Month: January 2026

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Tony on Tink

HI Kevan, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tony Wood, I am the younger brother of Tink, Martin Wood. I read your article on the Prices Grammar “Folk” concerts which is a lovely piece. I found it when I was searching for information on Dave Cummins.

I wanted to take you up on your invitation at the end of your article to add any additional material people may have. I have some recollections about his musical career and various people and events that you may be interested in. Here goes…

Tink and I were only 18 months apart in age, so it was natural that I would sometimes tag along with him, which I did as much as possible.

We come from a musical and artistic family. It seems everyone either plays an instrument or puts paint on canvas, some do both. He had been exposed to Elvis, Cliff Richard and the Shadows etc., through our uncle’s records, which we used to play on his record player when we visited our grandmother. Rod is only 5 years older than us, so he was and is more like a brother than an uncle.

I remember Martin wrote away for and received a membership to the Everly Brothers fan club, he received autographed photos of Phil and Don. Also, Connie Francis.

For Martin it all started in earnest when he was 11 years old in 1962. He was asked by our parents what he wanted for his birthday and he said he wanted a guitar and chord book. I remember the outing to North End Road in Portsmouth to a second-hand shop where he picked out a nylon stringed Spanish style guitar. The brand escapes me, but our father paid 4 pounds for it. He also acquired a chord book written by Bert Weedon. He would lock himself away in our bedroom every night after school and religiously practice & memorise the chords. He started to learn how to play and sing practising the song “Sunny” by Bobby Hebb.

Later, but not much later, he started to form bands with lads in the village (Swanmore). They performed mainly covers like “Here comes the Night”, “Louie Louie”, “Tobacco Road” and of course the ubiquitous “House of the Rising Sun”.

As you wrote, Tink had formed a band with Martin Gateshill, they practised at Martin’s place at Waltham Chase. That was 1965/6 from memory. Tink asked me if I wanted to come one day as they needed someone with a high voice specifically for “Money Can’t Buy Me love”, The Beatles. As my voice hadn’t broken at that stage I could get to the higher register. I spent an afternoon singing with them, Martin Gateshill was indeed on the drums, I can’t remember any of the other band members. My microphone, was a tape recorder microphone suspending from a budgie cage frame? The amplifiers I think were fashioned from sundry electronic gear. No matter, it produced the required volume. They didn’t ask me back again so my singing must have been pretty terrible.

In 1968 we emigrated to New Zealand. Tink formed one band and played at dances in the town. I think this was when he developed his love of the bass guitar as he assumed bass duties in this and his subsequent band the “Unknown Blues”. They were a very professional outfit playing gigs all over the South Island, they also gained a recording contract and put out several EP’s. NZ in those days was a land of covers, there was not much original music being written or performed. Tink knew some of the people connected to what later became Split Enz and then Crowded House, I believe. To the end of his days he revered Neil Finn as his favourite singer/songwriter.

At the end of 1969 he, and we departed NZ for home.

Some additional memories I have of the time your writing covers. I remember the hall at Funtley. I also remember a concert/review that Red Shift put on at a hall in Fareham, which was quite well attended and the top billing was Aubrey Small, who performed Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, they played an acoustic set no bass or drums just four guitars, it was mightily impressive. I also remember another concert they put on at Fareham Technical college, which was music and sketches. Martin Head recited a piece of Middle Ages poetry with middle or old English pronunciation.

I was not what one might call a central or core, member of the group, but my brother allowed me to tag along. I knew Chris Bard and Dave Cummins, Jane Suter, Ron Suter, John and Shona Cameron of course, Nick Manley, Bob Askew, Pete Russell, Kate Burleigh, Jamie Burleigh, Andy Vores and Nick Kahn. We used to drink at the Golden Lion, a couple of times a week. Friday’s the group would meet after work at The Bugle in West Street. I loved those Friday nights. People would drift in over several hours and we’d be there till chucking out time. Saturday was then band rehearsal. And I loved all of it.

It is so lovely to see all of the people still playing, writing and performing, it warms my heart.

In later years, Tink had a tough time. He lived in Salisbury from 2000 until his death in 2013. He had a group of good friends in Salisbury and he and his partner staged an annual barbecue in their back yard, which was apparently a sought-after event, and would often take his Gibson acoustic and perform folk songs in his local pub including a rousing rendition of ‘Whisky in the Jar’ replete with Irish accent.

Martin & Jane’s daughter now lives in New Zealand and she has, in her lounge, two guitar stands on which are proudly displayed a 1960s Fender Stratocaster and a Fender Jazz Bass.

She will not allow anyone to touch them.

I hope this finds you well, and thank you for your writing on this-it is really important.

Sincerely,

Tony Wood

Sydney,

19/1/2026

 

 

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Dave’s guitar

Most of us remember Dave’s guitar. Some of us still speak of it with awe when two or more are gathered together. It was the finest guitar we had ever seen. A Swedish Hagstrom six string dreadnaught acoustic with a built-in pickup (unheard of in those days). It was coloured in the famous Sunburst style. Its neck and fretboard were narrow. Very narrow. I watched him play – wonderfully – and knew that my fingers would never even fit upon it. Bob Askew, however, did have a go on it :

“I knew his beautiful Hagstrom well, although I only ever played a few chords to try it. He did not trust me to play it, which is understandable, considering that my guitar only gave a sound if I hit it hard!”

Paul Cooper was a friend of Dave’s in the 70s, and a great supporter of and assistant to the Band Red Shift, featuring Dave, Tink and Nick Manley, among others. Paul is to be praised by posterity [that’s us now folks] for posting his recordings of the band on Sound Cloud (https://soundcloud.com/theoriginalredshift). Concerning Dave’s guitar, Paul says,

“Just to clarify, the reference to the “Hagstrom” is wrong. It was in fact an early “Burns”. I played it a lot in the late 70’s. One reason it got in such a bad state was the abuse it received from Dave’s temper tantrums. I even rescued it from a vegetable patch in a back garden once after he threw it in there. After a gig at Winchester Art college he tripped over an amplifier and broke the neck. The neck was replaced by an old Fender Stratocaster neck (sacrilege, but he was in a hurry with other gigs booked), I know because I supplied the neck.”

However, Nick Manley has this to say : “Dave had the Hagstrom acoustic when I first got to know him at school [ i.e. in the 60s] . . . As Paul correctly says the Burns was the guitar that had the neck broken and came after [my emphasis] the Hagstrom.”

That’s the answer to that then.

Spike Edney (of Queen), in a piece written for the Old Pricean’s web site Lion Pride pages (https://www.societyofoldpriceans.co.uk/Lion%20Pride.html), but not yet published I’m afraid, remembers Dave’s guitar well, except not that it was a Hagstrom :

“Around late ’67 early ’68 I discovered Dave Cummings. He was a ‘folkie’ at heart – Simon and Garfunkel etc but he possessed an original Gibson J-160E. This was the acoustic guitar that both John Lennon and George Harrison played – be still my beating heart! I was gobsmacked by the coolness of such a possession and I couldn’t even imagine buying one of those, what could the price tag have been? I had no idea, I just assumed that he had the greatest parents on earth-next to mine of course.”

Nick Manley suggests an explanation for Spike’s misidentification :

“[T]he Hagstrom . . . was a copy of the Gibson played by John Lennon – hence the confusion – probably. This was the guitar that was given to Steve Denholm, who restored it, and that I played when we recorded The Beast at Surrey Sound Studios.”

Meanwhile, this was not the first time the Hagstrom had been repaired. Martin Gateshill, who played with Dave in a duo call Tog and then a trio called Ash with Dave and Tink in the mid 60s tells the following tale :

“At that Time Dave and I were a Duo called Tog. I had an old Hoyer 12 string and Dave had a Hagstrom which I rescued. Neither of us knew anything about guitars at that time other than some were harder to play than others. How did I rescue it ? One weekend we were at Wickham at the home of a friend of a friend by the name of Frank Rumble. Frank produced the Hagstrom which had a huge body and really nice slim neck. Sadly the neck was completely snapped off just below the nut. I said I thought I could repair that and Frank said we could have it. I took it away to see what could be done. It was a perfect break, no material missing at all and would glue back almost invisibly. I did that, clamped it up using my dads tools and materials, left it for 24 hours, did a little cosmetic work and found it to be good as new. I handed it to Dave and the rest as they say, is history ;).”

So what eventually happened to Dave’s guitar ? Dave of course is sadly no longer with us to ask, but Nick Manley knows :

“As for the Hagstrom saga. There used to be a printing company called Polygraphic based in Titchfield Dave and John Cameron worked there as did Steve [Denholm]. All music crazy. Steve . . . was and is a pretty good guitar picker. This was around 1975. The hagstrom was a bit worn out by then and Steve either bought or was gifted the guitar by Dave as a restoration project. He stripped the varnish from her so she became a blond and refretted her . . . Steve later gave her to a cousin as an instrument to learn on.”

So, is it still with Steve’s cousin ? Is it still in one piece ? Has it been restored/repaired yet again ?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any way of contacting Steve, so we may never know . . .

And furthermore. who was Frank Rumble ? Where did he get the guitar from ?

To convey how rare such a guitar as Dave’s was in the old days, Martin writes :

“The very 1st electric band to come out of Prices was in 65 or 6. It featured me on Drums and I regret I can’t recall the names of the others. It was the creation of the incredible English teacher of the time Mr Johnson. I think that was how I crossed paths with Dave and Tink a little later. The three of us formed a Trio called The Ash in 65/6 doing mainly The Who covers. I have a very scratchy recording of a couple of songs. Tink was lead guitar and vocals, he played a dreadful old Egmond guitar which cut his fingers to shreds the action was so high. Dave had a ‘catalogue’ Bass guitar and learned to play it as we went along. My drum kit was cobbled together from ancient drums. There was no money, my snare rested on a stool for want of a stand, amplification was provided by a couple of old radios I’d ‘found’ in Dad’s garage and jury rigged an input to. Dave didn’t have a 6 string at that time, he and I more or less learned together . . .”

Martin also writes :

“Dave was easily the best and most creative musician of our cohort, a great friend and fellow traveller.”

Nick Manley says :

Dave gifted the guitar to one Steve Denholm in the late 1970’s, in the Red Shift days. He, Steve and John Cameron worked at Polygraphic, a printing firm in Titchfield. The guitar was again in a bad way and Steve renovated it once more, stripping the varnish off and rendering to a blond finish, and resetting the neck. Once again a lovely instrument. Steve let me borrow it for a recording session when we were in Surrey Sound studios. After that we drifted apart but I ran into him again a few years back at Titchfield folk club. He was playing a Martin and is now a very good bluesy/jazzy player and I had to ask if he still had the guitar.  Sadly no. He had given it to a friend who was learning to play, but he has lost contact with him. He said he would try and I am still waiting………..