HE is a legendary figure in Swindon boxing circles who was once ranked among the world’s top ten welterweights before going on to become a trainer, manager, promoter and all-round champion of the noble art in this town.

But Ricky Porter, it can be revealed, has another claim to fame. One wintry night in 1964 he was approached by a polite, dishevelled young man – a future knight of the realm, no less – requesting an urgent favour.

Happy to oblige, he lent this singular looking fellow and his group of rhythm and blues scruffs the sound system that he had painstakingly concocted for his local nightclub.

It was a perfectly adequate rig for Ricky’s town centre joint The Blues Cellar Club but it wasn’t quite up to the standards required by the nation’s favourite r’n’b covers band.

So when The Rolling Stones, fast becoming the Scourge of Middle England, rattled off their first set at Swindon’s McIlroys Ballroom, which in all likelihood included Chuck Berry’s I’m Talking About You, Bo Diddley’s Mona and Rufus Thomas’s Walkin’ the Dog, their tinny sound was rendered virtually inaudible amidst a wall of wails and yelps.

Today, half-a-century later, Ricky, 71, laughs about the incident – and was probably chuckling about it back then. He says: “Yes, the girls were really screaming for the Stones in Swindon that night. But I’m afraid it wasn’t the screamers who were drowning out the sound of the Stones.

“It was down to my equipment that Jagger and the boys were using. It just wasn’t powerful enough to cut through the noise the crowd were making.”

Ricky responded to our recent article ‘Did YOU see the Stones at McIlroy’s?’ (29-10-14) – an appeal for fans, who would now be in their sixties and seventies, who attended any of three shows The Rolling Stones performed at Mac’s in Regent Street between November 1963 and April, 1964.

He also answered our query: who were the intriguingly named Hummelflugs who supported Brian Jones, Sir Mick and their blues movers on the night of Thursday, January 17, 1964.

Ex-fighter Ricky, who for some years ran The County Ground Hotel, tells a good story.

“When I was boxing back in the Sixties, I made ends meet by running a little club on the corner of Station Road and Bridge Street and also worked on the door at McIlroy’s.

“Several Yanks from the bases at Fairford, Brize Norton and Burderop (near Chiseldon) were friends of mine and used the club. One of them John L Watson sang with a Swindon group, The Hummelflugs.

“I used to lend John and the group my system when I wasn’t using it. One night they asked if they could borrow it as they were supporting a band from London called The Rolling Stones at McIlroys.

“I was working there as well that night so it wasn’t a problem. I took my gear, set it up and the Hummelflugs went on. When they finished there was an interval and about half way through the Stones arrived.”

Time wasn’t – it soon transpired – on the band’s side. Ricky continues: “They had to go on-stage almost immediately.

“I remember Mick Jagger clearly as he approached me, looking a bit dishevelled, and wearing a powder blue pullover with holes in the elbows. I remember him saying ‘The guys tell me this is your equipment. We’re late. Would you be kind enough to let us use it?’ “I told him it would be no problem. They quickly changed into their stage gear and did their first set.”

Ricky’s set-up included two 12-inch speakers which he had built into a couple of teak cabinets acquired from a Swindon railworks stock sale. He had a single microphone which Jagger’s hallowed lips were soon burbling into, and a 30 watt valve twin channel amp.

“It must have sounded terrible compared to what we use today,” grins Ricky. “As I recollect, it didn’t sound that bad at my club. But it was nowhere near the quality of the equipment the Stones used. It just didn’t have enough oomph for The Rolling Stones.

“But it did get them out of trouble till they finished their first set about 30 to 40 minutes later.”

Ricky says the excited hollers and squeals from Swindon teenagers massed in front of the stage was loud. “But my system made the girls sound louder. You could hardly hear the band.

“At the break, the Stones swapped to their own much better equipment. They really let the audience have it then, having more or less treated the first set as a bit of a sweetener.”

Ricky remembers it all being “a lot of fun” and that not all of the predominantly female crowd were shrieking. “Some of the more mature girls were more interested in shaking their booty than wasting too much time screaming.”

He goes on: “There were a lot of Yanks there to see John L Watson but they loved the Stones bluesy kind of music too.”

Sadly he didn’t have a camera to get any snaps of the band in their primal blues days – or, alas, any shots of Ricky and the Stones.

“They were just starting out then. If I’d have had any inkling that they would turn out to be as famous as they became I would have spent four bob on a roll of film, taken my camera and used all of the shots on the Stones and me.”

  • Richard Houghton is writing a book about Stones fans and is keen to hear from anyone who attended either of their three Swindon shows.

    He can be contacted directly at richardmhoughton@gmail.com or by letter at 32 Manor Avenue, Preston, PR2 8DN.

  • AS a doorman at McIlroy’s Ricky Porter saw some memorable gigs at the ballroom located within Swindon’s largest though now long gone department store – including the most fabled show of them all.

    The pre-hit, pre-fame, pre-Ringo Beatles, with Pete Best on drums, played at Mac’s – “The Showplace of the West” – on July 17, 1962. They had driven all the way from Liverpool – an arduous haul in pre-motorway times – for the venue’s regular Tuesday beat nights for which they were played a princely 27 pounds, ten shillings.

    Their van was almost certainly driven by road manager Neil Aspinall who in The Beatles Anthology book was quoted as saying Swindon “was miles away from anywhere”.

    Unlike the aforementioned Stones gig where fans had lined along Regent Street, a relatively moderate crowd turned up for the be-suited Scousers, who had recently ditched their leather jackets and drainpipes for smarter attire on strict orders of manager Brian Epstein.

    Their repertoire would – like the Stones a year or so later – have comprised largely rock’n’roll and r’n’b covers, which would have included Please Mr Postman, Twist and Shout and Road Runner.

    And they would have thrown in a smattering of early Lennon-McCartney originals such as Ask Me Why and soon chart-bound Love Me Do. As some punters drifted away early John Lennon was heard to snipe, with customary sarcasm: “This is a right place this is.”

    Ricky recalls: “Believe it or not, I actually heard people say after the Beatles show, that they weren’t too bad, but that stuff would never catch on.

    “Personally I quite liked the Beatles, and I liked the Stones too.” Both groups “played some American soul, rocky, bluesy stuff,” which he was well into at the time.

    Whenever asked about the gig – which he often has been – Bill Reid, who brought The Beatles to Swindon, can be a tad dismissive… maybe because he never actually saw the show and was playing double bass with a jazz band that night.

    Twenty years ago Bill, who went on to manage the Brunel Rooms, kindly dug out of his old “nightbook” at this journalist’s request.

    “We took £72 from 360 fans who paid four shillings – about 20p – to get in.” Two weeks earlier he paid Gene Vincent £55, ten shillings for a gig watched by 610 fans at Mac’s.

    Bill also booked The Beatles at Stroud and Lydney in the Forest of Dean in March, 1962. And in June the following year – with Please Please Me and From Me To You both having crashed to Number One – he coughed up £300 for the mops to appear at Salisbury’s city hall, a gig watched by 1,768 delirious screamers. Bill also revealed that he was negotiating with Epstein to bring the Beatles back to Swindon but they haggled over the fee and couldn’t reach a compromise.

    So he let it be.

  • Future Brunel Rooms’ boss Bill Reid brought The Beatles West on four occasions in 1963 and 1964. As well as the McIlroys gig Bill promoted the Fabs in Stroud, Lydney in the Forest of Dean and Salisbury. Moves to bring them back to Swindon floundered when he and the Beatles manager Brian Epstein couldn’t agree a fee