I didn't have what they called a real 'voice', and I used to half-imitate Como in my own performance, because he sang and spoke so softly and was so easy on the ear. I used to do many of his songs in the old dance-hall days with the Earl Gill band, because they went well with the foxtrot and slow waltzes. His style was always very easy and relaxed, and he never sang in very high keys or did very complicated songs.

It was said that he modelled his own performance on Bing Crosby's, although their songs were certainly different.

Perry was born in 1912 in Pennsylvania, and he came from humble beginnings. He helped out in a barber's shop after school, and then set up his own barber shop after school, before becoming a singer.

Similarly, I was an apprentice tailor before I went into the music business.

He stayed married to the same woman all of his life. My wife Sheila and I are married over 50 years, and have three children, but Perry was married even longer, because he and his wife Roselle were married for 65 years, and dated for four years before that. They also had three children.

They met at a picnic when he was 16, and he was very upset when she passed away in 1994.

When he was 21, he started singing with the Fred Carlone Band, and he became very popular in the 1930s when he became the featured vocalist with the Ted Weems' orchestra. When that band broke up in the early 1940s, he was offered a contract by NBC to share star billing on a radio show that was broadcast every weekday.

He became known for singing romantic ballads, and he signed with RCA to put his albums out. He spent his entire recording career with the same label.

He also did loads of musical variety television shows and seasonal specials over the years, including The Perry Como Show, which ran from 1955-1959 on CBS and Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall which went from 1959-1963.

I used to watch his show every week, and he was brilliant. He always sat on a stool, and had a fancy music stand with the words and music in front of him, and he'd sing from that. I don't think he bothered much with learning things off.

He had a great rapport with audiences, and they loved him, but I can't think of anyone who didn't love him anyway.

Perry was very clean-living, and nobody ever heard anything derogatory about him. He was highly respected for his professional standards and also for his conduct in his personal life . . . there were never any scandals around him.

He appeared in a lot of films, but he never actually starred much in them. He didn't feature heavily, but always appeared somewhere along the way, singing an odd song here and there. For example, he might be in a scene in a bar having a drink, and a song would come up and he'd sing it. He wasn't that enamoured with his time in the film business, admitting "I was wasting their time and they were wasting mine, " whereas he was very successful on television.

From 1948, he did a Christmas special show on TV, and released several Christmas albums, which sold very well.

Perry came over here in 1993 to film his Christmas concert at the Point Depot, and I was very disappointed because I couldn't get a ticket to see him, and apart from that, I was busy myself, because at that time, I was kind of in my semi-heyday.

He was quite old and feeble at that time, and had just been treated for bladder cancer the year before. He got a fright because a fella got up on the stage, and he got terrified and left the stage. The fella adored him and he only wanted to touch him, but it frightened the life out of Como.

Also he was on the show that night with Twink (Adele King), and at one point, she brought her baby out and put her into his arms, and he was terrified in case he'd drop her. At the end of the show, he apologised to the audience, because he felt his performance wasn't up to his usual standards. I would have loved to see him though.

Perry sold more than 100 million records over his career, and had 14 number one songs, and received a Grammy nomination as best male pop vocalist for the song 'And I Love You So'.

Billboardmagazine named him the topselling male singer in 1946.

He spent the last few years of his life at his home in Jupiter Inlet Beach Colony near Palm Beach in Florida, with his children and grandchildren and his greatgrandchild was born before he died.

He passed away in 2001, and was posthumously awarded the 'Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award' in 2002. He was 89 when he died, which was some age, but he was still able to put out an old song.