Barry Band: Gruelling Blackpool show diary in rise to fame for singer Paul Melba

Guess who was on that year, I thought as the 1975 North Pier show programme fell from the folder.

Always good to test the little grey cells! Except this time they were slow to respond.

Was it the Ken Goodwin season? Might have been Tom O’Connor.

But as soon as I opened the programme and saw Paul Melba’s photo I recalled a bright afternoon in June, 1975.

It was the only time I was invited to lunch by a show business personality. The only time!

Liverpool-born Paul left the Royal Marines after five years and began his show career as a member of the Bill Shepherd Singers.

In his early days as a solo act he was a regular at the old Lobster Pot Group’s Blackpool venues. He recalled his first booking, £35 a week.

“It looked good on paper but when I got here I found I was doing 34 spots in the week,” he said.

“I seemed to be running up and down stairs from the Gaiety Bar to the Islander to the Savoy Bowl Club and across Talbot Square to the Orchid Room.

“The money improved with each visit but it was hard work.”

Paul was one of dozens of artists who did that gruelling week of many performances on their rise to fame.

He had a talent for comedy and impressions and in the early 1970s was often on TV comedy shows like Who Do You Do. He claimed to have 125 voices.

His first “main stage” season in Blackpool was at the North Pier in 1973, supporting Freddie Starr.

But for the 1975 season he topped the bill above vocal duo Millican and Nesbitt, comedian Mike Reid, Blackpool-born singer Jan Currey, vent Dawson Chance and Blackpool dancer Ray Cornell He closed the show with a 25-minute act.

Paul’s invitation to a lunch interview wasn’t for a convenient scoff at the Lobster Pot or Yates’s. It was at his new home in the hills east of Garstang. I think it was Oakenclough.

A cold buffet was beautifully presented by Paul’s wife, Didi. Paul slipped in a few voices - his famous James Mason introduced the Chablis while Harold Wilson added a pithy one-liner.

Paul said his favourite voice was always the one he was working on and I was given a preview of number 126, Jack Nicholson.

My Saturday interview in the Gazette quoted Paul saying: “I hope he’s going to be a big star and can put him in the act.”

It soon happened. Jack Nicholson won the 1976 Best Actor Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Paul had bought the home of Gazette editor John Favell Grime, a cousin of Sir Harold Grime, editor-in-chief.

But I didn’t know it was Mr John’s former property when I described it as Paul Melba’s £40,000 new home.

On the Monday after my article was printed I was warned: “You’re in trouble with Mr John.”

Later I heard it was his wife who was displeased. Perhaps I had embarrassed her by mentioning the price . . .

Anyway, show fans, Paul Melba’s star shone brightly after the season and he shared a London Palladium bill with Shirley Maclaine and Buddy Greco, early in 1976.

He was often on television until the 1980s when he left Britain for sunnier climes in Spain and cruises and the last I heard he was still entertaining the Brits on the Costa Blanca.