[JohnW]

My friend Dave Williams (keyboard player extraordinaire) and I backed Bernard in Cabaret when we played at Samantha's Club (old Club Royal) in Preston. This was probably around 1976. He had just bought a Rolls Royce and was so excited to point it out to us from the dressing room window. One probably wouldn't dare to leave a RR in Preston town centre now even if it was in daylight. He kept us on stage the whole of his act so that he could take the p*ss out of us. I came in for most of that. "Always grinning that drummer, he must have a hole in the back of that drum!" etc etc. I liked his un-inhibited humour personally, although I know he was not to everyone's taste. To woman in very low cut dress: "If your selling either of those puppies misses, I'll have the one with the pink nose!" I was also very impressed with this singing, if I remember correctly one of the two or three songs he sang with us was "Over the Rainbow." At the end of the night he gave Dave and I five quid and said "Thanks lads good job." RIP Bernard, you were certainly one of a kind