POKIE Hamilton Brown & The Great Expectations. Wigan     Roy 'Thunder Foot' Davies: Drums. Colin Ashton: Lead vocal. Garry 'Gazz' Hughes: Bass. Michael 'Mitch' Mitchinson: Lead Guitar.                                                'Pokie, ah! Fond memories for me..!'   Pokie was born out of the remnants of Hamilton Brown & The Great Expectations: An eight- piece band with a tremendous brass section. It was a part-time band just doing mid week gigs and at the weekend. Each member would go their separate ways as acts, club backings, session men and in my case, a duo, the Two Of Us with the brilliant front-man Colin Ashton.     Cheesed off.. I was getting cheesed-off with club backings as I was hankering playing for a band again. That’s not to say that all of the club backings were bad, in fact I worked with some incredible musicians who help me a lot and got me into reading music which later led to some session work.     Sadly, a lot of them were really bad and after working with Gaz and Roy - The Great Expectations rhythm section - I was again hooked. Colin also fancied a band again so the idea of 'Pokie' was instigated. Eric Lawrenson was asked to join on rhythm guitar and vocals and 'Pokie' was finally off the starting blocks.   *     A lot of time was spent rehearsing, and new equipment was duly acquired - including a new lighting system - which I think we were one of the first groups to use - although 'Winston' may just have pipped us. In lot's of ways Pokie was similar to my old group 'Ipso Facto' in as much as we didn’t play much chart material. Instead, we did medleys, album tracks, and quite unusual songs.  Because of it  -we did get a strong following.    'To sum up: Pokie was a serious group that never took itself seriously'.     We would spend hour’s perfecting harmonies, only to have them ruined on stage by cracking-up laughing at something funny Colin did or said.   A great fun group of superb musicians, and I made life-long friends with them. I loved being in Pokie." Michael Mitch Mitchinson: May 2010        "Mitch, Garry and Roy had earlier joined an eight-piece soul band called Hamilton Brown & The Great Expectations who didn’t do a lot of work but it introduced the lads to each other as collective musicians.     Each were doing session playing with various artists and singers of the day. Mitch and Colin were still very active as the Two Of Us and were looking for a little something more. We all got together with a new recruit called Eric Lawrenson and formed Pokie.       A very light hearted band focusing on light pop music with a touch of comedy from Mr Ashton and playing all the local clubs in and around Wigan during the mid-seventies.  Pokie opened the set with a music medley ending in “Don’t take away my music” by Tavares. Pokie was a very punchy, clean-sounding group with good, clean comedy, quickly becoming popular around the county.   Sausage Butty..  I remember one night as we returned from a gig in Rochdale, we called at the M62 Birch Services for a bite to eat. All but Roy went for the big breakfast at £2.95. Roy being shut-not-tight went for a sausage butty and found at the checkout that it didn’t count for a set meal and was charged more. This didn’t go down to well and he monkeyed like high-heaven, especially when Colin took a bite out of one of his sausages."         Roy 'Thunder-Foot' Davies: May 2010     *More Pokie pics.     "We had these next four pics taken and we weren’t best pleased. We thought it made us out to be a country and western band - which was far from the reality. So these were never seen. They may get a reaction from the other lads in the band as I don’t think they know I still have them?"   'Surprise-surprise boys!!!'           Roy Davies: August 2011   'POKIE' - 30 YEARS ON..      Pokie meet at Lankykats after 30 Years..                                                                                                           Eric Lawrenson: Michael 'Mitch' Mitchinson: Colin Ashton:               Roy Davies: Garry Hughes: