of them had ever been left anything by their clients! I think he thought it was tidy. He did say to me, “Because it’s easy, you don’t want to start sending them to other people. You may as well keep them yourself. It’s tidier that way.” It was a very practical solution for him. His royalties included sales of tapes of Round the Horne, sales of Acid Drops and the other books. No Carry Ons, obviously, because they were buy-outs.’
Many of Kenneth’s friends complained in his lifetime that they were allowed to dwell only in one zone of his life, and never glimpsed the totality of his acquaintanceship. Their one chance to do so came in the autumn of 1988.
Nick Lewis: ‘Michael Whittaker rang and invited me to the memorial service, which was very generous of him to remember me, because I’d only met Kenneth once. So on the 29th of September, a Thursday, I went down to St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, and pushed passed the photographers on the steps to get in. It was, as the vicar said at the beginning, a very happy service, we were there to celebrate Kenneth’s life, not to mourn him. It was more like a variety show performed by Kenneth’s old friends: Gordon Jackson playing the piano while Kenneth Connor did that wonderful pidgin French song, various poetry readings, and my favourite – and this has stayed with me ever since – was Barbara Windsor singing an old music-hall song called “The Boy I Love is up in the Gallery”. First of all I was stunned by what a good singing voice she had, and the way she was singing it to the back of the church, it was just full of meaning as though he was up there watching us and enjoying it all. It was truly, really touching.’
Angela Chidell: ‘That was very, very moving. Her voice never once wavered and she sang unaccompanied. I was carried away by the perfectionism of the woman. Being something of a performer myself I appreciate those moments when something is so right that it’s a rare moment. She shone like a star from above. Everything just stood still and there was a beam of light across the whole congregation. It was a moment of time that you can’t forget, like a teardrop.’
The memorial service running order, which featured ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’—a song Kenneth would often recite in German! (Even though the Actor’s Church has hundreds of commemorative plaques, a lack of wall space prevents any further tributes to deceased artists, including Kenneth.)
‘On one occasion when we worked with Kenneth he performed “Ma Crepe Suzette” and, of course, it brought the house down. We completely adored it and, rather nervously afterwards, asked him if we could use it. He was delighted and said, “I nicked it off someone else so you might as well nick it off me!” When he sang it, he sang it to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. Collyer had given it to him and said that he should do it to the tune of Sorrento and, because Kenneth didn’t know what Sorrento was, he worked it around Auld Lang Syne. So he gave us his blessing that we should take it and perform it, and we did. He said that he’d get the lyrics to us and, because we’d established a closeness, one evening there was a ring at the door bell and there, at the bottom of the stairs, was Kenneth! He was huge at that time so I was well impressed that he hadn’t sent a minion round with it or put it in the post: he had bothered to walk round. I invited him up and he said, “Oh no, no, wouldn’t dream of it”, then just disappeared into the night.’ (Richard Bryan, Cantabile)
Kenneth’s infamous pidgin French song, ‘Ma Crepe Suzette’, his party-piece of many a chat-show, written by Derek Collyer and performed by Kenneth Connor at the memorial service.
Nick Lewis: ‘At the end, in the closing prayer, the vicar came out with the words “Comfort us in our loneliness”, which really gave me a pang. It was just the most beautiful service and we all felt enormously happy afterwards.’
Peter Cadley: ‘When we left the memorial service there were hundreds of cameras there because John Thaw and Sheila Hancock had split up the day before and she was doing something at the service. Click, click, click, went the cameras for Sheila. Meanwhile I had Lou on one side and Pat on the other, arm in arm, and all the photographers had no idea who they were. I thought, “You’re missing one of the shots of the day!” But they were far more interested in bags under Sheila Hancock’s eyes or Barbara Windsor’s bosoms. The lunch afterwards was far more fun because it was a tighter group of people. It was in a very interesting Greek restaurant in Camden that Pat had chosen. We had the whole of the downstairs. I was sat opposite Maggie Smith and next to Gordon and Rona Jackson. Lou and Edie were sitting at the head of the table.’
And those two had much to talk about, ranging back to 1926, and the beginnings of Kenneth’s story.
‘Two rooms, kitchen and a bathroom. The walls were white, there were no pictures, he had a bookcase with all his books, a record player and a Roberts radio which would always sit on the floor next to his Parker Knoll chair’
Paul Richardson
In his later years, the home life of Kenneth Williams became the subject of some discussion and even wonderment, at least within the acting profession. Everyone in the business seemed to know, though few at first hand, that he lived on a small scale, in a barely furnished ambience that offered very little to a visitor and not much more to the occupant himself. Derek Nimmo, for example, never visited Kenneth’s flat, yet he had worked up in his mind an elaborate image to account for what he knew to be the monastic rigour prevailing there.
Derek Nimmo: ‘Stanley Baxter made him put some pictures up once, but I think he took them down again quite soon. I remember once in the Escorial in Spain I went to Philip of Spain’s cell, and I use the word advisedly because it was a bedroom really, but just beside this great baroque altar. And Philip of Spain had a little window which he could open and see this extraordinary opulent, rococo-baroque world outside the great high altar. But he lived in a kind of white, spartan room. And I think that was Kenny’s way. He liked to look out on this extraordinary world he’d created or would observe, but he didn’t want to be part of it, he went back to his little whitewashed cell.’
Paul Richardson: ‘Two rooms, kitchen and a bathroom. The walls were white, there were no pictures, he had a bookcase with all his books, a record player and a Roberts radio which would always sit on the floor next to his Parker Knoll chair. And that was it in the room. It was a galley kitchen, nothing in there. It’s true there was cellophane on the oven stove. All the cupboards were full of medicines, no food at all. In his bedroom was one single bed, with his desk – where he’d write all his diaries – and a small wardrobe, and that was it.’
Yet Kenneth wasn’t quite alone in his little flat. There were times when he could have wished to be more solitary than he was, according to his older sister, Pat.
Pat Williams: ‘He’d come up here sometimes, and he’d drink cup after cup of tea. “Oh put the kettle on again, make some more tea.” And he said, “You know what, Pat, honestly and truly, I can’t fart without she hears me.” I had to sit here and laugh. “It’s all very well for you to sit up here in your grandeur of Camden Town. I’m the star! I ought to be livin’ here, and you ought to be livin’ in that flat down in Osnaburgh Street, next to Mum. You’ll have a bash of her.” I said, “But she doesn’t want me, she only wants you.” “Yes, aren’t you lucky. You don’t care about me.” I said, “I do, Ken,
