The mystery of the Blue Moon Club plaque
Hi Mau,
My parents brought me to Cheltenham in 1952 when l was two years old. Things have changed a lot since then and you are no longer able to ride/drive through the town centre, so instead, you travel around in circles just trying to get somewhere. All the good old pubs have gone too, including a favourite of mine, The Rose & Crown, which was a hangout during the 1970s for Mods, Rockers, weirdos and every other craze that was around at the time (and even up until the pub was demolished to build a post office (which in turn, has now since gone).
‘Boots Corner', as it was known, had a reputation for one thing or another (although it doesn't have a corner now – another of the council's plans to confuse drivers). Nowadays you have a choice of two ways to go to the town centre – and if you were new to Cheltenham, you'd be in for a surprise! I'm somewhat glad l don't have to use the roads as a driver any more.
l would only become confused with how Cheltenham is now. I miss being a poser on my well-dressed scooter, with my lady on the back. Age has taken over now, so no more scooters, or posing through the town – and no more being chased by Rockers who just wanted to do harm to anyone on a scooter who was dressed in the good old Mod way. I'm still a Mod, and l always shall be; I'm 70 years old and going through a very late mid-life crisis, my memories are taking over now; on the outside my body is old and I'm losing my hair, but on the inside l'm still a young Mod and have my music and my parka.
And now to the reason l started writing this letter. As already mentioned, I've been in Cheltenham since 1952; l left school in 1965 and it began what was to be the time of my life, riding many scooters (anything from early Lambrettas and Vespas to fairly modern machines). One thing that l found out was that you can't do better than an original scooter and l wish l could have kept a few of the ones l had. Who'd have thought that a scooter purchased for around £50 would, in later years, be worth thousands of pounds – l wonder what happened to my various Li150s, my TV175 and my vast selection of Vespas. Somewhere between my youth and my retirement years, l missed out... Still, that's life!
Back in 1965, the Blue Moon Mod Club was still open in Cheltenham, although it's long gone now. Located in the vicinity is a plaque dedicated to the Blue Moon Club – but the dates don't match up with my memories of the time. The plaque shows two dates and it's the first – 1965 – that l don't agree with. I remember that one day in 1963 there were 30 scooters parked outside and a Mod was standing in the entrance door (l remember this because l told him that I'd heard a conversation while walking past the local biker cafe (near to where Sainsburys is now located) and I overheard that they were to carry out a raid on the scooters parked outside the Blue Moon with the intention of throwing a scooter into the River Chelt, in retaliation for something the Mods did previously. This revelation led to a lot of interest inside the club and the saying: ‘Forewarned is forearmed'. I was at Boots Corner when the Mods and Rockers met outside the bank – it was just a mass of black. If there are any other Mods or Rockers from the time still around, maybe they can recollect the correct time frame? Today, the ground floor shop is a Monsoon shop, but back in the day it was Burton's Tailors (with the Blue Moon Club above it). Burton's was probably the bestlooking place in Cheltenham back then – and a convenient place to get our suits from.
The Blue Moon Club holds a special place for those that visited it during the 1960s, including the memories of the scooters lined up outside. The entrance door looked like a speaker – a very unusual-looking door. It's still there today and can just be seen in the modern-day image just to the right of the Monsoon shop. I've always wondered about a Mod reunion outside the club, but nothing has happened – one day maybe…