Freddie at Sale Locarno - circa 1961/62 (left) and similar date at Frascati's (right)
(Courtesy Roy Henshall, with Freddie's permission)
The photo of Freddie with the poster in the background that reads Saturday was taken at Frascati's public house on Oxford Road in Manchester at about 1958-59. The two musicians on either side of Freddie were life long friends of mine. The double bass player was Peter Doherty and on guitar his brother Paddy who came from my home town of Magherafelt in N.
Ireland.
Peter was a resident musician for quite a long time at the Ritz Ballroom in Manchester,And he also played jazz at the old Stork Club just off Market Street in the early sixties, His brother Paddy also played jazz around the clubs of Manchester at the same time, Sadly both of them have now passed on, Paddy died in 1973 and Peter died in 1990.
James O'Hagan
Fall of 69 I spent a week in Southhampton waiting for my ship to come in. I stayed at a small hotell close to the TopRank. That weekend Freddie And The Dreamers performed at the TopRank. As I was very fond of their music, and totally in love with "If-You-Got-A-Minute-Baby" I just had to be there.
I was lucky and got a chance to talk to Freddie. When I told him how much I liked his song he invited me to sing duo on If-You-Got-A-Minute-Baby, which I did. He introduced me to the crowed as a Norwegian Fan.
After the performance he said he was impressed of my voice. After the show we had some beers before they left. I still has the record (LP)and care for it as if it was made og gold. I will never forget that day, and what "downtoearth" persons Freddie and his band was.
I wish I could get a second chance to meet them again.
Trond E. Gebhardt-Larssen
I first came across Freddie in the olden days when skiffle was a lad. The skiffle group that I was in (The Sioux City Six) entered the National Skiffle Competition which was being presented by Jim Dale at the old Manchester Hippodrome.
The night that we did our bit, one of the other groups that was on was 'The Red Socks' whose singer was this little curly haired loonie with big glasses. They were good but we thought that they were far too showbiz and weren't taking the music seriously. Of course they won.
The next time that I saw Freddie he was selling sheet music from a stall on Blackpool Prom. Not long after that Freddie and the Dreamers blossomed forth; Fred still wasn't taking the music seriously.
Fast forward to the early 70's when I was in a band called 'Spice' doing our own material. We were playing a gig at a private party in Cheshire when this (very) drunk partygoer came up to us and said that he thought that our songs were fantastic and that he had a recording studio and he'd like to record us and make us famous.
Apparently we resisted giving him the usual muso's response to drunken partygoers (a humourous phrase, the second word of which is 'off'). Instead we gave him our phone number not expecting to hear from him again. Blow me, he did ring and he did have a recording studio, 'Starlite' (ugh!) in Hyde. It was Roy Crewdson.
We recorded nearly an album's worth of songs, The band wasn't up to much but the songs were (and still are) good. The project ended when the studio folded and Roy disappeared off the scene. The band folded soon after. Roy was and I'm sure still is a good lad and we had some laughs and one or two (or three) pints in 'The Jolly Carter'.
A good time was had by all but I'm still waiting for fame and fortune to come my way.
Pete Crooks
1/3/09
As a teenager in the 60's I was a paperboy and I used to deliver Freddie's newspapers to his Mums place on the estate behind the Mersey Hotel, Princess Parkway in West Didsbury and often saw him fooling about in the street giving his crazy jumps and giggles.
One morning I was gutted when I saw the bands Bedford Van smashed up at Henlys Filling Station on the Parkway ... I thought it was the end..but no thankfully they were all OK.
Freddie married a lovely young girl, Josie Tideswell from my estate Brandwood Avenue. My friend's Mum, Mrs Morley made up the wedding and bridesmaid dresses for the event.
Another time Freddie and the gang were making a film for TOTP in my avenue using Jimmy Savile's E type Jag..a white one with black stripes down the bonnet..
Often we would get Freddie to sign his photos and sell them at our school Barlow Hall.
Saw the band lots of times and it was such a thrill for us teenagers then, to see a local band make it big as they did ... we all loved them.
Derek Alltree
6/1/10
To add to the comments by Derek my mum made the wedding dresses etc.
My main memory is after Freddie married Josie they lived for short while in Brandwood Avenue. I vividly recall when I was about 13/14 going to the shops passing his house just has he was coming out. He remembered me because my sister was one his wife's best friends and he used to be the betterware salesman for our estate. We walked to the shops together while Freddie peeled an orange and kicked each piece of peel into the gardens we passed.
He was just a big kid really, but a great bloke.
Chris Morley
22/1/10
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