We were Larry Mclean, Mike Pothecary, Phil Morris and I, Alistair Tritten, all Apprentices from Follands plus friend Frank Mitchell a Thorneycroft’s Shipyard Apprentice and we all met up at my house 52, Portsmouth Road, Woolston, one March evening in 1957 to discuss details and agree what we would do. Larry passed away in America in 2001, Michael was last heard of in The Netherlands, Phil has been retired some 9 years or so to Alicante, Frank is believed to be in Ireland somewhere, I am now retired in Southampton and Peter (latterly our Manager) is retired to Netley, Southampton. Incidentally 52, Portsmouth road, was and still is, right next door to "The Railway" now the Station Hotel, and Belvoirs Garage, now Station Motors.

With none of us able to play any kind of a musical note, that evening we decided to start our Comedy MIME Group, but don't ask me now whose idea it was, I can't remember.  We not only mimed comic records but Elvis Presley (Hound Dog), the Everly Brothers (Dream), Danny and the Juniors (At the Hop) and Jerry Lee Lewis (Balls of Fire), featured as well. Larry Mclean with blacked in sideburns Mimed Elvis. Phil Morris, was a sure fire cert for the deep voiced Bongo Player from Stan Freberg’s version of The Banana Boat Song (ripped off from Harry Belafonte) and Mike Pothecary and I performed several Spike Jones numbers such as "I Went to your Wedding", “You Always Hurt the One you Love” and “Chloe“. A fifth member, Frank Mitchell starred in some of the Goon Show's crazy songs such as "Major Bloodnoks Rock and Roll Rumba” and we all chipped in to mime Danny and the Juniors “At the Hop” (still a favourite).

We mimed the playing of instruments using a Saxophone minus the reed, (courtesy of a Pete Madsen loan), Guitars minus strings, inverted snare drum with white cloth stretched across the top to be hit noiselessly, Piano with lid closed and a pair of Bongo’s, made by yours truly in Follands Press Shop from aluminium alloy, rolled and beaten into shape and painted with red stripes.

Our first gig was performing for Len Canham, Manager of the Royal Pier Ballroom Southampton, who was looking for something different to liven up the Dance evenings Band breaks. We must have mimed pretty good because after regular bookings from Len, my sister while watching us one evening at the Royal Pier and during Mike and I Miming to the Everly Brothers hit record “Dream”, overheard two girls next to her expressing the opinion that we sounded “just like the Everly Brothers”, believing we were actually singing the song live.

We got caught up in the local entertainment scene and got on the same bill as some local acts such as “Tex Roberg“, a South African off the boats who claimed to be South Africa's answer to Elvis Presley, The Four Strangers and the Live 5, plus the “Brook Brothers” whose influence was the Everly’s, yes the Southampton Dance and Music scene was very lively indeed. Gigs then followed at the Woolston Cinema, (The Fleapit) during the Saturday Morning Kids Picture Show, the Ritz at Bitterne and the Gaumont Cinema, (formally The Empire, now The Mayflower Theatre), all of them within the Southampton City boundaries.

Len Canham gave us quite a few gigs at the Pier and took a shine to one of our group, Michael Pothercary, later my Brother in Law. Len 'took a shine' to Michael, but as far as I knew he got the message Mike was straight and never tried anything on. We later did shows for Lens main rival in Dancing promotions, one Reg Calvert who started up a series of local South Hampshire Hops known as "Teenbeat" evenings aimed at the young teenagers in the area at various venues including the Empire Hall Totton, Drill Hall at Romsey, British Legion Hall in Christchurch, a Portsmouth Dancehall, in fact anywhere a hall was available.

About a year into the Wranglers, sometime in 1958 we met up with Peter Dowling, who was (and still is) 8 years older than our group while we were all around 20 years of age, so Peter brought maturity to our dealings with both Agents and Managers in procuring work. I believe we met up with him through his girlfriend Doris, later his wife, at various Dances we attended as individuals or as a group at Gigs. Peter took over all arrangements inc: the fees, usually £1 to £2 each and transport, usually free, much as your Tony Collier mentioned in your June update. Peter even built a fake piano as a prop for stage use, because some venues had no piano and he also took over the storage and control of all the other props we used, bringing them with him.

Because of our Saturday Morning shows at the Gaumont we got to know Management AND staff on a first name basis and sometimes got an invite to view from the wings some of the Variety Shows they put on, where we had our eyes (and ears) opened at one show starring Anne Shelton with supporting acts including Jimmy Wheeler, a violin playing Comedian. While attending a pre-show rehearsal after a Saturday morning Kids show and prior to the Saturday afternoon Anne Shelton Matinee we were shocked to hear Jimmy use a string of expletives the like of which was unheard of. He was swearing at Anne Shelton using words such as that even now I'm loathe to mention. Anne never turned a hair, it was like water of a Ducks back.

Our miming culminated a couple of years down the line at the Guildford Odeon, part of the J. Arthur Rank Cinema chain. We opened up the first and second halves of a Musical Show one Sunday evening that included The Mudlarks, a singing group of two boys, one girl. (Mary Mudd really thought she was the Bees Knee's and treated us like sxxx, we were after all rank amateurs). Betty Smith, female Saxophonist was on the bill with one or two more minor acts. Unfortunately for us that Sunday evening, members of the Lords Day Observance Society were present and objected to us wearing stage clothes and that apparently was enough on Sundays at that time for them to complain to the Rank Organisation who promptly banned us from performing at any Rank Cinema or Theatre on a Sunday. That was just about it for us, we were all pushing 21 and the group just gradually drifted apart due to several of us being deferred from National Service at age 18 to allow us to finish our apprenticeships.

To round this tale off, several years later my Brother in Law Michael and I went to Coventry to work for Armstrong Whitworth Aviation at their Baginton Aircraft Factory. We took up lodgings initially in Rugby where we found that Reg Calvert had set up a Rock and Roll School and was grooming a small stable of would be Rock and Roll Singers but I only recall two Singers names, Danny Storm and Vince Eager. Reg was about to put on a Rock show at a T.A. Hall in Rugby starring Screaming Lord Sutch and his group and asked us to perform a couple of mime records, so we did a couple of Goons and Spike Jones records.

The highlight of the evening for us was not only watching the Lord Sutch show, but also viewing his performance with a couple of (Groupies) in his dressing room which we entered in error. Well that was that, our final Wrangler appearance was Reg's in Rugby during 1961. Shortly after this Reg’s Rock and Roll school was featured in a Movie short series called “Look at Life” at Cinema shows all over the U.K. mainly in the J. Arthur Rank circuit of Odeon and Gaumont cinema’s. You may even have seen this short which I have been trying to track down thru the BFI, (British Film Institute) archives, but with no success so far as very few Look at Life shorts appear to have survived.

The sad ending to this tale came about a couple of years later, after we returned South from the County of Warwickshire, when I read in the News of the World that Reg Calvert had been shot dead with a 12 bore shotgun by a rival Pirate Station businessman during an argument in the hallway of his Country House. Originally he was charged with murder, later changed to manslaughter, but pleading self defence he was eventually found not guilty.

C Copyright Alistair I Tritten June 2007.