IAN DUFFY

Band timeline:

The Intruders

The Premiers

The Offbeats

"I first got interested in guitars when I made a couple in woodwork at school. I was at Deacons along with Bill Wright. We both left in the summer of 1959 and started work at Hotpoint where Bill met Rick Salmon. They formed a band called The Shadows, at the same time, Cliff Richard & The Drifters were starting to become famous but the name started clashing with a singing group from America so they became Cliff Richard & The Shadows. Bill and Rick didn’t want to intrude on Cliff so The Shadows became The Intruders. They are just about to have their 60th anniversary, well done you guys!
In the meantime it was obvious that the Intruders didn’t need two rhythm guitars and I was keen to play lead so I left them to form my own band. I managed to find Kevin Duffy (no relation) to play rhythm and Graham Seal to play drums. Graham had a friend named Julian who we convinced to play bass. Graham also knew this guy named Rodney Codling who thought he could sing. I interviewed Rod in my Mum’s kitchen and knew after a couple of bars that he was understating his ability but managed to drag out the interview for about half an hour, saying “I think you’ll do.” Still look back and think how lucky we were to get such a brilliant singer. Julian didn’t last too long and was replaced by John Quincey.
Rod and Graham went to school with Brian Dunn who wanted to join us on piano. Unfortunately the three guitar line-up was all the rage so we said “No”. Not to be outdone, Brian said “How about if I learn to play sax?” So that’s what happened.
The Premiers carried on for some little time like this until Kevin left to join the Army so Brian got his wish and moved to piano.
Then Graham told us that he was going to get married and would have to leave the band which left us looking for a drummer. We were lucky to find Alan (Fred) Darby who informed us that Maurice (Mods) Bates was looking for a bass job. So Mods then joined replacing John Quincey and this is how the band continued until we folded.
I then joined Danny Ford and the Offbeats (from Sutton Bridge) whilst the others had a break before they went on to do other things. I’m sure that others will pick up the story." Ian Duffy 03/09/2019