed the window cills, taken out doors and generally trashed the place, so you can understand that I had no intension of complying with this condition!

Colin Walker was the senior partner at reliance and a local magistrate; I had a running with him in 1994 about the amount of insurance we had to pay him. That went to a tribunal, I represented myself and lost. Most of the time I operated without any public liability insurance or just with the most basic of cover, yet my lease forced me to pay for one third of reliance’s buildings and re instatement cover. Reliance had themselves covered up to the hilt and it cost me thousands to pay towards this.

 I always resented paying them for something that I could never afford. I saw insurance as the currency of frightened men, trying to remove uncertainty out of their business model.

 

Our staff were gutted that we were going to close but no one could offer a way out of the dilemma, there was a flurry of activity as different scenarios were played out, what if this , what if that, happened I got sick of it. I offered the place virtually free to anyone that could save it.

Unfortunately I come from a working class family and all my friends were working class also, I did not have anyone with the kind of cash that it would take to save the future.

 

In 2001 most clubs were struggling, punters were finding different things to do with their time; Thatcher’s generation did not want to drown their sorrows in nightclubs till all hours.

They wanted clean, modern bright cocktail bar type places, not a dark hole with 10,000 watts of sub Bass.

Our product was out of date and it was right that it should close. This period would see long established names go to the wall. The Pink Coconut, Eclipse, Union Bars, the Whitehouse and the Loft would all fall victim to this change in demand from the next club goers.

One unlikely survivor was the Bless who took most of the remaining indie customers.

 

Our last week started with a hire out on the Tuesday with an Asian Party, it had been booked a few weeks before and could not be cancelled although I had lost the will to continue and sat in the office all night.

This night was quite busy, normally at these events there is trouble but not this one, it went really well, Keith Stan and Deck got on well with the organisers, but I rather think the end of their employment was on their minds.

Deck had worked for me for 15 years apart from the strike year, he did not say much about why we were closing,

 

At the end of the night the organisers said their customers had had a great time, they liked the feel of the club and the relaxed but firm attitude of the place. They said they would like to make this a regular event and asked if they could do this every Tuesday.

They could not believe me when I said there would be no more Tuesdays for me, and that the club was closing on Saturday.

It was at this point I wondered if I was doing the right thing, but one good night was not going to solve my problems.

 

Friday was the confusion Farwell party with Dudley Dave Emma and Lindz, I think they put a band on, by now the word was out, it was packed there were people crying I remember. If only we could get this turn out every week I thought, where you were all last week.

 

Marcus was away with his family on his holidays, this had been the first week in 17 years hat I did not have a manager to fall back on, I thought I had done quite a good job, all the nights were busy, but I knew that it was because we were closing that’s the only reason.

 

I put posters up on all the lamp posts in town saying THE END of the Rockhouse and Future this Saturday.

It advertised a classic rock night to finish at 1 am. I also secretly told smokescreen they could do an illegal all-nighter starting at 2am after the rockers had gone. I said keep it quiet, word of mouth job. We would use the side entrance on Sitwell street.

 

Kevin Clancy who had been there from the early days helped me do the advertising and would work all night and all the following day for me. He helped me keep my head up during this difficult time because he was always cracking sick jokes.

 

 

Saturday 28 April 2001

 

I got up at the usual time half past nine to start what I would call my day, no one mattered to me that day, I opened my mind to take in every last emotion because I knew that I would remember it for the rest of my days.

 

I went to the club at half past ten, Anne Marie and Juliette were there cleaning up the shite from the night before. It was a still early feeling. I remember being intimidated by the presence of the building that I treated as my own but now was the landlord’s property.

I felt like I owned the place up and till that moment, I realised the power reliance had over me for the first time, they would shape my future more than anyone had done before.

There was a lot to do, we were also planning a live radio broadcast from the nightclub that night and all day Sunday. I had to make the master tape and also prepare my program.

 

I put a microphone in the roof above the D.J.box to pick up the sounds of the night.

 

My staff worked as hard as normal to prepare the room for the last night. I spent my time in the radio studio sorting out the station.

 

I went round to all the presenters’ houses in turn to pick up their recorded shows.

It took most of the afternoon to compile the master tape and it took my mind of the situation downstairs.

I went home and went to bed because I was going to be up all night. At Nine o clock I took my son Harvey to the nightclub, I asked him to follow me as I carried out the checks of each fire door, I wanted him to see what I actually did in my club.

He was only five and a half but he understood that change was in the air. he came to the safe with me and watched me sign the fire safety check record for the last time, I showed him my original signature done on the opening night in march 1984.

I  put the book back in the safe and got the floats out.

 

Staff was arriving at the door in a sombre mood. The D.J arrived, with his music, he had already set up his gear on the stage that afternoon.

I opened the doors for the last time, there was a queue outside just like there was in 84, but the rock chicks and me were looking a little dated now.

 

I got fed up with explaining the convoluted story of why we were closing, I also in the back of my mind blamed them for only coming to the club when it suited them, they expected me to keep it going for years for the odd occasion when they could be bothered to come out. I knew that this was biter of me to think in this way. Fortunately I did not tell anyone this or I would have got a slap I am sure.

 

The doormen Stan Deck Richard and Keith looked at me wondering why I had got my lad with me, he was so young and this was a dangerous place, and it was illegal to have him in .

But I wanted Harvey to see the last night. I took him to the radio studio and opened the pirate broadcast by explaining what was going o happen. I think confusion did a show whilst I got the night going downstairs.

We soon hit the limit of 500 people, I could have got more in but realised I was close to the finish line and could not have any disasters now.

 

There were more people crying in the place, there were also piss heads that could not give a shit.

 

I went on air upstairs and interviewed Andy Huge about what the end of the Rockhouse meant to him, he gave a superb interview, and summed up the feelings of most that it was a tragedy ,the Rockhouse was part of the fabric of the town and would be missed. He had some good time down there.

Mick Usher said he had spent half his life in the place, we talked about the merits of altering it in 1996 and changing the name. Mick like many me their partners there so he had fond memories of the Rockhouse but not so many in the Future.

 

More customers came up to the studio to give interviews on air, it was strange for me to be interviewing customs about my business incompetence.

 

I rang up Liz and said can you come and get Harvey because it was busy and he was tired. She came to pick him up and got a Jasmine to look after him at home so she could come to town.

I took Harvey onto the stage to look at all these people it was rammed again but the atmosphere was subdued.

 

I wrote a speech to deliver as the last song would be played, it was like a bloody funeral but I was unhappy.

Liz arrived at the club pissed but I only saw her for a few moments because we were doing the radio. I was keen to get these rockers out as soon as it was done so we could get smokescreen in with the massive P.A.

 

At precisely 1:20 I walked onto the stage, and delivered my speech it criticised the council for harassing me and blamed them and reliance for making it impossible for me to continue. I thanked the staff past and present for their help and the customers who made it the best club in the east midlands. I threw the mic onto the floor which was the queue for the D.J to play THE SONG IS OVER by the WHO. This was to be the last record, as it faded out Liz came up to me she was crying, so were many of our more loyal customers and staff.

Well done mate someone said to me as I walked off the stage. We left the microphone on live in the club so that listeners could hear everything including that familiar sound of the end of a night.

Smokescreen had their van parked at the side of the building ready to load in the next lot of P.A., there were Grungies out side waiting, I got Stan to ask them to go to side door and wait. There till we were ready.

 

One of the Smokescreen D.Js went on the radio to play deep house whist we got set up.

 

I think some of the rockers wanted to stay all night and it may have caused bad feeling when we checked them out of their shrine in 15 minutes flat.

Our came the wet vacuum cleaner and black bin bags, I marshalled the staff like it was a military operation to get the place turned around ready for smokescreen all- nighter.

 

I could not give a shit weather the police got wind of it or not, the lights were dimmed, there were already 500 plus in Sitwell street. The rockers outside heard the P.A. spark up as smokies tested their levels.

I think there was a feeling that they had been somehow betrayed because they were not getting the last night at all it was going to smokescreen.

There had always been this great debate about me selling out to dance music so I can partly understand this.

 

Smokescreen were ready I went on air to introduce them and it was live, Stan and deck let the punters in, it was shit hot, another 500 customers but they were completely different to them lot that was in before. Everyone was well behaved that night, no arguments with Tubby, but no tears either, just pumping deep house all night.

There was a big cheer as it finally got light outside.

I set up a small studio in the office at 6am and started to record my radio show that was due to go out at 10am.

I did it and burnt it onto the master tape ready for broadcast. I took the player upstairs to studio A and set a time switch.

This smokescreen night was one of the best, they showed respect to us , I suppose they actually appreciated what I was doing and they must also had realised that it was the end of an era.

It was nine am reliance opened on a Sunday so we had to stop. There was a massive cheer; this was really the last record. All the customers streamed out into the road as reliance lifted the window shutters.

 

I said goodbye to my staff as smokescreen loaded the gear into the old gas board van on the front. We may have lost a bit of pa in the rush but who cares.

It was five to ten I stood outside the front doors; I ran back into the club and got 3 bottles of strong Russian beer from behind the bar. I slammed the doors closed behind me and waited for the taxi to take me home. At ten o clock the time switch put the radio back on, for its Sunday broadcast. It was me to kick it off, the taxi pulled up I got in still drinking, and I asked the driver if he could tune to 107.3fm. We listened to my programme as we drove back home.

I paid the driver and walked into my front room, still buzzing from my night, Harvey was sitting crossed legged on the floor watching CBBC.  I happened to notice a huge pile of sick by the kitchen door.

 

I got the black shovel and scraped up the lumpy bits and threw them into the garden, no doubt for the dog to eat.

I put on the kettle and boiled some water. I put disinfectant on the sick and hot water, I used the wet vacuum cleaner to remove it but the white stuff just smudged on the carpet.

 

Eventually I got it up, I guess Liz had got pissed and puked up when she got in.

I went upstairs and said she had made a right mess down stairs, but I had cleaned it up. She groaned at me, so I went downstairs and made her a cup of tea.

I got Harvey dressed and took Liz the tea. I tried to tell her about the night, and I put my radio show on. She was not interested. I said I would go to bed because future FC had a football game at willows at 11:40 and it was against the top team.

 

I got up at half eleven and went to willows to play football, we won the game 5-1.

 

After the game I went to the club to meet Kevin Clancy to begin the task of stripping the place out and cleaning it after smokescreen but the gents toilet was blocked, Kiev said leave it for reliance, I said no so I stuffed a mop down it to clear it.

Chris Gregory came down to help empty the office.

 

We took all the stuff to a lock up belonging to Kevs mate in Chaddesden. It did not take long to empty the place despite the fact I was their 17 years.

I worked there all day ripping stuff out. We had the radio on listening to radio freedom.

I did not go home all day. We went backwards and forwards to this lockup in Chad.

Several people turned up that afternoon to help. By 11am we were finished, all that remained was to turn off the radio remove the mast and give the keys back to reliance.

 

We had an hour to kill whilst Tony Clarks jazz show went out, that was the last program on the tape. Someone found a 24 pack of Stella that had not been stolen!

 

We sat in the radio studio waiting for the show to Finnish; we swigged back the strong lager. I went into the big room upstairs and threw a fire extinguisher through the dividing wall window. Everyone rushed in to se what had happened; suddenly paving slabs were being thrown through the rest of the windows in the wall. Then the wall came down!

We ran down into the club and began smashing everything that was left.

After this we went back upstairs, I went on the roof to loosen the clamps holding up the mast.

Kev Clancy turned up the radio full volume so I could hear it on the roof, when Tony Clark said thank you and good night I took out the bolts and threw the mast down off the 3rd floor onto the street below.

Each person remaining took a part of the radio station down stairs, I go a lump of concrete.

As I passed the ruin of the bar I threw the block at a TV screen, it would not break. We all took turns until I finally landed the brick firmly into the back of the tube.

Everyone cheered, I locked the doors for the last time and took the keys back to reliance, I said fuck you, as I put them thought their letter box.

I went home and went to bed, Liz and Harvey had gone to bed, and I did not wake them. THE SONG IS OVER.