Vince Hill

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the B B C has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley. What part of the country do you come from, Bin?

Vince Hill0:10

The Midlands, Coventry, come from originally, although uh

Vince Hill0:14

I've lived half my life.

Vince Hill0:16

In or around London now?

Presenter0:17

As a youngster, did you come into contact with the entertainment business? Did you go to the local music hall a lot?

Vince Hill0:23

Yes, I did. I used to go uh to the local theatre with my with my mother. Coventry Hippodrome was. Coventry Hippodrome. As it was then, yes. So Coventry Theatre now. What was your first ambition?

Vince Hill0:34

My first ambition

Vince Hill0:36

It's a hung on one really. I've really I supp I didn't have very many ambitions as a as a kid, I mean, other than the usual ones like being a train driver or something, but

Vince Hill0:45

But um

Vince Hill0:46

Uh I

Vince Hill0:47

I just would have been probably the greatest chef in the world if I'd have had my way. I was always in it's a strange thing, but I was always interested in cooking and things I when I was a boy.

Presenter0:55

In fact, what was your first

Vince Hill0:56

Let's jump.

Presenter0:57

Yeah.

Vince Hill0:57

Well, that was what it was. I was going to be a cook and a uh a chef and I worked for a long time um uh in working uh pastry cook and all that kind of work, confectionery.

Vince Hill1:08

And I loved it'cause it was creative. I like to do anything that's sort of creative. You can start from nothing. Make it, bake it.

Vince Hill1:15

And see the whole thing and even watch it go on sale. And I love to do that, but it's the the actual

Presenter1:18

Yes.

Vince Hill1:19

job just didn't agree with me and I had to uh get out of it in the end.

Presenter1:23

When did you start?

Vince Hill1:24

Ting

Presenter1:24

Yeah.

Vince Hill1:24

How early? Uh, I guess when I knew my voice had broken, which was at the age of about sixteen and a half, seventeen. I was a boy soprano up until I was fifteen. My voice was quite late breaking.

Presenter1:36

And then you decided that you could sing in an adult voice, so where did you sing?

Vince Hill1:40

Uh

Vince Hill1:41

Well, all around the clubs and pubs and wherever anybody would have me, uh in Coventry. A fairly tough audience, a pub and club audience. Yes, you could say that. You had to do what pleased them. In other words, you had to do what they knew and uh you know, what that what was whatever was popular at the time.

Presenter1:58

Were you taking lessons?

Vince Hill1:59

Oh yes, I was. Um I went every week and uh the lady's name was misses Fitton and she's

Vince Hill2:06

Still around I think and still teaching in College.

Vince Hill2:11

Yes, yes, I was indeed.

Presenter2:13

Mm-hmm.

Vince Hill2:14

And then what happened?

Vince Hill2:15

Well, I uh

Vince Hill2:16

I had a variety of jobs uh after the uh pastry cook and confectionery didn't work out.

Vince Hill2:22

And uh I ended up going down the pit, mm down the coal mines. I did that because uh

Vince Hill2:30

I was just on the tail end of conscription, you know. Uh you could still be called up then, and my father said, Well, he had the brilliant idea of me going down the coal mines. He said, If you go there

Vince Hill2:40

You won't have to go in the army, and you can carry on singing. I thought, well, I'll try anything once.

Vince Hill2:46

But I really hated it. I I stood it for about a year.

Vince Hill2:50

That's as much as I could stand, and I

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saw a job advertised of all things in an army band

Vince Hill2:57

And so I

Vince Hill2:59

Uh wrote a a letter asking if I could do an audition for the job.

Vince Hill3:03

Um

Vince Hill3:04

I had a very quick reply, did the audition, and much to my amazement was accepted, so it it was just an automatic thing then. I went into the army, and that's how I spent over two years of my life singing.

Presenter3:15

one of the select few who joined the army to study music.

Vince Hill3:18

Take

Presenter3:18

Yeah.

Vince Hill3:18

Which band was it?

Vince Hill3:20

It was the Royal Signals, the Royal Corps of Signals.

Presenter3:22

Were you singing pop as well?

Vince Hill3:24

Yes, I used to sing the

Vince Hill3:26

The good thing about it, I guess, was that uh it gave me all kind you know, uh, my experience was a

Vince Hill3:32

broad as it possibly could be, because we had within the military band um

Vince Hill3:37

A Danceman section.

Vince Hill3:39

And at night, inevitably, there would be a

Vince Hill3:43

a gig or two with the dance band and I would get to do that as well and sing whatever was popular, you know, officers' mess or wherever we were or local town halls or wherever the military band happened to be playing. So I got to sing, you know, all kinds of music.

Presenter3:57

Yes, mm.

Vince Hill3:58

Sometimes all kinds of music in a day.

Vince Hill4:01

With the royal signals, were you going abroad?

Vince Hill4:04

Yes, indeed, uh I did. I went uh

Vince Hill4:07

all over with them. I we went out to the Middle East and all over Europe.

Vince Hill4:11

Yeah.

Presenter4:11

Yeah.

Vince Hill4:12

And when you left the Royal Signals.

Vince Hill4:15

When I left, um I thought that show business would welcome me with open arms. Of course I

Vince Hill4:21

I soon found out that it didn't. I just packed my bags and moved to London and did whatever uh auditions came along. Not very much work, just auditions. You toured in a musical for a while. Yes, I did. Um

Presenter4:33

Yes, I

Vince Hill4:37

Called Floradora.

Vince Hill4:38

In the chorus.

Vince Hill4:40

And working in that show actually on the road for for uh uh four or five months was a good experience anyway. And you joined a band? I joined a band and I was just on the tail end of the big band business. Whose was it? Uh it was uh Teddy Foster. Oh yes. In those days I did

Vince Hill4:56

impressions of anything and anybody and sang whatever rock and roll tune happened to be around at the time.

Vince Hill5:03

And then from then um

Vince Hill5:05

While I was in that band, we

Vince Hill5:08

Four of us.

Vince Hill5:09

Two of the um trombone players and uh the other singer and myself formed a group.

Vince Hill5:15

A wonderful name We called ourselves the Four Others.

Vince Hill5:18

I guess it lasted for about eighteen months. And then from

Vince Hill5:22

The nucleus of that group,

Vince Hill5:24

Uh we formed an act called The Raindrops. And that

Vince Hill5:27

was an instant success. It's one of those things. We uh did television series, radio series and we recorded and

Vince Hill5:35

Um

Vince Hill5:36

I guess by about nineteen sixty one, sixty two, I was beginning to feel sort of frustrated a bit and I wanted to to get out of it. I realized that if I was ever going to make it on my own

Vince Hill5:47

that I would have to do it before I got, you know, very much older. And so I broke out then.

Vince Hill5:52

And um

Vince Hill5:54

As luck had it, I was retained on the show that we were doing which was called Parade of the Pops. And uh so that was a marvellous experience and it gave me a marvellous platform too, because a lot of people heard me. And you took on uh a business manager named Anne. That's right, my wife, yes. In fact we had been married uh well uh a few years by then.

Vince Hill6:14

And um

Vince Hill6:16

Anne has always sort of coordinated all my business, you know. Um and not really, I suppose, a manager, but uh she certainly points me in the right direction.

Presenter6:24

Good.

Vince Hill6:25

When did you have your first T V show of your own?

Vince Hill6:28

M

Vince Hill6:29

I think it was seventy three we did the first series of They Sold a Million.

Vince Hill6:33

Um which was a marvellous experience for me. I'd never

Vince Hill6:36

actually been into a situation where I had to present

Vince Hill6:40

a show like that. I'd presented a lot of things before, but never quite so much, and n and never had I had to learn so much as I did in that particular show, because

Vince Hill6:49

Bam

Vince Hill6:50

We had to give a lot of information, or I had to give a lot of information, and it had to be researched and

Vince Hill6:56

No cue cards or auto cues or anything. I had to learn it. And it was like I had to make sure I I knew my music.

Presenter7:00

But it

Vince Hill7:03

in about three days and then the rest of the week I just had to learn the words of the presentation. And it was like learning a play a week. It was very hard, but And there's another series you've been telerecording. That's right, it's a show called The Musical Time Machine.

Vince Hill7:19

Uh it's a quite an involved uh

Vince Hill7:21

kind of show because I'm linked to a

Vince Hill7:24

computer and he's called Eric and the reason he's called Eric is because he's an electronic recall information collator, so I've been informed.

Vince Hill7:34

And it's uh has a bank of monitors, television screens on it, and while I'm talking about whoever we may have as guests, it it pumps up pictures and gives information out. It's a very exciting kind of way of presenting a light music show.

Presenter7:46

Yes. And you've been doing a lot of cabaret. You've been at the talk of the town several times.

Vince Hill7:50

Yes, that's always very exciting and uh there's only two places that give me the

Vince Hill7:55

The real shivers, and one is the palladium, and the other's the talk of the town. And it's perhaps because you know.

Vince Hill8:01

the history of them when you're there. I don't know, you stand on the side of the stage waiting to go on and

Vince Hill8:06

You know that

Vince Hill8:08

before you the greatest people in the world have walked on the very same stage and you're gonna tread the very same boards. It probably sounds old fashioned, but it it does it does get to you. Certainly on the first nights in both places. I I the only two places I know that that happens.

Presenter8:17

So