A Door Opens

Further education was a compulsory component of apprenticeship, and once a week I attended the technical school to wrestle fruitlessly with the complexities of algebra and mechanical drawing. One morning, while daydreaming my way through one of these subjects, my reverie was disturbed by, "Will Bryan Thomas please go to the Principals office". " Oh! S**t!" I thought, "Here we go, caught on at last", recalling the gigs that I had recently done when I really should have been at night school. There would be no more playing with the band, and with a deep sense of foreboding I knocked tremulously on the Principals door who greeted me with, "Ah! Come in Thomas, these gentlemen want a word with you", and promptly left the room. Although they did not look like policemen, I could think of no other reason for two gentlemen wanting to have a word with me. However to my surprise they introduced themselves as Barry Faber and Daffydd Havard and they were hosting a variety concert and talent competition at the Palace Theatre and, would I be interested in participating in it? “We've heard a lot about you," they said. Barry Faber was a minor actor, but was better known as the' Mystery Voice' in one of Micheal Miles' popular game shows. His raison d'etre was to sombrely intone with rumbling resonance, the following catch phrase, "And the next object is?” , Daffydd Havard, was also a minor actor but would later become a well known Welsh television producer . The talent competition was to take place on Friday and the winner would be given a part in a forthcoming film, "The Blue Peter” which was to be made at the Outward Bound school in Aberdovey with Kieron Moore as leading man. Although I had acquired a measure of confidence with the concert party I was shaking like a leaf I as I stepped out on to the stage of the Palace Theatre. I launched into my routine with a somewhat wobbly start and to my utter amazement and my parents delight I emerged as the winner. I was then invited into Daffydd Havard's dressing room along with my mother and asked if I would appear each night throughout the following week, free gratis, of course, these two gentlemen realised the advantage of having a local hero on their show. Next they insisted that something had to be done about my Midlands accent so my mother ended up forking out seven shillings and sixpence each week for elocution lessons and had the dubious pleasure of listening to me chanting ad nauseum, "The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain ", and "How now brown cow" etc,. England was still a very class conscious society and one could not contemplate a theatrical career without the requisite Oxford accent. It would be the early sixties before Michael Caine in 'Alfie' released the English accent from its establishment constraints.

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