The Songaminute Man

by Simon McDermott

  The rest of the kids didn’t hear the end of it when ‘our Ted’ came home – if they hadn’t all been so close then it might have caused trouble between them. After all, they were the ones looking after Hilda, doing her shopping and making sure she had her medication, trying to persuade her to get out for some fresh air and walks, when suddenly Ted would stroll in, make Hilda laugh and then disappear again for another few weeks, leaving the rest of them to cope with the daily grind. He didn’t see Hilda struggling to manage her diabetes or the deep sadness that threatened to swamp her.

  The tour carried on relentlessly, taking them all over the place. Depending on where they were, and although they were always welcome, the crowds could be tricky to manage. One of the worst nights was a booking to play a theatre on the outskirts of London.

  It was a huge club, with a massive audience; the place was packed full of people sitting at hard tables and chairs, shouting and jeering for the acts to come on to the stage and get going. Barry had just finished his act and Ted was about to walk on to start his when, all of a sudden, a heavily pregnant woman who was walking in front of the stage was kicked in the stomach by a man. All hell broke loose and it was the biggest fight either Ted or Barry had ever seen. Luckily for them the stage was 5 feet off the ground, meaning the audience, who were now in the midst of a full-blown riot, forgot that the acts were onstage. Ted and the rest of the gang dragged whatever equipment they could to the back of the stage. Chairs and tables were flying, while bottles were being smashed and used as weapons. They bundled themselves into the backroom and, thankfully, didn’t have to go through the fight to get to the stage exit door – they were in no doubt that the crowd would have gone for them as everything was out of control.

  The band stayed hidden, the chaos seeming to last for ages, and then there were barking dogs and three blows of a whistle to signal the arrival of the police. Everyone stayed silent and still, figuring the best thing to do was to keep out of the way and out of trouble. Finally, some fifteen minutes later, it was silent and the police opened the door, telling them that they were safe to come out. The club was empty, but there was nothing left of it. Everything was smashed to smithereens. There wasn’t a chair or table still standing, the bar had been decimated and there was blood everywhere. It was like a war zone. The episode traumatised the group, taking some of the joy and innocence away from their adventures on the road. The tour had allowed them to exist in a bubble and think only about good things but this was a big reality check and it let the world in, forcing Ted to be realistic about what was going on out there and at home. Deep down he knew that he couldn’t keep running away for ever. The show continued travelling around the country until December 1974, when the gang went their separate ways.

  Ted and Barry didn’t keep in touch, but years later, when Ted’s video went viral, Barry watched it online and knew immediately who it was:

  ‘When I first saw that “Quando, Quando, Quando” video on Facebook, I knew it was Ted. He’s still the same as he was then. Believe me, he’s still got it. You know you get older and you may not look the same, but he’s still the guy I knew back then. He was a good guy. I couldn’t fault him and he always looked out for everyone, making sure they were all right, you know. He’d never make a fuss before a show. He’d pop on his suit, wait for the opening, walk on and do his thing.’

  Once the tour was over, Ted returned to Wednesbury for a few weeks and spent some proper time at home. It was the first time he had truly dealt with Maurice’s death – there was no escaping his absence, it was everywhere he looked. His siblings had made the initial adjustment but it was all extremely raw for Ted and very hard to process while still staying upbeat for Hilda, who loved having her eldest back home. Ted, Fred and Ernie spent many a night down at The Cora, having a pint with Maurice’s old workmates and blokes who had known their dad his whole life. Listening to stories about what he’d been like back in the day was both comforting and heartbreaking – somehow it made him seem even further away.

  But before Ted had a chance to settle back into Wednesbury life, his talent for entertaining was about to take him somewhere, and to someone, he could never have anticipated. Butlin’s had been so impressed with his ability to get on with everyone and all his ideas for how to breathe new life into the performance line-up that, so the story goes, Billy Butlin’s wife herself asked him personally to go to the Metropole Hotel in Blackpool. They were in a terrible mess and would he help their entertainment team? He was excited and flattered, but worried about the impact another absence would have on the Hilda. Yet deep down he knew the brutal truth was that the family had learned to cope without him, and actually had a good and workable routine in place to make sure that Hilda always had someone there, although that didn’t stop his feelings of guilt. He weighed up the pros and cons and, before he knew it, Ted was off again, the promise of the bright lights luring him away from home – this time on a bus to Lancashire. As he prepared to say goodbye to the family again, he knew they were all wondering when he would stop gallivanting and start putting down responsible roots. If he was honest, as he was approaching 40, he was starting to wonder that very thing himself.

  ***

  As soon as he arrived, Ted set about the job in hand, more than a little excited. Even the building he would be working in was an institution in its own right. The Butlin’s Metropole was a big red-brick hotel at the northern end of Blackpool promenade, just past the war memorial. It might be a bit of a faded treasure now but back then, in the mid-70s, it was absolutely the place to be. It seemed logical to Ted that if the venue wasn’t packing in the punters, then it had a lot to do with the quality of the acts they were putting on. He was reminded of Maurice’s wise words as he watched various clubs go under during his lifetime – ‘a place is only as good as the people it puts on its stage’ – and, with that in mind, the first thing Ted set about doing was scouting for the best talent. He would make notes and then go back to handpick the very best ones to appear at the Metropole. It didn’t take long for the old hotel to becocme exactly the kind of place that Butlin’s had been so desperate for.

  Word of-mouth praise spread like wildfire – this was the perfect venue for a fun getaway, with something for all the family. Soon news travelled to the other end of the country, reaching London and the ears of Linda Carter, a 29-year-old secretary from Blackburn. Linda had visited Blackpool hundreds of times over the years, but with her brother George away, she wanted to treat her parents to a New Year break. The Blackpool Metropole sounded like a place where they could all have fun. She had no idea how much that holiday would change her life.

  Linda Carter loved life. She had moved to London from Blackburn in 1971 when she was about 27 and had always been a bit of a social butterfly. She’d rented a flat in St John’s Wood and was earning a good wage working as a PA. The money she brought home was split between saving frugally and her addiction to fashion (or on whatever was considered en vogue that season). Linda was a free spirit and would wander around the shops imagining what she would buy if she could, often strutting back to the office late without a care in the world. She adored London and lived for the weekends when she could take advantage of everything the city had to offer. It felt like a exciting place to be, where anything was possible, and it was certainly the perfect place to meet people. Although she had a few flings and dates, nothing seemed to last, perhaps because Linda wanted things on her own terms. She didn’t show any signs of wanting to settle down (much to her mother’s concern) but it did mean she had something in common with the man she was about to meet.

  That Christmas Linda took a break from London and went back to Blackburn to spend it with her mum and dad – George and Ellen Carter, two mill workers. That year there would be more room than usual at the inn as her family had just moved from Bastwell to a semi-detached house with a front and back garden at the top of Little Harwood. It was a recent purchase after years of living in a terraced house on Pine Street in Blackburn, bought aft
er George had won some money on the pools.

  George was a quiet man. He was tall and had been incredibly good-looking in his youth, while Ellen was a small, kind and honest woman with dyed red hair, but who wouldn’t think twice about telling someone where to go if she felt they’d done her wrong. She was no battleaxe, but if anyone crossed her or her family, she would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Everyone soon got to know her down in Little Harwood, where she’d spend hours chatting to the other women in the shops, putting the world to rights and making sure she had the latest bargains. In many ways Linda’s parents were very similar to Maurice and Hilda. It seemed ironic then, with such traditional role models who were very much in favour of marriage, that neither Linda nor Ted was in any hurry to find ‘the one’; in fact, some would say they both weren’t bothered about the day that would happen and actively avoided it.

  Linda’s mum was looking forward to getting away for the New Year celebrations. Both her and George, like Linda, were sociable creatures and were always the first ones up on the dancefloor. A few days after Christmas, they excitedly packed their cases and caught the train across to Blackpool.

  Linda was close to her parents but she was now used to doing her own thing in London and coming and going as she pleased. Despite all of this, she embraced the idea and was excited to see who else had the same plan of a trip away to start the New Year.

  On 29 December 1974, the Carters arrived at the Metropole Hotel. Ted McDermott opened the doors to them as they entered, locking eyes with Linda: the attraction was instant. Ted still says now, ‘As soon as I saw her, I knew she was the one. I went straight to the other Redcoats and said, “If anyone talks to or touches that blonde, I’ll break their legs. She’s mine.”’ He had spent the last few years putting his romantic feelings on the backburner – women came and went but no one had captured his heart and mind for years – until now. It would be true to say that he loved Linda Carter from the moment he laid eyes on her – and that kind of attraction cannot be ignored.

  That first afternoon they saw one another, Ted asked Linda for a game of table tennis. Never one to conform, he didn’t want to offer up something so mundane as a drink or a movie. Linda said, ‘no, let’s go for a walk instead.’ They spent the afternoon walking along Blackpool beach. Ted instantly charmed Linda with his stories and jokes.

  On New Year’s Eve, Ted had organized a fancy dress competition in the main hotel ballroom. By this time Linda and her family had got to know a group of other people staying there, including a thin, gangly guy, Bill, who, like Linda, was also holidaying with his family. He clearly had a bit of a crush on Linda because he followed her around and they always seemed to be together. Ted would watch from afar, not liking it one bit. He couldn’t work out what was going on between them and drove his mates mad with theories about how he could get this guy out of the picture, clearing the way for himself. This was all made worse by the fact that Linda and the thin guy arrived at the New Year’s Eve fancy dress party as a couple – the guy dressed as a Red Indian, who entered the room dragging Linda, who was dressed as a squaw, across the dance floor. It was quite an entrance and they won the competition.

  For years afterwards Ted would insist that he fixed the win, just to have a reason to talk to Linda, and of course she would insist they won fair and square because they were the best ones there.

  Later that night, Linda went up to her room and changed out of her costume into something more glamorous, rejoining the crowd in the ballroom. As she came through the double doors, her eyes hit the stage in front of her. A crowd had gathered round it, watching a handsome guy belting out ‘How Deep is the Ocean’ onstage. She pushed her way through to get a better look at what was going on, the Metropole’s incredible reputation for entertainment at the front of her mind, took a seat to the side and found herself staring up at Ted singing:

  I was sat there and I remember him looking into my eyes as he sang. It was when he started singing ‘We are in love again my heart’ that my own heart melted. That was that.

  Chapter 8

  As the clocks struck midnight on 1 January 1975, Ted McDermott celebrated finally winning over Linda Carter. To mark the occasion the couple decided to go paddling in the Blackpool sea. Over the years, neither one of them would give any detail about what went on out there, but one thing was indisputable: it was freezing.

  The rest of Linda’s stay passed in a romantic blur and she spent every possible moment with Ted, chatting and laughing as they walked around Blackpool – meaning he didn’t get much work done and she didn’t see a lot of her family. They had both thought they weren’t the settling-down types, but all that seemed to be changing. They were joined at the hip and dreading the arrival of Linda’s departure day. Was it possible to fall in love after only a week of knowing someone? It seemed that the answer was yes – they were smitten. ‘Ted was very much a romantic flatterer,’ Linda says. ‘He would always be telling me how lovely I was.’

  But reality came crashing in around them as the Christmas decorations came down and the guests started to thin out and go back home to their lives. Linda and Ted exchanged addresses and promises of visits and calls, but who knew what would happen when everyday life took over again? She returned to Blackburn with her parents for a few days’ extra rest before heading back to London – after all, her parents joked, they hadn’t seen that much of her over the holiday period!

  She was at home making the most of the final time she had away from work – and pining a bit too, if she was honest – when there was a knock at the door. She got up to see who was there, only to be confronted by a grinning Ted. She couldn’t believe he was standing right there on her doorstep, only a few days after she had last seen him. It was a shock but it gently endeared Ted to her.

  They spent the day together and then decided to get the train back down south, with Ted getting off at the Midlands to stay with his family and Linda continuing down to London. After another intense goodbye, they agreed that Linda would come and visit him at one of his gigs around the country, though no firm date was made; Ted didn’t know where he was from one week to the next and had to be willing to go wherever the money and the jobs were.

  The Butlin’s tour was reassembled after Christmas and New Year, and Ted continued to be a major part of it, again travelling in that caravan with Dave Thomas. As Dave was putting Ted up, Ted would end up doing the cooking most nights, rustling up something quick and easy with whatever they had in the cupboards. It was a skill he had learned from an early age from Hilda - Ted would often cook for his younger siblings whenever his parents were out. Being on the road meant he had lots to distract him from not seeing Linda, and equally, she loved the freedom and the excitement of her life in London. But Ted’s nomadic lifestyle also meant that, inevitably, she ended up doing most of the travelling to see him. She would routinely spend hours on trains and buses, getting soaked to the skin in the north-east and stomping through snow in Scotland to get to whichever venue he was working in. Like Ted, she liked to make an impression and would always make sure she was wearing her best winter clothes when she arrived, which certainly turned a few heads. It also had the same effect on Ted, who used to marvel that she was there just to see him.

  Although he wasn’t the one making the long journey, Ted would make absolutely sure that everything was in good shape for Linda’s arrival. In fact, he made so much fuss about how the caravan looked that he drove Dave mad. Ted would clean the place obsessively until it was spotless before Linda arrived, and even when she was there he’d dust down the seats before she went to sit down. ‘He was incredibly fussy,’ Linda says. ‘Everything would be polished to within an inch of its life. The place was spotless – I didn’t think at that time I’d be hoovering up around him like I do now.’ They were carefree times – travelling around from town to town with Dave driving, Ted sat in the passenger seat and Linda in the back, with Dave’s caravan attached to the rear of the car. All three of them would joke and sing the
ir way through the long journeys. It was a revelation for Linda and a world away from her nine-to-five life in London. There was a real sense of freedom and that anything was possible out in the open air; she could see why Ted found it so seductive.

  Things fell into a natural pattern for Ted and Linda and they were serious from the beginning and very much a part of each other’s lives, even if Ted being on the road made communication tricky. Linda met Hilda and the rest of Ted’s relatives at the first opportunity. In truth, as far as Hilda was concerned, it was an enormous relief that he seemed to have found someone so kind and capable to settle down with.