You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (7 page)

I’m Not All There

I’m not all there, there’s something missing

I’m not all there, so folks declare

They call me ‘Looby’ ‘Looby’, nothing but a great big ‘Booby’

Point and say that’s where you want it

But that’s just where I’ve got it

I know they think I’m slow

Let them think, let them think, I don’t care

When I go to the races, my fancy to back

If I back a winner, they give me my money back

‘Cause I’m not supposed to be all there

Let them think, let them think, I don’t mind

Courting couples in the park, on any night you’ll find

If you stay, they’ll separate, for love’s not always blind

But they let me stay and watch them, and they never seem to mind

‘Cause I’m not supposed to be all there.

(T
HE WORDS TO THE SONG THAT
E
RIC AUDITIONED WITH FOR THE IMPRESARIO
J
ACK
H
YLTON
)

I
n his 1990 autobiography,
Still On My Way To Hollywood
, Ernie Wise recalled the first time he set eyes on Eric. ‘I first met Eric in the spring of 1939. I was on tour with Jack Hylton, doing a concert at a cinema in Manchester, and all of five months in the business…It was my usual practice…to sit out front

casting an “experienced” eye over the ever-hopeful acts. At this point enter Eric Bartholomew accompanied by his mother, the redoubtable Sadie.

‘Eric took the stage and went into a number called “I’m Not All There”. This he followed with a very polished impression of Flanagan and Allen. How the hell he did it I don’t know! He played each character separately but somehow wove them together in such a way that we were convinced there were two people up there on stage. Everybody was terribly impressed. The Flanagan and Allen brought gasps of admiration and I began to get seriously worried about my future career. I had a lot of push in those days, a hard core, but I have to admit my self-esteem took a bit of a knock from Eric even though we never said a word to each other…’

In looking back at the beginnings of Eric and Ernie’s working relationship it is interesting also to consider briefly the beginnings of northern comedy, of which both men were a product.

Northern humour developed mostly in the mill towns. From the start of industrialization until well into the twentieth century most working people in the north of England spent tedious and soul-destroying days toiling in vast spaces in large numbers, and humour and song became the only way they could express themselves, feel a little alive, and generally relieve the monotony of everyday life. No better example of this can be found than the wealth of comedians produced by the industrial heartland of the northwest. This tradition stretches back to Victorian times, but among the great names of comedy of more recent years are Jimmy Clitheroe, Ken Dodd, Tommy Handley, Victoria

Wood, Stan Laurel, Thora Hird, George Formby, Albert Modley, Al Read, Les Dawson, Sandy Powell, Peter Kay, Jewell and Warriss, Morecambe and Wise, and scores of others. (In passing, Sandy Powell is the only entertainer to whom Eric ever sent a fan letter.)

All made their mark in their time. For Victoria Wood and Peter Kay, that time is right now, but for those who know their British comedy history, the others never seem that far away. The late Les Dawson remains perhaps still the most quotable comedian on mother-in-laws. While his material is now widely viewed as outmoded, a form of comedy done to death in pubs, clubs, and variety theatres over too many decades to remember, the natural humour of his gags, reinforced by his deadpan delivery, still survives and surely always will. ‘The wife’s mother has been married three times. Her first two died through eating poisoned mushrooms!’ (In the comedian Jack Dee the deadpan melancholic embodied by Les Dawson lives on, though the mother-in-law jokes are sacrificed for observations of people in general.)

Those bright lights of the north, and many more like them, illuminated the entertainment industry that was born during the Industrial Revolution and reached its zenith in the first half of the twentieth century. Of course the north of England wasn’t the sole purveyor of comedy. The humour served up in the south, particularly London, was and is profound—from Charlie Chaplin to

Peter Sellers, from Max Miller to Mike Reid, from Flanagan and Allen to Norman Wisdom, Kenneth Williams, Ben Elton, and Harry Enfield.

It’s important to remember that over the decades other regions of the United Kingdom, notably the mining towns and shipyard areas, have also produced great comic entertainers, from Tommy Cooper (Wales) to Billy Connolly (Scotland). But the northwest corner of England has consistently yielded up an astounding plethora of talent.

In the eighty or ninety years after 1780 the population of Britain as a whole nearly tripled and the average income more than doubled. The share of farming fell from under a half of the nation’s output to just under a fifth, and the making of textiles and iron moved into steam-driven factories. As a result the north experienced exceptionally rapid growth, with the towns of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield becoming teeming cities during the nineteenth century. Such monumental changes had not been fully anticipated and were not fully comprehended at the time.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, with much of Europe and

America fully industrialized, a comic voice emerged that spoke for the age: Charlie Chaplin in his mocking role of Hitler in
The Great Dictator
and as the Tramp in
Modern Times.
In the former film he makes a long speech as the dictator. This is a small part of it and for us, with the benefit of hindsight, it expresses the fallibility of that era:

Greed has poisoned men’s souls—has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.

Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

Yet out of it all, with Chaplin’s huge impetus, grew British comedy, which has continued to thrive and expand as quickly as our great cities did during the nineteenth century. Today saying you are a stand-up comic working the comedy circuit is as cool as saying you’re a rock star. Being a comedian in the last part of the twentieth century and the first part of the twenty-first century has meant elevated status. When I was a child at my first school it was nothing short of an embarrassment, and I kept very quiet about my father’s work.

Morecambe and Wise were aware of the tradition of northern comedy in Britain at the time of their coming together, even if they were uncertain of the how and why of it. But they were expansive in their taste and deeply curious about the comedy coming out of America as much as the home-grown comedy they themselves would soon be presenting to the world at large.

Although Ernie saw Eric perform for Bryan Michie and Jack Hylton in Manchester, it wasn’t until Eric passed the audition and joined them on the road that he got to know his future partner well.

Ernie, who hailed from East Ardsley, Leeds, began his career in show business by performing with his father in clubs around the region. They were billed as Carson and Kid. But Ernie also did plenty of solo work. An article from the
Morley Observer
of Friday, 18 March 1938 bears the headline: ‘Youngsters Are Favourites On Morley Stage’. It goes on to list various young acts appearing in a local talent competition—a sort of regional version of today’s TV show
Britain’s Got Talent
. Out of around twenty finalists, the list was whittled down to five contestants.

An extract from a book entitled
Morley Entertainers
says of the contest: ‘The voting by the audience on ballot papers was close. Each of the runners up

received an award of half a guinea while an additional prize of a special course in tap dancing, given by the society’s ballet mistress, went to Hetty Harris. The first prize of three guineas was awarded to Ernest Wiseman whose comedy song and clever tap dance routine brought the house down.’

Over the next two years Ernie would go on to become a child star, a rise culminating in performances at the London Palladium with the popular comic entertainer of the day Arthur Askey.

Shortly after this success Eric and Ernie found themselves travelling together, though each was still a solo act. They shared digs, even shared a bed, which would gently be nodded to in later years when they put a much-loved

bed routine in their TV shows. Sadie spotted the chemistry and it was she who encouraged them to form a double act.

It was at the Empire Liverpool in August 1941 that Eric and Ernie first performed as the double act Bartholomew and Wiseman. This wasn’t a moment that heralded the arrival of a new and wonderful double act—that was still a decade and a half away—but it was the beginning of a friendship and a working partnership which would endure until Eric’s death forty-three years later.

Eric and Ernie hadn’t been teamed up for very long when they were to see their partnership put on hold. The Second World War began.

‘When the war was on, I went down the mines as a Bevin Boy. My height was no handicap, as I worked lying down. Happy days? Yes, the days were very happy indeed—I was working nights.’

G
ordon and Bunny Jay (brothers whose real name was Jones) were the doyens of British variety bills, appearing in countless pantomime seasons over countless decades, and only recently announced their retirement. Catching up with them face to face was a privilege, but I would be lying if I said there wasn’t an ulterior motive to my wanting to interview them. For quite unbelievably it emerged, during a street-corner conversation with Bunny, that not only was his brother down the mines during the war as a Bevin Boy, as Eric was, but that Gordon and my father worked in the same pit and shared the same digs.

There’s been a lot in the news lately about the Bevin Boys. They appear to be getting belated recognition for their part in the war effort. As for Bunny, well, to find a Bevin Boy who had come across my father at that time would have
been thrilling for me, but to meet one who had not only shared digs with him but also gone into the same profession after the war was genuinely remarkable.

Curiously, just as I set about interviewing Gordon and Bunny, I received an email from someone called Andrew Baird who had managed to track me down. Andrew first met my father as opponents on the football pitch as kids. ‘Later, we met just after he was called up as a Bevin Boy,’ he recalled. ‘Based upon Eric’s experience of that, and the advice he gave me, I volunteered for the Royal Navy and went to sea as part of an Atlantic convoy. We were attacked by a German U-Boat and we lost at least one ship. When I relayed my experience to Eric after the war, I made it quite clear that this was the only trouble I experienced during my three years.’

The years went by, but Andrew and Eric were destined to meet again. Eric became a director of Luton FC, and Andrew became the bank manager for Mansfield Town FC. ‘After the match we had a long, long chat,’ says Andrew. ‘We agreed to catch up at the return match if your dad was free to get up to it. Well, he was. He strode into the Directors’ lounge asking after me, only to be told by the Mansfield Chairman that I was now the banker for Manchester United FC. To be frank, I didn’t think Eric would’ve been free to make it to that return match. I felt guilty when I learned what had happened. I sent a letter to him care of Luton Town FC, but didn’t get a reply. I was not surprised!’

Rest assured, Andrew, Eric would have fully understood, and the lack of a reply would have been a result of the letter not having been passed on to him.

Back to Gordon and Bunny Jay and their memories of Eric during the war years. In 1943 the government had got in a bit of a panic after concluding that Britain was becoming very short of coal. Many of the young miners had either been called up to fight or had transferred to munitions factories where the pay was better. The then Minister for Labour, Ernest Bevin, proposed that a ballot be drawn up conscripting those boys with a certain letter after their name to go
down the mines. The proposal was accepted, and these boys were for ever to be known as Bevin Boys.

‘The year was 1944,’ recalled Gordon Jay. ‘Your father and I would both have been eighteen years of age. I remember clearly the first time I saw him. He approached me as all of us new Bevin Boys gathered for our employment for the New Town Colliery, near Manchester. He was wearing a trilby hat and long coat. We sort of knew each other through show business—or at least we did after talking for a few minutes. I think we decided there and then to hang on to each other, because it was fairly evident that we were the only ones in entertainment.’

And it is true that not only was Eric in entertainment at this time, but he had come straight from his full-time employment to help the war effort.

‘I wasn’t due for call up until May 1944,’ said Eric in an interview with writer Dennis Holman back in 1972, ‘so in the meantime I got a job in ENSA [Entertainments National Service Association, set up in 1939 to provide entertainment for Britain’s armed forces during the Second World War] as straight man to a Blackpool comic named Gus Morris. Gus had won the Military Medal in World War I. He had been wounded by a burst of machine gun fire. He couldn’t bend his right knee, and his left he could bend only half way, and he had only one eye, but he was a very funny man and very kind to me.

‘I remember he and I were at St Helens. The following week we weren’t working, so I went home on the Saturday night after the show. On the Monday came a notice in the post for me to report to the labour exchange. I went down there and took my place in the queue.

‘“Bartholomew?”

‘“Yes.”

‘“Hullo, Eric, how are you?” said the man whom I knew.

‘“Fine,” I told him.

‘“Matter of fact, the doctor thinks so too. Your medical report says you’reA1, and you’re one of the chosen few who are going down the mines.”’

Gordon Jay then took up the story from the arrival day: ‘We tried to get the powers that be to let us stay together in digs, rather than shared rooms on site with everyone else. But they weren’t having that. First thing we had to do’—he winced at the memory—‘was have a medical; about twenty of us. We had to strip bollock-naked and line up in front of the MO to be examined. We had lunch in the canteen where we were given a lecture on safety and different things, and we were told we were going down the pit the following afternoon. Afterwards the group broke up, and Eric and I were left hanging around there like a couple of pillocks. I think we were both born cowards and were fairly anxious about the whole set-up in any case. I mean, being an entertainer then wasn’t like it is now. It was still considered, shall we say,
unusual.
We were called over, eventually, and told that they’d decided we would be allowed to stay in digs

after all, which was a relief. I think they got the point that as young entertainers we were accustomed to staying in digs as part of our work. Our new digs would be in Salford.’

Their digs were fairly rudimentary, but Gordon doesn’t recall this with any rancour—it just was how it was back then. ‘We had one room with two iron bedsteads. Eric chose the bed by the window.’

It would be some time later, when Eric was transferred to another mine, that his health rating went from A1 to C3, which, as Gordon pointed out to me, is pretty significant. ‘I think he was unlucky because he didn’t get the pit he wanted to go on to. ’This is true, and he ended up in one that, as Eric himself

described, ‘had seams literally no more than two feet high’.

‘We did a month together in digs,’ continued Gordon. ‘That first day together was a bit frightening. There were a few ashen faces, ours amongst them. Eric and I sat next to each other while the talk went on. The health and safety officer—though I doubt that specific term was used back then—told us we were going down the mine for our first time that afternoon at two o’clock. What’s interesting is that they pointed out to us that they couldn’t force any of us to go down. But every day we refused to go down added a day to our training. Clever, really, because no one wanted to delay their stay in Manchester, so no one refused to go down.’

So down they went, having been given an upbeat description which explained that the space was such that you could get eight double-decker buses down there, and there were huge air lamps floodlighting the place at all times. ‘And it really was the case,’ verified Gordon. ‘They were very smart, because they took us down to this surprisingly large open space in a cage lift, which moved much slower than you usually would go in one of those things. Soon everyone was down there in this large, well-lit space, and we were given a little explanation about everything, and then we went back up into the daylight. We must have been down there for all of twenty minutes.

‘The training then started. We had lectures in the morning, followed by P. E., then boxing. Your dad in boxing gloves and shorts is something I clearly can remember,’ chuckled Gordon. ‘And then it would be the pit again, though sometimes the timetable would change because of the large number of us that needed organizing.’

Gordon explained that there was a life, albeit a small one, outside of the work. ‘On the third day,’ he said, ‘one of the management girls called us in to tell us they were going to have a social, and asked if we would be willing to do something for it—meaning a routine of some kind. Eric and I looked at each other and shrugged and said, yes, fine—we’ll do something. I had my tap shoes with me and some decent clothes and music, so we went away and had a chat about it. After a while Eric looked at me and said, “Do you really want to do this?” I smiled thinly and said, “Not really!” and that was that; we didn’t do it. We came up with some excuse the following day that we couldn’t find the venue.’

As time went on, Gordon explains how the two of them would burn the midnight oil talking about what they would do when they got out of the mines and the war was over. ‘It was the only time we could really chat, because when we got to the pit each day we split up. He had a mining mate and I had a mining mate. The strange thing was, we never worked properly as such. We would go down the mines but just to learn things as a way of training for later on.

‘But during the hours when we were back on our beds in the digs, we’d chat. Eric I found always wanted to talk about his mum and dad. He clearly thought the world of them: he worshipped them. He was always pondering on what they would have been doing that day, and what they would have had to eat. And if Bunny’s and my mother visited, he was straight over to her making a fuss of her. We would walk along the street separately, because Eric would be with our mother, and he would change sides if necessary to make sure he was nearer the road so as to protect her. He was very gentlemanly.’

‘I would meet up with Gordon and Eric with my mother at the weekends in
Manchester,’ chipped in Bunny. ‘We would go to the cinema. I remember one film we saw was Eddie Cantor in
Show Business.
’

I found this very interesting, because from the recollections of his early peers we have already seen that he would spend time watching films whenever he could, particularly at the Saturday morning club in Morecambe that he attended with his chums. And I also knew my father was an Eddie Cantor fan. When I was about six he bought me a Cantor LP, which I adored, and I would go to my local school talking about Eddie Cantor and others of that ilk, wondering why they hadn’t heard of him and could only talk about singers called Elvis Presley and the Beatles, of whom I knew just about zilch.

‘The rationing was on, of course, but the landlady fed us well,’ continued Gordon, recalling the digs he shared with Eric. ‘The arrangement was, she gave us a cooked breakfast, packed lunch, and a meal when we came in.’

The first day came and they arrived at the pit to face the usual lecture from a health and safety officer (some things haven’t changed). ‘Then we were given a pep talk before we went down,’ said Gordon. ‘Then we had a lunch break and ate our sandwiches, which was always to be a choice of jam or fish paste. A staple diet for the next month. And your dad and me really weren’t into that as a diet. In the end we’d drop these sandwiches over someone’s fence near the bus stop and nip into a canteen.’

Gordon also remembered other moments spent away from the pits. ‘We would go to various theatres, like the Salford Hippodrome, to watch what were without question pretty shoddy revues. They weren’t even “tits ‘n’ tinsel”—this was before those times. I’m not sure what your dad thought of it all. Although it possibly remained unspoken, I think we both sensed that if this was
what was on offer, then we were going to do all right once we got back on the showbiz road again.’

And the theatres and cinemas themselves?

‘Gone!’ said Gordon without a shred of doubt. ‘It was a different world.’

What still remains are some of the public houses of that time, yet Gordon was quick to tell me, ‘I can’t remember a single occasion I went to the pub with your dad, which I find strange. We were all young and keen to get out to have our beers and fags and be a part of the adult scene. But your dad never did.’

What Gordon said doesn’t strike me as totally surprising. My father once told me that he never even had alcohol in the house until he was in his late thirties. It was considered a luxury, or something the privileged classes would do—but not someone from his background. Also, he was never keen on going to pubs: partly this was because he was so recognizable, but as well as that he just didn’t particularly enjoy them. On top of that he had never been a beer drinker, which was the chosen drink of the working class. ‘When I reached my thirties and the M and W shows were starting to happen for us,’ he said, ‘
then
I started bringing drink home and we had a drinks cabinet and so on. But even then, it was probably limited to a whisky on a Saturday night.’