On the day of the concert, we arrived quite early and popped in to the hall, where Kenny Clayton, Petula’s Musical Director welcomed us and chatted, and we sat through the band’s warm up.

Petula came in, waved and gave us a smile and got on with the afternoon’s work, which was getting the sound levels right for that hall. (It’s apparently a very bad hall for acoustics.)

Then there were a couple of alterations made to chords in “Heaven’s Door”, and while, and they ran over it Pet was busy listening to the chords and kinda lost her place with the words… so she blew a raspberry into the mic. Then she sang “To Memphis, at the piano, to make sure that the mic was at the right level. It’s only the piano, which she is playing, for the first verse, and she sang a couple of lines and then said…”for God’s sake get the tempo right….” to herself. The band all laughed, as did we. She’s as funny off stage as she is with an audience.

After a bit more work, she saw the two children of the bass player, sitting down in the audience with us, and she started to talk to them, and make a fuss of them. She got them up on stage and let them sing into the mic. Busy woman, and international superstar, but not to busy for a couple of her bands’ kids. It’s always wonderful to see a real professional at work and it’s even more lovely when that person remains a real human being.

Afterwards, we went out into the town for a walk and to find somewhere to eat, and…. guess who was coming towards us….. Yes! A pretty woman with long blonde hair. I would never have stopped her to talk… this is her down time, and she doesn’t need groupies running after her, but she stopped and asked how we were…. Petula being Petula again.

What a truly lovely woman she is, not to mention a fantastic performer.

Her new album charted this week in the UK at #17, giving her a chart life of 54 years from “Little Shoemaker”, to “Now and Then”.

Can’t help it. I just love Petula.

THANK YOU DAVE, for a very welcome change of pace with your PET POST! Believe me, we all need a break from the saccharine bubblegum world of K3!