Life and Laughing: My Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

realizing he was already doing a pretty good ‘Guy Fawkes’. It looked for all the world as though this ‘dying’ comedian might die for real. People were laughing so hard at the situation, they were unable to tell him he was ablaze, and he was so thrilled at the response to his ‘ooh Betty’ to notice. Eventually, just after he’d commented on the non-existent smoke machine, he ran from the stage screaming. It was a horror story and not for a moment was I thinking, ‘That’s what I want to do for a living.’
    However bulletproof you think your ‘set’ is, a comic can die onstage at any time. From what I’ve been told, my dad didn’t need to use his ‘No Laughs’ jokes very often. He opened for the Rolling Stones and lived for a while with Irish comedian Dave Allen, who told my mum years later that my dad was extremely talented. But, unlike myself, I don’t think his vocation was to perform, and his move behind the camera began when he devised the comedy panel show Jokers Wild for Yorkshire Television. Hosted by Barry Cryer, the format was simple: Barry would give two teams of three comedians a subject to make a joke about. During the joke, a member of the other team could buzz in and finish it for points. It’s like Mock the Week but with flares, corduroy and more manners. The show was a hit and ran for eight series, regularly featuring Les Dawson, John Cleese (Cheese), Arthur Askey, Michael Aspel and my dad himself.
    As indicated by my birth certificate, my dad was primarily involved in the music industry. It was during Jokers Wild that he met Clive Dunn and recorded ‘ Grandad ’. He and his partner Alan Hawkshaw (who signs his emails ‘Hawk’) were writing and recording songs. I met Alan when I was about thirteen. He’s a hilarious character. My dad, my sister and I went to his enormous house in Radlett, Hertfordshire. Music had been good to the Hawk, one piece of music in particular. He wrote a thirty-second tune that made him a fortune. Can you guess it?
    Here’s a clue … It’s exactly thirty seconds long.
    Here’s another … Du-du … Du-du … De-de-de-de … Boom!
    Yes, that’s right, Countdown .
    (I actually met Carol Vorderman once in a lift. I got in and she was standing at the numbers and asked me, ‘What floor?’ If I couldn’t make a joke in these circumstances, I’m in the wrong business. ‘One from the top and four from anywhere else, please, Carol.’)
    Those thirty seconds netted the Hawk a fortune. His house had its own recording studio, swimming pool, snooker room. He gets paid every time it’s played, that’s every weekday at about 4.56 p.m. He actually gets paid by the second, so the longer it takes for people to guess the conundrum, the more money he makes. You can imagine him in the eighties, turning on the telly at 4.55 p.m., hoping the contestants can’t decipher the conundrum so that he can afford a better holiday.
    Countdown aficionados (judging by the number of adverts they have for Tena Lady in the break, Countdown is mainly watched by women who pee in their pants) will know that if the contestant buzzes in to guess the conundrum, the clock stops. If they correctly identify the jumbled-up nine-letter word, the game is over. However, if they get it wrong, the clock restarts, which means more money for Alan. You can only imagine the excitement in the Hawk household, whooping and cheering when they guess incorrectly, wild applause, back-slapping and champagne corks popping when the tune reaches its ‘De-de-de-de … Boom’ climax.
    My sister and I loved Alan as soon as we met him. He was a charming and personable man. Within moments of our arriving, he sat at his grand piano and dramatically played various TV themes he had written that we might recognize, including the original Grange Hill . It’s wonderful to see someone so proud of their work, and I have to say his rendition of Countdown was one of the most moving thirty seconds of my life. We drove