\n A celebrant arrived at the house to carry out the ceremony while the legendary Norfolk singer Viv Ritchie looked on with pride.\n<\/p>\n
\n His wish had come true.\n<\/p>\n
\n Five days later he died.\n<\/p>\n
\n A proud father. Viv Ritchie\u00a0 with daughter Gemma and son in law James after their marriage (Image: Submitted)\n<\/p>\n
\n “I will be forever grateful that he got to see me standing there with the man I love. He got to see me happy,” said Gemma.\n<\/p>\n
\n “And I got to see my dad there for the moment he had wanted for me. This is something I will carry me for the rest of my life,” she added.\n<\/p>\n
\n Viv, aged 81, married her mum in 1981 but sadly lost her in 1994 and later married Linda in 2003.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was father to Gemma, Warren and Darren, and had two stepdaughters, Laura and Abby.\n<\/p>\n
\n Viv with his daughter Gemma and wife Linda (Image: Submitted)\n<\/p>\n
\n And, away from his family home in Mulbarton, Viv had an army of fans.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was the frontman with Mister Buss and entertained generations of rock ‘n’ roll fans with his great group which had many members over the years.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some of you may have seen the band bring the house down at the Evening News Golden Years charity gigs which reunited so many of the groups from the 1960s and 70s.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was a star both on stage and off it.\n<\/p>\n
\n Viv who had been a lifelong supporter\u00a0 of Norwich City (Image: Submitted)\n<\/p>\n
\n Everybody loved Viv.\n<\/p>\n
\n Such a kind and generous man.\n<\/p>\n
\n Many years ago he told me how the band came about… following a chat in the loo at the Lotus factory where they worked during 1974.\n<\/p>\n
\n Along with Viv were Richard “Will” Styles, a guitarist, and Andy Harrison, a drummer, who already played with guitarist Alan Kindlesides and bass man Paul Womack.\n<\/p>\n
\n They were in a band called “Dritt”, a word meaning rubbish in Norway where Will’s fianc\u00e9e came from.\n<\/p>\n
\n What they needed was a flamboyant front man such as… Viv.\n<\/p>\n
\n They were Mister Buss but they caught this one (Image: submitted)\n<\/p>\n
\n He jumped at the opportunity so they hit the road with a new name, the Fifth Gear Travelling Band, and when Paul left Lotus his place was taken by John Wallis.\n<\/p>\n
\n The fans loved them and they played the clubs and pubs across Norfolk and Suffolk for a couple of years before moving to bigger venues.\n<\/p>\n
\n They backed the likes of The Foundations, Andy Fairweather Low and others.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 1977 Andy left and was replaced by drummer Ian Clarke.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was on one snowy night when they were late in getting to a gig in Felixstowe that Viv announced: “I apologise for being late, we missed the bus.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Some thought he said they were Mister Buss… and that’s how the name came about.\n<\/p>\n
\n They went on to work with many more famous bands such as Marmalade and Showwaddywaddy before Viv and the boys decided to step down.\n<\/p>\n
\n They were getting married, starting families… life was changing.\n<\/p>\n
\n Viv was also driving for a coach company, taking holidaymakers abroad, and was away for much of the time.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mister Buss rockin the years away at The Golden Years (Image: Newsquest)\n<\/p>\n
\n Then former rocker, the late Terry Wickham, got in touch in the 1990s and asked them if they would like to take part in the Golden Years gigs.\n<\/p>\n
\n How could they turn the offer down?\n<\/p>\n
\n Viv with Ian Clarke, Phil Selby, Dennis Woodcock and Roger Linwood and others reformed Mister Buss.\n<\/p>\n
\n The crowd loved them.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ex-professional guitarist Phil Chapman along with Terry Smith joined the band and they were back on the road.\n<\/p>\n
\n There were many other members over the years.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was in 2015 that Mister Buss decided it really was time to call it a day.\n<\/p>\n
\n “There have been some good times but personal tragedies too over the years,” said Viv.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Ths loss of two former members Peter Sear and Dennis Woodcock and our much-loved friend and agent Chic Applin of Norwich,” he added.\n<\/p>\n
\n “But there has always been such a bond of friendship between current and former members of the band.\n<\/p>\n
\n It goes beyond music,” he told me.\n<\/p>\n
\n The late, great\u00a0 Viv Ritchie\u00a0 who died five days after watching his daughter marry by his bedside (Image: Newsquest)\n<\/p>\n
\n And they raised a lot of money for charities and good causes over the years.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mister Buss played their farewell gig at Banham Community Centre in November 2015.\n<\/p>\n
\n But their memory lives on.\n<\/p>\n
\n And when Viv wasn’t singing, and being a family man, he was a lifelong supporter of Norwich City FC.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Friday October 2 there will be a special gathering of family and close friends at Carrow Road to remember a very special gentleman.\n<\/p>\n
\n Gone but never forgotten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A celebrant arrived at the house to carry out the ceremony while the legendary Norfolk singer Viv Ritchie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-781066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}