Memories of The Dennisons - John Fowler

I grew up with Ray Scragg, he lived next door but one and he was my mate. We played football, cricket, Ollies (Marbles) and Alleyio, hide and seek, conkers, and everything that kids did --and that was only last week.

I got my first guitar, when I was 13 (Q for a song), and Ray got his a year later. We played in the front parlour and pretended we were The Everlys, but I never got past 3 chords so I retired when I was 14, whilst I was still at the top.

Eddie Parry lived around the corner and we mucked around together, and played in the same football team for season, 1961/62, for Richmond Boys Club in The LBA league. He was a left winger and a decent player--we had some great times that year and a lot of laughs.

Both were a bit younger than me, and in later teenage years, they knocked about with their mates from Orrell Park (the rest of the group). One day they told me they were forming a group (a bit more to it than that, but another story). They were going to call themselves The Dennisons after a make of shoes. I was very sceptical, having been brought up on all the great American stars and thought they had no chance. But was I wrong --they were as popular locally as The Beatles.

In 1992, they held a re-union concert and it was a sell-out with middle-aged women screaming with excitement (unless their corsets were too tight ). It brought home to me that they never reached their full potential

Ray, Clive, and I went to The Liverpool Collegiate School at the same time as Pete Best and Billy Butler. They went on to make names for themselves and after hearing Ray grinding out "Walking the Dog", he deserved to make it "big".

Ray wrote the following chapter for my book " Growing up in Liverpool before Beatlemania", but the chapter was not included in the final print.--- here it is reproduced exactly how he wrote it.------John Fowler.

Ray Scraggs Memories in The Dennisons

This was the “Merseybeat Popularity Poll” in 1963/64.

1. The Beatles
2. Gerry and the Pacemakers.
3. The Dennisons.
4. The Merseybeats.

The award ceremony took place at the Majestic Ballroom, Birkenhead and the Beatles arrived, still in their leather gear, I seem to recall, from a gig to collect their award from Bill Harry, The Merseybeat Publications Editor and owner. After which Bob Wooler, the Cavern DJ introduced the Beatles and their second single “Please, Please Me”.

I remember being in the balcony that surrounded the rectangular shaped ballroom at about midnight, seeing the Beatles set up on stage and hearing this great song "Please Please Me" which I instantly proclaimed the next No.1 in the record charts. ( It wasn't difficult to predict a Beatles No. 1 when you'd seen them perform numerous times, having worked on the same bill as them on numerous occasions--to be a witness to history in the making was a wonderful experience).

Later that night, we congregated in the Blue Angel Club in Seel St. to talk and drink the rest of the night away.

I, along with Eddie Parry, Terry Carson, Steve McLaren and Clive Hornby, were The Dennisons, achieving minor success in those glorious swinging sixties! We achieved top forty lists, television, radio, and toured the country working with groups like The Beatles, Gerry and The Pacemakers, The Searchers, The Merseybeats, Dave Clark Five, The Yardbirds, The Walker Brothers. Also Cilla Black, Dionne Warwick, Ben E. King, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, etc, etc.

Being 17 years of age and touring the country in a pop group was out-of-this-world. It was also exciting and very funny.

Passport to Scotland

I remember well, being on a tour for three weeks with Gerry and The Pacemakers, Ben, E. King, The Fourmost and Sounds Incorporated with Jimmy Tarbuck as the compere, when driving from England into Scotland in the middle of the night a scam was pulled on Ben E. King and his young American guitar player. We had arranged with Gerry`s road manager , who incidentally dressed in black leather from head to toe, to stop the coach we were all travelling in just as it entered Scotland and demand the passports of non-British subjects. ( The procedure in those days was for visitors to the UK to deposit their passports in their London hotel which was their address while in the country). So on the journey, both Gerry and Jimmy Tarbuck were having a go at Ben E, King and his guitarist saying that you need your passport at the Scotland/England border and if you don't have it you'll be put in gaol until it is produced. As you can imagine both Ben and his guitarist were very concerned. We all kept up the scam, saying we would come and visit them, etc. At the border, there was Gerry`s roadie, who always drove ahead with their equipment, directing the coach into a lay-by at between 2.30 and 3.00 in the early hours of the morning. It was pitch black with practically no traffic on the road and all you could see from the coach at a distance was a light moving from side to side to slow us down. As we got nearer, there was "the roadie" all in black looking very serious and menacing standing in the middle of the road directing the coach into the lay-by. On the coach we were telling Ben and his guitar player, " Oh f---"ell, it`s the Black Watch Specials--- they're worse than the police!

Just don't say anything or they will notice your American accents right away--we`ll just say tour part of the backing group". They were now beginning to get anxious and concerned. "The Roadie" got on the bus and with a "sad" Scottish accent, started asking questions very abruptly and menacingly, such as "Are there any foreign nationals here--particularly Americans? "With his dark glasses, black leather cap, jeans and jacket, not forgetting his gloves and jack boots! We said "no" but he didn't believe us so he ordered us all off the coach and to line up against it. Ben and his guitarist were sitting near the back and looking out the windows low in their seats, trying not to draw attention to themselves. But unfortunately, they had to get off with the rest of us. Well you can imagine, the silence of the night (apart from the odd snigger from someone trying to keep a straight face) all this musical talent, whom audiences were screaming and shouting over at every venue on tour, lined up in Scotland, side by side having a leather clad, shaded character walking down the line looking at everybody up and down and asking who they were. Ben E. King and his guitarist were at the end of the line, as we suggested that would be the best place for them and were, therefore, last to be asked. They couldn't disguise their American accents and in any case Ben was very honest. On hearing their accent, "the Roadie"said that they would have to accompany him to the Police station. As they ( Ben and co.) began to walk off with "the roadie", we all burst out laughing, at which time "the roadie" took off his "shades" and leather cap and started laughing also. Ben took it very well--his guitarist, who was only a young musician, was physically drawn and relieved but was still not 100% convinced it was all over. It took him sometime to see the funny side.

A similar situation, but real, happened to us when we were travelling south along the M1 motorway, when our minibus was flagged down by a police Motor cyclist to pull over onto the hard shoulder, Our manager, who was also our driver, was wondering what the hell he` d done wrong. As we stopped and got out, the policeman said he noticed that we had drum cases in the back window and could he have our autographs! I don` t know whether we were relieved or shocked, but he took out his autograph book which he said was his daughter` s and proceeded to tell us of the groups he had stopped for autographs--The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Searchers, you name it , he had them---though it was better than getting a speeding ticket!

A quick exit is what The Beatles had to have planned whenever they were on stage following a performance.

One such time was Sunday when we were guests of The Beatles at their season of " Sunday Night at The Opera House" in Blackpool. These gigs were great--a packed theatre where the girls just never stopped screaming and chanting "We want The Beatles". The unfortunate part, was if you were the act on stage just before The Beatles, which we were. Nobody was interested in what we were singing, except Paul McCartney, who was singing " Some Other Guy" walking on stage from the wings as we were walking off after the tabs had closed.

They(The Beatles) were always friendly and pleased to meet other Liverpool groups. We were able to get their autographs on the night` s programme in their dressing room. When they finished their act at the Opera House, no sooner had the curtain come down when they took their guitars off and ran literally for their lives to the back of the stage, jumping out of the exit for loading the set design, into a waiting limo. Meanwhile , in the theatre, the audience were shouting for more and chanting "We want The Beatles" for an encore. In those days, they did not announce that the "star" had left the building. I` m sure, by the time the fans left the theatre to invade the stage door, that The Beatles would have been on the apron at Blackpool Airport boarding their aircraft flying over The Opera House.

These were fantastic times and sometimes idiotic such as:

• Turning down the opportunity to record The Beatles "All My Loving".
• Turning down Decca`s offer for us to cover The Beach Boys surfing records before they reached these shores.
• Allowing Freddie Starr to play drums at a jam session in The Blue Angel.
• Losing half of your drum kit on the M1 and then running back down the pitch black motorway to find them.
• Performing "live" on Ready Steady Go, the week after The Yardbirds did.

We were all very fortunate to be part of this era and to contribute in some small way to history, working with The Beatles, appearing on The Cavern, making records, doing Television ( and not seeing yourself) . Only Clive Hornby can do that now as he plays Jack Sugden in Emmerdale. (Ed. Clive sadly died in 2008)

R.A.Scragg

22 February 1996.

Here's a never before released track of Ray with the Dennisons 2000. Hope you it enjoy it. What a voice, Ray you are not forgotten.

Sunny - Ray Scragg and The Dennisons 2000