Evergreen singer Vince Hill has chosen to serialise his autobiography exclusively here on Third Age.

At the end of Part One we left Vince in a consulting room just having been diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia. In his own words he thought, “The Fat Lady was about to sing.”

Thankfully she wasn’t but it made Vince take a long, hard look at the fabulous career and lifestyle he had enjoyed. We pick up the story in his own words.

Chapter Two

The Longest Night

I barely spoke on the way home. I did a lot of thinking though, mainly about fellow entertainers I’d known who were now dead. I pondered on the possibilities of a life after and chewed over the names of one or two fixers I had known who might be celestial agents.

Suddenly it became a prospect worth investigating and I managed a smile at the thought of being measured up for a tuxedo with bits cut out for my wings and perhaps even topping the bill somewhere on high. Then I remembered that Al Jolson, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis would probably have a say in that and…..

“Vince, you’re going too fast, please slow down!”

Annie’s voice brought me down to earth so to speak and I complied with her wishes even though I really wanted to get back home as quickly as possible. My head was full of different thoughts and it kept switching from one to the other. I had recently read somewhere of a billionaire industrialist who had contracted something irreversible and had six months to live; no matter how much money he had.

Who was it who said God had a sense of humour? I couldn’t think of too many people I had harmed, so hopefully that would be taken into account. Then I wondered if I was a little delirious or in shock. Then Annie came to the rescue.

“Look, we’ve had trials and tribulations before and come out the other end and we’ll beat this thing together, do you hear? You heard what the man said, there are still more tests to establish the extent of it and it may be treatable and therefore not necessarily terminal. Are you listening Vince?”

Annie only talked sense so I listened and stopped thinking negatively. The rest of the day went in a blur of everything and then it was bed, then blackness. Not the unconscious blackness, the lying awake sort where you could interpret shadows as monsters, or just as shadows.

I listened to the night sounds of Sagamore and tried to identify the different noises from the River Thames which passed under my window on its way to the sea. The house had been built adjacent to a fabulous houseboat belonging to the Vanderbilts. The head of the family went down with the Lusitania.

I listened to the ducks and geese and the chug of a launch and realised that they represented the sounds of life and living and this would be the last time I would think of dying from leukaemia.

Annie was right, we would face it and fight it, and I went back to thinking back over my career in the darkness.

After leaving the Royal Corps of Signals Band three months after my national service ended I had taken a short tour contract in a musical called “Floradora”. Then I heard that the Teddy Foster Band was looking for a singer. I applied and was delighted to get the job.

Teddy was up there alongside Joe Loss, Lou Preager, Ambrose, Eric Delaney, Johnny Dankworth, Geraldo, Ted Heath and Jack Hylton. I sang with him for two years and the experience was truly monumental. Subsequently he would opt for a female singer after discovering Julie Rogers who later stormed the British charts with The Wedding in 1964; to date it has sold 15 million copies and counting. Julie and Teddy married and after world-wide success they remained together until Teddy died in 1984. She is now happily married to the agent Michael Black.

I rolled onto my side and recalled how I had met Annie when I was in my early twenties. It was in the office of Tito Burns, one of London’s top agents and responsible for Cliff Richard and The Shadows.

Annie was his secretary. We have been together for 50 years and I wondered where on earth they had gone to.

I became a singer with The Raindrops and we were offered a slot on the BBC Light Programme, the forerunner to Radios 1 and 2 etc. Fronting the group was a female singer called Jackie Lee who went on, post Raindrops, to back Tom Jones on Green, Green, Grass of Home and alongside her was a chap called Elton John.

She went on to sing the TV series hit single White Horses and the children’s song for Rupert The Bear before a vocal condition cut short her career.

I awoke in daylight from a dream where I had been in a consulting room with a doctor talking words I couldn’t understand.

In reality, during my next hospital visit, it would be explained that Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia was a rare form of cancer affecting relatively few people in the UK. Myeloid cells start in the spinal chord or the bone marrow. They mature and then divide in a controlled way. Unfortunately as a result of leukaemia they begin dividing quickly and uncontrollably which seriously interferes with the immune system and as a result leaves the body wide open to infection.

The positive news for some was that it could be treated with a number of highly specialised drugs, although many patients have to undergo bone marrow or even stem cell transplants.

For now I did not yet know where my particular version slotted in or what treatment to expect as I had to undergo more tests.

But of one thing I was certain…there would be no more feeling sorry for myself. Annie and I would fight this together. The fat lady could get back in her box.

As told to Graham Smith of Third Age.

©Nick Charles and Vince Hill 2008. All rights reserved.

Chapter One – Remembrance.