SINGER EVE WORKED AS A BRA-FITTER

Wednesday May 14,2008

EVE Graham, lead singer of The New Seekers at the height of their chart-topping Seventies superstardom, has admitted to being reduced to becoming a bra-fitter for Debenhams department store in Colchester.

Now 65 and making a comeback as a solo artist, Scottish-born Eve, pictured far left in the group and, pictured, today, took the unlikely job of discreetly measuring up ladies’ bosoms when her once glittering pop career had dried up in the Nineties and she needed the money.

Eve, whose hits with the band included I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing, admits: “As the agents weren’t ringing to give me work what was I supposed to do? Hide behind closed doors because my name is Eve Graham?”

Of how she came to take a shop assistant job, Eve recalls: “My husband Kevin and I were living on Mersea Island in Essex and one day I was shopping in Debenhams in Colchester when I saw a sign saying staff wanted and I thought: ‘I can do that!’

“I got a job as a sales assistant in women’s wear and later moved to the ladies’ underwear department. A representative of a bra company trained me so I became a fully qualified bra-fitter.

“Apparently 70 per cent of women wear the wrong size bra and I found it a very satisfying job making many people feel a million dollars. It was not unlike the satisfaction I got from doing a great show with The New Seekers and the audience going away happy.

“I never thought: ‘What am I doing this for?’ Having been a world famous singer is all very well but everybody moves on. Even astronauts who go to the moon have to adjust to a normal life after.”

But she was recognised a couple of times. “That was embarrassing because I know that, to them, it was a bit of a let-down. They’d ask: ‘Didn’t you used to be Eve Graham?’ I’d say, ‘Yes’ and change the subject because I didn’t want the inevitable next question: ‘Why are you doing this?’”

She worked there for two years then left “because, as it happens, I got some singing work”.

Fortunately things have perked up since then. Eve recently did a rare live performance at a sell-out charity event (raising nearly £10,000 for CLIC Sargent) in her native Scotland, singing New Seekers’ hits. She will soon record a third album for the Scotdisc label.