I watched a terrific TV programme last night, recorded from the Sky Arts channel a few days ago, a 90 minute programme about Liverpool's legendary Cavern Club. For anyone who was around during the 60s and early 70s, The Cavern was The Place. Merseyside, but mainly Liverpool was a Northern centre of music back then, Skiffle, rock, pop, folk and jazz. Just about everyone played at The Cavern, the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Elton John when he could still sing, the Hollies, Police, Queen, the Who, and also US rock luminaries like the great Chuck Berry, Talking Heads and the Ramones etc, almost everyone who was anyone played there. Entry and exit was by narrow and precipitous stairs, it was in a basement, and the place was permanently rammed. Sweat dripped from the arched brick ceiling, Health & Safety would close it down in an instant today, it got so hot you couldn't wear heavy clothing, and Cilla Black was the hat check girl, very well spoken in those days, the thick Scouse accent only developed years later for TV appearances. I was a young teenager back then, living on the "posh" side of the Mersey in Gt Meols on Cheshire's Wirral peninsula, but only a short train ride across to Liverpool and its musical scene, I saved money from my paper round to queue in Mathew Street to get into The Cavern at weekends, and what's all this got to do with TNF you're probably asking? Just this, the Cavern's first owner was Alan Sytner, Frank's brother I think, financed by father Joe, and much of the story is told in the first part of the programme by retired English gentleman racing driver Frank Sytner, looking remarkably fit and well.
Many years later, I bought a car from Frank Sytner, a new E Class from Sytner Mercedes in Weston super Mare, but studying all the paperwork later I discovered that Frank had sold his Auto group to the Penske organisation, so I'd bought my car indirectly from Roger Penske himself, how's that for a bit of TNF name dropping?
