Castle Farm / Youth Movements
From left to right: Graham (Tex) Benekie-Oakley (Guitarist), Steve Traveller (drummer), Ian (Fritz) Frakes (Roadie), Mick Worwood (singer). Bass player Spyder Curphy was taking the picture.
Spyder Curphey:
'I think it (the Albemarle) was the first purpose built youth club I’d ever seen. I think that the kids used to go to their own youth clubs. But you were considered a bit of a twat if you went to these. Towards the end of the 60s when music changed away from the pop stuff to Cream and Hendrix, then all the bands started playing more progressive music and it became a bit more funky going to clubs and the youth club nights became more and more popular.
When I first started doing it we practiced in the pottery room at Harrowfields in 66-67 and when we first started playing around it wasn’t very busy in the youth clubs and we were playing things like the Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Kinks.
Then when better music came about the other bands started playing more progressive stuff and the kids started coming to the clubs, especially at Harrowfields where it was held in the hall, and we also played at Harold Hill Grammar, Quarles, Redding Court, Broxhill.
We played them all regularly. And as we got better, and as people heard about the other bands that played, the crowds got bigger and bigger. There was a band called Swarb, Blues Ltd, Yellow Dog.
After a period of time we became the named Harold Hill band and we played at the schools and the Albemarle regularly.'