No Tears for the Clown

by Les Dawson

  My stag night was a positive cornucopia of booze. I stayed the night at a friend’s house and we drank and talked about the old days, drank some more and then talked about the old days, then Richard, my pal, shoved me in the general direction of bed. Sleep was impossible. Not only did the bedroom keep whirling round, I kept wondering if I was doing the right thing.… I was marrying a woman a lot younger than myself, my kids were grown up, and here I was about to become a stepfather to Richard and Samantha, both still youngsters not even on the verge of their teens.… What about my health? Would I be able to stand up to it all?

  Finally, as dawn poked its fingers through the bedroom window, I sank into a deep sleep.

  The house was full of noise, and my head played a pretty low key descant to the household cacophony. Richard’s wife gave me breakfast and cauldrons of coffee; I was pushed under a shower, taken out and given a large Scotch.… Ah! thank God for true friends.

  The morning fled by, and to add to my nervous twitches, word arrived that already there was a huge crowd outside the White Church on Clifton Drive.… How the hell did they know this was the day? I hadn’t blabbed it, had I?

  More Scotch, and there’s my son, Stuart, looking very handsome in his grey tails, he tells me that there’s a swinging party going on back home at Garth House.… According to him, the house is awash with people eating and drinking.… I begin to wish we’d sailed to a remote atoll near Samoa and done the deed there with some beach bum as a witness.

  Richard, Derek, Stuart, my son, and Stuart, my friend, made four superbly garbed ushers. Together with John, the elegantly dressed young man who was to become my son-in-law, they gazed at me owlishly as the final minutes on the clock ticked away my bachelorhood. Another glass of the spirit and another cigarette … it is the time. My top hat fell off twice as I wriggled into the car and my shirt button, the first one you’d notice, flew off.

  There was silence in the car as we drove to the church, and when we saw the milling hordes outside, the only word to break the silence came from me … ‘Shit.’

  The crowds roared as I got out of the car, the photographers kneeling in ranks blasted off roll after roll of film, and the flashlights blinded me. I stumbled over my trouser bottoms, which had descended to an all-time low thanks to a pair of faulty braces. This naturally got an enormous laugh and I jammed the top hat over my eyes for an encore.

  The inside of the church was akin to the Black Hole of Calcutta.… I have never seen so many people in so small a space before, and from every pew hung giant garlands of flowers. The scent of the blooms – not to mention the armies of greenfly crawling up my sleeve – made me dizzy. I sat there alongside my son and waited … and waited … and waited: no bride in sight. ‘That’s it,’ I thought, ‘she’s not coming, she’s buggered off, there will be no wedding.…’ How could I escape from the church and avoid the press? I could see the headlines in the tabloids … ‘Dawson dumped’. My son tried to reassure me, he tried to make me laugh, but all I could muster was a sickly grin. Then suddenly the crowd stirred, the music ‘Somewhere in Time’ struck up; Tracy, my bride, had finally made it.

  The congregation stood as she made her way down the aisle on the arm of Len, our dear friend who was giving her away, and when I saw her my throat constricted … she looked absolutely beautiful. Her natural radiance shone through and was complemented by her wedding dress. I couldn’t stop the tears from springing to my eyes, and I wished for her sake that her mother and father could have been alive to see her.

  All the bridesmaids were a picture to behold.… Marion, Tracy’s lovely sister; Tracy’s friend, Wendy, daughters Julie and Pamela, and Tracy’s daughter, Samantha, looking so much more mature than her ten summers. Richard, Tracy’s son, even managed to forget football for the time being as he revelled in his role as pageboy.

  The vicar, Mr Baker, started off the ceremony by wishing Tracy a happy birthday, and dammit if he didn’t crack a few gags – and got big laughs! Frankly, I have never been fond of church services, there always seems to be an air of pious misery about them, as if to be happy has no place in worship.… But this wedding ceremony was so full of laughter that the church became a warm and wonderful place, and I thought how many more folk would be attracted to services if laughter and a more light-hearted approach were to be encouraged.… And as the shafts of sunlight lasered through the stained glass windows, highlighting the mellow antiquity of the pews and shimmering around the beautiful bride who had deigned to be my wife, I distinctly smelt the scent of freesias.

  A close friend, Jackie Scott, sang the haunting song ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’, and when Tracy and I came out of the vestry, now Mr and Mrs Dawson, everyone in the whole church rose and clapped and beamed at two people who had found each other and joined souls.

  Was there ever such a day! The weather was glorious. Outside the church the vast crowds surged forward and the smiling but perspiring policemen tried valiantly to hold them back in a good-natured fashion. They had to give it up, and our car was besieged by well-wishers as we sipped champagne in the veteran Rolls Royce, supplied as a wedding present by Peter Hall, a friend from Essex.

  Show business pals kept the crowds happy, and Tracy and I drove in a cloud of bliss to the Imperial Hotel for the reception. The press followed, they were enjoying the day as much as everyone else. Of course Fate had to put a slight dampener on a Dawson event.… Because of security at the Imperial Hotel during the recent Tory conference, all the windows in the huge dining-room had been screwed down and could not be opened, and the heat was now more intense than ever.

  Five hundred guests, the Northern Dance Orchestra, a full disco set-up and a trio playing on the balcony, plus a horde of scurrying waiters, served to heat the place to the temperature of a furnace, and there was a grave possibility of dehydration. That, fortunately, was prevented by a mass guzzle of champagne. I thanked the Lord that my bank manager was on holiday.

  Tracy and I were at last man and wife, and all the past sadness in our lives had vanished into the shadows of yesterday. What had seemed a barren future after Meg had passed away was now a fertile promise for me; Tracy had brought sunshine into my life and lifted the weight of depression off my shoulders. We held each other close on the dance floor, oblivious of everyone around us.…

  Two days after the wedding I officiated at my Golf Classic, and the following day we boarded a chartered aircraft at Blackpool Airport, bound for Inverness. As I have mentioned our honeymoon had been arranged for us as a wedding present by the Jamesons, but they had kept the details a secret. A car would meet us at Inverness and take us to our destination – we knew no more than that.

  The flight was smooth and the charter company threw in a couple of bottles of champagne for good measure, and we set foot in Scotland in a somewhat advanced state of alcohol addiction.

  Sure enough, a car was waiting for us, its driver a very agreeable Scotsman in a bright kilt who looked like a print of Rob Roy. It was a marvellous, long, winding journey through rolling hills with steely mountains in the background. Deer and other wild life bounded. Once or twice we stopped and alighted to admire the stunning scenery, and there and then I fell in love with the Highlands.

  Although no stranger to Scotland, I had previously only played the clubs in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and some of those had been so tough that if the audience liked you they didn’t clap, they let you live. I remember appearing in one exquisite dump with a bouncer on the door who threw drunks in! The Glasgow Empire … the name still sends a chill up the seasoned performer’s spine. I’m not saying that I died there, but an undertaker in the audience threw a tape measure at me and some embalming fluid.

  I still shudder at the recollection of telling a joke about a Scotsman who was so mean, when he found his wife with another man he made them stand one behind the other so that when he shot them both it would only take one bullet.… I nearly had to take a tar and feather insurance out for that one!

  But these Highlands: they were
a side of Scotland I’d never seen before and I looked forward to reaching our destination.

  Our car finally bumped across a moat and stopped outside a small castle on a thickly forested island. We had arrived. Standing on a high cairn of stones was a piper playing us in with a traditional welcome. Lined up at the front entrance were the staff who were to look after us – it was like a scene from a historical film, as each lady curtsied to us and bade us both welcome to the castle.

  Drinks were waiting for us in the high vaulted reception room where the walls were adorned with plaids, and fine prints hung above a wide stone fireplace. The floor was flagged and the staircase wound dreamily upwards to panelled corridors where portraits of fierce, proud men stared from the walls. There was a timeless quality about the castle and one fully expected to hear the swish of crinoline skirts gliding along the passages. It was quite enchanting.

  Tracy and I were shown to our bedroom, which was just slightly bigger than the Isle of Man. We gazed at the massive bed, then at each other; then, when the twinkling-eyed lady who’d escorted us to the bedroom curtsied and left us alone, we gazed at the bed again and did what comes naturally for a very entertaining hour or so.

  Betsy, the cook, was a fine big lady whose meals were worthy of an international gourmet’s consideration. Fresh salmon, pheasant, mouth-watering soups and steaks.… Oh dear, the weight was already piling on.… It was a week out of time for both of us, and what made it all the more enchanting was that when our little staff had gone home for the evening, Tracy and I had the castle to ourselves … we were the only guests there.

  We made a habit of dressing up for dinner, and Tracy would sit at one end of the long, elegant dining table and I at the other. Betsy had sternly instructed us to use the bell under the table to summon the food and wine.… Ah! the wine.… Dark rich burgundies and naughty-looking clarets.… I was burping vintage wind by now.

  Sleep was never far away: the air was so rarefied and clean, when it swept into our bedroom it massaged us in a gentle rippling motion that sent us tumbling into a deep, peaceful abyss.…

  In the morning, Betsy would rouse us with two huge mugs of hot tea, then she would march back in with a breakfast of eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, cereals, toast, marmalade, orange juice and fried potato hash.… By the time we’d devoured that, we needed a rope ladder to climb up over our stomachs.

  Tracy would make me walk for miles along the banks of a mirror-surfaced loch, and we’d sit and drink in the beauty of this exquisite paradise of soaring peaks and silent, plunging valleys; gnarled trees that seemed older than time itself crouched over in escort duty on either side of the meandering paths that took two lovers on a breathless tour.… The only sounds that broke through the screen of lichen-encrusted trees were the crash of a stag through the undergrowth or the splash of a salmon trout in the river.

  Never have I known such a happy time: restored to health, in love, married to a wonderful girl – all the urgent search for ambition and power now seemed so mundane compared to my present state of tranquillity. It was impossible not to believe in a Higher Being.

  All too swiftly the honeymoon came to an end, and now our piper on the high cairn of stones played a lament, and dear Betsy and her ladies lined up to bid us a somewhat tearful goodbye. This time there was no curtsying, only hugs of affection, and Tracy unashamedly wept.

  We were both silent in the car taking us back to Inverness airport. What we had experienced was not only satisfaction on a physical level, but also on a higher, more spiritual plane.

  Tired but happy, Mr and Mrs Dawson arrived home at Garth House, and the business of earning a living had to take over from the euphoria.

  I was given a clean bill of health, but warned not to start overdoing it again.

  The trouble with show business is that it never evens out – for a performer, it’s either a feast or a famine.

  It was now late May and I was booked to appear at the Festival Theatre in Paignton, Devon for an eight-week season with an extra week’s option. Before then, I taped another series of Blankety Blank for the BBC, and heard that I was going to host the new series of Opportunity Knocks, so the future seemed rosy enough.

  I was still trying to interest the public in my books, and the long haul of promotional interviews was very tiring. We rented a house with a swimming pool for the Paignton season, and it was a good job we did because it was to turn out to be one of the hottest summers imaginable.

  Right from the outset, the summer season in Paignton was dogged with problems. We knew that Dana, the lovely Irish singer, was pregnant, but both my agents had been informed that her pregnancy was in the very early stages. It was therefore something of a jolt when she arrived at the theatre looking as if she was ready to give birth at any second.

  Peter Goodwright and I were extremely nervous every time she walked on to the stage doing a rock medley – in fact I started the show by mentioning her condition … not that I had to – her navel was nearer the front row than her tummy.

  ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Festival Theatre, and believe me, you’re welcome to it.… If they demolish this place they’ll have to repair it first so that it’s safe to pull down.’

  ‘As you’ll notice, Dana is expecting a little event, but don’t worry, in the orchestra pit we’ve got a set of drums and gas and air.… If anything happens, look at it this way, you get two acts for the price of one.’

  Despite the jokes I was genuinely frightened in case anything did happen, and Dana agreed to the suggestion that she should cut the rock medley, which relieved me no end.

  The weather, I’m afraid, kept the customers out – and who could blame them? Day after day the sun blazed from a cloudless sky, and night after night the heat drew the crowds to the shore line in order to find a breeze of sorts. During the day, Tracy and I wallowed in the swimming pool of our rented house in Torquay, and slept in the afternoon before driving to the theatre. Tragically, during the first couple of weeks of the run, Dana’s father died and she left the show. Trouper that she is, she returned, but it was not for long – she left to have her baby, and I put my Midwifery for Beginners book away.

  A funny double act came in as replacement for Dana and we continued the battle to get people in.

  The double act, Diamond and Leyton, did a creditable job and it was a good show, but alas! old Sol was the ultimate victor. On the last night of the show I couldn’t resist the old pro gags.…

  ‘Business has been so bad, we shot a stag last night in the balcony.’

  ‘You can tell how bad things have been, the girl in the box had been dead a month and nobody knew.’

  ‘A chap phoned up last week, he said “What time is the second house going up?” I said, “What time can you make it?”’

  One thing that appalled me during the run of the show was the way the Sunday concerts were billed: ‘Adults only. If you are easily offended this show is not for you’. These dirty comics packed the Festival Theatre on those Sabbath nights; once again I began to have grave misgivings about the future of entertainment.

  Stewart Morris, a senior BBC producer, came to see me and we discussed a series of six variety spectaculars, featuring a large orchestra and top celebrities. I was overjoyed – variety is my first love, not game shows – and I started getting material together. Despite Tracy’s protests that we shouldn’t get into harness so quickly, I went ahead in full agreement for the shows.

  Once again we had little time to enjoy any home life as we were needed in London to put the shows together, and once again I was ignoring the advice given by the doctor: ‘Slow down, take life at a slower pace.…’ But what the hell? I felt in fine form – OK, OK, I should stop smoking, I know, but it’s not so easy is it, friend?

  Up and down every week on the shuttle flight between Manchester and London.… Every week in smoke-filled rehearsal rooms working out the stand-up comedy material and the sketches.

  Finally, we staged the first programme,
The Les Dawson Show, from the TV Centre. We had a twenty-five piece orchestra under the baton of John Coleman, John Nettles to partner me in the sketches, and, as special guest, Shirley Bassey, a superlative star who is also easy to work with. On consecutive programmes we would feature Status Quo, Elkie Brooks, David Essex, Chas and Dave, the Roly Polys, Terry Wogan. I thought the series would be a big success, but a strange programme planning decision was made: instead of waiting for the series of Blankety Blank to complete its run, the variety series was stuck in between the Blankety Blank shows.

  I was devastated. The ratings for the variety shows were very poor, and indeed, when I lost my Friday night slot for Blankety Blank it too dropped alarmingly in popularity. It looked as if I was on my way out.

  Had some august figure at the BBC declared that Dawson was to be made redundant? Had I offended someone there? Never handling money well, I was not in a position to get out of the business; saving for a rainy day was never a favourite axiom of mine, and I viewed the future with apprehension.

  As the weeks went by, pantomime loomed on the horizon. This year I would be heading the bill in Sunderland, not the easiest of venues to play. Poor old Tracy was dragged away from home yet again. I knew she was growing disenchanted with show business, and some of the questionable characters we had to mix with, but I was not in any position to cease from the hurly-burly of the game. I remembered a day in the West End many years ago.… I had bumped into a man who in his day had been a star of the variety world, and I had once had the privilege of being at the bottom of a bill that he was topping. We had a drink together in a Soho pub and his eyes betrayed his hopeless situation – no longer in demand, forgotten by a newer generation, and penniless. His plight moved me very much and that night in my digs in Battersea, a small damp attic bed-sit, I wrote an essay about him. I called it simply: