A STAR AT FOURTEEN

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXI, Issue 15211, 28 November 1942, Page 4

A STAR AT FOURTEEN

ENGLISH GIRL’S 'SUCCESS Joan Williams will have been heard singing with Jack Payne’s Band by many listeners to 8.8. C. overseas programmes. But few can have guessed quite how young she is. Fourteen years and a few months only! And her voice never been trained, Jean left her home-town, Cannock a hamlet in Staffordshire, on a not remote Friday and came to London to try her luck. Jack Payne gave her an audition, and then a •contract—to ‘start on Monday’. And so, though the only stage she had previously appeared on was her school concert platform, Jean faced a large and sophisticated audience from the stage of a London theatre. Her first song with the band was ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, and her soprano voice made an immediate l’-it. In school plays Jean did more dancing than singing, but sh e always hankered after singing with a dance orchestra. Though none of her family is musical, she always had a quick ear for a tune, and learnt songs from the wireless. She also liked designing Hie clothes for school productions. She is a natural quite unspoiled schoolgirl and hasn't yet thought about make-up or a ‘perm*. Her songs are suited to her age, and include ‘Daddy’s Sweetheart’, ‘Over the Rainbow'. Jack and Jill’, and—her favourite—‘Alice Blue Gown’. Jean isn’t sure yet whether she likes London better than Cannock. They’re so different is all she can say. But she’s sure she wants to go on singing and broadcasting with the band in London. Much hangs on Jean’s making a permanent success of her early-opened career, because Mrs Williams has left home to be with her young daughter, and Jean’s father has had to go back to bis mother, and take his eleven-years-old son with him.