From Cat Naps to Flat Caps

Former journalist and ColneLife alum Eric Beardsworth is a man of many talents, a Lancashire lad through and through ‘Our Eric’ exemplifies all the best us northerners have to offer – he’s warm, talented, and a reyt good laugh. We certainly miss him and his Bob Dylan impressions at ColneLife HQs and was chuffed to bits when he recently paid me a visit on Karen’s Couch for a catch-up…

Our Eric has certainly been a busy fella since retiring and in the past 10 years, his witty comedy-singing group, the Flat Cap Pack, have taken local pubs, parties and beer festivals by storm – and with songs as memorable as ‘Come Pie with Me’ we’re hardly surprised…

After passing his 11+ in 1962, Eric attended Accrington Grammar School – or schoo’ as the Accie locals called it. Their annual house play reading competition was Eric’s burst into acting; though roles were very minor, and lines were few and far between.

Nothing much came of that first foray into the (rather literal) limelight, with Eric leaving school and going straight into employment at Royal Insurance, Blackburn. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do. What I did know was that my grades weren’t good enough for university, and that insurance wasn’t for me.

“It was my mum who suggested I could be a journalist when I was struggling with my studies for the insurance exams and wanted to quit.

“I wrote off to a few local papers and got an interview with the Nelson Leader’s editor, the local legend Noel Wild. He took me on and that was that.”

It was at Grammar School that Eric first dipped his toes into the musical arena, forming a rock band with his friends called ‘Four and a Half ’. “There were six of us you see,” Eric explains, “so the name came from us being four and half of four. We were originally ‘The Patricians’, after the wealthy landowning Roman class. I was lead vocalist and harmonica player. We performed covers of all sorts, one being Bob Dylan – and yes, I did try to do the Dylan voice.

“But that was it for another 15 years or so… I didn’t perform publicly until I joined the Colne Orpheus Glee Union Male Voice Choir in 1980. I was still a young lad at that time, not yet turned 30, so I’ve been a member now for over 40 years. Those 40 years of choir in turn let a friend of mine, good old Birdie (Brian Bird), to drag me to the Colne Operatic Society in 1998 as they needed more men’s voices in the chorus.”

Staying with the Operatic Society (that later merged to form Pendle Hippodrome Theatre Company) led Eric to get involved in productions at the Pendle Hippodrome and Colne Little Theatre, at both the front of house and on stage. “I’ve done various things, but my favourite one was Sondheim’s ‘Sweeney Todd’. Standing on stage in front of 400 people, you just have to think ‘what’s the worst that can happen?’ So, you look like a total fool in front of a full house? Nobody died! It could be a lot worse!”

While at the Leader in the early 70s, Eric met his wife, Steph, “she joined about a year after me, we worked together as mates and then it just sort of happened. We were married in 1975, and look forward to celebrating our Golden Wedding in a couple of years.”

We wanted to make it proper Lancashire, so we wrote different lyrics to well-known tunes.

Jumping from the Nelson Leader and Colne Times from 1969-74 to the Blackpool Evening Gazette in 1974-5, Eric finally settled into a 25-year stint as a reporter, feature writer and sub-editor at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph in 1975. By 2001, he’d moved onto Bolton Evening News, where he worked until 2009, took a short hiatus to focus on his theatre course and re-entered the world of journalism as a freelance journalist from 2011-2018, which included working (and entertaining) at the Colne Life office. “I did have an interest in writing at a young age, but I also had interest in talking to people, and an ability to communicate with folk on all levels – though you’d have to turn off your Lancashire accent when talking to managing directors and MPs! I suppose that is acting though, it’s a performance in itself!”

By 2009, Bolton Evening News were looking for redundancies, and so Eric took voluntary early retirement. He went on to do a two-year foundation course in theatre at UCLAN, before moving on to get his BA over at the University of Bolton. “One of the things we had to do over at Bolton Uni was devise street theatre. Me and three other guys – Liam, Jamie and Simon – got together to do some sort of comedy together. We all like The Rat Pack – so we thought we’d build something around that, sing in silly cockney accents like Dick Van Dyke and call it The Prat Pack. We tried it, but it didn’t work,” says Eric, “so we thought we’d do it in Lancashire accents instead. It was my wife, Steph, who suggested we call it the Flat Cap Pack!” After performing on local radio, they toured Bolton Market Place, their piece delighting shoppers buying pork chops and carrots. “We wanted to make it proper Lancashire,” Eric explains, “so we wrote different lyrics to well-known tunes. ‘Come Fly with Me’ became ‘Come Pie with Me’, ‘That Old Black Magic’ became ‘Them Old Black Puddings,’” he laughs, “the songs are full of typical Lancashire stuff.

“I like music that makes people laugh. There’s enough miserable stuff around with the likes of Adele and Sam Smith. I like interesting music with darkly humorous and witty lyrics, seen through my musical heroes like Frank Zappa, Stephen Sondheim and Noel Coward. It’s as Frank Zappa always said, ‘is there room for humour in music?’” And after a decade of The Flat Cap Pack, with ‘our Eric’ injecting humour and his signature smart wit into tunes, we’d certainly argue there is. Shortly after graduating in 2012 with a BA Theatre Studies, the quartet doffed their caps and went their separate ways. The lightbulb moment to revive the group came a year later, when Eric – overhearing Brian Norris singing Sinatra at a pal’s 60th birthday party – persuaded him to join the revival alongside original flat capper Liam – now the band was back together.

“By 2015, Liam had left to concentrate on being a rockstar, and so my mate Mark Brady (from Colne Orpheus and Pendle Hippodrome) joined the group. And that’s where we are at now – me, Brian and Mark with gigs at beer festivals, parties, football clubs, pubs, concerts and Lancashire nights. I like to think we’re just like The Four Tops or The Animals – still performing with just one original member.””

The Flat Cap Pack are a real treat and embody a certain unique Lancashire charm, so much so, that Eric was offered a gig in Cornwall after an appearance on Radio 2’s Pop Master last year, “but I doubt they’d understand us down there anyway!” he chuckled.

Eric is a true delight, and serves as a role model for local writers, singers, actors and comedians alike, showing that it’s never too late in life to follow your passions.

So go on – take that theatre course, join that choir or form a band – you’ll never know where it’ll take you…

ColneLife Winter 2022