CHAPTER 3 
Sleaford was not far from the other main towns in the area, Newark, Grantham, Lincoln and Boston, which had a large dance hall called the Gliderdrome with the “Starlight Room”, so called because of the huge Mirror ball hanging from the ceiling. This venue was hugely popular.  It had once been a roller-skating rink in the early 1950’s, but was burnt down in the mid 1950’s and had been rebuilt as a dance hall on a much grander scale. It was a great shame that in the late 1960’s it was turned into a Bingo Hall; sheer sacrilege! Many other dance halls went the same way as Bingo grew in popularity. By now Mr. Malkinson, the owner, & his son were booking a lot of the top recording artists of the time such as Craig Douglas, Jimmy Crawford and the Ravens, The Karl Denver Trio, Shane Fenton & the Fentones, Joe Brown & the Bruvvers, The Tornados’ and many others.  The Satellites were playing there at least once a month as support group to lots of these top artists & was one of their favourite venues. They were support to Shane Fenton & the Fentones on many occasions & got to know them well. During one of the breaks at one of the gigs there, they were talking to Shane’s mother who gave them a bit of advice. She said whatever you do don’t get mixed up with girls as you will never make the big time if you do. Well, that didn’t affect Shane as he has been maried married three times at the time of writing!
They were also support to the Tornados’ on Christmas Eve when "Telstar" was riding high in the charts. The Satellites, being local were always on time to set up their equipment which was not an easy task at the “Glider” due to the shape of the hall & situation of the dressing room the acts had to go through the hall to get their equipment on stage & set up. However, the Tornados’ were late arriving & The Satellites had already completed their equipment set up & sound checks but the Tornados’ were not happy with the arrangement on stage & refused to set up. This caused the owner & manager of the Gliderdrome  to come & sort it all out. He informed the Tornados’ that if they did not play the would not get paid. This put a different slant on the matter as they still needed the money in spite of "Telstar" bringing
in the money. On the strength of this they had bought new Ford Zephyr 6 cars, but still needed to earn some money so they decided to set up their equipment around the Satellites. To make matters worse, the Satellites played Telstar as their opening number. Naughty or what!
It was due to get worse for them as at the end of the evening, some girls had used lipstick to leave messages on their new cars. It must have taken them ages to get this all removed. Another amusing incident happened for the Satellites at the Glider.  There was always a chap dressed in full evening dress with Brylcreemed black hair parted in the middle & a thin wispy moustache who would have been possibly in his mid thirties. He would gradually move up to the front of the stage & after a while would produce a conductors baton from up the sleeve of his jacket & proceed to conduct the band.  One night when this happened, Jimmy got him up on the stage & got him to conduct the Satellites to the delight of the audience. He got a huge round of applause at the end & it must have made his night unforgettable.                  Soon more bookings started to come in from lots of other places. The Sheffield Club bookings soon began to flow in & were certainly the place to be for work experience! You could play a Sunday lunchtime & evening gig at a Club almost every Sunday of the year without repeating one. The Satellites favourite one was “Dial House” one of the largest, which was reminiscent of  “Wheeltappers & Shunters” which used to be shown on television. Jimmy was a bit of a gambler & would play the slot machines whenever he could & one Sunday lunchtime he had been on the machines for a short while before going back on stage to do the next session, so when he came back to the slot machines they were all in use.  He had not been there very before a lady had run out of change & went off to the bar for some more coins. Jimmy stepped up to the machine, put a coin in & dropped the jackpot!   Needless to say the lady who had been playing the machine before Jimmy was not amused! Another thing that was not so amusing was that Sheffield was on lower power supply than any other places they played.   On Sunday lunchtimes, it seemed that all the electric cookers in Sheffield were full on, therefore the power fluctuated up & down. This did not affect the amplifiers to the guitars, but Johnny had problems the first time they did a Sunday lunchtime session.  He altered the setting on his Univox keyboard to take care of the lower power supply, & tested it whilst tuning up the guitars, then doing a sound check. All seemed well & as this was some time before the session started they all went for a drink at the bar. When the first number using the keyboard was started it sounded like a sick animal, very embarrassing as the sound was squeaky one second then deep & well out of tune with the guitars the next, so this had to be abandoned on the lunchtime sessions, but evening was fine. The power was back to its normal level, dinner having been cooked, possibly all the ovens switched off & once more all was again normal; the keyboard was useable. Using the keyboard on dinnertime sessions was something not to be repeated!

One Sunday they were all invited to dinner at a Working Club members house; usually they went to a fast food outlet then the cinema to pass the time until the evening session.  However this week was different; as they sat down at the table all were surprised except for Frank who knew all about dinner in Yorkshire. First arrived a big plate of Yorkshire pudding with a good covering of gravy. Apparently this goes back to earlier times when money & meat was scarce, so they filled up with the pudding and gravy first so that you didn’t need as much meat then to fill you up!  This was certainly better than going to a Wimpy Bar, which was what the boys often did whilst waiting for the evening session, followed with a visit to a park if the weather was alright or to the Cinema.