Go to the gym? I’d rather put my feet up and relax

GYMS have opened again, along with shops and hairdressers and pub gardens, and I was interested to read the top 10 in what are called “workout playlists” which are, I suppose, music to motivate, keep limbs moving, muscles flexing and hearts beating healthily for those who are members of such establishments.

Top was the very appropriately titled Till I Collapse by Eminem, followed by Roses (SAINt JHN), The Business (Tiesto), Head and Heart (Joel Corry) and Turn Me On (Riton). As I have only ever heard of Eminem and I suspect the others, and the rest of the top 10, is music from a younger generation and inclination.

At school, I loathed gym work, which appeared to consist mainly of climbing a rope to the ceiling (I could never get beyond two feet off the ground, and hanging from wall bars as a punishment.

I got quite good at hanging from wall bars and slipping my feet onto a lower bar when Flash Harry, the sadist in charge, wasn’t looking.

The only other time I frequented a gym was in Huddersfield Sports Centre where members of the Examiner Sunday League side met once a week to play five-a-side football. Our captain at the time was Town reporter Martin Hardy, who base at Menwith Hill near Harrogate. In 1964, The Planets evolved yet again. They heard that the famous Huddersfield band The Witchdoctors had broken up after returning from France where they had been based, and went to the Bradley home of their 17-year-old vocalist Lynn Stennett, to ask if she would like to join them. She was wary but agreed to hear them play. “It was quite became an journalist.

He sold me to a team of builders from Wolverhampton for a packet of cheese and onion crisps. The deal was signed on a beer mat and he didn’t even share the crisps.

Fortunately, when the builders finished their contract work in

international

golf something that a girl of 17 was giving us an audition,” Brian says.

But Lynn had already made records in Paris and knew the business. She joined and they became Lynn and The Planets.

They played with the legendary Gene Vincent and chart bands of the period such as The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Honeycombs and made an unlikely appearance with

Huddersfield, I was not required to go to Wolverhampton with them.

So it may not be a surprise that I haven’t been near a gym in years and my fitness regime has most recently involved an exercise bike in my home office, along with leg stretching. This I recently overdid with the result I strained my back,

Alma Cogan. The Planets folded in the mid-1960s and Richard Hartley and Lynn joined The Witchdoctors for their second French tour. But while it lasted, this changing group of friends and musicians enjoyed making music and being in a rock and roll band, like many of their generation.

Oh yes, and Richard Hartley went on to international acclaim. He yet again, and had to resort to drugs until the pain ebbed.

Which is why my workout playlist, if I had one, would be the beautifully gentle Greensleeves Fantasia by Vaughan Williams, played on a loop whilst lounging in my office recliner. The most relaxing music in the world. arranged the score for the stage and film versions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, writes music for video, TV and major films, is an Emmy Award winner and an internationally-acclaimed composer.

A genuine star who evolved from a planet.

■■Anyone interested in contacting Brian Mellor can email me at the usual address.