Ooh!” says Roy Hudd’s lovely wife, Debbie, apologetically.
“Did you ring a couple of minutes ago? I’m so sorry –bit of a mix-up. I answered it at the same time as Roy and put it down.”
She hands the phone over to her husband.“Hello!” says Roy Hudd; same warm voice – permanently on the brink of a chuckle – as broadcast the News Huddlines for over 26 years on the crest of the Radio 2 waves.
“Oh, I’m so glad I’ve managed finally to get you!” I say, relieved.
“We’ve got each other now,” Roy Hudd reassures me, “and I’ll be leaving the wife tomorrow.”
Croydon Empire, early 1950s. A pint-size Roy Hudd is sitting in a seat in the gallery with his Gran – squeezed in under the roof – ready for the 6.15 show. “Any higher and I’ll get a nosebleed,” his Gran always says. Today – quite possibly – she’s gone without a meal to scrape the money for a ticket. But, even if she hadn’t quite managed those few coins, they’d have stood at the end of the alley, just down from the theatre, ready to watch glamorous performers – ‘heavily made-up ladies and handsome camel haired overcoated, brown trilby-hatted men’ – exit the stage door. (Though none earns as much praise from Gran for their outfits as the lads from the drag shows.)
She’s a shrewd audience, is Gran. Loves the comics more than anything: “I don’t want miserable singers singing about all the terrible problems they’re having. I want to come out smiling!” Gran predicted early on the success of Max Bygraves, Frankie Howerd and Harry Secombe. Roy knew a comedian had made it whenever she bestowed on him her highest praise: “Silly sod,” she’d say, fondly.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 2019 من Cotswold Life.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 2019 من Cotswold Life.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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