Simon McDermott - The Songaminute Man - How music brought my father home again

‘We might be, Mrs McDermott,’ he replied.

Hilda paused for a moment, aware of who she was talking to, and replied: ‘I hope you don’t. He’s got thirteen brothers and sisters and I rely on him.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.

So that’s how Ted didn’t get posted abroad when he was in the Army. Instead he became a batman – a soldier assigned to a commissioned officer – and his chores involved cleaning, bringing food at mealtimes and sorting his clothes as well as doing any errands. In effect, he managed to have a role that was important but which involved none of the danger.

It seemed a bit of a charmed Army experience and a world away from some of the hardships suffered by others. But his role did reinforce Ted’s obsession with being meticulous about his appearance and well-turned-out – his shoes always had an extra shine and he was never ready for the day unless he was wearing a tie and a sharply ironed suit.

The way Ted had managed to include the thing he still loved the most – music – in his work life was a brilliant stroke of luck. As the months went on, his confidence and reputation grew and so did Iris’s pride in her boyfriend’s talent. Things between them were going well. They were officially ‘steady’ and so would often spend evenings out with Hilda and Maurice. During Ted’s weekends off, the four of them would make their way to The Cora.

From 7 p.m. every Saturday, people would have to queue to get through the doors. Most weeks there was a skiffle group playing – a group of local musicians (realistically this meant anyone who could play a homemade instrument) that featured Desi Mansel on the drums, Ted’s younger brother Ernie on the base (which was actually a tea chest with lengths of string tied to it), and anyone who could play the piano. A guy called Teddy Price also sung. He was cross-eyed with big ears and bucked teeth and whenever he began to sing he’d shout out to the females in the crowd: ‘Look at the eyes, girls, look at the eyes.’ Another singer there was Kenny Kendrick, who lived next door but two to the McDermotts. He fancied himself as a bit of an Al Jolson, and always carried a pair of white gloves in his pocket in case he needed to sing. These nights stood out for Iris, who adored being part of such a large and loving family: ‘We all used to get dressed up, me, Ted, his mum and dad, and make our way down to The Cora. Ted was always dressed immaculately. Those nights were some of my best memories from when I was younger. It was packed. Maurice would always be the first one to get up and sing – he had a wonderful voice – he’d always sing, “You’re Nobody ’Til Somebody Loves You”. Ted started singing that song, too. Later on in our relationship, he used to say to me, “If I can’t see you, look at the clock at 11 o’clock and I’ll be singing, “You’re Nobody ’Till Somebody Loves you. And I’d have to play that record then.’

It was Iris who first realized that there was more than a hint of anxiety behind the apparently confident Ted just before he stepped onto the stage. The stress would come on just as he was gearing up for his turn in the spotlight, and he would suddenly start rubbing his nose. It became a telltale sign that the nerves and excitement were threatening to overwhelm him. Iris understood that it was less about being shy (after all, Ted could stir himself to step up onto the stage in front of total strangers) and more like an energy that he couldn’t control. And once she started noticing this anxiousness before Ted’s performances, and as she got to know him better, it became clear that offstage he could easily become downbeat and gloomy without an impending performance to look forward to.

Ted worked hard to keep these feelings to himself, especially as it really wasn’t the done thing for men to discuss such things in the 1950s. He also knew, once he left the Army and began working, those feelings couldn’t make an appearance. Deep down Iris knew that he needed love, affection and reassurance to keep him on an even keel and she worried about him, but nevertheless they had a volatile relationship and he sometimes had mood swings that tried her patience.

Eventually, after three years together and despite the rows, Ted decided that he wanted to make Iris his wife. Perhaps he thought it would help bring a much-needed calm to their relationship. Ever the romantic, he planned his proposal meticulously and to add to the sense of occasion and drama, he decided to do it around Christmas 1956. Hilda was delighted that her eldest son was settling down – she liked Iris being around and she was practically part of the family anyway. But having a ring on her finger didn’t necessarily put an end to their problems or Iris’s concerns: ‘That ring was in the garden more times that it was on my hand,’ she laughs. ‘He would get very jealous. I think two weeks after he gave me the ring he told me he wanted it back! His friends used to come up to me and say, “Oh, you look nice, Iris,” because they knew it would wind him up. I’d tell him not to be silly but he would sulk afterwards like I’d been flirting with them!’

Iris and Ted did get engaged and stayed that way for years – certainly more than most couples who had decided to spend the rest of their lives together, but they finally split up in the early 1960s when Ted was 24 years old. All these years later, even Iris isn’t really sure why their great love affair came to be over.

‘Why did it end? Oh, I don’t know. We had one of our usual arguments – he was very possessive of me and always worried I’d go off with another bloke. But this argument was just a lot bigger and it lasted a lot longer than the rest and we never got back together,’ she says. ‘I started seeing my husband soon after. Ted disappeared and my husband came along – nice car, wonderful job – he had everything and I was married to him twelve months later. I had grown up with nothing and I wanted to have a different life.’

Ted’s version of the break-up was very different and, as Iris says, steeped in his fear of Iris leaving him for another man. According to Ted, both of them were holding down two jobs – Ted had left the Army by then and gone back to working double shifts at the Deritend from six in the morning to ten at night, while Iris was working at Elwell’s during the day and at the Hippodrome cinema in the evening. One day Ted came home from work early and Hilda asked him if he was ok. Ted told her that he didn’t feel right and so had finished work early. Hilda cooked him something to eat, he had a bath and then he decided to go into Wednesbury to see Iris. He drove down on his pink scooter – a DKR Dove – and waited outside her work to surprise her. But instead, according to Ted, he watched Iris come out of the cinema and get on the back of the motorbike belonging to one of Ted’s friends in the Army. They had words and the engagement ring went over a garden wall at the bottom of Rydding Lane. Ted didn’t tell anyone and went straight to bed as soon as he got home.

The next day, Hilda got up to make breakfast and start the daily chores. She went straight for the boys’ bedroom and pulled open the handmade curtains, where she found Ted still in bed. She had no idea why he hadn’t gone to work and was just about to start quizzing him, despite the fact he was pretending to be asleep, when suddenly there was a loud bang coming from the front of the house as the gate slammed shut and someone started hammering on the front door. Hilda peered through the curtains in the front bedroom and saw that it was Iris’s nan making all the noise. She went down to calmly open the door and started to speak, but didn’t get a chance to say a word before the woman launched at her:

‘I wanna see your Teddy. I wanna know what he’s said to our Iris. Hers crying her eyes out and she won’t go to work.’