Meet The Zimmers!

If you thought that life was all downhill for bingo players after 60 then the release of a new cover version of The Who’s “My Generation” is sure to challenge your views. The band releasing the song is The Zimmers, and the average age of a Zimmers member is a sprightly 78. Hundreds of thousands of web surfers have already downloaded their video from YouTube and Myspace, and the official release looks set to take the nation by surprise, if not by storm. Even better, it’s all happening because of our favourite game – bingo.

When the Mecca bingo hall in Essex Road, Islington was threatened with closure, Alfie Carretta got agitated, and did all he could to stop it happening. When the closure took place anyway – something Alf describes as being like “losing a second home” after playing there for a quarter of a century – he got even louder, and his argument was written about in a local newspaper. The BBC, which had been looking for campaigners to raise awareness of age issues in the UK, decided it had found just the man.

Formed in early 2007, The Zimmers is made up of Alf and some of his bingo-mad friends: Winifred Warburton is 99 and plays keyboards, Eric Whitty is 69 and love karaoke, Tim O’Donovan is 81 and shares a care home with thirty women, Joan Bennett is modest about her age and used to play the harmonica, Gillian (Deddie) Davies is a 69 year old RADA-trained singer, Peter Oakley is “coming up for 80” and famous for his “Geriatric 127” video blogs, Buster Martin is 100 and famously gave as good as he got when attacked by muggers, John and Bubbles Tree are big jazz fans, Grace Cook is 83 and has been with the Hoxton Singers for about a decade and Alf himself is 90 and performs lead vocals.

The Zimmers have recorded their debut album at the famous Abbey Road Studios, and the first single from that album, My Generation, will be released on May 14. Other track covered include “Firestarter” by The Prodigy and “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off” by Jermaine Stewart.

Whilst the overall aim of The Zimmers is to put the elderly back on the map of our consciousness, we can fully expect bingo to come under the spotlight automatically. There are many thousands of people like Alfie and his friends who view their local bingo hall as a second home, and The Zimmers will want to highlight this fact in an attempt to slow down the mass of closures even if they can stop them entirely.