CREEPING HORSE WILLIAMSON AND BLIND BOY MOSELEY GO TO TOWN - PART 1
The small back room was filled with putrid smoke and the static hiss of electronic amplifiers humming in the background.
Creeping Horse Williamson sat at the bar on his usual stool, smoking a cheroot and drinking a double scotch and coke from a cracked pint glass. His sunglasses were precariously lodged on the crook of his humongous nose and continuously threatened to slip off and fall to the sweat stained bar surface.
Blind Boy Moseley sat next to him playing a Braille Harmonica, gaily swinging his head from side to side and tapping his white stick in rhythm to the sweet martial tune emanating from his harmonica. Martial music had been his staple since learning to play the instrument whilst apprenticed to the local undertaker in Sevastopol Under Cliffe , his home village in the Ukraine.
They both slowly turned towards the rickety stage located at the far end of the room, there attention having been drawn by the shuffling of stagehands moving their equipment in to place on the stage. Creeping Horse Williamson immediately noted that his favourite Boxcar guitar was missing and that it had been replaced by a long necked Sitar draped with a garland of of orange honeysuckle.
His thoughts quickly turned to events some thirty years earlier when he performed impromptu performances for the Sultan of Zanzibar in the Jozani Forest and then on to the white sands of his private beach in Stone Town. Whilst strumming his Sitar under a clove tree and sipping a rum punch he noticed what he thought was a sack of mango's on the beach, but after further inspection he was amazed to find that the sack was in fact a human being laying unconscious in the sand.
After kicking the body to see if it was alive, he noticed a trickle of urine running from the prone bodies groin and proceeded to provide mouth to mouth resuscitation to revive the dehydrated body laying at his feet. It was only after dusting down the unfortunate person and standing him upright, that he noticed that it was non other than his long time buddy and fellow musician, Blind Boy Moseley.
After coming round and reaching a state of semi consciousness, Blind Boy Moseley explained that he had been travelling on a tramp steamer that was exporting blood diamonds from Cape Town to Aden, when he was put ashore at Stone Town Zanzibar. He was assigned by the captain of the steamer to obtain a number of Congolese pygmies to be used as cabin boys aboard ship.
However, after stumbling in to the Jozani Forest after imbibing too many Coconut punches, he fell in to the clutches of a gang of juvenile Red Colobus monkeys, who imprisoned him in their den for refusing to share his alcoholic supplies. Having missed the sailing of the tramp steamer he remained within the confines of the forest and started a relationship with a mature Red Colobus monkey that lasted a number of months until she left him due to his inability to swing from the forest branches.
Having established how and why he was in Zanzibar, the old friends reminisced as to how they had originally become friends back in North Wembley in North West London, England.
There joint thoughts were soon entangled in distant memories of playing a hectic set at the Hop Bine in the early 1950's, and the particular antics of Dave "Twinkle Toes" Buckland who performed the first ever "triple toe bop" routine, during a heaving Monday evening Hep Cat and roustabout rendezvous club night.
After hours of melodious fun, the musicians in arms had retired to the "Zoot Club" near to Regents Park, London, which was established within the confines of London Zoo. It was at this venue that Blind Boy Moseley first acquired his taste for Colobus monkeys after he stumbled in to an enclosure in the early hours of the morning whilst the keepers mucked out the stockade and provided food for the inhabitants.
This particular night ended with them both waking up in Kilburn nick, but both escaped prosecution due to the charging officers love of there musical attributes and a large bribe paid in petrol vouchers and tickets to future gigs at the Hop Bine, National and Galtymore.
Returning to the present, the old musicians slowly took there places on the stage and began to tune up the Sitar and harmonica in preparation of the gig. The gig had been arranged by "Lord Burlington of the Arcade" and was taking place in The Carlton Lodge, a seedy drinking den adjacent to the John Lyon public house on the borders of Sudbury, North Wembley and Harrow in the county of Middlesex, situated to the North West of London in the UK.
The guest of honour was to be "Doctor Doyle", a shady figure who was involved with both British Intelligence agencies and Fee Irish groups in Ireland. He was normally accompanied by Pat"The Pope"Cannister, a semi literate and partially retired overweight builder with a penchant for strong Cider,Vodka and a hundred fags a day.
As the assembled gathering prepared for the musical feast about to befall them, the door of the Lodge opened and all tuned in amazement to notice that.........
To be continued.
The small back room was filled with putrid smoke and the static hiss of electronic amplifiers humming in the background.
Creeping Horse Williamson sat at the bar on his usual stool, smoking a cheroot and drinking a double scotch and coke from a cracked pint glass. His sunglasses were precariously lodged on the crook of his humongous nose and continuously threatened to slip off and fall to the sweat stained bar surface.
Blind Boy Moseley sat next to him playing a Braille Harmonica, gaily swinging his head from side to side and tapping his white stick in rhythm to the sweet martial tune emanating from his harmonica. Martial music had been his staple since learning to play the instrument whilst apprenticed to the local undertaker in Sevastopol Under Cliffe , his home village in the Ukraine.
They both slowly turned towards the rickety stage located at the far end of the room, there attention having been drawn by the shuffling of stagehands moving their equipment in to place on the stage. Creeping Horse Williamson immediately noted that his favourite Boxcar guitar was missing and that it had been replaced by a long necked Sitar draped with a garland of of orange honeysuckle.
His thoughts quickly turned to events some thirty years earlier when he performed impromptu performances for the Sultan of Zanzibar in the Jozani Forest and then on to the white sands of his private beach in Stone Town. Whilst strumming his Sitar under a clove tree and sipping a rum punch he noticed what he thought was a sack of mango's on the beach, but after further inspection he was amazed to find that the sack was in fact a human being laying unconscious in the sand.
After kicking the body to see if it was alive, he noticed a trickle of urine running from the prone bodies groin and proceeded to provide mouth to mouth resuscitation to revive the dehydrated body laying at his feet. It was only after dusting down the unfortunate person and standing him upright, that he noticed that it was non other than his long time buddy and fellow musician, Blind Boy Moseley.
After coming round and reaching a state of semi consciousness, Blind Boy Moseley explained that he had been travelling on a tramp steamer that was exporting blood diamonds from Cape Town to Aden, when he was put ashore at Stone Town Zanzibar. He was assigned by the captain of the steamer to obtain a number of Congolese pygmies to be used as cabin boys aboard ship.
However, after stumbling in to the Jozani Forest after imbibing too many Coconut punches, he fell in to the clutches of a gang of juvenile Red Colobus monkeys, who imprisoned him in their den for refusing to share his alcoholic supplies. Having missed the sailing of the tramp steamer he remained within the confines of the forest and started a relationship with a mature Red Colobus monkey that lasted a number of months until she left him due to his inability to swing from the forest branches.
There joint thoughts were soon entangled in distant memories of playing a hectic set at the Hop Bine in the early 1950's, and the particular antics of Dave "Twinkle Toes" Buckland who performed the first ever "triple toe bop" routine, during a heaving Monday evening Hep Cat and roustabout rendezvous club night.
After hours of melodious fun, the musicians in arms had retired to the "Zoot Club" near to Regents Park, London, which was established within the confines of London Zoo. It was at this venue that Blind Boy Moseley first acquired his taste for Colobus monkeys after he stumbled in to an enclosure in the early hours of the morning whilst the keepers mucked out the stockade and provided food for the inhabitants.
This particular night ended with them both waking up in Kilburn nick, but both escaped prosecution due to the charging officers love of there musical attributes and a large bribe paid in petrol vouchers and tickets to future gigs at the Hop Bine, National and Galtymore.
The guest of honour was to be "Doctor Doyle", a shady figure who was involved with both British Intelligence agencies and Fee Irish groups in Ireland. He was normally accompanied by Pat"The Pope"Cannister, a semi literate and partially retired overweight builder with a penchant for strong Cider,Vodka and a hundred fags a day.
As the assembled gathering prepared for the musical feast about to befall them, the door of the Lodge opened and all tuned in amazement to notice that.........
To be continued.
