Discover the World without limits

What happens when 2 aviators and one cameraman decide to buzz all five London airports in one flight, then film the results. Please don't try this at home.

ACE guitarist Joe Moretti tells: NERO AND THE GLADIATORS Nero And The Gladiators - what a band. I first met Nero [ Mike O'Neil ] around 1960. At the 2 I's I believe. And He was on the tour I did withGene Vincent etc around 1960. Colin Green was the Original guitarist with the Gladiators and you can hear his fine perfomance on "Czardas" - try playing it !! Colin was and is an extremely talented musician and is now Musical Director for Shirley Bassey. I believe Laurie Jay was the original drummer, and the Quartet was rounded off by " Boots" Slade on Bass. Nero had some crazy but brilliant ideas. Along with Lord Sutch, He was the first to introduce a new image to Rock bands. Up until then band uniforms were rather conventional, usually copied from American Movies etc. Nero had other ideas. You had to get your band noticed in any way possible and he told me that in the first instance he had somehow managed to acquire some Gladiator uniforms from Elstree studios after the filming of " Ben Hur" or " Quo Vadis " or some such epic. Helmets, breast plates, boots, swords, shields, etc. The whole bit. All made of plastic of course but very real looking. And Nero himself wore a long toga and a laurel wreath on his head. Our manager was a nice guy called Joe Roncoroni and the bookings were handled by the " George Cooper " Agency.The first, and perhaps only publicity pictures of the band featured The Guys landing on the shores of Britain on an ancient ship. Nero standing in the bow of the ship reading some charter declaring that the UK was now " Roman Property " and the Gladiators on the beach, with swords and shields, ready to do battle with the Brits. I believe Tommy Brown was the drummer then, and a very fine drummer he was too. The band wagon was named Brutus and just getting into it was like entering a war zone. The guys never cleaned the wagon out, so the crap on the floor was about a foot deep. Empty milk cartons, soft drink bottles, hamburger wrappings, cigarette butts. Only the car aerials were sticking up through the snow. We were rescued by a bus with a snow plough attached to it's front. We left all the gear behind in the truck and made it to a little town where we cleaned up and had a hot breakfast. Luckily the promoter at the gig had given us our fee and we just spent what was needed. We were supposed to hand the money over to our agent who would then deduct his"percentage" and give us what was left. He wasn't at all pleased when he heard about it. Would you believe ? Not a thought for our welfare, just the money. An old saying describes the situation perfectly- " Ahh, they're only musicians. They're used to being pissed on ! " When we got back to the wagon that afternoon our gear was still there ! Amazing. You wouldn't get that today my friend. So we returned to London a day late and the Agent wanted to deduct the money for breakfasts from our fee and he was stealing 50 percent from our gig money to begin with ! We found that out later, and he was doing it from EVERY gig. Dirty Bastard. I cut one more record with Nero called " Bleak House " by Ken Jones, a very accomplished composer / arranger for Movies etc. but that didn't take off either. That was recorded at EMI in the big studio where we cut " Brand New Cadillac " with Vince Taylor, and "Shakin' AllOver " with Johnny Kidd. The line up for the recording was : Mike O'Neil{ Nero } Piano. "Boots Slade- Bass. Tommy Brown- Drums , and myself on guitar. Boots also did the announcement over the introduction. I suppose I was with Nero for about six months and then I joined Jet Harris and Tony Meehan. I needed the security of a working band as I had a wife and baby to support. That was a very crazy but very enjoyable time in my life. I'm afraid I don't know where the other guys are today. The last time I saw Nero was when we were standing in a queue at the " Hammersmith Odeon " for a Larry Coryell concert around 1966. I'd appreciate it if anyone could tell me where the guys are now. Crazy days.

Lew Stone (18981969) was a British dance band leader and arranger. Born in London in 1898, Lew Stone learned music at an early age and became an accomplished pianist. In the 1920's he worked with many important dance bands. During 1927-1931 Lew Stone's arrangements for the Bert Ambrose Orch virtually made it the best in Europe. Lew continued to work with other bands like Jack Hylton's and Jack Payne's BBC Dance Orchestra, and he also took several top musicians. Roy Fox's Band opened at the Monseigneur Restaurant in 1931 and Lew Stone took the up the position of pianist and arranger. When Roy Fox became ill in October he was sent off to Switzerland to rest and Lew assumed leadership of the band. The main vocalist at the Monseigneur was the very popular Al Bowlly who had already sang on over 30 recordings. When Roy Fox returned to London in April 1932 he found that his band was the most popular in the city. In October 1932, when Roy Fox's contract at the Monseigneur ended, Lew Stone was offered the post of bandleader and this story filled the pages of the music press. The Tuesday night broadcasts from the Monseigneur established Lew Stone's band as a great favorite with the listening public, The popularity of vocalist Al Bowlly increased, he was a regular on broadcasts, his name was credited on many of the Decca records and he toured with the band including an appearance in front of royalty at the London Palladium.From late 1931 until 1934 Lew Stone was also musical director for British and Dominion Films, working mostly from Elstree Studios, and later worked with other film companies. About 40 pre-1947 films which involved Lew Stone with his band or as Musical Director are included in the listings of British musical films on this website. British Dance Bands on Film, British Entertainers on Film, British Musical Directors. In Nov 1933 Lew Stone transferred his band to the Cafe Anglais and in Feb 1934 started a very successful tour under the Mecca Agency. The band returned to the Monseigneur in Mar 1934 until the Summer when the Monseigneur was sold to become a cinema. As for Bowlly (1899-1941) he was was a popular British jazz singer in the United Kingdom during the 1930s, making more than 1,000 recordings between 1927 and 1941. Bowlly was born in Mozambique to Greek and Lebanese parents who met en route to Australia and moved to South Africa. He was brought up in Johannesburg, South Africa. He gained his musical experience singing for a dance band led by Jimmy Liquime on a tour of India and Singapore during the mid-1920s. However, he fell out with Liquime. Bowlly had to work his passage back home, through busking. Just one year after his 1927 debut recording date in Berlin, where he recorded Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies", Bowlly arrived in London for the first time as part of Fred Elizalde's orchestra, though nearly didn't make it after foolishly frittering away the fare which was sent to him by Elizalde. That year, "If I Had You" became one of the first popular songs by an English jazz band to become well known in America as well, and Bowlly had gone out on his own by the beginning of the 1930s. First, however, the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 resulted in Bowlly being made redundant and returning to several months of busking to survive. In the 1930s, he was to sign two contracts which were to change his fortunes - one in May 1931 with Roy Fox, as explained before in these notes. During the early-mid 1930s, such songs as "Blue Moon", "Easy to Love", "I've Got You Under My Skin", and "My Melancholy Baby" were sizable American successes — so much so that Bowlly gained his own radio series on NBC and traveled to Hollywood to co-star in The Big Broadcast in 1936, which also starred one of his biggest competitors, Bing Crosby. Despite Bowlly's stellar success in Britain through the early 1930s, he never achieved the same measure of fame in the USA, and his absence from the UK when he moved to the States in 1934 damaged his popularity with UK audiences. His career also began to suffer as a result of problems with his voice from around 1936, which affected the frequency of his recordings. Bowlly also played a few bit parts in films around this time, yet Bowlly had never professed to be an actor and his parts were, predictably, often cut and scenes that were shown were brief. Al Bowlly returned to England at the end of 1937 and in Feb 1938 he began recording with Lew Stone again. Recordings with Al Bowlly in 1938 rank as good as those made during the earlier years. This superb recording, however, was waxed for Decca on March 23rd, 1934.

One of Britain's most highly respected mainstream saxophonists, Whittle has played with most of the U.K.'s finest, including Ronnie Scott, Ted Heath, Kenny Wheeler, and Joe Temperley. Whittle began playing the clarinet at age 12 and switched to tenor saxophone a year later. He worked with Johnny Claes, Lew Stone, Harry Hayes, and Carl Barriteau in the mid '40s. He joined Heath's swing band in 1946 and stayed through 1952. He worked with the BBC Show Band in the '50s, and also led his own group performing in London nightclubs. Whittle led an octet that included Temperley and Wheeler, worked freelance, and toured the U.S.A. and France with his quartet in the latter half of the '50s. Whittle has been the musical director at the Dorchester Hotel in London. He's also played in Jack Parnell's orchestra and toured with Benny Goodman. Whittle remains active as of this writing, usually leading a band that includes his wife, singer Barbara Jay. ~and was at my Grandads home on Boxing Day...what a treat.

starring tessa mullin

What happens when 2 aviators and one cameraman decide to buzz all five London airports in one flight, then film the results. Please don't try this at home.