Club’s guest speaker hits the right note
From pop industry to bodyguard duties
After all the business was conducted, president Barclay Sinclair introduced speaker Ian Thomson.
Ian has had a very varied, but interesting, career which ended up in the police in the Special Bodyguard Division.
However, prior to all that Ian was in the pop music world.
From that grew an interest in the guitars that he played and so he has built up quite a collection – some of which he brought along to the meeting.
Much to the EK Probus members’ disappointment, however, there were ‘no stings attached’ so playing them was to be for another day.
But he did show us an array of old (original) and valuable guitars that he had collected over the years and, indeed, had also played.
He was brought up in a household full of music and he could turn his hand not only to the guitar but also to the ukulele and the banjo.
The radio was always on and he learned to play the instruments by just listening and getting a hold of a basic four cords.
Ian and some of his pals as youngsters used to put on shows around the tenements in Falkirk, charging the housewives a penny (an old penny) to listen to them.
Indeed, he was very entrepreneurial in his childhood for he would follow the horse and carts around in the street, collecting the horses’ droppings and selling it by the bucket for the women to put on their roses.
This way he’d saved up to buy his first guitar and case at 60 guineas (£60 and 60 shillings = £63).
It was a now rare Hefner which he still has and of which there are only 12 left in the world. Even his first amplifier is a rare Hefner.
Things began to take off in 1959, although the first gig only paid 10/(50p).
Still, aged 12 or 13, that was a fortune. By the age of 17-18, they had their own van bought for the princely sum of £400. Two gigs later it was paid for.
Soon they were on TV supporting the likes of David Bowie, The Who and others and playing four or five nights a week. Their agent, Albert Benici, got them a six-gig contract to support Marianne Faithfull and two gigs supporting Ken Dodd.
Ian went on to explain that the acoustic guitar was originally an orchestral instrument but in 1930 the first electric guitar made an appearance, a Rickenbacker.
This was followed by one tweaked up by a radio technician in America called Leo Fender and that name is synonymous with most famous guitars in the world – a Telecaster Fender.
Ian then showed members his original 1950 Telecaster, pointing out its functional and finer points of design.
In 1962, the Fender Stratocaster was produced. Fifty had been made but only two came to Britain and he got one of them.
Of the 77 guitars Ian owns, he has one which has been signed by Hank Marvin of the Shadows – Cliff Richard’s sometime backing band.
He has a Vox guitar and when the factory couldn’t keep up with demand they sub-contracted the bodywork to another company called G-Plan; yes, the furniture company.
He has a Hoffman V5 (Bavarian) of which there is now only 12 in the world.
Ian’s group was The Sundowners but by 1971 the band folded and, for him, the police force beckoned and he was off on another adventure.
He still goes into primary schools, giving guitar lessons, and raises money to buy guitars for the schoolchildren.
The vote of thanks was given by John Mitchell, who said that Ian’s earlier life seemed to fit in well with the VIP Protection police as it was two sides of the same coin.
His history of dealing with all the screaming fans meant that he knew something about protection before joining the police.
For John, it had brought back youthful memories and he summarised by saying that the audience had been entertained, educated and enlightened – the three ‘Es’.
The next meeting will be today at 2pm for 2.30pm in the Old Parish Church Hall on Glebe Street, East Kilbride, when Malcolm Boyd will talk on the subject entitled “The Panama Canal”.