On Monday 14th October 1940, Dorothy Webb gave birth to a nine pound boy who would eventually go on to be described as the boy who's going to rock the world.
Harry Rodger Webb was born in The King's English Hospital in Lucknow due to the lack of major hospitals in Dehra Dun, and was due to be christened 'Rodger Harry' upon his return to the town. However, Cliff's godmother voiced her preference for 'Harry Rodger' at the actual Christening, which took place at St Thomas' Church, and that was the name he was very hastily christened with.
A brief history about his parents - Rodger Webb marries Dorothy Dazely : 26 April, 1939
His relatives came to India from as part of the taskforce needed to
build a system of railways that would transform the country, and hers
left the mother country as soldiers.
In 1936 Dorothy first met the man who was to become her husband when
Rodger Webb came to visit his sister who lived in the apartment above
her family's in the town of Asansol.
He was thirty-one and
she was sixteen, but despite
this significant age difference, and the fact Rodger was based in the
far away town of Howrah,
they fell in love and for three years stayed in contract mostly through
letters.
On 26 April 1939 Rodger and Dorothy were married at St
Paul's Church, Asansol. They soon moved north-west to
Dehra Dun where they
were soon to start a family.
Harry
starts school : September, 1946
The boy who would eventually go on to become Cliff Richard started school
at St Thomas' Church School in Church Road, Howrah.
One of his family servants, Habib, used to bring his
lunch every day to the school, which was laid out among stands of banana
trees. Harry's best friend was a boy named Lal who spoke no English,
and thus all of their conversations were in Hindi which he was being taught
at school after some preliminary lessons from his father.
The Webb's leave for England : 24 August, 1948
After World War II ended, life in India, which had been
promised home rule by Britain for its wartime efforts, began to change
forever.
When independence became a genuine possibility, old religious feuds between
Hindus and Moslems began to rise to the surface, and violence began to
erupt on the streets around 1946. English nationals living in
India were also becoming the target of violence, and Harry's
mother Dorothy was being hassled while shopping with Indians shouting
'Go back to England white woman.' A frightened young Harry would
scream back 'Leave her alone. She's my mummy.'
During a period of intense rioting, a nearby family of Moslems were killed,
with the only survivor a young boy who they could see hiding in
his garden. They kept him alive by dropping food parcels from
their window every night until Dorothy's uncle, a Calcutta Policeman,
could be called. This experience shook the young family tremendously,
and when the police arrived to collect the boy with flesh visibly hanging
off the tracks of the car they decided they had to leave.
Initially Rodger wanted to take his family to Australia, but Dorothy convinced
him that they should move to England where her mother and other relatives
lived. So on Saturday 21 of August they boarded a train to Bombay
where, three days later, they boarded a P&O passenger liner called
the Ranchi.
At 6am on Monday 13 September, the Ranchi arrived at
Tilbey Docks in the UK. After a charmed existence in
India, the Webbs would now struggle to afford even the basics and having
to sleep on mattresses at the houses of various relatives. They would
have to wait until April 1951 before they were awarded a council house
of their own in the working class town of Cheshunt.
One Saturday
in May 1956, Harry was walking with some friends in Waltham Cross
when he heard a sound that would change his life forever.
That noise was Elvis Presley singing Heartbreak
Hotel blaring from the radio of a parked Citroen which
quickly zoomed off, leaving the teenagers fascinated by a sound unlike
any they'd heard before.
Cliff later said 'The first time I heard Elvis' voice I thought of it
as a sound or an instrument. I had never heard anyone sing like that before...When
I heard Elvis the next step for me was to try to do it.'
A
concert which would further ignite Cliff's interest in becoming
a rock'n'roll star was the
Bill Haley concert at the Regal in Edmunton in March 1957 around the time
his film Rock Around The Clock was causing a sensation in Britain.
Harry and his friends skipped school
to buy the tickets and some, including Harry, were stripped
of their prefect badges for the offense. The concert, however, electrified
them all with Cliff saying in 1960 'This,
I think, was when I knew what I wanted to do above everything else in
the world.'
The final stage in Cliff's metamorphosis from local rock'n'roll hero to national icon would be his appearance on Jack Good's revolutionary television series Oh Boy!
After being struck by the b-side of Cliff and the Drifters new single,
Jack agreed to hear the group audition for a new series of his rock'n'roll
show. He was further struck by Cliff's performance, but made alterations
which were to help mould him into the superstar he was to become.
Firstly, he eradicated Cliff sideburns and stopped him
from playing the guitar on stage because he felt that this made
him appear an Elvis impersonator rather than a fresh new talent.
Jack also worked on building up a stage act for Cliff, instructing him
to tilt his head up and raise his eyes to the camera, and also to suddenly
grab at his arm 'as if stuck with a hypodermic syringe'. It was also here
that Cliff premièred his famous pink jacket.
While Marty Wilde remained the star of the show for the first week, by
the second week Move It had entered the charts at No.12 and he was causing
a sensation with the Daily Sketch asking 'Is
this boy too sexy for television?'
My comments : We had most of his songs in our collection - "Summer Holiday", Bachelor Boy", "Lucky Lips"....nice voice.
Had got a touch of India- espcially Kolkata - where his parents fell in love - some Indian spirit - deep rooted in culture & tradition , who knows the essence of purity, love & peace - must have entered his Mother's womb...the reason why his songs are so very romantic and full of positive love !
Also , seen from a Britisher's point of view, the India - Pakisthan separation and the war of independence was'nt a very successful move ...as if we look around India nowadays, most people who have money are dying to look and dress up like foreigners, make their skins fair like the Britishers...and try only to speak their language ! Why was so much blood shed done then in order to drive them away ?
Mother India must have purposely attracted the foreigners by showing them her resources....so that they could modernise India...which otherwise was being ruled over by frustrated, pot bellied, alcoholic, romantically inclined to the courtesans, non-trust- worthy (Auranzeb who imprisoned his own father) rulers ! Really well said by seers: Whatever happens, happens for good !