Michael Coy
WHAT connects Menorca, Stoke City Football Club, Swinging London, and the theme song from the soap opera Neighbours?
The two-word answer is Jackie Trent, the multi-talented Englishwoman who would have celebrated her 85th birthday last month.
A long-time resident of the Balearics, Jackie (real name Yvonne Burgess) was born in 1940 and passed away in 2015. A recording star and actress, she is perhaps best known for her songwriting. Jackie was married to composer Tony Hatch for 35 years, and together they penned dozens of hits that are still beloved today.
Jackie Trent was born in the Potteries. From an early age, she showed a flair for acting and was blessed with a remarkable singing voice. In the early 1960s, at just a month older than John Lennon, she decided to pursue a career in music. However, ‘Yvonne Burgess’ didn’t quite have the right ring for a stage name, so she combined a popular 60s Christian name (there was a teen magazine called Jackie) with an autobiographical nod to her hometown of Stoke. And thus, ‘Jackie Trent’ was born.
A lifelong fan of Stoke City, Jackie wrote the club’s anthem in 1972, and it continues to be played at every home game to this day.
The mid-1960s saw a rise of young female singers such as Kathy Kirby, Shirley Bassey, Lulu, and Sandie Shaw, and Jackie quickly became part of that wave. Her first hit, ‘Where Are You Now, My Love?’, went to Number One in May 1965, knocking The Beatles’ ‘Ticket to Ride’ off the top spot. Over the next 35 years, she would release more than 50 singles and a dozen albums, but it’s her work as a songwriter that truly defines her legacy.
Tony Hatch, a musician known for his knack for crafting catchy pop tunes, teamed up with Jackie Trent both professionally and romantically. Together, they wrote songs for a veritable who’s who of 1960s music legends: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Petula Clark, and Val Doonican, to name just a few. The couple married in 1967 and bought a home in Menorca, where they would live – apart from a brief interlude in Australia – for the rest of their lives.
Jackie shared the story of how their most famous song came about. “While we were in Australia, fairly well-known as songwriters, a TV company approached us. They had an idea for a soap opera, but initial polling results weren’t promising. They thought that a hit theme tune might turn things around. We asked what the show was called. They said, ‘Ramsay Street’. We thought the name was the problem – it was too close to Coronation Street, which also aired in Australia. So, we wrote the theme song ‘Neighbours’ in one afternoon. When we played it to the TV producers, they loved it. They immediately changed the name of the show to Neighbours, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Jackie also starred in several stage musicals, and her final project was a play based on her own life. The show was in rehearsal in 2014 and was due to go on tour the following year.
Unfortunately, Jackie’s health, which had been declining for some time, deteriorated, and she passed away in Menorca in March 2015.
Click here to read more La Cultura News from The Olive Press.
