Interview for Woman's Own

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Six months ago she was unknown — a shy 18-year-old living in a quiet Welsh valley. Today she’s the brightest star on the pop scene, the girl who robbed the Beatles of the Number One Spot. Woman’s Own writer Eleanor Harvey shared all the thrills and excitement of those six months as they happened… This is her fantastic story of Mary Hopkin’s journey from Pontardawe to stardom.

It’s fun being with Mary Hopkin on this day in July. “It’s all happening now,” she says and indeed it is. Six times a finalist in Opportunity Knocks, Mary was spotted by Twiggy who mentioned her to Paul McCartney who immediately phoned and asked her to join the Beatles’ organization, Apple. It was a chance of a lifetime. Now we are sitting in the new Apple office where workmen are putting up partitions, carpenters are coming and going and, at the moment, the only furniture in the large green and white room is one desk, one filing cabinet, three phones and a beautifully-arranged bowl of flowers. We are a small island in a sea of frantic activity. The room seems full of bright young men dressed in scarlet, orange and pink frilly shirts, their hair either long or in a fuzzy, tight permanent wave, and wearing sun-glasses, drooping Zapata moustaches or beards; not a tie in sight.

There is a group in the corner clustered around a photographer projecting coloured slides of Mary on to the wall; another surrounds a record player that is belting out Mary’s first disc made under the Apple label. Called Those Were The Days, it is a song Paul McCartney chose especially for Mary to sing “and he not only produced it, but played the tambourines himself,” she tells me.

Two secretaries are trying to book hotels for pop stars coming to London; phone bells are ringing and as the publicity men answer them, they throw questions over their shoulders to teenage lads who are dispensing soft drinks from the filing cabinet. “Have those prints arrived?” “Is the car on its way to take us to the studios?” “When are Paul and John coming in?” There is a tingling excitement from so much urgency, but Mary does not seem particularly excited or impressed by the scene. She sits there outwardly unmoved and in her simple navy dress looks much younger than 18. You almost expect ankle socks. Then I realize that this is just how she — and most teenagers — imagine the pop world to be; Mary would be disappointed with anything that was quiet or businesslike.

Confused by the pace

At the moment, Mary is poised on the first rung of fame’s ladder and enjoying every little bit of the star treatment given her by Apple. She has stopped saying, “But you don’t have to send a chauffeur-driven car to meet me,” and has become used to travelling first class on the train and eating in smart restaurants.

Within three weeks of being “discovered” she has, in the way of all celebrities, found her own particular hairdresser although it still puzzles her to have so many people concerned with setting her long, fair hair which until now, she always has done herself. And the bill of £16 certainly took her breath away, “but then, you see, it was out of condition because I put a blonde tint on it. I won’t have to pay that every time, will I?”

She has also found “her” restaurant where the owner makes a fuss of her, mixing a hot toddy when she has a cold, keeping strawberries and cream especially for her at any time of the day and pointing her out proudly to other customers. These are the trappings of fame but she is far from trapped — yet.

Mary is still unsophisticated, a painfully shy girl from a Welsh valley, who finds London exciting, who is thrilled when people recognize her, and like a child when it comes to seeing herself on television, listening to her records and looking at the hundreds of pictures taken to launch her. She confides that she is uncertain about tipping and frightened to order avocado pear because she has never tasted it and confused by the pace, people and publicity.

But mostly, she is enjoying this blissful halfway house where we wait until the all important date — August 16. This is when Mary’s record will be released. If it makes the charts then the offers will pour in from television, radio, clubs and concert halls; if it sinks without trace, then despite being under the Beatles wing, it will probably be back to the Welsh valley and singing in unknown clubs in between making records.

John Lennon enters quietly, an orange and white jacket slung across his shoulders; he tosses back his long hair impatiently and smiles at everyone through his wire specs. He is followed by his Japanese friend Yoko Ono and her small daughter. Yoko’s long dark hair streams down her back contrasting with her all-white slacks, shoes and sweater. Ringo’s entry is exuberant and he talks enthusiastically to John about “a completely new sound.”

Fame affects the family

They wave to Mary and for the first time I see this quiet, withdrawn girl come to life. She says: “Years ago, I was holidaying with my family and we planned to motor up to Scotland. We got as far as Llandudno, Wales, and I saw that the Beatles were playing there. My sister, Carole, and I begged Dad to stop — and we did, for three days, so that we could see them. I’ve always been a terrific fan and I remember queueing for tickets and joining that great audience who were singing and clapping and shouting for more.

“I waited for ages outside the stage door just to see them flash by in the car; I spent all my pocket money on jelly-babies because they said it was their favourite sweet… I still can’t believe this has all happened…”

It is John and Paul she knows best although it was George who gave her a beautiful guitar, signed with the maker’s name. “You can see it when you come to Wales. Look at it but not touch!” Mary laughs and then quickly puts her hand to her mouth. For she is very conscious of a crooked tooth and the tiny birthmark below her lip.

Lunch at “Mary’s restaurant” is a celebration, being one of the rare occasions when the three Hopkin sisters are together.

Wendy, the eldest, is dark and vivacious and has come to London with her husband, Brian, to attend a Buckingham Palace garden party. He is a lecturer at Lancaster University and they have a son, David, aged two. Carole, the second sister, has hair the colour of beech-leaves and a serene, sweet expression. She has finished a teacher’s training course and is soon to start a three-year course at a London art school.

They listen with awe as Mary describes all the wonderful things that have been happening and the famous people she has met. Already Mary’s success has cast ripples into their lives. “Putting a phone in we are,” Wendy tells me, “then I can ring home and find out all that’s happening. In the spotlight at the college we are, too, with the students so interested in her and following her each week on Opportunity Knocks.”

Because it is the summer vacation, Carole has accompanied Mary on many of the trips to London and has shared the cars, the staying in luxury hotels and meeting show business personalities. If Mary’s record is a success and she comes to stay in London, she and Carole plan to share a flat.

That afternoon, Carole, Mary and I set off for Wales where I am to meet the family and local people who have known Mary since childhood.

A dream come true

It’s fun walking behind the girls along the station platform because I see people pass, stop, turn and say “Isn’t that the girl on Opportunity Knocks? You know, the one with the guitar.” Mary loves the recognition but Carole turns to me and says, “I would hate to be recognized, wouldn’t you? I would feel—exposed.”

We are met at Swansea station by Mary’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Howell Hopkin, and we drive to an hotel for dinner. Mary’s father, a housing officer with the Pontardawe Rural Council, takes all the fuss and publicity with benign calm although even he is astounded by the money and enthusiasm expended on his daughter’s launching into show business.

“Took photographs all day they did,” he told me. “Hundreds upon hundreds—for promotion they said, but who could use them all?”

He and Mary thought long and hard before signing the Apple contract. “Just a recording agreement at the moment,” he tells me. “We haven’t signed for management yet although I suppose this might come if the record is a success. And just for three years because not wanting to sign away her life is she.”

“I’ve had it written in that I can record four tapes in Welsh for the Cambrian company here,” Mary adds. “They were good to me in the beginning; it wouldn’t be right to forget them now.”

Mrs. Hopkin bubbles over with stories of Mary in childhood, her Welsh voice lilting. It soon becomes apparent that this is a dream come true for her as well.

She was dismayed at first when her unexpected marathon appearances on Opportunity Knocks forced Mary to leave school just a few weeks before taking her A Levels. But now, in the light of all that has happened, what is an examination certificate compared with an Apple contract?

“Do you remember now,” she says, addressing Mary, “when we went to that hotel one holiday—only a wee mite you were, aged about nine but you stood up and sang—lovely it was. Lots of applause she got you know.”

Mary winces at this praise. “Oh mother—I do wish you wouldn’t talk like that—” she grins at me ruefully as if to say, “mothers!”

“Took her to dancing classes right from the start,” Mrs. Hopkin goes on unperturbed. “Made her dresses and the children gave lovely little shows, for charity of course.”

We settle down in the hotel dining-room and study the menu. But I know now exactly what Mary will order: prawn cocktail, steak, strawberries and cream. I wonder whether she will find it difficult if ever she has to return to faggot and peas, once her favourite meal; or, if she finds fame, whether she will tire of the novelty of being able always to order these dishes.

At the moment, indeed, it is impossible to think she could change from the natural, simple girl who, at this moment, does not conceal her eagerness to sign a menu someone has brought over to the table.

“Did you ever now,” Mrs. Hopkin says, watching with pride as Mary writes. “Did you know that when Paul McCartney and John Lennon were in New York, they sent her a beautiful basket of flowers? The card said ‘To a flower from an apple.’ Took a colour photograph of it we did.”

“Were you nervous about your first television performance?” I ask Mary.

I knew this had been on Welsh TV.

“I was nervous about meeting people and talking to them, but not about singing,” she says.

“It was we who were dancing round like cats on a hot stove,” Carole put in. “We had to be at the studios at 11 in the morning, so up at the crack of dawn we all were—except for Mary. And long since finished our breakfasts and in our hats and coats and Mary was sitting there eating her eggs and bacon calm as you like.”

I was to see this calmness, this refusal to be hurried time and again and it goes hand in hand with a deep, native strength of character.

Mary is still easy to impress but not to influence; she is prepared to please but not to be manipulated. Her shyness at meeting people, and her inability to say anything beyond a few words to press reporters, leads one to think it would be easy to mould this girl into any image. It wouldn’t unless Mary herself wanted it.

“Everyone is so proud”

Next day, I walk down the main street of Pontardawe with Mary. It has a leisurely, rural atmosphere for it is a small town of some 30,000 inhabitants, eight miles up the Clydach Valley from Swansea.

Passers-by and those from the opposite side of the street and in shop doorways call out congratulations in a mixture of Welsh and English. Only in a small, close community would they share another’s good fortune with sincerity free from envy.

We go into the newsagent’s and sweet shop run by Mrs. Ralph Thomas but known as “Jen’s shop.”

“I didn’t know what had hit us on the Saturday night of that first Opportunity Knocks,” she tells me. “People came in for postcards—not just one packet but six at a time. I ran right out and ordered some more but by Monday, we were sold out again!

“Everyone voted for our Mary—not just the families but whole factories—they say even the cats voted!” she laughs. “People queued for stamps and the postboxes were overflowing did you ever?

“Everyone is so proud—no jealousy, not even from the other young girls.”

The Cambrian recording office, a