STRAPLINE OBITUARY
STRAP XXXXXXXXX OBITUARY
Golden Dreams of Yesterday Patricia Bredin 14 February 1935 – 13 August 2023
that Patricia was invited back time and time again. Her luck changed in the mid-1950s when, following a successful audition, she found herself joining the cast of Wedding In Paris at London’s Hippodrome Theatre. At the start of 1957, the BBC was looking for a female singer to perform All at the Festival of British Songs, and Patricia always said that she was discovered while performing in Free As Air . However, as the heats to choose the first United Kingdom entry for Eurovision commenced in January 1957,
while Free As Air did not open until June that same year, Patricia must have been mistaken unless, of course, the producer’s secretary who discovered her had access to either auditions or rehearsals. Whatever the truth of this situation, Patricia found herself performing All in the British final which, in a 2016 interview with the BBC, she claimed “nobody wanted to sing that terrible little song.” Winning the show, she was swiftly flown to Frankfurt where she competed alongside nine other acts although, when writing for Vision back in 2007,
Patricia Bredin, who held the honour of being the first singer to represent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest, has died at the age of 88. Born in South Wales but growing up in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, Patricia’s early life was one that included music. Attending the local Methodist Chapel, where she would learn to sing and become a member of the choir, her mother also made sure that the young girl attended piano lessons. Looking back on her life while writing My Fling On The Farm (1989), Patricia describes
attending these lessons for “seven long years” which her piano teacher probably felt was “seven thousand years”! Nonetheless, for most of her long life, she admitted to never being far from a piano, frequently playing classical and music hall favourites. After joining an amateur dramatic society, Patricia found that she could combine singing and acting within musical theatre and, soon after, won the Golden Voice award.The prize was her own radio broadcast appearance, with producers so impressed with her vocals
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AUTUMN 2023 ● VISION
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