Potted Histories

Tag: dancing

  • A Potteries Teddy Boy, part 2

    ‘The first time we went to Manchester was after we’d talked with a bloke named Danny. I remember him saying he’d been in Manchester on a Saturday night with a couple of mates of his and they’d visited some rock and roll clubs there. Because there wasn’t all that much of it going  on around in Stoke at that time, we started going to Manchester on the train. It used to be 3s 6d return, and the trains used to run every half hour so you could catch one back early in the morning from Manchester to Stoke. We would catch the train at six o’clock on a Saturday night, arriving in Manchester three quarters of an hour later and would go the clubs until one or two o’clock in the morning. Then on the Sunday morning we would catch the mail trains back, that were coming down to deliver the papers from Manchester to Stoke and Birmingham. We went there plenty of times visiting all the different clubs in Moss Side in Manchester.

    The Teddy Boy was also a miner. L to R: Stuart Colclough, Bill Cooper and Derek Ford at Hanley Deep Pit.

    There were a  few times when we didn’t take the train and instead had a lift up there in a car. I worked at Hanley Deep pit at the time and I knew this big, tall black guy named Jim Brown who had come down from Manchester to work in the pits here as he couldn’t get any well paid jobs where he came from. He’d got an old Standard Vanguard car – he was the only bloke I knew that had got a car – and he asked us if we wanted to go with him to Manchester for a weekend. We said “Well, it’s going cost us a bit.” – “Ooh no, you can stay with my family.” he said.

    Anyway, he took us, five of us, in his Standard Vanguard, from the pit on a Friday night when we’d finished, straight to Manchester. When we got there we found that his family had a three storey house, a big old Victorian place with a stack of bedrooms! It was like being in one of the boarding houses at Blackpool. His parents were nice people and his mother especially was a right jovial woman! Jim had about five or six brothers and sisters and they all lived at home. I said, “Where are we going stay?” His mother said,” Well, there’s a lot of us here. Just grab somewhere to sleep. There are plenty of rooms. If you go in somebody’s bed you’re all right, they’ll go in another one.”

    We went out that first night, but we were all tired because we’d been at work, so we only stayed out until about two o’clock. But on the Saturday night Jim took us to a party in Moss Side,  where all the warehouses were. Going down some steps he opened an ordinary looking door and we went into a huge cellar. There were old settees scattered all around the place and tables too, a band was playing and there were records in between! It was packed, mostly with black people, but there were quite a few white folk there as well. But, bloody hell, it was five o’clock in the morning when we finally came out, from about seven at night! And talk about drunk! Well, they were selling beer out of wooden barrels on trestles and you’d just helped yourself. You just gave them the money and filled your pint; or you could have bottled beer or whisky, or whatever you fancied. It was licensed, the blacks ran their own club. We went again on the Sunday night and then went to come home the next morning, because we had to go work on Monday night. 

    We went to that place two or three times and Jim’s mother used to feed us up like mad. She had a large room and she’d had two big tables put in it, with chairs all around and then a kitchen with a serving hatch she’d had knocked in. She said, “I was fed up of carrying the stuff in, so I’ve had this knocked in so I could just pass it through to them.” 

    They’d got a big range to cook all the stuff on and two of the grown up girls used to help her. They used to have a stack of food, a quantity of food I’ve never had since. I remember going in once and she said “We’re having chicken.” She got these big bowls out and they were full of chicken legs piled high, all cooked, it was steaming hot and you just helped yourself! 

    They seemed to have plenty of money but, there were a lot of them and most of them worked. I’m not sure, but I think I remember something about a shop they’d got. Well in that area there were a lot of big shops down the main street and I think one of them was theirs. The mother didn’t work, I think it was the old man and two or three of the lads that run the shop. But, she used to come with us when we went out at night time, either that or she and the father used to come along later. She would dance as well, she wasn’t all that old, I should say she was in her late forties, but she seemed old to me because I was only sixteen or seventeen.

    Reference: Interviews with William Cooper, 2007.

  • A Potteries Teddy Boy, part 1

    William Cooper (third from the left) in his early days as a Ted

    When I was 14 and still living in Nelson Place with my sister Minnie and her family, two of my mates who were older than me had asked me if I wanted to go dancing. I said, “Dancing. I’ve never danced in my life except some square dancing at the church hall. Where you going?” They said “The skating rink, they’re playing rock and roll.” I said, “Rock and roll, what’s that?” – “Haven’t you heard those new records on the radio?” They said.

    Well, I wasn’t all that interested at first, but I said I’d think about it. They were going on the Tuesday, so I tuned in to the radio after this just to find out what they were on about. The first rock and roll record I ever heard, even before Bill Haley and the Comets, was by Boyd Bennett and the Sky Rockets. It was one that was imported from America, you never heard it much because they didn’t play that sort of stuff on the wireless much then, it was mainly crooners and big band sounds like Victor Sylvester, Edmundo Ros and Ted Heath.

    Anyway, I went to the dance. It was at the Ideal Skating Rink; they had dancing there on Tuesdays and Saturday nights and as I was tall for my age they thought I was 15 and they let me in. I enjoyed myself, but I was still a bit shy so didn’t dance, I stood at the side talking to some girls from school and some older ones who’d already left. They were all asking me why I was there. I went again the next week and this time I had a few dances and started to like it. They were still doing what they called jive which had been introduced when the Americans were here during the war. It was very similar to what they called bopping, only to big band music. But that wasn’t in the Teddy Boy era; it hadn’t started around here yet. 

    Of course, when the first rock music came out, the big band stuff and the jive had had it, that had gone. When Elvis and Bill Haley came out, we didn’t want to know that other stuff, all we wanted was rock music. And when proper rock and roll dancing came in, the Teddy Boys appeared. The Teddy Boy era didn’t last all that long. It started in about 1953 and by 1959 it was all over, around here at least. I first decided to be a Teddy Boy after seeing an article in the ‘Daily Mirror’ about lads in London dressing as Teddy Boys. Anyhow after the article in the ‘Mirror’ about the Teddy Boys in London, of course it spread all over the country and they started appearing around Hanley. I saw one or two and then more started dressing like that, then as I say, I became one as well. My family didn’t mind about me becoming a Teddy Boy. Minnie wasn’t really bothered, she knew it was the ‘in’ thing then and that I liked dancing. Her kids, Marie, Margaret and all the others would say “Where you going?” when I used to start getting dressed up to go out on a Saturday night.  

    Weekday wear

    In the week we’d wear jeans and bomber jackets, sometimes leatherette or leather if we were well off, but at the weekend we’d never go out without a suit on and a tie. That was the real Teddy Boy look – it took Edwardian style dress and exaggerated it a bit. I think we took some style from the pictures too, like the film ‘Beau Brummell’, that one with Stewart Granger. I know Beau Brummell wasn’t Edwardian, but he was a dandy and if you watch that film you’ll see the influence there, the flashy cravats and ties. The long coats were the main thing that made us stand out, some with fancy lapels and we wore drainpipe trousers that tight that you used to have to sometimes lie down on the bed to pull them on. But a lot of the tailors in Stoke-on-Trent wouldn’t make you a Teddy Boy suit, I don’t know why – they just wouldn’t do it. To get a Teddy Boy suit, I had to hunt around and finally got one made at a private place down in Shelton. It cost me £15, which was a lot of money then, even when I worked in the pit. At one time, though, I did have a real Edwardian suit. The bloke next door, Lily Kondratiuk’s father, saw me dressing up one night and he said, “That looks like Edwardian stuff.” and I said, “That’s how they’re beginning to dress now. They call them Teddy Boys.” He says, “Well, I’ve got one of them suits, but it’s in the pawn shop. If you want it, here’s the ticket; go get it.” 

    Anyway, I went up to get it and it was absolutely brilliant! Jet black it was, with a waistcoat. When I put it on it was a perfect fit because he was same build as me then. I bought a pair of black shoes to go with it, a fancy white shirt with frills on and a string tie. My mates were jealous to death. They said, “Where’ve you had that made?” I said, “I haven’t had it made. It’s older than any of us this is.” I wore it for ages, it was a lovely suit.

    Another time, I bought a Teddy Boy jacket on its own. A grey one it was, very long, down to my knees. I’d only worn it a couple of times, but with sweating from all the dancing I did the lapels went crinkled on both sides. I said to one of the lads, “I onna bloody wearing this again. It’s had it.” To my surprise, though, he said, ‘Hey, it’s great! I wish I’d got one like that.’ What it was, after the dancing I’d put a big duffle coat over the top of my jacket – a big black one with those big peg buttons – and it held all the sweat in and made the jacket all wrinkled down the lapels. Everyone said it looked good, so I wore it all the time after that. 

    We also used to wear fancy shirts as well. We’d think nothing of wearing bright orange shirts, or pink or yellow. Tony Hughes was best when he came in a frilly shirt. He met us outside the Albion and when he arrived he’d got his big duffle coat on and he says, “I’ve bought a new shirt.” That was nothing new because we used to buy shirts regularly. Anyhow, we went inside the Albion for a couple of drinks and said, “Let’s have a look at it then.” He took his coat off and it had frills all round his collar like lace, all around his wrists and lace sticking out all down the front. Harold Hale said, “You look like a big girl, you do!” We were all laughing, but it was different and the following week, we’d all got them on. They didn’t last long though, as they were right buggers to iron. Minnie had to iron my shirts, I couldn’t iron shirts, I’d just iron the front and put it on. When she saw these frilly shirts, though, Minnie said, “What the bloody hell have you brought me here for iron?”

    The Tony Curtis look was in, so you had to have a quiff as well. I went to see how much it cost to have it cut in that style – I was told 10 shilling, which was an astronomic price! So, I did it myself, they showed you how to in a paper. To do your quiff you’d comb your hair up, then just pull it forward. I used sugar and water mixed. What you did was you mixed the sugar and water, not much water, but plenty of sugar. The water had to be aired so the sugar was just starting to melt and then you dug your hands in it and rubbed it hard until it melted right down, you could feel it sticky on your hands and you rubbed it on. Then you combed your hair and that’s it, it stayed. Mind you, my first go wasn’t all that brilliant, my hair was too short and it came out all spiky.

    Bill Cooper, Harold Hale (on bike) and Ronnie Williams.

    I had plenty of friends to go out with. There was still John and Harold Hale from Nelson Place. They were Teds as well, but John more than Harold. There was our cousin Raymond Walsh and Tony Smith, he was only a little guy, he was only about five foot and when he’d got his long jacket on the sleeves hung down to his finger tips. He’s the one that kept getting into bloody trouble all the time and expected us get him out of it. There were a lot of us. There was Brian Ward, Ronnie Williams, Billy Gilbert, Bernard Shaw and others. There was quite a few of us from the Nelson Place area, but not the older ones; those that were two or three years older than me and who I first went dancing with didn’t take it up. 

    You could call us a gang, I suppose, but it wasn’t just made up of those I’d known when I was growing up in Nelson Place, there were others that we’d meet in dance halls and in pubs. We used to all hang round together. There used to be a bunch of girls with us as well all the time. We would go all over the place dancing, not only in Stoke either, we also went to Manchester.’ 

    Reference: Interviews with William Cooper, 2007.