At the unveiling: Richard Whittingham beside the new plaque. (Photo by Adam Regan)
❚ NOT ONLY WAS A PLAQUE unveiled this month before the Lord Mayor of Birmingham to underline the importance of its key nightclub during the Swinging 80s, namely the Rum Runner. . . But the star of the occasion was clearly its deejay, judging from the immediate stream of affection from fans and friends that is appearing online alongside his bearded photo at the event, now aged 62. They said he’d flown in from Lapland especially.
At the age of 19 Richard Whittingham – aka, DJDick – was one of Britain’s most savvy club deejays, reading the tastes of Britain’s second largest city and trying to broaden them to embrace the new dance music like Duran Duran’s which was rapidly filling the post-punk vacuum. For my Nightlife column in the magazine New Sounds New Styles, Dick told me back then: “I’ve been trying to break the funk here for ages but nobody’s into it. The customers aren’t into it and the owners aren’t into anyone taking over their own night. I’m just buying the funk for the day when I have more freedom.”
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He found all the glamorous dressing up led by Birmingham’s Kahn & Bell boutique crazily entertaining, but he admitted what so many clubbers in the Eighties also did about not feeling safe on the streets. When the BBC’s One Show asked in 2011 what he would have worn at the Rum Runner, he replied: “Zoot suits, the odd frilly shirt, winklepickers of course – I had to hide them, to take them out of the house in a bag, and then put them on, because my mother thought they were trouble shoes.” [See interview in video clip below.] Today Dick describes himself as a carpenter and joiner, though he still deejays for occasional events.
Also at the plaque’s preview for the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Councillor Maureen Cornish, and members of the sponsoring charity the Birmingham Civic Society, we see many local characters pictured at Facebook’s website The Rum Runner – Birmingham, which curiously fails to identify anybody by name! We’ve already guessed that the bearded one is DJDick. Another in the green coat caught wielding a mic and parting the curtains has to be Paul Berrow, one of the brothers who owned the Rum Runner, formerly of Wandering Star Pictures and Tritec Music in the Eighties.
The new plaque is attached to a modern building called Rum Runner Works, set back off Broad Street where the entrance once stood, today located between the Solomon Cutler pub and the Walkabout sports bar. In the Eighties the council planned to turn Birmingham into a major conference city with developments including the ICC and Symphony Hall. The Rum Runner was demolished in 1987 to make way for the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which opened in summer 1990.
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➢ Visit The Rum Runner – Birmingham website at Facebook
Photos displayed here were taken by Neil Drakeford, Debra Warren and Adam Regan who said: “Lovely to see this legendary Brummie club getting a much-deserved blue plaque. The club launched so many careers but none more relevant to me than this great man” [DJdick].
LISTEN TO DJDICK LIVE AT THE RUM RUNNER:
At Dick Whittingham’s website we can listen to two recordings of him deejaying at the Rum Runner in 1983. These were donated on his 40-something birthday by Mark “Mack” McDonald, an old friend from way back.
VIEW THE BBC ONE SHOW FROM 2011:
➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s:
1981, Birth of Duran’s Planet Earth
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 