The Cloggies (A 'Private Eye' book)

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I drew them on the paper lids on jam jars and people would gather round and say ‘What a clever little boy!” It really irritated me.

In 2000 he was awarded an MBE “for service to journalism”. It wasn’t the best citation. It should have read “for keeping the nation – and beer lovers – laughing”.Other local residents included Reginald ('Reg') Thrumper, the "Blagdon Amateur Rapist" and the unnamed 'Blagdon Groper and Nuisance'. His workload was phenomenal. At one time he was drawing six strips and he said he had to be careful not to mix them up and send them to the wrong newspapers or magazines. He also appeared regularly on television, in Countdown, Blankety Blank and Countryfile. In 1975 he was confronted by Eamonn Andrews with his famous red book when Bill was the subject of This Is Your Life. The series lampooned current sports culture and introduced an entire sub-culture of dance leagues, a governing body for the sport (characterised as officious, clumsy, bureaucratic, out-of-touch and based on the Football Association), an idiosyncratic cast of sociopaths and a yearning for earlier, gentler days of greater respect (such as the famous Policeman on a White Bicycle). As a reflection of the officious nature of league officials and umpires (who always had it in for the lads) the scoring system was deeply arcane and complex, with final scores such as 124.863 to 92 ​ 14⁄ 37 being recorded. The then 88-year-old was taken to the Midlands hospital in an ambulance for a serious chest infection but had to wait in the vehicle before being admitted. Neville Grundy said: “Bill Tidy was a neighbour in the early 1980s when our family lived in Birkdale. He used to enjoy a pint in the long-gone Berkeley on Queens Road where I occasionally saw him.

The obituaries on TV, Radio and in the papers which followed the announcement of his death were many. And the accolades would have made him blush. The local TV station which got his birth and death dates mixed up. That would have made him laugh and undoubtedly draw something on paper, a napkin, a table cloth, a terracotta pot, a wall or anything else that was in reach as the gag pinged into his head. A stage musical based on the series, entitled The Cloggies, ran at the Theatr Clwyd in Mold, Wales. [7] The production was given a limited run from 24 October until 12 November 1983. [8] [9] The Cloggies experienced several issues with special effects and sound during its opening performance, prompting complaints from the audience. [10] [11] The play was later described as a failure by the Evening Post in 1995. [12] Nearly every publication in which I appeared shivered and rolled ever! They included the Daily Sketch, Sunday Dispatch, Reveille, Weekend, Sunday Chronicle, Travel World etc. I was going through Fleet Street like Typhoid Mary! Bill was in the headlines last year, not for good reasons, after he and his son Robert were faced to waited almost 24 hours in a hospital A&E department with a serious chest infection, to the dismay of his family. The Leicester Mercury reported how the 88-year-old was taken to Leicester Royal Infirmary in an ambulance on Wednesday 20th July and had to wait – becoming increasingly exhausted and distressed – until the next day before he was placed in a bed on a ward.Eventually it dawned on me that for most of us, once we are out of our comfort zone, according to the law of averages, we are talking rubbish half of the time anyway! In other words, accept praise and criticism with the same reserve! I’ve had plenty of each. Known as the PEOPLE’S PAPER, Euro Weekly News is the leading English language newspaper in Spain. And it’s FREE!