THE STORY OF HIS LIFE

Pete Nelson remembers the singer Michael Holliday

- Pete Nelson

To most people, Michael Holliday was the epitome of relaxation. His deep baritone voice, casual persona and easy smile were his trademarks. He had a tremendously successful recording career, including two No 1 singles, a popular television show, and he headlined package shows all around the country as well as topping the bill in summer season shows.

He had everything going for him, or so the public thought. However, behind his relaxed image, Michael found life in the public gaze too hard to handle, every public appearance terrified him and even his studio recording sessions were an ordeal of nerves and self-doubt.

Michael was two different personalities: one side of him loved the acclaim and fame his singing brought him he had a big house in Surrey, a loving and beautiful wife, horses in his paddock, and a big American car - but the other side of him still longed for the anonymity of his early life at sea and the solitude of his young days in his home town of Liverpool. The conflict of his two personalities ended in tragedy with his death in 1963 at the age of just 38.

He was born in the Kirkdale district of Liverpool on 26 November 1924, the second child of Cissie and Robert with the birth name Norman Alexander Milne. Little did his parents know that young Norman was to grow up to be so musically gifted that he would be compared to the world's most popular and listened-to singer of the time, Bing Crosby.

It was by chance that Norman discovered the voice of Crosby while still a schoolboy, when he overheard a recording at his best friend's house. He listened to the song time and time again whenever he visited the house. After a succession of jobs - tailor's apprentice, milkman, butcher's boy and market trader - Norman followed his brother into the merchant navy, before joining the Royal Navy in 1942.