Skidmore's Island: Out, Out Brief Celebrity
Today Open Writing welcomes a new columnist, Ian Skidmore.
And what a columnist! Ian is a star entertainer. Allow him to introduce himself.
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I was educated in paperback . M.A. (Penguin) Without punctuation or shorthand I have been a reporter and author of 26 books,largely because I went into the wrong office in the army to dodge a vengeful RSM and within an hour was on my way to cover the Berlin airlift as an army PR sergeant.Two hours after being freed from an army prison as a private (It was a bum rap but I have never ceased to be grateful,because otherwise I would be a retired bus driver now.) For fity years I also wrote newspaper columns, so many that I ws known in the trade at the Parthenon Kid. I have been atop more columns than Simon the Stylite. I was also one of the few BBC presenters who hadn't been in the Footlights. I worked for BBC Wales for 30 years and ws awarded a Golden microphone for services to broadcasting. A month later I was dropped because I was English. Which proved BBC bosses don't listen to the radio.
Brian May is a pop star, a member of Queen and an astro-physicist of international repute. On radio y he admitted he did not approve of celebrity. Billy Bragg is a highly intelligent pop star and thinker. He admitted on radio that he too reckoned nothing to celebrity.
I only suffered a brief moment of celebrity when I appeared on TV but I know exactly why they are concerned. On radio I broadcast every week to about 26 million listeners worldwide and no one had a clue who I was. Just a disembodied voice that was remembered only by the most eagle-eared.
When the first two programmes of a TV series “Home Brew”, which I co-presented with a folk singer called Frank Hennessey, went out, I became a marked man. The first intimation of fame is that one thinks one's flies are undone. This is because wherever you go people give you a double take. The second glance is because the first one leaves them with a niggling feeling they have seen the glancee somewhere before. It always produced in me a hasty examination of my flies.
Even worse is the bolder spirit who is not going to let you get away with eluding his memory. He stops you in mid-tread and says, “I know that face. Don't tell me...” You have no intention of telling him, even if you knew what he didn't want to know.
“I'll have you in a minute,” said this one guy in Cardiff. “On the tip of my tongue. Never forget a face.” A pause before illumination dawned. “Got you,” he said. “You are the Town Crier of Llandrindod Wells.”
I thought I ought to have some visual clue that would fix me in the minds of such people. So when I was invited to present the Welsh Sheepdog Championships I wore a different coloured waistcoat
for each programme. Worked like a charm. Fellow stopped me in Llandudno.
“Saw you on TV last night. Fantastic!” “Oh, you like sheepdogs then?” “Cannot stand them, yapping b.....s.” “It's not the sheep, surely?” “Course it's not.” “ Oh, so you liked me? Thank.........”
“You? You were crap. You gabbled.” “So what was so marvellous?” “The waistcoats. Bloody fantastic, man.”
I spent the rest of that brief career in the limelight convinced I could have sent the waistcoats on jobs whilst remaining comfortably at home.
Sometimes the voice is memorable.
I had a comedy programme called “Radio Brynsiencyn”. There was no budget so I had to use the people round me as characters. The singer Aled Jones's dad asked me to teach the boy soprano interviewing. Didn't charge me when I made him my junior reporter.
One of the most important women in my life was called Rose Roberts. She came to us as a cleaner but soon took complete charge of us, the animals and the house. She had a voice that would strip paint. I recruited her as the station cleaner and called her Attila the Hoover. She had a camp friend with a lovely Welsh accent. I re-created him as Goronwy Generator, who pedalled the bike that powered the generator that beamed the programmes. The entire Welsh nation is formed of actors. They read the scripts I wrote for them like real pros. Aled, who takes work more seriously than anyone I have ever met - he did his school homework in the dressing room of the Hollywood Bowl whilst waiting to stun a capacity audience - was soon a very professional interviewer. He was a quick learner.
His dad told me about the time he went to Lloyd Webber's flat to record “Memories”. Lloyd Webber asked him if he would like to do a run through. Aled said he would rather go straight ahead with the recording. The first tape was perfect. A stunned Lloyd Webber said: “It took Barbra Streisand a week to do that.”
Aled's dad told me: “I didn't like to tell him the lad was anxious not to miss Match of the Day.”
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Rose and Goronwy were avid theatregoers and never missed a West End opening. They were in the queue at the London Palladium when Rose gave voice, briefly. It was enough.
“Blimey,” said a man in the queue, “it's Attila the Hoover!”
Now that IS celebrity.
