Britain is a country which says "Happy Birthday" to Peter Noone and old men think back 50 years to when he sang with Herman's Hermits and all of them were young

Peter is 65 years old today and I beat him to it by 5 months and here we both are in our late teens almost 50 years ago.


Things you possibly didn't know about Peter, that he :

* went to a Stretford Grammar School near Manchester, studied 'voice and drama' at St Bede's College and Manchester School of Music, where he won the 'Outstanding Young Musician Award'.


* at the age of 15, he became the lead singer, spokesman, and frontman of 'Herman's Hermits' and at the age of 17 in May 1965, appeared on the cover of 'Time Magazine'.

* released 'I'm Into Something Good' in August 1964 when I was 17 and he 16
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxDh2sYQRpo

* took 'Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter' from a tv play called 'The Lads' I remember seeing, starring Tom Courtenay and released it in March 1965 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8k0VI9tBc and 'No Milk Today' the following October :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf1X3aEaUj0

*  was 19 with 'There's a Kind oh Hush' in February 1967 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjO6lAxYcxg and 21 when 'My Sentimental Friend' came in April 1969 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hXQpi2Cxy8

* saw "Oh! You Pretty Thing",  written by David Bowie, who also played piano on the track.peak at No.12 in the UK Singles Chart in 1971 when he was 21 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2wDYPQms78

* reprised  'No Milk Today' two years ago at the age of 63 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzy48yavs7Y&feature=related

An article in the 'Daily Mail' in March this year, which tarnished Peter's squeaky clean and wholesome teenage image, was entitled : Sex with groupies, boozing with the Stones - and in AA by 19: As he tours the UK, Peter Noone on being... Hardly a hermit! Peter was reported as saying :

"I did like to drink — I used to go out with Richard Harris and try to drink more than him. I used to love the Beatles and the Stones and I’d always want to hang out with them, even though they were about seven years older. We’d go to the Ad Lib club in London, and John Lennon would buy my drinks because he knew I was only 16 and I wouldn’t get drunk and try to beat someone up."

At 19, attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with his accountant father, who was also a heavy drinker and decided to stop and said : "I wouldn’t have classed myself as an alcoholic, but you have to be sensitive to people’s feelings and be able to do the job on stage, so after that I decided to cut down. I needed to do it for my own sake and haven’t touched a drop for about 16 years."