I was sharing a flat in London with Gerry Kunz, a childhood friend whom I’d met again in the Army. Gerry’s father Charlie was the famous pianist, and he was a great friend of my father’s. We lived in London during the week and spent the weekends at our respective parents’ homes. One day Gerry said to me, ‘Can you lend me a fiver?’ I asked him why he needed it. Solemnly, he replied, ‘Because I want to take out the girl I’d love to marry.’ Until that moment I didn’t know of her existence. I hadn’t a spare fiver but I did offer to get him a couple of free tickets to my father’s show at the Victoria Palace. I was off to play football but I said casually that I’d pop round to the theatre after the game and perhaps we could persuade my father to take us all out to supper. My offer may have sounded offhand but I was consumed with curiosity about this girl. Unfortunately, during the game someone kicked me in the ribs and afterwards I was in too much pain to pay much attention to her.
That Christmas, Gerry spent Christmas with the Cottons and then in my red MG we drove down together to his family in Middleton for New Year. On New Year’s Day we were invited to a party at the home of Gerry’s girlfriend. Her name was Bernadine Maud Sinclair but she was universally known as Boo – a nursery pet name derived from her Norfolk nanny’s insistence she was a ‘booty’. This party was the climax of a highly alcoholic festive season – I vaguely recall at some point drinking gin from a tea pot. I was already fairly merry when I got to the party. I was chatting to the girl I had taken there, looked up and saw Boo standing on the other side of the room in a grey dress with a rope belt round it. It was a moment of revelation; it was as though I was seeing her for the first time, and I was bowled over. I went over to her and said, ‘Excuse me, would you like to marry me?’ She grinned and said, ‘I think you’ve had too much to drink.’ ‘All right,’ I replied, ‘I’ll ask you again when I’m sober.’
As these parties do, we moved on to someone else’s house and eventually staggered home to bed, but at eight-thirty a.m. sharp I was up and in my right mind and presented myself at Boo’s house again. Her mother’s housekeeper opened the door, obviously not amused that I was disturbing the family at such an hour. She closed the door in my face and left me standing on the doorstep while she went to fetch Boo, who said, ‘Hello, what do you want?’ I replied, ‘Well, I’ve just come to say that I’m now stone-cold sober and will you marry me?’ She laughed and said, ‘No, but I’ll give you a cup of tea.’ The family was at breakfast, and her stepfather, who harboured the deepest suspicions about the motives of any young man courting his stepdaughter, was less than cordial. But I’d learned a thing or two as a song-plugger about the art of ingratiating myself with people I needed a favour from, so I behaved towards Boo’s parents in a most deferential manner, calling her stepfather ‘sir’ and charming her mother with my sunny smile.
Boo had a pied-à-terre in London, a flat over the family’s undertaking business in Kentish Town, and every day I contrived somehow to propose to her either by letter or phone or face to face in the romantic setting of stacked coffins and blank tombstones. First I had to establish that my pal Gerry was not a contender for her affections. She quickly reassured me: she’d grown up with Gerry and it was one of those relationships that could never move beyond the stage of close friendship. A year or two older than me, Boo had served in the WRNS during the war and been engaged to an RAF officer, but the relationship didn’t survive the anti-climax of peacetime and they split up. She insisted she wasn’t looking to marry anyone at the moment, but that didn’t put me off my daily proposal ritual, and after my laying siege to her for about six months she finally surrendered.
I was ecstatic but slightly apprehensive about telling my parents. I knew my mother would be a pushover – Boo’s genuine charm was bound to win her over – but my father was a different matter. He had a very curious attitude to his sons’ girlfriends; it was almost as though he resented them for taking our attention away from him. So I summoned up my courage, picked up the phone and told him that I had got engaged and I’d like him to meet the girl. ‘Engaged?’ he growled. ‘What do you want to do that for?’ I’d no intention of getting into a pointless argument with him so I asked him if I could bring her along to the Brixton Empress where he was performing. ‘Fine,’ he said casually. I persisted. ‘Is there any chance you might take us out for a meal afterwards?’ No, he already had an arrangement. ‘Fine,’ I said casually, put the phone down and waited. Sure enough, he phoned back and said, ‘Your mother says I should take you out.’
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