"You Never Forget Your First Gig"

This was the headline in this week's Sunday Times. Well, I did forget. I know where it was: Dunmow Village Hall in Essex. During my last year in the sixth form, on Saturday evenings I used to go to Dunmow Jazz Club. I can remember tasting my first lager and lime in the pub before walking across to the packed village hall. There is a piece on the National Jazz Archive about Derek Watson, who ran the club. He mentions that they ran coaches from Braintree, so that must have been how I got there. All the top bands played there: Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Humphrey Littleton, the Dutch Swing College Band, Terry Lightfoot and of course that memorable night for Kenny Ball. (See post 13th November 2020). But which band was first? I cannot guess.

The photo above is the modern-day Dunmow Village Hall, or the Foakes Hall, to give it the proper name. It is now a far superior building to the one I knew in 1962 and 1963. It did open in 1936, so it is the same building.