Peter came to us with a song by Bill Fay which seemed promising with a little re-working. We were signed to Decca for this and recorded two tracks for the record in April 1968. The A-side was “Yesterday Was Such A Lovely Day (Elsie)”, the B-side was “Love is a Different World”. We were in the same studio that The Moody Blues were using, we utilised some of their equipment including the Mellotron. Chris also played the celeste and flute. We had made our own arrangement of “Elsie” which we were all very happy with, but this was changed in the studio at the last minute.  Although the overall production was good, the song was fairly depressing, being about a couple of old ladies who didn’t have that long to live. We were certain that the record would have stood a chance if done our way, but Decca decided not to release it and it didn’t reach vinyl until 2000 when it was included on Peter Eden’s compilation album “Nice”.

We were still doing exceptionally well at the Mecca with really good attendances, and another Christmas / New Year was coming up. We were never paid extra for these holiday gigs and we knew that New Year’s Eve would be sold out with over 1200 people. We asked for a small increase in pay for that night but head office said “no”. We decided to call their bluff and stated we would not perform without it, they didn’t budge and we didn’t play. That was the end of our long partnership with Mecca. We later heard that a lot of our fans were wildly upset that we weren’t there and trashed the place. Ludicrous as it may seem, we were only asking for £5 each extra.

The Elms management (Roy Hughes) decided to re-brand the venue into a night club, opening until 2am, they renamed it the “Thru-‘til-Two”. We were offered this full time and as the Mecca contract was now over we gladly took it up, but this did mean playing four sets a night, starting around 8pm and finishing at 2am.

Around this time, we had a couple of guys wanting to ‘manage’ us, the ‘odd couple’. They had a pair of Great Danes and shared a flat in the West End. All I remember of them is that they took us all over the City of London taking photos of us. We never saw any of these photos; maybe they used them for their own amusement. Not suggesting they were that way inclined of course...  Nothing came of any management deal.