Our tour of West Germany lasted for two months. Following our disastrous last show in Stuttgart, Nick and I had travelled to Mannheim, finishing up at an American base camp in Wiesbaden. Afterwards, we returned home and wondered where our journey would take us next.
We did a few seasons here and there but nothing definite seemed to be on the horizon. That was until a gentleman called Richard Stone approached us. Richard had been the one who’d spotted and rescued us from the rat-infested Old Collins Music Hall. He also turned out to be our knight in shining armour in more ways than one. By this time, television had really caught on in England, as more and more people hired their own television sets. Soon there were lots of variety shows popping up in the television-programme schedule. Richard was the agent for the comedian Benny Hill, who had not only become very popular but had also landed his own television show with the BBC in a prime-time slot.
‘So I was wondering if you and Nick would like to come and perform on the show,’ Richard asked.
‘On television? You want us to perform on television?’ I gasped, thinking how excited Mam would be when I told her.
‘Yes. But it’ll be live,’ Richard warned. ‘Do you think you’ll be all right with that?’
I nodded. This was television. It was also the chance to perform to all those families watching at home. Show business didn’t get much bigger or better than this.
The Benny Hill Show was screened live from Shepherd’s Bush Empire’s BBC theatre. The show had started at the BBC in 1955, with Benny writing nearly all his own material. Nick and I had been asked to perform a three-minute dance routine, which didn’t sound very long but, then again, this was live TV. The more I thought about it, the more terrified I became.
It had been agreed that we would follow Benny Hill onto the stage. He was performing a comedy sketch called the cinema routine, where he would pretend to sit down just as the seats tipped up. I remember standing in the wings feeling horribly nervous. I’d never seen theatre lights so bright in all my life. In fact, they were so blinding that I half-expected the Angel Gabriel to come down from the heavens above. By the time we were ready to go on, my nerves had reached fever pitch.
‘What if I forget the routine?’ I panicked.
‘You won’t, Pat. You’ll be great,’ Nick replied, resting his hand against my arm.
‘But… but… what if I fall over or something?’
‘Pat, you’ll be just fine. Now just take a deep breath.’
I did as Nick had said and breathed slowly and evenly to try to calm my jittery nerves.
I tipped my head forwards and sneaked a look at the studio audience. They absolutely loved Benny. His cinema sketch was going down a treat.
‘They seem friendly enough,’ Nick said, breaking my thoughts. He nodded his head towards the crowd.
‘Yes, but it’s not them I’m worried about. It’s the cameras and everyone else watching back home.’
I felt butterflies rise inside my stomach as it flipped inside, making me feel queasy. I rested my hands against my diaphragm and breathed in deeply.
You can do this, Pat Wilson. Just keep calm and stay focused, I repeated inside my head.
Just then, Nick held out his hand.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ I said, taking his hand.
In spite of my nerves, as soon as we’d glided onto the stage, I forgot all about the cameras, the audience and even the millions of people watching back at home. Instead, I felt as though I was floating on air. It was the most fantastic feeling and probably one of the highlights of my entire dancing career.
Mam was watching me back home in Featherstone. We couldn’t afford to hire a television set, so she’d gone around to her sister’s, my Aunt Alice’s house, so she could watch it there. In fact, half the street had ended up inside Alice’s tiny front room just to watch my TV debut, although I’d only found out about it afterwards when Mam wrote to tell me. It was as though I’d done something extraordinary, when all I’d done was dance inside a television studio.
‘Yer shone, our Pat. We all said, even Aunt Alice. Yer danced like a film star. Me and yer dad are so proud of you.’
My eyes filled with tears of happiness. Even though my mam had wanted me to become a teacher, she’d realised I’d chosen something I loved to do. But the biggest reward was that I’d made her and Dad proud.
While Benny’s show had soared variety entertainment to dizzy new heights on TV, back in the country’s theatres, audiences were dwindling. Benny himself had been brought up in theatre. Like us, I guess he must have experienced lean times himself because he was, and remained, one of the tightest performers I’d ever met. Despite his fame and considerable fortune, Benny never once put his hand in his pocket. In many ways, he was refreshing because he never came across as the big star and treated everyone exactly the same. Sadly, this also applied when he was buying drinks at the bar because he never bought a single a pint, although he was always happy to accept one.
After the high of appearing on live television, I soon came back down to earth with a bump as we returned to perform in a summer season at Butlin’s in Clacton. We were still at Butlin’s when we were approached and offered work by a man called Barney Colehan. Barney was a well-known producer for the BBC. I’d first heard his name as a schoolgirl listening to the Wilfred Pickles Show on the radio.
‘Give him the money, Barney,’ had been a well-known saying back in the day.
Barney was producing a television show called The Good Old Days, from the City of Varieties in Leeds, where I’d narrowly escaped starring in Paul Raymond’s TITS show. Barney had seen us perform on the Benny Hill Show, so he’d invited us to appear on his show.
‘More television work means more experience under our belts,’ I remarked to Nick, who agreed with me.
Work was work, although the audience of The Good Old Days was totally different to the type we’d been used to dancing in front of at Butlin’s. The show was also different, so we had to scrap our old routines and arrange a new act suitable for the Edwardian period.
The Good Old Days went so well that I was asked to sing one of the songs on the show but a singer I am not. As I belted it out, I glanced over at the audience. They were all dressed in Edwardian costume, swaying and singing in time to the music. It was the most surreal set up I’d ever seen, but it was also an extremely popular television show and the audience were an integral part of it.
‘They’re a friendly bunch, aren’t they?’ I remarked to one of the stagehands after I’d finished my routine.
‘Oh, them lot,’ he said, nodding his head towards them from the stage wings. ‘They turn up in their droves. They’re all shipped in from the local amateur dramatics groups – that’s why they’re so up for it.’
‘Ah, I see.’
And I did. No doubt they were sat there waiting for their moment in the spotlight, dreaming of fame and fortune as I had once done.
I loved doing the show. Nick and I performed in so many of them that it almost felt like a family party. Barney asked if we could perform in another TV show called Entente Cordele. The show wasn’t staged in a theatre but a type of floral hall in Harrogate. Nick and I danced an adagio routine, which was acrobatic to say the least. I wore a black skirt with a long split up the side, as Nick proceeded to throw me around into all sorts of dance poses.
Barney’s friend and sidekick was a man called Jess Yates, the supposed father of Paula Yates. Jess was a photographer, so he was always knocking around the television studio with Barney. One day, they were just heading out to lunch when Barney turned to me.
‘Have you eaten yet, Pat? Would you like to join us?’
‘I’d love to!’ I replied.
Jess and Barney explained they were on their way to a Chinese restaurant that was one of their favourites. The only problem was I’d never had Chinese food before, so I didn’t have a clue what to order.
‘What are you going to have then, Pat?’ Jess asked.
I shook my head as I stared at the strange dishes listed on the menu.
‘I’m not sure,’ I told him. ‘It all looks Chinese to me.’
The two of them fell about with laughter as I realised what I’d said.
In the end, I followed Jess’s lead and ordered what he did – sweet-and-sour chicken.
‘How’s the food, Pat?’ he asked as I tucked in.
I closed my eyes and held my fork in mid-air as I savoured the beautiful taste bursting against my tongue.
‘This,’ I said pointing with my fork at the plate of food in front of me, ‘is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted in my life.’
It was around this time that a new music had exploded onto the scene. It was called rock ’n’ roll. Along with it came a whole new audience – a type the theatrical world had never seen before. Instead of being faced with a prim-looking bunch, we’d be greeted by men dressed in drainpipe trousers, drape jackets and slicked-back hair. They wore winklepicker shoes that looked so sharp they could’ve stabbed someone.
After our TV stint, Nick and I were invited to appear in a show that featured a rock ’n’ roll band. Our first performance was at Wood Green Empire, in London. A week later, we took the show on tour up and down the country. Topping the bill was a rock group called Art Baxter and his Rockers. Art Baxter himself fronted the group but there was a bass player, a pianist, a drummer and a guitarist. The guitarist was like no one I’d ever seen before. Once the music was in full swing, he’d lay flat on his back in the middle of the stage playing his guitar. The pianist was the same and never sat down. The audience couldn’t get enough of it. Instead of staying in their seats, they’d rock ’n’ roll in the aisles the whole way through, dancing to the beat.
‘Have you seen them?’ I whispered to Nick from the side of the curtain. ‘They’re all joining in!’
‘I know,’ he said grinning at me. ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’
And it was. Instead of sitting there just watching what was happening on stage, they’d become part of it, only in their own way. It felt exciting and fresh but, more importantly, it made for a fun show.
Nick and I would open with a range of dances, from the Charleston to the tango, before a handful of other acts took to the stage. We’d open the second half with an ‘Apache’ routine that lasted three minutes and then Art and his boys would come on stage right at the end of the show and lift the roof off. They rock ’n’ rolled for around half an hour before inviting us back on stage. We’d dance at the front, jiving to their music, and the audience would get up and join in, rock ’n’ rolling in the aisles of the theatre. The atmosphere was electric.
A few weeks after the show had been on tour, I was approached by the band’s pianist: a lovely looking chap called Phil Phillips. Phil was from London and he was tall with blond hair that he’d Brylcreemed into a teddy-boy quiff. I immediately liked Phil because, unlike other men I’d met in show business, once he was off stage, he was just a regular bloke.
‘Do you fancy going to the pictures one afternoon, Pat?’ he asked.
I readily agreed. Soon one date had followed another until we were officially ‘courting’. At just twenty-two years old, we were both still very young. So when Phil got down on one knee and proposed to me, I didn’t know what to do, so I said ‘yes’. We travelled to Manchester later that same day, bought a ring from a jewellers shop and became officially engaged. I’d only known him three months, but I thought it was the right thing to do. Mam and Dad didn’t say much; they just accepted it was what I wanted.
‘It’s what I want,’ I said, showing Mam my engagement ring as Phil grinned behind me.
Even though I was young, I’d come a long way from being a little girl in Featherstone. I was a professional dancer now, dealing with agents and contracts, and I’d travelled and seen more of the world than my parents could ever hope to see.
But if I thought I’d seen it all, I was wrong. The Issy Bonn agency had secured a six-week contract for us to perform in a show on West Africa’s Gold Coast.
‘Africa! Gold Coast!’ Mam shrieked as soon as I told her where I was going. ‘Oh my Lord. Yer know what they call that, don’t yer? They call it White Man’s Grave and they wouldn’t call it that for no reason would they?’
But I was adamant. Work was work. Deep down, I knew my parents trusted my judgement – besides, they also knew how headstrong I was. If they told me not to do something, I’d only do it more.
‘Just keep yersen safe, lass,’ Dad said, as Mam fretted over in her chair in a corner of the kitchen.
‘I’ll be fine, Mam. I promise.’
‘I know, but I’m yer Mam and it’s my job to worry about yer,’ she said, cupping my face in both her hands.
Despite my mother’s reservations, Nick and I boarded a plane at the airport. The aeroplane left the tarmac of London far behind as we took to the skies and headed off on our very own African adventure.