A popular guest at the Bull’s Head Hotel, Congleton, this week, has been musical star Joe Brown, who, after a 2½-year run in “Charlie Girl” in London is back on the road again, currently appearing at the “Talk of the North” Club in Eccles, we reported in 1968.
Joe’s stay at the Bull’s Head is the result of an eight-year friendship between the hotel’s host and hostess Mr and Mrs Albert Cropper, and Joe’s road manager/songwriter Barry Elms, formerly of Sounds Incorporated, who was best man at the wedding of Mr and Mrs Cropper’s son David.
“Through Bas, I decided to stay here,” Joe told the “Chronicle” on Tuesday, “and it is well worth the drive to Eccles every day. I think Congleton is a great town — it is so nice and clean.”
Later this week he was spending a couple of days in Liverpool with his wife, who was joining him there — her home town. He afterwards planned to return to Congleton for the remainder of the week, and perhaps get in a game of golf which had, up to then, eluded him.
Next week, he has to return to London for television and recording engagements.
This has been his first stay in Congleton, although, he recalled, he had passed through the town many times during “the old days of touring.” No longer with The Bruvvers, who shared his early fame, he had brought with him an eight-piece band for his Eccles engagement, and his only worry on Tuesday was that he had to find a lead trumpeter at short notice.
• We emailed Joe’s agent to see if the singer, now 84, has any memories of Congleton. He never replied, so presumably he hasn’t.
One of Joe’s hits was “I’m Henery the Eighth, I Am”, hence the heading to this story. They don’t write lyrics like this no more:
I’m ‘Enery the Eighth, I am,
‘Enery the Eighth I am, I am!
I got married to the widow next door,
She’s been married seven times before
And every one was an ‘Enery
She wouldn’t have a Willie nor a Sam
I’m her eighth old man named ‘Enery
‘Enery the Eighth, I am!
***
Talking of the alleged “good old days”, when people think crime was less and people could leave their doors open. Some rose-tinted spectacles may be involved, as this report from 1968 shows.
Violence erupted in Mossley on Friday night and ruined what has become one of Congleton’s liveliest and most enjoyable social gatherings of the year.
This week, local councillor Mike Hoffman hit out at the element who caused chaos and bloodshed at the annual barbecue organised by Congleton Cricket, Hockey and Bowling Club.
The owner of the field on Cross Lane, Mossley, where the event has been held so successfully for the last few years, Mrs M Olsen, said Friday’s barbecue would be the last.
“If people can’t behave themselves this is the only thing we can do,” she said.
Coun Hoffman, who is chairman of the club’s Pavilion Committee, said he was “appalled” at the behaviour of the people involved in the fights.
“They broke up what would have been a very enjoyable night and in the end we lost money,” he said this week.
Police were called twice during the barbecue and eventually the band was taken off just after 11pm and the bar closed early in an effort to ease some of the tension.
According to an eye-witness the first fight started when a group of “outsiders” — youths from out of town — tried to get in.
Later fights broke out all over the field, and one youth was said to have been hit in the face with a skittle and a car was damaged.
“It was like a blood bath — I’ve never seen anything like it,” one of the visitors said.
“The whole thing was disgusting,” Coun Hoffman said this week.
“This barbecue used to be a happy family affair and now you could not expect people to bring their families with them.”
Mrs Olsen watched the barbecue from her home next to the field.
“I don’t think anyone could have enjoyed it; it was frightening. Youths were picking up empty beer bottles and threatening anyone who went near them,” she described.
She added that previous barbecues had always been a success and had caused no trouble of any kind in the area.
“I’ve decided not to have another one here, even though, as usual, it is the people who had nothing to do with the trouble who will be the sufferers,” she said.
Later the same night — although there is nothing to confirm that there was any connection.
Coun Albert Campbell, chairman of the local Operation Spring Clean Sub-Committee, which this year encouraged traders to brighten up their shops, said he was “more than disgusted” by the behaviour of people who had torn down hanging baskets from over some main street shops and thrown them in the street.
One of the sufferers, greengrocer Mr H Hambleton, said he had told the police that a hanging basket over his shop had been torn down.
“We are encouraged to do these things to brighten our shops, then look what happens,” he commented this week.
