Mansfield music scene in the sixties

During the corona virus lockdown we decided to have a sixties night and share our memories of the music scene during this time in Mansfield. We love sixties music and I still have a record player and all of our old vinyl 45s and LPs. There’s something about the sound from vinyl records that isn’t in the sound with modern technology I think it is more like listening to live music.

One photograph is an image, and I am sure like many other people’s house’s as it was in Mansfield in the sixties. I bought most of my records from Valances and Sid Booth’s I recall that Valances had a booth so you could listen to the record before buying it.

My record collection was one of my most treasured possessions and still is today. In the early sixties in Mansfield you could hear pop music in record shops, in pubs that had a jukebox, in cafe’s, cinema’s and dance halls.

Can anyone remember when the fair came to Mansfield on Chesterfield road where Tesco is now, with Del Shannon’s runaway, Dion’s run-around sue, Jonny Tillotson with poetry in motion and halfway to paradise by Billy Fury ringing out from the fairground rides?

Listening to our records brought memories flooding back of the brilliant times we had at the Palais and the nights at my family home before we were married playing records.

Memories of the Palais
When I started going to Palais in the early sixties it was very popular and you usually had to queue to get in. There was a strict dress code, most boys wore a suit and you weren’t allowed in without a tie. The girls with their bouffant hairstyle and sixties dresses looked fabulous. Winkle picker shoes were the fashion back then.

I recall there was a cloakroom where you could leave your coat for a small fee, you were given a numbered ticket to retrieve your coat at the end of the night. In the dance hall although there were a few couples dancing it was mostly the girls dancing with their friend’s and the boys walking round the dance hall with their mates and cutting in every so often for a dance – which is how I met my wife Maureen. I walked her to the bus, the 102 to Pleasley at the top of Queens Street and then nipped into the Queens Head for a pint with some mates. This went on for several weeks, she has told me since that when I asked her out to the pictures It was my last chance to move thing’s on.

Can anyone remember that at the interval at the Palais They played a certain tune, it was Rinky Dink by the Johnny Howard Band and before the second half began they played the flip side Java, if you listen to it on You tube I’m sure it will jog your memory . I still have the record. Some night’s during the interval some budding pop singer would get onto the stage and sing their favourite pop song, it’s called Karaoke today.

We still went to the Palais when we were a couple and one night we went downstairs to the coffee bar for a drink, bits a pieces by the Dave Clark Five was playing in the dance hall, everyone was stamping to the music and the ceiling was visibly bulging to the beat, suddenly the fire doors flew open and the alarms were set of. We were told the reason was that the dance floor was a sprung floor. It certainly was that night.

Groups occasionally played at the Palais, I recall a local group Neil and the Diamonds was one of them. I also saw Jimmy Crawford (his version of I love how you love me) is my favourite sixties ballad. The Barron Knight’s also played there can anyone remember any other artists to play there?

I have seen on this web site about the shows at the Granada in the sixties. We went to a few but the only programme I still have is for the Bobby Vee show but I remember seeing Dion, Joe Brown, the Temperance Seven, Marty Wilde, Helen Shapiro, Jimmy Crawford and many more, they were great shows.

Can you remember trying to tune their transistor radio into radio Luxenberg? and listening to pop shows on the radio and TV like Oh Boy, Ready Steady Go, Pick of the pops and Jukebox Jury. I was big fan of the local band Shane Fenton and the Fentones and I have all of their records. I was told by an older neighbour when we moved into our bungalow on Peel road about ten years ago that Shane Fenton came to our bungalow in the fifties for guitar lessons. Our bungalow is named Serenade as a previous resident was a music teacher. Shane Fentons real name Bernard Jury had several hit records as Alvin Stardust in the seventies.

Some time ago I had some box plants with the idea to make topiary shapes so with this history of our bungalow I decided to make a guitar as in the photo. I only play sixties music in the car and when I take my young grandchildren to school I am trying to get them to appreciate good music. They love it and ask for their favourite’s and we have a good old sing/song as we go to school. I wonder how many people have memories of pop music and the dances in Mansfield at this time.

They are all wonderful memories.