A small part of my youth was spent being a "roadie" for a rock band.
My good friend Barry Ward was a brilliant keyboard musician and in the late sixties he formed a small R&B band in North London with two other musicians - Joe the drummer and Chris the guitarist. I drove a Ford Anglia, which at the time in England was called an "estate car". Here in Australia is would have been known as a "station waggon." It was modest in size but had rear access and the back seat folded down to make plenty of room for Barry's organ and other keyboard instruments. Sometimes it carried the other instruments as well.
We would sometimes travel to North London gigs in my car, although in mid-1970 Barry bought himself one of those typical old London Taxi cabs with a luggage compartment alongside the driver, into which which would be neatly strapped his new and beautiful timber framed Hammond organ. One such booking was a Thames riverboat cruise, which started from Westminster Pier, adjacent to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Another perhaps more memorable occasion was at a packed and rather rowdy sunday lunchtime pub engagement, complete with female strippers! I didn't get any pictures at that event, unfortunately.
Barry's band was called "Bay Farm," because the guys practised in a big barn which was used as a pig sty on a farm called Botany Bay Farm, located at Botany Bay, on the Ridgeway at Enfield. Both of the photographs on this page were taken in the barn at Bay Farm during Easter 1969.
The music was very loud, of course, but what astonished me was that all the pigs ignored it completely. They just didn't care about it and were neither startled nor frightened when the music started up, nor irritated in any way by the music. They just ignored the sounds and carried on with their piggy business, as you can see in the photograph.