Patricia Maude Young
Patti Flynn is often recalled as the first Tiger Bay diva and likened to a contemporary Shirley Bassey. She was a jazz singer, radio actress and social activist and continued to work until her very late years. Her singing career saw her land roles in the West End and she worked tirelessly as a social activist, particularly her successful campaign of 26 years for a memorial to black and ethnic soldiers who died in the conflict. Huw Thomas said she was “one of the authentic voices of Cardiff and a fearsome campaigner to boot, her contribution to Black Welsh History is immense.”
1937
10/09/2020
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales
Her mother was Welsh and her father was Jamaican
1980s – Released her album Soulful Resonance
2003 – Released the book Fractured Horizons
2009 – Founded the Butetown Jazz Heritage Festival
2017 – Honoured as a founding member of the Black History Month movement in Wales
2019 – Her 26 year campaign to memorialise black and ethnic minority soldiers was awarded
2019 – Awarded with an EMWWAA Lifetime Achievement Award
Patti Flynn grew up in Sophia Street in Cardiff Bay and was the youngest of six. She was born to Beatrice Maud and Wilmott George Young, who had come from Jamaican to Cardiff in the 1920s. When Patti was a year old, the family moved to their own threebedroom house on Pomeroy Street, which had been given to them by Patti’s uncle, Albert. Howeverthe Second World War started shortly after and Patti lost her father and two brothers, Jocelyn and Arthur in the war. Her father’s ship was torpedoed in September 1942 and two years later Patti’s older brotherArthur died as a Lancaster bomber crashed in Lancashire. Further grief followed as Jocelyn’s ship disappeared and they never heard from him again. She recalls fondly on the closeknit supportive community she grew up in, particularly in the way that they supported one another throughout the hardship of war. She reflects on her mother and sisters as ‘towers of strength’.
Patti’s love for music started at a young age. She was surrounded by music in her house, particularly when her brothers, Arthur and Jocelyn, would bring back friends and play music loudly. She loved the likes of Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Furthermore, after the war, her mother remarried and moved up to North Church Street when Patti was around eight years old. They lived three doors away from the Glamorgan hotel pub which would frequently play an array of music. She would sit on her window ledge listening to live performances from the likes of Victor Parker and others. Although Patti was in St Mary’s church choir, she had not sung solo until her 18th birthday. Her mother took her into the Glamorgan pub and she was asked by Victor Parker to get up and do a song. Patti was so nervous that she stood with her back to the audience and sang ‘S Wonderful by Ella Fitzgerald. Victor Parker would continue to be a mentor for Patti.
After a local musician heard Patti sing he asked if she would cover the lead vocalist of his band in an upcoming show for 10 shillings. She agreed and this was one of her first many professional gigs. Patti continued to play several gigs in clubs and theatres around the UK between 1960s to 1980s. She also became a seasoned international cabaret artiste, supporting big stars like Bruce Forsyth.
Patti’s role as an understudy to Elaine Delmar in the hit West End Show, Bubbling Brown Sugar was one her many career highlights, particularly when Delmar went to America for three months and Patti fronted the stage for this period.
During the mid1980s, Patti moved to Spain and became a respected music producer and radio presenter with her shows Just for You and Costa Nights. One notable interviewee Patti encountered was Stan Thomas who started the Peter’s Pies empire. Patti helped Stan sell his pies in Spain which was impactful for their international sales.
In the 1980s, Patti recorded her own album Soulful Resonance.
Patti did however return to Cardiff, performing and creating her popular shows Jazz Ladies of the Twentieth Century, and A Trip Down Memory Lane which featured the music of great American composers. Patti also created and performed as the Butetown Bay Divas alongside the Webbe sisters, Humie and Jacky. The three are often regarded as the ‘Three divas of Tiger Bay’.
She continued to work with Humie and Jackie Webb and they would do their diva shows. They put in much hard work and in the end established Butetown Bay Jazz Heritage Festival in 2009. The Festival takes over the Wales Millennium Centre and welcomes people of all ages and backgrounds to enjoy two days of music from national and international jazz performances and free workshops. This has reintroduced the life that the buzzing docklands tradition had.
Patti was not only focused on music but used her talent to continually bring attention to Wales’ BME heritage and history. Her continual work with Butetown History and Arts Centre, for example; she used music and storytelling to work with school groups and provided songwriting workshops for young people. Furthermore, she was an enthusiastic researcher into Black history and culture. She wrote Fractured Horizon in 2003 with Matthew Manning which was a bilingual book, confronting the past and present of Cardiff docklands.
Patti also used her radio show on Cardiff Radio as an opportunity to consistently raise broader public awareness of the positive part which the BME community has played in Welsh society’s development.
Patti also received an invitation to study at Ruskin College in Oxford from BBC Woman’s Hour. Here she completed two research projects, From a Seaside Town to Capital City about Cardiff, and Colouring History which focused on putting famous women of colour back into history.
Patti advocated for Black History to be included on the curriculum and in 2017 was honoured as a founding member of the Black History Month movement in Wales. Patti also ran a successful 26-year campaign for a memorial to Black and ethnic minority soldiers. Her campaign was finally rewarded in 2019 when a plaque to commemorate their sacrifices was unveiled at the Welsh National War Memorial in Cardiff by the Welsh Government and senior officials from the British Armed forces. In 2019 she was also honoured with an EMWWAA (Ethnic Minority Welsh Women Achievement Association) Lifetime Achievement Award.
In her later years, Patti worked and raised money for members of the community who had dementia and also providing support for sickle cell disease. Patti never stopped her community work. At the time of her death she was working on her memoirs, telling the story of Cardiff docklands.
She married Max who was Swedish. They had three children Paula, Michael and Sean, who tragically lost his life in an accident. She had three grandchildren, Paul, Ruby and Noah and was a great grandmother to Ezra and Illias.
Wales Art Review, ‘Patti Flynn’s Soulful Resonance Tribute’, Wales Art Review (Wales Art Review, revised 2022) < https://www.walesartsreview.org/in-tribute-patti-flynns-soulful-resonance/ > [accessed 18 February]
Seventy Years of Struggle and Achievement: Life Stories of Ethnic Minority Women Living in Wales, ed. by Kirsten Lavine, Meena Upadhyaya, Chris Weedon (Cardigan: Parthian Books, 2021)
The Cardiff Chronicle, ‘Cardiff Chronicle #32- The Patti Flynn Story’, The Cardiff Chronicle (Mix Cloud, revised 2018) < https://www.mixcloud.com/the-cardiff-chronicle/cardiff-chronicle-32-the-patti-flynn-story/ > [accessed 18 February]
