Pazuzu

Following my meeting with Derek on the Talbot Hotel carpark in 1974, it took several months of dropping into the shop at 171 Stourbridge Road and the increasingly regular visits to his home where Anne and his two lads would make me feel like one of the family, before I noticed that both Derek and Anne were more than a little superstitious! After I’d been working for 12 months at Derann I realised that Derek hated Friday the 13th. Opening Umbrellas Inside, Black Cats, Walking Under Ladders, Breaking Mirrors, Tossing Spilled Salt Over Shoulder, Knocking On Wood were ones I recall, but I’m sure there were others and I can still hear him saying ‘brown and green should never be seen together, except on a fool’ But it was the number 13 that always seemed to get the better of him. Now let’s skip a few years and recall the regular film shows at the working-mens clubs that were proving extremely popular, with the right film filling even a large venue. The more crowded the hall, the happier the manager(s) of the club and word of the cash in the coffers of some of those clubs must have spread as we would often find ourselves inundated with requests for film shows. Horror and Kung Fu were always a sure bet, but ‘The Sound Of Music’ made several return visits and let’s not forget Earthquake’ a film where Derek and Johnny had worked on a sound system where we could attempt to re-produce those rumbling sub notes for the films quake sequences. One film that had them queuing at the doors was ‘The Exorcist’ a film from 1973 that had had a profound impact on many of those who saw it at the cinema. It had stirred up many groups and it was during my time while in a queue to see the film in Birmingham that I had been  approached by ‘Christians’ and given a warning and leaflet! Yes, it certainly got cinemas filled and it did the same at the working men’s clubs! Derek invariably would run the club films at home for Anne and the two yougsters, it had almost become a ritual and one that I was often invited to join in. However ‘The Exorcist’ was not only excluded from this screening habit, the 16mm print itself wasn’t even allowed into the house, but kept in its transit case in the garage, he really thought the film was evil!  It was a film that may have been a great audience puller but Derek was very troubled by its content and it was one we never hired for club screenings a second time.