Chapter 9 High Noone

Pete Novac and the Heartbeats

By Peter Noone

The beginning.

Somehow my school decided that we needed a trip to Africa on a ship.

Not only was this ship a school ship, along with classrooms, teachers and blackboards, but this floating school also featured a brand new item which none of the English grammar school twits (of which I was undoubtedly the twittish) had encountered since we had left Junior school at age 11. Girls of the opposite sex. It was 1961, and I was allowed (nay sent) on this cruise by my loving parents.

Before we set sail on this adventure, I have to own up, and tell you that until this fateful trip, I had thought to one day be a Flying Doctor, or a priest. That would have made my Mum very happy. At school, I was still the perfect little student, and still can recall that fateful day when Anthony Sanders won something, and that was the very first time I had ever been number two. Yes I was a swat, a Mummy’s boy, the perfect gentleman, and of course all the teachers loved me.

I have never really got over the incredible gut wrenching feeling in Mr. Morale’s class at English Martyrs, on that fateful day, when the mathematics results were read out and I had heard “First place Anthony Sanders”. I was flabbergasted. I had let down generations of Blairs and Noones (I am Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone, which includes the names of every member of my family of course. Not knowing quite how to act in second place, I immediately decided to befriend Master Sanders to see what he had, and if I needed it. Do you see who I was now? Yes. Him. Awful little brat student.

I said to myself, “If I can’t be number one, then I will cry.”

Now here I am on a cruise ship with girls. Of course I am a horrid little perfectly dressed brat, and my Mum and Dad have shipped me off to sea with all the trappings to ensure that I will be hated by everyone who has even half of a brain. Half the students on this ship are above average intelligence.

Until this trip, I truly thought that all girls were like my sister Denise’s friends. My sister was of course perfect and had a statuette of St. Theresa implanted onto her forehead, which glowed in the night. But, she had horrible giddy girlfriends who dressed up as if they were desperate to catch any boy’s attention who was above the age of 15, as long as he had a lower IQ than that.

As I sauntered around the deck on my first day of the cruise to Africa, in my totally ridiculous cruise wear, I espied the girl of my dreams.

Having heard my sister and her girlfriends tell stories of how boys were incredibly lame, and all they did was nudge each other and tell each other what they would do if they ever got a dance, I decided to go up to Cinderella and say hello. Actually what I really said was “Er hello.”

She was completely bowled over by the brilliance of my opening line, and the way I casually said “Er”, just like Cary Grant. This made it impossible for her to resist me and she came straight back at me with “Hello”. I had had some small success with Gaynor Wilkinson when I was 8,Josie Richardson age 9, and Watsername for a couple or very serious years, and suddenly it all came rushing back. I knew how to do this courting thing.

Suddenly I was on autopilot and even without thinking I heard myself , “Where are you from?”

That was always a good one if you weren’t talking to someone you went to school with.

She was from the Potteries .One of the most glamorous places on the planet and near Stoke on Trent, home of the... er... Trent. As I took her hand and shyly walked around the deck with her, (hey the boat was rocking and I had my new blazer on), many of the older boys from my school and lots of the girls from the other schools, noticed us, and being envious of the fact that we had only been on the boat for 16 minutes and were already holding hands sent shock waves through the vessel. Girls giggled, boys nudged.

That night I took her behind the lifeboat and gave her a great kissing. She never opened her mouth. Al Rogerson told all, and suddenly I was the most popular boy in school. Boys 2 years older than me began talking to me. Girls of the opposite sex smiled at me and said things behind their hands about me. A girl came up to me in the cafeteria and said her friend Margaret had a crush on me. Had my new lover told everyone how good a kisser I was? Or was it my brilliance in the deck quoits competition.Was it my perfect legs which my grandma joked about looking like two matchsticks?

I swore my undying love for my first real girlfriend, and thought about her every single second of the day and night and even when I was asleep. She was my girlfriend. She was also my trophy. My life changed on that cruise. I got drunk and had a blackout Portugal with some of the older cool types (ha) and woke up in the showers with the whole of my class looking into the shower stall as I allowed them revenge for getting the prettiest girl in the world to kiss me.

Sadly, I lost contact with the girl who changed my life that time. On my return to civilization I made it quite clear to everyone that I was reborn, and that I was in fact now a bit of a scoundrel, and would be happy to give any boy in my school tips on how to get fabulous women or girls to fall in love with him. I took to riding my bike to Urmston Girls High School although I was only 13 and looked 12, and waited to walk home with Angela Denner, or Mags Vasey, or anyone who thought that I was cooler than the boys that they already knew.

One night my friend Campbell Latchford showed me Maggie Woods and my life took on a new purpose. In order to impress this incredible babe, I would need to do all kinds of rebellious things. I got cigarettes, a lot of hair glue from Trugel, and a jacket that was about 3 inches from the floor and the tightest trousers you ever saw.These I hid behind the garage wall and changed into them whenever I knew my parents had left for work. I also began to take my portable record player and all my records, and we would meet under a bridge near Maggie Woods house to dance or not. Mostly not.

I was hooked on girls who weren’t like my sister, which was all of them. My sister you will recall, had the plastic statue of Saint Theresa implanted onto her forehead. These girls were Protestants too.

At this time I began my part time job as a disc jockey at the El Rio. I had no microphone, but played all the best American hits of the period, and did what could be loosely called dances. Loosely called dances. I used to get requests for odd songs as the audience were mostly Persian students from Manchester University.

Babes I think they were known as at the university. I got requests from a few blokes too, but after glaring and looking incredibly machismo as I danced with their big sisters, they quickly saw that I was useless for their type of work.

One night, it came upon me to wander down (on my bike) to Hartford Youth Club, to see what records they were playing, and to see if any girls there had not yet had the pleasure of meeting me. On stage that night as usual were the Heartbeats.

Keith Hopwood, Alan Wrigley, Karl Green and Steve Titterington. Their singer Malcolm had not shown up, and Alan Wrigley, knowing I knew every song in their repertoire (and that I had been in a bedroom band known as the Cyclones), asked me to do a few songs with them. I got up and shyly sang “I’ll never dance again” which was a b-side of a Bobby Rydell hit, and I suddenly realized that this was what I needed to do. They asked me to stop after a few songs but I would not. I noticed that some of the girls watched me when I was singing which was a bit embarrassing but I soldiered on anyway. Keith Hopwood and Al Wrigley asked me to join the band, and Al Wrigley helped me change my name to Pete Novac.

At this time I had a sort of hidden career as a TV star in Coronation Street and odd little TV series, but in those days nobody under 30 ever watched TV, unless their Mum made them when they were baby sitting, so I was a fresh new face on the rock scene.

We were not very good at first, but Keith and I both had similar tastes in music, and Al Wrigley was a good hustler. Steve’s Mum allowed us to rehearse in the front room of their house, and on our bikes, we began the wonderful adventure.

Chapter 9 High Noone

Pete Novac and the Heartbeats

The beginning.

—Peter Noone

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