When York got rhythm

The first book, called Rhythm And Romance, looks at the dance band era while Something In The Air concentrates on the Beat Boom of the Swinging Sixties.

Both books will be officially launched during a day of live music at the Groves Working Men's Club, Penley's Grove Street, York, on Saturday.

Van, of Fulford Road, York, has woven the stories of fascinating characters to produce a tapestry of social history. Characters such as May Passmore, born in York in 1901, who was the third generation of her family to go into showbusiness. She was on stage, singing and dancing, from the age of four.

She married Jimmy Crasey, a fellow performer, and their daughter, Trudy, was born in York in 1925 shortly after May had performed in a Liverpool pantomime.

May was determined to combine her roles as performer and mother. She said: "I breast fed her, and my mother-in-law had a Pekinese dog and I had an awful lot of milk and I squeezed it into a saucer and gave this dog some and every night after that, that dog came to my dressing room for milk."

Concert parties were set up in the Second World War to entertain civilians and military personnel in a mobile theatre, which was a converted bus.

Pianist Valerie Mountain joined the Digger-Bell Concert Party when she was 12. She recalled: "We had a proper bus, with a stage and a piano in the back. We'd go to ack-ack sites and army camps and get in about two in the morning and I'd be dropping asleep at school the next day."

A fellow member of the Digger-Bell Concert Party was Bobby Hirst, who developed into a fine jazz pianist.

Bobby's daughter, Ella Hirst, said: "He lived for music. They say he was the best, not only in Britain, but also in Europe. They asked him to go to America. He was absolutely superb."

But Bobby decided to stay among his friends in York playing in various ensembles.

Valerie, recalling Bobby's eccentricity, said: "He went out for a packet of fags one day and met up with Ray Phillips, the drummer, and Ray was off to London, so Bobby went with him, came back at the end of the week and his wife looked up and said 'Did you get your cigarettes?' That was Bobby."

Bobby battled through a concert even though gout prevented him from working the piano's pedals. Ella said he persuaded Lyn Chelin, a fellow pianist, to hide underneath the grand piano and work the pedals with her hands.

The years after the war were golden for dance bands as a grey, drab Britain still fiddled with ration books.

York musician Tiddy Mead said: "Every village hall had a dance; it was the only form of entertainment. Radio had got stale, television hadn't really come on the scene, and so dancing and cinema was life, that's how the girls met the lads, the meeting place was the dance hall."

Bert Keech, a larger-than-life pianist, ran dances at the De Grey Rooms, York, both during and after the war.

Music enthusiast Chris Poole danced at the De Grey Rooms from the age of 18 in 1945. He said: "That was the Bert Keech era. He had his own band and he was a lovely pianist. He was an enormous man and, at the interval, he would sit and play, but he had to stretch his arms out because his stomach was so great."

Musician and arranger Gerry Allen recalled that Bert would not stand for any trouble. He said: "There were fights in all the dances occasionally. Even the De Grey Rooms had problems. I remember when Bert Keech was there, there was a lad causing trouble and Bert sat on him until the police came."

The enterprising promoter Jack Prendergast bought a cinema and concert hall in Fishergate in 1927. He named it the Rialto and for the next 30 years worked tirelessly to make it one of the top venues in the region. He was passionate about giving the citizens of York the best in live entertainment, booking the jazz genius Louis Armstrong in 1932.

Jack's house band, the Rialtonians, was acknowledged as one of the best in the country, doing well in competitions. His son, the Oscar-winning composer John Barry, wrote music for movies including Born Free, Midnight Cowboy and the James Bond franchise.

John Barry returned to York earlier this year to receive the Freedom of the City and recalled with affection the bandleader and trumpeter Johnny Sutton. He said: "I loved Johnny, he was the best. He knew how to run an orchestra."

Johnny's music career nearly ended when, at the age of 19, he seriously injured his right hand when he tripped and broke a window.

Musician Trevor Bousfield, one of York's "Trumpet Twins", said: "The accident left him without sufficient control of the fingers of his right hand to play a valved instrument. His solution was typical of Johnny's determination. He used his left hand over the bell to reach the valves."

Johnny gathered musicians to rehearse in a hut behind the Shoulder of Mutton pub in Heworth, York, in 1945. This was the birth of the Modernaires which, from 1950, became the resident band of the De Grey Rooms.

Johnny also presented Sunday night concerts at the Rialto with the New Rialtonians.

Johnny's son, Alan, who lives in Australia, said: "Music was his life, that was all he lived and breathed for."

Even when he was suffering from lung cancer, Johnny would take his oxygen bottle to hold music lessons - such was his determination to introduce youngsters to the joys of making music.

Dance bands went into decline in the late-1950s with the arrival of rock'n'roll and promoters resorted to gimmicks to try to get the punters in.

Musician Bob Scott remembered playing to roller-skaters at the Empire, York. He said: "As they started going round they'd start the air circulating and it's like a whirlwind and all the music's blowing all over the stands. It was just absolutely hilarious. All you could hear was the roar of the wheels on the dance floor."

The Empire soon dumped roller-skating for wrestling - and you do not need a band for that.

Both books will be available in York from Saturday November 16 at the Barbican bookshop, Borders, WH Smith and the Castle Museum, which is hosting an exhibition about the oral history project from next Monday. The books are also available by post from York Oral History Society, 15 Priory Street, York YO1 6ET. Each book costs £9.95. Add £1 for postage for each book ordered.

Updated: 12:00 Monday, November 11, 2002