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The Herald Scotland
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Classic Scottish 1984 album is still, decades later, young at heart
A week ago, they played Glastonbury for the very first time, playing the Acoustic Stage in a bill that also featured Nick Lowe and the Hothouse Flowers. Their much-lauded debut album, Sisters, released in 1984, has now been accorded the expanded box-set treatment. In February this year they entertained fans old and new at the Barrowland. And two years ago they released The Bluebells in the 21st Century, their first studio album since the debut. 'The Bluebells are on a really great trajectory at the moment', Hodgens – Bobby Bluebell, as was – told Ellen and Hepworth. 'We've just finished our [next] album. We've had a real kind of Indian Summer, renaissance, in the last few years. I don't know why, to be honest. But all of a sudden, people like Stephen Pastel and [critic] Pete Paphides are all beginning to reassess us'. He brought up Young at Heart, perhaps the Bluebells' best-known song, which hit number one in the UK charts in 1993, seven years after the band's demise, thanks to its exposure in a TV car advertisement. 'When you have a hit like [that], you kind of get put in that Marmalade category" he said, referring to the Scots pop band whose hits included Reflections Of My Life and Radancer. "And now you begin to realise that Marmalade were a fantastic band, with really fantastic songs and great singers, and I think we're getting a little bit of that again now'. To revisit Sisters, that splendid album they released back in 1984 – the year, lest we forget, of such colossal albums as Springsteen's Born in the USA, Prince's Purple Rain soundtrack, and Madonna's Like a Virgin – is to recall just how good a band the Bluebells were. The hits are all there – Cath, Young at Heart, I'm Falling – but there are also some sharply political songs, a reflection of those turbulent times: the Falklands war, the early 1980s recession, the miners' strike, and widespread revulsion at the policies of Margaret Thatcher. The album is now part of a three-CD, one DVD boxset, The Bluebells: Sisters, which blends the original record with bonus tracks, B-sides, single mixes, BBC sessions, live versions, promo videos and footage of the band appearing on Top of the Pops and the Old Grey Whistle Test. (As the band posted on Facebook recently, they played Young at Heart on ToTP on no fewer than seven occasions between 1984 and 1993 - a record beaten only by their fellow Scots, Wet Wet Wet, who performed their single 'Love Is All Around' eight times). In his introductory liner notes to the boxset, the music journalist Will Hodgkinson has this to say: 'Rooted in classic song craft, exuding cheerfulness even when dealing with loneliness, heartbreak and other lachrymose staples, the Bluebells were the very essence of indie — they helped define its jangling, guitar-led sound — while maintaining an accessibility that went to the heart of their working-class roots. 'It was all captured in Sisters, a classic album of upbeat pop that in 1984 delivered the band something contemporaries like Orange Juice and Aztec Camera only ever managed intermittently: actual massive hits. They rang out from the speakers of fairground dodgems, youth club discos and concert halls across the land for one glorious summer of 1984'. He surely speaks for many people who were into the Bluebells at the time when he ventures: 'Returning not just to the album but a wealth of radio sessions, singles versions and live recordings all these years later, what amazed me is how contemporary and relevant they sound. The essence of youth, it seems, changes less than we might imagine'. Read more: The band revolved around Hodgens, a Govan shipyard worker's son in thrall to classic Sixties songwriting, and the McCluskey brothers, Ken and Dave, who had been in a schoolboy punk band, Raw Deal. Hodgens, who had founded a music fanzine, Ten Commandments, in 1980, initially played his own songs in a band called The Oxfam Warriors, who undertook a handful of shows supporting Altered Images. At the last one, at Glasgow School of Art, Alan Horne, of Postcard Records, Orange Juice's Edwyn Collins and a friend named Robert Sharp held up Juke Box Jury-type 'hit' and 'miss' cards. Horne told Hodgens that songs were good, unlike the band, and that if a new group could be put together he would try to put them on Postcard. The Bluebells came together when Hodgens ran into the McCluskey brothers - Ken on vocals, David on drums - and they were joined by Lawrence Donegan, on bass, and Russell Irvine, on guitar. Glasgow had a small and very close-knit music scene then, and the Bluebells received a lot of encouragement, while Collins himself 'was something of a mentor' for Hodgens at the outset. The new band made rapid progress. 'We played with Orange Juice and Aztec Camera', Hodgens told Scots music historian Brian Hogg in 1993, 'and because of this Postcard connection we were in Sounds [magazine] straightaway. There was even a picture of us in New Musical Express after our second concert. Nick Heyward saw it and because he liked my guitar he phoned up and gave us a support slot with Haircut 100'. In 1981 Radio One presenter Kid Jensen invited the band to record the first of a number of sessions for his show, which gave them invaluable exposure. In July 1982 Smash Hits said of the Bluebells that they were 'vendors of sturdy guitar-driven pop music with a distinctive ringing tone which, once heard, isn't easily forgotten'. Melody Maker went even further: 'Bobby Bluebell doesn't look like a pop star. He's tall, gangling, wears glasses and should be advertising Charles Atlas bodybuilding courses – as the seven-stone weakling. By the end of this year, Bobby Bluebell will probably be a pop star and the heart-throb of millions. That's where the smart money is'. It was all happening for the Bluebells. They graced the cover of Melody Maker, and shortly afterwards came a live appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test in October 1982, when they were as yet unsigned. The gig brought them to the attention of a wide audience. Elvis Costello had already reached out to them, and offered to produce some of their material. Their Costello-produced debut single, Everybody's Somebody's Fool, which had been tentatively been lined up by Postcard, came out, instead, on London Records, the band's eventual home. Two singles, Cath and Sugar Bridge, had made it to the lower reaches of the Top 100 in 1983. The following year, I'm Falling reached number 11; then Young at Heart peaked at number eight. The cheerful promo video (included in the box set) featured Stratford Johns, the actor best-known for his tough-cop roles in Z-Cars and Softly, Softly, as the owner of a greasy-spoon cafe, as well as Molly Kelly and Clare Grogan. The album, Sisters, had numerous highlights, aside from the hit singles: the poignant, string-laden Will She Always Be Waiting, on which they had originally worked with Costello; Aim in Life, written by Ken McCluskey at the age of 15 and 'about a lonely reclusive lady that I delivered newspapers to'; and a moving love song, H.O.L.L.A.N.D., There was a cover of Dominic Behan's most famous song, The Patriot Game. Behan was a friend of the McCluskey brothers' parents, and the brothers knew him well. 'When we started performing as The Bluebells we asked Dominic to update some of the verses so that it could become more of a universal message for young folk and the futility of war', Ken told the Record Store Day UK website recently. The brothers also worked with Behan on South Atlantic Way, a clear-eyed look at the Falklands War. It begins: 'I was a raw recruit fresh out of school/and we set sail South Atlantic Way', it begins. Later: 'Well, I've got shrapnel running through my mind/I've glory in my head/Love of country has made me blind/to the living and the dead…' Among those who reviewed Sisters favourably was Sounds magazine, which said that it contained 'more beauty and fear than most albums you'll hear this year'. Read more On the Record: "We were in a really fantastic location called Highland Studios up near Culloden in the north of Scotland", Hodgens recalled last month when asked by Classic Pop magazine about the making of Sisters. "It was a kind of residential studio and we just had the best time doing the album. "I'd say there's no greater experience being in a band than recording your first album in a residential analogue studio playing live together, concentrating, the whole buzz. The whole tingle down your spine thing when you hear it all back through the mixing desk on those giant speakers for the first time. It's something that we're trying to recreate with our new album, which we're currently recording in a very similar way up in here Scotland at the moment". Asked about the political content on some of the songs, he said: "I think in The Bluebells, without sounding too clichéd, most of our parents had been brought up really influenced by their working-class roots. My father worked in a shipyard. Ken and David's father was very affiliated with Dominic Behan and people like that. "So we were very up in our politics, and very aware of what was going on. I'd just moved down to London and there was a bombing campaign going on there, so it was quite a tense situation. The Falklands War came, and obviously we weren't afraid to bring it up. We would write about anything in the songs, but we didn't really ever do it deliberately, or as a policy. It just came out in a lot of the songs". Four decades after its release, Sisters fully deserves its remastered and expanded second life. It remains a compelling listen, and one that has no dated in the slightest. * The Bluebells: Sisters boxset is released by London Records.
The Sun
25-05-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Inside UK's 1st Reform pub with £2 pints, boozers drinking ‘Remainer tears' & even Corbyn's allowed in, on one condition
IN the classic 1989 film Field Of Dreams, Kevin Costner is inspired to create a baseball pitch after hearing a voice say: 'If you build it, he will come.' And that philosophy is at the heart of the decision by landlords Peter Flynn and Nick Lowe to turn a cheap boozer into the nation's first Reform UK pub. 5 5 5 'Well, we built it and they are coming,' Peter, 53, proudly tells me, with a pint in hand inside the hub he believes will lead to Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister by 2029. Two weeks ago, The Talbot in Blackpool shed its near-100-year-old Conservative Club ties and turned from blue to turquoise, courtesy of a paint job to its exterior. According to the owners, customers are ecstatic — not just for pints as cheap as £2.60 and beef stew costing £2, but to have a safe space to discuss real issues plaguing the British public. They claim takings are up threefold since the rebrand and that their 'common sense' punters have travelled from as far as Belfast, Glasgow and London. Not a 'den for racists' It comes after Reform gave the Tories and Labour a bloody nose at elections earlier this month, taking control of ten councils and two mayoralities as well as adding a fifth MP at a by-election. Now Mark Butcher, the party's chairman for Blackpool and Fleetwood, warns they are not just satisfied with establishing a 'good foothold within Lancashire', but have plans to take over pubs and clubs across the country. Mark says: 'We're the people's army — we're rising up and the colour is turquoise. There will be no red wall, no blue wall by the time we're finished. 'Real politics is on the ground, where people discuss issues on a daily basis, so we've hit the jackpot at The Talbot.' It is a sentiment shared by ex-warehouse manager Keith Pickering, 60, who considers the pub a political Mecca where you can 'speak your mind' without judgment and engage in debate. There was a steady 20-plus throng of regulars during The Sun's early afternoon visit, and it is regularly joked that you can buy a pint of 'Remainer's tears'. I'll never give up booze, vows Nigel Farage as Reform tipped to make HUGE gains in local elections The pub proudly flies a Union Jack flag in the lobby alongside Vote Reform flyers above the bar, beside a quadruple-sized billiards hall, which costs 50p a game. Bartender Skye Reid, 18, tells us she can't wait to cast her first vote for Reform. She is thrilled by the news that Farage, whose party endorsed the pub, has promised the owners he will visit. We'll be in every day if Nigel is coming down. I love him. I want him to be Prime Minister, 100 per cent Skye Reid Skye tells us: 'We'll be in every day if Nigel is coming down. 'I love him. I want him to be Prime Minister, 100 per cent. 'I'm not a racist, it's just so wrong that they house illegal immigrants before our homeless. They put them in hotels and give them everything on a plate. It's frustrating.' She is referring to the 220 hotels across the UK, including Blackpool's Britannia Metropole on the promenade, which is just an eight-minute walk away. 5 5 Holidaymaker James Rooney, who is staying at the hotel with his family while visiting from Manchester, says he couldn't wait to raise a glass in the UK's first Reform pub, especially after 'the disaster of the last election'. The former staunch Conservative voter says: 'My family always voted Labour because they used to be for the working man, but now it is the reverse. Both parties can fire off — we'll go for Farage from now on.' Jeremy Corbyn — unless he has a photo taken under our Reform pub sign, we wouldn't serve him — and we'd charge him double Peter Many of the pubgoers are fuming over Keir Starmer's recent U-turn over Brexit, which will see more Europeans travel for work and study, a crackdown on our agricultural industry and what has been described as a 'humiliating surrender' of our fishing rights. Plumber Dave Crowder, 64, says: 'Labour has sold us down the river. All of their other policies are on the backburner — how can they do that? 'They claim it takes years to pass them but when it's something they want, it's sorted right away.' Long road ahead The pub regulars' tonic for the current crisis is Farage, and landlords Nick and Peter are well-versed, having consoled Blackpool residents over their struggles. Peter claims they are 'preventing anger turning into violence' by offering infuriated residents a chance for their voices to be heard. The duo, who took over the pub in 2009, insist all 'races, creeds, religions' are welcome in The Talbot, and they are not a 'den for racists' — nor will they tolerate it. They indeed appear to have somewhat of an open-door policy, with The Sun even encountering an unflinching Labour supporter propping up the bar. But there's one figure who may not be so welcome. 'Jeremy Corbyn — unless he has a photo taken under our Reform pub sign, we wouldn't serve him — and we'd charge him double,' Peter says with a laugh. With up to four years to go before another general election, there is a long road ahead for Reform UK. And no doubt they will be hoping the ambitions of their Talbot faithful prove more than a field of dreams.
Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Reform UK club in Blackpool ‘hosted far-right events for decade'
The owners of a pub that has rebranded under the Reform UK banner have hosted far-right events at the venue since 2014, it has been claimed. A senior Reform party official has hailed the rebranding, saying 'first we replaced the Tories last week at the local elections, now we are replacing their clubs too'. But now campaigners have claimed that the owners, who 15 years ago bought what was then the Conservative Club, rented out space for far-right events. They said the owners planned to host a 'white victims of multiculturalism' event in 2018, which promised political speeches by a neo-Nazi campaigner and a Holocaust denier, until it was cancelled amid a backlash. The co-owner Nick Lowe denied it was a far-right venue, saying he
New European
21-05-2025
- Politics
- New European
Is Blackpool's new Reform pub all it seems?
The Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and i were among those who dispatched colour writers to the town's Talbot pub following the news that the long-standing Conservative club had defected to Nigel Farage's mob and decked itself out in Reform colours ('As GB News blared from several screens inside, most pub-goers sat out on the newly-painted terrace enjoying their cheap drinks in the sun this week,' marvelled the Telegraph's Tom McArdle.) Fleet Street's finest packed their features writers off to Euston station last week with the news that the first Reform-themed pub in the country had opened its doors in Blackpool. But was all exactly what it seemed? Campaign group Hope Not Hate have done some digging and found that, while the Talbot had indeed once been a Conservative club, it hasn't been since 2012. And, having long since been rebranded, it has proved a popular destination for some characters with pretty unsavoury views – until, in several cases, they are cancelled. One such event cancelled in 2018 was The Road Ahead, a day of political speeches and entertainment 'with a focus on future politics, organising growth and leadership'. Co-owner Nick Lowe defended his bookings, saying: 'Every year people slag us off on Facebook saying it's a Nazi event, but it's not. I'm not racist. If somebody wants to book my room and I'm going to make money off it I'm going to do it. It's not against the law.' It is a mite unfortunate, then, that three of the listed speakers have since been prosecuted for actually breaking the law, through incitement to racial hatred: Jez Turner, who called for 'soldiers' to liberate England from 'Jewish control' in an address outside Downing Street, Alison Chabloz, a musician with ditties suggesting the Holocaust was 'a bunch of lies' and referring to Auschwitz as a 'theme park', and 'Rev James', actually James Costello, an unordained cleric who also goes by the name of Pontifex Maximus. The pub was also forced to cancel a music festival, Real Rebellion, last year after Hope Not Hate reported on the dubious politics of some of the bands involved. Canadian group Battlefront's tunes include Aryan Soldiers, Pride is our Will and String 'em Up, while Germans Combat BC decorated the cover of album No Apologies – No Regrets with imagery popular with the country's 1933-45 government. 'It's nowt to do with me. I just rent the room out,' Nick Lowe told the Blackpool Gazette at the time. 'I'm not racist at all but I have to make money somehow.' Now, though, he is busy entertaining the many journalists making the trip north to London to marvel at his rebranding exercise. It's an unfortunate history alright – but on the other hand, as the Telegraph points out, 'the pie and mash will only set you back £3.20, while a chicken curry can be had for £3.50 and a Sunday roast is £5'.
Telegraph
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Inside the 100-year-old Tory club that defected to Reform
A plaque has marked the 1927 founding of a Conservative club for the past 100 years. But now, behind the sign Tory defectors sup £2.60 pints at the world's first Reform UK bar. The Talbot in Blackpool rebranded this week with a Reform-blue paint job and new signage, marking the first Tory club to turn to Reform UK. Following sweeping success in the local elections, the party says it is confident more pubs will follow suit across the country as it looks to capitalise on its growing grass roots support. Pete Flynn and Nick Lowe, the landlords, are awaiting a visit from 'nice chap' Nigel Farage, who promised to drop by once they were up and running. Punters have flocked from as far as Glasgow, Hull and even Northern Ireland to mark the re-opening. Mr Flynn, 53, wearing a shirt and Reform-coloured tie, and with a pint in hand, told The Telegraph he was proud to have created the first Reform UK club. 'Labour started off somewhere and the Conservatives started somewhere in the 19th century,' he said. 'Everything has got to start somewhere and we thought we would be the first. 'The reaction we have had has been absolutely fantastic.' On Wednesday, locals arrived ahead of the official midday opening time to make sure they were settled down in time for Prime Minister's Questions. Mr Lowe, 56, added: 'People have had enough.' In this month's local elections, Reform UK took control of 10 councils and won two mayoral races. It also added a fifth MP, Sarah Pochin, in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election. Kitted out with two full-size snooker tables, two pool tables for just 50p a play, darts boards, and a couple of fruit machines, The Talbot has all the usual amenities of a social club. The pie and mash will only set you back £3.20, a popular chicken curry can be had for just £3.50 or £5 Sunday roasts are on offer. There is also a function room upstairs that can accommodate 80 people, which is set to be used for the Reform's regional AGM. The owners decided on the fresh rebrand after being approached by Mark Butcher, the party's regional chair, and deciding it was a 'cracking idea' earlier this year. Mr Flynn and Mr Lowe say footfall and business have increased during the first few days of the pub's new lease of life which they have owned since 2009. As GB News blared from several screens inside, most pub-goers sat out on the newly painted terrace enjoying their cheap drinks when The Telegraph visited. Louise Sedoskie, 52, said she was happy with the 'brilliant' rebrand. 'Labour have hurt a lot of people – I think it's disgusting what [Sir Keir] Starmer has done,' the carer said of Government policies including winter fuel and welfare cuts. 'But this will help people come together.' Steve Atkinson, 64, said the north of England had been 'crushed' in recent years and Reform was the only answer. 'How can a Sir be in charge of Labour, it's a working class party,' he said. 'We have got to see what Reform can do now. 'If Farage can keep the promises he makes I'd be a happy man.' First-timers Liam O'Brien and Vicky Frost arrived to check out the re-brand, with former Mr O'Brien, a former RAF chief, saying: 'I'm happy with it. 'There used to be more of these places that support the British community.' Antino Wynn, 27, used to be a Conservative member but said he switched allegiance to Reform following Liz Truss's premiership. The night porter suggested people were being drawn to Reform after seeing no life improvements during successive Tory and Labour governments. 'In the north and Midlands, where 'levelling up' was supposed to happen, it hasn't brought the prosperity that has been promised,' he said. 'They are looking for an alternative and Reform is the only party saying what people are thinking and feeling.' For Mr Flynn, who is currently undergoing Reform's vetting procedure to try to stand for the party in the area, and Mr Lowe, it is the party's 'common sense approach' that appeals. The hopeful candidate said the Prime Minister's 'island of strangers' and subsequent immigration white paper was 'the biggest U-turn in British political history'. Nick Evans, a 58-year-old factory worker, summed up the mood of pub-goers by saying unpopular Labour policies would leave the party scrambling for votes. Despite taking over the Conservative club, it is Sir Keir's party at risk from Reform at the next general election in the Blackpool South constituency. 'I don't know anyone that would vote for him now,' Mr Evans said of the Prime Minister. 'It would amaze me if he ever got elected again.' A Reform UK spokesman said: 'While Conservative clubs are closing down and going out of business much like their party, Reform pubs are on their way. 'The results of the local elections show that there is huge support for Reform right across the country so we are confident the Talbot won't be the only Reform pub for long.'
