Lord Kitchener

Dr Kitch -  Jump Up 1963

More famous (infamous) from Georgie Fame, this however, is the original.

SKA at its most mischievous best

Dr KITCH - Aladdin 1965/Jump Up

I push it in she pull it out.
I push it back she start to shout,
Dr Kitch it's terrible,
I can't stand de size of your needle.


The Calypso King - he also did a version of Bang Bang Lulu.



Article from

LORD KITCHENER - MANCHESTER MEMORIES


I was saddened recently to read in The Times, no less, of the death of Lord Kitchener.

'Well, of course,' you say, 'His death would be recorded in 'The Thunderer'. He was after all a great British Field Marshall.'

But I speak not of the manager of a cannon fodder factory who, in any case, died in 1916, but of Aldwyn Roberts, aka Lord Kitchener, a noted Calypso singer.

I knew Kitch briefly during the late 1950s. He had come to England on the Empire Windrush in the late '40s with his partner and friend Lord Beginner. After a year or two in London, Kitch married a Manchester girl and moved North. He was a great exponent of the Calypso. It was Lord Beginner, I believe, who wrote the most famous of all calypsos, Cricket, Lovely Cricket, but Kitch was responsible for a lot of good songs, many of them rather saucy (for those times).

It was not however in his role as a Calypsonian that I knew Kitch. At the weekends, I and various musician friends would, after we had finished working, frequent several illegal West Indian drinking clubs in Manchester, where we would play with the house musicians, and Kitch played a muscular if somewhat erratic bass in one such place. He loved to try his hand at jazz and, in truth, was not all that bad. We, the white boys, were treated as honoured guests and given drinks, unspecified but delicious West Indian or African food, and (dare I mention this), the occasional joint, which I tried once, but did not inhale!!!! And if you believe that, you will believe that I am riding a giraffe down Whitehall as I write this.

Kitch's death brought back to me a time and a world that I had forgotten and I am grateful to remember.

In those days, there were a large number of West Indians and Africans in Manchester, but there was also strict segregation, certainly at a social level, and had it not been for my association with jazz, I would, as a middle-class Jewish youth, have spent my time at Maccabi dances or playing tennis.

Thanks to our great music, my experiences were much wider and, I believe, prepared me better for the real world. How well I now recall my black friends from that era. Friends such as Bisi Bello, otherwise Billy West, a conga drummer and simply the coolest person I have ever known. Also Tommy West (no relation), whose real name was Babatunde Atanda and Paxi King. If you guys are still around and read this, please get in touch and we can talk about the dear dead days.

WALLY HOUSER