 In 1964 he opened a folk club, in the Spinning Wheel restaurant in Hemel Hempstead.It was shut down by the police after only a year, however, for "various reasons", mainly health and safety; a very small basement room, with only one way in (and out).Softley does not look back on this time favourably claiming during production he had gone "through a lot of hells and no heavens, a terrifying amount of personal pain" to the extent that he quit the music business for over four years.