The Pheasant Duo played for the dances in the ballroom that landlord Southwell Elms had built at the back of the Pheasant. The photo is of Laurie Prior on his Hammond Organ and Colin on the drums.

The following text is an extract from an article written by Laurie Prior about his memories of working at the Pheasant (written June 2017 and posted in the public domain on a website called “The Lost Pubs Project”).

I worked at The Pheasant in 1972 and 1973 playing the Hammond Organ for dances in the annexe dance hall attached at the side and rear of the hotel. My sister worked behind the bar for a short time. I have some strange memories of the place, such as the chickens that were kept there and odd facts that never left me such as the telephone number – Hanley Swan 500.

The Landlord at the time was Southwell Elms, who seemed very comfortably off. He used to go gliding at Aston Down Airfield quite regularly. The dances were held every weekend for couples to come and do ballroom dancing and among them were a few championship medal winners who would come to rehearse their competition dance steps.

I played alongside Colin the drummer who was dreadfully loud and always did his best to upstage me and drown out my organ playing. I’m looking rather glum in the photo as the noise was starting to damage my hearing. Later on we added a pianist called John – I never knew their surnames. I was paid £20 per weekend for the two nights. Starting at 8.30pm, we played until midnight on Saturdays and 10 o’clock on Sundays.

I stuck it out for a while but, after I married, the hours working Saturday and Sunday nights every weekend were too anti-social and there was no way I could take a holiday unless I could find my own stand-in who could play the sort of music required, such as Foxtrots, Quicksteps, Sambas, Cha-chas and Waltzes – then for the old-time sessions, dances like the Valeta and Military Two Step. Rhoda Elms (Southwell’s wife) and her assistant did all the cooking to provide the dancers with meals at their tables in the interval, either chicken and chips or scampi and chips – served in a basket as this was the new style in that decade in so many pubs. The beer was good – and well kept at the bar, aided by a good cellar temperature.

I had more or less decided to leave because of the hours … when something happened one night that upset Southwell. It was over a request tune that one of his friends wanted playing for an anniversary. Colin said we would play it, if we had time at the end of the evening. Pressures from other requests ran us out of time and we forgot to play the tune. Apparently, Southwell’s friend was very annoyed, so Southwell called Colin and me aside to tell us off. He was rather rude, so I resigned on the spot and said, “I’ll be back next week to remove my Hammond organ and speaker cabinet.” I did exactly that – and I never went there again.