ONE OUT OF THE BOX FACTORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 84, 31 January 1941, Page 15

ONE OUT OF THE BOX FACTORY

Harry Roy Practised The Banjo To Keep Him Cheerful

F anyone had told Harry Roy 25 years ago that he would someday conduct the most popular dance band in England, he would have laughed heartily. For at that time (just before the Great War) he was more concerned with making cardboard boxes. Harry Roy, who is 40 years of age, was born Harry Lipman, but changed his name by deed poll. When he was

15 years of age he left school to join his father’s business, a card-board box factory in London, The war, however, brought difficult times. His brother Syd (now his manager) joined up, his father died, and eventually the 200 working people in the factory dropped to four. Young Harry did all the business, working in the factory with his sister and two girls during the day and attending to office routine at night. All the time he was practising on his first musical instrument, a banjo. "I needed something to keep me cheerful" he says now. "In spite of our hard work’ we lost a fortune during the war." After the war the brothers organised their first dance band which they called "The Darnswells," a pun of which Harry Roy is still proud. They had the

usual ups and downs of a small, struggling band, but one day a West End restaurant asked the brothers to form a special combination. It prospered, and another and better band was formed, which for four years played at London’s Cafe Anglais. Recent history has been success after success. Roy has toured widely, visited South Africa and Australia, and he also found time for a highly publicised romance with a daughter of the Rajah of Sarawak. Since the war Harry Roy and his band have been doing Trojan work entertaining the troops in various parts of England.