Quote: Steve Sunshine @ 7th December 2020, 11:46 PMFirstly RIP Des O' Conner of course
and sad to see my close personal showbiz friend Nick Hewer is set to step down
Connor - but I liked the sentiment. My Dad is now in a care home - cheap as chips but on a Millionaires' Row as roads go. I did that for him. He is still waving his fists on occasion but mostly plays with the cat nicely. Which he calls a dog. Also he wants to kill my mother. Anyhow, we were always close actually. I did say to the place when they asked me to provide notes for his obituary- he is in stunning physical health at 90, far better teeth than I have, so we anticipate that is about a decade off - that they may not know it but Des for a long time lived just up that road. One, Two, Three O'Leary.
Anyhow, my main point was that Des had beaten my father and his mates into second place in Brian Michie's talent competition at Tooting Granada in the early 1950s. He didn't have a grudge but what I do think is that there may have been a non white judge on the panel on the day as my father's troupe played ukuleles in innocent black face. Des was boringly as white as a bleeding ghost. Any'ow, Dad in later life went on to major on his organ, great fingers, while wearing a selection of strange hats and funny Father Christmas ties. Some of the latter did a sort of ring when I pressed their buttons.
I suppose the way he and I ultimately bonded was via my briefing of Glenda Jackson who gives me as much hope as David Hockney does, being an ancient smoker. There she was in Eland House, Victoria - was it '97? - in her sealed room paid for by the general population. I was bloody nervous as she was my first entry. And she was truly lovely. Entirely put me at my ease when we talked about Morecambe and Wise and how they had taken the piss out of someone who had beaten my father. To be frank, it is so long ago and a bit of a blur - though true. What I do recall as I walked past the Army and Navy Stores was I felt that the experience must have been similar to shall we say that of being verbally post coital. I really floated.
