Morecambe Eric - Eric Morecambe : lost and found

The author with his dad! A publicity shot we had taken in 1982, prior to a joint appearance on Russell Hartys chat show. GM

Just because he was on a pedestal, and has remained there for me even now as I write these words at the tender age of fifty-six, doesnt mean every day is a rose-tinted memory. As a father and son, we could argue quite easily but Dad and comedian Eric Morecambe were two different things to me, and they were to him, too, as he mostly referred to their double act in the third person.

I suppose that, until I was a teenager, squabbling or doing anything that was considered unbecoming was completely off the agenda. But what a ten-year-old might go along with, a seventeen-year-old does not.

Its strange to recall that even my teenage angst (what little there was of it) was diffused by his humour. Its really difficult to be the defiant child when the parent doesnt outwardly disagree with any opinions you have, but with comedic precision exposes the limitations of your thought processes. And it was so difficult to outrage a man who never understood the meaning of embarrassment.

The only way to upset my father was to mention Ernie Wise in a negative way. He could say what he wanted at any given moment about his partner , but that wasnt a licence for you to join in. Its something Ive given much thought to in recent times, and my conclusion would be that each was very protective of the other theyd been together since the age of twelve or thirteen. Closer than brothers, their scriptwriter Eddie Braben has described them. I wouldnt argue with that. I know, for instance, that they would finish each others sentences in a manner suggestive of a childhood spent together.

I wrote in an earlier book about my father that it would certainly be my last written work about Eric Morecambe. And so it would have been had not circumstances contrived to occasion what you are now reading.

It began on a visit to my mothers house at the beginning of 2011. On arriving at the old family home, filled with childhood memories coloured by my fathers massive personality, I found her in the kitchen waving a copy of The Times newspaper in her hand. She showed me a photo of my father taken at a Luton Town FC event. It was a photo neither of us had set eyes upon. Imagine how many photos of Dad must be out there that we havent seen, she remarked, unaware what impact those words were to have on me.

Yes, I nodded. Wouldnt it be great to collect some of them and put them into a book so we have a permanent record?

It was just a throwaway comment, but one that would lead to precisely that end. At that particular time though, the thought of trawling through my own and others personal photographic collections, as well as those of the media, to collate photos of my father was not a realistic one. I was busy with other things, particularly directing a run of short films for transmission on selected satellite TV channels, and my intention never to do any more Morecambe & Wise-related books had not been formed lightly. Id been writing books related to my father on and off for some thirty years surely that was enough!