Gorden Kaye

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 20:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is an actor. Lovers of British situation comedy knew him a long time ago as a familiar supporting figure in programmes like It Ain't Off Hot, Mum, Are You Being Served? and Porridge. Fans of Coronation Street may remember him as Elsie Tanner's nephew. For the rest of us, however, he has only one part, that of the resourceful French cafe owner René Artois in the long running BBC series Allo Allo, whose white apron and comic vowels have become national symbols. He is Gordon Kaye. It's almost a decade now, Gordon, of wearing the apron and the accent. It must be difficult to imagine life without René, is it?

Gorden Kaye1:05

Yes, indeed, yes.

Gorden Kaye1:09

It is hard, yes, but one of the things that we have noticed, or that I noticed early on because I'm from Yorkshire,

Gorden Kaye1:16

And in rehearsals, my own voice I will say things like No way.

Gorden Kaye1:21

And that has got into the script. Rennie actually says o ek because as in France or as in Yorkshire they don't pronounce their H's.

Presenter1:27

Do you think you hide behind the apron and the accent of it? Does Gordon hide behind Renee?

Gorden Kaye1:31

Certainly does in terms of after dinnering. The first time I made an after-dinner speech was in nineteen eighty seven. I was asked by the the Grand Order of Water Rats to go and be a guest of honour on their table, and then to propose the toast on behalf of the guests.

Gorden Kaye1:45

not knowing what this meant, and I said, Oh, yes, I'd love to go, and could I bring Carmen Silvera, who plays Edith, my wife, and we'd make a nice couple.

Gorden Kaye1:53

And they said, Yes, of course, it'd be wonderful. And then a few days later, somebody rang, another K, David Kaye, who's

Gorden Kaye1:59

who is very short and very nice and he is a water rat, asked me if I would do this this proposing the toast and I said, What does that intend? He said, Oh, do about ten minutes.

Gorden Kaye2:08

And do it as ready, they'll love that. And I'd never done one before in my life and I thought, Oh dear And I went to the Grosvenor House Hotel and they have a VIP reception beforehand.

Gorden Kaye2:17

and on the top table was to be mister and misses Charlton Heston.

Gorden Kaye2:22

mister and misses Michael Parkinson, mister and misses Elton John, mister and misses Dez O'Connor.

Gorden Kaye2:27

And I think, my goodness me, and I've got to stand up and speak in front of this lot. And it actually ran for 14 minutes.

Presenter2:32

But you didn't have to stand up and speak, but Renee did, and that's what I'm saying.

Gorden Kaye2:34

I mean it's not a very good idea.

Gorden Kaye2:37

In the Griffin house and they come off.

Presenter2:38

Get

Presenter2:40

Look, w we know, I think, that that Rene would be very resourceful on a desert island. What about Gordon? Is he a survivor, ultimately?

Gorden Kaye2:46

I suppose so. I mean, I've been giving a lot of thought to this. My father was a great gardener. My late father was a great gardener, so I I guess I learned a bit from him about uh about

Gorden Kaye2:56

Horticulture. What about agriculture? I don't know. But I'm I'm if I'm going to be there by myself, horticulture's probably enough. So I'd as long as there was a place of shade where I could go and um

Gorden Kaye3:07

Relax from hot sun and perhaps some fresh water. I don't know what kind of island you've got lined up for me, um, but fresh water would be useful.

Presenter3:15

So what's the first record you'll put on the old wind up grammar phone?

Gorden Kaye3:18

Well, I suppose it um

Gorden Kaye3:21

It's a record that or at least a song and a title that

Gorden Kaye3:24

That may be apposite or not, but it's What Would We Do Without You from Company by Stephen Sondheim. You ever listen to this?

Speaker 43:31

What would we do without you?

Speaker 43:35

How would we ever get through?

Speaker 43:38

Should there be America Swamp available on the

Speaker 43:46

Secrets we keeping from guest woo!

Speaker 43:51

Who is so safe and who is so sound? You never need an analyst with money around.

Presenter4:03

What would we do without you from Stephen Sontime's musical company with the cast, recording and chorus? Tell me about Gordon Kaye as a boy. I mean, describe to me what you were like, what you looked like, what kind of chap you were when you were, let's say, ten years old.

Speaker 44:10

Yeah.

Gorden Kaye4:17

Oh well, um that's going back a long way actually, is that?

Presenter4:20

Forty years?

Gorden Kaye4:21

Well, I was I was always a bit plump, and I've kept up with that. I haven't managed to get rid of any of that. But I was I was a working class kid. I guess the fact that my my parents were both quite old, or as as far as I could see,

Gorden Kaye4:34

They were much older than my friends at school's parents were. I was sure that I was going to come home and find them.

Gorden Kaye4:40

having left us. They were in their early fifties when I was at school.

Gorden Kaye4:45

I was my mother was forty two when I was born.

Gorden Kaye4:48

And that was for a first child. That was quite something. I guess it still is in a way, but certainly in nineteen forty-one.

Gorden Kaye4:54

It was uh special.

Presenter4:56

So you were quite a little miracle.

Gorden Kaye4:57

Yes.

Gorden Kaye4:59

I suppose so. But I was much loved and spoilt, given that they didn't have very much money anyway.

Presenter5:04

And you were also the very awkward, very ungainly.

Gorden Kaye5:07

Oh yes, yes, and and and clumsy. I've kept up with that a bit as well.

Presenter5:12

And you had a funny eye?

Gorden Kaye5:13

Okay.

Presenter5:14

What was the what was the original?

Gorden Kaye5:15

I know this is radio, but you can see it from where you're sitting. It's this one. Actually, in when I was three years old, my mother.

Presenter5:18

No, no, no.

Gorden Kaye5:22

Arester so occasionally smoked a cigarette, and it was at a I think a Christmas time party.

Gorden Kaye5:29

And she had a cigarette.

Gorden Kaye5:30

and I wanted to go at the cigarette, and she forbade me to do it.

Gorden Kaye5:35

But I reached out and took it anyway from the cig from the ashtray, and took one little puff, as I'd seen her do.

Gorden Kaye5:42

and started to scream and cough and choke, I threw myself to the floor, I dived under the table.

Gorden Kaye5:49

and was screaming and shouting, and they

Gorden Kaye5:51

but hurried me to my room and

Gorden Kaye5:53

qui quieten me down and calmed me down. But the next morning my left eye

Gorden Kaye5:58

had the pupil had gone inwards, I mean squint-eyed, as it were, you know, right into the inner corner.

Gorden Kaye6:04

And from that time onwards, I mean the site had gone by, well, I d I have about twenty percent vision in my lifetime.

Presenter6:11

Let's pause there for some music.

Gorden Kaye6:13

Oh, yes. Well, I have actually been to see

Gorden Kaye6:17

A live performance of this up in Huddersville at the town hall at Christmas.

Gorden Kaye6:22

They usually do, and it may may have gone a little more now, uh more than four performances, but they certainly used to do four performances only.

Gorden Kaye6:30

of of Messiah by Handel with the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Royal Liverpool Philemonic conducted by the late Sir Malcolm Sargent. And there is one piece.

Gorden Kaye6:40

which is so memorable because when the king heard it and I won't say he heard it at Huddersfield Town Hall, but when he when he heard Handel's Messiah and they got to the hallelujah chorus, he stood up. And so now

Gorden Kaye6:53

When you are listening to Messiah by Handel, when the hallelujah chorus comes on, you stand up because the King did.

Presenter8:01

Part of the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah, sung by the Huddersfield Choral Society, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles MacGerras, and memories of queuing to hear them at Christmas. You got one O level, Gordon Kay, and it was in French.

Gorden Kaye8:16

Yeah.

Presenter8:16

Are you sure?

Gorden Kaye8:17

I am, yes, and I keep getting reminded of that by my by my old school, which is King James's School in Omondbury, which is on the outskirts of Huddersfield, which was in fact a chantry school, founded in thirteen hundred and eight or something like that. But it got his charter from King James the Sixth of Scotland, King James I of England in 1608.

Presenter8:37

I think you've got your O level in history actually.

Gorden Kaye8:39

Well, you get taught all these things. You have to take notice or you won't get out of the door.

Presenter8:40

Yeah, if it's

Presenter8:42

What did you do when you when you left that school?

Gorden Kaye8:46

The first job I had was in textiles because Huddersfield, home of Harold Wilson, Cone Valley and all that, and I went to work in the Cone Valley in a a textile company.

Presenter8:55

And you were in the sales office?

Gorden Kaye8:56

Yeah.

Presenter8:57

Uh late fifties. How much were you paid a week, do you remember?

Gorden Kaye9:00

It's four pounds seven and six.

Presenter9:01

But nevertheless

Gorden Kaye9:02

But it was great. It was great.

Presenter9:03

Stardom beckoned at uh at Huddersfield Hospital Radio.

Gorden Kaye9:07

Oh yes. There was a a large hospital in Huddersfield, which was a T B sanatorium, and they had a lot of young people in that, and they wanted to hear something different from Mantovani or Kathleen Ferrier.

Gorden Kaye9:17

They wanted some pop music.

Gorden Kaye9:19

And this young friend of mine, Laurie, and I went out to interview some of the pop groups. And I suppose the the high spot was when we heard that the Beatles were coming to Huddersfield. And it was we we used to go in together, you see. I mean, one would work the tape recorder, the other would ask the questions.

Gorden Kaye9:37

And we were told when we asked for permission, yes, we could do it, but only one person could go into the dressing room.

Gorden Kaye9:43

And it turned out to be my turn to ask the question. So Laurie lost the bet on that, and he went out and interviewed people out in the queues outside. But I was actually allowed to go in and meet the Beatles. I suppose I might have in the back pocket, which the customs people on this desert island wouldn't find, I might just have the tape of that, just to listen to. What am I going to play it on? I've got a record player. But it still exists. So I haven't played it.

Presenter10:06

I think we better have your next record and I think that's a good idea.

Gorden Kaye10:08

Well, I suppose on a desert island what I should really want most of all

Gorden Kaye10:13

no matter how practical-minded I was, would be a little bit of um help.

Gorden Kaye10:18

One is tick.

Speaker 410:21

I need somebody help, not just anybody. You know I need someone.

Speaker 410:30

When I was younger, so much younger than today I never needed anybody's help in any way

Speaker 410:41

Now these days are gone and I'm not so self-assured Now I've fine a change of mind I've open lock the doors

Presenter10:49

The Beatles and Help.

Presenter10:51

It was round about the the time of your success at Huddersfield Hospital Radio, when you were in your early twenties, that that you first fell in love, Gordon. Can can you describe what happened?

Gorden Kaye11:00

You describe

Gorden Kaye11:02

I had got an interest in in tape recording. I'd got a tape recorder and I bought tape recording magazines. And at the back of one of the magazines, or several of the magazines, there were

Gorden Kaye11:14

sort of a taping version of a pen friend.

Gorden Kaye11:17

If you sent a tape off, they would send a tape back, and you could get to know each other that way.

Gorden Kaye11:21

And there was um I I sent off letters, first of all, that's what you did, to find out the address and'cause it was a box number.

Gorden Kaye11:29

and somebody wrote back to me who was actually on board a ship.

Gorden Kaye11:33

They were in the Merchant Navy.

Gorden Kaye11:35

with oddly enough the New Zealand shipping line.

Gorden Kaye11:39

Eventually he came home on leave.

Gorden Kaye11:43

and I went down and and we met.

Gorden Kaye11:46

And um

Gorden Kaye11:49

But I fell in love.

Gorden Kaye11:50

Anyway.

Presenter11:51

But had you had you known before that for some time that that you were homosexual?

Gorden Kaye11:57

Yes, but I'd I'd I mean that was the first time. But I'm not saying that just for the benefit of this parent, that was the first time.

Presenter12:01

But I'm

Presenter12:04

But you'd I mean you'd

Gorden Kaye12:05

That I had fallen in like

Presenter12:06

You'd had a steady relationship with a girl, indeed, got engaged, hadn't you, before then?

Gorden Kaye12:10

Yes, that's that's true. That was while I was working in the mill, yes.

Presenter12:13

Were you fooling yourself then, really, in into that heterosexual relationship?

Gorden Kaye12:17

I suppose I was thinking, because I was fairly young, and I was a bit inexperienced, as to perhaps that's how you made it go away. But eventually.

Presenter12:24

But eventually you you um took

Gorden Kaye12:26

I acknowledge.

Presenter12:27

Yes, and you and you took uh this man you'd fallen in love with Peter home to to meet your mum. Did she immediately spot uh the nature of the relationship?

Gorden Kaye12:30

Um Peter home to to meet your mum.

Gorden Kaye12:35

Of the relationship.

Gorden Kaye12:37

And because it was something I'd never talked about at home, it was because of of of that, that meeting and that that visit that she did become aware of it, because I told her. She she actually faced me with it when he went back and I was off my food and edgy and whatever.

Gorden Kaye12:54

And she said, I want to talk to you. So there was something going on between you and Peter, wasn't there?

Gorden Kaye12:59

I said no, no, no, no, it's just a friend. No, come on.

Gorden Kaye13:02

And she'd obviously got her own mind working along that lines and I said, well

Gorden Kaye13:07

And I had to admit, and she burst into tears and said, Don't tell your father it'll kill him.

Gorden Kaye13:12

And I never did tell my father. And

Gorden Kaye13:15

For all I know.

Gorden Kaye13:18

It sounds offhand, but I mean I I guess my father didn't ever

Gorden Kaye13:22

Really no, never suspect.

Presenter13:25

Next record.

Gorden Kaye13:26

One of the records that I one of the mini records that I did like in the sixties.

Gorden Kaye13:31

was an American group. A very

Gorden Kaye13:33

Terrific American group and

Gorden Kaye13:36

We're slightly touching on what we've just been talking about. It was.

Gorden Kaye13:41

Our tune, but not with the person I've been talking, not with Peter, but with somebody else.

Gorden Kaye13:46

Which was a very short-lived friendship in in any romantic way, but even now I think of this person when I hear this song.

Gorden Kaye13:54

It's um I prob I probably won't cry today, but very often I do go into tears when I'm sitting at home and hear this record. It's The Beach Boys.

Gorden Kaye14:02

And it's God only knows.

Speaker 414:04

I may not always love you

Speaker 414:08

But long as there are stars above you

Speaker 414:13

You never need to doubt it.

Speaker 414:16

I'll make you so sure about it

Speaker 414:21

God only knows what I'd be without

Presenter14:28

The Beach Boys singing God Only Knows. You spent the first half of your twenties, Gordon Kaye, doing amateur dramatics in Huddersfield and Bradford, and then when you were twenty-seven you applied to Bolton Rep for a professional part and you went to see a man called Robin Pemberton Billing and you made him fall off his chair. What did you do?

Gorden Kaye14:41

He went.

Gorden Kaye14:46

Well yes, I mean he was um he was the artistic director at that time.

Gorden Kaye14:51

And I'd applied to to try and get a job there.

Gorden Kaye14:56

And he wrote back and said,'Dear mister Kay, please present yourself for audition on Thursday morning at eleven AM.

Gorden Kaye15:03

Prepare two pieces, not Shakespeare, yours faithfully, Roman Robin Pemberton Billing. So I'd put something together out of a a play by James Saunders saying Next Time I'll Sing to You that's what it was called, rather, Next Time I'll Sing.

Gorden Kaye15:16

and he was sitting in a rocking chair, a rather tall rocking chair, lighting a pipe, or smoking a pipe.

Gorden Kaye15:21

And he started chuckling, and then he started laughing.

Gorden Kaye15:24

And then he started rocking in the chair, really laughing this time.

Speaker 215:26

It is

Gorden Kaye15:28

And then he threw himself backwards'cause there's a couple of bits where it's very funny and went over onto the floor and I thought

Gorden Kaye15:34

Do I still?

Gorden Kaye15:36

Do I keep going? You can think, We've got to get to the end of the speech. The guy wrote it, I've got to deliver it as it's written. So I did, and he was helped up by he had his assistant with him.

Presenter15:45

But you'd already been spotted by a young B B C radio producer in Leeds, hadn't you, called Alan Ackbourne?

Gorden Kaye15:51

That's his name, is it, I won't?

Presenter15:53

I wonder, I mean, is it possible to say what you had that they were all spotting these people? Because undoubtedly.

Gorden Kaye15:58

I don't know. I mean

Gorden Kaye16:01

Having a sense of humour, and I maybe it's not just that, it's it's a it's a w whatever it is, the ability to make people laugh is a gift. And I mean that in the in the way that somebody wraps a present up and says, There, that's yours. Somebody somewhere.

Gorden Kaye16:15

whether it be God, whether it be whatever.

Gorden Kaye16:18

says Here's your gift.

Presenter16:20

Hmm.

Gorden Kaye16:20

You can make people laugh.

Presenter16:22

But obviously you can do that.

Gorden Kaye16:22

Obviously you can do that.

Presenter16:25

Yes, but you also obviously can do it in the voice. It isn't just in the movement or in the timing. And because Alan Aikbourne was asking you to do radio for him, wasn't he?

Gorden Kaye16:29

movement or in the time you

Gorden Kaye16:32

Probably.

Presenter16:35

Let's have some more music.

Gorden Kaye16:37

Well, as we've said before, Stephen Sondheim, a great favourite of mine, one of his great friends, I worked some time ago on television in a series called Fame is the Spur with Tim Piggert Smith, who was in that, and amongst one of the delightful ladies that we got to meet on that show.

Gorden Kaye16:54

was Julia Mackenzie.

Gorden Kaye16:57

And she told us some lovely stories, and particularly about a production that I'd seen of Side by Side by Sondheim.

Gorden Kaye17:04

And there's a song in that.

Gorden Kaye17:05

Could

Gorden Kaye17:06

Broadway Baby

Gorden Kaye17:08

And the way that he wrote it, and the way that it's most often performed, is as a fairly up-tempo, fairly raucous or raunchy piece of music. But Julia Toll told me at that time that that we were working together that she had wanted to do it in a more gentle way and sometimes said no, no, no, no, under no account. No, I didn't write it like that. It's not to be done like that.

Gorden Kaye17:32

But they had played for quite a little while at the mermaid.

Gorden Kaye17:35

and he decided to give her her head one night, and said, Okay, to night you'll see whether I'm right or wrong or not.

Gorden Kaye17:42

and allowed her to do it, and Julia said at the end

Gorden Kaye17:46

where normally they were stamping and shouting. I finished the song.

Gorden Kaye17:50

and there was total silence.

Gorden Kaye17:52

And she said inwardly I thought, Oh my dear God

Gorden Kaye17:57

She said, and then the roof came off.

Gorden Kaye18:00

and Stephen Santine was standing in the wings, with thumbs up.

Gorden Kaye18:04

and had acknowledged, without speaking at all, just by gesturing, that she was right.

Gorden Kaye18:10

And I guess that's what we're going to hear now, because this is Julia Mackenzie.

Gorden Kaye18:15

Singing Broadway Baby

Speaker 418:18

I'm just a Broadway baby.

Speaker 418:24

Walking off my tired feet

Speaker 418:29

Pound and Forty second street to be at a show

Speaker 418:39

Runway, baby.

Speaker 418:44

Learning how to sing and dance.

Presenter18:48

Julia McKenzie singing Broadway Baby, Her Way from Sometimes Side by Side.

Presenter18:54

Well, now, Gordon, there was a a long and sometimes fallow period in your career before Aloha Low came along, during which time you played several supporting roles in all those sitcoms that we know. It Ain't Off Hot Mum, till Deathers Do Part, All Creatures Great and Small, and so on. Did you think that that was your acting lot in life, that you were forever the supporting actor?

Gorden Kaye19:15

I don't know. I suppose I did in a way because I've always been a character actor. I mean, joining the business as I did in when I was twenty seven. I mean, I looked thirty five then and and was easy. My the first job I ever did

Gorden Kaye19:26

At Bolton I played an 80-year-old Russian.

Presenter19:29

But it it was nineteen eighty two, wasn't it, when uh David Croft, the the man who wrote um Are You Being Served and Heidi High and all of those sent the script of a lower low to you. Did you know immediately that this was it?

Gorden Kaye19:35

Yeah.

Gorden Kaye19:42

I guess I did. Within a low low script you you c you look down and there's a laugh there, then there's two la there's another laugh there and then there's a belter there. You look at other scripts and it's gentle and you think, Oh yeah, titter there, titter there.

Presenter19:53

You would not, at first glance, think that the Nazi occupation of France was a particularly um fruitful comic setting, would you?

Gorden Kaye20:00

No, no. When it did come out, when it was shown, there were certain newspapers that really took against it. I mean, their T V columnists came took against it.

Presenter20:09

There's a question of taste in it, isn't there? And some people I know in broadcasting thought this is bad taste.

Gorden Kaye20:11

There are some

Gorden Kaye20:12

Yeah.

Gorden Kaye20:15

Yes, yes.

Presenter20:16

What saves it from being bad taste because patently it isn't and it's enormously successful.

Gorden Kaye20:21

I s I d I it's a good question. It's a question to which I don't know the answer. But the breadth of the audience from eight to eighty eight I mean there are five year old kids who love our show. Yes, okay, nine, ten, eleven, twelve year olds, there's there's a a lot of schoolboy humour in it, school boy type humour in it.

Gorden Kaye20:38

But what do they remember about the war? They don't know about it at all. They don't even know about secret army.

Presenter20:43

But it's successful equally with people who do remember the words.

Gorden Kaye20:45

Yes, it is. Yes, indeed.

Presenter20:47

Yeah.

Presenter20:48

And it's also

Gorden Kaye20:49

Successful internationally as well.

Presenter20:50

Yeah, it plays in fifty different countries, including in France. That is almost unbelievable that it's a good idea.

Gorden Kaye20:52

Yeah.

Gorden Kaye20:54

Yes, sir.

Gorden Kaye20:56

It took us till 1980. No, it didn't take us because we didn't try, but it took BBC Enterprises till 1989 to get them to buy it. And now they've got it. They've had it three times. They don't just buy it once and show it three times. They bought it three times. Next record. He said, ooh, look, here we go.

Speaker 221:09

Next record.

Gorden Kaye21:12

One of the things that uh one of the most important things actually that happened to me of of recent years, towards the end of the eighties, I was asked to go uh to

Gorden Kaye21:24

The annual ball of the Grand Order of Water Rats, which is a wonderful big showbiz charity. But amongst the things that they do,

Gorden Kaye21:32

Is at a given moment, they sing a number of songs in which they do certain actions.

Speaker 421:39

This is some

Gorden Kaye21:40

This is Sunday radio, isn't it? And they play a particular song, which we're just about to hear in a moment.

Gorden Kaye21:47

And in the middle bit.

Gorden Kaye21:48

After the the the four words that are the title.

Gorden Kaye21:52

They wave their napkins across and above their heads and swing them round, whirl them round. And if you get fifteen hundred people doing that, it's quite a sight and memorable.

Gorden Kaye22:01

and I'm pleased to say that in the intervening time namely, in nineteen eighty nine, when the water rats were a hundred years old,

Gorden Kaye22:09

I'd been made a water rat. I was baby rat at that night of a hundred years. So I now go to wave my

Gorden Kaye22:16

A napkin.

Gorden Kaye22:17

When we sing, just one more chant. It goes like this.

Speaker 422:29

Give me just one more word.

Speaker 422:35

I said that I was glad it started

Speaker 422:39

But now I'm back to cry my heart out

Speaker 422:42

Just one more chance.

Presenter22:49

Just one more chance sung by Rosemarie. A lot of napkin waving going on. If only we had a napkin.

Gorden Kaye22:56

I hope there's one on the island last line system. No, no, no, I can't.

Presenter23:00

You went th through something of a crisis in nineteen eighty nine, didn't you, Gordon, when uh a Sunday paper decided to write a rather sleazy account of your sex life and and so to steal their thunder, as it were, you talked um openly to another paper about the fact that that you were gay.

Gorden Kaye23:08

If we

Gorden Kaye23:14

Yeah.

Presenter23:15

How big a decision was that for you to do that?

Gorden Kaye23:20

Well, I suppose in retrospect it it was quite a big one, but because there was a v w what the first person or the first newspaper, who shall be named, had done, they came to me on a Thursday evening and said that another paper on Sunday morning were going to do this, and would I like to talk to him and do what they call a spoiler?

Gorden Kaye23:38

And I said, No, it's very kind of you to come. And he gave me his card and said, Well, if you ever need anything, please ring me.

Gorden Kaye23:43

I was then able to ring the producer, who knew where I stood. I mean the whole cast know where I stand. I've never pretended to be anything other than what I am.

Gorden Kaye23:50

I spoke to the producer, and he wanted me to talk with Oskar Buselink.

Gorden Kaye23:55

who was then a very good, and still is to some extent, a very the top Showbiz lawyer. Come Friday morning Oscar Bueserlinck was in touch with me and told me that I had a choice. He he first of all asked me if there was any truth in what these newspapers were about to put, and I said yes there was.

Gorden Kaye24:12

And he said, Right, well then in that case I can't get an injunction.

Gorden Kaye24:15

So there's two choices. You either sit it out and make no comment, and then you'll get barraged from Monday onwards, or indeed from Sunday onwards, or there is time to do a spoiler of your own. If you are prepared to tell your side of the story,

Gorden Kaye24:29

I can get you, I think, a sympathetic journalist from

Gorden Kaye24:33

a particular newspaper.

Gorden Kaye24:35

That would put the story in your own words and that will that will be Saturday morning that will come out.

Gorden Kaye24:41

and might just let the winds out of the wind out of their sails a bit.

Gorden Kaye24:45

So that was what happened. I said, well, if the choice is that, then that's the choice I make. I will I will meet her at minute.

Presenter24:50

So you sat down with a journalist and came out, as it were.

Gorden Kaye24:53

Yes.

Gorden Kaye24:54

She came to me and her first words were, I want you to tell me the truth, I don't want you to waste my time, I don't want you to waste your time.

Presenter25:00

Which is

Presenter25:02

Well, now, what were you what were you worried about in in saying that, in doing that, in coming out? What were your fears?

Gorden Kaye25:12

I suppose the main fear was that

Gorden Kaye25:14

In the nature of the if there was an image at all that I built up on on television and and in the theatre,'cause we were in the theatre then.

Gorden Kaye25:23

It was so very different from the real me. It's always been very odd that Rennie is a sort of Remy so-and-so and

Gorden Kaye25:30

And we'll seem to

Gorden Kaye25:32

Have a cuddle with any of the ladies, you know, delightful ladies that that's a real woman.

Presenter25:36

But he's a real woman, I said.

Gorden Kaye25:37

Yes, is a real womaniser, and therefore I wasn't very pleased when, and I shall name names, when Geoffrey Dicken.

Gorden Kaye25:43

The MP said How can this man play this part? I mean he should be banned and stopped straightaway.

Presenter25:49

But the result for you must have been, and and perhaps it goes on being, the most enormous relief.

Gorden Kaye25:54

Oh, not half. What a what a weight off your chest. Yeah, what a burden.

Presenter25:54

Oh no

Gorden Kaye25:58

And I think

Gorden Kaye26:00

I mean, I had actually said to a friend of mine two years before, I said, If it ever looks as if it's gonna

Gorden Kaye26:05

Get out into the papers. I'll jump off the balcony.

Gorden Kaye26:08

I've taught myself.

Gorden Kaye26:10

And I had said that,

Gorden Kaye26:12

Although that never came into my head when it happened. It really didn't. The only time it came into my head was remembering that I'd actually said that. I didn't want to.

Presenter26:19

Record number seven.

Gorden Kaye26:20

There will come a time on this island when what I will just want to do

Gorden Kaye26:24

is to have made this great enormous p palm tree leaf into a kind of hammock.

Gorden Kaye26:31

And I shall want to lie back in that and listen to

Gorden Kaye26:34

to something more calming and more um it's all sort of countrified because it's about of a f a phone, isn't it? I don't mean a telephone, I think it's it's debus, it's prelude à la primidie d'en phone.

Presenter27:41

Part of De Bussy's prelude à la premidie d'Enfon, played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beacham. You were in the headlines again, Gordon Kaye, in nineteen ninety, when a a flying piece of wood from an advertising hoarding went uh through the windscreen of your car in a hurricane and

Gorden Kaye27:52

The flood

Presenter27:57

Embedded itself in your head.

Gorden Kaye27:59

Yes. What happened to me was that I I had gone on the Thursday morning.

Gorden Kaye28:04

from my home down by the river in the west of London.

Gorden Kaye28:08

to my bank, which is four and a half miles away, where I used to live before.

Gorden Kaye28:13

And I was driving through Hounslow and

Gorden Kaye28:16

A hoarding came down on the front of the car.

Gorden Kaye28:19

and stopped me. I mean

Gorden Kaye28:21

Costa.

Gorden Kaye28:23

And I was taken out of that car because I'd been damaged and injured and was taken to hospital.

Gorden Kaye28:29

And all that I know about the accident I've been told.

Gorden Kaye28:33

I've asked questions of the surgeon, mister Rice Edwards, and his team at Charing Cross, who did a tremendous I mean, what a job did they do.

Gorden Kaye28:42

I've asked them if I will wake up.

Gorden Kaye28:44

some morning in a couple of months' time after the accident, seeing things flying through the window, and he said, No, no, no, no, that never happened to you.

Presenter28:51

But you were you were what five and a half hours on an operating table in the in the hands of a brain surgeon?

Gorden Kaye28:57

I was there within the golden hour, which is within, you know, which is is best.

Presenter29:01

And what about the injury? Has it left any had any permanent effect on you?

Gorden Kaye29:05

Yes.

Presenter29:07

Go on.

Gorden Kaye29:07

No well, there is a scar down the front here, the centre of my forehead, which is where a ten and a half inch sliver of wood, sharp point, went into my brain, and that's how I was taken to hospital with this thing sticking out.

Gorden Kaye29:20

Must have looked like a unicorn.

Gorden Kaye29:22

So that in a way, in a vain way, one notices that you think, Goodness me, I'm getting to look older And there's this s s s scullop down the front. And then of course it's this thing that the doctor told me. The surgeon told me that I knew nothing about it. It had happened like that.

Gorden Kaye29:38

And that the fact that that can happen to you.

Gorden Kaye29:41

That you're

Gorden Kaye29:42

Minding your business, you're driving your car, or you're sitting in a bus, or you're sitting in a train, or you're sitting in a radio studio.

Gorden Kaye29:49

And maybe you go out of it.

Gorden Kaye29:51

And that's very soon waking up in a hospital.

Presenter29:53

Some more music.

Gorden Kaye29:57

I suppose didn't realise how appropriate this was going to be that you've put it into this position.

Gorden Kaye30:03

It's not appropriate, although maybe it is, after what I went through with my brain damage. Again we're back to mister Sondheim, and again we're back to Follies, which had a a pleasant, if not long enough, run in London a couple of years back.

Gorden Kaye30:16

And this is a

Gorden Kaye30:17

A tremendous version of a tremendous song. It's an American singer who has been to London and whom I have seen.

Gorden Kaye30:25

And the song is called Losing My Mind and it's by Barbara Cole.

Speaker 430:31

The sun comes up.

Speaker 430:34

I think about you.

Speaker 430:37

The coffee cup

Speaker 430:40

I think about you.

Speaker 430:44

I want you so it's like I'm losing my mind

Presenter30:57

Barbara Cook singing Losing My Mind from Stephen Sontime's Follies with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Paul Gemignani.

Presenter31:05

If you could only take one record, Gordon Kay, which one would it be?

Gorden Kaye31:09

It's a tough choice now, you see,'cause I'd made my mind up when I when I put my list together of what I wanted, and having heard that last one, I'm thinking

Gorden Kaye31:19

I wonder if I could get one on one side and one on the other. No, it would have to be the the Hallelujah chorus, uh from the the Huddersfield Choral Society. Nobody sings it like they do.

Presenter31:29

Who else? And your book? You've got the Bible and you've got Shakespeare waiting for you.

Gorden Kaye31:33

Waiting for you?

Gorden Kaye31:35

Well, it was something that happened to me in nineteen eighty six, and it's it's kind of connected with the show, or at least the success of the show, because we finished the fourth preview and were to open the following night at the Prince of Wales Theatre, and we were there for the heads down, for the bows and the curtain coming down, and waving people to go by goodbye.

Gorden Kaye31:54

And there coming along the edge of the stage was a certain Irish gentleman with goggles and an air air uniform, a flying uniform on, and a big red book in his hand.

Gorden Kaye32:04

And after about two hours of doing the show there and then

Gorden Kaye32:09

He presented it to me, and it says this is your life, Gordon Caehn.

Gorden Kaye32:13

I think that would be nice to take because

Gorden Kaye32:16

It's full of wonderful friends and and the cast and everything else.

Presenter32:20

So you'll take your big red book.

Gorden Kaye32:20

So you'll take your big red book.

Gorden Kaye32:22

Please.

Presenter32:23

What's your luxury?

Gorden Kaye32:25

What I think I would like to take is um a Lalique clock that I have that was given to me for switching the Christmas lights on.

Gorden Kaye32:34

uh in nineteen eighty nine, November the fourth, nineteen eighty nine, in Oxford Street, because that would remind me of that time. This is and and it's it's uh

Gorden Kaye32:43

All right, it's worth a bubba too, but it's not it's not at home, it's safe so safe somewhere, so I get at least get to see it under my desert island.

Presenter32:50

And it'll remind you of Christmas.

Gorden Kaye32:51

Yes, not off. I I promise not to wind it up if I'm not allowed to make it practical. They said don't make it practical, you'll agree. Well, I won't wind it up.

Presenter32:58

Hey.

Presenter33:00

Gordon Kay, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Gorden Kaye33:02

Letting us see.

Gorden Kaye33:03

Right, so we did the uh the grass skirt dance now.

Presenter33:07

No, we won't. We shall just say happy Christmas to each other.

Gorden Kaye33:07

No, we won't. We shall

Gorden Kaye33:09

And the same to you, and a good New Year.

Speaker 233:17

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.