He had six bathrooms at the finish, every one of them done up to a different scheme, although most of them were never used. There was his, with a heart-shaped tub and a mirror on the ceiling, and the monogrammed towels folded just so, and nobody else supposed to go in there, only Pearl who looked after him. And then there was my favourite with a glass block floor and gold-plated dolphin taps, and a whole wall filled with water and tropical fish. Not that bathrooms interest me that much. Still, it’s funny to think how we started out in Ninevah Street, with a lav down the yard and a jerry under the bed, in case you needed to go in the night, and a tin bath dragged indoors and put on the hearthrug, but only for special occasions.
We all had baths when our Dilys was getting married, so that was quite a production, and I had another one, I remember, when I was bad with the measles and the doctor had been sent for. But generally speaking, you could go all year in our house and never see that tin tub. Until Sel started getting top billing and Mam got stars in her eyes. Ever after that, if it was club night, it was bath night.
I was in the trimming shop at Greely’s Motors in those days, working six in the morning till two in the afternoon. You could earn more doing a night shift but after I got jilted, the size of my pay packet didn’t seem to matter any more. Renée and I had been saving up, getting our little bits and pieces together for when we were married, but when she called it off, well, I lost heart. And if I worked the early shift it meant I had my evenings. I could do the clubs with our Selwyn, as his accompanist.
When we started out they billed us as the Boff Brothers but that soon changed. Soon it was Selwyn Boff, the Saltley Songster, with Cledwyn Boff on piano, only in smaller letters. It has been my experience that once your letters get smaller they’re unlikely to get bigger again. Then, as he developed a following he dropped the Boff and tried being just plain Selwyn.
‘Your own, your very own Selwyn,’ the emcee would say and by then nobody cared who was playing. As long as Sel was out front, holding the ladies’ hands, looking into their eyes, making out he was singing for nobody in the world but them, he could have had a chimpanzee on the piano stool. Mam used to say, ‘Did you play nicely last night, Cledwyn?’
I’d say, ‘I could have played bare-arsed with my elbows for all anybody would have noticed.’
And I’d duck before she could clout me.
Our mam’s profession was teaching pianoforte so we were all expected to learn when we were nippers. But Dilys apparently would never sit still and pay attention, so she was sent to tap dancing instead, and when Mam decided Sel had the makings of a singer he was sent to Miss Jaycock in Paradise Street, for voice and elocution. After that I got the piano to myself and when I joined the Boys’ Brigade I learned the trumpet too.
Mam believed everybody should be able to do a turn, even if it was only play ‘God Save the King’ with a comb and tissue paper, but Dilys never liked performing. She’d sidle off outside and hide down the yard if we had company, if she thought Mam was going to make her climb up on the table and do ‘You are my honey, Honeysuckle’, and then, later on, she did put up a lot of weight due to married life and you can’t dance if you’re heavy. It’s harmful to the knees.
I was the true musician of the family, but my brother did have another kind of talent and I never begrudged him that, not even for all the times he got written up in the Sunday papers and told a load of fibs or never even mentioned me. He may not have had the best voice in the world, and he never did learn to sight-sing, but he had the knack of showmanship. He could lift people out of themselves and send them home happy. That’s why he got bookings while trained musicians went hungry. But you can’t argue against box office takings. I suppose that’s what Uncle Teilo recognised in him.
Teilo wasn’t our real uncle, but he was bookings secretary at the Nechells Non-Political Club and he wasn’t without influence at the Birmingham Welsh and the Rover Sports and Social, and he’d shown a friendly interest in us from when we were young lads. Also, he was very fond of our mam. I believe he may have made her certain offers, over the years, only she was a bit hazy as to the whereabouts of Dad.
We had our debut at the Birmingham Welsh before the war. Sel was only ten. We were the first act of the evening, doing ‘Gilbert the Filbert’ and ‘I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard’, and whatever we were paid, I don’t remember seeing any money. It must have gone straight into Mam’s purse. She only ever let us do Friday nights because Sel had school and I had work to get up for, but the Boff Brothers became quite a name, and when I came back after the war we picked up where we’d left off. Of course, by then Sel wasn’t a boy soprano any more. By then he’d been going to the pictures and getting some big ideas. ‘I’ll be appearing in a dinner suit from now on,’ he said.
Uncle Teilo said, ‘Oh yes? What did you do? Knock somebody over for their clothing coupons?’
But he’d been to Horace’s, the house clearance people, and bought a dead man’s suit.
‘I want the lights down,’ he said. ‘I want total darkness before I come on, then Cled’ll play a glissando and when the lights go up, there I’ll be.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Uncle Teilo said. ‘How will folks see to drink?’
But he did agree to a few things. We moved up the billing to close the first half and we were allowed a lacy cloth on the top of the piano and a potted palm. Bloody thing had to be lugged on the bus every time, but Sel said it raised the tone. He wanted the audience to give proper order too and not walk in front of him with glasses of ale while he was singing, but that’s the kind of respect that has to be earned. Still, by the beginning of 1948 we were getting top billing and Sel announced he was handing in his notice at the Milk Maid ice cream factory and turning semi-professional.
Dilys said, ‘Oh, do be careful, Sel. The Milk Maid’s a good place to work.’
Mam said, ‘Well, there are only twenty-four hours in the day and he has to groom himself for stardom.’
Dilys said, ‘What about his benefits? What about the retirement scheme?’
Mam said, ‘Where he’s going he won’t need a Milk Maid pension.’
I said, ‘What I want to know is where does this leave me? We’re supposed to be a duo.’
He said, ‘We still can be, for the time being. Until things really take off. There comes a time when you have to decide what you want. A Milk Maid pension or fame? A long-service medal from Greely’s or a life?’
I said, ‘Why can’t you ever be satisfied?’
Mam said, ‘You’re a good little pianist, Cledwyn, but that’s all you’ll ever amount to. Selwyn’s a true performer. He gives his all.’
I suppose he started giving his all after he got his first shiny jacket. He’d decided the potted palm and the penguin suit weren’t enough, and he wanted to make himself more memorable, so he went off to London