Artist Detailed Info: Thomas Criddle

Thomas was born in Edmonton, London and, at the age of fourteen-and-­a-half, took first prize in a talent competition at the Granada Empire Cinema, Edmonton, singing Because. The organist, Andrew Fenner happened to be playing and, two weeks later, the manager of Granada, Sydney Bernstein came to see Criddle's father with a view to the boy touring the cinemas.

Thomas was soon on the BBC; his first broadcast was with Albert Sandler at the Palm Court Hotel studio in Lower Regent Street. He was later filmed by Pathe and signed up by H.M.V. Over the next three years he recorded at the Abbey Road Studios, with Andrew Fenner as his accompanist. `I didn't need singing lessons by then,' he told me. `We made many records but due to the war-time shortage of shellac only the more popular ones were released.' Thomas's last record I give thanks to you /I shall be there was recorded in January 1944 when he was almost sixteen. By that time his voice had taken on a richer quality. On Wings of Song was his second record, made when he was fourteen-and-a-half.

Thomas returned to the microphone as an actor in 1953, taking a small part in Henry IV pt 1. He later appeared extensively in television and films and toured with the likes of Katherine Hepburn and Sir Donald Wolfit.

Thomas Criddle died just three days short of his eightieth birthday in March 2008. Thomas Criddle was one of the last surviving 'professional' boy sopranos, living in the age just prior to the raising of the school-leaving age from fourteen to fifteen in 1947. In those days many boys were on the stage in full-time employment from the end of the term in which they had reached fourteen. This change, coupled with the demise of Music Hall itself, brought to an end the long and fascinating tradition of which Criddle played an important part.

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