It’s a family affair for disco tunes at Boo
IT’S one of the longest running nightclubs in the country and has become part of Stockport folklore.
The Bamboo - or ‘The Boo’ - has seen revellers throwing shapes since opening in 1961, but the real disco years were the 70s, 80s and 90s when generations of clubbers crammed into the venue.
Brothers John and Clive Beeley opened it 58 years ago, with the elder brother John working on the door while younger sibling Clive got busy behind the bar. The pair opened up as backup to their father James’s successful catering business, but it eventually became the mainstay of the Beeley’s business empire.
Now John’s son Simon, 53, has taken over the reins and his son Christopher, 26, is also on the books learning all aspects of the trade as the third generation of Beeleys getting busy at The Bamboo.
And the enduring success of the venue is attributed to ‘location, location, location’ by Simon, who lives near the club in Hazel Grove and says simply: “There is no other club for miles and miles.”
Simon added: “It’s been a fiver to get in for as long as any of us can remember and the alternative for clubbers is probably £60 or £70 in a cab to Manchester.
“That’s why we get people through the door. In the 80s and 90s we were packed out every night we opened, with 600 or 700 through the doors.
“We are open until 3am at the weekends, but back then we had to put the full house sign up early.”
His son Chris added: “It’s almost a cult thing going to The Bamboo we get people leaving on a weekend, saying the place is cr*p, but you know they’ll be back next weekend.
“I started working here when I was 16, filling the fridges on a Saturday and the worse job of all was always emptying the ashtrays.”
Locally it’s got nicknames such as the ‘Boo’ and ‘Flamboyant Bamboo’, but for many it is far from flamboyant with the recipe for success coming in the shape of bottled beers and Carling lager on draft at the club’s four bars.
For more than five decades John, now 77, was on the door every weekend. He said: “In all that time I only got punched once. I was trying to stop two guys fighting when out of nowhere one punched me in the face, it turned out he’d only just got out of jail that week.
“We dealt with all sorts and the club is a part of local folklore now and is probably responsible for bringing together more couples than anywhere else in town.
“My son Simon still gets girls coming in and saying things like my grandad met my grandmother in here, while I used to get people telling me their mum met their dad in The Bamboo - it is nice to know we have been responsible for that.
“We never knew it was going to last a lifetime when we started out putting jazz bands on when we first opened in October 1961, as that was the music of the day.
“We had all the big names in here from the world of jazz, from Blues legend Jimmy Witherspoon and the Gordon Robinson Septet to Acker Bilk, who told us how he’d played every ladies loo in the world.
“We adapted down the decades with Clive booking the acts. In the summer of 1967 we managed to get a band fronted by Canadian Blues singer Long John Baldry, which though few people would recognise it now, contained members who have gone on to become household names such as Elton John, Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart.
“Sir Elton was just 16 or 17 when he played The Bamboo - we’d love to have him back.
“We have had Mud and Sweet and so many names off Top of the Pops. Our most memorable moment though has to be when we invited the rock band Black Sabbath, fronted by Ozzy Osbourne, to play at the club.
“They turned up too late so we sent them back to Birmingham with a fiver to pay for their petrol.”
Co-founder Clive, 71, added: “We have had an absolute ball in the business and wouldn’t swap what we did for the world.
“Obviously, it has not all been glamorous and we did have to give up every weekend for around 50 years, but we loved it so much that we didn’t mind.
“It’s great that it remains in the family with Simon and Christopher doing a great job going forward.”