THE fascinating story of growing up as one of the only black faces in Chagford during the 1950s and 1960s will be told at a special charity concert next week. Bobby Jeffrey will be returning to the town to sing a selection of show songs, as well as talking about childhood days with his older sister Helen and another black youngster, as foster children of a white farming family living in rural Devon. Bobby was only 13 months old when he left an orphanage to come and live with the Moorcombe family in Chagford, until moving away to London at 15 years of age. Bobby eventually followed his dream of becoming a professional singer and entertainer and is now staging the Chagford concert to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Relief. The concert takes place in the church on Saturday, March 12, from 7.30pm, and will feature a selection of Cole Porter and Gershwin showtunes as well as an amusing and interesting account of his experiences growing up in Chagford. The venue holds a significance for Bobby ? it was the church where he was christened and confirmed. His sister?s ashes are also scattered on a hill near the town where they used to play as children. Having been taken into his foster family at such a young age, Bobby has no memory of growing up anywhere else than Chagford. ?We used to go around as a threesome: my sister, myself and Brian, who was a few years older. I had a great time growing up in Chagford.? Bobby said he and his sister did encounter some forms of racism growing up, but at a young age they were often not fully aware of it. ?I must have been about six or seven, when, despite the fact that people from Barnardo?s used to keeping coming to visit me, I realised my mum wasn?t really my mum. ?Other children used to say to me ?How come you?re brown and your mum is white??,? he said. Bobby said when he went to Chagford Secondary School, these innocent questions from inquisitive youngsters were more often replaced with unpleasant name calling. And it wasn?t just the attitude of some of the other pupils Bobby had to contend with. ?In singing lessons, there were one or two songs that would not be allowed to be used today, because of the language. For some people, those songs were a racist opportunity to suit their agenda,? he said. ?When I started writing things down for this show, it dawned on me that it had never really occurred to me to ask my foster mother what people of her era thought about her coming back to the town with three black children. I do wonder now, how they would have reacted.? Bobby said he didn?t always fit in with country ways of life. ?We had animals, but I used to detest going out to move the sheep or whatever. I never had any interest in that whatsoever,? he said. ?When I was about 13 I went to see a Dr Who film at the cinema in Exeter on the same day as there was a gymkhana being held ? my mother was aghast. ?She couldn?t understand why I would want to sit in the dark and watch a film on a lovely sunny day instead of watching the gymkhana.? Bobby said he did not exactly excel at school and his performances on the sports field were little better. ?One of my first games lessons, we went down to the field and had to play football. I didn?t really have a clue what I was doing. The games teacher shouted out ?Jeffrey! What position are you playing?? ?One of the boys behind me whispered ?left back?, so I replied ?left back?, not understanding I was actually on the opposite side of the pitch and so he said ?Well, get yourself over the other side of the pitch, then.? Indeed such was his unorthodox way of trying to play football, Bobby says he attracted attention from ?Bangy? Bennett, the town?s erstwhile road sweep. ?He stopped to watch us play football one day, and he said to me ?I only come up to watch you, ?cos you do make me laugh.?? Bobby added: ?On sports day, I would always enter the 100 yards, I liked that one because that was the first race which was run and then you would have nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon.? Bobby was always a keen dancer, even from a very early age, but he recalls it sometimes got him into trouble. ?I used to be quite well known for attending dances from the age of about nine years old. I wasn?t meant to be there, so I used to hang around outside and sneak in,? he said. ?I was always quite musical as well, we had a piano at home although I wasn?t particularly good. I had piano lessons at Okehampton but didn?t enjoy it.? Bobby said he also had a short-lived experience singing in the school choir as a youngster. It wasn?t until later that Bobby began to think of music in terms of a career. He worked as a hairdresser for many years before beginning to take the singing lessons more seriously. He was working in small salon in Mayfair, where in quiet periods, he would go downstairs and practise for the Grade 5 singing exams, which he was delighted to pass with distinction. Tenor Bobby chose the repertoire of showtunes he will perform in collaboration with pianist Paul Webster. He said one or two of the songs had been chosen because they held particular relevance to the anecdotes he was telling, but said many of the songs were simply chosen because they were ones he particularly liked. Bobby said when years later he met up with his natural mother, he was astonished to find out the parallels in the ways they had grown up. She, if anything, had grown up in an even more remote area than her son, in the valleys of Wales. Bobby said he became very close to his natural mother, though he never met his father, who came from Antigua, and his mother never talked about him. Bobby has returned to Chagford several times over the years and says he had always been amazed by the ?warmth? of the reception. ?It is lovely to go back and see everybody. I?m looking forward to giving the concert and I hope people will enjoy it. ?I have performed it two or three times before and it has always been well received. But it will be a very special thing for me to be able to perform it in Chagford, the place that inspired the concert.? Bobby was not quite sure how to sum up the charity evening at the church. ?I suppose you could call it an affectionate look back at my inauspicious start in life,? he joked. Tickets for the evening priced £7.50 are available in advance from Youds Newsagents in the Square, Chagford.
