Graham Bradshaw in the post above said "I first remember hearing about them in about 1968/9 when we were doing a gig in London with the late great Alex Campbell, and he was raving about them, having just been up to COventry."

I think I arranged that particular meeting - at the beginning of May 1969, Toni Savage (one of the nicest and most helpful folk music impresario/agents you could want to meet)was trying to arrange some bookings in the Coventry and Leicester areas for Alex - we agreed to book him for the Monday night - which I think may have been a Bank Holiday or at least a day that most people took as a holiday even if it wasn't official. I took the whole week off and followed Alex to all the other gigs which included the Town Arms in Leicester and the Mercers Arms in Coventry as well as Warwick and possibly Monks Kirby - all great fun - what a great man he was both on and off stage - but that's a completely different story.

To make something special out of the Monday night at Ye Olde Red Lion, I managed to get an extension to 11.30 (which was late in those days) and permission for the show to go on until midnight. In addition to Alex I also billed The New Modern Idiot Grunt Band, Ernie Hudson and Geoff Smedley. The Coventry Evening Telegraph and Rugby Advertiser did us proud with brilliant pre-show write-ups and john Phillpot used the headline 'A Folk Bonanza' - in truth it was more of a Comedy Bonanza.

My contemporary diary indicates that I paid out £35 to the performers and probably bought them drinks on top of that - admission was 7/6 (£0.375 in today's money) and the room was packed. Nevertheless, for an all acoustic show with no microphones or amps, it was brilliant and the audience were incredibly quiet exept when laughing or applauding. Alex C\mpbell had never seen Rob and Rod perform before and during the 'interval' he told me that he thought their act was 'amazing' - praise indeed from the great man.

During Alex's second half he made several references to the duo and the art of 'Grunting' he also mentioned them from the stage at the Town Arms when he told the audience that they should make a point of getting over to the Coventry area to see them. Toni Savage was with also us in Rugby on the Monday night and brought along a number of his new protegies as floor singers with the intention of show-casing them to the other club organisors that would have been with us. I think in this instance it worked the other way round because, thereafter, Toni became a great fan and promoter of Rob and Rod . . .