‘Sleep tight’ – Coventry pays tribute to Cilla Black

I am from the Scottie Road area of Liverpool and so was she. By 1965 she had become the female symbol of British youth – with two No 1 hits and a season at the London Palladium, and by 1968, at 25, she was a millionaire. It was a shrewd move and, largely through her own sheer drive, she remained at the height of popularity until the end of the century and beyond.

She made a career out of what one critic described as “the phenomenon of ordinariness”.

Born as Priscilla Maria Veronica White in Liverpool, Black had spoken of how she would die happy if she were to pass away before any illness could rob her of being able to enjoy life.

“The last thing she said to me was she was going blind, she showed me her hands, she had arthritis”.

It was the fact she had an ability to light up any room she entered.

“Details of her death will be announced following the coroner’s report”.

Unashamedly working-class, the show was panned by the critics as rubbish, but Black was unflinching. I wanted her album. The marks she’s got are consistent with a fall where she’s put up an arm as a defence mechanism. And then I turned into the auntie next door.

Blind Date (1985-2003), Surprise! Paul O’Grady and Dale Winton were both lined up to replace her, but the show was cancelled after she left. She left school at 15 to learn office skills at Anfield Commercial College. At night she sang with some of the emergent Merseybeat groups, such as Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and the Big Three.

“What’s need to be determined now is why she fell and whether it was indeed to do with the sudden change in temperature and the effect that had on her, which seems the most likely scenario at the moment, or whether something else triggered the collapse”.

In a joint statement her three sons Robert, Ben and Jack said: “We are devastated by the sad loss of our mother, but have been deeply touched by all the kind messages of support from her friends, fans, the public and media”.

A week later Black and her father signed a contract with Brian Epstein.

“She was an old-fashioned Hollywood-style star”.

In February 1964 she had her first No 1 with Burt Bacharach’s Anyone Who Had a Heart.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney, who is in Los Angeles, said: “Such a shock to hear about Cilla’s passing”.

“She was the most remarkable woman, a true legend”.

“I feel a star has gone out today”. I don’t want to be a burden on anybody. “Not TV presenter”. She willed herself to die.

She published her memoirs, Step Inside, in 1985.

The Bury St Edmunds-based photographer met the Liverpudlian singer and entertainer by chance a few years ago at a private viewing of his 23 Beatles images.

As Black began to make her name in showbiz, she could count The Beatles as some of her close friends, and her first single was “Love of the loved” by The Beatles’s John Lennon and McCartney.

She was also a bridesmaid at Cilla’s wedding to Bobby Willis in 1969.