Double Bill (Text Only)

I introduced Boo to Dad in his dressing-room. He was barely polite, though in mitigation it should be said he was always extremely nervous before a show, pacing the floor, clicking his fingers and wiping the sweat from his brow. Boo was quite unfazed by his cold manner. When we left him and went for a quick drink in the bar, she didn’t ask anxiously, ‘Do you think he liked me, and if not, why not?’ She was one of those poised, self-possessed personalities who are at peace with themselves. If Dad took against her, that was his problem, not hers.

After the show, we waited in a corridor while he changed. Then my mother turned up, obviously anxious things should go well. Dad decided to impress Boo with his importance by taking us to the exclusive Albany Club in Savile Row, which was run by a man called Bill Little who knew everyone who was anyone. As Billy Cotton, Britain’s most famous band-leader, friend of the stars, confidant of royalty, strutted in, Bill Little came hurrying up, but then to Dad’s astonishment and chagrin he swept right past him and greeted Boo like a long-lost friend, kissing her on both cheeks and enquiring how she and the family were. Dad couldn’t believe he was being upstaged by my girlfriend whose name he could barely remember. Later, in a heavy attempt at humour, he surveyed the menu and said gruffly, ‘Make the most of it, it’s the last time we’re coming here.’ Quick as a flash, Boo said sweetly, ‘If you can’t afford it, I’ll pay.’ It took time, but in the end they became close friends because Dad had to admire her independence of spirit and honesty.

To celebrate our engagement, I took Boo to see Frank Sinatra at the Palladium, Dad having fixed a box for us. Frank was then at the peak of his career as a singer before he became better known as a movie star. He was sensational. When we left the theatre, Boo was very quiet, and when I pressed her she said, ‘Do you think we are being a bit hasty, getting married?’ I went cold. In a clumsy attempt at a joke, I protested, ‘But I’ve already bought the ring.’ She laughed it off and I delivered her to her flat and went home to mine, only to spend the whole night staring at the ceiling, convinced that my life was about to disintegrate. Years later, after Sinatra had been performing at the Royal Festival Hall, I had breakfast with him. I said, ‘Do you realise you nearly buggered up my life?’ I told him the story of Boo’s strange turn and he howled with laughter. ‘In the end it came out all right,’ I said, ‘but how many other people are walking around cursing you for breaking up their love affairs by doing nothing more than singing to them?’

We fixed the wedding for 21 October 1950. Predictably, Dad decided to be difficult. He said he couldn’t make it; ‘In October, I’m working in Newcastle.’ I knew he’d plucked the excuse out of thin air; he never knew his dates off the top of his head that far in advance. I rang my mother and told her what Dad had said and added, ‘Tell him, will you, that I recall a time when he changed his performance dates to fit in with a motor race, and if he doesn’t want to do the same for my wedding, ask him to send along a cheque and I’ll let him know how things went next time we meet.’ I saw him a few days later. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Oh, by the way, I managed to change those dates in October.’ When I recounted the saga to my brother, he said, ‘You’re lucky! When I told him about the date of my wedding, he actually altered his programme to make sure he was so far away he couldn’t possibly get to the ceremony. But when the great day came, he duly appeared in top hat and morning suit, having switched his dates around yet again.’ Neither Ted nor I doubted that the old man loved us dearly; he just had this very strange quirk.

Chappell’s recognised my married state by raising my salary to twelve quid a week and Dad let us have the bungalow at Ham Island as our first home – he bought a more spacious house in Farnham Common. The bungalow may have been too small for him but to us it was a palace and we knew most of the bohemian set who lived on that part of the island. As well as Noel Gay there was Lupino Lane, the star of the original pre-war Victoria Palace production of Me and My Girl, Bill Weston Drury, one of the original casting directors in the British film industry, and his son Budge, who did the same job at Pinewood. Budge’s wife, Jean Capra, had been Poppy Poo Pah, the sexy female character in Tommy Hanley’s ITMA. Then there was Jack Swinburne, the production manager for Alexander Korda, and his wife, Mamie Souter, an old music-hall star who had a habit of going on an alcoholic bender every now and again. There was also Russell Lloyd, a film editor, who had once been married to Rosamund John, a star of the silver screen, but had then married a gorgeous model called Valerie. My brother Ted and his wife Beryl also had a bungalow on the island, and he and Russell Lloyd worked together at the Shepperton Studios. The odd ones out were the Clarkes. He was a typical banker who worked at Hambros and went native every weekend. All in all we were a very happy community.

One day I called into the BBC studios when Dad was recording a programme and I ran into Johnny Johnston who had done well for himself master-minding the singing groups who provided the musical backing to radio comedies – he ran the Keynotes for Take it from Here, the Beaux and the Belles for Ray’s a Laugh and the Soupstains for Ignorance is Bliss. They were more or less the same singers, Johnny just changed the name for each show – he sang in the group, composed some of the music, arranged the rest and acted as manager. He was a multi-talented musician who, like my father, had come up the hard way, so they were soulmates.

Johnny had founded a company with a woman called Micky Michaels. It was called The Michael Reine Music Company, a combination of the surname of Micky Michaels and the maiden name of Nona, Johnny’s wife. Apparently, Micky Michaels wanted out, and Johnny asked me whether I would be interested in buying her share. I talked to my father and he lent me the money, which was fifteen hundred pounds. So I gave in my notice at Chappell’s and went off to make my fortune at Michael Reine’s.

The first project I was involved in was a song based on the old Irish folk ballad called The Bard of Armagh’, whose traditional tune had also been used for a couple of Western songs, ‘Streets of Laredo’ and ‘The Dying Cowboy’. Johnny Johnston adapted the tune, Tommy Connor wrote lyrics for it and they created a hit called ‘The Homing Waltz’. Because the original tune was out of copyright, we were able to register our song and as a bonus got a percentage when any of the other versions were played. Johnny took the song along to Vera Lynn who had just enjoyed a huge success with ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart’. She sang it, Decca recorded it and the very first effort of Michael Reine reached the top of the pops.

Vera also recorded our next big hit, which was called ‘Forget Me Not’. This time, Johnny had written it with Bunny Lewis who was a successful agent. But on the way to the studio they still hadn’t managed to put lyrics to the middle four bars of the song. In a slightly inebriated state I burst out into poetry and suggested the six words: ‘Parting brings sorrow; hope for tomorrow’. ‘That’s it!’ they cried. It didn’t win me an entry in the Oxford Book of Poetry but I ended up securing for myself the royalty on a third of the song, which proved to be a nice little earner.

We published ‘Forget Me Not’ in the run-up to Christmas and put in a lot of graft publicising it. One morning I read in the newspaper that the children in a spina bifida ward at Carshalton Hospital intended to sing it on Christmas Day in a programme presented by Wilfred Pickles who was a big radio star at the time. I showed the article to Johnny Johnston and we agreed that we’ve have to spend a fortune entertaining any singer we were trying to persuade to plug it, hence we ought to offer the same amount in kind to the children in hospital. We set off for Carshalton loaded down with toys, sweets and books.

When we arrived, the ward sister was fulsome in her gratitude. She explained that the children were from very poor homes and would probably be in hospital for a very long time. Johnny noticed a piano near the ward and was soon belting out popular songs, including, of course, ‘Forget Me Not’. All the children joined in except for one little girl who was lying on a kind of board to keep her spine straight. She just looked on wistfully, and the sister told us that she never spoke; she had been virtually abandoned by her parents. After we’d done our round of the wards, we went up to the little girl and told her we’d be back again after Christmas and we’d expect her to join in the singing. We duly went back and she did join in. The presents were piled up round the Christmas tree and I was glad I wasn’t there to see them opened – I’d have cried my eyes out.

At Christmas, the BBC often asked the old man to present a week of Housewives’ Choice, the enormously popular record programme on what in those days was the Light Programme. He passed on to me the job of picking the records and writing his script in return for my being able to keep the fee as a Christmas present.

On one occasion, I included a Sophie Tucker record in the show and with eight million other listeners heard him announce, ‘And now for all Sophie Fucker tans …’ ‘Do you think anyone noticed?’ he asked me anxiously after the transmission. Dad was no mumbler, he spoke always at a near shout. ‘Naw,’ I said, ‘I only just caught it and I was listening very carefully.’ The listeners obviously realised it was a slip of the tongue and didn’t hold it against him.

When he was invited to appear as a guest on Roy Plomley’s Desert Island Discs, Dad asked me to sort out the records he should choose. When I showed him the list he was indignant. He’d assumed all eight would feature the Billy Cotton Band. He obviously had never listened to the programme.

Johnny and I imported a novelty song from America called ‘Bell Bottom Blues’ which brought me for the first time into contact with a lovely girl, Alma Cogan, who was to remain a firm friend of mine for the rest of her tragically short life. She recorded three of our songs – ‘Bell Bottom Blues’, ‘I Can’t Tell a Waltz from a Tango’ and ‘Never Do a Tango with an Eskimo’ – all of which did very well at the sales counter. One day I met Alma in the street and invited her up for a cup of tea with Johnny and myself in our office, which was a pretty tatty back room in Denmark Street. I asked our factotum, Ronnie, to go out and get some tea. Meanwhile, Alma looked round the office and somewhat sniffily commented on the state of our sofa. I pointed out that it was actually very useful and doubled as a put-you-up bed, which I demonstrated by pulling it apart – whereupon a rat the size of a small cat jumped out and vanished into the back room. All three of us fought to be the first to get up on the desk. We were all standing on the desk when Ronnie came back. He looked up at us and said, ‘I didn’t realise you wanted high tea.’ We moved out of the office very soon after that and got better premises on Denmark Street.

Our next stroke of luck had to do with a television series called Friends and Neighbours. Its theme tune was written by an excellent musician called Malcolm Lockyer. He’d been under contract to one of our competitors, David Platt of Southern Music, whose reaction to the song was, ‘Don’t bring me this sort of rubbish. Write me something decent.’ Upset, Malcolm withdrew the song and offered it to us. It was perfect for The Billy Cotton Band Show, and shot into the Top Ten. We hit on a novel idea to plug it. There was a busking group called The Happy Wanderers who used to perform in Oxford Street, so we paid them a fiver to march up and down Denmark Street playing ‘Friends and Neighbours’. It drove the other publishers crazy, though our visiting celebrities thought it a hoot. This wheeze got the Happy Wanderers an appearance on television, and it also got one of their number into plenty of trouble when his wife saw him on the box. When he went back home, she threw his supper at him: she’d never told the neighbours he was a busker; they thought he had a job in the city.

As well as my song-plugging, I had a sideline as a journalist writing a gossip column, ‘The Alley Cat’, for the New Musical Express. I enjoyed being the Nigel Dempster of Denmark Street and it confirmed my opinion that nearly everyone loves to see his or her name in print even if the story isn’t particularly complimentary, just so long as the name isn’t misspelled. My journalism helped our business along because a steady flow of performers came into the office with tidbits of gossip about show business in general and themselves in particular, and this mine of information produced all kinds of good business contacts.

One afternoon I took my weekly copy round to the New Musical Express offices and the editor asked me if I’d like to buy the paper. I thought he was being funny, but apparently the proprietor felt he was getting too old for all the worry of running a newspaper and he wanted to sell up. At the time our business, Michael Reine, was flourishing and quite cash-rich, so the more I thought about the idea of being a newspaper proprietor the better I liked it. At the asking price the NME was undoubtedly a bargain and its circulation was rising to the point where it was becoming a threat to the Melody Maker, the leading paper of the business. There was one catch. Another potential buyer was coming round to see the editor at seven o’clock that evening and he had instructions to do a deal with whoever came up with the asking price first.

When I got back, bursting to tell Johnny we were onto a fortune, he was out of the office and despite all my frantic efforts I couldn’t contact him. At eight o’clock that evening the NME editor phoned me at home to tell me that Maurice Kinn, agent of Joe Loss and Cyril Stapleton, two of the leading band-leaders in the country, had made an offer and he was now the new proprietor of the paper. I was quite sad. What made it worse was that Johnny chewed me off for not assuming he would have gone along with my decision. And to add insult to injury Kinn sacked me and took over my column himself. I would probably have done the same thing if I were him, so we remained friends. He went on to make the paper an extremely valuable property and became a very wealthy man when he eventually sold out.

During this period, political argument had been raging about whether or not there should be a rival television channel funded by advertising to break BBC TV’s monopoly, and eventually the legislation was put in place to set up the commercial companies. This prospect sparked off a frenzy of activity in advertising agencies. They realised they’d need musical jingles to punctuate their commercials, so they began to look closely at the BBC’s radio programmes and were impressed by their catchy theme tunes, the best of which had invariably been composed by Johnny Johnston. Soon a procession of bowler-hatted, grey-suited advertising executives were beating a path to our door. Johnny knew exactly what was required. To order, he could hammer out on the piano a catchy piece, both music and words; then he’d arrange it for one of his groups, sing the lyric himself and record it in his own studio. He made a lot of money, and deservedly so, because he had a genius for this highly specialised form of music and rhyme.

Nona, Johnny’s wife, had a good head for business and was running the office very efficiently, and Johnny himself was on a creative roll as TV commercials took up more and more of his time. It was clear to me that the sheet-music industry was sinking into irreversible decline, and there wasn’t much place for me in the business – though Johnny never even hinted that I was becoming virtually a passenger. I began to look around, and the larger than life figure of my dad again loomed into view. By now, independent television had been established and Lew Grade, who ran ATV, one of the biggest companies, contracted Dad to do half a dozen variety shows. Though popular, they lacked a distinctive format and so presented Dad with a problem. He couldn’t afford to use material people were paying good money to see in the live theatre, and a radio show didn’t usually adapt well to a visual medium. Hence, he wasn’t a very happy man.

Dad shared his worries with me and I suggested to him that though the ITV shows didn’t satisfy his high standards, the independent companies were trouncing the BBC in the ratings, which must be worrying the corporation no end – they might welcome an approach from him. I encouraged him to go and see Ronnie Waldman, who was the BBC’s Head of Entertainment, to talk about a combined radio-television deal. In April 1955, Ronnie took Dad out for a meal and was most enthusiastic about the whole idea until they got down to talking about money. Quite simply, the BBC did not pay realistic fees. Although The Billy Cotton Band Show on radio gave my father priceless publicity, financially he was actually out of pocket because he only got the statutory fee for a half hour’s broadcast, out of which he had to pay the wages of eighteen musicians.

The BBC’s founder, Lord Reith, saw the BBC as a public service corporation for whom it is a privilege to work; vulgar questions of monetary reward ought to be of no consequence. Ronnie asked Dad outright how much he wanted. Without much hope that a deal was possible, Dad wrote down a figure on a paper napkin, folded it in two and handed it to Ronnie, asking him not to open it until he got back to his office in case it spoiled his lunch. Ronnie couldn’t resist opening it on the spot and immediately agreed to meet Dad’s price, though, as he told me afterwards, he had no idea how he could persuade the BBC to pay such a figure for one television act. Most of the BBC’s top managers were still bogged down in the radio era. The show-business mentality, which ITV adopted from the beginning, had not yet permeated the corridors of Broadcasting House.

Somehow Ronnie managed to persuade the BBC to meet Dad’s figure, pointing out to his bosses that quite apart from Billy Cotton’s star quality and drawing power, he would become a reliable fixed point in the schedules. While most big stars tended to get bored, develop itchy feet and move on, the Billy Cotton Band constituted a built-in stabiliser – BBC work paid the band’s wages bill for a significant part of the year, and that guaranteed Dad’s loyalty to the corporation. So Dad signed up and became a BBC man for the rest of his life, simply on the strength of a figure scrawled in ink on a crumpled paper napkin which he and Ronnie accepted as a binding contract. It specified a three-year contract and ran for twelve.

If money was one problem Ronnie had to solve, the other was the creation of a distinctive production style with which Dad would be happy. Here Ronnie knew exactly what he wanted to do. In his department, there was a young producer called Brian Tesler who had a most unusual pedigree, having arrived in the television service by way of a first-class honours degree at Oxford. ‘Trust me,’ Ronnie said. ‘He’s a protégé of mine and I don’t get paid to make mistakes.’ He went on to point out that television was a much more complicated medium than radio, one which used expensive equipment and large production teams. He believed producers should be highly organised and possess brain power as well as creative flair. ‘And Brian’s got it all,’ he added. Well, Dad went through the motions of huffing and puffing at all this highfalutin’ Oxford stuff, but one good professional always recognises another and Brian soon won him over with a combination of genuine charm and great efficiency. Little wonder Brian ended up as Managing Director of London Weekend Television. After working with Dad, the rest of his television career must have been a doddle.

Brian recalls going to introduce himself to the old man who was working in Manchester, and hanging about waiting for the show to end. He and Dad went off for a late meal, during which Brian explained his ideas for the television series. As they parted, Dad patted him on the back and said, ‘Sleep well, son. Don’t worry. I’m much too good for you to be able to bugger up.’ When Dad pitched up in the studio to meet Brian for a first rehearsal, he was confronted by a line of dancing girls called the Silhouettes. He was appalled. The main attraction of every Cotton Show was Dad prancing around on the stage, but professional dancing was different. ‘I’m no Anton Dolin,’ he snarled, referring to one of the leading male ballet dancers of the time. ‘I can’t dance, and I’m much too old to learn now.’ ‘Nonsense,’ said Brian cheerfully. ‘You are going to like these girls so much the urge to join in with them will be irresistible.’ And it was, though only after Dad went to the studio week after week and practised with the head girl and the choreographer, who commented that playing football and moving around a boxing ring must have given Dad a natural sense of balance. Eventually, he was to cherish a report in the Dancing Times which said, ‘It takes a band-leader of sixty to show the British dancing public what a pas de deux should be.’

Dad’s career might have been flourishing, but on the domestic front there was pain and strife. I don’t know whether it was because my brother and I had both got married and set up our own homes or that Dad was going through some sort of male menopause, but he drifted into an affair with Doreen Stephens, the female vocalist in his band. He was quite open about it – indeed, he flaunted it, almost as though a relationship with a much younger woman was an affirmation of his virility. At first, my mother ignored what was going on, but it all became so embarrassing that she could stand it no longer. She moved permanently into the Sandbanks house and Dad bought a flat in London. All his friends tried to warn him that he was making a fool of himself, but the more people tried to dissuade him, the more stubborn he became and the whole thing reached the proportions of a public scandal. It was sordid beyond belief – at one point, Dad and a very close friend demeaned themselves by vying for Doreen’s affections. To those of us who cared for him, the spectacle of two middle-aged men trying to out-macho each other in the pursuit of a young woman was utterly gruesome.

My mother behaved with great dignity throughout the whole business, which lasted for about four years. We none of us knew what was going to happen; Dad could be mulish in his single-mindedness. The extraordinary thing was that though he was a national figure, the press did not expose this affair; there was none of that intrusiveness into public personalities’ private lives masquerading as investigative journalism to which we’ve since become accustomed.

All this took its toll on Dad’s health. He was by now a man in his mid-fifties, and having to behave with the ardour of an ageing Lothario as well as working seven days a week put intolerable pressure on his system. He would work all week in some theatre or other, dash down to London for his weekly radio show and then travel to another town for the start of the following week’s engagements. I think that deep down he hated himself for the way he was behaving towards my mother; he loved her deeply but couldn’t resist the flattery implied by the attentions of a younger woman. Eventually, in 1955, he performed one time too many, did a show, took his bow, came off stage and collapsed. He was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack; in fact, he’d had a nervous breakdown. The doctors insisted that he needed three months’ complete rest. We were relieved his condition was not more serious but the problem was what would happen to his band. Dad cared for them and worried about them. In fact, my cousin Laurie, a member of the band, took over as temporary leader so they were able to meet their immediate touring engagements.

The Sunday broadcast was a different matter. I phoned Jim Davidson at the BBC to discuss the crisis. To my astonishment he said, ‘Why don’t you do the broadcast? In fact, do the lot. There are only three left before the summer break.’ When I recovered my equilibrium, I realised his proposal made sense. 1 often went to the broadcasts and indeed contributed to the scripts. I knew the band, they knew me, and I could rely on them absolutely to see me through. And this solution would put my father’s mind at rest. He had been worrying about his radio show and loathed the prospect of the BBC’s own house band taking over the slot. There was also the fact that I would be no threat to him. He behaved towards the band like a benevolent headmaster and he would see me not as a successor but as just the head prefect filling in while the beak was away.