To be fair if I was choosing my favourite tunes (and not just 13 songs to write about) I could have very easily chosen 13 songs just from the Medway towns. Any one of the following bands could have barged their way into this Baker’s Dozen (making it a Barker’s Dozen perhaps?): The Prisoners, The Solarflares, The Prime Movers, The Daggermen, Thee Headcoatees, Thee Headcoats, CTMF, Musicians of the British Empire, The Len Price3, The Galileo 7, The Milkshakes, JTQ, Theatre Royal, The Long Weekend, The Pop Rivets, The Masonics, The Wildebeests, The Chatham Singers, William Loveday Intention, Graham Day & The Gaolers, The Dentists, Planet, Thee Mighty Caesars, Holly Golightly, Billy Childish, Groovy Uncle, The Delmonas etc etc.
However, I settled on The Buff Medways and this track in particular because near the end of his life my Dad surprised me by saying, apropos of me mentioning this track, that he used to be in The Buff Medways. I was surprised, to say the least. I didn’t have him down as being a member of Billy Childish’s Mod/Punk combo. It was only when I repeated his claim that he stared at me with his black eyes smiling and said, “No, the Medway Wheelers”! He had indeed ridden with them after the war and when he passed on I even found a club pin badge to underline the point.
Anyway, the thought of him thrashing away in the background in a Townsendesque fashion tickles me to this day. The song itself is a fantastic example of Childish’s innate ability to conjure up a time/place lyrically and musically juxtaposed but at the same time, so fundamentally right. His songs just fit! The notion of some sort of wilful amateurism is not borne out by the end result.
Medway Wheelers… Len Ganley… Clovelly… a cuppa tea…
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