You’d think that this would automatically confer on me a bit of respect and obedience from others in the patrol. Sadly, many in the troop felt the Scouting hierarchy only applied during our weekly meetings. One member of the troop, Phil Wiley, was in my class at school – and his behaviour towards me, a superior officer, was quite, quite shameful.
On one occasion, he stole my swimming trunks, dropped them in a urinal and laughed. This was in front of the whole class, many of who(m) were in my troop. Of course, I couldn’t let this slide, and ordered him to rescue and wash them. He sniggered. I took a breath.
‘Do as I say,’ I said calmly.
He began to walk away.
‘Do as I say, Scout Wiley,’ I boomed.
‘What did you call me? Scout Wiley?’
He laughed again and indicated to the rest of the class that I was mentally defective, by twirling a finger by the side of his head. Well, this was rank insubordination.
‘Do as I say. I’m your Patrol Leader!’
‘Oh my god …’ he attempted, weakly.
‘I am your Patrol Leader.’
‘You are such a tit.’
‘I am your Patrol Leader!’
‘Fuck off.’ He actually said that to me.
‘I am your Patrol Leader! I am your Patrol Leader! I am your Patrol Leader! I am your Patrol Leader!’
I continued to shout this until I was the only person left in the changing rooms, and then I fished my trunks from the well of piss with a fountain pen, and showered them off for a few minutes before repeatedly hurling them against a wall to release the excess liquid. Yes, I’d had to save my trunks from someone else’s urine, but I’d left my class colleagues certain of one thing: I was the Patrol Leader.
The following week, I reported Wiley to Scout Leader Dave and was told not to tell tales, which didn’t really bother me much at all. (Wiley left the troop shortly after and his school work began to decline markedly. Without the discipline and brotherhood of the Scouting Movement, he drifted into a spiral of underachievement, culminating in his having sex with a lab technician. Because of pregnancy, she gave birth to a child, although Wiley has as close a relationship with it as you or I do.)
I treasured my involvement with the Scouts – of course I did. But it didn’t compensate for the absence of love and affection I received in my home life. That is a fact.
Do you believe in guardian angels? I do.24 Not the winged ones you see in films. As I’ve often explained to my assistant (a Christian female), as well as being aerodynamically unfeasible, wings sprouting from the shoulder blades would pull the ribcage backwards and gradually suffocate the angel – a cause of death that’s similar, ironically, to that of crucifixion.
No, by guardian angels I mean ‘nice people’. And I do believe in them. (Although I reserve the right to be deeply suspicious of anyone who is unilaterally kind to me.)
My guardian angels were the Lambert family. They took me in when I had nowhere to go. They gave me food and shelter and love when my own parents had deserted me. I remain forever in their debt.25
I was temporarily fostered by this kindly family in 1961. As family friends who were friends with our family, theirs was a loving home and I stayed for more than three weeks, returning home only because Mum and Dad had come back from their holiday in Brittany and it was time to go.
This was the first time I’d experienced the warmth of a caring family. Not for them the bickering over VAT receipts or making their children pick up privet cuttings in the rain. Instead, I was treated like a human being.
The father, Trevor, was an asthmatic, but what he lacked in being able to breathe quietly, he more than made up for with his parental skills. He always found time to not hit his children and I remember thinking that was tremendous.
‘Got to say, Trevor,’ I remember announcing, on my second day there, ‘you have a wonderful way with your kids. You’re a credit to yourself. I for one am impressed.’
‘Thanks, Alan,’ he said.
‘Yes, that’s lovely of you, Alan.’
I turned to see Mother Lambert, better known as Fran, handing out fresh milk and cooked cookies to her three children: Kenneth, Emma and Sheila. The children were marginally older than I was (and remain so to this day) but they reached across the age divide to show me friendship and good will.
But it was Fran who was the chief supplier of love. From day one, I was clasped to her bosom – not literally. Not literally at all. There was no suggestion of any sordid behaviour. Please don’t think there was, just because I’ve created the image of my face being pulled towards an older woman’s breasts. No, I don’t want you to take away even a residual inkling that this was a family marred by a proclivity for child molestation. I’m in two minds now whether to keep this paragraph in at all, in case the denial of any wrongdoing makes you think there’s something that needs denying. There isn’t. They were a lovely family. Kept themselves to themselves and neighbours have said they seemed perfectly normal. Actually, that makes them sound worse.
I was happy there and saw no reason why I couldn’t stay among the Lamberts for the rest of my life. But the nature and length of my stay there hadn’t been adequately explained to me. And so it was that one cold summer’s morning, I looked up from a genuinely difficult jigsaw puzzle to see my mother and father standing there, my coat in Mum’s hands. I burst into tears.
The Lamberts cried too (inwardly) as they waved me off. Mum and Dad thanked their counterparts. ‘Say thank you, Alan,’ Mum said.
‘Thank you,’ I snivelled.
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Trevor Lambert. ‘You can come and stay any time you like.’
I stopped crying. ‘Pardon?’
‘Come and stay any time you like.’
And with that, I was driven away. But my life had been touched by guardian angels – their kindness ringing in my ears like chronic tinnitus. I pressed my hand against the window like they do in films and at this point the director might like to do a slow fade to black.26
‘Smelly Alan Fartridge! Smelly Alan Fartridge!’ The words spewed from my classmates’ mouths like invisible projectile sick, landing in my ears and ending up caked all over my shattered self-esteem. My inner confidence must have reeked.
Short of doing me in with a blade (it wasn’t that sort of school), there was nothing that these educationally slow children could have done to hurt me more. But still they shouted.
‘Smelly Alan Fartridge! Smelly Alan Fartridge! He loves his mum, he lives in her bum. You think that’s bad, you should smell his dad. Smelly Alan Fartridge!’
It was agony on so many levels. For starters, they were bellowing over the sound of English teacher Mr Bevin – academically suicidal given that mock exams were just weeks away, and a personal affront of Mr Bevin who, although timid and stuttering, knew his onions, English-wise.
For mains, it was the dunderheaded wrongness of what they were saying: I did not smell. I was a keen cleanser, diligently showering each day and making sure that my body, privates, face and mouth were stench- and stain-free. If I smelt of anything, it would have been Matey (now Radox) and Colgate.
And for afters, their catcalls were a depressing reminder of my own father’s suffering. Having signed up to the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment in World War II (for my money the ‘Great War’), he learned that a sloppy administrator had spelt his surname: PRATridge (my capitals). The consequent teasing and name-calling he received at the hands of his comPRATriates (my caps) cut him deep. The horror of war. Up there with trench foot and being attacked with guns.
Smelly Alan Fartridge. Say it to yourself a few times. Pretty annoying isn’t it? About 3% as clever as it thinks it is, it’s a piece of infantile wordplay that most right-minded abusers would dismiss as rubbish but which a small minority of backward Norfolk underachievers repeated again and again and again and again.
They were led by one child whose name I can barely even remember. In fact, his name was Steven McCombe
. You won’t have been able to tell, but I had to think for ages then, between the words ‘name’ and ‘was’, so insignificant is he in the roll call of people I’ve encountered.
McCombe – let’s not bother with first names – was, and I’m sure is, a grade A dumbo. He could afford to lark around in class, so certain was his fate as a manual worker – the kind who’d never have cause to rely on school teachings unless it’s for the tie-break round of a pub quiz (where the top prize is some meat).
McCombe didn’t just squawk ‘Smelly Alan Fartridge’ at me a few times. His was a campaign of petty abuse that was awesome in its length and breadth. Between 1962 and 1970, McCombe – and again these are events that bother me so little my brain has filed them under ‘Forget if you like’ – waged an impressively consistent war on me. This frenzied attack on me and my rights took several sickening forms: he stole, interfered with, and returned my sandwiches; he mimicked my voice when I effortlessly answered questions in class; he removed my shorts on a cross-country run and ran off fast; he reacted hysterically when I referred to a teacher as ‘mum’; he threw my bat and ball into a canal; he spat on my back; he daubed grotesque sexual images on my freshly wallpapered exercise books; and, in a sinister twist, he tracked the progress of my puberty, making unflattering comparisons to his own and the majority of my classmates’. This was psychological torment that few could have withstood. I withstood it.
One day, I decided enough was enough, so I plucked up the courage to confront him for an almighty showdown. It was 5pm on a wet Tuesday and I took a deep breath and went for it.
‘Oi,’ I said. ‘McCombe.’
He hesitated. ‘What?’
‘Watch it, mate.’
A pause. The guy was rattled. ‘What?’
‘I said watch it. Watch what you say and watch how you say it, you snivelling little goose.27 You might find you push someone too far one day and they unleash hell in your face.’
‘What?’
‘Stop saying “what”. Listen to me. You’re going to start showing me a bit of respect, buddy boy. Or you will reap a whirlwind. The days of infantile name-calling and sexually explicit graffiti are over. It stops. Right?’
‘What? I can’t hear you, mate.’
‘I’m not your mate.’
‘What?’
This was infuriating. I unwrapped my jumper from the mouthpiece. Oh, I forgot to say, this was on the phone.
‘Just watch it, McCombe.’
‘Who is this?’
‘See you around.’
‘Is this Partridge?’
I hung up. My point made. My parting shot – ‘See you around’ – had sounded particularly menacing. I would have said ‘See you in school’, but we’d both left a few years before. And ‘around’ sounded more threatening anyway.
McCombe had left school at the first opportunity, his mindless decision-making conducted almost entirely by a hormone-addled penis desperate to impregnate the first chubby cashier it could slip into. Sure enough, McCombe and Janice have a litter of four children, not much younger than they are. Way to go, guys.
McCombe worked for several years in the warehouse of British Leyland before a back injury scuppered his forklift-truck driving. He now lives on disability allowance in Edgbaston and has gained a lot of weight. No prizes for guessing which of us is the ‘Smelly’ one now.
Interestingly, McCombe’s career-ending back complaint is so cripplingly debilitating, he can only manage the three games of tenpin bowling per week, a fact that may or may not have been documented and photographed by my assistant.
The dossier may or may not have been passed on to Birmingham City Council. And I may or may not be waiting for a reply, although this is the public sector so I shan’t be holding my breath!
The divergence between our two lives (mine: successful, his: pathetic) is best illustrated in our choice of garden furnishing. I’ve enhanced my lawn with a rockery. McCombe has chosen a broken washing machine.
And what a pair he and Janice make. I spoke with her once, when she asked me what I was doing outside their house,28 and her language was appalling. Very aggressive woman.
McCombe rarely, if ever, strays into my consciousness now. But in some ways I thank him. The ribbing that he orchestrated – and to be fair there were probably others involved too29 – has given me a thick skin that has served me well. I grew a teak-tough, metaphorically bullet-proof hide, essential in the very real warzone that is broadcasting.
I could give you three examples right now of times that the ‘Smelly Alan Fartridge’ barbs have stood me in good stead. When Bridie McMahon (failed TV presenter who you won’t have heard of) pointed out on air that an anagram of Alan Partridge is Anal Dirge Prat, sure, I wanted to shove her in the face, but had the self-discipline not to. When formerly significant TV critic Victor Lewis-Smith described my military-based quiz show Skirmish as ‘a thick man’s Takeshi’s Castle’, I wanted to hurt him physically, but had the restraint not to. I just left 60 abusive voicemails on his mobile (plus 12 on Valerie Singleton’s for which I have apologised. She’s above him in my contacts list.) There’s probably a third example too. But the point is, the inane taunts from my school days had given me strength and perspective.
An addendum: in 1994, I was named TV Quick’s Man of the Moment. At the same time, McCombe contracted glandular fever. Needless to say, McCombe, I had the last laugh. And I’m still having it.
23 Not racist.
24 Press play on Track 4.
25 Disclaimer: Not in any legal sense.
26 Press play on Track 5.
27 Not sure why I said goose or what I meant by it.
28 I’d stopped to let the engine cool down when I was in the Birmingham area looking for Pebble Mill, and coincidentally it happened to be on their street.
29 Andy Bendell, Joe Cowes, Alan Holland, Richard Toms, Justin Parker, Noel Scott, Daniel Groves.
Chapter 3
East Anglia Polytechnic
‘O-O-O-OPEN IT,’ STUTTERED MY mother, nervously.
‘Y-y-y-yes, open it,’ said Dad, frightened.
‘Cool it, cats,’ I breezed. (This was the 70s.)
In my hand was a golden envelope30 containing the most important pieces of paper I’d ever clutched: my A-level results.
Rectangular in shape and with my full name typed across it in ink, it looked important because it was of real import(ance). The foldable flap hugged the back of the sheath tightly, bound together in a solemn, gummy embrace. Unable to slip my nail beneath its coagulated clasp, I nodded to myself. I was going to have to tear the paper along the top fold. I did so and then reached inside to extract the papery contents.
‘W-w-w-w-what does it s-s-s-say?’ my parents whispered in absolute unison.
I opened it as gingerly as a rookie bomb disposal operative would open a fat letter bomb in a crèche. In a funny sort of way, the contents were just as explosive as a powdered acetone peroxide. They spelt the difference between me attending tertiary education and being consigned to the heap marked ‘Don’t have A-levels’, and that was a mound of slag I did not want to be on.
Like the bomb disposal man31 mentioned above, I swallowed hard and began to remove the letter within the ’lope. A single bead of sweat sprinted down my face, skirting round my temple and pausing at the jaw before throwing itself to its death.
I pulled the paper out further, until I could make out the letters it bore, letters that had been formed into words by a kindly typist. I gulped again and looked at my parents, before emitting a sigh.
‘Bad news,’ I muttered. ‘Your son has failed … at failing his exams!!!’
They were confused momentarily by the clever double negative, so I added: ‘I passed!’ (The it’s-bad-news-ha-no-actually-it’s-good-news technique is one I’ve always enjoyed. It was really pioneered by David Coleman on Question of Sport when he’d tonally suggest Bill Beaumont had got an answer wrong … only to reveal at the end of the sentence that he’d got it right
! The judges on ITV’s X Factor32 use a similar technique to reveal that a singer has made it to ‘boot camp’.)
My parents were elated. Mum patted me and Dad joined me in one of the first high-fives that Norwich had seen.
‘I passed!’ I kept saying. ‘I passed them both!’33
The exact grading isn’t important. Suffice to say, I was the proud owner of two shiny A-levels and nobody could take them away from me.34
1974 was a crazy, hazy time for Alan Partridge. The Sixties had come to East Anglia and it was a time of free thinking, free love and in my case free university accommodation.
I was quite the man about Norwich,35 striding confidently through the dreaming spires and hallowed halls of East Anglia Polytechnic – whose alumni included news woman Selina Scott and meteorology whizz Penny Tranter – and soaking up all the knowledge that this seat of learning had to offer.
The free accommodation? Well, enigmatically, I had decided to stay not in the woodworm-infested squalor of university halls, but to commute in from my home (my parents’ home). Although misinterpreted by some of my peers as reluctance to cut the apron strings and live independently, the decision to reside at home was a canny marshalling of my resources. It enabled me to avoid the scruffiness of my shaggy-haired, sandal-wearing colleagues. By using my ‘rent money’ wisely, I was never less than beautifully shod.
Of course, it also meant that I was something of a ‘mystery man’ on campus. While my fellow students lived in each other’s pockets and played out their debauched lifestyles for all to see, I was far less known. I’d be glimpsed at the back of lecture halls, ghosting through the student union with a glass of cider or shushing idiots in the library. And then I’d be gone. This all added to my aura. As did my idiosyncratic dress sense. Thick-knit zip-up cardigans, flared brown corduroys and shiny black pepperpot brogues set me apart from the long-haired layabouts who bore an uncanny resemblance to the Guildford Four and some of the Birmingham Six – Irish long-haired layabouts ‘wrongfully’ convicted of bombing England.
I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan Page 3