(c’57-’66) Mickey Kennedy (sax), Bob McGowan (double bass), Paul Wearing (drums), Bert Pendrill (piano), George Pryor (trombone), and Bob Gibbons (trumpet).
Farnborough based, The Mickey Kennedy Band started out as a 6-piece Dixieland band and played locally ‘for dancing’ in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s including “The Traco”.
Formed around band leader and driving instructor, infamous for the Morris Minors used, Mickey Kennedy, they were a regular fixture at the Town Hall, Farnborough for dances in the 50s and held a regular Monday night at the Queen’s Hall, Aldershot. Kennedy always stood at front playing his sax. Drummer Charlie Partleton, who was a barber at Swan hairdressers, and civil servant Ted Fowler (trumpet) replaced Waring and Gibbons respectively, at some point, and Sheila Kennedy (sax) joined. Sometime in the early 60’s Jock Cree was on drums. On 5 July ’63 the band performed at the Technical College, Farnborough, and we know the band performed at a wedding reception at Frogmore Village Hall in ’65/’66, at which time Alan Harvey deputized for his uncle Partleton on drums – Harvey’s first ever paid gig.
Partleton, Fowler, and the Kennedy’s along with their son, Michael Kennedy, were members of the Farnborough Concert Orchestra, in the 60’s. Mickey and Sheila were married and have both now sadly passed; Sheila on 15 Dec 2017, aged 83 at Frimley Park Hospital. Partleton passed in June 2016, at 92. Fowler was also 1st horn in The Aldershot Brass Band / The Aldershot Brass Ensemble. Cree died in Cove in 2006. Harvey would go on to appear in The Modern Art of Living. Pendrill emigrated to Australia, where he performed as Bert Penn ‘King of the Keys’.
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