Family album!
Daughter tracks down last remaining copy of LP made by dad in the 70s... after shop puts it online as a joke
IT was a one-off album recorded by a clubland double act more than 40 years ago.
So when Maria Bedford set out to find a copy of her father’s forgotten LP, she knew her chances of success were slim.
But just as she had all but given up hope, she stumbled across what may well be the last one in existence – after a Scottish record shop posted a picture of it online as a joke.
Comedy singing duo Tony Strange and Kay toured all over Britain in the 1970s, with the pair sharing the stage with stars including Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey.
Miss Bedford had been trying in vain to track down a copy of their album, You’re My World – until Neil McLeod, owner of Mo’ Fidelity Records in Montrose, Angus, posted a photo of it on social media.
Saying it had been found ‘lurking in the darkest recesses of the shop’, he joked that it would be the first in a series of posts with the theme ‘Dubious records of Mo’ Fidelity’.
And in a moment similar to the classic Yellow Pages ‘JR Hartley’ TV advert, he was delighted when he realised the woman who got in touch asking if he had the album was the old crooner’s daughter.
Mr McLeod said: ‘It got lots of likes and lots of comments and thankfully his daughter has a sense of humour about it – because some of those comments were pretty scathing.
‘About a week later we’d got a message from Maria Bedford asking if we have a copy of the album. So I messaged her back and said you can have the record – and if you’re the Maria this is dedicated to, I apologise!’
Mr Strange, who is still performing at the age of 74, has now been reunited with the LP. Miss Bedford said her father was ecstatic and ‘amazed anyone kept it for 40 years’. She added: ‘Tony and Kay worked regularly in Scotland – never in Montrose, though, so how it ended up there is a mystery.’
The album featured covers of classic hits such as Elvis Presley’s Wooden Heart.