Summer’s gone – but not forgotten by the Saw Doctors

Date Published: 24-May-2012

 sHE may not have counted among her great regrets, but Donna Summer once ignored me in a corridor at the BBC. I wasn’t alone as it turned out – she completely blanked the Saw Doctors as well and they were higher than her in the UK charts at the time.

And after her untimely death last week from cancer – days before her fellow eighties icon Robin Gibb lost his own battle with the disease – memories of a close encounter with the Queen of Disco came flooding back.

The venue was the Top of the pops studios in Elstree outside London back at the end 1994 – so long ago that Anthony Thistletwaite still had hair – and Davy and the lads were well inside the top twenty with Small Bit of Love while Donna was in the midst of a re-invention after the dive of the disco era.

It possibly wasn’t a career defining moment for Ms Summer – Melody of Love (Wanna Be Loved) peaked at 21 in the UK charts although it did feature on her greatest hits compilation, Endless Summer, and a remix topped the US dance charts.

But she was a legend – albeit from an earlier era – and her presence dictated an increased security presence around the studios; perhaps we played some small part in that security risk.

Although it must be said that we didn’t have a clue who she was either – just a tiny woman with massive hair and even bigger bodyguards to make sure she wasn’t bothered by Galway fellows on her way from her rehearsal to the dressing room.

That may have had something to do with a spectacular night in Bradford the night before where a bloke called Ian Purdham who – after having his three favourite songs by the band tally with Davy’s – won a prize to have the Docs start their UK tour in his sitting room.

And in fairness to Donna, we were equally ignored by Jimmy Nail, the Beautiful South and M People although presenter Bruno Brooks seemed friendly – and hospitality was, if anything, overly generous.

As usual I was an interloper, doing a piece on the start of the tour and the lads being on Top of the Pops but a group of us actually ended up on stage, lepping around in the background like Riverdancers on acid….battery acid.

It had been a late night on the tour bus – my only time on a band’s tour bus as well – after that gig in the heart of a Council estate in Bradford which followed on from an early short set in a school in Huddersfield were Ian the prize winner was a teacher. And, also perhaps the only white person in the school and without doubt the only one who’d heard of the Saw Doctors.

Still, a free class is a free class and the students gathered in the assembly hall for a concert that was to trigger a memorable day – because by that evening Ian’s entire estate was out to meet the bus as it did its impression of a camel winding its way through the eye of a needle along the narrow cul de sac.

To say this was a tough part of town might be an understatement but as so often with such areas, the people had hearts of gold. They certainly had fridges full of Dutch Gold or whatever the lager of the day was because we had cans thrust into our fists with a speed that suggested they were anxious to get rid of the evidence before they were rumbled.

For more see this week’s Tribune