Bernard Cribbins - Bernard Who?: 75 Years of Doing Just About Everything

CONSTABLE

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Constable

Copyright Bernard Cribbins and James Hogg, 2018

Unless otherwise specified all images from Bernard Cribbinss personal archive.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-47213-014-3

Constable

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Little, Brown Book Group

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London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

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www.littlebrown.co.uk

Contents

For Gill

W ell hello there!

Mr Bernard Cribbins here. Character actor, fisherman, former paratrooper, catwalk model and purveyor of the odd story. I expect thats why youre here, isnt it? To have me tell you a few tales? Well, youre in luck. Except this time, as opposed to me recounting somebody elses yarn, Im going to be telling you my own, and in my own words. What a strange experience thats going to be. Cribbins on Cribbins.

It was only when somebody mentioned it to me the other day that I realised Id been telling tales of one sort or another for over seventy-five years. SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS! Thats quite scary, dont you think? After all, according to a pal of mine whos in the know, thats four and a half years longer than the worldwide average life expectancy, which means that while half the world has been popping its clogs, Ive been rabbiting on!

Whats been even more terrifying than the fact that yours truly has been acting the fool for over three-quarters of a century has been the task of trying to remember the details of what Ive done. Im not a diarist, you see, and the old memorys a bit up and down. Ive been getting there gradually, though, Im happy to say, but theres been an awful lot of toing and froing. Just when I think Ive finished writing about a certain part of my life, something else springs to mind, and then something else. I havent half got on my own nerves.

Bernard, I say to myself. Youve forgotten that story about Peter Sellers during the making of Two-Way Stretch . And what about that thing Lionel Jeffries said to you during The Railway Children ? Thats not in yet. I ask you. Come along Bernard, my old son. Get a grip. I sometimes think that if I had a brain Id be dangerous.

By the way, in the interests of us all having a good time, I think we should keep the proceedings on the page, so to speak, quite warm and conversational, dont you? I want you to imagine Im sitting in front of you with this very book, and Im reading it just for you. Exactly like I used to do on Jackanory . Did you ever watch Jackanory when you were young? I expect some of you did. I hold the record for making the most episodes of that show and in my opinion that makes me one of the luckiest old codgers on earth. Why? Because I got to narrate some of the greatest stories that have ever been thought up by man or beast, thats why. Better still, I got paid for it! The only thing that might get a little bit lost in translation are things like accents, noises and silly voices, so Ill let you know when ones coming, OK? Then, youll have to bring them to life. You can do that, cant you?

Do you know what I used to do just before we started recording an episode of Jackanory ? I used to look straight into the camera lens and imagine that there was one little boy or girl just one sitting patiently but expectantly waiting for me to tell them a story. Then, once I had that picture in my head, thats exactly what Id do. Tell them a story. Ive been doing something similar with this story, by the way, except the person Im talking to is obviously holding a book. And, theyre a bit older, of course. It might be a slightly odd way of getting your life story across, but thats how Ive always prepared, you see. The Jackanory method , I call it.

Anyway, are you ready? Are you sitting comfortably, as the saying goes? Then I will begin. After all, weve an awful lot of ground to cover. And were doing the whole thing, by the way, not just the career.

Where shall we start then?

At the beginning?

Well, it seems as good a place as any, doesnt it?

Here we go then.

I, Bernard Joseph Cribbins the first and last, with any luck was born in Oldham, Lancashire, on 29 December 19-something something. Oh, all right then. Youve squeezed it out of me. I was born on 29 December 1928, almost ninety years ago. If that sounds depressing to you, imagine what its doing to me.

One of the things people often ask me about when they meet me is my surname. Some assume its just a stage name, but it isnt. Think about it: if you had to choose a new surname for yourself, youre hardly likely to choose Cribbins, are you? Not that theres anything wrong with it, although it is quite unique. I know there are one or two people called Cribbin knocking about but Cribbins seems to be about as rare as hens teeth. Thats good for an actor as people tend to remember you.

The name is Irish, in the first place, and I think it comes from the Gaelic name, McRoibin. Somewhere along the way it became McRibbin, then Cribbin, and then Cribbins. According to my mother the s was tagged on when it became a possessive. You know, Thats Cribbins cow, or Thats Cribbins dog.

For those of you who arent familiar with the town of Oldham, it rose to prominence in the eighteenth century as a centre of textile manufacturing, or a mill town, as they were known, and although its within the county of Lancashire it sits treacherously close to the Peoples Republic of Yorkshire. According to this pal of mine I mentioned whos in the know or, I should say, who knows how to use a computer other infamous Oldhamites include Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball, Dora Bryan, who youll hear about in a bit, Phillip Schofield, Brian Cox (the physicist, not the actor), the actor Jack Wild, who played the Artful Dodger in Lionel Bartss Oliver! , and a certain gentleman named Eric Sykes who you shall also hear a bit about later on.

The area of Oldham we lived in was and still is called Glodwick pronounced Glod-ick and our abode was a tiny little two-up-two-down that was one of thousands around the area. Anyone who hails from an urban part of the north of England will probably know what Im talking about here, as almost every town or city has them.

The luxurious facilities at Chez Cribbins included a cold-water tap, a tin bath and an outside loo that we used to call the long drop. Dont you think thats quaint? In a lavatorial kind of way. No cistern and a chain for us, thank you very much. We used to have to make our own entertainment. If you think your stomach can take it, Ill go into a little bit of detail about this as its quite fun. Well, the long drop was literally a long porcelain tube that led from the bottom of our loo to a platform that used to tilt when a sufficient amount of material had landed on it. Am I making sense, so far? Dont think about it too much, or youll be there for ever. Anyway, whenever it rained heavily, which it does rather a lot in Oldham, some of the rain water would drain through grids onto this platform and when that happened the blasted thing would be tilting all night. CO-BADUNK, CO-BA-DUNK, CO-BA-DUNK, it used to go. I used to lie in bed listening to it and, if it hadnt been for the fact that I knew what else was falling onto it, it might have been quite cathartic!