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Melody Maker, the jazz weekly, hated Colyer's band. He was a purist, a grouchy extremist who thought Louis Armstrong had sold out when he brought a saxophone into his band. His conservatism accidentally beat a new path. What he did with skiffle was to revive a music that was so old it seemed radically new; in this way, he is a forefather to Morrissey - who took the early-sixties, pre-Beatles pop culture to shape the Smiths' image and lyrics - and the indie revolution. What seemed like exotic distance to Ken Colyer seemed very real to people still living in two-up two-downs, in ramshackle Victorian structures with galley kitchens and outdoor toilets. The washboard, the mop, the bucket - these were everyday items in working-class fifties Britain. Transforming them into musical instruments with a few nails and a few screws caught the imagination of kids like a home-made Meccano set.