Mick O’Hara 1958 to 1963

Mick O’Hara jokes that he left St Mary’s in the summer of 1963 with the sobs of teachers ringing in his ears before adding: “Not quite true - in fact I ran the gauntlet of two lines of priests and lay teachers screaming ‘Depart and Sin No More!’

“I wandered the streets like a Hogarthian Grotesque and finally sought sanctuary in the Youth Employment Office where the official told me my chosen career of jazz drummer was ‘too precarious’ and sent me to a solicitors’ office to be interviewed for the role of office junior,” he adds.

While at St Mary’s Mick, third from left, was already drumming in a band called The Blues Combine

Mick’s first job after St Mary’s was office junior in a firm of solicitors and his first wage packed contained £3.4s.4d. Over the next decade he rose to the position of office manager.

While here Mick first met his bride-to-be, June Mears and the couple were married in April 1969, with Mick’s lifelong friend from St Mary’s, John ‘Buck’ Hennessy, his best man.

Mick and June on their wedding day in April 1969

John ‘Buck’ Hennessy was Mick’s best man. The two met at St Mary’s in 1958 and remain close friends to this day.

Next, Mick moved into the refractories industry, supervising 12 tonne arc furnaces in the manufacture of fused mullite and fused alumina: “Health and Safety was a thing unknown and only the hardiest men applied to work on the crew and were able to stay for any length of time. The job was physical enough to keep you fit and technical enough to keep the brain active,” says Mick.

“As the years and injuries passed and middle age approached it was time to go back to a more sedentary occupation,” added Mick and this led to a move into investment banking in the ‘Front of House’ team, responsible for the behind-the-scenes organisation of the bank. “This was a very happy period indeed. leading up to retirement,” Mick said.

POST RETIREMENT

“My lifelong passion for drumming, a failed attempt to emulate the great Gene Krupa, has sustained me and kept me co-ordinated and fit. I won ‘Name That Tune’ hosted by Lionel Blair and was on the lovely Willie Rushton’s team for ‘Music Match’, hosted by Barry Cryer. My poetic friend John Hennessy also featured a poem entitled ‘O’Hara Was A Drumming Man’ in his book ‘Wild Geese’. I have played countless gigs in pubs, clubs, seedy joints and a few condemned buildings!”

Now in his 70s, Mick has moved on to playing African drums known as ‘doun-douns.’ “The combination of African and jazz rhythms is very exciting and keeping pace with far younger drummers is nicely challenging,” he says.

Mick also worked behind the bar of a busy pub and won a ‘Best Barman in East Kent Award’

He is still with June: “June is now 74, like myself, and is still as lovely as when I first met her. As Stanley Unwin used to say ‘Deep Joy!’ We have our lovely daughter, Clare, her partner, Phil, and our amazing grandson, Jacob Michael, now nine years of age. My dear younger brother, John, has also been as much friend as brother."

“Another constant thread since I was 11, has been my friendship with fellow St Mary’s pupil, John ‘Buck’ Hennessy. A they say in Ireland: ‘We have all seen the two days - the good and the bad.’

Mick and June pictured with daughter, Clare, and grandson, Jacob

Summing up, with admirable modesty, Mick says: “All in all, the unremarkable life of an unremarkable man, the son of working class Irish parents - a lovely gentle Mum and a rebel Dad, both of whom we loved dearly. A life which, though not over yet, has culminated in the warmth of a loving family, exciting memories, and lasting friendship. Never boring. I will settle for that.”