Memory Lane with Kerry Godliman and Jen Brister - S01 E09: Mark Steel (Kerry only)

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

"I don't understand people that go to Switzerland (for euthanasia), just get a one way ticket to Swanley and say you're not from round here." Kerry spends an afternoon chatting with veteran British comedian and writer Mark Steel. Photo 01 - Mark's missing piece of the puzzle Photo 02 - On holiday with Jeremy Hardy Photo 03 - Dressed as Castro in Bolivia Photo 04 - Mark with his kids PICS & MORE - https://www.instagram.com/memory_lane_podcast/ A Dot Dot Dot Production produced by Joel Porter Hosted by Jen Brister & Kerry Godliman Distributed by Keep It Light Media Sales and advertising enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Memory Lane. Each episode, I take a trip down Memory Lane with a very special guest as they bring in four photos from their lives to talk about. To check out the photos that we're talking about, they're all on the episode image and you can also see them a bit more clearly on our Instagram page. So have a little look at Memory Lane podcast. Come on, we can all be nosy together. I mean, do you know where all your photos are?

because it strikes me that you have access to, like you keep alluding to pictures that you wanted and you've considered and then you changed your mind. And a lot of people on this have found that their decisions by their choices have been made by what they could get their hands on. They've had to compromise by what they could get their hands on.

Yes, yes, definitely. Well, there's one photo here that unleashes a story that in which photos are critical, really. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, in which photos are critical to the way it's panned out. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, I was going to say, I'm not 100% sure of the chronology of your pictures, but we definitely know which one is first, because there's a lovely picture of I assume you as a little boy. Yes. So you're sitting on a lovely blanket. Black and white photograph. What year would this be? That would be 1961.

Right. So you're one-ish. Yeah, about one. Spectacular head of hair. So here's the story behind that photo. I was, you know, like most people, people, we grow up with photos of us around the house, don't you? So that was on the sideboard, in my living room, in Swanley and Kent, where I was brought up.

That photo, all the while I was growing up, was on the sideboard. I remember it in a little frame. It's a lovely photo. Now, I, thank you. Now, I was adopted. Yes. And I was never particularly interested in the fact I was adopted. And one of the things, and there's many things about my childhood that were very...

When were you told you were adopted? Well, this is the key thing, I always knew I was adopted, and although much of my childhood was bleak, bleak, bleak, that I am very, very grateful to my mum and dad for, because they never, I always knew I was adopted, and there was never, in fact, when I did a show about it, how did it go this line? I said, yeah, you sort of, there was never one of those moments that you get in the plays, you know, where, where there was never a show about it. the mum and dad say, now, Mark, I want you to sit in front of us because we've got something

very important to tell you, you see, because you were chosen, especially. You're not like these other children whose parents had to keep the bastards even if they hated them. You were chosen especially. So there was never that, there was never that moment. I always knew I was adopted. And maybe partly as a result of that, it didn't interest me. Now, third, 35 years later, 36 years later, my son is born. And of course, you sort of start thinking, I start thinking, oh, it's quite a big thing to have a child, isn't it? I sort of was vaguely aware it was,

but I didn't realize it was quite that big. You know, if you have a child, you do remember that. My natural mother will remember having that child. I think, again, in the show, the line was, I've got to remember it. It was something like there's very few people who, there's very, you don't forget a child, there's very few people who are sort of sit in the living room one day and go,

didn't we used to have a son? Yeah, it's like those, you know, those fridge magnets that are like those sort of repro 50s kind of, oh, you know, I forgot to have children kind of jokes. Yes, yes, yes. You don't forget when you've had a kid. You don't, especially not a woman.

No. As I'm sure you can testify. So, the, so I thought, for her it's not a big issue for me but for her for my natural mum she's very likely still about I knew I did sort of know the story because my aunt the woman who came to know who I came to know as my aunt she sort of arranged the adoption right the story was my aunt and uncle arthur who was a laugh they lived in a sort of small little flat in west London and in Elgin Avenue right And next door to them, a woman moved in who was 20 called Francis.

And Francis was in a state. And my auntie Gwen got chatting to her. She always all her life, you know, always talk, talk to people, finding out about people. She was a golden-hearted lady. Right. And she said to Francis, you know, what you like to set about, love? And Francis said, I've run away from home. I'm pregnant.

I don't know what they do. and so my auntie Gwen said look i've got a brother who lives in swanley and kent him and his wife want to have kids they can't have kids why don't we arrange for you to have the baby adopted i mean this is fascinating because nowadays i've got friends trying to adopt now and it's really hard to adopt you know and you've got to go through a lot of paperwork and interviews and rightly so you're scrutinised and you know yes and this is amazing that this was just organised pregnant a baby was a A baby was like a fridge. You've got a surplus fridge.

I can't expect. You know you wanted a fridge. You want this one? Yeah, yeah. I'll bring it around weird. And that was totally legal. That was allowed. Yeah.

I mean, well, there was more paperwork than that, which we will come to. So I'm then, that happens. All I know, all I know then as I'm growing up is then, and that was it. And that's how my mum and dad in Swanley came to be my mum and dad in Swanley. And there's my little photo that you've got there on the side. So by the time that picture was taken, you were with your mum and dad now. I was with my mum and dad. I was about 10 days old, I was told when I was handed over.

Oh, right, tiny then. I was tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny. Okay. So as far as this photo goes, this is the story of that. I spent years trying to track down France, is my natural mother. I couldn't bloody find her. I knew nothing about... Because you found your dad first, didn't you?

No, no, I didn't find him first. I never knew, right, no, I never knew. Because all I knew about my dad was my auntie Gwen would say to me, oh yeah, I think Francis said your dad was French, your natural dad was French. So then as I was sort of growing up, I'd, you know, that's what I thought. The actual dad was French, I had no idea. Then, eventually, bits and pieces of information came back as I wrote to adoption agencies, because this thing did have to be, I wasn't just standing over.

No, there was paperwork. No, there was paperwork. And eventually, these bits, one bit of paper come back that showed that my natural mum lived in a little, because they'd all been in North London. I'm ashamed to say I was born in North London, which was a terrible bloody cultural shop.

Awful. You know these, you know any of these sort of, you know you get these films of people. I was brought up Jewish. It turns out I'm an Aaron. You know, fuck that. Do you think that's our? I've been South London all my life.

balling fucking edgewell. What a letdown. Counseling for years. I know. They have been supporting Crystal Palace and you should have been asking. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So they then, all my natural mother's family moved up to Dunkeld,

a little tiny, beautiful town in Perthshire. Right. And my natural mum, it turns out, owned a delicatessen in Dunkeld. So with all these bits of information, along with other stuff, one bit I will also mention, there was a form called Form B that was a social services type form. I don't think they called it that. And this was a form that actually officially made me my mum and dad, my parents. Now, two things interesting about that.

One, there was a transcript of an interview with Francis on this form B. And it was clear. yeah, it was clear. It says Francis kept repeating that she wanted to keep the child, not beat the child, she kept repeating that she wanted to keep the child. She now realizes that that is not an option. And that is one of the cruelest sentences I've ever read. She now realizes that that is not an option. And all these people had really, so she'd obviously had me and then changed her mind and said, I want to keep him. Yeah. But two things were stopping her. First of all, just financial. how on earth as a 20 year old single parent are you going to bring up a child in 1960 and

secondly socially it's just unacceptable and parents everyone around her was going no and the authorities know you can't do it but she refused to sign the papers for a year oh my god so the date on the date on my adoption certificate is one year after I'm born so for all that first year my mum she well as my mum put it she said oh I don't didn't know whether the council were going to come around and take you back. Oh my God, that's massive. So at this point in the story, right, this is all connected to this photo. At this point of the story, I've tried to find me natural mum.

It's not easy. I've then got this information and so on. And I went to one of these, you get these sort of people whose job it is to trace people. There was one woman in particular. She won't mind me saying. Her name's Ariel Bruce. She was absolutely, she's lovely and she was also brilliantly efficient. And she's got this sort of motherly efficient way about it.

She said, let's have a look here. We've got a delicatessen with that form B, marvelous. We've got all these little bits of addresses. Don't you worry, Mark, I will leave no stone unturned. We'll find her. She won't keep hiding from us. Don't you worry about it. I'll get back to you in about two weeks, I'll remember.

And she was just absolutely immaculately efficient. Two weeks on the button, she rings me back. And she says, right, we found her. She's in Rimini in Italy. She's a LIGNELL and she's living over there. And I've got an address and I've got a phone number and there we are. So we wrote a letter, no reply at all, nothing. and then eventually she rang.

She said, right, we've left her six months now, so plenty of time to process this. I know there must be all sort of pain and everything, and I don't want to be, I don't want the poor creature to be filled under pressure or lamenting anything in any way, but I do think it's perfectly fair now and reasonable to try and contact her.

So she sort of rings, and then this woman Ariel rang me back, and she said, Francis doesn't want to speak to you, but she did ask, she did say, I would like to ask three questions. Okay, this is, yeah. So she said the first question, the first question she asked, Mark, was, does he have any children of his own? I said, he does, he has a boy and a girl.

The second question that she asked was, what does he do? And I said, well, he's a comedian. And the third question, Mark, and I have to tell you this, in all the many years that I've performed this role, many, many years, hundreds and indeed thousands of people that I've reconnected with their erstwhile families and familial ties that have been broken across the same. seas and oceans and reconnected them and they're all manner of questions have been asked and at once do I ever recall such a conundrum as this ever being posed she said uh and then she said what's politics oh wow what a question but that is amazing isn't it but I mean I think that's extraordinary

because it is an absurd question but you're not not known for your politics you're like you're yeah yeah I mean it's extraordinary it's amazing yes so I mean I Another amazing thing that Ariel said to me, then Mark, she said, before I put the phone down, let me tell you the name of the father. So at this moment in time, this actual moment, frozen in time, on the phone, I'm thinking,

and I thought I would never, ever know the name of the father. I think in the show, I said, oh, the father's just going to, it would just be some random Frenchman, some random cruel Frenchman in 1959 going, and what is your name? Francis, my favourite of other names. Maybe you'd like to accompany me to the bus shit.

But it wasn't. And so she says, this is the name of the father. And I thought, oh my God. And the drama with which she said it, I was thinking it's de Gaulle. I bet it's bloody de Gaulle. And she said this name. And it was the name of someone who wasn't French at all.

He was Egyptian and he was the world backgammon champion. 1970s who then used his talents to go to Wall Street and become a multi multi multi millionaire he was part of a circle at the Claremont Club which was this elite gambling club in the 1970s owned by a chap called John Aspinall and all the people the most prominent people there were Tiny Rowlands and Jim Slater and James Goldsmith and Lord Lucan and these people that was they played back gammon together and that was his world. Oh incidentally

I got a mate. I told that night or that weekend I told a mate this story and he said to me what a brilliant line. A mate who works in a library not a comic at all and he said I was brilliant night when I told him all that

he said oh it would be easy to find it that now just find Lord Lucan and you've got him so I don't know how much later, maybe two years later, I was married at the time. And my wife from the time and I were up in Scotland. And we had a friend in Edinburgh and we had four kids between us. So it wasn't that often that we could get away there any kids. And we had a couple of days we could get. We had all the kids were sort of, you know, in bits of, anyway, we had four, three, two days. And we decided to go up to

the middle of Scotland from Edinburgh. And I said, let's go to Dunkel. This is where my natural mother's family all lived. I wasn't going to find anyone. I just thought it would be a beautiful place to go. We booked into a hotel. And we went up there and there was a delicatessen. That was the delicatessen that my mum owned.

And went in the delicatessen and it was quite peculiar, sat there having a coffee and a sandwich. And at the end, I went up to pay. And I just found myself saying, I haven't planned to say this at all, but I said to the woman at the counter, I said, do you know who owns this delicatessen now at all? I was just quite interested, you know, who it had gone to or whatever.

And so a young woman, I don't know, about the mid-20s, and she said, oh, hey, there's a woman called France, says that unzette. Oh. And I said, oh, right. I said, does she ever come in? She said, no, she's a wee-le-lavin-en remedy, right? And I thought, oh, my God. That's my mum.

That's my mum. And she went, do you know her at all? I said, I used to. and I thought wow and I just sort of went really wow but then so my wife was like wow and we turned round to leave

and as we were going out of the door this woman shouts after me her sister Margaret loves a few daughters along the way oh and I said have you have you got an address she says if you pop into the newsagent

that's got the address there for Margaret I thought I don't know what I do I don't know what I do so me and my wife sort of went and in the room in the hotel and I called it in the end I said if we don't go if we don't go I'm just all my life gonna think what was the matter with me yeah so we've went the news agents oh yeah it's the wee yo a door be the bag tree you know and we went round knocked on the

door woman answered looked possibly the right age said Margaret hey I said it's not an easy way to say this Margaret we're related and she went oh my god your Francis win Oh, my God. Oh, we thought you'd come one day. And she's all of a fluster. Oh, you're better come in. I've not telling you. I didn't know you were coming.

Oh, this sort of thing. And then there was another sister lived around the corner. Oh, my God. So we end up meeting, and then a brother at all sorts. However, there is another sister, a third sister, who lived in North Berwick near Edinburgh. So having had this extraordinary evening And they were really welcoming

And they wanted to connect with you And it was warm They were lovely And the politics thing Of course they said Oh Francis was always very Always very militant and political And

Yeah all sorts of all sorts of things Did they know that Francis had not wanted to see you Or have a relationship? No They had no knowledge of that No no knowledge of it You didn't mention it. I said to them, I said to them that I had sent a letter and all that.

And they didn't know. In fact, they weren't even. They weren't all, Francis had never said to them that she'd had a son. They worked it out. Oh, God. Because various things had happened. So they weren't a close family. They were immensely close family, but Francis had never mentioned it.

Now, here's the extraordinary thing, right? The other sister, this is where the photo comes in. The other sister, by now, I'm a. About, what am I, 44 or something, I don't know. By, at this point, I go round, well, me and my wife, we went to visit the other sister in Edinburgh the next day. She came into Edinburgh. We went down there to meet her in a pub,

the cafe Roy, we might know it, and just not Prince's true. And we're sat in there, and Susan's the eldest. Because Susan was the eldest, she was the one that knew all along that Francis had been pregnant. And I said, what? And you must have discussed what she was going to do with the baby. She said, oh, no, we never met.

She mentioned it. Every week she was getting bigger and bigger and we never once mentioned the fact that she was pregnant And that was just it was just never ever mentioned and then when I was born Yeah, about this when I when I was born I was then taken off her She left the hospital went back to the family house that she'd run away from and it was never mentioned again It was never mentioned that she'd been away nothing and there was and then Susan says one of the most awful things Susan said to me there was just one time a wee family gathering about a week after she'd come back

and we were all sat next to each other and I looked down at Francis and I said you're leaking love you're leaking and she's so upset and she went to the toilet got her wee tissue and dabbed herself down and she was crying and that's the only time it was mentioned

so at this point in proceedings and I imagine I'm like profoundly moved and not knowing what to think with all this then Susan goes into her handbag and she says I tell you what Francis did keep for the first two years until she went to Eatermeny and she brought out that photo Oh my God

And I went Oh that's the photo that was on my side I was like Derham Brown I'd done a 44 year long trick on me How did you get that This woman who I'd never seen you before If I'd passed through the street, I wouldn't know who you were. You've got the photo that I was brought up with.

And my mum had sent a copy of the photo to Francis and she kept it. Oh, so they'd stayed in, they'd kept in touch? Only in as much as my mum had sent to the photo. That's the only contact there was. Oh my God, and she'd carried that photo around and they'd not talked about it. No. Until Francis obviously then decided, I'm letting this go. you know, like when a relationship goes wrong in that moment where you go, I'm letting it go, that's it.

And she's gone, that's it. And she gave Susan, the one sister who knew that it had happened, keep this, I'm going. And she went off to Italy. In fact, it's about 1965 she went to Italy. And Susan had kept that picture all those years. And Susan had kept it all those years and had it in a handbag for when she met me. That's extraordinary. But what, I mean, there's so many questions, aren't there?

but you just think, why would she not want an opportunity to have that closure or connection? I don't know. If she's carrying all that anger and... It's really sad story, Mark. Yeah. It's amazing. And that photo, that's why, you know, we're not to pick five photos. That was like the first one.

I mean, as stories connected to photos go, that's an extraordinary story, isn't it? I mean, I can, goosebumps as Susan gets it out of her. bag. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah, it makes me, it makes me immensely, yeah, it's, it makes me immensely sad, but I sort of, it was very hard to convey from my point of view. It makes me immensely sad, but it doesn't make me immensely sad because it's me and it's my natural mum. It makes me immensely sad. I didn't know her, so I don't feel I have that sort of connection to her. I'm immensely sad because that was the way things were back then. I know what you mean. It's, it's, it's, it's Of all the bits of that story that really wind you up,

it's that sort of like normalisation of repression. Yes. And why is this okay? Why is that okay for a sister not to say? You're pregnant. What are you going to do with that baby? Yes. And then for the parents,

who by all accounts were very liberal people, it turns out. I thought they were, but such was the sort of ideology of 1959, 1990. Unimaginable now. Yeah, unimaginable. But even liberal people would go, no, no. An illegitimate child, you can't be done. And then, of course, you think of all the other things it means. All the people of that time that were gay and couldn't accept it.

And so they lived lives that were a lie and so on. There's a million, million tragedies from that. And it's, you know, and I've made a show. I really, really aimed for my show to be funny. I thought I wanted to follow the rules of stand-up. It's got to be funny all the way through. And I really, really was proud that it was funny all the way through. And it wasn't until it went out on the radio.

and I looked at all the comments coming in. I've never done anything that's got so many comments and all the comments where I'm moving it was. And of course, this is the shallow nature of the comic, Kerry. I'm looking through it going, oh, never mind moving. That's no good to me. Didn't it make you laugh? Yeah, but that's almost like that's a given.

You know what I mean? That's safe. That's safe. Which is your next photo? Because I'm not sure of the chronology. Because it seems that you've, You've done that thing where we jump from you being literally one to a full adult. We've swerved all your childhood and teenage years.

I've got, well, interesting, now you say that, I haven't got a photo there of my childhood years, and that's probably because it was quite bleak. When you say bleak, what do you mean? It was just miserable. The town of Swanley is not a nice, it wasn't nice. And I'm not knocking the people there. I always, you know, well, we'll come on to my relationship with towns in a bit,

but Swanley was not a place that I was in Kent. There was nothing there. It was just houses. It was built for people to move out of London in the 60s. And the idea, it was sold on boredom. You know, this is a place where nothing happens. Oh, yeah, move there. In fact, one pub, which was quite a violent pub.

And I used to do a joke about saying, yeah, the Lullinston it was called. The only pub up there. And he used to say it was literally suicide going in there. these people who go to Switzerland and wasting their money just get a one-way ticket to Swanee, going there, I'm not from around here, that I'd do it. Save it ever.

But it's just... On the way to a clock, once a week on average, more than that. You know, be on the way into class, steal. What? Boof! Wah! And you get a... You'd have to be punched in the eye.

And then you think, oh, that's today's punch in the eye. In fact, one of my first ever jokes I used to do when I first started was that, um, that there was a sort of, we had our own word for al-O, which was, as you walk past someone, is that they'd go, dead leg, my son. It's just, it was,

there was a game that upstairs from my block, I was Beckett block, upstairs was Caxton, I think, or maybe Dickens, anyway, whatever it was, they had a game that they played called Beat Your Head in, and this game, right,

one of the hard kids would sit in the middle of a circle of about 10 other kids, boys, and he'd have a pack the cards, right? And then he'd turn over a card one at a time to all the other kids. And the first one to get a jack, everyone else beat their heading. Oh my God.

It's just unbelievable. They should have that on Sky Sports. Coming up on Sky Sports. Beat your head in, coming from Swanley. So, okay, I will, because you told me beat the heading story, I'll allow you not to have a childed photograph. So where would be the next one? Where are we jumping to? Chronologically, therefore, I think we go to the one of me and Jeremy in Crete.

Ah, that's where you are. And who's the other guy in the picture? I recognise Jeremy, but I didn't know who the other guy is. The other guy in the picture was a taxi driver from Crete whose name I have no idea who it was. And so that's Jeremy Hardy. And I suppose really, I mean, you know, if we're going from my story, the first thing, here is so I got into comedy in the early 20s. No, your early 20s, not the 1920s. Not the early. I used to support Louis Armstrongs.

You look great for your age, Mark. You really do. Oh, I did a fantastic routine about the general strike that I was able to repeat again 60 years later in the minor strike with a cup of... So in this picture, have you just started out in comedy? You and Jeremy. No, I think I've been going a while. That was from 1989.

Right. And I met Jeremy at that point and he quite quickly sort of moved into an area that I was just, I thought I'd never get to. You know, he was like people knew who he was and he'd be turned up at gigs and the people go, oh, Jeremy Ardison. And I think, have you managed that? You know, but it was, he was, he fitted the, he fitted the times and the audiences of the times and it was thoughtful and he was, he was, he was, he was. sort of, you know, I think I was seen as quite working class and brash and threatening a little bit too much for some of that circuit. And Jeremy fitted it. But none of that is to say anything away from the fact he was brilliant. Early, early on, he was brilliant.

I've got a mate who said that he'd been doing stand-up for about a year and a half. And then he saw Jeremy's second gig and he gave up because he thought, I'm not going to ever be that good and that's his second gig. Bloody hell. So Jeremy was, he just had a natural sort of, he was just there, he wasn't that different from at the end, he was just sort of there and, oh right, how are you? And that's sort of, well, here we are sort of thing. And just sort of amiably chatting to people. So it was like going to see someone having a chat. Yes, absolutely.

Which is how we could sometimes go, you know, be really thoughtful and talking about all sorts of philosophical things. You know, and think, wow, you've got the old audience. grasped listening to this and you're not um it it was maddening to do the news quiz with him because he didn't have notes and i'd be sitting there with all my bloody notes and shitting myself and he would have barely any note like just a couple of scribbles on a piece of paper and just be able to so easily you know be funny but also be interesting and and informative and moving and he could just move between all those different um yes i think he did find it easy and i think he did find it easy and i think that's sort of why he couldn't.

A bit like you get that in sport, you'll get someone who's just so, you know, an Ian Boethan type of person or George Best type of person, who finds it so naturally simple. They can't understand why other people are practicing. No, absolutely. I remember watching their documentary years ago about Lionel Bart

and he couldn't read music, he didn't know what the fuck he was doing. And everyone who knew him was like, well, he was a genius. But there is some other sort of gear where people like that, it does come naturally to them. They don't know why everyone else is struggling so much. No, I think that's right. And I think Jeremy sort of was a bit like, was a bit like that. He was never someone who worked.

I don't want to make it sound like he was lazy. No, no, he worked hard. But he just, he could do it. But then he had time to do all these. I think, how do you have time to do all these other things? I know. I know. That was what was amazing about the memorial.

I just couldn't believe how much he'd done in his life. And I was like, yeah, it was amazing. A brilliant thing. But I think everybody who was amazing. was attracted to comedy then was had a sort of element of um of a little bit sort of like i'm a little bit this is this is a bit mad and a sense of mischief and jeremy was just so this is why he was so brilliantly unpredictable as a mate he was you just didn't know whether he was gonna he could

sometimes be the most pc person of all go mark i'm surprised you've said that because that's actually a little bit, I find that a little bit sort of, you know, condescending towards young Inuit people really to be on anything. What, Jeremy? And then other times it'd say the most fucking outrageous

thing that you think no one would say that. No one. The most sort of deliberate shock job person would go, you know, it's one of the, how it's stirbs to it. Hey, you've got too far, Hardy. It's fucking outrageous things. So, I mean, this is a really

mild example but Jeremy was sort of worked so extraordinarily hard for the Birmingham Six campaign the six Irish people who were wrongly jailed for the Birmingham pub bombing yeah and Jeremy took it upon himself to be actually one of the main leading campaigners didn't do what the rest of you know we do the Benny Fits and all that he actually got the lawyers and all sorts of things and then they were released as extraordinary moment given what would happen 18 years in jail and at the at the sort of celebration for it there was various people people up and Irish bands and all sorts of people and then there was a call for Jeremy to get up and say something people wanted to

Jeremy to get up say something and from all which year Jeremy for his role in it oh he didn't want to do it he didn't want to do it though in the end up come Jeremy you got to do it so he got up and he just went I don't know why I bothered really I fucking ain't paddy be hard he would do that I was fucking howling it was just the funniest thing so tell me about this story in Cree when this picture was taken. Well, we went on holiday to Creep when we were, I mean, we were just such good mates really. And that picture, I just think we're just a sort of, we're both just appellee in each other's company really. And I just sort of, we had this brilliant week with it. He was married at the time, me and his, and his wife. And we just went around Crete. And he was just, and this is, all through that holiday, what I remember is in just, he was.

we were just making each other laugh. And I always think, you know, because this is, I'm never going to have another friend like that. 35 years, we were so close, we did so many things together. We were associated so closely that like, there was a rule on the news quiz. We couldn't both be on it at the same time.

It was almost like having the same, two of the same person. And I would have very different, but... Not everybody gets to have that. You know, like you say, you went on holidays together. You hung out with your kids growing up together, and it's not everyone doesn't get to have that experience you know it's it's quite extraordinary no maybe not no no and we were still such good mates really around each other's houses all the time and stuff and in a way

when he was dying in one way it was sort of it was the same i mean i went around with my son one day when he was having chemo and he was you know having the chemo while i was while we were sat there in what turned out to be what three four months from he had three four months to live and um and he was being really really funny about about things and stuff you know and it was sort of almost the same as normal and we've sort of and then you come away thinking oh i must have got it wrong he hasn't got anything wrong with him he's all right it must be you know you almost feel like that but like it because the core of him isn't going to change even right on death's doorstep, is it? He's still, Jeremy, he's still going to be that person in that photograph

that I'm looking at now. It's, you know, that's, I mean, it'd be almost kind of more weird if he suddenly had a personality transplant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, even in the hospital he was like it, when I took him into the hospital a few times when he was weeks from death. He went in, and Jack took him in one day and Jack said, Jack D took him one day. And Jeremy went in to see the oncologist and he said, oh, hello, he said, this is my, uh, This is my trainee. He's walking around here training for when he's got cancer. Oh, God.

Bloody hell. But if you, I mean, if you were of any proper use at all, it's to cope with this shit. I mean, God, if you can't do it when you're at,

you're most emotionally vulnerable and have it to use it. You know, what are you supposed to all do? Sit there and... Yes, and it's sort of, I know people say, oh, it's a way of hiding the pain.

But I don't think it is. Coping with it. You know, it's why this is why I get so frustrated at this thing of like, oh, is that joke offensive and all that sort of thing? I think, you know, who tells the most sick jokes?

Paramedics, people like that. And it's not because they don't care. They've not said this because they don't care. They've said it because they do. And it's a sort of, it's a way of expressing how much they care that they make a joke about the fact that they've had something terrible that they've seen that day and so on.

You know, it's not. and I think comics do that. That's why if you're going to tell a joke about death and war and these subjects, you don't do it because you don't care about them things. It's your way of expressing how you do. No, quite, absolutely. What I love about that picture as well, because I went to Crete a lot as a child in the 80s.

So it really doesn't. It is very much an 80s photograph because I love how all these different pictures are anchored to time. Like that picture of you as a baby is very much a 60s photo. And then, you know, my childhood was in the 70s and they all looked like everything's brown and velour. and like and this one is an 80s picture and i love the way that jeremy's wearing a suit and a shirt and chino and you're rocking a whole different look there mark and you've got a spectacular

moustache like you've really gone for a full tom selic there yes why well it's a choice that you were making probably daily on the shaving front yes well i'm asking you why i'm not sort of um well it's your face mate why why why why you're Have you gone, was it ironic? Were you being ironic? I don't know. Well, you were in Greece and they do like a tash in Greece, don't they? It's a very Mediterranean look you've gone for.

I've no idea. You know when you get these people go, I've got no regrets. What's the point about it, no regrets? I regret having that mustache. It's very dashing. You look like you're in a sort of merchant ivory. Were you trying out for a merchant ivory gig at that time? If only, if only there was that.

If only it was something to do with, oh, well, I was doing a, I was doing a character at the time. I was playing a soldier and I nipped off for a week and creak with Jeremy. You know what's better than the one big thing? Two big things. Exactly. The new iPhone 17 Pro on Tullis' five-year rate plan price lock. Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever.

Plus, more peace of mind with your bill over five years. This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at tellus.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. What picture is next then if we went chronologically? If we went chronologically, there's one of me on a bike. Ah, yes. Now, it's a very fuzzy picture, so what is it of?

So I'm dressed as Fidel Castro. Of course you are. And Martin Hider is behind me, and he's dressed as shape of aura. Now, the significance of the significance of the... this is I did a show first on the radio called the Mark Steele Lectures and when BBC 4 began

BBC 4 someone from BBC 4 rang me when I look back on it this is the most extraordinary luck someone from BBC 4 rang me well I'm from this new channel that's started called BBC 4 and we really like your radio series and we wondered if you'd like to do it on the television

and I thought what so I went in that's like a dream call isn't it when someone's like they really want what you're doing accept that I thought what's BBC for no one's going to watch that it was almost like some channel that no one's going to see you know at that time but then I was persuaded by more sensible people that this was a really good idea and we did and we ended up doing three series of the at the Marksdale lectures for people who don't know most people the idea is that it's a sort of it's a talk about

someone prominent in history like Beethoven we did and dankart and Isaac Newton and and people like that. And this one was Che Guevara. So I was sort of with a team of people that I were just, I don't know if it was luck, could it be luck? They were just randomly frowned together and we become the most brilliant mates. And we went out to Bolivia. So I remember thinking that's a bit wasteful. We don't need to do that. But anyway, the next thing, we're all out in Bolivia. We were supposed to go to Cuba, obviously Che Guevara being Cuba, he was Argentina, but Cuba was what made him famous. And, but the rules were you had to send the script to the Cuban government where the person head in the head of culture was Che Guevara's daughter.

And she read the script and it just come back and said, this is taking the piss. And you were like, yeah. Yeah, so we weren't allowed to do it. So we had to go to Bolivia. Like you said, you could have probably shot it in, you know, out of London. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But it was fantastic and we had the most brilliant time in Bolivia. There's a little bus taking us over this mountain.

It was this really, really brilliant South American mountain with windy roads, like at the end of the Italian job. This bus going round and sometimes the back of the bus would just be, I don't know, 8,000 foot in the air over this big drop. and you'd look down, oh shit is it, this little Bolivian crinkly sort of bus driver in a little South American cap drove around these mountains. Jesus, there's one moment I remember as we're going down,

it's even worse, just crawling at three miles an hour around these sharp bends up this mountain. And there was a Paraguayan woman was our guide, and she sat at the front. And James just got up and stood next to her, and went, right, right, everyone, that's it, I've had enough. We're all going to die on this fucking thing I'm not having it

Stop the fucking bus I'm getting off I've had enough I'm not gonna fucking go clearing down the fucking cliff Just stop the bus And the Paraguaywoman Just very calmly

She went Yes if you want to get off the bus Maybe we start bus You get off maybe But it's still three mile To village where we go And this area Maybe not good idea

To get off bus Because this area There is great many wolves change your plan stay on the bus stay on the bus but all the time we just so

we had such a laugh out there at so many times so that particular photo so I was the reason I thought of that one I mean first of all it's Bolivia was where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was filmed

so and there was a bit that found in one of the sort of diaries of Jay's diaries where Che Guevara and Fidel Castro used to like cycling together. So I thought, ah, that can be like a Butch Cassidy and the Sundarstein the famous scene where they're on the bikes.

We'll do that, but with me as Castro and him as Che Guevara. But that's the sort of thing we did all the time. We were trying to do parodies of programs and stuff. And that all the time was the joke. And that's all the time. You don't have to go through a million executives to approve it. You're just allowed to do it. I think that, and I'm only just becoming aware of this after all this time, I think that when you're a stand-up, it's really lonely by definition. It's just you.

And I look back on that time, and that's for three years, my work in life was with a group of other people. And it was never, I don't ever remember it being stressful. Right. I don't ever remember, I don't remember arguments. I don't remember, well, I don't really argue with people much, but I don't ever remember sort of, you'd get stressed because you'd be thinking, oh, how are we going to make this work or something.

Yeah, but I don't ever remember it, and it was working with other people. It was just lovely. You'd get in and there'd be a group of other people, and it'd be like, mate, do you get the kettle on and you're having a laugh, and it's hard-bought-nine-in-all-old. It is the one downside of stand-up, because I get asked a lot, what do I prefer acting or comedy?

And I'm like, well, I like both, but I do love company. I love having colleagues and working in a team. I mean, let's go to the next picture now because that seems like a natural leap. That's a picture of me with my son, who I think would have been maybe coming up to five at the time, I would guess. And Elliot, who's now stand up himself.

Yes. And my daughter, Eloise, who would have been about six months at the time. And where's that picture taken? And we're in Estonia. We had sort of had a holiday in Finland. which I thought would be a fascinating place to go to and we went to Finland and then while we were there you can get a boat to Estonia and we had a day in Estonia. Right. My lad, I love the fact that he's slightly mischievous there and not looking at the camera and stuff. Oh God, kids are sods for just pulling faces when they're getting a picture taken.

Yeah. Well, my lad become a stand-up. My daughter's very funny as well. And she's watching him. I love it that she's slightly twisted round to look at her big brother being playful. What's he got? What's he holding up to his face? I don't know, I think it's a bit of Lego. Like a Viking toy or something. Yes, there's something like that. Yes, it might be Viking toy because we've been Finland.

Oh, there we are, yeah. In the museum or something. Within being around comics all the time as a kid, he just sort of sussed, oh, right, this is our jokes work. Right. And he was very young when the first time I thought, oh, I think you're going to be a comic, because he was just a couple of things, he said,

that were just made enough jumps to think, oh, right, you sussed that. So when he was about eight or nine, there was the draw for the World Cup. And he loved football. And I said he was going to watch the draw for the World Cup so do England get. And without even looking up, he went, oh, what's the point? Even if we're drawn against Easter Island, we'll lose to the statues. Yeah, you could just pretty much put that wholesale in a routine.

Yeah. And there was, he kept doing that. And then when later, when I was married and, uh, when I was married and, uh, My wife said to me about a friend. She said, oh God, about a friend who got stuck and a car broke down. And she had to call the RSC, she said instead of the RAC. And I just immediately said, oh, she called the RSC. Did they come round and go, ah, yonder head gasket, me thinks.

My oil doth poreth forth from the, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's what a comic would do. And then, Elliot was about 12 by then. And I said, tell Elliot the same thing. And I bet he does the same. And then Elliot come in. She said, oh, you know my friend? Yeah, she had to call the RSC.

And he went, oh, the RSC. Did he go, oh, indeed, methinks thine yonder. And I thought, yeah, because you suss that that's what a comic would do. Immediately would go, the RSC, car broken down, that's what you do. Did you swell with pride? Is it like a kind of father-son moment? My favourite one, when he was about 13. and he got there, a mate who was Polish.

He introduced me to his mate, he said, yeah, my mate was Polish. I said, oh, all right, son, how are you doing? He said, so my lad went, don't worry, Dad. He says, I do jokes all the time about how we saved his lot in the war. I said, what? He said, yeah, I'll do jokes all the time about his lot would have been stuff without us in the war. I said, do you? Listen, I said, you know the Battle of Britain, right?

Start of the war that meant there had no chance to get in here. I said, you know what? One in five of the pilots, do you know where they came from? They came from Poland. And he turned straight to his mate. He said, see you a knicking out, you'll be back then. Thank you so much. What a wonderful way to spend the morning.

Good. Well, enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the sunshine. All right, Kerry. See you on the other side, I hope. Yeah, it won't be long now. That's it for this week. The rest of Series 1 is available with

all the photos on our Instagram page and Jen and I will be doing new episodes every week. Thanks for listening. Bye. I'm Max Rushden. I'm David O'Dardy. And we'd like to invite you to listen to our new podcast What Did You Do Yesterday? It's a show that asks guests the big question.

Quite literally, what did you do yesterday? That's it. That is it. Max, I'm still not sure. Where do we put the stress? Is it what did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? You know what I mean? did you do yesterday? I'm really down playing it. Like, what did you do yesterday?

Like, I'm just, I'm just a guy just asking a question. But do you think I should go bigger? What did you do yesterday? Every single word this time, I'm going to try and make it like it is the killer word. What did you do yesterday? I think that's too much, isn't it? That is over the top. What did you do yesterday?

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