People
The Interview Words: Amy Ritchie Layout: Jack Hutton Brookfield Work Experience Students
Upon a chance encounter at a Count Arthur Strong gig, I stumbled across the 70s variety entertainer Bernie Clifton and decided to find out a little more about the man behind the bird.
B
ernie, who started off singing in bathrooms as a 15 year old plumber, has done many rather interesting things over the course of his life, such as working with Lulu, being a door to door vacuum salesman, appearing on The Voice, and entertaining the Queen. Most people, however, know him for his roles in 70s TV shows Crackerjack and The Good Old Days, and his big yellow ostrich called Oswald which, according to Bernie, 'keeps getting slower'!
"Well I just stood there and I opened my mouth and started to sing, and this hush fell upon the audience" Page 4 www.s40local.co.uk
He appeared on The Voice last year after a life-long love affair with singing, which manifested itself after he got a job as a plumber. “When I was a lad, growing up in St. Helens, I was a plumber, and I was working on building sites in bathrooms. I used to sing my little heart out as a fifteen year old thinking ooh I've got to sing, and I could always sing, I was always a good singer, so that's why I started, I was singing singing singing, and then ultimately the comedy and the nonsense just arrived later.” Eventually, this led him to the stage, where as a 15 year boy, he got his first break in front of an audience. “The first time I got up on stage, it was a talent contest in St Helens, at the Theatre Royal, and I went along there with my mate Bernard, Moggie Moor he was called, he was Bernard Moor, and I was Bernard Quinn still am Bernard Quinn, and we sat on the front row, I was 15.” “The show was all about getting people out of the audience, and we were up on the stage like greyhounds out the slips. Bernard Moor held a mophead and pretended it was his girlfriend and told me to sing.” “Well I just stood there and I opened my mouth and started to sing, I could feel the goosebumps on the