For the Christmas season .....

Absolutely loved Dame Shirley Bassey DBE - In my younger days I was seated front row at the Sydney Motor Club with a very attractive and leggy brunette, sipping Veuve Cliqout while she performed this number - even ended up with the Boa being draped around my neck and head.

Born above a brothel in a docklands slum" Shirley Veronica Bassey was the sixth and last child of Eliza Jane Start and Henry Bassey in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales (now called Cardiff Bay), of paternal Nigerian and maternal English descent, Shirley was born into a household of three sisters, two half-sisters, and one brother.A year later her father was arrested and charged tried, imprisoned for five years, and then deported while her mother Eliza and the children moved to the nearby steelworking district of Splott. - Not an easy start in life and her eventual rise to entertainment fame was a true 'success story'.