Tony ‘Mo’ Worsley
1948—2026
TONY WAS ONE OF my close friends at school. Where the nickname 'Mo' came from I have no idea but probably not from him. Anyway it stuck, so to me, part of him will always be Mo. The school was Bolton School Boys' Division, a public school for boys with a girls' school next door. 1960s Bolton School was 'old school' compared to today. The boys were allowed to flourish in ways that nowadays might be 'discouraged', let's say. So Tony and I flourished together, along with a group of the like-minded of about our age. By 'flourish' I don't necessarily mean academic achievement, one the the primary purposes why parents sent their boys there. It's fair to say Tony's 'academic achievement' was no better than mine, i.e. modest, but it didn't matter, at least not to us. We could always catch up later in the big wide world. We did, actually. We both became architects.
I became an architect because my mother told me to. She did the right thing. If maybe I later influenced Tony in that direction, I too did the right thing. It's not always easy to know where you're going to stand in the world and a push from someone you know often helps. There are many ways to practice architecture. One is rather like a country doctor who knows and cares for his clientele one-to-one, and listens, and finds solutions carefully thought out for the individual to make life genuinely better. I think Tony was that kind of architect – skilled, modest, and dedicated to the craft much more than making a name for himself. I'm sure he did though, amongst those who knew him professionally.
Back to school …
I think our own primary purpose at school was to enjoy ourselves as much as possible, and we were successful in that. Tony is one of the reasons why my schooldays were such fun and I thank him for it. I'd like to think he'd thank me in return – partners in crime, so to speak. He was not, however, a 'wild child' or an unruly rebel. Tony was at least as intelligent as me. Intelligent enough to know academic achievement isn't everything. Who and what you are is the real thing, especially in the formative years that will carry you through for the rest of your life.
So when Tony brought a Primus stove into school one day, he was being imaginative and creative, not rebellious. Why not brew some tea during a French A-Level lesson? Lift the desk lid a little, light the stove and make a cuppa. Unfortunately Mrs Page, the French teacher, misunderstood. She thought Tony was being rebellious and sent him out of the classroom to stand under the school's main arch as punishment. As it happened, the classroom was next to the main arch on the front of the school, so for the rest of the lesson Tony stood outside the classroom window looking in at us. If that isn't funny, I don't know what is. It was Tony all over. I've a feeling he was suspended for it but he soon made his way back. I'm guessing which year it was. Probably 1963 or 64.
I may as well mention another funny anecdote which probably only I remember now. We'd been to Spain in a 'Butch Ingham camp' and were coming back on the train through France. Our carriage was filled with Bolton School boys in high spirits, larking around. One of us happened to have a tin of tomato soup, which was opened and tasted horrible apparently. So what to do with it? Tony had a solution: launch it. He picked it up and threw it out of the carriage window (trains had opening windows in those days). The aim was better than the idea, because the can left the train but not the soup inside it. I can still see the outside of the entire carriage windows painted horizontally in a lovely tomato red. It perhaps helped that there were no teachers on board.
Those years were magical for a teenager with fun in mind. The age of Chuck Berry giving way to The Beatles. Time became measured in Beatles hits. We had girlfriends of course but the main thing was the music. We decided to make some. Not actually make it but play it. A boy I knew, because he lived close to me, was Clive Leyland. Clive was a bit older and a born musician. He owned a Burns Orbit amplifier, a Watkins Copicat echo chamber (like The Shadows) and a red Fender Stratocaster exactly like Hank Marvin's. I soon had my own electric guitar to play rhythm to Clive's lead. We just needed a bass player and a drummer.
Enter Pete Turbefield (bass guitar) and Mo (using my cousin's drumkit). Apart from Clive who knew how to play a guitar, we learned as we went along. I don't remember how Pete and Mo were brought in but it worked. The 'group' – band nowadays – was named The Citizens. I fancied myself as 'the singer' but it soon became clear Mo was a much better singer than me. Without Clive and Mo, we'd have got nowhere. I can honestly say Tony really could sing and play the drums at the same time. The Citizens never became famous but I think we had a decent reputation in the various church halls and school assembly rooms we played in, with girls screaming as they did at the time.
Cool photo above: The Citizens Beat Group 1964/65. Left to right: Clive Leyland, Pete Turbefield (top of car), me then Mo coming in through the car window. This was when pop idols still wore suits and ties. Happy days.
Clive Leyland died before his time in 2007. And now, almost twenty years later, my old friend Mo. Sybil informed me on the 8th of July 2026 and I'm very sad about it. I'm sad for Sybil and her family but I'm also sad for myself and my wife Sandra. You lose part of yourself to history – your own history.
We're pleased to say we kept in touch with Tony and Sybil. The friendship we formed easily survived their time in Hong Kong and their move north from us when they returned to England. We've been to stay with them on several occasions in the past thirty years or so. I spoke to Tony (and Sybil) only the week before he died. The plan was another visit later this year. It was not to be. But we have the memories.
They include a musical reunion in the village of Dean where Tony and Sybil lived, and Sybil still does with her daughter Sarah close by. It was initiated by Clive some time in the 2000s I think, with Tony on drums and vocals as usual, and in public, but this time more Crosby Stills and Nash than Chuck Berry and Beatles. On stage with us: Mike Hancock (bass guitar) and I think Al Roscoe but sadly not Peter Turbefield. The memories include walks around Loweswater and Ennerdale. Somewhere on one of those walks Tony and I buried a penny under a footbridge, thinking we might find it again some day. It will have to remain there now. It was a nice idea. Let it rest as a part of the memories.
A couple of things I forgot to mention. I should, if only to remind myself in the years to come. Both late 1960s. I suppose in a small way, they illustrate the times we lived in then.
One Saturday, Tony and I set off hitch-hiking to London, not to do anything particular in London but just to go there. We didn't have any money or bags or anything. We just set off one morning. Teenagers rarely owned cars in those days. Besides, hitch-hiking seemed fun. It was, on the way down. A nice sunny day. I think the M1 was just being finished so we were driven by various people through the sunny lanes of the English countryside. We got to London in the late afternoon and spent the evening wandering around. At one point we were invited into a West End Theatre as part of the audience for an installment of 'What's my Line' or a similar programme that needed live laughter and clapping. Signs came up when it was time to clap. Anything to get warm. After, we decided to sleep on benches at Kings Cross Station. I only remember being cold.
We set off hitch-hiking home some time the next day. By nightfall we'd only got as far as Staffordshire somewhere, so we went in a phone box and phoned my father, reversed charges. He accepted the call and accepted the fact that in the rather mad 1960s lads did mad things just to feel mad. So my father came to Staffordshire and drove us home.
At about the time of the moon landings (which seemed like another mad thing) Tony was studying architecture in Huddersfield. He was in charge of the college film society (as well as being, I think someone said at his funeral, president of the students' union). Anyway he came back to Bolton one weekend with the college film projector, a big screen and several big metal spools of real movie film. On the Friday or Saturday evening a big group of us watched The Graduate in my parents' living room. The Graduate is still a great film. It seemed to go with the times.
Tony drumming and singing, age 16 or 17
(venue unknown)
I wish we had gone to see Tony and Sybil more often in the past few years.
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Mike Hancock on 10 July 2026 [ ]
Great memories Patrick of a very special friendship. I remember well following the Citizens around your Saturday night gigs, exciting times for a young teenager.
I also remember fondly being invited to the Sunday night 'jam sessions' at Clive's house preparing for the gig in Dean. All our families were there along with everyone in the village. A very sad loss of a lovely talented man.