Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Our Story (49 page)

I looked like the biggest crisp diva in showbusiness.

As you can see, Ant is a very powerful man – when he says he wants something, people everywhere run out and get it.

They certainly do. Although, if I knew the response was going to be that good, I would have asked for something a bit more exciting.

What? A tube of Pringles?

Exactly. Anyway, I felt really guilty – although I did take them home, and I’ve still got at least six bags in my crisp cupboard. By the time you read this, that may be down to two, or even, depending on my hangover quotient, one.

We went straight from auditioning talent to trying to use our own, with a brand-new series of
Saturday Night Takeaway,
and the latest instalment of Ant versus Dec – The Teams. I had a lovely team this year – Jonny Wilkes, Yvette Fielding, Liz McLarnon, Lembit Opik and Brian
Conley. Jonny is obviously an old friend of ours, and Brian Conley is Alan Conley, the floor manager’s brother (the name’s a dead giveaway) and we had a great time.

I had a great team too – Nicky Clarke, Edwina Currie, Bobby Davro, Antony Costa and Sinitta – and in case you were wondering: we won the series.

Don’t remind me.

I think my favourite member of Team Dec was Nicky Clarke – he was a real team player, always prepared to muck in, and great fun. Who am I kidding? He used to cut my hair. For free.

We were in the O2 arena, where both teams were supposed to be practising for a truck-pull challenge, I was having a chat with Jonny about team tactics and I looked over at Dec to see Nicky Clarke cutting his hair. In the middle of the O2.

You know what they say – ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.’

You did have a very good haircut that series, I have to say.

Ant versus Dec is a massive part of
Takeaway,
and both teams quickly learnt how much it really does take over your life for the duration of the series. Whether it’s learning donkey’s names, an
Oliver
or
Grease
medley, or writing and recording a charity single, we take every challenge very seriously and, as we’ve said before, we get very, very competitive. Even our families get in on the act, and they take it personally when we lose. If I’ve lost a challenge, I’ve had lots of consoling chats with my mam on the phone after the show. And considering I still haven’t won a series, you’ll start to understand how big my phone bill is during a run of
Takeaway.

Even my nieces and nephew get into it, although not necessarily in the way I’d like them to. The daughters of Lisa’s brother Stephen – Courtenay, who is eleven, Morgan, who is six and Bonnie, who is two – leave voice-mail messages on my phone after I’ve lost a challenge in which they shout, ‘Loser!’. When it first started, my nephew, Ethan, used to cheer for Team Dec – because they wear blue and my team wear red, which, in his three-year-old mind, is a girl’s colour. I made sure I got lots of Team Ant memorabilia and gave it to him, so he knows exactly who to support. I’m glad to say he’s now firmly behind my team, so much so that the last time he came down, he spent the whole train journey back up to Newcastle running up and down the carriage shouting, ‘Team Ant! Team Ant!’ I was very proud of him, even if we did still lose the series.

One other thing I’m very proud of is that, like Dec with his mam and dad, last year, I bought Sarha a house. Unfortunately, her marriage broke up, but the house we got is next door to my mam and Davey and, these days, I have a room at Sarha’s when I go home. As we’ve both said before, the best thing about the success we’ve enjoyed is that we can help out our families, and that’s really important to both of us. It’s a one-in-a-million opportunity to get to where we have, and you’ve got to share with the people who really matter to you.

They didn’t run up and down the train carriage screaming, ‘Team Dec’, but my mam and dad came down to the latest series of
Takeaway
too. Every single time my dad comes to the show, the same thing happens – he always says he’s going to sit in the audience and then, five minutes before the show starts, he pipes up with, ‘I’ll just watch it from here’ – and he stays in the green room with a bottle of beer. The Donnelly men love a bottle of beer and a bit of telly.

My mam and Davey sit in the audience when they come down, and when they come for a drink after the show, all my mam wants to talk about is Andy Collins, our warm-up man. Our post-show chat is always the same:

‘Hi, mam, what did you think of the show?’

‘Wasn’t Andy Collins good – he is brilliant.’

‘Yeah, he is – did you like the show?’

‘He did this bit during the adverts with this bald fella, it was hilarious…’

‘Did you like Ant versus Dec?’

‘I think Andy should have his own show, you know.’

‘Right.’

The other visitors we had down to that series were Little Ant and Dec. They were about fifteen or sixteen by this point, and I didn’t even recognize Little Dec at first. I was standing in the corridor talking to someone after the show and, out of the corner of my eye, I could see a teenage lad standing there listening in. After a couple of glances I worked out it was Dylan, or the artist formerly known as Little Dec. We had a really nice chat and he told me he’s trying to get into acting – and even though his first job was to play a miniature version of me, I’m sure he’ll make it.

I had a chat with Little Ant, who couldn’t have been more different – he’s got no interest in getting into showbusiness, and told me he’d like to be a mechanic. Doing Little Ant and Dec had put him off performing for life. Personally, I blame Bruce Willis.

Incidentally, they
are
both much taller than us two now, and have much deeper voices. We are now officially Little Ant and Dec. And with that ordinary, everyday tale of a reunion with our miniature selves, we come to the final part of this book.

This epic story, which began with
Geordie Racer
and
Why Don’t You?
is almost at an end. We’d love to go on, but we’ve realized it’s quite tricky to write an autobiography that’s set in the future.

As we sit here, writing the last few pages, you’ll be pleased to know that we’re in the same place we’ve spent most of the last twenty years – a TV studio. In a few hours, we’ll go on stage and host the first semi-final of
Britain’s Got Talent.
By the time you read this, you’ll know who won the series, so in a way you already know something we don’t – I hope you feel nice and smug about that.

Before we go, though, there’s just time for the big ending – the bit where we tell you what we’ve learnt about ourselves and how we’ve grown as human beings during the making of our life story.

When we agreed to write this book, we thought it would be great fun, and we were absolutely right. In twenty years, this is the first time we’ve really stopped and looked back. We’re already on to our third career – after acting and pop music, we’re now TV presenters. I’m sure that over the course of the last 355 pages, we’ve missed out things that happened and people who helped us, and we’re sorry for that but, strangely, we can’t remember every day from the last twenty years.

One thing that surprised us about the whole experience was that, at times, writing this book felt a bit like having therapy, especially our music career, which was one of the toughest parts. We both know that we wouldn’t be where we are today without it but looking back was sometimes difficult. We were doing something that, towards the end, we didn’t really believe in and we were working so, so hard for very little reward – either creatively or financially. Having said that, it taught us to be more resilient, it made us who we are today and it led to the career we have now. Plus we got to travel the world, perform to sell out crowds and we’ve still got some precious memories from those days, so I don’t think either of us would change a second of it.

We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have enjoyed such a remarkable time. We told you at the start that whenever something memorable happens, we look at each other and say, ‘One for the book,’ and writing this has shown just how many of those moments we’ve had in the last twenty years. Throughout it all, we’ve always had one constant that’s kept us sane – each other. In two decades, we’ve never spent more than two weeks apart. Some people might not understand it, but our friendship is a massive, massive part of where we are today.

I always think back to the two of us, down at the Quayside, sat in Dec’s MG Metro Turbo after we’d left
Byker Grove.
We were eighteen years
old and about to start our music career. We didn’t have a clue what the future held for us, how our lives were going to pan out, or whether we’d ever be able to make a living doing the things we loved. Despite all that, we made an agreement – whatever happened, we’d be mates for ever, and neither one of us would ever be on our own out there. Sitting here today, that’s as true as it’s always been. If it all ended tomorrow, we’d still speak every day, we’d still see each other all the time and we’d still be best mates. And that’s something we’re both very proud of.

Without a doubt, the best thing to come out of the last twenty years, the greatest thing we’ve ever achieved, our biggest success, has been our friendship. And nothing will ever, ever change that.

Right, fancy a pint?

I thought you’d never ask…

Thank you

We would like to thank everyone we’ve worked with over the last twenty years. From those early days on
Byker Grove
, right through to the present day, in front of and behind the camera, you’ve all played a significant part in our story so far.

And to our families, friends and loved ones, for your unconditional love and support, and for allowing us to believe we could do it, thank you.

We wouldn’t be where we are today without you all.

Cheers.

Picture and lyric permissions

All page numbers refer to the insets.

Page 18
(top right) photo of Ant, Dec and Will Young on
Pop Idol
: © Fremantle Media Ltd/Rex Features.

Page 20
(top left) photo of Ant on one knee against
SNT
background: © ITV plc; (top right and middle left) photos of Ant and Dec in ‘Undercover’ disguises: © ITV plc; photos of Dec on his motorbike (bottom left) and of Ant and Dec abseiling (bottom right): © Ken McKay/Rex Features.

Page 29
(top left) photo of
Britain’s Got Talent
: © Fremantle Media Ltd/ Simco Ltd 2009.

‘Baby Got Back’ Words & Music by Anthony Ray © Copyright 1992 Mix-A-Lot Publishing, USA. Universal/Island Music Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

‘Eternal Love’ by Nicky Graham, Michael Olton McCollin and Deni Lew. Maximum Music Limited (Prs). All Rights administered by Warner/Chappell Music Publishing Ltd.

‘I’ll Make Love to You’ Words & Music by Babyface © Copyright 1994 ECAF Music/Sony/ATV Songs LLC, USA. Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

‘Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble’ by Nicky Graham, Deni Lew and Michael Olton McCollin. Maximum Music Limited (Prs). All Rights administered by Warner/Chappell Music Publishing Ltd.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. The publishers will be glad to correct any errors or omissions in future editions.

Dec: Me, aged three.

Ant: He’s cute, he’s lovable, he’s Declan Donnelly.

Ant: That’s a nice hat you’re wearing.

Dec: That’s my hair.

Dec: Me, aged four, in a school music project. We were so poor we couldn’t afford a classroom.

Dec: Christmas 1978 I was going for the ‘young Mark Knopfler meets Woody from
Toy Story
’ look.

Dec: My first Holy Communion and my first girlfriend.

Ant: She looks like she’s having the time of her life…

Ant: Me, aged nine months.

Dec: You’re not even strapped into that deckchair on wheels.

Ant: Me, my sister Sarha and my Nanna Kitty at her caravan in Amble. As you can see, the entire 1970s was sponsored by the colour brown.

Ant: Me with my Granda Willy.

Dec: Curtains
and
blinds? Very posh…

Ant: Me and Sarha were taught from an early age to keep our elbows off the table… and on other people’s plates.

Ant: Me, aged eleven, in my first Rutherford Comprehensive school uniform.

Dec: The cow that had licked his fringe seconds before is just out of shot.

Ant: Me, Sarha and Robbie on holiday.

Dec: Are those free McDonald’s sunglasses? I had a pair of those…

Ant: Me and Sarha thinking exactly the same thing, ‘I wish someone would tell Davey there’s nothing on the end of that fishing line…’

Dec: The first draft of my letter to the BBC.

Dec: The BBC’s reply. Scarier than anything Stephen King’s ever written.

Dec: Matthew Robinson directs the epic ‘Duncan and Spuggie waterfight’ in
Byker Grove.

Dec: The aforementioned Spuggie and Duncan (I’m the one on the right).