4: Gordon Mills

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"We had these two managers called Meirion and Byron. They were both Welsh boys. And they wanted to become song writers so they were managing us and trying to get these songs away, you know, trying to get a record contract for us.

"And then Gordon Mills showed up, he came to visit his mother in Tonypandy, because that is where he is from. And a friend of ours, Johnny Bennett, and Gordon Jones, grew up with Gordon Mills, they went to school with him. So when he came to visit his mother, Johnny Bennett said to me, 'Gordon Mills is coming home this weekend, to see his mother, so I'll get him to come and see you in the club'.

"So I was singing with The Senators in this club in Cwmtillery called the Top Hat club. It sounds very posh, but it wasn't! So we were playing there and Gordon with his wife came and saw the show. When he saw it, or heard me singing he said, 'My God, you should be in London.' And I said, I understand that, but who do I talk to when I get there? And he said that he would help me.

"He wasn't thinking about management at that time. But he said he was writing songs for Leeds Music, a music publishing company, and he would do whatever he could. He called me another night and said that he was thinking about management. He said he'd never managed anybody before, because he was singing with a group called The Viscounts up to that point, and he had had some success with writing songs.

"He wrote I'll Never Get Over You for Johnny Kidd and The Pirates, and he wrote a song for Cliff Richard which escapes me at the moment. But anyway, Cliff had a hit with one of Gordon's songs so he was doing well as a songwriter.

"So he said he would like to manage me if I was up for it. And I said, yes, definitely. Because I knew who Gordon Mills was, I'd seen him on television, so I knew that he knew what he was talking about. He wasn't one of those guys that said he could do something and when he couldn't. I mean, I knew this man could."