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Priscilla Maria Veronica White (a.k.a. Cilla Black) is Liverpool’s most famous daughter. Here she chronicles her early days as a rising star in the Swinging Sixties Mersey scene and reveals what led to her big break that brought her to London… Caption: Photography courtesy of Granada
They branded us 'Left Footers’; we called them 'Proddy Dogs’. All of us Irish Catholics lived on Scottie (that would be Scotland Road to anyone from outside Liverpool), and all the Protestants lived on Netherfield Road across to the east, with Great Homer Street running parallel down the middle.
The divisions between Catholic and Protestant were as strong as in Northern Ireland, but on Saturdays everyone, whatever their religion, went to do their shopping at the butchers (we always went to Wood’s), the grocers, the greengrocers and bakers on Great Homer Street, buying family favourites like boiled ham and pigs’ feet – so once a week the two sides would come face to face.
Scotland Road was about a mile long and had a bad reputation as the roughest residential part of town, but I felt totally safe playing in the streets there and walking home to our flat at 380 Scottie Road, above George Murray’s barber shop, behind a branch of Midland Bank and next door to Mrs Lee’s Chinese laundry. I lived there with me mam, dad and two older brothers. Our home was always full of music when I was a kid.
Music and singing aside, I was a tomboy who really wanted to be one of the boys, but they wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I never lacked for entertainment though as a 12-year-old schoolgirl. My mother used to take me to the movies every week. I totally believed in all the Hollywood spin and happy-ever-after endings, and I was always hugging myself and thinking, 'When will my life be like that? When will my Fairy Godmother come along?’ I so wanted my life to be like Doris Day’s or Natalie Wood’s.
When I was 13, I dyed my hair with a Camilla-tone sevenpenny rinse from Woolworth’s. I loved my Auntie Vera’s auburn hair and I wanted mine to be just like hers. At school the next day, the news spread that something weird had happened to Priscilla White’s hair. It had turned bright red – well, orange really. Unabashed after my attention-grabbing debut, I never reverted to my former mousey-coloured hair. I just went on topping up the dye!
Despite the fact that I never stopped singing for family and friends, and never ceased searching for echoes to amplify my voice, my best subject at school was English. Doubtless this is why my last school report read 'Priscilla is suitable for office work.’ Me mam and dad considered this a great compliment, but I didn’t. A couple of weeks later our school’s career adviser asked what I wanted to do when I left school. 'Oh, I don’t want a career,’ I laughed. 'I’m going to be a star.’
The first snog I remember really enjoying was with a boy called Delia. I’d started going to dances at Rialto on Upper Parliament Street, a 'forbidden’ area for us, but it was irresistible. A seductive, heady aroma of Players, Senior Service and Craven A cigarette smoke and rum and Cokes and whisky macs pervaded the place, intermingled with the sultry tang of human sweat, the fellers’ lashings of Old Spice aftershave and hair tonics, and the girls’ syrupy sweet hair lacquers and eau-de-colognes.
If ever a place should have been raided and closed down for inflicting grievous bodily harm on the senses, it was the Iron Door, another of our favourite haunts at that time. But it was here that I went with my friend Pauline after school one day and found myself up on stage, being backed by The Beatles. I could hardly believe I was up there and everybody was just standing listening to me!
There were loads of fab clubs in Merseyside at that time and there was nothing I liked better than doing the rounds, but the Cavern Club was one of my favourites. It was always traditional Jazz there until John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best starting doing Thursday-night gigs in 1961, and rock 'n’ roll really began to take off. Although I loved going to hear them play at the Casbah, the Cavern and the Jacaranda, it was The Beatles boys’ boyish good looks as much as their music that appealed to me.
But I was soon to be wooed a different type of good looks. At the Zodiac Club in early 1961, when I was still 17 and working there as a waitress, I spotted an incredibly good-looking, suntanned guy with white blonde hair. As Liverpool was a port, I thought he was Swedish, off one of the ships. I decided to make the first move and sidle up to him, waitress-style, saying 'Can I take that?’ His name, I discovered, was Bobby Willis. And he was about as Swedish as I was… Although Bobby [who would be Cilla’s husband for over 40 years] was the complete opposite in looks and character to any other guy who had set my heart racing, he won me over and we started to knock around together on a regular basis.
At the Cavern, where news always spread fast, we knew that The Beatles had cut a couple of records, so there was a real buzz when word reached us that they were back in Liverpool, and that they were booked to play at a dance at Litherland town hall on Boxing Day. So I went along, and the most extraordinary thing that night was no one was dancing! The sound The Beatles were generating was so electric, so dynamic, it had physically drawn everybody to the front of the stage. I knew I had witnessed a breakthrough moment for The Beatles that night.
IF EVER A PLACE SHOULD HAVE BEEN RAIDED AND CLOSED DOWN FOR INFLICTING GRIEVOUS BODILY HARM ON THE SENSES, IT WAS THE IRON DOOR, ANOTHER OF OUR FAVOURITE HAUNTS. BUT IT WAS HERE THAT I FOUND MYSELF UP ON STAGE BEING BACKED BY THE BEATLES!
My own breakthrough moment was also not long in arriving. A guy called Johnny Hutchinson, the drummer for The Big Three – John Lennon’s favourite band – sidled up to me one day as I was leaving a lunchtime stint at the Cavern and said: 'Ai ya, Cilla. Fancy doing a gig with us at the Zodiac?’ I thought I’d been dreaming until a couple of days later when Johnny brought me a copy of the Liverpool Echo. He said, 'See the ad for our next gig on page nine? You’re listed as “Swinging Priscilla”.’
It was the first time I’d seen my name in print and I sat there looking at it for ages. I knew the 'Priscilla’ bit would cost me a few blushes, but nothing could really spoil that moment and I couldn’t wait to show it to me mam and dad and Bobby. On the Saturday of my launch as 'Swinging Priscilla’, I was in such a state I got through at least three boxes of Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges. But I didn’t miss a note, and there were more than enough wolf whistles and calls for more to keep me afloat.
That night changed my life in two respects. After my first pro gig at the Zodiac, a number of guys who liked to think of themselves as managers and promoters started to hover around me and buy me coffees; and requests started to come in from other local groups for me to sing with them. One of me mam’s favourite sayings was, 'God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.’ And sure enough, He finally worked a wonder for me.
Brian Epstein, a well-respected manager, visited the Cavern one lunchtime to hear The Beatles. In those young days we young Merseysiders thought anybody who wore a suit had to have money and when I first saw him in the Cavern, I thought he looked like a film star with 'expensive’ written all over him. The next minute I nearly swooned when I realised that John [Lennon] was bringing him over to meet me. 'She’s one to watch,’ John said to Brian. 'You should sign her up too.’
I couldn’t believe I was talking to the man who, in no time at all, was to put our Merseyside beat groups – and the clubs they loved to play in – on the international map. Not long after, the news that Brian had signed a management agreement with me spread fast through the tight-knit world of the Merseyside clubs.
And so it was that in September, amid cheeky cries of 'Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!’, I tidied my desk and waved tarrah to my office workmates. I hadn’t told them the truth though – that I’d turned professional and was off to London. I couldn’t wait to get on the train and get started in the wicked city.
Cilla’s new autobiography What’s It All About is out now, published by Ebury Press and costs £17.99 (hardback). For more details, please visit www.cillablack.com
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