Martin was depping. Jacqui and I had been invited to stay with Steve and Alyson on Mill Lane. It was windy as we drove over and we had to divert to avoid a fallen tree at Ingham. Alyson kindly fixed it for me to have a sandwich and a chat with Michele and Harriet (who had got some heroic GCSE results) about 6pm after which I set off for the gig in good order. Only 5 minutes down the road, I was loading in by 6:40pm when Nige arrived. We were well set up by the time Martin rolled up and while the guys set up, I sought out the management to agree times. It turned out Sarah was away for a holiday, so there was some agony about who would do bingo. But eventually we agreed the band would start after bingo and do two longish sets. Nige put the background music on and we got changed into the white'n'black and sank a couple of beers. I had brought the tennis rackets for the Shadows walk and the wigs were to hand for the entertainment angle. The place wasn't that full as we got off to the usual start. From the off we enjoyed a pretty good on-stage sound and like the previous few outings Martin fitted in brilliantly and sang some great lead vocals. So the show unfolded nicely with lots of applause. We did achieve a Shadows walk complete with tennis rackets for guitars – 'this is how I learned to play' I said. 'Sounds like it' they said! One of my themes for the evening was 'songs from the shows'. I was getting a good response to this banter and I noticed we were getting a particularly good reception from the left hand side of the room. I couldn't see much because of the lights and it was only when we finished the first set that I found out it was Jacqui, Alyson, Steve and Michele. They all said how good the band was and how much they were enjoying it – very impressed! So we attacked set 2 with enthusiasm and, although the audience thinned out a bit as we came to the close, we could congratulate ourselves on a job well done. We wrapped up with “Walk Alone” which had the audience singing along lustily and we encored with “Saw Her Standing There”. There were still lots of shouts for 'More' but we had to wind down. As we packed away, several people came over to say how much they had enjoyed our professional show. Jacqui's group headed off back to open a bottle of wine and I said I'd be back with them within the hour. The club management were very happy with the evening and we were loaded for the off by about midnight. Fortunately, I remembered to go back to Steve and Alyson's house - there was always a risk that I might forget and end up at Bury St Edmunds to find Ms J missing! Over a glass of wine our friends were very complimentary about the band and suitably amazed when I explained how some numbers such as “Walk of Life” were completely improvised. Next day we had a good long walk to West Runton with the dogs, a slap up lunch in the Village Inn there and a pleasant walk back along the beach.
