I realised at a very early age that I could sing. I lived on a council estate in Blackley, North Manchester and as an eleven-year-old I would happily sing away in the bath. The acoustics in a bathroom are ideal for a budding singer; no need for a P.A. system with reverb, or as my musician friend used to call it, the “Talent Booster” on the microphone.
I remember singing David Cassidy, David Essex and Donny Osmond songs and belting them out with no inhibitions at all. One afternoon, unbeknown to me, there was a small group of women standing on the corner. As I was singing, the women moved closer to our bathroom window
I was at full concert pitch with a shower head as my microphone when I heard my mum knocking on the door. “What are you doing in there?” she shouted. Now, had she asked that question a few years later I might have been a bit embarrassed, but in my youthful innocence I replied “Nothing.
Mum: “Well keep the noise down, you’re showing me up!”
My mum was a very shy and private person. So, when a woman knocked on the door and asked her to tell me to “sing that one again”, she was embarrassed. shut the front-door and raced up the stairs to tell me to be quiet.
I suppose that would have been my first encore performance but I had to settle for a shampoo and rinse instead. Scuttled!