Bermondsey Boy by Tommy Steele

Remembrance of fings past

If ever there was a real rags-to-riches story, it's that of Tommy Steele. Born Thomas Hicks in Bermondsey in 1936, in a home that would be now considered unfit for human habitation, he went on to become Britain's first genuine teenage idol, and then to a career in show business spanning over 50 years.

In those days, the back streets of Southwark were places of genuine warmth and care. Steele's beloved father ducked and dived round the clubs of Soho and any racetrack close enough to be easily reached by train, and his mother did several jobs to keep food on the table and clothes on the backs of the ever-increasing Hicks family. This was the sort of environment that was lost in the massive slum clearances of the 1950s and 1960s and is now remembered with a sense of nostalgia, especially by Steele. As well as a moving autobiography, he has managed to present a genuine piece of sociology into the bargain.

He refers to his times as a rock 'n' roller only in the last 70-odd pages of the book which take him up to 25, when he decided to pack in that part of his life and move on to Hollywood and musicals. But what years they were. He topped the charts numerous times, appeared in films and on stage, caused riots in the streets long before the beat boom of the Sixties, was lambasted by the press, and presumably made his fortune.

So why did all this happen to Tommy Steele in particular? Several reasons. One, he learned his musical chops in the USA while on leave from his job as a cabin boy in the Merchant Navy, and actually saw Buddy Holly in The Grand Ol' Oprey. Bet Cliff never did that. Two, he teamed up with a pair of songwriters who appealed to the new generation of kids: Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt (later to be the original Randall in Randall & Hopkirk Deceased). And finally, he had the looks and cheeky personality that appealed to young women who suddenly had spending power.

Most of Britain's early rock and roll records were made by musicians from jazz or big bands, and they were usually middle aged men jumping on the band wagon, who treated the music as a nine-day wonder that wouldn't last. How wrong they were. A face was needed to compete with Elvis and the rest of the American teen idols. Steele was in the right place at the right time. Interestingly, early British rock owed as much to music hall as to Nashville, New York and Los Angeles, and even the Beatles included "The Sheikh Of Araby" in their repertoire. Steele had plenty of opportunity to soak up those influences in the variety theatres that once blossomed round the Elephant and Castle, and one of his earliest and fondest memories is a trip up west to the London Palladium where years later he appeared in the Royal Variety Show.

So Steele was the real deal: a charismatic young man who looks back, not in anger, but with love for the narrow Bermondsey streets full of tiny two-up, two-down houses with no bathroom and a lavatory in the back yard. The fact is, you can take the boy out of Ber-mondsey, but not Bermondsey out of the boy.