Thursday, June 11th, 1987

The Pinner Obeserver carries a story titled "Rocking back the years..." in which John visits the Railways Hotel in Wealdstone

 

Transcript: (not verified)

Rocking back the years ...

By Russell Newmark

ONE of rock music's biggest names drew up outside the Railway Hotel, Wealdstone, in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce — to mark a historic occasion with the Observer.

We had invited John Entwistle back to talk about the 25th anniversary of the Who ... at a most suitable venue.

What the Cavern club in Liverpool was to the Beatles, the Railway is to The Who — the place eternally named as the springboard to success. Every fan of the Who knows that the Railway was the place where the legendary rock band was "discovered" for real.

And to commemorate the Who's quarter century, the Observer invited its bass guitarist back to see the pub 20 years on.

But one head that did not turn as he returned to re-live old memories was that of Les Watts, 78, who insisted he'd never heard of the group.

This did not deter John from enjoying a nostalgic look around the pub for the first time since 1966.

He arrived in his gold Rolls Royce to recall how he and drummer Keith Moon used to travel there on the Tube — and he had a few other recollections too.

"I see they've repaired the hole in the ceiling," he said as he stepped into the hall where the group's weekly performance took place.

This was a reference to the time Peter Townshend's guitar buried itself in the low ceiling — the moment led to his habit of deliberately smashing his instruments.

Other things have changed, too.

The hall where more than 700 people squeezed in every Tuesday at 3/6 (17p) a time to see the embryo Who now echoes to Irish and Country and Western music.

But the many who use the Railway remember its place in rock history, and a photo of the pub — taken in the days before its revamp — is featured on the sleeve of The Who album Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy.

The photo shows the side of the building beside which — before the road lay-out changed — the group used to park their van.

The man who has spent years in the blinding glare of the pop spotlight looked back to the days when the Who — earlier called the Detours and the High Numbers — were just another band.

He remembered how it was at the Railway Hotel that the group realised they might be on to a good thing.

They even bought a stage for their shows at the pub, deciding that a makeshift arrangement of beer crates and table tops was not perhaps the best way of going about it.

They took it with them when they left.

"They were good times, John mused. "I remember the girls," he said. And he added: "We used to get a good crowd. We knew most of the people, and there was never any trouble."

Yet nobody in the hot, dark and sweaty hall at the Railway Hotel in the early sixties could have guessed that this suburban pub was helping to develop one of rock's classic acts.

But the world has moved on.

Keith Moon is dead, and The Who are no more. John himself, now 42, is involved in a new band called The Rock, whose drummer is Zak Starkey, son of the Beatles' Ringo.

Even so, John will never really shake off his role in one of the world's favourite rock bands of all time.

Which is why it must have been a bit odd for him to stand in the Railway and hear old Les Watts who admitted he'd heard of the Beatles — denying all knowledge of The Who.

It was left to a fellow drinker to assure Les of The Who's credentials.

"Thank God for that," said John Entwistle as he said another goodbye to the Harrow pub.

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Caption

Talkin' 'bout my generation. Three decades spanned by The Who — The Sixties (inset top left) — in their pre-Who days as High Numbers; The Seventies (inset top right), the mean look of one of the world's top bands; The Eighties, The Who, gone but not forgotten. John Entwistle revisits the Railway to relive past glories.