MEMORIES: When we ran the Folkus folk club at Rochford's Kings Head pub

A recent fire is a new low point in its history. It is the pub my father occasionally frequented both as a local and as a functions location back in the early 1950s.

The King’ Head back in the 1950s and 60s had a number of different bars including a lounge, public bars and a small functions room no bigger than a large living room. It was a typical local where the entertainment was dominoes, darts, cards, but no music. That was all about to change.

By 1968 I had hit on the idea of bringing to my home town of Rochford a club where all genres of acoustic music could be heard. Time spent at the Les Cousins Club in Greek Street had made a huge impression on my ever-developing musical outlook. Unlike the existing local acoustic folk clubs where traditional music ruled, I craved for seeing the existence of a club that embraced all music styles, including traditional and contemporary folk music, as well as blues and popular acoustic.

The only club in the local area where acoustic folk music could be heard was The Southend Folk Club. The club resided in the late 1960s at The Railway Club, Clifftown Road, in Southend. Although contemporary music was occasionally performed there by floor singers, it certainly wasn’t openly encouraged. This left a void for many local artists and fans as they had nowhere to congregate.

The thought of setting a club up on my own appeared daunting and so I turned to a couple of good friends at the time who seemed equally enthusiastic. The two friends were originally old school chums of my older brother at Southend High School for Boys. Ian Varcoe was a keen acoustic guitarist and more a fan of pop rather than folk, while the other, Paul Bailey, was more a fan of alternative folk and rock.

Paul was extremely keen to set up a business more in line with the complete set up in Greek Street. His idea was to establish a daytime coffee snack bar, doubling into a music club at night. It soon dawned on us how challenging this would be, although not before a few possible venues were considered. It wasn’t long before a hunt for a suitable functions room became the focus of our endeavours.

Eventually I found a small function room above The Kings Head in Rochford Square. The landlord, Arthur Stevens, seemed more than happy to let the room on a once a fortnight basis, for a small fee. A few other landlords were approached but were less favourable about letting their rooms that would attract in their eyes - a lot of undesirable pot-smoking long-haired hippies.

The next issue on running a club was that none of us had a great deal of disposable income. I seem to recall that we sunk a fiver into the kitty and hoped we could at least break even. Membership cards were printed by a small printing business in Mortimer Road, Rayleigh. Posters were had made and scattered around the town, while the weekly local newspaper, The Southend Standard, was contacted to promote the opening night.

An entrance fee of around five shillings was charged, rising slightly for the booking of professional acts to around seven shillings and sixpence. At the top of the stairs was a small table and chair where one of us or volunteer would sign up members and take the entrance fee.

Inside the room there were around 25 or so upright chairs and these were initially put into rows before eventually placed to the side and back of the room. This arrangement left an area of floor for sitting. This proved the best use of the room and was the most popular with members. We found a large old carpet in a built-in wall cupboard which we used to roll out each fortnight.

For the opening Wednesday night, we booked a local artist who kindly offered his services for expenses of just a few pounds. His name was Dave Absalom, not to be confused with Mike Absalom who was a well-known professional artist at the time. The turn out on that opening night was around 25 souls. Although not a raging success, at least was not considered to be a flop.

For the coming few months we booked other well-known local semi-professional artists. They included The Morris Boys, who were a very popular Country and Western Band and Nic Jones, no relation. Nic at that time was heavily involved with the very successful Chelmsford Folk Club. He was already establishing himself as a great country known folk artist and had just released an album on Bill Leader’s LEADER label.

He kindly gave a signed copy to the club for the raffle*. Nic’s career really took off at that time and was continually touring in subsequent years when tragedy struck.

He was victim of a dreadful late night car crash when returning from a gig. Sadly he never fully recovered to continue his career. The BBC a few years ago made a wonderful documentary on the man and his life-long struggle to overcome his injuries.

Slowly a format of one “Open Night” and one guest night was established as the night that involved no paid guest paid for any losses that may have been incurred on nights where fees of a guest artist were not covered by the admission money.

One of our first major guests was John Martyn who attracted well in excess of a hundred fans into the small room no larger than a standard living room. Today this would have been totally impossible with stringent Health and Safety and Fire Regulations. I recorded the whole night on an old reel to reel tape recorder, but unfortunately both were lost over time.

Many other artists came down from London including Wizz Jones, Gerry Lochran, Mike Cooper and one major - now legendary - folk star, who attracted nearly as many as John Martyn. That was the wonderful Anne Briggs who had an absolutely beautiful voice. She was a folk legend and once girl friend of Bert Jansch who was the founder member of PENTANGLE.

Anne was regarded as Britain’s Best Female Folk Singer but by the late 1960s she had become reclusive and only very rarely performed. I happened to contact her to see if there must just be a chance of her coming to Rochford and for the strangest of reason, agreed to come to Rochford to perform at the club.

Anne at the time was living in a remote part of Norfolk and wanted to visit the salt marshes of the South Essex Coast. It was Foulness, Wakering Stairs and Paglesham that were places she so wanted to see. Rochford was a perfect location to end her day’s visit. For those who packed into the small room it turned out to be one of the most memorable performances at the club. Her appearance was a real coupe and many traditional loving folk fans travelled considerable distances to witness this rare occasion.

Towards the latter part of 1969 Paul was keen to see the club expand and move to a larger venue. He was keen to find another place where the now regular larger audiences could be better accommodated. Ian and I felt the unique charm of a small upstairs room was part of the attraction that had led to the club’s success and so we were against a move. The end result was the club moved to Southend’s “Top Alex” pub’s large function room. The Alexander in Alexander Street was seen as the perfect location in that many of the audience travelled in from the Southend area. John Martyn was rebooked along with some other names but the club unfortutely soon folded when the club lost money. The larger expected audience numbers did not materialise and so Folkus came to an end.

Other clubs were formed in subsequent years from the void that needed to be filled with the loss of FOLKUS, but that’s another story.

*Some not so many years back, while visiting a Charity Shop in Alexander Road, Southend, I came across the very same signed Nic Jones album that he had kindly given to the club for the raffle. Needless to say I bought it!