Bev Bevan, the heavyweight champ and the John Lennon headbutt

By Bev Bevan on Aug 30, 08 06:00 AM in

Denny Laine and the Diplomats built up a number of steady and regular venues to play at in 1963 and 1964. Amongst them was Birmingham's first bone-fide night club, The Moathouse in Moat Row, close to the Bull Ring.

It was owned by Rob Pryke, who had made his fortune in Brum's fruit and veg market and also had shares in a betting office.

The Moathouse soon became the "in" place to be seen, attracting local townies in their mohair suits, small-time gangsters, stars of Midlands TV, local sportsmen, high-class hookers, the first openly gay men to come out of the closet, and anyone with a few bob to spend, who fancied some legal after-hours drinking following a night out on the town.

One of the sportsmen to become an honorary member was heavyweight boxing champion Johnny Prescott. He was a generous young man, and we were one of his favourite groups.

We often closed our set with Barrett Strong's Money (That's What I Want ), a song recently made famous by The Beatles. As it turned out, it was an apt title.

Money was Johnny's favourite number and he would keep shoving fivers and tenners into Denny's top pocket on stage, just for us to play the song over and over again. Boring maybe, but we didn't mind - we trebled our fee some nights!

Johnny Prescott was also a very welcome visitor to Alex's Pie Stand, as he would often treat all the bands who happened to be there, to their meat pies, hot dogs and teas and coffees.

The biggest drawback to playing at the Moathouse was having to carry all our equipment up the huge, steep staircase, which was often jammed with punters trying to get in.

Mind you, it was amazing how many guys would carry our stuff in for us, so as to get in free, by pretending to be our (non- existent ) road crew!

Actors and musicians who had been playing around the Birmingham area would also often pop in.

One night a couple of The Beatles were there and some local hardcase was giving John Lennon plenty of verbal abuse.

Eventually, Lennon had had enough of this and confronted the yobbo, enquiring "Hey mate, does yer mother sew? Well, get her to stitch this!" at which point he administered the 'Liverpool handshake' - a headbutt to the bridge of the bloke's nose!

Although virtually all of our gigs were in the West Midlands area, there were some exceptions.

As well as our fan club day out charabanc trip to Aberystwyth , we also played on the South coast in Bournemouth and Weymouth and on Sunday September 30, 1963 we represented Warwickshire at the Three Counties Beat Show at the Playhouse Theatre in Kidderminster - stalls 3 shillings (15p), balcony 5 shillings (25p).

Representing Staffordshire were Brian Gulliver and his Travellers. Brian went on to marry TV personality Janice "Oi'll give it foive" Nicholls. Waving the flag for Worcestershire were Cliff Ward and the Cruisers.

Cliff went on to become Clifford T Ward and in the summer of 1973 had a top ten hit with his song Gaye.

We also played at the Twisted Wheel club in Manchester, but the furthest we ever ventured north was to Halifax to play two nights at the Ovenden Youth Centre in Nursery Lane.

After the first show the promoter took us to a late-night drinking club. We were not drinkers back then and it did not take many lager and limes to get us all pretty smashed.

We rarely stayed away from home and we really went for it and it got pretty silly, with Denny dancing on top of the bar at one stage. Eventually, we returned to our B&B digs and parked our minibus on a steep slope facing the bay window on the tarmac front drive.

We retired to our bedrooms, me sharing with Denny and Phil with Steve. Phil had a dream that night that a ghostly white figure appeared, coming through the first floor window.

In the morning he related this dream to Steve, only to be told "Ah, that was me". Apparently , Steve had awoken in the early hours feeling very sick indeed.

Having no idea where the communal bathroom was he headed for the window, threw it open, and with one leg on the dressing table and hanging on for dear life to the wardrobe door , proceeded to do a "Technicolor Yawn" all over the front of the house, and our van parked below!

We tried to make a hasty exit in the morning but the van wouldn't start. The answer, back then, was to use a starting handle.

Problem was the front of the vehicle was right up against the wall and there was no room to get the starting handle into the front of the engine to turn it over. We tried pushing the van backwards, but it was too heavy to push up the steep slope.

So, in our still hungover state, we had to unload all the bloody gear, push the van, re-load the gear, and then find somewhere to kill the rest of the day before setting up again for our second night's show.

Driving back on that night we were all absolutely shattered. Denny and Steve collapsed amongst all the amps, guitars and drums in the back of the van. Phil gamely drove us back to Birmingham across the Yorkshire Moors, with me next to him in the front passenger seat.

To keep us both awake, I found some drumsticks and played an impromptu, noisy drum solo on the metal engine cover that divided us, Denny and Steve oblivious to it all, snoring loudly.