History of the Rats
Gig List 2006/7 Booking the Band Associated Callers Discography Family Tree Sounds
The Walpole - Birth Place of Skinner's Rats
From left to right: Paul Thompson (harmonica) Rick West
(guitar) Blossom (accordion) Barry (violin).
Rick West, Ken Logan,
Blossom & Slats
Revd. Kenneth Loveless and Blossom Lineup No VIII of Skinner's Rats! The Rats playing for the Morris circa 1975 Blossom and Barry both used to play for The
Blackheath Foot And Death Men (later the
Blackheath Morris) in the early seventies.
Blossom is a founder member of the Waddard Morris Men
(as is Slats), but principally they both
played for the Hartley Morris
Men from 1970 - 75. Of course when it was decided to hold a re-union gig at the
Astoria Theatre in the Tottenham Court Road in 2001, the Rats approached the organisers and
reminded them of their part in the original show. They were bidden to turn up. They did so and
were told their names were not on the guest list. 'We are not guests, we are performers' quoth
the Rats. 'Nic from Hawkwind is God saith the bouncer's Fuehrer. If your name's not on
the list, you don't get in. 'Very well said the Rats, hailing a passing taxi, wish him well and
tell him we'll see him in another thirty years. Goodnight to you!' And that, as they say,
was that. Outside The Coach House Farningham The Rat's Home For Over A Quarter Of A Century Barry, Blossom and Malcolm Metcalf in Essar Studios
sometime in the mid 80s. The studio used a Studer J.37 1" four track (as used for
Sgt. Pepper) and a Leevers Rich type 41S 1/4" half track to mix down. Both machines were valve (tube) and
caused the engineer at Utopia Studios where the masters were cut to ask...'where did you
record this? That's .....ing good sound! Posed for the press. We all had machine knitted matching
wooly hats and jumpers. What a marketing machine! Ian Petrie
Richard West
Slats
Mick Peters
Ian, who played with Dolphin Smile
before joining the Rats, now has his own band - The Big Ian Petrie
Band but, as you will see from the 'Associated Callers' page, still
calls for some of the Rats' barn dances. Richard has dug the string bass out of his attic and
joins Blossom and Barry for occasional pub gigs in the Medway towns.
Mick Peters also occasionaly
plays electric bass for the band - usually at the Kent School of English barn dances in and
around Broadstairs where Doug Hudson does the calling
thus providing a curious intermixture of
The Hot Rats
and Skinners Rats! © skinnersrats@quatuorcoronati.go-plus.net MMVI
David Lloyd - Caller
Dave Olsen & Bass
Steve Shorey
As both Barry and Blossom worked at International Times alongside
Mick Farren et al, they were invited, in their persona as the Blackheath Foot and Deathmen,
to appear at the Greasy Truckers Concert at The
Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, N. London. It being the days of the Heath government and at
the height of the three-day week and the miner's strike, the power was prone to crash off
at odd times. This posed a problem for the Pye Mobile Outside Broadcast Unit recording the
concert for posterity. Needless to say, when the inevitable happened, the cry went up for
Skinner's Rats who needed no PA since their instruments were accoustic. With Paul Thomson
on a 20's drumkit with THE WHO cut out and stuck to the bass drum, Barry on fiddle and pith helmet
and Blossom on Accordion, the Rats opened with Also Sprach Zarathustra (it was the time
of 2001 A Space Odyssey) and were received with mingled howls of delight, disbelief and
2001 cigarette lighters!
Who will ever forget the Rat's pantomimes (L the Bishop and Blossom as
The Ugly Sisters) which for so many years astounded
and delighted audiences in the South-east. Every possible theatrical trick, from thunderous explosions
to appallingly scatological use of the double entendre, was pressed into service at any and
every occasion. One year the programme heading even consisted of the boys heads grafted onto a
Fiesta centrefold, to the shocked mirth of an unsuspecting audience, although it was
questionable whether the writing of the script offered more humour than the performing of it!
As if this wasn't enough, the temptation to lampoon contemporary pop music was irresistable and
spawned the so-called Sixties Nights This (R) is Blossom giving his Desmond Dekker
impression an airing to the stupefaction of bemused Ratfans. It wouldn't be very PC to
black up and wear a tea-cosy in today's climate of political correctness.
