Fourth Estate
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First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Fourth Estate
Copyright © Bill Cotton 2000
The right of Bill Cotton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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Source ISBN: 9781841153285
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008219420
Version: 2016-09-20
This book is dedicated to my wife, Kate, for things too
numerous to mention, but above all for her love.
CONTENTS
On a crisp spring afternoon in 1969 I sat in St Margaret’s, Westminster, which is next door to the Abbey. It was my father’s funeral and, because he had been what one newspaper obituary called ‘one of the greatest entertainers of modern times’, the church was packed. My father was as usual playing to a full house, but this was the very last time he would do so. Celebrities like the great band-leader Henry Hall rubbed shoulders with hundreds of ordinary folk for whom Billy Cotton and his band had become over the years a valued part of their lives, on radio, television and in the theatre.
St Margaret’s is one of the most fashionable and beautiful churches in the land; MPs in particular cherish the privilege of being married or having their children baptised there. But it was the location for my father’s funeral not because he was famous or important but because he was born in the parish. When I went along to ask the rector if the service could take place there, he seemed dubious: Lent was a busy time; there were lots of services planned; the choir would be at full stretch; and so on. Beneath his expressions of regret, though, I detected just a tinge of scepticism at my claim that Dad had grown up in the parish and sung in St Margaret’s choir. Then a verger appeared and the rector explained to him what I was doing there and the difficulty of fitting in the funeral. ‘That’s a pity,’ said the verger. ‘He really loved this place. I often chatted with him when he slipped in to listen to the choir.’ That settled it. It was agreed that Dad should be laid to rest in his own parish church.
In fact, Dad had been born at what is now an exclusive address, No. 1 Smith Square, adjacent to the Conservative Party central offices. In 1899 it was a two up, two down terrace house (rent: seven and sixpence a week) and Dad shared a bedroom with three brothers while six sisters squashed into an attic room. Westminster was then a self-contained village within London. Like the other kids in the area, my father played in the streets around the Parliament buildings, hitched lifts on the cow-catchers of trams and swam in the Thames off Lambeth Bridge when the police weren’t looking. (If they were looking, Dad would often end up running home, naked and dripping wet, his boots tied by their laces round his neck.)
Dad’s father was a ganger in charge of a section of the Metropolitan Water Board, and looked splendid in a top hat with a badge on it. He was a huge man who could with one hand pick up his wife, Sukey, who was only four feet tall, and tuck her under his arm. He was once invited onto the stage of the Aquarium in Tothill Street to try his luck against George Hackenschmidt, the Russian world-champion wrestler. In a flash he was on his back, but went away with the ten shillings promised to anyone brave enough to go into the ring against the world’s strongest man.
I still use my grandfather’s malacca walking-stick which has a gold band around the top inscribed, ‘To Joseph Cotton: from X Division, Metropolitan Police in appreciation of help with violent prisoners. May 1925.’ He must have been sixty-five years of age when he came to the rescue of a couple of police constables trying to arrest a gang of thugs. So he knew how to take care of himself.
Grandad was mad on clocks. However complicated they were, he could take them to pieces and put them together again. He had three or four clocks in every room of the