In a lather over a jolly Nolly prank

BACK in 1980, my brother Keith and I, The Simmons Brothers, appeared with Ken dodd in dick whittington at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham. The wardrobe department had several people who had been dressers on Crossroads at the nearby ATV studios. doris had looked after Noele Gordon. The cast wore their own clothes for the TV show, and the star was no different.

Nolly, as she was known, asked doris to wash her very expensive white cashmere cardigan. doris filled a sink with warm water, added Lux soap flakes and left the cardigan to soak while she got on with other jobs.

Two male dressers decided to play a joke. They took the cardigan from the sink and replaced it with a cotton wool roll. when doris plunged her hands in the sink later, she thought, to her utter horror, that Noele Gordon’s cashmere cardigan had disintegrated.