大象传媒

One meets so many people in the armed forces, some famous, some otherwise, but they are never forgotten in particular the following three. All in 1944.

Whilst walking down Picadilly one evening, I visited a slot machine joint and who should I see but a famous Hollywood film star, Broderick Crawford, he was a sergeant in the the US army.

I followed him round a corner and into a pub, where he bought a large whiskey and water and I managed to get his autograph which I have since lost. However he did return to Hollywood after the war to make a detective series.

One treasured memory was visiting the Stage Door Canteen in Wardour Street and watching Glenn Miller and the famous AEF band, which included many well known instrumentalists, perform the Saturday evening broadcast which consisted of half an hour rehearsal and half an hour live. Unfortunately he was killed in an air accident over the channel a few weeks later.

My most treasured memory is when stationed in Scarborough for a few weeks. We were billetted in a hotel on the south promenade. The chap in the next bed to me whose name was David Hughes had a very good voice and was always singing mainly Bing Crosby stuff.

We were temporarily redundant aircrew trainees and were dispatched off to all for corners of the country , to be employed as stores assistants or on other menial clerical jobs. Being an outdoor type and not interested in Pop music etc, I did not hear or see anything of him again until many years later after leaving the RAF. My father was reading his Sunday Express, when I noticed a headline, "Britain's Answer to Mario Lanza", with a large photo of my old room mate David Hughes. Apparently he was now a very successful tenor and was a big star of radio and television. He branched out into more serious music such as opera and ballads and performed worldwide including our local Grand Theatre and also La Scala Milan.

Unfortunately I never managed to contact him before he died in 1972 after a heart attack on stage at The London Coliseum at the age of 47.

I have now managed to collect some of his records and CDs and having listened to them realise what a wonderful singer he was. His death was a great loss to the musical world.

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