Freddie Garrity

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Freddie Garrity (14 November 1936, Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK – 19 May 2006, Bangor, Gwynedd , Wales, UK) was the singer, frontman and comical element in the 1960s pop band Freddie and the Dreamers.

For many years his birthdate was often recorded as being 14 November 1940. This was due to a publicity stunt devised at the beginning of Freddie and the Dreamers's career to make him appear not only younger but the same age as John Lennon, therefore appealing more to the the teenage youth market who bought the majority of all records sold in England at the time.

Garrity's trademark was his habit of leaping up and down during performances. This, combined with his almost skeletal appearance and horn-rimmed glasses, made him an eccentric figure in the UK pop scene of the early 1960s. He worked as a milkman before forming the group in 1959.

Freddie and the Dreamers disbanded in the late 1960's but between 1971 and 1973 Garrity and former Bandmate Peter Birrell appeared in the ITV children's television show Little Big Time.

After his TV career ended, Garrity formed a new version of Freddie and the Dreamers and toured regularly for the next two decades, but no further records or chart success came their way. He continued to perform until 2001 when he was diagnosed with emphysema after collapsing during a flight, thus forcing him into retirement.

With his health in constant decline, Garrity settled in Newcastle-under-Lyme. He was married three times and had four children. Freddie Garrity died at Bangor in North Wales, at the age of 69, after being taken ill while on holiday.