Elvis
banned in East Germany
It is hard to imagine but in
Communist
countries Elvis was actually banned and
that included
East Germany.
We had excellent
relationships
with the International Elvis Fan Club in
Luneburg,
West Germany who arranged a joint promotion
to
take our Elvis Statue to Bremerhaven to
commemorate
the 30th Anniversary of Elvis arriving in
Germany
on October 1st 1988 and a special first day
cover
with Elvis stamp was released for the
Event.
However, prior to that my
German
friend, the fan club president, Gerd
Schuster
had secretly arranged for an Elvis Concert
in
East Germany with Elvis Tribute Artist Dirk
Juttner..
He arrived at the border in
Berlin
at “Checkpoint Charlie” and put
on
an impromptu concert on the West German
side.
He then proceeded to cross the border into
East
Germany with all the sound equipment.
The East German Guards
stopped
him and demanded his papers. He had no
papers
to take in the sound equipment but through
sheer
bravado and guts demanded the security
guards
contact the East German Consulate in Bonn,
knowing
that in those days it was almost impossible
to
make calls into West Germany from the East.
He quoted some names of
Embassy
officials in Bonn and after much
deliberation
they let him in together with some friends
and
the best young Elvis in Germany, Dirk
Juttner.
Secretly they put on probably the first
Elvis
concert ever in East Germany (with
amplified sound)
in a fans home.
Elvisly Yours Shops in
England
Elvisly Yours started as a
concept
as soon as Elvis died in August 1977. I
wanted
to honour Elvis’ memory and thought
the
best way was to raise money to build a life
size
statue in bronze. I sold my house to raise
funds
and moved in to Maureen’s apartment
and
made Elvis busts in our garage. In 1979 as
business increased
I could afford to rent a space above the
company who made our plates for the Elvisly
Yours magazine.
Business expanded even more and we got our
first
office in Easton St, London WC1.
Finally we could afford to
move
to large premises in Shoreditch in 1982
where
we remained until 1999. Elvisly Yours was
officially
opened by Myrna and Jerry Schilling on
January
8th 1983. We had many happy years there and
regularly
put on discos and mini conventions in our
basement.
In the Spring of 1989 Elvisly Yours opened
it’s
first shop outside London. We opened at the
famous
Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
One day when I write my
autobiography
there will be several chapters on
Blackpool, about
the B&B’s that all seem to be run
by
ex-Gestapo and if you are one minute late
for
breakfast, hard luck. Then there are more
drunks
per sq. inch than anywhere else on the
planet and
the owner of the Pleasure Beach must have
been
a 19th Century mill owner who ruled with an
iron
fist. You could not shut up shop until he
said
and that could be 2am in the morning. We
moved
after one season to Coral island on the
Blackpool
seafront and one cute story is worth
recounting.
I was helped in Blackpool by a dear friend
called
Eddie Porter who is the best Beatles Tour
Guide
in Liverpool.
Our shop was actually a
kiosk with
just a counter and back wall and no
escape. One
day a group of forty drunk Scots came
menacingly
towards Eddie in the kiosk, all pointing at
him
loudly bellowing “Elvis, Elvis,
Elvis”.
“That’s it”, Eddie
thought,
he was a gonna and would lose all the stock
and
be beaten to a pulp. They got nearer and
nearer
as they crossed the road chanting louder
and louder
“Elvis, Elvis, Elvis”.
Eddie closed his eyes, said
a prayer
but they all wanted was to hug him as they
loved
Elvis and instead of punches Eddie received
kisses
from a mob of drunken, Scottish, Elvis
fans.
Shoreditch
was our home for 17 years but it was an old
building
on four floors with 7,000 sq ft floor
space. I
could not afford the very expensive costs
of maintaining
the old building so I decided to sell in
1999…more
next Newsletter.
Old friends
As I go down memory lane for
this
feature I come across photos of old friends
that
I have lost touch with over the years,
especially
friends from Memphis. I have not been to
Memphis
since January 1993 when I closed our
warehouse
and moved out of our apartment and shipped
stock
and furniture back to England. I vowed then
not
to return to Memphis until they kick out
Jack
Soden and his cronies. One such friend I
have lost
touch with is Eddie Poole who used to run
the
only “official” Elvis fan club
in
the world from Memphis.
He was one of the good guys
in
the Elvis World but I believe he got more
and
more upset as EPE got more and more control
of
the Elvis World. He used to be good friends
with
Billy and Jo Smith (Elvis’ cousins)
also
featured in the photo taken in 1985. If
anyone
knows what happened to Eddie please email
me
sid@elvisly-yours.com
The Very Best Bus Driver
in America
Over many years when Elvisly
Yours ran tours to Memphis we were privileged to be driven around Memphis
and Tupelo by Adolphe (pronounced ay-dulf). His name always tickled me but in
Memphis you have some of the most unusual
names in the world…even Elvis is pretty unusual
as a name. If you could find someone who was
the total opposite to someone in history of similar
spelt name, that was Adolphe. Nothing was
ever too much for him. Whatever you wanted to do, morning noon or night Adolphe
would be there and not only there to drive you but to act as security guard,
advisor, shoulder to lean on for all the fans in our groups that went to
Memphis over the
years. If we went down to Beale Street
Adolphe would hang around all evening checking that our fans
going into different clubs were okay,
especially female fans since Memphis can be a dangerous place. He used to come to
our parties and join in the fun and he loved and was loved by all the fans that
ever went on Elvisly Yours Tours to Memphis. It was Adolphe who had to get a
ladder to climb up the back of a bus to unscrew the bathroom window to get
into the restroom to free a lady that had drunk too many
Long Island Teas. She was fast asleep, fallen
against the door so no one could get into the rest room. Adolphe, her
husband and others then carried the lady to her hotel
room.
Since I have not been to
Memphis for so many years Adolphe is another friend I have lost contact with
and if anyone knows his whereabouts please let me know or get Adolphe to send
me an email. I always believed
Elvisly Yours Tours were the best to Memphis
since we really looked after the fans with trips downtown and around Memphis
almost every evening. Having worked a whole day Adolphe was back again in the
evening until midnight or later driving us around Memphis. Adolphe made our
tours to Memphis very special and I will always be indebted to him. He was
one of the nicest people you could meet anywhere, a true gentleman and a dear
friend for whom I had the utmost respect. |
Dirk performing at Checkpoint
Charlie
Berlin
