Morrissey pops up in Alan Bennett's Diary of 2019

joe frady

Vile Refusenik
...via Volume 42 Number 1 {2nd of Januray 2020} issue of the "London Review of Books" ~

https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n01/alan-bennett/diary

Excerpt:

"21 September. Read the second volume of memoirs by the Wigtown bookseller Shaun Bythell, which is as absorbing as the first, though it’s harder to be as patient as Bythell is with some of his hangers-on (Eliot a real pain). One entry particularly interests me:

Once when I was clearing books from a house near Kirkcudbright ... I spotted a set of very small spiral library steps. I asked the woman whose books I was buying if it was for children ... to which she replied that it had been custom-made for Jimmy Clitheroe, the diminutive star of radio and television during the 1960s. She and her husband had helped clear the contents of his mother’s house after they had both died. (He had lived with her and had died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills on the day of her funeral.) I bought Jimmy Clitheroe’s library steps from her for £20.

Years ago, when I still lived in Gloucester Crescent, Camden Town, the bell rang one afternoon and on the doorstep was Morrissey, who was briefly living round the corner. We hadn’t met, but his opening question was as abrupt as it was unexpected: ‘Did you know Jimmy Clitheroe?’

I hadn’t, and only occasionally heard him on what was then the wireless on a Saturday dinner-time. Morrissey, though, seemed to regard the pair of us as contemporaries. It turned out that the diminutive comedian was only one of the stars that interested the singer, the more tangential the better. On another occasion, also on the doorstep, his opening question was: ‘Does the name Avis Bunnage mean anything to you?’ So, reading Shaun Bythell and ever helpful, it occurs to me that, though the singer’s preoccupations may have moved on in the intervening years, a possible home for Clitheroe’s bijou library steps might be with ‘the Pope of Mope’
."

You can also listen to Mr Bennett read his own writing here {with some ad-libs too, although none on Moz} ~

https://lrb.co.uk/content/download/526462/11659987

:rock: :bow:

.
 
...via Volume 42 Number 1 {2nd of Januray 2020} issue of the "London Review of Books" ~

https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n01/alan-bennett/diary

Excerpt:

"21 September. Read the second volume of memoirs by the Wigtown bookseller Shaun Bythell, which is as absorbing as the first, though it’s harder to be as patient as Bythell is with some of his hangers-on (Eliot a real pain). One entry particularly interests me:

Once when I was clearing books from a house near Kirkcudbright ... I spotted a set of very small spiral library steps. I asked the woman whose books I was buying if it was for children ... to which she replied that it had been custom-made for Jimmy Clitheroe, the diminutive star of radio and television during the 1960s. She and her husband had helped clear the contents of his mother’s house after they had both died. (He had lived with her and had died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills on the day of her funeral.) I bought Jimmy Clitheroe’s library steps from her for £20.

Years ago, when I still lived in Gloucester Crescent, Camden Town, the bell rang one afternoon and on the doorstep was Morrissey, who was briefly living round the corner. We hadn’t met, but his opening question was as abrupt as it was unexpected: ‘Did you know Jimmy Clitheroe?’

I hadn’t, and only occasionally heard him on what was then the wireless on a Saturday dinner-time. Morrissey, though, seemed to regard the pair of us as contemporaries. It turned out that the diminutive comedian was only one of the stars that interested the singer, the more tangential the better. On another occasion, also on the doorstep, his opening question was: ‘Does the name Avis Bunnage mean anything to you?’ So, reading Shaun Bythell and ever helpful, it occurs to me that, though the singer’s preoccupations may have moved on in the intervening years, a possible home for Clitheroe’s bijou library steps might be with ‘the Pope of Mope’
."

You can also listen to Mr Bennett read his own writing here {with some ad-libs too, although none on Moz} ~

https://lrb.co.uk/content/download/526462/11659987

:rock: :bow:

.
Thanks for this.
Would be nice in book form, but his actual voice reading it is always welcome.
Just finished Joey Barton's Autobiography - disappointed to find only one Morrissey/Smiths mention.
On to Wayne Hussey's next...
Regards,
FWD.
 
...via Volume 42 Number 1 {2nd of Januray 2020} issue of the "London Review of Books" ~

https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n01/alan-bennett/diary

Excerpt:

"21 September. Read the second volume of memoirs by the Wigtown bookseller Shaun Bythell, which is as absorbing as the first, though it’s harder to be as patient as Bythell is with some of his hangers-on (Eliot a real pain). One entry particularly interests me:

Once when I was clearing books from a house near Kirkcudbright ... I spotted a set of very small spiral library steps. I asked the woman whose books I was buying if it was for children ... to which she replied that it had been custom-made for Jimmy Clitheroe, the diminutive star of radio and television during the 1960s. She and her husband had helped clear the contents of his mother’s house after they had both died. (He had lived with her and had died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills on the day of her funeral.) I bought Jimmy Clitheroe’s library steps from her for £20.

Years ago, when I still lived in Gloucester Crescent, Camden Town, the bell rang one afternoon and on the doorstep was Morrissey, who was briefly living round the corner. We hadn’t met, but his opening question was as abrupt as it was unexpected: ‘Did you know Jimmy Clitheroe?’

I hadn’t, and only occasionally heard him on what was then the wireless on a Saturday dinner-time. Morrissey, though, seemed to regard the pair of us as contemporaries. It turned out that the diminutive comedian was only one of the stars that interested the singer, the more tangential the better. On another occasion, also on the doorstep, his opening question was: ‘Does the name Avis Bunnage mean anything to you?’ So, reading Shaun Bythell and ever helpful, it occurs to me that, though the singer’s preoccupations may have moved on in the intervening years, a possible home for Clitheroe’s bijou library steps might be with ‘the Pope of Mope’
."

You can also listen to Mr Bennett read his own writing here {with some ad-libs too, although none on Moz} ~

https://lrb.co.uk/content/download/526462/11659987

:rock: :bow:

.




I really hope he gifted Morrissey with Jimmy Clitheroe’s steps! I imagine his face lighting up. :)

Maybe the subject of Jim Jim Falls ?
 
Thanks for this.
Would be nice in book form, but his actual voice reading it is always welcome.
Just finished Joey Barton's Autobiography - disappointed to find only one Morrissey/Smiths mention.
On to Wayne Hussey's next...
Regards,
FWD.
I hope Wayne mentions his swedish friend Marcus Birro in it.

23s18-husseybirro-156__mngl_20111223nb5x018,nje_1.indd_4804.jpg


Birro's dad is italian and he knows Rome better than Moz does.
 
Avis Bunnage! Part of Theatre Workshop, who I completely idolised growing-up, along with 7:84.

If the pop world gets too hideous, he should come work on gig theatre. You can see all his theatre of the absurd, theatre of cruelty, social realism influences, so he'd fit right in.
 
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