Craig Douglas

Craig Douglas, born Terence Perkins on August 13, 1941, in Newport on the Isle of Wight, was an English pop and rock-and-roll singer whose clean-cut teen appeal made him one of Britain's best-known chart voices at the end of the 1950s. He died on September 4, 2026, at the age of 85. A family spokesperson told the Isle of Wight County Press that he passed peacefully after a very short illness, with his family by his side, and asked that their privacy be respected.

He was born a twin on Prospect Road, Newport, to William and Mildred Perkins. Local showbiz writer John Hannam described him as one of eight children, including three sets of twins; AllMusic's Bruce Eder has written of nine children and three twin sets. The family later moved to the Pan Estate. Terence was educated at Priory Boys School (later Priory Boys Secondary Modern). Several relatives were musical. An indifferent student who preferred outdoors and athletics, he volunteered during a school holiday to help a milkman with deliveries, work that led to the lifelong nickname the Singing Milkman. Before fame he worked as a farmhand and milkman at Bill Strickland's Farm in Calbourne, earning about £4.10s a week.

In November 1957, aged 16, he came home to find his mother Mildred had entered him in a talent contest at Newport's Medina Cinema. He sang Pat Boone's Love Letters in the Sand to win a heat and won the contest singing Mary's Boy Child, beating rockers he later recalled as wearing bootlace ties, luminous socks, Tony Curtis haircuts and doing Presley stuff. Manager and producer Bunny Lewis and his wife Janique Joelle spotted him. They encouraged him to turn professional, arranged singing and related lessons in London, and gave him the stage name Craig Douglas after Lewis saw the name outside a house in Scotland. Douglas later said there were many Terrys and few Craigs. Billed as the Boy with the Golden Voice after a week at the Empire Theatre, Portsmouth, he appeared on BBC television's Six-Five Special alongside Cliff Richard and Joe Brown and drew heavy fan mail.

After early Decca singles that did not chart, he signed to Top Rank. A Teenager in Love reached UK No. 13 in 1959. Then Only Sixteen, his cover of Sam Cooke's song, recorded at EMI's Abbey Road Studios with whistling by Mike Sammes, topped the UK chart for four weeks from mid-September 1959, outselling Cooke's original in Britain and briefly keeping Cliff Richard's Living Doll off the summit. Official Charts records a No. 1 peak, 15 weeks on chart, and Top Rank catalogue JAR159. Hannam and County Press report a silver disc and claimed sales well over a million for the single; at his 2021 birthday gathering Hannam relayed career reminiscences of roughly ten million records sold worldwide and more than 200 television appearances (birthday-interview claims, not independently audited here). NME voted him Best New Singer for 1959. Local and Hannam reporting at the height of that fame said he was outselling stars including Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley; treat that as a carefully attributed contemporary/local claim. Success moved him from the milk round to a Dolphin Square apartment in London.

He accumulated a run of UK hits often built on American covers: Pretty Blue Eyes (No. 4), Heart of a Teenage Girl (No. 10), then four consecutive No. 9 singles (A Hundred Pounds of Clay, Time, When My Little Girl Is Smiling, Our Favorite Melodies), plus Oh Lonesome Me (No. 15) and final chart entry Town Crier (No. 36, February 1963). Wikipedia summarises nine UK Top 40 singles; the Official Charts artist page currently lists ten UK Top 40 entries among eleven Top 75 singles and one UK No. 1. In 1961 he entered A Song For Europe with The Girl Next Door without success. In 1962 he appeared in Richard Lester's first feature film, It's Trad, Dad!, with Helen Shapiro and Chubby Checker. Album releases included Craig Douglas (1960, UK No. 17), Bandwagon Ball, Our Favourite Melodies, later Looking Back (2005), Golden Anniversary Album (2008), and The Craig Douglas Project (2011).

In October 1962 he topped the bill on a Brian Epstein Liverpool Empire show that was the Beatles' first major stage booking; the Beatles stayed on to back him, and he later recalled walking past their dressing room and hearing them singing his songs. The Beat Boom ended his chart run. He continued in clubs, cruises, cabaret, musicals and plays, with month-long Hong Kong bookings into the 1990s and UK touring into about 2010. A rare leg condition forced him from regular performing; on December 11, 2010, he sang three songs from a wheelchair at an Amersham Rock 'n' Roll Club benefit with John Leyton, Mike Berry and others, attended by Jet Harris and filmed by Sky News. Island lore preserved by Bradstock includes being smuggled from a Welsh theatre in a hearse amid fans, four curtain calls at Ryde Commodore in summer 1959, and empty milk bottles left outside his dressing room by the Rolling Stones after an uncomplimentary Melody Maker review of their single Come On when they shared Thank Your Lucky Stars.

On August 13, 2021 (not the 12th, as some outlets wrongly stated) John Hannam arranged an 80th birthday afternoon tea at the Royal Esplanade Hotel, Ryde. Douglas, who had returned to the Island after ill health ended his career, called it a wonderful occasion that brought back memories. In a Beat Magazine interview he said he never married and would have liked children but felt touring would have made family life too hard. AllMusic's Bruce Eder placed him among England's Avalon/Fabian-type teen idols: clean diction, Ricky Nelson-like early records, and durable cabaret longevity. He died in September 2026, remembered on the Island as the farmhand who became Britain's Singing Milkman and a UK chart-topper before Merseybeat changed the map.