Anne's Song (6 page)

Word of our success spread and we'd get bookings even further afield. We'd all pile into Dad's estate car – it was replaced in time by a minibus – and sleep all the way there and all the way back. I remember one occasion, driving over the Pennines in the snow, when the windscreen wipers packed up. Quick as a flash, Mum whipped off her stockings and tied one to each wiper. Then we had to take it in turns to sit with one arm out of the window yanking the stockings back and forth so that Dad could see where he was driving. It was a bitterly cold night, but somehow we made it home in one piece. I don't remember anyone going to school the next day, though.

By now, we were being booked by bigger clubs which could hold anything up to three hundred people so, if we got three or four of those in a row, we could afford to live quite well. We might clear a thousand pounds in a good week, a fair bit of money back then. There wasn't any left over, though, what with the cost of material for our stage outfits, petrol bills, Dad's drink and all those mouths to feed. But we didn't go short.

We started to build up an incredibly loyal fan base, some of them young men who'd talk to us between shows and ask to take us out. I remember in Wigan being chatted up by two lads who obviously fancied me and Maureen. They'd always come and see us whenever we went back there and they also came to Blackpool. Neither my sister nor I fancied either of them, so my father had nothing to worry about. On one of those gigs in Wigan, we got invited back to the house of a family who were among our most ardent fans. They were so keen for us to have a quick cup of tea before starting our journey home, we felt we couldn't refuse. While we were there, my mum happened to admire their dining room table.

'Then take it with you,' said the woman whose house it was.

'Don't be silly,' said Mum. 'We can't just walk out of here with your dining room table.'

'Of course you can,' she said. 'We've just bought a new one, so we don't have any more use for that. We'd love you to have it.'

Before long, we were back on the road, the table lashed to the roof rack of the estate car – but none too securely, as it transpired. About halfway home, the table shook loose and shot off the roof, landing upright in the middle of the road. Linda and Bernie were whimpering in the back, frightened that something would happen to Dad as he went to retrieve it. But he came to no harm and we completed the remainder of the journey, sitting round the table in the back of the estate, my father having lowered the car seats.

I was fourteen when Coleen was born in March 1965. I was so embarrassed about my mother being pregnant, I didn't like to talk about it to anyone. It must have meant that she and my father had had sex which I couldn't bring myself to think about, partly because no child likes to think of their parents doing that and partly because of what he'd done to me.

I loved Coleen from the start, and when I left school she spent most of her time with me. Initially, she slept in a drawer in a cupboard because there wasn't a cot for her. Then she slept in my bed. I still smile at the memory of this sweet little girl sitting in the middle of the floor fast asleep in the early hours of the morning as I remade the bed she'd wet, a habit she's long since grown out of (as far as I know!). My mum was at work all day again, so I became Coleen's sort of surrogate mother. She almost seemed like my baby.

Most teenagers, as they head towards their twenties, are beginning to make their own way in the world, but my father remained in my life far longer because of the stage act. I remember we used to sing 'Somethin' Stupid', the song made famous by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. I'd sing one half with my dad, then Denise would sing the second half before all three of us sang the finale. I used to hate that song. Dad made me feel that he really meant the words he was singing. He'd look deep into my eyes as he sang, 'And then I go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like I love you.' I wouldn't meet his gaze, and I didn't feel comfortable singing the words 'I love you' back to him because I didn't. He'd ruined our relationship and there was no way back. It felt like I no longer had a proper father.

Apart from pouring scorn on our musical tastes – The Beatles were dismissed as rubbish, for example – he'd also criticise us for the way we spoke. This was the sixties so I'd use words like fab and groovy. 'Why do you want to talk like that?' he'd sneer. He'd also undermine our confidence when it came to singing, but he'd do it insidiously, picking us off one by one.

I remember saying to him on one occasion, 'Can I sing a solo sometime, Dad?' He told me I could, so I practised singing 'I Understand', but each performance came and went and my father never let me sing it. On the one hand, he was letting us choose our favourite songs for our individual solo spots, but then he couldn't resist flexing his muscles if the mood took him and, what's more, he'd do so in as unkind a way as he could.

I asked him if I could sing 'I Understand' on a specific evening, just before we went on stage. 'No you can't,' he said. 'You always sing flat.' I've never forgotten that. It simply wasn't true, but it was the kind of thing he'd say every so often. Brian still hero-worshipped Dad at this stage and he tried to sing in the same style. My father would sometimes praise him for that but, on one occasion, he turned on him and said, 'You'll never be able to sing like me.' It cut Brian to the quick. Like all bullies, Dad would belittle you with spiteful barbs which made you doubt your ability and which perpetuated his sense of control over you.

I'd lie in bed and dream about running away from home so I could escape his clutches, in every sense of the word. I'd talk about it with Jacqui, and we'd fantasise about living in London together, but I never once mentioned to her anything about the sexual abuse. I wouldn't have run away though, because I'd have been too scared. Anyway, I'd have missed my brothers and sisters too much, as well as my mum.

Because there were so many of us and because we both lived and performed together, we were self-sufficient. Of course we all had our friends outside the family, but we also had all these home-grown friends, too. No, the sole reason for leaving home would have been to get away from my dad. I just didn't want to be around him. Sometimes, I'd fall asleep wishing that when I woke up the next morning he'd be dead.

As I grew older, he continued to keep a beady eye open for any boys showing what he considered to be too much attention. In 1970, the Singing Nolans – that was the entire family including Mum and Dad and all eight children – were booked to perform on a cruise for two weeks in the Mediterranean. I was twenty and Maureen was seventeen, and we met a couple of sailors we liked. I even secretly kissed the one I fancied – they were both called Dave. They said they'd come and visit us in Blackpool the next time they got shore leave – and that's exactly what happened.

We told everyone where we were going and who we were going to meet, with the exception of my father. He was out singing, but we knew we had to be home by 10.30 that night. As we neared the house, Brian was waiting at the gate with my mother.

'Quick! Quick!' he called. 'Dad's on his way home.' Brian had always idolised my father and never wanted to be associated with anything of which he'd disapprove. We broke into a sprint, abandoning the Two Daves who'd been strolling down the road with us. We ran up to our bedroom and there was a broom in my bed and a mop in Maureen's, put there by Mum and Brian to look as if we were fast asleep under the covers. We threw them out of our bunks and dived in fully clothed.

I think back to that incident now and it seems barely believable. I was a young woman. I should have been able to stay out all night if I'd wanted, but nobody liked to do anything that would upset my father, me included. The man had an aura about him which is difficult to explain unless you were one of his children.

He never laid a finger on us in anger when he was sober, and yet we were all fearful of what might happen if we disobeyed him in some way. For one man to have the ability to strike fear into the hearts of an entire family of nine, and to do so without having to resort to habitual violence, says much about the strength of his personality.

If ever I contemplated my future, therefore, it isn't perhaps too surprising that I found it hard to get past the point of getting out from under my father's influence. How, and when, would I be free? I just didn't know. I felt trapped in a tunnel and there didn't seem to be even a glimmer of light at its end.

In the meantime, life had fallen into a familiar pattern. We'd do a season at the Brunswick every summer, and for the rest of the year we'd be booked by a wide variety of clubs, mostly in Wales, the north and north-west and Scotland, although occasionally we'd travel down to London, usually for a corporate event. In 1971, the Singing Nolans won the Clubland Act of the Year and appeared at the Empress Ballroom in the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, to receive our award.

Audiences were unfailingly enthusiastic and we even recorded our first album, a collection of the songs we sang in our stage act. It wasn't a sophisticated production even by contemporary standards, the only instrumental backing being piano, bass and drums, and no opportunity either for doing retakes. The cover picture was taken in Stanley Park near where we lived. Never mind, the object of the exercise was for the Singing Nolans to have an album to sell in the clubs – and sell it did, hand over fist.

But now we kids were getting restless. We were popular, but really only in working men's clubs. Month followed month, year in, year out. It was as though we were stuck in a bit of a professional whirlpool. We wanted more. We wanted to be on television. We wanted to be famous. We idolised The Osmonds. Might we ever have even a fraction of their fame? Despite our best efforts, the right break seemed to be eluding us. It looked as if it was never going to happen.

I was washing myself in the bath one day – I'd have been twenty-two at the time – and, although I never went in for self-examination, I was surprised to find a lump at the top of my right breast. My GP referred me to the hospital and a specialist there said I'd need to have an operation to remove the lump – or mouse, as it was referred to, because it moved around.

It turned out to be quite large; I needed thirteen stitches after they'd cut it out. I was so naive, it never occurred to me to ask if there could be anything sinister going on. I remember being released the next day and my chest was swathed in a large white bandage. A couple of weeks later, we were doing a gig and I went to lift the boot lid of the car to put the cases in. My mother scolded me. 'Don't do that!' she said. 'You've just had an operation.' I ignored her and of course the stitches burst, reopening the wound in my breast. The legacy to this day is a crescent-shaped scar.

Two weeks later, I had another hospital appointment to hear the results of the tests they'd run. The doctor asked me to sit down and then said, 'I'm happy to tell you the lump's benign.' I looked at him blankly because I didn't know what he was talking about. 'Well, it's not cancerous,' he explained, the first time the possibility had ever crossed my mind. So I went back home, told my parents everything was fine and then forgot all about it. That wasn't hard to do because my life – and the lives of my sisters – was about to change for ever. It was Christmas, 1973.

Mum's jaw dropped as she stared at my dad.

'You've got to be joking, Tommy,' she said. 'Christmas? We never work at Christmas.'

He shook his head. 'I know,' he said, 'but the money's good and we can't afford to turn it down. Anyway, at least it's local.'

Mum couldn't argue with that. The Cliffs Hotel on Blackpool's north promenade, apart from being no more than ten minutes down the road, was also one of the most prestigious venues in town, although that was irrelevant. If Dad said we'd be singing there on Christmas Day – never mind that this was traditionally a time for celebration and family get-togethers – then that's what we'd be doing. There were a few grumbles among us kids but there was little point complaining. My father ruled the roost and it was easier in the long run to go along with what he said, rather than risk one of his silent moods.

So we climbed into our glad rags and, as with every performance, gave it our best. The audience was in festive mood and our lunchtime show was warmly received. As we left the stage, Dad headed off to the bar and we made our way to a table reserved for the performers and waited for him to return with the drinks. He seemed to be taking longer than usual and, when he finally did rejoin us, he looked thoughtful, preoccupied. He distributed the drinks and then sat down next to Mum.

She knew instinctively that something was up. 'What's the matter, Tommy?' she asked. 'What's on your mind?'

He didn't say anything for a bit. Then he leaned closer to her and started speaking in little more than a whisper. 'Don't make it obvious,' he said, 'but there's a family to your left, three tables away. The man is small with dark hair . . .'

Mum looked in the direction Dad had indicated and nodded. 'Well,' she said, 'what about him?'

'He just collared me at the bar. His name's Joe Lewis. Says he owns some clubs in London and wants us to go there and work for him.'

Mum laughed. 'A gig in London? That'll cost him.'

'Not a gig, Maureen,' said Dad. 'Permanent. He's offering us a week to see how it works out. Then, if it's successful, he'll be looking at a contract for something in the order of five or six years.'

My parents were conducting their conversation in such hushed tones that I was having to strain to catch what they were saying. Denise nudged me. 'Something's happening,' she said. 'What's going on?'

I told her to be quiet. 'I don't know yet,' I said. 'Something to do with London.'

Mum was talking again. 'What did you tell him?' she asked.

'I told him I needed to think about it,' said Dad. 'He gave me his phone number. I said I'd ring him with a decision soon.'

It wasn't until later that day, when we were sitting round the kitchen table having eaten our Christmas dinner, that we were all told exactly what was on offer. Dad explained as much as he knew about Joe Lewis and what he'd said. Joe had been immensely impressed with our performance, and had been particularly taken with the fact that we were a genuine family act. He was the boss of a company called Hanover Grand which owned, among much else, three function rooms and a restaurant in London. There was the Cockney, near Trafalgar Square, which could best be described as a sing-along with a meal, the performers dressed as Pearly Kings and Queens, dancing and singing songs about London's East End. The Beefeater was similar with the staff dressed accordingly. The London Room, however, was much more classy, catering for an altogether more upmarket, wealthy, international clientele. A theatre restaurant, it was in the heart of the capital's West End. Finally, there was Verrey's, a long-established restaurant on Regent Street.

Dad didn't look very happy. 'I don't want to go,' he announced, with some finality. Once he was settled somewhere, he never liked to uproot. He hadn't wanted to move from Ireland to England. Now he didn't want to leave Blackpool for London. He was a man who didn't like change.

'Neither do I,' said my brother Tommy. 'I like living in Blackpool. All my friends are here.' Brian sided with his brother.

Then Maureen piped up. 'Well, I want to go.'

'Me too,' I said.

The discussion went round and round and on and on for what seemed like hours. In the end, it became clear that we five girls were standing firm against the men. This was the chance we'd been looking for and we weren't about to pass it up in a hurry. We were going to London, with or without the others. It was the biggest decision we'd ever made that flew in the face of our father's wishes, but we were tiring of the sameness of our lives playing the club circuit. We could sense that our careers were about to go up a notch and we weren't going to let that opportunity pass.

It was finally decided that Tommy and Brian would stay in Blackpool in the house in Waterloo Road; they were old enough to look after themselves. Tommy was twenty-four and had a job in the accounts department of a builders' merchant; in the evenings, he worked at the Brunswick as the club's resident drummer. Brian, who was nineteen by then, worked for another building firm, as a merchandising clerk. Each of them had girlfriends by this time too. Coleen was only eight and still at school so she'd live with our Aunt Teresa. She was perfectly happy with that, not least because she could never be parted, she said, from the pony my parents had bought her. Horse-mad from almost the moment she could walk, she loved to help muck out at the local stables, her favourite pastime in the world.

Mum was dead set on moving with us to London, even though it meant going against my father's wishes. I think she was fundamentally more adventurous than him. She was the one, after all, who'd first suggested trying our luck in Blackpool's clubs. Now, she was being beckoned by the bright lights of London.

Dad continued to dither, although he did eventually agree to join us a couple of months later. I think he felt that, as the head of the family, it was a massive undertaking to move all of us to somewhere like London and all on the say-so of one man. By contrast, Denise, Maureen, Linda, Bernie and I were young – I was twenty-three, Denise was twenty-one, Maureen eighteen, Linda fourteen and Bernie twelve – and we were certain. We wanted to be famous. We couldn't wait to start our new adventure.

The Nolan Sisters had just been born.

We weren't entirely unfamiliar with London. On a number of occasions, we'd been invited to do the cabaret at corporate events and we'd performed in the Great Room at Grosvenor House at an event called the Showman's Guild, the society for fairground people. We'd also sung at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, again at a corporate event. In fact, that had been the first time we'd been to a big London hotel and we hadn't known what to expect. So naive were we that we took our own portable TV in an old sewing machine case tied up with string. We must have looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. It had never occurred to any of us that each room would have its own television!

When we first moved to London, us five eldest girls and Mum, we stayed in a miserable bed and breakfast just off Shaftesbury Avenue. It was near the underground so the whole place would shake every time a tube train rumbled by. London seemed fast and scary and awe-inspiring all at once; I hated it and I loved it. At the beginning, in any free time, we behaved like tourists. We'd go to Hyde Park or London Zoo or shopping in Carnaby Street.

Denise, Maureen and I shared a bedroom. We'd been there about a week when I decided to eat a few squares of chocolate before getting into bed at the end of another long day. I was dimly aware during the night of faint rustling sounds which were explained in the cold light of the following morning by the nibble marks in what remained of the chocolate bar. That was it. None of us was going to share a room with a family of mice or, worse still, rats. As the eldest, I marched up to Joe Lewis as soon as we got to the London Room later that afternoon. 'You've got more chance of spending the night with Mother Superior,' I told him, 'than of any of us sleeping in that rat-infested B&B ever again.'

He smiled. 'You can come and stay with me,' he said. 'I've got a big house with plenty of space.'

You can say that again. Joe lived in a mansion that backed on to Wentworth golf course in Surrey. Suddenly, we were living in the very lap of luxury. I loved it, although my four sisters felt a bit out of their depth. They couldn't relax, they said, because it didn't feel like their home. They wanted the whole family to be together again.

Although Joe was estranged from his Irish wife, Esther, she lived under the same roof with their two children, Vivienne and Charles. I always thought Joe had a bit of a crush on me. He must have been about forty, a small man, not much taller than five foot, with dark-rimmed glasses. He took me out to dinner once or twice and he put his whole house at my disposal. He never made a pass at me, never tried to kiss me, but I got the feeling he'd like to if I encouraged him.

I was in seventh heaven at Joe's. I'd swim in the heated pool each day and then play tennis with Charlie on the private court in the garden. We girls lived there for a few months in the summer of 1974 while my mother commuted back and forth to Blackpool where Dad was still living and searched for a house near London where we could all be reunited. In the end, Joe Lewis, or one of his employees at Hanover Grand found a house in Ilford which my parents bought.

I wasn't in any hurry to move in. I was enjoying the liberation which came from being my own boss for a change. My sisters moved into Ilford before the work on the house was completed, but I stayed on in Wentworth until it was ready. By this stage, my dad had agreed to become the singer with the band at the London Room. He could tell that we were settled and happy and he liked the idea of coming to a guaranteed job. He'd perform after we'd done the cabaret, though Mum never sang in London. I think she was too busy looking after us girls.

Now, we five girls and Mum and Dad were all living together again. The Ilford house was fabulous, although I never once regarded it as home. That was Waterloo Road in Blackpool. The Essex house was double-fronted and detached with a steep set of steps leading to the front door. There was a small room on the right-hand side as you came in that was used as an office by my father and a secretary he employed called Elaine. He'd handle the financial side of the Nolan Sisters and deal with any fan mail. Also on the ground floor was a toilet, a dining room, a large lounge, a kitchen, a utility room and a bar at the back which we called Flanagan's after the Old English sheepdog my father bought shortly after moving south. My dad drank much less all the time we were living in London. There seemed to be something about the club culture in Blackpool that encouraged his drinking but, even there, he wouldn't drink at home, only when he was out, and particularly after football matches.

There was a big garden full of apple trees and a swing. If the weather was bad, the washing would be hung in the enormous basement. On the upstairs floor, Denise, Maureen and I still shared a bedroom. Linda and Bernie were in another room and my parents had a bedroom each. I have to assume that the physical side of their relationship was now a thing of the past. In time, my cousin, Angie Breslin, the second eldest daughter of my mum's brother Charlie, came to live with us when she moved from Ireland to take up a job in the beauty hall at Selfridges. She shared a room with Linda Gallagher, our next-door neighbour from Blackpool, who'd also got a job in Selfridges, as a hairdresser.

For the first time in our lives, we were getting a regular wage: £120 a week to spend on what we liked. It seemed like a fortune, but then Joe was an immensely wealthy man with huge influence in all the right circles. We turned up for work one day and he introduced us to Stewart Morris, a highly respected television producer and Head of Light Entertainment at the BBC. He came straight to the point.

'I've seen your act, girls,' said Stewart, 'and it lacks polish. Your patter needs to sharpen up and I think your harmonies could do with some help, but, if we get all that right, we may be able to make stars of you yet.' Here was a man at the top of his profession telling us that he thought we had potential, so we weren't offended by some of his remarks. I'm sure there were plenty of rough edges that needed smoothing. The prospect was incredibly exciting, but we weren't nervous; we'd always been secure in the knowledge that we were all good singers with strong, individual voices.

Good as his word, Stewart introduced us to Alyn Ainsworth, musical director for the BBC and the man whose orchestra had often backed the likes of Shirley Bassey. Although our natural ability to harmonise had been at the root of our success in the northern working men's clubs, those harmonies, in truth, were far from sophisticated. We five girls would go to Alyn's fabulous apartment in Chelsea where he'd teach us to harmonise intricately, producing a sound we could scarcely believe we were capable of making.

Then there was our appearance. All our stage clothes were now to be made for us by professional dressmakers employed by the BBC. Some of the outfits were fantastic: we all loved the sharp white trouser suits with diamante trim and the initials NS picked out in red on the breast pocket, made by a talented Irishwoman called Jo Quill. On the other hand, we were also obliged to wear floor-length yellow dresses which we hated because they made us look and feel middle-aged. Platform soles were popular then, and I still marvel that we were able to execute complicated choreographed steps – we were taught by a man called Lud Romano – without falling flat on our faces. Off-duty, we dressed like any other young women at the time in jeans and T-shirts. We only ever wore make-up on stage.

We sang at the London Room six nights a week. When we finished each evening, the three eldest of us, along with Linda Gallagher and our cousin Angie, would go out on the town, often to the Valbonne, a club that was popular at the time, followed by the Candy Box which stayed open till seven in the morning. We'd eat breakfast at Mike's Diner off Regent Street before heading back to Ilford, sleep all day and then do the whole thing all over again.

Linda and Bernie, who were fifteen and thirteen by now, needed a special licence to perform because they were minors and still meant to be keeping up with their school-work. They attended a college in Ilford, just round the corner from where we lived, but they were burning the candle at both ends and I'm not sure their school attendance record would have stood up to too much close scrutiny. Whichever way you looked at it, it was a totally unsuitable life for girls of their age, but I don't ever remember our parents putting up any sort of objection.