More beautiful than the sunset. “The Viking Helmet”

Once a piece of worthless 70’s trash, now a precious antique. But to us… an object beyond value.

The chalice that holds a thousand tales. 40 years ago, in the early days of the music venue, there was often a whip-round for bands at the end of a gig!

Mike O’Brien (Mike Montez of The Velvetones) explains …

“Jacko always said that the only thing that ever made any money at the Adelphi was the fruit machine. He liked to present himself as a struggling saviour of the arts. Maybe he was, but I suspect that he laid it on a bit thick from time to time. It was all a part of the process he used to negotiate with bands. Me and Eddie usually got a fiver each for doing the Mike and Eddie Disco. If he was feeling generous. We usually spent it behind the bar anyway, it equated to about four pints back then, so I suppose that it was more than twenty quid in today’s money.

The viking helmet was some sort of promotional merchandise that he must have got from Carlsberg. It was an orange glass bowl in the shape of a helmet, with a couple of yellowing plastic horns which doubled as two of the feet which it could stand on. It was too small for anyone with a normal sized head to wear as a helmet, so Eddie had no chance. It looked to me like the sort of thing that one of my aunties would use as a fruit bowl. Viking imagery was more in vogue in auntie style houses in those days. She might not have used it for fruit, it might have contained green shield stamps, copper coins, some hair grips and other stuff that old women like to keep in bowls. Maybe her spare set of teeth.

Paul used it to collect donations for his acts. It was passed around the crowd at the end of a show and people were encouraged to give generously. The band were paid out of what ended up in it.

I was paid that way when I was in the Velvetones. I can’t remember it ever being a lot, but it was a bit more than the fivers that me and Eddie got. Usually a figure such as seventeen pounds, thirty seven and a half pence, mostly in change. (Is that about sixty quid these days in my pint price reckoning system? I’m guessing though). Maybe better bands got a bit more. Maybe we got a lot less.”