Life and Laughing: My Story

by Michael McIntyre

  Even though Mrs Orton never knew why we were laughing, she was always looking at me and singling me out as the culprit of whatever shenanigans were occurring. She saw me as a waster, a loser and an idiot. My 4 per cent just proved her suspicions. But now I was on a mission. I concentrated, I learned. I studied in the school library at break-time, I read my textbooks in the car on the school run, I got my mum and my sister to test me constantly, I played Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’ as I did my homework.

  When the exams came I had never been more prepared for anything in my short life. Still to this day, I remember most of my results. Maths 78 per cent, Geography 87 per cent, History 82 per cent, Science 83 per cent, French 92 per cent. I came top of the class in every subject. My mum was thrilled (but she was thrilled when I only studied PE and RE), my dad was proud, but the person I was most looking forward to seeing was Mrs Orton. From 4 per cent to 92 per cent, quite an improvement. I sat waiting in the classroom for the French lesson to begin, enjoying my newfound status. I was top of the class. I was a champion.

  The teacher walked in, but it wasn’t Mrs Orton. We were told that she had left the school and this new guy, Mr Sissons, was taking over. It transpired that Mr Sissons marked the exams. Mrs Orton was gone, and she was unaware of my dramatic turnaround. I was truly gutted. Where had she gone? Nobody knew. There was a rumour somebody had finally shot her. About ten years later, I was playing tennis in a park when I heard an unmistakable sound from the next court: ‘Shoot!’ I looked over and there she was, planting a forehand volley into the net.

  I ran over to her, forgetting I was now nineteen years old and a decade had passed. ‘Mrs Orton,’ I screeched, ‘I got 92 per cent.’ Naturally, she had no recollection of me whatsoever. I apologized and we continued our respective games.

  Academically, that was my one good year. I never again worked so hard or scaled those heights. I suppose I just wanted to prove to myself and to my dad I could reach the top, and having done that I slipped back down to the middle. I never again excelled in any subject. I was a bit like Blackburn Rovers when they won the league in 1992. One subject I certainly never excelled in was Music. I am simply not musical in any way. I can barely press ‘play’ on the stereo. My dad, of course, had a musical background and was very keen for me to take up an instrument. More specifically, he wanted me to learn the piano. He owned a piano for me to practise on so he was especially keen for this to be my instrument of choice.

  My best friend at the time was Gary Johnson. Gary was tremendously cool. He was a fair-haired American, liked basketball and had his own ‘ghetto blaster’. When my mum asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, ‘Black.’ Gary said guitars were cool, so my mind was made up. The guitar was the only instrument for me. I argued with my dad for hours. The ‘guitar’ row was our biggest to date, and it was only when I threatened divorce that he eventually backed down. He begrudgingly bought me a guitar and booked me in for lessons at my school. Gary said my guitar wasn’t cool – he’d meant electric guitars. So I didn’t attend a single lesson. The guitar sat in my Golders Green bedroom in its case, untouched. My dad didn’t live with us so he would never know. I was now only seeing him every other weekend. He and Holly were as in love as Steve and my mother, and bought a big country house. She had been living in LA and he in London, but they now decided to pursue an English country life together.

  Holly dreamed of an idyllic rural life and my dad set about making this dream a reality. The house they bought, Drayton Wood, had 35 acres of land, a swimming pool, a tennis court, stables and two paddocks. They purchased a Range Rover, of course. Kitted themselves out in new wellies and Barbours, and filled their property with two dogs (a Great Dane called Moose and a sheepdog named Benjie), two cats (Marmalade and Turbo), three horses (Nobby, Dancer and Lightning), two cows (Bluebell and Thistle) and six geese (I don’t remember their names), no partridges and several pear trees.

  It was a wonderful place for Lucy and me to visit, and they seemed to adjust well, apart from the occasional mishap. The geese, for example, weren’t quite as successful as my father had hoped. ‘Geese are great watchdogs, the best,’ said my dad.

  ‘What about dogs? Aren’t they the best watchdogs?’ I challenged.

  ‘No,’ my dad insisted, refusing to follow my logic. ‘Geese are much better watchdogs than dogs.’ So rather than rely on the dogs or indeed install an alarm, he got six geese. On their first night at Drayton Wood, we went to sleep safe in the knowledge the geese would alert us to any unwanted guests by honking. In the morning, we awoke to find six dead geese. My father had forgotten about the food chain. A fox had eaten his new alarm system. It turned out our watchdogs needed watchdogs.

  The ill-fated ‘watchdogs’ preparing for their one and only night at Drayton Wood.

  Visiting my dad in the countryside was a real adventure. I had horse-riding lessons, rode my BMX, went swimming, played fetch with the dogs and tennis with my dad. It was the perfect weekend getaway. Holly created her dream country kitchen with copper pots hanging from the ceiling and more herbs and spices than I knew existed. She would prepare a variety of dishes with varying success for our juvenile palates. Regardless of how much we enjoyed it, Lucy and I always reported back to our mum that it was ‘disgusting’. Complimenting our new mum’s cooking to our real mum would not have been a wise move.

  Lucy, Dad, me and our camera-loving Great Dane called Moose at Drayton Wood, my dad’s countryside abode in Hertfordshire.

  At one lunch, my dad and Holly had several people over. I don’t recall the occasion. There must have been about ten of us sitting at the large dining room table. My father at the head, telling stories accompanied by his own booming laugh. I was a child surrounded by adults, so the only time I was involved in conversation I was asked typical questions like, ‘What school do you go to?’, ‘Do you enjoy it there?’ and ‘What’s your favourite subject?’

  ‘Hey, Michael,’ asked my dad, ‘how are your guitar lessons coming along?’

  ‘You must be a real Jimi Hendrix by now,’ Holly added.

  I had been bunking off my guitar lessons for a year at this point. It had actually been so long that I had forgotten I was supposed to be going.

  My heartbeat quickened, my voice trembled slightly as I mumbled, ‘Fffine.’

  My dad addressed the whole table: ‘Michael begged me to get him a guitar. I wanted him to learn the piano, but he was so adamant.’

  ‘Adam Ant doesn’t play the guitar,’ interrupted Holly. Everybody laughed at the ‘adamant’ and ‘Adam Ant’ mix-up. I thought maybe I was saved and the conversation would turn to New Romantic pop. I was wrong.

  ‘What songs can you play?’ asked my dad with a mouthful of Holly’s finest ‘Sloppy Joe’. I was terrified and tried to change the subject.

  ‘Have you told everybody about the geese? And how you murdered them,’ I suggested.

  ‘Oh yes, I will. But first I want to know what songs you can play on that guitar I bought you.’

  How was I going to get out of this? I had to remain calm, but my heart was nearly beating out of my chest. I flicked my eyes to Lucy, who knew I hadn’t even taken the guitar out of its case. She looked almost as terrified as me.

  ‘Er-er-eeerm,’ I stuttered.

  ‘Come on,’ reiterated my dad. ‘You’ve been learning the guitar for a year, what’s your favourite tune?’ All eyes were fixed on me; I felt like throwing up. I couldn’t think of a single piece of music ever written.

  ‘The …’ I began.

  ‘The what?’ pushed my dad.

  ‘The National Anthem,’ I said finally.

  The whole table looked confused. A bit of ‘Sloppy Joe’ dribbled out of the side of Lucy’s mouth. ‘The National Anthem?’ said my dad, surprised.

  ‘That’s very patriotic,’ somebody else interjected.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, realizing I had some work to do to be convincing, ‘I love it, I just love playing it, I love our country, I love the Q
ueen, I’m really good at it. Aren’t I, Lucy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy assured everyone. ‘He’s brilliant at it, he plays it all day.’

  ‘OH MY GAD!’ interrupted Holly in her thick US accent. ‘Cameron, I can’t believe I forgot. I’ve got an old guitar upstairs in one of the boxes, I’m going to go and get it.’

  ‘What a great idea,’ agreed my father. ‘After lunch Michael can play the National Anthem.’

  The blood drained from my body. I was in hell. I wanted the ground (all 35 acres of it) to open up and swallow me. Holly disappeared to look for the guitar. My mind was racing. What was I going to do? Should I feign illness or injury? I was in the midst of a nightmare. My dad began telling his geese manslaughter story. It seemed like only seconds before Holly returned, tuning her old guitar as she walked towards me. My father cut short his anecdote. ‘You found it, great!’ Holly placed the guitar in my trembling hands. The whole table turned to me.

  ‘Stand up, Michael,’ my father directed.

  I stood up, awkwardly holding the alien instrument. This was the moment, the moment I had to admit my lie. The moment to reveal the shameful truth, that I was not so much Jimi Hendrix as the Milli Vanilli of school guitar lessons. I decided to go for it. I don’t even know if I decided. I found myself strumming the guitar and singing, ‘God save our gracious Queen, long live our noble Queen …’ I sang it as loud as I could, to mask the fact that I was just randomly strumming. It sounded horrific; my audience looked puzzled.

  ‘EVERYBODY!’ I encouraged. ‘God save the Queen, de, de, de, de, Send her victorious …’ Everybody sang along, just about managing to hide my out-of-tune, random guitar-playing. I belted out the last line with lung-bursting pride, like Stuart Pearce at a World Cup: ‘LONG TO REIGN OVER US, GOD SAVE THE … QUEEEEEN … YEAH!’ The most embarrassing moment of my life was over. I took a bow and received uncomfortable applause. It turned out I had fooled nobody, and later that night when the guests had departed, my father took me aside. ‘Michael, I think we need to talk.’

  I wasn’t punished for skipping my guitar lessons. My humiliation at lunch was considered punishment enough. Also, my excellent exam results weighed in my favour. I claimed I had been too bogged down with work to learn an instrument.

  My dad was pleased with my now glowing school reports. I don’t know why but I was particularly good at Latin. I was a ‘Latin lover’, but not in the sense that pleases women. I was also quite sporty. This might be difficult for you to believe. I opened the batting for the cricket team and was top scorer for the hockey team.

  If you think hockey is a bit of a girlie sport, wait until you hear this: my posh private school taught boxing. An ex-boxer, I forget his name, whose face featured the obligatory flat nose, taught us the Queensberry Rules once a week. Fine, you might think. Boxing is good for exercise and co-ordination. Well, at the end of the year a boxing ring was set up in the gym, and there was a tournament when all the parents came to cheer their posh offspring beating the shit out of each other. Come to think of it, with me speaking Latin and boxing in front of a passionate mob, I was like a young Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator.

  A champion was crowned for every school year. I actually won in the first year, defeating Sam Geddes by a technical knockout. Sam and I are friends to this day, and I haven’t stopped reminding him of my victory for the past twenty-five years. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to learn it’s mentioned in my book. I’m sorry, Sam, but the fact is my speed, silky skills and breathtaking power were too much for you. I gave you a boxing lesson. I destroyed you.

  In the Arnold House school gym in my boxing prime, about to unleash my silky skills on a helpless Sam Geddes.

  Now that’s how you’re supposed to wear swimming trunks.

  In the second year, I wasn’t so successful. Maybe after a year as the champ I wasn’t as focused. I’d put on a few pounds. I got complacent. ‘I could have been a contender.’ But I think the real reason I lost was that I fought Ralph Perry in the final. Let me explain what Ralph Perry looked like. Imagine Mike Tyson as a white ten-year-old. I was no match for him. Perry, who later served time for GBH and assaulting a beauty queen, gave me a beating and I lost my crown. I burst into tears when the result was announced and refused to shake Ralph Perry’s hand and told him to ‘fuck off’ in Latin. My dad gave me a long lecture about sportsmanship and told me to use my jab more. But there was to be no rematch. The school woke up to the fact that making kids fight each other was perhaps a bit barbaric and boxing was stopped altogether.

  So that just left sports day as the only occasion for my parents to witness my physical prowess. My two sets of parents decided to try to get along ‘for the sake of the children’. So my mum, Steve, my dad and Holly chose my sports day as the starting point for their new positive relationship. The venue was Cannons Park, a large sports field set up for athletics. It started well; my four parents were smartly dressed, the sun was shining and the rumour that Patrick Swayze was my dad was going some way to make up for the Kenny Everett debacle of two years earlier. The problem was that this wasn’t a dynamic which was going to work. There was far too much resentment, pain and anger between my mum and dad and their new sidekicks. It was excruciating to witness them pretending to get on and fake laughing at each other’s jokes.

  My event was the long jump and I won. I jumped 3.03 metres, but due to a mix-up the distance was recorded as 3.30 metres. I still would have won, but those extra 27 centimetres meant that I smashed the school record. In fact, I still hold the Arnold House School record for the Under-9 long jump due to this error. Twenty-five years that record has stood. The teachers and headmaster fully expected me to become a professional long jumper. But the time has come to reveal the truth. While I’m in such a confessional mood, I would like to add that I was also on anabolic steroids.

  I was so pleased with my record-breaking jump that I rushed into the arms of my dad and then I rushed into the arms of my mum and then I rushed into the arms of my other dad and then I rushed into the arms of my other mum. Then came the surreal fathers’ race. It was agreed that both my dads would compete. This was fine by the school, who had encountered this situation before. In fact there were so many additional parents due to broken marriages, they had to run heats.

  My dad took his place on the starting line alongside Steve and the other fathers. There was no starting gun, which was a relief because I’m sure at some stage one of my parents would have snatched it and opened fire on the other. Instead Mrs Orton was responsible for starting the race, ‘On your marks, get set, shoot!’ My dad got off to a bad start, an even worse middle and painfully slow end and finished in last place. Steve won the whole race. My dads had finished in first and last place.

  As I celebrated Steve’s win, I didn’t think about my real dad’s feelings. I was too young. Maybe he saw the funny side. It can’t have been easy.

  But little did I know that in just two more school sports days’ time, I would have FOUR dads in the fathers’ race (this isn’t true).

  9

  Girls make up half of the population. Girls are what most boys want. There comes a time when a boy’s entire life revolves around the pursuit of girls. There are girls reading this book: ‘Hi.’ I went to an all-boys school. This was a terrible idea. I learned nothing about girls; they were like alien creatures to me. I had such a late start getting to know the fairer sex that it definitely put me at a disadvantage.

  I’m not just saying all schools should be mixed; I’d like to go beyond that. I think as soon as you’re born you should be shown a girl to begin your education. Then at school you should have to study each other’s gender as a subject. ‘What’s your timetable today, McIntyre?’

  ‘Maths, Geography and then double Girls.’

  Also, in addition to French and English, you should be taught ‘French Girls’ and ‘English Girls’. In fact you may as well include ‘Latin Girls’; any information about any girl from history can be beneficial in unravelling the
extraordinary complexities of females.

  Girls, however, probably wouldn’t even need one entire lesson in ‘Boys’, the teacher rounding the lesson off with ‘… so if they’re grumpy, they’re probably hungry. OK, girls, we seem to have finished twenty minutes early. So you’re free to fiddle with your split ends until break-time.’

  I began my phenomenally unsuccessful pursuit of the opposite sex when I was about twelve years old. Sitting outside the school gates on a wall, in her crimson uniform, clutching her violin, was twelve-year-old Lucy Protheroe. She was Christie Brinkley, Princess Leia, Wonderwoman and Princess Aura rolled into one. Lucy’s younger brother was at my school and every few days she would collect him and walk to their home just around the corner. From the moment I saw her, it was like a thunderbolt had hit me. The problem was that for her (to continue the analogy), there was no change in the weather conditions; maybe a slight breeze, but nothing more.

  I was becoming more independent and had started to take the number 13 or 82 bus from Golders Green to school. These were the old-style London buses, the ones with a conductor and that you just jumped on and off. Nowadays if you miss the bus, the doors close, you curse and you wait for the next one. In those days, you never felt like you’d missed the bus as you could hop on at any time when it stopped in traffic. I would see a bus in the distance in traffic and go tearing after it. It would tease me by always being close enough for me to think I could catch up. I once chased a bus for my entire journey to school.

  School finished at 4.30 p.m. and from 3.30 onwards my heart was aflutter at the prospect of Lucy perched on the wall outside. Every day I walked through the school gates and looked to my right to see if she was there. If she wasn’t, I would be deflated for a few moments but soon be daydreaming again about seeing her the following day while sitting on the bus home (or running behind it). If she was there, I would try, and fail, to be cool.