Lulu in the nude - and when the stars came to Shrewsbury

“I got quite a shock, I can tell you. But she seemed completely unperterbed,”  So explains John Holding as he tells me of the day he saw pop star Lulu in the nude.
“Well, to be accurate, she wasn’t completely in the nude, but she wasn’t wearing very much at all, let’s put it that way.”
John worked at Shrewsbury’s principal hotels during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s - “the golden age” as he likes to say - when showbusiness royalty frequented the county town, the big names of the day performing at The Granada or The Music Hall.
“Lulu would have been in her twenties at the time and on this occasion  she had a bit of a sore throat and had requested a drink of honey and lemon. So I walked into her room with this honey and lemon and there she was sitting there topless. She obviously thought nothing of it. She just asked me to leave the drink on the table and that was that.”
John was at Shrewsbury’s famous Lion Hotel at this time, and before joining the staff of the Lion, he had worked at the much-missed Raven Hotel in Castle Street. During those years he served as apprentice chef, porter, head porter and hotel manager, and he talks of those times with tremendous affection.
During this period he met and greeted Morcambe and Wise, Cliff Richard, Max Bygraves, Lionel Blair, song and dance man Frankie Vaughan, Adam Faith, Coronation Street’s Elsie Tanner, Diddy David Hamilton, jazz legends Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball, TV celebrity and game show host Hughie Green, singing stars Helen Shapiro, David Whitfield and Petula Clarke, and the great comedian Tony Hancock.
Every one of them experienced the warm welcome, friendliness and professionalism of the ever-enthusiastic John, a man clearly proud of having served the public (as well as the showbusiness elite) over many years.
I first interviewed John back in 2001 and bumped into him again recently. Because he has had such a colourful career and because he has much to say about the Shrewsbury of yesteryear compared to the Shrewsbury of today, we thought it would be good to get together for another chat. 
And when it comes to chat, believe me, there is no stopping this man!
Only one of John’s showbiz-related memories has been forever tarnished by recent revelations and that is his meeting with Jimmy Savile.
“He was doing a Lands End to John O’Groats cycle ride at the time. I had got him to sign in at The Lion. So he comes sweeping in: ‘Ah, good evening young man!’ he says. So I pass him the book to sign in and he writes straight across the page: ‘Jimmy Savile was here!’ Of course, at that time, everyone thought he was a lovely man. And the next morning, everyone was clapping and waving him off. Ah, well.”
John, who lives on Sunnybank Road, Shrewsbury, with his wife Beryl, and who also dotes upon his stepson Mike and stepdaughter Sue, is 73 and soon to retire, having spent the last six and half years working at Sainsbury’s.
He spent four years at The Raven, those last four years before it closed in 1959. “Nowadays there would have been uproar that such a beautiful old building with so much history should be under threat of demolition. Nowadays, you see, it would have been saved and would be the equivalent of The Grosvenor in Chester, a place where people would simply have to go to have their coffee and scones. The head waiters back in the golden age wore white gloves. It was a wonderful place.”
“We just haven’t got that quality any more. We haven’t got the etiquette any more. Every customer at The Raven would have his cases carried for him. I was in stripes and coat-tails. I’m talking about a time when Shrewsbury had the Wildings store across the road in Castle Street, Modelia’s ladies clothes shop, Morris’s restaurant on Pride Hill, and the lovely old Granada which had a superb restaurant upstairs. There was Sidoli’s across the road from The Raven. He was another gentleman with a lot of etiquette. Those days are gone.”
John, like me, also mourns the loss of the Victorian market hall and The George Hotel (although I don’t remember either of these myself and know them only from old photographs). Both, had they survived, would surely have been assets now in a beautiful old town like Shrewsbury.
But why does Shrewsbury no longer attract the big stars (even with its spanking new Theatre Severn?)
John says simply: “It’s a different age now. I’m not sure we have stars of that calibre any more.”

Rowley's House - Muddy Football Boots and Roman Relics

Our football boots, caked in the mud of Frankwell recreation grounds, had been crammed with the rest of our kit into our battered shoulder bags. We had then gone into town and bought a few pocket-money sweets from that palace of chocolate, comics and Coca-Cola - Claremont Street newsagents. 

And there was still a good half an hour to kill before our bus was due to leave Barker Street bus station.

So what did this ramshackle collection of 10-year-old boys do in that half an hour? We went over to the museum at Rowley's House to hang out among the Roman relics, the Dark Ages detritus and the Norman knick-knacks.

I'm not sure how much this rubbing shoulders with history contributed to our education, but we saw the museum as a little sanctuary, especially when it was cold outside or raining.

All these years later, the future use of Rowley's House - surely Shrewsbury's single most iconic building - is in the headlines.

It could, following a £1 million revamp, become the new headquarters of the town council. And this might very well be a good use for it as the town's museum is finally moved across to the Music Hall. But it is funny how things turn out.

By the end of the 1990s it was becoming apparent that the destinies of three of Shrewsbury’s most beautiful and most iconic buildings were now intertwined. Plans were being drawn up for the future use of the Old Market Hall, Rowley’s House, and The Music Hall.

At the time, the first of these, the Old Market Hall in The Square, was redundant, its last use having been as a magistrates court. It was in a poor old state and badly in need of some tender loving care. 

The second, Rowley’s House, was still being used as a museum and art gallery. 

The third, the Music Hall – tired and worn-out but still well-loved – was the town’s ageing theatre.

Curiously, these three very different structures – the first Elizabethan, the second Tudor, the third Victorian – were now pieces in the same game, and each piece in turn would come in to play. You might almost say it was an example of the domino effect. 

Because within a few short years, the Music Hall would first surrender its film theatre element (“The Cinema In The Square”) to its near neighbour, the Old Market Hall (and Shrewsbury’s film buffs would quickly get used to the venue’s cool new moniker, the OMH.), and then the Music Hall would give up its “live theatre” element to the multi-million pound brand new Theatre Severn built just across the river at Frankwell. 

All this shifting of services would naturally prompt the question: So what is to become of the dear old Music Hall. And the answer was: We’ll turn it into the town’s museum. Which, naturally enough, then prompted the question: But what will become of the existing town museum at Rowley’s House? And the answer: Mmmm. Good question. This one would take a little longer to work out.

Fast-forward to November 2012 and we find Shrewsbury Council considering moving from its current home in The Guildhall in Frankwell into Rowley's House, originally the timber-framed warehouse of the 17th century merchant William Rowley (and later the haunt of mud-spattered schoolboys).

An exciting £10.5 million restoration project at the Music Hall, due to be completed next year, should give Shrewsbury the museum it deserves while leaving Rowley's House high and dry. And this prompted Peter Nutting, leader of Shrewsbury Town Council, to say last week that the council had ambitions to move into its own independent building rather than stay at The Guildhall which belongs to Shropshire Council.

“We believe we should be in our own individual building and have a freehold of our own,” said Councillor Nutting. “There are a number of options including Rowley's House.”

Councillor Nutting said an exercise was under way to see if the building would be suitable for the council's needs, but that even if it were found to be suitable, a £1 million revamp would be necessary. It would need a suitable council chamber and a lift to the upper floors.

Mmmm. I feel sure that English Heritage would have something to say about the idea of a lift being put into a 17th century building!

But that debate is yet to be had.

Oh, yeah. And the Guildhall in Frankwell, by the way. Well, there's talk of transforming the unwanted council chamber into a wedding venue.

So, to recap . . .

If all this were to go ahead, that would mean that the old magistrates court is now a cinema, the old theatre is now a museum, the old museum would be a council headquarters, and the council headquarters would be a wedding venue.

I do hope you're taking notes. 

I will be asking questions later.