A SIXTIES singer, who rubbed shoulders with the stars and toured the Middle East with showgirls, was also a main feature of Darlington market.

Seymour Borlant put his good looks and voice to work on his market pitch, but also tried his hand at breaking into the world of showbiz.

Born in Leeds, and with brothers already in the market business, he started working in Darlington in 1957 at the age of 22.

His business is still based under Darlington's indoor market overlooking the market square.

It was after his National Service in the army that he had itchy feet and decided to try his luck in London.

"I was working in a bar during the day and night-time at the Ronnie Scott Club with people like Tubby Hayes and Benny Green.

"I also did some work at the Stork Club as a singer. Then I joined the Wee Willie Harris Show. He used to dress as a caveman and had a mop of red hair.

"We were the backing for Cliff Richard. We did the first half-hour and Cliff did the remainder. I also met Marty Wilde and Gene Vincent.

"Tony Crombie, a friend who had a group, managed to get me an audition with the Lionel Bart show, Once Upon A Mattress, which was going to be my big break, but it never got going.

"So I decided to look in The Stage paper and, being a member of Equity, go for a job as a singer compere in the Middle East along with Windmill Girls and dancers from the Lido in Paris."

He got the job.

"We went out to Beirut to work at the Capital Hotel restaurant, theatre club and casino. It was tremendous, like the Las Vegas of the Mediterranean.

"Then the show went on to Cairo, to an Egyptian-owned casino. In the meantime, the girls - we started with 26 - were getting less and less. They were not turning up for work. They were getting married to wealthy Arabs and disappearing."

Seeing no long-term future for the show, he took another offer to go to Cyprus to sing in a show which later set off for Tehran.

"We flew out with a plane full of lovely girls, but had to touch down in Kuwait because of a snowstorm. The officials managed to get us into a house away from the airport while we waited for the weather to clear.

"But when we looked out we saw it was surrounded by white Cadillac cars and sheikhs.

"It was quite frightening. We closed all the shutters and eventually they went away when they realised the girls were not available."

While working in a Tehran nightclub, he appeared on Persian television, where the scenery collapsed around him while he carried on in true professional style.

He also was asked on to the early Sixties live launch of television in Cairo.

"They just wanted me and a very good girl singer. We had to record two songs and then mime on stage.

"As I walked on to sing Misty, they handed me a tiny kitten. There I was, very smartly dressed, when it started clawing at my white jacket, climbed on to my shoulder, had an accident on my shirt and then crawled on to my head.

"It was just awful. But the producers thought it was fantastic and said people had never seen live animals on television."

He has a treasured copy of a 1961 Iraq Times, in which he is pictured in a full page advert as "Garry Seymour, the fabulous voice" along with "the most beautiful pin-up girls" in the Bengali Show at Baghdad's Alibaba cabaret restaurant.

But eventually he became homesick and came back to his job in Darlington, where he had a fancy goods and household textile stall.

"When I first started, the Monday market in Darlington was considered one of the best in the country. It was Jack Bonanza fancy goods; myself; and Hilda, ladies' and gents' underwear, who launched the Saturday market."

But that was just the day job. In the evenings he became part of the Northern nightclub scene and the weekend compre at the famous Batley Variety Club.

"I really went out to the Middle East to get some experience and when I came back a lot of show people had started up nightclubs," he went on.

"Bill Maynard had the Savoy Club in Harrogate, while the Talk of the Town in Leeds changed its name to the Chinchilla Club. I compred there, which is where I became friends with Des O'Connor. I also introduced on stage people like Dusty Springfield and Bob Monkhouse.

"I even met Mandy Rice Davies when she was appearing at the Lyceum in Bradford. I befriended her and took her to York races. I never realised I had so many friends until then," he laughed. "She was a lovely girl, very young, and not such a bad person.

"The late Frankie Vaughan was also a very good friend of mine, but living in the North I lost touch with a lot of people.

"Des came across to see me a few years ago when he was appearing at the Civic Theatre in Darlington and we had a chat.

"When we were just young fellows in Leeds we used go out to the clubs together and he promised when he had his own show he would have me on it. He was more of a comedian at that time, and said he only wished he had my voice. When I saw him in Darlington I told him I was still waiting after 30 years and we had a laugh about it.

"I partly didn't get the breaks I wanted," he said. "I used to sing standards and ballads, which were not so popular in the Sixties.

"I got the voice from my father, Sidney, who trained at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. He was a very well-known tenor, who sang with the black contralto, Marian Anderson.

"But he suffered with nerves when he sang in public. He used to shake, but he had a voice like a bird.

"Leeds has always been our home base, but we came to Darlington, partly to get away from the opposition, but also because it was a very good place for trading in those days.

"Now my son, Jeremy, virtually runs the business.

"He also got involved in showbusiness as an amateur with the Potato Room Players in Leeds."

Today, the family has a fabric shop in the parade under Darlington's indoor market and another in the former Yarm post office.

Mr Borlant still spends his Saturdays in the Darlington shop and said: "We do have more up-market things now. In the old days we would sell transistor radios and sidewinder watches for £1.50.

"Even today there is an old man who walks past the shop and if he sees me there he taps his watch and gives me the thumbs-up. It is still going after 40 years.

"I think my brother, Bertrand, and I invented the bales - we used to sell a wadded quilt, a pair of Cock of the North blankets, a pair of candy striped sheets, a candlewick bedspread and a pair of pillowcases - in five different colours - £5 the lot. We would fill up the van and it was one of our best lines."