Breakfast with Rosemary Shrager

Rosemary Shrager is one of Britain’s leading chefs renowned for her haute cuisine.
Her passion for food is obvious and this is evident from the abundance of cookery books she has published and the array of TV programmes she has appeared on, along with the highly successful Swinton Park Cookery School in North Yorkshire, which she runs. I met Rosemary to discuss her favourite meal of the day.

It was early morning when I caught up with TV celebrity chef Rosemary, and, as usual I’m running late and ironically enough I have completed skipped breakfast once again much to the disdain of Rosemary.
“I love breakfast, when I say at the beginning of the book ‘it’s my really favourite meal of all time.’ I mean it, I always eat breakfast. I’ve just had my poached eggs on toast in bed; I absolutely love my poached eggs on toast!”
Like Rosemary, I too love poached eggs, but I do tend to struggle with cooking an egg that doesn’t resemble something I’ve just blown out of my nose.
“If you struggle, use a frying style pan, get the water swirling, crack your egg into it, leave it for a minute or so, until the egg just begins to set slightly. The trick is to put your spatula right under the egg to loosen it off and stop it sticking because once you’ve loosened it, it won’t stick again.
“Spoon a little water over the top of the egg to give it a slightly opaque but still yellowy top, and you’ve got your poached egg.” says Rosemary.
She makes it sound effortless, but when you have three kids and limited time, what’s a girl to do? When I ask her if she fancies moving in with me to help out with my family’s culinary needs, I get the distinct impression she isn’t keen and answers with “Aah, well try fast poached eggs. If you’re in a hurry in the mornings, poach the eggs in the evening, put them in some cold water, then into the fridge. When you’re ready for your eggs, take them out of the water place them into a pan of simmering water for about a minute.
This lady has an answer for everything. Guess that means she won’t be moving to Colne any time soon! Well, who could blame her? Her past clients have included Royalty.
“I’ve always had the idea for a breakfast book and you know when you have a book inside your head. It was there, I didn’t have to even think about it. Writing the book was the just the best and easiest thing I’ve ever had to, well it’s not easy because you want to get it right, but they’re such simple recipes, it’s got big writing, big close up pictures that go ‘right into the food’ and make you go “Mmmmmm, I really fancy that!’” I wanted the book to be all about the food.”
Though born down in London and brought up in Buckinghamshire, her feet are now firmly back on Yorkshire soil. “I come from Yorkshire stock,” she booms. Her mother’s family were the Twentymen, who owned Kirby Misperton Hall, which they sold and would later become Flamingo Land.
“My great grandfather used to keep flamingos and monkeys,” she continues. “The family spent a lot of time in China and I think that’s where he got the love of animals from.”
“The north compares very differently to the south,” says Rosemary. “People are very friendly, more outspoken and down to earth. In the north ‘a spade is a spade’, they take no nonsense.
“When I first came up north, it was quite interesting, because I thought ‘I have my following, I have my school, I’m moving my school to Masham and I’ll just carry on’, but unfortunately it wasn’t like that at all. I had to prove to the people of Yorkshire that I was actually all right. It took about three years. It was a bit of a rude awakening. I had to work hard and then they started to trust me and now they really support me. It’s important to give back to the local area and support local people where possible. Using local and seasonal ingredients are essential if we are to keep food miles down and reduce carbon footprint. The taste and quality of fresh local food is reason enough to support our local producers, wherever we live in the country. My favourite recipe for this time of year is rhubarb with Panacotta and coconut.”
As a child, food played a big part in her life. Her mother adored cooking, so Rosemary was always interested in food and understood how to use it. The family grew all their own vegetables, so she feels very lucky to be brought up knowing how fresh vegetables taste and what you can do with them.
Rosemary cooked all the time with her children, so much so that at one point, she got a little cookery school going with the children on her day off. I ask her how important it is to cook with your children.
“It’s absolutely imperative to educate your children by cooking with them and encouraging them to enjoy it. That’s when they start to cook, when you start making cakes and scones which children love to do. That’s when it starts to happen. Get them to make breakfast with you. It’s fun. Once you get them to enjoy it when they’re young, they’ll always have that and want to keep on doing it.”
It’s plain to see that Rosemary has a real and honest love of food, but I was curious to find out what inspired her to become a chef. “Cooking is in my blood and it comes naturally without having to think about it. I love knowing how to work with the products. It’s the learning how to work with the products and learning the techniques in how to get the best out of the food. That’s what I love, understanding what to do with food.
“What I get really upset about is there’s so many people out there who just haven’t learnt how to cook and don’t know what to do with food. They could actually make their lives a little cheaper by learning to cook. It’s not their fault, they just haven’t had the opportunity. Does she ever get tempted to cheat and perhaps buy in ready-made Yorkshire puddings for ease?
“Oh come on, it takes no time to make a Yorkshire pudding. The trick is to get enough egg in there to make it rise and ensure that the oil is sizzling hot.” is her reply. Well, that’s told me!
Other than Yorkshire Puddings, what food depicts Yorkshire?
“Pies, sausage and bacon. Good solid local food.”
Now, on that we agree.
She adores cheese and champions Wensleydale Jervaulx Blue or good old Yorkshire Blue.
So, if she was on death row, what would she chose as her last meal?
“Boiled eggs with soldiers washed down with a banana smoothie. I would want to have something sweet to drink, no point in getting drunk as they wouldn’t be able to give you enough to numb the pain!”
Oh I’m not sure about that one Rosemary; alcohol must be worth a try...

Rosemary’s new book Yorkshire Breakfasts is available from all good book shops for just £16.99. To order a signed copy call Great Northern Books on 01274 735056.

Article from Northern Life issue 42 February/March 2012.
To order this issue go to the Northern Life online store.

That Titanic Tune

Nearly 100 years after the Titanic sank in the Atlantic, it looks like one mystery will never be solved... just what tune did the band play as the ship went down?

The widely accepted story is that it was the hymn Nearer, My God, To Thee, which some survivors claimed to have heard, and that indeed is the tune engraved on the Colne grave of bandmaster Wallace Hartley, a Lancashire hero who is also claimed by Yorkshire, the county where he flourished as a professional musician.
But other theories have been put forward, centring on other tunes that Hartley and his band would have known, and historian and author Yvonne Speak revives the controversy in a new edition of her book A Hymn For Eternity – The Story of Wallace Hartley, Titanic Bandmaster.
Burnley-born Yvonne, who lives at Waterfoot, Rossendale, and writes under her maiden name Yvonne Carroll, first became fascinated by the Titanic story when she saw James Cameron’s 1997 multi-Oscar-winning movie Titanic, starring Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet. Its spectacular special effects, based on a two-thirds size replica of the ship and enhanced by computer generated images, recreated the tragedy in realistic detail.
“I thought the fictitious love story of Jack and Rose was just awful, but the rest of the film had mostly been very well researched,” says Yvonne. “Cameron had followed the time line exactly.”
Bitten by the Titanic bug, Yvonne combed the archives in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Kew, and sought out the homes where the Hartley family lived. Husband Chris Speak took the photographs, and the first edition of her book was published in 2002 for the 90th anniversary.
Yvonne’s own theory about the band’s last tune was that it was probably as reported by radio operator Harold Bride, who would have been nearer to the orchestra than other survivors as the ship slipped under the icy waters. He said he heard them play a tune called Autumn. Although there was a hymn tune called Autumn, it was used for God of Mercy and Compassion and also as an alternative tune for Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer. What Bride was more likely to be referring to, Yvonne believes, was Songe D’Autonne (meaning ‘Dream of Autumn’), a popular waltz which was often known as just Autumn because of its French title.
It was number 137 in the White Star Line Music Book – the musicians had to know every tune’s number by heart - while Nearer, My God, To Thee was not in the book. Some survivors also spoke of hearing a waltz.
Survivors in the lifeboats heard the orchestra playing, but their distance from the ship, plus the confusion of that fateful night, casts some doubt over what they heard. However, the reports of the orchestra heroically playing Nearer, My God, To Thee soon gained credence, widely reported in the newspapers and becoming the stuff of legend.
One of Wallace’s musician friends from Leeds, Ellwand Moody, once said he had been on the liner Mauretania when the conversation turned to what they might play if the ship was to sink. Wallace told him: “I don’t think I could do better than play O God Our Help In Ages Past or Nearer, My God, To Thee.” However, a journalist who once raised the subject with Wallace said he told him: “I know every one of the men would stick with me and play until the waters engulfed us... lively music, of course. None of your hymns, although I do love them dearly.” He added: “My favourite is Nearer, My God, To Thee but I’m keeping that one reserved for my funeral.”
Despite the uncertainty that still exists, there is no doubt that Wallace Hartley and his gallant musicians played on until they could play no more, earning their rightful place in history.
Revised and republished for the centenary of the disaster, A Hymn For Eternity traces the hero’s life story.
Wallace Henry Hartley was born on June 2, 1878, to Albion and Elizabeth Hartley – Hartley was and still is a common Colne surname – at Greenfield Hill, now Greenfield Road, a little enclave of mill cottages off Barrowford Road. The house is still there, as are other local homes where the family lived in Colne, at 1 Burnley Road off Primet Hill, in Albert Road next to the Crown Hotel, and in Carr Road, Nelson.
His Wesleyan Methodist parents sent him to George Street School, which still stands today as a business centre, and a schoolmate recalled in the 1950s that Wallace was “a very nice nice lad, a bit what you might call roughish... but he was very smart looking, a lad with a sense of fun.”
Albion Hartley’s business and financial ability had earned him promotion to manager at Greenfield Mill, but a disastrous fire that destroyed the mill sent him seeking other employment. He became an agent with Refuge Assurance in Manchester Road, Nelson. Subsequent promotions would necessitate the Hartley family moving to Somerset Road, in Huddersfield, homes in Milnsbridge and Storth, just outside Huddersfield, Hillcrest Avenue in Leeds and West Park Street in Dewsbury.
The Hartley family was a musical one. Albion Hartley was choirmaster at Bethel Chapel in Burnley Road, Colne - where the chapel has gone but the former Sunday School still survives for worship - and young Wallace sang in the choir. Elder sister Mary became a noted solo singer. Wallace’s parents paid for his violin lessons with private tutors, and he joined Colne Orchestral Society, an organisation which is still playing in 2012.
Young Wallace’s first job was at the Union Bank, 17 Albert Road, Colne, where he was said to be “steady, attentive and capable” but he harboured ambitions to make music his profession. He was 17 when the family moved to Huddersfield, and he joined the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra. By the time he was 21 and finding his clerk’s job ‘irksome’ he became a professional musician, and his first post was thought to be with the Moody-Manners opera company. In 1903 he became first violin with Bridlington Municipal Orchestra and later joined the orchestra at the fashionable Collinson’s Cafe in Leeds, where he met his future fiancée, Maria Robinson. He played for a while with the Carla Rosa touring opera company, then in 1909 joined the Cunard Line as a musician on the Lusitania, which was to be notoriously sunk by the German navy during the First World War.
In 1910 Wallace was appointed bandmaster on the Mauretania, Blue Riband holder as the fastest ship to cross the Atlantic, and it was a happy time on a popular ship.
By 1912, the musicians were not employed directly by the liner companies but by an agency, the brothers CW and FN Black, of Liverpool, reducing their status from crew to second-class passengers and slashing their wages from £6 to £4 a month.
After disembarking from the Mauretania in Liverpool in April 9, the agents told him their bandmaster for the Titanic’s maiden voyage the next day had just become a father and did not wish to sail, so they offered him the job. Wallace asked his friend Ellwand Moody to sail with him, but he had a strange presentiment about such a huge vessel and felt ‘something would happen.’ He returned home to Leeds, while Wallace hurried to Southampton.
The White Star Line’s Titanic was not meant to be the fastest transatlantic liner, but was 100 feet longer than the rival Cunarder Mauretania and was claimed to be the most luxurious ship afloat, as well as the largest man-made moving object.
Some of the richest and most influential people of the day were on board, and Wallace’s orchestra kept them entertained with a range of music ranging from operetta and marches to ragtime and cakewalks, all from the 352 tunes in the White Star book.
Just before midnight of April 14, the gaiety came to a dreadful halt when the Titanic, ignoring ice warnings and steaming at 22.5 knots through a glass-smooth ocean, encountered an iceberg dead ahead. Turning to port, the ship avoided a head-on collision but the iceberg buckled hull plates below the waterline for a length of 300 feet. The ship was divided into watertight compartments up to the level of E Deck, and could have survived with four of them flooded. Tragically, five were flooding, and the ship’s doom was inevitable. Ironically, the ship would have survived a head-on collision.
At a quarter past midnight, Wallace Hartley’s orchestra, wearing their blue uniforms, assembled in the first-class lounge and began to play a selection of music, intending to keep the passengers from panicking.
What happened next has been well recorded in contemporary news accounts and during the subsequent inquiry which sought to place responsibility for the tragedy. Controversy has raged over the lack of lifeboats, the competence of the crew, whether a nearby ship ignored distress flares, and the role of White Star boss Bruce Ismay, who survived while 1,500 perished.
There is certainly no argument over the hero status that Wallace Hartley earned. His body was recovered, with his violin case strapped to his body, and taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and thence via Boston on the White Star ship, Arabic, to Liverpool, where a devastated but dignified Albion Hartley was waiting at the quayside on May 17.
The 60-mile journey to Colne by horse-drawn hearse took ten hours, arriving at Bethel chapel at 1am. Later that day, the main street of Colne was thronged with an estimated 30,000 people – more than the town’s entire population – as the funeral procession, half a mile long and including at least five bands and the Mayor’s carriage, made its way to the cemetery in Keighley Road, at the other end of town. Some survivors of the Titanic disaster were among the mourners.
As the coffin was lowered into the ground, the Bethel chapel choir sang Nearer, My God, To Thee.

A Hymn For Eternity – The Story of Wallace Hartley, Titanic Bandmaster, by Yvonne Carroll, £8.99 paperback, www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Article from Northern Life issue 42 February/March 2012.
To order this issue go to the Northern Life online store.

Failure, Fantasist, Killer!

In December 2011, the multiple murderer Donald Neilson died in prison. An insignificant man and a failure in life, he gained notoriety in the 1970s as ‘The Black Panther’, killing three sub-postmasters and a teenage girl he had kidnapped.
Photographer Eddy Rawlinson, who was one of the Press corps at Neilson’s trial, recalls the crime trail that shocked and revolted the whole country.

When Police Constable Stuart McKenzie and his team-mate PC Tony White started their night duty, they never envisaged it would end the fear every post office sub-postmaster throughout Britain had felt for nearly five years.
The two PCs were parked in a side road leading into a posh residential district of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, when they saw a man walking into the estate. A copper’s instinct made them think there was something strange about this man carrying a haversack. He just didn’t fit in with the type of resident who would be walking into that sort of district at 10.30pm. There had been a spate of robberies in the area and they wanted to know more about him so he was stopped for questioning.
PC Tony White, who was in the passenger seat of the panda car, lowered down the window to ask the man where he was going. He told them he was John Moxon, a lorry driver, and was walking home. PC White wrote down the details and as he lifted his head both he and PC McKenzie were staring straight into both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun.
PC White was told to get into the back seat and the stranger took his place then told PC McKenzie to drive. His words were “Take it easy, drive slowly, any tricks and you are dead.”
With the shotgun pointing in the driver’s ribs they tried to make conversation with the gunman to calm down the situation by talking about their families. As the panda car came towards a fork in a road PC McKenzie saw the gunman had slightly lowered his shotgun. He swerved the car and shouted to his colleague “Get him!” Then he heard a loud bang by the side of his face with a burning feeling and realised the gun had gone off. PC White grabbed the gunman as PC McKenzie went to his aid and the panda car screeched to a halt.
The car stopped alongside a chip shop where waiting customers heard the shotgun go off and rushed to the aid of the two policemen. One customer, Keith Wood, a karate expert, pulled the gunman, who was still struggling with the two policemen, out of the car. He gave the man a karate chop to the side of his neck and saw the shotgun fall to the ground. A crowd of people had now gathered around the scene as the two policemen handcuffed their now prisoner to some railings. Then they had to protect him from the angry crowd who believed he was an IRA terrorist.
On that night in December 1975 the story of the murderous years of Donald Neilson, a Yorkshire odd-job man, started to unfold. It was to end 35 years later on December 18th 2011 when he died in Norwich prison aged 75 after spending half his life in jail.
The summer of 1976 was our hottest in 350 years and I was on my way to Oxford Crown Court for my newspaper to cover the trial of Donald Neilson, known as the Black Panther. Oxford, described as a city of dreaming spires, was chosen to give Neilson a fair trial. It was well away from the areas where he had committed the horrific murders of 17-year-old Lesley Whittle and three sub-postmasters. My job was to photograph witnesses, which gave me plenty of time to sit throughout the whole three weeks listening to the case for the prosecution and defence. On the first morning Judge William Mars-Jones posed for pictures outside the court then went inside to start the three week trial.
It was made clear on the opening day by a burly police sergeant who had gathered together the small group of photographers representing the world’s press. “Right lads don’t go beyond this small wall to take your pictures as you are within the precinct. Across the road is Oxford Conservative Club which opens at eleven o clock” and with a wink he added “where you can get a cup of tea”. And so the trial began of Donald Neilson who was born Donald Nappey on August 1st 1936.
From his first days at school his class-mates ragged him about his name and he hated it. That ribbing continued in the army where he served in Cyprus, Aden and Kenya with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. It was while he was in the army Nappey learned to live the Spartan life from fighting against terrorists. On leave from the army he married a local girl and on return to “civvie street “set up a business in making garden sheds at his home in Bradford. Still embarrassed with his birth name he changed it to Neilson by deed poll on seeing it plastered over an ice cream van passing his house and discarded the surname Nappey.
Mr Justice Mars-Jones entered Oxford Crown Court with five feet seven inches tall Neilson standing before the judge as though he was still on an army parade ground. He was nothing like the picture of a bruised and battered prisoner who was handcuffed to railings by the two policemen who had arrested him some seven months previously. His hair was brushed, he was wearing a well-pressed suit and it was hard for me to believe on seeing Neilson’s appearance that here was a ruthless killer standing before the court.
His solicitor was snappy dresser Barrington Black from Leeds, who made a good picture outside the court standing beside his magnificent Jensen Interceptor car. Neilson’s counsel was Gilbert Gray QC, who was a rising star in his profession with chambers in York, and a magnificent orator.
The two men leading Neilson’s defence lived worlds apart from the prisoner standing before the court. Barrington Black was educated at Roundhay School, Leeds, and had been president of Leeds University union in 1952. Gilbert Gray had also been to Leeds University where initially he was reading theology before switching to law. Neilson had left school at 15 years of age to work as an apprentice joiner and didn’t finish his apprenticeship when he came out of the forces. He was described as a failure by those who knew him.
They were to defend a fellow Yorkshireman who had shot dead three post-masters and brutally murdered a 17-year-old girl. During the case, Scarborough-born Gilbert Gray told the jury: “You have heard much about Mr Neilson and the Black Panther but you may when you have heard of this man’s pathetic attempts to make it big, think rather of the Pink Panther and Mr Peter Sellers”. He went on to describe Neilson as a Walter Mitty character with fantasies of military supremacy. The name “Black Panther” had been given to Neilson by a Daily Mirror reporter, Gordon Hughes, after he killed Baxenden sub-postmaster Derek Astin and was described as being dressed all in black.
The court heard how Neilson shot dead Harrogate sub-postmaster Donald Skepper in February 1974. Seven months later he killed again, shooting sub-postmaster Derek Astin at Higher Baxenden, Accrington, Lancashire. Seven weeks after the second killing in November 1974, Neilson’s third victim, sub post-master Sidney Grayland, suffered the same fate when he was shot and killed in the West Midlands. On the 14th January 1975 Neilson staged his most audacious and brutal crime, kidnapping 17-year-old Lesley Whittle from her bed while her mother slept in an adjoining room at their home in Shropshire.
Neilson had read about a family dispute in which the young girl had been left an £82,000 fortune by her late father. He broke into her house, bound and gagged the young girl who was of a similar age to that of his own teenage daughter, and held her captive in a ventilation shaft at Bathpool Park, Kidsgrove. Neilson all that time was living in Grangefield Avenue, Thornbury, Bradford, with his wife and daughter. On the 7th of March 1975 Lesley Whittle was found hanging from a wire at the bottom of the sixty foot shaft. She had either fallen or was pushed from the platform where she had been held prisoner after several botched attempts to deliver Neilson the £50,000 ransom he was demanding.
I sat in Oxford Crown Court to hear the prosecution put forward their case and I could not comprehend how a father of a girl who was of similar age as Lesley Whittle could be so outrageous and cruel. While on remand Neilson had been interviewed by a forensic psychiatrist who found no evidence of insanity. The court was told of the ordeal the young girl must have gone through when she was held captive with a wire around her neck on a small platform in a cold, dark and damp ventilation shaft. My own daughter, Gillian, was of the same age as the girl Neilson was accused of murdering, and the defence were asking for manslaughter to be considered in the young heiress’s case. My thoughts were otherwise.
What turned this petty thief into a life of murderous crime will never be known. In November 1970 he broke into a house in Dewsbury and stole two shotguns and a quantity of ammunition. After that he took £3,000 from a sub-post office in Barnsley and in the same month stole £3,700 in a similar raid from a sub-postmaster in Rotherham. The same month he raided a house in Cheshire and stole two automatic pistols and three rifles with ammunition then went on to steal £2,900 from a Mansfield sub-post office. In three months he had stolen over £9,000 at gunpoint and crime started to pay then turned into a killing spree for this little man standing before Justice Mars-Jones.
Neilson was given four life sentences for the murders of Lesley Whittle and the three sub-postmasters and was told by the judge he would never be released from jail. A charge of killing another man, security guard Gerald Smith, was left on file as his victim died from gunshot injuries after one year and a day, and it could not be termed as murder.
I watched Neilson’s face as the sentences were read out and there was no sign of emotion as he left for a lifetime to be spent in jail. That life sentence for Neilson, born Donald Nappey on 1st August 1936 in Morley, Yorkshire, ended last year in December. His death was announced by the prison authority which read: “HMP Norwich prisoner Donald Neilson was taken to outside hospital in the early hours of Saturday December 17 with breathing difficulties. He was pronounced dead there at approximately 6.45pm on Sunday December 18th 2011.”
Neilson had spent nearly half of his 75 years in jail, starting after two brave policemen apprehended a stranger “who didn’t look right” walking into a residential estate late at night. Scotland Yard and police forces throughout Britain had been looking for an unidentified murderer for nine months.
It was a case of good old fashioned “bobbying” that nearly ended up with the two policemen themselves being victims of Bradford’s Black Panther, who at the time was Britain’s most wanted man.

Article from Northern Life issue 42 February/March 2012.
To order this issue go to the Northern Life online store.

Steele Appeal - Interview with Tommy Steele

Do this man’s talents know no bounds? He’s a performer, writer, sculptor, painter, actor, singer, songwriter, composer, conductor, and he has achieved success in every field including the charm department.
There is no doubting that Tommy is a legend with a career that has included hit songs such as ‘Rock With the Cavemen’, ‘Singin’ the Blues’, ‘A Handful of Songs’, ‘Little White Bull’, ‘What a Mouth’ and ‘Flash, Bang, Wallop’ hit films which include ‘Half A Sixpence’, ‘The Happiest Millionaire’ and ‘Finian’s Rainbow’, as well as award-winning stage musicals such as ‘Hans Andersen’, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ and ‘Scrooge’. On the 5th November 2011, Tommy celebrated his 55th year on stage, and his up-coming 2011/2012 tour will mark Tommy’s sixth time playing the title role in the all-singing all-dancing musical extravaganza ‘Scrooge’.
He has played the role of Scrooge five times previously and in his own words there’s no difference with the new production apart from this time in his own words ‘he’s six years younger.’ “Ebenezer Scrooge is the song and dance man’s King Lear,” said Tommy. “You can only play the part at a certain age, and I’m old enough to play Scrooge and his father! The good thing about Scrooge is that he starts off as a grumpy old git and in the last ten minutes he ends up as Tommy Steele! I just love playing Scrooge; it’s the best part I’ve ever played in the greatest musical ever.”
I managed to catch up with Tommy when the weather was blowing a gale in Plymouth. He jokes that he can see the Armada on the horizon and Drake is waiting for him to join him. Tommy still has a love of the sea since joining the Navy at the tender age of 15. It was whilst serving in the Navy when he met a chap called Dick Campion, a waiter on the Mauretania. “He taught me to play the guitar when we were at sea together.”
Tommy left his life on the ocean waves in 1956 when he was discovered in the 2i’s Coffee Bar on Old Compton Road in Soho playing ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, a song he had heard in New York.
His initial inspiration was from musical legend Buddy Holly who he saw on stage in Norfolk, “That was a real ‘Road to Damascus’ moment. I knew then I could do what he was doing. I could already play the guitar and I loved performing.”
The 2i’s Coffee Bar was a regular haunt of Tommy’s when he wasn’t at sea and that night a publicity agent named John Kennedy had been invited to see The Vipers perform. What he found instead was a young skinny kid with an unruly mop of hair and a guitar almost as big as he was. A kid who would become known throughout the world as merely… ‘Tommy’. With only two weeks until Tommy reported back to the Merchant Navy, John had to work fast. He invited Hugh Mendl of Decca Records to hear Tommy sing. Tommy performed ‘Rock with the Caveman’ a song he had written himself. Mr. Mendl arranged a recording session for the next day and asked Tommy to have an original song ready for the flip side. He went home that night and wrote ‘Rock around Town’, and cut the record on September 24, 1956, and he never returned to his life on an ocean wave.
“The first Christmas that I spent away from home was when I was 15 and in the Navy and what was terrible about it was that I was in Southampton and I couldn’t go home to London because I was on watch and I remember it was about seven o’clock at night and this fellow came up to me and said ‘The Officer of the Watch has gone home, we’re the only two on this bloody big ship, no-one will miss us if we go.’ I got on the back of his motorbike and we went home and I spent Christmas with the family shaking like a leaf because I thought I would have to walk the plank when I returned to the ship. I just couldn’t relax. When I got back the next morning we hadn’t even been missed so someone could have nicked this great big ship.”
Tommy recalls: “As a child during the war we always had great Christmases. I was one of seven and my mum would always manage to find us a walnut or a tangerine and it was like having something really magical into the house. Christmas hasn’t changed over the years, as long as there are children, could you imagine a Christmas without kids?
“I’ll be spending Christmas in the North in Salford. The Lowry is a great theatre and I’m really looking forward to performing there. The last time I was up in that neck of the woods was in the mid seventies and I went off to meet the great painter LS Lowry. I had performed with another 50 dancers in a dance piece called ‘Same Size Boots’ where we brought a Lowry painting to life. I had a video of the piece and in those days videos were a rarity and I had to carry it up on the train in a massive suitcase. I met him and showed him the dance, there he was sat in front of the TV, he watched it and asked I asked him afterwards ‘Well, what did you think?’ he replied ‘Oh, it’s wonderful’. I said ‘Would you like to see it again?’ ‘Oh yes,’ he replied, ‘would they mind?’ I love his work. His work was just like him, very gentle with a great love of the North. As I was leaving afterwards, he said ‘Do you think they’ll remember me?’”
Tommy is no stranger to the art world. He has had a painting displayed at the Royal Academy and one of his major sculptures is Eleanor Rigby, which he created in 1982 and gave to the city of Liverpool as a tribute to the Beatles. He also did a life-size sculpture of Charlie Chaplin to be delivered to himself at the theatre. The label read ‘Tommy Steele, Leicester Square’. “The lorry driver just dropped it off – in Leicester Square! The police arrested the statue and I had to go and sign for it at the police station. I swear it’s the truth,” he laughs.
How does he think the current recession will affect theatre going? “I believe that when there’s austerity around, especially in Great Britain, people have to find an oasis of light. There has to be something out there that takes them away from that worry. Sometimes, it may be a drink at the pub and sometimes it’s going to the pictures or to the theatre. You’ve got to have somewhere to go, where you can forget it all and if we’re (the performers) not there what’s there? A good night out at the theatre can inspire you, the next day you can chat to your mates about it and it can take two or three days to get over it! Isn’t it wonderful? Audiences are exactly the same. People cry everywhere, people laugh everywhere and all applaud.
His stage career has had a very special association with the London Palladium and he has been the top-billed star there more often than any other artist in the theatre’s 79-year history. Despite performing at there over 1,700 times Tommy admits to still getting stage fright.
“The worst thing is standing in the wings waiting to go on. If someone came up to me whilst I was waiting in the wings and said there was a bomb scare and we’re not performing tonight I would be as pleased as punch! As soon as I get on stage and the spotlight hits me I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I’m definitely not someone who is negative, I’m the opposite. Always chase your dreams. It’s not an easy business but it’s a wonderful business to be in.
“I remember an old tightrope walker who’d just lost half his family in an accident they had on a high wire without a net. He’d lost two sons and a daughter and he was sitting in his caravan and they were doing this television interview about his life. He was a Czechoslovakian tight rope walker and he was in his seventies. I remember the announcer saying to him ‘What makes you keep doing it?’ and he said ‘To live is to be on the wire and the rest ...is waiting.’ And that’s really what show business is, you just love it so much you keep waiting to do it again. I’ll never retire, just die, that’s when I’ll stop.”
Bring the family and get ready to embark on a magical theatrical experience unlike any other in this international smash-hit musical sensation Scrooge!

Article from Northern Life issue 41 December/January 2012.
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All aboard - enjoy the magic of the railway

Whether you're a railway enthusiast or not, many people understand that there is a certain romance associated with the age of steam. The billowing clouds of smoke, the evocative chug of the wheels; the sheer sense of occasion that steam locomotives possess can be a heady mixture. And while commuting journeys these days are doubtless more efficient - regardless of how it may sometimes seem for those who have to catch the train on a regular basis - seeking out an experience from another era can be a fun way to take a trip into the past.
Here are some ideas for UK days out to indulge those with a sense of nostalgia for a bygone era on the railways.

Around the UK
Billing itself as the UK's leading specialist train operator, West Coast Railways offers three different routes. Leaving from York, The Scarborough Spa Express travels in a circular route around Yorkshire, with the option of either ending the journey back in the historic city of York itself, or of then continuing on to the train’s seaside namesake.
For a trip further north, the Jacobite line in Scotland runs from Fort William - in the shade of the UK's highest mountain, Ben Nevis - for 84 miles in a circular route, with a lunch-time stopover in the fishing port of Mallaig.
This route provided the backdrop for some of the Harry Potter films, and some of the carriages you can ride in were pulled along the same track in The Philosopher's Stone.
However, if it's some Welsh scenery that you're after, the Snowdon Mountain Railway leaves from Llanberis, taking passengers on an incredible journey up the 3,560ft peak.
And while it isn't chugging along this year, West Coast Railways hopes to once again have its Cambrian line running in 2012, with a journey between Machynlleth and Porthmadog or Pwllheli, taking in both Cardigan Bay and the majestic peaks of Snowdonia.

Bluebell Railway
For a train and fine dining experience, the Golden Arrow Pullman service in East Sussex could be the perfect day out. Aiming to recreate the flavour of its namesake, which once ran part of the way on the service between London and Paris, the Golden Arrow claims to offer fine food and wine which are "served to the standards of yesteryear".
Whilst the service allows children from the age of five onboard, it notes that they will be required to remain in their seats. Also, ensuring that standards don't slip, passengers on the Golden Arrow are expected to observe a dress code which forbids jeans and trainers.

Thomas the Tank Engine
If all that's a little too serious - or if you're looking for a day out that is really more about the kids - then you can bring the world of Thomas the Tank Engine to life at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. In addition to the trips behind Thomas himself, all under the auspices of the Fat Controller, there's a miniature railway and other children's activities, such as a Punch and Judy show and arts and crafts.
Railway-themed days out can certainly be a great treat for a special occasion and there is a variety on offer - catering for everyone from children, to those who may even remember the age of steam themselves. Paying for tickets by credit card could be a convenient way to make the experience come true for all - though remember that some ticket companies may charge a fee for paying by credit card. Meanwhile, it may be useful to bear in mind that some cards do offer an interest-free introductory period - which could help you manage the cost.

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