Kenny Everett - Kenny Everett: The Custard Stops at Hatfield

RETRO CLASSICS

is a collection of facsimile reproductions

of popular bestsellers from the 1980s and 1990s

The Custard Stops at Hatfield was first published in 1982 by Willow Books

Re-issued in 2012 as a Retro Classic

by G2 Entertainment

in association with Lennard Publishing

Windmill Cottage

Mackerye End

Harpenden

Hertfordshire

AL5 5DR

Copyright Kenny Everett and Simon Booker 1982

eISBN 978-1-78281-173-2

Produced by Lennard Books

a division of

Lennard Associates Limited

Editor Michael Leitch

Title page illustration by Ron Mercer

Designed by David Pocknells Company Ltd

This book is a facsimile reproduction of the first edition of The Custard Stops at Hatfield which was a bestseller in 1982.

No attempt has been made to alter any of the wording with the benefit of hindsight, or to update the book in any way.

H ello, darling reader!

Thank you for buying this book. You wont regret it. And neither will my bank manager.

As you will discover, what a truly amazing volume it is! If you place pages 1648 in a pre-heated oven they will turn into a life-size replica of the Taj Mahal. Either that, or theyll burn a lot. But then, lifes like that.

As you know, Ive lived a quiet life, always eaten my greens and been kind to animals and TV chat-show hosts.

My ambition is to help old-age pensioners to build better motorways. (That bit was just in case my Mother reads this book.) For the real inside story of Cuddly Ken, look out HERE COMES THE NEXT BIT!

F rom an ancient manuscript sent to Rome by a Governor of Judea, Publius Lentulus, in about 7 BC: He is tall and elegantly shaped; his hair falling in graceful curls, agreeably couching on his shoulders; his cheeks without blemish and of roseate hue, and his beard thick, reaching a little below his chin and parting in the middle.

From an ancient manuscript sent to a filing cabinet by a registration clerk, Manny Handsmakelightwork, in about 1944 AD: He is small and shaped like a hot-water bottle; his hair falls like a premature Brillo pad; his cheeks look like a relief map of India and his thick tongue reaches a little below his teeth and dribbles a lot.

The subject of the first description is Jesus Christ, with whom the subject of the second, me, has nothing in common except the birthday and the beard.

The time: 3.00 am, 25th December 1944.

The place: Hereford Road, Crosby, near Liverpool. (Too near, if you ask me.)

The event: Much squealing, grunting, puffing and pushing.

The result: Maurice James Christopher Cole, later to become your own Cuddly Ken.

Four months later the Germans surrendered: draw your own conclusions.

Im sure my Mother hasnt forgiven me for being born at that unearthly time of day. She used to take it out on me by showing me postcards of a place called Bootle which was near where we lived and was where you were sent if you were a naughty boy. Bootle was full of holes, due to the bombs and Hitler and all that.

If there hadnt been a war on Id probably have been born in a hospital, but in those days hospitals were for pansies so I was born at home. Makes sense really when you remember that there were people with legs hanging off from the war. A birth was quite a normal thing: a bit like flu.

Looking up from my cot and saying Moon. (What was my cot doing out on the street at night?)

Hereford Road, Liverpool 21, is in between two sewage outlets from the River Mersey and the area was pock-marked with holes. I came into the world during the last dangling remnants of the war and the Germans had this thing about bombing. The docks were nearby and they used to come over and strafe the surrounding area. But they obviously couldnt be too accurate because they were going at a hell of a lick and when they passed over they just said: Right zen Fritz, lets drrop zem here, and a lot of it fell around us.

Mums name is Elizabeth. Her maiden name was Haugh and Dad used to call her Heave-Haugh for a laugh. Humour was very thin on the ground in Liverpool.

This chapter illustrated by Paul Leith.

Dads called Tom and he was a tug-boat captain. He used to get the ships in and out of the harbour during the war. When he wasnt doing that he used to do naughty things to Mum and here I am: five-foot-three of wiry, white blancmange. I probably would have been built like Marble Arch if Mother hadnt been so bad at cooking. She knew more ways to murder an egg than any woman alive. Mind you, it wasnt entirely her fault: there was a war on rationing and all that and she only had one little cooking ring, rather like a little camp-fire bunsen burner with little holes around it. I remember it used to go bang a lot and wed all dive under the kitchen table in case the Germans had decided to come back for a bit more of Bootle.

Our house was very, very thin and was part of one of those streets that looks as though its all been thrown together by mistake and on the same day. It was a bit like a battery-farm for humans in the true Coronation Street tradition, and, to give you an idea of what it was like, they sold it recently for 3.50.

Basic, I think, is the best word to describe the house. The walls were thinner than paper and you could hear very clearly what was going on in the houses on either side. Mind you, in those days it didnt really matter because nobody had tellies or radios. All that broke through the plasterboard was the sound of the people next door having rows and opening tins of soup.

Oh yes, before I forget, Ive got a sister as well: Kate. Shes a year and a half older than me and she was really horrible when we were kids. Shes great now, but when we were little she used to play evil tricks on me. She once peed into an empty Lucozade bottle and told me it was lemonade. Being a trusting soul, I drank it and it tasted delicious. Funny though, Ive never been able to touch Lucozade since.

That was the sort of thing wed do to amuse ourselves in Liverpool. There werent any electronic video TV games, you see, so we peed into bottles while hanging around, waiting for someone to invent Space Invaders.

Kate and I used to sleep in the same bed. She would sleep with her head down at one end of the bed, by my feet, and Id sleep the other way up, by hers. Cosy, huh? Not to mention smelly.

Grandad (Mums dad) lived in Bootle: just underneath a giant poster for Aunt Sallys Liquid Soap. He used to smell of old-age and Gillette shaving soap and he used to bounce me up and down on his knee and call me Sundown. As I said, there wasnt much to do in Liverpool.