ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD

WHAT a joyous razzle-dazzle lot they were . . . the Phoenix Prize Jazz Band from St Helens who splashed the streets with colour and set the pavements ringing to their kazoo, clappers, jew's harp and comb-and-paper music.

It's a memory that burns eternally in the mind of Ernie Henderson, who was a childhood clapper player with that trophy-winning pub outfit and remains a keen 'bones' exponent well into his seventies.

In fact, he recently performed as a musical Pearly King in a Southport show and featured on a local radio station.

Ernie, from Dunmail Avenue, Carr Mill, sets the pre-war scene in picking up on my recent scribblings about the great jazzers, morris prancers and clog dancers of bygone times.

What a sight it was, seeing the Phoenix band and morris dancing team (in diamond-patterned costumes of red, amber and black; and of red, white and blue). The jazzers were headed by baton-twirling Alfie Lea and the dancers led by accordionist Louie Henderson.

The atmosphere-charging snake dancers of that era were John Cheshire and Austin Newton, recalls Ernie (with a bit of head-scratching help from old pal Jimmy Kent).

The performers hailed from a network of old terraces close to the town centre, mostly from Wilson Street.

Rehearsals were held in the old billiards rooms which then stood in Kirkland Street, and among their many triumphs were the capture of championship trophies at Burslem, near Stoke, and at Belle Vue, Manchester.

Among the memory-jerking extroverts in that Phoenix band were Bob Finney (drummer) Jimmy Hedgecock, Joe and Bob Henthorne, Ralph Blakeco, Arthur Lonsdale, Jimmy, Albert and Tommy Kent, plus Jimmy Kent senior. Also the four Smith brothers, Alf Higson, Ernie Earlam, Tommy Newton, Jack and Frank McKinley and Dickie Cheshire.

Among the pom-pom swirling morris dancers were Jean Henderson, Connie Blakeco, Kitty Waterworth, Sarah Hills and Veronica Lyon.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.