Wheeler

I don't know where the red rose thing came from but it certainly isn't the original Wheel membership card logo.

The Twisted Wheel logo that you see was actually the membership card as produced by then owners the Abadi family. They never registered the design so it became public domain and anyone can use or manipulate it. My good friend is quite correct when he say that patches was a Wigan era thing.

Metro Soul Club, Wakefield. A small basement club in er Wakefield. It was after the Wheel closure but there were quite a few all nighter veterans there this particular night. Around 2.00am we heard an enormous sound like thunder or the roof caving in. It was in fact HM Constabulary hurtling down the stairs on a well-rehearsed drug raid. The lights went on and I noticed we were ankle deep in discarded Dexys. One young constable asked me if they were mine, as if I would say yes. Detectives then employed a rudimentary, unscientific test to determine (guess) who had been indulging. They shone a torch in the person's eyes to gauge their reaction. Those who failed were carted off to a coach for further processing. Those who passed were made to sit cross legged, hands on head on the dancefloor. I watched what the cross legged group did and copied them. A squint, just a little not too much. It worked and I joined the got away with it group. Eventually, the gentlemen of the law left. The DJ had long departed so we spent the rest of the time chatting about the events. My mate had gone to the car for further refreshments just before the raid so missed all the fun. On his way back he noticed a suspicious amount of policemen lurking about so he did a sauntering U turn trying to look as casual and innocent as possible. BTW my mate was Stefan Burlak of this thread.

Not a bad experience, at least for us who made it to the nighter, but possibly for our soul chum who didn't. We were catching the11.30 train to Manchester so we got geared up in advance. The slight inconvenience was that there was no11.30 train. My fault I'm afraid. Possibly, they changed the timetable without telling anyone, let's go with that. All geared up with nowhere to go. Light bulb moment. We caught a taxi to our chum's house three miles away, knocked him up out of bed and asked him to drive us there. Our good-hearted friend agreed and my memory says his Dad was quite relaxed about it all. Naturally, given the hasty departure, we ran out of petrol somewhere or other. Employing muscle power and gravity we rolled down to a late night service station. We filled up and arrived not much later than the train would have had there been one. Our friend drove home to continue dreaming about Gina Lollobrigeda and we enjoyed a fantastic all nighter. Everything returned to normal except I was fired as travel organiser.

Good point. They were fantastic times and it's hard to explain to Muggles how good they were.

Fantastic photo memorabilia. Just shows what could have been thought of as a negative thread turned out to be positive.

There aren't many photos of the Wheel which could be one reason why it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Not surprising given the size of cameras back then. Also, The Wheel was the last place to go with valuables. Our friend D and his mates would have had off with them. A friend of ours came up to us and said D had taken his watch and could we help him get it back. I'm afraid we didn't but we did tick him off for coming to the Wheel wearing a watch in the first place. Looking back, we should have all ganged up and gave these characters a good hiding and ejected em but we weren't that sort and they were nut jobs.

The Wheel was the most fantastic venue but there was always the potential for unpleasantness. Not least from the resident muggers D and V - if you're still alive you know who you are. There were also transient, freelance muggers and there was no point hoping for help from the bouncers because there weren't any. It was the only time you could ask your mate to go to the toilet with you and it would sound OK. Our diet of amphetamines meant there was always a chance of getting the horrors. If you didn't feel paranoid inside the club you could when we emerged into the yard of a thousand eyes at 8.00am. The smart ones ducked out of the front door straight on to Whitworth Street. Yet, we put up with these minor inconveniences because of our love of the music and scene. A lifelong brotherhood and sisterhood.