South Yorkshire Times, November 1, 1969

Certain Hat-Trick

Who said inert was no glamour in Local Government ? Whoever these cynics are, they certainly have never seen the ‘other side’ of Christine Mallinson, who works, at Wombwell Town Hall.

With the day’s work neatly behind her, Christine, the quiet, unassuming clerk, becomes the glamorous miniskirted front-piece and singer of a local group, ‘The Hat Trick’, discarding her serious efficient role as clerk and letting her hair down’ — literally — and sings.

The group comprises Christine, the group  singer, who lives at Highland; Raymond Hudson, the group’s other vocalist, is a metallurgical from Rotherham; Alan Marshall, a window designer from Sheffield, the guitarist Graham Bowley bass guitarist who works as a scientific technical officer, from Hemingfield and Edwin Marshall, with a clerk from Hemingfield who is drummer.

For three years

Christine began singing with the group about a year ago and has not looked back since. Prior to joining the ‘Hat Trick’ Christine and her fiance, Graham, were members of the Chris K Combo. Christine has now been singing with groups for about three years, since she ieft Barnsley High School, and has enjoyed every moment of it. She enjoys the life so much that she would like to become a professional singer. “We recently turned down a season booking in Jersey,” says Christine. “The other group members have good jobs and they don’t want to give them up.” “I find the work interesting and rewarding,” Christine told me.

However, Christine was not always the glamorous, confident singer she is today. When she was young, she was very shy and when her family and friends requested a song, Christine was sure to decline. “Nowadays though,” she said, “I am not nervous at all. I think that it is partly due to experience and partly because in this business you have to think that the audience cannot do better or they would do.”

Wardrobe

Her life as a singer requires rather a wide and expensive wardrobe — despite the little material used to manufacture her mini-skirts and dresses.

Playing bookings as far apart as Goole and Stoke-on-Trent, the group are becoming very popular and the fees they receive are increasing. “We don’t play many local bookings,” said Christine. “I am a little pleased that we don’t too because I always feel a little nervous when I am singing before an audience where I am known.”

This rule was broken, however, when the group delighted a packed house at the official reopening of Wombwell Reform Club last week.