Asking Don again about Lonnie Donegan

I was asking Don Stuart at our regular 'Saturday Music Lunch' about him getting his Lonnie Donegan memories he told us about, onto the computer, so I could post here. Well, Don has supplied three jpegs of his efforts in getting his memories recorded, so until I find an OCR programme that I can relate to, here are those images, those memories - with the first jpeg now typed out ...


I was 17 at the time when I went to the St Andrew's hall in Glasgow to see Chris Barber and his Jazz band. They were, in my opinion, the best jazz band in Britain and at the interval Chris Barber then introduced Lonnie Donegan and his Skiffle group. Barber forsook his trombone for the bass and with Beryl Brydon on washboard, and Donegan and Dick Bishop on guitar they played a style of music that completely blew me away. Skiffle music went on to become very popular and Lonnie Donegan was the man who inspired the Beatles, Elton John and lots of other Big stars in Britain!

My pal Sammy McDougall and I decided to buy ourselves guitars, and it wasn't very long until we were strumming and singing all Donegan's hit records as they were released! One night my young brother Norman found himself a wash board and thimbles and we began to sound like a skiffle group. My dad came home from work one night with a huge balalaika looking double bass he had made. It had real strings on it, and was painted black and white! It looked and sounded real good. Another pal of ours, Eddie Brady, began to play it. We then met Vicky Casware, a good singer and Bango player and our group was complete. We were on our way! We began to practice in my house 3 and 4 days a week and I still don't know how my Mum and Dad put up with the noise. However at a party one night someone taped us and when I heard the playback I was amazed at how good we sounded!