Once upon a time, during the 1960s and ’70s, Bermuda celebrated its own brand of Arabian Nights in the Forty Thieves Club, complete with Aladdin’s Cave, on Front Street East in Hamilton. Night after night the Club would be packed with guests all eager for live entertainment from the top stars of the time. Founder and owner of the Club, Terence Matthew Brannon, or Terry as he was always known in Bermuda, would always be there to personally greet his visitors and to make sure the music happened. A musician in his own right, he was fulfilling a dream to open his own club at a time when pop music, particularly soul, was in its heyday. According to the Bermuda Sun, he had an extraordinary gift for spotting talent and for attracting great performers to Bermuda, some, like Tom Jones, just before they were becoming household names. Looking at the lists of entertainers who performed at the Forty Thieves Club corroborates this: Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Neil Diamond, Louis Armstrong, are just a few of the major stars who came to perform.
Born in 1923 in the pottery town of Stoke on Trent, U.K. to Mary and Matthew Brannon, Terry was musical from the start and took piano lessons from the age of five. After leaving school with music qualifications from Trinity College of Music, he was accepted into the prestigious Coldstream Guards Band where he played both piano and percussion. During the Second World War, he played music to the troops and afterwards continued his work as a professional musician by working with bands around London. In 1949 he decided to come out to Bermuda with the Jack Wallace Band to play jazz in The Princess, Hamilton. Jack Wallace was leader and trumpeter, while the six band members also included guitarist Charlie Berry. After arriving in Bermuda, they looked out to the blue ocean as they crossed the Causeway and apparently said, “We’re never leaving this place!” They kept to their word, most spending the rest of their lives on the island. No doubt the ocean surrounding their outdoor venue at The Princess, where they played in a clam shell, worked its magic.
Terry’s six- month contract was renewed for another six months, after which he worked in the music department of Masters on Reid Street, which specialised in selling Grundig phonographs. Next came his decision in 1959 to open his own music shop, Bandstand, on the corner of Queen and Church Street. Customers could listen to the latest top ten pop songs in the two booths available for the purpose before buying the 45 records they chose. The shop also imported organs, pianos – any instruments that people special ordered. A member of Bermuda’s first pop band, The Savages, bought a guitar from Bandstand. In the meantime Terry had met his future wife, Marion Ware by chance while depositing his salary in the Post Office where she was a clerk. She had been sent out to Bermuda to recover from an illness. In 1950 they married, eventually having two children, Tony and Marilyn. Terry continued to play the piano at various hotels, including the Eagles Nest and he also appeared on Bermuda’s first television station which was run by the Kindley Air Force Base.
Given much of Terry’s business was related to current popular music, wanting to open his own night club featuring the best entertainers of the time seemed a natural progression. With the backing of Francis (Goose) Gosling and other Bermudian business men, he opened the Forty Thieves Club 3 March 1962 with Mel Tormé, composer of “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”, being the leading act. Interior designers Arthur Cooper, of Harem Scarem fame, and Mac Musson had designed the décor, creating Aladdin’s Cave and murals based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. (The fact that leading Bermudian merchants and political leaders were also dubbed the Forty Thieves was entirely coincidental.) Top Bermudian musicians, including Ghandi Burgess, Hubert Smith, and the Bermuda Strollers, would always open the shows, with different famous performers from the States and the U.K. taking top billing.
The Club quickly became a magnet for locals, as well as visiting guests, who would pay a small cover charge. “All the stars come to see us. So come on down and see us,” said the posters, “For $3.50 cover, we give you more than any other night spot.”
“He never charged taxi drivers or hotel workers,” recalls Tony, “and he’d often buy locals their first drink. He got the goodwill of Bermudians to support the Club. He never brought in his own favourites but rather the entertainers he thought the public would like.”
As a journalist in the Bermuda Sun, March 1980 pointed out, Terry met some of the best-known names in the world – royalty, leading politicians and top stars. He had many stories about them, which he kept to himself, except one, which goes like this: A couple was sitting in the club when in the middle of the show a man suddenly disappeared under the table. The waiter went over to the lady and said, “Excuse me, madam but your husband has just fallen under the table.” Whereupon she replied icily, “My husband has just come through the door.”
Terry was involved in other ventures such as Disco 40 and Disco 40 II, and the Grotto Bay Hotel, but it is for the Forty Thieves and the glittering array of stars who performed there that he is most remembered.
