THE MAN WITH FINGERS OF GOLD
WILL STARR
OF CROY
 
 
Will Starr was born in Smithston Row in 1922. His father was Joseph and his mother was Susan (McAtee). Over the years they would become the parents of eight children: Susan, Will, Rosie, Peter, Margaret, Mary, Joseph, and Theresa. Theresa is the sole surviving member of that family, and lives in what ultimately became the family home at 16 Weldon Place.; a home in which Will Starr is still a presence, sustained by her memories , photographs, his music and memorabilia.
 
     At the age of two, Will came across on old melodeon, which belonged to his father, and it became his plaything. He picked up tunes very quickly, and it is said that the first recognisable tune was Poor Old Joe. The boy’s progress was rapid, a mark of his inborn genius and the encouragement of a father who was himself an accomplished button accordion player.
 
     Will and his younger sister Rosie took to the show business road at a very young age, entertaining at local functions, and then further afield, entering go-as-you-please competitions, Rosie as a singer of some quality, and Will with his box. It is thought that as a double act they won nine competitions, but that Will, alone on the buttons, took first prize on twelve or thirteen occasions. Their mother must have known the benefit of their activities on the boards, which brought in three pounds a win: a godsend to her in those days of penury.
 
     Will’s progress went on apace; and more than that, he taught himself how to play the piano and the coronet, and also to read and write music. He must have been up there with Mozart in his musical precocity.
 
     Even Serafino Arcari, an accordion virtuoso who undertook to coach Will at his home in Lennoxtown, gave up after three or four lessons because he could not teach the boy anything that he did not already have at his fingertips.
 
     At school in Holy Cross primary, Will became established as the school musician, but recognition came to him at much higher level when he won the Scottish Accordion Championship. He was only ten years old.
 
          His fame spread, and he was invited to play at a County Dinner in the Glasgow Grand hotel. Sir Ian Colquhoun, a principal guest at the Dinner, introduced Will to the manager of the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow, John Kilpatrick.
 
     In no time at all, Will became a regular performer on the Pavilion bill, and he was given permission to leave school before his due date in order to take up a professional career as an accordionist. He was just fourteen.
 
     Over the next four years, Will’s skills reached new heights, and his regular appearances on stage ensured a regular and ever-growing following. He became Will Starr.
 
     War intervened in 1939 and Will, when he became eighteen, was eligible for service in the Armed Forces, or to become a Bevin Boy ( a name derived from that of Ernest Bevin, wartime Employment Minister) and work in the pits.
 
     Will chose to work underground, and found himself working at Gartshore No. 3, his father’s old work-place. He did not have too hard a time there because the other miners took some of the weight off him by confining his duties to the pit bottom, which meant that he never had to work at the coal- face. They also gave him gloves to wear lest he should damage those precious fingers.
 
     In spite of his Bevin boy duties, Will was able to continue his week-end cabaret work, and one night in Dunoon he was approached by Robert Wilson, one of Scotland’s best- loved singers at the time, and offered a spot on the bill with himself and comedian Will Fyfe the following Sunday. He earned £14 for one night’s work: a fortune in those days.
    His association with Robert Wilson was an enduring one , and in 1948 Will embarked with him on his first tour of Canada and the United States. He became big box-ofice there, and over subsequent years made twenty-six tours in all, performing all over North America, and, in particular at Carnegie Hall in the footsteps of such international artistes as Bing Crosby. Frank Sinatra and the world-famous tenor, Caruso.Wherever he travelled, exiled Scots flocked in thousands to bathe in nostalgia to the music of their kilted countryman. On one occasion he was made Honorary Mayor of the city of Chilliwack.
 
     At home, Will built himself a career in Scottish Television, appearing regularly on such shows as The White Heather Club, Callum’s Ceilidh and in many Hogmanay offerings.
 
For all his fame as Will Starr, The boy from Croy always had Willie Starrs deeply imbedded within him and his love for Croy and its people never deserted him as, for example, in the case of the one-to-one concert he once staged over his garden fence for Angeline O’Neill, a young girl disabled from birth and permanently in a wheelchair, and the wonderful rendition of the classical Handel’s Messiah in his mother’s living-room for Neill O’Neill whom he had met by chance on the last train from Glasgow on the way home. 
 
 One of Will’s most memorable local performances was staged in the Pavilion Cinema Kilsyth, during a charity concert. Under a spotlight with thunderous battles scenes on the silver screen behind him, he played The Last Post: a heart-rending experience to those who were in the audience that evening.
 
 
The Jacqueline Waltz
 
Will’s genius was not confined to technique and dazzling fingers; he was also a composer, with many original compositions to his name. The favourite of many local people was the Jacqueline Waltz, played with great feelings by the maestro himself; and for good reason.
 
 Jacqueline was no figment of his imagination. She was a real person. He loved her.
 
 Jacqueline was a showgirl. She was English, tall, dark-haired and, by all accounts beautiful. She came visiting in Cuilmuir Terrace and was becoming close to Will’s mother and the family, but there was only one snag: she was not a Catholic and the prospect of her entering into a “mixed” marriage with Willie was anathema to the Catholic Church at that time and in particular to the Croy parish priest. He paid a visit to the Starrs family and put an end to the relationship there and then. It could be like that in those days.
 
 In truth, it seems that Willie never got over the loss of Jacqueline and, in fact, his sister Theresa thinks this dire episode was the cause of his drink problem later in his life.
 
 As far as she knows, Will never took up with any other girl for the rest of his life.
 
 The Jacqueline Waltz is much more than a fine melody.