20 April: Cliff is to launch his own record label, to celebrate his 40 years in the business. He will act as a talent scout to sign artists to it. He is joining forces with former EMI UK managing director Clive Black. The new label will be called 'Blacknight'. The first signing to Blacknight is 18 year-old Barratt Waugh, who was discovered singing 'I will always love you' in a Sheffield shopping mall. The first fruits of that deal are expected to see the light of day in early 1999.

23 April: Receives Lifetime Edison Award in Holland for all his records, hits and performances in the past 40 years.

24 April: The Cliff Richard Organisation denies reports in British and international newspapers that Sir Cliff is planning to retire next year, saying that it is possible that he will choose to be a little less heavily committed from next year to concentrate on finding talents for his new record label.

29 April: Sir Cliff Richard is to host his own sitcom and music TV programme in the Autumn as part of the BBC's plans to give pop stars and radio DJ's their own variety shows. The new series is in the tradition of the Morecambe & Wise Show with big name singers and stars featuring in each hour-long programme. "It's basically going to be a sitcom with music. Sir Cliff will be living in his own pad and entertainers and singers from the US or here will turn up. There will also be a chance to do duets. It'll be as people expect Sir Cliff's pad to be like. There'll probably be tennis racquets in the hallway", says David Bryce, from the Cliff Richard Organisation.

12 May: Cliff to open the Roy Castle Cancer Research Centre in Liverpool.

22 May: Work is continuing on Cliff's new album which is currently being produced in Austria under the working title of Larger Design. Cliff spent a few weeks in April in Austria recording songs for the new album and flew back last week to continue work on the highly anticipated new release. Austrian-based songwriter Peter Wolf is producing many of the new tracks on what former EMI managing director Clive Black described as Cliff's most mature album yet. Songs featured on this album which have already been previewed to the public are All That Matters (already released on Diana Princess of Wales Tribute Album) After This Love, Butterfly Kisses and Woman And A Man during his Australia/New Zealand tour earlier this year and Night Of Nights during his 1997 UK Gospel Tour.

25 May: "November Night" by Cliff Richard.***** A new track of Cliff will be released on the album "Words & Music" by Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984)and Mike Read. As the title of the album suggests, Mike Read has set some of Sir John Betjeman's best loved poems to music. He has then recruited some of the most successful recording artists of the last 25 years to perform the songs. The result is quite simply stunning. Listen to the contrast between Cliff singing "November Night" and Marc Almond singing "Narcissus" you will be amazed. Other artists performing songs are Leo Sayer, Donovan, Colin Bluntstone, Gene Pitney, Paul Young, David Essex, The Rodolfus Choir and a superb newcomer, Richard Sharp. The album (Eagle Records EAGCD029 and EAGMC029) will be launched at the special celebrity concert in aid of Children for Leukaemia at the Criterion Theatre, Piccadily Circus in London W1V 9LD on Monday 8th June.

*****NOVEMBER NIGHT*****

Across the wet November night And waiting Evensong.

A single bell with plaintive strokes

Pleads louder than the stirring oaks

The leafless lanes along.

It calls the choirboys from their tea

And villagers, the two or three,

Damp down the kitchen fire,

Let out the cat, and up the lane

Go paddling through the gentle rain

Of misty Oxfordshire.

How warm the many candles shine

Of Samuel Dowbiggin's design

For this interior neat,

These high box pews of Georgian days

Which screen us from the public gaze

When we make answer meet;

How gracefully their shadow falls

On bold pilasters down the walls

And on the pulpit high.

The chandeliers would twinkle gold

As pre-Tractarian sermons roll'd

Doctrinal, sound and dry.

From that west gallery no doubt

The viol and serpent tooted out

The Tallis tune to Ken,

And firmly at the end of prayers

The clerk below the pulpit stairs

Would thunder out "Amen."

But every wand'ring thought will cease

Before the noble alterpiece

With carven swags array'd,

For there in letters all may read

The Lord's Commandments, Prayer and Creed,

And decently display'd.

On country morningd sharp and clear

The penitent in faith draw near

And kneeling here below

Partake the heavenly banquet spread

Of sacremental Wine and Bread

And Jesus' presence know.

And must that plaintive bell in vain

Plead loud along the dripping lane?

And must the building fall?

Not while we love the church and live

And of our charity will give

Our much, our more, our all.

*WITH THANKS TO HARRY, ICRM FOR THESE WORDS*

25 May: Extension of the Royal Albert Hall Concerts: Due to a third party cancellation the Royal Albert Hall has offered the Cliff Richard Organisation additional dates. Cliff and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will therefore be returning for further shows on: March (1999) 2,3,4,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,15,16. Tickets prices remain at £35, £30, £25 and £20, and tickets will be available from the RAH Ticket Shop (0171 589 8212) from Sunday 7 June, when personal, postal and telephone bookings will be accepted. As before, there will be a limit of six tickets per person on the first day of booking. Tickets will also be obtainable from most ticket agencies. VIP & Corporate Hospitality is again available through Langston Scott (0171 924 4033), and Blue Chip Travel (0131 226 6157) can provide coach-inclusive packages.

Also in this month, Cliff paid a visit to Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. He went there in his capacity of Tearfund Vice-President, accompanied by TV presenter Steve Chalke to film a special edition of BBC TV's "Songs of Praise". The programme is due to be transmitted in September, and features Tearfund-Supported projects in the evangelical development agency's 30th anniversary year

1 June: Box Office opens for sale of tickets for Cliff's 1998 Pro-Celebrity Tennis Tournament, being held in the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham on Saturday 19 December.

7 June: *****Cliff will appear at The Dome, Brighton at the request of UK Christian actress Dora Bryan who is organising a charity event. Other performers include Lenny Henry and the Beacon Players.

*****: About 2,000 people packed the Dome Theatre in Brighton for Something Special, organised by Brighton actress Dora Bryan. Cliff, husband and wife comedians Lenny Henry and Dawn French ,performers from top London shows, dancer Lionel Blair, Olympic skating champion Robin Cousins and Sussex broadcasting couple Derek and Ellen Jameson were the performers on the three-hour bill, which was raising cash for charities The Martlets Hospice, The Sussex beacon and the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society. Miss Bryan's eldest son, Daniel, 38, suffers from the rheumatic spinal disease. Cliff returend to his roots with renditions of Summer Holiday and The Young Ones and Lenny Henry added a local flavour to his act by including references to Hove boxer Chris Eubank.

8 June: Cliff will make a guest appearance at The Criterion Theatre, London for a concert in aid of **Children for Leukaemia**.

**Six hundred guests packed London's Criterion Theatre to hear Mike Reid's musical celebration of Sir John Betjeman, which was held in aid of the Children With Leukaemia Trust. Taking part in the special charity show wer lyricist Sir Tim Rice, actor Bernard Cribbins, singers Sir Cliff Richard, Leo Sayer, Tony Hadley and Colin Blunstone.

More than £10,000 was raised towards the Trust's target of £1million to build new residential clinical accomodation for young leukaemai patients.

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