On my recent trip to England I decided to travel down to Bournemouth, where I was born, and try to get in to the Bournemouth Pavilion’s Ballroom for a look around! Not something you can readily do without a ticket to a show. But, I managed it and I have a story to tell… of course I do! LOL! This post is to primarily celebrate my Mum and Dad’s birthday, which is tomorrow, June 27th – yes, both of them but 5 years apart. I also want to share a little known fact about the Pavilion… but for now I’ll just pose this question “What do my Mum and Dad have in common with David Bowie? Other than me!!”.
So, what does the Bournemouth Pavilion have to do with my Mum and Dad?
The Bournemouth Pavilion is where my Dad first met my Mum back in the ’50s! That’s all I know, but as I tell my story you’ll see I had a couple of reasons that drew me to want to visit this iconic building in the town where I was born. The Pavilion is Bournemouth’s only Grade II listed Art Deco theatre and ballroom and is the cornerstone of it’s cultural heritage and has been home to year-round events for almost 100 years.
Opened in 1929 this red brick venue, the first theatrical venue of its kind in the U.K., has hosted some of the top shows, ballets and concerts. Situated practically on Bournemouth’s award winning 7 mile stretch of golden sandy beaches, where it is credited for starting the classic British beach hut traditions in the early 1900s. You can literally zip over from Bournemouth Pier, which features retro amusement arcades and the world’s first pier to shore zip line. But, if that’s too fast for you, you can also walk through the three kilometres of beautifully manicured Victorian heritage public gardens on your way to the show, or dance.
In the 1950s, the Bournemouth Pavilion Ballroom was the social hotspot where returning soldiers and young people gathered for afternoon tea dances and evening balls. The Art Deco ballroom boasted one of the largest dance floors in the South of England. For 2 shillings and sixpence, dancers could attend evening balls featuring renowned bands of the decade that kept everyone dancing, including the Stanley Osbourne Pavilion Dance Orchestra and the Ted Heath Orchestra. Known as Britain’s premier post-war jazz and swing band, Ted Heath and his musicians were a massive draw, regularly packing the venue’s ballroom. And that dance floor? I walked on it and I… well, I’m getting ahead of myself.
A man by any other name…
Bottom: a Pavilion marquee from 1967 with a wee bit of editing.
If I were name dropping I could offer up a list of some of the famous, or not famous yet, that performed at the Bournemouth Pavilion over the years, but that would be a long list. One name caught my attention, a young man, early in his career who appeared on the Pavilion stage in a touring production of the musical South Pacific in 1955. In his autobiography he mentioned that this tour was a turning point that led him to decide to pursue a career in acting! No, this isn’t the bit about David Bowie, it was a young Sean Connery, or James Bond as he soon became known, in his debut performance as “Lt. Buz Adams”. Who knew!
Speaking of someone that’s known by a name other than his own… as you may or may not know, David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, a district in south London, England. In the early 60s he was touring as Davie Jones and the Lower Third and played every Friday and Sunday at the Pavilion Ballroom in the summer of 1965. That summer David spoke with the Bournemouth Times newspaper about his plans to change his name to improve his chances of making it big, his favourite option was Bowie! While in Bournemouth the band were billed, locally at least, as David Bowie and the Lower Third – a couple of months before the official name change. The announcement to the world press was made September 16, 1965. As the article I came across years ago, with this little known fact, put it… “the name was probably conceived in the teenage Davie Jones’s Brixton home between gigs with his band the Lower Third, but Bournemouth acted as its delivery room.” So yeah, my Mum and Dad met where David Bowie was born six years after I was born… in Bournemouth! Go figure!
How Davie Jones became David Bowie between Bournemouth gigs.
Where was I…
Oh yes, here I was in Bournemouth once again, and I’m not sure when I will get back here again, so I decided I was going to do my best to get inside and see where my Mum and Dad first met, and where David Jones first played as “David Bowie”. The Pavilion was closed but I went up to the front entrance and tried the door, no luck. Some staff inside saw me, so I waved to get their attention. After explaining to the woman I spoke with that my Mum and Dad met there in the 50s and that I was visiting from Canada, I asked if it would be possible to take a quick look inside, she said she’d be pleased to escort me around. I told her that my parents had met at a dance for service men and women in the ballroom in the mid 50s, so she took me in to the ballroom first and explained that it pretty much still looks the same as it would have then. As you’ll see from my photos, the ballroom was set up for a show. I asked if she’d heard the story about David Bowie’s first ever show playing under the name David Bowie, to which she said she’d heard that a number of times from different visitors. I walked in to the seating area in front of the stage to see what I imagined the Bowie show might have looked like at the time, but the minute I set foot on that dance floor, I felt the bounce in what was known as one of the largest dance floors in the South of England in the 50s. The Grand Ballroom has a perfectly sprung dance floor for the dancers that were being serenaded by large big bands and resident dance orchestras that played everything from smooth waltzes to the lively post-war dance crazes. I paused in that moment, and I felt my Mum and Dad slide past me on the floor and I heard, not David Bowie but Glenn Miller… I remarked about the bounce in the floor and told my escort that I could feel them with me, she smiled and seemed pleased to have let me have that moment. I’ve included a slide show below that has photos of the ballroom, and the foyer, and photos I took around the outside after I left. I was hampered by a double decker bus parked outside blocking me from getting a good view of the whole Pavilion. The driver showed up and got on the bus, I assumed he was about to leave, but he wasn’t, he just went on board to grab his lunch and sat nearby to enjoy it. I figured, I just found my way inside the Pavilion, nothing is going to stop me from getting a good photo of the building itself. I asked the driver if he would mind if I got on the bus and went upstairs to take some photos of the Pavilion. He looked me over, and before he answered I told him I was visiting from Canada and that I was born here in Bournemouth and the Pavilion was where my parents first met. He smiled, and just said “Sure, you should get a pretty good shot from up there!”. I did, it was like having my very own expensive photographers hut! I’ve included photos from the Gardens and the Pier as well. I’ll be posting more photos from my trip to Bournemouth, Weston-super-Mare and London in the coming days and will add links here.
I hope you enjoyed my little story and these photos… and be sure to think of my Mum and Dad, and wish them a Happy Birthday, tomorrow!
Here’s a slideshow of photos of the Bournemouth Pavilion
Click here to view the entire gallery or enjoy a fullscreen slideshow experience.
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