I started playing skiffel, so we are talking about the mid to late 50's about 56/57. My only real talent was a sense of rhythm so I haven't got very good pitch although I was a singer and lead guitarist but the echo chamber covered a lot of sins! I started in the sniffle days with a sense of rhythm I wanted a drum kit, but my mother was never going to allow me to have that, so I started off with a guitar. I gradually got amplifiers and it became Rock 'n' roll. I packed in the groups finally in about 65. One of the groups I started in, in 63 when the Beatles just come out, is back running and they still do loads of gigs- they are called the Purple Hearts. I got into a lot of trouble for calling a group The Purple hearts because it was the leading amphetamine at the time. I never actually tried it- I have never even taken one! But I have seen lots of people that have. Back in those days even the clubs shut at 11pm, midnight was really late. So the groups that used to go around and play we would come out and think what do we do now. Apart from a few Indian Takeaway's or restaurants there was nowhere to go at that time. In 1963 the first 24-hour launderette in Cardiff opened on city road and of course they had a coffee machine! Quite simply that is where all the groups used to end up, sat on the floor drinking coffee and a few of them popping a few pills and just relating what their gig had been like. It was just the only place to go!