Every time City lose I still want to call Eddie to talk
Syd Little tells how he misses his partner
SYD Little tenderly comforted desperately ill Eddie Large before his comedy partner died – and instinctively goes to call him when Eddie’s beloved Manchester City lose.
Eddie, 78, who had a heart transplant in 2003, died last April after contracting Covid-19 while in hospital when the organ finally failed him.
Recalling their final moments together, best friend Syd says: “I was stroking his hair. He was really ill and then we were not allowed to see him.
“His wife Patsy and son Ryan were not allowed to go and see him and that must have been hard. I used to phone him up every day and I think he liked that. But then he died.
Tears
“It was sad that we were in lockdown when he died.We went down to see him when he was very ill and his second heart was failing.
“He did get corona but eventually it was the heart that killed him, the heart failure.”
Little and Large made TV fans laugh for more than 40 years after winning Opportunity Knocks in 1971.
The pair stopped performing on stage in the mid-1990s because of Eddie’s health issues but they did one final gig at Bristol’s Slapstick Festival in 2019.
Syd, 78, admits he still keeps an eye on Manchester City’s scoreline, saying: “I am like sometimes, ‘Oh City got beat, I better phone him up’.”
He tells the Distinct Nostalgia podcast that because of lockdown rules, his son drove him more than 200 miles from home in Fleetwood, Lancashire, to Bristol for Eddie’s funeral. They didn’t even stop for petrol. Syd says: “I had to do the eulogy and I did the early years about our teenage life. It was not long. It was a nice personal little ceremony.
“My closing thing was as the coffin was there. I said, ‘Well old pal. This is our last performance together’.
“They were all in tears and I thought, ‘What have I done here?’. It was hard but I got there. We were together for 70 years.”
Syd, now a pub landlord in Fleetwood, makes occasional TV appearances – including on The Real Marigold Hotel reality TV show – but is “sortof retired”.
He says: “People forget that we grow old like they do. It is like Laurel and Hardy. When you see them you think they are still alive or like Morecambe and Wise. They never die. I enjoyed it for so long but I always said when I stopped enjoying it I wouldn’t do it any more. I am sort of now retired from the business. I do bits of television now and again.
“But now I have ended up in a pub I have gone full circle because I started in pubs as a teenager.”
He adds: “Hopefully I can live a few years now and not have the strain of showbusiness. I don’t regret anything.
“We are very lucky.We were in the right place at the right time as there were loads of double acts when Eddie and I were together. We were the lucky ones.”
● The two-part interview with Syd is on the Distinct Nostalgia podcast series, out now.