This huge cabinet - a house of joy in the vernacular - was initially too big to

This huge cabinet - a "house of joy", in the vernacular - was initially too big to be moved out of the room it was built in. When you were playing, you could see the electrons actually flowing in the valve itself!"He called his system Metro Downbeat, in homage to Clement Dodd's famous Sir Coxsone's Downbeat system. He also created a 300watt amplifier by using "807" valves, the common currency in Jamaican systems, and experimenting with compositers and resistors. He housed a 12-inch speaker in a mahogany cabinet acquired from the plywood factory he was working in at the time.

In the Caribbean, Metro was accustomed to the blockbusting amplification of the system belonging to Duke Reid, who performed at the botanical gardens his parents ran. In England, however, Metro was struck by the feebleness of the sound. "Imagine, I'd left Jamaica to listen to this," he says.Ironically, he had dreamt about building a sound system in Britain and once in London, he began modifying amplifiers and speakers. "When I think of the happiness and music I left behind in Jamaica....

I didn't know where I was - I was lost."As he would experience himself, sound systems in England drew disparate, disorientated immigrants together and recreated something of the musical atmosphere of Jamaica But only up to a point. I set the passengers alight, because these records I had, the ordinary sound system in Jamaica didn't get them." This wave of enthusiasm was soon dampened however, when he found that the likeliest place to land a job in Nottingham was down a coal mine "When I got here, I cry living tears," he says ruefully. The records became Metro's calling card."When I got on the ship," he says, "these records were entertaining people until I came off the ship. Funnily enough, his brother remained unaware of Metro's arrival in Nottingham for some time after. Metro recalls that he brought with him 22 rhythm and blues records belonging to his British-resident brother, which duly delighted the passengers on the monotonous trip from Jamaica. Indeed, Jah Shaka, a current London system chief, continues to use the powerful valve amps Metro constructed for him.

"I've still got them and I'm still using them 20-odd years after - so that's how good they are," says Shaka.Metro was one of many optimistic Jamaicans to migrate to Britain in 1958, the year of the first Notting Hill riots, a decade after the SS Windrush docked in London. As well as organising his own system, Metro built amplifiers and speakers for others in Manchester, Bristol and London. In 1958, electrician Percival Miller got off the boat from Jamaica with a box of R&B records. Before long he had built a huge amplifier and some monster speakers.

As Metro, he then set about introducing Britain to bluebeat and ska. "AMPLIFICATION AND records. If you have those two items, then you can go somewhere", says Percival Miller, better known as Metro, a pivotal figure in the development of British sound system culture. Although the fabled Duke Vin claims to have been the first to introduce Jamaican sound systems to England in 1955, Metro was a formidable presence in this area from the late Fifties, exploiting his skills as an electrician to have a qualitative impact on the nascent British scene. The Notting Hill Carnival of today is an indirect product of the entrepreneurial spirit and technical experimentation of such men as the Duke, Count Suckle and Metro in the 1960s."My intention is power," states Metro today. The cosmic significance of camel heads is revealed, and we're also treated to a spot of statistical analysis, but the slides, hum-drum elegies to their long-dead subjects, are all the more touching given Dury's own physical condition.At the Pleasance until 31 August. At points, Dury's reasons to be cheerful seem anything but - one line, "18-wheeler Scammell" (a huge lorry), leads the Mancunian to discover the dark world of road haulier appreciation.In the end, the show is often rather moving. "I'm fed up with doing this show and it's only three shows in," he announced, in that charmingly glum way of his He was not jesting..