Ayup Flower!

In the 1970's TV Comedians were brash, loud,vulgar, and unmistakably northern in tone. Barnsley's Charlie Williams was right there in the thick of it.

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It was a tough time to be a funny man. In the States great men like John F Kennedy , Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had been brutally assassinated. Issac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield were providing a soundtrack to a new era. Here in Britain Enoch Powell and Alf Garnett were stirring up racial trouble and talk of 'repatriation' hung heavy in the air. They seemed to pick on anyone, regardless of background, who didn't fit the white Anglo-Saxon profile. Powell spoke of "Rivers of Blood" with a voice of doom. And it just wasn't funny at all.

"Because I make jokes, it does not mean I'm willing to be walked over. I'm not saying that problems should be ignored. The great thing about this country is that justified complaints can be heard and get some action. There are a lot of things to complain about and put right for a lot of groups in Britain" CHARLIE WILLIAMS ___________

Meanwhile on British TV screens a new comedy show was unveiled. It featured sliced and diced chunks of little known Comedians doing stand-up. It was lewd, crude and vulgar. Fat ugly blokes making jokes about Pakis and Irish and Jews and Mothers-in-law. A fast paced, and very British show going out into our living rooms at peak time. Frank Carson. Ken Goodwin. Mike Read. Freddie Starr. And then this lively looking black guy with a cheeky grin grabs the microphone and says 'Now me old flower..." in the biggest Barnsley accent. Us kids went wild.

None of this racial talk made any sense round at our house. It was a very confusing time, especially for us kids. We'd been brought up with Paul Robeson, the American actor and singer, held up as a hero of the very highest order. This was taken as read. He was such an important and respected figure in the coal fields due to his frequent visits to the country, and his movie 'The Proud Valley' set in the Welsh Valleys. Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, Lene Horne, Billie Holiday... all extraordinary people. Never mind that there were few 'coloured' faces in our particular neighbourhood. Who'd want to move round our way anyway with all the dust, pit buzzers and coal trains day and night. All this bile coming out of the TV and the papers didn't make any sense at all.

Charlie Williams came right out with it. "My mate Knocker..." and made a mockery of the crap spouted by Enoch Powell just by the way he talked. As soon as Williams opened his mouth and talked about his childhood in the 30s, of the war, of terraced houses, of outside lavs, of ordinary British life, we knew he was from right here. And anyone with half a brain could see that. And we loved him for it.

He played up with jokes anticipating the worst bigotry, joining in with all the 'paki' and 'coon' stuff coming from the other acts of the day. Some of this stuff sticks in the gullet in these more enlightened times. "During the power cuts I had no trouble because all I had to do was roll my eyes" he'd say. And "It was so sunny today I thought I'd been deported". In a club he saw some people eating scampi: "Look at this, and they call us cannibals. Anyway I'm glad you're settling down in this country now."

It was a controversial approach that had it's critics from the start. His defence of the Gollywog motif on the Robertsons Jam jar, and oft-quoted comments about immigrant would-be boat rockers, didn't exactly make him any friends amongst people suffering genuine racist prejudice and attack. He was stirring the cauldron, not the melting pot, said some. "He thinks he can hide behind his Yorkshire grin and dodge anyone who dares suggest he ain't speaking for his brothers" said a letter to the Guardian. Charlie saw himself a far better ambassador for race relations than supporters of Black Power would ever be.

Charlie denied he was pandering to race prejudice. He argued that he dragged it out in the open and mocked it. Ideas about the preservation of customs and culture were given short shrift."It's no use coming here and expecting to hold on to the habits you had back in your home country. This is England." he told the Guardian in '72. Back then he was a real role model, hosting ATV's prestigious Golden Shot TV show on Sunday evenings and earning big money in the variety clubs. The son of a Barbados-born miner who had settled in Royston, South Yorkshire, a former Football pro for Doncaster Rovers, Charlie had come a long way.

To us kids, glued to the telly every time he came on, much of this went right over our heads. Enoch Powell and Alf Garnett couldn't hold a candle to our Charlie, the first Barnsley accent we ever heard on TV. We knew he'd been a miner himself - he frequently referred to it. It just re-enforced the fact that a man could rise from the coalfields and achieve something without trying to be anyone other than himself. He was our Charlie.

'The pleasure is making people laugh - they can forget all about their electricity bills, their mortgages, their ailments. Laughter is the finest medicine in the world and thank God I can still provide it.' CHARLIE WILLIAMS

 

Lenny on Charlie

Comedian Lenny Henry talked about Charlie Williams as part of BBC Television's Windrush Documentary Series. In the book "Windrush" by Mike Phillips and Trevor Phillips (Harper Collins) he talks at length about his influence.

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"You have to understand that Charlie Williams was perfect for the time that he appeared. It was a brilliant thing, this black Yorkshireman who played football with Doncaster Rovers, who'd had the wartime experience of white Yorkshire people, who talked like them, who thought like them, but who just happened to be black. And when he can along it was astounding to hear this bloke talking like "Eh up, flower, eh. Hey, have you ever been to supermarket where they have the broken biscuits?". I think it was a huge culture shock for people. And Charlie exploited this to the full.

He had the Roller and the big house and he was the king of comedy for a while and God bless him, good luck to him. Because at the time, nobody was doing what he was doing. He was playing the fat belly, bigoted Northern comedian at their own game, and, I think there were some jokes that he did that keep being quoted.

"The joke which we've all done - "If you don't shut up I'll come and move in next door to you" - and that joke said:" Look, I'm aware that this is what some white people think, so I'm going to say it first before you guys say it.". I think quite a lot of black comedians at the time did jokes like that because they wanted the audience to know that they knew. "I know what you're thinking. He's a big bugger.' All those jokes. "Ooh, is he going to come and move in next door and going to run off with my daughter or wife?".

It was all those fears of black male domination and being invaded, being overrun by the immigrant. And I think those comedians exploited those fears, but also told some good jokes along the way. And I went through a period of thinking it was all bad, man, and my stuff's a reaction against that. But actually , in the stuff that I did in the early days, I made just as many mistakes as those guys did. I just think it was the times and you did what you had to do to get by. I don't think there was any harm meant by it. I think you did what you had to to survive in a predominantly white world."

Lenny Henry is a 42 year old comedian from Dudley, West Midlands who in the mid-seventies found himself part of the Black and White Minstrel Show touring the UK's holiday resorts.

The book this is quoted from is called "Windrush - The Irresistible Rise of Multiracial Britain", published by Harper Collins 1998.