HELLO GOODBYE
Martin Murray recalls The Honeycombs. Also features Z Cars, Princess Margaret, Joe Meek and a Berni Inn.
They hit huge with Have I The Right. But cracked bones and a fateful meeting broke the spell.
HELLO LATE 1962
We rehearsed in my bedroom at home in Henry’s Avenue, Woodford Green. I’d met Honey [Lantree] and we were unofficially engaged, she was working at my hairdressing salon in Mare Street, Hackney. She wanted to learn guitar. I had a male drummer who left all of a sudden, and he’d left his drums. When Honey saw them, she said, “Can I have a go?” and when she started it was like she’d been playing all her life. Her brother John became our bassist, and we auditioned Denis [D’ell, vocals] and Alan [Ward, lead guitar] at a church hall in Chingford just before Christmas in 1963. Denis had a great voice and fabulous stage presentation – he’d won many a competition at Butlin’s and places like that – and Alan was phenomenal, he could play Bach, Schubert, you name it. It all gelled and we became the full-blown Sheratons. We met [managers and songwriters] Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard at the Mildmay Tavern on Balls Pond Road [in early1964]. Ken said, “My partner here is floor manager for Doctor Who on BBC TV, and I’m floor manager for Z Cars.” I said, “Come over here and start talking!” He played Have I The Right to us, and something about it had a magic appeal. I’d already spoken to Joe Meek, and I said I’d present it with the other stuff we were going to play when we went to 304 Holloway Road.
It was like spaghetti junction in his studio. For the stamping noise on the record, he had two or three microphones on the floor and a couple up the stairs. It was just the guys doing the stomping on the bare floor, Honey couldn’t because she had on lightweight ballet shoes. People talk about Joe as if he was some sort of a monster, and he did tell Alan off once and went red, but I saw him as extremely creative, on the borders of genius. Lou Benjamin, the chairman of Pye, called us The Honeycombs because we were “sweet-looking”. Soon we were shooting up the hit parade at a hundred miles an hour.
GOODBYE DEC 24, 1964
We’d been working our butts off touring, and we got a call from Ken about a gig in this converted aircraft hangar in Peterborough. Right in the front row is a bunch of yobs who started boo’ing and giving us the ‘V’ sign. I dunno what came over me but I said, “John, when we’ve finished this number, down among ’em, let’s give ’em a thump.” I jumped down but the others stopped at the edge of the stage. I smashed a bloke in the nose and broke my wrist, and I broke my leg as well. Awful stupidity. Peter Pye, who I was teaching guitar to, filled in until I was back on-stage, in plaster. But what was happening was most peculiar. I’m a true pro, and Honey and Alan were. Denny and John, I think it had gone to their heads, they weren’t getting up in the mornings – I’m saying, We’ve got to be at ATV for nine o’clock, and you haven’t had breakfast.
And I’m getting obscenities back. I no longer had leadership, which didn’t bother me as long as we could play to the public, the management of theatres who loved us… by the way, we were Princess Margaret’s favourite band! In the end I called a meeting at Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley’s flat in Swiss Cottage and my dad – who actually invented the Berni Inn and all that – came to try and save this band from disaster. My dad said, “Remember what you’ve achieved, you could be the next Beatles if you’d work properly with Martin.” And they literally didn’t wanna work with me any more. They all stayed quiet. So my dad said, “Mart, I think we’d better go,” and these are his words, and I never heard him talk like that, ever, “they’re all a bunch of shits.” They asked Peter Pye to take my place. I had one more gig to do, the Christmas Eve Top Of The Pops, in the West End. We were miming. I put on a smile, but it was very sad. What was even more sad was, when I had to pick up my equipment from the van. They phoned me and wanted it back. Did I see them again? No. And that’s more or less how I come to leave my own band.