1. Eelpiland: How It All Began
‘Before the war, people seemed to go from childhood straight to adulthood; from short pants to long.’
Arthur Chisnall
It’s the mid-1950s and a new breed of citizen in the form of teenagers has reared its unruly head in post-war Britain, complete with its very own soundtrack. Mainstream society in general is recoiling in horror at these unsettled and unpredictable youngsters who are demanding to be themselves, indeed ‘find’ themselves, rather than just replicate their parents.
This was a generation who had in many cases spent their crucial formative childhood years in dispersed family situations; parents had been caught up fighting a war – fathers sent away, maybe never to return, mothers struggling to stretch rations round hungry mouths, juggling wartime work with trying to maintain a sense of family life. Many of their offspring, who may have also experienced the heartache of evacuation and family separation, were now approaching a troubled and rebellious early adulthood. Lacking in a binding, collective culture and searching for something that represented them, by the 1950s the generation gap seemed to have widened to the extent where teenagers were feeling disconnected from their parents.
Arthur Chisnall, born in Kingston in 1925, termed himself a ‘social researcher’ and looked upon the new youth with a keen interest and genuine empathy. Having grown up as an illegitimate child himself, “born on the wrong side of the blanket without a father” as he put it, Chisnall had experienced his fair share of feeling at odds with the perceived norms of society. He saw the need to rethink the approach when dealing with youngsters and theorised that “if you could find the trend-forming groups in society you can predict and plan for possible problems”.
By the time he was in his late 20s, Chisnall was working at ‘Snapper’s Corner’, an antique/junk shop owned by Michael Snapper in Kingston-upon-Thames. In amongst the furniture and bric-a-brac he began to notice that groups of art students from the local colleges were coming in to snap up the Trad jazz records abandoned by previous generations. He recognised them as a possible ‘trend-forming’ group and easily struck up conversation with them, asking about what they liked, how they felt and what they lacked in their lives. He concluded that what they most needed was “a place to get together, make a little noise and dance to it”. Sounding so unremarkable today, this was an almost revolutionary concept in 50s Britain where underfunded and unsympathetic youth clubs fell short of the mark when it came to making provision for youngsters. The Church, which would have once played a large part in young people’s lives, was becoming increasingly irrelevant to them.
Teenagers in the 1950s were also experiencing an unprecedented economic freedom as the constraints and austerity of the war lifted. Jobs and a blossoming marketplace of youth-specific products such as records, clothing and magazines were more readily available. British citizens, as Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously declared in 1957 “had never had it so good” but this didn’t stop the unsettled mood of the youth rocking Great Britain’s boat.
Fortunately for Arthur Chisnall, his boss also owned a rather grand, if somewhat rundown, hotel and ballroom on Eel Pie Island. Built in 1830, on the site of “an unassuming but popular little barn” known as the Ship Inn and later the White Cross, the Eel Pie Hotel had turned the Twickenham isle into a tourist hotspot favoured by increasing numbers of Londoners who cruised up river by paddle-steamer to escape the city and enjoy a picnic or tea dance in the grounds overlooking Ham. Indeed, so popular was the place that it warranted a mention in Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby in 1839:
It had come to pass that afternoon that Miss Morleena Kenwigs had received an invitation to repair next day, per steamer from Westminster Bridge unto Eel Pie Island at Twickenham: there to make merry upon a cold collation, bottled beer, shrub and shrimps, and to dance in the open air to the music of a locomotive band.
By the time Michael Snapper had acquired the hotel in the early 1950s, its heyday as a fashionable and alluring destination was just about over, a result of, amongst other things, two world wars and enthralling new-fangled amusements such as television that consumed the public’s leisure time. According to Chisnall, the only entertainment in the Hotel at the time Snapper took over, came in the form of “a rather washed-out trio playing fox-trots and what-not to half a dozen people” and the place was struggling to cover its costs. Snapper’s ambitious plans to build an outdoor roller-skating rink and transform the ballroom into a Monte Carlo-style casino were scuppered by council refusal and islander resistance, so he was open to other ideas for breathing new life into the building.
As well as being a shrewd and successful businessman, Michael Snapper was also an extremely charismatic and vivacious person. He had many hobbies including ice-skating, horse riding, boating and water skiing. A passion for vintage cars made him a regular participant in the London to Brighton rallies. He had been a performer with his jumping dog ‘Mikeve’ and clearly had a taste for entertaining and theatre.
Chisnall had wartime experience of organising jazz concerts and felt he could put this to good use by getting something going on Eel Pie Island. Never aiming to become a concert promoter, and not particularly a big music fan, his motivation lay in providing a venue for youngsters to come along, be themselves and let their hair down, all under his watchful eye. He wanted to discover what made them tick and look at ways in which he could help them with their problems. Given that the general approach took the form of ‘encouraging teenagers to take part in handicrafts and classical music’, Arthur’s thinking at the time was radical to say the least.
Arthur Chisnall, however, was not the first to put on jazz gigs in the hotel ballroom. Trumpet player Brian Rutland had been playing across the river in the Barmy Arms with the Grove Jazz Band throughout 1955 and as crowds grew, packing the pub to bursting point, he sought a more accommodating venue. He made an arrangement with Michael Snapper to use the ballroom for free as long as he brought in some business for the bar. Rutland enjoyed a successful run of gigs over a few months and remembered seeing Chisnall in amongst the crowds. Feeling he was onto a good thing he was somewhat miffed at being confronted one evening by Arthur telling him “I have come to an arrangement with Mr Snapper and will be running the sessions from now on” as he turned up to set up his band. Rutland said, “He had even arranged for another band to play that evening without letting me know. I was gazumped! I was furious.” Rutland went on to start a number of other clubs in Feltham, Woking and Addlestone: “By 57/58 I was too involved with other matters to hold a grudge against Arthur.”
So, Arthur and a handful of helpful friends took the helm and hosted their first party on Eel Pie Island early in 1956. The old timbers of the hotel were on the verge of being shaken by a whole new vibe. Initially free of charge, and despite no advertising other than word of mouth, these events fast became a runaway success. John Winstone was one of the collaborators and recalled with enthusiasm: “We were amazed at the popularity of the first event. We had expected a few dozen; it turned out to be hundreds, which tested the bouncing floor somewhat. We had to start charging a door fee after the first few events to pay for repairs and, of course, the bands, who wanted a little more than the traditional crate of beer. I knew Acker [Bilk] from Bristol and tried the crate of beer trick on him – unsuccessfully! After a few weeks we were able to give Michael Snapper £3 per week in rent. I was treasurer of sorts for a while, looking after the take of one shilling and sixpence a head.”
Word spread fast on the teenage grapevine. Within a very short space of time there were, as Arthur told me with a lovely mischievous chuckle, “hundreds of art students, beatniks, jazz buffs and plain old pleasure seekers who, having discovered Eel Pie Island, never really went away for the next eleven years!”
Local teenagers weren’t the only ones to hear about the parties; the police also got wind of them pretty quickly and despite feeling that it actually made their jobs easier by having all the potential trouble makers under one roof, they asked Chisnall to form a proper club with a paying membership.
This solved a few issues for Arthur too; money coming in meant they could pay bands a half-decent rate and give Snapper some proper rent. So, the official ‘Guest Register for Eelpiland Jazz Club’ was set up on Friday 10 August 1956 and everyone now wanting to come through the doors had to fill out the required form and pay their two shillings and sixpence membership fee. In return, they received their ‘Passport to Eelpiland’ – a small, folded card, which over the years came in a number of different colours, bearing the wonderful text: ‘We request and require in the name of his Excellency PRINCE PAN all those whom it may concern to give the bearer of this passport any assistance he/she may require in his/her lawful business of jiving and generally cutting a rug.’ Trad jazz devotee Ken Colyer and his band, who became regular performers at Eelpiland throughout its eleven-year run, provided the entertainment for the official opening night. The little island in the middle of the Thames at Twickenham was all set to become a Mecca for teenagers looking to quench their appetites for fun, freedom and top-notch live music.
Up until February 1957, when the bridge was opened (another of Michael Snapper’s legacies) the only way onto Eel Pie Island was by boat. Peppered at one end with charming little dwellings built at the turn of the nineteenth century as ‘holiday’ cottages by wealthy businessmen, the restricted access was of benefit to some salacious activity as they would apparently pay the ferryman to not let their wives across the river whilst they entertained mistresses. The ferry was undoubtedly tested to its limits with the jazz club up and running: it could prove perilous, especially in the dark after a few too many! Club-goer Gaynor Gadd recalled: “Many used to fall in the river even before they’d started on the scrumpy.” Musicians tell of the effort involved in cramming themselves and their instruments aboard the little boat. One of those, trumpet player Mike Peters, remembers: “Transporting a drum kit, double bass, six musicians and assorted girlfriends across the Thames in a particularly rickety boat was a decidedly dodgy affair, like the D-Day landings, but without the gunfire.” The bridge made things a whole lot easier; it was just about wide enough to fit a Mini van across its gentle arch, which was intended to facilitate the delivery of coal to the residents, but was also used on more than one occasion to haul cargo of a more musical persuasion. Many, however, didn’t have this luxury, and although preferable to a boat, the trek across the bridge and down the path (as any island resident will still tell you today) wasn’t as easy as pulling up outside and unloading your gear. Acker Bilk remembers frequently having to haul huge heavy drums across, which always seemed somewhat unfair considering his own instrument was a small, portable clarinet. And Eric Clapton said: “It was a fantastic place, but I do remember the trouble we had trying to haul John Mayall’s Hammond organ across that bridge!” A toll was charged to cross – a penny, tuppence, four-pence, sixpence depending on who you talk to. Everyone remembers the little old ladies, although few can recall their names, who would sit there taking the money, some folk dashing past in the hope of saving their cash for beer.
Reminiscing about some of the New Orleans style parades from Twickenham Green to Eel Pie Island, fronted by a marching jazz band which were organised to celebrate special events such as a club member’s wedding, Arthur Chisnall recalled that “the pre-bridge problem of transporting five hundred or so people across the river seemed to be easily solved by many of them just jumping in and swimming over. Even after the bridge was built they still swam!”
Although there were other clubs around, Eelpiland bore more than a special charm. A mid-river location, a spectacular, if somewhat jaded structure, Arthur Chisnall’s nurturing approach and, of course, great music, all combined to ensure that the place would earn a fond place in the hearts and memories of most who went there.
Clarinetist Bill Greenow described seeing it for the first time in 1954: “What a mysterious place it looked! It was completely covered in trees and undergrowth with lots of old buildings clinging to the water’s edge. About three years later I started playing there and, well, at the time you don’t realise what you’ve got, but looking back on it all, Eel Pie was the most unique place, all the murals on the walls, the arches and dusty atmosphere. After the austerity of the war years, the bohemian freedom we found there was a breath of fresh air.”
By 1956, the post-war trad jazz revival was in full swing thanks to the likes of Humphrey Lyttleton, Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Terry Lightfoot, Kenny Ball, Cy Laurie, Monty Sunshine and Ken Colyer. Many of them took to the stage at Eel Pie over the coming years delighting the skip-jiving crowds. Ken Colyer, well known for an extremely purist approach and devotion to the New Orleans sound, said Eel Pie Island was “As close as you will get to New Orleans in England. The atmosphere and the feel is here, I have never experienced it so strongly anywhere else.”
In his autobiography Owning Up, singer George Melly tells of going to Eel Pie Island to see Cy Laurie: “I hadn’t heard of Cy Laurie at the time, but I liked the sound of Eel Pie Island. It seemed to go with ‘Gut Bucket’ or ‘Honky Tonk’. It had the right feel to it. It not only sounded right, it looked right too.” Apparently, after a few pints, he ended up on stage with Laurie belting out a few tunes that night and he went on to perform there many times.
The crowds came in increasing numbers, lured across the water by the reverberating rhythms and freedom to let themselves go. Tessa Minton told me: “I would hear the brass ringing out and see the lights radiating through the river mist and my heartbeat would quicken and my spirits soar.” Heather White, aka Fluff, was a devoted Eel Pie regular and speaks with great passion about her times there: “We dressed down, in dark clothes, wore our hair long and put on layers of mascara. I’d go over the bridge and pay my 4d toll to the two old ladies and then as I walked through the trees I’d hear it – the trumpet and trombone – playing jazz. It used to make me break into a run – to get there fast! Later in the evening we used to fall out, hot and exhausted from dancing. My hair used to be all wet and I was positively steaming. I remember it being absolutely packed when the Temperance Seven played – people on other people’s shoulders and I’d be in a filthy temper because there was no room to dance! The memory of those dark, chuckling, excited, happy shapes re-crossing the bridge swiftly to catch the last bus home, so satisfied, still fills me with joy. Those wondrous island days!” It certainly held Fluff in good stead – she still goes out dancing to this day, putting many youngsters to shame with her exuberance and zest.
And by all accounts, what a great place Eelpiland was to dance! Boasting a sprung floor that had been built in the 1920s pretty much everyone you talk to remembers, with an excited smile, that extra spring in your step that you got when you jived over on the island. Eric Clapton told me: “I started to go there for the jazz and remember that floor. What we’d do was stand in the middle and it would bounce up and down so much you didn’t even have to dance, it would go at least six or seven inches up in the air!” Some believed that the bounce was aided by Old Father Thames himself – “When the spring tides were around it seemed that the dance floor was floating” said one raver, and rumours were rife about the river flowing directly beneath the ballroom. Being a man with a mischievous sense of humour, Chisnall perpetuated the myth as a source of amusement: “Since people were determined to bounce as hard as they could, we would encourage them by telling them that the river was right below. We said that the island was once in three parts and that one of the ‘joins’ ran under the hotel. This would really get them going and made them more determined to go through it and into the river!” A police officer turned up one day to investigate this potentially dangerous story. Arthur put his mind to rest, but asked him if he wouldn’t mind keeping it to himself as it would be such a shame to spoil the fun!
The once magnificent hotel and ballroom, however, really had seen better days by the time Snapper acquired it and hordes of hedonistic teenagers descending upon the place would have undoubtedly exacerbated the deterioration. This, of course, only added to the attraction of it!
“The whole building was so dilapidated as to make demolition virtually inevitable. Of course, to us this merely added to its allure; the seediness giving it the requisite rakish, bohemian air we looked for,” remarked Robert Grange while Mike Peters recalls: “It looked in danger of imminent collapse. The glorious arched window looking onto the Thames had lost most of its glass and I can well remember one winter evening, a blizzard blowing outside, seeing the wonderful Sandy Brown Band in overcoats, hats and gloves, doing their best to entertain the dancers while snow drifted across the stage.”
Brightening up the crumbling bricks and peeling paintwork, the ballroom was decorated with an assortment of cartoon-like characters dotted around the walls and alcoves. A large mural of a raving jazz band, painted by Paul Harris, spanned the wal...