Originally Posted by
tforturton
Back in the late seventies and early eighties, I used to play drums in a couple of local bands. While I was living in Penarth, we used to rehearse in the old Pensioners Hall, which was on the side of the road, not far from Cogan railway station. To book the hall, you used to have to visit this elderly couple, who lived in one of the side streets of Cogan, and they'd give you a time and a date. I remember it seemed like every time we went to the house to book the hall, they'd say "Oh no, you can't have it then, it's booked for the budgies, for the budgies".
For a good few years we all thought that some bird fancier group were renting the place. But then one Sunday afternoon, we turned up to pick up some gear from a store room, and the place was packed with stacks and stacks of Marshall amps and speakers, with some long-haired hippies (as we thought) playing really loud. It was Budgie, not 'the budgies', and that was the only time I ever saw or heard them play.
Years later, I met Burke briefly outside Ysgol Mynydd Bychan, where our respective kids went to school. He drove a VW camper, which got me talking to him. When I realised who he was, I asked him if he remembered the Pensioners Hall, and told him the story of the old people and 'the budgies', which made him laugh. Nice fella.