The Tears of a Clown

Chris Hallam remembers Bob Grant, a troubled star of On the Buses

- Chris Hallam

It would have been a sad end for anyone, let alone someone primarily associated with the world of comedy. But on 8 November 2003, the body of actor Bob Grant had been found in his car in Twyning, near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. Aged 71, he remained most famous for his role as the chirpy clippie Jack Harper in the ITV sitcom On the Buses. Tragically, it soon emerged Grant had taken his own life.

Grant had suffered with bipolar disorder for years. As early as 1987, he had disappeared from his Leicestershire home, during a difficult spell of unemployment which had followed his appearance in a production of Cinderella in Redhill, Surrey. Hi-de-Hi! star Ruth Madoc had been among those launching public appeals for Grant's safe return. Afterwards, he spoke with unusual openness about his experiences.

"For me the worst time was when the panto ended," he recalled. "To have a taste of what work could be like again, then to have that snatched away from me, was awful. All I could see was the empty months ahead, debts building up, no hope. I went into a black depression. I'd sit for hours with my head in my hands. I felt that I was in a black room with no window and no door, and the walls were coming in towards me. I just felt like screaming. I knew I had to get out, get away. I wanted to die, and I decided to top myself."

Eight years later, Grant was rescued from his car in West Sussex after a suicide attempt shortly before he was due on stage. This was eight years before his eventual death in 2003.

Though he would become most famous for playing a cockney, workingclass character, Robert St Clair Grant was a well-spoken, privately educated and classically trained actor. Born in Hammersmith, west London in 1932, he attended Aldenham School and studied at Rada before completing his National Service as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. He made his theatrical debut in the play Worm's Eye View in 1952.