Depression that drove Hank Marvin to the brink
The Shadows star reveals how ‘black holes’ have plagued him for years ... and made him think of ending it all
HANK Marvin was always the j oker i n the pack. Eternally cheerful, his eyes t winkling behind his trademark heavy glasses, he could always keep Cliff Richard and the rest of the Shadows laughing. He diffused many a bad-tempered backstage spat.
Ever-smiling Hank was the perfect foil to the coolly urbane Cliff, volatile Jet Harris, affable Bruce Welch and taciturn Tony Meehan and later Brian Bennett.
However, it wasn’t always like that, he reveals. He’s had to fight depression and is only just recovering from the most recent bout, which he describes as ‘the toughest time I have ever been through’.
This hit him just before last Christmas. ‘I had to have surgery for something — I don’t want to go into the reason — but if I hadn’t had it, it could have been lifethreatening. I was warned it can bring on depression and put on medication because it got really bad. So I sought help and it worked and it’s pretty much gone now.
‘I had no idea what was going on in my mind and my son Ben said to my wife, “Mum, don’t worry, he’s nuts!”’, as if by dismissing my behaviour like that I was excused everything’.
‘My motivation had all gone and there were incredible black holes I would go into and strange thoughts going through my mind. They loom large, then you start saying things which are upsetting to people.
‘There was one day, the thought did cross my mind, should this go on? I wouldn’t say I was suicidal, but I thought maybe it would be better not to be here at all.
‘But my instinct for self-preservation kicked in and said, “Now you are talking through your bum! There are too many people you care for and care for you”.
‘Normally I am a very upbeat person. I see humour in lots of things, I enjoy life enormously, I enjoy people. So it was a completely new set of circumstances to go through something like that.
‘But it wasn’t there all the time. It would go in and out. I’d have a really bad day, or couple of days, then it would be all right for a few days and then I’d go back into it again.
Hank, now 72, reveals he has had depression before, early in his career with Cliff and The Shadows.
‘When I was 17 in 1959 I would lie in bed for hours because I had no motivation, I thought what’s the point of getting up? And I now know looking back I was probably a bit depressed at the time.
‘I had everything going for me but that’s the thing with depression, you often don’t know why it comes on. It THEN probably lasted a few months then went and I was fine’.
there was the tragedy of his son Dean, who died in 1997 as a result of al cohol and drug abuse, alone and penniless, in a North London hostel. The 35year- old had been estranged from Hank for over ten years.
Hank says he does not wish to talk about it, but does offer: ‘In one sense it [Dean’s death] does bring you a little closer through the grief that you all experience and then you obviously talk about the situation and how it could have possibly come to that.’
Dean told a newspaper in 1983 that he was broke, claiming that religious differences were the cause of the rift. Hank had become a Jehovah’s Witness in 1973, and hoped the rest of his family would follow suit. Dean said his father was angry because of his relationship with a girl who was also not a Witness.
Dark shadows: Hank with Cliff Richard on TV in the early days Hurt at his son’s public criticism Hank cut off contact. At the time of his death Dean had lost his office job through alcoholism and was living on handouts.
Hank tells me another son, Peter, tried to help Dean, ‘but it was a pretty lost cause’.
He adds: ‘There is not much you can do. I think when people are hell-bent on a particular course in life it doesn’t matter how much you might try to reason with them.’
Hank is the most influential British rock guitarist ever.
The Shadows ruled the charts from 1960 to 1963 with five No 1 singles, in addition to the seven No 1s they had from 1959 with Cliff Richard.
Now he has a new album, Hank, with reworkings of favourite upbeat tunes like California Girls and Good Day Sunshine. It was made as he tried to cope with his latest bout of depression. ‘The idea for it came up long before I experienced this problem and the song ti tl es were my choice,’ he explains.
The album is released this week in a summery UK while at home in Perth, Australia, where he has lived with wife Carole for the past 28 years, it is winter. Three of his five surviving children are also there — Ben and Tahlia by Carole — and Paul from his first marriage. Paul’s twin Peter and sister Philippa live in England. He has three grandchildren.
Hank sees his children in England about once a year. ‘Living on the other side of the world, it’s not like you can pop in and have a chat and a cup of tea, but you just get used to it and they lead their lives.’
Reconnecting with them is a little like his relationship with Cliff, who could be classed as family. ‘If he was here, we would pick up where we last left off,’ says Marvin.
Though Hank and Cliff have had their disagreements they have always stayed friends.
In the early days, Hank recalls, there was a lot of rivalry over girls. Once, he SAYS swapped his girlfriend to drive Cliff ’s new Sunbeam Alpine.
Hank: ‘I was 17, and I said, “If you let me borrow your car you can invite Diane out.” He said “All right” and lent me the car, it was brilliant.
‘Cliff had other girlfriends and we hung around together all the time, but none of us shared in the sense of having orgies or anything like that! But it was a long time ago.’