The Roadrunners

& Your Cavern memories...

So, it's 1999 and Roadies' keyboard player John is still gigging along with bassman Ian MacDonald of the Prowlers. In the audience is Mave Rose - a fan of both bands from 35 years ago... and it turns out she's written an article about the band and the Cavern scene as it was then.

This stuff turns up when you least expect it. But, as John says, "the website has brought it all to life again". Here's what Mave has to say... now, what about your memories? Add them to the forum below.

Before and after the Beatles

The sound of Radio Luxembourg from my Dansette transistor was, indeed, music to my ears. As Paul Anka sang Diana, I scribbled the words down frantically. With no cassette tape to stop and start, I eagerly awaited the songs to be repeated in order to be word perfect. My exercise book was soon crammed full of the latest by Del Shannon, Billy Fury, Conway Twitty, Cliff, Elvis... to name just a few pop singers of the fifties.

Then, in 1962, four Liverpool lads made a hit record with Love Me Do. They were, of course, The Beatles. My friend and I bought tickets for their concert at Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight.

We walked to the concert through Bebington village feeling very mod in our home-made twist dresses but, arriving at the entrance, we were stopped by the doorman. 'Are you girls seventeen?' he asked.

'Yes,' we replied, all wide-eyed and innocent. Well, we'd spent enough time in front of the mirror, struggling with eyeliner and panstick make-up in an attempt to look the required age!

We saw the Fab Four again at the Majestic Ballroom, Conway Street, Birkenhead, or MJ's, as it was commonly known. Here, hanging from a balcony amidst a jam-packed audience, my school friend and I, along with the rest, screamed out the names of our favourite Beatle.

The air hung with smoke, due to the poor ventilation; some girls fainted with exhaustion, but we thought it was great seeing our heroes of the day in the flesh for the last time, before fame took them away from Liverpool.

Then we discovered a hole in the ground cellar, known as Cubik. It was just a few yards away from MJ's. This was to be our new haunt. I would count the minutes for school to finish on the night we planned to go there.

Clad in the uniform of our new cult image, The Beats - a modified version of Beatniks, followers of Rhythm and Blues - we queued at the entrance where the back of our hands would be stamped with ultra-violet ink to show we had paid the entrance fee and could be admitted.

Wearing denim bell-bottomed jeans, shrunk from sitting in a bath of cold water so that they would fit skin tight, a black polo-necked sweater and duffle-coat, we would dance the 'stamp'. This was a variation on the former jive, only with much less body movement, to accommodate the lack of space on the floor. Faces were hidden by Beatle fringes and long hair which hung limply like rats' tails as humidity levels increased.

Girls looked pale and soulful with Cleopatra eyes showing up against the dark back-drop. The only light came from the stage where local bands, the Roadrunners and the Prowlers performed before they, too, went to Hamburg.

On the occasional all-night session we stayed awake with the aid of Coca Cola. During the early hours, when we were too tired to stamp, we would sit huddled together against the cold, dank walls, listening to the beat of the music, before running, bleary-eyed for the first bus to take us home for a hot bath and bed.

The above article appears in "Peninsula Tales" an anthology by the Wirral Writers' Circle, published by WWC Books, ISBN 0 9535114 1 3, price £3.99. The webmaster asserts the right to quote from this publication in the context of a bona fide review. This information is provided for fans of the 60s. The Liverpool Roadrunners receive no payment from sales of this book.

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