Enter one Yvonne Ann Burgess, stage left. Actually Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, Middle England. Let’s be honest, who really would want to debut this world and draw first breath in the turmoil of a World War? So the scene was already set for my own eventual fight: to the top…….. And it was a fight, every step of the way, with no sponsor or benefactor; just two loving parents and my determination to be on stage: to sing and to entertain.
Age 8, as a ‘Bignall End Babe’ - a real cutie and speciality act! Before that I self-taught myself piano from age 4(chopsticks) and found my love of words in writing poetry – lyrics to songs in later life. Looking back, this was the foundation time: the nursery for my later skills in music and performance that would see me through the rigours of life to come……...
One day a gypsy selling pegs and telling fortunes called at our door and declared, ‘There is music in this house and one of your kids is going to do great things!’ (Now buy some pegs!) Wondrous prophesy! (Mind, she could see our piano, thro’ the window!!) Not that my school music teacher would agree. Mrs Baker had no time for personal expression, so the back of my head felt a weighty school blackboard ruler a little too often……….not fun! Mum and Dad sent me to piano lessons, but after three sessions the teacher simply gave up, explaining to them that, once I’d heard the piece, I could play it and paid little attention to the written music! He did offer help with my voice training and to develop my diaphragm: laying flat on the floor with heavy books dumped on my chest and made to sing scales in full voice, without moving the books. Which stopped me singing ‘in my boots’. And ‘These Boots are (definitely) Made For Walking’. So…… that’s where the voice power came from: determination and hard work! When I finally left school, I made Mrs Baker a defiant promise that I would send complimentary tickets when I made top billing at the famous London Palladium: which I did reach, of course, but Mrs Baker didn’t come to the Show….…
, escorted by my Dad to all the local Social Clubs with various Potteries Big Bands and bandleaders like Reg Bassett (who owned a bus company) and Ken Griffiths. These were still The Ballroom Days: of foxtrot, quick step and samba; with twice a night just two triplets of ‘rock and roll’ music: considered ‘not exactly ballroom’, yet filled the dance floor every time! Sign of times to come! By the way, when you are looking up at stage, I’m the one with the bird’s eye view of how people behave on the dance floor. Very interesting: believe me! My other stage at the time was the school assembly hall stage, being paraded by Mrs Mills, our headmistress, quite often on Monday mornings as punishment for sometimes having mascara round my eyes (difficult to remove) from my weekend work! The school was told ‘I looked like a coal miner’, and perky me always fired back, ‘There’s nothing wrong with that! Dad’s a coal miner! But Mrs Mills and I got on really well and talked lots in her office. I like to think she understood my driven ambition; maybe admired me, I hope? I made yet another promise: complimentary tickets for Mrs Mills when I performed at the Royal Albert Hall. I got there, sent the tickets and sang my socks off for good old Mrs Mills right there in my audience!
I was ‘Jackie Tremayne’ on stage for about a year. At age 14 I sharpened that up to 'Jackie Trent', showing my Stoke origin? Why?..... Not for slick commercial reasons; far from it…. No-one could pronounce ‘Yvonne’: "Yervon" "Yvonnn" "YVonnie" "Evon" So, I thought: enough! NEW NAME That’s really all there was to it: Truly. So there you go