Hi, at last I have sussed it!

I had a mate put some stuff on before then I forgot the technique but now, finally,I have it sussed! Hurrah for the aged brain! So here I am, vindicated for sitting in front of a computer for what seems like a very long time – and believe me it has been.

The reason I wrote A Blues for Shindig, which I see as a celebration of the fifties, is because I have always thought that the fifties gets too little credit for the way we are now.

The fifties is usually depicted as a grey dull time but in Soho it was as lively and louche as it always had been there and Notting Hill and Brixton were coming into their own as centres of culture. 

New music and new culture were arriving with the waves of immigrants who had supported Britain
in the war and now brought us brilliant music and generally livened us up. The Teds were preening like exotic birds and setting their own kind of style. Blue beat and modern jazz along with Calypso and Guy Mitchell all slugged it out for supremacy .and then along came Elvis in 56, probably the first time some people heard the blues. But the real blues and jazz sounds were coming in well before that; every time a boat docked in Liverpool and London from New York, seamen brought in bootleg copies of music that was unavailable here, kept us up to date and it joined the musos in London who had always been up to date and were playing fine jazz in joints in Soho. There were still American bases near London then so the best of the clubs were packed with aficionados and the multicultural Britain that we celebrate now was on its way. 

I read Colin Mcinnes in the sixties and I found his depiction of London accurate and vivid in some ways though I preferred Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners when I discovered it later, but I felt that that what both books had in common was a serious lack of strong women and I knew then that must even up the balance. I also had a huge amount of fun writing it. 

So, it took me nearly fifty years to get it together? I was doing other things – OK?

 

PS. If there is anybody out there who remembers those good old days come forward and let’s talk. It feels like I am the last survivor and I am sure I’m not!

 

 

Bitterne Park Reading Group in Southampton read my book and I went to talk to them which was terrifying but they were mercifully gentle with me They are looking for new people to join them and their contact number is: 07811501447 It was a new experience for me and for them I think and was interesting for us all the group to ask about the process of writing a book they had read. I am expecting a review from them some time soon.

 

Comments

[Gary Davison]

Sounds like a great time to have lived in, Mo. I've never been up to speed with music and I'm still stuck in the eighties, but I think I would have been into the blues if I'd been around then. Best of luck with your book.

[Paul]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this background information, Mo. Thanks. I hadn't been aware that the blues found their way into 50s London in this way.

[mo foster]

Thanks for your comment Gary. Yes, the good old blues was making its way into the rather dull music scene that included an enormous amount of crooning
( some excellent some dreadful.)I discovered the blues first in Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith through a friend at school who loved Jazz. Just lucky I guess and I know that Liverpool was a great entry point for bootleg music. Do read the book if you can and find out what else we were up to! Very similar to what young people get up to now! Cheers Mo and thsnks you are my first input!

[Jon]

Yes, Mo, I admit to being one who remembers 50s London but from a very different angle. My home was in Mombasa, Kenya. I spent my day swimming in warm, azure seas off white sands beaches - the places the tourists go today. We had five servants, a Humber Hawk with a chauffeur and a huge, ariy house. Then Mau Mau came along and, in 1954, my parents sent me to boarding school in Sussex. I was nine. I flew home every summer for two glorious months. So 50s London was, to me, loneliness in my aunt's flat during the Easter and Christmas holidays, smog, shopping for school clothes, grey rain, and going to the dentist. Oh - and Heathrow. I liked Heathrow: it was my escape route.

[Keirsten]

I am so excited you are finally here mo!

Congrats! And a great first post.