The Intro

Yes, your eyes don’t deceive you, that’s two characters from a BBC sitcom, up there, at number 1. For three whole weeks in the long, hot summer of 1975, Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, stars of, ironically, the Jimmy Perry and David Croft comedy It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, ruled the hit parade with a trad-pop ballad from 1940.

Before

Thanks to their Second World War sitcom Dad’s Army, Perry and Croft were one of the most successful comedy writing duos of the 70s. Their second series set in the period, It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum had begun in 1974. Set in the fictional village of Tin Min in Burma during the last months of the conflict, and chronicling the exploits of a Royal Artillery concert party, Perry and Croft were recalling their own experiences in the war. It was another huge success, running until 1981, but you’ll probably never see it repeated ever again. There’s a fair bit of homophobia directed at camp character Gunner ‘Gloria’ Beaumont (Melvyn Hayes) and one actor, Michael Bates, blacked-up to portray Indian Bearer Rangi Ram.

The most enduring character was Windsor Davies’ Battery Sergeant Major Tudor Bryn ‘Shut Up’ Williams, an imposing, ferocious officer, who hated how his troop were stage performers. So much so, he would often call them a ‘bunch of poofs’. Among his victims was Don Estelle’s diminutive Gunner ‘Lofty’ Harold Horace Herbert Willy Sugden, but even Sergeant Major Williams could not help but enjoy Lofty’s lovely tenor voice.

Davies was born in Canning Town, London on 28 August 1930, but the family returned to their roots in the Welsh village of Nant-y-Moel in 1940. After he left school he worked as a coal miner before undergoing National Service in Libya and Egypt between 1950 and 1952. He then moved into teaching but also got the acting bug, performing amateur dramatics before turning professional in 1961. He had his first film role in 1962 in The Pot Carriers, and television roles followed, often as figures of authority, and was a paid heavy in the Doctor Who story “The Evil of the Daleks” in 1967, and was a sailor in The Onedin Line in 1971.

When Davies got the job on It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, he based Sergeant Major Williams on his superiors during National Service. With his catchphrases of ‘Shut up!’, ‘Hello lovely boy’ and ‘Oh dear, how sad, never mind’, Davies somehow made a complete bastard rather lovable. When a cast spin-off album was made, putting Davies and Estelle together was a natural decision as they spent four years touring the clubs as a duo before they became famous.

Estelle was born Ronald Edwards on 22 May 1933 in Crumpsall, Manchester. At the age of eight he was evacuated to Darwen, Lancashire to escape the German bombing of the city. In Darwen he found his voice and became a boy soprano at his new local church, and continued to sing at his old one when he returned home. He joined local charity group the Manchester Minstrels and took part in a BBC Radio talent show in 1954. It was while working as a warehouse manager by day and performing in clubs by night that he first met Davies.

On days off he worked as an extra for Granada Television and made his TV debut throwing darts on Coronation Street. Arthur Lowe, then a regular on the soap, suggested to Estelle that he should contact Perry and Croft, and as a result he landed a bit part in Dad’s Army in 1969, returning a year later for several episodes. Measuring only 4ft 9, Estelle was the perfect man to cast for the ironically nicknamed Lofty, and next to the towering Davies, they made for a great mismatched pair.

Whispering Grass was a near-faithful cover of The Ink Spots version from 1940, but it was originally recorded by Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra. Fred Fisher, a Tin Pan Alley songwriter, wrote it with his daughter Doris. 

Review

This is understandably considered a novelty number 1, and is certainly a weird idea, especially for anyone not around at the time. However, once I got past Davies’ in-character recital of some of the lyrics, I was pleasantly surprised. Estelle really does have a lovely voice, and other than Davies popping up again in the middle briefly (and is he helping with the backing vocals?), it’s played completely straight and is very similar to The Ink Spots version. It’s a sweet, endearing tune, and it took me back to the early days of this blog when most of the songs I covered were of this ilk. Lovely, boys.

After

Such was the popularity of their Whispering Grass, the duo followed it up with a cover of The Mills Brothers’ Paper Doll, which just missed out on a chart placing. They also recorded a full album together, Sing Lofty, in 1976.

While It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum was at the peak of its popularity, drawing in audiences of 17 million, Davies also starred in Carry On Behind (1975) and Carry On England (1976), where he played… yes, another comically angry Sergeant Major. He also had a role in the 1978 Welsh rugby film Grand Slam.

Such was the unmistakably rich quality of Davies’ voice, he had no shortage of voiceover work when It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum ended in 1981. I will have likely first heard his dulcet tones on the children’s sci-fi series Terrahawks (1983), where he played… a sergeant major. He also provided voices in Paul McCartney’s Rupert and the Frog Song (1984) and an advert for Cadbury’s Wispa. From 1981 to 1991 he starred alongside Donald Sinden in the ITV sitcom Never the Twain, and in 1997 appeared in an episode of another Perry and Croft sitcom, Oh Doctor Beeching!. Davies retired in 2014 and moved to the south of France with his wife. He died on 17 January 2019, aged 88.

Estelle fared less well. After It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum was axed, he starred in a BBC adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and had small roles in the films A Private Function (1984) and Santa Claus: The Movie (1985). He formed Don Estelle Music Publishing and released cassettes of his recordings on his Lofty label for years to come, but disappeared into obscurity.

He cut a rather tragic figure towards the end of his life, performing in his Lofty outfit in shopping centres beside his tapes, and was understandably bitter, but perhaps unreasonable, that his most famous role would never be shown on TV again in repeats. There was a return to the small screen for him though, thanks to his appearance as Little Don in early episodes of The League of Gentlemen in 1999. In 2001 he played a dirty old man in Page 3 girl Jo Hicks’s cover of The Benny Hill Show theme Yakety Sax.

The Outro

Estelle spent the last few years of his life living in New Zealand, but he returned to the UK weeks before his death. He needed a liver transplant but was too ill to undergo it, and he died in Rochdale Infirmary on 2 August 2003. He was buried with the oversized pith helmet he wore as Lofty.

The Info

Written by

Fred & Doris Fisher

Producer

Walter J Ridley

Weeks at number 1

3 (7-27 June)

Trivia

Births

19 June: Rower Ed Coode

Deaths

27 June: Conservative MP Arthur Salter, 1st Baron Salter

Meanwhile…

8 June: Peter Samuel Cook, aka The Cambridge Rapist, was arrested after stabbing a young woman at a nurses’ hostel.

9 June: Parliament proceedings are broadcast on radio for the first time.

13 June: UEFA places a three-year ban on Leeds United from European competitions following the behaviour of their fans at last month’s European Cup final.

14 June: West Midlands Ambulance crews stage a ban on non-emergency calls in a dispute over pay and hours.

17 June: Leeds United lodge an appeal against their ban from European competitions.

19 June – A coroner’s court jury returns a verdict of wilful murder and names Lord Lucan as the murderer in the inquest on Sandra Rivett, the nanny who was found dead at his wife’s home in London seven months previously.