Frank Skinner Autobiography (20 page)

Anyway, I sometimes worried about Jeff. He would drive down with Lorayne, from Burton-on-Trent, on a recording day, and have to spend quite some time getting his knee-joints operational again. Footballers were often injected with cortisone, in the sixties and seventies, so that they could play through the pain of an injury. The more important the player, the more desperately the club wanted him to play, so Jeff had played through a lot of pain for the good of the Albion. But now the damage was starting to show. Also, a TV show, especially the 1998 World Cup series, which was three or four live shows a week, can be a stressful business. Jeff was expected to learn and perform jokes, songs, and even sketches, that would have thrown a lot of much more experienced performers.

On one occasion, Jeff had to deliver the line ‘Thanks for letting me stay in your flat, Frank.' He couldn't get it and the floor manager threw a bit of a wobbly, which was very much not on. This rattled Jeff, and when I took my cue, walked on, and faced him for the next take, he looked at me forlornly for what seemed like an age. I was willing him to do the line and get it right. At last, he spoke. ‘Thanks, flat,' he said with a terrible tone of world-weariness. I wanted to hug him. Should I be putting the old war-horse through all this? I know Dave and me dressed up and made fools of ourselves but we didn't really have any dignity to preserve. I had a few guilty moments when I wondered if we were making him look foolish. Well, obviously, we were making him look foolish, but was that bad? Can you still look up to an old war-horse if he's dressed as Tina Turner? The thing was, apart from the fact he was well-paid, famous, and touring a spin-off show, he just loved doing it. Jeff didn't give a shit about dressing-up, and when he murdered a song, he treated it like missing a goal-chance: he'd get the next one.

Offstage Jeff could be a bit of a handful. He was big and strong and would arrive in the canteen keen to tell gags and stories from his week. He would accompany these with a series of digs in the ribs, slaps on the back and bear-hugs, that were very much the habits of a man who didn't know his own strength. But he was a lovable bloke and I could forgive him the odd bruise. Through it all, whether he was dressed as a giant parrot or singing the worst-ever version of Michael Jackson's ‘Earthsong', I would occasionally look at him and think of when he would raise both arms to the Brummie Road after yet another goal, or when I would wait with the other kids after training to try and get his autograph (free in those days), or when I kissed my TV screen back in '68. I was really upset when an Albion fan said to me that I had made a mockery of his hero. He was my hero as well, and he'd become a hero because he was fearless and he loved to entertain, and those same qualities had made him a comedy hero on
Fantasy Football
.

So, Jeff and me became mates. He gave me one of his World Cup shirts (imagine how much that meant to me), I was godfather to his granddaughter, Taylar, and I went with him on that trip to Portsmouth.

Albion needed to win at Portsmouth to avoid relegation to Division Two. We won 1–0 and all was well. After the game, Jeff took me to meet his old mate, the then-Portsmouth manager, Jim Smith. Smith, or Bald Eagle, as he was known, sat at his desk, drinking neat whisky and smoking a fat cigar. At the side of his desk was a metal waste-paper basket, and all it contained was about two hundred cigar-butts. We chatted a while and then Jeff and me left the ground. Our hotel was a couple of miles away and I was preparing to walk when Jeff suddenly strode into the middle of the road. A mini-van screeched to a halt and Jeff went over. He had noticed a couple of Albion scarves hanging out of the windows and knew he would be greeted with enthusiasm. ‘Can you give me and Frank a lift?' he asked. Of course they said yes, and pretty soon we were on our way with ‘Astle's in our van' belting out through the open windows. Back at the hotel, Jeff explained that he often did this and it never failed. This, then, is how Jeff Astle introduced me to Celebrity Hitch-hiking. I told Dave this story, and a few months later we tried it after an England game and it worked a treat, right to our doorstep. Obviously, we risked kidnapping or worse, but a taxi would have been about twenty quid so Dave thought the risk was worth taking.

Jeff and me had a few games of pool at that Portsmouth hotel before heading back to our respective homes. As Jeff played one shot, I heard him gently singing to himself, ‘Astle's in our van. Astle's in our van.'

I went to the
Pearl Harbor
premiere on Wednesday night. I wore a shirt with pictures of Japanese warriors on it. As an Albion fan, I am always instinctively drawn to the underdog. I went with a friend, Marino, because Caroline and me had had a big row. In fact, I'm probably the only person who went to the
Pearl Harbor
premiere for a bit of peace and quiet. The invite suggested a dress code of ‘Military chic' but I thought the samurai shirt would have to do. Marino had suggested that I wore one of those comedy aeroplane costumes, y'know, with a child-size plane that hangs around your waist, held up by heavy-duty braces. I could, he said, paint it up in Japanese colours and top off the outfit with a kamikaze headband. I explained that I was not going to get big, awkward equipment specially made and then be weighed down and uncomfortable all night, just so I could get my picture in the papers. Who did he think I was? Jordan?

These premiere things always follow the same format. I step out of a Merc, straight on to the red carpet, and the crowds who have hung around for hours to see the stars shout ‘Frank. Frank.' But in a way that says ‘It's quite nice to see you, but none of us could honestly use the word “excited”.' I sign enough autographs to keep up my ‘man of the people' club membership. Then it's over to the banks of paparazzi where I try to come up with a pose that will get me in the papers. I go for military salute. I think this is not bad. Those of us who don't have big tits have to try mildly tragic ploys like amusing shirts and relevant hand gestures. Then, of course, there are proper big stars who just . . . well, turn up. Anyway, the salute made it into the
Sun
the next day on the same page as David Baddiel, who arrived separately from me. And yes, he was doing a fucking military salute as well. I should have gone with the plane.

Unlike most of the people I spoke to, I really liked the movie. Mind you, I was raised on John Wayne movies so I like my military history
au gratin.
There seemed to be a John Wayne film on telly every week in the seventies. My dad would often come in, a bit worse for wear, on a Sunday afternoon, and, after flicking through the channels, repeat for the ten millionth time his theory that ITV was ‘owned by John Wayne and Derby County'.

I explained to an interviewer after the film that, out of sheer frustration, the Japanese often bombed places they couldn't pronounce. I think she believed me until I mentioned their 1956 attack on Rhyl.

As always at these events, the after-show party had a special VIP section with security men vetting all who entered. Crap as it may seem, I still get a slight thrill when these people recognise me and usher me in with a polite greeting. The exclusive VIP bar is based on the profoundly inaccurate theory that celebrities don't like being stared at. Instead, we all stand in there and stare at each other. Kate Beckinsale, who stars in the film, was there and so was Josh Hartnett. These two form a sort of a love-triangle thing with Ben Affleck in the movie. Josh Hartnett was doing that ‘I'll just skulk about unnoticed' thing that celebrities do to make sure they get noticed. I've done it myself, not at a big do like this or I'd just get, well, unnoticed, but I've made it work in Budgens in Belsize Park. Just in case this approach failed, Josh had decided to top off his smart trousers and white shirt with a dark-green woollen hat. This, of course, forced me to completely dismiss him as a human being. Still, he's young. And American.

Caroline e-mailed me the next day to remind me that she was interviewing Kate Beckinsale for her radio show and, as I was too spiteful to take her to the premiere, did anything happen there that it might be good to ask Kate about. I suggested that it might be worth asking her who she would choose if she was in a real love triangle with Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck. And then to point out that if she chose Hartnett, they'd probably be known as Josh and Becks. I told her she could use this. No greater love hath any man than to give his bird one of his gags. And I managed to do it in a holier-than-thou, ‘I'm not one to bear a grudge' way that gave me great satisfaction. She phoned me later to say that Kate had laughed at the gag and described it as ‘very original'. I was chuffed. I know that sounds a bit pathetic, but I was worried because I don't often send my gags out into the big wide world on their own. And besides, gags are like children to me and we always like it if people say something nice about our children.

The next day, I got a call from Caroline, during which she happened to say that her producer had cut the gag from her interview because he said it was ‘not relevant'. I carefully explained to her that although in this case it was almost certainly an error, even I have sometimes cut gags if they've felt out of place or tacked on. I'll bet I've cut at least three in the last fourteen years. She then mentioned that he had said the gag was ‘not funny'. I carefully explained to her that there are a lot of people in positions of power in the media who know fuck all about anything and who should keep their dog-shit opinions to their stupid selves. I asked her if it would have been appropriate to give him a really hard slap in the face. This, I suggested, might have brought him to his senses. Of course, I wanted to scream, ‘I bet you fucked up the delivery, you stupid cow,' but I feared it could have been seen as unsupportive. I could tell that she thought I was over-reacting. Maybe you do as well, but what else would you expect from the man who left in the ‘where there's brass, there's muck' gag.

I'm going to break off from the story here to explain that this was actually the second time I have written the
Pearl Harbor
section. Last night, I pressed the wrong button on my computer and lost that section and the one after it. It was about two and a half thousand words in total. Having spent a whole morning trying to get it all back by technical wizardry, I have now been reduced to writing the whole thing again, from memory. I ask you to spare a thought for any jokes or wise words that I forgot and are thus lost forever.

Of course, being a Catholic, my first thought when the two sections disappeared was that it was an act of God. I'm serious. Maybe it's the ‘moving in mysterious ways' thing that he does sometimes. I might have actually had a gag deliberately cut by God for some reason that is beyond my mortal comprehension. What a thought. Still, I'm glad he left the Jordan one in. I can't say I would have returned the favour with his Jordan gag, ‘So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east, and thus they separated from each other.' (Gen. 13:11.) It's got potential, but I do feel it needs a bit of work.

In 1968, I left St. Hubert's to go to Oldbury Technical School. Technical schools were a sort of halfway house between secondary modern and grammar schools, aimed at slightly brighter working-class kids who might, with a bit of encouragement, progress on to lower management or even, if they were lucky, the Civil Service. At Oldbury Tech, we wore chocolate-brown blazers and brown and gold striped ties. It was the first time I'd had a school uniform and I quite liked the group-identity it gave us. Only a handful of the first years had come with me from St. Hubert's but I made new friends pretty quickly. There was also a big kid who I knew because he lived near me. I say ‘kid' but he was in the lower-sixth and would have been seventeen. He was a big, solid bloke with greasy black hair, and he used to walk home most nights with me and a bunch of other first years. It was quite handy to walk home with a big kid because we would often get trouble from the pupils from Bristnall, the local secondary modern, who resented our technical school status, such as it was. We, in turn, would ambush the kids from Oldbury Grammar for similar reasons. It's odd that the Bristnall kids were invariably harder than us, and we were invariably harder than the Grammar kids. Thus, brains and brawn are dished out, but only the very fortunate get both. I'm trying to think of an example of this rare combination but I can't.

One day, the big kid asked me if I'd ever played billiards. I said I'd seen it on the telly a couple of times but I didn't know the rules. He said that he had a billiard table in his house and would teach me to play. I was really impressed by this because most council houses were pretty poky and I'd never been in one big enough to house a billiard table before. So, a couple of nights later, I went back to the big kid's house after school. As we stepped through the door, I noticed that the house was pretty messy and smelt quite bad. I could hear his family in a downstairs room but he went straight upstairs without saying hello or announcing that he was home. I saw this as a sign of adulthood, and was quite impressed by the idea of being able to come and go as you pleased without having to ‘clock-in'. I was also very pleased that their house smelt worse than ours.

We got into the big kid's room, and he gestured towards his billiard table. It was about two feet by three. I looked at the sad, battered little table and felt a bit let down. He could see I was disappointed and passed me a big blue
Encyclopedia of Sport
from a grubby bookcase. I laid it on the billiard table (opened flat it was almost the same size), and began flicking through. Then he asked me if I ever watched ‘the wrestling' on the telly. I got excited and started going on about Les Kellett but he didn't really seem interested. He asked me if I knew a wrestling hold known as ‘the grapevine'. It rang a bell, but I couldn't describe it so he offered to demonstrate. I was standing at the side of the billiard table and he stood behind me and grabbed the shoulders of my chocolate-brown blazer. I hadn't said I wanted him to demonstrate it and now I felt like I was being bullied. He intertwined his right leg around mine and I could feel his bodyweight bearing down on me. Then he started moving up and down, with his crotch against my bum. He was hurting me and I was frightened by the sound of his breathing getting heavier. Suddenly, I broke free, blurted out ‘I gotta go' and headed for the door. I don't know if he followed me. I didn't look back. I virtually jumped down the stairs. I think my feet only touched about three on the way down. I hit the ground, fumbled the front door open, and didn't stop running till I got home.