The Ambulance

We needed better transport for the Mecca circuit gigs, so we purchased our ‘tour bus’, well, more a 1952 Bedford Ambulance. A great shame we have no photos of this. Originally bought in ambulance livery, it had central heating pipes running through it and a view of the road through a large rotting hole by the back wheel arch, which was often used as a toilet, so it did have just about everything we needed. We even had “Expression” lit up in the ambulance sign. On one occasion after a summertime gig, we decided to have a late night excursion to Shoebury Eastbeach. There was a huge queue of traffic waiting to get in, we had no idea what the hold up was but a friendly policeman waved us through and over the grass. He stopped us at a road accident where a girl was laying on the road badly injured. We got out of the van to a very un-amused bunch of coppers, with us dressed in our blue ‘uniforms’ they obviously thought we were a real ambulance, didn’t they notice the hair?

Below and right: On the Mecca tour with Spud on bass.

Either Streatham Locarno, The Lyceum or Hammersmith Palais.

Not ours, but one just like it.

We decided to brighten it up and proceeded to paint it yellow and orange with black scroll work and psychedelic designs. I remember we were all painstakingly painting this fine art on one side of the van while Mick Harding was on the other side with a paint roller! The Ambulance will invoke many fond memories for some of us, for the excitement of driving a very dangerous vehicle and also for what occasionally happened inside it. We eventually sold it some years later, around 1971, to Mick Harding’s brother Trevor, drummer with the Pigboy Charlie Band, later to become Dr. Feelgood. I think it was Trevor, Sparko and Lee Brilleaux that came over to get it.