[BITList] White Heather

[John Feltham]

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Stewart,  Andrew  [Andy]  (1933-1993), singer and entertainer, was born on 30 December 1933 at Redlands Maternity Home, Great Western Road, Glasgow, the only son and second child of Andrew Stewart (1901-1966), schoolmaster, and his wife, Alice Thompson (1903-1984). His parents were both Scottish. His education, which began at Drumoyne primary school in Glasgow, continued in Craigie School, Perth, and Arbroath high school, the family moving whenever his father changed his job. In 1951, at eighteen, Andy, the name by which he was always known, enrolled at the College of Dramatic Art (later Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama) in Glasgow. There he met his future wife, Sheila Wybar Newbigging (b. 1931), whose stage-name was Sheila Prentice. They graduated with diplomas in dramatic art (DDA), and he won several awards, including a six-month contract with BBC Scotland.

Andy Stewart started working in summer season variety for the Galt Agency during college holidays, but his real apprenticeship began during his prize time at the BBC in Glasgow when he was able to work with, and observe, the established actor and entertainer Duncan Macrae. Until 1961 he had many jobs: he toured England as master of ceremonies to a rock 'n' roll show during the week, returning overnight to Glasgow for his radio work, appeared in Jim and Mary for BBC television, Ivy Street for Scottish Television (STV), and in 1957 and 1958 he appeared in the popular radio series 17 Sauchie Street and Scotch Corner. At the same time he was taking his own variety act into the live theatre, performing at the Metropole, Glasgow; Barrfields Pavilion, Largs; and in Gourock. He also toured the highlands with his own show, finishing with great success at the Glasgow Empire. On 14 October 1955 he married Sheila Prentice in a Church of Scotland ceremony. They had a son and five daughters.

Andy Stewart reached his widest audience with the BBC's The White Heather Club, first transmitted in 1959. The brainchild of producer and later head of light entertainment Iain MacFadyen, it was described by Stewart as 'a showcase for the dance music, for the songs, traditional and contemporary, for the humour, in verse and prose, of his native land'  (Andy Stewart, Lismore Recordings, 1983, disc notes). Originally a regional broadcast, it gained a national audience of millions in the 1960s, particularly on new year's eve, when his combination of songs, jokes, and impersonations became an essential part of Hogmanay for many. The short, kilted, boyish-faced Stewart, who performed by the code 'If your mother, wife and daughter would be embarrassed [by a joke], don't do it'  (The Times, 13 Oct 1993), was an ideal variety performer for the anxious television companies of the 1960s. He was able to touch the hearts and tickle the fancy of audiences everywhere, from Carnegie Hall in New York to the London Palladium, from the Sydney Opera House to a seaside pavilion in Ayrshire. His songs, regularly recorded, were enthusiastically received and in 1960 he was rewarded with a silver disc. 'A Scottish Soldier', his words to a famous pipe tune, remained in the British charts for forty weeks in 1961, while almost thirty years after its first release, 'Donald where's yer troosers' was in the top ten when it came out again at Christmas 1989. Andy claimed that

these two songs alone started me off in the globe-trotting business ... I have sung them all over the world from Invercargill at the tip of New Zealand's South Island to Labrador City-at 40 below! ... no place for a man in a kilt! (Andy Stewart's Greatest Hits, Pye Records Ltd, 1977)
Those who bought his records were rewarded with a letter, a homily on the back of the sleeve, addressing them familiarly with news of his last, or projected enterprises. He also mentioned his 'good friends', including Jimmy Blue and the band, with whom he often appeared, and accompanist Mark Simson, the 'auld frien' and fine pianist' who provided great support on the tours. He had made his first overseas appearance in Australia in 1961, and thereafter his annual tours included the USA, Canada, and New Zealand, countries with large populations of families with Scottish roots. His first royal command performance at the London Palladium was also in 1961.

In 1976 Andy Stewart was appointed MBE, owing, in part, to his having taken his company to cheer up the city of Aberdeen during the 1964 typhoid epidemic. The previous year (1975) he had been one of Eamonn Andrews's subjects on the BBC's This Is Your Life, and in 1987 he was made an honorary freeman of Angus.

On stage Andy Stewart possessed enormous vitality. One weekend he did two concerts in Aberdeen, flew to New York, performed to an audience of 15,000, and returned to continue the show in Aberdeen. He also visited hospitals and nursing homes, chatting with and entertaining the patients both in Scotland and on trips overseas. No one was ever turned away. Perhaps it is not surprising that he had poor health. From the 1960s he was often hospitalized and in 1986 he was having heart bypass surgery (repeated three years later) when his first grandchild was born. He celebrated by writing the song 'It's nice to be a grandad'. But he put off retiring and planned yet another tour of America, which he did not live to make. The night before he died Andy Stewart took part in a charity concert in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, to raise money for a children's hospice in Scotland. Taken ill after the show, he died at home, 24 Inchcape Road, Arbroath, in the presence of his wife on 11 October 1993. His funeral took place on 15 October and he was cremated at Park Row, outside Arbroath.

Grace Matchett 

Sources  private information (2004) [Sheila Prentice, wife] + The Scotsman (12 Oct 1993) + The Independent (13 Oct 1993) + The Times (13 Oct 1993) + The Guardian (12 Oct 1993) + The Herald [Glasgow] (12 Oct 1993) + student records, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama + Andy Stewart: Scotland is Andy Stewart [Andy Stewart: disc notes] + Andy Stewart's greatest hits [Andy Stewart: disc notes] + Here's tae you Andy Stewart [Andy Stewart: disc notes] + Country boy: Andy's Hogmanay party [Andy Stewart: disc notes] + Back to the bothy [Andy Stewart: disc notes] + I love to wear the kilt [Andy Stewart: disc notes] + For auld lang syne [Andy Stewart: disc notes]
Archives  FILM BBC, Queen Margaret Drive, Glasgow + Scottish Television, Cowcaddens, Glasgow
Likenesses  photograph, repro. in The Herald, 15 · photograph, repro. in The Guardian · photograph, repro. in The Independent · photograph, NPG [see illus.] · photographs, repro. in The Scotsman (13 Oct 1993) · photographs, U. Glas. L., Scottish Theatre Archive · photographs, Scottish Music Hall Society
Wealth at death  £82,325.80: confirmation, 22 June 1994, CCI




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