Buried in St Margaret’s, Stanford Rivers, Noel Gay was a prolific composer and lyricist, responsible for many of the most popular and memorable songs in the UK during the ’30s and ’40s.
Born Richard Moxon Armitage, on 3 March 1898, in Wakefield. A child prodigy, he was educated at Wakefield Cathedral School, and often deputized for the Cathedral organist. In 1913 he moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music, and later became the director of music and organist at St. Anne’s Church in Soho. After four years studying for his M.A. and B.Mus. at Christ’s Church College, Cambridge, he seemed destined for a career in a university or cathedral. While at Cambridge he became interested in the world of musical comedy, and started to write songs. After contributing to the revue, Stop Press, he was commissioned to write the complete score for the Charlot Show Of 1926. He was also the principal composer for Clowns In Clover, which starred Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge, and ran for over 500 performances. Around this time he took the name of Noel Gay for his popular work to avoid embarrassment to the church authorities.
In 1930, Gay, with Harry Graham, he wrote his most successful song to date, The King’s Horses, which was sung in another revue, Folly To Be Wise. He then collaborated with lyricist Desmond Carter for the score of his first musical show Hold My Hand (1931). Starring Jessie Matthews, Sonnie Hale and Stanley Lupino, the songs included Pied Piper, What’s In A Kiss, Hold My Hand and Turn On The Music. During the ’30s Gay wrote complete, or contributed to, scores for popular shows such as She Couldn’t Say No, That’s A Pretty Thing, Jack O’Diamonds, Love Laughs!, O-Kay For Sound (the first of the famous Crazy Gang Music Hall-type revues at the London Palladium, in which Bud Flanagan sang Gay’s The Fleet’s In Port Again), Wild Oats and Me And My Girl (1937). The latter show, with a book and lyrics by L. Arthur Rose, and starring Lupino Lane in the central role of Bill Sibson, ran for over 1,600 performances and featured The Lambeth Walk, which became an enormously popular sequence dance craze -so popular, in fact, that when the show was filmed in 1939, it was titled The Lambeth Walk.
In the same year, with Ralph Butler, Gay gave Bud Flanagan the big song, Run Rabbit Run, in another Crazy Gang revue, The Little Dog Laughed. During the ’40s, Gay wrote for several shows with lyrics mostly by Frank Eyton, including Lights Up (Let The People Sing, Only A Glass Of Champagne and You’ve Done Something To My Heart); Present Arms; La-Di-Di-Di-Da’; The Love Racket; Meet Me Victoria; Sweetheart Mine; and Bob’s Your Uncle (1948). His songs for films included All For A Shilling A Day and There’s Something About A Soldier Sung by Courtneidge in Me And Marlborough (1935); Leaning On A Lamp Post introduced by comedian George Formby in Feather Your Nest; Who’s Been Polishing The Sun, sung by Jack Hulbert in The Camels Are Coming; I Don’t Want To Go to Bed (Lupino in Sleepless Nights; and All Over The Place (Sailors Three).
Gay also composed Tondeleyo, the first song to be synchronized into a British talking picture (White Cargo). His other songs included Round The Marble Arch, All For The Love Of A Lady, I Took My Harp To A Party (a hit for Gracie Fields), Let’s Have A Tiddley At The Milk Bar, Red, White And Blue, Love Makes The World Go Round, The Moon Remembered, But You Forgot, The Girl Who Loves A Soldier, The Birthday Of The Little Princess, Are We Downhearted? – No!, Hey Little Hen, Happy Days Happy Months, I’ll Always Love You, Just A Little Fond Affection, When Alice Blue Gown Met Little Boy Blue, I Was Much Better Off In The Army and My Thanks To You (co-written with Norman Newell). In the early ’50s, Gay wrote very little, just a few songs such as I Was Much Better Off In The Army and You Smile At Everyone But Me.
He had been going deaf for some years, and had to wear a hearing aid. After his death on the 3rd March 1954, his publishing company, Noel Gay Music, which he had formed in 1938, published one more song, Love Me Now.
His son, Richard Armitage a successful impresario and agent, took over the company, and extended and developed the organization into one of the biggest television and representational agencies in Europe.
