Westcliff High School for Boys circa 1958. Nigel Basham is third from the left, with Arthur Walker on Nigel’s right doing the V-sign. Others in the group include Martin Bayley, Chris Winch, Selwyn, and seated, smoking, Ian Crawshaw.
Tim Wainwright sent in this photo of Nigel Basham with school friends at at Westcliff High School for Boys, circa 1958. Not bad quality from a worn 3″ x 2″ print. Tim wrote the caption above and adds, “the pic is a group from the school having a smoke by the bike sheds, totally against school rules.”
Nigel Basham was part of the Monotones, covered extensively on this site in a main post and a second focused on photos of their early days. In the Monotones, Nigel took the professional name of Mark Loyd, sometimes spelled Mark Lloyd.
As Mark Loyd, he released three singles on Parlophone, timeless British soul music that is highly valued now. Mark Loyd passed away on April 4, 2012 in Sydney, Australia, where he ran a successful event and performance management company called Popset.
The Monotones’ first rhythm guitarist Ian Middlemiss sent these photos and clippings of his time in the band from 1958-1962.
The photo captions are by Ian:
Earliest photo of the Monotones at St Cedds Church gig early in 1960 From left: Pete Stanley, Brian Alexander, Ian Middlemiss, Nigel Basham, and Barry DavisIan Middlemiss with a Hofner Club 50 (?), never stayed in tune for more than 10 mins. June 1960, venue cannot rememberA clip from the local paper, gig at St Cedds in May 1961St Cedds May ’61. Clearly this is in open E. Middlemiss has got a Strat copy, Alexander exploring the possibilities of the Mixolydian mode in position 1? This I doubt. Alexander’s thrashing about trying to find notes that roughly match the melody.April 1962, from left: Jim Eaton, Barry Davis, Paul Dunning, Brian Alexander and Ian Middlemiss. Stanley got fed up and had a six month sabbatical. He did come back eventually.From left: Nigel Basham, Barry Davis, Paul Dunning, Brian Alexander and Ian Middlemiss. A half decent shot of Stanley’s bass made by his Dad. Basham and Eaton shared the vocals or should I say Mark Lloyd and Thurston Crane (tee-hee). In 1962 to sing vocals you had to wear a suit and tie and pretend that you were a gentleman.200 people at 2/6 a pop = £50 divided by 5 = £10 per member which is more than a 1960s weekly wage. Remember most of us were at WHSB and you get a 5 gallons of petrol for £1, pie and chips for 1/6d and get trousered for £2. No small wonder that Brian A. hired the White Hall for our debut performance. The downside of the White Hall was that they had no alcohol license. Brian hired the dance hall at the Elms which was much bigger (300). An immediate success but the manager saw the potential and in the end got the beer money and the gate. We were not too bothered, the ladies were more important.Who were the Strangers, Ebonies and O B Swing 5?
This site is a work in progress on 1960s garage rock bands. All entries can be updated, corrected and expanded. If you have information on a band featured here, please let me know and I will update the site and credit you accordingly.
I am dedicated to making this site a center for research about '60s music scenes. Please consider donating archival materials such as photos, records, news clippings, scrapbooks or other material from the '60s. Please contact me at rchrisbishop@gmail.com if you can loan or donate original materials
