I REMEMBER...Andy Hamilton

Andy Hamilton, 67, is one of our most famous comedy writers. With partner Guy Jenkin he's written Drop the Dead Donkey, Outnumbered and Kate & Koji. He looks back at finding his feet in comedy and explains why he refuses to carry a mobile phone

- Vicki Power

1998-ish Revolting People: Andy, Jay Tarses and James Fleet

MY BEDROOM WINDOW OVERLOOKED A BOMB SITE.

Because my dad was a returning prisoner of war, he got our house in Fulham at a controlled rent. Out of my window I could see the remains of about six houses overgrown with weeds, but with lots of ghostly staircases and features still there. My brother, Pete, who’s seven years older than me, and I were warned never to play on the bombsite because of the possibility of unexploded ordnance. Still, on Bonfire Night a massive bonfire would be built there and our windows would get so hot that they’d actually start to bend and move. It usually ended with the fire department being called.

I WAS BORN WITH SCOLIOSIS [A CURVATURE OF THE SPINE] AND I’VE GOT THE THUMB MISSING ON MY RIGHT HAND.

They’re just congenital things. I’ve not got dwarfism, which some people think because some of the vertebrae in my neck are fused and left me with a short neck. I’m five foot three—I used to be five foot four, not that I’m sensitive about it! I used to go to hospital regularly for clinical photographs. There was some worry that during puberty I would grow really fast and that would cause problems with my neck, but luckily I didn’t, so there was no need for medical intervention. As a kid I was conscious of being one of the smallest in the school, but I don’t think I was bullied any more than the standard level of bullying in a boys’ school. I never felt singled out.

MY DAD’S EXPERIENCES OF THE WAR PROBABLY AFFECTED HIM.