PAUL McCARTNEY'S recent return gig at the Cavern brought memories rushing back for reader Ken Melling, pre-dating the Beatles era.

Ken, from Chancery Lane, Parr, was a fresh-faced lad serving with the Merchant Navy and enjoying a few scoops around Liverpool in the late 1950s.

The Cavern was staging all-night dancing to groups headlined those days by the Terry Lightfoot band. But arriving there, Ken found it was an all-ticket affair. "Always loving a challenge, I got in the queue," he related, "And reaching the entrance door I found that the bouncer was Paddy Delaney, an ex-Irish Guards buddy."

It was a case of "Open Sesame!"; and the pair enjoyed a lively re-union celebration inside.

When the reconstructed Cavern became the subject of a TV documentary a couple of years ago, Ken again spotted an aging Paddy welcoming back Cilla Black.

The ex-army pair go back to a time when they were detailed to escort a deserter from Liverpool, Ken's reward being an overnight stop in St Helens for a pub crawl followed by a bit of the light fantastic at Holy Cross dance-hall.

Arrived at the jail next morning, well hung-over, Ken found that for legal reasons the deserter was not to be released that day.

The follow-up escort lost their man on Lime Street station, where he did a runner. "Arriving back without him, they themselves spent a night in nick. Such is life!"

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.