Dennis Taylor

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty six, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway today is someone once described as looking like Mickey Mouse behind a welding shield. Someone else said of him that he's the man who put the smile back in Snooker. He is in fact the Snooker champion of the world, Dennis Taylor. Dennis, when did you first become aware of of Snooker?

Dennis Taylor0:46

Well, I was only really just coming up to nine years of age, Michael, and it was back in Coal Island, a little small town in Northern Ireland, about forty miles from Belfast. And we had a little club there. There was only two tables in it. It was a privately owned club. You didn't have to be a member. The fellow that owned it, who was a great character called Jim Joe Gervin, used to just let whoever he wanted in. And there was a couple of youngsters that were allowed in, say, from about half past six to half past seven.

Dennis Taylor1:15

And uh that's really when I started. I didn't play the first time I went in the club. I just purely sat on the side and was very, very quiet while they were playing and held the the rest for the players and handed it to them as they needed it.

Presenter1:28

When did you realize that you got a a gift for the game?

Dennis Taylor1:30

Well, the game just fascinated me, as I say, watching it. And then I uh was allowed to have a go on the table. And the first time I played really, I had to stand on a on a lemonade crate to reach the table. And uh

Dennis Taylor1:43

I seemed to take to it like a duck takes to water, and within six months I'd become quite good even at that age.

Presenter1:49

Let's have a choice of music, the first record you take to your design.

Dennis Taylor1:53

Well this goes back to the early days. I used to in fact work in the local picture house which held about 100 people and I sold the ice cream. And in those days you went round, not at the interval, you went round while the actual film was on. And in between the main feature and the cartoon they always played a record by the platters. So I heard it three times a week, six nights a week and never got sick of it. So that's the first choice. It's by the platters and the name of the record is Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

Presenter2:22

Said someday you f

Speaker 22:24

Bye.

Presenter2:26

All who love are blind.

Speaker 22:28

Uh

Presenter2:36

Uh

Speaker 22:36

On fire.

Speaker 22:38

You must be alive, smoke gets

Presenter2:50

The platters and smoke gets in your eyes a memory there of your first job, Dennis. How old, in fact, were you when you worked in this cinema?

Dennis Taylor2:56

I was only about twelve, Michael. It was just a part-time job and uh it sort of helped me to get a few shillings to play the snooker really.

Presenter3:04

You were in fact a you came from a large family, didn't you?

Dennis Taylor3:06

I have four sisters and three brothers, but I had a another brother, so there'd have been four boys, who died just before I was born, in fact.

Presenter3:13

Was it a poor family?

Dennis Taylor3:14

Yeah, we hadn't got a lot of money. My my father was a lorry driver. We lived in a fairly small house. You know, but my mother made sure we were always well dressed and uh, you know, we always eat well. But we hadn't got a lot of money.

Presenter3:25

What about ambitions then at that time? They must have been very limiting for you.

Dennis Taylor3:29

Well, you you just didn't have any ambitions. I enjoyed playing snooker. I was very good at football, Gaelic football, and I loved going to dances, you know, and I went to dances very, very early because, um

Dennis Taylor3:41

We used to go from school to the carnivals. They used to have the big marquee there every year and you'd go along and sort of do the cloakroom. So I was uh at dances from an early age as well, even though it was only just looking after the cloakroom, you were still involved in the whole scene there.

Presenter3:55

When you came to England, you came at an early age, I think you were seventeen, weren't you?

Dennis Taylor3:59

Yeah, just turned 17.

Presenter4:00

Was that in search of work? Was it because there wasn't work in in the area where you were living?

Dennis Taylor4:04

Well, it was amazing how I did finish up coming to England. I worked in a local pipeworks in Coal Island there. Sort of everybody seemed to work there.

Dennis Taylor4:12

My father wanted me to be an electrician, but I decided I'd like to go with my friends.

Dennis Taylor4:18

We used to make these pipes which eventually the you know, that they may have been to go into sewers or into different this was in the early stages when they were clay and sort of turned into

Dennis Taylor4:27

glazed pipes. And the manager came round one night and sacked the whole squad of about nine people because there was a bad batch of these pipes made. And a few days later he wanted to reinstate me because it was nothing to do with my side of the job.

Dennis Taylor4:40

But I'd decided at this stage I'd had a chat with my mum and was going to go over to some aunts. I had an aunt over in Darwin in Lancashire.

Dennis Taylor4:48

So I decided to go over and and and work in England. Never even brought a snooker cue with me. You didn't? No, I uh I didn't realize quite how good I was before I came to England.

Presenter4:58

And what happened then to prove to yourself that that you had a future in Snooker? What what happened when you came to England?

Dennis Taylor5:03

Well I went into the local snooker club and when I had a game and seen the top amateurs playing, you know, I thought, well I think I might be able to beat a few of these. So I went out and bought a snooker queue and started practising quite a bit when I moved to England. And I improved within the first three months I'd made a century break. Now my highest break back in Ireland was 54 at snooker. But I'd never seen anybody make a higher break so I had no sort of yardstick to go by.

Dennis Taylor5:30

So, uh with improving so rapidly that's when I started to really get interested in the game.

Presenter5:35

Let's now have a choice of record, your second choice.

Dennis Taylor5:38

Well we're going uh completely different to the first one. Uh this is one he's he has always been my favourite really, and a lot of people's favourite, uh Elvis Presley. And I suppose we've got to pick a classic one of his because I as I say I went to dances and enjoyed the old rock and roll because uh that was the whole in thing. And it's uh one of his classics called Jailhouse Rock.

Presenter6:03

Yeah.

Presenter6:05

Uh Uh

Dennis Taylor6:06

And I'm happy for you.

Presenter6:06

Ladies in a saxophone Little Joey blowin' on the slide drum bone The drummer bought the melanoma crash boom bang The whole rhythm section was a purple game

Presenter6:19

Everybody let's run

Presenter6:27

Elvis Presley and Jailhouse Rock.

Presenter6:30

What was the one moment in your life you decided to turn pro? What was that moment?

Dennis Taylor6:35

I was managing a snooker club at the time.

Dennis Taylor6:38

A very good friend of mine gave me the job along with a son. You know, he managed it one week, I did it the other week.

Dennis Taylor6:44

A fellow told me who used to work with Riley's, he was one of the managers for Riley's, the the snooker company, he he told me that snooker was going to expand a little bit and they were going to play it as a knockout competition.

Dennis Taylor6:56

Hoping to have sixteen players.

Dennis Taylor6:58

So it was a bit of useful information, so I decided to write to the Association to see if I could get accepted.

Dennis Taylor7:05

And John Spencer, who I'd played an awful lot with when I moved over to Lancashire, he was on the association there. He was a member of the association and on the board. So he spoke up on my behalf really and and I got accepted as a professional with the recommendation coming from John Spencer.

Presenter7:21

What was the life like as a professional in those early days? I mean, today we see the glamorous side of it, don't we?

Dennis Taylor7:25

Well, if you think in in seventy four I was sort of

Dennis Taylor7:28

a professional, but I was still, as I say, looking after the Snooker Club. And I decided uh then that I was going to pack up the job in the snooker club and go to play in Canada, in the Canadian Open.

Dennis Taylor7:38

And uh Patricia and myself, we had two children at the time and two hundred pounds in the bank and I had to pay my own expenses to go to Canada. Stayed with the fellow that promoted us, stayed at his home because I couldn't uh really afford to stay in a hotel.

Dennis Taylor7:52

And I got to the final of the tournament that year, beating Alex Higgins in the semi-final and in one of the exhibitions during the day against uh it was a ten times Montreal champion.

Dennis Taylor8:04

Over three frames I made a continuous break of 349. I should think he got very bored in Kiwika. In fact, I think that record still stands out. It's amazing.

Presenter8:09

Yeah.

Presenter8:13

Amazing.

Dennis Taylor8:15

So really through that, when I came back to England, I got invited into the Pop Black series.

Dennis Taylor8:20

And really that was the the stepping stone because uh it opened up the door to all the clubs that seen you play on television.

Presenter8:26

Let's have a third choice of music now, Dennis.

Dennis Taylor8:29

Well this goes back to Ireland again when we used to go to the dances and uh we used to go into the neighbouring town Dungannon about four mile away.

Dennis Taylor8:36

and a few friends and myself, we always, nine times out of ten, had to walk home from the dance. So uh we used to sing on the way back home and uh one of the big hits at the time was from a gentleman who's still a favourite of mine, Johnny Mathis, and the name of the record was Moon River.

Dennis Taylor8:52

Uh

Speaker 29:05

Waving round the van

Speaker 29:08

My Huckleberry Friend.

Presenter9:24

Johnny Mathis and Moon River. In fact, you've met Mr. Mathis, you're saying.

Dennis Taylor9:27

It was at uh yeah, one of the big golf tournaments that Willie Morgan put on and uh it was a great thrill to to meet the man after I'd sort of admired him for so many years and a proper gentleman he is as well.

Presenter9:37

Still Starstruck, are you?

Presenter9:40

Right. So you've turned pro now and uh you're embarked on on this new career in Snooka. What was the game like when you came into it? I mean we today we have this image of big money, big tournaments, huge television audiences. What was it like fourteen, fifteen years ago?

Dennis Taylor9:55

Well there was very little money in it. If if you look at Alex Higgins in 1972 he won the World Championships and that literally lasted months. And he won the tournament and picked up prize money of £460. I remember Rex Williams saying who lost by one frame to Alex in the semi-final. I think it was thirty-one frames to thirty and Rex picked up the sum of thirty pounds for being beaten semi-finalist.

Presenter10:21

That's extraordinary, isn't it? That's not too long ago.

Dennis Taylor10:22

That is

Dennis Taylor10:23

What, seventy two, it's it's not that long ago, so that's right.

Presenter10:25

That's right. And what about the audiences? Because again, today colossal public interest. In the in the early days, did you have the same interest?

Dennis Taylor10:33

Well, mentioning the Pop Black series there, I think the first series was done in 1969 and they usually well nowadays they have about four or five hundred people in the audience and you just cannot get a ticket for, you know, year in and year out. But back in 1969 they didn't even have any people to sit in the audience and the canteen staff from the BBC had to sort of take their white coats off and sit and fill a few rows of seats up just to make it look as if there was a crowd there.

Presenter11:00

Well that's extraordinary when you think how it's developed from that point on, isn't it?

Dennis Taylor11:03

Amazing.

Presenter11:04

Why do you think it is? What is the the appeal of this? I mean, when you won that final, which we'll talk about in a moment against Steve Davis, what forty five percent of all the homes in Britain were tuned into that, an audience of eighteen and a half million. That was at twelve thirty at night.

Dennis Taylor11:19

But it is amazing and if you think there's probably more women watch snooker than men nowadays

Dennis Taylor11:25

I don't know, something about the sport uh probably the thing that fascinated me the first time I saw it was it's it's colorful. You know, you've got the colored balls and then you've got the players who who turn up in evening suits and, you know, they're immaculately dressed. And uh you only need four cameras and y y y you probably can see better at home than you can when you're at a venue because the camera picks up every little thing. And I think the people relate to the players.

Presenter11:48

Let's have record number four.

Dennis Taylor11:50

Well, this is another sort of classic. I mean, I love the Beatles, and there's a little story about this Beatles record in the little cafe in Coal Island that we used to go in. You used to go in, and if you weren't playing snooker, you'd be listening to records. So, most of your money went on playing records. And I remember when we run out of money, it was one of the old dial jude boxes that they had there. And a couple of us had worked out a way. If you just give it a tap on a certain spot at the side of the jude box, you could make the light come on and get a free record. And the one at the time was one of the Beatles classics, and I still enjoy listening to it. And it's called She Loves You.

Presenter12:35

Uh

Speaker 212:35

Uh

Presenter12:35

Uh

Presenter12:37

You'll think you blocked your love. Well I saw her yesterday, ayy. It's you she's thinking of And she told me what to say, ay. She said she loves you, and you know that can't be bad.

Presenter12:56

Beatles and She Loves You. It still goes up fresh every time you hear that record, isn't it?

Dennis Taylor12:59

It's amazing, yeah, you never really get fed up listening to it, you know.

Presenter13:02

Yeah.

Presenter13:03

I mentioned this phrase about you looking like Mickey Mouse behind a welding shield. We better say that that was made by a friend of yours. It is the only kind of remark that only a friend could make, isn't it? Eddie Charleston.

Dennis Taylor13:09

Does the only

Dennis Taylor13:12

That's right, yeah, Eddie from Sydney.

Presenter13:14

But he was in fact referring, of course, to these extraordinary glasses that you wear.

Dennis Taylor13:17

Well that's right. When I first uh put them on they did create a lot of interest and uh people thought there was some sort of gimmick or something and uh there was all sorts of remarks coming out about them. One fella told my wife we're playing in Ipswich, she said he looks a little bit like the front end of a Ford Cortina.

Presenter13:34

But what's the purpose behind them? I mean, apart from seeing well.

Dennis Taylor13:38

Be welcome.

Presenter13:39

But the design.

Dennis Taylor13:40

I've always had very bad eyesight. I've worn glasses but never wore glasses for playing Snooker all the years I'd played. So I'd played for nineteen years.

Dennis Taylor13:48

and suddenly had decided to have a go with the contact lens in 1979.

Dennis Taylor13:54

And they were marvellous really. It took a specialist quite a few months to get a pair that I could keep in long enough to to play a match and got through and lost in the final of the World Championships to Terry Griffiths, uh, but had some marvellous results that year, the best snooker I'd ever played.

Dennis Taylor14:08

So I couldn't really get on with the lens, so after about six months I had to sort of go back playing without any aid at all. And I knew I could see them so much better, so Jack Carnum that uh commentates on Snooker and you know was a professional player as well

Dennis Taylor14:24

He said that uh he wore a pair and he said he could make a pair that I could play in. I've always always tried moan glasses and they were just a waste of time.

Dennis Taylor14:32

So I went and spent two days with him at his place and he, as I say, used to make spectacle frames for a living. So he got this little set of files that were about 45 years old that he served his apprenticeship with, and his little hacksaw and he made them by hand. And those are the ones that I sort of use nowadays. They look like they're upside down virtually, but there's a lot of work that went into them.

Presenter14:53

I mean, how bad is your eyesight? Without glasses, can you see the table?

Dennis Taylor14:57

I could see the table, but I always had problem on the long shots, you know, the clipping a ball and playing safe or a long pot. And the difference was uh was amazing after that. And in fact I've got him working on a new pair for the next World Championships which will be superb. He's working on a pair that make the ball smaller and the pockets bigger.

Presenter15:17

And you join Dame Ed and Elton Johnny, who are renowned for your as much for your uh spectacles as for your profession. Choose another Echo Feed Dennis.

Dennis Taylor15:26

Well this next one goes back to Ireland again. When I started going to dances I used to travel all over sort of certainly the north of Ireland to see this gentleman. He was my sort of hero and he's been at the top of his profession in Ireland for 22 years and in fact they brought him on when I was on This Is Your Life which was brilliant really. A lot of listeners might not have heard of him. It's Joe Dolan. He had a backing band called The Drifters. I think his best record was the one that I've chosen and it's called The Answer to Everything.

Presenter15:56

Don't ask me.

Presenter15:59

A mountain of questions

Presenter16:04

When there is only

Presenter16:07

One answer to it all

Presenter16:16

Love me, really love me.

Speaker 216:21

As I love you is the answer to and

Presenter16:30

Show Dolan the answer to everything.

Presenter16:33

Throughout this this long career of yours, have you at any point felt like giving it up, that the pressures of the game have got too big, the travelling's got too wearisome?

Dennis Taylor16:42

Well, probably because I'd never won a major tournament for thirteen years, there wasn't that much pressure on me, although I was away from home quite a bit.

Dennis Taylor16:51

But I never really was that busy and um

Dennis Taylor16:54

As I say, everybody when they turn professional, their ambition is to win the World Championships. And when I turn professional, I'd give myself five years to get into, say, the top ten players. I felt that that would be a terrific achievement, and I managed to do that.

Dennis Taylor17:08

As I say, you love the game and to get paid for doing something that you you love doing, I mean, you couldn't ask for anything more really.

Presenter17:14

There was a moment when you lost you didn't lose to Steve Davis 9-0, you were thrashed by Steve Davis 9-0 in a final.

Speaker 117:19

Uh

Dennis Taylor17:19

Yeah.

Speaker 117:19

Yeah Yeah.

Dennis Taylor17:20

Uh

Speaker 117:20

Uh

Dennis Taylor17:20

Yeah.

Speaker 117:20

And

Presenter17:22

And yet you actually prolonged the event in you came out and you entertained the audience after you'd lost. What about the circumstance of that?

Dennis Taylor17:27

I'm scared.

Dennis Taylor17:29

Well that was 1981. It was the final of the Jamieson tournament and I played well throughout the tournament, got to the final and thought here's a chance of winning a first major tournament.

Dennis Taylor17:38

And as you mentioned, Steve absolutely hammered me 9-0. It wasn't that I played badly, I just sat in the chair for the whole match. There was an evening session with uh I think we played one frame of snooker. We played eight frames in the afternoon.

Dennis Taylor17:51

And he won all eight, and then he won the first one in the evening.

Dennis Taylor17:54

So uh we're left with seventeen hundred people there.

Dennis Taylor17:58

So the promoters were wondering what was going to happen, and one of them asked me as I walked out of the arena would I do my trick shot routine?

Dennis Taylor18:05

Which I suppose I could have felt like sort of giving me a little cuff along the ear or something. So I just briefly thought and I said, Yeah, I'll I'll go back out again uh see as all the people's there and I went out and did the trick shot routine with all the the little gags and that and uh it was amazing because I was still in a state of shock at having been beaten by such a wide margin. But after I'd done the routine and and took my little bow, you know, it it brought the house down and I hadn't realized that all 1700 people had sort of given me a standing evasion, so it

Dennis Taylor18:35

Although I lost nine nothing, it turned out that, you know, I got a lot more fans out of that as well.

Presenter18:40

You've got a very placid temperament, haven't you? I mean, you n nothing seems to worry you. You don't have an ups and downs, certainly on the game itself.

Dennis Taylor18:47

Yeah, well I suppose it's my attitude of uh probably because I've got so used to losing.

Dennis Taylor18:53

But uh no I'm one of these that if you really feel bad when you've just lost in a semi-final or as a close match, you you do feel bad, but uh I can put it out of my mind fairly quickly and uh get things into perspective. And when you've got a family that helps as well because if you happen to ring up and you're talking to the lads there, uh they're talking about what happened at school. They're not really talking about you uh losing your match. So uh

Dennis Taylor19:15

I can quickly forget about it and it's not the end of the world if you lose a match.

Presenter19:19

Let's have a record then.

Dennis Taylor19:20

Uh

Dennis Taylor19:20

Well, we're coming more up to date now. I'm a great fan of um of Barbara Streis and and also the Bee Gees.

Dennis Taylor19:27

Cliff Thorburn and Kirk Stevens and myself occasionally when we're abroad do a little impersonation of the Bee Gee's. So um you know, I like both of them, so I thought the best thing to do would be to pick one by Barbara Streisand and Barry Gibb. And it was a terrific, uh, colossal hit and it's called Guilty.

Speaker 219:42

Uh

Presenter19:42

It's gotta be nine days.

Presenter19:48

And we got nothing to make it easier

Presenter19:54

We'll climb any mountain near the farm.

Presenter19:58

We are

Presenter20:00

And we never made a name.

Presenter20:04

We are live ocean And we got nothing to be sorry for

Presenter20:13

Alvara Streison, Barry Gibb and Guilty. You mentioned there, Dennis, these trick shot routines that all the good players have and they're immensely popular with the with the crowd. Do you actually spend hours and hours inventing new shots?

Dennis Taylor20:25

Not really. It's amazing. They all date back uh to the days of Joe Davis. There was sort of so many trick shots. You might make up your own little version of it. But uh basically all the trick shots, the top players do uh sort of go back for years.

Dennis Taylor20:38

And the people enjoy them at the end of an evening.

Dennis Taylor20:41

I mean when I did the trick shot routine on the television the response was amazing to it really. They didn't think that the players did anything else, only just play snooker.

Dennis Taylor20:49

But uh we're in the entertainment business as well as being a sport and the people enjoy that side of it when they go to watch an exhibition.

Presenter20:56

Of course, uh I mean in the thirties and the forties and the fifties too I believe Davis in particular made a

Presenter21:03

A living out of touring the halls, didn't he? And playing exhibition stuff there.

Dennis Taylor21:06

In fact, yeah, Joe Davis used to play a lot of the theatres in London where they wondered how the people were going to be able to see because he was on the stage and they had a sort of giant mirror tilted behind the table and they could sit and actually watch the match through the mirror.

Speaker 121:15

I make a

Dennis Taylor21:19

So uh as I say that's where we got the image. Joe Davis always he was uh immaculate. Some of the old clips of him uh playing and the way he dressed uh he was an immaculate person.

Presenter21:29

One of my favorites in the routine is one that looks dangerous, so that one where you put a ball on somebody's mouth or whatever you do on there, you put the chalk on it and you put the ball on there and you knock it off.

Dennis Taylor21:37

Yeah, that's the one where you can use a lot of little lines like, you know, when the ball's sitting on the chalk, you say, you know, you have to be very quiet because the last time I played the shot, you know, the young lady swallowed the black

Dennis Taylor21:47

You know, so then she gets a little bit nervous. So after that, you say, but you should have seen the shot I played to get the blackout again. You know, so you can have a lot of fun with that shot, but it can go wrong at times. And I remember in Tunbridge Wells getting Terry Griffiths on the table for the shot. And I kept knocking it out of his mouth, but it kept wobbling in the top pocket. And I had three goes at it. So Terry says, well, you lie on the table and I'll play the shot. And I'm on the table and Terry's got down to play the shot. And I'd never laid on the table before. And he started giggling and laughing. And I said, what's the matter? He says, well, I've never played this shot before. I thought he was joking. And his first attempt, he's hit me right smack in the jaw. And we had little radio mics on. And the audience thought he'd broken almond teeth.

Dennis Taylor22:31

Fortunately it hadn't done any damage, but I've never let him have another go at it.

Presenter22:36

What about the re the reverse side? We've talked about the the positive and and good side of of snooker. Do you think there might be a danger that the snooker, like in common with most sports actually, where big money comes into it, gets tainted by the money, that there is a great danger of the bad publicity? Getting worse.

Dennis Taylor22:51

Mm.

Dennis Taylor22:53

Yeah, well our association are looking into this. I mean a lot of the bad publicity, a lot of it's not even true. You've got people talking about matches being fixed. Well the people that are writing that have never ever been to a snooker tournament.

Dennis Taylor23:05

And I mean the proper people, the snooker writers, they are laughing at the people that's writing this sort of thing.

Presenter23:10

You couldn't fix again, is that what you're saying?

Dennis Taylor23:12

It would take a lot of doing. I mean, take the World Championships. I mean, if you if you watched all through that World Championship and then watched the expression.

Dennis Taylor23:19

on Steve Davis's face and my face. I mean Steve was just getting whiter as the final went on. And I mean if if we could put on a performance like that we wouldn't be playing snooker for a living.

Presenter23:29

You'll be acting and getting on Oscar you ready.

Dennis Taylor23:31

Clear.

Presenter23:32

All right. Let's have another echo then.

Dennis Taylor23:34

Well, funny enough how records remind you when I was flying out to Australia and listening to the little headsets there and uh my wife likes this record as well and it's from Geoffrey Osborne and it's on the wings of love.

Presenter23:46

The wings of love Up and above the clouds The only way to fly

Presenter23:56

Is on the wings of love.

Presenter24:00

On the wings of love, only the two of us together flying high.

Presenter24:10

Flying high upon the wings of love

Presenter24:17

GEFREER OSBORN ON THE WINGS OF LOVE.

Presenter24:19

Let's now go to your great moment, the eighty-five final when you became the world champion. I suppose you must play that last few minutes over and over in your mind.

Dennis Taylor24:29

Well yeah, it was so dramatic the way it did finish, Michael. If you take the last four colours, I mean the frame itself had lasted for an hour and ten minutes almost, which was amazing. It didn't seem that long when we were playing it and the audience didn't think it was that long. But those last four colours, uh the brown, blue, pink, were amazing pots that I got.

Dennis Taylor24:49

And then the final black, it was amazing, it was on the side cushion near the middle pocket. And I'd gone over, the cameras had picked up a little bit of it, I'd gone over and touched the the World Championship trophy. And I don't know why I did that, but I think it was probably because I knew I was going to have a go at the difficult double. So I thought, well, it's either going to be mine or that'll be the last touch I'll get of it.

Dennis Taylor25:09

And when I doubled the black and the whole crowd at one side started cheering, you know, I thought the black was in and then it hit the corner of the pocket and then we started and had three or four shots each. It just was uh it was electric really.

Dennis Taylor25:22

What was the moment like?

Presenter25:23

Like though when you when you become world champion.

Dennis Taylor25:25

I couldn't believe the reaction uh in fact the photograph appeared uh in quite a number of papers and that. When I put the cue up over my head and almost snapped it in two, and the expression on my face afterwards when I watched it on the television I thought, well that's definitely not me out there. I'd never reacted like that before.

Dennis Taylor25:43

And I think that was just the the thirteen years as a professional wanting to win the World Championship. The whole thing was all sort of coming out there after having achieved then.

Presenter25:52

Are you equally determined now to win again, or having achieved that peak, it would there be a kind of falling off of ambition now?

Dennis Taylor25:59

I know everybody says, well, you know, they want to win it again. At least I've done what I set out to do when I turned professional, and nobody can take that away from you. But at the same time, you always seem to sense that people think, well, maybe it was just a one-off. So when we started the snooker season, I was determined to play well, and a lot of people thought I wouldn't do well at all. But I had sort of two semi-finals, two wins, and a final. So really, I was delighted with the way I started the new snooker season.

Presenter26:28

Going back to that moment that meant so much to you, watched, as I said, by nineteen million people on on BBC television. Everybody has a a version of where they saw it and what they were doing at the time. What kind of things have been reported back to you about curious things that happened to people while you were making that show?

Dennis Taylor26:44

Well, there's there's all sorts really, and and even yet people still seem to remember where they were. But I suppose you gotta go back to Coal Island where it all happened. There was a a lad in the town who um

Dennis Taylor26:55

works with videos and sells videos, so he decided to go out in his car with a video recorder and his portable television set and wait outside the club that I used to play in, Gervin's club, and he watched the last frame in the car,

Dennis Taylor27:08

And I don't know what would have happened if I had missed the black. But when the black went in, he went into the club and filmed all the scenes in the club and round the town just after it. And it's amazing, there were people and women who'd sort of just come out of their houses and ran down into the middle of the town and were dancing about. And they hadn't realized that they were still in their dressing gowns. They hadn't even got dressed. And that went on for like three or four hours. I would have loved to have been in the town at the time, just to have been involved in that sort of atmosphere.

Presenter27:39

Let's have another record this. In fact, it's your final record.

Dennis Taylor27:42

I used to love dancing. The jiving and rock and roll was the whole in thing. And I think it's starting to come back a little bit. I love the disco dancing, but you can't beat the old jiving. And this last record is a group that's been around for many, many years, a very, very famous and popular group, Dire Straits. And they've brought out a new rock and roll record, which I think is marvellous. And it's called The Walk of Life.

Presenter28:11

Come John and say, I got a woman Down in the tunnel tryna make it play He got the action, he got the motion Oh yeah yeah, the boy can play

Presenter28:22

Dedication

Presenter28:24

Oh shoot, turning all the night time into the game Shooters all about see the moon

Presenter28:30

The song up at the name

Presenter28:33

They do the what?

Presenter28:37

And that was Diastrait.

Presenter28:39

Dennis, the the game of of snooker has expanded all over the world now. You've played in some extraordinary places. You've been to China to play, haven't you?

Dennis Taylor28:47

Yeah, we went out there sort of last August, September, played in Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong. And then Steve Davis and myself went into Canton to play a tournament. Well it was a tournament that had two local players, Steve and myself and we played two semi-finals in a final. I think I got the easier draw. I played the 1947 Canton snooker champion. But the youngsters have started playing out there. It's becoming so popular, it's amazing.

Dennis Taylor29:19

But we were we were talking afterward and we were asking uh Barry Hearn to find out how many people would be watching the the television programme when it went out. And uh the fellow says, Well, we usually get an audience of between four hundred and five hundred million people.

Dennis Taylor29:34

And when he heard that, I think Barry was thinking, we're going back to the glasses again. I think 60% of the Chinese wear glasses. So Barry's mind was taking over. If we could get Dennis Taylor snooker glasses in China.

Dennis Taylor29:47

I think we could make a few quid out of it.

Presenter29:48

You could indeed, but you'd have to go to live there. As it is, you're going to live on a desert island, as you well know, sir. So we want from you now the desert island choices. First of all, w what what book would you take?

Dennis Taylor29:59

Well, I I don't do a lot of reading, but I tell you, if I could have a book there, I would like a book with, say, two or three hundred of the world's best jokes in it, because I get more pleasure out of having a good laugh than anything else in life. So if we had a book with a couple of hundred of the world's best jokes, I'd be delighted with that.

Presenter30:18

A joke but you shall have. So then what about the one record that you'd want to keep, supposing that seven were washed away or melted in the sun?

Dennis Taylor30:25

Well, I probably would go back to that original one, the one I played first of all by The Platters, just simply because it reminded me of of that first job working in the picture house, and I never did get fed up listening to it then, so I suppose I could carry on listening to that one.

Presenter30:39

And what about the luxury object?

Dennis Taylor30:42

Well, I am the worst person in the world at sunbathing. I mean, the people get so many laughs out of watching me preparing to sunbathe. And I've had sunstroke a couple of times. So my sister Molly had told me that natural yogurt was the best thing for sunburn. So I'd need a limitless supply of yogurt. And I mean, I probably could eat it if I didn't rub it on me. I'm amazed that you're not taking the snooker table with you. No, I think I would have had enough snooker. And I mean, you'd have to play against yourself anyway, so there'd be no satisfaction out of beating yourself.

Presenter31:16

Dennis Duda, thank you very much indeed.

Dennis Taylor31:18

Thank you very much, Michael.

Speaker 131:27

Desert Island Discs, which was created by Roy Plumley, was introduced by Michael Parkinson.

Speaker 131:34

The producer was Derek Drescher.

Speaker 131:37

Dennis Taylor's selection of records began with Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by The Platters. That was followed by Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock and Moon River sung by Johnny Mathis. The fourth record was She Loves You by The Beatles. The Answer to Everything was by Joe Dolan and The Drifters.

Speaker 131:55

And Guilty were sung by Barbara Streisand and Barry Gibb.

Speaker 131:59

The last two records were On the Wings of Love by Geoffrey Osborne and Walk of Life by Dire Straits.

Speaker 232:15

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio four.