The Fiesta Cafe, Clock House bridge 1967

[Pete]

Just another daft reminisce...
1967, The Fiesta Cafe on top of Clock House Bridge, drinking cups of old Maurice's watered down tea whilst playing at being the original Pinball Wizard and listening to Procol Harum's - Whiter Shade Of Pale and The Shangrilas - Leader Of The Pack on the jukebox.

I can still recall the distinctive smell of Castrol R as my mate would thrash up and down outside on his beat-up old BSA Bantam, trying to look cool and take-off on the hump of the bridge, flat out at around 29 MPH... needlessly to say, he never quite managed it!
Then Lofty would burble up on his Goldie (BSA Gold Star), cool as ya like and make us all look invisible, thrashing around like pseudo-Rockers, paper clips in our leather jackets for studs, my mate age 16 on his Bantam and me age 17 on me old Tiger Cub!!!

"Coffee-bar Cowboys" I believe they called us!

I dunno, the good old days, where did it all go?

[rzan]

I thought it was the 54 Caff - and Maurice chucked us out once for staying all evening and sharing one can of coke. I thought it really unreasonable of him. I was there at Whiter Shade of Pale time. I remember the name Lofty, and a Pete, but can't put faces to names.

[Pete]

Hi rzan.
Yes, you could be right there... for some reason I only ever knew it as the Fiesta - I think that may have been it's name some years before, and I was introduced to it as such and it just stuck!

I doubt many will remember this, but our group played in there one evening - we were called The Misfits and were due to play somewhere else but were cancelled, so poor old Maurice got an unscheduled (and free!) gig for a few cups of his famous watered down tea... I can't imagine where we put all the gear but we must have got it all in somewhere!
;D

Re. names:
The Misfits were... Pete Fisk (guitar), Dave Streeter (vocals), Lenny Coward (guitar), Terry Williams (drums) and a bass player whose name escapes me.

Funnily enough, we must have all been about 16 at the time and old Maurice seemed ancient to us (bless him!), but now one of my best mates looks just like him!

[neilpartrick]

Hello, Following on from previous comments written 12+ years ago (!), I am trying to locate exactly where on Clock House bridge, Beckenham was the record shop I used to go in in the first half of the 70s. I've seen comment here that it was run by someone called Harvey who (also/had) worked at the Station over the road, but cannot get a name of the shop nor its exact location. Was it only selling second hand records (as suggested here)? I recall seeing a few new albums at least in there. I revisited the area on Wednesday last week and wrote on my personal blog about it. I hope you don't mind me putting the specific address to that here deiradiary.blogspot.com/2022/02/penge-by-bike.html     It might jog a few memories. Best wishes, Neil.

[The Historian]

Feb 12, 2022 11:58:36 GMT 1 neilpartrick said:

Hello, Following on from previous comments written 12+ years ago (!), I am trying to locate exactly where on Clock House bridge, Beckenham was the record shop I used to go in in the first half of the 70s. I've seen comment here that it was run by someone called Harvey who (also/had) worked at the Station over the road, but cannot get a name of the shop nor its exact location. Was it only selling second hand records (as suggested here)? I recall seeing a few new albums at least in there. I revisited the area on Wednesday last week and wrote on my personal blog about it. I hope you don't mind me putting the specific address to that here deiradiary.blogspot.com/2022/02/penge-by-bike.html     It might jog a few memories. Best wishes, Neil.

If you go to the galley here and select image number 26 you will see the Record Shop, it is the 7th shop front from right to left. It has dark wood windows and no canopy.

beckenhamhistory.co.uk/imgallery/clock-house-2/

[neilpartrick]

Many thanks to the Historian Administrator for sending me this link. NOW it becomes clearer! Best wishes Neil