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Mr Lonely
Eric Morecambe
A long-overdue reissue of this debut novel from a comedy legend.Mr Lonely follows the exploits of a lowly two-bit comedian, Sid Lewis, through his strange and eventful life.Sid plays dingy smoke-filled clubs, earning next to nothing and chasing after the dancing girls. He meets the woman of his dreams and ties the knot – but still has an eye for the ladies.One night, in front of a particularly rough crowd, he tries out a new character… and Mr Lonely is born. The act is seen by someone from the BBC who offers Sid the chance to perform on television. He becomes an overnight success, quickly taking to a new life of champagne and stardom – and continues to chase anything in a skirt.But great comedy is often laced with tragedy and Sid's life is no exception as his excesses and philandering threaten to catch up with him.Mr Lonely was Eric's first novel, written while he was recovering from his second heart attack and contemplating a career away from the stage. It has all the hallmarks of his legendary comic talent and is being brought back into print for the first time in nearly thirty years.
MR LONELY
ERIC MORECAMBE
MR LONELY
‘Sid Lewis came into this world exactly the same way as any other child. He weighed eight and a half pounds and had a shock of black hair … His childhood was normal—lumps, bumps and mumps. His schooling was average—sums, bums and chums. He left school when he was fourteen and went to work behind the counter of a tobacconist’s shop earning fifteen shillings a week and all he could inhale …’
So begins the Sid Lewis story, a tribute to that great and incomparable comedian who achieved stardom as Mr Lonely …
DEDICATION (#ulink_a1447162-c56a-5805-aa35-63dfcd95cbd5)
This book is dedicated to my first grandchild, Amelia Faye Jarvis.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Foreword (#u1a4944b2-62d0-525d-80ea-5cd08fd8140f)
Prologue (#ud9952a32-a249-53ff-a712-847150aedee0)
Chapter One (#u3d7b1db3-0302-5e68-96bf-0351b6e1e8c8)
Chapter Two (#ud64f0703-21a6-50a3-a29d-9e31eb667e07)
Chapter Three (#uf15577d1-2974-5070-875e-85e44ac81577)
Chapter Four (#u4538f2aa-ea16-5a47-ae04-ae176f4c4b65)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Index (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright
About the Publisher
FOREWORD (#ulink_02949c5c-dddb-56ba-81b7-577640e64a44)
Dear Reader,
This is not a biography of Sid Lewis written by someone who never really knew him. These are some wonderful stories and memories of a much loved man, who, when he appeared on our screens, most of the country would watch. I remember one Christmas show he did when thirty-five million people watched, and the repeat was seen three weeks later (by public demand) by no less than twenty-eight million. Put these two figures together and that show alone was seen by sixty-three million people. To me it proves how much we all loved him and always will. I well remember Sid once saying to me, ‘Eric, old palamino. What do they [the public] see in me?’ He gave me his Glenn Ford type grin and his eyes filled up as I told him, ‘Sid, I don’t know but be thankful they do.’ I was with him on many of the occasions mentioned in this book. Obviously there are a few, when, in all honesty, I could not and should not have been there, but these were retold to me by Sid himself or, in some cases, by the male or female involved. I have not put myself in Sid’s story. The story is about Sid, not me. My pleasure and happiness come from writing about him. I am offering you a few snatches from his life, nothing more; some funny, some sad. After reading this book I hope you will remain a fan of Sid’s and a friend of mine. All the photographs are from my own private collection and have never been shown publicly before. Here, I would like to say a special thank you to Miss Victoria Fournier for long nights we had to spend together in her flat trying to get it right. Also to my darling wife, Joan, for her understanding. As Bela Lugosi said in the film Dracula (1931), ‘Listen to them, children of the night. What music they make.’
Harpenden, England 1981
PROLOGUE (#ulink_9afc6e4a-4b30-51ae-827b-c067a5f365d0)
Sid Lewis came into this world exactly the same way as any other child. He weighed eight and a half pounds and had a shock of black hair. The trouble was, as he used to say, ‘It wasn’t on my head, it was all under my left arm.’ His childhood was normal—lumps, bumps and mumps. His schooling was average—sums, bums and chums. He left school when he was fourteen and went to work behind the counter of a tobacconist’s shop, earning fifteen shillings a week and all he could inhale. Twice a week he went to dancing class in the evenings. He was, apart from another fourteen-year-old boy called Ashley (that was his first name), who became quite well known as a ballet dancer, the only other boy, with twenty-two girls between thirteen and eighteen years of age. He learned more about girls in four weeks, or eight lessons, than was good for a young lad of fourteen. The thirteen- to sixteen-year-old girls wanted to practise with him, while the sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds wanted to practise on him. His mother did say to his father, ‘He must be working hard at that dancing class, he comes home exhausted.’ At eighteen he went into the army and worked his way through the ranks from private to captain of the ATS. Private Betty Grassford and Captain Maureen Collins. He always wanted to make major but she wouldn’t let him. He remained a corporal. He came out of the army at twenty-two, took a month off, then got a job for a while as a postman, and slowly, through singing, doing a few jokes and reading the wanted ads in The Stage, came into show business via pubs, clubs and church halls, working to OAPs, talent competitions and one summer as a Red Coat at Butlin’s Holiday Camp in Clacton.
He was now hooked. Performing was the only thing he wanted to do, and a comedian he wanted to be. For a few years, including the early part of his marriage, Sid found it difficult to make ends meet. It’s sad to say that his wife Carrie was no real help to him. She never thought him really funny and on the rare occasions she saw him work he always seemed to ‘die the death’. She loved him, though, and when things were tough she worked as a waitress or in some kind of job that would bring some money in. The first year of their marriage she earned more than he did, but she didn’t understand his wanting to be in show business. She never complained, yet she never understood. Carrie just wanted him to be the type of husband that brought in enough money to live on, to pay the rent, and to go to Yarmouth for a few days every year, the same as her father had done. Sid used to say, ‘We only had one child because she found out what caused it.’
I don’t think there was very much passion between Carrie and Sid. Just a gentle love that never gave out any real heat. What Sid wanted to do all through his married life was ‘To become a star’. He wanted to be a star for Carrie but she couldn’t understand that. What she wanted was for him to be average. He couldn’t understand that. They both became reconciled to each other and over the years their early, youthful love slowly developed into fondness. It was a great sadness because both of them deserved better from each other.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_190c3f2a-4bcc-57ce-aaf5-cdcac6803298)
February, 1976
It was Tuesday morning. Sid came into the kitchen for his breakfast. He looked at the electric clock on the wall—nine-fifteen. Carrie, his wife, had already taken their daughter, Elspeth, to school and was now back in her kitchen making her baggy-eyed, unshaven husband his breakfast. Sid sat down with the ease of a still-tired man in that part of the kitchen that was known as the breakfast area. He picked up half a dozen lumps of sugar, picked out two special ones, put the others down and, like a Mississippi gambler, threw the two lumps of sugar towards the packet of Shredded Wheat. As they hit the box and stopped rolling he shouted in a loud voice: ‘Craps!’
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Carrie adroitly avoiding hot bacon fat and, at the same time, breaking two eggs to fry. In competition with the bacon and eggs was a male radio DJ of the older school, who was allowing an actor to tell all of this particular DJ’s audience how good the play he was appearing in was, and how good all the other actors and actresses in it were, and that the producer, although still quite young (a breathless twenty-two) was nevertheless, ‘my dear’, only quite brilliant, and the director, ‘my lambs’, a genius, and younger than Noel was. The music? Well—all of the best the West End has heard since Cole and, of course, Ivor. The show, ‘my loves’, was the best thing to hit town in Zeons and why people weren’t coming to see it in droves baffled him.
The older-type DJ was doing all his ‘of courses’ and ‘good Lords’ in all the right places, finishing up with, ‘Well, I just find that too hard to believe, Randy.’
‘Don’t we all, darling,’ purred the actor.
‘But after what you’ve just told me, I shall go and see Cosmo, The Faceless Goon myself.’
‘Moon,’ whispered Randy.
‘Moon,’ shouted the older-type DJ, who then announced the wrong theatre followed by the wrong performance time.
Sid thought, Older-type DJ, in this last ten years you have become an institution, and now that’s where you belong.
Carrie thought, Randy. I wonder if that’s short for Randal? She said, ‘How many eggs?’
‘One,’ said Sid.
‘One?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I’ve done you two.’
‘So I’ll have two.’
‘You’ve no need to have two, if you don’t want to have two. You can have one if you only want one.’
‘I’ll have two.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Look, if I only have one, what will happen to the other one?’
‘I’ll have it.’
‘Do you want it?’
‘Well, I’m not bothered, but I’ll have it if you don’t want it.’
‘Give them both to me before I go off the idea of either bacon or eggs. Have you grilled any tomatoes?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s a relief. That means to say that if you had and I didn’t want them, you won’t have to have them now.’
‘Are you ready for them?’
‘Yes, if they’re ready for me and incidentally …’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t want the tomatoes.’
Carrie gave him his bacon and eggs. ‘What time did you come in last night?’ she asked.
‘About three. If you’re going to do any tomatoes, I’ll have them.’
‘I didn’t hear you. I didn’t hear the car.’
‘I turned the engine off before coming down the drive. These eggs are great. I’ll take bets they were brown eggs.’
‘One of each.’
‘Oh, I would say the one on the left was the brown one.’
‘I didn’t feel you get in the bed.’
‘You should have done. I made love to you twice.’
‘I don’t think that’s at all funny. You’re getting crude in your old age. Pass me the plate when you’ve finished.’
‘It was like a joke,’ he said, passing the now-empty plate.
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes please, but without tomatoes.’
‘You probably see all the tomatoes you want at the club,’ Carrie said, putting the plates in the sink. ‘Do you mind instant coffee this morning as I’m in a bit of a hurry?’
‘Instant coffee’s fine,’ Sid said, undoing his dressing-gown cord. ‘But what’s that about the tomatoes at the club business?’
‘Do you want cold milk or half and half?’
‘I’m easy.’
‘We’ll have the cold milk, then.’ Carrie got the cups ready and started to pour the coffees. ‘Three o’clock’s late. You’re usually home by two.’
‘Lard asked me back to his room for a drink after he’d finished.’
‘Who?’
‘Lard. Lard Jackson. He’s the star this week.’
‘That black man, who was on Nationwide the other night?’
‘Most likely.’ Sid picked up his two special sugars and dropped them into his coffee. ‘He’s a nice fella.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s got a number in the Top Ten. He finished his act with it.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘Let me do it to you again, baby.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘It’s a song.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘No, it is.’
