Rocking Reg unplugged

I suspect that most of us Ryers have had the pleasure of hearing Rocking Reg (Reg Marchant) singing to his guitar in a pub or at a party in the last quarter of a century.

He is the wandering minstrel of Rye and all points east, west, north and south on the globe, with the guitar as his passport and meal ticket … and actually more usually, his drinking voucher too. So he’s clever, interesting and interested, and not a little talented.

Born 76 years ago in a council house in Hastings, he has turned dyslexia and a lousy education (his words) into a charmed and successful life … a polymath really. Just as a for instance, he has taught himself French, is now learning Spanish, and also the extremely difficult task of learning to play the violin. I take my hat off to that!

At 16 he heard a drunken Irishman sing from the top of an upright piano in a pub in Hastings, and thought that was exactly what he wanted! With Bert Weedon’s now famous book Play in a Day the only help tool, he set about learning to play. He
said to me that music transcends colour, class and creed the world over … and he knows because he’s been there! Lists make thin gruel to read, better ask where he hasn’t been, who he hasn’t met and what he hasn’t done really.

So with his guitar, huge charm and his native cunning, he started on many and various careers from grill chef to herdsman on a small holding in the Mendips, ski guide for ski Olympic, flying a plane home from Portland Ohio over the polar ice cap to name but a few. But the career that has sustained his family (Audrey and their two girls) well and for 50 years is cleaning.

Not really cleaning as we know it, like a little light dusting and hoovering, but commercial kitchen cleaning, and now infection control in hospital operating theatres. Also pest control and dust control, with connections and outsourced contractors in all postcodes in the country. Not really a small kitchen table business, although Reg and his partner, Roger Dipper, did actually start with a mop and a bucket! Luckily, this couldn’t last too long before they had to hire and outsource people. Well, 850 at its height. And this made Reg free to do more amusing things in between running teams and teams of cleaners. Correction, running the guys who ran them.

One nice story was once when becalmed for days and days on the Atlantic with 26 other boats, various crew members instigated a broadcast programme around all the boats inviting other sailors to showcase their skills like poetry reading, story telling and of course singing and playing the guitar. A few boat owners had thrown ropes to other boats to strap them together, and when one Australian played the didgeridoo with the business end under the calm water, it had attracted a pod of whales. Some intrepid souls jumped in to swim with them and pulled themselves along the joining ropes to tickle the whales’ backs, which they seemed to love! Very brave, I call it!!

He survived with both legs luckily as sport has always played a huge and successful part in his life from the beginning, bowls and rowing being two of his earliest loves. Later, golf (off 6), competition hot air ballooning for 25 consecutive years, tennis and padel.

He has also met most folk you and I would think glamorous and interesting … all through his playing and singing.

He sold his share of the business to his partner about 5 years ago, freeing up his already charmed life to sing more, (often to the grey brigade in homes for the elderly, dementia patients and 7 years now of two and half hours’ of Christmas carols at The Globe), to play more tennis and padel and to travel with his admired and clever wife, always taking with him his wife number two….his guitar!

Image Credits: Col Everett .