After a day driving around
Merseyside I drove north to fit in one more visit before sunlight faded. Here I
am at Thornton Crematorium where Freddie Marsden was turned to ash. Freddie was
the co-founder and drummer of Gerry and the Pacemakers and though they were
successful he ended his working life running a driving school.
The Marsdens came from
Dingle in Liverpool and Freddie was named after his dad who worked on the
railways and played the ukelele at night. When his
lad showed an interest in music he made a drum from the lid of a Quality Street
tin. Freddie loved the drums and when he left grammar school with one “O” level
he spent his wages as a candle maker (on £4 week) on a full kit.
With his brother Gerry they formed a skiffle group called the Mars Bars (changed to Gerry and
the Pacemakers in 1959 when the confectioners complained that it was their
chocolate bar's name.) Locally they started to amass a healthy following. When
Freddie was 21 the band followed the Beatles to Hamburg and they became the
second group signed by Brian Epstein. Freddie was at the music's heart,
ministering a consistent reliable drum along with vocal harmonies that balanced
Gerry’s vibrancy. They were a popular group in Hamburg incorporating rhythm and
blues and showbiz standards. The gruelling five-hour nightly performances made
the band so strong and tight that the Beatles found them a hard act to follow.
Both bands were given Preludin (a slimming drug) to
keep awake.
Back in Merseyside both groups occupied the top
two positions in the first popularity poll by regional pop gazette Mersey Beat. There was no rivalry and
they got on so much the Beatles attended Freddie’s 21st birthday party and the
two groups combined as the Beatmakers one evening at Litherland town hall. By late 1962 both bands were being
managed by Brian Epstein who got Gerry and the Pacemakers signed to EMI. When
the Beatles rejected Mitch Murray's light-hearted How Do You Do It Epstein said he had just the group to do it -
Gerry and The Pacemaker. It topped the charts in April 1963. The springy I Like It followed and there were the
others like I'm The One and Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying.
One of their seminal hits was You'll Never Walk Alone. Around the
clubs Gerry Marsden had seen Paul McCartney's success with Over the Rainbow and he wanted a similar emotional show-stopper.
They picked You'll Never Walk Alone
from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel (now sang at fans of Liverpool football club.) Their other
whopper was written by the band though - Ferry
Cross the Mersey which was released in late 1964 became a resounding
success on both sides of the Atlantic.
Freddie married Margaret and they had a son and a
daughter. Before and after success he was the same courteous man with a
down-to-earth phlegmatic candour. Before the band benefited from record
royalties he’d played music at gigs in the evenings and then sat down to his
routine job every morning without qualms. There was no ballooning ego or cheesy
artifice.
A sudden end to the band came when his brother
Gerry accepted a role in a West End musical role Charlie Girl. Freddie wasn’t included and the band was rendered
dormant. Freddie took it in his philosophical stride and never criticised his
brother publicly. He said, "We were left without a singer and instead of
looking for another one, we called it a day." He returned to normal life
becoming a telephone operator for £14/week before opening the Pacemaker driving
school in Formby. From the 1970s his brother Gerry relived past glories with a
new Pacemakers but Freddie wasn’t beckoned to the spotlight of fame and didn’t
return to music. He died of cancer aged 66. The service was held at Our Lady’s
Church in Formby followed by a cremation here.
I had a stroll around the quiet cemetery - even
the birds were quiet. A woman walking her black lab tried not to look over as I
did a few salutes to a camera out of view. I opened three brown bins to find a
few snails at the top trying to escape. I moved them onto the path, saluted and
left for home
Around the back to see the chimney
where he he was turned to dust...