Eric Morecambe Unseen

William Cook

ERIC MORECAMBEUNSEEN

THE LOST DIARIES JOKES

AND PHOTOGRAPHS

COPYRIGHT

HarperNonFiction

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First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Copyright text © William Cook 2005

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007234653

Ebook Edition © MAY 2019 ISBN: 9780008363451

Version: 2019-05-16

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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780007234653

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

NOTE TO READERS

PART ONE LIFE & WORK

Chapter 1 HARPENDEN

Chapter 2 MORECAMBE

Chapter 3 BARTHOLOMEW & WISEMAN

Chapter 4 MORECAMBE & WISE

Chapter 5 THE VARIETY YEARS

Chapter 6 THE ATV YEARS

Chapter 7 KEEP GOING, YOU FOOL!

Chapter 8 THE BBC YEARS

Chapter 9 THE THAMES YEARS

Chapter 10 BRING ME SUNSHINE

Chapter 11 WHAT DO YOU THINK OF IT SO FAR?

PART TWO JOKES & JOTTINGS

Chapter 12 UNFINISHED FICTION

Chapter 13 THE DIARIES (1967)

Chapter 14 THE DIARIES (1968)

Chapter 15 THE DIARIES (1969)

Appendix 1 ONE LINERS

Appendix 2 ERIC’S NOTEBOOKS

Appendix 3 NOTES

Appendix 4 BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Chapter 1

HARPENDEN

Ernie: What’s the matter with you?

Eric: I’m an idiot. What’s your excuse?

AT FIRST GLANCE, the house doesn’t look like much – not from the main road, at least. It’s detached but fairly modern, built of unpretentious brick. The front lawn is neat but nondescript. Most of the garden is around the back. There’s a friendly Alsatian dozing in the drive. She sits up but doesn’t bark. There’s an outdoor swimming pool, but it’s purely functional, not fancy. In fact, the most remarkable thing about this house is that there’s nothing remarkable about it. It’s a place you’d be pleased to live in, but it’s hardly the sort of place you’d associate with one of the greatest comedians who ever lived.

Eric Morecambe’s house in smart, respectable, suburban Harpenden is a lot like the brilliant comic we all knew – or thought we knew – and loved. From the moment you arrive, it feels strangely familiar. Even on your first visit, it seems like somewhere you’ve been coming all your life. ‘It wasn’t a show business house,’ says Eric’s old chauffeur, Mike Fountain, who comes from Harpenden. ‘It was a family home.’ And it still is. Like Eric, it feels safe and comforting, without the slightest hint of ostentation. And from 1967 until his untimely death in 1984, it was the home of a man who, more than anyone, summed up the Great British sense of humour.

Britain has always been blessed with more than its fair share of comedians, but there’s never been another comic we’ve taken so completely to our hearts. Peter Cook, Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan – these were comics we adored, but there was always something remote, almost otherworldly, about them. We laughed at them rather than with them. Sure, we found them funny – but secretly, we thought they were rather strange. Eric Morecambe was awfully funny, but there was nothing remotely strange about him. To millions like me, who never knew him, he was like a favourite uncle, with a unique gift for making strangers laugh like old friends.

More than twenty years after he died, from a heart attack, aged just 58, Eric’s irrepressible personality still lingers in every corner of his comfortable home. There’s a framed photograph on the piano of him hobnobbing with the Queen Mother, and for a moment you wonder how on earth Eric, our Eric, got to meet the Queen Mum. But then you see a photo of Ernie Wise alongside it, and you remember. He wasn’t our Eric at all – that was his great illusion – but half of Britain’s finest, funniest double act, Morecambe & Wise.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, Morecambe & Wise were the undisputed heavyweight champions of British comedy. Christmas was inconceivable without their TV special. Their fans ranged from members of the Royal Family to members of the KGB. Their humour was timeless and classless, and that was what made them irresistible. They were stylish yet childlike, and they united the nation unlike any other act, before or since. You could laugh at Eric if you were seven. You could laugh at him if you were seventy. Old or young, rich or poor, you couldn’t fail to find him funny. He didn’t seem like a celebrity. He felt like one of the family, which is why it feels so normal to be standing here, in the cosy house where he used to live. Eric once said he wanted daily life here to be as average as possible, and funnily enough, it still is. ‘The overwhelming impression I formed of Eric,’ says his old friend Sue Nicholls, better known to the rest of us as Audrey in Coronation Street, ‘is just how ordinary he was.’ 1Yet this ordinary man had an extraordinary talent, and the most extraordinary part of it is how ordinary he made it seem. As his wife, Joan, says, with simple clarity, ‘He was one of them.’