But it wasn’t just Ted’s dress sense that made him stand out. As soon as Mr Turner brought out that record player, Ted would be singing along. Like his father he appeared to have very little fear of getting up onstage. After a while Ted acquired a name for having a voice like velvet and the young audience couldn’t get enough of him. They shouted and clapped encouragement and sang along approvingly as he got going. Being onstage and singing in front of a crowd was the most freeing feeling he’d ever experienced and he soon became addicted.
One Saturday, after Ted and his friends had become regulars at the club, Mr Turner announced that they’d booked a professional singer for the following week, which meant that it was going to cost everyone an extra sixpence to get in. There was much talk about who’d be coming and if there would still be the usual routine of tea, buns and dancing. It was a big deal and, the next week, the crowd was full of teenagers all dressed up, waiting to hear the mystery performer. There were also an unusual number of couples swaying in corners. It was clear that the smart-thinking boys had asked the girls they liked on a date that night – keen to impress with a booked performer and lively crowd.
Eventually the singer arrived, dressed up to the nines in a tuxedo – you could have heard a pin drop as he handed his pianist the music. Then he started singing. It took the crowd a while to register what was happening – there were no romantic crooning or show-stopping tunes; it was straight-down-the-line opera and it went down like a lead balloon. Ted’s brother-in-law Tony reminisces: ‘The room was full of teenagers used to Dickie Valentine and Jimmy Young and here was this guy singing arias. You can imagine the crowd’s reaction.’
A voice from the audience bellowed: ‘What the bloody hell is this?’ and suddenly everyone else joined in, making it clear this was not the night they had expected. After his third song, the singer announced that he’d be back after a break.
‘Dow bother!’ someone shouted from the crowd. ‘We dow want you back!’
By this time the whole room was booing and a near-riot was brewing. Mr Turner was trying his best to calm everything down, when suddenly someone shouted out: ‘Ted! Give us a song!’ Soon the whole crowd was chanting: ‘Teddy Mac! Teddy Mac! Teddy Mac!’
The opera singer walked off the stage in disgust.
‘And take your piano player with ya!’ shouted one of the boys.
Everyone jeered.
The pianist and the opera singer stormed out, with Mr Turner running after them apologizing. There was a huge cheer as Ted took the microphone and started to sing. He was up there for over an hour and he felt as if he was on top of the world, watching the crowd going wild, cheering him on and clapping loudly. Ted had saved the day but, more importantly, in that moment he realized that this was exactly what he wanted to do with his life.
Obviously his moment of fame meant that Ted became a Saturday-night regular, and he was soon packing out the little club whenever he got up and sang. But it didn’t take his brothers and friends long to work out that part of his attachment to the club was because someone had caught his eye – and they weren’t wrong. Ted was bowled over the minute he spotted a girl named Iris across the crowded room. Iris had an abundance of dark brown hair, she was beautiful and stylish and a couple of years younger than Ted, and he soon forgot about the group he had arrived with. He plucked up the courage to go over and introduce himself.
At 17 years old there was no doubt that Ted was a charmer (Hilda always used to say that he’d definitely inherited Maurice’s gift of the gab). He held out his hand and asked Iris for a dance. From that moment, Ted began to court Iris with a winning mixture of innocence and determination.
Ted’s brother Maurice says: ‘Things settled into a romantic pattern quite quickly – they would meet at the club, dance and laugh and then Ted would walk Iris home and wait until she got safely into her house. After a few weeks of the same routine they had slipped into officially being a couple without anyone noticing – except for Mom, who noticed everything.’
There was no denying the mutual feelings – Ted was attentive, gentle and caring, making sure that Iris knew he liked her. Despite not having much money he always saw to it that he gave her a little gift at the end of each date night, even if it was just a slab of chocolate that cost him a shilling. But what Ted hadn’t bargained for was the merciless teasing from his mates once they found out Iris’s age!
It was around this time that The Carroll Levis Discovery Show turned up in Birmingham searching for new talent. Carroll Levis was a Godlike figure in the entertainment industry during the Fifties, a talent scout, impresario and radio personality – he knew what it took to be a star and could spot that quality a mile away. Ted heard on the grapevine that his talent show was touring the country looking for someone with ‘it’ and he was determined to try out, taking the morning off work to go along to the audition. He took the bus from Wednesbury into the centre of Birmingham and made his way to the auditions alone. Although just 17, he was far from worried about having to get up and sing. Out of everything in his life, he knew that was the one thing he was good at. Ted knocked them out by singing ‘Sweet Sixteen’ and got through to the next round, which was a recording of the radio programme in London. But sadly it was not to be. As Jane, his sister, adds: ‘No one really knows the full story as it’s lost in time. It could have changed his life if he went. Someone once said that it was because the contestants had to pay insurance to appear on the show – something our Ted couldn’t afford – and he didn’t end up going.’
For now, singing professionally remained a dream that he couldn’t afford to pursue, in more ways than one.
Ted bringing in a wage (along with the eldest of his younger brothers) did take the pressure off Hilda and Maurice and the younger boys as it allowed them to enjoy their childhoods in a relaxed way – they all loved football and they played for the local team. They devoted themselves to football in the same way Ted committed to his music; the big problem was that the older brothers only had one pair of football boots between them, which often led to a big showdown.
Hilda soon cottoned on to this – but rather than keeping them under lock and key so that everyone got a turn, she thought this could be a valuable lesson for the boys: ‘If you make the effort and get up early then you’ll reap the reward.’ The only thing she was adamant about was that all of them made sure the boots were clean and ready for the next person to use.
While the younger lads were bickering over boots and who scored the most goals, Maurice loved working with his eldest son and felt a huge sense of pride watching him learn the ropes. But despite the happy routine they had, which included Hilda making them both a full breakfast in the morning and putting out their work clothes all freshly pressed, they both knew that National Service was looming when Ted turned 18. He was a man now but that didn’t stop the whole family dreading his departure – in many ways he was a big part of the glue that held the household together and a great support to Hilda, who wondered what would happen to her son when he was away from her watchful eye.
In the meantime, Ted and Iris’s innocent and charming courtship continued. Ted would take Iris to the bandstand to listen to music and sit on the bus holding her hand, telling her how beautiful she was.
‘Yam [you are] the air I breathe,’ Ted would tell her constantly.
‘Come on now, Ted, you’re embarrassing me,’ she’d reply.
Looking back at this time, Iris recalls: ‘Ted was always open about his emotions and wasn’t shy about saying what he felt. But I was young and I used to get embarrassed when he’d tell me stuff. It’s like he wanted everyone to know how he felt. I’d sit there holding his hand on the bus and I’d be bright red. He was ever so gentle, honestly. He would always tell me, “Yam beautiful.” Looking back now, it was nice if you think about it …’
Iris was soon round at 18 Kent Road nearly every night of the week, waiting for Ted to finish work. According to his brother, John: ‘Everyone loved Iris and she quickly bec
ame part of our family. Mum loved her being around – she’d help out around the house whenever she could, even looking after us little ones. She was ace.’
Iris had a very different backstory to Ted’s – her parents had died when she was young (her father of a brain tumour when she was a toddler followed by her mother from tuberculosis when Iris was 11) and she had been adopted by her nan. Ted found this heartbreaking to imagine, given how close he was to his own parents and how much he enjoyed coming from a big and loving family. Meeting Iris opened up a deep sense of emotion in him, she says: ‘I think he used to feel so sorry for me because I hadn’t got a mum and dad and had to live with my nan.’
Despite a few emotional differences, the young couple found something in one another and quickly became inseparable. They both had a good set of friends, but Ted had never been one to go off drinking with the rest of his mates. ‘Honestly, he could sit with me all night, talking away about what he’d done that day and what we could do at the weekend, and that’s how he liked it,’ says Iris.
They slotted easily into each other’s worlds – her friends thought she had struck gold with an adoring, older boyfriend who showered her with attention, his friends thought she was a stunner. Iris even became the football girlfriend, going along every Saturday to cheer on Ted from the sidelines. She would arrive with a big bag of oranges bought from the local fruit and veg stall, ready to cut them up and hand them out to the whole team at half-time.
But National Service was just around the corner, and before any of them could really feel prepared, they were saying goodbye to Ted as he went off for sixteen weeks of training in Litchfield, leaving Hilda full of worry and Iris counting down the days until they were reunited. Not knowing what was ahead of him, Ted put on a brave face, shouted his goodbye to Maurice, kissed Hilda farewell and made his way down Kent Road to begin a new chapter. Living through a war had taught them all to expect the unexpected – you just didn’t know what was waiting round the corner.
Chapter 3
‘There’s some room for the case underneath your bed. Put it away and be ready for inspection in five minutes.’
Those were the orders barked at Ted as he walked through the Whittington Barracks gates – his new home rising to greet him as he tried to keep pace with everyone else. Although there were lots of rules and regulations, it soon became apparent this set-up made some of Hilda’s rules back home look relaxed. Ted kept silent, quietly surveying the situation as the sergeant major stood shouting orders around the yard.
Those first few days and nights were long and filled with thoughts of what would be going on at home as Hilda served dinner and Maurice whistled along and helped pass the plates before heading to The Cora for ‘just the one’. It was a huge adjustment for Ted. At home he was undoubtedly Hilda’s favourite, but now he was just one of many lads trying to stand out for all the right reasons, although that was hard as, by default, any attention given down the ranks was rarely a positive thing. However, slowly but surely, the McDermott charm began to work its magic, as Ted started to make a real name for himself when it came to giving everything his absolute best.
Physically he was also one of the fittest – the football training he’d done as a lad with his brothers stood him in good stead for the cross-country circuits, where he repeatedly found himself first back and barely out of breath. Gradually he built up a reputation at the barracks that was identical to the one he had at home – reliable, fun, kind and a great entertainer. The latter became obvious one Saturday night a few weeks after he had joined, when he was asked to sing in front of the officers and their wives at their Christmas party. As he got ready to face the crowd and pulled on his perfectly pressed suit, it was hard not to think back a few years to the night he proudly accompanied Maurice to The Cora. There, Ted had watched his dad closely as he sang away and had the whole audience on their feet.
Tonight it was his turn. As ever, the crowd seemed to love it.
Life soon took on a reassuring pattern – being away from his family and Iris was hard, but Ted, ever the one to roll up his sleeves, enjoyed the rigour that Army life brought. He was top of the athletics and cross-country teams and because of his knack of chatting to everyone whenever he could, he made a few good friends at the barracks. A particularly close pal was Freddy Hyde, one of the officers’ chauffeurs. Both men instantly got on. They shared the same sense of humour and enjoyed seeing how far they could push the status quo, a trait that was to reveal itself in more detail as time went on. Ted landed himself a job in the kitchen, quickly deciding that it was a smart place to be as it kept you at the heart of things, as well as giving you access to any leftovers.
He soon became a firm favourite with both the officers and their wives: whenever there was a do on in the mess, Ted was always invited to sing. But it was the weekends that he lived for – it was his chance to get back to Kent Road to see Iris and the family. The first visit was allowed after he’d been away for a month, as the officers felt it was important for all the lads to bond for a few weeks and get used to their new surroundings. As the day of his visit home approached, Ted felt nervous and excited all at the same time. It felt strange not to speak to his brothers and sisters every day or argue over who was next in line for the bathroom. He knew it wasn’t a very manly thing to admit, but he’d missed his family more than he’d thought possible.
Back at number 18, the feeling was definitely mutual. Initially it was strange for the younger children to be at home without Ted and they missed the fact he wasn’t there (though after a few nights, they were pleased to have the extra bed to sleep in!). Sleeping arrangements aside, the excitement was palpable the first weekend he came home. They sat by the window all morning waiting to hear the sound of his boots on the path. The minute he put his key in the lock, the younger children pounced on him for hugs.
Once all the hellos had been exchanged, Ted opened up his bag to reveal treats galore: fruit, butter, cheese and tins of meat. The family couldn’t believe their eyes. Hilda was horrified and shouted at Ted: ‘Get that stuff back in case they catch you!’ but he just laughed and said: ‘Ah Mum, they’ll just throw it out.’ Ever the canny opportunist, Ted could see first-hand how much waste there was in the kitchen. At the end of every shift perfectly good food was thrown out (seemingly for no apparent reason, as it all looked fine to him). As far as he was concerned it wasn’t technically stealing if it was just going in the bin; in fact he was doing a good thing applying the ‘waste not, want not’ principle when food was scarce. And so began the weekly ritual of Ted bringing home all he could to help the household eat, something that seemed to have stuck from childhood, though Hilda often joked that at least he was using a bag now and not his suit pockets.
Despite living the high life at the barracks during the week, Ted was religious about his trips home. For his second visit he decided to surprise his brother John and his friends, who were all about 10 years old and planning a camping trip in the wood at the back of the garden. They were too proud to admit it, but they were scared – mainly because they had barely unpacked the tent when they heard something outside.
‘It was pitch-black when we suddenly heard this sound. We had no idea what it was, but we were terrified. We heard it move about and then stop right in front of our tent. We daren’t move. Anyway, we all eventually fell asleep but when we woke up in the morning and crept outside, there was our Ted, asleep in his Army overcoat, using his rucksack as a pillow. He’d come home and Dad had told him to pop outside and keep an eye on us because we were scared, but he’d slept outside all night to make sure we were OK,’ says John.
Maurice and Hilda had always drummed into Ted and his younger siblings the importance of behaving well in public. It was something that Ted would pass on to the younger ones whenever he could. As John explains: ‘He was ever so smart. After he started in the Army he would always tell us the importance of dressing well, the importance of how you behaved when you were out. I remember I had a football trial
and he spent ages showing me how to press my trousers before I had to go down to the ground. Honest, he was forever looking out for us. I could never see any wrong in him.’
Ted felt proud to be able to come home and treat the family to some of the finer things in life – he wanted to share everything about his Army experience with them and that included bringing Freddy back to introduce him to the family. Hilda was delighted that her son was bringing an Army friend to the house and went to a lot of trouble to tidy up and prepare a good meal. Everyone was clean and smartly turned out, with Hilda determined they would make a good impression. As usual, they were all hovering by the window waiting for Ted to arrive, when suddenly Hilda gasped: ‘Oh, look at this! What’s this big car doing outside our house?’
Hilda was momentarily puzzled as to who on earth their visitors could be and what the neighbours would say about this fancy car when she saw Ted’s familiar grin as he slowly wound down the window. Suddenly she shouted: ‘GOOD GOD! They’ll get sent to bloody hell if they get caught.’ Maurice and the kids weren’t quite sure what was going on, as not all of them had seen Ted in the front seat. The next thing there was a knock on the front door and it was Ted and Freddy Hyde, dressed up in suits. They had arrived in the officers’ shiny car, complete with all the flags flying on the front. The younger kids couldn’t believe their eyes and Hilda went berserk as the boys stood outside on the doorstep, laughing wildly.
The Songaminute Man Page 3