Linton and the Pop Group.

I must say, seeing these photos of the Linton School pop group performing live on the stage in the assembly hall, do look impressive, here we see Keith Mead singing his heart away, backed up by Gerald Coe, on keyboards, and Ronald Turpin, base guitar. In July 1964 Keith joined The Junior Leaders, this was an element of the Army that accepted youngsters at age 15, and they would be given training as an apprentice, ready for the 'Mans' army. I think he signed on for 7 years. A lifetime at that age! Career advice authorities preferred this type of 'employment' then, as it would have been easy for them; I too was pressed into joining this way by them. But I was not having it, and besides, being still 'In Care' would have made things really easy for all parties, all bar me, but we did not have views, did we?
Now then.
Those guitars we were playing.
They were CARDBOARD.
Yes, it was all a pretend.
You deserve an explanation, so here goes.
"Let’s form a group", someone had said, loads of chaps are doing it, and releasing singles. Particularly Liverpudlians.
So we thought we would, only we had no guitars, no instruments at all, and certainly could not play any. So here is what we did.
We convinced the head (Mr. Barnard) to agree to a ''concert''. This would take the form of us, the group, miming to pop music, pretending to be playing home made cardboard guitars, on stage, with the rest of the school as audience, and a small area in front of the stage, to be used as a dance area.
Well.
What a set of turnips we must have looked.
We had great fun on the ramp up to the night we were due to perform. We actually took over the art lessons, making and painting the guitars. Sorting out the music we were going to mime to. Rehearsing in the assembly hall, after locking all the doors and pulling on the curtains, the other kids really peeded off cos’ they could not get in, and we had teach’s permission too.

The Christmas Dance invite originates from either 1962 or 1963.