Abu Dhabi 1983
This is a long story but I'll try and keep it short :)
In 1983 I flew out to Abu Dhabi in the U.A.E to go and stay with the Darlington family who were by then living out there in a hotel called The Khalidiya Palace.
Mike Darlington was working out there for a French oil company and in his spare time he had opened a Country and Western club in the same hotel.
One by one his family had gone out to join him and they all mucked in to run the club and provide the entertainment.
They wanted a drummer who could be there all the time so Jo wrote me a letter inviting me to go out and live there and be a perminant member of the band, so I jacked in my job, which i'd been doing since I left school and along with Steve Gafney set off for a new life in Abu Dhabi.
We had two bands, a country band with Mike singing and a rock band which was Five Card Trick all over again. We played almost every night but also had Guests who came do do their stuff, the great Joe Brown played the club a week before I got there, would have loved to have met him.
The day I arived Lance Percival was doing a spot, he'd been quite famous in his day, got to talk to him, he was a nice bloke.
I also got to meet Dave Dee a star from the sixties, he was OK too..
Where's my hat?
It can be a lonely life being a drummer.
Me and Jo, looks like I'd had one to many JD's :)
Well, I was out in Abu Dhabi for about 3 Months I drank far to much and was very home sick and then for one reason and another things went wrong and we had to come home, and that was me, back in Blighty..
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