I had the following email from Chris Gwatkin, out of the blue, but coming via Alan Pollard, friend and contributer to these pages.

'I am a soul boy originating from Cheltenham, living in Marple, but working from Mon to Fri anywhere over the UK.

I've found myself working in Bath on & off for the past 12 months & bored & frustrated with nights in the hotel or down the pub i've persuaded one of the local landladys to try a soul night....I took some flyers round to Alans for him to take to misc. places round Manchester which is where he gave me your details and suggested getting in contact.

Anyway the 1st night is this Thursday 21st November @ Mandalyns on Lansdown Road, Bath City Centre. Runs 8 till close. Music is across the board, Northern, X-Over, Modern, Groove, even some Deep Funk...the reason is that I know Bristol is big on Funk and were not sure what crowd we should go after. DJ's are mates, Phil Wainwright from Manchester, Simon Bendle from Gloucester & myself. We've put flyers round Bath, Gloucster, North West and
I sent some down to Togetherness @ Stoke on Saturday. However, no idea how many people will tun up.

It would be great if you could make it along, ....and I would really appreciate it if you could put word around, and details on web. I can get a flyer e-mailed down to you but I think you need specialist software to open.

Hope to speak to you soon

Regards,

Chris Gwatkin'

So we trecked across to Bath, great little bar, mixed crowd of locals who probably didn't have a clue what they were hearing but didn't seem to care, entered to the refreshing sounds of some Deep Funk and as the DJ's rotated into some rare and some popular Northern Soul.

Chris has some great ideas for this little venue and I for one shall be supporting it. I really enjoyed the night and it is great to see something like this being tried in the area. So much of what goes on is all tried and tested old hat Northern Soul. This ain't, this is refreshing open minded and where I would rather be - Great stuff Chris.