‘The landlord said: I don’t mind what you do as long as you don’t cut your wrists in the toilet’

Brush Shiels of Skid Row on the making of ‘Un Co-op Showband Blues’ and how the rock’n’roll wheel of fortune spins

Brush Shiel's wedding day. From left, Brush, Gary Moore, wife Margaret, and Phil Lynott

Barry Egan

In the mid-1960s, a young lad was working as a messenger boy in the Aer Lingus head office on O’Connell Street. He would go out and “get cream cakes” for the airline chiefs for their lunches.

En route, he would pop into the record shop around the corner and listen to old jazz and blues albums.