Billy: Let me die by Bonnie Banks
New series evokes a longing for his native land
HE may now live in the US – but Sir Billy Connolly wants to end his days by the Bonnie, Bonnie Banks.
The comedian, who turned 76 last week, said he wanted to return to Loch Lomond, where he played as a child.
In his new ITV series, Billy Connolly’s Ultimate World Tour, he says: ‘I remember standing by the shores of Loch Lomond, Inversnaid, and the sky was beautiful.’
These memories prompt him to quote Sir Walter Scott: ‘Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land.’
Sir Billy added: ‘I don’t like to look like a bagpiper with heather in my ears but sometimes your love for the place just has to find a stage. I’d like to die there.
‘It’s a weird subject to bring up, but I’m 75. I wouldn’t like to stay away for ever. I’d like to be planted there eventually, in Loch Lomond.’
This has striking similarities with one of his films. Sir Billy starred in What We Did On Our Holiday, playing a terminally ill man who takes his grandchildren to a Scottish beach where he reveals his Viking roots. After dying on the beach, he is given a ‘Viking funeral’ as the children push him out to sea on a flaming raft.
In 2013, the comedian revealed he had Parkinson’s and prostate cancer on the same day. He has since beaten the cancer and moved to Florida to help deal with the degenerative disorder.
His new series will see Sir Billy explore the Sunshine State in a classic convertible while looking back on previous trips to Scotland, Canada and Australia.
He said: ‘It was exactly 25 years ago that I found myself taking the cameras out of the theatres and into the world.
‘It’s a journey that’s taken me to far-flung places and offered up once-in-a-lifetime experiences.’
Sir Billy grew up in Glasgow’s Partick and started an apprenticeship as a boilermaker in the shipyards at 15.
In the late 1960s, he was a folk singer in The Humblebums alongside Gerry Rafferty, who went on to form Stealers Wheel.
He made the transition to comedy in the early 1970s and forged a reputation for his dry wit and expletive-heavy routines.
He enjoyed a hugely successful stand-up career and has also starred in films, often as a voice actor, such as in Muppet Treasure Island and Brave.
This week, Sir Billy criticised Michael Parkinson’s comments in August that his ‘wonderful brain was dulled’. The legendary talk show host claimed his old friend had struggled to recognise him at the GQ Men of the Year awards.
Speaking to the Times, Sir Billy said: ‘He’s been selling funerals too long. It’s obviously not true but the thing that got me about it was what if it was true? It’s still a sh***y thing to do.’
Billy Connolly’s Ultimate World Tour will be broadcast on ITV at 9pm on December 13.
‘Your love just has to find a stage’