Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
On tour with Ken: Rituals, catching a thief... and a leopard in the ladies’ loo
blood-curdling loud roar. There was another thud and a loud roar and a ferocious-looking furry face appeared at the frosted glass window next to me. I screamed! It was a leopard!
Its paws, with very sharp claws, were scrabbling at the big gap between the panel and the ceiling. While it was trying to get over the top I managed to make myself decent remarkably quickly, pushed the door open and fled for my life.
Magician Johnny Hart used the leopard in an illusion. It turned out he’d been invited to a party and didn’t have time to take his leopard back to his digs at a farm, so left it in the bathroom. Another time, in St Albans, I was loading up and somebody pointed to a man running across the car park with a case and said, “He’s just nicked that out of your boot!”
I recognised the case – it was the one containing the iconic Union Jack hat. Ken would have been lost at the next gig without it. I was so mad I managed to catch up, accidentally pushing him over. I panicked, but he was fine. Cheeky devil, in an almost offended tone, he said, “I only wanted it as a souvenir”, as though that made it all right.
Ken never liked getting to venues too early. We would plan to arrive an hour and a half before “curtain up”. But
there were often dramas. Once I was driving the car on the motorway with Ken asleep. A lorry kept tailgating me, then passed us, giving a long blast.
I was so mad I stuck my right hand out of the window to shake my fist. But I must have touched the electric switch, because the window whirred up and trapped my arm outside, at the elbow. I panicked and screamed at Ken: “Wake Up!”, “Take the wheel! My arm’s stuck out of the window!”
Despite constantly travelling, Ken never tired of the performing – he absolutely loved it. Even when he was in hospital, before he died, he was planning shows. Sadly he never recovered sufficiently, but the spirit was certainly willing.
■ The Squire of Knotty Ash… and his Lady – An intimate biography of Sir Ken Dodd by Tony Nicholson with Anne, Lady Dodd, published by Great Northern Books, is out on April 1, 2021, priced £17.99.