No Tears for the Clown

by Les Dawson

  The audience settled, but there were one or two titters as I loomed before them, and they bolstered my ego somewhat. There was no going over the script again, no chance of deleting a gag and putting a stronger one in.… I was committed to what I’d memorised and that was that. I cleared my throat and began the act. Within a few minutes I would know whether I had anything of value to offer the public any more, and whether I still had a place in the world of entertainment.

  ‘Good evening, the theatre management have asked me to inform you that they’ve lost the theatre cat, so if you see it will you please tell one of the usherettes? It’s a nice cat, I always thought it had one eye then I realised it was walking backwards.’

  It’s wonderful to be appearing here in this marvellous old theatre, such an intimate atmosphere … it reminds me of home – it’s filthy and full of strangers.’

  ‘I’ve never forgotten the last time I appeared on the Royal Variety Show … it was a triumph, a tour de force … a night to remember. Her Majesty the Queen sat in the royal box and she wore a radiant smile on her face throughout my act … and Prince Albert fell about.’

  ‘Actually I shouldn’t have been here at all tonight, I should have been on tour in a revival of the hit musical The King and I with Madonna, but they had to cancel it. She wouldn’t have her head shaved.’

  ‘Anyway, don’t worry, I shall not keep you long, I promise. I do believe that one or two of you fancy an early night.’ (The Queen loved that one!)

  ‘It’s been a disappointing year for many people. As we all know, this great nation of ours is going through a severe economic depression, not that the depression bothers me … I was a failure during the boom.’

  ‘I hear that they’re building a new toilet in the House of Commons. I think it will be money well spent, because it’s the only place where they know what they’re doing.’

  ‘No point in telling politicians to go to hell because they’re building it for us.’

  ‘I hear we may soon have a single Euro currency, what a great idea! … Then we can go bankrupt in seven different languages.’

  My act went a storm. The whole theatre rocked with laughter and Her Majesty laughed along with her subjects.… I overran by eight minutes, but nobody cared.… I was a sensation, and my confidence positively roared back. All the other performers crowded round me as I lit a cigarette with a shaking hand before leaving the theatre to go across the road to the pub to see Tracy and hear her verdict. It was my night.

  Tracy rushed through the smoky, crowded bar and threw herself into my arms. ‘Oh Les,’ she breathed happily, ‘you were great … I’m so proud of you … and I love you so much.’

  I’d finished my act with a bit at the piano and I’d been joined by Mo and the Roly Polys. They now came into the pub to cheers from the habitués. We ordered a plenitude of drinks and watched the remainder of the show on the television screen that had been erected in the pub … but I couldn’t come down from cloud nine. I was so thrilled that I’d done so well; I felt that I had vindicated myself after my apparent dismissal by the television companies.

  We lined up after the finale in readiness to meet Her Majesty and Prince Philip, and I knew by her face as we shook hands that she’d really enjoyed it. Prince Philip grinned at me with his customary salutation: ‘Hello, Dawson.’ Cherished memories.

  Tracy and I attended a big post-show party at producer Paul Elliot’s house and it was very, very late when our driver got us home from London. We tumbled into bed utterly exhausted – but we couldn’t stay in bed on the morrow, no sirree, because old workaholic Dawson had to drag himself and Tracy to Manchester Airport in order to catch a flight to Edinburgh … and from there to be driven fifty-odd miles to Gleneagles, where I was booked to do a cabaret spot. Tracy was not amused.

  The newspapers were full of glowing reviews of the Royal Show, and I was described as the ‘show stealer’. I read them all on the flight to Scotland.

  The Gleneagles is a superb hotel and I love its grandeur and stylish good taste. The cabaret spot went very well; the weather, however, was turning decidedly chilly and the forecast said it was worsening. I could see that there’d be no chance of a game of golf, so we decided to curtail our stay and fly back to Manchester.

  When we arrived at Edinburgh Airport the weather was atrocious: sheets of hailstones lashing across the runway and no sign of a break in the thick black mantle of cloud. There weren’t a lot of passengers for our flight – thankfully, as it turned out.

  We fastened our seat belts and I snuggled down, hoping to grab a few precious minutes of sleep.… ‘I can smell something burning,’ said Tracy loudly, compensating for the noise of the thrust of the engines as we started to take off. ‘I can’t smell anything, love,’ I rejoined and pulled my battered straw hat back over my eyes. Suddenly I heard the engines die down and the young stewardess shouting in a strained tone: ‘Please leave the aircraft as quickly as possible. Leave your luggage behind – please hurry.’ I looked out of the cabin porthole and saw fire tenders and men in bulky suits ringing the aeroplane as snow flurries danced and wheeled in the grip of an incensed wind. The aircraft was on fire! A few seconds later and we would have been in the air.… God knows what would have happened then.

  With only a thin jacket on, I was soon soaked to the skin as we waited for transport to take us back to the terminus. Several of the female passengers were hysterical and one had to be tranquillised. I looked at Tracy and she looked at me, and we stalked arm in arm to the airport bar and did some dedicated drinking.… We’d had a narrow escape – why we were spared, I don’t know, but all the way home on another flight I smelt freesias.

  The following day I scanned most of the newspapers but there was no mention of the incident at Edinburgh Airport.

  I now had another small battle on my hands. I received a letter from the main Post Office in Blackpool saying how sorry they were that I’d had recourse to the press to complain that I’d had trouble with my postal delivery. ‘Here we go again,’ I thought and immediately phoned the chap who’d written to me. I told him that I had not complained about my postal delivery to anyone, let alone a newspaper. I thought that would scotch the silly story but the morning after several national newspapers carried a small mention of the story, and in the afternoon the supervisor called at my home with the postal cadet who delivers my letters. He had apparently been asked by one newspaper to see if I would have a photograph taken with the cadet. I refused, because to have done so would indicate that I had said something about the Post Office in the first place – it is banal stories such as this, based on no foundation whatsoever, that can create a lot of trouble. In one paper, for instance, it stated: ‘Dawson who earns a fortune off the Post Office commercial blasts his postman’. I wish it had been a fortune, mate, then I could have had Christmas off and devoted more time to writing my books.

  Tracy and I enjoyed our brief time at home together, planting things in the garden, messing about with our two dogs, Samson, a rather peculiar poodle, and Delilah, a very large St Bernard. One also has to make a great fuss of the cats, Muffin and Merlin, not to mention the rabbits, Thumper and Patch. Life without animals is unthinkable for Tracy, and despite my protests I’ve now become a sort of Doctor Doolittle.

  We took to going for long walks on the magnificent sands of St Annes, with Tracy striding out vigorously, the sea breezes ruffling her hair into lengthy knots, while I grovelled in the damp sand in the rear, with aching lungs, a St Bernard lovingly trying to stand on top of me, and a poodle joyously licking my face and hands. Simple pleasures to be sure, but to us it was wonderful.

  All too soon work beckoned in the shape of pantomime in Wimbledon. I’d never played the theatre there but when Tracy and I went down for the press call I was very impressed with it. It had been beautifully and lovingly restored, and the management couldn’t do enough for us.

  The cast was as usual a strong one. I was to play Ada the cook, with John Nettles as King Rat, Rula Lenska as
Dick Whittington, and young comic Jeff Stevenson as Idle Jack – and not forgetting the Roly Polys as the ship’s crew!

  During the rehearsals I accepted interviews with press and radio. I joked on television and still found time to go out and plug my book. The advance bookings were excellent and all augured well for a successful run of seven weeks, then on to the Grand Theatre, Leeds, for a further two-week run. Nothing could go wrong this time, could it? There was a secret excitement when it was learned that Mighty Mo, my dear friend from the Roly Polys, was to be the subject of This Is Your Life. I was to greet Michael Aspel at the stage door and bring him into the theatre, where he would hide until the end of the show. Trying to keep a secret from Mo was worse than trying to get Cyril Smith to go on the ‘F-plan’ diet. Somehow we all managed to keep it dark – and then on the night Mo decided to plonk herself down in my dressing-room at the same time as I was supposed to go down and let Michael Aspel in. To do the interview outside the stage door meant rigging up lighting and sound equipment, and as my dressing-room was immediately above the stage door, Mo would see and hear everything and smell a rat. So Tracy and I had to be deliberately rude to her, walking out of the dressing-room, saying as we went that we had something important to discuss. Poor Mo looked so hurt that I damn nearly told her! However, the ploy worked and a very disgruntled Mo left the dressing-room wondering what on earth she’d done.

  I had one last trick to play on her. So that Aspel could get on the stage and come forward to challenge Mo with his famous red book, I had to bring her to the edge of the stage away from the other Roly Polys, so that the concealed cameras could catch the moment. I told a big lie; I said that there was a party of women out front in the audience and they were all fans of the Roly Polys and could Mo step forward at the end of the show and wave to them? As it turned out, the whole thing worked wonderfully well and as Mike Aspel showed her the book saying as he did so: ‘Mo Moreland, this is your life’, she hugged me and said, ‘So that’s why you and Tracy were funny with me!’

  It was six thirty in the morning when Tracy and I got back to our flat.… I have never felt so tired. I was drunk, and every limb ached … instinctively I knew I was heading for trouble, though I didn’t realise how soon that was to be.

  The critics raved at the opening of Dick Whittington, and Mo’s This Is Your Life was an added spice to the night. I virtually had to drag myself to the theatre for the matinée, and my tiredness had tightened every nerve in my body to breaking point. The last time I’d felt so tense was the night we arrived in Belfast for a television show. We had been in the hotel only half an hour when a car bomb exploded outside the hotel entrance. The explosion sent a sucking vacuum of hot air up the side of the building and the whole hotel shuddered and rocked. For the rest of the night I was a very uneasy little comedian and I was glad to see Blackpool Airport again – I’m no politician and the whys and wherefores of dogma elude me – but does violence solve anything?

  Anyway, on that fateful Saturday at the Wimbledon Theatre, I somehow got through the matinée, then Tracy tried to get me to have forty winks between houses, but I was too tired to sleep and my chest was bubbling with mucus to the extent that I found breathing difficult. I dashed down a large gin and lit up yet another cigarette, much to Tracy’s anger and disgust. She was concerned, I knew, but I thought a good night’s sleep would put me back on form.

  As soon as the curtain dropped on the evening’s performance, Tracy bundled me into the waiting hire car and we sped off to our flat. I didn’t feel too bad at that stage, just dog tired and bloated. Tracy made some supper and I watched a little television. She went off to bed leaving me watching a trite Western. I lit a cigarette and lay prone on the carpet intent on seeing the showdown between the gunslinger and the Man From Laramie.… I was destined never to see if justice prevailed, because at that moment I found that I couldn’t breathe … my intake of air was lessening with each inhalation. I scrambled to my feet and my head swam, I fell to a kneeling position.… No air was going into my lungs, I could neither breathe in nor out fully and I sensed that I was going to die. Tracy shouted to me from the bedroom and I tried to shout back, but I was totally unable to do so. I was labouring for every little breath. Finally, as I felt myself slipping away, I croaked, ‘Tracy … get a doctor.’ The dear girl came running into the lounge and her face went the colour of chalk.

  How she did it I do not know, but within a minute or two she had got hold of a doctor – who was trying to find a vein to pump something into me – and two paramedics, who turned the room into a bloodbath whilst attempting to help the doctor find the elusive vein. This was an almost impossible task because my blood pressure was dangerously low and my heart was overtaxed. Eventually one of the paramedics found a tiny pulse in my neck and gave me an injection; it didn’t help me to breathe but it relaxed me a little and it gave them a chance to carry me into the lift then get me into the ambulance. I lay on the stretcher with an oxygen mask on and Tracy at my side in tears. Fighting for air I watched the city lights streak by and the siren on the ambulance seemed to scream at me: ‘You bloody fool … you were given another chance, and what have you done? You’ve abused it.’ I dimly recall them saying to Tracy at the Westminster Hospital as they rushed me into the intensive care cardiac unit, ‘Mrs Dawson, prepare yourself, Les might not make it.’

  A team of quiet efficient people worked over me … GIVE ME AIR … PLEASE. Everything was growing darker … so tired … Tracy’s face is streaked with tears.… ‘Don’t cry, Poo, I’m gonna make it.…’

  The darkened room began to swim and I was being pulled into a black hole … was this death?

  I woke up in the early morning and a nurse rushed forward and made me swallow some pills, then blow into an air meter and sniff some stuff … God … I was alive! And Tracy was smiling and she was saying over and over, ‘I love you, Lumpy.’ I jerked upright and held her close. ‘I love you, darling,’ I whispered. ‘I owe you my life and you are my life.’

  My agent Norman arrived, panic-stricken that his meal ticket was slipping away and that he might have to go back to work. There I was lying in bed, every part of me including my private parts wired to some contraption or other and looking as if I was auditioning for Alien 3. Norman stopped at the foot of my bed, his eyes moist with pure disbelief and said, ‘I’ve heard of not wanting to play the matinée, but this is ridiculous.’

  Although I felt immeasurably better on the Sunday, nevertheless the nurses made it abundantly clear that I had been very ill indeed. My lungs had been almost full of fluid, and that had in turn put heavy pressure on my heart and I had nearly died. It was Tracy’s swift action that had saved me from the Grim Reaper.

  A consultant marched into the intensive care unit in the afternoon, and judging by the apprehension shown by the doctors who swarmed round her, she was a redoubtable woman. By God, she was. She looked down on me with a steely glare that matched her steely silver hair, and her firm chin and hard mouth decided me not to try and crack any jokes. Quietly but tellingly she stated that fortunately I had not suffered a heart attack but I had damaged my heart. The gist of the conversation was: I was a bloody fool, overdoing it to a silly extent; it was essential that I stopped smoking at once – or else! – and, perhaps worst of all, no more spirits and a general lessening of wine and beer intake.

  Plenty of sleep was also advocated and no, I couldn’t go back into the pantomime, and she told my agents this in no uncertain manner. No, I couldn’t go home, I was being kept in for tests, and no, I couldn’t get out of bed, and no, I couldn’t have food brought in. I didn’t argue because I sensed that I’d be a loser with this formidable lady.

  Tracy stayed in hospital with me and saved my sanity. Opposite my bed lay a gentleman who had suffered a major heart attack, and to see him there so pitifully ill made me very sad. Beside me in the ward was a successful business executive who had driven to his place of work, had a cup of coffee, dictated some letters to his secretary, then slumped
to the floor behind his desk with a massive coronary. What price success now?

  As expected, the newspapers carried the story of my collapse and every account differed from the others. In one lurid headline I had crumpled up on the stage and been dragged off to make way for the dancers; in another account I had fallen into the orchestra pit and impaled myself on an oboe. Television news told of my plight as did the radio stations … what a way to get publicity!

  I began not only to fully respect the consultant, but to like her as well … she was as straight a person as I’ve ever met and I obeyed her every dictum. She brought me down to earth by simply refusing even to smile at my jokes, although the nurses, bless ’em, giggled.

  Christmas Eve in hospital … what, I thought, could be worse? I had helped Tracy and the nurses to put the Christmas decorations up and the splash of colour softened the green-grey walls. Tracy and I held hands and occasionally kissed which was difficult with all the bits and pieces hanging out of me, but we managed. Suddenly the silence in the hospital was broken by the sound of Christmas carols being sung down the corridors – a sweet sound from young hearts reminding us of the timeless message of love. The nurses walked into our ward like angels, their red capes atop their prim uniforms, each carrying aloft a lantern. They sang the familiar carols which somehow sounded even more moving in the presence of mortals who had fought off death. Tracy’s hand gripped mine as we watched and listened. No cathedral could have provided a better setting for that group standing in the broad halo of light from their lanterns.