Star Mack: My great grandad was a war hero and comedian ... and I never knew
LEE Mack’s great-grandfather was a wartime comic who survived one of the bloodiest days of the First World War.
The comedian discovered he is not the first funny-man in his family while delving into his past for Who Do You Think You Are?
Lee, 49, learned that Billy Mac crossed no man’s land on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, in which nearly 20,000 British soldiers were killed on July 1, 1915.
Not only did Billy, 25, survive, he continued to be part of comedy troupe The Optimists, who sometimes performed on the front-line, even after a battle.
Lee said: “That’s unbelievable – to have been shot at, or perhaps to have killed someone, and then to walk on stage. This boosting of morale during the war... can’t be underestimated.”
But the Not Going Out star is shocked to learn Billy, real name William McKillop, was among the first middle-class recruits into Liverpool’s four “pals battalions”, which promised to keep men together with people of a similar class and background.
On the BBC1 show, Lee visits Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool, where the recruits trained before heading to northern France. Lee said: “It’s well in keeping with these middle-class soldiers in their boaters turning up here and thinking, ‘right, we’ll just have an
Earl Grey and then we’ll get on with the fighting shall we, chaps?’
“I find it fascinating. You’d think they would just be terrified of fighting the Germans but, no, they were worried about mixing with the hoi polloi.”
All Lee previously knew of his great-grandfather was that he had dabbled in comedy in the postwar years, dressing up as both a panto dame and a “swell” for acts in his hometown of Southport.
Despite the connection, Lee rejects the idea being funny is in his DNA. He says on the show: “I think it is more likely it’s about upbringings. If he was the kind of person who was a joker and messed about, and he passed that on to his son, that would make sense about how my grandad passed it on to my dad. Because my dad was a joker...”
Who Do You Think You Are? is on BBC1, on July 16.
To have been shot at, or killed someone, and then go on stage... LEE MACK ON HIS GREATGRANDAD BILLY MAC