Mike was only in his early 30's when he killed himself, it's still a mystery why he did it. Mike was manager at the casino all the way through the fantastic days of northern soul, but years before he had been in a band called pendulem with alf our drummer.
Mike was was singer/bass player, but it didnt work out so they all went their own way. alf went to forum which was the early version of wigans ovation before i joined them, and mike became a dj at wigan casino and later the manager and it was his drive and with russ winstanly that created history at the casino.
we played at the casino at least 10 times, this is when i first met mike, i really didnt get on with him, there was somthing about him that i couldnt put my finger on, but we got on of a fashion. It even turned out that we both had gone to whitecroft road school in bolton but i was a bit older than him so i didnt remember him,
in early 1975 we were playing at the casino under our name before wigans ovation, that was "sparkle". we used to do songs like "ski-ing in the snow" and john smith from spark records was there and asked us if we would like to goto london to record ski-ing in the snow and obviously we said yes,
i wrote nothern soul dancer for the b-side the only snag was, mike walker had to be our manager, when the song was relesed it went right into the charts but mike never helped us even though he was our manager, whenever we had problems he was never there to help us he was to busy putting his finger into other pies,
but we plodded on but because of lack of support, i left the band in late 1976 but i didnt wish mike any harm, in 1977 mike asked me to go back with the band to record "after loving you" so i did. we didnt see mike very often but when he killed himself in the early 80's it hit me like a ton of bricks, even though we were not the best of friends i felt really sorry for him and his family.
He was a DJ when i first met him, but when he died he was director of R.K Records, he had just bought a new house at Atherton near Bolton, so there was no reason for him to die, i wish i could of spoken to him before hand but it was to late, if it hadnt of been for him, there would never of been the wigan casino that we all knew and loved.
Jim
