That’s why when he wasn’t at the garage he always had some other deal on the go. Fifty years before eBay, he was busy trading coins, antiques and junk with American collectors. And if anyone closer to home was ready to pay for anything, as far as Dad was concerned they could have it.
My mother and I knew that to our cost. One wet afternoon we were sitting having a pot of tea and watching a black-and-white film on television when Dad rushed in.
‘I need the television,’ he said, switching it off and unplugging it.
‘What’s the matter? We were watching that,’ I wailed.
‘I’ve sold it. I’ll get you a bigger, better one tomorrow.’
And he did. The Artful Dodger in Dad always managed to replace what he had sold with something bigger and better – and still left himself quids in on the deal. Amazing. Though I’ve still never seen the end of that film.
Next in the cast of characters of our family was Great-Aunt Vi – the biggest snob I ever met. She lived in Faversham in Kent, where she and her husband, Arthur, owned a seed shop in one of the most beautiful buildings in the town. Auntie Vi taught me how to lay a table properly, how to place napkins and how to make a wonderful Victoria sponge. When I went to stay, or she came over to ours, I got bedtime stories in the bath with a glass of ginger wine. I thought it was the height of sophistication.
As far as Mum, Dad and I were concerned, Great-Aunt Vi was a woman with a mission. She hated my Wiltshire burr – Mum had it too – and Dad’s voice annoyed her even more. It had a touch of the north, a touch of cockney and even that joking, Jewish lilt in it for good measure. So good old Great-Aunt Vi paid for the elocution lessons that would turn the Oldham-born, Wiltshire-bred boy into the Christopher Biggins whose voice can boom so loudly today.
Mrs Christian was my elocution teacher. She was a fantastic, wonderful woman and I saw her once or twice a week for private classes at my new school and at her home. These were my My Fair Lady moments. The rain in Spain falls mainly on Salisbury Plain and all that. As the weeks passed, my Wiltshire burr began to fade. But my lessons went on. I think Mrs Christian saw something other than just a strong voice in me. She also taught drama and English at school and was the first to really get me interested in theatre. And she had help. If she had lit the theatrical flames, Mr Lewis, soon to be my music teacher at school, would be the one to fan them.
He was one of the biggest gossips I had ever met. All we did was gossip. To this day all I can play on the piano is ‘Daffodil Dell’ (and I’m not very good at that). But what I missed out on in terms of scales or harmonies I gained in terms of confidence and simple joie de vivre. Mr Lewis was probably a bit effeminate, but I didn’t spot that then and it wouldn’t have made any difference even if I had. There was certainly no element of impropriety in our long, funny theatrical chats. I think Mr Lewis simply saw me as a kindred spirit – albeit a much younger one. Those were lonely times for confirmed bachelors of a certain age. I think I just brightened some of my teacher’s darker days. I let him forget how isolated he might be.
I had started at the private St Probus School for boys at 11. And it had all been a bit of a mess. Much to my dad’s disappointment, I had failed my 11 Plus and so didn’t qualify for the local grammar. Or did I? My father had been talking to some other parents and found out that, because I’d only been ten when I’d taken the exam, a loophole meant I could do a retake. If I passed I would be educated for free and, like I say, Dad loves a bargain. But the timing was all wrong. The day that Dad rushed home to tell us the news, Mum and I were busy buying my brand-new St Probus uniform and paying my fee for the first term.
‘Too late now,’ Dad said when he saw me in all my new finery.
So St Probus it was. And it served me well. I enjoyed school. We were neither a hugely academic nor a hugely sporting place. Just a very relaxed place. And we had a theatre. That would change everything for me.
My first proper stage performance at school was as the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance. I was in heaven. I took on as many other roles as possible after Pirates. And at 14 I enjoyed my first, campest, triumph. I played the Ethel Merman part in Call Me Madam. Yes, I think the clues were all there had anyone bothered to look for them. And if my choice of roles didn’t raise eyebrows, my clothes certainly did. For quite some time I insisted on wearing a full-length blue kaftan when my poor mother took me shopping. To this day I can’t remember where on earth I got it from. Sleepy old Salisbury, in the early 1960s, had hardly ever seen the like before. No wonder my mum always wanted to walk a few paces ahead or several paces behind me. No wonder she was mortified when I decided I wanted to stop in a shoe shop one day to see if I could get footwear to match. The girls there barely batted an eyelid. But Mum? She was mortified. Looking back, I can see her point.
My good fortune as a boy was to avoid the total isolation felt by anyone who grows up feeling a little different. I did that because I had a pal called John Brown at my side. We met in my first year at St Probus and were friends from the very start. We’re still friends today, though we see each other far less frequently than we should.
As kids, John and I always had a hoot at theatre rehearsals – and every other moment of the day as well. Neither of us was especially sporty and in particular we both hated cross-country runs. We decided to turn them into cross-country walks. The two of us would amble around picking up flora and fauna and get back to the smelly locker rooms laden with wild flowers and berries.
‘Biggins, come on!’
‘Brown, get running!’
‘Where have you two been?’
Everyone would be yelling for us to hurry up, because the games master said no one could leave until we were all finished. But there was no question of bullying at school, and no taunts about anything other than our lack of athletic skills. This sense of decency and respect came from the top, as it always does.
Our head teacher, Mr French, was very firm but very fair. Yes, he used the threat of the belt to keep us all in line, but I truly don’t see the harm in that. We all learned the boundaries between good and bad behaviour from Mr French. Today we’ve probably gone too far the other way, giving kids too much freedom and not making it clear how they should behave. Mr French never made that mistake. Though I do remember a few oddities. Once he gave us a lecture on gingivitis and dental hygiene. The next day, for reasons I can’t recall, we all rebelled over our school lunches. We threw all the food into the bins. And then in walked Mr French. He made every one of us get a spoon and eat at least a spoonful from the bins. Not exactly hygienic, or great for the gums. But it taught us to keep our rebellions on a smaller scale from then on.
Thinking laterally helped on the cross-country runs as well. John and I realised that we couldn’t keep our classmates waiting every week. And I suddenly found a new way to avoid the run but still get to the finish line on time. Maisie’s house was just outside the school playground, where the races began and ended. So John and I would pop in for a cup of tea and a gossip and emerge when the front-runners headed back past the front door. It was payback time for all those embarrassing bath times.
At the weekend