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The Daily Mail Obituary |
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Obituary in
"The Daily Mail" April 22 1947
He gave the army Mademoiselle
Composer dies in
institute
By Daily Mail Reporter The man who wrote
"Mademoiselle from Armentieres" and 2,000 other songs is dead. He spent 50 years in Tin Pan
Alley, pouring out successes. His songs made hits for stars and
themes for the millions. But Harry Wincott, 80 years old,
died poor. He died in a Yeovil Public
Assistance Institution because no bed was available at the hospital. When he began writing songs he
was just a boy, one of his first customers was Charlie Chaplin father of the famous
Charlie. 'RICHES'
Success followed. And when he
sold "The Old Dun Cow Caught Fire" for a guinea he thought he was rich. "In those days," he
said, "artists used to buy my songs outright at a guinea a time and I was kept busy
day and night." Anything gave him ideas- even his
own misfortunes. One day he went home to find most of the furniture gone. So he sat down and wrote
"The Broker's Man." When World War I. broke out and
he walked into a recruiting office they told him to go away and write songs for the
troops. That's how "Mademoiselle
from Armentieres" was born. The British Army made a hit of it. FINALE
In his heyday Harry wrote songs
for Marie Lloyd, Billie Merson, Florrie Ford, George Formby, and Charles Austin. He knew the
"notabilities." He used to like telling about the smoking concert in London
where some of them "kidded" him to greet a certain gentleman as
"Daddy." The gentleman was King Edward
VII. then Prince of Wales. As he got older the song-writing
business changed and the demand for Harry's stuff dropped. He struggled on for a time - he
could go and sit on the Embankment and still hear his songs whistled and hummed - but it
was no use. Fate struck other blows. His
daughter died from burns. Within a few weeks his wife was dead too. His home was broken
up. They arranged a benefit concert
to give old Harry Wincott a bit of help. He went to Yeovil, with his
second wife, in 1941 - appeared at a Victory concert there in 1945. He was taken ill last February. Wincott was a pen name : his real
name was Alfred James Walden.
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