Well, the recording test came and went.

The people that decide about these things at Decca said '

No'.

Well, you can imagine I was more worried about what I was going to say to the boys, having built up their hopes.

So I allowed myself a final 24 hours to exhaust the remaining disc companies and I booked into the Green Park Hotel.

In the morning I took a cab to the EMI office block in Manchester Square, London, to meet the man who would within less than two years produce sixteen number one discs by my artists.