The Water Melon Men – Notts Music Archive

Mansfield group 1966-68
(Including The Defiants)

Line up #1:
Terry Vickestaff: Guitar
Mark Reace: Vocals
Dave Mossop: Bass
Ian (Doddy) Robinson: Drums
Rob ???: Keys

Line up #2:
Terry Vickestaff: Guitar
Mark Reace: Vocals
John (Bass) Daykin: Bass
Ian (Doddy) Robinson: Drums
Rob ???: Keys

**The Watermelon Men playing somewhere on the Lincolnshire coast maybe Chapel Saint Leonards, Ingoldmells or Skegness: L-R Terry Vickestaff, Ian (Doddy) Robinson, Mark Reace, Dave Mossop**

**The Water Melon Men at the Bowling Green Hotel, Lincoln. L-R Terry Vickestaff, Mark Reace, Unknown girl, **Rob**, Unknown girl, **John (bass) Daykin,** Ian (Doddy) Robinson,**

Terry remembers:
“I started playing guitar aged 14 and me and a few school friends formed the “Defiants” playing Shadows, Ventures instrumentals and rock and roll and pop covers and a few simple originals. Then we formed the “Water Melon Men”. My early influences were Hank Marvin, Lonnie Donegan, Searchers and Chuck Berry“.

The Defiants Line up:
Bob Walton: Vocals
Terry Vickerstaff: Guitar
Steve Hawkes: Bass
Ian Robinson: Drums
Brian Hopley: Rhythm Guitar

The Defiants c1963. Back row left to right. Terry Vickerstaff guitar. Ian Robinson drums. Steve Hawkes bass.
Front row left to right. Brian Hopley rhythm guitar. Bob Walton Vocals.

Terry “Yes l had a contract with Mike Shelton. But didn’t write any proper songs. Just chords. Didn’t write any proper songs until Emery Chase onwards. Cisco / Pancho / Old School did a few of mine. But didn’t make a CD of originals until 2006“

Terry remembers:
‘My dad & lans dad drove the van coz we were too young. l remember playing Blackpool Tower and on the way back on M6 the r/h front tyre blew so both dads grabbed the wheel and pulled over to the hard shoulder. I was asleep on top of the equipment and slid off and we ended up in a heap on the floor. We changed the wheel which had white chords showing through (illegal now) just as a policeman pulled up and said that tyre needs some air and looks a bit dodgy so follow me. We thought we were in trouble but he took us to an all night garage and said get some air in that tyre and bugger off home. We got home at 5.30 and l got up for work at 7.30 so was like a zombie all day. Happy daze!‘

The Watermelon Men

The Water Melon Men played regularly on the club circuit of Notts, Derbyshire, Lincs and Yorkshire and the furthest away was Blackool Tower. Although a continental tour September 1967 was mentioned in a newspaper ad this never happened, probably a mistake from either a journalist or someone at the venue. In May of 1967 they won the Lincs “County Beat Championship” at the Arcadia in Skegness. The compere was Ken Turner and other groups on the bill were The Movement, The Small Hours, The Aztecs, A Patch Blue and The Breed with lead singer Terry Bennett also providing some comic entertainment in between acts appearing first on a very small three wheel tricycle then as a glamorous blonde and finally as a bedraggled member of a brass band. Terry Bennett would, later in the mid seventies, achieve national success fronting Welsh rock group Sassafras.

Some of the other groups The Water Melon Men shared the circuit with in those days were Our Young (Nottm), The Movement, The John Smith Affair (Nottm), Abraham’s Children, Rock-A-Ola, The Intruders and supporting some better known names like Brian Poole and the Tremeloes and Pinkertons Colours.

At the end of the summer of 1968 The Water Melon Men came to an end and Terry Vickerstaff formed Emery Chase.

NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS

1967

1968