The World's Greatest Minstrel

Clive's Dad Harry in Hull

Clve with Reg Todd

Conscription into the British Army breaks up the team when Reg goes in for his two years national service. Somewhat later Clive signs on in the Royal Signals for three years. As a regular soldier he is able to select his occupation and location. Clive prefers to be a dispatch rider and takes his training at Catterick and Ripon. After having an accident on someone else's motorcycle in Lockerbie, Scotland, Clive is advised to re-train as a permanent linesman, setting up telephone poles and the wiring to telephone equipment.

Having scored second place in tests, he is posted to Jordan with the Air Formation Signals Regiment. After a few months stay in the barracks in the capitol, Amman, where he meets FOCBS member, STAN EDDISON, Clive is permanently stationed at Mafraq, about forty miles away with a detachment of the Royal Air Force who are part of the NATO Radar Shield. As a Lance Corporal Clive is in charge of a telephone system for the camp with two other signalmen under his command. This prompts Clive to say that even as a Lance Corporal he has the authority of a Field Marshall and the brains of a Field Mouse!

Once a month they would run temporary telephone lines out for observers to guide fighter aircraft in bombing and strafing practice. And that was all they did. No military duties, no parades, they were on a paid vacation. Clive rents a motorcycle and along with STAN EDDISON they hit the road to the Dead Sea, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. They also go to see the grand looking Roman ruins at Jerash and go quail shooting and swimming in the fresh water pool in Jericho. It must be noted that Clive's good buddy RON BRODIE built the Mosque Domes for KING HUSSEIN of Jordan using a unique building technique that would be used later in building their floating fallout shelter, NOAH'S ARC the acronym of: Natural Or Atomic Hazard Shelter Aquatic Relocatable Construction.

Clive makes a lot of friends among the Arabs and finds them to be a friendly and courteous people. His poem "Muslims" recorded in the 'I BELIEVE" album was inspired by his contact with them. He asks the local shoemaker to make him a pair of crepe-soled shoes. The shoemaker is also running a raffle for a Voigtlander camera, which Clive is sure that he let him win. Seems the other guys at the camp are not as respectful of the local populace as Clive is. Clive does a couple of shows at the camp and well remembers a letter to his mother to send him his black suit, his gloves and blackface make-up. He does okay but not as well as the gorgeous belly dancer that the Arabs brought in. The star is a girl singer from the UK, perhaps from Scotland. One of her songs was 'This Ole House'. She was very professional but Clive does not remember her name.

In the early part of 1956 Clive receives a "Dear John" letter from a girl he is engaged to. He later feels that he is only a reserve player, because obviously she is checking out the local talent while he is 'playing' away. He is gripped by a feeling of despair because of all the long-distance fantasies he has indulged in that would never come true. At least not with her!

The feelings of despair do not last long; within a few moments his body is tingling with the flush of an incredible elation as if he has been a prisoner on death row who had been unexpectedly pardoned by the Governor. By that time he saves up three hundred pounds, a good part of which is the two shillings he earns from shining the boots of soldiers who need them for parade the next morning; while they would go out drinking and dancing, Clive stays home in the barracks trying to earn money to invest in his future.

Clive once wrote an eighty four-page letter to his fiancée. No wonder she married somebody else. "I'm an over the top guy, always have been", says Clive, "and telling this story is reminding me all over again". He sees her a few years after coming out of the army and she has two children now. Like the friendly, no-grudge fellow that Clive is, he asks his wife, Irene if he can be a friend with his ex-fiancée and her husband. Apparently she is adversely affected; she doesn't like sharing Clive with anyone. But it is all very innocent; Clive is pleased that she is now married to somebody else, instead of him but his then wife doesn't see it this way. It is the beginning of the end of his first marriage. So now Clive is recognizing that he is "over the top" and naïve to boot.

National Serice in the Army

In 1956 the Egyptians take control of the Suez Canal, against the wishes of the British Government. It is a triumph for the Arabs. At this time Jordan is a home to Palestinian refugees. The fact that Jordan is specifically carved out of the defeated Ottoman Empire to relocate the Palestinians is never mentioned today. The British ran the Ottoman Turks out of Jerusalem and Palestine in 1917 and by Royal Decree of November that year; Palestine was declared the Jewish homeland. Imagine Clive behind a Bren gun (not short for Brenda!) in case his Arab buddies decide to include us in their war with Israel. Fortunately the local Arabs do not attack, so Clive does not have his friendship tested through the sights of his light machine gun, with it's thirty five rounds of deadly 3.03 ammunition He is flown to Cyprus and then on to Stanstead on his way to be de-mobbed at Saighton Camp in Cheshire.

While there, Clive enters a talent contest in Chester, as Jolson, and comes in second to a local act. He hears his voice for the first time on a dictation machine and is surprised at how close he is to Jolson. Clive feels that he always comes in second, and it started with Jolson. But, this is quite an honour in itself, after all there is nobody living who can come in first to Jolie. Even though he has been gone for fifty years, Jolson is still the greatest and Clive is the first to admit it.

Clive is glad he invested in a photograph of himself as a Corporal on a street while still in Chester, never knowing that one day he would have a way of telling his story and showing the pictures he took with his dubiously won Voightlander camera.

With the three hundred pounds he has saved in the army he buys a 1938 Popular for ninety pounds. Clive said it got its name fro the fact that it was more popular with the mechanics that had it in their possession longer and for more times than Clive did. He could only stop it by slowing it down through the gears and opening the door and putting his foot out. After a while he used to lean over to the right because the sole of his shoe was worn away! Somewhat reminiscent of what happened twenty-five years later when he took Lenore for her first ride in his 1961 Comet Canardly that had no floor on the passenger's side. Clive explains Canardly, means it "can-hardly"-move. He once bumped into a double-decker corporation bus in Hull - RON BRODIE can verify this. The repair cost was 2 pound ten. Another time while hurtling back to camp in Cheshire from a trip to Hull he flew by a cop on point duty. He had signalled Clive to stop, but he couldn't. As soon as he could slow himself down, he went back to the policeman and told him he was having a problem with the brakes. He was very understanding, considering he had only just avoided seeing his name in the obituary column by jumping aside like a matador avoiding a bull, at the very last second. Clive felt that since he was in uniform, the policeman merely warned him to get the brakes fixed.

Eight weeks after Clive is de-mobbed, he is re-enlisting to return to the Middle East. His mother is most affected; her tears flow copiously, outside their shop in Wellington Lane. After all, she feels, isn't it time for someone whose father had been through the Boer War, and who, as a girl had been through Zeppelin raids in the first World War and as a mother, bombers in the second, to have a bit of peace and family unity at last, after all that she and millions like her have been through.

Clive gets his own Army Land Rover this time to run around Salisbury Plain, but it doesn't last long. The doctor finds a perforated eardrum. Well, he knew that, he found out when he was rejected for the Air Force. They had told him he would be affected by flying in airplanes. He believes it is more likely that he has the brains of a Field Mouse. Obviously the Army will take anybody, in any condition, it doesn't bother them that they fly Clive from Stanstead to Malta and then on to Egypt in an Avro-York bomber. Avro must stand for average. Actually, Clive feels it should have been called an Over-Avro because they had an over-average amount of crashes as they laboured along a few miles above stalling speed. Clive was sure the blue flames coming out of the exhaust would set fire to the wings as they struggle through the night sky to reach Malta. They were withdrawn from service shortly thereafter.

So, his army days are over, and Clive doesn't go back to Salisbury for almost thirty years, first on a visit with Lenore and then playing in 'GIVE MY REGARDS TO JOLSON'. But, Clive feels it is really only the beginning in a never-ending life of new beginnings.

Clive with John Baumeister

and with Terry Quigley

As the time went by the JoIson society which I had joined in 1965 was catching onto my talents as 'The Living Voice' and in 1966 Terry Quigley the English representative living 63 miles west, in Leeds sent a tape of my singing that I had amateurishly recorded at a local pub to the New England Jolson Society representative who lived in Massachusetts.

John Baumeister wrote to me from town of Weymouth, 15/20 miles south of Boston that I should come on over and "I would take off like a rocket" in American show business. But I had already made plans to emigrate to Canada. My appreciation for their generosity with parcels of food and clothes to us blitz kids of World War 2 had stayed with me and I felt they were kindred spirits with the heritage of the British Empire in their blood. I had heard that the Canadians had a similar pub' style of nightlife on Yonge street, their main entertainment area in Toronto. That sounded right up my alley, I couldn't miss in a pub' My 1957 brush with the homosexual manager of the "disc doubles" show, at the Palace theatre in Hull went against my show business ideals. To me theatre was like a church and you don't offend the congregation with queer behaviour and bad language. The sociability of the tavern allows anyone the opportunity to perform but the theatre stage is the cultured University of Theatrical Endeavour.

My oh my how things have changed in the 45 years since. The public today won't turn out if the act is straight, well dressed and clean! And blackface!! It's more acceptable nowadays to be a modern serial Killer. Their generation's love of rock n' roll as opposed to mammy songs makes them forgivable by their peers.

To be ten or more years older than the baby boomers of 1946 has almost become a criminal offence these days. When the hippies said "Don't trust anyone over thirty" in the late 1960s we can now see that they really meant it. Their unprecedented rejection of senior authority of any kind is permanently ingrained. Don't think it's getting by me though; I'm hard at work with a book full of my observations about the mess they've got us into such as their need for hard drugs which creates a huge crime problem. They've all but given away our national sovereignty in favour of the Empire of Europe with an all-powerful Germany as its leader... The German national anthem is more than a mere tune it's a statement of cultural prejudice whose relentless intention to dominate the world has been proved in two world wars. Deutschland Uber Alles- "Germany over all" is becoming a reality before our blitz blasted eyes. We are picking our politicians from a bad bunch that didn't get to be politicians except by the grace of God. But on the other hand how could God expect his prophecies to come true if politicians controlled events?

Back in the days of my 33rd year I just couldn't see things the way that I do now so I wouldn't expect anyone else to be able to avoid the same juvenile traps that I fell into.

I had never thought of myself as another Jolson. If anything I was intimidated by the sound of my own voice. It made me personally and permanently responsible for perpetuating the Jolson heritage and I didn't feel I was that good even though nobody else had ever had a natural voice that came as close to his as mine did. I found that I could never be myself, whoever that "myself" was since losing what I really wanted which was to be a slightly abnormal "showbizzy" sort of family man staying close to home and only singing on the side for extra money and the pleasure of singing for an appreciative audience as a local Al Jolson, "A big fish in a small pond." That was what I thought I was going to be in Canada where I could avoid the possibility of not being good enough for America.

Singing always gave me a special pleasure because it gave others pleasure too. Apart from my mother I just couldn't trust a women at that time to accept me for what I was. I had finally learned that just like men, women have their agendas too. With men it's action and mechanics, with women it's love and domesticity (or used to be) and the two agendas are not always compatible. Even as the movie 'Jolson Sings Again', opens there is a scripted explanation to read as 'Rockabye' plays in the background. Part of it says that Julie (a.k.a Ruby Keeler) is leaving Al because, 'a man with two loves cannot keep both. It's Her agenda versus His and he loses. Wel1 that was her screen version reason for leaving but the real truth was she didn't' t like Jolson in the end, or show business. She wanted a family of her own creating and a real home life. The rest of the movie showed us the lovable Jolson who found a woman who wanted all the things he wanted for himself. She made him happy and his happiness contented her. In reality Jolsons widow Erie liked and loved Al but was practical enough to fulfil her biological agenda and go on to marry Norman Krasna and have children with him after Jolson passed on. It's no sin to be incompatible in this selfish Age of Aquarius when few people are anything but. We are living in the early years of the, me first generation and it is infectious.