Gyles Brandreth’s Diary

RIP my friend – who loved Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey

When the great Barbara a Windsor died in December, I appeared on one or two radio and TV programmes to share my memories of the bubbly national treasure.

We first met in the 1970s and became good friends, working on TV and in pantomime together. r

In 1979, I ghosted a fun book for her: Barbara Windsor’s Book of Boobs. It was a scrapbook of misprints and errors from newspapers and small ads. Barbara supplied some cheeky photographs of herself in glamorous underwear to illustrate the book and came up with her own strapline for the front cover: ‘My boobs will give everyone hours of fun.’

I had the book with me when I turned up for one of the obituary interviews. ‘God,’ cried the young producer in alarm, ‘you’re not going to take that into the studio, are you?’ ‘Not if you don’t want me to,’ I said. ‘You mustn’t,’ bleated the young man. ‘How terrible for her having to do that sort of thing.’

Well, he didn’t know Barbara, who was of her generation and never apologised for the saucy seaside-postcard bawdiness of the Carry On films and told me (often) that she liked the fact that people thought she was ‘a bit of all right’. ‘It’s nice to be fancied,’ she said. Until she met her third and final husband, Scott, Barbara wasn’t too lucky in love. I once asked her to describe her ideal man to me and she said, ‘This’ll surprise you – one of the Krays.’

‘One of the twins?’ I asked, amazed, knowing both were murderers and one was certified insane.

‘Oh no, not Ronnie or Reggie. Their elder brother, Charlie. He was everything I found attractive in a man: gentle, giggly, happy-go-lucky. But ours were hardly

Gyles was responsible for Barbara’s boobs in 1979

r romantic dates because, for s some reason, Charlie always h had a mate in tow – Li Limehouse Willy or Big Sc Scotch Pat.’ The reason Barbara and I got on so well was that we had a sp special friend in common, Ken Kenneth Williams. ‘I loved Kenn Kenny,’ she said. ‘He taught me so much. If I didn’t know a word, I never used a dictionary. I just gave Kenny a call. I always felt safe with Kenny.’ She loved Charles Hawtrey, too: ‘My favourite performer in all the Carry Ons. He was so skilful. His timing was immaculate. He lived in Deal, smoked Weights, and drank too much. He was great.’ And Danny La Rue. ‘I loved Danny. He was the best. He introduced me to Noël Coward, you know.’ Sex, Barbara used to say, was essential, ‘but it can’t half get you into trouble’. She’d had the heartbreaks and abortions to prove it. ‘Truth is, most of my best mates have been gay.’

In my last diary, I was encouraging Oldie readers to join me on Twitter. I have changed my mind. Don’t.

At least, don’t unless you have the hide of a rhinoceros and are impervious to criticism. Just before Christmas, I stumbled into a Twitter storm and I am still recovering.

It was just one tweet that did all the damage. My friend Andrew had been in touch to tell me that someone at work had asked him this the other day, and he thought I’d want to join him in his despair.

His colleague wrote, ‘Andrew, do I spell it “of” or “off”, if I’m writing “I could of done better”?’

Innocently, amused, without thinking, I shared Andrew’s message with my Twitter followers. What a mistake to make. Within moments, the Twittersphere exploded. Within minutes, several thousand counter-tweets had rained down on me. I was accused, variously, of being ‘a pompous pedant’, ‘a linguistic Nazi’ and ‘a cruel snob’, who had chosen to publicly humiliate someone who was simply asking for help. I should be ashamed of myself. I sort of was.

I crept back on to Twitter to explain that I was sure Andrew had answered the question by explaining to his work colleague that the ‘of’ in ‘I could of done better’ was simply a mishearing of ‘have’ and that it should be ‘have’ rather than either ‘of’ or ‘off’.

Never apologise, never explain. ‘Who do you think you are, you stuck-up tw*t?’ thundered my Twitter trolls. ‘Language evolves. Suck it up, mate.’

Of course, some of my Twitter followers shared Andrew’s anguish and kindly came to my defence.

One even tweeted to tell how he had worked with someone who was struggling to spell a word over the phone and explained, ‘Q … as in cucumber.’ He’s now hiding down in the air-raid shelter with me.

Language evolves. Attitudes change.

15th January marks the centenary of the birth of that lovely character actor Frank Thornton, best remembered as Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and Truly Truelove in Last of the Summer Wine.

Frank died an enviable death in 2013: he just went to bed one night and didn’t wake up. He left me his considerable collection of limericks.

I don’t dare share them with you, let alone post them on Twitter.

Why? Frank’s limericks pack laughs anatomical into space that’s quite economical, but the good ones I’ve seen so seldom are clean and the clean ones so seldom are comical.

If you dare, follow Gyles on @Gylesb1