A 1980s Childhood (17 page)

Somewhat typecast as a loquacious but lovable character, Candy went on to appear in a number of other films, but sadly his movie career was cut short when he died of a heart attack in 1994.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the fortieth President of the United States of America holding office between 1981 and 1989. Born in 1911, Reagan first worked as a radio broadcaster before starting his career as an actor, appearing in over fifty movies and becoming a well-known public figure prior to his involvement in politics. In 1967 he was elected thirty-third Governor of California, a role later filled by movie actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and in the 1980 presidential elections he defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter, taking office on 20 January 1981 as the new President of the United States.

US President Ronald Reagan in 1983 doing a fine impersonation of his
Spitting Image
puppet.
(Public Domain)

As president, Reagan introduced dramatic new political and economic initiatives, including the reduction of taxes to promote economic growth, the reduction of government spending and the deregulation of the economy. After only sixty-nine days as president, Reagan was nearly killed in an assassination attempt that left him, his press secretary James Brady, police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy seriously injured. Miraculously, Reagan survived the incident, as did all his colleagues, and he came to believe that God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfil a greater purpose. As it happens, the incident had a great influence on Reagan’s popularity polls which peaked at 73 per cent after the shooting and he went on to complete two terms in office.

Very little introduction is needed for one of the most famous women of all time, Diana the Princess of Wales. Following her official engagement to Prince Charles on 24 February 1981, the blushing 19-year-old was wrenched from obscurity and thrust into the public spotlight. The wedding took place at St Paul’s Cathedral in front of a congregation of 3,500, while 600,000 spectators lined the streets outside. This was dwarfed, however, by the 750 million viewers around the world who watched the event on TV, making it the most popular programme ever broadcast at the time.

Just months after the wedding Diana became pregnant and gave birth to her first son William on 21 June 1982; a second son, Harry, was born on 15 September 1984. What the public didn’t realise at this stage was that Prince Charles’s long-running relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles was already putting a strain on his marriage to Diana and as the marital relationship broke down, so too did Diana’s relations with the rest of the royal family.

Throughout her marriage to Charles, Princess Diana was heavily involved in charity work making countless appearances at hospitals, schools and other facilities, taking a particular interest in charitable work relating to serious illnesses such as AIDS and leprosy. She became well known for her compassionate nature and demonstrated a fragile and sensitive personality that was troubled by depression and eating disorders.

Her marriage to Prince Charles broke down irrevocably and in 1992 the couple announced their formal separation. Having become the most famous and photographed woman in the world, Diana found it impossible to escape the intrusion of the paparazzi and it wasn’t long before her relationship with Dodi Al-Fayed hit the headlines, along with intimate photographs of Diana and Dodi together on holiday.

As we all know, the story had a tragic ending with Diana and Dodi being killed in a high-speed car accident in Paris on 31 August 1997, leaving the nation to mourn the loss of the ‘people’s princess’.

Back in the 1980s, when Cannon and Ball had their own TV show, I remember thinking that they weren’t particularly funny, but I was so young then I probably didn’t get their jokes. It wasn’t until many years later, when I looked back at their shows, that I discovered I was right all along – they’re not particularly funny. I was never a fan, but some people obviously liked them because they had 17 million viewers at their peak and were the highest paid act in British comedy in the eighties.

The comedy double act met when they worked together as a pair of welders in Oldham, Lancashire. Bobby Ball did a bit of singing at the weekends and asked Tommy Cannon if he wanted to come along; soon enough Tommy became part of the act which evolved from a singing duo to the comedy double act that was so popular in the eighties.

A lucky break in 1979 meant they caught the attention of the right people at ITV who offered them their own television show which became an instant success. The duo became so popular that in 1985 their Summer Season outsold Bruce Springsteen’s British tour and the pair were reportedly earning around £50,000 per week.

Viewers loved Bobby Ball’s cheeky clowning antics and his famous catchphrase ‘Rock on Tommy!’ but Tommy Cannon always maintained a straight-man image and suffered severely in the popularity stakes as a result. I remember interviewing both Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball in 2007 just before they appeared on
I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
. Tommy told me that he was very close to Bobby and the bullying antics he showed on staged were all part of the act, although some people didn’t seem to realise that. Poor Tommy said that he’d had to endure forty-one years of audiences booing him, old ladies beating him up with their handbags and threats of violence from the crowd.

Towards the end of the eighties, the duo’s popularity began to tail off as the new breed of alternative comics dominated the comedy circuit. The pair famously converted to Christianity in later years and set up their own Gospel Show which tours churches around the country, sometimes involving fellow Christian Syd Little, of Little and Large fame.

Formula One motor racing is one of the fastest, most exciting and dangerous sports on the planet, requiring drivers with lightning-fast reactions, nerves of steel and boundless energy. So it came as something of a surprise when the Formula One racing scene in the 1980s was challenged by a newcomer in the shape of Nigel Mansell, whose famous Brummie monotone led to him being described by some as the most boring man in sport. Even reviewers of his autobiography complained that Mansell had managed to turn an exciting story into an incredibly dull read.

Whenever Mansell was interviewed outside of his racing car, his droopy moustache, caterpillar eyebrows and dreary voice gave the impression of a down-trodden, slow-moving man that you would never in a million years expect to be a racing driver. But once kitted up and strapped into his car, Mansell transformed into a highly competitive and determined racing driver with a killer instinct and a taste for victory.

In fact, he was so competitive and determined that when his Lotus broke down at the end of the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix, just a few hundred yards from the finish line, Mansell sprung out of the car and began to push it hoping to still score a championship point for a sixth place finish. Unfortunately, the race was one of the hottest on record and, having already endured two hours of racing in temperatures of around 104°F, Mansell fainted some way short of the finish line.

Nigel Mansell’s Formula One racing career spanned fifteen seasons and his prowess on the track made him the most successful British Formula One driver of all time: he claimed a total of thirty-one victories and set the record for the most pole positions secured in a single season. He became Britain’s highest paid sportsman and Sports Personality of the Year 1986, and was also the only person ever to become the Formula One World Champion and the Indy Car World Champion simultaneously.

Born in 1925, the daughter of a grocer, Margaret Thatcher was Britain’s first female prime minister and served three terms in office between 1979 and 1990. Her controversial political philosophy emphasised deregulation, flexible labour markets, reform of the trade unions, privatisation of state-owned utilities and industries, and reduced social expenditure, but while her policies successfully reduced inflation, unemployment increased at an alarming rate.

A decline in popularity in the early 1980s was inevitable amid the backdrop of recession and growing unemployment, but signs of economic recovery and her handling of the 1982 Falklands War resulted in a resurgence of support from the public which contributed to her re-election in 1983.

Appropriately nicknamed ‘the Iron Lady’, Margaret Thatcher was clearly a force to be reckoned with and thanks to her sharp tongue, sizeable shoulder pads and no-nonsense attitude, she comfortably stood her ground in the male-dominated world of politics. She was so tough, in fact, that she seemed to be virtually indestructible, surviving on just four hours of sleep per night and staying awake for the entire three months of the Falklands War, with only twenty-minute catnaps and plenty of whisky to keep her going. She even survived an assassination attempt in 1984 when the IRA planted a bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton where she was staying for a conference. The bomb detonated in a nearby room killing five people but leaving Mrs Thatcher and her husband unscathed.

Mrs Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her hard-line implementation of the new Community Charge or ‘Poll Tax’ seriously damaged her popularity with the general public and her views on the European Community led to serious dissension within her cabinet. Following the resignation of the deputy prime minister, Geoffrey Howe, over Mrs Thatcher’s refusal to give a timetable for Britain to join the European single currency, a challenge for the leadership of the Conservative Party was mounted by Michael Heseltine, which resulted in a ballot attracting sufficient support to threaten Mrs Thatcher’s premiership.

Margaret Thatcher in 1981 returning from a visit to the United States.
(Public Domain)

On 28 November 1990 a tearful Margaret Thatcher left 10 Downing Street for the last time and made a dignified speech thanking all her staff and wishing John Major ‘all the luck in the world’ as the new prime minister. Behind the scenes she was devastated and felt betrayed by her cabinet, but she immediately continued with her political career as a backbench MP for Finchley.

Controversial? Certainly. Loose cannon? Definitely. Kenny Everett was, without doubt, one of the most dangerous and risqué entertainers of the 1980s with a no-holds-barred approach to comedy and a notoriously unpredictable manner. Having been dismissed from Radio London for his outspoken criticism of their religious programming, he moved to Radio One and was dismissed again after making a joke about the British Transport Minister bribing her driving test examiner. He still did not learn his lesson and Kenny was dismissed a third time from Radio 2 after making a rude joke about Margaret Thatcher.

After making something of a name for himself in the world of radio, Kenny was offered his own television show in the late seventies called
The Kenny Everett Video Show
. This programme introduced us to some of his more memorable characters, including ageing rock star Sid Snot, pervy Frenchman Marcel Wave, and Angry of Mayfair, a middle-class city gent who would complain about the risqué content of the show before turning his back and storming off, only to reveal that he was wearing women’s underwear as the back half of his suit was missing.

Kenny moved to the BBC in 1981 and created
The Kenny Everett Television Show
which ran for seven years. For this show he included some variations of his old characters plus a number of entirely new characters, including one of his most famous creations, an American B-movie actress called Cupid, whose name was a rude spoonerism that I cannot repeat in full. Cupid had inflatable breasts, made no attempt to hide her beard and would cross her legs with a high kick to ensure her knickers were flashed to comic effect.

Everett’s risqué style and track record made him a dangerous guest for live television and poor old Russell Harty was clearly nervous on his live chat show when Kenny began telling a dirty poem about a boy ‘eating red hot scallops’. Fortunately, Kenny stopped at the crucial point but resumed the poem in the last moments of the show and, as the credits started to roll, shouted out the obscene conclusion.