My friend Doddy: The Shropshire Star's Shirley Tart says Ken Dodd would turn the tears to happiness
At the beginning, he cherished the marvellous ability to make people laugh. At the end, he was half of an extraordinary love story.
Last Friday, Sir Ken Dodd secretly married the lovely Anne Jones, his partner for 40 years. The registrar went to the house in Liverpool’s Knotty Ash where Ken was born - and Anne became Lady Dodd.
Two days later, a light went out. Ken died, leaving a devoted wife and a nation in disbelief. Because despite his 90 years, he was truly one of those very special people you really thought would go on forever.
But it comes two weeks after Ken was discharged from Liverpool Heart and Chest hospital after six weeks of treatment for a severe chest infection.
His long time publicist and friend Robert Holmes said: “He asked Anne if she wanted to marry him, so they got the registrar and were married in the house on Friday. He died two days later on Mothering Sunday.”
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Speaking outside their home, former Bluebell Girl Lady Anne Dodd said: “I have lost a most wonderful husband. We first met when I was in the Ken Dodd Christmas Show in 1961 at the Manchester Opera House.
“I've had the supreme joy and privilege of working and living with him as a partner for the past 40 years.
“The world has lost a most life-enhancing, brilliant, creative comedian with an operatically trained voice, who just wanted to make people happy. He lived to perfect his art and entertain his live and adoring audiences.
Overwhelmed
“I've been overwhelmed by the love and affection which I've already received from dear friends and the public and I thank you all for being here.”
A wonderful tribute from a lovely lady. It was always a pleasure to see Anne as well as the man himself.
Because his humour was so gentle and genuinely made people laugh without a hint of unpleasantness or embarrassing innuendo, we loved him all the more.
I’ve been writing about Ken and his incomparable life for more than 50 years and was honoured early on in that friendship when he asked if I would do a bit of ghost writing for him for a TV magazine. This meant a few trips to the legendary Knotty Ash pad – on the first visit, his coal merchant dad was still alive and ushered me in to wait for his son to appear. Late again, Doddy, but instantly forgiven!
Another time, I took my mum after we had been visiting friends elsewhere in Liverpool. Can you imagine how that went? She was a great Doddy fan. He was charming and presented her with a Diddy Man which took pride of place in her china cabinet back home. Mum also took an afternoon of special memories to share with friends back home.
And then acquired numerous copies of the music which heralded his second, successful career.
Melodies
We welcomed Ken to Shropshire on many occasions, including Shropshire Star perfect pub competitions and the like. On one memorable occasion he called the Star saying he was running a bit late and could he speak to Lady Shirley.
A kindly switchboard girl told him helpfully that they had a Shirley but she wasn’t a lady!
It’s sometimes all too easy to talk sweepingly about people leaving gaps in our lives, in this case, for many of us it is all too true.
Ken Dodd was a one-off, a local Liverpudlian lad who died in the house where he was born.
Of course there is sadness today at his passing but he wouldn’t have that. So what would our Doddy be saying to us now? In the final lyrics of one of his heart-tugging melodies perhaps something like the following?
“Tears have been my only consolation, but tears won’t mend a broken heart. I must confess.
Let’s forgive and forget, turn those tears of regret once more to tears of happiness.”
That’s what Doddy would have wanted for us all!
Some of the best lines from the king:
“I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for 18 months. I don’t like to interrupt her.”
“Men’s legs have a terribly lonely life – standing in the dark in your trousers all day.”
“It’s 10 years since I went out of my mind. I’d never go back.”
“You think you can get away, but you can’t. I’ll follow you home and I’ll shout jokes through your letterbox” – when he was still going strong at a show as it approached midnight.
“Do I believe in safe sex? Of course I do. I have a handrail around the bed.”
“It’s a privilege to be asked to play here tonight on what is a very special anniversary. It is 100 years to the night since that balcony collapsed” – addressing people in The Gods at a provincial theatre.
“The French didn’t object to British beef in 1940.”
“Honolulu: it’s got everything: sand for the children, sun for the wife, sharks for the wife’s mother.”
“Age doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese” – on approaching his 80th birthday.
“Doctor, ‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m approaching 50’. ‘From which direction?’.”
“How do you make a blonde laugh on a Sunday? Tell her a joke on a Wednesday.”
“How many men does it take to change a toilet roll? Nobody knows. It’s never been tried.”
“Fifty-five years in show business, ladies and gentlemen. That’s a hell of a long time to wait for a laugh.”
“My act is very educational. I heard a man leaving the other night, saying: ‘Well, that taught me a lesson’.”
“I used to think I was marvellous in bed until I discovered that all my girlfriends suffered from asthma.”
“The man who invented cats’ eyes got the idea when he saw the eyes of a cat in his headlights. If the cat had been going the other way, he would have invented the pencil sharpener.”
Ken Dodd even came up with a few quips regarding his famous tax fraud trial...
“They stole that idea from me” – Referring to the Inland Revenue and self-assessment of income tax.
“I told the Inland Revenue I didn’t owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside.”
“In the 1800s, one of the MPs in London decided to introduce tax. In those days it was 2p in the pound. I thought it still was.”
“I thought it would be a good idea to go into politics. Maybe I am a little old, but you know, I’d love to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That way I’ll be united with my money.”
“Good evening, my name is Kenneth Arthur Dodd – singer, photographic playboy and failed accountant.”
When asked by the trial judge what it felt like to have a hundred thousand pounds stashed in a suitcase in his attic, Dodd replied: “The notes are very light, my lord.”
