BIOGRAPHIES OF MATT MONRO. [ BRITAINS GREAT SINGER]

MATT MONRO, BRITAIN'S GREATEST SINGER

It is now over 20 years since cancer claimed the life of a man regarded overwhelmingly by his peers as the greatest singer of popular songs Britain has produced. Yet this man, whose ability was praised by everyone from Sinatra and Bing Crosby, to The Beatles' producer, Sir George Martin, remains something of an enigma. So what sort of a man was it then whose exquisite talent earned him international respect and admiration from within a profession rife with self aggrandizement, where praise for one's rivals is rare?

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The late, great Matt Monro was born on 1st December 1930 (real name Terence Edward Parsons) in Shoreditch, London, the youngest of five children- four boys and a girl. Young Terence was soon to learn about adversity as, having lost his father when he was 3 years old, the resultant deterioration in his mother, Alice's, health necessitated his being placed in a foster home, along with his brother Harry, the second youngest child. The easy going, grace under pressure, which was to epitomise his character in later years, seems to have somehow served him well in early childhood, as he coped well in these difficult formative years; indeed he would subsequently come to regard them as a valuable lesson in toughening him up for adult life.

Not that young Terry Parsons was a saint. Leaving school at fourteen- an act that seems less damaging when one considers the paltry amount of time he would, through truanting, actually spend there- he took a variety of unskilled jobs in factories and on building sites. He also worked as a baker's roundsman and a milkman; it is easy to envisage the diminutive, cheeky faced young Cockney cheerfully delivering his wares, and chatting to Mums and Dads on the doorsteps of post war north London.

But the restless and adventurous young man knew what he really wanted from life. He wanted to travel and see something of the world for himself. And what better way to do that than to enlist in the forces, where he could also acquire a trade? Aged just 17 (a fact that he was apparently less than frank with the authorities about) he joined the R.E.M.E.(Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers). Stationed initially in the U.K. he passed a mechanics course and an advanced driving exam. After 2 years service he was posted to Hong Kong as a mechanic and tank instructor, and he stayed there for 3 years.