Description
After the death of his mother in childbirth, Eric Sykes was farmed out and left under the eye of a parrot that lived above his cot. Two years later, his father came to collect him. 'Neither he nor anyone else could understand what I was babbling about. Hardly surprising, as I'd never learned English, but spoke fluent parrot. From this unpromising beginning he became one of Britain's best-loved comedy writers and performers.In this memoir Sykes describes how he grew up in the cotton mill town of Oldham and worked in the world of flat caps and overalls, before leaving to serve his country as a wireless operator in the RAF. Whilst he was waiting for demob, Bill Fraser, an officer, formed a concert party, which Eric joined. This was to be the beginning of his career under the bright lights: there, and in repertory companies after the war, he discovered his love of making an audience laugh and his talent for vaudeville. Following a phone call from Frankie Howerd, he became a radio scriptwriter, too. He established a 'fun factory' with Spike Milligan, and wrote and performed his own television shows most notably the popular sitcom Sykes and A in which he starred with Hattie Jacques.It was a career that took him all over the world and brought him friendships with such entertainers as Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Jimmy Edwards. Later he rediscovered drama, performing the 'top banana', Shakespeare, for the first time at the age of eighty. He was also a proud family man, who rose above severe deafness and, eventually, blindness with his ability to find a daffodil in every dustbin.
ISBN:9780007214853
