MY FATHER TINO VALDI
‘DIDN’T he do well?’ That famous catchphrase could well have applied to my father. He was a slave labourer in German mines during World War II who became a singer performing with Bruce Forsyth. Born Wolodymyr Luciw and the son of a butcher in Ukraine, he was a teenager when the Nazis invaded his homeland. After the war, he found refuge in Bradford, working as a wool spinner at Salts textile mill. His singing teacher encouraged him to move to London to pursue his dream of becoming a performer. A tenor and virtuoso on the bandura, a Ukrainian folk string instrument, he won a scholarship to Trinity College of Music, supporting himself by waiting tables in the evenings, and then studied at St Cecilia Academy in Rome. Returning to Britain, he adopted the stage name Tino Valdi and was nicknamed the ‘Italian singing star’. He was soon sharing the bill on variety shows with Max Miller, Max Bygraves, Norman Wisdom, Ken Dodd and Jimmy Tarbuck. He was spotted by bandleader and impresario Jack Hylton, who cast him as the star of his Italianinspired musical, When In Rome, at
London’s Adelphi Theatre. In 1961, Dad, alongside recording stars Dick Francis and Kathy Kirby, represented the UK at the Coupe d’Europe International Song Festival, a forerunner of Eurovision. They won and the judges commented that Dad had a ‘voice like velvet’. He appeared on radio and TV throughout the Sixties and Seventies, performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Festival Hall, on cruises on the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, and recorded albums. Following a health scare in the Eighties, he had to stop singing, so he became an impresario, organising tours for a Ukrainian male voice choir, dance ensemble and the Utrecht Byzantine Choir. Two years ago, Roy Hudd, president of the British Music Hall Society, presented him with a lifetime achievement award. Dad, who was deeply religious, co-ordinated a Mass and concert for Pope John Paul II in Rome, to mark 1,000 years of Christianity in Ukraine. He was awarded the Order of Merit by Ukraine for his charity work with young people. Dad was a force of nature. He adored his wife Lesia, whom he met in 1956 when she gave him a bunch of flowers at the end of a concert in France, their three daughters and grandchildren. He loved a good story and a joke, and rustled up a delectable Spaghetti al Tonno.