RIP Cecil

Good idea Sean.

I am getting the impression from posts that when the Mt. Prospect Grove burned down its membership expanded to cover a wider area of the northside. When I first started going in ’68 almost everyone lived in Clontarf with a scattering from the St. Annes area. Pat might agree that he was an exception riding his “Harley” all the way from Celtic Park and Derek with our small group coming from outside the general area. Cecil’s talent for dishing out the music and the walls shaking (as Derek described during a Brown Sugar moment on the Grove Radio Show) it was, to my experience, the only place in Dublin where everyone you met was friendly and willing to dance when asked up (some major horror stories from the ladies I’m sure HAH). …one told on the documentary: describing “sweaty, smelly bodies rubbing up and down against you” (not the exact wording) In pre-Grove days we went into town on Sunday afternoons and weeknights, where you could regularly depend on some kind of gang fight erupting outside. Rough 60’s stuff with belt buckles, broken bottles, and knives. Girls were generally on guard and distant unless you fell into the in-crowd category and were super cool looking. During my two plus years at The Grove, I never witnessed a fight, inside or out.

 

As one of the painfully shy, below average looking men who could hardly talk to a girl that atmosphere was not the best. Then along came the Grove with Cecil, who invented a great system (intentional or not, who knows?) for mixing the crowd: Three songs in each set: fast set followed by a slow set. The genius in it was that Cecil made every second Ssssslowww set a “ladies’ choice” so the girls, if they liked you, could return the compliment (or so I was told…wink!) by asking you back up to dance. Sounds simple, but the Clontarf girls were far from shy and, living locally, that was an easy opportunity for us sex maniacs to ask a girl if you could walk her home. No rushing to catch the last bus.

 

That all might have changed a bit after the St. Pauls’ move with a wilder crowd and larger venue but from what I read the atmosphere remained the same. The different fashions, mosh pits, head banging and air-guitars sound like a wilder than wild experience from our Mount Prospect days. Cecil said he loved the kids and the changes over the years. Other than the reunions we all had the luxury of moving on after we grew out of it, but Cecil was the only one who lived through the whole experience and stayed FOREVER YOUNG.

 

Good On Ye Cecil! 

Brian,like you,I never really spoke to Cecil at the Grove,and the one time I brought a single with me,and asked him to play it,he told me to f**k off,so I stayed away from him after that.It was only at the reunions / meet ups,that I got to know him properly,and when he and Derek Farrell were guests on the Grove radio show,Brian and I had the honour of interviewing him.That show was a complete buzz for me,and I was in awe.

I had two requests for Cecil in the years I was in Mount Prospect.

Brilliant stories above lads. As you all know I was a Mt.Prospect grover (71 - 75). When Belgrove burnt down I tried Paul's a few (3? 4?) times but really didn't like it. A bigger, rougher, much less friendly crowd I thought - now maybe that's the downside of a bigger crowd. There was only a few of us that went regularly and we didn't seem to fit into the new environment. Also, being about to turn 21 in 1976 I felt it was really time to move on from the Grove given.my advanced age (I know Mel wouldn't agree !!!). Of course there was nowhere to really move on to, nowhere remotely like the Grove, so it was really the pub with the odd excursion into "discos" in town, all of which were sh*tholes to my mind.

😂😂 Poguey! Vinyl porn!!! I'll write up my boot girl story at some stage ...also the scarier story of the big skinhead with the bayonet (encountered outside the Grove of course! On the way home...yikes!!!) Although I think I probably told that one before ...

Thanks to Ciaran Parnell (Roundy) I got to meet Cecil at Austin's news stand in the early(ish) 2000s and the man recognised me straight away and suggested I check out the reunions.  I stayed in the Grove probably longer than the "recommended" age, going from maybe 1978 - 1979 to maybe around 1986 (I was 24 in 1986) - not really feeling like anyone was a kindred spirit at my age of 24, I used to head down on the last bus from town, to just sit with Cecil and rummage through his singles boxes and discuss music with him.  Probably enjoyed those chats more than my times on the dance floor if I am honest.  Pre pandemic, I initially (by chance) then by choice used to meet him on the lunchtime dart to Malahide every Tuesday.  I was heading to my folks for dinner in Artane and he was heading on to Malahide.  Got to know him so well and then of course he would always join us at drinkies etc.,  (still reckon we (the Five Lamps) were robbed by the Grove Radio show team as they had Cecil with them in that pub quiz in the Cedars in Raheny. ;-)  Then mid-pandemic, someone Whatsapped me on holidays to tell me Cecil had stage 4 cancer and I was (like everyone else obviously) absolutely devastated by the news.  We did give him a lovely send off in Dardistown.  Never thought I/we would experience a reunion ever again so fair play to Andy and Rob for sorting this.  A tiny bit anxious about next Saturday, without Cecil but with a lot of the regulars around, it should be a good night.

Edited by Vinyl Junkie - 25-November-2023 at 13:20

Thank you Pat.  You're not too shabby yourself.  In the documentary and all.