Hello all
Nice to see a Fettlers/Teesside thread running here for years. My first schoolboy band was the Distillers, based at Stockton Folk Club in the late 60s. The Fettlers were our heroes - they even had AMERICAN instruments! We couldn't make our minds up whether we wanted to be the Fettlers, the Watersons, The Clancys or the Ian Campbell group - so we became a bit of all of those! Other Distillers members were Sandy and Robert Still, and Ian Stansfield. All still in touch with each other.

I just renewed contact with Pete Davies and of course I have the honour of doing sound for Vin Garbutt (and everyone else) at many festivals. Just after that late 60s era, a perceptive Teesside folk club organiser, Betty Verrill, started bringing great Scottish bands to Cleveland as their first forays into England. At Eston folk club I met Ossian and subsequently became their sound engineer, and also Battlefield Band with whom I played worldwide for many years.

Someone mentioned Jean Haste here - a superb singer/guitarist who came along with another band I was in, Cleveland Connection (with Sandy Still and Nick Haigh, now a big name on the Christian music circuit), Dominic Brennan, Eddie Walker, the Chris Rea Band, a choir, a brass band and a theatre group on a cultural exchange to pre-Solidarity Poland in 1978. Brilliant times indeed!

This summer I played my first solo gig at Stockton Folk Club for about 30 years, a great nostalgia trip with several audience members present from that era. Dave Hutchinson of the current Fettlers lineup came along, but sadly no Ron there. Can't overemphasise how important the Fettlers and all those Teesside folkies were to me in the early days.
Thanks to all contributors to this thread - hello Bettsy! for awakening many pleasant memories. Bye for now, Ali