Band of Hope, the Cubs, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel â I joined everything religious in sightâ.23
His mother was impressed. Delighted â and more than a little relieved â to see the calming (and edifying) effect these spiritual activities were having on her shy and introspective young son, she began to harbour the hope that he might one day find his vocation as a clergyman. Frank himself, in fact, was already thinking along similar lines, although his sights were being aimed somewhat higher: his ultimate goal was to become a saint.
As improbable as it now sounds, the general drift of the ambition was sincere: âI really thought in those pre-teen years that if I lived a good, pure life in the service of God I could end up as Saint Francis of Eltham, and go to Heaven.â24 He knelt down each night to say his prayers, kept the Bible by his bed and never failed to read at least a page before setting off to sleep. The strong appeal that the idea of Heaven held for him centred on the belief that it promised to be âthis world without this worldâs miseries: its poverty and sickness and stammering shynessâ.25 The trainee St Francis might not have known much about where he wanted to go, but his understanding of what he wanted to leave behind could hardly have been any clearer.
Heeding his motherâs advice that a good formal education, while no guarantee in itself of canonisation, was at least vital to becoming a vicar, Frank began studying hard to win one of the two London County Council scholarships that were then being offered by the local fee-paying Woolwich County School for Boys â soon to be renamed Shooters Hill Grammar26 â to potential pupils from poorer backgrounds. Always an academically able young boy, with a particular aptitude for mathematics, he duly passed the entrance examination and, on 1 May 1928, Frank Howard, aged eleven, proudly took his place at the âposhâ school.
The first year proved difficult. He felt that he looked out of place â an unusually tall, very thin, slightly stooping scholarship boy â and feared that most of his middle-class, fee-paying classmates were mocking him behind his back for being nothing more than a mere âcharityâ case.27 His sense of discomfort was made even more intense by the fact that, having exchanged a âsafeâ school environment that he had known so well for âthe terrifying question-mark of a strange unknownâ,28 his stammer had started to worsen.
From the second year on, however, he began to feel more at home and increasingly happy, forming a fairly large circle of friends, producing consistently solid if unspectacular work in class and performing considerably better than he had expected at cricket. He even developed âa great crushâ on one of his fellow-pupils, a young girl named Sheila, although it led only to humiliation when the draft of a love letter was discovered by a mischievous classmate and subsequently displayed for all to see on the school notice board.29
His extra-curricular interest in religion, meanwhile, appeared stronger and deeper than ever. Indeed, he came to be regarded as so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject that in 1930, when he had reached the age of thirteen, his vicar at St Barnabas, the Reverend Jonathan Chisholm, invited him to become a Sunday School teacher. It all seemed to be going smoothly and swiftly to plan: âI was happy teaching, despite my diffidence, for being religious I was anxious to serve.â30
Religion, however, was far from being Frankâs only serious interest. The world of popular entertainment had by now come to rival it as a source both of fascination and inspiration.
As with so much else that felt positive in Frankâs young life, this appetite had been inherited from, and cultivated by, his mother. Although devoted to the solemn code of the black book, Edith was far from averse to sampling the odd bit of sauciness culled from the âblueâ book, and she was always happy to hear her eldest son repeat the latest jokes in circulation (though she did draw the line â and administer a crisp clip round the ear â when, without knowing quite what it meant, he included a certain four-letter word he had overheard being uttered by the local greengrocer).
She also introduced him to the potentially thrilling spectacle of live entertainment when, on 26 December 1925, she took him to the Woolwich Artillery Theatre to see his first pantomime, Cinderella, featuring the fragrant Nora Delaney as the principal boy: âIt was an exciting, glittering, over-the-rainbow world, and I instantly wanted to become a part of it: not specifically as an actor or comedian or singer or anything else, but just in order to escape to wonderland.â31
From that moment on, Frank seized every opportunity to see, hear, read about or re-enact the very best that the stage, screen and radio had to offer. There were countless outings to the various local cinemas, which in those days ranged from the upmarket Palace (which boasted a âwell-appointedâ café lounge) to the downmarket Little Cinema (or the âBug Hutchâ, as Elthamâs youngsters preferred to call it,32 which during the silent years featured a piano accompanist called Lena Crisp â a future Frankie Howerd stooge). There were also many sessions spent in front of the wireless set, listening to all of the big dance bands (first Jack Payneâs, later Henry Hallâs), plenty of revue and Variety shows (such as Radio Radiance and Music Hall) and the first few broadcast attempts at sketch and situation-comedy (starting off with Myrtle and Bertie).33 There were even, when Edithâs meagre funds allowed, occasional excursions to local clubs, theatres and fairs, as well as a visit to the novelty âAir Circusâ that was held one summer on (and above) Elthamâs green and pleasant Nine Fields. In addition to all of this, of course, there remained the keenly anticipated annual pilgrimage to the pantomime.
The urge to imitate and emulate these glamorous forms and figures grew stronger with each passing year. Inside the Howard home, Frank started out by entertaining his mother and baby sister with peep-shows created from old cardboard boxes, and original plays that came complete with a miniature theatre (made out of rags, sticks and Edithâs best tea tray, and populated by a cast of cut-outs from well-thumbed copies of Film Fun), as well as a selection of self-authored gags, funny stories and painful puns grouped together under the banner of Howardâs Howlers.
It was not long before he began hankering for a bigger and broader audience, and he soon managed to persuade the girl next door, Ivy Smith, to help him form a âtwo-child concert partyâ. The duo managed to perform several surprisingly lucrative Saturday matinées at the bottom of his back garden, charging other children a farthing a time for the privilege of admission, before a startled Edith stumbled upon the event (or ârobberyâ as she called it) and demanded that everyone present be reimbursed without delay.34 His response was to transform the operation into a scrupulously charitable affair, performing a further series of concerts (first with Ivy and then later with his similarly-minded sister, Betty) designed to benefit a variety of worthwhile local causes.
By the time, therefore, that Frank began his spell as a Sunday School teacher, his strong sense of duty to the Church was already prone to distraction from his even deeper desire to perform. Things soon grew worse, as far as spiritual matters were concerned, when he found himself obliged, as part of the preparation for his new duties, to join his fellow-tutors each Monday evening at Reverend Chisholmâs home in Appleton Road for tea,
