Jim Godbolt's book contains one or two inaccuracies in relation to the Cranes. It is common experience that no two people remember a single event in the same way, but as I remember it, the Cranes started off in a corru- gated iron and timber dance hall at the side of the White Hart, Cranford, which is on the River Crane, not at the White Hart, Southall, which is not on the "Crane River".

We always assumed that the name referred to what I was brought up to call the daddy longlegs fly which is also known as the crane fly. With the return of cranes to nest in this country, it now seems possible that the bird may have something to do with it. In any case, we used the bird on our Crane River record label and on publicity material - it looks a darn sight better than any fly. Incidentally, it was Ben Marshall who designed most of our publicity material in the early days. Some of it is reproduced in Jim's book on page 5. Monty produced an enormous painted backing for the band-stand at Cranford which was known as "The Muriel".

In the summer of 1949 we forged firmer links with the river. We could not afford the ten shillings (50 pence) the publican charged for the hall and so we practised outside in the fields, sitting on the banks of the Crane River. This playing in the open may account for our reputation for being the loudest band in the business at that time.

As for the personnel of the Cranes, the first to join Ken were Sonny Morris, Ben Marshall and Ron Bowden. I seem to remember that Ron had an oil drum for a bass drum and a suitcase with wire brushes for a snare.

The next to join were John and myself. John recalls our meeting with Ken in the sleeve note on our Dawn Club record. His version goes "I can no longer remember which two guys stood on my doorstep on the day in 1949 asking if I and my brother Julian were interested in forming a band ....".

The way I remember it was that I had arrived back from work before John and answered the door to a bloke whose voice was so gruff that for a moment I couldn't understand a word he said. I have to excuse myself on the grounds that I was only 17 and had just left a "decidedly middle class" school and had a decidedly middle class accent. I never did get quite used to that voice. Maybe Ken never got used to mine. Eventually I understood that his name was Ken Colyer and that he wanted to speak to John. I showed him in and a few minutes later John came home. Thus the two guys John can't remember were Ken Colyer and his own brother.

We went up to the room that John was beginning to develop into his first recording studio and after a while the two of them got out their horns and started to play. I realised that, for the first time in my life, I was listening to a man who actually meant what he played. He wasn't just playing a tune, he was living it. I was totally knocked back and managed to gasp out "Man, you sound just like Mutt Carey." Ken turned to me and said "Do you want to join my band?" I stuttered out that I had only just bought the sousaphone into which I was struggling at that moment. "Never mind, bring it along."

That's my memory of the event and I am sticking to it. It was after all, the most momentous moment of my life.

As I remember it, the next to join was Monty Sunshine, followed soon afterwards by Pat Hawes, both of whom had recently been demobbed from the Airforce.

In his book Jim states that Ray Orpwood was the first trombone player. In fact Ray replaced John when he started work as a travelling rep for Minimax fire extinguishers and was given a patch over in Norfolk. After that John and Ray took it in turns according to availability and sometimes we had two trombones in the band. Ray used to turn up with his wife, Betty, on a tandem bicycle complete with sidecar containing a baby and a trombone.