The Dene & the Bishop

ROCK 'N' ROLL

"They think I'll be good for recruiting," said the flabby, long-haired teenager. "Look what a lift the American Army is getting because Elvis Presley* joined up." Thus, last January, Terence Williams, known as Terry Dene to millions of British rock-'n'-roll addicts, donned an army uniform and set out to do his bit for Blighty. Result for Britain's army: a nuisance, men, a ruddy nuisance.

Singer Dene's soul-searing experience as Rifleman 23604106 began the first day, when "I was standing up there with my tin tray, having my bit of food plonked down in front of me like all the others." Barracks life was even more indigestible: "The thought of me in that little bed, with 15 other blokes around ... I felt real sick. It was grim, man--just grim." Within 48 hours Terry's delicate psyche collapsed, and the brass carted him off gently to a hospital ward.

Black Eye. Newspaper columnists and indignant M.P.s bent angrily over the fallen idol. Hissed the London Daily Mirror's "Cassandra": "While he was a-mewing and a-puling in his cot, at least 2,000,000 young men of about the same age as he is now went to war against Germany and Italy. Almost every man jack of them felt they would never make a soldier because 'they weren't cut out for it.' " But Dene was cut out of it entirely; after two months of psychiatric and other treatment, he got a medical discharge and was sent home to his wife, Singer Edna Savage, 22. Edna had had her eye blackened by Terry before they were married, saw him arrested for drunken brawling three times in 18 months, vowed: "If the army loses Terry Dene, I'm afraid Terry Dene will lose me."

Tight Pants. But such is the faith of British rock 'n' rollers--to say nothing of British wives--that Terry seems to have lost the loyalty of neither. One night last week, with five MPs guarding the doors and bobbies examining all fans for concealed tomatoes and eggs, Terry Dene appeared before a packed movie house in Derby. Dressed in a long, pale jacket and skin-tight pants, he began his hip-flinging comeback with Just One More Chance. There were hoots from angry men ("Get back in the army"), but the whoops from the ecstatic girls drowned them out.

Even if he failed as a recruiter, Terry Dene could take comfort that somebody still wanted to recruit him. At St. George's Church, in London's working-class Camberwell district, Anglican Father Geoffrey Beaumont followed prayers for a new bishop with another: "Let us pray for Terry Dene, a young man who has been very ill." Father Beaumont, already mildly celebrated for his use of jazz during sacred services (TIME, April 1, 1957), explained: "Terry Dene represents the sort of thing I want to bring into my church."

* Pfc. Presley is still taking life in stride as a Jeep driver in the 3rd Armored (Spearhead) Division in Germany.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.