Stan Foster recalls the early days - his own words

 I want to start at 1952, I’d just finished 15 months of happy, interesting and quite lucrative employment with a group of singers who were very famous at that time, called the Merrymacs. They used to appear in a lot of ‘road’ movies made with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. They were the first ever four-part singing group with a girl leading three men, and they where very big. There were several other at that time; The MellowTones and the Stargazers but the Merrymacs set the path and they showed the way.

 With them I toured the major cities of this country and appeared with them on radio and television, I also made records with them for British and American release. After I became their Musical Director we topped the bill at the London Palladium. The fifteen months I spent with the Merrymacs gave me a tremendous insight into show business from the top of the bill point of view. I accompanied them on their farewell tour of such places as Cannes and Monaco where we performed for Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly.

So I returned to this country after leaving them and I had a nice few quid in the bank, a lot of souvenirs and great plans for my future in British show business. After all I had just completed a very successful run with what was the world’s leading singing group. Although they wanted me to go back to Hollywood with them, I thought that it was time to make my mark in this country if I could.

 Cyril Stapleton was running a very successful orchestra called the BBC Show Band. I was booked to supply an entirely different sounding orchestra for radio, opposite The Show Band for a period of eight weeks. I recall spending three weeks preparing the music library for this project.

 In the meantime a certain young lady was preparing an act for her first ever engagement on the theatre circuit. She had to prepare her own music, get it orchestrated and played by the rather strange sounding pit orchestra which accompanied theatre artists in those days.

  I didn’t know this girl of course and quite frankly at that stage I wouldn’t have really been interested in someone whose name was so small down the bill that it made the telephone number of the booking office look big!

 However, my own rehearsals went well and we started to do the broadcasts which commenced at 10 pm on Friday nights. These were performed in front of a live audience and broadcast simultaneously - if you make a mistake - tough luck!

 After the second or third week, that certain young lady had heard all of my broadcasts; she was able to do this as she was so low on the bill, having done 2 shows and in and out by 9.30. She would then go back to her digs, eat her meal and go to bed and listen to the radio.

It appeared that I made a pretty big impression on her when she heard me play. She drove everyone mad over the next couple of weeks asking to become a guest singer with the band. There was a guest singer each week and although Alma was known at the BBC through the ‘Gently Bentley’ radio series she was not considered as guest star material.

 However, when she wanted something really badly enough she usually got it and the BBC relented and she got the booking - and that’s how I first got to meet Alma Cogan.

 I remember being very impressed with her style and with her voice and knocked out by her personality as most people were. We had a meal together later that evening and Alma talked of her ambitions. I must admit that I was really enjoying her company and I was really flattered when she told me that the prime reason why she pushed for that particular broadcast was to meet me.

 I was not too happy when she proposed that as a result of our meeting that her intention was to persuade me to become her Musical Director. You’ve got to remember that I was getting well known in the music business, I had just been voted the second best pianist in the Melody Maker poll and I was beginning to get good work and the money which goes with that type of work. I had played with most of the big name bands of that era and arranged musical scores for them also and had a weekly radio broadcast for the BBC and things were really beginning to take off for me.

 Alma wanted me to give it all up and become her MD! Alma knew all of this of course and that was why she wanted me! She knew, she just absolutely knew that she was going places. Alma only wanted the best of everything and she wanted what she considered the Best Musical Director.

 But praise of that description from someone like Alma was such, at even that stage, it didn’t matter how good I thought I was, there was something about her that made me stop and listen. She was so sincere about it. that after a time I started to think that it may not be a bad idea. I was still sort of hedging my bets and asked her what sort of work she had lined up and most important - what she was going to pay me!

 She was just finishing that short theatre tour and was negotiating a 10-week summer tour which she hoped was practically fixed up. She was also negotiating a new recording contract although that wouldn’t involve me because EM1 had their own Musical Directors.

. Imagine that then,no work at that moment but perhaps there could be a summer tour and I won't be on any of the records - which made me smile a little. When Alma told me the way she had in mind to pay me - I really  did have a laugh then! She was getting very little money herself then, due to being so low down on the the bill. So I couldn’t see much, if anything in it for me. The outcome was this: we wouldn't have much money coming in, there would be pretty grotty cheap digs to stay in when we went away - but due to Alma’s persuasive powers, from that night on - I was her new Musical Director.

 During the next few weeks we spent a lot of time rehearsing and writing most of her musical arrangements, then one Sunday morning I met Alma at Paddington Station and we set off for  Llandudno where we had to do the first week of that summer tour.

 I always remember that first journey as everything seemed to go wrong. First of all the promised restaurant car turned out to be one of those snack bar affairs - cold curly cheese sandwiches, luke warm tea and that type of thing. Then when we got back we’d lost our seats (I got them back though!) We had to leave the express train and complete the last 12 miles of the journey to LIandudno by a suburban train. Unfortunately we caught the wrong train and ended up going the wrong way. Bv the time we realised this and got off at some obscure Welsh town, it was too late for a return train. We had to complete the journey to LIandudno in a very ancient taxi. Naturally when we did eventually arrive it was very late.

When we found the boarding house which Alma was staying in, it was obvious that she didn’t like it at all. I left her there moaning and groaning a bit and promised to return as soon as possible. Then I found the really grotty digs I was staying at, no way was I staying there. Back I went and rescued Alma and we found a nice hotel which cost a lot more but it was clean and comfortable - the reserve of money was being eaten into heavily from day one.

The following morning we had to go to the theatre for band call and to see our dressing rooms. Though in those days a band call involved the artist getting to the theatre as early as possible and placed their band books in a line across the stage in front of the footlights.  Then when the pit orchestra and the conductor came in about 12 o’clock the person first in the line with their books rehearsed first.

 It was here that we learned our first important lesson in theatre procedures - get to band call very early!! Be first or second in line otherwise you have to wait around for ages.

 That day we were not at all early and ended up well down the list. Although we knew that pit orchestras were notoriously bad, I wasn’t prepared for what horrible noise that would come from that particular orchestra pit. We found out that the trombonist couldn’t read music and that he couldn’t attend rehearsals because he was a grave digger by day!

 After we eventually did our rehearsal we went to look for our dressing rooms. Now it was a small seaside theatre and pretty horrible at that. Alma was second on the bill and had dressing room no 8 (on the third door). It was so small that even with just Alma and I stood in it - we were a crowd. Even in those days she had big dresses and there was just no room to hang them up, except one.

 We decided that maybe we could hang some up in my dressing room. Alma had designated me as her Musical Director but to the theatre management I was only the piano player of some pretty obscure girl singer at the bottom of the bill -1 didn’t rate a dressing room - and I didn’t get one! I had to get changed before I came to the theatre, it was a bit peculiar walking to the theatre in full evening dress through happy crowds of holiday makers - I was pretty embarrassed.

 The problem was solved, as Alma decided which two gowns she would wear each evening and bring them with her from the boarding house to the theatre. She would keep one dress at the theatre permanently in case of emergency.

 That particular show was relatively successful and was purely a variety show consisting of artists performing their acts and we stayed together as a unit and travelled together to the 10 different seaside resorts and we made some good friends amongst the cast of that show.

 Freddie Frinton and Bill Maynard were on the bill, but this was before Freddie had developed his’ Sugar in the morning’ act with the broken cigarette which was so memorable. At this time I bought an old Austin Goodwood car, an old banger which served Alma and I very well indeed. It was old and slow but big and comfortable with lots of space for Alma’s dresses which even then were becoming quite an attraction. I have to confirm now, that contrary to popular myth, Alma never, ever made any of her stage gowns, even from the very beginning but she did design them all though.

 At the end of that summer I decided to stay with Alma as her MD, although I wasn’t still to conduct her records, a privilege that went to Frank Cordell at the time along with Geoff Love and Brian Fahy. That was my first tour with Alma and set the really strong foundations between Alma and myself and of course her future career.