by Pat Stewart
While Benny’s show had soared variety entertainment to dizzy new heights on TV, back in the country’s theatres, audiences were dwindling. Benny himself had been brought up in theatre. Like us, I guess he must have experienced lean times himself because he was, and remained, one of the tightest performers I’d ever met. Despite his fame and considerable fortune, Benny never once put his hand in his pocket. In many ways, he was refreshing because he never came across as the big star and treated everyone exactly the same. Sadly, this also applied when he was buying drinks at the bar because he never bought a single a pint, although he was always happy to accept one.
After the high of appearing on live television, I soon came back down to earth with a bump as we returned to perform in a summer season at Butlin’s in Clacton. We were still at Butlin’s when we were approached and offered work by a man called Barney Colehan. Barney was a well-known producer for the BBC. I’d first heard his name as a schoolgirl listening to the Wilfred Pickles Show on the radio.
‘Give him the money, Barney,’ had been a well-known saying back in the day.
Barney was producing a television show called The Good Old Days, from the City of Varieties in Leeds, where I’d narrowly escaped starring in Paul Raymond’s TITS show. Barney had seen us perform on the Benny Hill Show, so he’d invited us to appear on his show.
‘More television work means more experience under our belts,’ I remarked to Nick, who agreed with me.
Work was work, although the audience of The Good Old Days was totally different to the type we’d been used to dancing in front of at Butlin’s. The show was also different, so we had to scrap our old routines and arrange a new act suitable for the Edwardian period.
The Good Old Days went so well that I was asked to sing one of the songs on the show but a singer I am not. As I belted it out, I glanced over at the audience. They were all dressed in Edwardian costume, swaying and singing in time to the music. It was the most surreal set up I’d ever seen, but it was also an extremely popular television show and the audience were an integral part of it.
‘They’re a friendly bunch, aren’t they?’ I remarked to one of the stagehands after I’d finished my routine.
‘Oh, them lot,’ he said, nodding his head towards them from the stage wings. ‘They turn up in their droves. They’re all shipped in from the local amateur dramatics groups – that’s why they’re so up for it.’
‘Ah, I see.’
And I did. No doubt they were sat there waiting for their moment in the spotlight, dreaming of fame and fortune as I had once done.
I loved doing the show. Nick and I performed in so many of them that it almost felt like a family party. Barney asked if we could perform in another TV show called Entente Cordele. The show wasn’t staged in a theatre but a type of floral hall in Harrogate. Nick and I danced an adagio routine, which was acrobatic to say the least. I wore a black skirt with a long split up the side, as Nick proceeded to throw me around into all sorts of dance poses.
Barney’s friend and sidekick was a man called Jess Yates, the supposed father of Paula Yates. Jess was a photographer, so he was always knocking around the television studio with Barney. One day, they were just heading out to lunch when Barney turned to me.
‘Have you eaten yet, Pat? Would you like to join us?’
‘I’d love to!’ I replied.
Jess and Barney explained they were on their way to a Chinese restaurant that was one of their favourites. The only problem was I’d never had Chinese food before, so I didn’t have a clue what to order.
‘What are you going to have then, Pat?’ Jess asked.
I shook my head as I stared at the strange dishes listed on the menu.
‘I’m not sure,’ I told him. ‘It all looks Chinese to me.’
The two of them fell about with laughter as I realised what I’d said.
In the end, I followed Jess’s lead and ordered what he did – sweet-and-sour chicken.
‘How’s the food, Pat?’ he asked as I tucked in.
I closed my eyes and held my fork in mid-air as I savoured the beautiful taste bursting against my tongue.
‘This,’ I said pointing with my fork at the plate of food in front of me, ‘is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted in my life.’
It was around this time that a new music had exploded onto the scene. It was called rock ’n’ roll. Along with it came a whole new audience – a type the theatrical world had never seen before. Instead of being faced with a prim-looking bunch, we’d be greeted by men dressed in drainpipe trousers, drape jackets and slicked-back hair. They wore winklepicker shoes that looked so sharp they could’ve stabbed someone.
After our TV stint, Nick and I were invited to appear in a show that featured a rock ’n’ roll band. Our first performance was at Wood Green Empire, in London. A week later, we took the show on tour up and down the country. Topping the bill was a rock group called Art Baxter and his Rockers. Art Baxter himself fronted the group but there was a bass player, a pianist, a drummer and a guitarist. The guitarist was like no one I’d ever seen before. Once the music was in full swing, he’d lay flat on his back in the middle of the stage playing his guitar. The pianist was the same and never sat down. The audience couldn’t get enough of it. Instead of staying in their seats, they’d rock ’n’ roll in the aisles the whole way through, dancing to the beat.
‘Have you seen them?’ I whispered to Nick from the side of the curtain. ‘They’re all joining in!’
‘I know,’ he said grinning at me. ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’
And it was. Instead of sitting there just watching what was happening on stage, they’d become part of it, only in their own way. It felt exciting and fresh but, more importantly, it made for a fun show.
Nick and I would open with a range of dances, from the Charleston to the tango, before a handful of other acts took to the stage. We’d open the second half with an ‘Apache’ routine that lasted three minutes and then Art and his boys would come on stage right at the end of the show and lift the roof off. They rock ’n’ rolled for around half an hour before inviting us back on stage. We’d dance at the front, jiving to their music, and the audience would get up and join in, rock ’n’ rolling in the aisles of the theatre. The atmosphere was electric.
A few weeks after the show had been on tour, I was approached by the band’s pianist: a lovely looking chap called Phil Phillips. Phil was from London and he was tall with blond hair that he’d Brylcreemed into a teddy-boy quiff. I immediately liked Phil because, unlike other men I’d met in show business, once he was off stage, he was just a regular bloke.
‘Do you fancy going to the pictures one afternoon, Pat?’ he asked.
I readily agreed. Soon one date had followed another until we were officially ‘courting’. At just twenty-two years old, we were both still very young. So when Phil got down on one knee and proposed to me, I didn’t know what to do, so I said ‘yes’. We travelled to Manchester later that same day, bought a ring from a jewellers shop and became officially engaged. I’d only known him three months, but I thought it was the right thing to do. Mam and Dad didn’t say much; they just accepted it was what I wanted.
‘It’s what I want,’ I said, showing Mam my engagement ring as Phil grinned behind me.
Even though I was young, I’d come a long way from being a little girl in Featherstone. I was a professional dancer now, dealing with agents and contracts, and I’d travelled and seen more of the world than my parents could ever hope to see.
But if I thought I’d seen it all, I was wrong. The Issy Bonn agency had secured a six-week contract for us to perform in a show on West Africa’s Gold Coast.
‘Africa! Gold Coast!’ Mam shrieked as soon as I told her where I was going. ‘Oh my Lord. Yer know what they call that, don’t yer? They call it White Man’s Grave and they wouldn’t call it that for no reason would they?’
But I was adamant. Work was work. Deep down, I knew my parents trusted my judgement – bes
ides, they also knew how headstrong I was. If they told me not to do something, I’d only do it more.
‘Just keep yersen safe, lass,’ Dad said, as Mam fretted over in her chair in a corner of the kitchen.
‘I’ll be fine, Mam. I promise.’
‘I know, but I’m yer Mam and it’s my job to worry about yer,’ she said, cupping my face in both her hands.
Despite my mother’s reservations, Nick and I boarded a plane at the airport. The aeroplane left the tarmac of London far behind as we took to the skies and headed off on our very own African adventure.
CHAPTER 11
AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Issy Bonn arranged for us and five other acts to fly out to Accra, the capital city of Ghana, in West Africa, to celebrate the country’s independence from Great Britain. Back then, there were no long-haul flights, so we were told there would be a stop-off in Algeria, with another quick stop to refuel before we landed in Nigeria. What I wasn’t expecting to do was to refuel in the middle of the Sahara desert!
During the flight, we hit a terrible electric storm and I was frightened to death. Before we’d left England, I’d taken some Quell tablets to try to combat any travel sickness. I’d hoped they’d see me through to the second day but I was wrong. By the time we hit the storm, I had my head inside a brown paper bag because I couldn’t stop being sick. The plane felt pathetic and lightweight against such a raging storm and we bobbed around like a cork in water.
‘Why on earth did we agree to this?’ I wailed to Nick. ‘I hope we don’t die out here, thousands of miles away from home!’ I said, grabbing his hand for courage.
‘It’ll be fine, Pat. Try not to worry,’ he said, although I could tell he was scared to death too.
It was only March but the plane had become red hot and it’d felt like an oven inside. It was the middle of the day but we could see the clouds being struck by lightning. They lit up all around us like baubles on a Christmas tree as thunder shook the sky.
‘I wish I was back in Featherstone. What on earth possessed us to take this blasted journey?’ I whined.
For the best part of an hour, the aeroplane continued to bounce up and down like a yo-yo. Eventually, though, we flew through the eye of the storm and into calmer skies. Some hours later, the plane dipped as we prepared to land at what looked like a glorified petrol station in the middle of the Sahara desert. All the performers were asked to disembark the plane and were taken to an area at the side where we sat down on woven rugs. Men wearing baggy trousers that fastened tightly around the ankle came over to serve us lemon tea in china cups. If I thought The Good Old Days Edwardian-themed audience had been bizarre, I realised I’d not lived because sipping tea in the middle of the Sahara desert had to be one of the most surreal things I’d ever done in my life. Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off the men and their bizarre baggy trousers.
‘Why do they wear those trousers?’ I asked a member of the cabin crew as he settled down next to me. ‘They’re just so odd.’
‘It’s because they think the next saviour is coming,’ he explained, taking a sip of his tea.
I listened to what he’d said and shook my head.
‘Yes, but why do they wear those strange trousers?’
The man smiled. ‘That’s it, you see. Local folklore has it that the next saviour will be born of man, not woman.’
‘Right, I see,’ I said with a nod, although I didn’t at all. ‘But what has that got to do with the trousers?’
The man nodded. ‘Well, they wear the trousers so that when he is born, he will be caught and won’t fall onto the floor.’
I turned to look at him.
‘Are you being serious?’ I asked, half-expecting him to burst out laughing. But he didn’t.
‘Yes, I am. Well, that’s how it’s been told to me anyway.’
After that, I looked at the men differently. They were obviously deeply religious, and it wasn’t up to me or anyone else for that matter to make judgements on what they did and didn’t wear.
We boarded the plane and set off once more. My stomach lunged as we finally lifted off into the sky.
‘I hope we don’t hit another storm,’ I whispered to Nick. ‘I don’t think my stomach can take it, not with all that lemon tea sloshing around inside.’
Several hours later, we arrived in Accra. As we stepped down onto the tarmac, a tall and authoritarian man called Major Brown met us. Major Brown worked in conjunction with Issy Bonn, which had gathered the entertainers together and devised the variety show. But it was down to the major to cover our expenses, including travel, accommodation and our wages.
‘Good evening,’ he said, holding out his arms to greet us as though we were his long-lost friends, ‘and welcome to Africa!’
I looked all around me, but it was dark and so impossible to see the landscape. A bus picked us up and the major directed it and us to our hotel. Although we each had our own room, they were pretty basic, even by entertainers’ standards. I ran my fingers along the mosquito net shrouding my bed and, to my dismay, discovered a few holes. I wondered what had happened to the last occupant of the bed and fretted that he’d died of malaria.
‘It’s not exactly the Hilton, is it?’ I remarked to Nick, who’d helped me in with my case.
‘It’s work, Pat,’ he said, lifting my bag onto the bed. ‘And work is work.’
The show was due to open the following night at a club in Accra. The first evening was pretty uneventful and, although the place wasn’t exactly packed to the rafters, the audience was extremely welcoming. I also spotted something else. That evening, we’d played to a sea of white faces – there were no Ghanaians to be seen.
‘They must be all ex-pats,’ I remarked to one of the other performers after we’d taken our final bow.
‘Yes, but aren’t we here to play to everyone?’ she replied.
It struck me that she was absolutely right.
Nick and I performed two spots in the show, with the rest of the bill made up of variety performers. These included a comedy double act, a girl who did foot juggling, a couple of roller-skaters and the Coppa Cousins, although Greta had left the duo by this time.
As the first week progressed, the audience seemed to get thinner and thinner on the ground. It soon became obvious that there was no way the show could run for eight weeks. There wasn’t a black face to be seen either. To make matters worse, we discovered the Ghanaians couldn’t even afford the ticket price, which is why our audience had been predominantly white.
‘I reckon there are more people on stage than in the audience,’ I remarked.
Although I’d been joking, we were all worried about what would happen and who would pay our wages.
Sensing our frustration, the major secured us another booking in Kumasi, where we entertained men working in the gold mine. The only problem was that the booking only lasted three days.
‘But what will we do after that?’ I said to the rest of the cast.
By now, we were all beginning to feel uneasy. With no crowd, we knew there’d be no spare cash to pay our wages.
‘The show isn’t doing well because the Ghanaians can’t afford to pay the extortionate ticket prices,’ I remarked as we all sat discussing the problem backstage one night after the show. ‘Yes, the ex-pats came to see us but how many times will they want to watch the same show?’
As we pondered our predicament, the major loomed into view.
‘I’ve had a little bit of a brainwave,’ he began. We all looked up at him, waiting to see what it was.
The major glanced over at an empty chair to the side of us.
‘May I?’ he asked.
‘Be our guest,’ I replied with a wave of my hand.
‘The thing is ticket sales. The show hasn’t been, erm, selling quite as well as I thought it would.’
‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ one of the performers muttered under his breath.
The major looked up, took out a handkerchief from his top pocket a
nd wiped his nose.
‘Yes, quite,’ he agreed. ‘Anyway, the thing is, I think we should take the show to Nigeria!’ he exclaimed. He threw his hands into the air with excitement, as though he was the bearer of good news. ‘What do you all think? It’s just that I’m certain I’ll be able to secure some work there.’
Suddenly, the group was a buzz of excitement.
‘Nigeria?’ someone repeated. ‘Well, if you think you can get us more work, why not!’
Soon everyone was chattering away, ready to pack their bags at any moment.
‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, raising my hand to stop them.
The major turned around in his chair. He seemed a little crestfallen when he realised that I wasn’t quite as enamoured by his brilliant plan.
‘But Nigeria. It’s not Ghana, is it?’
The major shook his head.
‘Yes, but the thing is—’
I cut him off mid-sentence.
‘But my contract – in fact, all our contracts – cover us from London to Ghana, not Ghana and Nigeria. In fact, Nigeria isn’t mentioned anywhere.’
‘And your point is what precisely, young lady?’
‘My point is this. If you take us to Nigeria, we will no longer be in Ghana, which would relieve you of your duty and responsibility to get us all a safe passage back to London.’
A few of the other artistes had stopped chattering and had turned to listen. Some had nodded their heads but the majority had seemed angry with me. They didn’t want me to scupper their chance of some profitable work. After all, if we didn’t work, we didn’t get paid.
‘Are you saying you won’t go?’ one asked.
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.’
Some of the cast became cross because the show had included us all and, without one, you couldn’t have the other.
‘You’re going to ruin this for the rest of us, Pat.’
But I didn’t care. My main priority was to get us all back to London, as agreed.