BILLY FURY was born Ronald Wycherley at Smithdown Hospital, Liverpool on April 17, 1940.

It is wartime and his father Albert is in the army and Liverpool is regularly bombed by the Germans.

The family lived at 34 Haliburton Street and young Ron attended St Silas's Infants School, but when he was six he contracted the first of several bouts of rheumatic fever which weakened his heart and eventually brought on his early death.

He showed an early musical talent and at 11 his parents sent him for piano lessons and at 14 bought him his first guitar.

But Ron had another interest, birds' nesting in nearby Sefton Park, an activity that later translated itself into his lifelong passion for bird watching. Later it would be said that while other rock stars were out hitting the clubs, Billy's idea of a good time was sitting in a rain soaked hide watching migrating song birds through binoculars.

He left Wellington Road school in 1956 and a year later went to work on a Mersey tug boat called The Formby, from which he took the name for his first Formby Skiffle Group.

After winning a few local talent contests he went into a local recording booth and recorded a number of tracks which he sent to impresario Larry Parnes. The upshot was that he was invited to meet Parnes when the Larry Parnes Extravaganza rolled up at the Essoldo, Birkenhead on October 1, 1958, with Marty Wilde topping the bill.

Ron hoped to sell a couple of songs to Marty Wilde, but after hearing him sing and play, Parnes told him he was going on stage after the interval.

Always one to suffer from stage fright, he hesitated at the last moment and legend says that Parnes actually pushed him through the curtains.

He was an immediate success and the result was that when the Extravaganza left town the next day, Ron Wycherley had become Billy Fury and joined the tour.

It was shortly after this that Billy met Dickie Pride and the two struck up an immediate accord. After that Billy became his closest friend and to a considerable extent his protector from Parnes, intervening to stop Parnes firing him and insisting even after the parting of the ways that he should be brought back to tour with him.

Like most of the Parnes stable Billy had considerable trouble turning his personal popularity on tour into chart success. Between Maybe Tomorrow, which he wrote himself, which reached No 18 in March 1959, he had to wait until March 1960 to get into the Top Ten when Collette reached No9. After that it was not until Half Way to Paradise reached No 3 in May 1961 that he really established himself as a Top Ten artiste.

Billy had the advantage of being able to write his own songs to offset the problem common in the Parnes stable of there not being enough good songs to go round. Unfortunately, his contract meant that if he sold songs or recorded his own songs, Parnes received a slice of his royalties as a songwriter.

Billy's answer was to write under the name of Wilber Wilberforce, sell the songs to himself and then collect the royalties as Wilberforce to prevent Parnes getting his hands on the money.

During this time he intervened several times to keep Dickie Pride in work when Parnes would cheerfully had dropped him and later, when his heart disease made if difficult for him to perform in top gear, Dickie would sometimes cover for him or even go on for him if he was too ill.

In a way, Billy was doing what Dickie Pride should have done and created his own music. But while Dickie was experimenting with Latin and Jazz rhythms that were largely uncommercial, although artistically brilliant, Billy stuck close to a commercial format.

It seems possible that Dickie Pride did make attempts to write his own music. In fact, because of a musical education he was one of the very few young pop stars of the time who actually could read and write music.

He certainly claimed to have been writing music during a court case in which he appeared in 1961, although it appears none of this work has survived.

The truth is probably that Dickie's ill discipline and fondness for drink and drugs, made it pretty well impossible for him to put in the concentrated effort necessary to write new music. While the temperamental much calmer Billy was able to marshal his concentration long enough to get the job done.

Offstage or on, Dickie Pride was wild, loud, humorous, aggressive and frequently under the influence of something, while Billy was a shy, warm, gentle, quiet man off stage. In many ways they were like the yin and yang, two very different sides of the same coin. It may explain why they got on so well together if each saw in the other, parts of a personality they rather wished they had more of.

Despite all Billy's efforts he was eventually unable to save Dickie Pride, who went his own way to a far too early grave.

Billy however, kept on an even keel and went on writing, singing and recording, but now the heart disease that had started with his infant rheumatic fever was beginning to catch up with him. From the mid 1960s onward he became increasingly ill and in 1970 and 1971 needed two major heart operations.

In 1976 he needed another major operation and in 1982 collapsed at his farm in Wales and only just pulled through. He moved to St John's Wood in London but in January 1983, when he was preparing for a new national tour, he was found unconscious in bed and despite being rushed to hospital was pronounced dead at 12.10pm on January 28, 1983.

Billy Fury was undeniably a great talent and it was typical of his generous nature that he did all he could to help his wayward friend Dickie Pride. Had Dickie survived, indeed, had both of them survived, it is interesting to speculate what might have happened.

It is perfectly possible to imagine them collaborating musically in which case, given that both men were blessed with outstanding talents, it seems likely they could have formed a partnership of extraordinary musical versatility that, while it would undoubtedly have produced a different sound, might have formed a serious challenge to the dominance of Lennon and McCartney.

*Thanks to Chris Eley of the Sound of Fury for many of the details recorded above. The Sound of Fury, the Official Billy Fury Fan Club, 36 Manbey Grove, London E15 1EX.

Billy Fury