One day Dad came home with his own little piece of news. He had spoken to a man who had delivered Shirley’s furniture and, he told Dad, Shirley paid £20,000 for the house. Good old Dad had come up trumps! The local newspaper, the Ilford Recorder, also supplied me with news when they reported on Miss Shirley Bassey shopping at Harrison Gibson. I had to visit the store for myself, although at sixteen my interest in furniture was minimal. However, my interest developed immediately upon spotting in the store’s window a lampshade on which hung a brown label that read: ‘Sold to Shirley Bassey’.
Shirley then headed off to America, to be followed by Australia, to capitalise on her well-earned success with ‘Goldfinger’. Back in the UK, fans had the pleasure of a new LP entitled Shirley Stops The Shows, released in January. One of the pieces of information I had been given by ardent fan George Webb was the existence of Shirley’s Record Shop, at West End Lane, Hampstead. The shop, once a book shop owned by Kenneth Hume, had been re-opened by Shirley in 1962. Whenever possible I would order my records through the shop and over time we grew to know the shop’s manager, Michael, quite well. Shirley Stops The Shows had been due for release on Shirley’s birthday but due to a delay in delivery, it didn’t arrive at the shop until the following day, Saturday, 9 January. As I had a Saturday job, Mum and Dad said they would travel to Hampstead to collect the record for me, which was great since I was dying to hear the tracks.
When I arrived home in the evening, Mum and Dad were waiting, LP in hand and with a story to tell. Apparently, when they arrived at the shop they had met Shirley’s sister, Ella. My mum, who was a lovely, sociable person, always enjoyed having a chat and must have been singing my praises because Ella told her she had seen the drawing I had given to Shirley. This of course delighted Mum and I too was thrilled by their encounter.
As the title suggested, Shirley’s latest long player featured show numbers, including, ‘He Loves Me’, ‘The Lady is a Tramp’, ‘Somewhere’ and ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’, the only track recorded with Kenny Clayton and his Orchestra. The rest of the tracks had all been recorded with Johnnie Spence and his Orchestra; the record’s producer was Norman Newell, a master at his art.
One review of the LP, which appeared in the music paper Disc, said Shirley sounded like Judy Garland, which prompted me to write to the paper to agree. I’m sure Shirley would have been happy to read the comparison. The record also featured the black-and-white photography of Barry Lategan, which captured Shirley brilliantly. Kenny Clayton became Shirley’s musical director, remaining with her for some years and I personally think he was one of the best.
While Shirley was abroad, her fans and the rest of Britain were reading about her divorce from Kenneth Hume in the national press. However, the music press offered happier news for her fans, announcing Shirley would be appearing on ATV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium in April. Now we could look forward to seeing Shirley again, so I immediately sent a letter to ATV to request tickets for Shirley’s appearance, scheduled for 25 April. During February I received tickets from ATV, but when I looked at them I noticed they were for a show only a week or so away. I managed to telephone ATV and they told me to keep the tickets they had sent and promised to add my name to the list for Shirley’s April appearance. Each ticket issued by ATV permitted entry for two people and specified the area of the theatre you would be allocated – stalls, royal circle or upper circle. It was a considerable task for ATV to transform the London Palladium from a theatre into a television studio in one day, which is basically what it had to achieve. With the Palladium’s current production running all week, the TV cameras were set up on Sunday morning, with rehearsals following on during the day. In the side streets at the rear of the theatre, mobile control units were parked and, if a door was left open, you just might catch a glimpse on one of the monitors of what was happening onstage. In the evening, the show would be broadcast to the nation.
Once rehearsals had finished, the theatre was made ready to seat the invited audience, some of whom had already started to queue behind the appropriate bus-stop-style signs, which read either stalls, royal circle or upper circle. Tickets did not have an allocated seat number, so it was a case of first come, first served, which meant it was possible to get front-row seats if you were at the front of the queue.
We loved going to the London Palladium, so in February we joined the queue to see the televised show which featured Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, Frank Ifield and Petula Clark. It was an enjoyable show and I should have been grateful I guess, but I kept thinking, I just hope we will be here in April to see Shirley.
During early April, I visited Shirley’s Record Shop and bought the EP Live at the Café de Paris, which had printed across its cover the word ‘CENSORED’. Recorded in 1957, it is early Shirley and captures a wonderful moment in her career. I think it’s a fabulous record and I was so delighted I was able to get a copy. I also bought Shirley’s new single release, ‘No Regrets’, which received very good reviews and sold reasonably well. The shop manager, Michael, had also applied for tickets to the Palladium TV show and said if he was allocated some, he would give me one. A few weeks later I received a ticket for two from ATV and fortunately Michael was also able to provide me with a ticket, which meant Mum, Dad and I would all be there so support Shirley on her return to London’s most famous stage.
News of Shirley’s return home came during the second week of April along with an announcement in the New Musical Express that S.V.B. Ltd was presenting a series of concerts featuring Shirley Bassey. No prizes for guessing what S.V.B. stood for, but I’ll give you a clue: the V is for Veronica! A list of venues and dates were supplied, so I immediately took out my Parker 51 pen (a recent birthday present from Mum and Dad) and wrote to the Guildhall, Portsmouth, requesting tickets for the concert scheduled for 30 May.
A few days before the London Palladium appearance, I went to Romford to buy a special box of chocolates, which I was hoping I could give to Shirley when she arrived at the theatre on Sunday, and naturally I had to buy gold wrapping paper for my gift.
On Saturday, a lovely colour photo of Shirley appeared in ‘TV Times’, a weekly television magazine, which I immediately transferred to my scrapbook. As you can imagine, I was very excited about the next day as the London Palladium offered a good opportunity to see Shirley prior to the show. The big day arrived and after a hearty breakfast, Dad drove us to London, parking the car fairly near to the theatre, a feat that would be impossible today. In the sixties, the streets of London were normally quiet on a Sunday, and even the famous street opposite the backstage entrance to the Palladium, Carnaby Street, was relatively quiet. As we walked towards the stage-door area, where a small group of people had gathered, we recognised some of the faces, fans of Shirley we had seen at previous concerts. There were other unknown faces, some of which belonged to the ‘autograph hunters’, who were solely there for the purpose of collecting an autograph to add to the trophy list. I never had a great deal of respect for the latter group mainly because some were demanding and showed little respect for the artist.
We spotted George Webb, who told us they were expecting Shirley for rehearsals soon. It was good to know other fans, especially on these sorts of occasions when one of us would act as a ‘lookout’ at the corner of the street, shouting out to the others when they saw Shirley’s car approach. Soon the call came and the small group of loyal fans surrounded her car as it drew up to the edge of the pavement. Shirley looked radiant in a full-length, V-neck coat, to which had been fastened a gold brooch depicting two cats seated side by side. Shirley’s secretary, Hazel, carried Shirley’s dresses, which were protected in suitable covers.
To our great delight, there was another passenger in the car – Shirley’s daughter, Sharon, who seemed a little shy when we first said hello. I am sure the day must have been just as thrilling for Sharon, going to see her mum rehearse at the London