Roy Hudd writes just for you…
Roy loves getting readers’ letters – they cheer his heart and supply him with jokes and anecdotes!
‘Whenever I mention Yuletide in Yours the doormat groans…’
How I always tremble with anticipation whenever I hear the sound of a bulky package squeezing its way through my letterbox and landing with a plop on the doormat.
I like getting letters – especially those with a Peterborough postmark. They’re letters to me, c/o Yours and sent on by Sharon’s merry crew. Now I am a fairly jolly old stick but whenever I am a bit down, the letters always give me a lift – even the rude ones – well especially the rude ones!
It’s great that my fortnightly musings bring such a wealth of enquiries, jokes ‘old ones, new ones and neglected ones!’ and memories, particularly of performers on film, radio, variety and music hall.
Just last week, someone asked whose catchphrase was “Old ones, new ones, neglected ones”) and I smugly replied, “The pianist, Semprini.” The enquirer won a pint at his local for knowing that! I’d have settled for a packet of pork scratchings...
I recently wrote about a horror film I was in, The Blood Beast Terror, where the gorgeous Wanda Ventham played a giant, human-eating moth! It prompted an anonymous reader to send me a story of a bloke going to see his doctor telling him, “I think I’m a moth.” The doctor said, “You want a psychiatrist – what made you come here?” the man said, “Well… I was walking past your surgery and you’d left the light on.” A lady in our village sent me a photo taken at our annual fete with the comment, “Remember when kids’ fancy dress meant fairies, cowboys and Indians? Well how about these, a family of Transformers.” If, like me, you have no idea what they are, just ask a grandchild – or my missus. Top marks though to the mums and dads whose hours spent devising and making the strange workable things won their ‘Transformers’ the admiration of all.
One dad said to me, as he removed the children from their outfits, “Thank gawd it’s only once a year.”
And what else is only once a year? Christmas, of course. Whenever I mention Yuletide in Yours the doormat groans as it receives the heaviest plop of the year. Tales of pantomimes, presents (terrific and lousy), faulty Father Christmasses, a crazy Kris Kringle and superspecial Santas; I get ‘em by the sackful.
My favourite came from a dedicated Yours reader – the late, great star of variety, Leslie Sarony. He put on paper the story of his visit to the toy department of a famous store where he saw a booted and suited, slightly dishevelled Bringer of Joy outside his Grotto, chatting up a sales assistant. A five-year-old rushed towards him yelling, “Hello Father Christmas!” The great man, out of the corner of his mouth, growled, “Get lost I’m not on till eleven!” Leslie’s last line was, “Ah – the Spirit of Christmas.”
Just one more. At one time I moaned about the misuse of the word ‘star’ applied to anyone who’s done a bit on reality TV. This brought me the following… An actress who suffered from an inferiority complex complained to her doctor, “Oh I’m a nothing. I can’t sing. I can’t remember lines. I can’t dance and I can’t act. I shouldn’t even belong in showbusiness.”
“Why not try something else?” suggested the GP. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m a Star”. Leslie was. Please keep ‘em coming.