HOW MY HERO DAD UPSTAGED ME
IT WAS the year 2000, and I was at the National Television Awards at the Albert Hall to pick up a prize for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
I was feeling absolutely great as I accepted the prize from Sir Trevor McDonald and settled back to enjoy the rest of the show. I was surrounded by old friends, and I knew my proud parents would be watching on TV.
I had the award in one hand and was quietly chatting to a friend
when I heard Sir Trev talking about some bloke who’d been a teacher and had then worked in children’s TV for a while.
I remember thinking ‘That’s someone with a similar career path to me’, and then slowly the penny dropped. He was talking about me. I’d been given a lifetime achievement award for services to television.
I really had had no clue about it, and as I made my way back up to the stage, I began to feel very emotional.
Trevor said something like ‘There’s one more person to give
you a very special present’, and in came the Phantom Flan
Flinger: the man in the black mask holding a custard pie.
I was a foot away from this person, staring at eyes I knew really well, but I couldn’t place
them. Who on earth was it? Not the original Flan Flinger, I could tell.
Then, on a cue from Trevor, he put down the custard pie and slowly removed the mask.
It was my dad Basil, my father, my best ever friend in the world. And all of them,
Trevor, Dad, Mum, the producers had kept it so secret.
It was a wonderful idea but it absolutely floored me. Tears were pouring down my cheeks.
This was the man who’d survived Dunkirk, the D-Day landings, fought his way up into Germany, won two military crosses and somehow walked
away from being blown up by a German landmine. It was my daddy, my hero, the man I’d loved and respected all my life.
Once I’d recovered, as we both turned to face them, the whole
theatre audience all stood up to cheer. Apparently there were a lot of tears spilt that night.
I was just so proud for us, me and him, my best mate. I have had one hell of a life, but of course this is my best ever memory.
It really doesn’t get better than that. It never, ever could.