Freedom of Waterford

In 2011, Val was honoured to receive the freedom of his home City, Waterford.

Val explains what this means to him:

After 63 happy years on the boards and on the road, I decided to ‘call it a day’ last year and put my feet up. It was a hard decision, but I can look back now with great joy and gratitude on the journey which began way back in 1947 in my home city of Waterford.

Over the closing years of my career, I put the finishing touches to my autobiography: ‘My story, My life’. It can be a strange experience coming face to face with your past, recalling things you did so many years ago. In fact, there were times while I was revising the manuscript when I felt as if I was writing about someone else I used to know back in those early days.

In our business, when you get to my age, you are always being asked by journalists and interviewers to pick a highlight of your life (because the whole story would take far too long!) It’s a difficult task because, thinking back, each new episode was at that time a highlight. As a boy, it was a highlight to play the drum in the Scouts marching band, but then, of course there were the wonderful dance band days when I sat playing the guitar-parts in a Glen Miller type orchestra. My first radio appearances back in 1949 seemed unbeatable, but they were followed by the magical ten years of the fifties when as a member of a close-harmony quartet I toured the British Music Hall Circuit and lived the unique life of a Variety performer. Though it was hard work, I couldn’t believe my luck.

As the years moved on there was my own radio series in on what was then called The BBC Light Programme, then the big time and 24 years of television shows, concerts, hit records, tours, a six month season at the London Palladium and the thirteen Summer Season shows when, as a family, we moved to the seaside for several months. Perhaps the real highlight is that I loved every minute of it and was fortunate enough to keep working and enjoying myself for so long.

However, to my great delight, a truly unexpected highlight was waiting in the wings. Just after a family celebration of my 84th birthday a letter came through the post. It was from the Mayor of Waterford in Ireland asking if I would accept the honour of "The Freedom of the City". As a boy, Waterford was my whole world; in fact I only went to Dublin for the first time when I was 18. My family and friends were the ones who encouraged me to sing and to pick up a guitar and what’s more, they supported me in my efforts to become an entertainer, something that seemed fanciful at the time. My parents were both proud Waterford people and most of my family have remained there, meaning that there has always been a welcome there for me and my wife and children. This recognition after so many years living away from the city was deeply moving and gave me a sense of coming ‘full circle.’

The chosen date for the ceremony was June 17th 2011. We flew to Waterford as a family, together with my musical director of some 44 years Roger Richards and his wife Maureen. Many old friends and more than thirty members of the Doonican clan were there to join in the celebrations. It was a very grand affair with a formal proposal and seconding being made by the councillors of the City, after which I was given an ancient book to sign. The list of my predecessors was auspicious to say the least. Who would have thought that I’d be there, the son of a metal worker from the city’s dockside? There was also a beautiful commemorative scroll (which I can present when I want to drive my sheep through the town) "The Waterford Handmade Glass Co" had made a beautiful crystal casket in which it now sits. I was so proud to find out that I was in fact only the thirty-second recipient of this unique honour in one hundred and forty years.

With the formalities over, we were treated to a great family reunion. My two surviving sisters were there (they still call me ‘boy’ as I was the youngest) as well as nieces and nephews galore. One of my grandnieces summed up the wonderful celebratory banquet which followed with the apt comment "Oh uncle Val, how wonderful to see so many Doonicans all together in the same room...and nobody had to die" How true! My sincere thanks to all for allowing me to close the door on my career exactly where I opened it.