Anne's Song (5 page)

It's gone now, but St Catherine's Roman Catholic School for Girls was very well respected with a particularly good reputation for music. The head teacher, a nun called Mother Bernard Joseph, was very strict, but I thought she was fabulous. I loved her. I was a member of the choir which was one of the best school choirs in the country. The choir mistress, Margaret Holden, was a cousin of Margaret Thatcher's. She liked me, I think, but later on, when she realised how often I was singing in local working men's clubs with my parents and some of my siblings, she was very disapproving. Denise was in the choir with me as well as Jacqui and my other friends, Patsy and Joan.

On one occasion, we were due to sing at the Albert Hall, and we had to be at Talbot Square in Blackpool at six in the morning for the coach trip to London. Denise and I hadn't been to choir practice the night before because we'd been singing in some club with Mum and Dad. My mother had got up at five o'clock to make us sandwiches and then we went off to catch the coach. We'd just sat down when Margaret Holden signalled to us to come and have a word with her.

'Where do you two think you're going, Miss Nolan?' she asked. She had a rather sarcastic way of talking.

'The festival, Miss Holden,' I replied. 'We're going to London."

'No you're not,' she said. 'You didn't come to rehearsal yesterday evening so you're not going to London today.' And she made us get off the coach and go home. It seemed such a mean thing to do. I hated her, but not for stopping us going to London; a bit of me understood the reason why. I hated her for not having told us the day beforehand. She shouldn't have waited until we'd got up early, all excited, and made our way to the coach. Both Denise and I were bitterly upset. We ran home in tears to tell our mum who was very philosophical. 'She's obviously not a very nice person,' she said. 'Just forget it.' But it was hard on us.

This was no way for a child to be educated and now, as a mother myself, I feel genuinely shocked that my parents could encourage such a way of life. We children loved appearing in the clubs, loved the adulation of the audience. But what did we know? It was like asking a child to ration the amount of sweets she ate. That's why adults are given the responsibility of judging what's best for a child.

My father wasn't interested in any of that – and, make no mistake, he was the one who was in the driving seat. He could see how well we were going down in the clubs and he wasn't interested if our schoolwork and our physical wellbeing were shot to pieces as a result. My mother might have said something but she didn't. From the start, she'd been cast in the role of obedient wife.

The teaching staff took a dim view of our increasing professional singing engagements and it's not hard to see why. One of the teachers wrote on Maureen's report that her nightlife would leave her 'permanently retarded' which seems a bit over the top. I enjoyed school, but it made me anxious that I was always behind with my homework. Letters would arrive at home about our poor attendance record, and comments would always be made on our end-of-term reports. My dad would read them and then simply ignore them.

It's little wonder that I never sat a GCE exam, despite being a potentially capable student. In the event, I left school at the end of the summer term in 1965, some four months before my fifteenth birthday, and without a single qualification to my name. It never occurred to me to stay on. I was singing in clubs regularly by then. It was clear that this was going to be the path I was destined to follow – and happily too. Demand was growing for appearances by the Singing Nolans. Wherever we sang, people would turn up in their hundreds to see us. We'd walk past the queue snaking round the block as we arrived at a succession of clubs and people would be clamouring for our autographs. There was never an empty seat and we never left the stage without a standing ovation. It was intoxicating stuff and infinitely more exciting than getting down to our schoolwork. We loved singing and the public seemed to pick up on our enthusiasm.

Our main attraction, I think, was that we were all members of one family. Audiences, young and old alike, were intrigued and seemed to respond to that. Some people liked us for our own sake, but others came to reinforce their view that
their
family could do what we were doing. That almost certainly wasn't true. Each and every one of us could sing confidently in tune which is why we all had our own solo spots in the act. Some fans would come to every single one of our performances and a few of them became our friends. I particularly remember a couple called Marlene and Graham Collins who'd often help by driving us home with our stage wear at the end of an evening. When I was a bit older, they'd also take me all over the country to watch football matches, one of my favourite pursuits.

I lapped it all up, loving the warmth of the applause, but, even so, I felt torn in two. Because I was in my teens, I longed to be with my friends, going to discos, staying over and having girlie nights. So, much as I enjoyed performing, I resented it, too. I hated missing out on all the normal things a teenager enjoys doing and that included going out with boys. My friends were getting boyfriends; I was singing. I'd send Jacqui postcards from everywhere we went if we were performing away from Blackpool. We'd be working sometimes as many as five nights a week, so it was very hard to keep our friendship going.

At the same time, Dad was becoming obsessive if he caught us even looking at a boy in the audience. It started when I was thirteen, so Denise can only have been twelve and Maureen ten or eleven. Just one glance from any of us in the direction of a boy while we were performing and he'd be on at us when we came off stage. His reaction was always the same.

'I saw you flirting with that boy,' he'd say. 'Still, if you want to act like a little slut, that's up to you.' He'd be sneering, sarcastic rather than shouting the odds.

I ignored him, deliberately refusing to answer back, but that didn't stop me thinking that perhaps he truly was mad. Did he seriously imagine that his daughters were going to remain spinsters until they died? Or was it that he somehow wanted all of us for himself? The result of this irrational behaviour, of course, was to make me as secretive as I knew how. If I saw a boy I liked the look of. or ever got chatting to one, my father would be the last person on earth I'd talk to about it.

It sickens me to this day to think that he was telling me I was making myself look cheap by, at the most, glancing at a boy, when he'd done the things he'd done to me. Even though I'd shown him in the most forceful way I knew how that I didn't want him touching me or getting anywhere near me again, he'd still try it on when I was least expecting it. I was in the kitchen in Waterloo Road on one occasion – I must have been fifteen by now – filling the teapot with boiling water from the kettle just before we were due to leave for another singing engagement. Dad came into the room, walked up behind me and reached out in an attempt to touch my breasts.

I wheeled round on him. 'Go away!' I shouted. 'Leave me alone.'

He laughed, in a way, I think, that was meant to make me believe he was just having a bit of fun. 'I've told you,' I said, 'just go away.' But he made another lunge at me. I had the teapot in one hand, the kettle in the other. As I jumped and tried to push him away, the boiling water spilt all over my hand. My piercing scream brought my mother running into the kitchen from the lounge to discover me shocked and trying to stifle my sobs from the pain.

'What on earth's going on?' she asked, crossing the room to see why I was so distressed.

'Dad was fooling around,' I said, 'and he knocked my arm when I was filling the teapot with boiling water.' Even though my hand really hurt, my instinctive reaction had been to cover up for my father. He was the picture of innocence, of course. He butted in and pretended that it had all been no more than a bit of horseplay and that I didn't seem able to take a joke.

What I should have said was that Dad had been trying to fondle my breasts. But I didn't. This was an opportunity for me to tell my mother everything that had happened between my father and me, but, once again, I didn't speak up and tell the truth. In a way I was covering for him and I still don't really know why, perhaps partly because 1 felt embarrassed that my father would want to do something like that to his own daughter. I placed my scalding hand under the cold tap and said nothing. Then we went off to whichever club it was, my hand still throbbing. I placed it against the cold car window to try and ease the pain, my father in complete denial, acting as though nothing had happened.

Because I was no longer at school, I'd sometimes get up and light the fire before the younger kids went off in the morning, allowing my mother to have a bit of a lie-in. Mostly, however, all the household duties fell to her, although my father would help a bit. He'd do the vacuuming without being asked and he was quite practical. He liked everything to be tidy, and yet he'd have piles of papers, all stacked neatly, which he'd leave on the kitchen table or somewhere that drove my mother mad. She'd move them because she was trying to get the dinner ready and then he'd be in a thunderous mood all day.

He was the manager who handled all our bookings and he couldn't bear it if his paperwork was disturbed in any way. Although we were attracting more and more local bookings, we never had much money in those days. A big family like ours took a lot of feeding and clothing, and then, of course, there was our stage wear. To save money, these outfits were made by my mother and Aunt Teresa.

I recall long, emerald green pinafore dresses worn over white blouses which we'd always wear if we were singing an Irish medley. Then we had costumes like the kids in
The Sound of Music,
with scarves on our heads. Mini-skirts were fashionable then, so we also had short sequinned dresses worn above the knee. We might work the same club twice a month, so that would mean new outfits that hadn't been seen there before.

I remember once arriving at a club and we'd forgotten our little white socks which we girls always wore on stage. We were horrified to think we'd look like waifs and strays without them. Luckily, by the time we were due to perform that evening's second set, our cousin Sandra had arrived with white socks all round. I look back now and they seemed, in many ways, such innocent days.

By now, my father had started drinking quite heavily, although not during the day. I'd say he was a borderline alcoholic. I still don't know why his drinking increased. He wasn't under any pressure that I knew of. I think it may have been no more than the fact that he could afford it and he enjoyed the taste of alcohol. I always knew if he was drunk – we all did – because he'd get a strange white mark at the side of his mouth. He'd start getting sarcastic or dismissive, both of which I shrugged off.

But the thing that frightened me was when he'd then drive us all home. As our fame began to spread beyond Blackpool, so we'd gradually have to travel further afield for singing engagements – and then face the long journey home, my father at the wheel and in no fit state to be driving. The breathalyser had not yet come into force. There could be as many as six or seven children in the car, and we were clearly a major accident waiting to happen, but somehow he never crashed.

My mother couldn't drive, but we did have a friend, John Quinn, who'd occasionally drive us as a favour. John worked during the day and 1 know that he didn't always want to go off driving in the evenings, but my father had a way of making people do what he wanted – and, in this case, for no fee. He had a very persuasive, powerful personality.

In contrast to all these far-flung gigs, we were engaged to appear for a summer season at the Brunswick Club in Blackpool for nine consecutive years, throughout my teens and beyond. That meant six nights a week, two or three shows a night, from July until the illuminations were turned off at the end of October. We filled the club night after night, although my younger sisters – Linda and Bernie – had to be off-stage by nine each evening; that was the law of the land. Technically, we all had to have a licence to perform in public under the age of sixteen, but no one ever seemed to enforce it for Denise, Maureen and me.

During those seasons at the Brunswick, Dad liked to stay behind after the show and prop up the bar. Because we lived close by, we kids were usually sent home by taxi, albeit much too late for our age, and promptly put to bed. Later, I'd hear Dad returning, stumbling into the house, and I'd lie rigid in my bed in case he came into the bedroom I shared with Denise, Maureen and Linda. It was driving home from the Brunswick late one night that my father had stopped the car and told me he wanted to say something special.

That episode haunts me to this day. As soon as he'd said that he'd give me a lift home, I'd felt uneasy, but nothing could have prepared me for his obscene suggestion that we should run away and live together as man and wife. The abuse I'd suffered at his hands had been bad enough, but this was worse. I remember being gripped by a new panic. Was this an overture to our having full sex together somewhere that very evening? It was late. It was dark. He could have driven me anywhere and easily have overpowered me. My tears, my abject fear, must have communicated to him, though, because he had suddenly started up the engine and we'd driven straight home, in silence.

The thought of him blundering drunkenly into my bedroom and trying to grope me was a real and constant fear with his increasing drinking. It was worse if Blackpool FC were playing at home, although any trouble usually occurred in the evening rather than during the night. He'd go to the match and arrive home considerably the worse for wear before we invariably all had to go off for a singing engagement. That's when he'd pick a fight with Mum. She was the very opposite of a belligerent woman, but he'd go on and on at her until she was goaded into reacting.

Every Saturday, she'd make a big pan of stew from which we could all go and serve ourselves at whatever time suited us best. By the time my father got back from the football match and the drinks afterwards, all the stew would be gone. He'd march into the kitchen.

'There's only potatoes and vegetables left in this stew,' he'd say. 'Where's all the meat?'

My mother would try and keep calm. She'd say, 'It's not my fault, Tommy. The kids must have eaten it all.'

That would never satisfy him. 'You know how many of us there are,' he'd reply, in a really patronising way. 'Why don't you put more meat in the stew in the first place?'

And so it would escalate until she said something like, 'Well, if you didn't stay out drinking, there'd be plenty of meat for you.' Then he'd smack her one, a slap across the face. Or he'd push her across the room. He never cared if any of us was there. Fuelled by alcohol, he no longer kept a lid on his naturally bullying nature.

The truth is, anything she said would have set him off, and he'd carry on riling her, determined to pick a fight. I'd beg her over and over again to say nothing when he came through the front door with the drink on him, but it was no good. He'd needle her, she'd eventually answer back and then there'd be trouble.

One night, just before we set off for the Brunswick, Dad came back from the football, drunk again, and a row started between him and Mum. I'd seen it so many times before. The three of us were in the lounge. For no good reason, he suddenly lashed out at her, as he'd done many times in the past. He slapped her across the face and then pushed her hard on to the sofa. She was trying to defend herself and crying now. I hated witnessing such violence against my poor mother, but she always told us to keep out of it. For some reason, this time it was different. All the simmering rage I felt about him, and what he'd put me through, boiled to the surface. I was really angry. He was hitting my mum and in front of me. How dare he! I wasn't going to stand by and let this continue. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I walked across the room and grabbed the phone.

'If you touch my mum once more,' I screamed, 'I'm going to call the police.'

He turned and fixed me with an icy stare. 'Put that phone down,' he said, his voice suddenly cold and measured, 'or you'll get the same treatment.'

I wasn't going to be intimidated. I screamed my warning for a second time.

Dad marched across the room, snatched the phone from my hand and punched me full in the face. It wasn't a slap. It was a blow from the closed fist of a grown man. I was so angry, so fired up, that I felt nothing except pure defiance.

'Go on then,' I screamed through my tears, 'if it makes you feel like a man.' And he struck me again and again. I shouted at him, 'I don't care. You're not hurting me.'

He stepped back and looked directly at me. 'In that case,' he said, 'I'll make you care.' And he slapped me so hard across the face, it split my lip. This might have been the moment when I blurted out the disgusting things I'd suffered at his altogether less violent hands, but I was only concentrating on the here and now. Dad was out of control. Mum was hysterical.

'Leave her alone!' she shouted, over and over, as she did her best to try and pull him off me, but he was too strong for her and anyway deaf to her entreaties as he struck me repeatedly across my face.

Then, for no reason I could understand, he abruptly stopped. Just like that. Suddenly, it was business as usual. We were due on stage for our first set within the hour. Nursing my bruised and swollen lips, split and bleeding from my father's repeated slaps and punches, I tried to pull myself together for that night's three performances.

What really upset me was my mother's reaction. After my father had left the room and gone into the kitchen, Mum came up to me. 'You shouldn't have interfered,' she said as I clutched at my face. 'You only made it worse.' What she should have been doing was denouncing my father, but she never, ever did. I remember feeling angry that she hadn't thanked me for sticking up for her. But I could never be cross with her for long.

My biggest concern was that I mustn't let my brother see what had happened to me. 'Don't tell Tommy,' I implored my sisters. 'Please don't tell Tommy.' They'd been upstairs getting ready during my father's outburst, but Tommy had been out for the day with his mates and was joining us at the gig. If he knew that Dad had lost it, all hell would break loose. Things were bad enough as it was. I couldn't bear the thought of them getting any worse. I just prayed he wouldn't see the state of my face beneath all the make-up.

As soon as I got to the club with my sisters, however, he could tell I was avoiding him in the dressing room.

'What's the matter with you?' he said.

'It's nothing,' I lied. 'I tripped.'

He looked me square in the eye. 'Dad did that, didn't he?' he said. 'I'll fucking kill him.'

I said, 'Oh, Tommy, please don't make it any worse. It's all done with now. For my sake, please don't do anything.' And he respected my wishes. 1 just didn't want any more upset to do with my father. Anyway, we were due on stage so there wasn't time to discuss what had happened.

Tommy's relationship with our father was becoming more and more combative. He was growing into a young man and he was wanting to assert himself. He was really getting into hard rock music, which my dad hated, and he'd started wearing his hair long and seldom brushed, his clothes casual; in other words, he was the complete opposite of how my father presented himself. I knew all of this irritated Dad who'd always been opinionated to the point of not wanting to hear anyone else's view on anything. For instance, Sinatra was king; hard rock was rubbish. End of story. He'd say to Tommy, 'Anyone who likes heavy metal must be an idiot.' And then that would be the start of another argument.

'You can't tell me what to like,' Tommy would say, 'and just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not any good. I'll listen to what I want.'

'Not in my house, you won't,' my father would reply, but Tommy would take no notice.

On one occasion I'd been staying overnight at Aunt Teresa's when my brother Brian suddenly turned up at her house, looking really worried. Tommy and Dad had had another of their rows, but this time it had got physical. They'd had a proper, full-on fight, wrestling and punching each other. Tommy was seventeen by now and perfectly capable of taking on my father. Brian wanted me to come home and keep the peace, so I did as he asked, but, by the time I got there, the row had blown over and Tommy had gone out.

These days, you'd call my father a control freak, and he hated having to acknowledge that his elder son was no longer at his beck and call, but he made sure that his wife was under his thumb. One of the ways he controlled her was through money. I remember one particular Christmas Eve when I was in my mid-teens. Mum still hadn't been out and bought the turkey or any of the trimmings for the Christmas dinner because my father wouldn't give her any money. She was crying and pleading. 'Oh, Tommy,' she said, 'if I don't go now, the shops will shut and then we'll have nothing to eat tomorrow.' He'd been out drinking and he was playing with her, taunting her, deliberately withholding the cash she needed.

'I'll give it to you when I'm ready,' he said, smirking all over his face.

He was the one who controlled the purse strings. My mother always had to ask for money to buy anything. In many households, the man would hand over his pay packet and his wife would give him back a bit of beer money. Not in ours. I never saw her do this, but I assume she must have given him her wages from working at the football pools company. It meant going cap in hand to my father if she had to buy food, or clothes for us kids, or anything. He'd give her whatever he judged to be the right amount on each occasion, but that depended in turn on what mood he was in.

When it came to the act, though, Dad was becoming a bit more relaxed, more or less leaving us alone in terms of what we chose to sing. No one was more in charge than anyone else. We were each allowed to pick our individual songs which we sang as solo spots between the group numbers.

I'd do a Karen Carpenter song or 'As Time Goes By' from the film
Casablanca
or 'I Understand' which had been a recent hit for Freddie and the Dreamers. Denise would sing a big power ballad, something dramatic which suited her style and her personality. Maureen sang Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots Were Made For Walking'. Brian might tackle a Sinatra song, while Linda, who couldn't have been much more than seven, got kitted out in a slinky dress to sing Shirley Bassey's 'Big Spender'. Even Bernie, then aged about four, would put on a cloth cap and sing 'Strollin" or 'Show Me The Way To Go Home'. We all enjoyed singing – nobody was made to do it against their will – so what was the harm? That, at least, was our attitude at the time.