Perhaps I should rephrase that. Recently, a lady I’ve known for some time (she’s not that old) suggested I write an autobiography. I said she was talking nonsense — a courageous comment, I can tell you.
Such a book would be of little interest and would join the All Black biographies so common around Father’s Day and in remainder piles or charity book sales.
Nevertheless, we’ve all had odd incidents which may deserve a wider audience than boring half a dozen blokes in the pub who’ve heard them all before — many times.
So, in the tradition of my favourite Australian Sir Les Patterson who would often begin a monologue with the promise of "a bit of autobiology" usually involving a visit to a Hong Kong massage parlour or the misuse of taxpayers’ money, let us turn, not to Hong Kong’s red light district but to Timaru in the 1960s where there was no red light district but taxi drivers knew of a couple of houses in the South End which were certainly pinkish.
In 1964 I was a sort of office boy at the local radio station and one of my duties was to give guided tours to visiting groups, often women from the CWI or school children with little to do after exams were over.
In August that year an unusual gang turned up and asked to have a look around. They told me they were with the Cambridge Circus which was on at the Theatre Royal that night.
I’d never heard of the Cambridge Circus and wondered how on earth wild animals would handle things, the Theatre Royal being a reasonably intimate venue (and now under threat of demolition).
My guests showed great interest in the workings of a small local radio station, something that would not be widely established in the UK until the late 1960s.
As they left, the very tall one asked if I was going to the show. When I shook my head, he handed me a ticket. (Tickets cost 15/6 — that’s about $50 today). Even without paying I got my money’s worth.
One sketch had echoes of my favourite prosecutor, Sergeant Buzfuz of Pickwick Papers who examined Pickwick’s friend Nathaniel Winkle with such violence that when Winkle was released from the witness box, "he rushed with delirious haste to the George and Vulture, where he was discovered some hours after, by the waiter, groaning in a hollow and dismal manner, with his head buried beneath the sofa cushions".
In the Cambridge Circus sketch John Cleese (193cm) was the prosecutor in a case about a stolen watering can. He towered over the defendant who was so short that to be seen over the top of the witness box he had to jump up each time he answered a question.
Cleese: Did you steal the watering can?
Defendant: No.
Cleese: Do you deny stealing the watering can?
Defendant: Yes.
Cleese: Do you deny denying you stole the watering can?
Defendant: Umm ... No.
Cleese: Do you deny denying denying you stole the watering can?
Defendant: Umm ... umm. Yes.
Cleese: Ah! So, you admit it! The prosecution rests, M’lud.
By now, I was losing my self-control and, indeed, there was hardly a dry seat in the house.
Of course, in later years I saw all those Cambridge Circus stars in various shows and when John Cleese wrote anything biographical I checked to see if Timaru was mentioned.
It wasn’t, but he did reveal that on that 1964 tour at Auckland’s Station Hotel he lost his virginity and never found it again. A year later I stayed at the Station Hotel but never got that lucky.
I’ve been trying to think of other big names I could slip into the book. One night in 1974 I had dinner at a swanky London restaurant just a table away from Omar Sharif, bedecked with gold jewellery and dazzling teeth. It was about 10 years after his triumph in Dr Zhivago but he was still drawing attractive women to his table. Omar and I didn’t talk but if we were in London now, I could take you to that very restaurant, perhaps to the very table.
As it happens, last week I bumped into an old friend who is something of a specialist in the publishing world and I mentioned my ponderings about an autobiography.
"You need more famous people — name dropping does wonders for sales — but I’d advise you to drop the idea. The best autobiographies have been written by ordinary people describing ordinary things. What makes them sell is the fact that they are so well-written. So, you see the problem?"
I nodded in agreement.
Perhaps I’ll just forget the book and slip the story of me and the Duke of Edinburgh into a future column.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer, not currently working on his autobiography.
