Marti Caine: Queen Of Working Men’s Clubs And Comedy

Few people exemplify the remarkable career trajectory once offered by Britain’s Working Men’s Clubs better than the legendary entertainer hailing from Sheffield — Marti Caine.

As we approach thirty years since her passing and nearly five decades since her triumph on ‘New Faces,’ the renowned television talent show that catapulted her from dimly lit auditoriums to the grand cabaret stage and ultimately into the national TV spotlight, her enduring legacy continues to resonate.

Born Lynn Denise Sheppard in 1945, a mere few months before World War Two’s conclusion, her upbringing on a Sheffield council estate was marked by adversity. With a history of alcohol and drug abuse in her family and having suffered sexual abuse from her paternal grandfather, her early life was tumultuous.

At seventeen, Caine married a local butcher’s apprentice and found herself, in her own words, “just another dreamer… married with two children, a former beauty queen, confined to a council estate, with dreams of a better life seeming distant”.

Despite her dreams, fame wasn’t Marti Caine’s initial impetus when she first stepped into the limelight. It was an unpaid bill of £150 for her mother’s funeral expenses that drove the 19-year-old Lynne Stringer (as she was then known) to audition at the Chapeltown Working Men’s Club near Sheffield, under the watchful eye of Ernest ‘Honest’ Johns.

In an unexpected twist, burdened by debt and fortified by a swig of brandy, Marti Caine embarked on that pivotal audition. Armed with only her voice and unyielding courage, she chose two songs — ‘Puppet on a String’ and ‘Summertime’ — to showcase her versatility. Yet, her voice quivered with nervousness, reminiscent of Edith Piaf’s tremors afflicted by Parkinson’s disease, as she would later recall.

At that moment, she was neither the professional Marti Caine nor the familiar Lynne Stringer. For a fleeting three weeks, she embraced the alias Sunny Smith, followed by a brief stint as Zoe Bond. Unsatisfied with both, she turned to the pages of a gardening book in search of inspiration for a name. It was then that her husband, Malcolm Stringer, ingeniously manipulated a tomato cane, giving birth to the name Marta Cane. A fortuitous misinterpretation at one of the clubs led to her being billed as Marti Caine.

Amid the radiant spotlight of the stage, Marti unearthed a captivating truth: her talent for humour eclipsed her prowess in singing. A striking figure in a form-fitting mini-dress, she defied conventions by venturing into the realm of stand-up comedy within the Working Men’s Clubs of the late 1960s. Her presence served as a breath of fresh air in a sea of beer-guzzling chauvinists. Balancing between challenging male ego and affirming established norms, she carved out her own distinct space.

Commencing as a compere at Sheffield’s renowned Fiesta cabaret club, she eventually ascended to the role of headline act. She honed her skills in Working Men’s Clubs across the nation. Her ascent to fame was both remarkable and emblematic of the well-trodden path that the Working Men’s Club scene offered — a route that fostered the likes of Little & Large, Cannon & Ball, Duggie Brown, Bobby Knutt, Bernie Clifton, Larry Grayson and scores of other. The industry indeed merits its own hall of fame.

• This piece is inspired by the ‘Dirty Stop Out’s Guide to Working Men’s Clubs’, available at www.dirtystopouts.com