5:22pm Wednesday 20th October 2004
By Hugh Christopher
Mill Hill's former music mogul David English has hit the heady heights of the top ten with a song he penned for Sir Cliff Richard.
The ex-manager of the Bee Gees and Eric Clapton co-wrote the ballad How Many Sleeps, featured on the B-side of Cliff's latest Nashville-influenced single, Somethin' Is Goin' On currently at number seven in the charts.
Mr English, of Nan Clark's Lane, wrote the song with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees.
"It's quite wonderful that it's doing so well," he said.
"I wrote the song about my daughter Amy Rose, who as a little girl used to phone me from Zimbabwe, where she lived at the time, and asked, How many sleeps before I see you daddy?' She would measure how long she hadn't seen me in how many nights she had slept.
"I thought this was a lovely idea for a song so me and Barry went to Miami to record it.
"We thought it would be perfect for Cliff so he came over and put down the vocals.
"The funny thing is that Cliff hasn't even met Amy Rose, even though he's singing about her."
The top-ten hit completes a good year for the convivial Mr English, who has also received a honorary degree from Middlesex University. He will next be taking a group of terminally-ill children to Lapland with former England cricket star Phillip DeFreitas as part of his work for the charity When You Wish Upon A Star.
© Copyright 2001-2010 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.times-series.co.uk