With the full-time work, Dad picked up the strange notion that being a husband and father meant that he couldn’t also be a singer, and he let his singing slip. It was a mark of how much Mum loved him that she soon put a stop to that. She knew he loved singing, and besides, she’d fallen in love with a singer.
‘When I met you, you said you were a singer. If you’re not going to go singing, then you know where the door is!’ she ranted at him during one of their many arguments.
So he started going out and taking bookings at the clubs in Blackburn. One of the first places he went to was St Stephen’s club, down the road from his in-laws house in Little Harwood. St Stephen’s was a traditional northern club: downstairs was the main room with a small stage, with a smaller snooker room off the side; upstairs was another function room with a slightly bigger stage. On the wall there was a picture of the Queen. In the summer, the green outside was packed with all the members playing bowls. These days though, its glory has faded – changes in the local population mean that there’s no longer an audience.
Rose Boothman, a regular at the club, remembers those days well and the first time she met Dad: ‘I remember when he first came to the club,’ she says. ‘He was on his own and got talking to my husband, Jimmy. After a while Jim said, “Come and sit with us, lad, yer a good un,” so he did.’ That night St Stephen’s was having a ‘free and easy’ night – meaning that anyone could get up and sing if they wanted.
‘Go on up and have a go, lad,’ Jimmy told Dad.
So Dad got up and he knocked them all out. ‘The way he hit those top notes,’ says Rose, ‘The roof lifted. He was BRILLIANT.’
When Dad sat back down with the group, Jimmy turned to him and said: ‘You should think about doing the clubs, lad.’
‘I’ve already done them down the Midlands,’ said Dad, and began to tell Jimmy, who was one of the compères as well as being vice-president of the club, all about his time at Butlin’s and where he met Mum.
From then on, Jimmy and Dad became good friends – often Jimmy and Rose would have a party back at their house in Bastwell with some of the regulars, including Mum and Dad, after the club had shut. Rose still lives in the same house today, just down the road from my parents, and still goes to St Stephen’s most Saturdays. The couples were friends right up until Jimmy’s death and the onset of Dad’s dementia, but even then, the illness couldn’t quite rob Dad of all his memories: ‘When Jimmy died, Ted used to walk past our house every morning and touch that hedge there,’ says Rose. ‘I’d watch him from upstairs. Every morning without fail, he’d walk past, touch the hedge and shout, “Morning, Jimmy”, and walk off. Every morning he’d do it. Jimmy was always cutting that hedge and they’d always be talking when he passed. It just became this thing that he did when he died. Every morning.’
One day I decide to ask Dad about Jimmy Boothman, curious to see if he remembers him:
‘Oh, I know Jimmy. Perfect gentleman. He helped me a lot when I first come up here. Showed me all the best musicians, which places to sing at… He was a good’ un…’ But then Dad rambles off into a confused story about clubs and singing. I sit there feeling tearful. Saying, ‘Morning, Jimmy’ was his way of not forgetting an old friend. And Rose and her daughter seemed so grateful that he did that on his way to the papershop every morning. He’s a good man.
Blackburn in the mid-1970s was a hotspot. There were clubs all across town, often featuring live entertainment most nights of the week. It’s crazy to think that most of Blackburn’s pubs and clubs have now closed, either having been demolished, becoming derelict or religious education centres. There is very little left of the club scene it once was, but back then it was thriving and Dad made sure he was at the heart of it. After a half-hearted attempt at conforming by leaving the singing behind, once he received the nod of approval from Mum, there was no stopping him. Most weekends they would go out, leaving me at Nan’s, and it was almost as though they were courting again. They would go to these clubs and Dad would often end the night by getting up and singing – especially if it was an open-mike night. Just like he always did, Dad soon made sure that everyone locally knew who he was and looked forward to hearing his voice.
Ernie Riding was one of the regular piano players at St Stephen’s club at the time – a tall guy with a broad Lancashire accent and black hair. When I was a kid he seemed like the typical showman – smart suits, organizing the band and the venue. He was a self-taught pianist and could play any song by ear. Combined with Dad’s musical knowledge they would often have a great flow together, mashing up different songs and styles, which was impressive to watch. Now Ernie is in his 80s – he’s an old man, with grey hair and slightly stooped, but the showman is still there. To the side of his lounge is a keyboard that he still plays every day.
It was at one of these nights at St Stephen’s club that Dad first showcased his fifteen-minute medleys – six or eight songs mashed up – and the crowd loved them. By now, he had begun to get a bit of a name for himself, not just because of this but also due to his vast knowledge of songs spanning generations: there was nothing he couldn’t sing. One night, just before his usual set, the compère at the club (who happened to be Jimmy Boothman) accidentally gave him a new name as he announced him to the crowd:
‘Here he is, Eddie Carter – The Songaminute Man.’
That was it – the name stuck, and from then on it was how Dad was known throughout Blackburn.
‘You know, he could sing any style,’ says Ernie. ‘Those medleys were a lot of fun. He made you work and sometimes they’d go on for ages. I can remember being covered in sweat, but it was a lot of fun. Then he’d also go on to do the serious songs. They were quality. I remember him when he first came in. He wanted to do a spot, it was a free and easy. I knew the moment he started singing he was quality.
From then on we gelled.’
Ernie had a small group that he would also do private gigs with and over the next twenty or so years Dad would sing with him at those gigs. ‘If there were any special jobs on, I’d always ask Eddie – I was proud to play with him,’ he says.
It was clear that Dad didn’t try and hide his more artistic temperament from Ernie either. ‘You know, if he didn’t like a musician he would walk off. I’ve seen him walk off the stage if he didn’t like the pianist. But then again I’ve done the same with singers,’ says Ernie. The two men formed a close friendship that was pivotal in helping Dad settle down in Blackburn – he was miles away from his brothers and missed the close friendship they had, so it was a huge relief to Mum when he and Ernie clicked so early on. Having the music in common was a huge bonus and she was delighted he was part of a circle of friends he could socialize with.
As ever in small towns, word started to spread, and through Ernie, Dad soon became known to Alf Wright – who himself was known as Blackburn’s Mr Music. He was a plumber by trade, who started to organize shows at Blackburn’s King George’s Hall. ‘He wasn’t a musician or singer,’ says Ernie, ‘but he just loved music and wanted to put on these shows. It was all the stuff from mine and Ted’s era.’
For years afterwards, Dad would always have the occasional gig at King George’s as part of Alf Wright’s Music Hall – either singing, compèring or both. One thing that stood out was his confidence and stage presence – it became the talk of Blackburn and soon he had pockets full of booking requests and gigs lined up months in advance. To celebrate this Mum went out and bought him an expensive dress shirt for his shows. But when he found out, Dad went ballistic because she’d spent the extra money on it. ‘Eddie, if you take £1 from every booking you got on Sunday,’ she responded, ‘that will pay for the price of the shirt two times.’
This small fall-out characterized a tricky time for the newly-weds and they argued a lot as they adjusted to making a life together. Here were two people who had previously been committed to the single life and suddenly they had a baby, were living with a set of parents and struggling to make ends meet. Mum missed the
buzz of London and he missed the freedom of being on the road – maintaining their new life was putting a lot of pressure on them both. For Mum, one of the main problems was that when Dad did a big show, he wouldn’t want to go into work the next day because he was too tired. This caused a lot of resentment, both from Mum and my ever-observant nan, who watched Dad closely for signs he was looking after her daughter. They didn’t understand the performer’s mentality – how much it took out of Dad to be up on that stage all night. They were much more familiar with a nine-to-five routine and the stability it brought. To them not going to work was just lazy, but for Dad, he needed time to recover.
It all came to a head after a few weeks when, after one particularly late night, Dad refused to get out of the bed the next morning to help with me or go to work. Mum was exasperated and stomped down to the kitchen, me screaming in her arms, complaining to my nan that her husband was useless. ‘That’s it,’ muttered Nan, watching her tired and stressed daughter juggle everything as her husband snored in bed. She went to the cupboard under the stairs and pulled out the hoover, marched up to Mum and Dad’s bedroom, switched it on, and left it running. Dad snapped. He got up, packed his bag and went to live at the YMCA. It was a huge drama – Mum was angry with her but Nan wasn’t at all repentant and very much lived by the old adage: ‘My house, my rules’. Her own husband wasn’t lazy and she certainly wasn’t going to put up with that behaviour from someone else’s and she told Dad as much.
This exile didn’t last long though, and my parents were soon back together, but it did mean they focused on looking for a house in Blackburn to buy. Staying with the in-laws indefinitely wasn’t an option. After getting gazumped on a small cottage, they put their names down for a council house. And a few weeks later, they moved into Number 2 Windermere Close, Daisyfield, in July 1977. It was a small end-of-terrace 1960s build, with a tiny garden at the front and the back. They made it their own, furnishing it with things they picked up from junkshops or jumble sales.
By summer 1977, Mum and Dad were in a good enough financial position to book their first summer holiday alone and decided to go to the tiny Cornish seaside town of Bude. They were so excited; Mum set about buying new clothes and planning all the things they would do and where they would eat. But this happy time turned to heartbreak for Dad when his beloved mother died on what would have been her sixtieth birthday. Although her health had rapidly declined since the death of her husband Maurice, no one expected her to go so soon. She had been getting to grips with her diabetes, which had the worrying side effect of causing her to faint or lose her balance. It was one final fall at home from a diabetic coma that led to her being taken to hospital and dying there, quickly and unexpectedly. It was a crushing blow for her family, who were still adjusting to life without Maurice. Everyone was in shock and it would take many years for Dad to come to terms with this loss.
Despite being devastated, Dad still went to work the next day. ‘I called them up to explain what had happened and asked them to keep an eye on him,’ says Mum. ‘He didn’t want people to see that he was upset half the time.’ Just before the funeral, Dad spent time with Hilda’s body at the funeral home and sat with her for hours, his conversation committed to history and the depths of his now-muddled mind. His mother had been his world and now he was living in a new town, with a new wife and a new baby. It was a lot for him to process and perhaps he never fully did.
Hilda was buried with her beloved Maurice, leaving her children to come to terms with the fact that such a big force was gone for ever. She had been the centre of the family unit, now she wasn’t there. And even though each of them had their own households, becoming an orphan at any age is life-changing: suddenly there is no one around who knew you from the very start. Dad dealt with it by silently getting on with things, but it took its toll on his marriage and saw the start of an exhausting and destructive pattern of rowing, splitting up and making up – a cycle that can eat away at the foundations of even the strongest relationship.
Perhaps Hilda’s death triggered a fear of loss in Dad, perhaps he was just a jealous person, but either way, he became extremely possessive of Mum and didn’t care who saw it.
This was most obvious during their first Christmas together as a married couple when they spent Boxing Day at Edna’s. The two women were still close after the wedding when Edna had been Mum’s maid of honour and it sounded like a fun idea to spend some of the holidays with her and her husband, David. They had a fancy-dress box and Edna’s brother, Brian, and Mum dressed up and acted out a comedy sketch. Dad didn’t like this. As Mum and Brian came waltzing down the stairs in their finery, Dad went ballistic, storming out of the house and walking all the way back home – which was over five miles away. It was embarrassing for Mum that her friends saw that side to him and it became clear that it wasn’t just something you could put down to the fact he was an emotional or highly-strung artist. Other times, when Mum went out alone with her friends, Dad would lock her out of the house in a fit of jealousy, leaving her to walk up to Nan and Grandad’s house, where she would stay the night.
But Mum was no doormat and could only be pushed so far. One morning, she had decided to get up early and make a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs to set Dad up for the day, just the way Hilda used to before he went off to work. She thought perhaps some home comforts would help him come to terms with things and remind him of good times even though he was sad. Her loving gesture backfired spectacularly as it became clear that Dad wasn’t in the mood for niceties.
‘I don’t want this,’ he said, pushing his breakfast away. ‘I like my eggs runny.’
But he couldn’t have been sitting in a worse position. Right behind him was a china pot, in the shape of a chicken, where they kept the eggs. Mum saw red and turning around, she picked up an egg and smashed it right on the top of his head.
‘Is this runny enough for you?’ she shouted, storming through the door and making a run for it. Dad finally saw the funny side and started to laugh, chasing after her down the road and grabbing her with both hands. ‘I love you, Linda McDermott,’ he declared, right there in the road, with the neighbours getting a good look. They must have thought they were crazy.
But by mid-1977 the bickering had reached new levels and Mum walked out on Dad. ‘Looking back, I can’t even remember what we argued about half the time,’ she says. ‘I think we were both very argumentative and always wanted our own way. They were silly arguments but they would turn into World War Three. We were both to blame.’
Mum and I moved back to Nan’s house – this time she was serious about splitting up for good. She had tried to be understanding after Hilda’s death, but that angry and argumentative streak in Dad just got worse and their relationship had become a battleground. Before that she had proved to him that she was no pushover and she knew she had to stand by that. So she left, taking me with her.
Chapter 10
On the surface, it all seemed very civilized – they split their money and Mum bought her own house, 138 Cedar Street, near Bastwell in Blackburn. It was a mid-terrace house and tiny, but it was hers and she loved it. The street was a typical Lancashire terraced street – everyone seemed to know each other and I spent my early years playing out with other kids from the street and building important friendships.
There was Jason a few doors down, who was to become my best friend at the time; Ellen, who lived on Bastwell Road; Kathryn was across the street; Louise lived further down opposite the laundrette with her younger brother, Brett; John, the redhead of the group, who lived up Logwood Street; and Shirley McKenna, who lived opposite. We all hung out together, often making our way down to Jim’s Shop to buy 5p Lucky Bags or playing out in the backstreets. Next door to us lived Bloody Mary – an old woman who would sit in her porch all day, moaning about ‘bloody this’ and ‘bloody that’. On the other side was a tiny hairdresser’s, with a small yapping Terrier called Scooby Doo that never stopped barking. Next to her was Ida, who was forever sweeping
the street. And next to her, I think, was Big John, with his two pet poodles, Pepsi and Shirlie.
Mrs Goodrich lived further down the street. She was an old lady who lived alone and who was forever telling us off. Of course I didn’t know these people when we first moved in, but they became my family until I was 8 years old. Everyone knew each other. We got told off, we were given sweets, we’d go into each other’s houses and dare each other to see how far we could walk down the back alleys or play in the derelict garages behind Louise’s house. I used to have a little yellow plastic car that you could sit on and drive when I was very young, but by the time I was about 7, we took it from the house, up the top of Holly Street, and would fly down on it to the bottom of the hill, missing cars driving across the street by inches. It was a wonder we didn’t get killed. When my dad came over and saw this, he flew out the house and gave me a good hiding. I never did that again.
Mum and Dad’s separation wasn’t to last. After she left, Dad took a long hard look at himself. He wanted Mum and me back but he knew things had to change. He also knew that Hilda would have been disappointed at the split, telling him to sort himself out – this wasn’t a game and he needed to step up. Everyone else might celebrate and revere him, letting him get away with murder because of his voice – but his wife didn’t.
Dad missed Mum like crazy, and he set about wooing her again, waiting for her every night after work. She initially refused but was eventually worn down and charmed by Dad’s persistence – he would be there as she finished work every night, waiting with a little gift and a smile.
‘It drove me round the bend at first,’ says Mum. ‘I was dead set about moving on, but he managed to win me round. I remember that day. I’d come home from work and gone to my mum’s to pick you up when I saw him standing at the top of the road, all dressed up, waiting for me. It was like the scene out of Wuthering Heights or something. I don’t know what happened. Something just clicked and we ran to one another and started kissing. I must have been mad.’
The Songaminute Man Page 11