1940: a 12-year old’s diary excerpt about Nelson Eddy
…”Mr. Tomlinson, our choirmaster at Saint Alban’s, gave me a solo last Sunday. I sang Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze. I don’t like doing solos. I find them embarrassing.
“Mum said I should be proud to have been chosen and wouldn’t I like to be a singer when I grow up, like Nelson Eddy. I told her, “No fear. I want to be a footballer, like Stanley Matthews or Dixie Dean.”