1955 Jersey Islands

1955 Onboard S. S. Ascania, en route from Montreal to Liverpool,

May, 1955

The above picture is thanks to Bart Reemeyer who was a member of the 1955 Trip. Here is Bart’s attempt to put names to faces: Names arranged by roughly semicircular rows starting at the FRONT RIGHT.

1st Row Bill Trussell, Charley Henry, Ian Gregory Arthur Delamont, Bing Thom, Don Kirkby, Alex McLeod, Russ Robinson

2nd Row: Peter McConnachie, John Patterson, Gene Thom, Ron Loucks

3rd Row: Arnie Chycoski, Craig Campbell, Jack Reynolds, Gerry Deagle, Brian Todd, Ted Lazenby, John Auld

4th Row: Terry Grimmett, Gordy Brown, Art Tusvik, Eric Wood, Peter Gillett, Don Charles

5th Row:Bruce Chadwick, Bart Reemeyer, Stu Scott, Dick McManus, Ed SilvaWhite, Dave Fraser, Kim Nichols, Bill Davenport

6th Row: Gary Ginther, Dennis Tupman, George Dingle, Earl Hobson, Bill Wood, John Davenport, Don Clark

ABOVE: The Palace Hotel where the band was booked in for multiple weeks. It was the grandest of all the hotels in Blackpool at the time. The boys when they had finished playing at the Palace would go down to the Winter Gardens to hear the fabulous Ted Heath Orchestra.

ABOVE: Our Blackpool poster. Note that Vera Lynn has top billing! Not really surprising, but that was the only time that we did not have top billing. She autographed a program for me, but I’ve not been able to find it.

It’s apparent from the date that this was our first gig in England, and that came as a surprise to me. I thought that it was during one of the two later weeks that we had in Blackpool that Vera Lynn was on the same program. Bart Reemeyer

Here’s another photo from the 1955 trip taken on the train platform (note the tracks) upon our arrival in Cheltenham. There are a few band members identifiable in the background, but the six “front & centre” are, from left to right: Don Charles, Arnie Chycoski, Peter Gillett, Stuart Scott, Bart Reemeyer, and Peter McConnachie. Bart Reemeyer