The evening news was full of interviews with The Rolling Stones, ’50 years since they played their first gig at The Marquee Club’. I’m puzzled by the dates.

For a variety of reasons, Ms Raccoon knows precisely where she was exactly 50 years ago today. She also knows where she was six months later. She was hitch hiking along the Staines by-pass, as you do; it was midwinter.

A most peculiar car stopped in the lay-by; I’d never seen anything like it. Unsurprising, for it was the first convertible mini in Britain. Driven by possibly the craziest man in Britain. He went by the name of John Mansfield, and he told me that he ran a club in Windsor called The Rikki-tik. The Rikki-tik was a sort of ‘mobile’ club, it popped up wherever John and his partner could persuade someone to rent them a venue.

Ms Raccoon loved to dance, she would dance all night long, and John told me that he had an amazing new band playing that night. There was only one problem, Ms Raccoon was dressed in jeans and a charcoal grey v-neck pullover, I cannot help but remember precisely, for it was the only clothing I possessed; nor did I possess a ‘home’ that I could go to in order to change into something more suitable for a night dancing. One thing led to another; not that sort of ‘another’ for this was 1962 and gentlemen were still gentlemen. E’en so, we find ourself in the back office of John’s club along with a pair of scissors, in hot pursuit of the challenge that I had been set. Turn the jeans into hot pants, and an old t-shirt into a top, and you can have free entry to the club tonight. The outcome proved that Ms Raccoon was indeed the sort of girl who would ‘chop her drawers for a ten bob note’. Ten shillings being the club entry fee.

The band was the Rolling Stones, and even though I must have met them, given that I was being ardently wooed by the club owner, they made absolutely zero impression on me as people, can’t remember a thing about them – their music was a different matter. I danced ’til my legs near fell off. Windsor’s first pair of hot pants being a great success. I can even remember helping John count all the ten bob notes – for the club was packed, business was booming. No scintillating memories of The Stones though…

The venue for the Rikki-tik at that time was a back room at the Star and Garter in Peascod Street, and I understood that The Rolling Stones had first played there, that this was something of a momentous event, their first gig as a proper band – so how come The Marquee is claiming all the glory? Even given the reputation of English summers, I know it was midwinter that night – I near froze to death for some weeks after until someone donated another pair of jeans to the Raccoon cause! So what’s with The Marquee in mid July?

The Rikki-tik eventually moved to a derelict manor house on the outskirts of Windsor, everything that stood still was painted black (shades of ‘I was Lord Kitchen’s Valet’ in Carnaby Street many years later, where we painted the entirety of the interior of the old Piccadilly ‘Boot’s Chemists’ black in one long, very long, night in order to open for business the next day as an ‘edgy’ new tourist shop! – Black is the most forgiving of interior design!) and John had a successful business there for years, I think the local council put paid to it in the end, but until then there was Geno Washington, Zoot Money, the Yardbirds, the Animals, so many groups that later became famous.

Sadly the wooing of Ms Raccoon came to an abrupt end, Mssr. Mansfield, frustration having got the better of him, I suspect, found a prospective partner of legal age, and he married a Dutch lady. An event he announced to me by postcard, received three months later on account of how he’d posted it in Amsterdam with three Green Shield stamps on it instead of proper stamps. The humiliation lingers 50 years later.

Weirdly I had been thinking of some of these things just a few days ago when we had our annual Bodega in the village. Five different bands and thousands of visitors cram into the narrow medieval streets and boogie the night away. Last year I was too sick to manage more than ten minutes of the heat and the noise – this year Ms Raccoon was dancing behind the Garage Samba band for all of two hours before she gave in, closely scrutinised by the ever watchful Mr G from the sidelines in case she keeled over. (Mr G wouldn’t dance if you fired a .22 at his feet!) No hot pants this time, just cut off jeans – below the knee. One has to make some concession to growing old gracefully, don’t you think?

MIM July 13, 2012 at 14:03

Nah! Wear purple!

Engineer July 13, 2012 at 10:58

“…this was 1962 and gentlemen were still gentlemen.” They still are, but
they get less publicity (and fewer perks) than the cads.

“Mr G wouldn’t dance if you fired a .22 at his feet.” I’m entirely with Mr
G on that one.

“One has to make some concession to growing old gracefully, don’t you
think?” Er, why?

GildasTheMonk
July 13, 2012 at 11:46

I quite agree, Engineer

Talwin July 13, 2012 at 10:03

The Stones have been around for so long that I guess there will be many of
a certain age who have met/seen them. In my case, I worked for a ‘public
service’ in Blackpool, and one day back in 1965 or 1966 I was on a 2pm-10pm
shift, and on my break about 6o’clock, playing snooker with a colleague.
Unannounced, in came all the Stones (then including Brian Jones), who were
tarrying awhile away from the mob, before doing a show at, I think, the
Hippodrome.

Anyway they asked to join us at the table; yup, snooker for seven! we
weren’t going to stand back: we wanted to say we’d played WITH the Stones. All
I can say is that they were bloody better musicians than they were snooker
players.

Naturally, I got all their autographs (obviously, with the provenance to
make said paper worth more than a grand now), and just as naturally, stuck the
paper in a drawer and forgot about it so that it ended up ……………. well, who
knows where? Curses!

ChasC July 13,
2012 at 09:42

You just brought back a memory of something I’d forgotten!

The Riki-tik as I remember it was in Hounslow but my memory isn’t what it
was. I played there a couple of times in the late sixties/early seventies(?)
with one of the many incarnations of the Blues Merchants. Sadly, we never
gained the fame or following of the Stones – but then better a has been than a
never was eh? I had a friend of mine who worked for Jagger at his house in
Cheyne Walk overlooking the Albert Bridge in London where he was living at the
time with Marianne Faithful. He assures me the Mars bar rumour was true!

Thanks for the memories, Anna.

P.S. Like the new blog. I gather my friend Dioclese helped with the banner.
He was immensely helpful to me when I set my blog up and even more helpful
when I moved it to WordPress. There’s some nice people out there, you just
have to find them!

Anna
Raccoon July 13, 2012 at 11:08

Since it was originally ‘mobile’, i.e set up camp anywhere they hadn’t
been banned from – there were in effect many Rikki-Tiks, hence your
confusion with the Hounslow Rikki-Tik.

Hysteria July 13, 2012 at 09:30

seems to me dear Ms Raccoon that you are growing old disgracefully – which
is altogether to be preferred

GildasTheMonk
July 13, 2012 at 08:37

What a wonderful tale. I am with Mr G when it comes to modern dancing,
though. It is an odd thing for men to do. Women seem designed to make these
weird gyrations, but your standard British male dancing just seems unnatural
and awkward. Best avoided. As for the Stones etc The “Beetles” (or summat),
they pass me by somewhat. I would happily make the tax dodging Bono history,
and I have only just heard of the “Stone Roses”, and that was only because
theire recent concert caused a lot of noise and I could here it.
However, I
am as you would expect me to say, things were much better in Medieval times.
They put down a real groove in those days, and I am very partial to a bit of
Medaeval Baebes: thus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLsWTBQexWo&feature=related
Plus
the dances were much better too, all stylish and properly structured so that a
bloke could join in. Oh for a nice chain dance, volta, galliard or
pavane!
You just don’t get that at Ministry of Sound these days, I am
afraid.
However, for those who wish to blend Medieval dance with modern
“funk” (I dunno what you call it) there is always this classic scene from the
wonderful movie, a Knight’s Tale, in which the late Heath Ledger gives it some
groove with the help of Shannyn Sossammon and a touch of “Bowie”, whoever he
is, as the superb Rufus Sewell as the baddie looks on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6KGgaI-WuI
G the M

GildasTheMonk
July 13, 2012 at 10:30

PS sorry for the pre coffee bleary eyed spelling