My autograph book was a simple possession which gave me lots of pleasure wherever I took it as a child.

It went with me on annual holidays to Blackpool where I visited the star-studded shows and stood outside many stage doors. My fascination with the world of show business grew, as did my collection of autographs.

One of my first star signatures was singing celebrity Alma Cogan, who was raising money on Blackpool Promenade for polio and inviting people to make a line of pennies along
the Golden Mile.

Blackpool’s famous organist, Reginald Dixon and Irish tenor, Josef Locke, were added to my collection, as were comedians Charlie Chester and the mischievous little rascal Jimmy Clitheroe who, I was surprised to discover, had wrinkles and was not the small boy he looked on stage. There was Stan Stennett and Arthur Haynes, who unintentionally pocketed my pen, Bob Monkhouse and the timeless Max Bygraves.

But I caused popular comedienne/singer Joan Turner to leave the audience of the Sooty Show at the Queen’s Theatre after I got her autograph. She told a friend: “Tell Harry the kids are out.”

The Queens Theatre in Blackpool was demolished to makeway for a C&A store while another beautiful old theatre, the Palace, was to share a similar fate. It was there I saw a show which starred Marion Ryan, the Dallas Boys and another newcomer, who bumped into me at the stage door. The pleasant young man in dark glasses, who apologised, was heading for bigger things. Roy Castle rode off that night on his bike destined to be one of our much-loved all-round entertainers.

Another favourite whose death in the Sixties was untimely was Michael Holliday whose autograph was added to my collection when he appeared at the Blackpool Hippodrome together with Winifred Atwell and the Kaye Sisters. This was the first of several meetings with Mike, who always seem so modest. When signing a photo, he would say: “Why did you waste your money on this?”

I followed Mike’s career and shows with enthusiasm, but, sadly, he could not cope with fame and took his own life in the early Sixties.

As I became a little older, I still obtained the occasional autograph. Vince Hill was 25, a singer on Radio’s Parade of the Pops, the popular lunch-time programme, featuring Bob Miller and the Millermen, broadcast live from the Playhouse Theatre in Whitehall.

This was first of numerous visits to the show and meeting Vince was the first of many with him over the years.

Manchester United ‘Busby Babe’ footballer Tommy Taylor, who lived close to my grandparents, was an early entry, prior to his untimely death in the Munich air disaster in 1958.

Pat Boone, Connie Francis, Victor Silvester, Jim Dale – and others, famous and not so famous, went into the book. How it recaptures happy memories of a simple pastime!

Pamela Watford