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WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 27 2000 |
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The Times (of London) |
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Obituary |
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Allan
Smethurst |
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Singing postman who briefly
eclipsed the Beatles with 'Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy?' |
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As the Singing Postman, Allan
Smethurst benefited from the British public’s endearing sympathy for the
underdog. His most popular hit, Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy?,
momentarily outsold the Beatles — in East Anglia, at least — and for a few
weeks became a national catchphrase. But like many novelty stars before and
since, his 15 minutes of fame was little more than that, and after four
albums he faded from the public consciousness ending his days as an alcoholic
in the care of the Salvation Army. Smethurst, a postman from Norfolk who hummed his
tunes on his daily round, bought his guitar from Woolworths in 1949 and
started writing and playing his own dialect songs, initially confining his
activities to his bedroom. “It was ten years afore I dare let people hear
them,” he once admitted. Plucking up the courage to send a tape to the BBC in
Norwich, he was given a spot on a local radio show compered by a sales
promotion man, Ralph Tuck, who promptly founded a record label called The
Smallest Recording Organisation in the World to promote the Singing Postman.
The 100 discs which Tuck had cut in the early weeks of 1966 promptly sold out
and Smethurst became an overnight star, ousting the Beatles from the top of
the East Anglian hit parade. Smethurst quit his job, but was allowed to keep
the uniform, and followed up Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy? — which won an
Ivor Novello award for the best novelty song of 1966 and remained in the
charts for nine weeks — with hits such as I Miss My Miss from Diss and
Oi Can’t Get a Noice Loaf of Bread. Mobbed outside the Co-op shop in
Stowmarket, the buck-toothed, bespectacled singer graduated from the pages of
the Eastern Daily Press to the glamorous climes of television’s Nationwide
and the Des O’Connor Show. There were more songs in a similar vein. An
account of a relationship with a chain-smoking girlfriend contained the
immortal refrain: “Molly Windley, she smoke like a chimbley; but she’s my
little nicotine gal.” It was based on Mollie Bayfield, a chiropodist from
Norfolk whose husband had been at school with Smethurst. By the time he was taken under the wing of EMI,
the embers in Smethurst’s fire were already dying down. Although he recorded
some 80 songs in total, he was forever stricken with stage fright. A
collection of his work was released in 1967 under the title Recorded
Delivery, but this failed to reignite the public imagination and by 1970
his career had fizzled out. There was an unpleasant court appearance on an
assult charge involving his mother, stepfather and a chip pan. Furthermore, curling fingers were threatening
his guitar-playing. After an unsuccessful operation he left the music
business for good. As he signed on the dole in July 1970, he pondered over
the £20,000 or so which he had earned and lost. “I’ve been foolish and spent
the lot,” he said. “It’s gone on hotel bills, travelling and entertaining.” Born at Sheringham, a backwater perched
precariously on the north coast of Norfolk, Allan Smethurst moved to Grimsby
during the Second World War. While he retained his Norfolk brogue, he was
working in Grimsby when he became a star. Consequently, most of his songs
looked back on a bygone Norfolk childhood By 1973 Smethurst was living in a
shabby two-bedroom flat in Peterborough, trying to gain the inspiration for a
comeback. He credited his downfall to a summer season at the Windmill Theatre
in Great Yarmouth where, to control stage fright, he had taken to drinking
whisky in ever-increasing quantities. There were the occasional attempts at a
revival, not least with the inappropriately titled Fertilising Lisa in
1977. If the end was sad, it was perhaps somehow in
keeping with the songs, which were wistful affairs, full of longing for a
world that was disappearing even as he sang about it. When an inspired
creative director decided in 1994 to use Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy? in
an advertisement for Ovaltine Light, Fleet Street’s finest tracked Smethurst
down to the Salvation Army hostel in Grimsby which had been his home for 14
years. He kept his Ivor Novello award by the side of his bed as a reminder of
the days when the Singing Postman crooned Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy?
He never married. Allan Smethurst, singer and postman, was born
on November 19, 1927. He died on December 23 aged 73. |