CHAMP ELECTRONICS -" THE VINTAGE VALVE
AMP HOSPITAL"
NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND
PETER COOPER'S STORY -
WORKING AT THE VAMPOWER FACTORY IN 1971
A fascinating in-sight
into the
workings of a British amplifier company in the early 1970's, including
the production of amps for Mark Bolan.
Photo courtesy of John Justin, Australia.
Introduction:
What follows is a story of my time at the company that made Vampower
amplifiers during the early seventies. At the time I joined
them
I think their full title was Vampower International but have no way of
proving that now. I don’t have brilliant memory but
having
kept a diary for many years, the entries made back then are enough to
remind me of what happened.
My interest in Vampower amps was rekindled in 2004 when a random search
on the Internet revealed that there was still some interest in a
product I was involved in 33 years before. One entry in
particular caught my attention because it referred to the problem
I’d worked on whilst at the factory. I sent a
message to
Texas Joe Valles to tell him what I knew. Texas Joe has two
Vampower amps where one of them could well have come from the factory
during the period I worked there.
We found similarities in our interests and struck up a friendship
resulting in me visiting Texas in 2005. It turned out that
not
only did one of his amps come from the factory whilst I was there but I
had actually built it! The serial number entry was DM 103 P
PMC
(S). I can’t remember what all of it represented
but the
‘PMC’ refers to me because those are my
initials.
Also, because we used a hand etcher to engrave the entries on the steel
chassis, it was in my handwriting. That was a special moment!
When we opened up the amp, flipped it over to find the serial number,
and I saw something last seen by me 34 years before!
More recently a documentary on Marc Bolan, where you could clearly see
Vampower amps behind him, spurred me into sorting out the full story of
my time at the company. As I went through my days with
Vampower,
it amazed me that such a shambles could produce amplifiers that are
held in such high esteem by some people. To give an idea of
what
it was like, I’ve included some details about everyday life
in
the workshop.
The Story:
One day in March 1971, whilst reading through the Melody Maker looking
for work, I came across an article about a company making amplifiers
for groups. What caught my attention was that the company was
based in Bromley, Kent, England which is my home town. The
article said this company had just been to an international exhibition
and hoped to be expanding their business following a successful showing
of their products. I thought about it for a while and decided
they’d need help with all this extra trade, and who else
could
they want other than me? I was a Post Office
telecommunications
trained wireman and we came highly recommended.
The name of the company was Vampower, a name I knew because the lead
guitarist of a folk/rock band I’d drummed in for a brief
period
used one. I found a number for Vampower and gave them a phone
call on Friday 26 March to put my ideas to them. My call
resulted
in an invitation to see them at their factory.
When I got there, Brian Gunn, the young manager listened whilst I
explained they needed my talents for their expansion
programme.
In reply he explained that it was the product they planned to increase,
not the workforce. Oops! Having put me in my place
he went
on to say that by some coincidence they did happen to have a vacancy in
the factory and would I like to try out for the job. This
sounded
my kind of work. Just like joining a band, you had to pass an audition
to get in. I could relate to that. There were three
other
people in the workshop and they looked okay, and the work should be
within my capabilities, so I accepted his offer and agreed to be there
the next Tuesday.
By the time Tuesday 30 March arrived I was very nervous about the
audition. The factory, if it could be called that, was only a
few
rooms on the upper level of an old building. Being located
between two parallel roads of Victorian houses (properties built
between 1837 and 1901 in the Victorian era) it’s quite
possible
the building was originally used as stables.
Brian welcomed me and then introduced Harry, the foreman of the
workforce, who took me to my audition piece. I was placed in
the
main workroom which was not very big and had work benches down each
side with room for half a dozen people to work. The audition
piece was the front panel for a PA amp and required that I wire up a
series of knobs for the control of volume, treble and bass.
The
ordinary guitar amps had an additional control called "bite" which a
nice reference to the Vampower name but this was not used on PA amps.
Where I had been expecting to follow a circuit diagram like the many
I’d dealt with in the Post Office, things appeared to be
different in private industry. I was simply given an already
completed item and told to copy it as best I could. My Post
Office instructor would have been proud of the job I did. It
took
me two hours, and when I finished I had to show it to Dave Roffey, the
designer of the amps, and general electrical genius.
Dave looked at it and said it was okay. Okay! It
was a work
of art! He then pointed out the way I’d soldered
wires to
the components was fine for permanent work but these amps may have to
be serviced or repaired making my method impractical. Whereas
I
had carefully inserted the wires through the small holes provided on
the components Dave wanted wires simply soldered on the side of tags
making detachment easy. He also mentioned that the normal
expected time for this job was about half an hour and not the two hours
I’d taken. Despite the faults I must have made a
favourable
impression because I was told I could start work with them on Monday 5
April 1971. This was to be on a casual basis with an initial
wage
of £17.50.
Starting time was at 9am, but I was there at 8:45am on 5 April to be
certain of arriving on time for my first day. Brian was only
just
arriving when I pulled up, so early starting obviously wasn't part of
Vampower's ethics. The other workers were all in by
nine.
In addition to Harry, there was Bob (son of Harry), John, and Graham
who, like me, were the workers. Dave, being the brains of the
operation, came in later.
Not having had a job for a while, I found it very confusing trying to
get back into a work routine and learn a new job. To help me,
I
was first put on the only thing I’d ever encountered in this
place, PA front panels. I managed to complete four during the
day
and still have time for more things. After the front panels,
I
had to start assembling components onto the amp chassis’s
ready
to be connected up later. During this phase I found how easy
it
was to over tighten nuts on threads and junked a couple of components
– it was a steep learning curve. One thing with
being kept
busy was that the day passed very quickly. Days had tended to
drag during my previous period of unemployment.
My learning continued the next day with the odd blunder to keep me
alert. It seemed that wiring in the commercial world was not
up
to the high standards I had been used to in the Post Office.
I’d been strictly taught how to run wires between components
in
right angles to allow for re-attachment if there was a
problem.
At Vampower everyone simply curved connecting wires leaving virtually
no slack for any contingencies.
However it was the skills attained in my five years with the Post
Office that helped me do my new job. On Tuesday, I continued
chassis work and completed six. It was then back to PA front
panels. They seemed to be all the rage, although a component shortage
wasn’t helping. Rather than soldering-up
components, I was
simply attaching control knobs to the panels, which was a
time-consuming part of the work, and was also making my fingers tips
sore!
On Wednesday 7 April it was back to the PA front panels.
Apart
from lack of components causing a problem, there was also the fact that
holes for the monitor light had been punched out to a smaller diameter
than required for the current light. Drilling them out was
not
the easy job it should have been since we didn’t really have
the
ideal equipment but I managed to sort out the best way to do it without
doing too much damage. During the afternoon we were visited
by
Frank Taylor who was the overall boss of the company. He
mainly
worked from his offices above the South East Entertainment shop in
Catford where he ran his mini-empire. Also during the
afternoon
we ran out of transformers for the amps, so production was really
slowed down.
On Thursday Harry hinted that I might get to do the entire production
of the newly proposed 40 watt amps. So far Vampower had been
solely concerned with making 100 watt amps. There were three in the
range: Guitar/Bass, PA and a slave. Harry’s hint
sounded
really good and I hoped it meant my few days work had proved that I had
the talent to do the job. Unfortunately not all my fellow
workers
were getting positive vibes! I was reminded that it was not
only
the actual work that you have to deal with but also
personalities. John, for reasons I never did discover, was
convinced he was going to be sacked at the end of this week.
He
wasn’t but his feeling didn’t make him great
company!
Having started when I did, I was rewarded with a short week because
Friday 9 April was Good Friday and a day off. Even better, I
was
to be paid for that day. During the week I found that the
best
part of my job was to make something out of nothing. All my
previous work had involved maintaining things that already
existed. At Vampower I had a pile of components, which had to
be
assembled, and at the end there was a fully working amp.......well,
most of the time. It was very satisfying, if not very hard
work
for those first few days.
Work resumed on Tuesday 13 April, when I was given a complete 100 watt
guitar amp to build from scratch. It was a good, if not
slightly
worrying, way of learning my new trade. I’d almost
finished
it by the end of the day when time just flew!
Next morning I finished the guitar amp and was rewarded by being put
back on PA front panel production. Making the pilot light
holes
larger was still causing problems because the drill bit we used could
‘grab’ at the metal causing irregular shaped
holes.
Not only that but sometimes it would jump a bit damaging the
surroundings and write-off the complete panel. I suggested we
grind the half-inch drill to a sharper angle so it could sit further in
the existing hole. It worked, and drilling was
easier.
Sadly life for John wasn’t getting any easier, and Dave had
to
take him to one side for a pep talk.
Although I played drums, (my last job had been as a struggling
professional drummer), I had got more interested in playing guitar
while I’d been unemployed. I asked and there was no
objection if I brought my electric guitar into work for something to do
at lunchtime. It was a semi-acoustic Vox Lynx so
didn’t
need an amplifier for messing around on – a bit ironic
considering I was surrounded by them!
Thursday 15 April saw John have a real bad day. He was told
off
for disturbing the rest of us with his depressed state, not just his
demeanour but also his random comments. On the other hand I
had a
great day that started with me being presented with my first slave
amplifier. Even if I say so myself, I did a great
job.
Well, as far as it went since a lack of component meant it was
incomplete. Then - a change from construction to
repairing.
Just before I’d joined, Dave had come up with some
modifications
on the existing guitar amps causing the ones I was making to be
referred to as Mk2 amps. After the slave amp I was given a
returned Mk1 to bring up to Mk2 specifications. Progress
doesn’t stand still and Dave said we’d be working
on the
Mk3 Vampower 100 watt amps next week.
The scenario behind that returned Mk1 is a whole new saga.
Soon
after I joined the company, it was quite common for the 100 watt amps
to be returned with their insides badly burned. This only
happened when the owners played through the amp at full volume and with
the treble set to full. Since these amplifier put out a pure
100-watt signal I hate to think how loud the guitars must have been
when the amp blew. Taking them apart revealed the same damage
in
all cases - the entire underside of the chassis was charred.
Dave soon traced this to the fact that he’d insisted on very
high
quality transformers which worked so efficiently that, with full volume
and treble, the power valves overloaded causing a flash of high voltage
electricity across their bases. This flash-over shorted out
just
about everything in range and the amp naturally ceased to
function. Having identified the problem, Vampower had to
recall
all the amps sold so far to make the modifications. These
modifications were the insertion of a more suitable transformer and
better valve bases; not very easy and quite time consuming.
Apart from design faults, there was plainly a supply and demand
problem. In theory we were supposed to complete each amp in
one
session before moving to the next. For this to happen, all
the
components needed to be readily to hand, but it didn’t
happen. For some reason, Brian seemed unable to keep the
supply
of these components up to our demand, resulting in un-finished amps
lying around waiting for various different bits to be added to finish
them off.
After the good end to the week Monday 19 April started a period of just
being a worker and getting on with whatever needed doing. The
work might have been ordinary but Dave impressed me when he brought in
a Gibson 335 to test out the new amp he was raving about. I
don’t know about the amp, but his guitar playing certainly
impressed me!
The component supply situation remained bad, causing me to start work
on six chassis on Wednesday 21 April. They had to be stacked
to
wait for the parts.
My main work was still assembling the front panels of all amps and it
was a job I didn’t really like. It was so boring!
If it
wasn’t them, it was putting stuff into the chassis and not
soldering everything up - the bit I enjoyed. As if someone
had
noticed, on Thursday 22 April Harry took me to one side and said I
would be given a wage raise if I went full time with
Vampower.
Not only that, but Graham would be helping me with the front panels
also. Since it was Vampower that had taken me on as casual in
the
first place, the offer of full-time was good news and one that I
immediately accepted.
True to his word, Harry gave me a complete amp to start building on
Friday. Also Graham had a change of job when he started doing
some circuit boards that had previously only been done by
Harry.
The reason for this being that Harry and Bob were going on holiday in a
few weeks time so their jobs needed covering.
The weather turned really cold on Monday 26 April, with snow in some
parts of the country. I wasn’t bothered as I
finished off
the amp started on Friday and got stuck into a slave amp. As
usual it was only the lack of components that stopped me finishing the
slave. Once again it was not a good day for John who got
sacked
from his other job in a pub. Not only did he get sacked, but
he
was also banned from the premises. I think John had some serious
problems.
Some of John’s problems related to me and the fact that I
could
work as fast as him, and faster if I tried. Since he was so
miserable most of time, with his stupid sarcastic comments, I must
admit to deliberately outpacing him sometimes. I saw this as
justifiable because he frequently upset Harry, who was a nice guy but
sadly didn’t know how to deal with John.
A weird Wednesday, when I finished off some slave amps only to be told
I had done some bad soldering on them. Expecting more
criticism I
was floored when told I would be put in charge of modifying all
existing amplifiers in the factory to Mk2 specifications, about twenty
in total. The modifications included removing some resistors
to
replace them with the new specification items and changing the jack
plug arrangements – it sounded good!
As soon as I arrived on Thursday 29 April, Brian told me to repair two
amps returned from Scotland and update them to the latest
specifications. Having done that job I was then behind on my
new
task of upgrading all the other amps.
Doing the upgrading took most of Friday, when I found 26 amps that
needed to be done. Brian made John and me the 100 watt Team;
possibly not a good idea in view of the problems we had between
us. He also re-sited Harry so he could be surrounded by his
test
equipment, which he’d taken on to relieve some of the load on
Dave.
With the weather being bright and sunny, Monday 3 May was a good start
to the week. Harry spent all day learning how to test amps,
while
Bob was assembling speaker cabinets. On the other hand John,
Graham and I had a stress-less day since there wasn’t much we
could do. We’d run out of chassis, transformers,
and
capacitors, so partial assembly was all we could hope for!
The situation didn’t improve much on Tuesday so I was sent
out to
buy some of the smaller stuff from local suppliers. Being the
only worker with his own car at work, I was the obvious
choice.
Some transformers were delivered to the factory but were all of the
same kind, and we needed two types for each amp. This left me
with two half-finished amps, John with three, and Graham with one. Not
ideal! One advantage of the slack period was that we workers
were
actually getting along quite well and having a bit of fun.
The
only down thing was that I thought I’d started a cold,
because I
had an exceedingly sore throat.
Peter Cooper at the wheel of his Mini, back in 1972.
The rest of the week dragged by, hampered by the continuing lack of
components resulting in a lot of time being spent on putting name
plates on the amp and speaker cabinets. Also, we could load
the
occasional amp into a cabinet, but mainly we built a huge
‘Wall
of Vamp’ out of empty speaker cabinets – because we
could! At least that took my mind off not feeling well.
Monday 10 May started the week, much like the one we’d
finished,
with not a lot going on! Dave was still working on upgrades
to
his design, and cruelly got me to insert a new experimental circuit
board into one of the few amps that I’d finished. I
say
cruelly because it meant un-doing all the work I done a short while
before. Later, I was dispatched to pick up a new batch of
name
plates from the supplier. On a positive side, Brian told us
that
Vampower had got the job of running a rock and roll festival in
Carlshalton, Surrey.
This week had started with hot weather and the heat seemed to affect
some of the workforce on Tuesday. Although it was clear
he’d done the work, John denied mucking up an amp.
Then
another came back that was partly my fault, which I admitted, but
noticed that Harry kept quiet about his involvement in the
problem. I was quite glad to be sent out twice to get bits
during
the day.
Wednesday saw the arrival of a new type of PA chassis and some circuit
boards, so we were able to start and finish some amps. This
resulted in me having two PA amps without front panels and pre-amps on
Thursday. I didn’t think it would happen, but I was
getting
bored with this work! Not only that I still wasn’t
feeling
well.
On Friday 14 May I came up with a partial solution to the boredom -
work slower! By the end of the day I done three and half,
half
finished amps and almost complete one repair.
The next week was another of waiting and getting bored by the lack of
supplies, which probably explains why I got threatened by John on
Friday 21 May. Brian had set targets for us all, and John
reckoned that I was lazy because I’d done less work than
him. I put on a spurt and overtook his production, and he was
not
at all pleased, hence resulting in the threat. It
wasn’t
directly to me but I overheard him mention the violence when in
conversation with Graham at lunchtime. Actually the fact that
Dave had come over to my bench on Thursday to test the amp
I’d
just built with my guitar probably didn’t help the situation.
The weekend break didn’t help John recover, so when I said
"Hi"
to him on Monday 24 May, he barely grunted a reply. Harry had
spotted there was something up but couldn’t think of anything
to
do to improve matters. Meanwhile Dave was working on making a
mixer for the Carlshalton festival, while we still suffered a lack of
components.
On Tuesday I was sent to Crayford to pick up some much needed front
panels, which made a nice break from the workshop intrigue.
Later
in the day, Harry was trying to sort things out with John, who was
plainly close to tears. I actually managed to get enough
parts
together to complete a whole guitar amp in the afternoon. Neat!
A rumour told us on Wednesday that we were expected to get seventy amps
completed by the end of July! I managed to put three more
towards
that total, but then got back to fiddling around doing whatever could
be done. One nice interlude was when Dave explained the mixer
unit for the festival to me; he’d nearly got it finished.
Thursday 27 May. The lack of components forced me to strip some
capacitors from one partially built amp to completely finish another
one that had only the capacitors missing - it was getting
stupid!
The slackness of work caused me to start signing the amps with ever
more flowery lettering. When an amp was finished, we had to
etch
the serial number on the chassis with a very noisy electric hand
tool. After the continued failure of the 100 watt guitar
amps,
Brian had asked us to include our initials along with the official
identifying characters. I guess this was so any persistent
offenders could be identified, but in the end the fault was traced to
component failure. I started off with the best lettering I
could,
which wasn’t easy because the hand tool was quite unwieldy,
making lettering shaky at best. Now, once I’d done
the
official bit, I let my imagination have its way within the confines of
the hand tool and space in the chassis. One my workmates saw
what
I was up to they started their own versions because it helped pass time.
It was also on this day that Dave demonstrated his skill with building
effects pedals when he produced a ‘phasing’ unit
for
guitar. I’d only heard them as studio effects, so
having
one you could use live on stage was quite amazing.
On Friday we had some fun when testing transformers to
destruction! After the ongoing fault had been traced to the
transformers being to powerful, Dave had specified one with lower
output. This had now been put into an amp to compare with an
earlier one that I’d made with the old unit. It was
then a
case of hitting them with a blast of maximum signal from an
oscilloscope to see what happened. My amp blew up, the new
one
didn’t – success! All that was needed now
was a huge
supply of the new transformers. While we enjoyed ourselves,
there
was actually a delivery of 59 speakers. It might sound a lot,
if
not an odd amount, but it still wouldn’t fill our demand.
On Sunday 30 May, I went to Roundhouse, Chalk Farm to see T Rex,
because I knew they were now using Vampower amps. It was the talk of
the factory. I felt I ought to support my company, but
unfortunately the group were better than the amps, which played up all
evening. I hid at the back and said nothing!
It was around this time that we had the amp that Marc Bolan used, back
at the factory for a check over and some modifications. The
modifications were necessary because Marc Bolan couldn't cope with the
treble and bass controls being positioned differently to the amp
he’d used previously. When agreeing to use Vampower
products, he’d not spotted this difference and now found it
was
adversely affecting his playing. When adjusting a knob,
believing
it to be treble, he found himself adjusting the bass. Quite
why
he couldn't remember where the controls were on the new amp defeated
me. Of course Dave was only too pleased to accommodate Marc
Bolan's every wish, as long as he continued to use Vampower
amps.
Dave even went one step further in an attempt to help Marc Bolan manage
his amp. All the Vampowers had two channels, normal and the
one
with the added "bite" control. Dave thought it would be a
nice
touch to put a changeover switch on the front panel of Marc's amp so
that he could change from normal to the effects channel in one easy
movement. This simple modification was also beyond the
capacity
of Marc Bolan. We received word that, in addition to
repositioning the treble and bass, he also wanted two separate channels
returned. It was a pity because we all thought Dave's idea
was a
good one.
After the late May Bank Holiday we got back to work on Tuesday 1 June
with the supply situation pretty much the same. What did
change
was the weather. May had not been very pleasant and in true
British style it improved the day after a Bank Holiday
weekend.
With June came some hot weather, and because the Vampower premises
weren’t very big, it was very uncomfortable in the
workroom. There were only small windows, and even with the
doors
open there was hardly any air moving through the factory.
On the work front, I managed to complete one circuit board followed by
a complete amp, but then had to rob some capacitors to finish a
second. There were only a few days left to the rock and rock
festival at Carlshalton, and all the gear needed had not yet been
finished. The original idea had been to use slave amps to get
the
required volume, but that didn’t look likely to happen since
we
didn’t have the parts to complete any slaves. Dave
then
decided to simply use full PA amps as slaves, because we did have some
of them around waiting to be shipped out. We might have been
busy
but Dave found time to mention he bought a brand new Grimshaw guitar.
It wasn’t a name I knew, but apparently sounded great.
We were also short of speaker cabinets, but that situation improved in
the afternoon when we had a delivery of 16. Included with the
100
watt cabinets was our first delivery of 5 and 10 watt cabinets, which
was going to be a new range of small amps.
The Vampower workshop ran on the idea that we were all expected to help
with whatever it was that needed doing at the time. On this
day,
any work being done at the benches stopped to deal with the delivery of
amplifier and speaker cabinets. We formed one of those human
chains where stuff is passed from one person to another to bridge
between delivery truck and factory. It started off well, but
it
was a very hot day and we got sweaty so the occasional cabinet would
get dropped. Any minor damage was dealt with later by
smoothing
out any wrinkles in the vinyl covering, then giving the area a quick
brush with black shoe polish – as good as new!
Wednesday was spent in a blur of panic as Brian tried to get everything
organised for delivery to Carlshalton the next day! Mostly we
were assembling the speaker cabinets. Work that continued the next day
when the Vampower name plates were attached. There would be
no
point doing a festival and not showing who had supplied the gear!
I got dragged away from all the chaos when Brian dispatched me to
London and the Temple Club in Wardour Street in the
afternoon.
Coincidently this was the last club I had played with my professional
group a few months earlier. The Temple had a Vampower setup
for
the DJ, and an amp needed replacing (no real surprise there
then!). Having found somewhere to park, and carted the amp
along
to the club, there was apparently no one at home so it was a wasted
trip!
I also had to get to a Post Office to get a new amp to Huddersfield on
special delivery before reporting to Carlshalton to help set up the
gear for the first night of the festival. Unfortunately we
didn’t get overtime, otherwise I might have had a good day
with
my wages since I got to the festival site at 7.30 in the evening and
left much later! After all the frantic work it was very
rewarding
to hear that the PA sounded great.
Friday 4 June was the main day at the festival, but before that we
spent the morning building what we could on the amps as
normal.
Once again I was sent to the Temple club and this time managed to gain
access to do my job. It was a bit strange being in this
smelly
but atmospheric club during the afternoon, where I had once played in
the very early morning.
Although my workmates weren’t included, Brian had given me a
letter which would allow me to get into the festival. I think
this was as some compensation for all the driving around I’d
been
doing recently. Considering this was a rock and roll
festival,
it’s easy to understand that my long haired hippy looks
didn’t really fit in with all the old style rockers and teddy
boys wandering around. But the main thing was that the PA and
guitar amps sounded good, even if the music was a bit rubbish at times!
After the success of the festival it was back to normal on Monday 7
June when a slow-but-sure method of production had to be
adopted.
Not for any quality reasons, but because we’d almost run out
of
bits again. On Tuesday the lack of supplies made
Brian’s
statement that 70 amps had to be built in four weeks seem
unlikely. The amps he was referring to were the 100 watt
guitar
amps that were proving to be quite popular. Since
I’d
joined, Vampower production had been split between the PA, slave, and
guitar amps, but John and I now were told the PA amps were coming to
the end of their run for a while.
Thursday 10 June was the day John and I finished the last of the PA
amps, so we could then join in with a big move around to accommodate a
new member of the team. This new person had not yet been
found
but Brian wanted the space made available in advance.
Friday 11 June saw the start of Vampower 10 watt amp
production.
Dave had been working on the circuits for these for quite sometime, and
now it was our turn to put his ideas into action. It started
well, but then we ran out of transformers! Actually, it was
lucky
we did stop because when Dave checked my circuit boards he found
I’d wrongly wired the valve bases. At least I had
something
to do putting them right! To get away from the madness, I was
sent to Crayford to pick up 70 amp chassis and take them to the place
in Woolwich where they were screen printed; these being the starting
point for the amps due in four weeks. It was a 30 mile round
trip
and I was given 50p towards my fuel costs. Brian was never generous
with expenses.
On arrival at work on Monday 14 June I was sent to Woolwich to pick up
the chassis which had been printed over the weekend. I
didn’t get back until 10am, when work started on the fabled
70
amps. By the end of the day, both John and I had completed
one
amp, which at least proved we had been re-stocked with components.
Work continued at a pace on Tuesday, when there wasn’t much
time
for chat at we did our best to meet the demands. Our best was
OK,
but we then we ran out of front panels! Things got worse the
next
day when John didn’t come into work, saying he
wasn’t
feeling very well. However I happened to know, from
conversations
with him, that it was probably something that needed sorting out on his
car that was the problem.
John was back on Thursday looking entirely fit, so I think my feelings
on the matter were right. It probably wasn’t the
best day
for Dave to make a point about the fact that John was always
‘borrowing’ cigarettes by giving him one with an
exploding
tip – a pity that I didn’t see the event!
Apart from
that it was another day of frustration as less and less of the amps
could be built........as more and more parts ran out.
By Friday 18 June, I’d only managed to fully complete 7
amps! We’d even run out of wire by then, on top of
the
normal component and front panel shortages. Against the mess
of
100 watt amp production, the 10 watt line had been moving along nicely,
and 10 had been dispatched and looked nice in their finished
state. So nice that I asked Brian how much it would cost me
to
buy one. He said they would retail at £29 but I
could have
one for £20. Not only that, but a 100 watt could be
mine
for £70. It was tempting, but I didn’t
have that kind
of money spare at the time.
Virtually the whole week from Monday 21 June was spent doing whatever
we could with whatever stock we had left. I was glad to be
sent
out a couple of times to get away from the boredom! One of
the
trips was back to the Temple Club on Friday 25 June to replace a broken
speaker. I suppose it was a sign of trust that I was let
loose to
represent the interests of Vampower with the customers. The
trust
was just about all I got, since there was still only a small payment
towards petrol cost in appreciation for my efforts; but I wasn't really
complaining.
Then it all started to go wrong for me! I awoke on Monday 28
June
feeling decidedly un-well but went to work anyway. It was a
wasted effort. I was back home by lunchtime, when a quick
check
revealed I had a temperature of over 100 degrees. Not knowing
what was wrong with me, I went to my doctors but was in a complete haze
and hardly knew what I was doing. I was feeling so bad that,
when
I saw the hugely pregnant Angela Bowie (wife of David Bowie who I
vaguely knew) in the waiting room, I was hardly able to raise a reply
when she said "hello". The doctor diagnose that I had a
kidney
infection and recommended time off work.
I phoned Brian on Tuesday 29 June and told him I would have to be
off-work for a few days. Instead of a reassuring reply about
getting well soon, Brian said he didn't know what the procedures were
but he would look into whether I would get any sick pay and get back to
me. Of course when he got back to me it was to state the
company
had a ‘No work, No pay’ policy.
I saw the Doctor again on Monday 5 July, and was given the all clear to
return to work on Wednesday. The weather was still good and
it
struck me that these few days would probably be my summer holidays,
since I wouldn’t get paid it I took more time off work.
So on Wednesday 7 July I was back to work at Vampower for the hottest
weather of the year. It was as if I’d never been
away. The place was still littered with half finished amps
and
there was still a shortage of components. Surprisingly, in
view
of that, it had been decided to go ahead with production of the 5 watt
transistor amps. Bob had been assigned the 5 watt assembly,
which
was totally different to the valve amps. The circuit boards
Dave
had designed weren’t printed but plain circuit boards
perforated
where the component wires were poked through. These wires
were
then formed into whatever shape was necessary to be soldered to the
next component for the circuit to work. A bit crude, but it
worked and saved the cost of getting a printed circuit board
made. Brian asked me to help out Bob who was having trouble
with
the job.
On Thursday I was helping Bob again and realised there was a better way
to bend and solder the wires compared to the copy item Dave had given
Bob. I asked Dave if he’d mind if I did it my way,
and to
my surprise he agreed to my request. Bob immediately started
doing his circuit boards the same as mine because it was a lot easier.
I was out of bits on Friday 9 July, and was sent out to buy
what
was required. Whilst out, I missed my lunch break but on my
return Brian gave me a break during the afternoon. With the
temperatures up in the eighties, I dashed over to the nearby open-air
swimming pool and cooled down a bit. When I got back at 4pm,
I
was sent to the Temple Club again for more fault repairs.
My day didn't finish when I got back because T Rex were on at the
Lewisham Odeon that evening, and the entire workforce were expected to
be there. We’d all been given tickets for the stage
door
because Vampower were supplying the amps. On this occasion T
Rex
were just OK, but at least their Vampower amps worked well and Marc
Bolan seemed to have got the hang of working them.
It was a busy time at Vampower with the demand for 5 and 10-watt amps
getting more by the day. On 10 July I even joined Brian and Dave for a
Saturday morning. They worked on the 10 watt amps while I
completed seven 5 watt amps, with the exclusion of some transistors
that were out of stock.
On Monday 12 July a small ‘5 Watt’ production line
had to
be set up, using the entire workforce to try and meet the
targets. Since work on valve amps was still almost at a
standstill, this was no hardship. The weather cooled down
making
things a little more bearable in the workroom, but it was heavy work.
I began to feel unwell again on Tuesday 13 July but gave no hint of it
at work. Apart from not having an appetite, there were some
random aches and pains in my abdomen and an overbearing tiredness all
the time. As some sort of ironic payback, the pressure to get
more 5 Watt amps finished was unrelenting – just when I
wasn’t feeling my best! Brian was becoming boring
in his
insistence that we keep up with his demands. Perhaps he should
concentrate on getting the goods to finish the work! Talking
of
which, I had to go out to central London during the day to get
components.
On Wednesday there was a good production rate at Vampower, when John
was able to get on with the 100 watt range while Graham helped me get
eight 5 watt units completed. Amazing what you can do when
you
have a supply of components! This continued on Thursday, when
I
completed seven more 5 watt amps, this time helped a bit by
John.
I was so tired all the time I was happy to accept any help offered.
By Friday 16 July nearly all the 5 watt amps that Brian wanted had been
made, but then he asked if I could turn out six more in that
day.
This would require working flat-out all day, and would have been no
problem had I been feeling normal. However, I doubted it was possible
feeling as tired as I did. Being a hero, and wanting to keep
my
job, I agreed to give it a try. My big push was hampered when
I
had to go out for a while to collect more transformers for the 10 watt
range but, with a little help from my friends, the work was
done.
In fact it was not only the six but I also completed a bonus,
batteries-only, version for Marc Bolan. This last one being
something that Dave had agreed to do as a one-off for Marc.
5 watt amp production continued at a pace on Monday 19 July when Brian
told us we’d put out 43 last week. The roadie for T
Rex
popped in on Tuesday, just minutes after we’d heard on the
radio
that T Rex were number one in the charts. I spent the whole
afternoon driving around doing errands for Brian, and was only just
able keep an urgent appointment. My illness wasn’t
going
away, so seeing a doctor seemed a good idea. He had no idea
what
was wrong, and gave me a note to go to hospital the next day for some
tests.
On Wednesday 21 July, the tests at hospital only delayed me by an hour,
then I continued work on the 5 watt amps but during the day Brian gave
me a ‘treat’. He’d arranged
that I should
deliver the recently finished 5-watt amp, and a 10 watt, to Marc
Bolan's roadie. When I handed them over, I was rather upset
that
no payment was made after all the trouble that I had gone to in getting
the 5 watt built on time.
Dropping off the amp to the Marc Bolan entourage signalled the end of
my involvement with them, and I was back on 100 watt production on
Thursday 22 July. I had done them for a while and my
tiredness
coupled with pressure to turn out as many as possible saw me dropping
my personal wiring standards. I now just ran in curved wires
like
everyone else; it was easier but less satisfying. In the
afternoon, I was out and about collecting stuff. Back in the
workshop we were all impressed with the new Mk3 front panels.
The
Mk3 was going to be suitable for guitar, bass and organ, and looked
good - even it was a few months late in arriving.
Brian was obviously under pressure from above, because on Friday 23
July we all got a pep talk. In simple terms he wanted more
amps
in less time for the same wages. The Mk2 amps needed to be
finished-off within two weeks, so that we could move onto the
Mk3. At Vampower, we all needed the work for our own reasons,
so
we sat and took it all in and agreed to try harder. I was
feeling
really ill. I could have done without the reminder to work harder, but
still managed to complete two Mk2 100 watt amps during the
day.
For some reason I noted that one of them was number 200. I
had
another appointment with my doctor in the evening, when he reckoned
that I might possibly have glandular fever. I didn't know
what
that illness was but it didn't sound nice. The
doctor’s
parting shot was that I could go to work if I felt up to it.
Next day, I didn’t feel up to anything so phoned Brian to
tell
him I was having health problems and probably wouldn’t be
able to
get to work next week. Brian was his usual comforting self
and
told me I’d lose my job if I went off sick for any length of
time!
On Monday 26 July, as suspected, I did not feel well enough for
work. From what the doctor had said I knew it would be some
time
before I could get back to Vampower. Of course, if Brian's
statement from Saturday was true I’d never go back!
When I
told Brian of my continuing illness, he was true to his word and held
out little hope of me remaining employed by Vampower. He did
mention using a temp if I could give a return date, but that was
impossible for me to do since no one could say what was wrong with me,
let alone when I would be better.
So I entered a period of sick leave. During this time, I
received
some papers from the Tax Office about my period as a professional
musician that had required me to contact them. On Wednesday 4
August, they suggested it would be easier if I saw them in their office
about my tax. I dragged myself along, and during our
discussions
it casually popped out that I had been sacked from Vampower.
The
Tax Office was not to blame for this oversight of Vampower, but still
apologised for telling me in this way. They assumed I had
been
kept fully aware of my employment situation. Even though I
felt
really ill, I drove straight over to Vampower to see Brian.
He
looked embarrassed, but had to say my employment cards were in the
post, which confirmed that I had been sacked for being off sick.
On Friday 13 August there were still problems with Vampower that
required a return to the Tax Office because I thought I was owed some
money. Having been told by a very nice lady what was wrong
with
the Vampower calculations, I popped into the offices of South East
Entertainment, which were literally across the road from the Tax
Office. After a long explanation to the accountant, basically
going over what I’d just been told in the Tax Office, he
agreed
there did seem to have been a mistake.
My visits must have shaken things up a bit, because Brian phoned me on
Wednesday 18 August. He said that I would be welcome back at
Vampower as soon as I could get there, but then spoiled it by briefly
touching on the fact that they were suffering with a lack of workforce.
The truth was more likely to be that he had been told I
couldn’t
be sacked for being off sick and it was better to try and get me to
stay than to train someone else to replace me. Also it may be
hard to find someone who would be willing to work in those conditions
of total turmoil. To show how bad things must have been.
Brian
even apologised over the mistake when I was ‘led to believe I
was
sacked’. In other words, they were really hard up for
workers. At that point I gave up, because no one could tell
me
when I would be well enough for work. After the way
I’d
been treated, I didn’t really want to go back, so I told
Brian I
was leaving – although technically I’d already been
sacked!
And so ended my time with Vampower, I started on Monday 5 April 1971
and my last contact with the company was on Wednesday 18 August
1971. I had worked there for four months during which time I
spent most of the first two months either repairing or manufacturing
the 100 watt valve guitar amps. From June, most of my work
revolved around production of the 5 watt transistor practice amps, but
I still had to dive in wherever necessary. A very interesting
period of my life.......if only I hadn’t been ill for some of
it! My illness was never explained but it was thought to be a
viral infection that cleared up after another couple of months.
Peter M Cooper
Peter Cooper
in 2005, pointing to his initials in the amp that he built in 1972, and
which is now owned by Joe Valles in Texas, USA.