I have been playing drums throughout much of my life at one time or another. I was inspired in my formative years by the music of Jack Parnell, Victor Sylvester, Glenn Miller and other big bands on the wireless, and by the music of The Shadows, The Beatles and the band that had every parent in the 1960’s shaking their heads in despair – The Rolling Stones; on television programmes such as “Thank Your Lucky Stars”. But my first live performance, memorable though it was, could have discouraged me forever.

My mature years were taken up with drumming in local groups, while the late 60’s found me marching in a British Army band, but as a 12 year old I tapped along to Cliff Richard and The Shadows on a “drum kit” that in 1961 I fashioned from a tea-chest, (which for some inexplicable reason was decorated with wallpaper), an assortment of different sized boxes, one of which was a cut down length of lino tube, and a Queen Elizabeth 11 Coronation biscuit tin.

My “kit” was an odd looking thing indeed. The tea-chest formed the bass drum which I kicked with my foot. Unfortunately the effect of this kicking meant that by as I played my way to the halfway point in the record it had crept so far forward across the lino-covered floor, that it was virtually out of reach. Nailed onto the tea-chest bass drum was the biscuit tin turned upside down, and with the lid closed and secured with Sellotape, this was my snare drum. To make this drum sound more realistic I put in the plastic beads from a bracelet that I acquired from a girl who lived across the road; with the solemn promise that I would take her to the pictures. Needless to say I never did take her. The drumming was more important!

Near my right leg sat the short length of lino tube which served as a floor tom, which even to this day I believed sounded quite authentic; but by far the weirdest looking part of the “kit” was the contraption that I used as a hi-hat cymbal and stand. For the feet of the stand I took two lengths of wood from the side of an orange box and, arranging them in the shape of an “X”, nailed them to a section of broomstick that I had sawed in half.  Unfortunately the broomstick in question was part of the broom that my father used in the house, and to say that he was slightly peeved when he discovered what had become of it would be an understatement…no pocket money that week!