Brothers born with entertainment in their blood

Jim and Mike initially followed in their father's footsteps as cinema projectionists in the city.

Their dad, James (Jim) Bowley was projectionist at the former Arcade Cinema in St Swithin's Street in the late 1920s and early 1930s, while Jim junior was at the St John's Cinema in the 1940s and Mike at the Gaumont in the 1950s.

Mike and Wal have also been familiar figures on the local music scene for many years. They were in Worcester rock and skiffle groups in the late 1950s and the 60s, particularly The Bush Boys.

Hundreds of local youngsters over the past 25 years also have cause to be grateful to Mike Bowley, who has been a leading music teacher preparing instrumentalists for Royal College of Music examinations.

Wal Bowley too, is extremely well-known on the Midlands music scene having been a professional musician for the past 30 years, mostly as a "keyboard entertainer" - in other words as an organist and comedian.

The Bowley brothers were three of the six children of James Bowley and his wife Elizabeth (Bet) whose maiden name was Heeks. The Bowley brothers have three sisters - Angela (Mrs Bishop) and Betty (Mrs Hunt) who live in Worcester, and Cynthia (Mrs Hall) who is the wife of the Rear Admiral and lives in Cornwall.

The six Bowley children trace their roots back several generations as the Bowleys and Heeks have been long-established Worcester families.

Jim Bowley senior became projectionist at the Arcade Cinema in the mid-1920s, and it was there that he met his wife-to-be, quite by chance.

Bet Heeks accidentally left her umbrella in the Arcade at the end of a performance and went back in search of it as the cinema was closing. There she found Jim Bowley clearing up and asked: "Excuse me, Mr Projectionist, have you found my gamp?" It was the overture to an enduring romance!

However, there had been an incident earlier when Jim Bowley had been close to danger as the Arcade Cinema projectionist. In those days, films were highly inflammable and could easily be ignited by the projector arc light if they jammed in front of the projection lens.

Jim went home one day, horrifying his mother when he showed her his badly burned hands. A film had caught fire and he had tackled the flames.

Sons Jim junior and Mike also followed in their father's footsteps in the Army. Jim was a regular in the Worcestershire Regiment for some years and, during the Second World War, volunteered for active service. He was in the Royal Artillery for a time, spending long periods on the roof of the Fort Dunlop building at Birmingham, armed only with a Bofors Gun to repel the enemy. He was then transferred in 1942 to the newly formed REME (the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) and was with the Eighth Army in the North Africa Campaign.

Sons Jim and Mike emulated him by joining REME for their two years National Service. Later, the Jims senior and junior were in the Territorial Army together and were once spoken to by the legendary Field Marshall Montgomery (Monty) when standing side by side on a parade at Catterick. Monty spotted Jim Bowley's medals ribbon including his Eighth Army medal, and chatted to him.

During the war too, Jim's wife Bet played her part by working at the munitions factory on the Cadbury site in Worcester.

Family homes down the years for Jim and Bet Bowley were at The Moors and in Ransom Avenue, Blackpole Road and Blenheim Road.

Bowled over by the music

MIKE Bowley was born in 1935 at the family home, then in Ransom Avenue off Bath Road, Worcester.

Later, when his parents moved to Blackpole Road, he went to the Rainbow Hill Infant and Junior schools and remembers having to carry a gas mask to school during the war years.

When the Bowley family again moved, this time to Blenheim Road, St John's, Mike attended Christopher Whitehead Boys School and also joined the Air Training Corps, playing the bugle in its band.

Not surprising as it turned out, he vividly recalls the day he left school in January 1950. "There was snow on the ground but my mother told me in no uncertain terms to: 'Go out of this house and don't come back until you've got yourself a job.' "

Faced with this daunting challenge to complete in a day, Mike remembered his boyhood ambition to follow in his father's footsteps as a projectionist and went first to the Gaumont in Foregate Street, asking the manager "Have you got any jobs for projectionists?"

The outcome was that, the chief projectionist, Jack Leppard came down and took him to see the Projection Box and Re-wind Room. "He then asked my name and asked if my father was Jim Bowley. When I said 'yes,' he seemed convinced that my job search at the Gaumont was very much a put up job because, unbeknown to me, Jack and my father were friends, having worked together as projectionists at the Arcade Cinema.

"I assured him my father hadn't sent me and he said: 'Go home and tell your mother to pack you some sandwiches and that you won't be home until after 9.30 p.m.' He had given me a job on the spot to join the projectionists team though, because of the employment laws in those days, I would not be able to work after 9.30 p.m. any evening being under 16."

Mike was to spend the next three years with Jack Leppard and his team of five projectionists at the Gaumont. It was also at this time that Mike took up music on a serious basis, buying his first clarinet for £2.10s. at Wilsons music shop in Bridge Street.

Mike's time at the Gaumont was interrupted in 1952 by two years National Service in the REME but he returned to the cinema afterwards for another few years as a projectionist before leaving to join brother Jim, a motor engineer, at North Worcester Motors.

It was around this time too, in the mid-1950s that Mike and Wal Bowley became part of probably Worcester's first rock 'n' roll group, The Bush Boys - so named because the Bush pub in St John's was their original venue.

The Bush Boys were such a hot property that they had a fan club and needed to hire an ex-boxer for security at their gigs. The lead singers were Maurice ("Moggy") Holder and a girl called Rita, while the instrumentalists included Ron Weston, the late Pete Bodily, Wal Bowley, and brother Mike on clarinet.

A skiffle group formed from the much the same line-up competed at the Gaumont in a Carroll Levis Discovery Show - the forerunner of Opportunity Knocks - initially coming joint first in the area heat. However, the judges asked the two frontrunner acts to go on stage again and, alas, the outcome was that the skiffle group came second.

Far more positive and long-lasting for Mike, however, was to be the mutual admiration between him and one of the dancing fans of The Bush Boys - Anne Layland, brother of city councillor and past Worcester Mayor Mike Layland. A romance blossomed, and Anne and Mike celebrate their Ruby Wedding anniversary this year having married in 1961. They have two daughters.

The Bush Boys played at gigs around the Midlands and lasted together for about eight happy years.

On the jobs front, Mike moved to Metal Box, first as a materials controller and then computer analyst, and later joined the Industrial and Tractor group as a production controller. He finished up at Meco - his last job in somebody else's employ.

Already by this time, however, he had launched out on another career, teaching music on his own account and putting his pupils through Royal School of Music exams. In fact, one year he achieved a record as an individual music teacher, having no fewer than 32 of his pupils taking Royal School of Music exams at the same time.

His teaching of the theory of music and the playing of woodwind instruments had begun in 1975, and it was not long before it became his full time career. He also had his own School of Music for a period in New Street, concentrating on woodwind, brass and percussion instruments and the guitar.

On the performing front and in the wake of The Bush Boys, Mike formed the Colbo Sound, to be followed, on a larger scale, by the Mike Bowley Big Band which was to perform at charity events in Worcester and around the country over the years. It gave its final performance last year at the Mayor's Ball in Stourport-on-Severn.

There was also a Junior Band for some years, composed largely of Mike's pupils.

In 1985, Mike Bowley opened a music shop at 16 New Street and, four years ago, transferred this across the road to No.50.

Wal's dream came true

WAL Bowley was keenly interested in music as a small boy and always wanted to be in showbusiness.

His dreams have been mostly realised because he still continues a career of more than 30 years as a professional musician. He started as a rock 'n' roll group member, then became a jazz pianist and, for a long time now, has performed as a keyboard entertainer.

Wal has been widely popular as an organist and comedian - a cheeky chappie dispensing plenty of laughter between his fine arrangements and superb keyboard playing of dance music and top numbers from the shows.

Born in 1939, at Blackpole Road, Walter (Wal) Bowley took on a paper round as a boy specifically to pay for music and piano lessons.

On leaving Christopher Whitehead Boys' School, Wal became an apprentice motor mechanic at the W L Cotton Garage in Farrier Street, and gained all his trade certificates. But his spare time was to be devoted to music, and he hired a room at the Bush pub in St John's, to practice piano. Then came occasional bookings playing piano with local dance bands such as Dennis Wheeler's and Ken Bruno's.

Wal and former school friends such as Maurice Holder, Ron Weston and Pete Bodily also met at the Bush pub for jam sessions, and it was there that Wal started the hugely successful Bush Boys rock 'n' roll group which took them "here, there and everywhere".

When the group eventually disbanded, Wal turned to being a jazz pianist and joined two other Midland musicians in a trio which played at night-clubs and cabaret rooms around the region, sometimes supporting stars such as Frankie Howerd.

After that, Wal turned solo as an organist and also joined Wally Exall and Muff Murfin in the demonstration and sale of organs.

In the 1970s he was invited by landlord Dave (Chick) Smith to become resident keyboard entertainer at the Coppertops pub in Oldbury Road, and he was soon a very familiar feature of its Cabaret Room and lounge. In fact, Wal still has regular bookings at the Coppertops, now mainly for tea dances.

In 1986, Wal and wife Evelyn, "a Bromyard girl," became mine hosts of the Wheatsheaf pub in Henwick Road, remaining for eight years. As landlord, Wal was literally the resident entertainer, regularly performing on keyboard in the bar.

"I have lived for music," says Wal. "It has given me so many good times and a reasonable living, and I still practice like mad at home most days. The new technology involved in keyboards these days is really terrific and I enjoy making my own arrangements."

The reel life for Jim

Born at The Moors, in 1930, Jim Bowley junior went to Samuel Southall School.

"When I finished at 14, a chap came from the Labour Exchange and tried hard to get me to go to work in one of the local factories but I was adamant - I wanted to follow my dad and become a cinema projectionist," recalls Jim.

"The day after my 14th birthday, I went first to the Gaumont but they had no vacancies, so I moved on to the St John's Cinema where I was welcomed by chief projectionist Bert Britten, a kindly man, who said I could start work on the Monday morning.

"My wage was £1.9s.6d a week, plus a box of matches, which may seem strange but, remember, it was 1944 and the war was still raging. Matches were like gold but very essential to the daily task I was initially set at St John's Cinema.

"Its secondary lighting was all gas, and my job before every performance was to go round with matches and a spill, to light all the twin lamps on the ground floor and balcony and also in the foyer and on the landings. These lights were always kept down low."

From his lamp lighting job, Jim moved up to be spool boy, which meant carrying the reels of film between the projectors and the re-wind room.

"Being small at the time, I had to stand on a stool or a chair to reach the spool boxes on the projectors, and sometimes you could suffer cuts to your fingers in rewinding films when they had chips out of the edge of them."

Jim gradually worked his way up through the five-member projectionist team and recalls that the first film he screened was an American wartime morale-boosting musical called Follow The Boys.

He points out that during his four years at the St John's Cinema, it showed the best classic and epic films ahead of other Worcester cinemas.

"We were part of the Odeon Theatres group then and received films straight from the Odeon Leicester Square. For instance, we were the first in Worcester to screen The Seventh Veil, Henry V, Gone With The Wind and Wuthering Heights.

"Though it was obviously before my time, St John's Cinema was also the first to show a 'talking movie' in Worcester - The Singing Fool with Al Jolson. The sound track apparently came on 14-inch records which played from the centre outwards, and if the film and sound ever got out of sync, the projectionists would quickly lift the record needle and jump it forward!"

Jim says that in his father's day at the Arcade Cinema, projectors had to be cranked by hand. A slide was inserted when each spool was completed to notify the audience of a short intermission while the reel was changed. "It must have been quite hard work cranking for 20 minutes at a stretch.

"Dad also had his own 35 mm projector at home and showed Laurel and Hardy and other films to us children and our friends," says Jim, who stresses that he "absolutely enjoyed" every bit of his time at St John's Cinema, even the minor disasters.

There were the occasions when a film split and sent hundreds of feet of celluloid spilling on to the floor, but one particular gaff stays vividly in Jim's memory.

"We were showing Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in the middle of a love scene when the reel came to an end, and we switched to the second projector only to find it showing a violent cops and robbers car chase with machine guns blazing...

"We had obviously put in the wrong reel and hurriedly ran to place the right one on the first projector, and switch back. The audience wouldn't have understood what was happening for a minute or two, though we corrected things swiftly enough to avoid jeers and slow hand claps!

"Friends used to think how lucky I was to see so many films for nothing but what they forgot was that we endured each film 18 times a week!"

With no buses running, Jim had to walk to St John's from the family home in Blackpole Road, but was eventually able, through the cinema management, to obtain a petrol ration to run a two-stroke motorcycle, though only on a strictly designated route - Blackpole to St John's.

Jim's cinema days came to an end in 1948, when he reached the age of 18 and was called up for National Service. He joined the REME and soon received a thorough training in vehicle mechanics.

On de-mob, he worked first as a motor engineer for Holloways Garage in Sidbury, and later, for North Worcester Motors. His next job was as a foreman fitter with a Bromsgrove firm but he then decided to set up on his own as a motor fitter and repairer, mainly from workshops at Clerkenleap. He did much sub-contract work for Carmichaels.

Jim and Peggy, his wife of 48 years, live at Middle Battenhall and have two sons and two daughters. In the corner of his lounge is a Wurlitzer organ "with a cinema sound".

He enjoys playing it but is not as "musical" as his brothers.