Barry Fantoni, the 1960s rebel who says it’s cool being old

He helped overturn the cultural establishment in favour of youth. Now he is demanding respect from the young

die. But this man hadn’t given up yet. So Harry, the 87-year-old reprobate, was born.”

Fantoni was part of a generation which defined itself by its youth. He feels that, subconsciously perhaps, writing an elderly hero might have been his way of dealing with getting old.

“The Jewish community values older people and so do the Italians. When I’m in Italy, cars stop for old people and they are served first in restaurants. But in the UK that’s not the case. You walk down a street in London and people don’t even notice you’re there. So, maybe in a Freudian sense, Harry is my way of getting back at them.”

He feels, slightly guiltily, that he and his friends might have unwittingly exacerbated the problem. “In the ’60s we said that just because we happened to be only 23 we should be able to hold an exhibition. Or if I sung a song I didn’t need a man in a suit and glasses at Decca to tells me it was no good. At the time the prevailing view was that no one who was young had anything worth saying. The world changed as a result but perhaps as an unintended consequence, the old began to appear unnecessary. That concerns me a lot.”

While Fantoni and others of his generation have dealt well with the advancing years, others, he feels, have not. “At the Diamond Jubilee Concert, I watched Paul McCartney cavorting, looking like an idiot with his dyed hair, his ridiculous suit and his left handed guitar, singing silly songs to a half-dead monarch. What an appalling image.”

Rather than lauding McCartney we should be giving more respect to others of the era, he feels – like Fantoni’s friend Ray Davis. The two auditioned together at a Soho club, before renewing their acquaintance at art school. “We were playing that old rock and roll song Money. I looked at him as he sang and thought to myself: ‘You’ve got what they are going to pay for – the looks, the voice and the talent’. One day a bit later on, he called me up and said he had formed this band called The Kinks.”

Davis might have had the voice but Fantoni had the nose. BBC executives decided that, rather than have a sleek-haired presenter in a suit for their new music magazine show, they would go for, as Fantoni puts it, “the bloke with the big conk and the long hair who looks a bit like Ringo Starr”. It worked. The viewers watched in their millions and Fantoni was voted the TV celebrity of the year. (Cliff Richard came second, Tom Jones third and Mick Jagger fourth),

He maintains that in those days it was easy to flit between TV, music, writing and art. The scene was tiny — all based around Soho. “It was the kind of area you went to if you wanted to get a prostitute or bump into Dylan Thomas. The jazz scene was eight bands, two clubs and about 400 students who went to watch them. So when the pop thing exploded it was inevitable that the scene was defined not so much by its ability but its lack of numbers. I don’t think I’d have been able to have that kind of career if I was young now.”

Times have moved on. Fantoni’s great friend Peter Cook is no longer with us but, to his slight consternation, the Duke of Edinburgh still is. “I did a painting of Prince Phillip in his underwear in 1963. That gave me my start. And he’s still alive. I mean, how many times do I have to attack the guy? I’ve had to accept that if I don’t like the establishment and what it represents, then I can go to a country 21 miles away over the Channel. Most people haven’t got a clue who the Duke of Edinburgh is over here,” he adds with a chuckle.”

‘Harry Lipkin P.I.’ is published by Polygon on June 25