You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone by Gary Morecambe Page B

Morecambe. ‘I wasn’t in his class as he was younger than me,’ she told me. ‘I remember him there, of course, because we used to get on the bus for the same school but at different stops. Sometimes he would come and sit with me, and sometimes he wouldn’t, depending on how he felt.’
    It was through the dance classes that Nora got to know my father, and looking back she described him as a comedian from the outset. ‘Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he made you laugh. There was a gang of us who used to go to the Floral Hall together to the Saturday night dance. We’d dance together—ballroom-dance—and Eric couldn’t do it at all: he had two left feet.’ This I found interesting as his own father was an accomplished ballroom dancer. ‘The rest of his dancing, and what he was learning at dance classes, was unbelievable,’ Nora went on. ‘At school we couldn’t wait for him to do his bit for the Christmas Show, which was part of the festive celebrations. He would do his dance in top hat and tails with a cane. We all adored it and looked forward to it. Eric was the star of the production—always. His tap dancing was brilliant. Just because the ballroom dancing wasn’t his thing didn’t stop us dancing with him because we knew invariably he’d make us laugh. He’d always come out with something very, very funny and have us in fits. It was in his nature.
    ‘Later, when we all left school, we drifted apart and we never crossed paths again, although I always sensed he was someone who never forgot his roots. He came back more than people realized, because often we’d hear about it through someone, like my daughter, telling us they’d spotted him out and about.’
    As I sat in Nora’s small but comfortable home at Hest Bank, a house and a world not unlike those of all my father’s contemporaries that I was privileged to meet on my visit, I couldn’t help but ask her if Eric’s remarkable rise to stardom had surprised her.
    ‘No, not at all,’ she answered at once. ‘It was almost obvious what was going to happen, as the talent was there from such a young age. It would have almost been stranger had it not happened. He took it in his stride. And his mother was a big part of his success; she pushed him, but he must have loved to do it really, or he wouldn’t have done it. For instance, those school performances: it should be remembered he volunteered for them.
    ‘But despite the passing years, you never forget someone like Eric. It’s just that you end up on different tracks in life. That’s just the way it is.’

Meet the Folks
    ‘My great mistake, until I was shown the error of my ways, was in always being in too much of a hurry. My mother’s name for me was perfect—Jifflearse. All I wanted was to take in as much as I could in as short a time as possible…’
    E ric’s father was one of the loveliest men you could wish to meet; one of those easy-going, uncomplicated sorts. George worked for the Corporation and his was a very different upbringing from that of his only child. By choosing, or being taken down, depending on how you view these things, his road to fame and fortune, Eric had to rock boats in the process of that journey. George never did, and I think Eric vaguely resented the fact that his father had been able to avoid any such confrontations in his life.
    George came from a large family of some six brothers and two sisters, so he had probably learned much about sibling rivalry and pecking order and emerged from that experience perhaps a shade more grounded and tolerant than his own son would turn out. For the innerpeacefulness that George so clearly possessed never really rubbed off on Eric, who lacked tolerance and admitted as much himself. As Sadie and George’s only child, and as a talented lad on top of it all, Eric simply became accustomed to getting things his own way. This didn’t mean he grew up either difficult or selfish—he was simply intolerant of anything that