Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Ken always said we’d wed.. in the end we had two days
New book tells of couple’s romance
Dicky Mint. Ken doted on Dicky – and on the road would take him inside the hotel instead of leaving him in the car.
She says: “Dicky Mint was very precious. We just used to joke, ‘He’s your lad’. Being a woman, I’d have liked a child but it wasn’t absolutely all-consuming when it didn’t happen.”
Ken’s kind heart did, however, touch others. So many, that Lady Anne says his funeral at Liverpool Cathedral was like a “state occasion”. She adds: “The funeral procession was a six-mile journey and the whole route was full of people waving. It was incredible.
“I only cried once – that was when they played his recording of Absent Friends, which he used to sing at the end of every show we did.”
Now, Lady Anne is determined to ensure her husband’s legacy lasts.
She’s been working on several projects to be named in his honour, and is about to release a book about their life together. Lady Anne is also planning a documentary and an exhibition after sorting through his memorabilia and notebooks.
She says: “He’d made me promise to burn them but I just couldn’t.”
And while Lady Anne may have Ken’s props and stage outfits, it’s his presence that stays with her the most. She says: “I talk to him every day. I tell him what I’m doing. If I could say something to Ken today, I’d say, I hope everything I’m doing in your name, for your legacy, is right and will carry on when I’m gone.
“He was a wonderful person to spend your life with.
“I’m not sure I thanked him enough... but I do now.”
The Squire of Knotty Ash… and his Lady – An intimate biography of Sir Ken Dodd by Tony Nicholson with Anne, Lady Dodd, is published by Great Northern Books, April 1. RRP £17.99.