At that time, I lived in a newly built corporation house on Windybank Estate and I’d travel daily by bus down to Heckmondwike to attend St Patrick's Roman Catholic School. The bus would stop at the park in Heckmondwike, which was in the centre of town. To the left-hand side of the park was a large public toilet, which I daily entered and spent at least 5 minutes singing before going to school. Whenever possible, I would let the other bussing pupils go on ahead to school and enter the public toilets alone. I did this because the toilet was the only place apart from the public swimming baths at the top of Heckmondwike that produced an echo like a recording studio.
All the young ones under 50 have to bear in mind that the early 1950s were a time when there were no house phones or televisions in the homes of ordinary working class people; computers and all the electrical gadgets we take for granted today had yet to be born outside the scientific labs of brain boxes. Consequently, a budding singer had no microphones, recording machines, laptops, or Karaoke machines etc with which to test out their vocal range. All one could do would be get up on a stage in one of the regular talent contests and present your song cold turkey, more often without the luxury of a microphone. This necessitated the ability to be able to project one’s voice a minimum of twenty yards, (singing, not shouting), in the knowledge that if you were not heard on the back row, you couldn’t possibly win the singing contest.
I remember almost 67 years ago singing a song by Johnnie Ray called 'Cry'. Johnnie was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. His most unusual style of singing was probably influenced greatly by the fact that he was partially deaf all his life. Johnnie Alvin Ray, born in 1927 and died in 1990 was, without doubt, a major precursor to what would become Rock and Roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage personality. Raised in Oregon, Johnnie was singing professionally at the age of fifteen years but would reach the grand old age of 24 years (1951) before he was signed by Columbia Records. By 1952, he had recorded ‘Cry’ that reached the Top 100 Song Chart.
Love and peace. Bill xxx