30th April – 6th May 1967
Appearances
Batley Variety Club – Batley
Greasbrough Social Club – Rotherham
Following her exploits at Armley Prison, Jayne began a week’s worth of appearances in Yorkshire. She was booked to play the recently opened Batley Variety Club in Batley near Leeds, and the Greasbrough Social Club in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Strangely, given that the second part of the tour appeared hastily arranged, the Greasbrough dates had been secured well in advance. In fact Les Booth, the manager of Greasbrough, reported to The Stage in December 1966 that Jayne had been booked for a week of performances.
Greasbrough was a typical working men’s club of the time, but by offering memberships the income generated could secure many top stars to play there. It is not as unusual as first thought to find Jayne playing a working men’s club in South Yorkshire, as many of these clubs could easily match the fees being offered by London venues, and in a lot of cases significantly better them.
Jayne’s dates at Batley were hastily arranged shortly after she had been sacked from the first part of her tour. The owner of Batley Variety Club, James Corrigan, had only recently opened the venue and sensing a coup for the club, had driven up to the Scotch Corner Hotel in North Yorkshire where Jayne was staying to sign her up for a week’s worth of dates. The intention was to invite Jayne to stay at Corrigan’s sprawling home, Oaks Cottage, near Batley Variety Club during the week. However, as Maureen Prest recalls in her biography of James Corrigan, as soon as he entered Jayne’s room at the hotel he changed his mind. Her Chihuahuas had made a complete mess of the room so he rapidly suggested she stayed at a hotel instead.
We are fortunate to have some good accounts of Jayne’s time in Batley. Along with Maureen Prest’s book, a DVD by Neil Sean was released in 2012 which focused solely on Jayne’s time in Yorkshire. There was also a five minute report on BBC’s The One Show broadcast on the 27th September 2012 in which Gyles Brandreth retraced her steps and went to Holdsworth House hotel. It also features some good footage of Jayne in concert at other venues. This video occasionally pops up on YouTube.
Neil Sean’s DVD, although not featuring any footage of Jayne’s appearances in Yorkshire, features plenty of interviews with people who worked with her or saw her at the time. This includes Les Piggin who played alongside her at the Armley Prison concert, and Carl Gresham the press officer at Batley Variety Club, who also appears in the feature on The One Show (see Les Piggin’s archive page for further details). There are also first hand accounts of her visiting local markets in Dewsbury and Halifax, and opening a fete in Brighouse.
Brief colour footage of one of Jayne’s Batley performances does survive. A BBC Arena programme about the Batley Variety Club was produced in 1982 and there is a very brief clip of her at 16:38. The rest of the programme is also worth a watch as it gives an indication of why clubs like Batley managed to lure stars such as Jayne to play there.
Maureen Prest, on page 74 of her book, records that once again Jayne’s initial act did not go down well with the paying public.
“When she opened on the Sunday night everyone was wondering what she would do. Was she a singer? The curtain went back and there she stood, sex bomb extraordinaire, and started to recite Shakespeare! Well, strangely, the Batley audiences were not switched on by a Tudor poet. After ten minutes they started walking out.
James [Corrigan – Batley Variety Club owner] was mortified. He was a man of the people and his club was for them. His aim was to please his audiences; to have them leave while the show was in progress was a situation he had to rectify as soon as possible.
When the show was over he had words with Miss Mansfield to explain, as tactfully as he possibly could, that she should play to her strengths. I think he meant flaunt herself. Do anything but recite poetry. The following night she duly complied with the wishes of the management and walked amongst the audience sitting on the men’s laps”.
Jayne also met Diana Dors backstage at Batley, which means their paths had crossed at least three times on this tour (as well as the hotel encounter described on the Leeds page, Diana had also been present at one of Jayne’s performances in Newcastle). Footage of this Batley meeting used to be available on YouTube but has been removed. If it reappears I will add it.
The Batley and Greasbrough dates are also significant as the last performances Jayne made in the UK before her death just two months later.
Newspaper Articles
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Jayne Mansfield in England 