BOBBY KEPT US LAUGHING TO THE END
Widow tells of comic’s final days
Phil Cardy Comedy legend Bobby Ball never lost his talent for making people laugh – even as he fought for his life in hospital.
His heartbroken widow Yvonne has revealed the funnyman kept up the spirits of medics and fellow patients by “telling jokes to the end”.
In her first interview since 76-year- old Bobby’s death in October, Yvonne spoke about his final days and his battle with coronavirus.
She also opened up about struggling to cope without Bobby, her partner of 50 years.
He was best known as the braces- wearing cheeky chappie in the comedy double act Cannon and Ball.
Yvonne, 70, said: “At first, I went into meltdown if
anyone spoke about him but I’m a lot stronger now.”
Yvonne is focusing on raising money for the trust that runs the hospital where Bobby was treated, and for a statue of him to be erected in his home town – Lytham St Annes in Lancashire.
She revealed they both tested negative for Covid while he was preparing for a new series of BBC sitcom Not Going Out, in which he played Lee Mack’s father.
But after seeing a band in a local hotel, the couple were among 12 people to fall ill.
They both tested positive and when Bobby had a high temperature, he was taken to hospital.
Yvonne said: “When the paramedics came for him, he looked at me and said, ‘I’m not going to come out’. I said, ‘Course you are.’”
Bobby was on medication for chronic lung condition COPD and Covid rules meant Yvonne couldn’t visit him at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
Yvonne said: “He was chatting all the nurses up, telling jokes to the end. They told me he was on the ward talking to al l the other patients, cheering them up.
“I’ve got cards and letters from doctors and nurses telling me how he helped lift their spirits.’
Paul Drury
Millionaire former Celtic star Aiden McGeady has been flashed a yellow card in his new role as a property baron.
The winger has been snapping up homes in Glasgow’s west end.
But the former Parkhead star is in dispute with a neighbour over plans to transform a building designed by one of Scotland’s most famous architects, Alexander “Greek” Thomson.
Documents held by Glasgow City Council show that McGeady, 35, has submitted plans to restore historic features in the second-floor flat.
He wants to make changes and restore its grandeur after the previous owners had made “fairly piecemeal alterations in the past”.
McGeady, who now plays for English League One’s Sunderland, wants to “harmonise the apartment as a whole” by relocating the kitchen to the front of the building to create an open-plan living, cooking and dining space.
But his planning application has fallen foul of a neighbour, who has lodged an objection.
His rival is concerned about the work being noisy and presenting a fire hazard to the other residents in the building.
The objector also expresses a concern about the “substantial modification” to the existing layout and, particularly, the re-siting of the kitchen. The neighbour claims that when he undertook his own internal changes, he wasn’t allowed to position a new kitchen in the place McGeady wants.
In another west end project, the footballer