But deep, deep down I really am nice. Aren't I?
Others blow their own trumpet. Me I just blow my own harmonica!
Really I'm a professor of art ... the art of telling fibs!
Don't come too close... I've got Hermania



When you see him on stage he seems cheeky-faced and chirpy. The girl sitting next to you thinks he's dead sexy and there's another one down at the front screaming he's just like her younger brother! However he appears, seventeen-year-old Herman appeals differently to everyone. So we got girl reporter, DAWN JAMES, to give you a very special Bird's eye view of Herman.

Herman was surrounded by girls. I could see his cheeky face smiling down on the bewitched group, as they chatted and held out autograph books. Herman is a pocket-sized sex symbol, seventeen years old, clean clooking, and full of fun. He sends shivers down teenage backs, endears himself to Mums, and plagues girl reporters with practical jokes, big fibs, and a little-boy-lost image.
    He's the sort of boy a girl could fall head over heels in love with, and find herself looking after. He needs someone to think for him. He forgets appointments and gets addresses wrong but, once he meets up with you, your wish is his command.
    "I'm warm and sincere and tremendous fun," he explained when we first met. He tells the most awful fibs. He grins, and his eyes (which are the most super pale blue) sparkle.
    He tells you that he is an accountant and was the only boy to qualify while still at school. He says he was so clever that he got ten A levels by the time he took the eleven-plus. It's nothing for him to meet you with a tale of seeing four men with eight heads between them, walking down London's Haymarket.
    But there is another side to Herman (known to his friends as Pete Noone). He wants security by the time he is twenty-one.
    "I want to know that by that time I have enough to retire on," he said.
    At seventeen, an age when many boys are still at school, Herman is an established star, earning a considerable income. When he was thirteen, he earned one hundred pounds a week for appearing as Len Fairclough's son, on ITV's Coronation Street. Top recording manager, Mickie Most, discovered him in a Manchester club early last year.
    "People ask me what it is like being a star twice over, as an actor and now a singer. I don't know because I don't think about it. I'm not a star to me. I mean one part on television doesn't make me a great actor, and lots of my success on record must go to Mickie. He knows how to get the best out of me. People like him, and the TV director who did Coronation Street work hard while people like me take the credit."
    Herman finds acting easy because he has an enormous imagination, and instead of studying a part, he just imagines himself into it.
    "When I was a little boy I spent all my pocket money going to the cinema. I began to act the parts along with the screen characters. Later, I

  took lessons at the Manchester School of Drama and Music, but I still found my imaginings of use to me. When I got the Coronation Street part, I thought I knew what I wanted. Acting I thought, was what I'd stick to."
    Herman, the ex-actor, current pop singer, held his head on one side, and pale blue eyes danced at mine. "I changed my mind," he said, "teenager's privilege. It all happened by accident. I met a group who asked me to sing with them in a club. I said, 'Sing? you're joking. I can't sing, I haven't a clue'. They told me to stand up and do anything to entertain them. So I did. And it was fun. I suddenly realised I didn't have to follow a script. I could say anything. The singing came quite easily too.
    "Sir Laurence Olivier once told me, 'you lad' (he always called me lad, did Olly), you lad are one of the greatest actor-singers we've got. Hang on, we need you lad."
    "Herman" I said threateningly.
    "He said it, he told my Dad. You know who my Dad is, don't you? Mick Jagger."
    On his last birthday, Herman got one thousand cards from fans.
    "I'd like to date each girl who sent me a card," he said. "I reckon on looking about a bit before settling down. I go out with a girl and we have a lot of fun, and I take her home, and we hate leaving each other. I think, 'this is it, the big thing in my life', and I go home full of her. But a week later I meet someone else." He looked down at his pointed black shoes. "I sometimes wonder if I'll ever settle down. I'd like to. I want a wife and all tha jazz, one day. But when?
    "Anyway, if I met the right girl I'd never make a husband, well not right now. I forget things, and turn up for a date at the wrong time. I have two managers who fix everything for me. I don't have to think. Well, how would I get on running my own life and my girls'? Do you think it gets easier as you get older?
    Herman doesn't usually talk like this, but behind his gay, frivolous charms, you sometimes see the makings of a mature, good looking young man. Life is a big laugh for him and The Hermits today, but tomorrow may weigh a little heavier on them.
    "That's growing up," Herman said resignedly, "right now I laugh every day. Maybe when I get older I'll not laugh so often." He looked grave for a moment, but the moment passed quickly.
    "Don't look so serious, I haven't grown up yet." He pulled me out of the room, running down the corridor, long legs flying.
    "Do you know, once I arrived late at my manager's office when I was supposed to be meeting some American promoters," he shouted over his shoulder. "'Sorry I'm late', I said, 'I had a small misadventure on my way here. I was chased by a rhino round Hyde Park'. The Americans shook their heads doubtfully, 'Do you have animals in your London Parks?' 'Yes', I said, 'We have many accidents due to ants and beetles'"
    He slowed to a walk.
    "People my age want to have fun. You ask any of them. You'll see they don't look a long way ahead. As long as tomorrow looks like being O.K." We'd slowed right down now; Herman leaned against the wall, puffed, "It's not all fun with me, you know."
    "I do have serious thoughts" he looked serious, too. "It's just that I like leaving growing up until tomorrow." And as he spoke, I felt in that brief moment I had a glimpse of that tomorrow.




I once saw a man
with four heads, y'know
... he was waiting to go in a phone box!
I know there's nothing wrong with my tonsils...
(he, he ... because I haven't got any!)

So just when I said
to this bird - show me
girl - she clocked me one.
They all say me tooth is a gimmick, but when I asked my dentist what's a gimmick doing growing in me mouth he said he didn't know!

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