IT was teatime in England, but breakfast in Los Angeles when I made the call, but across 3,500 miles of ocean and from the far side of America the voice of Patricia Mace came clear as a bell and she was laughing. Which is always a good sign.

She said: “I hear you’ve been writing about me.” Indeed I had and this was mission accomplished.

A fortnight ago, I wrote a feature about a Worcester girl called Pat, who sent a series of fan letters to American rock’n’roll star Buddy Holly following his appearance with the Crickets at the city’s Gaumont cinema on March 11,1958. The teenage angst found its way on to the internet half a century later and the purpose of my piece was to put a proper name and hopefully a face to the hitherto anonymous Pat, who had obviously caught the bespectacled Texan’s eye all those years ago.

Well here she was, Patricia Mace of, would you believe it, Wooster Street, Los Angeles. Having lived in the US for more than 40 years, she speaks with an American twang now, but as the conversation went on the softer south Worcestershire accent came more to the fore.

She said: “I can’t understand it.

All this fuss. It’s a bit embarrassing.” Nevertheless a million girls would have given their last lipstick to have changed places with her that night in 1958.

Despite being called “Pat from Worcester” on the internet, she was an Evesham girl – living in Cheltenham Road – and had not long left Prince Henry’s Grammar School and started a job in the town at Boots the chemists.

Pat said: “I suppose like most young girls, I was a real music fan.

I used to listen to Radio Luxembourg and there was a programme on a Saturday morning that played pop music, one of the few that did at the time.

I heard That’ll be the Day by Buddy Holly and the Crickets and absolutely loved it. When we heard they were to play a concert in Worcester as part of a British tour, a group of us got together and travelled there by train.

“After the show, which was great, I decided to try to get Buddy Holly’s autograph. So I left the others in the foyer of the theatre and went around the back to the stage door. I was amazed to find the only person there was a member of the Gaumont staff and the door was open.

“As I was talking to the man, Buddy Holly walked past. He looked out through the door, saw me and asked what I wanted. I said I’d like his autograph, but instead of just signing the show programme, he said: ‘Come on in’.

So I followed him down the corridor into his dressing room. It was almost surreal. I sat in the corner of the room in my best green coat I had worn for the evening. As well as Buddy, the Crickets were there winding down after their performance. I remember they were listening to Little Richard records on small portable record player they had with them. Every so often Buddy would come over and ask if I was all right and apart from that they were just chatting among themselves.

“After about 20 minutes one of the people from the Gaumont stuck his head around the door and said: ‘Your friends are waiting for you to go back. They want to go home.’ But I thought there was no way I was going to leave; a teenage girl sat there surrounded by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. So I told them to go home without me. After about half an hour, Buddy got a call that his transport was ready, but before he went he asked for my telephone number and address and promised to call me. I ended up catching a taxi home with two friends and it cost us £30, which was a lot of money for us then.”

A couple of days later it must have been a very surprised member of staff at Boots in Evesham who answered the phone up to find a voice describing itself as Buddy Holly on the other end.

Buddy invited Pat and a friend to go to his last show in England at Hammersmith Gaumont in London on March 25, where she met him for the last time before he returned to America.

Her series of letters to Buddy began on June 1 and ran through until the last one posted on January 20, 1959, just 14 days before his death in the infamous plane crash in a snowstorm near Mason City airport, Iowa.

Pat said: “When I heard Buddy had been killed I was devastated. I think my mother told me. She had been listening to the radio and said: ‘You might like to sit down.

I’ve just heard some very bad news’. Still, I have my memories, including two letters Buddy wrote to me and I will never, ever part with them.”

Pat eventually left Worcestershire to work as an au pair in America and has lived there ever since. She has met Buddy Holly’s parents, but not his widow Maria Elena.

She said: “Mr and Mrs Holly were lovely people. You can see how their son turned out the way he was. I will never forget him.”

In the words of one of Buddy’s greatest hits – Love is real, not fade away.

READERS WHOSE LIVES HAVE ALSO BEEN TOUCHED BY THE MUSIC OF A LEGEND

The original feature I wrote about the Buddy Holly fan letters brought quite an amazing response considering it involved an occasion 53 years ago.

I must have taken more than a dozen phone calls and e-mails from people who were either at the concert at Worcester Gaumont or have enjoyed Holly’s music over the years.

Just a few. Dave Slater, who lives in Redditch had a lengthy career as head teacher of various schools in north Worcestershire, was a pupil at King Charles I Grammar School in Kidderminster when the fatal plane crash occurred.

He said: “I was mortified. We all wore black ties to school the next day.” Dave is also a talented singer/guitarist and has visited Lubbock, Holly’s home town in Texas, several times and recorded in Nashville.

He has written, and recorded, a quite brilliant song called On the Toss of a Coin, dedicated to Holly’s guitarist Tommy Allsup, who he has met and played alongside.

Allsup flicked a coin with Richie Valens for the last seat on the plane that fateful night – and lost.

Dean Elliott, an actor/musician who lives in Lower Wick, Worcester, has taken the lead role of Buddy in the musical The Buddy Holly Story in Britain, Canada and America. He starred when it made its debut in Lubbock. Which must have been some experience.

Then there was Alan Godsall of St Peter’s, near Worcester, a member of the Buddy Holly Appreciation Society, who was in Australia recently, when he heard a young busker singing That’ll be the Day. Alan joined in and at the end of the song the pair received a riotous ovation from the watching crowd.