My Goodness the memories are flooding back! It's late here but I just saw your post and had to reply. Al Crocker - would that be Alan Crocker who attended St. Mary's RC School??? Ginger Semmens from Madron right??!! I lived in Madron and attended St. Mary's RC so if these are the people I think they are I haven't heard their names in many many years!
I regularly attended the Wints, The Barn Club and also Culdrose (where I met my husband), occasionally the Flamingo and once or twice the club near St. Ives which had a buffalo in a glass case - was that the Rugby Club??/
I saw, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, The Fortunes, The Tremeloes and Dave Dee Dozy Mick and Titch at the Wints!!! Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band at the Flamingo. Ah the Wishful Thinking aka The Emeralds - saw them many times under both names and I had a huge crush on the lead singer!
Saturday afternoons all the girls would sit in the Folly House coffee shop on the Prom and we would manage to make one frothy coffee (we did not know it as cappuchino!!m) last for hours! Sometimes we would meet at the Wimpy bar but mostly it was the Folly House next to the Pavilion.
Happy Days!
Yep - you've got AL & Mr Semmens spot on - very odd thinking back to those times - I remember all those people as being very mature, very skilled and passionate about their music but we were playing the Barn & Wints at night and getting up for school the next day.
I don't actively seek out anyone from my youth but am surprised how few are around now - a lot like Phil Blake have died.
Strange how you remember things from so long ago - the Emeralds turned up one year minus the lead singer as he'd has his appendix removed and the (excellent) guitarist did the vocals.
I remember them for their Beach Boys covers which were superb - the lead guitarist had a Baby Binson echo unit which sounded fabulous - Tony the lead in the Buccaneers (Fender Jag) also had one but broke and never got fixed.
I still see Andrew Newport Transport trucks around - I knew him as 'Huggy Newport' who used to drive the Buccaneers in an old van.
Tony's father owned Hitchens Transport which was where Roger Harding's Rover garage is near Newlyn bridge.
I used a Fender Telecaster borrowed from Malcolm McKenna & a Gibson Les Paul Junior which came from one of the Staggerlees - also a Hopf which I bought from Fry/Marshal for £75 - later I worked at Holman Bros for about £5 a week !!
I often go walking around Penzance and if the Folly Cafe is open I pop in for an Ice cream - when I was at school (Humphry Davy) Mr Thomas Crask-Rising was the Headmaster and was a very handy with the cane - Charlie the Art master had a terrific arm and could hit anyone from distance with the blackboard eraser.
Absolute high point of the day was when the girls came down from their Grammar School to use our canteen.
Most significant other event in Penzance was the opening of ????? - a really different 'venue' in Chapel street - it was just up from the Benbow on the other side - if you look in there now there's a mirror on the wall.
In those days dinner hour was either sandwiches or chips from Graves in Causewayhead - when this place opened it was incredible - they played pop music - I remember first hearing the Hollies there - the only other source of music like that was Radio Luxembourg or 6s & 8d 45's from the record shop by Humphry Davy's statue - it had a little cubicle with headphones to preview the disc - fantastic.
My early years were in York street opposite the Hospital - in those days St Clare flats hadn't been built - just a row of cottages - Heamor was a village remote from Penzance and people rarely visited Madron.
In the winter of 62/63 when Siberia came to Cornwall we still ran cross country from the School down through Treneere up the hill towards Gulval and back again.
When the snow first struck the 16 bus to St Ives got stuck at Nancledra and we just got off and walked to St Ives in School uniform (short trousers) - no big deal.
In later life I came back to Penzance and worked at Newlyn Electronics for John Knubley a true genius in the mould of Clive Sinclair - he developed the petrol vending systems we have today - one of the first we did was at the garage opposite the railway station where the retirement flats are now - unfortunately severley injured in a car crash.
Went on from there to work at Liftech engineering out in the railway yards at Long Rock - we made cherry picker lifting gear for everyone from British rail to British Airways - there I got to know Charlie Greenhaugh at the Mount View Pub who later died in the Penlee tragedy of 1981.
Nuff for now