The Sound of Laughter (11 page)

I got his follow-up single, 'Tell Her About It' (again on 12-inch — they were all the rage), for a Christmas present. It was another big hit and even though I knew very little about him, he was becoming a favourite in my house. The following summer Billy Joel came to the UK to play some dates on his 'Innocent Man' tour. I was too young to go but I was able to watch and listen to him with my dad. It was one of the first times that a concert had been broadcast live simultaneously on TV and radio. I recorded it on one of my dad's TDK 90s off Radio 1 in glorious VHF. I still have the cassette and have even managed to get hold of a VHS copy of the show.

I was hooked. Maybe it's because my dad liked him too, but I thought it was the best thing I had ever seen
and have remained a dedicated fan ever since.

*

As you've no doubt gathered over the last few pages, music is so integral to my life and my comedy that I can't begin to imagine any of my work without it. It's hard for me to envisage my stand-up without the wedding DJ playing his music at the end of the show or any episode of
Phoenix Nights
without Jerry singing one of his awful medleys with Les Alanos.

So you can probably imagine my excitement when I discovered that I was being sent to work in a record shop for my work placement when I was at school in fourth year.

When Mrs Divine asked each of us in our Careers lesson what we wanted to do in life, most of us hadn't got a clue. But when she got round to me and I thought about her question for a few seconds, I replied,

'I'd like to be a nursery nurse miss.'

Everybody laughed but it was one of the rare occasions in my life when I was being serious. I always thought of myself as being great with children. I liked to make them laugh and I genuinely thought I'd be good at it.

'A nursery nurse?' she scorned back at me. 'But you're a lad.'

'And?' I said, but Mrs Divine was having none of it. She assumed I was just trying to act the clown as usual but she was wrong.

She sent me to Edwin P. Lees for a fortnight. It was a electrical shop in the town centre, a kind of Dixons without the glamour. I remember feeling gutted when she told me where I was going. I thought, you can't put me with kids so you're putting me with washing machines, marvellous. I don't think she could have got me further away from a child if she'd tried.

I didn't relish the idea of selling white goods to the public for a fortnight. I knew nothing about vacuum cleaners, chest freezers and tumble dryers. But luckily God was smiling down on me on my first day. The shop manager wasn't too keen on having a work placement crowding up his precious shop floor. He decided to keep me out of sight, so he shoved me upstairs into the record department.

It wasn't in the same league as HMV or Virgin but they still stocked the Top 40 and all of the latest releases. I was to work with Regina. She'd run the record department single-handedly since 1961. And now, because of 'these new-fangled CDs and laser discs', the future was starting to look bleak.

The main problem with the record department at Edwin P. Lees is that nobody knew that they had one. The shop was widely known for selling white goods and when I told people I was working in the record department there, the general reaction seemed to be, 'Oh, I
thought that had shut down years ago'.

Here I am sat in a farmer's field, ironically the land is just across
from where my mum's bungalow now sits thirty years later. It was
the middle of August and I was roasting but I didn't have the heart
to tell my mum... and I also couldn't speak yet.

Either my dad or the farmer took this. It's a lovely photo and I only rediscovered it again recently when I was searching for photographs for this book. I've since had it transferred on to a set of attractive placemats.

This is my mum and me practicing our ventriloquist act in the back yard. I used to sing
Bridge Over Troubled Water
while she drank it. We had quite a successful club act for years until The Krankies showed up and stole our thunder.

This is my nana and me on a beautiful sunny day in Blackpool. I'm still wearing that same hat and the t-shirt as I type this right now, it's a bit snug under the arms but I'll manage.

This a rarity, me with
a football 'Aving it!'
on Stanley Park in
Blackpool with my dad
and grandad. I refused
to remove my shirt.

Here I am riding the cable cars at Butlins Filey in 1979. I'd fallen out of one the previous day and knocked my front tooth out... I'm joking of course. Riding the cars was my big birthday treat and we went to a Butlins holiday camp every year until we found earwigs climbing up our bed in Skegness.

This is me dressed as an Indian
in my grandparent's front room,
Christmas, 1977. My grandad
always used to tell me that the
reflection shining in the cabinet
behind me was the star of
Bethlehem, I believed him for years
until I realised it was actually just
a camera flash. Happy days.

R Julie and me outside Granada Television Studios in Manchester, the Hollywood of the North. My dad only took the picture because he accidentally got off the bus three stops too early. Little did I realise I'd end up writing most of this book in that building twenty-five years later.

This is my dad and me on Christmas day. It was the year Father Christmas brought me the best present ever, a Race & Chase. I was so ecstatic I went blind for several days.

Butter wouldn't melt. This is
me and Jesus's mum on the
altar at my local church. I got
the prestigious honour of being
a guard to the May Queen that
year. And I also got to wear the
same outfit twenty-five years
later when I started doing
stand-up in the clubs.

My dad sunbathing in Torquay. Although he wasn't doing it for long, I'd got an inflatable dinghy for my birthday the day before and after falling asleep in it I drifted off to sea. Two lifeguards had to swim out and save me half way to France. My dad immediately deflated it and I wasn't allowed to go out to sea in it again. (Incidentally we've still got those bath towels in the airing cupboard).