Ben Watt's father, Tommy, was a working-class Glaswegian jazz musician, a politi
cised left-wing bandleader and a composer. His heyday in the late fifties took h
im into the glittering heart of London's West End, where he broadcast live with
his own orchestra from the Paris Theatre and played nightly with his quintet at
the the glamorous Quaglino's. Ben's mother, Romany, the daughter of a Methodist
parson, schooled at Cheltenham Ladies' College, was a RADA-trained Shakespearian
actress, who had triplets in her first marriage before becoming a leading showb
iz columnist in the.sixties and seventies.
