Going on the Turn, page 2
One of the last flickering embers of my onscreen celebrity prior to this time was being asked to deputize for Chris whenever he took a break from The Big Breakfast. I’d like to think this was because of some lingering public demand, but in reality several of the Big Breakfast production team had got their first break in TV a decade previously on the Six O’Clock Show on which I’d been the rising star and their clubbable pal. They knew I was a safe bet to bellow away on live TV for the six weeks until the wonder kid returned without needing any emotional wet-nursing, and I could be trusted not to indulge in some sly personal grandstanding in the hope that the gig would become permanent. I hadn’t actually seen Chris since our days at Greater London Radio in the late eighties. We occasionally spoke on the phone and he had recorded a video message when I was the subject of This Is Your Life, thus avoiding a bullet on what might well be the most drawn-out night in television history.
Here’s the thing about being the subject of This Is Your Life. It is magnificent. Every second of the programme is like supping from the elixir of life justification. Think about it. You sit in a comfortable chair while everyone you ever knew has to queue up to declare to the nation what a benevolent genius you are. Then they all stand and deliver you a standing ovation for minutes on end. This in itself would be a giddy enough experience, but the idea that at least 80 per cent of them – mainly your corralled legions of friends simply there for the free booze – are being FORCED to do this by the television people makes the experience so heightened you never want it to end. As you walk onstage from behind the sliding doors at the top of the show, accompanied by the famous four-note fanfare, all you can see are legions of clenched teeth protruding from the mouths of everyone in your circle, each of them bowing to the orders of the floor manager who has instructed them to treat you like a Living God. And they have no choice. Similar body language can be seen in old footage of Communist Party rallies in the Soviet Union where, if you failed to applaud old Joe Stalin like he was Bruce Springsteen playing the opening bars of ‘Thunder Road’, you immediately had all your mail redirected to Mattress 7, The Gulag, Bleaksville. To make my own enforced ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ even sweeter, everybody had been hanging around waiting for me for over three hours, rounding off months of subterfuge, humbug and farce.
My wife had been the one who let slip that the show was planning to surprise me. One afternoon in our garden in Deptford, Wendy said, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you! While you were out yesterday I got a call asking me if I would meet up with the This Is Your Life team to talk about doing you on the show. I thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t!’
Now the one thing I knew for sure about TIYL was that if the subject got a whiff of suspicion that they were being lined up for it, that particular episode would be abandoned immediately. Yet here was Wendy, casually deadheading roses, telling me that I better get a suit pressed because in a few weeks I was going to be given what was then still seen as the ultimate show business accolade. She would have known I am not a fan of surprises. This stems from when I was six years old and my mother picked me up from infant school one lunchtime saying that she had a ‘really special surprise’ for me indoors.
In my tiny fevered mind I had a good idea what this surprise was going to be. The previous Saturday, while out shopping with her in Southwark Park Road, I had made it clear that though my young life was, in the main, a full, rich and happy one, it had at its core a terrible sadness. A sadness that could only be assuaged by the purchase of a miniature knight on horseback that, by pure chance, Grant’s Toy Shop had on display in its front window when we last passed it. And, why, wasn’t that Grant’s we were fast approaching now? If anything, Mum quickened her pace as we walked along that stretch of pavement and her rather terse pronouncement, ‘You’ve got plenty of soldiers, you don’t need any more,’ clued me in that here was our old friend the pretend refusal. Plainly she’d either already bought it for me or was planning to return shortly to buy it, because . . . well, that’s the sort of sweet and silly subterfuge mums like to indulge in when presenting gifts to their young ones. So I pretended to understand while inwardly becoming very excited by Sir Percival’s imminent addition to the gleaming ranks of noblemen in the box beneath my bed. And now, barely forty-eight hours later, here it was: a ‘special surprise’ to accompany whatever it was she had knocked up for lunch in the forty-five minutes she had away from the factory floor. I prepared myself to feign the appropriate reaction so as not to spoil Mum’s enjoyment of the big moment.
When we arrived indoors I acted as though I’d completely forgotten her promise of a gift, nonchalantly wolfing down dinner – alphabet soup and buttered roll, as it turned out – and gaily laughing at The Flower Pot Men while using my peripheral vision to see if she was reaching into her bag to suddenly reveal Good Sir Knight.
‘Come on – I better be getting you back to school,’ she then declared. Oh, well played, I thought. If this was brinksmanship, she was taking it right to the wire. Lolling my arms into my anorak I stood distractedly while she knelt before me, attending to the zip. Now was the moment. ‘Oh yes,’ I drawled like Clifton Webb in one of his more distracted performances, ‘didn’t you say something about, what was it now . . . a surprise?’
Mum’s face started in shock. ‘Oh, good boy,’ she said, rising to make her way down the short passage by our front door. ‘Blimey, scatty cow I am, been looking forward to giving you this!’
While she was gone, I decided to change the knight’s name from Sir Percival to Sir Lionheart. Already I was picturing him at the head of an army of fellow knights, leading our long-planned assault on Tommy Hodges’ American Civil War soldiers at the earliest opportunity.
Mum rounded the corner from the kitchen holding what appeared to be a small box; too small a box for my liking. Indeed, it appeared to be a matchbox, and not even one of those that housed the then popular brand of toy cars under that name. This was an actual matchbox.
‘There you are – open that!’ she said.
As I fumbled with it, my mouth was dry, my hands shaking in confusion. What was happening? What had gone wrong? If there was what I hoped in here, then he would have to be the shortest knight of the year. Sir Pee Wee. Sir Lance-a-little.
Sliding the box open, I first saw a sliver of green leaf and then the minute shiny domed body of a sleeping ladybird.
‘See it?’ said Mum brightly. ‘He was on a milk bottle outside this morning and look – it’s black with red dots, not the other way round. You don’t often see them, do ya? I thought, “I’ll save him till Danny gets back.”’
There was no preventing it; hot tears of crashing disappointment welled up behind my disbelieving eyes and, as I blinked to clear my vision, they erupted clear of the sockets, splashing down on to the dormant mini-beast. With reddened cheeks and by now having lost control of my facial muscles, I tried my best to mask the dreadful anticlimax of the moment. To make it worse, Mum began blaming herself.
‘Oh no! Did I build it up too much? Oh, what a shame. Sorry, mate, I thought you’d like it.’
I thought you’d like it. Even now that breaks my heart. I did. I did like it and it was a lovely Mum-type thing to have done. Under any other circumstances a perfectly good ladybird, especially one with reversed markings, would have impressed the hell out of me. But I had allowed myself to get carried away with visions of medieval perfection and, with the best will in the world, you can’t give even the most rugged ladybird a name like Sir Lionheart and expect it to vanquish Tommy Hodges’ crack cavalry division in an ambush at the bomb site this coming Saturday. Then she made it even worse.
‘Oh . . . I wish I hadn’t done it now. What’s the matter with me? Sorry, boy. Oh, I do feel a fool.’
Well that finished me off. I went from my barely contained Stan Laurel-style upset to something that even Lucille Ball at her roaring broadest might have deemed OTT. And, next, wouldn’t you know it, both of us were crying. There we sat, on the bottom of the stairs in the passage, holding each other and trying to articulate who was more sorry for the debacle.
So, as I say, don’t talk to me about surprises.
Back in the garden in Deptford, as Wendy continued the slash-and-burn with her secateurs, it struck me that being ‘surprised’ by the bright lights, adoring fans and the Big Red Book might be just the thing to finally bring closure on the Great Ladybird Trauma of 1963.
‘So when am I being done?’ I asked, now relishing being in on the gag.
‘Done?’ she responded.
‘This Is Your Life! Ha! You know you’ll have to sit there on the night like the Good Wife, patting my hand and saying, “My hero!”’
Wendy blew a few blackfly from a stem. ‘Oh well, it’s not happening now, is it? I told them what you always said I should say: that it’s a corny embarrassment of a programme that should have been buried along with Eamonn Andrews when he went.’
I bristled with rising alarm. ‘I said that?? When did I ever say that?’
‘You say it every time it’s on! You hate This Is Your Life. “How can anyone do that?” is what you say. You’re as bad as your dad with it.’
There was something in this. I had, as the years passed, taken on my father’s characteristic of getting tremendous pleasure in deriding certain popular programmes. Given that a lot of the nation probably did this to most of the vehicles I haunted their houses with, I felt it was fair game. And yes, This Is Your Life was one of the two shows my father particularly targeted. The other was Hughie Green’s Opportunity Knocks.
‘Who watches this? Who could like this?’ was his constant mantra for the entire sixty-minute duration of that cheap and cheerful talent show. Hopeful singers barely got through the opening notes of their number before he was calling for them to ‘Fuck off back to the pub!’ Ventriloquists never got a chance to deliver any repartee; before the dummy’s mouth opened, Spud would be deriding the state of it.
‘Fucking hell’s he got on his arm? That’s a disgrace to go on telly with; must have cost him about eight bob in a junk shop – look at it! He must reckon we’re all backward.’
A troupe of dancing girls would be greeted with: ‘Why have we got to sit through three minutes of this?’ And the obligatory shot of Hughie benevolently looking on as they pranced would have him roaring, ‘Look at him, that dirty old bastard – I know what he’s thinking.’
But it was comedians that tried his – admittedly non-existent – patience the most. Comics didn’t even have time to get to the microphone before Spud would be in full flow.
All acts on Opportunity Knocks had someone, usually a family member, who would be interviewed by Hughie before the turn they were sponsoring arrived onstage. If it was a comedian, here’s how the exchange would be received. Let’s say the sponsor is a woman in her seventies:
Hughie: Tell us who you are and where you’re from, my darling.
Dad: Fucking “darling”!
Woman: I’m Joyce Bartlett from Esher.
Dad: Esher! She must have bundles.
Hughie: And how old are you, my lovely?
Joyce: I’m seventy-one. [Applause.]
Dad: Fuckin’ looks about hundred and two, her.
Hughie: And who have you brought for us to meet tonight, Joyce?
Joyce: My son-in-law, Georgie.
Hughie: And I hear he’s a very funny man, isn’t he?
Dad: Oh no! NO! Oh please, not a comedian, we’re only two acts in. Fuckin’ hell, ain’t there nothing on the other side?
Me: Terry Scott.
Dad: Oh that’s it, we’re trapped. Trapped!
Decades later, the show Gogglebox would become a hit by filming reactions such as this. Spud’s running commentary was every bit as entertaining, giving a terrific vitality to otherwise dull programmes.
It was in the 1990s that British TV began its patronizing obsession with getting audiences ‘more involved’ in its piss-poor product, an abdication of responsibility that has now surely reached its zenith. Modern producers must believe their own lifelong desire to be part of the media is universal and that people really could give two fucks about being ‘part of’ their rotten shows. Dad’s reaction was proof that working-class families had always felt themselves part of the TV theatre, catcalling from the stalls just as they had in music hall, deriding the products of an industry that seemed utterly removed from anything approaching hard graft.
Dad lived long enough to see the rise of today’s pea-brained, deceitful phenomena of ‘audience-led’ shows and summed it up on first sight. As a glib voice-over banged on, ‘We want to hear your voice. Be part of it! You decide! It’s your show!’ Spud growled, ‘Well if it’s our fucking show, how comes you’re the only ponces getting paid for it?’
It perhaps would have startled the old man to learn that the only person I ever met who could out-swear him was, in fact, Hughie Green. To give him his due, Hughie Green is by some distance the foulest-mouthed person I have ever met – and scholars of these journals will know that that is quite some claim. He was also one of the strangest . . .
I know, I know. Do we need another diversion at this juncture to illustrate these facts, or shall we just press on with how I ended up on This Is Your Life? (After all, this is your book, I want you to be part of it.)
OK. The votes are in. Peculiar Hughie Green and his foul mouth it is.
So one day I’m indoors and the phone goes. This was during the period when I was on TV a lot. Immediately I recognize the nasal drawl of Canada’s most divisive export.
‘Danny Baker, I wanna introduce myself: my name is Hughie Green.’
I believe I actually said ‘wow’ in response.
‘Now don’t slam the phone down,’ he continued. ‘I know what you’re thinking: What does this fucking washed-up old cunt want?’
I promise you, that’s exactly what he said. You don’t easily forget a sentence like that, particularly when it turns out Hughie Green has an uncanny ability to read exactly what is running through your mind.
‘Let me get right to it – you’re probably banging two whores at the same time right now, so I won’t keep you from them for long. I’m kidding. Listen, I want ten minutes of your time, face to fuckin’ face. Or ass-to-ass, if that’s your thing. Can you do that for a broken-down old prick like me?’
Perhaps I should point out for any younger readers that Hughie Green was, for much of the fifties through to the eighties, the very personification of decent, upstanding family-values TV. His shows were homespun, sentimental and safe, while he himself was widely lampooned as an unctuous, sanctimonious old cornball whose catchphrase, ‘And I mean that most sincerely’, was mimicked by all and sundry. In short, no one ever mistook Hughie Green for what they now call ‘the original gangsta’. Yet here he was, coming over as one who had verbally schooled Ozzy Osbourne.
After briefly wondering if I was the victim of a hoax call being taped for some zoo-format breakfast radio show, I shakily asked him if he could let me know what was on his mind over the phone.
‘Jesus! If I could tell you over the fucking phone I wouldn’t be asking to pull your dick in person, would I? Fucking Jesus and Mary! They let any cocksucker become a star these fucking days, I see! I’m only kidding again, Dan. Seriously, I have the TV idea of the fucking century for you, all ready to go. So, how about next week, you lucky little shitheel?’
Again, I am not laying this on for effect. I did flag him as the Champion Curser of my lifetime and, if anything, I am missing out a few expletives. His intimidating overtures continued for several minutes, until finally I agreed to meet him at his apartment near Baker Street the following Monday. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by such an invite?
It turned out he lived in a large flat on the third floor of an impressive 1930s block. Hughie answered the door with his familiar grin and pop-eyed countenance that had pretty much been ever present on ITV until around a decade previously. His handshake was crushing. The place was expensively furnished, leaning toward the traditionally masculine with leather-studded sofas, high bookshelves and quite a bit of military paraphernalia. (He had served with great distinction in the Canadian Airforce.)
‘I got in some Special Brew beer because I figured that’s what a cockney son-of-a-bitch like you would drink!’ he beamed.
He was already pulling a can open when I told him that I thought Special Brew tasted like the broth of curdled moose dung – a reference from his homeland that I thought he’d appreciate.
‘Moose? Hey, don’t throw me in with all those other backward maple-leaf motherfuckers, I been here a fuckin’ long time. So whaddya want, you little fag – a glass of milk?’
All of this was being said with nothing but warmth and camaraderie, but I had never heard such relentless machismo outside of a few Jack Nicholson movies. He began pouring the Special Brew, a beer I genuinely dislike.
‘Anyway, shut the fuck up with the whining, because you are going to need a goddamned good stiff drink one way or the other, my friend. This show I have got for you is going to knock you right on your ass – biggest fucking thing ever to hit TV.’
He handed me the vile glassful and sat in a chair directly opposite me, leaning forward until our foreheads were no more than three inches apart. He was smiling broadly yet inscrutably, his head nodding as though he had me exactly where he wanted me. For quite some time he never said a word. I must say I was inwardly wobbling a bit. Then he spoke, this time quieter, like it was a game.
‘Look at you, your stupid fuckin’ face right now. I know that look. You know where I seen this fuckin’ look you’re fuckin’ wearing?’
